NewzIntel.com

Category: Global

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why Canadian-trained doctors should be allowed to practise anywhere in Canada without additional licensing

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Anthony Sanfilippo, Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), Queen’s University, Ontario

    Pan-Canadian licensing can improve health-care access in underserved areas and increase flexibility for physicians. (Shutterstock)

    While politicians tout the benefits of reducing interprovincial trade barriers to unlock prosperity amid escalating trade tensions, our most precious health-care resources — fully qualified doctors — remain shackled. Physicians face a maze of regulations when attempting to practise beyond their home province. We must break these chains.

    By 2026, 4.4 million Ontarians — one in four residents — will lack access to family doctors. The crisis extends nationwide, with projections showing 9.6 million Canadians could be without a family physician by 2034. And our existing doctors are stretched thin, with the average family physician seeing 18 per cent fewer patients annually compared to a decade ago.

    It’s mystifying why Canada still struggles with the question of whether a doctor licensed in one province should be automatically qualified to practice in others. In October 2023, federal, provincial and territorial health ministers committed to “advancing labour mobility” for health-care professionals.

    The Atlantic provinces launched a multi-jurisdictional licensing system in May 2023, allowing doctors to practice in all four Atlantic provinces for an additional annual fee. However, this licence is not accepted outside of Atlantic Canada, and no other provinces have such agreements: current legislation requires separate licensing in each province.

    This uncertainty persists despite the critical shortage of physician services, especially for emergency department coverage and unexpected practice vacancies.

    All medical schools and training programs are accredited by the same, pan-Canadian processes based on common, and extensive, criteria.
    (Shutterstock)

    Inter-provincial restrictions undermine the efforts of overworked physicians to arrange coverage for temporary leaves. Such breaks could significantly enhance doctors’ personal well-being and extend their longevity in practice, ultimately benefiting holistic patient care while boosting Canadians’ access to physicians.

    Is there a legitimate rationale, grounded in differences in training or competence, for inter-provincial barriers?

    Medical training in Canada

    Canada has 17 excellent medical schools with campuses in nine provinces (soon expanding to 20 covering all provinces). Although curricula and learning schemes vary according to individual philosophies and available resources, all are united by a shared vision. These institutions strive to equip students with a core set of physician competencies, ensuring graduates excel based on common educational objectives.

    Canadian medical schools are inter-connected and collaborative. They share their approaches, discuss educational innovations, and engage common challenges. Medical student societies participate in collaborative activities to support knowledge sharing in clinical education.

    Graduates of Canadian medical schools face the same qualifying examinations, established by the Medical Council of Canada. Success in these exams is required for entry to practice in all provinces and territories. Graduates apply to the same postgraduate residency programs, which are pan-Canadian. A graduate of an Ontario school interested in a career in family medicine, for example, is free to apply to training programs in any province without prejudice.

    Why are doctors with identical training and qualifications confined to practising in just one province or territory?
    (Shutterstock)

    Those training programs operate under the guidance of national colleges that set pan-Canadian standards for training. All programs are expected to deliver the same training and meet the same standards, regardless of location. All medical schools and training programs are accredited by the same, pan-Canadian processes based on common, and extensive, criteria.

    All this national commonality exists because (with some regional variability in prevalence) people are afflicted with similar medical problems wherever they reside. And so, the practice of medicine should be guided by consistent, high standards. Canadians, regardless of where they live in our country, deserve to be assured that their doctors are exceptionally well trained and qualified.

    Provincial barriers

    Why, then, are doctors with identical training and qualifications confined to practising in just one province or territory? The answer lies not in medical competence, but in bureaucracy. Despite national standards for training and qualification, the power to grant a licence rests with 13 separate provincial and territorial regulatory colleges. This fragmented system creates artificial barriers, limiting the mobility of our highly skilled physicians across Canada.

    This is not to dismiss the important work of these provincial and territorial colleges. They are responsible for ensuring that the doctors working within their jurisdictions have completed appropriate training, achieved qualifications and maintained competence. Importantly, they are also responsible for investigating and assessing any potential breaches of competence or professionalism.

    In calling for common pan-Canadian credentialing, the physician community is not suggesting the important role of provincial and territorial colleges be set aside or in any way diminished. Rather, those critical processes should be either centralized or shared reciprocally. Public protection from doctors who are disciplined or sanctioned can be accelerated through pan-Canadian licensure: the public could search physician sanctions through one online portal, not 13.

    Regulation must be assessed against its purpose. If the purpose is public protection and advancing a high quality and equitable health-care system, then a doctor in good standing who lives and practises in Ontario should be able to take up emergency room shifts or cover a colleague’s practice in Manitoba without having to restart and reinvest in another lengthy, time-consuming and expensive registration process.

    Pan-Canadian licensure can improve health-care access in underserved areas and increase flexibility for physicians. Canadian-trained doctors should be allowed to practice where they are qualified and needed, and that’s in Canada — all of it.

    Neil Seeman, co-founder of Sutherland House Experts, is the publisher of “The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support” by Dr. Anthony Sanfilippo.

    Anthony Sanfilippo 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. Why Canadian-trained doctors should be allowed to practise anywhere in Canada without additional licensing – https://theconversation.com/why-canadian-trained-doctors-should-be-allowed-to-practise-anywhere-in-canada-without-additional-licensing-251672

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Former US envoy slams air attacks on Houthis – NZ protesters recite poetry

    Asia Pacific Report

    A former US diplomat, Nabeel Khoury, says President Donald Trump’s decision to launch attacks against the Houthis is misguided, and this will not subdue them.

    “For our president who came in wanting to avoid war and wanting to be a man of peace, he’s going about it the wrong way,” he said.

    “There are many paths that can be used before you resort to war.” Khoury told Al Jazeera.

    The danger to shipping in the Red Sea was “a justifiable reason for concern”, Khoury told Al Jazeera in an interview, but added that it was a problem that could be resolved through diplomacy.

    Ansar Allah (Houthi) media sources said that at least four areas had been razed by the US warplanes that targeted, in particular, a residential area north of the capital, Sanaa, killing 31 people.

    The Houthis, who had been “bombed severely all over their territory” in the past, were not likely to be subdued through “a few weeks of bombing”, Khoury said.

    “If you think that Hamas, living and fighting on a very small piece of land, totally surrounded by land, air and sea, and yet, 17 months of bombardment by the Israelis did not get rid of them.

    ‘More rugged space’
    “The Houthis live in a much more rugged space, mountainous regions — it would be virtually impossible to eradicate them,” Khoury said.

    “So there is no military logic to what’s happening, and there is no political logic either.”

    Providing background, Patty Culhane reported from Washington that there were several factual errors in the justification President Trump had given for his order.

    “It’s important to point out that the Houthi attacks have stopped since the ceasefire in Gaza [on January 19], although the Houthis were threatening to strike again,” she said.

    “His other justification is saying that no US-flagged vessel has transited the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden safely in more than a year.

    “And then he says another reason is because Houthis attacked a US military warship.

    “That happened when Trump was not president.”

    Down to 10,000 ships
    She said the White House was now putting out more of a communique, “saying that before the attacks, there were 25,000 ships that transited the Red Sea annually. Now it’s down to 10,000 so, obviously, sort of shooting down the president’s concept that nobody is actually transiting the region.

    “And it did list the number of attacks. The US commercial ships have been attacked 145 times since 2023 in their list.”

    Meanwhile, at least nine people, including three journalists, have been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli drone attack on relief aid workers at Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian media.

    The attack reportedly targeted a relief team that was accompanied by journalists and photographers. At least three local journalists were among the dead.

    The Palestinian Journalists’ Protection Centre said in a statement that Israel had killed “three journalists in an airstrike on a media team documenting relief efforts in northern Gaza”, reports

    “The journalists were documenting humanitarian relief efforts for those affected by Israel’s genocidal war,” the statement added, according to Anadolu.

    In a statement, the Israeli military claimed it struck “two terrorists . . .  operating a drone that posed a threat” to Israeli soldiers in the area of Beit Lahiya.

    “Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The [Israeli military] struck the terrorists,” it added, without providing any evidence about its claims.

    ‘Liberation’ poetry
    In Auckland on Saturday, protesters at the Aotearoa New Zealand’s weekly “free Palestine” rallies gave a tribute to poet Mahmoud Darwish — the “liberation voice of Palestine” — by reciting peace and justice poetry and marked the sixth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque massacre when a lone white terrorist gunned down 51 people at Friday prayers.

    This was one of more than 20 Palestinian solidarity events happening across the motu this weekend.

    Two of the pro-Palestine protesters hold West Papuan and Palestinian flags – symbolising indigenous liberation – at Saturday’s rally in Auckland. Image: APR

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Ghana’s poor are the ones who suffer most from corruption: history offers some ideas about fighting back

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Ernest Harsch, Researcher, Institute of African Studies, Columbia University, Columbia University

    It didn’t take long for the new government of John Mahama in Ghana to find a dramatic way to highlight its commitment to combating corruption. On 12 February 2025 his special prosecutor declared the previous finance minister a “wanted fugitive” for going abroad to evade questioning for suspected financial irregularities, before later agreeing to schedule a return.

    In that one move, the government of Mahama’s National Democratic Congress sounded a couple of familiar notes from past campaigns. First, that the widespread graft so many Ghanaians bemoan was largely the fault of the other party, in this case the New Patriotic Party, voted out the previous December. And second, that dishonesty and misconduct are most damaging when they involve high public officials.

    The reality of corruption lived by ordinary Ghanaians is far more complicated than that. Across the past 30 years of electoral democracy, both parties have been tainted by scandal and malfeasance. And over the country’s much longer history, as I detail in a new book, Ghanaians have complained about a wide range of misdeeds by figures in both the public and private realms, in positions high and low.

    Ordinary people have often challenged abuses, misdeeds and outright theft by the wealthy and powerful. They did so well before the territory’s indigenous societies were subjugated by Britain and incorporated into its Gold Coast colony.

    Based on my research into corruption over Ghana’s centuries-long history, it’s clear to me that the effectiveness of any new initiatives depends as much on action from below as from above. Poor people feel the effects of corruption and exploitation more acutely than the better off. And if they are organised they can push the authorities to be more active in rooting out fraud and graft.

    Pre-colonial anticorruption actions

    The strongest precolonial society was Asante, an empire that ruled over a wide area of what is today Ghana. At times, the excesses and injustices of Asante’s monarchs provoked turmoil, fuelled by anger among elites and ordinary people alike.

    One, Kofi Kakari, was dethroned in 1874 after violating established norms by removing gold ornaments from a sacred mausoleum. His successor, Mensa Bonsu, prompted a popular insurgency and was finally overthrown in 1883 by an alliance of junior aristocrats and commoners.

    Meanwhile, the coastal areas populated by Fante developed a more institutionalised method of ensuring chiefly accountability. Commoner-led defence groups, known locally as asafo, which performed a range of civic functions, could depose unpopular chiefs. In some removal ceremonies asafo members seized a chief and bumped his buttocks on the ground three times.

    According to Ghanaian social anthropologist Maxwell Owusu, asafo companies

    had a sacred duty to safeguard the interests of the wider local community against rulers or leaders who misused or abused their power.

    The asafo remained active into the early colonial period. In the 1920s, however, the colonial administration curtailed their powers, to protect chiefs willing to implement colonial orders.

    Echoes of asafo could still be heard many decades later. Following a succession of postcolonial administrations, Ghana erupted in widespread mobilisations against corruption and injustice. The popular outpourings of 1979 and the early 1980s were set off by two lower-rank coups led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings. Recalling past traditions of resistance, protesters sang asafo war songs, beat drums, and employed other popular rituals.

    Many of those activists regarded corruption not as a failing of individuals in high office, but as a problem rooted in Ghana’s class-divided society. As one leading figure of the new People’s Defence Committees put it in 1982:

    Corruption … is the product of a social system and enriches a minority of the people whilst having the opposite effect on the majority.

    Soon the Rawlings government moved towards accommodation with both western financial circles and domestic elites. The youth-led defence committees were purged and eventually abolished.

    The multiparty era

    Radical social perspectives persisted into the era of multiparty electoral democracy, though not in the two mainstream parties. Both say they are opposed to corruption. But according to critics like political scientist Kwame Ninsin, they in effect take turns at the helm to “control the state for private accumulation”.

    Most official anticorruption strategies tend to ignore political contention and social distinctions. And the standard international corruption ratings of Transparency International largely rely on external financial and investor assessments.

    Afrobarometer research surveys provide a more comprehensive view. In 2019, for example, Afrobarometer interviewers asked Ghanaians whether corruption had worsened over the previous year. Some 67% of those living in greater poverty said it had, while only 47% of the better off thought so. And although poor respondents also cited misdeeds by high officials, they often stressed more tangible aspects in their daily lives, such as having to pay bribes to local police or to obtain health or education services.

    Some corruption scholars see benefits to “frying big fish”, to publicly demonstrate their seriousness. Ghanaian governments have a long history of doing that, however, and face an increasingly sceptical public. To be more credible, anticorruption campaigns cannot target only the opposing party or just those at the heights of power.

    Strengths and weaknesses

    Ghana now has a range of laws and institutions to combat graft, fraud and other injustices. Some focus on exposure and punishment, both through the regular courts and through institutions such as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, which annually hears thousands of citizens’ complaints.

    Some official actions stress prevention. High office-holders have to declare their families’ assets, to make it harder to hide illegal wealth. Mahama made his own declaration of assets public, the first president ever to do so.

    Government anticorruption measures have improved over the years. But they still suffer from bureaucratic inertia and limited commitment. That’s why many activists argue against relying solely on politicians.

    The effectiveness of any new initiatives by Mahama or other officials depends as much on action from below as from above. After all, it’s ordinary Ghanaians who know where corruption pinches them the most.

    Ernest Harsch 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. Ghana’s poor are the ones who suffer most from corruption: history offers some ideas about fighting back – https://theconversation.com/ghanas-poor-are-the-ones-who-suffer-most-from-corruption-history-offers-some-ideas-about-fighting-back-250821

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Middle Eastern monarchies in Sudan’s war: what’s driving their interests

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Federico Donelli, Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Trieste

    The civil war in Sudan that began in April 2023 involves several external actors. The conflict pits the Sudanese Armed Forces against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in a quest for political and economic power. The situation has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Various foreign states have picked a side to support. They include Chad, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

    In particular, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are providing financial and military support to the warring parties, although they have denied it. Political scientist Federico Donelli, who has studied the influence of these Gulf monarchies in Sudan, unpacks the implications of their intervention.

    How did the UAE and Saudi Arabia get involved in Sudan?

    Domestic factors within Sudan were the primary triggers for the outbreak of the civil war. Framing the Sudanese conflict as a proxy war may underestimate or overlook important internal variables.

    But it’s also important to highlight the indirect involvement of other states. In the Horn of Africa region, Sudan has interacted the most with Middle Eastern states over the past two decades. Among these states, two Gulf monarchies – Saudi Arabia and the UAE – stand out.

    Political relations between Saudi Arabia and Sudan date back to the independence of the Sudanese state in 1956. And people-to-people links have flourished over centuries. This is largely because Sudan is geographically close to Saudi and the two Muslim holy cities of Mecca (Makkah) and Medina.

    The case of the UAE is different. Since the beginning of the new millennium, the Emirates have expanded their economic and financial influence in Africa, investing in niche sectors such as port logistics. Sudan in particular came to the fore for the Emirates at the end of the 2010s when regional balances shifted before and after the Arab uprisings.

    Between 2014 and 2015, Saudi Arabia and UAE influence in Sudanese politics increased under President Omar al-Bashir. Both monarchies wanted to counter Iran’s ability to project power into the Red Sea and in Yemen. In 2015, after breaking off relations with Iran, Sudan contributed 10,000 troops to a Saudi-led military operation in Yemen to fight Houthi rebels. Both the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces took part, and personal links were forged.

    In the post-Bashir era that began in 2019, Saudi and UAE influence has continued to grow, thanks to those direct links.

    In general, both monarchies are status seekers. In a changing international context, Sudan is a testing ground for their ability to influence and shape future political settlements.

    Seeing the post-2019 transition as an opportunity to influence Sudan’s regional standing, the two monarchies chose to support different factions within Sudan’s security apparatus. This external support exacerbated internal competition.

    Riyadh, in conjunction with Egypt, maintained close ties with army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Abu Dhabi aligned itself with the head of the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Dagalo, or Hemedti.

    Since 2019, the relationship between the UAE and Saudi Arabia has changed. After more than a decade of strategic convergence, especially on regional issues, the two Gulf monarchies began to diverge on issues like their view on political Islam. This divergence has been evident in various crisis scenarios, including in Sudan.

    Although both countries jointly supported the initial Sudanese transition after Bashir’s ouster, the deterioration of relations between Hemedti and al-Burhan created conditions for a showdown between the two monarchies.

    However, the conflict in Sudan didn’t break out because of the rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. But Sudan’s local actors felt able to go to war because they were aware of external support. And once the conflict broke out, both monarchies were reluctant to withdraw local support lest they appear weak in the eyes of their regional counterpart.

    Why is Sudan important to these countries?

    My recent study with political scientist Abigail Kabandula shows that the UAE and Saudi Arabia gradually increased their presence in Sudan after the 2011 Arab uprisings. The fall of some regimes, including Egypt, made the two Gulf monarchies fear that instability could entangle them.

    Our analysis identifies two main reasons for the two countries’ influence in Sudan:

    • changes to the regional power structure

    • the strategic importance of the Horn of Africa.

    The US pivot to Asia – shifting resources from the Middle East to the Pacific – and the Arab Spring protests increased uncertainty among Gulf states. This led to a realignment of regional power dynamics and the formation of rival blocs. As a result, the UAE and Saudi Arabia sought closer ties with African countries. In Sudan, the relationship has developed through both military and political engagement.

    Our analysis shows an increase in both countries’ interest in Sudan between 2012 and 2020. However, our research also highlighted some key differences in their growing influence.

    In the early years after the Arab uprisings, the UAE’s influence grew rapidly, driven by concerns about the spread of protests. This was particularly important given Sudan’s proximity to Egypt.

    Saudi Arabia maintained a more stable level of influence from 2010 to 2020. This was despite Riyadh also initially fearing the spread of the protests.

    Both Gulf states were wary of al-Bashir’s growing ties with Turkey and Qatar, which they feared would strengthen a pro-Islamist bloc in the region. However, after Bashir’s overthrow in 2019, their approaches began to diverge.

    The two Gulf monarchies view Sudan as a key country because of its geographical location.

    Sudan is situated between two major regions – the Sahel and the Red Sea – characterised by instability and conflict. These regions face interconnected challenges: political instability, poverty, food insecurity, and internal and external wars. They also face population displacement, transnational crime and the threat of jihadist groups.

    Moreover, Sudan is an important link between the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa. The country is a crossroads, influencing current and future geostrategic dynamics in the region.

    The Gulf monarchies, including Qatar, have also invested heavily – between US$1.5 billion and US$2 billion – in Sudan’s agri-food sector, which is vital to their food security. Sudan, with its abundant water resources, offers a large amount of fertile land, making it attractive to Gulf companies.

    What can we expect to see next?

    Similar to other current global crises – such as those in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Democratic Republic of Congo – the conflict in Sudan seems difficult to resolve through negotiations. Two main factors contribute to this difficulty.

    First, both parties see the victory of one side as entirely dependent on the defeat of the other. Such logic leaves no room for a win-win solution. Second, the current international context supports the continuation of hostilities. The global shifting balance of power provides both warring parties with opportunities for external support. This complicates efforts to find a peaceful solution.

    There are now two centres of power and governance in the country. It is likely that this division will become more pronounced.

    Federico Donelli is Senior Research Associate at the Istituto di Studi di Politica Internazionale, ISPI (Milan) and Non-Resident Fellow at the Orion Policy Institute, OPI (Washington, DC).

    – ref. Middle Eastern monarchies in Sudan’s war: what’s driving their interests – https://theconversation.com/middle-eastern-monarchies-in-sudans-war-whats-driving-their-interests-251825

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The first fossil thrips in Africa: this tiny insect pest met its end in a volcanic lake 90 million years ago

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Sandiso Mnguni, Honorary Research Associate, University of the Witwatersrand

    The fossil thrips discovered in the Orapa Diamond Mine. Dr Sandiso Mnguni, CC BY-NC-ND

    Thrips are tiny insects – their sizes range between 0.5mm and 15mm in length and many are shorter than 5mm. But the damage they cause to crops is anything but small. A 2021 research paper found that in Indonesia “the damage to red chilli plants caused by thrips infestation ranges now from 20% to 80%”. In India, various thrips infestations in the late 2010s and early 2020s “damaged 40%-85% of chilli pepper crops in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana”.

    In Africa, a number of thrips species feed on sugarcane and have been known to damage nearly 30% of the crop in a single hectare of a farm. High rates of destruction have been recorded in Tanzania and Uganda on onion and tomato crops.

    Now it’s emerged that thrips are hardly new to the African continent and the southern hemisphere more broadly. South Africa’s first and only Black palaeoentomologist, Sandiso Mnguni, who studies fossil insects, recently described a fossil thrips from Orapa Diamond Mine in Botswana that’s more than 90 million years old. He discussed his unique fossil find with The Conversation Africa.

    What are thrips and how do they cause damage?

    Thrips, also known as thunderflies, thunderbugs or thunderblights, are small, slender and fragile insects. They can be identified by their typically narrow, strap-like, fringed and feathery wings. Over time, they have also evolved distinctive asymmetrical rasping-sucking mouthparts consisting of a labrum, labium, maxillary stylets and left mandible. Most species use these to feed primarily on fungi. Some feed on plants and eat the tender parts of certain crops like sugarcane, tomatoes, pepper, onions, avocado, legumes and citrus fruits, focusing on the buds, flowers and young leaves.

    This, along with their habit of accidentally distributing fungal spores while feeding or hunting, makes them destructive crop pests. They tend to feed as a group in large numbers, causing distinctive silver or bronze scarring on the surfaces of stems or leaves.

    However, not all thrips are harmful. A small fraction of the 6,500 species that have already been described so far are pollinators of flowering plants; and a handful are predators or natural enemies of moths and other smaller animals such as mites.

    Larva, pupa and adult Weeping fig thrips (Gynaikothrips uzeli)
    fcafotodigital

    Tell us about the fossil thrips you’ve discovered

    This is the first time that a fossil thrips has been recorded anywhere in Africa – or the entire southern hemisphere.

    The Orapa Diamond Mine in Botswana is one of the most important fossil deposits on the continent. It’s about 90 million years old, dating back to the Cretaceous period.



    Read more:
    Fossil beetles found in a Botswana diamond mine help us to reconstruct the distant past

    The deposit is situated 960 metres above sea level in the Kalahari Desert, about 250km due west of Francistown in Botswana, and 824km away from Johannesburg in South Africa. It was first discovered in 1967 and started producing carat diamonds in 1971.

    Roughly 90 million years go, steam and gas caused a double eruption of diamondiferous kimberlites. These are vertical, deep-source volcanic pipes that form when magma rapidly rises from the Earth’s mantle, carrying diamonds and other minerals up to the surface. They create a distinctive rock formation that gets studied by geologists. This explosive volcanic eruption formed a deep crater lake at the centre of the mine.

    Mining excavations during the 1980s and earlier uncovered and exposed fine-grained sedimentary rocks containing well preserved fossil plants and insects. These have already been studied by many researchers in the past. At the time, geology and palaeontology researchers from what was then the Bernard Price Institute, which has since been renamed the Evolutionary Studies Institute, at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, were invited to collect the fossil material.

    Although some of the material has been studied in the past, the fossil thrips hadn’t yet been put under the microscope. And that’s just what we did. By using its body characteristics and comparing it to living thrips, we can say for sure that it’s a thrips. But we didn’t give it a formal scientific name because it doesn’t have enough characteristics to classify it at the species level and describe it either as a new species or one that still exists today.

    We think that the thrips either flew into the palaeolake that was formed by the volcanic eruption or was transported there through grass from a bird’s nest.

    Why is this useful to know?

    This discovery sheds light on the biodiversity and biogeography of thrips and many other groups of insects during a time when we know flowering plants that heavily relied on insect pollination were rapidly diversifying. This plant-insect reciprocal interaction goes back to the Devonian period, a time when there was a large super-continent called Gondwana. That’s when the first land plants evolved and dominated the Earth, and inadvertently led to many groups of insects, including thrips, diversifying to keep up with drastic changes in their preferred plant diets and habitats due to the dramatic environmental and climatic changes.



    Read more:
    Fossil insects help to reconstruct the past: how I ended up studying them (and you can too)

    The fossil find also contributes to a more accurate documentation of life on Earth during the Cretaceous and helps scientists in reconstructing the past environment and climate in Botswana.

    Hopefully there are more fossil insects waiting to be discovered in Botswana and elsewhere in Africa, to keep improving our picture of this long-ago world, and preserve the heritage of our continent.

    Sandiso Mnguni receives funding from the GENUS: DSTI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (Grant 86073). He is affiliated with the Agricultural Research Council Plant Health and Protection (ARC-PHP) and the Sophumelela Youth Development Programme (SYDP).

    – ref. The first fossil thrips in Africa: this tiny insect pest met its end in a volcanic lake 90 million years ago – https://theconversation.com/the-first-fossil-thrips-in-africa-this-tiny-insect-pest-met-its-end-in-a-volcanic-lake-90-million-years-ago-249077

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Who owns digital data about you? South African legal scholar weighs up property and privacy rights

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Donrich Thaldar, Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal

    alexsl

    In the digital economy, data is more than just information – it is an asset with immense economic and strategic value. Yet, despite its significance, a fundamental legal question remains unresolved: Can data be owned? While privacy laws worldwide focus on protecting individuals’ rights over their personal data, they often sidestep the issue of ownership. This has led to legal uncertainty, particularly in South Africa, where the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia) grants data subjects various rights over their personal information but does not explicitly address ownership.

    This gap in legal clarity raises pressing questions: If personal data – such as private health information – exists within a vast and ever-growing digital landscape, can it be owned? And if so, who holds the rightful claim?

    Legal academic Donrich Thaldar, whose research focuses on data governance, explores these questions in a recent academic article. He unpacks his findings for The Conversation Africa.

    Why does it matter who owns data?

    In today’s digital economy, data is the most valuable asset – it’s often referred to as “the new oil”. Whether in commerce, research, or social interactions, the ability to generate, use and trade with data is central to economic competitiveness.

    If data ownership is not clearly established, it could stifle innovation and investment. Companies require legal certainty to operate effectively in a knowledge-driven economy.

    Countries have taken different legal approaches to tackling the question of who owns data. China, for instance, formally recognises the proprietary rights of data generators, meaning that businesses and individuals who generate data have legally defined rights over its use and commercialisation. This provides legal support for the country’s digital industries.

    What does South African law say?

    In the past, the South African Information Regulator has taken the position that personal information is automatically owned by the data subject – the person to whom the data relates – rather than by the entity generating the data. In this view, the rights created by Popia imply that data subjects themselves are the owners of their personal data, and nobody else.

    I suggest that this stance is legally flawed, as it conflates two different branches of the law: privacy law and property law. Moreover, it could severely disrupt the digital economy. The digital economy depends on data as a tradeable asset – it must be capable of being sold, licensed and commercialised like any other economic object. If ownership must always be with data subjects, businesses face uncertainty in using and monetising data. Uncertainty stifles innovation, discourages investment, and undermines South Africa’s digital competitiveness.

    You applied property law to the question of data ownership. Why?

    Ownership is a concept in property law, not privacy law. Therefore, to answer the data ownership question, we need to look for answers in property law.

    Property law governs the relationship between subjects (legal persons) and objects (things external to the body, whether physical or not). Ownership is about the rights that a subject has over an object. For an object to be capable of being owned, it must be valuable, useful, and – importantly – capable of human control. A bottle of water meets these criteria, but the vast oceans do not, as they are not within human control.

    Personal data in the abstract is like the water in the ocean – vast, uncontained, and beyond individual control. However, a digital instance of personal data, such as a computer file, is more like a bottled version of that water – defined and subject to human control. Just like digital money and other valuable digital assets, a specific instance of personal data meets all the requirements under South African common law for private ownership. Thus, in this sense personal data can be owned.

    Is the data owner not the data subject?

    At first glance this might seem so, but no, not necessarily. The reason that it might seem so, is because some of the privacy rights created by Popia resemble ownership rights. For example, an owner’s agreement is required before someone else can use the owned object (e.g., loan for use and rent). Similarly, a data subject’s consent is in most cases required before personal data can be processed. Furthermore, the owner of a thing has the right to destroy it; similarly, a data subject typically has the right to have personal data deleted.

    Do these privacy rights mean that data subjects actually own their personal data? I suggest not. Wearing a feather in one’s hat does not make one a bird. In the same way, privacy rights that resemble ownership rights do not mean that they constitute ownership. Ownership is acquired by following the rules of property law.

    So who owns the data?

    Because a newly created personal data instance has no antecedent legal object – in other words, it is not created out of another legal object – it initially belongs to no one. It is res nullius. Ownership of res nullius is acquired through appropriation, which requires two elements: control and the intention to own.

    This means that the entity generating the data, such as a company or university collecting and recording it, is best positioned to acquire ownership. Since it already has control over the data, the only remaining requirement is simply the intention to be the owner.

    If an entity like a university generates data and intends to own it, then – provided it is in control of that data – it will legally become the owner. This in principle allows the entity to use, license and trade the data as an economic asset. Indeed, it is prudent for data-generating entities, such as universities, to explicitly assert ownership over the data they produce. This not only establishes their legal rights with clarity but also serves as a safeguard against unauthorised access and misuse by malicious actors.

    Doesn’t this compromise data privacy?

    No, it should not. Ownership is always limited by other legal rules. For example, while I might own a car, I cannot drive it in any way I like – I must obey the rules of the road. Similarly, ownership of personal data is subject to strict limitations, particularly the privacy rights of data subjects under Popia.

    However, it is also important to understand that privacy rights apply only to personal data. If personal data is de-identified, meaning that it can no longer be linked to the data subjects, privacy rights cease to apply. What remains are the ownership rights in the data itself. It can be a fully tradeable asset.

    Recognising that a digital instance of personal data can be owned – and that the rightful owner is typically the data generator – does not undermine the privacy protections of Popia. Rather, it clarifies the legal landscape, ensuring that the rights of both data subjects and data generators are recognised and protected.

    Donrich Thaldar receives funding from the NIH.

    – ref. Who owns digital data about you? South African legal scholar weighs up property and privacy rights – https://theconversation.com/who-owns-digital-data-about-you-south-african-legal-scholar-weighs-up-property-and-privacy-rights-249741

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Guam at decolonisation ‘crossroads’ with resolution on US statehood

    By Mar-Vic Cagurangan in Hagatna, Guam

    Debate on Guam’s future as a US territory has intensified with its legislature due to vote on a non-binding resolution to become a US state amid mounting Pacific geostrategic tensions and expansionist declarations by the Trump administration.

    Located closer to Beijing than Hawai’i, Guam serves as a key US strategic asset, known as the “tip of the spear,” with 10,000 military personnel, an air base for F-35 fighters and B-2 bombers and home port for Virginia-class nuclear submarines.

    The small US territory of 166,000 people is also listed by the UN for decolonisation and last year became an associate member at the Pacific Islands Forum.

    Local Senator William A. Parkinson introduced the resolution to the legislature last Wednesday and called for Guam to be fully integrated into the American union, possibly as the 51st state.

    “We are standing in a moment of history where two great empires are standing face-to-face with each other, about to go to war,” Parkinson said at a press conference on Thursday.

    “We have to be real about what’s going on in this part of the world. We are a tiny island but we are too strategically important to be left alone. Stay with America or do we let ourselves be absorbed by China?”

    His resolution states the decision “must be built upon the informed consent of the people of Guam through a referendum”.

    Trump’s expansionist policies
    Parkinson’s resolution comes as US President Donald Trump advocates territorially expansionist policies, particularly towards the strategically located Danish-ruled autonomous territory of Greenland and America’s northern neighbour, Canada.

    “This one moment in time, this one moment in history, the stars are aligning so that the geopolitics of the United States favour statehood for Guam,” Parkinson said. “This is an opportunity we cannot pass up.”

    Guam Legislature Senator William A. Parkinson holds a press conference after introducing his resolution. BenarNews screenshot APR

    As a territory, Guam residents are American citizens but they cannot vote for the US president and their lone delegate to the Congress has no voting power on the floor.

    The US acquired Guam, along with Puerto Rico, in 1898 after winning the Spanish-American War, and both remain unincorporated territories to this day.

    Independence advocates and representatives from the Guam Commission on Decolonisation regularly testify at the UN’s Decolonisation Committee, where the island has been listed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory since 1946.

    Commission on Decolonisation executive director Melvin Won Pat-Borja said he was not opposed to statehood but is concerned if any decision on Guam’s status was left to the US.

    “Decolonisation is the right of the colonised,” he said while attending Parkinson’s press conference, the Pacific Daily News reported.

    ‘Hands of our coloniser’
    “It’s counterintuitive to say that, ‘we’re seeking a path forward, a path out of this inequity,’ and then turn around and put it right back in the hands of our coloniser.

    “No matter what status any of us prefer, ultimately that is not for any one of us to decide, but it is up to a collective decision that we have to come to, and the only way to do it is via referendum,” he said, reports Kuam News.

    With the geostrategic competition between the US and China in the Pacific, Guam has become increasingly significant in supporting American naval and air operations, especially in the event of a conflict over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

    The two US bases have seen Guam’s economy become heavily reliant on military investments and tourism.

    The Defence Department holds about 25 percent of Guam’s land and is preparing to spend billions to upgrade the island’s military infrastructure as another 5000 American marines relocate there from Japan’s Okinawa islands.

    Guam is also within range of Chinese and North Korean ballistic missiles and the US has trialed a defence system, with the first tests held in December.

    Governor Lou Leon Guerrero delivers her “State of the Island” address in Guam on Tuesday . . . “Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asian-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without shelter . . .” Image: Office of the Governor of Guam/Benar News

    The “moment in history” for statehood may also be defined by the Trump administration spending cuts, Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero warned in her “state of the island” address on Wednesday.

    Military presence leveraged
    The island has in recent years leveraged the increased military presence to demand federal assistance and the territory’s treasury relies on at least US$0.5 billion in annual funding.

    “Let us be clear about this: Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asian-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without shelter, because housing aid to Guam is cut, or if 36,000 of our people lose access to Medicaid and Medicare coverage keeping them healthy, alive and out of poverty,” Guerrero said.

    Parkinson’s proposed legislative resolution calls for an end to 125-plus years of US colonial uncertainty.

    “The people of Guam, as the rightful stewards of their homeland, must assert their inalienable right to self-determination,” states the resolution, including that there be a “full examination of statehood or enhanced autonomous status for Guam.”

    “Granting Guam equal political status would signal unequivocally that Guam is an integral part of the United States, deterring adversaries who might otherwise perceive Guam as a mere expendable outpost.”

    If adopted by the Guam legislature, the non-binding resolution would be transmitted to the White House.

    A local statute enacted in 2000 for a political status plebiscite on statehood, independence or free association has become bogged down in US courts.

    ‘Reject colonial status quo’
    Neil Weare, a former Guam resident and co-director of Right to Democracy, said the self-determination process must be centred on what the people of Guam want, “not just what’s best for US national security”.

    “Right to Democracy does not take a position on political status, other than to reject the undemocratic and colonial status quo,” Weare said on behalf of the nonprofit organisation that advocates for rights and self-determination in US territories.

    “People can have different views on what is the best solution to this problem, but we should all be in agreement that the continued undemocratic rule of millions of people in US territories is wrong and needs to end.”

    He said the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence next year can open a new venue for a conversation about key concepts — such as the “consent of the governed” — involving Guam and other US territories.

    Republished from BenarNews with permission.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Let juries judge disruptive protesters like Just Stop Oil on their integrity – expert view

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Graeme Hayes, Reader in Political Sociology, Aston University

    The UK Court of Appeal recently ruled on an appeal brought by 16 environmental activists serving prison sentences for planning or participating in a series of disruptive non-violent protests.

    The cases include the five-year term being served by Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, and the terms of two years and 20 months handed down to Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland respectively, for throwing soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers while the painting was on display at the National Gallery in London.

    Some news reports emphasised the reduction of sentences for some of the defendants (Hallam’s term was reduced to four years, for example), but the court’s decision upheld most of the sentences. There were only minor sentence reductions where the court found the initial sentences to be “manifestly excessive”, while the appeals of ten activists were dismissed outright.

    In Holland and Plummer’s case, the court rejected original trial judge Christopher Hehir’s insistence that throwing soup over a painting was violent (equivalent to assaulting a person, Hehir had argued). Yet the court still upheld the lengthy prison sentences Hehir handed down, maintaining that the soup action was “disproportionate or extreme”.

    The defendants’ motives for such disproportionate actions – to raise awareness about climate change and pressure the UK government to issue no new licences for the exploration and production of fossil fuels – were not considered relevant by either Hehir or the Court of Appeal.

    Does this amount to a fair and appropriate hearing? In an article published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, we suggest that the cases of non-violent disruptive protesters should be governed by what we call “the integrity principle”. This would spur a radical rethink of how the courts approach the trials of such protesters.

    Integrity in protest trials

    The trials of protesters are different from most criminal trials. Just as legal philosopher Anthony Duff once argued, we consider that the purpose of all criminal trials is to “call the defendant to account”. Duff tells us that we can be held responsible as citizens, to the community, for our moral wrongs. A criminal trial is not just about deciding “did they do it”, but also about communicating what, as a society, is considered right and wrong. For that to happen, a trial must engage defendants in a discussion as to why they did what they did.

    It is here where the trials of non-violent protesters should be different from “ordinary” criminal trials. There are two reasons. First, unlike in most criminal trials, defendants prosecuted for staging disruptive protest rarely dispute the facts of what they did. Instead, they seek to explain why they did it.

    Second, they do so because their action is not intended for personal gain, but to improve the life of the community. Political philosophy tends to maintain that disobedient and disruptive actions can be morally justified if they are motivated by an attempt to uphold the fundamental rights of, or avoid harms caused to, others, or highlight injustices and the failures of political processes.

    In other words, these activists are seeking to act as citizens, and give a public account of their action as justified and proportionate. In Duff’s reasoning, this sort of accountability must be central to a criminal trial. But this depends on the defendants’ ability to explain their motives to a jury, in ways that are consistent with their beliefs and values. In short, the trial should allow defendants to demonstrate to the jury they had acted with integrity.

    If the trial is a site of moral communication that engages the sense of right and wrong of the community – and, like Duff, we argue it should be – then protest defendants should be able to offer a legally relevant account of their actions, and the jury should be able to decide whether they accept this account.

    Yet, as we have previously written, the law in England and Wales has been reframed over the past five years to reduce the defences that activists are able to rely upon. What protest defendants can say in court is inconsistently policed by judges. But in all cases, even where defendants can explain their motivations, they cannot now do so as part of a legal defence. Instead, they must rely on juries deciding (in rare cases) with their conscience rather than legal direction. This breaches the integrity principle, because juries are not able to decide, in law, whether they accept the account of action that might otherwise be put to them by the defence.



    Read more:
    Just Stop Oil’s harsh sentences are the logical outcome of Britain’s authoritarian turn against protest

    If the jury does decide to convict, we argue that the integrity principle must also apply to sentencing. Where they are found guilty, it is illogical that activists should be expected to express remorse for their actions. This would be to disavow their motives, moral consistency and public accountability. Rather than remorse, their the integrity of their intentions and the honesty of their explanation of them should be regarded as a mitigating factor.

    Integrity and democracy

    Disruptive protest directs our attention to the failure of the democratic process to properly address pressing social problems. For the courts to punish those who attempt to highlight this failure only exacerbates it. Crucially, it denies both the moral purpose of criminal law and the social function of juries. Yet this is exactly what is happening right now in British courts.

    We can see in the Court of Appeal’s judgment how the courts are failing to follow the integrity principle. Not only did the court sideline the motivations of the defendants, holding that the harm caused was too serious to take them into account, but it also acted to endorse more severe and deterrent sentences.

    If we reorganise the trials of activists to place their integrity at the heart of the process, enabling them to give a legally meaningful account of their action, the law would finally recognise that disruptive protest is not an irritant outside of the democratic process, but is integral to it.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Graeme Hayes receives funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust for the project ‘Justifying Protest in the Courts: Voice, Democracy, and the Law’

    Steven Cammiss receives funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust.

    – ref. Let juries judge disruptive protesters like Just Stop Oil on their integrity – expert view – https://theconversation.com/let-juries-judge-disruptive-protesters-like-just-stop-oil-on-their-integrity-expert-view-251949

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: No apologies over fabricated terror plot from pollies or lobby groups

    COMMENTARY: By Greg Barns

    When it comes to antisemitism, politicians in Australia are often quick to jump on the claim without waiting for evidence.

    With notable and laudable exceptions like the Greens and independents such as Tasmanian federal MP Andrew Wilkie, it seems any allegation will do when it comes to the opportunity to imply Arab Australians, the Muslim community and Palestinian supporters are trying to destroy the lives of the Jewish community.

    A case in point. The discovery in January this year of a caravan found in Dural, New South Wales, filled with explosives and a note that referenced the Great Synagogue in Sydney led to a frenzy of clearly uninformed and dangerous rhetoric from politicians and the media about an imminent terrorist attack targeting the Jewish community.

    It was nothing of the sort as we now know with the revelation by police that this was a “fabricated terrorist plot”.

    As the ABC reported on March 10: “Police have said an explosives-laden caravan discovered in January at Dural in Sydney’s north-west was a ‘fake terrorism plot’ with ties to organised crime”, and that “the Australian Federal Police said they were confident this was a ‘fabricated terrorist plot’,” adding the belief was held “very early on after the caravan was located”.

    One would have thought the political and media class would know that it is critical in a society supposedly underpinned by the rule of law that police be allowed to get on with the job of investigating allegations without comment.

    Particularly so in the hot-house atmosphere that exists in this nation today.

    Opportunistic Dutton
    But not the ever opportunistic and divisive federal opposition leader Peter Dutton.

    After the Daily Telegraph reported the Dural caravan story on January 29,  Dutton was quick to say that this “was potentially the biggest terrorist attack in our country’s history”. To his credit, Prime Anthony Albanese said in response he does not “talk about operational matters for an ongoing investigation”.

    Dutton’s language was clearly designed to whip up fear and hysteria among the Jewish community and to demonise Palestinian supporters.

    He was not Robinson Crusoe sadly. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told the media on January 29 that the Dural caravan discovery had the potential to have led to a “mass casualty event”.

    The Zionist Federation of Australia, an organisation that is an unwavering supporter of Israel despite the horror that nation has inflicted on Gaza, was even more overblown in its claims.

    It issued a statement that claimed: “This is undoubtedly the most severe threat to the Jewish community in Australia to date. The plot, if executed, would likely have resulted in the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil.”

    Note the word “undoubtedly”.

    Uncritical Israeli claims
    Then there was another uncritical Israel barracker, Sky News’ Sharri Markson, who claimed; “To think perpetrators would have potentially targeted a museum commemorating the Holocaust — a time when six million Jews were killed — is truly horrifying.”

    And naturally, Jilian Segal, the highly partisan so-called “Antisemitism Envoy” said the discovery of the caravan was a “chilling reminder that the same hatred that led to the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust still exists today”.

    In short, the response to the Dural caravan incident was simply an exercise in jumping on the antisemitism issue without any regard to the consequences for our community, including the fear it spread among Jewish Australians and the further demonising of the Arab Australian community.

    No circumspection. No leadership. No insistence that the matter had not been investigated fully.

    As the only Jewish organisation that represents humanity, the Jewish Council of Australia, said in a statement from its director Sarah Schwartz on March 10 the “statement from the AFP [Australian Federal Police] should prompt reflection from every politician, journalist and community leader who has sought to manipulate and weaponise fears within the Jewish community.

    ‘Irresponsible and dangerous’
    “The attempt to link these events to the support of Palestinians — whether at protests, universities, conferences or writers’ festivals — has been irresponsible and dangerous.” Truth in spades.

    And ask yourself this question. Let’s say the Dural caravan contained notes about mosques and Arab Australian community centres. Would the media, politicians and others have whipped up the same level of hysteria and divisive rhetoric?

    The answer is no.

    One assumes Dutton, Segal, the Zionist Federation and others who frothed at the mouth in January will now offer a collective mea culpa. Sadly, they won’t because there will be no demands to do so.

    The damage to our legal system has been done because political opportunism and milking antisemitism for political ends comes first for those who should know better.

    Greg Barns SC is national criminal justice spokesperson for the Australian Lawyers Alliance. This article was first published by Pearls and Irritations social policy journal and is republished with permission.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: A letter from Kim Honey, The Conversation Canada’s new editor-in-chief and CEO

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kim Honey, CEO|Editor-in-Chief, The Conversation Canada

    It is my privilege to join The Conversation Canada as CEO and editor-in-chief at a time when the world needs fact-based journalism more than ever.

    Kim Honey, CEO and Editor-in-Chief.
    CC BY

    I have been reading The Conversation Canada since it launched in 2017, and I’m a big believer in its mission to tap the breadth and depth of knowledge of the country’s academic brain trust to provide timely, relevant and informative news and analyses.

    The Conversation Canada‘s talented editors bring the journalistic flair to the academic rigour, and I’m excited to help them support academics and researchers in sharing their knowledge and informing public debate. As democracy faces unprecedented threats, The Conversation Canada will continue to counteract misinformation, promote free speech and inform public discourse.

    I look forward to contributing to the valuable and increasingly vital work of The Conversation Canada and La Conversation Canada by developing and strengthening our partnerships with member universities.

    All the best,

    Kim Honey

    CEO|Editor-in-Chief, The Conversation Canada

    – ref. A letter from Kim Honey, The Conversation Canada’s new editor-in-chief and CEO – https://theconversation.com/a-letter-from-kim-honey-the-conversation-canadas-new-editor-in-chief-and-ceo-252353

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why was it hard for the GOP to pass its spending bill?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State University

    U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was one of 10 Democrats who voted to break the filibuster on the GOP funding bill. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

    Facing a threat of imminent government shutdown, nine Democrats joined GOP Senate colleagues to defeat a filibuster, moving a six-month government funding bill to final passage in a late-day vote on March 14, 2025.

    Since January 2025, Republicans in Washington have enjoyed what’s commonly known as a governing “trifecta”: control over the executive branch via the president, combined with majorities for their party in both the House and the Senate.

    You might think that a trifecta, which is also referred to as “unified government” by political scientists, is a clear recipe for easy legislative success. In theory, when political parties have unified control over the House, the Senate and the presidency, there should be less conflict between them. Because these politicians are part of the same political party and have the same broad goals, it seems like they should be able to get their agenda approved, and the opposing minority party can do little to stop them.

    But not all trifectas are created equal, and not all are dominant. And several weaknesses in the Republicans’ trifecta made passing their six-month stopgap spending bill so difficult, and they help explain why the federal government came so close to shutting down completely.

    Research shows that political gridlock can still happen even under a unified government for reasons that have been on display ever since Republicans assumed leadership of Congress and the presidency in January.

    With a slim majority, will GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, be able to pass Donald Trump’s priorities?
    Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    Majority size matters

    A unified government clearly makes President Donald Trump’s ability to enact his agenda much easier than if, for example, Democrats controlled the U.S. House, as they did during the second half of his first term, from 2021-2022. But tight margins in both congressional chambers have meant that, even with a trifecta, it hasn’t been an easy.

    Trump was the sixth consecutive president with a trifecta on Day 1 of his second term. But history – and simple math – show that presidents with trifectas have an easier time passing partisan legislation with bigger majorities. Bigger majorities mean majority-party defections won’t easily sink controversial or partisan legislation. A bigger majority also means that individual members of Congress from either party have less leverage to water down the president’s policy requests.

    Trump also held a trifecta during the beginning of his first term in office; in particular, a big Republican majority in the House, which passed major legislation with relative ease and put pressure on Senate colleagues to comply. Trump signed a major tax reform package in 2017 that was the signature legislative achievement of his first term.

    But Trump has a much smaller advantage this time.

    Every president since Bill Clinton has entered office with a trifecta, but Trump’s seat advantage in the House on Day 1 of his second term was the smallest of all of them. This slim House margin meant that Republicans could afford to lose only a handful of their party’s votes on their spending bill in order for it to pass over unanimous Democratic opposition.

    And Trump’s relatively small advantage in the Senate meant that Republicans needed at least eight Democratic votes to break a filibuster. Nine Democrats ultimately voted to advance the bill to final passage.

    Majority party troubles

    In addition to opposition from Democrats in Congress, Trump and other Republican leaders have continued to confront internal divisions within their own party.

    In a closely divided House or Senate, there are plenty of tools that Democrats, even as the minority party, can use to stymie Trump’s agenda. This most notably includes the filibuster, which would have forced Republicans to garner 60 votes for their short-term spending bill. A small proportion of Democrats ultimately bailed out Senate Republicans in this case; but any major defections within the GOP would have required even more Democratic support, which Republicans were unlikely to get.

    Even dominant legislative trifectas, again like the one former President Barack Obama enjoyed when he took office in 2009, can’t prevent divisions within political parties, as different politicians jockey for control of the party’s agenda.

    Despite entering office with a 17-vote advantage in the Senate, 11 more than Trump enjoys now, Obama’s signature legislative achievement – the Affordable Care Act, also sometimes known as Obamacare – had to be watered down significantly to win a simple majority after backlash from conservative Democrats.

    Obama’s trifecta was bigger in size; but in a polarized America, a large majority also means an ideologically diverse one.

    Just as Republican leaders did in the last Congress, Trump has faced similar pushback behind the scenes and in public from members of his own party in his second term. For the past two years, the Republican-led House has been repeatedly riven by leadership struggles and an often aimless legislative agenda, thanks to a lack of cooperation from the the party’s far-right flank.

    This group of ideologically driven lawmakers remains large enough to stall any party-line vote that Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to pass, and the spending bill very nearly fell victim to this kind of defection.

    Even though the GOP squeaked out a win on this spending bill, the potential for continued chaos is monumental, especially if Trump pursues more major reform to policy areas such as immigration.

    Competing pressures

    Despite Congress’ reputation as a polarized partisan body, members of Congress ultimately serve multiple masters. The lingering Republican divisions that made it so difficult to pass this resolution reflect the competing pressures of national party leaders in Washington and the local politics of each member’s district, which often cut against what party leaders want.

    For example, some Republicans represent heavily Republican districts and will be happy to go along with Trump’s agenda, regardless of how extreme it is. Others represent districts won by Kamala Harris in 2024 and might be more inclined to moderate their positions to keep their seats in 2026 and beyond. There admittedly aren’t many of this latter group; but likely enough to sink any party-line legislation Speaker Johnson has in mind.

    What’s next?

    Republicans managed to pass a hurried, stopgap spending bill on March 14, 2025 only by the skin of their teeth. Failing to do so would have driven the federal government into shutdown mode. Small margins, internal divisions and conflicting electoral pressures will continue to make legislating difficult over the next two years or more.

    Thanks to these complications, it may be that congressional Republicans will continue to rely on the executive branch, including Elon Musk and the efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to do the policymaking for them, even if it means handing over their own legislative power to Trump.

    This is an updated version of a story first published on Nov. 19, 2024.

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

    – ref. Why was it hard for the GOP to pass its spending bill? – https://theconversation.com/why-was-it-hard-for-the-gop-to-pass-its-spending-bill-252257

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why was it hard for the GOP – which controls Congress – to pass its spending bill?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State University

    U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was one of 10 Democrats who voted to break the filibuster on the GOP funding bill. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

    Facing a threat of imminent government shutdown, nine Democrats joined GOP Senate colleagues to defeat a filibuster, moving the six-month government funding bill to final passage in a late-day vote on March 14, 2025.

    Since January 2025, Republicans in Washington have enjoyed what’s commonly known as a governing “trifecta”: control over the executive branch via the president, combined with majorities for their party in both the House and the Senate.

    You might think that a trifecta, which is also referred to as “unified government” by political scientists, is a clear recipe for easy legislative success. In theory, when political parties have unified control over the House, the Senate and the presidency, there should be less conflict between them. Because these politicians are part of the same political party and have the same broad goals, it seems like they should be able to get their agenda approved, and the opposing minority party can do little to stop them.

    But not all trifectas are created equal, and not all are dominant. And several weaknesses in the Republicans’ trifecta made passing their six-month stopgap spending bill so difficult, and they help explain why the federal government came so close to shutting down completely.

    Research shows that political gridlock can still happen even under a unified government for reasons that have been on display ever since Republicans assumed leadership of Congress and the presidency in January.

    With a slim majority, will GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, be able to pass Donald Trump’s priorities?
    Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    Majority size matters

    A unified government clearly makes President Donald Trump’s ability to enact his agenda much easier than if, for example, Democrats controlled the U.S. House, as they did during the second half of his first term, from 2021-2022. But tight margins in both congressional chambers have meant that, even with a trifecta, it hasn’t been an easy.

    Trump was the sixth consecutive president with a trifecta on Day 1 of his second term. But history – and simple math – show that presidents with trifectas have an easier time passing partisan legislation with bigger majorities. Bigger majorities mean majority-party defections won’t easily sink controversial or partisan legislation. A bigger majority also means that individual members of Congress from either party have less leverage to water down the president’s policy requests.

    Trump also held a trifecta during the beginning of his first term in office; in particular, a big Republican majority in the House, which passed major legislation with relative ease and put pressure on Senate colleagues to comply. Trump signed a major tax reform package in 2017 that was the signature legislative achievement of his first term.

    But Trump has a much smaller advantage this time.

    Every president since Bill Clinton has entered office with a trifecta, but Trump’s seat advantage in the House on Day 1 of his second term was the smallest of all of them. This slim House margin meant that Republicans could afford to lose only a handful of their party’s votes on their spending bill in order for it to pass over unanimous Democratic opposition.

    And Trump’s relatively small advantage in the Senate meant that Republicans needed at least eight Democratic votes to break a filibuster. Nine Democrats ultimately voted to advance the bill to final passage.

    Majority party troubles

    In addition to opposition from Democrats in Congress, Trump and other Republican leaders have continued to confront internal divisions within their own party.

    In a closely divided House or Senate, there are plenty of tools that Democrats, even as the minority party, can use to stymie Trump’s agenda. This most notably includes the filibuster, which would have forced Republicans to garner 60 votes for their short-term spending bill. A small proportion of Democrats ultimately bailed out Senate Republicans in this case; but any major defections within the GOP would have required even more Democratic support, which Republicans were unlikely to get.

    Even dominant legislative trifectas, again like the one former President Barack Obama enjoyed when he took office in 2009, can’t prevent divisions within political parties, as different politicians jockey for control of the party’s agenda.

    Despite entering office with a 17-vote advantage in the Senate, 11 more than Trump enjoys now, Obama’s signature legislative achievement – the Affordable Care Act, also sometimes known as Obamacare – had to be watered down significantly to win a simple majority after backlash from conservative Democrats.

    Obama’s trifecta was bigger in size; but in a polarized America, a large majority also means an ideologically diverse one.

    Just as Republican leaders did in the last Congress, Trump has faced similar pushback behind the scenes and in public from members of his own party in his second term. For the past two years, the Republican-led House has been repeatedly riven by leadership struggles and an often aimless legislative agenda, thanks to a lack of cooperation from the the party’s far-right flank.

    This group of ideologically driven lawmakers remains large enough to stall any party-line vote that Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to pass, and the spending bill very nearly fell victim to this kind of defection.

    Even though the GOP squeaked out a win on this spending bill, the potential for continued chaos is monumental, especially if Trump pursues more major reform to policy areas such as immigration.

    Competing pressures

    Despite Congress’ reputation as a polarized partisan body, members of Congress ultimately serve multiple masters. The lingering Republican divisions that made it so difficult to pass this resolution reflect the competing pressures of national party leaders in Washington and the local politics of each member’s district, which often cut against what party leaders want.

    For example, some Republicans represent heavily Republican districts and will be happy to go along with Trump’s agenda, regardless of how extreme it is. Others represent districts won by Kamala Harris in 2024 and might be more inclined to moderate their positions to keep their seats in 2026 and beyond. There admittedly aren’t many of this latter group; but likely enough to sink any party-line legislation Speaker Johnson has in mind.

    What’s next?

    Republicans managed to pass a hurried, stopgap spending bill on March 14, 2025 only by the skin of their teeth. Failing to do so would have driven the federal government into shutdown mode. Small margins, internal divisions and conflicting electoral pressures will continue to make legislating difficult over the next two years or more.

    Thanks to these complications, it may be that congressional Republicans will continue to rely on the executive branch, including Elon Musk and the efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to do the policymaking for them, even if it means handing over their own legislative power to Trump.

    This is an updated version of a story first published on Nov. 19, 2024.

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

    – ref. Why was it hard for the GOP – which controls Congress – to pass its spending bill? – https://theconversation.com/why-was-it-hard-for-the-gop-which-controls-congress-to-pass-its-spending-bill-252257

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why was it so hard for the GOP to pass its spending bill?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State University

    U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was one of 10 Democrats who voted to break the filibuster on the GOP funding bill. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

    Facing a threat of imminent government shutdown, nine Democrats joined GOP Senate colleagues to defeat a filibuster, moving a six-month government funding bill to final passage in a late-day vote on March 14, 2025.

    Since January 2025, Republicans in Washington have enjoyed what’s commonly known as a governing “trifecta”: control over the executive branch via the president, combined with majorities for their party in both the House and the Senate.

    You might think that a trifecta, which is also referred to as “unified government” by political scientists, is a clear recipe for easy legislative success. In theory, when political parties have unified control over the House, the Senate and the presidency, there should be less conflict between them. Because these politicians are part of the same political party and have the same broad goals, it seems like they should be able to get their agenda approved, and the opposing minority party can do little to stop them.

    But not all trifectas are created equal, and not all are dominant. And several weaknesses in the Republicans’ trifecta made passing their six-month stopgap spending bill so difficult, and they help explain why the federal government came so close to shutting down completely.

    Research shows that political gridlock can still happen even under a unified government for reasons that have been on display ever since Republicans assumed leadership of Congress and the presidency in January.

    With a slim majority, will GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, be able to pass Donald Trump’s priorities?
    Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    Majority size matters

    A unified government clearly makes President Donald Trump’s ability to enact his agenda much easier than if, for example, Democrats controlled the U.S. House, as they did during the second half of his first term, from 2021-2022. But tight margins in both congressional chambers have meant that, even with a trifecta, it hasn’t been an easy.

    Trump was the sixth consecutive president with a trifecta on Day 1 of his second term. But history – and simple math – show that presidents with trifectas have an easier time passing partisan legislation with bigger majorities. Bigger majorities mean majority-party defections won’t easily sink controversial or partisan legislation. A bigger majority also means that individual members of Congress from either party have less leverage to water down the president’s policy requests.

    Trump also held a trifecta during the beginning of his first term in office; in particular, a big Republican majority in the House, which passed major legislation with relative ease and put pressure on Senate colleagues to comply. Trump signed a major tax reform package in 2017 that was the signature legislative achievement of his first term.

    But Trump has a much smaller advantage this time.

    Every president since Bill Clinton has entered office with a trifecta, but Trump’s seat advantage in the House on Day 1 of his second term was the smallest of all of them. This slim House margin meant that Republicans could afford to lose only a handful of their party’s votes on their spending bill in order for it to pass over unanimous Democratic opposition.

    And Trump’s relatively small advantage in the Senate meant that Republicans needed at least eight Democratic votes to break a filibuster. Nine Democrats ultimately voted to advance the bill to final passage.

    Majority party troubles

    In addition to opposition from Democrats in Congress, Trump and other Republican leaders have continued to confront internal divisions within their own party.

    In a closely divided House or Senate, there are plenty of tools that Democrats, even as the minority party, can use to stymie Trump’s agenda. This most notably includes the filibuster, which would have forced Republicans to garner 60 votes for their short-term spending bill. A small proportion of Democrats ultimately bailed out Senate Republicans in this case; but any major defections within the GOP would have required even more Democratic support, which Republicans were unlikely to get.**

    Even dominant legislative trifectas, again like the one former President Barack Obama enjoyed when he took office in 2009, can’t prevent divisions within political parties, as different politicians jockey for control of the party’s agenda.

    Despite entering office with a 17-vote advantage in the Senate, 11 more than Trump enjoys now, Obama’s signature legislative achievement – the Affordable Care Act, also sometimes known as Obamacare – had to be watered down significantly to win a simple majority after backlash from conservative Democrats.

    Obama’s trifecta was bigger in size; but in a polarized America, a large majority also means an ideologically diverse one.

    Just as Republican leaders did in the last Congress, Trump has faced similar pushback behind the scenes and in public from members of his own party in his second term. For the past two years, the Republican-led House has been repeatedly riven by leadership struggles and an often aimless legislative agenda, thanks to a lack of cooperation from the the party’s far-right flank.

    This group of ideologically driven lawmakers remains large enough to stall any party-line vote that Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to pass, and the spending bill very nearly fell victim to this kind of defection.

    Even though the GOP squeaked out a win on this spending bill, the potential for continued chaos is monumental, especially if Trump pursues more major reform to policy areas such as immigration.

    Competing pressures

    Despite Congress’ reputation as a polarized partisan body, members of Congress ultimately serve multiple masters. The lingering Republican divisions that made it so difficult to pass this resolution reflect the competing pressures of national party leaders in Washington and the local politics of each member’s district, which often cut against what party leaders want.

    For example, some Republicans represent heavily Republican districts and will be happy to go along with Trump’s agenda, regardless of how extreme it is. Others represent districts won by Kamala Harris in 2024 and might be more inclined to moderate their positions to keep their seats in 2026 and beyond. There admittedly aren’t many of this latter group; but likely enough to sink any party-line legislation Speaker Johnson has in mind.

    What’s next?

    Republicans managed to pass a hurried, stopgap spending bill on March 14, 2025 only by the skin of their teeth. Failing to do so would have driven the federal government into shutdown mode. Small margins, internal divisions and conflicting electoral pressures will continue to make legislating difficult over the next two years or more.

    Thanks to these complications, it may be that congressional Republicans will continue to rely on the executive branch, including Elon Musk and the efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to do the policymaking for them, even if it means handing over their own legislative power to Trump.

    This is an updated version of a story first published on Nov. 19, 2024.

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

    – ref. Why was it so hard for the GOP to pass its spending bill? – https://theconversation.com/why-was-it-so-hard-for-the-gop-to-pass-its-spending-bill-252257

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Four small planets discovered around one of the closest stars to Earth – an expert explains what we know

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Coel Hellier, Professor of Astrophysics, Keele University

    Barnard’s Star is a small, dim star, of the type that astronomers call red dwarfs. Consequently, even though it is one of the closest stars to Earth, such that its light takes only six years to get here, it is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Now, four small planets have been found orbiting the star. Teams in America and Europe achieved this challenging detection by exploiting precision instruments on the world’s largest telescopes.

    Diminutive Barnard’s Star is closer in size to Jupiter than to the Sun. Only the three stars that make up the Alpha Centauri system lie closer to us.

    The planets newly discovered around Barnard’s Star are much too faint to be seen directly, so how were they found? The answer lies in the effect of their gravity on the star. The mutual gravitational attraction keeps the planets in their orbits, but also tugs on the star, moving it in a rhythmic dance that can be detected by sensitive spectrograph instruments. Spectrographs split up the star’s light into its component wavelengths. They can be used to measure the star’s motion.

    A significant challenge for detection, however, is the star’s own behaviour. Stars are fluid, with the nuclear furnace at their core driving churning motions that generate a magnetic field (just as the churning of Earth’s molten core produces Earth’s magnetic field). The surfaces of red dwarf stars are rife with magnetic storms. This activity can mimic the signature of a planet when there isn’t one there.

    The task of finding planets by this method starts with building highly sensitive spectrograph instruments. They are mounted on telescopes large enough to capture sufficient light from the star. The light is then sent to the spectrograph which records the data. The astronomers then observe a star over months or years. After carefully calibrating the resulting data, and accounting for stellar magnetic activity, one can then scrutinise the data for the tiny signals that reveal orbiting planets.

    In 2024, a team led by Jonay González Hernández from the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute reported on four years of monitoring of Barnard’s Star with the Espresso spectrograph on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. They found one definite planet and reported tentative signals that indicated three more planets.

    Now, a team led by Ritvik Basant from the University of Chicago in a paper just published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, have added in three years of monitoring with the Maroon-X instrument on the Gemini North telescope. Analysing their data confirmed the existence of three of the four planets, while combining both the datasets showed that all four planets are real.

    Often in science, when detections push the limits of current capabilities, one needs to ponder the reliability of the findings. Are there spurious instrumental effects that the teams haven’t accounted for? Hence it is reassuring when independent teams, using different telescopes, instruments and computer codes, arrive at the same conclusions.

    The Gemini North telescope is located on Maunakea in Hawaii.
    MarkoBeg / Shutterstock

    The planets form a tightly packed, close-in system, having short orbital periods of between two and seven Earth days (for comparison, our Sun’s closest planet, Mercury, orbits in 88 days). It is likely they all have masses less than Earth’s. They’re probably rocky planets, with bare-rock surfaces blasted by their star’s radiation. They’ll be too hot to hold liquid water, and any atmosphere is likely to have been stripped away.

    The teams looked for longer-period planets, further out in the star’s habitable zone, but didn’t find any. We don’t know much else about the new planets, such as their estimated sizes. The best way of figuring that out would be to watch for transits, when planets pass in front of their star, and then measure how much starlight they block. But the Barnard’s Star planets are not orientated in such a way that we see them “edge on” from our perspective. This means that the planets don’t transit, making them harder to study.

    Nevertheless, the Barnard’s Star planets tell us about planetary formation. They’ll have formed in a protoplanetary disk of material that swirled around the star when it was young. Particles of dust will have stuck together, and gradually built up into rocks that aggregated into planets. Red dwarfs are the most common type of star, and most of them seem to have planets. Whenever we have sufficient observations of such stars we find planets, so there are likely to be far more planets in our galaxy than there are stars.

    Most of the planets that have been discovered are close to their star, well inside the habitable zone (where liquid water could survive on the planet’s surface), but that’s largely because their proximity makes them much easier to find. Being closer in means that their gravitational tug is bigger, and it means that they have shorter orbital periods (so we don’t have to monitor the star for as long). It also increases their likelihood of transiting, and thus of being found in transit surveys.

    The European Space Agency’s Plato mission, to be launched in 2026, is designed to find planets further from their stars. This should produce many more planets in their habitable zones, and should begin to tell us whether our own solar system, which has no close-in planets, is unusual.

    Coel Hellier has received research council grants for the discovery of exoplanets.

    – ref. Four small planets discovered around one of the closest stars to Earth – an expert explains what we know – https://theconversation.com/four-small-planets-discovered-around-one-of-the-closest-stars-to-earth-an-expert-explains-what-we-know-252075

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What food did the real St Patrick eat? Less corned beef and cabbage, more oats and stinky cheese

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Regina Sexton, Food and culinary historian, University College Cork

    Every St Patrick’s day, thousands of Americans eat corned beef and cabbage as a way of connecting to Ireland. But this association sits uncomfortably with many Irish people.

    That’s because the dish, while popular in the past, has nothing to do with St Patrick himself. St Patrick (also known as Patricius or Pádraig) was born in Roman Britain in the 5th century. He is the patron saint of Ireland and in later biographies, legend and folklore, he is depicted as almost single-handedly converting the Irish to Christianity, and breaking the power of the druids.

    The entangled mix of history, myth and folklore that has been attached to the saint makes it difficult to isolate historical fact from hagiographical and folklore embellishments. So what, if anything, do the celebratory foods of today have to do with the real St Patrick? And would he have eaten any of those same foods himself?

    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    The real St Patrick

    The little we know about the real Patrick comes from two, probably 5th-century, short Latin texts written by the saint himself. Those are the Confessio, which is believed to be Patrick’s autobiography, and the Epistola, a letter of excommunication to the soldiers of a British king Coroticus, after they killed and enslaved some of his converts.

    A St Patrick’s Day greeting card from 1909.
    Missouri History Museum

    In these texts, food is only mentioned in the context of hunger and the miraculous appearance of pigs that are slaughtered to sustain starving travellers.

    Other important biographies of St Patrick were written in the 7th and somewhere between the 9th and 12th century. The two 7th-century Latin texts were written by churchmen, Muirchú and Tírechán. The author of the later biography, The Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick, is not known, but it was written partly in Latin and partly in Irish. These hagiographies (writing on the lives of saints) were works in legend-building with little connection to the real Patrick.

    They do, however, give us a glimpse of the food culture of early medieval Ireland, when Patrick lived. They make references to dairy produce, salmon, bread, honey and meats, including beef, goat and a “ram for a king’s feast”.

    Herb gardens are discussed alongside details of the cooking culture with mention of copper cauldrons, kitchens and cooking women. Grain and dairy foods would have most common, with white meats abundant in summer, and grain – especially oats – associated with the winter and early spring.

    It is these foods, along with cultivated cabbage and onion-type vegetables and wild greens and fruit, that most likely would have sustained Patrick.

    Delicious miracles

    Food is frequently the subject of Saint Patrick’s miracles. As a child, he is said to have turned snow into butter and curds. On his missionary work, he was said to have changed water to honey, and cheese into stone and back to cheese again. In another miracle, he turned rushes into chives to satisfy a pregnant woman’s craving.

    The bountiful fish stocks of certain rivers are also attributed to the saint’s blessing. One such example is the River Bann in Northern Ireland which was known for its salmon.

    The food in Patrick’s world had a defined Irish signature. There is an emphasis in the hagiographies on a range of fresh, cultured and preserved dairy produce and the use of byproducts such as whey-water.

    Corned beef and cabbage has become a popular St Patrick’s Day meal, but bears little connection to the real Patrick.
    Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock

    The extensive and later abandoned Irish cheese-making tradition is referenced in mention of curds and fáiscre grotha (pressed curds). The differentiation between new milk and milk may indicate a skills-based culture of working with dairy in the preparation of a family of thickened, soured and fermented milks. The associated communities, of which Patrick would have been part, probably had a taste for highly flavoured and cultured milk and cheese products.

    These foods are typical of a self-sufficient agrarian economy, producing food that was suited to Irish soil and climatic conditions including wild and managed woodland, coastline and farmland. It is this vision of an untouched Ireland that continues to inspire Irish food culture today.

    Regina Sexton 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 food did the real St Patrick eat? Less corned beef and cabbage, more oats and stinky cheese – https://theconversation.com/what-food-did-the-real-st-patrick-eat-less-corned-beef-and-cabbage-more-oats-and-stinky-cheese-251746

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Cuts and caps to benefits have always harmed people, not helped them into work

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ruth Patrick, Professor in Social Policy, University of York

    fizkes/Shutterstock

    Keir Starmer’s government is expected to announce a host of cuts to sickness and disability support in the coming days. The UK’s ageing and increasingly unwell population has led to what has been described as “unsustainable” and “indefensible” spending on benefits.

    As researchers of poverty and welfare reform, we find it both shocking and sadly unsurprising that, after more than a decade of cuts to social security, the government seems to have once again decided that austerity is the answer to the economic pressures they are facing.

    We have spent many years documenting the real harms created by reforms to social security. It was disappointing to hear Starmer describe Britain’s social security system as an expensive way to “trap” people on welfare, rather than helping them find work.

    The expected proposals are intended to incentivise people into work, by reducing the generosity of support offered to people claiming disability-related benefits. But in reality, many of the measures already implemented to reduce spending by cutting or capping benefits have pushed people further away from the labour market.

    The relationship between welfare and work is more complex than it first appears. Around 37% of people on universal credit are currently in work.

    Approximately 23% of those out of work are engaging with advisers whose job is to support them back into the labour market. The majority of the rest of universal credit claimants are people who are not expected to be in work – often people who have health challenges that make it difficult for them to work most jobs.

    The UK’s social security payments cover a much smaller proportion of the average wage than most other countries in Europe.

    A single person’s allowance on universal credit is £393.45 per month if they are 25 or over, while under-25s receive £311.68. This averages out at less than £100 a week to meet all essential living costs, bar support with housing.

    Disabled people received additional support in the form of personal independence payments (Pip) or disability living allowance if you live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, and adult or child disability payments in Scotland.

    This support is designed to help people meet the additional costs that come with disabilities and long-term health conditions. It is not means-tested, and is available to people in employment as well as those not currently working.

    Ministers are expected to make it more difficult to access Pip, freezing its value so this does not rise with inflation, and to reduce the amount of universal credit received by those judged unable to work. These proposals are likely to face strong opposition from many Labour MPs.

    Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.

    Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.

    Currently, if people are not able to engage in paid work for long periods, they are entitled to an additional payment through universal credit. This amount – equivalent to approximately £400 a month – could go down. The problem is that this is already not enough to live on, and often necessitates going without essentials, such as food or electricity.

    Families with dependent children receive additional support through child elements of universal credit, and through child benefit. But this support is subject to caps – the controversial and poverty-producing two-child limit, and the benefit cap, which restricts the support any household can receive where no one is working or claiming disability benefits.

    Our research has shown that these restrictions do not work. The two-child limit is not helping families get into work, and nor is it affecting whether families have more children.

    The benefit cap harms mental health, pushes people deep into poverty, and increases economic inactivity. Both policies are punitive and, in our view, need to be removed.

    Other reforms to disability-related social security have left people hungry, pushed people into economic inactivity, increased depression, and may have even raised the suicide rate.

    Getting Britain working?

    The government is trying to solve the wrong problem. They are focusing on those who are out of work, when it is increasingly clear that one big reason people with disabilities are not in employment is because work environments have fewer roles they can fill.

    While spending on disability-related support has gone up in recent years, the overall welfare bill has not. On top of that, the proportion of people who are not in work and who are claiming disability-related social security is actually about the same as it has been for the last 40 years. Indeed, the fact it is so low, given population ageing, could be read as good news.

    Research shows cutting access to benefits does not necessarily get people into work.
    Shutterstock

    There have also been wider changes in the labour market. There has been a rapid decline in “light work”, like lift attendants, cinema ushers, or low-physical exertion roles in factories. As work environments have become more intense, people with disabilities have found it increasingly difficult to stay in work.

    So, what would work to entice more people into work? The truth is we know far more about what does not work than what does.

    The best evidence we have right now suggests that making it more difficult to claim social security and placing more strenuous work-search requirements on claimants will simply push people with poor health (particularly mental ill-health) further away from the labour market.

    The welfare narrative

    Behind the cuts currently being trailed is a popular but ill-founded logic which views social security as the cause of the country’s economic woes. Welfare itself is seen as the problem, with whole generations supposedly left parked on what is depicted as too-easy-to-claim and too-generous support.

    But this narrative grossly misrepresents what it’s actually like to try and claim social security. It is, in fact, notoriously complex. Often, this complexity is intentional.

    Making accessing social security difficult is not necessarily (or always) about meanness, but this “nasty strategy” is a product of a system that assumes that many people are not eligible for the support they claim.

    The system has always assessed eligibility for benefits, but the way these assessments have been done in recent years has often been experienced as degrading and dehumanising. On the flip side, some have claimed that people are not being assessed regularly enough, and suggest that some people who have claimed benefits in the past may now be fit to work.

    Where this is true is unclear, but the failure to reassess is also a product of cuts to this system – so taking more money out will not address this problem either.

    Britain’s social security system has been stripped to the bones: it provides neither security nor enough support to those who receive it, and is ripe for reform. But the reform required is not of the type Labour is proposing, which will succeed only in further decimating what little remains of our social security safety net.

    This article was co-published with LSE Blogs at the London School of Economics.

    Ruth Patrick receives funding for her research from organisations including Nuffield Foundation, The Robertson Trust, Trust for London, Abrdn Financial Fairness Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Ruth is a member of the Labour Party.

    Aaron Reeves has received funding from the European Research Council, Nuffield Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust.

    – ref. Cuts and caps to benefits have always harmed people, not helped them into work – https://theconversation.com/cuts-and-caps-to-benefits-have-always-harmed-people-not-helped-them-into-work-252110

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Keir Starmer’s civil service reforms: what is mission-led government and why is it so hard to achieve?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Patrick Diamond, Professor of Public Policy, Queen Mary University of London

    All governments, it seems, are destined to go to war with Whitehall. The administration of Keir Starmer has been in power only nine months, but there are clear indications ministers are frustrated and dissatisfied with civil service performance.

    They have so far avoided the temptation to publicly vilify Whitehall officials for the government’s inability to deliver rapid progress. There is no repeat of the rhetoric that a hard rain is about to fall on the civil service, as Boris Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, threatened in the aftermath of Brexit.

    Yet it is obvious that behind the scenes, senior figures in the Starmer administration believe the civil service is not functioning as it should. We’ve seen a flurry of announcements on reforming the machinery of government.

    The Cabinet Office minister, Pat McFadden, unveiled plans to subject officials to performance reviews, while removing poorly performing civil servants from their posts. The prime minister made it clear he wants to cut back quangos (notably scrapping the health agency, NHS England) and ensure ministers, not regulators, take significant policy decisions.

    Meanwhile, there is a determination to unleash artificial intelligence, ensuring public sector productivity improves. Starmer believes the British state has become “flabby”, slow-moving and ineffectual.

    Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.

    Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.

    The apparent disconnect between ministers and the bureaucracy is scarcely surprising. Before coming to power, Labour had detailed plans to make British government “mission-orientated”.

    The Starmer administration declared in its first king’s speech that “mission-based government” would entail “a whole new way of governing” addressing “long-term, complex problems”. This mission mind-set is exemplified by the American general George S. Paton: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what you want them to achieve and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

    Missions are intended to galvanise UK government, involving the whole of society in the drive for once-in-a-generation reforms without micro-managing from the centre.

    At the outset, there was too little appreciation among officials of the challenge that mission-orientated government posed to traditional ways of working in Whitehall. Starmer’s first chief of staff, Sue Gray, was determined to emphasise a return to reciprocal partnership between ministers and mandarins given the turmoil and instability that afflicted British government in the Johnson/Liz Truss era.

    Yet the prime minister now appears more focused on change than continuity. The implications of mission-orientated governance are potentially transformational.

    Mission-led government in a nutshell

    The concept of mission-led government essentially rests on four principles:

    1. Bringing a long-term, strategic perspective to policy development. Missions focus on long-term goals for society, instead of short-term targets or milestones.

    2. Breaking down silos across the public sector. Different government services and agencies work together on missions, ensuring issues do not slip between the institutional cracks.

    3. Giving professionals working on the front line of public service delivery greater agency. The idea is that fewer rules and edicts mean staff can respond to pressing challenges, adapting organisations accordingly.

    4. Incorporating ideas and insights generated outside the civil service, challenging the traditional monopoly over policy and implementation. Missions involve external organisations at the outset.

    The reality on the ground

    Each of these ideas are important, yet there is too little recognition of the significant challenge they pose to the culture and practices of Whitehall.

    UK central government does not do strategy well – and the past 15 years have witnessed a cull of what strategic capability there was. Day-to-day operational management and cost-cutting has long been prized over long-term thinking.

    Breaking down silos is necessary, yet difficult to achieve. The problem isn’t so much the mindset or recalcitrance of civil servants, but the prevailing system of parliamentary accountability.

    Ministers are responsible for the public money that has been allocated to their department. This reinforces boundaries and makes shared working across departments less tenable. No government has resolved the problem of how to achieve joint working on key programmes with the right blend of incentives, including shared budgets.

    Moreover, civil servants, like ministers, are reluctant to give frontline staff greater autonomy. There is a culture of mistrust after 40 years of public management reform.

    There is also a prevailing belief that many public sector professionals are ultimately self-interested. Leaving professionals at the front line to get on with implementation is an attractive proposition, but difficult to achieve given Whitehall’s instinct to impose rules, regulations, oversight and monitoring.

    Constitutional arrangements are central to civil service reform.
    Shutterstock/Adam Cowell

    Meanwhile, many in Whitehall believe giving a voice to outside “interest groups” potentially corrupts the policy process. Officials view the ideas of thinktanks as flimsy and insubstantial (in fairness, proposals such as universal credit originated by the Centre for Social Justice in the late 2000s scarcely stood the test of time).

    None of this makes change in central government unattainable. But it emphasises that all governments need a concerted strategy for reform, including being willing to devote political resources, as few recent prime ministers have done.

    And, if the Starmer administration pursues a genuinely mission-orientated approach, it must confront the fundamental question of the constitutional relationship between ministers and civil servants. This is an issue successive governments have avoided since the late 1960s.

    There is a compelling argument that in delivering missions, senior officials ought to be publicly accountable for delivery, as is the case, for example, in New Zealand. Yet that would require the doctrine of ministerial responsibility to be overhauled. Many will agree it is an unhelpful facade that should have been dismantled a long time ago anyway.

    Patrick Diamond is a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society. He is a former government special adviser.

    – ref. Keir Starmer’s civil service reforms: what is mission-led government and why is it so hard to achieve? – https://theconversation.com/keir-starmers-civil-service-reforms-what-is-mission-led-government-and-why-is-it-so-hard-to-achieve-252230

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The government has revealed its plans to get Britain building again. Some of them might just work

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Graham Haughton, Professor, Urban and Environmental Planning, University of Manchester

    SARAWUT KAEWKET/Shutterstock

    The UK government has published its planning and infrastructure bill, a cornerstone of its strategy for growth. The bill aims to “get Britain building again and deliver economic growth” and includes the hugely ambitious target of building 1.5 million homes in England over this parliament.

    The bill is ambitious in scope – 160 pages long and very technical. But what does it promise exactly?

    On infrastructure, it outlines reforms to limit vexatious repeat use of judicial review to block development. There are also some measures for a stronger electricity grid to ease the move towards renewable energy. While the plan to reward people living near new pylons with £250 off their bills grabbed headlines, just as important are measures for energy storage to level out peaks in demand and supply.

    On the planning side, planning departments will be allowed to charge more to those making applications. This should speed up decisions by funding more planning officer roles. But there are no measures to increase funding for drawing up local plans. This is important because councils often fall behind schedule in producing these. And where there is no up-to-date plan, there is a danger that developers will push through controversial proposals.

    The bill also provides for more decisions to be delegated to planning officials rather than planning committees – this means council staff rather than elected representatives. This already happens for smaller planning applications, so is not entirely new. But it does raise concerns about democratic scrutiny.

    The government argues that local democracy will not be undermined, as planning officers will be making their decisions in the context of democratically approved local plans as well as national legislation. But this could be misleading, unless planning authorities have the funds to update local plans regularly.

    There are also changes to existing development corporation legislation, to support the building of new towns. Particularly welcome is the responsibility on development corporations – government organisations dealing with urban development – to consider climate change and design quality. This is in order to hit net-zero targets and avoid cookie-cutter housing estates.

    Other measures are aimed at ensuring appropriate infrastructure is built to serve these new towns.



    Read more:
    Why building new towns isn’t the answer to the UK’s housing crisis

    There are changes planned too on when compulsory purchase orders can be used to buy sites that are broadly to be used for the public good. This could be for affordable homes, health or education facilities, for instance. It would work by reducing payments to the actual value of the land rather than its “hope value” (when landholders hold out for price rises once planning permission is granted).

    There is also a commitment to creating a nature restoration fund, which the government hopes will overcome some of the delays to approving new housing caused by potential threats to wildlife.

    The fund will aim to unblock development in general rather than specific sites, as happens at the moment, and will pool contributions from developers to fund nature recovery. Where there are concerns for wildlife, experts will develop a long-term mitigation plan that will be paid for by the fund while allowing the development to go ahead in the meantime.

    Will it work?

    As a professor of urban and environmental planning, the question for me is will the bill encourage development to progress more speedily? Almost certainly – probably mostly in terms of bringing forward improvements to critical national infrastructure schemes such as the electric grid. For residential development, some incremental speeding up is likely as developers crave certainty in planning decisions.

    But on their own, these measures are unlikely to be enough to provide the 1.5 million new homes set out in the government’s target. They offer nothing to tackle critical bottlenecks in terms of both labour and materials. It is also difficult to see the target being met without much more government involvement – by building social housing in particular.

    Will the bill result in better quality development? There is surprisingly little in the plans about improving design quality, other than in development corporation areas. This is disappointing, and a missed opportunity to ensure that developers raise their game in residential building and neighbourhood quality.

    And might it override local democracy? Arguably yes, but in practice not as much as some critics might argue. Most of the reforms are finessing existing practices, such as delegated powers to planning officers. Much depends on what the national government guidance turns out to be.

    The biggest concern is that it might increase invisible political pressures on planning officers by councillors and senior officials. It would have been good to have seen more measures to protect their independence and professional judgement.

    Hopefully the bill will speed up delivery of nationally important schemes for critical infrastructure. This means things like modernising the electricity grid and removing repeated use of judicial review to block a development. These elements should create jobs sooner and support economic growth.

    Where the bill will make absolutely no difference is in improving living standards for people with older homes. This bill is focused on new builds and has little to offer those hoping for support in retrofitting ageing housing stock with more energy-efficient features or creating green spaces in areas where new development is increasingly in demand.

    Development should be compatible with nature restoration.
    Nick Beer/Shutterstock

    Despite some of the ministerial bluster about removing red tape, much of the content of this bill is not about removing planning regulations. It is much more about improving them. Some measures will work better than others, but overall, given the government’s electoral mandate to deliver growth and protect the environment, this is a reasonable balancing act.

    It’s unlikely to deliver much growth in its own right, but as an enabler of growth, it is promising. More worrying is whether it will lead to poor-quality housing built at pace and massive scale to inadequate energy-efficiency and design standards. This would fail to deliver on net-zero and biodiversity ambitions. It is very much a minor win for facilitating growth, but for nature it is nothing more than maintaining the status quo.

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

    – ref. The government has revealed its plans to get Britain building again. Some of them might just work – https://theconversation.com/the-government-has-revealed-its-plans-to-get-britain-building-again-some-of-them-might-just-work-252231

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Putin mulls over US-Ukrainian ceasefire proposal – but the initial signs aren’t positive

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor

    While Donald Trump’s special envoy was en route to Moscow to talk about a possible ceasefire deal with his opposite numbers in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin enjoyed a meet-up with his old friend Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, and the atmosphere was reportedly congenial.

    According to the Guardian’s contemporaneous report, the pair even shared a macabre joke at a press conference after their meeting about Europe being “done for”. Putin hastened to clarify that when Lukashenko said if the US and Russia came to an agreement, Europe would be “done for” he had of course been enjoying a pun. Apparently, said Putin, “pipeline in Russian means also being done for, so this will be to Europe’s benefit, because they will get cheap Russian gas. So they will have a pipeline.”

    “That’s what I meant,” said Lukashenko. “Yes, that’s what I thought you did,” Putin replied. Smiles all round from the Russian media audience.

    Putin explained that while he’s technically in favour of a ceasefire, there were a few things that needed to be cleared up and that he and Donald Trump would have a phone call to do just that. Top of the list was “removing the root causes of this crisis”, which most observers are translating as Putin maintaining his demand for all four provinces Ukraine that Russian troops currently occupy and an undertaking by Kyiv never to join Nato.

    It’s unlikely to meet with the approval of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky has said he thinks that Putin will do “everything he can to drag out the war” – and Putin’s approach appears to bear this out. This accords with what Stefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko wrote in reaction to the news that the US and Ukraine were at last seeing eye to eye, at least on the need for a halt to the killing.

    Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.

    Wolff and Malyarenko, professors of international security at the University of Birmingham and National University Odesa Law Academy respectively, believe Putin will want to keep hostilities going as long as he can while still keeping in with the US president. They see Russia following a “two-pronged approach” – engaging with the White House over the ceasefire proposal while also pushing for further battlefield gains. They write:

    The peculiar set-up of the negotiations also plays into the Kremlin’s hands here. Short of direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow, Washington has to shuttle between them, trying to close gaps between their positions with a mixture of diplomacy and pressure. This has worked reasonably well with Ukraine so far, but it is far less certain that this approach will bear similar fruit with Russia.



    Read more:
    US and Ukraine sign 30-day ceasefire proposal – now the ball is in Putin’s court

    In all this shuttle diplomacy, one question that you hear more rarely is what the Ukrainian public will be prepared to accept. Over the past three years Gerard Toal of Virginia Tech University, John O’Loughlin of the University of Colorado and Kristin M. Bakke of UCL have provided us with some valuable insights based on polling of the Ukrainian public. They believe that while the majority of Ukrainians are war-weary and willing to make concessions, even ceding territory in return for peace, they are not willing to compromise their country’s political independence. They also don’t trust Putin and see the war in existential terms.

    And, contrary to what Trump might have the world believe, Zelensky remains a popular leader. In fact the latest poll finds his support up ten points on the previous survey at 67%. (Incidentally, Trump posted on his TruthSocial website recently that Zelensky’s approval rating was 4%.) They conclude:

    It will be in large part down to ordinary Ukrainians to shape what happens afterwards. An ugly peace may be accepted by a war-weary population. But if it has little local legitimacy and acceptance, peace is likely to be unsustainable in the long run.



    Read more:
    Are Ukrainians ready for ceasefire and concessions? Here’s what the polls say

    Russia, meanwhile, has weathered the conflict remarkably well, certainly better than the analysts who forecast in the summer of 2022. It that stage, when Ukraine’s counter-offensive was pushing the invaders out of occupied territory, inflicting major casualties and destroying huge amounts of equipment, some observers thought that Russia’s economy would collapse under the weight of defeat and western sanctions.

    Not so, writes Alexander Hill of the University of Calgary. Hill, a military historian, observes the ways in which the Russian war machine has adapted to conditions over the past two years, ditching the recklessness which saw it suffer such grievous losses in 2022 and using more conservative tactics coupled with smart adoption of new technology to give it an edge on the battlefield. He concludes: “While the Russian army remains a relatively blunt instrument, it is not as blunt as it was in late 2022 and early 2023.”



    Read more:
    Why Russia’s armed forces have proven resilient in the war in Ukraine

    Turning off US aid

    Of course, when the US suspended its intelligence-sharing for a few days last week it was a major boost for the Russians. Without data from US satellite coverage and other intelligence traffic, Ukraine’s defenders were left virtually deaf and blind at a crucial time. It gave Russia the space to push its advantage even further as it races to take more territory ahead of a possible peace deal.

    The state of the conflict in Ukraine, March 10 2025.
    Institute for the Study of War

    It’s a bitter lesson for Ukraine to have to learn at this stage in the conflict, write Dafydd Townley and Matthew Powell, experts in international security and strategy at the University of Portsmouth. They believe relying too heavily on one ally for so much was never going to be a good idea and has been exposed as risky since Donald Trump returned to the White House. Perhaps even more risky, given the personality involved, is Ukraine’s dependence on data from ELon Musk’s Starlink satellite system. Musk himself has boasted that: “My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.”

    Egotistical self-promotion aside, Musk is probably right about this, but less so when he says there’s no alternative. Townley and Powell believe that it’s in Ukraine’s best interests to look into other satellite systems available to them and note that shares in French-owned satellite company Eutelsat, a European rival to Starlink have recently climbed by almost 400%.



    Read more:
    The US has lifted its intelligence sharing pause with Ukraine. But the damage may already be done

    Many of us who are watching this conflict closely cringed when Trump announced he would cut off military assistance to Ukraine after his (one-sided, it has to be said) shouting match with Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of February. And the announcement that the Pentagon was halting intelligence-sharing as noted above simply made matters worse.

    It felt like a spiteful move. Psychologist Simon McCarthy-Jones of Trinity College, Dublin, has written a book about spite which delves into, among other things, exhibitions of spitefulness in the public arena. It’s a fascinating read. A spiteful approach to foreign policy, he writes, is when we abandon what he calls “humanity’s superpower” – cooperation.

    Trump’s approach, as exemplified by his treatment of Zelensky and also by his baffling decision to impose tariffs even on his friends and allies, “embraces selfishness, treating international relations as a zero-sum game where there can only be one winner”.



    Read more:
    Donald Trump’s foreign policy might be driven by simple spite – here’s what to do about it

    One of the sticking points between the US and Ukraine has been the question of security guarantees in case of a ceasefire or even a longer-term peace deal. It seems increasingly far-fetched that Ukraine will be allowed to join Nato any time soon, so Nato article 5 protections, which would mean that all other member states would be obliged to come to its defence, will not be an issue.

    Trump’s vice-president, J.D. Vance, has suggested that if Ukraine allows US companies access to its mineral resources this would in itself be a security guarantee feels equally improbable. And, in any case, how valuable have US security guarantees been in the past, asks historian Ian Horwood, of York St John University. Horwood pints to the Paris Peace accords of 1973 in which the Nixon administration promised to underwrite South Vietnam’s continued security, while withdrawing US combat troops. Within two years, North Vietnamese tanks were rolling into Saigon.

    More recently the Doha agreement between the first Trump administration and the Taliban was made without involving the Afghan government and didn’t even last long enough for US and Nato troops to get out of Kabul. This sorry history will no doubt have given Zelensky food for thought.



    Read more:
    What is the value of US security guarantees? Here’s what history shows

    Ukraine’s mineral wealth

    All the while many of us have been asking what’s so special about Ukraine’s minerals. We’ve long known about the country as the “bread basket of Europe”, but what is not as widely understood is Ukraine’s mineral wealth. Geologist Munira Raji of the University of Plymouth, says Ukraine has deposits containing 22 of 34 critical minerals identified by the European Union as essential for energy security. This, she says, positions Ukraine among the world’s most resource-rich nations.

    Much of this cornucopia of geological booty is contained in what is known as the “Ukrainian shield” which sits underneath much of the country, writes Raji. Here she walks us through the riches beneath Ukraine’s soil and why America is so keen to get its hands on them.



    Read more:
    What’s so special about Ukraine’s minerals? A geologist explains

    World Affairs Briefing from The Conversation UK is available as a weekly email newsletter. Click here to get updates directly in your inbox.

    – ref. Putin mulls over US-Ukrainian ceasefire proposal – but the initial signs aren’t positive – https://theconversation.com/putin-mulls-over-us-ukrainian-ceasefire-proposal-but-the-initial-signs-arent-positive-252225

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Two charts that explain why Reform isn’t being dented by its scandals

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

    The spat between Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform party, and Rupert Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, burst into the open when Lowe was suspended from the party. The allegation was that he had threatened violence to the party leadership, which he denies. The matter is currently being investigated by the police.

    The row does not appear to have affected support for Reform in the polls. A YouGov poll completed on March 10, after Lowe’s suspension, shows Reform on 23% in vote intentions, compared with 24% for Labour and 22% for the Conservatives. It is still a three-party race at the top of British party politics.

    In the 2024 general election a good deal of Reform’s support came from protest voters. These are voters who dislike all the mainstream parties and so see a vote for the party as a way of choosing “none of the above”. They are not attached to any party and can easily switch support when circumstances change. So why has support for the party not been affected by this row?

    Protest politics and support for Reform

    The answer to this question is that while Reform attracted a lot of discontented protest voters in the election, it has since acquired a more stable niche in British party politics. It is primarily a party of English nationalism, equivalent to the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales. These three parties differ greatly in outlook and politics, but they occupy a similar place in the public’s minds.

    Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.

    Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.

    To examine Reform’s support from protest voters we can look at the relationship between spoilt ballots in the 2024 general election and support for the party in the 632 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales. Normally, observers of British elections pay little attention to spoilt ballots (or “invalid votes” as they are described in official statistics). However, it turns out that they played an important role in the 2024 election which has a bearing on support for Reform.

    Research shows that voters who spoil their ballots can be classified into two categories: those who simply make a mistake when filling in the ballot and those who are protesting about the current system.

    Mistakes are easy to make in countries with complex electoral systems. However, in Britain, the first-past-the-post system in which everyone has just one vote, ensures that this is not a significant factor because ballot papers are so simple. The bulk of spoilt ballots are protests of various kinds, taking the form of blank ballots, write-in candidates, or abusive messages about parties and candidates.

    This is illustrated in the Lancashire seat of Chorley, which is held by the speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle. By tradition none of the major parties challenge the Speaker by campaigning in his constituency. In the election there were no less than 1,198 spoilt ballots in his constituency. It is fairly clear that these were a result of some voters feeling disenfranchised by the absence of their preferred party on the ballot paper.

    The relationship between the Reform vote share and the number of spoilt ballots in constituencies in the 2024 election

    Protest voting takes different forms.
    P Whiteley, CC BY-ND

    There is a strong negative relationship (a correlation of -0.46) between the share of a constituency vote that went to Reform in 2024 and the number of ballots spoiled in that constituency. Where people were voting Reform, in other words, fewer people were spoiling their ballots. The implication is that the party picked up votes from people who would normally spoil their ballots or would not have voted at all if Reform had not stood in their constituency. These are the protest voters.

    Identity politics and support for Reform

    Not all support for Reform came from protest voters, however. The chart below compares the percentage of Reform voters with those who identified as English in the 2021 census in England. There is a strong relationship between the two measures (a correlation of 0.66). The more English identifiers there are in a constituency, the greater support for Reform. In effect, Reform has become an English national party.

    The relationship between Reform voting and English identity in 2024

    An English national party in the making.
    P Whiteley, CC BY-ND

    National identities can change over time, but the process of change is slow. There has been a growth in “Englishness” at the expense of “Britishness” over time and this is undoubtedly reinforcing support for Reform.

    It means the party has a relatively solid base of supporters to rely on in future elections. While the row between the party’s leader and one of his MPs could play out in any number of different directions at this early stage, it would be wrong to suggest that Reform isn’t thinking big picture and long term.

    Farage has clearly learnt from his past and will not let his current party disintegrate into chaos like UKIP or the Brexit party before it.

    Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC.

    – ref. Two charts that explain why Reform isn’t being dented by its scandals – https://theconversation.com/two-charts-that-explain-why-reform-isnt-being-dented-by-its-scandals-252201

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Keir Starmer to abolish NHS England – the pros and cons

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Peter Sivey, Reader in Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York

    The UK government has announced the abolition of NHS England, phased over two years. In practice, this will involve merging some functions and staff from NHS England into the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC). As part of the change, the government has stated that it expects to reduce duplication and save hundreds of millions of pounds.

    NHS England was established under the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 (the Lansley reforms) and is responsible for commissioning care and overseeing the day-to-day running of the NHS. This involves negotiating budgets for local care provision with bodies like integrated care boards and hospitals; performance management such as monitoring waiting times and quality measures; and implementing national initiatives across NHS organisations.

    NHS England was established to provide operational autonomy, shielding the health service from daily political interference. It is an “arm’s-length body”, meaning it operates independently from the government but remains accountable to it. The DHSC sets strategic goals and oversees NHS England activities.

    In practice, NHS England and DHSC have distinct roles, although they overlap in some areas. DHSC staff typically have broader policy expertise – for example, many have worked in other areas of the civil service, whereas NHS England staff often have more detailed knowledge of how the NHS works on the ground.

    Risks

    The loss of expertise within NHS England is probably the largest risk of the abolition. Alongside very experienced NHS managers and analysts, NHS England employs senior doctors and other health care workers who contribute valuable practical knowledge from the NHS frontline into policy roles.

    A major risk of this move is the potential loss of this clinical expertise and operational insight into policymaking. Lord Darzi’s report on the NHS specifically cited the loss in management talent that occurred as a result of the 2012 reforms, and cautioned against further reorganisation that might repeat that disruption.

    Another risk is that bringing NHS England functions directly under ministerial control risks increased politicisation of day-to-day NHS management.

    The government will argue that other policy areas like defence, education and policing do not have such a large arm’s-length body between the department and the frontline. However, health and social care is a uniquely large (11% of GDP) and highly political organisation, with a fast-growing budget and faster-growing challenges.

    NHS policy is already highly politicised, but abolishing NHS England risks the DHSC and the ministers being on the hook for every operational decision. This could lead to operational decisions being made to appease public opinion rather than promoting public health.

    The government faces significant practical challenges in merging two organisations with different cultures, working practices and pay structures. Currently, NHS England (about 16,000 staff) is much larger than DHSC (about 3,000 staff). Many NHS England roles will have to move into the much smaller DHSC.

    The transition itself will require investment, so the promised savings are unlikely to be achieved in the short term.

    Opportunities

    The main opportunity of the abolition is the removal of duplication between DHSC and NHS England.

    Currently, both organisations maintain separate policy teams covering similar areas – for example, elective surgery waiting times or cancer care. And sometimes, it is unclear how well they work together or why both are necessary.

    By consolidating within the DHSC, there is an opportunity to strengthen policy analysis. With one strong policy team in the DHSC, policy advice to ministers (DHSC) and policy implementation on the ground (previously NHS England) could be better coordinated and aligned with the government’s objectives.

    Lord Darzi’s report on the NHS highlighted the growth of regulatory roles within NHS England, questioning whether too much accountability could be counterproductive.

    The abolition of NHS England is also an opportunity to streamline regulation while strengthening local management roles and valuable policy analysis.

    Another opportunity from the abolition of the organisation would be the strengthening of local NHS bodies like integrated care boards. These local bodies, designed to tailor healthcare to local area needs, may sometimes have been stymied by excessive central control.

    The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has already expressed his desire to see more devolution of power and responsibility within the NHS. This process provides the opportunity to enact that promise.

    What will happen next?

    The abolition of NHS England and the transfer of some responsibilities back to the DHSC will take time and incur significant costs and disruption. Any benefits are likely to emerge only in the long term.

    Before the introduction of NHS England, there were larger regional organisations (strategic health authorities) that were responsible for implementing policy at a regional level. Perhaps the re-emergence of similar regional bodies could smooth the transition from a central NHS England to a more decentralised health service.

    Peter Sivey receives funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

    – ref. Keir Starmer to abolish NHS England – the pros and cons – https://theconversation.com/keir-starmer-to-abolish-nhs-england-the-pros-and-cons-252237

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: See you in the funny papers: How superhero comics tell the story of Jewish America

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Miriam Eve Mora, Managing Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, University of Michigan

    A five-story replica of a stamp of Superman in 1998 in Cleveland, home of the superhero’s creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File

    Nearly a hundred years ago, a hastily crafted spaceship crash-landed in Smallville, Kansas. Inside was an infant – the sole survivor of a planet destroyed by old age. Discovering he possessed superhuman strength and abilities, the boy committed to channeling his power to benefit humankind and champion the oppressed.

    This is the story of Superman: one of the most recognizable characters in history, who first reached audiences in the pages of Action Comics in 1938 – what many fans consider the most important single comic in history.

    As a historian of American immigration and ethnicity – and a lifelong comics fan – I read this well-known bit of fiction as an allegory about immigration and the American dream. It is, at its core, the ultimate story of an immigrant in the early 20th century, when many people saw the United States as a land with open gates, providing such orphans of the world an opportunity to reach their fullest potential.

    Taken in and raised by a rural family under the name Clark Kent, the baby was imbued with the best qualities of America. But, like all immigrant stories, Kent’s is a two-parter. There is also the emigrant story: the story of how Kal-El – Superman’s name at birth – was driven from his home on Planet Krypton to embrace a new land.

    That origin story reflects the heritage of Superman’s creators: two of the many Jewish American writers and artists who ushered in the Golden Age of comic books.

    Jewish history…

    A card from 1909, found in the Jewish Museum of New York, depicts Jewish Americans welcoming Jews emigrating from Russia.
    Heritage Images/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

    The American comics industry was largely started by the children of Jewish immigrants. Like most publishing in the early 20th century, it was centered in New York City, home to the country’s largest Jewish population. Though they were still a very small minority, immigration had swelled the United States’ Jewish population more than a thousandfold: from roughly 3,000 in 1820 to roughly 3,500,000 in 1920.

    Comic books had not yet been devised, but strip comics in newspapers were a regular feature. They began in the late 19th century with popular stories featuring recurring characters, such as Richard F. Outcault’s “Yellow Kid” and “the Little Bears” by Jimmy Swinnerton.

    A few Jewish creators were able to break into the industry, such as Harry Hershfield and his comic “Abie the Agent.” Hershfield’s success was exceptional in three ways: He broke into mainstream newspaper comics, his titular character was also Jewish, and he never adopted an anglicized pen name – as many other Jewish creators felt they must.

    Shoppers and vendors outside of haberdasheries on Hester Street in a Jewish neighborhood of New York’s Lower East Side around 1900.
    Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

    Generally, however, Jews were barred from the more prestigious jobs in newspaper cartooning. A more accessible alternative was the cheaper, second-tier business of reprinting previously published works.

    In 1933, second-generation Jewish New Yorker Max Gaines – born Maxwell Ginzburg – began a new publication, “Funnies on Parade.” “Funnies” pulled together preexisting comic strips, reproducing them in saddle-stitched pamphlets that became the standard for the American comics industry. He went on to found All-American Comics and Educational Comics.

    Another publisher, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, founded National Allied Publications in 1934 and published the first comic book to feature entirely new material, rather than reprints of newspaper strips. He joined forces with two Jewish immigrants, Harry Donenfeld and Jack Leibowitz. At National, they created and distributed Detective and Action Comics – the precursors to DC, which would become one of the two largest comics distributors in history.

    It was at Action Comics that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two second-generation immigrants from a Jewish neighborhood in Cleveland, found a home for Superman. It would also be where two Jewish kids from the Bronx, Bob Kane and Bill Finger – born Robert Kahn and Milton Finger – found a home for their character, Batman, in 1939.

    Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, creators of Superman, pictured in the 1940s.
    New Yorker/Wikimedia Commons

    The success of these characters inspired another prominent second-generation Jewish New Yorker, pulp magazine publisher Moses “Martin” Goodman, to enter comics production with his line, “Timely Comics.” The 1939 debut featured what would become two of the early industry’s most well-known superheroes: the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch. These characters would be mainstays of Goodman’s company, even when it became better known as Marvel Comics.

    Thus were born the “big two,” Marvel and DC, from humble Jewish origins.

    …and Jewish stories

    The creation and popularization of superhero comics isn’t Jewish just because of its history. The content was, too, reflecting the values and priorities of Jewish America at the time: a community influenced by its origins and traditions, as well as the American mainstream.

    Some of the most foundational early comics echo Jewish history and texts, such as Superman’s story, which parallels the Jewish hero Moses. The biblical prophet was born in Egypt, where the Israelites were enslaved, and soon after Pharaoh ordered the murder of all their newborn sons. Similarly, Superman’s people, the Kryptonians, faced an existential threat: the destruction of their planet.

    Moses’ life is saved when his mother floats him down the Nile in a hastily constructed and tarred basket. Kal-El, too, is sent away to safety in a hastily constructed craft. Both boys are raised by strangers in a strange land and destined to become heroes to their people.

    Comics also reflected the feelings and fears of Jews in a moment in time. For example, in the wake of Kristallnacht – the 1938 night of widespread organized attacks on German Jews and their property, which many historians see as a turning point toward the Holocaust – Finger and Kane debuted Batman’s Gotham City. The city is a dark contrast to Superman’s shining metropolis, a place where villains lurked around every corner and reflected the darkest sides of modern humanity.

    Some comic artists and writers used their platform to make political statements. Jack Kirby – born Kurtzberg – and Hymie “Joe” Simon, creators of Captain America, explained that they “knew what was going on over in Europe. World events gave us the perfect comic-book villain, Adolf Hitler, with his ranting, goose-stepping and ridiculous moustache. So we decided to create the perfect hero who would be his foil.” The comic debut of Captain America in 1941 featured a brightly colored cover with the brand-new hero punching Adolf Hitler in the face.

    In later generations, characters penned by Jewish authors continued to grapple with issues of outsider status, hiding aspects of their identity, and maintaining their determination to better the world in spite of rejection from it. Think of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and X-Men. All of these were created by Stan Lee – another Jewish creator, born Stanley Martin Lieber – who was hired into Timely Comics at just 17 years old.

    With so many of the most popular comics written by New York Jews, and centered in the city, much of New York’s Yiddish-tinged, recognizably Jewish language made its way onto the pages. Lee’s Spider-Man, for example, frequently exclaims “oy!” or calls bad guys “putz” or “shmuck.”

    In later years, Jewish authors such as Chris Claremont and Brian Michael Bendis introduced or took over mainstream characters who were overtly Jewish – reflecting an emerging comfort with a more public Jewish ethnic identity in America. In X-Men, for example, Kitty Pryde recounts her encounters with contemporary antisemitism. Magneto, who is at times friend but often foe of the X-Men, developed a backstory as a Holocaust survivor.

    History is never solely about retelling; it’s about gaining a better understanding of complex narratives. Trends in comics history, particularly in the superhero genre, offer insight into the ways that Jewish American anxieties, ambitions, patriotism and sense of place in the U.S. continually changed over the 20th century. To me, this understanding makes the retelling of these classic stories even more meaningful and entertaining.

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

    – ref. See you in the funny papers: How superhero comics tell the story of Jewish America – https://theconversation.com/see-you-in-the-funny-papers-how-superhero-comics-tell-the-story-of-jewish-america-248218

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Saudi Arabia’s role as Ukraine war mediator advances Gulf nation’s diplomatic rehabilitation − and boosts its chances of a seat at the table should Iran-US talks resume

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute, Rice University

    Saudi Arabia is 2,000 miles from Ukraine and even more politically distant, so at first glance it might seem like it has nothing to do with the ongoing war there. But the Gulf state has emerged as a key intermediary in the most serious ceasefire negotiations since Russia invaded its neighbor three years ago.

    While it is U.S. officials who are undoubtedly leading the efforts for an agreement, it is the Saudi capital of Riyadh that has been staging the crucial talks.

    In a flurry of diplomatic activity on March 10, 2025, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s top political authority, hosted separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.

    The following day, senior Saudi officials facilitated face-to-face meetings between U.S. and Ukrainian delegations.

    The resulting agreement, which is now being mulled in Moscow, is all the more notable given that it followed a diplomatic breakdown just weeks before at the Oval Office between Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

    Whether the proposed interim 30-day ceasefire materializes is still uncertain. On March 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he agreed with the proposal in principle, but he added that a lot of the details needed to be sorted out.

    Should a deal be reached, there is every reason to believe it will be inked in Saudi Arabia, which has hosted not only the latest U.S.-Ukrainian talks but earlier rounds of high-level Russian-U.S. meetings.

    But why is a Gulf nation playing mediator in a conflict in Eastern Europe? As an expert on Saudi politics, I believe the answer to that lies in the kingdom’s diplomatic ambitions and its desire to present a more positive image to the world. And in the background is the goal of better positioning the nation in the event of diplomatic maneuvers in its own region, notably in regards to any talks between U.S. and Iran.

    The diplomatic convertion of MBS

    Saudi Arabia’s growing diplomatic role has been a feature of the kingdom’s foreign policy since 2022.

    Crown Prince Mohammed, who that year succeeded his father as prime minister, views Saudi Arabia as the convening power in the Arab and Islamic world.

    Accordingly, officials in the kingdom have been directed to lead regional diplomacy over a number of pressing issues, including the conflicts in Gaza and Sudan.

    At the same time, Saudis have started the process of reconciliation with Iran, which has long been perceived as the chief regional rival to Saudi influence.

    This turn to diplomacy marks a shift away from the confrontational policies adopted by the crown prince during his rise to power in Saudi Arabia between 2015 and 2018. Policies such as Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, its blockade of Qatar, the detention of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the conversion of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh into a makeshift prison all fed an image of the young prince as an impulsive decision-maker. Then in 2018 came the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

    This approach brought little in the way of stability. Rather, it left the country ensnared in an unwinnable war in Yemen, a fruitless row with Qatar, and diplomatic isolation by Western officials.

    A friend to Ukraine and Russia

    In regards to the war in Ukraine, Saudi Arabia’s intermediary role is helped by a perception of the kingdom as a neutral nation on the conflict.

    Saudi officials, in common with their counterparts in the other Gulf states, have long sought to avoid taking sides in the emerging era of great power competition and strategic rivalry. As such, the kingdom has maintained working relations with both Russia and pro-Western Ukraine since the outbreak of war in Europe.

    In 2022, for example, Saudi Arabia and Russia – both leaders of OPEC+ – coordinated oil production cuts to cushion Moscow from the effects of global sanctions the West imposed after it invaded Ukraine. Yet just months later, Saudi Arabia invited Zelenskyy to address an Arab League summit in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

    It was a prelude to a 2023 international summit, also in Jeddah, which brought together representatives from 40 countries to discuss the ongoing war.

    Despite failing to produce a breakthrough, the meeting illustrated the convening reach of the crown prince and his intention to act as a diplomatic go-between in the Ukraine-Russia war.

    Saudi Arabia and neighboring United Arab Emirates later facilitated occasional prisoner exchanges between the two countries – rare diplomatic successes in three years of conflict.

    Staging ground for diplomacy

    Direct engagement in high-stakes international diplomacy over the largest war in Europe since 1945 is undoubtedly a step up in Saudi ambitions. But the country’s efforts aren’t purely altruistic. Riyadh believes there’s mileage to be gained in such diplomatic endeavors.

    The advent of a Trump presidency has fit Saudi desires. Trump has made his desire to be seen as a dealmaker and peacemaker clear, but he needs a neutral venue in which the hard work of diplomacy can flourish.

    Just weeks into the new U.S. administration, the Saudi capital hosted the first meeting between a U.S. secretary of state and Russian foreign minister since Russia invaded in 2022.

    It yielded an agreement to “re-establish the bilateral relationship” and establish a consultation mechanism to “address irritants” in ties.

    The two rounds of dialogue in Riyadh – first with Russia, then Ukraine – have positioned the Saudi leadership firmly in the diplomatic process. It has also gone some way to rehabilitate Mohammed bin Salman’s image.

    The sight of the crown prince warmly greeting Zelenskyy contrasted sharply with the images from a fractious White House meeting that went around the world, presenting the crown prince as a statesmanlike figure.

    Turning to Tehran

    Such positive optics would have seemed inconceivable as recently as 2019, when the crown prince was shunned and then presidential candidate Joe Biden labeled the country a “pariah” state.

    Changing this negative global perception of Saudi Arabia is crucial if the kingdom is to attract the tens of millions of visitors that are pivotal to the success of the “giga-projects” – sports, culture and tourism events that the Saudis hope will drive its economy and allow the kingdom to be less economically dependent on fossil fuel exports.

    Whereas easing tensions with Iran and supporting Yemen’s fragile truce are about derisking the kingdom’s vulnerability to regional volatility, facilitating diplomacy over Ukraine is a relatively cost-free way to reinforce the changing narratives about Saudi Arabia.

    After all, any breakdown in the Russia-U.S.-Ukraine negotiations is unlikely to be blamed on the Saudis.

    Indeed, Saudi officials may view their engagement with U.S. officials over Ukraine as the prelude to further diplomatic cooperation. And this will be especially true if Crown Prince Mohammed is able to establish himself as an indispensable partner in the eyes of Trump.

    Saudi officials were excluded from the last major talks between Iran and the U.S., which also involved several other major world powers and led to the 2016 Iran nuclear deal. Trump withdrew from the deal shortly after assuming office for the first time in 2017, and U.S.-Iranian relations have been moribund since then.

    The U.S. administration has already mooted the idea of a resumption of negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear capabilities.

    Placing Saudi Arabia in the middle of any attempts to secure a new nuclear agreement that would replace or supersede that earlier deal would be a high-risk move, given the intensity of feeling on both the U.S. and Iranian sides and the uneasy coexistence between Tehran and Riyadh.

    But doing so would give the kingdom what it most desires: a seat at the table.

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

    – ref. Saudi Arabia’s role as Ukraine war mediator advances Gulf nation’s diplomatic rehabilitation − and boosts its chances of a seat at the table should Iran-US talks resume – https://theconversation.com/saudi-arabias-role-as-ukraine-war-mediator-advances-gulf-nations-diplomatic-rehabilitation-and-boosts-its-chances-of-a-seat-at-the-table-should-iran-us-talks-resume-252035

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why are suicide rates so high in bipolar disorder, and what can we do about it?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marcos del Pozo Banos, Senior Research Data Analyst, Swansea University

    Heston Blumenthal, the celebrity chef known for his experimental cuisine, recently shared his experience of being sectioned under the UK’s Mental Health Act, saying it was “the best thing” that could have happened to him. His openness about living with bipolar disorder highlights the little-discussed fact that people with this condition face one of the highest suicide risks of any mental illness.

    Bipolar disorder is a severe mental illness characterised by episodes of mania (high energy, impulsivity) and depression (hopelessness, fatigue). Suicidal thoughts and behaviour are a core feature of the disorder, with fluctuating risk that can persist over long periods.

    Although bipolar disorder affects around 2% of the population, studies suggest that up to 50% of people with the condition attempt suicide at least once, and 15-20% die by suicide – a rate much higher than in the general population. Unlike global suicide rates, suicide deaths in bipolar disorder have not declined.

    Understanding why suicide is so common in people with this disorder is difficult. But one major factor is mood instability. Rapid shifts between emotional highs and lows, as well as mixed states where symptoms of mania (impulsivity) and depression (despair) occur together, can be particularly dangerous.

    Social and economic factors also play a role. Research we conducted at Swansea University shows that the population suffering from bipolar disorder has become poorer over the last two decades. Financial strain, social isolation and poorer access to healthcare all lead to worse outcomes. Beyond suicide, people with the condition die up to 20 years earlier than the general population, often from preventable health problems such as heart disease.

    While bipolar disorder cannot be cured, it can be managed. The most commonly used drug, lithium, has been found to reduce suicide risk significantly in some patients. However, people with the condition struggle to take it regularly.

    The drug’s side-effects can affect the kidneys, thyroid, metabolism, cognition and cardiovascular health. Managing these side-effects requires regular blood tests and continuous monitoring, making long-term treatment difficult.

    Many people stop taking their medication during manic phases, believing they are cured.

    Other treatments, such as antipsychotics, mood stabilisers and electroconvulsive therapy (where electric currents are passed through the brain while the patient is under anaesthesia), can also be effective in some types and phases of bipolar – for example, in states of mixed mania and depression where there is a high risk of suicide – but they come with their own harms and limitations.

    Some psychiatrists now question whether continuous lifelong treatment is necessary for all patients.

    Even when people seek help, healthcare systems often fail to intervene effectively. Suicide risk is highest in the days following discharge from a psychiatric hospital. Many people who later die by suicide have recently visited emergency rooms after hurting themselves, but the help they received was either delayed or not enough to prevent further harm.

    Existing tools to identify and measure suicide risk, such as checklists, questionnaires and structured interviews, are ineffective. Many people with bipolar disorder who die by suicide are assessed as “low risk” shortly beforehand, exposing a crucial gap between doctor and patient perceptions. This is in great part because these tools rely too heavily on past factors such as suicide attempts (which may not be disclosed), rather than dynamic, real-time distress or mood instability.

    Despite the significant effect that bipolar disorder has on individuals, families and society, the development of new drugs has been frustratingly slow. Lithium, first used in the 1940s, remains the go-to treatment, while most other drugs were originally designed to treat schizophrenia. No truly new treatments have emerged in decades.

    Not a single disorder

    One difficulty is that bipolar is not a single disorder but a spectrum of conditions, rendering the one-size-fits-all approach inadequate — lithium is effective in only about one in three patients.

    Drug development for bipolar disorder is particularly challenging. The complexity of bipolar disorder calls for equally complex trials that need to consider patient variability, ethical concerns and strict safety requirements. New treatments also face strict approval hurdles because lithium – despite its limitations – is highly effective for some patients. This results in slow treatment development, leaving patients with limited options.

    Research is also slowed by concerns about whether it’s ethical to involve patients in trials. But it’s important to include people with the disorder who have experienced suicidal thoughts and behaviour, to better understand their mindset and decision-making.

    However, new approaches offer hope. Several research projects, such as Datamind, are developing artificial intelligence platforms to help find new drugs quicker and to personalise treatments based on patients’ genetic and clinical profiles. AI could lead to faster, more effective therapies tailored to individual needs.

    Blumenthal’s story highlights that being sectioned, while traumatic, can save lives and keep people safe. Yet the stigma around psychiatric hospitalisation prevents many from seeking care. There is a widespread belief that hospitalisation should be avoided at all costs – but for some, it can be the difference between life and death.

    However, hospitalisation alone is not enough. The mental health system must do better to ensure that people with bipolar disorder receive long-term care, particularly during high-risk periods like hospital discharge. To prevent suicide, we need to rethink how risk is assessed, improve follow-up care, and reduce barriers to treatment.

    While the statistics on bipolar are alarming, the message should be one of hope. The condition is treatable and suicide is preventable, but only if we commit to improving access to care, reducing stigma and advancing research.

    Marcos del Pozo Banos research is funded by UKRI – Medical Research Council through the DATAMIND Hub (MRC reference: MR/W014386/1), and the Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health (established with support from the Wolfson Foundation).

    Ann John receives funding from Health and Care Research Wales, NIHR, Wolfson Foundation and MRC (DATAMIND).

    Tania Gergel works for Bipolar UK as the Director of Research. She receives research funding from National Institute of Health Research, the Medical Research Council and King’s College London. She is also on the Board of the National Centre for Mental Health in Wales, and is an Honorary Visiting Professor at Cardiff University and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Division of Psychiatry at University College London.

    – ref. Why are suicide rates so high in bipolar disorder, and what can we do about it? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-suicide-rates-so-high-in-bipolar-disorder-and-what-can-we-do-about-it-251376

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Treatment for Parkinson’s disease and restless leg syndrome is linked with risky behaviour – here’s what you need to know

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dipa Kamdar, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, Kingston University

    Orawan Pattarawimonchai/Shutterstock

    Getting a headache and feeling sick are common side-effects for many medicines. Indulging in risky sexual behaviour or pathological gambling – not so common.

    But a BBC investigation has highlighted that some drug treatments for restless leg syndrome and Parkinson’s disease can lead to such risky behaviour.

    Over 150,000 people in the UK live with Parkinson’s – a degenerative condition that affects the brain. The main part of their brain that is damaged is the area that produces dopamine, a chemical messenger that regulates movement. Less dopamine in the brain can lead to symptoms such as tremors, muscle stiffness, slow movements and problems with balance.

    Another movement disorder is restless legs syndrome (RLS), which affects between 5% and 10% of people in the UK, US and Europe. Twice as many women as men have RLS among those aged over 35.



    Read more:
    Restless legs syndrome is incurable – here’s how to manage the symptoms

    People with RLS feel they need to uncontrollably move their legs, and may experience a crawling, creeping or tingling sensation in them. Usually, the symptoms are worse at night when dopamine levels tend to be lower. Although the exact cause of RLS is unknown, it has been linked to genes, underlying health conditions, and an imbalance of dopamine.

    One of the main treatments for movement disorders is a group of drugs called dopamine-receptor agonists, which include cabergoline, ropinirole, bromocriptine and pramipexole. Dopamine-receptor agonists increase the levels of dopamine in the brain and help regulate movement.

    Dopamine is known as the “happy” hormone because it is part of the brain’s reward system. When people do something fun or pleasurable, dopamine is released in their brain. But using dopamine-receptor agonist drugs can elevate these feelings, leading to impulsive behaviour.

    While common side-effects include headaches, feeling sick and sleepiness, these drugs are also linked with the more unusual side-effect of impulse-control disorders. These include risky sexual behaviour (hypersexuality), pathological gambling, compulsive shopping, and binge eating. Hypersexuality encompasses behaviour such as a stronger-than-usual urge to have sexual activity, or being unable to resist performing a sexual act that may be harmful.

    Previous reported cases include a 53-year-old woman taking ropinirole and exhibiting impulsive behaviour such as accessing internet pornography, using sex chat rooms, meeting strangers for sexual intercourse, and compulsive shopping. Another case highlighted a 32-year-old man who, after taking ropinirole, started binge eating and gambling compulsively, such that he lost his life savings.

    When the drug was first being prescribed in the early 2000s, it was thought that impulse-control disorders were a rare side-effect associated with these drugs. But in 2007, a UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) public assessment report advised that “healthcare professionals should warn patients that compulsive behaviour with dopamine agonists may be dose-related”.

    Between 6% and 17% of people with RLS who take dopamine agonists develop some form of impulse-control disorder, while up to 20% of people living with Parkinson’s may experience impulse control disorders.

    But the true figures may be even higher, as many some patients may not associate changes in behaviour with their medication, or may be too embarrassed to report it. Case reports show that in most instances, impulsive behaviour stops when the drug is stopped.

    Lawsuits

    There have been several individual and class-action lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies including GlaxoSmithKline, which produces ReQuip® (ropinirole), and Pfizer, which makes Cabaser® (cabergoline). Patients taking action against these companies claimed they were unaware of these impulsive behaviour side-effects.

    For example, in 2012, a French court ordered GlaxoSmithKline to pay £160,000 in damages to Didier Jambart, after he experienced “devastating-side effects” when taking the firm’s Parkinson’s drug Requip. And in 2014, an Australian federal court approved a settlement against Pfizer for a class-action lawsuit regarding its Parkinson’s drug, Cabaser. 150 patients claimed they did not have warning of potential side-effects – including increased gambling, sex addiction and other high-risk activities – of taking Cabaser.

    It is now clearer in the patient information leaflets given with all prescribed medication for movement disorders that impulsive behaviour can occur in some patients.

    In 2023, the MHRA advised there had been increased reports of pathological gambling with a drug called aripiprazole. This antipsychotic drug, used in the treatment of schizophrenia and mania, partly acts as a dopamine-receptor agonist.

    Any drug that increases dopamine levels could theoretically be linked to impulse control disorders, and it is important to keep monitoring patients and their behaviour in such cases.

    Not everyone will experience side-effects. Before you begin any course of treatment, your doctor or pharmacist should explain the potential side-effects – but it is also important to read the information leaflet with any medicine. And if you experience any impulsive behaviours with these medicines, speak to your doctor or pharmacist immediately.

    Dipa Kamdar 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. Treatment for Parkinson’s disease and restless leg syndrome is linked with risky behaviour – here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/treatment-for-parkinsons-disease-and-restless-leg-syndrome-is-linked-with-risky-behaviour-heres-what-you-need-to-know-252079

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Opus: clunky satire about an evil celebrity cult has plenty to say – it just doesn’t know how to say it

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Daniel O’Brien, Lecturer, Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex

    Opus, the film debut of former GQ editor-turned-director Mark Anthony Green has been described as a horror-musical. And while this new hybrid-genre film clearly has something to say, what that is remains frustratingly unclear.

    Produced by independent film company A24, often a hallmark of quality, the film follows Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri), a young writer striving to make her mark in entertainment journalism. While it gestures toward themes of celebrity culture and the toxicity of extreme fandom, the film ultimately feels tangled in a jumble of unfocused ideas and derivative references to other – arguably stronger – works.

    Despite talent and determination, Ariel struggles with her boss Stan (Murray Bartlett) who redeploys her ideas to other senior colleagues and is often too self-absorbed to nurture her career development.

    The very watchable Edebiri eases into centre stage after catapulting to global fame in the TV show The Bear (2022-present), for which she has received a Golden Globe and an Emmy.

    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    In contrast to the achievements of The Bear’s Sydney, her character Ariel’s success as a writer seems out of reach in Opus. In an early scene, she articulates her frustrations to a friend who responds by pointing to Ariel’s ordinariness and comfortable upbringing. Apparently, her lack of disadvantage is precisely what’s holding her back, leaving her “too middle” to be noticed, promoted or considered.

    Here we have the first clue that Ariel will be destined to experience trauma which will come by way of the “final girl” horror trope (a reference to the last woman standing) by the end of the film.

    To Ariel’s surprise, she is selected to accompany Stan to a remote desert compound with other journalists to cover the story of reclusive pop legend Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich, returning to the big screen for the first time in five years).

    Coincidentally, Moretti is about to make a return to public life after a 30-year hiatus and reset his reputation with a new album. Malkovich seems to relish the role, cranking up his flamboyant eccentricity in what feels like a mash-up of Ziggy Stardust and Frank-N-Furter.

    Moretti’s ostentatiousness in contrast to Ariel’s subdued “middle-ness”, seems to be one of several binaries that the film explores, with an epilogue that discusses the left and right sides of the brain, and the division between destruction and creativity.

    The theme of creativeness is a driving force in the film, with Moretti’s and Ariel’s respective musical and literary artistry used as fuel in the narrative, from a director with a similar writing background to Ariel.

    Unfortunately, the film often feels more derivative than creative because of the numerous sources it takes as its inspiration. Moretti’s compound turns out, of course, to be a cult where Ariel, Stan and other invited guests will find something even more sinister than Malkovich’s rhythmic hip thrusts.

    The rules of the compound mean that all guests must hand over their phones and electronic devices, so that in typical horror fashion, the characters are completely cut off from the outside world.

    The knowing nod to this horror cliché is perhaps done for comedic value, but becomes another of the film’s weak spots, in the sense that it never really commits to any one thing. It’s not quite a comedy, a horror or a musical but something that is more fragmentary, borrowing elements of each.

    It’s as if the director has assembled his favourite genres, but only in notes that have not yet been successfully put together. For example, there is an explicit recreation of a very distinct scene from Takashi Miike’s harrowing Audition (1999), while other parts are heavily influenced by Ari Aster’s disturbing Midsommar, (2019) a folk horror film also made by A24.

    There are also nods to Mark Mylod’s The Menu (2022) in which an eccentric celebrity chef creates a meal for a group of sycophant critics with lethal consequences. As a dark comedy-horror, The Menu succeeds in satirising the absurdity of reality cooking shows, where competitiveness and TV chefs are caricatured.

    However, Green’s attempt at satire in Opus doesn’t really work. That’s not to imply that the film hasn’t got something to say – Green appears to be interested in the relationship between celebrity culture and fandom. However, that idea doesn’t feel fully fleshed out, particularly when other films like Brandon Cronenberg’s dangerously underrated Antiviral (2012) was addressing this idea with visceral originality more than a decade ago.

    Moretti’s songs have a deliberately dated sound which seems to be inspired by Michael Jackson, particularly around the time of his 2001 Invincible tour and album, which both failed to return the singer to his “king of pop” status.
    Again, films such as Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024) tackle the idea of the ageing celebrity with more clarity and originality, even while clearly being inspired by other movies.

    Consequently, Opus has quite a 1990s feel to it, perhaps aided by the casting of Malkovich and Juliette Lewis, both huge stars during that decade. The film also gets a bit meta, nodding to Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich (1999) through a similar use of star cameos and a puppet show – both interesting elements, but again which feel disjointed in Opus.

    I think Green has stronger films in him to come but, although his work raises interesting points, there are too many ideas here for a convincing film to properly materialise. I was unclear on a number of things including Moretti’s motives and his contempt for critics, including the positive ones.

    Opus perhaps bites off more than it can chew, leaving me feeling that Green’s directorial opus is still to come.

    Daniel O’Brien 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. Opus: clunky satire about an evil celebrity cult has plenty to say – it just doesn’t know how to say it – https://theconversation.com/opus-clunky-satire-about-an-evil-celebrity-cult-has-plenty-to-say-it-just-doesnt-know-how-to-say-it-252118

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Who are the Baloch Liberation Army? Pakistan train hijacking was fuelled by decades of neglect and violence

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sameen Mohsin Ali, Lecturer in International Development, University of Birmingham

    Pakistan’s army has freed hundreds of hostages from a passenger train that was seized by armed militants in the south-western province of Balochistan on Tuesday, March 11. A number of those on board were military officials and police personnel travelling from Balochistan’s capital, Quetta, to Peshawar further north.

    The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) quickly claimed responsibility for the hijacking. In a written statement sent to the Guardian, the group said its actions were “a direct response to Pakistan’s decades-long colonial occupation of Balochistan and the relentless war crimes committed against the Baloch people”.

    Ever since 1948, when Balochistan became a province of Pakistan months after partition from India, this territory has been marginalised by the Pakistani state. The authorities have struggled to accommodate the diverse ethnic and linguistic groups within Balochistan, leading to several rounds of insurgency.

    During the recent hijack, the BLA demanded that Pakistan’s military release Baloch activists, missing people and political prisoners, and threatened to kill many of the hostages if the authorities did not comply. The subsequent military operation, which lasted two days, resulted in the deaths of all 33 militants, as well as 21 hostages and four army personnel.

    The brazen nature and scale of the attack has raised difficult questions for the Pakistani state about how it addresses escalating discontent and militancy in Balochistan.

    Who are the BLA?

    The BLA is a separatist group that emerged in the early 2000s. It is considered a terrorist organisation by the Pakistani authorities and several western countries.

    Unlike more moderate Baloch nationalist groups, which are committed to remaining part of the Pakistani state despite longstanding grievances with it, the BLA aims to achieve an independent Balochistan.

    Some of the grievances expressed by the Baloch include a lack of representation both in the federal government and the armed forces. Baloch nationalists also allege the Pakistani state has exploited the province’s coal, gold, copper and gas resources while providing very little for the Baloch people in return.

    Revenues from the Saindak gold and copper mine, for example, are largely shared between the Chinese company that operates it and the Pakistani government. The Balochistan provincial government only receives around 5% of the mine’s revenue.

    Chaghi, the mineral-rich district of Balochistan that hosts the Saindak mine, remains one of the most underdeveloped areas of the country. Local people employed at the mine claim they are only offered menial jobs and work in unsafe conditions.

    Balochistan’s persistent underdevelopment means a poor quality of life for its citizens. It consistently ranks as the Pakistani province with the lowest human development index (HDI) rating, scoring 0.421 in 2017. This index is a summary rating between 0 (low) and 1 (high) based on measures of health, education and standard of living. Punjab has the highest HDI rating at 0.732.

    Balochistan is located in south-west Pakistan.
    Calligraphy786 / Shutterstock

    The separatist movement in Balochistan intensified after Nawab Akbar Bugti, a prominent Baloch nationalist leader, was killed in a military operation in 2006. The BLA was soon banned by the Pakistani government, and the military’s operations intensified in the province.

    Baloch human rights defenders and activists have persistently accused Pakistan’s security forces of harassment and relying on excessive force. Protesters believe there have been thousands of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, which the Pakistani authorities have denied.

    The issue has been raised by human rights organisations both in Pakistan and abroad. Families of missing people have filed cases against the government with the Pakistan Supreme Court, and disappearances have been investigated through special commissions of inquiry.

    Supreme Court rulings have held the state responsible for enforced disappearances. While some missing people have been traced as a result of these rulings and inquiries, the International Commission of Jurists notes that “there has been no apparent effort made to fix responsibility for this heinous crime”.

    Attacking foreign investments

    The BLA’s tactics have typically involved carrying out attacks against state installations. However, in recent years, attacks against Chinese citizens and infrastructure have become the group’s focus.

    Balochistan has a strategically important coastline, providing access to the Indian Ocean. China has invested heavily in the region as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, including in a deep-sea port at Gwadar. But these investments have failed to benefit local people, fuelling accusations by many in the province that the Pakistani state is systematically neglecting their needs.

    The BLA’s suicide squad was responsible for an attack that injured three Chinese engineers working in the Balochistan city of Dalbandin in 2018. Later that year, BLA militants attacked the Chinese consulate in Karachi – though Chinese nationals remained safe in that attack.

    The group seems to have no difficulty attracting young and well-educated Baloch people, who see the state’s actions and Chinese presence in Balochistan as exploitative. In 2022, a female graduate student carried out a suicide attack on behalf of the BLA that killed three Chinese teachers at the University of Karachi.

    The BLA’s activities have expanded substantially in recent years. It has conducted more than 150 attacks in the past year alone, including on Quetta railway station and on a convoy carrying Chinese workers near Karachi airport.

    However, experts have noted that the train hijacking was unprecedented in scale. It represents a significant escalation by the BLA in terms of the planning, resources and intelligence required to execute such an operation.

    The Pakistani government and military appear to have mishandled Balochistan’s security situation. But they have also failed to address the growing resentment and alienation that is driving people to groups like the BLA.

    According to Farzana Sheikh, an associate fellow at Chatham House, Pakistan’s military continues to favour “a heavy-handed security response to deal with what is widely judged to be a political crisis”.

    Accusations of state exploitation and neglect will not go away until the Pakistani state radically alters its stance on Balochistan, starting by ensuring accountability for perpetrators of human rights violations. Only then can trust be rebuilt with the people of this province who, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, live in “a climate of fear”.

    Sameen Mohsin Ali 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. Who are the Baloch Liberation Army? Pakistan train hijacking was fuelled by decades of neglect and violence – https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-baloch-liberation-army-pakistan-train-hijacking-was-fuelled-by-decades-of-neglect-and-violence-252120

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The White House press pool became a way to control journalists – Trump is taking this to new levels

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Colin Alexander, Senior Lecturer in Political Communications, Nottingham Trent University

    The recently appointed White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has begun her tenure combatively, aggressively defending the Trump administration’s policies and, at times, mimicking Donald Trump’s methods of dealing with the mainstream news media.

    Faced recently with a legitimate question by an Associated Press (AP) reporter who challenged Trump’s introduction of tariffs against several countries, she accused the reporter of doubting her knowledge of economics. She then dismissed him, saying: “I now regret giving a question to the Associated Press.”

    AP is one of the key media organisations reporting on the White House. The largest news agency in the US, its stories are carried by news groups around the world. But recently, AP was ejected from the “press pool” that covers White House business

    It was excluded in mid-February for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America”, after Trump changed its name by executive order. This was followed by an announcement that the White House would take greater control of the press pool and choose which outlets would be given most access to the president. This is likely to be based on favourable coverage rather than quality of reporting.

    To appreciate how significant this is, it is important to first state the fundamental purpose of journalism in a democratic society, which is to hold the powerful to account. This is known as its “watchdog” function.

    The work of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in exposing the Watergate scandal during the 1970s is often held up as the gold standard of watchdog journalism. It ultimately led to the resignation of Richard Nixon as president and the imprisonment of his lawyer, John Dean.

    “Pooling” describes the process by which a prominent organisation or individual attempts to oversee journalistic scrutiny by managing access. King Charles, for example, also operates a press pool.

    It works in two stages. First, news organisations or individual journalists apply to be members of the pool. Then, a handful of journalists from the pool are selected each day or week for access. These journalists – through their pool contract – are required to share the information they gather with the other journalists in the pool, which often leads to a genericisation of the content.

    Thus, while political organisations or elite individuals might claim the pooling system is used as a benign and fair tool to manage consistent press interest, in reality it is a weapon of communications control.

    The White House’s press pool was first established under President Dwight Eisenhower as a reflection of the growing number of journalists based in Washington. But in the modern era, the use of pooling was most controversial during and after the first Gulf War of the early 1990s.

    Rather than roaming the battlefields of Iraq and Kuwait, most western reporters spent the conflict at the media centre in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, some 250 miles from the Kuwait border. Here they were fed the information that the US military wanted the public to know. A small number of pooled journalists were then occasionally accompanied by US troops to the battlefield in what was a clear case of censorship by access and perspective limitation.

    This military-media power dynamic – and the subsequent mismatch between the actuality of the war and the reporting of it – led the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard to declare in a 1991 essay, published by Liberation and The Guardian, that “The Gulf war did not take place”.

    General “Stormin” Norman Schwarzkopf’s famous “luckiest man in Iraq” briefing is indicative of the close relationship that developed between military and media professionals during the conflict. Schwarzkopf showed journalists footage taken through the crosshairs of a US bomber of an Iraqi private car driving over a bridge moments before a US airstrike destroys it. You can hear the journalists laughing with Schwarzkopf as they watch this lucky escape.

    Legacy of Vietnam

    Despite widespread understanding that scrutiny is an important part of public officialdom, the legacy of the Vietnam War – a conflict the US was perceived both at home and around the world to have lost – led to a significant amount of distrust of journalists. US media analyst Daniel Hallin referred to Vietnam as the “uncensored war”. By this he meant that journalists enjoyed an unprecedented amount of freedom – exacerbated by the relatively new medium of television, which brought stark images of war directly into people’s living rooms.

    By February 1968, the US military’s daily briefings from the Rex Hotel in Saigon had become known as the “five o’clock follies”, on account of the gulf between official claims of the war’s “progress” and what was being reported by journalists who had ventured into the field. The military consistently presented a positive narrative – in stark contrast to the esteemed CBS reporter Walter Cronkite’s analysis that: “To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.”

    Vietnam could have been an opportunity for governments to think about their obligation to truth and the requirement to be more ethical in their approach. Instead, the feeling in Washington was that unfavourable press coverage had lost the war, and that journalists needed to be curtailed.

    Controlling the message

    The recent decision by the Trump administration to take over selection of pool journalists from the notionally independent White House Correspondents’ Association is unsurprising. The approach is consistent with the first Trump presidency’s refusal to answer questions from journalists who tried to carry out the press’s watchdog function.

    It also fits with Trump’s electioneering approach during 2024 when he shunned traditional news outlets, focusing instead on social media and appearing on the podcasts of Joe Rogan and Andrew Schulz, for example.

    To this end, the White House’s decision amounts to a power grab against the institution of modern journalism – even if much of the US media has been in thrall to the powerful ever since Vietnam.

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

    – ref. The White House press pool became a way to control journalists – Trump is taking this to new levels – https://theconversation.com/the-white-house-press-pool-became-a-way-to-control-journalists-trump-is-taking-this-to-new-levels-250960

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: As Mark Carney is sworn in, America’s democratic decline has critical lessons for Canadian voters

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Matthew Lebo, Professor, Department of Political Science, Western University

    Prime Minister Mark Carney and his cabinet have been sworn in, ending Justin Trudeau’s time in office and paving the way for a spring election. Canadians are soon heading to the polls as they watch American democracy crumble.

    United States President Donald Trump recently argued “he who saves his country does not violate any Law” as he ignores Congress and the courts, governs by executive order and threatens international laws and treaties.



    Read more:
    Is Donald Trump on a constitutional collision course over NATO?

    Once stable democratic institutions are failing to hold an authoritarian president in check.

    What lessons are there to protect Canadian democracy as the federal election approaches?

    Elites lead the way

    First, it’s important to delve into how so many Americans have become tolerant of undemocratic actions and politics in the first place. It’s not that Republican voters first became more extreme and then chose a representative leader. Rather, public opinion and polarization are led by elites.

    Republican leaders moved dramatically to the right, and the primary system allowed the choice of an extremist. Republican voters then aligned their opinions with his. Trump’s disdain for democratic fundamentals spread quickly. Partisans defending their team slid away from democratic values.

    Canada’s more centrist ideological spectrum is not foolproof against this type of extremism. Public opinion can be moved when our leaders take us there.

    Decline can start slowly and then accelerate. America’s democratic backsliding in the first weeks of Trump’s second presidency follows the erosion of democratic norms over decades. Republican attacks on institutions, the opposition, the media and higher education corrosively undermined public faith in the truth, including election results.

    Trust in government is holding steady in Canada, however. That provides an important guardrail for Canadian democracy.

    The dangers of courting the far right

    There are also lessons for our political parties. To maximize their seats, Republicans accepted extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, but soon needed those types of politicians for key votes.

    The so-called Freedom Caucus, made up of MAGA adherents, forced the choice of a new, more extreme, leader of the House of Representatives. This provides a clear lesson that history has shown many times: it is dangerous for the party on the political right to accommodate the far right, which can quickly take control.

    Once established within the ruling party, extremists can hold their party hostage.

    At a recent meeting of the Munich Security Conference, Vice-President JD Vance pushed European parties to include far-right parties, and Elon Musk outright endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

    Austria recently avoided the inclusion of the far right in its new coalition, and now Germany is working to do the same. As Canada’s Conservatives look for every vote, courting far-right voters and candidates risks destabilizing the system.

    Can it happen in Canada?

    How safe is Canada’s Westminster-style parliamentary democracy?

    The fusion of legislative and executive power in parliamentary systems like Canada’s seems prone to tyranny. America’s Constitutional framers thought so when they designed a system with separate legislative, executive and judicial branches that could check each other’s power.

    They clearly did not imagine party loyalty negating the safeguards that protect democracy from an authoritarian-minded president. The Constitution gives Congress the power to legislate and impeach, limits the executive’s power to spend and make appointments, gives the judiciary power to hold an executive accountable and contains the 25th amendment allowing cabinet to remove a president.

    But when one party controls the legislative and executive branches during a time of hyper-partisanship, these mechanisms may not constrain an authoritarian. Today, Republican loyalty has eroded these checks and balances and American courts are struggling to step up to their heightened role.

    Although counter-intuitive, parliamentary systems like Canada’s are usually less susceptible to authoritarianism than presidential ones because the cabinet or the House of Commons can turn against a lawless leader.

    Still, if popular, authoritarian leaders can still retain their party’s support — and then things can slide quickly. The rightward pull of extremists seen in the U.S. House would be more dangerous here since the Canadian House of Commons includes our executive.

    Guarding against xenophobia

    Lastly, Canada should be wary of xenophobic rhetoric.

    “America First” is not simply shopping advice. It began as an isolationist slogan during the First World War but was soon adopted by pro-fascists, American Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. These entities questioned who is really American and wanted not only isolationism, but racist policies, immigration restrictions and eugenics.

    Trump did not revive the phrase accidentally. It’s a call to America’s fringes. Alienating domestic groups is a sure sign of democratic decline.

    “Canada First” mimics that century-long dark theme in America. In combination with contempt for the opposition, it questions the right of other parties to legitimately hold power if used as a message by one party.

    Also, asserting that “Canada is broken” — as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre often does — mimics Trump’s talk of American carnage, language and imagery he uses to justify extraordinary presidential authority.

    Such language erodes citizens’ trust in democratic institutions and primes voters to support undemocratic practices in the name of patriotism. Canadian parties and politicians should exit that road.

    Ultimately, institutions alone do not protect a country from the rise of authoritarianism. Democracy can be fragile. As a federal election approaches in Canada, it’s important to know the warning signs of extremism and anti-democratic practices that are creeping into our politics.

    Matthew Lebo 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 Mark Carney is sworn in, America’s democratic decline has critical lessons for Canadian voters – https://theconversation.com/as-mark-carney-is-sworn-in-americas-democratic-decline-has-critical-lessons-for-canadian-voters-251544

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: When algorithms take the field – inside MLB’s robo-umping experiment

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Arthur Daemmrich, Professor of Practice in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University

    MLB’s automated ball-strike technology could be used in big league games as soon as 2026. Rich Schultz/Getty Images

    Baseball fans tuning into spring training games may have noticed another new wrinkle in a sport that’s experienced a host of changes in recent years.

    Batters, pitchers and catchers can challenge a home plate umpire’s ball or strike call. Powered by Hawk-Eye ball-tracking technology, the automated ball-strike system replays the pitch trajectory to determine whether the umpire’s call was correct.

    To minimize disruptions, Major League Baseball permits each team a maximum of two failed challenges per game but allows unlimited challenges as long as they’re successful. For now, the technology will be limited to the spring exhibition games. But it could be implemented in the regular season as soon as 2026.

    Count future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer among the skeptics.

    “We’re humans,” the Toronto Blue Jays hurler said after a spring training game in which he challenged two calls and lost both to the robo umps. “Can we just be judged by humans?”

    Technological advances that lead to fairer, more accurate calls are often seen as triumphs. But as co-editors of the recently published volume “Inventing for Sports,” which includes case studies of over 20 sports inventions, we find that new technology doesn’t mean perfect precision – nor does it necessarily lead to better competition from the fan perspective.

    Cue the cameras

    While playing in a cricket match in the 1990s, British computer scientist Paul Hawkins fumed over a bad call. He decided to make sure the same mistake wouldn’t happen again.

    Drawing on his doctoral training in artificial intelligence, he designed an array of high-speed cameras to capture a ball’s flight path and velocity, and a software algorithm that used the data to predict the ball’s likely future path.

    He founded Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. in 2001, and his first clients were cricket broadcasters who used the technology’s trajectory graphics to enhance their telecasts.

    By 2006, professional tennis leagues began deploying Hawk-Eye to help officials adjudicate line calls. Cricket leagues followed in 2009, incorporating it to help umpires make what are known as “leg before wicket” calls, among others. And professional soccer leagues started using the technology in 2012 to determine whether balls cross the goal line.

    A technician uses the Hawk-Eye system as part of a broadcast trial for the technology during the 2005 Masters Tennis tournament in London.
    Julian Finney/Getty Images

    Reaction to Hawk-Eye has been mixed. In tennis, players, fans and broadcasters have generally embraced the technology. During a challenge, spectators often clap rhythmically in anticipation as the Hawk-Eye official cues up the replayed trajectory.

    “As a player, and now as a TV commentator,” tennis legend Pam Shriver said in 2006, “I dreamed of the day when technology would take the accuracy of line calling to the next level. That day has now arrived.”

    But Hawk-Eye isn’t perfect. In 2020 and 2022, the firm publicly apologized to fans of professional soccer clubs after its goal-line technology made errant calls after players congregated in the goal box and obstructed key camera sight lines.

    Perfection isn’t possible

    Critics have also raised more fundamental concerns.

    In their 2016 book “Bad Call,” researchers Harry Collins, Robert Evans and Christopher Higgins reminded readers that Hawk-Eye is not a replay of the ball’s actual position; rather, it produces a prediction of a trajectory, based on the ball’s prior velocity, rotation and position.

    The authors lament that Hawk-Eye and what they term “decision aids” have undermined the authority of referees and umpires, which they consider bad for the games.

    Ultimately, there are no purely objective standards for fairness and accuracy in technological officiating. They are always negotiated. Even the most precise officiating innovations require human consensus to define and validate their role. Technologies like photo-finish cameras, instant replay and ball-tracking systems have improved the precision of officiating, but their deployment is shaped – and often limited – by human judgment and institutional decisions.

    For example, today’s best race timing systems are accurate to 0.0001 seconds, yet Olympic sports such as swimming, track and field, and alpine skiing report results in increments of only 0.01 seconds. This can lead to situations – such as Dominique Gisin and Tina Maze’s gold medal tie in the women’s downhill ski race at the 2014 Sochi Olympics – in which the timing officials admitted that their equipment could have revealed the actual winner. But they were forced to report a dead heat under the rules established by the ski federation.

    With slow-motion instant replays, determining a catch or a player’s intention for a personal foul can actually be distorted by low-speed replay, since humans aren’t adept at adjusting to shifting replay speeds.

    One of the big issues with baseball’s automated ball-strike system has to do with the strike zone itself.

    MLB’s rule book defines the strike zone as the depth and width of home plate and the vertical distance between the midpoint of a player’s torso to the point just below his knees. The interpretation of the strike zone is notoriously subjective and varies with each umpire. For example, human umpires often call a strike if the ball crosses the plate in the rear corner. However the automated ball-strike system uses an imaginary plane that bisects the middle – not the front or the rear – of home plate.

    There are more complications. Since every player has a unique height, each has a unique strike zone. At the outset of spring training, each player’s height was measured – standing up without cleats – and then confirmed through a biomechanical analysis.

    Eddie Gaedel, the shortest player in major league baseball history, had a much smaller strike zone than his peers. He drew a walk in his only at-bat.
    Bettmann/Getty Images

    But what if a player changes their batting stance and decides to crouch? What if they change their cleats and raise their strike zone by an extra quarter-inch?

    Of course, as has been the case in tennis, soccer and other sports, Hawk-Eye can help rectify genuinely bad calls. By allowing teams to correct the most disputed calls without eliminating the human element of umpiring, MLB hopes to strike a balance between tradition and change.

    Fans have the final say

    Finding a balance between machine precision and the human element of baseball is crucial.

    Players’ and managers’ efforts to work the umpires to contract or expand the strike zone have long been a part of the game. And fans eagerly cheer or jeer players and managers who argue with the umpires. When ejections take place, more yelling and taunting ensues.

    Though often unacknowledged in negotiations between leagues and athletes, fan enthusiasm is a key component of whether to adopt new technology.

    For example, innovative “full-body” swimsuits contributed to a wave of record-breaking finishes in the sport between 2000 and 2009. But uneven access to the newest gear raised the specter of what some called “technological doping.” World Aquatics worried that as records fell simply due to equipment innovations, spectators would stop watching and broadcast and sponsorship revenue would dry up. The swimming federation ended up banning full-body swimsuits.

    When managers argue balls and strikes, it can make for great TV.

    Of course, algorithmic officiating differs from technologies that enhance performance and speed. But it runs a similar risk of turning off fans. So MLB, like other sports leagues, is being thrust into the role of managing technological change.

    Assessing technologies for their immediate and long-term impact is difficult enough for large government agencies. Sports leagues lack those resources, yet are nonetheless being forced to carefully consider how they introduce and regulate various innovations.

    MLB, to its credit, is proceeding incrementally. While the logical conclusion to the current automated ball-strike experiment would be fully electronic officiating, we think fans and players will resist going that far.

    The league’s challenge system is a test. But the real umpires will ultimately be the fans.

    Arthur Daemmrich receives funding from the National Science Foundation and The Lemelson Foundation.

    For the research underlying this article, Eric S. Hintz and the Smithsonian Institution received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Lemelson Foundation, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Nike, Inc., the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, the Shō Foundation, ConocoPhillips, and the Hopper-Dean Family Fund.

    Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed are the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views
    of the National Science Foundation or any other funder.

    – ref. When algorithms take the field – inside MLB’s robo-umping experiment – https://theconversation.com/when-algorithms-take-the-field-inside-mlbs-robo-umping-experiment-251094

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –