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Category: MIL-Submissions

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: What is personalized pricing, and how do I avoid it?

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jay L. Zagorsky, Associate Professor Questrom School of Business, Boston University

    Recently, Delta Air Lines announced it would expand its use of artificial intelligence to provide individualized prices to customers. This move sparked concern among flyers and politicians. But Delta isn’t the only business interested in using AI this way. Personalized pricing has already spread across a range of industries, from finance to online gaming.

    Customized pricing – where each customer receives a different price for the same product – is a holy grail for businesses because it boosts profits. With customized pricing, free-spending people pay more while the price-sensitive pay less. Just as clothes can be tailored to each person, custom pricing fits each person’s ability and desire to pay.

    I am a professor who teaches business school students how to set prices. My latest book, “The Power of Cash: Why Using Paper Money is Good for You and Society,” highlights problems with custom pricing. Specifically, I’m worried that AI pricing models lack transparency and could unfairly take advantage of financially unsophisticated people.

    The history of custom pricing

    For much of history, customized pricing was the normal way things happened. In the past, business owners sized up each customer and then bargained face-to-face. The price paid depended on the buyer’s and seller’s bargaining skills – and desperation.

    An old joke illustrates this process. Once, a very rich man was riding in his carriage at breakfast time. Hungry, he told his driver to stop at the next restaurant. He went inside, ordered some eggs and asked for the bill. When the owner handed him the check, the rich man was shocked at the price. “Are eggs rare in this neighborhood?” he asked. “No,” the owner said. “Eggs are plentiful, but very rich men are quite rare.”

    Custom pricing through bargaining still exists in some industries. For example, car dealerships often negotiate a different price for each vehicle they sell. Economists refer to this as “first-degree” or “perfect” price discrimination, which is “perfect” from the seller’s perspective because it allows them to charge each customer the maximum amount they’re willing to pay.

    Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia was a pricing pioneer.
    Hulton Archive/Getty Images

    Currently, most American shoppers don’t bargain but instead see set prices. Many scholars trace the rise of set prices to John Wanamaker’s Philadelphia department store, which opened in 1876. In his store, each item had a nonnegotiable price tag. These set prices made it simpler for customers to shop and became very popular.

    Why uniform pricing caught on

    Set prices have several advantages for businesses. For one thing, they allow stores to hire low-paid retail workers instead of employees who are experts in negotiation.

    Historically, they also made it easier for stores to decide how much to charge. Before the advent of AI pricing, many companies determined prices using a “cost-plus” rule. Cost-plus means a business adds a fixed percentage or markup to an item’s cost. The markup is the percentage added to a product’s cost that covers a company’s profits and overhead.

    The big-box retailer Costco still uses this rule. It determines prices by adding a roughly 15% maximum markup to each item on the warehouse floor. If something costs Costco $100, they sell it for about $115.

    The problem with cost-plus is that it treats all items the same. For example, Costco sells wine in many stores. People buying expensive Champagne typically are willing to pay a much higher markup than customers purchasing inexpensive boxed wine. Using AI gets around this problem by letting a computer determine the optimal markup item by item.

    What personalized pricing means for shoppers

    AI needs a lot of data to operate effectively. The shift from cash to electronic payments has enabled businesses to collect what’s been called a “gold mine” of information. For example, Mastercard says its data lets companies “determine optimal pricing strategies.”

    So much information is collected when you pay electronically that in 2024 the Federal Trade Commission issued civil subpoenas to Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase and other financial companies demanding to know “how artificial intelligence and other technological tools may allow companies to vary prices using data they collect about individual consumers’ finances and shopping habits.” Experiments at the FTC show that AI programs can even collude among themselves to raise prices without human intervention.

    To prevent customized pricing, some states have laws requiring retailers to display a single price for each product for sale. Even with these laws, it’s simple to do custom pricing by using targeted digital coupons, which vary each shopper’s discount.

    How you can outsmart AI pricing

    There are ways to get around customized pricing. All depend on denying AI programs data on past purchases and knowledge of who you are. First, when shopping in brick-and-mortar stores, use paper money. Yes, good old-fashioned cash is private and leaves no data trail that follows you online.

    Second, once online, clear your cache. Your search history and cookies provide algorithms with extensive amounts of information. Many articles say the protective power of clearing your cache is an urban myth. However, this information was based on how airlines used to price tickets. Recent analysis by the FTC shows the newest AI algorithms are changing prices based on this cached information.

    Third, many computer pricing algorithms look at your location, since location is a good proxy for income. I was once in Botswana and needed to buy a plane ticket. The price on my computer was about $200. Unfortunately, before booking I was called away to dinner. After dinner my computer showed the cost was $1,000 − five times higher. It turned out after dinner I used my university’s VPN, which told the airline I was located in a rich American neighborhood. Before dinner I was located in a poor African town. Shutting off the VPN reduced the price.

    Last, often to get a better price in face-to-face negotiations, you need to walk away. To do this online, put something in your basket and then wait before hitting purchase. I recently bought eyeglasses online. As a cash payer, I didn’t have my credit card handy. It took five minutes to find it, and the delay caused the site to offer a large discount to complete the purchase.

    The computer revolution has created the ability to create custom products cheaply. The cashless society combined with AI is setting us up for customized prices. In a custom-pricing situation, seeing a high price doesn’t mean something is higher quality. Instead, a high price simply means a business views the customer as willing to part with more money.

    Using cash more often can help defeat custom pricing. In my view, however, rapid advances in AI mean we need to start talking now about how prices are determined, before customized pricing takes over completely.

    Jay L. Zagorsky 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. What is personalized pricing, and how do I avoid it? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-personalized-pricing-and-how-do-i-avoid-it-262195

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Strengthening collective labor rights can help reduce economic inequality

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Skip Mark, Assistant professor of political science, University of Rhode Island

    Only about 1 in 10 U.S. workers belong to unions today. champc/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    Despite the strength of the U.S. economy, the gap between rich and poor Americans is increasing.

    The wealthiest 1% of Americans have more than five times as much wealth as the bottom 50%, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. That’s up from four times as much in the year 2000. In 2024 alone, the wealthiest 19 families got a total of US$1 trillion richer – the largest one-year increase on record.

    And yet 59% of Americans don’t have enough money saved up to cover an unexpected $1,000 expense.

    We are political scientists who study human rights and political economy.

    In a 2023 study, our team looked at 145 countries, including the U.S., to understand the link between labor rights and inequality. We found evidence that strengthening collective labor rights may reduce economic inequality.

    Empowering workers

    Collective labor rights include the rights to form and join a union, bargain collectively for higher pay and better working conditions, go on strike, and get justice if employers punish workers who exercise these rights.

    In the U.S., where less than 10% of workers belong to unions, union members typically earn higher wages than their nonunion counterparts.

    Through negotiations on behalf of their members, unions can pressure employers to provide fair wages and benefits. If negotiations break down, the union can call for a strike – sometimes winning better benefits and higher wages as a result.

    Some U.S. unions don’t have the right to strike, including air traffic controllers, teachers and those working on national security issues. But most unions have some ability to implement work stoppages and impose costs on employers to negotiate for raises and better benefits and conditions.

    Reducing inequality

    For our study, we analyzed the human rights in the CIRIGHTS dataset, which uses human rights reports from the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and other sources to measure government respect for 24 human rights, including the rights to unionize and bargain collectively. The dataset is produced by the University of Rhode Island, Binghamton University and the University of Connecticut. One of us, Skip Mark, serves as a co-director of the project.

    Using a scoring guide, a team of researchers reads human rights reports and gives each country a score of zero if they have widespread violations, one point if they have some violations, or two if they have no evidence of violations. The team has assigned scores for all 24 rights from 1994 through 2022.

    Using this data, we created a measure of collective labor rights by adding scores for the right to workplace association and the right to collective bargaining. The resulting collective labor rights score ranges from zero to four.

    Countries where workers’ rights are routinely violated, such as Afghanistan, China and Saudi Arabia, scored a zero. The United States, Macedonia and Zambia, three countries with little in common, were among those that tended to get two points, placing them in the middle. Countries with no reported violations of the rights to workplace association and collective bargaining, including Canada, Sweden and France, got four points.

    According to the CIRIGHTS dataset, the strength of respect for collective labor rights around the world declined by 50%, from 2.06 in 1994 to 1.03 in 2022.

    At the same time, according to the World Inequality Dataset, the share of income earned by the 1% with the biggest paychecks increased by 11%.

    We used advanced statistical methods to figure out whether better worker protections actually reduce inequality or are just associated with it.

    Gaps between individuals and ethnic groups

    We also measured what’s been happening to economic inequality, using two common ways to track it.

    One of them is vertical inequality, the gap between what people earn within a country – the rich versus the poor. The more unequal a society becomes, the higher its vertical inequality score gets. We measured it using the disposable income measure from the Gini index, a commonly used indicator of economic inequality that captures how much money individuals have to spend after taxes and government transfers.

    We found that a one-point increase in collective labor rights on our four-point scale reduces vertical inequality by 10 times the average change in inequality. For the U.S., a one-point increase in collective labor rights would be about enough to undo the increase in inequality that occurred between 2008 and 2010 due to the Great Recession and its aftermath. It would also likely help stem the growing wealth gap between Black and white Americans. That’s because income disparities compound over time to create wealth gaps.

    We also assessed the connection between horizontal inequality, which measures income inequality between ethnic or other groups, and collective labor rights.

    Negative horizontal inequality measures the amount of a country’s income held by the poorest ethnic group. Higher scores for this metric indicate that the lowest-earning ethnic group has less income relative to the rest of society. Black Americans have the lowest median income of any racial or ethnic group, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Positive horizontal inequality measures the income earned by the richest ethnic group. When positive horizontal inequality rises, that means the richest ethnic group has more income relative to the rest of society. According to the same Census Bureau report, Asian Americans had the highest median earnings.

    We found that stronger collective labor rights, both in law and in practice around the world, also reduce both types of horizontal inequality. This means they raise the floor by helping to improve the income of the poorest ethnic groups in society. They also close the gap by limiting the incomes of the richest ethnic group, which can reduce the likelihood of conflicts.

    That is, our findings suggest that when workers are free to advocate for higher wages and better benefits for themselves, it also benefits society as a whole.

    Stephen Bagwell is a researcher with the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, a charitable trust registered in New Zealand

    Skip Mark 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. Strengthening collective labor rights can help reduce economic inequality – https://theconversation.com/strengthening-collective-labor-rights-can-help-reduce-economic-inequality-254258

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Black teachers are key mentors for Philly high school seniors navigating college decisions

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Joseph Sageman, Postdoctoral Researcher in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

    In Pennsylvania, nearly 15% of students are Black, but less than 4% of teachers are. JohnnyGreig/E+ Collection via Getty Images

    Zikia, a 12th grader in Philadelphia, was stressing over where she would attend college in the fall. Her charter school’s college decision ceremony was the next day, and she was torn between her two top choices.

    At a crossroads, she reached out to her favorite teacher, the only Black educator on her course schedule. “I texted him at nighttime,” she recalled. “I didn’t feel like I could do that with my other teachers.”

    In my research
    on college and career readiness, I did not initially set out to study the impact of Black teachers, but students like Zikia readily brought up the topic.

    In interviews, students insisted on the importance of having Black educators. They consistently named their Black teachers and counselors as the most influential adults in their planning for life after graduation.

    Black educators, though, are severely underrepresented in the local teaching workforce. At Zikia’s school, over 75% of students are Black compared to only about 15% of teachers.

    The picture is just as striking in Pennsylvania as a whole. Statewide, the share of Black students is four times the share of Black teachers – 14.5% of students are Black, while only 3.7% of teachers are. A majority of public schools in Pennsylvania do not employ a single teacher of color despite serving racially diverse communities.

    These statistics are particularly concerning because strong evidence suggests that minority students benefit greatly from working with same-race teachers.

    Over the past two decades, a wave of studies from economists and education scholars have documented that when Black students are assigned to Black teachers, their math and reading scores improve, their rates of absenteeism and suspensions drop, and over the long run, they are more likely to enroll in honors classes, complete high school and go to college.

    This research is mostly quantitative and does more to establish that Black teachers are effective than explain why they are able to deliver such impressive results.

    To answer this latter question, I went directly to the source.

    I conducted interviews with roughly 100 Philadelphia 12th graders, asking them how they came to trust and depend on Black educators when weighing one of the most consequential decisions of their lives: whether and where to go to college. I spoke with students at five city high schools, including district-run and charter schools, as well as some of the teachers and counselors involved in their college decisions.

    Zikia and the other names used in this story are pseudonyms to protect the confidentiality of research participants.

    Inspiration, empathy and insight

    The presence of Black educators mattered to students for several reasons.

    Some of my respondents felt inspired by seeing Black people in school leadership positions. LaMont, for instance, said that taking classes from Black teachers motivated him: “Just to see success is achievable. A teacher is something in life. And it shows that people that look like me are able to overcome something. Having Black teachers gives you a sense of confidence.”

    LaMont’s seeing his own identity and background reflected in his teachers is what sociologists and political scientists call descriptive representation. His classmates agreed that it was important to have teachers who looked like them. Their connection, they insisted, was more than skin deep. Most of them gravitated to Black teachers because of how those teachers did their jobs and advocated for minority students, a concept called substantive representation.

    For instance, many students felt most comfortable asking for help from Black teachers because they regarded them as more empathetic listeners and felt they were invested in their holistic well-being, not just in their grades or academic performance.

    When I asked Ramir to tell me about the teachers he had strong relationships with, he offered a typical answer: “Most of them are African American,” he said. “But it’s not even just about that. I like a teacher who tries to understand you for who you are. Not look at you as a student but as a human being and build with you.”

    Students also credited Black teachers with making them feel like they belonged at school. They sought out advice from teachers who believed in their potential and held them to high academic and behavioral standards. These qualities were by no means unique to Black teachers, but white teachers sometimes found it difficult to balance authority with warmth in their relationships with students.

    “There are some teachers that act like siblings and some that act like parents,” said Emily, a white social studies teacher. “And it’s very rare that a white teacher can act like a parent and have the kids still like them.”

    Black educators also had culturally relevant insights into college that students valued highly. They often had deeper knowledge of local historically Black colleges and universities, or they could speak to the experience of being a racial minority at a predominantly white institution. Students valued guidance more when it came from a source they felt was relatable.

    These findings suggest that Black educators are effective not only because of shared identity or experiences, but also because of the skills and dispositions they bring into the classroom: proactively building relationships, coupling high expectations with high levels of support, and bringing schoolwork to life. As a result, minority students held out hope not only for more representation in the classroom but also that all their teachers – regardless of race – would integrate these practices into their tool kits.

    Read more of our stories about Philadelphia.

    Joseph Sageman 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. Black teachers are key mentors for Philly high school seniors navigating college decisions – https://theconversation.com/black-teachers-are-key-mentors-for-philly-high-school-seniors-navigating-college-decisions-261732

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Yosemite embodies the long war over US national park privatization

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Michael Childers, Associate Professor of History, Colorado State University

    The Ahwahnee is a privately run hotel inside Yosemite National Park. George Rose/Getty Images

    The Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service’s budget and staffing have raised concerns among park advocates and the public that the administration is aiming to further privatize the national parks.

    The nation has a long history of similar efforts, including a wildly unpopular 1980 attempt by Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt to promote development and expand private concessions in the parks. But debate over using public national park land for private profit dates back more than a century before that.

    As I explain in my forthcoming book, no park has played a more central role in that debate than Yosemite, in California.

    Early concerns

    In early 1864, Central American Steamship Transit Company representative Israel Ward Raymond wrote a letter to John Conness, a U.S. senator from California, urging the government to move swiftly to preserve the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees to prevent them from falling into private hands. Five months later, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant Act, ceding the valley and the grove to the state of California, “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation.” This was years before Yellowstone became the first federal land designated a national park in 1872.

    For centuries, the natural beauty of the Yosemite Valley has impressed visitors.
    Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

    Controversy arose quickly at Yosemite. Two men – James Lamon and James Hutchings – had claimed land in the valley before the federal government gave it to California. Both began commercial operations, Lamon growing cash crops and Hutchings operating a hotel.

    California said their businesses threatened the state’s ability to develop roads and trails in Yosemite by competing for tourist dollars. A legal battle ensued and was not resolved until an 1872 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found that the men’s land claims had not been fully validated according to the procedures of the time. The California legislature paid both men compensation for their land, and both left the park.

    In 1890, neighboring parts of the Yosemite area became America’s third national park – and in 1906, the federal government again took possession of the Yosemite Valley itself and the Mariposa Grove, specifically to incorporate them into an expansion of the national park.

    Development rights

    Yet, as my research has found, the role of private interests in the park remained unsolved. Private companies under contract to the National Park Service have long provided needed amenities such as lodging and food within the national parks. But questions over what is acceptable in national parks in the pursuit of profit have shaped Yosemite’s history for generations.

    In 1925, I found, the question centered on the right to build the first gas station inside the park, in Yosemite Valley. Two private businesses, the Curry Camping Company and the Yosemite National Park Company, had long competed for tourist dollars within the park. Each wanted to build a gas station to boost profits.

    Frustrated over the need to decide, National Park Service Director Horace Albright ordered the rival firms to simplify management of the park’s concessions. The companies merged, and the newly formed Yosemite Park and Curry Company was granted the exclusive rights to run lodges, restaurants and other facilities within the park, including the new gas station.

    But as I found in my research, the park service and the concessions company did not always see eye to eye on the purpose of the park. The conflict between profit and preservation is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the construction of a ski area within the park in the early 1930s. The park service initially opposed the development of Badger Pass Ski Area as not conducive to the national park ideal, but the Yosemite Park and Curry Company insisted it was key to boosting winter use of the park.

    In 1973, the Music Corporation of America, an entertainment conglomerate, bought the Yosemite Park and Curry Company. The company already had a tourist attraction operating near Hollywood, where visitors could pay to tour movie sets, but had not yet changed its name to Universal Studios or launched major theme parks in Florida and California. Its purchase of the park’s concessions set off a firestorm of controversy over fears of turning Yosemite into a theme park.

    That didn’t happen, but annual park visitor numbers climbed from 2.5 million to 3.8 million over the 20 years MCA ran the concessions, which sparked concerns about development and overcrowding in the park. Conservationists argued the park service had allowed the corporate giant to promote and develop the park in ways that threatened the very aspects of the park most people came to enjoy.

    With three restaurants, two service stations with a total of 15 gas pumps, two cafeterias, two grocery stores, seven souvenir shops, a delicatessen, a bank, a skating rink, three swimming pools, a golf course, two tennis courts, kennels, a barbershop, a beauty shop, Badger Pass Ski Area and three lodges, the Yosemite Valley was a busy commercial district. Critics argued that such development contradicted the park service’s mandate to leave national parks unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

    Crowds gather at some of Yosemite’s most popular sites, such as the California Tunnel Tree.
    David McNew/AFP via Getty Images

    Who owns the names?

    Falling profits and consolidation within the music industry led MCA to sell its concessions rights in Yosemite in 1993. The Delaware North Companies, a global hospitality corporation, took over and ran the park’s concessions until 2016, when it sold the rights to Aramark.

    But in that sale, the question of public resources and private profits arose again. Delaware North demanded $51 million in compensation for Aramark continuing to use the names of several historic properties within the park, such as the Ahwahnee, a hotel, and Curry Village, another group of visitor accommodations. The company claimed those names were a part of its assets under its contract with the park service.

    The park service rejected the claim, saying the names, which dated back more than a century, belonged to the American people. But to avoid legal problems during the transition, the agency temporarily renamed several sites, including calling the Ahwahnee the Majestic Yosemite Hotel and changing Curry Village to Half Dome Village. Public outrage erupted, denouncing the claim by Delaware North as commercial overreach that threatened to distort Yosemite’s heritage. In 2019, the park service and Aramark agreed to pay Delaware North a total of $12 million to settle the dispute, and the original names were restored.

    Protesters unfurl an upside-down U.S. flag from the top of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in February 2025, protesting Trump administration changes to the National Park Service.

    Renewed interest in commercial efforts

    In June 2025, Yosemite again took center stage in the dispute over the role of federal funding versus private interests at the start of the second Trump administration when a group of climbers unfurled an American flag upside down off El Capitan in protest of the administration’s cuts in personnel and slashing of the park service’s budget.

    Conservationists, including former National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, argued that by defunding the park service and laying off as much as a quarter of its workforce, the Trump administration was “laying the groundwork to privatize” the national parks by allowing corporate interests more access to public lands. Those concerns echo ones raised during the first Trump administration, when the White House argued privatization would better serve the American public by improving visitor experiences and saving federal dollars.

    Whichever side prevails in the short term, the debate over the role of private interests within national parks like Yosemite will undoubtedly continue.

    Michael Childers 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. Yosemite embodies the long war over US national park privatization – https://theconversation.com/yosemite-embodies-the-long-war-over-us-national-park-privatization-261133

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Israel’s attack on Syria: Protecting the Druze minority or a regional power play?

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Spyros A. Sofos, Assistant Professor in Global Humanities, Simon Fraser University

    A new round of violence recently erupted in southern Syria, where clashes between local Druze militias and Sunni fighters have left hundreds dead.

    In response, Israel launched airstrikes in and around the province of Sweida on July 15, saying it was acting to protect the Druze minority and to deter attacks by Syrian government forces.

    The strikes mark Israel’s most serious escalation in Syria since December 2024, and they underline a growing trend in its foreign policy: the use of minority protection as a tool of regional influence and power projection.

    The Druze minority

    The Druze, a small but strategically significant ethno-religious group, have historically occupied a precarious position in the politics of Syria, Israel and Lebanon.

    With an estimated million members across the Levant — a sub-region of west Asia that forms the core of the Middle East — the Druze have often tried to preserve their autonomy amid broader sectarian and political upheavals. In Syria, they make up about three per cent of the population, concentrated largely in the southern province of Sweida.

    Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in late 2024 and the rise of a new Islamist-led government under Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Druze in southern Syria have resisted central authority.

    Though not united in their stance, many Druze militias have rejected integration into the new Syrian army, preferring to rely on local defence networks. The latest wave of violence, sparked by the abduction of a Druze merchant, has been met with both brutality from pro-government forces and military retaliation by Israel.

    Truly protecting Syrian minorities?

    Israeli officials says they intervened to protect the Druze, which is not unprecedented. Over the past year, Israel has increasingly portrayed itself as a defender of threatened minorities in Syria — rhetoric that echoes past efforts to align with non-Arab or marginalized groups, such as the Kurds and certain Christian communities.

    This strategy may be less about humanitarian goals and, in fact, much more deeply political.

    By positioning itself as a regional protector of minorities, Israel could be seeking to craft a narrative of moral authority, particularly as it faces growing international outrage over its policies in the West Bank and Gaza. This is an example of what scholars refer to as strategic or nation branding by states to cultivate legitimacy and influence through selective interventions and symbolic gestures.

    But Israel’s actions may not just concern image. They could also be part of a broader geopolitical strategy of containment and fragmentation.

    The new authorities in Syria are seen as a significant threat, particularly because of the presence of Islamist factions operating near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. By creating what is in effect a buffer zone in southern Syria, Israel’s goal may be to prevent the entrenchment of hostile entities along its northern border while also capitalizing on Syria’s internal fragilities.

    Strategic risks

    With sectarian tensions resurfacing in Syria, the Israeli government probably sees an opportunity to build informal alliances with disaffected groups like the Druze, who may be skeptical of the new Syrian government. This reflects a shift in Israel’s foreign policy from reactive deterrence to proactive strategic disruption.

    This approach is not without risks. While some Druze leaders have welcomed Israeli support, others — particularly in Syria and Lebanon — have accused Israel of stoking sectarian tensions to justify military intervention and advance territorial or security aims.

    Such accusations echo longstanding criticisms that Israel’s involvement in regional conflicts is often guided less by humanitarian concern and more by cold strategic calculation.

    This new phase in Israeli foreign policy also fits into a broader pattern I’ve previously written about — the increasing revisionism of Israel’s regional strategy under Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership. That strategy seemingly seeks to upend multilateral norms, bypass traditional diplomacy and pursue influence through direct engagement — often militarized — with non-state entities and marginalized communities.



    Read more:
    How Israel’s domestic crises and Netanyahu’s aim to project power are reshaping the Middle East

    Israel’s July 15 strikes, and an attack on Syria’s Ministry of Defence in Damascus the following day, have drawn strong condemnation from Arab states, Turkey and the United Nations.

    While Israeli officials have justified the attacks as defensive and humanitarian, the intensity and symbolic targets suggest a deeper intention: to demonstrate operational reach, and, more importantly, actively engage in a redesign of the region with fragmentation and state weakness as the main objective.

    Fragmentation of the Middle East

    The United States, while expressing concern over the violence, has largely remained silent on Israel’s expanding role in Syria. This could further embolden Israeli actions in a region where international norms are being increasingly upended and traditional great power engagement is waning.

    Sectarian clashes are likely to continue in Sweida and beyond as Syria’s central government struggles to reassert control. That means that for Israel, the opportunity to deepen its footprint in southern Syria under the guise of minority protection remains.

    But despite its effort to present itself as a stable, moral presence in an otherwise chaotic neighbourhood, Israel could be undermining the very stability it says it wants to protect as it militarizes humanitarianism.

    The world is not not just witnessing a series of airstrikes or another episode of sectarian violence in the Middle East. It’s watching a profound transformation in the regional order — one in which traditional borders, alliances and identities are being reshaped.

    Amid this environment, Israel’s role could evolve not just as a military power, but as a revisionist nation navigating, and helping to bring about, the fragmentation of the Middle East.

    Spyros A. Sofos 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. Israel’s attack on Syria: Protecting the Druze minority or a regional power play? – https://theconversation.com/israels-attack-on-syria-protecting-the-druze-minority-or-a-regional-power-play-261648

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: ‘Pay us what you owe us:’ What the WNBA’s collective bargaining talks reveal about negotiation psychology

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ryan Clutterbuck, Assistant Professor in Sport Management, Brock University

    WNBA all-star players, led by Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark and the Minnesota Lynx’s Naphessa Collier, recently made headlines by wearing “Pay Us What You Owe Us” T-shirts during the pregame warm-up.

    The T-shirts, which are now available for purchase, were a demonstration of players’ frustrations with the WNBA owners and the ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiation. The collective agreement sets out the terms and conditions of employment (like salaries and benefits) between the league and its players, and is set to expire Oct. 31, 2025.

    Reportedly, players are asking for increased revenue sharing (the current agreement stipulates WNBA players receive only nine per cent of league revenue, relative to their NBA peers who receive 50 per cent), increased compensation (the average WNBA salary is US$147,745) and other benefits.

    Central to these demands is the perception that, despite a surge in popularity, media attention and viewership, WNBA players are still being underpaid and are undervalued.

    Negotiations for a new collective agreement are ongoing. But as the T-shirts and subsequent public statements from the players and the WNBA show, there is increasing frustration with how the process is unfolding.

    What is ‘owed’ to WNBA players?

    Debate over what is “owed” to WNBA players has intensified recently. ESPN commentator Pat McAfee, for example, has suggested the league should simply increase players’ salaries by US$30,000 per player, saying that contracts like Clark’s are “an embarrassment.”

    But others argue this discussion should go beyond players’ salaries. Syracuse University sport management professor Lindsey Darvin writes:

    “The question isn’t whether the WNBA can afford to pay players what they’re worth; it’s whether the league can afford not to make the investments necessary to realize its full potential.”

    According to Darvin, because the WNBA is an economically inefficient — and arguably exploitative — business, its focus should be on increasing revenue, and not simply on reducing its labour costs. For example, with the goal to satisfy increasing market demands for the WNBA, strategies to increase revenue could include expanding the league to new markets, scheduling more games at the 3 p.m. Eastern time slot and increasing the number of regular season games from 44 to 60 or more.

    In sport management classrooms and negotiation workshops at Brock University, we call this “expanding the pie” — working collaboratively, as opposed to combatively, to grow the game and the business so that both players and owners benefit over the long term. But this is easier said than done.

    Information shapes negotiation outcomes

    While it’s still early in the negotiation process, there are lessons that can be learned from this round of collective bargaining. One of those lessons has to do with making and receiving first offers. In particular, two psychological concepts are at play: information asymmetry and the anchoring effect.

    Information asymmetry occurs when one party holds more relevant knowledge than the other. For example, in a typical job negotiation, the employer knows the number of applicants for the position, how much the company is willing to pay and what compensation trends look like across the sector. The candidate, by contrast, lacks most if not all of this information and thus enters the negotiation at a distinct disadvantage.

    The question is: who should make the first salary offer? The general rule is that when you lack critical information, it’s better to let the other side make the first move.

    In the case of the WNBA’s negotiations, the information asymmetry problem is not so obvious. The owners likely have a certain perspective on what is acceptable in terms of sharing league revenue and improving working conditions. But the players possess their own kind of leverage, regarding their willingness to protest or walk out entirely.

    The league made its initial proposal to the players in early July, but it was not well received.

    The ‘anchoring effect’ can skew negotiations

    Another problem influencing negotiations is the “anchoring effect.” This occurs when an initial offer influences subsequent offers and counteroffers, and ultimately has an impact on the final outcome.

    Garage-sale aficionados may recognize this tendency, as buyers often negotiate with the seller’s sticker price in mind, haggling to earn a 25 or 50 per cent discount on an item without considering whether the item is actually worth the cost. Here, the sticker acts as the anchor.

    While sticker prices and first offers are not inherently malicious, some sale prices and first offers are intended to manipulate buyers and negotiators representing the other side. Savvy negotiators deploy strategic anchors, but even they can sometimes miss.

    In maritime terms, anchor scour occurs when a ship’s anchor fails to catch hold and instead drags across the seabed, destroying ecosystems caught in its path.

    In negotiations, a similar process can unfold. When initial moves and first offers fail to catch hold because they are perceived to be unfair by the other side, it can damage relationships and can make subsequent negotiations even more difficult.

    Now, the WNBA may face the consequences of a poorly received anchor. According to WNBA player representative, Satou Sabally, the WNBA’s initial offer was a “slap in the face”.

    New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart called the players’ meeting with the league on July 17 to discuss a new collective bargaining agreement a “wasted opportunity” while Chicago Sky player Angel Reese called the negotiations “disrespectful.”

    It’s time to right the ship

    Though it’s still early days, we expect negotiations to heat up in the coming weeks as the Halloween deadline to reach a deal approaches.

    There is still time to right the ship, so to speak, but to do so, WNBA players and owners must internalize the potentially disastrous impacts that can come from negotiating over an imagined “fixed pie” instead of expanding it, and dropping anchors that fail to address the other sides’ key interests.

    WNBA players and WNBA team owners now have, in front of them, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform professional women’s sport in North America, through creatively and collaboratively expanding the pie and paying the players what they’re owed.

    Michele K. Donnelly has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

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

    – ref. ‘Pay us what you owe us:’ What the WNBA’s collective bargaining talks reveal about negotiation psychology – https://theconversation.com/pay-us-what-you-owe-us-what-the-wnbas-collective-bargaining-talks-reveal-about-negotiation-psychology-261731

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Car tires are polluting the environment and killing salmon. A global plastics treaty could help

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Timothy Rodgers, Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Engineering, University of British Columbia

    In the 1990s, scientists restoring streams around Seattle, Wash., noticed that returning coho salmon were dying after rainstorms. The effects were immediate: the fish swam in circles, gasping at the surface, then died in a few hours.

    Over the next several decades, researchers chipped away at the problem until in 2020 they discovered the culprit: a chemical called 6PPD-quinone that forms when its parent compound, a tire additive called 6PPD, reacts with ozone.

    6PPD-quinone kills coho salmon at extraordinarily low concentrations, making it one of the most toxic substances to an aquatic species that scientists have ever found.

    Today, a growing body of evidence shows that tire additives and their transformation products, including 6PPD-quinone, are contaminating ecosystems and showing up in people.

    Now, alongside the researchers who made that initial discovery, we’re calling for international regulation of these chemicals to protect people and the environment.

    Our recently published research outlines the hazard posed by tire additives due to their demonstrated toxicity and high emissions near people and sensitive ecosystems, how current regulations don’t do enough to protect us, and how we can do better.

    Tires are complex chemical products

    Tires are far from simple rubber rings. They’re complex chemical products made to endure heat, friction and degradation. For example, 6PPD is in tires to protect them from ozone, which causes tires to crack.

    Unfortunately, little attention was paid to these chemicals until scientists discovered the impacts of 6PPD-quinone and realized these chemicals could be hazardous.

    Once they started looking, researchers found many tire additives, including 6PPD-quinone, in streams near roads, in dust and in the air — wherever there are roads, there is tire additive contamination.

    Although 6PPD-quinone is most lethal to coho, it is also lethal to several other species of salmonids, and it may be toxic to aquatic plants and terrestrial invertebrates.

    We know that exposure to tire wear particles and the chemicals that leach from them affect other aquatic species that are used as indicators of toxicological risk. This widespread contamination occurs because emissions of tire additives are high.

    Every time we drive, we produce particles from tire wear, and those particles release additives into the environment. Tires lose 10-20 per cent of their mass over their lifetime. That means driving emits over one million tonnes of tire particles to the environment in both the United States and the European Union every year.

    All those tire particle emissions represent a large source of chemicals to the environment and high human exposures, especially in cities. Researchers have started to find tire additives and their transformation products in people.

    Although more research is needed on how tire additives affect people, 6PPD is classified as a reproductive toxin, and other tire additives and their transformation products have been associated with increased cancer risk in exposed populations.

    Emerging research with mice indicates that some tire additives and their transformation products impact mammals, with studies showing neurotoxicity, damage to multiple organ systems and impaired fertility from 6PPD-quinone.

    That’s why our team of environmental scientists is calling for urgent global action.

    Plastics treaty

    We’re not arguing that tires shouldn’t have additives, but those additives must be safer. That’s why we are calling for a process that replaces 6PPD and other tire additives with safer alternatives. Tire additives should be nonhazardous across their entire life cycle, and manufacturers should be transparent about what tire additives they are using and what their hazards are.

    Next week, governments from around the world are meeting to negotiate a global treaty to end plastic pollution. We call for tires to be explicitly included in the treaty, and we want to see strong measures around plastic additives including tire additives.

    We want to see:

    • Deadlines for phasing out hazardous chemicals;
    • The ability to mandate alternatives;
    • Transparency around the chemicals used in tires;
    • Independent panels for evaluating additive alternatives and for assessing additive effects;
    • Dedicated working groups focused on tire additives due to their large emissions and demonstrated ecological impacts.

    The good news is that we’ve done this before. After scientists found a hole in the ozone layer, the world banded together under the Montréal Protocol to phase out the most damaging chemicals to the ozone layer. Today, the ozone layer is recovering, averting millions of cases of skin cancer and helping combat climate change. We need the same level of ambition and urgency now.

    Making tires nonhazardous for the environment would help safeguard coho salmon populations, restoring traditional foods to Indigenous Peoples across the Pacific Northwest and protecting a species vital for aquatic ecosystems.

    Since roads are built where people are, reducing the hazard from tire particle pollution would reduce one source of exposure to potentially toxic chemicals, and ensure a future where fewer people are impacted by chemical pollution. It’s time for global action on tire additives, before their impacts become even harder to ignore.

    Timothy Rodgers receives funding from the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund.

    Rachel Scholes receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the BC Knowledge Development Fund, and the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund.

    Simon Drew receives funding from the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund.

    – ref. Car tires are polluting the environment and killing salmon. A global plastics treaty could help – https://theconversation.com/car-tires-are-polluting-the-environment-and-killing-salmon-a-global-plastics-treaty-could-help-261832

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Economy – US Fed holds rates steady – but September cut now in focus: deVere CEO

    Source: deVere Group

    July 30 2025 – The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady today, but the next step is increasingly clear. A cut is coming in September, and investors should be preparing now, predicts the CEO of one of the world’s largest independent financial organizations.

    “The decision to hold was expected, but it doesn’t shift the path. The Fed has likely just bought itself eight more weeks before a pivot,” says Nigel Green, CEO of global financial advisory giant deVere Group.

    “We now expect that by September, the underlying softness in the economy will make a cut not just justified, but necessary.”

    The Fed kept the benchmark rate in its target range of 4.25% to 4.50%, where it has sat since December.

    But what was notable this time wasn’t the decision, it was the dissent.

    “When key policymakers start breaking ranks, it tells you the consensus is cracking. The economy is changing faster than the narrative.”

    The headline GDP figure – 3.0% annualized growth in the second quarter – painted a picture of strength.

    However, the internals tell a different story. Imports plunged, flattering the overall print, while core domestic demand slowed sharply.

    “The GDP number looked impressive at first glance, but it’s built on a shrinking trade gap. That’s not the foundation of enduring growth. Beneath it, private consumption and business investment are both showing signs of fatigue,” notes Nigel Green.

    Consumer spending, while still positive, decelerated from the previous quarter. Americans are becoming more selective, more cautious – a shift that matters for investors trying to assess which parts of the market remain resilient.

    “We’re seeing a transition in behavior. People aren’t panicking, but they’re hesitating. They’re thinking harder about how and where to spend. This shift will ripple across sectors, and smart investors will adjust early.”

    With inflation continuing to ease, the Fed has room to move – and the broader economic signals are now pointing in the same direction.

    “The case for cutting isn’t built on fear, it’s built on realism. Growth isn’t reversing, but it is thinning out. The Fed has always said it’s data-driven, and the data is evolving.”

    The deVere Group chief executive believes today’s pause gives investors a crucial window.

    “This is the moment to recheck exposure, stress test assumptions, and reweight toward high-quality, globally diversified assets. If you’re waiting for the official pivot to reposition, you may already be behind.”

    Markets may respond positively in the short term to the Fed’s steady hand, but that optimism could narrow once investors process the nuances of slowing demand and uneven sector performance.

    “There’s a difference between momentum and endurance. Right now, we’re seeing the tail end of stimulus-driven resilience, but not a broad-based expansion. Positioning based on the headline alone is a mistake.”

    deVere is advising clients to look beyond the binary of rate hikes or cuts, and to focus instead on portfolio durability in a world where growth is steady but no longer abundant.

    “It would appear that we’re entering a new phase of lower inflation, lower growth, and soon, lower rates. This rewards forward-thinking strategy over reaction.”

    As central bankers weigh the incoming data and investors digest the mixed signals, it seems that September is shaping up to be a decisive month.

    “Today’s decision keeps the Fed in wait-and-see mode – but the waiting won’t last much longer. We expect the first cut in September. Now is the time to prepare for it.”

    deVere Group is one of the world’s largest independent advisors of specialist global financial solutions to international, local mass affluent, and high-net-worth clients.  It has a network of offices around the world, more than 80,000 clients, and $14bn under advisement.

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Australia – Average small business tax refund tops $5k: Tax tips and traps for business owners filing their tax return – CBA

    Source: Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)

    With CommBank data showing most small business tax refunds are processed in the first quarter of a financial year, here are some tax tips for business owners on staying financially fit and scam aware.

    Key facts:

    • New CommBank data shows on average, small business owners received a tax return of around $5,000 for financial year 2024.
    • The number of refunds processed between July and September in 2024 are 75 per cent higher than the average number processed in the prior three quarters.
    • Mining contractors, electricians, plumbers, manufacturers, small agribusinesses, and wholesale traders can expect to get the highest tax returns this year. 

    According to the data, based on funds deposited into small business customer accounts by the Australian Tax Office (ATO), states with the highest average tax refunds are ACT and Queensland ($5,700), followed by Victoria ($5,300), NSW ($4,900) and WA ($4,800).

    Interestingly, electricians and plumbing businesses top the list for average tax returns in NSW and TAS, mining contractors unsurprisingly for WA, and education and communication services for VIC, while small agriculture businesses top the average tax return in Queensland.

    Mixed emotions as tax time rolls around

    Drew Campbell, co-founder of boutique travel company Reveling – Nestled on the Gold Coast, Reveling is redefining luxury travel with a focus on immersive, small-group and private experiences across Australia and Africa. Co-founded by a team of passionate adventurers, the company is powered by a growing collective of guides, hosts, artisans, and creatives who share a love for meaningful connection through travel.

    “There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing people connect deeply with nature and community,” said Drew Campbell, co-founder of Reveling.

    Since its inception, Reveling has carved out a niche in the high-end travel space, offering curated experiences that blend authenticity with elegance. But behind the scenes of dreamy destinations and bespoke itineraries lies the reality of running a small business – especially during tax time.

    “Honestly, it’s a bit of both stress and excitement,” Mr Campbell admits.

    “It’s a good checkpoint to assess how we’re tracking and tidy up any loose

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Africa – African Women in Business unveils Association to Boost Intra‑African Trade

    Source: Media Fast

    The network facilitated by the International Trade Centre (ITC) in partnership with the African Union Commission, brings together over 102 women business associations from six regions across Africa

    Johannesburg, South Africa: July 29, 2025 -The Continental Network for Women’s Business Associations in Africa (CONWOBAA) aimed at promoting intra-African trade, was officially unveiled at the inaugural Global SME Ministerial Meeting held in Johannesburg, South Africa last week.

    The game-changing initiative – facilitated by the International Trade Centre (ITC) in partnership with the African Union Commission and supported by the AWIP Pavilion under the framework of ITC’s SheTrades and One Trade Africa strategies, has brought together 102 women’s business associations from West Africa, North Africa, Indian Ocean, Central Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa.

    The Association also unveiled its leadership with South Africa’s Dimakatso Malwela, President of Women of Value South Africa (WOVSA) being elected the first Association’s chairperson. She will be deputized by Ms. Fanja Razakaboana, who is the President of the Madagascar Women Entrepreneurs Association (GFEM).

    Kenya’s Laura Akunga Mwenje, who is the Founder and CEO of Benchmark Solutions Limited and the Chairperson of African Women Entrepreneurship Program (AWEP) Kenya and Secretariat, has been elected the treasurer of the Association, while Ms. Mabel Ibidun Quarshie – the Chief Executive Officer of Acquatic Foods Limited Ghana, will serve as the Association’s Secretary.

    Other regional representatives on the Association’s Board include Ms. Sitti Abdallah Mshangama (Comoros), Ms. Brbara Banda (Malawi), Ms. Yomita El Sheridy (Egypt), Ms. Leila Belkhira Jaber (Tunisia), Dr. Blessing Irabor-Oza (Nigeria), Ms. Nicole Gakou Gomis (Senegal), Ms. Betty Mulanga Kadima (the Democratic Republic of Congo), Ms. Esther Omam (Cameroon), and Dr. Nigest Haile (Ethiopia).

    “We are delighted to bring together women’s business associations from across Africa to advance intra‑African trade. This Network underpins ITC’s broader efforts through SheTrades and One Trade Africa to create real market access for women-led enterprises,” ITC Deputy Executive Director Dorothy Tembo said while unveiling the association’s leadership.

    Addressing important challenges

    In her acceptance remark, Ms. Malwela said the Association has the capacity to address important challenges facing women entrepreneurs across Africa.

    “Women entrepreneurs face a multitude of challenges, primarily revolving around access to funding and financial resources, gender bias and discrimination, work-life balance, and establishing strong support networks and confidence. Oftentimes, these hurdles impede their ability to launch, grow, and sustain their businesses. As the Association looks to the future, we will seize opportunities to advance policies that address these challenges,” Ms. Malwela said.

    CONWOBAA has been designed to facilitate trade for women entrepreneurs through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), helping members of the WBAs access cross-border trade opportunities and build sustainable businesses.

    “This powerful network is led by women in leadership who are successfully running businesses and advocating for the growth of women-led enterprises across Africa. We look forward to the continued growth of this network and the opportunities it will create for women entrepreneurs across Africa to leverage AfCFTA and elevate their businesses to new heights,” Ms. Tembo said.

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Economy – US Fed expected to hold rates and trigger standoff with Trump – deVere Group

    Source: deVere Group

    July 29 2025 – The Federal Reserve is expected to leave interest rates on hold Wednesday, despite mounting pressure from President Donald Trump – setting up a direct standoff between the world’s most influential central bank and a White House demanding immediate stimulus.

    This is the warning from Nigel Green, CEO of global financial advisory giant deVere Group ahead of the Fed’s critical interest rate decision that will set the tone for markets and the US economy for the rest of 2025.

    He says: “Trump has made no secret of his frustration. Senior administration figures have been pressing the Fed behind the scenes, while the President has repeatedly gone public with calls for lower borrowing costs.

    “But the central bank appears likely to resist, at least for now, holding firm in the face of aggressive political intervention.

    “In doing so, it could trigger another direct standoff with Trump.

    Nigel Green continues: “This is a collision between a political push for immediate stimulus and a central bank trying to defend its institutional independence. The stakes go far beyond this week’s rate decision.”

    Markets are already attuned to the tension. A rate hold is largely priced in. But investors are watching for what comes next: the tone of Powell’s message, and Trump’s reaction if the Fed refuses to deliver the cuts he’s demanding.

    “The pressure campaign is about to intensify,” the deVere CEO notes.

    “Trump blames the Fed for slowing the economy, for capping the market, for anything that doesn’t go his way. This will, again, become personal with Fed Chair, Jerome Powell.”

    The economic backdrop gives the Fed cover to pause. Inflation has cooled but remains above target. Labor markets are still tight. Financial conditions are already easier than they were at the start of the year. There is no immediate economic case for cutting—but there is a clear political one.

    “This is about optics as much as outcomes,” says Nigel Green. “The White House wants momentum. The Fed wants breathing room. Neither side is likely to back down.”

    What happens next matters. If Trump launches a fresh public offensive—as expected—it could shift sentiment quickly.

    “The dollar could strengthen on Fed firmness, while equities and emerging markets wobble on fears of a widening institutional rift.”

    He adds: “Markets can handle steady rates. What they don’t handle well is institutional volatility. A public fight between the President and the Fed injects uncertainty into every asset class.”

    The President has options. If monetary easing doesn’t come through, he may accelerate fiscal promises, hint at further executive action, or reignite questions over Jerome Powell’s future.

    This administration has already shown it’s willing to blur lines between economic stewardship and political advantage.

    “Trump wants control of the economic narrative and he’s running out of patience,” concludes Nigel Green.

    “If the Fed doesn’t move, he’ll move the spotlight. This could mean spending pledges, it could mean trade posturing, it could mean fresh attacks on Powell. All of it adds risk.”

    deVere Group is one of the world’s largest independent advisors of specialist global financial solutions to international, local mass affluent, and high-net-worth clients.  It has a network of offices around the world, more than 80,000 clients, and $14bn under advisement.

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Air-dropping food into Gaza is a ‘smokescreen’ – this is what must be done to prevent mass starvation

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Amra Lee, PhD candidate in Protection of Civilians, Australian National University

    Israel partially lifted its aid blockade of Gaza this week in response to intensifying international pressure over the man-made famine in the devastated coastal strip.

    The United Arab Emirates and Jordan airdropped 25 tonnes of food and humanitarian supplies on Sunday. Israel has further announced daily pauses in its military strikes on Gaza and the opening of humanitarian corridors to facilitate UN aid deliveries.

    Israel reports it has permitted 70 trucks per day into the strip since May 19. This is well below the 500–600 trucks required per day, according to the United Nations.

    The UN emergency relief chief, Tom Fletcher, has characterised the next few days as “make or break” for humanitarian agencies trying to reach more than two million Gazans facing “famine-like conditions”.

    A third of Gazans have gone without food for several days and 90,000 women and children now require urgent care for acute malnutrition. Local health authorities have reported 147 deaths from starvation so far, 80% of whom are children.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed – without any evidence – “there is no starvation in Gaza”. This claim has been rejected by world leaders, including Netanyahu ally US President Donald Trump.

    Famine expert Alex de Waal has called the famine in Gaza without precedent:

    […] there’s no case of such minutely engineered, closely monitored, precisely designed mass starvation of a population as is happening in Gaza today.

    While the UN has welcomed the partial lifting of the blockade, the current aid being allowed into Gaza will not be enough to avert a wider catastrophe, due to the severity and depth of hunger in Gaza and the health needs of the people.

    According to the UN World Food Programme, which has enough food stockpiled to feed all of Gaza for three months, only one thing will work:

    An agreed ceasefire is the only way to reach everyone.

    Airdrops a ‘distraction and a smokescreen’

    Air-dropping food supplies is considered a last resort due to the undignified and unsafe manner in which the aid is delivered.

    The UN has already reported civilians being injured when packages have fallen on tents.

    The Global Protection Cluster, a network of non-governmental organisations and UN agencies, shared a story from a mother in Al Karama, east of Gaza City, whose home was hit by an airdropped pallet, causing the roof to collapse:

    Immediately following the impact, a group of people armed with knives rushed towards the house, while the mother locked herself and her children in the remaining room to protect her family. They did not receive any assistance and are fearful for their safety.

    Air-dropped pallets of food are also inefficient compared with what can be delivered by road.

    One truck can carry up to 20 tonnes of supplies. Trucks can also reach Gaza quickly if they are allowed to cross at the scale required. Aid agencies have repeatedly said they have the necessary aid and personnel sitting just one hour away at the border.

    Given how ineffective the air drops have been – and will continue to be – the head of the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine has called them a “distraction” and a “smokescreen”.

    Malnourished women and children need specialised care

    De Waal has also made clear how starvation differs from other war crimes – it takes weeks of denying aid for starvation to take hold.

    For the 90,000 acutely malnourished women and children who require specialised and supplementary feeding, in addition to medical care, the type of food being air-dropped into Gaza will not help them. Malnourished children require nutritional screening and access to fortified pastes and baby food.

    Gaza’s decimated health system is also not able to treat severely malnourished women and children, who are at risk of “refeeding syndrome” when they are provided with nutrients again. This can trigger a fatal metabolic response.

    Gaza will take generations to heal from the long-term impacts of mass starvation. Malnourished children suffer lifelong cognitive and physical effects that can then be passed on to future generations.

    What needs to happen now

    The UN has characterised the limited reopening of aid deliveries to Gaza as a potential “lifeline”, if it’s upheld and expanded.

    According to Ciaran Donnelly from the International Rescue Committee, what’s needed is “tragically simple”: Israel must fully open the Gaza borders to allow aid and humanitarian personnel to flood in.

    Israel must also guarantee safe conditions for the dignified distribution of aid that reaches everyone, including women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities. The level of hunger and insecurity mean these groups are at high risk of exclusion.

    The people of Gaza have the world’s attention – for now. They have endured increasingly dehumanising conditions – including the risk of being shot trying to access aid – under the cover of war for more than 21 months.

    Two leading Israeli human rights organisations have just publicly called Israel’s war on Gaza “a genocide”. This builds on mounting evidence compiled by the UN and other experts that supports the same conclusion, triggering the duty under international law for all states to act to prevent genocide.

    These obligations require more than words – states must exercise their full diplomatic leverage to pressure Israel to let aid in at the scale required to avert famine. States must also pressure Israel to extend its military pauses into the only durable solution – a permanent ceasefire.

    Amra Lee 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. Air-dropping food into Gaza is a ‘smokescreen’ – this is what must be done to prevent mass starvation – https://theconversation.com/air-dropping-food-into-gaza-is-a-smokescreen-this-is-what-must-be-done-to-prevent-mass-starvation-262053

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: A rare, direct warning from Japan signals a shift in the fight against child sex tourism in Asia

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ming Gao, Research Fellow of East Asia Studies, Lund University

    Jonas Gratzer/LightRocket via Getty Images

    Japan’s embassy in Laos and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a rare and unusually direct advisory, warning Japanese men against “buying sex from children” in Laos.

    The move was sparked by Ayako Iwatake, a restaurant owner in Vientiane, who allegedly saw social media posts of Japanese men bragging about child prostitution. In response, she launched a petition calling for government action.

    The Japanese-language bulletin makes clear such conduct is prosecutable under both Laotian law and Japan’s child prostitution and pornography law, which applies extraterritorially.

    This diplomatic statement was not only a legal warning. It was a rare public acknowledgement of Japanese men’s alleged entanglement in transnational child sex tourism, particularly in Southeast Asia.

    It’s also a moment that demands we look beyond individual criminal acts or any one nation and consider the historical, racial and structural inequalities that make such mobility and exploitation possible.

    A changing map of exploitation

    Selling and buying sex in Asia is nothing new. The contours have shifted over time but the underlying sentiment has remained constant: some lives are cheap and commodified, and some wallets are deep and entitled.

    Japan’s involvement in overseas prostitution stretches back to the Meiji period (1868-1912). Young women from impoverished rural regions (known as karayuki-san) migrated abroad, often to Southeast Asia, to work in the sex industry, from port towns in Malaya to brothels in China and the Pacific Islands.

    If poverty once pushed Japanese women abroad to sell their bodies, by the second half of the 20th century – fuelled by Japan’s postwar economic boom – it was wealthy Japanese men who began travelling overseas to buy sex.

    Around the 2000s, the dynamic flipped again. In South Korea, now a developed economy, men travelled to Southeast Asia – and later to countries such as Russia and Uzbekistan – following routes once taken by Japanese men.

    Later in the same period, the flow took an even darker turn.

    Japanese and South Korean men began to emerge as major buyers of child sex abroad, particularly across Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and even Mongolia.

    According to the United States Department of State, Japanese men continued to be “a significant source of demand for sex tourism”, while South Korean men remained “a source of demand for child sex tourism”.

    The UN Office on Drugs and Crime and other organisations have also flagged both countries as key contributors to child sexual exploitation in the region.

    From exporter to destination: Japan’s new role in the sex trade

    A more recent and troubling shift appears to be unfolding within Japan.

    Amid ongoing economic stagnation and the depreciation of the yen, Tokyo has reportedly become a destination for inbound sex tourism. Youth protection organisations have observed a notable rise in foreign male clients, particularly Chinese, frequenting areas where teenage girls and young women engage in survival sex.

    What ties these movements together is not just culturally specific beliefs, such as the fetishisation of virginity or the superstition that sex with young girls brings good luck in business, but power.

    The battle to protect children

    The global campaign to end child sex tourism began in earnest with the founding of ECPAT (a global network of organisations that seeks to end the sexual exploitation of children) in 1990 to confront the rising exploitation of children in Southeast Asia.

    Despite legal frameworks and international scrutiny, the abuse of children remains disturbingly common.

    Several factors converge here: endemic poverty, weak law enforcement and a constant influx of wealthier foreign men. Add to that the digital age of information and communication technologies, where child sex can be advertised, arranged and commodified through encrypted platforms and invitation-only forums, and the crisis deepens.

    While local governments often pledge reform, implementation is inconsistent.

    Buyers, especially foreign buyers, often manage to evade consequences. However, in early 2025, Japan’s National Police Agency arrested 111 people – including high school teachers and tutors – in a nationwide crackdown on online child sexual exploitation, conducted in coordination with international partners.

    Why this moment matters

    The shock surrounding the Laos revelations and the unusually direct response from Japanese authorities offers a rare opportunity to confront the deeper systems at work.

    Sex tourism doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s enabled by uneven development, transnational mobility, weak regulation and social silence. But this moment also shows grassroots activism can force institutional action.

    Japan’s official warning wasn’t triggered by a government audit or diplomatic scandal. It came because Ayako Iwatake saw social media posts of Japanese men boasting about buying sex from children and refused to look away.

    When she delivered the petition to the embassy, it responded quickly. Less than ten days later, the Foreign Ministry issued a public warning, clearly outlining the legal consequences of child sex crimes committed abroad.

    Iwatake’s action is a reminder: it doesn’t take a government to expose a system. It takes someone willing to speak out – even when it’s uncomfortable. As she told Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun:

    It was just too blatant. I couldn’t look the other way.

    It’s commendable that Japan acted swiftly. But a warning alone isn’t enough. Japan should strengthen and expand its international cooperation to combat these heinous crimes.

    A more decisive model can be seen in a recent case in Vietnam, where US authorities infiltrated a livestream child sex abuse network for the first time in that country. Working undercover for months, they coordinated with Vietnamese officials to arrest a mother who had been sexually abusing her daughter on demand for paying viewers abroad.

    The rescue of the nine-year-old victim showed what serious cross-border intervention looks like.

    But for every headline-grabbing scandal, there are hundreds of untold stories.

    The Laos case should be the beginning of a broader reckoning with how sex, money and power move across borders – and who pays the price.

    Ming Gao receives funding from the Swedish Research Council. This research was produced with support from the Swedish Research Council grant “Moved Apart” (nr. 2022-01864). Ming Gao is a member of Lund University Profile Area: Human Rights.

    – ref. A rare, direct warning from Japan signals a shift in the fight against child sex tourism in Asia – https://theconversation.com/a-rare-direct-warning-from-japan-signals-a-shift-in-the-fight-against-child-sex-tourism-in-asia-261554

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: France is set to recognise the state of Palestine and the UK may follow – but what does it really mean?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Malak Benslama-Dabdoub, Lecturer in law, Royal Holloway University of London

    Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to formally recognise the state of Palestine will make France the first G7 country and member of the UN security council to do so. The question is whether others will follow suit. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, is coming under mounting pressure from many of his MPs, and has recalled his cabinet from their summer recess to discuss the situation in Gaza.

    Starmer is expected to announce a peace plan for the Middle East this week that will include British recognition of Palestinian statehood. Downing Street sources said recognition was a matter of “when, not if”.

    Recognition of statehood is not merely symbolic. The Montevideo convention of 1933 established several criteria which must apply before an entity can be recognised as a sovereign state. These are a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government and the ability to conduct international relations.

    The process involves the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, including the opening of embassies, the exchange of ambassadors, and the signing of bilateral treaties. Recognition also grants the recognised state access to certain rights in international organisations. For Palestinians, such recognition will strengthen their claim to sovereignty and facilitate greater international support.

    Macron’s announcement was met with enthusiasm in many Arab capitals, as well as among Palestinian officials and supporters of the two-state solution. It was also praised by a number of European leaders as well as several journalists and other analysts as a long-overdue step toward a more balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    However, the reaction from other major powers was swift and critical. The US called it “a reckless decision” while the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he “strongly condemned” it. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, called it “counterproductive”.

    Within hours, it was clear that Macron’s announcement had both shifted diplomatic discourse and reignited longstanding divisions.

    France’s decision is significant. It signals a departure from the western consensus, long shaped by the US and the EU, that any recognition of Palestinian statehood must be deferred until after final-status negotiations. The move also highlights growing frustration in parts of Europe with the ongoing violence in Gaza and the failure of peace talks over the past two decades.

    Yet questions remain: what does this recognition actually entail? Will it change conditions on the ground for Palestinians? Or is it largely symbolic?

    So far, the French government has offered no details on whether this recognition will be accompanied by concrete measures. There has been no mention of sanctions on Israel, no indication of halting arms exports, no pledges of increased humanitarian aid or support for Palestinian governance institutions. France remains a key military and economic partner of Israel, and Macron’s announcement does not appear to alter that relationship.

    Nor is this the first time a western country has taken a symbolic stance in support of Palestinian statehood. Sweden recognised the state of Palestine in 2014, becoming the first western European country to do so. It was followed by Spain in 2024.

    However, both moves were largely symbolic and did not significantly alter the political or humanitarian situation on the ground. The risk is that recognition, without action, becomes a gesture that changes little.

    Macron’s statement also raised eyebrows for another reason: his emphasis on a “demilitarised Palestinian state” living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security. While such language is common in diplomatic discourse, it also reflects a deeper tension.

    Palestinians have long argued that their right to self-determination includes the right to defend themselves against occupation. Calls for demilitarisation are often seen by critics as reinforcing the status quo, where security concerns are framed almost exclusively in terms of Israeli needs.

    In the absence of a genuine political process, some analysts have warned that recognition of this kind risks formalising a state in name only – a fragmented, non-sovereign entity without control over its borders, resources or defence. Without guarantees of territorial continuity, an end to the expansion of Israeli settlements and freedom of movement, statehood may remain an abstract concept.

    What would meaningful support look like?

    If France wishes to go beyond symbolism, it has options. It could suspend arms exports to Israel or call for an independent international investigation into alleged war crimes. It could use its influence within the EU to push for greater accountability regarding illegal settlements and the blockade of Gaza. It could also support Palestinian institutions directly and engage with Palestinian civil society.

    Without such steps, recognition risks being viewed as a political message more than a policy shift. For Palestinians, the daily realities of occupation, displacement and blockade will not change with diplomatic announcements alone. What is needed, many argue, is not just recognition but support for justice, rights and meaningful sovereignty.

    France’s recognition of Palestine marks a shift in diplomatic tone and reflects broader unease with the status quo in the Middle East. It has stirred debate at home and abroad, and raised expectations among those hoping for more robust international engagement with the conflict.

    Whether this recognition leads to meaningful changes in policy or conditions on the ground remains to be seen. Much will depend on the steps France takes next – both at the United Nations and through its actions on trade, security and aid.

    Malak Benslama-Dabdoub 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. France is set to recognise the state of Palestine and the UK may follow – but what does it really mean? – https://theconversation.com/france-is-set-to-recognise-the-state-of-palestine-and-the-uk-may-follow-but-what-does-it-really-mean-262095

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Australia – WA continues its streak as Australia’s strongest economic performer: CommSec State of the States – CBA

    Source: Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)

    Strong retail and business investment keep WA on top, while anticipated rate cuts could eventually support a lift in performance for NSW and Victoria.

    Western Australia has once again claimed the top spot in the latest CommSec State of the States report, leading the nation’s economic performance rankings for a fourth consecutive quarter.

    South Australia also began 2025 with a bang, climbing from fourth to second, driven by solid gains across several key indicators.

    The State of the States report determines which Australian state or territory economy is performing best by tracking eight key economic indicators and comparing the latest observation with decade averages (or the “normal”).

    “Western Australia led across several economic measures, taking first place in retail trade, housing finance, and business investment. Meanwhile South Australia ranks first on two indicators – construction work and dwelling starts,” Chief CommSec Economist Ryan Felsman said.

    “Overall, the economic performance of Australia’s states and territories is being supported by a combination of slowing inflation, falling interest rates, rising real wages, robust government spending and a solid labour market.

    “But economic growth has moderated, held back by slowing public investment, population growth and household spending. The future path will depend on the resiliency of the job market, further interest rate cuts and US President Donald Trump’s trade policies.”

    In the July 2025 edition of the State of the States:

    Western Australia leads the national performance rankings for the fourth successive report. The state is ranked first on three of the eight economic indicators – retail trade, housing finance and equipment spending.

    South Australia has jumped to second from fourth after a strong start to 2025, with a pickup in consumer spending and business investment. South Australia now leads other economies on dwelling starts and construction work done, lifting from second spot in the previous quarter.

    Queensland stays third, ranking second on relative unemployment and housing finance, but consumer activity in the southeast of the state was disrupted in the March quarter by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

    Victoria dropped from second to fourth place. The state is in third spot on four indicators but is held back by weakness in relative unemployment. Victoria stays in second spot for retail spending with it being 10 per cent above its ‘normal’ levels or the decade average.

    Tasmania is steady in fifth place – ranking first on relative unemployment, with the trend jobless rate at a record low 3.8 per cent in June. But the state is held back by relative population growth, which is at the weakest level in nearly a decade.

    New South Wales slips back to sixth from equal fifth position due to a delayed transition from public to private sector led growth, while the ACT joins NSW in sixth, ranking first on relative economic growth, constrained by more modest public demand and weak business investment

    The Northern Territory stays in eighth place despite strength in relative population growth. The decade-average method of assessing economic performance disadvantages the Top End given significant LNG construction over 2012–18 inflated a range of economic indicators. That said, the Territory has lifted its economic performance in the past 12 months.

    Annual growth rates

    The State of the States report also compares the annual growth rates across the eight major indicators, enabling comparisons in terms of more recent economic momentum. This quarter’s report revealed:

    • The commodities and tourism-focused state of Western Australia continues to outperform the rest of the nation, also ranking first on four of the eight key economic indicators. Population growth is particularly strong.
    • South Australia is the big improver, also jumping to second from fourth spot, supported by a pick-up in consumer spending, business investment and construction activity.
    • The Northern Territory lifts from fifth to third due to robust growth in business investment and construction activity.
    • Queensland slips to fourth from second following a fall in coal and agricultural exports caused by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
    • Victoria dips from third to fifth despite above-average net overseas migration, supporting household spending.
    • New South Wales joins Victoria in fifth, up from sixth, with Sydney’s heavily mortgaged households benefiting from interest rate cuts.
    • The ACT (seventh) and Tasmania (eighth) are both being held back by weakness in private sector investment.

    About the CommSec State of the States Report

    The July 2025 edition of the State of the States report uses the most recent economic data available. While population growth data relates to the December quarter of 2024, other data – such as unemployment – is much timelier, covering the month of June 2025, with the majority of the other indicators using March quarter of 2025 figures.

    CommSec, the self-directed broking arm of Australia’s largest bank, assesses the performance of each state and territory on a quarterly basis using eight key indicators. Those indicators include economic growth, retail spending, equipment investment, unemployment, construction work done, population growth, housing finance and dwelling commencements.

    Just as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) uses long-term averages to determine the level of “normal” interest rates, CommSec compares the key indicators to decade averages; that is, against “normal” performance.

    CommSec also compares annual growth rates for eight key indicators for all states and territories, in addition to Australia as a whole, enabling a comparison of economic momentum.

    MIL OSI – Submitted News –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: How do politicians view democracy? It depends on whether they win or lose

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Valere Gaspard, Research Fellow, Leadership and Democracy Lab, Western University

    There is a heightened concern about the current state of democracy around the globe. These include worries about a decrease in freedom, the growing number of autocracies around the world and citizens’ dissatisfaction with democracy or government.

    A 2022 survey of Canadians found that one-third have little to no trust in democracy and close to half don’t feel represented by government. These concerns aren’t unique to Canada.

    A lot of public opinion research on views about democracy focuses on citizens. Surely this is understandable, since they are the ones choosing who is in power in a democratic state.

    But what do the people in power or those running for office think about democracy? Surprisingly, for all the attention we place on politicians, we don’t know much about how they regard the democratic systems they operate in.

    Why it matters

    Why should we care about what politicians think about democracy? Because politicians can influence the views of citizens, and if they’re elected, they can affect or change democratic processes from within major institutions like legislatures.

    Therefore, to understand the contemporary health of democracies across the globe, we need to factor in politicians’ satisfaction with the way democracy works.

    While there are growing concerns about the current state of democracy around the globe, new open-access research I’ve conducted has hopeful findings, at least from the perspective of politicians. The analysis covers 49 elections in 21 countries — including Canada — from 2005 to 2021.

    The results show that politicians’ democratic satisfaction in a country will be higher when:

    • Elections in their country have high electoral integrity; in other words, when elections are free and fair
    • Electoral management bodies have sufficient resources to administer elections.

    This is good news from the perspective of maintaining a healthy democracy, since the people seeking the power of elected office are more satisfied when their democratic system is working well.

    But these findings become convoluted once we consider some attributes of politicians. Specifically, politicians’ democratic satisfaction begins to vary once we consider:

    • Whether their political party formed the government (winner) or is not part of government (loser)
    • Whether they identify with the ideological left or right.

    Winning and losing

    Nobody likes to lose, so it’s natural that a winner will be more satisfied with democracy.

    Although, the view that may be surprising — or troubling — is the extent to which politicians who won tolerate low electoral integrity, at least in terms of their democratic satisfaction.

    As illustrated above, when electoral integrity is low in a country, politicians who lose will be much less satisfied with democracy than winners. When electoral integrity is high, there is no noticeable difference between politicians that won or lost.

    The difference between winners’ and losers’ democratic satisfaction is problematic, but what is most troubling is that winners’ satisfaction with democracy does not significantly change across different levels of electoral integrity.

    When it comes to citizens, previous research has shown that when electoral integrity is low, democratic satisfaction among citizens will also be low, regardless of whether their preferred politician or political party won or lost.

    Politicians therefore differ from their citizen counterpart — those who won are much more tolerant of lower electoral integrity (at least in terms of their democratic satisfaction).

    In a stable democracy with free and fair elections, this might not matter much. However, if a country begins to experience democratic decline, then these attitudes could become detrimental.

    If politicians who win are not concerned with low electoral integrity, then they might lack the incentive needed to make necessary changes to electoral processes. Those concerned about electoral processes in these kinds of circumstances may therefore need to find alternative routes or incentives to encourage change.

    Left-to-right political ideology

    While the contrast between winners and losers may be discouraging, there are more similarities between those on the ideological left and right. Electoral management bodies having sufficient resources to administer elections matters to both leftist and rightist politicians in terms of their democratic satisfaction.

    However, as shown above, having sufficient resources to administer elections matters more to politicians on the ideological right. This may surprise some readers given past claims that right-leaning groups or people might advocate for more restrictive voting processes and laws.

    For those concerned with democratic stability, it’s promising to note that politicians across the ideological spectrum will generally be more satisfied with democracy when there are more resources to administer elections.



    Read more:
    Two of the US’s biggest newspapers have refused to endorse a presidential candidate. This is how democracy dies

    Overall, politicians on average tend to be more satisfied with democracy when it is working well — specifically, when elections are free and fair, and when electoral management bodies have the capacity to administer well-run elections. This is good news given concerns surrounding the current global state of democracy.

    However, policymakers and practitioners in Canada and abroad focusing on democratic stability and elections should take note of these findings. The attitudes of politicians in democratic countries may not be concerning when everything is working as intended, but if democratic processes begin to weaken or fail, the indifference of winners towards electoral integrity could be troublesome.

    At this moment of heightened concern about the current state of democracy around the globe, researchers and practitioners alike need to better understand the attitudes and motivations of the people who lead our systems of government.

    Valere Gaspard is a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa and a Research Fellow at Western University and Trent University’s Leadership and Democracy Lab. His research is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (CGS Doctoral award). His views do not reflect those of any employer(s).

    – ref. How do politicians view democracy? It depends on whether they win or lose – https://theconversation.com/how-do-politicians-view-democracy-it-depends-on-whether-they-win-or-lose-261647

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Iranian Canadians watch the Israel-U.S. war in Iran from afar

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Fateme Ejaredar, PhD candidate in Sociology, University of Calgary, University of Calgary

    Iranian Canadians have been following the news in Iran carefully. Sadaf Vakilzadeh/Unsplash, CC BY

    The recent war waged by Israel and the United States on Iran killed at least 935 people and wounded another 5,332. There’s currently a ceasefire, but the conflict shocked the world and has had unique impacts on Iranians in the diaspora.

    Many Iranians in Canada were glued to their media feeds to stay close to Iran and their friends and families.

    Based on preliminary interviews with 30 Iranian activists in Canada, many in the diaspora have experienced what they call “survivor’s guilt.”

    The interviews are part of a PhD study conducted online or in person by one of the authors of this story, Fateme Ejaredar, and supervised by co-author Pallavi Banerjee. The information from these interviews helps to untangle the roots of political tensions and evolving solidarities in the Iranian diaspora in Canada. For this research, 30 interviews were conducted, with seven followups after the conflict began on June 13, 2025.

    A large share of the Iranian diaspora in Canada is comprised of activists who disavow the Islamic Republic. According to The New York Times, the Iranian diaspora includes “exiled leftists, nationalists, secular democrats, former prisoners, journalists, human rights advocates and artists.” This population of diasporic Iranians has been supporting progressive change in Iran.

    There are also those who oppose the Islamic Republic in support of the deposed shah, a movement currently swayed by Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah. They see the U.S. and Israel as liberators of the Iranian people. The current war resurfaced many of these tensions that continue to divide the diaspora.

    The war has left Iranian activists in the diaspora contending with contradictions about both their standing as activists while mourning the assaults on their country, both from within and outside.

    Living in between homeland and hostland

    Canada has the second largest Iranian diaspora in the world. Iran’s tumultuous political climate has kept the diaspora on edge and divided since the 1979 revolution that deposed the shahs.

    After the revolution, many left-wing and other opposition activists who resisted both the pre- and post-revolutionary regimes went into exile. Continued political repression and economic hardship later forced even more Iranians, including activists, to leave the country. Strife peaked again in 2022 during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests which deeply impacted the diaspora.

    Matin, a participant in her 30s from Alberta (all names of interviewees are pseudonyms), said:

    “I’m sad that my home is being bombed. And you don’t have the energy to argue in this situation. For a soul that’s already tired, its wounds from 2022 aren’t healed yet, it can’t go into this again. It’s a dead end.”



    Read more:
    Iranian women risk arrest: Daughters of the revolution

    Sociological research on migration and transnationalism has explained how those exiled from their homelands and living in diaspora reside in the “in-between lands.”

    This is heightened when the homeland is in a state of political disarray, producing what sociologists have called “exogenous shocks” for the diaspora.

    This is the unsettled feeling Iranians in the diaspora have been contending with for the last 45 years. They are constantly navigating life in between the homeland and hostland.

    Fragmented nationalism

    People’s fragmented sense of nationalism can shape responses to upheavals in the homeland.

    Many we spoke with struggle with their own interpretations of Iranian nationalism that clash with their disdain for the Islamic Republic. Their disdain is rooted in their own lived experiences under the regime — ranging from the loss of basic rights and freedoms, to harsh repression including imprisonment and torture for some, or simply an unfulfilled desire of living in a peaceful and free society.

    Vida, an interviewee in her 30s who lives in Saskatchewan, said even though she despised the politics of the Islamic Republic and in the past had celebrated the death of key officials like Qasem Soleimani, the recent war has invoked some conflicting feelings about the death of military leaders.

    She took pride in solidarities forged among the diaspora due to the war and interpreted it as nationalism. Vida said:

    “I never was a nationalist, and I hate nationalism. But there were moments these days that I felt proud. Seeing all the solidarity between people, seeing how they helped each other…”

    Even as the activists feel protective of their country because of the war, they also experience a deep sense of loss and guilt they have always felt in exile.

    Tensions in the diaspora

    Iran’s relationship with the West has continued to be fraught.

    The West, particularly the U.S., has leveraged Iran’s repression of women to economically disable Iran through sanctions, breaking down possibilities of diplomacy between Iran and the U.S. But feminist scholars have argued this stance has only further empowered the authoritarian and patriarchal political forces in Iran..

    Iranian activists in the diaspora contend with both resisting the Islamic Republic’s role in oppression of Iranians in Iran and the American role in marginalizing Iranians in Iran.

    The ‘Iran of our dreams’

    The in-between spaces are precarious and unpredictable. But they also bring new possibilities and in this case, as many interviewees have indicated, acts of resistance from afar.

    This can be further activated in moments of upheaval. And those living in the in-between spaces can often form new alliances and solidarities.

    For many activist Iranians, the resistance in Palestine has been a source of inspiration since before the revolution of 1979. Many participants in this study mentioned in their interviews how they have long felt solidarity with Palestinians, but they say since June 13, they have an even deeper understanding of their situation.

    Zara, in her 40s from Ontario, said she now understands more deeply how the world could be indifferent towards those critiquing the actions of Israel, saying she feels:

    “… a sense of helplessness and desperation against all that illogical violent power.”

    Despite the desolation expressed by our interviewees about the war, many activists also expressed faith in resistance for freedom and justice that allows them to envision a different future.

    Jamshid, in his 60s in British Columbia, shared his future vision of Iran. It is:

    “ … an Iran that lives in peace. There is social justice in it and no one is injured. It takes care of itself. It’s very kind, immensely kind… Maybe one day it will happen and we’re not here to see it.”

    Pallavi Banerjee receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

    Fateme Ejaredar 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. Iranian Canadians watch the Israel-U.S. war in Iran from afar – https://theconversation.com/iranian-canadians-watch-the-israel-u-s-war-in-iran-from-afar-259866

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Women’s rugby is booming, but safety relies on borrowed assumptions from the men’s game

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kathryn Dane, Postdoctoral associate, University of Calgary

    Rugby union, commonly known as just rugby, is a fast-paced and physical team sport. More girls and women in Canada and around the world are playing it now than ever before.

    As of 2021, women’s rugby reached a record 2.7 million players globally, a 25 per cent increase over four years, and by 2023, women’s rugby participation was growing at a rate of 38 per cent year-over-year.

    Countries including Australia, England, Ireland and the United States offer professional contracts for women’s teams. While these remain modest compared to the men’s game, they still represent a clear step forward.

    Canada’s senior women’s XVs team is currently ranked second in the world and heading into the 2025 Rugby World Cup, which kicks off on Aug. 22 in England. The national sevens team also captured silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics — further evidence of the game’s growing competitiveness in Canada.

    However, many systems, including coaching and medical support, have not kept pace with the demands of elite competition. With visibility increasing ahead of the 2025 World Cup, stronger institutional support is needed to match the sports’ growing professionalism and popularity.

    Safety concerns

    Often described as a “game for all”, rugby builds confidence, resilience and lifelong friendships. For girls and women especially, rugby can be empowering in ways few sports can match. It embraces the physicality of tackling, pushes back against traditional gender expectations and fosters solidarity and inclusion by valuing all body shapes and abilities.

    But rugby is also a collision sport, and as such, it carries inherent risks. Tackling is the top cause of injury in rugby, and it has one of the highest concussion rates among youth girls’ sports in Canada. Concussions can have long-term effects on players’ health.



    Read more:
    Concussion is more than sports injuries: Who’s at risk and how Canadian researchers are seeking better diagnostics and treatments

    These concerns are especially urgent as the women’s game becomes more physical and professionalized, and players are hit harder and more often. Unlike men’s rugby, women’s teams often operate with fewer medical or coaching support resources, which can lead to inconsistent or absent injury prevention programs.

    Compounding the risk is the fact that many women also come to rugby later in life, often with less experience in contact sports. This delayed exposure restricts proper tackle skill development and player confidence in contact. This means safe tackling is even more important.

    Without proper supports, the physical risks of the game may outweigh its benefits.

    Science is still playing catch-up

    While women’s rugby is growing rapidly, the science behind it is has not kept pace. Most of what we know about rugby safety — how to tackle, how much to train or when it’s safe to return to play after injury — largely comes from research on men.

    Decisions around coaching and player welfare have been based on male data, leaving female players under-served and potentially at greater risk. While these foundations may well apply to girls and women, the problem is we don’t yet know for sure.

    Only four per cent of rugby tackle research has focused on women. Much of the early evidence on girls rugby comes from Canada, underscoring the country’s leadership in this space. Still, most coaches and clinicians rely on a “one-size-fits-all” approach that may not account for menstrual cycles, pregnancy, different injury profiles or later sport entry.

    The differences matter because strength, speed and injury risk all vary. Women are 2.6 times more likely than men to sustain a concussion. Gender also shapes access to training, care and facilities, often limiting opportunities for women to develop safe tackling skills, receive adequate support and train in safe, well-resourced environments, factors that impact both performance and safety.



    Read more:
    Prevention is better than cure when it comes to high concussion rates in girls’ rugby

    Even safety tools reflect this gap. World Rugby’s Tackle Ready and contact load guidelines were designed around male athletes. While well-intentioned, we know little about how they work for girls and women. Instead of discarding these tools, we need to adapt and evaluate them in female contexts to ensure they support injury prevention and provide equal protection.

    Women’s rugby needs better data

    Change is underway. More research and tools are being designed specifically for girls and women. A search of PubMed, a database of published biomedical research, reveals a steep rise in studies on women’s rugby over the past decade, especially in injury surveillance, injury prevention, performance, physiology and sociocultural contexts.

    New rule trials, such as testing lower tackle heights, are being evaluated on women athletes. New technologies like instrumented mouthguards and video analysis are also helping researchers understand how girls and women tackle, how head impacts happen and how they can be prevented.

    Much of this new research is led by our team at the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre, a pan-Canadian, multidisciplinary group focused on moving upstream to prevent concussions in adolescent girls’ rugby.

    The women’s game is also driving its own innovations. Resources like World Rugby’s Contact Confident help girls and women safely build tackle skills, particularly those new to contact sport.

    Researchers are analyzing injury patterns, interviewing players and coaches and studying return-to-play pathways that reflect girls’ and women’s physiology and life stages.

    The scope of research is also expanding to pelvic health, breast protection and more tailored injury prevention. Global collaboration is making this work more inclusive, spanning different countries, skill levels and age groups, not just elite competitions.

    But this is just the start.

    A golden opportunity lies ahead

    Girls’ and women’s rugby is experiencing unprecedented growth. Rising participation, media attention and new sponsorships are fuelling momentum. It’s a golden opportunity to build strong, sustainable foundations.

    Gold-standard support requires focused, ongoing research and a commitment to sharing that evidence with players, coaches, health-care providers and policymakers. It’s time to build systems for women’s rugby based on women’s data, not borrowed assumptions from the men’s game.

    But challenges remain. Some national teams still have to raise funds to attend World Cups. Others train without consistent access to medical or performance staff — clear signs that the women’s game is still catching up.

    To sustain and accelerate the growth of girls’ and women’s rugby, the sport deserves more resources and research tailored specifically to participants. A “one-size-fits-all” model no longer works. By investing in systems that are safer, focused on prevention, more inclusive and grounded in evidence, we can build a thriving future for women’s rugby that lasts for generations to come.

    Isla Shill has received funding from World Rugby.

    Stephen West has previously received funding from World Rugby

    Kathryn Dane 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. Women’s rugby is booming, but safety relies on borrowed assumptions from the men’s game – https://theconversation.com/womens-rugby-is-booming-but-safety-relies-on-borrowed-assumptions-from-the-mens-game-261055

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: How Marvel’s Fantastic Four discovered the human in the superhuman

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By J. Andrew Deman, Professor of English, University of Waterloo

    The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the second cinematic reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise, and there’s a lot riding on this film.

    While cinema-goers have responded enthusiastically to many of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the history of the Fantastic Four on the silver screen is less heralded.

    All the previous Fantastic Four films have been “commercial and critical failures,” with the 2015 film being an infamous box office bomb.

    Yet in comics history, the Fantastic Four have been up to the challenge of driving a popular media enterprise forward — something that the film producers and Marvel fans alike are both now hoping for.

    ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ trailer.

    In the 1960s — the era in which Fantastic Four: First Steps, is notably set — the comics presented a new class of superhero.

    From their 1961 debut, Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Sue Storm/the Invisible Girl, Johnny Storm/the Human Torch and Ben Grimm/the Thing were celebrities who rented office space in a Manhattan highrise and found themselves variously beloved and reviled by both the public and the government.

    Cover of ‘The Fantastic Four’ No. 1, 1961.
    (Marvel)

    The team also rejected secret identities. Until the third issue of their series, they even eschewed superhero costumes (in part because of a restriction imposed by the owner of Marvel’s then-distributor, DC Comics).

    Pushed representational boundaries

    The Fantastic Four comics of the 1960s also pushed boundaries in a number of significant ways. They featured the first pair of married superheroes (Reed and Sue wed in 1965) and the first superhero pregnancy (Sue gave birth to her son Franklin in 1968).

    In 1966, Fantastic Four No. 52 introduced the Black Panther, who is widely recognized as the first high-profile Black superhero.



    Read more:
    *Black Panther* roars. Are we listening?

    And though not canonical until 2002, it has been suggested by scholars that Ben Grimm was always envisioned as a Jewish superhero by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, offering another milestone in representation (at least for those readers attuned to the character’s Jewish coding).

    These milestones emphasize a dedicated concern for the human aspects of superheroes.

    A family with relatable issues

    Set amid fittingly fantastic science-fiction landscapes inspired by Space Age optimism was a story about a family who “fought among themselves, sometimes over petty jealousies and insults,” in the words of Christopher Pizzino, an American scholar of contemporary literature, film and television.

    This approach of building character dynamics out of internal conflict proved deeply influential.

    Famed comics writer Grant Morrison argues that through the example of Fantastic Four, “the Marvel superhero was born: a hero who tussled not only with monsters and mad scientists but also with relatable personal issues.”

    In his bestselling book All the Marvels, comics critic and historian Douglas Wolk concurs that the “first hundred issues of Fantastic Four are Marvel’s Bible and manual,” establishing the style, theme, genre and approach of the company’s comics for decades to come.

    Marvel’s universe continued to expand following the Fantastic Four debut.
    (Marvel)

    Defining personal conflicts

    In contrast to moral paragons such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (all published by rival DC Comics), each member of Marvel’s Fantastic Four had defining personal conflicts.

    Reed Richards, the team’s patriarch, was a world-altering genius who often fell victim to his own hubristic ambition.

    Two years before American feminist author Betty Friedan identified “the problem that has no name” in The Feminine Mystique (that post-war suburban housewives faced social expectations of being fully fulfilled as wives and mothers, the Fantastic Four gave audiences Sue Storm, with the superpower to render herself — and others — invisible at will.

    Storm, according to scholar Ramzi Fawaz, “made the concept of women’s social invisibility an object of visual critique by making invisible bodies and objects conspicuous on the comic book page.”

    Her younger brother, Johnny Storm, a playboy and showboat, had a lot of growing up to do, a journey that was frustrated by his flashy powers.

    Ben Grimm, Reed’s college roommate turned best friend turned rock monster, oscillated between childlike rage and world-weary depression, his rocky hide granting him super-strength and invulnerability while burdening him with social isolation.

    While none of us are likely to acquire superpowers through exposure to cosmic rays like the Four, we’ve all dealt with anxiety and grief like these heroes.

    Origin of the Marvel universe

    The world of the Fantastic Four didn’t just feel unusually human. It also felt unusually lived in, partly because the Fantastic Four comics of the 1960s weren’t just the origin of the Marvel style of storytelling — they were also the origin of the Marvel universe.

    Fantastic Four began and became the model for Marvel’s shared continuity universe, in which dozens of superheroes passed in and out of each other’s stories and occasionally intersected long enough for whole crossover story arcs and events. For a time, Marvel’s superheroes even aged alongside their readers, with teenage characters like Johnny Storm graduating high school and enrolling in college.

    Previous superhero comics hadn’t embraced this shared continuity in a meaningful way, tending to prioritize discrete stories that had no effect on future tales. But Fantastic Four pitched what comics scholar Charles Hatfield calls “intertitle continuity,” which quickly became “Marvel’s main selling tool.”

    Case in point, the Fantastic Four shared the cover of 1963’s Amazing Spider-Man No. 1, helping sell the newly created wall-crawler to their adoring readers.

    Voluminous, chaotic universe

    The 1965 wedding of Reed and Sue in Fantastic Four Annual No. 3 showcased how quickly the Marvel comics universe became vibrantly voluminous and charmingly chaotic.

    This event featured at least 19 superheroes fighting 28 supervillains and foregrounded the Fantastic Four’s symbolic mother and father as the progenitors of an extended super-family.

    It also featured a cameo by the Fantastic Four’s creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, previously introduced in 1963’s Fantastic Four No. 10 as the official creators of imaginary adventures starring the “real” Fantastic Four, further blurring the boundary between fiction and reality.

    Decades later, this sprawling comics universe would become a sprawling cinematic universe. This informs the pressure facing the latest Fantastic Four adaptation.

    Phase 6 of universe

    Fantastic Four: First Steps marks the start of what Marvel calls “Phase Six” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which began in 2008 with the first Marvel Studios film, Iron Man.

    Essentially, Fantastic Four: First Steps is meant to launch a new cluster of shared universe stories, just as Fantastic Four No. 1 did for Marvel Comics in the 1960s.

    This cluster will culminate in the release of Avengers: Secret Wars in December 2027. Will Marvel’s first family deliver?

    This article is co-authored by Anna Peppard, an independent scholar and editor of ‘Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero.’

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

    – ref. How Marvel’s Fantastic Four discovered the human in the superhuman – https://theconversation.com/how-marvels-fantastic-four-discovered-the-human-in-the-superhuman-260883

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: There’s enough natural hydrogen in the Earth’s crust to help power the green energy transition

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Omid Haeri Ardakani, Research scientist at Natural Resources Canada; Andjunct associate professor, University of Calgary

    Since their formation billions of years ago, the oldest parts of the Earth’s continental rocks have generated natural hydrogen in massive amounts. Some of this hydrogen may have accumulated within accessible traps and reservoirs under the Earth’s surface. This store has the potential to contribute to the global hydrogen economy for hundreds of years.

    This has been demonstrated by the production of near-pure hydrogen from a single gas field in Mali, attracting the attention of governments in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe.

    There is also interest from major venture capital investors and international resource companies. By the end of 2023, 40 companies were exploring natural hydrogen globally. That has likely doubled since 2024.



    Read more:
    Why green hydrogen — but not grey — could help solve climate change

    Hydrogen as a resource

    Hydrogen resources have long been a multi-billion-dollar market, even before recent interest in hydrogen as a contributor to the green energy transition. The environments and conditions that result in natural hydrogen accumulation occur globally. But one of the barriers to investment in many jurisdictions is regulatory, as hydrogen had not previously been considered as a resource.

    Natural hydrogen can be used to decarbonize hard-to-abate but globally critical industries. Industries that use hydrogen include fuel refining (about 44 per cent), ammonia and fertilizer production for food sustainability (about 34 per cent), and steel manufacturing (about five per cent).

    According to a recent British government policy briefing document, addressing this requires governments to include hydrogen as a listed natural resource. Future uses for hydrogen may include long-distance transportation and contributions to the decarbonization of the mining industry.

    High carbon footprint

    Most of the hydrogen used today is produced from fossil fuels. Because of this, hydrogen production contributes about 2.5 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Efforts to produce low-carbon (green) hydrogen from renewable electricity and carbon capture and storage technologies remain expensive.

    Natural hydrogen has a carbon footprint comparable to or below that of green hydrogen. The two will likely be complementary, but estimates are uncertain as natural hydrogen is as yet an unproven resource.

    Developing strategies could determine whether hydrogen from any source is an economically viable resource. For natural hydrogen, exploration strategies have to be developed to find and extract natural deposits of hydrogen at an economically feasible cost. This also needs incentives that include natural hydrogen in exploration or production licenses.



    Read more:
    New plan shows Australia’s hydrogen dream is still alive. But are we betting on the right projects?

    Hydrogen and helium

    The U.S. Geological Survey recently estimated there’s enough accessible natural hydrogen to supply global hydrogen demand for about 200 years.

    Hydrogen forms in the Earth’s crust through two natural geological processes: chemical reactions between natural groundwaters and iron-rich minerals and water radiolysis. Water molecules are broken by natural background radioactivity in rocks releasing hydrogen — and helium, a valuable element included in Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy — as a byproduct.

    The search for helium began in Canada in the 1920s, but it is only recently that systematic commercial exploration for helium has restarted. By the 1980s, systematic studies of natural hydrogen began in Canada, Finland and parts of Africa as part of research on subsurface microbial life.

    Renewed interest

    An unusual coincidence sparked the current global interest in hydrogen. An accidental discovery of the small natural hydrogen gas field in Mali coincided with the publication of extensive historical data from the former Soviet Union, drawing attention to hydrogen’s immense potential as a clean power resource. Australia, France and the U.S. were among the first countries to re-investigate historical natural hydrogen.

    Natural hydrogen and helium systems have similarities to petroleum systems, requiring a source rock, a migration pathway and accumulation in a reservoir. The infrastructure for natural hydrogen wells would be comparable to hydrocarbon wells, albeit with changes in well completion and drilling methods.

    The footprint of a natural hydrogen production project would take up much less space to deliver the same amount of energy compared to a green hydrogen production facility, which requires solar or wind farms and electrolyzers.

    Similarly, natural hydrogen projects do not need to draw on surface water resources, which are scarce in many parts of the world.

    Surface release of hydrogen bubbles from the Canadian Shield.
    (Stable Isotope Lab/University of Toronto), CC BY

    Future policies

    Some jurisdictions lack policies regulating hydrogen exploration. In others, regulation falls under existing mining or hydrocarbon policies. The lack of clear regulations in areas with high potential for natural hydrogen exploration — such as the U.S., Canada, India and parts of Africa and Europe — is a major obstacle for exploration.

    An absence of regulation slows down exploration and land acquisition, and prevents the decision-making required for developing infrastructure. And critically, it means that no community consultations are undertaken to ensure the social acceptance essential for the success of such projects.

    A project in South Australia demonstrates what legislation can accomplish. Once regulation of natural hydrogen exploration and capture was implemented, the government received dozens of applications from companies interested in natural hydrogen exploration.

    The appetite for exploration is clearly there, but policy and regulatory solutions are required. New exploration projects will provide critical new data to understand natural hydrogen’s potential to provide green energy.

    Omid Haeri Ardakani has received funding from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).

    Barbara Sherwood Lollar receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

    Chris Ballentine is founder of and owns shares in Snowfox Discovery Ltd, a hydrogen exploration company. He receives research funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (U.K.) and the National Science Foundation (U.S.), in a joint grant, as well as the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization and the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research.

    – ref. There’s enough natural hydrogen in the Earth’s crust to help power the green energy transition – https://theconversation.com/theres-enough-natural-hydrogen-in-the-earths-crust-to-help-power-the-green-energy-transition-256936

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Long-COVID, viruses and ‘zombie’ cells: new research looks for links to chronic fatigue and brain fog

    Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Burtram C. Fielding, Dean Faculty of Sciences and Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Stellenbosch University

    Millions of people who recover from infections like COVID-19, influenza and glandular fever are affected by long-lasting symptoms. These include chronic fatigue, brain fog, exercise intolerance, dizziness, muscle or joint pain and gut problems. And many of these symptoms worsen after exercise, a phenomenon known as post-exertional malaise.

    Medically the symptoms are known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The World Health Organization classifies this as a post viral fatigue syndrome, and it is recognised by both the WHO and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a brain disorder.

    Experiencing illness long after contracting an infection is not new, as patients have reported these symptoms for decades. But COVID-19 has amplified the problem worldwide. Nearly half of people with ongoing post-COVID symptoms – a condition known as long-COVID – now meet the criteria for ME/CFS. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, it is estimated that more than 400 million people have developed long-COVID.

    To date, no widely accepted and testable mechanism has fully explained the biological processes underlying long-COVID and ME/CFS. Our work offers a new perspective that may help close this gap.

    Our research group studies blood and the cardiovascular system in inflammatory diseases, as well as post-viral conditions. We focus on coagulation, inflammation and endothelial cells. Endothelial cells make up the inner layer of blood vessels and serve many important functions, like regulating blood clotting, blood vessel dilation and constriction, and inflammation.

    Our latest review aims to explain how ME/CFS and long-COVID start and progress, and how symptoms show up in the body and its systems. By pinpointing and explaining the underlying disease mechanisms, we can pave the way for better clinical tools to diagnose and treat people living with ME/CFS and long-COVID.

    What is endothelial senescence?

    In our review, our international team proposes that certain viruses drive endothelial cells into a half-alive, “zombie-like” state called cellular senescence. Senescent endothelial cells stop dividing, but continue to release molecules that awaken and confuse the immune system. This prompts the blood to form clots and, at the same time, prevent clot breakdown, which could lead to the constriction of blood vessels and limited blood flow.

    By placing “zombie” blood-vessel cells at the centre of these post-viral diseases, our hypothesis weaves together microclots, oxygen debt (the extra oxygen your body needs after strenuous exercise to restore balance), brain-fog, dizziness, gut leakiness (a digestive condition where the intestinal lining allows toxins into the bloodstream) and immune dysfunction into a single, testable narrative.

    From acute viral infection to ‘zombie’ vessels

    Viruses like SARS-CoV-2, Epstein–Barr virus, HHV-6, influenza A, and enteroviruses (a group of viruses that cause a number of infectious illnesses which are usually mild) can all infect endothelial cells. They enable a direct attack on the cells that line the inside of blood vessels. Some of these viruses have been shown to trigger endothelial senescence.

    Multiple studies show that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19 disease) has the ability to induce senescence in a variety of cell types, including endothelial cells. Viral proteins from SARS-CoV-2, for example, sabotage DNA-repair pathways and push the host cell towards a senescent state, while senescent cells in turn become even more susceptible to viral entry. This reciprocity helps explain why different pathogens can result in the same chronic illness. Influenza A, too, has shown the ability to drive endothelial cells into a senescent, zombie-like state.

    What we think is happening

    We propose that when blood-vessel cells turn into “zombies”, they pump out substances that make blood thicker and prone to forming tiny clots. These clots slow down circulation, so less oxygen reaches muscles and organs. This is one reason people feel drained.

    During exercise, the problem worsens. Instead of the vessels relaxing to allow adequate bloodflow, they tighten further. This means that muscles are starved of oxygen and patients experience a crash the day after exercise. In the brain, the same faulty cells let blood flow drop and leak, bringing on brain fog and dizziness.

    In the gut, they weaken the lining, allowing bits of bacteria to slip into the bloodstream and trigger more inflammation. Because blood vessels reach every corner of the body, even scattered patches of these “zombie” cells found in the blood vessels can create the mix of symptoms seen in long-COVID and ME/CFS.

    Immune exhaustion locks in the damage

    Some parts of the immune system kill senescent cells. They are natural-killer cells, macrophages and complement proteins, which are immune molecules capable of tagging and killing pathogens. But long-COVID and ME/CFS frequently have impaired natural-killer cell function, sluggish macrophages and complement dysfunction.

    Senescent endothelial cells may also send out a chemical signal to repel immune attack. So the “zombie cells” actively evade the immune system. This creates a self-sustaining loop of vascular and immune dysfunction, where senescent endothelial cells persist.

    In a healthy person with an optimally functioning immune system, these senescent endothelial cells will normally be cleared. But there is significant immune dysfunction in ME/CFS and long-COVID, and this may enable the “zombie cells” to survive and the disease to progress.

    Where the research goes next

    There is a registered clinical trial in the US that is investigating senescence in long-COVID. Our consortium is testing new ways to spot signs of ageing in the cells that line our blood vessels. First, we expose healthy endothelial cells in the lab to blood from patients to see whether it pushes the cells into a senescent, or “zombie,” state.

    At the same time, we are trialling non‑invasive imaging and fluorescent probes that could one day reveal these ageing cells inside the body. In selected cases, tissue biopsies may later confirm what the scans show. Together, these approaches aim to pinpoint how substances circulating in the blood drive cellular ageing and how that, in turn, fuels disease.

    Our aim is simple: find these ageing endothelial cells in real patients. Pinpointing them will inform the next round of clinical trials and open the door to therapies that target senescent cells directly, offering a route to healthier blood vessels and, ultimately, lighter disease loads.

    Burtram C. Fielding works for Stellenbosch University. He has received funding from the National Research Foundation, South Africa and the Technology Innovation Agency.

    Resia Pretorius is a Distinguished Research Professor at Stellenbosch University and receives funding from Balvi Research Foundation and Kanro Research Foundation. She is also affiliated with University of Liverpool as a Honorary Professor. Resia is a founding director of the Stellenbosch University start-up company, Biocode Technologies and has various patents related to microclot formation in Long COVID.

    Massimo Nunes receives funding from Kanro Research Foundation.

    – ref. Long-COVID, viruses and ‘zombie’ cells: new research looks for links to chronic fatigue and brain fog – https://theconversation.com/long-covid-viruses-and-zombie-cells-new-research-looks-for-links-to-chronic-fatigue-and-brain-fog-261108

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Uganda’s land eviction crisis: do populist state measures actually fix problems?

    Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Rose Nakayi, Senior Lecturer of Law, Makerere University

    Populism is rife in various African countries. This political ideology responds to and takes advantage of a situation where a large section of people feels exploited, marginalised or disempowered. It sets up “the people” against “the other”. It promises solidarity with the excluded by addressing their grievances. Populism targets broad social groups, operating across ethnicity and class.

    But how does populism fare when it informs state interventions to address long-standing societal issues under capitalism? Do populist state measures – especially when launched by a politically powerful leader – deliver improvements for the stated beneficiaries?

    As academics who have researched populism for years, we were interested in the implementation and outcomes of such policies and programmes. To answer these questions, we analysed a populist intervention by President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda to address rampant land conflicts. In 2013 he set out to halt land evictions.

    What good came of this? Did it help the poor?

    We analysed land laws, court cases, government statements and media reports and found that, for the most part, the intervention offered short-term relief. Some people returned to the land, but the underlying land conflict was unresolved.

    This created problems that continue to be felt today, including land disputes and land tenure insecurity. The intervention also increased the involvement of the president and his agents personally in providing justice.

    It didn’t make pro-poor structural changes to address the root of the problem.

    Yet, the intervention had several political benefits:

    • it enhanced the political legitimacy of the president and state

    • it offered a politically useful response to a land-related crisis and conflict

    • it addressed broader criticisms over injustice and poverty by sections of the public and opposition leaders, some of whom (like Robert Kyagulanyi) also relied on populist rhetoric.

    The promise to deal with land evictions “once and for all” has yet to be realised over a decade later. During Heroes Day celebrations on 9 June 2024, Museveni’s speech repeated his promise to stop evictions.

    Such promises of getting a grip on and ending evictions via decisive state actions, including proposed new legal guidelines, were also made more recently, for example during Heroes Day 2025. This indicates that evictions – and state responses to them – remain a top issue on the political agenda ahead of Uganda’s 2026 election.

    Persistent evictions

    Evictions were rampant in the 2010s, especially in central Uganda’s Buganda region. They were driven by increased demand for land amid a growing population and legal reforms that seemed to protect tenants over landlords. Some landlords, desperate to free their land of tenants, were carrying out the evictions themselves.

    The president condemned the evictions, but they continued. Soon, the number of evictees was in the thousands.

    In response, Museveni set up a land committee within the presidency. He announced at a press conference in early 2013 that:

    all evictions are halted. There will be no more evictions, especially in the rural areas. All evictions involving peasants are halted.

    The dynamics of populism-in-practice

    Museveni’s attempts to personally deal with evictions illustrate a continued power shift in Uganda, from institutions to the president’s executive units.

    Despite its shortcomings, such as case backlogs, the judicial system offers an opportunity to present cases in a more neutral environment. It also allows parties to appeal decisions. This way, higher courts can correct errors where necessary.

    The presidential land committee, we found, tended to be biased in favour of tenants, paying less attention to the landlords’ cases.

    The president’s intervention wasn’t adequate to address the immediate causes and effects of the evictions, nor the root causes.

    Those included land tenure insecurities. Due to legal reforms, land-rich landlords were unable to get rent at market value from tenants. Neither could they evict them lawfully where rent was in arrears.

    In some cases, legal options such as land sales between landlords and tenants were applied. This was often to the detriment of tenants, especially where there was no neutral actor to oversee negotiations.

    Land reforms need to be institutionalised and funded to deliver the intended outcomes. Otherwise, unlawful sales and evictions become a quick option for landlords.

    Museveni’s populist initiative also unleashed new problems for beneficiaries. Some secured land occupancy in the interim but lived in fear of a relapse of conflict. Mistrust and scarred interpersonal relationships hampered cohesion in some communities. Disputes over land put political actors who would ideally be working together to restore calm at loggerheads.

    Populism as power

    The creation of populist presidential units has become routine in Uganda. More recently, Museveni created a unit to protect investors, which has resolved some investment-related land disputes. Another one was established to fight corruption. Both units remain very active.

    Our research finds that the government needs these units and interventions for a number of reasons. It uses them to govern the country’s conflict-ridden economy and society. They allow the government to assemble a politically useful response to crises and to address some on-the-ground problems. They make the state look concerned and responsive to people’s needs. And they allow ruling party political actors to increase their popularity locally.

    Museveni and his ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, therefore, benefit from a key aspect of populism. It allows the merging of disparate, competing and contradictory views, interests and demands of members of various societal classes and groups into a significantly simplified and uniform narrative that (potentially) speaks to all. This could mean: end corruption, end evictions, wealth for all, and so on.

    A general election is due in early 2026. The steps Museveni has taken on evictions, and the units set up to fight corruption or protect investors, need to be seen with this political context in mind.

    Museveni has put protecting people from evictions high on his government’s agenda. Speaking to party members in August 2024, he emphasised

    the importance of adhering to the mass line, which prioritises the needs and rights of the masses over those of the elite.

    In our view, this pre-election narrative signifies the continued political and social relevance of populism in today’s Uganda. This could result in heightened populist state activity in the run-up to and after the election.

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

    – ref. Uganda’s land eviction crisis: do populist state measures actually fix problems? – https://theconversation.com/ugandas-land-eviction-crisis-do-populist-state-measures-actually-fix-problems-260512

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Young Nigerians learn about democracy at school: how it’s shaping future voters

    Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Leila Demarest, Associate Professor, Institute of Political Science, Leiden University

    Democratic consolidation is a continuing struggle, in Africa as elsewhere. The turn to democracy gained momentum in Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s but has petered out since. Can new generations turn the tide?

    The need to prepare young people to become democratically minded is well established. In western societies, school-based civic education has been considered the means to do it since as early as the 1960s. The assumption is that better knowledge about the democratic functioning of the state promotes stronger democratic values and norms. It is also thought to increase trust in institutions and a willingness to participate in politics in the future.

    Research in western settings indeed shows that classroom instruction strengthens political attitudes and behaviour. Yet can we expect civic education to work in the same way in newer democracies? In weak democracies studies have found that civic education could actually lead young people away from political participation. Young people may become more aware of the flaws of their own system and turn away from politics.

    Nigeria made the move from military rule to multiparty democracy in 1999 but remains a flawed democracy struggling with political corruption, vote buying and episodic violence. Individual liberties are only weakly protected.

    As Africa’s most populous democracy, with a big young population, Nigeria needs young people to participate in democratic politics. And they have done so, as can be seen from events like the #EndSARS protests. Nevertheless many youths also show voter apathy. Or they engage in the country’s well-known cycles of election violence.

    As scholars, we have conducted extensive research on how young people in African countries can overcome some dark legacies, like violent conflict, ethnic tensions and authoritarianism. In a recent study, we focused on democratic engagement among young Nigerians and how formal education could strengthen it.

    Our research among secondary school students in Lagos state shows promising results. A survey of over 3,000 final year students found that those with greater political knowledge and stronger democratic values were more likely to express intent to vote, contact officials, or protest in the future.

    However, these same students rejected party membership and campaigning, which are commonly associated with corruption and violence in Nigeria. In contrast, students with lower levels of knowledge and democratic values remained inclined to participate in party activities. This might be to gain economic benefits.

    These findings show that the core objectives of civic education are not likely to lead youth to abandon democratic politics. Fostering knowledge about how the system (ideally) works and strengthening democratic attitudes remains a valuable approach to achieving democracy.

    Our findings

    Ten years after the transition from military to democratic rule, the Nigerian government made civic education mandatory in primary and secondary schools. The curriculum covers issues such as Nigeria’s independence, the structures of the state, civic rights, political parties and national unity. It also covers corruption and clientelism (the exchange of political support for economic benefits).

    After learning how the government works and gaining awareness of civic rights and responsibilities, would young Nigerians remain committed to political participation with all the country’s democratic flaws?

    We conducted a survey among final year secondary school students in Lagos state in 2019. About 3,000 students across 36 randomly selected schools answered our questions. The results revealed three political participation profiles:

    • disengaged youth – those who do not wish to take part in any type of political activity

    • non-party activists – intent on voting, contacting politicians or officials and protesting, but they reject party membership and campaigning

    • party activists – interested in joining a political party and campaigning as well as voting, contacting politicians or officials and protesting.

    Disengaged youths tended to come from richer socio-economic backgrounds. They showed low trust in institutions. Non-party activists were more informed and held stronger democratic values than party activists. This is likely because they saw political parties as corrupt or violent.

    In a democracy where party politics are often tainted by corruption, the youths’ selective engagement may be a sign not of apathy but of a thoughtful and principled rejection of flawed party politics.

    Despite a growing distrust in political parties, civic education does not appear to discourage pro-democratic political behaviour overall.

    A ‘reverse’ participation gap

    Schools are not the only shapers of youths’ political behaviour. Caregivers and peers play a role. In a large number of countries, youth from richer socio-economic backgrounds are more politically informed, more trusting of institutions, and active. This results in a so-called participation gap between richer and poorer citizens.

    Where democracy is yet to take root, research shows that middle- and higher-middle class citizens also have higher levels of knowledge and stronger democratic norms. But they have lower levels of institutional trust and are less likely to participate in institutional politics. This presents a “reverse” participation gap, so to speak.

    In our research, we found partial evidence of this “reverse participation gap”. Students from wealthier backgrounds were less likely to participate, but not necessarily because they had stronger democratic norms. One possible explanation is that these students were less economically dependent on the state. With no need to rely on public institutions for jobs or welfare, they might feel less of a need to engage with them.

    Retreat from political participation

    In non-established democracies, research shows that more educated citizens often are more critical of their governments. In Ghana and Zimbabwe, these citizens were less likely to participate in elections.

    Concerning civic education programmes specifically, an intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo showed that these programmes might increase political knowledge and commitment to democratic values, but also decrease satisfaction with democracy in their country.

    School-based research from the continent is lacking. But studies examining school-based civic education in electoral democracies elsewhere also show a retreat from institutionalised political participation. This spans voting, party membership, campaigning, and contacting politicians.

    Our study finds more optimistic results for civic education programmes in Africa. Youths with high knowledge and values – the core objectives of civic education – remain committed to democratic political behaviour.

    Leila Demarest receives funding from Leiden University Fund (grant reference W19304-5-01).

    Line Kuppens 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. Young Nigerians learn about democracy at school: how it’s shaping future voters – https://theconversation.com/young-nigerians-learn-about-democracy-at-school-how-its-shaping-future-voters-261030

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: 3D printed food: yuck or yes? Researchers ask South African consumers

    Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Oluwafemi Adebo, Professor of Food Technology and Director of the Centre for Innovative Food Research (CIFR), University of Johannesburg

    Would you eat food that was printed by a machine? 3D printed food is built up by equipment (a 3D food printer), layer after layer, using edible pastes, dough and food slurries in three-dimensional forms. These machines use digital models to produce precise, often personalised food items. Most 3D printed foods are made from nutrient-dense sources (plant and animal), which means they can offer health benefits.

    The global market for 3D printed food is growing. It’s been estimated as worth US$437 million in 2024 and projected to reach US$7.1 billion in 2034. But the concept is still emerging in Africa.

    Food science and technology researcher Oluwafemi Ayodeji Adebo and marketing academic Nicole Cunningham share what they learnt from a survey about South African consumers’ feelings on the subject.

    How is food 3D printed and why?

    In 3D food printing, edible food materials are formulated into printable materials (food ink). These inks can be made from pureed vegetables, doughs, or nutrient-rich mixes. The food ink is loaded into a 3D printer and extruded in layers until the selected shape is complete.

    After printing, some products are ready to eat, while others need further processing such as baking or freeze-drying. The most common method is extrusion-based printing, valued for its simplicity and versatility.

    The technique enables the customisation of food. Meals can be highly personalised in texture, appearance and nutritional content.

    It can also transform food waste into food products. For example it can turn imperfect broccoli and carrots into healthy snacks and make noodles from potato peels.

    It’s also useful in texture-modified diets for people with swallowing difficulties (dysphagia), especially the elderly. The products available for these patients tend to be bland and unappealing meals such as mashed potato, pumpkin and soft porridge. 3D food printing can produce nutritionally dense meals that are easier to eat and more appetising.



    Read more:
    How 3D food printers could improve mealtimes for people with swallowing disorders

    Food ink can combine various sources with different nutrients to boost the health benefits. Not having to process the product with heat can also result in higher nutritional content.

    In South Africa, what sorts of foods might be 3D printed?

    Virtually any edible material could be transformed into food inks, although some might require additives to make them printable. The abundance of nutrient-dense and health-promoting food crops in South Africa presents an excellent opportunity for 3D food printing to create novel food.

    Sorghum, cowpea and quinoa have been used to make 3D printed biscuits, for example. They are more nutritious than wheat and don’t contain gluten.



    Read more:
    Africa’s superfood heroes – from teff to insects – deserve more attention

    Research at the Centre for Innovative Food Research at the University of Johannesburg has already demonstrated the feasibility of obtaining 3D printed products from different sources (for example whole-grain sourdough and malt biscuits, biscuits from wholegrain and multigrain flours and nutritious and appetising meals for dysphagia patients).



    Read more:
    3D printing offers African countries an advantage in manufacturing

    3D food printing is still in its infancy in South Africa, compared to developed countries such as China, Japan, the US and some European countries. The best-known companies that have adopted this technology include BluRhapsody, based in Italy, which makes 3D-printed pasta, and Open Meals based in Japan, which specialises in personalised sushi.

    We carried out a study to understand South African consumers’ attitudes toward 3D-printed foods. Although the technology is not yet in wide use, we found some consumers were fairly knowledgeable about these foods and the associated benefits. These findings lay the foundation for business opportunities to commercialise and market 3D printed products in the region.

    Who did you ask about it in your study?

    The study surveyed South African consumers aged 18-65 who were familiar with the concept of 3D-printed food. We collected 355 responses, mostly females aged 24 to 44. They provided information and opinions on several aspects, including:

    • their awareness of 3D-printed food

    • their familiarity with 3D-printed food

    • their food neophobia (fear of new foods)

    • the convenience that 3D-printed food offers

    • their perspective on their health needs

    • the perceived benefits that 3D-printed food offers

    • attitudes towards 3D-printed food.

    What did they say?

    Positive attitudes were strongest among those who recognised the convenience and health-related benefits of this new technology. The potential to reduce waste, customise nutrition, and simplify meal preparation stood out as key motivators.

    Interestingly, food familiarity didn’t play a significant role in people’s responses. This means they aren’t necessarily clinging to traditional or childhood meals when forming attitudes about 3D-printed food.

    In short, novelty alone isn’t a deal-breaker, it’s more about perceived safety, usefulness, and understanding the benefits.

    What does this tell us?

    The findings highlight the crucial role of consumer education and awareness in shaping attitudes toward 3D-printed food. While unfamiliarity with the technology can create some hesitation, the research shows that consumers are not necessarily resistant to innovation. They just need to understand it better and be educated about the benefits it offers.

    If food manufacturers and marketers invest in increasing public knowledge and offering hands-on experiences such as tastings, demonstrations, or transparent production processes, then consumer attitudes could shift positively.

    This approach has shown promise in other markets. For example, educational campaigns in Europe and the US around lab-grown meat and plant-based proteins have improved public perception over time.



    Read more:
    Nigeria isn’t big on 3D printing. Teaching students how to use it could change this

    Marketers should talk about safety, health and sustainability, and demystify the technology through clear, engaging messaging. In countries where such strategies have been used, consumers have shown increased willingness to try novel food technologies. This is significant because of predicted growth in the industry.

    If South African consumers see 3D-printed food more positively, this innovation could unlock opportunities to enhance food security, address malnutrition, and support personalised dietary solutions.

    Oluwafemi Adebo received funding for this project from the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa Support for Rated and Unrated Researchers (grant number: SRUG2204285188), the University of Johannesburg and Faculty of Science Research Committee Grant, and the South African Medica lResearch Council (SAMRC) Self-Initiated Research (SIR) Grant.

    Nicole Cunningham receives funding from the DHET in order to conduct academic research.

    – ref. 3D printed food: yuck or yes? Researchers ask South African consumers – https://theconversation.com/3d-printed-food-yuck-or-yes-researchers-ask-south-african-consumers-255887

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Which wildfire smoke plumes are hazardous? New satellite tech can map them in 3D for air quality alerts at neighborhood scale

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jun Wang, Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa

    Smoke from Canadian wildfires prompted air quality alerts in Chicago as it blanketed the city on June 5, 2025. Scott Olson/Getty Images

    Canada is facing another dangerous wildfire season, with burning forests sending smoke plumes across the provinces and into the U.S. again. The pace of the 2025 fires is reminiscent of the record-breaking 2023 wildfire season, which exposed millions of people in North America to hazardous smoke levels.

    For most of the past decade, forecasters have been able to use satellites to track these smoke plumes, but the view was only two-dimensional: The satellites couldn’t determine how close the smoke was to Earth’s surface.

    The altitude of the smoke matters.

    If a plume is high in the atmosphere, it won’t affect the air people breathe – it simply floats by far overhead.

    But when smoke plumes are close to the surface, people are breathing in wildfire chemicals and tiny particles. Those particles, known as PM2.5, can get deep into the lungs and exacerbate asthma and other respiratory and cardiac problems.

    An animation on May 30, 2025, shows a thick smoke plume from Canada moving over Minnesota, but the air quality monitors on the ground detected minimal risk, suggesting it was a high-level smoke plume.
    NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research

    The Environmental Protection Agency uses a network of ground-based air quality monitors to issue air quality alerts, but the monitors are few and far between, meaning forecasts have been broad estimates in much of the country.

    Now, a new satellite-based method that I and colleagues at universities and federal agencies have been working on for the past two years is able to give scientists and air quality managers a 3D picture of the smoke plumes, providing detailed data of the risks down to the neighborhood level for urban and rural areas alike.

    Building a nationwide smoke monitoring system

    The new method uses data from a satellite that NASA launched in 2023 called the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, or TEMPO, satellite.

    Data from the TEMPO satellite shows the height of the smoke plume, measured in kilometers. Light blue areas are closest to the ground, suggesting the worst air quality. Pink areas suggest the smoke is more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) above the ground, where it poses little risk to human health. The data aligns with air monitor readings taken on the ground at the same time.
    NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research

    TEMPO makes it possible to determine a smoke plume’s height by providing data on how much the oxygen molecules absorb sunlight at the 688 nanometer wavelength. Smoke plumes that are high in the atmosphere reflect more solar radiation at this wavelength back to space, while those lower in the atmosphere, where there is more oxygen to absorb the light, reflect less.

    Understanding the physics allowed scientists to develop algorithms that use TEMPO’s data to infer the smoke plume’s altitude and map its 3D movement in nearly real time.

    Aerosol particles in high smoke plumes reflect more light back into space. Closer to Earth’s surface, there is more oxygen to absorb light at the 688 nanometer wavelength, so less light is reflected. Satellites can detect the difference, and that can be used to determine the height of the smoke plume.
    Adapted from Xu et al, 2019, CC BY

    By combining TEMPO’s data with measurements of particles in the atmosphere, taken by the Advanced Baseline Imager on the NOAA’s GOES-R satellites, forecasters can better assess the health risk from smoke plumes in almost real time, provided clouds aren’t in the way.

    That’s a big jump from relying on ground-based air quality monitors, which may be hundreds of miles apart. Iowa, for example, had about 50 air quality monitors reporting data on a recent day for a state that covers 56,273 square miles. Most of those monitors were clustered around its largest cities.

    NOAA’s AerosolWatch tool currently provides a near-real-time stream of wildfire smoke images from its GOES-R satellites, and the agency plans to incorporate TEMPO’s height data. A prototype of this system from my team’s NASA-supported research project on fire and air quality, called FireAQ, shows how users can zoom in to the neighborhood level to see how high the smoke plume is, however the prototype is currently only updated once a day, so the data is delayed, and it isn’t able to provide smoke height data where clouds are also overhead.

    Wildfire health risks are rising

    Fire risk is increasing across North America as global temperatures rise and more people move into wildland areas.

    While air quality in most of the U.S. improved between 2000 and 2020, thanks to stricter emissions regulations on vehicles and power plants, wildfires have reversed that trend in parts of the western U.S. Research has found that wildfire smoke has effectively erased nearly two decades of air quality progress there.

    Our advances in smoke monitoring mark a new era in air quality forecasting, offering more accurate and timely information to better protect public health in the face of these escalating wildfire threats.

    Prof. Wang’s group have been supported from NOAA, NASA, and Naval ONR to develop research algorithm to retrieve aerosol layer height. The compute codes of the research algorithm were shared with colleagues in NOAA.

    – ref. Which wildfire smoke plumes are hazardous? New satellite tech can map them in 3D for air quality alerts at neighborhood scale – https://theconversation.com/which-wildfire-smoke-plumes-are-hazardous-new-satellite-tech-can-map-them-in-3d-for-air-quality-alerts-at-neighborhood-scale-259654

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Neanderthals likely ate fermented meat with a side of maggots

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Melanie Beasley, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Purdue University

    Black soldier fly maggots can feed on decomposing animals. Melanie M. Beasley

    Scientists long thought that Neanderthals were avid meat eaters. Based on chemical analysis of Neanderthal remains, it seemed like they’d been feasting on as much meat as apex predators such as lions and hyenas. But as a group, hominins – that’s Neanderthals, our species and other extinct close relatives – aren’t specialized flesh eaters. Rather, they’re more omnivorous, eating plenty of plant foods, too.

    It is possible for humans to subsist on a very carnivorous diet. In fact, many traditional northern hunter–gatherers such as the Inuit subsisted mostly on animal foods. But hominins simply cannot tolerate consuming the high levels of protein that large predators can. If humans eat as much protein as hypercarnivores do over long periods without consuming enough other nutrients, it can lead to protein poisoning – a debilitating, even lethal condition historically known as “rabbit starvation.”

    So, what could explain the chemical signatures found in Neanderthal bones that seem to suggest they were healthily eating tons of meat?

    I am an anthropologist who uses elements such as nitrogen to study the diets of our very ancient ancestors. New research my colleagues and I conducted suggests a secret ingredient in the Neanderthal diet that might explain what was going on: maggots.

    A black soldier fly adult. The larvae of this fly are one of the species of maggots studied.
    GordZam/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    Isotope ratios reveal what an animal ate

    The ratios of various elements in the bones of animals can provide insights into what they ate while alive. Isotopes are alternate forms of the same element that have slightly different masses. Nitrogen has two stable isotopes: nitrogen-14, the more abundant form, and nitrogen-15, the heavier, less common form. Scientists denote the ratio of nitrogen-15 to nitrogen-14 as δ¹⁵N and measure it in a unit called permil.

    As you go higher up the food chain, organisms have relatively more of the isotope nitrogen-15. Grass, for example, has a very low δ¹⁵N value. An herbivore accumulates the nitrogen-15 that it consumes eating grass, so its own body has a slightly higher δ¹⁵N value. Meat-eating animals have the highest nitrogen ratio in a food web; the nitrogen-15 from their prey concentrates in their bodies.

    By analyzing stable nitrogen isotope ratios, we can reconstruct the diets of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens during the late Pleistocene, which ran from 11,700 to 129,000 years ago. Fossils from various sites tell the same story – these hominins have high δ¹⁵N values. High δ¹⁵N values would typically place them at the top of the food web, together with hypercarnivores such as cave lions and hyenas, whose diet is more than 70% meat.

    But maybe something else about their diet was inflating Neanderthals’ δ¹⁵N values.

    Uncovering the Neanderthal menu

    We suspected that maggots could have been a different potential source of enriched nitrogen-15 in the Neanderthal diet. Maggots, which are fly larvae, can be a fat-rich source of food. They are unavoidable after you kill another animal, easily collectible in large numbers and nutritionally beneficial.

    To investigate this possibility, we used a dataset that was originally created for a very different purpose: a forensic anthropology project focused on how nitrogen might help estimate time since death.

    I had originally collected modern muscle tissue samples and associated maggots at the Forensic Anthropology Center at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to understand how nitrogen values change during decomposition after death.

    Maggots feeding on and decomposing an animal carcass.
    Hari Sucahyo/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    While the data can assist modern forensic death investigations, in our current study we repurposed it to test a very different hypothesis. We found that stable nitrogen isotope values increase modestly as muscle tissue decomposes, ranging from -0.6 permil to 7.7 permil.

    This increase is more dramatic in maggots feeding on decomposing tissue: from 5.4 permil to 43.2 permil. To put the maggot values in perspective, scientists estimate δ¹⁵N values for Pleistocene herbivores to range between 0.9 permil to 11.2 permil. Maggots are measuring up to almost four times higher.

    Our research suggests that the high δ¹⁵N values observed in Late Pleistocene hominins may be inflated by year-round consumption of ¹⁵N-enriched maggots found in dried, frozen or cached animal foods.

    Cultural practices shape diet

    In 2017, my collaborator John Speth proposed that the high δ¹⁵N values in Neanderthals were due to the consumption of putrid or rotting meat, based on historical and cultural evidence of diets in northern Arctic foragers.

    Traditionally, Indigenous peoples almost universally viewed thoroughly putrefied, maggot-infested animal foods as highly desirable fare, not starvation rations. In fact, many such peoples routinely and often intentionally allowed animal foods to decompose to the point where they were crawling with maggots, in some cases even beginning to liquefy.

    This rotting food would inevitably emit a stench so overpowering that early European explorers, fur trappers and missionaries were sickened by it. Yet Indigenous peoples viewed such foods as good to eat, even a delicacy. When asked how they could tolerate the nauseating stench, they simply responded, “We don’t eat the smell.”

    Reconstruction of a Neanderthal man butchering a goat at the Neanderthal Museum in Mettman, Germany.
    Pressebilder Neanderthal Museum, Mettmann/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    Neanderthals’ cultural practices, similar to those of Indigenous peoples, might be the answer to the mystery of their high δ¹⁵N values. Ancient hominins were butchering, storing, preserving, cooking and cultivating a variety of items. All these practices enriched their paleo menu with foods in forms that nonhominin carnivores do not consume. Research shows that δ¹⁵N values are higher for cooked foods, putrid muscle tissue from terrestrial and aquatic species, and, with our study, for fly larvae feeding on decaying tissue.

    The high δ¹⁵N values of maggots associated with putrid animal foods help explain how Neanderthals could have included plenty of other nutritious foods beyond only meat while still registering δ¹⁵N values we’re used to seeing in hypercarnivores.

    We suspect the high δ¹⁵N values seen in Neanderthals reflect routine consumption of fatty animal tissues and fermented stomach contents, much of it in a semi-putrid or putrid state, together with the inevitable bonus of both living and dead ¹⁵N-enriched maggots.

    What still isn’t known

    Fly larvae are a fat-rich, nutrient-dense, ubiquitous and easily procured insect resource, and both Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, much like recent foragers, would have benefited from taking full advantage of them. But we cannot say that maggots alone explain why Neanderthals have such high δ¹⁵N values in their remains.

    Several questions about this ancient diet remain unanswered. How many maggots would someone need to consume to account for an increase in δ¹⁵N values above the expected values due to meat eating alone? How do the nutritional benefits of consuming maggots change the longer a food item is stored? More experimental studies on changes in δ¹⁵N values of foods processed, stored and cooked following Indigenous traditional practices can help us better understand the dietary practices of our ancient relatives.

    Melanie Beasley received funding from the Haslam Foundation for this research.

    – ref. Neanderthals likely ate fermented meat with a side of maggots – https://theconversation.com/neanderthals-likely-ate-fermented-meat-with-a-side-of-maggots-261628

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Armenia and Azerbaijan are trying to mend fences – what does this mean for Russia?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Matveeva, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King’s Russia Institute, King’s College London

    At a time when Vladimir Putin needs friends in his neighbourhood, he appears instead to be losing them in the South Caucasus. After two centuries of Russian involvement in the region, balancing the historical rivalry and at times acting as mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan, there is growing speculation that the two countries are preparing a major reset in relations.

    When Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, met the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, in Abu Dhabi on July 10, they reportedly came close to agreeing a peace treaty. The big question is whether, if these two countries can iron out mistrust and violence born of the territorial conflict, there will still be a role for Russia in the South Caucasus.

    To understand the complex geopolitics of the region, you need to go back to the early 19th century, when Azerbaijan and what is now the Republic of Armenia) were ceded to Russia following the Russo-Persian wars. After the Russian revolution, the two countries achieved brief independence between 1918 and 1920 (though not in their present borders) before being incorporated into the Soviet Union.

    During the Soviet era, the union republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan both felt that Moscow favoured the other. Armenia was unhappy that the Soviet leadership allocated Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority-Armenian exclave surrounded by Azeri-populated lands, to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan was dissatisfied that its borders denied it a land connection to its population in Nakhchivan, an exclave of ethnic Azeris that could only be reached via southern Armenia.

    In the final years of the Soviet Union, as Armenian nationalism began to assert itself during the period of perestroika (restructuring), Nagorno-Karabakh’s legislature passed a law declaring its intention to join Armenia. This move eventually led to armed clashes in the region.

    The first Karabakh war, which raged between 1988 and 1994, began before the Soviet break-up but continued after the two countries gained their independence. In 1994, after more than 30,000 casualties, Russia brokered a ceasefire. The settlement favoured Armenia, leaving it in control of Nagorno-Karabakh and another six surrounding Azerbaijani districts.

    Things began to change when Putin took power in Russia in 2000. Russia’s relations with Azerbaijan improved, partly due to his personal rapport with the then-president, Heydar Aliyev, and his son Ilham, who would succeed him in 2003. After 9/11, when combating international terrorism became a global priority, Azerbaijan put measures in place to prevent transfer of fighters and weapons through its territory to the war in Chechnya, which further improved relations with Moscow.

    At this stage, Azerbaijan was pursuing what it described as a “multi-vector” foreign policy. This allowed it to develop ties with a variety of countries, including the US, Russia and others to whom it sold oil. While remaining in the Commonwealth of Independent States, it did not sign up to the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).

    Nagorno-Karabakh

    Armenia, by contrast, was a fully participating member of the CSTO. Having signed an Eternal Friendship Treaty with Russia in 1997, this was a clear strategic choice for Armenia – partly motivated by historical ties.

    Russia had traditionally been seen as a defender of Christianity in the days of the Ottomon empire. Many people had fled massacres in Western Armenia (modern-day Turkey) in 1915 to come under the protection of the Russian Tsar. But Armenia also saw Moscow as a vital security guarantor against an increasingly militarised Azerbaijan, which was determined to recover control of Nagorno-Karabakh and other areas occupied by Armenia.

    Map showing the concept of the ‘Zanzegur corridor’, which would cut across southernmost Armenia to connect Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan.
    Mapeh/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC

    Indeed, it was Nagorno-Karabakh which really soured relations between Armenia and Moscow. In 2020, when – aided by Turkey – Azerbaijan launched its offensive to retake the territory, Russia failed to come to the aid of its CSTO ally. This was expected, given that relations had begun to deteriorate in 2018 when Pashinyan came to power in Armenia.

    In hindsight, most commentators believe Russia had become tired of Armenia’s intransigence over the plan, agreed in Madrid in 2007, for it to cede back the six districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.

    Instead, Moscow brokered a ceasefire agreement and deployed 2,000 peacekeepers along the Lachin corridor, a strip of land connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. But these troops also failed to intervene when an Azeri offensive retook the whole of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, forcing the population of about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee.



    Read more:
    Nagorno-Karabakh: the world should have seen this crisis coming – and it’s not over yet

    Things sour between Moscow and Baku

    Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, meanwhile, have gone downhill rapidly. In December 2024, an Azeri civilian airliner was shot down in Russian airspace. Putin apologised, but Azerbaijan insisted on Moscow disclosing the results of the investigation and paying compensation to the victims.

    Things got worse at the end of June, when Russian authorities arrested a group of ethnic Azerbaijanis as part of a decades-old murder case. Two of the men died while being detained. Azerbaijan retaliated by raiding the Baku offices of Russia’s Sputnik news agency and detaining the staff as well as a group of Russian IT workers. When they appeared in court, some of the men appeared to have been beaten in custody.

    Azerbaijan also denounced Russia in state media and Russia House, the state-funded Russian cultural agency in Baku, was closed down, with several cultural events cancelled. Security agencies began to enforce documentation checks on all Russian nationals in the country.

    At the same time, Azerbaijan and Armenia were already talking about concluding a peace treaty independently, without intermediaries. All this has prompted speculation of a serious loss of influence in the region for Moscow.

    However, a complete shutout of Russia in the South Caucasus is unlikely. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan depend on remittance income from their nationals in Russia. Both countries also remain close trading partners with Russia. While Armenia suspended its membership in CSTO, it has not quit the organisation altogether.

    Far more likely is that the two countries, mindful of the growing influence of Turkey in the region and the shifts created by Donald Trump in world affairs, are manoeuvring while weighing their options. Geography matters, as Georgia’s example demonstrates – efforts to cut ties with Russia by its former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, have been partially reversed by the current government, which increasingly leans towards Moscow.

    In the cases of Armenia and Azerbaijan, economic ties, transport links and human connections still favour a relationship with Russia. So, a temporary breakdown in political relations can be mended – if all three leaders demonstrate enough statesmanship to sail through the troubled waters.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    Anna Matveeva 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. Armenia and Azerbaijan are trying to mend fences – what does this mean for Russia? – https://theconversation.com/armenia-and-azerbaijan-are-trying-to-mend-fences-what-does-this-mean-for-russia-261384

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Cuban government scrambling to deal with outrage about country’s economic crisis

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emily Morris, Research Associate, Institute of the Americas, UCL

    Cuba doesn’t have any beggars, according to the country’s minister of labour, Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera. In a speech to the national assembly on July 15, she denied the existence of destitution in the communist country, claiming the problem was actually people “disguised as beggars”.

    Her words were greeted by public outcry on social media. They also prompted a swift rebuke from her peers and the president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, who said leadership could not “act with condescension”. The next day, the Cuban government published an official note saying Feitó Cabrera had resigned.

    The political vulnerability of the Cuban government explains the urgent need to respond to missteps such as Feitó Cabrera’s. The country is enduring an acute economic crisis, which has seen living standards plummet and over 1 million Cubans leave the country since 2020.

    Cubans are leaving en masse:

    A severe economic crisis in Cuba has prompted a mass exodus from the island.
    Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas e Información

    The recession has severely strained the system of social protection that the government points to as one of its main achievements since taking power more than 60 years ago. Despite food subsidies and the efforts of welfare services, a growing number of people are now going hungry.

    Public confidence in the government has been severely weakened as a result, particularly among young Cubans. The risk of escalating popular protest is magnified by the proliferation of social media channels, emanating from inside and outside the country.

    These channels air the many complaints about daily frustrations in Cuba and highlight any failings or signs of hypocrisy on the part of officials. So when Feitó Cabrera’s speech went viral, it was met with inevitable public outrage.

    Díaz-Canel’s reaction can be seen as urgent damage limitation. But it is also consistent with his broader approach to managing the crisis facing his country. He has worked tirelessly to try and defuse anger through engagement, touring Cuba for local meetings to search for solutions.

    In his comments after Feitó Cabrera’s speech, he insisted that officials should acknowledge the scale of hardship being suffered, and “help, support and show solidarity” with the disadvantaged and most vulnerable.

    This need to reach out was all the more important given the grim tone of the national assembly meeting where Feitó Cabrera made her remarks. Ministers appeared one after the other to present dismal reports on the state of almost all sectors of the Cuban economy.

    The electricity system remains plagued by breakdowns caused by chronic underinvestment as well as difficulties in obtaining fuel and spare parts. The resulting daily power outages ensure that the sense of crisis is ever-present and frustrate all efforts to boost production.

    Doubting official data

    While full official national income data for 2024 has not yet been released, Cuba’s economy ministry estimates that real national income contracted by 1.1% in 2024. This leaves it more than 10% below its pre-pandemic level, and 2025 is not expected to show much improvement.

    The decline in real disposable income for Cuban households since 2021 has, in reality, been far greater. The official inflation rate indicates that consumer prices have risen fourfold over the past five years. At this rate, living costs would have increased broadly in line with salaries.

    Consumer prices have risen fourfold since 2020:

    Official inflation data for Cuba. The spike in early 2021 was the result of a monetary reform, which involved a big jump in wages in December 2020 followed by a currency reform in January 2021.
    Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas e Información

    But official figures systematically understate the actual increase in prices faced by Cuban households, due to the weightings used. In 2021, for example, research estimated the inflation rate to be between 174% and 700% – well above the government’s estimate (77.3%).

    The rising market prices have put many essential goods beyond the reach of most people who depend on state incomes. This has forced many households to depend on remittances or the informal economy to survive.

    Thanks to tight fiscal restraint, the official annual rate of inflation eased to 15% in June. But the wide gap between the increase in the actual cost of living and official inflation index continues to compound distrust of the government and the perception that the country’s leaders are out of touch.

    A lack of transparency and long delays in the publication of economic data, together with restrictions on the scope for private enterprise, are widely attributed to the government’s incompetence and reluctance to enact liberalising reforms.

    Recovery blocked by US sanctions

    For these reasons, the government’s insistence that US sanctions are to blame for limiting the possibilities for economic recovery is increasingly regarded with scepticism. However, the constraint on economic growth imposed by US measures is real and severe.

    It is also the deliberate aim of US policy. The unilateral sanctions not only block trade, as well as financial and international travel between the US and Cuba. They also severely hamper all kinds of transactions between Cuba and the rest of the world.

    Every branch of the Cuban economy has been affected, including the health service, social safety nets, agriculture and industry. And the lack of hard currency has, in turn, limited the scope for the investments and reforms needed for economic recovery.

    The easing inflation rate, together with some new investments in renewable energy, an improved fiscal balance and a recent small increase in pensions, may signal that the end of the economic downturn may be approaching. But neither the government nor the population have any confidence that the crisis will come to an end this year.

    No one is expecting US sanctions to be lifted while Donald Trump is president. Before Trump first stood for the presidency he hadn’t given Cuba his attention, but as president he has aligned himself firmly with hardliners.

    In his first term, Trump reversed the opening with Cuba initiated by Barack Obama. And his current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is one of the architects and leading proponents of economic sanctions against Cuba. Trade and investment will thus remain depressed, while shortages, power cuts, a lack of transport and crumbling public services will persist.

    But by demanding the resignation of the minister of labour, perhaps Díaz-Canel hopes to demonstrate that his government understands what that the economic asphyxiation means for a majority of Cubans struggling to survive.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    Emily Morris 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. Cuban government scrambling to deal with outrage about country’s economic crisis – https://theconversation.com/cuban-government-scrambling-to-deal-with-outrage-about-countrys-economic-crisis-261702

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: As the UK reviews the pension age again, could more time off when you’re young compensate for later retirement?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Malte Jauch, Lecturer in Management and Marketing, University of Essex

    The retirement age keeps creeping up. In the UK, the state pension is currently paid to people at 66, but that’s set to rise to 67 in the next couple of years, and a move to 68 might come sooner than previously planned after the government launched a review.

    Gradually increasing the working lifespan is never going to be popular. But one way of making this policy more palatable could be to give people early access to some of the free time that retirement promises.

    After all, sometimes that promise fails to deliver, because many people die before they reach retirement age.

    Globally, about 27% of men and 18% women die before the age of 65 (although this proportion also includes deaths before working age). In wealthy countries, the number of people who die prematurely is lower than the global average, but still significant. In the EU, 16% of men and 8% of women die before 65.

    For these people, the promise of free time and leisure in old age never materialises. There will also be many whose physical and mental health will have deteriorated by the time they retire, so that they are less capable of enjoying their free time.

    So perhaps slogging away until retirement is not an ideal arrangement.

    But what if you could transfer some of the time off that retirement promises to an earlier stage of your life, when everything is a rush, crammed with the demands of work and domestic responsibilities?

    Luckily, the stark contrast between a time-poor middle age and a time-rich old age is not unavoidable. Governments can choose different approaches that directly affect how free time is distributed across our life stages.

    Japan, for example, is a country which has opted to focus on delaying leisure time, and encourages workers to postpone that enjoyment of free time until old age. It does this in part by rewarding workers with wage increases – known as “seniority-based pay” – if they don’t take career breaks.

    Japanese employment law also permits companies to force employees to retire at the age 60. As a result, on average, Japanese workers work 1,680 hours per year and retire at 63.

    In the Netherlands by contrast, people work less (1,433 hours per year) and retire later – at 67. Labour laws make it easier for employees to decrease their hours, by going part time, for example.

    Discrimination between workers based on work hours is prohibited, so that those who opt for part-time work are guaranteed equal treatment with regard to wages and other benefits. But the high legal age of retirement discourages Dutch workers from early retirement.

    So how should we assess these different approaches?

    Time on your side?

    One way to look at retirement is that it compensates us for our previous hard work. The prospect of compensation might lead us to adopt a relaxed attitude toward long work hours. Once we’ve stopped work, we’ll be rewarded with a large chunk of leisure.

    But for those who don’t make it to retirement, this promise of a life of leisure turns out to be a cruel joke. Early deaths are also more prominent among those who have already suffered from poverty and other disadvantages.

    The right time for time off?
    Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

    The same is true for ill health. The disadvantaged are much more likely to suffer from a variety of conditions that prevent them from being able to fully enjoy retirement.

    Another risk for those who are healthy when they retire is that relatives or friends may have died. This reduces the value of the retirees’ free time because the loved ones they hoped to share that time with are no longer around.

    So perhaps some of that free time could be better used when workers are younger. Raising a family, for example, is extremely time consuming, and there can’t be many parents of young children who don’t wish for a few extra hours a week to call their own.

    Even devoting time to hobbies when we’re younger might be considered more efficient than waiting until we have retired. After all, if you learn a new language or how to paint when you’re in your 40s, you may have much more time to enjoy your new skill over the ensuing decades.

    My research suggests that for all these reasons, the state should help people take some of their retirement early.

    None of us knows how long we will live, or how healthy we will be in the future. Faced with this uncertainty, it makes sense not to gamble with our opportunities for free time and leave it until it may be too late.

    Even those who enjoy their work have strong reasons not to postpone a large proportion of their time off, and governments should help us access more of it while we’re younger.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

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

    – ref. As the UK reviews the pension age again, could more time off when you’re young compensate for later retirement? – https://theconversation.com/as-the-uk-reviews-the-pension-age-again-could-more-time-off-when-youre-young-compensate-for-later-retirement-259464

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Fears that falling birth rates in US could lead to population collapse are based on faulty assumptions

    Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Leslie Root, Assistant Professor of Research, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder

    Unfortunately for demographers, birth rates are hard to predict far into the future. gremlin/E+ via Getty Images

    Pronatalism – the belief that low birth rates are a problem that must be reversed – is having a moment in the U.S.

    As birth rates decline in the U.S. and throughout the world, voices from Silicon Valley to the White House are raising concerns about what they say could be the calamitous effects of steep population decline on the economy. The Trump administration has said it is seeking ideas on how to encourage Americans to have more children as the U.S. experiences its lowest total fertility rate in history, down about 25% since 2007.

    As demographers who study fertility, family behaviors and childbearing intentions, we can say with certainty that population decline is not imminent, inevitable or necessarily catastrophic.

    The population collapse narrative hinges on three key misunderstandings. First, it misrepresents what standard fertility measures tell us about childbearing and makes unrealistic assumptions that fertility rates will follow predictable patterns far into the future. Second, it overstates the impact of low birth rates on future population growth and size. Third, it ignores the role of economic policies and labor market shifts in assessing the impacts of low birth rates.

    Fertility fluctuations

    Demographers generally gauge births in a population with a measure called the total fertility rate. The total fertility rate for a given year is an estimate of the average number of children that women would have in their lifetime if they experienced current birth rates throughout their childbearing years.

    Fertility rates are not fixed – in fact, they have changed considerably over the past century. In the U.S., the total fertility rate rose from about 2 births per woman in the 1930s to a high of 3.7 births per woman around 1960. The rate then dipped below 2 births per woman in the late 1970s and 1980s before returning to 2 births in the 1990s and early 2000s.

    Since the Great Recession that lasted from late 2007 until mid-2009, the U.S. total fertility rate has declined almost every year, with the exception of very small post-COVID-19 pandemic increases in 2021 and 2022. In 2024, it hit a record low, falling to 1.6. This drop is primarily driven by declines in births to people in their teens and early 20s – births that are often unintended.

    But while the total fertility rate offers a snapshot of the fertility landscape, it is not a perfect indicator of how many children a woman will eventually have if fertility patterns are in flux – for example, if people are delaying having children.

    Picture a 20-year-old woman today, in 2025. The total fertility rate assumes she will have the same birth rate as today’s 40-year-olds when she reaches 40. That’s not likely to be the case, because birth rates 20 years from now for 40-year-olds will almost certainly be higher than they are today, as more births occur at older ages and more people are able to overcome infertility through medically assisted reproduction.

    A more nuanced picture of childbearing

    These problems with the total fertility rate are why demographers also measure how many total births women have had by the end of their reproductive years. In contrast to the total fertility rate, the average number of children ever born to women ages 40 to 44 has remained fairly stable over time, hovering around two.

    Americans continue to express favorable views toward childbearing. Ideal family size remains at two or more children, and 9 in 10 adults either have, or would like to have, children. However, many Americans are unable to reach their childbearing goals. This seems to be related to the high cost of raising children and growing uncertainty about the future.

    In other words, it doesn’t seem to be the case that birth rates are low because people are uninterested in having children; rather, it’s because they don’t feel it’s feasible for them to become parents or to have as many children as they would like.

    The challenge of predicting future population size

    Standard demographic projections do not support the idea that population size is set to shrink dramatically.

    One billion people lived on Earth 250 years ago. Today there are over 8 billion, and by 2100 the United Nations predicts there will be over 10 billion. That’s 2 billion more, not fewer, people in the foreseeable future. Admittedly, that projection is plus or minus 4 billion. But this range highlights another key point: Population projections get more uncertain the further into the future they extend.

    Predicting the population level five years from now is far more reliable than 50 years from now – and beyond 100 years, forget about it. Most population scientists avoid making such long-term projections, for the simple reason that they are usually wrong. That’s because fertility and mortality rates change over time in unpredictable ways.

    The U.S. population size is also not declining. Currently, despite fertility below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, there are still more births than deaths. The U.S. population is expected to grow by 22.6 million by 2050 and by 27.5 million by 2100, with immigration playing an important role.

    Despite a drop in fertility rates, there are still more births than deaths in the U.S.
    andresr/E+ via Getty Images

    Will low fertility cause an economic crisis?

    A common rationale for concern about low fertility is that it leads to a host of economic and labor market problems. Specifically, pronatalists argue that there will be too few workers to sustain the economy and too many older people for those workers to support. However, that is not necessarily true – and even if it were, increasing birth rates wouldn’t fix the problem.

    As fertility rates fall, the age structure of the population shifts. But a higher proportion of older adults does not necessarily mean the proportion of workers to nonworkers falls.

    For one thing, the proportion of children under age 18 in the population also declines, so the number of working-age adults – usually defined as ages 18 to 64 – often changes relatively little. And as older adults stay healthier and more active, a growing number of them are contributing to the economy. Labor force participation among Americans ages 65 to 74 increased from 21.4% in 2003 to 26.9% in 2023 — and is expected to increase to 30.4% by 2033. Modest changes in the average age of retirement or in how Social Security is funded would further reduce strains on support programs for older adults.

    What’s more, pronatalists’ core argument that a higher birth rate would increase the size of the labor force overlooks some short-term consequences. More babies means more dependents, at least until those children become old enough to enter the labor force. Children not only require expensive services such as education, but also reduce labor force participation, particularly for women. As fertility rates have fallen, women’s labor force participation rates have risen dramatically – from 34% in 1950 to 58% in 2024. Pronatalist policies that discourage women’s employment are at odds with concerns about a diminishing number of workers.

    Research shows that economic policies and labor market conditions, not demographic age structures, play the most important role in determining economic growth in advanced economies. And with rapidly changing technologies like automation and artificial intelligence, it is unclear what demand there will be for workers in the future. Moreover, immigration is a powerful – and immediate – tool for addressing labor market needs and concerns over the proportion of workers.

    Overall, there’s no evidence for Elon Musk’s assertion that “humanity is dying.” While the changes in population structure that accompany low birth rates are real, in our view the impact of these changes has been dramatically overstated. Strong investments in education and sensible economic policies can help countries successfully adapt to a new demographic reality.

    Leslie Root receives funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) for work on fertility rates.

    Karen Benjamin Guzzo has received funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in the United States.

    Shelley Clark receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. Fears that falling birth rates in US could lead to population collapse are based on faulty assumptions – https://theconversation.com/fears-that-falling-birth-rates-in-us-could-lead-to-population-collapse-are-based-on-faulty-assumptions-261031

    MIL OSI –