Providing cash transfers to low-income families can reduce child marriage rates among girls living in rural communities.
That is what we found in a recent study looking at the impact of social assistance programs that gave money to families in Indonesia.
In 2006, the government of Indonesia started to roll out the Program Keluarga Harapan, or Family Hope Program. It consisted of a cash transfer to poor families on condition that they send children to school and that expectant mothers show up for prenatal health care appointments. The monthly stipends equate to about 40% of total monthly household expenditures in their communities.
Today, the program supports about 10 million households annually and is considered the second-largest such program in lower- and middle-income countries worldwide.
We analyzed data from Indonesia’s poverty-targeting database, which is used to select program beneficiaries based on their income.
Our sample comprised about 1 million girls ages 14 to 17, drawn from all villages where the program operated from 2012 to 2014.
We compared girls who live in households just above and just below the wealth eligibility cutoff for the program. Essentially, this strategy assumes that these households are very similar, but some get the money while other’s don’t.
We found that the program reduced the incidence of child marriages by about 3.5 percentage points, from 8.7 to 5.2.
Since child marriage rates tend to be higher among poorer households, many researchers have argued that income constraints are a main reason why poor households marry off their daughters at very young ages.
Consequently, researchers have explored whether policies that address poverty, including through measures such as giving people cash, can help reduce child marriages.
Previous studies have faced certain empirical challenges as either the cash transfer programs under investigation were set up by NGOs or researchers themselves, thereby providing little insights on the effectiveness of actual government policies, or included sample sizes that were too small.
Our study is among the first to provide large-scale evidence of a cash-transfer program’s success drawn from a conventional, government-implemented social assistance program.
It is also worth briefly commenting on the political context in which social assistance programs are typically embedded. In Indonesia, as everywhere in the world, social assistance programs are regularly under scrutiny for their sizable costs to the government and taxpayer.
Our study suggests that these programs can generate positive benefits well beyond their principal target outcomes, such as tackling poverty or children’s health and education – which should be considered when discussing the cost-effectiveness of such programs.
What’s next
Because cash transfers also affect other areas such as health and education, it isn’t known the exact pathway in which they reduce child marriages – that is to say, it could be that being in better health and getting more years of education can reduce the chances that a girl will marry.
For example, girls with better access to education can earn higher pay and therefore may not feel the same pressure to marry early. And boys who spend more time in school may move to cities for higher-paying jobs. In that case, fewer single men are around in rural areas, leading to delays in local marriages.
We plan to stay in touch with the Indonesian government regarding its attempts to further bring down child marriage rates. Likewise, we plan to conduct follow-up studies with the specific social assistance program Program Keluarga Harapan and other government programs to study their effects.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services are continuing as the agency makes good on its intention, announced on March 27, 2025, to shrink its workforce by 20,000 people. Among workers dismissed in early April were several teams responsible for fulfilling requests for access to previously unreleased government data, information and records under a federal law known as the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
I am a health services researcher who studies the effects of public health regulation, and I have observed how the transparency enabled by FOIA can benefit patients, clinicians and researchers. Although HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has stated that federal public health agencies will embrace “radical transparency”, closure of these offices suggests otherwise.
Anyone can request documents from the federal government through FOIA.
The law requires agencies within the federal government’s executive branch to proactively publish certain procedural and other materials and to publicly disclose certain types of information. It also requires the federal government to disclose any documents that don’t fall into those categories in response to a written request, as long as they are not exempt due to issues of national security, foreign policy or business interests.
Notably, private companies are the top requesters. They use FOIA to gain competitive advantage, support litigation and become familiar with regulations and policies that affect their business model. The next most frequent requesters are everyday people. After them come law firms, which are often supporting private companies, followed by the news media and nonprofit organizations.
What can FOIA requests to federal health agencies reveal?
FOIA requests to HHS agencies have led to significant shifts in public health regulation and policy.
In one example from the early 2000s, researchers and media outlets filed FOIA requests to the FDA related to a drug called Vioxx, or rofecoxib. The drug, manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Merck, was approved by the FDA as a supposedly safer alternative for osteoarthritis pain. But the documents revealed that Merck had significantly downplayed the drug’s increased risk for heart attacks and strokes.
The new laws also authorized the FDA to require companies to conduct additional safety studies after a drug’s approval. This means the agency can take faster action to prevent patient harm by adding warnings to drug labels, issuing warnings of potential harms directly to doctors or withdrawing unsafe treatments entirely.
Importantly, FOIA enables ongoing oversight. In 2021, my colleagues and I published an investigation that used FOIA to determine whether the FDA and NIH were enforcing those clinical trial transparency laws. We found that companies had failed to update thousands of clinical trials in the database with their results, and that the FDA and NIH were doing little to compel them. Using the FOIA data as evidence, we successfully petitioned the FDA to step up its enforcement and to publicly list the companies that were still not complying.
There are countless other examples of how stakeholders have used FOIA to hold the government accountable. FOIA requests filed by lawyers, news outlets and citizens of Flint, Michigan, in 2016 revealed that state and local public health officials withheld information about the contamination of the city’s drinking water. Their secrecy potentially delayed response measures that could have prevented a recurrent disease outbreak.
The sudden dismissal of FOIA teams at the CDC, FDA, NIH and other federal public health agencies will limit these agencies’ ability to respond to new and ongoing requests as required by law. This will worsen an already hefty FOIA backlog at HHS agencies.
Cuts to FOIA staff also hinder the public from using this law to examine and potentially challenge recent agency actions under the new administration. On April 5, 2025, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed several FOIA requests on the involvement of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in disbanding the FOIA team and on the CDC’s reported suppression in March of an expert assessment of the Texas measles outbreak.
Based on the automated response – which read that FOIA staff had been placed on administrative leave and could not respond to requests – the group filed a lawsuit challenging the FOIA office closure, arguing that it violates the Freedom of Information Act and other administrative law.
Limited staff capacity may also curtail agencies’ ability to proactively disclose information, such as data on drug efficacy and safety posted by the FDA. Patients and clinicians access such information to make decisions about using and prescribing medications.
A pattern of barriers to public input and accountability
FOIA is far from a perfect tool for achieving transparency in how the government regulates health and biomedical research and policy. In fact, at least at the FDA, FOIA is costly and inefficient – partly, as my colleagues and I have written, because of the agency’s self-imposed, burdensome protocols. But without an enforceable replacement strategy, it is the only tool available to the public.
The Trump administration has taken several other steps to reduce transparency of federal public health agencies, leaving the public with limited formal avenues outside of the courts to weigh in on agency actions.
On March 3, 2025, HHS rescinded a long-standing policy requiring it to solicit public comments on regulations related to public property, loans, grants, benefits or contracts. Advisory committee meetings where agencies convene independent experts to provide recommendations and where public stakeholders can provide input have been canceled or postponed.
Additionally, the newly formed Make America Healthy Again Commission led by Kennedy has met behind closed doors and without prior public notice, attended only by select, aligned members. It remains unclear if future meetings will be public.
Not only is closure of FOIA offices across HHS agencies yet another blow to government transparency, but it also prevents the public from holding agencies accountable and pushing for changes that improve health.
Reshma Ramachandran receives research funding support from Arnold Ventures and previously received research funding support from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Stavros Niarchos Foundation. She serves on the board of directors in unpaid capacity for the non-profit organization, Doctors for America.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Erik Johnson, Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Stetson University
Sen. Cory Booker speaks to reporters in the Senate Chamber after delivering a record-setting floor speech at the U.S. Capitol on April 1, 2025.Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
The ever-churning national news cycle has already moved on from the spectacle.
But as communication studiesscholars, we believe Booker’s speech offers important lessons for Trump opponents in a fragmented political and media landscape.
Our analysis of Booker’s speech, its media coverage and Booker’s use of online platforms to promote his marathon performance illustrate one way to disrupt the constant public spotlight on Trump.
Conventions of long speeches
In research published in 2023, we compared filibusters and long speeches in the United States and overseas. The long speeches we examined took place in national parliaments and political party meetings across the world.
Our research uncovered three patterns.
Long speeches incorporate varied topics and texts. Whether or not these digressions are relevant to the issue at hand, they make the speaker’s remarks last longer.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., leaves the floor of the Senate after his filibuster of the nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director on March 7, 2013. AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
Long speeches also include expected interruptions to the speaker’s performance and address a variety of audiences.
That’s what happened during Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster of the Civil Rights Act – the longest speech on the Senate floor before Booker’s performance. When Thurmond needed a bathroom break during his 24-hour, 18-minute filibuster, Sen. Barry Goldwater assisted by stalling with a report on military preparedness.
These patterns of topical digression and expected interruption challenge the image of filibusters as individual acts of continuous endurance promoted in films such as ”Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.“ And they apply to Booker’s Senate speech.
Our research also demonstrated how the media reframes the complexity of long speeches into simplified narratives. This coverage sometimes differs as different outlets target varied audiences.
After state Sen. Wendy Davis’ filibuster of a 2013 anti-abortion bill in Texas, supporters linked the filibuster to her rising political prospects, while opponents disparaged her with the nickname Abortion Barbie.
These reactions do not grapple directly with the wide-ranging content of long speeches. But they do allow them to reach audiences in ways that can shape popular memory of the event.
Booker’s 25-hour speech
Like other long speeches we have studied, Booker’s Senate speech addressed several topics.
Booker read a passage from the Federalist Papers that advocated for constitutional checks and balances on the executive branch. At another point, he quoted federal appellate Judge Learned Hand, who was called the “Tenth Justice” of the Supreme Court in the first half of the 20th century. Booker also used personal anecdotes that linked his parents to the civil rights struggle and reflected on his first senate campaign.
Booker’s speech also aligned with another convention of long speeches – his monologue was broken up by the parliamentary questions of fellow senators.
Numerous Democratic allies gave Booker a break as they introduced issues of their own interest. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, for example, used her time to discuss Bob Dylan.
After the speech, however, many news outlets focused on Booker’s physical feat. This directed attention away from the hodgepodge of voices and sources in the speech.
Debates about whether or how speakers stop to use the bathroom are a source of enduring fascination surrounding long speeches. It’s something that Thurmond biographer Joseph Crespino calls the “urological mystery.”
Media fixation on Booker’s body reimagined him as the sole speaker.
Strategies shaping online coverage
When Booker broke the record, roughly 115,000 people were streaming the speech on YouTube. A TikTok livestream of the event received 350 million likes by the end of the day.
Booker was prepared for this online attention. Throughout the speech, he repeated a strategic set of phrases. Those ranged from “Let’s get in good trouble” – a reference to the late John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, that appeals to Booker’s political base – to “This is a moral moment,” a slogan that evokes Rev. William Barber II’s broad-based “moral movement.”
In this image provided by Senate Television, Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, speaks on the Senate floor on April 1, 2025. Senate Television via AP
Booker’s speech demonstrates that for resistance to be effective, it must be noticed.
His use of easily excerpted catchphrases targeted media platforms built around short, viral video clips. The length of Booker’s speech made it newsworthy, but short clips are necessary to sustain attention online.
These questions are part of the simplifications that occur in response to long speeches, and the media briefly paused from constant Trump coverage to ask them again.
Other coverage has noted that Google searches for Booker have increased since the speech – and it has speculated whether the speech might improve Democratic Party approval ratings.
By grabbing hold of a stage and not letting go, Booker became a figure of focus for at least one news cycle.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In 2002, Haiti’s former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide argued that France should pay his country $US22 billion.
The reason? In 1825, France extracted a huge indemnity from the young nation, in exchange for recognition of its independence.
April 17, 2025, marks the 200th anniversary of that indemnity agreement. On Jan. 1 of this year, the now-former president of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, Leslie Voltaire, reminded France of this call when he requested that France “repay the debt of independence and reparations for slavery.” In March, tennis star Naomi Osaka, who is of Haitian descent, added her voice to the chorus in a tweet wondering when France would pay Haiti back.
France instituted slavery in the colony of Saint-Domingue on the western third of the island of Hispaniola – today’s Haiti – in the 17th century. In the late 18th century, the enslaved population rebelled and eventually declared independence. In the 19th century, the French demanded compensation for the former enslavers of the Haitian people, rather than the other way around.
Just as the legacy of slavery in the United States has created a gross economic disparity between Black and white Americans, the tax on its freedom that France forced Haiti to pay – referred to as an “indemnity” at the time – severely damaged the newly independent country’s ability to prosper.
The cost of independence
Haiti officially declared its independence from France on Jan. 1, 1804. In October 1806, following the assassination of Haiti’s first head of state, the country was split into two, with Alexandre Pétion ruling in the south and Henry Christophe ruling in the north.
Despite the fact that both Haiti rulers were veterans of the Haitian Revolution, the French had never quite given up on reconquering their former colony.
In 1814, King Louis XVIII, restored as king after the overthrow of Napoléon earlier that year, sent three commissioners to Haiti to assess the willingness of the country’s rulers to surrender. Christophe, crowned king in 1811, remained obstinate in the face of France’s exposed plan to bring back slavery. Threatening war, the most prominent member of Christophe’s cabinet, Baron de Vastey, insisted,“ Our independence will be guaranteed by the tips of our bayonets!”
In contrast, Pétion, the ruler of the south, was willing to negotiate, hoping that the country might be able to pay France for recognition of its independence.
In 1803, Napoléon had sold Louisiana to the United States for US$15 million. Using this number as his compass, Pétion proposed paying the same amount. Unwilling to compromise with those he viewed as “runaway slaves,” Louis XVIII rejected the offer.
Pétion died suddenly in 1818, but Jean-Pierre Boyer, his successor, kept up the negotiations. Talks, however, continued to stall due to Christophe’s stubborn opposition.
“Any indemnification of the ex-colonists,” Christophe’s government stated, was “inadmissible.”
Once Christophe died in October 1820, Boyer was able to reunify the two sides of the country. However, even with the obstacle of Christophe gone, Boyer repeatedly failed to successfully negotiate France’s recognition of independence. Determined to gain at least suzerainty over the island – which would have made Haiti a protectorate of France – Louis XVIII rebuked the two commissioners Boyer sent to Paris in 1824 to try to negotiate an indemnity in exchange for recognition.
On April 17, 1825, Charles X, brother to Louis XVIII and the new French king, performed a sudden about-face. Charles X issued a decree stating that France would recognize Haitian independence but only at the price of 150 million francs – or nearly twice the 80 million francs the U.S. had paid for the Louisiana territory.
Baron de Mackau, whom Charles X sent to deliver the ordinance, arrived in Haiti in July, accompanied by a squadron of 14 brigs of war carrying more than 500 cannons.
His instructions stated that his “mission” was “not a negotiation.” It was not diplomacy either. It was extortion.
Amid the threat of violent war and a looming economic blockade, on July 11, 1825, Boyer signed the fatal document, which stated, “The present inhabitants of the French part of St. Domingue shall pay … in five equal installments … the sum of 150,000,000 francs, destined to indemnify the former colonists.”
French prosperity built on Haitian poverty
Newspaper articles from the period reveal that the French king knew the Haitian government was hardly capable of making these payments, as the amount was nearly six times Haiti’s total annual revenue. The rest of the world seemed to agree that the agreement was absurd. One British journalist noted that the “enormous price” constituted a “sum which few states in Europe could bear to sacrifice.”
Forced to borrow 30 million francs from French banks to make the first two payments, it was hardly a surprise to anyone when Haiti defaulted soon thereafter. Still, a subsequent French king sent another expedition in 1838 with 12 warships to force the Haitian president’s hand. The 1838 revision, inaccurately labeled “Traité d’Amitié” – or “Treaty of Friendship” – reduced the outstanding amount owed to 60 million francs, but the Haitian government was once again ordered to take out crushing loans to pay the balance.
It was the Haitian people who suffered the brunt of the consequences of France’s theft. Boyer levied draconian taxes in order to pay back the loans. And while Christophe had been busy developing a national school system during his reign, under Boyer, and all subsequent presidents, such projects had to be put on hold. Moreover, researchers have found that the independence debt and the resulting drain on the Haitian treasury were directly responsible not only for the underfunding of education in 20th-century Haiti, but also for the lack of health care and the country’s inability to develop public infrastructure.
A 2022 analysis by The New York Times, furthermore, revealed that Haitians ended up paying more than 112 million francs over seven decades, or $560 million – estimated between $22 billion and $44 billion in today’s dollars. Recognizing the gravity of this scandal, French economist Thomas Piketty has argued that France should repay at least $28 billion to Haiti in restitution.
A debt that’s both moral and material
Former French presidents, from Jacques Chirac to Nicolas Sarkozy to François Hollande, have a history of punishing, skirting or downplaying Haitian demands for recompense.
In May 2015, when Hollande became only France’s second head of state to visit Haiti, he admitted that his country needed to “settle the debt.” Later, realizing he had unwittingly provided fuel for the legal claims already prepared by attorney Ira Kurzban on behalf of the Haitian people, Hollande clarified that he meant France’s debt was merely “moral.”
To deny that the consequences of slavery were also material is to deny French history itself. France belatedly abolished slavery in 1848 in its remaining colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion and French Guyana, which are still territories of France today. Afterward, the French government demonstrated once again its understanding of slavery’s relationship to economics when it financially compensated the former “owners” of enslaved people.
The resulting racial wealth gap is no metaphor. In metropolitan France, 14.1% of the population lives below the poverty line. In Martinique and Guadeloupe, in contrast, where more than 80% of the population is of African descent, the poverty rates are 38% and 46%, respectively. The poverty rate in Haiti is even more dire at 59%. And whereas the gross domestic product per capita – the best measure of a country’s standard of living – is $44,690 in France, it’s a mere $1,693 in Haiti.
These discrepancies can be viewed as the concrete consequences of stolen labor from generations of Africans and their descendants.
In recent years, French academics have begun to increasingly contribute to the conversation about the longitudinal harms the indemnity brought to Haiti. Yet what effectively amounts to a statement of “no comment” has historically been the only response from France’s current government under President Emmanuel Macron.
Yet if recent reports prove accurate, on the bicentennial of the indemnity “agreement,” Macron plans to issue a “landmark statement” about France’s “colonial legacy,” along with several “memory initiatives,” designed to “keep the memory of slavery alive throughout the national territory, as in Haiti.”
But to me, the only initiative from France that would matter would be one detailing how it plans to provide economic recompense to Haitians.
Marlene L. Daut 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.
In the longleaf pine savannas of the southeastern U.S., most of the biodiversity is found in the ground cover and depends on frequent fires.Reed Noss
In an old-growth longleaf pine savanna, the absurdly long pine needles sing in the wind. Once considered forests, these landscapes in the southeastern U.S. coastal plain are open-canopied and sunny, more grassland than forest, with underbrush kept clear by frequent fires.
Longleaf pines – their needles can be up to 18 inches long – are among the longest-lived trees in eastern North America, surpassing 500 years if they are lucky enough to escape lightning strikes from the region’s frequent thunderstorms. Almost more fascinating is the ground cover, with up to 50 species per square meter, including some plants that are thousands of years old, with the vast majority of their biomass below ground. Picture an underground forest.
In the American West, there are other types of old-growth forest. Dry ponderosa pine woodlands are similarly open in structure and contain trees up to nearly 1,000 years old. But perhaps the most familiar old-growth forests are the complex, wet old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, which stretch from northwestern California to southeastern Alaska.
These forests, which contain Douglas fir, coast redwood, western hemlock, western red cedar, Sitka spruce and many other tree species, have been compared to cathedrals, providing an otherworldly experience of gigantic, ancient trees festooned with mosses and lichens and with fallen trees strewn like buses across the forest floor.
I’m fortunate to have lived among and studied both southeastern pine savannas and Pacific Northwest conifer forests. The contrast between them could not be greater. And there are many other old-growth forests across the continent – including northeastern spruce fir and northern hardwoods forests, Great Lakes red pine and jack pine woodlands, southern Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests, and Great Basin bristlecone pines reaching nearly 5,000 years old. Each of these forests has a unique ecology, but all are under threat from human activity and climate change.
In general, the challenge is that it’s possible to conceive of all these areas as a single group – old growth landscapes – where large, old trees dominate the canopy but where small-scale disturbances such as treefall gaps create a mosaic of age classes. Foresters often call this an “uneven-age forest.”
But they really constitute a wide range of landscapes with different, often unique needs for protection, restoration and management. For example, in some old-growth forests, the trees live thousands of years, whereas in others the maximum lifespan of the dominant tree species is much less, sometimes only around 200 years. And some old-growth forests have abundant deadwood, both standing and on the ground, whereas others are kept largely clear of deadwood by frequent fires.
Widely different local conditions
Large, old trees can be removed quickly but require hundreds of years to be replaced. When seeking to balance conservation goals with other priorities, including local economic needs, some foresters use a method called “thinning,” in which wooded areas aren’t clear-cut completely. Instead, only some trees are cut down. This can involve cutting smaller, younger trees while protecting older trees from logging – but at times it has included logging older trees as well. Even if it spares old trees, though, thinning can still harm biodiversity and old-growth ecosystems.
But it isn’t always clear how old a tree must be to protect it from logging. Some conservationists argue that the rules should protect some or all forests that are considered mature – say, 80 or so years old – but not yet old growth. As those stands of trees age, they will become old growth, taking the place of trees logged in the past.
However, a rule as simple as sparing trees above a certain age is not necessarily best for every old-growth region. In longleaf pine savannas, for instance, the standard practice of rapidly extinguishing wildfires has meant hardwood trees typically associated with denser, moister forests have grown up amid the pines. Some threatened species, such as the red-cockaded woodpecker, has adapted to survive only in areas that are extensive open-canopy, old-growth pine savannas with few hardwoods.
Restoration of those forests may require cutting down the invading hardwoods, even if they are decades old, as well as using fire to manage the resulting pine-dominated landscape. In some other types of old-growth forests, careful use of fire may be enough to restore the ecosystem without cutting any trees.
Long-term and short-term at the same time
A key challenge for protecting old-growth areas is the importance of balancing immediate risks with long-term needs, considering how ecosystems change as trees age and die, and across larger areas such as watersheds.
Old-growth forests are rare – less than 7% of the area of U.S. forests today – and are still often logged. To recover forest ecosystems across the U.S., it will not be enough to protect just old-growth areas.
Especially valuable for biodiversity are areas of regenerating forests that grow after fires or other disturbances such as windstorms, in places where live and dead trees in the disturbed forests have not been cut. These disturbed forests provide habitats for species associated with more open conditions. Many woodpeckers, epitomized by the black-backed woodpecker in western North America, depend on conditions created by severe fires.
Populations of the threatened red-cockaded woodpecker in the southeastern U.S. depend on large areas of scattered, old-growth longleaf pines for their survival. Reed Noss
Observing the broader value
Beyond trees, there are many species of plants and animals that depend on old-growth landscapes. Perhaps most famous among them are the red-cockaded woodpecker of the southeastern U.S. and the northern spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest.
Those plants’ and animals’ needs can give conservationists and ecologists insights into what territory is most useful to preserve, not just for the trees but for the larger ecosystem. That includes finding ways to connect conservation areas across the landscape so life can grow and spread.
Efforts to preserve old-growth landscapes protect more than just the trees. These forests also store carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it drives climate change. They help provide clean water for people and aquatic ecosystems, along with space for recreation, reflection and other cultural activities.
Ecological science cannot resolve the debates about how to prioritize and preserve old-growth forest. But it can help inform the public about the rising costs of doing nothing, and of the wide benefits of maintaining, recovering and restoring functioning old-growth ecosystems.
A rendering of BIOCAP tiles installed along a seawall at Morningside Park in Miami. Sara Pezeshk, CC BY-SA
Morningside Park, a beloved neighborhood park in Miami with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay, will soon pilot an innovative approach to coastal resilience.
BIOCAP tiles, a 3D-printed modular system designed to support marine life and reduce wave impact along urban seawalls, will be installed on the existing seawall there in spring 2025. BIOCAP stands for Biodiversity Improvement by Optimizing Coastal Adaptation and Performance.
Developed by our team of architects and marine biologists at Florida International University, the uniquely textured prototype tiles are designed to test a new approach for helping cities such as Miami adapt to rising sea levels while simultaneously restoring ecological balance along their shorelines.
The project receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Ecological costs of traditional seawalls
Seawalls have long served as a primary defense against coastal erosion and storm surges. Typically constructed of concrete and ranging from 6 to 10 feet in height, they are built along shorelines to block waves from eroding the land and flooding nearby urban areas.
However, they often come at an ecological cost. Seawalls disrupt natural shoreline dynamics and can [wipe out the complex habitat zones] that marine life relies on.
Marine organisms are crucial in maintaining coastal water quality by filtering excess nutrients, pollutants and suspended particles. A single adult oyster can filter 20-50 gallons of water daily, removing nitrogen, phosphorus and solids that would otherwise fuel harmful algal blooms. These blooms deplete oxygen levels and damage marine ecosystems.
Filter-feeding organisms also reduce turbidity, which is the cloudiness of water caused by suspended sediment and particles. Less water turbidity means more light can penetrate, which benefits seagrasses that require sunlight for photosynthesis. These seagrasses convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and energy-rich sugars while providing essential food and habitat for diverse marine species.
A robotic 3D printer extrudes concrete in layered, intricate channels. Sara Pezeshk, CC BY-SA
Swirling shapes, shaded grooves
Unlike the flat, lifeless surfaces of typical concrete seawalls, each BIOCAP tile is designed with shaded grooves, crevices and small, water-holding pockets. These textured features mimic natural shoreline conditions and create tiny homes for barnacles, oysters, sponges and other marine organisms that filter and improve water quality.
The tile’s swirling surface patterns increase the overall surface area, offering more space for colonization. The shaded recesses are intended to help regulate temperature by providing cooler, more stable microenvironments. This thermal buffering can support marine life in the face of rising water temperatures and more frequent heat events driven by climate change.
Another potential benefit of the tiles is reducing the impact of waves.
When waves hit a natural shoreline, their energy is gradually absorbed by irregular surfaces, tide pools and vegetation. In contrast, when waves strike vertical concrete seawalls, the energy is reflected back into the water rather than absorbed. This wave reflection – the bouncing back of wave energy – can amplify wave action, increase erosion at the base of the wall and create more hazardous conditions during storms.
The textured surfaces of the BIOCAP tiles are designed to help diffuse wave energy by mimicking the natural dissipation found on undisturbed shorelines.
The design of BIOCAP takes cues from nature. The tile shapes are based on how water interacts with different surfaces at high tide and low tide. Concave tiles, which curve inward, and convex tiles, which curve outward, are installed at different levels along the seawall. The goal is to deflect waves away from the seawall, reduce direct impact and help minimize erosion and turbulence around the wall’s foundation.
A collection of 3D-printed concrete BIOCAP tiles. Sara Pezeshk, CC BY-SA
How we will measure success
After the BIOCAP tiles are installed, we plan to assess how the seawall redesign enhances biodiversity, improves water quality and reduces wave energy. This two-year pilot phase will help assess the long-term value of ecologically designed infrastructure.
To evaluate biodiversity, we will use underwater cameras to capture time-lapse imagery of the marine life that colonizes the tile surfaces. These observations will aid in documenting species diversity and habitat use over time.
To assess water quality, we have developed a specialized prototype tile with sensors that can measure pH, dissolved oxygen levels, salinity, turbidity and temperature in real time. This data will provide insight into how the tiles affect local water conditions.
Finally, to measure wave attenuation and the reduction of wave force, we will mount pressure sensors on both the BIOCAP tiles and the adjacent traditional seawall sections. This comparison will allow us to quantify differences in wave energy across varying tidal conditions and storm events.
As coastal cities confront the dual challenges of increasing threats from climate change and environmental degradation, the BIOCAP project offers what we hope will be an example of a resilient, nature-based solution that benefits both humans and the environment.
In the coming year, we’ll be watching with hope as the new BIOCAP tiles begin to welcome marine life, offering a glimpse into how nature might reclaim and thrive along our urban shorelines.
Shahin Vassigh receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency
Sara Pezeshk 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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Sarah Federman, Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution, Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego
Liliane Lelaidier-Marton stands in front of the kind of car her parents were forced into in Drancy, France, when deported to their deaths.Sarah Federman
The Holocaust could not have happened without the railways.
Preeminent Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg underscored that almost everyone murdered at a camp arrived by train, including Jews, political prisoners and other “undesirables.” Since the 1990s, groups of survivors have asked European railway companies to acknowledge and atone for their critical role – a reminder that war, genocide and other atrocities cannot occur without corporate participation.
One long-running attempt met a setback on Feb. 21, 2025, when the U.S. Supreme Court threw out an appeals court ruling in favor of survivors seeking atonement from Hungary’s state railways. The lower court held that plaintiffs could sue the company over looting during the deportation of 440,000 Jews, most of whom were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Supreme Court disagreed, however, saying the case did not warrant an exception to law protecting foreign governments from being sued in U.S. courts.
Even without legal rulings, however, survivors have sometimes mobilized enough public support to force rail companies to confront their complicity.
I wrote a book about one such case: the French national railways’ multiple roles in World War II, and the company’s 30-year struggle to make amends. I dug through archives and legal documents and spoke to over 120 experts – including historians, legislators, executives and more than 90 Holocaust survivors – about what obligations, if any, they believe railways have today.
The French national railways’ wartime activities and slow roll to accountability helped me better understand and articulate productive ways that companies can respond to demands for atonement decades or more after the events.
The author stands with Daniel Urbejtel, one of the youngest people who survived deportation to Auschwitz. Sarah Federman
Multiple wartime roles
The French railway company, known as the SNCF, played more than one role during the war. Depending on which facts you focus on, you can see the company as a victim, hero or perpetrator.
With roughly 500,000 employees at the time, the company found itself in the crosshairs of the Nazi occupation. When France capitulated to Germany on June 22, 1940, the country was divided into occupied and free zones, and the French national railways were put under German command.
After the war, the acts of the brave railway workers came to light. Some slowed trains so deportees could jump off; some found other ways to facilitate escapes. Near the city of Lille, some SNCF workers helped save dozens of Jewish children. Most importantly, some workers coordinated with the French Resistance on D-Day, sabotaging trains to prevent German armaments from reaching the Normandy beaches and fighting off the Allies.
After the war, the SNCF amplified heroic stories with the help of the French government, using a film, pamphlets and other means.
‘La Bataille du Rail,’ a 1946 film about French railway workers during the war.
These stories are true – even if those workers made up less than 1% of the workforce. Surely, some stories were never told. But even if we double or triple the number, such resistance was an exception, not the rule.
Senior executives reported on acts of sabotage and did little to save their own Jewish colleagues. In fact, Vichy France – the wartime collaborationist government – put the head of the SNCF, Pierre-Eugene Fournier, in charge of liquidating Jewish businesses. He did so efficiently and complained only about German interference.
The SNCF transported approximately 76,000 Jewish deportees in merchandise cars to the German border, where a Nazi train driver carried them on to their deaths. While it’s possible the company didn’t understand the mass murder occurring at Auschwitz or other camps, drivers knew they carried unwilling passengers crammed together with little food, water or air in extreme weather without stopping. The deportation trains continued for two months after D-Day.
Push for justice
Yet SNCF’S image as part of the Resistance lived on in France until the 1990s, when survivors first approached the company for atonement. SNCF escaped legal liability, but public pressure forced the company to respond. Though it never financially compensated victims directly, the SNCF did commission an independent study, opened its archive to the public, made statements of regret and contributed to Holocaust commemoration and education.
A couple married for over 50 years discovered that their fathers were deported on the same train. Sarah Federman
The conversation then moved beyond French borders. In 2014, after Holocaust survivors protested the SNCF’s bids for contracts in the U.S., French and American ambassadors hammered out a US$60 million fund to compensate survivors who were not covered by other programs.
The SNCF’s journey toward accountability encouraged debates involving rail companies in the Netherlands, Belgium and Hungary, which had also transported hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths.
In 2019, Holocaust survivor Salo Muller successfully lobbied the Dutch state-owned railways for an apology and compensation for deportees. The company gave €15,000 – about $16,500 – to each survivor who had been forced to pay for their own ticket to be transported in horrific conditions to death camps. In the case of deceased survivors, the railway offered half that amount to heirs.
Not about the money
Liliane Lelaidier-Marton in front of a memorial at Drancy, France, where her father was deported. Sarah Federman
In 2012, historian Michael Marrus invited me to join him at Corporate Liability for Human Rights Violations, a conference at the University of Tel Aviv. There, he slapped his hands on the table and all but shouted to his senior colleagues, “It’s not about the money!”
Judicial rulings and financial payouts make headlines and create important precedents. But my interviews with survivors confirmed the spirit of Marrus’ words: “People want to set the record straight, to tell the story, and to have their history constitute a warning.”
Liliane Lelaidier-Marton took me to the Shoah Memorial in Drancy, France, where her parents had been interned before deportation. She appreciated the memorials and visitor center, which acknowledge her loss and their suffering. Renée Fauguet-Zejgman and I went to a ceremony in Paris together so she could read her murdered father’s name – an opportunity sponsored, in part, by the SNCF. Daniel Urbejtel, one of the youngest to survive Auschwitz, didn’t hold on to special anger against the railways. But when I told him about their statement of regret and funding of memorial sites, he said, “I’m glad that they did that.”
Renée Fauguet-Zejgman points to her father’s name on a memorial in Paris. Sarah Federman
Leo Bretholz, who jumped out of an SNCF train bound for Auschwitz, wanted a verbal acknowledgment of the harm and an apology along with compensation. Stanley Kalmanovitz, who received over $200,000 from the 2014 settlement for his deportation to Auschwitz, told me, “The money came at a good time in my life … but this is not a settlement of conscience.” He knew the railway company was trying to win U.S. contracts and saw the money as a way to get survivors out of the way.
Motivations aside, Kalmanovitz wondered what people today expect from the SNCF workers during the war. He said, “What was the French railroad supposed to do? Someone has a gun at your head, what do you do? You take the bullet? Then, if everyone takes a bullet, who’s left?”
Historians only know of one French train driver who defied orders to drive his train. Léon Bronchart refused to drive a train filled with either German soldiers or political prisoners. He lost his bonus and title, but not his life.
While a number of survivors I spoke with wanted SNCF to atone, others expressed misgivings about holding today’s company accountable for the actions of its predecessors.
Thousands of Jews around Paris were arrested in July 1942, including more than 4,000 children. Most were later deported to Auschwitz. Antoine Gyori/Sygma via Getty Images
Restoring dignity
Today, some companies are trying to address their connections to mass atrocities: not only the Holocaust, but also other genocides, the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and even ecological destruction.
I encourage companies, institutions and ambassadors to focus on addressing harm, rather than on calculating their institution’s percentage of guilt or complicity. These difficult – if not impossible – calculations distract institutions from supporting the innocent people grappling with the aftermath and from preventing future harm.
While money matters, people also want their dignity restored and suffering acknowledged – and companies can do this work without lawsuits prompting them. When they do it on their own, stakeholders see their efforts as evidence of a moral conscience rather than an economic necessity.
This look back encourages stakeholders to consider how today’s corporate actions may be judged in the years ahead. Will future generations celebrate or condone their use of natural resources, labor practices or any participation in the deportations of their day?
Sarah Federman received funding from the Fondation pour la Memorial de la Shoah to conduct research on the SNCF in France. During her time as a doctoral student, George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution awarded Federman the Presidential Scholarship in support of this research.
Gravity pulls us to earth, a lesson you learn viscerally the first time you fall. Isaac Newton described gravity as a universal attractive force, one that holds the Moon in orbit around the Earth, the planets in orbit around the Sun, and the Sun in orbit around the center of our galaxy.
In the 1990s, astronomers made the astonishing discovery that the expansion of the universe has sped up over the past 5 billion years, which implies that gravity can push as well as pull.
New results from a large survey of the universe, announced in March 2025, are challenging the conventional picture of dark energy.
Dark energy and cosmic expansion
The simplest explanation for cosmic acceleration assumes a form of energy that fills apparently empty space and stays constant over time, instead of diluting as the universe expands.
In fact, quantum mechanics predicts that “empty” space is filled with particles that flare briefly into and out of existence. At first glance, it seems like this effect could explain a constant dark energy, but no simple estimates of the effect’s magnitude line up with actual observations. Nonetheless, constant dark energy is a simple assumption that has proven successful in explaining many cosmological measurements.
Today’s standard cosmological model incorporates this kind of constant dark energy. It also incorporates atoms and dark matter, which exert the attractive gravity that resists dark energy’s repulsion.
New dark energy measurements
The new measurements from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, or DESI, collaboration, which we are affiliated with, pose the sharpest challenge yet to this standard model.
Relative to the constant dark energy predictions, the new DESI measurements suggest that the universe was expanding slightly faster a few billion years ago – by 1% to 3% – before relaxing to the expansion rate predicted today. One explanation for this temporary speed up is that the “springiness” of dark energy – a combination of energy and pressure that determines its repulsive effect – was higher in the past. The springiness then declined as the universe expanded further.
Astronomers can measure the history of the universe from our vantage point in the present because light travels at a finite speed. So, we see distant objects as they were in the past. Cosmic expansion stretches the wavelength of light – a phenomenon known as redshift. A precise measurement of an object’s light can reveal the size of the universe at the time the light was emitted.
The new DESI results are based on measuring the redshifts of more than 14 million galaxies, creating a three-dimensional map that spans 12 billion years of cosmic history. To determine the distances light traveled across this map, DESI measured a subtle feature imprinted on the clustering of these galaxies by acoustic waves that traveled through the early universe.
An exciting result
DESI’s evidence for evolving dark energy comes from combining its own distance and redshift measurements with other measurements of the average density of matter in the universe. The higher the density of matter, the more strongly it can pull against dark energy’s expansive push. The matter density measurements come from the European-led Planck space mission, which mapped structure in the cosmic microwave background.
The combination of DESI and Planck data favors evolving dark energy, instead of constant dark energy, with a statistical significance of 3.1 standard deviations. This result has only a 1 in 500 chance of occurring randomly.
Despite the long odds, physicists consider such a finding to be solid but not overwhelming evidence, in part because even the most careful experimenters may underestimate uncertainties in their measurements.
To strengthen the statistical case, DESI scientists added measurements of cosmic distances made by the Dark Energy Survey collaboration, which applied a different measurement technique based on the brightness of light from supernova explosions.
The combination of DESI, Planck and Dark Energy Survey supernovae favors the evolving dark energy model by odds of 40,000 to 1. However, other supernova surveys give results that agree more with constant dark energy, so most cosmologists aren’t yet ready to abandon the standard cosmological model.
Even if DESI’s findings hold up, they still can’t say what dark energy is. But they can provide much stronger clues than cosmologists had before.
The DESI-based model implies that dark energy changed its properties surprisingly quickly. Dark energy began to lose its repulsive strength at about the same time it became the dominant form of energy in the cosmos.
Extrapolating to the past, this model also implies that dark energy once had an extraordinary springiness, at a level that no simple theory of a dark energy field can explain. As future data sharpens these measurements, the findings could point us in a weird new direction – perhaps even challenging Einstein’s theory of gravity itself.
In the model that fits the DESI data, the density of dark energy goes up and then declines, shown as a blue curve, instead of staying constant as assumed in the standard cosmological model, indicated by the horizontal dotted line. In either case, the density of atoms and dark matter dilutes as the universe expands, shown as a red curve, and today it is only about half that of dark energy. The repulsive effect of dark energy began to exceed the attractive effect of matter when the universe was about 8 billion years old, marked as ‘acceleration begins.’ David Weinberg
An ambitious experiment
DESI is an extremely ambitious undertaking and an example of “big science” at its best. The instrument itself is mounted on the 4-meter Mayall Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. It uses 5,000 optical fibers mounted on tiny robotic positioners that guide the light from individual galaxies to scientific instruments that dissect that light and record the data for measuring redshifts.
Every 15 minutes, the telescope shifts to a new area of the sky, and the robots move the fibers to point to 5,000 new galaxy locations. After five years of design and construction, DESI has operated continuously since 2021.
A close-up of the DESI focal plane showing a few of the 5,000 fiber positioners. The white spots inside the bluish circles are the optical fibers that guide the light collected from distant galaxies to the spectrographs about 40 meters away. Dr. Claire Poppett, DESI Collaboration
Led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, DESI is a collaboration of over 900 scientists at 70 institutions around the world. At our university alone, more than 20 faculty, students, postdocs and research staff have worked on DESI over the past decade.
This work includes contributions to building and installing spectrographs, which measure the properties of light, as well as writing software to record data, leading instrument operations, observing and troubleshooting at the telescope, designing galaxy and quasar surveys, creating catalogs for statistical analysis, testing measurement techniques with computer simulations, interpreting results and writing papers – all in tight communication with our collaborators.
If the evidence for evolving dark energy holds up — and despite our instinctive caution, we think it has a good chance of doing so — it will join a list of remarkable 21st-century discoveries achieved with large U.S. national investments.
In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis called for a radical break with consumerist lifestyles.Ricardo Perna/Shutterstock
On May 24, 2015, Pope Francis signed his encyclical Laudato Si’ – “Praise be to you” in medieval Italian. This letter to Roman Catholic bishops was no half measure: it took many Catholics by surprise with its uncompromising conclusions and call for an in-depth transformation of our lifestyles. In France, it managed to bring together both conservative currents – such as the Courant pour un écologie humaine (Movement for a Human Ecology), created in 2013 – and more open-minded Catholic intellectuals such as Gaël Giraud, a Jesuit and author of Produire plus, polluer moins: l’impossible découplage? (Produce more, Pollute Less: the Impossible Decoupling?).
“Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation.”
What does Pope Francis’s encyclical teach us? And how does it reflect the Catholic Church’s vision, and his own?
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The “green” pope
In the text, Pope Francis describes a situation in which the environment is deteriorating rapidly:
“There is […] pollution that affects everyone, caused by transport, industrial fumes, substances which contribute to the acidification of soil and water, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and agrotoxins in general.” (§-20)
The “green” pope published Laudato Si’ on June 18, 2015, a few months prior to the Paris climate conference. The aim was to raise public awareness around the challenges of global warming by creating a relational approach that included God, human beings and the Earth. It was the first time an encyclical had been devoted wholly to ecology.
In it, the Pope voiced his concern about the effects of global warming:
“Warming has effects on the carbon cycle. It creates a vicious circle which aggravates the situation even more, affecting the availability of essential resources like drinking water, energy and agricultural production in warmer regions, and leading to the extinction of part of the planet’s biodiversity.” (§-24)
Criticizing a “technocratic paradigm”
Since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the various social encyclicals have consistently rejected the liberal idea of a society solely regulated by the smooth functioning of the market. The French sociologist of religion Émile Poulat summed up the Church’s position perfectly in 1977 in his book Église contre bourgeoisie. Introduction au devenir du catholicisme actuel, in which he writes that the Church “never agreed to abandon the running of the world to the blind laws of economics”.
In 2015, Pope Francis rejected technical solutions that would not truly be useful, as well as the belief in the redeeming virtues of a self-regulating market. He accused “the technocratic paradigm” of dominating humankind by subordinating the economic and political spheres to its logic (§-101). His comments are reminiscent of the unjustly forgotten French Protestant philosopher Jacques Ellul and his idea of a limitless “self-propulsion” of technology, which has become the alpha and omega of our societies.
For Jacques Ellul, technology is anything but neutral since it represents genuine power driven by its own movement. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
The pope’s charge against the supposed virtues of the market was spectacular. Among others, he criticized the following:
overconsumption in developed countries:
“Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products, people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending.” (§-203);
the glorification of profit and a self-regulating market:
“Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems.” (§-109);
the hypertrophy of speculative finance:
“Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy.” (§-189);
the unequal distribution of wealth in the world:
“In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet: […] the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest.” (§-48);
the unequal levels of development between countries, leading Francis to speak of an “ecological debt” owed by rich countries to the least developed ones. (§-51)
Social justice and shrinking growth
In Francis’s words, the goals of saving the planet and social justice go hand in hand. His approach is in keeping with the work of the [economist Louis-Joseph Lebret, a Dominican, who in 1941 founded the association Économie et humanisme. Father Lebret wanted to put the economy back at the service of humankind, and work with the least economically advanced countries by championing an approach based on the virtues of local communities and regional planning.
Pope Francis, for his part, is calling for a radical break with the consumerist lifestyles of rich countries, while focusing on the development of the poorest nations. (§-93). In Laudato Si’, he also wrote that developed countries’ responses seemed insufficient because of the economic interests at stake (§-54).
This brings us back to the principle of the universal destination of goods – the organizing principle of property defended by the Catholic Church’s social doctrine, which demands that goods be distributed in such a way as to enable every human being to live in dignity.
In addition to encouraging the necessary technical adjustments and sober individual practices, Pope Francis is urging citizens in developed countries not to be content with half measures deemed largely insufficient. Instead, he is calling for people to make lifestyle changes in line with the logic of slowing growth. The aim is to enable developing countries to emerge from poverty, while sparing the environment.
“Given the insatiable and irresponsible growth produced over many decades, we need also to think of containing growth by setting some reasonable limits and even retracing our steps before it is too late. […] That is why the time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth.” (§ -193)
Nearly 10 years on, Laudato Si’ resonates fully with our concerns. In the United States, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who both identify as Catholic, would be well advised to read it anew.
Bernard Laurent is a member of the CFTC and of the IRES Scientific Council
Donald Rodney’s art (1961-98) has been familiar to me for many years. But only rarely has it been possible to experience, at close quarters, anything approximating the sheer range and depth of his practice. In his first retrospective exhibition in over a decade and a half, Rodney’s remarkable work is given the platform it deserves.
Spanning painting, drawing, oil pastels, photography, sculptural assemblages, installation and computer-generated art, Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker at London’s Whitechapel Gallery reveals an artist who was ambitious and prolific, audacious and innovative. An anathema to today’s market-driven art world.
Invention was central to Rodney’s inimitable practice, but it was also integral to his life and upbringing. Growing up in what was often a racially and socially fractured Britain became central to his artistic concerns.
Born in West Bromwich in 1961, Rodney was the youngest child of Harold and Iris, Jamaican immigrants, who settled in Britain in the late 1950s. They, like many postwar Caribbean arrivals, had to invent a new way of living and of surviving.
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Rodney was brought up in Smethwick, a district on the outskirts of Birmingham. During the 1964 general election it became notorious for an anti-immigrant campaign led and won by Conservative MP Peter Griffiths. He helped set the stage for later, more extreme acts of racism – including new immigration laws meant to limit Black immigration, Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech, and the rise of the far-right National Front.
However, by the 1970s and early 1980s, as Black children were becoming adults, new forms of British political and cultural identity were being fomented. This included an outpouring of artistic expression in Britain.
With the likes of fellow art student Keith Piper, Rodney became part of the first generation of British-born Black students to attend art school in the UK, heralding a new chapter in British art.
The painting How the West Was Won (1982) is named after John Ford’s epic western from 1962. It’s the earliest example of Rodney’s fledgling ability to sample and incorporate a wide variety of sources in his work – from Hollywood film and childhood memories of “cowboys and Indians”, to reimagining the cover of post-punk band Gang of Four’s influential debut album Entertainment (1979).
Rodney’s composition used child-like mark-markings, vivid colours and crude portraiture, typifying a certain irreverence towards “proper” painting.
While at Slade School of Fine Art between 1985-87, Rodney began making works using discarded X-rays.
Visually alluring, these anonymous X-rays became his canvas. The House That Jack Built (1987), included in this exhibition, involved meticulous scalpel incisions of words and elaborate prose. X-ray was used as a metaphor for looking beneath the surface of images and society to better understand the workings of inequality and racism.
The sculptural work Doublethink (1992), remade for this retrospective, comprises over 100 cheap sporting trophies, each emblazoned with shocking racial insults. These are intended to explore the paradoxes and pathologies of race-based discrimination.
Rodney took his title from George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which the language of Newspeak produces “doublethink”, a process in which two opposing ideas are truths, such as “ignorance is strength”. This, once again, demonstrates his capacity for invention.
Self-portrait as social critique
Nothing typified that capacity for invention more than Rodney’s approach to self-portraiture, which was often a conduit for wider social and political commentary.
Rodney suffered from the hereditary blood disorder sickle cell anaemia. The relationship between his illness and art has routinely misunderstood to the detriment of his artistic ingenuity. Being X-rayed, having regular blood transfusions and invasive surgery were Rodney’s personal experiences. Transfigured into art, such medical predicaments became conduits for reinterpreting history and contemporary society.
Visceral Canker (1990) is a circulatory blood pumping system overlaid on fabricated heraldic shields of Elizabeth I and slave trader Sir John Hawkins. It explored the intertwined relationships between Rodney’s Black British identity, slavery and British history.
The photographic light-box Self Portrait: Black Men, Public Enemy (1990) and the analogue slide projection Cataract (1991) sought to question the perpetual representation of Black men in British society as criminal and deviant. Psalms (1997) is a poignant and affecting self-portrait in which an unoccupied and computer-powered wheelchair moves eerily in response to the gallery visitor.
Rodney’s art-making process was resourceful. For example, the production of his important large oil pastel drawings on X-rays, including Britannia Hospital 2 (1988), were made in sections. This enabled Rodney to work at scale at a desk at home or in hospital.
The photographic work In the House of My Father (1997), depicting a minuscule house made of the artist’s skin, was shot in King’s College hospital, London. Rodney was also a master at enlisting the active support from family, friends and associates to realise the production of entire exhibitions, including 9 Night in Eldorado (1997).
The Whitechapel Gallery show is the final leg of a three-gallery tour which began in 2024. It was first presented at Spike Island, Bristol, the city in which Rodney first exhibited in 1982, followed by Nottingham Contemporary where he studied fine art as an undergraduate at Trent Polytechnic between 1981-85.
London was where Rodney lived for most of his 16-year career. This retrospective brings together nearly all of the artist’s surviving works. However, about two-thirds of Rodney’s artistic output work has either been lost or destroyed. This does not diminish the retrospective but imbues archival material held by his estate and public collections with particular significance.
The prominent role assigned to sketchbooks, working drawings and the screening of Three Songs on Pain, Light and Time (1995), directed by the Black Audio Film Collective, play an important supplementary role in narrating Rodney’s singular practice.
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker is at the Whitechapel Gallery until May 4.
Richard Hylton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephanie Hernandez, PhD Candidate, Literature and Music, University of Liverpool
The new documentary One to One: John & Yoko offers an illuminating look into John Lennon’s post-Beatles activism with his partner Yoko Ono. It captures an early 1970s climate that was charged with political unrest and media saturation.
Rather than perpetuate the simplified myth of Lennon as a lone revolutionary figure, the film spotlights Ono’s equally influential role in their shared artistic and social endeavours. The film also highlights how Lennon and Ono aimed to galvanise a generation that had grown apathetic and disillusioned after the perceived failure of the 1960s “flower power” to deliver genuine social change.
The film adopts a pop-art, “channel surfing” aesthetic that situates the viewer in a recreated version of Lennon and Ono’s Greenwich Village apartment. This form plays on Lennon’s own television addiction. The story unfolds amid rapid cuts between Richard Nixon reelection speeches, anti-war demonstrations and playful consumer ads for laundry soap or ground beef – as if the viewer is surfing television channels.
These scenes coalesce into a surreal tapestry of commercialism and counterculture. The interplay echoes the way Lennon and Ono saw pop culture and radical activism as inescapably intertwined discourses. It underscores how even seemingly mundane aspects of consumer life impinged on their activism and vice versa.
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Lennon’s politics had emerged during his time as a Beatle, as evidenced in the song Revolution (1968). But it was Ono’s avant-garde sensibility that nudged him into more radical territory – both musically and socially.
I’ve researched Ono’s comedic artistry in her performance art. So I found the way One to One portrays Ono seamlessly blending her artistic principles with raw emotional outcries onstage especially compelling.
Her presence surfaces most powerfully in her onstage performance of Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow). There, her raw, piercing screams function as a form of cathartic protest rather than mere provocation. Despite widespread media ridicule (such as the infamous Chuck Berry footage that resurfaces on the internet every now and then), One to One clarifies that Ono’s screams constitute a highly personal mode of expression and resistance.
The trailer for One to One: John & Yoko.
Later in the film, Lennon’s own raw performance of his song Mother (1970) reveals how much Ono’s techniques informed his own. The documentary explores the emotional origins behind Ono’s shrieks, situating them within the context of primal scream therapy. This provides an interesting background to Lennon’s own wailing on Mother, a song about the lingering feeling of abandonment he had experienced since childhood.
The film highlights a mutual borrowing. Lennon was not only the rock artist providing Ono exposure on the world’s stage but also a beneficiary of her experimental practices. Throughout the film, the couple are shown workshopping protest songs, connecting with countercultural figureheads such as poet Allen Ginsberg and activist Jerry Rubin, and aiding in counter-cultural protest of the American prison system.
This sense of reciprocity between the couple is at the core of One to One.
Complementary forces
The One to One Benefit Concerts in August of 1972 at Madison Square Garden are at the epicentre of this film. Far from a publicity stunt, the shows sought tangible outcomes. They ultimately raised over US$1.5 million (£1,149,000) for Willowbrook State School, a facility for children with disabilities. Coincidentally, Lennon and Ono learned about the school through watching TV.
The film includes an emotional scene of the children from Willowbrook playing in a park while Lennon performs Imagine. It shows how the song was never intended to canonise Lennon as a saint, but was rather to encourage social change.
Although their plans to bail out people in prison on a Free The People tour fell through, Lennon and Ono’s capacity for integrating live music with direct engagement resonates in the concert footage.
The film devotes considerable screen time to the concerts and crowd reactions. This portrays the physical energy of Lennon’s brand of rock ‘n’ roll and Ono’s more avant-garde flair as complementary forces. What emerges is a dynamic synergy, both onstage and off, that positions them as co-leaders of their own brand of pop activism.
Towards the end of the film is footage of Ono delivering a speech about the ridicule she has faced in society and performing the song Age 39 (Looking Over from My Hotel Window) at the First International Feminist Conference at Harvard University in 1973.
This segment includes home video footage of Ono walking among the witch sites of Salem, Massachusetts, symbolising her shifting role in society. She explains that she was “upgraded” from a “bitch” to a “witch”. One to One’s portrayal of Ono as a collaborator of Lennon’s rather than a reduction of her to a romantic partner points to how the narrative tide is changing, and Ono is finally getting her due recognition.
One to One captures a moment when their combined artistry, activism, and mutual exchange of vocal techniques converged – creating an indelible record of how two personalities shaped protest music, pop culture and each other.
Stephanie Hernandez 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.
We’ve long known that environmental factors – from humidity and temperature to trace chemical vapours – can influence how pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria and fungi, behave once released into the air. These tiny droplets of respiratory fluid, or aerosols, carry viruses and bacteria and can float for minutes or even hours. But while we’ve been busy focusing on physical distancing and surface cleaning, a quieter factor may have been playing a much bigger role in airborne disease transmission all along: carbon dioxide (CO₂).
During the pandemic, we studied what happens to a virus when it travels through the air in tiny droplets from our breath – known as aerosols. In earlier research, we found that the droplet’s pH (how alkaline it is) can affect how quickly the virus loses its ability to infect people. Our more recent research, though, suggests that CO₂ levels in indoor air may significantly affect how long viruses survive once airborne – and the implications are profound.
Airborne virus survival
When someone coughs, sneezes, talks or sings, they release microscopic droplets into the air. These droplets start out in a warm, moist and CO₂-rich environment inside the lungs, where CO₂ levels reach a staggering 38,000 parts per million (ppm). Once expelled, they encounter the cooler, drier and typically much lower-CO₂ environment of indoor or outdoor air. This rapid change triggers a chain reaction inside the droplet.
One key component inside these droplets is bicarbonate, which acts as a buffer and is formed when CO₂ dissolves in liquid. As CO₂ diffuses out of the droplet into the air, bicarbonate leaves with it. This causes the droplet’s pH to rise – becoming increasingly alkaline, sometimes reaching pH 10.
Why does this matter? Viruses like COVID-19 don’t like alkaline environments. As the pH rises, their ability to infect decreases. In other words, the higher the pH, the quicker the virus becomes inactive. However, when the ambient CO₂ concentration is high, this pH shift is delayed or minimised, meaning the virus remains in a more hospitable environment – and stays infectious longer.
Droplets suspended in Celebs technology, used to study airborne microbe behavior. Photo credit: Allen Haddrell
What role does CO₂ play?
While CO₂ doesn’t transmit viruses itself, it acts as a proxy for indoor crowding and poor ventilation. The more people in a space, the more CO₂ builds up from exhaled breath. When there isn’t enough ventilation, these levels stay high as do the chances that airborne viruses can linger longer and infect others.
Outdoor CO₂ levels are around 421ppm, but in crowded or poorly ventilated spaces, indoor levels can easily exceed 800ppm. That’s the tipping point identified in the study, where the air starts allowing droplets to maintain a lower pH, increasing the survival time of viruses. In the 1940s, global CO₂ levels were much lower – around 310ppm – meaning indoor air offered less of a survival advantage to airborne pathogens.
Looking ahead, climate projections estimate CO₂ levels could reach 685ppm by 2050, making this issue not only one of pandemic response but also of climate and public health policy. If we don’t address this now, we may be heading into a future where viruses survive longer in the air due to everyday indoor conditions.
How exhaled aerosol pH increases to alkaline levels after exhalation. Bicarbonate evaporates as CO₂, leaving behind an inhospitable environment for viruses—unless there’s more CO₂ in the air. Illustration: Allen Haddrell
Can we fix it?
The good news? These findings suggest solutions we can implement right now.
First, improve indoor ventilation. Increasing airflow and introducing outdoor air into enclosed spaces dilutes both CO₂ levels and any virus-containing aerosols. This simple change can significantly reduce the risk of airborne transmission – not just for COVID-19, but for future respiratory viruses as well.
And, in the not-too-distant future, we might have indoor carbon capture technology. These devices, which are still being developed, could help remove excess CO₂ from the air, especially in hospitals, classrooms and public transport where the risk of spreading illness is higher.
Also, monitoring indoor CO₂ levels using affordable sensors can empower individuals, schools and businesses to assess the indoor air quality and adjust the ventilation accordingly. If CO₂ levels rise above safe thresholds (often considered about 800ppm), it’s time to open windows, use air purifiers or ask some people to leave the room.
This research reshapes the way we think about air quality. It’s no longer just about stuffiness or comfort – it’s about infection risk. As we face rising global CO₂ levels and continue to recover from the COVID pandemic, it’s clear that managing indoor air environments is essential to public health.
By taking CO₂ seriously – not just as a climate metric but as a health indicator – we have a unique opportunity to reduce disease transmission in our everyday environments. Because when it comes to viruses in the air, the air itself might be our greatest ally – or our biggest threat.
Allen Haddrell receives funding from the BBSRC and EPSRC.
Henry Oswin previously received funding from the BBSRC and EPSRC, and currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
When we think about intelligent animals, farm species aren’t usually the first to spring to mind. We may picture tool-using primates or puzzle-solving crows. But my recent research suggests that sheep, goats and alpacas – staples of the barnyard – deserve more credit.
In two separate studies, I tested how these animals learn, remember and make sense of the world around them. The findings reveal not only that we’ve underestimated their cognitive abilities, but also that there are important differences between species.
Of the three, goats came out on top – outperforming both sheep and alpacas in tasks testing memory and problem-solving.
Initial testing focused on spatial memory, which is the ability to remember the location of something important, like food. In the wild, this is a important survival skill. Animals need to recall where to find water, food or shelter.
I set up a simple experiment. Each animal had to locate food hidden in one of several buckets in a small arena. Once they’d learned where the food was, I changed the positions and tested how quickly and accurately they could relocate it.
Goats appeared to show the strongest spatial memory, finding the food faster and making fewer errors than the others. Sheep also performed well, although they made more mistakes than the goats. The alpacas, however, struggled to complete the tasks within the time limit.
They’re cute but they lack some of the brain power of their goat counterparts. Siam Stock/Shutterstock
This stronger spatial memory in goats could be linked to their evolutionary history. They have adapted to forage across wide, rocky landscapes and they have probably developed a sharp memory to help them navigate efficiently and return to good food sources.
The second study looked at more complex cognitive skills: object permanence, numerical competence and categorisation – all central to making sense of a changing world.
You may have tested object permanence without realising it, for example, if you’ve ever played peekaboo with a baby. This skill is knowing that an object still exists even when it’s hidden from view. It seems easy, but this ability is an important developmental milestone for humans. Other animals use object permanence to track food, predators, prey, or their own young. It’s an essential skill for survival.
So, for this experiment, I placed food under a cup and gradually made the task harder. I added empty cups, or switched the positions of the cups so the animal had to mentally track the hidden reward.
The goats again excelled at this task. They showed a higher awareness of object permanence than the sheep and alpacas, demonstrating the ability to mentally reconstruct where the hidden object was concealed.
In other tasks, all three could tell the difference between larger and smaller quantities of food, usually picking the container with more treats. But when it came to grouping shapes that looked similar, they all found it equally difficult.
Smarter than we think
Together, these studies offer evidence to dispute the idea that farm animals are not intellectually gifted. Each species has different strengths. But my research suggests that goats understand, remember and process information with greater efficiency in the abilities tested than sheep and alpacas.
Understanding how animals think isn’t just an academic exercise either – it has real-world implications. If we know more about an animal’s cognitive abilities, we can design better environments and improve their welfare. We can also better predict how they’ll behave when grazing or adapting to new surroundings.
For instance, animals with poorer spatial memory may need extra help navigating a field or enclosure. Those with higher cognitive skills may benefit from more stimulating environments that allow them to explore and solve problems.
There may be more going on in the barnyard than we often assume. So, next time you’re at a petting zoo or walking past a farm, don’t be fooled by the woolly coats and demeanour. Especially when it comes to the goats – they may just be outsmarting everyone.
Megan Quail 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.
Children with cerebral palsy often have difficulty walking, which can affect their relationships with peers and overall quality of life. People with visual impairment can experience similar difficulties with balance, spatial awareness and negotiating obstacles. People with visual impairments have reported that their greatest barrier to improved mobility was the discriminatory attitudes of others. Guide dogs and assistance dogs have tended to improve the quality of life for people with visual impairments, bringing admiration from others and improving confidence and independence.
Dogs have been trained as mobility aids for ex-war veterans, while others have been trained to help wheelchair users manage daily tasks, such as picking up a dropped sock.
But for some, a new form of support is offering life-changing assistance: mobility assistance dogs.
Mobility assistance dogs are trained to provide stability and balance, helping a child navigate crowds and different terrains safely. Dogs for Disabled, a charity in Ireland is training and supplying specially trained assistance dogs as a walking aid for children with cerebral palsy and other physical impairments. Pet-loving families apply to receive a dog from the charity. The dogs are personality matched with a child and trained to help with their walking. This is an innovative practice, not previously targeted at children, so little research has been done in the area.
Family friend
My research tests the effects of mobility assistance dogs on the walking pattern, physical activity and the overall effect on the chidren’s quality of life – and that of their families.
Many of these children (aged 6-12) report that walking with a dog is more socially favourable than holding their parent’s hand or using a metal frame. The dog brings positive attention to the child and gives them a topic of conversation. Parents believe that their children are more motivated to get out and about with the dog, as they enjoy being seen with their new furry friend.
Parents reported that the dog allows their children to navigate through woodlands and on stony paths with more ease than with a standardised walking device. The dog can react dynamically, sensing the child’s needs and this significantly aids in circumventing obstacles, especially in crowds. Siblings and parents tend to accompany the child on dog walks, improving family fitness and increasing family time together.
Louie Geary, Dogs for the Disabled’s Cork County Champion, explains how his Mobility Assistance Dog Maisie has changed his life.
Formal measurement of a walking pattern is performed using 3D gait analysis, a technique using infrared sensors to track the movement pattern of the child. Some of the children with milder cerebral palsy can benefit in their walking pattern by practising walking with the dog, encouraging them to be more upright, to take longer steps and engaging anti-gravity muscles – muscles essential for maintaining an upright posture – more than leaning through a frame. For some children with more walking difficulty, relying on a walker may be more energy conserving, and walking with the dog, although fun, may not be the most practical way for them to get around.
Wearable sensors were used to track the physical activity levels of the children while with their specially trained dog. Most reported that, with a dog, they walked further and were more likely to go for a walk. And children tended to spend more time at a higher level of physical activity, so a dog encouraged them to get their heart beating a little more, improving their cardiovascular fitness.
Growing confidence
For one particular child, a six-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, his overall walking speed and gait quality improved, he was more active after six months with his dog and his quality of life improved. His mum felt her son benefited from positive social reactions from people saying “hello” to the dog, which he loved. He never complained about feeling tired anymore while out walking and he walked further as it became more fun. He now holds onto the dog’s handle instead of the parent’s hand when out in public and this has boosted his confidence as he feels more “normal”.
The bond between children with cerebral palsy and mobility assistance dogs is a powerful one. These dogs offer not just practical help in navigating the world, but also the emotional support that can lead to increased confidence, independence and social engagement.
For families facing the challenges of lifelong disability such as cerebral palsy, these dogs are not just animals; they may be life-changing partners that provide invaluable support, both physical and emotional. As awareness of the benefits of mobility assistance dogs continues to grow, hopefully more children with cerebral palsy will have the opportunity to experience the transformative power of a canine companion.
Heather Kennedy Curtin 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.
Australians strongly disagree with key policies of US President Donald Trump, and have overwhelmingly lost trust in the United States to act responsibly in the world, according to the Lowy Institute’s 2025 poll.
Despite this, 80% of people say the alliance is “very” or “fairly” important for Australia’s security, only fractionally down on last year’s 83%.
The poll also found people nearly evenly divided on whether Peter Dutton (35%) or Anthony Albanese (34%) would be the better leader to manage Australia’s relations with Trump.
But Albanese rated much more strongly than Dutton as better able to manage Australia’s relationship with China and President Xi Jinping (45% to 25%).
Albanese was also well ahead (41%-29%) when people were asked who would be more competent at handling Austrlaia’s foreign policy over the next three years.
The poll comes as the “Trump effect” has overshadowed the campaign, and increasingly worked against Dutton. Labor has cast Dutton as having looked to the US for policies, such as his proposed cuts to the public service. It has labelled him “DOGEy Dutton”, a reference to Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The Lowy poll of 2,117 people was taken between March 3 and 16. This was after Trump had announced plans for a 25% tariff on steel and aluminium imports, and other tariffs, but before his “Liberation Day” regime which saw a 10% general tariff hitting all countries.
Trust in the US has plummeted since the last Lowy poll in 2024, with nearly two-thirds of respondents (64%) having little or no trust in the US to act responsibly in the world, compared with 44% a year before.
This is a new low in the poll’s two-decade history. Trust fell dramatically among older voters. Trust was already relatively low among younger voters, and fell by a smaller margin.
On various Trump stances, the poll found Australians most disapproving (89%) of Trump’s pressure on Denmark to sell or or hand over its self-governing territory of Greenland to the US.
More than eight in ten (81%) disapproved of Trump’s use of tariffs to pressure other countries to comply with his administration’s objectives.
Three-quarters disapproved of the US withdrawing from the World Health Organization (76%) and from international climate change agreements (74%).
In addition, three-quarters (74%) disapproved of Trump negotiating a deal on the future of Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin that might require Ukraine to accept a loss of territory. The dramatic Oval Office showdown between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US Vice President JD Vance took place just before the survey.
Australians also disapproved of the US cutting spending on foreign aid (64%) and undertaking mass deportations of undocumented migrants (56%).
On Trump’s demand that US allies spend more on defence people were, however, evenly divided (49% approved/disapproved).
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis called for a radical break with consumerist lifestyles.Ricardo Perna/Shutterstock
On May 24, 2015, Pope Francis signed his encyclical Laudato Si’ – “Praise be to you” in medieval Italian. This letter to Roman Catholic bishops was no half measure: it took many Catholics by surprise with its uncompromising conclusions and call for an in-depth transformation of our lifestyles. In France, it managed to bring together both conservative currents – such as the Courant pour un écologie humaine (Movement for a Human Ecology), created in 2013 – and more open-minded Catholic intellectuals such as Gaël Giraud, a Jesuit and author of Produire plus, polluer moins: l’impossible découplage? (Produce more, Pollute Less: the Impossible Decoupling?).
“Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation.”
What does Pope Francis’s encyclical teach us? And how does it reflect the Catholic Church’s vision, and his own?
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The “green” pope
In the text, Pope Francis describes a situation in which the environment is deteriorating rapidly:
“There is […] pollution that affects everyone, caused by transport, industrial fumes, substances which contribute to the acidification of soil and water, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and agrotoxins in general.” (§-20)
The “green” pope published Laudato Si’ on June 18, 2015, a few months prior to the Paris climate conference. The aim was to raise public awareness around the challenges of global warming by creating a relational approach that included God, human beings and the Earth. It was the first time an encyclical had been devoted wholly to ecology.
In it, the Pope voiced his concern about the effects of global warming:
“Warming has effects on the carbon cycle. It creates a vicious circle which aggravates the situation even more, affecting the availability of essential resources like drinking water, energy and agricultural production in warmer regions, and leading to the extinction of part of the planet’s biodiversity.” (§-24)
Criticizing a “technocratic paradigm”
Since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the various social encyclicals have consistently rejected the liberal idea of a society solely regulated by the smooth functioning of the market. The French sociologist of religion Émile Poulat summed up the Church’s position perfectly in 1977 in his book Église contre bourgeoisie. Introduction au devenir du catholicisme actuel, in which he writes that the Church “never agreed to abandon the running of the world to the blind laws of economics”.
In 2015, Pope Francis rejected technical solutions that would not truly be useful, as well as the belief in the redeeming virtues of a self-regulating market. He accused “the technocratic paradigm” of dominating humankind by subordinating the economic and political spheres to its logic (§-101). His comments are reminiscent of the unjustly forgotten French Protestant philosopher Jacques Ellul and his idea of a limitless “self-propulsion” of technology, which has become the alpha and omega of our societies.
For Jacques Ellul, technology is anything but neutral since it represents genuine power driven by its own movement. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
The pope’s charge against the supposed virtues of the market was spectacular. Among others, he criticized the following:
overconsumption in developed countries:
“Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products, people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending.” (§-203);
the glorification of profit and a self-regulating market:
“Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems.” (§-109);
the hypertrophy of speculative finance:
“Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy.” (§-189);
the unequal distribution of wealth in the world:
“In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet: […] the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest.” (§-48);
the unequal levels of development between countries, leading Francis to speak of an “ecological debt” owed by rich countries to the least developed ones. (§-51)
Social justice and shrinking growth
In Francis’s words, the goals of saving the planet and social justice go hand in hand. His approach is in keeping with the work of the [economist Louis-Joseph Lebret, a Dominican, who in 1941 founded the association Économie et humanisme. Father Lebret wanted to put the economy back at the service of humankind, and work with the least economically advanced countries by championing an approach based on the virtues of local communities and regional planning.
Pope Francis, for his part, is calling for a radical break with the consumerist lifestyles of rich countries, while focusing on the development of the poorest nations. (§-93). In Laudato Si’, he also wrote that developed countries’ responses seemed insufficient because of the economic interests at stake (§-54).
This brings us back to the principle of the universal destination of goods – the organizing principle of property defended by the Catholic Church’s social doctrine, which demands that goods be distributed in such a way as to enable every human being to live in dignity.
In addition to encouraging the necessary technical adjustments and sober individual practices, Pope Francis is urging citizens in developed countries not to be content with half measures deemed largely insufficient. Instead, he is calling for people to make lifestyle changes in line with the logic of slowing growth. The aim is to enable developing countries to emerge from poverty, while sparing the environment.
“Given the insatiable and irresponsible growth produced over many decades, we need also to think of containing growth by setting some reasonable limits and even retracing our steps before it is too late. […] That is why the time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth.” (§ -193)
Nearly 10 years on, Laudato Si’ resonates fully with our concerns. In the United States, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who both identify as Catholic, would be well advised to read it anew.
Bernard Laurent is a member of the CFTC and of the IRES Scientific Council
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Vinothan Naidoo, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration, University of Cape Town
South Africa’s multi-party government of national unity (GNU), which emerged in the wake of the May 2024 elections, marked a turning point in the country’s political history. It took South Africans back to the 1990s, when the country showed that political opponents could find common cause.
The formation of the government of national unity expressed the hope that the country could do it again.
But just nine months into its term, the good will and pragmatism which marked its formation have worn thin. A major budget impasse between the two major actors, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), threatens the coalition.
South Africans have long been accustomed to viewing the world of politics, governance and bureaucracy through the lens of a top-down “strong” state – a vicious apartheid state, an East Asia style developmental state, or a collusive “predatory state”.
But as recent analyses we co-authored with others have detailed,
the vision of a top-down politically cohesive state no longer fits South Africa’s realities.
The government of national unity promised the hope that the country was embracing an approach that is key to success for almost all inclusive constitutional democracies. That is – abandon “all or nothing” confrontation, and instead pursue pragmatic bargains to achieve mutually agreeable policy outcomes.
At the most basic level, the government of national unity achieved this, at least for a while. The sharing of cabinet ministries between multiple parties created a diverse platform for executive power-sharing that was not dictated by a single dominant party, and which prevented the risks of parties building institutional fiefdoms.
In our view, failure to overcome deeply ingrained political differences could set off a downward spiral in the country.
Achievements on the governance front
On governance, the government of national unity created the space to pursue two sets of gains.
The first comprises the potential benefit of bringing together unlikely bedfellows.
The former opposition parties brought into a power-sharing arrangement were bound to be performance-driven, given the country’s long deteriorating government performance and ethical integrity. They had made “good governance” and criticism of the ANC central to their political brands.
New “outsider” eyes brought into formerly cloistered and factionalised ANC-run departments created the possibility of a new urgency to perform.
It’s too soon to tell whether this is happening, but anecdotal evidence suggests there are some green shoots.
The second governance gain comprises the crucial task of building a capable and professional state bureaucracy. The challenges include being able to pay the public sector wage bill, fostering a culture of delivery, and consolidating the bloated network of government departments.
Based on their party manifestos and public utterances, members of the government all aim to professionalise the public service.
Detailed technical work is already happening on issues such as training and competency assessment, transferring powers of appointment from politicians to senior public servants, and instituting checks in the recruitment and selection process. The National Assembly’s recent adoption of the Public Service Commission Bill forms part of this agenda.
The government of national unity has struggled to create effective mechanisms to translate agreement on a broad agenda of policy priorities into specific outcomes. This came at a higher cost than expected.
Still, it has made gains in challenging policy areas. These gains have repeatedly been undermined by the perverse determination of sections within both the ANC and the DA to engage in brinkmanship.
On health, both parties agree on the principle of universalising access. They differ on how to achieve this. But at least one seemingly intractable sticking point has been resolved. Both sides agree that private medical aid schemes need to be retained as part of a broader strategy of pursuing health system reform.
On basic education, the public spat over the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill overshadows the potential to agree on balancing the autonomy of school governing bodies with the oversight role of provincial departments.
On land expropriation, the emotive rhetoric which followed the signing of the Expropriation Bill and the unwelcome and toxic intervention of international actors has overshadowed technical concerns which can be resolved.
On pro-growth policies: Operation Vulindlela, a joint Presidency and National Treasury initiative to unblock constraints in targeted economic sectors, has made significant strides. It has laid the groundwork for new rounds of growth-supporting infrastructural reforms and has the potential to build cohesion in the government of national unity. However, the DA’s attempt to lobby for a greater role in the strategic oversight of Operation Vulindlela in exchange for supporting the budget risks souring relations with the ANC.
What now?
A thriving inclusive society depends on powerful actors visibly committed to co-operation.
For all of the challenges confronting the government of national unity, it was built on a foundation of pragmatism. For the sake of South Africa’s future, it remains vital to build on this foundation. Obsolete top-down governing approaches must go. Pathways to performance must be lifted above political grandstanding. Constructive solutions should supersede ideological rigidity. South Africa has done it before. It can do it again.
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.
There are 861,000 domestic workers employed in South Africa. They make up about 25% of the informal (non-agricultural) labour sector. By and large, it is still uneducated, black working-class females who clean and care for the country’s middle- to upper-class homes. It’s an eerily familiar scene.
Paid domestic work provides a microcosm of South Africa’s continuing struggle with its apartheid past. While the slavery of the colonial era and the servitude of black people under apartheid’s white minority rule are now gone, paid domestic work has adapted to post-apartheid realities. A great deal has changed in the country’s legal landscape, but domestic labour preserves racial identities and inequalities.
We have researched domestic labour in South Africa extensively for more than a decade, including the first author’s PhD. We have done in-depth interviews with over 70 employers and workers through a range of studies in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.
Our research shows that these racial identities and inequalities persist, particularly when domestic employers and workers avoid discussing the racial aspects of their relationships, feeling these are “too close for comfort” and liable to evoke explosive apartheid-era stereotypes.
It’s clear that the injustices of paid domestic labour cannot be solved through legislation alone. The history, norms, and pain from the country’s past run too deep. They touch people personally, and affect the way they engage each other (or don’t).
Social change requires innovative solutions to disrupt the status quo, while also facing the country’s haunting past.
Changes on paper
The end of apartheid in 1994 brought about a wave of changes, including equal rights for all citizens. Labour laws were extensively reformed. Rights and standards for domestic workers were introduced to address wages, working conditions, and other aspects of employment, theoretically ensuring fair treatment.
The informal and private nature of domestic work makes it difficult to regulate. Progressive laws cannot reach here to eliminate cultural attitudes and behaviours that echo apartheid.
In other words…
In her 1980 book Maids and Madams, South African sociologist Jacklyn Cock was one of the first researchers to treat paid domestic labour as a reflection of broad structures of oppression in the country. She set out how apartheid racial hierarchies were overt, widely acknowledged, and crudely enacted. Domestic workers faced conditions close to slavery, with employers wielding unchecked power over their lives. Domestic work reinforced a rigid racial hierarchy, clearly demarcating the roles and status of the “madam” and the “maid”.
Through a close analysis of extensive interviews, our research shows how language underpins this relationship today, both through what is said and what isn’t. Domestic workers and employers go to great lengths not to talk about themselves as the “maid” or the “madam”. They focus instead on intimacy, reciprocation, and mutual support, avoiding the need to negotiate their employment relationship or any other topic that might arouse issues relating to race or inequality.
Middle- to upper-class employers are particularly sensitive to racial stereotypes and avoid language that hints at hierarchy or power. They sometimes say that domestic workers “feel like one of the family”, which obscures the underlying power dynamics.
This matters because it allows potentially unfair or exploitative labour practices to be carried out under the guise of “familial” relations. For example, we might expect an aunt to go the extra mile for the family, staying late to help out and showing she cares about the household. Outside of these familial boundaries, an “employee” should not have these obligations.
Polite language can create a veneer of equality that hides ongoing exploitation. To avoid sounding like “the baas” (boss) or “the madam”, with racial overtones, many employers are reluctant to give direct feedback or set clear boundaries for their employees.
Instead, we found that many give ambiguous instructions, or no instructions at all, avoiding the uncomfortable post-apartheid situation of being a middle-class white woman telling a working-class black woman what to do. This can lead to confusion, frustration, and potentially unfair treatment. As a result, employers may feel that their expectations go unfulfilled and workers don’t know what is required of them.
Calculations based on Quarterly Labour Force Statistics consistently demonstrate that only 20% of domestic workers are registered for the state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund. Instead, work relationships are regulated by informal understandings between parties, a fact that became apparent when domestic workers could not access unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
A contract requires negotiations that would make the employment-centred nature of the relationship, with its hierarchy and expectations, undeniable for all involved.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these sensitivities and avoidances are apparent in conversations with domestic workers too. Workers prefer to focus on the value of their labour and justify, subvert, and evaluate their place in their employer’s household. Sometimes they talk about themselves as being “the boss” or “the owner” of the house, based on the responsibilities they have, the types of work they do – like caring for children or the elderly in the household – and the amount of time that they spend tending the home.
However, these assertions have a hollow ring when workers are excluded from big decisions in the household, like their right to have visitors, or small decisions like where to place household furniture. Feeling like part of the family is ruptured by exclusion from intimate moments like family celebrations, creating an all too familiar reminder of race and hierarchy.
Moving forward
The very real progress that has been made over the past 30 years of democracy should be celebrated. Legal reforms have achieved basic rights for domestic workers. Nevertheless, the spectre of apartheid still haunts South Africa and it’s clear that much work remains to be done.
It’s our view that disrupting the patterns that seem so ingrained in this relationship will take fresh thinking. Mutually negotiated employment contracts should be a norm. Professionalising paid domestic labour provides the opportunity to break the informality that has come to define domestic labour relations in South Africa.
And, with increasing access to the internet in South Africa, the digitisation of domestic labour holds promise for instituting social change through technology.
Workers have greater agency to market themselves, choose where and who to work for, and to rate and regulate employers. Online platforms could also provide the opportunity for vetting each other and for negotiating compliance with regulations.
Kevin Durrheim receives funding from the National Research Foundation.
Amy Jo Murray 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.
CT scans are a vital part of modern medicine. Found in every hospital and many clinics, they give doctors a fast and detailed look inside the body – helping to diagnose everything from cancer and strokes to internal injuries. But a new study suggests there may be a hidden cost to our growing reliance on this technology.
The study, published in Jama Internal Medicine, warns that CT scans performed in the US in 2023 alone could eventually lead to over 100,000 extra cancer cases. If the current rate of scanning continues, the researchers say CT scans could be responsible for around 5% of all new cancers diagnosed each year.
That figure has raised concerns. Especially when you consider that the number of CT scans done in the US has jumped by 30% in just over a decade. In 2023, there were an estimated 93 million CT exams carried out on 62 million people.
The risk from a single scan is low – but not zero. And the younger the patient, the greater the risk. Children and teenagers are especially vulnerable because their bodies are still developing, and any damage caused by ionising radiation may not show up until many years later.
That said, over 90% of CT scans are performed on adults, so it’s this group that faces the largest overall impact. The most common cancers linked to CT exposure are lung, colon, bladder and leukaemia. For women, breast cancer is also a significant concern.
What makes this latest estimate so striking is how much it has grown. In 2009, a similar analysis projected around 29,000 future cancers linked to CT scans. The new number is over three times higher – not just because of more scans, but because newer research allows for a more detailed analysis of radiation exposure to specific organs.
The study also makes an eye-catching comparison: if things stay as they are, CT-related cancers could match the number of cancers caused by alcohol or excess weight – two well-known risk factors.
Not all scans carry the same level of risk. In adults, scans of the abdomen and pelvis are thought to contribute the most to future cancer cases. In children, it’s head CTs that pose the biggest concern – especially for babies under the age of one.
Often life-saving
Despite all this, doctors stress that CT scans are often life-saving and remain essential in many cases. They help catch conditions early, guide treatment and are crucial in emergencies. The challenge is making sure they’re only used when really needed.
Newer technologies could help reduce the risk. Photon-counting CT scanners, for example, deliver lower doses of radiation, and MRI scans don’t use radiation at all. The researchers suggest that better use of diagnostic checklists could also help doctors decide when a scan is necessary, and when a safer alternative like MRI or ultrasound might do the job.
It’s worth noting that this study doesn’t prove CT scans cause cancer in individual people. The estimates are based on “risk models” – not direct evidence. In fact, the American College of Radiology points out that no study has yet linked CT scans directly to cancer in humans, even after multiple scans.
Still, the idea that radiation can cause cancer isn’t new. It’s scientifically sound. And with the huge number of scans being done, even small risks can add up.
CT scans save lives, but they’re not risk-free. As medical technology evolves, so too should the way we use it. By cutting down on unnecessary scans, using safer alternatives where possible, and keeping radiation doses as low as practical, we can ensure CT scans continue to help more than they harm.
Justin Stebbing 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.
Who will care for your ageing relatives when you can’t? It’s a question that many families in Europe are having to answer, as demographic changes caused by Europe’s ageing populations become more deeply embedded.
As loved ones get older or face long-term illnesses and disabilities, the demand for care is skyrocketing. But the workforce isn’t keeping up. One in five Europeans is already 65 or older, and by 2050, that number will hit 30%. This demographic shift will drive a 23.5% increase in demand for long-term care workers – but where will they come from?
Right now, the numbers don’t add up. Europe’s long-term care sector employs around 6.3 million people, yet there is already a massive shortfall of carers. Millions of families are stepping in, with 44 million Europeans – mostly women – providing unpaid, informal care for elderly relatives. This burden is neither sufficiently acknowledged nor sustainable. Our recent research shows the extent to which migrant care workers bridge this gap.
Across the EU, nearly 10% of long-term care workers are foreign-born. Some come from within the EU, but many arrive from South America (20%), Africa (12%), and Asia (10%). Once in Europe, they plug a critical gap in the care system, taking on jobs that local workers won’t or can’t do.
Despite their essential role, migrant care workers frequently suffer poor treatment. Many work on temporary contracts, earning lower wages than their European counterparts and contending with exploitative conditions. Some work in undeclared jobs, leading to informal roles with no legal protections, making them vulnerable to abuse.
In Norway, migrant carers tend to be given lower-status jobs, even when their qualifications match or exceed those of their local colleagues. They are also perceived as less professional, despite their experience and training. In Germany, a family hiring a Polish caregiver through an agency was shocked to learn she received just €1,000 (£860) per month, while they were paying €2,800 (£2400) – with the agency pocketing the difference.
In some EU countries, restrictive immigration policies make things harder for migrant care workers. In Cyprus and Malta, for example, migrant care workers on temporary visas are denied access to social benefits, even after years of service. Many also struggle with language barriers, making it harder to assert their rights or have their qualifications recognised.
Labour shortages
Nearly all EU countries face critical labour shortages in long-term care. The problem is worse in lower-income EU countries, where attracting and retaining care workers is more difficult. Low wages and difficult working conditions make these jobs unattractive to locals, pushing many to seek employment in western European countries with better pay.
The disparities are stark. In the Netherlands, long-term care workers earn 96% of the national average hourly wage. In Bulgaria, it is just 62%. Many eastern European and Baltic states also suffer from a lack of home care services, forcing families to rely on underfunded nursing homes or informal, unregulated care.
The European Commission introduced the skills and talents package in 2022, to improve conditions and legal migration processes for workers in sectors with shortages. This included a proposal for the EU Talent Pool – a digital platform to connect employers in the EU with skilled workers from non-EU countries. The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee endorsed the plan in March of this year, paving the way for a new approach to international recruitment.
If properly implemented, this initiative could help fill Europe’s care workforce gap and provide a legal, structured pathway for skilled migrants to join the sector. But public resistance to migration remains a huge barrier.
Anti-immigration sentiment
Europeans want their elderly relatives to receive quality care, but many are unwilling to accept that foreign workers are one of the ways to make that happen. This tension between public attitudes and economic realities threatens the future of long-term care in Europe.
Research shows that western European Millennials (born 1982–1991) are now more anti-immigrant than those born between 1952–1961.
The EU recognises the need for foreign workers, yet politicians are reluctant to make the case publicly. Public attitudes towards migration remain deeply divided, with preference often given to migrants from other EU countries or from Ukraine, following Russia’s 2022 invasion.
The EU’s reliance on migrant care workers will only increase in the coming decades. However, simply recruiting more foreign workers is not a sustainable solution unless the system itself changes.
Several measures could help ensure that migrant care workers receive fair treatment. Firstly, introducing a specific care visa for non-EU workers would ensure they have legal status and job security. Stronger legal protections against exploitative contracts and unfair wages are necessary. And making it easier to recognise foreign qualifications would allow skilled workers to take on roles that better match their experience.
Fairer wages and working conditions are essential to attract and retain both migrant and local workers. International cooperation between the EU and third countries could also create ethical, regulated migration pathways.
The bottom line is this: Europe’s population is getting older, and without migrant workers, millions of families will struggle to find care for their loved ones. Europe must support and protect workers, both migrant and local, in the care system for its own sake.
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.
A Palestinian advocacy group has called on NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters to take a firm stand for international law and human rights by following the Maldives with a ban on visiting Israelis.
Maher Nazzal, chair of the Palestine Forum of New Zealand, said in an open letter sent to both NZ politicians that the “decisive decision” by the Maldives reflected a “growing international demand for accountability and justice”.
He said such a measure would serve as a “peaceful protest against the ongoing violence” with more than 51,000 people — mostly women and children — being killed and more than 116,000 wounded by Israel’s brutal 18-month war on Gaza.
Since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18, at least 1630 people have been killed — including at least 500 children — and at least 4302 people have been wounded.
The open letter said:
Dear Prime Minister Luxon and Minister Peters,
I am writing to express deep concern over the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to urge the New Zealand government to take a firm stand in support of international law and human rights.
Palestinian Forum of New Zealand chair Maher Nazzal at an Auckland pro-Palestinian rally . . . “New Zealand has a proud history of advocating for human rights and upholding international law.” Image: Asia Pacific Report
The Maldives has recently announced a ban on Israeli passport holders entering their country, citing solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemnation of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
This decisive action reflects a growing international demand for accountability and justice.
New Zealand has a proud history of advocating for human rights and upholding international law. In line with this tradition, I respectfully request that the New Zealand government consider implementing a temporary suspension on the entry of Israeli passport holders. Such a measure would serve as a peaceful protest against the ongoing violence and a call for an immediate ceasefire and the protection of civilian lives.
I understand the complexities involved in international relations and the importance of maintaining diplomatic channels. However, taking a stand against actions that result in significant civilian casualties and potential violations of international law is imperative.
I appreciate your attention to this matter and urge you to consider this request seriously. New Zealand’s voice can contribute meaningfully to the global call for peace and justice.
Sincerely, Maher Nazzal Chair Palestine Forum of New Zealand
JUST IN: 🇲🇻🇮🇱 Maldives President officially signs the law banning Israelis from entering the country. pic.twitter.com/rKRnlEw6WK
President Mohamed Muizzu signed the legislation after it was passed on Monday by the People’s Majlis, the Maldivian parliament.
Muizzu’s cabinet initially decided to ban all Israeli passport holders from the idyllic island nation in June 2024 until Israel stopped its attacks on Palestine, but progress on the legislation stalled.
A bill was presented in May 2024 in the Maldivian parliament by Meekail Ahmed Naseem, a lawmaker from the main opposition, the Maldivian Democratic Party, which sought to amend the country’s Immigration Act.
The cabinet then decided to change the country’s laws to ban Israeli passport holders, including dual citizens. After several amendments, it passed this week, more than 300 days later.
“The ratification reflects the government’s firm stance in response to the continuing atrocities and ongoing acts of genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people,” Muizzu’s office said in a statement.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that at least 1,613 Palestinians had been killed since 18 March, when a ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023 to 50,983.
The ban went into immediate effect.
“The Maldives reaffirms its resolute solidarity with the Palestinian cause,” the statement added.
Last year, in response to talk of a ban, Israel’s Foreign Ministry advised its citizens against travelling to the country.
The Maldives, a popular tourist destination, has a population of more than 525,000 and about 11,000 Israeli tourists visited there in 2023 before the Israeli war on Gaza began.
We now have the competing bids for our votes by the alternative governments on income tax policy.
From Labor, future cuts to the lowest marginal tax rate and new standard deductions for work expenses. From the Coalition, a one-off return to a tax offset for low and middle income earners that was previously nicknamed the “lamington”.
Our modelling shows slightly higher benefits for low- and middle-income earners from the Coalition’s proposals compared to Labor’s.
Labor’s drip-fed tax policies
The Labor government announced its main tax proposal in the recent budget. It is a permanent cut in the lowest marginal tax rate.
Currently, the tax rate on income between A$18,201 and $45,000 is 16%. This will drop to 15% from July 2026 and then to 14% from July 2027.
This will reduce the tax paid by taxpayers in all income brackets, with most receiving $536 a year in relief. But it is proportionately larger for those on lower incomes.
At the weekend, the government announced an additional measure: allowing everyone to claim a standard tax deduction of $1,000 instead of claiming individual work-related expenses.
Those with expenses over $1,000 can continue to claim their deduction in the current way. The government estimates this measure will assist 39% of taxpayers. The average relief for those benefiting will be $205 per year.
Coalition’s revived tax offset
Also at the weekend, the Coalition released its tax policies. It is essentially proposing the reintroduction of the Low and Middle Income Tax Offset (“LMITO”, which led to the nickname the “lamington”), for one financial year only.
The Morrison government introduced a low- and middle-income tax offset in the 2018-19 tax year. It was subsequently extended, but then abolished by the Labor government.
It is now called the Cost of Living Tax Offset. Those with taxable incomes between $48,000 and $104,000 will get a one-off rebate of $1,200. Other taxpayers with incomes below $144,000 will get smaller rebates.
Although Dutton was critical of Labor’s income tax cuts for not starting until 2026, the one-off rebate would also not be paid until mid-2026.
Dutton has not explained why he said three weeks ago that the budget position would not allow for income tax cuts but now he thinks it does.
Who benefits most from the competing proposals?
We have estimated the distribution of the benefits from Labor’s proposed tax cut (but not the instant tax deduction) and the Coalition’s one-year tax offset.
Given a federal election is held every three years, the estimates are provided up to mid-2028. This resulted in a slightly higher cumulative figure of around $10 billion for the Labor proposal (over two years) and $11 billion for the Coalition proposal (over one year). This is slightly higher than the Coalition’s own estimate.
The following charts show disposable household income deciles from the poorest 10% to the 10% with the highest incomes. This is household income that has been adjusted to allow comparison of income levels between households of differing size and composition.
The chart indicates slightly higher benefits from the Coalition for households in the lowest and second-lowest income groups. This may be an overestimate as it assumes those earning less than $37,000 get a $265 benefit. The policy is rather vague on this, saying only that they would get “up to” $265.
The Coalition proposal provides a somewhat higher benefit for middle income earners, but withdraws it for those on higher incomes.
All individual taxpayers earning above $45,000 will receive the same benefit from the Labor proposal. But differences in household composition mean that the benefit calculated by household continues to rise somewhat.
The Coalition proposal gives no benefits to individuals earning over $144,000. But even the households in the highest income groups have some members earning less than this, such as adult children living at home. So the average household with a high income will still get some benefit.
In terms of family type, the Coalition proposal will give less benefit than the Labor plan to couples with children but more to other groups, especially single parents.
From these distributions of both income level and family type, it seems that neither party has a clear plan to target their own traditional constituencies with these policies. The Coalition proposal may be targeting households in outer suburban marginal seats which tend to have more low and middle income households.
How much will they cost?
According to the budget papers, Labor’s cut to the lowest marginal rate will cost $3 billion in 2026-27, $6.7 billion in 2027-28 and $7.4 billion in 2028-29.
The cost of the instant tax deduction will be $2.4 billion over four years.
The Coalition has claimed its rebate would cost $10 billion in 2026-27.
This would of course increase if a Dutton government feels under pressure to extend the new rebate, as happened with the LMITO.
Disappointing for democratic decision-making
It is very disappointing that both major parties are releasing key policies on taxation and housing literally only days before people start voting.
Previous leaders like Robert Menzies (when opposition leader from 1943 to 1949) and Gough Whitlam (1967 to 1972) would spend years developing, then explaining and advocating for policies. This gave time for them to be scrutinised, and if necessary revised, before voters were asked to pass judgement.
John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist in the Australian Treasury.
Yogi Vidyattama 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.
Australia’s renters have to battle rising rents and a lack of available properties. They also face ongoing instability. Our new research suggests half of all landlords sell their investment properties after only two years, adding to renters’ insecurity.
Our study released by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, models the behaviour of landlords using longitudinal data from 2001 to 2021. It looks at what motivates small-scale investors to buy, sell or keep their rental properties.
This work can inform future planning for the private rental sector, which has been projected to continue expanding. Both Labor and the Coalition were strongly criticised for making little mention of renters or supply in their housing policies released on Sunday.
The short-term owners
Those landlords who got rid of their investment after two years, sometimes sooner, often did so because they hadn’t counted on the additional costs of property ownership or their circumstances changed because they divorced or lost their job.
While younger people aged 25–34 years were more likely to buy a rental
property compared to other age groups, this group was also more likely to sell their property sooner.
Landlords who sold after two years or less, were more likely to be women, unemployed, unmarried and with low-to-moderate incomes.
How this makes renting less secure
Landlords who sell after a relatively short investment period disrupt the supply of private rental housing, which can potentially have a negative impact on both tenant security and affordability.
This includes unplanned moves for renters after a notice period, as well as possible increases in the amount of rent they have to pay. This type of exposure to precarious housing conditions adversely affects the wellbeing of tenants.
This is especially important given that the share of private renters in Australia has risen over the last 20 years and there is ongoing concern about affordability among private renters. Private renters now represent about 30% of the market.
What motivates landlords?
Understanding the factors that increase the likelihood of landlords holding onto a property will contribute to tenure security in the rental sector.
These landlords tend to have higher educational qualifications, higher incomes and smaller mortgages on their own homes. As such, these landlords are financially stable and are able to withstand the higher economic costs of holding a rental property.
Our findings show there is value in establishing programs that offer education on property investment. This could support landlords’ efforts to hold their rental properties. It could also increase the supply of long-term rental housing for tenants.
As well, there should be more rigorous financial risk assessments by lenders and appropriate regulations so those who buy rental investment properties can afford to hold them.
Potential impact of policy changes
Policy changes that affect the costs of supplying rental housing for landlords could also have affordability consequences for renters.
Landlords will only continue to invest in the rental market if market conditions offer them income relative to their property values.
For instance, policy changes that apply long-term freezes to rent increases will reduce rental yields for landlords. This might in turn hurt the supply of rental properties available to renters.
Changes to policies affecting landlords’ tax positions could also have major impacts on whether they keep their rental investment over time.
For instance, if changes are made to capital gains tax and interest rates that directly increase the landlord’s cost of holding an investment property, they will likely pass these costs on to tenants.
As a consequence, rents would become less affordable. Any changes to tax settings that affect landlords need to be rolled out incrementally. This will avoid destabilising rental markets and reducing the supply of housing available for tenants.
Why we need a secure rental market
Increasing the supply of private rental dwellings would help make renting more affordable.
Individuals who can afford investment properties add to the supply of private rental stock. And if they can hold their rentals for long periods, the rental market becomes even more secure.
Those who can’t hold their rental investments for long can disrupt the supply of private rental housing, with potentially negative impacts on affordability and security.
Our study has focused on individual landlords, which make up the majority of suppliers of rental housing in Australia. However, improving tenure security for renters will require more than just encouraging a stable flow of rental housing from individual landlords.
Social housing is also a crucial source of secure housing for those who cannot compete in the private rental market. There is now an urgent need to redress decades of under-investment in social housing in Australia.
Ranjodh B. Singh has received funding from AHURI.
Chris Leishman receives funding from AHURI, SMCA, ARC, ESRC, the Office of the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Scottish Government, UK Government, Welsh Government, Northern Ireland Government, South Australia Government. He is a non-executive director of Housing Choices Australia, a Trustee for the UK’s Housing Studies Charitable Trust, Chair of the Australasian Housing Studies Association, editor of the Urban Studies journal, guest editor of the Regional Studies, Regional Studies journal. He is not a member of any political party in any country.
Rachel Ong ViforJ is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project FT200100422). She also receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
Jack Hewton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
As well as the election for the full House of Representatives, there will be an election on May 3 for 40 of the 76 senators. The 72 state senators have six-year terms, with half of them up for election every three years. The four territory senators are all up for election with each House election.
In a double dissolution election, all senators are up for election, but this election won’t be a double dissolution. State senators elected at this election will begin their six-year term on July 1.
The six states are entitled to equal representation in the Senate, so each state has 12 senators. This system greatly overrepresents Tasmania relative to its population. The ACT and Northern Territory have two senators each.
Senators are elected by proportional representation in their jurisdictions with preferences. At a half-Senate election, with six senators in each state up for election, a quota is one-seventh of the vote, or 14.3%. For the territories, a quota is one-third or 33.3%. Half a quota on primary votes (7.1% in a state) is usually enough to give a party a reasonable chance of election.
Voters will be instructed to number at least six boxes above the line or 12 below the line, but only one box above the line or six below is needed for a formal vote. Preferences are voter-directed, with the group ticket voting system scrapped before the 2016 election. Owing to exhausted votes, the final seats in states are likely to be filled on less than a full quota.
To become law, legislation must pass both the House and Senate in the same form. With the Senate’s proportional representation, it’s very unlikely to be under government control, so governments need to negotiate with other parties to pass their legislation through the Senate.
Party standings and seats up for election
The Coalition holds 30 of the 76 total senators, Labor 25, the Greens 11, One Nation two, the Jacqui Lambie Network (JLN) one, the United Australia Party (UAP) one and all others six.
During this term, Lidia Thorpe defected from the Greens, Fatima Payman from Labor and Tammy Tyrrell from JLN. As all three are state senators who were last elected in 2022, none will be up for election until 2028. The Coalition also lost two senators to defections (Gerard Rennick and David Van) – both were last elected in 2019 and will be up for election this year.
Other than the ACT and NT seats, the seats up for election were last up in 2019. At that election, the Coalition won 17 of the 36 state senators, Labor 11, the Greens six, One Nation one and Jacqui Lambie one.
The Coalition and One Nation combined won four of the six Queensland senators. In Tasmania, Labor and the Greens won three seats, the Liberals two and Lambie one. All other states were tied between the left and right blocs.
In the 2022 election, Labor and the Greens combined won four of the six Western Australian senators, Tasmania once again went three Labor and Greens, two Liberals and Tyrrell from JLN, and the other states were tied between the left and right. The state senators elected in 2022 are not up for election.
The four territory senators elected in 2022 will be up for election. In 2022, the ACT split one Labor and one for independent David Pocock, the first time its senators had not split one Labor, one Liberal. The NT is expected to once again be one Labor, one Country Liberal Party.
Here is a table of Senate seats up for election in 2025. I have ignored the defections of Rennick and Van from the Coalition in Queensland and Victoria. The good news for the left is that only Pocock’s ACT seat looks winnable for the right.
Left-wing parties likely to gain Senate seats
For either the left or the right to win four of the six senators for a state, they need to win nearly four quotas of votes or 57%.
The Poll Bludger’s BludgerTrack by state for the House currently gives Labor a 51.9–48.1 lead in New South Wales, a 52.1–47.9 lead in Victoria, a 56.4–43.6 lead in WA and a 54.7–45.3 lead in South Australia. The Coalition leads in Queensland by 52.7–47.3.
On these vote shares, NSW, Victoria, Queensland and SA would be tied 3–3 between the left and right, while the left would probably repeat their 4–2 win in WA from 2022.
A 3–3 split in Queensland would be a gain for the left from the right, as the right are defending a 4–2 split from 2019. A 4–2 win for the left in WA would also be a gain, as WA was 3–3 in 2019.
Tasmania doesn’t have enough polling to be included in BludgerTrack. But analyst Kevin Bonham, who is a Tasmanian, believes the likely outcome is two Labor, two Liberals, one Green and one to Lambie, the same as in 2019.
There haven’t been any ACT Senate polls, but cities are becoming more left-wing, and the ACT is just a city. In 2022, Labor won the ACT by 67.0–33.0 in the House, a 5.3% two-party swing to Labor. It’s plausible that any Trump-inspired backlash against the Coalition will be strongest in the ACT, so it may be difficult for the Liberals to regain their ACT Senate seat.
If Labor and the Greens gain Senate seats in Queensland and WA, Pocock retains in the ACT, and there are no other changes to the left-right balance, the new Senate would have 38 seats for Labor and the Greens, 33 for the Coalition, One Nation and UAP, and one each of Pocock, Lambie, Thorpe, Payman and Tyrrell.
It’s increasingly likely that Labor will win the House election. Labor and the Greens are likely to increase their Senate numbers. If Labor and the Greens hold 38 of the 76 Senate seats after the election, Labor would only need one more vote to pass legislation supported by the Greens but opposed by right-wing parties. The five others are mostly left-wing, so this shouldn’t be difficult.
Candidate nominations down from 2022
Candidate nominations were declared last Friday. The Poll Bludger said Saturday that there will be 330 total candidates for the Senate, down from 421 in 2022. The total number of groups (above the line boxes) dropped from 151 to 118.
Victoria has the most groups with 20, Queensland has 19, NSW and WA 18, SA 16 and Tasmania 12. With only two vacancies each, the ACT has seven groups and the NT eight.
Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Global markets have remained on edge after Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs caused panic worldwide. Now, more than ever, markets and economists are looking for trying to read the implications.
Joining us from Washington DC is Warwick McKibbin,
an internationally renowned economic modeller from the Australian National University whose services are now in high demand. McKibbin is also a former member of the Reserve Bank board.
With much earlier talk about whether Australia can do a deal with Trump on tariffs, McKibbon argues,
The best way to deal with the president is to ignore him. And I think that’s to take him off the front page of Australia’s newspapers for example. I think what we should be doing is accelerating a process that was already underway. And that was to open up our trade with other partners around the world, Korea, Southeast Asia, Europe, in particular.
There’s a lot of trading opportunities. Our products – fortunately for us – the ones we sell to the US, we can sell somewhere else. We know that that’s a flexibility we have.
McKibbin says it’s “unlikely” Trump’s trade wars will cause a recession in Australia, but,
the problem we do have is that we haven’t dealt with the key problems that Australia faces, which is low productivity. We have a productivity problem which means [you’re] more likely to have a recession if you’re not growing. The second thing is we haven’t been given enough fiscal space. That is, running budget surpluses when we have full employment. But we’ve been running budget deficits, so our debt-to-GDP ratio has gone up, which means we have got less capacity to respond. But we also have a flexible exchange rate, which is good news. That helped us during the Asian financial crisis and the global financial crisis. We have the central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia, [which] has plenty of capacity to cut interest rates if required.
Our modelling suggests that under the scenario of no change in the severe tariffs that the US put on in the beginning of April, you would probably cut interest rates in Australia by 50 basis points over the year as a result of the tariffs alone.
McKibbin says Australia’s interest rates are “probably a little bit too low”,
I think at the moment where we stand is without this shock Australia’s rates are probably a little bit too low, but probably close to being neutral. This shock will give you an extra 25 to 50 basis points capacity, if you need it. We’re still at full employment, and the bank worries about inflation relative to the target and still above the target if you adjust for the cyclical elements and about employment or output relative to potential which we’re very close to potential, so really there wasn’t a big case for a big interest rate cut.
On the Australian election, McKibbin outlines the need for reforms, which are not being much talked about in this campaign,
We know what the fundamental problems are in Australia. We need serious reform. We need to deal with the tax system not functioning properly. We have a cost of living crisis – our reaction is to pump more money into the housing market, to drive up demand relative to supply. We’re also hitting our own exports of higher education.
And so we’re actually responding completely the opposite way. And both parties are arguing for cutting foreign student numbers. That is a key export of the Australian economy.
The problem with the housing market is lack of supply. You don’t fix the lack of supply by attacking foreign students who are a very, very small part of the demand coming from immigration. And actually those students, they come and they go mostly.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fan Yang, Research fellow at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society., The University of Melbourne
Since 2024, the RECapture research team has been monitoring political disinformation and advertising in Australia.
Our focus is on WeChat, the primary news and information platform for Chinese speakers in Australia, and RedNote (Xiaohongshu), an emerging Chinese information sharing platform similar to Instagram.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Australia use these platforms. They’re often a main source of news.
Our research reveals while Australian news media often focus on foreign interference, in this election cycle, disinformation is being driven by commercial and domestic political interests.
These pose substantial threats to Chinese Australian communities and our democracy.
What is disinformation?
Defining disinformation often hinges on three criteria:
the truthfulness of the content
the intent behind its creation and dissemination
the harm it causes.
However, findings from our 2023 study on the Voice referendum challenge those assumptions. Disinformation isn’t as simple as true or false. It can involve ambiguous intent and produce harm that’s difficult to measure.
With these limitations, we focus on deliberate misrepresentations of policy positions and the manipulation of political speech intended to influence voter behaviour.
What have we discovered?
We found examples that misrepresented political statements and policies and capitalised on preexisting concerns within migrant communities.
Concerns include potential changes to investor visas, undocumented migration, humanitarian programs and Australia’s diplomatic relations with India, the US and China.
We also found several strategies, such as:
exaggerating the likelihood of events (like the revival of the Significant Investment Visa – an invitation-only visa for those investing at least A$5 million in certain sectors)
manipulating timelines and contexts (like re-hyping past news stories to create the impression the events are happening in the present)
and misaligning visuals and text to suggest misleading interpretations.
While we’re working to better understand who’s behind these cases, we know they’re not political parties. Here are two examples.
This post on RedNote, published in April, referred to several statements, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s speech at the Future of Western Sydney Summit. Albanese stated the government had a “balanced” immigration ratio.
However, the Chinese-language text accompanying the post omitted Labor’s past immigration policies and misrepresented the speech:
Labor grants amnesty to all? Albo embraces immigrants! Good news for Chinese people!
Discussions in the comments largely favoured a class-based immigration system. Users argued the Labor government disproportionately favoured humanitarian immigrants and greater preference should be given to upper and middle-class migrants.
We also found examples on WeChat.
On March 4, the Chinese-language media outlet AFN Daily published an article with the provocative headline:
I am furious! How shameless! Australia is really going to be in chaos!
The headline was sensational and intentionally ambiguous. It attracted reader attention to click through past four advertisements, including one political ad by the Liberal candidate for Bennelong, Scott Yung.
The article claimed the Coalition’s support had surpassed Labor’s, while presenting a segment of a poll in which Labor had actually received greater voter support for its welfare, healthcare and education policies.
The article further claimed the Labor Party had naturalised 12,500 new citizens – predominantly of Indian origin – in an attempt to sway the Chinese audience.
This claim had been explicitly refuted by Tony Burke back in February.
The article challenged this assertion by Burke and reinforced anti-Labor sentiment through racially charged narratives. It emphasised the strengthening diplomatic relations between Australia and India, and highlighted the growing number of South Asian and Middle Eastern migrants in comparison to Chinese migrants.
We also observed ad hoc disinformation narratives triggered by natural disasters or public emergencies.
For example, there was a claim on WeChat suggesting “the election is cancelled because of Cyclone Alfred.” Such disinformation requires timely intervention to prevent its rapid spread and impact.
Why is this so harmful?
The harms of disinformation are often more severe on digital media used by marginalised communities. Our research shows a few reasons why.
The limited regulatory oversight of these platforms makes the harms hard to fully identify and prevent.
Australian regulatory bodies keep intervention to address disinformation on these platforms to a minimum. This reflects broader national concerns around cybersecurity and foreign interference.
Unfortunately, this has resulted in a largely unregulated environment where political disinformation thrives during election cycles.
Finally, we see persistent disinformation narratives – from 2019, 2022, 2023 (around the Voice referendum), through to 2025 – where racial stereotypes intersect with partisan biases.
What can be done?
For Chinese-language platforms, our findings suggest disinformation might be less a product of foreign political actors, propaganda or linguistic barriers. What’s more important are the insular structure of WeChat and RedNote’s media ecosystems.
Tailored civic education and media literacy initiatives can help users to spot disinformation. Currently, grassroots debunking efforts are largely done by community members who comment beneath posts.
But more broadly, we need to support the public to think critically when reading digital news. This would help mitigate the exploitation of racial and gender biases for clicks and political point-scoring.
While automation is sometimes used to detect and debunk disinformation, its application is limited here. WeChat and RedNote prohibit external automated tools. Their own systems for flagging content generated by artificial intelligence don’t always work either.
Individual and coordinated human effort remains the best way to accurately inform Australian communities of their choices this election. This applies whether these communities tune in to mainstream broadcasts, major US-based social media platforms or Chinese language apps.
The authors would like to thank researchers Dan Dai, Stevie Zhang, and Mengjie Cai for their contributions to this project.
The research project is funded by the Susan McKinnon Foundation for the period 2024-2025.
Robbie Fordyce is a member of the grants panel for the Australian Communication Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). He has previously worked on studies of online political content that has been funded by the Australian Research Council and by ACCAN.
Luke Heemsbergen 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.
Much of the harm results from reckless and impulsive behaviour – including ram raids and gang violence – some people show when under methamphetamine’s influence.
Methamphetamine impairs decision making because it increases the likelihood of users acting impulsively, without regard to risk or long-term consequences.
There has been substantial research and several tests have been developed to measure and define impulsivity. However, the effect of stimulant drugs such as methamphetamine on impulsivity remains unclear.
Laboratory research can help us better understand impulsivity. Specially designed behavioural experiments present animals with choices that provide an equivalent of those humans might experience.
The results can help us unravel the complex nature of impulsivity which we can then translate to human experience and inform treatment programmes. In our research we used rats to study two situations related to impulsivity.
The first is a choice between a smaller reward given sooner or a larger reward received later, known as “delay discounting”. The other choice is between a smaller but certain reward and a larger uncertain reward, known as “probability discounting”. We also examined how the overall magnitude of the rewards affected choice.
How we consider choices
In human studies, people are often asked to make hypothetical choices about money.
In delay discounting, opting for the smaller/sooner reward is an impulsive choice. For example, imagine you are given a choice between $400 now and $500 in one year, and choose the $400 now.
However, if you were asked instead to choose between $40,000 now and $50,000 in one year, you may select the delayed option. When the rewards are larger, we are less likely to choose impulsively.
In probability discounting, choice of the larger/uncertain reward is impulsive. Imagine you are given a choice between $50 for sure or a 50% chance at $100. You might be willing to gamble on the larger amount.
But what if your choice was between $5,000,000 for sure and a 50% chance at $10,000,000? You would be more likely to choose the certain reward because we tend to be less impulsive when the possible loss is greater.
Complex nature of impulsivity
In our research, rats could choose between two alternatives that resulted in food rewards by pressing levers in an experimental chamber.
Some rats completed delay discounting sessions in which they chose between smaller/sooner and larger/later food outcomes. Other rats completed probability discounting sessions and chose between smaller/certain and larger/uncertain outcomes.
We also varied the overall amounts of food to confirm rats were less likely to choose impulsively with larger amounts. We measured the rats’ sensitivity to differences between delay, probability and magnitude.
Results were similar to studies with humans in that the rats’ choices reflected trade-offs between delay, probability and the amount of food. Impulsive choices were reduced with larger amounts.
We then gave the rats gradually increasing doses of methamphetamine and observed how their choices changed. Our results reflected the complex nature of impulsivity. Increasing methamphetamine doses resulted in decreasing sensitivity to the most salient difference between the two choices the rats experienced.
On methamphetamine, more rats chose the larger delayed reward. This means a decrease in impulsive choice because sensitivity to delay was reduced and the smaller/sooner option was less attractive.
However, we found the opposite in probability discounting. Here, methamphetamine increased preference for the larger/uncertain reward, indicating an increase in impulsivity because sensitivity to risk decreased.
Sensitivity to magnitude also decreased, meaning rats were more likely to choose impulsively even when the reward was large.
What this means for people
People are obviously cognitively more complex, but methamphetamine users also demonstrate decreased sensitivity to risk in response to tasks similar to those we used with rats.
Therefore our findings are applicable to human methamphetamine users and highlight that long-term changes to impulsivity should be taken into account in treatment programmes. This is especially important because effects on decision making can persist long after drug use during periods of abstinence.
Psycho-education on impulsivity could be incorporated into existing treatment programmes. This would mean educating methamphetamine users about their increased risks related to decision making and how that may affect treatment outcomes.
The Salvation Army’s Bridge Programme, a well-known drug rehabilitation programme with 20 centres throughout the country, is a good example. It uses a community reinforcement approach as part of their treatment, which involves participants building skills to cultivate rewarding experiences outside of drugs or alcohol use.
Rehabilitation processes could implement a psycho-education component focused on the increased vulnerability to risky choices, regardless of amount, of current and former methamphetamine users. This could raise the personal agency of participants by making them more aware of the increased risk factors for relapse and other negative decision making.
Psycho-education could help release people from the grip of this pervasive and increasingly prolific drug.
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.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on April 16, 2025.
Trump’s racist, corrupt agenda – like a bank robbery in broad daylight EDITORIAL: By Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal US President Donald Trump and his team is pursuing a white man’s racist agenda that is corrupt at its core. Trump’s advisor Elon Musk, who often seems to be the actual president, is handing his companies multiple contracts as his team takes over or takes
Why the Coalition’s tone-deaf diss track was bound to hit all the wrong notes Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Ward, Senior Lecturer in Music, School of Business and Creative Industries, University of the Sunshine Coast Hip-hop is a cultural powerhouse that has infiltrated every facet of popular culture, across a global market. That said, one place you usually don’t see it is on the election
Homelessness – the other housing crisis politicians aren’t talking about Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Parsell, Professor, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland Igor Corovic/Shutterstock Measures to tackle homelessness in Australia have been conspicuously absent from the election campaign. The major parties have rightly identified deep voter anxiety over high house prices. They have responded with a raft of
Superb fairy-wrens’ songs hold clues to their personalities, new study finds Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Diane Colombelli-Négrel, Senior Lecturer, Animal Behaviour, Flinders University Two superb fairy-wrens (_Malurus cyaneus_). ARKphoto/Shutterstock When we think of bird songs, we often imagine a cheerful soundtrack during our morning walks. However, for birds, songs are much more than background music – they are crucial to attract a
‘De-extinction’ of dire wolves promotes false hope: technology can’t undo extinction Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martín Boer-Cueva, Ecologist and Environmental Consultant, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Colossal Biosciences Over the past week, the media have been inundated with news of the “de-extinction” of the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) – a species that went extinct about 13,000 years ago. The breakthrough has been achieved
Students are neither left nor right brained: how some early childhood educators get this ‘neuromyth’ and others wrong Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate E. Williams, Professor of Education, University of the Sunshine Coast MalikNalik/ Shutterstock Many teachers and parents know neuroscience, the study of how the brain functions and develops, is important for children’s education. Brain development is recommended as part of teacher education in universities. Neuroscience is even
Trump’s trade war puts America’s AI ambitions at risk Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Zomaya, Professor, School of Computer Science, University of Sydney remotevfx.com/Shutterstock The global trade war triggered by US President Donald Trump earlier this month shows no signs of ending anytime soon. In recent days, China suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals that are vital
More bulk billing is fine. But what the health system really needs this election is genuine reform Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Worrying signs are emerging about aspects of Australia’s health system, which will require the attention of whoever wins the May election. Despite big money
Half way through the campaign, how are the major party leaders faring? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Mills, Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney More than two weeks in, we know one thing for sure. This time, the election campaign does matter. In decades past, when voters were more loyally rusted on to the major parties, news
Safe seat syndrome? Why some hospitals get upgrades and others miss out Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anam Bilgrami, Senior Research Fellow, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University On his campaign trail, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged A$200 million to upgrade St John of God Midland Public Hospital in Perth. He promised more beds and operating theatres, and a redesigned obstetrics
Allowing forests to regrow and regenerate is a great way to restore habitat Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Thomas, PhD candidate in Environmental Policy, The University of Queensland Cynthia A Jackson, Shutterstock Queensland is widely known as the land clearing capital of Australia. But what’s not so well known is many of the cleared trees can grow back naturally. The latest state government figures
A century after its discovery, scientists capture first confirmed footage of a colossal squid in the deep Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kat Bolstad, Associate professor, Auckland University of Technology The colossal squid was first described in 1925 based on specimens from the stomach of a commercially hunted sperm whale. A century later, an international voyage captured the first confirmed video of this species in its natural habitat –
Students are neither left or right brained: how some early childhood educators get this ‘neuromyth’ and others wrong Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate E. Williams, Professor of Education, University of the Sunshine Coast MalikNalik/ Shutterstock Many teachers and parents know neuroscience, the study of how the brain functions and develops, is important for children’s education. Brain development is recommended as part of teacher education in universities. Neuroscience is even
Pagan loaves, Christian bread, a secular treat: a brief history of hot cross buns Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Historian, Australian Catholic University Jasmine Waheed/Unsplash Hot cross buns aren’t just a sweet snack that appears around Easter. They carry centuries of storytelling in their dough. From ancient gods to modern supermarkets, these sticky spiced buns have crossed many borders and beliefs. Today,
US-China trade war leaves NZ worse off, but still well placed to weather the storm – new modelling Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niven Winchester, Professor of Economics, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Forecasting the potential impact of Donald Trump’s turbulent tariff policies is a fraught business – and fraught for business. The United States president has changed, paused and exempted various categories of goods so often, the only
Caitlin Johnstone: Every day the Gaza holocaust continues, the empire tells the truth about itself Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone Every day the Gaza holocaust continues, the Western empire tells the truth about itself. The US government is telling you the truth about itself. Israel is telling you the truth about itself. Their Western allies are telling you the truth about themselves.
PNG’s ‘chief servant’ James Marape defeats no-confidence vote By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape has survived a motion of no confidence against him in Parliament. During the proceedings, livestreamed on EMTV, Speaker Job Pomat announced the results of the vote as 16 votes in favour and 89 against. In moving the motion, the member for Abau,
Does Russia have military interest in Indonesia? Here’s what we know – and why Australia would be concerned Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sussex, Associate Professor (Adj), Griffith Asia Institute; and Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A news report that Russia has sought to base long-range aircraft in Indonesia caught Australia’s political leaders by surprise during an already hectic election campaign. The military publication Janes
Obama praises Harvard for ‘setting example’ to universities resisting Trump Asia Pacific Report Former US President Barack Obama has taken to social media to praise Harvard’s decision to stand up for academic freedom by rebuffing the Trump administration’s demands. “Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions — rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make
Election Diary: for a few hours, it seemed possible the Russians might be coming Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra For a few hours on Tuesday afternoon, it seemed just possible the Russians might be sending their planes to a base very near us. A claim on the military and intelligence site Janes that said the Russians were seeking to
US President Donald Trump and his team is pursuing a white man’s racist agenda that is corrupt at its core. Trump’s advisor Elon Musk, who often seems to be the actual president, is handing his companies multiple contracts as his team takes over or takes down multiple government departments and agencies.
Trump wants to be the “king” of America and is already floating the idea of a third term, an action that would be an obvious violation of the US Constitution he swore to uphold but is doing his best to violate and destroy.
Every time we hear the Trump team spouting a “return to America’s golden age,” they are talking about 60-80 years ago, when white people ruled and schools, hospitals, restrooms and entire neighborhoods were segregated and African Americans and other minority groups had little opportunity.
Every photo of leaders from that time features large numbers of white American men. Trump’s cabinet, in contrast to recent cabinets of Democratic presidents, is mainly white and male.
This is where the US going. And lest any white women feel they are included in the Trump train, think again. Anything to do with women’s empowerment — including whites — is being scrubbed off the agenda by Trump minions in multiple government departments and agencies.
“Women” along with things like “climate change,” “diversity,” “equality,” “gender equity,” “justice,” etc are being removed from US government websites, policies and grant funding.
The white racist campaign against people of colour has seen iconic Americans removed from government websites. For example, a photo and story about Jackie Robinson, a military veteran, was recently removed from the Defense Department website as part of the Trump team’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Broke whites-only colour barrier Robinson was not only a military veteran, he was the first African American to break the whites-only colour barrier in Major League Baseball and went on to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame for his stellar performance with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
How about the removal of reference to the Army’s 442nd infantry regiment from World War II that is the most decorated unit in US military history? The 442nd was a fighting unit comprised of nearly all second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who more than proved their courage and loyalty to the United States during World War II.
The Defense Department removing references to these iconic Americans is an outrage. But showing the moronic level of the Trump team, they also deleted a photo of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II because the pilot named it after his mother, “Enola Gay.”
Despite the significance of the Enola Gay airplane in American military history, that latter word couldn’t get past the Pentagon’s scrubbing team, who were determined to wash away anything that hinted at, well, anything other than white, heterosexual male. And there is plenty more that was wiped off the history record of the Defense Department.
Meanwhile, Trump, his team and the Republican Party in general while claiming to be focused on eliminating corruption is authorising it on a grand scale.
Elon Musk’s redirection of contracts to Starlink, SpaceX and other companies he owns is one example among many. What is happening in the American government today is like a bank robbery in broad daylight.
The Trump team fired a score of inspectors general — the very officials who actively work to prevent fraud and theft in the US government. They are eliminating or effectively neutering every enforcement agency, from EPA (which ensures clean air and other anti-pollution programmes) and consumer protection to the National Labor Relations Board, where the mega companies like Musk’s, Facebook, Google and others have pending complaints from employees seeking a fair review of their work issues.
Huge cuts to social security Trump with the aid of the Republican-controlled Congress is going to make huge cuts to Medicaid and Social Security — which will affect Marshallese living in America as much as Americans — all in order to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans and big corporations.
Then there is Trump’s targeting of judges who rule against his illegal and unconstitutional initiatives — Trump criticism that is parroted by Fox News and other Trump minions, and is leading to things like efforts in the Congress to possibly impeach judges or restrict their legal jurisdiction.
These are all anti-democracy, anti-US constitution actions that are already undermining the rule of law in the US. And we haven’t yet mentioned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its sweeping deportations without due process that is having calamitous collateral damage for people swept up in these deportation raids.
ICE is deporting people legally in the US studying at US universities for writing articles or speaking about justice for Palestinians. Whether we like what the writer or speaker says, a fundamental principle of democracy in the US is that freedom of expression is protected by the US constitution under the First Amendment.
That is no longer the case for Trump and his Republican team, which is happily abandoning the rule of law, due process and everything else that makes America what it is.
The irony is that multiple countries, normally American allies, have in recent weeks issued travel advisories to their citizens about traveling to the United States in the present environment where anyone who isn’t white and doesn’t fit into a male or female designation is subject to potential detention and deportation.
The immigration chill from the US will no doubt reduce visitor flow resulting in big losses in revenue, possibly in the billions of dollars, for tourism-related businesses.
Marshallese must pay attention Marshallese need to pay attention to what’s happening and have valid passports at the ready. Sadly, if Marshallese have any sort of conviction no matter how ancient or minor it is likely they will be targets for deportation.
Further, even the visa-free access privilege for Marshallese and other Micronesians is apparently now under scrutiny by US authorities based on a statement by US Ambassador Laura Stone published recently by the Journal
It is a difficult time being one of the closest allies of the US because the RMI must engage at many levels with a US government that is presently in turmoil.
Giff Johnson is the editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and one of the Pacific’s leading journalists and authors. He is the author of several books, including Don’t Ever Whisper, Idyllic No More, and Nuclear Past, Unclear Future. This editorial was first published on 11 April 2025 and is reprinted with permission of the Marshall Islands Journal. marshallislandsjournal.com
Freedom of speech at the Marshall Islands High School
Messages of “inclusiveness” painted by Marshall Islands High School students in the capital Majuro. Image: Giff Johnson/Marshall Islands Journal
The above is one section of the outer wall at Marshall Islands High School. Surely, if this was a public school in America today, these messages would already have been whitewashed away by the Trump team censors who don’t like any reference to “inclusiveness,” “women,” and especially “gender equality.”
However, these messages painted by MIHS students are very much in keeping with Marshallese society and customary practices of welcoming visitors, inclusiveness and good treatment of women in this matriarchal society.
But don’t let President Trump know Marshallese think like this. — Giff Johnson
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Ward, Senior Lecturer in Music, School of Business and Creative Industries, University of the Sunshine Coast
Hip-hop is a cultural powerhouse that has infiltrated every facet of popular culture, across a global market. That said, one place you usually don’t see it is on the election campaign trail.
That’s right, I’m talking about the track “Leaving Labour” – the Liberal-National Coalition’s latest attempt to create beef with the Australian Labor Party, via a hip-hop track from an unnamed artist.
You only need to go as far as the (very entertaining) comments section on the Coalition’s SoundCloud to see what people think of the campaign’s new track, the lyrics of which include such zingers as “I just wanna buy some eggs and cheese, a hundred bucks you kidding me?” and “real prices are at the pinnacle”.
For many, it hasn’t struck the right chord. But that will be no surprise to anyone who knows what hip-hop is really about.
With artists such as Lil Baby telling us there are “too many mothers that’s grieving, they kill us for no reason”, and Lil Nas X’s dance with the devil, helping the LGBTQIA+ community rise to prominence while challenging cultural norms, modern hip-hop provides a voice to the disaffected and the oppressed.
Diss tracks: hip-hop through and through
The culture of hip-hop – birthed in the Bronx, New York City, in 1973 – is built on five pillars central to the movement. These are MCing (rapping), DJing (turntablism), breakdancing, graffiti and, last but not least, knowledge.
The first four pillars represent paradigm shifts in the culture of resistance towards non-violent means – initially in African American culture, but today more broadly across the world. The final pillar, knowledge, speaks to the power of education, both formal and street.
The diss (short for disrespect) track is deeply embedded in hip-hop, as it can be considered synonymous with MCing itself. Built on the tradition of Jamaican competitive “toasting”, it was initially a way for MCs to non-violently instigate, battle through, and resolve disputes and conflict.
Over the past 40 year, the diss track has emerged as a form in and of itself, with far-reaching influence. During the East Coast–West Coast hip-hop feuds of the 90s, Biggie Smalls and 2Pac famously traded diss tracks up until both artists were murdered (with the murders often cited as fuelled by the tracks themselves).
In the late 90s and 2000s, artists such as JayZ dissed Mobb Deep and Nas, and vice versa. Nas’ track Ether was so influential it entered the word “ethered” into the hip-hop lexicon as a synonym for being defeated.
Eminem has also established himself as a kind of lyrical assassin, releasing more than 40 diss tracks over some 20 years. His targets have included Limp Bizkit, Mariah Carey, Machine Gun Kelly and Will Smith, to name a few.
More recently, Kendrick Lamar and Drake gained global attention for what can only be described as a beef for the annuls of hip-hop history.
Social media and streaming platforms have increased the speed at which artists can trade blows back and forth. Shutterstock
What were they thinking?
So, if diss tracks have a rich history of anti-establishment action, protest, and are largely deployed by minority voices, why would a party campaigning on conservative “mainstream” values commission a hip-hop track to take on its political rival?
It’s less likely the track signals some kind of cultural shift in the Coalition, and more likely it shows a high level of cultural tone-deafness. This is similar to conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, who was heavily criticised for dropping a racist rap track last year after spending most of his career claiming “rap isn’t music”.
It’s difficult for him and his party to justify using the cultural capital of hip-hop in their campaign. Diss tracks are inherently embedded in Black American spaces and history, and can’t be separated from this. When a largely white, Australian political party adopts this medium – with no ties to the culture it came from – it will feel inauthentic.
Michael Idato, culture editor-at-large at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, described the track as “a hip-hop miss with the rhyming genius of a Little Golden Book”. Another headline from Sky News called it a “bizarre election move amid poor polls”.
Also, for a year where arts policies have been all but completely absent from the election trail, it seems disingenuous for the Coalition to now use art for their own means.
Andy Ward 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.
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