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Category: Analysis

  • MIL-Evening Report: On her new album, Lorde creates pop at its purest – performative, playful and alive to paradox

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosemary Overell, Senior Lecturer in Communication Studies, University of Otago

    “✏️Describe the vibe” goes the demand to commenters underneath the YouTube video for Lorde’s latest single, “Hammer”. Fans form a flow; a “vibe check” in Zillenial parlance:

    The pure rawness … (@lynmariegm)

    A more raw true-to-self form … (@m3lodr4matic)

    This is pure art … (@anishm-g1r)

    Lorde’s 2013 debut album was titled Pure Heroine. But, she tells us – and fans and critics agree – Virgin is the first album which “does not lie”. Pure pop. Not lying is not necessarily synonymous with truth, however. Rather, not lying in the present cultural moment is more akin to the careful articulation of a whole vibe.

    For women in particular, truth, authenticity – dare I say realness – mean modulating their feelings, but also a particular calibration and presentation of their bodies in media.

    Such a balancing act is captured in that YouTube imperative which moves between the pencil (“✏️”) – the demand to describe – and the “vibe”, the very thing we often find too hard to write down or put into words.

    Pop music is often at the nexus of these two seemingly opposite moves. Think about going to a gig and afterwards being asked “how was it?”, and all you can say is “you had to be there”.

    Of course it is not so simple. We are always putting our feeling into words – describing all manner of bodily responses. Lorde herself sings in “Broken Glass” about how her eating disordered body was marked by language: the “arithmetic” of calorie counting. Elsewhere, she lists other social signifiers in which she is enmeshed: daughter (“Favourite Daughter”), siren, saint (“Shapeshifter”).

    Words and the body

    Nonetheless, the repeated theme in press interviews is that Virgin moves beyond language, towards a pure woman’s body, free of the mark of sexuality. At the same time, the album is also “ravenously horny” according to one review. She is both as pure as a newborn (a “Virgin”), but marked by her sexuality.

    The song “Current Affairs” most clearly demonstrates proximity between the sexed body and its description in lyrics. Lorde collapses into her lover’s body (“He spit in my mouth”). But when he breaks her heart, she cannot put into language the hurt. Rather she blames her anguish on the news: “current affairs”.

    Pop music and pop culture thrives off the market exchange and saleability of sex, particularly young women’s sex. When I first wrote about Lorde 11 years ago, I pitted her against Miley Cyrus, noting the outrage at Miley’s “growing up” (from Hannah Montana to adulthood), which mapped onto her perceived new working class, tasteless identity.

    Against the crass vulgarity of Miley, I argued then, we had the middle-class intellectualism of Lorde. The argument stands. Virgin certainly adds a heightened sexiness to Lorde, but it is far from crude. She is branded, not just by the market (the cost of tour tickets and merchandise), but also by her identity as a tasteful and hip woman.

    More fleshy (“wide hips/soft lips” she sings in “GRWM”) than the teen “Royal” of 2012, but still on Universal Music Group’s repertoire and still circulated as an “alt” option for pop fans.

    We can also think of Lorde’s collaboration with her current working class alter, and last year’s popstar commodity, Charli XCX. In Lorde’s verse in “Girl, so confusing” she notes Charli is, essentially, a “Chav” – “still a young girl from Essex”. But in the same verse, Lorde shows her awareness of both women’s function on the market:

    People say we’re alike

    They say we’ve got the same hair

    It’s you and me on the coin

    The industry loves to spend

    This knowing wink to how women move within the pop-culture marketplace produces a different kind of purity, one based on an intimacy between the popstar and her listeners. We all know Lorde’s difference from Charli is about image: the “poet” versus the party girl.

    Intimacy as purity is part of what cultural theorist Anna Kornbluh recently dubbed the pressure of “immediacy”, characterised by an apparently ceaseless flow and demand to constantly share images and video of our bodies, afforded by the scroll of social media.

    While the depiction of our bodies and selves on screens is fundamental to this moment, according to Kornbluh, we contradictorily lose sight of this screening. Feeling as though we are #NoFilter – present and real. Key to this is the exhibition of our feelings and emotions.

    For all women, but particularly those in the public eye, the sharing of these feelings materialise into “coin”. Vulnerability, pleasure, all-the-feels-all-the-time – especially for women – make “bank”.

    Intimacy and knowingness

    Vulnerability has been a catch-cry in media characterisations of Virgin. Critics and fans equate Lorde’s lyrical confessions and press tour patter with a market-valuable “purity”, equated with immediate access (to quote the YouTube fan above) to a “true-to-self” Lorde.

    One of her more amusing (but fitting) press engagements was on Bella Freud’s Fashion Neurosis podcast. On the couch, we hear Lorde, wearing a Yohji Yamamoto blazer, musing about vulnerability, gender and her mother – with the great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.

    Fashion Neurosis: Lorde on the psychiatrist’s couch.

    While the Charli XCX track shows Lorde’s intimacy through her knowingness about her role as “coin” for the music industry, the music videos from Virgin offer a more embodied intimacy. The clip for the album’s first single, “What Was That?”, features an extreme closeup inside her mouth. The album cover itself is an X-ray showing her hips and her IUD.

    Kornbluh suggests this emphasis on often literal bodily interiors – people’s “insides” – produces an ersatz sense of closeness and sociality, as our relationships become more and more beholden to the alienating circuits of “social” media.

    Virgin does not lie. It traces a truth of our times – a paradoxical truth – that we are at our most intimate, our most pure, when we are unmediated, all the while bearing out the imperative to “✏️Describe the vibe” – to mediate and expose ourselves onscreen.

    My own vibe check? I love the album. It is pop at its purest – performative, playful and certainly worth paying attention to.

    Rosemary Overell 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. On her new album, Lorde creates pop at its purest – performative, playful and alive to paradox – https://theconversation.com/on-her-new-album-lorde-creates-pop-at-its-purest-performative-playful-and-alive-to-paradox-259994

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Unsafe and unethical: bed shortages mean dementia patients with psychiatric symptoms are admitted to medical wards

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cindy Towns, Senior Lecturer in General Medicine and Geriatrics, University of Otago

    Getty Images

    New Zealand’s mental health crisis is well documented in the government’s 2018 inquiry, He Ara Oranga, which shows one in five people experience mental illness or significant mental distress.

    However, an almost singular focus on care of young people obscures the psychiatric needs of older adults.

    Failure to account for these needs has resulted in physicians facing pressure to admit psychiatric patients to medical wards that are not designed or resourced to care for them. This compromises patient safety and rights as well as fundamental standards of care.

    Our new research highlights the clinical, ethical and legal consequences of this practice and calls for urgent action.

    Dementia includes psychiatric features

    The memory deficits of dementia are well known but the condition also includes psychiatric presentations. These are known collectively as the “behavioural and psychiatric symptoms of dementia” (BPSD). When severe, they can include intrusive behaviour, violence and inappropriate sexual conduct. Such patients require admission and specialist treatment.

    However, New Zealand has a severe shortage of psychiatric beds for older adults. Even more concerning is that despite well recognised demographic trends and clinical concerns, bed numbers have decreased over time rather than increased.

    Reports that Dunedin plans to slash the number of psycho-geriatric beds by 50% reflect a lack of government insight into the risks this large and growing patient cohort poses.

    Hospitals routinely expect medical wards to admit dementia patients presenting with BPSD when no psycho-geriatric bed is available. Yet it is impossible for staff on medical wards to adhere to even basic standards of care.

    Poor design

    A lack of single rooms means medical teams cannot provide the security and minimisation of light and noise people with dementia require. Single rooms need to be prioritised for transmissible infections, delirium and terminal care.

    Medical wards are also not designed for aggressive patients. People can enter and exit freely, potential weapons (scissors, for example) are accessible, there are no seclusion rooms or low-stimulus areas, and nursing stations are not secure.

    Medical staff are not trained in de-escalation or restraint and ward pharmacists are not specialised in the medications required to treat BPSD.

    Those presenting with physical or sexual violence also need dedicated security, well beyond what healthcare assistants on “patient watches” can provide. Most healthcare assistants are women, which creates a grossly inadequate level of safety when managing violent male patients.

    The experience of Wellington general medicine staff documents numerous assaults on nurses and intrusive and frightening behaviour. Staff have been punched, hit, bitten and threatened. One nurse was stabbed while attending to another patient in a multi-bed room.

    Admissions have included physically robust patients who have seriously assaulted family or carers. This includes one man who committed a fatal assault and another who was sexually aggressive and stabbed a family member.

    High rates of mixed-gender bedding in hospital wards raise the risk of harm. The United Kingdom banned hospitals from placing men and women in the same room in 2010. Yet despite concerns for patient safety, New Zealand has no prohibition on this practice.

    Poor policy

    By comparison, Australia proposed a risk stratification approach more than 20 years ago whereby severe dementia patients would be managed in secure units with dedicated security staff and specialist psycho-geriatric care.

    This model is used throughout Australia in policy and planning. In New Zealand, severe dementia is defaulted to medical wards even in cases where patients are presenting solely due to extreme violence.

    According to the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights, patients are entitled to an appropriate standard of care. Admitting someone with dementia to medical wards that cannot meet basic standards of care clearly breaches this right.

    BPSD admissions also significantly compromise the rights of other patients. The risks are again demonstrable rather than potential. International media reports have documented male dementia patients assaulting female patients in medical wards without the necessary security measures.

    Medical staff in New Zealand hospitals have also witnessed numerous incidents of intrusion and harassment as well as assaults of other patients by dementia patients inappropriately admitted to medical wards with BPSD.

    We should also recognise indirect impacts of people with severe dementia being admitted on medical wards. Many patients wait overnight for admission, increasing their risk for complications, and breaching rights to privacy and dignity.

    When psychiatric patients occupy medical beds, they contribute to admission delays, complications and rights breaches for medical patients awaiting beds.

    Urgent need for more psycho-geriatric beds

    Wellington general medicine teams have raised serious concerns about dementia admissions for many years. Yet there are no secure areas and no additional psycho-geriatric beds.

    We need to ask why the practice continues when harm is so obvious. The answer appears to be about cost. When physicians relent and admit psychiatric patients, the risks are high but the financial cost is low. The consequences are born by elderly and frail patients seldom able to advocate for themselves.

    Change relies on health leaders and funders caring about safety, rights and basic standards of care. Unfortunately, the Wellington experience and the decision to cut beds in Dunedin suggest change will not happen unless physicians consistently refuse the admission of psychiatric patients. But this is a morally distressing position to be put in.

    New Zealand must urgently address the shortage of psycho-geriatric beds. Until these are in place, temporary secure accommodation must be made available under the care of mental health specialists.

    Medical teams can no longer be expected to manage the mental health crisis as well as their own medical workloads. It is unsafe, unethical and untenable for all involved.

    Cindy Towns 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. Unsafe and unethical: bed shortages mean dementia patients with psychiatric symptoms are admitted to medical wards – https://theconversation.com/unsafe-and-unethical-bed-shortages-mean-dementia-patients-with-psychiatric-symptoms-are-admitted-to-medical-wards-257634

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ER Report: A Roundup of Significant Articles on EveningReport.nz for June 30, 2025

    ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on June 30, 2025.

    Fiji’s Dr Prasad unveils $4.8b budget as deficit widens
    By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist The Fiji government is spending big on this year’s budget. The country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Biman Prasad, unveiled a FJ$4.8 billion (about NZ$3.5 billion) spending package, complete with cost of living measures and fiscal stimulus, to the Fijian Parliament on Friday. This is about F$280

    Cities are heating up the planet – how they can do more to fight climate change
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Hurlimann, Associate Professor in Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne Quality Stock Arts/Shutterstock Cities have a central role to play tackling climate change. They contribute 67–72% of the greenhouse gas emissions which are heating up the planet. At the same time, cities are increasingly at risk

    Tahiti prepares for its first Matari’i public holiday
    RNZ Te Manu Korihi Tahiti will mark Matari’i as a national public holiday for the first time in November, following in the footsteps of Matariki in Aotearoa New Zealand. Matari’i refers to the same star cluster as Matariki. And for Tahitians, November 20 will mark the start of Matari’i i ni’a — the “season of

    Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucia McCallum, Senior Scientist in Geodesy, University of Tasmania ESA / Hubble / L. Calçada (ESO), CC BY The scientists who precisely measure the position of Earth are in a bit of trouble. Their measurements are essential for the satellites we use for navigation, communication and Earth

    Could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Reluctantly, yes
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Zala, Senior Lecturer, Politics & International Relations, Monash University As the ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding for now, it is important to reflect on whether this whole episode was worth the risks. Wider escalation was (and remains) possible, and we do not

    How to reform the NDIS and better support disabled people who don’t qualify for it
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Bennett, Disability Program Director, Grattan Institute Australia is spending more than ever on disability services – and yet many people with disability still aren’t receiving the support they need. Since the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) began in 2013, it has transformed the lives of hundreds

    Mr Smith or Gary? Why some teachers ask students to call them by their first name
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Brownlie, Lecturer in Education, University of Southern Queensland Johnny Greig/ Getty Images When you went to school, did you call your teacher Mrs, Ms or Mr, followed by their surname? Perhaps you even called them Sir or Miss. The tradition of addressing teachers in a formal

    NZ cities are getting hotter: 5 things councils can do now to keep us cooler when summer comes
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Stand on any car park on a sunny day in February and the heat will radiate through your shoes. At 30°C air temperature, that asphalt hits 50–55°C – hot enough to cause

    Murdoch’s News Corp has moved into the mortgage business. Where are the regulators?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roberta Esbitt, Associate, RMIT University If you want to advertise a house online in Australia, you don’t have many options. Just two companies dominate the market. Australia’s largest property listings platform, realestate.com.au, belongs to digital media company REA Group, which is majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s US-based media

    Clark warns in new Pacific book renewed nuclear tensions pose ‘existential threat to humanity’
    Asia Pacific Report Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has warned the country needs to maintain its nuclear-free policy as a “fundamental tenet” of its independent foreign policy in the face of gathering global storm clouds. Writing in a new book being published next week, she says “nuclear war is an existential threat to

    ‘Bridge for peace – not more bombs,’ say CNMI Gaza protesters
    By Bryan Manabat in Saipan Advocacy groups in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) disrupted the US Department of Defense’s public meeting this week, which tackled proposed military training plans on Tinian, voicing strong opposition to further militarisation in the Marianas. Members of the Marianas for Palestine, Prutehi Guahan and Commonwealth670 burst into

    Why manufacturing consent for war with Iran failed this time
    COMMENTARY: By Ahmad Ibsais On June 22, American warplanes crossed into Iranian airspace and dropped 14 massive bombs. The attack was not in response to a provocation; it came on the heels of illegal Israeli aggression that took the lives of more than 600 Iranians. This was a return to something familiar and well-practised: an

    A return to Nature.
    Headline: A return to Nature. – 36th Parallel Assessments Thomas Hobbes wrote his seminal work Leviathan in 1651. In it he describes the world system as it was then as being in “a state of nature,” something that some have interpreted as anarchy. However, anarchy has order and purpose. It is not chaos. In fact,

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Earth is trapping much more heat than climate models forecast – and the rate has doubled in 20 years

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

    NASA, CC BY-NC-ND

    How do you measure climate change? One way is by recording temperatures in different places over a long period of time. While this works well, natural variation can make it harder to see longer-term trends.

    But another approach can give us a very clear sense of what’s going on: track how much heat enters Earth’s atmosphere and how much heat leaves. This is Earth’s energy budget, and it’s now well and truly out of balance.

    Our recent research found this imbalance has more than doubled over the last 20 years. Other researchers have come to the same conclusions. This imbalance is now substantially more than climate models have suggested.

    In the mid-2000s, the energy imbalance was about 0.6 watts per square metre (W/m2) on average. In recent years, the average was about 1.3 W/m2. This means the rate at which energy is accumulating near the planet’s surface has doubled.

    These findings suggest climate change might well accelerate in the coming years. Worse still, this worrying imbalance is emerging even as funding uncertainty in the United States threatens our ability to track the flows of heat.

    Energy in, energy out

    Earth’s energy budget functions a bit like your bank account, where money comes in and money goes out. If you reduce your spending, you’ll build up cash in your account. Here, energy is the currency.

    Life on Earth depends on a balance between heat coming in from the Sun and heat leaving. This balance is tipping to one side.

    Solar energy hits Earth and warms it. The atmosphere’s heat-trapping greenhouse gases keep some of this energy.

    But the burning of coal, oil and gas has now added more than two trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. These trap more and more heat, preventing it from leaving.

    Some of this extra heat is warming the land or melting sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets. But this is a tiny fraction. Fully 90% has gone into the oceans due to their huge heat capacity.

    Earth naturally sheds heat in several ways. One way is by reflecting incoming heat off of clouds, snow and ice and back out to space. Infrared radiation is also emitted back to space.

    From the beginning of human civilisation up until just a century ago, the average surface temperature was about 14°C. The accumulating energy imbalance has now pushed average temperatures 1.3-1.5°C higher.

    Ice and reflective clouds reflect heat back to space. As the Earth heats up, most trapped heat goes into the oceans but some melts ice and heats the land and air. Pictured: Icebergs from the Jacobshavn glacier in Greenland, the largest outside Antarctica.
    Ashley Cooper/Getty

    Tracking faster than the models

    Scientists keep track of the energy budget in two ways.

    First, we can directly measure the heat coming from the Sun and going back out to space, using the sensitive radiometers on monitoring satellites. This dataset and its predecessors date back to the late 1980s.

    Second, we can accurately track the build-up of heat in the oceans and atmosphere by taking temperature readings. Thousands of robotic floats have monitored temperatures in the world’s oceans since the 1990s.

    Both methods show the energy imbalance has grown rapidly.

    The doubling of the energy imbalance has come as a shock, because the sophisticated climate models we use largely didn’t predict such a large and rapid change.

    Typically, the models forecast less than half of the change we’re seeing in the real world.

    Why has it changed so fast?

    We don’t yet have a full explanation. But new research suggests changes in clouds is a big factor.

    Clouds have a cooling effect overall. But the area covered by highly reflective white clouds has shrunk, while the area of jumbled, less reflective clouds has grown.

    It isn’t clear why the clouds are changing. One possible factor could be the consequences of successful efforts to reduce sulfur in shipping fuel from 2020, as burning the dirtier fuel may have had a brightening effect on clouds. However, the accelerating energy budget imbalance began before this change.

    Natural fluctuations in the climate system such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation might also be playing a role. Finally – and most worryingly – the cloud changes might be part of a trend caused by global warming itself, that is, a positive feedback on climate change.

    Dense blankets of white clouds reflect the most heat. But the area covered by these clouds is shrinking.
    Adhivaswut/Shutterstock

    What does this mean?

    These findings suggest recent extremely hot years are not one-offs but may reflect a strengthening of warming over the coming decade or longer.

    This will mean a higher chance of more intense climate impacts from searing heatwaves, droughts and extreme rains on land, and more intense and long lasting marine heatwaves.

    This imbalance may lead to worse longer-term consequences. New research shows the only climate models coming close to simulating real world measurements are those with a higher “climate sensitivity”. That means these models predict more severe warming beyond the next few decades in scenarios where emissions are not rapidly reduced.

    We don’t know yet whether other factors are at play, however. It’s still too early to definitively say we are on a high-sensitivity trajectory.

    Our eyes in the sky

    We’ve known the solution for a long time: stop the routine burning of fossil fuels and phase out human activities causing emissions such as deforestation.

    Keeping accurate records over long periods of time is essential if we are to spot unexpected changes.

    Satellites, in particular, are our advance warning system, telling us about heat storage changes roughly a decade before other methods.

    But funding cuts and drastic priority shifts in the United States may threaten essential satellite climate monitoring.

    Steven Sherwood receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Mindaroo Foundation.

    Benoit Meyssignac receives funding from the European Commission, the European Space Agency and the French National Space Agency.

    Thorsten Mauritsen receives funding from the European Research Council, the European Space Agency, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish National Space Agency and the Bolin Centre for Climate Research.

    – ref. Earth is trapping much more heat than climate models forecast – and the rate has doubled in 20 years – https://theconversation.com/earth-is-trapping-much-more-heat-than-climate-models-forecast-and-the-rate-has-doubled-in-20-years-258822

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Mr Smith or Gary? Why some teachers ask students to call them by their first name

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nicole Brownlie, Lecturer in Education, University of Southern Queensland

    Johnny Greig/ Getty Images

    When you went to school, did you call your teacher Mrs, Ms or Mr, followed by their surname? Perhaps you even called them Sir or Miss.

    The tradition of addressing teachers in a formal manner goes back centuries. For many of us, calling a teacher by their first name would have been unthinkable.

    But that’s not automatically the case anymore. Some teachers in mainstream schools now ask students to call them by their first name.

    Why is this? And what impact can teachers’ names have in the classroom?

    There’s no rule

    There’s no official rule in Australia on what students should call teachers.
    Naming is usually decided by schools or individual teachers. This is no official training on this topic before teachers start in classrooms.

    Some primary school teachers now use first names or a less formal name such as “Mr D”. Teachers say this helps break down barriers, especially for young students or those who are learning English as an additional language.

    High schools are more likely to stick with tradition, partly to maintain structure and boundaries, especially with teenagers. Using formal titles can also support early-career teachers or those from minority
    backgrounds     assert their authority in a classroom.

    But even so, some high school teachers are using their first names to foster a sense of trust and encourage students to see them as a partner in learning, rather than simply an authority figure.

    What does the research say?

    Research – which is mainly from the United States – suggests names have an impact on how students perceive their teachers and feel about school.

    In one study of US high school students, teenagers described teachers they addressed with formal titles as more distant and harder to connect with. Teachers who invited students to use their first name were seen as more supportive, approachable and trustworthy.

    A secondary school principal in the state of Maryland reported students felt more included and respected when they could use teachers’ first names. It made classrooms feel less hierarchical and more collaborative.

    A 2020 US study on teaching students doing practical placements found those who used their first name observed greater student engagement than those who did not. This came as a surprise to the student teachers who expected students would not respect them if they used their first names.

    These findings don’t necessarily mean titles are bad. Rather, they show first names can support stronger teacher-student relationships.

    It’s important to note society in general has become less formal in recent decades in terms of how we address and refer to each other.

    So, what should students call their teachers?

    What works in one school, or even one classroom, may not work in another.

    For example, for Indigenous students or students from non-English speaking households, name practices that show cultural respect and mutual choice can be vital. They help create a sense of safety and inclusion.

    But for other teachers, being called by their title may be a key part of their professional persona.

    That’s why it’s important for naming decisions to be thoughtful and based on the needs of the teacher, students and broader school community.

    The key is to treat naming as part of the broader relationship, not just a habit or automatic tradition. Whether students say “Mrs Lee” or “Jess” matters less than whether they feel safe, respected and included. It’s about the tone and relationship behind the name, not simply what someone is called.

    Nicole Brownlie 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. Mr Smith or Gary? Why some teachers ask students to call them by their first name – https://theconversation.com/mr-smith-or-gary-why-some-teachers-ask-students-to-call-them-by-their-first-name-259790

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: RFK Junior is stoking fears about vaccine safety. Here’s why he’s wrong – and the impact it could have

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Julie Leask, Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney

    The United States used to be a leader in vaccine research, development and policymaking. Now US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr is undermining the country’s vaccine program at the highest level and supercharging vaccine skepticism.

    Two weeks ago, RFK Jr sacked the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices responsible for reviewing the latest scientific evidence on vaccines. RFK Jr alleged conflicts of interest and hand-picked a replacement panel.

    On Wednesday, RFK Jr announced the US would stop funding the global vaccine alliance, Gavi, because he claimed that “when the science was inconvenient today, Gavi ignored the science”. RFK Jr questioned the safety of COVID vaccines for pregnant women, as well as the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine.

    On Thursday, when the new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met, the person who first drew RFK Jr into vaccine scepticism, Lyn Redwood, shared disproved claims about a chemical called thimerosal in flu vaccines being harmful.

    The undermining of regulation, advisory processes and funding changes will have global impacts, as debunked claims are given new levels of apparent legitimacy. Some of these impacts will be slow and insidious.

    So what should we make of these latest claims and funding cuts?

    Thiomersal is a distraction

    Thiomersal (thimerosal in the the US) is a safe and effective preservative that prevents bacterial and fungal contamination of the vaccine contained in a multi-dose vial. It’s a salt that contains a tiny amount of mercury in a safe form.

    Thiomersal is no longer used as a preservative in any vaccines routinely given in Australia. But it’s still used in the Q fever vaccine.

    Other countries use multi-dose vials with thiomersal when single-dose vials are too expensive.

    In the US, just 4% of adult influenza vaccines contain thiomersal. So focusing on removing vaccines containing thimerosal is a distraction for the committee.

    COVID vaccines in pregnancy prevent severe illness

    On Wednesday, RFK criticised Gavi’s encouragement of pregnant women to receive COVID-19 vaccines.

    A COVID-19 infection before and during pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage two- to four-fold, even if it’s only a mild infection.

    Conversely, there is good evidence vaccination during pregnancy is safe and can reduce the chance of hospitalisation of pregnant people and of infants by passing antibodies through the placenta.

    In Australia, pregnant people who have never received a primary COVID-19 vaccine are recommended to have one. However, they are not generally recommended to have booster unless they have underlying risk conditions or prefer to have one. This is due to population immunity.

    COVID-19 vaccine advice should adapt to changes in disease risk and vaccine benefit. It doesn’t mean previous decisions were wrong, nor that vaccine boosters are unsafe.

    RFK’s criticism of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy may influence choices individuals make in other countries, even when unvaccinated pregnant women are encouraged to consider vaccination.

    The diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine is safe

    RFK Jr also questioned the safety of the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine as he announced the withdrawal of US funding support for Gavi.

    In the early 2000s, three community-based observational studies reported a possible association between increased chance of death in infants and use of the DTP vaccine.

    A few subsequent studies also reported associations, with higher risk in girls, prompting a World Health Organization (WHO) review of safety.

    Real world studies are complicated and the data can be difficult to interpret correctly. Often, the very factors that influence whether someone gets vaccinated can also be associated with other health risks.

    When the WHO committee reviewed all the studies on DTP safety in 2014, it did not indicate serious adverse events. It concluded there was substantial evidence against these claims.

    What will de-funding Gavi mean for vaccination rates?

    Gavi, the vaccine alliance, supports vaccine purchasing in low-income countries.

    The US has historically accounted for 13% of all donor funds.

    However, RFK Jr said Gavi needed to re-earn the public trust and “consider the best science available” before the US would contribute funding again.

    Gavi predicted in March that the impact of US funding cuts could result in one million deaths through missed vaccines.

    Could something like this happen in Australia?

    Australia is fortunate to be buffered from these impacts.

    Our vaccine advisory body, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, has people with deep expertise in vaccination. We have robust decision processes that weigh evidence critically and make careful recommendations to government.

    Our governments remain committed to vaccination. The federal government released the National Immunisation Strategy in mid-June with a comprehensive plan to continue to strengthen our program.

    The federal government also announced A$386 million to support the work of Gavi from 2026 to 2030.

    All of this keeps our vaccine policies strong, preventing disease and increasing life expectancy here and overseas.

    But to mitigate the possible influence of the US in Australia, our governments, health professionals and the public need to be ready to rapidly tackle the misinformation, distortions and half-truths RFK Jr cleverly packages – with quality information.

    Julie Leask receives research funding from NHMRC, WHO, US CDC, NSW Ministry of Health. She received funding from Sanofi for travel to an overseas meeting in 2024. She has consulting fees from RTI International and the Task Force for Global Health.

    Catherine Bennett has received honoraria for contributing to independent advisory panels for Moderna and AstraZeneca, and has received NHMRC, VicHealth and MRFF funding for unrelated projects. She was the health lead on the Independent Inquiry into the Australian Government COVID-19 Response .

    – ref. RFK Junior is stoking fears about vaccine safety. Here’s why he’s wrong – and the impact it could have – https://theconversation.com/rfk-junior-is-stoking-fears-about-vaccine-safety-heres-why-hes-wrong-and-the-impact-it-could-have-259986

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: RFK Junior is stoking fears about vaccine safety. Here’s why he’s wrong – and the impact it could have

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Julie Leask, Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney

    The United States used to be a leader in vaccine research, development and policymaking. Now US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr is undermining the country’s vaccine program at the highest level and supercharging vaccine skepticism.

    Two weeks ago, RFK Jr sacked the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices responsible for reviewing the latest scientific evidence on vaccines. RFK Jr alleged conflicts of interest and hand-picked a replacement panel.

    On Wednesday, RFK Jr announced the US would stop funding the global vaccine alliance, Gavi, because he claimed that “when the science was inconvenient today, Gavi ignored the science”. RFK Jr questioned the safety of COVID vaccines for pregnant women, as well as the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine.

    On Thursday, when the new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met, the person who first drew RFK Jr into vaccine scepticism, Lyn Redwood, shared disproved claims about a chemical called thimerosal in flu vaccines being harmful.

    The undermining of regulation, advisory processes and funding changes will have global impacts, as debunked claims are given new levels of apparent legitimacy. Some of these impacts will be slow and insidious.

    So what should we make of these latest claims and funding cuts?

    Thiomersal is a distraction

    Thiomersal (thimerosal in the the US) is a safe and effective preservative that prevents bacterial and fungal contamination of the vaccine contained in a multi-dose vial. It’s a salt that contains a tiny amount of mercury in a safe form.

    Thiomersal is no longer used as a preservative in any vaccines routinely given in Australia. But it’s still used in the Q fever vaccine.

    Other countries use multi-dose vials with thiomersal when single-dose vials are too expensive.

    In the US, just 4% of adult influenza vaccines contain thiomersal. So focusing on removing vaccines containing thimerosal is a distraction for the committee.

    COVID vaccines in pregnancy prevent severe illness

    On Wednesday, RFK criticised Gavi’s encouragement of pregnant women to receive COVID-19 vaccines.

    A COVID-19 infection before and during pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage two- to four-fold, even if it’s only a mild infection.

    Conversely, there is good evidence vaccination during pregnancy is safe and can reduce the chance of hospitalisation of pregnant people and of infants by passing antibodies through the placenta.

    In Australia, pregnant people who have never received a primary COVID-19 vaccine are recommended to have one. However, they are not generally recommended to have booster unless they have underlying risk conditions or prefer to have one. This is due to population immunity.

    COVID-19 vaccine advice should adapt to changes in disease risk and vaccine benefit. It doesn’t mean previous decisions were wrong, nor that vaccine boosters are unsafe.

    RFK’s criticism of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy may influence choices individuals make in other countries, even when unvaccinated pregnant women are encouraged to consider vaccination.

    The diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine is safe

    RFK Jr also questioned the safety of the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine as he announced the withdrawal of US funding support for Gavi.

    In the early 2000s, three community-based observational studies reported a possible association between increased chance of death in infants and use of the DTP vaccine.

    A few subsequent studies also reported associations, with higher risk in girls, prompting a World Health Organization (WHO) review of safety.

    Real world studies are complicated and the data can be difficult to interpret correctly. Often, the very factors that influence whether someone gets vaccinated can also be associated with other health risks.

    When the WHO committee reviewed all the studies on DTP safety in 2014, it did not indicate serious adverse events. It concluded there was substantial evidence against these claims.

    What will de-funding Gavi mean for vaccination rates?

    Gavi, the vaccine alliance, supports vaccine purchasing in low-income countries.

    The US has historically accounted for 13% of all donor funds.

    However, RFK Jr said Gavi needed to re-earn the public trust and “consider the best science available” before the US would contribute funding again.

    Gavi predicted in March that the impact of US funding cuts could result in one million deaths through missed vaccines.

    Could something like this happen in Australia?

    Australia is fortunate to be buffered from these impacts.

    Our vaccine advisory body, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, has people with deep expertise in vaccination. We have robust decision processes that weigh evidence critically and make careful recommendations to government.

    Our governments remain committed to vaccination. The federal government released the National Immunisation Strategy in mid-June with a comprehensive plan to continue to strengthen our program.

    The federal government also announced A$386 million to support the work of Gavi from 2026 to 2030.

    All of this keeps our vaccine policies strong, preventing disease and increasing life expectancy here and overseas.

    But to mitigate the possible influence of the US in Australia, our governments, health professionals and the public need to be ready to rapidly tackle the misinformation, distortions and half-truths RFK Jr cleverly packages – with quality information.

    Julie Leask receives research funding from NHMRC, WHO, US CDC, NSW Ministry of Health. She received funding from Sanofi for travel to an overseas meeting in 2024. She has consulting fees from RTI International and the Task Force for Global Health.

    Catherine Bennett has received honoraria for contributing to independent advisory panels for Moderna and AstraZeneca, and has received NHMRC, VicHealth and MRFF funding for unrelated projects. She was the health lead on the Independent Inquiry into the Australian Government COVID-19 Response .

    – ref. RFK Junior is stoking fears about vaccine safety. Here’s why he’s wrong – and the impact it could have – https://theconversation.com/rfk-junior-is-stoking-fears-about-vaccine-safety-heres-why-hes-wrong-and-the-impact-it-could-have-259986

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Reluctantly, yes

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Benjamin Zala, Senior Lecturer, Politics & International Relations, Monash University

    As the ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding for now, it is important to reflect on whether this whole episode was worth the risks.

    Wider escalation was (and remains) possible, and we do not know whether Iran will seek a nuclear weapon with renewed vigour in the future.

    So, could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran, if it does indeed continue to pursue a bomb?

    Is an Iranian bomb an existential threat?

    The conventional wisdom, at least in the Western world, is that an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose an existential threat to Israel, and possibly the United States as well.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were aimed at rolling back “the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described an Iranian bomb as “an existential threat, not just to Israel, but to the United States, and to the entire world”.

    The same mantra has been repeated by leaders in Europe, at the G7 meeting, and in Australia.

    Iran, of course, did not yet possess a nuclear weapon when the strikes occurred, as the UN nuclear watchdog attested. The strikes were aimed at preventing Iran from being able to do so in the future – a prospect seen by Israel and the US as simply “unthinkable”.

    But if Iran had built a nuclear weapon before the Israeli and US strikes – or manages to do so in the future – would this pose an existential threat to Israel or the US?

    The answer is no. And for a very simple reason: nuclear deterrence works.

    Why deterrence works

    If Iran had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, it would be different. But it does not.

    Israel has maintained a robust nuclear arsenal for more than half a century. Every authoritative assessment of global nuclear weapons stockpiles includes Israel’s roughly 90 nuclear warheads.

    The Israeli government officially neither confirms nor denies the existence of its nuclear arsenal. But thanks to leaks from inside the Israeli nuclear program – as well as the best assessments from around the world – we can be quite sure they exist. It also explains why Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty – it can’t without giving up this stockpile.

    The US, of course, has been nuclear-armed since 1945 and openly maintains an inventory of thousands of nuclear warheads. These provide a deterrent against nuclear attacks on the United States.

    Washington also provides extended nuclear deterrence guarantees to over 30 states, including members of NATO, Japan, South Korea and Australia. It does not need to provide this for Israel given the Israeli arsenal. But if there was ever any doubt about Israel’s stockpile, it certainly could.

    After 80 years of living with nuclear weapons, we know the deterrent effect of assured nuclear retaliation is very powerful. It deterred both the Soviets and Americans from using nuclear weapons against each other through multiple Cold War crises. It has deterred both India and Pakistan from using them in multiple standoffs, including quite recently. It has deterred both North Korea and the US from striking each other.

    Similarly, Iran would no doubt be deterred from using a nuclear weapon by a certain Israeli or American response.

    Iranian leaders have called for the destruction of Israel, and the chants of “death to Israel” and “death to America” are a common occurrence at rallies held by supporters of the regime.

    But beneath the fiery rhetoric lies a truism: no Iranian leader would destroy Israel with a nuclear weapon if it came at the expense of the destruction of Iran.

    In the history of the nation-state, not a single one has ever knowingly committed suicide. Not for any reason – ideological, religious, political or any other. All nations value survival over everything else because this allows for the achievement of other goals, such as power and prosperity.

    Further, Iran is ruled by a brutally authoritarian, theocratic regime. And for authoritarian regimes, staying in power is the number one priority. There is no staying in power the day after a nuclear exchange.

    Not a panacea

    This does not mean an Iranian nuclear weapon would be a welcome development. Far from it.

    Every new nuclear-armed state provides another opportunity for miscalculation or accident. It adds extra stress to an already fragile non-proliferation regime.

    In addition, nuclear deterrence is not just and can be considered ethically questionable. It may not even be sustainable over the longer term.

    There is no doubt the existence of over 12,000 nuclear weapons globally poses a potentially existential risk to all of humanity.

    But the idea that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a unique risk to Israel or the United States simply does not stand up to scrutiny. If we can live with a nuclear-armed North Korea, nuclear-armed Pakistan, and for that matter, a nuclear-armed Israel, we can live, however reluctantly, with a nuclear-armed Iran.

    Regardless of whether the current proposed ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds, the military operation initiated by Israel and bolstered by the United States was extremely dangerous and unnecessary, based on both countries’ justification.

    The regime in Tehran is brutal, authoritarian, openly antisemitic and worthy of our disdain. But there is no evidence it is suicidal.

    The claim an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose an existential threat to Israel or the United States and justifies unilateral, preventive military attacks makes no sense.

    It is time to stop repeating it.

    Benjamin Zala has received funding from the Stanton Foundation, a US philanthropic group that funds nuclear research. He is an honorary fellow at the University of Leicester on a project that is funded by the European Research Council.

    – ref. Could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Reluctantly, yes – https://theconversation.com/could-we-live-with-a-nuclear-armed-iran-reluctantly-yes-259905

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Reluctantly, yes

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Benjamin Zala, Senior Lecturer, Politics & International Relations, Monash University

    As the ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding for now, it is important to reflect on whether this whole episode was worth the risks.

    Wider escalation was (and remains) possible, and we do not know whether Iran will seek a nuclear weapon with renewed vigour in the future.

    So, could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran, if it does indeed continue to pursue a bomb?

    Is an Iranian bomb an existential threat?

    The conventional wisdom, at least in the Western world, is that an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose an existential threat to Israel, and possibly the United States as well.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were aimed at rolling back “the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described an Iranian bomb as “an existential threat, not just to Israel, but to the United States, and to the entire world”.

    The same mantra has been repeated by leaders in Europe, at the G7 meeting, and in Australia.

    Iran, of course, did not yet possess a nuclear weapon when the strikes occurred, as the UN nuclear watchdog attested. The strikes were aimed at preventing Iran from being able to do so in the future – a prospect seen by Israel and the US as simply “unthinkable”.

    But if Iran had built a nuclear weapon before the Israeli and US strikes – or manages to do so in the future – would this pose an existential threat to Israel or the US?

    The answer is no. And for a very simple reason: nuclear deterrence works.

    Why deterrence works

    If Iran had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, it would be different. But it does not.

    Israel has maintained a robust nuclear arsenal for more than half a century. Every authoritative assessment of global nuclear weapons stockpiles includes Israel’s roughly 90 nuclear warheads.

    The Israeli government officially neither confirms nor denies the existence of its nuclear arsenal. But thanks to leaks from inside the Israeli nuclear program – as well as the best assessments from around the world – we can be quite sure they exist. It also explains why Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty – it can’t without giving up this stockpile.

    The US, of course, has been nuclear-armed since 1945 and openly maintains an inventory of thousands of nuclear warheads. These provide a deterrent against nuclear attacks on the United States.

    Washington also provides extended nuclear deterrence guarantees to over 30 states, including members of NATO, Japan, South Korea and Australia. It does not need to provide this for Israel given the Israeli arsenal. But if there was ever any doubt about Israel’s stockpile, it certainly could.

    After 80 years of living with nuclear weapons, we know the deterrent effect of assured nuclear retaliation is very powerful. It deterred both the Soviets and Americans from using nuclear weapons against each other through multiple Cold War crises. It has deterred both India and Pakistan from using them in multiple standoffs, including quite recently. It has deterred both North Korea and the US from striking each other.

    Similarly, Iran would no doubt be deterred from using a nuclear weapon by a certain Israeli or American response.

    Iranian leaders have called for the destruction of Israel, and the chants of “death to Israel” and “death to America” are a common occurrence at rallies held by supporters of the regime.

    But beneath the fiery rhetoric lies a truism: no Iranian leader would destroy Israel with a nuclear weapon if it came at the expense of the destruction of Iran.

    In the history of the nation-state, not a single one has ever knowingly committed suicide. Not for any reason – ideological, religious, political or any other. All nations value survival over everything else because this allows for the achievement of other goals, such as power and prosperity.

    Further, Iran is ruled by a brutally authoritarian, theocratic regime. And for authoritarian regimes, staying in power is the number one priority. There is no staying in power the day after a nuclear exchange.

    Not a panacea

    This does not mean an Iranian nuclear weapon would be a welcome development. Far from it.

    Every new nuclear-armed state provides another opportunity for miscalculation or accident. It adds extra stress to an already fragile non-proliferation regime.

    In addition, nuclear deterrence is not just and can be considered ethically questionable. It may not even be sustainable over the longer term.

    There is no doubt the existence of over 12,000 nuclear weapons globally poses a potentially existential risk to all of humanity.

    But the idea that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a unique risk to Israel or the United States simply does not stand up to scrutiny. If we can live with a nuclear-armed North Korea, nuclear-armed Pakistan, and for that matter, a nuclear-armed Israel, we can live, however reluctantly, with a nuclear-armed Iran.

    Regardless of whether the current proposed ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds, the military operation initiated by Israel and bolstered by the United States was extremely dangerous and unnecessary, based on both countries’ justification.

    The regime in Tehran is brutal, authoritarian, openly antisemitic and worthy of our disdain. But there is no evidence it is suicidal.

    The claim an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose an existential threat to Israel or the United States and justifies unilateral, preventive military attacks makes no sense.

    It is time to stop repeating it.

    Benjamin Zala has received funding from the Stanton Foundation, a US philanthropic group that funds nuclear research. He is an honorary fellow at the University of Leicester on a project that is funded by the European Research Council.

    – ref. Could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Reluctantly, yes – https://theconversation.com/could-we-live-with-a-nuclear-armed-iran-reluctantly-yes-259905

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Lucia McCallum, Senior Scientist in Geodesy, University of Tasmania

    ESA / Hubble / L. Calçada (ESO), CC BY

    The scientists who precisely measure the position of Earth are in a bit of trouble. Their measurements are essential for the satellites we use for navigation, communication and Earth observation every day.

    But you might be surprised to learn that making these measurements – using the science of geodesy – depends on tracking the locations of black holes in distant galaxies.

    The problem is, the scientists need to use specific frequency lanes on the radio spectrum highway to track those black holes.

    And with the rise of wifi, mobile phones and satellite internet, travel on that highway is starting to look like a traffic jam.

    Why we need black holes

    Satellites and the services they provide have become essential for modern life. From precision navigation in our pockets to measuring climate change, running global supply chains and making power grids and online banking possible, our civilisation cannot function without its orbiting companions.

    To use satellites, we need to know exactly where they are at any given time. Precise satellite positioning relies on the so-called “global geodesy supply chain”.

    This supply chain starts by establishing a reliable reference frame as a basis for all other measurements. Because satellites are constantly moving around Earth, Earth is constantly moving around the Sun, and the Sun is constantly moving through the galaxy, this reference frame needs to be carefully calibrated via some relatively fixed external objects.

    As it turns out, the best anchor points for the system are the black holes at the hearts of distant galaxies, which spew out streams of radiation as they devour stars and gas.

    These black holes are the most distant and stable objects we know. Using a technique called very long baseline interferometry, we can use a network of radio telescopes to lock onto the black hole signals and disentangle Earth’s own rotation and wobble in space from the satellites’ movement.

    Different lanes on the radio highway

    We use radio telescopes because we want to detect the radio waves coming from the black holes. Radio waves pass cleanly through the atmosphere and we can receive them during day and night and in all weather conditions.

    Radio waves are also used for communication on Earth – including things such as wifi and mobile phones. The use of different radio frequencies – different lanes on the radio highway – is closely regulated, and a few narrow lanes are reserved for radio astronomy.

    However, in previous decades the radio highway had relatively little traffic. Scientists commonly strayed from the radio astronomy lanes to receive the black hole signals.

    To reach the very high precision needed for modern technology, geodesy today relies on more than just the lanes exclusively reserved for astronomy.

    Radio traffic on the rise

    In recent years, human-made electromagnetic pollution has vastly increased. When wifi and mobile phone services emerged, scientists reacted by moving to higher frequencies.

    However, they are running out of lanes. Six generations of mobile phone services (each occupying a new lane) are crowding the spectrum, not to mention internet connections directly sent by a fleet of thousands of satellites.

    Today, the multitude of signals are often too strong for geodetic observatories to see through them to the very weak signals emitted by black holes. This puts many satellite services at risk.

    What can be done?

    To keep working into the future – to maintain the services on which we all depend – geodesy needs some more lanes on the radio highway. When the spectrum is divided up via international treaties at world radio conferences, geodesists need a seat at the table.

    Other potential fixes might include radio quiet zones around our essential radio telescopes. Work is also underway with satellite providers to avoid pointing radio emissions directly at radio telescopes.

    Any solution has to be global. For our geodetic measurements, we link radio telescopes together from all over the world, allowing us to mimic a telescope the size of Earth. The radio spectrum is primarily regulated by each nation individually, making this a huge challenge.

    But perhaps the first step is increasing awareness. If we want satellite navigation to work, our supermarkets to be stocked and our online money transfers arriving safely, we need to make sure we have a clear view of those black holes in distant galaxies – and that means clearing up the radio highway.

    Lucia McCallum 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. Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view – https://theconversation.com/scientists-look-to-black-holes-to-know-exactly-where-we-are-in-the-universe-but-phones-and-wifi-are-blocking-the-view-259977

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Lucia McCallum, Senior Scientist in Geodesy, University of Tasmania

    ESA / Hubble / L. Calçada (ESO), CC BY

    The scientists who precisely measure the position of Earth are in a bit of trouble. Their measurements are essential for the satellites we use for navigation, communication and Earth observation every day.

    But you might be surprised to learn that making these measurements – using the science of geodesy – depends on tracking the locations of black holes in distant galaxies.

    The problem is, the scientists need to use specific frequency lanes on the radio spectrum highway to track those black holes.

    And with the rise of wifi, mobile phones and satellite internet, travel on that highway is starting to look like a traffic jam.

    Why we need black holes

    Satellites and the services they provide have become essential for modern life. From precision navigation in our pockets to measuring climate change, running global supply chains and making power grids and online banking possible, our civilisation cannot function without its orbiting companions.

    To use satellites, we need to know exactly where they are at any given time. Precise satellite positioning relies on the so-called “global geodesy supply chain”.

    This supply chain starts by establishing a reliable reference frame as a basis for all other measurements. Because satellites are constantly moving around Earth, Earth is constantly moving around the Sun, and the Sun is constantly moving through the galaxy, this reference frame needs to be carefully calibrated via some relatively fixed external objects.

    As it turns out, the best anchor points for the system are the black holes at the hearts of distant galaxies, which spew out streams of radiation as they devour stars and gas.

    These black holes are the most distant and stable objects we know. Using a technique called very long baseline interferometry, we can use a network of radio telescopes to lock onto the black hole signals and disentangle Earth’s own rotation and wobble in space from the satellites’ movement.

    Different lanes on the radio highway

    We use radio telescopes because we want to detect the radio waves coming from the black holes. Radio waves pass cleanly through the atmosphere and we can receive them during day and night and in all weather conditions.

    Radio waves are also used for communication on Earth – including things such as wifi and mobile phones. The use of different radio frequencies – different lanes on the radio highway – is closely regulated, and a few narrow lanes are reserved for radio astronomy.

    However, in previous decades the radio highway had relatively little traffic. Scientists commonly strayed from the radio astronomy lanes to receive the black hole signals.

    To reach the very high precision needed for modern technology, geodesy today relies on more than just the lanes exclusively reserved for astronomy.

    Radio traffic on the rise

    In recent years, human-made electromagnetic pollution has vastly increased. When wifi and mobile phone services emerged, scientists reacted by moving to higher frequencies.

    However, they are running out of lanes. Six generations of mobile phone services (each occupying a new lane) are crowding the spectrum, not to mention internet connections directly sent by a fleet of thousands of satellites.

    Today, the multitude of signals are often too strong for geodetic observatories to see through them to the very weak signals emitted by black holes. This puts many satellite services at risk.

    What can be done?

    To keep working into the future – to maintain the services on which we all depend – geodesy needs some more lanes on the radio highway. When the spectrum is divided up via international treaties at world radio conferences, geodesists need a seat at the table.

    Other potential fixes might include radio quiet zones around our essential radio telescopes. Work is also underway with satellite providers to avoid pointing radio emissions directly at radio telescopes.

    Any solution has to be global. For our geodetic measurements, we link radio telescopes together from all over the world, allowing us to mimic a telescope the size of Earth. The radio spectrum is primarily regulated by each nation individually, making this a huge challenge.

    But perhaps the first step is increasing awareness. If we want satellite navigation to work, our supermarkets to be stocked and our online money transfers arriving safely, we need to make sure we have a clear view of those black holes in distant galaxies – and that means clearing up the radio highway.

    Lucia McCallum 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. Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view – https://theconversation.com/scientists-look-to-black-holes-to-know-exactly-where-we-are-in-the-universe-but-phones-and-wifi-are-blocking-the-view-259977

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Fiji’s Dr Prasad unveils $4.8b budget as deficit widens

    By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist

    The Fiji government is spending big on this year’s budget.

    The country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Biman Prasad, unveiled a FJ$4.8 billion (about NZ$3.5 billion) spending package, complete with cost of living measures and fiscal stimulus, to the Fijian Parliament on Friday.

    This is about F$280 million more than last year, with the deficit widening to around $886 million.

    Dr Prasad told Parliament that his government had guided the country to a better economic position than where he found it.

    “When we came into office we were in a precarious economic crossroad . . . our first priority was to restore macroeconomic stability, rebuild trust in policymaking institutions, and chart a path towards sustainable and inclusive growth.”

    The 2025/2026 budget consisted of a spending increase across almost every area, with education, the largest area of spending, up $69 million to $847 million overall.

    The health sector received $611.6 million, the Fijian Roads Authority $388 million, and the Police force $240.3 million, all increases.

    A package of cost of living measures costing the government $800 million has also been announced. This includes a value-added tax (VAT) cut from 15 percent to 12.5 percent on goods and services.

    Various import duties, which firms pay for goods from overseas, have been cut, such as  chicken pieces and parts (from 42 to 15 percent) and frozen fish (from 15 to 0 percent).

    A subsidy to reduce bus fares by 10 percent was announced, alongside a 3 percent increase in salaries for civil servants, both beginning in August.

    Drastic international conditions
     In a news conference, Dr Prasad said that responding to difficult global economic shocks was the primary rationale behind the budget.

    “This is probably one of the most uncertain global economic environments that we have gone through. There has been no resolution on the tariffs by the United States and the number of countries, big or small,” he said.

    “We have never had this kind of interest in Fiji from overseas investors or diaspora, and we are doing a lot more work to get our diaspora to come back.”

    When asked why the VAT was cut, reducing government revenue and widening the deficit, Dr Prasad said there was a need to encourage consumer spending.

    “If the Middle East crisis deepens and oil prices go up, the first thing that will be affected will be the supply chain . . . prices could go up, people could be affected more.”

    On building resilience from global shocks, Dr Prasad said the budget would reduce Fiji’s reliance on tourism, remittances, and international supply chains, by building domestic industry.

    “It kills two birds in one [stone]. It addresses any big shock we might get . . .  plus it also helps the people who would be affected.”

    In their Pacific Economic Update, the World Bank projected economic growth of 2.6 percent in 2025, after a slump from 7.5 percent in 2023 to 3.8 percent in 2024.

    Senior World Bank economist Ekaterine Vashakmadze told RNZ that Fiji was an interesting case.

    “Fiji is one of the countries that suffered the sharpest shock [post-covid] . . .  because tourism stopped.”

    “On the other hand, Fiji was one of the first countries in the Pacific to recover fully in terms of the output to pre-pandemic level.”

    Deficit too high — opposition
     Opposition members have hit out at the government over the scale of the spend, and whether it would translate into outcomes.

    Opposition MP Alvick Maharaj, in a statement to local media outlet Duavata News, referred to the larger deficit as “deeply troubling”.

    “The current trajectory is concerning, and the government must change its fiscal strategy to one that is truly sustainable.”

    “The way the budget is being presented, it’s like the government is trying to show that in one year Fiji will become a developed country.”

    MP Ketal Lal on social media called the budget “a desperate cloak for scandal” designed to appeal to voters ahead of elections in 2026.

    “This is what happens when a government governs by pressure instead of principle. The people have been crying out for years. The Opposition has consistently raised concerns about the crushing cost of living but they only act when it becomes politically necessary. And even then, it’s never enough.”

    He also pointed out, regarding the 3 percent increase in civil servants salaries, that someone earning $30,000 a year would only see a pay increase of $900 per year.

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Fiji’s Dr Prasad unveils $4.8b budget as deficit widens

    By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist

    The Fiji government is spending big on this year’s budget.

    The country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Biman Prasad, unveiled a FJ$4.8 billion (about NZ$3.5 billion) spending package, complete with cost of living measures and fiscal stimulus, to the Fijian Parliament on Friday.

    This is about F$280 million more than last year, with the deficit widening to around $886 million.

    Dr Prasad told Parliament that his government had guided the country to a better economic position than where he found it.

    “When we came into office we were in a precarious economic crossroad . . . our first priority was to restore macroeconomic stability, rebuild trust in policymaking institutions, and chart a path towards sustainable and inclusive growth.”

    The 2025/2026 budget consisted of a spending increase across almost every area, with education, the largest area of spending, up $69 million to $847 million overall.

    The health sector received $611.6 million, the Fijian Roads Authority $388 million, and the Police force $240.3 million, all increases.

    A package of cost of living measures costing the government $800 million has also been announced. This includes a value-added tax (VAT) cut from 15 percent to 12.5 percent on goods and services.

    Various import duties, which firms pay for goods from overseas, have been cut, such as  chicken pieces and parts (from 42 to 15 percent) and frozen fish (from 15 to 0 percent).

    A subsidy to reduce bus fares by 10 percent was announced, alongside a 3 percent increase in salaries for civil servants, both beginning in August.

    Drastic international conditions
     In a news conference, Dr Prasad said that responding to difficult global economic shocks was the primary rationale behind the budget.

    “This is probably one of the most uncertain global economic environments that we have gone through. There has been no resolution on the tariffs by the United States and the number of countries, big or small,” he said.

    “We have never had this kind of interest in Fiji from overseas investors or diaspora, and we are doing a lot more work to get our diaspora to come back.”

    When asked why the VAT was cut, reducing government revenue and widening the deficit, Dr Prasad said there was a need to encourage consumer spending.

    “If the Middle East crisis deepens and oil prices go up, the first thing that will be affected will be the supply chain . . . prices could go up, people could be affected more.”

    On building resilience from global shocks, Dr Prasad said the budget would reduce Fiji’s reliance on tourism, remittances, and international supply chains, by building domestic industry.

    “It kills two birds in one [stone]. It addresses any big shock we might get . . .  plus it also helps the people who would be affected.”

    In their Pacific Economic Update, the World Bank projected economic growth of 2.6 percent in 2025, after a slump from 7.5 percent in 2023 to 3.8 percent in 2024.

    Senior World Bank economist Ekaterine Vashakmadze told RNZ that Fiji was an interesting case.

    “Fiji is one of the countries that suffered the sharpest shock [post-covid] . . .  because tourism stopped.”

    “On the other hand, Fiji was one of the first countries in the Pacific to recover fully in terms of the output to pre-pandemic level.”

    Deficit too high — opposition
     Opposition members have hit out at the government over the scale of the spend, and whether it would translate into outcomes.

    Opposition MP Alvick Maharaj, in a statement to local media outlet Duavata News, referred to the larger deficit as “deeply troubling”.

    “The current trajectory is concerning, and the government must change its fiscal strategy to one that is truly sustainable.”

    “The way the budget is being presented, it’s like the government is trying to show that in one year Fiji will become a developed country.”

    MP Ketal Lal on social media called the budget “a desperate cloak for scandal” designed to appeal to voters ahead of elections in 2026.

    “This is what happens when a government governs by pressure instead of principle. The people have been crying out for years. The Opposition has consistently raised concerns about the crushing cost of living but they only act when it becomes politically necessary. And even then, it’s never enough.”

    He also pointed out, regarding the 3 percent increase in civil servants salaries, that someone earning $30,000 a year would only see a pay increase of $900 per year.

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Tahiti prepares for its first Matari’i public holiday

    RNZ Te Manu Korihi

    Tahiti will mark Matari’i as a national public holiday for the first time in November, following in the footsteps of Matariki in Aotearoa New Zealand.

    Matari’i refers to the same star cluster as Matariki. And for Tahitians, November 20 will mark the start of Matari’i i ni’a — the “season of abundance” — which lasts for six months to be followed by Matari’i i raro, the “season of scarcity”.

    Te Māreikura Whakataka-Brightwell is a New Zealand artist who was born in Tahiti and raised in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, Gisborne, with whakapapa links to both countries. He spoke to RNZ’s Matariki programme from the island of Moorea.

    His father was the master carver Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell, and his grandfather was the renowned Tahitian navigator Francis Puara Cowan.

    In Tahiti, there has been a series of cultural revival practices, and with the support of the likes of Professor Rangi Mātāmua, there is hope to bring these practices out into the public arena, he said.

    The people of Tahiti had always lived in accordance with Matari’i i ni’a and Matari’i i raro, with six months of abundance and six months of scarcity, he said.

    “Bringing that back into the public space is good to sort of recognise the ancestral practice of not only Matariki in terms of the abundance but also giving more credence to our tūpuna kōrero and mātauranga tuku iho.”

    Little controversy
    Whakataka-Brightwell said there had been a little controversy around the new holiday as it replaced another public holiday, Internal Autonomy Day, on June 29, which marked the French annexation of Tahiti.

    But he said a lot of people in Tahiti liked the shift towards having local practices represented in a holiday.

    There would be several public celebrations organised for the inaugural public holiday but most people on the islands would be holding more intimate ceremonies at home, he said.

    “A lot of people already had practices of celebrating Matariki which was more about now marking the season of abundance, so I think at a whānau level people will continue to do that, I think this will be a little bit more of an incentive for everything else to align to those sorts of celebrations.”

    Many of the traditions surrounding Matari’i related to the Arioi clan, whose ranks included artists, priests, navigators and diplomats who would celebrate the rituals of Matari’i, he said.

    “Tahiti is an island of artists, it’s an island of rejuvenation, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be doing a lot of that and basing some of those traditions on the Arioi traditions.”

    Whakataka-Brightwell encouraged anyone with Māori heritage to make the pilgrimage to Tahiti at some point in their lives, as the place where many of the waka that carried Māori ancestors were launched.

    “I’ve always been a firm believer of particular people with whakapapa Māori to come back, hoki mai ki te whenua o Tahiti roa, Tahiti pāmamao.

    “Those connections still exist, I mean, people still have the same last names as people in Aotearoa, and it’s not very far away, so I would encourage everybody to explore their own connections but also hoki mai ki te whenua (return to the land).”

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Cities are heating up the planet – how they can do more to fight climate change

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Hurlimann, Associate Professor in Urban Planning, The University of Melbourne

    Quality Stock Arts/Shutterstock

    Cities have a central role to play tackling climate change. They contribute 67–72% of the greenhouse gas emissions which are heating up the planet.

    At the same time, cities are increasingly at risk from global warming. Flood, fire and drought are affecting everything from the cost of insuring homes and businesses, through to impacts on health and safety.

    This is critical given 90% of Australians live in urban areas. Globally, cities are home to more than four billion people.

    Our new study identifies 16 priority actions to address climate change in the construction and management of cities.

    Building smarter

    Climate change must be a key consideration when designing, building and managing our cities. The emissions generated need to be minimised and eventually eliminated.

    We must build in locations, and in ways, that reduce climate risks. But policies governing how our cities are designed and constructed don’t achieve this.

    A recent study of three local government areas identified only limited action on adaptation and mitigation. Other research has found few urban development policies include carbon reduction goals that meet international targets.

    The National Housing Accord will see more than one million houses built by 2029. These new homes must address the climate challenge.

    16 areas for priority action

    The priority areas in our new study were informed by interviews with more than 150 stakeholders working in urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, sustainability, construction and property.

    Priority areas for minimising damaging emissions generated by cities.
    CC BY

    The actions they identified cover the entire life cycle of the built environment.

    One of the first barriers to overcome is the perceived lack of agency among industry professionals to initiate or demand climate action. They perceive others, such as property owners or clients, to have more influence.

    Climate change risks should be identified in the early stages of planning new developments, backed up by effective tools to make risk identification and action easier:

    There were areas that were identified as being flood prone or risk prone. But there was no strategy to deal with what happens to those areas – An urban planner

    Once specific projects are being considered it is important to prioritise early stage climate assessments, supported by policies which mandate climate action:

    Everyone has good intentions but without big formal legislation around it, everyone’s just sort of making their way in the dark – A construction industry professional

    In the design stage, steps to improve the climate knowledge and skills of the workforce beyond disciplinary boundaries is critical. The selection of low-impact products and materials will also help ensure design is more climate responsive.

    Climate action must be embedded in all stages of design and construction of Australian cities.
    GagliardiPhotography/Shutterstock

    The highest number of hurdles to climate action were found to occur during the costing and approvals stage. Participants spoke of a highly competitive building industry. If climate change initiatives introduced at an earlier stage aren’t required by law, they are likely to be cut.

    unless there’s something in it for them in terms of return on investment, it’s going to be hard to get them to do it, unless we make them – An urban planner

    During the construction phase, product and material substitutions that have detrimental environmental impact should be eliminated. Innovation should be encouraged:

    If you want to push the envelope a little bit in terms of using recycled materials […] that’s a bit of a barrier. To push innovation is difficult – A landscape architect

    Post-construction

    Once construction is complete and buildings and public spaces are being used, it is important to invest in a thorough evaluation process. Building users should be involved to ensure buildings are maintained for optimal climate outcomes:

    [We] tried to achieve the six star rating […] the client has to maintain it [the building] for a year, and that’s when things start to fall off – An architect

    When it comes to area upgrades or building renewals, advocating for reuse and materials circularity is important. But the custom of demolishing and building anew, is hard to shift:

    The reuse of the existing building obviously generates significantly less waste and involves less material. So, design decisions and strategic decisions around using existing buildings is really important – An urban designer

    Working together

    This is a time of significant change in our urban areas.

    We need to make sure climate action is embedded in every stage of decision making. This may mean more efficient use, and reuse, of the existing built stock. This will require an overhaul of policies regarding building retrofits, and a change in mindsets.

    The priority actions to address climate change in cities can be implemented across a range of levels for:

    • individual professionals – pursue development of their climate change skills, including opportunities provided by professional associations

    • professional practices – review internal processes to ensure climate action is mainstreamed across projects, and in company decision making

    • universities teaching built environment professional degrees – embed climate change knowledge, skills, and competencies across the curriculum

    • governments at all levels – review policy settings to mandate mitigation and adaption.

    By addressing these actions, we can collectively work towards achieving our emission reduction targets and making sure our cities minimise climate change risks.

    Anna Hurlimann received funding for the research reported in this article from the Australian Research Council – Discovery Grant DP200101378, with co-chief investigators Georgia Warren-Myers, Alan March, Sareh Moosavi and Judy Bush. She is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia.

    Sareh Moosavi received funding for the research reported in this article from the Australian Research Council – Discovery Grant DP200101378, with co-chief investigators Anna Hurlimann, Georgia Warren-Myers, Alan March, and Judy Bush.

    – ref. Cities are heating up the planet – how they can do more to fight climate change – https://theconversation.com/cities-are-heating-up-the-planet-how-they-can-do-more-to-fight-climate-change-259391

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Murdoch’s News Corp has moved into the mortgage business. Where are the regulators?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roberta Esbitt, Associate, RMIT University

    If you want to advertise a house online in Australia, you don’t have many options. Just two companies dominate the market.

    Australia’s largest property listings platform, realestate.com.au, belongs to digital media company REA Group, which is majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s US-based media conglomerate News Corporation (News Corp).

    REA claims average traffic of 11.9 million viewers per month, substantially more than that of its nearest rival, Domain.

    That’s led to widespread concern about REA’s dominant market power and the potential for price-gouging, which are currently subject to an ongoing probe by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

    Meanwhile, my research has revealed that REA has expanded into mortgage lending, an important new direction which, until now, has escaped attention.

    The implications here are worth considering. News Corp, a foreign-owned media company, now has a direct stake in framing the Australian housing narrative and influencing policy, while profiting through its property platform from listings, data, and its own mortgages.

    It’s a shrewd business strategy. But Australia currently doesn’t have a regulator fit for overseeing such a hybrid entity, raising serious questions about who is keeping watch.

    ‘Good debt’

    Australian households have long accepted the prevailing narrative, promoted by the media, that housing investment is their “path to wealth”. Mortgages are endorsed as the way to manage the growing gap between flatlined wages and rising house prices.

    Primed for finance in this way, many households have come to embrace mortgages as an aspirational form of “good debt”, the mark of a savvy player rather than a long-term financial burden.

    This has helped fuel what could be described as a housing “frenzy”, a volatile situation in which escalating housing prices and indebtedness undermine household wellbeing. Younger generations and the disadvantaged, among others, are left out in the cold.

    From newspapers to platforms to finance

    As digitisation has forced legacy media players such as News Corp to seek new strategies to stay viable, so too has it disrupted the finance industry by opening it up to non-bank players.

    Taking advantage of this opportunity, REA Group entered the mortgage market in 2016, starting with a partnership with National Australia Bank. It purchased mortgage brokerages the following year.

    The realestate.com.au platform was then redesigned to include a mortgage portal to direct millions of Australian homeseekers to lending through those channels. This provides REA with revenue from platform leads to the bank, as well as up-front and trailing mortgage commissions from their brokers.

    REA also harvests the extensive financial data supplied by millions of users via their financial profiles and the calculator tools embedded in the website.

    That data, an increasingly valuable asset, can be monetised through the platform’s advertiser and homebuyer markets, and News Corp’s extensive partnerships with data broker and analytics companies.

    Selling mortgages

    Most recently, REA Group has taken its finance strategy one step further. In October 2024, it purchased a 19.9% stake in digital non-bank lender Athena Home Loans.

    This allows REA to profit directly from its own mortgages offered to platform users through its current brokerage, Mortgage Choice.

    For REA Group (and its owner, News Corp), this move is both logical and strategically compelling in a challenging media environment. As well as influencing policy, REA Group and News Corp are proficient in crafting and cross-promoting a powerful message about housing and debt to the public.

    With their profit now even more directly tied to the housing mortgage market – and thereby customers’ debt – the Athena acquisition can only strengthen REA’s vested interest in the continued rise in house prices and household indebtedness. This has the potential to undermine policies to improve housing affordability.

    The law can’t keep up

    The power imbalance against consumers is stark. So which regulator is keeping an eye on it?

    Such an initiative combining housing, finance and media can slip through the cracks in Australia’s fragmented regulatory system with its narrowly-focused legislation.

    The legislation lags behind the technology as well. A platform’s persuasive design, with its algorithmic tools, predetermined paths and data harvesting, obscures its prioritisation of commercial interests over that of consumers.

    Players from different industries interacting through the “black box” of a platform appear to come under looser regulatory oversight than those from a single industry or operating outside a platform.

    As an ACCC representative admitted:

    the legislation isn’t updated in the way that […] keeps pace with the evolving technology, trends and emerging markets.

    In a landscape where such complex digital initiatives are becoming the norm, regulators urgently need to update their understanding and broaden their jurisdiction to include them.

    And not just in Australia. REA has confirmed that a successful trial of its initiative here will lead to its rollout across its broad global property platform network.

    Nor just REA. Other companies are eyeing this space. REA’s closest competitor, Domain, is currently under acquisition by CoStar, a major digital real estate player in the United States, with the aim to challenge REA.

    The rapid and major disruptions caused by such initiatives, such as Airbnb’s negative impact on housing affordability globally, can be difficult to redress retrospectively.

    Somebody needs to keep watch.

    REA Group declined to comment on this article.

    Roberta Esbitt 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. Murdoch’s News Corp has moved into the mortgage business. Where are the regulators? – https://theconversation.com/murdochs-news-corp-has-moved-into-the-mortgage-business-where-are-the-regulators-259039

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Murdoch’s News Corp has moved into the mortgage business. Where are the regulators?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roberta Esbitt, Associate, RMIT University

    If you want to advertise a house online in Australia, you don’t have many options. Just two companies dominate the market.

    Australia’s largest property listings platform, realestate.com.au, belongs to digital media company REA Group, which is majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s US-based media conglomerate News Corporation (News Corp).

    REA claims average traffic of 11.9 million viewers per month, substantially more than that of its nearest rival, Domain.

    That’s led to widespread concern about REA’s dominant market power and the potential for price-gouging, which are currently subject to an ongoing probe by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

    Meanwhile, my research has revealed that REA has expanded into mortgage lending, an important new direction which, until now, has escaped attention.

    The implications here are worth considering. News Corp, a foreign-owned media company, now has a direct stake in framing the Australian housing narrative and influencing policy, while profiting through its property platform from listings, data, and its own mortgages.

    It’s a shrewd business strategy. But Australia currently doesn’t have a regulator fit for overseeing such a hybrid entity, raising serious questions about who is keeping watch.

    ‘Good debt’

    Australian households have long accepted the prevailing narrative, promoted by the media, that housing investment is their “path to wealth”. Mortgages are endorsed as the way to manage the growing gap between flatlined wages and rising house prices.

    Primed for finance in this way, many households have come to embrace mortgages as an aspirational form of “good debt”, the mark of a savvy player rather than a long-term financial burden.

    This has helped fuel what could be described as a housing “frenzy”, a volatile situation in which escalating housing prices and indebtedness undermine household wellbeing. Younger generations and the disadvantaged, among others, are left out in the cold.

    From newspapers to platforms to finance

    As digitisation has forced legacy media players such as News Corp to seek new strategies to stay viable, so too has it disrupted the finance industry by opening it up to non-bank players.

    Taking advantage of this opportunity, REA Group entered the mortgage market in 2016, starting with a partnership with National Australia Bank. It purchased mortgage brokerages the following year.

    The realestate.com.au platform was then redesigned to include a mortgage portal to direct millions of Australian homeseekers to lending through those channels. This provides REA with revenue from platform leads to the bank, as well as up-front and trailing mortgage commissions from their brokers.

    REA also harvests the extensive financial data supplied by millions of users via their financial profiles and the calculator tools embedded in the website.

    That data, an increasingly valuable asset, can be monetised through the platform’s advertiser and homebuyer markets, and News Corp’s extensive partnerships with data broker and analytics companies.

    Selling mortgages

    Most recently, REA Group has taken its finance strategy one step further. In October 2024, it purchased a 19.9% stake in digital non-bank lender Athena Home Loans.

    This allows REA to profit directly from its own mortgages offered to platform users through its current brokerage, Mortgage Choice.

    For REA Group (and its owner, News Corp), this move is both logical and strategically compelling in a challenging media environment. As well as influencing policy, REA Group and News Corp are proficient in crafting and cross-promoting a powerful message about housing and debt to the public.

    With their profit now even more directly tied to the housing mortgage market – and thereby customers’ debt – the Athena acquisition can only strengthen REA’s vested interest in the continued rise in house prices and household indebtedness. This has the potential to undermine policies to improve housing affordability.

    The law can’t keep up

    The power imbalance against consumers is stark. So which regulator is keeping an eye on it?

    Such an initiative combining housing, finance and media can slip through the cracks in Australia’s fragmented regulatory system with its narrowly-focused legislation.

    The legislation lags behind the technology as well. A platform’s persuasive design, with its algorithmic tools, predetermined paths and data harvesting, obscures its prioritisation of commercial interests over that of consumers.

    Players from different industries interacting through the “black box” of a platform appear to come under looser regulatory oversight than those from a single industry or operating outside a platform.

    As an ACCC representative admitted:

    the legislation isn’t updated in the way that […] keeps pace with the evolving technology, trends and emerging markets.

    In a landscape where such complex digital initiatives are becoming the norm, regulators urgently need to update their understanding and broaden their jurisdiction to include them.

    And not just in Australia. REA has confirmed that a successful trial of its initiative here will lead to its rollout across its broad global property platform network.

    Nor just REA. Other companies are eyeing this space. REA’s closest competitor, Domain, is currently under acquisition by CoStar, a major digital real estate player in the United States, with the aim to challenge REA.

    The rapid and major disruptions caused by such initiatives, such as Airbnb’s negative impact on housing affordability globally, can be difficult to redress retrospectively.

    Somebody needs to keep watch.

    REA Group declined to comment on this article.

    Roberta Esbitt 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. Murdoch’s News Corp has moved into the mortgage business. Where are the regulators? – https://theconversation.com/murdochs-news-corp-has-moved-into-the-mortgage-business-where-are-the-regulators-259039

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ cities are getting hotter: 5 things councils can do now to keep us cooler when summer comes

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

    Getty Images

    Stand on any car park on a sunny day in February and the heat will radiate through your shoes. At 30°C air temperature, that asphalt hits 50–55°C – hot enough to cause second-degree burns to skin in seconds.

    Right now, in the northern hemisphere summer, 100 million Americans are dealing with 38°C temperatures. Britain is preparing for hundreds of heat deaths. In New Zealand, of course, we’re still lighting fires and complaining about the cold.

    But that gives us time to prepare for our own heatwaves. Open-air car parks that sit empty for 20 hours a day could become cooling infrastructure instead. Transport routes can become cooling corridors.

    Replace asphalt with trees, grass and permeable surfaces, and you can drop surface temperatures by 12°C. It’s not complicated. It’s not even expensive.

    It’s getting hotter

    NIWA data shows New Zealand is already experiencing extreme temperatures five times more frequently than historical baselines. Wellington hit 30.3°C and Hamilton 32.9°C in January, both all-time records. Marine heatwaves are persisting around South Island coasts months longer than usual.

    Aucklanders will face 48 additional days above 25°C annually by 2099, as summer temperatures increase by 3.6°C. Auckland Council has already adopted the most severe warming scenario (3.8°C) for infrastructure planning, acknowledging previous models underestimated the pace of change.

    Even Wellington’s famously cool winds won’t offset the estimated 79% increase in residential cooling energy demand by 2090, driven by hotter, longer summers and more extreme-heat days.

    A quarter of New Zealand’s population will be over 65 by 2043, an age when heat regulation becomes harder and fixed incomes make cooling costs a real burden.

    Currently, 14 heat-related deaths occur annually among Auckland’s over-65 population when temperatures exceed just 20°C. As the mercury rises, our older population will be at a greater risk.

    Summer in the city: a vendor sells drinks and ice cream during a severe heat wave in Washington DC, June 23.
    Getty Images

    Greener is cooler

    While global average temperature increases of 1.5°C might appear modest, the actual temperatures we experience in our cities is far more extreme. The built environment – all that concrete and asphalt – traps heat like an oven.

    But converting car parks back to green space can knock the temperature down dramatically.

    Research from Osaka Prefecture in Japan recorded surface temperature reductions of up to 14.7°C when comparing asphalt to grass-covered parking during sunny summer conditions.

    Another study found temperature differences averaging 11.79°C between asphalt and grass surfaces, with air temperature differences of 7-8°C at human height.

    Trees are the heavy lifters here. Stand under a tree on a hot day, and it can feel 17°C cooler than standing in the sun. Add rain gardens (shallow, planted areas designed to capture and filter stormwater) and ground cover for another 2-4°C reduction. Layer these elements together, and you get cooling that works even on overcast days.

    Roads as cooling corridors

    Grassy and tree-covered car parks are just a starting point. Auckland’s 7,800 kilometres of roads could become the city’s cooling system. Every bus lane, cycleway and walking path is an opportunity for green infrastructure.

    If we stop thinking of transport corridors as merely a way to get from one place to another, and see them as multifunctional cooling networks, the possibilities multiply while the costs remain relatively low.

    Melbourne’s COVID-era parklet program proved this works: 594 small conversions created 15,000 square metres of public space at just A$300–900 per square metre.

    Converting even a small percentage of New Zealand’s parking infrastructure could create connected cooling corridors throughout our cities.

    Protecting cycleways with a tree canopy would encourage active transport while cooling neighbourhoods. Bus lanes with rain garden medians would improve service reliability while managing stormwater.

    5 things councils can do

    Summer is six months away – maybe not enough time to do all the work needed, but certainly enough to get a plan in place. Here are five things councils could do.

    1. Plant trees now: winter is planting season. Focus on car parks and heat-vulnerable neighbourhoods. Use fast-growing natives and protective rings to ensure survival. Trees planted now will provide shade by December.

    2. Install modular planters: test cooling locations with movable infrastructure before committing to permanent changes. Order now for spring placement when residents can see the benefits.

    3. Schedule paving replacements: when resurfacing is needed, switch to permeable options and get heat-reducing surfaces in place before summer.

    4. Design shade structures: plan and budget pop-up shade for the hottest areas. Having designs ready means quick installation when temperatures spike.

    5. Organise spring planting days: line up community groups now, source trees through winter nursery contracts, and hit the ground running in September. Small investments in coordination yield big cooling dividends.

    Auckland Council’s NZ$1 billion climate action package includes grants of $1,000 to $50,000 for climate projects. Wellington’s Climate and Sustainability Fund and Christchurch’s 50-year Urban Forest Plan provide similar frameworks.

    The Ministry for the Environment’s National Policy Statement on Urban Development creates opportunity by removing minimum parking requirements. This frees up land for trees, gardens and public spaces instead of underused asphalt, maximising climate co-benefits: cooler surfaces, better stormwater management and more pleasant streetscapes.

    By next February, we can either be thanking ourselves for planting trees and converting car parks, or feeling the heat from that 50°C asphalt.

    Timothy Welch 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. NZ cities are getting hotter: 5 things councils can do now to keep us cooler when summer comes – https://theconversation.com/nz-cities-are-getting-hotter-5-things-councils-can-do-now-to-keep-us-cooler-when-summer-comes-259885

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Mr Smith or Gary? Why some teachers ask students to call them by their first name

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Brownlie, Lecturer in Education, University of Southern Queensland

    Johnny Greig/ Getty Images

    When you went to school, did you call your teacher Mrs, Ms or Mr, followed by their surname? Perhaps you even called them Sir or Miss.

    The tradition of addressing teachers in a formal manner goes back centuries. For many of us, calling a teacher by their first name would have been unthinkable.

    But that’s not automatically the case anymore. Some teachers in mainstream schools now ask students to call them by their first name.

    Why is this? And what impact can teachers’ names have in the classroom?

    There’s no rule

    There’s no official rule in Australia on what students should call teachers.
    Naming is usually decided by schools or individual teachers. This is no official training on this topic before teachers start in classrooms.

    Some primary school teachers now use first names or a less formal name such as “Mr D”. Teachers say this helps break down barriers, especially for young students or those who are learning English as an additional language.

    High schools are more likely to stick with tradition, partly to maintain structure and boundaries, especially with teenagers. Using formal titles can also support early-career teachers or those from minority
    backgrounds     assert their authority in a classroom.

    But even so, some high school teachers are using their first names to foster a sense of trust and encourage students to see them as a partner in learning, rather than simply an authority figure.

    What does the research say?

    Research – which is mainly from the United States – suggests names have an impact on how students perceive their teachers and feel about school.

    In one study of US high school students, teenagers described teachers they addressed with formal titles as more distant and harder to connect with. Teachers who invited students to use their first name were seen as more supportive, approachable and trustworthy.

    A secondary school principal in the state of Maryland reported students felt more included and respected when they could use teachers’ first names. It made classrooms feel less hierarchical and more collaborative.

    A 2020 US study on teaching students doing practical placements found those who used their first name observed greater student engagement than those who did not. This came as a surprise to the student teachers who expected students would not respect them if they used their first names.

    These findings don’t necessarily mean titles are bad. Rather, they show first names can support stronger teacher-student relationships.

    It’s important to note society in general has become less formal in recent decades in terms of how we address and refer to each other.

    So, what should students call their teachers?

    What works in one school, or even one classroom, may not work in another.

    For example, for Indigenous students or students from non-English speaking households, name practices that show cultural respect and mutual choice can be vital. They help create a sense of safety and inclusion.

    But for other teachers, being called by their title may be a key part of their professional persona.

    That’s why it’s important for naming decisions to be thoughtful and based on the needs of the teacher, students and broader school community.

    The key is to treat naming as part of the broader relationship, not just a habit or automatic tradition. Whether students say “Mrs Lee” or “Jess” matters less than whether they feel safe, respected and included. It’s about the tone and relationship behind the name, not simply what someone is called.

    Nicole Brownlie 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. Mr Smith or Gary? Why some teachers ask students to call them by their first name – https://theconversation.com/mr-smith-or-gary-why-some-teachers-ask-students-to-call-them-by-their-first-name-259790

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: How to reform the NDIS and better support disabled people who don’t qualify for it

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Bennett, Disability Program Director, Grattan Institute

    Australia is spending more than ever on disability services – and yet many people with disability still aren’t receiving the support they need.

    Since the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) began in 2013, it has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled Australians and their families.

    But the NDIS has grown too big, too fast.

    The scheme cost nearly A$42 billion in 2023-24 and is expected to cost more than $58 billion by 2028. This makes it one of the fastest-growing pressures on the federal budget.

    New “foundational supports” – disability-specific services outside individual NDIS packages – are part of the answer to reduce demand on the NDIS and make the scheme sustainable. They were supposed to be operational from July 1 2025. That’s tomorrow, but they are nowhere to be seen.

    A new Grattan Institute report shows how the government can fund these vital supports and save the NDIS – without spending more money.

    Spending is too concentrated in the NDIS

    All Australian governments are spending more on disability services than they were before the NDIS.

    Note: Includes all expenditure on direct disability service delivery by Australian governments.
    Sources: Productivity Commission Return on Government Services report 2025/Grattan Institute

    This is a good thing. But most of this expenditure is for individual NDIS funding packages. The NDIS funds packages for about 700,000 Australians.

    This leaves little support for the roughly 75% of disabled Australians who don’t qualify for the NDIS.

    Around 200,000 Australians with a severe mental illness, for example, aren’t receiving the psychosocial supports they need.

    Many other disabled Australians might only require occasional or low-intensity support such as peer support, supported decision-making, or self-advocacy – supports which are poorly funded and targeted under current arrangements.

    So there’s a huge incentive for people to get into the NDIS, regardless of whether an individualised funding package best meets their needs.

    The NDIS supports more people than intended

    We’re seeing this incentive play out in ballooning numbers of people entering the NDIS.

    In 2011, the Productivity Commission estimated a mature NDIS would serve 490,000 people.

    But in 2025, the NDIS is supporting more than 700,000 people. That number is projected to surpass one million by 2034.

    The number of adults in the scheme is only a little higher than originally expected, but the number of children is nearly double.

    Note: Productivity Commission estimates have been inflated based on population growth for 0-64 year-olds between the reference year (2009) and 2024, using Australian Bureau of Statistics Estimated Resident Population data.
    Sources: Productivity Commission Disability Care and Support 2011, National Disability Insurance Agency Explore Data 2024, Australian Bureau of Statistics Estimated Resident Population 2024/Grattan Institute

    About 10% of children aged five to seven are now in the NDIS, including 15% of six-year-old boys.

    The expectation was that many children would only require short-term early intervention supports. Instead, most children are staying in the scheme long term.

    Our research shows the current NDIS design is poorly suited to delivering early intervention, which works best for children when it is delivered in the places they live, learn and play. This includes in playgroups, libraries and early childhood education settings.

    An individualised funding model makes this difficult. Yet this is the only option available for most families, because the NDIS has led to reduced investment in services that could work far better for their children.

    Support more Australians with disability

    The problem isn’t the amount of funding in the system, but the way it is used.

    The original NDIS design was for a multi-tiered scheme with different levels of coverage. Getting back to this idea is what foundational supports is all about.

    Foundational supports are services and supports for people with disability that do not involve individualised funding from the NDIS.

    To meet the needs of more disabled Australians and take pressure off the NDIS, it is imperative that governments establish an ambitious program of these lower-intensity supports.

    These should include supports available to all disabled Australians who need them, such as information and advice, support with decision-making, and access to peer support or self-advocacy.

    Foundational supports are best delivered where people live, play and learn.
    Central City Library (Kids zone)/Shutterstock

    They should also include evidence-based early intervention supports for children with disability and/or developmental delay. And they should include psychosocial supports for people with severe mental illness who don’t meet the threshold for an individualised NDIS package.

    The current impasse in Commonwealth-state funding negotiations could be overcome by governments agreeing to repurpose a small portion – about 10% – of their existing NDIS contributions.

    Our report outlines a plan to fully fund foundational supports using this repurposed funding and better allocate individualised funding. This would ensure more people get the support they need within an affordable NDIS that grows more slowly.

    Don’t save money by delaying access

    NDIS growth has fallen in recent quarters and is on track to be 10.6% in 2024-25.

    This compares with an average growth rate of more than 24% a year over the past five years.

    But it is too early to attribute that reduction in growth to policy changes.

    A significant downturn in operational performance is very likely to be a contributing factor. The NDIS is groaning under the weight of unsustainable work volumes.

    Since September 2023, it has been taking longer to approve new applicants trying to get access to the NDIS, and to reassess the plans of people already on the scheme.

    Notes: Data is unavailable for December 2023 due to the NDIA upgrading to a new computer system.
    Sources: NDIA Quarterly reports, Q4 2021-22 to Q3 2024-25/Grattan Institute

    We know what drives growth in NDIS expenditure: more people joining the scheme, and existing NDIS participants’ plans increasing over time.

    At the moment, slowing down how fast the NDIS is growing is coming at the expense of the disabled people who need support from the NDIS and are waiting too long to get it.

    It is important that necessary growth moderation is achieved through measures that do not result in vital supports being delayed, or disabled peoples’ experience of, and results from, the NDIS being undermined.

    The NDIS is worth saving. Making necessary policy changes now to rebalance the NDIS will ensure it endures for future generations.

    Grattan Institute’s Disability Program has support from the Summer Foundation.

    – ref. How to reform the NDIS and better support disabled people who don’t qualify for it – https://theconversation.com/how-to-reform-the-ndis-and-better-support-disabled-people-who-dont-qualify-for-it-258799

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Reluctantly, yes

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Zala, Senior Lecturer, Politics & International Relations, Monash University

    As the ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding for now, it is important to reflect on whether this whole episode was worth the risks.

    Wider escalation was (and remains) possible, and we do not know whether Iran will seek a nuclear weapon with renewed vigour in the future.

    So, could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran, if it does indeed continue to pursue a bomb?

    Is an Iranian bomb an existential threat?

    The conventional wisdom, at least in the Western world, is that an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose an existential threat to Israel, and possibly the United States as well.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were aimed at rolling back “the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described an Iranian bomb as “an existential threat, not just to Israel, but to the United States, and to the entire world”.

    The same mantra has been repeated by leaders in Europe, at the G7 meeting, and in Australia.

    Iran, of course, did not yet possess a nuclear weapon when the strikes occurred, as the UN nuclear watchdog attested. The strikes were aimed at preventing Iran from being able to do so in the future – a prospect seen by Israel and the US as simply “unthinkable”.

    But if Iran had built a nuclear weapon before the Israeli and US strikes – or manages to do so in the future – would this pose an existential threat to Israel or the US?

    The answer is no. And for a very simple reason: nuclear deterrence works.

    Why deterrence works

    If Iran had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, it would be different. But it does not.

    Israel has maintained a robust nuclear arsenal for more than half a century. Every authoritative assessment of global nuclear weapons stockpiles includes Israel’s roughly 90 nuclear warheads.

    The Israeli government officially neither confirms nor denies the existence of its nuclear arsenal. But thanks to leaks from inside the Israeli nuclear program – as well as the best assessments from around the world – we can be quite sure they exist. It also explains why Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty – it can’t without giving up this stockpile.

    The US, of course, has been nuclear-armed since 1945 and openly maintains an inventory of thousands of nuclear warheads. These provide a deterrent against nuclear attacks on the United States.

    Washington also provides extended nuclear deterrence guarantees to over 30 states, including members of NATO, Japan, South Korea and Australia. It does not need to provide this for Israel given the Israeli arsenal. But if there was ever any doubt about Israel’s stockpile, it certainly could.

    After 80 years of living with nuclear weapons, we know the deterrent effect of assured nuclear retaliation is very powerful. It deterred both the Soviets and Americans from using nuclear weapons against each other through multiple Cold War crises. It has deterred both India and Pakistan from using them in multiple standoffs, including quite recently. It has deterred both North Korea and the US from striking each other.

    Similarly, Iran would no doubt be deterred from using a nuclear weapon by a certain Israeli or American response.

    Iranian leaders have called for the destruction of Israel, and the chants of “death to Israel” and “death to America” are a common occurrence at rallies held by supporters of the regime.

    But beneath the fiery rhetoric lies a truism: no Iranian leader would destroy Israel with a nuclear weapon if it came at the expense of the destruction of Iran.

    In the history of the nation-state, not a single one has ever knowingly committed suicide. Not for any reason – ideological, religious, political or any other. All nations value survival over everything else because this allows for the achievement of other goals, such as power and prosperity.

    Further, Iran is ruled by a brutally authoritarian, theocratic regime. And for authoritarian regimes, staying in power is the number one priority. There is no staying in power the day after a nuclear exchange.

    Not a panacea

    This does not mean an Iranian nuclear weapon would be a welcome development. Far from it.

    Every new nuclear-armed state provides another opportunity for miscalculation or accident. It adds extra stress to an already fragile non-proliferation regime.

    In addition, nuclear deterrence is not just and can be considered ethically questionable. It may not even be sustainable over the longer term.

    There is no doubt the existence of over 12,000 nuclear weapons globally poses a potentially existential risk to all of humanity.

    But the idea that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a unique risk to Israel or the United States simply does not stand up to scrutiny. If we can live with a nuclear-armed North Korea, nuclear-armed Pakistan, and for that matter, a nuclear-armed Israel, we can live, however reluctantly, with a nuclear-armed Iran.

    Regardless of whether the current proposed ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds, the military operation initiated by Israel and bolstered by the United States was extremely dangerous and unnecessary, based on both countries’ justification.

    The regime in Tehran is brutal, authoritarian, openly antisemitic and worthy of our disdain. But there is no evidence it is suicidal.

    The claim an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose an existential threat to Israel or the United States and justifies unilateral, preventive military attacks makes no sense.

    It is time to stop repeating it.

    Benjamin Zala has received funding from the Stanton Foundation, a US philanthropic group that funds nuclear research. He is an honorary fellow at the University of Leicester on a project that is funded by the European Research Council.

    – ref. Could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Reluctantly, yes – https://theconversation.com/could-we-live-with-a-nuclear-armed-iran-reluctantly-yes-259905

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucia McCallum, Senior Scientist in Geodesy, University of Tasmania

    ESA / Hubble / L. Calçada (ESO), CC BY

    The scientists who precisely measure the position of Earth are in a bit of trouble. Their measurements are essential for the satellites we use for navigation, communication and Earth observation every day.

    But you might be surprised to learn that making these measurements – using the science of geodesy – depends on tracking the locations of black holes in distant galaxies.

    The problem is, the scientists need to use specific frequency lanes on the radio spectrum highway to track those black holes.

    And with the rise of wifi, mobile phones and satellite internet, travel on that highway is starting to look like a traffic jam.

    Why we need black holes

    Satellites and the services they provide have become essential for modern life. From precision navigation in our pockets to measuring climate change, running global supply chains and making power grids and online banking possible, our civilisation cannot function without its orbiting companions.

    To use satellites, we need to know exactly where they are at any given time. Precise satellite positioning relies on the so-called “global geodesy supply chain”.

    This supply chain starts by establishing a reliable reference frame as a basis for all other measurements. Because satellites are constantly moving around Earth, Earth is constantly moving around the Sun, and the Sun is constantly moving through the galaxy, this reference frame needs to be carefully calibrated via some relatively fixed external objects.

    As it turns out, the best anchor points for the system are the black holes at the hearts of distant galaxies, which spew out streams of radiation as they devour stars and gas.

    These black holes are the most distant and stable objects we know. Using a technique called very long baseline interferometry, we can use a network of radio telescopes to lock onto the black hole signals and disentangle Earth’s own rotation and wobble in space from the satellites’ movement.

    Different lanes on the radio highway

    We use radio telescopes because we want to detect the radio waves coming from the black holes. Radio waves pass cleanly through the atmosphere and we can receive them during day and night and in all weather conditions.

    Radio waves are also used for communication on Earth – including things such as wifi and mobile phones. The use of different radio frequencies – different lanes on the radio highway – is closely regulated, and a few narrow lanes are reserved for radio astronomy.

    However, in previous decades the radio highway had relatively little traffic. Scientists commonly strayed from the radio astronomy lanes to receive the black hole signals.

    To reach the very high precision needed for modern technology, geodesy today relies on more than just the lanes exclusively reserved for astronomy.

    Radio traffic on the rise

    In recent years, human-made electromagnetic pollution has vastly increased. When wifi and mobile phone services emerged, scientists reacted by moving to higher frequencies.

    However, they are running out of lanes. Six generations of mobile phone services (each occupying a new lane) are crowding the spectrum, not to mention internet connections directly sent by a fleet of thousands of satellites.

    Today, the multitude of signals are often too strong for geodetic observatories to see through them to the very weak signals emitted by black holes. This puts many satellite services at risk.

    What can be done?

    To keep working into the future – to maintain the services on which we all depend – geodesy needs some more lanes on the radio highway. When the spectrum is divided up via international treaties at world radio conferences, geodesists need a seat at the table.

    Other potential fixes might include radio quiet zones around our essential radio telescopes. Work is also underway with satellite providers to avoid pointing radio emissions directly at radio telescopes.

    Any solution has to be global. For our geodetic measurements, we link radio telescopes together from all over the world, allowing us to mimic a telescope the size of Earth. The radio spectrum is primarily regulated by each nation individually, making this a huge challenge.

    But perhaps the first step is increasing awareness. If we want satellite navigation to work, our supermarkets to be stocked and our online money transfers arriving safely, we need to make sure we have a clear view of those black holes in distant galaxies – and that means clearing up the radio highway.

    Lucia McCallum 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. Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view – https://theconversation.com/scientists-look-to-black-holes-to-know-exactly-where-we-are-in-the-universe-but-phones-and-wifi-are-blocking-the-view-259977

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Gen Z is struggling to find work: 4 strategies to move forward

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Leda Stawnychko, Associate Professor of Strategy and Organizational Theory, Mount Royal University

    As the school year comes to a close, young Canadians entering the job market are facing one of the toughest hiring seasons in years. Despite their drive to build careers and connections, many Gen Z are entering a stagnant job market.

    According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15-24 is 12.2 per cent — over double that of the prime working-age population.

    The outlook is bleaker for students planning to return to full-time studies in the fall. Unemployment for this group has reached just over 20 per cent, the highest level since 2009, when the global economy was reeling from the Great Recession.

    Gen Zs without post-secondary credentials, people with disabilities and newcomers face steeper hurdles. They are competing in a labour market dominated by one of the world’s most highly educated generations.

    Today’s youth are navigating a perfect storm of persistent inflation, global trade tensions, a saturated labour market and restructuring driven by automation and AI.

    Unlike older workers, many young people lack the financial stability or support systems to pursue opportunities that require relocating.

    First jobs matter more than ever

    Early work experiences have long served as crucial stepping stones for young people entering the workforce. They offer new workers exposure to the habits, norms and expectations of the professional world.

    Roles in retail, hospitality and customer service often serve as a first taste of working life, helping young people build confidence, develop transferable skills and expand their professional networks. Without access to these opportunities, many young Canadians risk falling behind before their careers even begin.

    The long-term implications are serious. According to a 2024 report from consulting firm Deloitte, Canada stands to lose $18.5 billion in GDP over the next decade if youth unemployment remains high.

    Young Canadians are facing one of the toughest hiring seasons in years.
    (Shutterstock)

    More broadly, high unemployment among youth weakens social trust and undermines the foundations of social cohesion, long-term prosperity, democratic stability and leadership pipelines.

    Underemployment also takes a personal toll, contributing to poorer mental and physical health and delaying major life milestones like financial independence, homeownership and family formation.

    What Gen Z can do

    Many young job-seekers are understandably discouraged by today’s labour market. But as digital natives, Gen Z have advantages to bring to the table, including creativity, values-driven mindsets and fluency in technology.

    The key is to stay open, proactive and creative by pursuing non-linear experiences that can serve as legitimate entry points into the workforce. Here are four actionable strategies for Gen Z starting their careers:

    1. Think beyond traditional pathways.

    Unconventional roles and programs can offer valuable experience. For example, university students at Global Affairs Canada’s federal work experience program recently helped support the G7 Summit, gaining confidence and transferable skills.

    Side projects, such as building websites or freelancing, can also help people start their careers. These are increasingly recognized as valid ways to break into the job market.

    2. Build core skills that matter.

    The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report identifies analytical thinking, resilience, creativity, leadership and self-awareness as the most in-demand skills for the future. These can be developed through volunteer work, community leadership, mentorship or personal projects.

    Programs like International Experience Canada also help foster independence, global awareness and important skills.

    3. Invest in future-ready capabilities.

    As workplaces adopt AI and automation, tech literacy is becoming increasingly valuable. Microcredentials can help build specialized skills, while apprenticeships and other experiential learning opportunities offer experiences that employers value.



    Read more:
    Workplace besties: How to build relationships at work while staying professional

    4. Build meaningful connections.

    Networks are also a key part of job success. Relationships with peers, mentors and community members can provide support, broaden perspectives and lead to unexpected opportunities. Participating in interest groups or volunteering can help young workers feel more connected and confident while developing skills that matter.

    A new working generation

    While these steps won’t solve the systemic challenges facing the labour market, they can help young Canadians gain traction in a system that is still catching up to the needs of their generation.

    This will require the collaboration of government, employers, educational institutions and community service providers to innovatively reduce existing barriers. Importantly, these sectors are being asked to “walk the talk” when it comes to addressing youth unemployment.

    Gen Z is entering the workforce during a time of profound economic and social change. But they also have unparalleled access to information, supportive communities and platforms to share ideas and make a meaningful impact.

    By acting with intention, young Canadians can navigate this landscape with agency, laying the foundation not only for jobs but for careers that reflect their values and ambitions.

    Leda Stawnychko receives funding from SSHRC.

    Warren Boyd Ferguson 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. Gen Z is struggling to find work: 4 strategies to move forward – https://theconversation.com/gen-z-is-struggling-to-find-work-4-strategies-to-move-forward-259504

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why centuries-old astrology and tarot cards still appeal to us

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hanna Tervanotko, Associate professor, Religious Studies, McMaster University

    The Sola Busca tarot deck from Italy, circa 15th century. (Artist unknown), CC BY

    More than 30 per cent of Americans believe in some sort of esoteric knowledge and regularly consult astrology, tarot readers or fortune tellers, according to a recent report by the Pew Research Centre.

    Even though the survey says these Americans are doing so “just for fun” and claim they rely on the information gained by divination “only a little,” the persistence — and apparent rise — of these practices suggests something deeper is at play.

    Tarot card: The High Priestess (Waite–Smith deck), c. 1909.
    (Pamela Colman Smith), CC BY

    People have always turned to divinatory methods to search for unanswered questions and to gain additional knowledge that could help them to prepare for the future, especially in times of uncertainty. For example, searches for “tarot cards” increased by more than 30 per cent during the pandemic.

    I study ancient divination, but to better understand how diviners work, I have observed contemporary diviners at work and talked with them about their practices. They say their clients request tarot consultations more frequently than they did in the past.

    What is divination?

    Anthropologists define “divination” methods as “practice(s) that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omen or by the aid of supernatural powers.”

    Divination methods, including tarot and astrology, offer a way to ask questions when other systems fail to provide answers. These questions can be highly personal and difficult to address in a formal religious setting. The divinatory answers allow people to feel they’ve gained insight, which in turn gives a perception of control over an uncertain future.

    Apart from astrology and tarot, some of the best known divination methods include: the interpreting of dreams, reading coffee cups or tea leaves, observing animals and nature, reading palms and other body features such as nose shape and eye placement.

    When a diviner uses things, such as cards, tea leaves, dice or shells, the connecting thread to many of these methods is that people cannot control the signs they produce. For example, divination consultants typically mix the tarot card deck to make sure the result are randomized. People should not manipulate the results.

    Divination as alternative ways of knowing

    Pew Centre data reveals that young people, women and LGBTQ Americans are among the most likely to consult divinatory methods. Religious studies professor Marcelitte Failla has also written about contemporary Black women who have reclaimed the tarot deck to creatively address their spiritual needs.

    Many people turn to religion when they face the unknown in their lives. They address their insecurities in worship, asking for divine help.

    But there have always been people who did not have access to organized religion. Divinatory practices can be especially appealing to those who have been excluded from traditional religion and had to come up with alternative ways to address uncertainties.

    They perhaps lived in remote areas and could not attend worship sites such as temples. Or possibly, they were excluded from organized religion for identity reasons. For example, women regularly stayed home to care for children and sick. Sometimes, they were denied access because of their bodily “impurities,” menstruation or recent childbirth.

    LGBTQ+ individuals were also denied access. In the U.S., discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals remains one of the leading reasons for leaving traditional religious institutions. In Canada, the churches’ discriminatory treatment of different sexual minorities has been one of the top reasons people dissolve membership.

    Divination in times of uncertainty

    In an age marked by ongoing anxiety, political instability and waning trust in institutions, centuries-old divination rituals offer alternative ways for folks to seek entertainment but also to gain a sense of insight, agency and connection. What may seem like harmless fun can also serve as a serious response to a chaotic world. Divinatory practices can provide both spiritual exploration and emotional validation.

    It’s understandable that a new situation, like the COVID-19 pandemic, triggered anxiety and uncertainty for people.

    People continue to experience more anxiety than they did before the pandemic. Some of the main concerns include world politics, job security and personal finances.

    As we try to make sense of the new, confusing and constantly changing situations, many create different theories, some questionable. Some people turn to alternative approaches like divination to make sense of the world.

    Tarot: Thinking through emotions

    People are checking out tarot readings on online platforms. And many social media accounts feature tarot.

    Besides increasing political insecurity, another reason for the increased interest in tarot may be the visual aspect. Increased interest in the decorated cards may be a reflection of our highly visual culture. Interest in the cards with images may reflect interest in other images we watch. They are like photos with messages.

    The fascination with tarot may also speak about a need to control the consultation as a diviner and their client see exactly the same thing. The images in the cards are also symbolic, and they can be interpreted in different ways.

    That means rather than providing a straightforward answer to a question, the cards are tools that can help think through one’s emotions and feelings.

    Tarot is not a religion. The object that is consulted is paper is not an image of the divine or a symbol of transcendence. This lack of alignment with any particular religion allows different people to consult tarot as a spiritual practice.

    In principle, the cards can be consulted anywhere without particular preparations. The only material one needs is a deck of cards. The accessible materiality may be adding to their popularity.

    Playful aspects of divination

    Many divinatory methods include a playful aspect. For instance, the objects used for the lot oracle — pebbles, stones, four-sided knucklebones or dice — are the same ones people used for playing board games.

    Ancient images show people consulting the objects or playing, suggesting the boundaries of some of the divinatory methods were always fluid.

    As randomizing is an important element of divinatory consultation, the new insights various methods produce can be both surprising and entertaining.

    Hanna Tervanotko receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. Why centuries-old astrology and tarot cards still appeal to us – https://theconversation.com/why-centuries-old-astrology-and-tarot-cards-still-appeal-to-us-258993

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why centuries-old astrology and tarot cards still appeal to us

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hanna Tervanotko, Associate professor, Religious Studies, McMaster University

    The Sola Busca tarot deck from Italy, circa 15th century. (Artist unknown), CC BY

    More than 30 per cent of Americans believe in some sort of esoteric knowledge and regularly consult astrology, tarot readers or fortune tellers, according to a recent report by the Pew Research Centre.

    Even though the survey says these Americans are doing so “just for fun” and claim they rely on the information gained by divination “only a little,” the persistence — and apparent rise — of these practices suggests something deeper is at play.

    Tarot card: The High Priestess (Waite–Smith deck), c. 1909.
    (Pamela Colman Smith), CC BY

    People have always turned to divinatory methods to search for unanswered questions and to gain additional knowledge that could help them to prepare for the future, especially in times of uncertainty. For example, searches for “tarot cards” increased by more than 30 per cent during the pandemic.

    I study ancient divination, but to better understand how diviners work, I have observed contemporary diviners at work and talked with them about their practices. They say their clients request tarot consultations more frequently than they did in the past.

    What is divination?

    Anthropologists define “divination” methods as “practice(s) that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omen or by the aid of supernatural powers.”

    Divination methods, including tarot and astrology, offer a way to ask questions when other systems fail to provide answers. These questions can be highly personal and difficult to address in a formal religious setting. The divinatory answers allow people to feel they’ve gained insight, which in turn gives a perception of control over an uncertain future.

    Apart from astrology and tarot, some of the best known divination methods include: the interpreting of dreams, reading coffee cups or tea leaves, observing animals and nature, reading palms and other body features such as nose shape and eye placement.

    When a diviner uses things, such as cards, tea leaves, dice or shells, the connecting thread to many of these methods is that people cannot control the signs they produce. For example, divination consultants typically mix the tarot card deck to make sure the result are randomized. People should not manipulate the results.

    Divination as alternative ways of knowing

    Pew Centre data reveals that young people, women and LGBTQ Americans are among the most likely to consult divinatory methods. Religious studies professor Marcelitte Failla has also written about contemporary Black women who have reclaimed the tarot deck to creatively address their spiritual needs.

    Many people turn to religion when they face the unknown in their lives. They address their insecurities in worship, asking for divine help.

    But there have always been people who did not have access to organized religion. Divinatory practices can be especially appealing to those who have been excluded from traditional religion and had to come up with alternative ways to address uncertainties.

    They perhaps lived in remote areas and could not attend worship sites such as temples. Or possibly, they were excluded from organized religion for identity reasons. For example, women regularly stayed home to care for children and sick. Sometimes, they were denied access because of their bodily “impurities,” menstruation or recent childbirth.

    LGBTQ+ individuals were also denied access. In the U.S., discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals remains one of the leading reasons for leaving traditional religious institutions. In Canada, the churches’ discriminatory treatment of different sexual minorities has been one of the top reasons people dissolve membership.

    Divination in times of uncertainty

    In an age marked by ongoing anxiety, political instability and waning trust in institutions, centuries-old divination rituals offer alternative ways for folks to seek entertainment but also to gain a sense of insight, agency and connection. What may seem like harmless fun can also serve as a serious response to a chaotic world. Divinatory practices can provide both spiritual exploration and emotional validation.

    It’s understandable that a new situation, like the COVID-19 pandemic, triggered anxiety and uncertainty for people.

    People continue to experience more anxiety than they did before the pandemic. Some of the main concerns include world politics, job security and personal finances.

    As we try to make sense of the new, confusing and constantly changing situations, many create different theories, some questionable. Some people turn to alternative approaches like divination to make sense of the world.

    Tarot: Thinking through emotions

    People are checking out tarot readings on online platforms. And many social media accounts feature tarot.

    Besides increasing political insecurity, another reason for the increased interest in tarot may be the visual aspect. Increased interest in the decorated cards may be a reflection of our highly visual culture. Interest in the cards with images may reflect interest in other images we watch. They are like photos with messages.

    The fascination with tarot may also speak about a need to control the consultation as a diviner and their client see exactly the same thing. The images in the cards are also symbolic, and they can be interpreted in different ways.

    That means rather than providing a straightforward answer to a question, the cards are tools that can help think through one’s emotions and feelings.

    Tarot is not a religion. The object that is consulted is paper is not an image of the divine or a symbol of transcendence. This lack of alignment with any particular religion allows different people to consult tarot as a spiritual practice.

    In principle, the cards can be consulted anywhere without particular preparations. The only material one needs is a deck of cards. The accessible materiality may be adding to their popularity.

    Playful aspects of divination

    Many divinatory methods include a playful aspect. For instance, the objects used for the lot oracle — pebbles, stones, four-sided knucklebones or dice — are the same ones people used for playing board games.

    Ancient images show people consulting the objects or playing, suggesting the boundaries of some of the divinatory methods were always fluid.

    As randomizing is an important element of divinatory consultation, the new insights various methods produce can be both surprising and entertaining.

    Hanna Tervanotko receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. Why centuries-old astrology and tarot cards still appeal to us – https://theconversation.com/why-centuries-old-astrology-and-tarot-cards-still-appeal-to-us-258993

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Plankton can investigate crime, affect the climate and influence science

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Beatrix Beisner, Professor, Aquatic ecology; Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

    Plankton have inspired and influenced art, science and architecture. (Shutterstock)

    Not much attention is paid to plankton because these creatures are usually hidden from sight. They are mostly microscopic in size and live in aquatic environments, but human lives are intricately connected with plankton.

    The etymology of “plankton” originates from the ancient Greek word for “drifter.” Plankton refers to all organisms suspended in all types of waters (oceans, lakes, rivers and even groundwaters), including viruses, bacteria, insects, larval fish and jellyfish. Plankton come in many shapes and sizes, but what unites all of them is a tendency to drift with currents.



    Read more:
    Small but mighty, plankton are some of the most powerful creatures on Earth

    There are both plant (phytoplankton) and animal (zooplankton) types, as well as organisms that blur the line by belonging to both. These include carnivorous plants or photosynthesizing animals (mixoplankton).

    Phytoplankton are an essential part of aquatic ecosystems.
    (Shutterstock)

    Understanding plankton

    We are an international group of researchers working on plankton that inhabit aquatic waters from high alpine lakes to the deep oceans. We represent a much larger consortium of researchers (the Plankton Passionates) who have recently considered all the ways in which plankton are crucial for human well-being, society, activity and life on our planet.

    In our work, we have identified six broad themes that allow us to classify the value of plankton.

    Plankton are integral to the ecological functioning of all aquatic environments. For example, phytoplankton use photosynthesis to create biomass that is transferred throughout the ecosystem, much as plants and trees do on land. Phytoplankton are mostly eaten by zooplankton, which are in turn prime food for fish like sardines and herring. These small fish are fed upon by larger fish and birds. That means healthy food-web functioning is critically sustained by plankton.

    Plankton play a critical role in other ways that affect the ecological functioning of aquatic environments. Specifically, plankton affect the cycles of matter and the bio-geochemistry of their ecosystems. While phytoplankton use sunlight to grow and reproduce, they also move nutrients, oxygen and carbon around.

    Phytoplankton are an essential climate variable — studying them provides key indicators for planetary health and climate change — because they capture carbon dioxide (CO2). When phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton, and these animals die and sink to the bottom of water bodies, this stores carbon away from the atmosphere to where it can no longer contribute to climate change; this process is known as the biological carbon pump.

    However, other plankton, primarily bacteria and fungi, are involved in decomposition of dead material that remains in the water column and their activity recycles chemical elements essential for other organisms. Together with the biological carbon pump, this decomposition activity can have global consequences in climate regulation.

    Fascinating research

    Plankton have also played a role in several human endeavours, including the evolution of science itself advancing many theoretical developments in ecology, such as the study of biodiversity. This diversity of plankton forms — including organisms that look like crystals or jewelry — have fascinated researchers.

    Jellyfish are plankton because they are carried by currents through the water.
    (Shutterstock)

    Several theories or frameworks used throughout ecology have emerged from studying plankton, but their applications go further. For example, Russian biologist Georgy Gause observed competition among plankton, leading to his competitive exclusion principle that’s now commonly applied in socioeconomic contexts.

    Breakthroughs and even Nobel Prizes (medicine) have stemmed from the study of plankton (jellyfish stings, advancing allergy studies. Similarly, research on freshwater ciliate telomeres and the use of fluorescent jellyfish proteins have contributed to further understanding of ageing and cancer.

    Certain plankton species are used as diagnostic tools in forensic science. Others are often used as models in biomedical and ecotoxicological research.

    Because of their foundational role in aquatic food webs, plankton are critical to many human economies. Many planktonic organisms are cultured directly for human consumption including jellyfish, krill, shrimp and copepod zooplankton.

    Virtually all protein in aquatic ecosystems comes from plankton. Some are used as supplements, such as spirulina powder or omega-3 vitamins from krill or copepods.

    Several plankton-derived compounds are highly prized in medicine, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, including some plankton toxins used for their immune-stimulating effects. Luciferases are a group of enzymes produced by bioluminescent organisms, including many marine plankton, and are also important in biomedical research.

    On the other hand, plankton can also lead to high economic costs when harmful algal blooms, like toxic red tides, occur along coastlines or cyanobacterial blooms arise in lakes.

    Plankton benefits for humans

    Finally, our research considers the role of plankton in human culture, recreation and well-being. Beyond their use as a food source and in medicine, plankton can be culturally important.

    Bioluminescent marine dinoflagellates create incredibly powerful nighttime displays in coastal regions, forming the basis for cultural events and tourist attractions. Diatoms are a type of phytoplankton present in all aquatic ecosystems, and their silica-rich skeletons have been used for flint tools during the Stone Age and as opal in jewelry.

    An illustration from the 1887 book ‘Report on the Radiolaria collected by H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76.’
    (Illus. by E. Haeckel/engraving by A. Giltsch)

    The often strange structural forms of plankton have inspired architects and engineers, including the designers of Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele and the former Monumental Gate (Porte Binet) in Paris. Plankton have inspired many artists, the first being biologist Ernst Haeckel.

    The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services adopted the Life Framework of Values. This framework centres living from, with, in and as nature as a position from which to inform policies around biodiversity and ecosystem services.

    Plankton are critical to all of these components. We all benefit from plankton due to their essential role in regulating aquatic habitats, their long-term involvement in climate regulation and the vital resources they provide to humanity.

    Humanity lives with plankton as their incredible diversity connects life across land and water and is one of the driving forces behind Earth’s ecological stability and ecosystem services that we value. Plankton are part of humanity’s living in nature, which emphasizes their vital role in our identity, lifestyles and culture.

    Plankton profoundly affect communities bordering water, but also those further away through plankton-inspired art and design. Finally, living as nature highlights the physical, mental and spiritual interconnectedness with the natural world.

    We need to better recognize the value of plankton as a resource, and as an essential part of stabilizing Earth systems and maintaining them for human well-being.

    Beatrix Beisner receives funding from NSERC. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Plankton Research (Oxford University Press) and a member of the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL), an FRQNT-funded network.

    Maria Grigoratou receives funding from the NSF project WARMEM (OCE-1851866) and the EU-funded HORIZON Europe projects EU4OceanObs2.0 and BioEcoOcean (101136748) to Maria Grigoratou. Maria is now affiliated with the European Polar Board.

    Sakina-Dorothée Ayata receives funding from the European Commission (NECCTON, iMagine, Blue-Cloud2026 projects), the French National Research Agency (ANR, Traitzoo project), and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF).

    Susanne Menden-Deuer receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and NASA.

    – ref. Plankton can investigate crime, affect the climate and influence science – https://theconversation.com/plankton-can-investigate-crime-affect-the-climate-and-influence-science-252782

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Plankton can investigate crime, affect the climate and influence science

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Beatrix Beisner, Professor, Aquatic ecology; Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

    Plankton have inspired and influenced art, science and architecture. (Shutterstock)

    Not much attention is paid to plankton because these creatures are usually hidden from sight. They are mostly microscopic in size and live in aquatic environments, but human lives are intricately connected with plankton.

    The etymology of “plankton” originates from the ancient Greek word for “drifter.” Plankton refers to all organisms suspended in all types of waters (oceans, lakes, rivers and even groundwaters), including viruses, bacteria, insects, larval fish and jellyfish. Plankton come in many shapes and sizes, but what unites all of them is a tendency to drift with currents.



    Read more:
    Small but mighty, plankton are some of the most powerful creatures on Earth

    There are both plant (phytoplankton) and animal (zooplankton) types, as well as organisms that blur the line by belonging to both. These include carnivorous plants or photosynthesizing animals (mixoplankton).

    Phytoplankton are an essential part of aquatic ecosystems.
    (Shutterstock)

    Understanding plankton

    We are an international group of researchers working on plankton that inhabit aquatic waters from high alpine lakes to the deep oceans. We represent a much larger consortium of researchers (the Plankton Passionates) who have recently considered all the ways in which plankton are crucial for human well-being, society, activity and life on our planet.

    In our work, we have identified six broad themes that allow us to classify the value of plankton.

    Plankton are integral to the ecological functioning of all aquatic environments. For example, phytoplankton use photosynthesis to create biomass that is transferred throughout the ecosystem, much as plants and trees do on land. Phytoplankton are mostly eaten by zooplankton, which are in turn prime food for fish like sardines and herring. These small fish are fed upon by larger fish and birds. That means healthy food-web functioning is critically sustained by plankton.

    Plankton play a critical role in other ways that affect the ecological functioning of aquatic environments. Specifically, plankton affect the cycles of matter and the bio-geochemistry of their ecosystems. While phytoplankton use sunlight to grow and reproduce, they also move nutrients, oxygen and carbon around.

    Phytoplankton are an essential climate variable — studying them provides key indicators for planetary health and climate change — because they capture carbon dioxide (CO2). When phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton, and these animals die and sink to the bottom of water bodies, this stores carbon away from the atmosphere to where it can no longer contribute to climate change; this process is known as the biological carbon pump.

    However, other plankton, primarily bacteria and fungi, are involved in decomposition of dead material that remains in the water column and their activity recycles chemical elements essential for other organisms. Together with the biological carbon pump, this decomposition activity can have global consequences in climate regulation.

    Fascinating research

    Plankton have also played a role in several human endeavours, including the evolution of science itself advancing many theoretical developments in ecology, such as the study of biodiversity. This diversity of plankton forms — including organisms that look like crystals or jewelry — have fascinated researchers.

    Jellyfish are plankton because they are carried by currents through the water.
    (Shutterstock)

    Several theories or frameworks used throughout ecology have emerged from studying plankton, but their applications go further. For example, Russian biologist Georgy Gause observed competition among plankton, leading to his competitive exclusion principle that’s now commonly applied in socioeconomic contexts.

    Breakthroughs and even Nobel Prizes (medicine) have stemmed from the study of plankton (jellyfish stings, advancing allergy studies. Similarly, research on freshwater ciliate telomeres and the use of fluorescent jellyfish proteins have contributed to further understanding of ageing and cancer.

    Certain plankton species are used as diagnostic tools in forensic science. Others are often used as models in biomedical and ecotoxicological research.

    Because of their foundational role in aquatic food webs, plankton are critical to many human economies. Many planktonic organisms are cultured directly for human consumption including jellyfish, krill, shrimp and copepod zooplankton.

    Virtually all protein in aquatic ecosystems comes from plankton. Some are used as supplements, such as spirulina powder or omega-3 vitamins from krill or copepods.

    Several plankton-derived compounds are highly prized in medicine, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, including some plankton toxins used for their immune-stimulating effects. Luciferases are a group of enzymes produced by bioluminescent organisms, including many marine plankton, and are also important in biomedical research.

    On the other hand, plankton can also lead to high economic costs when harmful algal blooms, like toxic red tides, occur along coastlines or cyanobacterial blooms arise in lakes.

    Plankton benefits for humans

    Finally, our research considers the role of plankton in human culture, recreation and well-being. Beyond their use as a food source and in medicine, plankton can be culturally important.

    Bioluminescent marine dinoflagellates create incredibly powerful nighttime displays in coastal regions, forming the basis for cultural events and tourist attractions. Diatoms are a type of phytoplankton present in all aquatic ecosystems, and their silica-rich skeletons have been used for flint tools during the Stone Age and as opal in jewelry.

    An illustration from the 1887 book ‘Report on the Radiolaria collected by H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76.’
    (Illus. by E. Haeckel/engraving by A. Giltsch)

    The often strange structural forms of plankton have inspired architects and engineers, including the designers of Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele and the former Monumental Gate (Porte Binet) in Paris. Plankton have inspired many artists, the first being biologist Ernst Haeckel.

    The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services adopted the Life Framework of Values. This framework centres living from, with, in and as nature as a position from which to inform policies around biodiversity and ecosystem services.

    Plankton are critical to all of these components. We all benefit from plankton due to their essential role in regulating aquatic habitats, their long-term involvement in climate regulation and the vital resources they provide to humanity.

    Humanity lives with plankton as their incredible diversity connects life across land and water and is one of the driving forces behind Earth’s ecological stability and ecosystem services that we value. Plankton are part of humanity’s living in nature, which emphasizes their vital role in our identity, lifestyles and culture.

    Plankton profoundly affect communities bordering water, but also those further away through plankton-inspired art and design. Finally, living as nature highlights the physical, mental and spiritual interconnectedness with the natural world.

    We need to better recognize the value of plankton as a resource, and as an essential part of stabilizing Earth systems and maintaining them for human well-being.

    Beatrix Beisner receives funding from NSERC. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Plankton Research (Oxford University Press) and a member of the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL), an FRQNT-funded network.

    Maria Grigoratou receives funding from the NSF project WARMEM (OCE-1851866) and the EU-funded HORIZON Europe projects EU4OceanObs2.0 and BioEcoOcean (101136748) to Maria Grigoratou. Maria is now affiliated with the European Polar Board.

    Sakina-Dorothée Ayata receives funding from the European Commission (NECCTON, iMagine, Blue-Cloud2026 projects), the French National Research Agency (ANR, Traitzoo project), and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF).

    Susanne Menden-Deuer receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and NASA.

    – ref. Plankton can investigate crime, affect the climate and influence science – https://theconversation.com/plankton-can-investigate-crime-affect-the-climate-and-influence-science-252782

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Gen Z is struggling to find work: 4 stategies to move forward

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Leda Stawnychko, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Organizational Theory, Mount Royal University

    As the school year comes to a close, young Canadians entering the job market are facing one of the toughest hiring seasons in years. Despite their drive to build careers and connections, many Gen Z are entering a stagnant job market.

    According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15-24 is 12.2 per cent — over double that of the prime working-age population.

    The outlook is bleaker for students planning to return to full-time studies in the fall. Unemployment for this group has reached just over 20 per cent, the highest level since 2009, when the global economy was reeling from the Great Recession.

    Gen Zs without post-secondary credentials, people with disabilities and newcomers face steeper hurdles. They are competing in a labour market dominated by one of the world’s most highly educated generations.

    Today’s youth are navigating a perfect storm of persistent inflation, global trade tensions, a saturated labour market and restructuring driven by automation and AI.

    Unlike older workers, many young people lack the financial stability or support systems to pursue opportunities that require relocating.

    First jobs matter more than ever

    Early work experiences have long served as crucial stepping stones for young people entering the workforce. They offer new workers exposure to the habits, norms and expectations of the professional world.

    Roles in retail, hospitality and customer service often serve as a first taste of working life, helping young people build confidence, develop transferable skills and expand their professional networks. Without access to these opportunities, many young Canadians risk falling behind before their careers even begin.

    The long-term implications are serious. According to a 2024 report from consulting firm Deloitte, Canada stands to lose $18.5 billion in GDP over the next decade if youth unemployment remains high.

    Young Canadians are facing one of the toughest hiring seasons in years.
    (Shutterstock)

    More broadly, high unemployment among youth weakens social trust and undermines the foundations of social cohesion, long-term prosperity, democratic stability and leadership pipelines.

    Underemployment also takes a personal toll, contributing to poorer mental and physical health and delaying major life milestones like financial independence, homeownership and family formation.

    What Gen Z can do

    Many young job-seekers are understandably discouraged by today’s labour market. But as digital natives, Gen Z have advantages to bring to the table, including creativity, values-driven mindsets and fluency in technology.

    The key is to stay open, proactive and creative by pursuing non-linear experiences that can serve as legitimate entry points into the workforce. Here are four actionable strategies for Gen Z starting their careers:

    1. Think beyond traditional pathways.

    Unconventional roles and programs can offer valuable experience. For example, university students at Global Affairs Canada’s federal work experience program recently helped support the G7 Summit, gaining confidence and transferable skills.

    Side projects, such as building websites or freelancing, can also help people start their careers. These are increasingly recognized as valid ways to break into the job market.

    2. Build core skills that matter.

    The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report identifies analytical thinking, resilience, creativity, leadership and self-awareness as the most in-demand skills for the future. These can be developed through volunteer work, community leadership, mentorship or personal projects.

    Programs like International Experience Canada also help foster independence, global awareness and important skills.

    3. Invest in future-ready capabilities.

    As workplaces adopt AI and automation, tech literacy is becoming increasingly valuable. Microcredentials can help build specialized skills, while apprenticeships and other experiential learning opportunities offer experiences that employers value.



    Read more:
    Workplace besties: How to build relationships at work while staying professional

    4. Build meaningful connections.

    Networks are also a key part of job success. Relationships with peers, mentors and community members can provide support, broaden perspectives and lead to unexpected opportunities. Participating in interest groups or volunteering can help young workers feel more connected and confident while developing skills that matter.

    A new working generation

    While these steps won’t solve the systemic challenges facing the labour market, they can help young Canadians gain traction in a system that is still catching up to the needs of their generation.

    This will require the collaboration of government, employers, educational institutions and community service providers to innovatively reduce existing barriers. Importantly, these sectors are being asked to “walk the talk” when it comes to addressing youth unemployment.

    Gen Z is entering the workforce during a time of profound economic and social change. But they also have unparalleled access to information, supportive communities and platforms to share ideas and make a meaningful impact.

    By acting with intention, young Canadians can navigate this landscape with agency, laying the foundation not only for jobs but for careers that reflect their values and ambitions.

    Leda Stawnychko receives funding from SSHRC.

    Warren Boyd Ferguson 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. Gen Z is struggling to find work: 4 stategies to move forward – https://theconversation.com/gen-z-is-struggling-to-find-work-4-stategies-to-move-forward-259504

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Gen Z is struggling to find work: 4 stategies to move forward

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Leda Stawnychko, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Organizational Theory, Mount Royal University

    As the school year comes to a close, young Canadians entering the job market are facing one of the toughest hiring seasons in years. Despite their drive to build careers and connections, many Gen Z are entering a stagnant job market.

    According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15-24 is 12.2 per cent — over double that of the prime working-age population.

    The outlook is bleaker for students planning to return to full-time studies in the fall. Unemployment for this group has reached just over 20 per cent, the highest level since 2009, when the global economy was reeling from the Great Recession.

    Gen Zs without post-secondary credentials, people with disabilities and newcomers face steeper hurdles. They are competing in a labour market dominated by one of the world’s most highly educated generations.

    Today’s youth are navigating a perfect storm of persistent inflation, global trade tensions, a saturated labour market and restructuring driven by automation and AI.

    Unlike older workers, many young people lack the financial stability or support systems to pursue opportunities that require relocating.

    First jobs matter more than ever

    Early work experiences have long served as crucial stepping stones for young people entering the workforce. They offer new workers exposure to the habits, norms and expectations of the professional world.

    Roles in retail, hospitality and customer service often serve as a first taste of working life, helping young people build confidence, develop transferable skills and expand their professional networks. Without access to these opportunities, many young Canadians risk falling behind before their careers even begin.

    The long-term implications are serious. According to a 2024 report from consulting firm Deloitte, Canada stands to lose $18.5 billion in GDP over the next decade if youth unemployment remains high.

    Young Canadians are facing one of the toughest hiring seasons in years.
    (Shutterstock)

    More broadly, high unemployment among youth weakens social trust and undermines the foundations of social cohesion, long-term prosperity, democratic stability and leadership pipelines.

    Underemployment also takes a personal toll, contributing to poorer mental and physical health and delaying major life milestones like financial independence, homeownership and family formation.

    What Gen Z can do

    Many young job-seekers are understandably discouraged by today’s labour market. But as digital natives, Gen Z have advantages to bring to the table, including creativity, values-driven mindsets and fluency in technology.

    The key is to stay open, proactive and creative by pursuing non-linear experiences that can serve as legitimate entry points into the workforce. Here are four actionable strategies for Gen Z starting their careers:

    1. Think beyond traditional pathways.

    Unconventional roles and programs can offer valuable experience. For example, university students at Global Affairs Canada’s federal work experience program recently helped support the G7 Summit, gaining confidence and transferable skills.

    Side projects, such as building websites or freelancing, can also help people start their careers. These are increasingly recognized as valid ways to break into the job market.

    2. Build core skills that matter.

    The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report identifies analytical thinking, resilience, creativity, leadership and self-awareness as the most in-demand skills for the future. These can be developed through volunteer work, community leadership, mentorship or personal projects.

    Programs like International Experience Canada also help foster independence, global awareness and important skills.

    3. Invest in future-ready capabilities.

    As workplaces adopt AI and automation, tech literacy is becoming increasingly valuable. Microcredentials can help build specialized skills, while apprenticeships and other experiential learning opportunities offer experiences that employers value.



    Read more:
    Workplace besties: How to build relationships at work while staying professional

    4. Build meaningful connections.

    Networks are also a key part of job success. Relationships with peers, mentors and community members can provide support, broaden perspectives and lead to unexpected opportunities. Participating in interest groups or volunteering can help young workers feel more connected and confident while developing skills that matter.

    A new working generation

    While these steps won’t solve the systemic challenges facing the labour market, they can help young Canadians gain traction in a system that is still catching up to the needs of their generation.

    This will require the collaboration of government, employers, educational institutions and community service providers to innovatively reduce existing barriers. Importantly, these sectors are being asked to “walk the talk” when it comes to addressing youth unemployment.

    Gen Z is entering the workforce during a time of profound economic and social change. But they also have unparalleled access to information, supportive communities and platforms to share ideas and make a meaningful impact.

    By acting with intention, young Canadians can navigate this landscape with agency, laying the foundation not only for jobs but for careers that reflect their values and ambitions.

    Leda Stawnychko receives funding from SSHRC.

    Warren Boyd Ferguson 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. Gen Z is struggling to find work: 4 stategies to move forward – https://theconversation.com/gen-z-is-struggling-to-find-work-4-stategies-to-move-forward-259504

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Survey: Only four per cent of Canadians give schools an ‘A’ on climate education – students deserve better

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Karen S. Acton, Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy, OISE, University of Toronto

    Only nine per cent of Canadian students learn about climate change often in school, while 42 per cent say it’s rarely or never discussed in the classroom.

    These are some of the concerning findings from the new 2025 national survey at the nonprofit Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), where I serve as a research consultant. Our team surveyed over 4,200 people, including students, educators, parents and the general public.

    The report, called “From Awareness to Action: Canadians’ Views on Climate Change and Education,” reveals a widening gap between public concern and the education system’s lack of response.

    We conducted the survey in partnership with the pollster Leger and supported by the federal government. It comes at a critical moment as Canadians grapple with increasingly severe climate impacts and growing recognition that education is vitally important to addressing climate change.

    The message is clear: Canadians want schools to do more. A strong majority of respondents (62 per cent) believe climate change should be a high priority in education. More than half (56 per cent) believe it should be taught by all teachers.

    Understanding is slipping

    According to the survey, 80 per cent of Canadians accept that climate change is real and impacting their lives. Most (67 per cent) believe we are in a climate emergency, yet this belief has declined from 72 per cent in 2022.

    Also slipping is Canadians’ understanding of climate change, as the pass rate for the survey’s 10-question quiz dipped to 57 per cent in 2025 from 67 per cent in 2022.

    Fewer respondents correctly identified human activities as the primary cause of climate change, or named greenhouse gas emissions as the predominant factor. Many still mistakenly believe the ozone hole is to blame, highlighting one of many persistent climate misconceptions.

    Also concerning was the increase in Canadians who felt that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated.

    A recent report by climate communications centre Re.Climate noted a similar decline in public perception of how much of a threat climate change poses. In 2023, 44 per cent of Canadians said reducing carbon emissions was a top energy policy priority. By 2025, that number had dropped to 31 per cent.

    Concern about climate change seems to have declined due to competing economic pressures, global instability and political polarization.

    Misinformation adds to the challenge

    The LSF survey highlights Canadians’ dissatisfaction with climate education. When asked to grade schools on how well they were addressing climate change issues, only four per cent gave schools an “A.” Three-quarters of Canadians gave a “C” or lower.

    One dominant concern included addressing the spread of climate misinformation. Only 17 per cent of Canadians felt confident in their ability to distinguish between real and false climate news.

    Misinformation is a growing barrier to public understanding and action on climate issues. For many young people, social media is a dominant source of climate information, but it’s not always a reliable one.

    To address this, almost 80 per cent of respondents, and in particular 87 per cent of educators, agree that climate education in schools should focus more on critical thinking and media literacy.

    Teachers willing, but under-supported

    The good news is that almost half of the educators we surveyed felt confident about their ability to teach climate change. Many are incorporating more climate-related projects and lifestyle and consumer changes into the classroom.

    However, many barriers remain. Most educators still spend fewer than 10 hours per year on climate topics, and 42 per cent rarely address it at all. A full 60 per cent of teachers told us they want to do more but need professional development to feel equipped.

    Teachers need more time, resources and strategies to address how climate change connects to broader issues like mental health, social justice and Indigenous knowledge.

    Educators are also seeking a school-wide culture that promotes climate change education, but nearly half said they lack support from their principal or school boards.

    Unsurprisingly, given the global nature of climate change, the challenges voiced by educators are not unique to Canada. Surveys of teachers in England and the United States found they face similar obstacles, compounded by low teacher confidence, the complexity of the topic and leadership not supporting climate change as a priority.

    Almost half of the educators surveyed felt confident about their ability to teach climate change, and many are incorporating more climate-related projects and lifestyle and consumer changes into the classroom.
    (Shutterstock)

    Students need the opportunity

    One of the most hopeful takeaways is that students want to learn more about climate change at school, beginning in the early grades. When asked what they would tell their teacher, students told us they wanted lessons that go beyond the science to include real-world solutions and personal empowerment.

    They called for open classroom discussions, a clearer understanding of the impacts of climate change and concrete strategies for action.

    As one student put it: “Present it to me in a way that’s relevant that I can understand, and tell me how I can personally make an impact.”

    Another added: “Everyone needs to do their part or nothing will change!”

    These appeals echo those from the recent Voice of 1,000 Kids survey, which found young people want adults to take the climate crisis more seriously and step up to help solve it.



    Read more:
    Kids care deeply about our planet, so adults need to start listening

    A path forward

    The LSF survey found that 76 per cent of respondents recognize that systemic change is needed to address climate challenges, yet only 19 per cent believe government is doing a good job.

    This suggests strong public demand for policy action. Canadian governments must introduce mandatory climate curriculum standards, increased funding for teacher professional learning and resources, and transformative teaching strategies to foster critical thinking and empowerment.

    Almost 70 per cent of respondents said they believe young people can inspire important climate action. Supporting school-wide cultures that embrace sustainability isn’t just good teaching — it’s a pathway to broader social change.

    Now more than ever, we need a reimagined education system that values climate learning as a core competency. Policymakers and education leaders must rise to meet this challenge before another generation of students graduate feeling unprepared to face the defining issue of their time.

    Karen S. Acton works as a consultant for Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF).

    – ref. Survey: Only four per cent of Canadians give schools an ‘A’ on climate education – students deserve better – https://theconversation.com/survey-only-four-per-cent-of-canadians-give-schools-an-a-on-climate-education-students-deserve-better-259430

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –