When you buy a new electronic appliance, shoes, medicines or even some food items, you often find a small paper sachet with the warning: “silica gel, do not eat”.
What exactly is it, is it toxic, and can you use it for anything?
The importance of desiccants
That little sachet is a desiccant – a type of material that removes excess moisture from the air.
It’s important during the transport and storage of a wide range of products because we can’t always control the environment. Humid conditions can cause damage through corrosion, decay, the growth of mould and microorganisms.
This is why manufacturers include sachets with desiccants to make sure you receive the goods in pristine condition.
The most common desiccant is silica gel. The small, hard and translucent beads are made of silicon dioxide (like most sands or quartz) – a hydrophilic or water-loving material. Importantly, the beads are porous on the nano-scale, with pore sizes only 15 times larger than the radius of their atoms.
These pores have a capillary effect, meaning they condense and draw moisture into the bead similar to how trees transport water through the channelled structures in wood.
In addition, sponge-like porosity makes their surface area very large. A single gram of silica gel can have an area of up to 700 square metres – almost four tennis courts – making them exceptionally efficient at capturing and storing water.
Is silica gel toxic?
The “do not eat” warning is easily the most prominent text on silica gel sachets.
According to health professionals, most silica beads found in these sachets are non-toxic and don’t present the same risk as silica dust, for example. They mainly pose a choking hazard, which is good enough reason to keep them away from children and pets.
However, if silica gel is accidentally ingested, it’s still recommended to contact health professionals to determine the best course of action.
Some variants of silica gel contain a moisture-sensitive dye. One particular variant, based on cobalt chloride, is blue when the desiccant is dry and turns pink when saturated with moisture. While the dye is toxic, in desiccant pellets it is present only in a small amount – approximately 1% of the total weight.
Indicating silica gel with cobalt chloride – ‘fresh’ on the left, ‘used’ on the right. Reza Rio/Shutterstock
Desiccants come in other forms, too
Apart from silica gel, a number of other materials are used as moisture absorbers and desiccants. These are zeolites, activated alumina and activated carbon – materials engineered to be highly porous.
Another desiccant type you’ll often see in moisture absorbers for larger areas like pantries or wardrobes is calcium chloride. It typically comes in a box filled with powder or crystals found in most hardware stores, and is a type of salt.
Kitchen salt – sodium chloride – attracts water and easily becomes lumpy. Calcium chloride works in the same way, but has an even stronger hygroscopic effect and “traps” the water through a hydration reaction. Once the salt is saturated, you’ll see liquid separating in the container.
Closet and pantry dehumidifiers like this one typically contain calcium chloride which binds water. Healthy Happy/Shutterstock
I found something that doesn’t seem to be silica gel – what is it?
Some food items such as tortilla wraps, noodles, beef jerky, and some medicines and vitamins contain slightly different sachets, labelled “oxygen absorbers”.
These small packets don’t contain desiccants. Instead, they have chemical compounds that “scavenge” or bond oxygen.
Their purpose is similar to desiccants – they extend the shelf life of food products and sensitive chemicals such as medicines. But they do so by directly preventing oxidation. When some foods are exposed to oxygen, their chemical composition changes and can lead to decay (apples turning brown when cut is an example of oxidation).
There is a whole range of compounds used as oxygen absorbers. These chemicals have a stronger affinity to oxygen than the protected substance. They range from simple compounds such as iron which “rusts” by using up oxygen, to more complex such as plastic films that work when exposed to light.
Some of the sachets in your products are oxygen absorbers, not desiccants – but they may look similar. Sergio Yoneda/Shutterstock
Can I reuse a desiccant?
Although desiccants and dehumidifiers are considered disposable, you can relatively easily reuse them.
To “recharge” or dehydrate silica gel, you can place it in an oven at approximately 115–125°C for 2–3 hours, although you shouldn’t do this if it’s in a plastic sachet that could melt in the heat.
After dehydration, silica gel sachets may be useful for drying small electronic items (like your phone after you accidentally dropped it into water), keeping your camera dry, or preventing your family photos and old films from sticking to each other.
Kamil Zuber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In less than a decade, Korean TV dramas (K-dramas) have transmuted from a regional industry to a global phenomenon – partly a consequence of the rise of streaming giants.
But foreign audiences may not realise the K-dramas they’ve seen on Netflix don’t accurately represent the broader Korean TV landscape, which is much wider and richer than these select offerings.
At the same time, there are many challenges in bringing this wide array of content to the rest of the world.
The rise of hallyu
Korean media was transformed during the 1990s. The end of military dictatorship led to the gradual relaxation of censorship.
Satellite media also allowed the export of K-dramas and films to the rest of East Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia. Some of the first K-dramas to become popular overseas included What Is Love (1991–92) and Star in My Heart (1997). They initiated what would later become known as the Korean wave, or hallyu.
The hallyu expansion continued with Winter Sonata (2003), which attracted viewers in Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Dae Jang Geum/Jewel in the Palace (2005) resonated strongly in Chinese-speaking regions, and was ultimately exported to more than 80 countries.
A breakthrough occurred in 2016. Netflix entered South Korea and began investing in Korean productions, beginning with Kingdom (2019–21) and Love Alarm (2019–21).
In 2021, the global hit Squid Game was released simultaneously in 190 countries.
But Netflix only scratches the surface
Last year, only 20% of new K-drama releases were available on Western streaming platforms. This means global discussions about K-dramas are based on a limited subgroup of content promoted to viewers outside South Korea.
Moreover, foreign viewers will generally evaluate this content based on Western conceptions of culture and narrative. They may, for instance, have Western preferences for genre and themes, or may disregard locally-specific contexts.
This is partly why Korean and foreign audiences can end up with very different ideas of what “Korean” television is.
Genres
When a K-drama is classified as a sageuk (historical drama) but also incorporates elements of fantasy, mythology, romance, melodrama, crime fiction and/or comedy, foreign audiences may dismiss it as “genre-confused”. Or, they may praise it for its “genre-blending”.
But the drama may not have been created with much attention to genre at all. The highly inventive world-building of pre-Netflix dramas such as Arang and the Magistrate (2012) and Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016) prominently feature all the aforementioned genres.
While foreign viewers may think visual media begins with readily identifiable genres, many K-dramas aren’t produced on this premise.
Themes
Western viewers (and other viewers watching through a Western lens) might assume “liberal” themes such as systemic injustice, women’s rights and collusion in politics entered K-dramas as a result of Western influence. But this is a misconception.
The emergence of such themes can be attributed to various changes in Korean society, including the easing of censorship, rapid modernisation, and the imposition ofneoliberal economics by the International Monetary Fund in 1997.
Although gender disparities still exist in South Korea, economic uncertainty and modernisation have prompted a deconstruction of patriarchal value systems. Female-centred K-dramas have been around since at least the mid-2000s, with women’s independence as a recurring theme in more recent dramas.
Local contexts
A major barrier to exporting K-dramas is the cultural specificity of certain elements, such as Confucian values, hierarchical family dynamics, gender codes, and Korean speech codes.
The global success of a K-drama comes down to how well its culturally-specific elements can be adapted for different contexts and audiences.
In some cases, these elements may be minimised, or entirely missed, by foreign viewers.
For example, in Squid Game, the words spoken by the killer doll in the first game are subtitled as “green light, red light”. What the doll actually says is “mugunghwa-kkochi pieot-seumnida”, which is also what the game is called in Korean.
This translates to “the mugunghwa (Rose of Saron) has bloomed”, with mugunghwa being South Korea’s national flower.
These words, in this context, are meant to ironically redefine South Korea as a site of hopelessness and death. But the subtitles erase this double meaning.
It’s also difficult for subtitles to reflect nuanced Korean honorific systems of address. As such, foreign viewers remain largely oblivious to the subtle power dynamics at play between characters.
All of this leads to a kind of cultural “flattening”, shifting foreign viewers’ focus to so-called universal themes.
A case study for global success
Nevertheless, foreign viewers can still engage with many culturally-specific elements in K-dramas, which can also serve as cultural literacy.
The hugely successful series Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022) explores the personal and professional challenges faced by an autistic lawyer.
Director Yoo In-sik described the series as distinctly Korean in both its humour and the legal system it portrays, and said he didn’t anticipate its widespread popularity.
Following success in South Korea, the series was acquired by Netflix and quickly entered the top 10 most popular non-English language shows.
The global appeal can be attributed to its sensitive portrayal of the protagonist, the problem-solving theme across episodes, and what Yoo describes as a kind and considerate tone. Viewers who resonate with these qualities may not even need to engage with the Korean elements.
Many K-dramas that achieve global success also feature elements typically considered “Western”, such as zombies.
While the overall number of zombie-themed productions is low, series and films such as Kingdom (2019–21), All of Us Are Dead (2022), Alive (2020) and Train to Busan (2016) have helped put Korean content on the map.
One potential effect of the zombie popularity may be the displacement of Korean mythological characters, such as fox spirits, or gumiho, which have traditionally held significant narrative space.
Shin Min-ah and Lee Seung-gi star in the acclaimed romantic comedy series My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (2010). IMDB
Local production under threat
The influence of streaming giants such as Netflix is impacting South Korea’s local production systems.
The early vision of low-cost, high-return projects such as Squid Game is rapidly diminishing.
Meanwhile, Netflix is exploring other locations, such as Japan, where dramas can be produced for about half the price of those in Korea. If this continues, the rise of Korean content may slow down.
Sung-Ae Lee 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.
From 2015 to 2018, I spent 15 months doing researchwork in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city. As an anthropologist, I was interested in everyday life in Iran outside the capital Tehran. I was also interested in understanding whether the ambitions of the 1979 Revolution lived on among “ordinary” Iranians, not just political elites.
I first lived on a university campus, where I learned Persian, and later with Iranian families. I conducted hundreds of interviews with people who had a broad spectrum of political, social and religious views. They included opponents of the Islamic Republic, supporters, and many who were in between.
What these interviews revealed to me was both the diversity of opinion and experience in Iran, and the difficulty of making uniform statements about what Iranians believe.
Measuring the depth of antipathy for the regime
When Israel’s strikes on Iran began on June 13, killing many top military commanders, many news outlets – both international and those run by the Iranian diaspora – featured images of Iranians cheering the deaths of these hated regime figures.
Friends from my fieldwork also pointed to these celebrations, while not always agreeing with them. Many feared the impact of a larger conflict between Iran and Israel.
Trying to put these sentiments in context, many analysts have pointed to a 2019 survey by the GAMAAN Institute, an independent organisation based in the Netherlands that tracks Iranian public opinion. This survey showed 79% of Iranians living in the country would vote against the Islamic Republic if a free referendum were held on its rule.
Viewing these examples as an indicator of the lack of support for the Islamic Republic is not wrong. But when used as factoids in news reports, they become detached from the complexities of life in Iran. This can discourage us from asking deeper questions about the relationships between ideology and pragmatism, support and opposition to the regime, and state and society.
A more nuanced view
The news reporting on Iran has encouraged a tendency to see the Iranian state as homogeneous, highly ideological and radically separate from the population.
But where do we draw the line between the state and the people? There is no easy answer to this.
When I lived in Iran, many of the people who took part in my research were state employees – teachers at state institutions, university lecturers, administrative workers. Many of them had strong and diverse views about the legacy of the revolution and the future of the country.
They sometimes pointed to state discourse they agreed with, for example Iran’s right to national self-determination, free from foreign influence. They also disagreed with much, such as the slogans of “death to America”.
This ambivalence was evident in one of my Persian teachers. An employee of the state, she refused to attend the annual parades celebrating the anniversary of the revolution. “We have warm feelings towards America,” she said. On the other hand, she happily attended protests, also organised by the government, in favour of Palestinian liberation.
Or take the young government worker I met in Mashhad: “We want to be independent of other countries, but not like this.”
In a narrower sense, discussions about the “state” may refer more to organisations like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij, the paramilitary force within the IRGC that has cracked down harshly on dissent in recent decades. Both are often understood as being deeply ideologically committed.
Said Golkar, a US-based Iranian academic and author, for instance, calls Iran a “captive society”. Rather than having a civil society, he believes Iranians are trapped by the feared Basij, who maintain control through their presence in many institutions like universities and schools.
Again, this view is not wrong. But even among the Basij and Revolutionary Guard, it can be difficult to gauge just how ideological and homogeneous these organisations truly are.
For a start, the IRGC relies on both ideologically selected supporters, as well as conscripts, to fill its ranks. They are also not always ideologically uniform, as the US-based anthropologist Narges Bajoghli, who worked with pro-state filmmakers in Tehran, has noted.
As part of my research, I also interviewed members of the Basij, which, unlike the IRGC proper, is a wholly volunteer organisation.
Even though ideological commitment was certainly an important factor for some of the Basij members I met, there were also pragmatic reasons to join. These included access to better jobs, scholarships and social mobility. Sometimes, factors overlapped. But participation did not always equate to a singular or sustained commitment to revolutionary values.
For example, Sāsān, a friend I made attending discussion groups in Mashhad, was quick to note that time spent in the Basij “reduced your [compulsory] military service”.
This isn’t to suggest there are not ideologically committed people in Iran. They clearly exist, and many are ready to use violence. Some of those who join these institutions for pragmatic reasons use violence, too.
Looking in between
In addition, Iran is an ethnically diverse country. It has a population of 92 million people, a bare majority of whom are Persians. Other minorities include Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, Turkmen and others.
It is also religiously diverse. While there is a sizeable, nominally Shi’a majority, there are also large Sunni communities (about 10-15% of the population) and smaller communities of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Baha’is and other religions.
Often overlooked, there are also important differences in class and social strata in Iran, too.
One of the things I noticed about state propaganda was that it flattened this diversity. James Barry, an Australian scholar of Iran, noticed a similar phenomenon.
State propaganda made it seem like there was one voice in the country. Protests could be dismissed out of hand because they did not represent the “authentic” view of Iranians. Foreign agitators supported protests. Iranians supported the Islamic Republic.
Since leaving Iran, I have followed many voices of Iranians in the diaspora. Opposition groups are loud on social media, especially the monarchists who support Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah.
In following these groups, I have noticed a similar tendency to speak as though they represent the voice of all Iranians. Iranians support the shah. Or Iranians support Maryam Rajavi, leader of a Paris-based opposition group.
Both within Iran, and in the diaspora, the regime, too, is sometimes held to be the imposition of a foreign conspiracy. This allows the Islamic Republic and the complex relations it has created to be dismissed out of hand. Once again, such a view flattens diversity.
Over the past few years, political identities and societal divisions seem to have become harder and clearer. This means there is an increasing perception among many Iranians of a gulf between the state and Iranian society. This is the case both inside Iran, and especially in the Iranian diaspora.
Decades of intermittent protests and civil disobedience across the country also show that for many, the current system no longer represents the hopes and aspirations of many people. This is especially the case for the youth, who make up a large percentage of the population.
I am not an Iranian, and I strongly believe it is up to Iranians to determine their own futures. I also do not aim to excuse the Islamic Republic – it is brutal and tyrannical. But its brutality should not let us shy away from asking complex questions.
If the regime did fall tomorrow, Iran’s diversity means there is little unanimity of opinion as to what should come next. And if a more pluralist form of politics is to emerge, it must encompass the whole of Iran’s diversity, without assuming a uniform position.
It, too, will have to wrestle with the difficult questions and sometimes ambivalent relations the Islamic Republic has created.
Simon Theobald received funding from the Australian National University during his research.
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Associate Professor, New Testament, & Director of The Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy, University of Divinity
Wars are often waged in the name of religion. So what do key texts from Christianity, Islam and Judaism say about the justification for war?
We asked three experts for their views.
The Bible
Robyn J. Whitaker, University of Divinity
The Bible presents war as an inevitable reality of human life. This is captured in the cry of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes:
for everything there is a season […] a time for war and a time for peace.
In this sense, the Bible reflects the experiences of the authors and communities who shaped the texts over more than a thousand years as they experienced both victory and defeat as a small nation among the large empires of the ancient near east.
When it comes to God’s role in war, we cannot shirk from the problematic violence associated with the divine. At times, God orders the Hebrew people to go to war and enact horrendous violence. Deuteronomy 20 is a good example of this: God’s people are sent to war with the blessing of the priest but told to first offer terms of peace. If peace terms are accepted, the town is enslaved. Certain enemies, however, are decreed worthy of total annihilation, and the Hebrew army is commanded to destroy anyone and anything that doesn’t produce food.
On other occasions, war is interpreted as a tool, a punishment where God uses foreign nations against the Hebrew people because they have gone astray (Judges 2:14). You can also find an underlying ethic to treat the captives of war justly. Moses commands that women captured in war are to be treated as wives, not slaves (Deuteronomy 21), and in 2 Chronicles, captives are allowed to return home.
In contrast to war as divinely authorised, many of the Hebrew prophets express hope in a time where God will bring peace and people will “neither learn war any more” (Micah 3:4) but rather turn their weapons into tools for agriculture (Isaiah 2:4).
War is viewed as a result of human sinfulness, something that God will ultimately transform into peace. And that peace (Hebrew: shalom) is more than an absence of war. It is about human flourishing and unity between peoples and God.
Most of the New Testament was written during the first century CE, when Jews and emerging Christians were a minority within the Roman Empire. The military power of Rome is harshly critiqued as evil in resistance texts such as the Book of Revelation. Many early Christians refused to fight in the Roman army.
In this context, Jesus says nothing specific about war but generally rejects violence. When Jesus’s disciple Peter seeks to defend him with a sword, Jesus tells him to put away his sword because a sword only leads to more violence (Matthew 26:52). This is consistent with Jesus’s other teachings such as “blessed are the peacemakers” or his commands to “turn the other cheek” when struck or to “love your enemies”.
The reality is that we find various war ideologies in the Bible’s pages. If you want to find a justification for war in the Bible, you can. If you want to find a justification for peace or pacifism, that is there too. Later Christians would develop ideas of “just war” and pacifism based on biblical ideas, but these are developments rather than explicit within the Bible.
For Christians, Jesus’s teaching provides an ethical framework for interpreting earlier war texts through the lens of love for enemies. This counterpoint to divine violence and war points readers back to the prophets, whose hopeful visions imagine a world where violence and suffering are no more and peace is possible.
The Quran
Mehmet Ozalp, Charles Sturt University
Islam and Muslims emerged onto the world stage in the hostile environment of the seventh century. In response to major challenges, including warfare, Islam introduced pioneering legal and ethical reforms. The Quran and the Prophet Muhammad’s example laid out clear legal and ethical guidelines for the conduct of war, well before similar frameworks appeared in other societies.
Islam did this by defining a new term, “jihad” rather than the usual Arabic word for war, “harb”. While harb refers broadly to warfare, jihad was defined within Islamic teachings as a legal, morally justified struggle, which includes but is not limited to armed conflict. In the context of warfare, jihad refers specifically to fighting in a just cause under clear legal and ethical guidelines, rather than belligerent or aggressive warfare.
Between 610-622, Prophet Muhammad practised active non-violence in the face of the constant suffering, persecution and economic embargo he and his followers endured in Mecca, despite insistent approaches by his followers to take up arms. This showed that armed struggle cannot be taken up within the members of the same society, as this would lead to anarchy.
After leaving his home town to escape persecution, he established a pluralistic and multi-faith society in Medina. He took active steps to sign treaties with neighbouring tribes. Despite following a deliberate strategy of peace and diplomacy, the hostile Meccans and allied tribes attacked the Muslims in Medina. Engaging these attackers in an armed struggle was unavoidable.
The permission to fight was given to Muslims by the Quran verses 22:39-40:
The believers against whom war is waged are given permission to fight in response, for they have been wronged. Surely, God has full power to help them to victory. Those who have been driven from their homeland against all right, for no other reason than that they say, “Our Lord is God” […]
This passage not only permits armed struggle but also offers a moral justification for just war. It means war is clearly just when defensive — while aggression is unjust and condemned. Elsewhere, the Quran emphasises this point:
If they withdraw from you and do not fight against you, and offer you peace, then God allows you no way (to war) against them.
Verse 22:39 outlines two ethical justifications for warfare. The first is when people are driven from their homes (and land) – in other words, through occupation by a foreign power. The second is when people are attacked because of their beliefs to the point of violent persecution and attack.
Importantly, verse 22:40 includes churches, monasteries and synagogues. If believers in God do not defend themselves, all places of worship would be destroyed, so this is to be prevented by force if necessary.
The Quran does not allow for aggression, since “God loves not the aggressors” (2:190). It also provides detailed regulations on who is to fight and who is exempted (9:91); when hostilities must cease (2:193); and prisoners should be treated humanely and with fairness (47:4).
Verses such as 2:294 emphasise that warfare and any response to violence and aggression must be proportional and within limits:
Whoever attacks you, attack them in like manner as they attacked you. Nevertheless, fear God and remain within the bounds.
In the event of unavoidable war, every opportunity to end it must be pursued:
But if the enemy inclines towards peace, then you must also incline towards peace and trust in God.
The aim of military action is to end hostilities and remove the reason for warfare, not to humiliate or annihilate the enemy.
Military jihad cannot be pursued for personal ambition or to further nationalistic or ethnic disputes. Muslims cannot wage war on nations that have no hostility towards them (60:8). But if there is open hostility and attack, Muslims have a right to defend themselves.
The Prophet and the early caliphs specifically warned military leaders and all combatants that they must not act treacherously or engage in indiscriminate killing and pillage. He said:
Do not kill women, children, the elderly, or the sick. Do not destroy palm trees or burn houses.
Because of these teachings, Muslims have had legal and ethical guidelines throughout much of history to help limit human suffering caused by war.
The Torah
Suzanne D. Rutland, University of Sydney
Judaism is not a pacifist religion, but in its traditions it values peace above all else, and prayers for peace are central to Jewish liturgy. At the same time, there is a recognition of the need to fight defensive wars, but only within certain boundaries.
In the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, the recognition of the need for war is clear. Throughout their journeying in the desert, the Israelites (Children of Israel) fight various battles. At the same time, in Deuteronomy, the Israelites are instructed (chapter 12, verse 10):
When you go forth against your enemies and are in camp, then you should keep yourself from every evil thing.
The story of Amalek is the symbol of ultimate evil in Jewish tradition. Scholars argue this is because his army attacked the Israelites from the rear – killing defenceless women and children.
The Torah also stresses that army service is compulsory. Yet, Deuteronomy elaborates four categories of people who are exempt:
someone who has built a home but has not yet dedicated it
someone who has planted a vineyard but has not yet eaten of its fruit
someone who is engaged or in his first year of marriage
someone who is afraid, in case he influences other soldiers with his fear.
Judaism is not a pacifist religion, but in its traditions it values peace above all else. Shutterstock
It is important to point out that the disdain of war is so strong that King David was not permitted to build the temple in Jerusalem because of his military career. His son, Solomon, was allocated this task, but no iron was to be used in the building because this represented war and violence, while the temple was to represent peace, the ideal virtue.
The vision of peace for all humanity is further developed in the prophetic writings and the concept of the Messiah. This is seen particularly in the writings of the prophet Isiah, who envisaged an age when, as he describes in his idyllic vision:
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
The Mishnah, the first part of the Talmud, raises the concept of an “obligatory war” (milhemet mizvah). This encompasses the biblical wars against the seven nations said to inhabit the Promised Land, the war against Amalek, and the Jewish nation’s defensive wars. It is, accordingly, a clearly defined and recognisable class.
Not so the second category, “permitted war” (milhemet reshut), which is more open-ended and, as scholar Avi Ravitsky writes, “could relate to a preemptive war”.
After the Talmudic period, which ended in the 7th century, this debate became theoretical, since Jews living in Palestine and the diaspora no longer had an army. This was largely the case from the time of the defeat of the Bar Kokhba Rebellion against the Romans (132–135 CE), apart from a few small Jewish kingdoms in Arabia.
However, with the return of the early Zionist pioneers to the Land of Israel in the late 19th and 20th century, the rabbinic debates of what constitutes an obligatory, defensive war and what is a permitted war, as well as the characteristics of a forbidden war has reignited. This is a subject of deep concern and controversy for both academics and rabbis today.
Robyn J. Whitaker is affiliated with The Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy.
Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy
Suzanne Rutland has received an Australian Research Council grant for her research on the Australian Jewry and funding from the Pratt Foundation, as well as an Australian Prime Ministers Centre (APMC) fellowship for her research on Soviet Jewry and Australia. She is also involved with numerous NGOs, including the Australian Jewish Historical Society (patron), the Australian Association for Jewish Studies (past president and committee member), and the Australian government’s expert delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. In addition, she is a board member of the Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry at ANU; she is on an academic advisory committee at the Sydney Jewish Museum; she is the director of the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism; and she is an Australian board member for Boys Town Jerusalem and a board member of Better Balance Futures for faith communities These roles are all undertaken in an honorary capacity. She is also writing the history of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in an honorary capacity.
The star of the 40th anniversary production of Cats – which premiered at the Theatre Royal Sydney last week – is the performing ensemble.
Some ensemble scenes, such as The Jellicle Ball, offered the same joy and exhilaration as the original 1985 production. In these moments of song and dance, the invisible connection between the performers’ hearts, voices and bodies, and those in the audience, is truly felt. There is still magic here.
Yet, 40 years on, it’s clear other aspects of the show have become too tired for modern audiences.
Comfort for frightening times
By today’s standards, Cats is a modest show where the biggest investment is in the extraordinary performers and performances.
But back in 1985, when it first premiered in Australia, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical was at the forefront of a wave of mega-musicals that swept the world. A review published in the Los Angeles Times that year called it “one of the most imaginative and eye-catching musicals of the century”.
Cats ran for decades, all around the world. On the West End it ran for 21 years and 8,949 performances. On Broadway, it replaced A Chorus Line as the longest-running musical, playing for 18 years.
First performed in London in 1981, the show is based on a set of poems from T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939). Some may know the poems from their primary school elocution classes (we both did).
Eliot wrote Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats in the period between the two world wars, when the world was teetering on the edge of fascism. It spoke to an audience that was probably eager to escape from its frightening reality.
Commitment lifts the show
In the musical, the cats move between songs and ensembles that describe the characteristics of each individual. The musical styles include rock, classical, pop, jazz, musical hall, blues and everything in between. Each cat has a specific musical and movement language.
The committed and exuberant performers lift the show. Gabryel Thomas, who plays Grizabella, brings new life and intense musicality in her singing of the iconic song Memory.
Axel Alverez performs the role of Mr. Mistoffelees with exuberance and charisma. And Todd McKenney’s charming and nuanced characterisation of Bustopher Jones makes him an audience favourite.
The cameo roles feature strong performances by well-known music theatre performers, such as Lucy Maunder as Jellylorum, along with some newer faces, such as Claudia Hastings as White Cat.
Gabriyel Thomas plays the outcast glamour cat Grizabella. Daniel Boud
Stagnation or reinvention?
In this re-launch, the score, direction and choreography are almost identical to what we saw back in 1985.
The dancing and choreography are the heart and soul of the show, just as they were back then. For those who appreciate performance, this alone will make Cats worth seeing.
Yet, the quality of the performances couldn’t completely make up for the tired and largely unchanged musical score. The 80s style synthesisers and guitars, and reduced orchestration, are oddly nostalgic, but in an unsatisfying way.
Nostalgia is big business, and no doubt this production taps into this. As music journalist Peter C Baker wrote in an article last year:
More and more of what we’re offered […] feels motivated by the logic that what people want, or can most easily be sold, is what they already liked before.
At the same time, there’s much discussion these days about reinterpretations of classic musicals and opera – which are often a gamble.
In the 2024 re-imagined New York production of Cats, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, the gamble paid off. The Jellicle Ball was set in a queer ballroom culture where competitive performers rehearse on a catwalk.
The show premiered to wide acclaim, with some reviewers saying Cats finally made sense. As reviewer Jeanine T. Abraham put it:
The ballroom version takes this story into the twenty-first century with flavor, sass, and reverence for the Black Queer Ballroom community who created this joyous form out of so much pain and trauma.
This positive reception was far removed from the very badly reviewed 2019 feature film starring James Corden.
Cats is a musical that has always been controversial – both celebrated and derided, depending on who you ask.
What makes a show spectacular?
Since around the mid 1980s, audiences have become acclimatised to the spectacular. Whether it’s Wicked, the Olympic ceremonies, or Kendrick Lamar’s Superbowl halftime show, we’ve come to expect spectacle and jaw-dropping visual effects. But Cats is not that kind of show.
Rather, it deals with the idea of community, and of a world where particular kinds of difference are accepted and others are rejected. The narcissistic elderly male cats are revered, while the glamour cat Grizabella is an outcast. A utopian ending brings reconciliation for all.
Cats is a musical that defied expectations. Many initially predicted it would flop, and the song Memory was the only real hit. Yet it enjoyed enormous success.
In 2025, the show leans heavily on its 30 or so performers who still manage to transport us to another world, despite the dated music and lack of story. The success of future interpretations will likely come down to how well those gaps can be filled.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Koplin, Evidence and Translation Lead, National Allergy Centre of Excellence; Chief Investigator, Centre of Food Allergy Research; Associate Professor and Group Leader, Childhood Allergy & Epidemiology Group, Child Health Research Centre, The University of Queensland
With the school holidays approaching, many families will be travelling, including on planes interstate and overseas. But travel can pose unique challenges for people with serious food allergies.
Research shows air travel is a significant source of anxiety for people living with or caring for someone with a food allergy. In a global survey of 4,704 people with food allergies and their caregivers published in 2024, 98% said having a food allergy adds anxiety to air travel.
Fortunately, there are things you can do to help keep yourself or children with food allergies safe in the skies.
What are the concerns about plane travel with allergies?
Reassuringly, documented allergic reactions during flights are very rare. A 2023 review that combined data from 17 studies estimated about seven in every 10 million passengers had an allergic reaction while flying.
While many people have more mild food allergies, some are at risk of anaphylaxis (a life-threatening allergic reaction) and need to carry adrenaline with them at all times in the form of an EpiPen or Anapen. The review found reports of severe reactions needing adrenaline were even rarer – about eight cases per 100 million passengers.
In fact, this study concluded people were less likely to experience an allergic reaction on a plane than in their everyday lives. However, some of this might be due to the precautions passengers with food allergies already take.
People with food allergies are sometimes worried about food particles travelling in the air of the plane cabin and causing a reaction.
Thankfully, research has shown this risk is very low. It’s difficult for food proteins (the part of the food that causes the allergic reaction) to become airborne. And if they do, air filters fitted on large commercial planes can remove any airborne food particles quickly from the cabin air.
Peanuts are one of the foods commonly associated with anaphylaxis. Studies that have tested opening and shaking containers containing peanuts and de-shelling peanuts found peanut proteins were only detected directly above the container, at a low level, and for a short period of time.
Other studies have found airborne peanut was not detected when eating peanuts in a confined space. And studies found no severe reactions among people with peanut allergy when peanut butter or peanuts were held close to their face or kept in a bowl close by in a small room.
A bigger risk for reactions is the food protein ending up on a seat or tray table. However, casual contact with food crumbs or smears is highly unlikely to cause a severe allergic reaction. This type of contact can cause mild to moderate skin reactions that can be treated with antihistamines if needed.
Staying safe on a plane with allergies
For people at risk of anaphylaxis:
take your adrenaline in your hand luggage (not your checked baggage). Store it under the seat in front of you or in the seat pocket so it’s in easy reach
carry a travel plan and action plan for anaphylaxis, completed and signed by a medical professional, or similar documentation, showing the traveller’s food allergy status and what to do in an emergency. (Templates of these plans are available via the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy)
let the flight crew know you have an allergy and indicate the location of your adrenaline and anaphylaxis action plan. This is particularly important for people travelling alone, since anaphylaxis can be mistaken for other non-allergic symptoms, which could lead to a delay in receiving adrenaline.
For people with food allergies generally:
let the airline know you have a food allergy and ask about their food and medication policies when booking or before travelling
take allergy-safe food from home. Airlines don’t guarantee allergy-safe food will be available, and not all food supplied on a plane will have an ingredient label (but check liquid restrictions and be aware of potential restrictions on taking fresh food across borders)
wipe down surfaces such as the seat, armrests and tray table with wet wipes when boarding. You can request early boarding from airlines to do this
wash your hands before eating (wet wipes and handwashing with soap are more effective than plain water or hand sanitiser)
you may choose to sit a child with food allergy away from areas where food or drink will be passed over the top of them (for example, next to a window or between family members). Tell passengers sitting next to your child about their allergy so they don’t offer to share food or drink
if you think you’re experiencing an allergic reaction, let the flight crew know immediately.
If you’re travelling, you could wipe down surfaces around you at the end of the flight. Remove rubbish from seatbacks and other areas around your seat and aisle before disembarking.
Also, ask about allergies before offering to share any food with your neighbours during the flight (and check with parents before offering anything to their children).
Airlines, meanwhile, should have clear policies relating to food allergies easily available and consistently applied by ground staff and cabin crew, such as allowing early boarding on request.
The patient support organisation Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia has a Food Allergy Travel Hub with advice on how to stay safe when travelling with food allergies.
Jennifer Koplin receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. She is a member of the Executive Committee for the National Allergy Centre of Excellence (NACE), which is supported by funding from the Australian government.
Christopher Warren receives institutional research funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Food Allergy Research and Education, Genentech Inc, and The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Desalegn Markos Shifti is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)-funded Centre for Food Allergy Research (CFAR) Postdoctoral Funding.
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.
Umpires’ decisions often upset sports fans, especially during a close contest.
At most games, spectators boo loudly, coaches throw their hands up in frustration and players can yell or even physically intimidate officials.
It seems abusing umpires is acceptable. But why? It’s certainly not something generally tolerated in other workplaces.
Without umpires, games simply couldn’t go ahead.
That’s why we sought to shed light on the situation by researching what it’s really like to be an Australian rules umpire.
Not for the faint-hearted
Umpires (also called referees or match officials) apply the rules of their respective sports to ensure fair and safe competitions for all players.
They participate in training and accreditation programs to learn rules and apply them based on the demands of the game.
They need to be physically fit and position themselves appropriately around the playing field.
But many sport organisations are struggling to provide enough qualified officials at grassroots levels. Between 1993 and 2010, there was a 28% decline in active sport officials in Australia.
Football Australia, soccer’s governing body here, boasts 11,000 officials but estimates around 4,200 leave their roles every year.
In many sports, teenagers are increasingly stepping in to umpire junior and senior games to back-fill shortages.
However, Australian rules football appears to be defying this trend – the number of community umpires surpassed 20,000 for the first time in 2024. This is an 18% increase in umpire registrations compared to 2023, largely driven by a 31% rise in registrations by women and girls.
Despite these record numbers, the Australian Football League (AFL), and many sports organisations including Rugby Australia and the A-League, are worried about retaining officials.
Our research focused particularly on what was happening in Australian rules football.
Abuse and even death threats
We surveyed 356 umpires across all levels of Australian rules football competition to examine their experiences of abuse.
Almost half reported receiving regular verbal abuse (name-calling, insults, swearing and threats). Worryingly, 21% said they had experienced physical abuse (pushing, hitting, or assault).
As one state-level umpire remarked:
Over time, you end up developing a thick skin.
Encouragingly, most umpires knew the process to officially report any abuse received, with more than half indicating they had formally reported at least one incident of abuse.
While many felt supported through the reporting process, only 62% were satisfied with the outcome.
As one state-league umpire recalled:
I was assaulted two years ago by a spectator. Lucky I was bigger than him. I was disappointed he only got a one-year suspension from attending games.
Further, a senior community football umpire commented:
I was threatened with my life this year and the league did nothing about it.
What can be done?
Many respondents commented on the need to support young umpires to have positive experiences.
One potential strategy is to make it clearer when officials are underage.
As one example, Netball Victoria provides a green band or scrunchie to any umpire under the age of 18 to promote respect from players, coaches and spectators.
Other codes could look to implement similar strategies.
Most of our responding umpires called for the introduction of tougher penalties in games and through tribunal systems.
Some called for clubs to be fined or spectators banned for repeated incidents of abuse.
Additionally, umpires felt clubs needed to take greater responsibility for the actions of players, coaches and spectators.
One umpire told us:
Cultural change needs to come from within clubs because top-down campaigns encouraging respect don’t change hearts and minds.
This could be in the form of creating a positive club culture and zero-tolerance abuse policies.
In our research, umpires said it was crucial that governing bodies communicated both the level of evidence required to report abuse, and how tribunals worked.
As younger officials may not know the process, having this information embedded in umpire training may help umpires feel more supported in reporting abuse.
Equally, appropriate penalties must be handed down to ensure umpires have faith in the reporting system.
While the number of Australian rules football umpires has increased in recent years, these numbers can also decrease quickly.
If we want to retain umpires for the medium and long-term, we need governing bodies such as the AFL to address the frequency and severity with which umpire abuse occurs.
As one umpire commented:
Cases of abuse need to have consequences, not just a slap on the wrist. Why would anyone want to go out and be abused for two hours?
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Each year, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) reviews its pricing rules to ensure services funded under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) remain sustainable.
This year’s annual pricing review outlines changes that will take effect from July 1 2025.
Among the updates are changes to therapy pricing, travel reimbursement, and rural loadings. The NDIA says this will bring NDIS pricing in line with other government schemes and private health insurance.
But what do these changes mean for people outside the big cities?
adjusted therapy support rates, including a $10 per hour reduction for physiotherapists to $183.99 per hour.
travel reimbursement for therapists will be halved (from 100% to 50% of the hourly rate during any time spent travelling)
price loadings for some rural and remote areas will be removed.
The NDIA justifies these decisions with a dataset that includes the average of hourly rates from Medicare, private health claims, and 13 other government programs.
Why pricing comparisons don’t always translate to rural services
While these comparisons might make sense for metropolitan clinics, they do not capture the realities of service delivery in rural and remote areas.
For example, allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech pathologists in cities can see multiple clients in a row at one location (although this isn’t always realistic or best practice in cities either).
In contrast, rural and remote providers may drive hundreds of kilometres between appointments. Much of their time, including travel, planning, and follow-up, is essential but often unbilled.
So while $193.99 (soon $183.99) per hour for physiotherapy might look generous, it does not reflect what is left after factoring in travel and unpaid care coordination.
Disabilities are complex and often lifelong, so clinical support is time-consuming. However, that is something clinicians are passionate about – therapists so often squirm at the thought of billing our clients for anything other than direct clinical services.
The NDIA’s own data confirm most therapy providers are small operators. In fact, 90% are unregistered, and many serve fewer than five participants.
The result is a fragile “market”, particularly in towns with limited infrastructure. If pricing makes it unviable for local clinicians to offer services, the only remaining options may involve families travelling long distances or forgoing support entirely. This has knock-on effects for local economies and contributes to professional burnout and workforce shortages.
What this means for rural families
For families living in towns with limited services, travel is not optional. It is a lifeline. If providers cannot afford to travel, many people with disability simply go without.
Telepractice can be used in some clinical situations, but not all. The most effective kind of telepractice also includes support from local clinicians and coworkers, and ideally a mix of in-person and online consultations.
One family I worked with during my PhD research lived four hours from the nearest regional centre. After an 18-month wait, their child’s therapy appointment was cancelled twice due to workforce shortages. They eventually paid privately for a service in another state.
This story is not unusual. Many families said they did not necessarily want more funding; they just wanted support delivered in ways that worked for them. Being able to access help locally allowed their children to remain part of the school community and reduced pressure on carers already juggling other responsibilities. Clinicians, communities, and families are continuing to tell very similar stories.
It is essential clinicians are able to travel to meet with NDIS clients in regional areas. Shutterstock
Is there a better way?
My research found rural families preferred flexible models that blended telepractice with local capacity-building. These hybrid approaches worked well when supported by policy that allowed for coordination, community involvement, and some in-person time. They were not luxury add-ons. They were what made services possible.
There is also a long-term benefit in supporting local service ecosystems. When therapists can build relationships within a community, they are more likely to stay, collaborate with other professionals, and mentor early-career clinicians.
This helps reduce churn and provides continuity of care. However, with travel reimbursement and rural loadings cut, sustaining these models becomes more difficult.
What happens next?
The NDIA’s strategy includes a shift toward “differentiated pricing”, which could eventually support more tailored approaches. The Department of Social Services has also promised to offer “foundational supports” outside the NDIS, but it is currently unclear what the nature of these supports will be. Right now, though, rural communities are being asked to absorb the reduced funding and limited flexibility. Without further adjustment, these changes risk widening the gap between metropolitan and non-metropolitan service access.
A single national price does not guarantee equal access. Equity comes from recognising and responding to different contexts. For rural and remote Australians living with disability, that recognition is long overdue.
Until then, it will be up to 7 million rural Australians to make it work for themselves in places where resources are already stretched thin.
I am a co-founder of Umbo Pty Ltd (an NDIS therapy provider which provides telepractice services)
Abortion-rights demonstrators holds a sign in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington as the Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic case is heard on April 2, 2025.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Having the freedom to choose your own health care provider is something many Americans take for granted. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority ruled on June 25, 2025, in a 6-3 decision that people who rely on Medicaid for their health insurance don’t have that right.
The case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, is focused on a technical legal issue: whether people covered by Medicaid have the right to sue state officials for preventing them from choosing their health care provider. In his majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that they don’t because the Medicaid statute did not “clearly and unambiguously” give individuals that right.
The case started with a predicament for South Carolina resident Julie Edwards, who is enrolled in Medicaid. After Edwards struggled to get contraceptive services, she was able to receive care from a Planned Parenthood South Atlantic clinic in Columbia, South Carolina.
Planned Parenthood and Edwards sued South Carolina. They argued that the state was violating the federal Medicare and Medicaid Act, which Congress passed in 1965, by not letting Edwards obtain care from the provider of her choice.
A ‘free-choice-of-provider’ requirement
Medicaid, which mainly covers low-income people, their children and people with disabilities, operates as a partnership between the federal government and the states. Congress passed the law that led to its creation based on its power under the Constitution’s spending clause, which allows Congress to subject federal funds to certain requirements.
Two years later, due to concerns that states were restricting which providers Medicaid recipients could choose, Congress added a “free-choice-of-provider” requirement to the program. It states that people enrolled in Medicaid “may obtain such assistance from any institution, agency, community pharmacy, or person, qualified to perform the service or services required.”
While the Medicaid statute does not, by itself, allow people enrolled in that program to enforce this free-choice clause, the question at the core of this case was whether another federal statute, known as Section 1983, did give them a right to sue.
The Supreme Court has long recognized that Section 1983 protects an individual’s ability to sue when their rights under a federal statute have been violated. In fact, in 2023, it found such a right under the Medicaid Nursing Home Reform Act. The court held that Section 1983 confers the right to sue when a statute’s provisions “unambiguously confer individual federal rights.”
In Medina, however, the court found that there was no right to sue. Instead, the court emphasized that “the typical remedy” is for the federal government to cut off Medicaid funds to a state if a state is not complying with the Medicaid statute.
The ruling overturned lower-court decisions in favor of Edwards. It also expressly rejected the Supreme Court’s earlier rulings, which the majority criticized as taking a more “expansive view of its power to imply private causes of action to enforce federal laws.”
This dispute is just one chapter in the long fight over access to abortion in the U.S. In addition to the question of whether it should be legal, proponents and opponents of abortion rights have battled over whether the government should pay for it – even if that funding happens indirectly.
Through a federal law known as the Hyde Amendment, Medicaid cannot reimburse health care providers for the cost of abortions, with a few exceptions: when a patient’s life is at risk, or her pregnancy is due to rape or incest. Some states do cover abortion when their laws allow it, without using any federal funds.
McMaster explained that he removed “abortion clinics,” including Planned Parenthood, from the South Carolina Medicaid program because he didn’t want state funds to indirectly subsidize abortions.
After the Supreme Court ruled on this case, McMaster said he had taken “a stand to protect the sanctity of life and defend South Carolina’s authority and values – and today, we are finally victorious.”
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster stands outside the Supreme Court building in Washington in April 2025 and speaks about this case. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Consequences beyond South Carolina
This ruling’s consequences are not limited to Medicaid access in South Carolina.
It may make it harder for individuals to use Section 1983 to bring claims under any federal statute. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, wrote in her dissent, the court “continues the project of stymying one of the country’s great civil rights laws.”
The dissent also criticized the majority decision as likely “to result in tangible harm to real people.” Not only will it potentially deprive “Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them,” Jackson wrote, but it could also “strip those South Carolinians – and countless other Medicaid recipients around the country – of a deeply personal freedom: the ‘ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable.’”
The decision could also have far-reaching consequences. Arkansas, Missouri and Texas have already barred Planned Parenthood from getting reimbursed by Medicaid for any kind of health care. More states could follow suit.
In addition, given Planned Parenthood’s role in providing contraceptive care, disqualifying it from Medicaid could restrict access to health care and increase the already-high unintended pregnancy rate in America.
With this ruling, the court is allowing a patchwork of state exclusions of Planned Parenthood and other medical providers from the Medicaid program that could soon resemble the patchwork already seen with abortion access.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Children’s play is essential for their cognitive, physical and social development. But in cities, spaces to play are usually separated, often literally fenced off, from the rest of urban life.
In our new study, we compare children’s use of such spaces in Auckland, New Zealand, and Venice, Italy. Our findings present a paradox: playgrounds built for safety can stifle creativity and mobility, while self-organising open spaces offer rich opportunities to explore and belong.
In Auckland, places such as Taumata Reserve are a testimony to contemporary playground design – grassy, shaded, equipped with slides and swings, and buffered from traffic. Such places are an oasis cherished by caregivers for the sense of perceived safety they provide.
Yet during our observations, we noted how these spaces function not necessarily as an oasis or a point for social encounter, but rather as isolated refuge islands, disconnected from the city’s everyday life. Children’s independent mobility and opportunities for diverse play activities remained limited and predefined.
Children in urban spaces in Venice are free to find their own spontaneous activities. Antonio Lara-Hernandez, CC BY-SA
Contrast this with Venice’s Santa Croce neighbourhood. Car-free streets and piazzas, such as Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio above, pulsate with life. We saw children play ball, draw on pavements, chase each other and even water plants. These spaces are shared inter-generational stages.
To compare children’s experience, we measured the diversity of activities (a proxy for creativity). Auckland’s Taumata Reserve scored just 1.46. In contrast, Venice scored 2.33, with more than 2,600 spontaneous acts in the streets, reflecting a child-led play culture.
Why this matters
Play is not a luxury. It is a fundamental necessity of life to understand, navigate and adapt to the complexities of the world.
From a deterministic perspective, contemporary Western cultures (such as in Europe and New Zealand) prescribe diverse benefits of play. This includes learning and developing resilience, spatial awareness and social skills.
In Auckland, safety is the focus. While inclusion for children with special needs is understandable, it may inadvertently limit the collective capacity for vital and formative developmental experiences at the neighbourhood scale.
Global research shows declining children’s mobility, linked to car dependency and adult-controlled routines. This reduces children’s activity radius, constrains confidence and diminishes connection to place. For one of us, a father of two, watching his daughters navigate parks underscores this: children need to be able to learn risk competency.
Venice is a cultural model we can draw lessons from. Its pedestrian streets let children roam, climb statues and play hide-and-seek on bridges. This exposure to risks builds judgement, adaptability and agency. It also makes children co-creators of urban life.
Children in Venice’s car-free piazza San Giacomo dell’Orio play ball, draw on pavements and chase each other. Authors provided, CC BY-SA
Our study uses what we call “temporary appropriation” – when children use spaces in unplanned, creative ways – and a design framework called SPIRAL, which draws from individual experiences and cultural narratives to build public spaces.
Auckland’s rules and fences curb this; Venice’s human-scale design invites it.
Venice’s conditions foster risk competency in children and caregivers, strengthening community bonds through a culture of care. Auckland’s spaces for play are spatially fragmented, limiting social encounters and the risk-taking skills vital for development.
Auckland’s playgrounds tend to be separated and limit the development of risk-taking skills. Shutterstock/Mary Star
From a New Zealand perspective, it is also essential to recognise the significance of place-based belonging from a Māori worldview. Concepts such as whakapapa (genealogy), whenua (land) and whanaungatanga (relational ties) emphasise deep, inter-generational connections to place.
In this view, play is not merely recreation but a cultural expression; a way for children to experience turangawaewae (a place to stand).
What other cities can learn
From our research, we can draw lessons for how urban spaces might be reimagined to better support children’s wellbeing and autonomy. This includes:
Designing public spaces with natural elements, “risky art”, loose parts and creative equipment for open-ended play that balances safety without compromising opportunities for discovery and risk-taking
reclaiming streets so that all people and animals can have positive adventures
prioritising policies for car-free or traffic-calmed areas across neighbourhoods and in proximity to social places (schools, libraries, shops, parks) to contribute to a culture where safety is a collective responsibility and a commitment towards a stronger social cohesion
proactively involving children in urban design through place-making and temporary appropriation; it is their right to be heard and listened to through the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
and collaboratively modifying the environment over time.
We envision cities where children roam freely, invent and experience deeper and authentic belonging. Venice proves that shared public spaces help children enrich and shape cities, as much as the rest of the population does.
Safe playgrounds are only a starting point. For healthy, regenerative and vibrant cities to work, we need to realise that children should have agency to shape the complex assemblage that cities really are. Let’s build urban futures where children don’t just play, but can have positive adventures.
The choices we make today matter. We can either feed the fear or meet the cultural challenge together by embracing the positive adventures of life, with a sense of collective wellbeing, care and stewardship.
Jose Antonio Lara-Hernandez received funding for the Horizon 2020 CRUNCH project and was a member of the curatorial team of the Italian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale 2021. He is a senior member of City Space Architecture and the International Society of City and Regional Planners.
Gregor Mews has previously served as a founding director of the Australian Institute of Play and currently serves as a council board member of City Space Architecture as well as a member of the International Society of City and Regional Planners.
Our cultural touchstones series looks at influential works.
Gilles Deleuze was one of the most original and imaginative thinkers of postwar France. A lifelong teacher, he spent most of his career at the University of Paris VIII, influencing generations of students but largely shunning the mantle of public intellectual.
His complex, creative books mix philosophy, literature, film and politics – not to give clear answers, but to spark new ways of thinking.
Written at a time when the Cold War was ending, computers were becoming more common, and the internet was beginning to connect institutions, the essay describes the emergence of a new kind of society – one not ruled by a single stern voice but by the soft hum of networks.
How societies work
Postscript was written as an update to the work of Deleuze’s contemporary Michel Foucault, who had died in 1984. Deleuze called it a “postscript” not just because of its brevity (it’s only around 2,300 words in English translation) but to highlight he wasn’t refuting Foucault, just building on his work.
From the 18th to early 20th centuries, Foucault had argued, Western societies were “disciplinary societies”. Schools, factories, prisons and hospitals – institutions with walls, schedules, routines and clear expectations – moulded behaviour. People were trained, observed, tested and corrected as they passed from one institution to the next.
But in the late 20th century, Deleuze saw something shifting. He thought the stodgy old disciplinary institutions were “in a generalized crisis” due to technological advances and a new form of capitalism that demanded more flexibility in workers and consumers.
New systems of management and technology were starting to reshape people without sending them through traditional institutions. Deleuze wrote presciently, for example, that “perpetual training tends to replace the school, and continuous control to replace the examination”.
In business, he saw a growing idea of “salary according to merit”, transforming work into “challenges, contests, and highly comic group sessions” – something much at odds with the old model of the standard wage and the assembly line. Traditional government institutions like hospitals and the classic factory were embracing the model of the corporation, driven always by a profit motive and the need for better human tools.
To Deleuze, all this meant people were becoming more “free-floating” – they could be still playing socially useful roles but were being gently steered into them. This greater freedom, however, required a new system to keep everyone in line. He called this “modulation” to underline its dynamic, enveloping nature.
Like nudging, but everywhere
Deleuze described modulation as “a self-deforming cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other”. He meant that people were beginning to live in an environment where everything shape-shifts to encourage or discourage us in the right direction without explicitly putting up walls.
A prime example of how modulation has since become commonplace is nudging – the use of psychological techniques, often subtle and data-driven, to shape people’s behaviour.
Nudging didn’t really exist in 1990, but governments and tech companies use nudges all the time now. We’re nudged to eat healthier, buy, save, recycle, donate. Web sites use “dark patterns” – tricky designs that steer (or nudge) us toward certain choices. Social media feeds use algorithms to exclude us if we say the wrong thing. In fact, entire teams of behavioural scientists operate behind the scenes to manipulate many aspects of our lives.
Nudges can be good and can save us from poor choices, but their newfound moral acceptability (sometimes called libertarian paternalism) is very much a clue that Deleuze’s control society has arrived.
Control in your pocket
Deleuze, who died in 1995, wrote Postscript before the advent of the smartphone, but he foresaw that an “electronic collar” would assume a central role in society. He envisaged a “computer that tracks each person’s position – licit or illicit – and effects a universal modulation.”
Smartphones more than fit the bill. In the old disciplinary ways, they track where we go, what we search for, what we buy, how many steps we take, even how well we sleep. But if we apply Deleuze’s ideas to these phones, detailed surveillance is no longer their most important function. Our phones present and curate options.
In effect, they shape how we see the world. When you scroll through news or social media, for instance, you’re reading about a version of the world built just for you, designed to keep you looking, clicking and reacting – and keep you very finely attuned to what is acceptable or dangerous behaviour.
In Deleuze’s terms, this is pure modulation: not a forceful “No” but a softly spoken, “How about this?” Your phone doesn’t lock you in – it draws you in. It shapes what you see, rewards your cooperation, ignores your silence, and always keeps score. And it does this 24/7. You might unlock it hundreds of times a day. And each time it’s updated to guide your next move more precisely.
At the same time our phones quietly turn us into a set of credentials useful for regulating physical access to workplaces, bank accounts, information: In the societies of control, writes Deleuze, “what is important is no longer either a signature or a number, but a code: the code is a password.”
Data points not people?
Deleuze warned that, in a control society: “Individuals have become ‘dividuals,’ and masses have become samples, data, markets, or ‘banks.’” A dividual to Deleuze is a person transformed into a set of data points and metrics.
You are your credit rating, your search history, your likes and clicks – a different dataset to every institution. Such fragments are used to make decisions about you until they effectively replace you. In fact, for Deleuze a dividual has internalised this treatment and thinks of themselves as a net worth, a mortgage size, a car value – psychological anchors for control.
He illustrates this point with healthcare, predicting a
new medicine ‘without doctor or patient’ that singles out potential sick people and subjects at risk, which in no way attests to individuation.
How many health decisions are now made for us collectively before we ever see a doctor? We should be grateful for advances in public health and epidemiology, but this has certainly impacted our individuality and how we are treated.
Hard to detect
An unsettling part of Deleuze’s perspective is that control doesn’t usually feel like control. It’s often dressed up as convenience, efficiency or progress. You set up internet-linked video cameras because then you can work from home. You agree to long terms and conditions because your banking app won’t work otherwise.
One problem is there are no longer clear barriers we can rail against. As Deleuze said:
In disciplinary societies one was always starting again (from school to the barracks, from the barracks to the factory), while in control societies one is never finished with anything.
Control doesn’t always crush – it can enable. Digital networks bring real freedom, economic possibility, even joy. We move more easily – both mentally and geographically – than ever before. But while we move, it always inside a kind of invisible map shaped by capitalism.
It’s no conspiracy because nobody has the whole map. So it’s difficult to work out exactly what action, if any, to take. As Deleuze concludes: “The coils of a serpent are even more complex than the burrows of a molehill.”
So what can we do?
Postscript doesn’t offer a political program beyond the sardonic comment that:
Many young people strangely boast of being ‘motivated’ […] It’s up to them to discover what they’re being made to serve.
There are ways to resist control. Some people demand more privacy or digital rights. Others opt out selectively – logging off, turning off, refusing to be nudged. Some look to art as a way of resisting its smooth grip. These acts – however small – may offer what Deleuze and his collaborator, the French psychiatrist and philosopher Félix Guattari, called lines of flight: creative ways to move not just against control, but beyond it.
The real message of Postscript, however, is its invitation to consider a timeless perspective. Any society must have a way to make people useful. So, what kind of society do we want? What kinds of restrictions are we willing to live under? And, crucial to this current age, how explicit should control be?
Cameron Shackell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Parker, Adjunct Fellow, Naval Studies at UNSW Canberra, and Expert Associate, National Security College, Australian National University
After lobbying by US President Donald Trump, NATO leaders have promised to boost annual defence spending to 5% of their countries’ gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035.
United in the face of profound security threats and challenges, in particular the long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security and the persistent threat of terrorism, allies commit to invest 5% of GDP annually on core defence requirements as well as defence-and security-related spending by 2035.
This development comes at a tricky time for the Albanese government. It has so far batted away suggestions Australia should increase its defence spending from current levels of around 2% of gross domestic product (GDP), or almost A$59 billion per year (and projected to reach 2.33% of GDP by 2033–34). Trump has called on Australia to increase this to about 3.5%.
With this NATO agreement, global security deteriorating and defence capability gaps obvious, pressure is mounting on the Australian government to increase defence spending further.
Pressure from Trump
A long‑time critic of NATO, Trump and his key officials have castigated NATO’s readiness and spending.
Meanwhile, Russia’s war on Ukraine, now in its fourth year, and a spate of suspected Russian sabotage across Europe have sharpened concerns about allied preparedness.
Against this backdrop, the NATO summit saw Trump publicly reaffirms US commitment to the alliance, and European members pledged to lift defence spending.
What exactly did NATO promise and why?
The headlines say NATO members agreed to increase annual defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035.
In fact, the actual agreement is more nuanced.
The summit communique, notably shorter than in previous years, broke the pledge down into two parts.
The first is 3.5% of GDP on what is considered traditional defence spending: ships, tanks, bullets, people and so on.
The second part – the remaining 1.5% of GDP – is to
Exactly what strategic resilience initiatives this money will be spent on is up to the individual member nation.
It might be tempting to paint NATO’s commitment to increased defence spending as evidence of European NATO partners bowing to US political pressure.
But it’s more than that. It is a direct response to the increased threat posed by Russia to Europe, and perhaps an insurance policy against any doubts European NATO partners may have about the US reliability and enduring commitment to the 76-year-old alliance between the US and Europe.
However, not all countries are keen on the defence spending commitment, with notable reservations from Spain and Belgium.
These two countries are yet to meet NATO’s 2014 commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence.
What’s all this mean for Australia?
The commitment to hike NATO defence spending will have an indirect impact on Australia’s own beleaguered defence spending debate.
As mentioned, Australia’s main strategic ally – the US – has pressured Australia to hike defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, up from around 2.02% of GDP this financial year (which the government projects will reach 2.33% by 2033–34).
Australia is not the only Indo-Pacific partner being pushed to spend more on defence. Japan is too.
This is consistent with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Shangri-La speech in May, when he urged Asian allies to step up on defence spending, pointing to Europe as the model.
The NATO announcement will likely embolden the US to apply greater pressure on the Australia to increase defence spending.
Trump’s strategy towards NATO has clearly been to sow ambiguity in the minds of European countries as to the US’ commitment to NATO, to get them to come to the table on defence spending.
This may well be a future Australia faces, too. It could mean a bumpy road ahead for Australia and its most crucial alliance partner.
Where to from here?
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said Australia will determine its own level of defence spending, and that arbitrary GDP limits are unhelpful. Defence spending, he argues, should be based on capability needs, not demands from allies.
And he is right, to a point.
That said, allies have a right to have an expectation all parties in the alliance are holding up their end of the bargain.
Australian defence spending should be based on the capabilities it needs to resource its stated defence strategy and defend its core interests. Currently, in my view, Australia’s defence capability does not match its current strategy.
There are clear gaps in Australia’s defence capabilities, including:
its aged naval capability
a lack of mine warfare, replenishment and survey capabilities
a limited ability to protect critical infrastructure against missile attack
space capabilities.
These are key risks, at the moment of possibly most significant strategic circumstances since the second world war.
In the event of a major crisis or conflict in the region, Australia would not presently be able to defend itself for a prolonged period. To address this requires structural reform and defence investment.
In response to this week’s NATO announcement, Defence Minister Richard Marles said:
We have gone about the business of not chasing a number, but thinking about what is our capability need, and then resourcing it.
During the election campaign both the prime minister and defence minister left the door open to increasing defence spending.
The real unknown is how long it will take to make it happen, and how much damage it may do in the meantime to Australia’s relationship with the US and overall defence-preparedness.
Jennifer Parker is affiliated with UNSW Canberra and ANU’s National Security College.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Bloomberg, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Te Kura Ngahere-New Zealand School of Forestry, University of Canterbury
The biggest environmental problems for commercial plantation forestry in New Zealand’s steep hill country are discharges of slash (woody debris left behind after logging) and sediment from clear-fell harvests.
During the past 15 years, there have been 15 convictions of forestry companies for slash and sediment discharges into rivers, on land and along the coastline.
Such discharges are meant to be controlled by the National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry, which set environmental rules for forestry activities such as logging roads and clear-fell harvesting. The standards are part of the Resource Management Act (RMA), which the government is reforming.
We believe the proposed changes fail to address the core reasons for slash and sediment discharges.
We recently analysed five convictions of forestry companies under the RMA for illegal discharges. Based on this analysis, which has been accepted for publication in the New Zealand Journal of Forestry, we argue that the standards should set limits to the size and location of clear-felling areas on erosion-susceptible land.
Why the courts convicted 5 forestry companies
In the aftermath of destructive storms in the Gisborne district during June 2018, five forestry companies were convicted for breaches of the RMA for discharges of slash and sediment from their clear-fell harvesting operations. These discharges resulted from landslides and collapsed earthworks (including roads).
There has been a lot of criticism of forestry’s performance during these storms and subsequent events such as Cyclone Gabrielle. However, little attention has been given to why the courts decided to convict the forestry companies for breaches of the RMA.
The courts’ decisions clearly explain why the sediment and slash discharges happened, why the forestry companies were at fault, and what can be done to prevent these discharges in future on erosion-prone land.
New Zealand’s plantation forest land is ranked for its susceptibility to erosion using a four-colour scale, from green (low) to red (very high). Because of the high erosion susceptibility, additional RMA permissions (consents) for earthworks and harvesting are required on red-ranked areas.
This map shows areas with the highest and lowest susceptibility to erosion. David Palmer/Te Uru Rākau, CC BY-SA
New Zealand-wide, only 7% of plantation forests are on red land. A further 17% are on orange (high susceptibility) land. But in the Gisborne district, 55% of commercial forests are on red land. This is why trying to manage erosion is such a problem in Gisborne’s forests.
Key findings from the forestry cases
In all five cases, the convicted companies had consents from the Gisborne District Council to build logging roads and clear-fell large areas covering hundreds or even thousands of hectares.
A significant part of the sediment and slash discharges originated from landslides that were primed to occur after the large-scale clear-fell harvests. But since the harvests were lawful, these landslides were not relevant to the decision to convict.
Instead, all convictions were for compliance failures where logging roads and log storage areas collapsed or slash was not properly disposed of, even though these only partly contributed to the collective sediment and slash discharges downstream.
The court concluded that:
Clear-fell harvesting on land highly susceptible to erosion required absolute compliance with resource consent conditions. Failures to correctly build roads or manage slash contributed to slash and sediment discharges downstream.
Even with absolute compliance, clear-felling on such land was still risky. This was because a significant portion of the discharges were due to the lawful activity of cutting down trees and removing them, leaving the land vulnerable to landslides and other erosion.
The second conclusion is critical. It means that even if forestry companies are fully compliant with the standards and consents, slash and sediment discharges can still happen after clear-felling. And if this happens, councils can require companies to clean up these discharges and prevent them from happening again.
This is not a hypothetical scenario. Recently, the Gisborne District Council successfully applied to the Environment Court for enforcement orders requiring clean-up of slash deposits and remediation of harvesting sites. If the forestry companies fail to comply, they can be held in contempt of court.
A typical scale of clear-felling affected by the June 2018 storms. Murry Cave/Gisborne District Council, CC BY-SA
Regulations are not just red tape
This illustrates a major problem with the standards that applies to erosion-susceptible forest land everywhere in New Zealand, not just in the Gisborne district. Regulations are not just “red tape”. They provide certainty to businesses that as long as they are compliant, their activities should be free from legal prosecution and enforcement.
The courts’ decisions and council enforcement actions show that forestry companies can face considerable legal risk, even if compliant with regulatory requirements for earthworks and harvesting.
Clear-felled forests on erosion-prone land are one bad rainstorm away from disaster. But with well planned, careful harvesting of small forest areas, this risk can be kept at a tolerable level.
However, the standards and the proposed amendments do not require small clear-fell areas on erosion-prone land. If this shortcoming is not fixed, communities and ecosystems will continue to bear the brunt of the discharges from large-scale clear-fell harvests.
To solve this problem, the standards must proactively limit the size and location of clear-felling areas on erosion-prone land. This will address the main cause of catastrophic slash and sediment discharges from forests, protecting communities and ecosystems. And it will enable forestry companies to plan their harvests with greater confidence that they will not be subject to legal action.
Mark Bloomberg receives funding from the government’s Envirolink fund and from local authorities and forestry companies. He is a member of the NZ Institute of Forestry and the NZ Society of Soil Science.
Steve Urlich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew B. Watkins, Associate research scientist, School of Earth, Atmopshere & Environment, Monash University
Andrew Watkins
How often do you mow your lawn in winter? That may seem like an odd way to start a conversation about drought. But the answer helps explain why our current drought has not broken, despite recent rain – and why spring lamb may be more expensive this year.
Southern Australia has been short of rain for 16 months. Western Victoria, the agricultural regions of South Australia (including Adelaide) and even parts of western Tasmania are suffering record dry conditions. Those rainfall measurements began in 1900 (126 years ago).
Large parts of southeastern Australia have experienced the lowest rainfall on record over the past 16 months. Serious deficiency means among the driest 10% of such periods on record, Severe deficiency means among the driest 5%. Bureau of Meteorology
Fewer and less intense rain-bearing weather systems have been crossing the southern coastline since February 2024, compared to normal. Put simply, the land has not received enough big dumps of rain.
But June has finally brought rain to some drought-affected regions. There’s even an emerald green tinge to the fields in certain agricultural areas. But it’s now too cold for plants to really grow fast, meaning farmers will be carting hay and buying extra feed for livestock until the weather warms in spring.
Lambs in the Adelaide Hills have little to eat without extra feed. Saskia Jones
Too little, too late
This month, some areas received good rainfall – including places near Melbourne and, to a lesser degree, Adelaide. City people may be forgiven for thinking the drought has broken and farmers are rejoicing. But drought is not that simple.
Unfortunately, the rainfall was inconsistent, especially further inland. The coastal deluge in parts of southern Australia in early June didn’t extend far north. Traditionally, the start of the winter crop-growing season is marked by 25mm of rain over three days – a so-called “autumn break”. But many areas didn’t receive the break this year.
The lack of rain (meteorological drought) compounded the lack of water in the soil for crops and pasture (agricultural drought). Parts of Western Australia, SA, Victoria, Tasmania and southern New South Wales had little moisture left in their soils. So some rain is quickly soaked up as it drains into deeper soils.
In late May and early June, and again this week, there have been winter dust storms in SA. Such dust storms are a bad sign of how dry the ground has become.
Some regions no longer have enough water to fill rivers and dams (hydrological drought). Water restrictions have been introduced in parts of southwest Victoria and Tasmania. The bureau’s streamflow forecast does not look promising.
The landscape near Mortlake in western Victoria was still dry in late May. Typically the autumn break (first post-summer rain event of more than 25 mm) occurs here by early May. Andrew Watkins
A green drought
Remember that lawn mowing analogy? The winter chill has already set in across the south. This means it’s simply too cold for any vigorous new grass growth, and why you are not mowing your lawn very often at the moment.
Cool temperatures, rather than just low rainfall, also limit pasture growth. While from a distance the rain has added an emerald sheen to some of the landscape, it’s often just a green tinge. Up close, it’s clear there is very limited new growth.
Rather than abundant and vigorous new shoots, there’s just a little bit of green returning to surviving grasses. This means there’s very limited feed for livestock. To make matters worse, sometimes the green comes from better-adapted winter weeds.
There will be a lot of hay carting, regardless of rainfall, until spring when the soils start to warm up once again and new growth returns. This all adds up to fewer stock kept in paddocks or a big extra cost in time and money for farmers – and ultimately, a more expensive spring lamb barbecue.
Is this climate change?
Southern Australia (southern WA, SA, Tasmania, Victoria and southern NSW) used to experience almost weekly rain events in autumn and early winter. Cold fronts and deep low-pressure systems rolling in from the west brought the bulk of the rainfall.
Now there is a far more sporadic pattern in these regions. Rainfall in the April to October crop and pasture growing season has declined by around 10–20% since the middle of last century. The strongest drying trend is evident during the crucial months between April and July.
Further reductions in southern growing season rainfall are expected by the end of this century, especially in southwestern Australia. Southeastern regions, including southern Victoria, parts of SA and northern Tasmania, also show a consistent drying trend, with a greater time spent in drought every decade.
Drought is complex. Just because it’s raining doesn’t always mean it has rained enough, or at the right time, or in the right place. To make matters worse, a green drought can even deceive us into thinking everything is fine.
Breaking the meteorological drought will require consistent rainfall over several months. Breaking the agricultural drought will also require more warmth in the soils. Outlooks suggest we may have to wait for spring.
This article includes scientific contributions from David Jones and Pandora Hope from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Ailie Gallant receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Environmental Science Program Climate Systems Hub.
Pallavi Goswami works at Monash University. She receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program, Climate Systems Hub.
Andrew B. Watkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Olver, Adjunct Professsor, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide
From July, eligible Australians will be screened for lung cancer as part of the nation’s first new cancer screening program for almost 20 years.
The program aims to detect lung cancer early, before symptoms emerge and cancer spreads. This early detection and treatment is predicted to save lives.
Why lung cancer?
Lung cancer is Australia’s fifth most diagnosed cancer but causes the greatest number of cancer deaths.
It’s more common in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, rural and remote Australians, and lower income groups than in the general population.
Overall, less than one in five patients with lung cancer will survive five years. But for those diagnosed when the cancer is small and has not spread, two-thirds of people survive five years.
Who is eligible?
The lung cancer screening program only targets people at higher risk of lung cancer, based on their smoking history and their age. This is different to a population-wide screening program, such as screening for bowel cancer, which is based on age alone.
The lung cancer program screens people 50-70 years old with no signs or symptoms of lung cancer such as breathlessness, a persisting cough, coughing up blood, chest pain, becoming very tired or losing weight.
To be eligible, current smokers must also have a history of at least 30 “pack years”. To calculate this you multiply the number of packets (of 20 cigarettes) you smoke a day by the number of years you’ve been smoking them.
For instance, if you smoke one packet (20 cigarettes) a day for a year that is one pack year. Smoking two packets a day for six months (half a year) is also a pack year.
People who have quit smoking in the past ten years but have accumulated 30 or more pack years before quitting are also eligible.
Ask your GP or health worker if you are eligible. If you are, you will be referred for a low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan. This uses much lower doses of x-rays than a regular CT but is enough to find nodules in the lung. These are small lumps which could be clumps of cancer cells, inflammatory cells or scarring from old infections.
Imaging involves lying on a table for 10-15 minutes while the scanner takes images of your chest. So people must also be able to lie flat in a scanner to be part of the program.
After the scan, the results are sent to you, your GP and the National Cancer Screening Register. You’ll be contacted if the scan is normal and will then be reminded in two years’ time to screen again.
If your scan has findings that need to be followed, you will be sent back to your GP who may arrange a further scan in three to 12 months.
If lung cancer is suspected, you will be referred to a lung specialist for further tests.
What are the benefits and risks?
Internationaltrials show screening people at high risk of lung cancer reduces their chance of dying prematurely from it, and the benefits outweigh any harm.
The risks of radiation exposure are minimised by using low-dose CT screening.
The other greatest risk is a false positive. This is where the imaging suggests cancer, but further tests rule it out. This varies across studies from almost one in ten to one in two of those having their first scan. If imaging suggests cancer, this usually requires a repeat scan. But about one in 100 of those whose imaging suggests cancer but were later found not to have it have invasive biopsies. This involves taking a sample of the nodule to see if it contains cancerous cells.
Some people will be diagnosed with a cancer that will never cause a problem in their lifetime, for instance because it is slow growing or they are likely to die of other illnesses first. This so-called overdiagnosis varies from none to two-thirds of lung cancers diagnosed, depending on the study.
The Australian government has earmarked A$264 million over four years to screen for lung cancer, and $101 million a year after that.
The initial GP consultation will be free if your GP bulk bills, or if not you may be charged an out-of-pocket fee for the consultation. This may be a barrier to the uptake of screening. Subsequent investigations and consultations will be billed as usual.
There will be no cost for the low-dose CT scans.
What should I do?
If you are 50-70 and a heavy smoker see your GP about screening for lung cancer. But the greater gain in terms of reducing your risk of lung cancer is to also give up smoking.
If you’ve already given up smoking, you’ve already reduced your risk of lung cancer. However, since lung cancer can take several years to develop or show on a CT scan, see your GP if you were once a heavy smoker but have quit in the past ten years to see if you are eligible for screening.
This is the first article in our ‘Finding lung cancer’ series, which explores Australia’s first new cancer screening program in almost 20 years.
More information about the program is available. If you need support to quit smoking, call Quitline on 13 78 48.
Ian Olver receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Associate Professor, New Testament, & Director of The Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy, University of Divinity
Wars are often waged in the name of religion. So what do key texts from Christianity, Islam and Judaism say about the justification for war?
We asked three experts for their views.
The Bible
Robyn J. Whitaker, University of Divinity
The Bible presents war as an inevitable reality of human life. This is captured in the cry of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes:
for everything there is a season […] a time for war and a time for peace.
In this sense, the Bible reflects the experiences of the authors and communities who shaped the texts over more than a thousand years as they experienced both victory and defeat as a small nation among the large empires of the ancient near east.
When it comes to God’s role in war, we cannot shirk from the problematic violence associated with the divine. At times, God orders the Hebrew people to go to war and enact horrendous violence. Deuteronomy 20 is a good example of this: God’s people are sent to war with the blessing of the priest but told to first offer terms of peace. If peace terms are accepted, the town is enslaved. Certain enemies, however, are decreed worthy of total annihilation, and the Hebrew army is commanded to destroy anyone and anything that doesn’t produce food.
On other occasions, war is interpreted as a tool, a punishment where God uses foreign nations against the Hebrew people because they have gone astray (Judges 2:14). You can also find an underlying ethic to treat the captives of war justly. Moses commands that women captured in war are to be treated as wives, not slaves (Deuteronomy 21), and in 2 Chronicles, captives are allowed to return home.
In contrast to war as divinely authorised, many of the Hebrew prophets express hope in a time where God will bring peace and people will “neither learn war any more” (Micah 3:4) but rather turn their weapons into tools for agriculture (Isaiah 2:4).
War is viewed as a result of human sinfulness, something that God will ultimately transform into peace. And that peace (Hebrew: shalom) is more than an absence of war. It is about human flourishing and unity between peoples and God.
Most of the New Testament was written during the first century CE, when Jews and emerging Christians were a minority within the Roman Empire. The military power of Rome is harshly critiqued as evil in resistance texts such as the Book of Revelation. Many early Christians refused to fight in the Roman army.
In this context, Jesus says nothing specific about war but generally rejects violence. When Jesus’s disciple Peter seeks to defend him with a sword, Jesus tells him to put away his sword because a sword only leads to more violence (Matthew 26:52). This is consistent with Jesus’s other teachings such as “blessed are the peacemakers” or his commands to “turn the other cheek” when struck or to “love your enemies”.
The reality is that we find various war ideologies in the Bible’s pages. If you want to find a justification for war in the Bible, you can. If you want to find a justification for peace or pacifism, that is there too. Later Christians would develop ideas of “just war” and pacifism based on biblical ideas, but these are developments rather than explicit within the Bible.
For Christians, Jesus’s teaching provides an ethical framework for interpreting earlier war texts through the lens of love for enemies. This counterpoint to divine violence and war points readers back to the prophets, whose hopeful visions imagine a world where violence and suffering are no more and peace is possible.
The Quran
Mehmet Ozalp, Charles Sturt University
Islam and Muslims emerged onto the world stage in the hostile environment of the seventh century. In response to major challenges, including warfare, Islam introduced pioneering legal and ethical reforms. The Quran and the Prophet Muhammad’s example laid out clear legal and ethical guidelines for the conduct of war, well before similar frameworks appeared in other societies.
Islam did this by defining a new term, “jihad” rather than the usual Arabic word for war, “harb”. While harb refers broadly to warfare, jihad was defined within Islamic teachings as a legal, morally justified struggle, which includes but is not limited to armed conflict. In the context of warfare, jihad refers specifically to fighting in a just cause under clear legal and ethical guidelines, rather than belligerent or aggressive warfare.
Between 610-622, Prophet Muhammad practised active non-violence in the face of the constant suffering, persecution and economic embargo he and his followers endured in Mecca, despite insistent approaches by his followers to take up arms. This showed that armed struggle cannot be taken up within the members of the same society, as this would lead to anarchy.
After leaving his home town to escape persecution, he established a pluralistic and multi-faith society in Medina. He took active steps to sign treaties with neighbouring tribes. Despite following a deliberate strategy of peace and diplomacy, the hostile Meccans and allied tribes attacked the Muslims in Medina. Engaging these attackers in an armed struggle was unavoidable.
The permission to fight was given to Muslims by the Quran verses 22:39-40:
The believers against whom war is waged are given permission to fight in response, for they have been wronged. Surely, God has full power to help them to victory. Those who have been driven from their homeland against all right, for no other reason than that they say, “Our Lord is God” […]
This passage not only permits armed struggle but also offers a moral justification for just war. It means war is clearly just when defensive — while aggression is unjust and condemned. Elsewhere, the Quran emphasises this point:
If they withdraw from you and do not fight against you, and offer you peace, then God allows you no way (to war) against them.
Verse 22:39 outlines two ethical justifications for warfare. The first is when people are driven from their homes (and land) – in other words, through occupation by a foreign power. The second is when people are attacked because of their beliefs to the point of violent persecution and attack.
Importantly, verse 22:40 includes churches, monasteries and synagogues. If believers in God do not defend themselves, all places of worship would be destroyed, so this is to be prevented by force if necessary.
The Quran does not allow for aggression, since “God loves not the aggressors” (2:190). It also provides detailed regulations on who is to fight and who is exempted (9:91); when hostilities must cease (2:193); and prisoners should be treated humanely and with fairness (47:4).
Verses such as 2:294 emphasise that warfare and any response to violence and aggression must be proportional and within limits:
Whoever attacks you, attack them in like manner as they attacked you. Nevertheless, fear God and remain within the bounds.
In the event of unavoidable war, every opportunity to end it must be pursued:
But if the enemy inclines towards peace, then you must also incline towards peace and trust in God.
The aim of military action is to end hostilities and remove the reason for warfare, not to humiliate or annihilate the enemy.
Military jihad cannot be pursued for personal ambition or to further nationalistic or ethnic disputes. Muslims cannot wage war on nations that have no hostility towards them (60:8). But if there is open hostility and attack, Muslims have a right to defend themselves.
The Prophet and the early caliphs specifically warned military leaders and all combatants that they must not act treacherously or engage in indiscriminate killing and pillage. He said:
Do not kill women, children, the elderly, or the sick. Do not destroy palm trees or burn houses.
Because of these teachings, Muslims have had legal and ethical guidelines throughout much of history to help limit human suffering caused by war.
The Torah
Suzanne D. Rutland, University of Sydney
Judaism is not a pacifist religion, but in its traditions it values peace above all else, and prayers for peace are central to Jewish liturgy. At the same time, there is a recognition of the need to fight defensive wars, but only within certain boundaries.
In the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, the recognition of the need for war is clear. Throughout their journeying in the desert, the Israelites (Children of Israel) fight various battles. At the same time, in Deuteronomy, the Israelites are instructed (chapter 12, verse 10):
When you go forth against your enemies and are in camp, then you should keep yourself from every evil thing.
The story of Amalek is the symbol of ultimate evil in Jewish tradition. Scholars argue this is because his army attacked the Israelites from the rear – killing defenceless women and children.
The Torah also stresses that army service is compulsory. Yet, Deuteronomy elaborates four categories of people who are exempt:
someone who has built a home but has not yet dedicated it
someone who has planted a vineyard but has not yet eaten of its fruit
someone who is engaged or in his first year of marriage
someone who is afraid, in case he influences other soldiers with his fear.
Judaism is not a pacifist religion, but in its traditions it values peace above all else. Shutterstock
It is important to point out that the disdain of war is so strong that King David was not permitted to build the temple in Jerusalem because of his military career. His son, Solomon, was allocated this task, but no iron was to be used in the building because this represented war and violence, while the temple was to represent peace, the ideal virtue.
The vision of peace for all humanity is further developed in the prophetic writings and the concept of the Messiah. This is seen particularly in the writings of the prophet Isiah, who envisaged an age when, as he describes in his idyllic vision:
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
The Mishnah, the first part of the Talmud, raises the concept of an “obligatory war” (milhemet mizvah). This encompasses the biblical wars against the seven nations said to inhabit the Promised Land, the war against Amalek, and the Jewish nation’s defensive wars. It is, accordingly, a clearly defined and recognisable class.
Not so the second category, “permitted war” (milhemet reshut), which is more open-ended and, as scholar Avi Ravitsky writes, “could relate to a preemptive war”.
After the Talmudic period, which ended in the 7th century, this debate became theoretical, since Jews living in Palestine and the diaspora no longer had an army. This was largely the case from the time of the defeat of the Bar Kokhba Rebellion against the Romans (132–135 CE), apart from a few small Jewish kingdoms in Arabia.
However, with the return of the early Zionist pioneers to the Land of Israel in the late 19th and 20th century, the rabbinic debates of what constitutes an obligatory, defensive war and what is a permitted war, as well as the characteristics of a forbidden war has reignited. This is a subject of deep concern and controversy for both academics and rabbis today.
Robyn J. Whitaker is affiliated with The Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy.
Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy
Suzanne Rutland has received an Australian Research Council grant for her research on the Australian Jewry and funding from the Pratt Foundation, as well as an Australian Prime Ministers Centre (APMC) fellowship for her research on Soviet Jewry and Australia. She is also involved with numerous NGOs, including the Australian Jewish Historical Society (patron), the Australian Association for Jewish Studies (past president and committee member), and the Australian government’s expert delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. In addition, she is a board member of the Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry at ANU; she is on an academic advisory committee at the Sydney Jewish Museum; she is the director of the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism; and she is an Australian board member for Boys Town Jerusalem and a board member of Better Balance Futures for faith communities These roles are all undertaken in an honorary capacity. She is also writing the history of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in an honorary capacity.
The Albanese government devoted time and energy in its first term to developing a wellbeing agenda for the economy and society.
It was a passion project of Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who wanted better ways to measure national welfare beyond traditional economic indicators such as growth, jobs and inflation.
Chalmers developed the Measuring What Matters framework to try to better align economic, social and environmental goals as
part of a deliberate effort to put people and progress, fairness and opportunity at the very core of our thinking about our economy and our society.
As Labor settles into its second term, what has happened to its wellbeing agenda? And how much was a poor consultation process to blame for it apparently falling by the wayside?
Measuring What Matters
Measuring What Matters was badged as a wellbeing framework to improve the lives of Australians and help better inform policy-making across all levels of government.
There was also a standalone indicator on life satisfaction.
The data is updated annually by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, with the Treasury due to report on outcomes every three years.
The first Measuring What Matters statement in 2023 showed improvements across some indicators, such as life expectancy, job opportunities and accepting diversity. But it also revealed higher rates of chronic illness and problems with housing affordability.
The fanfare surrounding the release has since fizzled, and wellbeing is now seldom mentioned.
Furthermore, there is little evidence insights have been taken up by the government. The Australian National Audit Office recently noted the challenge of embedding Measuring What Matters in policy, as well as the absence of any evaluation work to gauge its effectiveness.
The wellbeing agenda appears to have been sidelined for two reasons: an insufficient consultation process to properly develop the framework, and the cost-of-living crisis.
Poor consultation
Wellbeing frameworks have high potential to impact policy. But they need to be developed and implemented in the right way.
One crucial factor is adequate community engagement, which would have helped ensure accurate representation of what people truly value in terms of wellbeing. Done properly, it could also have secured buy-in from the community, depoliticised the initiative, and even strengthened democracy.
But adequate time was not taken to get the consultation process right, with the government in a rush to release Measuring What Matters. Announced in the October 2022 Budget, two consultation phases were undertaken.
The first, mainly with technical experts, took three months. The second, which sought feedback from individuals and community groups, was even shorter. It was over in just one month.
Measuring What Matters was released shortly after, in July 2023.
Our research, recently published in the Australian Journal of Social Issues, analysed the public consultation phase. We found it was inadequate across four areas.
Comprehensiveness: the timeframe for phase two was too short to allow organisations and communities to meaningfully engage.
Reach: there was limited engagement with the general public.
Transparency: the community was not informed how feedback would be incorporated in the framework and no consultation report was published.
Genuineness: while some feedback was incorporated in the framework, key topics raised in the consultation were not acted on, including greater involvement of First Nations people.
Greater community engagement would have ensured the framework, and any policy it produced, better reflected what Australians value for their wellbeing. It would have also promoted people’s ownership of the framework, helping to foster greater understanding and support for the initiative.
Although Measuring What Matters is now established, it is not too late to realise proper community engagement.
Taboo subject
The other factor to run interference was the cost-of-living crisis, which dominated the government’s first term.
We can draw some inspiration from an alliance of countries, including New Zealand, Scotland, Finland, Iceland and Wales, which have at various times put people’s wellbeing at the forefront of policy development and evaluation.
Perhaps if the Albanese government had leaned in to its own wellbeing framework to help navigate the cost-of-living crisis, people may have fared better.
The agenda’s future?
The Albanese government’s large majority gives it space to revitalise its wellbeing framework.
Undertaking a national conversation, similar to the one rolled out in Wales, would help build grassroots support and ensure it truly “measures what matters” to people.
A stronger Measuring What Matters would not only provide the electorate with a clear indication the government is listening, but would also help ensure policy improves people’s lives in a meaningful way.
Kate Sollis is a consultant to the Wellbeing Government initiative at the Centre for Policy Development and President of the Bega Valley Data Collective. She was previously employed at the Australian Bureau of Statistics
Paul Campbell is a research fellow, whose work is supported by the ANU-Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government Wellbeing Framework research partnership. He was previously employed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Nicholas Drake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In less than a decade, Korean TV dramas (K-dramas) have transmuted from a regional industry to a global phenomenon – partly a consequence of the rise of streaming giants.
But foreign audiences may not realise the K-dramas they’ve seen on Netflix don’t accurately represent the broader Korean TV landscape, which is much wider and richer than these select offerings.
At the same time, there are many challenges in bringing this wide array of content to the rest of the world.
The rise of hallyu
Korean media was transformed during the 1990s. The end of military dictatorship led to the gradual relaxation of censorship.
Satellite media also allowed the export of K-dramas and films to the rest of East Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia. Some of the first K-dramas to become popular overseas included What Is Love (1991–92) and Star in My Heart (1997). They initiated what would later become known as the Korean wave, or hallyu.
The hallyu expansion continued with Winter Sonata (2003), which attracted viewers in Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Dae Jang Geum/Jewel in the Palace (2005) resonated strongly in Chinese-speaking regions, and was ultimately exported to more than 80 countries.
A breakthrough occurred in 2016. Netflix entered South Korea and began investing in Korean productions, beginning with Kingdom (2019–21) and Love Alarm (2019–21).
In 2021, the global hit Squid Game was released simultaneously in 190 countries.
But Netflix only scratches the surface
Last year, only 20% of new K-drama releases were available on Western streaming platforms. This means global discussions about K-dramas are based on a limited subgroup of content promoted to viewers outside South Korea.
Moreover, foreign viewers will generally evaluate this content based on Western conceptions of culture and narrative. They may, for instance, have Western preferences for genre and themes, or may disregard locally-specific contexts.
This is partly why Korean and foreign audiences can end up with very different ideas of what “Korean” television is.
Genres
When a K-drama is classified as a sageuk (historical drama) but also incorporates elements of fantasy, mythology, romance, melodrama, crime fiction and/or comedy, foreign audiences may dismiss it as “genre-confused”. Or, they may praise it for its “genre-blending”.
But the drama may not have been created with much attention to genre at all. The highly inventive world-building of pre-Netflix dramas such as Arang and the Magistrate (2012) and Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016) prominently feature all the aforementioned genres.
While foreign viewers may think visual media begins with readily identifiable genres, many K-dramas aren’t produced on this premise.
Themes
Western viewers (and other viewers watching through a Western lens) might assume “liberal” themes such as systemic injustice, women’s rights and collusion in politics entered K-dramas as a result of Western influence. But this is a misconception.
The emergence of such themes can be attributed to various changes in Korean society, including the easing of censorship, rapid modernisation, and the imposition ofneoliberal economics by the International Monetary Fund in 1997.
Although gender disparities still exist in South Korea, economic uncertainty and modernisation have prompted a deconstruction of patriarchal value systems. Female-centred K-dramas have been around since at least the mid-2000s, with women’s independence as a recurring theme in more recent dramas.
Local contexts
A major barrier to exporting K-dramas is the cultural specificity of certain elements, such as Confucian values, hierarchical family dynamics, gender codes, and Korean speech codes.
The global success of a K-drama comes down to how well its culturally-specific elements can be adapted for different contexts and audiences.
In some cases, these elements may be minimised, or entirely missed, by foreign viewers.
For example, in Squid Game, the words spoken by the killer doll in the first game are subtitled as “green light, red light”. What the doll actually says is “mugunghwa-kkochi pieot-seumnida”, which is also what the game is called in Korean.
This translates to “the mugunghwa (Rose of Saron) has bloomed”, with mugunghwa being South Korea’s national flower.
These words, in this context, are meant to ironically redefine South Korea as a site of hopelessness and death. But the subtitles erase this double meaning.
It’s also difficult for subtitles to reflect nuanced Korean honorific systems of address. As such, foreign viewers remain largely oblivious to the subtle power dynamics at play between characters.
All of this leads to a kind of cultural “flattening”, shifting foreign viewers’ focus to so-called universal themes.
A case study for global success
Nevertheless, foreign viewers can still engage with many culturally-specific elements in K-dramas, which can also serve as cultural literacy.
The hugely successful series Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022) explores the personal and professional challenges faced by an autistic lawyer.
Director Yoo In-sik described the series as distinctly Korean in both its humour and the legal system it portrays, and said he didn’t anticipate its widespread popularity.
Following success in South Korea, the series was acquired by Netflix and quickly entered the top 10 most popular non-English language shows.
The global appeal can be attributed to its sensitive portrayal of the protagonist, the problem-solving theme across episodes, and what Yoo describes as a kind and considerate tone. Viewers who resonate with these qualities may not even need to engage with the Korean elements.
Many K-dramas that achieve global success also feature elements typically considered “Western”, such as zombies.
While the overall number of zombie-themed productions is low, series and films such as Kingdom (2019–21), All of Us Are Dead (2022), Alive (2020) and Train to Busan (2016) have helped put Korean content on the map.
One potential effect of the zombie popularity may be the displacement of Korean mythological characters, such as fox spirits, or gumiho, which have traditionally held significant narrative space.
Shin Min-ah and Lee Seung-gi star in the acclaimed romantic comedy series My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (2010). IMDB
Local production under threat
The influence of streaming giants such as Netflix is impacting South Korea’s local production systems.
The early vision of low-cost, high-return projects such as Squid Game is rapidly diminishing.
Meanwhile, Netflix is exploring other locations, such as Japan, where dramas can be produced for about half the price of those in Korea. If this continues, the rise of Korean content may slow down.
Sung-Ae Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Harrison, Director, Master of Business Administration Program (MBA); Co-Director, Better Consumption Lab, Deakin University
It’s quite unsettling to discover something so central to our cultural rituals – the “slop” in the Aussie mantra of “Slip! Slop! Slap!” – can no longer be trusted.
We’ve never really had to scrutinise sunscreen. We slop it on because Sid the Seagull (in his role as spokesbird for the Cancer Council) told us to. We’ve learned about sun protection factors (SPF) and made choices to protect ourselves. We do it because it works.
Or so we thought.
Consumer group Choice recently tested 20 sunscreen brands and found only four met their labelled SPF claims. The findings have shaken consumers’ trust in the brands that make these products, and perhaps, in the institutions responsible for regulating them.
Trust is the silent architecture of our lives that makes everything from catching a bus to undergoing surgery feel possible. Indeed, we are born into trust. From infancy, we are wired to trust, first in our caregivers, then later in life in the cues and symbols such as endorsements, SPF ratings, brands or rankings that help us navigate a complex world.
The original Sid the Seagull video from the Cancer Council.
The role of power in trust relationships
Trust, and its erosion in public life, has become such a critical issue that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has made it a focus of Friday’s Consumer Congress, titled “Who can we trust? Regulating in an environment of declining consumer trust”.
Something that is often missed in discussions around trust is that it is also a social arrangement, shaped by power and vulnerability. Trust is nearly always asymmetric; those with the least power are usually required to place their trust first and most fully.
The powerful rarely have to reciprocate that vulnerability. They hold the information, set the rules and shape the narrative. When things go wrong, the powerful often walk away relatively unscathed, while the vulnerable are left to navigate complex complaints or refund systems.
Increasingly, we are told to be savvy, to read the fine print and to “do the research”.
But putting the responsibility on the individual reframes structural failures as personal shortcomings. It places the burden of vigilance and scrutiny on people who lack the time or expertise to meaningfully assess risk.
A breach of faith
The issue is compounded by a wider trend across many businesses that have misread their relationship with consumers. Much of our trust in brands is automatic.
We are more inclined to trust claims from familiar or warm-sounding sources, with research showing warmth comes first. People tend to judge others and institutions by their perceived warmth before considering their competence. So a brand that feels benevolent often earns our trust before we assess its actual performance.
Qantas, a brand that built its entire identity around the idea that it was “us”, trashed our trust when it began acting like a transactional retail business, rather than one built on relationships.
Management and the board failed to grasp they had been given something rare: a kind of cultural endearment underpinned by trust and perceived reciprocity that made Australians feel personally invested in its success.
While Qantas does retain market share, the erosion of this emotional bond means many customers are more willing to try its competitors. It will struggle to rebuild that trust simply with price deals or heartstring-tugging ad campaigns.
One of Qantas’ ad campaigns with an emotional appeal to customers.
The response matters
For organisations such as the Cancer Council, whose trustworthiness is built on moral authority, the response to failure matters deeply. Its decision to acknowledge the findings and commit to retesting was more than public relations. It was an act of relational repair.
In contrast, some of the other corporate brands in the survey responded by disputing Choice’s methodology. That reveals an outdated corporate reflex – one that attacks the messenger rather than engaging with the message. This defensive posture reflects a mindset shaped more by legal risk and brand control than by public accountability or ethical responsibility.
Still, individual responses are not enough. We need systems designed with human limits in mind. Trust cannot be sustained if it is constantly tested by complexity, misinformation and opaque accountability.
Consumer bodies such as Choice provide a public service by filling the gap between what people assume and what they can verify. But more broadly, businesses and regulators must treat trust as a relationship, not a marketing goal.
The system needs to prevent harm, not deal with the fallout
Rebuilding trust means putting people at the centre of consumer regulation. A human-centred system does not treat people as problems to be managed. It treats them as participants in a shared moral project. It requires systems grounded in evidence, designed around real human behaviour and focused on preventing harm rather than managing fallout.
One way to do this is through collaborative regulation. This approach brings together consumer representatives, regulators, behavioural experts and industry to design rules and standards that reflect how people actually behave (as opposed to how we hope they behave). This reduces asymmetries of power, and ensures trust is earned and maintained over time.
This collaborative approach has been successfully adopted in local government and health. But it only works when collaboration is approached in good faith by all parties, not just a “tick-the-box” exercise.
Of course, this approach runs counter to a legal system that tends to prioritise the system over the people it serves, and process over outcomes. But the goal shouldn’t be to force better ideas into outdated frameworks. Instead, we should design systems that lead to better outcomes for everyone.
Paul Harrison has received research funding from ASIC, the Consumer Action Law Centre, ACCAN, Victorian Health Association, and the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
A satellite image from Aug. 13, 2024, shows an algal bloom covering approximately 320 square miles (830 square km) of Lake Erie. By Aug. 22, it had nearly doubled in size.NASA Earth Observatory
Federal scientists released their annual forecast for Lake Erie’s harmful algal blooms on June 26, 2025, and they expect a mild to moderate season. However, anyone who comes in contact with toxic algae can face health risks. And 2014, when toxins from algae blooms contaminated the water supply in Toledo, Ohio, was a moderate year, too.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s prediction for harmful algal bloom severity in Lake Erie compared with past years. NOAA
1. What causes harmful algal blooms?
Harmful algal blooms are dense patches of excessive algae growth that can occur in any type of water body, including ponds, reservoirs, rivers, lakes and oceans. When you see them in freshwater, you’re typically seeing cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae.
These photosynthetic bacteria have inhabited our planet for billions of years. In fact, they were responsible for oxygenating Earth’s atmosphere, which enabled plant and animal life as we know it.
The leading source of harmful algal blooms today is nutrient runoff from fertilized farm fields. Michigan Sea Grant
Algae are natural components of ecosystems, but they cause trouble when they proliferate to high densities, creating what we call blooms.
The main sources of harmful algal blooms are excess nutrients in the water, typically phosphorus and nitrogen.
Historically, these excess nutrients mainly came from sewage and phosphorus-based detergents used in laundry machines and dishwashers that ended up in waterways. U.S. environmental laws in the early 1970s addressed this by requiring sewage treatment and banning phosphorus detergents, with spectacular success.
How pollution affected Lake Erie in the 1960s, before clean water regulations.
Today, agriculture is the main source of excess nutrients from chemical fertilizer or manure applied to farm fields to grow crops. Rainstorms wash these nutrients into streams and rivers that deliver them to lakes and coastal areas, where they fertilize algal blooms. In the U.S., most of these nutrients come from industrial-scale corn production, which is largely used as animal feed or to produce ethanol for gasoline.
2. What does your team’s DNA testing tell us about Lake Erie’s harmful algal blooms?
Harmful algal blooms contain a mixture of cyanobacterial species that can produce an array of different toxins, many of which are still being discovered.
These novel molecules cannot be detected with traditional methods and show some signs of causing toxicity, though further studies are needed to confirm their human health effects.
Blue-green algae blooms in freshwater, like this one near Toledo in 2014, can be harmful to humans, causing gastrointestinal symptoms, headache, fever and skin irritation. They can be lethal for pets. Ty Wright for The Washington Post via Getty Images
We also found organisms responsible for producing saxitoxin, a potent neurotoxin that is well known for causing paralytic shellfish poisoning on the Pacific Coast of North America and elsewhere.
Our research suggests warmer water temperatures could boost its production, which raises concerns that saxitoxin will become more prevalent with climate change. However, the controls on toxin production are complex, and more research is needed to test this hypothesis. Federal monitoring programs are essential for tracking and understanding emerging threats.
The toxins can cause acute health problems such as gastrointestinal symptoms, headache, fever and skin irritation. Dogs can die from ingesting lake water with harmful algal blooms. Emerging science suggests that long-term exposure to harmful algal blooms, for example over months or years, can cause or exacerbate chronic respiratory, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems and may be linked to liver cancers, kidney disease and neurological issues.
The water intake system for the city of Toledo, Ohio, is surrounded by an algae bloom in 2014. Toxic algae got into the water system, resulting in residents being warned not to touch or drink their tap water for three days. AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari
In addition to exposure through direct ingestion or skin contact, recent research also indicates that inhaling toxins that get into the air may harm health, raising concerns for coastal residents and boaters, but more research is needed to understand the risks.
The Toledo drinking water crisis of 2014 illustrated the vast potential for algal blooms to cause harm in the Great Lakes. Toxins infiltrated the drinking water system and were detected in processed municipal water, resulting in a three-day “do not drink” advisory. The episode affected residents, hospitals and businesses, and it ultimately cost the city an estimated US$65 million.
4. Blooms seem to be starting earlier in the year and lasting longer – why is that happening?
Warmer waters are extending the duration of the blooms.
Scientific studies of western Lake Erie show that the potential cyanobacterial growth rate has increased by up to 30% and the length of the bloom season has expanded by up to a month from 1995 to 2022, especially in warmer, shallow waters. These results are consistent with our understanding of cyanobacterial physiology: Blooms like it hot – cyanobacteria grow faster at higher temperatures.
5. What can be done to reduce the likelihood of algal blooms in the future?
The best and perhaps only hope of reducing the size and occurrence of harmful algal blooms is to reduce the amount of nutrients reaching the Great Lakes.
In Lake Erie, where nutrients come primarily from agriculture, that means improving agricultural practices and restoring wetlands to reduce the amount of nutrients flowing off of farm fields and into the lake. Early indications suggest that Ohio’s H2Ohio program, which works with farmers to reduce runoff, is making some gains in this regard, but future funding for H2Ohio is uncertain.
In places like Lake Superior, where harmful algal blooms appear to be driven by climate change, the solution likely requires halting and reversing the rapid human-driven increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Gregory J. Dick receives funding for harmful algal bloom research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, the United States Geological Survey, and the National Institutes for Health. He serves on the Science Advisory Council for the Environmental Law and Policy Center.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Brian J. Yanites, Associate Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science. Professor of Surficial and Sedimentary Geology, Indiana University
The Carter Lodge hangs precariously over the flood-scoured bank of the Broad River in Chimney Rock Village, N.C., on May 13, 2025, eight months after Hurricane Helene.AP Photo/Allen G. Breed
Hurricane Helene lasted only a few days in September 2024, but it altered the landscape of the Southeastern U.S. in profound ways that will affect the hazards local residents face far into the future.
Helene was a powerful reminder that natural hazards don’t disappear when the skies clear – they evolve.
These transformations are part of what scientists call cascading hazards. They occur when one natural event alters the landscape in ways that lead to future hazards. A landslide triggered by a storm might clog a river, leading to downstream flooding months or years later. A wildfire can alter the soil and vegetation, setting the stage for debris flows with the next rainstorm.
Satellite images before (top) and after Hurricane Helene (bottom) show how the storm altered landscape near Pensacola, N.C., in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Google Earth, CC BY
I study these disasters as a geomorphologist. In a new paper in the journal Science, I and a team of scientists from 18 universities and the U.S. Geological Survey explain why hazard models – used to help communities prepare for disasters – can’t just rely on the past. Instead, they need to be nimble enough to forecast how hazards evolve in real time.
The science behind cascading hazards
Cascading hazards aren’t random. They emerge from physical processes that operate continuously across the landscape – sediment movement, weathering, erosion. Together, the atmosphere, biosphere and the earth are constantly reshaping the conditions that cause natural disasters.
For instance, earthquakes fracture rock and shake loose soil. Even if landslides don’t occur during the quake itself, the ground may be weakened, leaving it primed for failure during later rainstorms.
A strong aftershock after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province, China, in May 2008 triggered more landslides in central China. AP Photo/Andy Wong
Earth’s surface retains a “memory” of these events. Sediment disturbed in an earthquake, wildfire or severe storm will move downslope over years or even decades, reshaping the landscape as it goes.
These risks present challenges for everything from emergency planning to home insurance. After repeated wildfire-mudslide combinations in California, some insurers pulled out of the state entirely, citing mounting risks and rising costs among the reasons.
Cascading hazards are not new, but their impact is intensifying.
Yet climate change is only part of the equation. Earth processes – such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions – also trigger cascading hazards, often with long-lasting effects.
Mount St. Helens is a powerful example: More than four decades after its eruption in 1980, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to manage ash and sediment from the eruption to keep it from filling river channels in ways that could increase the flood risk in downstream communities.
Rethinking risk and building resilience
Traditionally, insurance companies and disaster managers have estimated hazard risk by looking at past events.
But when the landscape has changed, the past may no longer be a reliable guide to the future. To address this, computer models based on the physics of how these events work are needed to help forecast hazard evolution in real time, much like weather models update with new atmospheric data.
A March 2024 landslide in the Oregon Coast Range wiped out trees in its path. Brian Yanites, June 2025 A drone image of the same March 2024 landslide in the Oregon Coast Range shows where it temporarily dammed the river below. Brian Yanites, June 2025
Thanks to advances in Earth observation technology, such as satellite imagery, drone and lidar, which is similar to radar but uses light, scientists can now track how hillslopes, rivers and vegetation change after disasters. These observations can feed into geomorphic models that simulate how loosened sediment moves and where hazards are likely to emerge next.
Cascading hazards reveal that Earth’s surface is not a passive backdrop, but an active, evolving system. Each event reshapes the stage for the next.
Understanding these connections is critical for building resilience so communities can withstand future storms, earthquakes and the problems created by debris flows. Better forecasts can inform building codes, guide infrastructure design and improve how risk is priced and managed. They can help communities anticipate long-term threats and adapt before the next disaster strikes.
Most importantly, they challenge everyone to think beyond the immediate aftermath of a disaster – and to recognize the slow, quiet transformations that build toward the next.
Brian J. Yanites receives funding from the National Science Foundation.
This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email newsletter. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.
Once again Donald Trump and his senior team are unhappy with their press coverage. Here’s the US president, fresh from his triumph in The Hague, having persuaded Nato’s leaders to open their wallets and agree to up their defence spending to 5% of GDP (apart from Spain, that is, which can expect to hear of triple-digit tariffs coming its way in the near future) – and do the media focus on Trump’s tour de force? Do they hell. Instead they focus on whether his strikes against Iran had been as successful as he claimed.
As you can imagine, this would have been irksome in the extreme for the president, who might reasonably have expected that the story of the day would be his victory in getting pledges from virtually all Nato’s members to pull their weight in terms of their own defence. Certainly the Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte, could appreciate the scale of his achievement. Even before the summit, Rutte was talking it up.
“Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world,” he wrote in a message to Trump as the US president prepared to fly to The Netherlands. “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.”
The fact that Trump promptly posted this message to his TruthSocial website suggests how important praise is to the the US president. It’s something that many world leaders (including Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin who have become past-masters at pouring honey in the president’s ear) have recognised and are willing to use as a diplomatic tool when dealing with the man Rutte calls “Daddy”.
Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.
But while flattery as a tactic seems to be effective with the US president, Andrew Gawthorpe, a political historian from Leiden University, cautions that flattery, appeasement and compliance are a flawed approach when dealing with a man like Trump. For a start, he writes it means that not much actually gets done and that problems are often merely avoided rather than solved.
But more worryingly, simply capitulating in the face of Trumpian pressure or ire risks giving this US president the idea that he can do anything he wants. “When his targets roll over, it sends a message to others that Trump is unstoppable and resistance is futile,” writes Gawthorpe. It encourages not just the next presidential abuse of power, but also the next surrender from its victims.
We got a taste of what the US president’s anger at being defied sounds like as he prepared to fly to The Netherlands for the Nato summit. Asked about the ceasefire he had negotiated between Israel and Iran, he lashed out at both countries who had breached the peace within hours of agreeing to stop firing missiles at each other. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing,” he told reporters as he walked to the presidential helicopter.
Psychologist Geoff Beattie, of Edge Hill University, believes this was no accidental verbal slip. Trump wanted to let the world know how angry he was and chose to use the “f-bomb” as a way of showing it. Beattie looks at what this can tell us about the character of the US president – and how it might reflect a tendency to make rapid decisions based on emotional reactions.
What was remarkable about the Nato summit was that it was condensed to one fairly short session which focused solely on the issue of Nato members’ defence budgets. Usually there’s a much broader agenda. Over the past couple of years the issue of Ukraine has been fairly high on the list, but this time – perhaps to avoid any potential divisions – it was relegated to a side issue.
Perhaps the biggest success for Nato, writes Stefan Wolff, is that they managed to get Trump to the summit and keep him in the room. After all, less than a fortnight previously he walked out of the G7 leaders’ meeting in Canada a day early before authorising the bombing raids on Iran’s nuclear installations (of which more later).
Wolff, an expert in international security from the University of Birmingham (and a regular contributor to this newsletter) believes that the non-US members realised they had little choice but to comply – or at least to be seen to be complying. There’s a significant capability deficit: “European states also lack most of the so-called critical enablers, the military hardware and technology required to prevail in a potential war with Russia.”
So keeping the US president onside – and inside Nato with a remaining commitment to America’s article 5 mutual defence pledge – was top of the list this year and something they appear to have pulled off.
The fact is, writes Andrew Corbett, a defence expert at King’s College London, that Europe and the US have different enemies these days. Europe is still focused on the foe it faced across the Iron Curtain after 1945, against which Nato was designed as a defensive bulwark.
The US is now far more focused on the threat from China. This means it will increasingly shift the bulk of its naval assets to the Pacific (although the Middle East seems to be delaying this shift at present). This inevitably means downgrading its presence in Europe, something of which European leaders are all-too aware.
The importance of continuing US involvement in European defence via Nato was underlined, as Corbett highlights, by a frisson of unease when it appeared that the US president might be preparing to reinterpret article 5, which requires that members come to the aid of another member if they are attacked.
So there was relief all round when the US president reaffirmed America’s commitment to the principle of collective defence. But one feels Rutte will need to use all his diplomatic wiles to keep things that way.
Rutte, who has the nickname “Trump whisperer”, is clever enough to know that emollient words will have been just what the US president was looking for given the stress of the past couple of weeks. The decision to launch strikes against Iran was controversial even within his own base as we noted last week.
But by directly engaging in hostility against Iran, Trump risked embroiling the US in the “forever war” that he always promised his supporters he would avoid. The move was freighted with risk. Nobody knew how Iran might retaliate or how the situation could escalate. There was (and remains) the chance that an angry Iran could try to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. This is one of the world’s most important waterways though which 20% of the world’s oil transits. This would have huge ramifications for the global economy, seriously damaging Iran’s Gulf neighbours and angering China, which gets much of its oil from the region.
For now it appears that Iran has contented itself with performative strikes against US bases in Iraq and Qatar, having given advance warning. This token retaliation was made shortly before the ceasefire was negotiated. Despite a defiant message from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran is reported to be making noises about coming to the negotiating table. A deal to restore calm to the region would be an achievement indeed.
But legal questions remain about the US decision to launch strikes. For a start, Article 2(4) of the UN charter strictly forbids the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, or “in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”.
But, as Caleb Wheeler, an expert in international law from the University of Cardiff writes, it’s a rule that has rarely been either observed or enforced. He points out that the Korean War, when following a resolution of the UN security council, a number of countries went to war with North Korea to defend its southern neighbour which had been attacked in violation of article 2(4), was the high watermark of compliance with the UN on conflict.
In most other international conflicts since, the use of vetoes by one or another of the permanent members of the security council has effectively prevented the UN acting the way it was supposed to.
Now, writes Wheeler, there can be little doubt the US has violated article 2(4) by bombing Iran, particularly as Trump expressed his opinion that a regime change might be appropriate. Given that the US is one of the leading lights of the UN, Wheeler thinks you could reasonably expect a degree of condemnation from other world leaders. He worries that the absence of criticism could seriously lower the bar for aggression in the future.
And if, as remains unclear at present, Iran’s nuclear programme was not set back by years, as the US claims, but merely by months, then you could expect Tehran to redouble its efforts to acquire a bomb. The Islamic Republic will be mindful of the fact that there has been little talk of bombing North Korea in recent years, for example. Possession of a nuclear deterrent means exactly what it says.
So, conclude David Dunn and Nicholas Wheeler, these strikes which were conducted on what they feel was the false premise of defence against an “imminent” threat from a nuclear Iran, could actually have the opposite effect of encouraging Iran to rapidly develop its own bomb.
After Israel began its latest campaign of airstrikes against Iran earlier this month, the government moved to restrict internet access around the country to discourage criticism of the regime and make it difficult for protesters to organise. But in June 14 in response to a plea over social media, Elon Musk announced, appropriately on X, that he would open up access to his Starlink satellite system.
Joscha Abels, a political scientist at the University of Tübingen, recalls that Starlink became very popular in Iran during the protests that followed the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022, and which really rocked the regime to its core. He also points to the use of Starlink by Ukraine as a vital communications tool in its defence against Russia over the past three years.
But Abels warns that what is given is also too easily switched off, as Musk did in Ukraine in 2023. At the time a senior Starlink executive warned that the tool was “never intended to be weaponized”. The concern is that such an important tool, which can make or break a regime or cripple a country’s defence, could be a risk in the hands of a private individual.
This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email newsletter. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.
Once again Donald Trump and his senior team are unhappy with their press coverage. Here’s the US president, fresh from his triumph in The Hague, having persuaded Nato’s leaders to open their wallets and agree to up their defence spending to 5% of GDP (apart from Spain, that is, which can expect to hear of triple-digit tariffs coming its way in the near future) – and do the media focus on Trump’s tour de force? Do they hell. Instead they focus on whether his strikes against Iran had been as successful as he claimed.
As you can imagine, this would have been irksome in the extreme for the president, who might reasonably have expected that the story of the day would be his victory in getting pledges from virtually all Nato’s members to pull their weight in terms of their own defence. Certainly the Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte, could appreciate the scale of his achievement. Even before the summit, Rutte was talking it up.
“Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world,” he wrote in a message to Trump as the US president prepared to fly to The Netherlands. “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.”
The fact that Trump promptly posted this message to his TruthSocial website suggests how important praise is to the the US president. It’s something that many world leaders (including Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin who have become past-masters at pouring honey in the president’s ear) have recognised and are willing to use as a diplomatic tool when dealing with the man Rutte calls “Daddy”.
Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.
But while flattery as a tactic seems to be effective with the US president, Andrew Gawthorpe, a political historian from Leiden University, cautions that flattery, appeasement and compliance are a flawed approach when dealing with a man like Trump. For a start, he writes it means that not much actually gets done and that problems are often merely avoided rather than solved.
But more worryingly, simply capitulating in the face of Trumpian pressure or ire risks giving this US president the idea that he can do anything he wants. “When his targets roll over, it sends a message to others that Trump is unstoppable and resistance is futile,” writes Gawthorpe. It encourages not just the next presidential abuse of power, but also the next surrender from its victims.
We got a taste of what the US president’s anger at being defied sounds like as he prepared to fly to The Netherlands for the Nato summit. Asked about the ceasefire he had negotiated between Israel and Iran, he lashed out at both countries who had breached the peace within hours of agreeing to stop firing missiles at each other. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing,” he told reporters as he walked to the presidential helicopter.
Psychologist Geoff Beattie, of Edge Hill University, believes this was no accidental verbal slip. Trump wanted to let the world know how angry he was and chose to use the “f-bomb” as a way of showing it. Beattie looks at what this can tell us about the character of the US president – and how it might reflect a tendency to make rapid decisions based on emotional reactions.
What was remarkable about the Nato summit was that it was condensed to one fairly short session which focused solely on the issue of Nato members’ defence budgets. Usually there’s a much broader agenda. Over the past couple of years the issue of Ukraine has been fairly high on the list, but this time – perhaps to avoid any potential divisions – it was relegated to a side issue.
Perhaps the biggest success for Nato, writes Stefan Wolff, is that they managed to get Trump to the summit and keep him in the room. After all, less than a fortnight previously he walked out of the G7 leaders’ meeting in Canada a day early before authorising the bombing raids on Iran’s nuclear installations (of which more later).
Wolff, an expert in international security from the University of Birmingham (and a regular contributor to this newsletter) believes that the non-US members realised they had little choice but to comply – or at least to be seen to be complying. There’s a significant capability deficit: “European states also lack most of the so-called critical enablers, the military hardware and technology required to prevail in a potential war with Russia.”
So keeping the US president onside – and inside Nato with a remaining commitment to America’s article 5 mutual defence pledge – was top of the list this year and something they appear to have pulled off.
The fact is, writes Andrew Corbett, a defence expert at King’s College London, that Europe and the US have different enemies these days. Europe is still focused on the foe it faced across the Iron Curtain after 1945, against which Nato was designed as a defensive bulwark.
The US is now far more focused on the threat from China. This means it will increasingly shift the bulk of its naval assets to the Pacific (although the Middle East seems to be delaying this shift at present). This inevitably means downgrading its presence in Europe, something of which European leaders are all-too aware.
The importance of continuing US involvement in European defence via Nato was underlined, as Corbett highlights, by a frisson of unease when it appeared that the US president might be preparing to reinterpret article 5, which requires that members come to the aid of another member if they are attacked.
So there was relief all round when the US president reaffirmed America’s commitment to the principle of collective defence. But one feels Rutte will need to use all his diplomatic wiles to keep things that way.
Rutte, who has the nickname “Trump whisperer”, is clever enough to know that emollient words will have been just what the US president was looking for given the stress of the past couple of weeks. The decision to launch strikes against Iran was controversial even within his own base as we noted last week.
But by directly engaging in hostility against Iran, Trump risked embroiling the US in the “forever war” that he always promised his supporters he would avoid. The move was freighted with risk. Nobody knew how Iran might retaliate or how the situation could escalate. There was (and remains) the chance that an angry Iran could try to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. This is one of the world’s most important waterways though which 20% of the world’s oil transits. This would have huge ramifications for the global economy, seriously damaging Iran’s Gulf neighbours and angering China, which gets much of its oil from the region.
For now it appears that Iran has contented itself with performative strikes against US bases in Iraq and Qatar, having given advance warning. This token retaliation was made shortly before the ceasefire was negotiated. Despite a defiant message from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran is reported to be making noises about coming to the negotiating table. A deal to restore calm to the region would be an achievement indeed.
But legal questions remain about the US decision to launch strikes. For a start, Article 2(4) of the UN charter strictly forbids the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, or “in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”.
But, as Caleb Wheeler, an expert in international law from the University of Cardiff writes, it’s a rule that has rarely been either observed or enforced. He points out that the Korean War, when following a resolution of the UN security council, a number of countries went to war with North Korea to defend its southern neighbour which had been attacked in violation of article 2(4), was the high watermark of compliance with the UN on conflict.
In most other international conflicts since, the use of vetoes by one or another of the permanent members of the security council has effectively prevented the UN acting the way it was supposed to.
Now, writes Wheeler, there can be little doubt the US has violated article 2(4) by bombing Iran, particularly as Trump expressed his opinion that a regime change might be appropriate. Given that the US is one of the leading lights of the UN, Wheeler thinks you could reasonably expect a degree of condemnation from other world leaders. He worries that the absence of criticism could seriously lower the bar for aggression in the future.
And if, as remains unclear at present, Iran’s nuclear programme was not set back by years, as the US claims, but merely by months, then you could expect Tehran to redouble its efforts to acquire a bomb. The Islamic Republic will be mindful of the fact that there has been little talk of bombing North Korea in recent years, for example. Possession of a nuclear deterrent means exactly what it says.
So, conclude David Dunn and Nicholas Wheeler, these strikes which were conducted on what they feel was the false premise of defence against an “imminent” threat from a nuclear Iran, could actually have the opposite effect of encouraging Iran to rapidly develop its own bomb.
After Israel began its latest campaign of airstrikes against Iran earlier this month, the government moved to restrict internet access around the country to discourage criticism of the regime and make it difficult for protesters to organise. But in June 14 in response to a plea over social media, Elon Musk announced, appropriately on X, that he would open up access to his Starlink satellite system.
Joscha Abels, a political scientist at the University of Tübingen, recalls that Starlink became very popular in Iran during the protests that followed the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022, and which really rocked the regime to its core. He also points to the use of Starlink by Ukraine as a vital communications tool in its defence against Russia over the past three years.
But Abels warns that what is given is also too easily switched off, as Musk did in Ukraine in 2023. At the time a senior Starlink executive warned that the tool was “never intended to be weaponized”. The concern is that such an important tool, which can make or break a regime or cripple a country’s defence, could be a risk in the hands of a private individual.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser University
The American intervention in Iran is being touted as an outstanding success by President Donald Trump. At the very least, Trump’s decision to attack Iran facilitated a ceasefire as it created angst in Gulf states about being caught in the crossfire after Iran symbolically attacked an American air base, Al Udeid, in Qatar.
If Iran preserved its nuclear stockpile of fissile material, it has more incentive to develop a nuclear weapon, despite the damage Israel and the United States did to its production facilities. This is especially true if the damage to facilities like Fordow was less than Trump is proclaiming.
Russian-Iranian relations
While the future of Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity remains unknown, what is clear is that the U.S. and Israel were able to strike at Iran in large part due to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
In the modern era, relations between Russia and Iran have frequently been tense. Russia and the Soviet Union’s interests in the region have provoked several conflicts, most notably during the 1940s when the Soviets encouraged the formation of the People’s Republic of Azerbaijan on Iranian soil.
The shah of Iran’s close relationship with the U.S. further discouraged a strong relationship between Moscow and Tehran.
The shah’s fall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, allowed for a working relationship to develop between Iran and Russia. They’re still rivals but nevertheless work together when it suits their best interests. Russian and Iranian co-operation on the Syrian civil war is an example.
More importantly, Iran’s own success in evading oil sanctions helped Russia do the same, allowing the Russians to maintain their war effort in Ukraine.
The connections between Russia and Iran, however, goes beyond the political and economic.
Drones and other weapons
Iran has played a pivotal role in Russia’s war in Ukraine. One of Ukraine’s initial advantages was in drone technology, including the drone expertise of its allies. The Russian military, which had not fully embraced the implications of drone technology, was at a severe disadvantage.
Iran, at an arms disadvantage against Israel and the U.S., sought to use drones to offset this weakness. The Iranians, in fact, pioneered the use of drones, most notably the Shahed 131 and 136.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, the flow of weapons between Russia and Iran was more one-sided. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran has been a vital market for Russian military technology. Russian leaders have viewed the sale of weapons to Iran as both a way of supporting the Russian economy and to counter American interests in the Middle East.
So what’s all this have to do with Ukraine?
Iran left open to bombardment
The most crucial weapon provided by Russia to Iran is arguably the S-300, an advanced surface-to-air missile systems.
Israel’s air dominance and its ability to overcome Iranian air defences in the past meant that the S-300 was a vital piece of technology for Iran. Israeli officials recognized the S-300’s importance to countering their operations when they, for several years, used political pressure to block S-300 sales to Iran.
In October 2024, Israel likely breached the software that operates the S-300, disabling the system’s radar. This breach allowed Israel to eliminate Iran’s S-300s, and left Iran vulnerable to Israeli and American air attacks.
Iran has been unable to acquire replacements for one simple reason: Russia needs the weapon systems in Ukraine. Ukraine has prioritized eliminating Russian air defences like the S-300.
The enduring Ukraine-Russia conflict has served as a bleeding ulcer for the Russian armaments industry. Russian military hardware has been destroyed at such a rate that it’s delayed Russia’s sale of weapons to key markets, including Iran and India.
The situation has caused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pivot away from Russian military technology — a key feature in Russian-Indian relations — for domestic arms backed by western technology.
Iran, meantime, has been left open to aerial bombardment by Israel and the U.S.
Rightly or wrongly, the U.S. government identified bombing Iran alongside Israel as being in its national interest. But it’s unlikely American involvement would have been possible without Ukraine draining Russian resources.
The problem is that the current U.S. administration views the world and its events in an isolated manner. But in a globalized world, few events remain in isolation.
The U.S. government may argue that supporting Ukraine is not in American interests, but Ukraine’s ongoing fight against Russia is actually assisting Americans elsewhere — most notably, in Iran.
James Horncastle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Gawthorpe, Lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University
Donald Trump is a difficult figure to deal with, both for foreign leaders and figures closer to home who find themselves in his crosshairs. The US president is unpredictable, sensitive and willing to break the rules to get his way.
But in Trump’s second term, a variety of different leaders and institutions seem to have settled on a way to handle him. The key, they seem to think, is flattery. The most obvious example came at the recently concluded Nato summit in The Hague, Netherlands, where world leaders got together to discuss the future of the alliance.
Previous summits with Trump have descended into recrimination and backbiting. The organisers were determined to avoid a repeat – and decided the best way to do it was to make Trump feel really, really good about himself.
Even before the summit began, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte had texted Trump to thank him for his “decisive action” in bombing Iran. This, he said, was something “no one else dared to do”.
Then, when discussing Trump’s role in ending the war between Israel and Iran, Rutte referred to Trump as “daddy” – a name the White House has already transformed into a meme.
The summit itself was light on the sort of contentious and detailed policy discussions that have historically bored and angered Trump.
Instead, it was reduced to a series of photo opportunities and speeches in which other leaders lavished praise on Trump. Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, even suggested the alliance ought to copy Trump’s political movement by adopting the phrase “make Nato great again”.
Nato leaders aren’t the only ones trying this trick. British prime minister Keir Starmer has had a go at it too. Starmer has made sure that Trump will be the first US president to make a second state visit to the UK. He described the honour in Trump-like terms: “This has never happened before. It’s so incredible. It will be historic.”
After Trump announced global trade tariffs earlier in the year, Starmer was the first leader to give Trump a much-needed victory by reaching a framework trade agreement. But it worked both ways, with Starmer able to land a political victory too.
In his first term, flattery was also seen as a tool to be used to get Trump onside. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky tried it in phone conversations with the US president, calling him a “great teacher” from whom he learned “skills and knowledge”.
Flattery and compliance clearly have their uses. Trump is extremely sensitive to criticism and susceptible to praise, however hyperbolic and transparent it might be. Buttering him up may be an effective way to get him to back off.
But it doesn’t achieve much else. At the Nato summit, an opportunity was missed to make progress on issues of real importance, such as how to better support Ukraine in its war against Russia or to better coordinate European defence spending.
A summit dedicated to the sole aim of making Trump feel good is one with very limited aims indeed. All it does is push the difficult decisions forward for another day.
A missed opportunity
Individual decisions to bow down to Trump also mean missing the opportunity to mount collective resistance. One country might not be able to stand up to the president, but the odds of doing so would be greatly improved if leaders banded together.
For example, Trump’s trade tariffs will damage the US economy as well as those of its trading partners. That is especially the case if those partners impose tariffs of their own on US goods.
If each country instead follows Britain’s lead in the hope of getting the best deal for itself, they will have missed the opportunity to force the president to feel some discomfort of his own – and possibly change course.
But perhaps the greatest danger of flattering Trump is that it teaches him that he can get away with doing pretty much whatever he likes. For a president who has threatened to annex the territory of Nato allies Denmark and Canada to nevertheless be feted at a Nato summit sends a message of impunity.
That’s a dangerous lesson for Trump to learn. He has spent much of his second term undermining democratic and liberal norms at home and key tenets of US foreign policy abroad, such as hostility to Russia. He is attempting to undermine all traditional sources of authority and expertise and instead make the world dance to his own tune.
Given the expansive scope of his aims, which many experts already think is leading to a constitutional crisis that threatens democracy, the willingness to suck up to Trump normalises him in a menacing way.
When his targets roll over, it sends a message to others that Trump is unstoppable and resistance is futile. It encourages not just the next presidential abuse of power, but also the next surrender from those he chooses to attack.
Perhaps the best that can be said for this strategy is that maybe it will appease Trump enough to prevent him from doing too much actual harm. But when dealing with such an unpredictable and vindictive president, that is a thin reed of hope.
It is much more likely to encourage him to press on – until the harm becomes too severe to ignore.
Andrew Gawthorpe 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.
Macau’s giant casinos and malls have earned the territory its nickname: the ‘Las Vegas of the east’.Sanga Park / Shutterstock
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, a conflict that left few corners of the globe untouched. In east Asia, the small Portuguese-administrated territory of Macau in southern China stood out as a rare neutral territory. But, despite its neutrality, Macau could not escape the war’s far-reaching impact.
In fact, Macau saw its population treble in the period between 1937 and the end of the second world war, reaching around half a million people. The newcomers, most of whom had fled the Japanese occupation of China, exceeded the existing residents and influenced all facets of life in Macau.
Some went on to shape the territory well beyond the end of the second world war, helping Macau earn its later status as one of the leading gambling hubs in the world. These people included the late Stanley Ho, the “casino tycoon” in Macau and one of the key architects of its post-war economy.
In his testimony for the 1999 book, Macao Remembers, Ho noted how Macau’s wartime atmosphere had inspired him. “Macao was tiny, and yet a bit like Casablanca – all the secret intelligence, the murders, the gambling – it was a very exciting place”, he said.
Ho was referring to the fictional version of the French-controlled wartime city of Casablanca in the 1942 Hollywood film, also called Casablanca. As a neutral enclave, Macau was a site of multinational refuge, smuggling of goods and people, espionage, danger and opportunities.
Japan’s invasion of China began in the 1930s. As Japanese forces took control of most of the eastern coast from 1937 onward, the Chinese nationalist government moved inland to resist from its relocated capitals, first Wuhan and then Chongqing. By the end of 1940, the most important political, economic, educational and cultural urban centres in China had been occupied.
Surrounded by occupied areas, territories under foreign rule in China such as the Shanghai foreign concessions, Macau and Hong Kong became “lone islands”. Their neutral status attracted many thousands of refugees, resistance activists and relocated businesses. Lone islands became supply lifelines for the Chinese resistance and propaganda battlegrounds for opposing sides.
They experienced periods of economic boom fuelled by the influx of refugees. And they were prime locations for the transfer of information and funds, as well as intelligence collection. Lone islands were also sites of humanitarian relief, connected to diaspora networks and organisations designed to support the Chinese war effort.
By the end of 1941, these spaces of neutrality were disappearing. The Shanghai foreign concessions were taken over by Japan and later handed over to a Chinese collaborationist administration, and the British colony of Hong Kong was occupied and placed under Japanese military rule. French-ruled Guangzhouwan, also in south China, was under de facto Japanese control by 1943.
Macau, which remained neutral throughout the war, stood as the last lone island – if always subject to Japanese influence. Macau’s neutrality drew many from opposing camps.
In the late 1930s, most refugees to Macau had come from Shanghai and Guangdong province. The occupation of Hong Kong in late 1941 then brought another wave of displaced persons to Macau.
Stanley Ho was among the refugees who arrived in Macau from the neighbouring British colony. He joined his uncle Robert Ho Tung, a renowned businessman who also relocated to Macau during the occupation of Hong Kong.
According to Ho’s own accounts, his wartime activities were the foundation of a fortune. Several other figures who would become important economic players in Macau’s post-war economy, such as businessman Ho Yin, also cut their teeth during the second world war’s climate of contingency and opportunity.
Working for the Macau Co-operative Company, established by the Japanese to manage trade between Japan and the government in Macau, Ho was involved in bartering materials in exchange for food supplies with Japanese interlocutors. He also had an English-Japanese language exchange with the Japanese intelligence chief in Macau, Colonel Sawa.
Through these activities, Ho made important contacts among the different communities who found themselves in Macau during the war. This included powerful intermediaries such as Pedro José Lobo, the head of the economic services in Macau. These connections exposed Ho to the popularity of gambling in Macau and the potential to take it to a different level.
Gambling had been legal in Macau since the mid-19th century. But it was during the war that we would see the origins of the casino-hotel model that is now prevalent in the territory.
The leading hotels of 1940s Macau, such as Hotel Central and Grande Hotel Kuoc Chai, offered employment to refugee musicians and dancers and were sites of entertainment for those with funds to spend.
After the end of the second world war, Ho set up a company called Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM) with partners including Henry Fok, Teddy Yip and Yip Hon. These were businessmen with links to Hong Kong, mainland China and Indonesia.
In 1962, the same year STDM was founded, it earned the exclusive licence to run casinos in Macau, replacing pre-existing magnates who were more prominent during the second world war.
One of the key innovations brought by their company’s casinos was the popularisation of western-style games. They were also involved in philanthropic activities, much like the wartime gambling tycoons had been, with Macau again seeing the arrival of many destitute displaced persons during the cold war.
Gambling has been liberalised in Macau since the early 2000s, and the territory has now surpassed Las Vegas to become the largest casino market in the world.
Helena F. S. Lopes received doctoral and postdoctoral research funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Leverhulme Trust for projects relating to Macau during the Second World War and the post-war period.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mohammed Estaiteyeh, Assistant Professor of Digital Pedagogies and Technology Literacies, Faculty of Education, Brock University
AI literacy equips learners to understand and navigate the pervasive influence of AI in their daily lives.(Shutterstock)
With students’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on the rise in Canada and globally, reports of cheating and unethical behaviors are making headlines.
One recent study indicates that 78 per cent of Canadian students have used generative AI to help with assignments or study tasks. In China, authorities have even shut down AI apps during nationwide exams to prevent cheating.
Students seem unprepared to navigate this new world and educators are unsure how to handle it. This is a problem Canada and other countries can’t afford to ignore.
The support structures and policies to guide students’ and educators’ responsible use of AI are often insufficient in Canadian schools. In a recent study, Canada ranked 44th in AI training and literacy out of 47 countries, and 28th among 30 advanced economies. Despite growing reliance on these technologies at homes and in the classrooms, Canada lacks a unified AI literacy strategy in K-12 education.
Without co-ordinated action, this gap threatens to widen existing inequalities and leave both learners and educators vulnerable. Canadian schools need a national AI literacy strategy that provides a framework for teaching students about AI tools and how to use them responsibly.
“An individual’s ability to clearly explain how AI technologies work and impact society, as well as to use them in an ethical and responsible manner and to effectively communicate and collaborate with them in any setting.”
Acknowledging its importance, scholars and international organizations have been developing AI literacy frameworks. UNESCO has developed AI competency frameworks for students and teachers, highlighting key capabilities they should acquire to navigate AI implications.
More recently, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Commission released their joint draft AI Literacy Framework for primary and secondary education. This framework defines AI literacy as the technical knowledge, durable skills and future-ready attitudes required to thrive in a world influenced by AI.
The framework aims to empower learners to engage with, create with, manage and design AI, while critically evaluating its benefits, risks and ethical implications.
AI-literate students are better able to develop an ethical and human-centred mindset as they learn to consider AI’s social and environmental impacts. (Shutterstock)
Why does AI literacy matter?
AI literacy equips learners to understand and navigate the pervasive influence of AI in their daily lives. It fosters critical thinking skills to assess AI outputs for misinformation and bias.
AI literacy also enables students to make safe and informed decisions about when and how to use AI, preventing habits that compromise academic integrity. In addition, student knowledge of AI’s technical foundations demystifies AI, dispelling misconceptions that it is all-knowing, and highlights its capabilities and limitations.
Furthermore, AI-literate students are better able to develop an ethical and human-centred mindset as they learn to consider AI’s social and environmental impacts, including issues of transparency, accountability, privacy and the environmental cost of AI systems.
AI literacy prepares students to collaborate effectively and ethically with AI tools (for example, with writing) and helps them understand how to delegate only certain tasks to AI without cognitive offloading that may be detrimental at various developmental stages.
Finally, AI literacy aims to ensure inclusive access to AI learning environments for all students, regardless of background, status or ability.
Canadian and international landscape
In Canada, some provinces and school boards are moving ahead with AI integration, while others offer very little teacher training and resources to do so.
Some universities and community organizations are also taking the lead in building AI literacy by providing curricula, resources and training to teachers and students.
These scattered efforts, while appreciated, lead to AI learning opportunities that are often ad-hoc or extracurricular. Without national or province-wide requirements, many students — especially in marginalized communities and under-resourced schools — may graduate high school with no exposure to AI concepts at all, worsening the digital divide.
To put Canada’s situation in context, it is useful to compare with other countries that are implementing or proposing national AI education initiatives. As part of its National AI Strategy, Singapore launched a partnership to strengthen students’ AI literacy, building on earlier initiatives that focused on teacher training.
A meaningful AI literacy strategy must begin in the classroom with age-appropriate content. (Shutterstock)
More recently, the United States established an AI framework and a task force aimed at “building essential AI literacy from an early age to maintain a competitive edge in global technology development and prepare students for an AI-driven economy.”
Canada, in comparison to these examples, has strengths in its bottom-up innovation but lacks a guiding vision. Canada needs a co-ordinated strategy that leverages federal-provincial collaboration through a unifying framework, shared resources and a common baseline of AI knowledge that every Canadian student should acquire.
What should this strategy include?
A meaningful AI literacy strategy must begin in the classroom with age-appropriate content. Students can start with the technical foundations and advance to think critically about AI’s limitations, ethical issues and social implications.
It’s important that this content is woven across subjects and presented in ways that reflect the cultural and social contexts of learners.
Equally essential is supporting educators. Teachers need practical, research-informed professional development and teaching toolkits that equip them to guide students through both the opportunities and risks of AI.
To make these efforts sustainable and equitable, a national strategy must also include policy directions, regulations for the tech industry, community outreach programs and intentional opportunities for collaboration between various stakeholders (researchers, policymakers, school boards, teacher education programs and so on).
Whether you think AI is a good or bad thing, the fact is it’s here. This is not a call to incorporate AI tools in schools. It is a call to make Canadian students aware of its abilities and implications. Our kids need to learn about this technology and how to use it responsibly.
Mohammed Estaiteyeh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mohammed Estaiteyeh, Assistant Professor of Digital Pedagogies and Technology Literacies, Faculty of Education, Brock University
AI literacy equips learners to understand and navigate the pervasive influence of AI in their daily lives.(Shutterstock)
With students’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on the rise in Canada and globally, reports of cheating and unethical behaviors are making headlines.
One recent study indicates that 78 per cent of Canadian students have used generative AI to help with assignments or study tasks. In China, authorities have even shut down AI apps during nationwide exams to prevent cheating.
Students seem unprepared to navigate this new world and educators are unsure how to handle it. This is a problem Canada and other countries can’t afford to ignore.
The support structures and policies to guide students’ and educators’ responsible use of AI are often insufficient in Canadian schools. In a recent study, Canada ranked 44th in AI training and literacy out of 47 countries, and 28th among 30 advanced economies. Despite growing reliance on these technologies at homes and in the classrooms, Canada lacks a unified AI literacy strategy in K-12 education.
Without co-ordinated action, this gap threatens to widen existing inequalities and leave both learners and educators vulnerable. Canadian schools need a national AI literacy strategy that provides a framework for teaching students about AI tools and how to use them responsibly.
“An individual’s ability to clearly explain how AI technologies work and impact society, as well as to use them in an ethical and responsible manner and to effectively communicate and collaborate with them in any setting.”
Acknowledging its importance, scholars and international organizations have been developing AI literacy frameworks. UNESCO has developed AI competency frameworks for students and teachers, highlighting key capabilities they should acquire to navigate AI implications.
More recently, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Commission released their joint draft AI Literacy Framework for primary and secondary education. This framework defines AI literacy as the technical knowledge, durable skills and future-ready attitudes required to thrive in a world influenced by AI.
The framework aims to empower learners to engage with, create with, manage and design AI, while critically evaluating its benefits, risks and ethical implications.
AI-literate students are better able to develop an ethical and human-centred mindset as they learn to consider AI’s social and environmental impacts. (Shutterstock)
Why does AI literacy matter?
AI literacy equips learners to understand and navigate the pervasive influence of AI in their daily lives. It fosters critical thinking skills to assess AI outputs for misinformation and bias.
AI literacy also enables students to make safe and informed decisions about when and how to use AI, preventing habits that compromise academic integrity. In addition, student knowledge of AI’s technical foundations demystifies AI, dispelling misconceptions that it is all-knowing, and highlights its capabilities and limitations.
Furthermore, AI-literate students are better able to develop an ethical and human-centred mindset as they learn to consider AI’s social and environmental impacts, including issues of transparency, accountability, privacy and the environmental cost of AI systems.
AI literacy prepares students to collaborate effectively and ethically with AI tools (for example, with writing) and helps them understand how to delegate only certain tasks to AI without cognitive offloading that may be detrimental at various developmental stages.
Finally, AI literacy aims to ensure inclusive access to AI learning environments for all students, regardless of background, status or ability.
Canadian and international landscape
In Canada, some provinces and school boards are moving ahead with AI integration, while others offer very little teacher training and resources to do so.
Some universities and community organizations are also taking the lead in building AI literacy by providing curricula, resources and training to teachers and students.
These scattered efforts, while appreciated, lead to AI learning opportunities that are often ad-hoc or extracurricular. Without national or province-wide requirements, many students — especially in marginalized communities and under-resourced schools — may graduate high school with no exposure to AI concepts at all, worsening the digital divide.
To put Canada’s situation in context, it is useful to compare with other countries that are implementing or proposing national AI education initiatives. As part of its National AI Strategy, Singapore launched a partnership to strengthen students’ AI literacy, building on earlier initiatives that focused on teacher training.
A meaningful AI literacy strategy must begin in the classroom with age-appropriate content. (Shutterstock)
More recently, the United States established an AI framework and a task force aimed at “building essential AI literacy from an early age to maintain a competitive edge in global technology development and prepare students for an AI-driven economy.”
Canada, in comparison to these examples, has strengths in its bottom-up innovation but lacks a guiding vision. Canada needs a co-ordinated strategy that leverages federal-provincial collaboration through a unifying framework, shared resources and a common baseline of AI knowledge that every Canadian student should acquire.
What should this strategy include?
A meaningful AI literacy strategy must begin in the classroom with age-appropriate content. Students can start with the technical foundations and advance to think critically about AI’s limitations, ethical issues and social implications.
It’s important that this content is woven across subjects and presented in ways that reflect the cultural and social contexts of learners.
Equally essential is supporting educators. Teachers need practical, research-informed professional development and teaching toolkits that equip them to guide students through both the opportunities and risks of AI.
To make these efforts sustainable and equitable, a national strategy must also include policy directions, regulations for the tech industry, community outreach programs and intentional opportunities for collaboration between various stakeholders (researchers, policymakers, school boards, teacher education programs and so on).
Whether you think AI is a good or bad thing, the fact is it’s here. This is not a call to incorporate AI tools in schools. It is a call to make Canadian students aware of its abilities and implications. Our kids need to learn about this technology and how to use it responsibly.
Mohammed Estaiteyeh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In Secrets We Keep, the hidden world of domestic work and abuse is exposed. Here Excel Busano who plays Angel, Cecilia’s au pair and Ruby’s best friend in Denmark speaks with her community on the phone. Tine Harden/Netflix
Moving fluidly between English, Danish and Tagalog, the six-part drama is a nuanced indictment of the lack of moral accountability among the rich. On display are the prejudices and complicity of white women in enabling a culture of toxic masculinity that treats Filipina migrant women as sexualized and disposable commodities.
The story starts with a tearful Ruby Tan — a Filipina au pair who works for the affluent Rasmus (Lars Ranthe) and Katarina (Danica Curcic) — asking for some help with her employers from her neighbour, Cecilie (played by Marie Bach Hansen).
Cecilie is a successful non-profit manager and mother of two married to a high-profile lawyer. She employs Angel (Excel Busano), a Filipina au pair. Cecilie tells Ruby she cannot get involved.
The next day, Ruby vanishes without a trace.
The series is propelled by Cecilie’s guilt in refusing to help Ruby. She is shocked at her neighbours’ apparent lack of concern for Ruby’s disappearance.
Cecilie begins to sleuth for clues regarding Ruby’s disappearance and she eventually decides to assist Aicha, a racialized policewoman assigned to find the missing au pair. Cecilie discovers a pregnancy kit by a trash bin where she had last seen Ruby. And she soon suspects Ruby’s employer, Rasmus, of raping her.
While the series lacks true suspense due to its predictable story arc peppered with clues about Ruby’s disappearance, it is amply compensated by a sharp critique on the moral decay of modern society, systemic racism and the complicity of women in upholding white masculine privilege.
Warped racist view of the world
Secrets We Keep lays bare the warped world view of rich, white privilege, racism and the sexual fetishism of Asian women.
At a dinner party one night, Rasmus and Katarina do not seem concerned about their missing au pair. Katarina labels Filipina au pairs as whores working in brothels. When discussing Ruby, Katarina says, “she probably ran off to do porn.”
In one uncomfortable scene, Rasmus taunts Cecilia’s husband, Mike (Simon Sears), about his sexual preferences. Mike responds by saying: “I don’t have ‘yellow fever.’” Cecilia sits silently beside Mike.
Katarina also calls Aicha (Sara Fanta Traore), the policewoman, “the little brown one.”
At a formal dinner, Rasmus tells Cecilia: “We stick together. We are from the same world, and we are loyal to each other.”
It led the Philippines to ban the participation of Scandinavian countries in its “informal labour” arrangement in 1998. Though the ban was lifted in 2010, Au Pair Network, an advocacy group, reveals that the program is still riddled with abuse.
At a recent gender studies conference in Stockholm, Ardis Ingvars, a sociologist at the University of Iceland who worked as an au pair for a year in the United States just after she turned 18, recalls her anxiety and apprehension as she moved to Boston.
She said:
“Au pairs hope to be lucky with the family turning out OK. What is difficult to take is the attitude of ‘ownership’ that the children and families display over the au pairs as an unquestioned entitlement.”
Ingvars said asymmetrical power relations embedded within the au pair system reinforce racial and class hierarchies.
This is reflected in Secrets We Keep. Midway during Aicha’s investigation, as she hits roadblock after roadblock, she cries out in frustration: “She’s a fucking nobody in their world.”
Aicha Petersen (Sara Fanta Traore) is the police investigator charged with finding Ruby in ‘Secrets We Keep’. Netflix
Feminized labour exploitation
Economic globalization, neoliberal policies and an increased dependence on the remittance economy fuses with the care gap in the Global North to fuel the feminized care migration from the Global South, many of them Filipino women.
Au pairs are placed with host families who provide free board and meals in return for up to 30 hours a week of housework and child care as they learn the host language and customs. The au pairs are paid “pocket money” of Danish Kroner 5,000 per month (approx $1,000 Canadian) out of which they also pay local taxes.
One scene shows one of Cecilie’s work meetings. A junior staff member expresses surprise that Cecilie has an au pair, labelling it a relic of colonial era racial hierarchies.
Cecilie defends herself, and says the system survives because of the failure of men to keep up their domestic bargain and thus the need for women like her “to outsource care.”
She argues the Filipina au pairs “are dependable” and she is “a much better mother” because of Angel. But Cecilie doesn’t acknowledge her privilege — that to be with her children and have a career is predicated on the exploitative extraction of care from Global South women.
Cecilie’s shock at finding out that Angel has a son whom she left behind in the Philippines is part of her denial. In the end, Cecilie is unable to confront her own complicity and decides to release Angel from their au pair arrangement.
“You know nothing about my world…You are very lucky,” cries Angel in anguish as Cecilie hands her the return ticket and an extra three months’ pay to demonstrate her magnanimity.
Secrets We Keep reveals the brutal reality for Global South au pairs as well as upper-class white women and their entitlements. It indicates that even though these white wealthy women may see mistreatment, they maintain their silence and participate in wilful gendered violence to hold onto that privilege, while maintaining a façade of compassion towards the disposable racial migrant other.
