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Category: Global

  • MIL-Evening Report: It will take more than an Oscar to stop Israel’s West Bank plans

    “I started filming when we started to end.” With these haunting words, Basel Adra begins No Other Land, the Oscar-winning documentary that depicts life in Masafer Yatta, a collection of Palestinian villages in the southern West Bank that are under complete occupation – military and civil – by Israel.

    For Basel and his community, this land isn’t merely territory — it’s identity, livelihood, their past and future.

    No Other Land vividly captures the intensity of life in rural Palestinian villages and the everyday destruction perpetrated by both Israeli authorities and the nearby settler population: the repeated demolition of Palestinian homes and schools; destruction of water sources such as wells; uprooting of olive trees; and the constant threat of extreme violence.

    While this 95-minute slice of Palestinian life opened the world’s eyes, most are unaware that No Other Land takes place in an area of the West Bank that is ground zero for any viable future Palestinian state.

    Designated as “Area C” under the Oslo Peace Accords, it constitutes 60% of the occupied West Bank and is where the bulk of Israeli settlements and outposts are located. It is a beautiful and resource-rich area upon which a Palestinian state would need to rely for self-sufficiency.

    For decades now, Israel has been using military rule as well as its planning regime to take over huge swathes of Area C, land that is Palestinian — lived and worked on for generations.

    This has been achieved through Israel’s High Planning Council, an institution constituted solely of Israelis who oversee the use of the land through permits — a system that invariably benefits Israelis and subjugates Palestinians, so much so that Israel denies access to Palestinians of 99 percent of the land in Area C including their own agricultural lands and private property.

    ‘This is apartheid’
    Michael Lynk, when he was serving as UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, referred to Israel’s planning system as “de-development” and stated explicitly: “This is apartheid”.

    The International Court of Justice recently affirmed what Palestinians have long known: Israel’s planning policies in the West Bank are not only discriminatory but form part of a broader annexation agenda — a violation of international humanitarian law.

    To these ends, Israel deploys a variety of strategies: Israeli officials will deem certain areas as “state lands”, necessary for military use, or designate them as archaeologically significant, or will grant permission for the expansion of an existing settlement or the establishment of a new one.

    Meanwhile, less than 1 percent of Palestinian permit applications were granted at the best of times, a percentage which has dropped to zero since October 2023.

    As part of the annexation strategy, one of Israel’s goals with respect to Area C is demographic: to move Israelis in and drive Palestinians out — all in violation of international law which prohibits the forced relocation of occupied peoples and the transfer of the occupant’s population to occupied land.

    Regardless, Israel is achieving its goal with impunity: between 2023 and 2025 more than 7,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in Area C due to Israeli settler violence and access restrictions.

    At least 16 Palestinian communities have been completely emptied, their residents scattered, and their ties to ancestral lands severed.

    Israel’s settler colonialism on steroids
     Under the cover of the international community’s focus on Gaza since October 2023, Israel has accelerated its land grab at an unprecedented pace.

    The government has increased funding for settlements by nearly 150 percent; more than 25,000 new Israeli housing units in settlements have been advanced or approved; and Israel has been carving out new roads through Palestinian lands in the West Bank, severing Palestinians from each other, their lands and other vital resources.

    Israeli authorities have also encouraged the establishment of new Israeli outposts in Area C, housing some of the most radical settlers who have been intensifying serious violence against Palestinians in the area, often with the support of Israeli soldiers.

    None of this is accidental. In December 2022, Israel appointed Bezalel Smotrich, founder of a settler organisation and a settler himself, to oversee civilian affairs in the West Bank.

    Since then, administrative changes have accelerated settlement expansion while tightening restrictions on Palestinians. New checkpoints and barriers throughout Area C have further isolated Palestinian communities, making daily life increasingly impossible.

    Humanitarian organisations and the international community provide much-needed emergency assistance to help Palestinians maintain a foothold, but Palestinians are quickly losing ground.

    As No Other Land hit screens in movie houses across the world, settlers were storming homes in Area C and since the Oscar win there has been a notable uptick in violence. Just this week reports emerged that co-director Hamdan Ballal was himself badly beaten by Israeli settlers and incarcerated overnight by the Israeli army.

    Israel’s annexation of Area C is imminent. To retain it as Palestinian will require both the Palestinian Authority and the international community to shift the paradigm, assert that Area C is Palestinian and take more robust actions to breathe life into this legal fact.

    The road map for doing so was laid by the International Court of Justice who found unequivocally that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful and must come to an end.

    They specified that the international community has obligations in this regard: they must not directly or indirectly aid Israel in maintaining the occupation and they must cooperate to end it.

    With respect to Area C, this includes tackling Israel’s settlement policy to cease, prevent and reverse settlement construction and expansion; preventing any further settler violence; and ending any engagement with Israel’s discriminatory High Planning Council, which must be dismantled.

    With no time to waste, and despite all the other urgencies in Gaza and the West Bank, if there is to be a Palestinian state, Palestinians in Area C must be provided with full support – political, financial, and legal — by local authorities and the international community, to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

    After all, Area C is Palestine.

    Leilani Farha is a former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing and author of the report Area C is Everything. Republished under Creative Commons.

    Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Inside an urban terror network: book reveals how police finally cracked Pagad gang violence in Cape Town

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Irvin Kinnes, Associate Professor of Criminology, University of Cape Town

    A campaign against gangsterism in Cape Town, South Africa led by the People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) turned violent in the mid-1990s when a group known as Pagad G-Force began what became known as an urban terrorism campaign. Lives on the Line, written by security analyst David Africa, is the true story of the secret team in the country’s crime intelligence division that waged a six-year battle against the terror group – and won. The terror campaign was brought to a standstill in 2002. Criminology professor Irvin Kinnes sets out why it’s a riveting read, a bold tell-all account by a brave author.

    What was the backdrop to the terror campaign?

    In 1995, one year after the country’s first democratic elections, a new law was passed creating the newly constituted South African Police Service. It was a tough year because the elements of the old order in the police service had great difficulty accepting the new democratic dispensation. But they had to collaborate with the people that they had tortured, jailed and, in some cases, maimed as a result of their role in political oppression in support of apartheid.

    The new centurions (police guardians of the new order) of democracy were not yet in place. A system of dual power emerged in the police, where some of the commanders that were appointed were former members of the liberation movements. They were seen as “plastic cops” because they did not train in the police academies around the country, but in the bush. Some subsequently attended various training academies. They were all integrated with other homeland police agencies from the Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei states and other “independent” homelands that had existed under apartheid. In total, 11 agencies combined to form the newly created and democratic police service in 1995.

    After 1994, many of the apartheid social controls such as restrictions on people’s movement, racially divided settlement and the death penalty were abolished. People were jubilant, hyper aware of their newly found rights.

    The police were not prepared to deal with such a rights-aware population. In addition, freedom also unleashed huge social challenges such as crime and particularly drug and gang crimes. In the immediate aftermath of the political negotiations that ended apartheid and prior to the elections, crime rates surged, especially in 1993. Not all of the crime was criminal: some of the events related to political crime with mass movements and political parties clashing with each other and with the police.

    The urban terror campaign, as labelled by members of the South African Police Service, extended from 1996-2002. This was also known as the Cape Flats war (referred to as the Pagad troubles by Africa) and was triggered by the campaign of the People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad). The organisation was initially made up of largely ordinary citizens across the religious divide, but later became almost exclusively Muslim led, and so was the G-Force.

    Pagad led several marches on the Cape Flats against drug dealers and gangsters. These marches resulted in the death on 4 August 1996 of one of the co-leaders of the Hard Living gang, Rashaad Staggie, by a huge crowd of Pagad members who were escorted by the police’s Public Order Unit.

    The execution resulted in a tit-for-tat killing between gang members and Pagad members.

    What was Pagad G-Force? What led to its formation?

    The Pagad G-Force were a group of men inside Pagad. They operated clandestinely outside its circle of influence of its public structures, but sometimes with its tacit support. Many of the members of the G-Force had received military training both inside and outside the borders of the country.

    Some people claimed they were trained in Afghanistan and Iran, and they were operators who were armed and could manage themselves against some of the threats that gang leaders had made against them. They were a tightly knit unit that was able to retain secrecy in most of their operations, guarding it against police infiltration – a battle they ultimately lost, as Africa’s book shows.

    The unit was accused of executing up to 30 senior gang leaders and drug dealers. Pagad would lead public marches against them and often publicly warned them to stop their drug dealing. This was followed by the homes of drug dealers being attacked. In many instances they were killed.

    What does the book reveal about why it took so long to end the terror campaign?

    There have been books that have attempted to document the Cape Flats war from different perspectives. But Africa tells the story from the inner sanctum of the state security apparatus that initially failed and eventually succeeded in penetrating the G-Force, Pagad and other formations.

    His book provides significant insights that makes other books on the subject pale in comparison. Fighting terrorism (urban or other) requires patience and deliberate skilled analysis of data, patterns and personalities. It requires skills of analysis built up over many years of sifting through behaviours and actions of individuals and organisations perpetrating such crimes.

    For the first time, we are made privy to the ideological reasoning and political thinking, strategising and implementation of police operations that was decidedly different from the old state thinking of actions against adversaries they were investigating.

    This was painstaking work and the level of co-operation between the new centurions of democracy in the police under the leadership of Africa and the old order. The old-order guardians were the same men and women in the old South African Police Force that had defended the apartheid government and did not trust the new police investigators from the liberation movements. They still had control of the police service in 1996. This was a recipe for creative and disruptive tensions, mistrust and outright sabotage of each other’s operations.

    What was the author’s involvement in the police efforts?

    The author was the head of a covert police intelligence team whose exclusive focus was to bring down the Pagad G-Force. He was central in conceptualising a new approach of working in a decontaminated group of intelligence officers made up of former liberation movement officers. Their job was to analyse information and turn it into actionable intelligence products that could be used to act against the Pagad G-Force.

    What was different about this approach was they produced court-ready evidence which police detectives could use in courts against the accused Pagad bombers. He led the fight for the new covert unit to have the necessary resources, support from their colleagues when it was required and most importantly, the support of the then national commissioner, Jackie Selebi.

    In this fight, Selebi quite clearly took sides and fully supported the actions of Africa and his colleagues to defeat Pagad’s G-Force. Africa makes this clear in his book and emphasises the support that was provided by Selebi.

    What are the key takeaways from the book about fighting similar campaigns of violence?

    The book puts together all the actors nationally and provincially and accords them the historical roles in each of their fields of expertise. It unravels the networks they spun to target, isolate, recruit and turn suspected G-Force operators.

    This look from within the war machine against Pagad raises many questions for any reader.

    It is a book for anyone who wants to understand the fight against terror, globally, regionally and locally, and what it really takes to bring people who commit such acts to justice.

    Lives on the Line confirms why it is so difficult to investigate organised crime and urban terrorists today.

    Irvin Kinnes 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. Inside an urban terror network: book reveals how police finally cracked Pagad gang violence in Cape Town – https://theconversation.com/inside-an-urban-terror-network-book-reveals-how-police-finally-cracked-pagad-gang-violence-in-cape-town-253447

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Signalgate’ was damaging to the Trump administration. It could be deadly for Yemeni civilians

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sarah G. Phillips, Professor of Global Conflict and Development; Non-Resident Fellow at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies (Yemen), University of Sydney

    The “Signalgate” story has received wall-to-wall coverage since Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, published explosive details about a Signal group chat where senior US officials discussed impending airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, the coverage has focused on details of most concern to Western audiences, including the depth of the security breach, the classification status of the material that was shared, and the implications of sending war plans through a non-secure platform.

    But what are the implications of this for Yemen? In short, it helps the Houthis and hurts the civilians living under their control.

    Providing the Houthis with intelligence

    Yemeni civilians are caught in an impossible position. They have suffered from years of ruthless violence in a civil war that began with the Houthi capture of the capital, Sana’a, in 2014. The conflict grew even more violent when a Saudi-led (and Western-backed) military coalition entered the fray to back the Yemeni government the following year, imposing a crippling blockade that lasted until 2021.

    The war has caused a humanitarian disaster, with malnutrition rates among the highest in the world. The Houthis have consolidated their control over much of Yemen’s population through the weaponisation of food distribution and brutal repression of dissent.

    In early 2024, the Houthis then began attacking ships in the Red Sea, bringing retaliatory strikes by the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel. Each of these have caused further civilian casualties and harm.

    The Houthis (and their Iranian and Russian supporters) will draw comfort from the Signal chat group’s apparent confirmation the US strikes on March 15 were not a sign of the Trump administration’s intent to dislodge them from power:

    Vice President JD Vance (14 March, 08:16am ET): The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.

    Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth (14 March, 08:27am ET): This [is] not about the Houthis. I see it as two things: 1) Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest; and 2) Reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered.

    The Houthis can withstand intermittent airstrikes – they have withstood airstrikes for over two decades.

    But a more substantial intervention — one that combines a coalition of local forces with guaranteed air support from Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (with US support) — would pose a far greater threat to the Houthis.

    With this apparently not being considered, the Houthis may now feel emboldened to press-gang more people into military service before a fresh assault on the strategically important oil fields in Marib. This is the last major city in northern Yemen still under government control.

    The Houthis have tried to take Marib before, but were prevented by Yemeni troops supported by Saudi air cover. Controlling the oil fields in Marib is vital to the group’s ability to sustain itself economically.

    Putting Yemeni civilians at risk

    While the Trump administration claims the chat did not compromise sources and methods, Goldberg noted a US-based intelligence officer was named. The Atlantic removed their name for security reasons.

    The publication’s decision to remove this detail is a stark reminder of whose security matters — and whose doesn’t. The transcript reads:

    National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (15 March, 13:48pm ET): VP. Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID…

    Waltz (15 March, 14.00pm ET): Typing too fast. The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.

    Putting aside the fact this was a residential building — it should not be an aside, but this is how most news coverage has been treating it — this detail is important to the Houthis.

    This is because Waltz confirms “multiple” sources had positively identified a target, which the Houthis may use to justify further crackdowns, forced disappearances and even executions of those they accuse of being spies.

    The Trump administration was clearly reckless in divulging this detail. But it’s striking The Atlantic did not consider the danger posed to Yemeni civilians by publishing it. Experts on the Houthis – and their methods of subjugation – could have quickly highlighted this point if they were consulted.

    From a Yemeni perspective, a named source may have even been preferable to the hazy, but authoritative, confirmation of US operational methods and sources. The lack of specificity in the transcript plays to the Houthis’ dragnet approach to extinguishing independent voices by forcibly disappearing people on fake allegations of espionage.

    These are typically aid workers, academics, minorities, journalists and members of civil society who are not vocally aligned with the group.

    These abductions have been occurring for years, but ramped up in the middle of 2024. Dozens of members of civil society and aid organisations (and potentially many more) were kidnapped last year. Some are confirmed to have died in detention; many others have not been heard from since.

    There are reports that abductions are already escalating in response to the latest US strikes.

    The ongoing abductions have had a chilling effect on the willingness of local and international aid providers to speak out against the Houthis. This has helped the Houthis consolidate their control over the flow of humanitarian assistance (particularly food), which they divert based on political, rather than needs-based, calculations as a means of coercing compliance.

    Yemeni civilians are seldom, if ever, a consideration in the geopolitical machinations that concern their country. The reflexive prioritisation of Western security interests exposed in the group chat – and the publication of these details – condemns them to further insecurity.

    Sarah G. Phillips receives funding from The Australian Research Council as a Future Fellow (FT200100539), and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies.

    – ref. ‘Signalgate’ was damaging to the Trump administration. It could be deadly for Yemeni civilians – https://theconversation.com/signalgate-was-damaging-to-the-trump-administration-it-could-be-deadly-for-yemeni-civilians-253524

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: From Rongelap to Mejatto – how Rainbow Warrior helped move nuclear refugees

    The second of a two-part series on the historic Rongelap evacuation of 300 Marshall islanders from their irradiated atoll with the help of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior crew and the return of Rainbow Warrior III 40 years later on a nuclear justice research mission. Journalist and author David Robie, who was on board, recalls the 1985 voyage.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By David Robie

    Mejatto, previously uninhabited and handed over to the people of Rongelap by their close relatives on nearby Ebadon Island, was a lot different to their own island. It was beautiful, but it was only three kilometres long and a kilometre wide, with a dry side and a dense tropical side.

    A sandspit joined it to another small, uninhabited island. Although lush, Mejatto was uncultivated and already it was apparent there could be a food problem.Out on the shallow reef, fish were plentiful.

    Shortly after the Rainbow Warrior arrived on 21 May 1985, several of the men were out wading knee-deep on the coral spearing fish for lunch.

    Islanders with their belongings on a bum bum approach the Rainbow Warrior. © David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    But even the shallowness of the reef caused a problem. It made it dangerous to bring the Warrior any closer than about three kilometres offshore — as two shipwrecks on the reef reminded us.

    The cargo of building materials and belongings had to be laboriously unloaded onto a bum bum (small boat), which had also travelled overnight with no navigational aids apart from a Marshallese “wave map’, and the Zodiacs. It took two days to unload the ship with a swell making things difficult at times.

    An 18-year-old islander fell into the sea between the bum bum and the Warrior, almost being crushed but escaping with a jammed foot.

    Fishing success on the reef
     The delayed return to Rongelap for the next load didn’t trouble Davey Edward. In fact, he was celebrating his first fishing success on the reef after almost three months of catching nothing. He finally landed not only a red snapper, but a dozen fish, including a half-metre shark!

    Edward was also a good cook and he rustled up dinner — shark montfort, snapper fillets, tuna steaks and salmon pie (made from cans of dumped American aid food salmon the islanders didn’t want).

    Returning to Rongelap, the Rainbow Warrior was confronted with a load which seemed double that taken on the first trip. Altogether, about 100 tonnes of building materials and other supplies were shipped to Mejatto. The crew packed as much as they could on deck and left for Mejatto, this time with 114 people on board. It was a rough voyage with almost everybody being seasick.

    The journalists were roped in to clean up the ship before returning to Rongelap on the third journey.

    ‘Our people see no light, only darkness’
     Researcher Dr Glenn Alcalay (now an adjunct professor of anthropology at William Paterson University), who spoke Marshallese, was a great help to me interviewing some of the islanders.

    “It’s a hard time for us now because we don’t have a lot of food here on Mejatto — like breadfruit, taro and pandanus,” said Rose Keju, who wasn’t actually at Rongelap during the fallout.

    “Our people feel extremely depressed. They see no light, only darkness. They’ve been crying a lot.

    “We’ve moved because of the poison and the health problems we face. If we have honest scientists to check Rongelap we’ll know whether we can ever return, or we’ll have to stay on Mejatto.”

    Kiosang Kios, 46, was 15 years old at the time of Castle Bravo when she was evacuated to “Kwaj”.

    “My hair fell out — about half the people’s hair fell out,” she said. “My feet ached and burned. I lost my appetite, had diarrhoea and vomited.”

    In 1957, she had her first baby and it was born without bones – “Like this paper, it was flimsy.” A so-called ‘jellyfish baby’, it lived half a day. After that, Kios had several more miscarriages and stillbirths. In 1959, she had a daughter who had problems with her legs and feet and thyroid trouble.

    Out on the reef with the bum bums, the islanders had a welcome addition — an unusual hardwood dugout canoe being used for fishing and transport. It travelled 13,000 kilometres on board the Rainbow Warrior and bore the Sandinista legend FSLN on its black-and-red hull. A gift from Bunny McDiarmid and Henk Haazen, it had been bought for $30 from a Nicaraguan fisherman while they were crewing on the Fri. (Bunny and Henk are on board Rainbow Warrior III for the research mission).

    “It has come from a small people struggling for their sovereignty against the United States and it has gone to another small people doing the same,” said Haazen.

    Animals left behind
     Before the 10-day evacuation ended, Haazen was given an outrigger canoe by the islanders. Winched on to the deck of the Warrior, it didn’t quite make a sail-in protest at Moruroa, as Haazen planned, but it has since become a familiar sight on Auckland Harbour.

    With the third load of 87 people shipped to Mejatto and one more to go, another problem emerged. What should be done about the scores of pigs and chickens on Rongelap? Pens could be built on the main deck to transport them to Mejatto but was there any fodder left for them?

    The islanders decided they weren’t going to run a risk, no matter how slight, of having contaminated animals with them. They were abandoned on Rongelap — along with three of the five outriggers.

    Building materials from the demolished homes on Rongelap dumped on the beach at arrival on Mejatto. Image: © David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    “When you get to New Zealand you’ll be asked have you been on a farm,” warned French journalist Phillipe Chatenay, who had gone there a few weeks before to prepare a Le Point article about the “Land of the Long White Cloud and Nuclear-Free Nuts”.

    “Yes, and you’ll be asked to remove your shoes. And if you don’t have shoes, you’ll be asked to remove your feet,” added first mate Martini Gotjé, who was usually barefooted.

    The last voyage on May 28 was the most fun. A smaller group of about 40 islanders was transported and there was plenty of time to get to know each other.

    Four young men questioned cook Nathalie Mestre: where did she live? Where was Switzerland? Out came an atlas. Then Mestre produced a scrapbook of Fernando Pereira’s photographs of the voyage. The questions were endless.

    They asked for a scrap of paper and a pen and wrote in English:

    “We, the people of Rongelap, love our homeland. But how can our people live in a place which is dangerous and poisonous. I mean, why didn’t those American people test Bravo in a state capital? Why? Rainbow Warrior, thank you for being so nice to us. Keep up your good work.”

    Each one wrote down their name: Balleain Anjain, Ralet Anitak, Kiash Tima and Issac Edmond. They handed the paper to Mestre and she added her name. Anitak grabbed it and wrote as well: “Nathalie Anitak”. They laughed.

    Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira and Rongelap islander Bonemej Namwe on board a bum bum boat in May 1985. Fernando was killed by French secret agents in the Rainbow Warrior bombing on 10 July 1985. Image: © David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    Fernando Pereira’s birthday
     Thursday, May 30, was Fernando Pereira’s 35th birthday. The evacuation was over and a one-day holiday was declared as we lay anchored off Mejato.

    Pereira was on the Pacific voyage almost by chance. Project coordinator Steve Sawyer had been seeking a wire machine for transmitting pictures of the campaign. He phoned Fiona Davies, then heading the Greenpeace photo office in Paris. But he wanted a machine and photographer separately.

    “No, no … I’ll get you a wire machine,” replied Davies. ‘But you’ll have to take my photographer with it.” Agreed. The deal would make a saving for the campaign budget.

    Sawyer wondered who this guy was, although Gotjé and some of the others knew him. Pereira had fled Portugal about 15 years before while he was serving as a pilot in the armed forces at a time when the country was fighting to retain colonies in Angola and Mozambique. He settled in The Netherlands, the only country which would grant him citizenship.

    After first working as a photographer for Anefo press agency, he became concerned with environmental and social issues. Eventually he joined the Amsterdam communist daily De Waarheid and was assigned to cover the activities of Greenpeace. Later he joined Greenpeace.

    Although he adopted Dutch ways, his charming Latin temperament and looks betrayed his Portuguese origins. He liked tight Italian-style clothes and fast sports cars. Pereira was always wide-eyed, happy and smiling.

    In Hawai`i, he and Sawyer hiked up to the crater at the top of Diamond Head one day. Sawyer took a snapshot of Pereira laughing — a photo later used on the front page of the New Zealand Times after his death with the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents.

    While most of the crew were taking things quietly and the “press gang” caught up on stories, Sawyer led a mini-expedition in a Zodiac to one of the shipwrecks, the Palauan Trader. With him were Davey Edward, Henk Haazen, Paul Brown and Bunny McDiarmid.

    Clambering on board the hulk, Sawyer grabbed hold of a rust-caked railing which collapsed. He plunged 10 metres into a hold. While he lay in pain with a dislocated shoulder and severely lacerated abdomen, his crewmates smashed a hole through the side of the ship. They dragged him through pounding surf into the Zodiac and headed back to the Warrior, three kilometres away.

    “Doc” Andy Biedermann, assisted by “nurse” Chatenay, who had received basic medical training during national service in France, treated Sawyer. He took almost two weeks to recover.

    But the accident failed to completely dampen celebrations for Pereira, who was presented with a hand-painted t-shirt labelled “Rainbow Warrior Removals Inc”.

    Pereira’s birthday was the first of three which strangely coincided with events casting a tragic shadow over the Rainbow Warrior’s last voyage.

    Dr David Robie is an environmental and political journalist and author, and editor of Asia Pacific Report. He travelled on board the Rainbow Warrior for almost 11 weeks. This article is adapted from his 1986 book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior. A new edition is being published in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing. 

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ‘We’re not just welcoming you as allies, but as family’ – Rainbow Warrior in Marshall Islands 40 years on

    The first of a two-part series on the historic Rongelap evacuation of 300 Marshall islanders from their irradiated atoll with the help of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior crew and the return of Rainbow Warrior III 40 years later on a nuclear justice research mission.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Shiva Gounden in Majuro

    Family isn’t just about blood—it’s about standing together through the toughest of times.

    This is the relationship between Greenpeace and the Marshall Islands — a vast ocean nation, stretching across nearly two million square kilometers of the Pacific. Beneath the waves, coral reefs are bustling with life, while coconut trees stand tall.

    For centuries, the Marshallese people have thrived here, mastering the waves, reading the winds, and navigating the open sea with their canoe-building knowledge passed down through generations. Life here is shaped by the rhythm of the tides, the taste of fresh coconut and roasted breadfruit, and an unbreakable bond between people and the sea.

    From the bustling heart of its capital, Majuro to the quiet, far-reaching atolls, their islands are not just land; they are home, history, and identity.

    Still, Marshallese communities were forced into one of the most devastating chapters of modern history — turned into a nuclear testing ground by the United States without consent, and their lives and lands poisoned by radiation.

    Operation Exodus: A legacy of solidarity
     Between 1946 and 1958, the US conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands — its total yield roughly equal to one Hiroshima-sized bomb every day for 12 years.

    During this Cold War period, the US government planned to conduct its largest nuclear test ever. On the island of Bikini, United States Commodore Ben H. Wyatt manipulated the 167 Marshallese people who called Bikini home asking them to leave so that the US could carry out atomic bomb testing, stating that it was for “the good of mankind and to end all world wars”.

    Exploiting their deep faith, he misled Bikinians into believing they were acting in God’s will, and trusting this, they agreed to move—never knowing the true cost of their decision

    Bikini Islanders board a landing craft vehicle personnel (LCVP) as they depart from Bikini Atoll in March 1946. Image: © United States Navy

    On March 1, 1954, the Castle Bravo test was launched — its yield 1000 times stronger than Hiroshima. Radioactive fallout spread across Rongelap Island about 150 kilometers away, due to what the US government claimed was a “shift in wind direction”.

    In reality, the US ignored weather reports that indicated the wind would carry the fallout eastward towards Rongelap and Utirik Atolls, exposing the islands to radioactive contamination. Children played in what they thought was snow, and almost immediately the impacts of radiation began — skin burning, hair fallout, vomiting.

    The Rongelap people were immediately relocated, and just three years later were told by the US government their island was deemed safe and asked to return.

    For the next 28 years, the Rongelap people lived through a period of intense “gaslighting” by the US government. *

    Nuclear weapon test Castle Bravo (yield 15 Mt) on Bikini Atoll, 1 March 1954. © United States Department of Energy

    Forced to live on contaminated land, with women enduring miscarriages and cancer rates increasing, in 1985, the people of Rongelap made the difficult decision to leave their homeland. Despite repeated requests to the US government to help evacuate, an SOS was sent, and Greenpeace responded: the Rainbow Warrior arrived in Rongelap, helping to move communities to Mejatto Island.

    This was the last journey of the first Rainbow Warrior. The powerful images of their evacuation were captured by photographer Fernando Pereira, who, just months later, was killed in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior as it sailed to protest nuclear testing in the Pacific.

    Evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejatto by the Rainbow Warrior crew in the Pacific 1985. Rongelap suffered nuclear fallout from US nuclear tests done from 1946-1958, making it a hazardous place to live. Image: © Greenpeace/Fernando Pereira

    From nuclear to climate: The injustice repeats
     The fight for justice did not end with the nuclear tests—the same forces that perpetuated nuclear colonialism continue to endanger the Marshall Islands today with new threats: climate change and deep-sea mining.

    The Marshall Islands, a nation of over 1,000 islands, is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts. Entire communities could disappear within a generation due to rising sea levels. Additionally, greedy international corporations are pushing to mine the deep sea of the Pacific Ocean for profit. Deep sea mining threatens fragile marine ecosystems and could destroy Pacific ways of life, livelihoods and fish populations. The ocean connects us all, and a threat anywhere in the Pacific is a threat to the world.

    Marshallese activists with traditional outriggers on the coast of the nation’s capital Majuro to demand that leaders of developed nations dramatically upscale their plans to limit global warming during the online meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum in 2018. Image: © Martin Romain/Greenpeace

    But if there could be one symbol to encapsulate past nuclear injustices and current climate harms it would be the Runit Dome. This concrete structure was built by the US to contain radioactive waste from years of nuclear tests, but climate change now poses a direct threat.

    Rising sea levels and increasing storm surges are eroding the dome’s integrity, raising fears of radioactive material leaking into the ocean, potentially causing a nuclear disaster.

    Aerial view of Runit Dome, Runit Island, Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands . . . symbolic of past nuclear injustices and current climate harms in the Pacific. Image: © US Defense Special Weapons Agency

    Science, storytelling, and resistance: The Rainbow Warrior’s epic mission and 40 year celebration

    At the invitation of the Marshallese community and government, the Rainbow Warrior is in the Pacific nation to celebrate 40 years since 1985’s Operation Exodus, and stand in support of their ongoing fight for nuclear justice, climate action, and self-determination.

    This journey brings together science, storytelling, and activism to support the Marshallese movement for justice and recognition. Independent radiation experts and Greenpeace scientists will conduct crucial research across the atolls, providing much-needed data on remaining nuclear contamination.

    For decades, research on radiation levels has been controlled by the same government that conducted the nuclear tests, leaving many unanswered questions. This independent study will help support the Marshallese people in their ongoing legal battles for recognition, reparations, and justice.

    Marshallese women greet the Rainbow Warrior as it arrives in the capital Majuro earlier this month. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    The path of the ship tour: A journey led by the Marshallese
     From March to April, the Rainbow Warrior is sailing across the Marshall Islands, stopping in Majuro, Mejatto, Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap, and Wotje. Like visiting old family, each of these locations carries a story — of nuclear fallout, forced displacement, resistance, and hope for a just future.

    But just like old family, there’s something new to learn. At every stop, local leaders, activists, and a younger generation are shaping the narrative.

    Their testimonies are the foundation of this journey, ensuring the world cannot turn away. Their stories of displacement, resilience, and hope will be shared far beyond the Pacific, calling for justice on a global scale.

    Bunny McDiarmid and Henk Haazen greet locals at the welcoming ceremony in Majuro, Marshall Islands, earlier this month. Bunny and Henk were part of the Greenpeace crew in 1985 to help evacuate the people of Rongelap. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    A defining moment for climate justice
     The Marshallese are not just survivors of past injustices; they are champions of a just future. Their leadership reminds us that those most affected by climate change are not only calling for action — they are showing the way forward. They are leaders of finding solutions to avert these crises.

    Local Marshallese women’s group dance and perform cultural songs at the Rainbow Warrior welcome ceremony in Majuro, Marshall islands, earlier this month. Image: © Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    Since they have joined the global fight for climate justice, their leadership in the climate battle has been evident.

    In 2011, they established a shark sanctuary to protect vital marine life.

    In 2024, they created their first ocean sanctuary, expanding efforts to conserve critical ecosystems. The Marshall Islands is also on the verge of signing the High Seas Treaty, showing their commitment to global marine conservation, and has taken a firm stance against deep-sea mining.

    They are not only protecting their lands but are also at the forefront of the global fight for climate justice, pushing for reparations, recognition, and climate action.

    This voyage is a message: the world must listen, and it must act. The Marshallese people are standing their ground, and we stand in solidarity with them — just like family.

    Learn their story. Support their call for justice. Amplify their voices. Because when those on the frontlines lead, justice is within reach.

    Shiva Gounden is the head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific. This article series is republished with the permission of Greenpeace.

    * This refers to the period from 1957 — when the US Atomic Energy Commission declared Rongelap Atoll safe for habitation despite known contamination — to 1985, when Greenpeace assisted the Rongelap community in relocating due to ongoing radiation concerns. The Compact of Free Association, signed in 1986, finally started acknowledging damages caused by nuclear testing to the populations of Rongelap.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Free open access needs to be the norm for Canadian research

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Richard Hayman, Associate Professor & Digital Initiatives Librarian, Mount Royal University

    Public access to research generates new ideas, informs policy decisions and fuels innovation and technological development. Open access to knowledge helps address social issues, enhance democracy and reduce inequality.

    These are key reasons why publicly funded research should be available to the public.

    Millions of research dollars

    The federal government’s 2024 budget shows that Canadian taxpayers have funded over $16 billion in research and development since 2016. Each year, millions of those research dollars flow from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

    These publicly funded federal agencies each offer unique grants and programs covering different research disciplines. When they work in unison, such as when setting research guidelines and policies that apply across all three agencies like the one described in this article, they are collectively known as the Tri-Agency. This money is an investment is Canada’s future, and researchers and their institutions rely on Tri-Agency funding to conduct and share their research.

    In 2015, the Tri-Agency implemented its open access (OA) policy requiring that most published research articles funded by Tri-Agency grants should be openly available in some format, and free to anyone anywhere, with no sharing or distribution restrictions.

    For Canadians and readers around the world, that means no subscription fees or paywalls. This mandate enshrined the principle that publicly funded research should be available to the public. It reached across disciplines by including research supported by all three funding bodies.

    Strengthening the open access mandate

    Following consultation with researchers, institutions, publishers, libraries, Indigenous advisers and others, the Tri-Agency released a draft revision of its open access policy in February 2025. This update explicitly mentions that Canadians at large are part of the research audience.

    Key improvements include eliminating the 12-month embargo period that allowed publishers to delay open access, and requiring researchers to use open copyright licenses (like Creative Commons). Authors must also maintain copyright over their works, including secondary publishing rights. Together these provisions ensure that research can be accessed, shared and used.

    The Tri-Agency plans to implement the new policy in January 2026, leaving some time for final revisions. This presents an opportunity to make the mandate even stronger.

    There is a need for researchers seeking national funding to commit to reporting on the openness of their research.
    (Shutterstock)

    Creating opportunities from open policy pitfalls

    Unfortunately, the revised policy repeats some mistakes from the past. Addressing just two key areas will improve accountability and transparency, and reinforce the commitment to making publicly funded research available to the public.

    1. Meaningful monitoring and reporting: A weakness in the existing and revised policy is a lack of effective compliance measures. Research evidence shows that mandating open access reinforces compliance compared to just recommending that authors to make their research open. Many Canadian researchers are meeting this mandate, but overall the Tri-Agency has a significant open access compliance problem.

    Even the Tri-Agency itself doesn’t know whether authors are meeting the current mandate.

    After a decade, the mandate doesn’t seem to be very effective. And nothing in the proposed revisions empowers authors or institutions to track and report on the open access status of their publications, or demonstrate they’ve met their open access expectations.



    Read more:
    Why we need open-source science innovation — not patents and paywalls

    Instead of repeating past shortcomings, a commitment to reporting and monitoring at organizational and Tri-Agency levels would help. There’s an opportunity here for collaboration.

    The Tri-Agency could commit to monitoring open access outcomes, and researchers seeking national funding could commit to reporting on the openness of their research. This would improve adherence, allow the Tri-Agency to highlight the benefits of public research funding, give Canadian researchers some time in the spotlight and strengthen public trust in our institutions.

    2. Reduce financial barriers and incentivize open access: Academic publishing is dominated by a small group of commercial scholarly publishers who profit by controlling access and distribution of research articles. These same publishers have successfully monetized open access by using article processing charges, or APCs.

    Under this model, authors must pay an extra publication fee to the journal to make their article open access, and many researchers are using research funds to pay expensive fees instead of directing that money toward more research. Similar to compliance rates, the Tri-Agency doesn’t know how much of their funding is being redirected to publishers as publication fees.

    These fees benefit for-profit publishers but are a barrier to research sharing. This is not the first call to remove the fees, and Canadian researchers themselves question whether research funds should be used to pay these costs. Worldwide, increasing publication costs are straining research funds and increasing inequities around who gets to publish.

    We have an opportunity to implement real change by requiring free open access in the updated mandate. With nearly 100 open research repositories registered in Canada, and over 13,000 fee-less journals registered in the Directory of Open Journals, paying to publish is unnecessary. The Tri-Agency could also limit the use of agency funding to pay these fees.

    Now is the time to act

    I am an academic librarian engaged in open publishing, and a researcher subject to the same funding mandate. In my professional opinion the policy updates prove that the Tri-Agency is committed to change.

    Now is the time to make the open access mandate stronger, by improved monitoring and by directing researchers toward free open access publishing options.

    The power to make these changes and put solutions in place all rests with the Tri-Agency. It’s in their hands. The fact that this policy is being revised right now means it’s the perfect time to explicitly support free and open access to research paid for by Canadians.

    As the Tri-Agency weighs feedback from recent public consultations, let us hope that policy-makers, universities, libraries, publishers and individual researchers will come together to make free and open access the norm.

    Richard Hayman has received SSHRC funding in the past. The views expressed here are his own and in no way influenced by SSHRC or any other organisation.

    – ref. Free open access needs to be the norm for Canadian research – https://theconversation.com/free-open-access-needs-to-be-the-norm-for-canadian-research-252584

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: US earthquake safety relies on federal employees’ expertise

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jonathan P. Stewart, Professor of Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles

    The 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake near San Francisco in 1989 caused about $6.8 billion in damage and 63 deaths. J.K. Nakata/U.S. Geological Survey

    Earthquakes and the damage they cause are apolitical. Collectively, we either prepare for future earthquakes or the population eventually pays the price. The earthquakes that struck Myanmar on March 28, 2025, collapsing buildings and causing over 2,000 deaths, were a sobering reminder of the risks and the need for preparation.

    In the U.S., this preparation hinges in large part on the expertise of scientists and engineers in federal agencies who develop earthquake hazard models and contribute to the creation of building codes designed to ensure homes, high-rises and other structures won’t collapse when the ground shakes.

    Local communities and states decide whether to adopt building code documents. But those documents and other essential resources are developed through programs supported by federal agencies working in partnership with practicing engineers and earthquake experts at universities.

    This essential federal role is illustrated by two programs that we work closely with as an earthquake engineer and a disaster management expert whose work focuses on seismic risk.

    Improving building codes

    First, seismologists and earthquake engineers at the U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS, produce the National Seismic Hazard Model. These maps, based on research into earthquake sources such as faults and how seismic waves move through the earth’s crust, are used to determine the forces that structures in each community should be designed to resist.

    A steering committee of earthquake experts from the private sector and universities works with USGS to ensure that the National Seismic Hazard Model implements the best available science.

    In this 2023 update of the national seismic risk map, red areas have the greatest chance of a damaging earthquake occurring within 100 years.
    USGS

    Second, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, supports the process for periodically updating building codes. That includes supporting the work of the National Institute of Building Sciences’ Provisions Update Committee, which recommends building code revisions based on investigations of earthquake damage.

    More broadly, FEMA, the USGS, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation work together through the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program to advance earthquake science and turn knowledge of earthquake risks into safer standards, better building design and education. Some of those agencies have been threatened by potential job and funding cuts under the Trump administration, and others face uncertainty regarding continuation of federal support for their work.

    It is in large part because of the National Seismic Hazard Model and regularly updated building codes that U.S. buildings designed to meet modern code requirements are considered among the safest in the world, despite substantial seismic hazards in several states.

    This paradigm has been made possible by the technical expertise and lack of political agendas among the federal staff. Without that professionalism, we believe experts from outside the federal government would be less likely to donate their time.

    The impacts of these and other programs are well documented. We can point to the limited fatalities from U.S. earthquakes such as the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake near San Francisco, the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles and the 2001 Nisqually earthquake near Seattle. Powerful earthquakes in countries lacking seismic preparedness, often due to lack of adoption or enforcement of building codes, have produced much greater devastation and loss of life.

    The US has long relied on people with expertise

    These programs and the federal agencies supporting them have benefited from a high level of staff expertise because hiring and advancement processes have been divorced from politics and focused on qualifications and merit.

    This has not always been the case.

    For much of early U.S. history, federal jobs were awarded through a patronage system, where political loyalty determined employment. As described in “The Federal Civil Service System and The Problem of Bureaucracy,” this system led to widespread corruption and dysfunction, with officials focused more on managing quid pro quo patronage than governing effectively. That peaked in 1881 with President James Garfield’s assassination by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled supporter who had been denied a government appointment.

    The passage of the Pendleton Act by Congress in 1883 shifted federal employment to a merit-based system. This preference for a merit-based system was reinforced in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. It states as national policy that “to provide the people of the United States with a competent, honest, and productive workforce … and to improve the quality of public service, Federal personnel management should be implemented consistent with merit system principles.”

    The shift away from a patronage system produced a more stable and efficient federal workforce, which has enabled improvements in many critical areas, including seismic safety and disaster response.

    Merit-based civil service matters for safety

    While the work of these federal employees often goes unnoticed, the benefits are demonstrable and widespread. That becomes most apparent when disasters strike and buildings that meet modern code requirements remain standing.

    A merit-based civil service is not just a democratic ideal but a proven necessity for the safety and security of the American people, one we hope will continue well into the future. This can be achieved by retaining federal scientists and engineers and supporting the essential work of federal agencies.

    Jonathan P. Stewart has received funding from NSF and USGS. He is the chair of the Steering Committee for the National Seismic Hazard Model, a member of the National Institute of Building Sciences’ Provisions Update Committee, and a member of the federal Advisory Committee for Earthquake Hazard Reduction (ACEHR). His contributions to this article draw upon his experience and do not reflect the views of the Steering Committee, Provisions Update Committee, or ACEHR.

    Lucy Arendt has received funding from NSF and the Applied Technology Council. She is a member and current chair of the federal Advisory Committee for Earthquake Hazard Reduction (ACEHR). Her contributions to this article reflect her professional expertise and do not reflect the views of ACEHR.

    – ref. US earthquake safety relies on federal employees’ expertise – https://theconversation.com/us-earthquake-safety-relies-on-federal-employees-expertise-253402

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How to talk with children about Canada-U.S. tensions

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jean-François Bureau, Professor, School of Psychology, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

    Mainstream public discourse in the first months of 2025 have been dominated by tensions between Canada and United States. These include references to Canada becoming annexed as the 51st American state and the trade war, with threats and the application of tariffs by the U.S. and counter-tariffs by Canada.

    While this political climate brings uncertainty at an international level, it comes with fear of job loss for many Canadians at a time when the cost of living is already straining many families’ finances.



    Read more:
    Canadians are feeling increasingly powerless amid economic struggles and rising inequality

    These topics may appear to be concerns for adults, but children may also feel the effects. As psychology researchers studying parent-child relationships and child mental health, we believe it is important to consider children’s potential fears and anxiety in the current political climate.

    Here, we explain why it’s important to address this topic with children, and how parents can do so in a reassuring and informative manner.

    Children’s concerns and emotions

    While the economy and politics could seem like topics that children would not really care about, recent research suggests that many children and youth actually worry about these topics.

    Back in 2020, American parents of children aged six to 17 years old were asked to rate their child’s anxiety about political news, in terms of voting issues covered in media since the 2016 election. According to the study by psychology researcher Nicole E. Caporino and colleagues, 36 per cent of children worried about the U.S. getting into war, and 37 per cent worried about their family’s finances.

    Studies suggest children worry about issues affecting their families.
    (Shutterstock)

    Similarly, studies elsewhere suggest children and youth worry about issues affecting their families. Based on these numbers, we can assume that many Canadian children also worry about the current Canada-U.S. political climate.

    Of course, it’s worth remembering not all families experience political and economic events in the same way. For example, children whose families face economic precarity are likely already living with stressors affecting their households like unemployment or food insecurity. Current tensions may also exacerbate children’s existing concerns.

    Given that children may be concerned and worried, some parents may intuitively seek to avoid the topic with children to avoid provoking more distress. However, discussing a stressful event can actually decrease the distress felt towards it.

    When children are able to talk about what concerns them with their parents, they learn important emotional regulation and coping skills. For example, they learn how to identify and understand their emotions, and how to regulate those emotions. Discussions between parents and children also help foster a climate of trust, in which children feel like they can rely on their parents in moments of need.

    Noticing, tackling children’s anxiety and fears

    Children may not always have the words to articulate their concerns in the same way that adults do. Parents should watch for anxiety symptoms in their children, which may manifest in various ways, including having mood changes, being more irritable or sad, having difficulty sleeping, being more clingy than usual, or withdrawing from activities. There are also signs that may be harder to spot.

    We present five ways to address the situation with your children:

    1. Use direct questions to understand how children feel. Direct questions can help understand how children feel. For example, you may ask: “What have you heard about what’s happening?” or “How do you feel about it?” These questions can help understand what specifically is scary to them.

    Children could be worried about no longer seeing family in the U.S., or some may even fear a military clash.
    (Shutterstock)

    This is especially important given that children tend to worry about different things than adults. For example, younger children with family in the U.S. may worry they will no longer be able to see their family members anymore. Older children may be worried about a parent losing a job, the country’s economic instability or environmental impacts. Some children may even fear a military clash.

    2. Be sensitive to how the conflict is presented. In the media, it is common to refer to the diplomatic and economic tensions as a “trade war.” While adults understand that trade wars do not involve military attacks, this concept is much more abstract for children.

    Hearing the word “war” may trigger difficult images for them, including armed soldiers, weapons and devastation. This is especially true for children with lived experience of war, political conflict or displacement.



    Read more:
    Coronavirus isn’t the end of ‘childhood innocence,’ but an opportunity to rethink children’s rights

    It’s important to reframe the conflict in ways that children can understand. For example, parents can compare the conflict between two children. Parents might say: “You know when there are two children upset with each other at school, and they have a big disagreement. Sometimes it can take a lot of time to find a solution that works for everyone. The conflict between Canada and the U.S. is a bit like that. It could take a lot of time and trouble to find a solution.”

    3. Avoid misinformation. When discussing these topics, parents should seek to clarify any misinformation and provide reassurance. They should also help ensure children receive information from credible sources rather than social media or peers, who may sensationalize or misinterpret events. Providing factual but age-appropriate explanations is a key ingredient in mitigating fear and uncertainty.

    4. Focus on co-operation and opportunities instead of boycotting.

    Many Canadian families are choosing to boycott American products. In order to ease the emotional burden on children, it can be helpful to reframe the boycott as an opportunity for co-operation. For instance, parents can highlight how they are trying to support local businesses.

    Similarly, for families with resources to travel, changes in travel plans can be framed as a way to discover new places. A parent might frame it as: “This year, instead of going to the beach, we’re going to be exploring some incredible places closer to home. We’re going to have so much fun trying new things!” This approach creates curiosity and control, not anxiety. It can also be beneficial for children’s development to learn to be more flexible with change.



    Read more:
    When Canadian snowbirds don’t flock south, the costs are more than financial

    5. Create a sense of normalcy and routine. As important as it is to validate children’s fears, it is equally important to help them maintain a sense of normalcy. Families should strive to balance discussions about the trade war and its potential ramifications with more light, mundane topics. Similarly, limiting the time that children watch the news or when it is audible can help limit further concerns from developing.

    Routines are also beneficial for children’s development and well-being. Maintaining a predictable schedule, such as a bedtime routine, can help children feel safe and less anxious. Focus on adding fun and soothing activities to the daily routine. This lets children know life goes on.

    Navigating turbulent times

    As the trade war with the U.S. plays out, parents should consider how it may impact their children’s emotions and sense of safety. Even serious conflicts such as this one don’t last forever, and solutions will come.

    In the meantime, parents can help children cope with these challenging times by offering age-appropriate explanations and encouraging resilience.

    Jean-François Bureau receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Consortium National de Formation en Santé.

    Audrey-Ann Deneault receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Centre de recherche universitaire sur les jeunes et les familles.

    – ref. How to talk with children about Canada-U.S. tensions – https://theconversation.com/how-to-talk-with-children-about-canada-u-s-tensions-252435

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Thanks to social media platforms, election interference is more insidious and pervasive than ever

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Andrew Buzzell, Postdoctoral Fellow, Rotman Institute of Philosophy, Western University

    Seemingly innocuous conversations, informed by online campaigns, could interfere with elections. (Matt Quinn/Unsplash), CC BY

    Election interference is a much broader phenomenon than is often assumed. Once limited to intimidation, voter fraud or hacking, election interference includes more mundane, pervasive and ubiquitous interactions. A seemingly innocuous and casual chat with a neighbour or barista could now be considered part of a hostile influence campaign.

    From this perspective, interference is less about how ballots are cast and more about shaping the motivations, intentions and contexts in which voters think about politics. Yet those same processes, debates, persuasions and messy arguments are integral to democracy.

    If “election interference” encompasses all efforts to influence opinion, do we risk diluting its meaning, creating a new hollow accusation like “fake news?” More importantly, if this broad view is right, it raises difficult new challenges beyond the narrow measures of election law.

    Blurred lines

    Germany recently accused Elon Musk of meddling in their February election, claiming that his prominent endorsement of the Alternative for Germany party on X was an illegal foreign donation. During the 2022 Brazilian election, misinformation on WhatsApp and Telegram swayed voter intentions, and the Superior Electoral Court frequently requested that content be taken down.

    Much of this content was homegrown, produced, endorsed and circulated by Brazilians themselves. If such content was traditional journalism, existing laws and standards could be applied. But when it resembles ordinary political speech, many see takedowns as censorship. Blurred lines between citizen speech and journalism complicate the laws and policies designed to address clearly defined electioneering.

    During the 2020 Taiwan elections, officials worried that pro-unification memes came not only from Chinese-controlled bots and paid posters (itself a form of election interference), but were trending because the TikTok algorithm systematically prioritized it.

    And in the United States, the legislative push to ban TikTok gained momentum alongside political concern that an apparent uptick in anti-Israel sentiment was caused by covert manipulation of TikTok’s algorithm.

    Broader concerns

    Concerns about election interference should extend the focus beyond the ballot to include information vulnerabilities. Politicians of all stripes have called for action on deceptive speech, but there is little agreement on the nature of the problem, especially across partisan divides

    Complaints about fake news are as likely to be strategic as sincere. News isn’t just about facts, it’s about what matters and why, and as such, media regulation should not solely be determined by the legal system. There is the risk that any effort to control content used to interfere with elections (propaganda, disinformation, fakes) will be inescapably partisan, thus unacceptable in democracies.

    The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) notes some of these concerns. The act indicates that monitoring and reporting about societal risks and public transparency databases will be required. It establishes “trusted flaggers” (experts and civil society groups) to help moderate content. It doesn’t mention elections, but voices concerns that platforms may be “used to disseminate or amplify misleading or deceptive content, including disinformation,” which can undermine fundamental rights.

    The DSA is new but already facing friction. The U.S. has indicated that enforcement may undermine free speech. Other issues include the absence of funding, the lack of standards for transparency databases and growing mistrust in the very idea of flagging. Flagging posts has been criticized for conflating editorship with censorship

    Free speech

    There are two schools of thought in competition with each other pertaining to free speech. The first defines it as freedom from interference with the media environment, and the view that the response to bad speech should be more and better speech, not censure.

    Currently, too much speech is circulating, along with the power given to algorithms and human moderators to make sense of it. This suggests a different ideal — the freedom to be informed and in control of our information environments, to feel authentically represented and to have fair dealings with speech platforms. Translating these to policies and slogans is much harder than a hands-off approach to media regulation.

    Overwhelmed with information, consumers favour brands, curators, editors, tastemakers, vibes and tribes that align with their personal values. If there is a shift in values, consumers cancel, unfollow and disconnect — and then replace the source.

    Trust-breaking disrupts the systems we use to filter, verify and contextualize information. This is exemplified in “firehose of falsehood” tactics and hack-and-leak operations that simultaneously sow distrust and weaponize predictable reactions.

    Scales of influence

    For every internationally important election or referendum, there are hundreds of local contests, municipal elections, internal party nominations and the like that shape political realities just as meaningfully. Influencers operating at small scales can have outsized effects that ripple through broader constituencies. A post on a local forum might spark a thousand invisible offline conversations.

    These broad concerns about vulnerabilities in our media systems matter all the time, not just during elections. Political representation requires trust in the media that inform us about what other people and communities think and care about. These reflections are distorted by online social media platforms and messaging apps.

    We will have to eventually consider something like a “made in Canada” Digital Services Act that can give voters a voice in the kind of information environment they want. There’s much to be learned from the EU’s early lessons, especially as they respond to American tech companies that control so much of the online information space.

    Andrew Buzzell received funding from SSHRC.

    – ref. Thanks to social media platforms, election interference is more insidious and pervasive than ever – https://theconversation.com/thanks-to-social-media-platforms-election-interference-is-more-insidious-and-pervasive-than-ever-251764

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Stone tool discovery in China shows people in East Asia were innovating during the Middle Paleolithic, like in Europe and Middle East

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ben Marwick, Professor of Archaeology, University of Washington

    The artifacts found at Longtan, southwest China, were as old as 60,000 years. Qijun Ruan

    New technologies today often involve electronic devices that are smaller and smarter than before. During the Middle Paleolithic, when Neanderthals were modern humans’ neighbors, new technologies meant something quite different: new kinds of stone tools that were smaller but could be used for many tasks and lasted for a long time.

    Archaeologists like me are interested in the Middle Paleolithic – a period spanning 250,000 to 30,000 years ago – because it includes the first appearance of our species, our arrival into many parts of the world for the first time, and our invention of many new kinds of stone tools.

    Illustration of a typical Quina scraper and related tools. The toolmaker would flake pieces of stone off the core to carefully shape the Quina scraper.
    Pei-Yuan Xiao

    In our study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of international collaborators and I describe our discovery in China of the first complete example of a Middle Paleolithic technology previously seen only in Europe and the Middle East.

    Archaeologists have thought that ancient people in East Asia completely skipped the Middle Paleolithic. Our discovery challenges the long-standing notion that while ancient people in Europe and Africa were inventing new tools during this period, people of East Asia stuck to only the most basic tools that remained unchanged for thousands of years.

    The Quina tool kit from Longtan. (A–D) Quina scrapers. (E–G) Quina cores. (H-J) Resharpening flakes showing Quina retouch at the near end of the top face. (K) Small tool made on resharpening flake.
    Hao Li

    Quina scrapers helped hunters process kills

    The tool we’ve identified is called a Quina scraper. This type of stone tool is well known from archaeological sites in Europe and the Middle East.

    Quina scrapers are typically quite thick and asymmetrical, with a broad and sharp working edge that shows clear signs of being used and resharpened multiple times. This shape results in durable cutting edges, ideal for long cycles of use followed by resharpening.

    People used Quina scrapers to scrape and cut soft materials, such as meat and animal skins, and medium-hard materials, such as wood. We know this from tiny scratches and chips on the scrapers that match traces caused by working these materials in experiments using contemporary stone tools.

    European archaeologists believe that Quina scrapers were invented to meet the needs of highly mobile hunters living in cool and dry climates. These hunters were focused on seasonal migratory prey such as reindeer, giant deer, horse and bison. Quina scrapers would have helped them process their kills into food and other resources – for example, to extract marrow.

    A. Map showing the location of the discovery of the Quina tool kit in China, at the southern margin of the Hengduan Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau. B. View of the landscape showing the Longtan archaeological site.
    Hao Li, CC BY-ND

    First find of a Quina tool in East Asia

    Our team, led by Hao Li of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research and Qijun Ruan of the Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, excavated Quina scrapers and related stone tools from the Longtan archaeological site in southwest China.

    Bo Li collects samples from Longtan for luminescence dating at his laboratory at the University of Wollongong.
    Qijun Ruan

    Our colleague Bo Li at the University of Wollongong used optical luminescence dating methods on the layers of earth that contained the artifacts. This technique can identify how much time has passed since each individual sand grain was last exposed to the Sun. Dating many individual grains in a sample is important because tree roots, insects or other animals can mix younger sediments down into older ones.

    After we identified and removed intrusive younger grains, we found the layers containing the artifacts were 50,000 to 60,000 years old. This is roughly the same time Quina scrapers were being used in Europe at Neanderthal sites.

    Keliang Zhao from China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology looked at pollen grains from the Longtan excavations. He found that the Middle Paleolithic people of Longtan lived in a relatively open forest-grassland environment and a dry and cool climate. This environment is similar to that of Quina sites in Europe.

    Davide Delpiano, Marco Peresani and Marie-Hélène Moncel, experts on European Middle Paleolithic tools, joined our team to help with the comparison of the Chinese and European specimens and confirm their similarities.

    Hélène Monod, from Universidad Rovira i Virgili in Spain, looked at our Quina scrapers under the microscope and found traces on them from scraping and scratching bones, antlers and wood. She also found polish from using the tools on meat, hides and soft plants.

    Who lived in East Asia during this period?

    Our new discovery of Quina scrapers joins another recent find of a different kind of Middle Paleolithic technology in East Asia: Levallois tools from Guanyindong Cave in Guizhou Province in south-central China. Levallois tools result from a distinctive multistep sequence that efficiently produces lots of useful cutting tools, with minimal wasted stone. Taken together, these two finds make a strong case that Middle Paleolithic technologies were present in East Asia.

    But why are we only just finding this Quina tool kit now, when it has been known in Europe for such a long time?

    One reason is that archaeologists have been looking in Europe for longer than almost anywhere else in the world. Another reason Middle Paleolithic evidence appears rare in East Asia is because what now seem to be less typical variations of the Quina tool kit previously found in China had been overlooked, likely due to archaeologists’ narrow definitions based on European examples.

    The Quina tools at Longtan are among the earliest artifacts from that site, which makes it hard for researchers to determine the origins of this new technology. Was it introduced by visitors from Europe? Or did local people in East Asia independently invent it?

    The research team shows off the Longtan artifacts.
    Hao Li

    To answer these questions, we hope to find more Quina scrapers at sites with deeper – meaning older – layers than Longtan. If older layers hold what look like the remnants of experiments in stone toolmaking that would eventually result in Quina tools, it suggests Quina tools were invented locally. If deeper layers have dissimilar tools, that suggests Quina technology was introduced from a neighboring group.

    We also hope future work will reveal who made these tools. Our excavations at Longtan did not find any human bone or DNA that could help us identify the toolmakers.

    During the Middle Paleolithic, there were multiple human species that could make tools like this. It could have been modern humans like us. But it could also have been Neanderthals. Considering that the Quina technology in Europe is directly associated with Neanderthals, this seems likely. But it could also have been Denisovans, an extinct species similar to modern humans found during this time in Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau and Laos, or even a new human species that hasn’t been seen before.

    Whoever was making and using these Quina scrapers, they were able to be inventive and flexible with their technology, adapting to their changing environment.

    Ben Marwick 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. Stone tool discovery in China shows people in East Asia were innovating during the Middle Paleolithic, like in Europe and Middle East – https://theconversation.com/stone-tool-discovery-in-china-shows-people-in-east-asia-were-innovating-during-the-middle-paleolithic-like-in-europe-and-middle-east-252868

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Marine Le Pen’s victim narrative is already being constructed – but there are ways to stop her criminal conviction benefitting her

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aurelien Mondon, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Bath

    Marine Le Pen, figurehead of France’s Rassemblement National (RN), one of the most established far-right parties in Europe, has been found guilty of embezzling funds from the European parliament.

    During her time as an MEP between 2004 and 2017, Le Pen and her team paid party staff with funds that should have gone to European parliamentary aides. The ruling estimates that a total of €2.9 million (£2.4 million) in European parliament funds were involved in the crimes and that Le Pen personally embezzled €474,000 of that total.

    She has been sentenced to four years in prison, two of which would be electronic monitoring. She is also unlikely to see the inside of a cell for the other two years as she is appealing her conviction.

    More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that she has been banned from holding public office for five years. Crucially, the ban is to start immediately, meaning that even with an appeal, Le Pen is highly unlikely to be able to stand as a candidate in the next presidential election in 2027.

    For many in the RN, the court’s decision will be a major blow. The party appears to have lost the candidate they believed was on course for victory in 2027. However, others will no doubt see this as a chance to distance the party further from the Le Pen name, following the death of Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen earlier this year.

    This process has been in motion for some time. Jordan Bardella took over from Le Pen as president of the party in 2022 and has clearly been waiting and preparing for this eventuality. Allegations were first levelled at Le Pen many years ago and her crimes relate to her time as an MEP between 2004 and 2017. He has been the plan B option throughout her trial.

    Bardella led the RN to victory in the 2024 European election in France. He also managed to send a record number of parliamentarians to the National Assembly after French president Emmanuel Macron called a snap election just weeks later.

    This was, nevertheless, a somewhat disappointing outcome as many on the far right had started to imagine Bardella as prime minister. Since failing to meet this expectation, his leadership has come under more scrutiny. His reaction to Le Pen’s sidelining will be watched carefully.

    Playing the victim

    Overall, it is good news to see corruption being taken seriously and justice being served. However, Le Pen’s conviction comes after years of embezzlement which has allowed the far right to build its strength. All this has come on the back of a system it has vowed to destroy. As such, it feels like too little too late.

    Furthermore, this decision, and the fact that it is tied to the European Union, is likely to feed into typical far-right propaganda on the domestic stage. Le Pen and the party will play the victim, blaming Le Pen’s fate on a wide conspiracy organised by something akin to the deep state operating via Brussels.

    The deep levels of distrust in public institutions and mainstream politics are likely to play a role here. Le Pen will aim to paint the decision of an independent court as the political assassination of the “champion of the people”.

    She could become a martyr, turning her cause into a revolt against “the system”. Bardella has already said that Le Pen’s conviction amounted to the “execution” of democracy.

    Crucially, though, this outcome isn’t inevitable. Whether such a narrative takes hold is a choice that is very much in the hands of mainstream elite actors. Those who have a privileged access to shaping public discourse, such as journalists, politicians and experts will therefore play a key role.

    Instead of giving pride of place to Le Pen and the far right in a tempting sensationalising coverage, the mainstream media must turn to serious analysis. This would involve removing the focus from individuals and putting it on the wider issues at hand. That would lessen the potential for a narrative of victimisation to take hold.

    Beyond providing an accurate picture of the case itself, good coverage should predominantly focus on politics rather than on the spectacle the RN will inevitably try to construct as a diversion tactic. This would mean engaging seriously with what the RN actually proposes as a model of society: one that is not against the “elite” and for the people, but merely in favour of a different elite taking control at the head of a top-down authoritarian state.

    This would then allow voters to understand that the far right is not on their side, but on the side of power, wealth and hierarchies. Those who oppose such a takeover could go some way to fix the damage that has been done with carelessly associating these parties with “populism”.

    Finally, good coverage would also mean shifting the agenda away from the far right and its pet issues. Had politicians – left, right and centre – not continuously used the far right as a diversion from their own failures to tackle the many crises their countries face, the far right would not be as powerful as it seems.

    As opinion polls show, when people are asked what are their biggest concerns personally, issues core to the far right such as immigration are low. Instead, it is issues that would require radical measures to tackle economic and social insecurity which are prioritised.

    The far right offers nothing to address these – only division to make citizens powerless to fight back. Now that Le Pen is out of the picture, it is a good time to shift the agenda back to democracy and hope.

    Aurelien Mondon 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. Marine Le Pen’s victim narrative is already being constructed – but there are ways to stop her criminal conviction benefitting her – https://theconversation.com/marine-le-pens-victim-narrative-is-already-being-constructed-but-there-are-ways-to-stop-her-criminal-conviction-benefitting-her-253469

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Idarucizumab, levetiracetam, ustekinumab: how do drugs get their names and why are they so hard to pronounce?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Craig Russell, Lecturer, Pharmacy, Aston University

    Asier Romero/Shutterstock

    If you’ve ever tried discussing medicines with friends or family and found yourself stumbling over the pronunciation — or even resorting to snapping a photo of the medicine’s packaging to show your pharmacist, instead of remembering the name — you’ve probably wondered: where do drug names come from, and why can’t they be easier to remember?

    Occasionally, drug names are short and snappy. But more often, they seem more like something from Greek or Norse mythology. While these names may seem overwhelming at first, they’re chosen with purpose, not as a way for big pharma to show off.

    Naming a new drug can resemble watching a yacht race or an American football game for the first time — chaotic and confusing, with rules and a structure that only those involved truly understand. To the untrained eye, it might seem random, but there’s a method to the madness. So, how are these names chosen?

    Most drugs typically have three names: a chemical name, a generic name, and a brand name. Each serves a different purpose.

    An example of this is the branded drug Viagra. Its generic name is sildenafil and its chemical name is 5-[2-ethoxy-5-(4-methylpiperazin-1-ylsulfonyl)phenyl]-1-methyl-3-propyl-1,6-dihydro-7H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-7-one.

    In this example, it is clear why the chemical name is not practical for everyday use. But why have a brand name and a generic name?

    The brand name is assigned by the pharmaceutical company that develops, patents and markets the medicine. These names are chosen to be catchy and easy to remember, helping in marketing and recognition. They are usually easy to pronounce.

    Once a patent expires, other manufacturers can market the same drug under a generic name, as long as it meets the same standards of quality, safety and effectiveness.

    To avoid confusion

    Generic names were introduced in the 1950s and are the official, non-proprietary names for the active drug. Each drug has only one generic name, which ensures clear communication and standardisation worldwide.

    Pharmaceutical companies must follow strict guidelines when naming drugs, which are set by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Non-proprietary Names system.

    In the US, the United States Adopted Names Council assigns generic drug names in collaboration with the WHO. This ensures that drugs with similar functions have similar-sounding names.

    Generic drug names often incorporate stems or suffixes that denote the drug’s mechanism of action, chemical structure or target receptor, and a prefix that differentiates it from drugs in the same family.

    This is why lots of drug names share the same ending. Examples include cholesterol medicines ending in -statin, Ace inhibitors for reducing blood pressure ending in -pril, monoclonal antibody drugs ending in -mab, and tyrosine kinase inhibitors (mainly used in cancer treatment) ending in -tinib.

    Despite all of this, there are still lots of drugs that are easy to mix up. Medicines that look or sound alike (known in the field as “Lasa medicines”) are a leading contributor to medication errors. So, recognising where there is risk is important.

    It is particularly important to consider the sound of the name and not just how it appears when written. Examples of Lasa medicines are Losec (omeprazole) and Lasix (furosemide), and Maprocin (ciprofloxacin) and Macrocin (erythromycin). To avoid confusion, prescriptions and labels include both the brand and generic names to help differentiate between similar-sounding medications.

    Patients should be educated about their medicines and how to use them, including the importance of checking the name and appearance of the medication before taking it.

    Craig Russell receives funding from BBSRC.

    – ref. Idarucizumab, levetiracetam, ustekinumab: how do drugs get their names and why are they so hard to pronounce? – https://theconversation.com/idarucizumab-levetiracetam-ustekinumab-how-do-drugs-get-their-names-and-why-are-they-so-hard-to-pronounce-252049

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Protein is being added to yoghurt, bread and even coffee – but is it really good for our health?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aisling Pigott, Lecturer, Dietetics, Cardiff Metropolitan University

    Not all of these protein-enhanced food products are healthy. MAYA Lab/ Shutterstock

    Protein intake dominates fitness advice. Whether you want to build muscle, improve your fitness or watch your weight, the common advice handed out by everyone from fitness influencers to doctors is that we need more protein.

    But while protein does play an essential role in maintaining our muscle mass and overall health, all this increased attention on the importance of protein in the media and fitness circles has sparked a surge in products marketed specifically for their protein content. Some chocolate bars, ice cream, pizza, coffee and even alcoholic beverages now market themselves as protein foods.

    But our enthusiasm for protein might have gone too far. While protein is certainly important for our health, most of us don’t need these protein-enhanced foods as a regular feature in our diet. Not to mention that this marketing may lead to a “halo effect,” where consumers mistakenly equate high protein content with overall nutritional value. This effect can lead to the perception of protein-rich foods being inherently nutritious – even though many may not be.

    Protein is essential for maintaining muscle mass and immune function.

    Nutrition guidelines recommend people aim to eat around 0.75g of protein per kilogram of body weight. But some evidence suggests this recommendation may be an underestimate – and that the recommendation should be around 1.2g-1.6g per kg of body weight per day

    There’s also a strong body of evidence that suggests the amount of protein we need changes depending on our health. For instance, people need to eat more protein when they’re recovering from an illness. Research also shows that older adults should be aiming for at least 1.2g per kg of body weight in order to combat age-related muscle loss.

    Athletes also need to eat a greater amount of protein to support their training and recovery. Moreover, with the rising popularity of weight-loss drugs, strategies increasingly emphasise protein intake to minimise muscle loss while losing weight.

    But just because protein is good for maintaining muscle mass, that doesn’t mean more is better. In fact, it seems that even when we consume large amounts of protein, only a some of this is actually used by the body.

    Most of us probably need a little more protein than current guidelines suggest, but less than is often promoted by wellness influencers on social media (with some even suggesting we need up to 3g of protein per kg of body weight).

    Ironically, the necessary amount of protein suggested by emerging evidence (1.2g-1.6g per kg of body weight per day) is close to what the average protein consumption already is in most western countries.

    It’s better to try and eat a bit of protein from a whole food source at each meal.
    Margouillat Photo/ Shutterstock

    Most people can probably benefit from being more protein aware – not about how much protein they’re consuming, but about the quality and frequency of their protein choices. Ideally, we should aim to consume small amounts of protein-rich foods more often during the day.

    Current evidence suggests around 20g-30g of protein (around a handful of a protein source) at each meal supports muscle maintenance alongside physical activity.

    In an ideal world, this protein would come from whole foods (such as nuts, seeds, milk, eggs and legumes). But fortified protein products may have their space as a quick and easy snack – especially for those who may struggle to eat this much protein at each meal. It’s important to eat these foods in moderation, however.

    Ultra-processed products

    Supermarkets are full of “protein-enhanced” products. But while these products may contain additional protein, they may also contain additional sugars or carbohydrates.

    For example, protein milk often contains double the protein of regular milk. It does this by removing water or adding dried milk.

    Protein bars are another example. But depending on the brand you choose, alongside their additional protein content they may also be high in sugar.

    Many protein-fortified products share another common trait: they fall into the category of ultra-processed foods. Ultra-processed foods are commercially made products that include ingredients you wouldn’t typically find in your own kitchen.

    Research shows regularly consuming ultra-processed foods is consistently linked with poorer health outcomes – such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Current discussions around ultra-processed foods suggests uncertainty regarding whether it’s the processing itself, the poor nutritional quality of these foods or the combination of both of these factors that contribute to these negative health outcomes.

    Another issue with protein-enhanced products is that while they do indeed contain extra protein, some products may lack fibre, vitamins and essential minerals. A lack of fibre in modern diets is currently one of the biggest contributors to population-wide ill-health.

    All foods have their place within a balanced diet. But protein is only one component of overall nutritional health. The rise in protein-fortified foods as health foods is concerning.

    Protein-enhanced products are occasional foods that might support meeting protein intake, but they should not be mistaken for universally healthy foods. For people looking to reach their protein goals, choose a variety of protein sources, consider the role of convenience foods within the context of whole diet and think about other nutrients like fibre to really maximise health.

    Aisling Pigott receives funding from RCBC Wales (as part of Health Care Research Wales)

    – ref. Protein is being added to yoghurt, bread and even coffee – but is it really good for our health? – https://theconversation.com/protein-is-being-added-to-yoghurt-bread-and-even-coffee-but-is-it-really-good-for-our-health-252236

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Colombia’s fragile peace process in danger as guerrilla violence rises

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dale Pankhurst, PhD Candidate and Tutor in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen’s University Belfast

    Colombia has experienced an upsurge in political and criminal violence over the past few months. In late February, the National Liberation Army (ELN) leftist guerrilla insurgent group carried out four bombings in Cúcuta, a city on the border with Venezuela. Several people were left injured by the attacks, and 1,200 soldiers were subsequently deployed across the city.

    Then, in early March, dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) Marxist-Leninist rebel group captured 29 members of the security forces in the Cauca region, including a police lieutenant colonel and an army major. The renegade faction expressed anger at government efforts to eradicate 8,000 hectares of coca in the area.

    Colombia’s fragile peace process, in which the government has sought to bring the country’s multiple armed groups to the negotiating table, looks to be in danger. Some leftist insurgent groups remain active, while drug cartels and offshoots of Colombia’s former right-wing paramilitaries, such as the Clan del Golfo, continue to expand their influence.

    Colombia suffered Latin America’s longest-running insurgency. In the 1960s, Farc emerged with the goal of overthrowing the Colombian state and establishing a communist government.

    It wasn’t until the late 1990s, when the drug trade emerged as a funding source, that the Farc insurgency became a serious threat to Colombia’s government. Farc took over large parts of rural Colombia, forcing state control to retreat to the urban centres of regional towns and cities. By 2001, Farc was operating in the periphery of Colombia’s capital, Bogotá.

    At the same time, the Colombian security forces also battled other left-wing insurgent forces. These included the 19th of April Movement (M-19), the Popular Liberation Army (EPL) and the ELN, which is now Colombia’s largest active guerrilla insurgent group.

    In response to the revolutionary Marxist threat, anti-insurgent paramilitaries coalesced under the banner of the United Self-Defense Forces. These paramilitary groups both collaborated and conflicted with the state, before the vast majority disbanded through a government demobilisation programme between 2002 and 2006.

    It is estimated that the decades-long armed conflict in Colombia resulted in the deaths of over a quarter of a million people, with many more injured and displaced from their homes. Tens of thousands are still missing.

    The insurgency was officially brought to an end in 2016, when the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with Farc. The group was to be demobilised, victims of the conflict would receive justice, and the government promised significant investment in rural areas previously under Farc control.

    It also guaranteed seats for former Farc rebels in the Colombian Senate and House of Representatives for two terms, starting in 2018. In its new incarnation as a political party, Farc would then have to secure seats through engaging in elections.

    Despite the peace agreement and demobilisation programmes, there are a variety of armed groups across Colombia still intent on collapsing the peace process. The ELN, for example, has rejected every peace deal since its inception in 1964.

    It continues to carry out attacks and seeks to control territory throughout Colombia, particularly in regions where the drug trade proliferates. In 2019, the ELN carried out a suicide car bombing at the General Santander National Police Academy in Bogotá, killing 21 people as police cadets readied for their graduation ceremony.

    Several Farc fronts also rejected the 2016 peace agreement and formed their own dissident factions, including the so-called Central General Staff and the Segunda Marquetalia. Farc dissidents and the ELN have clashed over the years, but have both used neighbouring Venezuela as a launch pad to conduct attacks into Colombia.

    Demobilised Farc combatants face assassinations and threats from dissident rebel factions who view former militants that are now pro-peace as traitors. These threats may encourage some demobilised groups to rearm in the future.

    Alongside the growing insurgent threat, Colombia’s security forces are also dealing with neo-paramilitary factions which are, like the remaining dissident guerrillas, heavily involved in drug trafficking.

    Groups such as the Clan del Golfo seek to generate wealth and power through criminality while also attacking rebel groups such as the ELN and Farc dissidents. These neo-paramilitary groups have an estimated membership of 6,000 volunteers spread throughout Colombia.

    Establishing ‘total peace’

    Following the 2022 election of Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, a new peace strategy was announced that was designed to disarm and demobilise the remaining leftist insurgents, neo-paramilitary factions and organised crime cartels. Petro, himself a former M-19 guerrilla and the country’s first leftist president, sought to use his plan for “total peace” to end Colombia’s remaining violent campaigns.

    It was hoped that peace talks between Petro’s government and rebel factions may have produced better outcomes than previous attempts due to Petro’s left-wing politics and his history as a rebel combatant in the 1980s. However, attempts at establishing peace have repeatedly collapsed.

    The decision by the US president, Donald Trump, to cut foreign aid to Colombia has also heightened fears that groups such as the ELN will benefit as a result. The funding that has been slashed primarily focused on helping communities living in poverty and isolation as well as supporting anti-gang and pro-peace programmes.

    Government initiatives to secure peace continue to stall. But community organisations at a regional and local level have achieved success in transitioning demobilised combatants back into civilian life.

    Groups such as the Medellín-based Peace Classrooms Foundation have used the experiences of former paramilitary members and rebels to warn of the dangers of violence. These groups may hold the key to addressing some of the social injustices that encourage dissent and violence in Colombia.

    The continued violence in Colombia should remind anyone with an interest in wanting peace to succeed that the internal armed conflict is far from settled.

    Dale Pankhurst 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. Colombia’s fragile peace process in danger as guerrilla violence rises – https://theconversation.com/colombias-fragile-peace-process-in-danger-as-guerrilla-violence-rises-252582

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What Britons and Europeans really think about immigration – new analysis

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Claire Kumar, Senior Research Fellow, ODI Global

    Shutterstock

    When we hear about immigration from politicians and media across Europe, the story is almost always negative. In some countries, this is old news. The UK tabloid press has printed thousands of anti-migrant articles over the last two decades. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has been a feature of Danish politics since the early 1990s. In contrast, Viktor Orban’s extreme, racist and Islamophobic rhetoric – adopted largely from 2015 – marks Hungary out as a relative newcomer.

    Across Europe, refugees and other migrants are routinely represented as a problem or “crisis”. It would be natural to assume, then, that the public feels the same way – that attitudes to immigration are negative, possibly worsening. Politicians routinely imply this when they say they must introduce strict immigration rules in response to public concerns.

    Opinion polls regularly show that the European public disapprove of the government’s handling of immigration and may see levels as too high. But long-term European Social Survey (ESS) data – the latest of which came out at the end of 2024 – shows positive trends.

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

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    At ODI Europe, my colleagues and I have been studying public attitudes and political narratives around migration across Europe for five years. Our analysis has found that, compared to 20 years ago, more Europeans (in many, but not all countries) feel immigration makes their country a better place to live.

    Positive attitudes have particularly increased in Ireland, the UK, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. Similar positive trends emerge when the public is asked about the economic and cultural impacts of immigration.

    The UK is among the countries with the least anti-immigration views in Europe. While in 2002-03 only 27% of the British public felt immigration had a positive impact on the economy, this has jumped to 66% in 2023-24. However, it is a drop from the 69% who felt immigration had a positive economic impact in the previous survey round (2020-22).

    The UK also topped the table in the last World Values Survey as a country that is highly accepting of immigration and particularly welcoming of the cultural diversity it brings.



    Read more:
    The UK now ranks as one of the most socially liberal countries in Europe – new research

    The Migration Observatory finds that a majority of the British public favours making immigration easier for workers coming into the NHS, care work and other jobs where there are shortages.

    Researchers from the think tank British Future have found that most of the public would prefer current levels of international student migration to stay the same or increase. International students currently make up 40% of net migration to the country.

    Why the differences?

    The disparity between what we hear about public attitudes and what the data actually shows merits some explanation.

    We know that people’s attitudes on migration are largely stable, based on deeply held values and mainly formed when young. People’s attitudes are relatively slow to change. Generational change is likely key to explaining the long-term positive trends in this area. On the other hand, the salience of immigration – whether the public see immigration as a top issue of concern – can fluctuate dramatically, driven by media attention and political narratives.

    This sounds incongruous given the rise of the far right in some European countries. However, we know that austerity policies, economic insecurity and economic decline are key factors driving the far-right vote.

    Researchers have also uncovered a “reverse backlash” effect. This is where greater success of populist radical right parties is actually accompanied by more citizens reporting positive attitudes on immigration, specifically because they want to distance themselves from radical right views.

    Negative trends

    What does stand out in the latest round of ESS data is that more negative trends are emerging across multiple countries simultaneously. This is most notable in Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands and Poland, but also in Iceland and France.

    In Ireland, there is a substantial ten percentage point fall from the previous survey round (2020-22) in respondents reporting that immigration makes their country a better place to live. The UK sees a five percentage point fall (from 68% to 63%) on the same question – still a significant positive majority compared to only 17% who feel immigration makes the UK a worse place to live – but a notable shift nonetheless.

    This could be a temporary fluctuation, like the kind seen in Sweden and Germany, between 2018-19 and 2020-22. Both countries took in high numbers of refugees during Europe’s so-called “refugee crisis”, which may have led to an uptick of concern around the impact of immigration. However, these fluctuations can be minor and short-lived.

    Another possibility is that we are finally seeing public attitudes shift in line with the more hostile, anti-immigrant environment that has been nurtured by politicians and media. This could be the start of another generational shift – possibly a reflection of the fact that some far-right groups are proving to be particularly popular with younger voters.

    These dips may prove temporary – if not, we risk squandering the public good of a positive European public precisely at a time when Europe needs immigration the most.

    Claire Kumar via ODI Global – has received funding from IKEA Foundation for this research work.

    – ref. What Britons and Europeans really think about immigration – new analysis – https://theconversation.com/what-britons-and-europeans-really-think-about-immigration-new-analysis-252268

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Looking for a job? Understanding how you make career decisions can help

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Julia Yates, Professor of Organisational Psychology, City St George’s, University of London

    Mix and Match Studio/Shutterstock

    If you’re getting ready to leave school or university and are trying to figure out your future career, you may well have been given the advice to start with some self-exploration. This means thinking about what you are like as a person and what you want from a job.

    After this, you can identify a short list of possible options, research them in depth, and make a rational choice to pursue the one that best meets your needs. Once you have made a decision, then you can start applying for jobs.

    But in my personal and professional experience as a career coach and researcher, this traditional approach to career choice is rarely how it works in practice. This is a normative model, meaning it shows us how decisions ought to be made and assumes that we are all completely logical, rational decision-makers.

    No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

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    In practice, we know that people rarely make decisions logically and rationally, particularly when it comes to complex and significant decisions such as choosing a career path.

    And while normative models can, in theory, help us to make better decisions, we know that normative models are only useful in practice if they are somewhat aligned with people’s natural instincts.

    Figuring it out

    I interviewed 40 recent graduates who are currently working. I asked them to think back to a time when they had no clue what they wanted to do. They talked me through how they went from having no idea at all about their future path to their current employment.

    The graduates had studied different subjects and were now working in a wide range of positions and industries, but their career decision-making stories followed a surprisingly similar trajectory. Rather than considering what range of jobs might suit them, they started with a single appealing career idea.

    Considering one occupation at a time reduces the amount of brain power required: it’s much easier to decide yes or no to a single option than to compare the pros and cons of a handful.

    This approach also helps to allay career anxiety, as it allows people to do some fairly in-depth research before they commit. It downplays the significance of the first job they take, so they feel that it doesn’t really matter if they get it wrong and don’t enjoy the job after working there a while.

    If this analysis suggested that the job seemed suitable enough, they would next do some in-depth research, often by actually applying for jobs. If not, they would go back and find another occupation to consider.

    The application process can provide more information about a career.
    Zivica Kerkez/Shutterstock

    Through the application process they would learn more about the culture and the people within the sector and they would get some external feedback on whether their skills were a good match for the job (in the form of job offer or a rejection, for example).

    Summaya, one of the graduates I spoke to, is now a recruitment consultant. “I studied psychology at university … I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to go into psychology as a career, but I quite liked the idea of understanding people,” she said.

    She explained that she decided to look into careers in HR, “because it’s quite well paid and obviously it’s not really psychology, but there are sort of hints of psychology within it”. Summaya found that she could get a job in recruitment with no need for additional qualifications beyond her degree. She said:

    The moment I decided was probably when I applied to my current company, and I had my first interview with them and they explained the job to me. Before that point, I had no idea really … I think, at that moment where I kind of understood, and I was like, oh, I think I’d actually really like doing this job.

    Bound by experience

    This process – considering one career option at a time and using the application process as a way to find out more – capitalises on a gut instinct to identify one occupation from thousands, but relies on rational logic to make a final choice. The process of introspection takes place within the much easier, bounded context of one particular occupation. This helps make the whole process of choosing a career less demanding.

    This approach has a couple of key limitations. First, if you’re young, your available options are constrained by your experiences. While some students might have been introduced to a wide range of career ideas, others, because their life experiences have been more limited, have a much narrower pool of options to choose from.

    And while the apply-and-decide approach makes some logical sense, in practice it can lead to graduates devolving the responsibility of their career choice to recruiters.

    Understanding this process can help young people make better career choices. It might prompt you to get more experience in the workplace, to broaden your horizons and to develop a realistic idea of different roles. It might help you to take a bit more ownership of the decision. Applying for a job may be a good way to find out more, but leaving the choice in the hands of the recruiters is risky.

    We can downplay the significance of a first job. This generation of young people are going to be working for a long time. There’s no harm in trying a few things out before you make a longer-term commitment.

    Julia Yates 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. Looking for a job? Understanding how you make career decisions can help – https://theconversation.com/looking-for-a-job-understanding-how-you-make-career-decisions-can-help-247408

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How Beijing plans to bounce back against Trump’s tariffs

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chee Meng Tan, Assistant Professor of Business Economics, University of Nottingham

    China’s president Xi Jinping recently held a meeting with 40 leaders of multinational companies, including BMW and AstraZeneca.

    In contrast to Donald Trump’s rhetoric, Xi told the top level executives that globalisation was not going away. Xi is attempting to boost foreign investment in China, which has dropped in the last few years, and build new relationships that will offset Trump’s tariffs on many Chinese goods.

    In the March 28 meeting, Xi “vowed to improve market access” and assured corporate leaders that “lines of communication” between them and the Chinese government are open.

    Xi is hoping to build on an anti-Trump bounce and inspire businesses to back Beijing as some signs emerged that China’s economy was doing a little better than expected in early 2025. Industrial production went up by 5.9% in January and February. Credit growth, which measures the amount of loans banks give out, also appears to be picking up, suggesting that businesses might be growing in China.

    Retail sales, which are a major economic marker indicating consumer spending, has risen by up to 4% in January and February this year, compared to last year.

    Beijing is also willing to create further stimulus packages to sustain China’s economic growth, which might lift consumer confidence further.

    But this is hampered by a real estate crisis that began in 2021. What followed was an already high local government debt that was exacerbated by the property crisis, and high youth unemployment that existed since 2023.

    The big question then is what are the factors that could lead to a more buoyant outlook in China’s economic fortunes?

    Beijing’s policy resolve

    According to a Bloomberg report, China has traditionally relied on cheap loans and subsidies to boost economic sectors in infrastructure, manufacturing, and the property market. However, those times are over.

    The problem is China has produced more goods to sell than people are willing to buy. In the past, Beijing relied on the west to purchase its products, but with rising protectionism and looming tariffs stemming from a Donald Trump-led US, US consumption of Chinese goods is likely to fall.

    And if another key market in the form of the EU were to take a cue from Trump’s economic playbook and impose more tariffs on China, then Chinese hope for sales in the west for economic growth may not materialise.

    Beijing’s surest way of boosting sales is through domestic consumption. This isn’t easy as China’s domestic spending remains relatively low at 40% of the country’s GDP, which is about 20% lower than the global average. And if Beijing wants cautious consumers to spend amid a relatively weak economic outlook, it needs to do more to raise consumer confidence.

    Although China did introduce a stimulus package in September 2024, it has resolved to do more. In an early March 2025 speech in the Chinese parliament, Chinese premier Li Qiang promised a “special action plan” to vigorously raise domestic consumption for 2025. Several weeks later Li reiterated in the China Development Forum that Beijing would roll out more stimulus packages when the need arose.

    These assurances are likely to have helped improve market sentiment, and the fact that China’s GDP growth target was also set at an ambitious level of around 5%, might signal Beijing’s confidence and resolve that the economy will improve.

    China’s AI revolution

    In the past, China was considered a copycat nation known for manufacturing shanzai, or fake and pirated products. This difficulty in innovating and reliance on the designs of others largely lay with an education system steeped in rote learning, and a top-down culture with a conformist approach.

    This is why experts thought China would struggle when the US decided to introduce restrictions on Chinese access semiconductor and AI technologies. However, despite these restrictions, China has managed to develop a highly capable AI model of its own in the form of DeepSeek, which was unveiled early this year, and immediately boosted China’s image as an innovator.

    Unlike other AI models, DeepSeek was apparently made at a fraction of the cost of other traditional AI models such as ChatGPT, and may have a more efficient coding scheme that allows for quicker problem solving. This has prompted Donald Trump to coin DeepSeek’s development as a wake-up call for the US tech industry.

    Many AI startups in China are now revamping their business models to compete with DeepSeek, following widespread adoption of the latter’s technology. As the AI revolution in China could potentially reduce costs and thereby boost efficiency in the financial sector.

    Following Trump’s return to the Oval Office, investors across the globe have been trying to reduce their reliance on the US by looking for investment opportunities elsewhere. This isn’t entirely surprising given Trump’s knack for the unpredictable, and how new US tariffs have been applied to a host of US allies such as Mexico, Canada, and the European Union.

    While Trump is striking an increasingly protectionist tone, China is taking the opposite approach. Trump’s penchant for tariffs and disregard for the economic interest of US allies may mean Beijing might not need to do too much to attract more nations and businesses to consider turning towards Chinese markets.

    Chee Meng Tan 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 Beijing plans to bounce back against Trump’s tariffs – https://theconversation.com/how-beijing-plans-to-bounce-back-against-trumps-tariffs-253086

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Inner London residents told me their food waste problems – composting definitely isn’t the answer

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sayed Elhoushy, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Queen Mary University of London

    “It’s always frustrated me that we can’t compost here – even though I get why. Tower blocks just aren’t built for it,” said Alexandra, a 42-year-old Tower Hamlets resident, living on the ninth floor. She gestures toward the tall buildings in her neighbourhood. Her frustration is shared by many, where food waste collection from blocks of flats remains a challenge.

    Tower Hamlets in east London is England’s most densely populated borough, with more than 15,000 people per square kilometre. More than 81% of its residents live in high-rise flats, and 30% of its rubbish is food waste.

    For residents like Alexandra, the lack of options is disappointing. “When I first moved here, I looked into food waste disposal, but there weren’t many options for people in flats,” she says. Unfortunately, her experience reflects a wider problem.

    According to the UK waste charity Wrap, nearly a quarter of the UK’s food production is wasted each year – that’s over 6.4 million tonnes of edible food worth £21 billion, enough to feed the country for nearly three months. Households contribute approximately 60% of this waste, which not only costs money but also fuels climate change.

    London authorities have introduced reduction and recycling plans (RRPs) to tackle food waste and increase recycling. These efforts align with the mayor’s London-wide strategy to halve food waste by 2030. While these targets are ambitious, their implementation in high-rise boroughs such as Tower Hamlets remains a challenge.

    The communal bins overflowing with rubbish and recycling waste in London Borough of Tower Hamlets, April 2024.
    I Wei Huang/Shutterstock

    For many residents, food waste is both an environmental issue and a logistical nightmare. “We tried compost bins in our building, but rats and foxes loved them more than we did,” laughed Aisha, a resident I interviewed at a community centre in March 2023.

    Limited space makes traditional composting methods such as wormeries (small-scale systems where worms break down organic waste into compost) unfeasible. The people I interviewed explained that community-led schemes often struggle due to limited participation in the first place, contamination from improper waste disposal and pest control issues including attracting rats and foxes.

    In my work as a sustainability marketing researcher, I’m investigating alternatives and researching how best to maintain sustainable consumer behaviour.

    Co-creation – in this case, designing solutions with the residents trying to tackle food waste – is so important, but often overlooked. By talking directly to the people involved, a plan will end up being much more effective because people trust it more and engage with it more willingly.

    In 2023, I led a six-month behaviour change research project with East London Garden Society, a community-driven initiative focused on promoting gardening and environmental sustainability in east London. I interviewed 15 Tower Hamlets residents, listened to numerous community meetings and analysed community discussions to uncover the real barriers to food waste reduction.

    My findings were clear: residents don’t just want tips – they want a voice.

    As 64-year-old Maryam put it: “I really appreciate that you’re taking a resident-first approach, gathering feedback and understanding experiences. That’s how you’ll find what truly works.”

    By placing residents at the centre, we can ensure that solutions are built to last. But co-creation alone is not enough – residents need systematic changes, such as better infrastructure.

    The role of technology

    A 2024 study shows how technology is reshaping the food system from production to consumption. Apps such as Olio help consumers share surplus food and reduce waste.

    Some composting machines or food waste processors are compact enough for household kitchens, requiring no garden. Residents can use the resulting compost to grow small plants on their balconies or add it to their green waste bin – this process is made easier by the reduction in volume.

    Larger compost machines can turn organic food waste into nutrient-rich soil in just 24 hours, reducing its volume by up to 80% – while these can handle organic waste from multiple high-rise buildings, they need to be installed in a bigger shared community space.

    In Tower Hamlets, where space is limited, compact technology offers a convenient solution. But, as we found in our research, it’s not without its challenges.

    As Frank, a man who lives on a top-floor flat, explained: “This machine is much quicker than traditional composting, but what about the cost and the electricity it uses?” While smart technologies offer convenience, some Tower Hamlets residents raised concerns about energy consumption and costs – so there is a trade-off between ease and energy efficiency.



    Read more:
    Most food waste happens at home – new research reveals the best ways to reduce it

    Surprisingly, composting technology, often seen as the eco-friendly solution, may be worsening the food waste crisis. As a marketing expert, I spoke directly with many consumers at Tower Hamlets.

    One told me that composting makes them feel “less guilty” about throwing out food. When composting serves as a licence to waste, it can increase the amount of food that is discarded.

    Making composting easy diverts waste from landfills, but that doesn’t address root causes including simply buying too much food in the first place. To reduce food waste, technology must promote behavioural change such as better meal planning and waste monitoring. Knowing how much food waste they produce, compared to their neighbours, can encourage people to change their behaviour.

    So many cities face the same problems, with densely populated communities living in flats without gardens. Without co-creating practical solutions with residents, achieving waste reduction goals will be tough.

    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.

    Sayed Elhoushy received funding from the East London Garden Society (£3000) for the Food Waste Pilot Project (#10239808) (Nov 1, 2022 – Feb 28, 2023) and from the SBM Small Grant Fund (£2,500) (Apr 3 – Jul 14, 2023).

    – ref. Inner London residents told me their food waste problems – composting definitely isn’t the answer – https://theconversation.com/inner-london-residents-told-me-their-food-waste-problems-composting-definitely-isnt-the-answer-250160

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How a new wave of fighter jets could transform aerial combat

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Bacci, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Thermofluids Laboratory, University of Oxford

    The most advanced fighter jets in the world are known as “fifth generation”. They contain technologies developed in the first part of the 21st century. Examples of fifth generation fighter jets include America’s F-35 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor, China’s Chengdu J-20 and Russia’s Sukhoi SU-57.

    Now, however, nations are moving ahead with the sixth generation of combat jets. In the past few months, China has flown its J36 and J50 prototype jets. Meanwhile, the US has selected Boeing to build a new fighter aircraft called the F-47.

    As with previous generations, the sixth will incorporate major advances in aircraft design, onboard electronics (avionics) and weapon systems.

    But how will the new generation of jets stand out from the previous one? Future combat jets will not see dramatic increases in maximum speed, nor in flight performance. Instead, the true innovations will be in how these systems operate and achieve dominance in aerial combat.

    Like the fifth generation, the sixth will be dominated by stealth technology. This helps fighters jets to reduce their chances of being detected by infrared and radar sensors, to the point that when their signatures are eventually picked up, the opponent has no time to act.

    Stealth is achieved through particular shapes of airframe (such as diamond shapes) and coatings on the aircraft – called radar absorbing materials. The airframe is the fundamental structural framework of an aircraft, encompassing the fuselage, wings, tail assembly and landing gear.

    The diamond-like shapes that already characterise fifth generation jets are likely to remain in the upcoming generation of fighter, but they will evolve.

    A common feature we’re likely to see is the reduction or complete removal of vertical tails at the back of the aircraft and their control surfaces. In current aircraft, these tails provide directional stability and control in flight, allowing the aircraft to maintain its course and manoeuvre.

    However, sixth generation jets could achieve this control with the help of thrust vectoring – the ability to manipulate the direction of engines and therefore the direction of thrust (the force that moves the jet through the air).

    The role of vertical tails could also be partially replaced by devices called fluidic actuators. These apply forces to the the wing by blowing high speed and high pressure air on different parts of it.

    F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft. Vertical tails can be seen at the rear of this fifth generation jet.
    US Air Force / Paul Holcomb

    The removal of the vertical tails would contribute to the fighter’s stealth. The new generation of fighters is also likely to see the use of novel radar absorbing materials with advanced capabilities.

    We’ll see the introduction of what are known as adaptive cycle engines on sixth generation fighters. These engines will feature what’s known as a three stream design, which refers to the airstreams blowing through the engine. Current jets have two airstreams: one that passes through the core of the engine, and another that bypasses the core.

    The development of a third stream provides an extra source of air flow to increase the engine’s fuel efficiency and performance. This will allow both the capability to cruise efficiently at supersonic speed and deliver a high thrust during combat.

    It is likely that China and the US will build two separate fighters with different airframes. One will have a bigger airframe, designed for use in an area like the Pacific Ocean region. Here, the ability to fly further and carry a heavier payload will be key, because of the distances involved. Airframes designed for this region will therefore be larger.

    Another fighter jet carrying a smaller airframe will be designed for use in areas such as Europe where agility and manoeuvrability will be more important.

    The next wave of jets will have a system in the cockpit that gathers lots of information from other aircraft, ground surveillance stations and satellites. It would then integrate this data to give an enhanced situational awareness to the pilot. This system would also able to actively jam enemy sensors.

    Another key feature will be the deployment of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (Ucavs), a form of drone aircraft. The piloted fighter jet would be able to control a variety of Ucavs, ranging from loyal wingmen to cheaper, unpiloted fighter jets that will assist the mission, including protecting the piloted fighter.

    This will all be the responsibility of something called the advanced digital cockpit, a software-driven system that will use virtual reality and allow the pilot to effectively become a battle manager. Artificial intelligence (AI) will be a key feature of the support systems for the drones. This will allow them to be controlled with complete autonomy. The pilot will assign the main task – such as, “attack that enemy jet in that sector” – and the system will carry out the mission without any further input.

    Another advancement will be the weapon systems, with the adoption of missiles that not only will be capable of travelling at hypersonic speeds, but will also incorporate stealth features. This will further reduce the reaction times of enemy forces. Directed energy weapons systems, such as laser weapons, could potentially appear in later stages, as this technology is under study.

    Under America’s sixth generation fighter programme, the US Navy is working on a separate jet called the F/A-XX, complementing the F-47.

    The UK, Italy and Japan are also working on a jet project known as the global combat air programme (GCAP). This will replace the Eurofighter Typhoon in service with the UK and Italy and the Mitsubishi F-2 in service with Japan.

    Germany, Spain and France are working on a fighter programme called the future combat air system (FCAS). This could supersede Germany and Spain’s Typhoons and France’s Rafale.

    The path for sixth generation fighter jets seems to have already been traced, but uncertainties remain. The feasibility of some of the characteristics described and development times and costs are not yet well defined. This interval of time was more than ten years for fifth generation fighter jets – and the sixth is going to be far more complex in terms of requirements and capability.

    A new generation of fighter jet is expected to remain on active duty for something like 30 years. But warfare across the world evolves rapidly. It is unclear whether the design requirements we are fixing today remain relevant over the coming years.

    David Bacci is affiliated with Cranfeild Defence & Security (CRanfield University) – Visiting Research Fellow

    – ref. How a new wave of fighter jets could transform aerial combat – https://theconversation.com/how-a-new-wave-of-fighter-jets-could-transform-aerial-combat-252949

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The lore of ‘lore’ – how fandoms created an online phenomenon from an Old English word

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kate McNicholas Smith, Lecturer in Television Theory, University of Westminster

    steved_np3/Shutterstock

    The term “lore” has, well, a whole lot of lore. Now essential online slang, the word can be traced back to Old English, where it referred primarily to learning, as in the act of teaching or being taught.

    Over time, lore came to be associated with more informal knowledge, passed on through word of mouth. The term “folklore,” the “lore of the people”, was coined by the British writer William J. Thoms in 1846. As a result, lore largely slipped out of common usage. By 2024, however, it had made the shortlist for the Oxford word of the year (the title was taken by “brainrot”).

    So, how did “lore” come to hold such contemporary relevance? And what does it mean today? The answer can be found, at least in part, in fandom, where “lore” is used to refer to the body of knowledge that exists around a person, fictional universe or character.

    Fandom has long facilitated deep dives into media in which fans analyse, discuss and track their favourite storylines and character arcs. This has been particularly true of the science fiction and fantasy genres, due to their complex and expansive narrative universes.

    No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

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    In 1969, science fiction fan and writer Bjo Trimble self-published the first edition of Star Trek Concordance. It was an unofficial reference book for the television series featuring timelines, plot summaries, character biographies and more – information that might now be described as Star Trek lore.

    Since then, fans of Star Trek and countless other television shows have continued to create zines, write fan fiction, organise conventions and develop vast and ongoing archives of fan-works. Through such practices, fans develop what media expert Henry Jenkins has described as collective intelligence, as each fan contributes small parts of knowledge to a whole – or, to the lore.

    Fandom has, of course, come a long way since the early days of Star Trek. Fan activities have now moved online, where their reach and visibility has significantly increased. Television has changed too, shifting towards the narrative complexity and innovation made possible, in part, by the active engagements of fandoms.

    Where fandom was once a niche (and often derided) activity, in recent years fan culture has gone mainstream. From direct communication between fans and producers to the creative possibilities of transmedia storytelling (where productions circulate official content across platforms in ways that echo fan-ish expansions of narrative worlds) media is increasingly inviting audiences to participate in the investigating, cataloguing and circulating of lore.

    Pop lore – from K-pop to Gaylor Swift

    A powerful example of lore inspiring transmedia storytelling can be found in K-pop.
    Well known South Korean bands engage with their fans not only through their music, but also with “concepts” (themes that span styling, music and other media) and ever-expanding storytelling universes.

    Take, for example, mega-boyband BTS’s meta narrative of the Bangtan Universe. It’s a fictional alternate universe which spans music videos, webtoons (digital comics), short films, mobile games, books and more. This kind of cross-platform storytelling encourages BTS fans to piece together the “lore” of the respective universe.

    Storytelling is also central to the popularity of singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, described by Teen Vogue as “the queen of easter eggs”. These hidden messages and inter-textual references can be found in the star’s lyrics, videos, fashion, interviews and even manicures, and produce an expansive archive of Swift lore.

    A subsection of Swift lore is known as Gaylor – where fans collate “evidence” that they believe shows that Swift is queer. It is, in part, an example of the expansive possibilities of fandom for queer audiences. But it also speaks to the ethical tensions of fandom and parasocial relationships, as fan-created lore can develop into [invasive expectations](https://www.them.us/story/taylor-swift-end-of-gaylorism](https://www.them.us/story/taylor-swift-end-of-gaylorism) of celebrities.

    Dropping lore on TikTok

    As digital media has grown to become part of our daily lives, “lore” has grown too. Today it goes beyond fictional universes and celebrities to also include everyday people and their online stories.

    YouTube first invited users to “broadcast yourself” in 2005, and opportunities to do so have only expanded since then, notably with the rise of TikTok.



    Read more:
    YouTube was born from a failed dating site – 20 years on, the world’s biggest video platform faces new challenges

    On TikTok, some users tell stories about their lives and experiences, or their “lore”. In these short videos, lore is “dropped” (revealed) about notable events, defining experiences, relationships (such as ex-lore) and family stories (such as dad lore).

    These playful retellings remake real life through narrative conventions of heroism, romance and comic misadventure, while other videos offer ironic commentary on lore-dropping itself.

    There is at once authenticity, performance and play here. Stories are, in part, ephemeral, as lore comes and goes in the fast-paced flow of digital content. Circulating via hashtags, however, stories are connected, responded to and remade, facilitating digital intimacies.

    The circulation of lore is, at once, user generated and algorithmically curated. In the context of what researchers have described as the datalogical turn (where big data and adaptive algorithms become increasingly central to shaping and understanding society) and the rise of affective capitalism (in which feelings, desires and experiences are capitalised on for economic gain), personal lore also becomes valuable data to be commodified.

    Lore then, is an old word with a distinctly contemporary iteration. It’s representative of the ever-expanding convergences of digital media, identity and intimacy.

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

    – ref. The lore of ‘lore’ – how fandoms created an online phenomenon from an Old English word – https://theconversation.com/the-lore-of-lore-how-fandoms-created-an-online-phenomenon-from-an-old-english-word-252577

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Margot Robbie’s Wuthering Heights dress is inaccurate, but not because it’s white – an expert explains

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Danielle Mariann Dove, Surrey Future Fellow and Lecturer in English Literature, University of Surrey

    The tiered ‘polonaise’ style dress would have been popular with women like Cathy Earnshaw during the period the book was set. Wikimedia, CC BY

    The upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation by Saltburn director Emerald Fennell has courted controversy since it was first announced, with Fennell’s choice of leading lady and man drawing internet critics.

    Playing tragic heroine Catherine Earnshaw is the 34-year-old blonde Margot Robbie, and as tortured Heathcliff will be fellow Aussie, the 27-year-old Jacob Elordi. If you’re familiar with Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel then you know the ages, vibes and looks are just off.

    Now online fans of the book are aghast in response to a series of leaked photographs of Margot Robbie wearing an elaborate white wedding gown.

    Some were quick to point out the historical inaccuracy of the wedding gown, while others argued that “the tradition of a white wedding dress wouldn’t have come around until after the story took place”.

    But is that really true? And what would Catherine Earnshaw have actually worn on her wedding day in the late-18th century?

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    Most 18th-century brides would have probably worn their Sunday best on their wedding day. This was their finest day dress in the current fashion.

    While it may have been an expensive dress, it wouldn’t necessarily have been a purpose-made wedding gown – unless the bride was very wealthy. Significantly, and unlike most wedding dresses today, the gown would also have been worn again on other social occasions.

    Brontë tells us nothing about Cathy’s wedding clothes and very little about Cathy and Edgar Linton’s wedding day, which takes place in 1783. However, as the bride of a wealthy landowner she would likely have chosen to have a wedding gown specially made for the occasion in rich silk or satin.

    The dress would have been a testament to her new family’s social standing. It would likely have featured a tightly fitted bodice with a low, round neckline characteristic of the period, a sash, and close-fitting, three-quarter length sleeves with a frill.

    The wide skirts would have been open to reveal a longer petticoat underneath, or they might have been looped up with ribbons to form three layers in the popular “polonaise” style of the day.

    By contrast, the wedding dress that Margot Robbie has been pictured wearing is much more reminiscent of the silhouette in vogue in 1840.

    In fact, it appears to take direct inspiration from Queen Victoria’s wedding gown which she wore to marry Albert in February of that year – almost six decades after Cathy’s fictional wedding takes place. Like Queen Victoria’s wedding gown, Robbie’s features a similar off-the-shoulder neckline, short, puffed sleeves and a deep V-shaped bodice.

    A white dress?

    Queen Victoria is often credited with having started the trend for wearing a white wedding dress. But while she certainly helped to popularise the white gown in the 1840s, she was by no means the sole originator of the tradition. Women were married wearing white long before she chose to do so and they continued to marry wearing dresses of other colours long after.

    In 1875, for example, the magazine Beeton’s Young Englishwoman advised one of its readers who wrote in asking for bridal fashion advice, that a grey wedding dress of “Japanese silk would be pretty”, and suggested a silk gown of “pale blue or pale mauve” which “would be useful afterwards”.

    Contrary to popular belief that white wedding dresses were not in vogue until the Victorian period, white and silver were in fact the preferred colours for wedding gowns in the 18th century.

    The preference for a white or silver wedding dress over a coloured gown can be seen in Oliver Goldsmith’s 1768 comedy play, The Good Natur’d Man, when Garnet, a lady’s maid, tells the soon-to-be married Olivia: “I wish you could take the white and silver [gown] to be married in. It’s the worst luck in the world, in anything but white.”

    The historical inaccuracy of Robbie’s Wuthering Heights wedding dress stems not from its colour, then, but primarily from its problematic silhouette.

    Of course, historical accuracy is not necessarily the end goal for film directors. Rather, Robbie’s anachronistic wedding gown appears to exemplify a broader trend in historical drama (think Bridgerton) towards a kind of strategic inaccuracy, in which producers and costume designers prioritise experimentation over strict fidelity to period detail.

    For all we know, Fennell might have decided to set the adaptation around the time of the novel’s publication rather than its original late-18th and early-19th century setting. Even more intriguingly, she might be using the wedding dress to signal the adaptation’s more modern inflections.

    Robbie’s wedding dress and cathedral-length veil wouldn’t look out of place at a contemporary wedding. Basque, or drop waist, wedding dresses dominated New York bridal fashion week in October 2024 and are poised to become a major trend in 2025 having been adopted by celebrities such as actor Millie Bobby Brown and podcaster Alex Cooper. Perhaps Fennell’s Cathy is just extremely fashion forward.

    Danielle Mariann Dove 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. Margot Robbie’s Wuthering Heights dress is inaccurate, but not because it’s white – an expert explains – https://theconversation.com/margot-robbies-wuthering-heights-dress-is-inaccurate-but-not-because-its-white-an-expert-explains-253461

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Elisapie’s Juno-winning album: Promoting Inuktitut through music

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Richard Compton, Professor, Department of Linguistics, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

    Singer Elisapie’s fourth album, Inuktitut, was nominated for adult alternative album of the year and album of the year at the 2025 Juno Awards, and won best adult alternative album at the Juno Awards Gala, March 29.

    The album features covers of 10 pop and classic rock songs, including the Rolling Stones’s “Wild Horses” and Metallica’s “The Unforgiven,” re-imagined in Inuktitut. Inuktitut is the first language of 33,790 Inuit in Canada, according to the 2021 Census.

    Elisapie’s nomination offers a good opportunity to reflect on the situation of Inuktitut and how creative work, including music, helps promote it.

    Our work touches on the inter-generational transmission of Inuktitut. We share perspectives as a Qallunaaq (non-Inuk) linguist (Richard) and as an Inuk school teacher (Sarah) in Nunavik, with Sarah’s personal experiences in the community highlighted.

    Together, we have co-taught courses for Inuit teachers in Puvirnituq and Ivujivik. We are also both affiliated with a research group focused on Indigenous education based at Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

    Elisapie’s ‘Isumagijunnaitaungituq’ (The Unforgiven)

    Music in Inuktitut

    Sarah notes that:

    I was amazed that [Elisapie] could make the long words in Inuktitut fit with the rhythm of the music; she did it so precisely. It took me back to the 1980s, when I was growing up. It would have been nice if songs like these had been interpreted back then. It’s been a long time coming, but it shows that nothing is impossible. The songs sound so natural in Inuktitut.

    On the day we talked about this story, Sarah remembered:

    I was at the Snow Festival yesterday [in Puvirnituq], and some of the teenagers knew all the words to her songs and were singing along. We didn’t have that when I was growing up.

    She remembers first seeing Elisapie sing in the early 1990s at one of the first snow festivals in Puvirnituq.

    Elisapie’s album has also sparked interest outside of Canada, with stories in such venues as Rolling Stone, Vogue and Le Monde.

    Beyond how Elisapie beautifully interprets the songs, creative choices like using throat singing on the first track, “Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven),” and stunning music videos showcasing life in the North brings the language to a wider audience.

    The album’s cover art features the word Inuktitut, ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ, in syllabics — a writing system originally use for Cree and adapted to Inuktitut, where the individual symbols represent consonants and the way they point represents vowels.

    Elisapie’s ‘Taimangalimaaq’ (Time After Time)

    Diversity of the Inuit language

    The word Inuktitut itself means “like the Inuit,” and is the name for part of a wider language continuum spoken across the North American Arctic. This language continuum includes Iñupiaq in Alaska, Uummarmiutun, Sallirmiutun and Inuinnaqtun in the Western Canadian Arctic, Inuktitut in the Eastern Arctic, Inuttut in Labrador and Kalaallisut in Greenland.

    This abundance of names reflects a diversity of varieties, each with their own pronunciations and differences in grammar and vocabulary stretching across Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit homeland.

    Speakers in each community look to their Elders as models of how the language should be spoken. While this multiplicity of dialects poses challenges for translation and creating teaching materials, each variety marks local identity and links generations.

    This diversity also fascinates linguists, as each variety attests to a different way of organizing the unconscious rules of grammar in the human mind.

    For instance, Inuktitut has a rich system of tense markers on verbs, signalling events that just happened, happened earlier today, before today or long ago. Inuinnaqtun, to the west, lacks most of these tense markers, but instead allows more complex combinations of sounds.

    A role model for youth

    Sarah stresses the importance of Elisapie’s music for the language:

    It’s so impressive that people like Elisapie are doing such amazing things with the language. She grew up around the same time as me and when I was in school there were so few teaching materials in Inuktitut, and we focused more on speaking than reading and writing. Even if her main goal might not have been to promote the language, she’s doing it, because kids listen to her. More teenagers are willing to sing in Inuktitut now because they have role models like her and Beatrice Deer.

    Deer is an Inuk and Mohawk musician from Quaqtaq, Nunavik, who also sings in Inuktitut, as well as English and French.

    Indigenous language education rights

    In Canada, all levels of government have failed to provide adequate access to education in Indigenous languages, even in regions where Indigenous Peoples form the majority.

    In Nunavik, where Elisapie is from, 90 per cent of the population (12,590 out of 14,050) identifies as Inuit and 87 per cent (12,245 out of 14,050) report Inuktitut as their first language. And yet Inuktitut is only the primary language of instruction up until Grade 3.

    About promoting Inuktitut, Sarah says:

    We’re lucky that in most of the villages in Nunavik, the language is still strong. But it’s still concerning that some people have started speaking in English to their kids. What we really need to promote it is to have school in Inuktitut from kindergarten to the end of high school [secondary 5 in Québec]. That’s why a group of Inuit teachers, including me, visited Greenland to learn more about their education system. They’ve had schools in their language for almost 200 years. We just started in the ‘50s.

    While bilingualism may bring economic benefits, the lack of support for Indigenous languages often results in a situation where bilingualism robs children of the chance to fully develop in their first language.

    Right to education in Indigenous language

    In addition to violating Indigenous Peoples’ inherent right to get an education in their language (see the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), current education policies also go against recommendations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

    UNESCO recommends that Indigenous minority languages be taught as the primary language in school for the first six to eight years, as this has been shown to contribute to children’s well-being and self-esteem.

    Unfortunately, Canada’s official language laws continue to place the two colonial languages of English and French above Indigenous languages, particularly in education funding.



    Read more:
    Ancestral languages are essential to Indigenous identities in Canada

    New challenges have also emerged for maintaining and extending the domains in which Inuktitut is used. Once cut off from high-speed internet, new satellite technology has brought access to more Inuit communities, along with new economic opportunities.

    However, this connectivity also brings an avalanche of English content, from viral videos and streaming platforms to social networks and mobile games.

    Vital for promoting Inuktitut

    It is in this changing linguistic and media landscape where Inuktitut language and cultural production, like Elisapie’s album, are vital for promoting Inuktitut.

    Children and teenagers need content that speaks to them — things they see as new, fun, cool and representing their generation. This includes music, comic books, novels, video games and even Hockey Night in Canada in Inuktitut.

    So whether Elisapie’s music is being played in community radio stations, featured in an episode of CBC’s North of North or streamed as a music video on social media, it serves the added role of taking up a little more space for Inuktitut in people’s daily lives.

    This is an updated version of a story originally published on March 28, 2025. It clarifies Elisapie was nominated for two awards and won best adult alternative.

    Richard Compton receives funding in the form of research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Transmission and Knowledge of the Inuit Language.

    Sarah Angiyou 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. Elisapie’s Juno-winning album: Promoting Inuktitut through music – https://theconversation.com/elisapies-juno-winning-album-promoting-inuktitut-through-music-251774

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Governments must ensure caregivers have support to keep doing their vital work

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Heather Aldersey, Professor and Canada Research Chair (Disability Inclusive Development), Queen’s University, Ontario

    People with disabilities and their families often have an even greater need for support over time, especially if a disability is progressive or family members experience their own health challenges. (Shutterstock)

    April 1 marks National Caregivers Day in Canada. The day is meant to recognize the carers who provide vital care and support to those in need.

    We all need care and support to navigate challenges in life. Help can come from formal support (paid professionals and government programs), and from natural support networks (family, friends and neighbours).

    People with disabilities and their families often have an even greater need for support over time, especially if a disability is progressive or family members experience their own health challenges due to aging.

    The Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence (CCCE) released its National Caregiving Strategy on Feb. 18, stating that caregiving is the next frontier in Canadian public policy. As the CCCE’s executive director, Liv Mendelsohn, said: “Millions of Canadians are navigating caregiving with minimal support, and it’s simply unacceptable.”

    This article’s co-author, Donna Thomson, is a caregiver, author and educator. She is the mother of two grown children, one who has severe cerebral palsy and medical complexity. Thomson also helped care for her mother who lived with dementia until she passed away in the summer of 2018 at the age of 96.

    Family caregivers often need support themselves in order to keep working both inside and outside of the home. Parents of adult children with developmental disabilities in Canada are hardly ever asked: “What do you do for your son or daughter that paid helpers cannot?” Even less often, that question might be followed by: “Wow, that’s a lot. Would you like some support to continue doing those things?”

    With a federal election on the horizon, Canadians can call on their governments to improve support for caregivers.
    (Shutterstock)

    Importance of natural caregivers

    Our research recognizes that both formal and informal supports are essential in enabling people with disabilities and their families to live their best lives. We want to understand how individuals, families, organizations and communities can best come together to get people with disabilities and their families the types of supports they need and want, when they need and want them.

    Over the course of our research, we conducted a document and literature review, alongside interviews and focus groups with people with disabilities, family members and formal disability support providers. We identified that family or friend caregivers often support a person they care for with a sense of love and commitment to a depth that is rare in formal support relationships.

    Unbound by professional obligations, safety standards or employer/funder priorities, these natural supporters can often be vocal advocates for the best interests of those they are supporting.

    However, sometimes finding and sustaining natural support in the community doesn’t come easily for people with disabilities and their families. In those instances, organizations and facilitators (formal supports), can help broker the creation and maintenance of natural support networks.

    Community organizations offering formal supports and supporting the creation and maintenance of natural supports can sometimes be beholden to funder obligations. This can limit the flexibility and adaptability required to best meet the needs of those they support.

    Additionally, organizations are often constrained by safety considerations, aversion to risk or the challenges posed by overly bureaucratic systems. Sometimes, this can mean the support provided to a person or family does not directly respond to what the individual or family needs. Even more frustrating is that waiting times can be so long to access formal supports that identified needs or priorities change in the meantime.

    Sometimes, finding and sustaining natural support in the community doesn’t come easily for people with disabilities and their families.
    (Shutterstock)

    CCCE’s caregiving strategy

    The CCCE strategy is a recognition that care work makes all other work possible. It echoes our research findings that both paid and unpaid caregivers need financial support as well as targeted programs and services.

    The strategy calls upon the Canadian government to make caregiving a priority while ensuring a sustainable care provider workforce.

    Supports are also a provincial issue. For example, in Ontario, the Ministry for Children, Community and Social Services has published a framework that offers a long-term vision for transforming developmental services so people with developmental disabilities fully participate in their communities and are supported to live their lives.

    Care and support can also be a gender issue, given that in Canada and around the world the majority of both formal and informal support is being provided by women and girls.

    Missing perspectives

    Our research also highlighted a notable gap in the research landscape. Research on natural support in Canada is often not explicit about or does not incorporate understandings of natural support from the perspectives of Indigenous, Black, rural, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized groups.

    People belonging to these groups may have their own needs and experiences that relate to navigating natural and formal support systems in Canada. Future-focused research agendas into natural supports, such as those proposed in the CCCE strategy’s recommendations, must intentionally seek to understand support and care experiences from these perspectives.

    At the Global Disability Summit taking place this week in Berlin from April 2-3, we will join voices from around the world to call on national leaders and decision-makers to ensure disability policies translate into tangible actions and inclusive practices.

    Our research shows the deep, important impact of federal and provincial policy and funding both for formal and natural supports to flourish. With a federal election on the horizon, Canadians can call on their governments to improve support for caregivers, ensure support systems are in place and flexible enough to respond to individual and family needs, and enable natural support networks to flourish.

    This is important, because the care we give to each other, regardless of age or ability, is what will sustain us as families.

    This article was co-authored by Donna Thomson, a caregiver, author and educator.

    Heather Aldersey receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Universities Canada, and the Mastercard Foundation.

    – ref. Governments must ensure caregivers have support to keep doing their vital work – https://theconversation.com/governments-must-ensure-caregivers-have-support-to-keep-doing-their-vital-work-249829

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Violent attempt to set fire to Muslim woman in Ajax exposes persistent Islamophobia in Canada

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nadiya N. Ali, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Trent University

    The National Council of Canadian Muslims’ senior advocacy officer Fatema Abdalla read the survivor’s statement about what happened at a news conference last week. ‘I don’t feel safe for my daughters,’ the statement reads, ‘all of whom wear hijab.’ NCCM/Instagram

    A 25-year-old woman recently attempted to set a Muslim woman on fire in Ajax, Ont.

    Afterwards, the survivor provided a statement, which was read for her at a news conference. In it, she described her visit to her “favourite quiet corner of the library” as ordinary and routine. This ordinary moment, however, turned nightmarish and extraordinary in an instant.

    According to the survivor, the attacker attempted to yank her hijab off. She hurled objects at her head, including scissors and a metal object. The attacker then poured an unknown liquid on her hijab and flicked her lighter several times, allegedly attempting to light the fabric ablaze. Library staff and security intervened before any more harm could take place.

    Afterwards, the survivor, a mother of two girls, explained that she’s unable to quell her terror. She said: “I can’t stop thinking: what if the lighter had worked? What if my hijab had caught fire?” But most of all, she’s terrified for her hijab-wearing daughters’ safety in public spaces.

    No one should feel unsafe in public spaces. However, for racialized people, public space in North America is fraught with heightened risks. It’s shaped by a deep undercurrent of white anxieties propping up the racial order of society.

    This incident is not an isolated act of violence. It is situated within a broader social climate that normalizes the policing of how racialized people “should” enter and occupy public spaces.

    We are two scholars and community organizers who have long been working on issues related to Islamophobia and racism. The traumatic event in Ajax highlights the persistent and deeply ingrained nature of gendered Islamophobia in Canada and beyond.

    Whether through horrific displays of public violence like this one, or legislative action like Bill 21 in Québec, the bodies of Muslim women have long been battlegrounds for white supremacist anxieties and ideologies.

    White panic

    While we don’t yet know the attacker’s affiliations or what inspired her to commit this act of terror, this incident echoes racist aspirations for “purity.”

    Racial anxiety about the inflow of multiple generations of Muslims is integral to the way Islamophobia channels white supremacist panic over the growing population of Muslims in Canada — and the attack in Ajax is no exception.

    White supremacist anxieties about demographic changes are articulated most clearly and directly in the “Great Replacement Theory” (and variations of it) that vilifies racialized people, asserting a drive to preserve “white innocence,” tied to eugenic fantasies of purifying North America and Europe.

    Muslims, in this racist ideology, figure as foreign invaders, a demographic threat and as “provocateurs” who are trying to overtake the white population through immigration and reproduction — or as some white supremacists call it, “baby Jihad.”

    The changing demographics of Ajax

    Over the past decade, Ajax — in Durham region east of Toronto — has seen significant demographic changes, with an overall growth rate of about 15 per cent. The town is home to more than 125,000 people and about 14 per cent of them are Muslim.

    The growth of Muslim communities is situated within a broader shift. A substantial portion of the population increase has been driven by a diverse group of racialized communities so that now, 65 per cent of the total population of Ajax would be considered racialized.

    The new population has infused new life to Ajax, and the Durham region more broadly. It seems, however, that not everyone is happy about this growth.

    Gendered Islamophobia

    The bodies of Muslim women have long been objectified, serving as a site where white racial anxieties are projected and enacted. Taken up as a sort of Trojan horse, their perceived ability to give birth and reproduce culture is weaponized against them. After all, they hold the power to propagate this “dangerous other,” and dislodge the order of whiteness.

    Jasmin Zine, a critical Muslim studies scholar, has used and developed the term “gendered Islamophobia” to explain the way the bodies and practices of Muslim women are produced as racial problems. Muslim women in public spaces are constructed as hazardous cultural contaminants, polluting the public square and threatening the purity of the (white) nation with their very existence.

    The responses to this perception of contamination take multiple forms. In Québec, for instance, Muslim women are being aggressively foreclosed from participation in public spaces and institutions with laws like Bill 21 and Bill 94.

    ‘Unprovoked attack:’ Racism in public life

    The Durham Police are calling this an “unprovoked attack.” But the provocation is precisely what needs to be named. Of course, the victim did not actively provoke the attacker. But it’s important to ask how our social arrangements prime and sustain the currents that produce Muslim women as provocations on sight.

    This phenomenon of “unprovoked” attacks on visibly Muslim women in public spaces is far too common in Canada. These have ranged from a devastating physical assault in a mall parking lot in Edmonton to a knife attack on the TTC in Toronto, the fatal act of terror in London, Ont. against a family simply taking a walk together to this recent attack in Ajax. Muslim women around the country are rightly asking if public spaces are safe for them.

    Racialized individuals must navigate what Black studies scholar George Lipsitz describes as “privileged moral geographies.”

    For instance, the frame of “disorderly conduct” often serves as a common tool to mark the “wrong ways” in which racialized individuals assert their presence in public settings. This includes the regulation of what foods are deemed appropriate for public consumption, the enforcement of norms around personal space, noise and loitering.

    The catch, however, is that when you are already racialized as a “cultural pollutant,” “conduct” merely fuels the racist climate that already marks you as an improper subject by sheer existence.

    Have another samosa?

    Standard sociological contact theory says greater exposure to diversity breeds opportunity for intergroup contact, which is presumed to foster tolerance.

    Canadians like to believe in our multicultural country — that another samosa party or heritage night is all we need to confront intolerance and prejudice.

    However, what contact theory frames get wrong is the assumption of the public as a neutral site of engagement where people all have equal access to participation.

    Public space is already and always infused with racial logic that neutralizes and naturalizes certain bodies while amplifying and bloating other bodies with objectifying scripts. This perpetually and always produces them as out of place — and as problems that disrupt the order of the public square.

    Until we confront the entrenched racialized ideas that govern public space, creating a landscape where some are seen as natural occupants while others are made alien, true inclusivity and safety will remain out of reach.

    Kaley-Ann Freier, age 25, of Ajax has been charged with assault with a weapon for the attack.

    Nadiya N. Ali has received funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

    Nadia Hasan receives research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

    – ref. Violent attempt to set fire to Muslim woman in Ajax exposes persistent Islamophobia in Canada – https://theconversation.com/violent-attempt-to-set-fire-to-muslim-woman-in-ajax-exposes-persistent-islamophobia-in-canada-253002

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How to talk to children about the Canada-U.S. tensions

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jean-François Bureau, Professor, School of Psychology, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

    Mainstream public discourse in the first months of 2025 have been dominated by tensions between Canada and United States. These include references to Canada becoming annexed as the 51st American state and the trade war, with threats and the application of tariffs by the U.S. and counter-tariffs by Canada.

    While this political climate brings uncertainty at an international level, it comes with fear of job loss for many Canadians at a time when the cost of living is already straining many families’ finances.



    Read more:
    Canadians are feeling increasingly powerless amid economic struggles and rising inequality

    These topics may appear to be concerns for adults, but children may also feel the effects. As psychology researchers studying parent-child relationships and child mental health, we believe it is important to consider children’s potential fears and anxiety in the current political climate.

    Here, we explain why it’s important to address this topic with children, and how parents can do so in a reassuring and informative manner.

    Children’s concerns and emotions

    While the economy and politics could seem like topics that children would not really care about, recent research suggests that many children and youth actually worry about these topics.

    Back in 2020, American parents of children aged six to 17 years old were asked to rate their child’s anxiety about political news, in terms of voting issues covered in media since the 2016 election. According to the study by psychology researcher Nicole E. Caporino and colleagues, 36 per cent of children worried about the U.S. getting into war, and 37 per cent worried about their family’s finances.

    Studies suggest children worry about issues affecting their families.
    (Shutterstock)

    Similarly, studies elsewhere suggest children and youth worry about issues affecting their families. Based on these numbers, we can assume that many Canadian children also worry about the current Canada-U.S. political climate.

    Of course, it’s worth remembering not all families experience political and economic events in the same way. For example, children whose families face economic precarity are likely already living with stressors affecting their households like unemployment or food insecurity. Current tensions may also exacerbate children’s existing concerns.

    Given that children may be concerned and worried, some parents may intuitively seek to avoid the topic with children to avoid provoking more distress. However, discussing a stressful event can actually decrease the distress felt towards it.

    When children are able to talk about what concerns them with their parents, they learn important emotional regulation and coping skills. For example, they learn how to identify and understand their emotions, and how to regulate those emotions. Discussions between parents and children also help foster a climate of trust, in which children feel like they can rely on their parents in moments of need.

    Noticing, tackling children’s anxiety and fears

    Children may not always have the words to articulate their concerns in the same way that adults do. Parents should watch for anxiety symptoms in their children, which may manifest in various ways, including having mood changes, being more irritable or sad, having difficulty sleeping, being more clingy than usual, or withdrawing from activities. There are also signs that may be harder to spot.

    We present five ways to address the situation with your children:

    1. Use direct questions to understand how children feel. Direct questions can help understand how children feel. For example, you may ask: “What have you heard about what’s happening?” or “How do you feel about it?” These questions can help understand what specifically is scary to them.

    Children could be worried about no longer seeing family in the U.S., or some may even fear a military clash.
    (Shutterstock)

    This is especially important given that children tend to worry about different things than adults. For example, younger children with family in the U.S. may worry they will no longer be able to see their family members anymore. Older children may be worried about a parent losing a job, the country’s economic instability or environmental impacts. Some children may even fear a military clash.

    2. Be sensitive to how the conflict is presented. In the media, it is common to refer to the diplomatic and economic tensions as a “trade war.” While adults understand that trade wars do not involve military attacks, this concept is much more abstract for children.

    Hearing the word “war” may trigger difficult images for them, including armed soldiers, weapons and devastation. This is especially true for children with lived experience of war, political conflict or displacement.



    Read more:
    Coronavirus isn’t the end of ‘childhood innocence,’ but an opportunity to rethink children’s rights

    It’s important to reframe the conflict in ways that children can understand. For example, parents can compare the conflict between two children. Parents might say: “You know when there are two children upset with each other at school, and they have a big disagreement. Sometimes it can take a lot of time to find a solution that works for everyone. The conflict between Canada and the U.S. is a bit like that. It could take a lot of time and trouble to find a solution.”

    3. Avoid misinformation. When discussing these topics, parents should seek to clarify any misinformation and provide reassurance. They should also help ensure children receive information from credible sources rather than social media or peers, who may sensationalize or misinterpret events. Providing factual but age-appropriate explanations is a key ingredient in mitigating fear and uncertainty.

    4. Focus on co-operation and opportunities instead of boycotting.

    Many Canadian families are choosing to boycott American products. In order to ease the emotional burden on children, it can be helpful to reframe the boycott as an opportunity for co-operation. For instance, parents can highlight how they are trying to support local businesses.

    Similarly, for families with resources to travel, changes in travel plans can be framed as a way to discover new places. A parent might frame it as: “This year, instead of going to the beach, we’re going to be exploring some incredible places closer to home. We’re going to have so much fun trying new things!” This approach creates curiosity and control, not anxiety. It can also be beneficial for children’s development to learn to be more flexible with change.



    Read more:
    When Canadian snowbirds don’t flock south, the costs are more than financial

    5. Create a sense of normalcy and routine. As important as it is to validate children’s fears, it is equally important to help them maintain a sense of normalcy. Families should strive to balance discussions about the trade war and its potential ramifications with more light, mundane topics. Similarly, limiting the time that children watch the news or when it is audible can help limit further concerns from developing.

    Routines are also beneficial for children’s development and well-being. Maintaining a predictable schedule, such as a bedtime routine, can help children feel safe and less anxious. Focus on adding fun and soothing activities to the daily routine. This lets children know life goes on.

    Navigating turbulent times

    As the trade war with the U.S. plays out, parents should consider how it may impact their children’s emotions and sense of safety. Even serious conflicts such as this one don’t last forever, and solutions will come.

    In the meantime, parents can help children cope with these challenging times by offering age-appropriate explanations and encouraging resilience.

    Jean-François Bureau receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Consortium National de Formation en Santé.

    Audrey-Ann Deneault receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Centre de recherche universitaire sur les jeunes et les familles.

    – ref. How to talk to children about the Canada-U.S. tensions – https://theconversation.com/how-to-talk-to-children-about-the-canada-u-s-tensions-252435

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How viruses blur the boundaries of life

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Heshmat Borhani, Lecturer in Bioinformatics, University of Nottingham

    Cryptographer/Shutterstock

    When people talk about the coronavirus, they sometimes describe this invisible entity as if it has a personality and even a conscience. If you ask a biology or medical student what a virus is, they will tell you that a virus is not a living organism, or at most that it exists at the border between living and dead – a kind of walking dead.

    For biologists who specialise in virology, however, this view is not clear-cut. Scientists still disagree on whether viruses are truly alive or not.

    What scientists can agree on is that a virus adapts to new conditions, evolves and sometimes harms humans. It is also an infectious agent that can only replicate within a host organism such as bacteria, plants or animals.

    The boundary between being alive and dead is a concept with no specific criteria. So to help you think about whether viruses are alive, I will talk you through some of the different definitions of life in science.

    Throughout history, scientists have debated the definition of life and researchers from different fields still disagree. This debate shapes scientific understanding and influences public health decisions – for example, defining whether viruses are “alive” affects how we design vaccines and strategies to stop their spread.

    Biologists may refer you to Erwin Schrödinger’s definition of life. Schrödinger was an Austrian Nobel-prize winning physicist who published a book in 1944 called What is Life? He was one of the first scientists to try to define life and is perhaps better known in popular culture for his “Schrödinger’s cat” thought experiment.

    He proposed that life is a form of negative “entropy”, a scientific concept that explains how disordered something is. A physical system will always increase in entropy/disorder unless we insert energy to change this process. Schrödinger thought living things create and maintain order by using energy.

    For example, a messy bedroom doesn’t clean itself, but a person can tidy it. Organisms do something similar at the molecular level. DNA is highly structured, allowing it to store genetic information. Proteins fold into specific shapes to function properly. In contrast, after an organism dies, its molecules break down, increasing disorder.

    Schrödinger later revised his view – around the 1950s – suggesting that life depends on free energy. Free energy is the energy that drives chemical reactions in living things. This marked a shift from focusing on order (negative entropy) to emphasising energy as essential for life.

    The coronavirus took on a personality for many people.
    creativeneko/Shutterstock

    In the mid-20th century, scientists switched from defining life to describing its key characteristics. Studying organisms such as bacteria, plants and animals, they identified common traits, setting a precedent still followed today.

    Rather than seeking a single definition, researchers classify entities based on these traits. To decide whether a virus is alive, researchers assess how well it meets these criteria.

    According to biology, the smallest unit of life is the cell. A cell is an independent unit which makes functional molecules (such as proteins and enzymes). Cells can use their own molecules to replicate genetic material independently. A virus also has genetic material but needs to use the host cell’s enzymes to make functional molecules or replicate its genetic material.

    Put simply, a virus does not replicate or function independently. So by the biological definition, a virus cannot be categorised as a living organism.

    But from a genetic and evolutionary point of view a living organism is defined by its ability to reproduce. A person who does not have children is still considered to be alive as they are part of the gene pool and descended from people who did have children. From this view a virus is alive, since it can produce similar offspring.

    Some scientists also focus on metabolism and energy production as criteria for life. Metabolism includes catabolism (breaking down molecules like sugars during digestion) and anabolism (building molecules like muscle tissue), linking energy and material. These reactions require molecular structures to generate or use energy – structures viruses lack.

    Does that mean viruses aren’t alive? An amoeba, for instance, uses nutrients and enzymes to sustain itself, while viruses rely entirely on a host. From this perspective, viruses don’t meet the metabolic criteria for life. However, some argue that since viruses hijack a host’s metabolism to replicate, they show life-like behaviour.

    If we consider nutrients to be sources of free energy, a cell uses energy from the environment to build what it needs. As the cell absorbs energy from the environment, it builds and maintains its internal structures – like proteins and membranes.

    It also releases a byproduct – carbon dioxide – that contributes to disorder in the external environment. Viruses also do this. They make their structures by using the external environment, a host cell in this case. The viruses’ byproducts may be what makes us sick.

    As we explore the complexities of biology, it becomes clear that defining life itself is anything but straightforward. Viruses display both life-like and non-living traits, which influences how we approach treatments like antiviral drugs designed to block their replication inside host cells.

    Heshmat Borhani 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 viruses blur the boundaries of life – https://theconversation.com/how-viruses-blur-the-boundaries-of-life-230802

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Who really killed Canada’s carbon tax? Friends and foes alike

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ryan M. Katz-Rosene, Associate Professor, School of Political Studies, with Cross-Appointment to Geography, Environment and Geomatics, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

    In his very first act as prime minister, Mark Carney did what critics had long demanded — he axed the federal carbon tax. Yet while Carney was the one who dealt the final blow, there were many who aided and abetted in its death.

    Since it was first proposed nearly a decade ago, the Liberal government’s keystone climate policy, the consumer carbon tax, became the target of both legal and political attacks. Nevertheless, these attacks were held at bay thanks in part to the 2021 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of carbon pricing and the Liberals’ success in maintaining power.

    The axing of the consumer carbon tax marks a major turning point in Canadian climate policy. It shifts the discussion from the effects of the fuel charge on household budgets to how to best compel large industrial emitters to reduce their climate impact in a swiftly evolving global trade context.



    Read more:
    The carbon tax needs fixing, not axing — Canada needs a progressive carbon tax

    The Liberals now propose instead a system of financial incentives for household-level purchases, while expanding the existing industrial pricing mechanism and potentially applying a carbon adjustment levy on imports from countries with lax environmental standards.

    The Conservatives, on the other hand, are vowing to do away with the industrial carbon pricing system, promoting clean tech innovation and manufacturing through financial incentives at the producer level, and offering greater autonomy to the provinces to set their own climate policies.

    Cost-effective, regressive

    The death of the consumer carbon tax serves as a predictable political tragedy in the Shakespearean sense of the word: widely regarded by scholars and other experts as a cost-effective and non-regressive tool to further reduce the carbon emissions, the tax ultimately fell to relentless populist attacks when its original proponents and supporters caved to this pressure.

    It’s useful to break down the various layers of support for — and opposition to — the tax to examine the role each played in its death.



    Read more:
    What the Supreme Court ruling on national carbon pricing means for the fight against climate change

    The most obvious contributors involved the political opponents of the Liberal Party and critics of former prime minister Justin Trudeau. This included not only the federal Conservative Party and provincial Conservative premiers, but also the rising anti-Trudeau populism that manifested early on, even before the tax’s introduction.

    These sentiments were seen in the Canadian Yellow Vests movement; “Wexit” and subsequently the so-called Freedom Convoy, which started as an anti-COVID-19 vaccine, anti-lockdown movement but morphed into a “carbon tax convoy” in the post-lockdown years.

    The role of inflation

    These populist movements were in part nourished by the Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre after he became leader in 2022, and helped drive further support for the party in the years to follow.

    Circumstantial factors — such as the global inflation crisis — played a key role too. By 2023, Poilievre capitalized on the first annual carbon tax rate increase to associate it with ongoing inflation, launching the widely popular “Axe the Tax” campaign.

    This campaign, bolstered by a significant amount of misinformation, played a significant role in driving popular discontent with the policy.



    Read more:
    The Canada Carbon Rebate is still widely misunderstood — here’s why

    Former allies

    In responding to this rising popular discontent, some of the federal Liberals’ allies and original supporters of carbon pricing also played a role in further weakening the policy.

    For instance, sympathetic provincial premiers who in principle supported federal climate policy began to distance themselves from the carbon tax. In 2024, Manitoba’s NDP Premier Wab Kinew, British Columbia’s NDP Premier David Eby, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Liberal Premier Andrew Furey and New Brunswick’s Liberal Premier Susan Holt all made public comments seeking an end (or an alternative) to the carbon levy.

    Yet the most significant loss of support from a former ally came when NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh withdrew the federal NDP from the supply-and-confidence agreement it made with the Liberals, citing concerns that the carbon tax was placing a burden on everyday working Canadians.

    This withdrawal of support put the government on track for either a non-confidence vote or prorogation, which in turn fuelled an even further slide in voter support for the carbon tax.



    Read more:
    What does the end of the Liberal-NDP agreement mean for Canadians?

    Party leadership

    It was the Liberal Party’s own inside leadership circle that dealt the final blows to the tax.

    Chrystia Freeland’s surprise resignation late in 2024 hastened Trudeau’s political downfall earlier this year. Both leading candidates to replace Trudeau — including Freeland herself and the eventual winner, Carney — centred their campaigns around bringing an end to the tax, noting how the policy was too divisive.

    Yet the Liberal leadership also made several strategic missteps in recent years that contributed to the demise of the tax.

    For one, the party’s 2023 exemption for heating oil undermined the credibility of the policy and gave rise to charges of regional favouritism. Similarly, the party’s consistently poor communications around the carbon tax rebate — including difficulties in properly labelling the reimbursement cheques sent to Canadians — was yet another self-inflicted wound.

    Policy death

    Six years after its introduction, the federal consumer carbon tax was scrapped — ironically by the very party that had championed it for years.

    Yet the list of those who aided and abetted includes a secondary group of previous allies and other entities who in recent years publicly turned their backs on the carbon tax. That eroded public support for a policy that was already facing concerted attacks from Conservative political opponents and growing anti-Trudeau populism.

    While the tax could conceivably be replaced by an equally effective tool, its repeal increases uncertainty about Canada’s ability to meet its already faltering international commitments to support climate change mitigation.

    Ryan M. Katz-Rosene receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. Who really killed Canada’s carbon tax? Friends and foes alike – https://theconversation.com/who-really-killed-canadas-carbon-tax-friends-and-foes-alike-252364

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Nuclear war threat: why Africa’s pushing for a complete ban

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Olamide Samuel, Track II Diplomat and Expert in Nuclear Politics, University of Leicester

    At a time of heightened geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, intensified by strategic dynamics involving the US, Nato and Russia over Europe’s security, nuclear weapons are back on the agenda.

    In recent times, Russia has openly threatened to use nuclear weapons. The UK and France are considering ways to rapidly increase their nuclear weapons stockpiles.

    Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, South Korea and Japan are now seeking nuclear weapons capabilities.

    Even a limited nuclear war in Europe would lead to catastrophic global climatic effects. Huge amounts of debris thrown high into the atmosphere would block sunlight, causing global temperatures to drop sharply. It would be much harder to grow food around the world.

    This would severely threaten Africa’s food security, exacerbating mass migration, disrupting supply chains and potentially collapsing public order systems.

    How should African countries respond to this growing threat?

    Based on my experience in nuclear non-proliferation and politics, I argue that African leaders need to proactively confront the risks, while there is still time.

    All African states, except for South Sudan, abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is an international agreement which limits the spread of nuclear weapons. And 43 African states have gone further to join the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Pelindaba). This was negotiated in the belief that it would “protect African states against possible nuclear attacks on their territories”.

    As conflict and uncertainty pushes many western leaders to support the madness of nuclear weapons proliferation, African leaders are in a unique position to push back against this.

    Africa’s strength in numbers in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the Nuclear Ban Treaty, is a vehicle the continent can use to address nuclear weapons risks, head-on.

    Global divide

    On one side, nuclear-armed states cling to deterrence for their national security. They insist that possessing nuclear arsenals keeps them safe.

    At present, there are nine nuclear-armed states: the US, Russia, the UK, China, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. These countries possess around 12,331 nuclear warheads (as of 2025).

    The use of only 10% of these weapons could disrupt the global climate and threaten the lives of up to 2 billion people.

    On the other side, African countries and other non-nuclear-weapon states such as Ireland, Austria, New Zealand and Mexico highlight how deterrence creates unacceptable risks for the entire international community.

    This global majority – the 93 countries that have signed the Nuclear Ban Treaty and 73 that are party to it – argue that real safety comes from eliminating nuclear threats.

    The Nuclear Ban Treaty became international law on 22 January 2021. It is the first instance of international law challenging the legality and morality of nuclear deterrence.

    Since 2022, states parties to the Nuclear Ban Treaty have held formal meetings to address current nuclear risks. In March 2025, at their third meeting, 17 African states officially recognised nuclear deterrence as a critical security concern. They called on nuclear armed states to end deterrence.

    The deterioration of the international security environment is so palpable that there has been a noticeable shift in nuclear ban states’ perception of nuclear threats. Nuclear disarmament is no longer just a humanitarian or moral concern to these states, it is now a national security concern.

    South Africa warned that

    any use of nuclear weapons would result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would have a global impact.

    Ghana likewise stressed that Africa is not immune to nuclear war’s fallout:

    Africa, despite its geographic distance from the immediate hotspots of nuclear conflict, is not immune to the repercussions of nuclear weapons.

    Africa bears a unique historical connection to nuclear issues. Nuclear testing in the Sahara Desert in the 1960s, when France detonated nuclear bombs in Algeria, had devastating consequences. Widespread radioactive contamination harmed local communities, caused long-lasting health problems, displaced populations, and left large areas environmentally damaged and unsafe for generations.

    For its part, Nigeria recalled that Africa had “long acknowledged the existential threat nuclear weapons posed to human existence.”

    The meeting determined that it is unacceptable that states parties are exposed to nuclear risks, “created without their control and without accountability”. It stressed that eliminating nuclear risks “is a prime and legitimate concern and national responsibility” of states.

    Next steps

    Delegates effectively asked whether their own national security concerns had less value than those of nuclear-armed states. I think this is a valid question.

    Africa’s leaders and their allies in the Nuclear Ban Treaty are reframing what “national security” means in the nuclear age.

    Rather than accepting a world perpetually held hostage by the madness of nuclear deterrence, they are asserting that the security of nations – and of peoples – is best served by dismantling this threat to humanity.

    They are prioritising human life, development and international law over the threat of overwhelming force.

    The outcome of this contest will have profound implications, not just for Africa but for the entire globe.

    Olamide Samuel is affiliated with the Open Nuclear Network.

    – ref. Nuclear war threat: why Africa’s pushing for a complete ban – https://theconversation.com/nuclear-war-threat-why-africas-pushing-for-a-complete-ban-253171

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Rwanda and Belgium are at odds over the DRC: what’s led to the latest low point

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Jonathan Beloff, Postdoctoral Research Associate, King’s College London

    Rwanda’s foreign affairs ministry suspended all diplomatic relations with Belgium in March 2025. Soon afterwards, Belgium expelled Rwandan diplomats. This came weeks after Belgium had suspended foreign aid to Rwanda. At the root of this diplomatic fallout is the resurgence of the rebel group, March 23 Movement (M23), which has made recent military gains in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

    Prior to Rwanda suspending diplomatic relations, President Paul Kagame accused Belgium of continually undermining Rwanda. This deterioration in Rwanda-Belgium relations illustrates decades of the Kagame regime’s lack of trust in Brussels since the 1994 genocide. Jonathan Beloff, who has studied Rwanda’s political, security and foreign policies for nearly two decades, explains.

    What is the historical relationship between Rwanda and Belgium?

    Belgium is perhaps better known for having colonised the Congo. However, it also colonised present-day Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi.

    Belgian forces conquered Rwanda, a former German colony, in 1916 during the first world war. They got help from nearby British forces in Uganda. The Treaty of Versailles, which brought an end to the world war, officially transferred Rwanda and Burundi to Belgium’s colonial holdings.

    While Rwanda was never a significant interest for the Belgian colonial authorities compared to neighbouring Congo, Brussels nevertheless helped shape Rwandan politics, economy and society for decades.

    Rwanda’s current government claims that ethnic divisions of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa only came to the foreground during Belgian colonial rule, which ended in 1962. Before German and Belgian colonisation, Rwandan officials described these communities as socio-economic groupings rather than ethnicities. It was only with the introduction of ethnic identification cards in 1933 that these groups became intractable ethnicities.

    During much of its rule, Belgium used the existing political structures of kings, called Mwami, to carry out colonial policies.

    While a majority of Tutsis and Hutus suffered under these policies, Belgian officials often blamed the Mwami and his courts. The Mwami was often a Tutsi based on the number of cattle he owned. This led to a growing anti-Tutsi sentiment within the majority Hutu population.

    Eventually, it boiled over and led to the 1959 Hutu Revolution and the 1961 Coup of Gitarama. This anti-Tutsi sentiment established much of the political order following Rwandan independence in July 1962.

    What key moments have shaped the relationship?

    Prior to Rwandan independence, Belgium’s political allegiance shifted away from the mostly Tutsi Mwami and their power base to the growing Hutu movement. Under Rwanda’s Hutu leader and later first post-independence president Grégoire Kayibanda, Belgium began favouring Hutus. The community got increased education opportunities. Its leaders were given more say over post-colonial political events than the Mwami and his court.

    Rwanda-Belgium relations focused on promoting the majority Hutu population, despite some discontent from conservative, mostly Tutsi, actors. With independence, Belgium played an important but diminishing role. It did not provide the financial support Kigali wanted. In response, Kigali turned to France, whose influence grew significantly under President Juvénal Habyarimana (1973-1994).

    Despite their diminished state, relations between Rwanda and Belgium were still important. Belgium became the primary western nation to help provide stability in Rwanda during the waning years of the Rwandan Civil War (1990-1994), known locally as the Liberation War.

    A peace deal in 1993, called the Arusha Accords, between the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the Habyarimana regime paved the way for a UN mission. However, getting western nations to send soldiers for the mission proved difficult. This was after a peacekeeping disaster in Somalia (the Battle of Mogadishu) earlier that year. As a result, Belgium ended up providing the bulk of troops for the Rwanda mission.

    The assassination of Habyarimana on 6 April 1994 triggered the Genocide against the Tutsi. The UN mission’s commander sent a platoon to guard the home of prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana. The platoon had 10 Belgian and five Ghanaian soldiers. They were captured when Rwandan Presidential Guard officers stormed Uwilingiyimana’s home and killed her.

    The Ghanaian soldiers were released relatively unharmed, while the Belgian soldiers were killed at the Camp Kigali military base. The murders were intended to provoke the UN mission’s withdrawal from Rwanda. Belgian troops departed within the genocide’s first week. This allowed Rwanda’s genocide to run uninterrupted for 100 days until the Rwandan Patriotic Front stopped it in July 1994.

    Since the genocide, the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front has had a sceptical view of Belgium. In 2000, former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt apologised for Belgium’s failure to stop the genocide and for fostering ethnic divisions during the colonial period.

    Nevertheless, many Rwandan officials still believe Brussels hasn’t done enough to acknowledge its colonial record.

    What’s behind the current fallout?

    The current diplomatic crisis erupted because of accusations of Rwandan involvement in eastern DRC. UN experts’ reports have accused Rwanda of supporting the reanimated M23. The rebel group has captured large swathes of eastern DRC.

    Belgium has been leading calls for European sanctions against Rwanda for this involvement. However, Rwanda – which denies supporting the M23 – claims that Belgium’s accusations are aimed at gaining favourable mining rights in the DRC.

    Relations between the two countries have been deteriorating steadily in 2025. In February, Rwanda suspended a five-year (2024-2029) €95 million (US$102.8 million) deal. This was one of the largest aid deals between the two countries. In March, in addition to the suspension of diplomatic ties, the Rwanda Governance Board, which registers and monitors non-governmental organisations, placed restrictions on NGOs receiving financial support from Belgium.

    What’s the impact of this diplomatic falling out?

    Rwanda-Belgium relations have never broken down to the current level.

    It is unlikely to last in the long term. Like many other donor nations, Belgium needs Rwanda as a case study for proper aid utilisation and for its contribution to African peacekeeping.

    Rwanda is Africa’s most active troop-contributing country to UN missions and the fourth most active worldwide. Its primary political, security and economic allies remain the United States and the United Kingdom. While relations with these two nations are strained, they’re not at the level reached with Belgium.

    Nevertheless, the current state of affairs will continue in the near future unless the M23 is defeated. The only available avenues for quick restoration of relations are if Belgium apologises for seemingly siding with the DRC over Rwanda in the conflict in eastern Congo and repeats its apology for its colonial legacy. Neither of these options seems likely in the short term.

    Jonathan Beloff received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/W001217/1).

    – ref. Rwanda and Belgium are at odds over the DRC: what’s led to the latest low point – https://theconversation.com/rwanda-and-belgium-are-at-odds-over-the-drc-whats-led-to-the-latest-low-point-253349

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Africa’s data workers are being exploited by foreign tech firms – 4 ways to protect them

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Mohammad Amir Anwar, Senior Lecturer in African Studies and International Development, University of Edinburgh

    Data workers in Africa often have a hard time. They face job insecurities – including temporary contracts, low pay, arbitrary dismissal and worker surveillance – and alarming physical and psychological health risks. The consequences of their work can include exhaustion, burnout, mental health strain, chronic stress, vertigo and weakening of eyesight.

    Data work includes text prediction, image and video annotation, speech to text validation and content moderation.

    The world of data work is built on labour arbitrage – exploiting the fact that workers earn less and have less protection in some countries than in others.

    Large technology firms often outsource this work to the global south, including African countries like Kenya, Uganda and Madagascar, and also India and Venezuela. The result is complex production networks that are generally opaque and shrouded in secrecy.

    Workers and researchers have issued many warnings about data workers’ health. Despite numerous court cases in multiple jurisdictions, nothing much has been done to address these issues either by tech companies or by regulators.



    Read more:
    For workers in Africa, the digital economy isn’t all it’s made out to be

    Still, the news of the death of a Nigerian content moderator, Ladi Anzaki Olubunmi, who was found dead in her apartment in Nairobi, Kenya on 7 March 2025, came as a shock. While the circumstances of her death are still unclear, it has renewed calls for wider systemic change. Her death has sparked condemnation from the Kenyan Union of Gig Workers, which demanded an investigation.

    Since 2015, we have been studying the central role of African data workers in building and maintaining artificial intelligence (AI) systems, acting as “data janitors”. Our research found that companies rarely acknowledge the use of human workers in AI value chains, thus they remain “hidden” from the public eye. In other words, the world of AI is built on the toil of human workers most people are unaware of.

    In this article, we outline key steps needed to protect these data workers in Africa. They include business process outsourcing regulations, ensuring quality rather than quantity of jobs, and providing social protection. There is also a need to name and shame companies that maltreat data workers.

    Data work needs tighter regulation.



    Read more:
    Digital labour platforms subject global South workers to ‘algorithmic insecurity’

    Regulation

    Business process outsourcing is the practice of procuring various processes or operations from external suppliers or vendors. Firms that do this are sometimes trying to evade local regulations (like minimum wages) and responsibility towards workers’ welfare (via sub-contracting and the use of temporary employment agencies).

    This is happening in Africa as some data training firms and digital labour platforms circumvent local labour laws.

    But there is more to the story.

    Data work is also seen by lawmakers and practitioners as a solution to the rampant unemployment and informality across Africa. African governments have actively created regulatory environments that enable these practices to thrive, despite adverse outcomes for workers.

    Nonetheless, new regulations have been proposed lately, like the Kenyan government’s Business Law (Amendment) Bill, 2024 targeting the wider business process outsourcing and IT-enabled services sector. Particularly, it makes business process outsourcing firms responsible for any claim raised by employees. It ensures some accountability for firms bringing data work to Africa.

    Other governments should follow with similar measures ensuring worker rights are enforceable. Some data workers are hired on contracts as short as five days and get paid less than the local minimum wage. Firms found violating labour standards should be penalised.

    In fact, there is an urgent need to create regional or continent-wide regulatory frameworks covering the business process outsourcing sector, limiting the space for firms to exploit workers.

    It’s possible, however, that jobs might be lost as firms relocate to places with favourable laws, an everyday reality in the outsourcing networks.



    Read more:
    Most call centre jobs are a dead end for South Africa’s youth

    Quality, not quantity

    African governments should prioritise the quality of jobs and not quantity. Policymakers should think about wider national economic development plans, particularly structural diversification and upgrading of their economies.

    Historically, these strategies have resulted in success in some states, addressing social and economic issues such as unemployment, poverty and inequality.

    Another option for African governments is to enhance social protection among data workers. Financing this is a serious issue, so proper taxation and compliance among workers and employers is urgently needed.

    Finally, there is a role for naming and shaming firms that treat their data workers poorly. There is evidence that such efforts improve compliance and firms’ behaviour.



    Read more:
    Digital trade protocol for Africa: why it matters, what’s in it and what’s still missing

    Worker movements

    African data workers have taken risks in openly speaking about their experiences. But these kinds of approaches work well when combined with collective bargaining.

    Workers have historically won their labour and civil rights after long and hard-fought struggles. There is a long history of African worker movements and trade unions resisting the apartheid and colonial regimes across the continent.

    While the freedom of association is enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and most governments have legislation committed to collective bargaining, it is rarely implemented in the new outsourcing sectors, particularly data work.

    It is also difficult to organise workers in the industry, because of the high churn rate. For instance, data training firms like Sama offer short-term contracts to employees, often as short as five days.

    Some firms are hostile to workers’ organising activities.

    But numerous data worker-led associations have emerged in Africa recently, some led by the co-authors of this article. Techworker Community Africa, African Tech Workers Rising, African Content Moderators Unions and Data Labelers Association are among them.

    These initiatives are crucial to ensure workers have decent remuneration, work-life balance, adequate working hours, protection against arbitrary dismissal, safe working environments, and contributions towards their health and welfare.

    Several high-profile court cases are currently being pursued by African data workers against Meta and Sama. There is precedent. In 2021. Meta was ordered by a Californian court to pay US$85 million to 10,000 content moderators.

    AI-dependent tools such as ChatGPT or driverless cars would not exist without African data workers. They are tired of being “hidden”. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.

    Mophat Okinyi, Kauna Malgwi, Sonia Kgomo and Richard Mathenge co-authored this article.

    Mohammad Amir Anwar receives funding from United Kingdom Research and Innovation, Royal Society of Edinburgh, and British Academy.

    – ref. Africa’s data workers are being exploited by foreign tech firms – 4 ways to protect them – https://theconversation.com/africas-data-workers-are-being-exploited-by-foreign-tech-firms-4-ways-to-protect-them-252957

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –