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Category: Reportage

  • MIL-OSI Global: Race isn’t a ‘biological reality,’ contrary to recent political claims − here’s how scientific consensus on race developed in the 20th century

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John P. Jackson, Jr., Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, Michigan State University

    ‘The Dying Tecumseh,’ a marble sculpture at the Smithsonian, depicts the Shawnee leader in a heroic light. Frederick Pettrich, Smithsonian American Art Museum, CC BY

    In the recent flurry of executive orders from President Donald Trump, one warned of “a distorted narrative” about race “driven by ideology rather than truth.” It singled out a current exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum titled “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture” as an example. The exhibit displays over two centuries of sculptures that show how art has produced and reproduced racial attitudes and ideologies.

    The executive order condemns the exhibition because it “promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating ‘Race is a human invention.’”

    The executive order apparently objects to sentiments such as this: “Although a person’s genetics influences their phenotypic characteristics, and self-identified race might be influenced by physical appearance, race itself is a social construct.” But those words are not from the Smithsonian; they are from the American Society of Human Genetics.

    Scientists reject the idea that race is biologically real. The claim that race is a “biological reality” cuts against modern scientific knowledge.

    I’m a historian who specializes in the scientific study of race. The executive order places “social construct” in opposition to “biological reality.” The history of both concepts reveals how modern science landed at the idea that race was invented by people, not nature.

    Race exists, but what is it?

    At the turn of the 20th century, scientists believed humans could be divided into distinct races based on physical features. According to this idea, a scientist could identify physical differences in groups of people, and if those differences were passed on to succeeding generations, the scientist had correctly identified a racial “type.”

    The results of this “typological” method were chaotic. A frustrated Charles Darwin in 1871 listed 13 scientists who identified anywhere between two and 63 races, a confusion that persisted for the next six decades. There were almost as many racial classifications as racial classifiers because no two scientists could seem to agree on what physical characteristics were best to measure, or how to measure them.

    One intractable problem with racial classifications was that the differences in human physical traits were tiny, so scientists struggled to use them to differentiate between groups. The pioneering African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois noted in 1906, “It is impossible to draw a color line between black and other races … in all physical characteristics the Negro race cannot be set off by itself.”

    But scientists tried. In an 1899 anthropological study, William Ripley classified people using head shape, hair type, pigmentation and stature. In 1926, Harvard anthropologist Earnest Hooton, the leading racial typologist in the world, listed 24 anatomical traits, such as “the presence or absence of a postglenoid tubercle and a pharyngeal fossa or tubercle” and “the degree of bowing of the radius and ulna” while admitting “this list is not, of course, exhaustive.”

    All this confusion was the opposite of how science should operate: As the tools improved and as measurements became more precise, the object of study − race − became more and more muddled.

    Malvina Hoffman’s sculptures illustrate a map titled Races of the World and Where They Live.
    Malvina Hoffman/Field Museum of Natural History

    When sculptor Malvina Hoffman’s “Races of Mankind” exhibit opened at Chicago’s Field Museum in 1933, it characterized race as a biological reality, despite its elusive definition. World-renowned anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith wrote the introduction to the exhibition’s catalog.

    Keith dismissed science as the surest method to distinguish race; one knows a person’s race because “a single glance, picks out the racial features more certainly than could a band of trained anthropologists.” Keith’s view perfectly captured the view that race must be real, for he saw it all around him, even though science could never establish that reality.

    In the scientific study of race, however, things were about to change.

    Turning to culture to explain difference

    By 1933, the rise of Nazism had added urgency to the scientific study of race. As anthropologist Sherwood Washburn wrote in 1944, “If we are to discuss racial matters with the Nazis, we had better be right.”

    In the late 1930s and early 1940s, two new scientific ideas came to fruition. First, scientists began looking to culture rather than biology as the driver of differences among groups of people. Second, the rise of population genetics challenged the biological reality of race.

    In 1943, anthropologists Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish wrote a short work also titled The Races of Mankind. Writing for a popular audience, they argued that people are far more alike than different, and our differences owe to culture and learning, not biology. An animated cartoon short later gave these ideas wider circulation.

    ‘The Brotherhood of Man’ was based on Benedict and Weltfish’s pamphlet and pointed out that differences between people come from their environments.

    Benedict and Weltfish argued that while people did, indeed, differ physically, those differences were meaningless in that all races could learn and all were capable. “Progress in civilization is not the monopoly of one race or subrace,” they wrote. “Negroes made iron tools and wove fine cloth for their clothing when fair-skinned Europeans wore skins and knew nothing of iron.” The cultural explanation for different human lifestyles was more robust than confused appeals to an elusive biological race.

    The turn to culture was consistent with a deep change in biological knowledge.

    Genetic research was taking off in the 1940s, as in this lab at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa.
    Jack Delano, U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, CC BY

    A tool to understand evolution

    Theodosius Dobzhansky was a preeminent biologist of the 20th century. He and other biologists were interested in evolutionary changes. Races, which supposedly didn’t change over time, were therefore useless for understanding how organisms evolved.

    A new tool, what scientists called a “genetic population,” was much more valuable. The geneticist, Dobzhansky held, identified a population based on the genes it shared in order to study change in organisms. Over time natural selection would shape how the population evolved. But if that population didn’t shed light on natural selection, the geneticist must abandon it and work with a new population based on a different set of shared genes. The important point is that, whatever population the geneticist chose, it was changing over time. No population was a fixed and stable entity, as human races were supposed to be.

    Sherwood Washburn, who happened to be Dobzhansky’s close friend, brought those ideas into anthropology. He recognized that the point of genetics was not classifying people into fixed groups. The point was to understand the process of human evolution. This change reversed everything taught by Hooton, his old teacher.

    Writing in 1951, Washburn argued, “There is no way to justify the division of a … population into a series of racial types” because doing so would be pointless. Presuming any group to be unchanging stood in the way of understanding evolutionary changes. A genetic population was not “real”; it was an invention of the scientist using it as a lens to understand organic change.

    Classifying for a purpose, not as a ‘true’ assessment of tall or short.
    Buena Vista Images/Stone via Getty Images

    A good way to understand this profound difference relates to roller coasters.

    Anyone who’s been to an amusement park has seen signs that precisely define who is tall enough to ride a given roller coaster. But no one would say they define a “real” category of “tall” or “short” people, as another roller coaster might have a different height requirement. The signs define who is tall enough only for riding this particular roller coaster, and that’s all. It’s a tool for keeping people safe, not a category defining who is “really” tall.

    Similarly, geneticists use genetic populations as “an important tool for inferring the evolutionary history of modern humans” or because they have “fundamental implications for understanding the genetic basis of diseases.”

    Anyone trying to pound a nail with a screwdriver soon realizes that tools are good for tasks they were designed for and useless for anything else. Genetic populations are tools for specific biological uses, not for classifying people into “real” groups by race.

    Whoever wanted to classify people, Washburn argued, must give the “important reasons for subdividing our whole species.”

    The Smithsonian’s exhibit shows how racialized sculpture was “both a tool of oppression and domination and one of liberation and empowerment.” Science agrees with its claim that race is a human invention and not a biological reality.

    The Conversation U.S. receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution.

    John P. Jackson, Jr. 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. Race isn’t a ‘biological reality,’ contrary to recent political claims − here’s how scientific consensus on race developed in the 20th century – https://theconversation.com/race-isnt-a-biological-reality-contrary-to-recent-political-claims-heres-how-scientific-consensus-on-race-developed-in-the-20th-century-253504

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s nomination for NASA leader boasts business and commercial spaceflight experience during a period of uncertainty for the agency

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Wendy Whitman Cobb, Professor of Strategy and Security Studies, Air University

    Jared Isaacman, the nominee for next NASA administrator, has traveled to orbit on two commercial space missions. AP Photo/John Raoux

    Jared Isaacman, billionaire, CEO and nominee to become the next NASA administrator, faced questions on April 9, 2025, from members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation during his confirmation hearing for the position.

    Should the Senate confirm him, Isaacman will be the first billionaire – but not the first astronaut – to head NASA. Perhaps even more significant, he will be the first NASA administrator with significant ties to the commercial space industry.

    As a space policy expert, I know that NASA leadership matters. The head of the agency can significantly shape the missions it pursues, the science it undertakes and, ultimately, the outcome of America’s space exploration.

    Jared Isaacman speaks at a news conference in 2024, before his Polaris Dawn mission.
    AP Photo/John Raoux, File

    An unconventional background

    At 16 years old, Isaacman dropped out of high school to start a payment processing company in his basement. The endeavor succeeded and eventually became known as Shift4.

    Though he found early success in business, Isaacman also had a love for aviation. In 2009, he set a record for flying around the Earth in a light jet, beating the previous record by more than 20 hours.

    While remaining CEO of Shift4, Isaacman founded another company, Draken International. The company eventually assembled the world’s largest fleet of privately owned fighter jets. It now helps to train U.S. Air Force pilots.

    In 2019, Isaacman sold his stake in Draken International. In 2020, he took Shift4 public, making him a billionaire.

    Isaacman continued to branch out into aerospace, working with SpaceX beginning in 2021. He purchased a crewed flight on the Falcon 9 rocket, a mission that eventually was called Inspiration4. The mission, which he led, represented the first private astronaut flight for SpaceX. It sent four civilians with no previous formal space experience into orbit.

    Following the success of Inspiration4, Isaacman worked with SpaceX to develop the Polaris Program, a series of three missions to help build SpaceX’s human spaceflight capabilities. In fall 2024, the first of these missions, Polaris Dawn, launched.

    Polaris Dawn added more accomplishments to Isaacman’s resume. Isaacman, along with his crewmate Sarah Gillis, completed the first private spacewalk. Polaris Dawn’s SpaceX Dragon capsule traveled more than 850 miles (1,367 kilometers) from Earth, the farthest distance humans had been since the Apollo missions.

    The Polaris Dawn mission launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in September 2024.
    AP Photo/John Raoux

    The next adventure: NASA

    In December 2024, the incoming Trump administration announced its intention to nominate Isaacman for the post of NASA administrator.

    As NASA administrator, Isaacman would oversee all NASA activities at a critical moment in its history. The Artemis program, which has been in progress since 2017, has several missions planned for the next few years.

    This includes 2026’s Artemis II mission, which will send four astronauts to orbit the Moon. Then, in 2027, Artemis III will aim to land on it.

    If the mission proceeds as planned, the Artemis II crew will fly in an Orion crew capsule, pictured behind them, around the Moon in 2026.
    Kim Shiflett/NASA via AP, File

    But, if Isaacman is confirmed, his tenure would come at a time when there are significant questions about the Artemis program, as well as the extent to which NASA should use commercial space companies like SpaceX. The agency is also potentially facing funding cuts.

    Some in the space industry have proposed scrapping the Artemis program altogether in favor of preparing to go to Mars. Among this group is the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk.

    Others have suggested canceling NASA’s Space Launch System, the massive rocket that is being used for Artemis. Instead, they argue that NASA could use commercial systems, like SpaceX’s Starship or Blue Origin’s New Glenn.

    Isaacman has also dealt with accusations that he is too close to the commercial space industry, and SpaceX in particular, to lead NASA. This has become a larger concern given Musk’s involvement in the Trump administration and its cost-cutting efforts. Some critics are worried that Musk would have an even greater say in NASA if Isaacman is confirmed.

    Since his nomination, Isaacman has stopped working with SpaceX on the Polaris Program. He has also made several supportive comments toward other commercial companies.

    But the success of any of NASA’s plans depends on having the money and resources necessary to carry them out.

    While NASA has been spared major cuts up to this point, it, like many other government agencies, is planning for budget cuts and mass firings. These potential cuts are similar to what other agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services have recently made.

    During his confirmation hearing, Isaacman committed to keeping the Artemis program, as well as the Space Launch System, in the short term. He also insisted that NASA could both return to the Moon and prepare for Mars at the same time.

    Although Isaacman stated that he believed NASA had the resources to do both at the same time, the agency is still in a time of budget uncertainty, so that may not be possible.

    About his relationship with Musk, Isaacman stated that he had not talked to Musk since his nomination in November, and his relationship with SpaceX would not influence his decisions.

    Additionally, he committed to carrying out space science missions, specifically to “launch more telescopes, more probes, more rovers.”

    But since NASA is preparing for significant cuts to its science budget, there is some speculation that the agency may need to end some science programs, like the Hubble space telescope, altogether.

    Isaacman’s future

    Isaacman has received support from the larger space community. Nearly 30 astronauts signed a letter in support of his nomination. Former NASA administrators, as well as major industry groups, have signaled their desire for Isaacman’s confirmation.

    He also received the support of Senator Ted Cruz, the committee chair.

    Barring any major development, Isaacman will likely be confirmed as NASA administrator by the Senate in the coming weeks. The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation could approve his nomination once it returns from a two-week break at the end of April. A full vote from the Senate would follow.

    If the Senate does confirm him, Isaacman will have several major issues to confront at NASA, all in a very uncertain political environment.

    Wendy N. Whitman Cobb is affiliated with the US School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. Her views are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any of its components.

    – ref. Trump’s nomination for NASA leader boasts business and commercial spaceflight experience during a period of uncertainty for the agency – https://theconversation.com/trumps-nomination-for-nasa-leader-boasts-business-and-commercial-spaceflight-experience-during-a-period-of-uncertainty-for-the-agency-254274

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: This chart explains why Trump backflipped on tariffs. The economic damage would have been huge

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By James Giesecke, Professor, Centre of Policy Studies and the Impact Project, Victoria University

    The Trump administration has announced a 90-day pause on its plan to impose so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly all US imports. But the pause does not extend to China, where import duties will rise to around 125%.

    The move signals a partial retreat from what had been shaping up as a broad and aggressive trade war. For most countries, the US will now apply a 10% baseline tariff for the next three months. But the White House made clear that its tariffs on Chinese imports will remain in place.

    So why did President Trump back away from the broader tariff push? The answer is simple: the economic cost to the US was too high.

    Our economic model shows the fallout, even after the ‘pause’

    Using a global economic model, we have been estimating the macroeconomic consequences of the Trump administration’s tariff plans as they have developed.

    The following table shows two versions of the economic effects of the tariff plan:

    • “pre-pause” – as the plan stood immediately before Wednesday’s 90-day pause, under a scenario in which all countries retaliate except Australia, Japan and South Korea (which said they would not retaliate)
    • “post-pause” after reciprocal tariffs were withdrawn.

    As is clear, the US would have faced steep and immediate losses in employment, investment, growth, and most importantly, real consumption, the best measure of household living standards.

    Heavy costs of the tariff war

    Under the pre-pause scenario, the US would have seen real consumption fall by 2.4% in 2025 alone. Real gross domestic product (GDP) would have declined by 2.6%, while employment falls by 2.7% and real investment (after inflation) plunges 6.6%.

    These are not trivial adjustments. They represent significant contractions that would be felt in everyday life, from job losses to price increases to reduced household purchasing power. Since the current US unemployment rate is 4.2%, these results suggest that for every three currently unemployed Americans, two more would join their ranks.

    Our modelling shows the damage would not just be short-term. Across the 2025–2040 projection period, US real consumption losses would have averaged 1.2%, with persistent investment weakness and a long-term decline in real GDP.

    It is likely that internal economic advice reflected this kind of outlook. The decision to pause most of the tariff increases may well be an acknowledgement that the policy was economically unsustainable and would result in a permanent reduction in US global economic power. Financial markets were also rattled.

    The scaled-back plan: still aggressive on China

    The new arrangement announced on April 9 scales the higher tariff regime back to a flat 10% for about 70 countries, but keeps the full weight of tariffs on Chinese goods at around 125%. Rates on Canadian and Mexican imports remain at 25%.

    In response, China has announced an 84% tariff on US goods.

    The table’s “post-pause” column summarises the results of the scaled-back plan if the pause becomes permanent. For consistency, we assume all countries except Australia, Japan and Korea retaliate with tariffs equal to those imposed by the US.

    As is clear from the “post-pause” results, lower US tariffs, together with lower retaliatory tariffs, equal less damage for the US economy.

    Tariffs applied uniformly are less distortionary, and significant retaliation from just one major partner (China) is easier to absorb than a broad global response.

    However, the costs will still be high. The US is projected to experience a 1.9% drop in real consumption in 2025, driven by lower employment and reduced efficiency in production. Real investment is projected to fall by 4.8%, and employment by 2.1%.

    Perhaps we should not be surprised that the costs are still so high. In 2022, China, Canada and Mexico accounted for almost 45% of all US goods imports, and many countries were already facing 10% reciprocal tariffs in the “pre-pause” scenario. Trump’s tariff pause has not changed duty rates for these countries.

    US President Donald Trump discusses the 90-day pause.

    What does this mean for Australia?

    Much of the domestic commentary in Australia has focused on the risk of collateral damage from a US-China trade war. Given Australia’s economic ties to both countries, it is a reasonable concern.

    But our modelling suggests that Australia may actually benefit modestly. Under both scenarios, Australia’s real consumption rises slightly, driven by stronger investment, improved terms of trade (a measure of our export prices relative to import prices), and redirection of trade flows.

    One mechanism is what economists call trade diversion: if Chinese or European exporters find the US market less attractive, they may redirect goods to Australia and other open markets.

    At the same time, reduced global demand for capital, especially in the US and China, means lower interest rates globally. That stimulates investment elsewhere, including in Australia. In our model, Australian real investment rises under both scenarios, leading to small but sustained gains in GDP and household consumption.

    These results suggest that, at least under current policy settings, Australia is unlikely to suffer significant direct effects from the tariff increases.

    However, rising investor uncertainty is a risk for both the global and Australian economies, and this is not factored into our modelling. In the space of a single week, the Trump administration has whipsawed global investor confidence through three major tariff announcements.

    A temporary reprieve

    Tariffs appear to be central to the administration’s economic program. So Trump’s decision to pause his broader tariff agenda may not signal a shift in philosophy: just a tactical retreat.

    The updated strategy, high tariffs on China and lower ones elsewhere, might reflect an attempt to refocus on where the administration sees its main strategic concern, while avoiding unnecessary blowback from allies and neutral partners.

    Whether this narrower approach proves durable remains to be seen. The sharpest economic pain has been deferred. Whether it returns depends on how the next 90 days play out.

    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. This chart explains why Trump backflipped on tariffs. The economic damage would have been huge – https://theconversation.com/this-chart-explains-why-trump-backflipped-on-tariffs-the-economic-damage-would-have-been-huge-253632

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Scientists should try to repeat more studies, but not those looking for a link between vaccines and autism

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Kolstoe, Associate Professor of Bioethics, University of Portsmouth

    SamaraHeisz5/Shutterstock

    Scientists, professors, engineers, teachers and doctors are routinely ranked among the most trustworthy people in society. This is because these professions rely heavily on research, and good research is viewed as the most reliable source of knowledge.

    But how trustworthy is research? Recent news from the US suggests that the Trump administration wants to fund more “reproducibility studies”.

    These are studies that check to see if previous results can be repeated and are reliable. The administration’s focus seems to be specifically on studies that revisit the debunked claim of a link between vaccines and autism.

    This is a worrying waste of effort, given the extensive evidence showing that there is no link between vaccines and autism, and the harm that suggesting this link can cause. However, the broader idea of funding studies that attempt to repeat earlier research is a good one.

    Take research on Alzheimer’s disease as an example. In June 2024, Nature retracted a highly cited paper reporting an important theory relating to the mechanism of the disease. Unfortunately, it took 18 years to spot the errors and retract the paper.

    If influential studies like this were regularly repeated by others, it wouldn’t have taken so long to spot the errors in the original research.

    Alzheimer’s is proving a particularly tricky problem to solve despite the large amounts of money spent researching the disease. Being unable to reproduce key results contributes to this problem because new research relies on the trustworthiness of earlier research.

    More broadly, it has been known for almost ten years that 70% of researchers have problems reproducing experiments conducted by other scientists. The problem is particularly acute in cancer research and psychology.

    The Trump administration wants to fund more ‘reproducibility studies’.
    Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock

    Research is difficult to get right

    Research is complicated and there may be legitimate reasons research findings cannot be reproduced. Mistakes or dishonesty are not necessarily the cause.

    In psychology or the social sciences, failure to reproduce results – despite using identical methods – could be due to using different populations, for instance, across different countries or cultures. In physical or medical sciences problems reproducing results could be down to using different equipment, chemicals or measurement techniques.

    A lot of research may also not be reproducible simply because the researchers do not fully understand all the complexities of what they are studying. If all the relevant variables (such as genetics and environmental factors) are not understood or even identified, it is unsurprising that very similar experiments can yield different results.

    In these cases, sometimes as much can be learned from a negative result as from a positive one, as this helps inform the design of future work.

    Here, it is helpful to distinguish between reproducing another researcher’s exact results and being given enough information by the original researchers to replicate their experiments.

    Science advances by comparing notes and discussing differences, so researchers must always give enough information in their reports to allow someone else to repeat (replicate) the experiment. This ensures the results can be trusted even if they may not be reproduced exactly.

    Transparency is therefore central to research integrity, both in terms of trusting the research and trusting the people doing the research.

    Unfortunately, the incentive structure within research doesn’t always encourage such transparency. The “publish or perish” culture and aggressive practices by journals often lead to excessive competition rather than collaboration and open research practices.

    One solution, as new priorities from the US have suggested, is to directly fund researchers to replicate each other’s studies.

    This is a promising development because most other funding, alongside opportunities to publish in the top journals, is instead linked to novelty. Unfortunately, this encourages researchers to act quickly to produce something unique rather than take their time to conduct thorough and transparent experiments.

    We need to move to a system that rewards reliable research rather than just novel research. And part of this comes through rewarding people who focus on replication studies.

    Industry also plays a part. Companies conducting research and development can sometimes be guilty of throwing a lot of money at a project and then pulling the plug quickly if a product (such as a new medicine) seems not to work. The reason for such failures is often unclear, but the reliability of earlier research is a contributing factor.

    To avoid this problem, companies should be encouraged to replicate some of the original findings (perhaps significant experiments conducted by academics) before proceeding with development. In the long run, this strategy may turn out to be quicker and more efficient than the rapid chopping and changing that occurs now.

    The scale of the reproducibility, or replicability, problem in research comes as a surprise to the public who have been told to “trust the science”. But over recent years there has been increasing recognition that the culture of research is as important as the experiments themselves.

    If we want to be able to “trust the science”, science must be transparent and robustly conducted.

    This is exactly what has happened with research looking at the link between vaccines and autism. The topic was so important that in this case the replication studies were done and found that there is, in fact, no link between vaccines and autism.

    Simon Kolstoe works for the University of Portsmouth, and is a trustee of the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO). He receives research and consultancy funding from charities, universities and government. He chairs research ethics committees for the UK Health Research Authority, Ministry of Defence and Health Security Agency.

    – ref. Scientists should try to repeat more studies, but not those looking for a link between vaccines and autism – https://theconversation.com/scientists-should-try-to-repeat-more-studies-but-not-those-looking-for-a-link-between-vaccines-and-autism-253696

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How AI could influence the evolution of humanity – podcast

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

    Chan2545/Shutterstock

    Some of the leading brains behind generative AI have warned about the risk of artificial superintelligence wiping out humanity, if left unchecked.

    But what if the influence of AI on humans is much more mundane, influencing our evolution over thousands of years through natural selection?

    In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast we talk to evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks about what AI could do to the evolution of humanity, from smaller brains to fewer friends.

    Rob Brooks is Scientia professor of evolution at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Through his research on artificial intimacy between humans and AI chatbots, Brooks became interested in how human evolution might be shaped by the proliferation of AI. He recently published a paper exploring various scenarios, from AI’s potential influence on human intelligence, to brain size, to more direct intervention in fertility treatment.

    For Brooks, the relationship between humans and machines, including AI, mirrors the symbiotic relationships that happen in nature, where one species is linked to or depends on another. Some of these relationships are mutualistic, with each benefiting the other, he says:

    I think that most of our relationships with technology should be mutualisms because that why we have the technologies …  A lot of the things that AI does for us at the moment are incredible computational heavy lifting [tasks]. It could be difficult calculations or it could be remembering people’s birthdays – there’s a kind of mutualism.

    But sometimes that mutualism can morph into parasitism, where one harms the other. Brooks thinks smartphones have already reached this stage because of the amount of human attention they take up and the influence this is having on human relationships, particularly among young people. He believes it’s also reasonable to assume “that attention and time parasites in the AI ecosystem will influence human evolution”.

    Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly to hear a conversation with Brooks about the potential ways AI could influence human evolution, from human intelligence to our relationships and even our brain size. This episode also includes an introduction with Signe Dean, science and technology editor at The Conversation in Australia.

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

    Newsclips in this episode from BBC Newsnight, MSNBC and Channel 4 News.

    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.

    Rob Brooks receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    – ref. How AI could influence the evolution of humanity – podcast – https://theconversation.com/how-ai-could-influence-the-evolution-of-humanity-podcast-254163

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Can we really resurrect extinct animals, or are we just creating hi-tech lookalikes?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Timothy Hearn, Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics, Anglia Ruskin University

    Artist’s rendering: Woolly mammoths once roamed large swathes of Siberia. Denis-S / Shutterstock

    From dire wolves to woolly mammoths, the idea of resurrecting extinct species has
    captured the public imagination. Colossal Biosciences, the Dallas-based biotech company leading the charge, has made headlines for ambitious efforts to bring back long-lost animals using cutting edge genetic engineering.

    It recently announced the birth of pups with key traits of dire wolves, an iconic predator last seen roaming North America more than 10,000 years ago. This followed on the heels of earlier project announcements focused on the woolly mammoth and the thylacine. This all fuels a sense that de-extinction is not only possible but imminent.

    But as the science advances, a deeper question lingers: how close must the result be to count as a true return? If we can only recover fragments of an extinct creature’s genome – and must build the rest with modern substitutes – is that really de-extinction, or are we simply creating lookalikes?

    To the public, de-extinction often evokes images of Jurassic Park-style resurrection: a recreation of a lost animal, reborn into the modern world. In scientific circles, however, the term encompasses a variety of techniques: selective breeding, cloning, and increasingly, synthetic biology through genome editing. Synthetic biology is a field that involves redesigning systems found in nature.

    One of Colossal’s dire wolves, created using genome editing.
    Colossal

    Scientists have used selective breeding of modern cattle in attempts to recreate an animal that resembles the auroch, the wild ancestor of today’s breeds. Cloning has been used to briefly bring back the pyrenean ibex, which went extinct in 2000. In 2003, a Spanish team brought a cloned calf to term, but the animal died a few minutes after birth.

    This is often cited as the first example of de-extinction. However, the only preserved tissue was from one female animal, meaning it could not have been used to bring back a viable population. Colossal’s work falls into the synthetic biology category.

    These approaches differ in method but share a common goal: to restore a species
    that has been lost. In most cases, what emerges is not an exact genetic copy of the extinct species, but a proxy: a modern organism engineered to resemble its ancestor in function or appearance.

    Take the case of the woolly mammoth. Colossal’s project aims to create a cold-adapted Asian elephant that can fulfil the mammoth’s former ecological role. But mammoths and Asian elephants diverged hundreds of thousands of years ago and differ by an estimated 1.5 million genetic variants. Editing all of these is, for now, impossible. Instead, scientists are targeting a few dozen genes linked to key traits like cold resistance, fat storage and hair growth.

    Compare that to humans and chimpanzees. Despite a genetic similarity of around 98.8%, the behavioural and physical differences between the two are huge. If comparatively small genetic gaps can produce such major differences, what can we expect when editing only a tiny fraction of the differences between two species? It’s a useful rule of thumb when assessing recent claims.

    As discussed in a previous article, Colossal’s dire wolf project involved just 20 genetic edits. These were introduced into the genome of a gray wolf to mimic key traits of the extinct dire wolf. The resulting animals may look the part, but with so few changes, they are genetically much closer to modern wolves than their prehistoric namesake.

    Colossal’s ambitions extend beyond mammoths and dire wolves. The company is
    also working to revive the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger), a carnivorous marsupial that was once native to mainland Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea. The last example died at Hobart Zoo in 1936. Colossal is using a genetic relative called the fat-tailed dunnart – a tiny marsupial – as the foundation. The goal is to engineer the dunnart’s genome to express traits found in thylacines. The team says it is developing an artificial uterus device to carry the engineered foetus.

    Colossal also has a project to revive the dodo, a flightless bird that roamed Mauritius until the 1600s. That project will use the Nicobar pigeon, one of the dodo’s closest living relatives, as a basis for genetic reconstruction.

    In each case, the company relies on a partial blueprint: incomplete ancient DNA, and then uses the powerful genome editing tool Crispr to edit specific differences into the genome of a closely related living species. The finished animals, if born, may resemble their extinct counterparts in outward appearance and some behaviour – but they will not be genetically identical. Rather, they will be hybrids, mosaics or functional stand-ins.

    That doesn’t negate the value of these projects. In fact, it might be time to update our expectations. If the goal is to restore ecological roles, not to perfectly recreate extinct genomes, then these animals may still serve important functions. But it also means we must be precise in our language. These are synthetic creations, not true returns.

    Technology to prevent extinction

    There are more grounded examples of near-de-extinction work – most notably the
    northern white rhinoceros. Only two females remain alive today, and both are
    infertile. Scientists are working to create viable embryos using preserved genetic
    material and surrogate mothers from closely related rhino species. This effort
    involves cloning and assisted reproduction, with the aim of restoring a population
    genetically identical to the original.

    Unlike the mammoth or the thylacine, the northern white rhino still has living
    representatives and preserved cells. That makes it a fundamentally different
    case – more conservation biology than synthetic biology. But it shows the potential of this technology when deployed toward preservation, not reconstruction.

    The northern white rhinoceros is nearly extinct. But there is a viable plan to bring it back.
    Agami Photo Agency / Shutterstock

    Gene editing also holds promise for helping endangered species by using it to introduce genetic diversity into a population, eliminate harmful mutations from species or enhance resilience to disease or climate change. In this sense, the tools of de-extinction may ultimately serve to prevent extinctions, rather than reverse them.

    So where does that leave us? Perhaps we need new terms: synthetic proxies, ecological analogues or engineered restorations. These phrases might lack the drama of “de-extinction” but they are closer to the scientific reality.

    After all, these animals are not coming back from the dead – they are being invented, piece by piece, from what the past left behind. In the end, it may not matter whether we call them mammoths or woolly elephants, dire wolves or designer dogs. What matters is how we use this power – whether to heal broken ecosystems, to preserve the genetic legacy of vanishing species or simply to prove that we can.

    But we should at least be honest: what we’re witnessing isn’t resurrection. It’s reimagination.

    Timothy Hearn 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. Can we really resurrect extinct animals, or are we just creating hi-tech lookalikes? – https://theconversation.com/can-we-really-resurrect-extinct-animals-or-are-we-just-creating-hi-tech-lookalikes-254245

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Sudan civil war: despite appearances this is not a failed state – yet

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Justin Willis, Professor of History, Durham University

    Over the past fortnight, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have regained control of almost all of the country’s capital, Khartoum. Much of the city had been in the hands of the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023. Now the SAF are reportedly driving out the last outposts of the RSF from the fringes of the sprawling city.

    When it began the war against its former SAF allies in April 2023, the RSF seized almost all of the city. But its presence was an occupation rather than a government. Looting, murder and rape were widely reported. No wonder, then, that many have welcomed the return of the SAF as a liberation.

    But not everyone will celebrate. The SAF claims to be the rightful government of Sudan. But its leader, Abdel Fattah Burhan, himself seized power in 2021 by throwing out a transitional civilian government that was supposed to be leading Sudan back to democracy.

    That was in the wake of the popular uprising in 2018-19 that ended the long authoritarian regime of Omar al-Bashir. So, the legitimacy of the SAF’s claim to power is questionable.

    To complicate matters further, the SAF’s military success has come through alliance with local militias, whose fighters have been active in the struggle for Khartoum. Troubling accounts have emerged of arrests and summary executions by the SAF and allied military – sometimes allegedly targeted at people from southern or western Sudan, who are accused of supporting the RSF.

    The RSF, meanwhile, keeps up its occupation of much of the west of Sudan, and its murderous siege of the western city of El Fasher. It has also continued to launch drone assaults on cities along the Nile.

    Despite recent positive statements from the SAF, the war seems far from over. The SAF and RSF denounce one another. Each – with good reason – accuses the other of relying on foreign support, and each insists it should – and will – rule all of Sudan.

    Military dominance

    The Egyptian branch of the Ottoman empire created Sudan through conquest in the 19th century. It was then ruled as an Anglo-Egyptian “condominium” for the first half of the 20th century.

    That vast territory in north-east Africa was formally divided when its southern third became the independent state of South Sudan in 2011, after years of struggle against the central government. Now it seems the north is also fragmenting, torn to pieces by the ambitions of rival military leaders and the unruly militias they have spawned. So, can there be a future for Sudan?

    It would be easy to answer that with a simple “no”. Some might even welcome the end of a state that began in colonial violence and has seen multiple regional revolts and movements of secession. Others might argue that Sudan is simply too diverse to be viable. But its current plight was not inevitable, nor is its fate settled.

    Sudan has long been burdened with a hyperactive military. That is partly a colonial legacy – the army has always been at the heart of the state.

    After independence, soldiers saw themselves as not simply the guardians of the state, but as its embodiment. They were at first suspicious – and then increasingly contemptuous – of civilian politicians they regarded as self-interested, prone to factionalism, and chronically unable to agree on major issues, from the place of religion in the state to the nature of local government.



    Read more:
    Sudan’s entire history has been dominated by soldiers and the violence and corruption they bring

    Three times, the soldiers seized power: in 1958, 1969 and 1989. Each time, they stayed in power for longer, and sought to impose their visions of what Sudan should be. Though these varied from conservative to socialist to Islamist, they always imagined a Sudan united by authoritarian rule, with uniformed men at its heart.

    When popular uprisings threatened this military rule, the soldiers were adept at temporary concessions – removing the leader of the regime and cooperating with civilians for a few years, before seizing power again. Sudan’s soldiers saw the state as their possession.

    Yet they struggled to rule it. There were struggles within the military itself over who should be in charge – the long rule of Jaafar Nimeiri was punctuated by repeated coup attempts. Omar al-Bashir in turn sought to manage rivals in the military by creating additional security forces and setting the soldiers against one another.

    When unrest grew at the margins of Sudan, in the south and then the west, the soldiers were unable to contain this. So they armed and encouraged militias, exploiting and militarising local tensions and conflicts. As they did so, they unwittingly undermined their own claim to be the only legitimate wielders of violence.

    Sudan’s soldiers insisted the state was theirs. But they squabbled over control of it and pulled both local militias and external powers into their struggles. This made their wars more lethal – but not more conclusive. Time and again, powerful men made decisions that drove conflict when they could have acted otherwise.

    Sense of a nation

    To recount this history is not simply to explain where Sudan is now. It is to remember this is not where it has to be. Sudan could yet mean more than this militarised vision of imposed unity. In the popular uprisings, protesters wrapped themselves in the Sudanese flag – evoking a vision of Sudan that celebrated its diversity, rather than treating this as a problem.

    Some of that was romanticised or idealistic. The earnest expressions of national solidarity tended to gloss over profound differences in wealth and opportunities. Yet since its independence, the idea of Sudan has repeatedly inspired civilian protest and hopes of a better future.

    The local resistance committees whose members made the uprising of 2018-19 imagined a more inclusive and just Sudan. That hope now drives the “emergency response rooms” that ordinary people have organised over the past two years – often in the face of extreme danger – to shelter and feed civilians.

    Those brave enough to pursue that future deserve more than a condescending shrug from international analysts, and an assumption that Sudan is doomed to failure.

    Justin Willis has in the past received funding from the UK government to undertake research on elections in Sudan; and from UK research councils for research on the history of state authority in Sudan.

    – ref. Sudan civil war: despite appearances this is not a failed state – yet – https://theconversation.com/sudan-civil-war-despite-appearances-this-is-not-a-failed-state-yet-254216

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: USAID: the human cost of Donald Trump’s aid freeze for a war-torn part of Sudan

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Naomi Ruth Pendle, Lecturer in International Development, University of Bath

    The day of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, his incoming administration abruptly paused the work of USAID, while also claiming that it would preserve USAID’s “lifesaving and strategic aid programming”. These dramatic, overnight cuts were an unprecedented – and deadly – experiment in relation to aid spending which will have a catastrophic effect on the lives of those who depended on it.

    The sudden suspension of USAID is set to make the famine in Sudan the deadliest for half a century. Since the announcement I’ve been working to see the impact of these cuts with a team of Sudanese researchers in South Kordofan State (Sudan), including from the South Kordofan-Blue Nile Coordination Unit, as part of my famine-focused project.

    When war erupted in Khartoum in April 2023, the southern region of South Kordofan was relatively peaceful, so large numbers of people fled there for safety. But most fled with no food, so local people had to work out how to support the new arrivals. Many decided to host families, sharing what little food they had for themselves, believing that international aid would be made available.

    Without this aid, these local humanitarians are now themselves also facing serious shortages. The timing and abrupt nature of the shuttering of USAID has made this particularly dangerous.

    South Kordofan sits on the border with South Sudan. Like much of the country, it’s an agricultural region and in times of peace, people are able to grow crops and raise livestock. The region also has a long history of exporting livestock and commercially grown crops.

    However, this food trade has been largely extractive as it followed colonial agricultural schemes run by British imperial agents and their elite indigenous associates that often left locals in poverty.

    Sudan: one of Africa’s largest and most diverse countries.
    gt29/Shutterstock

    After independence, the region suffered through decades of war between the Sudan government to the north and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) which fought a campaign that culminated in the foundation of South Sudan in 2011 (with the support of the US). South Kordofan and its SPLA supporters were trapped in the middle.

    People in South Kordofan long for peace and a state that provides them with basic services, so they wouldn’t depend so heavily on humanitarian support. Since the 1980s, famine mortality has been dramatically reduced by international aid.

    In fact, the US response to the famine of the mid-1980s under the then president, Ronald Reagan, whose administration provided more than US$1 billion (£766 million), saved hundreds of thousands of lives. This period became known in Sudan as “Reagan’s famine”.

    ‘Hemedti famine’

    Now in South Kordofan they are calling the hardship created by the influx of starving people fleeing fighting further north the “Hemedti famine”, after Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF is fighting the national army, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) run by rival warlord General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

    Many of those who have fled from urban centres lack the skills to survive and are far from their family networks, making them particularly vulnerable. Sudanese people have a strong moral sense – and sometimes a legal obligation to help family members.

    This clearly doesn’t necessarily apply to most of those fleeing the fighting. But there is also a strong tradition of helping all people and even strangers in need, which people in South Kordofan have had to navigate.

    Many locals chose to provide lifesaving local humanitarian support. But that is of necessity and finite. There is now a desperate need for a massive increase in aid. In such emergencies, international aid plays a key role in topping up the food that people grow and gather for themselves, and has made the difference between life and death.

    Why is the USAID freeze so deadly?

    This is why the curtailing of USAID support is so catastrophic. Even if US support were to be fully restored, the pause has already had deadly consequences. The sudden stopping of many local NGO worker salaries, a key source of income in the region, is another disaster. Each salary supported dozens of family members.

    The 2025 aid cuts are set to be devastating for more people. Things are already critical. It has been estimated that half a half a million people died from hunger and disease across Sudan in 2024 alone.

    I’m now getting reports from South Kordofan of households not lighting a fire for up to four days at a time, which means the family is not eating. And, as ever, it is the children and the elderly who are particularly vulnerable.

    The consequences of famine are lasting. People in South Kordofan are reporting an increase in criminality as people steal in order to survive, which leaves lasting mistrust and social division. Famine also leaves a legacy of shame because people are witnessing their loved ones suffer and die. When people die in times of famine the living often do not even have the energy or resources to provide a dignified burial.

    The Trump administration could not have turned off USAID support at a worse time. Aid logistics in Sudan follow a seasonal cycle. In the wetter months from May to November, the roads to South Kordofan that aid organisations depend on for food distribution become impassable.

    So aid for the hungriest months from April to August, when stores are running low but the harvest in September has not yet come, must be delivered in the driest months before the rains start. USAID was halted in January, at the heart of the dry season, so this opportunity has been missed.

    Meanwhile north-south flights in Sudan have been prohibited by the Sudan government since the civil war flared in 2023. There has been a report that the government will also ban incoming aid flights from Kenya due to Nairobi’s alleged support for the RSF.

    Last month, the founder of Sudanese thinktank Confluence Advisory, Kholood Khair, told journalists: “It’s difficult to overstate how devastating the USAID cut will be for Sudan, not just because Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis but also because the US was Sudan’s largest humanitarian donor.” We’re now seeing that devastation getting worse by the day.

    Naomi Ruth Pendle receives funding from the British Academy and the European Research Council.

    – ref. USAID: the human cost of Donald Trump’s aid freeze for a war-torn part of Sudan – https://theconversation.com/usaid-the-human-cost-of-donald-trumps-aid-freeze-for-a-war-torn-part-of-sudan-254215

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: All the Shakespearean references in The White Lotus season three explained by an expert

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emily Rowe, Lecturer in Early Modern Literature, King’s College London

    Warning: this article contains major spoilers for the ending of White Lotus season three.

    “Is this a bit ‘You killed my father, prepare to die,’ kind of?” asks Chelsea, the horoscope-obsessed Brit played with charm by Aimee Lou Wood in season three of The White Lotus.

    Chelsea may be thinking of The Princess Bride (1987), but we’re firmly in Hamlet territory. Her partner Rick (Walton Goggins) soon sets off to avenge his father’s death and kicks off a chain of violence that ends, inevitably, in blood and tragedy.

    Mike White’s luxury-hotel-meets-moral-decline drama, The White Lotus, has always toyed with highbrow references. Season two gave us Madame Butterfly meets commedia dell’arte (a genre of early Italian theatre replete with wealthy lovers, greedy old men, duplicitous servants and glamorous courtesans).

    Season three shifts the setting to Thailand. There, the show’s satire of super-wealth is framed through not only the lens of Buddhism, but also through many of Sheakeapre’s great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear.

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    Enter Rick, our sullen Hamlet. He’s been raised on a tragic fairy tale. As a child, his mother told him that his saintly father was murdered by a corrupt Thailand-based hotel-owner, Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn). Rick insists this theft of a parent is the root of his suffering. But like Hamlet, he can’t act – not at first.

    When he finally does pull the trigger, the results are devastating. Jim’s wife, Sritlana (Lek Patravadi), reveals the twist. Jim was his real father, an oedipal moment that was unsurprising in a season so obsessed with incest.

    In the ensuing swirl of gunfire, Chelsea is killed. Rick, cradling her body in a Lear-like pietà, is shot by the noble yet spiritually doomed security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong). The two lovers’ bodies float in the lily-strewn waters in an overt modern-day remake of Sir John Everett Millais’s painting, Ophelia (another character from Hamlet).

    Yet it’s Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs), not Rick, who most clearly channels Hamlet’s existential torment. Facing exposure for financial fraud, Timothy contemplates suicide and even taking his family with him.

    Like Hamlet, though, he hesitates. Not out of pity, but uncertainty. What comes after death? Hamlet asked the same:

    But that the dread of something after death,

    The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

    No traveller returns, puzzles the will

    And makes us rather bear those ills we have

    Than fly to others that we know not of?

    Life is suffering. Hamlet and the Buddha knew that well. So why do we put up with it? To live or die? To act or wait? At a Buddhist monastery, Timothy seeks answers to these questions.

    The senior monk tells him: death is not an escape, but a return. Like a droplet returning to the sea, “Death is a happy return, like coming home.” Pain is inescapable; it must be faced. Timothy, and Hamlet, struggle to accept that.

    The inevitability of greed

    Season three of The White Lotus may have touched on Hamlet’s considerations of suicide, revenge and fate (its finale is named Amor Fati, which translates as love of one’s fate), but its trademark attack on the inevitability of greed was thrown into sharp relief this season thanks to its light engagement with Buddhism.

    Timothy speaks with the monk.

    The senior monk tells Timothy in his gently broken English, “Everyone run from pain towards the pleasure, but when they get there only to find more pain. You cannot outrun pain.” This season, even our moral compasses, Gaitok, Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), run from pain to pleasure – towards power, sex, comfort and money over enlightenment.

    Gaitok puts his morals aside to kill Rick so that he might get a promotion and win the heart of Mook (Lalisa Manobal). Piper decides against a year at the monastery after realising she needs the comforts of wealth more than she realised. And Belinda? She could have exposed the killer of Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge’s beloved character from seasons one and two). Instead, she takes a US$5 million payout and sails away smiling.

    As she departs, Billy Preston’s buoyant song Nothing from Nothing plays. It’s the same phrase Rick uttered earlier in the season: “Nothing comes from nothing, right?” He’s already empty, he cannot be saved. On the surface, it’s a throwaway line. But it holds weight – philosophical, spiritual and Shakespearean.

    Buddhism teaches anatta, the doctrine of no-self. It’s the idea that release comes through relinquishing ego, embracing nothingness. Since we are essentially nothing, all that ever can come from us is nothing: the business and strife and frustration of life is in fact empty froth on the surface of a deep nothingness. And Shakespeare knew the dangers of misunderstanding that “nothing”.

    Belinda goes back on her plans to start a business with Pornchai once she receives the money.

    “Nothing comes from nothing” is a favoured maxim of King Lear. After asking the first two of his three daughters to express profusely their love for him, he rewards them with land and wealth. Turning to his third daughter, Cordelia, he asks, “What can you say to draw / A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak,” to which she responds:

    Cordelia: Nothing, my lord.

    Lear: Nothing?

    Cordelia: Nothing.

    Lear: Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.

    If Cordelia gives Lear “nothing,” he will give her “nothing” in return – no dowry, no inheritance, no kingdom. This exposes how Lear has come to place a transactional value on love. In his mind, affection must be spoken, quantified and rewarded with land and power. He’s unable, or unwilling, to recognise the moral worth of Cordelia’s honest, restrained love because it offers no immediate gratification or political utility.

    At this early stage of the play, Lear, like The White Lotus’s spiritually bankrupt denizens, falsely clings to worldly value, not seeing it as mere illusion. Belinda’s spiritual bank, however, was full. Yet in the season’s finale, the repetition of “nothing comes from nothing” after Belinda’s ethical one-eighty hints at how fateful her choice really is.

    In one moment, she trades enlightenment and true (if restrained) happiness for the nothingness of wealth. At the start of both The White Lotus and King Lear, “nothing”, whether it means death, poverty, or solitude, is a threat. By the end, it’s all that remains.

    Emily Rowe 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. All the Shakespearean references in The White Lotus season three explained by an expert – https://theconversation.com/all-the-shakespearean-references-in-the-white-lotus-season-three-explained-by-an-expert-254248

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Business schools are facing challenges to their diversity commitments. They must reinforce them to train leaders effectively

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Alessandro Ghio, Research professor in Accounting, ESCP Business School

    In March 2025, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), a leading accreditation body, revised its guiding principles. This included removing the phrase “diversity and inclusion” from its accreditation standards and replacing it with the more neutral “community and connectedness”. The decision emerged amid a shifting legal and political climate in the United States, following a wave of executive orders and legislative efforts aimed at dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across public institutions.

    For years, diversity and inclusion have been central to how business schools engage with and signal social responsibility, shaping policies on faculty hiring, student recruitment and curricula. The AACSB change is more than a semantic adjustment – it reflects growing pressure on institutions to retreat from politically sensitive terrain.

    Now, business schools – many of which once celebrated DEI as a strategic and ethical imperative – are being forced to re-evaluate. Will they continue to invest in inclusion, or quietly abandon it under mounting institutional and political scrutiny? The answer will have global consequences, not just for higher education, but for the kind of leadership business schools claim to cultivate.

    Accreditation bodies: shaping business schools’ strategies

    The AACSB’s shift could have a significant impact on how business schools engage with diversity. As higher education institutions have embraced neoliberal, market-driven models, fuelled by students’ consumer-like expectations, external validation from accreditation bodies has become essential. Only 136 institutions (about 1% of all business schools) worldwide hold “triple accreditation” – accreditation by the AACSB, EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), and Association of MBAs (AMBA). This status allows business schools to signal their elite standing and adherence to high international standards – and to charge higher tuition.

    Accreditation offers tangible benefits, including use of prestigious logos, membership in exclusive networks, mutual recognition of academic credits, student exchange opportunities, and access to shared resources and best practices. These benefits shape strategic decisions, as business schools prioritise accreditation to maintain their reputation and competitiveness to attract high-paying students.

    Many institutions even have associate or deputy deans dedicated to fulfilling accreditation requirements. Among these requirements has been the long-standing “diversity checkbox”, which required schools to demonstrate their commitment to diversity. AACSB was not alone in this focus: AMBA, another leading accreditation body that specialises in MBA programmes, annually recognises schools for their diversity efforts and initiatives promoting inclusion.

    Accreditation pressures are compounded by the influence of business school rankings, another powerful driver of institutional priorities. Rankings such as the Financial Times’ business school list include diversity-related indicators, such as gender balance in classrooms, representation of women among faculty, and international faculty diversity. Bloomberg Businessweek’s Best Schools Diversity Index placed US universities George Washington, Howard and Morgan State at the very top in 2024. While these institutions don’t typically rank highly in overall MBA rankings, the diversity index offered them visibility and a competitive edge to attract prospective students.

    With accreditation bodies and business school rankings shaping institutional identities, a key question emerges: will business schools continue to prioritise diversity if structural incentives erode, or will it quietly disappear from the agenda?

    Diversity at a crossroads

    While the language of diversity has become commonplace in business school messaging – “we place inclusion and diversity at the heart of everything we do”; we “engage with DE&I strategically, practically – and of course via forefront research”; we [“want] to encourage and contribute to the conversation on diversity for and with all the students” – many institutions have gone beyond rhetoric, implementing concrete policies to promote diversity across student bodies, faculty recruitment and course content.

    In France, the grandes écoles – often criticised for perpetuating social elitism, as highlighted by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu – have introduced targeted admission pathways for students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. In the UK, business schools have begun auditing faculty diversity, particularly in terms of race and ethnicity. In Germany, where women professors remain underrepresented, ongoing efforts seek to address persistent gender imbalances in academic positions.

    These initiatives were not developed in a vacuum. Accreditation standards and external recognition gave institutions the legitimacy and incentive to act. Diversity became part of the strategic fabric – an ethical development, yes, but also a business case aligned with the values that accreditation and rankings rewarded.

    Now, with a major accreditation body stepping back and public discourse increasingly polarised, that alignment is beginning to fracture. In the US, federal support for diversity-related research is shrinking. Facing pressure from the Department of Education to end diversity initiatives or risk losing funding, some universities have already taken action by alternately moving to close DEI offices; removing references to DEI from websites, policies and official materials; or even cancelling a planned celebration of International Women’s Day.
    At least two US schools have either severed or planned to sever links with the PhD Project, a programme founded in 1994 that is devoted to “increasing the number of brilliant educators from all communities”. In Europe, some institutions may quietly reduce their commitments, no longer seeing DEI as worth the political or institutional risk.

    The dilemma is no longer about how to advance diversity – but whether to defend it at all. Business schools must decide: is diversity still central to their mission, or just another line item to be dropped when the pressure mounts?

    If business schools are serious about their social mission, they must continue investing in diversity – not as a symbolic gesture, but as a structural commitment. Diversity, equity and inclusion are not peripheral concerns; they are embedded in frameworks like the Principle of Responsible Management Education and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5: Gender Equality; SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities) – benchmarks that many institutions cite as central to their values. More than 30 Nordic business schools, all members of AACSB, recently issued a joint statement that diversity remains a core value for them.

    Diversity and knowledge

    Beyond institutional mandates, diversity is foundational to the production of credible knowledge. In Why Trust Science? (2019), historian Naomi Oreskes argues that while “diversity does not heal all epistemic ills”, it plays a crucial role in identifying blind spots and challenging groupthink. Drawing on feminist theorists Sandra Harding and Helen Longino, she shows how epistemic communities that are diverse – and critically engaged – are better positioned to identify and correct biases. In more homogeneous groups, dominant assumptions often go unchallenged, leading to structural oversights that undermine both knowledge and legitimacy.

    At a time when trust in academic institutions is eroding, ensuring diverse perspectives is not just desirable – it is necessary. For business schools, which train future leaders and decision-makers, the stakes are especially high.

    This is a moment not to retreat from diversity, but to reclaim it. Rather than treating it as a politicized liability, schools can reassert it as a core academic and democratic value – a way of remaining relevant, rigorous and responsible. And in a climate where “woke” has become a catch-all insult, schools also have an opportunity to reclaim the term – not as provocation, but as a return to its original meaning: a principled alertness to social realities and structural injustice. The LGBTQI+ community’s reclamation of “queer” as a term of empowerment and resistance against societal norms can point the way.

    By reinforcing their commitment to diversity, business schools can help deepen critical inquiry, rebuild public trust in science and ultimately equip their students for leadership in this fractured world – which they will need to understand in all its complexity.

    Alessandro Ghio ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

    – ref. Business schools are facing challenges to their diversity commitments. They must reinforce them to train leaders effectively – https://theconversation.com/business-schools-are-facing-challenges-to-their-diversity-commitments-they-must-reinforce-them-to-train-leaders-effectively-252988

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Gabon elections: why a landmark vote won’t bring real change

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Douglas Yates, Professor of Political Science , American Graduate School in Paris (AGS)

    The upcoming elections in Gabon will test whether the country is on a firm democratic footing, or whether it will be business as usual with military men in control, but under the guise of democratic choice.

    Brice Oligui Nguema, now the transitional president, staged a coup against Ali Bongo in August 2023. Oligui Nguema and his military junta promised to return power to civilians at the end of a two year military transition.

    But Oligui Nguema wrong-footed opposition figures on two fronts. First, he announced the elections six months earlier than the transition arrangement allowed for. And second, in early March he resigned his office as general and presented himself as a civilian and therefore eligible to run as a candidate. He is contesting against seven other candidates, one of whom is the former prime minister of Gabon, Claude Bilie-By-Nze.

    As a political scientist specialising in African politics, I have researched and published works on Gabon’s politics.

    Since most of the other candidates have no national following and lack sufficient campaign finance or party machinery throughout the densely forested national territory, I argue that the presidential race has been reduced to a run-off between two men: Oligui Nguema and Bilie-By-Nze.

    Both men were part of the previous regime. Although the two men agreed to stand against one another, they never contradict each other.

    Whoever wins the 12 April election, Gabon’s people will see a new government run by members of the former one. So, for the people of Gabon, perhaps the only thing that will change will be the end of the 56-year Bongo family dynasty.

    The contenders

    Originally, 23 applications for candidacy were sent to the National Commission for the Organization and Coordination of Elections and Referendum. On 27 March Gabon’s Constitutional Court validated eight candidates.

    They are Thierry Yvon Michel Ngoma, Axel Stophène Ibinga Ibinga, Alain Simplice Boungoueres, Zenaba Gninga Changing, Stéphane Germain Iloko, Joseph Lapensée Essigone, Bilie-By-Nze and Oligui Nguema.

    Ever since the late President Omar Bongo (1967-2009) introduced one-party rule, the Gabonese Democratic Party has won every presidential and legislative election.



    Read more:
    Gabon: post-coup dialogue has mapped out path to democracy – now military leaders must act

    At first the military junta threatened to exclude the former ruling party from participating in the 2025 multiparty elections. But after a year of close consultations with former ministers, deputies and local party “big men”, Oligui Nguema decided to allow the Gabonese Democratic Party to present candidates.

    In return, the party agreed to call on all its activists and supporters to vote for Oligui Nguema.

    Where Oligui Nguema has resurrected the former ruling party, which ruled Gabon from 1967 to 2023, its politicians and its national machinery, Bilie-By-Nze has positioned himself as the “candidate of rupture”. Beyond the public posturing, there doesn’t seem to much difference between the two.



    Read more:
    Gabon coup has been years in the making: 3 key factors that ended the Bongo dynasty

    Electoral code, high-tech procedures

    The election, which will follow a new code put in place in January 2025, involves several key steps to ensure transparency and fairness.

    • Citizens register to vote, providing identification and proof of residency. As a referendum on a new constitution was held in November 2024, electoral lists are largely complete.

    • The election has to be organised on the basis of “permanent biometric electoral lists”. This means a biometric register of voters would be used for verification. Information and communications technologies must be used to ensure the transparency, efficiency and reliability of the ballots.

    • Candidates and their parties campaign, presenting their platforms and policies. This campaign period is regulated to ensure fair play, with restrictions on campaign financing and media coverage.

    • Polling stations are set up across the country, equipped with the necessary high-tech materials. Election officers are trained to assist voters and manage the process. Voters receive ballots listing all candidates and parties. They mark their choices in private booths to ensure confidentiality.

    • After the polls close, votes will be counted under strict supervision to prevent tampering. Counting is conducted transparently, with representatives from political parties and observers present to monitor the process, as per Article 90 of the electoral code.

    • The official results are announced by the electoral commission, with observers present to validate the process. Despite having high-technology biometric counting systems, it can take as long as two weeks to announce the official results, especially if the results are close.

    Any disputes or complaints are addressed through legal channels to ensure a fair outcome, in accordance with Article 105 of the electoral code.

    Doubts persist

    Despite these systems being in place, opposition figures (including former interior minister Jean-Remy Yama) have expressed doubts that the process will be fair.

    Firstly, candidates endorsed by the Gabonese Democratic Party have always won. Since Oligui Nguema has been endorsed by the Gabonese Democratic Party, he is, in a statistical sense, the most probable winner.

    Secondly, prominent figures from the former regime who are now leading opposition actors criticised Oligui Nguema’s premature announcement of the poll. According to his transition timeline, the election was to take place in August 2025. It is an old trick: calling quick elections to prevent the opposition from uniting behind a common candidate who can challenge the president.



    Read more:
    Gabon: how the Bongo family’s 56-year rule has hurt the country and divided the opposition

    Oversight

    Drawing from its past experience as election observer in Gabon, the Gabonese Red Cross plans to mobilise a team of 200 volunteers, in addition to its staff. This team will supplement the limited human resources available during the 2023 operation to help the public authorities.

    International observers from organisations such as the African Union and the United Nations are expected to monitor the elections to ensure they are free and fair, providing an additional layer of oversight.

    Security measures are also heightened during the election period to maintain peace and order, enabling citizens to exercise their democratic rights without fear or intimidation.

    If the referendum held in November 2024 is any indicator of what is to come, then foreign observers should expect a peaceful presidential election with a clear victory for the winner.

    It promises to be a peaceful transition from military rule to civilian rule. This is especially so as the new government will be run by members of the former one.

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

    – ref. Gabon elections: why a landmark vote won’t bring real change – https://theconversation.com/gabon-elections-why-a-landmark-vote-wont-bring-real-change-253902

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the small autonomous region of Puntland found success in battling Islamic State in Somalia

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ido Levy, PhD Candidate, School of International Service, American University

    Soldiers with the Puntland Defense Forces. Photo by Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

    On Feb. 24, 2025, members of the Puntland Defense Forces posed next to a sign in Arabic that proclaimed the mountain town of Sheebaab as a “province” of the Islamic State group. The town, located in Somalia’s autonomous northeastern region of Puntland, was one of numerous areas that soldiers from the regional government have taken back during Operation Hilaac, an ongoing campaign against fighters from the Islamic State in Somalia – the local branch of the terrorist network – which began in late November 2024.

    Puntland’s success in combating a growing Islamic State group presence in the northeastern region is particularly notable given the relative lack of success of the central Somali government’s confrontation with the al-Qaida-affiliated group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin – more commonly known as al-Shabab – which for about two decades has waged war against federal forces.

    In contrast, security forces in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have, with some key support from international partners, united to repel the Islamic State group’s advance.

    The Islamic State group’s rise in Somalia

    Islamist groups have been part of Somalia’s fractured political landscape since the country’s descent into civil war in the 1980s.

    They tapped into profound local dissatisfaction with warlordism, tribalism and corruption, as well as a reaction to foreign intervention by Ethiopia, the United States and other international actors.

    Al-Shabab and later the Islamic State in Somalia are the most extreme manifestations of this trend.

    Islamic State in Somalia emerged in 2015 when a small group of al-Shabab members led by Abdulqadir Mumin – an extremist Somali preacher who previously lived in Sweden and the United Kingdom, where he acquired citizenship – pledged allegiance to then-Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Having formed as a local branch – or “province” in the group’s self conception as a global entity intent on expanding territory – Islamic State in Somalia launched its first major operation in October 2016, briefly seizing the port town of Qandala in Puntland.

    Thereafter, the group retreated to its strongholds in the mountain regions inside Puntland amid pressure from both the regional government and al-Shabab, which has cracked down on Islamic State supporters in its ranks.

    Yet from the Puntland mountains, Islamic State in Somalia grew into a key node of the terrorist group’s global network. It is now a hub for transferring funds and drawing recruits from across Africa and elsewhere via the regional coordination office it operates known as al-Karrar.

    One notable Sudan-born operative killed in a 2023 U.S. raid in Puntland, Bilal al-Sudani, was known as a key foreign fighter, facilitator and financier who developed Islamic State funding networks in South Africa and helped fund the group’s branch in Afghanistan.

    An NBC News report from mid-2024 cited U.S. officials who believed Mumin, head of Islamic State in Somalia, was acting as the network’s overall leader, or caliph, though other analysts have suggested he holds a top role close to caliph.

    In any case, Islamic State in Somalia’s ranks have increased steadily, from an estimated 200-300 fighters in 2016 to about 1,000 as of February 2025, according to reports.

    Puntland pushes back

    Puntland declared itself an autonomous region of Somalia in 1998 amid the ongoing Somali civil war and has since achieved relative stability compared with the other parts of the country, which have generally been marked by decades of sectarian division and weak central governance.

    Puntland is no stranger to divisions in a country that often hinges on clan loyalties, but it has achieved a greater degree of unity and has regularly raised security forces to defeat external threats, often with considerable foreign support.

    The dominance of a single clan, the Majeerteen, has in part likely helped facilitate this unity. In the current operations against Islamic State in Somalia, the autonomous Puntland government under President Said Abdullahi Deni has gathered several disparate regional forces under the “Puntland Defense Forces” banner, including clan militias, the Puntland Darawish – a regional paramilitary unit – and the Puntland Maritime Police Force.

    Soldiers with the Puntland Defense Forces stand at a base formerly held by the Islamic State group’s Somali affiliate in January 2025 in Puntland, Somalia.
    Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

    The Puntland Maritime Police Force in particular has evolved into a well-trained and experienced counterterrorism unit. Founded with United Arab Emirates money and mentored by private South African military contractors to address growing piracy, it has turned to fighting al-Shabab and Islamic State in Somalia in the mountain regions. Indeed, it played a leading role in taking Qandala from Islamic State control in 2016. It also cooperated effectively with other forces to defeat a 2016 al-Shabab attempt to attack Puntland from the sea.

    The U.S. and UAE have supported the Puntland government’s campaign. In February 2025, the U.S. launched two airstrikes on Islamic State fighters, with one on Feb. 1, 2025, killing Omani-born Ahmed Maeleninine, a key recruiter, financier and facilitator. The United States claimed another airstrike on March 25.

    The UAE has conducted airstrikes too, likely from the large UAE-funded Puntland Maritime Police Force headquarters base in the major port city of Bosaso.

    The Puntland government has claimed that through its latest operation it has advanced through 315 kilometers, clearing numerous villages and outposts in the mountains.

    On Feb. 11, 2025, The Washington Post reported that regional security forces had killed more than 150 Islamic State members, mostly foreign fighters from countries including Morocco, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, illustrating the group’s significance as a global hub for the network. In fact, one analyst counted 118 dead fighters from a single encounter in early February, indicating a possibly higher death toll. In any case, it represents heavy losses for Islamic State in Somalia, though it is not defeated yet and still numbers fighters in the hundreds.

    The risk of outside interference

    All in all, Puntland has leveraged past success fighting jihadist groups in making remarkable progress in its fight against Islamic State in Somalia.

    It shows how local and substate forces can be more effective at fighting armed nonstate groups than the federal authorities, despite limited resources.

    No doubt, support from the United States and UAE has aided Puntland’s anti-Islamic State push. But reliance on outside sources risks creating dependence on them when local forces must ultimately take ownership of the fight themselves.

    And less patient foreign supporters have been known to spoil the elite units they build. This occurred with the Puntland Security Force, a U.S.-created special forces unit that splintered during a brief withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia in 2021 and 2022.

    There are also risks that partner forces will behave badly. While the Emirati mission in Puntland – as well as in Afghanistan and Yemen – has proven effective in fighting jihadists, in Sudan it has been arguably disastrous. There, the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces paramilitary unit helped to ignite an ongoing civil war in 2023 during which its members perpetrated alleged atrocities.

    Ultimately, it will be up to Puntlanders themselves to keep fighting. Indeed, foreign support would have little impact without effective local forces on the ground with the political will to sustain the campaign. Just as Puntland has done before, so too is it now demonstrating that it is determined to fight the threat posed by jihadist groups like Islamic State in Somalia.

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

    – ref. How the small autonomous region of Puntland found success in battling Islamic State in Somalia – https://theconversation.com/how-the-small-autonomous-region-of-puntland-found-success-in-battling-islamic-state-in-somalia-251775

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Universities in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union thought giving in to government demands would save their independence

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Iveta Silova, Professor of Comparative and International Education, Arizona State University

    Columbia University has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration.
     Rudi Von Briel/Photodisc via Getty Images

    Many American universities, widely seen globally as beacons of academic integrity and free speech, are giving in to demands from the Trump administration, which has been targeting academia since it took office.

    In one of his first acts, President Donald Trump branded diversity, equity and inclusion programs as discriminatory. His administration also launched federal investigations into more than 50 universities, from smaller regional schools such as Grand Valley State University in Michigan and the New England College of Optometry in Massachusetts to elite private universities such as Harvard and Yale.

    Trump ramped up the pressure by threatening university research funding and targeting specific schools. In one example, the Trump administration revoked US$400 million in grants to Columbia University over its alleged failures to curb antisemitic harassment on campus. The school later agreed to most of Trump’s demands, from tightening student protest policies to placing an entire academic department under administrative oversight – though the funding remains frozen.

    Cornell, Northwestern, Princeton, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania have also recently had grants frozen. Harvard was sent a list of demands in order to keep $9 billion in federal funding.

    Now, across the United States, many universities are trying to avoid being Trump’s next target. Administrators are dismantling DEI initiatives – closing and rebranding offices, eliminating positions, revising training programs and sanitizing diversity statements – while professors are preemptively self-censoring.

    Not all institutions are complying. Some schools, such as Wesleyan, have refused to abandon their diversity principles. And organizations including the American Association of University Professors have filed lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive orders, arguing they violate academic freedom and the First Amendment.

    But these remain exceptions, as the broader trend leans toward institutional caution and retreat.

    As a scholar of comparative and international education, I study how academic institutions respond to authoritarian pressure – across political systems, cultural contexts and historical moments. While some universities may believe that compliance with the administration will protect their funding and independence, a few historical parallels suggest otherwise.

    Students and other Nazi supporters gather at Humboldt University in Berlin in 1933.
    AP Photo

    German universities: A lesson

    In the 1975 book “The Abuse of Learning: The Failure of German Universities,” historian Frederic Lilge chronicles how German universities, which entered the 20th century in a golden age of global intellectual influence, did not resist the Nazi regime but instead adapted to it.

    Even before seizing national power in 1933, the Nazi Party was closely monitoring German universities through nationalist student groups and sympathetic faculty, flagging professors deemed politically unreliable – particularly Jews, Marxists, liberals and pacifists.

    After Hitler took office in 1933, his regime moved swiftly to purge academic institutions of Jews and political opponents. The 1933 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service mandated the firing of Jewish and other “non-Aryan” professors and members of the faculty deemed politically suspect.

    Soon after, professors were required to swear loyalty to Hitler, curricula were overhauled to emphasize “national defense” and “racial science” – a pseudoscientific framework used to justify antisemitism and Aryan supremacy – and entire departments were restructured to serve Nazi ideology.

    Some institutions, such as the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart, even rushed to honor Hitler with an honorary doctorate within weeks of his rise to power. He declined the offer, though the gesture signaled the university’s eagerness to align with the regime. Professional associations, such as the Association of German Universities, stayed silent, ignoring key opportunities to resist before universities lost their autonomy and became subservient to the Nazi state.

    As linguist Max Weinreich wrote in his 1999 book “Hitler’s Professors,” many academics didn’t just comply, they enabled the regime by reshaping their research. This legitimized state doctrine, helping build the intellectual framework of the regime.

    A few academics resisted and were dismissed, exiled or executed. Most did not.

    The transformation of German academia was not a slow drift but a swift and systemic overhaul. But what made Hitler’s orders stick was the eagerness of many academic leaders to comply, justify and normalize the new order. Each decision – each erased name, each revised syllabus, each closed program and department – was framed as necessary, even patriotic. Within a few years, German universities no longer served knowledge – they served power.

    It would take more than a decade after the war, through denazification, reinvestment and international reintegration, for West German universities to begin regaining their intellectual standing and academic credibility.

    Under Stalin, dissenting scholars were purged and history rewritten to glorify the Communist Party. Moscow State University opened in 1953 with murals such as this one depicting Soviet symbols.
    AP Photo/Zander Hollander

    USSR and fascist Italy suffer similar fate

    Other countries that have fallen under authoritarian regimes followed similar trajectories.

    In fascist Italy, the shift began not with violence but with a signature. In 1931, the Mussolini regime required all university professors to swear an oath of loyalty to the state. Out of more than 1,200, only 12 refused.

    Many justified their compliance by insisting the oath had no bearing on their teaching or research. But by publicly affirming loyalty and offering no organized resistance, the academic community signaled its willingness to accommodate the regime. This lack of opposition allowed the fascist government to tighten control over universities and use them to advance its ideological agenda.

    In the Soviet Union, this control was not limited to symbolic gestures – it reshaped the entire academic system.

    After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks oscillated between wanting to abolish universities as “feudal relics” and repurposing them to serve a socialist state, as historians John Connelly and Michael Grüttner explain in their book “Universities Under Dictatorship.” Ultimately, they chose the latter, remaking universities as instruments of ideological education and technical training, tightly aligned with Marxist-Leninist goals.

    Under Josef Stalin, academic survival depended less on scholarly merit than on conformity to official doctrine. Dissenting scholars were purged or exiled, history was rewritten to glorify the Communist Party, and entire disciplines such as genetics were reshaped to fit political orthodoxy.

    This model was exported across Eastern and Central Europe during the Cold War. In East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland, ministries dictated curricula, Marxism-Leninism became mandatory across disciplines, and admissions were reengineered to favor students from loyalist backgrounds. In some contexts, adherents to older intellectual traditions pushed back, especially in Poland, where resistance slowed though could not prevent the imposition of ideological control.

    By the early 1950s, universities across the region had become what Connelly calls “captive institutions,” stripped of independence and recast to serve the state.

    A more recent example is Turkey, where, following the failed 2016 coup, more than 6,000 academics were dismissed, universities were shuttered and research deemed “subversive” was banned.

    History’s warning

    The Trump administration’s early and direct intervention into higher education governance echoes historical attempts to bring universities under state influence or control.

    The administration says it is doing so to eradicate “discrimatory” DEI policies and fight what it sees as antisemitism on college campuses. But by withholding federal funding, the administration is also trying to force universities into ideological conformity – by dictating whose knowledge counts but also whose presence and perspectives are permissible on campus.

    Columbia’s reaction to Trump’s demands sent a clear message: Resistance is risky, but compliance may be rewarded – though the $400 million has yet to be restored. The speed and scope of its concessions set a precedent, signaling to other universities that avoiding political fallout now may mean rewriting policies, reshaping departments and retreating from controversy, perhaps before anyone even asks.

    The Trump administration has already moved on to other universities, including the University of Pennsylvania over its transgender policies, Princeton for its climate programs and Harvard over alleged antisemitism. The question is which school is next.

    The Department of Education has launched investigations into over 50 institutions, accusing them of using “racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities.” How these institutions choose to respond may determine whether higher education remains a space for open inquiry.

    The pressure to conform is not just financial – it is also cultural. Faculty at some institutions are being advised not to use “DEI” in emails and public communication, with warnings to not be a target. Academics are removing pronouns from their email signatures and asking their students to comply, too. I’ve been on the receiving end of those warnings, and so have my counterparts at other institutions. And students on visas are being warned not to travel outside the U.S. after several were deported or denied reentry due to alleged involvement in protests.

    Meanwhile, people inside and outside academia are combing websites, syllabi, presentations and public writing in search of what they consider ideological infractions. This type of peer surveillance can reward silence, incentivize erasure and turn institutions against their own.

    When universities start regulating not just what they say but what they teach, support and stand for – driven by fear rather than principle – they are no longer just reacting to political threats, they are internalizing them. And as history has shown, that may mark the beginning of the end of their academic independence.

    This article does not represent the views of Arizona State University.

    – ref. Universities in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union thought giving in to government demands would save their independence – https://theconversation.com/universities-in-nazi-germany-and-the-soviet-union-thought-giving-in-to-government-demands-would-save-their-independence-252888

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Supreme Court’s decision on deportations gave both the Trump administration and ACLU reasons to claim a victory − but noncitizens clearly lost

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rebecca Hamlin, Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science, UMass Amherst

    A prison officer guards a gate at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, where hundreds of migrants from the United States were deported by the Trump administration. Alex Pena/Anadolu via Getty Images

    President Donald Trump has claimed victory at the Supreme Court in his campaign to deport Venezuelan migrants accused by the government of being part of a foreign terrorist organization.

    “The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Trump posted on April 7, 2025, calling it, “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”

    A 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court had just overruled a lower court that had temporarily barred the deportations, deciding the U.S. could move ahead with its plans to send those Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.

    Eight minutes after Trump’s post, the American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Forward and the ACLU of the District of Columbia, three advocacy groups that represented the Venezuelan nationals in the case, also claimed the decision was a win.

    In a press release, lawyers from these organizations said that the case was “an important victory” in which the court determined that the “Trump administration acted unlawfully when it removed people from this nation with no process.”

    Can both sides legitimately say they won a Supreme Court victory?

    As professors of legal studies, we study the Supreme Court, including how the court approaches cases involving immigration law and presidential power.

    Here’s why both sides are claiming a win in the case known as Trump v. J.G.G., what the court’s opinion actually said, and what you can take away from it.

    The Supreme Court decision lifted the temporary restraining order blocking the deportations imposed by James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
    Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images

    Why both sides are claiming victory

    The complexity of the court’s per curiam opinion – an unsigned opinion of a majority of the court – allows the Trump administration and the ACLU to view the ruling in Trump v. J.G.G. from different perspectives.

    This has led them both to claim victory.

    Trump sees the case as a win because the justices vacated a lower court decision that had temporarily barred the deportation of the Venezuelans. This means that the federal government was victorious in the case: His administration does not have to immediately stop deporting Venezuelan nationals.

    At the same time, the ACLU claims the case is a victory for them because the Supreme Court’s opinion said that the government must give people the opportunity to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act – which the government had not done. The Venezuelans’ right to due process was one of the key arguments advanced by the ACLU and its partners.

    On April 9, judges in New York and Texas agreed, just two days after the Supreme Court’s decision, temporarily halting the deportation of five Venezuelans until the government can clarify what type of notice it will be giving to people it intends to deport.

    Eventually, the Supreme Court will need to speak definitively about whether the Trump administration can use the Alien Enemies Act to deport those it alleges to be part of a foreign terrorist organization. The court has not yet addressed that issue.

    This means the court will have to deal with some tricky questions down the road. These include whether a drug cartel can be said to be engaging in an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” into the United States, which the Alien Enemies Act requires if it is to be invoked. Another issue is the extent to which the Alien Enemies Act can be used when Congress hasn’t declared war.

    And a big unanswered question is whether the Supreme Court, or any court, should even answer these questions at all. The political questions doctrine, which dates to 1803, is a principle saying that courts should avoid tackling thorny political questions that are best left to Congress or the president.

    Venezuelans deported from the U.S. sit aboard the plane as they arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on March 28, 2025.
    Jesus Vargas/picture alliance via Getty Images

    What the court decided and what it means for noncitizens’ rights

    The court’s brief opinion, to which five members signed on, repeats the very basic constitutional premise that noncitizens are entitled to due process of law, even as they are being removed from the United States. Most significantly, due process includes the ability to protest their deportations before a court of law.

    Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurrence emphasized the idea that the disagreement between the majority and the dissents is not about whether the noncitizens should have the opportunity to challenge their removal; all nine justices agree they have that right. Rather, Kavanaugh said, the justices disagreed on the question of venue, meaning the location in which these challenges should occur.

    Kavanaugh’s focus on venue obscures the fact that what the justices granted to potential deportees is a significantly less robust type of judicial review than the one they were asking for.

    The Venezuelans were challenging their removal as a class, because Trump had declared in a presidential proclamation that all Venezuelans over the age of 14 who were believed to be members of the Tren de Aragua cartel “are subject to immediate apprehension, detention, and removal.”

    The Supreme Court majority made a group-based approach much more difficult in its April 7 ruling. It allowed for only individual, case-by-case appeals in which each potential deportee must retain legal counsel, file what’s known as a habeas corpus petition challenging their detention, and then try to convince a judge in the district where they are being held that they are not a member of Tren de Aragua in order to prevent their removal.

    For most detainees, that would mean filing a petition in the Southern District of Texas, in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, known as the most conservative federal circuit in the country.

    Unless more courts step in to prevent it, the impact of the decision will be more removals to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, perhaps of people who are not actually gang members, or even Venezuelan. This has already happened in the previous round of removals under this program.

    Further, at least 200 people have already been flown out of the U.S. to CECOT. Because they’ve been accused of no crime in El Salvador, they have no right to due process or legal counsel there, and no trial date set where they might prove their innocence. A recent CBS exposé also found that three-quarters of them had no criminal record in the United States either.

    In the meantime, there is a separate but related case of a man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, wrongly deported to El Salvador, despite having legal protection in the U.S. preventing his removal to his home country of El Salvador. The Trump administration is currently arguing before the Supreme Court that when it makes an error in the process of carrying out these removals, it does not have to correct it.

    Not all due process is created equal. The court’s April 7 decision allowing the bare minimum process protecting people being removed makes errors more likely and thus raises the stakes for the outcome of the Abrego Garcia case tremendously.

    Many parties have claimed victory in the Trump v. J.G.G. decision, but one thing is clear: It was a defeat for the rights of noncitizens in the United States.

    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. Supreme Court’s decision on deportations gave both the Trump administration and ACLU reasons to claim a victory − but noncitizens clearly lost – https://theconversation.com/supreme-courts-decision-on-deportations-gave-both-the-trump-administration-and-aclu-reasons-to-claim-a-victory-but-noncitizens-clearly-lost-254153

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Canada was mostly spared from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, but it must not grow complacent

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, Associate Professor of Agri-Food Trade and Policy, University of Guelph

    United States President Donald Trump’s so-called Liberation Day introduced sweeping reciprocal tariffs on approximately 60 countries on April 2.

    Canada, a major U.S. trading partner, was largely spared from these reciprocal tariffs thanks to the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) — a free trade agreement renegotiated and signed by the Trump administration in 2020.

    Although it may appear Canada has avoided the worst of the tariff measures, other existing tariffs could still significantly impact Canadian trade with the U.S.

    Currently, Canada faces other tariffs on its exports to the U.S., which Trump has linked to concerns over illicit drugs and immigrants crossing the border. Under these measures, the U.S. has imposed a 25 per cent tariff on non-CUSMA compliant goods. Canadian energy and potash exports that are not CUSMA-compliant have been hit with a 10 per cent tariff.

    If the current tariffs related to fentanyl and migration are lifted, CUSMA-compliant goods would continue to enjoy preferential treatment, while non-compliant goods would then be subject to a 12 per cent reciprocal tariff.

    What makes a product CUSMA-compliant?

    Under CUSMA, a product is considered compliant if it originates from any of the three member countries: Canada, the U.S. or Mexico. This means the product satisfies the originating status according to the rules of origin criteria listed in the CUSMA agreement.

    To be deemed originating, some of the criteria includes, for instance:

    1. That the product is wholly produced in the territory of one of the member states.
    2. That, if the product is produced with non-originating materials, the regional value of content must not be less than product specific rules of origin.
    3. That the product has undergone substantial transformation or a change in tariff classification.

    Regional value content is the difference between the transaction value of a product adjusted for costs related to international shipping of the good, and the value of non-originating material. It is expressed as a percentage of the transaction value.

    When a product qualifies for an originating status, it is considered CUSMA-compliant. It then qualifies for a preferential treatment, which means it can enter the CUSMA market duty-free or at a reduced rate.

    Products exported under CUSMA

    Under the CUSMA tariff schedule, which outlines tariff commitments on Canadian products, the vast majority of Canadian exports to the U.S. are eligible for preferential treatment.

    In fact, more than 98 per cent of tariff lines and more than 99.9 per cent of bilateral trade are CUSMA-compliant, meaning Canadian exporters can claim preferential access if their products meet the agreement’s rules of origin.

    Based on the Tariff Schedule of the United States, 98.4 per cent of Canadian products enter the U.S. duty-free, while only 1.6 per cent face tariffs. These protected products are primarily agricultural goods considered sensitive by the U.S. — notably dairy and sugar.

    These protected items are typically subject to tariff rate quotas, which allow limited quantities to enter at a lower (within-quota) duty rate, while imports beyond the quota are permitted at a higher (over-quota) tariff rate.

    Steel and aluminum tariffs

    Although Canada was not directly targeted by Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, its steel and aluminum industries remains significantly impacted by Section 232 tariffs. Importantly, these tariffs cannot be waived due to CUSMA.

    Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 authorizes the U.S. president to restrict the import of certain goods if they threaten national security. Under this provision, the Trump administration has imposed a 25 per cent duty on steel, aluminum and related products.

    Steel and aluminum products are crucial to Canada, with total exports of iron and steel, iron or steel products and aluminum products reaching $34.8 billion in 2024. It’s hard to imagine the U.S. justifying tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum on national security grounds, given Canada’s longstanding role as one of its closest allies.

    Automotive tariffs

    The automotive sector has also been targeted with the Section 232 tariffs. As Canada’s second-largest export to the U.S., valued at over $72.3 billion in 2024, the industry relies heavily on an integrated cross-border supply chain. That makes the sector particularly vulnerable to tariffs.

    The imposition of a 25 per cent tariff on non-U.S. content in vehicles threatens the profitability of Canadian producers and reduces production efficiency.

    Determining non-U.S. content at the border will lead to significant inefficiencies, including long wait times, as companies attempt to prove American content in vehicles. This process will also demand an excessive amount of documentation, imposing unnecessary costs on businesses.

    This tariff also undermines CUSMA’s rules of origin, which allow vehicles with at least 75 per cent North American content to qualify for duty-free access. The Section 232 measure effectively penalizes compliant vehicles, creating a trade barrier inconsistent with the spirit of the agreement.

    The way forward

    The uncertainty created by the Trump administration’s unilateral trade policies poses a serious threat to Canada and the global economy as a whole. With Trump’s presidency just beginning, both Canada and the rest of the world must brace for the economic disruptions his policies may bring.

    At the bilateral level, Canada appears to have exhausted nearly all diplomatic avenues to persuade the Trump administration to reverse its harmful tariff measures. Regionally, while Trump renegotiated the CUSMA agreement, his actions have undermined its spirit and violated key provisions.

    At the multilateral level, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been significantly weakened. Its dispute settlement mechanism has been rendered ineffective due to the U.S. blocking the appointment of new judges to its appellate body.

    The only faint silver lining is that, despite threats during his first term to withdraw from the organization, Trump has not followed through. This suggests he still holds at least some degree of respect or recognition for the WTO’s role in global trade.

    The world is currently navigating a period of deep uncertainty and confusion. Canada must stand in solidarity with the international community to exert collective pressure on the U.S. A co-ordinated global response could compel Trump to reconsider his unilateral trade policies.

    Although Canada has been granted a reprieve from the new reciprocal tariffs, this should not lead to complacency. Instead, Canada should continue to collaborate with other nations to push for a more stable and rules-based global trading system. This is the way to protect Canada’s interests and reinforce multilateral co-operation.

    Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor receives funding from OMAFA

    – ref. Canada was mostly spared from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, but it must not grow complacent – https://theconversation.com/canada-was-mostly-spared-from-trumps-reciprocal-tariffs-but-it-must-not-grow-complacent-253813

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Some rivers have ‘legal personhood’. Now they need a lawyer

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Will de Freitas, Environment + Energy Editor, UK edition

    New Zealand has granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River. Ron Kolet / shutterstock

    Most rivers need some human help to stay clean and healthy and to flow freely. People have to fish out litter, block sewage, look out for invasive species and so on.

    This is obvious enough. But, as rivers are increasingly being granted legal rights of their own, they’ll need another form of human help: people willing to be their legal representatives, filing lawsuits and speaking in court.

    This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage comes from our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed.

    The idea that nature should be granted rights similar to that of a human (sometimes described as “legal personhood”) has been around for a few decades now. Though some lakes, forests and other features have been awarded these rights, it’s rivers that are the main beneficiaries. Most recently, the River Ouse in East Sussex, England, was awarded rights by its local council, following similar moves in places as diverse as New Zealand, Ecuador, Canada and India.

    “Rivers often have strong cultural and spiritual identities as sacred living entities or life-giving beings. These existential understandings have underpinned legal actions.” That’s according to Nick Mount, a rivers expert at the University of Nottingham.

    Back in 2017, Mount travelled to Colombia to visit the River Atrato. The Atrato flows through a remote and highly biodiverse jungle, in a region which at the time remained a paramilitary stronghold. The country’s constitutional court had recently awarded the river humans rights and Mount wanted to see what that meant in practice.

    “The Atrato River has been awarded rights,” he said, “because of what it provides for human life – not because it should be equated with human life”. He continued “this places a significant burden on the Colombian state to ensure the rights are enforced – and it demands that local people are empowered to manage their river properly”.

    However, “the reality was sobering”. He found deforested riverbanks, so contaminated with chemicals that plants could not regrow. He found industrial dredging had reshaped an entire river to the point where its regular nutrient-cycling floods had broken down entirely, while whole human communities had been displaced.

    “The Atrato River in general, and [its tributary] the Rio Quito in particular, serve as a stark reminder that awarding environmental rights is not the same as realising them. Such rights don’t exist within a vacuum, of course, and they will only be fulfilled if political, socio-economic and cultural systems support them.”



    Read more:
    Can a river have legal rights? I visited the jungles of Colombia to find out

    So what might a more supportive human system involve? Oluwabusayo Wuraola is a law lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. Writing about the recent River Ouse news, she agrees with Mount that “simply granting a river some rights isn’t enough” and adds that “we now need to think about who will actually defend these rights”.

    The River Ouse, playing hide and seek.
    Melanie Hobson / shutterstock

    “Appointing representatives who care about their own personal and property interests would be a grave mistake, as would appointing anyone who prioritises the rights of humans to a healthy environment over a more intrinsic right of nature (remember: the idea is that the River Ouse has rights in itself and shouldn’t need to demonstrate its worth to humans).”

    In her analysis, “the most effective defenders of the rights of nature in many court cases” have been people with an “ecocentric perspective”. That means an outlook that prioritises the intrinsic value of nature itself, rather than focusing on how it can serve human interests. She cites instances where the supposed advocates for a river’s rights in court were actually motivated by wanting to protect their own property downstream.

    Ultimately, though “moves to give rights to nature are promising … we’ll need a whole army of nature protectors to actually enforce those rights”.



    Read more:
    Rivers are increasingly being given legal rights. Now they need people who will defend these rights in court

    These ideas can be applied to rivers in the news right now. For instance, China recently approved the construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet.

    The dam will provide enormous amounts of clean energy – when complete, it will be the world’s largest power plant by some distance. But it will also displace people, destroy ecosystems and, of course, disrupt the river itself.

    Mehebub Sahana, a geographer at the University of Manchester, points out the effects may be especially severe downstream in India and Bangladesh, where that same river is known as the Brahmaputra and helps form a vast and incredibly fertile delta system.

    For him, the dam highlights “some of the geopolitical issues raised by rivers that cross international borders”. “Who owns the river itself,” he asks, “and who has the right to use its water? Do countries have obligations not to pollute shared rivers, or to keep their shipping lanes open? And when a drop of rain falls on a mountain, do farmers in a different country thousands of miles downstream have a claim to use it?”



    Read more:
    China plans to build the world’s largest dam – but what does this mean for India and Bangladesh downstream?

    These are crucial questions, even if they’re ultimately framed around humans. An ecocentric representative might argue the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra has an intrinsic right to flow undisturbed and to dump its sediment where it pleases.

    There may be a happy medium. Viktoria Kahui is an environmental economist at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Last year, she investigated 14 examples of rights-of-nature from around the world.

    She found a “fundamental divide between local communities and external economic interests”. In some cases, interest groups were able to overturn the provision of nature rights.

    She therefore recommends that “future rights-of-nature frameworks need to … include appointed guardians, established as separate legal entities with limited liability, as well as the support of representatives from interest groups”.



    Read more:
    Granting legal ‘personhood’ to nature is a growing movement – can it stem biodiversity loss?

    In the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra example, those interest groups might include rice farmers and mangrove conservationists in Bangladesh, or fishermen a thousand miles upstream. They might include the millions of people who would gain electricity, or the thousands who would lose their homes. The river itself could also be an interested party, perhaps via eco-centric human representatives.

    Exactly where you draw the line in these cases is tricky. But with rivers increasingly being granted legal rights, this isn’t the last you’ll hear of this issue.

    – ref. Some rivers have ‘legal personhood’. Now they need a lawyer – https://theconversation.com/some-rivers-have-legal-personhood-now-they-need-a-lawyer-254267

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: PMDD: social media users claim antihistamines help symptoms – here’s what the evidence says

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Milli Raizada, Senior Clinical lecturer in Primary care academia, Lancaster University

    Some social media users claims anti-allergy medications have helped their PMDD symptoms. antoniodiaz/ Shutterstock

    A number of videos have surfaced recently on social media with women claiming that common medications used to treat allergies and heartburn have helped them manage symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). But is there any science behind this claim?

    Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a long-term condition which causes severe psychological distress in the week or two before a woman’s period begins. PMDD symptoms can be varied and vast – with physical symptoms ranging from difficulty sleeping, migraines, bloating and breast tenderness. Psychological symptoms include rage, anger, anxiety, low mood and feeling overwhelmed.

    All of these symptoms can have a severe impact on a woman’s social, home and work life. Women with PMDD are seven times more likely to attempt suicide due to the mood symptoms they suffer with making them more vulnerable.

    PMDD affects 3-8% of the population but is still widely under-recognised and undiagnosed. Some women have to wait years before getting a diagnosis.

    It’s not fully known what causes PMDD. It’s thought to be due to many factors.

    One theory is that the condition occurs due to variations in genes that activate hormones and their receptors. Other theories suggest the brain’s emotional circuits (limbic system), which are densely populated with hormone receptors, react differently in those with PMDD.

    For example, a widespread theory posits that when oestrogen fluctuates up and down in the two weeks before a woman’s period, this has a negative impact on serotonin (the so-called happy hormone). If this is true, it would explain why selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants can be effective for some women as these drugs aim to increase serotonin levels.



    Read more:
    Premenstrual dysphoric disorder: the frightening psychological condition suffered by Dixie D’Amelio

    Another theory relates to faults in the progesterone pathway and its breakdown product called allopregnenalone (a steroid). Allopregnenalone normally stimulates a calming chemical called GABA in the brain, which acts as a natural anti-anxiety substance.

    Fluctuations and altered sensitivity of allopregnenalone on the GABA system is thought to be why some women suffer with PMDD. This can explain why some women typically have no symptoms of PMDD during pregnancy due to the lack of fluctuation in the hormone progesterone.

    Histamine link?

    Some women online are now claiming that high histamine levels may also be the cause of PMDD symptoms – and that taking over-the-counter drugs which block the effects of histamines has helped to alleviate their symptoms.

    Histamine is a chemical the body naturally produces which plays a role in allergies, digestion, inflammation, brain function and hormone balance.

    There is currently no evidence that antihistamines can help with PMDD symptoms.
    MDV Edwards/ Shutterstock

    There is currently no published research which has investigated the link between PMDD symptoms and histamine levels. However, we do know from other areas of research that histamine activity varies throughout the menstrual cycle.

    One study found that in the two weeks before a period, immune cells called mast cells, which release histamine, are more likely to be activated due to oestrogen levels being high. It’s suggested that these changing oestrogen levels – which cause high histamine – may explain why PMDD symptoms occur. If this theory is true, it would also explain why antihistamines would help with PMDD symptoms, as these drugs block the release of histamines.

    There are many potential reasons why oestrogen levels may be particularly high in some women – particularly those with PMDD. This so-called oestrogen dominance may be due to many factors, such as excess toxin exposure in the environment from plastics and issues with people unable to detoxify oestrogen from the body efficiently due to poor liver and gut health. All this can potentially add to the oestrogen bucket, which has a knock-on effect on histamine levels, which can further stimulate oestrogen – leading to a vicious cycle.

    But the histamine intolerance and oestrogen dominance theories are both still controversial and not fully recognised in the mainstream medical community. There are no scientific, clinical studies that exist on the topic of PMDD, oestrogen dominance and histamine as yet to show whether they are linked to PMDD or not – or whether antihistamines are effective for PMDD.

    Yet, many people with PMDD are turning to antihistamines, as well as famotidine – a histamine receptor antagonist which blocks histamine production in the stomach – to reduce PMDD symptoms. Many of these women are reporting they’re seeing improvement, so there may well be some validity behind these claims. However, there is no research to back the use of these drugs just yet.

    Lifestyle changes – such as eating fewer inflammatory, processed foods, exercising and talking therapies (such as cognitive therapy) – have all shown small but positive benefits in people with PMDD.

    Prescription drugs such as antidepressants (SSRIs) and contraceptive pills containing a synthetic progestin called drospirenone are also shown to be effective for people with PMDD. These options may be better for women in the meantime until more research in this area has been done.

    Disclosure: Dr Milli Raizada, a GP, is the medical director, founder and works in of Dr Milli health clinics. She is a Senior Clinical Lecturer at Lancaster University. She is affiliated as a trustee and ambassador of the first and only UK PMDD charity: The PMDD project. She is a GMC associate where she gets paid as her role as chief invigilator, PLAB Part 2 examiner and Part 1 station management group member. She also delivers paid corporate talks on primary care topics and is an paid expert content creator for Clinical Knowledge skills.

    – ref. PMDD: social media users claim antihistamines help symptoms – here’s what the evidence says – https://theconversation.com/pmdd-social-media-users-claim-antihistamines-help-symptoms-heres-what-the-evidence-says-253587

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Press freedom linked to greater financial stability, finds global study

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By George Kladakis, Lecturer in Finance, University of St Andrews

    Press freedom is widely considered to be a cornerstone of democracy. It brings accountability, transparency and access to reliable information.

    But beyond its democratic role, press freedom is also a vital part of a stable economy. Research has shown that it acts as a kind of financial watchdog, ensuring balance and accuracy.

    In doing so, an independent press strengthens the resilience of financial institutions. And our research suggests that higher levels of press freedom can also be linked to greater financial stability and lower “systemic risk” – where something bad happening at one company can trigger wider instability or even industry collapse – in the banking sector.

    Using data from 47 countries, we found that an independent press brings greater scrutiny of banking executives. Another benefit is a better flow of information around the financial markets, making the whole system more efficient.

    Countries with higher levels of press freedom are also more likely to foster corporate and political cultures that are free from the sort of corruption which could jeopardise the stability of the banking sector. All of these advantages are most pronounced during economic downturns or banking crises.

    And even outside times of crisis, we can see the positive effects by looking at basic financial indicators in countries with high and low press freedom levels. Countries with consistently high levels of press freedom such as Norway, Sweden or Estonia, for example, have far fewer non-performing (unrepaid) loans than countries with low levels of press freedom such as Pakistan, Greece or Russia.

    But a free press and a stable banking industry are by no means the norm.

    Recent data from the campaign group Reporters Without Borders highlights a worrying decline in media autonomy. It reports that 135 out of 180 countries now have press freedom levels classified as “problematic”, “difficult” or “very serious”.

    This trend extends to advanced economies such as Japan (70th, down from 68th in 2023), Italy (46th, down from 41st), and the US (55th, down from 45th).

    And it looks like the world’s largest economy could slip down the rankings even further. Although President Trump signed an executive order aimed at “restoring freedom of speech”, he has also explicitly threatened to revoke broadcast licenses, investigate critical media and jail journalists who protect confidential sources.

    In February 2025, White House officials even informed one US news agency that its journalists would be barred from entering the Oval Office until it stopped using the geographic term “Gulf of Mexico” instead of Trump’s preferred “Gulf of America”.

    But the Trump effect is not limited to the US. A recent aid freeze by his administration has cut billions in funding for independent media outlets across more than 30 countries, including Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iran.

    Press test

    Notable declines in press freedom have also been observed in politically volatile regions such as Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, where authoritarian regimes continue to tighten their grip on the media.

    The survey from Reporters Without Borders suggests that governments across the world are failing to protect journalism, with a marked trend of declining press freedom.

    In 2014, 13% of countries enjoyed a “good” degree of press freedom, but this figure dropped to 7% by 2021 and then to just 4.4% in 2022. Conversely, the share of countries in the lowest classifications has risen dramatically. A decade ago, 8% were considered “difficult”, now that figure is 24%. The number of those with a “very serious” situation has gone from 8% to 17% in the same period.



    Read more:
    White House spat with AP over ‘Gulf of America’ ignites fears for press freedom in second Trump era

    Of course, there are outliers in the global picture. China, for example, has limited press freedom but a very stable banking sector that has been highly resilient to external shocks in the past. But the country is run by an authoritarian regime that helps to shield its banks from those kinds of risks.

    Elsewhere though, the decline in press freedom threatens not just democratic principles and political transparency, but also the operation of financial markets. Safeguarding that freedom is a critical basis of economic resilience and stability.

    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. Press freedom linked to greater financial stability, finds global study – https://theconversation.com/press-freedom-linked-to-greater-financial-stability-finds-global-study-248207

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: White Lotus hotels target gen Z travellers – but luxury resorts don’t reflect their travel habits

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ross Bennett-Cook, PhD Candidate in the Carnegie School of Sport, Leeds Beckett University

    American-British actor, Sam Nivola, in the season three finale of The White Lotus. Fabio Lovino / HBO

    HBO’s hit television series, The White Lotus, is as renowned for its stunning hotels and filming locations as it is for its mixture of unsettling, hilarious and sultry storylines.

    Set in fictional five-star “White Lotus” resorts, fans quickly learned the true locations of the luxury hotels. Each season has been set in a different destination – Hawaii, Sicily and, most recently, Thailand – and every resort has seen a surge in interest since featuring on the show. This has been labelled the “White Lotus effect”.

    Four Seasons Hotels, the actual brand behind the resorts, said the original White Lotus in Hawaii saw a 386% increase in availability checks after appearing on the show. And Hotels.com reported a 40% spike in booking interest for the filming location in Koh Samui, Thailand, following the release of the season three trailer.

    Four Seasons says the show’s popularity among gen Z and millennials is introducing a new market to their hotels. According to the company’s internal research, 71% of millennials who watch the show and are aware of Four Seasons have expressed a strong likelihood of visiting the featured properties.

    Younger age groups are key targets for Four Seasons, which is keen to attract the next generation of luxury travellers. But do luxury resorts really represent the travel habits of young people?

    According to a 2023 survey by consultancy firm Deloitte, young people have been hit particularly hard by the rising cost of living. Many are losing hope of owning a home and even starting a family. It has been widely reported that younger generations are worse off than their parents.

    With property ownership out of reach, many young people seem more willing to splurge on travel than save for an uncertain future. According to a 2017 poll by Realty Mogul, a real estate crowdfunding platform, almost half of young people aged 18 to 34 would prioritise travelling over buying a home. This compared to just 26% of those aged 45 and over.

    But gen Z generally aren’t as interested in five-star resorts as they are in five-star experiences. Many travellers from this age group opt to spend big on once-in-a-lifetime activities rather than splash out on luxury accommodation. According to a 2022 YouGov poll, over one-third of young people say they’d pick a standard three-star or below hotel, making this the most popular accommodation option.

    However, the European Travel Commission has found that this generation embraces mixing budget and luxury options when they can. For example, they may use budget airlines to reach their destination so they can spend a little more elsewhere. According to the same YouGov poll, luxury hotels and resorts still rank among gen Z’s top three travel accommodations.

    Four Seasons properties have provided the setting for the first three seasons of The White Lotus.
    Todamo / Shutterstock

    For many gen Z travellers, the journey is also just as important as the destination – and the impact they leave behind matters, too. Research by Booking.com reveals that over half (52%) of gen Z travellers say the environmental impact of tourism on a destination influences their travel choices. Even more (63%) would consider avoiding a destination altogether if they knew it was threatened by overtourism.

    Many of these values may not align with the opulence typically associated with luxury travel. On the Hawaiian island of Maui, the setting for season one of The White Lotus, local opposition towards tourism erupted after deadly wildfires swept across the island in 2023 – the most deadly wildfire event in recent US history.

    While locals faced heavy restrictions due to water scarcity, the island’s hotels and resorts were allowed to maintain vast golf courses, lush gardens and pools and welcomed up to 8,000 tourists a day.

    Thousands signed petitions to delay the return of mass tourism to the islands. And community groups held what was called a 24 hour “fish-in” protest to prevent tourists from using the popular Kāʻanapali Beach, a long stretch of pristine coastline where several high-end resorts are located.

    Protesters said their aim was to bring attention to the displacement of locals made homeless due to the wildfires and unable to find permanent housing due to short-term holiday rentals taking priority.

    Leaders have long worried the islands are losing their culture as the cost of housing fuels an exodus of native Hawaiian residents. The 2022 census revealed that more native Hawaiians live outside of Hawaii than within.

    Luxury travel reimagined

    Gen Z may well be the next generation of luxury travellers. In 2017, millennials and gen Z consumers were responsible for 32% of sales in the global personal luxury goods market. This figure was forecast to increase to 45% by 2025.

    But luxury travel must change to cater to the tastes and interests of younger generations. These people largely crave unique, shareable and story-worthy travel – not just comfort, but connection. For this new generation of luxury travellers, a remote glamping trip under the stars, or an off-grid adventure with experienced locals, may be more attractive than the traditional luxury resort.

    Some brands are already making changes. In 2024, the Hyatt Hotels group introduced its “Be More Here” brand initiative, a collection of bespoke guest activities with a focus on wellness and experience.

    And the latest addition to the Maldives’ luxury resort portfolio, Six Senses, has an ethos centred on sustainability. Its resorts have an onsite environmental learning space, and offer immersive marine conservation experiences and sustainability tours to guests.

    As young people navigate a complex future, their travel choices reflect a deeper desire: not just to see the world, but to engage with it responsibly and thoughtfully, and gain something meaningful from it.

    Ross Bennett-Cook 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. White Lotus hotels target gen Z travellers – but luxury resorts don’t reflect their travel habits – https://theconversation.com/white-lotus-hotels-target-gen-z-travellers-but-luxury-resorts-dont-reflect-their-travel-habits-252242

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Earth’s oceans once turned green – and they could change again

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cédric M. John, Professor and Head of Data Science for the Environment and Sustainability, Queen Mary University of London

    Were Earth’s oceans once green? 100Y Design/Shutterstock

    Nearly three fourths of Earth is covered by oceans, making the planet look like a pale blue dot from space. But Japanese researchers have made a compelling case that Earth’s oceans were once green, in a study published in Nature.

    The reason Earth’s oceans may have looked different in the ancient past is to do with their chemistry and the evolution of photosynthesis. As a geology undergraduate student, I was taught about the importance of a type of rock deposit known as the banded iron formation in recording the planet’s history.

    Banded iron formations were deposited in the Archean and Paleoproterozoic eons, roughly between 3.8 and 1.8 billion years ago. Life back then was confined to one cell organisms in the oceans. The continents were a barren landscape of grey, brown and black rocks and sediments.

    Rain falling on continental rocks dissolved iron which was then carried to the oceans by rivers. Other sources of iron were volcanoes on the ocean floor. This iron will become important later.

    Cross section of banded iron formation in Karijini National park, in the Hamersley Range, Western Australia.
    Hans Wismeijer/Shutterstock

    The Archaean eon was a time when Earth’s atmosphere and ocean were devoid of gaseous oxygen, but also when the first organisms to generate energy from sunlight evolved. These organisms used anaerobic photosynthesis, meaning they can do photosynthesis in the absence of oxygen.

    It triggered important changes as a byproduct of anaerobic photosynthesis is oxygen gas. Oxygen gas bound to iron in seawater. Oxygen only existed as a gas in the atmosphere once the seawater iron could neutralise no more oxygen.

    Eventually, early photosynthesis led to the “great oxidation event”, a major ecological turning point that made complex life on Earth possible. It marked the transition from a largely oxygen free Earth to one with large amounts of oxygen in the ocean and atmosphere.

    The “bands” of different colours in banded iron formations record this shift with an alternation between deposits of iron deposited in the absence of oxygen and red oxidised iron.

    The case for green oceans

    The recent paper’s case for green oceans in the Archaean eon starts with an observation: waters around the Japanese volcanic island of Iwo Jima have a greenish hue linked to a form of oxidised iron – Fe(III). Blue-green algae thrive in the green waters surrounding the island.

    Despite their name, blue-green algae are primitive bacteria and not true algae. In the Archaean eon, the ancestors of modern blue-green algae evolved alongside other bacteria that use ferrous iron instead of water as the source of electrons for photosynthesis. This points to high levels of iron in the ocean.

    The ocean around Iwo Jima has a greenish hue.
    Phan Lee McCaskill/US Navy

    Photosynthetic organisms use pigments (mostly chlorophyll) in their cells to transform CO₂ into sugars using the energy of the sun. Chlorophyll gives plants their green colour. Blue-green algae are peculiar because they carry the common chlorophyll pigment, but also a second pigment called phycoerythrobilin (PEB).

    In their paper, the researchers found that genetically engineered modern blue-green algae with PEB grow better in green waters. Although chlorophyll is great for photosynthesis in the spectra of light visible to us, PEB seems to be superior in green-light conditions.

    Before the rise of photosynthesis and oxygen, Earth’s oceans contained dissolved reduced iron (iron deposited in the absence of oxygen). Oxygen released by the rise of photosynthesis in the Archean eon then led to oxidised iron in seawater. The paper’s computer simulations also found oxygen released by early photosynthesis led to a high enough concentration of oxidised iron particles to turn the surface water green.

    Once all iron in the ocean was oxidised, free oxygen (0₂) existed in Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. So a major implication of the study is that pale-green dot worlds viewed from space are good candidates planets to harbour early photosynthetic life.

    The changes in ocean chemistry were gradual. The Archaean period lasted 1.5 billion years. This is more than half of Earth’s history. By comparison, the entire history of the rise and evolution of complex life represents about an eighth of Earth’s history.

    Almost certainly, the colour of the oceans changed gradually during this period and potentially oscillated. This could explain why blue-green algae evolved both forms of photosynthetic pigments. Chlorophyll is best for white light which is the type of sunlight we have today. Taking advantage of green and white light would have been an evolutionary advantage.

    Could oceans change colour again?

    The lesson from the recent Japanese paper is that the colour of our oceans are linked to water chemistry and the influence of life. We can imagine different ocean colours without borrowing too much from science fiction.

    Purple oceans would be possible on Earth if the levels of sulphur were high. This could be linked to intense volcanic activity and low oxygen content in the atmosphere, which would lead to the dominance of purple sulphur bacteria.

    Red oceans are also theoretically possible under intense tropical climates when red oxidised iron forms from the decay of rocks on the land and is carried to the oceans by rivers or winds. Or if a type of algae linked to “red tides” came to dominate the surface oceans.

    These red algae are common in areas with intense concentration of fertiliser such as nitrogen. In the modern oceans, this tends to happen in coastline close to sewers.

    As our sun ages, it will first become brighter leading to increased surface evaporation and intense UV light. This may favour purple sulphur bacteria living in deep waters without oxygen.

    It will lead to more purple, brown, or green hues in coastal or stratified areas, with less deep blue colour in water as phytoplankton decline. Eventually, oceans will evaporate completely as the sun expands to encompass the orbit of Earth.

    At geological timescales nothing is permanent and changes in the colour of our oceans are therefore inevitable.

    Cedric John receives funding from the UKRI.

    – ref. Earth’s oceans once turned green – and they could change again – https://theconversation.com/earths-oceans-once-turned-green-and-they-could-change-again-253460

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The Return: how each new retelling of The Odyssey opens up the worlds of the women in this epic

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emily Hauser, Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Exeter

    Waves crash across Ithaca’s rocky shore. “The city of Troy has fallen,” we are told, as the shuttle on Penelope’s loom flickers across the screen. “On the island of Ithaca, Queen Penelope still longs for the return of her husband Odysseus.” The camera then cuts to the wreckage of a ship and the body of a man washed up on the beach – naked, dishevelled, scarred.

    This is the beginning of the new Odyssey-inspired film starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, The Return.

    The Odyssey, the ancient Greek epic poem ascribed to the poet Homer, charts the return home of its eponymous hero, Odysseus. For half the epic poem, we follow the hero as he struggles, sometimes against fantastical monsters and goddesses, sometimes against himself and his crew, to return.

    But Ralph Fiennes’s Odysseus is not stranded on his travels. He has already returned home. Home to Ithaca but not quite home to Penelope.

    It has often been said that the Odyssey shows a marked interest in its women – Penelope, perhaps, above all. Odysseus makes it clear that returning home is about much more than the literal voyage to Ithaca. What he wants, he says (in Emily Wilson’s translation) is a reinstatement to “the joys of home”, and to partnership with “my wife”.

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    Retelling the Odyssey’s women

    Many retellings, particularly those in recent years, have been interested in giving the women of the Odyssey more agency and voice. The Return is no exception: it is made quite clear that Penelope and her recognition of Odysseus are central to his reintegration into Ithaca.

    The film is centred on her refusal to choose one of her suitors, and Odysseus’s fear – in the face of her anger at being forced to wait for him for 20 years – that she might not want him back. After battles with female monsters and rest-stops with enchanting goddesses, Penelope is the final and greatest woman he must face and win back.

    Putting Penelope at the centre of the tale follows a line of recent reinterpretations of Odysseus’s return that have taken Penelope’s point of view more explicitly – most notably, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005).

    Here Penelope’s version of the story is used not only to emphasise the costs (and compromises) borne by the archetypal patient wife in her husband’s absence, but also to shed light on the sheer violence and bloodshed of Odysseus’s return. In particular, it highlights the victimisation of the 12 enslaved women raped by Penelope’s suitors, who are later hanged for their actions by Odysseus’s son.

    Wilson made similar strides in her 2018 translation of the Odyssey – the first into English by a woman. In it, she stripped away the judgments imposed on Odysseus’s enslaved women by earlier male translators that suggested they deserved what they got.

    We see some similar, if less pointed, changes in The Return. Penelope is quick to condemn the violence of war (“Why do men go to war?” she demands), and then the bloodshed Odysseus brings into her home.

    Binoche plays Penelope with a brittle resilience that is both moving and powerful. Though quiet, she refuses to move her ground, and the words she speaks are always charged with meaning. Yet it is worth noting that the film – despite Atwood and Wilson’s interventions in reminding readers of their existence and changing how they are perceived – does not include the execution of the enslaved women.

    Real Greek women

    In my new book, Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, through the Women Written Out Of It, I also explore what the Odyssey (and Homer’s other epic, the Iliad) might look like from the women’s point of view – using the latest archaeological evidence and newest scientific analysis of ancient DNA. I use these findings as a window into the worlds of the real women who might have inspired the myths and legends of the Odyssey.

    Take, for instance, discoveries of spinning and weaving equipment that belonged to queens who once ruled in the historical kingdoms like Mycenae, Pylos and even Troy. The Homeric epics, the Iliad and Odyssey, are full of scenes of women weaving in the Greek palaces of legend.

    Perhaps most famous is Penelope’s weaving: the famous ruse in which she wove and unwove her weaving and so delayed the suitors’ demand that she choose one of them for marriage.

    Penelope is said in the Odyssey to have been weaving for three years before her trick was revealed. It’s been suggested that she was making what’s known as a “story cloth” – a tapestry detailing narratives.

    Such “story cloths” have been found in the Greek world, dating back to the 4th century BC, from the shores of the Black Sea. The idea of Penelope weaving her own story in thread is a particularly rich one – making her a poet of her own story to rival the poet of the Odyssey (though her tapestry, of course, unravels to make space for Odysseus).

    The red, yellow and purple dyes women used to dye the threads they spun and wove with have also been recovered from minuscule traces on prehistoric pots.

    In Pasolini’s The Return, we see Penelope weaving with blood-red thread. This is probably meant to represent the ancient colour porphyreos, or reddish-purple, that was so expensive it came to be called “royal purple”. It’s a word (and shade) that’s also used for blood in the Homeric epics – so anticipating the bloodshed of Odysseus’s return.

    To me, starting from the history that surrounds legend and myth is a radical way into the stories of women like Penelope. It allows us to understand them from the experiences and activities of actual, historical women of the Greek past.

    The Odyssey has been retold and will continue to be retold countless times. I found The Return to be a moving, tightly theatrical version of the closing scenes of the Odyssey. It puts Penelope at the heart of the drama. The foregrounding of her role is a particular highlight and Binoche plays her spectacularly well.

    We have director Christopher Nolan’s take on the Odyssey to look forward to next in July 2026. It remains to be seen how Penelope, and the enslaved women, will be treated there.

    However, with every new retelling comes the opportunity to draw attention to the central roles of female figures in this ancient epic.

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

    – ref. The Return: how each new retelling of The Odyssey opens up the worlds of the women in this epic – https://theconversation.com/the-return-how-each-new-retelling-of-the-odyssey-opens-up-the-worlds-of-the-women-in-this-epic-253922

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Hypermasculine influencers can be good role models for boys too

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael Joseph Richardson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Newcastle University

    Body Stock/Shutterstock

    It’s good to see that men in positions of power and influence are concerned about the impact that masculinity influencers, the manosphere and the misogyny they can inspire is having on boys and young men.

    Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and former England manager Sir Gareth Southgate have spoken about the need for positive role models. Southgate has highlighted the ills of social media, gaming and pornography. Starmer has backed the showing of Netflix series Adolescence, which explores the impact of the manosphere on teenagers, in schools.

    Starmer and Southgate mean well and their words have amplified the issue. But their approach may not reach the boys and young men they would hope to inspire.

    Southgate’s recent Richard Dimbleby lecture followed a well-trodden path of demonising certain spaces – such as social media – and in doing so offered a somewhat limited understanding of how and why they are so prevalent in young people’s lives.

    Men like Starmer and Southgate are defined by their progressive outlook. But in the manosphere, “niceness” can be viewed with suspicion and disdain. It can come with the assumption that “white knights,” men who display a caring kind of masculinity, are driven by an aim, conscious or unconscious, of being sexually rewarded by women for their efforts. Messages from proponents of this caring masculinity may be dismissed out of hand by the young men they are most trying to reach.

    The influencers that so many boys are drawn to project an entirely different kind of masculinity to that of Starmer and Southgate. They are characterised by a focus on fitness and physical strength, financial success and heterosexuality. This is known as hypermasculinity.

    Boys and young men may feel more comfortable, less judged and more valued if they can see themselves in the people who support them. Youth workers, for example, can offer an important and effective counterpoint to online misogyny.

    My research with young fathers reveals that a “safe environment free of judgment” is key to exploring ideas of care and equality with young men. I learned that hypermasculinity does not have to necessitate dominance over others – women, LGBTQ+ people, people of colour. Nor does this way of being a man need to be predicated on emotional repression, misogyny, racism or homophobia.

    Hypermasculine spaces can offer comfort for those who fail to see themselves in more “feminised” spaces elsewhere.

    Fitness and gym culture

    Influencers know that fitness is appealing to many young men. They make explicit links between physical strength, fitness and sexual prowess.

    According to incel (involuntary celibate) culture, athleticism and physicality help determine a man’s “sexual market value”, and those who lack these hypermasculine characteristics are denied sexual access and social status. But young men do not need to buy wholly into this mindset to value gym culture and see physical strength as desirable.

    Former kickboxer Andrew Tate offers the appeal of the hypermasculine triumvirate of fitness, fame and fighting. Listening to young men tells us that they can be drawn to the hypermasculine “success” of Andrew Tate for reasons such as his devotion to physical fitness, not because of his misogyny.

    This tells us we should be spending time better understanding hypermasculinity, not further marginalising it. I believe hypermasculinity can make space for positive social change, but there needs to be an authentic connection for young men.

    Paddy “the Baddy” Pimblett would be a good place to start in understanding how hypermasculinity can be a positive force. Pimblett is a professional mixed martial artist who has over 3 million followers on Instagram.

    His public profile proves that hypermasculinity can carry more than just violence: he is using his platform for social good through charity work and mental health campaigning.

    Tech and financial independence

    Hypermasculine social media influencers also attract followers through their pursuit of financial independence. The allure of an aspirational lifestyle is not surprising in an era of financial uncertainty, especially when influencers purport that their successes are replicable. Andrew Tate’s “education system” The Real World, for instance, offers to teach paid subscribers the pathway to financial success when they sign up.

    At the same time, “tech bros” have become a defining financial success story. They are aspirational figures for some young men – simultaneously representing elite financial power and a self-sufficient, anti-establishment swagger. I am not suprised by their popularity, as in my work with young men in the north east of England, anti-elite narratives were often repeated.

    Again, though, there are positive examples to be found in this hypermasculine space. Gary Stevenson, whose YouTube channel has over a million subscribers, represents this. On one level, he is a hypermasculine trader who claims he won his job through a card game and whose high-risk gambling brought great rewards. Yet he now calls himself a “people’s economist” and uses his significant media profile to highlight structural disadvantage instead of aspirational lifestyles.

    Making space for hypermasculinity does not mean it should replace other forms, such as caring masculinities. But we need to engage with the hypermasculine and listen to those who value it to better understand it. We should not assume the hypermasculine is always problematic. In acknowledging, and avoiding demonising this kind of masculinity, we can ensure greater representation for young men and boys, while continuing to challenge sexism, misogyny and other social ills.

    Michael Joseph Richardson has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council Impact Accelerator Account (ESRC IAA), Arts Council England and the National Lottery Climate Action Fund.

    – ref. Hypermasculine influencers can be good role models for boys too – https://theconversation.com/hypermasculine-influencers-can-be-good-role-models-for-boys-too-253187

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Next generation computer chips could process data at the speed of light – new research

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Demosthenes Koutsogeorgis, Associate Professor of Photonic Technologies, School of Science & Technology, Nottingham Trent University

    3dartists / Shutterstock

    Electronic microchips are at the heart of the modern world. They’re found in our laptops, our smartphones, our cars and our household appliances. For years, manufacturers have been making them more powerful and efficient, which increases the performance of our electronic devices.

    But that trend is now faltering because of the increased cost and complexity of manufacturing chips, as well as performance limits set by the laws of physics. This is happening just as there’s a need for increased computing power because of the boom in artificial intelligence (AI).

    An alternative to the electronic microchips we currently use are photonic chips. These use light instead of electricity to achieve higher performance. However, photonic chips have not yet taken off due to a number of hurdles. Now, two papers published in Nature address some of these roadblocks, offering essential stepping stones to achieving the computing power required by complex artificial intelligence systems.

    By using light (photons) instead of electricity (electrons) for the transport and processing of information, photonic computing promises higher speeds and greater bandwidths with greater efficiency. This is because it does not suffer from the loss of electrical current due to a phenomenon known as resistance, as well as unwanted heat loss from electrical components.

    Photonic computing is also particularly suited for performing what are known as matrix multiplications – mathematical operations that are fundamental to AI.

    Those are some of the benefits. The challenges, however, are not trivial. In the past, the performance of photonic chips has generally been studied in isolation. But because of the dominance of electronics in modern technology, photonic hardware will need to be integrated with those electronic systems.

    However, converting photons into electrical signals can slow down processing times since light operates at higher speeds. Photonic computing is also based around analogue operations rather than digital ones. This can reduce precision and limit the type of computing tasks that can be carried out.

    It’s also difficult to scale them up from small prototypes because large-scale photonic circuits cannot currently be fabricated with sufficient accuracy. Photonic computing will require its own software and algorithms, compounding the challenges of integration and compatibility with other technology.

    Photonic chips would need to be integrated with electronic hardware.
    IM Imagery / Shutterstock

    The two new papers in Nature address many of these hurdles. Bo Peng, from Singapore-based company Lightelligence, and colleagues demonstrate a new type of processor for photonic computing called a Photonic Arithmetic Computing Engine (Pace). This processor has a low latency, which means that there is a minimal delay between an input or command and the corresponding response or action by the computer.

    The large-scale Pace processor, which has more than 16,000 photonic components, can solve difficult computing tasks, demonstrating the feasibility of the system for real world applications. The processor shows how integration of photonic and electronic hardware, accuracy, and the need for different software and algorithms can be resolved. It also demonstrates that the technology can be scaled up.

    This marks a significant development, despite some speed limitations of the current hardware.

    In a separate paper, Nicholas Harris, from California-based company Lightmatter, and colleagues describe a photonic processor that was able to run two AI systems with accuracy similar to those of conventional electronic processors. The authors demonstrated the effectiveness of their photonic processor through generating Shakespeare-like text, accurately classifying movie reviews and playing classic Atari computer games such as Pac-Man.

    The platform is also potentially scalable, though in this case limitations of the materials and engineering used curtailed one measure of the processor’s speed and its overall computational capabilities.

    Both teams suggest that their photonic systems can be part of scalable next generation hardware that can support the use of AI. This would finally make photonics viable, though further refinements will be needed. These will involve the use of more effective materials or designs.

    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. Next generation computer chips could process data at the speed of light – new research – https://theconversation.com/next-generation-computer-chips-could-process-data-at-the-speed-of-light-new-research-254104

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Wild meat is eaten by millions, but puts billions at risk – how to manage the trade

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Delia Grace, Professor Food Safety Systems at the Natural Resources Institute (UK) and contributing scientist ILRI, International Livestock Research Institute

    One of the most pressing issues of our time is the wild meat trade. Why? Because it’s consumed by millions and puts billions at risk from emerging diseases. It provides food and income for some of the poorest and most remote communities in Africa and Asia, yet over-exploitation makes ecosystems unstable and threatens the destruction of endangered species.

    In Africa, wild meat hunting is driven mostly by protein and meat scarcity (“the poor man’s meat”). In some regions, like east and south-east Asia, it can be found in restaurants, offered as high-priced exotic delicacies (“the rich man’s status”).

    But consuming wild meat also poses great dangers and challenges. The global wild meat trade can drive biodiversity loss, fuel illegal markets and spread diseases. The wildlife trade and so-called wet markets, where wild animals and wild meat are often sold, are conducive to the emergence of diseases, such as Ebola and HIV, which can be transmitted from animals to people.

    These issues are the focus of a recently released landmark study. It takes a new approach to analysing wild animal exploitation: it focuses on consumption and consumers rather than wild animals or hunting communities.

    Most previous studies on wild meat have been by people who want to stop it, with a handful on its livelihood and nutrition benefits to poor people. Our study, with its focus on consumption, allows us to balance conservation, community development, animal welfare and plague prevention.

    We are specialists in livestock and sustainable development and authors of the report. We worked for over a year to analyse and synthesise wild meat trade with a focus on hotspots in Africa and Asia.

    We argue that, because the wild meat trade is here for the foreseeable future, policymakers and implementers should be looking at: better management of the global wild meat trade, reducing and managing the farming of wild animals, and providing alternatives to consumption of wild meat by poor people.

    We must find a way to balance the benefits and risks of wild meat consumption in a way that protects human health, wildlife welfare, and our environment.

    Importance of wild meat trade

    Drawing on previous studies and a systematic literature review, our report found that the global trade in wild meat is extensive. Annual revenues range from US$1 billion in Africa to US$8-11 billion from illegal trade in south-east Asia to US$74 billion from wildlife farming in China.

    The volume of wild meat consumed is also significant – and often much higher than that of livestock meat. On average, African foragers consume 38kg of wild meat and farmers 16kg per year. The average annual livestock meat consumption per person in Africa is about 16.7kg.

    We found that in at least 60 countries wildlife and wild-caught fish contribute at least 20% of the animal protein in rural household diets. Where poverty is high, wildlife abundant, and affordable domesticated meat and access to markets scarce, many households turn to hunting wild animals.

    Not being harvested sustainably

    Unlike domesticated meat, which comes from just 20 or so animal species, the wild meat trade involves hundreds of species. In Africa about 500 species are hunted, in south-east Asia about 300.

    Current rates of extraction of wild meat are unsustainable, except for some small and fast-reproducing species such as rodents. Ungulates (hoofed animals) generally tend to be the most frequently hunted, followed by large rodents and primates. Near human settlements, larger bodied animals have over time tended to be hunted out and replaced by smaller species (such as duikers and large rodents), which reproduce at faster rates and thus are more sustainably hunted.

    The illegal trade in wild meat is increasingly moving online, with Asia as both a major supplier and consumer. Smuggling intensifies hunting pressure, as wildlife is harvested not only for local needs but also for global markets. There is some evidence of declining extraction rates due to over-hunting, resulting in “empty forests”. While bans can reduce hunting, they may also drive the trade underground.

    Climate change is already driving an increase wild meat extraction by making it harder to grow plants and farm animals. Studies show that in some critical ecosystems, such as the Serengeti in Tanzania, there are rapid declines in wildlife linked to climate change and land-use change.

    Addressing the wild meat challenge

    Moving away from wild meat practices in poorer countries presents a complex challenge.

    Replacing wild protein sources with commercially raised livestock can be prohibitively expensive for low-income households and governments alike. Moreover, it’s estimated that increased livestock production to replace the loss of wild meat could increase deforestation and require some 124,000km² of additional agricultural land.

    Some solutions do exist – but these depend on the context.

    Where wild animal hunting is prevalent, such as the forest margins in Africa and Asia, alternative protein sources could reduce the demand for wild meat by providing sustainable and culturally accepted protein sources. Examples are cane rats, Nile tilapia and African catfish in west and central Africa, cavies (guinea pigs) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and bamboo rats in south-east Asia. High-reproducing “mini livestock”, such as rabbits, cane rats, cavies, capybara and giant African snails, can provide household meat in a relatively short period. However, attempts to promote alternative animals have met with little success. We suggest paying people not to hunt or subsidising alternative meat may be more effective and feasible.

    Hundreds of thousands rely on hunting wild animals. Rather than criminalising hunters or trying to turn them into farmers in unsuitable lands, it may make more sense to pay them not to hunt by giving them free or subsidised livestock meat, which they may prefer.

    Promoting disgust triggered by wild meat can be a promising channel, too, for changing consumption behaviours. Societies often, and sometimes quickly, shift from finding “different” meats appealing to finding them appalling. In the UK, for example, offal was eaten by the poor before becoming a fashion-food for the English gentry during the early modern period. Behavioural science can be harnessed to nudge these mind shifts in the right direction.

    This study provides new insights into the wild meat trade. Deeply embedded in human culture, hunting wild animals is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. However, sustainable practices can balance human and ecosystem health and wildlife conservation, ensuring a future where both people and nature thrive.

    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. Wild meat is eaten by millions, but puts billions at risk – how to manage the trade – https://theconversation.com/wild-meat-is-eaten-by-millions-but-puts-billions-at-risk-how-to-manage-the-trade-252226

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Changing the Eurocentric narrative about the history of science – why multiculturalism matters

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Karen K. Christensen-Dalsgaard, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, MacEwan University

    An illustration by the medieval Islamic scholar Abu Rayhan al-Biruni depicting the phases of the moon in relation to the Sun. (Wikimedia Commons)
    The medieval Islamic mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al Haytham (965 – c. 1040) lived in Cairo, Egypt, during the Islamic golden Age and is considered the father of optics.
    (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY

    In the 11th century in Cairo, the foundations for modern science were laid through the detention of an innocent man.

    The mathematician Abu Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham had been tasked with regulating the flow of the Nile, but when he saw the river that had shaped 4,000 years of human civilization, the hubris of the task became all too obvious.

    To avoid the wrath of the Fatimid caliph in Egypt, Ibn al-Haytham supposedly feigned madness and was placed under house arrest, giving him time to focus on optics.

    In doing so, he developed a scientific method based on controlled, reproducible experiments and mathematics. This would not only change humanity’s understanding of optics and how our eyes actually see, but also later lay the foundations for empirical science in Europe.

    When I started teaching the history of biology, the importance of this pivotal period of scientific history was often diminished in western analysis of science history. Studying the contributions of non-western scholars has shown me what history can teach us about the value of multiculturalism.

    A video from The Smithsonian explaining Ibn al-Haytham’s experiments with light.



    Read more:
    Explainer: what Western civilisation owes to Islamic cultures

    A Eurocentric version of history

    The story typically told in the West is that science was invented in ancient Greece and then, following close to a millennium of intellectual darkness, developed in Western Europe over the past 500 years.

    Other cultures might have contributed a clever trick here or there, like inventing paper or creating our modern number system, but science as we know it was developed almost entirely by white men. As such it becomes a story of superiority, one that demands gratitude.

    The scars of this way of thinking are all over our geopolitical landscape. It shapes how many western leaders interact with other cultures, apparently entitling them to share their intellectual authority without needing to listen to others. It is a mindset that belittles other civilizations and led to centuries of colonial violence.

    This Eurocentric version of scientific history omits some of the most important events that shaped modern thinking. Science was not developed so much by individuals but by a highly complex global process that brought together ideas, lived experiences and approaches from all major civilizations.

    The Plimpton 322 clay tablet, with each row of the table relating to a Pythagorean triple, is believed to have been written in Babylonia around 1800 BCE, around 1,000 years before the Greek mathematician Pythagoras was born.
    (Wikimedia Commons)



    Read more:
    What was the first thing scientists discovered? A historian makes the case for Babylonian astronomy

    Ancient Greek scholarship, for instance, was indeed instrumental in developing science, but it was not inherently western. The Greek empire spanned much of the Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Scholars travelled extensively, and the centres of scholarship drifted over time from Ionia in present-day Turkey, for example, to Athens to Alexandria in Egypt.

    Greek natural philosophy was influenced by the mathematical and astronomical achievements of the Babylonians and the medical traditions of the Egyptians. Later, Alexandrian scholars made great advances in human anatomy when they overcame the Greek aversion to dissections, likely because of Egyptian influences. Natural philosophy was born from the merger of these scholarly traditions.



    Read more:
    Why are algorithms called algorithms? A brief history of the Persian polymath you’ve likely never heard of

    Importance of testing ideas

    Similarly, Ibn al-Haytham was one of thousands of scholars who, during the golden age of Islam, were engaged in the immense task of translating, combining and developing the world’s knowledge into great encyclopedic texts. They admired Indian and Chinese scholarship and technology but revered the ancient Greeks.

    While the Greeks had an impressive greatness of mind, they had largely shunned the idea of experiments and believed that developing instruments was the job of slaves.

    Many Arab scholars, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of experimentally testing ideas and developed scientific and surgical instruments that allowed for significant advances.

    The opening page from Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine.
    (Yale University Medical Historical Library)

    Arguably, Arab scholars built the foundations for modern science by developing a method for controlled experimentation and applying it to Greek scholarship combined with knowledge and technologies from all accessible parts of the world.

    Later, Latin translations of the Arabic texts would allow science to grow in the West from the intellectual ashes of medieval Catholicism. Texts like Ibn Sina’s Qānūn fī al-ṭibb (Canon of medicine) would become standard textbooks throughout Europe for hundreds of years.

    Ibn Al-Haytham inspired scholars like Roger Bacon to work toward European implementation of the scientific method. This would ultimately lead to Europe’s scientific revolution.



    Read more:
    Avicenna: the Persian polymath who shaped modern science, medicine and philosophy

    Importance of intercultural exchange

    Great civilizations existed all over the world in the beginning of the 16th century, in Africa, the Middle East, the Americas and East Asia. Most had scholarship that was superior to the West’s in at least some respects. Arguably, the most valuable thing Europeans took from the rest of the world was knowledge.

    The first vaccine, for instance, was based on variolation techniques developed in China, India and the Islamic world. People were inoculated against smallpox by blowing powdered scabs up their noses or rubbing pus into shallow cuts.

    Europeans believed that diseases were caused by bad air (miasma) and so did not initially trust this technique. It only became widespread in Europe and North America after English aristocrat Lady Montagu saw its efficacy firsthand in Constantinople in the early 18th century and advocated that it be tested in England.

    A vaccine developed by English physician Edward Jenner 80 years later was simply the well-known variolation technique made much safer by inoculating with cowpox instead.

    The importance of intercultural exchanges should not be surprising. Scientific data and observations are ideally objective, but the questions we ask and the conclusions we draw will always be subjective, shaped by our prior knowledge, beliefs and past experiences. Different cultures can help each other see beyond their inherent biases and grow beyond the intellectual constraints of individual approaches.

    In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Potawatomi botanist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer gives a beautiful example of this in the context of how Indigenous approaches can inform modern science.

    One of Canada’s greatest gifts is our diversity. Here, cultures from across the world come together, forming a multiplicity of minds that is well positioned to solve the problems of our world. However, this only has value if we can connect and learn from each other. When we advocate for a diversity of ideas in curricula, both nationally and abroad, we are promoting a future built on the knowledge of people and cultures from around the world.

    There is nothing more intimately personal than the thoughts in your head, and yet you did not conceive them. They are a continuation of knowledge and ideas that for thousands of years have travelled the globe, shaped by countless minds from all civilizations. In a time of seemingly growing division, that is a thought that ought to bring us all together.

    Karen K. Christensen-Dalsgaard 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. Changing the Eurocentric narrative about the history of science – why multiculturalism matters – https://theconversation.com/changing-the-eurocentric-narrative-about-the-history-of-science-why-multiculturalism-matters-252884

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Iran and US to enter high-stakes nuclear negotiations – hampered by a lack of trust

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ali Bilgic, Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics, Loughborough University

    The announcement of planned talks between the US and Iran in Oman signifies a crucial development – especially given the history of distrust and animosity that has characterised their interactions.

    There remains a degree of confusion as to whether the negotiations over Iran’s development of a nuclear capacity will be direct or indirect. The US has said that its Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, will meet Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. Donald Trump has publicly stated that Iran will be in “great danger” if the negotiations fail.

    Iran meanwhile has said that talks will be conducted through an intermediary. Araghchi commented that: “It is as much an opportunity as it is a test. The ball is in America’s court.”

    This seeming clash in messaging before the talks have even begun is not the greatest omen for their success, even with the threat of US or Israeli military action hovering over Iran. Representatives from Iran, China and Russia are reported to have met in Moscow on April 8.

    China’s foreign ministry released a statement reminding the world that it was the US “which unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA [the 2015 nuclear deal or joint comprehensive plan of action] and caused the current situation”. It stressed the need for Washington to “show political sincerity, act in the spirit of mutual respect, engage in dialogue and consultation, and stop the threat of force and maximum pressure”.

    This followed messaging from Washington which very much focused on the possibility of force and maximum pressure. Speaking to the press after meeting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump struck a very aggressive note, saying: “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and if the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran if that’s the case.”

    The US president’s much discussed transactional approach to diplomacy – as represented at the talks by Witkoff, a former real-estate developer – is likely be pivotal to how negotiations proceed. Trump’s geopolitical ambitions in the Middle East focus on expanding the Abraham accords. These agreements focused on normalising relations between Israel and various Arab countries – including UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.

    The signing of the accords in 2020 were seen as a key foreign policy achievement of Trump’s first administration, particularly in terms of America’s desire to counter Iran in the region.

    The US is now actively working to bring Saudi Arabia into the fold. In that respect, recognising that Riyadh’s participation would mark a transformative shift in regional geopolitics. Additionally, Trump aims to leverage trade agreements and major investment initiatives to create economic dependencies that encourage diplomatic normalisation.

    Iran, meanwhile, faces severe economic difficulties. The country’s economy is in a state of crisis, with high inflation, a depreciating currency and widespread poverty. These conditions have been worsened by international sanctions and domestic policy failures. As a result, Iran is in dire need of economic concessions, which could be a significant point of leverage for the US.

    Tehran’s geopolitical clout has weakened considerably over the past 18 months. Military setbacks in 2024 – including the loss of key allies and leaders in groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah – have diminished Iran’s ability to project power in its region.

    This weakened position will affect Iran’s negotiating stance. It could make it more likely that Iran’s negotiators might seek economic relief and diplomatic solutions rather than pursuing aggressive policies. But pressure from hardliners within Iran could push the country towards a more radical approach if concessions are not forthcoming.

    Rocky road ahead

    A major issue affecting the talks is the low level of trust between the two parties. The US’s involvement in the Gaza conflict – including Trump’s controversial proposal to clear Gaza of Palestinians to make way for possible redevelopment – has further strained relations. So has the recent US campaign against the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

    Further threats of this kind are likely to be seen by Iran as aggressive and coercive – and Trump’s latest rhetoric won’t have helped. This will inevitably undermine the prospects for trust between the parties.

    Iranian parliamentarians on the prospect of nuclear talks with the US.

    Iran’s scepticism is rooted in past experiences where promises of economic relief were not fulfilled. Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018 is a case in point. This perceived breach of trust has made Iran cautious about entering into new agreements without concrete assurances.

    The regional context adds another layer of complexity to the talks. American support for Israel’s actions in Gaza is likely to complicate matters. The populations of most Gulf states are fully supportive of Palestinian self-determination and are scandalised at the way the US president has seemingly given the green light to Israel’s breach of the ceasefire and resumption of hostilities.

    Iran’s internal politics are also likely to play an important role in shaping its approach to the negotiations. The country is experiencing significant political polarisation between the “hardliners”, spearheaded by the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and the “reformists”, who are relatively more conciliatory towards the US and Europe. Following the surprise election of Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist, last year, hopes that Iran would be open to negotiations with Washington quickly faltered when he realigned his position with Khamenei’s.

    In March 2025, he lost two important reformists in the cabinet, the economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, and vice-president, Mohammad Javad Zarif, forced out by the hardliner-dominated parliament. This factional politicking will complicate Iran’s ability to present a unified front in negotiations — and this could represent significant leverage for the US. But it also strengthens hardliners to make demands that are unacceptable to the US.

    Ali Bilgic 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. Iran and US to enter high-stakes nuclear negotiations – hampered by a lack of trust – https://theconversation.com/iran-and-us-to-enter-high-stakes-nuclear-negotiations-hampered-by-a-lack-of-trust-254106

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Hungary’s exit from the International Criminal Court is a sign of the times

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michal Ovadek, Lecturer in European Institutions, Politics and Policy, UCL

    After deciding to flout an international arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu, Hungary has become the first European country to announce plans to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC). This comes after president Viktor Orbán hosted Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for him in relation to war crimes in Gaza.

    As a member of the ICC, Hungary is supposed to turn in anyone subject to such a warrant if they enter its territory. Instead, Orbán rolled out the red carpet.

    Following the visit, a senior government official confirmed Hungary’s intention to leave the court. It will be some time before we know if it will see through on the threat because it takes at least a year to leave once a formal written notification has been sent but the signal itself is a landmark moment.

    Hungary’s open repudiation of an important part of international law is further evidence of the tectonic shifts taking place in international relations.

    Throughout most of the 1990s and early 2000s, much of western foreign policy was focused on creating institutional mechanisms aimed at preserving the liberal international consensus that emerged at the end of the cold war. The creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the ICC were two of the most concrete manifestations of this ethos.

    Both represent attempts to bring legal and judicial formality to international politics. Unlike its two ad-hoc antecedents – the international criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda – the ICC is a permanent court of justice. It is tasked with overseeing the criminal trials of people accused of involvement in serious crimes, such as genocide.

    Even at the height of its popularity, the idea that international relations should be subject to more rules and enforcement by courts had its fair share of sceptics and detractors, especially among countries whose interests and power could be most severely curtailed by an effective international justice system.

    The US, Russia and Israel had originally signed but did not ratify the Rome statute underpinning the ICC – and subsequently withdrew their signatures – while China and India never even signed the treaty.

    European countries generally (and EU member states specifically) were always among the most supportive of the ICC. The continent has experience with perhaps the most important experiment in international criminal justice, the Nuremberg trials of Nazi crimes. This legacy has continued to feed European support for holding those responsible for aggression and atrocities to account by means of criminal justice.

    Countries like Hungary, emerging from behind the iron curtain in the 1990s, were no exception. There was no ideological or practical reason to oppose the creation of the ICC.

    If anything, countries hoping to join the EU saw it as beneficial to endorse the court. Other than Belarus and Azerbaijan, every European country has ratified the Rome statute, and none has left – until now.

    The rise of kleptocratic authoritarianism in Hungary means its exit from the ICC should not be particularly surprising. Inside the EU, Hungary has consistently acted as a Trojan horse for the interests of authoritarian governments, most notably Russia, China and Serbia.

    Its break with the values and principles that are supposed to be at the heart of the EU project goes substantially beyond support for international institutions and justice.

    Consensus crumbles

    But the broader international environment has also become less favourable to legalisation and judicialisation. Countries that previously feigned commitment to international law have become outright pariahs. The most obvious example is of course Russia, which is waging a war of aggression against Ukraine – a crime under the Rome statute.

    More importantly, though, the US is increasingly turning its back on international rules. It is dismantling many of the international institutions it worked hard to establish.

    Although Donald Trump might be wreaking the most havoc, the US already effectively pulled the plug on the WTO’s judicial appeals system under Barack Obama. Last year Joe Biden’s administration came close to imposing sanctions on the ICC for issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli officials, including Netanyahu.

    Taken together, these developments leave the EU and a handful of other countries increasingly isolated in backing the ICC and other elements of the so-called “rules-based international order”. And while Hungary’s exit deals yet another blow, it’s not clear how deeply committed other EU member states are either.

    Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz promised he would find a way to make it possible for Netanyahu to visit his country despite the outstanding ICC arrest warrant.

    Hungary’s open defiance of its obligation to arrest Netanyahu has placed it in company of countries that wear their noncompliance with international law as a badge of honour. The experience of one of them is particularly educational.

    When Omar Al-Bashir, the then president of Sudan, wanted for crimes against humanity, visited South Africa in June 2015, he was allowed to attend a summit and subsequently leave the country despite court orders to arrest him. Fast forward a decade and South Africa is spearheading the international legal campaign against Israel’s atrocities in Palestine.

    Netanyahu would almost certainly be arrested in South Africa today, as well as in a host of other African and Muslim countries which had vehemently protested the arrest warrant against Al-Bashir in the past. Effective international rules and enforcement require consistent and credible support from a broad coalition of states – the ICC is increasingly short on both.

    Michal Ovadek 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. Hungary’s exit from the International Criminal Court is a sign of the times – https://theconversation.com/hungarys-exit-from-the-international-criminal-court-is-a-sign-of-the-times-254129

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Canada’s identity is at stake if we don’t equitably fund and support its music now

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rosheeka Parahoo, PhD Candidate, Musicology, Western University

    Amid a trade war, sovereignty threats and a federal election campaign, Canada is facing renewed calls for national unity.

    The need to define, refine and reassert what it means to be Canadian has never been stronger. To understand Canada, we need to listen.

    Canadian music is how one can hear Canadian identity. Now more than ever, we must ensure equitable funding for this vital part of Canada’s cultural fabric so that Canada’s past, present and future stories are preserved in all their complexity and diversity.

    As a PhD candidate in musicology with a focus on equity, diversity and inclusion in the Canadian music industry, I examine how systemic barriers shape this. I also explore strategies for advancing equity in creating, producing and promoting music in Canada.

    Canadian music industry

    Music has played a critical part in building Canadian identity.

    The recent rise in pro-Canada songs brought on by United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats of annexation demonstrates how powerful a medium music can be in voicing a nation’s frustrations.

    Canada has a unique chance to define its music on its own terms and better reflect the full diversity and complexity of Canadian identity through music. Canadian policymakers can bolster music-making, production and circulation while taking stock of broader discourses of what Canadian music includes, and more importantly, what it leaves out.

    For an industry that has strived to set itself apart from the American music scene, the time is ripe for Canada to increase and ensure equitable funding of the arts and music scenes.



    Read more:
    How Canadian R&B artists like Drake and Justin Bieber complicate ideas of race, music and nationality

    After recognizing American and British artists dominated airways, Canada introduced rules requiring radio stations to play homegrown music.
    (Shutterstock)

    Promise of representing all of Canada?

    In the 1960s and ‘70s, the Canadian government recognized that American and British artists were dominating the country’s airwaves. In response, it established the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and introduced Canadian content rules, requiring radio stations to dedicate airtime to homegrown music.

    The introduction of this policy, perhaps more protectionist than promotional in nature, was a pivotal moment because it meant that Canadian musicians could finally be heard in their own country.

    Many Canadian musicians and artists used this opportunity to speak out against injustice, inequality and erasure. Folk singers, Indigenous performers and artists from marginalized communities turned music into a form of resistance, challenging dominant narratives and redefining what it means to live in Canada.



    Read more:
    Junos 2023 reminds us how Canadian content regulations and funding supports music across the country

    Shrinking arts funding, barriers

    Now, decades later, we find the arts and music that once built Canadian identity isn’t an investment priority.

    This became especially clear during recent debates over the modernization of Canadian content regulations that spotlighted growing concerns from music industry stakeholders, such as artists and musicians’ associations, about shrinking arts funding, particularly for emerging and marginalized artists.

    Funding structures have shifted over the last several years, both in terms of government funding and artists’ revenue streams, leaving many artists, especially those from underrepresented communities, at greater risk. The result has been a music industry increasingly shaped by market forces.



    Read more:
    Artists’ Spotify criticisms point to larger ways musicians lose with streaming — here’s 3 changes to help in Canada

    Research on the Canadian music industry further complicates this. Industry reports from the Toronto Metropolitan University Diversity Institute shows that Black and Indigenous artists, and those from 2SLGBTQ+ communities, still face serious barriers to getting radio play, funding or recognition.

    The Canadian francophone music scene has also faced challenges, including being disproportionally impacted by streaming and a slim market share that puts its survival in peril. When it comes to radio play, funding and recognition, the promise of diverse Canadian music has seldom matched the reality.

    Who gets to define Canadian music?

    The recent renaming of the Minister of Canadian Heritage to the Minister of Canadian Culture and Identity, Parks Canada and Québec Lieutenant could signal a promising shift. This ministry oversees the Canadian Heritage Fund, which distributes much of Canada’s arts funding.

    In response to emailed questions from the media about the rebrand of this ministry, and how it might affect policy, Minister Steven Guilbeault, recently sworn into the new dossier, wrote that his appointment came at a time “when our national unity and shared identity have never been more important.”

    He added: “Our culture and values define who we are as a country. In a period of political uncertainty, I will make strengthening our Canadian identity a priority to safeguard our sovereignty.”

    Strengthening Canadian identity must include sustained investment in Canadian arts and music.

    While recent national frustrations and political sentiment might make it easier to gravitate towards a safer and nostalgic version of Canada’s identity, Canadian music is most powerful when it holds space for both comfort and complexity. Take the recent viral clip of Liberal Leader Mark Carney joking with comedian Mike Myers, quizzing him about his Canadian identity. “Tragically?” Carney asks. “Hip!” Myers replies.

    Liberal federal election ad showing Liberal Leader Mark Carney speaking with comedian Mike Myers. (The Independent)

    It is a charming exchange that evokes a sense of shared pride — rightly so — and familiarity. It is also a gentle reminder of how quickly the boundaries of Canadian identity and music can be reduced to a set of familiar artists.

    The Tragically Hip captured lyrical portraits of small-town life and touched on themes of loss and injustice, as in “Wheat Kings.” In contrast, artists like Tanya Tagaq confront colonial violence using a blend of Inuit throat singing with electronic influences, soundscapes and performance styles that reclaim Indigenous presence.

    Both stories are part of Canada, and have also resonated and found acclaim on global stages. Canadian music finds its power nested between the tension of comfort and critique.

    ‘Let the world know who we are’

    In a recent open letter to the arts community, Michelle Chawla, director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts, urged the sector to seize the moment: “We need the arts to let the world know who we are — an open, diverse and globally minded society.”

    She went on to emphasize that, as Canadians look to contribute more directly to the economy, the arts must be part of that vision. She noted decision-makers must understand the arts “have a vital role to play as part of the solution” as Canada navigates uncertain times.

    For policymakers, that means prioritizing funding for the arts and setting clear parameters to ensure this funding is distributed equitably, with meaningful support for emerging and underrepresented artists.

    For everyday Canadians, it means being open to stories that challenge us, and resisting the urge to simplify what Canadian music or identity is supposed to be. It also means supporting local artists and musicians, attending shows and investing in local music scenes.

    Now is the moment to invest in the arts and Canadian music industry, not just to preserve its past, but to ensure we continue telling bold, complex and uniquely Canadian stories. If we allow Canadian identity to become a curated artefact, and Canadian music to be stripped of its tension, complexity and defiance, we lose far more than funding. We lose the stories that make Canada, Canada.

    Rosheeka Parahoo 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. Canada’s identity is at stake if we don’t equitably fund and support its music now – https://theconversation.com/canadas-identity-is-at-stake-if-we-dont-equitably-fund-and-support-its-music-now-253674

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why you should think twice before using shorthand like ‘thx’ and ‘k’ in your texts

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By David Fang, PhD Student in Marketing, Stanford University

    When a texter chops words down, recipients sometimes sense a lack of effort. 35mmf2/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    My brother’s text messages can read like fragments of an ancient code: “hru,” “wyd,” “plz” – truncated, cryptic and never quite satisfying to receive. I’ll often find myself second-guessing whether “gr8” means actual excitement or whether it’s a perfunctory nod.

    This oddity has nagged at me for years, so I eventually embarked upon a series of studies with fellow researchers Sam Maglio and Yiran Zhang. I wanted to know whether these clipped missives might undermine genuine dialogue, exploring the unspoken signals behind digital shorthand.

    As we gathered data, surveyed people and set up experiments, it became clear that those tiny shortcuts – sometimes hailed as a hallmark of efficient communication – undermine relationships instead of simplifying them.

    Short words lead to feeling shortchanged

    Most people type “ty” and “brb” – for “thank you” and “be right back” – without batting an eye.

    In a survey we conducted of 150 American texters ages 18 to 65, 90.1% reported regularly using abbreviations in their daily messages, and 84.2% believed these shortcuts had either a positive effect or no meaningful impact on how the messages were perceived by the recipients.

    But our findings suggest that the mere inclusion of abbreviations, although seemingly benign, start feeling like a brush-off. In other words, whenever a texter chops words down to their bare consonants, recipients sense a lack of effort, which causes them to disengage.

    It’s a subtle but pervasive phenomenon that most people don’t intuit.

    We started with controlled lab tests, presenting 1,170 participants ages 15 to 80 with one of two near-identical text exchanges: one set sprinkled with abbreviations, the other fully spelled out. In every single scenario, participants rated the abbreviating sender as less sincere and far less worthy of a reply.

    The deeper we dug, the more consistent the pattern became.

    Whether people were reading messages about weekend plans or major life events, the presence of truncated words and phrases such as “plz,” “sry” or “idk” for “please,” “sorry” or “I don’t know” made the recipients feel shortchanged.

    The phenomenon didn’t stop with strangers. In more experiments, we tested whether closeness changed the dynamic. If you’re texting a dear friend or a romantic partner, can you abbreviate to your heart’s content?

    Evidently not. Even people imagining themselves chatting with a longtime buddy reported feeling a little put off by half-spelled words, and that sense of disappointment chipped away at how authentic the interaction felt.

    From Discord to dating apps

    Still, we had nagging doubts: Might this just be some artificial lab effect?

    We wondered whether real people on real platforms might behave differently. So we took our questions to Discord, a vibrant online social community where people chat about everything from anime to politics. More importantly, Discord is filled with younger people who use abbreviations like it’s second nature.

    We messaged random users asking them to recommend TV shows to watch. One set of messages fully spelled out our inquiry; the other set was filled with abbreviations. True to our lab results, fewer people responded to the abbreviated ask. Even among digital natives – youthful, tech-savvy users who are well versed in the casual parlance of text messaging – a text plastered with shortcuts still felt undercooked.

    If a few missing letters can sour casual chats, what happens when love enters the equation? After all, texting has become a cornerstone of modern romance, from coy flirtations to soul-baring confessions. Could “plz call me” inadvertently jeopardize a budding connection? Or does “u up?” hint at more apathy than affection? These questions guided our next foray, as we set out to discover whether the swift efficiency of abbreviations might actually short-circuit the delicate dance of courtship and intimacy.

    Our leap into the realm of romance culminated on Valentine’s Day with an online speed dating experiment.

    We paired participants for timed “dates” inside a private messaging portal, and offered half of them small incentives to pepper their replies with abbreviations such as “ty” instead of “thank you.”

    When it came time to exchange contact information, the daters receiving abbreviation-heavy notes were notably more reluctant, citing a lack of effort from the other party. Perhaps the most eye-opening evidence came from a separate study running a deep analysis of hundreds of thousands of Tinder conversations. The data showed that messages stuffed with abbreviations such as “u” and “rly” scored fewer overall responses and short-circuited conversations.

    If you can’t take the time to spell it out, is it sincere?
    Roman Didkivskyi/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    It’s the thought that counts

    We want to be clear: We’re not campaigning to ban “lol.” Our research suggests that a few scattered abbreviations don’t necessarily torpedo a friendship. Nor does every one of the many messages sent to many people every day warrant the full spelling-out treatment. Don’t care about coming across as sincere? Don’t need the recipient to respond? Then by all means, abbreviate away.

    Instead, it’s the overall reliance on condensed phrases that consistently lowers our impression of the sender’s sincerity. When we type “plz” a dozen times in a conversation, we risk broadcasting that the other person isn’t worth the extra letters. The effect may be subtle in a single exchange. But over time, it accumulates.

    If your ultimate goal is to nurture a deeper connection – be it with a friend, a sibling or a prospective date – taking an extra second to type “thanks” might be a wise investment.

    Abbreviations began as a clever workaround for clunky flip phones, with its keypad texting – recall tapping “5” three times to type the letter “L” – and strict monthly character limits. Yet here we are, long past those days, still trafficking in “omg” and “brb,” as though necessity never ended.

    After all of those studies, I’ve circled back to my brother’s texts with fresh eyes. I’ve since shared with him our findings about how those tiny shortcuts can come across as half-hearted or indifferent. He still fires off “brb” in half his texts, and I’ll probably never see him type “I’m sorry” in full. But something’s shifting – he typed “thank you” a few times, even threw in a surprisingly heartfelt “hope you’re well” the other day.

    It’s a modest shift, but maybe that’s the point: Sometimes, just a few more letters can let someone know they really matter.

    Sam Maglio, an Associate Professor of Marketing and Psychology at the University of Toronto, contributed to the writing of this article.

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

    – ref. Why you should think twice before using shorthand like ‘thx’ and ‘k’ in your texts – https://theconversation.com/why-you-should-think-twice-before-using-shorthand-like-thx-and-k-in-your-texts-248812

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Shark AI uses fossil shark teeth to get middle school kids interested in paleontology and computer vision

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Christine Wusylko, Postdoctoral Fellow in Educational Technology, University of Florida

    A student creates their model using Google Teachable Machine. Christine Wusylko, CC BY-ND

    Most kids have a natural curiosity about sharks − especially their sharp and abundant teeth. Our team had the idea to use the appeal of this charismatic apex predator to teach how scientists use artificial intelligence.

    We are researchers in AI literacy and STEM education who helped create a series of lessons that use fossil shark teeth to demonstrate the power and pitfalls of AI.

    The curriculum guides middle school students and teachers through building and evaluating computer vision models that can reliably classify fossil shark teeth. Computer vision is a type of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms and a lot of image data to classify and identify objects. It’s the same technology that enables Google Lens to identify plant species in photographs or self-driving cars to recognize people, cars and bicycles.

    Our free Shark AI curriculum has five modules, which are aligned with national and state science education standards. These standards outline the key knowledge and skills students should learn at each grade level. The lessons are designed to cultivate students’ interest in AI, data science, paleontology and the nature of science.

    Students learn about the different types of shark teeth and what they look like.
    Department of Education, University of Florida, CC BY-ND
    Shark AI students analyze various types of shark teeth.
    Bruce MacFadden photo composite, CC BY-ND

    The overall objective of Shark AI is to show that one does not have to be a computer scientist to use, teach or learn AI. We believe all teachers can and should be prepared to teach about AI in order to facilitate the technology’s meaningful integration into K-12 education.

    Teaching science with AI

    AI is already transforming our lives at a dizzying pace.

    To help prepare kids to live and work in an AI world, it is important for them to learn about the technology in school. Most of the resources available to teach AI in K-12 classrooms focus on the technology itself. As a result, these lessons may be offered only in specialty classes such as computer science and engineering, which may not be offered to all students at all schools.

    Systematic integration of AI in education is relatively new, so many teacher preparation programs are just beginning to incorporate it. There’s a need for professional learning opportunities for teachers already working in schools to learn about AI.

    Our research shows science teachers have a variety of preconceptions about AI. Additionally, many teachers are worried about teaching something they have little experience with. Nearly half of educators told EdWeek in a survey that “they’re uncomfortable with AI technology,” suggesting they are unlikely to add AI lessons to their already packed curriculum.

    Sorting sharks’ teeth

    To break down that unfamiliarity, the curriculum starts by introducing the various types of AI, such as natural language processing, automated speech recognition and computer vision. Students then get to work with fossil kits containing 15 real fossil shark teeth and one 3D-printed megalodon tooth. Megalodons were behemoth sharks that roamed the waters starting 20 million years ago and are now extinct. Students sort teeth in any way they want – such as by size, color or shape. Then, they learn how scientists typically classify fossils and practice sorting the teeth by species of shark and by what it eats.

    A student examines the features of a shark tooth fossil.
    Christine Wusylko, CC BY-ND

    After this, students use Google Teachable Machine, a free, online tool that uses the powerful TensorFlow.js machine learning model trained on millions of images. That creates their own computer vision model to classify fossil shark teeth. The data they use can be pictures they take of the real teeth in their kits or pictures they upload from databases such as the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History paleobiology digital collection or iDigBio.

    The models occasionally misclassify teeth, which creates an opportunity for teachers to discuss bias and limitations of computer vision, such as why it is important to train AI on lots of high-quality and diverse images.

    The Shark AI curriculum concludes with students creating, showcasing and discussing their own computer vision models.

    Different ways students classify fossils.
    Christine Wusylko, CC BY-ND

    Through these activities, students learn about AI concepts such as the strengths and weaknesses of AI compared with human intelligence along with paleontology concepts such as the fossil record or the information that can be learned about the history of life on Earth by studying fossils.

    Teachers have the flexibility to modify the activities, sequence and time they want to spend on the curriculum. This allows them to highlight the aspects that make most sense for their instructional needs and goals.

    To prepare teachers to use Shark AI, we host a weeklong professional learning session in which teachers learn how AI is used in science. They also practice doing the activities in the curriculum, and we leave plenty of time for discussion to demystify the technology.

    An important component of the training is to create a community for the teachers. They have opportunities to check in, brainstorm and troubleshoot together throughout the year.

    The Shark AI staff also checks in frequently with teachers individually to provide personalized support, usually troubleshooting questions about Google Teachable Machine. The teachers meet as a group once every few months to build community.

    Instructors work with Shark AI teachers during the weeklong professional learning session.
    Photos courtesy of the UF College of Education., CC BY-ND

    With these supports, we have found that teachers can change their understanding and beliefs about AI, and feel comfortable and prepared to teach science with AI methods.

    Christine Wusylko works for the University of Florida and receives funding from the NSF.

    Pavlo Antonenko works for the University of Florida and receives funding from the NSF.

    – ref. Shark AI uses fossil shark teeth to get middle school kids interested in paleontology and computer vision – https://theconversation.com/shark-ai-uses-fossil-shark-teeth-to-get-middle-school-kids-interested-in-paleontology-and-computer-vision-251125

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –