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Category: Global

  • MIL-OSI Global: Labour says benefit reforms are a ‘moral mission’ – it looks more like moral panic

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Morrison, Associate Professor in Journalism Studies, University of Stirling

    House of Commons/Flickr, CC BY-ND

    After weeks of speculation, Liz Kendall, work and pensions secretary, has unveiled her plans to reform welfare and cut the country’s ballooning benefits bill. The proposals include:

    • stricter eligibility requirements for Personal Independence Payments (Pip), the main disability benefit
    • scrapping the work capability assessment for universal credit
    • freezing or cutting the incapacity benefit “top-up” to universal credit for new claimants
    • reducing incapacity benefits for under-22s
    • increasing the standard rate of universal credit for claimants seeking work
    • introducing a “right to try”, so that people can try work without automatically losing benefits or being reassessed.

    Kendall, along with her fellow Labour ministers, has tried to sell the proposals as a “moral mission”. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has repeatedly framed the cuts as a “moral duty”.

    Cabinet office minister Ellie Reeves argues it is the party’s “moral obligation” to prevent “a lost generation” of young people being consigned to long-term worklessness.

    I research the impact of how the media and politicians talk about welfare (and people who claim it) on public attitudes and benefit recipients themselves. In recent weeks, I’ve asked myself: what exactly is “moral” about welfare reform? Do ministers see it as morally wrong to leave working-aged people “on the scrap heap”? Or are they more concerned with demonstrating their moral duty to taxpayers – by cutting benefits for people they claim could be working?

    The proposals do contain measures that back up ministers’ claims to genuinely want to help people, rather than simply cut costs. The “right to try” guarantee should allow those outside the labour market to give work a go without losing benefits if this doesn’t work out.

    But if ministers are being driven by morality, I would argue they have approached the problem the wrong way round. The first priority should be not to cut the benefit bill, but to introduce proper support. This, of course, will likely push costs up in the short term. Savings will follow, but only if help translates into meaningful, dignified work.

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    Starmer has pledged to stop a “wasted generation” of school leavers not in education, employment or training (Neets) missing out on the “the dignity of work”.

    But by hammering home this message with the uncompromising pro-worker slogan “this is the Labour party”, he aligns himself with a specific moral orthodoxy. This affirms the moral superiority of his government’s defining shibboleth, “working people”, by defending hardworking taxpayers who feel it is “unsustainable, indefensible and unfair” to keep footing a “spiralling bill” for welfare.

    The moral crusade to promote the virtues of honest toil is doubtless fuelled by surveys suggesting tough talk on benefits remains popular with socially conservative voters the party fears losing to Reform UK.

    However, many polls are nuanced. A new Ipsos survey identifies a “benefits paradox”, wherein 37% of Britons agree that “ensuring everyone who needs health-related benefits” should be “prioritised, even if it means some who could work do not”. The same survey had just 23% favouring tougher eligibility requirements.

    Moral mission or moral panic?

    As my own research shows, when “welfare reform” agendas are couched in the language of “moral missions”, what is really happening is moral panic. We are witnessing escalating alarm at a perceived threat to the moral order that is disproportionate to the true scale of the problem.

    True, the number of people inactive due to sickness or disability is higher than before the pandemic, but suggestions that overall inactivity has reached record levels are wrong. Although a higher percentage of 16- to 64-year-olds was inactive during 2024 than in Germany or Ireland, this was lower than the previous year’s rate (down from 22% to 21.5%), and fell further in early 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics.

    Britain’s 2024 inactivity rate was also beneath those of 15 other European countries (including France and Spain), the US and the EU average. The true high point of UK inactivity came in 1983, when more than a quarter of working-aged adults were inactive.

    Kendall has distanced herself from the language of “scroungers” I analysed in my book on welfare discourse under the 2010-15 coalition government. But connotations can be just as stigmatising as overt labels.

    In endlessly employing the mantra “those who can work should work,” ministers channel timeworn tropes distinguishing between the deserving and undeserving poor.



    Read more:
    Getting Britain to work without blaming ‘scroungers’ – can Starmer change the narrative?

    The new proposals include a ‘right to try’ work without fear of losing benefits.
    SeventyFour/Shutterstock

    There is a moral case for offering tailored, sensitive support to disabled people who want to work but face significant barriers – including inflexible employers and the pressure of caring for others.

    But this should not come at the cost of impoverishing people unable to work – as some unlikely critics of the government’s proposals point out.

    Tony Blair’s onetime Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell told Radio 4 it would be “immoral” to damage people with severe disabilities “who don’t have any option but to be on benefits”. And Blairite former work and pensions secretary Lord Hutton warned that sweeping benefit cuts would “drive millions and millions of people into penury”.

    The government says its reforms are a moral mission, but they are already having immoral effects. Just how moral is it to terrify people already struggling to afford basic essentials with the prospect of being driven into deeper poverty? Or to encourage young people into work that is likely to be low-paid and insecure?

    If there’s one message we can take from the unseemly spectacle of leaks and briefings leading to this week’s announcement, it may be this: we’ve been watching a government on the brink of losing its moral compass.

    James Morrison receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a project entitled Voices from the Periphery: (De)Constructing and Contesting Public Narratives about Post-Industrial Marginalisation (VOICES).

    – ref. Labour says benefit reforms are a ‘moral mission’ – it looks more like moral panic – https://theconversation.com/labour-says-benefit-reforms-are-a-moral-mission-it-looks-more-like-moral-panic-252404

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why a journalist could obtain a minister’s ChatGPT prompts – and what it means for transparency

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Felle, Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Galway

    When the New Scientist revealed that it had obtained a UK government minister’s ChatGPT prompts through a freedom of information (FOI) request, many in journalism and politics did a double take. Science and technology minister Peter Kyle had apparently asked the AI chatbot to draft a speech, explain complex policy and – more memorably – tell him what podcasts to appear on.

    What once seemed like private musings or experimental use of AI is now firmly in the public domain – because it was done on a government device.

    It’s a striking example of how FOI laws are being stretched in the age of artificial intelligence. But it also raises a bigger, more uncomfortable question: what else in our digital lives counts as a public record? If AI prompts can be released, should Google searches be next?

    Britain’s Freedom of Information Act was passed in 2000 and came into force in 2005. Two distinct uses of FOI have since emerged. The first – and arguably the most successful – is FOI applied to personal records. This has given people the right to access information held about them, from housing files to social welfare records. It’s a quiet success story that has empowered citizens in their dealings with the state.

    The second is what journalists use to interrogate the workings of government. Here, the results have been patchy at best. While FOI has produced scoops and scandals, it’s also been undermined by sweeping exemptions, chronic delays and a Whitehall culture that sees transparency as optional rather than essential.

    Tony Blair, who introduced the Act as prime minister, famously described it as the biggest mistake of his time in government. He later argued that FOI turned politics into “a conversation conducted with the media”.

    Successive governments have chafed against FOI. Few cases illustrate this better than the battle over the black spider memos – letters written by the then Prince (now King) Charles to ministers, lobbying on issues from farming to architecture. The government fought for a decade to keep them secret, citing the prince’s right to confidential advice.



    Read more:
    Dull content, but the release of Prince Charles letters is a landmark moment

    When they were finally released in 2015 after a Supreme Court ruling, the result was mildly embarrassing but politically explosive. It proved that what ministers deem “private” correspondence can, and often should, be subject to public scrutiny.

    The ChatGPT case feels like a modern version of that debate. If a politician drafts ideas via AI, is that a private thought or a public record? If those prompts shape policy, surely the public has a right to know.

    Are Google searches next?

    FOI law is clear on paper: any information held by a public body is subject to release unless exempt. Over the years, courts have ruled that the platform is irrelevant. Email, WhatsApp or handwritten notes – if the content relates to official business and is held by a public body, it’s potentially disclosable.

    The precedent was set in Dublin in 2017 when the Irish prime minister’s office released WhatsApp messages to the public service broadcaster RTÉ. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has also published detailed guidance confirming that official information held in non-corporate channels such as private email, WhatsApp or Signal is subject to FOI requests if it relates to public authority business.

    The ongoing COVID-19 inquiry has shown how WhatsApp groups – once considered informal backchannels – became key decision-making arenas in government, with messages from Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and senior advisers like Dominic Cummings now disclosed as official records.

    In Australia, WhatsApp messages between ministers were scrutinised during the Robodebt scandal, an illegal welfare hunt that ran from 2016-19, while Canada’s inquiry into the “Freedom Convoy” protests in 2022 revealed texts and private chats between senior officials as crucial evidence of how decisions were made.

    The principle is simple: if government work is being done, the public has a right to see it.

    AI chat logs now fall into this same grey area. If an official or minister uses ChatGPT to explore policy options or draft a speech on a government device, that log may be a record — as Peter Kyle’s prompts proved.

    This opens a fascinating (and slightly unnerving) precedent. If AI prompts are FOI-able, what about Google searches? If a civil servant types “How to privatise the NHS” into Chrome on a government laptop, is that a private query or an official record?

    The honest answer is: we don’t know (yet). FOI hasn’t fully caught up with the digital age. Google searches are usually ephemeral and not routinely stored. But if searches are logged or screen-captured as part of official work, then they could be requested.

    Similarly, what about drafts written in AI writing assistant Grammarly or ideas brainstormed with Siri? If those tools are used on official devices, and the records exist, they could be disclosed.

    Of course, there’s nothing to stop this or any future government from changing the law or tightening FOI rules to exclude material like this.

    FOI, journalism and democracy

    While these kinds of disclosures are fascinating, they risk distracting from a deeper problem: FOI is increasingly politicised. Refusals are now often based on political considerations rather than the letter of the law, with requests routinely delayed or rejected to avoid embarrassment. In many cases, ministers’ use of WhatsApp groups was a deliberate attempt to avoid scrutiny in the first place.

    There is a growing culture of transparency avoidance across government and public services – one that extends beyond ministers. Private companies delivering public contracts are often shielded from FOI altogether. Meanwhile, some governments, including Ireland and Australia, have weakened the law itself.

    AI tools are no longer experiments, they are becoming part of how policy is developed and decisions are made. Without proper oversight, they risk becoming the next blind spot in democratic accountability.

    For journalists, this is a potential game changer. Systems like ChatGPT may soon be embedded in government workflows, drafting speeches, summarising reports and even brainstorming strategy. If decisions are increasingly shaped by algorithmic suggestions, the public deserves to know how and why.

    But it also revives an old dilemma. Democracy depends on transparency – yet officials must have space to think, experiment and explore ideas without fear that every AI query or draft ends up on the front page. Not every search or chatbot prompt is a final policy position.

    Blair may have called FOI a mistake, but in truth, it forced power to confront the reality of accountability. The real challenge now is updating FOI for the digital age.

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

    – ref. Why a journalist could obtain a minister’s ChatGPT prompts – and what it means for transparency – https://theconversation.com/why-a-journalist-could-obtain-a-ministers-chatgpt-prompts-and-what-it-means-for-transparency-252269

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How a lack of period product regulation harms our health and the planet

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Poppy Taylor, PhD Candidate, Women’s Health, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol

    JLco Julia Amaral/Shutterstock

    Did you know that in the UK period products are regulated under the same consumer legislation as candles? For 15 million people who menstruate each month, these items are used internally or next to one of the most sensitive parts of the body for extended times.

    Consumers should be entitled to know what is in their period products before choosing which ones to buy. Yet, because of the current lack of adequate regulation and transparency, manufacturers are not required to disclose all materials. And only basic information is available on brand websites. Campaigners are now calling for better regulation.

    Independent material testing shows that single-use period pads can contain up to 90% plastic. An estimated 4.6 million pads, tampons and panty liners are flushed away daily in the UK. These contribute to blocked sewers and fatbergs. They also pollute rivers and oceans.

    Meanwhile, reusable period products are promoted by aid charities as a way to tackle period poverty and reduce waste. But independent tests by organisations such as Which? have found harmful chemicals inside both single-use and reusable period products.

    These include synthetic chemicals that disrupt hormones – known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals – and forever chemicals or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that don’t degrade. These chemicals have been associated with a range of health harms from cancers to reproductive disorders and infertility. They have no place in period products.

    I work as a women’s health researcher at the University of Bristol’s Digital Footprints Lab alongside a team of data scientists. We harness digital data, such as shopping records, to study public health issues. My research looks at how things like education affect which menstrual products people choose.

    In collaboration with the charity Women’s Environmental Network, I am exploring intersections between gender, health, equity and environmental justice – especially among marginalised women and communities. But social stigma prevents open discussions about menstruation and how best to improve period product regulation.

    Menstrual stigma influences everything from the information and support people who menstruate receive to the types of products we use and how we dispose of them. In a study of menstrual education experiences in English schools, my colleague and I found evidence of teacher attitudes perpetuating menstrual stigma.

    Lessons typically lacked content about the health or environmental consequences of period products. Our study showed that just 2.4% of 18- to 24-year-olds surveyed were taught about sustainable alternatives to single-use tampons and menstrual pads.

    An environmenstrual workshop hosted bythe charity, Women’s Environmental Network.
    Women’s Environmental Network / Sarah Larby, CC BY-NC-ND

    For decades, period product adverts portrayed menstrual blood as a blue liquid. The social taboos around periods, largely created and reinforced by period brands over decades of fear-based marketing, has left its mark.

    For example, in response to customer’s anxieties about supposed menstrual odour, manufacturers are increasingly using potentially environmentally harmful antimicrobials like silver and anti-odour additives in period products. This is despite there being no evidence that period products such as menstrual pants or pads transmit harmful bacteria that need sanitising. The silver also washes out after a couple of washes.

    The role of regulation

    In New York state, the Menstrual Products Right To Know Act means that a period product cannot be sold unless the labelling includes a list of materials. In Scotland, a government initiative provides free period products to anyone who needs them.

    Catalonia in Spain has introduced a groundbreaking law that ensures access to safe and sustainable period products, while also working to reduce menstrual stigma and taboos through education.

    A new European “eco label” is a step forward, but companies don’t have to use it. This voluntary label, which shows a product is good for the environment, doesn’t cover period underwear.

    Now, campaigners at the Women’s Environmental Network are calling for the UK government to adopt a Menstrual Health, Dignity and Sustainability Act, backed by many charities, academics and environmentalists. This will enable equal access to sustainable period products, improved menstrual education, independent testing, transparent product labelling and stronger regulations.

    The regulation of period products is currently being considered as part of the product regulation and metrology bill and the use of antimicrobials in period products is being included in the consumer products (control of biocides) bill introduced by Baroness Natalie Bennett. By tackling both health implications and environmental harms, period products can be produced in a safer way, for both people and planet.

    Poppy Taylor’s PhD is funded by the University of Bristol and the Health Foundation.
    Poppy Taylor is a member of the Women’s Environmental Network.

    – ref. How a lack of period product regulation harms our health and the planet – https://theconversation.com/how-a-lack-of-period-product-regulation-harms-our-health-and-the-planet-248941

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Only 15 countries have met the latest Paris agreement deadline. Is any nation serious about tackling climate change?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Doug Specht, Reader in Cultural Geography and Communication, University of Westminster

    Svet Foto/Shutterstock

    The latest deadline for countries to submit plans for slashing the greenhouse gas emissions fuelling climate change has passed. Only 15 countries met it – less than 8% of the 194 parties currently signed up to the Paris agreement, which obliges countries to submit new proposals for eliminating emissions every five years.

    Known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, these plans outline how each country intends to help limit average global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, or at most 2°C. This might include cutting emissions by generating more energy from wind and solar, or adapting to a heating world by restoring wetlands as protection against more severe floods and wildfires.

    Each new NDC should outline more stringent emissions cuts than the last. It should also show how each country seeks to mitigate climate change over the following ten years. This system is designed to progressively strengthen (or “ratchet up”) global efforts to combat climate change.

    The February 2025 deadline for submitting NDCs was set nine months before the next UN climate change conference, Cop30 in Belém, Brazil.

    Without a comprehensive set of NDCs for countries to compare themselves against, there will be less pressure on negotiators to raise national ambitions. Assessing how much money certain countries need to decarbonise and adapt to climate change, and how much is available, will also be more difficult.

    While countries can (and some will) continue to submit NDCs, the poor compliance rate so far suggests a lack of urgency that bodes ill for avoiding the worst climate outcomes this century.

    Who submitted?

    The 15 countries that submitted NDCs on time include the United Arab Emirates, the UK, Switzerland, Ecuador and a number of small states, such as Andorra and the Marshall Islands.

    Cop30 host Brazil submitted a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 59-67% by 2035, compared to 2005 levels. This is up from its previous commitment, a 37% reduction by 2025 and 43% by 2030. Unfortunately, Brazil is not on track to meet its 2025 target and has set a more recent emissions baseline that will make any reductions more modest than they’d otherwise be.

    Japan aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% in 2035 and 73% in 2040, compared to 2013 levels. Japan’s previous target was for a 46% reduction by 2030. This demonstrates how the ratchet system is supposed to work.

    The UK’s NDC, which pledges to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% by 2035, compared to 1990 levels, was described by independent scientists as “compatible” with limiting global heating to 1.5°C.

    The US submitted a plan to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 61-66% below 2005 levels by 2035. However, this was before Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris agreement (for the second time), so the commitment of one of the world’s largest polluters is in doubt.

    Who didn’t submit?

    Some of the world’s largest emitters failed to submit new NDCs, including China, India and Russia.

    India pledged to reduce its emissions by 35% below 2005 levels by 2030 at the signing of the Paris agreement. All of the country’s subsequent NDCs have been rated as “insufficient” by independent scientists. India’s recent national budget announcement offered scant additional funding for climate mitigation and adaptation measures.

    China also made big promises in 2015 with its aim to lower its CO₂ emissions by 65% by 2030, from a 2005 baseline. However, China has been responsible for over 90% of global CO₂ emissions growth since the Paris agreement was signed. China and the US also suspended formal discussions on climate change in 2022. Increased economic competition between these two nations has resulted in export control restrictions and tariffs which have made green technologies like electric vehicles more expensive, which is certain to slow down the shift from fossil fuels.

    Russia joined the Paris agreement in 2019. Its first NDC was labelled “critically insufficient” by scientists, and its follow-up in 2020 did not include increased targets. Russia is maximising the extraction of resources such as oil, gas and minerals and its 2035 strategy for the Arctic included plans to sink several oil wells on the continental shelf.

    With the USA’s 2025 NDC in limbo, President Trump is eyeing mineral reserves in Ukraine and Greenland, further ramping up oil production and cutting international climate research funding.

    The European Union could have positioned itself as a leader of global climate action, in lieu of US involvement. But the EU, which submits NDCs as a bloc alongside individual country submissions, also failed to submit on time.

    Global shifts

    The failure of most nations to submit new emission plans suggests that the era of cooperation on climate change is over. The largest and most powerful of these nations are growing their military and diplomatic presence around the world, particularly in countries with large reserves of critical minerals for electric vehicles and other technology relevant to decarbonisation. The lack of NDCs from these nations may be less a matter of middling green ambitions, more an attempt to disguise their planned exploitation of other countries’ resources.

    If countries keep failing to submit enhanced NDCs, or even withdraw from their commitments entirely, scientists warn that global heating could reach a catastrophic 4.4°C by 2100. This scenario assumes the continued, unabated use of fossil fuels, with little regard for the climate.

    In a more optimistic scenario, countries could limit warming to around 1.8°C by 2100. This will require global cooperation and significant investment in green technology, and entail a transition to net zero emissions by mid-century. This is a process that must include everyone. Simply having the most powerful nations decarbonise by exploiting and hoarding resources will imperil this critical target.

    The actual outcome will probably fall somewhere between these two scenarios, depending on forthcoming NDCs and how quickly and thoroughly they are implemented. All of the scenarios envisaged by climate scientists will involve warming continuing for decades.

    The effects of this warming will vary, however, based on the path we choose today.

    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.

    Doug Specht 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. Only 15 countries have met the latest Paris agreement deadline. Is any nation serious about tackling climate change? – https://theconversation.com/only-15-countries-have-met-the-latest-paris-agreement-deadline-is-any-nation-serious-about-tackling-climate-change-250847

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Assassin’s Creed Shadows introduces a black samurai – that’s not as unprecedented as critics claim

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Fynn Holm, Junior Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Tübingen

    Fans of the video game franchise Assasin’s Creed have been pining for a game set in feudal Japan for decades. In theory, it looked like a match made in heaven.

    The series (which started in 2007 and has sold over 200 million copies) uses historical settings, such as ancient Greece, the Italian Renaissance or the American Revolution, to tell its fictional epic story of a battle between the Order of Assassins and the Knights Templar. What better scenario, then, than the Japanese civil war (1477-1600), where samurai and ninjas (known as shinobi) were fighting each other?

    Yet when the premiere trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows dropped on May 15 last year, it unleashed a torrent of criticism from fans around the world. By June, a Japanese-language petition had gathered over 100,000 signatures, claiming the game “insults Japanese culture and history” and “could be tied to anti-Asian racism”.

    The publisher of the franchise Ubisoft issued a public apology, delaying the game’s release multiple times. With other Ubisoft titles under-performing, Shadows rescheduled release on March 20 has become a high-stakes endeavour.

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

    So what exactly had fans so enraged? Online, amateur historians highlighted what they saw as copious historical inaccuracies in the promotional material.

    However, none was deemed as damaging as the fact that one of the two playable characters in the game was based on the historical figure of Yasuke. Yasuke was a formerly enslaved black man from Mozambique who became a retainer of the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582).

    While the historical existence of Yasuke stands without question, some gamers took offence at the notion that Yasuke was being portrayed as a “black samurai”. That’s because the historical sources are not clear on whether Yasuke was considered a “samurai” by his contemporaries.

    The trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

    Some gamers argue that focusing on Yasuke, rather than a more typical Japanese-born warrior, represents a misguided attempt at diversity, equity and inclusion. Especially since the second playable character is a fictional female ninja named Naoe.

    To critics, highlighting these two characters allegedly overwrites the history of male Japanese samurai, injecting a “foreignness” they believe distorts the setting.

    White samurai in popular media

    Despite the uproar over Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, it’s not the first piece of media to depict a non-Japanese samurai.

    In James Clavell’s 1975 novel Shōgun, English navigator John Blackthorne (based on the real-life William Adams) becomes a samurai in the rank of hatamoto of the warlord Toranaga (based on Tokugawa Ieyasu).

    Historians also debate whether the real Adams was a true samurai, yet his “white samurai” image endures in adaptations like the 2024 FX series Shōgun, which garnered praise from critics across the ideological spectrum.

    Another famous instance is Nathan Algren (played by Tom Cruise) who in the movie The Last Samurai (2003) joins the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 led by the charismatic Katsumoto (played by Ken Watanabe and based on Saigō Takamori).

    Katsumoto represents in the movie the “true” samurai spirit of male honour, duty, loyalty and principles. In the end, he dies in a final showdown against modern weaponry, but Tom Cruise’s character survives and reminds the emperor that Japan needs to honour its past despite the modernisation.

    The movie follows the formula of films like Dances with Wolves (1990), and later the first James Cameron Avatar movie (2009), in which a white character joins a minority population to “save” said people from their doom. This is also known as the “white savior complex”.

    Accuracy v authenticity

    Why, then, is Yasuke’s portrayal as a black samurai so contentious when white foreigners in similar roles have been widely accepted?

    Racism is one answer, but audience expectations about historical authenticity also play a key role. It’s critics claim that Shadows teems with historical inaccuracies, yet other celebrated titles, such as Ghost of Tsushima (2020) are just as historically inaccurate.

    Ghost of Tsushima is set during the 13th-century Mongol invasion. Yet the game developers decided to base their protagonists on the heavily idealised and romanticised samurai of 1950s Akira Kurosawa movies, which have little in common with their historical 13th-century counterparts.

    However, since these samurai conform to audience expectations of Japanese warriors with two swords that follow the largely fictional honour code of bushido, the game feels authentic even though it is historically inaccurate. By contrast, Yasuke’s presence in Shadows challenges a deeply ingrained notion of a xenophobic or sealed-off Japan – an anachronistic concept that overlooks evidence of foreign influence in the 16th century.

    While Ubisoft has taken creative liberties and introduced historical inaccuracies, this is consistent with what has been done in other Assassin’s Creed titles and historically inspired games in general. Yet while predominantly white (and even Japanese) cultures seem quick to forgive depictions of white samurai figures, the same leniency does not seem to extend to a black character.

    Fynn Holm receives funding from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

    – ref. Assassin’s Creed Shadows introduces a black samurai – that’s not as unprecedented as critics claim – https://theconversation.com/assassins-creed-shadows-introduces-a-black-samurai-thats-not-as-unprecedented-as-critics-claim-251293

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Fossil face discovery highlights challenges faced by Europe’s earliest settlers

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Suzy White, Post-Doctoral Research Assistant, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Reading

    Piecing together the story of Europe’s earliest settlers is a challenge, largely
    because relevant human fossils are scarce. On March 12, researchers announced the
    discovery of a new fossil from the excavation site of Sime del Elefante, near Burgos in Spain.

    Known as ATE7-1, the new fossil consists of a partial face belonging to an ancient hominin, a biological classification that includes living humans and our closest extinct relatives, such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus. Nicknamed “Rosa” after one of her discoverers, the fossil includes part of the upper jaw, cheek and eye from an adult, and dates to between 1.1 and 1.4 million years ago. As such, she represents the oldest known partial face of a hominin from western Europe.

    Rosa is also a crucial piece of the puzzle explaining how and when humans first entered western Europe – and which species of hominin made those pioneering journeys.

    Hominins evolved in Africa. The first species to occupy multiple continents was Homo erectus, and the first fossil evidence we have of them beyond Africa comes from Dmanisi in Georgia. These fossils are around 1.8 million years old. However, stone tools from Grăunceanu (Romania) indicate that hominins had expanded further north even earlier than the Dmanisi finds – 1.95 million years ago.

    However, fossils from western Europe remain conspicuously absent until 1.4 million
    years ago. By contrast, we have more evidence of hominins moving into Asia during
    this time. They had reached Indonesia by 1.6 million years and descendants of these populations seem to have survived there until relatively recently. Early fossils from Asia are also more numerous and more complete, while their European counterparts are limited to an isolated tooth, a fragment of jaw and a partial skull cap.

    Despite being just a small part of the face, Rosa provides key insights into these
    elusive early European populations. The researchers compared Rosa’s facial
    features to Homo erectus fossils from Africa, Indonesia and Dmanisi. They also
    examined Rosa’s similarities to Homo antecessor, a later European species from Gran
    Dolina, a site close to Sima del Elefante.

    The evidence of settlement at Gran Dolina has been dated to about 860,000 years ago. While Rosa shares her delicate build with Homo antecessor, overall she has more affinities with the Homo erectus fossils – although not enough to confidently place her within this group.

    Rosa may therefore provide support for a hypothesis that the occupation of Europe
    by hominins was discontinuous, at least for the first million or so years. This means that hominins settled there, then went locally extinct and were replaced by other groups of hominins later on.

    Our closest relatives were not able to survive in Europe over long periods of time until much later. But why might that be? What made Europe harder to successfully inhabit than Asia? To begin to answer such questions, we have to combine the evidence from Rosa with what we already know about early human forays beyond their ancestral home continent of Africa.

    Smaller brains, longer legs

    The Dmanisi hominins are notable for their relatively small brains and basic tools.
    This challenged the idea that advanced tools and large brains were necessary for
    expansion beyond Africa. The tools from Grăunceanu are also relatively basic,
    despite the temperate and seasonal climate their makers would have experienced.

    The Dmanisi hominins also have relatively long legs, which would have allowed them
    to move more efficiently over long distances. Perhaps, then, efficient movement,
    rather than brain size or technology, was the driving factor allowing the initial
    expansion. But did the basic stone technology used by early Europeans prevent their long term occupation of the continent?

    It is likely that we will, in time, find even earlier fossils from western Europe. Further fossils from Sima del Elefante could reveal how variable Rosa’s group was, and enable us to either place her within an existing species, or create a new one.

    But, given the sparse information we have for now, the differences between Rosa, the Dmanisi hominins, and Homo antecessor fit within a model of short-term expansions into western Europe. These expansions were probably followed by a retreat of hominin populations into so-called refugia (locations where the environment and climate were more stable), as well as extinctions of local populations. This would have been driven by changing climatic conditions. For now, which and how many species ventured west into Europe is still unknown.

    Much else also remains unknown. Did early western Europeans survive long enough
    to give rise to later species such as Homo antecessor? And how was Homo
    antecessor     related to later European species? The European fossil record becomes
    more continuous from around 600,000 years ago, first with the appearance of
    a hominin species called Homo heidelbergensis, and then with the appearance of early Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis). In fact, these two species appear to have coexisted in Europe for some time.

    Later Europeans were also able to venture further north, with evidence of footprints of a mystery hominin at Happisburgh in the UK by 900,000 years ago. Nevertheless, as with Rosa’s species and Homo antecessor, the Neanderthals and Homo heidelbergensis eventually went extinct – along with all other species of humans globally, except our own.

    The changing climate and northern latitudes of western Europe presented a clear challenge for earlier hominins. As Europe’s climate continues to change, will Homo sapiens be the first hominin capable of long term survival here?

    Suzy White receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust, and has previously received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

    – ref. Fossil face discovery highlights challenges faced by Europe’s earliest settlers – https://theconversation.com/fossil-face-discovery-highlights-challenges-faced-by-europes-earliest-settlers-252413

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The Gaza ceasefire is dead − Israeli domestic politics killed it

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Asher Kaufman, Professor of History and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

    Buildings and a ceasefire left in ruins after airstrikes on March 18, 2025. Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

    The ceasefire in Gaza appears to be over.

    And while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to blame Hamas for the resumption of fighting that killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18, 2025 – “only the beginning,” Netanyahu warned – the truth is the seeds of the renewed violence are to be found in Israeli domestic politics.

    Ever since the first phase of the ceasefire came into effect in January, Israeli politics experts – myself included – have flagged a likely insurmountable problem. And that is the execution of the plan’s second phase – which, if implemented, would see full withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages – is a nonstarter for far-right elements in the Israeli ruling coalition that Netanyahu relies on for his political survival.

    Withdrawing from the Gaza Strip runs counter to the maximalist ideologies of key members of Netanyahu’s government, including some in his own party, Likud. Rather, their stated position is for Israel to remain in control of the enclave and to push as many Palestinians as possible out of it. It is why many in Netanyahu’s government cheered when President Donald Trump indicated that Palestinians should be cleared from Gaza to make way for a massive reconstruction project led by the United States.

    As an expert on Israeli history and a professor of peace studies, I believe the far-right vision for post-conflict Gaza shared by parts of Netanyahu’s government is incompatible with the ceasefire plan. But increasingly, it appears to chime with the views of some in the U.S. administration – which, as de facto sponsor of the ceasefire, may have been the only entity that could have held the Israeli government to its terms.

    Efforts to transform judiciary

    It is true Hamas is responsible for delays and manipulations during the first phase of the ceasefire deal. It also turned hostage releases into propaganda spectacles, tormenting both the families of captives and much of Israeli society in the process.

    But in my view, the resumption of war is first and foremost tied to domestic Israeli currents that predate even the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the deadliest fighting between Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war. It can be traced back to Netanyahu’s efforts to transform the political system in Israel and increase the power of the executive and legislative branches while weakening the judiciary.

    U.S. President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Feb. 4, 2025.
    Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images

    Since coming to power in January 2023, Netanyahu’s hard-right government has made significant efforts to turn independent institutions such as the attorney general’s office and the police into compliant arms of the government by seeking to place government loyalists in charge of both.

    Prolonging the war

    In 2023, a sustained and massive protest movement slowed Netanyahu’s attempts to overhaul the country’s judiciary.

    And then came the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7.

    Many Israeli commentators hoped that the attack would force the government to reconsider its efforts to carry out what some described as a legal coup, in a show of national unity.

    But Netanyahu and his government had other plans.

    After an initial hostage deal in November 2023 failed to yield a wider breakthrough, people gradually began to question whether Netanyahu’s primary interest was to prolong the war in the belief that doing so might be the best way to save his political career and revive his assault on the judiciary.

    Such a view has solid foundations. Having been indicted in November 2019 on breach of trust, fraud and corruption charges, Netanyahu was presented with an opportunity to muddy the logic of the long-running legal proceedings: He could hardy stand trial while defending a nation at war. The prosecution is still ongoing, but the resumption of fighting has, again, meant that Netanyahu has reason to delay his testimony.

    Meanwhile, war also provides cover for Netanyahu to neuter some of his fiercest critics. In the months after the Oct. 7 attack, Netanyahu systematically removed from office antagonistic members of the security and political leadership, accusing them of being responsible either for the Hamas attack or for the mismanagement of the conflict.

    This purging of anti-Netanyahu elements in Israel has ramped up in recent months, with Netanyahu and his allies seeking to replace Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and fire Ronen Bar, the head of the powerful security agency Shabak, or Shin Bet, which has been carrying out sensitive investigations into Netanyahu’s closest aides.

    Shoring up the coalition

    The apparent breakdown of the ceasefire now also coincides with growing pressure on Netanyahu from the political right in his ruling coalition.

    Under Israeli law, the government must approve its annual budget by the end of March or face being dissolved, something that would trigger fresh elections.

    But Netanyahu is facing holdouts among ultra-Orthodox parties over the issue of army drafts. Since the start of the war, there has been tremendous pressure from the wider Israeli public to end the draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox men, who unlike other Israelis did not have to serve in the military. Ultra-Orthodox parties, however, are demanding the opposite: to pass legislation that would formally exempt them from military service.

    To secure the vote for the annual budget and stave off elections, Netanyahu needs support – and if it isn’t going to come from the ultra-Orthodox parties, then he needs to shore up far-right members of the coalition.

    As a result of the resumption of war, Otzma Yehudit – the far-right party that left Netanyahu’s government in January to protest the ceasefire agreement – has returned to the fold. This gives Netanyahu crucial budget votes. But in effect, it signals that the coalition has no intention of implementing the second phase of the ceasefire plan, withdrawing from Gaza. In effect, it has killed the ceasefire.

    The domestic politics of Israel alone is not to blame for the resumption of fighting. There is, too, the changing stance of the U.S. administration.

    The transition of presidency from Joe Biden to Donald Trump was a decisive reason for the timing of the ceasefire agreement in January 2025.

    But it appears that the administration is reluctant to force Netanyahu to continue to the second phase. Recent statements from Trump suggest that he supports putting extra military pressure on Hamas in Gaza. And by blaming Hamas for the resumption of the war, Trump is tacitly endorsing the position of the Israeli government.

    Hamas, in fact, has the most interest in implementing the agreement. Doing so would give the Palestinian militant group the best chance it has of remaining in control of Gaza, while also boasting that it had been responsible for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.

    Thousands gather at Habima Square to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on March 18, 2025.
    Yair Palti/Anadolu via Getty Images

    Protests gaining momentum

    The majority of Israelis are in favor of ending the war, completing the ceasefire agreement and having Netanyahu resign.

    And the anti-government protest movement is gaining steam again as seen in widespread protests in Israeli cities against both the resumption of fighting in Gaza and the attempt to oust security chief Ronen Bar.

    Given that the people and the government of Israel appear to be pulling in opposite directions, the resumption of bombing in Gaza can only exacerbate the internal crisis that preceded the war and has ebbed and flowed ever since.

    But Netanyahu has seemingly bet that more war is his best chance of remaining in power and completing his plan to transform the country’s political system. Israel is facing an unprecedented situation in which, I would argue, its own prime minister has became the biggest threat to the country’s stability.

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

    – ref. The Gaza ceasefire is dead − Israeli domestic politics killed it – https://theconversation.com/the-gaza-ceasefire-is-dead-israeli-domestic-politics-killed-it-252569

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: High school sports are losing athletes to private clubs, but schools can keep them by focusing on character development

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mark Rerick, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, University of North Dakota

    High school sports programs tend to emphasize character development and good sportsmanship. AP Photo/Mel Evans

    Not long ago, high school students who wanted to play football, basketball or another sport had few options other than trying out for their school team. And it was to high school gymnasiums and fields that recruiters flocked to find talent for colleges and even the pros.

    That’s changed in recent decades as private clubs have emerged and soared in popularity across the country. Today, kids interested in pretty much any sport often have multiple clubs and leagues to choose from instead of playing on their high school’s varsity squads. Clubs have been especially good at attracting the most talented student-athletes due to their intense and competitive nature.

    As a result, parents are increasingly debating something that would have been unthinkable a couple of generations ago: Where should our kids play sports?

    As a former K-12 director of athletics – and as a current parent of three youth athletes from elementary to the collegiate level – I know it can be a tough choice. I’ve seen firsthand the pros and cons of playing sports both in high school and clubs.

    While clubs may be best for the most talented athletes, I believe schools can’t be beat for the broader focus they can put on character development. Since the vast majority of student-athletes won’t play in organized leagues beyond high school, that’s where I believe the schools’ focus should be.

    My own unpublished research shows it’s also a way – along with emphasizing the fun and social aspects of athletics – to get more students who played sports as young kids to continue in high school.

    The rise of the private youth sports industry

    Although I am an unapologetic advocate for school-based athletics, I recognize the benefits that come along with participation in club or private-league programs.

    But prior to the 1980s, private clubs weren’t common. Before high school, kids played on teams organized by their schools, local parks and recreation programs or nonprofit organizations such as the YMCA. After that, the only option for most was high school sports.

    The first big step toward highly organized, privatized youth sports programs occurred during what has been referred to as “the Reagan revolution,” according to research I did for my dissertation. President Ronald Reagan’s funding cuts across the government pushed more expenses onto states and cities, which limited the ability of local parks and recreation departments to fully staff youth programs. This left many of them with only enough funds to maintain their facilities.

    At the same time, school districts began systematically reducing the number of physical education classes offered in lieu of an increased focus on subjects such as math and science. Those two factors took away the most affordable options for athletic participation for many families.

    With the reduction of public offerings, the youth sports programming gap was filled by private clubs and leagues, which placed more emphasis on athleticism, competition and sometimes elite-style training. And it’s become big business for the adults who run these programs.

    While good numbers on these leagues are hard to come by, multiple data sources show the privatized youth sports market has experienced tremendous growth in recent years. A recent estimate put total spending on youth sports at over US$40 billion as of 2024, compared with the $10 billion estimate of the youth sports economy in 2010.

    But despite their growth, one sobering statistic for aspiring elite athletes remains true: Only about 7% of teenagers who play organized sports will advance to the collegiate level or beyond.

    Knowing that 93% of high school athletes will end their competitive careers at graduation, I believe it’s important that school administrators place a premium on running athletic programs that focus on building skills they’ll need as adults instead of just winning games.

    More and more teenagers are playing on elite club teams, such as Aaliyah Chavez, right, who plays for CyFair Elite.
    Mike Caudill for The Washington Post via Getty Images

    Why most students play

    My own research backs this up.

    In my previous role as a director of athletics for public schools in Grand Forks, North Dakota, I routinely surveyed our athletes at the end of their seasons about various aspects of their experience on the team. Among those questions, I asked athletes to tell me the three most important reasons they chose to play that sport for that season and whether they were planning to play on the team again next year.

    Unsurprisingly to me, the top three reasons were consistently to have fun, spend time with friends and stay physically active, in that order. You’ll notice winning games or for competition were not among them.

    On the flip side, when asked why students chose to drop out the following year, the top reason was their relationship with the coach, while a close second was that they were not having fun. To me, this was evidence that what student-athletes most wanted from their high school programs wasn’t so much sport skills development as personal development and growth.

    Other studies back this up. Overtraining and a lack of fun are cited as the main reasons why 70% of young athletes who compete on a team stop playing before they even reach high school.

    Focus on the fun – not the competition

    Here are five things school administrators can do to help turn things around and make their sports programs more attractive to students considering clubs, as well as those who are pondering giving up on sports altogether.

    1. Develop an athletic program that teaches character traits and life skills that are usable for 100% of participants, not just the 7% who go on to play in college.

    2. Make sure programs emphasize fun, social growth and physical fitness, rather than just the competition.

    3. Encourage coaches to spend individual time throughout the season with each student-athlete to discuss the athlete’s goals, role and progress.

    4. Survey student-athletes about their experience at the end of each season and tweak the program accordingly.

    5. Include student-athlete assessments about how much they enjoy playing for the coach as a part of the coach’s postseason evaluation.

    High school sports may not be for everybody, but I believe many more students would choose to participate if the focus were on building character and having fun with friends, not winning trophies.

    Mark Rerick is affiliated with the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.

    – ref. High school sports are losing athletes to private clubs, but schools can keep them by focusing on character development – https://theconversation.com/high-school-sports-are-losing-athletes-to-private-clubs-but-schools-can-keep-them-by-focusing-on-character-development-236367

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Can animals make art?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Shawn Simpson, Visiting Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh

    A male satin bowerbird stands before his creation. Ken Griffiths/iStock via Getty Images

    In the forests of eastern Australia, satin bowerbirds create structures known as “bowers.”

    The males gather twigs and place them upright, in two bundles, with a gap in the middle, resulting in what looks like a miniature archway. All around the bower the bird scatters small objects – shells, pieces of plastic, flower petals – which all possess the same property: the color blue.

    Studies suggest that the purpose of the bowers is to impress and attract females. But their beauty and intricacy has left some researchers wondering whether they shouldn’t be considered art.

    Of course, figuring out whether something is a work of art requires answering some tricky philosophical questions. Are animals even capable of creating art? And how can we tell whether something is a work of art rather than just a coincidentally beautiful object? As a philosopher and artist who’s interested in aesthetics and biology, I recently wrote about the evolution of behaviors in animals that could be seen as art.

    A contested concept

    First, it’s important to outline various theories of what makes something a work of art.

    There’s a general agreement that art must have some sort of producer and some possible or intended audience. In this way, it’s similar to other forms of communication.

    But the rest of the picture is unclear, and there’s no universally agreed-upon definition of art. In fact, art has proven so difficult to define that Scottish philosopher W.B. Gallie once suggested it might be an “essentially contested concept” – an idea for which there is no correct definition.

    That being said, some popular views have emerged.

    Leo Tolstoy famously suggested art is a conduit for emotion, writing in 1897 that “one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them.”

    Plato and Aristotle emphasized the representational role of art: the idea that a work of art must in some way mimic, depict or “stand in” as a sort of sign for something else.

    Some philosophers believe that creating art requires intention – for example, a sculptor will mold clay with the intention of having it look like Abraham Lincoln. And nonhuman animals, they’ll argue, simply don’t have the right kind of intentions for art-making.

    Art, beauty and sex

    And yet, it’s not clear how much intention really does matter for art.

    Philosopher Brian Skyrms has pointed out that communication arises even in animals that plausibly do not have sophisticated intentions like our own. For example, fireflies signal to mates with flashes, and this seems to be largely an evolved behavior. Communication can even emerge via simple reinforcement learning, as when a dog learns to associate a certain call with dinner.

    These aren’t instances of art. But they reveal how meaningful signs or representations can operate without the need for complex intentions. Given that much art also serves a communicative role, I argue that there’s reason to think that art might be able to come about in less intention-demanding ways too.

    Ornithologist Richard Prum also takes a communicative view of art, but one where art is meant to be evaluated for its beauty. The beauty of a work functions as an indicator of the artist’s reproductive fitness, or their having “good genes” – and this can apply to both humans and animals.

    Charles Darwin, musing about birds in “The Descent of Man,” also thought at least some animals appreciate beauty:

    “When we behold a male bird elaborately displaying his graceful plumes or splendid colours before the female, whilst other birds, not thus decorated, make no such display, it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner.”

    Some might not like an account like Prum’s, since it seems to allow creations like bowers to count as art. And yet, as philosopher Denis Dutton points out in his 2009 book “The Art Instinct,” mate attraction and fitness broadcasting can be the primary motivation behind many human works of art too: just consider the stereotype of the sex-hungry rock musician.

    Whale ballads and pig paintings

    I think it’s safe to say some animal creations don’t count as art. The webs of most spiders, though intricate and carefully designed, appear to exist for utilitarian purposes and serve no evaluative or communicative function. The same goes for most anthills.

    But what about animal songs?

    The structures of the songs of humpback whales are complex, featuring parts and repeated patterns that researchers often describe as “themes” and “verses.” The songs are long – sometimes up to 30 minutes. Because males perform these songs primarily during mating season, it’s plausible that female whales assess them for their beauty, which serves as a way to gauge the singer’s genetic fitness. Details of songs even vary from whale population to population, often changing over the course of a mating season.

    Then there are animals that have been trained to make art. Pigcasso was a pig in South Africa whose trainer taught her to paint on canvas via reinforcement learning. The trainer would pick out the colors for Pigcasso, and Pigcasso would do the brushing. Was Pigcasso really an artist? Were her paintings works of art?

    Pigcasso was taught to paint by her trainer.
    Kristin Palitza/Picture Alliance via Getty Images

    Pigcasso was plausibly making these paintings for reasons other than her own desire to communicate or make something beautiful; she was motivated, at least in part, by “piggy treats.” The trainer chose the colors. But Pigcasso did, in the end, have some aesthetic freedom: She had control over her brushstrokes.

    Off the coasts of Japan, male white-spotted puffer fish create impressive nests to attract females. The male puffer fish uses his mouth to remove rocks from the sand and his body to wiggle out long, strategically placed grooves. The finished product is a multi-ringed sand mandala about 6 feet in diameter.

    Like the bowers, the nests of the puffer fish are beautiful and involve mate attraction. Yet some researchers argue that since these sorts of works all look roughly the same – have the same shape, use the same materials and so on – they’re more likely the result of evolved, inflexible dispositions than more creative processes.

    Male white-spotted puffer fish create elaborate designs in the sand to attract mates.

    But it’s worth noting that many human works of art bear core similarities as well. Many paintings use flat surfaces, oils or acrylics. Many songs follow the same chord patterns. And would we still consider human sculptures art if we discovered much about the motivation to build them could be explained by evolution? I wager we would.

    Birds bust a move

    Many human cases of art involve more than one person, sometimes even a large group. Think of all the people it takes to make a modern film. Does anything like that happen in animals?

    Consider the blue manakin bird of South America. Male blues will form groups, often of three or more, which then practice an elaborate song-and-dance routine to later perform in front of females. The practice is detailed and dutiful. The groups hone their moves. This involves learning and memorization, not just genetics. Flaws in the performance are challenged and corrected. Sometimes during practices, a juvenile male will even fill in as a mock female.

    Some blue manakins spend years honing their dance moves.

    It’s not The Beatles. But the similarity to music groups seem hard to deny.

    At the same time, it’s worth wondering whether, beyond conveying their eagerness to mate, the birds are trying to “say” or “express” anything more with their performance. And do they know it’s beautiful?

    All this leaves room for doubt about whether animals really make art.

    To me, a key question is whether there’s any animal art that doesn’t have to do with mating, and instead expresses something more complex or sentimental. Without being able to get into the heads of animals, it’s hard to say. But it’s plausible that humans aren’t alone in their artistic pursuits.

    Shawn Simpson 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. Can animals make art? – https://theconversation.com/can-animals-make-art-248503

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The story of the Great Migration often overlooks Black businesses that built Detroit

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kendra D. Boyd, Assistant Professor of History, Rutgers University

    The flourishing Black business district in Detroit, Mich., photographed in 1942. Arthur S. Siegel via the Library of Congress, CC BY-ND

    Black businesses were essential to facilitating the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South between the 1910s and 1960s. Yet, the traditional narrative of the migration as a movement of laborers seeking high-wage jobs obscures the history of African Americans who moved north or west seeking entrepreneurial opportunities.

    This story is featured in my book, “Freedom Enterprise: Black Entrepreneurship and Racial Capitalism in Detroit,” which will be published April 8, 2025.

    Between 1910 and 1970, more than 6 million African Americans left the South for destinations such as Detroit, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. This mass exodus had, and continues to have, enormous political, cultural and social implications for our nation. Migrants were seeking true freedom, including full political and economic citizenship – things they had not been able to achieve in the Jim Crow South.

    As a historian of Black business, I wanted to know more about those who migrated to Detroit with the aim of working for themselves – as opposed to getting a job in Henry Ford’s auto factories.

    The experiences and trajectories of these migrant entrepreneurs can tell us much about the possibilities for Black social and economic advancement through business in the United States.

    Leaving the South

    Pioneering African American historian Carter G. Woodson, father of Black History Month, pointed to the lack of business opportunities in describing the causes of the mass migration that began in the mid-1910s.

    “In most parts of the South the Negroes are still unable to become landowners or successful business men,” Woodson wrote in 1918. “Conditions and customs have reserved these spheres for the whites.”

    Of course, African Americans did establish businesses in the South, sometimes becoming quite wealthy. But there was always the threat of lynchings and other forms of racial violence for those who defied the racial caste system of Jim Crow. The destruction of “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a well-known story. But there were many other incidents of white supremacist terrorism targeting Black businesses owners.

    In fact, many Black entrepreneurs pointed out that the danger of racial violence was a deciding factor in their moving to Detroit. This included people such as Willis Eugene Smith, who established a funeral home, and Berry Gordy Sr., who operated a grocery store and contracting business in the city. In his 1979 memoir, “Movin’ Up: Pop Gordy Tells His Story,” Gordy told how he decided to leave Georgia for Detroit after local whites began pestering him about a large check he received as payment for goods he had sold. Gordy’s sister warned him: “You fool ’round here, they’re liable to beat us out of it, take all our money.”

    Many African American entrepreneurs who participated in the Great Migration questioned whether they could experience enduring upward mobility through business if they stayed in the South.

    As early as 1917, the director of the Detroit Urban League, Forrester B. Washington, reported “receiving many letters from [southern] Negro business men asking information regarding the real situation here.”

    Migrant entrepreneurs’ services essential

    Many of those Southern entrepreneurs decided to move north. Detroit’s African American population increased 611% between 1910 and 1920 to 40,838, making it home to one of the largest populations of African Americans in the country.

    While Southern migrants saw Detroit as a promised land, segregation in the North was alive and well. There were many negative aspects to racial segregation, but it also created entrepreneurial opportunities, as Black newcomers needed the services of Black-owned businesses such as barbershops and hair salons, hotels and restaurants. These businesses sustained the growing African American community and made it feasible for Southern migrants to settle permanently in the city. By 1926, 85% of Detroit’s Black population were migrants, according to “The Negro in Detroit,” a report produced by the Detroit Bureau of Governmental Research.

    Some businesses made their Southern roots explicit in their advertising. A 1933 advertisement for the Creole Hand Laundry, located at 542 Watson St., stated: “From New Orleans, La.”

    Migrant entrepreneurs tapped into newly created niche markets, catering to the tastes of Southern transplants. For example, the Home Milling Company was established in Detroit around 1922 and processed hominy grits, cornmeal and whole wheat flour in a plant at Catherine and Russell streets. Home Milling’s managers had plans to expand the business in order to supply Black-owned bakeries in Detroit and satiate the tastes of newcomers.

    “There is quite a large demand of the products on the part of Southern residents in the City and the concern is doing a fair volume of business,” stated the 1926 “The Negro in Detroit” report. “Their cornmeal is made from specially selected white corn out of deference to the palate of Southern Negroes who do not relish meal made from yellow corn.”

    Supreme Linen and Laundry was another company that provided essential goods and services to Detroit’s growing number of Black-owned restaurants and hotels. Established by native Mississippians Fred and Callie Allen in 1929, the company supplied uniforms, tablecloths and napkins to businesses across the city and housed a commercial laundry.

    Fred and Callie Allen, a husband and wife team, built up their laundry business, Supreme Linen and Laundry, to service the Black neighborhoods nearby. The business grew to at least 41 Black employees.
    The Detroit Tribune, CC BY-ND

    A mecca for Black-owned business

    By the 1940s, Detroit had earned the reputation of having more Black-owned businesses than any other city in the United States. This thriving business community comprised mainly Southern migrants.

    Black business women, particularly those affiliated with the Detroit Housewives’ League, were instrumental in facilitating the growth of the Black-owned business community in the 1930s and 1940s. The league was established with the goal of boosting Black business in the city and grew to have over 10,000 members. The organization promoted Black businesses by hosting annual exhibitions, producing and distributing informational publications, and sponsoring educational programs for entrepreneurs and consumers.

    Building a successful Black business community in Detroit in the first half of the 20th century was certainly not without obstacles. These included retail and residential segregation, lending discrimination and violence, among others. Yet, migrant entrepreneurs facilitated the migration to the city and transformed the landscape of Detroit.

    In 1925, the city’s Black population was 85,000. That blossomed to 300,000 by 1950.

    Detroit’s historic Black business community was concentrated in adjoining neighborhoods called Black Bottom and Paradise Valley.

    Later, this area was targeted by urban planning initiatives, including freeway construction and urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, the success of this business community was cut short. State-sponsored redevelopment wiped out much of the wealth Black entrepreneurs hoped to pass down to their children, contributing to the racial wealth gap.

    This destruction was a harsh blow to Southern migrant entrepreneurs who had relocated to Detroit seeking economic independence, upward mobility and other markers of freedom.

    Read more of our stories about Detroit.

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

    – ref. The story of the Great Migration often overlooks Black businesses that built Detroit – https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-the-great-migration-often-overlooks-black-businesses-that-built-detroit-249006

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why history instruction is critical for combating online misinformation

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lightning Jay, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership, Binghamton University, State University of New York

    Students ask questions during a social studies class on American politics. AP Photo/John Minchillo

    Can you tell fact from fiction online? In a digital world, few questions are more important or more challenging.

    For years, some commentators have called for K-12 teachers to take on fake news, media literacy, or online misinformation by doubling down on critical thinking. This push for schools to do a better job preparing young people to differentiate between low- and high-quality information often focuses on social studies classes.

    As an education researcher and former high school history teacher, I know that there’s both good and bad news about combating misinformation in the classroom. History class can cultivate critical thinking – but only if teachers and schools understand what critical thinking really means.

    Not just a ‘skill’

    First, the bad news.

    When people demand that schools teach critical thinking, it’s not always clear what they mean. Some might consider critical thinking a trait or capacity that teachers can encourage, like creativity or grit. They could believe that critical thinking is a mindset: a habit of being curious, skeptical and reflective. Or they might be referring to specific skills – for instance, that students should learn a set of steps to take to assess information online.

    Unfortunately, cognitive science research has shown that critical thinking is not an abstract quality or practice that can be developed on its own. Cognitive scientists see critical thinking as a specific kind of reasoning that involves problem-solving and making sound judgments. It can be learned, but it relies on specific content knowledge and does not necessarily transfer between fields.

    Early studies on chess players and physicists in the 1970s and ’80s helped show how the kind of flexible and reflective cognition often called critical thinking is really a product of expertise. Chess masters, for instance, do not start out with innate talent. In most cases, they gain expertise by hours of thoughtfully playing the game. This deliberate practice helps them recognize patterns and think in novel ways about chess. Chess masters’ critical thinking is a product of learning, not a precursor.

    Nurman Alua of Kazakhstan, left, and Lee Alice of the U.S. during the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, on Sept. 22, 2024.
    AP Photo/Denes Erdos

    Because critical thinking develops in specific contexts, it does not necessarily transfer to other types of problem-solving. For example, chess advocates might hope the game improves players’ intelligence, and studies do suggest learning chess may help elementary students with the kind of pattern recognition they need for early math lessons. However, research has found that being a great chess player does not make people better at other kinds of complex critical thinking.

    Historical thinking

    Since context is key to critical thinking, learning to analyze information about current events likely requires knowledge about politics and history, as well as practice at scrutinizing sources. Fortunately, that is what social studies classes are for.

    Social studies researchers often describe this kind of critical thinking as “historical thinking”: a way to evaluate evidence about the past and assess its reliability. My own research has shown that high school students can make relatively quick progress on some of the surface features of historical thinking, such as learning to check a text’s date and author. But the deep questioning involved in true historical thinking is much harder to learn.

    Social studies classrooms can also build what researchers call “civic online reasoning.” Fact-checking is complex work. It is not enough to tell young people that they should be wary online, or to trust sites that end in “.org” instead of “.com.” Rather than learning general principles about online media, civic online reasoning teaches students specific skills for evaluating information about politics and social issues.

    Still, learning to think like a historian does not necessarily prepare someone to be a skeptical news consumer. Indeed, a recent study found that professional historians performed worse than professional fact-checkers at identifying online misinformation. The misinformation tasks the historians struggled with focused on issues such as bullying or the minimum wage – areas where they possessed little expertise.

    Powerful knowledge

    That’s where background knowledge comes in – and the good news is that social studies can build it. All literacy relies on what readers already know. For people wading through political information and news, knowledge about history and civics is like a key in the ignition for their analytical skills.

    Readers without much historical knowledge may miss clues that something isn’t right – signs that they need to scrutinize the source more closely. Political misinformation often weaponizes historical falsehoods, such as the debunked and recalled Christian nationalist book claiming that Thomas Jefferson did not believe in a separation of church and state, or claims that the nadir of African American life came during Reconstruction, not slavery. Those claims are extreme, but politicians and policymakers repeat them.

    For someone who knows basic facts about American history, those claims won’t sit right. Background knowledge will trigger their skepticism and kick critical thinking into gear.

    A teacher in North Carolina conducts a lesson about the D-Day invasion of Normandy in an Advanced Placement class.
    AP Photo/Gerry Broome

    Past, present, future

    For this reason, the best approach to media literacy will come through teaching that fosters concrete skills alongside historical knowledge. In short, the new knowledge crisis points to the importance of the traditional social studies classroom.

    But it’s a tenuous moment for history education. The Bush- and Obama-era emphasis on math and English testing resulted in decreased instructional time in history classes, particularly in elementary and middle schools. In one 2005 study, 27% of schools reported reducing social studies time in favor of subjects on state exams.

    Now, history teachers are feeling heat from politically motivated culture wars over education that target teaching about racism and LGBTQ+ issues and that ban books from libraries and classrooms. Two-thirds of instructors say that they’ve limited classroom discussions about social and political topics.

    Attempts to limit students’ knowledge about the past imperil their chances of being able to think critically about new information. These attacks are not just assaults on the history of the country; they are attempts to control its future.

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

    – ref. Why history instruction is critical for combating online misinformation – https://theconversation.com/why-history-instruction-is-critical-for-combating-online-misinformation-248528

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: As mountain glaciers melt, risk of catastrophic flash floods rises for millions − World Day for Glaciers carries a reminder

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Suzanne OConnell, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science, Wesleyan University

    Imja Lake, a glacial lake in the Mount Everest region of Nepal, began as meltwater ponds in 1962 and now contains 90 million cubic meters of water. Its water level was lowered to protect downstream communities. Alton Byers

    In mountain ranges around the world, glaciers are melting as global temperatures rise. Europe’s Alps and Pyrenees lost 40% of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023. These and other icy regions have provided freshwater for people living downstream for centuries – almost 2 billion people rely on glaciers today. But as glaciers melt faster, they also pose potentially lethal risks.

    Water from the melting ice often drains into depressions once occupied by the glacier, creating large lakes. Many of these expanding lakes are held in place by precarious ice dams or rock moraines deposited by the glacier over centuries.

    Too much water behind these dams or a landslide into the lake can break the dam, sending huge volumes of water and debris sweeping down the mountain valleys, wiping out everything in the way.

    These risks and the loss of freshwater supplies are some of the reasons the United Nations declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and March 21 the first World Day for Glaciers. As an Earth scientist and a mountain geographer, we study the impact that ice loss can have on the stability of the surrounding mountain slopes and glacial lakes. We see several reasons for increasing concern.

    Erupting ice dams and landslides

    Most glacial lakes began forming over a century ago as a result of warming trends since the 1860s, but their abundance and rates of growth have risen rapidly since the 1960s.

    Many people living in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Rocky Mountains, Iceland and Alaska have experienced glacial lake outburst floods of one type or another.

    A glacial lake outburst flood in the Himalayas in October 2023 damaged more than 30 bridges and destroyed a 200-foot-high (60-meter) hydropower plant. Residents had little warning. By the time the disaster was over, more than 50 people had died.

    Juneau, Alaska, has been hit by several flash floods in recent years from a glacial lake dammed by ice on an arm of Mendenhall Glacier. Those floods, including in 2024, were driven by a melting glacier that slowly filled a basin below it until the basin’s ice dam broke.

    Scientists investigate flooding from Mendenhall Glacier’s Suicide Basin.

    Avalanches, rockfalls and slope failures can also trigger glacial lake outburst floods. These are growing more common as frozen ground known as permafrost thaws, robbing mountain landscapes of the cryospheric glue that formerly held them together. These slides can create massive waves when they plummet into a lake. The waves can then rupture the ice dam or moraine, unleashing a flood of water, sediment and debris.

    That dangerous mix can rush downstream at speeds of 20-60 mph (30-100 kph), destroying homes and anything else in its path.

    The casualties of such an event can be staggering. In 1941, a huge wave caused by a snow and ice avalanche that fell into Laguna Palcacocha, a glacial lake in the Peruvian Andes, overtopped the moraine dam that had contained the lake for decades. The resulting flood destroyed one-third of the downstream city of Huaraz and killed between 1,800 and 5,000 people.

    Teardrop-shaped Lake Palcacocha, shown in this satellite view, has expanded in recent decades. The city of Huaraz, Peru, is just down the valley to the right of the lake.
    Google Earth, data from Airbus Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO

    In the years since, the danger there has only increased. Laguna Palcacocha has grown to more than 14 times its size in 1941. At the same time, the population of Huaraz has risen to over 120,000 inhabitants. A glacial lake outburst flood today could threaten the lives of an estimated 35,000 people living in the water’s path.

    Governments have responded to this widespread and growing threat by developing early warning systems and programs to identify potentially dangerous glacial lakes. Some governments have taken steps to lower water levels in the lakes or built flood diversion structures, such as walls of rock-filled wire cages, known as gabions, that divert floodwaters from villages, infrastructure or agricultural fields.

    Where the risks can’t be managed, communities have been encouraged to use zoning that prohibits building in flood-prone areas. Public education has helped build awareness of the flood risk, but the disasters continue.

    Flooding from inside and thawing permafrost

    The dramatic nature of glacial lake outburst floods captures headlines, but those aren’t the only risks. As scientists expand their understanding of how the world’s icy regions interact with global warming, they are identifying a number of other phenomena that can lead to similarly disastrous events.

    Englacial conduit floods, for instance, originate inside of glaciers, commonly those on steep slopes. Meltwater can collect inside massive systems of ice caves, or conduits. A sudden surge of water from one cave to another, perhaps triggered by the rapid drainage of a surface pond, can set off a chain reaction that bursts out of the ice as a full-fledged flood.

    An englacial conduit flood begins in the Himalayas. Elizabeth Byers.

    Thawing mountain permafrost can also trigger floods. This permanently frozen mass of rock, ice and soil has been a fixture at altitudes above 19,685 feet (6,000 meters) for millennia.

    Freezing helps keep mountains together. But as permafrost thaws, even solid rock becomes less stable and is more prone to breaking, while ice and debris are more likely to become detached and turn into destructive and dangerous debris flows. Thawing permafrost has been increasingly implicated in glacial lake outburst floods because of these new sources of potential triggers.

    In 2017, nearly a third of the solid rock face of Nepal’s 29,935-foot (6,374-meter) Saldim Peak collapsed and fell onto the Langmale glacier below. Heat generated by the friction of rock falling through air melted ice, creating a slurry of rock, debris and sediment that plummeted into Langmale glacial lake below, resulting in a massive flood.

    A glacial outburst flood in Barun Valley started when nearly one-third of the face of Saldim Peak in Nepal fell onto Langmale Glacier and slid into a lake. The top image shows the mountain in 2016. The lower shows the same view in 2017.
    Elizabeth Byers (2016), Alton Byers (2017)

    These and other forms of glacier-related floods and hazards are being exacerbated by climate change.

    Flows of ice and debris from high altitudes and the sudden appearance of meltwater ponds on a glacier’s surface are two more examples. Earthquakes can also trigger glacial lake outburst floods. Not only have thousands of lives been lost, but billions of dollars in hydropower facilities and other structures have also been destroyed.

    Impermanent frost. Nepali Times.

    A reminder of what’s at risk

    The International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and World Day for Glaciers are reminders of the risks and also of who is in harm’s way.

    The global population depends on the cryosphere – the 10% of the Earth’s land surface that’s covered in ice. But as more glacial lakes form and expand, floods and other risks are rising. A study published in 2024 counted more than 110,000 glacial lakes around the world and determined 10 million people’s lives and homes are at risk from glacial lake outburst floods.

    The U.N. is encouraging more research into these regions. It also declared 2025 to 2034 the “decade of action in cryospheric sciences.” Scientists on several continents will be working to understand the risks and find ways to help communities respond to and mitigate the dangers.

    Suzanne OConnell receives funding from The National Science Foundation

    Alton C. Byers 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. As mountain glaciers melt, risk of catastrophic flash floods rises for millions − World Day for Glaciers carries a reminder – https://theconversation.com/as-mountain-glaciers-melt-risk-of-catastrophic-flash-floods-rises-for-millions-world-day-for-glaciers-carries-a-reminder-251707

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Shaken baby syndrome can cause permanent brain damage, long-term disabilities or death – a pediatrician examines the preventable tragedy

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lori Frasier, Professor of Pediatrics, Penn State

    A common cause of shaken baby incidents is continuous crying. Cavan Images via Getty Images

    In the early 1990s when I was a young pediatrician, I was responsible for evaluating children with developmental and learning problems. Two unrelated boys, ages 7 and 9, were found to have IQs in the range of 60-70, which indicates a severe cognitive disability.

    During my medical review, the mothers revealed that their children were shaken violently as infants and that afterward behaved as if “the wind had been knocked out of them.” Both mothers reported shaking by a boyfriend or a father. No child was seen for medical care at the time.

    At the same period of my career I was working with a renowned pediatrician who was studying shaken baby syndrome. The link between shaking and later cognitive impairment was not lost on me.

    This scenario of shaken babies having neurological and developmental disabilities has played out over the past 30 years of my career as a child abuse pediatrician.

    The high rates of death and disability

    Shaken baby syndrome is a condition that can injure babies and young children, and in some cases lead to death.

    A 2024 study on babies with shaken baby syndrome found that 20% to 25% of infants die, another 20% to 25% look normal on discharge from the hospital, and fully half are left with long-term disabilities. These include learning and behavioral problems that appear later in life.

    The dangers of shaking babies have been recognized for over 50 years.

    In the early 1970s, John Caffey, a pediatric radiologist, coined the term “Whiplash Shaken Infant Syndrome.” Caffey linked permanent brain damage and bleeding in the backs of the retina to violent shaking of infants. Caffey suggested a multipronged approach to prevention of this severe form of abuse that included educating and supporting young families, especially mothers. As primary caregivers, mothers are often most easily reached by the message, but the message of prevention can involve fathers, babysitters and any other caregivers.

    Since Caffey’s original description, there have been tremendous advancements in the research behind shaking babies and infant head trauma. In 2009, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that medical providers use the term “abusive head trauma” to include many actions other than shaking that can injure the brains of infants and children. The use of shaken baby syndrome is still recommended for public education and prevention, and health care providers and other experts also recommend the use of the term because it’s commonly recognized by the lay public and understood by parents.

    How the brain is affected

    What happens to the brain of an infant when they are shaken?

    Infants – the most common population to be shaken – are small and have undeveloped neck muscles.

    In these incidents, the infant is typically grabbed around the chest and shaken back and forth several times. Small blood vessels around the brain break and bleed, causing blood to flow around the brain. This condition is called a subdural hematoma. In some cases, similar forces occur in the back of the eye, and hemorrhages in the retina can occur.

    In the most severe forms of shaking, the tissue of the brain itself is injured, and the child may experience unconsciousness or even stop breathing. Neck injuries occur when shaking causes injuries to ligaments and muscles that support the neck. Sometimes children have other injuries after being thrown down or impacted against something. Skull fractures or fractures of other bones, bruising and other injuries are often found.

    Three seconds of anger can change a life forever.

    A complex diagnosis

    An infant or child must be diagnosed as having abusive head trauma by a team of pediatric specialists. Usually, a concerned parent or caregiver who may or may not know an infant has been injured becomes concerned that the child is not behaving normally. The child may have symptoms ranging from persistent vomiting to seizures or even seem unconscious.

    The medical team begins addressing the child’s condition through blood testing and X-rays. Often a CT scan is performed in order to determine if there is a brain injury or some other abnormality. Bleeding around the brain is an indicator of trauma. However, other conditions can also cause this type of bleeding, including bleeding disorders, vitamin deficiency or genetic problems.

    Carefully assessing a child for all of these possibilities may lead to discovery of other areas of trauma, such as broken bones and bruises. A child abuse physician is often called in to assist with the evaluation when trauma becomes a leading diagnosis. That trauma could be accidental, or it could be a sign that someone has abused or hurt an infant.

    There are other medical conditions and even accidental injuries to a child that may resemble abusive head trauma. Experienced clinicians will evaluate a child carefully for these well-described conditions. Controversy about many of these conditions may exist in the courtroom, but in the medical setting it is often clear which conditions are present and when injuries are caused by trauma versus other medical conditions.

    All 50 states and territories of the U.S. require that a report is made to child protective services agencies, with law enforcement often being involved when someone suspects or knows that a baby has been shaken.

    Investigators and doctors work together along with parents and caregivers to try to determine what led to the infant or child’s condition. Bruising, fractures and retinal hemorrhages may support a diagnosis of child abuse, specifically shaken baby syndrome.

    During an investigation, a rare accidental cause may be determined. The purpose is to make sure infants and children are not being harmed or that a medical condition is uncovered that can be treated.

    As a pediatrician working in a children’s hospital and trauma center, it will never get easier for me to see infants and children with abusive injuries as well as other head traumas. The U.S. has come a long way in ensuring the safety of children through the use of car seats and many safety devices.

    Education can help

    Crying in infancy is a common trigger in cases where shaking occurs. Other risk factors include isolation, poverty, domestic violence and substance use. During severe economic downturns, the rate of shaken baby incidents rises, since research shows that social stressors often contribute.

    Although anyone can injure a baby in a moment of frustration, most prevention research has focused specifically on helping parents understand why infants cry or become fussy. Recognizing your infant’s needs and addressing those needs is an important piece of learning how to parent. Studies have shown that focused education for new parents in maternity wards by nurses is effective.

    If you or someone you know is concerned that a child or infant is being harmed in any way, each state has a process for reporting these concerns to appropriate authorities. Reporting can help prevent further harm to an infant and provide assistance to families.

    The National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer some helpful resources.

    Lori Frasier is has been a paid consultant to testify for both prosecution and defense in medical legal child abuse cases.
    I am on the governing board of the national center for shaken baby syndrome, this is volunteer position.

    – ref. Shaken baby syndrome can cause permanent brain damage, long-term disabilities or death – a pediatrician examines the preventable tragedy – https://theconversation.com/shaken-baby-syndrome-can-cause-permanent-brain-damage-long-term-disabilities-or-death-a-pediatrician-examines-the-preventable-tragedy-243882

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Measles cases are on the rise − here’s how to make sure you’re protected

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel Pastula, Professor of Neurology, Medicine (Infectious Diseases), and Epidemiology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

    Should you get an additional shot of the measles vaccine? Hailshadow via Gett Images

    The measles outbreak that started in Texas in late January continues to grow. As of March 18, 2025, confirmed cases in the outbreak, which now spans Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, reached 321, surpassing the number of confirmed cases recorded for all of the U.S. in 2024. The vast majority of cases are in people who are not vaccinated. Meanwhile, a lack of clarity from health authorities is leaving people with questions about whether they need to get revaccinated.

    In a Q&A with The Conversation U.S., Daniel Pastula, a neurologist and medical epidemiologist from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Colorado School of Public Health, explained how and when you should take action.

    Should adults get another shot of the measles vaccine?

    The measles vaccine, which first became available in the U.S. in 1963, contains a live but significantly weakened strain of the measles virus. This modified strain is too weak to cause measles, but it is similar enough to the wild type measles virus to train the immune system to recognize it. Most people who have received the live measles vaccine won’t need an additional shot now, but here is what you need to know:

    People born before 1957 are presumed to have lifelong immunity because measles was so contagious that almost everyone contracted it before age 15. Unless there are special circumstances, they probably don’t need a vaccine now.

    Most people born after 1957 would have received the shot as children, so they should be set for life. Physicians and public health experts don’t recommend most people in this group get a second measles shot, though there are exceptions.

    In 1989, a limited outbreak of measles occurred among vaccinated school children. In response, the recommendations changed from one dose of the live measles vaccine to two doses for children. People fully vaccinated as children after that year do not need any additional doses.

    Measles vaccination has worked so well that many people today have never seen a measles case.

    Exceptions to these guidelines

    There are two special circumstances where the previous recommendations may not hold.

    First, if you were vaccinated between 1963 and 1967, one of the measles vaccines available at the time consisted of just proteins from the virus rather than a live, weakened version of it. Researchers soon realized this inactivated, or “killed,” vaccine was less effective and didn’t provide long-term immunity. Unless you know for certain you received the live vaccine, physicians and public health experts recommend that people vaccinated during those years get one dose of the live vaccine at some point.

    Second, if you fall into a high-risk group – for example, if you are a health care provider, are traveling internationally or attending college, physicians and public health experts generally recommend getting a second dose if you have only had one.

    For most adults without such risk factors, physicians and public health experts do not routinely recommend a second dose if you have previously received one dose of a live measles vaccine. If you have questions or concerns about your situation, make sure to ask your health care provider.

    Except in very rare circumstances, there is no recommendation for a third dose of the measles vaccine.

    Can you find out whether you’ve been vaccinated?

    You might be able to! It’s worth checking. States actually keep vaccine records specifically for this reason, where you can look up your vaccine records or that of your kids. Your high school or college may still have your records, and so might your pediatrician’s office.

    Should you get your antibody levels checked?

    For most people, probably not.

    A titer test checks the level of antibodies in your blood, and some people are asking their doctor to check their titers to determine whether they are still immune to measles. The problem is, the level of antibodies in your blood does not necessarily reflect your level of immunity. That’s because antibodies are just one part of your immune system’s infection-fighting force. Having a low level of antibodies does not necessarily mean your immunity has waned.

    Other crucial elements of your immune response include B cells, T cells and other immune cells, but a titer test does not show their capabilities. For example, memory B cells might not currently be making antibodies against the virus but are primed to quickly do so the next time they see it. This is why antibody and titer tests should be used only in specific cases, in consultation with your doctor.

    One example of when an antibody test may be warranted is if you are a health care provider born before 1957 and you want to make sure you don’t need another dose of the vaccine. You would use a test to see whether you have measles antibodies. But in this case you would be looking for a yes or no answer; the total amount of antibodies may not be very informative.

    Is natural immunity better than vaccine-induced immunity?

    Natural immunity – that is, the immunity you get after having measles – is effective. However, the downside is that natural infection with a wild virus is very risky. Before 1963, measles caused close to 50,000 hospitalizations and about 500 deaths each year in the United States, usually in children. It also caused over 1,000 cases of severe brain inflammation every year and carried several other long-term risks, such as permanent hearing loss or the wipe out of immunity to other diseases.

    Measles might seem mild in many people who get it, but it poses serious long-term health risks.
    Bilanol via Getty Images

    The point of vaccines is to create immunity without the risks of severe infection. It is basically a dress rehearsal for the real thing. The immunity from a vaccine is effectively the same immunity you get from having measles itself – but vastly safer than encountering the wild virus unprotected. One dose is 93% effective at preventing measles and two doses are 97% effective, and any breakthrough cases are likely to be much milder than a full-blown case of measles.

    Can the vaccine cause measles?

    No, the measles vaccine cannot cause measles because it contains a significantly weakened strain that has limited ability to infect and damage cells.

    Some have claimed without evidence that the current outbreak in Texas was caused by the measles vaccine.

    As part of the outbreak investigation, however, CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services analyzed the genome of the virus causing the current outbreak and identified it as a wild measles virus. Researchers classify measles virus strains based on their genetic characteristics, or genotypes. They identified the outbreak virus as wild type genotype D8, and not the weakened measles vaccine strain, which is genotype A.

    What are the risks of the vaccine?

    That is a very reasonable question. Because the measles vaccine is a live, weakened virus strain, it can cause a mild, measles-like syndrome. For example, some people might have a slight fever, a rash, or some slight joint pain. These symptoms generally go away in a day or two, and most people don’t experience them. But the vaccine cannot cause measles itself, as it does not contain the wild measles virus.

    In extremely rare cases, people can experience more significant reactions to the measles vaccine. It is important to remember that every single medical or health intervention carries risks – and that includes all medications and over-the-counter supplements. According to all available evidence, however, comparing the potential benefits against potential risks reveals that the risks of a signficant reaction to the vaccine are much lower than the risks of severe outcomes from measles itself.

    Being vaccinated not only protects you and your family, but it also protects vulnerable people in the community, such as infants, cancer patients and pregnant women, who cannot be vaccinated themselves.

    Daniel Pastula 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. Measles cases are on the rise − here’s how to make sure you’re protected – https://theconversation.com/measles-cases-are-on-the-rise-heres-how-to-make-sure-youre-protected-252277

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Donald Trump’s nonstop news-making can be exhausting, making it harder for people to scrutinize his presidential actions

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jennifer Mercieca, Professor of Communication and Journalism, Texas A&M University

    President Donald Trump calls on reporters during a news conference at the White House on Jan. 30, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    Like many other news organizations, The Associated Press maintains a “live updates” page, which posts the latest from the Trump administration in a ticker tape-like live scroll, with multiple updates per hour, 12 hours a day.

    President Donald Trump has kept the ticker busy.

    “Trump is moving with light speed and brute force to break the existing order and reshape America at home and abroad,” an Associated Press reporter wrote on Feb. 22, 2025.

    Many Americans find the amount and pace of news exhausting, confusing and overwhelming.

    “How do you push back against a tidal wave?” political communication expert Dannagal Young wrote of this media phenomenon on Feb. 21. “You can’t.”

    I study the relationship between communication and democracy. I teach university classes on propaganda, presidential communication and the dark arts of communication, and I’m the author of an award-winning 2020 book on Trump’s communication strategies.

    Deliberately overwhelming people with a flood of news content is a propaganda strategy used by authoritarians like Russian President Vladimir Putin to distort reality and prevent people from clearly evaluating their government’s actions.

    President Donald Trump’s official ‘Truth’ account is seen on a mobile phone.
    Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

    Trump communicates more than ‘The Great Communicator’

    When Ronald Reagan’s first term as president began in 1981, several prominent political scientists noted in an analysis that a “week scarcely goes by without at least one major news story devoted to coverage of a radio or TV speech, an address to Congress, a speech to a convention, a press conference, a news release, or some other presidential utterance.”

    It’s hard to believe that Reagan’s presidential communication only attracted one major news story per week, especially since he is often called “the Great Communicator.”

    The 1980s had a slower, pre-digital news environment than that of the current day, to be sure. But Trump is also simply generating a lot more news content than Reagan did.

    Today, Trump’s frequent press conferences, news releases, social media posts and other appearances and offhand remarks generate a constant flow of new stories and social media posts each day. The proliferation of cellphones and social media allows many people to follow the news throughout the day. People, in return, expect the president and other politicians to talk to the public constantly and often berate them when they fail to meet that expectation and go silent.

    In fact, Trump is generating a lot more media content in his second term than he did in his first.

    Trump’s intensified communication strategy

    Reagan averaged about 5.8 news conferences per year. Trump averaged 22 per year in his first term, according to data collected by a nonpartisan group at the University of California Santa Barbara called the American Presidency Project. Former President Joe Biden averaged 9.25 per year.

    Trump has already had 18 press gaggles or press conferences since taking office in January 2025.

    A news analysis conducted by National Journal White House reporter George Condon showed that Trump has already answered more than 1,000 questions from reporters since he returned to office, which is nearly five times more questions than he answered at this point in his first presidency.

    Trump has also made a lot of news by issuing almost 90 executive orders, which he has used both as a strategy for exercising executive power over issues like foreign aid and as a strategy for attracting media coverage.

    Reagan issued 50 executive orders in his first year in office in 1981. Trump issued 72 executive orders within his first 30 days in 2025. That’s more executive orders than any previous president has issued in their first month over the last 40 years, including himself. He only issued 33 at this point in his first term in 2017.

    Trump’s media strategy in his second term appears to intensify the approach he used in his first term. During Trump’s first term, according to The New York Times, “Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals.”

    As former Trump aide and current host of the show “War Room” Steve Bannon said in 2018, “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

    In 2025, in order to win the day’s news coverage, Trump is flooding the media with an unrelenting tidal wave of news content to dominate and vanquish the zone.

    This strategy is evident in the Oval Office executive order signing events. Trump literally makes news by signing a large piece of paper in front of cameras and reporters. These events are carefully staged political theater for media consumption in which Trump casts himself as the nation’s hero protecting it from foreign invasions, diversity programs or paper straws.

    Many of Trump’s executive orders are facing legal challenges, and some have been shot down by federal judges. Nonetheless, it is the spectacle of signing the orders that I, as a communications scholar, believe is designed to win the day – they are effective at generating news coverage and making Trump look powerful.

    “Trump, as we know from this first month, is the most news-making person to occupy the Oval Office I’ve ever seen,” said New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn on Feb. 27.

    President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to reporters in front of a red Model S Tesla vehicle outside the White House on March 11, 2025.
    Pool Image/Associated Press

    A strategy of control

    Media scholar Marshall McLuhan famously argued in 1964 that “The medium is the message.” Likewise, with Trump, the communication strategy is the message.

    Communication is a tool. It can be used to promote democracy or to erode it. Any politician’s communication strategy reveals, at least in part, how they think about governing, power and democracy. Some political leaders communicate in ways that encourage people to ask questions and use their reason and critical thinking skills to evaluate public policies.

    Other political leaders use communication in undemocratic ways to manipulate and coerce, preventing citizens from using their reason and critical thinking skills to evaluate policies.

    What does Trump’s tidal wave of news content say about how he thinks about governing, power and democracy?

    As a media and governing strategy, I think that creating an unrelenting tidal wave of content is designed to enable Trump to attract and keep the nation’s attention on himself and – in the process, drown out other voices.

    This method overwhelms the media and exhausts many Americans who cannot easily absorb so much information at once.

    And the tidal wave strategy prevents the public from scrutinizing the president’s actions – because no one can push back against a tidal wave.

    Jennifer Mercieca 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. Donald Trump’s nonstop news-making can be exhausting, making it harder for people to scrutinize his presidential actions – https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-nonstop-news-making-can-be-exhausting-making-it-harder-for-people-to-scrutinize-his-presidential-actions-250733

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Fires, wars and bureaucracy: The tumultuous journey to establish the US National Archives

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Elizabeth Call, University Archivist, RIT Libraries and Archives, Rochester Institute of Technology

    The 1952 procession to deliver the Declaration of Independence and Constitution from the Library of Congress to the National Archives included military guards and a tank. National Archives

    Some of the United States’ most important historical documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Emancipation Proclamation, are housed in the U.S. National Archives. Beyond these high-profile items, it also preserves lesser-known but no less vital records, such as national park master plans, polar exploration documents and the records of all U.S. veterans. Together, these materials stand as a testament to the country’s commitment to preserving its history.

    While these crucial documents in U.S. history now have a home in the National Archives, the road to establishing this institution was paved with catastrophic losses and bureaucratic inertia.

    Creating the National Archives required decades of advocacy by historians, politicians and government officials. The National Archives was not simply an administrative convenience – it was a necessity born from repeated disasters that underscored the fragility of government records. And with President Donald Trump’s firing of the head archivist in February 2025, as well as the loss of several high-level archives staff members, the organization faces a new era of uncertainty.

    Documentary heritage – the recorded memory of a nation that preserves its cultural, historical and legal legacy – is essential for a country as it safeguards its identity, informs its governance and ensures that future generations can understand and learn from the past.

    I am a university archivist with two decades of experience in the library and archives field. I oversee the preservation and accessibility of historical records at Rochester Institute of Technology, advocate for inclusivity, and engage in national conversations on the evolving role of archives in the digital age.

    Understanding the precarious nature of historical records, it’s clear to me that maintaining, staffing and funding the National Archives is a necessary safeguard against the destruction of the nation’s documentary heritage.

    People line up to view the original Emancipation Proclamation on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 19, 2004, at the National Archives building in Washington, D.C.
    Tim Sloan/AFP-Getty Images

    Destroyed by fire

    The idea of preserving the government’s records dates back to the country’s founding. Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress during the American Revolution and then secretary of Congress under the Articles of Confederation, recognized the need for proper storage of the Congress’ records.

    But the young nation lacked the money and infrastructure to act. Many of the Continental Congress’ records were kept by Thomson himself for years, and while some were later transferred to the Department of State, others were lost.

    Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, fires repeatedly ravaged federal records. Fires were very common in the 19th century due to a combination of highly flammable building materials, open frames used for lighting and heating, and the lack of modern fire safety measures such as sprinklers and fire-resistant construction.

    In 1800, a blaze destroyed the War Department’s archives, a loss that severely hampered government operations. In 1810, Congress authorized better housing for government records, but the law was never fully executed. Instead, different parts of the government, from the Department of State to the Department of Treasury, continued maintaining their own records.

    The Treasury Department suffered fires in 1801 and again in 1833, further erasing crucial financial records. The Patent Office, home to invaluable documentation of American innovation, burned in 1877, having already been damaged by an 1836 fire.

    Storage at the federal Office of Indian Affairs in 1935.
    National Archives Foundation

    One of the most devastating losses occurred in 1921 when a fire at the Department of Commerce destroyed nearly all records from the 1890 federal census. This loss had far-reaching consequences, particularly for genealogical and demographic research.

    Fires weren’t the only threat to the government’s records.

    “It is a matter of common report that during the civil war, great quantities of documents stored in the Capitol were thrown away to make quarters for soldiers,” Historian and founding member of the American Historical Association J. Franklin Jameson noted in a 1911 Washington Post article.

    “At a later date,” he added, “the archives of the House of Representatives were systematically looted for papers having a market value because of their autographs.”

    Jameson spent decades lobbying Congress for a centralized repository. His persistence, coupled with the advocacy of key officials, laid the groundwork for future action.

    A bound copy of George Washington’s account of expenses while commander in chief of the Continental Army.
    National Archives and Records Administration

    These repeated disasters illuminated a glaring issue: The federal government lacked a centralized, protected repository to safeguard its records.

    Finding a home

    Momentum for a dedicated archives building gained traction in the late 19th century. In 1903, a bipartisan bill passed Congress giving the OK to purchase land in Washington, D.C., for a Hall of Records.

    But the legislation didn’t lead to any action. Government records remained scattered, vulnerable and neglected. That same year, Congress authorized that any records not needed for daily business be transferred to the Library of Congress.

    In 1912, President William H. Taft issued executive order 1499, aptly named Disposal of Useless Papers, requiring agencies to consult the librarian of Congress before disposing of documents.

    This established a formal review process for government document disposal, but agencies still discarded records, often haphazardly, until stricter records management laws were enacted.

    In 1926, Congress passed the Public Buildings Act, authorizing construction of an archives facility in Washington, D.C. Departing president Herbert Hoover laid the cornerstone of the new building on Feb. 20, 1933. He then deposited facsimiles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, an American flag and daily newspapers from that day underneath the cornerstone.

    Growth and standardization

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office two weeks later, was himself a meticulous record-keeper. He understood the importance of historical preservation. Roosevelt kept all of his personal and presidential records and books in a fire-safe space he built on his Hyde Park, New York, property, which he donated to the government after he died. This building and the materials inside became part of the National Archives as the first U.S. presidential library.

    The National Archives, an independent agency, was officially established under Roosevelt in the 1934 National Archives Act. The head archivist was to be appointed by the president. The first archivist, Robert D.W. Connor, took office that year with a mandate to organize, preserve and make accessible the nation’s records.

    Initially, the National Archives was simply a building – an impressive neoclassical structure in Washington, D.C., that opened in 1935. The very first records deposited there came from three World War I-era regulatory agencies – the U.S. Food Administration, the Sugar Equalization Board and the U.S. Grain Corporation.

    Initially, the Archives lacked a formalized records management program. There were no clear guidelines on what to keep and what to discard, so agencies made their own decisions. This led to inconsistent preservation.

    The creation of the first federal records administration program in 1941, together with the 1943 Records Disposal Act, codified things. These policies granted the National Archives authority to establish a structured approach to determining which records held historical value and should be preserved, while allowing for the responsible disposal of other documents.

    A 1950 law gave the National Archives more power to decide what should be kept and what could be discarded, creating a more organized and accountable system for preserving the nation’s history.

    As the volume of records increased and their formats changed, the archives adapted. By 2014, amendments to the Federal Records Act explicitly included electronic records, recognizing the shift toward digital documentation.

    Stacks at the National Archives in Washington in 1950, where rare photographs and national records are ordered and stored.
    Three Lions/Getty Images

    Ensuring accountability

    Beyond mere storage, the National Archives plays a vital role in upholding democracy.

    It ensures transparency by preserving government accountability, preventing manipulation or loss of records that could distort historical truth. The National Archives also provides public access to documents that shape civic awareness and historical knowledge, from the Declaration of Independence to declassified government files.

    In an era of digital misinformation and contested narratives, the National Archives stands as a guardian of primary sources. Its existence reminds the nation that history is not a matter of convenience, but a cornerstone of informed governance.

    Elizabeth Call is a member of the Society of American Archivists.

    – ref. Fires, wars and bureaucracy: The tumultuous journey to establish the US National Archives – https://theconversation.com/fires-wars-and-bureaucracy-the-tumultuous-journey-to-establish-the-us-national-archives-250857

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Social media design is key to protecting kids online

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Abdulmalik Alluhidan, Ph.D. student in Computer Science, Vanderbilt University

    How social media apps are designed has a lot to do with whether teens have good or bad experiences. Daniel de la Hoz/Moment via Getty Images

    Social media is a complex environment that presents both opportunities and threats for adolescents, with self-expression and emotional support on the one hand and body-shaming, cyberbullying and addictive behaviors on the other. This complexity underscores the challenge to regulating teen social media use, but it also points to another avenue for protecting young people online: how social media platforms are designed.

    The growing debate around teen social media use has intensified, with recent bipartisan policy efforts in the U.S., such as the Kids Online Safety Act, seeking to protect young people from digital harms. These efforts reflect legitimate concerns. However, broad restrictions on social media could also limit benefits for teens, throwing the baby out with the bath water.

    I am a researcher who studies online safety and digital well-being. My recent work with colleagues in computer scientist Pamela Wisniewski’s Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab underscores a critical point: social media is neither inherently harmful nor entirely beneficial. It is a tool shaped by its design, how teens use it, and the context of their experiences.

    In other words, social media’s impact is shaped by its affordances – how platforms are designed and what they enable users to do or constrain them from doing. Some features foster connection while others amplify harms.

    As society moves toward practical solutions for online safety, it is important to use evidence-based research on how these features shape teens’ social media experiences and how they could be redesigned to be age appropriate for young people. It’s also important to incorporate teens’ perspectives to pinpoint what policies and design choices should be made to protect young people using social media.

    My colleagues and I analyzed over 2,000 posts from teens ages 15-17 on an online peer-support platform. Teens openly discussed their experiences with popular social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok. Their voices highlight a potential path forward: focusing on safety by design – an approach that improves platform features to amplify benefits and mitigate harms. This approach respects young people’s agency while prioritizing their digital well-being.

    What teens say about social media

    While social media’s worst outcomes such as cyberbullying or mental health crises are often in the spotlight, our research shows that teens’ experiences are far more nuanced. Instead, platforms enable diverse outcomes depending on their features and design.

    Teens commonly described negative experiences involving social drama, cyberbullying and privacy violations. For example, Instagram was a focal point for body-shaming and self-esteem issues, driven by its emphasis on curated visual content. Facebook triggered complaints about privacy violations, such as parents sharing private information without teens’ consent. Snapchat, meanwhile, exposed teens to risky interactions due to its ephemeral messaging, which fosters intimate but potentially unsafe connections.

    Research – and teens themselves – indicates that social media has negative and positive effects on young people.

    At the same time, teens expressed that social media provides a space for support, inspiration and self-expression, particularly when offline spaces feel isolating. Teens used social media to cope with stress or seek out uplifting content.

    Platforms such as Snapchat and WhatsApp were key spaces for seeking connection, enabling teens to build relationships and find emotional support. Snapchat, in particular, was the go-to platform for fostering close personal connections, while YouTube empowered teens to promote their creativity and identity by sharing videos.

    Many praised Instagram and Snapchat for providing inspiration, distraction or emotional relief during stressful times. Teens also used social media to seek information, turning to YouTube and Twitter to learn new things, verify information or troubleshoot technical problems.

    These findings underscore a critical insight: Platform design matters. Features such as algorithms, privacy controls and content-sharing mechanisms directly shape how teens experience social media. These findings further question the perception of social media as a purely negative force. Instead, teens’ experiences highlight its dual nature: a space for both risk and opportunity.

    Key to safer social media

    The concept of affordances – design and features – helps explain why teens’ experiences differ across platforms and provides a path toward safer design. For example, Instagram’s affordances such as image sharing and algorithmic content promotion amplify social comparison, leading to body-shaming and self-esteem issues. Snapchat’s affordances, such as ephemeral messaging and visibility of “best friends,” encourage personal connections but can foster risky interactions. Meanwhile, YouTube’s affordances, such as easy content creation and discovery, promote self-expression but can contribute to time-management struggles due to its endless scroll design.

    By understanding these platform-specific designs and features, it is possible to mitigate risks without losing the benefits. For example, Facebook could allow for appropriate levels of parental oversight of teen accounts while preserving privacy. Instagram could reduce algorithmic promotion of harmful content. And Snapchat could improve safety features.

    This safety by design approach moves beyond restricting access to focus on improving the platforms themselves. By thoughtfully redesigning social media features, tech companies can empower teens to use these tools safely and meaningfully. Policymakers can focus on holding social media companies responsible for their platforms’ impact, while simultaneously promoting the digital rights of teens to benefit from social media use.

    Call for safety by design

    It’s important for policymakers to recognize that social media’s risks and rewards coexist. Instead of viewing social media as a monolith, however, policymakers can target the features of social media platforms most likely to cause harm. For example, they could require platform companies to conduct safety audits or disclose algorithmic risks. These steps could encourage safer design without limiting access.

    By addressing platform affordances and adopting safety by design, it is possible to create digital spaces that protect teens from harm while preserving the connection, creativity and support that social media enables. The tools to build a future where teens can thrive are already available; they just need to be designed better.

    Pamela Wisniewski contributed to the writing of this article.

    The research reported in this article was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.

    – ref. Social media design is key to protecting kids online – https://theconversation.com/social-media-design-is-key-to-protecting-kids-online-243547

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Humans aren’t the only animals with complex culture − but researchers point to one feature that makes ours unique

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eli Elster, Doctoral Candidate in Evolutionary Anthropology, University of California, Davis

    A ritual dance honoring Yoruban ancestors is one of the countless examples of human culture. Jorge Fernández/LightRocket via Getty Images

    Of the 8.7 million species on Earth, why are human beings the only one that paints self-portraits, walks on the Moon and worships gods?

    For decades, many scholars have argued that the difference stems from our ability to learn from each other. Through techniques such as teaching and imitation, we can create and transmit complicated information over many generations.

    So if a human finds, for instance, a better but more complex way to make a knife, they can pass along the new instructions. One of those learners might stumble upon their own improvement and pass it along in turn.

    If this loop continues, you get a ratchet effect, in which small changes can accumulate over time to produce increasingly intricate behaviors and technologies. This process produces our uniquely complex cultures: Scientists call it cumulative cultural evolution.

    But extensive data has emerged suggesting that other animals, including bees, chimpanzees and crows, can also generate cultural complexity through social learning. Consequently, the debate over human uniqueness is shifting in a new direction.

    As an anthropologist, I study a different feature of human culture that researchers are beginning to think about: the diversity of our traditions. Whereas animal cultures affect just a few crucial behaviors, such as courtship and feeding, human cultures cover a massive and constantly expanding set of activities, from clothing to table manners to storytelling.

    This new view suggests that human culture is not uniquely cumulative. It is uniquely open-ended.

    What is cumulative culture?

    In the early 2000s, a research team led by psychologist Michael Tomasello tested 105 human children, 106 adult chimpanzees and 32 adult orangutans on a battery of cognitive assessments. Their goal was to see whether humans held any innate cognitive advantage over their primate cousins.

    Surprisingly, the human children performed better in only one capacity: social learning. Tomasello thus concluded that humans are not “generally smarter.” Rather, “we have a special kind of smarts.” Our advanced social abilities allow us to transmit information by accurately teaching and learning from each other.

    Psychologist Michael Tomasello and his team ran a number of experiments comparing how human children and nonhuman primates performed on cognitive tasks, including tests of social learning.
    Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

    Humans’ apparent social learning abilities suggested a clear explanation for our unique cultural traits. Knowledgeable humans – say, someone who discovers a better way to make a spear – can successfully transfer that skill to their peers. But an inventive chimp – one who discovers a better way to smash nuts, for example – can’t successfully share their innovation. Nobody listens to Chimp Einstein. So our inventions persist and build upon each other, while theirs vanish into the jungle floor.

    Or so the theory went.

    Now, though, scientists have hard evidence showing that, just like us, animals can learn from each other and thus maintain their cultures for long periods of time. Groups of swamp sparrows appear to use the same song syllables for centuries. Meerkat troops settle on different wake-up times and maintain them for a decade or more.

    Of course, long-term social learning is not the same as cumulative culture. Yet scientists also now know that humpback whale songs can oscillate in complexity over many generations of learners, that homing pigeons create efficient flight paths by learning from each other and making small improvements, and that hooved mammals cumulatively alter their migration routes to exploit plant growth.

    Once again, the animals have shot down our claim to uniqueness, as they have innumerable times throughout scientific history. You might wonder, at this point, if we should just settle the uniqueness question by answering: “We’re not.”

    If not cumulative culture, what makes us unique?

    But it remains the case that humans and their cultures are quite different from animals and their equivalents. Most scholars agree about that, even if they disagree about the reasons why. Since cumulative complexity appears not to be the most important difference, several researchers are sketching out a new perspective: Human culture is uniquely open-ended.

    Currently, anthropologists are discussing open-endedness in two related ways. To get a sense of the first, try counting the number of things you’re engaged with, right now, that came to you through culture. For example, I picked my clothes today based on fashion trends I did not develop; I am writing in a language I did not invent; I tied my shoes using a method my father taught me; there are paintings and postcards and photographs on my walls.

    Give me 10 minutes, and I could probably add 100 more items to that list. In fact, other than biological acts such as breathing, it is difficult for me to think of any aspect of what I’m doing right now that is not partially or completely cultural. This breadth is incredibly strange. Why should any organism spend time pursuing such a wide range of goals, particularly if most of them have nothing to do with survival?

    Other animals are much more judicious. Their cultural variation and complexity pertains almost entirely to matters of subsistence and reproduction, such as acquiring food and mating. Humans, on the other hand, lip-synch, build space stations and, less grandiosely, have been known to do things such as spend six years trying to park in all 211 spots of a grocery store lot. Our cultural diversity is unparalleled.

    Open-endedness, as a unique human quality, is not just about variety; it reflects the quantum leaps by which our cultures can evolve. To illustrate this peculiarity, consider a hypothetical example regarding the rocks that chimpanzees use to smash nuts.

    Chimps often use stones to break open hard-shelled nuts.
    Anup Shah/Stone via Getty Images

    Let’s say these chimps would benefit from using rocks that they can swing as hard and accurately as possible, but that they don’t immediately know what kind of rocks those would be. By trying different options and observing each other, they might accumulate knowledge of the best qualities in a nut-smashing rock. Eventually, though, they’d hit a limit in the power and precision available by swinging a rock with your fist.

    How could they get past this upper limit? Well, they could tie a stick to their favorite rock; the extra leverage would help them smash the nuts even harder. As far as we know, though, chimpanzees aren’t capable of realizing the benefits of harnessing this additional quality. But we are – people invented hammers.

    Crucially, discovering the power of leverage allows for more than just better nut-smashing. It opens up innovations in other domains. If adding handles to wielded objects allows for better nut-smashing, then why not better throwing, or cutting, or painting? The space of cultural possibilities, suddenly, has expanded.

    Through open-ended cultural evolution, human beings produce open-endedness in culture. In this respect, our species is unparalleled.

    What’s next?

    Researchers have not yet answered most of the major questions about open-endedness: how to quantify it, how we create it, whether it has any true limitations.

    But this new framework must shift the tides of a related debate: whether there is something obviously different about the way human minds work, other than social learning capacities. After all, every cultural trait emerges through interactions between minds – so how do our minds interact to produce such a degree of cultural breadth?

    No one knows yet. Interestingly, this shifting debate over how cognition influences culture coincides with a spate of research bridging psychology and anthropology, which explores why certain behaviors – such as singing lullabies, curative bloodletting and storytelling – recur across human cultures.

    Human minds produce unparalleled diversity in their cultures; yet it is also true that those cultures tend to express variations on a strict set of themes, such as music and marriage and religion. Ironically, the source of our open-endedness may illuminate not only what makes us so diverse, but also what makes us so often the same.

    Eli Elster 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. Humans aren’t the only animals with complex culture − but researchers point to one feature that makes ours unique – https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-the-only-animals-with-complex-culture-but-researchers-point-to-one-feature-that-makes-ours-unique-245526

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Violence in South Sudan is rising again: what’s different this time, and how to avoid civil war

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Jan Pospisil, Associate Professor at the Centre for Peace and Security, Coventry University

    A rise in political tensions in South Sudan and an escalation of violence in the Upper Nile State have raised fears of a return to civil war in the world’s youngest nation. In early March 2025, neighbouring Uganda sent troops to South Sudan on the request of the government, and was involved in aerial bombardments.

    South Sudan’s opposition groups took issue with the Ugandan intervention, and stopped taking part in discussions to create a joint military system in the country. These developments risk unravelling the 2018 power-sharing deal between President Salva Kiir, and First Vice-President Riek Machar and other opposition leaders. This deal brought a halt to a five-year civil war. Jan Pospisil, who has researched South Sudan’s political transition, unpacks the drivers of growing discontent.

    What’s the current situation in South Sudan?

    In early March 2025, the White Army, a Nuer community militia, launched attacks against units of the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces in Nasir County, Upper Nile State.

    This sparked fierce fighting. Nearly 50 people have been killed so far and many more wounded. The White Army claims it acted in self-defence. The militia group defends the Nuer community, one of country’s major ethnolinguistic groups.

    This outbreak of violence follows patterns of conflict from 2024 and years before. But it has spiralled out of control. The government’s response – including aerial bombardments with the support of the Ugandan army and arrests of leading opposition figures – has inflamed tensions.

    This conflict can be traced back to historical tensions between the Nuer and Dinka communities, worsened by the 1991 split of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), a political party.

    After the split, Riek Machar established a Nuer-dominated faction called SPLM-Nasir. It broke away from the John Garang-led SPLM, which was said to be Dinka-dominated. The split led to years of infighting.

    The White Army itself emerged during this period in the 1990s. It was primarily concerned with Nuer community defence and cattle raiding. It has never been controlled by any political entity.

    Machar has tried but never succeeded to command all Nuer militias, including the White Army.

    The White Army’s independence remains crucial in understanding the current situation in South Sudan. Many statements – often deliberately to discredit the opposition – conflate White Army actions with South Sudan’s opposition strategy. Such statements downplay the existing grievances in Nasir County.

    What’s different this time compared to the outbreak of civil war in 2013?

    When South Sudan’s civil war erupted in 2013, Nasir was engulfed in violence. Government troops – largely of Dinka origin – perceived the Nuer-majority town as enemy territory. Their attacks were often an attempt to take revenge for the atrocities committed by the White Army against Dinka civilians in the 1990s. Nuer fighters retaliated in kind. This trapped civilians in cycles of violence. By August 2014, Nasir was deserted, its infrastructure in ashes.

    The White Army’s recent attacks appear to be motivated by a series of provocations rather than any centralised political directive.

    Clashes erupted in mid-February 2025 when White Army members attacked soldiers collecting firewood. Four soldiers died and at least 10 civilians were injured by retaliatory shelling from the army.

    This incident heightened animosities, resulting in violent attacks. In March 2025, army forces suffered a humiliating defeat. This embarrassed the government – it looked like the national army was unable to control a community militia. This provoked a crackdown, and the White Army pushed back.

    The White Army seized Nasir and parts of the Wec Yar Adiu army barracks on 4 March.

    A planned evacuation of army troops via a UN peacekeeping helicopter on 7 March was disrupted when an exchange of fire led to casualties. At least 27 soldiers died, including Nasir army commander Majur Dak, a Dinka from neighbouring Jonglei State, and a UN peacekeeping crew member.

    In response, the SPLM-led government has moved to scapegoat the opposition.

    Several opposition figures, including oil minister Puot Kang Chol and opposition chief of staff Gabriel Duop Lam, were arrested.

    The government’s narrative suggests that the opposition orchestrated the White Army attacks as part of a broader destabilisation effort in the country.

    However, this ignores the fact that the White Army has historically acted independently. The arrests appear to be an opportunistic move to weaken the opposition, rather than a genuine attempt to address the root causes of the violence.

    What can be done to avoid a return to war?

    The path to stability lies in dialogue and sustained community demobilisation.

    The government needs to refrain from randomly arresting opposition figures because it feels humiliated. And it needs to stop indiscriminate attacks against civilians, such as aerial bombardments, in Nasir County.

    At the same time, community leaders, particularly those with influence over White Army factions, should be engaged in negotiations to de-escalate the situation.

    The coming rainy season, expected to start in April, provides a natural window for such efforts. Logistical challenges will make large-scale armed operations more difficult. This period could allow for confidence-building measures on the ground between Nuer communities and the army.

    And internationally?

    The international community has responded to the unfolding crisis with condemnations of the violence in Nasir. However, there has been little action.

    The UN mission in South Sudan has called for restraint from all sides but has largely failed to acknowledge the complex, independent nature of White Army mobilisation. The head of the UN mission should clearly call out the arrests of opposition figures as unbased and a threat to the transition process.

    The lack of such statements risks reinforcing government narratives that justify the use of heavy military force. The UN and international actors must emphasise the need for de-escalation, while also advocating for political solutions that address underlying grievances.

    This research is supported by the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), funded by UK International Development from the UK government. However, the views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies. Any use of this work should acknowledge the author and the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform.

    – ref. Violence in South Sudan is rising again: what’s different this time, and how to avoid civil war – https://theconversation.com/violence-in-south-sudan-is-rising-again-whats-different-this-time-and-how-to-avoid-civil-war-252395

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s phone call with Putin fails to deliver ceasefire – here’s what could happen next

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

    After more than two hours on the phone on Tuesday, March 17, the US president, Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, agreed agreed only to confidence-building measures, not a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. The two leaders came away from the call having agreed on a limited prisoner exchange, a suspension of attacks on energy infrastructure, and the creation of working groups to explore further steps towards a ceasefire and ultimately a peace agreement.

    A less charitable way of looking at the outcome of the second call between the two presidents since Trump returned to the White House would be that the ball is now back in America’s court. Putin made it crystal clear to Trump that he is not (yet) in the mood for any compromise.

    This is hardly surprising given recent events.

    The US has pressured Ukraine mercilessly into accepting a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, which Trump hoped Russia would also agree to. But apart from a vague statement by Trump that he might consider sanctions against Russia, he has so far seemed unwilling to contemplate putting any meaningful equivalent pressure on Putin.

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

    On the ground, Russia has gained the upper hand in the Kursk region where Ukrainian troops have ceded most of the territory they captured after a surprise offensive last summer. Once Putin’s forces, assisted by thousands of North Korean soldiers, have succeeded in driving the Ukrainians out of Russia, Kyiv will have lost its most valuable bargaining chip in negotiations with Moscow.

    Meanwhile, Russia has also made further gains on the frontlines inside Ukraine especially in parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. These are two of the four regions (the other two are Donetsk and Luhansk) that Putin has claimed for Russia in their entirety since sham referendums in September 2022, despite not yet having full control of them.

    If Russia were to capture yet more Ukrainian territory, Putin would probably find it even easier to convince Trump that his demands are reasonable. The fact that Trump already hinted at a “dividing of assets”, including the nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia – Europe’s largest before its forced shutdown in September 2022 – is a worrying indication of how far the Russian president has already pushed the envelope.

    Ukraine war: territory occupied by Russia as at March 18 2025.
    Institute for the Study of War

    But a deal solely between Russia and the US is not going to work. In that sense, time is not only on Putin’s side but also on Zelensky’s.

    The Russian readout of the call between the two presidents claimed that they had discussed “the complete cessation of foreign military assistance and the provision of intelligence information to Kyiv” as a key condition for moving forward – something that Trump subsequently denied in an interview with Fox. This means that, for now, Kyiv is likely to continue to receive US aid.

    Europe at the ready

    Perhaps more importantly in the long term, Europe is also doubling down on support for Ukraine. While Trump and Putin were discussing a carve-up of Ukraine over the phone, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, left no doubt on where the EU stands.

    In a speech at the Royal Danish Military Academy foreshadowing the publication of the commission’s Readiness 2030 white paper on bolstering European defences, she recommitted to developing European “capabilities to have credible deterrence” against a hostile Russia.

    A few hours later, the German parliament passed a multi-billion Euro package that loosens the country’s tight borrowing rules to enable massive investments in defence. This follows announcements of increased defence elsewhere on the continent, including in the UK, Poland, and by the EU itself.

    Meanwhile, the UK and France are leading efforts to assemble a coalition of the willing to help Ukraine. Representatives of the 30-member group gathered in London on March 15 for further talks.

    Afterwards, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, released a statement saying that Ukraine’s western partners “will keep increasing the pressure on Russia, keep the military aid flowing to Ukraine and keep tightening the restrictions on Russia’s economy”.

    Undoubtedly, these measures would be more effective if they had Washington’s full buy-in – but they send a strong signal to both the Kremlin and the White House that Ukraine is not alone in its fight against Russia’s continuing aggression.

    Putin’s options

    Putin, meanwhile, may have time on his side in the short term – but he should take note of this. Russian manpower and firepower may dwarf that of Ukraine, but it would be no match for a Ukraine backed by such a coalition of the willing.

    Putin’s apparent plan to drag Trump into the minutiae of negotiating a comprehensive deal may eventually backfire in more ways than one. For a start, really detailed discussions will test the US president’s notoriously short attention span.

    But this will also buy time for Ukraine and its supporters to strengthen Kyiv’s position in future negotiations. And it will continue to strain – but not immediately break – Russia’s economy.

    For now, Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine have stalled. He is attempting to broker a complex ceasefire deal that involves separate agreements with Kyiv and Moscow, pressure on Nato allies, and an attempt to drive a wedge between Russia and China. It’s not clear how this will succeed or indeed where it will end.

    The only certainty is that they are not bringing a just and stable peace for Ukraine any closer.

    Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

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

    – ref. Trump’s phone call with Putin fails to deliver ceasefire – here’s what could happen next – https://theconversation.com/trumps-phone-call-with-putin-fails-to-deliver-ceasefire-heres-what-could-happen-next-252417

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Swarbrick pleads for NZ cross-party support for sanctions on Israel

    By Russell Palmer, RNZ News political reporter

    Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick says the need for Aotearoa New Zealand to impose sanctions against Israel has grown more urgent after airstrikes on Gaza resumed, killing more than 400 people.

    Swarbrick lodged a member’s bill in December and said that with all opposition parties backing it, the support of just six backbench government MPs would mean it could skip the “biscuit tin” and be brought to Parliament for a first reading.

    “I feel as though every other day there is something else which adds urgency, but yes — I think as a result of the most recent round of atrocities and particularly the public focus, attention, energy and effort that is being that has been put on them, that, yes, parliamentarians desperately need to act.

    Swarbrick claimed there were government MPs who were keen to support her bill, saying it was why her party was publicly pushing the numbers needed to get it across the line.

    “We have the most whipped Parliament in the Western world,” she said. “We would hope that parliamentarians would live up to all of those statements that they make about their values and principles when they do their bright-eyed and bushy-tailed maiden speeches.

    “The time is now, people cannot hide behind party lines anymore.

    “I know for a fact that there are government MPs that are keen to support this kaupapa.”

    Standing order allowance
    Standing Order 288 allows MPs who are not ministers or undersecretaries to indicate their support for a member’s bill.

    If at least 61 MPs get behind it, the legislation skips the “biscuit tin” ballot.

    If answered, Swarbrick’s call would be the first time this process is followed.

    Labour confirmed its support for the bill last week.

    A coalition spokesperson said the government’s policy position on the matter remained unchanged, including in response to Swarbrick’s bill.

    New Zealand has consistently advocated for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.

    Swarbrick pointed to New Zealand’s support — alongside 123 other countries — of a UN resolution calling for sanctions against those responsible for Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, including in relation to settler violence.

    Conditional support
    The government’s support for the resolution was conditional and included several caveats — including that the 12-month timeframe for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories was “unrealistic”, and noted the resolution went beyond what was initially proposed.

    None of the other 123 countries which supported the resolution have yet brought sanctions against Israel.

    “Unfortunately, in the several months following that resolution in September of last year, our government has done nothing to fulfil that commitment,” Swarbrick said.

    The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ permanent representative to the UN Carolyn Schwalger in September noted that the Resolution imposed no obligations on New Zealand beyond what already existed under international law, but “New Zealand stands ready to implement any measures adopted by the UN Security Council”.

    NZ ambassador to the UN Carolyn Schwalger speaking at the UN General Assembly . . . “New Zealand stands ready to implement any measures adopted by the UN Security Council.” Image: Screenshot/UN General Assembly livestream/RNZ

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in December said the government had a long-standing position of travel bans on extremist Israeli settlers in the occupied territories, and wanted to see a two-state solution developed.

    Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its military pressure against Hamas was to secure the release of the remaining hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7 attack, and “this is just the beginning”.

    Israel continues to deny accusations of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    South African genocide case against Israel
    However, South Africa has taken a case of genocide against Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the trial remains ongoing with 14 countries having confirmed that they are intervening in support of South Africa.

    The attack on Israel in 2023 left 1139 people dead, with about 250 hostages taken.

    UN Secretary General António Guterres said in a tweet he was “outraged” by the Israeli airstrikes.

    “I strongly appeal for the ceasefire to be respected, for unimpeded humanitarian assistance to be re-established and for the remaining hostages to be released unconditionally,” he said.

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Is Google Maps brainwashing us? It might be if the theory of ‘extended cognition’ is correct

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Susan Dieleman, Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership and Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Lethbridge

    Over a billion people use Google Maps to help them navigate their world every month. If you own a smartphone, the odds are better than average you’re one of those people.

    If you’re using Google Maps in the United States, you may have noticed some recent changes to your world. The “Gulf of Mexico” is now the “Gulf of America,” and “Mount Denali” is again “Mount McKinley.” These are both changes instigated by U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Google is reportedly systematically removing resistance to these changes.

    When compared to how common it is for the Google search engine to boost misinformation and fake news, and feed into confirmation bias, changing the name of a body of water might not seem like a big deal. But the philosophical theory of “extended cognition” suggests such changes might not be so innocuous after all.

    Cognitive processes — not all in our heads

    The notion of extended cognition, along with the notion of the extended mind, was presented in a 1998 paper by British philosopher Andy Clark and his Australian colleague, David J. Chalmers.

    They argued that the environment plays an active role in our cognitive processes.

    Take their example of “the use of pen and paper to perform long multiplication” — something that could have been done in the mind is extended, as it were, to the external world. If it had been done in one’s mind, we wouldn’t hesitate to call this a cognitive process.

    The point is — moving this process outside the mind doesn’t change what it is. Rather, as they put it: “Cognitive processes ain’t (all) in the head!”

    They suggest that if the resources of an external tool are always there when we need them, then those resources are, in effect, “part of the basic package of cognitive resources that I bring to bear on the everyday world.”

    Back in 1998, almost decade before the advent of the iPhone, they used the example of a pocket calculator, with a suggestion that it’s unlikely the average person would always have one with them. Imagine, then, how smartphones play an integral role in many of our cognitive processes.

    In fact, as Chalmers pointed out in a later piece, the iPhone he purchased quickly became part of his mind. This is because it replaced part of his memory, harboured some of his desires, facilitated some of his calculations and more.

    In short, we outsource many of our cognitive tasks to our technologies. Our smartphones, in particular, play an important role in keeping track, remembering, calculating and finding our way.

    ‘Attention economy’

    In what’s come to be known as the attention economy, the role of technologies in our cognitive processes is amplified further.

    As Google strategist-turned-philosopher James Williams notes, technologies’ low-level engagement goals include “maximizing the amount of time you spend with their product, keeping you clicking or tapping or scrolling as much as possible, or showing you as many pages or ads as they can.”

    The more time spent on our phones, the more of our attention they demand, and the more integrated they are in our cognitive processes.

    When I’ve taught a unit on technology in Introduction to Philosophy courses in recent years, I’ve instructed students to read this piece by Canadian cognitive science scholar Karina Vold and reflect on their relationships to their phones — something most readily admit they’d never done before.

    As Vold points out, there could be significant legal implications if courts were to accept the theory of extended cognition in a world where smartphone technologies are ubiquitous. They might even include whether and how the law could protect “what and how we think from undue influence.”

    From this perspective, the fact that Google can change maps literally overnight gains new significance.

    If we take the theory of extended cognition seriously, we can understand Google’s changes, like renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, as problematically undermining our autonomy. In a sense, Google is able to get into our cognitive processes and, at will, make changes — to our understanding and memory of how the physical world is structured and navigated — without our consent.

    As a result, such changes fall on the wrong side of the admittedly blurry distinction between persuasion and coercion.

    Persuasion versus coercion

    Traditionally understood, persuasion respects individuals’ autonomy. It requires critical thinking and argumentation, which involve presenting reasons in support of a claim to people, who then use their own cognitive powers to decide whether to adopt or reject those reasons and claims.

    Conversely, coercion is closer to a form of brainwashing. It involves undermining or bypassing a person’s ability to accept or reject an argument. It gets into the cognitive processes themselves, making changes without knowledge or consent.

    In an era when technology companies compete for increasing shares of our attention, and therefore of our cognitive processes, it becomes increasingly difficult, but also urgently important, to be aware of whether we are being persuaded or brainwashed, and what we are being persuaded or brainwashed to believe.

    Though the name of a body of water on a Google Map might not seem like a big deal, it’s at least a reminder to be vigilant.

    Susan Dieleman receives funding as the Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at the University of Lethbridge.

    – ref. Is Google Maps brainwashing us? It might be if the theory of ‘extended cognition’ is correct – https://theconversation.com/is-google-maps-brainwashing-us-it-might-be-if-the-theory-of-extended-cognition-is-correct-251604

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Sand-sized fossils hold secrets to the history of climate change

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Yuhao Dai, Research Fellow in Earth Sciences, Australian National University

    N-2-s/Shutterstock

    Between 18,000 and 11,000 years ago, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere suddenly shot up. This caused rapid global warming, the mass melting of glaciers, and the end of the last ice age.

    Much of this sudden influx of atmospheric CO₂ came from the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, highlighting the key role this body of water plays in regulating the global climate.

    However, we have a poor understanding of how and why CO₂ release from this region changed during periods such as the end of the last ice age. But our new study, published in Nature Communications, reveals how much CO₂ was released to the atmosphere from the polar Southern Ocean during this period – and what factors were responsible.

    We reached these conclusions by examining the chemistry of sand-sized fossils, called foraminifera, from the seafloor south of Tasmania.

    Tiny shells preserved in mud

    Foraminifera are tiny single-celled organisms, either floating in the ocean surface or living on the seabed. Most of them build shells made of calcium carbonate to protect themselves. After death, these foraminifera shells are preserved in the mud on the seabed.

    Newer generations of foraminifera shells stack over older ones, like adding new pages to a book. Over time, these foraminifera shells form a book on the seabed that can be dated back to millions of years ago.

    Even more fascinating, trace amounts of elements in the seawater are incorporated into the calcium carbonate shells of foraminifera. In some foraminifera species, the amount of these elements is sensitive to the environment they live in.

    For example, the amount of boron in a species called Cibicidoides wuellerstorfi is sensitive to carbonate ion concentrations, and the amount of cadmium in another species (Hoeglundina elegans) is sensitive to phosphate concentrations.

    By looking at trace elements in these foraminifera shells found in the sequence of mud on the seabed, we can decipher mysteries about the past seawater condition in the book left by foraminifera on the seabed.

    In some species of foraminifera, such as Cibicidoides wuellerstorfi (pictured here), the trace amount of elements found in their shells is sensitive to their environment.
    Le Coze, François/WoRMS, CC BY-SA

    A giant metal straw

    How do scientists do this? First we go out to the ocean to collect mud.

    In this process, a giant metal straw is dropped to the seabed and then raised to our research ships, fully filled with mud. We take these mud samples back to our lab. There, we slice them into pieces and examine them separately.

    This allows us to extract information from each page of the book in chronological order. Foraminifera shells are washed out of the mud, and specific shells are picked out under a microscope, cleaned, and finally analysed for their chemical composition.

    Foraminifera have lived almost everywhere in the ocean for millions of years. Based on their chemical composition, scientists have reconstructed a continuous record of seawater temperature during the past 66 million years in great detail.

    Among a few places in the ocean where you cannot find foraminifera is the polar Southern Ocean. Although some foraminifera live there, seawater in this region is often too corrosive for their shells to preserve on the seabed. The lack of foraminifera in the polar Southern Ocean brings a huge challenge for scientists eager to understand past changes in CO₂ exchanges between the ocean and the atmosphere.

    Among a few places in the ocean where you cannot find foraminifera is the polar Southern Ocean.
    Mathias Berlin/Shutterstock

    From Antarctica to Tasmania

    We decided to tackle the problem using mud on the seabed 3,300 metres below the surface just south of Tasmania.

    Seawater at that depth near Tasmania is ideal for studying the chemistry of the polar Southern Ocean. That’s because seawater from the polar Southern Ocean sinks to the bottom of the ocean, moves northwards, and eventually occupies the seabed south of Tasmania.

    Seawater chemistry – including concentrations of carbon, phosphate and oxygen – does change along its way at the bottom of the ocean.

    These changes are, however, generally proportional to each other. So if all these concentrations are known for seawater at depth near Tasmania, we can work out their concentrations in the polar Southern Ocean.

    Fortunately, there were plenty of foraminifera shells in the mud for all these reconstructions at the site we examined near Tasmania.

    Reconstructing ancient chemical concentrations

    Using the chemistry of foraminifera, we reconstructed changes in concentrations of carbonate ion (which is largely related to carbon), phosphate and oxygen at the bottom of the ocean near Tasmania during the end of the last ice age roughly 20,000–10,000 years ago. This period is known as the last deglaciation.

    Based on these reconstructions, we calculated the amount of CO₂ released from the polar Southern Ocean during the last deglaciation. Some of this CO₂ came from biological processes – changes in the amount of carbon used by microscopic organisms living near the ocean surface. The rest was from physical processes – CO₂ molecules escaping from seawater directly to the air.

    We found that biological processes were more important for CO₂ releases during the earlier stages of the deglaciation, while the physical processes contributed more during the later stages.

    From the polar Southern Ocean, seawater sinks to the bottom of the ocean and moves northwards to reach the seabed south of Tasmania.
    Steve Todd/Shutterstock

    So why is this important?

    Scientists use climate models to predict future climate and to reproduce past atmospheric CO₂ changes.

    Our results provide testing targets for climate models to reproduce.

    Better reproduction of past changes will improve climate model design for predicting future changes.

    This will help us understand how future changes in the polar Southern Ocean can affect atmospheric CO₂, contributing to making effective plans to mitigate CO₂ emissions.

    Yuhao Dai receives funding from the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative, Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science.

    – ref. Sand-sized fossils hold secrets to the history of climate change – https://theconversation.com/sand-sized-fossils-hold-secrets-to-the-history-of-climate-change-250928

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Putin made Trump wait, then strung him along – it’s clear his war aims in Ukraine have not changed

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jon Richardson, Visiting Fellow, Centre for European Studies, Australian National University

    US President Donald Trump’s phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, didn’t take a tangible step towards ending the hostilities in Ukraine, let alone finding an enduring peace. Rather, it provided further evidence of Putin’s ability to string along and outsmart Trump.

    For starters, Putin sent a signal by making Trump wait for more than an hour to talk. Putin was speaking at a televised conference with Russian businesspeople and even made a joke about the delay when told the time for his call was approaching.

    This was clearly designed to show his alpha status, both to Trump and the Russian public. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, was reportedly made to wait eight hours by Putin when he arrived in Moscow last week for talks.

    And after Tuesday’s call, Putin only agreed to pause attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days, rather than the total ceasefire proposed by Trump and agreed to by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

    And even this agreement lacked clarity. The lengthy Kremlin statement on the call said the pause would only apply to attacks on energy infrastructure, while the vaguer White House read-out said it included a much broader “energy and infrastructure” agreement. The Kremlin will doubtless stick to the narrow concept.

    The Kremlin’s statement also said Trump proposed this idea and Putin reacted positively. This seems implausible given that pausing attacks on energy infrastructure would be the least costly partial ceasefire for Russia to agree to.

    It seems more likely this proposal came from Putin as a “compromise”, even though Trump was earlier threatening fire and brimstone if Russia did not agree to a proper ceasefire.

    Russia will still be able to continue its ground offensive in Ukraine, where it has the upper hand thanks to Ukrainian manpower shortages (despite its own horrendous losses). It will also be able to maintain its bombardment of Ukrainian civilian targets that has already cost possibly as many as 100,000 civilian lives and half a trillion US dollars in mooted reconstruction costs.

    Ukraine, meanwhile, has only rarely hit residential areas in Russia. However, it has achieved considerable success with long-distance drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure, threatening one of the main funding sources of Moscow’s war effort.

    Putin’s war aims remain unchanged

    The Kremlin’s read-out of the call also noted that various sticking points remain to achieve a full ceasefire in Ukraine.

    These included the Kyiv regime’s “inability to negotiate in good faith”, which has “repeatedly sabotaged and violated the agreements reached.” The Kremlin also accused Ukrainian militants of “barbaric terrorist crimes” in the Kursk region of Russia that Ukraine briefly occupied.

    This is not new language, but shows breathtaking chutzpah. It’s Russia, in fact, that has broken several agreements vowing to respect Ukraine’s borders, as well as numerous provisions of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of civilian populations and prisoners of war. It has even violated the Genocide Convention in the eyes of some scholars.

    That a US president could let this kind of statement go unchallenged underscores the extent of the White House’s volte-face on Ukraine.

    The Kremlin also asserted that a “key principle” for further negotiations must be the cessation of foreign military aid and intelligence to Ukraine.

    Given Trump has already frozen arms and intelligence support to Ukraine to make Zelensky more compliant, Putin no doubt thinks he might do so again. This, in turn, would strengthen Russia’s leverage in negotiations.

    Trump has already given away huge bargaining chips that could have been used to pressure Russia towards a just and enduring outcome. These include:

    • holding talks with Russia without Ukraine present
    • ruling out security guarantees for Ukraine and NATO membership in the longer term, and
    • foreshadowing that Ukraine should cede its sovereign territory in defiance of international law.

    Putin may be content to string out the ceasefire talks as long as he can in the hopes Russian troops can consolidate their hold on Ukrainian territory and completely expel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region inside Russia.

    He shows no sign of resiling from his key aims since the beginning of the war – to reimpose Russian dominance over Ukraine and its foreign and domestic policies, and to retain the territories it has illegally annexed.

    The fact Moscow has signed treaties to formally incorporate and assimilate these Ukrainian regions fully into Russia – rather than merely occupying them – underlines how this has always been a war of imperial reconquest rather than a response to perceived military threat.

    At the same time, if he can get much of what he wants, Putin may just be tempted to end the war to further a more business-as-usual relationship with the US. Trump has dangled various carrots to encourage Putin to do this, from renewed US investment in Russia to easing sanctions to ice hockey games.

    Ukraine’s lines in the sand

    Ukraine’s immediate reaction to the Trump-Putin call appears to be cautiously accepting of a limited ceasefire on energy infrastructure. This is no doubt to avoid incurring Trump’s wrath.

    At the same time, Ukraine’s bottom line remains firm:

    • Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty are non-negotiable
    • it must be able to choose its own foreign alliances and partnerships, and
    • it must be able to defend itself, without limits on the size of its army or its weaponry.

    The only way to square the circle would be to freeze the conflict at the current front lines in Ukraine and leave the status of the annexed Ukrainian regions to be resolved in future negotiations.

    But even this would have little credibility unless Russia revoked its annexations and allowed international organisations and observers to enter the region to encourage a modicum of compliance with international law.

    Jon Richardson 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. Putin made Trump wait, then strung him along – it’s clear his war aims in Ukraine have not changed – https://theconversation.com/putin-made-trump-wait-then-strung-him-along-its-clear-his-war-aims-in-ukraine-have-not-changed-252497

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Netanyahu commits a new ‘bloodbath in Gaza’ to save himself

    Asia Pacific Report

    At least 400 people have been killed after a surprise Israeli attack on Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday.

    The Israeli government vows to continue escalating these military attacks, claiming it is in response to Hamas’ refusal to extend the ceasefire, which has been in place since January 19.

    But is this the real reason for pre-dawn attack? Or is there a much more cynical explanation — one tied to the political fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

    This week, New Zealand journalist Mohamed Hassan, host of the Middle East Eye’s weekly Big Picture podcast, speaks to Daniel Levy, the president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator.


    Ceasefire broken: Netanyahu is exposed.   Video: Middle East Eye

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why did the Israel-Hamas ceasefire fall apart? It was never going to solve the root causes of the conflict

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Marika Sosnowski, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne

    When a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel finally came into effect on January 19, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.

    However, that ceasefire agreement, and its associated negotiations, have now been cast aside by new Israeli attacks on Gaza.

    A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strikes came after Hamas’ “repeated refusals” to “release our hostages”, and the group’s rejection of all proposals presented by US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

    Even before Israel cut off all humanitarian aid and electricity to Gaza in the past two weeks, Hamas claimed it had not met the levels of humanitarian aid, shelter and fuel it agreed to provide in the terms of the ceasefire. However, this is a distraction from a larger issue.

    This ceasefire was always more like a strangle contract than a negotiated agreement between equal parties. Israel, as the party with far greater military and political power, has always had the upper hand.

    And while the first phase of the ceasefire, which lasted 42 days, saw the successful release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, the ceasefire also enabled Israel to use it for its own political and military ends.

    Buying time

    The most common conventional concern about ceasefires is that the parties to a conflict will use them for their own ends.

    Typically, the worry is that non-state armed groups, such as Hamas, will use the halt in violence to buy time to regroup, rearm and rebuild their strength to continue fighting.

    But states such as Israel have this ability, too. Even though they have standing armies that might not need to regroup and rearm in the same way, states can use this time to manoeuvre in the international arena – a space largely denied to non-state actors.

    Trump’s rise to power in the US has seemingly given the Israeli government carte blanche to proceed in ways that were arguably off limits to previous US presidents who were also largely supportive of Israel’s actions.

    This includes the plan of forcing Gaza’s population out of the strip. This plan was raised earlier in the war by Trump advisor Jared Kushner and Israeli officials as a supposed humanitarian initiative.

    Trump has now repeated the call to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan – or possibly other parts of Africa – and for the US to take “ownership” of the coastal strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

    On the face of it, this plan would be a war crime. But even if it is never fully implemented, the fact it is being promoted by Trump after many years of domestic Israeli and international opprobrium shows how political ideas once thought unacceptable can take on a life of their own.

    Political and military maneouvering

    Israel has also used the ceasefire to pursue larger political and military goals in Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Syria.

    Even though the ceasefire did reduce overall levels of violence in Gaza, Israel has continued to carry out attacks on targets in the strip.

    It has also escalated the construction of settlements and carried out increasingly violent operations in the West Bank. In addition, there have been egregious attacks on Palestinian residents in Israel.

    And though nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners were released during the ceasefire, Israel was holding more than 9,600 Palestinians in detention on “security grounds” at the end of 2024. Thousands more Palestinians are being held by Israel in administrative detention, which means without trial or charge.

    During the ceasefire, Israel also accelerated efforts to evict the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from its headquarters in East Jerusalem. And the Israeli government has also proposed increasingly draconian laws aimed at restraining the work of Israeli human rights organisations.

    On the military front, the ceasefire arguably alleviated some pressure on Israel, giving it time to consolidate its territorial and security gains against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and in Syria.

    In the past two months, two deadlines for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon passed. Israel has instead proposed establishing a buffer zone on Lebanese territory and has begun destroying villages, uprooting olive trees and building semi-permanent outposts along the border.

    In a speech in February, Netanyahu also demanded the “complete demilitarisation of southern Syria” following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. And Defence Minister Israel Katz said this month Israel would keep its troops in southern Syria to “protect” residents from any threats from the new Syrian regime.

    Be careful what you wish for

    While Palestinians are known for their sumud – usually translated as steadfastness or tenacity – there is a limit to what humans can endure. The war, and subsequent ceasefires, have created a situation in which Gazans may have to put the survival and wellbeing of themselves and their families above their desire to stay in Palestine.

    There is a general assumption that ceasefires are positive and humanitarian in nature. But ceasefires are not panaceas. In reality, they are a least-worst option for stopping the violence of war for often just a brief period.

    A ceasefire was never going to be the solution to the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, it has turned out to be part of the problem.

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

    – ref. Why did the Israel-Hamas ceasefire fall apart? It was never going to solve the root causes of the conflict – https://theconversation.com/why-did-the-israel-hamas-ceasefire-fall-apart-it-was-never-going-to-solve-the-root-causes-of-the-conflict-249944

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump-Putin ceasefire conversation shows no initial signs of bringing peace to Ukraine

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser University

    Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a proposal by United States President Donald Trump for Russia and Ukraine to stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure for 30 days, according to statements by both the White House and the Kremlin.

    Yet within hours of a Trump-Putin phone call about a U.S. ceasefire proposal, Russia was reportedly attacking Ukrainian energy facilities again, leading Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accuse Putin of effectively rejecting the terms.

    The deal falls short of an unconditional 30-day ceasefire proposed by U.S. and Ukrainian officials earlier this month.

    In fact, Trump’s latest phone call with Putin seemingly didn’t amount to any substantive changes, except for an apparently short-lived Russian agreement to refrain from targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — a concession that might actually benefit Russia.

    The winter, when Ukraine is most vulnerable to Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure, is almost done. Russia’s dependence on energy exports to support its war effort, however, remains constant, and any Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy facilities will be framed as a breach by Russian authorities.

    Russia exploiting Trump’s desire for peace at any cost will probably be an ongoing trend.

    Given the earlier proposal was highly vague, this leads to one conclusion. Russia is playing for time to maximize its negotiating position.

    Trump’s goal

    The U.S. is playing an important role in peace negotiations. Under former president Joe Biden, this was due to the fact that the U.S. provided Ukraine with arms and moral support.

    Like most aspects of American policy, however, Trump dramatically pivoted, even attacking Zelenskyy in an infamous White House meeting in February. Now Trump is seeking a ceasefire, no matter what form it takes, to build a reputation as a statesman and distract Americans from domestic policy issues.



    Read more:
    What the U.S. ceasefire proposal means for Ukraine, Russia, Europe – and Donald Trump

    This development places Zelenskyy in a political bind. The U.S. in the past provided most of the military aid to Ukraine and the relationship between the Ukrainian leader and Trump is acrimonious.

    As such, even if Zelenskyy doesn’t agree with American ceasefire proposals, he must give the appearance of agreement or risk permanently alienating the mercurial Trump. Putin, in the meantime, will exploit any Ukrainian-American tensions.

    Current military situation

    The first year of the current phase of the Ukraine-Russia war was marked by mobility as both Russia and Ukraine made considerable advances and counteroffensives.

    Since the start of 2023, however, the conflict is increasingly defined as a war of attrition and a stalemate.

    Many analysts argue that such a war favours Russia. Wars of attrition are defined by slow, grinding advances whereby large casualties are a necessary byproduct for success. Given Russia’s material and personnel advantages, it can afford to suffer higher casualties.

    For the past several months, Russian forces have been making slow, steady advances against Ukrainian positions. Russia has suffered significant casualties in these advances, and they may not be sustainable over the long term.

    Putin is gambling that Ukraine’s and the international community’s will to fight will be broken by the time this is an issue. Trump’s push for a ceasefire at any cost suggests Putin may have a point.

    Any immediate ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine would leave Ukraine occupying Russian soil in the Kursk region, which Russia cannot accept.

    Russia’s immediate goal

    Ukraine’s 2024 incursion into the Kursk region provided the country and its people with a necessary respite from the war of attrition. Ukrainian forces, attacking an under-defended and unprepared part of the Russian front line, made significant advances into Russia.

    Ukraine’s ability to maintain territory around Kursk has also proven to be an embarrassment for Putin and the Russian establishment.

    Putin recently said Russian forces encircled Ukrainian forces in the salient, although Ukraine denies it. Regardless of the statement’s validity, it speaks to the importance both parties attach to the battle.

    Russia’s reputation

    This issue highlights a particular problem for the Russian leadership. Russia has done its utmost to frame its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine as a success. An example is Russia’s formal annexation of four Ukrainian areas in 2022, despite not actually possessing the territory at the time.

    Any perception of the invasion of Ukraine as a failure is a non-starter for a Russian government concerned about its domestic standing.

    Ukraine possessing Russian territory, however, leads to questions in Russia about the war’s success. Ukraine, in exchange for relinquishing any Russian territory it seized during the war, would undoubtedly seek the return of Ukrainian territory.

    Russia has not even achieved its minimal goals of seizing the four Ukrainian regions it’s officially annexed. Therefore, it’s unlikely Putin would ever agree to the exchange of the territory it has actually already seized in exchange for the Kursk salient.

    Putin is following the Russian playbook of negotiating from strength. So long as Ukraine maintains Kursk, Russia will not negotiate in good faith.

    While Kursk is the most prominent area of Russia concern, there are other conditions that will become important in the future as Putin seeks to improve Russia’s negotiating position.

    It’s a lesson that Trump will soon learn, despite any and all efforts he or his administration make to frame things positively.

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

    – ref. Trump-Putin ceasefire conversation shows no initial signs of bringing peace to Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/trump-putin-ceasefire-conversation-shows-no-initial-signs-of-bringing-peace-to-ukraine-252368

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Hipkins accuses PM of undermining NZ’s nuclear-free stance in India memo

    RNZ News

    New Zealand opposition Labour leader Chris Hipkins is accusing the prime minister of reversing a long-held foreign policy during his current trip to India to help secure a free trade agreement between the two countries.

    “It seems our foreign policy is up for grabs at the moment,” he said, citing Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s seeming endorsement of India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group despite New Zealand’s previous long-standing objection.

    “I think these are bad moves for New Zealand. We should continue to be independent and principled in our foreign policy.”

    Hipkins was commenting to RNZ Morning Report on a section of the joint statement issued after Luxon met with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

    It included a reference to India’s hopes of joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

    NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Indian PM Narendra Modi at the Sikh temple Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib . . . “both acknowledged the value of India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).” Image: RNZ

    “Both leaders acknowledged the importance of upholding the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime and acknowledged the value of India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in context of predictability for India’s clean energy goals and its non-proliferation credentials,” the statement said, as reported by StratNews Global.

    The NSG was set up in 1974 as the US response to India’s “peaceful nuclear test” that year. Comprising 48 countries, the aim was to ensure that nuclear trade for peaceful purposes does not contribute to the proliferation of atomic weapons, the report said.

    India is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which is one of the pre-requisites of joining the NSG.

    NZ objected to India
    In the past New Zealand has objected to India joining the NSG because of concern access to those nuclear materials could be used for nuclear weapons.

    “So it’s a principled stance New Zealand has taken. Christopher Luxon signed that away yesterday,” Hipkins said.

    “He basically signed a memo that basically said that we supported India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group despite the fact that India has consistently refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

    It was “a reversal” of previous policy, Hipkins said, and undermined New Zealand’s nuclear-free stance.

    But a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters denied there had been a change.

    “New Zealand’s position on the Nuclear Suppliers Group has not changed, contrary to what Mr Hipkins claims. The joint statements released by the New Zealand and Indian Prime Ministers in 2016 and 2025 make that abundantly clear,” he said.

    “If Mr Hipkins or his predecessor Jacinda Ardern had travelled to India during their six years as Prime Minister, the Labour Party might understand this issue and the New Zealand-India relationship a bit better.”

    Opposed to ‘selling out’
    Peters was also Foreign Minister during the first three years of the Ardern government.

    On a possible free trade deal with India, Hipkins said he did not want to see it achieved at the expense of “selling out large parts of New Zealand’s economy and potentially New Zealand’s principled foreign policy stance” which would not be good for this country.

    “The endorsement of India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group is a real departure.”

    Comment has been requested from the Prime Minister’s office.

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

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump-Putin ceasefire conversation shows no initial signs of ending the war in Ukraine

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser University

    Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a proposal by United States President Donald Trump for Russia and Ukraine to stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure for 30 days, according to statements by both the White House and the Kremlin.

    Yet within hours of a Trump-Putin phone call about a U.S. ceasefire proposal, Russia was reportedly attacking Ukrainian energy facilities again, leading Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accuse Putin of effectively rejecting the terms.

    The deal falls short of an unconditional 30-day ceasefire proposed by U.S. and Ukrainian officials earlier this month.

    In fact, Trump’s latest phone call with Putin seemingly didn’t amount to any substantive changes, except for an apparently short-lived Russian agreement to refrain from targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — a concession that might actually benefit Russia.

    The winter, when Ukraine is most vulnerable to Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure, is almost done. Russia’s dependence on energy exports to support its war effort, however, remains constant, and any Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy facilities will be framed as a breach by Russian authorities.

    Russia exploiting Trump’s desire for peace at any cost will probably be an ongoing trend.

    Given the earlier proposal was highly vague, this leads to one conclusion. Russia is playing for time to maximize its negotiating position.

    Trump’s goal

    The U.S. is playing an important role in peace negotiations. Under former president Joe Biden, this was due to the fact that the U.S. provided Ukraine with arms and moral support.

    Like most aspects of American policy, however, Trump dramatically pivoted, even attacking Zelenskyy in an infamous White House meeting in February. Now Trump is seeking a ceasefire, no matter what form it takes, to build a reputation as a statesman and distract Americans from domestic policy issues.



    Read more:
    What the U.S. ceasefire proposal means for Ukraine, Russia, Europe – and Donald Trump

    This development places Zelenskyy in a political bind. The U.S. in the past provided most of the military aid to Ukraine and the relationship between the Ukrainian leader and Trump is acrimonious.

    As such, even if Zelenskyy doesn’t agree with American ceasefire proposals, he must give the appearance of agreement or risk permanently alienating the mercurial Trump. Putin, in the meantime, will exploit any Ukrainian-American tensions.

    Current military situation

    The first year of the current phase of the Ukraine-Russia war was marked by mobility as both Russia and Ukraine made considerable advances and counteroffensives.

    Since the start of 2023, however, the conflict is increasingly defined as a war of attrition and a stalemate.

    Many analysts argue that such a war favours Russia. Wars of attrition are defined by slow, grinding advances whereby large casualties are a necessary byproduct for success. Given Russia’s material and personnel advantages, it can afford to suffer higher casualties.

    For the past several months, Russian forces have been making slow, steady advances against Ukrainian positions. Russia has suffered significant casualties in these advances, and they may not be sustainable over the long term.

    Putin is gambling that Ukraine’s and the international community’s will to fight will be broken by the time this is an issue. Trump’s push for a ceasefire at any cost suggests Putin may have a point.

    Any immediate ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine would leave Ukraine occupying Russian soil in the Kursk region, which Russia cannot accept.

    Russia’s immediate goal

    Ukraine’s 2024 incursion into the Kursk region provided the country and its people with a necessary respite from the war of attrition. Ukrainian forces, attacking an under-defended and unprepared part of the Russian front line, made significant advances into Russia.

    Ukraine’s ability to maintain territory around Kursk has also proven to be an embarrassment for Putin and the Russian establishment.

    Putin recently said Russian forces encircled Ukrainian forces in the salient, although Ukraine denies it. Regardless of the statement’s validity, it speaks to the importance both parties attach to the battle.

    Russia’s reputation

    This issue highlights a particular problem for the Russian leadership. Russia has done its utmost to frame its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine as a success. An example is Russia’s formal annexation of four Ukrainian areas in 2022, despite not actually possessing the territory at the time.

    Any perception of the invasion of Ukraine as a failure is a non-starter for a Russian government concerned about its domestic standing.

    Ukraine possessing Russian territory, however, leads to questions in Russia about the war’s success. Ukraine, in exchange for relinquishing any Russian territory it seized during the war, would undoubtedly seek the return of Ukrainian territory.

    Russia has not even achieved its minimal goals of seizing the four Ukrainian regions it’s officially annexed. Therefore, it’s unlikely Putin would ever agree to the exchange of the territory it has actually already seized in exchange for the Kursk salient.

    Putin is following the Russian playbook of negotiating from strength. So long as Ukraine maintains Kursk, Russia will not negotiate in good faith.

    While Kursk is the most prominent area of Russia concern, there are other conditions that will become important in the future as Putin seeks to improve Russia’s negotiating position.

    It’s a lesson that Trump will soon learn, despite any and all efforts he or his administration make to frame things positively.

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

    – ref. Trump-Putin ceasefire conversation shows no initial signs of ending the war in Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/trump-putin-ceasefire-conversation-shows-no-initial-signs-of-ending-the-war-in-ukraine-252368

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Putin makes self-serving concession to Ukraine as Trump tries unsuccessfully to become a statesman

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser University

    Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a proposal by United States President Donald Trump for Russia and Ukraine to stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure for 30 days, according to statements by both the White House and the Kremlin.

    Yet within hours of a Trump-Putin phone call about the U.S. ceasefire proposal, Russia was reportedly attacking Ukrainian energy facilities again, leading Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accuse Putin of effectively rejecting the terms.

    The deal falls short of an unconditional 30-day ceasefire proposed by U.S. and Ukrainian officials earlier this month.

    In fact, Trump’s latest phone call with Putin seemingly didn’t amount to any substantive changes, except for Russia’s agreement to refrain from targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — a concession that might actually benefit Russia.

    The winter, when Ukraine is most vulnerable to Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure, is almost done. Russia’s dependence on energy exports to support its war effort, however, remains constant, and any Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy facilities will be framed as a breach by Russian authorities.

    Russia exploiting Trump’s desire for peace at any cost will probably be an ongoing trend.

    Given the earlier proposal was highly vague, this leads to one conclusion. Russia is playing for time to maximize its negotiating position.

    Trump’s goal

    The U.S. is playing an important role in peace negotiations. Under former president Joe Biden, this was due to the fact that the U.S. provided Ukraine with arms and moral support.

    Like most aspects of American policy, however, Trump dramatically pivoted, even attacking Zelenskyy in an infamous White House meeting in February. Now Trump is seeking a ceasefire, no matter what form it takes, to build a reputation as a statesman and distract Americans from domestic policy issues.



    Read more:
    What the U.S. ceasefire proposal means for Ukraine, Russia, Europe – and Donald Trump

    This development places Zelenskyy in a political bind. The U.S. in the past provided most of the military aid to Ukraine and the relationship between the Ukrainian leader and Trump is acrimonious.

    As such, even if Zelenskyy doesn’t agree with American ceasefire proposals, he must give the appearance of agreement or risk permanently alienating the mercurial Trump. Putin, in the meantime, will exploit any Ukrainian-American tensions.

    Current military situation

    The first year of the current phase of the Ukraine-Russia war was marked by mobility as both Russia and Ukraine made considerable advances and counteroffensives.

    Since the start of 2023, however, the conflict is increasingly defined as a war of attrition and a stalemate.

    Many analysts argue that such a war favours Russia. Wars of attrition are defined by slow, grinding advances whereby large casualties are a necessary byproduct for success. Given Russia’s material and personnel advantages, it can afford to suffer higher casualties.

    For the past several months, Russian forces have been making slow, steady advances against Ukrainian positions. Russia has suffered significant casualties in these advances, and they may not be sustainable over the long term.

    Putin is gambling that Ukraine’s and the international community’s will to fight will be broken by the time this is an issue. Trump’s push for a ceasefire at any cost suggests Putin may have a point.

    Any immediate ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine would leave Ukraine occupying Russian soil in the Kursk region, which Russia cannot accept.

    Russia’s immediate goal

    Ukraine’s 2024 incursion into the Kursk region provided the country and its people with a necessary respite from the war of attrition. Ukrainian forces, attacking an under-defended and unprepared part of the Russian front line, made significant advances into Russia.

    Ukraine’s ability to maintain territory around Kursk has also proven to be an embarrassment for Putin and the Russian establishment.

    Putin recently said Russian forces encircled Ukrainian forces in the salient, although Ukraine denies it. Regardless of the statement’s validity, it speaks to the importance both parties attach to the battle.

    Russia’s reputation

    This issue highlights a particular problem for the Russian leadership. Russia has done its utmost to frame its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine as a success. An example is Russia’s formal annexation of four Ukrainian areas in 2022, despite not actually possessing the territory at the time.

    Any perception of the invasion of Ukraine as a failure is a non-starter for a Russian government concerned about its domestic standing.

    Ukraine possessing Russian territory, however, leads to questions in Russia about the war’s success. Ukraine, in exchange for relinquishing any Russian territory it seized during the war, would undoubtedly seek the return of Ukrainian territory.

    Russia has not even achieved its minimal goals of seizing the four Ukrainian regions it’s officially annexed. Therefore, it’s unlikely Putin would ever agree to the exchange of the territory it has actually already seized in exchange for the Kursk salient.

    Putin is following the Russian playbook of negotiating from strength. So long as Ukraine maintains Kursk, Russia will not negotiate in good faith.

    While Kursk is the most prominent area of Russia concern, there are other conditions that will become important in the future as Putin seeks to improve Russia’s negotiating position.

    It’s a lesson that Trump will soon learn, despite any and all efforts he or his administration make to frame things positively.

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

    – ref. Putin makes self-serving concession to Ukraine as Trump tries unsuccessfully to become a statesman – https://theconversation.com/putin-makes-self-serving-concession-to-ukraine-as-trump-tries-unsuccessfully-to-become-a-statesman-252368

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –