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Category: Reportage

  • MIL-OSI Global: Fake models for fast fashion? What AI clones mean for our jobs — and our identities

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jul Parke, PhD Candidate in Media, Technology & Culture, University of Toronto

    In the heart of New York City’s Times Square, a popup by British tech startup, Hypervsn, showcases life-size holograms in a health supplement store. From behind the glass, a virtual humanoid avatar with spunky pink hair waves to passersby. She is just one sign of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution in marketing taking place.

    Down the street, H&M — the Swedish fast-fashion giant — offers a new kind of immersive shopping experience. The flagship store showcases a room covered in mirrors equipped with virtual environments, encouraging shoppers to make social media content while they try on merchandise.

    And last month, H&M made waves with its newest AI venture: cloning 30 real-life models using “digital twin” technology.

    These AI-generated replicas sparked global excitement and debate. But as digital replicas of real people become more common, especially in image-based industries like fashion, urgent ethical questions are emerging. These include conversations about the future of work, compensation and identity in the cultural economy.

    H&M AI models. One is real, one is an AI generated model.
    H&M

    Digital twins, explained

    In New York’s bustling AI startup scene, where tech, fashion and finance collide, the potential of digital twins is being met with optimism.

    Developers, investors and brands believe that by cloning our human bodies and personalities, we can reach a future in which we live in “double time.” That time would look something like us sinking back into our couch for some rest while our identical avatars show up to work on our behalf. But is it really that simple?

    What does it mean for workers whose identities are being cloned without clear guidelines on compensation, ownership and rights?

    Digital twin production is a meticulous process that begins with a person’s unique identity. This includes their voice, personality, body and face, all things considered to be their intellectual property (IP).

    When someone signs off to be cloned with a digital twin startup, they agree to the use of generative AI replicating everything about their physical body: personal identity, distinct features and skills.

    The ethical framework around digital twins

    The emergence of digital twins has forced the development of new ethical frameworks, still in flux. Industry leader Natalie Monbiot, former co-founder of HourOne, has coined the term “Virtual Human Economy” to describe this growing sector.

    Companies like HourOne, Synthesia and Soul Machines are competing to dominate this space. They offer digital twins for applications that range from fashion modelling to corporate training videos and online education.

    The ethical challenges are significant, particularly regarding ownership.

    The human half of the H&M digital twin models, for example, will receive “fair compensation,” including continued payment for the use of their digital replicas beyond initial creation. The company has said models will retain some rights to how their likenesses are used, but industry standards for such contracts remain inconsistent.

    Most digital twin companies establish contracts where the human “original” receives initial compensation for the creation process. This typically involves extensive scanning, voice recording and movement capture.

    But such arrangements remain inconsistent across the industry, and the long-term value proposition of these digital likenesses is still unclear.

    Some companies offer royalty structures, while others purchase full rights upfront. This raises questions about the fair valuation of a person’s digital likeness.

    Traditional image rights contracts, borrowed from the entertainment industry, don’t account for AI’s ability to generate novel content using a person’s likeness. The industry is essentially creating its ethical standards in real time, with some companies adopting more transparent approaches than others.

    ‘Jackpot’ economy means those at the top take all

    For workers in image-based industries, like models and photographers, the rise of digital twins brings a fundamental shift in how labour and compensation are structured. While modelling has always been hyper-competitive, social media has dramatically intensified that and is now playing a large role in how opportunities are allocated.

    American labour scholar Andrew Ross pinpoints these dynamics as a “jackpot economy,” where intellectual property becomes “the glittering prize for the lucky few” while the majority face increased precarity.

    U.S. fashion scholar Minh-Ha Pham has also written about how digital technologies amplify the winners-take-all economic structures within the fashion and blogging industries. She describes concentrated opportunities and rewards among an elite minority.

    To add to this, New Zealand scholars Rachel Berryman and Misha Kavka have demonstrated how the rise of “parasocial” relationships has become increasingly central to career success in these fields. A parasocial relationship describes the sense of intimate connection followers feel toward influencers and celebrities.

    In other words, those successful digital twins could further concentrate power among models who already possess substantial followings and cultural cachet. This cachet allows them to multiply their earning potential while those with less visibility struggle to compete against both humans and AI-generated alternatives.



    Read more:
    AI-generated influencers: A new wave of cultural exploitation

    Race, sexuality and gender

    This concentration effect is particularly concerning when considering how race, sexuality and gender representation manifests in virtual spaces.

    Virtual influencer, Shudu.
    Instagram

    For nearly a decade, fully virtual fashion models like Shudu have become increasingly popular. Shudu has more than 237,000 Instagram followers and partnerships with brands like Balmain, Louis Vuitton and Furla. Shudu and others have demonstrated how digital avatars often flatten and commercialize identity. They present sanitized versions of racial and gender diversity that serve brand interests rather than authentic representation.



    Read more:
    AI-generated influencers: A new wave of cultural exploitation

    While digital twins based on actual humans may provide more authentic representation than fully synthetic avatars, they still risk reinforcing existing inequalities in who receives visibility and compensation.

    On the other hand, digital twinning could potentially offer improvements over purely synthetic virtual models.

    By maintaining a connection to real human subjects who can negotiate their representation and compensation, digital twins might provide a more equitable approach than computer-generated avatars created entirely at a corporation’s discretion.

    Behind the digital glamour are real-life issues

    Our collective fascination with technology and the new AI-driven digital twins may be distracting us from a more pressing (but also old) issue. Let’s not forget to look at the economic structures that govern work cultures, human creativity and labour norms.

    The debate isn’t just about banning or regulating AI, which enable phenomena such as digital twins; it’s also about how we ensure fair compensation and equitable access to these new forms of labour.

    The “jackpot economy” often benefits only a select few, leaving the majority in precarious positions. As digital twins technology continues to evolve, we must develop regulatory frameworks to ensure fair compensation for workers in creative industries.

    While we focus on the capabilities and potential of AI, we also need to shift the conversation towards the economic systems and power structures in which these technologies operate.

    Jul Parke receives funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.

    – ref. Fake models for fast fashion? What AI clones mean for our jobs — and our identities – https://theconversation.com/fake-models-for-fast-fashion-what-ai-clones-mean-for-our-jobs-and-our-identities-254135

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The hidden history of Philadelphia’s window-box gardens and their role in urban reform

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Sonja Dümpelmann, Professor of Environmental Humanities, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

    Window-box gardening has been a Philly tradition since the 1800s. Sonja Dümpelmann, CC BY-SA

    It’s that time of year when Philadelphia row home owners with a green thumb fastidiously attend to their window boxes – selecting new plants to design an artful blend of colors, shapes and textures.

    Sonja Dümpelmann is a historian of landscapes and the built environment who lived in Philly from 2019 to 2023. During this time, she researched how female reformers and activists in Philadelphia in the 19th and 20th centuries tended to window-box gardens both for charity and to spur urban renewal in rundown neighborhoods.

    Dümpelmann recently published an article on this history in the architectural journal Buildings & Landscapes. She spoke with The Conversation U.S. about what she learned.

    Some homeowners change out their plants throughout the year.
    Sonja Dümpelmann, CC BY-SA

    How did you become interested in window boxes?

    When I first moved to Philadelphia from Cambridge, Massachusetts, in August 2019, I was immediately struck by the window boxes. The lushness and freshness of the plants in many of the boxes, and sometimes in sidewalk planters, made walking more pleasant and interesting. This was especially the case in the hot summer months when I would often see plants from subtropical and tropical climates in the Rittenhouse Square, Fitler Square and Graduate Hospital neighborhoods.

    I noticed that there were three categories of window boxes. Many were visibly cared for, often freshly planted and decorated several times a year in accordance with the changing seasons. Some were derelict and had spontaneous growth of saplings and different grasses. And a third category were boxes outfitted with plastic plants, perhaps signaling absentee owners or landlords who seek to simulate care.

    What makes them landscape architecture?

    Window boxes – especially the planted boxes, but also painted boxes that are empty – change outdoor space and building exteriors. They make them more colorful and interesting, and they break up plain vertical walls by protruding from the facade.

    You could say that the window boxes “greet” passersby. They connect private indoor space with the public realm of the street. As one early window-box promoter observed in 1903, “The man in the street gets as much enjoyment out of them as its owner.”

    “Gardens in a box,” as they were also referred to by early promoters, can make homes and entire neighborhoods look and feel different. They forge distinct identities with their plant selection and the style and color of the boxes.

    Window gardens are a way to greet passersby on the street.
    Sonja Dümpelmann, CC BY-SA

    How did window gardening begin?

    Window gardening became popular in Victorian England and continental Europe in the 19th century. It began as an indoor activity and was practiced especially by women, but it soon also moved outdoors. There it became part of what American women in the late 19th century called “municipal housekeeping.” It extended their conventional female roles as housekeepers and mothers into the larger “household” of the community.

    Window gardening became a means of female social reform during the Progressive Era. During this period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when industries and cities were growing fast, women sought to improve education, public health and living conditions, especially for poor and immigrant communities. By offering plants, flowers and entire window boxes, the women supported homemakers of lesser means.

    However, these boxes were also a way to make sure that order in and outside of homes was maintained. Window gardens became cultural symbols of cleanliness and good housekeeping. Furthermore, reformers considered window gardening as a practice that could help immigrants assimilate into American society.

    When did they become political?

    In Philadelphia there were two big window-gardening movements. The first occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and I describe it as window-box charity. The second, which I call window-box activism, began in the 1950s.

    Window-box charity was carried out primarily by white philanthropists and social workers who would distribute plants and goods sent from outside the city to the urban poor and sick, especially immigrants and Black Americans. Sometimes the window boxes were ready to be installed outside the windows. Other times recipients built and planted boxes themselves.

    The Neighborhood Garden Association, the organization that pioneered window-box activism, at work near the now-closed Alexander Wilson School in West Philadelphia in 1955.
    Courtesy of the McLean Library and Archives, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    Several decades later, in the mid-20th-century, plants became a vehicle for white suburban garden club ladies and Black inner-city residents to counter urban decay resulting from racism and public disinvestment. On annual planting days, the garden club ladies brought plants into the city and joined residents in planting and installing window boxes to brighten up their neighborhood blocks.

    Plants were key in both window-box charity and window-box activism. People came together to care for plants, creating friendships among neighbors and ties between low-income and wealthy neighborhoods. The women used plants and window boxes to protect private space and increase the safety of public space. In the 1960s, the Philadelphia police reported less crime on streets with window boxes.

    Of course, window boxes and plants alone could not solve larger urban social problems such as poor housing conditions and racial discrimination. So while they could be catalysts of neighborhood change, they also helped to camouflage and quite literally naturalize larger social problems that required political responses.

    Are they still linked to urban renewal?

    Like a smaller version of public parks, community gardens and street trees, window gardens can contribute to green gentrification. This occurs when the construction of parks or the planting of trees contributes to an increase in property values that leads to the displacement of long-term residents in low-income neighborhoods.

    Window gardening did help save some of Philly’s old row house neighborhoods from demolition during urban renewal beginning in the 1950s. However, quite a few of these neighborhoods – such as Washington Square West and Graduate Hospital – have since been gentrified, and families who once window gardened to turn their neighborhoods into more beautiful and safer places could no longer afford to live there.

    The 20th century window-box activism drew the attention of sociologists and other national and international observers, especially because it brought white and Black residents together during the tensions of the Civil Rights Movement. It also raised public awareness about unequal access to urban green spaces.

    Window boxes on Delancey Street in Philadelphia.
    Photo by R. Kennedy for Visit Philadelphia, CC BY-SA

    Yet despite the movement’s good intentions and positive effects, racial segregation remains a persistent problem in Philadelphia.

    In gentrified parts of Center City today, new and restored row houses often include fixtures and built-in irrigation pipes for window boxes. Many owners outsource window-box planting and maintenance to paid service providers.

    But for lower-income residents, the costs in both time and money to install and maintain window gardens can be prohibitive.

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

    – ref. The hidden history of Philadelphia’s window-box gardens and their role in urban reform – https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-history-of-philadelphias-window-box-gardens-and-their-role-in-urban-reform-254361

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How do children learn to read? This literacy expert says ‘there are as many ways as there are students’

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By K. Dara Hill, Professor of Reading and Language Arts, University of Michigan-Dearborn

    Not all children learn to read in the same way, but schools tend to adopt a single approach to literacy. luckyvector/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    Five years after the pandemic forced children into remote instruction, two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders still cannot read at grade level. Reading scores lag 2 percentage points below 2022 levels and 4 percentage points below 2019 levels.

    This data from the 2024 report of National Assessment of Educational Progress, a state-based ranking sometimes called “America’s report card,” has concerned educators scrambling to boost reading skills.

    Many school districts have adopted an evidence-based literacy curriculum called the “science of reading” that features phonics as a critical component.

    Phonics strategies begin by teaching children to recognize letters and make their corresponding sounds. Then they advance to manipulating and blending first-letter sounds to read and write simple, consonant-vowel-consonant words – such as combining “b” or “c” with “-at” to make “bat” and “cat.” Eventually, students learn to merge more complex word families and to read them in short stories to improve fluency and comprehension.

    Proponents of the curriculum celebrate its grounding in brain science, and the science of reading has been credited with helping Louisiana students outperform their pre-pandemic reading scores last year.

    In practice, Louisiana used a variety of science of reading approaches beyond phonics. That’s because different students have different learning needs, for a variety of reasons.

    Yet as a scholar of reading and language who has studied literacy in diverse student populations, I see many schools across the U.S. placing a heavy emphasis on the phonics components of the science of reading.

    If schools want across-the-board gains in reading achievement, using one reading curriculum to teach every child isn’t the best way. Teachers need the flexibility and autonomy to use various, developmentally appropriate literacy strategies as needed.

    Phonics fails some students

    Phonics programs often require memorizing word families in word lists. This works well for some children: Research shows that “decoding” strategies such as phonics can support low-achieving readers and learners with dyslexia.

    However, some students may struggle with explicit phonics instruction, particularly the growing population of neurodivergent learners with autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These students learn and interact differently than their mainstream peers in school and in society. And they tend to have different strengths and challenges when it comes to word recognition, reading fluency and comprehension.

    This was the case with my own child. He had been a proficient reader from an early age, but struggles emerged when his school adopted a phonics program to balance out its regular curriculum, a flexible literature-based curriculum called Daily 5 that prioritizes reading fluency and comprehension.

    I worked with his first grade teacher to mitigate these challenges. But I realized that his real reading proficiency would likely not have been detected if the school had taught almost exclusively phonics-based reading lessons.

    Another weakness of phonics, in my experience, is that it teaches reading in a way that is disconnected from authentic reading experiences. Phonics often directs children to identify short vowel sounds in word lists, rather than encounter them in colorful stories. Evidence shows that exposing children to fun, interesting literature promotes deep comprehension.

    Balanced literacy

    To support different learning styles, educators can teach reading in multiple ways. This is called balanced literacy, and for decades it was a mainstay in teacher preparation and in classrooms.

    Balanced literacy prompts children to learn words encountered in authentic literature during guided, teacher-led read-alouds – versus learning how to decode words in word lists. Teachers use multiple strategies to promote reading acquisition, such as blending the letter sounds in words to support “decoding” while reading.

    Another balanced literacy strategy that teachers can apply in phonics-based strategies while reading aloud is called “rhyming word recognition.” The rhyming word strategy is especially effective with stories whose rhymes contribute to the deeper meaning of the story, such as Marc Brown’s “Arthur in a Pickle.”

    The rhyming structure of ‘Arthur in a Pickle’ helps children learn to read entire words, versus word parts.

    After reading, teachers may have learners arrange letter cards to form words, then tap the letter cards while saying and blending each sound to form the word. Similar phonics strategies include tracing and writing letters to form words that were encountered during reading.

    There is no one right way to teach literacy in a developmentally appropriate, balanced literacy framework. There are as many ways as there are students.

    What a truly balanced curriculum looks like

    The push for the phonics-based component of the science of reading is a response to the discrediting of the Lucy Calkins Reading Project, a balanced literacy approach that uses what’s called “cueing” to teach young readers. Teachers “cue” students to recognize words with corresponding pictures and promote guessing unfamiliar words while reading based on context clues.

    A 2024 class action lawsuit filed by Massachusetts families claimed that this faulty curriculum and another cueing-based approach called Fountas & Pinnell had failed readers for four decades, in part because they neglect scientifically backed phonics instruction.

    But this allegation overlooks evidence that the Calkins curriculum worked for children who were taught basic reading skills at home. And a 2021 study in Georgia found modest student achievement gains of 2% in English Language Arts test scores among fourth graders taught with the Lucy Calkins method.

    Nor is the method unscientific. Using picture cues with corresponding words is supported by the predictable language theory of literacy.

    This approach is evident in Eric Carle’s popular children’s books. Stories such as the “Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See?” have vibrant illustrations of animals and colors that correspond with the text. The pictures support children in learning whole words and repetitive phrases, suchg as, “But he was still hungry.”

    Teacher-led read-alouds have been a mainstay learn-to-read activity in U.S. classrooms for decades.
    H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images

    The intention here is for learners to acquire words in the context of engaging literature. But critics of Calkins contend that “cueing” during reading is a guessing game. They say readers are not learning the fundamentals necessary to identify sounds and word families on their way to decoding entire words and sentences.

    As a result, schools across the country are replacing traditional learn-to-read activities tied to balanced literacy approaches with the science of reading. Since its inception in 2013, the phonics-based curriculum has been adopted by 40 states and the Disctrict of Columbia.

    Recommendations for parents, educators and policymakers

    The most scientific way to teach reading, in my opinion, is by not applying the same rigid rules to every child. The best instruction meets students where they are, not where they should be.

    Here are five evidence-based tips to promote reading for all readers that combine phonics, balanced literacy and other methods.

    1. Maintain the home-school connection. When schools send kids home with developmentally appropriate books and strategies, it encourages parents to practice reading at home with their kids and develop their oral reading fluency. Ideally, reading materials include features that support a diversity of learning strategies, including text, pictures with corresponding words and predictable language.

    2. Embrace all reading. Academic texts aren’t the only kind of reading parents and teachers should encourage. Children who see menus, magazines and other print materials at home also acquire new literacy skills.

    3. Make phonics fun. Phonics instruction can teach kids to decode words, but the content is not particularly memorable. I encourage teachers to teach phonics on words that are embedded in stories and texts that children absolutely love.

    4. Pick a series. High-quality children’s literature promotes early literacy achievement. Texts that become increasingly more complex as readers advance, such as the “Arthur” step-into-reading series, are especially helpful in developing reading comprehension. As readers progress through more complex picture books, caregivers and teachers should read aloud the “Arthur” novels until children can read them independently. Additional popular series that grow with readers include “Otis,” “Olivia,” “Fancy Nancy” and “Berenstain Bears.”

    5. Tutoring works. Some readers will struggle despite teachers’ and parents’ best efforts. In these cases, intensive, high-impact tutoring can help. Sending students to one session a week of at least 30 minutes is well documented to help readers who’ve fallen behind catch up to their peers. Many nonprofit organizations, community centers and colleges offer high-impact tutoring.

    K. Dara Hill 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 do children learn to read? This literacy expert says ‘there are as many ways as there are students’ – https://theconversation.com/how-do-children-learn-to-read-this-literacy-expert-says-there-are-as-many-ways-as-there-are-students-246468

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: US colleges and universities have billions stashed away in endowments − a higher ed finance expert explains what they are

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Todd L. Ely, Associate Professor of Public Administration; Director, Center for Local Government, University of Colorado Denver

    Prospective students tour Georgetown University’s campus in Washington in 2013. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

    With the Trump administration seeking to cut federal funding for colleges and universities, you might be wondering whether the endowments of these institutions of higher education might be able to fill those gaps. Todd L. Ely, a professor of public administration at the University of Colorado Denver, explains what endowments are and the constraints placed on them.

    What’s an endowment?

    Endowments are pools of financial investments that belong to a nonprofit. These assets produce a revenue stream, typically from dividends, interest and realized capital gains. The funds endowments hold usually originate as charitable donations made to support an institution’s mission.

    In most cases with higher education endowments, this wealth, which helps buoy a nonprofit’s budget, is supposed to last forever.

    Contributions to endowments are tax-deductible for donors who itemize their tax returns. Once these funds are invested, they grow generally tax-free. But beginning in 2018, the federal government imposed a 1.4% excise tax on dozens of higher education institutions with relatively large endowments.

    Few colleges or universities have a single endowment fund.

    That’s because the donors who provide gifts large and small to the school over the years direct their donations to different funds reserved for specific purposes.

    Harvard University’s endowment, worth $53.2 billion at the end of its 2024 fiscal year, for example, consists of roughly 14,600 distinct funds.

    All told, money distributed from endowments covered more than 15%, on average, of college and university operating expenses in 2024. Some of America’s institutions of higher education, however, lean much more heavily than that on their endowments to pay their bills.

    People pose for photos in front of the iconic Tommy Trojan statue on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in 2019.
    AP Photo/Reed Saxon

    How do endowments influence higher education?

    Endowments can serve multiple purposes.

    In 2024, nearly half of all higher education spending paid for with endowment revenue funded scholarships and other kinds of aid for students, while almost 18% supported academic programs. Just under 11% paid for professors’ compensation, and almost 7% helped pay for running and maintaining campus facilities.

    More broadly, endowments can help shield schools from financial hardships and maintain their long-term reputations.

    When they’re set up to carry on in perpetuity, endowments must benefit both current and future generations. So when donors give to an endowment, they are arguably investing in the long-term viability of the institution.

    This long-term focus suggests that endowments aren’t just rainy-day funds or financial reserves.

    Why can’t endowment funds be spent freely?

    At the end of the 2023 fiscal year, U.S. higher education endowments held a total of more than $907 billion. That is a lot of money, but it’s still less than the combined wealth of America’s five richest people.

    Like individual wealth, endowment assets are heavily concentrated in the U.S.

    Many colleges and universities have small or no endowments. Nearly 60% of them total less than $50 million. The top 25, which includes several public universities in states such as Michigan and Texas, account for more than half of all endowment assets.

    And even when schools have large endowments, the individual funds that compose them are bound by a wide array of restrictions. Some of that money can be spent however the school would like. Other funds are dedicated to a clearly defined purpose.

    When endowment funds are restricted, the school gets little discretion in how to spend them.

    At Harvard, for example, there’s a Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard University. It was established in 1721 through a gift from a London merchant. Based on the terms of that long-ago donation, the earnings and growth of the donated funds continue to honor the donor’s intent by supporting the position, regardless of what the university needs.

    Alternatively, endowments may receive donations that are temporarily restricted. Known as “term” endowments, the assets they hold can be used once donor-imposed conditions are fulfilled.

    Institutions frequently designate some of their unrestricted funds as “quasi” endowments, usually earmarked for specific strategic purposes. This board-designated quasi-endowment does not carry legal restrictions and can be spent more freely.

    About 40% of higher education endowment assets are subject to permanent restrictions, 30% are temporarily restricted, and 29% are reserved for quasi-endowment use.

    People walk past the Ray and Maria Stata Center on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019.
    AP Photo/Steven Senne

    How are decisions over endowment funds made?

    The decision-making authority over endowments typically rests with a college or university’s governing board. Those boards establish endowment payout policies that guide how much of the endowment and its earnings can be spent each year, while attempting to preserve the purchasing power of the investments over the long term.

    The policies take expectations regarding investment earnings and inflation into account, while smoothing annual payouts by using a percentage of the value of the endowment over multiple years as opposed to a single point in time. This payout tends to amount to about 5% of all assets. That share averaged 4.8% in 2024.

    U.S. institutions of higher education spent nearly $35.5 billion derived from their endowments in the 2023 fiscal year.

    Colleges and universities that depend more heavily on their endowment funds to cover their current obligations may choose to invest more conservatively. In recent years, many higher education endowments have obtained more complex investments, such as private equity, real assets and stakes in hedge funds.

    Endowments of nonprofit colleges and universities are also governed in most states by a state law known as the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act. This law encourages cautious investments and restrained spending.

    These restrictions mean that annual payouts are generally modest. That leaves endowments ill-equipped to respond to abrupt and large shifts in their funding needs.

    The John F. Kennedy School of Government, commonly referred to as Harvard Kennedy School, is a member of The Conversation U.S.

    Todd Ely works for a university that has an endowment and receives federal research funding.

    – ref. US colleges and universities have billions stashed away in endowments − a higher ed finance expert explains what they are – https://theconversation.com/us-colleges-and-universities-have-billions-stashed-away-in-endowments-a-higher-ed-finance-expert-explains-what-they-are-254872

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Alaska, rich in petroleum, faces an energy shortage

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Brett Watson, Assistant Professor of Applied and Natural Resource Economics, University of Alaska Anchorage

    The Trans-Alaska Pipeline crosses underneath the Dalton Highway, carrying crude oil from the North Slope to a port in Valdez. Lance King/Getty Images

    In the state with the fourth-largest proven reserves of oil and gas in the U.S., there is a looming energy shortage.

    Above the Arctic Circle, oil producers on Alaska’s North Slope send an average of 465,000 barrels of crude oil south each day for shipping to refineries and users around the country and the world.

    But in south-central Alaska – Anchorage and the surrounding region, home to 63% of the state’s population – utility companies are warning they may not have enough natural gas from current sources to keep the power and heat on without interruption.

    As a professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage who studies the economics of natural resources, I can see this apparent contradiction has a straightforward cause but no simple solution.

    Oil facilities in Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope, photographed March 28, 2002.
    Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images

    Declining oil production

    The North Slope region once produced nearly 2 million barrels of oil per day at its peak in the 1980s. Every barrel is transported via the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System to the port of Valdez, where it is loaded onto tanker ships.

    The state government collects significant taxes and royalties on oil production. For decades, oil revenue allowed the state to fund all government spending without imposing broad-based income, sales or property taxes. At the height of the oil boom, there was so much money that Alaska established a wealth fund, now valued at over US$80 billion, and began distributing dividends to every resident.

    But the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is designed to carry oil, not natural gas. A state law prevents producers from burning off excess gas, or flaring, as happens in many fields. With nowhere to send it, gas extracted from Alaska’s oil fields is reinjected into the ground to boost well pressure and push more oil out.

    Significant natural gas potential

    Alaska’s gas reserves are significant. State estimates suggest the North Slope has about 35 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves. That’s almost as much natural gas as the U.S. as a whole produced in 2023.

    But that is just the beginning: The North Slope also has the potential for another 200 trillion cubic feet that remains undiscovered. And improving technologies and techniques may be able to extract another 590 trillion cubic feet, according to the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., a company owned by the state of Alaska that is trying develop a project to extract and sell the state’s natural gas.

    As oil production declines and prices remain uncertain, selling gas could provide a different stream of revenue for the state, potentially providing billions of dollars.

    The 800-mile problem

    For decades, there have been numerous proposals to develop Alaska’s gas. State agencies and the petroleum industry have collectively spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this effort.

    The concept that’s closest to reality is Alaska Gasline Development Corp.’s proposal to build a plant on the North Slope to remove gas impurities, a liquefaction plant near Anchorage that could export 20 million tons of liquefied gas each year – around a trillion cubic feet – and an 807-mile pipeline to connect the two.

    The cost is expected to be significant: The corporation’s own estimate is that it would cost $44 billion. But that number was developed before the construction sector saw significant inflation in 2022. An engineering study due for release in late 2025 will provide a more updated figure. Alaskans remember that the Trans-Alaska Pipeline ended up costing 25% more than projected.

    Since his first day in office, President Donald Trump has touted this pipeline as part of efforts to expand the nation’s production of fossil fuels. He told a joint session of Congress it was a near-ready project, with Japan and South Korea ready to invest “trillions of dollars each.” In February 2025, he stood alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to announce a “joint venture” to develop the pipeline project, but no specific details have been announced.

    Winter in Alaska means deep cold and lots of snow.
    AP Photo/Mark Thiessen

    2 expensive options

    There is a growing need to address Alaska’s domestic energy shortfall.

    South-central Alaska relies on natural gas for more than 70% of its electric and heating needs. But the gas reserves closest to Anchorage, in the Cook Inlet, which have provided energy to the area since the 1960s, are dwindling, and prices are rising. In 2005, wholesale gas prices were $3.75 per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas. By 2024, the price had more than doubled, to $8.75. By contrast, the rest of the U.S. has seen natural gas prices cut in half over that period, thanks in part to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.

    In 2022, Hilcorp, the company responsible for roughly 85% of the Cook Inlet gas production, reported that by 2027 it might not be able to supply enough gas for utilities that serve the region.

    Solutions other than the pipeline are also slow and expensive. Local utilities estimate that improving energy efficiency and developing renewable power could reduce gas demand by around 10% over the next several years and by as much as 15% after a decade. But retrofitting the area’s aging and energy-inefficient homes will not be fast or cheap.

    More than just economics

    What remains for Alaska are two main options: get gas from the North Slope to Anchorage, or import liquefied gas from the global market.

    Building the pipeline could both meet the needs of Alaska’s people and bring in money from global sales – though how much revenue depends on how global gas markets change over time and how competitive Alaska gas prices would be relative to other suppliers.

    Any delays from financial, legal, technical or environmental challenges would balloon costs. But if it succeeded, Anchorage-area customers could see prices drop as low as $2.23 per 1,000 cubic feet – a 75% drop from current prices and 40% lower than in 2005. The savings could significantly bolster the region’s economy.

    Importing is a costly option. A study commissioned by the Alaska Legislature found that imported gas would cost $13.72 per 1,000 cubic feet. That’s 60% more than current prices and especially burdensome for Alaska families and businesses, which already pay far higher energy bills than typical American customers.

    Beyond the economic questions, there’s something symbolic at stake: the state’s identity. Could a state synonymous with energy production become an energy importer? Many Alaskans see the prospect as an embarrassing paradox – akin to Hawaii importing pineapples or New Mexico importing green chiles.

    Independence and globalization

    Alaska is not alone in grappling with the tension between energy self-sufficiency and economic efficiency.

    Across the U.S., states rich in resources have wrestled with the question of whether to prioritize local production or integrate into global markets. Texas produces more oil than any other state, yet it continues to import crude oil due to mismatches between its production and refining capacity.

    Shaped by globalization, few regions can truly isolate themselves from market forces. Energy production and consumption are increasingly interconnected, meaning pursuit of local self-sufficiency comes at a steep economic cost. That’s the question facing Alaska: whether to invest in domestic infrastructure to maintain energy independence, or embrace the flexibility – and potentially lower cost – of global markets.

    Brett Watson receives funding from First National Bank Alaska to conduct research on the Alaska economy, including energy issues. He has previously received funding from Power the Future for work on Alaska mineral issues.

    – ref. Alaska, rich in petroleum, faces an energy shortage – https://theconversation.com/alaska-rich-in-petroleum-faces-an-energy-shortage-254903

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Pope Francis’ death right after Easter sounds miraculous – but patients and caregivers often work together to delay dying

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michelle Riba, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Michigan

    Pope Francis died after celebrating Easter with his congregants. AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

    On the morning of Easter Monday, after his final public address the day prior, Pope Francis died at age 88, closing 12 years of leading the Catholic Church. He joins the phenomena of people “holding on” until after an anticipated date or event, such as the holidays or a birthday, before dying.

    It sometimes seems like some patients are able to stay alive out of sheer willpower. But for many people, behind the scenes are a village of people and an ongoing series of conversations that help patients be able to celebrate their child’s graduation or travel to a place they’ve always wanted to go.

    We asked Dr. Michelle Riba, director of the psycho-oncology program at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, to explain how meaning matters just as much as medicine at the end of life.

    What factors come into play at the end of life?

    Psychosocial factors that affect a person’s mental health and well-being – such as stress, social support, depression and anxiety, and socioeconomic status – play an important part of all parts of life, but especially at the end of life. End of life refers to the days, weeks or months after somebody is told that they have a disease that can be fatal.

    Questions about meaning and what’s important to a patient and their family are important at all times. But when somebody is diagnosed with a grave illness, these questions become particularly important to acknowledge in medical conversations. As many doctors like to say, patients aren’t the disease, they have a disease.

    We want to give patients control about how they want to live their lives in the most meaningful way, especially at the end. And this includes how they want to use their time, energy and resources, who they want to spend their time with and where they want to be.

    How does the ‘will to live’ affect treatment and survival?

    There was a new movement starting in the 1960s to 1970s that believed a person’s attitude and outlook on life could affect their health and longevity. People like minister Norman Vincent Peale promoted the idea that a positive mindset could help improve outcomes. Psychologist Martin Seligman developed the field of positive psychology that focused on subjective well-being by promoting resilience and human flourishing. The idea that you could do better if you were optimistic resonated with many people, including physicians.

    Then surgeon Bernie Siegel proposed the specific idea that staying positive after a cancer diagnosis could extend your life, and that became a major focus of the movement. However, there was little to no data to support his claims. The studies researchers conducted to figure out whether it was true that people who were more positive lived longer or had a lower prevalence of cancer than those who did not were either flawed or did not consistently show this effect.

    Eventually Siegel’s ideas were disproved. But for a long time, they affected how patients felt about themselves and how their families addressed illness. My own patients would tell me, “How can I be positive? I can’t eat, I’m in pain and I’m sick.” They felt guilty that they couldn’t feel positive and optimistic, and that caused extra stress and reduced their quality of life.

    Learning about what matters most to a patient requires asking them.
    FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images

    Additionally, the social determinants of health – such as a patient’s environment, race, education and wealth – are also very important to their health and longevity. Having a good social life, money and not being discriminated against makes it easier to stay positive and do better in life. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people were less likely to do well if you didn’t have money, or if you were a certain race.

    Research shows that patients who have severe mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder often live about 20 years less than somebody who doesn’t. And it’s not just because of the disease. Having a severe mental illness means that you probably can’t work, you probably don’t have financial means, and you may not have family support.

    How can doctors help patients feel like they have more control?

    In studying how patients could feel more confident, physicians like me realized that having control over their destiny, if you will, didn’t necessarily mean patients had to stay positive. Rather, it meant understanding the things that gave them joy and meaning before their diagnosis, and how clinicians could help them continue to do these things.

    For example, a patient who could no longer work because of their cancer or their treatments might miss their sense of routine. Working with them to make a schedule of all their medical appointments and enjoyable activities might help them take control over their days. The structure may provide meaning and help them cope better.

    A marathon runner who loses their ability to balance due to a brain tumor is another example. If this patient found meaning and pleasure in running but could no longer run, what could we do to help them regain some of this joy? This might look like starting physical therapy and rehab, or finding alternative activities they can do.

    If going to their place of worship is important to a patient but they’re no longer able to, we could see if their rabbi, imam or minister could see them at their home.

    Additionally, helping patients continue doing what’s meaningful for them also gives them hope. It helps them know that their physicians feel they’re worth doing that for, and that there’s a life beyond cancer treatment.

    How do a patient’s goals factor into their treatment plan?

    When doctors give patients hope, patients tend to have better outcomes. That doesn’t mean we’re telling patients something false, or that they’re going to live a longer time. Rather, doctors can help patients improve or maintain their quality of life and achieve certain goals.

    For example, a patient may be thinking of attending their child’s graduation two months from now. Their care team can talk to them about how they might be able to do this, or think of other ways they can celebrate.

    Feeling supported during a serious illness can make a big difference.
    Joshua Hoehne/Unsplash, CC BY-SA

    My mother passed away from cancer a month after I graduated high school. I remember she couldn’t participate in a lot of senior prom activities, like helping me get a dress or do my hair. But my date and I and another couple were allowed to go to her hospital room just before the prom so she could see us all dressed up. And it was one of the most meaningful moments of my life. Though she couldn’t be there for graduation or all the other preparations and celebrations, it mattered to my mother and me that she was able to see my friends and me before prom. Also, very meaningfully, my friends were so kind and thoughtful to make that effort on our behalf.

    There have been observations that some patients with terminal illness manage to hold on until after a certain holiday or date. A 1988 study found that the number of Jewish people who died before Passover was lower than expected, and the number of deaths after Passover was higher than expected. While this study had flaws and limitations, other researchers have made similar observations for deaths for specific groups after holidays like Christmas, the Mid-Autumn Festival and birthdays.

    But these studies don’t address whether those specific holidays were actually what these patients really cared about. It may be that people made it through something else important to them. It may be that they were able to be with the people they loved at the end. It may be something else entirely. We don’t really know what’s important for someone unless we ask.

    Allowing patients and their families to think about what matters most to them and how we can help them achieve their goals is part of our job as physicians.

    How do you balance a patient’s medical care with their goals?

    Being diagnosed with a terminal illness can be a traumatic event. Patients often can remember where and when they heard the news about a certain illness or scan or problem. How to help people process, understand and live with this to the best of their ability is really the key to having the best quality of life. This means giving them choices and helping them see some ways to address it for themselves and their families.

    Sometimes that can be really hard. For patients who really want to travel somewhere, we might figure out a way to defer specific treatments or procedures, or set up appointments for them to be done at the local hospital or clinic. But there’s not much we can do for a patient who wants to attend their young child’s wedding when that won’t be for decades in the future. The medical team does everything it can within reason, and it tries to make sure the patients and their loved ones understand the risks and benefits.

    Receiving bad news can be a traumatic event.
    Maskot/DigitalVision via Getty Images

    Doctors and patients may also have different goals that can be difficult to meet at the same time. Figuring out how to juggle these agendas and listening to each other during these conversations can be challenging but important.

    Everybody is trying to do what they think is right and best for the patient. This means taking care of the whole person, not just the disease. Whether that means reaching a certain holiday or special event, or just gathering together with the people they love, taking the time and effort to understand what is important for the patient and their family is key to good care.

    Michelle Riba chairs the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Distress Guidelines.

    – ref. Pope Francis’ death right after Easter sounds miraculous – but patients and caregivers often work together to delay dying – https://theconversation.com/pope-francis-death-right-after-easter-sounds-miraculous-but-patients-and-caregivers-often-work-together-to-delay-dying-254970

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Gratitude comes with benefits − a social psychologist explains how to practice it when times are stressful

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Monica Y. Bartlett, Professor of Psychology, Gonzaga University

    If the concept of journaling feels daunting, perhaps just call it a gratitude list. Karl Tapales/Moment via Getty Images

    A lot has been written about gratitude over the past two decades and how we ought to be feeling it. There is advice for journaling and a plethora of purchasing options for gratitude notebooks and diaries. And research has consistently pointed to the health and relationship benefits of the fairly simple and cost-effective practice of cultivating gratitude.

    Yet, Americans are living in a very stressful time, worried about their financial situation and the current political upheaval.

    How then do we practice gratitude during such times?

    I am a social psychologist who runs the Positive Emotion and Social Behavior Lab at Gonzaga University. I teach courses focused on resilience and human flourishing. I have researched and taught about gratitude for 18 years.

    At the best of times, awareness of the positive may require more effort than noticing the negative, let alone in times of heightened distress. There are, however, two simple ways to work on this.

    Expressions of gratitude can take many different forms.
    Lighthouse Films/DigitalVision via Getty Images

    Gratitude doesn’t always come easily

    Generally, negative information captures attention more readily than the positive. This disparity is so potent that it’s called the negativity bias. Researchers argue that this is an evolutionary adaptation: Being vigilant for life’s harms was essential for survival.

    Yet, this means that noticing the kindnesses of others or the beauty the world has to offer may go unnoticed or forgotten by the end of the day. That is to our detriment.

    Gratitude is experienced as a positive emotion. It results from noticing that others − including friends and family certainly, but also strangers, a higher power or the planet − have provided assistance or given something of value such as friendship or financial support. By definition, gratitude is focused on others’ care or on entities outside of oneself. It is not about one’s own accomplishments or luck.

    When we feel gratitude toward something or someone, it can increase well-being and happiness and relationship satisfaction, as well as lower depression.

    Thus, it may assist in counteracting the negativity bias by helping us find and remember the good that others are doing for us every day − the good that we may lose sight of in the best of times, let alone in times when Americans are deeply stressed.

    We feel gratitude more easily when we notice the good that others have brought into our lives.
    Catherine Falls Commercial/Moment via Getty Images

    How to practice gratitude

    Research has shown that some people are naturally more grateful than others.

    But it’s also clear that gratitude can be cultivated through practice. People can improve their ability to notice and feel this positive emotion.

    One way to do this is to try a gratitude journal. Or, if the idea of journaling is daunting or annoying, perhaps call it a daily list instead. If you have given this a try and dislike it, skip to the second method below.

    Gratitude lists are designed to create a habit in which you scan your day looking for the positive outcomes that others have brought into your life, no matter how small. Writing down several experiences each day that went well because of others may make these positive events more visible to you and more memorable by the end of the day − thus, boosting gratitude and its accompanying benefits.

    While the negative news − “The stock market is down again!” “How are tariffs going to affect my financial security?” − is clearly drawing attention, a gratitude list is meant to help highlight the positive so that it doesn’t go overlooked.

    The negative doesn’t need help gaining attention, but the positive might.

    A second method for practicing gratitude is expressing that gratitude to others. This can look like writing a letter of gratitude and delivering it to someone who has made a positive impact in your life.

    When my students do this exercise, it often results in touching interactions. For instance, my college students often write to high school mentors, and those adults are regularly moved to tears to learn of the positive impact they had. Expressing gratitude in work settings can boost employees’ sense of social worth.

    In a world that may currently feel bleak, a letter of gratitude may not only help the writer recognize the good of others but also let others know that they are making a beautiful difference in the world.

    Monica Y. Bartlett 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. Gratitude comes with benefits − a social psychologist explains how to practice it when times are stressful – https://theconversation.com/gratitude-comes-with-benefits-a-social-psychologist-explains-how-to-practice-it-when-times-are-stressful-250882

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Memes and conflict: Study shows surge of imagery and fakes can precede international and political violence

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Tim Weninger, Collegiate Proessor of Engineering, University of Notre Dame

    AI tools reveal how images have been manipulated. William Theisen et al.

    Imagine a country with deep political divisions, where different groups don’t trust each other and violence seems likely. Now, imagine a flood of political images, hateful memes and mocking videos from domestic and foreign sources taking over social media. What is likely to happen next?

    The widespread use of social media during times of political trouble and violence has made it harder to prevent conflict and build peace. Social media is changing, with new technologies and strategies available to influence what people think during political crises. These include new ways to promote beliefs and goals, gain support, dehumanize opponents, justify violence and create doubt or dismiss inconvenient facts.

    At the same time, the technologies themselves are becoming more sophisticated. More and more, social media campaigns use images such as memes, videos and photos – whether edited or not – that have a bigger impact on people than just text.

    It’s harder for AI systems to understand images compared with text. For example, it’s easier to track posts that say “Ukrainians are Nazis” than it is to find and understand fake images showing Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi symbols. But these kinds of images are becoming more common. Just as a picture is worth a thousand words, a meme is worth a thousand tweets.

    Our team of computer and social scientists has tackled the challenge of interpreting image content by combining artificial intelligence methods with human subject matter experts to study how visual social media posts change in high-risk situations. Our research shows that these changes in social media posts, especially those with images, serve as strong indicators of coming mass violence.

    Surge of memes

    Our recent analysis found that in the two weeks leading up to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine there was a nearly 9,000% increase in the number of posts and a more than 5,000% increase in manipulated images from Russian milbloggers. Milbloggers are bloggers who focus on current military conflicts.

    These huge increases show how intense Russia’s online propaganda campaign was and how it used social media to influence people’s opinions and justify the invasion.

    This also shows the need to better monitor and analyze visual content on social media. To conduct our analysis, we collected the entire history of posts and images from the accounts of 989 Russian milbloggers on the messaging app Telegram. This includes nearly 6 million posts and over 3 million images. Each post and image was time-stamped and categorized to facilitate detailed analysis.

    Media forensics

    We had previously developed a suite of AI tools capable of detecting image alterations and manipulations. For instance, one detected image shows a pro-Russian meme mocking anti-Putin journalist and former Russian soldier Arkady Babchenko, whose death was faked by Ukrainian security services to expose an assassination plot against him.

    The meme features the language “gamers don’t die, they respawn,” alluding to video game characters who return to life after dying. This makes light of Babchenko’s predicament and illustrates the use of manipulated images to convey political messages and influence public opinion.

    This is just one example out of millions of images that were strategically manipulated to promote various narratives. Our statistical analysis revealed a massive increase in both the number of images and the extent of their manipulations prior to the invasion.

    Political context is critical

    Although these AI systems are very good at finding fakes, they are incapable of understanding the images’ political contexts. It is therefore critical that AI scientists work closely with social scientists in order to properly interpret these findings.

    Our AI systems also categorized images by similarity, which then allowed subject experts to further analyze image clusters based on their narrative content and culturally and politically specific meanings. This is impossible to do at a large scale without AI support.

    For example, a fake image of French president Emmanuel Macron with Ukrainian governor Vitalii Kim may be meaningless to an AI scientist. But to political scientists the image appears to laud Ukrainians’ outsize courage in contrast to foreign leaders who have appeared to be afraid of Russian nuclear threats. The goal was to reinforce Ukrainian doubts about their European allies.

    This manipulated image combines French president Emmanuel Macron with Ukranian governor Vitalii Kim. It requires the expertise of political scientists to interpret the creator’s pro-Russian meaning.
    William Theisen et al.

    Meme warfare

    The shift to visual media in recent years brings a new type of data that researchers haven’t yet studied much in detail.

    Looking at images can help researchers understand how adversaries frame each other and how this can lead to political conflict. By studying visual content, researchers can see how stories and ideas are spread, which helps us understand the psychological and social factors involved.

    This is especially important for finding more advanced and subtle ways people are influenced. Projects like this also can contribute to improving early warning efforts and reduce the risks of violence and instability.

    Tim Weninger receives funding from the US Department of Defense and the US Agency for International Development.

    Ernesto Verdeja 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. Memes and conflict: Study shows surge of imagery and fakes can precede international and political violence – https://theconversation.com/memes-and-conflict-study-shows-surge-of-imagery-and-fakes-can-precede-international-and-political-violence-233055

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Pope Francis’s death reveals a hidden truth about public grief

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tony Milligan, Research Fellow in the Philosophy of Ethics, King’s College London

    People pay tribute to Pope Francis in the Cathedral of Se, after his death was announced by the Vatican, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, April 21, 2025. Cris Faga/Shutterstock

    When a significant international public figure like Pope Francis dies, the world seems to pause. Tributes pour in, flags lower, candles flicker in city squares. The sadness is palpable. But is this real grief, or something else entirely?

    Widespread mourning can look and feel genuine. And in many ways, it is. Most people aren’t faking their sorrow. But public grief often lacks depth and duration – it fades almost as quickly as it appears.

    For those who knew Francis personally, the loss will be profound and lasting. For the rest of us, we are witnesses to the passing of a beloved figure, not mourners in the intimate sense.

    The world saw this after the deaths of Princess Diana and Pope John Paul II. Both were enormously popular and the global reaction was immense. Yet, weeks after their funerals, the emotional tide began to recede.

    This time, the public response to Pope Francis feels more restrained. Less swept away by the moment. Less inclined toward what some psychologists refer to as false emotion – emotions that appear sincere but don’t reflect deep personal experience.

    Partly, this is due to Pope Francis himself. He was not one for drama. Partly, it’s a quiet recognition: feeling sad about his death is not the same as being grief-stricken.

    Still, the absence of a one-to-one relationship doesn’t necessarily make our feelings inauthentic. Millions may grieve for Francis without having met him. For devout Catholics and others inspired by his leadership, he was a symbol of hope, a voice for justice, humility and reform within an often troubled institution.

    His life carried a transformative power, and for those who pinned their hopes on him – on what he represented – his passing may leave a genuine and lasting void. That looks a lot like real grief.

    Longing and hope

    Every Catholic I’ve ever known has had a “favourite pope.” The new one rarely feels the same. That attachment, though deeply symbolic, is emotionally real.

    My father used to tell a story – likely embellished – about growing up in a Catholic neighbourhood in Bridgeton in the east end of Glasgow. When a neighbour’s home caught fire, she pleaded with firemen: “Save him! Save my darlin’!” They rushed in, expecting a person. All they found was a picture of the pope.

    Even if exaggerated, the point holds: people feel a real longing for these figures. And that’s what grief is, in essence – a yearning for the impossible return of someone we’ve lost. It’s not just sadness. It’s the ache of a love that can no longer be reciprocated.

    Priests who experience crises of faith describe something similar – a desire to return to a state of belief that now feels unreachable. It’s not just about loss; it’s about longing without resolution.

    But when the new pope is announced, the atmosphere in St Peter’s Square is not one of despair. It’s a return to hope, not an immersion in grief. People may mourn Francis, but they’re also swept up in collective emotion – a desire to be part of history, part of the moment. That sense of unity can be powerful and real, even if it isn’t grief.

    Atheists can feel it as much as believers. We sense it at funerals of people we didn’t really know. We cry because everyone else is crying. Then, days later, we carry on as if nothing happened.

    Impossible desire

    So, what makes false grief false? It’s not deception or performance – it’s the absence of impossible desire. In true grief, we yearn for what can never return. Most of us, when mourning a figure like Pope Francis, may want something – meaning, comfort, community. This is at the heart of what makes a false emotion false, rather than the real thing.

    A false emotion lacks the desire that sits at the heart of its genuine counterpart. In the case of false grief, we may desire something. We usually do. The crowds who gather in St Peter’s Square and those of us who watch events unfold on TV clearly want something. But in most cases we do not have the right kind of impossible desire for our feelings to count as grief. Even if we do think of ourselves as grief stricken, we are mistaken.

    Saying this is not at odds with Francis’s own religious tradition. In his biographical Confessions, St Augustine notoriously claimed that we always want unity with God, and we are restless until we achieve it: “Our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

    But Augustine also claimed that this longing comes disguised as a desire for all sorts of other things: fame, alcohol, intoxication and the warm pleasures of the flesh. Augustine was a little on the puritanical side about these matters, but his idea of disguised longing may be close to the truth.

    The point is that an emotion which presents misleadingly as one thing, may be a real instance of something else. In the case of Pope Francis, this may be this may be closer to spiritual longing rather than actual grief.

    And whether or not we believe in a god, and however we want to describe it, longing of this sort is a deep and familiar experience. One that shifts our attention from object to object, or from one public figure to the next, without ever being satisfied.

    In a sense, this is also the point of having a pope, or rather a succession of popes. It is easier to attach our longings onto someone human than it is to come to grips with deeper and often unmanageable desires.

    Tony Milligan 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. Pope Francis’s death reveals a hidden truth about public grief – https://theconversation.com/pope-franciss-death-reveals-a-hidden-truth-about-public-grief-255157

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Pope Francis: ‘ethical helmsman’ whose feel for international relations steered church in turbulent times

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sara Silvestri, Senior Lecturer & UG Programme Director, Department of International Politics, City St George’s, University of London

    I met Pope Francis in 2016. It was part of a symposium of the former Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People (now recast by Francis as the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development). I presented some of my work on migration – as attention to migrants and refugees was a central theme of his pontificate, more prominently than for his predecessor, whom I had also met a few years earlier.

    After the conference proceedings, we had an official audience, next to the Sistine Chapel: Francis made a speech and we greeted him one by one. I had my 21 month-old daughter with me that day, thinking of the rare opportunity we would both enjoy.

    But I’d underestimated the length of the formalities involved. My daughter screamed “Open the doors, let me out!” through the whole of the pope’s speech. I was distraught, but Francis responded very gently to the disruption. He stopped in the middle of the speech and commented how sweet and lovely it was to hear the voice of a child. I could feel it was not just a platitude – he meant it.

    In the disarray that is current global politics, with the world wracked by conflict and injustice, the papacy of Francis I has been a beacon of hope.

    In a world that appears to be rearranging itself around the principle that might is right, where the whims and the prejudices of strongmen leaders are blindly followed by millions, he represented the most important ethical helm there is. He did this not by taking on ideological positions but by sticking in a steadfast manner to his message that mercy trumps bullies and that compassion will always prevail over hatred.

    The image of Francis delivering a sermon from a pulpit designed to look like a ship’s helm when he visited the island of Lampedusa in 2013 strikes me as very symbolic of his papacy. In his first official trip as pope, Francis drew attention to the marginalised, migrants and refugees inspired by the parable of the good Samaritan. But he did so not in a way that patronised migrants as victims or reduced the church to a humanitarian agency.

    He launched into a loud condemnation of the economic and political structures that forced those people on to boats. He railed against the people and conditions that effectively enabled those deaths in the huge cemetery that the Mediterranean has become. Expressing his “closeness” to migrants and determined to “challenge our consciences” and the “globalisation of indifference”, he warned we are all complicit in Cain’s killing of his brother.

    Critics may carp that he hasn’t really effected any significant change within or outside the church. That while moves were made towards reforms of church attitudes towards women priests and LGBTQ+ issues, real progress has still to be achieved.

    That despite his appeals, death keeps swallowing human lives in the Mediterranean and in conflict zones. Despite his championing of environmental causes, forests are still burning.

    But it was not his job to run global politics. While he was, technically, a head of state of Vatican City, he did not see himself as a politician. The instructions for his funeral reiterate this: simple, “as a disciple of Christ” and not like “the powerful of the world”.

    He saw his role as a spiritual shepherd trying to serve and protect his flock. His vision of Christianity was about mercy and freedom of conscience, with the church’s place close to the “existential peripheries” of the world, not to the centres of power.

    His final message, delivered on Easter Day 2025, is particularly telling. It states: “Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.”

    This in my view sums up the enormous power that Francis unstintingly asserted among Catholics: the power of unconditional love and mercy – not in an idealised form, but well aware of the presence of evil in the world and respectful of individual freedom.

    Reaching across faiths

    Because of his courage and the political-but-non-political position that enabled him to speak of ethical issues at the heart of political decisions, Francis became widely respected by religious and political leaders. He was loved by ordinary people from all walks of life and, importantly, belief systems, although some were puzzled by his informal style.

    In 2019 he made a joint declaration with the imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, entitled Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together. This, and his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, which is subtitled “on fraternity and social friendship”, gave impetus to inter-faith dialogue. As he put it: “God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and has called them to live together as brothers and sisters.”

    The last push Francis gave to the Church between 2021 and 2024 was the Synod on Synodality. This was a major enterprise which aimed to revive the sense of global community of believers and witnesses. It stressed the importance of praying together and exercising discernment in important decisions by acknowledging diversity, listening to each other and to the Holy Spirit.

    Interpersonal communication and embracing mercy in order to achieve the common good were two key themes of Francis’ pontificate. He was concerned with the dangers of our individualistic “throwaway culture” and aware of the contradictions of a globalised world where loneliness prevails.

    Francis did not solve the problem of carbon emissions, he did not stop wars in Ukraine, Palestine or Yemen. He did not make women priests or deacons, and did not fully embrace the LGBTQ+ community, despite some initial inching towards this.

    But he made a space to reflect about all those issues, removing the church from a pedestal, centring it on the joyful message of the Gospel and “bringing it out” to all the people – Catholics and non Catholics alike.

    That, in itself, is an immense achievement in the long history and slow transformation of the church.

    Dr Sara Silvestri is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at City, St George’s University of London where she teaches religion and politics and runs the Europe research cluster. She is also a Bye Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge University, is affiliated with the Interfaith Research Programme in the Divinity Faculty, University of Cambridge, and is a Trustee of the Council on Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament. Sara Silvestri has received funding from ESRC, British Academy, Luce Foundation, the King Baudouin Foundation, the Plater Trust, Caritas Internationalis, the European Commission.

    – ref. Pope Francis: ‘ethical helmsman’ whose feel for international relations steered church in turbulent times – https://theconversation.com/pope-francis-ethical-helmsman-whose-feel-for-international-relations-steered-church-in-turbulent-times-255153

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Runner’s gut: why some marathon runners find themselves sprinting to the toilet instead of the finish line

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

    Running a marathon is no small feat. Athletes can expect to cover between 50-60,000 steps, burn over 3,000 calories and expel multiple litres of sweat to keep cool.

    Marathons and other long distance events can be associated with several dangers – including dehydration, electrolyte imbalances and heatstroke. All important reasons as to why it’s crucial to train adequately for the big day, and come prepared.

    But there’s another condition that can affect long distance runners – one that can be more than a little embarrassing.

    It comes under many guises: runner’s trots, runner’s gut, runner’s stomach, runner’s runs. What we’re referring to is the overactive gastrointestinal tract brought on by the whole-body effects of running. This results in urgent, sometimes explosive diarrhoea.

    Runner’s diarrhoea is actually a triad of symptoms: diarrhoea, cramping abdominal discomfort plus a heightened urge to open your bowels. It’s actually more common than you think – with up to 96% of endurance runners reportedly experiencing some sort of gastrointestinal symptom during a race.

    In most cases, runner’s trots are not considered concerning, especially if the condition is adequately managed as you would any episode of acute diarrhoea – with fluid and electrolyte replenishment. But in some extreme cases, there have been signs of blood in the runner’s faeces. This suggests that in some people, the condition may be caused by mechanical damage to the bowel – perhaps as a result of this organ being sloshed around in the abdomen during a long run.

    Why it happens

    But what causes it in the first place? We aren’t entirely sure, but most experts have established several different causes which might play a role in generating these symptoms.

    The first clue may lie within the blood supply. When you start to exercise, your body shifts its attention away from resting and digesting, and diverts blood to tissues and organs that need it more – namely the heart, lungs and muscles. Prolonged reduced blood flow to the gut could irritate and inflame its lining. This might also affect the bacterial colonies that reside within the gut. This may explain why a recent study suggests probiotics may work as a treatment.

    Other studies have considered the effect of nutrition upon gut activity. Certain foods are associated with increased gut activity and fermentation, such as protein, fat and fibre. This is why most runners avoid foods high in these before a long run, often consuming a breakfast which is higher in simple, easily digestible carbohydrates.

    There are many reasons why you might develop an overactive gastrointestinal tract while running a marathon.
    Michael Mong/ Shutterstock

    In addition, some of the other nutrients and substances we commonly use as a welcome boost for heavy exercise might be culprits. Take caffeine, for instance. These stimulants might boost our energy, but they can also have a laxative effect in some people.

    And carbs are not entirely without blame. Evidence suggests that some carbs can not only increase the speed at which foods move through the gastrointestinal tract, they can also cause fluid retention and fermentation within the gut, making diarrhoea and gas more likely. These include the lactose in cow’s milk products and high fructose fruits, such as apples, pears and grapes.

    Finally, it’s possible that an attack of the nerves may be (in part) to blame for the runs. Not only do stress and mood have associations with irritable bowel syndrome, it has also been suggested that psychological factors, such as anxiety, may be associated with runner’s diarrhoea.

    What can you do?

    Is there anything you can do to avoid needing the loo somewhere on your marathon route?

    Nutrition does seem to be key. Eat an energy-rich and familiar breakfast (one you know won’t bother your stomach) with the minimum of fibre, fat and protein. It’s not good to choose the day of a big event to challenge your gut with unfamiliar foods. One example might be a toasted bagel (or indeed plain white toast), or a low-fibre breakfast cereal, that’s based on rice or corn rather than bran. Fruits lower in fructose include strawberries, raspberries and bananas.

    Ideally, give your chosen breakfast a test drive before a training session to see what the effect is. In addition, separating your meal and the starting line by 2-3 hours gives the gut some time to get going on digestion, and to mobilise fuel for action.

    Hydration is important. Make sure not only to drink water, but replenish electrolytes as well since both water and sodium are easily lost in sweat. Consuming water or sports drinks in small but regular bursts can help alleviate the problem of needing the toilet.

    Perhaps one of the best ways to recognise and prevent runner’s diarrhoea is to sit back, observe and listen to your own body. Yet another reason why preparation is so important. Training for a marathon should take place over months, not days or weeks. This gives ample time to recognise gut symptoms, but also what might be triggering them.

    Some athletes find it useful to keep a diary, detailing symptoms and activity for the day, in order to spot trends more easily. You can also trial simple tactics, such as specific nutrition, hydration and training plans to see what effect they have. Everyone is different, and will respond to exercise and diet in different ways.

    In any event, if you get caught foul (sometimes quite literally) of runner’s trots, try to take a break, slow down and rehydrate. Also remember that most marathons have toilets at frequent intervals, in case the moment should grab you.

    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. Runner’s gut: why some marathon runners find themselves sprinting to the toilet instead of the finish line – https://theconversation.com/runners-gut-why-some-marathon-runners-find-themselves-sprinting-to-the-toilet-instead-of-the-finish-line-254419

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Jeffing: how this run-walk method could help you train for a marathon

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Thie, Senior Lecturer Sport Coaching and Performance, Cardiff Metropolitan University

    Jeff Galloway originally developed his run training method in 1974. Valery Zotev/Shutterstock

    Even if you’re a runner, you may not have heard the term “Jeffing” before. It’s a method of alternating between running and walking and it’s become a popular way to train for long-distance races.

    It’s particularly timely, as we appear to be in the middle of a second running boom, the first having taken off in the 1970s and 80s. You can see it in the popularity of parkrun, the rise in mass participation events, and the seemingly endless market for running shoes, watches and other gear.

    But despite all this enthusiasm, the idea of running can still be off-putting for many people. Some believe that unless they can run continuously at a certain pace or distance, they aren’t a “real runner”, especially when they find themselves comparing their progress with others.

    That’s where Jeffing comes in. This walk-run technique allows people to keep moving forward at their own pace. It balances effort and recovery in a way that makes endurance running more accessible to a wider range of people and abilities.

    But where did Jeffing come from?

    Jeff Galloway pictured in 2015.
    Lance Cpl. Timothy Turner/Wikimedia

    The concept was invented by American Olympian and coach, Jeff Galloway in the 1970s. It’s a strategic way of combining walking and running, sometimes with jogging too.

    Galloway describes it as a revolutionary approach that reduces fatigue, prevents injuries and makes running more enjoyable. “By alternating between running and walking runners can go farther, recover faster, and feel stronger during and after their workouts,” he says.

    In this sense, Jeffing shares some similarities with “fartlek”, which is Swedish for “speed play”. Fartlek is a training method that was developed in 1930s Sweden by cross-country runners looking to improve their performance. It also involves alternating bursts of fast and slow running.

    Research shows that there were significant improvements in cardiovascular and speed endurance in just 12 weeks of fartlek training.

    The difference is that Jeffing operates at a lower intensity, and the walking breaks allow the body to recover more fully.

    What are the benefits of Jeffing?

    One of the biggest advantages of Jeffing is that it can help you go further. Because the body’s energy stores aren’t being depleted all at once, many runners find they can cover longer distances than they may have managed with continuous running. Studies show that this may have more benefits than shorter and more intense exercise.

    It also lowers the risk of injury because the reduced intensity puts less stress on joints and muscles. This makes Jeffing a popular option for people returning from injury or illness, or anyone keen to stay injury-free while training.

    Recovery tends to be quicker, too. Since the body is under less strain, runners often report feeling less fatigued afterwards. This may make it easier to stick to a training plan without burning out.

    Jeffing is especially welcoming for beginners. Galloway originally developed the method in 1974 while coaching a group of new runners. After ten weeks of following the walk-run approach, every one of them completed either a 5k or 10k race. The technique is still used by runners of all abilities, including those tackling full marathons.

    Jeffing also helps shift the focus away from pace and distance and onto how your own body feels. Galloway’s advice in the early years included the “huff and puff” rule: if you can hear yourself breathing hard, take more frequent walk breaks.

    On the other hand, for people who prefer structure, the method can be done with a stopwatch. A run can be chopped up into manageable segments, such as 30 seconds running and 30 seconds walking, as Galloway explains:

    By going to a 30 second run / 30 second walk … they run faster without any extra effort because they are only walking for 30 seconds. If that feels good, use it for a while then start creeping up the amount of running while keeping the walking at 30 seconds. After several weeks, you may settle in on something like 45 seconds run/30 seconds walk, or you may just run faster during your 30 seconds of running.

    Runners in the 2024 London Marathon.
    mikecphoto/Shutterstock

    Is Jeffing for you?

    Although popular, this approach to running won’t appeal to everyone. Some runners may feel that breaking up a continuous run with walk breaks interrupts their rhythm or makes them feel like they’re not really running. But from my perspective as a runner and athletics coach, anything that helps more people participate in exercise should be welcomed.

    Many marathon runners will be using Jeffing as a way to prepare for their next event. They may use the technique in a structured way or just instinctively walking when they need to, to help them reach the finish line.

    So whether you increase the running time or just stick with short bursts, Jeffing may let you run in a way that suits your body – and that’s what really counts.

    James Thie 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. Jeffing: how this run-walk method could help you train for a marathon – https://theconversation.com/jeffing-how-this-run-walk-method-could-help-you-train-for-a-marathon-254837

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: WH Smith once shaped the travel experience – and now it’s returning to its roots

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marrisa Joseph, Associate Professor of Organisation Studies & Business History, University of Reading

    Not just a British icon – a WHSmith outlet in an airport in Doha, Qatar. TY Lim/Shutterstock

    After 124 years as a familiar fixture to generations of customers, there will no longer be a place for WH Smith on UK high streets.

    Modella Capital – a specialist retail investment company – is the new owner of the chain’s high street locations. For a purchase price of £76 million, it will take over 480 stores in retail parks, shopping centres and high streets. It is also expected to retain its 5,000 staff.

    Initially, ten stores will close with a further ten to be announced later. Importantly, the WH Smith brand is not being sold.

    The high street stores will be rebranded as TJ Jones, a nostalgic and not so subtle nod to its predecessor. There is clearly an understanding that a family brand still means something to consumers.

    WH Smith is recognised globally due to its rapidly growing presence in airports. Its travel divisions is set to remain in train stations, airports and hospitals.

    These 1,200 stores in 32 countries account for around 85% of group profits. The strategy is to focus on key travel markets, as air passenger numbers are forecast to more than double globally by 2050.

    Interestingly, by prioritising travel customers, WH Smith has gone full circle – returning to its Victorian roots as the main retailer of books and newspapers in railway stations. I have researched the history of the British publishing industry – passengers picking up a newspaper or the latest bestseller at travel hubs is a practice that was pioneered by the brand that would go on to become WH Smith.

    In 1792, newsagent Henry Walton Smith with his wife Anna started a small retailing business in Little Grosvenor Street in the west end of London. Their son William Henry took over the family firm in 1812. He expanded to include a “coach trade” of London daily papers to the regional provinces outside the capital.

    William took advantage of the revolution in the British publishing industry that came with the industrial age. From its introduction in 1814, the steam-powered printing press brought down the cost of printing newspapers and books, opening more opportunities for literature.

    In under 50 years, the sale of newspapers quadrupled, rising from 16 million a year in 1801 to more than 78 million by 1849. Increased literacy among adults and children created a market for new material, and as railways enabled new distribution networks there were even more opportunities to sell printed products.

    The development of railway stations provided a surge in travel that was a novelty for many Victorians, who needed entertainment to keep them occupied during long journeys.

    Broadening horizons

    In 1848, Smith and his son secured an exclusive agreement to sell books and newspapers at railway stations owned by the London and North Western Railway. The first bookstall opened in Euston station in November that year, and by the end of the 1860s they operated more than 500 bookstalls along Britain’s railways.

    This contract led to WH Smith dominating a large part of the book trade by the end of the 19th century. It continued to expand, and the first town shop opened in Gosport, Hampshire in 1901.

    The historic WH Smith brand will disappear from UK high streets after its sale.
    cktravels.com/Shutterstock

    In 1850, Smith and son also made a deal with publisher George Routledge to supply and stock their railway outlets with his cheap series of reprints. These were known as “yellowbacks” as the prints were bound in thin yellow card with eye-catching artwork.

    These were a precursor to the paperback, designed to be read on the train and then discarded. Selling at roughly half the price of a novel at the time, they were mass-market products that provided significant revenue for WH Smith – just as paperbacks do today.

    Building on the opportunity of the growing travel market, the company broadened its offering to the public by partnering with Charles Edward Mudie, who founded Britain’s largest circulating library in 1842. At one point Mudie’s flagship location in New Oxford Street in London held more than 960,000 titles.

    By 1859, Mudie had an agreement with WH Smith to supply the bookstall at Birmingham station – essentially creating a library department in the bookstall. Mudie supplied popular titles from London allowing “passengers to exchange books daily at the subscriber’s pleasure”.

    For more than 170 years, WH Smith has grown from its origins as a retailer at railway stations to becoming a familiar presence in town and city centres across the UK. More recently it has been the butt of jokes online for its disorganised and messy stores.

    But the decision to offload its high street premises underscores the fact that, just as in the Victorian era, travellers seeking entertainment for the journey will still turn to that old trusted brand.

    Marrisa Joseph works for the University of Reading.

    – ref. WH Smith once shaped the travel experience – and now it’s returning to its roots – https://theconversation.com/wh-smith-once-shaped-the-travel-experience-and-now-its-returning-to-its-roots-254858

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Beating malaria: what can be done with shrinking funds and rising threats

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Taneshka Kruger, UP ISMC: Project Manager and Coordinator, University of Pretoria

    Healthcare in Africa faces a perfect storm: high rates of infectious diseases like malaria and HIV, a rise in non-communicable diseases, and dwindling foreign aid.

    In 2021, nearly half of the sub-Saharan African countries relied on external financing for more than a third of their health expenditure. But donor fatigue and competing global priorities, such as climate change and geopolitical instability, have placed malaria control programmes under immense pressure. These funding gaps now threaten hard-won progress and ultimately malaria eradication.

    The continent’s healthcare funding crisis isn’t new. But its consequences are becoming more severe. As financial contributions shrink, Africa’s ability to respond to deadly diseases like malaria is being tested like never before.

    Malaria remains one of the world’s most pressing public health threats. According to the World Health Organization there were an estimated 263 million malaria cases and 597,000 deaths globally in 2023 – an increase of 11 million cases from the previous year.

    The WHO African region bore the brunt, with 94% of cases and 95% of deaths. It is now estimated that a child under the age of five dies roughly every 90 seconds due to malaria.

    Yet, malaria control efforts since 2000 have averted over 2 billion cases and saved nearly 13 million lives globally. Breakthroughs in diagnostics, treatment and prevention have been critical to this progress. They include insecticide-treated nets, rapid diagnostic tests, artemisinin-based combination therapies (drug combinations to prevent resistance) and malaria vaccines.

    Since 2017, the progress has been flat. If the funding gap widens, the risk is not just stagnation; it’s backsliding. Several emerging threats such as climate change and funding shortfalls could undo the gains of the early 2000s to mid-2010s.

    New challenges

    Resistance to drugs and insecticides, and strains of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum that standard
    diagnostics can’t detect, have emerged as challenges. There have also been changes in mosquito behaviour, with vectors increasingly biting outdoors, making bed nets less effective.

    Climate change is shifting malaria transmission patterns. And the invasive Asian mosquito species Anopheles stephensi is spreading across Africa, particularly in urban areas.

    Add to this the persistent issue of cross-border transmission, and growing funding shortfalls and aid cuts, and it’s clear that the fight against malaria is at a critical point.

    As the world observes World Malaria Day 2025 under the theme “Malaria ends with us: reinvest, reimagine, reignite”, the call to action is urgent. Africa must lead the charge against malaria through renewed investment, bold innovation, and revitalised political will.

    Reinvest: Prevention is the most cost-effective intervention

    We – researchers, policymakers, health workers and communities – need to think smarter about funding. The economic logic of prevention is simple. It’s far cheaper to prevent malaria than to treat it. The total cost of procuring and delivering long-lasting insecticidal nets typically ranges between US$4 and US$7 each and the nets protect families for years. In contrast, treating a single case of severe malaria may cost hundreds of dollars and involve hospitalisation.

    In high-burden countries, malaria can consume up to 40% of public health spending.

    In Tanzania, for instance, malaria contributes to 30% of the country’s total disease burden. The broader economic toll – lost productivity, work and school absenteeism, and healthcare costs – is staggering. Prevention through long-lasting insecticidal nets, chemoprevention and health education isn’t only humane; it’s fiscally responsible.

    Reimagine: New tools, local solutions

    We cannot fight tomorrow’s malaria with yesterday’s tools. Resistance, climate-driven shifts in transmission, and urbanisation are changing malaria’s patterns.

    This is why re-imagining our approach is urgent.

    African countries must scale up innovations like the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine and next-generation mosquito nets. But more importantly, they must build their own capacity to develop, test and produce these tools.

    This requires investing in research and development, regional regulatory harmonisation, and local manufacturing.

    There is also a need to build leadership capacity within malaria control programmes to manage this adaptive disease with agility and evidence-based decision-making.

    Reignite: Community and collaboration matters

    Reigniting the malaria fight means shifting power to those on the frontlines. Community health workers remain one of Africa’s greatest untapped resources. Already delivering malaria testing, treatment and health education in remote areas, they can also be trained to manage other health challenges.

    Integrating malaria prevention into broader community health services makes sense. It builds resilience, reduces duplication, and ensures continuity even when external funding fluctuates.

    Every malaria intervention delivered by a trusted, local health worker is a step towards community ownership of health.

    Strengthened collaboration between partners, governments, cross-border nations, and local communities is also needed.

    The cost of inaction is unaffordable

    Africa’s malaria challenge is part of a deeper health systems crisis. By 2030, the continent will require an additional US$371 billion annually to deliver basic primary healthcare – about US$58 per person.

    For malaria in 2023 alone, US$8.3 billion was required to meet global control and elimination targets, yet only US$4 billion was mobilised. This gap has grown consistently, increasing from US$2.6 billion in 2019 to US$4.3 billion in 2023.

    The shortfall has led to major gaps in the coverage of essential malaria interventions.

    The solution does not lie in simply spending more, but in spending smarter by focusing on prevention, building local innovation, and strengthening primary healthcare systems.

    The responsibility is collective. African governments must invest boldly and reform policies to prioritise prevention.

    Global partners must support without dominating. And communities must be empowered to take ownership of their health.

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

    – ref. Beating malaria: what can be done with shrinking funds and rising threats – https://theconversation.com/beating-malaria-what-can-be-done-with-shrinking-funds-and-rising-threats-255126

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Fake cures and vaccine passports for sale: the conspiracy communities in Brazil monetising the anti-vax movement – podcast

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

    A protest in Brazil against mandatory COVID vaccinations and vaccine passports. Isaac Fontana / Shutterstock.com

    Few places on earth are immune to the explosion of anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and health disinformation fuelled by the COVID pandemic. But in countries like Brazil, where the disinformation flowed from the very top of government, the problem is even more acute and some people are exploiting the fear of others to make money.

    In this episode of The Conversation Weekly, we hear about new research out of Brazil into how peddlers of disinformation on social media also sell fake cures and vaccine detoxes. And we ask why some people are looking for solutions to their health problems in these dangerous chemicals and unproven protocols.

    Brazil used to be a country with a strong culture of vaccination. “It was like a ritual”, remembers Igor Sacramento, a researcher in public health at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil. As a child, he would go to public squares where people would be dressed in costumes, parading, alongside the vaccination drives.

    Now, anti-vax disinformation has surged in the country. Sacramento believes the big change was the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, a president who publicly questioned vaccinations. “It was terrible for public health”, he says. Research showed that during the pandemic there was a persistent “Bolsonaro effect” with higher death rates from COVID in pro-Bolsonaro municipalities.

    Vaccination rates for a number of different diseases have fallen in Brazil in recent years, although they are beginning to climb again since the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for a third term as president in 2023.

    Promoting fake cures

    New research led by Ergon Cugler, a researcher at  the Brazilian Institute of Information on Science and Technology who is mapping the spread of disinformation on social media in Latin America and the Caribbean, is showing that the same people sowing fear with health disinformation are also selling fake cures.

    Cugler scraped data from more than 1,000 Telegram groups linked to disinformation and conspiracy theories topics over the last decade. Of the 5 million users in these groups, half are in Brazil. His dataset of 61 million pieces of content showed a 290% increase in anti-vaccination conspiracy narratives during the pandemic in Brazil, as well as a 15,000% increase in autism-related disinformation in Latin America and the Caribbean since the pandemic.

    Admins on these conspiracy theory communities on Telegram often post adverts, testimonials and videos promoting fake cures, vaccine detoxes and falsified vaccination passports. Cugler says:

     They spread the feeling of fear suggesting that parasites, for example, could cause diseases like diabetes. And then they offer so-called miracle cures, like deworming protocols or chlorine dioxide, and other substances, and they monetise all of those products.

    Cugler is also tracking how conspiracy theory groups discussing seemingly quite unconnected topics can be used as a way to funnel people into anti-vax groups and sell them fake cures.

    Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast to hear interviews with Ergon Cugler and Igor Sacramento, plus a conversation with Daniel Stycer, editor of The Conversation Brazil.

    This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

    Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.

    Ergon Cugler has previously received a research grant from the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (IBICT) and is currently part of a research project funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development through the Observatory of Informational Disorder and Public Policy (DesinfoPop) at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. Igor Sacramento is a researcher in residence between December 2024 and July 2025 at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in France.

    – ref. Fake cures and vaccine passports for sale: the conspiracy communities in Brazil monetising the anti-vax movement – podcast – https://theconversation.com/fake-cures-and-vaccine-passports-for-sale-the-conspiracy-communities-in-brazil-monetising-the-anti-vax-movement-podcast-255142

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What we’ve learnt about lone-actor terrorism over the years could help us prevent future attacks

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Diego Muro, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of St Andrews

    Politically motivated attacks, carried out by lone individuals lacking direct affiliation with any terrorist group, have become more common in Europe during the last few decades.

    One of the most common and devastating forms of lone-actor violence involves driving into crowds. In 2016, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel used this method to kill 86 people in Nice. In 2011, Anders Breivik detonated a bomb in central Oslo before carrying out a mass shooting on the island of Utøya, leaving 77 dead. Not all lone-actor attacks are as deadly or indiscriminate as these. Some target specific people, as seen in the assassinations of German politician Walter Lübcke in 2019 and British MP David Amess in 2021.

    Lone-actor terrorism – also known as lone-wolf terrorism – poses a unique challenge for European states. Traditional counterterrorism tools designed for organised groups like al-Qaeda, Islamic State, or Eta are far less effective against people acting alone. While lone-actor plots are typically less complex, they can still cause significant harm.

    We’ve also seen that lone-actor attacks can trigger far-reaching ripple effects. The resulting public outrage can intensify debates on contentious issues like immigration, and ultimately boost support for extremist parties.

    Copycat or reactionary attacks are another consequence of lone-actor terrorism. A striking example is the mass shootings carried out by Brenton Tarrant in New Zealand in 2019. He cited the actions of Breivik and others as direct inspiration. According to Tarrant’s own manifesto, a key trigger for his radicalisation was the 2017 Islamist attack in Stockholm, where Rakhmat Akilov, an asylum seeker from Uzbekistan, drove a truck into a crowd, killing five people, including an 11-year-old child.

    Why lone-actor attacks are so difficult to prevent

    Because lone actors operate independently and rarely communicate their intentions, their identities often remain unknown until after an attack. Their goals and ideologies are frequently ambiguous, making it hard to predict behaviour or select likely targets. Even correctly identifying an incident as lone-actor terrorism can be challenging.

    The case of Axel Rudakubana illustrates this difficulty. Rudakubana killed three young girls in Southport, northern England, in 2024 after breaking into their Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop. Despite the discovery of an Al-Qaeda training manual in his possession, prosecutors found no substantial evidence of political motivation and labelled the incident a “mass killing” rather than terrorism.

    It is very difficult – if not impossible – to determine the exact number of lone-actor terrorist attacks that have taken place in Europe with certainty. The absence of a universally accepted definition of terrorism is part of the problem. It’s also possible that acts of mass violence are being classified as terrorism when they are actually ideologically neutral. Equally, it can be difficult to determine whether an actor truly acted alone, especially in an age of internet radicalisation.

    What is clear is that independent terrorist attacks became more frequent in the early 2010s. By 2013, such incidents spiked, with Europe seeing six to seven Islamist and far-right attacks per year (up from fewer than one annually before 2010). These figures refer strictly to cases where perpetrators acted independently, excluding those with evidence of external support. For example, Anis Amri’s 2016 truck attack in Berlin and Taimour al-Abdaly’s 2010 suicide attempt in Stockholm were initially seen as lone-actor events, but later investigations revealed ties to Islamist cells.

    Lone-actor terrorism appears less common among far-left and ethno-nationalist groups, though exceptions do exist.

    Lone-actor terrorist attacks in Europe

    Lone-actor attacks in the 2010s.
    D muro, O Craciunas, CC BY-ND

    This shift towards lone-actor attacks is likely a result of evolving counterterrorism strategies implemented after major attacks like the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 2005 London bombings. It became harder to carry out large-scale plots so groups like Al-Qaeda and later Islamic State switched to encouraging or organising attacks by loosely affiliated individuals acting independently but on their behalf.

    The struggle between terrorist groups and governments is one of constant adaptation. By 2018, Europol data indicated that all the Islamist attacks that had been seen through to completion in Europe during that year had been carried out by lone actors.

    Lone-actor attacks have an even longer history within far-right terrorism. The term “lone-wolf terrorist” was first popularised in American white supremacist propaganda in the early 1990s – well before the more neutral term “lone-actor terrorist” was adopted by researchers. As counterterrorism efforts increasingly targeted white supremacist groups, many within the movement came to see independent action as the most effective way to evade detection and maintain operational secrecy.

    Addressing the threat

    Fortunately, we now understand more about lone-actor crimes. We’ve come to understand that these attacks stem from complex psychological and environmental factors.

    While perpetrators shouldn’t be dismissed as simply “crazy,” mental health can play a role in radicalisation, especially when combined with personal grievances, failed aspirations, and perceived injustices. Influences from family, peers and online spaces also shape this process. While no two radicalisation pathways are identical, certain patterns can be observed – and recognising them early may help reduce the threat.

    The idea of “self-radicalisation” also merits caution. Lone actors rarely radicalise in isolation; their manifestos often echo broader ideological themes, shaped by conspiracy theories or charismatic figures. These actors often assign symbolic meaning to their actions. Raising awareness of the impact of violent public discourse is key – though this must be done without infringing on free speech. History shows that providing “pressure valves” for controversial ideas is more constructive than censorship.

    Lone-actor attacks are, in part, difficult to prevent precisely because they are not a systemic threat in the way that coordinated, group-based terrorism can be. Its danger lies in isolated bursts of violence rather than in sustained campaigns. But there are patterns worth following that could help prevent future incidents.

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

    – ref. What we’ve learnt about lone-actor terrorism over the years could help us prevent future attacks – https://theconversation.com/what-weve-learnt-about-lone-actor-terrorism-over-the-years-could-help-us-prevent-future-attacks-254137

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Loss of empathy is a key problem in people with frontotemporal dementia — our research shows what’s happening in the brain

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alexander F Santillo, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Consultant Psychiatrist, Lund University

    Bruce Willis’s family announced in February 2023 that the actor had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Denis Makarenko/Shutterstock

    Frontotemporal dementia has gained significant attention in recent years after the family of actor Bruce Willis announced in 2023 that he had been diagnosed with the condition. A year later, it was revealed that US chat show host Wendy Williams had also been diagnosed with the condition.

    Yet despite all this recent attention, there’s still much we don’t know about frontotemporal dementia – including what mechanisms cause certain symptoms, and how we can better spot signs of the disease earlier on. But our research has uncovered the brain processes that underlie one of the disease’s earliest symptoms. This finding brings us one step closer to better diagnosing and treating the condition.

    Frontotemporal dementia accounts for approximately 5% of dementia cases. Symptoms typically begin in a person’s late sixties or seventies. The disease primarily affects behaviour, personality and language abilities.

    A hallmark symptom of frontotemporal dementia, which sets it apart from other forms of dementia (such as Alzheimer’s disease), is early loss of empathy. This often manifests as diminished warmth and concern for loved ones. This symptom can be profoundly unsettling for family members and loved ones close with the patient. They may feel as though the patient’s personality has transformed – and that their efforts to help and support are met with indifference.

    While loss of empathy has been the focus of much research from the scientific community, the precise brain mechanisms underlying the loss of empathy in frontotemporal dementia remain unclear.

    Alongside colleagues from Karolinska Institute, Lund University and Umeå University in Sweden, we conducted a study which sought to understand how empathy diminishes in frontotemporal dementia. We looked at 28 patients with frontotemporal dementia and compared them against 28 healthy people.

    To conduct our study, we used a type of brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). While in the fMRI scanner, participants viewed images of hands being pricked by needles. These images were contrasted with those of hand being touched by a q-tip. This is a well-established neuroscience test that is designed to evoke feelings of concern and distress as witnessing another person in pain. We analysed the brain activity of the patients with frontotemporal dementia as they viewed the images.

    In healthy volunteers, the anterior insula, anteria cingulate and thalamus are the brain regions responsible for monitoring internal bodily signals (such as pain). These brain systems became active when they observed the images of a person in pain.

    But in the patients with frontotemporal dementia, activity in these crucial brain regions was significantly reduced. These reductions were strikingly related to the degree of empathy patients exhibited in their daily lives, as judged by questionnaires filled out by family members.

    Empathy and brain function

    Empathy is typically thought to be comprised of two dimensions. Emotional empathy is the ability to react to others’ feelings (such as their distress and concern). Cognitive empathy is the capacity to understand the intention of others.

    Although the two are closely related, they’re not quite the same thing. It’s also possible for a person to possess one facet of empathy but not the other. The difference between the two facets of empathy can actually be exemplified by two psychiatric conditions, antisocial personality disorder and autism.

    People diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder are typically good at understanding the intentions and motivations of other people (cognitive empathy), but cannot empathise emotionally. This can lead to a disregard for other people. On the other hand, a person with autism typically has emotional empathy skills but might not have the ability to infer other peoples’ intentions (cognitive empathy).

    Our study revealed reduced activity in parts of the brain associated with the brain’s monitoring of bodily states, which are typically used when emotionally empathising with another person. These findings underscore the critical link between this brain system and our capacity to take others into consideration.

    In light of these findings, the next step with our research is to explore if and how the in-flow of the bodily signals necessary for the brain to create an inner self is altered in frontotemporal dementia – and how this relates to empathy.

    Apart from about 30% of cases being genetic, the causes of frontotemporal dementia remains unclear. Despite intense efforts from the community, there’s currently no cure. But thanks to courageous sufferers and their families coming forward, awareness is increasing. This is a crucial thrust forward.

    We hope that understanding how the brain processes empathy in frontotemporal dementia may not only help improve diagnosis but may, in the future, pave the way for potential treatments which mitigate some of the devastating effects of this disease.

    Alexander F Santillo is primarily funded by the Swedish federal government, The Åke Wiberg Foundation, The Schörling Foundation and The Bundy Academy.

    Olof Lindberg receives funding from the Schörling foundation and the Olle Engkvists Foundation.

    – ref. Loss of empathy is a key problem in people with frontotemporal dementia — our research shows what’s happening in the brain – https://theconversation.com/loss-of-empathy-is-a-key-problem-in-people-with-frontotemporal-dementia-our-research-shows-whats-happening-in-the-brain-247402

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Threatening diversity, threatening growth: the business effects of Trump’s anti-DEI and anti-trans agendas

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Matteo Winkler, Professeur associé en droit et fiscalité, HEC Paris Business School

    Recent months have seen a dramatic shift in US policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). These changes carry deep economic consequences. President Donald Trump’s executive orders aim to ban DEI initiatives in federal agencies and contractors, and private companies have felt pressure to weaken or drop their DEI programmes. Trump has framed what was once a corporate safeguard against discrimination as “illegal and immoral”, marking a stark reversal in legal and business norms. Federal judges have blocked some of Trump’s orders, or elements of them, and some legal processes are ongoing.

    Transgender rights have become a lightning rod in this shifting landscape. The barrage of federal directives seeks to challenge – or outright eliminate – protections in areas ranging from health care to education to the military. Beyond the immediate harm to trans individuals, these policies pose threats to multinational companies that have long defended inclusive workplace values. Their leaders must now navigate a cultural minefield where staying silent risks public backlash, while openly supporting trans employees can invite legal and political complications. The business repercussions of this moral issue could affect everything from brand reputation to talent retention.


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    The economic imperative of DEI initiatives

    There is a growing ensemble of research suggesting that DEI policies are not just nice-to-have but a corporate imperative. This year, the World Economic Forum reported that organizations that include DEI in their core business strategies improve performance, innovation and employee satisfaction. These findings are in line with other studies, which have consistently demonstrated that inclusive workplaces not only attract top talent but perform better financially and have higher returns on assets and net income.

    With regard to people identifying as LGBTI+, a 2024 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development highlighted that inclusive policies enable LGBTI+ individuals to achieve their full employment and productivity potential, benefiting both their well-being and society at large. Moreover, according to Open for Business, a think tank whose mission is making a case for LGBTQ+ inclusion in private and public settings, companies with “larger LGBTQ+ workforce benefit from diverse perspectives but also foster environments where innovation and productivity thrive”. It has also been found that human rights violations against LGBTI+ people diminish economic output at the micro level, suggesting that inclusive societies are more likely to experience robust economic growth.



    À lire aussi :
    Business schools are facing challenges to their diversity commitments. They must reinforce them to train leaders effectively

    Research has also shown that trans-inclusive business practices have long been associated with innovation, employee satisfaction and market competitiveness. Companies that provide gender-neutral bathroom access, introduce the inclusive use of pronouns and support employees’ gender transitions have been proven to foster relational authenticity in the workplace.

    Discrimination and exclusion, by contrast, not only harm individuals but also impede economic growth by limiting the available talent pool and reducing overall productivity. In September 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported that “laws and policies designed to restrict or prevent access or supports for transgender and nonbinary people” endanger LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies, leading to increased fear, lack of safety and a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ violence. More generally, these laws and policies can also deter businesses from investing in regions perceived as discriminatory. Also in September, the Movement Advancement Project identified that the lack of legal protection against discrimination contributes to economic instability for LGBTQ+ families, which can lead to wage gaps, job insecurity and reduced access to benefits, ultimately contributing to reduced consumer spending and lower economic participation.

    Language targeting trans rights and visibility

    Despite the benefits of DEI initiatives, the current US administration has sought to enact several policies aimed at dismantling them, resulting in organizations, both public and private, to suspend funding for DEI and outreach programmes. In Trump’s executive orders, anything – policy, programme or initiative – related to or benefitting trans people in access to healthcare, academic research, scientific inquiry, school policies, personal safety, participation in sports, and military service is now rejected as “gender ideology extremism”.

    Targeting sports, education and the military is functional to an ideological battle aimed at erasing spaces where trans people are most vulnerable. These spaces are also formative arenas in shaping national identity and the public perception of DEI initiatives. When they become politicized, they can also affect how businesses frame their values, manage risks and engage with their different stakeholders.



    À lire aussi :
    Anti-DEI guidance from Trump administration misinterprets the law and guts educators’ free speech rights

    The anti-trans executive orders begin by redefining the term “sex” for interpretations of federal law. According to the text of “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to Federal Government”, a person is either male or female, which is determined by their reproductive cells at conception – a definition in which biology takes precedence over individual rights and legal protections. “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” weaponizes this “biological truth” by threatening to cut off federal funds to schools that allow trans athletes to participate in them. “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” equates being transgender with medical or physical incapacity despite no evidence suggesting that trans service members negatively impact military readiness. “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” seeks to prevent schools from teaching about gender identity, which would strip trans youth of critical support systems. And “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” describes gender-affirming healthcare as “destructive”.

    The ripple effects of this anti-trans rhetoric extend into the private sector, compelling businesses to reevaluate their DEI strategies in fear of backlash or scrutiny. Even before the last US presidential election, companies such as Ford, Harley-Davidson and Lowe’s withdrew their participation in the Corporate Equality Index, a national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality. In the wake of Trump’s anti-DEI and anti-trans orders, organizers of various Pride events in the US and Canada learned that some corporations, including longtime sponsors, had decided not to fund them. And according to the New York Times, some companies erased language and terms related to DEI from annual reports filed this year, including Dow Chemical, whose reference to LGBTQ+ employee resource groups disappeared from its public documents.

    Navigating between inclusive values and anti-DEI pressure

    Three patterns seem to be emerging on how companies are navigating the tension between values that are inclusive of LGBTI+ people and the growing pressure to scrub DEI commitments within the US context. For the moment, these patterns do not reflect formalized strategies but adaptive responses to an environment that has grown in complexity in a very short time. Some corporate actions reflect deliberate strategy aimed at protecting global consistency, while others appear more reactive, shaped by local market pressures.

    The first pattern involves establishing a sort of internal firewall between US and international operations. Banco Santander provides a clear example of this approach. Thus far, it has maintained global DEI commitments such as tying executive bonuses to increased gender equality in leadership. This group stated that such targets would not be applied to countries where governmental policies target DEI. In this pattern, DEI programmes are maintained abroad but are dismantled in the US to minimize political exposure in the latter.

    The second approach, observed at accounting firm Deloitte, is a cultural split between US operations and those overseas: while entities under the same global brand may still share data, practices, or strategic frameworks internally, they now adopt publicly distinct positions on DEI. Deloitte UK has remained vocal on its DEI commitments, highlighting the cultural and political fault lines that multinationals must now navigate.

    The third approach is a retraction of DEI altogether. Target offers a striking example. In 2023, under increased political and consumer pressure, the company rolled back some of its LGBTQ+ inclusion efforts by reducing the number of Pride-related items for sale. In 2025, four days after Trump’s inauguration, Target announced it would “end its three-year DEI goals”, cease reporting to the Corporate Equality Index and “end a program focused on carrying more products from Black- or minority-owned businesses”, as reported by CNBC. The moves resulted in considerable public criticism, and more notably, coincided with a marked drop in foot traffic – “nearly 5 million fewer visits” over a four-week period – revealing reputational and financial risks associated with the abandoning of DEI policies. By contrast, bulk retailer Costco, which said three days after the inauguration that its shareholders voted against a proposal seen as unfriendly to the company’s DEI programmes, “saw nearly 7.7 million more visits” during that same stretch.



    À lire aussi :
    A boycott campaign fuels tension between Black shoppers and Black-owned brands – evoking the long struggle for ‘consumer citizenship’

    In light of the evidence, it is clear that undermining DEI initiatives poses substantial risks – not just to human dignity, but to economic competitiveness. Businesses and policymakers must recognize that DEI is not merely a social or ethical imperative but a core strategy for growth and innovation. By fostering environments where all individuals can thrive, we unlock the full potential of our workforce and ensure sustainable economic growth.

    Conversely, discriminatory policies contribute to social instability, brain drain and economic stagnation. In the United States, the rollback of DEI initiatives and the marginalization of transgender individuals threaten to erode the nation’s ability to uphold human rights and maintain business competitiveness. History demonstrates that exclusionary policies ultimately harm societies rather than strengthen them. The question remains whether the US can afford to sacrifice social stability and economic growth in pursuit of ideological battles. The evidence suggests that it cannot.

    Matteo Winkler is a member of the Open for Business Academic Committee. He has received funding from the HEC Foundation.

    Marcelle Laliberté is a member of Women in Aerospace Europe and HEC We&Men, and a contributor to the UN`s High Advisory Board on Governing AI for Humanity.

    – ref. Threatening diversity, threatening growth: the business effects of Trump’s anti-DEI and anti-trans agendas – https://theconversation.com/threatening-diversity-threatening-growth-the-business-effects-of-trumps-anti-dei-and-anti-trans-agendas-255040

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: A golden era for personalized medicine is approaching, but are we ready?

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nazia Pathan, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University

    Biobanks have become some of the most transformative tools in medical research, enabling scientists to study the relationships between genes, health and disease on an unprecedented scale (Piqsels/Siyya)

    If there’s a disease that seems to run in your family, if you’ve had a negative reaction to a drug or wondered why a standard treatment didn’t work on you, the answers may lie in your genes.

    The unique sequence of DNA that acts as a blueprint for building and maintaining your body often plays a major role in shaping your predisposition to diseases and reactions to drugs.

    Genes in the DNA make proteins, which can act as biomarkers or influence other types of biomarkers. Biomarkers are molecules in the body that help measure health conditions, such as those detected in blood or urine tests.

    Blood glucose, for example, is a biomarker for diabetes, cholesterol levels can be biomarkers for heart diseases and albumin is a protein used to assess kidney and liver functions.

    Tailoring treatments

    By understanding a patient’s unique genetic profile, biomarker readings and lifestyle information, doctors could tailor the most effective and safest treatments for that individual.

    Genetics offer the opportunity for individualized health care that can improve patient outcomes, save lives and alleviate strain on the health-care system.

    This is the promise of personalized medicine, which is already making a difference in areas such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, mental health and rare diseases.

    The question is, are we prepared to seize this golden opportunity in Canada?

    Genetic testing and data

    Canadians are not averse to genetic testing. By 2018, a survey by Abacus Data showed around 11 per cent of Canadian adults had used direct-to-consumer genetic testing and analysis kits, and 60 per cent were open to ordering a test.

    This level of interest highlights a general acceptance of and readiness for genetic advancements in health care, which is encouraging, since we need much more reliable, population-level genetic information to make the most of this opportunity.

    Current genetic data is either scattered across relatively small, fragmented groups, which is severely limiting from a broader research perspective, or held by private companies. These companies have varying regulatory standards, raising concerns about privacy and data security, especially if a company is financially unstable or ceases to exist. This recently occurred when genetic testing company 23andMe filed for bankruptcy.



    Read more:
    With 23andMe filing for bankruptcy, what happens to consumers’ genetic data?

    The better model is publicly managed biobanks, which prioritize broad societal health over profit and offer stronger data protection through robust regulation of access, storage and usage. Strict oversight ensures the protection of individual privacy while promoting transparency.

    The potential of biobanks

    In this age of big data, biobanks have become some of the most transformative tools in medical research, enabling scientists to study the relationships between genes, health and disease on an unprecedented scale.

    This is possible because of technological advancements that allow large-scale genetic and biomarker testing, the adoption of cloud-based servers, and improvements in statistical modelling, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

    Establishing a biobank begins with collecting small amounts (five to 10 millilitres) of blood, saliva or tissue from consenting participants in the presence of health experts.

    Biobanks use next-generation sequencers to perform the genetic sequences at high speed, while the latest proteomics platforms enable measurement of thousands different biomarkers from a very small amount of blood. The resulting genetic and biomarker profiles are curated and made accessible through platforms like a national library.

    Countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States are paving the way with national efforts such as the UK Biobank and the All of Us Research Program.

    The British Biobank houses genetic and health data from more than 500,000 participants. Similarly, the U.S. program aims to enrol more than one million participants.

    Genomics in Canada

    As a genetic epidemiologist, I have had the opportunity to identify several potential genetic targets by using these treasure troves of information.

    The problem is that we don’t yet have a ready way of knowing if the results are directly applicable to the Canadian population.

    This is about to change. Genome Canada has launched the Canadian Precision Health Initiative to sequence the genomes of at least 100,000 Canadians.

    Biobanks enable scientists to study the relationships between genes, health and disease on an unprecedented scale.
    (Pixabay/Shameersrk)

    A Pan-Canadian Genome Library (PCGL) is also in the works to harmonize genetic data produced across Canada. It aims to capture, store and provide access to Canadian genomic data in a secure and ethical manner. Although this work is in the developmental phase, and the target population size remains unclear, these efforts are significant.

    These visions are closer to becoming a reality with the recent announcement of a $200 million investment in the Canadian Precision Health initiative. This is in addition to the more than $1 billion previously invested in health genomics research projects.

    These funds will support Canada’s Genomic centres, the PCGL, and enhance the translation of genomics into real-world applications, boosting the development of personalized medicine and advanced diagnostics to treat diseases.

    A potential model for the world

    Canada, with its uniquely diverse population, has a rare opportunity to lead the way in equitable, multi-ethnic genetic research that would address current biases that predominantly focus on individuals with European ancestry.

    This would ensure that everyone in Canada, including Indigenous communities, can benefit from this health-care revolution in an equitable, ethical and safe manner that balances privacy with the opportunities for groundbreaking research.

    With public trust and robust oversight, and making population-level data internationally accessible, Canada’s biobank initiative could become a model for the world in the golden era of personalized medicine.

    Nazia Pathan, PhD 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. A golden era for personalized medicine is approaching, but are we ready? – https://theconversation.com/a-golden-era-for-personalized-medicine-is-approaching-but-are-we-ready-250336

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Forgotten futures? Canada urgently needs a national discussion about young people’s futures

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By J-C Couture, Adjunct faculty and Associate Lecturer, Department of Secondary Education, University of Alberta

    This federal election cycle has seen laudable efforts to raise awareness around neglected issues.

    We’ve heard more about the need for greater co-operation between provincial and territorial governments to respond to chaos triggered by United States President Donald Trump’s policies. In the same time frame, municipal politicans have been calling for climate change action through co-ordinated sustainable infrastructure development.

    For policy experts and pundits alike, a growing consensus is emerging that Canada has for too long ignored deeper economic and political structural problems.

    Some political analysts, (like pundit Andrew Coyne), have framed these issues as being part of Canada’s growth crisis, underscoring problems like a lack of a coherent industrial policy, flat or declining productivity and weak competitiveness.

    Others, including provincial, municipal and First Nations leaders, note Canada also lacks a coherent approach to infrastructure that addresses decades of neglect in cities, towns and Indigenouscommunities alike.

    As researchers committed to advancing more intentional conversations concerning the future of public education, we also see a huge gap in terms of co-ordinated, pan-Canadian federal efforts to support young people’s futures through education.

    Need to knit vision together

    For example, we have a national early learning and child-care strategy, (which could be imperilled, depending on who wins the election). It’s often shorthanded as being about “child care,” which diminishes the long-term significance of paying attention to how we invest in young people and families, and the quality of early education.

    A recent open letter by the chair of the Toronto District School Board called on the leaders of Canada’s federal party leaders to address the growing diversity and complexity of the city’s student population.



    Read more:
    ‘Child care’ or education? Words matter in how we envision living well with children

    We don’t have a federal department for education. While the Council of Ministers of Education Canada (CMEC) serves as a forum to discuss policy issues, as education scholar Jennifer Wallner notes, “effective creativity and co-ordination” is needed.

    In the early 2000s, the Canadian Council on Learning was making ground-breaking contributions towards helping Canada develop comprehensive and coherent approaches to lifelong learning. But the council’s work was hobbled in 2011 when it was defunded by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

    Sen. Rosemary Moodie’s introducton of Bill S-282, a “National Strategy for Children and Youth Act,” in November 2023 is one example of a positive effort to develop a pan-Canadian youth development framework.

    There are solid pieces of a puzzle that can contribute to nurturing hopeful young people and a socially healthy and empowered society. But these sorely need to be knit together, as they have in places like like Iceland and Finland
    to name a few.

    Refraining from taking democracy for granted

    The question of what public education actually means is much more than a semantic exercise; it’s a practical and foundational exercise in building a civil society and nation.

    Three decades ago, American cultural and media critic Neil Postman invoked the truism that “public education creates a public” — a reminder that the vibrancy of our communities and democracy can’t be taken for granted. As we look at the U.S. and the rise of neo-liberalism and authoritarian populism, Canadians need to remember Postman.

    Our colleague, David King, former minister of education in Alberta from 1979 to 1986, observes that of all institutions citizens have created, “public school education is the only such institution that remains where we can share common stories, and conventions and imagination.”

    What we should value about public education

    Yet the role of public education in contributing to Canada’s democratic traditions is often taken for granted. A shared sense of what we should value about public education remains elusive — and is played out amid debate about structural and political reforms, around matters like who controls schools.

    Meanwhile, researchers highlight how families continue moving to private schooling. Consider Australians, who see public education as a universal right, yet 35 per cent of students attend private schools..

    In Canada, a network of university researchers and advocacy groups — the Public Education Exchange (PEX) research network —has documented growing privatization and commercialization of public education. Sue Winton, PEX project director and education professor, describes how the privatization of public education in Canada continues to undermine equality and democracy.

    Sue Winton discusses her book ‘Unequal Benefits: Privatization and Public Education in Canada.’

    Across Canada, processes towards privatization involve policies and practices that shift responsibilities from governments to private bodies, with corresponding shifts in lower investment in per-student public school learning.

    Shifts towards privatization go beyond funding private and charter schools. They include underfunding school facilities and movements that promote sloganeering around “parent rights” and “parental choice.”



    Read more:
    ‘School choice’ policies are associated with increased separation of students by social class

    Post-secondary investment declines

    In higher education, privatization has also accelerated. Students, particularly international students, have provided an increasing portion of funding. In Ontario, according to Higher Education Strategy Associates, international students contributed approximately 76 per cent of all tuition fee revenue in the college sector in 2023-24. In the university sector, it’s more than 50 per cent. Other provinces saw similar shifts.

    A decline in per capita public investment has encouraged the growth of the private college and university sector and investments in AI-enabled learning through corporate learning systems. Technology-related fields have developed corporate partnerships that shape what is taught and how.

    The precarity of public higher education in Canada threatens our social and economic future.

    Making futures possible for young people

    Whether it’s through local community schools, a university or college campus or larger community initiatives, we can’t drop the promise of universal access to an inclusive and broad education.

    Keeping this promise is even more pressing given generational inequity. As discusssed by Paul Kershaw, policy professor and founder of “Gen Squeeze” think tank, and Kareem Kudus, research analyst, “generationally unfair policies … have contributed to today’s housing, affordability, medical care and climate crises.”



    Read more:
    Wildfires in Alberta spark urgent school discussions about terrors of global climate futures

    Initiatives established in the 1970s focused on building connections between different regions: Open House Canada was a high-school student exchange program, and Katimavik, a youth service program founded by the visionary author Jacques Hébert, who would later become a senator and champion for intercutural and global travel experiences for our young people.

    Programs like these have presented significant and rich opportunities for building relationships across difference, and an equitable and inclusive sense of social cohesion. But governments at all levels have failed to sustain and expand such programs, or connect them with school learning.

    Broader discussions on what we care about

    The current existential threat to Canada fuelled by Trump’s presidency should mobilize not just an “elbows up” approach, but also “heads up” when it comes to the need for a pan-Canadian a youth policy framework that bolsters public education. As many Americans are also realizing, we need public education to help address current challenges, but it’s under attack.

    As American organizational behaviour expert and writer Margaret J. Wheatley reminds us: “There is nothing more powerful than a community discovering what it cares about.”

    In the aftermath of the federal election, we’d love to see much more dialogue surrounding the “publicness” of public education — to go further in at least deciding on what we really care about as a country.

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

    – ref. Forgotten futures? Canada urgently needs a national discussion about young people’s futures – https://theconversation.com/forgotten-futures-canada-urgently-needs-a-national-discussion-about-young-peoples-futures-254883

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Two-thirds of Canadians have experimented with generative AI, but most don’t understand its impacts

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Anatoliy Gruzd, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Privacy-Preserving Digital Technologies, Toronto Metropolitan University

    Canadians need literacy around AI, its applications and uses. (Shutterstock)

    When ChatGPT entered the public imagination in 2022, Canadians were curious, hopeful, anxious and had plenty of questions. Just three years later, our new report, The State of Generative AI Use in Canada 2025, finds that two-thirds of Canadians have already experimented with generative AI (GenAI) tools.

    That is an astonishing rate of adoption for a technology so novel, and it speaks to the profound impact it’s already having on our lives.

    But alongside this rapid uptake is a sobering reality: most Canadians are still unsure about what these tools are, how they work or how they affect society. Our new national survey of 1,500 adults, conducted in February and March, reveals that while GenAI use is widespread, deep understanding is not.

    Canadians are being ushered into a new era of AI-powered productivity, creativity and communication. But they are forging ahead without the digital literacy needed to navigate AI technologies and their impacts effectively, safely and critically.

    News and politics

    Only 38 per cent of respondents indicated they felt confident using these tools effectively. Even fewer — 36 per cent — told us they were familiar with the rules and ethics around GenAI. These numbers should concern all of us.

    Nowhere is this tension clearer than in how Canadians view GenAI’s impact on information, media and politics. Canadians’ comfort levels with GenAI use in newsrooms vary sharply depending on the topic: people are relatively at ease with AI-generated content in entertainment and lifestyle reporting, but not as much with more sensitive topics such as politics, crime or global affairs.

    Only 36 per cent of survey respondents were familiar with the rules and ethics around GenAI.
    (Social Media Lab), CC BY

    Our survey also reveals that two‑thirds (67 per cent) worry GenAI could be used to manipulate voters or interfere with democratic processes. At the same time, trust in political information online is eroding, with 59 per cent saying they no longer trust the political news they see online due to concerns that it may be fake or manipulated.



    Read more:
    AI is making elections weird: Lessons from a simulated war-game exercise

    Although GenAI tools like chatbots could help voters assess policies proposed by different parties and their potential implications, most Canadians (54 per cent) are unlikely to use them to get information about elections or politics.

    Responsible innovation

    So what are Canadians asking for? More than anything, our findings show overwhelming support for regulatory guardrails. Canadians want clear rules for companies that develop, use or provide GenAI-powered tools and services.

    Seventy-eight per cent of Canadians say GenAI companies should be held accountable when their tools cause harm. Nearly eight in 10 also support both the regulation of current state-of-the-art GenAI tools and the proactive regulation of GenAI tools on the horizon.



    Read more:
    The federal government’s proposed AI legislation misses the mark on protecting Canadians

    This is a call for leadership and action. Canada has the chance to set a global standard for responsible AI governance, but must act quickly and decisively. We offer three core recommendations to help chart that path:

    1. Policy leadership: Considering the ongoing race among GenAI companies to build the most advanced model, the principles of privacy by design should not be sacrificed simply to gather more user data. The risks associated with data breaches and accidental leaks of personal information in GenAI outputs are significant.

    This means prompts and other user inputs should not be used for fine-tuning or training future models without obtaining meaningful consent first. Furthermore, to address Canadians’ concerns about how GenAI companies manage personal information, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada should take stock of popular GenAI tools and proactively review their privacy and data use policies to ensure compliance with existing privacy regulations.

    The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada should review privacy and data use policy.
    (Shutterstock)

    2. Education reform: Given the relatively low level of GenAI literacy among Canadians, integrating GenAI — and AI literacy more broadly — into the education system is essential. From K-12 through post-secondary, students must learn not just how to use GenAI tools effectively (for example, prompt engineering). They should also understand how these technologies function, where the training data come from and how to evaluate outputs for accuracy and potential biases.



    Read more:
    AI in schools — here’s what we need to consider

    3. GenAI use transparency: Organizations deploying GenAI must clearly disclose when and how these tools are being used, alongside mandatory risk assessments for high-impact deployments. This transparency is particularly important for for-profits, media outlets and public sector entities, as these groups are viewed with the highest levels of distrust among Canadians regarding the safe and ethical use of GenAI.

    Dizzying change

    As researchers who have spent years studying technology’s impact on society, we are both excited and cautious about what GenAI means for Canada. The pace of change is dizzying, but speed alone is not a measure of progress. What matters is whether this technology serves the public good.

    Canadians are not anti-technology. They are curious, pragmatic and hopeful, but they are also alert to the risks. They want to be part of the conversation, and they want to see that conversation lead to thoughtful, inclusive action.

    We urge policymakers, educators, tech companies and civil society to listen closely and act urgently. GenAI is not a passing trend. It is reshaping how we work, learn and spend leisure time. Whether that transformation uplifts or undermines society depends on our current choices.

    Anatoliy Gruzd receives funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage Digital Citizen Contribution Program and the Canada Research Chairs Program.

    Philip Mai receives funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Digital Citizen Contribution Program.

    Anthony Clements Haines 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. Two-thirds of Canadians have experimented with generative AI, but most don’t understand its impacts – https://theconversation.com/two-thirds-of-canadians-have-experimented-with-generative-ai-but-most-dont-understand-its-impacts-254351

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Will TGL have staying power in golf, or is it just a fad?

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Joseph Dick, PhD Student in Sport Management, University of Guelph

    Over the past several months, the upstart TGL golf league has tried to establish a foothold among golf fans. The league began its inaugural season in January 2025, fusing advanced technology with golf to offer an innovative product.

    TGL was created in partnership with the PGA Tour, featuring its star players in matches to complement rather than compete with the PGA Tour.

    In terms of viewership, TGL came out of the gates running, averaging 919,000 viewers on ESPN in its debut. As the season progressed, however, TGL averaged 502,400 viewers per telecast, with the final garnering the fifth highest viewership of the 12 TGL matches.

    Some have suggested this decline in viewership indicates TGL may be unsustainable. Will TGL have the staying power to keep fans interested, or will it simply prove to be a passing fad?

    With the inaugural season finishing, and the Atlanta Drive golf club capturing the league’s first title, now is the time to consider the outlook for golf’s newest upstart.



    Read more:
    The TGL golf league might signal that indoor sport is the future, for better or worse

    Team play

    The PGA Tour has cemented itself as the preeminent tour in men’s professional golf, integrating its operations within the major tournaments, feeder leagues and the World Ranking system. The TGL, therefore, hopes to integrate and be an addition to the PGA Tour’s position within the history and traditions central to the sport.

    TGL differs from traditional golf as players hit their tee and approach shots into a giant simulator at one end of SoFi Centre in Palm Beach Gardens before proceeding to the opposite end of the playing surface to chip and putt around the green.

    Players are mic’d up for condensed rounds with a referee and a shot clock. Additionally, TGL has introduced the dynamics of team play, with six teams representing various cities across the United States.

    Sacred to fans

    As examined in early graduate research of the lead author of this story, Joseph Dick, golf has become a sport sacred to many of its fans. Winning and getting to the highest level of the sport are highly meaningful.

    When an experience or pastime like golf becomes sacred to consumers, it gains a higher level of meaning that requirees it to be treated with the utmost respect. A comparison is a gift from a family member that exemplifies the important relationship you share, giving the gift a high level of meaning.

    The golfer’s story, and the progression necessary to make it in professional golf, is central to professional golf. The sport has become sacred through the meaning connected to winning and performing at a high level.

    As a result, golf events also become highly sacred, and grow to “matter,” with some fans calling it a “holy experience” to attend.

    Does the TGL matter to fans?

    Some have reported that fans of the upstart league only “sort of care” about it. Research on fandom in sports suggests that people stop being fans when they experience an ongoing conflict between their values and the values of the sport that cannot be realigned.

    If TGL fails to resonate with golf fans who deeply cherish the sport, it risks losing fans when it undermines what they see as sacred aspects of the game.

    So what should TGL consider doing going forward to align itself more with the culture of golf? Looking ahead, there is already talk of the league looking to expand to new cities. However, further expansion will result in the inclusion of lower-ranked players, demonstrating the prioritization of revenue generation over elite competition.

    This change would likely undermine the tenuous connection TGL currently has with the dedication and perseverance of top golfers, further watering down the intense competition that is central to golf.

    Introducing elements like a simulator golf world ranking or yearly promotion and relegation of teams in and out of the league could help to introduce features that more closely align with what fans appreciate about golf while preventing TGL’s shine from wearing off.

    Finally, the league must continue to have players buy in, but simultaneously be in the league for the authentic values of perseverance and the pursuit of victory.

    Money cannot be viewed by fans as a player’s core motivation as players motivated more by paycheques than their passion and dedication to mastering the sport can erode the sacred, meaningful essence that makes a sport revered by its fans.

    If TGL’s organizers are not concerned with creating deep-seeded fandom, then the league may instead simply act as mundane entertainment, with little connection with golf fans. But this position will likely ensure that TGL will matter less within golf’s broader culture — something it should strive to integrate with, at least somewhat.

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

    – ref. Will TGL have staying power in golf, or is it just a fad? – https://theconversation.com/will-tgl-have-staying-power-in-golf-or-is-it-just-a-fad-252607

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Paying fishers to release sharks accidentally caught in their nets can incentivise conservation action – but there’s a catch

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hollie Booth, Research Associate, Conservation Science, University of Oxford

    An Indonesian fisher safely releases a critically endangered wedgefish. Francesca Page. Francesca Page, CC BY-NC-ND

    Sharks and rays are among the world’s most threatened species, mainly due to overfishing. They are sometimes targeted for their fins and meat, but more often caught as bycatch in nets aiming to catch other fish. Declines in these ocean predators can disrupt food webs, harm tourism income and worsen climate change by undermining the resilience of ocean ecosystems.

    However, halting overfishing of sharks and rays is difficult because the social dynamics around it are complex. Many threatened species are caught in small-scale, mixed-species fisheries in tropical coastal areas, where households depend on the fish they catch – including endangered sharks and rays – for food and income.

    For the past five years, I have been investigating how to support both marine life and the people who rely on catching fish. I’m part of a global team of interdisciplinary researchers focusing on shark and ray conservation in small-scale fisheries in Indonesia.

    Our new study, just published in Science Advances, suggests that paying fishers to release endangered species can incentivise conservation behaviours and promote fisher welfare. However, such payments can also have unintended consequences, which may undermine conservation goals, so it’s really important to design incentives carefully and rigorously evaluate initiatives as they progress.

    Though sharks and rays are not necessarily targeted by small-scale fishers, threatened species such as wedgefish and hammerhead sharks are frequently captured. In our 2020 study, fishers often told us that wedgefish and hammerheads are “just bycatch”. However, further investigation revealed that fishers remain reluctant to reduce catches of these species because they would lose food and income.

    “It brings more money even though it’s not the target” one fisher told us. “It is rezeki” (a gift from God). “If I return it to the ocean, it is mubazir” (wasteful and God will be displeased).

    Knowing this, we explored the different positive and negative incentives that might motivate fishers to change their behaviour. We found that conditional cash payments, which compensate fishers for safely releasing wedgefish and hammerheads back into the sea, could be a cost-effective way to conserve these species without damaging fisher livelihoods.

    Inspired by our results, I worked with students and collaborators to establish a small local charitable organisation to put our findings into practice – Kebersamaan Untuk Lautan (an Indonesian phrase meaning “togetherness for the ocean”). We agreed to compensates fishers with cash payments – typically US$2-7 (£1.50-5) per fish – if they submit videos of wedgefish and hammerhead being safely released.

    Testing the incentive

    However, incentives can change fishing behaviour in unforeseen ways. For example, fishers may increase their catches to receive more payments at the expense of conservation goals. Payments may also end up going to people who would reduce catches anyway, or could release budget constraints allowing fishers to purchase more nets.

    To see if and how the conservation payments worked in practice, we carried out a controlled experiment, randomly splitting 87 vessels from Aceh and West Nusa Tenggara into two groups. One group was offered compensation for live releases while the other was not. We collected data on reported live releases and retained catches of wedgefish and hammerheads, and on fishers’ levels of satisfaction with the programme and life in general. Then we compared the two groups.

    Since we launched the pay-to-release programme in May 2022, more than 1,200 wedgefish and hammerheads have been safely released. All participating fishers and their families felt satisfied.

    “We use the compensation money to cover our daily needs. We hope that the programme continues in the future,” said the wife of one participating fisher.

    Hollie Booth has been collaborating with fishers in Indonesia to reduce bycatch of sharks. Film by Liam Webb.

    However, our experimental data from the first 16 months of the programme (May 2022 – July 2023) revealed a plot twist. Even though the compensation incentivised live releases, results suggested that some fishers had purposefully increased their catches to gain more payments.

    My team and I were initially distressed by the result. However, without the rigorous controlled experiment we would never have detected these unintended consequences. Based on our results, we revised the compensation pricing and limited how many compensated releases each vessel can claim per week. We are also piloting a new gear swap scheme, where fishers trade their nets for fish traps, which have much lower bycatch rates. Preliminary data suggest these changes have boosted the programme’s effectiveness.

    Our team at Oxford works closely with other local researchers and conservation organisations to help them design and assess their own locally appropriate incentive programmes. Another recent study from conservation charity Thresher Shark Indonesia shows that their alternative livelihood programme reduced catches of endangered thresher sharks by over 90%.

    Positive incentives are an important instrument for solving the biodiversity crisis in an equitable way. It is unfair and unjust to expect small-scale resources users in developing countries to bear most of the costs of conservation. Especially when wealthier and more powerful ocean users – such as commercial seafood companies – cause major negative impacts through overfishing while extracting huge profits. However, conservation incentives must be well designed and robustly evaluated to ensure they incentivise the right actions and deliver intended results.

    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 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Hollie Booth is the founder and Chair of Kebersamaan Untuk Lautan. The program and this research was funded by Save Our Seas Foundation and the UK Darwin Initiative.

    – ref. Paying fishers to release sharks accidentally caught in their nets can incentivise conservation action – but there’s a catch – https://theconversation.com/paying-fishers-to-release-sharks-accidentally-caught-in-their-nets-can-incentivise-conservation-action-but-theres-a-catch-253797

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Is China the new cool? How Beijing is using pop culture to win the soft power war

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Shaoyu Yuan, Research Scientist at the Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University – Newark

    IShowSpeed, a 20-year-old American YouTuber and internet star, recently livestreamed hourslong tours of Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai, showcasing the locations to some of his nearly 40 million viewers.

    During the March events, IShowSpeed, whose real name is Darren Jason Watkins Jr., marveled at friendly locals, spotless streets and the high-speed Wi-Fi available on the subway; Chinese fans mobbed him for selfies on the Great Wall.

    Beijing’s state media lapped up the attention, with one Chinese blogger proclaiming that the American influencer had “eliminated all Western propaganda about China” in the eyes of a new generation.

    IShowSpeed’s YouTube page attests to this assessment.

    “China is so underrated wtf,” reads one top comment. “After watching this video, I realized how foolish my previous views on China were,” reads another.

    The providence of such comments isn’t clear. Nonetheless, to someone who researches the use of Chinese soft power, I find the spectacle of a young American burnishing China’s image to Western audiences hugely significant. It provides an example of how soft power norms have been upended in recent years – and how China appears to be having some success in winning over the global youth.

    Mixing pop and politics

    Soft power refers to a country’s ability to influence others, not through coercion but through attraction – by shaping preferences through culture, values and public diplomacy. Coined by political scientist Joseph Nye, the term captures how nations project power by making others want what they have, rather than forcing outcomes through military or economic pressure.

    Throughout the Cold War and into the 21st century, U.S. soft power didn’t have to try that hard. It came wrapped in denim, was broadcast on MTV and blasted from boom boxes. Rock music crossed the Iron Curtain when diplomacy couldn’t, with artists like Bruce Springsteen and Madonna reaching Soviet youth more effectively than any ambassador.

    And in China, Michael Jackson became a pop icon well before McDonald’s or Hollywood blockbusters arrived, symbolizing a glamorous, open America that millions dreamed of. To many growing up in China in the 1990s, American culture wasn’t just entertainment – it was persuasion, aspiration, even subversion.

    Beijing’s blockbusters

    The U.S. is, of course, still a cultural powerhouse; American stars of film and music continue to be recognizable around the world.

    But there are signs that China is chipping away at that dominance.

    Take cinema. Not so long ago, Chinese films were considered niche abroad. Yet in January 2025, an animated Chinese feature film, “Ne Zha 2,” smashed box-office records. The movie, a dazzling retelling of a mythic boy-god, has grossed an astonishing US$2 billion worldwide, outperforming many Hollywood releases.

    It’s now the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, and it wasn’t made by Disney or Pixar but by a Chinese studio employing hundreds of local animators.

    An artist paints an image of Ne Zha, a character from the animated blockbuster, on an electricity distribution box in a farm field in southwest China.
    Zhong Min/Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images

    Beijing lost no time in co-opting “Ne Zha 2” as a symbol of China’s creative rise and cultural “soft power moment.” State media touted the film’s success as proof that Chinese folklore and artistry can captivate the globe just as powerfully as Marvel superheroes.

    “Ne Zha 2” isn’t a one-off. “Detective Chinatown 1900,” released in January by the Beijing-based Wanda Films, is 2025’s third-biggest grossing movie to date.

    Hollywood, once confident in its cultural monopoly, suddenly faces a colossal new competitor on the global stage – one backed by 1.4 billion people and a government eager to topple Western pop-cultural dominance. And the audience isn’t all domestic. “Ne Zha 2” also proved successful when it opened in the U.S.

    Gamers journey to the East

    And it’s not just movies.

    For decades, video games were an American and Japanese stronghold. Yet it is a Chinese-developed game, Black Myth: Wukong – developed by a studio in Hangzhou – that has become the talk of gamers worldwide.

    When its gameplay trailers first appeared in 2020, they went viral, with Black Myth: Wukong promising AAA-level graphics and action rooted in China’s classic “Journey to the West” tale.

    Skeptics wondered whether the final product could really compete with the likes of established franchise God of War or the George R. R. Martin-inspired Elden Ring. But those doubts evaporated when the game finally launched in 2024. Black Myth: Wukong debuted to massive global fanfare in summer 2024, instantly claiming a spot alongside the biggest Western franchises.

    Reviewers around the globe have hailed it as China’s first true blockbuster video game and evidence that the country can produce world-class entertainment.

    Black Myth: Wukong won Best Action Game and Players’ Voice awards at The Game Awards 2024 on Dec. 13, 2024.
    VCG/VCG via Getty Images

    I’d argue that this isn’t just about bragging rights in China’s gaming community; it’s about narrative power for the Chinese state. When millions of young people around the world spend 30 or 40 hours a week immersed in the adventures of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King hero, rather than, say, a Marvel superhero or a Tolkien epic, that subtly shifts the cultural center of gravity eastward.

    It suggests that Chinese myths are becoming as cool as Western ones to a global audience. And that is soft power.

    Small screen, big impact

    Meanwhile, on the smaller screens we carry in our pockets, another Chinese export has embedded itself deeply into global culture: TikTok.

    As of 2025, TikTok boasts over 1.6 billion monthly users worldwide.

    More striking is TikTok’s cultural reach. The app’s algorithm has propelled songs from musicians in South Korea or Nigeria to the top of global charts; it has teenagers in Kansas learning Indonesian dance moves, and grandmothers in Italy trying Mexican recipes they saw on a viral Chinese app.

    In effect, TikTok has built a new transnational pop culture commons – one owned by a Beijing-based company. Yes, the content on TikTok is created by users everywhere, not dictated by the Chinese state, but the platform’s very existence is a triumph of Chinese tech entrepreneurship and global ambition.

    Every minute that Western youths spend scrolling TikTok is a minute they’re within a Chinese-designed cultural sphere. Little wonder the U.S. government has fretted about TikTok’s influence – it’s not just about data security, it’s about cultural security.

    Banning it outright has proven politically difficult, and so TikTok remains, steadily entrenching its position as a staple of global youth culture.

    All these strands – blockbuster films, hit video games, viral apps – tie into a larger truth: China is rapidly building its soft power as America risks letting its own erode. At a time when the U.S. slashes foreign aid, China expands its influence through the Belt and Road Initiative and development loans. And while the U.S. curtails visas for students and scientists, China’s universities – some of which now rank in the global top 20 – become more attractive destinations.

    Can the US maintain a cultural edge?

    Assessing the impact of soft power is notoriously hard – nations that employ it are typically playing a very long game. And Beijing’s soft power push is not guaranteed success everywhere. Many societies remain skeptical of Beijing’s intentions, and China’s authoritarian system limits the appeal of its political model in democratic nations.

    Yet there are clear signs that China’s cultural exports are gaining traction among the younger generation.

    The U.S. once set the global cultural tempo almost by default. But today, as China invests heavily in its creative industries and digital platforms, it is increasingly shaping the soundtrack and storylines for a rising global generation.

    The question is no longer whether China can compete for soft power influence but whether America has a plan to hold its ground.

    Shaoyu Yuan 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. Is China the new cool? How Beijing is using pop culture to win the soft power war – https://theconversation.com/is-china-the-new-cool-how-beijing-is-using-pop-culture-to-win-the-soft-power-war-254923

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: From Doing Business to B-READY: World Bank’s new rankings represent a rebrand, not a revamp

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Fernanda G Nicola, Professor of Law, American University

    The 2025 spring meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund takes place in Washington, D.C. Bryan Dozier/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

    In 2021, the World Bank shut down one of its flagship projects: the Doing Business index, a global ranking system that measured how easy it was to start and run a business in 190 countries.

    It followed an independent investigation that found World Bank officials had manipulated the rankings to favor powerful countries, including China and Saudi Arabia. The scandal raised serious concerns about the use of global benchmarks to shape development policy.

    Now, the Bank is trying again. In October 2024, it launched its newest flagship report, Business Ready. The 2025 spring meeting of the World Bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, mark the first time the report will be formally presented to delegates as part of the institutions’ high-level agenda.

    Nicknamed B-READY, the report aims to evaluate business environments through more transparent data. This time, the annual assessment has a broader ambition: to go beyond laws and efficiency and also measure social inclusion, environmental sustainability and public service delivery.

    As experts on international organizations, law and development, we have given B-READY a closer look. While we appreciate that a global assessment of the economic health of countries through data collection and participation of private stakeholders is a worthwhile endeavor, we worry that the World Bank’s latest effort risks recreating many of the same flaws that plagued its predecessor.

    From Doing Business to doing what?

    To understand what’s at stake, it’s worth recalling what the Doing Business index measured. From 2003 to 2021, the flagship report was used by governments, investors and World Bank officials alike to assess the business environment of any given country. It ranked countries based on how easy it was to start and run a business in 190 economies.

    In prioritizing that as its marker, the index often celebrated reforms that stripped away labor protections, environmental safeguards and corporate taxes in the name of greater “efficiency” of common law versus civil law jurisdictions.

    As economist Joseph E. Stiglitz argued in 2021, from its creation, the Doing Business index reflected the values of the so-called Washington Consensus − a development model rooted in deregulation, privatization and market liberalization.

    The World Bank building in Washington, D.C.
    AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

    Critics warned for years that the Doing Business index encouraged a global “race to the bottom.” Countries competed to improve their rankings, often by adopting symbolic legal reforms with little real impact.

    In some cases, internal data manipulation at the World Bank penalized governments that did not appear sufficiently business-friendly. These structural flaws − and the political pressures behind them − ultimately led to the project’s demise in 2021.

    What is B-READY?

    B-READY is the World Bank’s attempt to regain credibility after the Doing Business scandal. In recent years, there has been both internal and external pressure to create a successor − and B-READY responds to that demand while aiming to fix the methodological flaws.

    In theory, while it retains a focus on the business environment, B-READY shifts away from a narrow deregulatory logic and instead seeks to capture how regulations interact with infrastructure, services and equity considerations.

    B-READY, which in the pilot stage covers a mix of 50 countries, does not rank countries with a single score. Rather, it provides more accurate data across 10 topics grouped into three pillars: regulatory framework, public services and operational efficiency. The report also introduces new themes such as digital access, environmental sustainability and gender equity.

    Unlike the Doing Business index, B-READY publishes its full methodology and makes its data publicly available.

    On the surface, this looks like progress. But a criticism of B-READY is that in practice, the changes offer only a more fragmented ranking system — one that is harder to interpret and still shaped by the same investor driven macroeconomic assumptions.

    In our view, the framework continues to reflect a narrow view of what constitutes a healthy legal and economic system, not just for investors but for society as a whole.

    Labor flexibility over labor rights

    A key concern is how B-READY handles labor standards. The report relies on two main data sources: expert consultations and firm-level surveys.

    For assessing labor and social security regulations, the World Bank consults lawyers with expertise in each country. But when it comes to how these laws function in practice, the report relies on surveys that ask businesses whether labor costs, dismissal protections and public services are “burdens.”

    This approach captures the employer’s perspective, but leaves out workers’ experiences and the real impact on labor rights. In some cases, the scoring system even rewards weaker protections. For example, countries are encouraged to have a minimum-wage law on the books − but are penalized if the wage is “too high” relative to gross domestic product per capita. This creates pressure to keep wages low in order to appear competitive. And while that might be good news for international companies seeking to reduce their labor costs, it isn’t necessarily good for the local workforce or a country’s economic well-being.

    According to the International Trade Union Confederation, this approach risks encouraging symbolic reforms while doing little to protect workers. Georgia, for example, ranks near the top of the B-READY labor assessment, despite not having updated its minimum wage since 1999 and setting it below the subsistence level.

    Courts that work − for whom?

    Another troubling area, to us as comparative law experts, is how B-READY evaluates legal issues. It measures how quickly commercial courts resolve disputes but ignores judicial independence or respect for the rule of law. As a result, countries such as Hungary and Georgia, which have been widely criticized for democratic backsliding and the erosion of the rule of law, score surprisingly high. Not coincidentally, both governments have already used these scores for propaganda and political gain.

    This reflects a deeper problem, we believe. B-READY treats the legal system primarily as a means to attract investment, not as a framework for public accountability. It assumes that making life easier for businesses will automatically benefit everyone. But that assumption risks ignoring the people most affected by these laws and institutions − workers, communities and civil society groups.

    Be … better?

    B-READY introduces greater transparency and public data − and that, for sure, is a step up from its predecessor. But in our opinion it still reflects a narrow view of what a “good” legal system looks like: one that might deliver efficiency for firms but not necessarily justice or equity for society.

    Whether B-Ready becomes a tool for meaningful reform − or just another scoreboard for deregulation − will depend on the World Bank’s willingness to confront its long-standing biases and listen to its critics.

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

    – ref. From Doing Business to B-READY: World Bank’s new rankings represent a rebrand, not a revamp – https://theconversation.com/from-doing-business-to-b-ready-world-banks-new-rankings-represent-a-rebrand-not-a-revamp-254958

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: IMF World Economic Outlook: economic uncertainty is now higher than it ever was during COVID

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sergi Basco, Profesor Agregado de Economia, Universitat de Barcelona

    Skorzewiak/Shutterstock

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just published its World Economic Outlook, and it does not take an expert to deduce that, even among some of the world’s top economic minds, confident predictions are currently hard to come by.

    Every spring the IMF and World Bank hold their Spring Meetings in Washington DC: a week of seminars, briefings and press conferences focusing on the global economy, international development and world financial markets. At both the Spring Meetings and the Annual Meeting, held each autumn, the IMF publishes its global economic growth forecasts.

    For its 2025 Spring Meeting the IMF has published a baseline forecast, as well as an addendum analysing the tariff events that took place between 9 and 14 April. According to the Fund’s report, world GDP will grow by 2.8% in 2025 and 3.0% in 2026. For the euro area, growth will be 0.8% and 1.2% for 2025 and 2026 respectively.

    These forecasts represent a substantial downward revision from IMF figures published just three months ago. Globally, growth in 2025 is down by 0.5% compared to the Fund’s January update, with a reduction of 0.2% for the euro area.

    One major shift is key to understanding the most recent IMF report and its pessimistic predictions: we live in a much more uncertain world than we did three months ago.

    Trump, tariffs and uncertainty

    If one had to sum up the new US tariff policy in a word, “unpredictable” would suffice, as the so-called “Liberation Day” of 2 April 2025 represented the largest tariff increase in modern history.

    Just one week later, the US president then made two further announcements. First, a 90-day freeze on tariff hikes, apparently in search of bilateral agreements with the countries to which he had applied tariffs above 10%. Second, that China would be excluded from this exception, with tariffs on its products being raised to 145%.

    This freeze means that until July EU goods being sold to the US will have a 10% tariff instead of the 20% that was announced on 2 April. However, the 10% applied by the new US administration is still much higher than the average tariff of 1.34% that was in force before 5 April.

    But what will the tariff be after these 90 days? What about in December? What about in 2 years’ time? What goods will be exempted? How far will the trade war between China and the US go? The answer to all of these questions is: nobody knows. This uncertainty is evident in of the IMF’s spring forecast.

    Uncertainty is off the charts

    The IMF’s world trade uncertainty index is currently 7 times higher than it was in October 2024, much higher than in the pandemic.

    As far as the economy is concerned, this uncertainty is far worse than a high but definitive tariff. With a tariff, companies can at least reorganise their production chain, and consumers can look for alternative products. There is a cost, but at least businesses and consumers can plan for it.

    However, nobody can calculate these costs today because nobody knows how tariffs will evolve. An American company may decide today to buy a particular product from the EU thinking that the tariff will be 10%, but upon the product’s arrival in the US it turns out the tariff has risen to 100% because a presidential advisor said it would be good for the US economy to raise tariffs on that product.

    Unbelievable though it may sound, this appears to be how the tariffs are being decided and enacted. According to one account, the US Treasury and Commerce Secretaries were only able to persuade Trump to freeze recent tariff hikes because Peter Navarro – the president’s economic advisor and tariff ideologue – was in another room at the time.

    The end result of this unpredictability is that the best course of action, for consumers and businesses alike, is inaction.



    Leer más:
    Trump tariff chaos: radical uncertainty will likely make companies delay investments

    Fear and volatility

    It is no surprise that these constant changes of plans are causing great instability in financial markets. Although Trump may have triumphantly celebrated rising stock prices immediately after the tariff freeze was announced, financial markets are now subject to levels of uncertainty and fear similar to those seen during COVID-19.

    Five years ago, volatility was associated with increased demand for US government debt due to the “flight to safety” effect: investors selling higher risk investments and buying safer assets, such as gold and government bonds, in times of uncertainty.

    Now we are seeing the exact opposite. The price of US bonds has fallen since “Liberation Day”, and this means that investors are selling them. In other words, markets no longer believe that US government debt is a safe asset. Given the role of the dollar and US debt in international markets, this paradigm shift may generate even more financial instability down the line.

    Supply chains are breaking (again)

    COVID-19, the last major global economic crisis, has one thing in common with the current situation: disruption of global supply chains. During the pandemic it was confinement that forced production to stop. Today, it is the imposition of tariffs.

    However, there is another major difference. During COVID people knew it was a matter of time before vaccines became available and normality returned. Today, instability in financial markets comes not from any virus, but from President Trump’s own advisors selling him all manner of plans to protect US economic interests.

    Sergi Basco no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

    – ref. IMF World Economic Outlook: economic uncertainty is now higher than it ever was during COVID – https://theconversation.com/imf-world-economic-outlook-economic-uncertainty-is-now-higher-than-it-ever-was-during-covid-255055

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Developments in AI need to be properly regulated as the world scrambles for advantage

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nisreen Ameen, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Digital Marketing, Royal Holloway University of London

    AlinStock/Shutterstock

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is often hailed as the defining technology of the 21st century, shaping everything from economic growth to national security. But as global investment in AI accelerates, many experts are beginning to ask whether the world has embarked on an AI “arms race”.

    With China, the US, UK and the European Union each pledging billions to advance AI, competition in research, infrastructure and industrial applications for the new technology is intensifying. But, at the same time, regulation is struggling to keep pace with rapid development in some regions. This is raising concerns about ethical risks, economic inequality and global AI governance.

    There have been rapid advances in AI in the past few years. Companies such as America’s Accenture and China’s DeepSeek have developed large-scale generative AI systems – which can learn from existing content to generate new material such as text, images, music, or videos.

    The UK government recently announced its intention to “shape the AI revolution rather than wait to see how it shapes us” through its AI Opportunities Action Plan. This will have a strong focus on regulation, skills and ethical governance.

    If the UK and continental Europe are prioritising regulation, China is using its sheer size and appetite for innovation to develop rapidly into what has been described as an “AI super market”, and the US is balancing innovation with national security concerns.

    China recently released details of new regulations, which come into force in September, that will require explicit labelling of AI-generated content and providing metadata to link such content to the service provider that generated it. The onus will be on platforms that feature AI generated content to provide such information.

    But the different approaches highlight the growing geopolitical dimension of AI development which risks divergence of standards. While competition can drive innovation, without international cooperation on safety, ethics and governance, the global AI race could lead to regulatory gaps and fragmented oversight.

    Many analysts fear this would bring significant downsides. Most worryingly there is the prospect of unchecked AI-generated disinformation undermining elections and democratic institutions.

    Why does this matter?

    AI is more than just another technological breakthrough – it’s a strategic driver of economic power and influence. The countries leading in AI today will play an important role in shaping the future of automation, digital economies and international regulatory frameworks.

    AI’s global expansion is driven by several key motivations. It has the potential to massively boost productivity and creativity. It can create new business models and transform entire industries. Governments investing in AI aim to secure long-term economic advantages, particularly in sectors such as finance, healthcare and advanced manufacturing.

    Meanwhile AI is increasingly integrated into defence, cybersecurity and intelligence. Governments are exploring ways to use AI for strategic advantage, while also ensuring resilience against AI-enabled threats.

    But as AI investment surges it is increasingly important to ensure that the challenges the new technology will bring are not overlooked in the rush.

    Risks of rapid AI investment

    As AI advances, ethical issues become more pressing. AI-powered surveillance systems raise privacy concerns. Deepfake technology, meanwhile, which is capable of generating hyper-realistic video and audio, is already being used for disinformation. Without clear regulatory oversight this could seriously undermine trust and security and threaten democratic institutions.

    At the same time, we are already seeing inequality baked into AI development. Many AI-driven innovations cater to wealthy markets and corporations. Meanwhile, marginalised communities face barriers to accessing AI-enhanced education, healthcare and job opportunities – the latter was demonstrated as long ago as 2018 when Amazon reportedly withdrew a recruitment tool that was shown to discriminate against women.

    One AI application was withdraws after it was found to discriminate against women.
    metamorworks/Shutterstock

    Ensuring that AI development benefits society as a whole will require a strategic approach to skills, education and governance. I have conducted studies into how AI tools are being harnessed with a great deal of success in the UK and US and also in China. The research showed how AI capabilities can be combined with strategic agility to drive product and service innovation in many contexts.

    But the AI race is not just about economic progress, it also has geopolitical implications. Restrictions on AI-related exports, particularly in semiconductor technology, highlight growing concerns over technological dependencies and national security. Without greater international cooperation, uncoordinated AI policies could lead to economic fragmentation, regulatory inconsistencies across borders and the inevitable risks those bring.

    Although some nations are advocating for global AI agreements, these discussions remain in their early stages, so enforcement mechanisms remain limited.

    The way forward

    This will require multilateral governance, similar to global frameworks on cybersecurity and climate change. Existing discussions by the United Nations as well as the G7 and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) need to incorporate stronger AI-specific enforcement mechanisms that guide development responsibly.

    There are signs of progress. The G7’s Hiroshima AI Process has resulted in shared guiding principles and a voluntary code of conduct for advanced AI systems. The OECD’s AI Policy Observatory, meanwhile, is helping coordinate best practices across member states. But binding international enforcement mechanisms are still in their infancy.

    Individual countries, meanwhile, need to develop flexible regulatory frameworks that balance innovation with accountability. The EU’s AI Act, the first major attempt to comprehensively regulate AI, classifies AI systems by risk and imposes obligations on developers accordingly.

    This has included bans on certain high-risk applications, such as social scoring – which ranks individuals based on behaviour and can lead to discrimination. It’s a step in the right direction, but broader cooperation is still needed to ensure coherent global AI standards.

    An enforceable set of rules governing AI development is needed – and quickly. AI could pose more risks than opportunities if left unchecked.

    Nisreen Ameen 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. Developments in AI need to be properly regulated as the world scrambles for advantage – https://theconversation.com/developments-in-ai-need-to-be-properly-regulated-as-the-world-scrambles-for-advantage-248404

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Dreams delayed’ no longer: Report identifies key changes needed around Black students’ education

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tanitiã Munroe, PhD candidate (ABD) and researcher, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

    As Langston Hughes, the influential Harlem Renaissance poet, playwright and social activist, once wrote: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?”

    This poignant question is echoed in the title of the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s recently released Dreams Delayed report, which shines a spotlight on how systemic racism has continued to derail the educational aspirations of Black students across Ontario.

    Laying out a clear and urgent roadmap, Dreams Delayed: Addressing Systemic Anti-Black Racism and Discrimination in Ontario’s Public Education System captures both institutional responsibilities — for example, what the provincial government, school boards, faculties of education and educators must do — and the long-standing demands of Black families, students and communities who have been calling for meaningful change for decades.

    Call for important benchmarks

    The report’s title reflects a painful truth: the dreams of Black students have too often been deferred by persistent barriers in classrooms, hallways and boardrooms.

    For generations, Black families, students and community advocates have chronicled these injustices. By weaving their testimonies with data and legal analysis (including 83 reports), Dreams Delayed brings their struggle into sharp focus and translates it into a concrete policy blueprint.

    Its benchmarks are for measurable improvement in graduation rates, fewer suspensions, an elimination of biased academic streaming and an increase in Black teacher representation within four years.

    I am a doctoral researcher specializing in the kindergarten to Grade 12 experiences of Black students and their families. I also serve as senior research co-ordinator at the the Centre of Excellence for Black Student Achievement (CEBSA) with the Toronto District School Board.

    I’ve seen the very principles this report highlights in action at CEBSA. By grounding our work in evidence and partnering closely with students, families and communities, sustained effort can transform long‑deferred dreams into meaningful, lasting change. In this process, students’ voices and agency must be at the heart of every decision.

    Turning commitments into action

    Over multiple generations, parents and activists have pushed schools to treat Black students fairly.

    In 1992, provincial adviser and former politician Stephen Lewis reported that Black students felt unwelcome and overlooked in their schools. Unfortunately, many of the same issues kept appearing in study after study over the next 30 years.

    Researchers found that Black students were often treated differently by teachers and administrators, leading to feelings of not belonging at school. They noted a lack of Black teachers and lessons that did not include Black history or contributions, which made it hard for Black youth to see themselves reflected in their education.



    Read more:
    Black History: How racism in Ontario schools today is connected to a history of segregation

    Black students and their families have consistently described varied unfair treatment. Discipline is one major example. For a long time, Black children have been punished more harshly at school. One Toronto study found that between 2006 and 2011, 42 per cent of Black high school students were suspended at least once, compared to 18 per cent of white students. This huge disparity showed that Black youth were far more likely to be removed from class for what educators judged as misbehaviour.

    Anti-Black racism, alienation in schools

    In daily school life, many Black students across Ontario have faced anti-Black racism and bias.

    They’ve endured racial slurs like the “n-word” from peers (and occasionally staff), and too often these incidents were not taken seriously by schools. Being one of the few Black students in a classroom, or studying a curriculum focused almost entirely on European or white perspectives, can make school feel alienating.



    Read more:
    Anti-Black racism is not a ‘consensual schoolyard fight’

    These conditions — disproportionate suspensions, low expectations, not enough Black representation among staff and repeated racist incidents — have undermined Black students’ well‑being and achievement for years. Awareness of these systemic problems is growing.

    Despite the slow pace of change, community advocacy has led to important victories. In 2017, the Toronto District School Board ended the School Resource Officer (SRO) program.

    This decision came after Black students, families and advocacy groups like Black Lives Matter, Education Not Incarceration and Policing-Free Schools voiced concerns about the program’s harmful and criminalizing impact on Black and racialized youth.

    This decision underscored the power of organized resistance and the importance of listening to students’ lived experiences.

    However, to address anti-Black racism in schools meaningfully, we need sustained action, transparent accountability and continued school, family and community involvement. Every day, Black students should learn in an environment where they are safe, respected and empowered to succeed.

    Recommendations for systemic change

    Dreams Delayed outlines specific recommendations across three main areas: accountability, data monitoring and student well-being.

    Accountability and transparency: Under accountability, the report emphasizes openly recognizing anti-Black racism. It recommends creating human rights offices in school boards to handle discrimination complaints effectively. Schools and teachers’ unions must hire more Black educators and address workplace racism to create representative and supportive environments. The Ministry of Education must establish clear anti-racism frameworks and hold schools accountable for human rights standards.

    Monitoring and evaluation: Monitoring data is crucial because we can’t fix what isn’t measured. The OHRC recommends standardized data collection across all school boards, tracking suspensions, academic outcomes and incidents of discrimination. Publicly available data allows communities to hold schools accountable and track progress transparently. An innovative recommendation is implementing early intervention systems to identify and address patterns of racial harassment proactively.

    Student well-being is central. Ultimately, the goal is for Black students to feel fully supported and able to succeed. The Dreams Delayed plan calls for expanding initiatives that directly support Black youth, including the graduation coach for Black Students. This program places dedicated coaches (often Black mentors) in schools to help Black students with academics and career planning, and has shown promise in improving graduation rates.

    Another recommendation is to grow student and family advocate programs so that more Black families have access to advocacy when dealing with schools, and creating affirming education spaces for Black students. Such spaces and important resources are offered through CEBSA, such as programs to connect Black students with STEM opportunties and post-secondary pathway planning.

    Turning advocacy into action

    By acting on the report’s key recommendations — building accountability, collecting race‑based data, transforming curriculum and expanding student supports — those long‑deferred dreams can finally begin to materialize.

    Meaningful progress, however, will demand collective resolve and sustained action. Educators, policymakers and communities must move beyond acknowledging the problem and dedicate themselves to reshaping the system so every Black student is seen, heard, valued and afforded an equal chance to succeed.

    The next few years will be critical. The measure of success will be simple: when Black students across Ontario no longer have to fight for the basics — dignity, safety, respect — but can focus fully on learning, growing and pursuing their futures with confidence.

    Dreams Delayed offers a pivotal opportunity to transform Ontario’s schools into spaces of belonging and possibility.

    Embracing its recommendations with urgency and sincerity would honour generations of advocacy and finally create an education system where every student, especially every Black student, is empowered to thrive.

    Tanitiã Munroe is a Senior Research Coordinator at the Toronto District School Board.

    – ref. ‘Dreams delayed’ no longer: Report identifies key changes needed around Black students’ education – https://theconversation.com/dreams-delayed-no-longer-report-identifies-key-changes-needed-around-black-students-education-254439

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How will a new pope be chosen? An expert explains the conclave

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Historian, Australian Catholic University

    Following the death of Pope Francis, we’ll soon be seeing a new leader in the Vatican. The conclave – a strictly confidential gathering of Roman Catholic cardinals – is due to meet in a matter of weeks to elect a new earthly head.

    The word conclave is derived from the Latin con (together) and clāvis (key). It means “a locked room” or “chamber”, reflecting its historical use to describe the locked gathering of cardinals to elect a pope.

    Held in the Sistine Chapel, the meeting follows a centuries-old process designed to ensure secrecy and prayerful deliberation. A two-thirds majority vote will be needed to successfully elect the 267th pope.

    History of the conclave

    The formalised papal conclave dates back centuries. And various popes have shaped the process in response to the church’s needs.

    In the 13th century, for example, Pope Gregory X introduced strict regulations to prevent unduly long elections.

    Pope Gregory X brought in the rules to prevent a repeat of his own experience. The conclave that elected him in September 1271 (following the death of Pope Clement IV in 1268) lasted almost three years.

    Further adjustments were made to streamline the process and emphasise secrecy, culminating in Pope John Paul II’s 1996 constitution, Universi Dominici gregis (The Lord’s whole flock). This document set the modern framework for the conclave.

    In 2007 and 2013, Benedict XVI reiterated that a two-thirds majority of written votes would be required to elect a new pope. He also reaffirmed penalties for breaches of secrecy.

    The secrecy surrounding the conclave ensures the casting of ballots remains confidential, and without any external interference.

    The last known attempt at external interference in a papal conclave occurred in 1903 when Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria sought to prevent the election of Cardinal Mariano Rampolla. However, the assembled cardinals rejected this intervention, asserting the independence of the electoral process.

    How does voting work?

    The conclave formally begins between 15 and 20 days after the papal vacancy, but can start earlier if all cardinals eligible to vote have arrived. Logistical details, such as the funeral rites for the deceased pope, can also influence the overall timeline.

    Historically, the exact number of votes required to elect a new pope has fluctuated. Under current rules, a minimum two-thirds majority is needed. If multiple rounds of balloting fail to yield a result, the process can continue for days, or even weeks.

    After every few inconclusive rounds, cardinals pause for prayer and reflection. This process continues until one candidate receives the two-thirds majority required to win. The final candidates do not vote for themselves in the decisive round.

    The ballot paper formerly used in the conclave, with ‘I elect as Supreme Pontiff’ written in Latin.
    Wikimedia Commons

    How is voting kept secret?

    The papal conclave is entirely closed to the public. Voting is conducted by secret ballot within the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the pope’s official residence.

    During the conclave, the Sistine Chapel is sealed off from outside communication. No cameras are allowed, and there is no live broadcast.

    The cardinals involved swear an oath of absolute secrecy, and face the threat of excommunication if it is violated. This ensures all discussions and voting remain strictly confidential.

    The iconic white smoke, produced by burning ballots once a pope has been chosen, is the only public signal that the election has concluded.

    Who can be elected?

    Only cardinals who are under 80 years of age at the time of conclave’s commencement can vote. Older cardinals are free to attend preparatory meetings, but can not cast ballots.

    While the total number of electors is intended to not exceed 120, the fluctuating nature of cardinal appointments, as well as age restrictions, make it difficult to predict the exact number of eligible voters at any given conclave.

    Technically, any baptised Catholic man can be elected pope. In practice, however, the College of Cardinals traditionally chooses one of its own members. Electing an “outsider” is extremely rare, and has not occurred in modern times.

    What makes a good candidate?

    When faced with criticism from a member of the public about his weight, John XXIII (who was pope from 1958-1963) retorted the papal conclave was “not a exactly beauty contest”.

    Merit, theological understanding, administrative skill and global perspective matter greatly. But there is also a collegial element – something of a “popularity” factor. It is an election, after all.

    Cardinals discuss the church’s current priorities – be they evangelisation strategies, administrative reforms or pastoral concerns – before settling on the individual they believe is best suited to lead.

    The cardinal electors seek someone who can unify the faithful, navigate modern challenges and maintain doctrinal continuity.

    Controversies and criticisms

    The conclave process has faced criticism for its strict secrecy, which can foster speculation about potential “politicking”.

    Critics argue a tightly controlled environment might not reflect the broader concerns of the global church.

    Some have also questioned whether age limits on voting cardinals limit the wisdom and experience found among older members.

    Nonetheless, defenders maintain that secrecy encourages free and sincere deliberation, minimising external pressure and allowing cardinals to choose the best leader without fear of reprisal, or of public opinion swaying the vote.

    Challenges facing the new pope

    The next pope will inherit a mixed situation: a church that has grown stronger in certain areas under Francis, yet which grapples with internal divisions and external challenges.

    Like other religions, the church faces secularisation, issues with financial transparency and a waning following in some parts of the globe.

    One of the earliest trials faced by the new pope will be unifying the global Catholic community around a shared vision – an obstacle almost every pope has faced. Striking the right balance between doctrine and pastoral sensitivity remains crucial.

    Addressing sexual abuse scandals and their aftermath will require decisive action, transparency and continued pastoral care for survivors.

    Practical concerns also loom large. The new pope will have to manage the Vatican bureaucracy and interfaith relations, while maintaining the church’s stance on global crises such as migration and poverty – two issues on which Francis insisted mercy could not be optional.

    The cardinal electors have a tough decision ahead of them. The Catholic community can only pray that, through their deliberations, they identify a shepherd who can guide the church through the complexities of the modern world.

    Darius von Guttner Sporzynski 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 will a new pope be chosen? An expert explains the conclave – https://theconversation.com/how-will-a-new-pope-be-chosen-an-expert-explains-the-conclave-250506

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Birkin v Wirkin: the backlash against the global elite and their luxury bags – podcast

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

    Tony Neil Thompson/Shutterstock

    The Birkin bag made by French luxury retailer Hermès has become a status symbol for some of the global elite. Notoriously difficult to obtain, a select few obsess over how to get their hands on one.

    But when US retailer Walmart recently launched a much cheaper bag that looked very similar to the Birkin, nicknamed a “Wirkin” by others, it sparked discussions about wealth disparity and the ethics of conspicuous consumption.

    In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to two sociologists about the Birkin and what it symbolises.

    For the rich housewives of Delhi, the Birkin bag is a must have, says Parul Bhandari. A sociologist at the University of Cambridge in the UK, she’s spent time interviewing wealthy Indian women about their lives and preoccupations. She told us:

     A bag that is carried by rich women of New York, of London, of Paris, is something that you desire as well, so it’s a ticket of entry into the global elite.

    Birkins are also used by some of these rich women as a way to show off their husband’s affection, Bhandari says: “ Not only from the point of view of money, because obviously this bag is extremely expensive, but also because it is difficult to procure.” The harder your husband tries to help you get the bag, the more getting one is a testimony of conjugal love.

    Manufactured scarcity

    Named after the British actress Jane Birkin, Hermès’s signature bag can cost tens of thousands of dollars, or more on the resale market for those made in rare colours or out of rare leathers. But you can’t just walk into any Hermès store to buy one, as Aarushi Bhandari, a sociologist at Davidson College in the US who studies the internet – and is no relation to Parul – explains.

    You need to have a record of spending tens of thousands of dollars even before you’re offered to buy one. But spending that money doesn’t automatically mean you get a bag. You have to develop a relationship with a sales associate at a particular Hermès store and the sales associate really gets to decide, if there’s availability, whether or not you get offered a bag.

    Bhandari became intrigued by online communities where people discuss the best strategies for obtaining an Hermès. So when US retailer Walmart launched a bag in late 2024 that looked very similar to a Birkin, and the internet went wild, Bhandari was fascinated.

    She began to see posts on TikTok discussing the bag. First it was fashion accounts talking it up, but then a backlash began, with some users criticising those who would spend thousands on a real Birkin and praising the “Wirkin” as a way to make an iconic design accessible to regular people. Bhandari sees this as an example of an accelerating form of anti-elitism taking hold within parts of online culture.

    In February, the chief executive of Hermès, Axel Dumas, admitted that he was “irritated” by the Walmart bag and that the company took counterfeiting “very seriously”.

    The Walmart bag quickly sold out and no more were put on sale. It has since entered into a partnership with a secondhand luxury resale platform called Rebag, meaning customers can buy real Birkins secondhand through Walmart’s online marketplace.

    The Conversation approached Hermès for comment on the Walmart bag, and to confirm how the company decides who is eligible to buy a Birkin. Hermès did not respond.

    Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast to hear our conversation with Parul Bhandari and Aarushi Bhandari, plus an introduction from Nick Lehr, arts and culture editor at The Conversation in the US.

    This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

    TikTok clips in this episode from babydoll2184, chronicallychaotic and pamelawurstvetrini.

    Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.

    Parul Bhandari and Aarushi Bhandari do 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. Birkin v Wirkin: the backlash against the global elite and their luxury bags – podcast – https://theconversation.com/birkin-v-wirkin-the-backlash-against-the-global-elite-and-their-luxury-bags-podcast-254723

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –