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Category: Global

  • MIL-OSI Global: US v them: Trump’s tariffs and his economic vision of dominance

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, Spécialiste de la politique américaine, Sciences Po

    US President Donald Trump’s April 2 announcement of sweeping new tariffs against numerous countries isn’t just driven by (already questionable) economic reasoning. It reflects the deeply adversarial worldview embraced by the current occupant of the White House.

    Since returning to the presidency, Trump has unleashed a new wave of tariffs unprecedented in scope. Traditional allies and strategic rivals are now under the same banner, marking a radical shift in Washington’s trade policy that hardens positions taken in Trump’s first term, amplifying them with an unbridled display of power.

    Just as in 2017, when he spoke of “American carnage”, Trump paints an apocalyptic picture of the US, a country he claims has been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike”. This dramatic narrative is met with a double promise of “liberation” and the restoration of a new “golden age”.


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    Tariffs thus become the weapons of a nationalist crusade, where every import is an attack on sovereignty, and every export a symbolic act of reconquest.

    An authoritarian vision of international trade

    Trump’s trade doctrine is part of a broader strategy defined by confrontation, centralised executive power and a neo-imperial view of the global economy. His tariff measures go far beyond protecting domestic industry: they aim to reshape the global order according to his own interpretation of national interest. This second act of the Trumpist revolution is not a rerun, but an escalation – one based on authoritarian ambitions, the rejection of multilateralism (as seen in the administration’s utter disdain for the World Trade Organization, and the glorification of raw sovereignty.

    The supposed economic logic behind these policies is as flimsy as it is revealing. The chosen calculation method – dividing the bilateral trade deficit by import volumes – is little more than a blunt instrument to go after countries the US runs a deficit with. Officially, it’s about cutting trade deficits, bringing jobs back and raising revenue. But the real agenda runs deeper: consolidating presidential power and replacing global cooperation with a doctrine of economic domination.

    Tariffs as tools of power and messaging

    Trump’s first term has shown the limits of this strategy. The trade war with China, in particular, triggered price hikes for consumers, disrupted supply chains and severely hurt US agricultural exporters. One study found that US consumers bore the brunt of these costs, with an average 1% increase in the prices of manufactured goods.

    Trump doesn’t behave like a traditional head of state operating within a multilateral framework. He acts more like a lone ruler, dispensing rewards and punishments to serve his political – or even personal – agenda. Tariffs, in this context, function as much as media stunts as they do economic instruments. Branded as “reciprocal tariffs”, they construct a simplified and powerful narrative: that of a crusader who corrects the wrongs inflicted on citizens betrayed by free trade.

    This message hits home with workers in industries like auto manufacturing. It offers up convenient villains – China, Europe, and the domestic elite who support free trade. Trade policy is no longer about negotiation; it’s about retribution. In this worldview, the spike in tariffs isn’t just an economic manoeuvre – it’s a statement of sovereignty, even of symbolic power.

    From personal obsession to state doctrine

    Trump’s protectionism is not an overnight development, but part of a long-standing obsession. As early as 1987, he railed against Japan’s trade surpluses with the US and called for steep tariffs on Tokyo. He spoke of the US being “ripped off” and showed a near-paranoid fear of national humiliation or betrayal. At its core, this reflects a deep-seated drive to reassert dominance – to “win” in a world he views as inherently hostile and conflictual. It’s one of the few constants in Trump’s worldview, given his lack of ideological consistency and frequent U-turns on other issues.

    Today, everything is reframed as a question of sovereignty: rare earths, strategic minerals, data flows, shipping lanes. This worldview echoes the imperialist pivot of the late 19th century, especially under US president William McKinley (1897–1901) – a figure Trump pointedly invoked in his second inaugural address.

    This logic also helps explain some of his most provocative gestures: stating he wants to buy Greenland, putting pressure on Canada in hopes of access to its natural resources, and eyeing Ukraine’s mining potential. The underlying idea is blunt and unmistakeable: resources are finite, and you’d better grab your share before someone else does. In this zero-sum game, where one country’s gain is another’s loss, cooperation gives way to conquest.

    The rise of techno-nationalist mercantilism?

    In this worldview, competition isn’t seen as a source of innovation – it’s a threat to be eliminated. The aim isn’t to make America more competitive, but to sabotage the competitiveness of others. The US no longer presents itself – even rhetorically – as a democratic nation playing by the rules of global markets. Instead, it acts like a corporation determined to secure monopoly power.

    This authoritarian shift resonates with key Trumpist thinkers. Peter Thiel, a mentor to US Vice President JD Vance, famously declared that “capitalism and competition are opposites”, championing monopoly as the ultimate goal. Cuts to the federal government and sweeping deregulation aren’t about unleashing free markets – they’re about consolidating control and asserting dominance.



    À lire aussi :
    Trump protectionism and tariffs: a threat to globalisation, or to democracy itself?

    The aim now is to sidestep global systems, not to integrate them – to build an imperial-style autarky where the US controls a closed sphere of influence, shielded from outside competition. This is mercantilism reimagined for the digital age: instead of gold and silver, the currency is data, infrastructure, dollars and crypto currency. Cooperation gives way to coercion.

    Toward an authoritarian international order – or a political disaster?

    The April 2 announcement is far more than an economic decision. It’s a bold political statement – a deliberate move toward a new world order rooted in strength and loyalty, rather than law and cooperation.

    There’s undeniable continuity with Trump’s first term. But this time, the scale, radicalism and concentration of power represent a decisive escalation. Trump increasingly treats the state as his personal property – or a private business – what some have aptly called “patrimonialism”. He is shaping an authoritarian model in which trade becomes a weapon in a new kind of global cold war, driven by fear of decline and an obsession with control. In this logic, prosperity is no longer a shared national goal – it’s a privilege reserved for those in power.

    This trajectory could become politically explosive, especially as Trump faces falling markets and looming inflation – both threatening a weakening of his presidency. If he doubles down despite sinking approval ratings, Republican lawmakers may be forced – under pressure from their voters and donors – to finally push back and reassert their constitutional role. Early signs of dissent within the Republican Party are already surfacing, alongside public anger that remains scattered – but is growing harder to ignore.

    Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

    – ref. US v them: Trump’s tariffs and his economic vision of dominance – https://theconversation.com/us-v-them-trumps-tariffs-and-his-economic-vision-of-dominance-254096

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Canada’s aging population: The unspoken ballot box issue

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sunil Johal, Professor in Public Policy and Society, University of Toronto

    Canadians are voting in a federal election on April 28, and questions about how to deal with the United States and make Canada’s economy more resilient are dominating public discourse.

    The housing crisis, immigration policy and health-care system deficiencies are other top-of-mind concerns. But one issue we likely won’t hear much about from politicians is a trend that’s quietly shaping all of these issues: an aging population.

    Canada’s overall population is older than ever. Between 2016 and 2021, the portion of the population aged 65 and older grew to seven million people. By 2040, it’s projected that close to one-quarter of Canadians will be over the age of 65.

    That means policymakers need to think more proactively about how they can transform Canada’s existing policies to address the needs of an aging population.

    A new report we’ve published at the CSA Public Policy Centre outlines policy pathways for federal and provincial governments to consider as 2040 approaches.

    It’s time for Canadians to reimagine where we live as we grow older, transform our understanding of health and health-care services and take a whole-of-society approach to advance cultural change around the experience of aging.

    Precarious retirement

    As more baby boomers retire in the years ahead, labour productivity is expected to decline and the income tax base that supports core public services will shrink.

    At the same time, significant investments will be needed for our already strained health-care system to meet the needs of older adults living with more chronic conditions. The average cost of delivering health care is about $12,000 per person per year for those over 65, compared to only $2,700 for those under 65.

    Similarly, in the face of a years-long decline in the quality of Canada’s long-term care system and the preference of Canadians to age at home, a policy shift towards aging-in-place has become a priority.

    However, this raises important questions about social isolation, accessibility of Canada’s built environment, suitability of housing options on the market as well as the availability and affordability of necessary services.

    Recent polling shows that 95 per cent of Canadians over 45 believe that aging-in-place would maintain their independence, comfort and dignity. Yet only 12 per cent report having the funds available to receive adequate home care.

    In the absence of thoughtful policy reform, there is potential for significant disparities in health outcomes, financial security and social inclusion among older adults in the years to come.



    Read more:
    Wealthier Canadians live longer and are less likely to be dependent as they age, new research finds

    Ensuring intergenerational equity

    There is a perception that baby boomers are heading into a comfortable retirement with robust pensions and opportunities for leisure. While this may be the case for those who have accumulated or inherited wealth, others are facing the risk of poverty and homelessness.

    Data indicates that around 30 per cent of people using shelters across Canada are aged 50 or older, with many others unsheltered, living outdoors or experiencing hidden homelessness.

    With limited resources, governments will be challenged to meet the needs of older Canadians while ensuring younger Canadians can also thrive. Young Canadians are facing a housing market that feels out of reach and many are delaying the decision to start a family due to high costs of living.

    Fifty-five per cent of Canadians aged 25-44 report that rising prices are greatly affecting their ability to meet day-to-day expenses. Balancing the needs of different generations will require new ways of thinking, strategic investments and systemic cultural change.

    A path forward

    This means that, in the face of difficult decisions, resources should be allocated to those who need them most. For example, there have been calls to improve the equity of Old Age Security (OAS) — which is expected to cost $96 billion annually by 2027 — and lower income thresholds for eligibility.

    Unlike the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which is targeted to low-income Canadians over the age of 65, households with an annual income more than $300,000 may still be eligible for OAS payments.

    Similarly, vouchers could be made available to help Canadians pay for costs such as long-term care or home care services. Eligibility for programs like this should be tested against both income and wealth — access to home equity can be a significant factor in one’s ability to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

    To ensure equitable outcomes, these decisions should also be guided by meaningful engagement with diverse voices around the table, including those from older and younger generations and different lived experiences. Intergenerational dialogue can help different age groups understand each other’s challenges, collaborate on solutions and ultimately work towards solidarity and a much-needed reimagination of what it means to grow older.

    As Canadians prepare to head to the polls, we should all consider the future we want to see for ourselves and our communities as we age. Making strategic investments to improve the quality of life for older Canadians today will also lay the foundation for future generations.

    Sunil Johal is the Vice-President, Public Policy with the CSA Group and leads the CSA Public Policy Centre.

    – ref. Canada’s aging population: The unspoken ballot box issue – https://theconversation.com/canadas-aging-population-the-unspoken-ballot-box-issue-253300

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Tutankhamun: plain-looking mud trays in pharaoh’s tomb have been key part of complex afterlife rituals

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Claire Isabella Gilmour, PhD Candidate, Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol

    Tutankhamun’s gold burial mask and one of the plain clay trays. Roland Unger/Canva, CC BY

    More than 100 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, new interpretations of the burial are still emerging. A recent article published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology proposes that a set of seemingly plain, functional objects are in fact a key part of the complex rituals which would ensure the transformation and regeneration of the young king in the afterlife.

    Tutankhamun inherited a throne tainted by the shifts in religious and political practices implemented by his father, Akhenaten. His reign had been hallmarked by the move from the capital city of Thebes to a new city, Akhetaten (“the horizon of the Aten”).

    Under Akhenaten, the solar deity Aten was elevated above all others, including the principal state god Amun. This resulted in the king being the sole high priest and beneficiary (along with his family) of the Aten. The resulting disconnection between state and religion severely reduced the power and influence of priests and members of the royal court. But on Akhenaten’s death, these were restored by his son.

    Tutankhamun was named Tutankh-aten (“the living image of Aten”) at birth, but took the name of Amun back when Thebes was restored as the capital city of Egypt after his accession. This time (known as the Amarna period after the modern name of Akhenaten’s city) and its changes mean that it is more challenging to understand matters such as burial practices, religious rites and so on because it was not necessarily a “typical” time.

    Therefore, while we have learned much about funerary practices from Tutankhamun’s tomb, there are objects which are still being reinterpreted.

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    The artefacts in focus are a set of four clay trays, approximately 7.5 x 4.0 x 1.2cm, plain in design and apparently quite utilitarian.

    This type of artefact is known from other funerary contexts including elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings. They have been described in various ways as mud trays, earthen dishes or troughs. The lack of consistency in terminology and suggestions on function illustrate the difficulty in understanding their precise role in the tomb.

    Along with the clay trays are a set of wooden staves, just over a metre long, with a slight angle, and covered with gesso (a white pigment and binder mixture) and gold. In spite of the difference in materials, they were assumed by the man who uncovered the tomb, Howard Carter, to be directly associated with the trays. He believed they were probably intended as bases for the staffs to stand upright.

    One of the clay trays.
    Timeless Moon Public Archive

    However, it is clear that they have an even greater function to fulfil as, contextually, everything in the tomb has symbolism and meaning, even down to the wooden boxes for preserved meats, which were intended to sustain Tutankhamun in the afterlife.

    The care with which the trays and staff were laid out on matting indicates that they were important for the king’s burial. We might expect a royal burial to be filled with only the finest objects, made of the most valuable materials by elite craftsmen, with the association of materials such as gold with royalty and divinity. The richness of the rest of Tutankhamun’s burial for the most part fulfils this expectation. But, nevertheless, the ordinariness of the clay trays in the light of such riches confirms rather than refutes their significance.

    The restoration of order

    Following the royal court’s move back to Thebes in the wake of Akhenaten’s death, the restoration of Amun and the other gods was set in motion. The cult centre of Amun at the Temple of Karnak regained its status. The name of Akhenaten and his imagery, along with that of the sun disk, were subjected to a campaign of removal.

    Tutankhamun erected the so-called Restoration Stela with titles and epithets invoking the traditional gods, and statements on “having repaired what was ruined … having repelled disorder”. The upheaval of the Amarna Period was reversed.

    Discussions in academia on the dismantling of Akhenaten’s regime have tended to focus on issues such as name changes and the destruction of his upstart city. But ancient Egyptian religion had countless centuries of recorded tradition and observance, so profound demonstrations of loyalty to the traditional gods were needed.

    Two more clay trays from Tutankhamun’s tomb.
    Timeless Moon Public Archive

    The mud trays are now thought to be part of a wider funerary ritual, which both invoked the god Osiris and permitted the transfiguration of Tutankhamun. As king, he was thought to be the embodiment of the god Horus in life, and to become Osiris in death – rejuvenated and resurrected.

    Osiris is usually shown as a mummified king, with green or black skin to represent the fertility of the land and the new life which comes from it. It is not a coincidence that the trays are made of mud.

    Other aspects of the placement of the trays within the tomb such as specific placement and orientation (including particular symbols in the decoration of the tomb) indicate that the trays had a specific role to play. This may have been as an offering tray for Nile water, once more underlining the role of the river in creating life.

    Tutankhamun and his treasures are so familiar today that it is possible to overlook, or even forget, the fact that once the doors were sealed after his funeral they were meant to never be seen again. Some of his grave goods – particularly those made from gold – have outshone others. However, the ordinariness of the trays among all the riches suggests that they are crucial components of his burial. They confirm Tutankhamun as both renewed in death through Osiris, and the king who restored order to Egypt.

    Claire Isabella Gilmour 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. Tutankhamun: plain-looking mud trays in pharaoh’s tomb have been key part of complex afterlife rituals – https://theconversation.com/tutankhamun-plain-looking-mud-trays-in-pharaohs-tomb-have-been-key-part-of-complex-afterlife-rituals-253479

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How storytelling, creativity and collaborations can inspire climate action

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cecilia Manosa Nyblon, Director – We Are the Possible Programme, University of Exeter

    Imagine heading into space, landing on the moon and walking in the dust. As you adjust to the weightlessness, you see something unexpected on the horizon. You’re looking back at the Earth, experiencing the “overview effect”. How would you feel? What would you see, hear, touch, taste and smell?

    We asked these questions when we launched a creative writing workshop to harness the beauty and power of storytelling, education, theatre, and music to inspire a greener, healthier and fairer world for future generations.

    One of us, Cecilia Mañosa Nyblon, brought together a team from the University of Exeter, the Met Office and international experts including marine scientists, poets, soundscape artists, musicians, playwrights and children’s authors who recognise the power of the arts to bridge the gap between science and society.

    In 2021, our team launched We Are the Possible. This international award-winning programme brings together artists, scientists, educators and health professionals to connect hearts and minds. Together, we develop creative content and performances that are presented to policymakers and the public at annual UN climate summits and other public events.

    As Kathleen Jamie, Scotland’s makar (national poet), said during the 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow: “We can’t have that massive event around nature and environment without a poetry presence there.”

    Since 2021, this programme has engaged more than 16,000 people in the UK, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan. Our projects have reached more than 33 million people worldwide through mainstream media, social media and online platforms. By inspiring global and local audiences, we hope to mobilise communities to care for and protect our planet.

    “We Are the Possible” collaborated with artists, scientists, educators, musicians and schoolchildren to perform at Cop28, the UN climate summit, in Dubai in 2023.

    The project’s creative lead, Sally Flint, weaves the words of climate scientists, health professionals, storytellers, artists, youth, educators and translators into an anthology of 12 poems or stories for the 12 days of each UN climate summit, showing what people value most and what’s at stake in our changing planet.

    In our anthology for Cop28 (the 2023 climate summit in Dubai), Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who spent years negotiating for climate action at the UN summits, shared that “while this remains vital, I have also realised that connecting with people from the heart and with love is the most powerful place to start.”

    Scientists have the data. We have the technological solutions. But governments and leaders are failing to act with urgency. The climate crisis is our biggest communication failure.

    Culture has the power to help people imagine and inspire action through dialogue, images, storytelling and shared experiences. But for far too long, the arts, cultural heritage and creative industries have been absent in climate policy frameworks. In 2024, ministers of culture and education gathered in Abu Dhabi to establish a framework which recognises the transformative power and impact of culture and arts education [for sustainable development]https://www.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2024/02/WCCAE_UNESCO%20Framework_EN_0.pdf).

    Since Cop28, our team has been working with our partner, a not-for-profit called the Emirates Literature Foundation, to involve Indigenous poets through visual artforms. This involvement shines a light on the importance of Indigenous knowledge in our climate conversations to heal and restore our planet.

    We have also collaborated with a sustainable theatre company called The Theatre of Others to deliver The Earth Turns and Bright Light Burning. These immersive theatre performances (inspired by We Are the Possible anthologies) and panel discussions involve both policymakers and the public. After one of the performances, Jonathan Dewsbury, director of capital operations and net zero at the UK government’s Department for Education, told us: “If we don’t grab the arts, the poems, the music and embed them into our top policy thinkers, our top decision-makers, we are not going to make the right choices, the right solutions.”

    Carpet weaving is an important part of Azerbaijan’s cultural identity. At Cop29 (the 2024 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan), one group of academics and students at Khazar University in Baku wove a traditional “Chelebi” carpet. This conveyed a message of unity and environmental stewardship through symbolic patterns inspired by We Are the Possible’s anthology.

    Ocean-literate cultures

    Around 50% of countries have no mention of climate change in their school curriculum, according to Unesco. Most teachers (95%) feel that teaching about climate climate change is important but less than 30% say are ready to teach it. Meanwhile, 75% young people around the world say they are frightened about their future.

    Schools Across the Ocean, the education strand of We Are the Possible, is addressing this climate education gap. Led by our colleague, senior lecturer in education Anita Wood, this initiative has already connected more than 2,000 schoolchildren (aged 8-13) and more than 100 teachers in the UK, United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and other countries.

    Inspiring children to put their words and artwork of hope about the ocean.

    This six-week programme involves providing a toolkit for teachers plus activities and online workshops that engage children in science, art, storytelling and action for the ocean. The goal is for more children to understand why we all need a healthy ocean, develop their sense of agency and inspire others in their local communities to take action too.

    Wendy Wilson, headteacher St Anne’s School in Alderney on the Channel Islands, found that Schools Across the Ocean meant that her students were not just learning about climate change. She said they were also “becoming active, global citizens who are climate literate, empowered and full of hope.”

    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.

    We Are the Possible programme has been funded by the University of Exeter, Met Office, British Council, British Embassy Gulf Strategy Fund, British Embassy Azerbaijan, UKRI, AHRC, Knowledge E Foundation,Arts Council England and supported by Emirates Literature Foundation, American University in Cairo, Khorfakkan University, Khazar University, BIMM University, Extreme Hangout, Banlastic, Ocean Generation, Tahrir Cultural Centre, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, Cygnet Theatre, among others.

    We Are the Possible programme has been funded by the University of Exeter, Met Office, British Council, British Embassy Gulf Strategy Fund, British Embassy Azerbaijan, UKRI, AHRC, Knowledge E Foundation, Arts Council England and supported by Emirates Literature Foundation, American University in Cairo, Khorfakkan University, Khazar University, BIMM University, Extreme Hangout, Banlastic, Ocean Generation, Tahrir Cultural Centre, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, Cygnet Theatre, among others.

    – ref. How storytelling, creativity and collaborations can inspire climate action – https://theconversation.com/how-storytelling-creativity-and-collaborations-can-inspire-climate-action-252256

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Peru’s ancient irrigation systems succeeded in turning deserts into farms because of the culture − without it, the systems failed

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ari Caramanica, Assistant Professor of Archaeology, Vanderbilt University

    A pre-Hispanic canal funnels water from mountains to farm fields. Ari Caramanica

    Seeing the north coast of Peru for the first time, you would be hard-pressed to believe it’s one of the driest deserts in the world.

    Parts of the region receive less than an inch of rain in an entire year. Yet, water and greenery are everywhere. This is the nation’s agro-industrial heartland, and, thanks to irrigation canals, almost every inch of the floodplain is blanketed in lucrative export crops, such as sugarcane, asparagus and blueberries.

    However, the apparent success of this system masks an underlying fragility.

    Water shortages have plagued the region for centuries, and now modern climate change combined with agro-industrial practices have further intensified droughts. In response, the Peruvian government has invested billions of dollars in irrigation infrastructure in recent years designed to deliver more water from a resource more than 100 miles away: glaciers in the Andes.

    But the Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru has lost over half its glacier surface area since 1962. At the same time, floods often connected to wet El Niño years are increasing in both frequency and intensity. These floods often destroy or obstruct critical irrigation infrastructure.

    Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru lost over half its glacier surface area in the past half-century.
    mmphoto/DigitalVision via Getty Images

    As an archaeologist investigating societal responses to environmental and climate disaster in Peru, I’m interested in unraveling the histories of complex systems to understand how to improve similar systems today. To understand the Peruvian heartland’s vulnerabilities, it helps to look to the deep past.

    Most of the modern canal network originally dates to pre-Hispanic times, more than 1400 years ago. However, evidence suggests that while the canal systems of the past may have looked similar to those of the present, they functioned in more efficient, flexible ways. The key to adapting to our present and future climate may lie in comprehending the knowledge systems of the past – not just the equipment, technology or infrastructure, but how people used it.

    An environment of extremes

    The north coast of Peru is an environment of extremes.

    In this desert, thousands of years ago, societies encountered many of the same challenges posed by the modern climate crisis: expanding drylands, water scarcity, vulnerable food production systems, and frequent, intense natural disasters.

    Yet, people not only occupied this area for millennia, they thrived in it. Moche and Chimu societies created sophisticated, complex political and religious institutions, art and technology, and one of the largest pyramidal structures in the Americas.

    Relief of fish adorn an adobe wall in the historic Tschudi Complex archaeological site at Chan Chan, the former capital of the Chimu empire in Peru.
    FabulousFabs/Flickr, CC BY-NC

    When the Spanish arrived on the desert north coast of Peru shortly after 1532 C.E., early chroniclers remarked on the verdant, green valleys across the region.

    The Spanish immediately recognized the importance of the canal network. They had used similar canal technology in Spain for centuries. So, they set about conscripting Indigenous labor and adapting the irrigation system to their goals.

    Just a few decades later, however, historic records describe sand dunes and scrublands invading the green valleys, water shortages, and in 1578 a massive El Niño flood that nearly ended the young colony.

    So how did the Indigenous operation of this landscape succeed, where the Spanish and the modern-day agro-industrial complex have repeatedly failed?

    Culture was crucial for ancient canal systems

    Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in ancient times. Isolating and removing the tools from that knowledge made them less effective.

    Scientists, policymakers and stakeholders searching for models of sustainable agriculture and climate adaptations can look to the archaeological record. Successfully applying past practices to today’s challenges requires learning about the cultures that put those tools to work effectively for so long, so long ago.

    The pre-Hispanic societies of Peru developed agricultural principles around the realities of the desert, which included both dry seasons and flash floods.

    Large-scale irrigation infrastructure was combined with low-cost, easily modified canals. Aqueducts doubled as sediment traps to capture nutrients. Canal branches channeled both river water and floodwater. Even check-dams – small dams used to control high-energy floods – worked in multiple ways. Usually made of mounded cobble and gravel, they reduced the energy of flash floods, captured rich sediments and recharged the water table.

    A drone’s view of sugarcane fields shows a pre-Hispanic adobe aqueduct on the right and small feeder canals in the modern fields.
    Ari Caramanica

    The initial failures of the Spanish on the north coast exemplify the problem of trying to adopt technology without understanding the cultural insights behind it: While they may be identical in form, a Spanish canal isn’t a Moche canal.

    Spanish canals operated in a temperate climate and were managed by individual farmers who could maintain or increase their water flow. The Moche and Chimu canal was tied to a complex labor system that synchronized cleaning and maintenance and prioritized the efficient use of water. What’s more, Moche canals functioned in tandem with floodwater diversion canals, which activated during El Niño events to create niches of agricultural productivity amid disasters.

    A handmade gate on a modern canal in northern Peru doesn’t seem that different from ancient canals, but the pre-Hispanic canal systems were generally more conceptually complex and interconnected.
    Ari Caramanica

    Desert farming required flexibility and multifunctionality from its infrastructure. Achieving that often meant forgoing impermeable materials and permanent designs, which stands in stark contrast to the way modern-day water management works are constructed.

    Copying ancient practices without the culture

    Today, the Peruvian government is pushing forward with a decades-old, multibillion-dollar project to deliver water to the north coast from a glacier-fed river.

    The Chavimochic project promises a grand transformation, turning desert into productive farmland. But it may be sacrificing long-term resilience for short-term prosperity.

    The project feeds on the temporary abundance of glacial meltwater. This is creating a water boom as the ice melts, but it will inevitably be followed by a devastating water bust as the glaciers all but disappear, which scientists estimate could happen by the end of the 21st century.

    Farmers sell locally grown corn and other crops at a street market in Piura, Peru.
    Christian Ender/Getty Images

    Meanwhile, sustainable land management practices of past Indigenous inhabitants continue to support ecosystems hundreds and even thousands of years later. Studies show higher levels of biodiversity, crucial to ecosystem health, near archaeological sites.

    On the Peruvian north coast, pre-Hispanic infrastructure continues to capture floodwater during El Niño events. When their modern-day fields are flooded or destroyed by these events, farmers will sometimes move their crops to areas surrounding archaeological remains where their corn, squash and bean plants can tap into the trapped water and sediments and safely grow without the need for further irrigation.

    Critics might point out the difficulty of scaling up ancient technologies for global applications, find them rudimentary, or would prefer to appropriate the design without bothering with understanding “the cultural stuff.”

    But this framing misses the bigger point: What made these technologies effective was the cultural stuff. Not just the tools but how they were used by the societies operating them. As long as modern engineering solutions try to update ancient technologies without considering the cultures that made them function, these projects will struggle.

    Understanding the past matters

    Archaeologists have an important role to play in building a climate-resilient future, but any meaningful progress would benefit from a historical approach that considers multiple ways of understanding the environment, of operating an irrigation canal and of organizing an agriculture-based economy.

    That approach, in my view, begins with saving indigenous languages, where cultural logic is deeply embedded, as well as preserving archaeological and sacred sites, and creating partnerships built on trust with the people who have worked with the land and whose cultures have adapted their practices to the changing climate for thousands of years.

    Ari Caramanica receives funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities.

    – ref. Peru’s ancient irrigation systems succeeded in turning deserts into farms because of the culture − without it, the systems failed – https://theconversation.com/perus-ancient-irrigation-systems-succeeded-in-turning-deserts-into-farms-because-of-the-culture-without-it-the-systems-failed-251199

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Tutankhamun: plain-looking mud trays in pharaoh’s tomb have been been key part of complex afterlife rituals

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Claire Isabella Gilmour, PhD Candidate, Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol

    Tutankhamun’s gold burial mask and one of the plain clay trays. Roland Unger/Canva, CC BY

    More than 100 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, new interpretations of the burial are still emerging. A recent article published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology proposes that a set of seemingly plain, functional objects are in fact a key part of the complex rituals which would ensure the transformation and regeneration of the young king in the afterlife.

    Tutankhamun inherited a throne tainted by the shifts in religious and political practices implemented by his father, Akhenaten. His reign had been hallmarked by the move from the capital city of Thebes to a new city, Akhetaten (“the horizon of the Aten”).

    Under Akhenaten, the solar deity Aten was elevated above all others, including the principal state god Amun. This resulted in the king being the sole high priest and beneficiary (along with his family) of the Aten. The resulting disconnection between state and religion severely reduced the power and influence of priests and members of the royal court. But on Akhenaten’s death, these were restored by his son.

    Tutankhamun was named Tutankh-aten (“the living image of Aten”) at birth, but took the name of Amun back when Thebes was restored as the capital city of Egypt after his accession. This time (known as the Amarna period after the modern name of Akhenaten’s city) and its changes mean that it is more challenging to understand matters such as burial practices, religious rites and so on because it was not necessarily a “typical” time.

    Therefore, while we have learned much about funerary practices from Tutankhamun’s tomb, there are objects which are still being reinterpreted.

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    The artefacts in focus are a set of four clay trays, approximately 7.5 x 4.0 x 1.2cm, plain in design and apparently quite utilitarian.

    This type of artefact is known from other funerary contexts including elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings. They have been described in various ways as mud trays, earthen dishes or troughs. The lack of consistency in terminology and suggestions on function illustrate the difficulty in understanding their precise role in the tomb.

    Along with the clay trays are a set of wooden staves, just over a metre long, with a slight angle, and covered with gesso (a white pigment and binder mixture) and gold. In spite of the difference in materials, they were assumed by the man who uncovered the tomb, Howard Carter, to be directly associated with the trays. He believed they were probably intended as bases for the staffs to stand upright.

    One of the clay trays.
    Timeless Moon Public Archive

    However, it is clear that they have an even greater function to fulfil as, contextually, everything in the tomb has symbolism and meaning, even down to the wooden boxes for preserved meats, which were intended to sustain Tutankhamun in the afterlife.

    The care with which the trays and staff were laid out on matting indicates that they were important for the king’s burial. We might expect a royal burial to be filled with only the finest objects, made of the most valuable materials by elite craftsmen, with the association of materials such as gold with royalty and divinity. The richness of the rest of Tutankhamun’s burial for the most part fulfils this expectation. But, nevertheless, the ordinariness of the clay trays in the light of such riches confirms rather than refutes their significance.

    The restoration of order

    Following the royal court’s move back to Thebes in the wake of Akhenaten’s death, the restoration of Amun and the other gods was set in motion. The cult centre of Amun at the Temple of Karnak regained its status. The name of Akhenaten and his imagery, along with that of the sun disk, were subjected to a campaign of removal.

    Tutankhamun erected the so-called Restoration Stela with titles and epithets invoking the traditional gods, and statements on “having repaired what was ruined … having repelled disorder”. The upheaval of the Amarna Period was reversed.

    Discussions in academia on the dismantling of Akhenaten’s regime have tended to focus on issues such as name changes and the destruction of his upstart city. But ancient Egyptian religion had countless centuries of recorded tradition and observance, so profound demonstrations of loyalty to the traditional gods were needed.

    Two more clay trays from Tutankhamun’s tomb.
    Timeless Moon Public Archive

    The mud trays are now thought to be part of a wider funerary ritual, which both invoked the god Osiris and permitted the transfiguration of Tutankhamun. As king, he was thought to be the embodiment of the god Horus in life, and to become Osiris in death – rejuvenated and resurrected.

    Osiris is usually shown as a mummified king, with green or black skin to represent the fertility of the land and the new life which comes from it. It is not a coincidence that the trays are made of mud.

    Other aspects of the placement of the trays within the tomb such as specific placement and orientation (including particular symbols in the decoration of the tomb) indicate that the trays had a specific role to play. This may have been as an offering tray for Nile water, once more underlining the role of the river in creating life.

    Tutankhamun and his treasures are so familiar today that it is possible to overlook, or even forget, the fact that once the doors were sealed after his funeral they were meant to never be seen again. Some of his grave goods – particularly those made from gold – have outshone others. However, the ordinariness of the trays among all the riches suggests that they are crucial components of his burial. They confirm Tutankhamun as both renewed in death through Osiris, and the king who restored order to Egypt.

    Claire Isabella Gilmour 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. Tutankhamun: plain-looking mud trays in pharaoh’s tomb have been been key part of complex afterlife rituals – https://theconversation.com/tutankhamun-plain-looking-mud-trays-in-pharaohs-tomb-have-been-been-key-part-of-complex-afterlife-rituals-253479

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How dentists could help tackle obesity in children

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jessica Large, Doctoral Researcher, Centre for Lifestyle Medicine and Behaviour (CLiMB), Loughborough University

    © World Obesity , CC BY-NC-SA

    As a specialty registrar in paediatric dentistry, I’ve seen first-hand the pain children experience because of poor oral health. Tooth decay happens when teeth are damaged by acids produced by oral bacteria breaking down sugar from foods and drinks – and although it’s largely preventable – it’s the most common reason for hospital admission in children aged between five and nine in England.

    Tooth decay in children is also linked to obesity. Childhood obesity increases the risk of developing other diseases throughout childhood and into adulthood, including diabetes, high blood pressure and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

    My research, conducted with colleagues at Loughborough University, explores how acceptable and feasible it is for dental teams to offer weight checks and support, such as referral to weight loss programmes, to patients during routine appointments. In my job as a paediatric dentist, I discuss weight and health with families and offer referral to local healthy lifestyle services.

    The World Health Organization estimates that 43% of children have decay worldwide and 20% of children aged 5-19 years are overweight or living with obesity.

    In England, 29.3% of five-year-olds have tooth decay and 21.3% of four and five year olds are overweight or living with obesity. A diet high in sugary foods and drinks increases the risk of developing both conditions. and evidence suggests that children who are overweight or living with obesity are more likely to have tooth decay.

    Mouth disease is also linked with disease in other parts of the body. Gum disease, for example, is an infection of the tissues that support teeth, which has links with type 2 diabetes. When one disease is poorly controlled, it can make the other worse. The number of children with type 2 diabetes is increasing, with excess weight increasing the risk of developing this condition.

    Given the links between diet, tooth decay, obesity, type 2 diabetes, as well as other diseases that can develop when living with obesity, dental teams may be ideal professionals to tackle both tooth decay and obesity. It can be difficult to see an NHS dentist in the UK but NHS dental teams do see millions of children every year and already advise families on reducing sugary foods and drinks in the diet to reduce the risk of tooth decay.

    Dental teams taking body measurements is not new. Height and weight measurements to calculate body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat, are already collected by some dental teams. These measurements are helpful when prescribing medication and for planning dental treatment for children who need a general anaesthetic or sedation.

    Some hospital dental teams, such as in Edinburgh and Dundee in Scotland, also offer weight and height checks for children and young people as part of routine appointments. The child’s weight is discussed with the child’s parent or carer in a sensitive way and families are offered referral to a local service to support healthy lifestyle changes.

    This opportunity to support a child with their oral health as well as weight aligns with the NHS initiative, Making Every Contact Count. Making Every Contact Count calls on all health care professionals to take every opportunity within their appointments with patients to help improve patient health.

    Children living in more deprived areas of the UK are at least twice as likely to be living with overweight and obesity. They’re also three times as likely to have tooth decay. The NHS aims to reduce these inequalities among children and has chosen oral health and diabetes as two key areas to improve care for children and young people.

    The public have shown support for dental teams to talk about weight at dental visits and offer guidance to lose weight and improve health when done in a supportive way. Research published in 2024, found that over 80% of the public supported weight measurements being taken by dental teams and a discussion of weight at dental appointments. Most of the studies in this review came from the USA.

    A UK based survey asked parents and carers if they would feel comfortable with their child(ren)’s weight and height being taken at a dental appointment in a dental practice. The survey found 58% of parents and carers would feel comfortable and a further 12% might feel comfortable with this approach.

    This was very similar to how adults completing the survey felt about having their own height and weight measured at a dental appointment with 60% reporting they would feel comfortable and a further 10% saying they may feel comfortable.

    Discussing weight can feel uneasy and dental teams say they worry they will upset patients if they talk about weight. Some studies have found dental teams are also concerned they do not have enough time to talk about weight and that they have not had training on how to do this.

    However, studies have found when weight checks and support are offered to families by trained dental teams, help is well received and lack of time rarely a problem.

    Dental decay and obesity are preventable in many cases. Both conditions can continue into adulthood with the risk of developing other health problems.

    Research shows that dental teams are willing to provide support and that children and their families are open to receiving help for obesity. Dental teams do have an important role to play, as well as GPs and allied healthcare professionals, in tackling obesity in children as well as tooth decay.

    Jessica Large 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. How dentists could help tackle obesity in children – https://theconversation.com/how-dentists-could-help-tackle-obesity-in-children-252258

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why Nato is struggling to rebuild itself in an increasingly threatening world

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amelia Hadfield, Head of Department of Politics, University of Surrey

    In the years after Nato was formed in 1949, its US and European members had a collective approach to defence with clear goals in common, largely built around the protection of western Europe against the Soviet Union. Throughout this era, the US and Europe both relied on the stability of the international system by creating international cooperation on shared dilemmas.

    Fast forward more than 70 years, and there is now a ticking clock on reinventing the transatlantic alliance.

    European security and US-led Nato security are no longer one and the same. Certainly, recent statements from US leaders that the US will prioritise empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security has made for tough listening in Europe.

    For some, this may be an overdue opportunity to fundamentally rework the transatlantic security relationship. For others, such statements are worryingly set against the backdrop of Trump’s pro-Russia stance, with Trump’s demands sounding sinister at best.

    Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte recently outlined a need to “build a stronger, a fairer and more lethal NATO”. Global threats were creating a more dangerous world, he argued.

    Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, speaks at a 2025 meeting in Brussels,

    From its establishment by 12 states on April 4, 1949, until the end of the cold war era, Nato was focused on one big thing: deterring Soviet aggression. Ultimately, Nato had one job, one enemy, one threat, one theatre and one instrument of power.

    It was a partnership that enabled the US to build and maintain a more permanent role in European security. This collective security plan prevented the US from falling back into isolationist foreign policies that it had held before the second world war

    Arguably, US attitudes fluctuated throughout this era. Initially the country sought a temporary role in Nato, with limited military commitment. It also encouraged western European Nato members to take early and primary responsibility for defence.

    However, the huge Soviet nuclear threat hardened US attitudes. And Nato came to be seen as key to the US’s overall ability to prevent a Soviet invasion of western Europe. Equally important was the role of the Marshall Plan, a massive post-war reconstruction plan for Europe, which (in conjunction with Nato) represented the US’s desire to work with European partners to both stabilise the region, and ensure democracy.

    Through the decades that followed, the US saw Nato as a cornerstone of its foreign policy. It is important to remember that transactionality has always been an integral part of the transatlantic relationship, but it was never at the expense of the values that underpinned it, and indeed reinforced both US national and European regional interests in doing so.

    Throughout the 1990s, and well into the 2000s, Nato clearly represented the US’s preferred method of maintaining its military presence in Europe (including US bases, weapons and troops stationed in member countries). The US drove the redefinition of post-cold war Nato, to include former Warsaw Pact countries including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.



    Read more:
    US and Russia squabble over Arctic security as melting ice opens up shipping routes

    The question now is whether US leadership in Nato was focused so extensively on security of Europe and pushing back against the Soviets that for a long time the dilemma of who paid for what was essentially set aside.

    Long overdue problems?

    But two wake-up calls were to come. The first was the increasingly clear indications from US administrations from Barack Obama’s presidency onwards that the US was ill at ease with Nato as a whole, and it was unhappy with the lower financial commitment, than the US, coming from European members.

    The second was in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. Unfortunately, the first warning sign by Obama was largely ignored; and when Russia invaded Crimea, Nato did not step up to push back against Putin’s expansionism.

    Now, Nato finds itself once again in the crosshairs of US anger about funding, and with Trump furious at European defence spending levels, and determined to massively revise the transatlantic bargain.

    Trump’s first administration put spending from European Nato members firmly on the table. His recent position is merely a continuation of that theme.

    From the European perspective, the US was, and is, a key part of the collective security structure that has empowered European defence and deterrence, but possibly with an out-of-date funding model.

    Trump, meanwhile, appears to see the US’s involvement as politically naïve. He seems to view Nato as strategically futile and defence spending imbalances as an indication that Nato is nothing more than a giant security racket.

    What is stark is the reversal between the US having helped found Nato and as the leading nation backing of a rule-bound global system under international law and Trump’s preference to reject any responsibilities for global leadership and stability.

    What has come as a shock to European members is not perhaps the demands regarding improving defence funding, but the abdication of US leadership and the threat to leave Nato completely, with no ongoing US responsibility to defend the world order.

    The onus is now on European Nato members to make both serious and swift changes. Indications of far more serious financial commitments, including from Germany, are emerging. European defence spending overall increased by 11.7% over the last year to roughly €423.3 billion (£371 billion), representing ten years of consecutive regional growth.

    Next steps include focusing on AI-led technologies, cheap drones, digital tech and improved commitments to joint projects.

    But the hardest task is also the most urgent. Namely, to avoid the chaos of a unilateral US withdrawal from Nato.

    There’s a need to move the financial and military burden to Europe in a way agreeable to the US before the Nato summit in June. Discussions on how to achieve this need to cover everything from nuclear deterrence to challenges arising from the conflict in Ukraine.

    Whether Rutte and European states can indeed preserve and maintain the collective security foundations on which Nato was first built remains to be seen. But, certainly, the current world situation is no less dangerous that the world in which Nato itself was first built.

    Amelia Hadfield 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 Nato is struggling to rebuild itself in an increasingly threatening world – https://theconversation.com/why-nato-is-struggling-to-rebuild-itself-in-an-increasingly-threatening-world-253494

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What autistic people think should be prioritised in education for autistic learners

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura Gormley, Assistant Professor in Education, Dublin City University

    wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

    The education of autistic children and young people in western societies has been heavily influenced by a medicalised understanding of autism. This means considering autism as a disorder, with a focus on correcting autistic people’s perceived lacks, rather than building on their strengths.

    Autistic learners’ strengths, interests, preferences, goals and values were typically sidelined. Making the learner appear less autistic was the main focus.

    This included increasing eye contact and building neurotypical social skills. It involved attempting to reduce stimming: self-stimulatory behaviour, which can include chewing on objects, fidgeting, watching moving objects, and making repetitive sounds.



    Read more:
    Autistic stimming explained – and why stopping it can lead to burnout

    However, the neurodiversity movement – a social advocacy movement that promotes the idea that neurological differences are an expected and normal part of human variation – has challenged these assumptions. Instead of the autistic learner being viewed as disabled, it suggests the educational environment can be disabling for the autistic learner.

    This contrasts with the past when school norms typically did not support the strengths and needs of autistic learners. These children were expected to fit in.

    What autistic people want

    The autistic voice has been largely missing from educational research and policymaking. My research study with colleagues, co-produced with autistic researchers, set out to change this. We wanted to identify the educational priorities of adult members of the autistic community, as well as teachers supporting autistic learners, in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

    We did this by carrying out a survey comprising 34 autistic adults with no role in education (non-educators), ten autistic educators, and 65 non-autistic educators who supported autistic learners. We asked them about priority goals to be included in individual education plans for autistic learners.

    The individual education plan is the foundation of inclusive and special education in many countries. It serves as an educational map that charts the learner’s current level of performance and their annual goals. It lays out the steps and resources needed to reach these goals.

    In countries such as Finland, the US and UK, an individual learning plan is legally mandated for all learners who make use of special education services. However, this is not the case in the Republic of Ireland. Provisions were made in the 2004 Education for Persons with Special Education Needs Act. Over 20 years later, though, individual education plans are still not compulsory, regulated or assessed in the Republic of Ireland.

    This lack of oversight has occurred against the backdrop of a 600% increase in special classes in the Republic of Ireland from 2013 to 2023. Autism classes accounted for 89% of these – 2,466 classes out of a total of 2,754.

    Before carrying out the survey, we expected very little overlap in the goal priorities of autistic respondents and non-autistic respondents. We were wrong. Our findings clearly showed significant overlap in the priorities across the groups.

    Our survey respondents prioritised goals that promote autonomy, social inclusion and communication. They saw these goals as contributing positively to autistic wellbeing.

    Learning goals that focused on social inclusion were a priority.
    wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

    On the other hand, academic goals did not feature as a priority for the vast majority of respondents. Academic goals include reading comprehension, writing skills, critical thinking, time management, problem solving and maths skills.

    It could be argued that this does a disservice to the educational potential of autistic learners. However, while academic goals are important, wellbeing must come first. Without a strong foundation of physical and mental health, meaningful academic success is difficult to achieve.

    Finally, all groups actively discouraged educational goals that focused on improving eye contact and reducing stimming. The overriding consensus was that a focus on changing these aspects of behaviour is detrimental to a learner’s ability to work towards meaningful and functional educational goals including independence, wellbeing and social inclusion.

    Prioritising wellbeing

    There is growing support for prioritising wellbeing, communication, socialisation and daily living skills over more academic goals. However, teachers may not be equipped to design, teach and monitor goals that align with these priorities of the autistic community.

    Teachers in a UK study cited several barriers to supporting autistic learners in their classrooms. Their greatest frustration came from having limited access to autism-specific knowledge and expertise during their initial teacher training.

    Similar frustrations were also reported among Irish teachers. Many teachers in the study thought a specialised qualification should be compulsory for those teaching in autism classes.

    However, autism prevalence rates are on the rise, and there is an international trend towards inclusive education – educating children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. This means there is a growing likelihood that teachers will find themselves supporting autistic learners.

    Research shows that teachers’ attitudes, knowledge and skills towards inclusion are improved if they can go on placements during their training to schools that emphasise a culture of inclusion.

    Partnerships between universities and schools could be an important way to make this happen. This could help empower student teachers to go on to design and support effective individual education plans for their autistic learners.

    However, without a legal mandate for individual education plans in the Republic of Ireland, initial teacher education and teacher professional development programmes will continue to struggle to effectively prepare teachers for this part of their role.

    Laura Gormley works as an assistant professor in Dublin City university and received seed funding from SCoTENS (The Standing Conference on Teacher Education, North and South) to carry out this study.

    – ref. What autistic people think should be prioritised in education for autistic learners – https://theconversation.com/what-autistic-people-think-should-be-prioritised-in-education-for-autistic-learners-250195

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump thinks tariffs can bring back the glory days of US manufacturing. Here’s why he’s wrong

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Scott, Reader in International Politics, King’s College London

    The “liberation day” tariffs announced by US president Donald Trump have one thing in common – they are being applied to goods only. Trade in services between the US and its partners is not affected. This is the perfect example of Trump’s peculiar focus on trade in goods and, by extension, his nostalgic but outdated obsession with manufacturing.

    The fallout from liberation day continues, with markets down around the world. The decision to apply tariffs on a country-by-country basis means that rules about where a product is deemed to come from are now of central importance.

    The stakes for getting it wrong could be high. Trump has threatened that anyone seeking to avoid tariffs by shifting the supposed origin of a product to a country with lower rates could face a ten-year jail term.

    The White House initially refused to specify how it came up with the tariff levels. But it appears that each country’s rate was arrived at by taking the US goods trade deficit with that country, dividing it by the value of that country’s goods exports to the US and then halving it, with 10% set as the minimum.

    It has been noted that this is effectively the approach suggested by AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Grok when asked how to create “an even playing field”.

    Economically, Trump’s fixation on goods makes no sense. This view is not unique to the president (though he feels it unusually strongly). There is a broader fetishisation of manufacturing in many countries. One theory is that it is potentially ingrained in human thinking by pre-historic experiences of finding food, fuel and shelter dominating all other activities.

    But for Trump, the thinking is likely related to a combination of nostalgia for a bygone (somewhat imagined) age of manufacturing, and concern over the loss of quality jobs that provide a solid standard of living for blue collar workers – a core part of his political base.

    Nostalgia is not a sensible basis for forming economic policy. But the role emotions play in international affairs has been receiving more attention. It has been identified as an “emotional turn” (where the importance of emotion is recognised) in the discipline of international relations.

    Of course, that’s not to say that the concern over jobs and the unequal effects of globalisation is misplaced. It is clear that blue-collar workers have suffered in the US (and elsewhere) for the last 40 to 50 years, with governments paying little attention to the decline.

    Many blue-collar workers, like these GM car plant employees in Missouri, have paid a high price for globalisation.
    Jon Rehg/Shutterstock

    Data on weekly earnings in the US split by educational level show that wages for those without a degree have declined or stagnated since around 1973, particularly among men. This is the cohort that disproportionately voted for Trump. Globalisation has created many benefits, not least to the United States, but these tend to be concentrated among the better educated.

    All too often the service-sector jobs that have filled the gap left by declining manufacturing have been precarious. That means low wages, low security, lack of union representation and few opportunities for moving up the ladder. It is unsurprising that there has been a backlash.

    Can’t turn back the clock

    So will Trump’s tariffs plan address this? The great tragedy is that there is little reason to think that they will.

    The loss of manufacturing jobs is partly about globalisation, which Trump is seeking to reverse. But research shows that trade and globalisation are often more of a scapegoat than a driving force, responsible for only a small chunk of job losses (typically said to be about 10%).

    The main cause of manufacturing’s decline is rising productivity. Today it simply requires fewer people to make goods due to the relentless increase in automation and the associated rise in how much each worker produces.

    If the whole US trade deficit were rebalanced through expanding domestic industries, this would increase the share of manufacturing employment within the US by about one percentage point, from about 8% today to 9% according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. This is not going to be transformative.

    The effects of tariffs are also doubled-edged. They will probably shift some manufacturing back to the US – but this could be self-defeating. More US steel production is good for workers, but the higher cost of US steel feeds through to higher prices for the products manufactured with it.

    This includes the cars Trump obsesses about. Less competitive prices means lower exports and a loss of jobs. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

    The 1950s were a unique time. By the end of the second world war, the US was a manufacturing powerhouse, accounting for one third of the world’s exports while taking only around a tenth of its imports.

    There were few other industrialised countries at the time, and these had been flattened by the war. The US alone had avoided this, creating a world of massive demand for US exports since nowhere else had a significant manufacturing base. That was never going to last forever.

    The other point about that time in history is that the economic system had been shaped by colonialism. European powers had used their position of power to prevent the rest of the world from industrialising. As those empires were dismantled and the shackles came off, those newly independent countries began their own processes of industrialisation.

    As for the US today, President Trump is mistaken if he really believes that tariffs will bring a new golden age of manufacturing. The world has changed.

    James Scott 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. Trump thinks tariffs can bring back the glory days of US manufacturing. Here’s why he’s wrong – https://theconversation.com/trump-thinks-tariffs-can-bring-back-the-glory-days-of-us-manufacturing-heres-why-hes-wrong-253991

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Providing farmworkers with health insurance is worth it for their employers − new research

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Lowrey, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain and Health Sciences, Northeastern University

    Farmworkers at Del Bosque Farms pick and pack melons on a mobile platform in Firebaugh, Calif., in July 2021. AP Photo/Terry Chea

    Agricultural employers who provide farmworkers with health insurance earn higher profits, even after accounting for the cost of that coverage. In addition, farmworkers who get health insurance through their employers are more productive and earn more money than those who do not.

    These are the key findings from our study published in the March 2025 issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

    To conduct this research, we crunched over three decades of data from the Labor Department’s National Agricultural Workers Survey. We focused on California, the nation’s largest producer of fruits, nuts and other labor-intensive agricultural products in the U.S., from 1989 to 2022.

    We determined that if 20% more farmworkers got health insurance coverage, they would have earned $23,063 a year in 2022, up from $22,482 if they did not. Their employers, meanwhile, would earn $7,303 in net profits per worker annually in this same scenario, versus $6,598.

    Why it matters

    Roughly half of California’s agricultural employers are facing labor shortages at a time when the average age of U.S. farmworkers is also rising.

    Some of them, including grape producers, are responding by investing more heavily in labor-saving equipment, which helps reduce the need for seasonal manual labor. However, automated harvesting isn’t yet a viable or affordable option for labor-intensive specialty crops such as melons and strawberries.

    Despite labor shortages, agricultural employers may be reluctant to increase total compensation for farmworkers. They may also be wary of providing additional benefits such as health insurance for two main reasons.

    First, seasonal workers are, by definition, transient, meaning that the employer who provides coverage may not necessarily be the same one who benefits from a healthier worker. Second, it costs an employer money but doesn’t necessarily benefit them in the future if the worker moves on.

    Most U.S. farmworkers are immigrants from Mexico or Central America. Roughly 42% are immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal authorization, down from 55% in the early 2000s.

    As the share of farmworkers who are unauthorized immigrants has declined, the share who are U.S. citizens – including those born here – has grown and now stands at about 39%.

    The low wages farmworkers earn offer little incentive for more U.S. citizens and permanent residents to take these jobs. These jobs might become more attractive if employers offered health care coverage to protect the health of the worker and their household.

    Farmworkers who lack legal authorization to be in the U.S. are not eligible for private health insurance policies, and many can’t enroll in Medicaid, a government-run health insurance program that’s primarily for low-income Americans and people with disabilities. Regardless, some employers do take steps to help them gain access to health care services. As of 2025, a large share of farmworkers remain uninsured, including many citizens and immigrants with legal status.

    Limited access to health care is an unfortunate reality for farmworkers, whose jobs are physically demanding and dangerous. In addition, farmworkers are paid at or near the minimum wage and are constantly searching for their next employment opportunity. This uncertainty causes high levels of stress, which can contribute to chronic health issues such as hypertension.

    What still isn’t known

    It is hard to estimate the effect of employer-provided health insurance on workers and employers, since labor market outcomes are a result of highly complex interactions.

    For example, wages, productivity and how long someone keeps their job are highly interdependent variables determined by the interaction between what workers seek and what employers offer. And wages do not always reflect a worker’s skills and abilities, as some people are more willing to accept a job with low pay if their compensation includes good benefits such as health insurance.

    The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

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

    – ref. Providing farmworkers with health insurance is worth it for their employers − new research – https://theconversation.com/providing-farmworkers-with-health-insurance-is-worth-it-for-their-employers-new-research-253200

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The founder kings of Silicon Valley: Dual-class stock gives US social media company controllers nearly as much power as ByteDance has over TikTok

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Gregory H. Shill, Professor of Law & Michael and Brenda Sandler Faculty Fellow in Corporate Law, University of Iowa

    When Congress passed a law in 2024 to ban TikTok unless it came under U.S. ownership, lawmakers argued that the app’s Chinese parent company posed national security concerns. The Trump administration, which had granted the viral video app a reprieve shortly after taking office in January 2025, extended that pause again on April 4 after the Chinese government reportedly scuttled a planned deal.

    Regardless of how this all shakes out, the TikTok fight underscores deeper concerns about who controls social media in the United States.

    Given that worry, it might surprise Americans to learn that nearly every social media giant is controlled by just one or two men. For example, Mark Zuckerberg controls Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, while Larry Page and Sergey Brin control Alphabet, which owns YouTube and Google.

    What does “control” mean? These companies are publicly traded – anybody can buy or sell their shares – but a legal mechanism known as dual-class stock gives founders extra votes in shareholder decisions. The dual-class structure crowns these men “corporate royalty,” as one former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner has put it, granting them near-absolute control of corporate policy and resources without requiring them to take on commensurate financial risk.

    While TikTok is unusual in many respects, the way it vests power in one man is actually quite banal. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is privately held, but it’s reportedly controlled by a co-founder, Chinese national Zhang Yiming, via a dual-class structure.

    As a professor of corporate law, I’d urge policymakers and the public to consider the societal risks of a system that allows a single person to wield full control over a major corporation through dual-class stock.

    The dual-class effect: Meta as a case study

    In a standard single-class structure – where voting power tracks the amount of company equity a shareholder owns – someone seeking total control of a company must ordinarily spend a lot of money buying up shares, which also means assuming a lot of risk. This “skin in the game” requirement limits how much influence a single person can exert on a company.

    That safeguard is informal, not mandatory, and dual-class structures do away with it. Ascendant among Silicon Valley firms since Google’s 2004 initial public offering in the U.S. and recently legalized in the U.K., the dual-class model is fiercely debated in corporate governance circles. To date, however, its downsides have been understood only as a problem for shareholders, not society, despite broad and bipartisan concern about the influence of Big Tech.

    Let’s pick on Meta as an example. Zuckerberg reportedly owns just 13.5% of the company’s equity, but because he owns 99.7% of the supervoting shares, he controls 61% of the company’s votes.

    This setup gives him a lock on corporate policy as a controlling shareholder, even though he only owns a bit over one-eighth of Meta stock by value. He has full control of the company without placing anywhere near an equivalent amount of money at risk.

    You don’t have to be the parent of an Instagram-addicted teenager to see that Meta has generated what might be described as social costs. For example, Amnesty International has alleged that Facebook algorithms “substantially contributed to the atrocities perpetrated by the Myanmar military” in 2017. Facebook has also been criticized for promoting misinformation during past U.S. elections and for suppressing embarrassing stories about Hunter Biden.

    These examples underscore broader social concerns around content moderation, privacy and tech titans’ outsized political influence. Notably, Zuckerberg – who has been associated with progressive causes in the past – has moved to embrace President Donald Trump strongly in recent months and asked for Trump’s support for Meta in a legal battle with the European Union.

    When corporate control meets the Supreme Court

    In a 2023 law journal article, I noted that recent Supreme Court decisions expanding corporate constitutional rights stand to give company founders unprecedented power to shape society. While the rise of founder-controlled social media giants with distinct political agendas has gotten a lot of attention, the widening scope of what is deemed protected corporate speech and religious exercise hasn’t been a part of that conversation.

    I think there’s a real possibility that these two streams will converge, granting constitutional protection to “founder kings” who wish to leverage company resources for private agendas. Two recent legal developments raise the stakes.

    First, the courts – and in particular the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts – have been expanding corporate constitutional rights, which could allow dual-class founders to carve out exceptions to generally applicable laws.

    Second, recent legal changes in Delaware – which despite its tiny size is the leading corporate law jurisdiction in the U.S. – could make it easier for dual-class controlling shareholders to exercise power within their companies.

    To get a sense of the potential consequences, suppose the controlling shareholder of a dual-class company were to cause it to defy a federal mandate – for example, a requirement to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception – on the grounds that complying would violate their religious beliefs. The Supreme Court in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell recognized exactly this sort of faith-based exception for a large family-owned but privately held business.

    Would it recognize such an exception for a company like Snap? The company, best known for its app Snapchat, is publicly traded, but just two men, Robert Murphy and Evan Spiegel, control 99.5% of the voting power.

    We can’t be sure. Hobby Lobby is different from Snap in many ways. Yet what they have in common is the ability of their owners to plausibly claim a unitary speech or religious exercise interest that would not characterize a typical large business. Snap’s public owners have no say at all – zero votes – in the company’s affairs. If the controllers of Snap asserted a religious basis for exempting the company from a regulation – and to be clear, this is a purely hypothetical example – the courts might well indulge the claim.

    The judicial system’s expanding view of corporate constitutional rights – seen not just in Hobby Lobby but in Citizens United v. FEC and a number of more recent and ongoing cases in state and lower federal courts – could empower founders to leverage their businesses for private agendas. Whether or not this is likely for Snap in particular, the combination of the dual-class model and changes in the law would seem to leave the door open.

    Elon Musk vs. the dual-class model

    A fitting contrast might be none other than Twitter – renamed X after Elon Musk acquired it and who recently merged it into xAI, another Musk-led venture.

    As a privately held company, xAI is not required to file public investor reports, and much about its ownership structure remains opaque. But let’s assume the company is majority-owned by Musk in a conventional single-class structure – the type Twitter had before he bought it. Given a chance to provoke, Musk has consistently proved eager to raise his hand. Couldn’t he use his control to get X or xAI – we’ll stick with “X” for simplicity – to exercise the same vast control that Murphy and Spiegel could at Snap, or Zuckerberg at Meta?

    Yes – but with a subtle yet important difference.

    There’s a certain logic to X’s key corporate decisions being vested in Musk. Quite famously, he ponied up US$44 billion to buy the entire company. Legal prohibitions on the deployment of private resources for influence are confined to a small universe of cases – antitrust, bribery, certain types of campaign contributions. Those resources include businesses, which are a form of property, that are owned by wealthy individuals or groups. With limited exceptions, people can use their own property as they wish.

    In a dual-class company, though, controllers use other people’s property as they wish. They can get the immense legal, economic and organizational power of the corporate form without having to put much skin in the game.

    Beyond TikTok: The conversation the US should be having

    Traditionally, questions of rich-guy influence have been seen through the lens of politics, taxes or public regulation. But seeing them as questions about the exercise of private corporate control makes clear the special social challenges posed by dual-class stock.

    Wall Street has mostly accepted the bargain: ironclad insulation of Zuckerberg in exchange for rock-solid Meta returns. But this debate is not only of interest for the investment community. Everyone has a stake in its outcome.

    It’s fair for the public to question the wisdom of allowing company founders to leverage the resources and newly jumbo-sized constitutional rights of large corporations in service of a special agenda – be it for a foreign government, a political party or a religious faith – that isn’t even connected to classical purposes of the corporation or advantages of the dual-class model.

    The distinctive risks posed by TikTok are mostly unrelated to its share structure. But the debate over the ban-or-sell law offers a reminder: The powers created by dual-class stock aren’t unique to Chinese control. America’s homegrown-found kings wield them, too.

    Gregory H. Shill 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. The founder kings of Silicon Valley: Dual-class stock gives US social media company controllers nearly as much power as ByteDance has over TikTok – https://theconversation.com/the-founder-kings-of-silicon-valley-dual-class-stock-gives-us-social-media-company-controllers-nearly-as-much-power-as-bytedance-has-over-tiktok-253671

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Cities that want to attract business might want to focus less on financial incentives and more on making people feel safe

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kaitlyn DeGhetto, Associate Professor of Management, University of Dayton

    To attract business investment, American cities and states offer companies billions of dollars in incentives, such as tax credits. As the theory goes, when governments create a business-friendly environment, it encourages investment, leading to job creation and economic growth.

    While this theory may seem logical on its face, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Business investment follows employees, not just the other way around. In fact, our research suggests workers care less about whether a city has business-friendly policies and more about how safe they feel living in it. And interestingly, we found that politics influence people’s risk perceptions more than hard data such as crime statistics.

    Our findings have major implications for cities and businesses. If people choose where to live and work based on perceived safety rather than economic incentives, then entrepreneurs and city leaders may need to rethink how they approach growth and investment.

    The many faces of risk

    We are management professors who surveyed more than 500 employees and entrepreneurs from across the country to better understand how they rate 25 large U.S. cities on various dimensions of risk.

    We asked about three different types of risk: risk related to crime, government function and social issues. Risk related to government function includes corruption and instability, while risk related to social issues includes potential infringements on individual rights.

    We found that people’s views of risk weren’t driven primarily by objective statistics, such as FBI crime data. Instead, they were shaped by factors such as media representations, word of mouth and geographic stereotypes.

    For example, studies suggest that crime in Denver has been rising, and U.S. News and World Report recently ranked it as the 10th most dangerous city based on FBI crime reports. However, the employees and entrepreneurs we surveyed ranked Denver as the safest city in the country.

    It’s all politics

    We found that political perspectives were the main factor biasing the rankings. For example, conservative-leaning employees and entrepreneurs believed that Portland, Oregon, is dangerous, ranking it as America’s ninth-riskiest city. In contrast, those who are liberal-leaning ranked it as the second-safest city in the country.

    Both of these beliefs can’t be accurate. Instead, when basing the ranking on objective crime data from the FBI, U.S. News ranked Portland the 15th most dangerous city in the country.

    When assessing risk related to how the government functions, conservatives praised politicians in Nashville, Charlotte and Dallas, while the liberals praised those in Denver, Minneapolis and Portland. Similarly, when considering risk related to social issues, conservatives said New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco were “risky,” while the liberals said Tampa, Miami and Houston should be avoided.

    Our findings also suggest that political perspectives influence the types of risk that employers and employees care about. For example, conservatives tend to care more about crime-related risk than liberals, and liberals care more about risk related to social issues.

    Now what?

    We’re not advocating that city leaders drop financial incentives altogether, or that employers ignore them. Evidence suggests that financial incentives and other business-friendly policies may be effective at attracting businesses and strengthening local economies.

    However, our research suggests that when individuals are making important life decisions about where to live, work and invest, a city’s level of risk matters. Importantly, beliefs about risk are subjective and are biased by political perspectives.

    In our view, city leaders must recognize and address concerns about crime, governance and social issues while actively working to improve public perceptions of their cities. Likewise, businesses may want to consider investing in cities that are less politically polarized when making investment decisions.

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

    – ref. Cities that want to attract business might want to focus less on financial incentives and more on making people feel safe – https://theconversation.com/cities-that-want-to-attract-business-might-want-to-focus-less-on-financial-incentives-and-more-on-making-people-feel-safe-250247

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Peru’s ancient irrigation systems turned deserts into farms because of the culture − without it, the systems failed

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ari Caramanica, Assistant Professor of Archaeology, Vanderbilt University

    A pre-Hispanic canal funnels water from mountains to farm fields. Ari Caramanica

    Seeing the north coast of Peru for the first time, you would be hard-pressed to believe it’s one of the driest deserts in the world.

    Parts of the region receive less than an inch of rain in an entire year. Yet, water and greenery are everywhere. This is the nation’s agro-industrial heartland, and, thanks to irrigation canals, almost every inch of the floodplain is blanketed in lucrative export crops, such as sugarcane, asparagus and blueberries.

    However, the apparent success of this system masks an underlying fragility.

    Water shortages have plagued the region for centuries, and now modern climate change combined with agro-industrial practices have further intensified droughts. In response, the Peruvian government has invested billions of dollars in irrigation infrastructure in recent years designed to deliver more water from a resource more than 100 miles away: glaciers in the Andes.

    But the Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru has lost over half its glacier surface area since 1962. At the same time, floods often connected to wet El Niño years are increasing in both frequency and intensity. These floods often destroy or obstruct critical irrigation infrastructure.

    Andean glaciers are disappearing as global temperatures rise. Peru lost over half its glacier surface area in the past half-century.
    mmphoto/DigitalVision via Getty Images

    As an archaeologist investigating societal responses to environmental and climate disaster in Peru, I’m interested in unraveling the histories of complex systems to understand how to improve similar systems today. To understand the Peruvian heartland’s vulnerabilities, it helps to look to the deep past.

    Most of the modern canal network originally dates to pre-Hispanic times, more than 1400 years ago. However, evidence suggests that while the canal systems of the past may have looked similar to those of the present, they functioned in more efficient, flexible ways. The key to adapting to our present and future climate may lie in comprehending the knowledge systems of the past – not just the equipment, technology or infrastructure, but how people used it.

    An environment of extremes

    The north coast of Peru is an environment of extremes.

    In this desert, thousands of years ago, societies encountered many of the same challenges posed by the modern climate crisis: expanding drylands, water scarcity, vulnerable food production systems, and frequent, intense natural disasters.

    Yet, people not only occupied this area for millennia, they thrived in it. Moche and Chimu societies created sophisticated, complex political and religious institutions, art and technology, and one of the largest pyramidal structures in the Americas.

    Relief of fish adorn an adobe wall in the historic Tschudi Complex archaeological site at Chan Chan, the former capital of the Chimu empire in Peru.
    FabulousFabs/Flickr, CC BY-NC

    When the Spanish arrived on the desert north coast of Peru shortly after 1532 C.E., early chroniclers remarked on the verdant, green valleys across the region.

    The Spanish immediately recognized the importance of the canal network. They had used similar canal technology in Spain for centuries. So, they set about conscripting Indigenous labor and adapting the irrigation system to their goals.

    Just a few decades later, however, historic records describe sand dunes and scrublands invading the green valleys, water shortages, and in 1578 a massive El Niño flood that nearly ended the young colony.

    So how did the Indigenous operation of this landscape succeed, where the Spanish and the modern-day agro-industrial complex have repeatedly failed?

    Culture was crucial for ancient canal systems

    Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in ancient times. Isolating and removing the tools from that knowledge made them less effective.

    Scientists, policymakers and stakeholders searching for models of sustainable agriculture and climate adaptations can look to the archaeological record. Successfully applying past practices to today’s challenges requires learning about the cultures that put those tools to work effectively for so long, so long ago.

    The pre-Hispanic societies of Peru developed agricultural principles around the realities of the desert, which included both dry seasons and flash floods.

    Large-scale irrigation infrastructure was combined with low-cost, easily modified canals. Aqueducts doubled as sediment traps to capture nutrients. Canal branches channeled both river water and floodwater. Even check-dams – small dams used to control high-energy floods – worked in multiple ways. Usually made of mounded cobble and gravel, they reduced the energy of flash floods, captured rich sediments and recharged the water table.

    A drone’s view of sugarcane fields shows a pre-Hispanic adobe aqueduct on the right and small feeder canals in the modern fields.
    Ari Caramanica

    The initial failures of the Spanish on the north coast exemplify the problem of trying to adopt technology without understanding the cultural insights behind it: While they may be identical in form, a Spanish canal isn’t a Moche canal.

    Spanish canals operated in a temperate climate and were managed by individual farmers who could maintain or increase their water flow. The Moche and Chimu canal was tied to a complex labor system that synchronized cleaning and maintenance and prioritized the efficient use of water. What’s more, Moche canals functioned in tandem with floodwater diversion canals, which activated during El Niño events to create niches of agricultural productivity amid disasters.

    A handmade gate on a modern canal in northern Peru doesn’t seem that different from ancient canals, but the pre-Hispanic canal systems were generally more conceptually complex and interconnected.
    Ari Caramanica

    Desert farming required flexibility and multifunctionality from its infrastructure. Achieving that often meant forgoing impermeable materials and permanent designs, which stands in stark contrast to the way modern-day water management works are constructed.

    Copying ancient practices without the culture

    Today, the Peruvian government is pushing forward with a decades-old, multibillion-dollar project to deliver water to the north coast from a glacier-fed river.

    The Chavimochic project promises a grand transformation, turning desert into productive farmland. But it may be sacrificing long-term resilience for short-term prosperity.

    The project feeds on the temporary abundance of glacial meltwater. This is creating a water boom as the ice melts, but it will inevitably be followed by a devastating water bust as the glaciers all but disappear, which scientists estimate could happen by the end of the 21st century.

    Farmers sell locally grown corn and other crops at a street market in Piura, Peru.
    Christian Ender/Getty Images

    Meanwhile, sustainable land management practices of past Indigenous inhabitants continue to support ecosystems hundreds and even thousands of years later. Studies show higher levels of biodiversity, crucial to ecosystem health, near archaeological sites.

    On the Peruvian north coast, pre-Hispanic infrastructure continues to capture floodwater during El Niño events. When their modern-day fields are flooded or destroyed by these events, farmers will sometimes move their crops to areas surrounding archaeological remains where their corn, squash and bean plants can tap into the trapped water and sediments and safely grow without the need for further irrigation.

    Critics might point out the difficulty of scaling up ancient technologies for global applications, find them rudimentary, or would prefer to appropriate the design without bothering with understanding “the cultural stuff.”

    But this framing misses the bigger point: What made these technologies effective was the cultural stuff. Not just the tools but how they were used by the societies operating them. As long as modern engineering solutions try to update ancient technologies without considering the cultures that made them function, these projects will struggle.

    Understanding the past matters

    Archaeologists have an important role to play in building a climate-resilient future, but any meaningful progress would benefit from a historical approach that considers multiple ways of understanding the environment, of operating an irrigation canal and of organizing an agriculture-based economy.

    That approach, in my view, begins with saving indigenous languages, where cultural logic is deeply embedded, as well as preserving archaeological and sacred sites, and creating partnerships built on trust with the people who have worked with the land and whose cultures have adapted their practices to the changing climate for thousands of years.

    Ari Caramanica receives funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities.

    – ref. Peru’s ancient irrigation systems turned deserts into farms because of the culture − without it, the systems failed – https://theconversation.com/perus-ancient-irrigation-systems-turned-deserts-into-farms-because-of-the-culture-without-it-the-systems-failed-251199

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The ‘courage to be’ in uncertain times − how one 20th-century philosopher defined bravery

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mordechai Gordon, Professor of Education, Quinnipiac University

    Over the past few weeks, as negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine drag on, I’ve thought back to Feb. 28, 2025: the day of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s heated visit to the Oval Office.

    Zelenskyy has called the tone of the meeting “regrettable” as he tries to salvage support for Ukraine. But in some ways, he has stood by his decision to speak up as President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated his country, calling it ungrateful for foreign assistance. “In that conversation, I was defending the dignity of Ukraine,” he told Time magazine.

    Watching Zelenskyy left me thinking about political courage. Philosophers have written about bravery for thousands of years, but what is it?

    Plato, for instance, wrote about courage as an important virtue that can assist political leaders. Plato scholar Linda Rabieh argues that courage is the ability to be steadfast in the moment of truth. Angela Hobbs, a British scholar, says that courage might be called “spiritedness”: the ability to act boldly in adverse situations.

    Some of my own recent research in philosophy of education has also focused on courage. In particular, I have been interested in Paul Tillich’s notion of the “courage to be,” as well as its implications for politics and education. Tillich was a German philosopher and theologian who left the country after the Nazis rose to power.

    Tillich Park in New Harmony, Ind., dedicated to the philosopher and theologian.
    christina rutz/Flickr, CC BY-SA

    More than a mindset

    Born in a village in eastern Germany in 1886, Tillich lived in a Europe ravaged by two world wars. As such, he experienced firsthand the fundamental anxiety that many felt during this period of prolonged violence and destruction.

    In the early 1930s, Tillich wrote “The Socialist Decision,” which can be interpreted as a challenge to right-wing populist movements. The Nazis banned the book, and he soon immigrated to the United States, where he would spend the rest of his life and write his most important philosophical and theological works.

    Tillich’s book “The Courage to Be,” published in 1952, is based on a series of lectures that he delivered at Yale University. Tillich was inspired to address courage, since he viewed this concept as one that integrates theological, sociological and philosophical problems. Moreover, Tillich suggests that this concept was useful for understanding societies’ challenges after World War II.

    Tillich moved to the U.S. in the 1930s, after the Nazis’ rise to power.
    Fritz Eschen/ullstein bild via Getty Images

    At its core, the book springs from an attempt to respond to anxiety: people’s anxious search for meaning and security, especially as many people lost faith in the religious traditions that once anchored their sense of purpose and reality. There is courage, Tillich writes, in affirming oneself despite that sense of emptiness, and despite the knowledge that our lives are short and uncertain.

    Tillich defines “the courage to be” as “the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in spite of those elements of his existence which conflict with his essential self-affirmation.” In other words, it is not simply an attitude or disposition. The courage to be is a deed – the ability to stay true to oneself.

    When it comes to ethics or politics, Tillich’s idea of courage entails the ability to sacrifice things such as pleasure, happiness and, in the most extreme cases, one’s life for some higher cause. Such acts of courage are praiseworthy because they suggest that the most ethically essential parts – the noble aspects – of our being are prevailing over the less essential.

    In spite of, a part of

    What Tillich calls “courage to be” consists of two indivisible parts or aspects.

    The first is what he refers to as “the courage to be in spite of”: courageously choosing to affirm one’s essential being, one’s core values, despite tough and even daunting forces of resistance.

    Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle for civil rights during the 1960s provides a good example of this aspect of the courage to be. Documentary evidence indicates that the FBI tried to destroy his reputation with blackmail and wiretaps, not to mention the close to 30 times he was jailed.

    Martin Luther King Jr., kneeling on left, leads marchers singing and praying during a protest against segregated housing policies in Chicago in August 1966.
    AP Photo/File

    The second aspect Tillich describes in his book is “the courage to be as a part,” to partake in something larger than oneself. Tillich writes that “the self is self only because it has a world, a structured universe, to which it belongs.” The courage to be as a part could mean participating in a political movement, a religious community, a worker strike, or any other initiative that involves people coming together for a common purpose.

    For Tillich, these types of courage should not be considered separate qualities but two interrelated aspects of the courage to be.

    At Zelenskyy’s meeting in the Oval Office, I believe we witnessed a leader embodying both senses of the courage to be. As a president, Zelenskyy stood up for the right of his country to defend itself in the face of Russia’s assault. He remained steadfast in spite of efforts by Trump and Vance to pressure him to accept an agreement that would not have provided security guarantees for Ukraine.

    Yet it seemed to me the plainspoken, animated Zelenskyy also displayed Tillich’s notion of the courage to be as a part. He acted not only as an individual, or a politician, but as a Ukrainian trying to defend his country from an invader − a cause that has inspired protests around the globe.

    Mordechai Gordon 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. The ‘courage to be’ in uncertain times − how one 20th-century philosopher defined bravery – https://theconversation.com/the-courage-to-be-in-uncertain-times-how-one-20th-century-philosopher-defined-bravery-250576

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Social media before bedtime wreaks havoc on our sleep − a sleep researcher explains why screens alone aren’t the main culprit

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Brian N. Chin, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Trinity College

    Social media use before bedtime can be stimulating in ways that screen time alone is not. Adam Hester/Tetra Images via Getty Images

    “Avoid screens before bed” is one of the most common pieces of sleep advice. But what if the real problem isn’t screen time − it’s the way we use social media at night?

    Sleep deprivation is one of the most widespread yet overlooked public health issues, especially among young adults and adolescents.

    Despite needing eight to 10 hours of sleep, most adolescents fall short, while nearly two-thirds of young adults regularly get less than the recommended seven to nine hours.

    Poor sleep isn’t just about feeling tired − it’s linked to worsened mental health, emotion regulation, memory, academic performance and even increased risk for chronic illness and early mortality.

    At the same time, social media is nearly universal among young adults, with 84% using at least one platform daily. While research has long focused on screen time as the culprit for poor sleep, growing evidence suggests that how often people check social media − and how emotionally engaged they are − matters even more than how long they spend online.

    As a social psychologist and sleep researcher, I study how social behaviors, including social media habits, affect sleep and well-being. Sleep isn’t just an individual behavior; it’s shaped by our social environments and relationships.

    And one of the most common yet underestimated factors shaping modern sleep? How we engage with social media before bed.

    Emotional investment in social media

    Beyond simply measuring time spent on social media, researchers have started looking at how emotionally connected people feel to their social media use.

    Some studies suggest that the way people emotionally engage with social media may have a greater impact on sleep quality than the total time they spend online.

    In a 2024 study of 830 young adults, my colleagues and I examined how different types of social media engagement predicted sleep problems. We found that frequent social media visits and emotional investment were stronger predictors of poor sleep than total screen time. Additionally, presleep cognitive arousal and social comparison played a key role in linking social media engagement to sleep disruption, suggesting that social media’s effects on sleep extend beyond simple screen exposure.

    I believe these findings suggest that cutting screen time alone may not be enough − reducing how often people check social media and how emotionally connected they feel to it may be more effective in promoting healthier sleep habits.

    How social media disrupts sleep

    If you’ve ever struggled to fall asleep after scrolling through social media, it’s not just the screen keeping you awake. While blue light can delay melatonin production, my team’s research and that of others suggests that the way people interact with social media may play an even bigger role in sleep disruption.

    Here are some of the biggest ways social media interferes with your sleep:

    • Presleep arousal: Doomscrolling and emotionally charged content on social media keeps your brain in a state of heightened alertness, making it harder to relax and fall asleep. Whether it’s political debates, distressing news or even exciting personal updates, emotionally stimulating content can trigger increased cognitive and physiological arousal that delays sleep onset.

    • Social comparison: Viewing idealized social media posts before bed can lead to upward social comparison, increasing stress and making it harder to sleep. People tend to compare themselves to highly curated versions of others’ lives − vacations, fitness progress, career milestones − which can lead to feelings of inadequacy and anxiety that disrupt sleep.

    • Habitual checking: Social media use after lights out is a strong predictor of poor sleep, as checking notifications and scrolling before bed can quickly become an automatic habit. Studies have shown that nighttime-specific social media use, especially after lights are out, is linked to shorter sleep duration, later bedtimes and lower sleep quality. This pattern reflects bedtime procrastination, where people delay sleep despite knowing it would be better for their health and well-being.

    • Fear of missing out, or FOMO: The urge to stay connected also keeps many people scrolling long past their intended bedtime, making sleep feel secondary to staying updated. Research shows that higher FOMO levels are linked to more frequent nighttime social media use and poorer sleep quality. The anticipation of new messages, posts or updates can create a sense of social pressure to stay online and reinforce the habit of delaying sleep.

    Taken together, these factors make social media more than just a passive distraction − it becomes an active barrier to restful sleep. In other words, that late-night scroll isn’t harmless − it’s quietly rewiring your sleep and well-being.

    How to use social media without sleep disruption

    You don’t need to quit social media, but restructuring how you engage with it at night could help. Research suggests that small behavioral changes to your bedtime routine can make a significant difference in sleep quality. I suggest trying these practical, evidence-backed strategies for improving your sleep:

    • Give your brain time to wind down: Avoid emotionally charged content 30 to 60 minutes before bed to help your mind relax and prepare for sleep.

    • Create separation between social media and sleep: Set your phone to “Do Not Disturb” or leave it outside the bedroom to avoid the temptation of late-night checking.

    • Reduce mindless scrolling: If you catch yourself endlessly refreshing, take a small, mindful pause and ask yourself: “Do I actually want to be on this app right now?”

    A brief moment of awareness can help break the habit loop.

    Brian N. Chin 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. Social media before bedtime wreaks havoc on our sleep − a sleep researcher explains why screens alone aren’t the main culprit – https://theconversation.com/social-media-before-bedtime-wreaks-havoc-on-our-sleep-a-sleep-researcher-explains-why-screens-alone-arent-the-main-culprit-251453

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How racism fueled the Eaton Fire’s destruction in Altadena − a scholar explains why discrimination can raise fire risk for Black Californians

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Calvin Schermerhorn, Professor of History, Arizona State University

    Altadena is inherently prone to fire. But Black residents are the most vulnerable. Mario Tama/Getty Images

    The damage from the Eaton Fire wasn’t indiscriminate. The blaze that ravaged the city of Altadena, California, in January 2025, killing 17 people and consuming over 9,000 buildings, destroyed Black Altadenans’ homes in greatest proportion.

    About 48% of Black-owned homes sustained major damage or total destruction, compared with 37% of those owned by Asian, Latino or white Altadenans, according to a February 2025 report from the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.

    The Eaton Fire’s uneven devastation reveals a pattern of racial discrimination previously concealed along neat blocks of mid-century, ranch-style homes and tree-lined streets.

    ‘A place for white people only’

    In the early 20th century, Altadena was a professional enclave connected to Los Angeles, 13 miles away, by the Pacific Electric Railway, or “Red Car” system.

    It was also lily-white, and that’s how homeowner groups liked it, according to research by Altadena historian Michele Zack.

    These organizations, which had lofty names such as the Great Northwest Improvement Association and West Altadena Improvement Association, urged homeowners to write language into their deeds that would bar Black, Latino or Asian tenants from buying or renting there.

    “We want our section of Pasadena and Altadena to be a place for white people only,” read one homeowners association notice sent to property owners in 1919.

    A ladies golf lesson in Altadena, Calif., 1958.
    Maryland Studio/PGA of America via Getty Images

    By the end of World War II, most properties in Altadena had racially restrictive deeds or covenants – a trend being repeated in white suburbs across the country.

    In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down such restrictions in Shelley v. Kraemer as unenforceable. Still, the 1950 census shows that Altadena had no Black residents.

    Building the new LA

    But the Los Angeles area was changing. The West Coast economy boomed after the war, and Black Americans from Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas began heading to California. Many landed in Pasadena, directly south of Altadena.

    Claiming that Americans preferred buses and automobiles to trains, a consortium of automobile, oil and tire companies persuaded Los Angeles officials to rip out the electric railway and replace it with roads.

    Los Angeles’ “Red Car” system, which had connected the region, closed for good in 1961. Altadena had already lost its rail connection to Los Angeles long before, in 1941.

    By mid-century, broader Los Angeles had become a series of homeowner-controlled enclaves connected by freeways and choked with smog.

    The construction in 1958 of Interstate 210, which connected the San Fernando Valley to the San Gabriel Valley, ran a four-lane highway through mostly Black and Latino neighborhoods of Pasadena. Following a national pattern of displacing poor minority communities in the name of urban renewal, it was part of a redevelopment spree that ultimately pushed 4,000 Black and Latino residents out of the city.

    Some relocated within Pasadena or moved to Duarte, Monrovia, Pomona or South Los Angeles. But a handful of families bought homes in Altadena, defying the illegal racial covenants still in place there.

    One new Black resident, Joseph Henry Davis, bought a home west of Lake Avenue, the main north-south artery dividing the city, in what was, as one local newspaper put it in 1964, an “all-white Altadena neighborhood.”

    When Davis moved in, the story reports, his new neighbors put up “a 40-inch white plaster cross that (read) ‘you are not welcome here.‘” The Davis family “paid it no attention.”

    Altadena embodied a paradox seen nationwide. The city integrated, but block-by-block segregation kept white and Black residents apart.

    Discrimination in new forms

    By 1970, roughly one-third of Altadena’s population was Black, and 70% of Black households in Altadena owned their homes – nearly double Los Angeles County’s Black home ownership rate of 38%.

    Black residents almost exclusively lived in West Altadena. Lots there were smaller than those on the east side of town, so they were more affordable. They were also older, which made them more vulnerable to fires because they were built with materials that were more flammable than those used in newer homes.

    As my book “The Plunder of Black America: How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Made” shows, once Black families surmounted one obstacle, such as racial covenants, another rose in its place.

    In the 1960s and 1970s, many white Altadenans resisted school integration, opposing boundary changes and busing that would have put Black and Latino students in predominantly white Altadena schools. California passed Proposition 13 in 1978, freezing property taxes at 1% of their assessed value. Public schools lost significant funding, private schools gained affluent students, and educational segregation deepened.

    Educational discrimination feeds wealth inequality, which was severe nationwide: In 1980, for every dollar a white household owned, a Black one owned 20 cents.

    Rising home values, paradoxically, had a similarly malignant effect. In the 1980s, the Los Angeles area became one of the most expensive housing markets in the nation. Many Black Altadenans could no longer afford to live there. The share of the city’s population that was Black fell from 43% in 1980 to 38% in 1990. By the 2000s it had dropped to below 25%.

    Great Recession takes its toll

    Black homeowners who remained in Altadena were hit hard by the 2008 housing crisis. That crisis was caused in part by lenders steering borrowers, particularly borrowers of color, into subprime loans, even when they qualified for better deals.

    Between 2007 and 2009, Black households lost 48% of their wealth – nearly half their assets. White wealth dropped during the Great Recession, too, but only by about one-quarter.

    Research into this racial discrepancy later showed that because white families had more of a financial cushion, they could stem their losses.

    These and other factors have all dragged down the wealth of Black Californians over the years. In 2023, California’s task force on reparations calculated that the state’s discriminatory practices cost the average African American in California $160,931 in homeownership wealth compared with a white Californian.

    Racism fuels the fire

    Those inequities were a tinderbox that the Eaton Fire ignited.

    Altadena is inherently prone to fire because it borders the Angeles National Forest, gets Santa Ana winds that spread embers, and has highly flammable vegetation. But because Black Altadenans’ homes sit on smaller lots, with structures and landscaping located closer together, the ember fire spread more easily in Black neighborhoods.

    Altadena, Calif., March 26, 2025: A scene of ruin.
    Mario Tama/Getty Images

    Black Altadenans also tend to be older than their white neighbors, because most had bought into the area before the real estate boom of the 1980s. The physical and financial strains typical of an aging household may have caused hardships for removing vegetation – a best practice in protecting a structure from an ember fire.

    All these factors likely contributed to the Eaton Fire disproportionately burning Black-owned homes. All are connected to the city’s legacy of discrimination and exclusion. And they will all make fire recovery harder for Black Altadenans, too.

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

    – ref. How racism fueled the Eaton Fire’s destruction in Altadena − a scholar explains why discrimination can raise fire risk for Black Californians – https://theconversation.com/how-racism-fueled-the-eaton-fires-destruction-in-altadena-a-scholar-explains-why-discrimination-can-raise-fire-risk-for-black-californians-250582

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s tariff hikes and South Africa: hunt for new agricultural markets must begin now

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Wandile Sihlobo, Senior Fellow, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch University

    The South African government has underscored the urgent need to diversify the country’s agricultural exports in the wake of the US decision to increase tariffs on its trading partners.

    The progress of South Africa’s agricultural sector has relied partly on exports, which now account for roughly half of the production in value terms. South Africa’s agricultural exports reached a new record of US$13.7 billion in 2024, up 3% from the previous year, according to data from Trade Map. South Africa also imports various agricultural products. In 2024, South Africa’s agricultural imports amounted to US$7.6 billion.

    The US accounts for 4% of South Africa’s agricultural exports. The biggest agricultural exports to the US are citrus, wine, grapes and nuts. These typically entered the US market duty free, and now fall under the tariff level of between 10% and 31% which Washington has levied on South Africa.

    The ministers of International Relations and Cooperation and of Trade, Industry and Competition said in a statement after Washington’s move:

    Efforts will intensify to diversify export destinations, targeting markets across Africa, as well as in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. Moreover, where deemed appropriate, such efforts will also involve bilateral arrangements that allow for the pursuance of our national interest.

    As a medium to longer term strategy this makes sense in the context of the trade friction with the US and the overall growth of South Africa’s agricultural sector. But export diversification will take time to achieve. New markets take time to open up because negotiations with countries, especially in agricultural products, are complex. For example, it took 16 years for South Africa to reopen Thailand for apple exports.

    Moreover, trade agreements typically take a minimum of five years to conclude.

    This means that, in the short term, the South African government will urgently be seeking to engage with Washington to maintain critical access to the US market. In their joint statement, the two departments managing the fallout said they would be seeking “additional exemptions and favourable quota agreements”.

    So what does the long-term strategy look like? And what are the building blocks that need to be put in place to secure diversified destinations for South Africa’s agricultural products in the future?

    As an agricultural economist who has looked at these issues for some time, I would recommend these three areas of focus.

    Firstly, South Africa trade authorities should put resources into understanding the opportunities in dynamic markets in the Gulf and Asia. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are some of the key markets in the Gulf. In Asia, China, India and Vietnam should remain priorities.

    Secondly, the agricultural sector and government need to develop better ways of working together. This will help ensure business relationships are cultivated in the countries that the government is engaging, and that there’s alignment between the commercial and political interests of the country.

    Thirdly, South Africa’s agricultural sector – government and organised agriculture – must get its house in order. For example, promoting livestock products won’t work unless the necessary disease controls are in place.

    Opportunities

    The African continent accounts for the biggest share of South African exports at 38%. The EU accounted for a 19% share in 2023. Asia and the Middle East accounted for a quarter of South Africa’s agricultural exports in the same year.

    Asia and the Far East, in particular China, have already been identified as key growth areas. Even though Asia and the Middle East are strong destination points, huge pockets of opportunity remain in terms of products and countries.

    The Brics grouping remains crucial in this endeavour. Here, the South African government must have a sharper focus on lowering import tariffs and phytosanitary barriers in countries such as China, India and Saudi Arabia.

    China is the biggest opportunity, largely because of its population and economic size. China, the world’s second largest economy after the US, must feed 1.4 billion people. To do this, China is a huge importer, resulting in an agricultural trade deficit with the rest of the world of about US$117 billion. This suggests there’s a gap for countries with good agricultural offerings.

    Vietnam and India also have sizeable populations. Importantly, South Africa remains a small participant in their agricultural markets.

    The sectors worth targeting include horticulture and wine producers. Expanding exports in these sectors has been a long-running talking point. Now there’s a need for renewed energy and urgency from the government officials’ side.

    The livestock industry is also geared to promote its exports.

    In the short term

    Agricultural stakeholders can play a constructive role in supporting the government’s efforts to engage the US. Stakeholders can assess the impact of the increased US tariff on their exports, mainly citrus, grapes, wine, and nuts, among other products, as well as the impact on jobs in their regions.

    There is also scope to provide more flexibility for American products in the South African market to ease current trade tensions. For example, South Africa currently allows US exporters to sell over 70,000 tonnes of poultry products into the country without any tariff. However, US poultry producers have only used less than 60% of this quota. One reason for this is the low-quality products that have not met the South African specifications. Hence the need to seek negotiating points.

    Next steps

    Trade is about trade-offs and backing the correct winners.

    Both organised agriculture – commodity associations – and business must work together to define new priorities for the country and how these can be pursued internationally.

    Negotiating free trade agreements should be the mainstay of trade policy. South Africa has excelled in opening up new markets in the past 20 years, by concluding several free trade agreements with critical regional and international markets. These include deals with the Southern African Development Community countries as well as the region’s agreement with the European Union and the African Continental Free Trade Area.

    It needs to expand this list.

    But free trade agreements require hard choices over which industries a country is prepared to place on the table for possible trade-offs while building long-term competitiveness in sectors that can be major drivers for growth.

    Government must engage the various agricultural sectors about their key priorities and what trade-offs they’re prepared to consider.

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

    – ref. Trump’s tariff hikes and South Africa: hunt for new agricultural markets must begin now – https://theconversation.com/trumps-tariff-hikes-and-south-africa-hunt-for-new-agricultural-markets-must-begin-now-253984

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Rwanda’s image abroad: how western countries are beginning to turn their backs

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By David E Kiwuwa, Associate Professor of International Studies, University of Nottingham

    Rwanda enjoyed good relations with the western world for many years. This was due to systematic and intentional efforts to build its profile as a constructive regional actor, especially through the UN peacekeeping framework.

    It also set out to improve its national brand through sports sponsorships of some of the biggest football clubs in the world. These include Arsenal (England), PSG (France) and Bayern Munich (Germany).

    Since the end of the 1994 genocide, countries such as the UK, the US and France were willing to give Rwanda a less than critical pass when it was accused of destabilising its bigger neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They averted their gaze from its domestic heavy handedness, particularly its constraining of democratic space and human rights.

    But there has been a sharp turn in sentiment. For the first time, the western powers, as well as China, have begun to call out Rwanda on its behaviour.



    Read more:
    Rwanda and Belgium are at odds over the DRC: what’s led to the latest low point

    Western actors have grown exasperated with Rwanda’s impunity and have been forced to change tack. Quiet shuttle diplomacy, notably by the Biden administration and the EU, has failed to achieve Rwandan restraint. And as a humanitarian crisis grew, they saw more forceful and overt actions as necessary.

    Concerned about the rising level of violence and humanitarian catastrophe in the DRC, western powers through the UN general assembly and security council called for restraint, dialogue and de-escalation. France, Belgium, Germany, the US, Canada and the EU also condemned the escalating violence and Rwanda’s role. The growing consensus culminated in firmer and direct sanctions against individual Rwandan actors and entities and suspension of economic and trade cooperation.

    I have been a long time scholar of and commentator on African regime types, political governance and conflict, with a focus on Rwanda. It’s my view that Rwanda’s escapades in eastern DRC have had a detrimental impact on the goodwill long extended to the Kigali regime. What happens next will depend on its response.

    Rwanda’s role in the DRC

    There is little doubt about Rwanda’s involvement in conflict and instability in the eastern DRC. The reports from the security council and UN bodies have provided sufficient evidence of this.

    Since 2012, Rwanda has been accused of being the patron behind the Movement of March 23 (M23) rebel group. The M23 and its associated alliances have been fighting the DRC government, purportedly to protect the rights of Congolese Tutsis.

    For its part, Rwanda has pointed to the danger posed by remnants of security forces involved in the 1994 genocide. The forces fled into the DRC and are still hell bent on causing instability in Rwanda, Kigali claims. The other grievance is that the forces are backed by the DRC regime and have been responsible for persecuting Congolese Tutsis.

    Between 2012 and 2018, the M23 group had a limited level of military success. In 2012 it captured the eastern DRC city of Goma but was forced to relinquish it after just 10 days.

    In the latest escalation of fighting the group has made significant gains, recapturing Goma and capturing the bigger Bukavu and other areas.

    M23’s success has been attributed to the sustained and systematic support Rwanda has given the group, according to the UN report and security council resolution 2773.

    Support has included sophisticated weaponry and boots on the ground, conservatively estimated at over 4,000 soldiers. Faced with demotivated, ill-trained and poorly coordinated DRC military capabilities, the M23 success was almost inevitable.



    Read more:
    DRC conflict: talks have failed to bring peace. Is it time to try sanctions?

    The turnaround

    In August 2023 and again on 20 February 2025, the US slapped sanctions on key players in Rwanda and the M23 Alliance. The EU and the UK then paused some economic support for Rwanda. This was a strategic signal from the big powers.

    Germany then froze aid, Belgium’s rebuked the country and the EU called for stronger penalties, among them a ban on Rwanda’s mineral industry. This was to force Rwanda to rein in or rethink its activities in the DRC and be a constructive rather than disruptive partner.

    Belgium has had historical relations with both Rwanda and the DRC, having been the last colonial authority. Rwanda took specific exception to Belgium’s action by cutting diplomatic relations. It also took a more belligerent posture in the UN security council.



    Read more:
    M23: Four things you should know about the rebel group’s campaign in Rwanda-DRC conflict

    While this is seen as a non-compromising stance, it is against a lesser western power than the US or the UK. This could be taken as Rwanda saving face while working out an exit strategy to avoid escalating tensions with western powers or provoking far reaching coordinated action.

    It is notable that Qatar (and not a western or African power) has taken a lead in chaperoning talks between the conflict parties. This couldn’t have been without the blessing of the US, given the close relationship Qatar enjoys with the US as conflict resolution partners. Qatar is also an investor in Rwanda. This allows Rwanda to avoid being dragged to the negotiating table by critical western powers.

    Next steps

    The intensity of the conflict has slowed down somewhat, with the M23 rebel alliance having announced a ceasefire and unilateral action to “withdraw” from some of the areas they have recently captured.

    Whether this is a strategic compromise in response to the now forceful demand for Rwanda to cease its active support and intervention is unclear. It is notable that Qatar has now directly invited the rebels to the table.

    Once known as the darling of the west, most notable for clean and efficient government, a good business environment and unquestioned security and stability, Rwanda may have reached an inflection point with its flagrant DRC intervention. The change in western attitude may mark a more critical epoch in relations.

    David E Kiwuwa 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. Rwanda’s image abroad: how western countries are beginning to turn their backs – https://theconversation.com/rwandas-image-abroad-how-western-countries-are-beginning-to-turn-their-backs-253663

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ‘Never our intention to mock Jesus’ – Naked Samoans respond to backlash over controversial poster

    By Susana Suisuiki, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Pasifika comedy troupe Naked Samoans is facing a backlash from some members of the Pacific community over its promotional poster.

    In the image, which has now been taken down, the Naked Samoans depicted themselves as the 12 disciples surrounding Jesus, a parody of The Last Supper.

    Several Pasifika influencers condemned the image online, with one person labelling it “disrespectful”.

    However, Naked Samoan group member Oscar Kightley told RNZ Pacific Waves he did not anticipate the uproar.

    Oscar Kightley talking to RNZ Pacific Waves.

    The award-winning writer has addressed the backlash as they gear up to perform at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in Auckland next month.

    The Samoan-New Zealand actor said it was never their intention to hurt people.

    “This month, 27 years ago, was our first-ever show, and we’ve been offending and upsetting people ever since, really. But we didn’t expect [the backlash].

    Checks, balances ‘let us down’
    “We saw the reaction [to the poster], and we saw how it was being taken, it was never our intention to mock Jesus or God or the Last Supper. But when we saw that that’s how it was being taken by some in our community, we made the decision to take it down.”

    “We took it down as soon as we knew that it was causing upset.”

    Responding to the online criticism that “they should have known better”, Kightley said “we should have known that some people would take it that way”.

    “Our robust system of checks and balances badly let us down in this sense,” he said.

    “We could understand how some people would have looked at this and went, ‘you guys have gone too far’, and even though we didn’t mean it, we all went to Sunday school, understand the reverence that that image and that scripture has.

    “But we weren’t trying to comment on the scripture.”

    He said even though they took the image down, due to the nature of the internet it would remain online “forever now”.

    “I think as long as people spread it, people will be raged and raised by it.

    “But my message [to those who are offended by it] is, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

    “And maybe think about Jesus’s teaching in John 8:7.”

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Open letter to NZME board – don’t allow alt-right Canadian billionaire to take over NZ’s Fourth Estate

    NZME directors ‘have concerns’ about businessman Jim Grenon taking editorial control

    NZME’s directors have fired their own shots in the war for control of the media company, saying they have concerns about a takeover bid including the risk of businessman Jim Grenon taking editorial control.

    In a statement to the NZX, the board said it was delaying its annual shareholders meeting until June and opening up nominations of other directors.

    NZME . . . RNZ report on NZME’s directors “firing their own shots in the war for control of the media company”.

    Grenon, a New Zealand resident since 2012, bought a 9.3 percent stake in NZME for just over $9 million early in March.

    NZME is publisher of a number of newspapers, including The New Zealand Herald, as well as operating radio stations and property platform OneRoof.

    Within days of taking the stake, Grenon had written to the company’s board proposing that most of its current directors be replaced with new ones, including himself, and said the performance of the company had been disappointing and he was wanted to improve the editorial content.

    NZME has now told the stockmarket it had concerns whether Grenon’s proposals were in the best interests of the company and shareholders. — RNZ News

    Dear NZME Board,

    I was once a columnist for The New Zealand Herald, but I’m too left wing for your stable of acceptable opinions and now just run award-winning political podcasts instead.

    The Daily Blog editor and publisher Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury. Image: TDB screenshot APR

    Normally as board members of a financialised media company in late stage capitalism with collapsing revenue thanks to social media, you don’t generally have to consider the actual well being of our democracy.

    Let me be as clear as I can to you all.

    You hold in your hands the fate of Fourth Estate journalism and ultimately the democracy of New Zealand itself.

    As the largest Fourth Estate platforms in the country, your obligations go well beyond just shareholder profit.

    Alt-right billionaire Jim Grenon has in my view been extremely disingenuous.

    The manner in which NZME has been sold as underperforming so that the promise of a quick buck from OneRoof seems the focus point is made more questionable because I suspect Grenon’s true desire here is editorial control of NZME.

    His relationship with a far-right culture war hate blog that promotes anti-Māori, anti-trans, anti-vaccine, climate denial editorial copy alongside his support for culture war influencers suggest a radicalised view of the world which he intends to implement if he gains control.

    Look.

    NZME is right wing enough, your first editorial in The New Zealand Herald was calling for white people to start war with Māori, Mike Hosking is the epitome of right wing commentary and the less said about Heather Du Plessis Allan, the better, but all of you acknowledge that 2 + 2 = 4.

    Alt-Right billionaires don’t admit that.

    Alt-right billionaires tend to lean into divisive culture war rhetoric and are happy to promote 2 + 2 = whatever I say it is.

    You cannot allow alt-right billionaires with radicalised culture war beliefs take over the largest media platforms in the country.

    This moment demands more than dollars and cents, it requires a strong defence of independent editorial content, even when that editorial content is right wing.

    The NZ Herald, Heather and Mike are without doubt right wingers, but they are right wingers who pitch their argument within the realms of the real and factual.

    Alt-right billionaires do not do that.

    If NZME is taken over and the editorial direction takes a hard right culture war turn, you will be dooming NZ democracy and planing us on a highway to hell.

    You must, you must, you must stand against this attack on editorial independence.

    Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

    Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump, interrupted: Cory Booker’s 25-hour Senate speech calls for collective action

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Barbara Leckie, Professor, English and the Institute for the Comparative Study of Literature, Art, and Culture; Academic Director, Re.Climate: Centre for Climate Communication and Public Engagement, Carleton University

    At 7 p.m. on Day 71 of Donald Trump’s presidency, United States Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, rose to speak on the Senate floor. He did not cede his right to speech (“the right to recognition”) until 25 hours later, at 8:05 p.m. the following day.

    While the form of his speech resembled a filibuster — a prolonged speech designed to delay or prevent legislation — Booker’s speech was not aimed at any proposed law. Instead he was responding to what he called a “time of crisis” in the United States.

    That crisis, in Booker’s view, is driven by the actions of the Trump administration, including executive orders and other actions that he argued are eroding democracy, exacerbating the climate crisis and dismantling programs that offer life-saving support to both Americans and people around the world.

    Booker set a record for the longest continuous speech in the U.S. Senate, surpassing speeches by Ted Cruz in 2013 and Strom Thurmond in 1957. He had no food, bathroom or sitting breaks.

    Booker’s speech, both a physical feat and a call to action, has been much lauded. But while the content of his speech and its calls for cross-aisle collaboration are admirable, as a literary critic, I believe the form of his speech deserves equal attention.

    How Booker delivered the speech helps to bring into focus his call for a participatory democracy — where everyone is actively involved — using two main strategies: interruption of the current norm (disruption), and an appeal to collaboration (working together).

    The author of this article is a literary expert on political communication, especially with relation to climate change.
    Stanford University Press

    Based on my work in the climate humanities, interruption and working together are among the most effective and necessary ways to generate political action.

    Two forms of interruption

    Two contrasting forms of interruption are important here: interruption that fosters reflection and interruption that discounts it.

    The German philosopher Walter Benjamin developed the concept of interruption in the 1930s as a way to foster thinking in times of crisis.

    Some types of theatre, for example, interrupt their story to break with conventions and remind viewers that they’re watching a play. Building on Benjamin’s idea of interruption, I’m interested in how interruption can work in our current era of political crisis.

    The Trump administration practises the second form of interruption that discounts thinking.

    The administration’s technique of “flooding the zone,” for example, produces new actions in such quick succession that the conditions for thinking are eviscerated.

    Trump’s preferred mode of communication has also been social media, known for its short and punchy delivery. These communication strategies — flooding the zone and short social media posts — scatter attention.

    With the speed and volume of the Trump administration’s actions, it can feel impossible to respond to — let alone reflect on — every executive order, every overreach, every unconstitutional or illegal move.

    A communication shift?

    Until recently, the U.S. Democratic Party has neither changed the form of their political practice nor the form of their communications in any significant way.

    I believe that shifted last week.

    When Booker chose to rise in the Senate, he adopted Benjamin’s version of interruption — by changing the form. In this case, through a congressional address with the time-honoured practice of not ceding the floor.



    Read more:
    With Trump in charge, America is going back to more hostile times

    His single, extended action of uninterrupted speech (except for questions and a prayer) was exactly the opposite of flooding the zone.

    His 25-hour speech commanded and held attention. It was exactly the opposite of a hastily dispatched social media post.

    He asked his audience to listen in a form that reminded them of what listening demands. Stopping. Paying attention. Thinking. Acting.

    Working together: ‘We, the people’

    Booker stood alone at the podium for over 25 hours but he did not act alone.

    His speech is a powerful performance of collaboration and working together. This recognition of a collective debt to others is also mirrored in his repetition of the phrase “we, the people.”

    Here, too, the form of his speech is revealing. Literary critics pay attention to how documents open and close and how words are used and repeated.

    His first words acknowledge his debt to the “pages …the folks that work the door, the clerks, the Parliamentarians.” And his last words return to this point, thanking again “the pages… the Parlimentarian staffs … the clerks …the doorkeepers.”

    Throughout the speech, he reminds his audience that the people are “stronger together”. His words alone cannot stop the dismantling of democracy, he insists, but “we, the people” can.

    The form of his address is an expansive act of inclusion and working together. It incorporates questions to his audience, letters, poetry and literature, questions from the floor, community stories and historical examples.

    Two questions inform his speech overall: “Did you speak up?” and “what can I do?” (the first is repeated with variations 52 times and the second 36 times).

    Questions invite connection, participation, response and more questions. Booker’s answer to the linked questions is to “stand up, speak up” and promote the collective action of the people.

    One form of standing up and speaking up is writing letters to one’s political representatives. Over the course of his speech, Booker gave voice to these constituents and in doing so widened the circle of representation in Congress: “I am trying to elevate the voices,” he said, “that don’t get to come to this place — voices I am hearing from, voices that identify themselves as a Republican veteran, a Democrat.”

    The letters he read generate connection, closed gaps, and, like questions, invite further responses.

    Booker’s recitation of poetry and literature was similarly inclusive and expansive. He used his platform to share Langston Hughes’s lines, “To save the dream for one / It must be saved for all,” Alice Walker’s comment that, “the most common way people give up their power is not realizing they have it in the first place,” and a translation from the Bantu language, “I am because we are,” among many others.

    Bending the form

    In short, Booker bent the form of the congressional address to encourage “thousands of ignition points,” thousands of creative ways to bend the form and work together.

    He joins his voice to those of his constituents, literary and historical figures, Americans past and future, and to others around the world in an effort, as he put it — adapting the words of Martin Luther King Jr. — “to bend the arc of our nation … toward justice.”

    The endurance and content of Booker’s speech is important, but its form most interrupted this moment of political upheaval, invited its listeners to notice and think, and offered examples of “coming together” to support others, listen to their voices, share their stories and be “stronger together.”

    Barbara Leckie 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. Trump, interrupted: Cory Booker’s 25-hour Senate speech calls for collective action – https://theconversation.com/trump-interrupted-cory-bookers-25-hour-senate-speech-calls-for-collective-action-253819

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: It’s not just about hearing: Why getting help for hearing loss is also a psychological journey

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Bill Hodgetts, Audiology Professor, Dept of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine., University of Alberta

    What most people don’t realize is that hearing loss taxes your brain. (Shutterstock)

    When people think about hearing loss, they picture someone turning up the TV too loud or saying “what?” a lot. But what I’ve learned in more than 20 years as an audiologist is that hearing loss is rarely just about the ears.

    It’s also about identity, emotion and effort. And for many people, that’s the harder part.

    As a clinician and university professor, I’ve worked with hundreds of people who hesitated to seek help — not because they couldn’t afford it, or didn’t have access to care, but because doing so meant admitting something they weren’t ready to accept: that something fundamental had changed.

    They were afraid of what that change said about them. About aging. About control. About being “that person” with hearing aids.

    I’ve come to believe that hearing loss is as much a psychological journey as a medical one. And maybe if more people understood that, they’d feel less alone and more willing to take the first step.

    The brain has to work harder when hearing declines

    Hearing loss doesn’t flip a switch from “normal” to “not hearing.” It’s slow, creeping. You start asking people to repeat themselves. You feel exhausted after social events. You laugh along with jokes you didn’t quite catch. You start withdrawing from the edges of conversations, and eventually from the conversations themselves.

    What most people don’t realize is that hearing loss taxes your brain. Imagine trying to read a book in a dim room. You can do it, but it takes more concentration. That’s what listening is like for people with hearing loss, especially in noisy environments. The brain works overtime to fill in the blanks.

    People with hearing loss start withdrawing from the edges of conversations, and eventually from the conversations themselves.
    (Shutterstock)

    Over time, this constant strain leads to mental fatigue and reduced cognitive capacity for other things, like memory and decision-making.

    It’s not just a guess — neuroimaging and longitudinal studies show it. In fact, large-scale research like the ACHIEVE study, a randomized controlled trial led by Johns Hopkins researchers, found that treating hearing loss in older adults at risk for cognitive decline reduced global cognitive deterioration by nearly 50 per cent over three years.

    The effect was strongest among participants with increased risk due to lower cognitive reserve and higher social vulnerability.

    This isn’t because hearing loss causes dementia directly. Rather, the constant cognitive strain, combined with the social withdrawal that often accompanies hearing loss, creates conditions where the brain is less stimulated, less resilient and more vulnerable over time.

    Psychology plays a bigger role than most people realize

    So if hearing loss affects the brain and well-being, why don’t more people get help? This is where psychology enters the room.

    Humans are emotional decision-makers. We think we’re rational, but in reality, we rely heavily on feelings, assumptions and mental short-cuts. In fact, behavioural research has shown that even trained clinicians can make inconsistent choices when emotions or personal beliefs come into play.

    One of the strongest forces I see in clinic is cognitive dissonance. That’s the uncomfortable feeling when our beliefs don’t match our actions. For example, someone might believe they’re independent and capable, but needing hearing aids makes them feel dependent or “old.” That internal conflict can lead to denial, resistance and even anger.

    Another common obstacle is self-efficacy — our belief in our ability to do something. I’ve met people who are successful in business or leadership but feel completely overwhelmed by the idea of managing hearing technology. Their fear isn’t the device — it’s failing at something unfamiliar.

    Even the way people think about memory and aging can be distorted. If you forget a word in your 40s, you joke about being busy. If it happens in your 60s or 70s, you fear it’s a sign of decline. Add hearing loss to the mix, and that fear amplifies.

    That’s why the stories we tell ourselves — and the ones society tells us — matter.

    Being truly heard

    The first audiology appointment isn’t just about a hearing test. It’s a conversation. We talk about how hearing loss is affecting your life: your relationships, your work, your confidence. We explore goals, concerns and what matters most to you.

    If you’re struggling to hear, get your hearing checked — even if it’s just to get a baseline.
    (Shutterstock)

    Sometimes, people expect to leave with a hearing aid and a fix. But managing hearing loss is a process, not a transaction. It takes time to adjust. Your brain has to relearn sounds it hasn’t heard clearly in a long time. That can be jarring, but also profoundly empowering.

    This is why the relationship between clinician and client matters so much. Research consistently shows the most important factor in successful counselling — whether it’s for hearing or anything else — is trust. When people feel safe, valued and understood, they’re more open to trying, adapting and growing.

    Not weakness, but wisdom.

    I often say that hearing aids are like umbrellas. They don’t stop the rain, but they help you stay dry. Similarly, hearing aids won’t reverse hearing loss or prevent aging. But they can reduce the strain of listening. They can help you stay socially connected. They can improve quality of life.

    And as the ACHIEVE study reinforces, the cognitive benefits of intervention, especially those that are at a greater risk for cognitive decline, are not hypothetical — they’re real. When we help people hear better, we’re not just improving their social lives. We’re reducing their risk of accelerated brain decline.

    Even if hearing aids didn’t offer cognitive protection, they’d still be worth it: for the joy of conversation, the ability to be present and the chance to fully participate in life.

    I know it can be hard to ask for help. But getting help doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you value connection. It means you want to stay involved. It means you’re taking control.

    So here’s what I hope people take away: if you’re struggling to hear, get your hearing checked — even if it’s just to get a baseline.

    If you’re offered treatment, give yourself time to adjust. It’s not about perfection; it’s about progress.

    If you know someone who’s pulling away socially, talk to them. Hearing loss is invisible, but its effects are not.

    And if you’re wearing hearing aids already, congratulations — you’re doing something incredibly proactive for your brain, your relationships and your future.

    As audiologists, we don’t just fix ears — we help people reconnect with their world. And that’s something worth hearing.

    Bill Hodgetts has received funding from various government agencies and foundations for his work including Mitacs, Western Economic Partnership Agreement, Oticon Foundation and others.

    – ref. It’s not just about hearing: Why getting help for hearing loss is also a psychological journey – https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-about-hearing-why-getting-help-for-hearing-loss-is-also-a-psychological-journey-253730

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: In Canada’s 2025 federal election, is anyone paying attention to rural communities?

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sarah-Patricia Breen, Adjunct Professor, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph

    The 2025 federal election is characterized by anxiety, primarily driven by the actions and economic consequences of United States President Donald Trump’s agenda.

    As tariffs and threats to Canadian sovereignty continue, it is little wonder why election promises have so far focused on jobs, tax breaks, infrastructure reinvestment, trade and military spending.

    While sovereignty and rising costs of food, energy and critical minerals are key election issues, rural Canada has not been the focus of any of the major political parties.

    The importance of rural Canada

    Rural Canada is home to roughly one in five Canadians. It’s also home to the vast majority of the Canadian land base, including watersheds and food sheds — geographical areas that supply food to the population — as well as energy sources, critical minerals and forests.

    As Canada faces increasing economic uncertainty, rural areas will play a critical role in supplying essential resources. Ensuring they benefit from this role requires strong place- and evidence-based rural development programs and policies from the federal government, whoever leads it after April 28.

    Significant challenges — from trade wars to climate change — impact every community across Canada. However, what this looks like and how this is felt on the ground is different across rural Canada. All too often government policies and programs fail rural citizens and communities in one of two ways:

    1. They don’t account for the impact of rural Canada. This means policies and programs fail to consider how rural realities can interfere with their intended implementation.

    2. They don’t account for the impact of policies and programs on rural Canada. These failures are the unintended impacts that “place-blind” policies and programs have on rural communities.

    Creating regional disparities

    These policy failures are driven by an urban bias in federal policies and programs. This bias is a result of limited or obscured rural data and the concentration of policy and decision-makers in Ottawa. These policy failures contribute to larger problems, like Canada’s growing issue with regional disparities, often along rural-urban lines.

    This is nothing new.



    Read more:
    Canadian election 2021: Why rural Canada must play a central role

    Rural Canada has a long history of being misunderstood and poorly represented in federal policy. Past and current federal efforts to include rural Canada in policymaking have been sporadic or uneven.

    A national Rural Secretariat was established in 1996, and a “rural lens” was established in 1998. Both had the express purpose of providing leadership and co-ordination related to rural and remote areas within the federal government. These programs were then dismantled by the former Conservative government in 2013.

    In 2019, the Liberal government established Canada’s first minister of rural economic development. Alongside this came a strategy for rural Canada, new tools to incorporate rural considerations and the Centre for Rural Economic Development, which included regionally located rural advisers.

    However, as of 2025, these efforts have been weakened or ignored. The minister for rural economic development is now the minister of agriculture and agri-food and rural economic development. The Centre for Rural Economic Development — now housed in a separate ministry from the minister — has quietly ended its regional rural adviser program.

    The risks of a sector-based focus

    These examples illustrate the ongoing uncertainty of how realities of rural Canada are integrated — or not — into federal policies and programs. Rural Canada is often lumped in with a particular sector, including agriculture or natural resources. The de facto rural policy then becomes sector-focused.

    This is a problem, because rural communities often have little or no power over resource development decisions and are largely at the mercy of companies that can simply pack up and leave.

    A sector-based approach also ignores the multiple, complex and integrated needs and opportunities across rural places. The 2024 State of Rural Canada illustrates this complexity of rural issues. It offers recommendations to policymakers, one of which is the development of a comprehensive, cross-sectoral strategy that recognizes the diversity of rural Canada and provides a framework for co-ordinated action.

    The need to shift to integrated, place-based approaches over sector-based is echoed in findings from research conducted both in Canada and internationally.

    Based on our research across rural Canada, we support these findings. We also support the recent statement by the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation, which calls on the federal government to implement the following actions:

    1. Revitalize the rural lens;
    2. Strengthen the Centre for Rural Development;
    3. Deliver rural development in rural Canada for rural Canada.

    No vision?

    Rural Canada is vital to the future of Canada. It is critical that all political parties campaigning for the federal election have a platform that meaningfully includes rural Canada — and refrain from focusing only on sectors that operate in rural Canada.

    The Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation recently released a list of questions that people can pose to their potential member of Parliament.

    No. 1 on this list is: “What is your party’s vision for rural and northern Canada?” And yet few of the parties are answering or tackling that question during the ongoing election campaign.

    Sarah-Patricia Breen has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Mitacs and the Government of British Columbia. She is a past president of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation.

    Heather Hall has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Early Researcher Award Program, the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario (ARIO) and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. She is a former board member of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation and on the Board of Directors for the Northern Policy Institute.

    Kyle Rich receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is a former board member of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation.

    Ryan Gibson has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance, and Mitacs. Ryan is the past president of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation and the Canadian Community Economic Development Network.

    – ref. In Canada’s 2025 federal election, is anyone paying attention to rural communities? – https://theconversation.com/in-canadas-2025-federal-election-is-anyone-paying-attention-to-rural-communities-253195

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: More than a department store: The long, complicated legacy behind Hudson’s Bay Company

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Heather Whiteside, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo

    The bankruptcy of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) is often framed as the fall of “Canada’s oldest company.” Media narratives typically treat HBC as if it were a straightforward retail firm, albeit one with an exceptionally long history.

    But HBC was always more than a hinterland mercantile fur trader in earlier centuries, just as it was more than a department store anchoring downtown shopping in the 20th century.

    Like the beaver it nearly wiped out, HBC made Canada into its home by fundamentally transforming its environment, and no bankruptcy court will liquidate that legacy. Still, that legacy is more complex than many might assume.



    Read more:
    Hudson’s Bay liquidation: What happens when a company goes bankrupt?

    HBC and the making of Canada

    HBC’s initials have sometimes been jokingly elaborated as “here before Christ.” But if we were to take a more secular tone, we might instead say it was “here before Canada,” initiating some of the country’s basic economic and political institutions.

    In 1670, England’s King Charles II granted 18 investors the power to make laws, monopolize trade, enforce penalties and establish colonies in Rupert’s Land. Some four million square kilometres, this land grant centred on Hudson Bay but ranged from Labrador in the northeast to the Prairies in the southwest.

    Along with establishing fur-trading posts populated by transient servants, the company created its own colonies. In 1811, HBC shareholder Thomas Douglas (Lord Selkirk) organized the first settlers in the Prairies at Red River, now Winnipeg. Forty years later, in 1851, HBC’s former chief factor James Douglas took charge of developing Victoria on Vancouver Island.

    Of course, Indigenous Peoples were in these areas before long before Canada and long before HBC was. To secure its investments and protect its settlers, HBC representatives negotiated the first treaties with Indigenous Peoples west of the Great Lakes.

    The 1817 Selkirk Treaty at Red River and the 14 Douglas Treaties on Vancouver Island in the 1850s are examples of HBC’s expansive role in settler colonialism. Overlooked for some time, the Douglas Treaties are now shaping jurisprudence.

    Whereas the infamous HBC striped point blankets may be living room décor for some, for others they represented currency exchanged for long-ignored Indigenous land rights.

    Likewise, transferring the six-storey, 94-year-old HBC department store in downtown Winnipeg to 34 First Nations in 2022 might be seen as a form of reconciliation. However, the company itself indicated “shifting consumer behaviour” was the reason for the handover.

    Land and sovereignty

    Beyond its treaties with Indigenous Peoples and support for settler farmers, HBC is further implicated in the formation of Canadian sovereign territory writ large.

    If asked to name famous real estate transactions formative for state-making in North America, one might readily think of Louisiana or Alaska, but Canada, too, was created through purchase. HBC sold Rupert’s Land to the government of Canada for $1.5 million in 1869, forming a significant portion of what we now know as modern-day Canada.

    Hudson’s Bay kept roughly seven million acres after the sale, ensuring it would remain a significant force well into the 20th century. Writing of its lands in the Success Belt in the Prairies, HBC argued:

    “This land, with a cash payment, was retained as recompense for over 200 years of exploration, pioneering, and trading which the Company had done and without which Canada, as she is today, would not exist.”

    Incremental HBC land sales over the coming decades were accompanied by catchy slogans like Victoria as “The Garden of Canada” or Edmonton as Canada’s “Farthest West.”

    HBC pamphlets advertised wharves, orchards, gardens, houses, estates, seashore lots, residential subdivisions, hotels and businesses in coastal and interior British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northern Ontario.

    It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the company parted with its remaining residential acreages in Winnipeg in 1954 and Victoria in 1961.

    A legacy that outlasts a ledger

    The timing of the HBC’s bankruptcy dovetails with renewed anxieties about American annexation as U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly threatens to turn Canada into the 51st state.

    Such annexation anxieties are nothing new for Canada.



    Read more:
    Canada as a 51st state? Republicans would never win another general election

    In the 1850s, United Kingdom parliamentary support for the HBC monopoly was driven in part by a desire to counter American influence. One English MP warned in 1857 that if the HBC’s trade between the Red River colony and London were to end, “the whole of it would be transferred to the United States.”

    Later, the Canadian federal government would use HBC to shore up its sovereignty claims in the High Arctic. In 1953 and 1955, more than 90 Inuit from northern Québec were forcefully relocated to the High Arctic. A government apology in February acknowledged the harm caused by the relocations, but the HBC’s decades-long role in instigating and organizing Inuit relocations was conspicuously omitted.

    As Canadians look to protect the country from foreign threats, it helps to know how the country came to be in the first place. The long-running and multi-faceted role of the HBC is an integral part of Canada’s story; it has always been more than just a company.

    Now saddled with $1 billion of debt, HBC’s demise seems inevitable. But its endurance beyond the original 1670 stockholders’ £4,720 investment speaks to its lasting impact. The HBC legacy will surely shape whatever’s next in store for Canada.

    Heather Whiteside receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. More than a department store: The long, complicated legacy behind Hudson’s Bay Company – https://theconversation.com/more-than-a-department-store-the-long-complicated-legacy-behind-hudsons-bay-company-253818

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: U.S. tariff threats could fuel maple syrup fraud, but AI could help navigate this sticky situation

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Maleeka Singh, PhD Candidate, Food Science, University of Guelph

    Maple syrup, often called Canada’s “liquid gold,” has long been a target for fraudulent activities, such as the dilution or substitution with other syrups, due to its high demand.

    Amid threats from the United States of increased tariffs and the imposition of a baseline tariff of 10 per cent on all imports that aren’t compliant with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, increased maple syrup fraud is a possibility.

    Food fraud, or economically motivated adulteration, is the deliberate misrepresentation of food for economic gain. This can include the substitution, dilution, addition and/or the removal of ingredients. Mislabelling of products is another form of food fraud that can happen at any point in the supply chain, from farm to fork.



    Read more:
    Sweet little lies: Maple syrup fraud undermines the authenticity of Canada’s ‘liquid gold’

    Food fraud is a multi-billion-dollar industry and poses serious risks. It can harm consumer health, tarnish brand reputations and value, jeopardize the livelihood of legitimate producers and even hamper biodiversity and conservational efforts.

    The threats of tariffs on Canadian goods by the U.S., which includes maple syrup and equipment used to make it, has raised concerns on both sides of the border about price increases and supply shortages.

    Canada produces more than 70 per cent of the world’s maple syrup and Québec is the capital of this production. In 2024, the province exported around $450 million worth of maple syrup to the U.S.

    Historic increases in food fraud

    Historically, food fraud has increased during harsh economic times, growing financial pressures, pandemics, climate incidents, wars, supply chain disruptions or any other event that destabilizes the balance between food supply and demand. These circumstances often increase food prices, creating an incentive for fraudsters to exploit the system.

    From 2020 to 2024, the world faced significant supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, regional wars and significant climate events. Unsurprisingly, food fraud cases have increased tenfold, according to recent estimations.

    Threats of higher tariffs could further contribute to this problem by increasing the likelihood that fraudsters will substitute high-value foods for lower-value products.

    Given what we have learned from past cases of food fraud, threats of increased tariffs causes uncertainty in the supply chain, increasing the risk of fraudulent maple syrups from entering the market.

    To combat this threat, there is a need for rapid, real-time and cost-effective methods to test maple syrup for authenticity.

    A 25 per cent tariff on import goods could increase the risk of fraudulent maple syrups from entering the supply chain.
    (Shutterstock)

    Methods for testing maple syrup

    Since the 1980s, various methods and tools have been developed or used to detect maple syrup adulteration. However, food fraudsters continuously adapt to evade detection, making it progressively more difficult to test for maple syrup adulteration. The more complex the testing methods, the more difficult they are to circumvent.

    Traditionally, maple syrup quality testing involves measuring the dissolved sugar content in syrup through a unit of measurement known as degrees Brix. One degree Brix is equivalent to one per cent sugar. However, applications may be limited if unknown or non-conventional adulterants are used.

    As fraud techniques become more sophisticated, new approaches are needed to ensure the authenticity of maple syrup. Non-targeted food analytical methods, such as fluorescence spectroscopy, allow for the screening of a wide range of samples, creating a fingerprint of a sample. The fingerprints can be compared to a reference library of profiles, or multiple attributes specific to maple syrups, rather than just one.

    Testing maple syrup for glowing compounds

    A recent study by our research team at the University of Guelph’s Corradini Lab explored how fluorescence fingerprints can be used to detect maple syrup adulteration.

    Fluorescence fingerprinting works by examining how internal molecules in maple syrup glow when exposed to UV and visible light. These unique, glowing fingerprints allow for the detection of markers or features that may be indicative of maple syrup fraud.

    Analyzing the distinctive features in maple syrup fluorescence fingerprints (glow), using AI, to differentiate pure from adulterated maple syrup.
    (Singh et al.), CC BY-NC-ND

    Our study explored the adulteration of amber and dark maple syrups, with common maple syrup adulterants — namely beet, corn and rice syrups — at values ranging from one to 50 per cent.

    We mapped unique and distinctive features in the fluorescence fingerprints, which were then used for differentiating pure from adulterated syrups. When exposed to UV and visible light, maple syrup features changed depending on the type — beet, corn or rice syrups — and amount of adulterant.

    AI and machine learning for improved detection

    Using the markers of maple syrup identity, we were able to apply AI to analyze multiple fluorescent features simultaneously. This allowed for the identification of pure maple syrups from adulterants, with accuracy ranging from 75 to 99 per cent.

    In fact, analyzing the fluorescence fingerprints of pure and adulterated syrups with the assistance of AI and machine learning techniques improved detection by up to 30 per cent, and identified adulterants at levels less than two per cent.

    However, expanding the fluorescence fingerprint reference library can improve the accuracy and reliability of results. AI models often require very large and extensive databases. This will be crucial for understanding and accounting for how factors like the environment, geographic location and processing conditions may affect the maple syrup glow.

    The use of AI to analyze fluorescent markers in maple syrup could allow for rapid and effective identification of suspicious fraudulent samples.

    With the increased risk of food fraud due to threats of increased U.S. import tariffs on Canadian products, combining AI and maple syrup fingerprinting can detect maple syrup fraud. This will ensure that consumers receive safe, high-quality foods while protecting the identity of one of Canada’s most iconic products.

    Maleeka Singh receives funding from the Arrell Food Institute and the SMART Scholarship Program. Maleeka Singh is a member of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), International Association of Food Protection (IAFP) and the American Chemical Society (ACS).

    Maria G. Corradini receives funding from NSERC and the Arrell Food Institute.

    Maria G. Corradini is a member of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the Society of Food Engineers (SOFE)

    Robert Hanner 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. U.S. tariff threats could fuel maple syrup fraud, but AI could help navigate this sticky situation – https://theconversation.com/u-s-tariff-threats-could-fuel-maple-syrup-fraud-but-ai-could-help-navigate-this-sticky-situation-253396

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How our unconscious memory keeps us functioning efficiently in our daily lives

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ben Sclodnick, Postdoctoral Fellow, Psychology, McMaster University

    Automatic memory keeps working even when our minds wander. (Shutterstock)

    Have you ever been on a long drive and suddenly realized that you barely remember the past several minutes of driving?

    Although the thought of driving without paying conscious attention to the road may be unsettling, we actually carry out complex behaviours without much thought all the time — and it’s all thanks to our memory.

    In its simplest form, memory does one basic job: it forms associations between things that occur together. Just as we learn to associate a name with a face, or a scent with a food, memory allows certain contexts to become associated with specific thoughts and actions.

    For instance, when we learn to drive, we’re taught to move our foot to the brake pedal whenever we see brake lights ahead. As we gain experience behind the wheel and these two events repeatedly occur together, we quickly reach a point where we automatically get set to press the brake pedal the moment we see brake lights — without needing to think about doing so.

    Or perhaps you’ve noticed how fluently you can navigate through the apps and menus on your smartphone — as if your thumbs have little minds of their own — and that if someone re-organizes the apps on your home screen, this fluency can be difficult to relearn.

    Each time we do something, our memory system makes connections between the behaviour and the current context. With experience, behaviours that once required conscious control can be activated automatically when we encounter a familiar context.

    These automatic behaviours show how memory can control our behaviour without the need to consciously remember past events. Some researchers even call this form of memory “automatic control.”

    Because automatic memory is by nature unconscious, we often don’t notice how essential it is for most of our everyday behaviour. Automatic memory allows us to function efficiently.

    If we couldn’t rely on automatic control to trigger key actions while driving, we would be far less likely to survive those episodes of highway mind-wandering. If every thought and action required a conscious choice, something as simple as walking and talking would become an enormously demanding task.

    Automatic decision-making

    Driving scenarios are relatable, which makes them useful for illustrating how automatic memory works. They also show how important this form of memory is for us to function effectively.

    We rely on unconscious memory processes to keep our feet and thoughts on track while walking and talking with a friend.
    (Shutterstock)

    However, once you begin looking for automatic memory elsewhere, it becomes difficult to identify behaviours that don’t rely on these unconscious processes. Even our attempts to consciously control our attention may depend on automatic processes.

    For example, why is it that certain things come to mind when we walk into a meeting with our boss — while very different things come to mind when you get together with an old friend? It’s not as if we always make conscious decisions about what to remember in these cases.

    The explanation is that these two different scenarios are each associated with different sets of past experiences. When we encounter a particular person, experiences associated specifically with them spring to mind automatically as a result of the memory associations we’ve formed over time.

    Although automatic memory is essential to our daily functioning, it does come at a cost. For instance, we all find ourselves acting the same way over and over in familiar situations — even when those actions run contrary to the way we’d prefer to act. But the truth is, if we want to change our patterns of behaviour, we need repeated opportunities to form new associations so that our automatic behaviours being to align with our goals.

    One strategy for overcoming automatic memory is to practise the behaviours you want to change in new contexts. For example, if you find that having difficult conversations with your partner always ends with you to reacting negatively without meaning to, perhaps you need to try having those discussions in front of a friend or therapist.

    Changing the context like this can help reduce the chance that your typical responses will be activated, making it easier to practise changing your behaviours in critical moments. For behaviours that have been built over a lifetime, there’s no quick hack. Relearning takes time and effort.

    That is why, as an expert in memory and attention, I have compassion for people who struggle to change old habits. It’s also why I’m downright terrified when the city adds a new stop sign to an intersection where drivers are used to having the right of way.

    Ben Sclodnick receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. How our unconscious memory keeps us functioning efficiently in our daily lives – https://theconversation.com/how-our-unconscious-memory-keeps-us-functioning-efficiently-in-our-daily-lives-246763

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Scientists should try to repeat more studies, but not those looking for a link between vaccines with autism

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Kolstoe, Associate Professor of Bioethics, University of Portsmouth

    SamaraHeisz5/Shutterstock

    Scientists, professors, engineers, teachers and doctors are routinely ranked among the most trustworthy people in society. This is because these professions rely heavily on research, and good research is viewed as the most reliable source of knowledge.

    But how trustworthy is research? Recent news from the US suggests that the Trump administration wants to fund more “reproducibility studies”.

    These are studies that check to see if previous results can be repeated and are reliable. The administration’s focus seems to be specifically on studies that revisit the debunked claim of a link between vaccines and autism.

    This is a worrying waste of effort, given the extensive evidence showing that there is no link between vaccines and autism, and the harm that suggesting this link can cause. However, the broader idea of funding studies that attempt to repeat earlier research is a good one.

    Take research on Alzheimer’s disease as an example. In June 2024, Nature retracted a highly cited paper reporting an important theory relating to the mechanism of the disease. Unfortunately, it took 18 years to spot the errors and retract the paper.

    If influential studies like this were regularly repeated by others, it wouldn’t have taken so long to spot the errors in the original research.

    Alzheimer’s is proving a particularly tricky problem to solve despite the large amounts of money spent researching the disease. Being unable to reproduce key results contributes to this problem because new research relies on the trustworthiness of earlier research.

    More broadly, it has been known for almost ten years that 70% of researchers have problems reproducing experiments conducted by other scientists. The problem is particularly acute in cancer research and psychology.

    The Trump administration wants to fund more ‘reproducibility studies’.
    Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock

    Research is difficult to get right

    Research is complicated and there may be legitimate reasons research findings cannot be reproduced. Mistakes or dishonesty are not necessarily the cause.

    In psychology or the social sciences, failure to reproduce results – despite using identical methods – could be due to using different populations, for instance, across different countries or cultures. In physical or medical sciences problems reproducing results could be down to using different equipment, chemicals or measurement techniques.

    A lot of research may also not be reproducible simply because the researchers do not fully understand all the complexities of what they are studying. If all the relevant variables (such as genetics and environmental factors) are not understood or even identified, it is unsurprising that very similar experiments can yield different results.

    In these cases, sometimes as much can be learned from a negative result as from a positive one, as this helps inform the design of future work.

    Here, it is helpful to distinguish between reproducing another researcher’s exact results and being given enough information by the original researchers to replicate their experiments.

    Science advances by comparing notes and discussing differences, so researchers must always give enough information in their reports to allow someone else to repeat (replicate) the experiment. This ensures the results can be trusted even if they may not be reproduced exactly.

    Transparency is therefore central to research integrity, both in terms of trusting the research and trusting the people doing the research.

    Unfortunately, the incentive structure within research doesn’t always encourage such transparency. The “publish or perish” culture and aggressive practices by journals often lead to excessive competition rather than collaboration and open research practices.

    One solution, as new priorities from the US have suggested, is to directly fund researchers to replicate each other’s studies.

    This is a promising development because most other funding, alongside opportunities to publish in the top journals, is instead linked to novelty. Unfortunately, this encourages researchers to act quickly to produce something unique rather than take their time to conduct thorough and transparent experiments.

    We need to move to a system that rewards reliable research rather than just novel research. And part of this comes through rewarding people who focus on replication studies.

    Industry also plays a part. Companies conducting research and development can sometimes be guilty of throwing a lot of money at a project and then pulling the plug quickly if a product (such as a new medicine) seems not to work. The reason for such failures is often unclear, but the reliability of earlier research is a contributing factor.

    To avoid this problem, companies should be encouraged to replicate some of the original findings (perhaps significant experiments conducted by academics) before proceeding with development. In the long run, this strategy may turn out to be quicker and more efficient than the rapid chopping and changing that occurs now.

    The scale of the reproducibility, or replicability, problem in research comes as a surprise to the public who have been told to “trust the science”. But over recent years there has been increasing recognition that the culture of research is as important as the experiments themselves.

    If we want to be able to “trust the science”, science must be transparent and robustly conducted.

    This is exactly what has happened with research looking at the link between vaccines and autism. The topic was so important that in this case the replication studies were done and found that there is, in fact, no link between vaccines and autism.

    Simon Kolstoe works for the University of Portsmouth, and is a trustee of the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO). He receives research and consultancy funding from charities, universities and government. He chairs research ethics committees for the UK Health Research Authority, Ministry of Defence and Health Security Agency.

    – ref. Scientists should try to repeat more studies, but not those looking for a link between vaccines with autism – https://theconversation.com/scientists-should-try-to-repeat-more-studies-but-not-those-looking-for-a-link-between-vaccines-with-autism-253696

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The radical European peasant movements that formed populist parties and breakaway republics

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jakub Beneš, Associate Professor in Central European History, UCL

    From Poland and France to the US, rightwing populist parties dominate rural and post-industrial hinterlands while the centrist liberal vote is concentrated in cities. This urban-rural divide is arguably the main political fault line in Europe and North America today.

    It appears the backlash against globalised capitalism is strongest when associated with rural conservatism and xenophobia against migrants. But anti-urban populism has not always been – and perhaps isn’t now – a simple reaction against the forces of modernity.

    In my new book, The Last Peasant War: Violence and Revolution in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe, I explore how peasant movements in eastern Europe during the first half of the 20th century often combined deep resentment of cities with aspirations for radical social and economic change. These movements aimed to create a more egalitarian countryside while enhancing its influence and prosperity.

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    The first world war was the main catalyst. Warring countries in central and eastern Europe introduced harsh controls of the rural economy to secure food for armies and the urban labour force. Villagers working small plots of land resented these measures and the cities that dictated their terms.

    Confronted with shortages at home and death at the front, hundreds of thousands of peasants deserted from the poorly led armies of Austria-Hungary and Russia. In Austria-Hungary, and later in the Russian civil war, scores of thousands of armed peasant deserters banded together to form motley “green” forces based in forests and hilly areas.

    These men, along with recently demobilised soldiers, led a wave of bloody violence in many areas of the east European countryside as the old empires disintegrated. Large estates were sacked, officials chased off, and Jewish merchants robbed and humiliated. Peasant crowds often targeted towns as the places that appeared to mastermind and benefit from their exploitation.

    In most places, the unrest did not last long. Yet the deserter movements and other forms of rural wartime resistance galvanised interwar agrarian politics – that is, politics concerned with the cultivation and distribution of land – on a scale not seen before or since.

    Peasants demanded the breakup and redistribution of large estate land, the end of wars led by parasitic cities, representation of peasants in national governments proportionate to their numbers, and local autonomy.

    These were undeniably revolutionary goals. The Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and his followers were forced to revise the mainstream Marxist view of a backward peasantry. His government legalised land seizures by peasants with a 1917 decree before reintroducing the despised wartime economy and later concluding an uneasy truce with the countryside during the 1920s. The war against the Soviet peasantry was finally won during Stalin’s brutal collectivisation drive in the early 1930s.

    Many ambitious peasant initiatives remained isolated from each other: village republics sprouted up in parts of the former Habsburg and Romanov empires with the chief aim of redistributing large estate land.

    As the new countries of east central Europe consolidated their power, they faced competition from micro-states in parts of Croatia, Slovenia and Poland. Many short-lived republics were reported across Ukraine and European Russia.

    More durable were the rural populist parties that became a defining feature of east European politics. From 1919 to 1923, Bulgaria was ruled by the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union under Aleksandar Stamboliyski, who introduced far-reaching reforms to elevate and reward agricultural work before he was murdered in a coup.

    In the former Habsburg lands, agrarian politics mushroomed in the aftermath of the first world war, influencing national politics through the end of the second world war. The peasant masses looked to the Polish People’s party, the Croatian Peasant party, and others to lead them forward on a “third way” to modernity, avoiding the pitfalls of both heartless liberalism and tyrannical communism.

    Eastern European governments implemented agrarian reform to benefit land-hungry villagers, but it fell short of expectations. Later, the rise of authoritarian regimes across much of the region by the early 1930s forced many peasant movements out of parliamentary politics. Politically marginalised, reeling from the Great Depression, millions of villagers embraced extremist politics, fascism included.

    But Hitler’s occupation of much of eastern Europe found little support among them. Large numbers of peasants joined or supported resistance movements, tipping the scales against the axis forces in Yugoslavia. In Poland, the rural populists had their own armed resistance numbering in the hundreds of thousands: the Peasant Battalions.

    By around 1950, peasant revolution was extinguished in Europe. Collectivisation in the east and mechanisation across the continent altered the fabric of rural life. Tens of millions left the land for cities, never to return.

    The politics they backed in the era of world wars are now a distant memory. At the time, city dwellers looked at them with a mixture of fear and puzzlement. How, they asked, could men like Stamboliyski and Stjepan Radić of the Croatian Peasant party rail against city life while claiming they wanted to make their societies more equal and prosperous?

    Then, as now, the world beyond the metropolis nurtured sentiments far more radical than we often assume.

    Jakub Beneš has received funding from UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council.

    – ref. The radical European peasant movements that formed populist parties and breakaway republics – https://theconversation.com/the-radical-european-peasant-movements-that-formed-populist-parties-and-breakaway-republics-251379

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Peru is losing its battle against organised crime

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amalendu Misra, Professor of International Politics, Lancaster University

    The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, declared a state of emergency in the capital city, Lima, on March 18. The decree, which came amid a wave of violence, gives the police and military full control of the security situation there for a period of 30 days.

    Peru is no stranger to emergencies of this kind. Only last year, in September 2024, Boluarte’s government declared a 60-day state of emergency in 12 districts of the capital. The rationale for declaring the emergency now, as in the past, remains the same: to address the threat posed by criminal gangs.

    The latest emergency was prompted by the brazen killing of Paul Flores, the popular 39-year-old lead singer of a Peruvian band called Armonia 10. Flores was shot dead by assailants who attacked a bus he was riding in with bandmates and attempted to extort money from them as they left a concert.

    Peru has seen a spate of killings, violent extortion and attacks on public places in recent months. According to the Peruvian police, there were 459 killings across the country between January 1 and March 16, and over 1,900 reports of extortion in January alone.

    Many Peruvians point to the fact that the extortion and homicide racket may be far more severe than official statistics suggest. Plenty of those affected by criminality do not report their misfortune for fears of reprisal by criminal gangs.

    On March 21, a few days after the state of emergency in Lima was declared, Peru’s Congress voted to remove the interior minister, Juan José Santiváñez, from office. In a post on X, they said Santiváñez must take responsibility for his “inability to address the wave of citizen insecurity the country is facing”.

    Peru serves as a hotspot for sexual slavery, illegal organ trafficking and labour exploitation. In addition, it is also the second-largest producer of cocaine in the world.

    Over 95,000 hectares of land was dedicated to coca cultivation in the country in 2023 – an 18% increase from the figure recorded in 2021. This expansion has been driven primarily by cultivation in Peru’s indigenous territories and protected areas. Indigenous territories now account for 20% of all the coca cultivated in Peru.

    These lucrative operations are led by local crime organisations, often working in collusion with corrupt public officials and foreign partners. According to Organized Crime Index, these criminal networks include police officers and migration officials who work at control points on the borders and facilitate illegal activities.

    The logistics of Peru’s cocaine trade are often also managed by Serbian, Mexican and Colombian mafias. From Peru, cocaine goes through Mexico for the US market and Brazil for the European market. Some shipments are sent directly to Oceania and Japan.

    Criminal governance

    Peru’s perpetual political instability, weak criminal justice system and the poor presence of the state in its outlying territories allow various criminal groups to engage in their nefarious trade.

    Two former Peruvian presidents have faced corruption charges. One of them, Alejandro Toledo, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for corruption in 2024. The authorities accused Toledo of accepting US$35 million (£27 million) in bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht to allow the company to build a highway in Peru.

    Another controversial former president, Alberto Fujimori, had been in prison for 16 years for human rights abuses and corruption after being extradited from Chile in 2007. He was released in 2023 on humanitarian grounds and died the following year.

    Meanwhile, prosecutors in Peru are seeking a 34-year sentence for ex-president Pedro Castillo, who was removed from office and arrested after his attempt to dissolve Congress in late 2022 and rule by decree. Castillo has described his trial as “politicised” and has refused legal counsel provided by the judicial system.

    So many former Peruvian presidents have been accused of crimes that the country has designated a small jail on the outskirts of Lima specifically to house them. As Colombia-based journalist John Otis put it in a radio interview in 2023, the Barbadillo prison not only serves as a symbol of corruption, but also a testimony to political dysfunction in the country.

    The spread of economic activities operating outside the law, such as illegal gold mining, has emboldened organised crime in Peru. Instances of politicians and criminals working together to line their pockets are not uncommon.

    A good example is César Álvarez, the governor of the resource-rich Áncash region of western Peru. Nicknamed “the beast” by the citizens of the province because of his reputation for political violence, Álvarez allegedly operated with impunity by asserting his control through an elaborate network of government institutions and criminal organisations.

    According to an indictment by Peru’s public prosecutor’s office, Álvarez extorted, threatened and ordered the assassination of political adversaries while in office between 2007 and 2014. Álvarez, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison in 2019.

    When the government in Lima last declared an emergency in parts of the capital in 2024, the country’s federation of business associations stated: “We live under siege from organised crime which has taken control of the country in the alarming absence of the state”.

    This statement appears prophetic. Peru, it appears, is losing the battle against organised crime.

    Amalendu Misra is a recipient of Nuffield Foundation and British Academy Fellowships.

    – ref. Peru is losing its battle against organised crime – https://theconversation.com/peru-is-losing-its-battle-against-organised-crime-252349

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –