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Category: Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Global: Land reform in South Africa doesn’t need a new law: the state should release property it owns – economists

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Johann Kirsten, Director of the Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch University

    South Africa’s new Expropriation Act, which was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in January 2025, has been at the centre of a political storm set off by the new US administration under President Donald Trump.

    The Expropriation Act is not entirely new. It mainly updates the existing legislation from 1975 to align it with the constitution of democratic South Africa. But some have misinterpreted it as making room for land grabs by the state. That’s not what it does in reality. Property rights remain intact in South Africa.

    Hot on the heels of this furore has been a notice from the minister of land reform and rural development, Mzwanele Nyhontso, that the government is embarking on a new bit of legislation, the “Equitable Access to Land Bill”.

    There have been discussions over the last 10 years about developing a land reform framework bill or land redistribution bill. The main idea is to foster conditions that enable citizens to get access to land equitably. Land ownership was heavily skewed towards white people under apartheid.

    The parliamentary committee heard from the minister on 20 February 2025 that there were gaps between the white paper on South African land policy and existing legislation. The bill seeks to close the gaps. It would provide for, among other things, principles for access to land, access to land by the state and citizens, the identification and selection of beneficiaries, applications and records for land allocations, a register of agricultural land, notification of present land ownership, land ownership ceilings, a land tribunal and regulations.

    Based on our years of work on land reform and agricultural policy it’s unclear to us why such a bill is necessary. We believe there are two reasons a new law would be superfluous. Firstly, South Africa already has roughly 16 laws that address the issue of land. Secondly, policymakers tend to ignore the facts on land reform progress.

    It is hard not to view the obsession with new legislation by every new minister as a distraction from the core issues. The minister should be focusing on distributing the land the government has acquired to black farmers and give them title deeds. This will be sufficient effort to build an inclusive agricultural sector, while continuing with existing programmes of land acquisition from the open market.

    There are also other areas that should be reformed that would make a difference. These include making more finance available to aspirant black farmers and fixing the deeds office to reduce land registration times.

    What’s in place

    There should be no need for new legislation if one considers all the different pieces of legislation and government programmes that are already aimed at a more equitable distribution of land. There are at least 16 laws related to farm land and the restitution and redistribution process. These include:

    • Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Act, signed into
      law in January 2025

    • State Land Disposal Act, 1961 (Act No. 48 of 1961)

    • Deeds Registries Act, 1937 (Act No. 47 of 1937)

    • Land Reform: Provision of Land and Assistance Act, 1993 (Act No. 126 of
      1993)

    • Restitution of Land Rights Act, 1994 (Act No. 22 of 1994)

    • Communal Property Associations Act, 1996 (Act No. 28 of 1996)

    • Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act, 1996 (Act No. 3 of 1996)

    • Protection of Informal Land Rights Act, 1996 (Act No. 31 of 1996)

    • Extension of Security of Tenure Act, 1997 (Act No. 62 of 1997).

    In addition, South African policymakers tend to ignore the facts on land reform progress.

    As we have argued before, the mix of government programmes to restore land rights and redistribute land has already addressed 25% of the total area of farm land defined and registered by formal title deeds. This means that 19.5 million hectares of the 77.5 million hectares of South Africa’s farm land have been affected by the government land reform programmes.

    There is an important nuance here: 2.5 million hectares have been acquired by the state and are now owned by the State Land Holding Account.

    Calls for the state to redistribute this land to black farmers have been falling on deaf ears, and black farmers continue to despair.

    The government has been slow to distribute the land it has acquired. This shows that the problem of South Africa’s land reform is not only about acquisition but also the distribution of land with title deeds to beneficiaries.

    Included in the total of 19.5 million hectares are private purchases of farm land by black South Africans. We estimate a total of 2.4 million hectares have been acquired in this way up to the end of 2024.

    These individuals used their own funds or borrowed funds to acquire the land without using any of the state programmes.

    Some answers

    We have always argued that the private transactions where no bureaucrats are involved happen much quicker than any government programmes. The table below shows the relevant statistics for the last four years and confirms the argument.

    The table shows that over the last four years private land transactions (that is without any involvement of bureaucrats) have contributed 32% to the total area of farmland transferred or restituted. The land claims process, in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act, has made the biggest contribution of 60% (with 36% of land restituted via financial compensation and 24% of land transferred to claimants). Other government land reform programmes made a very small contribution.

    Do we have more equitable access to farm land (or rural land) after 30 years of democracy? To answer this question, we need to take into account the occupation of farm land under traditional tenure arrangements and occupation on land owned by the state, including the South African Development Trust land as well as the land recently acquired by the state under the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy programme, which is in most cases leased to black beneficiaries for short terms.

    In addition, we account for the land redistribution programme and the land transferred back to land claimants. The numbers below provide an interesting picture of black ownership of rural land in South Africa. In some provinces, equitable access has shown remarkable progress, as shown in the table below.

    Instead of a new law, this is what’s needed

    First, access to affordable and preferential finance for land acquisition by black farmers would make an important contribution to equitable access. But no new law is needed to enable this. The answer lies in changing the way the Land Bank is funded so that it can provide affordable finance to aspirant farmers. This would be a game changer.

    Secondly, government should act on the president’s proposal to establish the Land Reform Agency, release more unused state land for agricultural use and change the regulations to facilitate private land donations to beneficiaries.

    Thirdly, fix the processes and data issues in the deeds office, which could reduce the time and costs to register property transfers.

    Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).

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

    – ref. Land reform in South Africa doesn’t need a new law: the state should release property it owns – economists – https://theconversation.com/land-reform-in-south-africa-doesnt-need-a-new-law-the-state-should-release-property-it-owns-economists-250674

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What do I do with expired medicine? Don’t use it, for a start…

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Renier Coetzee, Associate Professor, University of the Western Cape

    There are many risks associated with taking expired medicine and with not properly disposing of medication. JGI/Tom Grill

    When last did a headache have you reaching into your medicine cabinet – and finding a bottle of aspirin that expired three years ago? Did you take it anyway? And, if you decided instead to get rid of those out-of-date painkillers, how did you do it? If you chose to throw it in the garbage or flush it down the toilet, you’re far from alone: a 2020 research review found that “disposal of pharmaceuticals by garbage and sewer is still the most common method in many countries with the absence of the proper disposal of expired medications from the patient side”.

    The problem is that both using expired medication and disposing of it unsafely comes with significant health, economic and environmental risks.

    The Conversation Africa asked pharmacy professor Renier Coetzee, who is also the vice-president of the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, about the risks posed by using expired medication, and how to safely dispose of expired and surplus medicines.

    Why is it dangerous to take expired medication?

    Expiration dates for medicines are determined through stability testing. This involves assessing how long a medicine remains safe and effective under various storage conditions. Manufacturers typically provide conservative estimates of expiration dates to ensure a medicine’s quality and safety.

    Medications degrade over time. That means they may not work as intended once they reach and pass their expiry date. This is of particular concern with medicines like antibiotics: subtherapeutic doses (those which are too low to work properly and so do not fully treat the illness or infection) can contribute to antimicrobial resistance.



    Read more:
    Antibiotic resistance threatens to “undo a century of medical progress”: 5 essential reads

    Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses or fungi stop responding to medicines (like antibiotics). This makes infections harder to treat. And that, in turn, increases the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

    Reduced potency in chronic disease medications like insulin or heart medication is also a worry, since this can have serious health consequences.

    Some expired medications can break down into harmful compounds. One example is ciprofloxacin. This antibiotic is used mostly to treat infections in the urinary and upper and lower respiratory tracts. Studies have shown that it can degrade into toxic byproducts that may harm the kidneys (and be hazardous to the environment if not properly disposed of).

    Exposure to heat, humidity and light can accelerate the breakdown of active ingredients. This applies to both scheduled medicines, prescribed by a doctor, and over-the-counter medicines.

    Consider paracetamol, which anyone can buy for pain and fever. A year-old paracetamol tablet may not seem dangerous – but if it’s degraded, it could be less effective in treating pain or fever, leading to unintended consequences like delayed treatment or overuse in an attempt to achieve relief. If potency is reduced, users might take a higher dose than needed, increasing the risk of overdose or side effects.

    It’s not just tablets and capsules that expire. Liquid medications, such as cough syrups and eye drops, are particularly vulnerable to contamination once expired, as the preservatives they contain lose their potency. This increases the risk of bacterial growth, which could lead to infections.

    Expired medications left in the home, particularly in unmarked containers, also increase the risk of accidental ingestion, especially by children.

    While some expired medications may still retain potency, there is no guarantee of safety. Safe disposal is essential to prevent misuse and potential harm to both individuals and the environment.

    Can I throw expired or surplus medicine in the bin or flush it down the toilet?

    I strongly discourage it. So do professional bodies like the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa and the South African Pharmacy Council.

    For starters, it’s bad for the environment. Medications discarded in household trash can leach active pharmaceutical ingredients into soil and groundwater, potentially contaminating sources of drinking water.

    Flushing medicines down the sink or toilet introduces these substances directly into sewage systems. They often bypass conventional wastewater treatment processes; in Cape Town, South Africa, for example, many wastewater facilities don’t perform tertiary treatments. That allows poorly treated effluents, chemical compounds and pharmaceutical pollution to enter aquatic ecosystems. That’s bad news for wildlife and can disrupt ecosystems.



    Read more:
    Marine life in a South African bay is full of chemical pollutants

    Trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in water supplies pose risks to human health, too. Such low concentrations are generally considered to pose minimal direct health risks to humans. But there are concerns about their potential impact on antimicrobial resistance and endocrine disruption. Endocrine disruption refers to the interference caused by certain chemicals which can mimic, block, or alter the human body’s natural hormones. The process can lead to various adverse health effects.

    What are the safest, most responsible disposal methods?

    The preferred method for disposing of unused or expired medications is through drug take-back programmes or authorised collection sites. These programmes are designed to provide a safe, convenient and responsible means for individuals to dispose of unused or expired medications.

    In South Africa, the South African Pharmacy Council mandates that only authorised personnel, such as pharmacists or designated officials, may dispose of medicines, and they must produce a certificate of destruction to be stored for at least five years.

    However, a study among healthcare professionals in the country revealed that only 23.5% participated in proper medicine destruction within their facilities. This, as well as similar research I conducted with some colleagues in Australia, indicates a need for improved education and practices regarding pharmaceutical waste disposal.

    In other African countries, formalised medication take-back programmes are less common. Safe disposal methods must be established and promoted across the continent.



    Read more:
    We found traces of drugs in a dam that supplies Nigeria’s capital city

    If more formal options are unavailable, you could mix medications with unappealing substances (like used coffee grounds or cat litter) and seal the mixture in a plastic bag before throwing it away. This can help to prevent accidental ingestion by children or animals. It also keeps medications away from toilets or drains, thereby lessening water pollution and harm to aquatic life.

    However, this approach is less than ideal and should only be a last resort.

    Renier Coetzee is affiliated with TB Proof and Touching Nations.

    – ref. What do I do with expired medicine? Don’t use it, for a start… – https://theconversation.com/what-do-i-do-with-expired-medicine-dont-use-it-for-a-start-248919

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 500 years ago, German peasants revolted – but their faith that the Protestant Reformation stood for freedom was dashed by Martin Luther and the nobility

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michael Bruening, Professor of History, Missouri University of Science and Technology

    A sketch of groups of peasants wandering around the countryside during the German Peasants’ War. Warwick Press via Wikimedia Commons.

    Five hundred years ago, in the winter of 1524-1525, bands of peasants roamed the German countryside seeking recruits. It was the start of the German Peasants’ War, the largest uprising in Europe before the French Revolution. The peasants’ goal was to overturn serfdom and create a fairer society grounded on the Christian Bible.

    For months, they seized their landlords’ monasteries and castles. By March 1525, the peasant armies had grown to encompass tens of thousands of peasants from Alsace to Austria and from Switzerland to Saxony.

    The peasants had economic grievances, to be sure, but they also drew inspiration from the message of freedom, or “Fryheit” in German, being preached by theologian Martin Luther, who had recently launched the Protestant Reformation.

    Luther’s rejection of the peasants’ cause, however, would help lead to their crushing defeat.

    I am a scholar of the Reformation, and I included the peasants’ list of demands in my book on the debates of the era. The question of the legitimacy of the peasants’ uprising was one of the most consequential debates of the era.

    Luther’s message of freedom

    In 1517, eight years before the German Peasants’ War, Luther launched the Reformation with his 95 Theses. The theses reflected Luther’s belief that the pope and the Catholic Church were preying on the poor by selling them indulgences, taking their money for a false promise that their sins would be forgiven.

    Luther taught instead that God freely forgives the sins of believers. In one of his most famous early treatises, “The Freedom of a Christian,” written in 1520, Luther argued that because they are saved or “justified” by faith alone, Christians are entirely free from the need to do works to merit salvation. This included fasting, going on pilgrimages and buying indulgences.

    Luther’s attacks on the Catholic Church, clergy and monks quickly grew more vehement. He and his allies lambasted them for fleecing the peasants and the poor through usury, a practice of lending money at high rates of interest. Since the Bible provided no support for such practices, they argued, the poor should be free of them.

    The Twelve Articles

    In her 2025 book “Summer of Fire and Blood,” Reformation scholar Lyndal Roper argues that the religious element of the peasants’ war was central. The German peasants were among the first to try to unlock the revolutionary potential of Reformation teachings to fight social and economic injustice.

    The peasants’ efforts to do so can be seen in the most important statement of their demands: The Twelve Articles. The articles are rooted in Reformation ideas and demanded, among other things, each village’s right to elect its own pastor and to be exempt from payments and duties not found in the Bible.

    A pamphlet that peasants distributed with their Twelve Articles in 1525.
    Otto Henne am Rhyn: Cultural History of the German People, via Wikimedia Commons

    Most important was the message of freedom in the third article: “Considering that Christ has delivered and redeemed us all, without exception … it is consistent with Scripture that we should be free.” It was a cry for equality based on Christ’s redemption of all, rich and poor alike.

    The Twelve Articles were hugely successful, going through 25 printings in just two months. Since the vast majority of peasants were illiterate, this was an astounding number.

    For the lower classes, the Reformation promised to break up not just the spiritual monopoly held by the Catholic Church but the entrenched feudal system that kept them oppressed. Their desire for freedom was at the same time a denunciation of serfdom.

    The peasants were willing to take up arms to secure their freedom. In winter 1524-1525, the peasants were able to capture castles and monasteries without much bloodshed. But starting in the spring of 1525, the uprising became increasingly violent. On Easter Sunday, the peasants shockingly slaughtered two dozen knights in the city of Weinsberg, Germany. A torrent of bloodshed would follow.

    Luther’s rejection of the peasants

    Although Luther may have provided the initial inspiration for the peasants, he denounced their revolt in the harshest terms. In his treatise “Admonition to Peace,” Luther complained that the peasants had made “Christian liberty an utterly carnal thing,” which “would make all men equal … and that is impossible.”

    Responding to the revolt, Luther produced a tract entitled “Against the Murdering and Robbing Hordes of Peasants.” “Let everyone who can,” he infamously wrote, “smite, slay, and stab” the rebellious peasants. The rulers did just that.

    The nobility had been slow to react to the peasants’ initial incursions, but when they finally organized their own armies, the peasants didn’t stand a chance. On the battlefield, the nobles’ cavalry and superior artillery brutally cut down the rebels. Many who escaped the battlefield were hunted down and executed.

    The exact number of those killed are not known, but estimates place the number at around 100,000. As Roper notes, “this was slaughter on a vast scale.”

    Consequences for the Reformation

    English historian A. G. Dickens famously described the Reformation as an “urban event”, meaning that the movement’s important developments took place in cities. The German Peasants’ War shows the idea to be wrong.

    In its first years, the Reformation galvanized the hopes and dreams of Germans in both town and country. To peasants and townsfolk, it seemed to promise the chance for a complete reordering of an unjust society.

    Luther’s rejection of the peasants had important long-term consequences. His decision to side with the princes transformed the Reformation from a grassroots movement into an act of state. Everywhere the Protestant reformers went, they sought to work with the proper authorities. The close cooperation of Christian leaders and secular authorities would last for centuries.

    For their part, the European peasantry grew wary of the Christian leaders who seemed to have abandoned them. Social uprisings over the next centuries lost the religious character of the 1525 conflict and would climax in the decidedly secular French Revolution.

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

    – ref. 500 years ago, German peasants revolted – but their faith that the Protestant Reformation stood for freedom was dashed by Martin Luther and the nobility – https://theconversation.com/500-years-ago-german-peasants-revolted-but-their-faith-that-the-protestant-reformation-stood-for-freedom-was-dashed-by-martin-luther-and-the-nobility-246378

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers − and prostitutes: The women working behind the scenes in papal Avignon

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Joelle Rollo-Koster, Professor of Medieval History, University of Rhode Island

    The papal palace in Avignon, where the pope’s court was based for much of the 14th century. Jean-Marc Rosier from http://www.rosier.pro/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    In the medieval church, women’s roles were limited – usually some form of enclosure and celibacy, such as becoming an anchoress walled up alone for life, or a nun in a classic convent. On the other extreme were a few dramatic examples of women who made history for the church while flying in the face of gender norms: heroes such as Joan of Arc.

    The full truth, though, is more complicated. Medieval women were there all along, even in priests’ own houses. In her book “The Manly Priest,” historian Jennifer Thibodeaux reminds us that while celibacy was always the church’s ideal, it was not truly enforced until later in the Middle Ages. At least until the 11th century, some priests had wives and children who were not considered illegitimate. Even after the 14th-century Black Death, clerical households with wives and children thrived in Italy.

    As the church’s notions of illicit sex and illegitimacy hardened, however, its attitudes toward women did, too. Medieval scholars – all men – defined women’s temperament in negative terms: Women were libidinous, frivolous, unfaithful, capricious, unpredictable and easily tempted. They required constant surveillance and were kept away from clerics, at least in theory. They certainly could not hold overt positions in the pope’s court unless they were his mother or sister.

    Still, another reality emerges. The church may not have seen women as equals, but nevertheless, their work was key to the workings and finances of the papal court and its surroundings. The fact is made obvious in the archives by simply following the money. It was hardly glamorous work but necessary for the functioning of the papal court.

    A page from a 15th-century edition of ‘The Decameron’ shows a laundress working on the beach.
    Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal via Wikimedia Commons

    Vatican payroll

    The Vatican Archives’ account registers make it possible to trace who was paid and for what at the medieval papal court in Avignon, where the papacy was based for most of the 14th century. Amid the tedious task of deciphering various medieval shorthand systems, which organize expenses into categories such as “extraordinary wages,” “liturgical ornaments,” “war expenses” or “wax account,” I encountered surprises: Women appear in the lists of salaried employees at the medieval papal court.

    Furthermore, they were involved in tasks that “touched” the leader of the church. Even a pope’s clothes need making, mending and washing. Women crafted an ornate style highly appreciated by the pontiffs – glorifying them with pure white linen and gold embroidery. The Vatican Apostolic Archives’ Introitus and Exitus, medieval financial records, provide substantial evidence that women made sacerdotal ornaments and garments.

    Between 1364-1374, the registers recorded the pope’s launderesses – women otherwise lost to history. Among them were Katherine, the wife of one Guillaume Bertrand; Bertrande of St. Spirit, who washed all the papal linens upon his election; and Alasacie de la Meynia, the wife of Peter Mathei, who did the pope’s laundry for the Christmas festivities of 1373 and is mentioned again in 1375.

    These women were all wives of officers at the papal court. Records identified them by their full name, which was not the case for everyone on the pope’s payroll. This is important: The records gave them real presence, unlike most female laborers.

    A woman doing laundry appears in the Codices Palatini germanici, a German medieval manuscript.
    Heidelberg University Library

    Later records were less clear. Between the 1380s and 1410s, liturgical garments were made and washed by various women, including the unnamed wife of Peter Bertrand, a doctor of law; Agnes, wife of Master Francis Ribalta, a physician of the pope; another Alasacie, wife of carpenter John Beulayga; and the unnamed wife of the pope’s head cook, Guido de Vallenbrugenti – alias Brucho.

    Only one woman, Marie Quigi Fernandi Sanci de Turre, appears without a male relative. As time progressed, women’s names were not systematically recorded.

    Most of these later women, too, were married to curial officers who maintained rank at court by working in trade, medicine or the military. Women were never paid directly; their husbands collected their salaries. Still, this was not “unseen” labor but a salaried occupation, explicitly recorded.

    A 15th-century painting of the papal palace in Avignon, from the artist workshop of Maître de Boucicaut.
    Bibliothèque Nationale via Wikimedia Commons

    Working day – and night

    Many other women immigrated to work in Avignon. According to a partial survey of the city’s heads of households in 1371, about 15% were women. Most had traveled far and wide – from elsewhere in present-day France, as well as Germany and Italy – to reach the papal court and a chance at employment.

    Of the total female heads of household, 20% declared an occupation. The range of these women’s trades is staggering. There were fruit-sellers, tailoresses, tavern-keepers, butchers, candlemakers, carpenters and stonecutters. Women in Avignon worked as fish-sellers, goldsmiths, glove-makers, pastry-bakers, spice merchants and chicken-sellers. They were sword-makers, furriers, booksellers, bread-resellers and bath-keepers.

    An illustration from ‘Theatrum sanitatis,’ a 13th-century Latin manuscript by Giovannino de Grassi.
    De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images

    Bathhouses, the “stews,” were often brothels. Prostitution was considered a legal occupation in Avignon and controlled by the church. Marguerite de Porcelude, known as “the Huntress,” paid an annual tax to the diocese for her lodging. Several prostitutes rented tenements from the convent of St. Catherine, and Marguerite Busaffi, daughter of a prominent banker, owned a brothel in the city.

    In 1337, the marshal of the Roman court – the highest secular judicial officer – taxed prostitutes and procurers two sols per week. Pope Innocent VI, scandalized by the practice, annulled it in 1358.

    Still, because of the general taint associated with the sex trade, the church attempted to reform prostitutes and convert them into nuns. The Avignon popes locked them up in a special convent, the Repenties, set up far from the center of town.

    A brothel scene illustrated by Maïtre François in a 15th-century edition of St. Augustine’s book ‘City of God.’
    National Library of the Netherlands via Wikimedia Commons

    Eventually, the establishment became a form of prison for “unruly” women – those who were pregnant out of wedlock. But for some hundred years, groups of ladies of the night took vows and lived as nuns there, controlling the affairs of their own convent with an iron fist.

    In the 1370s, Pope Gregory XI offered the nuns and their donors a plenary indulgence, a forgiveness of sins. They followed a rule emphasizing that regardless of their pasts, abstinence and continence could make them spiritually “chaste.”

    The ladies of the convent left detailed records of the properties they acquired. In 1384, its leaders petitioned the papal treasury, demanding arrears they were owed from a priest’s donation – and received what was due. Few medieval women had the chutzpah to petition a court for past dues, much less the pope’s. The Repenties did.

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

    – ref. Butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers − and prostitutes: The women working behind the scenes in papal Avignon – https://theconversation.com/butchers-bakers-candlestick-makers-and-prostitutes-the-women-working-behind-the-scenes-in-papal-avignon-249345

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Colorado is tackling air pollution in vulnerable neighborhoods by regulating 5 air toxics

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jenni Shearston, Assistant Professor of Integrative Physiology, University of Colorado Boulder

    The Suncor Refinery in Commerce City, Colo., is a known air polluter. RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images

    The Globeville, Elyria-Swansea and Commerce City communities in metro Denver are choked by air pollution from nearby highways, an oil refinery and a Superfund site.

    While these neighborhoods have long suffered from air pollution, they’re not the only ones in Colorado.

    Now, Colorado is taking a major step to protect people from air pollutants that cause cancer or other major health problems, called “air toxics.” For the first time, the state is developing its own state-level air toxic health standards.

    In north Denver, the 80216 ZIP code has been named one of the most polluted in the country. Rocky Mountain PBS created a two-part documentary about the history of this area and the impact the pollution has on current residents.

    In January 2025 Colorado identified five air toxics as “priority” chemicals: benzene, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde, hexavalent chromium compounds and hydrogen sulfide.

    The state is in the process of setting health-based standards that will limit the amount of each chemical allowed in the air. Importantly, the standards will be designed to protect people exposed to the chemicals long term, such as those living near emission sources. Exposure to even low amounts of some chemicals, such as benzene, may lead to cancer.

    As a researcher studying chemical exposure and health, I measure and evaluate the impact of air pollution on people’s well-being.

    Colorado’s new regulations will draw on expert knowledge and community input to protect people’s health.

    Communities know what needs regulation

    In your own community, is there a highway that runs near your house or a factory with a bad odor? Maybe a gas station right around the corner? You likely already know many of the places that release air pollution near you.

    When state or local regulators work with community members to find out what air pollution sources communities are worried about, the partnership can lead to a system that better serves the public and reduces injustice.

    For example, partnerships between community advocates, scientists and regulators in heavily polluted and marginalized neighborhoods in New York and Boston have had big benefits. These partnerships resulted in both better scientific knowledge about how air pollution is connected to asthma and the placement of air monitors in neighborhoods impacted the most.

    In Colorado, the process to choose the five priority air toxics included consulting with multiple stakeholders. A technical working group provided input on which five chemicals should be prioritized from the larger list of 477 toxic air contaminants.

    The working group includes academics, members of nongovernmental organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund – local government and regulated industries, such as the American Petroleum Institute.

    Community members often know which air toxics they want regulated.
    Hyoung Chang/Denver Post via GettyImages

    There were also opportunities for community participation during public meetings.

    At public hearings, community groups like GreenLatinos argued that formaldehyde, instead of acrolein, should be one of the prioritized air toxics because it can cause cancer.

    Additionally, formaldehyde is emitted in some Colorado communities that are predominantly people of color, according to advocates for those communities. These communities are already disproportionately impacted by high rates of respiratory disease and cancer.

    Other members of the community also weighed in.

    “One of my patients is a 16-year-old boy who tried to get a summer job working outside, but had to quit because air pollution made his asthma so bad that he could barely breathe,” wrote Logan Harper, a Denver-area family physician and advocate for Healthy Air and Water Colorado.

    How is air quality protected?

    At the national level, the Clean Air Act requires that six common air pollutants, such as ozone and carbon monoxide, are kept below specific levels. The act also regulates 188 hazardous air pollutants.

    Individual states are free to develop their own regulations, and several, including California and Minnesota, already have. States can set standards that are more health-protective than those in place nationally.

    Four of the five chemicals prioritized by Colorado are regulated federally. The fifth chemical, hydrogen sulfide, is not included on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s hazardous air pollutant list, but Colorado has decided to regulate it as an air toxic.

    State-level regulation is important because states can focus on air toxics specific to their state to make sure that the communities most exposed to air pollution are protected. One way to do this is to place air pollution monitors in the communities experiencing the worst air pollution.

    For example, Colorado is placing six new air quality monitors in locations around the state to measure concentrations of the five priority air toxics. It will also use an existing monitor in Grand Junction to measure air toxics. Two of the new monitors, located in Commerce City and La Salle, began operating in January 2024. The remainder will start monitoring the air by July 2025.

    When Colorado chose the sites, it prioritized communities that are overly impacted by social and environmental hazards. To do this, officials used indexes like the Colorado EnviroScreen, which combines information about pollution, health and economic factors to identify communities that are overly burdened by hazards.

    The Commerce City monitor is located in Adams City, a neighborhood that has some of the worst pollution in the state. The site has air toxics emissions that are worse than 95% of communities in Colorado.

    Air toxics and health

    The five air toxics that Colorado selected all have negative impacts on health. Four are known to cause cancer.

    Benzene, perhaps the most well known because of its ability to cause blood cancer, is one. But it also has a number of other health impacts, including dampening the ability of the immune system and impacting the reproductive system by decreasing sperm count. Benzene is in combustion-powered vehicle exhaust and is emitted during oil and gas production and refinement.

    Ethylene oxide can cause cancer and irritates the nervous and respiratory systems. Symptoms of long-term exposure can include headaches, sore throat, shortness of breath and others. Ethylene oxide is used to sterilize medical equipment, and as of 2024, it was used by four facilities in Colorado.

    Formaldehyde is also a cancer-causing agent, and exposure is associated with asthma in children. This air toxic is used in the manufacture of a number of products like household cleaners and building materials. It is also emitted by oil and gas sources, including during fracking.

    Hexavalent chromium compounds can cause several types of cancer, as well as skin and lung diseases such as asthma and rhinitis. A major source of hexavalent chromium is coal-fired power plants, of which Colorado currently has six in operation, though these plants are scheduled to close in the next five years. Other sources of hexavalent chromium include chemical and other manufacturing.

    Finally, long-term exposure to hydrogen sulfide can cause low blood pressure, headaches and a range of other symptoms, and has been associated with neurological impacts such as psychological disorders. Some sources of hydrogen sulfide include oil refineries and wastewater treatment plants.

    Read more of our stories about Colorado.

    Jenni Shearston has received funding from the United States National Institutes of Health.

    – ref. Colorado is tackling air pollution in vulnerable neighborhoods by regulating 5 air toxics – https://theconversation.com/colorado-is-tackling-air-pollution-in-vulnerable-neighborhoods-by-regulating-5-air-toxics-248520

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How early voting on campuses can boost election turnout – not only for students but for residents, too

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephen C. Phillips, Lecturer in Political Science, Clemson University

    NextGen, a youth and democracy group, encouraging University of Central Florida students to vote early on campus in the 2018 midterms, Orlando, Florida, Oct. 25, 2018. Willie J. Allen Jr./AP Images

    Republican-led legislatures in several U.S. states, from Indiana to Oklahoma, are considering imposing restrictions on early voting, from shortening the number of days to tightening ID requirements for voters.

    Florida, by contrast, offers several tools to increase voting access, including for young people – a historically low-turnout group. Floridians may preregister to vote at age 16 and request vote-by-mail ballots with no justification needed. And starting in 2018, Florida election officials began offering in-person early-voting sites on college and university campuses after a federal judge nullified a 2014 rule barring higher education facilities from serving as early-voting sites.

    I am a lecturer of political science who studies American political development and public law, and my research suggests that expanding on-campus early-voting sites can boost turnout in U.S. elections by making voting more convenient – not only for students but for residents of surrounding communities too.

    Campus voting is popular

    I have been tracking votes cast at on-campus early-voting sites in Florida since 2018. The data shows these voting sites are increasingly popular.

    My research shows that 59,205 votes were cast across 12 Florida campuses hosting early-voting sites in 2018. That number increased to 92,344 at 11 locations in 2020 and jumped again – by about 50,000 votes – during the 2024 election.

    During 14 days of early voting in October and November 2024, 142,085 Floridians cast ballots across 16 on-campus early-voting sites across the state. One-quarter of them – 35,245 voters – took advantage of three campus sites in Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous county.

    A 2019 study by the Andrew Goodman Foundation, a nonprofit promoting youth participation in democracy, determined that overall voter turnout in Florida increased during the 2018 election, in comparison with previous midterm elections, in part “due to the added convenience” of on-campus voting.

    Greater access to in-person early voting also increases the likelihood of a person’s ballot counting, since mail-in ballots tend to be rejected at higher rates than in-person votes.

    Who votes on campus?

    On-campus early voting makes elections more accessible for all voters.

    My data from 2024 shows that 35% of voters at Florida’s 16 on-campus early-voting sites were registered Democrats and 32% were registered Republicans. The remaining 33% registered with minor parties or had no party affiliation.

    These results differ from voter registration data from 2024 in Florida, which shows 40% of registered voters as Republicans, 31% as Democrats and 29% as other. That is to be expected, because studies of on-campus early voters in Florida find that these voters are younger and more diverse than those at other polling places.

    Both students and local residents may vote at on-campus polling sites in Florida.

    A 2019 report from the Andrew Goodman Foundation found “Hispanic and Black voters disproportionately cast ballots” at campus locations alongside college-age voters. It also said that 56% of early voters at campus sites were under age 30.

    Differences in party turnout at tracked sites, then, may reflect the higher share of Gen Z voters registered as Democrats or with no party affiliation.

    Obstacles to voting access

    Before casting a ballot, voters face four decisions. First, whether to register to vote. Second, whether to vote in an election. Third, how to vote: early in-person, vote-by-mail or on Election Day. Fourth, whom or what to vote for.

    Turnout rates among young voters vary widely across states, but in states where on-campus voting locations are frequent – such as Arizona, Florida and North Carolina – youth turnout tends to be higher.

    In the 2024 election, people ages 18 to 29 represented 14% of overall Florida voters – roughly on par with their proportion of the state’s population. It is difficult to make a direct comparison between the voting age population and voter turnout rates because of voter eligibility rules.

    But, for reference, 18-to-29-year-olds made up 14% of voters in Texas in 2024, too – yet are estimated to be nearly 17% of the population.

    Several states have rules seemingly designed to hinder young people from voting. After the 2020 election, Ohio passed a law making it harder for out-of-state students to vote by restricting the documents voters may use to prove their residency. Data from the Campus Vote Project shows several states, including Texas, Iowa and Missouri, do not accept student IDs as valid identification to vote. Oklahoma is currently considering similar legislation.

    While turnout rates reflect many factors, including the popularity of the candidates, low voter turnout is often associated with increased difficulty in casting a ballot.

    Florida shows that college campuses play an important role in increasing access to voting, not just for students but for residents in the surrounding communities, too. Nearly 3% of the 5.4 million people who voted early in person statewide in 2024 cast their ballot at a campus polling site, up from 2.2% in 2018.

    Election officials, university leaders and lawmakers know that having on-campus early-voting sites is a successful method for engaging voters. As one first-time voter at York Technical College in South Carolina told South Carolina Public Radio in 2024, the convenient location “definitely encourages me to vote.”

    Across the country, from Iowa to Texas, many schools and election officials host early on-campus voting.

    In other places, however, state and local laws, or decisions by local officials, prevent many campuses from hosting polling sites.

    For example, Ohio limits the number of early-voting sites to one per county. That meant that, in 2024, Ohio State University had no campus early-voting sites, and for its students the closest place to vote in person was about 6 miles (10 kilometers) away.

    In South Carolina, though some campuses do host polling sites, the university where I teach, Clemson, does not. In 2024, students had to travel four miles to reach the nearest in-person early-voting location in Pickens County.

    A recent study found that long distances and travel times to polling locations constitute “a barrier to voting.” And students, as a population, often have particularly limited access to transportation.

    Further studies will show more precisely how on-campus early voting expands the voter universe. But my vote tracking and other new research provides some clues, suggesting that early in-person voting on campus increases early voting and diversifies the electorate.

    Expanding on-campus early voting, then, is not just about convenience. It is about empowering the next generation of voters and strengthening democracy.

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

    – ref. How early voting on campuses can boost election turnout – not only for students but for residents, too – https://theconversation.com/how-early-voting-on-campuses-can-boost-election-turnout-not-only-for-students-but-for-residents-too-247161

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s claims of vast presidential powers run up against Article 2 of the Constitution and exceed previous presidents’ power grabs

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Claire B. Wofford, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Charleston

    How much power does the president really have? fotojog-iStock/Getty Images Plus

    Those who wrote and wrangled over America’s Constitution might be troubled by the second presidency of Donald J. Trump.

    While almost all modern presidents flex their muscles in the initial stages of their administration, the first weeks of the second Trump presidency have seen a rapid-fire, often dizzying array of executive actions that have sparked heated, even virulent, disputes among politicians, the media and citizens about how much power the president of the United States should have.

    Historians differ about the framers’ precise intent regarding the executive branch. But the general consensus is twofold: First, domestic lawmaking power, including the critical “power of the purse,” would rest with Congress; second, the president would not be the equivalent of a king.

    Fresh off the coercion of King George III, the framers were in no mood to recreate the British system. They debated extensively about whether the executive branch should be led by more than one person. A single chief executive was eventually favored in part because other institutional checks, including the selection of the president by the American people and Congress’ ability to impeach, seemed sufficient. And, of course, Congress would retain lawmaking powers.

    Almost immediately, however, Congress began delegating some of that power to the presidency. As the nation grew and Congress found itself unable to manage the ensuing demands, it put more and more policymaking powers into the executive branch.

    Congress frequently passed vaguely worded statutes and left important details largely to the president about how to manage, for instance, immigration or the environment. President-as-policymaker and the development of an immense federal bureaucracy that is now in the crosshairs of Trump and Elon Musk was one unintended result.

    Whether the current American president has become a king, particularly after the sweeping grant of immunity in 2024 by the Supreme Court and the seeming acquiescence by Congress to Trump’s latest directives, remains up for debate.

    In 2019, Trump said, “And then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.”

    I’m a constitutional law scholar, and I can comfortably respond: With all due respect, Mr. President, no. Article 2 does not grant the president unlimited power.

    Here’s what the Constitution does say – and doesn’t say – about the power of the president.

    An 1881 depiction of the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
    Alfred Kappes and Frederick Juengling, New York Public Library Digital Collections

    Exploiting imprecise language

    The Constitution divides power among the three branches of the federal government – executive, legislative and judicial.

    Article 1 specifies in great detail the structure and powers of Congress. In comparison, Article 2 is relatively short, outlining the powers of the executive branch, which now encompasses the president, his advisers and various departments and agencies.

    There is no extensive laundry list of enumerated powers for the executive branch. Instead, there is a smattering. The president is given the power to “grant reprieves and pardons,” to “receive ambassadors,” and, with the consent of the Senate, “make treaties” and “appoint” various federal officials. The president is also the “Commander in Chief.”

    Aside from the ability to veto legislation and “recommend” policies to Congress, the president was intended to serve primarily as an administrator of congressional statutes, not a policymaker.

    It is other, much less precise language in Article 2 that undergirds much of what Trump claims he can do – and what opponents say he cannot.

    Specifically, Section 1 states, “The Executive power shall be vested in a President,” and Section 3 requires the President to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

    On their face, these “vesting” and “take care” clauses seem relatively innocuous, reflecting the framers’ view that the President would implement rather than create the nation’s public policy. Congress would have that prerogative, with the president generally confined to ensuring those laws were carried out appropriately.

    Trump and his allies, however, have seized on these words as authorizing unlimited control over each of the 4 million employees of the executive branch and, through program changes and spending freezes, allowing him to exert significant policymaking power for the nation.

    The administration has now surpassed what even the strongest proponents of presidential power may have once argued. Trump adviser Stephen Miller has said, “All executive power is vested in the one man elected by the whole nation. No unelected bureaucrat has any ‘independent’ authority.”

    Yet the overriding goal of the framers at the Constitutional Convention was to avoid creating an American version of the British monarchy, with a single, unaccountable ruler in charge of national policymaking, free to implement his vision at will.

    In the view of Trump’s critics, this is precisely what has occurred.

    President Donald Trump signs an executive order on Feb. 14, 2025, at the White House.
    Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    Going around Congress

    Trump is not the first president to use Article 2’s ambiguity to push the boundaries of executive authority.

    Particularly since the end of World War II and the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, presidents have seized upon the same phrases in the Constitution to put their particular political agendas into action.

    Barack Obama, for instance, famously touted his “phone and pen” as a way to make policy when Congress refused.

    The vehicle for most executive branch policymaking, including by Trump, has been the executive order. Executive orders are mentioned nowhere in the Constitution, but presidents have, since the very earliest days of the republic, issued these directives under their “executive” and “take care” power. Since the founding, there have been tens of thousands of executive orders, used by Democratic and Republican presidents alike.

    Often, executive orders are relatively minor. They form commissions, set holiday schedules or brand an agency with a new seal. Dozens are signed unnoticed during every administration.

    In other instances, they have sweeping and substantive effect.

    Among those, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed Southern slaves, Franklin Roosevelt placed Japanese Americans in internment camps, Harry S. Truman integrated the military, and Joe Biden forgave student loans. Trump has attempted to redefine birthright citizenship – a move which, for now, has been stopped by federal courts.

    Because they have the force of law and remain in place until revoked by a subsequent president, executive orders have often faced legal challenges. Currently, there are more than 80 lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive orders for violating both federal law and the Constitution. Some orders, but not all, have been halted by lower courts.

    But if many presidents have believed that Article 2 of the Constitution gives them the power to make policy via executive order, the nation’s highest court hasn’t always agreed.

    Out of bounds?

    Requests to the high court to rule on Trump’s executive orders are a virtual certainty.

    Historically, the Supreme Court has struck down some executive orders as outside the scope of Article 2. As the court wrote in 1952, “In the framework of our Constitution, the President’s power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker.”

    Whether Trump’s various directives are within his Article 2 authority or violate both the letter and spirit of the Constitution awaits determination, most likely by the U.S. Supreme Court. Much of the genius of that document is its often ambiguous language, letting the government adapt to a changing nation.

    Yet that very ambiguity has allowed both sides of today’s political divide to claim that their version of executive power is faithful to the framers’ vision. As with the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movements, such a dispute could very well drive the U.S. to the breaking point.

    Congress or the American people may eventually decide that Trump has gone too far. The next presidential election is years away, but Congress still retains the power of impeachment. More realistically, they could rein him in via legislation, as they did with President Richard Nixon.

    For now, it is up to the judicial system to evaluate what the administration has done. Courts will need to use their constitutionally mandated authority to evaluate whether Trump has exceeded his.

    In 2022, I donated $20 to ActBlue.

    – ref. Trump’s claims of vast presidential powers run up against Article 2 of the Constitution and exceed previous presidents’ power grabs – https://theconversation.com/trumps-claims-of-vast-presidential-powers-run-up-against-article-2-of-the-constitution-and-exceed-previous-presidents-power-grabs-249662

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting prioritizes ‘real’ independence from the US − but what does that mean and is it achievable?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Garret Martin, Senior Professorial Lecturer, Co-Director Transatlantic Policy Center, American University School of International Service

    Germany’s presumptive new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, faces challenges both at home and overseas following his conservative alliance’s election victory on Feb. 23, 2025.

    A strong showing from the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – which Merz, in line with other mainstream German parties, refuses to countenance as a coalition party as part of an unofficial “firewall” against extremism – will make forming a functioning government tricky.

    But in the moments after the election results, it was the future of the European Union and its relationship with America that was his immediate focus: “My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”

    To understand why that is such a concern for Germany now and what “real independence” from Washington means, The Conversation U.S. turned to Garret Martin, an expert on U.S.-Europe relations at American University, for answers.

    What prompted Merz’s ‘real independence’ line?

    Presumably it was a response to a series of recent announcements and actions by the Trump administration that have shocked the German political establishment. This includes the sudden revelation that the U.S. would negotiate directly with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, but seemingly without the Europeans or Ukrainians involved. That development went down like a lead balloon in Berlin, especially considering Germany’s significant financial support of Kyiv since 2022.

    Moreover, the German establishment has also frowned at a series of recent declarations by members of the Trump administration. Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, in which he harshly criticized Europe for allegedly undermining freedom of expression, provoked clear pushback from German leaders. Trump, for his part, hardly endeared himself to his German allies when he denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator.”

    And, of course, Elon Musk’s interference in the German elections – as well as his open support for the far-right Alternative for Germany – provoked a fierce response from Merz. The then-candidate promised that Musk would need to be prepared for legal consequences for his meddling.

    Elon Musk addresses, via videolink, the election campaign launch rally of the far-right Alternative for Germany on Jan. 25, 2025.
    Sean Gallup/Getty Images

    How would this ‘real independence’ be achieved?

    Defining what “real independence” means and being able to implement such a drastic change in transatlantic relations will be a tall order. If by “real independence” Merz means that Germany would no longer rely on the U.S. for its security, then that would require several major steps.

    Merz would first need to convince his likely coalition partners, the Social Democrats, that this is the right goal. After all, German governments are bound by very detailed coalition agreements. Second, Merz would need to significantly increase German defense spending. As it stands, Germany’s annual defense budget is slightly over US$90 billion, or 2% of its GDP. But a recent study by the economic think tank Bruegel suggests Berlin would need to increase its budget by $145 billion annually to defend Europe without the assistance of the U.S.

    But to achieve this, Merz will likely need to increase defense spending by such a level that it will contravene the country’s “debt brake.” This 2009 constitutional rule essentially caps the annual deficit that the government can take on. But overturning this mechanism would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the German Parliament. Merz’s Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union party won 28.6% of the vote – and even with the support of the country’s main center-left party, the Social Democrats, Merz will fall short of the parliamentary votes needed.

    Finally, “real independence” would also require convincing other European Union partners to join him down that path. Assuming that the Trump administration continues its current trajectory and further undermines NATO, the EU would have to step in to become a more prominent security actor for the continent. It might also require, as Merz hinted, that the United Kingdom and France be ready to share their nuclear weapons, since the U.S. may not be trusted anymore to defend NATO countries.

    All of these steps would cover “real independence” only in the security sphere and not touch other crucial policy areas, such as trade and energy. And that would be an equally tall order given the level of economic ties binding Germany to the U.S., as well as the looming threat of tariffs.

    What does this mean for German-US relations?

    Merz’s “real independence” statement would have been noteworthy coming from any German chancellor. But it is even more striking when one considers the fact that Merz is a committed transatlanticist who deeply admires the U.S. and counts Ronald Reagan as one of his role models.

    At 69, Merz came of age during the final years of the Cold War, when the U.S. played a key role in enabling German reunification. He worked for years for Atlantik-Brücke, a lobbying group pushing for closer transatlantic ties. And he has, by his own account, traveled more than 100 times to the U.S.

    Independence will not likely mean a complete divorce between the U.S. and Germany – the ties binding the two countries, whether economic, cultural or political, run too deep. However, we can expect that Berlin will not hesitate to take a more combative approach toward Washington when necessary, so to protect German and European interests. As Merz pointed out, it is clear that the Trump administration does “not care much about the fate of Europe.”

    What does this signal for Merz’s view of Germany’s position in the EU?

    Merz’s win will certainly lead to important shifts in Germany’s position in the EU, and could be a major boost for a union in need of leadership. His predecessor, Olaf Scholz, was hampered by a weak economy, divisions within his coalition and indecisive leadership in Europe. Moreover, poor relations with French President Emmanuel Macron also stalled the Franco-German partnership, normally a key engine of leadership in the EU.

    Merz certainly plans to take a very distinct approach toward the EU than his predecessor. His calls for “real independence” will certainly be very welcome in France, which has long called for Europe to be more responsible for its own security. As such, it opens up the possibility of far closer ties between Paris and Berlin than we saw in recent years. Moreover, Merz, with his more hawkish position toward Russia, could be counted on to provide greater support for Ukraine.

    Garret Martin receives funding from the European Union for the Transatlantic Policy Center, which he co-directs.

    – ref. Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting prioritizes ‘real’ independence from the US − but what does that mean and is it achievable? – https://theconversation.com/germanys-chancellor-in-waiting-prioritizes-real-independence-from-the-us-but-what-does-that-mean-and-is-it-achievable-250708

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Selenium is an essential nutrient named after the Greek goddess of the Moon − crucial to health, it may help prevent and treat cancer

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Aliasger K. Salem, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Iowa

    Selenium is found in trace amounts in living organisms, soil and plants. Nazarii Neshcherenskyi/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    Selenium is a nutrient that plays a crucial role in human health, contributing to the thyroid and immune function, DNA repair, and cardiovascular and cognitive health.

    It acts as an antioxidant – substances that protect cells from unstable molecules that can damage DNA, proteins and cell membranes. It can even protect against cancer.

    Selenium is a vital trace element found in living organisms, soil and plants, and your body needs only a small amount of it to function. The recommended dietary allowance for selenium in adults is 55 micrograms per day, with an upper limit of 400 micrograms. In comparison, adults need between 900 to 10,000 micrograms daily of copper, another trace element, and between 8,000 to 40,000 micrograms of the trace element zinc.

    An excess or deficiency of selenium can have significant health consequences. In my work as a pharmaceutical science researcher, my colleagues and I study the potential use of selenium to boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy for cancer treatment.

    A dose of selenium

    Selenium was first discovered in 1817 by chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius while analyzing an impurity in a batch of sulfuric acid produced in a factory in Sweden. Berzelius initially thought the material was the element tellurium, but he eventually realized that it was actually an unknown substance at the time. He named the mineral after Selene, the Greek goddess of the Moon, because of its similarity to tellurium, which had been named after the Roman goddess of the Earth.

    Selenium exists in both organic and inorganic forms. Organic compounds contain carbon atoms and are typically derived from living organisms, while inorganic compounds do not have carbon atoms and generally originate from nonliving sources. Your cells chemically convert between these forms to carry out various physiological functions.

    Selenium deficiency is a significant health issue, particularly in regions with selenium-poor soils, such as parts of China, Africa and Europe. Low selenium levels are associated with Keshan disease, a fatal heart condition, and Kashin-Beck disease, which affects joints and bones. Deficiency also weakens immune function, increasing susceptibility to infections.

    Brazil nuts contain particularly high levels of selenium.
    R.Tsubin/Moment via Getty Images

    Consuming too much selenium is also an issue. Oversupplementation or excess environmental exposure can lead to selenosis, a condition with symptoms such as brittle hair and nails, digestive issues, skin rashes and neurological symptoms such as irritability and fatigue. In severe cases, selenium toxicity can result in organ failure and death.

    Selenium has a narrow therapeutic window, which is the dosage range that provides safe and effective treatment with minimal harmful side effects. For example, selenium can either increase or decrease your body’s immune function, depending on the dose. Adequate levels of selenium strengthen your immune cells’ ability to fight infections and tumors, while excessive selenium intake can suppress immune responses by damaging immune tissues.

    Selenium and cancer prevention

    Selenium may have the potential to treat and prevent cancer.

    Scientists have long studied selenium’s role in cancer prevention. Initially suspected to be a carcinogen, later studies found it had protective effects against liver damage. In the 1960s. researchers proposed that selenium could be used to prevent cancer, a concept that gained further traction in the 1990s.

    However, large-scale clinical trials have produced mixed results. The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial was a study of over 35,500 men that ran from 2001 to 2004. They found that taking selenium daily did not reduce prostate cancer risk and may even increase the risk of prostate cancer in men with already high selenium levels.

    Findings from a study conducted from 1983 to 1996, the Nutritional Prevention of Cancer Trial, suggested selenium may protect against prostate and other cancers. But researchers also observed a heightened incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancer among participants.

    These conflicting results may be due to the different forms of selenium each study tested, as well as differences in baseline selenium levels among participants. Other studies have found that selenium-contaminated water in a municipality of Italy has been linked to an increased risk of melanoma.

    The antioxidant effects of selenium vary depending on its dose.
    Razaghi et al./EJC, CC BY-SA

    Selenium and cancer treatment

    Selenium may also have the potential to stop cancer from spreading.

    My research focuses on the potential of using selenium to supplement chemotherapy for cancer treatment. Selenium compounds such as methylseleninic acid, or MSA, and seleno-L-methionine, or SLM, show promise in targeting proteins that drive tumor progression and treatment resistance. Studies from my team and I have found that MSA can modulate key biochemical pathways related to kidney cancer by reducing levels of proteins that influence tumor growth and immune evasion. We also observed that SLM may slow kidney tumor growth in mice without toxic side effects.

    More significantly, in a Phase 1 clinical trial, we found that combining SLM with the chemotherapy drug axitinib was effective in treating metastatic kidney cancer in patients, with minimal side effects. Of the 27 patients we treated, over half saw their tumors shrink in size, with a median overall survival of nearly 20 months. These findings suggest that selenium may have a synergistic effect on chemotherapy by making it more effective.

    Further investigation into how selenium may help overcome treatment resistance and what doses are optimal will clarify its potential as a viable addition to cancer treatment.

    Striking the right balance

    Whether as an immune booster or potential treatment for disease, the significance of selenium in human health is undeniable.

    Eating selenium-rich foods – such as Brazil nuts, seafood, whole grains and eggs – can help sustain optimal nutrient levels. In regions with selenium-deficient soils, supplementation with medical supervision may be necessary.

    The fine line between benefit and harm underscores the importance of balanced intake and personalized approaches to selenium supplementation. As research continues, I believe selenium’s multifaceted role in health will become more clear.

    Aliasger K. Salem receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. He serves on the Executive Board of the American Association for Pharmaceutical Scientists.

    – ref. Selenium is an essential nutrient named after the Greek goddess of the Moon − crucial to health, it may help prevent and treat cancer – https://theconversation.com/selenium-is-an-essential-nutrient-named-after-the-greek-goddess-of-the-moon-crucial-to-health-it-may-help-prevent-and-treat-cancer-248548

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Generative AI is most useful for the things we care about the least

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John P. Nelson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Ethics and Societal Implications of Artificial Intelligence, Georgia Institute of Technology

    The creative process involves choices that lead artists to places they couldn’t have imagined. Eoneren/E+ via Getty Images

    Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Midjourney can produce text, images and videos far more quickly than any one person can accomplish by hand.

    But as someone who studies the societal impacts of AI, I’ve noticed an interesting trade-off: The technology can certainly save time, but it does so precisely to the extent that the user is willing to surrender control over the final product.

    For this reason, generative AI is probably most useful for things we care about the least.

    Ceding creative control

    Let’s use the example of AI image generators. You probably have a rough idea of how they work. Just type what you want – “a panda surfing,” “a piece of toast that is also a car” – and the generative tool draws it.

    But this glosses over the countless possible iterations of the desired image.

    Will the image appear as a watercolor painting or a pencil sketch? How lifelike will the panda be? How big is the wave? Is the toast-car parked or moving? Is there anyone inside of it?

    When the images are generated, these questions have been answered – but not by the user. Rather, the generative AI tool has “decided.”

    Of course, the user can be more specific: Imitate the style of Monet. Make the wave twice the height of the panda. Maybe the panda should look worried, since it isn’t used to surfing.

    You can also pop open an image editor and modify the output yourself, down to the individual pixel. But, of course, drafting detailed instructions and revising the image take time, effort and skill. Generative AI promises to lighten the load. But as every manager knows, exercising control is work.

    The devil is in the details

    In all art and expression, power lies in the details.

    In great paintings, not every brushstroke is planned – but each is carefully considered and accepted. And its overall effect on the viewer depends on all those considered brushstrokes together.

    Filmmakers shoot take after take of the same scene, each subtly or radically different. Only a small fraction of that footage makes it into the final cut – the fraction that the editors feel does the job best. Great artists use their judgment to ensure every detail helps to achieve the effect they want.

    Of course, there’s nothing new about putting someone else in charge of the details. People are used to delegating authority – even about matters of expression – to marketers, speechwriters, social media managers and the like.

    Generative AI makes a new sort of contractor available. It’s always on call, and in certain ways it is very technically competent.

    But compared with skilled humans, it has a limited ability to understand what you want. Moreover, it lacks intention, contemplation and the comprehensive mastery of detail that yield great expressive achievements – or even the comprehensive idiosyncrasy that spawns very unique ones.

    Ask ChatGPT for a film script, plus casting and shooting instructions. It will give you neither Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece “The Godfather” nor Tommy Wiseau’s bizarre “The Room.”

    You could, perhaps, approach a masterpiece, or a true oddity. But to do so, you’d have to exercise more and more time, more and more effort, and more and more control.

    An era of ‘cheap speech’

    What generative AI makes possible, above all, is low-effort, low-control expression.

    In the time I took to write and revise this article, I could have used ChatGPT to generate 200 grammatically correct, well-structured articles, and then I could have posted them online without even reading them. I wouldn’t have had to carefully parse each word and decide whether it really helped me make my point. I wouldn’t have even had to decide whether I agreed with any of the AI-generated write-ups.

    This is not a merely hypothetical example. Low-quality, AI-generated e-books of ambiguous provenance are already making their way into online vendors’ catalogs – and into the libraries those vendors serve.

    Similarly, using image generators, I could now flood the internet with superficially appealing images, dedicating only a fraction of a second to decide whether any of them express what I want them to express or achieve what I want them to achieve.

    But in doing so, I would not just be skipping over drudgery. Writing, drawing and painting are not just labor but processes of considering, reviewing and deciding exactly what I want to put out into the world. By skipping over those processes, I surrender that decision-making process to the AI tool.

    Some scholars argue that the internet has produced an era of “cheap speech.” People no longer have to invest a lot of resources – nor even face the judgment of their neighbors – to broadcast whatever they want to the world.

    With generative AI, expression is even cheaper. You don’t even have to make things yourself to put them out into the world. For the first time in human history, the ability to produce writing, art and expression has been decoupled from the necessity of actually paying attention to what you’re making or saying.

    Generative AI allows you to blow through the thousands of little decisions that go into a work of art.
    C.J. Burton/The Image Bank via Getty Images

    When intention and effort matter

    I suspect that great art, journalism and scholarship will still demand great attention and effort. Some of that effort may even include custom-developing AI tools tailored to an individual artist’s concerns.

    But unless people become much better at curation, great work will be increasingly difficult to locate amid the flood of low-effort content, which is also known as “AI slop.”

    It’s appropriate that generative AI becomes more useful the sloppier its users are willing to be – that is, the less they care about the details.

    I could end with some dire prognosis – that working artists and writers will be replaced with mediocre automation, that online discourse will get even stupider, that people will isolate themselves in personalized cocoons of AI-generated media.

    All these things are possible. But it’s probably more useful to offer a suggestion to you, the reader.

    When you need an image or a piece of writing, take a moment to decide: How important are the details? Would the process of making this yourself, or working with a collaborator or contractor, be useful? Would it yield a better output, or give me the chance to learn, or begin or strengthen a relationship, or help you reflect on something important to you?

    In short, is it worth putting in real care and effort? The answer will not always be yes. But it often will.

    Art, writing, films – these are not just products, but acts. They are things humans make, through a process of thousands of little decisions that encompass what we stand for and what we want to say.

    So when it comes to art, expression and argument, if you want it done right, it’s probably still best to do it yourself.

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

    – ref. Generative AI is most useful for the things we care about the least – https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-most-useful-for-the-things-we-care-about-the-least-249329

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: If US attempts World Bank retreat, the China-led AIIB could be poised to step in – and provide a model of global cooperation

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Tamar Gutner, Associate Professor, American University

    Donald Trump is no fan of international organizations. Just hours after taking office on Jan 20, 2025, the U.S. president announced his intention to withdraw from the World Health Organization and the Paris agreement on climate change.

    Could the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank be next?

    Certainly, supporters of the twin institutions – that have formed the backbone of global economic order for 80 years – are concerned. A Trump-ordered review of Washington’s support of all international organizations has led to fears of the U.S. reducing funding or pulling it altogether.

    But any shrinking of U.S. leadership in international financial institutions would, I believe, run counter to the administration’s ostensible geopolitical goals, creating a vacuum for China to step into and take on a bigger global role. In particular, weakening the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, or MDBs, that have a large U.S. presence could present an opportunity for a little-known, relatively new Chinese-led international organization: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – which, since its inception, has supported the very multilateralism the U.S. is attacking.

    AIIB’s paradoxical role

    The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was created by China nine years ago as a way to invest in infrastructure and other related sectors in Asia, while promoting “regional cooperation and partnership in addressing development challenges by working in close collaboration with other multilateral and bilateral development institutions.”

    Since then, it has served as an example of an international body willing to deeply cooperate with other major multilateral organizations and follow international rules and norms of development banking.

    This may run counter to the image of Beijing’s global efforts portrayed by China hawks, of which there are many in the Trump administration, who often present a vision of a China intent on undermining the Western-led liberal international order.

    But as a number of scholars and other China experts have suggested, Beijing’s strategies in global economic governance are often nuanced, with actions that both support and undermine the liberal global order.

    As I explore in my new book, it is clear that today the AIIB is a paradox: an institution connected to the rules and norms of the liberal international order, but one created by an illiberal government.

    Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei speaks during the signing ceremony of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Oct. 24, 2014, in Beijing.
    Takaki Yajima-Pool/Getty Images

    The AIIB is deeply tied to the rules-based order as displayed through its many cooperative connections with other major multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank and the Japan-led Asian Development Bank.

    As such, the AIIB may present a Chinese counterpoint in a landscape where U.S. leadership is receding.

    The cooperative design of the AIIB

    For decades, multilateral development banks have served the important task of lending billions of dollars a year to support economic and social development.

    They can be vital sources of funding for poverty reduction, inclusive economic growth and sustainable development, with a newer emphasis on climate change. These international lenders have also been remarkably durable in today’s climate of fragmentation and crisis, with member nations actively considering ways of further strengthening them.

    At the same time, MDBs perennially face criticism from civil society organizations who highlight areas of weak performance and are concerned about potential downsides of the major MDBs’ greater emphasis on working more closely with the private sector. MDB expert Chris Humphrey has also noted that major “MDBs were built around a set of geopolitical and economic power relationships that are coming apart before our eyes.”

    When Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 proposed creating the AIIB to lend for infrastructure development in Asia, there was a lot of suspicion among major nations about China’s intentions.

    The Obama administration responded to the move by urging other countries not to join. Its concern was that China would use lending to gain further influence in the region, but without adhering to strong environmental and social standards.

    Nonetheless, all the other major nonborrowing nations, with the exception of Japan, joined the new bank. Today, the AIIB is the second-largest multilateral development bank in terms of member countries, behind only the World Bank. It currently has 110 member nations, which translates to over 80% of the global population. With US$100 billion in capital, it is one of the medium-sized multilateral lenders.

    From the get-go, the AIIB was designed to be cooperative. Jin Liqun, who became the bank’s first president, is a longtime multilateralist with a long career at China’s finance ministry and past positions on the boards of the World Bank and the Global Environmental Facility, as well as a vice presidency of the Asian Development Bank.

    The international group of experts that helped design the AIIB also included former executive directors and staff from the IMF and other development banks, as well as two Americans with long careers at the World Bank who played leading roles in designing the bank’s articles of agreement and its environmental and social framework.

    How the AIIB took its cue from others

    The bank fits into the landscape of other multilateral development banks in a variety of ways. The AIIB’s charter is directly modeled on the Asian Development Bank’s foundation, and built into the AIIB’s charter is the bank’s mission of promoting “regional cooperation and partnership in addressing development challenges.”

    The AIIB shares similar norms and policies with other major multilateral development banks, including its environmental and social standards.

    Alongside borrowing foundational principles, the AIIB also works in close conjunction with its peers. The World Bank initially ran the AIIB’s treasury operations. The AIIB has also co-financed a high percentage of its projects with other multilateral development banks, particularly in its first years.

    In a recent sign of cooperation, in 2023, a deal between the AIIB and World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) saw the AIIB issue up to $1 billion in guarantees against IBRD sovereign-backed loans. This increased the IBRD’s ability to lend more money, while diversifying the AIIB’s loan portfolio.

    As of Feb. 6, 2025, the AIIB has 306 approved projects totaling $59 billion. Energy and transportation are its two largest sectors of lending. Recently approved projects include loans to support wind power plants in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and a solar plant in India. India, which has a bumpy relationship with China, is one of the bank’s largest borrowers, along with Turkey and Indonesia.

    Cooperating and competing with China

    From its birth until recently, the multilateral AIIB has repeatedly distinguished itself from China’s bilateral initiatives. Chief among those is China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an umbrella term for infrastructure lending by Chinese institutions that has been criticized for lacking transparency and accountability.

    Indeed, some Belt and Road Initiative-linked projects have faced concerns about corruption, costs and the opacity of the loan agreements.

    In the past several years, the AIIB has made more mention of synergy with Belt and Road lenders, and the bank now hosts the secretariat of a facility, the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance, that offers grants and support to developing countries seeking to finance infrastructure in countries where Belt and Road lending takes place. This may blur the line between the AIIB and lending under the Belt and Road umbrella, but it does not appear to weaken the bank’s standards.

    Concerns about the level of Chinese government influence at the AIIB are not new. Canada froze its ties with the bank in June 2023, pending a review of allegations by a Canadian staff member, who dramatically quit after accusing the bank of being dominated by members of China’s Communist Party.

    No other member nations expressed such concern, and Canada has not yet published any review. A group of AIIB executive directors oversaw an internal review that found no evidence to support the allegations.

    As the new U.S. administration formulates its policies toward China, it would do well to take into account the variation in China’s strategies in global economic governance, as a recognition of areas of cooperation, competition and conflict requires more nuanced responses. In many areas, the U.S. will both cooperate and compete with China.

    Paradoxically, any moves by the Trump administration to pull back from multilateral organizations may leave the AIIB, whether or not it is an anomaly, in a position to offer a better model of cooperation than leading multilateral development banks with a powerful U.S. role.

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

    – ref. If US attempts World Bank retreat, the China-led AIIB could be poised to step in – and provide a model of global cooperation – https://theconversation.com/if-us-attempts-world-bank-retreat-the-china-led-aiib-could-be-poised-to-step-in-and-provide-a-model-of-global-cooperation-244595

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: A hazy legal landscape means people can get high on hemp products, even where pot is prohibited

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Katharine Neill Harris, Fellow in Drug Policy, Rice University

    Delta-8 supplements on a shelf at a Texas store. Sergio Flores/Washington Post via Getty Images

    In Texas, where I live, marijuana has long been illegal. Yet on a busy street in my Houston neighborhood, at least five stores within a half-mile of each other sell cannabis products that promise a strong high.

    Texas isn’t alone. Due to a mix of recent legal changes and an uncertain policy landscape, residents in roughly half of American states have easy access to impairing hemp products that bear a strong resemblance to marijuana and are far less regulated.

    As hemp sales soar – reaching nearly US$3 billion in 2023 – a number of states are tightening their restrictions, while experts are analyzing the public health implications. That’s why I analyzed hemp policies in all 50 states with some of my colleagues at Rice University’s Baker Institute, where I’m a drug policy fellow.

    Marijuana and hemp: Same plant, different policies

    Marijuana and hemp are both varieties of cannabis sativa, a plant with many uses that produces thousands of compounds. Among them is the popular intoxicant delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or delta-9 THC.

    Hemp is widely valued as an industrial crop, and for most of American history, farmers freely cultivated it. But by the mid-20th century, lawmakers had grown increasingly opposed to marijuana and were concerned by hemp’s similarity to its impairment-causing cousin.

    In an effort to permit hemp cultivation while prohibiting production of a psychoactive plant, the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 defined hemp as all parts of the cannabis plant with less than 0.3 percent concentration of delta-9 THC by dry weight. Cannabis that exceeded this threshold was considered marijuana.

    The 1970 Controlled Substances Act ushered in the modern era of prohibition of marijuana and other drugs. Hemp remained technically legal, but because of its similarity to marijuana, it was listed as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and other substances deemed to have a high potential for abuse and no medical value.

    Because of hemp’s Schedule I status, the Drug Enforcement Administration tightly regulated its production. But hemp farmers have long argued that these regulations were excessive – and in 2018, Congress agreed. That year, lawmakers passed a farm bill that removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act and legalized the manufacture and sale of hemp and its derivatives.

    The ABC News affiliate in San Diego reports on the 2018 farm bill from a local perspective.

    Crucially, the 2018 bill still defines hemp as all parts of the plant and its derivatives that have less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC. But it left a loophole: While delta-9 is the most well-known form of THC, it’s not the only one. Other forms of THC, known as THC isomers, have similar effects. These isomers, like delta-8 and delta-10 THC, can be derived from the hemp plant, and like delta-9 THC, they can cause impairment. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized all of them.

    In 2023, sales of hemp-derived cannabinoids reached US$2.8 billion. Market growth has been accompanied by a rise in adverse health events. Chemists have expressed alarm at how some hemp products are made, and analyses of commercially available products have found them to contain heavy metals, residual solvents and pesticides.

    Given the lax regulatory environment, many public officials now question the lack of guardrails on this burgeoning hemp industry. As a result, officials and governments across the country are now enacting or considering policy changes.

    Some states are imposing age and advertising restrictions

    In 2023, 11.4% of 12th graders said they had used hemp-derived delta-8 THC in the past year. Easy access to any substance can encourage use, and THC can have negative impacts on the adolescent brain.

    While federal law prohibits the sale of tobacco and alcohol to individuals under 21, there is no similar national requirement for hemp. But at least 27 states that permit the sale of hemp-derived products now have minimum age requirements, and several others have pending legislation.

    Lessons from the tobacco market also demonstrate that advertising restrictions can reduce the use of legal but potentially harmful products. Most efforts to curtail hemp advertising focus on youth. Sixteen states restrict the use of packaging and marketing materials that may appeal to minors. Meanwhile, federal regulations also limit youth-targeted marketing.

    There are fewer restrictions on advertising to adults. The Food and Drug Administration does prohibit using unverified health claims to sell hemp products, but this standard gives the industry plenty of leeway. Hemp ads often tout their purported physical benefits, like reducing pain or improving sleep, or portray them as mood-boosters that can make one feel euphoric and aroused, with few downsides.

    Other states are establishing potency limits

    The use of products high in THC has been linked to greater risk of cannabis dependence and adverse mental health outcomes. Concerns about product potency have led all states with recreational marijuana markets to limit the amount of delta-9 THC in edible products. This threshold is typically around 10 milligrams, a dose that’s strong enough to affect most people.

    Hemp is a different story. To satisfy federal requirements, hemp just has to have less than 0.3% delta-9 THC by weight. This limit sounds low, but the weight-based metric does not account for heavier products, like food and drinks.

    For example, a 50-gram candy bar – roughly the size of a Snickers bar – with 150 milligrams of hemp-derived delta-9 THC is legal in the 34 states that don’t have milligram caps on hemp products. This is a dose 15 times higher than what any recreational marijuana market allows. Meanwhile, states that only restrict hemp’s delta-9 content also leave the door open to products with high amounts of other forms of THC.

    At least 13 states have responded to potency concerns by adding milligram caps on the total THC permitted in a single serving of a hemp product. Some of these limits are so low – 1 milligram or less in Connecticut, New York, Montana and Rhode Island – that one serving is unlikely to cause impairment.

    Enforcement is a wild card

    Only regulations that are enforced are effective, and states differ in the level of energy they devote to industry oversight.

    In Virginia, the Office of Hemp Enforcement has issued over $12 million in fines to noncompliant hemp retailers since its creation in 2023. On the other end of the spectrum, Massachusetts considers hemp-derived THC products illegal, but it has not provided local jurisdictions with funding for enforcement, resulting in continued availability of prohibited products.

    Some states with legal hemp markets have added additional sales taxes to help fund enforcement. In Nebraska, Missouri and Connecticut, attorneys general have sued hemp retailers for selling illegal items, marketing to minors and engaging in deceptive trade practices.

    As the hemp industry expands, so will concerns about how to protect public health. The demand for THC, and the market to supply it, continues to grow. If lawmakers want to develop industrywide safety standards or deal with the challenges of online marketplaces that sell hemp products to minors, it will take action from Washington. In the meantime, many states and policymakers are exploring an expansive middle ground between unfettered access and blanket bans.

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

    – ref. A hazy legal landscape means people can get high on hemp products, even where pot is prohibited – https://theconversation.com/a-hazy-legal-landscape-means-people-can-get-high-on-hemp-products-even-where-pot-is-prohibited-247168

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Barred European Union politician brands Israel as ‘a rogue state’

    Israel has now banned another European Union parliamentarian from entering the country, reports Al Jazeera.

    The government gave no reasons why Lynn Boylan, who chairs the European Parliament EU-Palestine delegation, was denied entry.

    “This utter contempt from Israel is the result of the international community failing to hold them to account,” Boylan, an Irish MP in Brussels, said in a statement.

    “Israel is a rogue state, and this disgraceful move shows the level of utter disregard that they have for international law.

    “Europe must now hold Israel to account.”

    Boylan said she had planned to meet with Palestinian Authority officials, representatives of civil society organisations, and people living under Israeli occupation.

    She is a member of the Sinn Fein party in Ireland, which has been among the most vocal countries in criticising the Israeli government over its treatment of Palestinians.

    France’s Hassan also refused
    Earlier, EU lawmaker Rima Hassan was also refused entry at Ben-Gurion airport and ordered to return to Europe.

    “Hassan, who is expected to land from Brussels in the coming hour, consistently works to promote boycotts against Israel in addition to numerous public statements both on social media and in media interviews,” said Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel’s office.

    Hassan is a French national of Palestinian origin known for her support of the Palestinian cause and for speaking out against Israel’s war on Gaza.

    Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, outlined a range of worries about the situation in war-battered Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

    “We have constantly called on all parties, including Israel, to respect international humanitarian law,” she said, adding that Europe “cannot hide our concern when it comes to the West Bank”.

    ICC raps Merz over warrants
    Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has declared that states cannot unilaterally “determine soundness” of its rulings

    Earlier, it was reported that Germany’s election winner Friedrich Merz was saying he planned to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the country — despite an ICC war crimes warrant issued for his arrest, which Merz claimed did not apply.

    The ICC responded by saying states had a legal obligation to enforce its decisions, and any concerns they may have should be addressed with the court in a timely and efficient manner.

    “It is not for states to unilaterally determine the soundness of the court’s legal decisions,” said the ICC in a statement.

    Israel rejects the jurisdiction of the court and denies war crimes were committed during its devastating war on Gaza.

    Germans feel a special responsibility towards Israel because of the legacy of the Holocaust, and Merz has made clear he is a strong ally. But Germany also has a strong tradition of support for international justice for war crimes.

    Amnesty slams ‘shameful silence’
     Amnesty International and 162 other civil society organisations and trade unions have signed a joint letter calling on the EU to ban trade and business with Israel’s settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

    “Despite EU consensus about the settlements’ illegality and their link to serious abuses, the EU continues to trade and allow business with them,” the letter said.

    This contributes to “the serious and systemic human rights and other international law abuses underpinning the settlement enterprise”, it added.

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July issued a landmark advisory opinion affirming that states must not recognise, aid or assist the unlawful situation arising from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

    Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The ‘lab-leak origin’ of Covid-19. Fact or fiction?

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Florence Débarre, Directrice de recherche CNRS, chercheuse en biologie évolutive, Sorbonne Université

    In a January 24 interview with the far-right-wing outlet Breitbart News, newly appointed CIA director John Ratcliffe stated that assessing intelligence on a potential Wuhan lab leak was a top priority. The following day, The New York Times reported that the agency had shifted from an undecided stance to favoring a possible Chinese lab leak, albeit with a “low confidence” rating–the lowest on a three-tier scale (low, medium, high)–indicating the evidence remains inconclusive.

    The CIA has thus joined the ranks of the FBI and the Department of Energy (DOE), which has scientific jurisdiction, in supporting the possibility of a laboratory-related incident.

    Findings from a 2023 reportshow that, among the U.S. agencies that have investigated the pandemic’s origins, one remains undecided, while four others, along with the National Intelligence Council, support the natural origin hypothesis.

    What does ‘laboratory origin’ really mean?

    According to The New York Times, the CIA’s revised assessment is based not on new evidence, but on a reinterpretation of existing data. However, the reasoning behind its reassessment, along with the supporting data, has not been made public, making it impossible to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the agency’s conclusions.

    Adding to the complexity, “laboratory origin” is an umbrella term encompassing multiple, sometimes contradictory, scenarios. Confirming CNN’s 2023 report on the Department of Energy’s revised stance, The New York Times notes that while the DOE identifies the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WCDC) as the outbreak’s likely source, the FBI attributes it to a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). As of now, the CIA has not disclosed which scenario it deems most plausible.

    Though WCDC is not an actual research laboratory, some of its employees were participating in wildlife sampling campaigns at the time of the outbreak. In late 2019, WCDC moved to a location close to the Huanan Market. A theory implicating the WCDC confirms evidence that the earliest detected cases are epidemiologically and geographically linked to the market, suggesting the virus emerged naturally.

    In contrast, the WIV is a research institute operating across two campuses–one located 12 kilometers from the market and the other, which houses the P4 laboratory, 27 kilometers away. Scenarios implicating the WIV generally posit that “gain-of-function” coronavirus experiments–intended to enhance a virus’s transmissibility or virulence–were conducted under unsafe biosecurity conditions. The WIV is a biosafety level 2 facility, two levels below the high-security P4 standard.

    The interactive map above highlights Wuhan laboratories–the two WIV campuses in purple and the WCDC in yellow–and the Wuhan Huanan market in red. Click the symbol in the top left corner to view the legend. Since the WCDC is located near the market, please zoom in to see it.

    The Covid-19 virus originated from a single source. If it did escape from a Chinese laboratory, it could not have simultaneously leaked from two separate labs conducting different types of research.

    The lab leak scenario, supported by mutually incompatible hypotheses, doesn’t hold up–even before considering theories that the virus was engineered in a U.S. lab and then sent to Wuhan.

    Beyond determining the virus’s origin, it is equally important to identify the exact nature of the virus–further complicating the lab-accident hypothesis. Was it a natural occurring virus contracted during a sampling campaign? A laboratory-cultivated virus transferred to cells or animals? Or even a directly genetically modified virus?

    Again, SARS-CoV-2 cannot be both a natural virus and the result of lab experiments. Arguments built on conflicting premises do little to strengthen the case for a research-related incident.

    No evidence of a laboratory-related incident

    The lab-incident hypothesis would carry much more weight if definitive proof emerged that, by late December 2019, a Wuhan laboratory possessed a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2–meaning a virus identical or nearly identical to SARS-CoV-2.

    In the case of the 2007 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in southern England, for example, virus sequencing quickly led investigators to nearby high-security laboratories conducting research on a similar virus. The inquiry ultimately traced the outbreak to faulty effluent pipes at the facilities.

    To date, no virus has been identified that could be used in a laboratory as a direct progenitor of SARS-CoV-2. If the virus did emerge from a research-related incident, two possibilities remain: it was either an uncharacterized natural virus, unknown even to researchers, or it was a previously characterized virus that had not been disclosed–either because it was recently identified or part of a classified program–and is still being kept under wraps by scientists in Wuhan.

    Especially if SARS-CoV-2 were the result of genetic engineering. A lab-modified virus would mean its genetic sequence was known before the pandemic and accessible to researchers. However, by 2021, the U.S. intelligence community had determined that researchers at the WIV had no prior knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 before the outbreak. While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, concrete data has yet to emerge supporting the hypothesis of laboratory modification.

    Theories about a potential lab outbreak have also fueled speculation about external involvement, both within China and abroad. A U.S. Senate committee report put forward an all-Chinese scenario, citing the suspicious 2020 death of a Beijing-based researcher working on a new vaccine.

    Other theories center on the NGO EcoHealth Alliance, which collaborated with WIV to collect and study natural coronavirus strains before its funding was abruptly cut off at Donald Trump’s request in Spring 2020. The organization’s president has since been banned from federal funding for five years, facing criticism over oversight issues, including delayed reporting of an experiment on a chimeric coronavirus and failure to provide WIV’s laboratory notebooks.

    Among the most high-profile figures implicated in U.S.-based complicity theories is Anthony Fauci, the former White House Covid advisor and head of the agency that funded the EcoHealth Alliance/WIV collaboration. But allegations against Fauci go far beyond simply approving research grants. One narrative claims he deliberately suppressed discussions about the pandemic’s point of origin, pressuring researchers to alter their conclusions in exchange for funding. No evidence has surfaced to support this claim.

    Anticipating potential retribution from his successor and the Republican Party, Former President Joe Biden preemptively granted Fauci a presidential pardon. However, newly elected President Donald Trump has since revoked Fauci’s personal security detail, and Republican Senator Rand Paul has vowed to continue efforts to prosecute him.

    The natural-origin theory faces hurdles as well

    Since these competing lab leak theories have emerged from a lack of conclusive evidence anything is possible. However, available data suggest the virus may have originated naturally from animals sold at the Huanan Market.

    Multiple sources, including research from Chinese institutions, support this hypothesis: two early SARS-CoV-2 strains were detected at the market, with the earliest cases reported in homes within the vicinity, even for patients without direct epidemiological links to it, and findings from the Chinese Center for Disease Control (CCDC) indicate that raccoon dogs and masked palm civets–species implicated in earlier SARS outbreaks–were present in the market’s southwest corner, where traces of SARS-CoV-2 were frequently detected.

    However, by the time the China CDC team arrived at the Huanan Market–just hours after its closure for sample collection–raccoon dogs and civets were no longer present. As a result, no direct traces of infection were detected, and the definitive evidence some are hoping for may never be uncovered.

    But even if such proof were to emerge, it’s unlikely to settle the debate. Additional confirmation would be needed to show that the contamination originated in the animals rather than being a secondary infection transmitted by humans. Moreover, skeptics could argue that the animals themselves came from a laboratory. In other words, the controversy is far from over.

    For now, with the new Trump administration focused on finding a culprit, the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic will remain in the spotlight. Senator Rand Paul, now chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), has made the issue his favorite hobbyhorse.

    While declassifying additional information from the U.S. intelligence community could help clarify competing conclusions, there are concerns that the administration’s efforts may unfairly target researchers, potentially resulting in more innocent victims.

    Florence Débarre received funding in 2022 from the MODCOV19 platform of the National Institute for Mathematical Sciences and their Interactions (Insmi, CNRS) to model the initial dynamics of an epidemic.

    – ref. The ‘lab-leak origin’ of Covid-19. Fact or fiction? – https://theconversation.com/the-lab-leak-origin-of-covid-19-fact-or-fiction-250462

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Smart is sexy – new study on fish doing puzzles hints intelligence partly evolved via sexual selection

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ivan Vinogradov, Animal Behaviour Researcher, Australian National University

    Turner Brockman/iNaturalist, CC BY-SA

    We humans often underestimate the intelligence of other animals. You’ve probably seen videos of monkeys, ravens or parrots solving puzzles.

    But fish also possess impressive problem-solving skills, despite the notorious slander that goldfish have a three-second memory.

    The intelligence of animals can be a useful tool when testing various ideas in biology. For example, could intelligence have evolved in part thanks to sexual selection, rather than as a means of survival?

    In a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, we used distinct tests to measure cognitive abilities of male mosquitofish – a thumb-sized fish endemic to central America but now a major pest in many parts of the world, including Australia.

    We then tracked how many offspring each male produced when competing for mates in small ponds. Our study showed that smarter males had more offspring than their less intelligent brethren.

    Our findings imply that the evolution of cognitive abilities may have been driven by sexual selection, with smarter males gaining more mating opportunities.

    To be smart is to survive

    Cognitive abilities, such as learning and problem solving, likely arose because they helped animals gather food, find shelter and avoid predators.

    Individuals that were better at these tasks lived longer and passed on genes to their offspring that improved the offspring’s performance. Natural selection favoured smarter survivors who had more descendants than the average individual.

    As a result, populations became smarter over time.

    But there is another explanation for the evolution of intelligence: smarter is sexy. A better brain might help an animal find more mates, have more sex, and eventually have more babies.

    If this is the case, intelligence partly evolved through sexual selection, where traits that boost mating and fertilisation success become more common over generations.

    We did our study on male fish – sexual selection is usually stronger on males than females, because in most species there are more males seeking mates than females ready to mate and breed.

    A shoal of mosquitofish.
    David Fanner

    Measuring animal IQ

    Even in humans, intelligence can be difficult to pin down: maths skills, creativity, street smarts, and standardised IQ tests all capture different aspects of human braininess.

    For animals, this challenge is tougher still. But biologists broadly agree that cognition is the ability to acquire, store, process, and act on information; and that distinct cognitive abilities are governed by different brain regions.

    We designed four special underwater tests to tap into these distinct cognitive abilities of our male mosquitofish.

    First, we measured their spatial learning by placing fish in a maze with a single correct route that led them to a shoal of their compatriots. Mosquitofish are highly motivated to swim with other fish, so reaching this shoal acts as a reward for solving the maze.

    Second, we measured their self-control (formally called “inhibitory control”) by placing a transparent barrier between the fish and a reward. We then documented how quickly a male learned not to swim into the barrier but to detour around it.

    A variation of the apparatus used to test self-control in mosquitofish. Fish needed to overcome their impulse to swim straight through the transparent barrier and detour it instead.
    Ivan Vinogradov

    Then, we measured associative learning by presenting a fish with two coloured corridors once a day. One colour (for example, green) led to a dead end, while the other (for example, red) to a reward.

    The number of days it took a male to consistently choose the correct corridor – the one with a reward – indicated how quickly they learned the association.

    Lastly, we reversed the colour cues to measure reversal learning. If green, for example, was previously the dead end, it now became the reward corridor, while red became the dead end. This tested how quickly the fish could “overwrite” his previously learned association to learn the new one.

    A winning edge in mating

    After these tests, we moved the males to ponds where they competed for mates. Two months later, the females gave birth, and genetic paternity tests revealed who fathered each offspring.

    Males that scored highly on self-control and spatial learning had significantly more children. But why?

    Something about these males seemingly gave them an edge in securing mating opportunities. Perhaps females recognised and preferred smarter males? Maybe smarter males were better at chasing the females and forcing them to mate (a common, if unpleasant, practice in mosquitofish).

    Future research is needed to observe the males’ mating behaviours more closely and see if smarter and dumber males differ in how they court mates.

    Our research sheds light on the evolution of our most prized possession – the brain. It seems that sophisticated intelligence isn’t only driven by our need to find food or avoid danger to survive, but also by the complex challenges of finding love.

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

    – ref. Smart is sexy – new study on fish doing puzzles hints intelligence partly evolved via sexual selection – https://theconversation.com/smart-is-sexy-new-study-on-fish-doing-puzzles-hints-intelligence-partly-evolved-via-sexual-selection-249862

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Some of Australia’s largest companies are failing to ‘know and show’ their respect for human rights

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Birchall, Senior Lecturer in Law, Macquarie University

    The skyline of Sydney’s central business district. Olga Kashubin/Shutterstock

    In our complex, interconnected world, there are risks of human rights violations throughout global supply chains. Examples include not only modern slavery and child labour, but also gender discrimination and violations of land, food and water rights.

    Many people care deeply about whether the companies they support are monitoring and addressing these issues. So, how do some of the biggest Australian companies measure up?

    To answer this question, we analysed the human rights commitments of 25 of the top companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), including some of our largest banks and mining companies.

    We found Australian companies have a long way to go in “knowing and showing” a commitment to respect human rights, suggesting an urgent need for reform.

    One response could be for Australia to follow the European Union’s lead and create a mandatory human rights due diligence regime.



    Read more:
    Many global corporations will soon have to police up and down their supply chains as EU human rights ‘due diligence’ law nears enactment

    International best practice

    Our analysis used the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Corporate Human Rights Benchmark Core UNGP Indicators.

    This benchmark uses 12 indicators that draw on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), the authoritative international standard.

    There are human rights risks across many stages of global supply chains.
    JULY_P30/Shutterstock

    The indicators are grouped into three themes:

    1. policy commitments to respect human rights
    2. embedding respect through ongoing human rights due diligence
    3. enabling accessible remedies and grievance mechanisms for workers and external stakeholders.

    Companies score between zero and two points on each indicator, depending on how they satisfy its requirements. The maximum possible score is 24.

    It’s important to understand that the aim of our study was not to assess whether these companies have been violating human rights. Rather, it was to evaluate whether companies have disclosed their policies and processes to respect human rights.

    The UN Guiding Principles expect companies to have suitable due diligence processes in place and make these publicly available in an accessible form.

    Ideally, companies should clearly state that they respect all human rights. This includes rights such as nondiscrimination, the prohibition on forced or child labour, freedom to join trade unions, and the right to a clean environment.

    They should outline in detail the mechanisms in place to identify and address actual or potential abuses. On top of this, detail which officials in the company hold responsibility for managing these issues.

    The better companies would even disclose examples of human rights abuses that they discovered in their operations, such as modern slavery or a gender pay gap.

    Poor performance overall

    Our research covered the 25 largest Australian companies by market capitalisation that had not previously been assessed under this benchmark.

    This included some of the leading Australian companies from a range of sectors – mining, banks, energy, insurance, transportation, telecommunication, media, health care and pharmaceuticals.

    Scores were poor overall. The best-performing company scored eight out of a possible 24 points. The average score was 3.6.

    Many companies were found to be making vague or ambiguous human rights commitments or only focusing on a narrow set of modern slavery risks.

    No company disclosed all of the human rights due diligence processes needed to identify, prevent, mitigate and remediate human rights risks. Nor did any disclose how they consulted with relevant stakeholders such as workers or displaced communities to help them understand and identify relevant human rights risks in company operations.

    Only ten of the 25 companies provided a mechanism for external individuals and communities to raise human rights complaints or concerns.

    Companies scored particularly poorly on the second group of indicators: embedding respect through ongoing human rights due diligence. The average score here was 0.58 out of 12.

    Many companies only focused on identifying and addressing modern slavery in their operations, to the exclusion of other human rights risks such as sexual harassment or environmental pollution.

    It was also concerning that companies we assessed often passed the burden of compliance to suppliers. That is, they established higher expectations for suppliers’ conduct than they set for their own.

    Legal requirements made a difference

    Our research found that companies scored well in making human rights commitments where there was a legal obligation to do so.

    Every company, for example, scored the point available for hosting a grievance mechanism for workers to raise concerns about the company. This is because Australia’s Corporations Act requires companies to create a whistleblower mechanism.

    Similarly, most companies disclosed elements of their modern slavery due diligence process, because this is legally required under the Modern Slavery Act.

    Proactive steps

    It is clear from our research that many large Australian companies are not operating in line with international standards.

    That means they also aren’t ready to comply with the ripple effects of the mandatory human rights due diligence laws recently introduced in Europe.

    These laws will require large Australian companies that do significant business in Europe to conduct comprehensive human rights due diligence.

    The European Union has recently introduced mandatory human rights due diligence laws.
    VanderWolf Images/Shutterstock

    Australian companies must take proactive steps to comply with international standards. This means making a public commitment to respect all human rights, establishing and publicly disclosing their human rights due diligence process.

    It will also mean involving everyone who is affected by or has an interest in the company’s activities throughout the due diligence process. This includes making sure they have a way to raise concerns and seek remedies.

    The Australian government has a vital role in ensuring that companies take their human rights responsibilities seriously. The current reporting regime under the Modern Slavery Act has proven very weak, confirmed under a recent formal review.

    Our findings suggest the government should enact a stronger and broader mandatory human rights due diligence law covering all human rights.

    David Birchall is Deputy Director of the B&HR Access to Justice Lab at Macquarie Law School.

    Ebony Birchall is the Deputy Director of the B&HR Access to Justice Lab at Macquarie University. She has previously received research funding from the Australian Government, Macquarie University and the Freedom Fund.

    Surya Deva is Director of the B&HR Access to Justice Lab at Macquarie University. He is currently UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development. He has previously received funding from the GIZ, the UNDP, the Freedom Fund and the International Commission of Jurists. He is part of the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Expert Review Committee. The Lab received funding from Maurice Blackburn Lawyers and the World Benchmarking Alliance to cover the costs of hosting an event to launch this report.

    – ref. Some of Australia’s largest companies are failing to ‘know and show’ their respect for human rights – https://theconversation.com/some-of-australias-largest-companies-are-failing-to-know-and-show-their-respect-for-human-rights-250055

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The major parties want 9 in 10 GP visits bulk billed by 2030. Here’s why we shouldn’t aim for 100%

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

    Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock

    Unaffordable GP visits has become a pressing issue amid the increasing cost-of-living crisis. About 30% of Australians delayed or didn’t see a GP in 2023–24.

    To solve this problem, Labor has proposed extending bulk billing incentives to all Australians. It hopes to increase bulk billing from 78% to 90% by 2030.

    The Coalition has promised to match Labor’s plan.

    Why not aim for 100%? It might seem a worthy goal to make GP care free for everyone, for every visit. But the evidence suggests there’s benefit to getting those on higher incomes to contribute a small amount to the cost of seeing a GP.

    GP care should be free for these Australians

    We should aim for access to GP care to be affordable and equitable. For some people, this should mean they can access the services for free.

    Appointments for children should be free. Making health checks regular and accessible during childhood is an effective long-term investment which can delay the onset of disease.

    GP visits should also be free for people with low incomes. Free primary care can mean people who would otherwise avoid seeing a GP can have their ongoing conditions managed, undergo preventive health checks, and fill prescriptions.

    When people skip GP visits and can’t afford to fill their prescriptions, their conditions can worsen. This can reduce the person’s quality of life, and require higher-cost emergency department visits and hospital care.

    Appointments in rural and remote areas should also be free. Australians living in rural and remote areas currently pay more to see a GP, have less access to care when they need it, and experience poorer health outcomes and shorter lives than their city counterparts.

    Making GP visits free for rural and remote Australians would help reduce this rural–urban gap.

    Rural Australians find it harder to see a GP when they need one.
    Michael Leslie/Shutterstock

    However, providing free GP care for everyone can cause unnecessary strain on health budgets and make the policy unsustainable in the long run.

    What can happen if you make care free for all?

    In general, when the price is low, or something is free, people use these services more. This includes medical care and medications. Free GP care may encourage more people to see their GP more than is necessary.

    Previous research showed that free care increased the use of health care but does not necessarily improve health outcomes, especially for those who are relatively healthy.

    If people are using GP services when they’re not really needed, this takes limited resources from those who really need them and can increase waiting times.

    Australia is already experiencing a GP shortage. Higher patient volumes could leave existing GPs overwhelmed and overstretched. This can reduce the quality of care.

    Countries that have made primary health care free for all, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, still report issues with access and equity. In Canada, 22% of Canadian adults do not have access to regular primary care. In the United Kingdom, people who live in poor areas struggle to get access to care.

    Make co-payments more affordable

    To balance affordability for patients with the financial viability of primary care, Australians who can afford to contribute to the cost of their GP care should pay a small amount.

    However, the A$60 many of us currently pay to visit a GP is arguably too expensive, as it may prompt some to forego care when they need it.

    A relatively smaller co-payment in the range of around $20 to $30 to visit the GP would help discourage unnecessary visits when resources are limited, but be less likely to turn patients off seeking this care.

    Providing free GP visits for all may not be efficient or sustainable, but making it more affordable and equitable can lead to a more efficient and sustainable care system and doing so is within our reach.



    Read more:
    Should we aim to bulk-bill everyone for GP visits? We asked 5 experts

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

    Karinna Saxby has previously received funding from the Department of Health and Aged Care,

    – ref. The major parties want 9 in 10 GP visits bulk billed by 2030. Here’s why we shouldn’t aim for 100% – https://theconversation.com/the-major-parties-want-9-in-10-gp-visits-bulk-billed-by-2030-heres-why-we-shouldnt-aim-for-100-249605

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Calling 000 for help in an emergency doesn’t work in parts of Australia – but a new plan could change that

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University

    robert paul van beets/Shutterstock

    People could soon make mobile calls and send SMS text messages from the remotest parts of Australia, under a new election promise from the federal Albanese government to overhaul the country’s mobile phone network.

    The proposal would create a new universal outdoor mobile obligation for Australian mobile carriers such as Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. This obligation would require carriers to work with companies operating low Earth orbit satellites to provide access to mobile voice, SMS and the Triple Zero (000) service almost everywhere across Australia.

    This world-first reform would be a major step forward for public safety – especially in regional and remote areas, where mobile coverage is currently poor to nonexistent. The Albanese government says that if it wins the upcoming election, it would implement the reform by late 2027.

    However, implementing it will come with some technical challenges.

    Satellites boost mobile access

    Low Earth orbit satellites operate at an altitude of between 160km and 2,000km above the Earth’s surface. Examples include the roughly 7,000 Starlink satellites owned and operated by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, that are currently in orbit.

    The new generation of these satellites incorporates a technology known as “direct to device”. This means they can directly connect with mobile phones. And it is this feature the Labor government’s new proposal seeks to utilise.

    Specifically, the proposal aims to:

    • expand Triple Zero (000) access for Australians across the nation
    • expand outdoor voice and SMS coverage into existing mobile black spots
    • improve the availability of mobile signals during disasters and power outages.

    The proposal adds to carriers’ existing obligations to provide fixed phone and internet services across Australia.

    In a few years, low Earth orbit satellites should also be able to provide data using an enhanced direct to device technology. The government has said it will consider including data in the obligation when the opportunity arises.

    Staying safer and better connected in the bush

    The telecommunications industry has long worked towards a goal of providing universal outdoor mobile coverage in Australia. Labor’s new proposal provides the impetus for the industry to take this major step forward.

    It would also provide the guidance necessary to ensure a consumer safety focus remains the fundamental rationale for telecommunications.

    This policy would ensure everyone can connect to emergency services, friends and family during emergencies or natural disasters.

    The benefits for people living and working in regional and remote areas would be considerable.

    For example, truck drivers experiencing a breakdown in the outback would be able to call for assistance. And farmers working in the remote wheat belt regions of Western Australia could stay connected with other workers and their families.

    Technical problems to solve

    However, there are some technical problems the telecommunications industry will need to overcome to achieve universal outdoor mobile coverage.

    Across the world, nations are rolling out mobile networks that use different radio frequencies. For the universal outdoor mobile obligation to be successful, the mobile carriers will need to work with satellite providers to ensure the spectrum bands used in Australia for the 4G, and in the future 5G, mobile networks will also work with satellites.

    Mobile devices connect with the network when the user makes a phone call, sends an SMS text message or browses the internet.

    When the mobile is connected to a low Earth orbit satellite, it’s important that it can tell apps to “shut up” and stop trying to connect to the network to transmit data. Otherwise the connected mobiles could cause congestion and limit service reliability and resilience.

    There are mobile handsets that have this capability today. But the vast majority of older mobile handsets do not. A list of compatible mobile handsets would need to be compiled and made available, so that consumers can consider this information when purchasing a mobile.

    To connect to a low Earth orbit satellite, it is anticipated a mobile will need to be used in a location where the sky can be seen directly. And initially at least, using a satellite-connected mobile inside a vehicle will require an external antenna.

    The universal outdoor mobile obligation would enable drivers experiencing a breakdown in the outback to call for help.
    DedovStock/Shutterstock

    A timely step forward

    The government says the introduction of a universal outdoor mobile obligation would provide an opportunity to modernise and expand existing service obligations for mobile carriers. For both to be successful, there is also a need for minimum performance standards.

    Providing mobile voice call and SMS text access across Australia is of little value if the service quality is poor, and fails during an emergency or natural disaster.

    That being said, Labor’s proposal should gain bipartisan support. It is a timely step forward that will bring positive outcomes for all Australians, especially those living and working in regional and remote areas.

    Mark A Gregory has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network grants program and the auDA Foundation. Life member of the Telecommunications Association.

    – ref. Calling 000 for help in an emergency doesn’t work in parts of Australia – but a new plan could change that – https://theconversation.com/calling-000-for-help-in-an-emergency-doesnt-work-in-parts-of-australia-but-a-new-plan-could-change-that-250762

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Remembering Roberta Flack, a spellbinding virtuoso of musical interpretation

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Leigh Carriage, Senior Lecturer in Music, Southern Cross University

    The multi-Grammy award winner Roberta Flack has passed away at 88.

    Her approach and sound were a unique combination of soul, folk, rhythm and blues, jazz, pop and musicianship, and arranging skills so broad she had had a lasting impact on future artists.

    Her sustained career laid a foundation for pop and neo-soul artists Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, Solange, J Dilla, Flying Lotus, and D’Angelo.

    Over her career, Flack performed some original songs, but she is better known for her myriad of covers and performances of songs written for her. No matter who wrote the songs, she made all of them her own. She was a master of musical interpretation.

    An early life of music

    Flack was born in North Carolina in 1937. Both of her parents played piano; her mother was the church organist.

    Her early interest in gospel tunes was encouraged and supported with her participation in a local Baptist church in Arlington, Virginia, and many relatives who sang.

    Her formal classical musical training continued at Howard University. After a brief period teaching at a junior high school, Flack started landing regular bookings at Mr. Henry’s, a Washington DC bar where Flack performed a range of traditional spirituals, jazz, blues and folk repertoire.

    In 1968, she signed with Atlantic Records.

    Her brilliant debut

    Her debut album, First Take, was recorded over just ten hours in 1969 at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York. First take indeed! Genius!

    Considering Flack’s background, religious inspiration and being surrounded by the social movements of the 1960s, it is not surprising that her first album features songs that address race and religion. The album creates a fusion of music with themes of spiritually and compelling political issues.

    Flack blended genres effortlessly. One of the highlights of the album is Flack’s interpretation of the folk song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Written in 1957 by British political singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl for the vocalist Peggy Seeger, Flack’s interpretation is notably delivered with a deliberately slower tempo, and with legato phrasing – smooth, and connected.

    The lesser-known second track, the Venezuelan/Mexican song Angelitos Negros, offers a soulful statement of black rights.

    Flack’s powerful vocal delivery evokes a haunting sense of loss and refined passion. This, combined with her choice of musical arrangement with repeating lyrics, forms a commanding protest song.

    Always forging her own path

    Labels often described her work as “adult contemporary” or “easy-listening”.

    This barely addresses the diversity within her catalogue, which features Broadway ballads like The Impossible Dream, her definitive interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye, Bee Gees and Beatles songs, and folk classics.

    Blending genres like jazz, latin, rock and folk with nuanced elements of classical into her own arrangements and song interpretations, to the listener Flack’s interpretation becomes authorship.

    In this way, Flack played a role in defining pop music’s processes.

    Flack is best known for her majestic indelible early hits songs like Killing Me Softly with His Song, Where Is the Love and The Closer I Get to You.

    The 1973 live recording of Killing Me Softly With His Song, written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, is breathtaking.

    Flack opens without an introduction: straight in, delicately infusing the lyrics with a vast array of tonal shades. The smooth phrases are delivered with a beautifully aligned dynamic, like the most carefully crafted expression.

    In 1996 Killing Me Softly with His Song, was reinvented by the Fugees with lead vocalist Lauryn Hill.

    Where Is the Love, a duet with Donny Hathaway, brings together their two legendary voices perfectly. Here were two highly skilled pianists with incredible musicality with voices that blended perfectly together.

    I have always enjoyed Flack’s version of Compared to What. Flack’s emotive delivery; the warmth of her tone; the panache; the edgeless smooth phrasing pulls you near in complete comfort.

    For Flack the lyric meaning – telling the story with clarity and honesty – was paramount. Her expression is refined with understated inventiveness. There is such power in her performances. She is spellbinding, reaching a deep soulful place that is both classically and contemporarily informed.

    While Flack wrote some songs, such as You Know What It’s Like, she was not predominantly a songwriter. Instead, she was a virtuosic interpreter of music. Whether penned by Flack or not, each song’s interpretation sounds authored by her. That is the sense you are getting when you listen to her music: it doesn’t matter who it’s written by, her interpretation makes you believe it is by her.

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

    – ref. Remembering Roberta Flack, a spellbinding virtuoso of musical interpretation – https://theconversation.com/remembering-roberta-flack-a-spellbinding-virtuoso-of-musical-interpretation-250763

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The gold price has surged to record highs. What’s behind the move?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Dirk Baur, Professor of Finance, The University of Western Australia

    The gold price has surged to a new all-time high above US$2,900 (A$4,544) an ounce this month.

    It has risen by 12% since the start of the year and clearly outperformed US and Australian stock markets. The US stock index S&P500 is up 4% and the ASX 200 has gained just 2% in that time.

    That follows an extraordinary run in 2024, when the precious metal surged 27%, the biggest rise in 14 years.

    The drivers behind this surge include heightened uncertainty and fear of inflation that has been stoked by US President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs, together with increased demand from central banks.

    What explains gold’s recent rally?

    There are many factors at play.

    The supply of gold through gold mine production and recycling is relatively constant over time. But the demand is more variable, and consists of four major components: jewellery, technology, investment and central banks.

    In 2024, jewellery accounted for about 50% of total demand, technology or industrial demand was 5%, investment demand was 25% and central bank demand was 20%.

    Investment demand refers to investors who buy gold as an asset. Central banks generally buy gold to diversify their reserve holdings.

    As all four demand components vary over time (some more than others), gold price movements are sometimes driven by jewellery demand, sometimes by investor demand, and sometimes – as has happened recently – by central bank demand.

    What adds to the difficulty is that both the gold supply and gold demand are global. The supply comes from gold mines across the globe, from emerging countries in Africa and industrial countries such as Australia and Canada.

    The same is true for demand. While China and India dominate jewellery demand, the demand comes from many countries, as does investment demand. Central bank demand stems from large and small central banks around the world.

    Why is there demand for gold?

    One key reason for the popularity of gold is that it is considered to be a store of value. This means gold rises with inflation and maintains its value in the long run.

    In other words, an ounce of gold buys the same basket of goods (or more) today than 20 years ago. This is not the case for money (or fiat currency) such as the US or Australian dollars.

    Due to inflation, the value of money is not constant but depreciates over time. Because gold holds its value, it is also called an inflation hedge.

    While the store of value property holds in the long run, there is another important property that is more short-lived and particularly relevant during crisis periods.

    Gold is seen as a safe haven in troubled times

    The safe haven property of gold means gold prices increase when investors seek shelter in response to a shock or crisis. For example, investors bought gold in reaction to the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, the start of the global financial crisis in 2008, and the outbreak of COVID in 2020.

    The safe haven effect of gold is generally short-lived, often resulting in falling gold prices after about 15 days.

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the subsequent sanctions on Russia – especially the freeze of Russia’s foreign government bond holdings abroad – has highlighted the risk to governments of losing access to foreign currency holdings.

    It appears some governments or central banks reacted to this with increased gold purchases. This led to a record high of 1,082 tonnes of central bank gold purchases in 2022.

    2023 saw the second-highest annual purchase in history at 1,051 tonnes, followed by 1,041 tonnes in 2024.

    The potential reaction of central banks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is akin to investors seeking a safe haven, but is a rather new phenomenon for central banks.

    There is an additional, secondary, effect of such central bank purchases and rebalancing from US dollars to gold.

    Selling US dollars for gold implies a weakening US dollar, which increases the price of gold. (If the US dollar weakens, you need more US dollars to buy gold.) The inverse relationship between gold prices and currencies also makes gold a currency hedge. That means gold can protect investors from potential losses due to fluctuating exchange rates. This effect is particularly strong for rather volatile currencies such as the Australian dollar.

    In contrast to the shock caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the more recent increase in gold prices is harder to associate with a single shock.

    Broader economic worries

    The election of Trump has not only increased the risk of higher inflation due to tariffs and a trade war, it has also increased geopolitical risk as the US government reassesses its alliances with other countries.

    The relative unpredictability of Trump compared with his predecessors and with politicians more generally may have increased uncertainty and gold prices.
    The recent gold price trend highlights that “gold loves bad news”.

    Gold prices may anticipate geopolitical shocks or higher inflation. Gold prices rose well before inflation increased after the pandemic and started to fall when inflation had peaked in 2022.

    It is not clear exactly why gold has risen to all-time highs in 2025, but it’s possibly not good news for the world economy.

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

    – ref. The gold price has surged to record highs. What’s behind the move? – https://theconversation.com/the-gold-price-has-surged-to-record-highs-whats-behind-the-move-250391

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Remembering Roberta Flack, a spellbinding virtuoso of musical interpretation

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leigh Carriage, Senior Lecturer in Music, Southern Cross University

    The multi-Grammy award winner Roberta Flack has passed away at 88.

    Her approach and sound were a unique combination of soul, folk, rhythm and blues, jazz, pop and musicianship, and arranging skills so broad she had had a lasting impact on future artists.

    Her sustained career laid a foundation for pop and neo-soul artists Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, Solange, J Dilla, Flying Lotus, and D’Angelo.

    Over her career, Flack performed some original songs, but she is better known for her myriad of covers and performances of songs written for her. No matter who wrote the songs, she made all of them her own. She was a master of musical interpretation.

    An early life of music

    Flack was born in North Carolina in 1937. Both of her parents played piano; her mother was the church organist.

    Her early interest in gospel tunes was encouraged and supported with her participation in a local Baptist church in Arlington, Virginia, and many relatives who sang.

    Her formal classical musical training continued at Howard University. After a brief period teaching at a junior high school, Flack started landing regular bookings at Mr. Henry’s, a Washington DC bar where Flack performed a range of traditional spirituals, jazz, blues and folk repertoire.

    In 1968, she signed with Atlantic Records.

    Her brilliant debut

    Her debut album, First Take, was recorded over just ten hours in 1969 at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York. First take indeed! Genius!

    Considering Flack’s background, religious inspiration and being surrounded by the social movements of the 1960s, it is not surprising that her first album features songs that address race and religion. The album creates a fusion of music with themes of spiritually and compelling political issues.

    Flack blended genres effortlessly. One of the highlights of the album is Flack’s interpretation of the folk song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Written in 1957 by British political singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl for the vocalist Peggy Seeger, Flack’s interpretation is notably delivered with a deliberately slower tempo, and with legato phrasing – smooth, and connected.

    The lesser-known second track, the Venezuelan/Mexican song Angelitos Negros, offers a soulful statement of black rights.

    Flack’s powerful vocal delivery evokes a haunting sense of loss and refined passion. This, combined with her choice of musical arrangement with repeating lyrics, forms a commanding protest song.

    Always forging her own path

    Labels often described her work as “adult contemporary” or “easy-listening”.

    This barely addresses the diversity within her catalogue, which features Broadway ballads like The Impossible Dream, her definitive interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye, Bee Gees and Beatles songs, and folk classics.

    Blending genres like jazz, latin, rock and folk with nuanced elements of classical into her own arrangements and song interpretations, to the listener Flack’s interpretation becomes authorship.

    In this way, Flack played a role in defining pop music’s processes.

    Flack is best known for her majestic indelible early hits songs like Killing Me Softly with His Song, Where Is the Love and The Closer I Get to You.

    The 1973 live recording of Killing Me Softly With His Song, written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, is breathtaking.

    Flack opens without an introduction: straight in, delicately infusing the lyrics with a vast array of tonal shades. The smooth phrases are delivered with a beautifully aligned dynamic, like the most carefully crafted expression.

    In 1996 Killing Me Softly with His Song, was reinvented by the Fugees with lead vocalist Lauryn Hill.

    Where Is the Love, a duet with Donny Hathaway, brings together their two legendary voices perfectly. Here were two highly skilled pianists with incredible musicality with voices that blended perfectly together.

    I have always enjoyed Flack’s version of Compared to What. Flack’s emotive delivery; the warmth of her tone; the panache; the edgeless smooth phrasing pulls you near in complete comfort.

    For Flack the lyric meaning – telling the story with clarity and honesty – was paramount. Her expression is refined with understated inventiveness. There is such power in her performances. She is spellbinding, reaching a deep soulful place that is both classically and contemporarily informed.

    While Flack wrote some songs, such as You Know What It’s Like, she was not predominantly a songwriter. Instead, she was a virtuosic interpreter of music. Whether penned by Flack or not, each song’s interpretation sounds authored by her. That is the sense you are getting when you listen to her music: it doesn’t matter who it’s written by, her interpretation makes you believe it is by her.

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

    – ref. Remembering Roberta Flack, a spellbinding virtuoso of musical interpretation – https://theconversation.com/remembering-roberta-flack-a-spellbinding-virtuoso-of-musical-interpretation-250763

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The gold price has surged to record highs. What’s behind the move?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dirk Baur, Professor of Finance, The University of Western Australia

    The gold price has surged to a new all-time high above US$2,900 (A$4,544) an ounce this month.

    It has risen by 12% since the start of the year and clearly outperformed US and Australian stock markets. The US stock index S&P500 is up 4% and the ASX 200 has gained just 2% in that time.

    That follows an extraordinary run in 2024, when the precious metal surged 27%, the biggest rise in 14 years.

    The drivers behind this surge include heightened uncertainty and fear of inflation that has been stoked by US President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs, together with increased demand from central banks.

    What explains gold’s recent rally?

    There are many factors at play.

    The supply of gold through gold mine production and recycling is relatively constant over time. But the demand is more variable, and consists of four major components: jewellery, technology, investment and central banks.

    In 2024, jewellery accounted for about 50% of total demand, technology or industrial demand was 5%, investment demand was 25% and central bank demand was 20%.

    Investment demand refers to investors who buy gold as an asset. Central banks generally buy gold to diversify their reserve holdings.

    As all four demand components vary over time (some more than others), gold price movements are sometimes driven by jewellery demand, sometimes by investor demand, and sometimes – as has happened recently – by central bank demand.

    What adds to the difficulty is that both the gold supply and gold demand are global. The supply comes from gold mines across the globe, from emerging countries in Africa and industrial countries such as Australia and Canada.

    The same is true for demand. While China and India dominate jewellery demand, the demand comes from many countries, as does investment demand. Central bank demand stems from large and small central banks around the world.

    Why is there demand for gold?

    One key reason for the popularity of gold is that it is considered to be a store of value. This means gold rises with inflation and maintains its value in the long run.

    In other words, an ounce of gold buys the same basket of goods (or more) today than 20 years ago. This is not the case for money (or fiat currency) such as the US or Australian dollars.

    Due to inflation, the value of money is not constant but depreciates over time. Because gold holds its value, it is also called an inflation hedge.

    While the store of value property holds in the long run, there is another important property that is more short-lived and particularly relevant during crisis periods.

    Gold is seen as a safe haven in troubled times

    The safe haven property of gold means gold prices increase when investors seek shelter in response to a shock or crisis. For example, investors bought gold in reaction to the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, the start of the global financial crisis in 2008, and the outbreak of COVID in 2020.

    The safe haven effect of gold is generally short-lived, often resulting in falling gold prices after about 15 days.

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the subsequent sanctions on Russia – especially the freeze of Russia’s foreign government bond holdings abroad – has highlighted the risk to governments of losing access to foreign currency holdings.

    It appears some governments or central banks reacted to this with increased gold purchases. This led to a record high of 1,082 tonnes of central bank gold purchases in 2022.

    2023 saw the second-highest annual purchase in history at 1,051 tonnes, followed by 1,041 tonnes in 2024.

    The potential reaction of central banks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is akin to investors seeking a safe haven, but is a rather new phenomenon for central banks.

    There is an additional, secondary, effect of such central bank purchases and rebalancing from US dollars to gold.

    Selling US dollars for gold implies a weakening US dollar, which increases the price of gold. (If the US dollar weakens, you need more US dollars to buy gold.) The inverse relationship between gold prices and currencies also makes gold a currency hedge. That means gold can protect investors from potential losses due to fluctuating exchange rates. This effect is particularly strong for rather volatile currencies such as the Australian dollar.

    In contrast to the shock caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the more recent increase in gold prices is harder to associate with a single shock.

    Broader economic worries

    The election of Trump has not only increased the risk of higher inflation due to tariffs and a trade war, it has also increased geopolitical risk as the US government reassesses its alliances with other countries.

    The relative unpredictability of Trump compared with his predecessors and with politicians more generally may have increased uncertainty and gold prices.
    The recent gold price trend highlights that “gold loves bad news”.

    Gold prices may anticipate geopolitical shocks or higher inflation. Gold prices rose well before inflation increased after the pandemic and started to fall when inflation had peaked in 2022.

    It is not clear exactly why gold has risen to all-time highs in 2025, but it’s possibly not good news for the world economy.

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

    – ref. The gold price has surged to record highs. What’s behind the move? – https://theconversation.com/the-gold-price-has-surged-to-record-highs-whats-behind-the-move-250391

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What do young people want to see in politics? More than 20,000 pieces of their writing hold some answers

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philippa Collin, Professor, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

    Shutterstock

    Ahead of the Australian election, candidates, advisers and political parties might be paying attention to what young people think. And if they’re not, they should be.

    This election will be the first in which Gen Z and Millennial voters (aged 18–40) will outnumber Baby Boomers (aged 60–79). Many of these young people were in high school during the previous two elections.

    While there are concerns about the effectiveness of civics and citizenship education, there is also evidence young people are interested in, and active on, many issues.

    So what do young people care about most? We analysed thousands of pieces of writing by young Australians to find out.

    What matters to young people?

    For the past 20 years, young people have been telling us what matters to them as part of the Whitlam Institute’s What Matters? writing competition. Students in years 5–12 can write about whatever they like. Most are directed by their schools to contribute as a part of their civics curriculum. Some opt to enter the competition out of interest.

    A unique sample, our analysis of 22,500 entries from 2019 to 2024 provides insight into the issues that resonate most with this generation.

    We identified common themes: society and democracy, mental health, environment and climate change, intergenerational justice and (social) media.

    1. Society and democracy

    We found young people were actively grappling with complex and diverse issues in an increasingly fragmented political landscape. They are also concerned about anti-democratic forces.

    They reflect on what makes this moment exceptional – climate change, war and violence, rapid technological change – and consider actions needed from individuals, communities and institutions for them to have a future.

    Our research shows young people prioritise care in local and global futures, valuing peer support, family, intergenerational ties, and connections across communities and borders. The most common topic was family, followed by pollution, racism and poverty.

    An ethics of care shapes their sense of belonging and responsibility –
    and the responsibilities of government. As a senior student wrote in 2022:

    Children are being abused, or watching one of their parents be abused countless times. The Government needs to step up and do their job properly by using more effective ways of helping children and their parents get out of unsafe environments.

    Our sentiment analysis shows that they write with hope – and frequently with anxiety and fear.

    2. Mental health

    Many young people write about “health”, including physical health and the health of communities and natural environments. Most often, though, they write about mental health and the causes of worry, distress and illness.

    Young people want governments and leaders to tackle the causes of the causes of ill-health. In other words, they want action on what creates the drivers of ill-health, including climate change, inequality and loneliness.

    For policymakers and advocates, this means recognising mental health as deeply connected to broader social and political issues – issues young people believe governments must address if they are serious about improving wellbeing.

    3. Environment and climate change

    Environmental issues, particularly climate change, were dominant themes — more so than in previous years. Students write about their relationship to the environment and the benefits of connecting to nature.

    Concerns about climate change were a common theme across the entries.
    Shutterstock

    Some are calling out extractive relationships with the environment, particularly by large corporations. They demand urgent action from individuals and institutions, advocating for policies that prioritise future generations and the planet.

    A senior student wrote in 2019:

    our future is under threat because of climate change […] it is our generation’s future that is on the line, yet we continue to be unheard.

    4. Intergenerational justice

    Young people see intergenerational justice and social justice as interconnected, demanding climate action, economic opportunity and democratic participation. Their concerns reflect a commitment to human rights including refugee rights, gender equality and Indigenous justice.

    Their writing shows awareness of Australia’s role in the world. Many discuss global conflicts and the responsibilities of nations in promoting peace and security. They want to contribute to efforts to address these issues.

    Young people want to trust and have more of a role in Australian democracy. They want those in power, and the institutions and agencies over which they preside, to be more transparent, to communicate regularly and honestly, and to show how they are taking action for a better future for all generations.

    Key areas where young people want greater accountability are in government, the media and business. Twelve-year-old Ivy said in an interview:

    young children should have a direct voice to parliament […] adults would take us more seriously instead of just viewing us as just kids. If issues affect kids right now or this generation, they should have a say about that to parliament.

    Young people want their activism and efforts recognised and supported. They hope for a democracy in which they’re not just heard, but are actively engaged by leaders, with a direct voice in government (at all levels) and institutions.

    5. (Social) media

    Young people highlight social media’s pros and cons, calling for strategies that better engage with them to reduce harm and maximise benefits.

    Young Australians painted a nuanced picture of social media.
    Shutterstock

    They stress the need for digital literacy to navigate online information critically, and they want online environments to be supportive and safe.

    Young people are concerned about how they are represented in the media generally. They argue that inclusive and accurate portrayals are key to having their voices heard and respected – crucial for meaningful civic participation.

    Candidates on notice

    Young people are not just future constituents – they are voting at the next election.

    The young people whose writing we analysed have formed civic and political values during a turbulent time in Australian and world history: catastrophic bushfires and floods, a climate crisis, a pandemic, and digital technologies that are changing our lives.

    They reject the idea they are too young to understand issues, and instead want a participatory democracy in which their voices influence real decisions. Indeed, the public has shown a desire to let young people have more of a say.

    Our analysis tells us many of this year’s 18–24-year-old voters are informed, engaged and ready to hold leaders accountable. They want action on climate, mental health, economic justice and democratic accountability. They’re tired of being ignored and sidelined.

    The authors would like to acknowledge research assistant Ammar Shoukat Randhawa for their work on the research this article reports.

    Philippa Collin receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Telstra Foundation, Google, batyr, Whitlam Institute, Academy Of The Social Sciences In Australia and NSW Health. In recent years she has received funding from the NHMRC, the Federal Department of Education, Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies.

    Azadeh Dastyari is the Director, Research and Policy at the Whitlam Institute. She also receives funding from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).

    Michael Everitt Hartup has no conflict of interest.

    Sky Hugman receives funding from The Whitlam Institute

    – ref. What do young people want to see in politics? More than 20,000 pieces of their writing hold some answers – https://theconversation.com/what-do-young-people-want-to-see-in-politics-more-than-20-000-pieces-of-their-writing-hold-some-answers-250062

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Samoan Prime Minister Fiame survives in resounding no-confidence vote

    By Christina Persico, RNZ Pacific bulletin editor

    Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa has survived a vote of no confidence after weeks of political turmoil.

    In a vote today, she defeated the motion by 34 votes in favour and 15 against.

    The motion was prompted by a split in the ruling FAST Party, which saw Fiame leading a minority government.

    But in a shock move today, FAST members voted alongside Fiame’s faction to register a resounding defeat against Opposition Leader Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi’s motion.

    The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Papalii Lio Masipua, had granted the opposition’s formal request for a vote of no confidence against Fiame on Friday.

    Tuilaepa, who is also the head of the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), confirmed that the Speaker approved the motion in writing and allowed five members from the opposition bench to speak on it.

    According to Samoa’s constitutional requirements, the MP who commands the majority of MPs should be elected as Prime Minister or continue as Prime Minister.

    ‘Another desperate attempt’
    However, the Samoan government stated Tuilaepa’s move was “another desperate attempt to stir political drama” ahead of the no-confidence vote.

    Political upheaval hit Samoa just three days into 2025 when the chair of the ruling FAST party and Samoa’s Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries La’auli Leuatea Schmidt confirmed he was facing criminal charges.

    FAST Party chair Laauli Leuatea Schmidt (left to right), Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, and Opposition Leader Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi. Image: RNZ Pacific/123RF/Samoa Government/FAST Party

    On January 10, Mata’afa removed La’auli’s ministerial portfolio and subsequently removed three of her Cabinet ministers.

    But La’auli remained chair of the FAST Party, and went on to announce the removal of the prime minister and five Cabinet ministers from the ruling party.

    This decision was reportedly challenged by the removed members.

    Fiame then removed 13 of her associate ministers.

    Laauli acknowledged the challenge of holding a vote of no confidence, but refrained from disclosing the party’s position, stating they would wait until Tuesday.

    First female prime minister
    Fiame is Samoa’s first female prime minister. She had heritage — her father, Fiame Mata’afa Faumuina Mulinu’u, was the country’s first prime minister.

    She took office following the April 2021 election, but that devolved into political crisis.

    The caretaker HRPP government locked the doors to Parliament in an attempt to stop the then prime minister-elect from being sworn into office following her FAST Party’s one-seat election win.

    Two governments claimed a mandate to rule, and the United Nations urged the party leaders to find a solution through discussion.

    The Court of Appeal ruled that the country had a new government after it judged the impromptu swearing-in by the newcomer FAST party on May 24 was legitimate under the doctrine of necessity.

    It took until July for the incumbent, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, to concede.

    Fiame went to school and university in Wellington, New Zealand, but her studies were interrupted in 1977 when she returned to Samoa to help with court cases around the succession of her father’s titles following his death in 1975.

    In 1985, she was elected as MP for Lotofaga, the same seat held by her father and then her mother after his death.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Want a side of CO₂ with that? Better food labels help us choose more climate-friendly foods

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yi Li, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Macquarie University

    udra11, Shutterstock

    When you’re deciding what to eat for lunch or dinner, do you consider the meal’s greenhouse gas emissions? How do you compare the carbon footprint of a beef sandwich with that of a falafel wrap?

    Most people can’t tell what’s better for the climate. Even those who care deeply about making sustainable food choices can struggle.

    In Australia, meat products are responsible for almost half (49%) the greenhouse gas emissions of products consumed at home. Switching from these high-emission foods to lower-emission foods, such as plant-based meals, can significantly reduce household emissions. But a lack of knowledge may be stopping people doing the right thing.

    The good news is my colleagues and I have a simple solution. Highlighting the source of the food as animal- or plant-based on carbon labels makes a big difference to consumer choices. In our latest research, we show this new carbon label encourages switching from animal-based to plant-based foods.

    Closing the knowledge gap

    Previous research has shown consumers consistently underestimate the vast difference in greenhouse gas emissions between animal- and plant-based foods. For instance, producing one kilogram of beef emits 60kg of greenhouse gases, whereas producing the same quantity of peas emits just 1kg of greenhouse gases. However, most people think the gap between the two is much smaller.

    This matters because collectively, our food choices have a big impact on climate change. Agriculture generates almost a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, with animal products the biggest contributors.

    Making carbon labels more informative

    A “carbon footprint” refers to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a product.

    Globally, there is increasing interest in carbon food labelling, given its potential to nudge consumers towards more sustainable food choices. In Australia, such labelling is voluntary and not yet widespread.

    Most carbon labels follow a similar approach. They typically display a number representing greenhouse gas emissions, and a traffic-light system indicating the level of environmental impact from green (low) to red (high). But such labels do not indicate whether the food is animal- or plant-based. So a high carbon score does not help people identify the source of the emissions.

    Our label maps the carbon footprint to the source of the food, whether plant or animal, along with information about the greenhouse gas emissions.
    Romain Cadario, Yi Li, Anne-Kathrin Klesse, (2025) Appetite., CC BY

    We designed a new type of label. It clearly displays whether the food is sourced mainly from animals or plants, along with the standard emissions score and traffic-light colour code. This approach is especially useful for the growing segment of pre-prepared and packaged foods such as soups and other ready-to-eat meals, which often contain a mix of meat and plant-based food.

    Our label creates a mental link between a food source and its carbon impact. When a consumer sees high carbon scores and red traffic lights appearing more frequently on meat and other animal products, they begin to make the connection between those products and higher emissions. This is key to addressing a lack of knowledge around food carbon emissions.

    We tested our label against the existing labels in a series of experiments with 1,817 everyday consumers from Australia, the United States and the Netherlands.

    One experiment involved soup. Compared with the group exposed to the standard carbon label, the group exposed to our label learned to associate animal-based soups with higher greenhouse gas emissions more effectively. They were more accurate at estimating the greenhouse gas emissions of a second batch of soups without labels.

    This improved knowledge also translates to more climate-friendly food choices. In another experiment with Australian consumers, we encouraged participants to choose five meals from ten options. Five were animal-based and five were plant-based.

    Half the participants saw the meal options with our carbon labels, and the other half did not see the carbon labels. The group exposed to our carbon labels chose fewer animal-based options in their weekly meal plan. In this case, we don’t know whether a third group exposed to the standard label would also make more climate-friendly choices, but our earlier experiments suggested our label was more effective.

    In the final experiment conducted in the Netherlands, displaying our carbon label made university students more likely to choose the plant-based snack option rather than the animal-based option.

    Providing information about the source of the food, whether plant or animal, influenced choices of meal plans.
    Romain Cadario, Yi Li, Anne-Kathrin Klesse, (2025) Appetite., CC BY

    When knowledge isn’t enough

    While people who care most about sustainable eating may think they know better than others, we found that is not the case. These people were not better able than other participants to tell the difference in greenhouse gas emissions between animal- and plant-based foods without seeing our carbon label.

    But they were better learners. When confronted with the facts about the differences between animal and plant-based foods on our labels, they were more likely to change their choices and switch to plant-based foods.

    What this means for consumers and businesses

    A simple change to food labels could help consumers make more informed environmental choices. For businesses and policymakers, it shows displaying only carbon numbers isn’t enough – the food source is crucial.

    Some forward-thinking restaurants and food companies are already experimenting with adding carbon labels to the menu to encourage diners to choose climate-friendly dishes. Our research suggests this approach could be more effective when combined with the new carbon labels we designed.

    Meat products make a significant contribution to climate change.
    Valmedia, Shutterstock

    Implications for climate action

    As Australia grapples with meeting its climate commitments, helping consumers understand the environmental impact of their food choices will become increasingly important.

    The challenge for businesses, policymakers and researchers isn’t convincing people to care about sustainability – they already do. Almost half of Australian shoppers (46%) say sustainability is important to them and influences their purchases, despite cost-of-living pressures.

    But most sustainable actions in retail involve recyclable packaging, products and materials, and local produce. The carbon emission implications of these actions, sadly, are far less than reducing animal-based food consumption.

    Instead, we need to focus on giving people the tools to make their environmental concerns count. Our carbon labels could be the key to helping consumers turn their sustainable intentions into meaningful climate action.

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

    – ref. Want a side of CO₂ with that? Better food labels help us choose more climate-friendly foods – https://theconversation.com/want-a-side-of-co-with-that-better-food-labels-help-us-choose-more-climate-friendly-foods-250513

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Calculating the economic cost of climate change is tricky, even futile – it’s also a distraction

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis Wesselbaum, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Otago

    Piyaset/Shutterstock

    Climate change is no longer a distant threat. It’s here, it’s real and it increasingly affects us all.

    But predicting climate change and its associated costs, particularly over long periods of time, is inherently uncertain. And based on the best available evidence from organisations such as the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the economic costs of climate change appear to be small – making this a relatively weak argument for environmental action.

    At its most basic, climate is the long-term average of the weather we experience. Or, as former president of the American Meteorological Society, Marshall Shepherd, famously put it, “weather is your mood, and climate is your personality”.

    It’s widely accepted that climate change refers to a shift in long-term weather patterns, typically driven by human activities.

    But the impact of climate change, ranging from rising temperatures and extreme weather events to health impacts and disruptions to food and water supply, varies greatly. Some areas experience more extreme impacts than others, exacerbating social and economic disparities.

    There also appears to be a false sense about our state of knowledge. For example, many believe climate change already causes more frequent and intense storms, but the evidence for this is inconclusive.

    Trying to predict the unpredictable

    To understand the economic costs of climate change, we must first grasp how climate affects socioeconomic outcomes.

    The relationship between temperature and socioeconomic outcomes can be modelled using a “dose-response” function, which shows how much a given change in temperature (the “dose”) influences the outcome (for example, temperature-related mortality).

    A key challenge is to understand the shape of the dose-response function. Is the relationship between temperature and mortality linear or is it more complex? Does it have thresholds beyond which the effects substantially change? Is there only one function or are there different ones for different populations?

    As climate change shifts the distribution of weather variables, it alters the outcomes as well. Yet, predicting how these distributions will evolve is difficult.

    The further into the future we look, the harder it is to make reliable predictions about both weather and the associated economic costs.

    If you were asked in 1925 to predict the economy in 2000, for example, how accurate would you have been? In 1925 you drove a Ford Model T, used coal-fired steam trains and passenger ships for travel, and a trip from London to Auckland took up to eight weeks by sea. You used a telegraph for long-distance communication and a radio for entertainment.

    Compare that with the globalised, interconnected economy of the year 2000. Given the technological advancements, would your prediction have been even close?

    Rather than focusing on the uncertain future economic costs of climate change, we should be addressing how it is affecting human life now.
    James Andrews1/Shutterstock

    Cost estimates

    There are a wide range of estimates on the economic costs of climate change. But one of the most reliable has come from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

    The panel’s latest assessment report avoids quantifying the economic costs of climate change. So, to understand the economic costs of climate change, we can use the best estimate based on the previous report and the insights from meta studies. These analyses posit a temperature rise of 3.7°C will reduce global gross domestic product (GDP) by about 2.6% (ranging from 0.5 to 8.2%) by 2100.

    For New Zealand, this is equivalent to about NZ$11 billion, or twice the cost of Auckland’s City Rail Link.

    However, this comparison is extremely misleading. The value of 2.6% today will differ substantially from 2.6% in 75 years.

    The New Zealand economy grew at a compound annual rate of 1.4% between 1960 and 2000. Using this same average growth rate, New Zealanders will have a 184% higher standard of living in 2100. If nothing is done to address climate change, and given the best cost estimate, our standard of living would still be 176% higher than it is now.

    Reporting costs

    There are also issues with how some people report costs. For instance, while the total damage caused by floods and hurricanes in the United States has gone up in dollar amounts, it has not actually increased as a percentage of peoples’ incomes.

    In this context, it is crucial to distinguish between the damage caused by climate change and that resulting from human activities – such as the construction of more houses, higher property prices and river management practices.

    The economic costs of climate change based on the best available evidence appear to be small and highly uncertain.

    Shifting the focus

    Even if we accept our best estimates, economic costs are not the issue, but saving the environment is.

    Instead of focusing the debate of climate change around economic costs, we need to refocus the debate on tangible impacts happening right now: retreating glaciers, species extinction, shifting seasons and coastal erosion, to name a few.

    Addressing these issues is costly, but action will be needed to save the environment and ensure a liveable world into the future.

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

    – ref. Calculating the economic cost of climate change is tricky, even futile – it’s also a distraction – https://theconversation.com/calculating-the-economic-cost-of-climate-change-is-tricky-even-futile-its-also-a-distraction-248862

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Scientists have discovered a 3 billion-year-old beach buried on Mars

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron J. Cavosie, Senior lecturer, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University

    A view of the Utopia Planitia region on Mars which is believed to be the site of an ancient ocean. ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA

    In the 1970s, images from the NASA Mariner 9 orbiter revealed water-sculpted surfaces on Mars. This settled the once-controversial question of whether water ever rippled over the red planet.

    Since then, more and more evidence has emerged that water once played a large role on our planetary neighbour.

    For example, Martian meteorites record evidence for water back to 4.5 billion years ago. On the young side of the timescale, impact craters formed over the past few years show the presence of ice under the surface today.

    Today the hot topics focus on when water appeared, how much was there, and how long it lasted. Perhaps the most burning of all Mars water-related topics nowadays is: were there ever oceans?

    A new study published in PNAS today has made quite a splash. The study involved a team of Chinese and American scientists led by Jianhui Li from Guangzhou University in China, and was based on work done by the China National Space Administration’s Mars rover Zhurong.

    Data from Zhurong provide an unprecedented look into rocks buried near a proposed shoreline billions of years old. The researchers claim to have found beach deposits from an ancient Martian ocean.

    An illustration of Mars 3.6 billion years ago, when an ocean may have covered nearly half the planet. The orange star (right) is the landing site of the Chinese rover Zhurong. The yellow star is the landing site of NASA’s Perseverance rover.
    Robert Citron/Southwest Research Institute/NASA

    Blue water on a red planet

    Rovers exploring Mars study many aspects of the planet, including the geology, soil and atmosphere. They’re often looking for any evidence of water. That’s in part because water is a vital factor for determining if Mars ever supported life.

    Sedimentary rocks are often a particular focus of investigations, because they can contain evidence of water – and therefore life – on Mars.

    For example, the NASA Perseverance rover is currently searching for life in a delta deposit. Deltas are triangular regions often found where rivers flow into larger bodies of water, depositing large amounts of sediment. Examples on Earth include the Mississippi delta in the United States and the Nile delta in Egypt.

    The delta the Perseverance rover is exploring is located within the roughly 45km wide Jezero impact crater, believed to be the site of an ancient lake.

    Zhurong had its sights set on a very different body of water – the vestiges of an ancient ocean located in the northern hemisphere of Mars.

    Topography of Utopia Planitia. Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher altitude regions show up in whites and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right.
    ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

    The god of fire

    The Zhurong rover is named after a mythical god of fire.

    It was launched by the Chinese National Space Administration in 2020 and was active on Mars from 2021 to 2022. Zhurong landed within Utopia Planitia, a vast expanse and the largest impact basin on Mars which stretches some 3,300km in diameter.

    Zhurong is investigating an area near a series of ridges – described as paleoshorelines – that extend for thousands of kilometres across Mars. The paleoshorelines have previously been interpreted as the remnants of a global ocean that encircled the northern third of Mars.

    However, there are differing views among scientists about this, and more observations are needed.

    On Earth, the geologic record of oceans is distinctive. Modern oceans are only a few hundreds of millions of years old. Yet the global rock record is riddled with deposits made by many older oceans, some several billions of years old.

    This diagram shows how a series of beach deposits would have formed at the Zhurong landing site in the distant past on Mars.
    Hai Liu/Guangzhou University

    What lies beneath

    To determine if rocks in Utopia Planitia are consistent with having been deposited by an ocean, the rover collected data along a 1.3km measured line known as a transect at the margin of the basin. The transect was oriented perpendicular to the paleoshoreline. The goal was to work out what rock types are there, and what story they tell.

    The Zhurong rover used a technique called ground penetrating radar, which probed down to 100 metres below the surface. The data revealed many characteristics of the buried rocks, including their orientation.

    Rocks imaged along the transect contained many reflective layers that are visible by ground penetrating radar down to at least 30 metres. All the layers also dip shallowly into the basin, away from the paleoshoreline. This geometry exactly reflects how sediments are deposited into oceans on Earth.

    The ground penetrating radar also measured how much the rocks are affected by an electrical field. The results showed the rocks are more likely to be sedimentary and are not volcanic flows, which can also form layers.

    The study compared Zhurong data gathered from Utopia Planitia with ground penetrating radar data for different sedimentary environments on Earth.

    The result of the comparison is clear – the rocks Zhurong imaged are a match for coastal sediments deposited along the margin of an ocean.

    Zhurong found a beach.

    Photograph of frosted terrain on Utopia Planitia, taken by the Viking 2 lander in 1979.
    NASA/JPL

    A wet Mars

    The Noachian period of Martian history, from 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago, is the poster child for a wet Mars. There is abundant evidence from orbital images of valley networks and mineral maps that the surface of Noachian Mars had surface water.

    However, there is less evidence for surface water during the Hesperian period, from 3.7 to 3 billion years ago. Stunning orbital images of large outflow channels in Hesperian land forms, including an area of canyons known as Kasei Valles, are believed to have formed from catastrophic releases of ground water, rather than standing water.

    From this view, Mars appears to have cooled down and dried up by Hesperian time.

    However, the Zhurong rover findings of coastal deposits formed in an ocean may indicate that surface water was stable on Mars longer than previously recognised. It may have lasted into the Late Hesperian period.

    This may mean that habitable environments, around an ocean, extended to more recent times.

    Aaron J. Cavosie has received funding from Australian Research Council and the Space Science and Technology Centre at Curtin University.

    – ref. Scientists have discovered a 3 billion-year-old beach buried on Mars – https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-discovered-a-3-billion-year-old-beach-buried-on-mars-250496

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Moving beyond Black history month towards inclusive histories in Québec secondary schools

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By R. Nanre Nafziger, Assistant Professor, African/Black Studies in Education, McGill University

    As Montréal celebrates its 34th Black History Month, it is time to fully integrate Black history into Québec education.

    As an all-out war on diversity and inclusion rages below Canada’s southern border, an opportunity is opened for Québec to live up to its vision of a truly inclusive and multicultural society.

    Integral to this is mainstreaming the histories of Black, Indigenous and other racialized and equity-deserving communities. This can be done through history studies and also through citizenship and cultural education.

    It is important to go beyond Black History Month in order to embrace the importance of Black history for Black students and all students — ignored for too long in history textbooks and teaching.

    To this urgent issue we bring our combined research and educational expertise. Nanre Nafziger, the first author of this story, has researched how Black/African peoples can reclaim their histories and cultures, and Sabrina Jafralie, who has a PhD in teacher education, has researched Québec curricula and also brings experience as a Québec-born-and-raised teacher at a Montréal high school.

    Essential to combat anti-Black racism

    Teaching Black history is essential to fighting against anti-Black racism reinforced through negative depictions of African and Black histories.

    History education is important for raising critical and actively involved citizens and increasing acceptance and understanding. Educators speak of developing a “historical consciousness” — which includes learning to examine causes and consequences, and to revisit and interpret sources. This is a critical building block for fighting racism and negative depictions of racialized groups.

    History education is important for raising actively involved citizens and increasing understanding. Students at Dawson College in Montréal in 2021.
    THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

    Québec curriculum development, like most North American curricula, has historically leaned towards a Eurocentric narrative.

    Black/African history education is largely absent in Québec’s history curricula, reinforcing the erasure of the contributions of Black people to the development of Québec but also to world history. For example, history and citizenship secondary education (Cycle 1) refers to Black/Afro-Canadian history only in naming enslavement and oppression.

    This creates a narrow and damaging history that fails to recognize the diverse range of achievements by Black people. It neglects the rich cultural heritage of Afro-Canadians and reinforces systemic inequities in how knowledge is produced and disseminated.

    Sabrina writes: I was fortunate that my Afro Nova Scotian mother taught me our history across Canada. However, it was not present in my education until I created it in high school.

    Historical fight for Black history

    Researchers have raised concerns that Québec’s “interculturalism” — a longstanding province-specific take on how to address and integrate cultural differences — fails to take into account the complexities of identities and omits important histories.

    Such an approach further compounds anti-Black racism in schools.

    Black students, parents and educators have called for Black history to be taught in Québec schools year-round and activists have called for the creation of a more inclusive curriculum.

    Despite systemic omissions, Black and African communities in Québec have a rich tradition of upholding and preserving their histories through the meticulous work of community archivists and memory keepers.

    This includes the creation of Black libraries, books, articles and curriculum materials, oral storytelling and walking tours. Black community organizations offer cultural and community programming that focuses on diverse cultures and histories of Black people. Renowned historian, educator and long-time advocate for Black history Dorothy Williams, created a curriculum toolkit called the ABCs of Black History in French and English for teachers and educators to use in schools.

    Recommended revisions

    In its brief to the education minister, the Advisory Board on English Education recommended rewrites to “the K-11 history curriculum to broaden its perspective beyond Québec based content and Eurocentricity,” and allowing latitude for schools to incorporate history curriculum relevant to students’ backgrounds.

    While it is helpful when school boards mark Black History Month and share resources for teachers, the integration of Black history requires a holistic and comprehensive curricular focus.

    Québec may learn from other provinces. Nova Scotia has a curriculum on African Canadian history and Ontario plans to roll out a Black history curriculum in schools in September 2025. Educators in British Columbia created a Black Studies 12 course which helps promote racial equity in education.

    Culture and citizenship curriculum

    The new Culture and Civics Curriculum (CCQ), a mandatory subject in primary and secondary schools, offers opportunities to address systemic racism with a focus on citizenship, culture and identity. Yet, there is no assurance students will gain competencies to address racism, or teachers will be well-equipped to lead such learning, given the curricular approach. For example:

    • The elementary program of the CCQ prepares students to understand “cultural realities” and contains a module on Indigenous perspectives. However, the approach is rooted in Euro-centered sociology.

    • Secondary 5 (students aged 16-17) names the compulsory concept of social inequalities (along with sexism and other inequalities related to gender and sexuality; racism and colonialism; socio-economic inequalities; environmental inequalities). However, the teacher decides how to teach these grouped concepts and what emphasis to give these areas.

    This means there is a possibility that the CCQ curriculum could address anti-Black racism, but there are too many variables to guarantee it. By contrast, sexuality education and civic education are deemed mandatory and special topics.

    Black history now

    Including Black history in the curriculum will have a profound, direct impact on students by strengthening their identity, citizenship, and “sense of pride and belonging to Québec society.”

    Healthy learning can take place when students and people see their place in history and curriculum, as this creates a sense of belonging. The current curriculum creates exclusion and allows educators to hide in their bias if they desire.

    Diverse curricula create space and acknowledge hidden histories and foster a shared humanity and a vision for a shared, socially just, future.

    Québec’s complicated history of colonialism, systemic racism and ongoing repression associated with secularism is not one to be shied away from.

    Rather, integrating Black history can serve as a portal for inspiring and encouraging critical discourses on histories of communities that are under-represented in dominant stories of Québec.

    At a moment when exclusion, vitriol against difference and increasing intolerance dominates social discourse and interactions, Québec can choose another path. Only through critically assessing our past can we look forward to any form of a unified future: nous nous souvenons, we must all remember and be remembered.

    The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Moving beyond Black history month towards inclusive histories in Québec secondary schools – https://theconversation.com/moving-beyond-black-history-month-towards-inclusive-histories-in-quebec-secondary-schools-248832

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: U.S. cuts to HIV/AIDS funding will be detrimental for vulnerable groups in Kenya

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Toby Le, PhD Candidate in Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba

    On his first day in office, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to freeze foreign aid funding. This was followed by a stop-work order for dozens of life-saving humanitarian programs.

    One of the programs affected by this announcement is the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This program has invested more than US$100 billion in the global HIV/AIDS response since it was founded in 2003. This makes the U.S. the largest funder of HIV/AIDS programs worldwide.

    Although a 90-day waiver has since been issued which temporarily allows life-saving HIV drugs to continue being delivered, the impact of this executive order is already being felt across the globe — including in Africa, where PEPFAR funding has been integral in controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

    If PEPFAR funding ends when the waiver expires — or resumes but doesn’t allow funding for services to all key populations — this will have severe impacts on those in the continent living with HIV or at high-risk of infection.

    HIV/ AIDS research

    For 45 years, the University of Manitoba has been part of an important initiative in Nairobi, Kenya — partnering with the Sex Worker Outreach Program (SWOP and local agency Partners for Health and Development in Africa (PHDA) to develop effective strategies against HIV that can be employed in the region and communities worldwide. The approach, developed in 1985 by Elizabeth Ngugi, a public health nurse, and Francis Plummer, a University of Manitoba researcher, has empowered the community to share knowledge and to advocate for their rights. It has been vital in reducing HIV prevalence.

    This partnership between the University of Manitoba and SWOP has been funded by PEPFAR since 2003. It receives an average of US$1.5 million annually to deliver reproductive health, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infection and HIV services to key populations. Currently, this funding allows the program to operate nine clinics in Kenya, which annually provide services to over 40,000 female sex workers, 12,000 men who have sex with men and 1,400 transgender people.

    The program offers safe spaces and tailors services to address the specific needs of each group and reduces health-care barriers. Our research team assessed gaps and refined approaches so that this partnership could serve the most vulnerable — transforming engagement with key groups.

    Groundbreaking research findings have also emerged because of this partnership. University of Manitoba research conducted with the SWOP community was among the first to show that STIs increase the risk of HIV infection, that breastfeeding heightens the risk of transmitting HIV to babies, that male circumcision helps prevent HIV and that some people exposed to HIV have a natural immunity to the virus.

    These findings have informed global prevention strategies and highlight the partnership’s significant impact.

    Critical funding

    If PEPFAR funding does indeed end in April once the temporary waiver expires, it would have a serious impact on the HIV/AIDS programs being delivered not only in Kenya but around the globe.

    SWOP clinics have been instrumental in curbing HIV infections among sex workers. HIV prevalence among female sex workers accessing SWOP clinics declined from 44 per cent in 2008 to 12 per cent in 2017. This 67 per cent reduction can be attributed to an increase in HIV testing, community education and STI treatment. The program also highlighted the prevalence of HPV anal lesions in men who have sex with men and the importance of early detection. The cessation of PEPFAR funding will jeopardize STI and HIV services.

    After much advocating, the SWOP clinics servicing female sex workers were able to resume some of their activities last week (Feb. 12, 2025). However, the waiver specified that PEPFAR-funded HIV care and treatment services could only be offered to certain groups. This meant we were unable to resume HIV prevention services for all key groups.

    Without a strong contingency plan, the abrupt end to PEPFAR funding will have devastating consequences. It would mean an immediate end to SWOP activities. This would mean no more HIV testing, preventive treatment and anti-retroviral therapy — which would increase the risk of transmission, leading to an increase in cases and even a greater number of deaths in people living with HIV.

    Key groups accessing SWOP are among the most marginalized in Kenya. Without access to dedicated clinics, the majority will avoid seeking care due to fear of stigma, discrimination and harassment in clinics designed for the general public.

    SWOP partners with local agencies to provide empowerment, legal support and counselling. Closing these clinics could leave the communities they serve more vulnerable to violence, exploitation and human rights abuse.

    On the research front, funding cuts would mean ongoing projects would be halted and new ones couldn’t be started. Three already-funded University of Manitoba studies are planned to start this year. These aim to further investigate the impact of HIV on women living in the region and understand how women’s health can be improved not only in Kenya but worldwide.

    But without SWOP’s infrastructure (such as their clinics and outreach team) we won’t be able to start these new studies. Furthermore, the implementation of research-based programs that aim to prevent HPV-related cancers would be stopped.

    Cuts to HIV/AIDS funding could threaten the 40 years of work that has gone into ending the AIDS epidemic — potentially putting the lives of millions of people at risk.

    The PEPFAR program has saved over 25 million lives since its beginning in 2003. Ending the PEPFAR program would have serious impacts on services for key populations and the LGBTQ+ communities. If the funding does end after the waiver expires in April, it will be necessary for Canada’s provincial and federal governments to step in and become leaders in global health and the fight against HIV.

    Toby Le receives funding from CIHR and Research Manitoba.

    Julie Lajoie receives funding from Grand Challenge Canada, Canadian Institute of Health Research, CANFAR and MMSF (Manitoba Medical Service Fundation).

    Keith Fowke receives funding from CIHR and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    – ref. U.S. cuts to HIV/AIDS funding will be detrimental for vulnerable groups in Kenya – https://theconversation.com/u-s-cuts-to-hiv-aids-funding-will-be-detrimental-for-vulnerable-groups-in-kenya-250001

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Francis − a pope who has cared deeply for the poor and opened up the Catholic Church

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mathew Schmalz, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross

    Pope Francis during the Palm Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023, in Vatican City. Antonio Masiello/Getty Images

    Pope Francis, who remains in critical condition and hospitalized as he battles pneumonia in both lungs, was elected pope on March 13, 2013, after the surprise resignation of Benedict XVI.

    Prior to becoming pope, he was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, and was the first person from the Americas to be elected to the papacy. He was also the first pope to choose Francis as his name, thus honoring St. Francis of Assisi, a 13th-century mystic whose love for nature and the poor have inspired Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

    Pope Francis chose not to wear the elaborate clothing, like red shoes or silk vestments, associated with other popes. As a scholar of global Catholicism, however, I would argue that the changes Francis brought to the papacy were more than skin deep. He opened the church to the outside world in ways none of his predecessors had done before.

    Care for the marginalized

    Pope Francis reached out personally to the poor. For example, he turned a Vatican plaza into a refuge for the homeless, whom he called “nobles of the street.”

    The Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio, ordained for the Jesuits in 1969 at the Theological Faculty of San Miguel.
    Jesuit General Curia via Getty Images

    He washed the feet of migrants and prisoners during the traditional foot-washing ceremony on the Thursday before Easter. In an unprecedented act for a pope, he also washed the feet of non-Christians.

    He encouraged a more welcoming attitude toward gay and lesbian Catholics and invited transgender people to meet with him at the Vatican.

    On other contentious issues, Francis reaffirmed official Catholic positions. He labeled homosexual behavior a “sin,” although he also stated that it should not be considered a crime. Francis criticized gender theory for “blurring” differences between men and women.

    While he maintained the church’s position that all priests should be male, he made far-reaching changes that opened various leadership roles to women. Francis was the first pope to appoint a woman to head an administrative office at the Vatican. Also for the first time, women were included in the 70-member body that selects bishops and the 15-member council that oversees Vatican finances. Shortly before his death, he appointed an Italian nun, Sister Raffaella Petrini, as President of the Vatican City.

    Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square on April 18, 2022.
    Stefano Spaziani/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

    Not shy of controversy

    Some of Francis’ positions led to opposition in some Catholic circles.

    One such issue was related to Francis’ embrace of religious diversity. Delivering an address at the Seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan in 2022, he said that members of the world’s different religions were “children of the same heaven.”

    While in Morocco, he spoke out against conversion as a mission, saying to the Catholic community that they should live “in brotherhood with other faiths.” To some of his critics, however, such statements undermined the unique truth of Christianity.

    During his tenure, the pope called for “synodality,” a more democratic approach to decision making. For example, synod meetings in November 2023 included laypeople and women as voting members. But the synod was resisted by some bishops who feared it would lessen the importance of priests as teachers and leaders.

    In a significant move that will influence the choosing of his successor, Pope Francis appointed more cardinals from the Global South. But not all Catholic leaders in the Global South followed his lead on doctrine. For example, African bishops publicly criticized Pope Francis’ December 2023 ruling that allowed blessings of individuals in same sex couples.

    His most controversial move was limiting the celebration of the Mass in the older form that uses Latin. This reversed a decision made by Benedict XVI that allowed the Latin Mass to be more widely practiced.

    Traditionalists argued that the Latin Mass was an important – and beautiful – part of the Catholic tradition. But Francis believed that it had divided Catholics into separate groups who worshiped differently.

    This concern for Catholic unity also led him to discipline two American critics of his reforms, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, and Cardinal Raymond Burke. Most significantly, Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador, or nuncio, to the United States was excommunicated during Francis’ tenure for promoting “schism.”

    In the last days of his pontificate, Pope Francis also criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to deport migrants. In a letter to US Bishops, he recalled that Jesus, Mary and Joseph had been emigrants and refugees in Egypt. Pope Francis also argued that migrants who enter a country illegally should not be treated as criminals because they are in need and have dignity as human beings.

    Writings on ‘the common good’

    In his official papal letters, called encyclicals, Francis echoed his public actions by emphasizing the “common good,” or the rights and responsibilities necessary for human flourishing.

    Pope Francis washes the foot of a man during the foot-washing ritual at a refugee center outside of Rome on March 24, 2016.
    L’Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP

    His first encyclical in 2013, Lumen Fidei, or “The Light of Faith,” sets out to show how faith can unite people everywhere.

    In his next encyclical, Laudato Si’, or “Praise Be to You,” Francis addressed the environmental crisis, including pollution and climate change. He also called attention to unequal distribution of wealth and called for an “integral ecology” that respects both human beings and the environment.

    His third encyclical in 2020, Fratelli Tutti, or “Brothers All,” criticized a “throwaway culture” that discards human beings, especially the poor, the unborn and the elderly. In a significant act for the head of the Catholic Church, Francis concluded by speaking of non-Catholics who have inspired him: Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu and Mahatma Gandhi.

    In his last encyclical, Dilexit Nos, or “He Loved Us,” he reflected on God’s Love through meditating on the symbol of the Sacred Heart that depicts flames of love coming from Jesus’ wounded heart that was pierced during the crucifixion.

    Francis also proclaimed a special “year of mercy” in 2015-16. The pope consistently argued for a culture of mercy that reflects the love of Jesus Christ, calling him “the face of God’s mercy.”

    A historic papacy

    Francis’ papacy has been historic. He embraced the marginalized in ways that no pope had done before. He not only deepened the Catholic Church’s commitment to the poor in its religious life but also expanded who is included in its decision making.

    The pope did have his critics who thought he went too far, too fast. And whether his reforms take root depends on his successor. Among many things, Francis will be remembered for how his pontificate represented a shift in power in the Catholic Church away from Western Europe to the Global South, where the majority of Catholics now live.

    Mathew Schmalz is Roman Catholic and a political independent.

    – ref. Francis − a pope who has cared deeply for the poor and opened up the Catholic Church – https://theconversation.com/francis-a-pope-who-has-cared-deeply-for-the-poor-and-opened-up-the-catholic-church-164362

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –