NewzIntel.com

Category: Reportage

  • MIL-OSI Global: What public-private-partnership scandals can tell us about wrongdoing in the water industry

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Daniel Fisher, Assistant Professor in Management, University of Sussex

    Jory Mundy/Shutterstock.com

    Water bills are going up in England and Wales, even after the series of scandals around water companies. Last year water firms paid £158 million in fines following a record-breaking number of sewage dumps in rivers and seas.

    Severn Trent Water and United Utilities alone reportedly made 1,374 illegal sewage spills over two years. (Both companies took issue with the analysis that led to this figure but acknowledged concerns about sewage discharges.)

    There have been other notable incidents. Whistleblowers have told of water companies that fail to treat legally required amounts of sewage and divert that sewage to public waterways. To add to the disgrace, water companies have generally failed to invest enough in the UK’s water infrastructure.

    Research suggests that governments have been pressured to become more “business-like”. This has given rise to the use of public-private partnerships (PPPs) to run important public services, such as water, transport and even prisons. Water companies in England and Wales are private companies that bid for their contracts, while in Scotland, the water provider is a public organisation.

    While other findings show that PPPs can support important public service needs, such as public health, research by my colleagues and I examines a consistent pattern in UK PPP scandals and wrongdoing. Over the past decade and a half, billions of pounds of taxpayers’ funds are unaccounted for. This appears to be largely because private interests have been prioritised over public needs.

    As a researcher of PPP wrongdoing, the reasons for many of the scandals seem obvious. My colleagues and I studied parliamentary inquiries and reports that have scrutinised PPP wrongdoing. This research can tell us a great deal about the UK’s predicament with regard to the failings in the water industry.

    The first lesson is that, in general, many PPPs are motivated actually to reduce the quality of the services they deliver. One parliamentary inquiry found that contracting services out from the public to the private sector had become a “transactional process” where cost-cutting is favoured and the “knock-on cost” to users results in a lower-quality public service.

    Other findings showed that companies regularly reduced the quality of a service to maximise profits. One way was to bid for a public service at a low price. A Public Accounts Committee member observed that companies coming in with low quotes for contracts can end up damaging services by under-investing in them.

    Another example is Sodexo – a private prison management provider. It cut employee numbers by around 200 and a subsequent BBC Panorama documentary detailed escapes and widespread drug use in the prisons they managed and also criticised a lack of safety for both prisoners and prison officers. Sodexo acknowledged the programme had highlighted problems and said it would investigate, but added that there had been “positive actions and improvements” already.

    Similar practices were observed at a children’s prison run by security firm G4S, where an officer was left with brain damage after an attack by inmates. G4S admitted liability for the officer’s injuries and agreed a settlement with him.

    Pay the fine, it’s cheaper

    The second lesson is it can be cost-effective to breach contracts and pay fines. Companies sometimes breach the terms of their public-private contracts because it’s in their economic interest. This even has a name – economists call it “efficiency breach”.

    For instance, a parliamentary report found that between 2010 and 2016 G4S was fined 100 times for breaching contracts – paying out roughly £3 million. As one MP suggested, these fines compared to its profits are a “slap on the wrist”. The same has been said of water companies.

    When observing the fines in comparison to the profitable contracts, it’s easy to posit what the motivations of many in the UK’s public service system are. In 2017, despite previous indictments of wrongdoing, G4S won £25 million of government contracts.

    In 2020 the firm won another £300 million contract to run Wellingborough “mega-prison” in England. Despite some raised eyebrows, G4S said at the time it aimed to make the site a blueprint for “innovation, rehabilitation and modernisation” in the prison service.

    Pay the shareholders, invest later

    The third lesson is that shareholders are more important than long-term investments in a service. This is perhaps the most notable feature of the UK’s public service system, where a vast array of shareholders benefit from the profits made by PPPs. In one of the parliamentary reports we analysed, which details the collapse of the facilities management firm Carillion, it was clear that shareholders’ interests trumped good management and long-term investment.

    As was noted in the report, despite Carillion’s collapse, the firm paid out £333 million more to shareholders than it generated in cash between 2012 and 2017. Often, this shareholder primacy can even go against a firm’s own employees rather than just the state and taxpayers. One MP noted that despite its pension scheme being in deficit, shareholders were still receiving dividends.

    Often, shareholders are prioritised because of short-term thinking. These processes can lead to firms passing these bad practices down their supply chains.

    The behaviour of water companies is suggestive of these dynamics. Since water companies have been privatised, they have loaded themselves up with debt (£64 billion) but paid out £78 billion to shareholders. Some 70% of these shareholders are “foreign investment firms, private equity, pension funds and businesses lodged in tax havens”.

    Water companies could give the UK’s rivers, estuaries and seas representation at board level.
    jimcatlinphotography.com/Shutterstock

    So what should be done? There are plenty of ways to enhance and improve the UK’s PPP problems. The most obvious may be to renationalise public services and renew the quality of public services through New Deal-style investments. After all, this is what what most of the UK electorate wants.

    There are other options. An innovative and exciting frontier is opening for businesses to recognise their environmental responsibilities – initiatives in New Zealand, India and Ecuador are giving the status of personhood to rivers and ecosystems, for example.

    Outdoor fashion brand Patagonia has “the Earth” as its only shareholder, and hair and skincare brand Faith in Nature has appointed nature to its board. Imagine if the UK’s water companies had the rivers and seas represented.

    In the end, only time will tell how water companies will be held accountable. But for the moment it’s the UK taxpayer and consumer paying the price.

    G4S was approached about this article but declined to comment.

    Daniel Fisher receives funding from the Leverhulme/British Academy for his work with heritage steam train drivers, which is unrelated to his research on PPP wrongdoing.

    – ref. What public-private-partnership scandals can tell us about wrongdoing in the water industry – https://theconversation.com/what-public-private-partnership-scandals-can-tell-us-about-wrongdoing-in-the-water-industry-249218

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the brain can miraculously switch off pain

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

    Jack FotoVerse/Shutterestock

    In the second world war, the physician Henry Beecher observed that some of his soldier patients, despite being injured on the battlefield, required no strong painkillers to manage their pain. In some cases, the injury was as severe as losing part of a limb.

    A truly remarkable phenomenon had come into play – the effects of fear, stress and emotion on the brain had switched off their pain. But how does this work – and how can we use it to our advantage?

    We all struggle with pain at times. The burning of indigestion, the wince of a scald from the kettle. The sharp stabbing of a sliced finger.

    But despite its unpleasantness, pain has a critically important purpose, designed to protect the body rather than harm it. A fundamental concept to first understand is that you do not detect pain – it is a sensation. A sensation that your brain has created – from information it receives from the countless neurons (nerve cells) which supply your skin.

    These specialised neurons are called nociceptors – they detect stimuli which are noxious, or potentially damaging to the body. This stimulation might range from a mechanical cut or crush injury, to extreme hot or cold temperatures.

    So, if you touch a hot iron, or stand on a sharp nail, the correct reaction is to move your hand or foot away from it. The brain responds to pain by initiating muscle contractions in your arm or leg. In doing so, any further damage is averted.

    The course of information, rushing along one neuron to another in a relay, is carried as electrical currents called action potentials. These begin at the skin, travel along nerve highways and into the spinal cord. When the information reaches the uppermost level of the brain – the cerebral cortex – a sensation of pain is generated.

    Blocking pain signals

    Many different factors can interfere with this transmission of information – we don’t perceive pain if the route to the cortex is blocked. Take the use of anaesthetics, for instance.

    Local anaesthetics are injected directly into the skin to deactivate nociceptors (like lidocaine) – perhaps in A+E to perform stitches. Other agents induce a loss of consciousness – these are general anaesthetics, for more extensive surgical operations.

    Pain is also a very variable experience. Commonly, we ask patients to quantify their pain by giving a value along a scale of nought to ten.
    What one person would consider a five out of ten pain, another might consider a seven – and another a two.

    Some patients are born without the ability to sense pain – this rare condition is called congenital analgesia. You might think this confers an advantage, but the truth is quite the opposite. These individuals will be unaware of circumstances where their bodies are being damaged, and can end up sustaining more profound injuries, or missing them entirely and suffering the consequences.

    How to trick your brain

    What is more extraordinary is that we all possess an innate ability to control our pain levels. In fact, a natural painkiller is found deep within the nervous system itself.

    The secret lies in a structure located in the very middle of your brain: the periaqueductal grey (PAG). This small, heart-shaped region contains neurons whose role is to alter incoming pain signals reaching the cerebral cortex. In doing so, it is able to dampen down any pain that would otherwise be experienced.

    Let’s consider this in practice using the extreme example of the battlefield. This is an instance where sensing pain might actually prove more of a hindrance than of help. It might hamper a soldier’s ability to run, or assist comrades. In temporarily numbing the pain, the soldier becomes able to escape the dangerous environment and seek refuge.

    But we encounter many examples of this ability coming into action in our everyday routines. Ever picked something in the kitchen that you suddenly realise is extremely hot? Sometimes that casserole dish or saucepan descends to the floor, but sometimes we are able to hold on just long enough to transfer it to the stove-top. This action may be underpinned by the PAG shutting off the sensation of clasping something too hot to handle, just long enough to prevent dropping it.

    The substances which generate this effect are called enkephalins. They are produced in many different areas of the brain (including the PAG) and spinal cord, and may have similar actions to strong analgesics such as morphine. It has also been suggested that long term or chronic pain – which is persistent and not useful to the body – might arise as a result of abnormalities within this natural analgesic system.

    This begs the question: how might you go about hacking your own nervous system to produce an analgesic effect?

    There is growing evidence to suggest that the release of painkilling enkephalins can be enhanced in a variety of different ways. Exercise is one example – one of the reasons why prescribed exercise might be able to work wonders for aches and pains (backache for instance) instead of popping paracetamols.

    Besides this, stressful situations, feeding and sex might also affect the activity of enkephalins and other related compounds.

    So, how could we go about it? Take up strength or endurance training? Alleviate our stress? Good food? Good sex? While more work is needed to clarify a role for these options in pain management, their reward might be greater than we thought.

    Pain remains a complex, poorly understood experience, but the future is bright. Only last month, the FDA approved the use of a new medication Journavx for managing acute pain.

    It works by switching off nociceptors in the peripheral nervous system, and therefore preventing pain signals getting to the brain. This represents a potential new breakthrough in a world which has become dependent on addictive opioid medications, such as morphine and fentanyl.

    Developing new painkilling treatments relies on the work of pain researchers to help unravel the intricate neuronal circuitry and function. There is no denying that this is going to be difficult task. But in considering the neuroscience of how our bodies generate and suppress pain, we can hope to understand how they can act as their own healers.

    Dan Baumgardt 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 the brain can miraculously switch off pain – https://theconversation.com/how-the-brain-can-miraculously-switch-off-pain-248333

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Generative AI, online platforms and compensation for content: the need for a new framework

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Thomas Paris, Associate professor, HEC Paris, researcher at CNRS, HEC Paris Business School

    The emergence of generative artificial intelligence has put the issue of compensation for content producers back on the table.

    Generative AI offers undeniable benefits but raises familiar fears tied to disruptive technologies. In the cultural and creative sectors, concerns are mounting over the potential replacement of human creators, the erosion of artistic authenticity and risks of copyright infringement. Legal battles are already emerging worldwide, with intellectual property owners and AI developers clashing over rights. Alongside these legal and ethical concerns lies the economic question: how should revenues generated by AI be fairly distributed?

    Copyright law (droits d’auteur), which is traditionally based on the reproduction or representation of specific works, may not be a fit for this question. Individual contributions to AI-generated outputs are often too complex to quantify, making it difficult to apply the principle of proportional remuneration, which holds that payment for an individual work is tied to the revenue it generates.

    An asymmetrical relationship

    The disputes surrounding generative AI echo long-standing tensions between digital platforms and content creators. Platforms such as Spotify, YouTube and TikTok dominate the music industry; Netflix and Apple lead in film and television; Steam in gaming; and Google and Meta in news media.

    These platforms wield enormous power in reshaping industries, influencing consumption patterns and establishing new power dynamics. On the one hand, they amplify the reach of creative works, but on the other, they rely on an inherently unequal relationship. For example, if Spotify removes a song, the artist’s reach and revenue may decline sharply, but Spotify itself is unlikely to suffer significant consequences–perhaps losing a few subscribers to competitors, at most.

    A Nobel Prize for platform economics

    The economics of digital platforms have been widely studied. This includes platforms’ two-sided market structure–a concept for which economist Jean Tirole won a Nobel prize in 2014. In this model, platforms act as intermediaries between two groups that benefit from each other: the more content a platform offers, the larger its audience grows, and the larger audience, in turn, attracts more content creators. This dynamic often leads to market concentration, and to platform strategies that subsidise one side to grow the other.

    However, most research in this area has not fully addressed the complexities of platforms’ relationships with different types of content. High-value “premium” content, such as live sporting events, holds a singular status compared to more common offerings. These distinctions are often overlooked, particularly when assessing the value different types of content bring to a platform’s economy.

    This question of value is central to the conflicts between platforms and content providers, as well as the emerging disputes between AI operators and content owners. The disputes underscore the need for a new framework, as traditional tools are proving inadequate for addressing these complex issues.

    The challenge of valuing content

    The news industry provides a clear example of the complex relationship between platforms and content providers. News publishers worldwide have long sought compensation from platforms such as Google and Meta for featuring their content. Google, for instance, indexes news articles alongside other types of content to enhance search relevance and platform value. However, the exact contribution of news content to Google’s business model is difficult to determine due to its layered, interconnected nature.

    Google’s ecosystem relies on indexing vast amounts of content, some of which is ad-supported, while other elements–such as Google News–do not generate direct revenue. Additionally, data collected across Google’s services improve ad targeting and search accuracy, further complicating efforts to isolate the value of specific content.

    Depending on user behaviour, content may either appear as a hypertext link directing users to the original publisher, or as a summary that keeps users within Google’s environment. In cases where users stay on Google, the platform effectively acts as a content provider, displaying excerpts in a crowded layout in which individual contributions are unclear. When users click through, Google serves as a traffic driver, sending readers to the publisher’s site. As a recommender, Google adds value to content; as a content provider, it extracts value from it. This dual role blurs the lines of compensation and also complicates efforts to determine how much an individual piece of content contributes to a platform’s overall success.

    A new paradigm

    Print media has been particularly affected by the rise of digital platforms, which profit significantly from news content. Disputes over how to measure the value of individual articles or publishers to platforms such as Google and Meta remain unresolved.

    These conflicts vary by country, with outcomes influenced by legal jurisdictions, power dynamics and negotiations. Some agreements are struck only to be later challenged, while in other cases, platforms respond by removing news content altogether. Courts often avoid setting explicit guidelines on revenue sharing, leaving many questions unanswered.

    This uncertainty reflects a broader shift. In the platform economy, individual content, or even entire categories of content, no longer has a clear, measurable contribution to overall value. Given the importance of platforms in the economies of cultural industries, developing a new framework to address these complexities is increasingly urgent.

    We were consulted on an occasional basis, in the context of a case mentioned, by a lawyer for one of the parties.

    – ref. Generative AI, online platforms and compensation for content: the need for a new framework – https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-online-platforms-and-compensation-for-content-the-need-for-a-new-framework-242847

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan influenced today’s multi-sensory museums

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Gary A Genosko, Professor of Communication and Digital Media, Ontario Tech University

    In recent decades, museums and galleries have made a sensory turn when it comes to designing displays and engaging visitors.

    Museums like the Metropolitan in New York offer multi-sensory activities so visitors so can smell, touch and hear art, and museums have curated exhibitions about the senses.
    The move is part of larger efforts to make public institutions more accessible.

    It’s also aligned with museum and gallery institutional efforts to decolonize governance structures, and widen opportunities for museum and gallery participation from Indigenous and Global South artists and their communities, who have long been marginalized. Museums and galleries have sought to shape policy, reinterpret and repatriate artifacts stolen from Indigenous and Global South societies in response to social movements, community advocacy and decolonial theory.



    Read more:
    How an African collection of art in Canada is celebrated with care and community

    Thinkers like Taiaiake Alfred have written about Indigenous cultural resurgence and resistance to colonialism, and shaped a questioning of curatorial practices.

    As anthropologist David Howes argues, museums’ questioning of traditional forms of museum display and visitor engagement is aligned with the kind of re-ordering traditionally associated with unsettling colonial regimes.

    In my forthcoming study, Harley Parker: The McLuhan of the Museum, I examine the influence of exhibition designer and painter Harley Parker (1915-92) on this “sensory turn” in museum curatorial practices.

    Parker was head of design at the Royal Ontario Museum for 11 years from 1957-68. By applying media theorist and philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s ideas to museums, Parker created what has become known as “multi-sensory museology.” It is only beginning to be recognized as a precursor to the sensory museology in practice today.

    Head of design at the ROM

    Beyond being head of design at the ROM, Parker was an influential media thinker and a longtime collaborator of McLuhan’s.

    Parker’s name is not yet well known. One reason is that his book manuscript, The Culture Box: Museums Are Today, was lost for almost 50 years.

    Working with Parker’s children, I uncovered a typescript and will be bringing it into print. Retitled The Culture Box: Museums as Media, it contains detailed discussions of how Parker conceived of exhibition display through the lens of McLuhan’s idea that all media were sensory extensions of human capacities.

    Multisensory design

    For Parker, the museum became a laboratory in which a designer could experiment with multi-sensory exhibition designs. These reflected McLuhan’s claim that new electronic media supplanted an older visually oriented linear model with a non-linear, aural-tactile environment.

    Getting beyond the close link between visibility and linear thinking was one of main pillars of Parker’s efforts.

    Between 1963 and 1967, Parker was considering designing with alternative orchestrations of perception, especially with regard to displays of Indigenous artifacts. He didn’t, however, achieve a fusion of what current sensory studies scholars call “sensory decolonization.”

    In museums, “sensory decolonization” refers to shifting sensory and cultural perceptions around the meaning of “artifacts” from Indigenous or Global South communities. It means revisiting assumptions about protocols for engaging with or handling these, and developing new ethical protocols in relationship with communities.

    Parker investigated the necessity of changing sensory assumptions around the display of artifacts, but lacked a decolonial critique.

    Hypothetical exhibits

    In the early 1960s, Parker published essays on hypothetical exhibits of Indigenous artefacts in the museum’s holdings.

    He considered using recordings of Indigenous languages, visitor-controlled heating, cooling and lighting, odours, as well as multi-media projections. He tried to provoke, through design, some empathetic correlation between the mental modes of a contemporary museum visitor and the sensory attitudes of an Indigenous maker and creator of objects.



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

    He linked the reordering of the senses with calls for greater community involvement in museums. He also expressed frustration about museum elitism and the gulf between philanthropic culture and visitors’ concerns.

    Reflecting on chronology of change

    Since Parker’s time, there has been a concerted effort in Canada to decolonize and Indigenize museums. In 1994, the joint Task Force on Museums and First Peoples by the Assembly of First Nations and Canadian Museums Association sought greater input by Indigenous Peoples.

    The Canadian Museum Association has recently adopted new standards of practice in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations.

    Nevertheless, change has been slow and uneven; some exhibits have made strides by paying close attention to cultural values and sensory worlds of Indigenous societies.

    Parker’s role as a designer precursor can be newly integrated into the existing accounts of when this kind of change began to unfold.

    Parker’s ‘newseum’

    Parker developed a vanguard idea: build what he called a “newseum” where multimedia and multi-sensory exhibitions would take place.

    This is not about educating people about a free press (like the former American Newseum). Rather, Parker’s newseum imagined exhibition centres adjacent to large, prestige museums. These would utilize museum artifacts and materials to mount topical displays based on discoveries, advances or events.

    Such displays would be community-driven and participatory. The buildings themselves would be flexible, inside and out. They would have three wings: a current topical public exhibition; an exhibition in process; and a preparatory area for gathering materials for a new exhibition.

    In The Culture Box Parker asked us to think about museums beside the box in terms of “process” over “product,” inspired by McLuhan. It was Parker’s goal to get the museum out of the museum and to get relevant communities into this displaced museum as full participants bearing important expertise.

    Parker experimented with galleries inside existing museum spaces at the ROM and the Museum of the City of New York to reorient visitors’ perception, but Parker’s newseum was never realized.

    Revisiting Parker today

    Today, revisiting a Parker-influenced newseum could further collaboration with Indigenous curators and cultural experts.

    A newseum concept might help address the concerns of the Indigenous arts community and the discomforts of some museum directors with the task of “de-building.”

    We can look back at Parker’s tentative efforts and recognize that his hypothetical galleries were never constructed.

    Together with his unbuilt newseum, they await development for newly remodelled museum galleries flexibly built, bearing in mind his contributing ideas about multimedia and multi-sensory spaces. These could be attuned to the most topical concerns of our time, and the ethical purpose of decolonization and Indigenization, with the full range of available digital technologies.

    Gary A Genosko 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 Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan influenced today’s multi-sensory museums – https://theconversation.com/how-canadian-philosopher-marshall-mcluhan-influenced-todays-multi-sensory-museums-248097

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Lawlessness and disorder: The hypocrisy of Donald Trump’s exile threats after the Jan. 6 pardons

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ako Ufodike, Associate Professor, Administrative Studies, York University, Canada

    In 2020, in response to the riots that followed the murder of 46-year-old Black man George Floyd, Donald Trump declared himself the “president of law and order.” During the same speech, he threatened to use the military to suppress the civil unrest that erupted after a police officer killed Floyd.

    One American pundit argued that Trump was “tapping into a long history of presidents leaning on the idea of strict adherence to the rule of law to squelch civil disobedience, often by minority communities in the country.”

    His fixation continues in his second presidency. A convicted felon himself, Trump recently proposed a plan to exile Americans who are repeat offenders. Notably, America has never used exile as a form of punishment.

    Trump stated:

    “We’re going to get approval, hopefully, to get them the hell out of our country, along with others. Let them be brought to a foreign land and maintained by others for a very small fee, as opposed to being maintained in our jails for massive amounts of money.”

    The history of exile

    I’m a scholar in public policy administration, law and ethics. Trump’s exile proposals in the wake of his pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters reveal significant ethical lapses.



    Read more:
    U.S. election results may suggest ethics no longer matter … just like in Canada

    In the modern era, exile is regarded as problematic. But in ancient times, like during the Roman Empire, voluntary exile was an alternative to capital punishment, underscoring its severity.

    When the poet Ovid was exiled to Tomis (now Constanța, Romania), he described his experience as a “a living death.”

    Similarly, in England, James II, a Catholic king, was the last monarch involuntarily removed from power during the Glorious Revolution. Jacobitism, the political movement aimed at restoring James and his descendants to the throne, stemmed from his exile.

    Given this history, it’s not surprising that Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile.”

    In modern times, people who go into exile are typically deposed heads of state like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, those avoiding legal issues such as Julian Assange or Asil Nadir, or those escaping violence or persecution, such as Salman Rushdie.

    Trump, who has initiated the largest and most ambitious removal program of undocumented migrants in America history, has made clear he wants to treat violent repeat American offenders no differently than violent immigrant offenders:

    “I don’t want these violent repeat offenders in our country any more than I want illegal aliens from other countries who misbehave,” he said.

    The Jan. 6 pardons

    Trump’s stance as a “law and order” president is contradictory and hypocritical given his pardons of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters on his first day back in the Oval Office.

    The pardons drew unanimous criticism from Democrats and some Republican lawmakers, including senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.

    Even Vice President J.D. Vance has said any Jan. 6 rioters convicted of violent offences should “obviously” not be pardoned.



    Read more:
    By inciting Capitol mob, Trump pushes U.S. closer to a banana republic

    The law enforcement community — the actual front line of law and order — also expressed outrage at the pardons, and experts worry the move could embolden extremists to lawlessness and disorder rather than Trump’s supposedly preferred state of law and order.

    Polls reveal that two-thirds of Americans — across party lines — also opposed pardoning Jan. 6 rioters who committed violent crimes.

    More than 600 — or approximately one-third — of the defendants charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection faced accusations of assaulting or interfering with law enforcement officers. Of the 174 charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon, 169 of them eventually pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.

    Other charges included trespassing, disrupting Congress, theft, weapons offences, making threats and conspiracy, including seditious conspiracy — the most serious offence.

    Violent protesters, loyal to then-President Donald Trump, storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
    (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

    Repeat offenders

    A bipartisan Senate report linked nine deaths to the Jan. 6 raid on the Capitol, including four police suicides in the aftermath and two riot participants who died at the event.

    Unlike those whose Black Lives Matter protests Trump found disorderly back in 2020, the vast majority of the Jan. 6 convicts are not from racialized communities.

    Dozens of the Jan. 6 rioters also had prior convictions or pending charges, including child abuse, child pornography, predatory criminal assault of a child, rape, drug trafficking, assault with a deadly weapon, possession of controlled substances, battery, criminal confinement and manslaughter. Peter Schwartz, one of rioters, has a record 38 prior convictions going back to 1991.

    The irony of Trump’s position on pardons, repeat offenders and exiles is apparent. The very people he pardoned are now potential candidates for his proposed exile program due to their repeat offender status.

    Daniel Ball, a pardoned rioter, was arrested for federal gun charges a day after his pardon. The charges predated the riots.

    Matthew Huttle of Indiana, another Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump, was killed three weeks after his release while resisting arrest and in possession of a firearm. His uncle, Dale Huttle, also pardoned, has no regrets about participating in the riot, stating: “I’m not ashamed of being there. It was our duty as patriots.”

    Similarly, Enrique Tarrio, who received a 22-year prison sentence for his role in the riots, declared after his pardon: “It’s going to be retribution.”

    He expressed a desire for vengeance against those who investigated and prosecuted him, stating: “Now it’s our turn. The people who did this, they need to feel the heat.” These three examples all occurred in the seven days following the pardons.

    Karma in terms of Trump’s exile proposals may be awaiting the pardoned rioters, however, amid this pattern of defiance. Their emboldened sentiments following Trump’s pardons could suggest they’re at a higher risk of becoming repeat offenders, making them prime candidates for the president’s proposed exile program — that is, of course, unless he pardons them again.

    Ako Ufodike receives funding from SSHRC.

    – ref. Lawlessness and disorder: The hypocrisy of Donald Trump’s exile threats after the Jan. 6 pardons – https://theconversation.com/lawlessness-and-disorder-the-hypocrisy-of-donald-trumps-exile-threats-after-the-jan-6-pardons-248738

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Healthcare in Africa on brink of crisis as US exits WHO and USAid freezes funds: health scholar explains why

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Catherine Kyobutungi, Executive Director, African Population and Health Research Center

    US president Donald Trump has taken a series of decisions that have delivered body blows to the global management of health. He has announced that the US will leave the World Health Organization. And a 90-day freeze has been placed on money distributed by the US Agency for International Development (USAid) pending a review by the US State Department. This includes funds for the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar). The decisions have triggered alarm in the global health sector.

    Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, outlines which countries are most at risk and which health programmes will suffer the most damage.

    What does the US exit mean for Africa?

    The US exit from the WHO and the freeze announced on USAid funding are devastating moves that will have drastic effects on the health of millions of people in Africa.

    The US is by far the WHO’s largest state donor, contributing approximately 18% of the agency’s total funding.

    US development aid is used to run large-scale health programmes on the continent. For example, Nigeria received approximately US$600 million in health assistance from the US, over 21% of the 2023 health budget.

    The WHO is a global health body that synthesises scientific research and develops guidelines that countries in Africa rely on to shape their own policies and practices.

    The biggest loss for Africa under the USAID umbrella will be funding for Pepfar, which is used for HIV-related programmes including prevention, testing and treatment. Through Pepfar, the US government has invested over US$110 billion in the global HIV/Aids response.



    Read more:
    WHO in Africa: three ways the continent stands to lose from Trump’s decision to pull out

    What’s going to be lost?

    A range of capabilities.

    Firstly, technical guidance. The WHO provides technical guidance to countries on issues ranging from TB management to cost-effective malaria control.

    Secondly, the ability to mobilise resources. The WHO has the mandate and mechanisms to assemble experts from across the globe to evaluate new therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. They can evaluate new evidence on emerging patterns of new bugs, resistance to current treatments, and so on.

    Thirdly, the WHO has tools and mechanisms that have been key to African countries’ health policy decisions. These include:

    • the WHO’s list of Essential Medicines to inform decision-making on critical drugs

    • a similar mechanism to evaluate new vaccines, resulting in guidance that makes regulatory approval faster and easier in African countries which don’t have strong systems.

    Fourth, the WHO also provides resources for emergency response, as in the event of disease outbreaks such as Ebola and COVID-19. The WHO is able to quickly mobilise experts and funds and to coordinate emergency responses.

    Fifth, the WHO provides evidence-informed guidelines. It does this by gathering and sharing information like the causes of outbreaks, while monitoring signals of potential outbreaks and coordinating efforts to develop new technologies, such as vaccines and medical devices.

    Sixth, the WHO’s ability to support critical programmes in tuberculosis prevention and emergency response will be reduced.

    Seventh, the withdrawal of US citizens working in these global agencies – and the orders to stop sharing data – mean the US is essentially excluded from global information-sharing mechanisms that keep us all safe. It will be harder to share information about emerging health threats in the US with the rest of the world and vice versa.

    Which countries will be most affected?

    Many African countries are heavily reliant on the support provided by Pepfar and USAID to fund programmes in the health sector and for humanitarian assistance.

    Countries which will be most affected are those with a high burden of HIV, TB and malaria and those with large populations of refugee and internally displaced people.

    Currently the top eight USAid recipients in Africa are: Nigeria, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Kenya, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    Without funds being rapidly mobilised to fill the gap left by the US withdrawal, the effect on the health of millions of Africans is at stake. Failure to prevent new infections, and the threat of drug resistance developing because of disrupted treatment, will have far-reaching consequences.

    In Uganda, where about 1.4 million people are living with HIV/Aids, 60% of the spending on its HIV/Aids programme was from Pepfar, and about 20% from the Global Fund (partly funded from Pepfar).

    A drastic reduction in funding will be devastating for patients and the greater health system.

    The Pepfar programme, a lifeline for millions of Africans, has been under threat since before the most recent aid freeze. In 2024, the American congress only gave a one-year authorisation instead of the typical five-year funding authorisation.

    A conservative backlash against this programme has been growing for years with concerns that some funds may be used to fund abortion. The current authorisation expires in March 2025 and falls within the 90-day aid review period. With the current approval expiring next month, and in light of the current atmosphere, it is very likely that it may not be renewed.



    Read more:
    How US policy on abortion affects women in Africa

    What steps should African countries be taking?

    There has a been a lot of discussion around jobs and lives lost, but not much around what happens next: how African governments are planning on mitigating shortfalls in their health budget in the short term and foreseeable future.

    Therefore we need to ask our governments what that means for us and how they are planning to ensure that we do not reverse the gains made so far. This includes preventing millions of HIV infections, improved testing and provision of life-saving antiretroviral treatment.

    The sudden and drastic decisions taken by the Trump administration have been hailed by several commentators as the wake-up call the continent needs – to wean itself off dependency on a flawed “development aid” system that is admittedly a tool for geopolitical influence.



    Read more:
    US health funding cuts: what Nigeria stands to lose

    The disbelief and chaos in the global health sector should be rapidly mobilised into citizen action, for governments to invest in a critical sector that has depended on foreign assistance for too long. In the absence of sustained investment, the gains in the health sector may be lost, reversing decades of progress in global health.

    Lastly, Africans, especially scientists and academics, need to stand up to the worrying anti-science trend that underlies some of these drastic policies. The growing mistrust in science and scientific institutions will not abate unless it is challenged.

    It is ridiculous that a continent of 1.3 billion people is reliant on the whims of one man many kilometres away; on his signature on a single document.

    The world needs to wake up. We need to wake up.

    Catherine Kyobutungi works for the African Population and Health Research Center which receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, Wellcome, and the Gates Foundation

    – ref. Healthcare in Africa on brink of crisis as US exits WHO and USAid freezes funds: health scholar explains why – https://theconversation.com/healthcare-in-africa-on-brink-of-crisis-as-us-exits-who-and-usaid-freezes-funds-health-scholar-explains-why-248906

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Central African Republic: listening to people’s stories about foreign forces could help bring peace

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tim Glawion, Senior research fellow at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, Freiburg, Germany, University of Freiburg

    Since it became independent in 1960, the Central African Republic has grappled with poverty, instability and governance challenges.

    A decade into former president François Bozizé’s corrupt rule, a rebellion broke out and toppled the president in 2013. What followed was a devastatingly violent civil war with thousands of people killed and a fifth of the populace displaced.

    To halt violence against civilians, numerous international actors intervened, including the African Union, the United Nations, the European Union and France. From 2014 onward they put thousands of boots on the ground and pushed rebels from most towns, while protecting and supporting the interim administration.

    But by 2016 all actors had retreated, save the United Nations (UN). The mission – Minusca – was not able to contain a resurgence in rebellion, and the newly elected president Faustin-Archange Touadéra turned to Russian paramilitaries to stabilise his rule in 2017.

    These paramilitaries started out only as “trainers” but took on more prominent and direct combat roles as the years passed, making the country a geopolitical playing field. The Russian paramilitaries and national army again pushed the rebels out of most towns and into the countryside.

    I have studied the Central African Republic’s politics for over a decade, conducting research in towns across the country. I wanted to find out why some areas were more affected by violence than others and how people locally lived together. I believed that in such local stories we might find missing links as to why all the actors involved failed to provide the protection from violence and provision of services that people desired.

    To study people’s expectations of peacekeepers, I used a method I call the “qualitative” survey. This type of survey asks open questions, for example “what do you expect of international actors?”. This leaves space for people to say things that researchers might not have expected. It also included more typical closed questions like “how safe do you feel, on a scale from 1 to 5?”.

    With a team of Central African researchers, I conducted these surveys in four places in 2019 and in two places in 2023 and 2024. At this stage respondents had experienced foreign peacekeeping missions and Russian paramilitary presence.

    We found that peacekeeping missions were losing popular support because they were not fulfilling the expectations of people in the Central African Republic.

    People wanted peacekeepers to confront armed actors. When peacekeepers failed to do so, they criticised them, even requested them to leave.

    Russian paramilitaries offered the forceful response that autocratic regimes and many locals wanted. However, they provided a too simplistic answer to people’s demands, based only on the present. People also had future expectations: they wanted armed actors to be kicked out so that people might be treated fairly and witness the return of a caring state in the near future.

    Thus, while peacekeepers frustrated initial expectations and Russian paramilitaries might fulfil them, the Central African state and their Russian paramilitary allies were not building the future people expected.

    Expectations

    The overall results of the survey showed that people had the most confidence in local institutions, while harbouring high expectations for the state (when it returns), and being broadly disappointed by international peacekeepers.

    The results varied strongly according to local experiences with the state and international actors. Most intriguingly, respondents did not necessarily feel safest in those localities that had the fewest violent incidents. I call this the “security paradox” and it has much to do with unmet expectations for which we need to dig into individual responses.

    Take the example of a middle-aged woman in the Central African Republic’s north-eastern and long rebel-held town of Ndélé, who made two points in early 2019. First, the United Nations peacekeeping mission, Minusca, was inactive in the face of aggression. Second, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were doing a good job:

    Partner organisations such as Minusca who reside among our population do not seem to be there to ensure our protection, as we hear on the radio. A person may well be raped, and they do not even react to rescue the person in danger, even if they know about it. On the other hand, the NGOs are doing a very good job, and it is thanks to them that Ndélé is doing well today.

    However, my own analysis showed that, objectively speaking, both peacekeepers and aid organisations were doing a mediocre job. Under the peacekeepers’ watch few violent incidents occurred and the aid organisations were only covering a fraction of local needs, much less than in other studied localities.

    The difference in perception, I argue, stems from the fact that local people have certain expectations for security and different expectations for service provision in the Central African Republic.

    Security in the Central African Republic is marked by an abundance of armed groups threatening people’s livelihoods. Dozens are currently active, of which a handful have been roaming for more than a decade, controlling trade routes and resources, as well as wielding local political power.

    Services like schooling, health and electricity are almost entirely absent in many areas outside the capital; not even the state provides them.

    Thus, in the security sector, people expect confrontation of armed actors by either the UN peacekeeping mission or the Russian paramilitary, whereas in services they want NGOs to substitute for government failings. Or in the words of an Ndélé trader:

    The international actors can help us during these absences of state authority.

    However, Minusca was not ready to forcefully oppose armed actors as they pursued an approach based on negotiating peace agreements and pursuing voluntary integration or disarmament. What my study shows is that doing too little in the eyes of the population can quickly turn the rumour mill, as this woman in Ndélé suggested:

    As for Minusca, we do not see its work in favour of our well-being, and we even want it to leave since we have seen that it is the cause of our current division and suffering.

    But would confrontation have brought more popular support to Minusca? Well, it did to another actor that stepped in, as a national staffer of an aid organisation stated in early 2022 in Bambari:

    Minusca patrols do not have the confidence of the population. Because in front of Minusca forces, the rebels kill the population. For seven years, Minusca was unable to secure the town. Within minutes, the Central African Armed Forces and their Russian allies managed to dislodge them from the town of Bambari, which is now secure.

    Reality

    I did not judge whether people’s expectations of interventions were realistic.

    Given the state’s history in the Central African Republic, it was surprising how many people wanted a state and army to return.

    However, people were hoping for a “benevolent” state return. This has not happened.

    And as for the Russian “allies”, as they are called in the Central African Republic: their confrontational approach has caused heavy collateral damage and has failed to stabilise former rebel areas. Rebellion is again on the rise.

    My study shows how important it is to analyse expectations in-depth, and to take them as a starting point of intervention policy. Not understanding people’s expectations is what caught peacekeepers by surprise when people started demonstrating in front of their bases and even calling for their withdrawal.

    While there might be good reasons not to pursue a forceful approach against rebels, interveners must be aware that they thereby deceive public expectations and should thus proactively listen to and engage the population about their demands.

    The dilemma is that fulfilling people’s initial expectations does not automatically lead to the future they desire. So there must be difficult and open discussions about what is and what is not feasible in peacekeeping.

    Tim Glawion receives funding from the public German Science Foundation (DFG, project number: 437386574).

    – ref. Central African Republic: listening to people’s stories about foreign forces could help bring peace – https://theconversation.com/central-african-republic-listening-to-peoples-stories-about-foreign-forces-could-help-bring-peace-247834

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Power vacuum in west Africa’s Sahel: 3 ways China could fill the gap as west exits

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Abdul-Gafar Tobi Oshodi, Faculty member, Department of Political Science, Lagos State University

    With France fast losing its influence in west Africa’s Sahel region and an unpredictable US president in power, will China fill the vacuum?

    The Sahel region covers 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.

    French troops have been expelled from three of these – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – after military coups. Chad, Senegal and Ivory Coast have also expelled French troops. The troops were there because of the security threat from extremist groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province.

    Niger also ended an agreement to keep about 1,000 US troops involved in a counter-terrorism mission. Niger’s military government described the US as having a “condescending attitude”.

    While it has been rightly argued that the presence of the western powers did not resolve the security challenges of the region, their withdrawal creates a vacuum.

    I am a political science and international relations researcher who has been studying China-Africa relations for over a decade.

    I argue that Beijing could take advantage of the vacuum in the Sahel in at least three ways: expansion of investments in critical minerals; resolution of the Ecowas crisis (when Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali exited the regional bloc); and increased arms sales.

    This is especially so as China is not new to the Sahel region of west Africa. For instance, China is constructing a US$32 million headquarters for Ecowas in Abuja, Nigeria.

    Three ways China could benefit

    First, China could expand its influence – and the next four years hold enormous opportunities in this regard.

    US president Donald Trump’s likely transactional and unpredictable approach to international relations may force African countries to look to China. For instance, they may need China to help fill the void created by the US decision to dismantle USAID and freeze international development aid.

    Nigeria joined Brics as a partner country a few days before the inauguration of Trump. Brics is a group of emerging economies determined to act as a counterweight to the west and to whittle down the influence of global institutions. It was established in 2006 and initially composed of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. This decision by the largest economy in the Sahel is an expression of its commitment to China – with potential implications for other Sahelian countries.

    The vacuum offers Beijing the opportunity to strengthen its investment and position as a top beneficiary of the critical minerals, such as gold, copper, lithium and uranium, in the Sahel region.

    In 2024, west African gold production was estimated to be 11.83 million ounces. Ghana, Burkina Faso, the Republic of Guinea and Mali were the major contributors.

    Second, China is in a unique position to push for a resolution of the Ecowas crisis.

    Following military coups, the Ecowas regional economic bloc sanctioned Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Ecowas even threatened Niger with a military invasion. The three countries then decided to leave Ecowas to form the Alliance of Sahel States.

    As a neutral actor whose non-interference policy accommodates both civil and military regimes, Beijing is in a position to bring Ecowas and the Alliance of Sahel States into negotiation before the final departure date of 29 July 2025.

    If it succeeds, China would look more like a peaceful power, an image that is contested by others.

    Building on its soft power projects like the Confucius Institutes and scholarships, China would look like the “saviour” of Ecowas integration.

    This is what it did in the case of the Tazara railway project, where China supported Tanzania and Zambia to build a railway line together. It supported the African countries when the US and Europe had failed, were reluctant or were not interested.

    Third is Chinese arms sales.

    Chinese arms are already in the Sahel. In 2019, Nigeria signed a US$152 million contract with the China North Industries Corporation Limited (Norinco) to provide some of the weapons needed to fight the Boko Haram terror group. Since then, Chinese drones and other equipment have become a feature in Nigeria’s counter-terrorism response.

    The Chinese arms market could receive a major boost beyond Nigeria with the withdrawal of western countries from the Sahel. Western countries are likely to be reluctant to sell arms to the countries that have evicted their military.

    Sanctions on Russia have also increased the likelihood of Chinese arms in the Sahel.

    For example, a few months after France and the US left the region, some reports suggested that Russian mercenaries in the Sahel region were using Chinese weapons. Norinco – China’s top arms manufacturer and seventh largest arms supplier in the world – has opened sales offices in Nigeria and Senegal.

    In June 2024, Burkina Faso received 100 tanks from China. Three months after, Mali signed an agreement with Norinco to bolster its fight against terrorism.

    Bumpy road ahead

    China’s non-interference can accommodate both civil and military governments in the Sahel. This is an advantage for Beijing in some ways. But it could also have unexpected impacts.

    There are competing local interests in the Sahel and Beijing’s deepening involvement could be (mis)interpreted as supporting one over the other.

    This could make Chinese interests a target in the violence.

    It is also unclear if China is capable or willing to fill the vacuum created by the evicted western powers. But it looks as though China can benefit from the situation in the Sahel in the short term.

    Abdul-Gafar Tobi Oshodi has previously received research funding or travel support from organisations like the KU Leuven, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Lagos State University, Chatham House (i.e. Robert Bosch Stiftung), Centre for Population and Environmental Development (CPED), Think Tank Initiative, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Coimbra Group Scholarship Programme, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TetFund), Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF), American Council of Learned Societies’ African Humanities Program (ACLS-AHP), Merian Institute of Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), Development Studies Association (DSA) UK, Collective for the Renewal of Africa (CORA), Ford Foundation, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), and Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS). However, I must clearly and strongly state that none of these funders have at any time sought to influence or influenced my writings or public engagement. Thus, this article is one of my many expressions of my academic freedom.

    – ref. Power vacuum in west Africa’s Sahel: 3 ways China could fill the gap as west exits – https://theconversation.com/power-vacuum-in-west-africas-sahel-3-ways-china-could-fill-the-gap-as-west-exits-248353

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the human neck became a locus of power, beauty and frailty

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kent Dunlap, Professor of Biology, Trinity College

    Jack Lemmon kisses Lee Remick’s neck in a scene from the 1962 film ‘Days Of Wine And Roses.’ Warner Brothers/Getty Images

    I broke its neck.

    When making a vase at the potter’s wheel, I torqued its slippery neck clear off the pot as I tried to thin it into a graceful curve.

    I find vases gratifying to make and their shapes especially pleasing to the eye. But vases also must be handled with particular care because one part of their “body” – the neck – is often so narrow that it can be easily broken.

    That day at the wheel, I realized that it was not unlike the human neck. Though only a small portion of the human body – about 1% by surface area – our necks have an outsize influence on our psyche and culture.

    From selfies to formal portraits, the neck positions the head in expressive poses. The neck’s vocal cords vibrate to make meaningful words and moving songs. We passionately kiss it and spritz it with alluring perfume. We use it to nod our head in agreement, tilt our head in confusion and bow our head in prayer.

    Ornaments such as necklaces can express fashion sense as well as signal wealth and status. Collars can accent the face in portraits as well as denote occupational class, blue collar versus white collar.

    Yet, for all its aesthetic and expressive potency, the neck is also a site of fear and deep vulnerability. Villains and vampires zero in on the neck. Stressful days at work make us clench our neck muscles until they ache. A pleasant meal can be jolted into terror if a morsel slips into the wrong tube in the neck, sending us into a coughing fit.

    For millennia, people in power have oppressed their subjects by exploiting the narrowness and fragility of the neck – a dark history of dominating and terrorizing one another using shackles, nooses and guillotines. The widely circulated video of George Floyd’s murder was a brutal reminder that violent asphyxiation is hardly confined to the distant past.

    As I became aware of the significance of the neck in culture, I began to explore how these two attributes – its expressive vitality and unnerving vulnerability – could coexist and be concentrated so intensely in one small region of the body. Eventually, it became a book.

    I am foremost a biologist, and in writing my book, I came to see that the neck’s vitality and vulnerability are rooted in its biology: The neck performs an especially wide variety of crucial functions, and it is the product of a quirky evolutionary history.

    The neck does so many things, all at the same time. For example, it transports over 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) of blood, air and food between the head and the torso every single day. It moves the head every six seconds on average to direct our visual attention. Its vocal cords vibrate hundreds of times per second with every spoken word.

    But this multifunctionality, this vitality, is possible only because of its vulnerability. To be mobile and flexible, the neck must be narrow, and so it is easily strained. Its crucial transport tubes – the windpipe, esophagus and blood vessels – must also be thin and near the surface, making them easily punctured and compressed.

    From water to land

    Our vertebrate ancestors “invented” this peculiar contraption as they evolved from water to land.

    Our fish ancestors had no neck because they needed a single rigid axis to move efficiently through water. Since moving around on land did not require a stiff spinal column, early terrestrial vertebrates evolved flexibility just behind the head, enabling them to widely scan the environment and to direct their mouths toward prey without moving their whole bodies. Picture a zebra swinging its head side to side surveying the savanna for predators, or a lizard tilting its head down and to the side to snap up a crawling bug.

    ‘American Flamingo’ by Robert Havell and John James Audubon, 1838.
    National Gallery of Art

    Early land vertebrates also evolved lungs, and this transformation freed up the gill structures that fish used for breathing to evolve into various useful – and sometimes problematic – neck structures, such as the voice box, tonsils and the little flap that separates the windpipe and esophagus.

    This repurposing of scraps left over from the gills of our distant ancestors contributed to the diverse capacities of our neck. But as products of a quirky evolutionary “renovation,” humans and other land vertebrates live with a jerry-rigged design that fates us to carry many collateral vulnerabilities at the neck.

    The peculiar human neck

    While the human neck retains the basic design of our ancestors, it’s nonetheless quite unusual among vertebrates.

    Most land vertebrates elevate their bodies on four legs, so their necks must be long enough to lower their heads to the ground to feed and strong enough to raise it up high to look around. Again, think of a zebra feeding on the savanna.

    Because humans walk on two legs, we balance our head atop our spine. Since we use our hands to grab our food, we don’t need strong neck muscles to move the head around. So, compared with most mammals our size, our necks are relatively weak, making them more prone to strain and injury.

    As another milestone in human evolution, the voice box migrated to a relatively low position in the neck, and this unusual placement contributes to our capacity to make an especially broad range of vocal sounds that we use for speech. However, this descent of the voice box within the throat also makes us more susceptible to choking and sleep apnea.

    The neck epitomizes the dual nature of the human condition, the ways in which beauty and frailty are often entwined, two sides of the same coin in our biology, in our relationships – and, yes, even in ceramic vases.

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

    – ref. How the human neck became a locus of power, beauty and frailty – https://theconversation.com/how-the-human-neck-became-a-locus-of-power-beauty-and-frailty-238672

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: A boycott campaign fuels tension between Black shoppers and Black-owned brands – evoking the long struggle for ‘consumer citizenship’

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Timeka N. Tounsel, Associate Professor of Black Studies in Communication, University of Washington

    Some Black consumers may be breaking up with Target this February.

    It all started late last month, when the retailer announced that it was ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The move drew widespread rebuke from social justice organizers, including New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant. Although Target said one set of its racial-equity initiatives had already been scheduled to conclude, the timing was notable: The move came just days after the White House called for a federal DEI ban, and as several other companies took similar actions.

    Beyond renaming its “supplier diversity” team – now called “supplier engagement” – and ending “diversity-focused surveys,” Target hasn’t said what the change will mean for the many Black entrepreneurs who sell everything from coffee to sunscreen on its shelves. The webpage for the retailer’s Black Beyond Measure initiative, which highlights dozens of Black-founded brands and connects business owners to a program designed to “democratize access to retail education,” remains active.

    But Target’s critics, including Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, view the move as a surrender to the new presidential administration’s attack on equity programs. In a news conference outside Target’s Minnesota headquarters on Jan. 30, 2025, Armstrong called for a nationwide boycott of the store to begin on the first day of Black History Month.

    While many social media users posted in support of the boycott, some Black founders whose brands are stocked by Target – and there are dozens of them – have been more conflicted. Tabitha Brown, whose products can be found in various aisles, from books to cooking appliances, asked customers to reconsider boycotting Target. Withholding their dollars, Brown insisted, will hurt Black businesses far more than the corporations that sell their products.

    This request for restraint garnered a mixed response on social media. Some Black consumers accused Black business owners of selling out the very racial community that contributed to their success.

    So, why would a Black business owner ask consumers to patronize a retailer that signaled it doesn’t care about Black customers? And how did something as mundane as where people buy toilet paper and shampoo become a litmus test for racial consciousness in the first place?

    Black consumers and the fight for dignity

    The marketplace has long been a battleground where Black Americans have sought to assert their citizenship. Most of the nation’s biggest household brands didn’t begin to take African American consumers seriously until after World War II. Before that shift, advertisements and product packaging were more likely to feature degrading Black caricatures to appeal to white shoppers, than to address Black consumers directly.

    This segregated commercial landscape reinforced the belief among some community members that Black people would not be taken seriously as citizens until they were taken seriously as consumers. They would need to vote with their dollars, patronizing only those brands and retailers that respected them.

    In my research on marketing campaigns aimed at Black women, I’ve examined how the struggle for consumer citizenship complicated the dynamic between Black entrepreneurs and consumers. On the one hand, businesses have long leveraged Black ownership as a unique selling proposition in and of itself, urging shoppers to view Black brand loyalty as a path to collective racial progress.

    Unlike their larger competitors, Black entrepreneurs relied on their racial community to stay afloat. Patronizing African American businesses could therefore be framed as a racial duty. Conversely, as African American advertising pioneers made clear, recognition from big brands was a political victory of sorts because it signaled that Black dollars were just as valuable as anyone else’s.

    A short documentary from The Advertising Club of New York featuring iconic ads from African American marketer Tom Burrell.

    Competing for Black dollars

    Corporate attention to Black consumers ebbs and flows in a cycle that is especially noticeable in the beauty and personal care industry. In seasons of limited competition for African American customers, entrepreneurs typically thrive, even while they struggle to meet the capital demands of a growing brand. Their success, however, beckons larger corporations, which then seek to capitalize on consumer niches they previously ignored.

    Two common approaches that mass market brands pursue to compete for Black dollars include acquiring smaller, established Black brands and developing their own niche products. Large corporations deployed both strategies during a period of intense expansion into the beauty market of the 1980s.

    Black owners tried to stave off their competition by creating a special emblem that alerted shoppers to their authenticity. Then, as now, social justice organizations, such as Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH, also initiated boycotts and urged Black consumers not to choose “lipstick over liberation.”

    Nevertheless, many Black entrepreneurs sold their brands, and by 1986 nearly half of the Black hair care market was no longer Black-owned.

    A linked fate

    Parsing winners and losers within the world of Black enterprise is as difficult now as it was in earlier periods. African American business owners often possess a cultural consciousness that distinguishes their brands, even when they can’t match the resources of larger competitors. And as they figure out how to survive an uneven playing field, Black entrepreneurs sometimes face accusations of betraying their racial community.

    In a market governed by the law of supply and demand, Black consumers benefit from increased competition. Yet, racial loyalty sometimes asks that they eschew these benefits for the sake of keeping Black dollars in Black hands.

    Four years ago, when Target launched its Black Beyond Measure funding initiative, it seemed that the retailer had struck a rare balance in supporting Black brands and their customers. In addition to curating a collection of products to lure shoppers, Target used the campaign as an opportunity to position entrepreneurs to flourish well beyond Black History Month.

    Now, as Black consumers and business owners weigh varying responses to the retailer’s decision to reverse their commitment to DEI values, one question endures: Do Black dollars matter?

    Timeka N. Tounsel 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. A boycott campaign fuels tension between Black shoppers and Black-owned brands – evoking the long struggle for ‘consumer citizenship’ – https://theconversation.com/a-boycott-campaign-fuels-tension-between-black-shoppers-and-black-owned-brands-evoking-the-long-struggle-for-consumer-citizenship-248978

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why the price of your favorite chocolate will continue to rise

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Narcisa Pricope, Professor of Geography and Land Systems Science and Associate Vice President for Research, Mississippi State University

    Chocolate prices spiked amid very dry conditions in Africa. Chuck Fishman/Getty Images

    Valentine’s Day often conjures images of chocolates and romance. But the crop behind this indulgence faces an existential threat.

    Regions like northeastern Brazil, one of the world’s notable cocoa-producing areas, are grappling with increasing aridity – a slow, yet unrelenting drying of the land. Cocoa is made from the beans of the cacao tree, which thrives in humid climates. The crop is struggling in these drying regions, and so are the farmers who grow it.

    This is not just Brazil’s story. Across West Africa, where 70% of the world’s cacao is grown, and in the Americas and Southeast Asia, shifting moisture levels threaten the delicate balance required for production. These regions, home to vibrant ecosystems and global breadbaskets that feed the world, are on the frontlines of aridity’s slow but relentless advance.

    A farmer in Colombia holds a cacao pod, which holds the key ingredients for chocolate.
    ©2017CIAT/NeilPalmer, CC BY-NC-SA

    Over the past 30 years, more than three-quarters of the Earth’s landmass has become drier. A recent report I helped coordinate for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification found that drylands now cover 41% of global land, an area that expanded by nearly 1.7 million square miles (4.3 million square kilometers) over those three decades — about half the size of Australia.

    This creeping dryness is not just a climate phenomenon. It’s a long-term transformation that may be irreversible and that carries devastating consequences for ecosystems, agriculture and livelihoods worldwide.

    What causes aridity?

    Aridity, while often thought of as purely a climate phenomenon, is the result of a complex interplay among human-driven factors. These include greenhouse gas emissions, land use practices and the degradation of critical natural resources, such as soil and biodiversity.

    These interconnected forces have been accelerating the transformation of once-productive landscapes into increasingly arid regions, with consequences that ripple across ecosystems and economies.

    Greenhouse gas emissions: A global catalyst

    Human-induced climate change is the primary driver of rising aridity.

    Greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, increase global temperatures. Rising temperatures, in turn, cause moisture to evaporate at a faster rate. This heightened evaporation reduces soil and plant moisture, exacerbating water scarcity – even in regions with moderate rainfall.

    Aridity began accelerating globally in the 1950s, and the world has seen a pronounced shift over the past three decades.

    This process is particularly stark in regions already prone to dryness, such as Africa’s Sahel region and the Mediterranean. In these areas, reduced precipitation – combined with increased evaporation – creates a feedback loop: Drier soils absorb less heat, leaving the atmosphere warmer and intensifying arid conditions.

    The number of people living in dryland regions has been rising in each region in recent years. Years 1971-2020. Scales vary.
    UNCCD

    Unsustainable land use practices: A hidden accelerator

    Aridity is also affected by how people use and manage land.

    Unsustainable agricultural practices, overgrazing and deforestation strip soils of their protective vegetation cover, leaving them vulnerable to erosion. Industrial farming techniques often prioritize short-term yields over long-term sustainability, depleting nutrients and organic matter essential for healthy soils.

    For example, in cocoa-producing regions like northeastern Brazil, deforestation to make room for agriculture disrupts local water cycles and exposes soils to degradation. Without vegetation to anchor it, topsoil – critical for plant growth – washes away during rainfall or is blown away by winds, taking with it vital nutrients.

    These changes create a vicious cycle: Degraded soils also hold less water and lead to more runoff, reducing the land’s ability to recover.

    Aridity can affect the ability to grow many crops. Large parts of the country of Chad, shown here, have drying lands.
    United Nations Chad, CC BY-NC-SA

    The soil-biodiversity connection

    Soil, often overlooked in discussions of climate resilience, plays a critical role in mitigating aridity.

    Healthy soils act as reservoirs, storing water and nutrients that plants depend on. They also support biodiversity below and above ground. A single teaspoon of soil contains billions of microorganisms that help cycle nutrients and maintain ecological balance.

    However, as soils degrade under aridity and mismanagement, this biodiversity diminishes. Microbial communities, essential for nutrient cycling and plant health, decline. When soils become compacted and lose organic matter, the land’s ability to retain water diminishes, making it even more susceptible to drying out.

    In short, the loss of soil health creates cascading effects that undermine ecosystems, agricultural productivity and food security.

    Global hot spots: Looming food security crises

    Cocoa is just one crop affected by the encroachment of rising aridity.

    Other key agricultural zones, including the breadbaskets of the world, are also at risk. In the Mediterranean, Africa’s Sahel and parts of the U.S. West, aridity already undermines farming and biodiversity.

    By 2100, up to 5 billion people could live in drylands – nearly double the current population in these areas, due to both population growth and expansion of drylands as the planet warms. This puts immense pressure on food systems. It can also accelerate migration as declining agricultural productivity, water scarcity and worsening living conditions force rural populations to move in search of opportunities.

    A map shows average aridity for 1981-2010. Computer simulations estimate that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities caused a 1.2% larger increase in the four types of dry regions combined for the periods between 1850 and 1981–2010 than simulations with only solar and volcanic effects considered.
    UNCCD

    Aridity’s ripple effects also extend far beyond agriculture. Ecosystems, already strained by deforestation and pollution, are stressed as water resources dwindle. Wildlife migrates or dies, and plant species adapted to moister conditions can’t survive. The Sahel’s delicate grasslands, for instance, are rapidly giving way to desert shrubs.

    On a global scale, economic losses linked to aridification are staggering. In Africa, rising aridity contributed to a 12% drop in gross domestic product from 1990 to 2015. Sandstorms and dust storms, wildfires and water scarcity further burden governments, exacerbating poverty and health crises in the most affected regions.

    The path forward

    Aridity is not inevitable, nor are its effects completely irreversible. But coordinated global efforts are essential to curb its progression.

    Countries can work together to restore degraded lands by protecting and restoring ecosystems, improving soil health and encouraging sustainable farming methods.

    Communities can manage water more efficiently through rainwater harvesting and advanced irrigation systems that optimize water use. Governments can reduce the drivers of climate change by investing in renewable energy.

    Continued international collaboration, including working with businesses, can help share technologies to make these actions more effective and available worldwide.

    So, as you savor chocolate this Valentine’s Day, remember the fragile ecosystems behind it. The price of cocoa in early 2025 was near its all-time high, due in part to dry conditions in Africa. Without urgent action to address aridity, this scenario may become more common, and cocoa – and the sweet concoctions derived from it – may well become a rare luxury.

    Collective action against aridity isn’t just about saving chocolate – it’s about preserving the planet’s capacity to sustain life.

    Narcisa Pricope is a member of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Science-Policy Interface, which works to translate scientific findings and assessments into policy-relevant recommendations, including collaboration with different scientific panels and bodies.

    – ref. Why the price of your favorite chocolate will continue to rise – https://theconversation.com/why-the-price-of-your-favorite-chocolate-will-continue-to-rise-246227

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 5 premium online research tools all Philly students can use for free

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Joyce Valenza, Associate Teaching Professor of Library and Information Science, Rutgers University

    The School District of Philadelphia has 250 district and alternative schools – but only a few have libraries with certified librarians. Lisa5201/E+ Collection via Getty Images

    Years ago, as a high school librarian in suburban Philadelphia, I hosted a group of honors students from a high school just across the nearby city border. With the support of their alumni association, the city students planned to build a library at their school.

    While our 30,000-volume physical collection impressed them, it was our virtual library, websites designed to support student projects, and subscription-based digital collections and databases that evoked the most profound reaction.

    When I asked the students what they were researching, in unison, they responded “Hamlet criticism.” When I showed them results from an e-book database from the POWER Library web portal, I heard gasps.

    One young man pulled a dog-eared book out from his backpack. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Do you mean that we’ve been passing this single book around when all of those e-books are available to us free?”

    His parting words haunted me: “We will never be able to compete with those students when we go to college.”

    As a library and information science professor, and a librarian for 40 years, I have researched information equity disparities among high school students and witnessed them firsthand.

    Consider, for example, this startling figure: The School District of Philadelphia has just four certified librarians for its nearly 118,000 students across 250 schools. The district confirmed this number in an email to The Conversation U.S.

    Many of the nearby suburban districts that border Philadelphia, such as Lower Merion, Abington, Upper Darby, Haverford Township and Springfield Township, where I worked, have at least one librarian per school.

    Philadelphia’s school district is making efforts to address the librarian shortage. In late 2024, it hired a director of library science, Jean Darnell, who plans to add more libraries and librarians to district schools. But she cautions that it will require financial resources to do so.

    Information privilege

    The gap discovered by the students I hosted that day wasn’t just about one book versus many. It was about not having the same high-quality, paywalled tools for research, and the guidance of trained librarians to help them navigate the research process.

    Information science researchers refer to this gap as information privilege.

    Inspired by education activist and researcher Peggy McIntosh’s 1989 essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Duke University librarian Hannah Rozear designed a graphic to illustrate what information privilege looks like for high school and college students.

    Duke University librarian Hannah Rozear offers examples of what information privilege looks like for high school and college students.
    Hannah Rozear, CC BY-NC-SA

    As part of my work on an information equity initiative for the International Society for Technology in Education, I enhanced the diagram. I wanted to expand the notion of equity of information access and equity of information experiences in K-12 education.

    The author expanded the Information Privilege backpack concept to apply to K-12 students.
    Joyce Valenza, CC BY-NC-SA

    In addition to simply having access to a variety of high-quality resources, students with information privilege learn to critically and ethically use information to create and share meaningful research projects with the knowledge they build.

    That student’s realization of what he didn’t know he didn’t have sparked my development of a three-year research project with colleagues across six New Jersey colleges. Our team of academic librarians, library and information science educators, and high school librarians followed students who had certified high school librarians into their first college year.

    We found dramatic differences in college preparedness based on high school library experiences.

    The students who had certified high school librarians consistently reported feeling fully prepared for college-level research. They were confident in navigating academic databases. They arrived at college able to identify information needs, understand information genres, search effectively, and craft thoughtful arguments from their research. They were also better able to meet the standards for information literacy at the college level.

    Students who had librarians in high school felt better prepared for college-level research, the author’s study found.
    Visual Vic/Moment Collection via Getty Images

    Access to POWER library

    Due in part to the lack of school librarians, many Philadelphia parents and students haven’t yet been introduced to the freely available resources of the POWER Library.

    Sponsored by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries and the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the POWER Library portal offers audio books and e-books, movies, reference materials, magazines, journals, newspapers and other digital resources for users of all ages.

    Annual subscriptions to these resources would cost US$56,515 for schools and $73,366 for public libraries.

    In Pennsylvania, if your school has a library, the librarian will have ensured that students can easily log in to the POWER Library during school hours.

    Pennsylvania students in schools without a library or a librarian can independently access the POWER library at any hour of the day using the barcode on their public library card, or by signing up for a POWER Library eCard.

    The POWER Library page highlights Power Teens and Power Kids resources.

    Here are five of my favorite tools from the collection that support students’ academic research:

    1. EBSCO eBooks – This collection of more than 16,000 e-books includes nonfiction, textbooks, specialized subject area encyclopedias, literary criticism, and college prep and other study guides.

    2. AP Newsroom – With more than 3,000 media items added daily, AP Newsroom allows students to visually explore 185 years of world history and breaking news through on-the-scene, high-quality photography, sound, video and graphics. Topics cover major events as well as sports, culture and entertainment. Students will find primary source content to track developing stories and support research and analysis of historic events. Over 20 million royalty-free stock images are included.

    3. Gale eBooks – Gale, a well-respected publisher, offers students a complete library reference section available from anywhere. The high-quality encyclopedias and multivolume reference sets span literature, American and global history, social issues, science, biography, business and much more.

    4. Gale OneFile: High School Edition – This research portal connects students to magazines, journals, newspapers, reference books and engaging multimedia that cover the wide range of subjects they might encounter in a high school curriculum. It also prepares them for the academic databases they’ll encounter at college. Gale In Context: Elementary, meanwhile, offers a similar range of kid-friendly content for younger researchers.

    5. SIRS Discoverer – For upper-elementary and middle schoolers, SIRS Discoverer engages students’ curiosity and critical thinking in such areas as animals, countries, states and biographies. Don’t miss the “Issues” section, which covers topical issues like global warming, artificial intelligence and cellphones in schools with contextual information, vocabulary and organized viewpoints.

    Libraries offer democratic access to critical information by providing free entry to digital resources that would otherwise be too costly for most people. This is true whether you’re a student or not.

    In addition to the POWER Library, anyone who lives, works, pays taxes or attends school in Philadelphia can use the extensive digital resources offered by the Free Library of Philadelphia.

    Residents outside Pennsylvania can use this map to identify similar resources in their state, or they can explore the databases provided by public libraries around the country.

    Joyce Valenza 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. 5 premium online research tools all Philly students can use for free – https://theconversation.com/5-premium-online-research-tools-all-philly-students-can-use-for-free-237930

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Teen girls are facing an increased risk of suicide − and stress related to sexual identity might be contributing to it

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Joseph Cimpian, Professor of Economics and Education Policy, New York University

    In 2021, about 48% of LGBQ females considered suicide, compared with roughly 20% of heterosexual females, data shows. bymuratdeniz/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    The alarming national rise in suicidal thoughts and behaviors among teenage girls has made headlines recently. Experts point to social media, cyberbullying and COVID-19 as potential new sources of stress for teenagers.

    However, a well-known source of stress that now affects more teenagers compared with a decade ago has been overlooked in explanations for this increase – stress related to sexual identity.

    As scholars focused on education policy, we conducted research showing that the increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors corresponds with a dramatic rise in the number of female high school students who identify as LGBQ – lesbian, gay, bisexual or questioning.

    A double bind for LGBQ teens

    While some LGBQ youth are growing up in supportive environments, our findings suggest that an increasing number may be experiencing a double bind – a communication dilemma in which a person receives two or more mutually conflicting messages.

    Many LGBQ youth may believe it’s safe to “come out” due to greater access to information and the increased visibility of LGBQ people in U.S. society. But coming out earlier in life could expose them to discrimination and social stress in their schools, families and communities.

    This stress related to sexual orientation can contribute to a greater prevalence of mental health concerns, including suicide.

    We analyzed national data from over 44,000 U.S. high school students who took the Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021. We did this to understand these parallel national trends of rising suicide risk and rising LGBQ identification among teens.

    Between 2015 and 2021, the percentage of high school girls identifying as LGBQ jumped from 15% to 34%. During this same period, all females who reported they thought about suicide increased from 23% to 29%. Creating a plan to commit suicide rose from 19% to 23%.

    But looking at the data more closely reveals something crucial: Girls who identified as LGBQ consistently reported much higher rates of thinking about, planning and attempting suicide.

    In 2021, about 48% of LGBQ females considered suicide, compared with roughly 20% of heterosexual females. When we accounted for this difference statistically, we found the overall rise in female suicidal thoughts and behaviors were explained by more students identifying as LGBQ.

    Meanwhile, the percentage of male students identifying as LGBQ increased only slightly, from 6% in 2015 to 9% in 2021, with similar smaller changes in suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

    Why more students may be identifying as LGBQ

    The increase in LGBQ identification among more female students in the past decade likely indicates greater access to information and social acceptance. It may also reflect the greater visibility of LGBQ people, including in popular media and leadership roles, which may help young people better understand and label their own identity.

    Today’s teenagers, regardless of sexual orientation, have more language and representation to help them make sense of their experiences than previous generations did. Some teens have supportive parents and attend schools that are supportive of their sexual orientation.

    While more young people feel able to openly identify as LGBQ, many still face substantial challenges that can affect their mental health.
    kieferpix/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    However, identifying as LGBQ may still come with significant challenges for many youth.

    Research has consistently shown that LGBQ youth face unique stressors. They include discrimination, rejection by family members and friends and bullying and harassment.

    Studies incorporating several generations of LGBQ people over the past 50 years find that, despite more societal acceptance, LGBTQ+ people born in the 1990s reported stressors at least as high as older generations born in the 1950s-80s. And younger generations reported the highest rate of suicide attempts.

    Our findings highlight a critical point. The rising rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among all teenage girls cannot be understood in isolation from their social context and identities. While more young people feel able to openly identify as LGBQ, many still face substantial challenges that can affect their mental health.

    We believe this understanding has important implications for how we address the crisis. Simply implementing general suicide prevention programs may not be enough. Experts may need to craft targeted support that addresses the specific challenges and pressures faced by LGBQ youth.

    The need for supportive school environments

    Schools play a crucial role in supporting student well-being.

    However, states such as Indiana, Florida and Iowa have recently restricted resources and support for LGBQ and trans students.

    Since 2021, legislators in at least 24 states have attempted to pass similar laws.

    Other states, such as Montana, Tennessee and Arizona, don’t outright ban this curriculum. But they severely restrict how educators can discuss sexual orientation and gender identity by adding additional burdens on educators, including parental notification requirements.

    The Trump Administration, meanwhile, has started to roll back earlier federal efforts to protect LGBQ and trans students and recently deleted the Youth Risk Behavior Survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website.

    Our research suggests this approach could be dangerous.

    If we want to address rising suicidal thoughts and behaviors among teenage girls, we need to understand and support LGBQ youth better.

    Rather than reducing support, schools, parents and youth advocates could maintain and expand their resources to support LGBQ youth. This includes efforts to create safe and affirming school environments, and training staff and teachers to support LGBQ students effectively.

    Joseph Cimpian receives funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.

    Dr. McQuillan has been hired by the ACLU to provide expert testimony in court cases. Dr. McQuillan has also received funding from the Spencer Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, and the Wisconsin Partnership Project.

    – ref. Teen girls are facing an increased risk of suicide − and stress related to sexual identity might be contributing to it – https://theconversation.com/teen-girls-are-facing-an-increased-risk-of-suicide-and-stress-related-to-sexual-identity-might-be-contributing-to-it-247671

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: If FEMA didn’t exist, could states handle the disaster response alone?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ming Xie, Assistant Professor of Emergency Management and Public Health, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

    Hurricane Ian caused widespread damage in Florida in 2022, estimated at over $112 billion. This scene was once a shopping center. Giorgio Veira/AFP via Getty Images

    Imagine a world in which a hurricane devastates the Gulf Coast, and the U.S. has no federal agency prepared to quickly send supplies, financial aid and temporary housing assistance.

    Could the states manage this catastrophic event on their own?

    Normally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA, is prepared to marshal supplies within hours of a disaster and begin distributing financial aid to residents who need help.

    However, with President Donald Trump questioning FEMA’s future and suggesting states take over recovery instead, and climate change causing more frequent and severe disasters, it’s worth asking how prepared states are to face these growing challenges without help.

    What FEMA does

    FEMA was created in 1979 with the job of coordinating national responses to disasters, but the federal government has played important roles in disaster relief since the 1800s.

    During a disaster, FEMA’s assistance can begin only after a state requests an emergency declaration and the U.S. president approves it. The request has to show that the disaster is so severe that the state can’t handle the response on its own.

    FEMA’s role is to support state and local governments by coordinating federal agencies and providing financial aid and recovery assistance that states would otherwise struggle to supply on their own. FEMA doesn’t “take over,” as a misinformation campaign launched during Hurricane Helene claimed. Instead, it pools federal resources to allow states to recover faster from expensive disasters.

    During a disaster, FEMA:

    • Coordinates federal resources. For example, during Hurricane Ian in 2022, FEMA coordinated with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Defense and search-and-rescue teams to conduct rescue operations, organized utility crews to begin restoring power and also delivered water and millions of meals.

    • Provides financial assistance. FEMA distributes billions of dollars in disaster relief funds to help individuals, businesses and local governments recover. As of Feb. 3, 2025, FEMA aid from 2024 storms included US$1.04 billion related to Hurricane Milton, $416.1 million for Hurricane Helene and $112.6 million for Hurricane Debby.

    • Provides logistical support. FEMA coordinates with state and local governments, nonprofits such as the American Red Cross and federal agencies to supply cots, blankets and hygiene supplies for emergency shelters. It also works with state and local partners to distribute critical supplies such as food, water and medical aid.

    The agency also manages the National Flood Insurance Program, offers disaster preparedness training and helps states develop response plans to improve their overall responses systems.

    What FEMA aid looks like in a disaster

    When wildfires swept through Maui, Hawaii, in August 2023, FEMA provided emergency grants to cover immediate needs such as food, clothing and essential supplies for survivors.

    The agency arranged hotel rooms, rental assistance and financial aid for residents who lost homes or belongings. Its Direct Housing Program has spent $295 million to lease homes for more than 1,200 households. This comprehensive support helped thousands of people begin rebuilding their lives after losing almost everything.

    FEMA also helped fund construction of a temporary school to ensure that students whose schools burned could continue their classes. Hawaii, with its relatively small population and limited emergency funds, would have struggled to mount a comparable response on its own.

    Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, center, and then-FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell speak to reporters in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 12, 2023, while assessing the wildfire damage there.
    AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

    Larger states often need help, too. When a 2021 winter storm overwhelmed Texas’ power grid and water infrastructure, FEMA coordinated the delivery of essential supplies, including water, fuel, generators and blankets, following the disaster declaration on Feb. 19, 2021. Within days, it awarded more than $2.8 million in grants to help people with temporary housing and home repairs.

    Which states would suffer most without FEMA?

    Without FEMA or other federal support, states would have to manage the disaster response and recovery on their own.

    States prone to frequent disasters, such as Louisiana and Florida, would face expensive recurring challenges that would likely exacerbate recovery delays and reduce their overall resilience.

    Smaller, more rural and less wealthy states that lack the financial resources and logistical capabilities to respond effectively would be disproportionately affected.

    “States don’t have that capability built to handle a disaster every single year,” Lynn Budd, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, told Stateline in an interview. Access to FEMA avoids the need for expensive disaster response infrastructure in each state.

    States might be able to arrange regional cooperation. But state-led responses and regional models have limitations. The National Guard could assist with supply distribution, but it isn’t designed to provide fast financial aid, housing or long-term recovery options, and the supplies and the recovery effort still come at a cost.

    Members of the National Guard and a FEMA search-and-rescue team work together in the disaster response after Hurricane Florence pounded Wilmington, N.C., in September 2018.
    Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

    Wealthier states might be better equipped to manage on their own, but poorer states would likely struggle. States with less funding and infrastructure would be left relying on nonprofits and community-based efforts. But these organizations are not capable of providing the scope of services FEMA can.

    Any federal funding would also be slow if Congress had to approve aid after each disaster, rather than having FEMA already prepared to respond. States would be at the mercy of congressional infighting.

    In the absence of a federal response and coordinating role, recovery would be uneven, with wealthier areas recovering faster and poorer areas likely seeing more prolonged hardships.

    What does this mean?

    Coordinating disaster response is complex, the paperwork for federal assistance can be frustrating, and the agency does draw criticism. However, it also fills an important role.

    As the frequency of natural disasters continues to rise due to climate change, ask yourself: How prepared is your state for a disaster, and could it get by without federal aid?

    Ming Xie 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. If FEMA didn’t exist, could states handle the disaster response alone? – https://theconversation.com/if-fema-didnt-exist-could-states-handle-the-disaster-response-alone-248758

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Gut-wrenching love: What a fresh look at the ‘Good Samaritan’ story says for ethics today

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Meghan Sullivan, Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

    A mural outside St. Jude Thaddeus Church in Silao, Mexico, quotes the Good Samaritan story: ‘Go and do likewise.’ Enrique López-Tamayo Biosca/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

    The Bible story of the Good Samaritan is more than a mainstay of Sunday school courses. “Good samaritan” is the catch-all way to describe a do-gooder – someone who stops to change the tire of a stranded motorist, helps a lost child find their parents in a store and gives money to disaster relief programs.

    But as an ethicist, I’d argue that the parable’s moral vision is much more radical than merely advising people to help out when they can. The parable raises profound philosophical questions about what it means to love another person, and our sometimes astonishing capacity to feel connected to others.

    Love thy neighbor

    The parable of the Good Samaritan occurs in the Gospel of Luke, in a part of the Bible where Jesus is attracting followers and preparing them to spread his movement.

    During one of these sessions, a religious scholar asks him to explain the fundamental commandment in Jewish ethics: “You will love God with all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your strength. And you will love your neighbor as yourself.” In response, Jesus tells the now-iconic story:

    One time a man was traveling down the dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The Bible describes absolutely nothing else about this man, but the tradition assumes he is Jewish. The man was attacked and beaten within an inch of his life. As he lay in a ditch, a temple priest and a temple functionary both noticed him but hurried past.

    Then a member of another tribe, a Samaritan, saw him. The Samaritan was immediately moved and rushed over, hoisted the man onto his donkey, took him to a nearby inn and stayed up with him all night, nursing him back to life. The next morning he paid the innkeeper two denarii – Roman silver coins, about two days’ salary – and offered to pay the tab for anything else the man might require as he recuperated.

    ‘The Good Samaritan’ by Aimé Morot (1880), now in the Petit Palais museum in Paris.
    Marc Baronnet/Wikimedia Commons

    Jesus turns the question back to the scholar: Who loved their neighbor? The scholar concedes the point – the Samaritan who had mercy.

    “Go and do likewise,” Jesus replies.

    What exactly did the Samaritan do that reveals the core of the love ethic? Jesus says specifically that the Samaritan’s “guts churned” when he saw the man in need: the Greek word used in the text is “splagchnizomai.”

    The term occurs in other places in the Gospels, as well, evoking a very physical kind of emotional response. This “gut-wrenching love” is spontaneous and visceral.

    Mortal and immortal

    Ancient philosophers spent plenty of time trying to understand the ways humans love, often using highly intellectual frames. “The Symposium,” a dialogue by Plato, depicts Socrates drunkenly debating the essence of erotic love with his friends. Aristotle beautifully theorizes about friendship, “philia,” in his teachings about ethics. He introduces the idea that when we truly love a friend, we think of them as our “second self” – the lives of your closest friends become entangled within your own.

    Many of the early Christian philosophers debated the nature of “agape,” the Greek word the New Testament uses to describe the selfless, unconditional love that characterizes the very nature of God. Saint Augustine introduced the concept of “amoris ordo,” the order of loves: that morality compels someone to first love the highest good, which is God, and then organize the rest of their loves to serve this highest love.

    These concepts present love as an intellectual attitude that is often reserved for a select group, such as God, or one’s family, or one’s countrymen. And Christian notions of “agape” specifically put love just out of reach, only possible for a divine being, though humans should aspire to it and can experience its effects.

    Splagchnizomai is different – such a physical emotion is only possible for creatures like us, with bodies. And as the parable of the Good Samaritan shows, it is an emotion that can be triggered by anyone, at any time, if we are – like the Samaritan – ready to be so moved.

    A relief in St. Paul’s Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is one of countless artworks that reference the Good Samaritan.
    Hantsheroes/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    Love and modern moral thinking

    Much like their ancient counterparts, philosophers of the past century have struggled to explain how love can be one of the most morally significant elements of our lives, while also being so extraordinarily partial, biased and seemingly arbitrary.

    To resolve the tension, many treat love not as a source of insight but as a messy feature of human psychology – an impediment that ethical reasoning must navigate around.

    Indeed, the most prominent recent movements in applied ethics are wholly oriented around rational efficiency. The Effective Altruism movement argues that people should use evidence to transform themselves into the most efficient do-gooders they can possibly be. Proponents discourage college graduates looking to make a difference from pursuing public service and recommend high-paying jobs instead, arguing that they can have a bigger impact giving away wealth than directly caring for others. Emotions are viewed with suspicion, as sources of potential bias – not sources of moral wisdom.

    In the book “Against Empathy,” psychologist Paul Bloom warns that such emotions “do poorly in a world where there are many people in need and where the effects of one’s actions are diffuse, often delayed, and difficult to compute.”

    Compare that to the parable of the Good Samaritan, which portrays ethics as an emotional, deeply personal and almost absurdly inefficient matter. Those two denarii were a weighty sum – they could have been used to beef up security on the road and prevent other robberies, rather than save a single man. Nor did the Samaritan off-load the injured man onto a local healer. He cared for him directly, the way someone might sit with a gravely ill family member.

    Neighbors and fences

    In Jesus’ time, as in our own, there was significant debate about how to understand the commandments to love one’s neighbor. One school of thought considered a “neighbor” to be a member of your community: The Book of Leviticus says not to hold grudges against fellow countrymen. Another school held that you were obligated to love even strangers who are only temporarily traveling in your land. Leviticus also declares that “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself.”

    In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus seems to come down on the side of the broadest possible application of the love ethic. And by emphasizing a particular type of love – the gut-wrenching kind – Jesus seems to indicate that the way of progress in ethics is through emotions, rather than around them.

    My current work focuses on the upshots of reading this parable as a philosophical guide to ethics in our own time. For instance, if the love ethic is right, preparing students to make progress on complex social issues requires more than cost-benefit analysis. It also requires helping them to recognize and cultivate emotions, especially loving compassion.

    There are clear parallels between the original parable of the good Samaritan and pressing political issues today, especially migration – and also, I believe, polarization. His story calls closer attention to humans’ innate capacity to love beyond the limits of familiar relationships or “tribes” – and just how much is lost when we do not.

    Meghan Sullivan 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. Gut-wrenching love: What a fresh look at the ‘Good Samaritan’ story says for ethics today – https://theconversation.com/gut-wrenching-love-what-a-fresh-look-at-the-good-samaritan-story-says-for-ethics-today-247988

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Poor sleep and addiction go hand in hand − understanding how could lead to new treatments for opioid use disorder

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ryan Logan, Professor of Psychiatry, UMass Chan Medical School

    Whether sleep disorders worsen addiction or addiction worsens sleep disorders is unclear. Maria Korneeva/Moment via Getty Images

    A good night’s sleep often sets the stage for a positive day. But for the nearly quarter of American adults struggling with mental illness, a good night’s rest is often elusive.

    For patients with psychiatric conditions from addiction to mood disorders such as depression, disrupted sleep can often exacerbate symptoms and make it harder to stay on treatment.

    Despite the important role circadian rhythms and sleep play in addiction, neuroscientists like me are only now beginning to understand the molecular mechanisms behind these effects.

    Sleep and addictive drugs have an entangled relationship. Most addictive drugs can alter sleep-wake cycles, and sleep disorders in people using drugs are linked to addiction severity and relapse. While this poses a classic “chicken-or-egg” dilemma, it also presents an opportunity to understand how the sleep-addiction connection could unlock new treatments.

    Circadian rhythms and health

    At the center of the connection between sleep and mental health lies circadian rhythms: your body’s internal clock.

    These rhythms align your bodily functions with your environment, synchronizing your body to day and night down to the molecular level. It does this through a series of proteins that interact in a feedback loop, turning genes on and off in regular patterns to support specific functions. Although your sleep-wake cycles are the most visible expression of circadian rhythms, these rhythms orchestrate most of your physiology.

    If you have ever traveled across time zones, you have likely experienced a common form of circadian disruption called jet lag. This misalignment impairs your sleep and concentration, and can leave you feeling irritable.

    While jet lag is a temporary nuisance, chronic circadian disruption such as frequent night shifts can lead to long-term health consequences, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

    Circadian rhythms, sleep and opioid use

    A major focus of my lab is on opioid addiction, a disease that has claimed nearly 80,000 lives a year since 2021 in the U.S. and has limited treatment options.

    People addicted to opioids often experience disruptions to circadian rhythms, such as in their sleep and their levels of corticotropin, a key hormone that regulates stress. These disruptions are associated with many negative health consequences. In the short term, these disruptions can impair cognitive functions such as attention and increase negative emotions. Over time this can worsen mental and physical health. Studies of opioid addiction in mice reveal similar disruptions in sleep and various hormonal rhythms.

    Importantly, poor sleep is common throughout a person’s experience with opioid use disorder, from actively using to withdrawal from opioids, and even while on treatment. This complication can have profound consequences. Studies have linked sleep disruption to a 2.5-fold increased risk of relapse among those undergoing treatment.

    Unlocking the clock for opioid addiction

    Using brain tissue from deceased donors and experiments in mice, my team is identifying molecular changes associated with psychiatric disorders in people. We model these changes in mice to explore how they affect disease severity and behavior.

    Through genetic sequencing and computer modeling, my lab is able to profile all the RNA molecules in a brain region and understand how their rhythmicity – the peaks and troughs of their activity across the day – changes due to opioids. This provides a complete snapshot of which genes change at what time, allowing my team to peer into the molecular mechanics that may drive opioid addiction.

    Opioids can alter the activity of genes involved with sleep.
    Robert Reader/Moment via Getty Images

    For example, we looked at two brain regions strongly associated with addiction: the nucleus accumbens and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. We found that patients with opioid addiction had completely different gene expression patterns in these brain regions compared with those without addiction. Some genes had adopted a completely different rhythm of activity, while others had lost their rhythmicity altogether.

    Genes that lost rhythmicity included those involved in various components of the molecular clock and those linked to sleep duration. This further highlights how circadian disruption is a symptom of opioid use while beginning to uncover its underlying mechanisms.

    In work that is pending peer review, my team focused on one major gene that lost rhythmicity in patients with opioid addiction: NPAS2. This component of the molecular clock is highly active in the nucleus accumbens and important for sleep and circadian regulation. We found that blocking functional NPAS2 formation led to increased fentanyl-seeking behavior in mice. Interestingly, we observed that female mice were willing to press a lever more times than male mice to obtain fentanyl, reflecting documented sex differences in opioid addiction among people. In another study, we also found that lack of NPAS2 exacerbated sleep disruption in mice that were administered fentanyl.

    Together, our findings reinforce the role circadian rhythms play in addiction. Future work may clarify whether targeting NPAS2 could treat opioid addiction symptoms. Quality sleep isn’t just about waking up refreshed – it could also lead to reduced opioid use and fewer overdoses.

    Ryan Logan receives funding from National Institutes of Health.

    Mackenzie Gamble 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. Poor sleep and addiction go hand in hand − understanding how could lead to new treatments for opioid use disorder – https://theconversation.com/poor-sleep-and-addiction-go-hand-in-hand-understanding-how-could-lead-to-new-treatments-for-opioid-use-disorder-242664

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Russia’s shrinking world: The war in Ukraine and Moscow’s global reach

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ronald H. Linden, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

    Russia President Vladimir Putin sent a guarded message of congratulations to Donald Trump on inauguration day, but then held a long direct call with his “dear friend,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

    From Putin’s perspective, this makes sense. Russia gets billions of dollars from energy sales to China and technology from Beijing, but from Washington, until recently, mostly sanctions and suspicion.

    Moscow is hoping for a more positive relationship with the current White House occupant, who has made his desire for a “deal” to end the Ukraine war well known.

    But talk of exit scenarios from this 3-year-old conflict should not mask the fact that since the invasion began, Putin has overseen one of the worst periods in Russian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

    Transatlantic unity

    The war in Ukraine has foreclosed on options and blunted Russian action around the world.

    Unlike the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the 2022 invasion produced an unprecedented level of transatlantic unity, including the expansion of NATO and sanctions on Russian trade and finance. In the past year, both the U.S. and the European Union expanded their sanction packages.

    And for the first time, the EU banned the re-export of Russian liquefied natural gas and ended support for a Russian LNG project in the Arctic.

    EU-Russian trade, including European imports of energy, has dropped to a fraction of what it was before the war.

    The two Nordstrom pipelines, designed to bring Russian gas to Germany without transiting East Europe, lie crippled and unused. Revenues from energy sales are roughly one-half of what they were two years ago.

    At the same time, the West has sent billions in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, enabling a level of resilience for which Russia was unprepared. Meanwhile, global companies and technical experts and intellectuals have fled Russia in droves.

    While Russia has evaded some restrictions with its “shadow fleet” – an aging group of tankers sailing under various administrative and technical evasions – the country’s main savior is now China. Trade between China and Russia has grown by nearly two-thirds since the end of 2021, and the U.S. cites Beijing as the main source of Russia’s “dual use” and other technologies needed to pursue its war.

    Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has moved from an energy-for-manufactured-goods trade relationship with the West to one of vassalage with China, as one Russia analyst termed it.

    Hosting an October meeting of the BRICS countries – now counting 11 members, including the five original members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South America – is unlikely to compensate for geopolitical losses elsewhere.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and China President Xi Jinping toast their friendship in March 2023.
    Pavel Byrkin/AFP via Getty Images

    Problems at home …

    The Russian economy is deeply distorted by increased military spending, which represents 40% of the budget and 25% of all spending. The government now needs the equivalent of US$20 billion annually in order to pay for new recruits.

    Russian leaders must find a way to keep at least some of the population satisfied, but persistent inflation and reserve currency shortages flowing directly from the war have made this task more difficult.

    On the battlefield, the war itself has killed or wounded more than 600,000 Russian soldiers. Operations during 2024 were particularly deadly, producing more than 1,500 Russian casualties a day.

    The leader who expected Kyiv’s capitulation in days now finds Russian territory around Kursk occupied, its naval forces in the Black Sea destroyed and withdrawn, and its own generals assassinated in Moscow.

    But probably the greatest humiliation is that this putative great power with a population of 144 million must resort to importing North Korean troops to help liberate its own land.

    … and in its backyard

    Moscow’s dedication to the war has affected its ability to influence events elsewhere, even in its own neighborhood.

    In the Caucasus, for example, Russia had long sided with Armenia in its running battle with Azerbaijan over boundaries and population after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    Moscow has brokered ceasefires at various points. But intermittent attacks and territorial gains for Azerbaijan continued despite the presence of some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers sent to protect the remaining Armenian population in parts of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    In September 2023, Azerbaijan’s forces abruptly took control of the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh. More than 100,000 Armenians fled in the largest ethnic cleansing episode since the end of the Balkan Wars. The peacekeepers did not intervene and later withdrew. The Russian military, absorbed in the bloody campaigns in Ukraine, could not back up or reinforce them.

    The Azeris’ diplomatic and economic position has gained in recent years, aided by demand for its gas as a substitute for Russia’s and support from NATO member Turkey.

    Feeling betrayed by Russia, the Armenian government has for the first time extended feelers toward the West — which is happy to entertain such overtures.

    Losing influence and friends

    Russia’s loss in the Caucasus has been dwarfed by the damage to its military position and influence in the Middle East. Russia supported the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad against the uprisings of the Arab Spring in 2011 and saved it with direct military intervention beginning in 2015.

    Yet in December 2024, Assad was unexpectedly swept away by a mélange of rebel groups. The refuge extended to Assad by Moscow was the most it could provide with the war in Ukraine having drained Russia’s capacity to do more.

    Russia’s possible withdrawal from the Syrian naval base at Tartus and the airbase at Khmeimim would remove assets that allowed it to cooperate with Iran, its key strategic partner in the region.

    More recently, Russia’s reliability as an ally and reputation as an armory has been damaged by Israeli attacks not only on Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces in Lebanon and Syria, but on Iran itself.

    Russia’s position in Africa would also be damaged by the loss of the Syrian bases, which are key launch points for extending Russian power, and by Moscow’s evident inability to make a difference on the ground across the Sahel region in north-central Africa.

    Dirty tricks, diminishing returns

    Stalemate in Ukraine and Russian strategic losses in Syria and elsewhere have prompted Moscow to rely increasingly on a variety of other means to try to gain influence.

    Disinformation, election meddling and varied threats are not new and are part of Russia’s actions in Ukraine. But recent efforts in East Europe have not been very productive. Massive Russian funding and propaganda in Romania, for example, helped produce a narrow victory for an anti-NATO presidential candidate in December 2024, but the Romanian government moved quickly to expose these actions and the election was annulled.

    Nearby Moldova has long been subject to Russian propaganda and threats, especially during recent presidential elections and a referendum on stipulating a “European course” in the constitution. The tiny country moved to reduce its dependency on Russian gas but remains territorially fragmented by the breakaway region of Transnistria that, until recently, provided most of the country’s electricity.

    Despite these factors, the results were not what Moscow wanted. In both votes, a European direction was favored by the electorate. When the Transnistrian legislature in February 2024 appealed to Moscow for protection, none was forthcoming.

    When Moldova thumbs its nose at you, it’s fair to say your power ranking has fallen.

    Wounded but still dangerous

    Not all recent developments have been negative for Moscow. State control of the economy has allowed for rapid rebuilding of a depleted military and support for its technology industry in the short term. With Chinese help and evasion of sanctions, sufficient machinery and energy allow the war in Ukraine to continue.

    And the inauguration of Donald Trump is likely to favor Putin, despite some mixed signals. The U.S. president has threatened tariffs and more sanctions but also disbanded a Biden-era task force aimed a punishing Russian oligarchs who help Russia evade sanctions. In the White House now is someone who has openly admired Putin, expressed skepticism over U.S. support for Ukraine and rushed to bully America’s closest allies in Latin America, Canada and Europe.

    Most importantly, Trump’s eagerness to make good on his pledge to end the war may provide the Russian leader with a deal he can call a “victory.”

    The shrinking of Russia’s world has not necessarily made Russia less dangerous; it could be quite the opposite. Some Kremlin watchers argue that a more economically isolated Russia is less vulnerable to American economic pressure. A retreating Russia and an embattled Putin could also opt for even more reckless threats and actions – for example, on nuclear weapons – especially if reversing course in Ukraine would jeopardize his position. It is, after all, Putin’s war.

    All observers would be wise to note that the famous dictum “Russia is never as strong as she looks … nor as weak as she looks” has been ominously rephrased by Putin himself: “Russia was never so strong as it wants to be and never so weak as it is thought to be.”

    Ronald H. Linden has in the past received funding from Fulbright, DAAD, German Marshall Fund, National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, Woodrow Wilson Center, US Institute of Peace.

    – ref. Russia’s shrinking world: The war in Ukraine and Moscow’s global reach – https://theconversation.com/russias-shrinking-world-the-war-in-ukraine-and-moscows-global-reach-247754

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Are animals smart? From dolphin language to toolmaking crows, lots of species have obvious intelligence

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Leticia Fanucchi, Clinical Assistant Professor of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Oklahoma State University

    Dolphins communicate using a sophisticated combination of clicks and whistles. Stephen Frink/The Image Bank via Getty Images

    Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

    Are animals smart? – Deron

    It’s a fascinating question that intrigues millions of pet owners, animal lovers, veterinarians and scientists all over the world: Just how smart are animals?

    Scientists once believed a brain with billions of neurons was a requirement for intelligence. After all, that’s why you’re able to think – neurons are the nerve cells in the brain that connect and transmit messages to each other.

    For the record, the human brain has about 86 billion neurons. For comparison, dogs and cats have less than one billion.

    Yet the more that scientists like me study animal emotion and cognition – the ability to learn through experiences and thinking – the more we find that humans are not very special at all. Many nonhuman species can do these things too.

    Right now, there’s no agreement on how to decide whether a particular animal species is intelligent. But most scientists who study animal cognition have observed that many animals are able to solve problems, use tools, recall important information about their environment and recognize themselves in the mirror.

    Measuring an animal’s intelligence is harder than you might think.

    Toolmaking bears and crows

    Memory is a marker of intelligence. Of all animals, humans possess the most accurate and sophisticated memory. But elephants can recognize as many as 30 traveling companions at a time. They also learn to migrate away from drought-prone areas, based on memories of earlier droughts.

    That kind of recall – known as episodic memory – is the ability to remember an event, including when and where it occurred. Until recently, scientists thought only humans had it. But now researchers have learned that some birds, cats, rats, monkeys and dolphins have it too.

    Crows are among the smartest of animals.
    Santiago Urquijo/Moment via Getty Images

    Animals may not remember every experience – neither do people – but they do recall things critical to their survival. For example, birds know where they stored food. Monkeys know the presence of a predator.

    Scientists once thought tool use was an exclusively human ability, but that’s not so. Chimpanzees use sticks to catch termites and stones to crack nuts open. Crows can even manufacture tools. By bending a wire, they can make a hook to retrieve a food reward that’s otherwise out of reach.

    Researchers presented eight captive brown bears with this food challenge: Three objects – a large log, a small log and a box – were placed in an outdoor enclosure. A food reward was suspended above them. Six of the eight bears were able to move the logs and box into positions that enabled them to fetch the reward. Essentially, they used the three objects as tools.

    Chimps use gestures and facial expressions to communicate.

    Dolphin, chimpanzee communication

    Language is another measure of intelligence. People, of course, have enormously sophisticated communication skills. But dolphins have complex dialects in the form of crackles, squeaks and whistles. Many researchers say the noises are a language. Chimpanzees and gorillas have used sign language to express emotions and ask for things from people.

    Self-awareness – the ability to recognize yourself as an individual – signals intelligence. Babies don’t recognize themselves in the mirror until they are about a year and a half old. Up until then, they probably think the mirror image they see is another baby.

    Many other species, including dolphins, ravens and elephants, recognize themselves in the mirror. Researchers put a red dye mark on chimpanzees under anesthesia; once awake, the chimps saw their reflection in a mirror. Instead of touching the red mark on their reflection in the glass, they touched the red mark on themselves, indicating self-recognition.

    Just because animals can’t do certain things, it doesn’t mean they’re unintelligent. After all, humans can’t fly like a bird or swim like a fish. Nor is there a need for us to have the incredible sense of smell a dog has. We’d be sniffing hundreds of different smells from miles away – the scents from perfumes and pollution, gardens and garbage. From an evolutionary standpoint, that wouldn’t help us much. Plus, we’d get sick of it very quickly.

    But all animals, including humans, have developed a wide range of capabilities so they can succeed in the environment they live in. Put simply, we’re all using our brains. Now that’s intelligent.

    Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

    And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

    Leticia Fanucchi 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. Are animals smart? From dolphin language to toolmaking crows, lots of species have obvious intelligence – https://theconversation.com/are-animals-smart-from-dolphin-language-to-toolmaking-crows-lots-of-species-have-obvious-intelligence-230378

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Here’s how researchers are helping AIs get their facts straight

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lu Wang, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan

    AI chatbots need help learning to give accurate answers. CreativaImages/iStock via Getty Images

    AI has made it easier than ever to find information: Ask ChatGPT almost anything, and the system swiftly delivers an answer. But the large language models that power popular tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude were not designed to be accurate or factual. They regularly “hallucinate” and offer up falsehoods as if they were hard facts.

    Yet people are relying more and more on AI to answer their questions. Half of all people in the U.S. between the ages of 14 and 22 now use AI to get information, according to a 2024 Harvard study. An analysis by The Washington Post found that more than 17% of prompts on ChatGPT are requests for information.

    One way researchers are attempting to improve the information AI systems give is to have the systems indicate how confident they are in the accuracy of their answers. I’m a computer scientist who studies natural language processing and machine learning. My lab at the University of Michigan has developed a new way of deriving confidence scores that improves the accuracy of AI chatbot answers. But confidence scores can only do so much.

    Popular and problematic

    Leading technology companies are increasingly integrating AI into search engines. Google now offers AI Overviews that appear as text summaries above the usual list of links in any search result. Other upstart search engines, such as Perplexity, are challenging traditional search engines with their own AI-generated summaries.

    The convenience of these summaries has made these tools very popular. Why scour the contents of multiple websites when AI can provide the most pertinent information in a few seconds?

    AI tools seem to offer a smoother, more expedient avenue to getting information. But they can also lead people astray or even expose them to harmful falsehoods. My lab has found that even the most accurate AI models hallucinate in 25% of claims. This hallucination rate is concerning because other research suggests AI can influence what people think.

    It bears emphasizing: AI chatbots are designed to sound good, not give accurate information.

    Language models hallucinate because they learn and operate on statistical patterns drawn from a massive amount of text data, much of which comes from the internet. This means that they are not necessarily grounded in real-world facts. They also lack other human competencies, like common sense and the ability to distinguish between serious expressions and sarcastic ones.

    All this was on display last spring, when a user asked Google’s AI Overviews tool to suggest a way to keep cheese from sliding off a pizza. The tool promptly recommended mixing the cheese with glue. It then came to light that someone had once posted this obviously tongue-in-cheek recommendation on Reddit. Like most large language models, Google’s model had likely been trained with information scraped from myriad internet sources, including Reddit. It then mistakenly interpreted this user’s joke as a genuine suggestion.

    While most users wouldn’t take the glue recommendation seriously, some hallucinated information can cause real harm. AI search engines and chatbots have repeatedly been caught citing debunked, racist pseudoscience as fact. Last year, Perplexity AI stated that a police officer in California was guilty of a crime that he did not commit.

    Showing confidence

    Building AI systems that prioritize veracity is challenging, but not impossible. One way AI developers are approaching this problem is to design models that communicate their confidence in their answers. This typically comes in the form of a confidence score – a number indicating how likely it is that a model is providing accurate information. But estimating a model’s confidence in the content it provides is also a complicated task.

    How confidence scores work in machine learning.

    One common approach to making this estimate involves asking the model to repeatedly respond to a given query. If the model is reliable, it should generate similar answers to the same query. If it can’t answer consistently, the AI is likely lacking the information it needs to answer accurately. Over time, the results of these tests become the AI’s confidence scores for specific subject areas.

    Other approaches evaluate AI accuracy by directly prompting and training models to state how confident they are in their answers. But this offers no real accountability. Allowing an AI to evaluate its own confidence leaves room for the system to give itself a passing grade and continue to offer false or harmful information.

    My lab has designed algorithms that assign confidence scores by breaking down a large language model’s responses into individual claims that can be automatically cross-referenced with Wikipedia. We assess the semantic equivalence between the AI model’s output and the referenced Wikipedia entries for the assertions. Our approach allows the AI to quickly evaluate the accuracy of all its statements. Of course, relying on Wikipedia articles, which are usually but not always accurate, also has its limitations.

    Publishing confidence scores along with a model’s answers could help people to think more critically about the veracity of information that these tools provide. A language model can also be trained to withhold information if it earns a confidence score that falls below a set threshold. My lab has also shown that confidence scores can be used to help AI models generate more accurate answers.

    Limits of confidence

    There’s still a long way to go to ensure truly accurate AI. Most of these approaches assume that the information needed to correctly evaluate an AI’s accuracy can be found on Wikipedia and other online databases.

    But when accurate information is just not that easy to come by, confidence estimates can be misleading. To account for cases like these, Google has developed special mechanisms for evaluating AI-generated statements. My lab has similarly compiled a benchmarking dataset of prompts that commonly cause hallucinations.

    But all these approaches verify basic facts – there are no automated methods for evaluating other facets of long-form content, such as cause-and-effect relationships or an AI’s ability to reason over text consisting of more than one sentence.

    Developing tools that improve these elements of AI are key steps toward making the technology a source of trustworthy information – and avoid the harms that misinformation can cause.

    Lu Wang 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. Here’s how researchers are helping AIs get their facts straight – https://theconversation.com/heres-how-researchers-are-helping-ais-get-their-facts-straight-245463

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How rural English women used scrapbooks to commemorate the death of Winston Churchill

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cherish Watton-Colbrook, Archives Assistant, University of Cambridge

    Sixty years ago, on January 24, Britons gathered around their radios to listen to the sombre BBC announcement that Sir Winston Churchill had died at the age of 90. Others learned about the news at church, as they listened to prayers for the life of the former prime minister, admired by many for leading Britain through the second world war. Later that day, radio and television schedules were suspended to make way for the flood of tributes.

    Around this time in villages around England and Wales, Women’s Institute (WI) members were just beginning a year-long scrapbooking project in honour of the WI’s golden jubilee year in 1965. A branch-based voluntary organisation,
    founded in 1915, the WI was set up to bring country women together.

    This scrapbook project was one way in which the organisation sought to foster a sense of community in rural areas. Members were invited to chronicle everything that happened in their village during that year. Although not every entry featured a tribute to Churchill, several WI members decided to mark the former leader’s death.

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

    Today, many of these scrapbooks survive in county record offices, while others remain cherished volumes kept by WIs in their branch archives. Some branches, along with local history societies, have digitised their scrapbooks and shared them online.

    Scrapbooks are perhaps not what immediately spring to mind when we think about the 1960s. Traditionally, they conjure up images of brightly coloured printed clippings or pressed flowers, saved by Victorian women and children. But this is just one page in scrapbooking’s rich history.

    In the 20th century, the rise of popular newspapers, magazines, domestic photography and television provided an array of material that could be transformed into personal archives. Scrapbooking proved a popular way for people to document what they found meaningful in their lives. Family, work, activism, stars of film, music and sport, royalty and even the weather were just some of the many topics covered.

    In 1965, WI members in Woodford, the constituency Churchill represented for 40 years until 1964, decided to conclude their community scrapbook with a tribute to their former MP.

    On a page of black sugar paper, members pasted a programme from a local memorial church service. Women also included a commemorative stamp, together with a photograph of floral tributes left at a bronze statue of Churchill on the village green, flanked by servicemen. Even though Churchill died at the beginning of the year, it was evidently the last thing Woodford Green’s WI members wanted their readers to encounter in their scrapbook.

    Local and national newspapers published a plethora of obituaries and articles on Churchill’s life, providing scrapbookers, such as WI members in Stoke Ferry in Norfolk, with a wealth of visual material for their community volumes.

    Local WI members crafted a photographic record of Churchill’s life, from childhood through to retirement, arranging the images in chronological order, mirroring the conventions associated with family photograph albums. They combined a series of press photographs and newspaper headlines with a handwritten note elaborating on what they felt was significant about Churchill’s death. WI women even went as far as to connect Churchill with their scrapbooking activities:

    As we compile this Jubilee Scrap Book, we stop to wonder what life would have been like in this village in 1965 but for that great statesman and leader, Sir Winston Churchill. Would this book be the happy record of a free and thriving community?

    On the following pages, they contrasted photographs from the funeral procession, with a shot of a bunch of pink tulips, given by a serviceman. In juxtaposing these images, they switched between ceremonial and more intimate forms of commemoration.

    WI scrapbookers clearly felt strongly about recording the death of Churchill in their community volumes. The scrapbook genre allowed these women, at a significant moment in time, to shape the historical record in a way they found to be meaningful, with an eye to the future generations they expected to read their creations.

    ‘Cold lunches were the order of the day’

    As relayed in many of these WI scrapbooks, Churchill was the first prime minister in the 20th century who was afforded a state funeral. It was broadcast around the world in a transmission of unparalleled significance – second only to the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

    One woman in Whitchurch, Herefordshire, wrote a series of diary entries under the pseudonym of Ann Whitchurch for her WI’s competition entry. After an earlier entry (exploring the merits of new brightly coloured long johns) Whitchurch reflected on January 30:

    Everyone seems to feel his loss as something that really matters. Whatever anyone’s politics are, he stood for England, especially for people of my generation who remember his great speeches during the War. It’s rather like the end of a chapter.

    Whitchurch chose the more intimate format of the diary entry, as opposed to national newspaper coverage, to offer a personal tribute to Churchill. By declaring herself the spokeswoman for her generation, Whitchurch conveyed how she understood Churchill’s death as a moment of rupture and transition.

    Over 100 miles away in the Cotswolds, a farmer’s wife in Chedworth shared what the day looked like from her rural farm:

    Cold lunches were the order of the day, everyone was watching the funeral procession of Sir Winston Churchill – an unforgettable memory. Even the menfolk dashed in and out between essential jobs.

    This WI member used her passage to show how the villagers’ commitment to watching the funeral upended their everyday routines at home and at work.

    Sixty years on, browsing the pages of these community scrapbooks reveals more than just a reaction to Churchill’s death by a specific group of rural women. They provide a fascinating glimpse of how national mourning unfolded in English villages and the different ways in which country women documented this moment on behalf of their communities.

    Cherish Watton-Colbrook works as an Archives Assistant for Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge.

    – ref. How rural English women used scrapbooks to commemorate the death of Winston Churchill – https://theconversation.com/how-rural-english-women-used-scrapbooks-to-commemorate-the-death-of-winston-churchill-248689

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The EU was built for another age – here’s how it must adapt to survive

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Francesco Grillo, Academic Fellow, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University

    Shutterstock/gopixa

    To European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, Europe is like a Volkswagen Beetle – an iconic car produced by a once-mighty German manufacturer which has been struggling to adapt to a new world.

    “Europe must shift gears,” she urged in a speech to business executives gathered in Davos, Switzerland at the beginning of the year. Yet, her call to arms failed to raise more than an eyebrow. After all, she has repeated the same call many times since she was elected six years ago. So far, there has been little result.

    The US president, Donald Trump, may now even be tempted to finish off the EU (the most developed of the world’s multilateral organisations) by dividing its members over the single market for trade. This arrangement is the cornerstone upon which the union was built, but can it withstand Trump’s attempts to play European nations off against each other in order to get the best deal for himself?

    The problem is that Trump is simply bringing to its most extreme consequences the weakness of a system that was built for stable times which are long gone. We urgently need a new idea, and it cannot be for a “United States of Europe”. That is a dream from the past that could not be more at odds with Europe’s current political climate.

    Mini unions

    Europe is unable to chart a path forward because it needs unanimity among its member states in order to make any major decision. Votes are not even weighted to reflect the different sizes of each of the club’s members.

    This is a weakness that would gradually cause the deterioration of any international organisation. But in the case of the EU, the crisis is more serious because member states have surrendered part of their decision power. As a result, if the EU cannot move quickly, even member states turn out to be paralysed.

    Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, has often been singled out as the bad guy especially – this has happened every time the EU has tried to approve sanctions against Russia or aid to Ukraine. But examples of free riding abound even among the founding parties.

    For decades, France has resisted any attempt to reorganise the common agricultural policy that sends a third of the EU’s budget to farmers, many of them French. Italy has halted the ratification of the reform of the European stability mechanism that should protect states from financial instability, out of the assumption among part of the Italian electorate that this may compromise further sovereignty.

    Elsewhere, Germany’s constitutional court has derailed the reform of the EU electoral law that divides the election of the European parliament into a dysfunctional system of 27 national contests, because of the resistance of the German political system to any electoral law which is not proportional.

    We need to find a way to change all this. And the solution cannot be the rather abstract idea of a union that proceeds at different speeds, where the older members are supposed to be part of an inner circle. Nor is it feasible to expect the abolition of unanimous voting for the simple reason that to forgo unanimity, you need a unanimous vote.

    Instead, the EU should become the coordinator of multiple unions, each formed by the member states themselves around specific policies. A union might form around defence, for example, among member states which are ready for such a partnership, such as Poland, the Baltics and Finland.

    Another might bring together countries that wish to collaborate on large projects such as a pan-European high-speed train, or a fully integrated energy market that may allow Italy, France and Spain to save billions of euros and decarbonise more quickly.

    This is not entirely new. Arrangements like the euro and the free circulation of people (the Schengen area) follow this principle. Only a subset of EU nations are part of these projects, and offers have even been extended to join beyond the EU’s borders. Monaco is in the euro, for example, while Norway is in Schengen, despite neither being an EU member state.

    The problem with these unions is that they are incomplete. The complement to the monetary union is a recently reformed “stability pact” that leaves so many loopholes that 11 out of its 20 members do not comply. And even within Schengen, there are still no proper common borders. The result is continuous reciprocal accusations of exporting each other’s illegal migrants.

    The solution here is to fully share the levers within a certain policy area on terms which are more flexible and voluntary for the union’s members.

    The possibility of calm divorce

    Resilience is achieved through adaptability. Therefore, these new arrangements must make divorce between union members possible from the outset – and establish the terms of such a rupture in advance.

    And in the event of an extreme case, the other parties should also be able to ask one of the members to leave their union (so as to avoid being systematically held to ransom by a free rider). The current union treaty does contain a provision (article 50) that enables a member to leave, as the UK did – but if Brexit showed anything, it was that this mechanism has limited use at preventing a divorce from descending into chaos.

    People should always be part of these decisions, of course. When states decide to surrender some of their sovereignty to a larger organisation such as the EU, it changes the nature of the pact between the citizens of a country and the people who make decisions on their behalf. This evident truth has been ignored for decades as the EU has gradually been built from the top down.

    The European Union currently resembles the marriages we once had in Europe (until well into the 20th century), before it was acknowledged that they are a civil (not necessarily religious) contract that can be dissolved through divorce – not some divine construct that can never be undone.

    The marriage between EU countries is blighted by cheating and empty rhetoric. This is an issue we can no longer avoid if Europe wants to do more than just “shift gears”. The EU was the most successful political project of the 20th century. If it wants to continue to be so in the 21st, it has to learn to be flexible. Only those who can adapt survive.

    Francesco Grillo is Director of the think tank Vision. Vision is convenor of three global conferences on the future of the EU, climate change and AI .

    – ref. The EU was built for another age – here’s how it must adapt to survive – https://theconversation.com/the-eu-was-built-for-another-age-heres-how-it-must-adapt-to-survive-248811

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Sickle cell disease is a genetic disorder that causes lifelong suffering – here’s what you need to know

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cristina Pina, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences, Brunel University of London

    3D illustration of sickle cell red blood cells Meletios Verras/Shutterstock

    Right now, approximately 20 billion red blood cells are busy travelling through your blood vessels. They are delivering oxygen to all the different tissues in your body and removing carbon dioxide to be breathed out of your lungs.

    Red blood cells are discs curved inwards on both sides, without a cell nucleus. They are full of haemoglobin, a protein responsible for gas exchanges. At the core of a haemoglobin molecule is an iron carrying component called haem, which can be loaded with oxygen.

    The shape of the red blood cell is useful to flexibly navigate blood vessels of all sizes, deforming as needed. It also provides a large surface for gas exchange. Haemoglobin collects oxygen in the lungs, where there is plenty of it, and releases it across the body, where there is much less.

    But not if you suffer from sickle cell disease, which affects nearly eight million people worldwide, most in sub-Saharan Africa.

    In the UK, approximately 17,500 people have sickle cell disease and 300 babies are born with the condition each year. It is a genetic disorder caused by inherited mutations in a person’s DNA that affect the properties of haemoglobin.

    Haemoglobin is made up of four proteins organised around the iron-carrying haem group. These proteins are called globins, and each haemoglobin molecule has two alpha and two beta-globins.

    Sickle cell disease changes adult beta-globin. Instead of two alpha and two healthy beta chains, sickle cell disease patients have two alpha and two mutant beta chains. The resulting haemoglobin is called HbS.

    HbS has different characteristics to normal adult haemoglobin, causing severe symptoms. HbS is structurally unstable. Upon high temperatures, dehydration, acidity, such as happens during infections, it clumps inside the red blood cells. The clumps make red blood cells rigid and change their shape from flexible doughnuts into inflexible sickles – hence the name of the disease.

    Rigid sickle cells cannot travel through narrow blood vessels, which clogs them, forming clots that stop blood circulation in different places. The clots change oxygen and acidity locally, causing more sickling.

    Accumulation of clots causes some of the most severe symptoms of sickle cell disease, including strokes, kidney failure, blindness, prolonged and painful erections (called priapism) and loss of circulation in the lungs – the excruciating acute chest syndrome.

    Repeated clotting scars and destroys the spleen, increasing the risk of recurrent infections, often by streptococcal bacteria which can cause severe pneumonia and sepsis.

    Sickle red blood cells also break easily, a phenomenon called haemolysis. The body tries to produce more red blood cells, but cannot correct the underlying defect. Patients experience symptoms similar to other forms of anaemia, including pallor, breathlessness upon exertion, fatigue. Haemolysis leads to inflammation and damages blood vessels, further aggravating sickling symptoms.

    Lifelong suffering

    Symptoms and complications of sickle cell disease start in the first year of life and progress in severity. The disease reduces the quality and duration of life of patients – in the UK, those with sickle cell disease have a life expectancy of 67.

    Worldwide, life expectancy is below 50 and many children with sickle cell disease in sub-Saharan Africa die before the age of five. Sickle cell disease patients are dependent on transfusions of healthy red blood cells – over time this causes complications of its own.

    Until recently, the only cure for sickle cell disease was stem cell transplantation – also known as bone marrow transplantation – from a healthy donor with a compatible immune system which will not be rejected by, or attack, the patient. Often, this is a sibling or a parent, but, in up to 75% of cases, a compatible relative cannot be found.

    Stem cell transplantation replaces the cells in the blood factory of the patient, which produce HbS, with blood-making cells without the genetic defect, which produce normal adult haemoglobin. Transplanted blood stem cells maintain healthy haemoglobin production for life.

    In the absence of transplantation, sickle cell disease patients receive regular transfusions, which deliver healthy red blood cells. But, unlike stem cells, red blood cells are short-lived.

    Patients also receive a drug called hydroxycarbamide, which is used to treat cancer patients and can be toxic, but alleviates symptoms. Hydroxycarbamide acts by turning on a gene that leads to the production of foetal haemoglobin, which is not affected by the sickle cell disease mutation.

    In 2024, two forms of gene therapy were approved for sickle cell disease treatment by the US Food and Drug Administration. Both involve collecting stem cells from the patient, modifying them genetically, and transplanting them back into the patient so the body makes blood with corrected cells for the rest of the patient’s life.

    The first of the gene therapies, commercially called Casgevy, works by removing and inactivating a gene that is normally responsible for producing beta-globin. This replaces HbS in the red blood cells with the unaffected foetal haemoglobin.



    Read more:
    Nobel Prize for chemistry honors exquisitely precise gene-editing technique, CRISPR – a gene engineer explains how it works

    The second gene therapy, called Lyfgenia (Lovotibeglogene autotemcel), works differently. It introduces an additional gene in the stem cells which makes it less likely for HbS to form aggregates and cause sickling, reducing the more severe symptoms of the disease.

    The development and testing of gene and cell therapies for sickle cell disease is still an ongoing effort of many scientists and companies. That there are now two approved therapies for sickle cell disease highlights the importance of supporting investigation and development of breakthrough technologies based on detailed understanding of biological mechanisms of disease.

    These investigations are key to treating patients with genetic diseases, which often do not have any other available treatments.

    Cristina Pina receives funding from Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group via the Little Princess Trust and the National Centre for the Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of Animals in Research. She receives honoraria for consulting services to the Medicines Discover Institute at the University of Cardiff via an MRC research grant to Simon Ward.

    Victor Hernandez-Hernandez receives funding from GOSHCC Charity, Newlife Charity, Welcome Trust, Fight for Sight, EU FP7. He is co-founder, shareholder and employee of Axovia Therapeutics Ltd.

    – ref. Sickle cell disease is a genetic disorder that causes lifelong suffering – here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/sickle-cell-disease-is-a-genetic-disorder-that-causes-lifelong-suffering-heres-what-you-need-to-know-243827

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the war in Ukraine has made flying worse for the climate

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Viktoriia Ivannikova, Assistant Professor in Aviation Management, Dublin City University

    UladzimirZuyeu/Shutterstock

    Some long-haul flights connecting Europe and Asia are emitting 40% more CO₂ since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, my new study shows. The spike is largely due to airspace closures above conflict zones which are forcing airlines to seek alternative routes, significantly increasing flight times. Longer flights consume more fuel and increase the operating costs for airlines, quite apart from their contribution to climate change.

    The research I led with colleagues highlights how conflicts contribute to climate change in unexpected ways. Understanding this is crucial for tackling aviation’s environmental footprint.

    The war in Ukraine closed the country’s airspace and limited access to the airspace of the Russian Federation and Belarus. This amounts to the biggest closure of airspace since the cold war, spanning 18 million km².

    Airlines that previously flew in Russian or Ukrainian airspace on routes between Europe and Asia, North America and Asia, and North America and the Middle East now take significant detours. For example, Finnair’s flight AY73 from Helsinki to Tokyo now covers an additional 3,131 kilometres, extending flight times by up to 3.5 hours. North American flights to Asia have been rerouted over the Arctic and Central Asia.

    Safety concerns and geopolitical sanctions have forced airlines to carefully navigate around restricted zones.

    The situation is further complicated by restrictions in other conflict regions – including the Middle East, where the airspaces of Syria, Yemen and Iraq are also considered no-fly zones for many airlines. The global aviation map has been redrawn, forcing airlines to adapt quickly to a new and challenging reality.

    Several international flights now skirt war zones.
    Viktoriia Ivannikova

    This has been accompanied by significant costs, both financially and to the climate. We analysed 14 long-haul routes between Europe and Asia that were affected by airspace restrictions and operated by three European airlines: Finnair, LOT Polish and Lufthansa.

    The findings are striking: rerouted flights burn an additional 23 to 28.5 tonnes of fuel per journey, releasing an extra 72 to 90 metric tonnes of CO₂. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of several cars for a single flight.

    Airlines have also reported significant operating cost increases due to the extra flight hours, including higher fuel consumption, air navigation charges and crew salary increases. Our analysis showed that on certain routes between Europe and Asia, costs have risen by between 19% and 39%, while emissions have increased by between 18% and 40%, depending on the airline.

    On routes from Warsaw to Beijing, Warsaw to Tokyo and Warsaw to Seoul, LOT Polish Airlines has reported an increase of 23% in average aircraft operating costs following flight restrictions. CO₂ emissions on these routes have increased by 24% and ticket prices have also risen.

    Finnair, which historically relied on Russian airspace for efficient Europe-Asia connections, appears to be the most affected carrier. Following flight restrictions, aircraft operating costs on the routes from Helsinki to Shanghai, Helsinki to Tokyo and Helsinki to Seoul have risen by 39%, while average CO₂ emissions on these routes have increased by 40%.

    Our findings shed new light on the massive carbon footprint of war, which is often overlooked in climate policy. Using a forecasting model with specialised software, we found that continued avoidance of the airspaces of Russia and Ukraine could increase all aviation-related CO₂ emissions globally by up to 29% in 2025, compared with 2022.

    Aviation already accounts for 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions, and this figure is expected to grow as air travel expands.

    Aeroplanes seed heat-trapping clouds that amplify their climate impact.
    Peter Gudella/Shutterstock

    Our findings demonstrate that the need to decarbonise transport cannot be separated from broader geopolitical issues. As wars and conflicts reshape airspace availability, they also worsen aviation’s carbon footprint. It’s not just the airline industry that bears these costs – we all do, in the form of rising temperatures and a changing climate.

    What action needs to be taken?

    While the challenges are significant, there are solutions.

    Upgrading airline fleets with more fuel-efficient aircraft, such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787, can help to reduce CO₂ emissions by roughly 20%–25% compared with older aircraft models, such as the Boeing 777-200ER or Airbus A330-200.

    Optimising flight paths using advanced air traffic management systems could help too. These systems, allow aircraft to choose the shortest and most efficient paths and can reduce unnecessary detours.

    International agreements to manage airspace collectively during times of conflict can keep essential flight corridors open and ensure airlines avoid inefficient rerouting.

    Airlines are investing in sustainable aviation fuels, which emits less than traditional kerosene – but insufficient supplies, high costs and other challenges make this an expensive and partial solution. With no viable low-carbon alternatives for aircraft, reducing air travel should be the priority.

    As researchers, we see our findings as a call to action. By understanding the environmental consequences of conflict, we can work towards a more sustainable future for aviation and the planet.

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

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

    Viktoriia Ivannikova 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 the war in Ukraine has made flying worse for the climate – https://theconversation.com/how-the-war-in-ukraine-has-made-flying-worse-for-the-climate-249039

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: AI is transforming the search for new materials that can help create the technologies of the future

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Domenico Vicinanza, Associate Professor of Intelligent Systems and Data Science, Anglia Ruskin University

    Battery technology is one area that can benefit from the development of novel materials. IM Imagery / Shutterstock

    From the bronze age to the Industrial Revolution and beyond, the discovery and development of new materials has been a driving force in human history. These novel materials have helped advance technology and shape civilisations.

    Today, we are at the beginning of a new era, where artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be in the perfect position to transform the search for useful materials. This looks set to completely change the approach to their investigation, creation and testing.

    In ancient times, human civilisations experimented with natural resources to create tools and artifacts. The bronze age, in the mid-4th millennium BC, was a significant milestone. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, led to the development of stronger tools and weapons, as well as advancements in agriculture and construction.

    Bronze is often referred to as the first “new material” created by humans. We took different elements and created something new, with better properties that either ingredient and unique qualities. The invention of glass in ancient Mesopotamia around 3,500BC was another groundbreaking moment.

    A superconductor (the dark material) makes a magnetic cube levitate. The field of the magnet induces currents in the superconductor that generate an equal and opposite field, balancing out the gravitational force on the cube.
    Oak Ridge National Laboratory

    Fast forward to the 20th century and the discovery of plastic polymers, ceramics and superconductors opened new frontiers in technology. Ceramics, known for their durability and heat resistance, became a staple in industries from aerospace to electronics.

    Superconductors, materials that can conduct electricity with zero electrical resistance, are already used in maglevs (magnetic levitation trains), particle accelerators and medical devices.

    AI enters the fray

    Searching for new materials that could help drive the development of the next groundbreaking technologies has previously been a long and expensive process. This has been due to the complexity of many materials at the atomic and molecular levels. Traditional methods are essentially based on trial and error and need specialised equipment and resources.

    The inherent uncertainty and risk in material discovery further complicates and lengthens the process. However, advancements in AI, including in a subset of AI called machine learning, are beginning to transform the whole landscape, enabling more efficient and targeted approaches. In machine learning, mathematical rules called algorithms learn from data to improve at tasks without human intervention.

    The main shift is a new methodology based on “generative” AI systems, which can create new content. AI systems can now directly produce novel materials when provided with desired properties and constraints.

    Earlier this month, a team at Microsoft published a paper in Nature that introduced a pair of AI tools for the design of inorganic materials (those not based around the element carbon).

    AI tools can generate thousands of potential materials within a short space of time.
    Yurchanka Siarhei / Shutterstock

    These tools play complementary roles in materials discovery. They are called MatterGen and MatterSim. The first one creates new candidate materials, and the second filters and validates them – to ensure they could be made in the real world.

    The specific desired properties that can be incorporated through MatterGen include a specific symmetry, or mechanical, electronic and magnetic properties.

    Unlike traditional methods that mostly rely on intuition (along with extensive and tedious experimentation), MatterGen can generate thousands of potential materials with specific desired properties in a fraction of the time.

    This AI-led approach accelerates the initial stages of material design. It allows researchers to explore a broader range of possibilities and focus on the most promising candidates.

    MatterSim applies rigorous computer analysis to predict the stability and viability of these proposed materials. This predictive capability helps filter out theoretical possibilities from physically feasible ones. This ensures that only stable materials move forward in the discovery process.

    New tools in the box

    At this point, we might wonder, what does a new material, identified through this process, look like? MatterSim is mostly focusing on crystals, or more appropriately unique crystalline structures with a specific arrangement of atoms.

    These structures are tailored to meet precise property constraints, making them suitable for various applications. These include high energy batteries, flexible electronics, displays, solar panels or advanced medical implants.

    Flexible electronics are another area where materials discovery could drive advances.
    Peter Sobolev

    Microsoft’s powerful duo, however, is not alone in its quest. Google DeepMind’s Graph Networks for Materials Exploration (Gnome) is another tool promising to dramatically speed up the discovery process. Gnome uses a form of AI that’s inspired by the human brain called deep learning. It predicts the stability of new materials, significantly shortening the exploration and discovery phase.

    In a paper published in 2023, researchers from Google DeepMind demonstrated that their AI model could identify 2.2 million new stable materials. Some 736 of these have already been experimentally realised. This is a tenfold increase over previous methods. These materials, many of which were previously unknown to human chemists, have potential applications in clean energy, electronics, and more.

    Even if both Google’s Gnome and Microsoft’s MatterGen are AI-based, they differ in their approaches and, in some ways, provide complementary methodologies. Gnome predicts the stability of new materials by creating variations on existing structures, and it focuses on identifying stable crystalline materials.

    MatterGen, on the other hand, employs a generative AI model to directly engineer novel materials based on specific design requirements. It creates material structures by changing elements, positions and periodic lattices (a repeating structure in three dimensions).

    The implications of AI-driven material discovery are vast. They could potentially lead to innovations in fields such as energy storage and environmental sustainability. One of the most promising applications is, for example, the development of new batteries.

    As the world makes the transition to renewable energy sources, the demand for efficient, long lasting batteries has grown and will continue to do so. AI tools can help researchers design and identify new materials able to support higher energy densities, faster charging times and longer lifespans.

    Beyond energy storage, new materials can be used to design new medical devices, implants and even drug delivery systems. This could improve patient outcomes and advance medical treatments.

    In aerospace, lightweight, durable materials could enhance the performance and safety of aircraft and spacecraft. Meanwhile, new materials for water purification, carbon capture, and waste management could address pressing environmental challenges.

    Domenico Vicinanza 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. AI is transforming the search for new materials that can help create the technologies of the future – https://theconversation.com/ai-is-transforming-the-search-for-new-materials-that-can-help-create-the-technologies-of-the-future-249392

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Cloud-based computing: routes toward secure storage and affordable computation

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Robert Deng, Professor of Information Systems – School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University

    Storing data in the cloud is now routine for people and companies alike, but cybersecurity risks still exist, particularly in handling user authentication and access control securely. Researchers are developing novel methods to store data securely and in a computationally affordable way, and to exploit it efficiently–by computing directly on encrypted data.

    Cloud computing, while indispensable for modern business operations, has also become a significant target for cyberattacks due to the large amount of sensitive data stored online. Currently, over 90% of organizations rely on cloud services for critical operations, and there are more than 3.6 billion active cloud users globally. This translates to 47% of the world’s population utilizing cloud services, underscoring the widespread dependency on the cloud.

    Unfortunately, this reliance on cloud computing comes with heightened risks. Data breaches are escalating in both frequency and severity: according to the 2024 Thales Cloud Security Study, 44% of businesses reported experiencing a breach in their cloud environments, with 14% reporting a breach within the past 12 months.

    As organizations migrate more sensitive data to the cloud–nearly half of all cloud-stored data is classified as sensitive–the attack surface for cybercriminals expands. This makes breaches not only more common but also more damaging, as the loss of sensitive information can have far-reaching consequences, including significant financial and reputational harm. The global average cost of a data breach in 2024 was estimated at $4.88 million.

    Nowadays, so-called “client-side encryption” is effective in data security and privacy protection in cloud data storage. However, for encrypted data to be useful, there is still a long way to go toward practical secure computation over it. We still face significant scalability and performance hurdles. Research continues to explore ways to bridge this gap, making scalable, privacy-preserving computation more efficient and accessible for large-scale applications.

    The root causes of data breaches

    User authentication and access control are among the most critical mechanisms to deter data breaches.

    User authentication, the process of verifying the identity of users trying to access cloud resources, is the first line of defence–but it is widely regarded as the weakest link in the chain of security, with an estimated 81% of hacking-related breaches leveraging either stolen or weak passwords. Though user authentication has evolved a lot in recent years, attacks meant to compromise user authentication have, too.

    Access control–the process of regulating who can view, use or interact with cloud resources such as data, applications or services–is the next line of defence. Effective access control ensures that only authorized users or devices have the appropriate permissions to access certain resources, thereby minimizing security risks and preventing unauthorized access or misuse of cloud assets.

    In today’s cloud computing environments, cloud servers are fully responsible to correctly enforce access-control policies. As a result, misconfigurations of servers due to human error or software bugs, or compromise of servers due to malicious attacks, can result in serious breaches. In fact, the US National Security Agency (NSA) considers misconfiguration a leading vulnerability in a cloud environment.

    Client-side encryption for secure storage

    Data can be encrypted and decrypted on end users’ devices before uploading it to and downloading it from the cloud. This approach ensures that data is encrypted during transit and storage, making data inaccessible to anyone without the decryption keys, including service providers and other potential attackers. As long as the decryption keys are kept secure by end users, security and privacy of data can be ensured even if the user’s cloud account and the cloud server are compromised.

    Existing client-side encryption solutions in cloud computing can use either private or public keys. For example, Google Workspace client-side encryption employs an online key distribution server for distribution between authorized users for the purpose of data encryption and sharing. However, an online distribution server can be both a security and performance bottleneck. To circumvent this, MEGA, another client-side encryption service, uses public key encryption and hence does not require an online key distribution server. But it does require sophisticated public key certificate management, as the number of public key encryptions is proportional to the number of potential data users to share a document, making this a strategy that’s hard to scale up.

    Circumventing the computational limitation of client-side encryption

    Suppose that a hospital wants to outsource the storage of its patients’ electronic medical records to the cloud and wants to establish specific policies on who can access the records. Before outsourcing a record, the hospital may specify that it can only be accessed by cardiologists in, say, the University Hospital, or by scientists in the Life Science Institute. Let “CT” denote the encrypted medical record and “AP” = (Cardiologist AND University Hospital) OR (Scientist AND Life Science Institute) be the access policy. CT and AP are cryptographically bound together and are uploaded to the cloud for storage. Then only users whose attributes satisfy AP can decrypt CT to get the decrypted medical record.

    This is a scalable encryption system because its access policy does not need to list each and every authorized user who can access the data, only the attributes of the potential users. Access control (i.e., decryption) of encrypted data is not enforced by the cloud server but through the encryption and decryption algorithms that are theoretically proved secure.

    Beyond secure storage: exploiting secure data efficiently

    One of the main efficiency drawbacks of such systems–which are already deployed–is that decryption is computationally expensive for resource-limited devices. To address this issue, we proposed a protocol that improves decryption efficiency for end users by two orders of magnitude, by outsourcing most of the decryption workload to a public cloud server.

    Another critical problem in deployment is “user revocation”: whenever a user leaves the system, changes her position or loses her existing private key, the key must be revoked to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. Current systems mostly use timestamps to bar revoked users from decrypting new content–however, the timestamps require regular updates, which can be computationally heavy in large systems. We proposed hardware-based revocable attribute-based encryption to make revocation cheaper.

    Computing directly on encrypted data

    Ideally, servers should be able to perform meaningful operations on encrypted data without ever decrypting it, preserving privacy at every step.

    This is where so-called “fully homomorphic encryption” comes in. It is a cutting-edge encryption technique that enables mathematical operations–specifically, addition and multiplication–to be executed on encrypted data directly by a server, without the need for decryption.

    However, current state-of-the-art systems are impractical for large-scale computations because of the “noise”–the unwanted, random-looking data introduced by cryptographic operations–that threatens the integrity of the results. Frequent noise-mitigating procedures are required–once again, a computationally expensive method, in particular for large data sets.

    Our novel approach to secure computing over encrypted data allows an unlimited number of arithmetic operations to be performed without the need for “bootstrapping” (the mathematical operation to reduce noise), achieving superior performance across various secure computing tasks, such as privacy-preserving person re-identification.

    Created in 2007 to help accelerate and share scientific knowledge on key societal issues, the Axa Research Fund has supported nearly 700 projects around the world conducted by researchers in 38 countries. To learn more, visit the website of the Axa Research Fund or follow @AXAResearchFund on X.

    Robert Deng has received funding from the Singapore National Research Foundation.

    – ref. Cloud-based computing: routes toward secure storage and affordable computation – https://theconversation.com/cloud-based-computing-routes-toward-secure-storage-and-affordable-computation-248592

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Bolstering Canada’s right to repair could shield it against U.S. tariffs and trade uncertainty

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Anthony D Rosborough, Assistant Professor of Law & Computer Science, Dalhousie University

    The right to repair movement aims to give consumers, businesses and independent repair providers access to the resources needed to maintain essential products and technologies. (Shutterstock)

    Canada’s economy has long relied on open trade and cross-border supply chains, but as tariff threats and market protectionism rise from the United States under President Donald Trump, so do Canada’s economic vulnerabilities.

    Although the risk of a trade war between Canada and the U.S. has been given a temporary reprieve, with Trump saying he will hold off on imposing tariffs for at least 30 days, the threat still looms large.

    What happens when crucial imports — farm machinery, medical devices, home appliances — become harder to access or more expensive?

    The current crisis has unveiled deep weaknesses and dependencies in Canada’s economy. In 2023, 77 per cent of Canada’s exports went to the U.S., while nearly half of its imports came from its southern neighbour. For decades, this interdependence was viewed as a diplomatic success, but it’s now clear that this has come with risks and vulnerabilities too.



    Read more:
    Trump’s trade war is forcing Canada to revive a decades-old plan to reduce U.S. dependence

    Political leaders across party lines recognize that Canada needs a plan for bolstering its economic resilience. This will require strengthening domestic manufacturing, expanding trade diversification and building new diplomatic and economic alliances. But this plan must also develop workforce resilience, domestic capacity and innovation right here at home.

    The solution lies in strengthening Canadians’ right to repair the products and devices we rely upon. The right to repair is not just about environmental sustainability, it’s a matter of economic resilience; it can increase the number of well-paying Canadian jobs and reduce Canada’s dependence on unpredictable global markets.

    The right to repair

    The right to repair movement seeks to ensure that consumers, businesses and independent repair providers have access the parts, tools, information and software needed to repair and maintain essential products, devices and technologies.

    That means not only the smartphones in our pockets and the cars we drive to work, but also the machinery that harvests our food and the medical devices that hospitals rely on to save lives.

    Currently, much of this equipment is either imported or relies heavily on imported components. Canada’s agricultural sector, for instance, heavily depends on machinery imports from the U.S. to maintain productivity and food security. This machinery is notoriously difficult to repair as the result of legal and technical restrictions. Canada’s agricultural equipment industry is faced with the same challenges as independent repairers.

    A maintenance engineer checks a CT scanner machine.
    (Shutterstock)

    Similar vulnerabilities exist in the health-care sector. Canada imports 70 per cent of its medical devices, with nearly half coming from the U.S. Much like those servicing (or using) agricultural equipment, biomedical engineers across Canada face a range of technical, legal and market barriers to keep devices online, pushing them into exclusive service contracts to keep devices working.



    Read more:
    A medical ‘right to repair’ can empower consumers — and save lives

    Consumer devices and home appliances are also overwhelmingly imported into Canada, making them susceptible to tariffs and trade barriers — all with the potential to make Canada’s cost-of-living crisis more dire than it already is.

    A path to economic resilience

    The right to repair movement offers a way for Canada to reduce both its economic vulnerabilities and U.S. dependency.

    Extending the lifespan of products is crucial not only for environmental sustainability and reducing waste, but also for strengthening the economy. It can also help communities be more resilient by supporting local businesses, creating jobs and boosting productivity.

    Canada has made significant progress in advancing the right to repair in recent years. Bill C-59 introduced amendments to the Competition Act aimed at cracking down on manufacturers’ refusal to provide independent businesses with the parts, tools and information necessary for repair.

    And, in 2024, Canada amended its Copyright Act to allow repairers to break digital locks used by manufacturers of digital goods to restrict access to repair and diagnostic information.

    But these are only the first steps in a full-fledged right to repair — more needs to be done to support the right to repair in Canada.

    Governments must step up

    Canada’s provinces need to strengthen consumer protection laws to ban planned obsolescence and oblige manufacturers to provide access to essential repair resources.

    Provinces should also prevent manufacturers from voiding warranties on products and devices that are repaired outside of authorized networks. Québec has taken a leading role in this area, but inter-provincial co-ordination will be crucial going forward.

    Extending the lifespan of products is crucial not only for environmental sustainability and reducing waste, but also for strengthening the economy.
    (Shutterstock)

    The federal government’s job also remains unfinished. It needs to regulate repair restrictions in critical technology sectors like agriculture and health care by developing technical standards and minimum repairability requirements for equipment and devices that are purchased through public procurement processes.

    Canada is also in need of federal leadership in enacting a repairability index, which scores products and devices based on their ease of repair. Such an initiative would provide consumers with the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions.

    Advancing the right to repair is a cost-free policy move that will strengthen Canada’s economy in an era of trade uncertainty. Unlike subsidy programs or industry bailouts, right to repair legislation focuses on consumers and independent businesses.

    By enabling workers and businesses to repair rather than replace, Canada can maximize the value of existing goods, reduce dependence on volatile global supply chains and make the country more self-sufficient, all without added government spending.

    Anthony D Rosborough has received Doctoral Award funding from Canada’s Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and is a Policy Lead with Dalhousie University’s MacEachen Institute for Public Policy & Governance. Anthony is a Co-Founder of the Canadian Repair Coalition and the Principal Investigator of the Unlocking Healthcare research project (www.unlockinghealthcare.ca).

    – ref. Bolstering Canada’s right to repair could shield it against U.S. tariffs and trade uncertainty – https://theconversation.com/bolstering-canadas-right-to-repair-could-shield-it-against-u-s-tariffs-and-trade-uncertainty-248970

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why Canada must seize the moment and launch its long-awaited Africa strategy

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By David J Hornsby, Professor of International Affairs and the Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Academic), Carleton University

    Recent events have been nothing short of shock therapy for many Canadians. The threat of economically devastating tariffs by the United States at the behest of President Donald Trump have only reinforced that the time is ripe for Canada to diversify its foreign engagements and collaborations — like with the African region.

    Africa’s geopolitical and economic trajectory is reshaping the global order. With the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) poised to become the world’s largest single market, a youthful population driving innovation and vast renewable energy potential, the continent is no longer a peripheral player — it’s a cornerstone of the 21st-century economy.

    Yet Canada, despite years of consultations and pledges, has delayed the release of a comprehensive Africa trade strategy. The time for hesitation is over.

    AfCFTA window is closing

    The AfCFTA, which spans 54 countries and 1.3 billion people, is projected to boost intra-African trade by 52 per cent by 2035. For Canada, this represents a significant opportunity to diversify exports beyond traditional partners like the U.S. and China.

    Canadian sectors from agri-food to clean tech are well-positioned to meet Africa’s demand for value-added goods and infrastructure.

    Global competitors are already moving: China’s trade with Africa surpassed $200 billion in 2023, while the European Union and India have accelerated trade pact negotiations across the continent.

    Without a formal strategy, Canada risks losing access to a market that could define the next decade of economic growth.

    Geopolitical stakes have never been higher

    Russia and China have deepened their influence across Africa, often at the expense of democratic governance and transparency. Canada’s absence isn’t just an economic miss — it’s a strategic void.

    By aligning with African priorities like Agenda 2063, which emphasizes self-reliance and sustainable development, Canada can counterbalance exploitative partnerships with ones rooted in mutual benefit.

    As Agenda 2063 identifies, African leaders are refocusing their agendas from the struggle against apartheid and political independence to “inclusive social and economic development, continental and regional integration, democratic governance and peace and security.” Africa faces a collective US$100 billion annual infrastructure deficit following centuries of colonial incursion and extraction.

    Recent Canadian investments in peace and security, good governance, people-to-people ties ($54 million) and economic empowerment ($176 million for women and youth empowerment) signal intent, but without a unified strategy, these
    efforts are fragmented.

    Aligning perfectly with Africa’s needs

    Canada’s world-class engineering firms and institutions like the Canada Infrastructure Bank could partner with African states and institutions like the African Development Bank and replicate successes achieved in projects like Ghana’s renewable energy grid.

    Africa’s startup ecosystem thrives in the financial technology and agritech sectors, where Canadian expertise and venture capital could catalyze growth.

    Projects like the Lobito Corridor, offer a chance for Canadian firms to contribute to rail and transport development that could be transformative.

    With significant solar and other renewable energies potential, Africa is critical to the net-zero transition. Canadian mining firms and clean energy innovators are natural partners for lithium and cobalt projects, despite the dubious human and environmental rights track record of some Canadian mining companies in the region.

    A Canada-Africa strategy needs to signal a support for mandatory adherence to environmental and human rights standards for mining firms, such as Canada’s Towards Sustainable Mining framework, while strengthening accountability through mechanisms like independent oversight and legal consequences for violations that already exist. By prioritizing partnerships with African governments and local communities, such a strategy could ensure ethical practices through transparent agreements, community consent protocols, and shared governance models foster a future of more ethical behaviour.

    From aid to equity

    Decades of humanitarian aid have fostered good will, but Africa’s leaders increasingly demand collaboration

    Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy emphasizes gender equality and aligns with Africa’s push for women-led development.

    But a true partnership requires reciprocity, like South Africa’s significant investments in Canadian mining and climate research collaborations. The African diaspora community, numbering over 1.2 million in Canada, is a bridge to these opportunities.

    The G7 presidency provides opportunity

    The alignment of the Canadian 2025 G7 presidency with South Africa’s 2025 presidency of the G20 offers a pivotal moment to unveil Canada’s African strategy and to mainstream African priorities, from debt relief to digital inclusion.

    The forthcoming G20 gatherings of finance ministers and central bank governors in Cape Town offers a perfect moment to demonstrate an actual plan to diversify Canadian foreign policy engagements and interests while positioning the country to rally allies behind a renewed set of initiatives that exist across the continent.

    To delay any further will not only frustrate business and diaspora groups alike, but will continue to relegate Canada to a marginal role in the continent’s economic and social development.

    The EU’s public and private investments in the green and digital transitions in Kenya and Ghana’s lithium deal with Australia underscore the urgency for a co-ordinated and concerted approach. Canada’s reputation as a reliable partner hangs in the balance.

    A call for cohesion

    A Canadian Africa strategy is critical now more than ever. To fully engage, any plan will need to articulate pan-African trade and streamlined export opportunities. It should leverage soft power by expanding diplomatic missions across regional economic communities.

    Investing in mutual growth via joint ventures in mining, agri-processing, and digital infrastructure is also crucial. Embedding climate justice by linking critical mineral exports to African renewable energy projects will foster sustainable development — all the while maintaining key imperatives of gender equality, one health and the exchange of knowledge through things like the South Africa-Canada Universities Network.

    Africa’s rise isn’t a distant future — it’s unfolding now. Canada has the tools, the values and the economic imperative to act. Delaying further isn’t just a missed opportunity; it’s a generational misstep.

    The strategy is drafted, the stakeholders are ready. All that’s missing is the political will to hit “publish” and get started.

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

    – ref. Why Canada must seize the moment and launch its long-awaited Africa strategy – https://theconversation.com/why-canada-must-seize-the-moment-and-launch-its-long-awaited-africa-strategy-249255

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: DEI needs to fix systems, not people

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeffrey To, Psychology PhD Researcher, Intergroup Relations and Implicit Biases, McGill University

    This week, Google announced it’s halting its DEI hiring initiatives. But DEI training is fleeting and hiring practices need to address systems, not individuals. (Tom Barrett/Unsplash), CC BY

    Google recently became the latest multinational to abandon its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring mandates. This follows a broader trend among major corporations and a recent executive order by United States President Donald Trump.

    Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, rolled back its DEI policies last November after a five-year racial equity commitment. Other companies like Toyota, Target, Johnson & Johnson, and most recently, McDonald’s, have also halted their DEI initiatives.

    In Canada, however, some companies remain committed to DEI. For example, KPMG Canada conducted 50 DEI training sessions for its 35,000 employees in 2022 and plans to continue its DEI efforts into 2025.

    But is this the best way forward?

    As a PhD student researching implicit bias, I am examining how DEI training and programs can go awry. For example, one study suggests that while DEI programs can reduce prejudice in some cases, programs that exert control over people may backfire. This happens because they place responsibility for bias and discrimination on individuals when research suggests it is the biased systems that deserve more scrutiny.

    Systems — comprising policies, practices and societal norms — are the primary culprits behind biases, which often lead to unfair behaviours toward minority groups.

    Biases are systemic

    We’ve all experienced a moment where we met someone and perhaps without thinking, felt a sense of threat or unfamiliarity. These spontaneous reactions are known as implicit biases. Over the years, researchers have linked these biases to unfair treatment of individuals who differ from us.

    Historically, psychologists have considered bias intrinsic to oneself, similar to personality or IQ. However, newer approaches are challenging this view.

    Personality tests such as the Big Five show reasonable forecasting ability for job outcomes. However, Implicit Association Tests — a common tool used to measure implicit biases — show only weak relevance to actual discriminatory behaviour. In other words, a white person who holds implicit biases against racialized immigrants, for example, might not necessarily act on those biases.

    Recent studies now suggest that biases are better understood as environmental factors, not individual traits. For example, one study demonstrated that implicit biases correlate with behaviour. But this connection only holds when analyzing groups of people within a specific region. In regions where anti-Black biases are more prevalent among white residents, higher rates of police violence against Black individuals are observed.

    This study highlights that biases aren’t about individuals. They are part of broader societal structures and social norms.

    Solutions to systemic bias

    One key takeaway from implicit bias research is that interventions targeting individual biases often provide only temporary results because bias is embedded within systems.

    So, what can organizations do to address systemic bias more effectively?

    Let’s look at hiring as an example.

    Instead of requiring hiring managers to participate in diversity training, organizations could implement hiring criteria that minimize the influence of race and gender bias in the hiring process. Some research suggests tailoring job descriptions to appeal to underrepresented groups. For example, HR postings that increase the transparency of qualifications or focus on benefits can attract more women for roles in traditionally male-dominated fields.

    Policing is another area where systemic change can mitigate bias. Studies show police officers are more likely to stop, question, arrest or use force against Black people than white people.

    Rather than mandating police officers undergo diversity training to educate them about their biases — something that has only a fleeting effect — a restructuring of the policies and procedures around stops and frisks would reduce bias’s impact.

    For instance, policies to ensure the collection of race-based data in police stop and frisks and to encourage stricter accountability among police officers could go a long way to curb racial profiling.

    As DEI programs face increasing scrutiny and skepticism, and many employees feel frustrated by ineffective and repetitive online training, there is a growing need to reframe DEI as systems-focused work. If diversity, equity and inclusion are truly the goals, the solution lies in rebuilding the systems that shape our society.

    Jeffrey To receives funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. DEI needs to fix systems, not people – https://theconversation.com/dei-needs-to-fix-systems-not-people-247877

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Preventing ‘revenge quitting:’ 5 things workplaces can do to help employees feel like they belong

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Andrea Carter, Adjunct Faculty in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Adler University

    Creating a genuine sense of belonging can reshape workplace culture, boost engagement and overall business success. (Shutterstock)

    Longstanding workplace issues such as mistreatment, the normalization of toxic behaviour and a lack of accountability for workplace culture have fuelled a growing trend known as revenge quitting.

    This phenomenon, on the rise since the 2000s, sees employees leaving their jobs not just for better opportunities, but as a form of protest and self-preservation against unfair treatment.

    In the past, fear of economic ruin, social stigma and valuing job stability over personal dignity kept many employees from quitting under such circumstances. However, unprecedented inequality and other geopolitical risks are causing an increase in revenge quitting and similar behaviours.

    Companies that want to address this issue have much to gain, but they must go beyond diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or human resources strategies. Creating a genuine sense of belonging can reshape workplace culture, boost engagement and overall business success.



    Read more:
    Understanding the backlash against corporate DEI — and how to move forward

    Consequences of revenge quitting

    When employees resign as a final act of protest against toxic workplace conditions, the impact on organizations can be significant. One of the most obvious consequences is financial loss. Sudden departures lead to expenses related to recruiting, hiring, training, as well as lost productivity and project disruptions.

    Organizations also lose valuable institutional knowledge and skills when experienced employees quit, hampering innovation, continuity and long-term strategy.

    The abrupt departure of employees also sends a powerful message to remaining staff, potentially leading to decreased morale, trust and engagement.

    Employees who ‘revenge quit’ do so not just for better opportunities, but as a form of protest and self-preservation against unfair treatment.
    (Shutterstock)

    High-profile cases of revenge quitting can also damage an organization’s reputation, affecting customer relationships and investor confidence.

    Finally, revenge quitting can have lasting consequences on workplace culture. If the toxic behaviour that caused the resignation remains unaddressed, remaining employees may become disengaged, leading to a decline in work quality.

    Mitigating the risk of revenge quitting

    My research has found that when employees feel a genuine sense of belonging, they are more engaged and loyal, they produce more innovative and creative solutions, and they are more reliable and productive.

    Moreover, belonging buffers against workplace stressors that lead to toxic behaviours by reducing feelings of isolation, mitigating burnout and encouraging active listening before making decisions. This, in turn, decreases the likelihood of employees making abrupt, retaliatory exits.

    Employees want to work for companies that respect their individuality and value their contributions. High-performing teams thrive when there is clear accountability, fair conflict resolution and a culture of feedback and learning. Addressing toxic behaviours early helps maintain trust and reduces the risk of retaliatory quitting.

    It’s also essential to distinguish between belonging and merely fitting in. True belonging is a reciprocated behaviour between employees and the organization, not solely the employee’s responsibility. Organizations that focus only on forcing employees to “fit in” overlook the systemic changes required to foster true benefits.

    Belonging requires an active commitment to the five core indicators of belonging: comfort, connection, psychological safety and well-being. Each indicator is essential in reducing the desire to disengage or quit out of frustration or retaliation.

    Pillar 1: Comfort

    Workplace comfort is essential for focus, cognitive function and productivity. While physical factors like temperature, noise and ergonomics matter, social comfort is more critical. Social comfort comes from clear expectations, defined workflows and recognizing individual talents within a team.

    Unprecedented inequality and other geopolitical risks are causing an increase in revenge quitting and similar behaviours.
    (Shutterstock)

    When the economy becomes volatile, it can force organizations to deviate from their original strategic plans in an effort to stay afloat. When this happens, comfort is the first thing to erode in a workplace, which allows toxicity to go unchecked.

    For example, when economic shifts force leaders to pivot, employees may have to scrap their work. If leadership lacks alignment in the new strategic actions, expectations will rise while clarity drops, creating stress and conflict. Leaders should reset expectations, restore social comfort and ensure collaboration rather than competition.

    Pillar 2: Connections

    Strong social relationships in the workplace can buffer against stress and enhance resilience. Connection is fostered through mentorship programs, collaboration and informal networking.



    Read more:
    Workplace besties: How to build relationships at work while staying professional

    In remote and hybrid work settings, ensuring employees feel connected to their teams through structured check-ins and virtual social space is critical.

    Connections increase engagement and build emotional attachment, which reduces the risk of employees leaving. Employees who experience meaningful interactions with colleagues and leaders are more engaged and less likely to feel alienated.

    Pillar 3: Contributions

    Employees need to feel that their work is meaningful and valued. Recognition activates the brain’s reward system, which reinforces motivation and increases engagement. When employees feel unappreciated, resentment builds. When this happens repetitively, it can lead employees to disengage from their work, and eventually depart.

    Organizations must implement structured recognition programs that celebrate individual and team achievements, ensuring employees know their work is valued.

    Equally important is offering opportunities for employees to contribute beyond their job descriptions, whether through special projects or mentoring. A workplace that values and acknowledges contributions fosters commitment and decreases the likelihood of employees resigning.

    Pillar 4: Psychological safety

    Ensuring employees’ ideas and concerns are met with curiosity and understanding is crucial for retention. In fear-based workplaces, stress inhibits cognitive function and creativity.

    Leaders must create environments where feedback is welcomed, mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities and employees feel empowered to express their perspectives.



    Read more:
    Fostering psychological safety in the workplace: 4 practical, real-life tips based on science

    Employees feel safe when they work in an environment where feedback is taught and encouraged. They are less likely to disengage or engage in retaliatory behaviours like revenge quitting.

    Strategies such as clear communication channels, anonymous feedback mechanisms and inclusive leadership training help create psychological safety.

    Pillar 5: Well-being

    Employee well-being is tied to cognitive function, emotional regulation and job satisfaction. Employees experiencing chronic stress, burnout or work-life imbalances are more likely to disengage and eventually quit.

    Workplace programs that support mental and physical health are crucial. Offering flexible work arrangements, mental health and stress management resources, normalizing breaks and setting boundaries helps sustain employee energy and commitment.

    More than a checkbox

    Revenge quitting isn’t just a series of isolated incidents, but a reflection of a deeper, systemic disregard for worker dignity.

    The workforce has changed, with employees now prioritizing workplaces where they feel respected, valued and safe. Companies that fail to adapt will continue to lose experienced, talented workers — not because the job market is more competitive, but because employees refuse to tolerate environments that undermine their dignity.

    Leaders need to recognize that creating a culture of belonging isn’t about checking a DEI box — it’s about ensuring employees have every reason to stay and grow within their organizations.

    Andrea Carter 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. Preventing ‘revenge quitting:’ 5 things workplaces can do to help employees feel like they belong – https://theconversation.com/preventing-revenge-quitting-5-things-workplaces-can-do-to-help-employees-feel-like-they-belong-248411

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Using smart technologies and artificial intelligence in food packaging can reduce food waste

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tohid Didar, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Nano-biomaterials, Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University

    More than 30 per cent of the world’s food is wasted each year. (Shutterstock)

    Food insecurity is one of humanity’s most pressing challenges, impacting more than two billion people worldwide.

    Paradoxically, as so many suffer from lack of access to food, more than 30 per cent of the world’s food is wasted each year, driven by inefficiencies in production, distribution and consumption.



    Read more:
    About one-third of the food Americans buy is wasted, hurting the climate and consumers’ wallets

    Outdated, imprecise and often incorrect labelling systems — such as printed expiry dates — contribute to these huge problems, leading to the unnecessary disposal of safe, healthy food, increased greenhouse gas emissions and financial losses.

    Addressing these crises requires bold investment in sustainable technologies that are already tested and available. These include smart food-packaging innovations that provide real-time food quality monitoring in every package. This would allow producers, retailers and consumers to receive up-to-date information through the package itself.

    Real-time information

    Unlike traditional expiration-date labels that communicate only time, food packaging innovations use advanced sensors and artificial intelligence to measure spoilage indicators such as pH balance, bacterial growth and biogenic amines. This allows for dynamic and up-to-the-minute tracking of food freshness.

    These systems would increase food safety and prevent food fit for consumption from being thrown out. The early and highly specific warnings they provide would also reduce the need for costly and labour-intensive testing when problems occur.

    Despite the promise of these scientifically proven systems, getting them into the marketplace is a significant challenge.

    Corporations often resist smart packaging due to higher costs and tight profit margins in the highly competitive food sector.

    Applying smart technologies in food packaging design can help consumers make more informed choices.
    (Shutterstock)

    Innovative solutions

    However, the wider economic argument for smart packaging is compelling: food waste contributes to hundreds of billions of dollars in global annual losses, and smart solutions can reduce these losses substantially.

    By quantifying the potential savings — such as reduced spoilage, fewer recalls, less food-related illness and lower legal liabilities — public and private stakeholders can understand why it’s valuable to share the cost of these innovations.

    These technologies also align nicely with growing consumer demand for sustainability and transparency in food systems.

    Reducing food waste through smart food packaging would lower greenhouse gas emissions, conserve agricultural resources and reduce the strain on global supply chains.

    Such innovations can help improve food availability, especially in underserved regions where food insecurity is most acute, fostering healthier and more resilient communities.



    Read more:
    Food prices are not the only obstacle to achieving food security: Root causes include systemic barriers

    Policymakers and industry leaders can create an appetite for change by regarding solutions as investments in people and the planet, not just profits.

    Regulatory bodies must take bold steps, as we have seen in California’s elimination of “sell by” dates, which motivated producers to rethink their labeling strategies.

    Governments can further incentivize smart food-packaging adoption through tax benefits, subsidies, or funding for companies to integrate real-time monitoring technologies. Such measures would make this beneficial change more economically viable for corporations.

    Empowering consumers

    Smart food packaging would also empower consumers to make informed decisions. Innovations such as AI-enabled apps that predict food freshness from smartphone photos can help households reduce waste by determining the safety of food without needing to open the package.

    Smart packaging and apps could take the guesswork out of predicting food freshness.
    (Shutterstock)

    Smart packaging platforms should prioritize universal applications that work across food types, rather than niche, highly customized systems.

    Investing in sustainable innovations to address food insecurity would also deliver broader economic and environmental benefits. Reduced food waste translates to lower greenhouse gas emissions, less strain on agricultural systems and significant savings across supply chains.

    For developing nations disproportionately affected by food insecurity, smart packaging technologies can be transformative, extending shelf life and improving distribution efficiency.

    Collaboration across industry, academia and government is vital to getting these solutions into broad use.

    Profit and societal benefits

    Researchers and innovators must work with corporations to develop proven prototypes into cost-effective, high-performance technologies, while policymakers need to create frameworks to incentivize adoption. Investments must prioritize not just economic returns but also long-term societal benefits.

    As a researcher developing smart food packaging platforms, I have seen firsthand how interdisciplinary partnerships accelerate the translation of bold ideas into practical solutions. I have led research teams that have developed technologies such as Lab-in-a-Package and sprayable bacteriophage microgels. These innovations simultaneously improve food safety and reduce waste.

    Addressing food insecurity demands a holistic, sustainable approach that brings together technological innovation, supportive policies and societal awareness. By investing in smart, scalable solutions, we can transform our food systems to ensure less food is wasted.

    Tohid Didar receives funding from MITACs and NSERC to develop smart food packaging technologies.

    – ref. Using smart technologies and artificial intelligence in food packaging can reduce food waste – https://theconversation.com/using-smart-technologies-and-artificial-intelligence-in-food-packaging-can-reduce-food-waste-248616

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –