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Category: Evening Report

  • MIL-Evening Report: As the Myanmar junta’s hold on power weakens, could the devastating war be nearing a conclusion?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer, International Studies, University of South Australia

    It has now been four years since the Myanmar military launched its cataclysmic coup against the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1 2021, starting a civil war that has devastated the country.

    Suu Kyi remains locked up, as do countless other activists and regime opponents. There is no easy resolution in sight.

    Indeed, the country is at a nadir. The war has sparked an economic crisis that has destroyed Myanmar’s health and education systems. Half the population now lives in poverty, double the rate from before the coup. The deteriorating electricity network causes widespread blackouts.

    According to the United Nations, more than 5,000 civilians have been killed and 3.3 million people have been displaced by the fighting. More than 27,000 people have also been arrested, with reports of sexual violence and torture rife.

    Nevertheless, opposition forces – including ethnic armies and the People’s Defence Force militias drawn from the civilian population – have been gathering strength, with a string of victories against the junta’s army.

    The regime now controls less than half the country. And recent strategic losses are weighing heavily on the military leaders, raising questions about whether the government could suddenly collapse like the Assad regime in Syria late last year.

    As the war enters a fifth year, there are two significant things to watch that could determine the country’s future – the battleground gains made by the opposition forces and the state of the failing economy.

    Junta under pressure on the battlefield

    Following the opposition Three Brotherhood Alliance’s battleground successes in late 2023, China brokered a ceasefire between the junta and alliance in northern Shan State.

    When that ceasefire ended last June, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), one of the members of the alliance, captured the key trading town of Lashio, as well as the junta’s nearby Northeast Regional Military Command. It was the first time one of the 14 regional military commands had fallen to an opposition group in more than 50 years of military rule.

    China has recently brokered another ceasefire between the MNDAA and the military, according to the Chinese foreign ministry. The terms have not been made public, but unless the insurgents relinquish Lashio and the military command – which is unlikely – it won’t alter the balance of power.

    In December, the military lost another command centre in Rakhine State in western Myanmar to the Arakan Army, another member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The Arakan Army now controls 14 of that state’s 17 townships.

    The Arakan Army, too, said recently it is open to political dialogue to potentially end the fighting. But it, too, is only likely to stop its military offensives for extremely favourable terms.

    In a major study undertaken in late 2024, the BBC assessed the junta only had full control of 21% of Myanmar’s territory. Ethnic armies and other opposition forces controlled 42% of the country, while the remaining areas were contested.

    In response, the junta has intensified its “scorched earth” tactics in areas outside its control, including indiscriminate and deliberate strikes against civilians. With dwindling reserves of willing fighters, air power is the main combat advantage it holds over the opposition forces.

    Economic woes

    Myanmar’s economic situation four years after the coup shows, starkly, just how much has been lost.

    Myanmar is now experiencing a full-blown economic and currency crisis.

    The incremental gains in economic development, education, nutrition and health care of recent decades have been reversed very quickly. Three-quarters of the population is now living a subsistence existence.

    Many young people are fleeing abroad, joining resistance groups, or eking out dangerous livelihoods on the margins. To make matters worse, the junta activated a longstanding but dormant conscription law last February to boost its dwindling forces. Those who refuse the draft face five years in prison.

    In response to the Arakan Army’s successes, the junta is also isolating much of Rakhine State. This is contributing to widespread poverty and a looming famine, which could affect two million people.

    And in an attempt to control the digital space, the junta enacted a sweeping new cybersecurity law earlier this month. People can now be imprisoned for using a virtual private network or sharing information from banned websites, among many other offences.

    Could Myanmar fall apart?

    The ASEAN regional bloc, chaired by Malaysia this year, has done little to solve the crisis, although it hasn’t accepted the junta’s hollow plans to hold elections this year.

    Disagreements among the ASEAN members over strategy have ensured that little progress has been made. Thailand recently broke ranks to invite the junta’s foreign minister to regional talks about border security, even though the junta currently controls few of the country’s borders.

    An accelerated economic deterioration could contribute to further unrest and drive even more migrants to neighbouring countries. Already, the millions of Myanmar migrants living in Thailand have precipitated anti-migrant protests and mass arrests.

    So, given the combustible state of the country, could the junta’s hold on power suddenly collapse like the Assad regime in Syria last year?

    It’s not likely. Unlike Syria, the opposition in Myanmar is not heavily backed by major international players. China’s support for various insurgent actors comes and goes depending on political calculations, while the United States and European Union have provided little material support.

    In addition, the military has been effectively running Myanmar for 60 years and is well practised in counterinsurgency strategies. Although defections from the military continue, the conscription law is bolstering its numbers of – mostly reluctant – soldiers.

    However, the fall of Syria’s oppressive government – as well as the government in Myanmar’s neighbour, Bangladesh – demonstrates how fragile long-standing regimes can be, particularly when faced with persistent challenges from armed groups and a motivated population.

    And as in Syria, there are fears – particularly within China – that Myanmar could splinter along ethnic lines. The deteriorating security situation has led China to send its own private security corporations to secure its strategic investments in the country and become an active ceasefire deal-maker.

    Even if the junta can be ousted, creating a workable federal system that involves power-sharing among the complex patchwork of ethnic groups will be a difficult task. The question of how to reintegrate nearly a million Rohingya displaced across the border in Bangladesh is another daunting challenge.

    However, for the first time in years, there is optimism that opposition forces could eventually succeed in vanquishing the junta. Then begins the arduous task of rebuilding a shattered nation.

    As a pro vice-chancellor at the University of Tasmania, Nicholas Farrelly engages with a wide range of organisations and stakeholders on educational, cultural and political issues, including at the ASEAN-Australia interface. He has previously received funding from the Australian government for Southeast Asia-related projects and from the Australian Research Council. Nicholas is on the advisory board of the ASEAN-Australia Centre, which is a new Australian government body, and also deputy chair of the board of NAATI, Australia’s government-owned accreditation authority for translators and interpreters. He writes in his personal capacity.

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

    – ref. As the Myanmar junta’s hold on power weakens, could the devastating war be nearing a conclusion? – https://theconversation.com/as-the-myanmar-juntas-hold-on-power-weakens-could-the-devastating-war-be-nearing-a-conclusion-247987

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Babies as young as 4 months can tell how the sounds of different languages are made – new research

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eylem Altuntas, Postdoctoral Researcher, Speech & Language Development, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University

    Colin Maynard/Unsplash

    Babies are like little detectives, constantly piecing together clues about the world around them. If you’ve ever noticed your baby staring at you while you talk, it’s because they’re picking up on more than just sounds — they’re learning how those sounds are made.

    Our recent study, published in Developmental Science, shows this amazing process starts as early as four months old, shaking up the old belief that babies learn these patterns only after tuning in to their native language between 6 and 12 months of age.

    It also gives us an earlier window to help children who might be at risk of speech or language delays.

    Sorting through a buffet of sounds

    By their first birthday, babies are already fine-tuning their ears to the sounds of their native language in a process called perceptual attunement. Think of it like their brain sorting through a buffet of sounds to focus on the ones that matter most.

    But in their first six months, babies can tell apart sounds from languages they’ve never even heard. For example, they might distinguish certain Hindi contrasts that are challenging for adult English speakers or identify unique tones in Mandarin, even if they’re growing up in an English-speaking household.

    This incredible ability doesn’t last forever. Between six and 12 months, babies start narrowing their focus to the sounds they hear most often. For vowels, this fine-tuning kicks in at around six months while consonants follow at closer to ten months.

    Think of it as babies zooming in on the sounds that matter, such as the difference between the “r” and “l” in English, while losing sensitivity to sounds they don’t hear regularly.

    Until now, researchers thought this narrowing process was needed for babies to start learning more complex language skills, such as figuring out that the “b” in “bin” and the “d” in “din” differ because one is made with the lips and the other with the tongue tip.

    But our study found babies as young as four months are already learning how sounds are physically made, long before this narrowing begins.

    In their first six months, babies can tell apart sounds from languages they’ve never even heard.
    Mila Supinskaya Glashchenko/Shutterstock

    Learning mini-languages

    Here’s an example to picture this. Imagine you’re listening to someone speak a language you don’t know. Even if you don’t understand the words, you might notice how their lips or tongue move to make sounds. Four-month-old babies can do this too.

    To demonstrate this, we conducted an experiment with 34 babies, aged four to six months, whose parents had provided consent to participate. We created a “match-the-pattern” game using two made up mini-languages.

    One language had words with lip sounds like “b” and “v”, while the other used tongue-tip sounds like “d” and “z”. Each word, like “bivawo” or “dizalo”, was paired with a cartoon image — a jellyfish for lip words and a crab for tongue-tip words. A recording of a word was played at the same time its paired image was shown.

    Why cartoons? Because babies can’t exactly tell us what they’re thinking, but they can form associations in their brains. These images helped us see if the babies could link each mini-language to the correct picture.

    After the babies learned these mini-languages and their picture pairings, we mixed things up.

    Instead of hearing the words, they watched silent videos of a person’s face saying new words from the same mini-languages.

    In some videos, the face matched the cartoon they had learned earlier. In others, it didn’t. We then tracked how long the babies looked at the videos — a common method researchers use to see what grabs their attention. Babies tend to look longer at things that surprise or interest them and shorter at things they find familiar, helping us understand how they process and recognise what they see.

    The results were clear: babies looked significantly longer at the videos where the face matched what they’d learned. This showed they weren’t just passively listening earlier — they were actively learning the rules of the mini-languages and linking that knowledge to what they saw.

    The experiment involved pairing certain words with a cartoon image of a jellyfish and a crab.
    Eylem Altuntas

    Connecting the dots

    In simple terms, this means four-month-old babies can connect the dots between sound and sight. This early ability to spot patterns in how sounds are made is the foundation for learning language later on. It’s like their brains are already laying the groundwork for saying their first words.

    This discovery changes what we thought we knew about babies’ early language learning. It suggests babies start figuring out patterns at four months, well before they begin perceptually attuning to the sounds of their native language between six and 12 months.

    That opens up exciting new possibilities for helping children who might struggle with speech or language. If we can help earlier, we might make a big difference.

    These findings raise several interesting questions. For example, can babies learn other differences such as voicing – whether a sound is made with a buzzing vibration, like the difference between “b” (buzzing) and “p” (no buzzing) – as early as four months? How does growing up in a bilingual home affect this ability? Could babies use this skill to learn patterns in entirely new languages?

    By exploring these questions, we’ll keep uncovering the amazing ways babies’ brains set the stage for learning one of the most complex human skills: language.

    Eylem Altuntas is a researcher at the BabyLab within the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour, and Development at Western Sydney University.

    – ref. Babies as young as 4 months can tell how the sounds of different languages are made – new research – https://theconversation.com/babies-as-young-as-4-months-can-tell-how-the-sounds-of-different-languages-are-made-new-research-248225

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: When news is stressful, how do you balance staying informed with ‘doomscrolling’?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Harrison, Lecturer in Digital Communications, Flinders University

    Mart Production/Pexels

    It all begins innocently – a late-night peek at your favourite social media site before bed. You catch a headline that grabs your attention with “breaking news” you can’t afford to miss.

    Like following digital breadcrumbs, one click leads to another. Before you know it, you’re tumbling down a rabbit hole of endless updates and emotionally charged social media posts. Two hours later, your shoulders are tense, your stomach is in knots, but you can’t put your phone down.

    This endless scrolling through bad news – known as “doomscrolling” – sneaks up on us.

    It’s important to stay in touch with what’s happening in the world. Being informed helps us make better decisions, engage meaningfully in our communities, and respond effectively to changes that affect our lives and those around us.

    But just like a healthy diet, we must be smart about our news consumption to avoid it taking a toll on our health.

    The good news is there are proven ways to stay informed without letting it take over your life. Research shows setting clear boundaries around your news consumption can make a huge difference. So, how can you strike the right balance?

    How to set boundaries with news consumption

    It’s worth considering why you feel compelled to stay constantly informed. Ask yourself: “will this information change what I can do about it?”.

    Often, we scroll not because the information is actionable, but because we are trying to gain a sense of control in an uncertain world.

    Research shows scrolling through negative news can disrupt your sleep and increase anxiety. To make sure your media consumption is intentional, there are a few steps you can take.

    Be picky with the news sources you read. Choose a few trusted outlets instead of letting social media algorithms decide what you see. It’s like sticking to a balanced meal plan, but for your mind.

    While engaging with the news, pay close attention to how you’re feeling. When you notice physical signs of anxiety or emotional distress, that is your cue to take a break.

    Set aside time earlier in the day with clear boundaries around your news consumption: maybe with your morning coffee or during your lunch break, whatever works for your schedule. Consider implementing a “digital sunset”, too. This is a cut-off time for news and social media, ideally an hour or two before bedtime, to give your mind time to process what you have learned without disrupting your sleep.

    The world will always be there, but you will be in a better head space to process what is happening.

    You don’t have to feel helpless

    Taking breaks from consuming news is not burying your head in the sand – it’s practising self care. Studies have shown that people who set healthy boundaries around news consumption are often better equipped to engage meaningfully on important issues and take constructive action when needed.

    When you check the news, be an active consumer. Instead of endless scrolling:

    • choose one or two in-depth articles to read thoroughly

    • discuss the news with colleagues, friends and family to process your feelings

    • look for solution-focused news stories that highlight positive change

    • take meaningful action on issues you care about.

    There are also various apps and tools that can help you form healthier digital habits. Productivity apps use various approaches to help you stay focused, providing ways to snap you out of mindless scrolling.

    News curation apps and apps that allow you to save articles to read later can help you establish a balanced news diet, and remove the urgent need to read everything immediately.

    Many smartphones now come equipped with screen time management features, such as Apple’s Screen Time or Android’s Digital Wellbeing. You can use these to monitor your scrolling habits and to manage how much time you spend on social media or news apps.

    One useful feature is to block apps from use during certain times of day or after you’ve used them for a set amount of time.

    Screen time management features allow you to pause or block apps from use.
    The Conversation

    Stay mindful, stay engaged

    Staying informed doesn’t mean staying constantly connected. By mindfully setting boundaries and using supportive tools, you can keep up with important events while protecting your wellbeing.

    If you’re trying productivity apps and other tools, start small. Choose one tool that resonates with you rather than trying everything at once. Set realistic goals that fit your life, and use these apps’ insights to understand your habits better.

    Pay attention to what triggers your doomscrolling and adjust your settings accordingly. Remember, these tools work best when combined with offline activities you enjoy.

    The goal isn’t to disconnect completely, but to find a sustainable balance between staying informed and maintaining peace of mind. With thoughtful boundaries and the right support tools, you can stay engaged with the world while keeping your mental health intact.

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

    – ref. When news is stressful, how do you balance staying informed with ‘doomscrolling’? – https://theconversation.com/when-news-is-stressful-how-do-you-balance-staying-informed-with-doomscrolling-248017

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: As the ‘digital oligarchy’ grows in power, NZ will struggle to regulate its global reach and influence

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Andhov, Chair in Law and Technology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

    The images of President Donald Trump at his inauguration surrounded by the titans of the global tech industry is a warning of what could come: a global digital oligarchy dominated by a tiny tech elite.

    Companies like Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, X Corp, and OpenAI (all based in the United States) now operate beyond the control of most governments. Countries like New Zealand are increasingly struggling to keep these companies in check.

    In the past decade, New Zealand has taken several measures to curb the influence of powerful tech companies through voluntary agreements and tax legislation.

    But the digital age has fundamentally changed national sovereignty – the right of individual countries to decide the rules within their own borders.

    Big tech companies are gradually taking on functions traditionally reserved for government institutions. For example, these companies have begun to function as the arbiters of speech, controlling the visibility of certain ideas and comments.

    As recently as this month, Meta obscured searches for left-leaning topics including “Democrats”, later blaming the issue on a “technical glitch”.

    And as was widely covered in the media, Amnesty International released a report claiming that Facebook’s algorithms “proactively amplified” anti-Rohingya content in Myanmar, substantially contributing to human rights violations against the ethnic group.

    New Zealand’s attempts to regulate big tech

    A number of governments are now facing the question of how to temper the influence of these companies within their current legal frameworks.

    As New Zealand (among others) has discovered in the past decade, influencing the behaviour of these companies is easier said than done. It has repeatedly found itself struggling to effectively manage big tech’s impact on its society and economy.

    In 2018, for example, New Zealand’s Privacy Commissioner said Facebook had failed to comply with its obligations under the New Zealand Privacy Act. The company told the commission the Privacy Act did not apply to it.

    When the Christchurch terrorist attack was livestreamed on Facebook (owned by Meta), New Zealand authorities found themselves largely powerless to prevent the video’s spread across global platforms.

    This crisis prompted then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern to launch the Christchurch Call initiative aimed at combating online extremism by fostering collaboration between governments and tech companies.

    The goal was to develop and enforce measures such as improved content moderation, removal of extremist material, and the creation of safer online environments.

    While gaining support from more than 120 countries and tech companies, its effect depends on voluntary ongoing cooperation. Recent events suggest this ongoing cooperation is unlikely.

    In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to get rid of content moderation in the US and possibly elsewhere. Zuckerberg has also pushed back against European Union regulations, claiming the EU’s data laws censored social media.

    Taxing big tech

    In 2019, New Zealand proposed a 3% digital tax on big tech revenue. A similar measure was introduced by France in 2020 and by Canada and Australia last year.

    While these proposals signify important steps toward holding big tech accountable, their implementation remains uncertain.

    Although the relevant tax provisions have been adopted in New Zealand, the law includes clauses allowing tax collections to be deferred until as late as 2030.

    Meanwhile, big tech continues to push back aggressively against regulation in various ways. These have included threatening reduced services (such as the brief closure of TikTok in the US) to leveraging their relationships with the Trump government against other countries.

    Using competition regulation to rein in big tech

    In December 2024, the Australian government unveiled draft legislation on big tech to level the playing field.

    The proposed law seeks to foster fair competition, prevent price gouging, and give smaller tech and news companies a chance to thrive in a landscape increasingly dominated by global giants.

    The legislation would grant the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission the authority to investigate and penalise companies with fines of up to A$50 million for restricting competition.

    The targeted behaviour includes tactics such as restricting data transfers between platforms (for example, moving contacts or photos from iPhone to Android) and limiting third-party payment options in app stores.

    The proposed law aims to put an end to these unfair advantages, ensuring a level playing field where businesses of all sizes can compete and consumers have more choices.

    Democractic governance in the digital age

    The growing power of tech platforms raises critical questions about democratic governance in the digital age.

    There is an urgent need to reconcile the global influence of tech companies with local democratic processes and to create mechanisms that safeguard individual and national sovereignty in an increasingly digital world.

    Governments need to recognise these platforms are not immutable forces of nature, but human-created systems that can be challenged, reformed or dismantled. The same digital connectivity that has empowered these corporations can become the very tool of their transformation.

    Alexandra Andhov is conducting research on Big Tech Governance, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark under the Inge Lehmann Programme. The author is grateful for this support and wishes to acknowledge that the research was conducted entirely independently.

    – ref. As the ‘digital oligarchy’ grows in power, NZ will struggle to regulate its global reach and influence – https://theconversation.com/as-the-digital-oligarchy-grows-in-power-nz-will-struggle-to-regulate-its-global-reach-and-influence-247899

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ‘Turn it into a retirement village’: Inside the war of words over Eden Park

    After lengthy, torrid and emotional debate a critical decision for the future of Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau is being made in March. One party will celebrate; the other will slink back to the drawing board. But will it really settle the great Auckland stadium debate?

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Chris Schulz

    It resembles a building from Blade Runner. It looks like somewhere the Avengers might assemble. It is, believes Paul Nisbet, the future.

    “It’s innovative, it’s groundbreaking, it’s something different,” says the driving force behind Te Tōangaroa, a new stadium mooted for downtown Auckland.

    He has spent 13 years dreaming up this moon shot, and it shows. “We have an opportunity here to deliver something special for the country.”

    Located behind Spark Arena, Te Tōangaroa — also called “Quay Park” — is Nisbet’s big gamble, the stadium he believes Tāmaki Makaurau needs to sustain the city’s live sport and entertainment demands for the next 100 years.

    His is a concept as grand as it gets, a U-shaped dream with winged rooftops that will sweep around fans sitting in the stands, each getting unimpeded views out over the Waitematā Harbour and Rangitoto Island.

    Located behind Spark Arena, Te Tōangaroa is also called “Quay Park”. Image: Te Tōangaroa

    Nisbet calls his vision a “gateway for the world,” a structure so grand he believes it would attract the biggest sports teams, stars and sponsors to Aotearoa while offering visitors a must-see tourist destination. Nestled alongside residential areas, commercial zones and an All Blacks-themed hotel, designs show a retractable roof protecting 55,000 punters from the elements and a sky turret towering over neighbouring buildings.

    He’s gone all in on this. Nisbet’s quit his job, assembled a consortium of experts — called Cenfield MXD — and attracted financial backers to turn his vision into a reality. It is, Nisbet believes, the culmination of his 30-year career working in major stadiums, including 11 years as director of Auckland Stadiums.

    “I’ve had the chance to travel extensively,” he says. “I’ve been to over 50 stadiums around the world.”

    Tāmaki Makaurau, he says, needs Te Tōangaroa — urgently. If approved, it will be built over an ageing commercial space and an unused railway yard sitting behind Spark Arena, what Nisbet calls “a dirty old brownfields location that’s sapping the economic viability out of the city”.

    He calls it a “regeneration” project. “You couldn’t mistake you’re in Auckland, or New Zealand, when you see images of it,” he says.

    The All Blacks are on board, says Nisbet, and they want Te Tōangaroa built by 2029 in time for a Lions tour. (The All Blacks didn’t respond to a request for comment, but former players John Kirwan and Sean Fitzpatrick have backed the team moving to Te Tōangaroa.)

    Concert promoters are on board too, says Nisbet. He believes Te Tōangaroa would end the Taylor Swift debacle that’s seen her and many major acts skip us in favour of touring Australian stadiums.

    “It will be one of those special places that international acts just have to play,” he says.

    The problem? Nisbet’s made a gamble that may not pay off. In March, a decision is due to be made about the city’s stadium future. Building Te Tōangaroa, with an estimated construction time of six years and a budget of $1 billion, is just one option.

    The other, Eden Park, has 125 years of history, a long-standing All Blacks record and a huge number of supporters behind it — as well as a CEO willing to do anything to win.

    The stadium standing in Te Tōangaroa’s way
     Stand in Eden Park’s foyer for a few minutes and history will smack you in the face. It’s there in the photos framed on the wall from a 1937 All Blacks test match. It’s sitting in Anton Oliver’s rugby boots from 2001, presumably fumigated and placed inside a glass case.

    More recent history is on display too, with floor-to-ceiling photographs showing off concerts headlined by by Ed Sheeran and Six60, a pivot only possible since 2021.

    Soon, the man in charge of all of this arrives. “Very few people have seen this space,” says Nick Sautner, the Eden Park CEO who shakes my hand, pulls me down a hallway and invites me into a secret room in the bowels of Eden Park. With gleaming wood panels, leather couches and top-shelf liquor, Sautner’s proud of his hidden bar.

    “It’s invite-only . . . a VIP experience,” says Sautner, whose Australian accent remains easily identifiable despite seven years at the helm of Eden Park.

    The future of Eden Park if a refurb is granted. Image: YouTube

    This bar, he says, is just one of the many innovations Eden Park has undertaken in recent years. Built in 1900, the Mt Eden stadium remains the home of the All Blacks — but Eden Park is no longer considered a specialty sports venue.

    Up to 70 percent of the stadium’s revenue now comes from non-sporting activities, Sautner confirms. You can golf, abseil onto the rooftops and stay the night in dedicated glamping venues. It’s also become promoters’ choice for major concerts, with Coldplay and Luke Combs recently hosting multiple shows there. “We will consider any innovation you can imagine,” Sautner tells me. “We’re a blank canvas.”

    Throughout our interview, Sautner refers to Eden Park as the “national stadium”. He’s upbeat and on form, rattling off statistics and renovations from memory. His social media feeds — especially LinkedIn — are full of posts promoting the stadium’s achievements. He’ll pick up the phone to anyone who will talk to him.

    “Whatsapp is the best way of contacting me,” he says. Residents have his number and can call directly with complaints. After our interview, Sautner passes me his business card then follows it up with an email making sure I have everything I need. “My phone’s always on,” he assures me.

    He may not admit it, but Sautner’s doing all of this in an attempt to get ahead of what’s shaping up as the biggest crisis of Eden Park’s 125 years. If Te Tōangaroa is chosen in March, Eden Park — as well as Albany’s North Harbour Stadium and Onehunga’s Go Media Stadium – will all take a back seat.

    If Eden Park loses the All Blacks and their 31-year unbeaten record, then there’s no other word for it: the threat is existential.

    Called Eden Park 2.1, Sautner is promoting a three-stage renovation plan. Image: YouTube

    Ask Sautner if he’s losing sleep over his stadium’s future and he shakes his head. To him, Te Tōangaroa’s numbers don’t stack up. “If someone can make the business model work for an alternative stadium in Auckland, I’m all for activating the waterfront,” he says.

    Then he poses a series of questions: “How many events a year would a downtown stadium hold? Forty-five?” he asks. “So 320 other days a year, what’s going to be in that stadium?”

    He is, of course, biased. But Sautner believes upgrading Eden Park is the right move. Called Eden Park 2.1, Sautner is promoting a three-stage renovation plan that includes building a $100 million retractable rooftop. A new North Stand would lift Eden Park’s capacity to 70,000, and improved function facilities and a pedestrian bridge would turn the venue into “a fortress . . . capable of hosting every event”.

    He’s veering into corporate speak, but Sautner sees the vision clearly. With his annual concert consent recently raised from six to 12 shows, he already thinks he’s got it in the bag, “Eden Park has the land, it has the consent, it has the community, it has the infrastructure,” he says. “I’m very confident Eden Park is going to be here for another 100 years.”

    Instead of a drink, Sautner offers RNZ a personal stadium tour that takes us through the exact same doors that open when the All Blacks emerge onto the hallowed turf. There, blinking in the sunlight, Sautner sweeps his arms around the stadium and grins. “I get up every day and I think of my family,” he says. “Then I think, ‘How can I make Eden Park better?”

    The stadium debate: ‘It began when the dinosaurs died out’
     It is, says Shane Henderson, an argument for the ages. It never seems to quit. How long have Aucklanders been feuding about stadiums? “It began when the dinosaurs died out,” jokes Henderson.

    For the past year, he’s been chairing a working group that will make the decision on Auckland’s stadium future. That group whittled four options down to the current two, eliminating a sunken waterfront stadium, and another based in Silo Park.

    He’s doing this because Wayne Brown asked him to. “The mayor said, ‘We need to say to the public, ‘This is our preferred option for a stadium for the city.’” It’s taken over Henderson’s life. Every summer barbecue has turned into a forum for people to share their views.

    “People say, “Why don’t you do this?’” he says. Henderson won’t be drawn on which way he’s leaning ahead of March’s decision, but he’s well aware of the stakes. “We’re talking about the future of our city for generations to come,” he says. “It’s natural feelings are going to run high.”

    That’s true. As I researched this story, the main parties engaged in a back-and-forth discussion that became increasingly heated. Jim Doyle, from Te Tōangaroa’s Cenfield MXD team, described Eden Park’s situation as desperate.

    “Eden Park can’t fund itself . . . it’s got no money, it’s costing ratepayers,” he said. Doyle alleged the stadium “wouldn’t be fit for purpose”. “You’re going to have to spend probably close to $1 billion to upgrade it.” Asked what should happen to Eden Park should the decision go Te Tōangaroa’s way, Doyle shrugged his shoulders. “Turn it into a retirement village.”

    Eden Park’s Sautner immediately struck back. Yes, he admits Eden Park owes $40 million to Auckland Council, calling that debt a “legacy left over from the Rugby World Cup 2011”. But he denied most of the consortium’s claims.

    “Eden Park does not receive any funding or subsidies from Auckland ratepayers,” Sautner said in a written statement. He confirmed renovations had already begun. “Over the past three years, the Trust has invested more than $30 million to enhance infrastructure and upgrade facilities . . . creating flexible spaces to meet evolving market demands.”

    Sautner said Doyle’s statement was evidence of his team’s inexperience. “We are extremely disappointed that comments of this nature have been made,” he said. “They are factually incorrect and highlight Quay Park consortium’s lack of understanding of stadium economics.”

    Do we even need to do this?
     As the stadium debate turns into a showdown, major stars continue to skip Aotearoa in favour of huge Australian shows, with Katy Perry, Kylie Minogue and Oasis all giving us a miss this year. New Zealand music fans are reluctantly spending large sums on flights and accommodation if they want to see them. Until Metallica arrives in November, there are no stadium shows booked; just three of Eden Park’s 12 allotted concert slots are taken this year.

    Yet, Auckland City councillors will soon study feasibility reports being submitted by both stadium options.

    On March 24, Henderson, the working group chair, says councillors will come together to “thrash it out” and vote for their preferred option. There will only be one winner, and The New Zealand Herald reports either building Te Tōangaroa or Eden Park 2.1 is likely to cost more than $1 billion. Either we’re spending that on a brand new waterfront stadium, or we’re upgrading an old one.

    “Is that the best use of that money?” asks David Benge. The managing director for events company TEG Live doesn’t believe Tāmaki Makaurau needs another stadium because it’s barely using those it already has. He has questions.

    “I understand the excitement around a shiny new toy, but to what end?” he asks. “Can Auckland sustain a show at Go Media Stadium, a show at Western Springs, a show at Eden Park, and a show at this new stadium on the same night — or even in the same week?”

    Benge doesn’t believe Te Tōangaroa would entice more artists to play here either. “I’m yet to meet an artist who’s going to be swayed by how iconic a venue is,” he says. Bigger problems include the size of our population and the strength of our dollar.

    No matter the venue, “you’re still incurring the same expenses to produce the show,” he says. Instead, he suggests Pōneke as the next city needing a new venue. “If you could wave a magic wand and invest in a 10,000-12,000-capacity indoor arena in Wellington, that would be fantastic,” he says.

    Would a new stadium really lure big artists to NZ? Image: Te Tōangaroa

    Live Nation, the touring juggernaut that hosts most of the country’s stadium shows, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Other promoters canvassed by RNZ offered mixed views. Some wanted a new stadium, while others wanted a refurbished one. Every single one of them said that any new stadium needed to be built with concerts — not sport — in mind.

    “We’re fitting a square peg in a round hole,” one said about the production costs involved in trucking temporary stages into Eden Park or Go Media Stadium. “Turf replacement can add hundreds of thousands — if not $1 million — to your bottom line,” said another.

    Some wanted something else entirely. Veteran promoter Campbell Smith pointed out Auckland Council is seeking input for a potential redevelopment of Western Springs. One mooted option is turning it into a home ground for the rapidly rising football club Auckland FC. Smith doesn’t agree with that. “I think it’s a really attractive option for music and festivals,” he says. “It’s got a large footprint, it’s easily accessible, it’s close to the city … It would be a travesty if it was developed entirely for sport.”

    One thing is for certain: a decision on this lengthy, torrid and emotional topic is being made in March. One party will celebrate; the other will slink back to the drawing board. Will it finally end the great Auckland stadium debate? That’s a question that seems easier to answer than any of the others.

    Chris Schulz is a freelance entertainment journalist and author of the industry newsletter, Boiler Room. This article was first published by RNZ and is republished with the author’s permission. Asia Pacific Report has a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: DeepSeek shatters beliefs about the cost of AI, leaving US tech giants reeling

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael J. Davern, Professor of Accounting & Business Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

    Almost A$1 trillion (US$600 billion) was wiped off the value of artificial intelligence microchip maker Nvidia overnight on Monday, when a little-known Chinese start up, DeepSeek, threatened to upend the US tech market.

    While Nvidia suffered the biggest one-day loss in sharemarket history, other tech giants – Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon, who are investing heavily in competing AI tools including ChatGPT and Gemini – were also hit.

    The rout was caused by investors’ shock at the claimed performance of DeepSeek’s new R1 chatbot. The Chinese AI was reported to be more advanced than its competitors and less expensive to develop.

    DeepSeek R1 has soared, becoming the top free downloaded app on Apple’s app store, as US technology and related stock prices fell dramatically.

    Why tech stocks took a deep dive

    The market was surprised by DeepSeek providing what amounts to cheaper technology but comparable performance.

    This has dramatically changed the market’s expectations of computing power, showing more can be done for less. It has also compromised the competitiveness of the US tech companies’ existing AI products and developments.

    Stock prices are driven by market expectations. The claimed performance of DeepSeek R1 prompted a major revision of expectations about what was technologically possible and about how cheaply AI could be developed and operated.

    Investors have rapidly incorporated the news of a low-cost Chinese AI competitor into stock prices, anticipating this new entrant could disrupt the market and erode the competitive advantage of existing leaders.

    Who is DeepSeek and what is R1?

    DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Chinese hedge fund High Flyer, which had been exclusively using AI in trading since 2021.

    DeepSeek develops large language models (LLMs) that can underpin chatbots and other AI-based tools. R1 is the latest iteration of DeepSeek’s chatbot and underlying model. It builds on earlier versions of generative AI models developed by DeepSeek, and considerable amounts of data, but is a surprising leap forward in performance and cost.

    CAPTION TO GO HERE.
    Koshiro K/Shutterstock

    Technology investors believe R1 matches or outperforms competitors, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.o1 on numerous benchmarks.

    However, there are some key differences:

    1. The model underlying R1 operates in a much less intensive manner. It is much cheaper to develop and run, requiring less data and computing power.

    2. The training of the model was possible despite the US export ban preventing Chinese companies such as DeepSeek from accessing chips from US companies such as Nvidia. The Biden administration had introduced laws restricting the sale of certain computer chips and machinery to China, in a move intended to block its rival from accessing some of the world’s most advanced technology.

    3. The training data and data uploaded to R1 sit on servers in China. Given concerns about data privacy and intellectual property have already been raised about US-based companies, having data under jurisdiction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is arguably even more concerning.

    4. The chatbot program code is free to download, read and modify, unlike ChatGPT. This is however somewhat a false transparency – what matters more is the underlying model, not the Chatbot code.

    5. R1 is known to censor its responses in line with Chinese Communist Party values.

    The future of AI and tech stocks

    It is unknown whether this crash in price of tech stocks is an irrational panic that will reverse, or whether it simply reflects correct pricing. The future costs and benefits of AI are still uncertain.

    This is both a technological and an economic question.

    In technological terms, it is yet to be seen whether R1 really does require less computing power and less data to train and use.

    Economically, there are potential winners and losers. AI users may win with cheaper access to AI, and LLMs in particular, leading to increased adoption and associated productivity gains. Existing producers such as Nvidia may lose out in what was a market with few real competitors.

    More broadly, society may benefit from less computationally intensive, and therefore more energy-efficient, AI. However, the geopolitical risk of a single country capturing the market, together with concerns about data privacy, intellectual property and censorship may outweigh the benefits.

    Michael J. Davern has previously received funding from CPA Australia for industry research into Artificial Intelligence.

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

    – ref. DeepSeek shatters beliefs about the cost of AI, leaving US tech giants reeling – https://theconversation.com/deepseek-shatters-beliefs-about-the-cost-of-ai-leaving-us-tech-giants-reeling-248424

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: DeepSeek: how a small Chinese AI company is shaking up US tech heavyweights

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tongliang Liu, Associate Professor of Machine Learning and Director of the Sydney AI Centre, University of Sydney

    Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek has sent shockwaves through the tech community, with the release of extremely efficient AI models that can compete with cutting-edge products from US companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

    Founded in 2023, DeepSeek has achieved its results with a fraction of the cash and computing power of its competitors.

    DeepSeek’s “reasoning” R1 model, released last week, provoked excitement among researchers, shock among investors, and responses from AI heavyweights. The company followed up on January 28 with a model that can work with images as well as text.

    So what has DeepSeek done, and how did it do it?

    What DeepSeek did

    In December, DeepSeek released its V3 model. This is a very powerful “standard” large language model that performs at a similar level to OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5.

    While these models are prone to errors and sometimes make up their own facts, they can carry out tasks such as answering questions, writing essays and generating computer code. On some tests of problem-solving and mathematical reasoning, they score better than the average human.

    V3 was trained at a reported cost of about US$5.58 million. This is dramatically cheaper than GPT-4, for example, which cost more than US$100 million to develop.

    DeepSeek also claims to have trained V3 using around 2,000 specialised computer chips, specifically H800 GPUs made by NVIDIA. This is again much fewer than other companies, which may have used up to 16,000 of the more powerful H100 chips.

    On January 20, DeepSeek released another model, called R1. This is a so-called “reasoning” model, which tries to work through complex problems step by step. These models seem to be better at many tasks that require context and have multiple interrelated parts, such as reading comprehension and strategic planning.

    The R1 model is a tweaked version of V3, modified with a technique called reinforcement learning. R1 appears to work at a similar level to OpenAI’s o1, released last year.

    DeepSeek also used the same technique to make “reasoning” versions of small open-source models that can run on home computers.

    This release has sparked a huge surge of interest in DeepSeek, driving up the popularity of its V3-powered chatbot app and triggering a massive price crash in tech stocks as investors re-evaluate the AI industry. At the time of writing, chipmaker NVIDIA has lost around US$600 billion in value.

    How DeepSeek did it

    DeepSeek’s breakthroughs have been in achieving greater efficiency: getting good results with fewer resources. In particular, DeepSeek’s developers have pioneered two techniques that may be adopted by AI researchers more broadly.

    The first has to do with a mathematical idea called “sparsity”. AI models have a lot of parameters that determine their responses to inputs (V3 has around 671 billion), but only a small fraction of these parameters is used for any given input.

    However, predicting which parameters will be needed isn’t easy. DeepSeek used a new technique to do this, and then trained only those parameters. As a result, its models needed far less training than a conventional approach.

    The other trick has to do with how V3 stores information in computer memory. DeepSeek has found a clever way to compress the relevant data, so it is easier to store and access quickly.

    What it means

    DeepSeek’s models and techniques have been released under the free MIT License, which means anyone can download and modify them.

    While this may be bad news for some AI companies – whose profits might be eroded by the existence of freely available, powerful models – it is great news for the broader AI research community.

    At present, a lot of AI research requires access to enormous amounts of computing resources. Researchers like myself who are based at universities (or anywhere except large tech companies) have had limited ability to carry out tests and experiments.

    More efficient models and techniques change the situation. Experimentation and development may now be significantly easier for us.

    For consumers, access to AI may also become cheaper. More AI models may be run on users’ own devices, such as laptops or phones, rather than running “in the cloud” for a subscription fee.

    For researchers who already have a lot of resources, more efficiency may have less of an effect. It is unclear whether DeepSeek’s approach will help to make models with better performance overall, or simply models that are more efficient.

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

    – ref. DeepSeek: how a small Chinese AI company is shaking up US tech heavyweights – https://theconversation.com/deepseek-how-a-small-chinese-ai-company-is-shaking-up-us-tech-heavyweights-248434

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Australia’s drama dilemma: how taxpayers foot the bill for content that ends up locked behind paywalls

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Potter, Professor in Digital Media and Cutural Studies, Queensland University of Technology

    Shutterstock

    Headlines about Screen Australia’s latest annual Drama Report have highlighted one particular figure: a 29% drop in total industry expenditure compared to the year before.

    But a closer look suggests this isn’t the most concerning finding. The report also reveals a significant chunk (42%) of the A$803 million spent on producing Australian TV drama in 2023–24 was funded by taxpayers.

    What’s more – watching half of the Australian TV drama hours broadcast in 2024 required a streaming subscription. Watching all of them required seven different subscriptions.

    With Australians’ funding of this commercial, for-profit sector on the rise, we can’t help but ask: what do Australian viewers get in return?

    Screen production challenged globally

    Screen sectors globally are experiencing significant downturns because of changes in audience behaviour and advertiser spending. Various analyses suggest between 14% and 25% of all viewing is now comprised of videos from YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

    Advertising revenue that once helped fund local drama has followed viewers to social media apps, imperilling Australia’s commercial broadcasters.

    Traditionally, commissions from the three commercial broadcasters have supported Australia’s drama production sector. However, in 2021 the government significantly watered-down their quota obligations. As a result, networks Seven, Nine and Ten commissioned just nine hours of new, non-soap drama in 2024.

    The loss of commercial broadcasters from the production ecosystem has radically changed the sector’s dynamics. Streamers such as Netflix and Stan are now the largest investors in Australian drama, followed by the ABC.

    Government subsidies for the sector have also grown considerably, partly due to rising production costs. Over the ten years leading up to 2023–24, federal spending on local TV drama production more than tripled, increasing by an average of 16.9% each year.

    Yet, during that same period, the hours of TV drama produced fell by an average of 5.7% each year. In other words, we’re spending more on less. And as mentioned above, much of this declining TV drama slate – which is heavily subsidised by government money – is ending up behind streamer paywalls.

    The problem with current policy

    Too much of Australia’s current screen funding is going towards stories that can’t be watched without a paid subscription.

    Also, many of these stories have little to no connection to Australia. For instance NBC Universal’s Young Rock, which was produced in Australia, is about the childhood of American celebrity Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Similarly, Nautilus, which Disney originally commissioned and which was made in Australia, is loosely based on Jules Verne’s maritime adventure novel, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.



    Read more:
    At $300m, Jules Verne-inspired Nautilus is the most expensive Australian-made show. But Disney+ was right to dump it

    Since the 2000s, our screen industry has become far more global than national. Current policy largely funds television projects through tax rebates on production budget. And any scripted production made in Australia (and with a certain minimum budget) is eligible for this funding.

    These rebates, combined with a lack of local content quotas for broadcasters and streamers, mean our current policy risks generously funding titles made by global corporations for international viewers.

    The 2024 Drama Report highlights a need to carefully consider whether Australia’s policy for the sector is delivering for Australians.

    It’s time to update the conditions of support, which were designed back when commercial broadcasters reliably commissioned some 300 hours of Australian drama each year. This is no longer the case.

    Solutions for more Australians stories

    So what needs to change? For a start, policy must offer greater support for dramas that tell compelling Australian stories in all their diversity.

    Such dramas, which deliver significant cultural value to audiences, should receive higher levels of rebates than international stories filmed in Australia. The ABC and the SBS could lead the way in commissioning this content, as per their charter obligations.

    The 2021 changes to Australian content regulations left the ABC as the principal provider of free local drama and children’s programs – but the ABC has limited resources. Rather than supporting international productions, local audiences might be better served if the government increased the ABC’s funding to produce minimum amounts of drama and children’s programs.

    We also have to bring Australian drama out from behind streamer paywalls if they receive any kind of government support. They should be made available to local audiences for free within two years of their release.

    This could be done through free-to-air television services, like ABC iView or SBS On Demand, or on a free platform built specifically for local content.

    Policymakers will need to define production sector sustainability in a 21st century context. Australia has historically had many small production companies. However, the steep decline in local drama being produced suggests only a few companies will remain viable in the long term.

    The scale of disruption facing local broadcasters and production companies needs to be matched by policy that’s fit for purpose, and which returns value to Australian communities.

    Anna Potter receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    Amanda Lotz receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    Marion McCutcheon receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    – ref. Australia’s drama dilemma: how taxpayers foot the bill for content that ends up locked behind paywalls – https://theconversation.com/australias-drama-dilemma-how-taxpayers-foot-the-bill-for-content-that-ends-up-locked-behind-paywalls-246237

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Here’s what ‘deep listening’ can tell us about the natural world and our place in it

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monty Nixon, PhD Student in Education, University of Canberra

    Jakub Maculewicz, Shutterstock

    Have you ever taken the time to stop and listen to nature? Deeply, quietly and patiently?

    If not, don’t worry, there’s still time to learn. Deep listening is a skill that can be developed.

    There’s much more to it than simply recognising the call or song of a particular species. To listen deeply to nature is to become aware of behaviours, relationships and patterns of interaction between multiple species, and to learn from what we hear.

    This is what Indigenous people have been doing for many thousands of years, in Australia and overseas.

    Under the supervision and guidance of Indigenous knowledge holders of Karulkiyalu Country, my PhD research, explores ways to embed this Indigenous approach to deep listening in Australia’s education system.

    The project builds on previous work showing positive results for student and teacher wellbeing, as well as an increased understanding of and desire to care for the natural world.

    The Rufous whistler is an Australian virtuoso.
    Andrew Skeoch

    What is deep listening?

    If you’d like to try deep listening, take some time to visit a natural place and find a quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed. Turn off your electronic devices.

    Close your eyes, and extend your sense of hearing into the landscape around you. Try focusing your listening in each direction, then above and even below. How far you can hear?

    At first you will hear the voices of individual creatures, perhaps one then another. After a while, you may begin to notice interactions and patterns of communication between them. Be curious. Does one respond to another? How, and why?

    Hearing all the interconnected activity going on around you in that moment can help you comprehend the living system as a whole.

    Acoustic ecologist Andrew Skeoch recording the sounds of nature in the Australian bush.
    Andrew Skeoch

    What can we learn from nature by listening?

    People often simplify complex relationships down to perceptions of either cooperation or competition.

    But listening to nature affirms that cooperative partnerships play a far greater role than meets the eye. Relationships between species that accommodate each other’s needs are ubiquitous throughout the biosphere.

    For instance, multiple species of birds forage efficiently and safely in mixed flocks, by communicating and alerting each other to information about food and threats. This practice of foraging collectively is so worthwhile it’s encountered the world over.

    Listening to the animated twittering of these flocks – which continually communicates and affirms each bird’s location – reminds us how beneficial cooperation can be. More importantly, cooperation is most advantageous when it embraces diversity.

    Addressing the existential threats facing humanity will require cooperation and collaboration on a massive scale. Many of these threats are interlinked. They tend to resist independent solutions and need to be tackled together.

    So there is an urgent need to embrace and celebrate our differences. Listening to mixed-species flocks reminds us that diversity can be a source of great strength.

    Lessons about competition

    Listening can also tell us about competitive interactions, particularly between members of the same species.

    In the morning twilight of the breeding season, songbirds join the dawn chorus – singing with repertoire and behaviours not heard at other times of day or year. It’s also clear they are listening to each other.

    At dawn, songbirds use formal vocal interactions to negotiate their most essential relationships. These include defining home ranges, establishing and maintaining pair bonds, acknowledging neighbours and affirming community identities.

    In this way, the dawn chorus is a sonic expression of a widespread principle in nature: that while the potential for competition exists, life-threatening aggression is risky, inefficient and costly.

    Many animals have developed specialised behaviours to sort out their relationships and status while minimising the risks of serious harm. For instance “boxing” kangaroos engage in scrapping or sparring rather than injurious fighting.

    While these physical behaviours are found widely throughout the animal world, songbirds have evolved their own trick: they use song to negotiate their interactions. Listening to them singing at dawn reminds us that competitive behaviours and aggression are not advantageous. Negotiation, mutual acknowledgement and respect are more successful ways of living.

    Boxing kangaroos negotiate their status without causing injury.
    victoriam, Shutterstock

    Educational possibilities from listening

    Learning through deep listening was integral to the education system in Australia for thousands of years. It allowed First Nations peoples to understand the ecological community around them and how to live with these groups of species.

    In this education system, Country and Earth-Kin, (such as plants and animals) were both central knowledge holders and teachers. Humans (primarily grandparents) provided support for childrens’ learning from these knowledge holders. In this way children came to know, understand and care for land.

    People and Country flourished through this way of learning. Australia became home to the longest continuing cultures in human history.

    Research is demonstrating how this old teaching and learning method can work in modern schooling. More than 120 educators across the ACT are involved in the Country as Teacher project. Cultivating a practice of deep listening to Earth-Kin and Country helped teachers and students develop an improved sense of wellbeing, as well as knowledge and understanding of the places they live.

    The research argues that teachers first need to cultivate their own practice of listening. Then they can embed this process in their approach to education. By slowing down, developing nuanced awareness, following curiosity, listening empathically to other beings and opening to being affected emotionally, teachers can cultivate their own deeper sense of care, appreciation and understanding. From their personal listening journey, educators can then facilitate these experiences for their students.

    Deep listening to Earth-Kin or Country as Teacher offers an old and new pathway to return to a valuable and important way of being for our schools and society.

    This path offers us the chance to come to appreciate and care for the ecological communities of the Earth. Through listening we can learn the ways in which species across the Earth adapt, survive and thrive, providing guidance for our own cultures as we confront increasing social and environmental uncertainty.

    This article was written in collaboration with acoustic ecologist Andrew Skeoch.

    Monty Nixon receives funding from The ACT Affiliated Schools Network.

    – ref. Here’s what ‘deep listening’ can tell us about the natural world and our place in it – https://theconversation.com/heres-what-deep-listening-can-tell-us-about-the-natural-world-and-our-place-in-it-235868

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: How the AFL and NRL have crept into cricket’s traditional summer timeslot

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania

    Most of Australia has four seasons each year.

    However, when it comes to sport, the Australian calendar has long been dominated by two seasons: cricket and football.

    Traditionally, cricket has been played from October to March when the weather is suitable, and Australian rules football and rugby league from April to September.

    But in recent years, a lack of international cricket in Australia after January – coupled with earlier start dates for the AFL and NRL seasons – has resulted in football receiving more local media coverage and attention from fans during the summer.

    For many Australian cricket fans, the season will be finished once the Big Bash League and women’s Ashes conclude in early February.

    In February and March, the Australian men’s and women’s cricket teams will play matches overseas and the Australian states will play each other in one-day and four-day games.

    However, the reduced media attention and free-to-air TV coverage of cricket in Australia means many sports fans turn their attention to other sports, usually football or rugby league.

    But has this always been the case?



    Read more:
    How is the Big Bash League faring after 14 years of ups and downs – and what’s next?

    Football seasons are getting longer

    Cricket has been played in Australia for more than 200 years. While Australian rules football was initially developed to keep cricketers fit through the winter, football competitions such as the AFL and NRL have now arguably become more dominant across the sporting calendar.

    The 2024 AFL season was the longest in the sport’s history. The 2025 season will be exactly the same length, stretching nearly seven months, from March 6 to September 27.

    The 2025 NRL season will be even longer. It starts in Las Vegas on March 2 and doesn’t finish until the Grand Final on October 5.

    The 2025 AFLW and NRLW seasons will also be the longest ever, finishing as late as November 30.

    Football seasons are starting earlier

    While an AFL Grand Final in late September and an NRL Grand Final leading into NSW’s Labour Day in early October are well established, the start of the season has been slowly creeping forward over the decades.

    Twenty years ago, the AFL season started in late March, 50 years ago it was early April, and 80 years ago it was late April. The first AFL (VFL) season in 1897 started on May 8.

    The start of the NRL season has also moved forward over time. The first NRL (NSWRL) season in 1908 started on April 20.

    While these historical season start dates did not overlap with the cricket season, that is no longer the case.

    This year, the AFL and NRL will have completed three premiership rounds before the Sheffield Shield final ends the Australian domestic cricket season in late March.

    And then there are the AFL and NRL pre-season competitions, with games starting as early as February 7.

    Why are football seasons getting longer?

    Some of the factors that have contributed to extensions of football seasons include:

    • the introduction of more teams that all need to play each other
    • revenue opportunities for broadcasters, venues and clubs, and
    • additional mid-season byes and rest periods.

    AFL and NRL players have cited fatigue because of the long seasons. Consequently, some players’ associations and coaches have advocated for shorter seasons.

    However, playing fewer games would likely mean less money for the AFL and NRL, and for players and clubs.

    Adding more teams to the AFL and NRL and extending the AFLW and NRLW seasons may allow for more flexibility with future season lengths, as football codes can be played any time of year.

    Unless your stadium has an expensive roof, cricket cannot because of the threat of rain.

    What does this mean for cricket?

    While Australians can still play both cricket and football at junior and community levels, this is no longer possible at representative levels because of the overlap between seasons.

    The encroachment of football into traditional cricket months means increased competition for players, often forcing talented young athletes to make a decision about which sport to pursue.

    Greater perceived opportunities to play at the elite level may convince some players to prioritise football.

    For example, the six Australian state cricket teams generally contract 20 to 25 players each season. In comparison, the 17 NRL teams each have 30 contracted players and the 18 AFL clubs can have 44 players in their squads.

    Current AFL players such as Stephen Coniglio, Caleb Serong and Brent Daniels all represented their state in underage cricket before choosing football. Manly lock Nathan Brown and retired star Braith Anasta are NRL examples.

    Luckily for cricket, current players such as Alex Carey (GWS under-18 captain 2010), Mitch Marsh (under-18 WA AFL team 2008) and Will Sutherland (under-18 Victorian Metro AFL team 2017) are examples of young players choosing cricket after successful underage football careers.

    Venue availability and scheduling conflicts

    The extended football seasons pose logistical challenges for venues. Iconic stadiums such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) traditionally host both cricket and football matches and now face increased scheduling pressure with the seasons overlapping.

    For instance, in 2024, the MCG only had a 22-day turnaround between hosting the AFL Grand Final and the Victoria vs NSW Sheffield Shield match.

    Hosting concerts at these venues increases revenue but also adds to scheduling difficulties.

    It all adds up to a difficult juggling act for venues, which will be made even trickier if the football codes creep even further into the traditional cricket season.

    Cricket, too, has a battle on its hands to stay relevant to fans, broadcasters, commercial partners and even participants as the AFL and NRL seasons continue to expand.

    The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. How the AFL and NRL have crept into cricket’s traditional summer timeslot – https://theconversation.com/how-the-afl-and-nrl-have-crept-into-crickets-traditional-summer-timeslot-247330

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: David Seymour says Kiwis are too squeamish about privatisation – history shows why they lost the appetite

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

    Getty Images

    State asset sales have been a political dividing line in New Zealand for decades now, and it seems voters are again being asked to decide which side they’re on.

    In his state-of-the-nation speech last week, ACT Party leader David Seymour advised New Zealanders to “get past their squeamishness about privatisation” and ask themselves:

    If we want to be a first world country, then are we making the best use of the government’s half-a-trillion-dollars–plus worth of assets? If something isn’t getting a return, the government should sell it so we can afford to buy something that does.

    No doubt this appealed to ACT’s core constituency. But the available evidence suggests many New Zealanders view the privatisation of state assets with scepticism, not squeamishness.

    The most rigorous available data are from the New Zealand Election Study: just under 50% of those surveyed in 2020 either “somewhat” or “strongly” agreed with the proposition that “privatisation has gone too far”.

    Just over 9% either somewhat or strongly disagreed with that statement. In other words, those who oppose state asset sales comfortably outnumber those who support them.

    It seems reasonable to suggest this reflects the sizeable proportion of New Zealanders who remember the asset sales experience of the 1980s and 1990s under both Labour and National governments.

    Writing in 2000, during the heights of this bipartisan privatisation boom, economic analyst Brian Gaynor argued:

    By selling 100 per cent shareholdings in state assets, the New Zealand Government has allowed a small group of investors, mainly offshore, to make enormous profits. With just a little foresight these profits could have been kept for the benefit of domestic investors and taxpayers.

    At the same time, voters have watched levels of wealth inequality rise, and the transfer of public wealth into private hands. And while asset sales can improve efficiency, they can also reduce access to services for those on limited incomes or experiencing higher unemployment.

    Market failure

    Research has shown a clear majority of New Zealanders would prefer the government provides social services, especially in health and education.

    Just over 80% of New Zealanders trust the public service based on their own experiences. And levels of trust in the public service outstrip those in the private sector. All this suggests there is little appetite for a return to the days of peak privatisation.

    More broadly, some New Zealanders will also question Seymour’s assertion that state assets should provide a return on investment.

    Aside from it not being possible to turn a profit on many of the assets a government needs to serve the needs of its citizens, there are costs associated with putting a market value on certain social goods and services.

    As Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel has argued:

    [W]hen money comes increasingly to govern access to the essentials of the good life – decent health care, access to the best education, political voice and influence in campaigns – when money comes to govern all of those things, inequality matters a great deal.

    Furthermore, there is ample evidence of the ethical and operational shortcomings of applying the profit motive to public institutions such as prisons, hospitals and schools.

    Nor are markets themselves value-free, self-correcting mechanisms. In the material economy, they have a propensity to fail. When they do, the people who suffer most tend to be those least well positioned to defend themselves.

    That is why the state performs certain functions: to make sure those unable to pay for privately provided goods and services are not denied them.

    The nature and extent of what the state should provide is quite properly a matter for debate. But those decisions affect everyone and should be decided in the public domain, not left to the managers and owners of private companies.

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon: open to a conversation about priviatisation.
    Getty Images

    Public versus private debt

    Seymour also suggested a return to asset sales was justified by the country’s current levels of public debt. He referred to “the other tribe” who are

    building a majority for mediocrity – who would love nothing more than to go into lockdown again, make some more sourdough, and worry about the billions in debt another day.

    But as the right-leaning Maxim Institute points out,

    the real risk in New Zealand is our very high levels of private debt, which includes household debt like mortgages, student loans, credit card, hire purchases, to buying a car in instalments […] Compared to our relatively low levels of public debt our current household debt stands at 95% of GDP.

    According to the Treasury, current public debt levels are “prudent”, although “an ageing population, climate change and historical trends mean governments have important choices to make”.

    The risk of renewed asset sales and privatisation is that public debt might be reduced but at the expense of private debt increasing.

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has responded by saying he was open to a conversation about selling state assets. While it was “not something on our agenda right now”, he said, he hinted National may campaign on it ahead of next year’s election.

    His other coalition partner, NZ First, has a long-held antipathy to selling local assets to offshore owners. And Luxon may also remember the result of the non-binding citizens-initiated referendum in 2013, when 67.3% opposed the potential sale of the state’s energy companies.

    A niche party such as ACT can safely take policy positions that have little appeal beyond its core supporters. But that’s not a luxury available to its major coalition partner, which started the year behind in the polls.

    On the other hand, National does not want to be outflanked any further by ACT. Asset sales, it seems, are destined to remain a perennial political fault line.

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

    – ref. David Seymour says Kiwis are too squeamish about privatisation – history shows why they lost the appetite – https://theconversation.com/david-seymour-says-kiwis-are-too-squeamish-about-privatisation-history-shows-why-they-lost-the-appetite-248308

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The Electronic Intifada: Bringing Israeli genocide perpetrators to justice

    This article was written before The Electronic Intifada’s founding editor Ali Abunimah was arrested in Switzerland on Saturday afternoon for “speaking up for Palestine”. He has since been released and deported.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Ali AbunimahIsrael smuggled one of its soldiers out of Cyprus, apparently fearing his detention on charges related to the genocide in Gaza, according to Dyab Abou Jahjah, the co-founder of The Hind Rajab Foundation.

    Abou Jahjah, a Belgian-Lebanese political activist and writer, told The Electronic Intifada livestream last week that his organisation was stepping up efforts all over the world to bring to justice Israeli soldiers implicated in the slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children over the last 15 months.

    You can watch the interview with Abou Jahjah and all of this week’s programme in the video above.


    Gaza Ceasefire Day 5. Video: The Electronic Intifada

    Speaking from Gaza, Electronic Intifada contributor Donya Abu Sitta told us how people there are coping following the ceasefire, especially those returning to devastated homes and finding the remains of loved ones.

    She shared a poem inspired by the hopes and fears of the young children she continued to teach throughout the genocide.

    Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to attack Palestinians in some parts of Gaza. That was among developments covered in the news brief from associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman, along with the efforts to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation.

    Israel’s genocidal war has orphaned some 40,000 children in Gaza.

    Contributing editor Jon Elmer covered the latest ceasefire developments and the resistance operations in the period leading up to it.

    We also discussed whether US President Donald Trump will force Israel to uphold the ceasefire and what the latest indications of his approach are.

    And this writer took a critical look at Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde.

    She has been hailed as a hero for urging Donald Trump to respect the rights of marginalised groups, as the new president sat listening to her sermon at Washington’s National Cathedral.

    But over the last 15 months, Budde has parroted Israeli atrocity propaganda justifying genocide, and has repeatedly failed to condemn former President Joe Biden’s key role in the mass slaughter and did not call on him to stop sending weapons to Israel.

    Pursuing war criminals
     In the case of the soldier in Cyprus, The Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint, and after initial hesitation, judicial authorities in the European Union state opened an investigation of the soldier.

    “When that was opened, the Israelis smuggled the soldier out of Cyprus,” Abou Jahjah said, calling the incident the first of its kind.

    “And when I say smuggling, I’m not exaggerating, because we have information that he was even taken by a private jet,” Abou Jahjah added.

    The foundation is named after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was in a car with members of her family, trying to escape the Israeli onslaught in Gaza City, when they were attacked.

    The story of Hind, trapped all alone in a car, surrounded by dead relatives, pleading over the phone for rescue, a conversation that was recorded by the Palestinian Red Crescent, is among the most poignant and brazen crimes committed during Israel’s genocide.

    According to Abou Jahjah, lawyers and activists determined to seek justice for Palestinians identified a gap in the efforts to hold Israel accountable that they could fill: pursuing individual soldiers who have in many cases posted evidence of their own crimes in Gaza on social media.

    The organisation and its growing global network of volunteers and legal professionals has been able to collect evidence on approximately 1000 Israeli soldiers which has been handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    In addition to filing cases against Israeli soldiers traveling abroad, such as the one in Cyprus, and other recent examples in Brazil, Thailand and Italy, a main focus of the foundation is individuals who hold both Israeli and another nationality.

    “Regarding the dual nationals, we are not under any restraint of time,” Abou Jahjah explained. “For example, if you’re Belgian, Belgium has jurisdiction over you.”

    Renouncing their second nationality cannot shield these soldiers, according to Abou Jahjah, because courts will take into account their citizenship at the time the alleged crime was committed.

    Abou Jahjah feels confident that with time, war criminals will be brought to justice. The organisation is also discussing expanding its work to the United States, where it may use civil litigation to hold perpetrators accountable.

    Unsurprisingly, Israel and friendly governments are pushing back against The Hind Rajab Foundation’s work, and Abou Jahjah is now living under police protection.

    “Things are kind of heavy on that level, but this will not disrupt our work,” Abou Jahjah said. “It’s kind of naive of them to think that the work of the foundation depends on a person.”

    “We have legal teams across the planet, very capable people. Our data is spread across the planet,” Abou Jahjah added. “There’s nothing they can do. This is happening.”

    Resistance report
     In his resistance report, Elmer analysed videos of operations that took place before the ceasefire, but which were only released by the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, after it took effect.

    He also previewed Saturday, 25 January, when nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for four Israeli female soldiers.

    Will Trump keep Israel to the ceasefire?
     Pressure from President Trump was key to getting Israel to agree to a ceasefire deal it had rejected for almost a year. But will his administration keep up the pressure to see it through?

    There have been mixed messages, with Trump recently telling reporters he was not sure it would hold, but also intriguingly distancing himself from Israel. “That’s not our war, it’s their war.”

    We took a look at what these comments, as well as a renewed commitment to implementing the deal expressed by Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy, tell us about what to expect.

    As associate editor Asa Winstanley noted, “this ceasefire is not nothing.” It came about because the resistance wore down the Israeli army, and statements from Witkoff hinting that the US may even be open to talking to Hamas deserve close attention.

    ‘Largely silent’
     By her own admission, Bishop Mariann Budde has remained “largely silent” about the genocide in Gaza, except when she was pushing Israeli propaganda or engaging in vague, liberal hand-wringing about “peace” and “love” without ever clearly condemning the perpetrators of mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians, demanding that the US stop the flow of weapons making it possible, or calling for accountability.

    This type of evasion serves no one.

    You can watch the programme on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What’s the difference between a food allergy and an intolerance?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Koplin, Group Leader, Childhood Allergy & Epidemiology, The University of Queensland

    Feel good studio/Shutterstock

    At one time or another, you’ve probably come across someone who is lactose intolerant and might experience some unpleasant gut symptoms if they have dairy. Maybe it’s you – food intolerances are estimated to affect up to 25% of Australians.

    Meanwhile, cow’s milk allergy is one of the most common food allergies in infants and young children, affecting around one in 100 infants.

    But what’s the difference between food allergies and food intolerances? While they might seem alike, there are some fundamental differences between the two.

    What is an allergy?

    Australia has one of the highest rates of food allergies in the world. Food allergies can develop at any age but are more common in children, affecting more than 10% of one-year-olds and 6% of children at age ten.

    A food allergy happens when the body’s immune system mistakenly reacts to certain foods as if they were dangerous. The most common foods that trigger allergies include eggs, peanuts and other nuts, milk, shellfish, fish, soy and wheat.

    Mild to moderate signs of food allergy include a swollen face, lips or eyes; hives or welts on your skin; or vomiting. A severe allergic reaction (called anaphylaxis) can cause trouble breathing, persistent dizziness or collapse.

    What is an intolerance?

    Food intolerances (sometimes called non-allergic reactions) are also reactions to food, but they don’t involve your immune system.

    For example, lactose intolerance is a metabolic condition that happens when the body doesn’t produce enough lactase. This enzyme is needed to break down the lactose (a type of sugar) in dairy products.

    Food intolerances can also include reactions to natural chemicals in foods (such as salicylates, found in some fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices) and problems with artificial preservatives or flavour enhancers.

    Lactose intolerance is caused by a problem with breaking down lactose in milk.
    Pormezz/Shutterstock

    Symptoms of food intolerances can include an upset stomach, headaches and fatigue, among others.

    Food intolerances don’t cause life-threatening reactions (anaphylaxis) so are less dangerous than allergies in the short term, although they can cause problems in the longer term such as malnutrition.

    We don’t know a lot about how common food intolerances are, but they appear to be more commonly reported than allergies. They can develop at any age.

    It can be confusing

    Some foods, such as peanuts and tree nuts, are more often associated with allergy. Other foods or ingredients, such as caffeine, are more often associated with intolerance.

    Meanwhile, certain foods, such as cow’s milk and wheat or gluten (a protein found in wheat, rye and barley), can cause both allergic and non-allergic reactions in different people. But these reactions, even when they’re caused by the same foods, are quite different.

    For example, children with a cow’s milk allergy can react to very small amounts of milk, and serious reactions (such as throat swelling or difficulty breathing) can happen within minutes. Conversely, many people with lactose intolerance can tolerate small amounts of lactose without symptoms.

    There are other differences too. Cow’s milk allergy is more common in children, though many infants will grow out of this allergy during childhood.

    Lactose intolerance is more common in adults, but can also sometimes be temporary. One type of lactose intolerance, secondary lactase deficiency, can be caused by damage to the gut after infection or with medication use (such as antibiotics or cancer treatment). This can go away by itself when the underlying condition resolves or the person stops using the relevant medication.

    Whether an allergy or intolerance is likely to be lifelong depends on the food and the reason that the child or adult is reacting to it.

    Allergies to some foods, such as milk, egg, wheat and soy, often resolve during childhood, whereas allergies to nuts, fish or shellfish, often (but not always) persist into adulthood. We don’t know much about how likely children are to grow out of different types of food intolerances.

    How do you find out what’s wrong?

    If you think you may have a food allergy or intolerance, see a doctor.

    Allergy tests help doctors find out which foods might be causing your allergic reactions (but can’t diagnose food intolerances). There are two common types: skin prick tests and blood tests.

    In a skin prick test, doctors put tiny amounts of allergens (the things that can cause allergies) on your skin and make small pricks to see if your body reacts.

    A blood test checks for allergen-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies in your blood that show if you might be allergic to a particular food.

    Blood tests can help diagnose allergies.
    RossHelen/Shutterstock

    Food intolerances can be tricky to figure out because the symptoms depend on what foods you eat and how much. To diagnose them, doctors look at your health history, and may do some tests (such as a breath test). They may ask you to keep a record of foods you eat and timing of symptoms.

    A temporary elimination diet, where you stop eating certain foods, can also help to work out which foods you might be intolerant to. But this should only be done with the help of a doctor or dietitian, because eliminating particular foods can lead to nutritional deficiencies, especially in children.

    Is there a cure?

    There’s currently no cure for food allergies or intolerances. For allergies in particular, it’s important to strictly avoid allergens. This means reading food labels carefully and being vigilant when eating out.

    However, researchers are studying a treatment called oral immunotherapy, which may help some people with food allergies become less sensitive to certain foods.

    Whether you have a food allergy or intolerance, your doctor or dietitian can help you to make sure you’re eating the right foods.

    Victoria Gibson, a Higher Degree by Research student and Research Officer at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Queensland, and Rani Scott-Farmer, a Senior Research Assistant at the University of Queensland, contributed to this article.

    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. She was a named investigator on a grant from Sanofi Regeneron for unrelated research and has received a research award from the Stallergenes Greer Foundation.

    Desalegn Markos Shifti is supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship funded through the Centre for Food Allergy Research Centre of Research Excellence.

    – ref. What’s the difference between a food allergy and an intolerance? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-a-food-allergy-and-an-intolerance-243685

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ-Kiribati fallout: Maamau govt minister says ‘impacts to be felt by the people’

    By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific Bulletin editor/presenter

    Kiribati President Taneti Maamau was unable to meet New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters because he had “a pre-planned and significant historical event”, a Cabinet minister in Kiribati says.

    Alexander Teabo, Education Minister in Maamau’s government, told RNZ Pacific that “it is important for the truth to be conveyed accurately” after the “diplomatic tiff” between the two nations was confirmed by Peters as reported.

    Maamau is currently in Fiji for his first state visit to the country.

    Peters said New Zealand could not commit to ongoing monetary aid in Kiribati after three cancelled or postponed visits in recent months.

    A spokesperson from Peters’ office said the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to Tarawa was set to be the first in over five years and took a “month-long effort”. However, the NZ government was informed a week prior to the meeting that Maamau was no longer available.

    His office announced that, as a result of the “lack of political-level contact”, Aotearoa was reviewing its development programme in Kiribati. It is a move that has been described as “not the best approach” by Victoria University’s professor in comparative politics Dr Jon Fraenkel.

    Minister Teabo said that Peters’ visit to Kiribati was cancelled by the NZ government.

    “It is correct that the President was unavailable in Tarawa due to a pre-planned and significant historical event hosted on his home island,” he said.

    Date set ‘several months prior’
    “This important event’s date was established by the Head of the Catholic Church several months prior.”

    He said Maamau’s presence and support were required on his home island for this event, and it was not possible for him to be elsewhere.

    Teabo pointed out that Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister was happy to meet with Kiribati’s Vice-President in a recent visit.

    “The visit by NZ Foreign Minister was cancelled by NZ itself but now the blame is on the President of Kiribati as the reason for all the cuts and the impacts to be felt by the people.

    “This is unfair to someone who is doing his best for his people who needed him at any particular time.”

    ‘Tried several times’ – Luxon
     The New Zealand aid programme is worth over NZ$100 million, but increasingly, Kiribati has been receiving money from China after ditching its diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 2019.

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the country was keen to meet and work with Kiribati, like other Pacific nations.

    Luxon said he did not know whether the lack of communication was due to Kiribati and China getting closer.

    “The Foreign Minister has tried several times to make sure that as a new government, we can have a conversation with Kiribati and have a relationship there.

    “He’s very keen to meet with them and help them and work with them in a very constructive way but that hasn’t happened.”

    New Zealand’s Minister of Defence Judith Collins agrees with Peters’ decision to review aid to Kiribati.

    Collins said she would talk to Peters about it today.

    “I think we need to be very careful about where our aid goes, how it’s being used and I agree with him. We can’t have a disrespectful relationship.”

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: PNG media policy ‘new era journalism’ draft law ready, says Masiu

    NBC News in Port Moresby

    Papua New Guinea’s cabinet has officially given the green light to the PNG media policy, which will soon be presented to Parliament for formal enactment.

    Minister for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Timothy Masiu believes this policy will address ongoing concerns about sensationalism, ethical standards, and the portrayal of violence in the media.

    In an interview with NBC News in Port Moresby, Masiu outlined the urgent need for a shift in the nation’s media practices.

    PNG’s Information and Communication Technology Minister Timothy Masiu . . . “It’s time for Papua New Guinea’s media to evolve and reflect the values that truly define us.” Image: NBC News

    “We must be more responsible in how we report and portray the issues that matter most to our country. It’s time for Papua New Guinea’s media to evolve and reflect the values that truly define us,” he said.

    “Sensational headlines, graphic images of violence, and depictions of suffering do nothing to build our national identity. They only hurt our reputation globally.”

    Minister Masiu said the policy aimed to regulate sensitive contents and shift towards “more constructive and informative” coverage.

    According to Masiu, the policy’s long-term goal was to protect the public from harmful content while empowering journalists to play a positive role in nation-building.

    “This policy isn’t about stifling press freedom. It’s about ensuring that media in Papua New Guinea serves the public good by upholding the highest standards of integrity and professionalism,” Masiu said.

    Meanwhile, the policy also acknowledged the media’s significant influence on public opinion and its role in national development.

    Masiu added that once the policy was passed into law, it would become a guiding framework for media institutions across the nation, laying the foundation for a new era of journalism in Papua New Guinea.

    Republished from NBC News.

    Persistent criticism
     Pacific Media Watch reports that the draft media policy law and consultation process have been controversial and faced persistent criticisms from journalists, the PNG Media Council (MCPNG) and Transparency international PNG.

    Version 5 of the policy is here, but it is not clear whether that is the version Masiu says is ready.

    PNG dropped 32 places to 91st out of 180 countries in the 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index and the Paris-based world press freedom watchdog RSF called on the Marape government to withdraw the draft law in February 2023.

    Civicus references an incident last August when a PNG journalist was barred from a press briefing by the visiting Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto and said this came “amid growing concern about the government’s plan to regulate the press under its so-called media development policy”.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Fermented clothing? Here’s how the biofilm on kombucha can be turned into green textiles

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rajkishore Nayak, Associate Professor , RMIT University Vietnam

    A SCOBY biofilm atop kombucha l i g h t p o e t/Shutterstock

    If you’ve ever made kombucha, you will be familiar with the term SCOBY – a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. It’s impossible to miss – it’s the floating biofilm on top of your delicious drink.

    While a SCOBY looks gross, it is remarkably versatile. If you feed it on sugar and tea or coffee in large vats, it grows rapidly. The reason you need tea or coffee is because caffeine contains nitrogen, which stimulates microorganism growth. Species of bacteria in the SCOBY such as komagataeibacter xylinus have the curious ability to eat sugars and produce bacterial cellulose.

    The reason we and other researchers are focused on this unusual substance is because cellulose is extremely useful. Cotton is largely cellulose, as is flax, which we use to produce linen. Cellulose from bacteria has the advantage of being about ten times stronger than cotton.

    Traditional methods of making the world’s clothes comes at a large environmental cost. If we can scale up production of bacterial cellulose using common materials such as sugar and tea, we might produce a new kind of versatile, sustainable textile. In our new research, we use this cellulose to make wallets and canvases for painting.

    What’s so good about bacterial cellulose?

    Deriving cellulose from bacteria isn’t new. It was first discovered back in 1886. Since then, the main use we’ve found for it has been in food and drink.

    Kombucha – sometimes known as tea-mushroom – is thought to have been invented in China. In the Philippines, people have long fermented pineapple juice or coconut water to produce enough SCOBY to make chewy, gelatinous desserts. But this source of cellulose could be used for much more.

    In recent years, researchers have looked into using food waste to make this cellulose.

    Bacterial cellulose is made by cultivating a SCOBY in sugared tea, just like kombucha. But instead of the drink, what we are after is the SCOBY itself. As the microbes feed on the sugar, they spin out cellulose fibre and form a dense mat able to be harvested and processed.

    Despite not being from plants, the bacterial cellulose is remarkably similar to cellulose from cotton. In some ways, it might be better – it is incredibly pure, highly absorbent and boasts impressive tensile strength. It’s natural, nontoxic, has a low environmental footprint and is biodegradable.

    These traits make it potentially suitable for a range of uses, from clothing through to biomedical use in gauze bandages due to natural antibacterial properties. It can be dyed, sewed and treated to make different textures. It can be used to replace leather in clothing, footwear and accessories.

    Bacterial cellulose can be used to make gauze bandages.
    Kallayanee Naloka/Shutterstock

    But clothing is the main game. Researchers have found ways of growing this cellulose in moulds shaped like pieces of clothing to avoid the 15-20% of material wasted by cutting fabric.

    Bacterial cellulose might offer a way to reduce our reliance on the fibres we use to make clothes, which come with substantial environmental costs regardless of whether they are natural or synthetic.

    Farming cotton requires huge volumes of water and plentiful pesticides and insecticides. To make one kilo of cotton fibre requires between 8,000 and 22,000 litres of fresh water. Synthetic fabrics such as polyester and nylon are made from oil, a fossil fuel.

    The textile industry is highly polluting, consuming vast amounts of water and energy. As fashion gets ever faster, many of these clothes have a short lifespan before becoming waste. Synthetic fibres shed huge volumes of microplastics at every step of their lifespans.

    The challenge of fermentation

    In recent years, there’s been great interest in precision fermentation – using the rapid growth rate of microbes to produce foods and materials we want, such as milk grown without cows.

    One of the big challenges with these approaches is scale. Bacterial cellulose is a similar form of fermentation. As a result, it faces similar challenges around scalability and efficiency. While the material has promise, the question is whether it can be produced cheaply and at scale.

    To date, we haven’t yet found how to scale bacterial cellulose up to the level needed to meet the demand of large clothing manufacturers. And at present, the fermentation process is water intensive. Fermentation makes the water acidic, meaning it can’t be easily reused.

    This fibre could readily replace cotton, but doesn’t have the same extreme durability and elasticity as some synthetic fibres.

    Which way forward?

    The way we currently make clothes comes at a huge environmental cost. Bacterial cellulose could offer one way to make clothes at vastly lower cost to the planet.

    While there are still questions over whether it’s possible to make it competitive, researchers in several countries – including our research group – are coming at the problem from different angles. If they succeed, we might one day see a future where clothes and shoes come from sugar and tea.

    Rajkishore Nayak works for RMIT University Vietnam. We received Tier II funding from the the office of Research & Innovation at RMIT University Vietnam & CSIRO Australia.

    Donna Cleveland works for RMIT University Vietnam. She received funding from a Tier II grant from the the office of Research & Innovation at RMIT University Vietnam & CSIRO Australia..

    – ref. Fermented clothing? Here’s how the biofilm on kombucha can be turned into green textiles – https://theconversation.com/fermented-clothing-heres-how-the-biofilm-on-kombucha-can-be-turned-into-green-textiles-228904

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Voluntary assisted dying is legal in Australia – but many of us don’t know

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben White, Professor of End-of-Life Law and Regulation, Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology

    imtmphoto/Shutterstock

    Voluntary assisted dying is lawful in all Australian states. This allows terminally ill adults who are suffering and have decision-making capacity to choose to receive help to die.

    Victoria’s law was the first, coming into effect in 2019. New South Wales was the last state, with its voluntary assisted dying law beginning in late 2023.

    Voluntary assisted dying will be allowed in the Australian Capital Territory in November, and a Northern Territory report has recommended it pass a voluntary assisted dying law too.

    While the vast majority of Australians now live in jurisdictions where voluntary assisted dying is permitted, accessing voluntary assisted dying depends on knowing it’s a legal option. But our new research suggests many Australians don’t know this.

    A study in Queensland

    Voluntary assisted dying became legal in Queensland on January 1, 2023. We conducted an online survey of 1,000 Queensland adults in mid-2024 to find out if the community knew about this new end-of-life choice.

    We set quotas for age, gender and geographical location to ensure the people we surveyed represented the overall Queensland population.

    First, we asked whether people thought voluntary assisted dying was legal in Queensland. Only one-third (33%) correctly identified it was. Of the 67% who didn’t, 41% thought voluntary assisted dying was illegal and 26% said they didn’t know.

    People who did know voluntary assisted dying was legal had generally found out in one of three ways:

    • from the media

    • from professional experience (for example, working in health care)

    • from personal experience (for example, knowing someone who had asked about, requested or accessed voluntary assisted dying).

    We then told our survey participants voluntary assisted dying was legal in Queensland and asked if they would know how to go about accessing it if they wished to. Only one-quarter (26%) answered yes.

    The survey also asked people where they might look for information about voluntary assisted dying. Most people said they would seek this information online, but asking health practitioners, especially doctors, was also important.

    We found two-thirds of people didn’t know voluntary assisted dying was legal.
    Ground Picture/Shutterstock

    Legal and cultural barriers

    Perhaps it’s not surprising so few members of the surveyed public know voluntary assisted dying is a legal choice. It’s still a relatively new law. But there are specific barriers in Australia that can prevent people finding out about it.

    One major barrier is health practitioners are often not able to freely discuss voluntary assisted dying with their patients. The laws in all states control how conversations about voluntary assisted dying can occur.

    For example, in Queensland, only doctors and nurse practitioners can raise voluntary assisted dying and only if they also discuss available treatment and palliative care options and their likely outcomes.

    But the most problematic are Victorian and South Australian laws which prohibit health practitioners from raising the topic with patients altogether. Many people rely on their doctor to tell them about treatment options, so it’s a problem if the onus is on the patient to bring it up first.

    Conscientious objection is another significant barrier. Some doctors are opposed to voluntary assisted dying and even if they practise in a state where they can legally raise it, may choose not to tell their patients about it. This is another reason patients may not know voluntary assisted dying could be a choice for them.

    It’s important to note our study was only done in Queensland, so we can’t be confident the findings represent the wider Australian population. But given these barriers to knowing about voluntary assisted dying, it’s reasonable to anticipate similar trends in other states.

    A national challenge

    Raising community awareness of voluntary assisted dying is a challenge around the country. Voluntary assisted dying oversight boards from five states (Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia) have all discussed this issue in their most recent annual reports.

    In addition, Western Australia recently reviewed its voluntary assisted dying laws, identifying lack of community knowledge as a problem. The review called for a strategy to fix this.

    We see this challenge as one of “voluntary assisted dying literacy”. Greater voluntary assisted dying literacy will enable members of the public to know the options available to them, and how to make the choices they want.

    Raising community awareness about voluntary assisted dying is a challenge nationally.
    Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock

    What can we do about this?

    We need community awareness initiatives to increase knowledge that voluntary assisted dying is legal and ensure people know where to find information about this option. Information about voluntary assisted dying is already available from all state government health departments, but more action is needed to ensure it reaches more people.

    Respondents in our survey suggested using social media campaigns, advertising, and sharing information through Centrelink, health clinics and other trusted community channels.

    We also propose targeted information for particular patient groups who may be eligible for voluntary assisted dying, such as people with cancer or neurodegenerative diseases. This means they will know voluntary assisted dying may be one of the treatment options available to them, and how to navigate the process should they wish to.

    These initiatives would need to be designed sensitively with a focus on providing information to avoid any perception that people could feel induced or directed to access voluntary assisted dying.

    Training for health practitioners is also important. This is particularly needed for GPs and specialists working in end-of-life care. Training will support health practitioners to facilitate informed discussions with patients and families.

    Strong community support was a key argument in legalising voluntary assisted dying in Australia. The public wanted this as an end-of-life choice. But that choice is only a real one if people know it exists.

    Our online resource End of Life Law in Australia has more information about voluntary assisted dying and contact points for accessing it in each state.

    Ben White has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, Commonwealth and state governments, and philanthropic organisations for research and training about the law, policy and practice relating to end-of-life care. In relation to voluntary assisted dying, he (with colleagues) has been engaged by the Victorian, Western Australian and Queensland governments to design and provide the legislatively mandated training for health practitioners involved in voluntary assisted dying in those states. He (with Lindy Willmott) has also developed a model bill for voluntary assisted dying for parliaments to consider. Ben is a recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT190100410: Enhancing End-of-Life Decision-Making: Optimal Regulation of Voluntary Assisted Dying) funded by the Australian government. He is also a Chief Investigator on a current Australian Research Council Linkage Project on voluntary assisted dying (partnering with Voluntary Assisted Dying (Review) Boards and/or Departments of Health in five Australian States. The research this article discusses was funded by Queensland Health.

    Lindy Willmott receives or has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and Commonwealth and state governments for research and training about the law, policy and practice relating to end-of-life care. She is a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Linkage Project on voluntary assisted dying (partnering with Voluntary Assisted Dying (Review) Boards and/or Departments of Health in five Australian States. She (with colleagues) has been engaged by the Victorian, Western Australian and Queensland governments to design and provide the legislatively mandated training for health practitioners involved in voluntary assisted dying in those states. She (with Ben White) has also developed a model bill for voluntary assisted dying for parliaments to consider. Lindy Willmott is also a member of the Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board, but writes this piece in her capacity as an academic researcher. She is a former board member of Palliative Care Australia.

    Rachel Feeney receives funding from the Australian Research Council for research about voluntary assisted dying. Rachel has been employed on multiple research projects as a research fellow at the Australian Centre for Health Law Research. She is also employed on End of Life Law for Clinicians, a training program for clinicians about end of life law, funded by the Commonwealth government. Rachel was previously engaged as a clinical consultant for the Voluntary Assisted Dying Training Education Module for Healthcare Workers in Queensland.

    – ref. Voluntary assisted dying is legal in Australia – but many of us don’t know – https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-is-legal-in-australia-but-many-of-us-dont-know-248114

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: 1975 was declared International Women’s Year. 50 years on, the ‘revolution in our heads’ is still being fought

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marian Sawer, Emeritus Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University

    National Archives of Australia

    In December 1972, the same month the Whitlam government was first elected, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 1975 as International Women’s Year (IWY). This set in train a series of world-changing events, in which Australia was to play a significant part.

    The aim of IWY was to end discrimination against women and enable them to participate fully in economic, social and political life. Fifty years later, such participation has become an indicator of development and good governance. But the full promise of International Women’s year has yet to be fulfilled, hampered by pushback and the scourge of gender-based violence.

    ‘The greatest consciousness-raising event in history’

    Dubbed “the greatest consciousness-raising event in history”, the UN’s first World Conference on Women took place in Mexico City in June 1975. Consciousness-raising had been part of the repertoire of women’s liberation. Now it was taken up by government and intergovernmental bodies.

    The Mexico City conference was agenda-setting in many ways. The Australian government delegation, led by Elizabeth Reid, helped introduce the world of multilateral diplomacy to the language of the women’s movement. As Reid said:

    We argued that, whenever the words “racism”, “colonialism” and “neo-colonialism” occurred in documents of the conference, so too should “sexism”, a term that had not to that date appeared in United Nations documents or debates.

    Reid held the position of women’s adviser to the prime minister. In this pioneering role, she had been able to obtain government commitment and funding for Australia’s own national consciousness-raising exercise during IWY.

    A wide range of small grants promoted attitudinal change – “the revolution in our heads” – whether in traditional women’s organisations, churches and unions, or through providing help such as Gestetner machines to the new women’s centres.

    IWY grants explicitly did not include the new women’s services, including refuges, women’s health centres and rape crisis centres. Their funding was now regarded as an ongoing responsibility for government, rather than suitable for one-off grants.

    IWY began in Australia with a televised conversation on New Year’s Day between Reid and Governor-General John Kerr on hopes and aspirations for the year. On International Women’s Day (March 8), Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s speech emphasised the need for attitudinal change:

    Both men and women must be made aware of our habitual patterns of prejudice which we often do not see as such but whose existence manifests itself in our language and our behaviour.

    The Australian postal service celebrated the day by releasing a stamp featuring the IWY symbol, showing the spirit of women breaking free of their traditional bonds. At Reid’s suggestion, IWY materials, including the symbol, were printed in the purple, green and white first adopted by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1908 and now known as the suffragette colours.


    Author supplied

    Policy power

    Inside government, Reid had introduced the idea that all Cabinet submissions needed to be analysed for gender impact. After the Mexico City conference, this idea became part of new international norms of governance.

    Following the adoption at the conference of the World Plan of Action, the idea that governments needed specialised policy machinery to promote gender equality was disseminated around the world.

    Given the amount of ground to be covered, IWY was expanded to a UN Decade for Women (1976–85). By the end of it, 127 countries had established some form of government machinery to advance the status of women. Each of the successive UN world conferences (Copenhagen 1980, Nairobi 1985, Beijing 1995) generated new plans of action and strengthened systems of reporting by governments.

    The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing was a high point. Its “platform for action” provided further impetus for what was now called “gender mainstreaming”. By 2018, every country recognised by the UN except North Korea had established government machinery for this purpose.

    The global diffusion of this policy innovation was unprecedented in its rapidity. At the same time, Australia took the lead in another best-practice innovation. In 1984, the Commonwealth government pioneered what became known as “gender budgeting”. This required departments to disaggregate the ways particular budgetary decisions affected men and women.

    As feminist economists pointed out, when the economic and social division of labour was taken into account, no budgetary decision could be assumed to be gender-neutral. Governments had emphasised special programs for women, a relatively small part of annual budgets, rather than the more substantial impact on women of macro-economic policy.

    Standard-setting bodies such as the OECD helped promote gender budgeting as the best way to ensure such decisions did not inadvertently increase rather than reduce gender gaps.

    By 2022, gender budgeting had been taken up around the world, including in 61% of OECD countries. Now that it had become an international marker of good governance, Australian governments were also reintroducing it after a period of abeyance.

    Momentum builds

    In addition to such policy transfer, new frameworks were being adopted internationally. Following IWY, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted in 1979. CEDAW became known as the international bill of rights for women, and has been ratified by 189 countries. This is more than any other UN Convention except that on the rights of the child.

    All state parties to CEDAW were required to submit periodic reports to the UN on its implementation. Non-government organisations were encouraged to provide shadow reports to inform the questioning of government representatives. This oversight and dialogue relating to gender equality became part of the norm-building work of the UN.

    However, this very success at international and regional levels helped fuel “anti-gender movements” that gathered strength after 1995. No more world conferences on women were held, for fear there would be slippage from the standards achieved in Beijing.

    In Australia, the leveraging of international standards to promote gender equality has been muted in deference to populist politics. It became common to present the business case rather than the social justice case for gender-equality policy, even the cost to the economy of gender-based violence (estimated by KPMG to be $26 billion in 2015–16).

    The battle continues

    Fifty years after IWY, Australia is making up some lost ground in areas such as paid parental leave, work value in the care economy, and recognition of the ways economic policy affects women differently from men.

    However, all of this remains precarious, with issues of gender equality too readily rejected as part of a “woke agenda”.

    The world has become a different place from when the Australian government delegation set out to introduce the UN to the concept of sexism. In Western democracies, women have surged into male domains such as parliaments. Australia now has an almost equal number of women and men in its Cabinet (11 out of 23 members).

    But along with very different expectations has come the resentment too often being mobilised by the kind of populist politics we will likely see more of in this election year.

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

    – ref. 1975 was declared International Women’s Year. 50 years on, the ‘revolution in our heads’ is still being fought – https://theconversation.com/1975-was-declared-international-womens-year-50-years-on-the-revolution-in-our-heads-is-still-being-fought-241791

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What’s the difference between Hass and Shepard avocados? It’s not just the colour

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yasmine Probst, Professor, School of Medical, Indigenous and Health Sciences, University of Wollongong

    Stepanenco Valeria/Unsplash

    Whether with crumbled feta or poached eggs, you’d be challenged to find a cafe in Australia or farther afield that doesn’t have avocado somewhere on the menu.

    This fruit (yep, it’s a fruit from a tree, not a vegetable) is widely associated with brunch culture and other trendy eating habits.

    The Australian avocado industry developed in the 1960s, 30 years after the start of the first large-scale production in California. Orchards producing avocados now span all parts of Australia, except Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.

    Avocados are considered a monoculture crop: they’re grown on the same land each year, making them more susceptible to pests and creating a need for increased fertiliser use. The carbon footprint of avos is almost twice as high as that of apples, but much lower than many animal food sources.

    There are now over 50 different avocado types globally, but only a few are grown commercially.

    Not all avos are the same

    You may not notice a difference when you get your avocado toast at a cafe. But at the shops or the market, a striking difference occurs each year in Australia.

    In autumn, the familiar dark purple Hass avocado disappears and is replaced with the lighter green Shepard variety. In Australia, this typically happens between February and May.

    If you don’t know the difference between the two, you may expect Shepard avos to perform the same way as Hass – and be left disappointed. There are some important differences.

    Hass avocados

    Hass avocado skin is very dark when ripe.
    Nungning20/Shutterstock

    Hass avocados are known for their dark, pebbly-looking skin that appears almost black when ripe. They have an ovoid shape with a slight pear-like appearance. The thick skin can be a challenge to peel, often requiring a sharp knife or avocado slicer.

    Hass avocado flavour is rich, creamy and buttery, with nutty undertones. Their texture is ideal for mashing, blending and spreading, creating a creamy texture in dips, guacamole and smoothies.

    Hass avocados ripen – and darken in colour – slowly over several days. They remain firm to the touch when ripe, and will feel squishy when overripe. A slight give when pressed confirms Hass avos are ready to eat.

    Available in Australia from May to January, Hass are the dominant variety of commercially grown avocado worldwide. They were cultivated by horticulturalist Rudolph Hass in California in the 1920s.

    Shepard avocados

    Shepard avocados have smooth, green skin that remains green even when they are fully ripe. They are round to slightly oblong in shape and have a slightly milder and sweeter taste, with less pronounced nutty undertones.

    Shepard avocados ripen more quickly than Hass, but you won’t be able to tell that by the colour. Instead, check for softness – Shepard avocados are very soft when ripe. What might feel overripe when handling a Hass will likely be ideal ripeness if it’s a Shepard. The thin, smooth skin makes them easy to peel by hand or with a gentle squeeze.

    Their buttery soft texture is firm and creamy, and they hold their shape well when cut, making them ideal for slicing, dicing and spreading despite being structurally firm.

    Interestingly, Shepard avocados brown much more slowly than Hass, making them perfect for garnishes. Their milder flavour also makes Shepard avos well suited to sweet dishes, such as chocolate mousse.

    Shepard avos account for approximately 10–15% of Australian avocados and are in season from February to April each year while there is a gap in the Hass season.

    Australia is the only country in the world that grows Shepard avocados commercially. (They are grown in Queensland.)

    Avocados and our health

    As avocados contain 59% fat, people wishing to lose weight were previously advised to avoid or limit eating them.

    We now know that a majority of this fat is oleic acid, a monounsaturated (healthy) fat that helps to reduce cholesterol and improve heart health.

    Additionally, only 1% of an avocado is made up of carbohydrates, making the fruit popular with people following a ketogenic (keto) diet of low carbs and high fat.

    People who consume avos also tend to follow a better pattern of eating in general. They eat more whole grains, fruit and vegetables and fewer discretionary or takeaway foods.

    As an energy-dense food, consuming a whole avocado is about the same as eating 2.5 whole apples. Per 100 grams, avocado actually gives you less energy than an equivalent amount of cooked white rice.

    As avocado dishes are visually appealing and often featured in food photography, they have become a symbol of modern eating habits.

    Yasmine Probst receives funding from Multiple Sclerosis Australia and has previously received funding from various industry groups including the Hass Avocado Board. She is presently affiliated with the National Health and Medical Research Council, Multiple Sclerosis Plus and Multiple Sclerosis Limited.

    Karen Zoszak receives funding from MS Australia.

    – ref. What’s the difference between Hass and Shepard avocados? It’s not just the colour – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-hass-and-shepard-avocados-its-not-just-the-colour-233243

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What is the story of hongbao, the red envelopes given out at celebrations like Lunar New Year?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ming Gao, Research Scholar of East Asia Studies, Gender and Women’s History Research Centre, Australian Catholic University

    Remi Chow/Unsplash

    Red envelopes, known as hongbao in Mandarin, are a cherished cultural tradition in China and many other parts of Asia.

    In China, the vibrant red colour symbolises good fortune and joy. Hongbao can be given during many various festive and joyful occasions, and they are a prominent feature of Lunar New Year.

    Receiving a hongbao is something most Chinese people, particularly children, eagerly anticipate every Lunar New Year. It was also one of my fondest childhood memories. But what’s the history behind this tradition?

    A historical tradition

    The origins of hongbao can be traced back to the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) when amulet-like items in the shapes of coins were worn.

    Early practices resembling money giving took place in the Tang dynasty court (618–907 CE), where coins were scattered in springtime as part of celebrations.

    Giving children money during celebrations became an established custom during the Song and Yuan dynasties (960–1368). In the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911/12), this tradition evolved further with money being given to children threaded on red string.

    In the Ming and Qing dynasties money was given to children threaded on red string.
    Nataliia K/Shutterstock

    The modern concept of hongbao emerged in early 20th-century China. Elders would give money wrapped in red paper to children during the Lunar New Year as a talisman against evil spirits, known as sui (祟).

    The red envelopes given to children, or in some cases unmarried adults, during Lunar New Year are also called ya sui qian.

    Colloquially, ya sui qian translates to “suppressing age money”, as sui (岁) also means age. Ya sui qian reflects the belief this money could ward off misfortune and slow ageing.

    In traditional contexts, the amount of money inside the envelope carries symbolic meaning.

    Even numbers, except for the number four (considered unlucky due to its phonetic similarity to the word for “death” in Chinese), are regarded as lucky. Six (symbolising smooth progress) and eight (symbolising prosperity) are particularly favoured.

    Beyond monetary value, the act of giving and receiving hongbao represents a gesture of goodwill, reinforcing social bonds and conveying respect and care.

    The digital revolution

    Today, hongbao straddle the worlds of tradition and modernity, adapting to societal changes while preserving their cultural essence.

    Super-apps like WeChat and AliPay have transformed this age-old practice from a physical tradition into a digital, virtual experience.

    Red packet designs available on WeChat.
    Screenshot/Ming Gao

    WeChat popularised the concept of “digital red envelopes” in 2014, incorporating gamified elements such as randomised monetary amounts and group exchanges.

    In 2017, WeChat recorded a staggering 14.2 billion hongbao transactions on the eve of Lunar New Year alone. While the initial excitement around the digital hongbao has waned over time, the practice remains popular. On Lunar New Year’s Eve in 2024, WeChat users recorded approximately 5.08 billion digital hongbao transactions.

    The shift to digital formats aligns with our increasingly cashless society, making it easier for people to participate in the custom, even across great distances. Families separated by migration can partake in this tradition in real time, maintaining connections that might otherwise weaken over long distances.

    My child doesn’t get to see my parents very often, but my mother promised to send a “large” hongbao to her grandchild on the eve of the Lunar New Year this year. Despite the geographical distance spanning the ocean between Australia and China, the tradition of giving hongbao transcends borders, connecting our family members across continents every Lunar New Year.

    Societal significance

    The enduring popularity of hongbao highlights its importance in Chinese culture. It serves not only as a means of giving but also as a way to uphold tradition amid rapid modernisation.

    The act of giving hongbao, whether physical or digital, reinforces intergenerational ties and preserves cultural heritage. Parents and grandparents giving hongbao to children during Lunar New Year continue to embody the traditional values of family and unity.

    The act of giving hongbao reinforces intergenerational ties and preserves cultural heritage.
    SeventyFour/Shutterstock

    But the digitisation of hongbao has sparked debates about its impact on traditional values. Some argue the ease of sending digital hongbao reduces the personal touch and thoughtfulness inherent in the physical exchange.

    Others view it as an evolution that keeps the practice relevant and accessible in a fast-paced world.

    Regional variations

    While hongbao is most closely associated with Chinese culture, similar traditions exist across Asia, each with notable regional variations.

    In Korea, during the Lunar New Year (Seollal), elders give money to young or unmarried adults after receiving their New Year’s bow (sebae). One legend suggests the Korean tradition originates from China. However, unlike the red envelopes used in Chinese culture, the money in Korea can be presented in white envelopes, as whiteness in Korean culture symbolises purity and new beginnings.

    Similar traditions exist across Asia. These red envelopes are hanging in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
    Marie Shark/Shutterstock

    In Singapore, where a diverse population blends Chinese, Malay and Indian traditions, the giving of hongbao (also known as ang bao or ang pow in Hokkien) is a common practice. This tradition has extended beyond the Chinese population, reflecting the cultural influence of Chinese diasporic communities.

    While red envelopes are traditional, envelopes in other colours, such as pink or gold, are also considered acceptable.

    The Future of hongbao

    As technology continues to shape societal norms, the practice of giving hongbao is likely to further evolve.

    The advancement of E-CNY (China’s digital currency), regardless of its ultimate success, could introduce new dimensions to traditional practices, enabling more innovative and secure forms of exchange.

    The enduring appeal of hongbao lies in its core values: the celebration of relationships, the sharing of blessings, and the preservation of cultural heritage.

    As the Lunar New Year of the Snake approaches, it’s wise to have some hongbao ready, whether digital or physical, to avoid being caught off guard by a playful youngster cheerfully exclaiming, “May you be prosperous, now hand over the red envelope!” (“gong xi fa cai, hong bao na lai”). This light-hearted and catchy greeting cleverly combines good wishes with a cheeky request for a hongbao.

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

    – ref. What is the story of hongbao, the red envelopes given out at celebrations like Lunar New Year? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-story-of-hongbao-the-red-envelopes-given-out-at-celebrations-like-lunar-new-year-247687

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Changing jobs is a big move but it’s worth considering if your workplace is toxic

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology

    Rauschan_films/Shutterstock

    Returning to work after a summer break can be jarring, especially for the many workers dissatisfied with their jobs. Almost half report high levels of job-related stress.

    Dissatisfaction can be tied to an unhealthy, even toxic workplace where negative behaviour and poor leadership harm employee wellbeing and productivity.

    Key indicators include bullying, harassment, lack of trust, poor communication and high job strain.

    The impact of toxic workplaces

    If you think your workplace is toxic, it is worth considering the impact it is having on your mental health. You might also consider how committed your organisation is to supporting its employees’ mental health.

    Toxicity can develop gradually through subtle patterns of micromanagement, exclusion, or eroding morale. These dynamics create a draining environment that undermines individual wellbeing and business success.

    As well as affecting employees’ mental health, there is growing evidence workplace stress may lead to serious physical health problems, such as cardiovascular disease.

    According to Safe Work Australia, mental health-related workers’ compensation claims have increased by over a third since 2017-2018.

    In 2021-2022, there were 11,700 accepted claims relating to mental health conditions. These cases proved highly costly for employers, with the median compensation paid being A$58,615.

    The International Standards Organisation released a global standard in 2021 to help manage psychological health and safety risks in workplaces.

    A number of countries, including Canada and Australia, have introduced laws and standards making employers responsible for preventing and managing work-related stress.

    To support a safe workplace, some researchers (including one of the authors) have recommended an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to ensure companies respond appropriately to mental health risks.

    What your employer is doing in the following three areas can show how committed they are to protecting mental health.

    1. Preventing, minimising or managing the negatives

    Most work, health and safety legislation and standards in Australia relates to protecting employees from physical hazards, including slips, trips and falls.

    More recently, attention has turned to psychosocial hazards.

    Safe Work Australia and Comcare, as well as state and territory regulators, keep a list of common hazards.

    These include bullying, excessive workloads, low job control, lack of role clarity and exposure to traumatising events, for example, witnessing an accident.

    These lists are not exhaustive and there are some problems unique to specific jobs. For instance, teachers are often isolated from their colleagues, face big administrative loads and sometimes have to deal with abusive students and/or parents.

    Most employers can make necessary improvements including creating fairer workloads, redefining job roles and providing more support to individual employees.

    2. Responding to employee mental health issues

    Despite efforts to minimise the impact of psychosocial hazards, some employees will nonetheless experience mental health issues.

    Employers should not try to treat an employee’s mental health problems. They should support them and direct them to appropriate mental health care.

    Managers can also help by identifying signs of distress, having sensitive conversations with workers about the impact of mental illness and making reasonable changes to their roles.

    Giving employees access to support services through employee assistance programs, which can offer confidential short-term counselling, can also help.

    Making counselling available to employees can help staff mental health and workplace morale.
    kmpzzz/Shutterstock

    Establishing a critical incident investigation procedure for events that have compromised employee mental health can help identify the cause of incidents and shape responses.

    3. Promoting the positive

    As well as managing the negative aspects of work, organisations can create conditions that promote employee mental health and wellbeing.

    One approach for doing this is to provide flexible working arrangements, such as hybrid work, which can offer employees greater choice in work location and scheduling.

    Another approach involves fostering social connectedness and inclusion among employees. This could involve team-building, social events and opportunities for employees to build relationships.

    Leaders can also promote a culture of psychological safety – where employees feel able to bring their authentic selves to work and speak their minds freely. This has been linked to greater employee wellbeing.

    The SMART model suggests employees will be most satisfied in jobs that provide stimulation (for example, solving meaningful problems), mastery (receiving mentoring or constructive feedback), autonomy (creative freedom), social relationships (supportive colleagues) and tolerable demands (lack of psychosocial hazards).

    Should I stay or should I go?

    Making the decision to leave a workplace requires careful consideration.

    In addition to your own wellbeing, you should consider whether your organisation prioritises mental health and how comfortable you would feel initiating a discussion about mental health.

    Remember while changing jobs is a big step, staying in a toxic workplace can have serious long-term consequences for both mental and physical health.

    Consider seeking advice through your employee assistance program or an independent career counsellor.

    Whatever you decide, prioritising your mental health and wellbeing should be central to your decision making.

    Timothy Colin Bednall holds a part-time appointment as Head of Data Science with FlourishDx, a consultancy focused on workplace mental health. He receives funding from the National Mental Health Commission.

    Kathryn Page has previously received research funding from WorkSafe Victoria, SuperFriend, VicHealth, and the NHMRC in the areas of workplace mental health. In addition to her Adjunct Professor role at Swinburne University she works full time as a Leadership Partner with ByMany. ByMany is a leadership consultancy. It does not do psychosocial risk assessments.

    – ref. Changing jobs is a big move but it’s worth considering if your workplace is toxic – https://theconversation.com/changing-jobs-is-a-big-move-but-its-worth-considering-if-your-workplace-is-toxic-246885

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Is it school reluctance or refusal? How to tell the difference and help your child

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Leslie, Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy with a focus on Educational Psychology, University of Southern Queensland

    It’s back-to-school season around Australia. While many students will be excited to reunite with friends, or have some nerves about the first day, others may feel an overwhelming sense of dread about school.

    This can be confusing and worrying for parents.

    We are researching child and parent perspectives about what is making school too stressful to attend. We have found it is useful to think about school attendance as a spectrum that may look like reluctance at one end and emotional distress at the other.

    Understanding the difference can help you to know which supports to seek for your child.

    School attendance in Australia

    Last week, new national figures showed school attendance continues to be an issue in Australian schools post-COVID.

    In 2024, school attendance rates (the number of days students attend) for Years 1–10 was 88.3%. This is down slightly from 88.6% in 2023. Student attendance levels (the percentage of students who go for more than 90% of the time) was 59.8% in 2024, down from 61.6% in 2023.

    In 2019, national attendance rates were 91.4% and attendance levels were 73.1%.

    While these reports don’t tell us why the figures are dropping, we know school refusal is a common and growing issue. A 2023 Senate inquiry heard how family requests for support to groups such as School Can’t Australia have almost doubled every year since 2014.

    A 2023 Greens-commissioned survey of 1,000 families found 39% said their child had been unable to attend school in the past year because of anxiety or stress.

    What is school reluctance?

    Sometimes children and young people will not want to go to school but it is not school refusal.

    When this is temporary and tied to a specific stressor, such as a test, social conflict, sports lesson or event like a camp or swimming carnival, it can be described as “school reluctance”.

    Signs can include clinginess in younger children or teenagers, as well as complaints of seemingly minor ailments such as a tummy ache, headache or “feeling sick”.

    In these cases, it is important for parents to validate a child’s feelings. Using phrases such as “I can see you’re nervous about starting a new class” can make children feel seen and heard.

    Families should also set up predictable morning routines to help children build self-regulation skills. If you celebrate small wins, such as completing the day, or getting to school on time, you can help boost motivation and confidence.

    These early interventions can help avoid escalation into more significant school-related distress.



    Read more:
    Is your child nervous about going back to school? Try asking them what they are looking forward to

    When it’s more than reluctance

    But at other times, a child’s issues with school are more serious and a child feels overwhelmed by stressors that make attending school feel threatening, unsafe and impossible. This is what is seen as “school refusal”, although some families and researchers are now using the term “school can’t” to reframe the issue and avoid blaming children in these situations.

    Some signs this could be happening to your child include:

    • spending significant portions of the school day in the office or sick bay

    • extreme difficulty in getting ready in the morning, even with basic tasks such as dressing or making breakfast

    • physical symptoms such as nausea or dizziness that worsen on school days, but may also be evident on weekends

    • persistent absences from school, even with encouragement and support

    • extreme emotional reactions – crying, anger or complete withdrawal – when school is mentioned.

    Who can be impacted?

    Reports show school refusal is more common in some groups, for example neurodiverse students, gender-diverse students, and students born with innate variations of sex characteristics (also known as intersex variations / traits).

    School refusal is closely associated with social anxiety, separation anxiety and school anxiety. This anxiety can become overwhelming and trigger a student’s need to avoid the environment that is causing them emotional distress. For these students, not going to school might be a survival mechanism or a way to respond to burnout.

    Whatever the reason, we know this can lead to stress and conflict for families. For students, it can have long-term effects on academic success, social skills and mental health, as well as poorer outcomes after they leave school.

    Supporting your child

    If your child is refusing or can’t go to school, they need your empathy and support. Listen to them and be their advocate. Remember, you know them best. You can also:

    • seek professional help. A psychologist may help uncover and address the root causes of their distress

    • work with the school. Talk to teachers and staff about accommodations such as flexible schedules or sensory breaks, and how else they may offer inclusive, affirming and supportive learning environments

    • think outside the box. This can include prioritising wellbeing over attendance. Consider a break from schooling or alternative forms of education, which may suit your family better

    • seek support from other families. You are not alone – there are many other families who share this experience.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

    Rachel Leslie is affiliated with the Queensland Guidance and Counselling Association of Queensland and the Australian Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools association. She is working with family support and advocacy organisation School Can’t Australia as part of her research.

    Annette Brömdal receives funding from the Medical Research Future Fund; Queensland Mental Health Commission; Queensland Sexual Health Research Fund; the Department of Education, Queensland; and the Australian Association of Gerontology. Annette is affiliated with Lifeline Darling Down and South West QLD Ltd as a volunteer Board Director. She is working with family support and advocacy organisation School Can’t Australia as part of her research.

    Cris Townley is working with family support and advocacy organisation School Can’t Australia as part of their research. They are also a member of the the School Can’t Australia support network, and of the advocacy network Parents for Trans Youth Equity (P-TYE).

    Glenys Oberg is working with family support and advocacy organisation School Can’t Australia as part of her research.

    – ref. Is it school reluctance or refusal? How to tell the difference and help your child – https://theconversation.com/is-it-school-reluctance-or-refusal-how-to-tell-the-difference-and-help-your-child-247805

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Trump’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ Gaza idea dismissed by analysts – rejected by Jordan, Egypt on ‘Day of Return’

    Asia Pacific Report

    UN President Donald Trump’s idea of mass expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan and Egypt has been dismissed by analysts as unaccepable “ethnic cleansing” and rejected by the governments of both neigbouring countries.

    Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident research fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and commentator specialising in Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict, said the US and Israel would “fail” over such a plan.

    President Trump’s suggestion had been to “clean out” Gaza and move 1.5 million Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt.

    “Even if [President Trump] applies pressure on Jordan and Egypt, I think their leaderships will recognise the price of going along with Trump is going to be much greater than the price of resisting him — in terms of the survival of their leaderships for participating in something like this,” Rabbani told Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s plan as “ethnic cleansing”.

    The rebuttals to the Trump idea came as Gaza experienced an historic day with jubilant scenes as tens of thousands of Palestinians crossed the so-called Netzarim Corridor to return home in the north showing their determination to survive under the 15-month onslaught by Israel’s military.

    Al Jazeera journalist Tamer al-Misshal said it was a “significant and historic moment” for the Palestinians.

    “It’s the first time since 1948 those who have been forced out of their homes and land managed to get back — despite the destruction and despite the genocide,” he said.

    He quoted one Palestinian man who returned as saying he would erect a tent on his destroyed home, “which is much better than being forcibly displaced from Gaza”.

    Al-Misshal noted Hamas recently said 18 more Israeli captives were alive and would be returned each Saturday in exchange for Palestinian prisoners over the next few weeks.

    He said the next main step was to get the Rafah land crossing opened so aid could flow and thousands of badly wounded Palestinians could get medical treatment abroad.

    ‘Blanket refusal’

    Analyst Mouin Rabbani . . . “Israel is not going to succeed in ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip after a war.” Image: Middle East Council on Global Affairs

    Analyst Mouin Rabbani told Al Jazeera about the Trump displacement idea: “This isn’t going to happen because Israel is not going to succeed in ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip after a war, after having failed to do so during a war.”

    When former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went on a tour of Arab states to promote this idea late last year, he had been met with a “blanket refusal”, Rabbani added.

    Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was feeling the heat from his coalition partners over the ceasefire deal who view the Israeli leader as succumbing to US demands, the analyst said.

    “I think there’s a kind of a mix of personal, political and ideological factors at play,” Rabbani said.

    “Day of victory” . . . How Al Jazeera reported the return of Palestinians to north Gaza today. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    “But ultimately, I think the key relationship to look at here is not that between Netanyahu and his coalition partners, or between Israelis and Palestinians, but between Washington and Israel — because Washington is the one calling the shots, and Israel has no choice but to comply.”

    A senior Hamas official, Basem Naim, has described the “return” day as “the most important day in the current history of this conflict”.

    He said that Israel was “for the first time” obliged to allow Palestinians to return to their houses after being forced “by the resistance”, in a similar way that it was “forced to release” Palestinian prisoners.

    Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reporting on the “Day of Return” for Palestinians going back to north Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Very symbolic day’ in conflict
    “This is, I think, a very symbolic day,” he said. “This is a very important day in how to approach this conflict with the Israelis, which language they understand.”

    Naim also reaffirmed Hamas’s commitment to the ceasefire agreement and said the group was “ready to do the maximum to give this deal a chance to succeed”.

    He also accused Netanyahu and the Israeli government of playing “dirty games” in a bid to “sabotage the deal”.

    Jordanian officials have rejected President Trump’s “clean out” Gaza suggestion with
    Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi saying that all talk about an alternative homeland for the Palestinians was rejected and “we will not accept it”.

    Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Salah al-Din Road, Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    He said any attempt to displace Palestinians from their land would not bring security to the region.

    The Jordanian House of Representatives said: “The absurdity and denial of Palestinian rights will keep the region on a simmering and boiling plate.”

    Jordan would not be an alternative homeland for displacement attempts against “the patient Palestinian people”.

    In Cairo, the Foreign Ministry reaffirmed in a statement Egypt’s “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land.”

    It “rejected any infringement on those inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land, or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term.”

    The 1948 Nakba . . . more than 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland and become exiles in neighbouring states and in Gaza. Many dream of their UN-recognised right to return. Image: Wikipedia

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ aid for Kiribati under review after meeting cancelled with Peters

    RNZ Pacific

    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s aid for Kiribati is being reviewed after its President and Foreign Minister cancelled a meeting with him last week.

    Terms of Reference for the review are still being finalised, and it remains unclear whether or not funding will be cut or projects already under way would be affected, with Peters’ office saying no decisions would be made until the review was complete.

    His office said Kiribati remained part of the RSE scheme and its eligibility for the Pacific Access Category was unaffected — for now.

    Peters had been due to meet with President Taneti Maamau last Tuesday and Wednesday, in what was to be the first trip by a New Zealand foreign minister to Kiribati in five years, and part of his effort to visit every Pacific country early in the government’s term.

    Kiribati has been receiving increased aid from China in recent years.

    In a statement, a spokesperson for Peters said he was informed about a week before the trip President Maamau would no longer be available.

    “Around a week prior to our arrival in Tarawa, we were advised that the President and Foreign Minister of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau, was no longer available to receive Mr Peters and his delegation,” the statement said.

    ‘Especially disappointing’
    “This was especially disappointing because the visit was to be the first in over five years by a New Zealand Minister to Kiribati — and was the result of a months-long effort to travel there.”

    The spokesperson said the development programme was being reviewed as a result.

    “New Zealand has been a long-standing partner to Kiribati. The lack of political-level contact makes it very difficult for us to agree joint priorities for our development programme, and to ensure that it is well targeted and delivers good value for money.

    “That’s important for both the people of Kiribati and for the New Zealand taxpayer. For this reason, we are reviewing our development programme in Kiribati. The outcomes of that review will be announced in due course.

    “Other aspects of the bilateral relationship may also be impacted.”

    New Zealand spent $102 million on the development cooperation programme with Kiribati between 2021 and 2024, including on health, education, fisheries, economic development, and climate resilience.

    Peters’ office said New Zealand deeply valued the contribution Recognised Seasonal Employer workers made to the country, and was committed to working alongside Pacific partners to ensure the scheme led to positive outcomes for all parties.

    Committed to positive outcomes
     “However, without open dialogue it is difficult to meet this commitment.”

    They also said New Zealand was committed to working alongside our Pacific partners to ensure that the Pacific Access Category leads to positive outcomes for all parties, but again this would be difficult without open dialogue.

    The spokesperson said the Kiribati people’s wellbeing was of paramount importance and the terms of reference would reflect this.

    New Zealand stood ready “as we always have, to engage with Kiribati at a high level”.

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Caitlin Johnstone: Where does the aggression really begin?

    Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. –

    COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

    New York prosecutors have charged Luigi Mangione with “murder as an act of terrorism” in his alleged shooting of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month.

    This news comes out at the same time as a Haaretz report titled “‘No Civilians. Everyone’s a Terrorist’: IDF Soldiers Expose Arbitrary Killings and Rampant Lawlessness in Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor.”

    The report contains testimony from Israeli troops that civilians are being murdered in Gaza and are then being retroactively designated as terrorists to justify their execution.

    “We’re killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists,” a recently discharged officer told Haaretz.

    These two stories together say so much about the way the label “terrorist” is used under the US-centralised power umbrella.

    The guy who shot the health insurance CEO is a terrorist, but the people systematically slaughtering civilians in Gaza are not terrorists. The people fighting against those who are slaughtering the civilians are terrorists, and noncombatants are being categorized as belonging to this terrorist organisation in order to justify killing them. The al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria were terrorists, but now they’re a US puppet regime so soon they won’t be terrorists  —  but they need to be designated terrorists for a little while longer because the claim that Syria is crawling with terrorists is Israel’s justification for its recent land grabs there. The Uyghur militant group ETIM used to be a terrorist group, but now they’re not a terrorist group because they can be used to help carve up Syria and maybe fight China later on. The IRGC is a military wing of a sovereign nation, but it counts as a terrorist group because of vibes or something.

    Is that clear enough?

    Really the label “terrorist” is nothing more than a tool of imperial narrative control which gets moved around based on whether or not someone’s use of violence is deemed legitimate by the managers of the empire. Because Mangione’s alleged crime has ignited a public interest in class warfare, the label “terrorism” is being used to frame it as an especially heinous act of evil against an innocent member of the public.

    The empire’s favourite trick is to begin the historical record at the moment its enemies retaliate against its abuses. Oh no, a health insurance CEO was victimised by an evil act of terrorism. Oh no, Israel was just innocently minding its own business when it was viciously attacked by Hamas. Oh no, Iran attacked Israel completely out of the blue and now Israel must retaliate. Oh no, Russia just launched an entirely unprovoked war on Ukraine.

    Everything that led up to the unauthorised act of violence is erased from the record, because all of the violence, provocation and abuse which gave rise to the unauthorised act of violence were authorized by the empire. Authorised aggression doesn’t count as aggression.

    Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. If you control the narrative you can control not only when the historical record of violence begins but what kinds of violence qualify as violence. Killing people by depriving them of healthcare because denying healthcare services is how your company increases its profit margins? That’s not violence. Inflicting tyranny and abuse upon a deliberately marginalised ethnic group in an apartheid state? That’s not violence. Violence is when you respond to those forceful aggressions with forceful aggressions of your own.

    If we are to become a healthy society, we’re going to have to stop allowing some forms of violence, aggression and abuse to be redacted from the official records while others are listed and condemned. Those who care about truth and justice account for all forms of violence, aggression and abuse, not only those which inconvenience the rich and powerful.

    It is an act of aggression to do things which sicken and impoverish others in order to advance your own wealth.

    It is an act of aggression to pollute the biosphere we all depend on for survival in order to increase your profit margins.

    It is an act of aggression to use your wealth to manipulate your nation’s politics in ways which exacerbate inequality and injustice.

    It is an act of aggression to maintain an apartheid state which cannot exist without nonstop violence.

    It is an act of aggression to surround the earth with military bases and encircle nations which disobey your dictates.

    It is an act of aggression to try to rule the world using military violence, proxy conflicts, staged coups, threats, starvation sanctions, and financial and economic coercion.

    These are all acts of aggression, and any retaliation against them will never be an unprovoked attack. As we move into the future while these abuses exacerbate, it’s going to become very important to maintain an acute awareness of this.

    Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

    This article was first published on Café Pacific.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ govt plans to make ‘heavy handed’ change to free speech rules for universities

    The New Zealand government coalition is tweaking university regulations to curb what it says is an increasingly “risk-averse approach” to free speech.

    The proposed changes will set clear expectations on how universities should approach freedom of speech issues.

    Each university will then have to adopt a “freedom of speech statement” consistent with the central government’s expectations.

    The changes will also prohibit tertiary institutions from adopting positions on issues that do not relate to their core functions.

    Associate Education Minister David Seymour said fostering students’ ability to debate ideas is an essential part of universities’ educational mission.

    “Despite being required by the Education Act and the Bill of Rights Act to uphold academic freedom and freedom of expression, there is a growing trend of universities deplatforming speakers and cancelling events where they might be perceived as controversial or offensive,” he said.

    “That’s why the National/ACT coalition agreement committed to introduce protections for academic freedom and freedom of speech to ensure universities perform their role as the critic and conscience of society.”

    Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills Penny Simmonds said freedom of speech was fundamental to the concept of academic freedom.

    “Universities should promote diversity of opinion and encourage students to explore new ideas and perspectives. This includes enabling them to hear from invited speakers with a range of viewpoints.”

    It is expected the changes will take effect by the end of next year, after which universities will have six months to develop a statement and get it approved.

    Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington said the important issue of free speech had been a dominant topic throughout the year.

    It believed a policy it had come up with would align with the intent of the criteria laid out by the government today.

    However, the Greens are among critics, saying the government’s changes will add fuel to the political fires of disinformation, and put teachers and students in the firing line.

    Labour says universities should be left to make decisions on free speech themselves.

    ‘A heavy-handed approach’
     The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) said proposed rules could do more harm than good.

    They have been been welcomed by the Free Speech Union, which said academic freedom was “under threat”, but the TEU said there was no problem to solve.

    TEU president Sandra Grey said the move seemed to be aimed at ensuring people could spread disinformation on university campuses.

    “I think one of the major concerns is that you might get universities opening up the space that is for academic and rigorous debate and saying it’s okay we can have climate deniers, we can have people who believe in creationism coming into our campuses and speaking about it as though it were scientific, as though it was rigorously defendable when in fact we know some of these questions . . .  have been settled,” she said.

    Grey said academics who expressed views on campus could expect them to be debated, but that was part and parcel of working at a university and not an attack on their freedom of speech.

    “There isn’t actually a problem. I do think universities, all the staff who work there, the students, understand that they’re covered by all of their requirements for freedom of speech that other citizens are.

    “So it feels like we’ve got a heavy-handed approach from a government that apparently is anti-regulation but is now going to put in place the whole lot of requirements on a community that just doesn’t need it.”

    Some topics ‘suppressed’

    Free Speech Union chief executive Jonathan Ayling . . . some academics are afraid to express their views and there is also a problem with “compelled speech”. Image: VNP/Phil Smith/RNZ News

    Free Speech Union chief executive Jonathan Ayling said freedom of speech was under threat in universities.

    “We’ve supported academics . . .  where they feel that they have been unfairly disadvantaged simply for holding a different opinion to some of their peers. Of course, that is also an addition to the explicit calls for people to be cancelled, to be unemployed,” he said.

    Ayling said some academics were afraid to express their views and there was also a problem with “compelled speech”.

    “Forcing certain references on particularly ideological issues. There’s questions around race, gender, international conflicts, covid-19, these are all questions that we’ve found have been suppressed and also there’s the aspect of self-censorship,” he said.

    “As we have and alongside partners looked into this more and more, it seems that many people in the academy exist in a culture of fear.”

    University committed to differing viewpoints
     Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington is committed to hearing a range of different viewpoints on its campuses, vice-chancellor Professor Nic Smith says.

    Free speech had been an important issue during 2024, and the university had arrived at a policy that covered both freedom of speech and academic freedom.

    By consulting widely, there was now a shared understanding of “foundational principles”, and its policy would be in place early in the new year.

    “We believe this policy aligns with the intent of the criteria [from the government] as we understand them. It recognises the strength of our diverse university community and affirms that this diversity makes us stronger,” Professor Smith said.

    “At the same time, it acknowledges that within any diverse community, individuals will inevitably encounter ideas they disagree with-sometimes strongly.

    “Finding value in these disagreements is something universities are very good at: listening to different points of view in the spirit of advancing understanding and learning that can ultimately help us live and work better together.”

    The university believed in hearing a range of views from staff, rather than adopting a single institutional position.

    “The only exception to this principle is on matters that directly affect our core functions as a university.”

    ‘Stoking fear and division’

    The Green Party’s spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Francisco Hernadez . . . this new policy has nothing to do with free speech. Image: VNP/Phil Smith/RNZ News

    Green Party’s spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Francisco Hernadez, said the new policy had nothing to do with free speech.

    “This is about polluting our public discourse for political gain.”

    Universities played a critical role, providing a platform for informed and reasoned debate.

    “Our universities should be able to decide who is given a platform on their campuses, not David Seymour. These changes risk turning our universities into hostile environments unsafe for marginalised communities.

    “Misinformation, disinformation, and rhetoric that inflames hatred towards certain groups has no place in our society, let alone our universities. Freedom of speech is fundamental, but it is not a licence to harm.”

    Hernandez said universities should be trusted to ensure the balance was struck between academic freedom and a duty of care.

    “Today’s announcement has also come with a high dose of unintended irony.

    “David Seymour is speaking out of both sides of his mouth by on the one hand claiming to support freedom of speech, but on the other looking to limit the ability universities have to take stances on issues, like the war in Gaza for example.

    “This is an Orwellian attempt to limit discourse to the confines of the government’s agenda. This is about stoking fear and division for political gain.”

    Labour’s Associate Education (Tertiary) spokesperson Deborah Russell responded: “One of the core legislated functions of universities in this country is to be a critic and conscience of society. That means continuing to speak truth to power, even if those in power don’t like it.”

    “Nowhere should be a platform for hate speech. I am certain universities can make these decisions themselves.”

    ‘Expectations clarified’ – university
     The University of Auckland said in a statement the announcement of planned legislation changes would help “to clarify government expectations in this area”.

    “The university has a longstanding commitment to maintaining freedom of expression and academic freedom on our campuses, and in recent years has worked closely with [the university’s] senate and council to review, revise and consult on an updated Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom Policy.

    “This is expected to return to senate and council for further discussion in early 2025 and will take into account the proposed new legislation.”

    The university described the nature of the work as “complex”.

    “While New Zealand universities have obligations under law to protect freedom of expression, academic freedom and their role as ‘critic and conscience of society’, as the proposed legislation appreciates, this is balanced against other important policies and codes.”

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

    Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Israeli-American historian describes attacks on Gaza as ‘war of annihilation’

    Asia Pacific Report

    “It looks like Hiroshima. It looks like Germany at the end of World War Two,” says an Israeli-American historian and professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University about the horrifying reality of Gaza.

    Professor Omer Bartov, has described Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza as an “act of annihilation” of the Palestinian people, reports Middle East Eye.

    Dr Bartov said that not only had Israeli forces been moving displaced Palestinians around the Gaza Strip but they had also been strategically bombing mosques, museums, hospitals, and anything that served the health or culture of a people — in an attempt to cleanse the entire area of Palestinians.

    Al Jazeera reports that an Israeli drone attack on the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza targeted a group of people gathered at a phone charging and internet distribution point, killing three people.

    According to a witness, this was the only point in the refugee camp where people trapped in the area charge their phones and connect to the internet to be in touch with family members who are displaced in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

    This was not the first time that the Israeli military has carried out deliberate attacks on such connectivity points.

    Houthis ballistic missile wounds 14
    Meanwhile, a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis from Yemen has broken through Israeli defences above and below the Earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Tel Aviv, reports Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.

    It said interceptors from the Arrow missile defence system were launched into the upper atmosphere after detecting the missile, but missed the target and failed to stop it before it entered Israeli territory.

    As captured in numerous videos, two more interceptors were then fired in the lower atmosphere, also failing to shoot down the missile.

    At least 14 people were wounded after a failed interception of the ballistic missile.

    This was the third incident of its kind just this week. The Israeli army says it was now investigating why it was not intercepted and why this was such a significant failure.

    Since the start of the war, the Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles, and more than 170 drones in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthis have said they would continue the attacks until Israel ends its war in the besieged enclave.

    In July, there was a drone that evaded all Israeli air defences, no siren sounded, and it was able to detonate in the middle of Tel Aviv and kill one person.

    This time, it was just one minute from the time the sirens rang until the moment of impact.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Vanuatu quake: Warnings as bad weather threat looms for Port Vila

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

    New Zealand’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) says impending bad weather for Port Vila is now the most significant post-quake hazard.

    A tropical low in the Coral Sea is expected to move into Vanuatu waters, bringing heavy rainfall.

    Authorities have issued warnings to people living near landslide-prone areas around the Vanuatu capital.

    People living near low lying areas or rivers have also been told to move, should water levels rise.

    The heavy rain may also cause flash flooding.

    USAR team leader Ken Cooper said last Tuesday’s 7.3 earthquake caused significant landslides.

    “With the weather system that’s coming in, there is a high likelihood that the landslides continue and we need to ensure that there’s no life risks if those landslides should move further,” Cooper said.

    Death toll now 12
    Aftershocks have continued, and early this morning, the US Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 6.1 quake, at a depth of 40km west of Port Vila.

    New Zealand and Vanuatu engineers were assessing prioritised areas in the capital, and a decision would then be made as to whether a community needed to be evacuated, Cooper said.

    Since the team had been in Vanuatu, it had taken damage assessments of buildings and infrastructure, with the Vanuatu government, allowing them to prioritise the biggest risks and to assist the community in recovering more quickly, he said.

    The official death toll from Vanuatu’s 7.3 magnitude quake is now 12 according to the Vanuatu Disaster Management office.

    This has been confirmed by the Vila Central Hospital.

    The deployment lead for New Zealand in Vanuatu praised the resilience of the ni-Vanuatu people following the 7.3 earthquake. Image: MFAT/RNZ Pacific

    Earlier unofficial reports had placed the death toll at 16.

    The team had completed almost 1000 assessments, alongside the Australia USAR team, which was a significant task, Cooper said.

    Both teams shared common tools and practices, which had allowed them to work simultaneously and helped the teams to quickly carry out the assessments, he said.

    “When we undertake the assessments that really gives us a clear picture of what should be prioritised and we work with the [Vanuatu] government and their infrastructure cluster, and some of the priorities we have looked at are bridges, [the] airport, the port, and also landslides,” he said.

    Resilience shown by locals
     The deployment lead for New Zealand in Vanuatu praised the resilience of the Ni-Vanuatu people following the 7.3 earthquake.

    Thousands of people had been affected by the disaster but the response effort was being hampered by damage to core infrastructure including the country’s telecommunications network.

    Emma Dunlop-Bennett said the New Zealand teams on the ground were working in partnership with the Vanuatu government.

    She said she was in awe of the strength of locals after the disaster.

    “As we go out into communities, working . . .  with the government, people are out there, getting up and doing what they can to get themselves into business as usual, life as usual. I am really in awe and humbled.

    The purpose of the New Zealand team being in Vanuatu was three-fold: To provide urgent and critical humanitarian assistance, a response for consular need to New Zealanders, and to support a smooth transition from relief, response to recovery, Dunlop-Bennett said.

    Then to business as usual, working along side the priority need identified by the Vanuatu government, she added.

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Interactive: What Earth’s 4.54 billion-year history would look like in a single year

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francisco Jose Testa, Lecturer in Earth Sciences (Mineralogy, Petrology & Geochemistry), University of Tasmania

    The Conversation

    As a kid, it was tough for me to grasp the massive time scale of Earth’s history. Now, with nearly two decades of experience as a geologist, I think one of the best ways to understand our planet’s history and evolution is by condensing the entire timeline into a single calendar year.

    It’s not a new concept, but it’s a powerful one.

    So, how do we go about this? If we consider Earth’s age as 4.54 billion years and divide it by 365 days, each day of the Gregorian calendar represents about 12.438 million years.

    Let’s say we want to calculate what “day” the Paleozoic started in our new Earth calendar. We just need to subtract 541 million years from the age of the planet and divide it by 12.438 million years. Simple, right?

    As I ran these equations, I noticed something amusing. Some of the most significant events in Earth’s history coincide with major holidays in the Western world. By this reckoning, the dinosaurs went extinct on Christmas Day.

    The Earth calendar

    View the events in the infographic above, or scroll down to read about the entire year in order.

    January 1

    4.54 billion years ago: Formation of proto-Earth as part of the Solar System

    Dust and gas in the early Solar System collide and combine under gravity. This process eventually leads to the formation of a molten planet, our proto-Earth.

    January 3

    4.5 billion years ago: Theia’s impact and the formation of the Moon

    A Mars-sized planet, Theia, collides with the proto-Earth, changing the composition of our planet forever. This massive impact ejects a significant amount of material into orbit around Earth, which eventually coalesces to form the Moon.

    February 4

    4.1 billion years ago: Beginning of the Late Heavy Bombardment

    Earth, the Moon and other inner bodies of our Solar System experience intense asteroid and comet impacts, which shape their surfaces. Unlike Earth, the Moon still retains these craters today because it lacks an atmosphere, water and tectonic activity. The bombardment continues until the very end of February – 3.8 billion years ago.

    February 14

    3.97 billion years ago: Beginning of the Archean Eon

    By Valentine’s Day, the hottest period in Earth’s history – the Hadean Eon – has finally come to an end. With these hostile conditions in the past, the stage is lovingly set for life to emerge as the Archean Eon begins.

    March 16

    3.6 billion years ago: Formation of the first supercontinent, maybe

    For a couple of weeks now, Earth has been cool enough to form stable continental crusts. Vaalbara is a theorised supercontinent consisting of two cratons (ancient, stable and thick blocks that form the cores of continents): Kaapvaal in eastern South Africa, and Pilbara in north-western Western Australia. While still under debate, this would make Vaalbara 3.6 to 2.7 billion years old, one of the oldest supercontinents we know of.

    March 26

    3.48 billion years ago: Earliest direct evidence of life

    Right before the end of the first quarter of the year, simple prokaryotic organisms appear during the Paleoarchean. These are the earliest direct evidence of life recorded as microfossils (stromatolites).

    May 27

    2.7 billion years ago: Cyanobacteria become the first oxygen producers

    Blue-green algae called cyanobacteria develop oxygenic photosynthesis. They use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into organic compounds, releasing oxygen as a byproduct. It’s a milestone for the development of our current atmosphere.

    June 16

    2.46 billion years ago: The Great Oxygenation Event

    A dramatic rise in oxygen levels occurs in shallow seas and in Earth’s atmosphere, driven by oxygenic photosynthesis from cyanobacteria. This event lasts approximately 400 million years, transforming Earth’s environment and paving the way for more complex life forms to thrive on a radically changed planet.

    September 17

    1.3 billion years ago: Formation of the supercontinent Rodinia

    One of the first supercontinents to form on Earth, Rodinia brings together most of the planet’s landmasses. During its 550 million years of existence, Earth is predominantly inhabited by simple life forms, including prokaryotes and early eukaryotes.

    October 31

    750 million years ago: Breakdown of Rodinia and Snowball Earth events

    By Halloween, Rodinia begins to crack apart just like candies in a kid’s trick-or-treat bag. The breakup of Rodinia dramatically influences the planet’s climate and ocean circulation, potentially triggering Snowball Earth events. These two major global glaciations, lasting approximately 70 million years, play a significant role in shaping Earth’s history.

    November 9

    635 million years ago: The Ediacaran Period begins

    Right before the start of the Paleozoic, the first large, complex, multi-cellular marine life forms appear. The Ediacaran biota includes diverse, soft-bodied organisms – early animals, algae and other complex life. Today, curious visitors to the Flinders Ranges in South Australia might be lucky enough to spot some Ediacaran fossils.

    November 17

    538.8 million years ago: The Cambrian Explosion

    The Cambrian Explosion lasts no more than two days (25 million years). During this time, sudden development of complex life occurs in the oceans. Almost all present-day animal phyla appear, and other groups diversify in major ways. Undoubtedly, this is a critical period for life on our planet.

    November 23

    470 million years ago: Plants first colonise Gondwanaland during the Ordovician Period

    Early land plants are simple, non-vascular organisms that colonise moist environments – much like moss today. Over time, plants evolve more complex structures, including vascular tissue specialised for transporting water, nutrients and food, allowing them to thrive in a wider range of terrestrial habitats.

    December 1

    370 million years ago: First vertebrates move onto land

    On the very first day of December, four-limbed animals called tetrapods are the first animals with backbones (vertebrates) to transition to a life on land during the Late Devonian period. These are the ancestors of all land-dwelling vertebrates, living and extinct.

    December 10

    252 million years ago: Permian-Triassic mass extinction

    Life is almost entirely obliterated after a series of massive Siberian volcanic eruptions trigger global warming and a lack of oxygen in the oceans. The Great Dying is the largest extinction in Earth’s history, wiping out more than 90% of marine species and about 70% of terrestrial species.

    December 12

    230 million years ago: The rise of dinosaurs

    The very first dinosaurs are small, bipedal reptiles that eventually evolve into the diverse group of animals that dominate Earth during the Mesozoic Era. Dinosaurs reign over our planet for 13 days, meaning their kingdom endures for an epic 165 million years.

    December 25

    66 million years ago: Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction

    Christmas Day is not a joyful day for dinosaurs: they go extinct. The current leading hypothesis for their demise is an asteroid impact in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. A massive space lump of coal from Santa, if you will.

    December 26

    56 million years ago: The rise of mammals

    Boxing Day is a good day for mammals. During the Palaeocene, right after the extinction event, mammals begin to grow in size and diversity. By noon, when the Eocene starts 56 million years ago, they have evolved into the first large herbivores and carnivores.

    December 31: midday

    ~7 to 6 million years ago: The planet of the apes

    The very first hominids, either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin, appear by noon on December 31. These species represent some of the earliest common ancestors of humans and other great apes, such as gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees.

    December 31: 11:25pm

    300,000 years ago: Modern humans finally arrive

    The very first Homo sapiens emerge in Africa, marking the beginning of anatomically modern humans.

    The final ten minutes

    We’re almost at midnight, and nearly all of humanity’s history can be condensed into the last ten minutes of the year.

    11:50pm

    ~86,377 years ago: Homo sapiens migrate out of Africa into Eurasia. Thus begins a significant global colonisation by early modern humans.

    11:51pm

    ~77,740 years ago: The first symbolic art. Engraved ochre in South Africa’s Blombos Cave is considered one of the earliest symbolic artworks created by humans, indicating the development of cognitive and cultural sophistication.

    11:52pm

    ~69,102 years ago: The Last Glacial Period. An ongoing global cooling event intensifies, forcing humans to adapt to harsher climates.

    11:53pm

    ~60,464 years ago: Humans reach Australia. This marks the earliest known migration across sea, and settlement on a new isolated continent.

    11:54pm

    ~51,826 years ago: Upper Paleolithic Revolution. Humans arrive at a capacity for well-developed language, more complex social structures, and highly specialised tools.

    11:55pm

    ~43,119 years ago: The Neanderthals go extinct. Multiple factors cause their demise, including violence, diseases, natural catastrophes and being outcompeted by Homo sapiens, the only remaining hominid species on Earth.

    11:56pm

    ~34,551 years ago: Symbolic art flourishes and culture emerges globally among modern humans. This time is characterised by significant advancements in creativity and social organisation.

    11:57pm

    ~25,913 years ago: The Last Glacial Maximum. Ice sheets reach their greatest extent, covering large parts of North America, Europe and Asia. This is the peak of the most recent ice age, affecting both ecosystems and human migration.

    11:58pm

    ~17,275 years ago: Warming begins after the Last Glacial Maximum. Ice sheets gradually retreat, leading towards the end of the last ice age.

    11:59pm

    ~8,638 years ago: Significant events take place globally. The Agricultural Revolution has started, with humans cultivating crops and domesticating animals, leading to the first permanent settlements and village life.

    Midnight

    8,638 years ago to today: A great deal happens in the last few seconds of the year. From the Bronze and Iron Age, to the rise and fall of major empires, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, world wars, space exploration, the internet and artificial intelligence.

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

    – ref. Interactive: What Earth’s 4.54 billion-year history would look like in a single year – https://theconversation.com/interactive-what-earths-4-54-billion-year-history-would-look-like-in-a-single-year-245373

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: I was asked to come up with my top 5 Aussie films of 2024. It was a difficult task

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia

    Late Night With The Devil. Maslow Entertainment

    Marketing is critical to the success of commercial films, and companies will often spend half as much again on top of the production budget to let people know about a film. But this is usually not the case with the local industry.

    Frequently, Australian films will do well enough on the festival circuit to be picked up by a theatrical distributor who spends virtually nothing on marketing – and then pulls the film when it doesn’t prove to be the next Muriel’s Wedding.

    This is painfully in the back of my mind as I try to compile a list of my top five Australian films of 2024. Top five? Did I even see five? It turns out I did. Did I miss many? A few, because they never crossed my radar – no posters, no advertising, no social media presence.

    Out of the, let’s say ten, Australian films I did manage to see in 2024, this is my top five (which isn’t to say they are, necessarily, five films that I would recommend).

    1. Late Night with the Devil

    Written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, Late Night with the Devil is a solid genre film.

    The narrative frames the film as found footage. We watch an episode of a late night talk show from Halloween 1977, in which a supposedly possessed girl becomes the centre of the show, unleashing (or not?) various demonic events.

    David Dastmalchian is commandingly goofy in the lead as ratings-hungry host Jack Delroy, and the supporting cast provide some nice character touches.

    The production design is first rate, with everything we love about 1970s horror cinema – and television culture – recreated in vivid strokes.

    Starved of unpretentious and non-didactic cinema, one is tempted to declaim the brilliance of this enjoyable romp. But, at the end of the day – and despite Stephen King’s comment it’s “absolutely brilliant” – it’s just a good horror film, sure to please fans of well-made cinema with a retro bent.

    2. Christmess

    Though released at select cinemas at the end of 2023, I’m including the well-made (and low budget) Christmess on the list, as it secured a mainstream release in 2024.

    The film follows a trio of recovering addicts in a halfway house during the holiday period, centred around once-famous actor Chris (beautifully played by Steve Le Marquand) as he successfully – and unsuccessfully – deals with his demons.

    Christmess is sentimental without being overly schmaltzy, the characters are rendered with nuance while still containing a recognisably mythical dimension, and it feels hopeful while still making sense.

    Writer-director-producer Heath Davis does exactly what is needed for a low budget film. It is economically but effectively shot in the Sydney suburbs, the writing is razor sharp, and the performances are (mostly) excellent. Films like Christmess give hope independent Australian cinema has life yet.

    3. Force of Nature: The Dry 2

    Now we’re getting into trickier territory for a top five list. Force of Nature is the sequel to The Dry from 2020, and treads similar ground, with Eric Bana returning as federal police detective Aaron Falk.

    This time it’s a mystery surrounding a hiking trip and a disappearing informant.

    As with the first film, Force of Nature is an engaging genre film with some arresting moments and effectively handled elements (the cinematography, music, performances are all fine). But it’s also totally forgettable and uninspired, pale in comparison to some of the great variations on the cop-mystery theme of the past.

    4. Birdeater

    Popular at SXSW, Birdeater makes the list by virtue of its style alone.

    What begins as an intriguing look at the horrors of group dynamics when a bunch of youngsters leave the city for a buck’s party quickly fizzles into nothing, the early gestures towards Ted Kotcheff’s masterful Wake in Fright proving little more than hot air.

    But it looks and sounds amazing, one of the most stunningly shot Australian films I’ve seen – actually warranting that haphazardly thrown about adjective “cinematic” – and is worth watching for this dimension alone.

    5. The Moogai

    Some may think writer-director Jon Bell’s The Moogai is an impressive horror film, cleverly integrating a critique of Australian colonisation into a possession story about motherhood and the anxieties of the parent-child relationship.

    I found its treatment of a potentially engaging story humdrum and forgettable, the critique of colonisation obvious and uninteresting, and the performances strained.

    Unlike Jennifer Kent’s excellent The Babadook, which anchors its allegorical dissection of parenthood to specific and weird horrific moments, The Moogai depends too much on the abstract, on the viewer’s knowledge of events and the world outside the film, and suffers as a work of art for this.

    The best of the rest (perhaps)

    Before you attack my evident myopia, there were a handful of Australian films released in 2024 I haven’t seen and that look like they might be worthwhile. Don’t blame me, blame the marketers!

    Sting, directed by Aussie genre maestro Kiah Roache-Turner, looks like a rousingly trashy monster film (there hasn’t been a good giant spider film for years).

    The Rooster, written and directed by actor Mark Leonard Winter, looks like a potentially solid character mystery (and has received great reviews).

    In the Room Where He Waits – which looks like a disturbing Repulsion-like thriller about a queer actor losing his marbles in a hotel room – has also received excellent reviews.

    And this isn’t to discount the potential mirth of a film like Runt, a sweet-looking kids’ film about a ten-year-old girl and her friendship with a dog.

    The biggest Australian film of the year was George Miller’s latest Mad Max endeavour, Furiosa. While some swear by Fury Road, as a long-time fan of the Mad Max films I found it shrill and incomprehensible, a senseless assault on the viewer with little payoff and no dynamism. Well, Furiosa is this, but a little worse.

    How can Screen Australia ensure 2025 (well, 2026 now) has a more robust offering of Australian films? Less money invested in American productions, more on Australian films with lower budgets – and more spent on marketing!

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

    – ref. I was asked to come up with my top 5 Aussie films of 2024. It was a difficult task – https://theconversation.com/i-was-asked-to-come-up-with-my-top-5-aussie-films-of-2024-it-was-a-difficult-task-243922

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –