In 2023, Ethiopia had a total school-aged population of 35,444,482 children, about 52% of them primary school-aged. In the same year, only 22,949,597 children were enrolled in schools, leaving over 35% of school-aged children out of school. In the past year, the ongoing humanitarian crisis has worsened the situation, forcing even more children out of school.
Armed conflict erupted in 2020 between the federal government and Tigray regional government. The crisis was compounded by armed resistance to the government in the two largest regional states, Amhara and Oromia. There are also ongoing conflicts between the pastoralist communities of the Afar and Somali regions.
The Tigray war drained the nation’s economic resources. The destruction of infrastructure, particularly schools, in this conflict forced over a million children out of school. Since then conflict in the nine regions has also undermined government control, causing widespread disruptions to essential services, including education and healthcare.
The numbers tell the story. As of November 2024, around 10,000 schools were damaged and over 6,000 schools were closed due to conflict, violence and natural disasters. The worst hit regions are Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, Somali and Afar.
In three of these – Amhara, Oromia and Tigray – a total of 8,910,000 children are out of school. Amhara is particularly hard hit with only 2.3 million students enrolling for the current academic year out of 7 million.
I am a scholar of education policy with close to 15 years of research on Ethiopia’s education sector. It’s my view that children have borne the heaviest burden from the challenges that have overwhelmed the country’s capacity to provide essential services.
Leaving millions of children out of school has devastating consequences. There is a well documented increased risk of child labour, early marriage, and other forms of exploitation. Children who miss out on early education also face lifelong disadvantages, including limited employment opportunities and greater vulnerability to poverty and social exclusion.
When children are not in school and miss out on learning, the consequences are far-reaching. At a personal level, disrupted education hinders their cognitive, social and emotional development. It limits their ability to acquire skills needed for personal growth and future employment. At the societal level, a lack of education drives cycles of poverty, reduces economic productivity and weakens social cohesion. Under-educated citizens are less equipped to take an active part in civic life. It also stifles innovation, worsens inequalities and holds back national progress and stability.
Despair and hopelessness have driven countless young people from Ethiopia to risk their lives on dangerous migration routes to the Middle East. The loss of educational opportunities for millions of children also undermines the nation’s capacity to develop the human capital needed for its growth. An uneducated population is more susceptible to being drawn into ongoing conflict.
What can be done?
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in April 2018 with a pledge of change for Ethiopia. But Abiy’s government often sidesteps critical challenges, choosing to amplify positive narratives over confronting pressing issues.
Instead of tackling the crisis directly, Abiy has left regional state governments to find resources. For example, in November 2024, it was left to an advocacy group formed by Amhara’s ten public universities to appeal to donors for aid for education.
In early January 2025, the Amhara regional state government also asked stakeholders to help reopen closed schools. In Ethiopia’s federal structure, the education ministry sets national policies and standards, and manages higher education. Regional governments carry out these policies, oversee primary and secondary education, and adapt curricula to local contexts. Budgets are shared based mainly on the population size of each regional state.
Denying the reality of the crisis only deepens the wounds of the nation and delays the necessary actions for peace and recovery. It’s now time for Abiy’s government to take action. It must:
confront the crisis
engage in dialogue to resolve conflicts
appeal for international support.
The scale of the disruption demands a coordinated and comprehensive humanitarian response. Global development aid partners need to recognise that the education crisis in Ethiopia deserves immediate and sustained attention. Another round of global funds dedicated to education in emergencies is urgently needed.
The collective duty should extend beyond providing immediate relief. It should also encourage the Ethiopian government to resolve its various internal conflicts through peaceful dialogue. Diplomacy, negotiation and reconciliation should take precedence over war and violence.
Tebeje Molla 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.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe P. Kanosvamhira, Post-doctoral researcher, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town
Urban farms like this one in Nouakchott, Mauritania, have many benefits.John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images)
Urban agriculture takes many forms, among them community, school or rooftop gardens, commercial urban farms, and hydroponic or aquaponic systems. These activities have been shown to promote sustainable cities in a number of ways. They enhance local food security and foster economic opportunities through small-scale farming initiatives. They also strengthen social cohesion by creating shared spaces for collaboration and learning.
However, evidence from some African countries (and other parts of the world) shows that very few young people are getting involved in agriculture, whether in urban, peri-urban or rural areas. Studies from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Nigeria show that people aged between 15 and 34 have very little interest in agriculture, whether as an educational pathway or career. They perceive farming as physically demanding, low-paying and lacking in prestige. Systemic barriers like limited access to land, capital and skills also hold young people back.
South Africa has a higher rate of young people engaging in farming (24%) than elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this number could be higher if young people better understood the benefits of a career in farming and if they had more support.
In a recent study I explored youth-driven urban agriculture in Khayelitsha, a large urban area outside Cape Town whose residents are mostly Black, low-income earners.
The young urban farmers I interviewed are using community gardens to grow more than vegetables. They’re also nurturing social connections, creating economic and business opportunities, and promoting environmental conservation. My findings highlight the transformative potential of youth-driven urban agriculture and how it can be a multifaceted response to urban challenges. It’s crucial that policy makers recognise the value of youth-led urban agriculture and support those doing the work.
The research
Khayelitsha is vibrant and bustling. But its approximately 400,000 residents have limited resources and often struggle to make a living.
I interviewed members of two youth-led gardens. One has just two members; the other has six. All my interviewees were aged between 22 and 27. The relatively low number of interviewees is typical of qualitative research, where the emphasis is placed on depth rather than breadth. This approach allows researchers to obtain detailed, context-rich data from a small, focused group of participants.
The first garden was founded in January 2020, just a few months before the pandemic struck. The founders wanted to tackle unemployment and food insecurity in their community. They hoped to create jobs for themselves and others, and to provide nutritional support, particularly for vulnerable groups like children with special needs.
The second garden was established in 2014 by three childhood friends. They were inspired by one founder’s grandmother, who loved gardening. They also wanted to promote organic farming, teach people healthy eating habits, and create a self-reliant community.
All of my interviewees were activists for food justice. This refers to efforts aimed at addressing systemic inequities in food production, distribution, and access, particularly for marginalised communities. It advocates for equitable access to nutritious, culturally appropriate food.
One of the gardens, for instance, operates about 30 beds. It cultivates a variety of produce: beetroot, carrots, spinach, pumpkins, potatoes, radishes, peas, lettuce and herbs. 30% of its produce is donated to local community centres each month (they were unable to say how many people benefited from this arrangement). The rest is sold to support the garden financially. Its paying clients include local restaurants and chefs, and members of the community. The garden also partners with schools, hospitals and other organisations to promote healthy eating and sustainable practices.
The second garden, which is on land belonging to a local early childhood development centre, also focuses on feeding the community, as well as engaging in food justice activism.
Skills, resilience and connections
The gardens also help members to develop skills. Members gain practical knowledge about sustainable agriculture, marketing and entrepreneurship, all while managing operations and planning for growth.
This hands-on experience instils a sense of responsibility and gives participants valuable skills they can apply in future careers or ventures. The founder of the first garden told me his skills empowered him to seek help from his own community rather than waiting for government intervention. He approached the management of an early childhood development centre in the community to request space on their land, and this was granted.
Social connections have been essential to the gardens’ success. Bonding capital (close ties within their networks) and bridging capital (connections beyond their immediate community) has allowed them to strengthen relationships between themselves and civil society organisations. They’ve also been able to mobilise resources, as in the case of the first garden accessing community land.
Additionally, the gardens foster community resilience. Members host workshops and events to educate residents about healthy eating, sustainable farming and environmental stewardship.
By donating produce to local early childhood centres, they provide direct benefits to those most in need. These efforts have transformed the gardens into safe spaces for the community.
Broader collaboration has also been key to the gardens’ success. For instance, the second garden has worked with global organisations and networks, like the Slow Food Youth Network, to share and gain knowledge about sustainable farming practices.
Room for growth
My findings highlight the need for targeted support for youth-driven urban agriculture initiatives. Policy and financial backing can enable these young gardeners to expand their efforts. This in turn will allow them to provide more food to their communities, create additional jobs, and empower more young people.
At a policy level, the government could prioritise land access for urban agriculture projects, especially in under-served communities. Cities can foster an environment for youth initiatives to thrive by allocating spaces within their planning for urban farming.
There’s also a need for educational programmes that emphasise the value of sustainable urban agriculture, and workshops and training on entrepreneurship and sustainable farming techniques. Community organising could further empower young farmers. Finally, continued collaboration with national and international food networks would help strengthen such initiatives.
Tinashe P. Kanosvamhira 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.
Zimbabwean students and graduates are actively seeking change to the education system.AFP via Getty Images
Education, especially higher education, is a step towards adulthood and a foundation for the future.
But what happens when education loses its value as a way to climb the social ladder? What if a degree is no guarantee of getting stable work, being able to provide for one’s family, or owning a house or car?
This devaluing of higher education as a path to social mobility is a grim reality for young Zimbabweans. Over the past two decades the southern African country has been beset by economic, financial, political and social challenges.
These crises have severely undermined the premises and promises of education, especially at a tertiary level. A recent survey by independent research organisation Afrobarometer found that 90% of young Zimbabweans had secondary and post-secondary education compared to 83% of those aged between 36 and 55. But 41% of the youth were unemployed and looking for a job as opposed to 26% of the older generation.
The situation is so dire that it’s become a recurring theme in Zimdancehall, a popular music genre produced and consumed by young Zimbabweans. “Hustling” (attempts to create income-generating opportunities), informal livelihoods and young people’s collapsed dreams are recurrent topics in songs like Winky D’s Twenty Five, Junior Tatenda’s Kusvikira Rinhi and She Calaz’s Kurarama.
I study the way people experience the informal economy in Zimbabwe and Zambia. In a recent study I explored the loss of education’s value as a social mobility tool in the Zimbabwean context.
My research revealed how recent school and university graduates think about the role of education in their lives. My respondents felt let down by the fact that education no longer provided social mobility. They were disappointed that there was no longer a direct association between education and employment.
However, the graduates I interviewed were not giving up. Some were working towards new qualifications, hoping and preparing for economic improvements. They also thought deeply about how the educational system could be improved. Many young people got involved in protests. These included actions by the Coalition of Unemployed Graduates and the #ThisGown protests, which addressed graduate unemployment issues. Some also took part in #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka protests, which had wider socio-economic and political agendas.
Understanding history
To understand the current status and state of education in Zimbabwe it’s important to look to the country’s history.
Zimbabwe was colonised by the British from the late 19th century. The colonial education system was racialised. Education for white students was academic. For Black students, it was mostly practice-oriented, to create a pool of semi-skilled workers.
In the 1930s education was instrumental in the formation of Zimbabwe’s Black middle class. A small number of Black graduates entered white collar jobs, using education as a social mobility tool. The educational system also opened up somewhat for women.
However, worsening economic conditions throughout the 1990s put pressure on the system. A presidential commission in 1999 noted that secondary schools were producing graduates with non-marketable skills – they were too academic and focused on examinations. Students’ experiences, including at the university level, have worsened since then.
The decline has been driven by systemic and institutional problems in primary and secondary education, like reduced government spending, teachers’ poor working conditions, political interference and brain drain. This, coupled with the collapse of the formal economic sector and a sharp drop in formal employment opportunities, severely undermined education’s social mobility function.
‘A key, but no door to open’
My recent article was based on my wider doctoral research. For this, I studied economic informalisation in Zimbabwe’s capital city, Harare. It involved more than 120 interviews during eight months of in-country research.
This particular paper builds on seven core interviews with recent school and university graduates in the informal sector, as well as former student leaders.
Winky D’s “Twenty Five” is about young Zimbabweans’ grievances.
Some noted that education had lost part of its value as it related to one’s progression in society. As one of my respondents, Ashlegh Pfunye (former secretary-general of the Zimbabwe National Students Union), described it, young people were told that education was a key to success – but there was no door to open.
Some of my respondents were working in the informal sector, as vendors and small-scale producers. Some could not use their degrees to secure jobs, while others gave up their dreams of obtaining a university degree. Lisa, for example, was very upset about giving up on her dream to pursue post-secondary education and tried to re-adjust to her current circumstances:
I used to dream that I will have my own office, now I dream that one day I’ll have my own shop.
Those who had university qualifications stressed that, despite being unable to apply their degrees in the current circumstances, they kept going to school and getting more certification. This prepared them for future opportunities in the event of what everyone hoped for: economic improvement.
Historical tensions
Some of my interviewees, especially recent university graduates and activists, were looking for possible solutions – like changing the curriculum and approach to education that trains workers rather than producers and entrepreneurs. As Makomborero Haruzivishe, former secretary-general of the Zimbabwe National Students’ Union, said: “Our educational system was created to train human robots who would follow the instructions.”
Entrepreneurship education is a popular approach in many countries to changing the structure of classic education. In the absence of employment opportunities for skilled graduates, it is supposed to provide them with the tools to create such opportunities for themselves and others.
In 2018, the government introduced what it calls the education 5.0 framework. It has a strong entrepreneurship component. It’s too soon to say whether it will bear fruit. And it may be held back by history.
For example, the introduction of the Education-with-Production model in the 1980s, which included practical subjects and vocational training, was met with resistance because it was seen as a return to the dual system.
Because of Zimbabwe’s historically racialised education system, many students and parents favour the UK-designed Cambridge curriculum and traditional academic educational programmes. Zimbabwe has the highest number of entrants into the Cambridge International exam in Africa.
Feeling let down
The link between education and employment in Zimbabwe has many tensions: modernity and survival, academic pursuits and practicality, promises and reality. It’s clear from my study that graduates feel let down because the modernist promises of education have failed them.
Parts of this research have been funded by the University of Oxford and the Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2022-055).
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Christian Siderius, Senior researcher in water and food security, London School of Economics and Political Science
Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is growing at 2.7% per year and is expected to reach two billion by the year 2050. The region’s urban population is growing even faster: it was at 533 million in 2023, a 3.85% increase from 2022.
The need to feed this population will put pressure on land and water resources.
I’m part of a group of researchers who have looked at whether regional food production would be sufficient to supply growing urban populations. By and large, we have found high levels of food self-sufficiency. But climate change could put a spanner in the works.
We have also looked at the potential of local water conservation measures to help achieve food self-sufficiency in sub-Saharan Africa.
Our study shows that measures such as better irrigation or water harvesting could boost food production while buffering the vagaries of weather.
We found that ambitious – yet realistic – adoption of such measures increases food supply to cities and makes the region as a whole self-sufficient.
A new model
In large parts of eastern Africa, rainfall is relatively abundant and well distributed over the growing season, resulting in good yields. In future, however, the gap between water availability and crop water demand is expected to increase.
We wanted to know whether sub-Saharan Africa would be able to increase its food production to meet future demand, in a changing climate. To do so, we built a novel foodshed model which simulates crop production using climate data and links urban demand to nearby food supply. Foodsheds have been defined as areas where supply matches demand. We assessed various water management measures that could buffer weather variability or increase production (or both). Understanding the potential of such measures can help mobilise and target much needed investments in Africa’s food system.
Conserving water and growing more food
First, we looked at whether regional food production was sufficient to supply growing urban populations.
Combining large databases and crop simulations, we outlined the regions that food might come from for urban areas. Sub-Saharan Africa produces 85% of its overall crop food demand at present, according to our calculations, much of it in eastern Africa. Tanzania, Kenya, and even Uganda – if it were to use its food exports for domestic consumption – come close to being self-sufficient.
Local exceptions are the large cities of Mombasa, the largest port city in Kenya, and Arusha, an important tourism and diplomatic and conference hub in Tanzania, and their immediate surroundings.
In future, a larger population will demand more food. At the same time, the gap between how much water is available and how much crops need is expected to increase. Higher water losses due to higher temperatures will not be fully compensated for by changes in rainfall, according to climate model projections. And even where rainfall is projected to increase, more extreme events are likely to affect crop production. It might rain either too much or too little, which will lead to higher year-to-year variability.
Our study shows that local water conservation measures could buffer some of the projected negative impacts of climate change in eastern Africa. It could also boost food production.
Water harvesting, soil conservation and making sure water infiltrates in the soil would slow runoff and store more water in the soil.
Irrigation systems should be gradually upgraded to drip irrigation or sprinklers. This will improve irrigation efficiency and water consumption. On rainfed areas, rainwater harvesting reservoirs should be installed. The water stored could be used for supplemental irrigation during dry periods. Soil moisture conservation measures will also be applied. These measures will prevent water from evaporating from the bare soil. Irrigation could offset occasional drought risk and so provide better financial stability or create possibilities for planting a different or a second or third crop, further increasing production and income.
Even the foodsheds of rapidly growing cities such as Dar es Salaam in Tanzania will be able to supply enough to meet demand from relatively short distances.
Large scale expansion of irrigation onto new lands should, however, be considered carefully. Potential trade-offs with energy and tourism incomes must equally be considered.
In an earlier study, assessing Tanzania’s ambitious formal irrigation expansion plans, we found that expansion without water conservation measures would pose considerable risk to hydropower production in the new Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project. It would also be a risk to river-dependent ecosystems and national parks and the substantial tourism income that they generate.
Producing more food in Africa is essential to keep pace with population growth and changing diets. The alternative is an increasing dependence on imports from outside the continent. In 2021, the total value of Africa’s food imports was roughly US$100 billion. Imports can be a useful supplement to local production, but major food exporters in Europe and America are already producing at peak productivity. They have limited scope to increase area and production.
Security concerns around global supply chains in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and broader geo-political realignment have also made countries wary of relying too much on others.
Our study confirms the potential of Africa to supply much of the increased demand for food within the continent. We looked at all food crops, including regionally important ones such as cassava, beans and millet. Countries in eastern Africa play a pivotal role.
Improved productivity due to measures proposed would reduce the need for more land elsewhere to grow crops, and limit conflicts related to land use. This is equally important for biodiversity and tourism.
What we propose requires large investments. Exploring these costs against benefits in a case study in the Rufiji basin in Tanzania we found that most water management measures would be cost effective, but only when considering the overall impact of water conservation on agriculture, hydropower production, and the riverine ecosystem.
Not all farmers will be able to finance these measures themselves. The government and private sector have to provide incentives, reduce risks and increase access to affordable loans.
Nor should these measures be taken in isolation. Other buffer mechanisms to support a stable food supply are increased storage facilities for food, diversified production, and stable and diversified trade relationships.
With farmers innovating, the region’s infrastructure rapidly developing, and expanding urban areas becoming catalysts for growth, there is both the need and the scope to further invest in and improve the region’s food system.
Christian Siderius received funding to conduct this research from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) for the Future Water Challenges project (E555182DA/5200000978/9) and in preparation of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit. Other cited work was carried out under the Future Climate for Africa UMFULA project with financial support from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (grants NE/M020398/1 and NE/M020258) and the UK government’s former
Department for International Development.
Christian is a director and founder of Uncharted Waters Ltd, a not-for-profit climate-food system analytics company, and a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom, and Visiting Senior Researcher the Water Resources Management group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands
African Perspectives on Agroecology is a new book with 33 contributions from academics, non-governmental organisations, farmer organisations and policy makers. It is free to download, and reviewers have described it as a “must read for all who care about the future of Africa and its people”. The book outlines how agroecology, which brings ecological principles into farming practices and food systems, can solve food shortages and environmental damage caused by mass, commercial farming. We asked the book’s editor and the South African Research Chair on Environmental and Social Dimensions of the Bio-economy, Rachel Wynberg, to set out why this book is so important.
What’s wrong with the current system of food production?
The dominant model of modern agriculture in the world is based on monoculture, where one crop is grown across large areas using chemical fertilisers and pesticides. It relies on seeds that are owned by big corporations and are often subsidised by governments at a high cost.
The book outlines how this approach to growing food is flawed. Firstly, it carries major costs. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s State of Food and Agriculture 2024 report, the costs of diet-related disease, hunger and malnutrition and other costs amount to about US$8 trillion a year. Countries in the global south carry much of the burden.
Secondly, the current approach is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This happens through deforestation and land degradation, livestock and fertiliser emissions, energy use, and the globalised nature of agriculture. Food is often produced far from where it is consumed.
Huge farmlands also wipe out biodiversity and degrade one third of all soils, globally. Industrial agriculture has many negative impacts on ecosystem health, livestock and human wellbeing.
What’s the alternative?
Agroecology is a good alternative. It uses natural processes such as fixing nitrogen in the soil by planting legumes, and conserving natural habitat to encourage beneficial predators that keep pests in check. It includes planting a diversity of crops, rather than just one, to prevent pest outbreaks, and avoiding synthetic pesticides and herbicides.
Agroecology places importance on building natural, local, economically viable and socially just food systems. It aims to support farmers and rural communities.
As a result, it fosters more equal social relations and improves food and nutritional security.
Agroecology also recognises local ways of knowing and doing things, and respects the rights of Indigenous people to seeds and plants that they have planted for many generations. Transforming research and education are an important part of agroecology.
What are the advantages?
Agroecology increases the capacity of farming systems to adapt to climate change. Studies show how agroecology increases crop yields, regulates water and nutrients, increases agricultural diversity and reduces pests.
It gives farmers more choice about what to grow and eat. This enables them to produce a wider variety of healthy food.
Can agroecology grow enough food for everyone?
Agroecology can be scaled up through:
farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchanges
creating professional networks of agroecology practitioners
local seed-saving networks or groups that share different seeds that are adapted to local conditions
solidarity networks: community-based groups or movements that aim to support each other, cooperate and take collective action.
the revival and use of indigenous and under-utilised crops and livestock breeds such as pearl and finger millet, sorghum and Nguni cattle
linking producers with consumers and markets.
What needs to be done?
Urgent actions are needed, especially in the climate “hotspot” of sub-Saharan Africa. Agroecology needs supportive policies and funding. South Africa has had a draft agroecology strategy for more than 10 years but this has not yet been adopted.
Development aid for farmers often undermines agroecology. It typically promotes a “new” African Green Revolution that uses hybrid seeds, agrochemicals, new technologies, and links to markets. However, hybrid seed, especially genetically modified seed, can contaminate local seed systems that are better adapted to local conditions.
The book illustrates what can go wrong. Maize is said to have “modernised” development and promoted foreign investment in Africa. But it has displaced indigenous crops such as sorghum and millet which are more nutritious and drought-resistant.
Governments, industry and those funding research, innovation and consumer marketing must actively move away from a maize culture and invest in a bigger range of crops.
For millions of smallholder African farmers, there is a deep understanding of how animals, plants, soil, people and weather patterns are connected to and affect one another. Agricultural development programmes, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides, and genetically modified seeds disrupt these relationships. They can devalue local knowledge and skills in favour of “expert”-led innovations. This means that farmers lose their capacity to understand their environment and their ability to react appropriately.
Lastly, agriculture research and training needs to be rethought. Research and development is now mostly shaped by market-led approaches that favour crops grown by large-scale commercial farmers. A public sector research and development agenda for agroecology needs to be developed. It should be based both on scientific knowledge as well as traditional and local knowledge.
What would help?
Agricultural research should be co-created by everyone involved. Farmer-led research and innovation can support food system transformations.
New ways of seeing and doing research are evolving. Western scientific and traditional knowledges are mixing in ways that can transform farming. Our book points out that social movements are emerging as a powerful force for change.
We hope to support these efforts through a new, four year, European Union supported initiative to establish a research and training network: the Research for Agroecology Network in Southern Africa. New agroecology knowledge networks in South Africa and Zimbabwe have also been started to coordinate research and develop curricula.
Rachel Wynberg’s research is supported by a grant from the Seed and Knowledge Initiative and South Africa’s National Research Foundation. She is a Board member of the NGO Biowatch South Africa.
In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis called for a radical break with consumerist lifestyles.Ricardo Perna/Shutterstock
On May 24, 2015, Pope Francis signed his encyclical Laudato Si’ – “Praise be to you” in medieval Italian. This letter to Roman Catholic bishops was no half measure: it took many Catholics by surprise with its uncompromising conclusions and call for an in-depth transformation of our lifestyles. In France, it managed to bring together both conservative currents – such as the Courant pour une écologie humaine (Movement for a Human Ecology), created in 2013 – and more open-minded Catholic intellectuals such as Gaël Giraud, a Jesuit and author of Produire plus, polluer moins : l’impossible découplage ? (Produce more, Pollute Less: the Impossible Decoupling?).
“Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation.”
What does Pope Francis’s encyclical teach us? And how does it reflect the Catholic Church’s vision, and his own?
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The “green” pope
In the text, Pope Francis describes a situation in which the environment is deteriorating rapidly:
“There is […] pollution that affects everyone, caused by transport, industrial fumes, substances which contribute to the acidification of soil and water, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and agrotoxins in general.” (§-20)
Laudato Si’ was published by the Vatican on June 18, 2015, a few months prior to the Paris climate conference. For the “green” pope, the aim was to raise public awareness around the challenges of global warming by creating a relational approach that included God, human beings and the Earth. It was the first time an encyclical had been devoted wholly to ecology.
In it, the Pope voiced his concern about the effects of global warming:
“Warming has effects on the carbon cycle. It creates a vicious circle which aggravates the situation even more, affecting the availability of essential resources like drinking water, energy and agricultural production in warmer regions, and leading to the extinction of part of the planet’s biodiversity.” (§-24)
Criticizing a “technocratic paradigm”
Since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the various social encyclicals have consistently rejected the liberal idea of a society solely regulated by the smooth functioning of the market. The French sociologist of religion Émile Poulat summed up the Church’s position perfectly in 1977 in his book Église contre bourgeoisie. Introduction au devenir du catholicisme actuel, in which he writes that the Church “never agreed to abandon the running of the world to the blind laws of economics.”
In 2015, Pope Francis rejected technical solutions that would not truly be useful, as well as the belief in the redeeming virtues of a self-regulating market. He accused “the technocratic paradigm” of dominating humankind by subordinating the economic and political spheres to its logic (§-101). His comments are reminiscent of the unjustly forgotten French Protestant philosopher Jacques Ellul and his idea of a limitless “self-propulsion” of technology, which has become the alpha and omega of our societies.
For Jacques Ellul, technology is anything but neutral since it represents genuine power driven by its own movement. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
The pope’s charge against the supposed virtues of the market was spectacular. Among others, he criticized the following:
overconsumption in developed countries:
“Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products, people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending.” (§-203);
the glorification of profit and a self-regulating market:
“Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems.” (§-109);
the hypertrophy of speculative finance:
“Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy.” (§-189);
the unequal distribution of wealth in the world:
“In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet: […] the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest.” (§-48);
the unequal levels of development between countries, leading Francis to speak of an “ecological debt” owed by rich countries to the least developed ones (§-51).
Social justice and shrinking growth
In Francis’s words, the goals of saving the planet and social justice go hand in hand. His approach is in keeping with the work of the [economist Louis-Joseph Lebret, a Dominican, who in 1941 founded the association Économie et humanisme. Father Lebret wanted to put the economy back at the service of humankind, and work with the least economically advanced countries by championing an approach based on the virtues of local communities and regional planning.
Pope Francis, for his part, is calling for a radical break with the consumerist lifestyles of rich countries, while focusing on the development of the poorest nations (§-93). In Laudato Si’, he also wrote that developed countries’ responses seemed insufficient because of the economic interests at stake (§-54).
This brings us back to the principle of the universal destination of goods – the organizing principle of property defended by the Catholic Church’s social doctrine, which demands that goods be distributed in such a way as to enable every human being to live in dignity.
In addition to encouraging the necessary technical adjustments and sober individual practices, Pope Francis is urging citizens in developed countries not to be content with half measures deemed largely insufficient. Instead, he is calling for people to make lifestyle changes in line with the logic of slowing growth. The aim is to enable developing countries to emerge from poverty, while sparing the environment.
“Given the insatiable and irresponsible growth produced over many decades, we need also to think of containing growth by setting some reasonable limits and even retracing our steps before it is too late. […] That is why the time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth.” (§ -193).
Nearly 10 years on, Laudato Si’ resonates fully with our concerns. In the United States, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who both identify as Catholic, would be well advised to read it anew.
Bernard Laurent is a member of the CFTC and of the IRES Scientific Council
In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis called for a radical break with consumerist lifestyles.Ricardo Perna/Shutterstock
On May 24, 2015, Pope Francis signed his encyclical Laudato Si’ – “Praise be to you” in medieval Italian. This letter to Roman Catholic bishops was no half measure: it took many Catholics by surprise with its uncompromising conclusions and call for an in-depth transformation of our lifestyles. In France, it managed to bring together both conservative currents – such as the Courant pour une écologie humaine (Movement for a Human Ecology), created in 2013 – and more open-minded Catholic intellectuals such as Gaël Giraud, a Jesuit and author of Produire plus, polluer moins : l’impossible découplage ? (Produce more, Pollute Less: the Impossible Decoupling?).
“Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation.”
What does Pope Francis’s encyclical teach us? And how does it reflect the Catholic Church’s vision, and his own?
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The “green” pope
In the text, Pope Francis describes a situation in which the environment is deteriorating rapidly:
“There is […] pollution that affects everyone, caused by transport, industrial fumes, substances which contribute to the acidification of soil and water, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and agrotoxins in general.” (§-20)
Laudato Si’ was published by the Vatican on June 18, 2015, a few months prior to the Paris climate conference. For the “green” pope, the aim was to raise public awareness around the challenges of global warming by creating a relational approach that included God, human beings and the Earth. It was the first time an encyclical had been devoted wholly to ecology.
In it, the Pope voiced his concern about the effects of global warming:
“Warming has effects on the carbon cycle. It creates a vicious circle which aggravates the situation even more, affecting the availability of essential resources like drinking water, energy and agricultural production in warmer regions, and leading to the extinction of part of the planet’s biodiversity.” (§-24)
Criticizing a “technocratic paradigm”
Since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the various social encyclicals have consistently rejected the liberal idea of a society solely regulated by the smooth functioning of the market. The French sociologist of religion Émile Poulat summed up the Church’s position perfectly in 1977 in his book Église contre bourgeoisie. Introduction au devenir du catholicisme actuel, in which he writes that the Church “never agreed to abandon the running of the world to the blind laws of economics.”
In 2015, Pope Francis rejected technical solutions that would not truly be useful, as well as the belief in the redeeming virtues of a self-regulating market. He accused “the technocratic paradigm” of dominating humankind by subordinating the economic and political spheres to its logic (§-101). His comments are reminiscent of the unjustly forgotten French Protestant philosopher Jacques Ellul and his idea of a limitless “self-propulsion” of technology, which has become the alpha and omega of our societies.
For Jacques Ellul, technology is anything but neutral since it represents genuine power driven by its own movement. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
The pope’s charge against the supposed virtues of the market was spectacular. Among others, he criticized the following:
overconsumption in developed countries:
“Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products, people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending.” (§-203);
the glorification of profit and a self-regulating market:
“Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems.” (§-109);
the hypertrophy of speculative finance:
“Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy.” (§-189);
the unequal distribution of wealth in the world:
“In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet: […] the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest.” (§-48);
the unequal levels of development between countries, leading Francis to speak of an “ecological debt” owed by rich countries to the least developed ones (§-51).
Social justice and shrinking growth
In Francis’s words, the goals of saving the planet and social justice go hand in hand. His approach is in keeping with the work of the [economist Louis-Joseph Lebret, a Dominican, who in 1941 founded the association Économie et humanisme. Father Lebret wanted to put the economy back at the service of humankind, and work with the least economically advanced countries by championing an approach based on the virtues of local communities and regional planning.
Pope Francis, for his part, is calling for a radical break with the consumerist lifestyles of rich countries, while focusing on the development of the poorest nations (§-93). In Laudato Si’, he also wrote that developed countries’ responses seemed insufficient because of the economic interests at stake (§-54).
This brings us back to the principle of the universal destination of goods – the organizing principle of property defended by the Catholic Church’s social doctrine, which demands that goods be distributed in such a way as to enable every human being to live in dignity.
In addition to encouraging the necessary technical adjustments and sober individual practices, Pope Francis is urging citizens in developed countries not to be content with half measures deemed largely insufficient. Instead, he is calling for people to make lifestyle changes in line with the logic of slowing growth. The aim is to enable developing countries to emerge from poverty, while sparing the environment.
“Given the insatiable and irresponsible growth produced over many decades, we need also to think of containing growth by setting some reasonable limits and even retracing our steps before it is too late. […] That is why the time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth.” (§ -193).
Nearly 10 years on, Laudato Si’ resonates fully with our concerns. In the United States, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who both identify as Catholic, would be well advised to read it anew.
Bernard Laurent is a member of the CFTC and of the IRES Scientific Council
Recent months have seen a dramatic shift in US policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). These changes carry deep economic consequences. President Donald Trump’s executive orders aim to ban DEI initiatives in federal agencies and contractors, and private companies have felt pressure to weaken or drop their DEI programmes. Trump has framed what was once a corporate safeguard against discrimination as “illegal and immoral”, marking a stark reversal in legal and business norms. Federal judges have blocked some of Trump’s orders, or elements of them, and some legal processes are ongoing.
Transgender rights have become a lightning rod in this shifting landscape. The barrage of federal directives seeks to challenge – or outright eliminate – protections in areas ranging from health care to education to the military. Beyond the immediate harm to trans individuals, these policies pose threats to multinational companies that have long defended inclusive workplace values. Their leaders must now navigate a cultural minefield where staying silent risks public backlash, while openly supporting trans employees can invite legal and political complications. The business repercussions of this moral issue could affect everything from brand reputation to talent retention.
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The economic imperative of DEI initiatives
There is a growing ensemble of research suggesting that DEI policies are not just nice-to-have but a corporate imperative. This year, the World Economic Forum reported that organizations that include DEI in their core business strategies improve performance, innovation and employee satisfaction. These findings are in line with other studies, which have consistently demonstrated that inclusive workplaces not only attract top talent but perform better financially and have higher returns on assets and net income.
With regard to people identifying as LGBTI+, a 2024 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development highlighted that inclusive policies enable LGBTI+ individuals to achieve their full employment and productivity potential, benefiting both their well-being and society at large. Moreover, according to Open for Business, a think tank whose mission is making a case for LGBTQ+ inclusion in private and public settings, companies with “larger LGBTQ+ workforce benefit from diverse perspectives but also foster environments where innovation and productivity thrive”. It has also been found that human rights violations against LGBTI+ people diminish economic output at the micro level, suggesting that inclusive societies are more likely to experience robust economic growth.
Research has also shown that trans-inclusive business practices have long been associated with innovation, employee satisfaction and market competitiveness. Companies that provide gender-neutral bathroom access, introduce the inclusive use of pronouns and support employees’ gender transitions have been proven to foster relational authenticity in the workplace.
Discrimination and exclusion, by contrast, not only harm individuals but also impede economic growth by limiting the available talent pool and reducing overall productivity. In September 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported that “laws and policies designed to restrict or prevent access or supports for transgender and nonbinary people” endanger LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies, leading to increased fear, lack of safety and a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ violence. More generally, these laws and policies can also deter businesses from investing in regions perceived as discriminatory. Also in September, the Movement Advancement Project identified that the lack of legal protection against discrimination contributes to economic instability for LGBTQ+ families, which can lead to wage gaps, job insecurity and reduced access to benefits, ultimately contributing to reduced consumer spending and lower economic participation.
Language targeting trans rights and visibility
Despite the benefits of DEI initiatives, the current US administration has sought to enact several policies aimed at dismantling them, resulting in organizations, both public and private, to suspend funding for DEI and outreach programmes. In Trump’s executive orders, anything – policy, programme or initiative – related to or benefitting trans people in access to healthcare, academic research, scientific inquiry, school policies, personal safety, participation in sports, and military service is now rejected as “gender ideology extremism”.
Targeting sports, education and the military is functional to an ideological battle aimed at erasing spaces where trans people are most vulnerable. These spaces are also formative arenas in shaping national identity and the public perception of DEI initiatives. When they become politicized, they can also affect how businesses frame their values, manage risks and engage with their different stakeholders.
The ripple effects of this anti-trans rhetoric extend into the private sector, compelling businesses to reevaluate their DEI strategies in fear of backlash or scrutiny. Even before the last US presidential election, companies such as Ford, Harley-Davidson and Lowe’s withdrew their participation in the Corporate Equality Index, a national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality. In the wake of Trump’s anti-DEI and anti-trans orders, organizers of various Pride events in the US and Canada learned that some corporations, including longtime sponsors, had decided not to fund them. And according to the New York Times, some companies erased language and terms related to DEI from annual reports filed this year, including Dow Chemical, whose reference to LGBTQ+ employee resource groups disappeared from its public documents.
Navigating between inclusive values and anti-DEI pressure
Three patterns seem to be emerging on how companies are navigating the tension between values that are inclusive of LGBTI+ people and the growing pressure to scrub DEI commitments within the US context. For the moment, these patterns do not reflect formalized strategies but adaptive responses to an environment that has grown in complexity in a very short time. Some corporate actions reflect deliberate strategy aimed at protecting global consistency, while others appear more reactive, shaped by local market pressures.
The first pattern involves establishing a sort of internal firewall between US and international operations. Banco Santander provides a clear example of this approach. Thus far, it has maintained global DEI commitments such as tying executive bonuses to increased gender equality in leadership. This group stated that such targets would not be applied to countries where governmental policies target DEI. In this pattern, DEI programmes are maintained abroad but are dismantled in the US to minimize political exposure in the latter.
The second approach, observed at accounting firm Deloitte, is a cultural split between US operations and those overseas: while entities under the same global brand may still share data, practices, or strategic frameworks internally, they now adopt publicly distinct positions on DEI. Deloitte UK has remained vocal on its DEI commitments, highlighting the cultural and political fault lines that multinationals must now navigate.
The third approach is a retraction of DEI altogether. Target offers a striking example. In 2023, under increased political and consumer pressure, the company rolled back some of its LGBTQ+ inclusion efforts by reducing the number of Pride-related items for sale. In 2025, four days after Trump’s inauguration, Target announced it would “end its three-year DEI goals”, cease reporting to the Corporate Equality Index and “end a program focused on carrying more products from Black- or minority-owned businesses”, as reported by CNBC. The moves resulted in considerable public criticism, and more notably, coincided with a marked drop in foot traffic – “nearly 5 million fewer visits” over a four-week period – revealing reputational and financial risks associated with the abandoning of DEI policies. By contrast, bulk retailer Costco, which said three days after the inauguration that its shareholders voted against a proposal seen as unfriendly to the company’s DEI programmes, “saw nearly 7.7 million more visits” during that same stretch.
In light of the evidence, it is clear that undermining DEI initiatives poses substantial risks – not just to human dignity, but to economic competitiveness. Businesses and policymakers must recognize that DEI is not merely a social or ethical imperative but a core strategy for growth and innovation. By fostering environments where all individuals can thrive, we unlock the full potential of our workforce and ensure sustainable economic growth.
Conversely, discriminatory policies contribute to social instability, brain drain and economic stagnation. In the United States, the rollback of DEI initiatives and the marginalization of transgender individuals threaten to erode the nation’s ability to uphold human rights and maintain business competitiveness. History demonstrates that exclusionary policies ultimately harm societies rather than strengthen them. The question remains whether the US can afford to sacrifice social stability and economic growth in pursuit of ideological battles. The evidence suggests that it cannot.
Matteo Winkler is a member of the Open for Business Academic Committee. He has received funding from the HEC Foundation.
Marcelle Laliberté is a member of Women in Aerospace Europe and HEC We&Men, and a contributor to the UN`s High Advisory Board on Governing AI for Humanity.
Source: The Conversation – France – By Maxime Massey, Docteur en Sciences de Gestion & Innovation – Chercheur affilié à la Chaire Improbable, ESCP Business School
The 2024 arrest and subsequent release of activist Paul Watson, the founder of the NGO Sea Shepherd that fights to protect ocean biodiversity, highlighted a division between two opposing camps. There are those who want to stay true to the NGO’s DNA by continuing to practice strong activism against poaching states, and those who believe there is too much at stake in remaining confrontational and advocate instead for more measured actions to institutionalize the NGO. This opposition reflects the dilemma faced by many “pirate organizations,” a concept introduced by scholars Rudolph Durand and Jean-Philippe Vergne.
What are pirate organizations?
Pirate organizations are defined by three key characteristics.
They develop innovative activities by exploiting legal loopholes;
they defend a “public cause” to support neglected communities, who in turn support them;
by introducing innovations that address specific social needs, they disrupt monopolies and contribute to transforming economic and social systems.
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However, to do these things effectively, pirate organizations must become legitimate. An organization is considered legitimate when its various audiences (customers, media, the state, etc.) perceive its actions as desirable according to prevailing values, norms and laws. Legitimacy is built through a process known as legitimation. For pirate organizations, this is particularly challenging, as they are often viewed as both illegal and illegitimate by the state and established industry players. These actors apply pressure to hinder legitimation. So how do pirate organizations build their legitimacy? We examined this question through the emblematic case of Heetch.
This business model, based on the principles of the “sharing economy,” encroached on the monopoly of taxis and the regulated sector of professional chauffeur-driven vehicles (VTCs). Despite challenges, Heetch gradually built its legitimacy through three distinct phases, responding to pressures in different ways.
Stage 1: ‘clandestine pragmatism’ (2013-2015)
When Heetch launched in 2013, a conflict was brewing in the urban transport sector. On one side, there were new applications for VTC services (such as Uber) and for private driver platforms (such as UberPop and Heetch); on the other, there were traditional taxis and their booking departments (such as G7). The latter, along with government authorities, began exerting pressure to shut down the apps, with Uber receiving most of the media attention.
During this phase, Heetch adopted a strategy of “clandestine pragmatism.” The start-up avoided direct confrontations and stayed “under the radar” of the media. This approach is similar to “bootlegging” – concealing an innovative activity during its early stages. Heetch built a pragmatic legitimacy among its immediate audience using informal techniques such as word-of-mouth. However, its legitimacy remained limited, because it operated outside media scrutiny and without state approval.
While Uber shut down UberPop, Heetch exploited a legal loophole – its name was not explicitly mentioned in the ban – and continued operations. In response, the state cracked down on Heetch: around 100 drivers were placed in police custody and the founders were summoned to court, facing charges of “illegal facilitation of contact” with drivers, “complicity in unlawful taxi operations” and “misleading commercial practices.”
Heetch reacted by engaging in “subversive activism.” The founders spoke out in the media to defend their service, emphasizing its public utility, particularly for young suburban residents needing nighttime mobility. The start-up generated buzz by releasing a satirical video featuring altered images of political figures in their youth. Heetch leveraged its pragmatic legitimacy, already established within its community, to gain media legitimacy among a broader audience of people, including journalists and policymakers. The organization gained public recognition, but also faced increasing legal battles.
Stage 3: ‘tempered radicalism’ (2017-present)
In March 2017, a court ruled against Heetch, deeming its operations illegal. Heetch temporarily suspended its service but relaunched two weeks later with a new business model employing professional drivers. Two months later, Heetch attempted to reintroduce private drivers, but, after facing additional legal action, it abandoned this approach after six months to focus exclusively on legal transportation services.
During this phase, Heetch practised “tempered radicalism.” The company integrated into the system while continuing its “fight” in a more moderate manner, avoiding direct confrontation with the state and industry players. It adopted three key strategies:
compliance – respecting the law;
compromise – balancing its transportation service with its public mission;
manipulation – lobbying to influence regulations.
Through this approach, Heetch secured regulatory legitimacy while strengthening its existing pragmatic and media legitimacy. The company was recognized by the French government and included in the French Tech 120 and Next 40 programmes for the country’s most promising start-ups. It also became the first ride-hailing platform to attain “mission-driven company” status.
Is ‘piracy’ a growth accelerator?
Ultimately, our study highlights the value of piracy as a strategy for kickstarting the growth of an organization that serves a public cause. By embracing this approach, a pirate organization can drive systemic change to address social or environmental challenges.
That said, piracy carries an inherent risk: at some point, it will likely face a legitimacy crisis triggered by resistance from monopolies or public authorities. The recent struggles of Paul Watson serve as testament. As he aptly puts it: “You can’t change the world without making waves.”
Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.
“He hides his smile in every school photo,” Jayden’s mother told me, holding up a picture of her 6-year-old son.
I first met Jayden – not his real name – as a patient at the University of Florida community dental outreach program in Gainesville, Florida. Jayden had visible cavities on his front teeth – dark spots that had become the target of teasing and bullying by classmates. The pain had become so severe that he began missing school. His family, living in a rural part of north Florida, had spent months trying to find a dentist who accepted Medicaid.
The most recent data available from the 2017-2018 school year shows that 24% of children ages 3-6 in Florida’s Head Start program, which provides free health and education for low-income families with young children, had untreated tooth decay. By comparison, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 11% of U.S. children ages 2-5 had untreated decay.
These numbers represent children like Jayden, whose pain and missed school days are preventable.
A 2023 report found that Florida children are increasingly visiting emergency rooms for nontraumatic dental conditions. Besides being costly and stressful for families, these visits generally provide only temporary relief. Emergency departments simply aren’t equipped to offer dental care that addresses the root problem.
Historically, community water fluoridation has been one of the most effective public health strategies to reduce children’s tooth decay. While fluoridation is not meant to be a standalone prevention method, multiple studies have shown that it helps to prevent cavities in both children and adults. As recently as May 2024, the CDC supported the safety of this strategy.
However, a new Florida law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May 2025 and going into effect on July 1, now prohibits local governments from adding fluoride to public drinking water. This makes other preventive treatments even more essential.
When a child has just the beginnings of a cavity, silver diamine fluoride is a noninvasive liquid treatment that can stop it from progressing. This is especially beneficial for young children or those with limited access to care.
These highly effective, evidence-based treatments are safe and cost-effective, and they can be delivered in schools, medical offices and clinics.
Here are some steps parents can take right now to protect their child’s dental health:
Schedule regular dental visits, starting by age 1. Children should see a dentist by their first birthday or within six months of their first tooth. After that, annual visits help catch problems early, when treatment is easier and less expensive.
For families in areas with few dental providers, parents can ask their child’s pediatrician for referrals, check state Medicaid websites or use the American Association of Pediatric Dentists’ “Find a Pediatric Dentist” tool. Some communities also offer care through federally qualified health centers, dental schools or mobile clinics at low or no cost.
As soon as their teeth come in, children need to brush twice a day with fluoridated toothpaste. Use a smear of toothpaste about the size of a grain of rice for children under age 3, and a pea-sized amount for ages 3–5.
Make brushing a fun and supported routine. Help your child brush until they can do it well on their own, usually around age 7 or 8. Play a favorite song or video to make brushing time enjoyable.
Limit sugary snacks and drinks. Offer water and healthy snacks like fruits and vegetables. Avoid letting infants fall asleep with bottles of milk or juice, and limit sticky, sugary foods like candy, chips and cookies.
Ask your dentist about sealants and fluoride varnish. These treatments are especially important for children at higher risk for cavities, such as those with limited access to dental care, a family history of tooth decay, visible plaque or the habit of frequent snacking.
Olga Ensz 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.
Source: The Conversation – Indonesia – By Meilinda Sari Yayusman, Researcher in International Relations and European Studies, Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional (BRIN)
Gastrodiplomacy as the practice of a country’s diplomacy by promoting its cuisine, is now gaining popularity in several countries across the globe, including South Korea and Thailand.
South Korea, for example, has introduced its so-called “Kimchi Diplomacy” in the world for the past years as part of the country’s soft power in promoting culinary culture. Thailand, meanwhile, has been spreading the influence of Thai food and expanding Thai restaurants around the globe, attracting the global communities to eat authentic Thai cuisine.
Our unpublished observation based on fieldwork in May 2023 and literature reviewssince mid-2021 resulted in a recommendation for the Indonesian government to take advantage of its diverse menu for its gastrodiplomacy agenda.
A growing number of people are increasingly considering plant-based food as a dietary alternative to maintain their health following global concerns on the negative impacts of processed foods on health, society and the environment.
Indonesia has a lot of ingredients and spices to create plant-based menus that have met global healthy standards.
Among them are tempeh, a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans. The fermentation increases its nutritional quality. Tempeh has been known in the Netherlands and already has consumers in Europe. However, it is not widespread yet in the whole continent.
Gado-gado, the famous Indonesian salad with its authentic peanut butter dressing, has also seen an emerging popularity in the global market. From our fieldwork, we have learned that almost all Indonesian restaurants worldwide, such as in The Hague and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, usually have gado-gado on their menus.
Other plant-based cuisines that have potential to gain popularity abroad are asinan (fruit salad preserved with vinegar) and gudeg (jackfruit stewed in coconut milk).
However, our observation shows that Indonesian vegan menus have yet to be widely known in Europe and other continents. Indonesia should promote them in the global market.
Gudeg, a traditional Javanese dish from Indonesia’s Yogyakarta, is made from young unripe jack fruit stewed for several hours with palm sugar, and coconut milk. Ricky_herawan/Shutterstock
In Europe, the value of plant-based food sales increased by 49% between 2018 and 2020. This includes an expansion in the market for plant-based substitutes for meat and dairy.
In the Netherlands, for example, sales rose by 50% during the same period. Germany and Poland have also witnessed a notable surge in the sales of plant-based food products, with an increase of 97% and 62%, respectively.
With the change in people’s food consumption habits, Europe can be a significant, promising market for Indonesia to expand the promotion of its plant-based food products.
Taking advantage of current presence
The fact that Indonesia’s culinary presence in Europe is already evident, particularly in the Netherlands, should benefit Indonesia.
Based on our finding, no less than 392 Indonesian restaurants are operating in West and South Europe, majority of which (295) is in the Netherlands. They have become popular since the 1970s.
For hundreds of years, the Netherlands colonised parts of what is now Indonesia. The colonial history between the two nations has created a sense of romanticism, including what and how they ate in the past.
Many Indonesian citizens living in European countries own Indonesian cuisine restaurants, and recently, they have started to develop plant-based menus in their kitchens.
The Netherlands offers a promising hub for introducing Indonesian foods and establishing Indonesian restaurants in other parts of Europe.
De Vegetarische Toko, for example, has creatively transformed some authentic Indonesian foods into vegan and vegetarian-friendly versions. They replace the meats in menus like rendang (slow-cooked beef stew in coconut milk and spices) and semur (beef stew) with tempeh, tofu, beans and peanuts.
With these creative innovations, these restaurants may have an excellent opportunity to extend and promote Indonesian plant-based meals more widely to other parts of Europe, thus supporting Indonesia’s gastrodiplomacy.
More support needed
Indonesia has acknowledged its gastrodiplomacy potential through several programs.
In 2021, Indonesia launched “Indonesia Spice Up the World”. It becomes the country’s first-ever concrete initiative to promote Indonesian cuisine and attract investment opportunities in local spices and herbs.
To support this kind of initiative, the Indonesian government should regularly and intensively communicate with all stakeholders involved in the Indonesian culinary industry. The partnership should aim to support Indonesian diaspora entrepreneurs looking to start businesses in the food sector abroad.
One example is offering soft loans to these food entrepreneurs.
Bank BNI, Indonesia’s fourth-largest bank, has begun offering this kind of loan.
It is time for Indonesia to strengthen its international existence through gastrodiplomacy by taking advantage of the rising consumption of plant-based meals among global communities. Tempeh, gado-gado, asinan and gudeg can become a powerful weapon of Indonesia’s soft diplomacy on the global stage.
Meilinda Sari Yayusman receives funding by the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Indonesia.
Andika Ariwibowo receives funding by the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Indonesia.
Prima Nurahmi Mulyasari receives funding by the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Indonesia.
Ahmad Nuril Huda tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.
Source: The Conversation – Indonesia – By Andini Pramono, Research officer, Department of Health Economics, Wellbeing and Society, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University
Research shows that six months of exclusive breastfeeding, and continuing until two years old or beyond, provide multiple benefits for the baby and mother.
According to the WHO, less than half of babies under six months old worldwide are exclusively breastfed.
In Indonesia, research shows 83% of mothers initiate breastfeeding, but only 57% are still breastfeeding at around six months. In Australia, 96% of mothers start breastfeeding, but then there is a rapid fall to only 39% by around three months and only 15% by around five months.
Among the key reasons for low rates of exclusive breastfeeding are the difficult work conditions women face when they return to paid work.
So how can governments and workplaces – especially in countries that have yet to do enough, like Indonesia and Australia – better support breastfeeding mothers, particularly at work?
In some countries, protections are aligned with the ILO Conventions. For example, in Denmark and Norway, the governments offer maternity leave of at least 14 weeks. During leave, mothers’ earnings are protected at a rate of at least two-thirds of their pre-birth earnings. Public funds ensure this is done in a manner determined by national law and practice, so the employer is not solely responsible for the payment.
A Canadian study highlights the proportion of mothers exclusively breastfeeding to six months increased by almost 40% when paid maternity leave was expanded from six to 12 months. At the same time, average breastfeeding duration increased by one month, from five to six months.
For example, welfare reforms in the US encouraging new mothers’ return to work within 12 weeks led to a 16–18% reduction in breastfeeding initiation. It also saw a four to six week reduction in the time babies were breastfed.
Indonesia and Australia aren’t doing enough
Neither Indonesia or Australia are currently doing enough to meet the ILO’s maternity protection standards.
In Indonesia, the 2003 Labour Law urges companies to give 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for women workers to support breastfeeding. Furthermore, the 2012 regulation on exclusive breastfeeding obligates workplace and public space management to provide a space or facility to breastfeed and express breast milk. However, the monitoring of its implementation is weak.
In Australia, paid parental leave (PPL) policy supports parents who take time off from paid work to care for their young children.
Eligible working mothers or primary carers are entitled to up to 20 weeks (or 22 weeks if the child is born or adopted from 1 July 2024) of government paid parental leave within the first two years of the birth or adoption of a child.
Some mothers can combine the government payment with additional paid leave from their employer. However in 2022-2023, only 63% of Australian employers offered this, leaving nearly half of new mothers with only minimum financial support.
Unlike Indonesia, Australia has no legal requirement for employers to offer paid breastfeeding breaks in their workplace, so mothers can express and take home their breastmilk. This can badly impact women’s and children’s health.
While Australia’s support for breastfeeding mothers is welcome, it’s still inadequate to meet the ILO’s international standard – particularly Australia’s low payment rate of government PPL (at the minimum wage, rather than two-thirds of previous earnings) and the lack of legislation for paid breastfeeding breaks.
How employers and colleagues can help
Globally, the barriers to maintain breastfeeding include not only lack of maternity leave duration and pay, but also unavailability of breastfeeding and breast pumping facilities at workplaces, sometimes unsupportive colleagues and supervisors, and lack of time at work to breastfeed or expressing breastmilk.
Breastfeeding a baby should not preclude women from earning a living. In 2022, female workers were 39.5% of total workers globally, while in Australia and Indonesia they made up 47.4% and 39.5% respectively.
An accessible facility or space for breastfeeding or breast pumping is vital to support breastfeeding working mothers.
In Indonesia, a 2013 Ministry of Health regulation outlines the procedure for an employer to provide a space and facility for mothers to breastfeed and breast pump.
The minimum specifications of this facility are described as a lockable, clean and quiet room, with a sink for washing, suitable temperature, lighting and flooring. While these specifications are technically mandatory, monitoring is weak, meaning if employers fail to meet the requirements there are no specific consequences.
But a breastfeeding space alone is not enough. In many jobs, mothers cannot leave their tasks during working hours, even if there is a lactation room.
Supportive employers need to regulate time and flexibility to breastfeed and express breastmilk, including providing flexible working arrangements and paid breastfeeding breaks during working hours. Supportive attitudes from co-workers and managers are also important.
Suitable staff training on breastfeeding and policies supporting mothers, such as providing time and facility to express breastmilk in work hours, are crucial. Training on how to support co-worker can include anything from basic information breastfeeding, to what to say (or not say) with a breastfeeding co-worker.
The program assesses workplaces for three aspects: time, space and supportive culture. This means, workplaces are encouraged to provide a special space and time for breastfeeding and breast pumping in a supportive culture and flexible working hours.
Mothers should consider to prepare how to align breastfeeding with work early – during pregnancy. Start by discussing your breastfeeding goals with healthcare professionals and finding a baby-friendly hospital.
Discuss your breastfeeding plan with your supervisor at work during your pregnancy, including finding out your maternity leave (paid and unpaid) entitlements. Also consider childcare arrangements that will work best for you with breastfeeding.
Julie P. Smith is a qualified breastfeeding counselor and honorary member of the Australian Breastfeeding Association.
Andini Pramono dan Liana Leach tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Shannon D. M. Moore, Assistant professor of social studies education, Department of Curriculum Teaching and Learning, Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba
The sexual assault trial of five former World Juniors hockey players has spotlighted issues around sexual assault and consent.
We argue for harnessing popular media to advance sexuality education. Children and youth learn about a great deal about gender, relationships, sexuality and consent from popular media.
Although there is strong theoretical rationale for using popular media to confront sexual assault, many teachers identify and experience barriers to putting this into practice in their classrooms.
Talking about sex in society and in schools is often taboo. Discussions of healthy relationships and consent are often highly controlled, minimized or relegated to a sexual education curriculum that is not universally taught. This is due to parental opt-outs/ins in many provinces.
Not surprisingly, neglecting comprehensive sexuality education has many adverse consequences. Students learn that eliminating sexual violence is not a societal priority. Those who have experienced assault and other forms of violence learn that they are not important, as their stories are often silenced, ignored or distrusted.
As a result, rape culture and gender-based violence remains unchallenged in schools, while it is normalized, legitimized and endorsed in popular media.
What youth watch, play, listen to or create on social media has a significant role in teaching dominant understandings that normalize sexual violence, misogyny and the patriarchy.
As teacher educators and educational researchers, the teachers we have worked with across grades and subject areas recognize how popular media is always and already present in classrooms, and many embrace the opportunities it affords for necessary conversations that are relevant to students.
Challenges with using popular media
The teacher participants in our study revealed that classroom culture wars have had a chilling impact on their practice, making them feel more wary about tackling particular topics.
We found that despite research-informed rationale for using popular media to ground sexuality education, teachers encounter several barriers and complications in doing so.
Teachers’ discomfort was exacerbated when school leaders did not support their efforts to advance these lessons, even though they were anchored to the provincial curriculum. Teacher participants also spoke of a lack of professional development or preparation to talk about healthy relationships and consent in teacher education contexts.
1. Start with media constructions of gender: As popular media contributes to societal expectations of gender, students should begin by interrogating how masculinities and femininities are constructed and mobilized in popular media.
This can include examining how male, female and non-binary characters are constructed and presented to audiences, their position within the broader storyline and their level of dialogue and how varied intersections of identity impact these depictions.
2. Begin with unfamiliar content: Students can initially become defensive when they are asked to critically engage with media content that deeply connect with their identity and give them a sense of joy.
While the goal is to move to the interrogation of students’ own media diets, it can positively generate student participation when educators begin analytical and critical discussions about media with unfamiliar, or at least not cherished, material (like popular songs, video or social media).
3. Offer a feminist lens: As teacher educators, we recognize that there is no single method or approach that tends to every aspect of sexual assault and other forms of gender-based violence. Yet, we also know that educators seek resources to engage more meaningfully with students.
Cards to foster conversation
We constructed a deck of educational playing cards that educators can use to foster conversations about media portrayals of gender, healthy relationships and consent (or lack thereof).
These cards employ a feminist lens, based on Sarah Ahmed’s Living a Feminist Life. We advocate for teachers to have time in professional learning spaces to try out the cards with other educators before they facilitate complex conversations related to gender-based violence with students.
If as a society we want to see fewer instances of gender-based violence, teachers need provincial curriculum documents that align with the research on comprehensive sex education. They also need school leaders who will support their work and model consent in the broader school culture, and more professional development and preparation in teacher education.
Shannon D. M. Moore receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Jennifer Watt receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council .
After 12 days of war, US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran that would bring to an end the most dramatic, direct conflict between the two nations in decades.
Israel and Iran both agreed to adhere to the ceasefire, though they said they would respond with force to any breach.
If the ceasefire holds – a big if – the key question will be whether this signals the start of lasting peace, or merely a brief pause before renewed conflict.
As contemporary war studies show, peace tends to endure under one of two conditions: either the total defeat of one side, or the establishment of mutual deterrence. This means both parties refrain from aggression because the expected costs of retaliation far outweigh any potential gains.
What did each side gain?
The war has marked a turning point for Israel in its decades-long confrontation with Iran. For the first time, Israel successfully brought a prolonged battle to Iranian soil, shifting the conflict from confrontations with Iranian-backed proxy militant groups to direct strikes on Iran itself.
This was made possible largely due to Israel’s success over the past two years in weakening Iran’s regional proxy network, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Syria.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has inflicted significant damage on Iran’s military and scientific elite, killing several high-ranking commanders and nuclear scientists. The civilian toll was also high.
Additionally, Israel achieved a major strategic objective by pulling the United States directly into the conflict. In coordination with Israel, the US launched strikes on three of Iran’s primary nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
Despite these gains, Israel has not accomplished all of its stated goals. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had voiced support for regime change, urging Iranians to rise up against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s government, but the senior leadership in Iran remains intact.
Although Iran was caught off-guard by Israel’s attacks — particularly as it was engaged in nuclear negotiations with the US — it responded by launching hundreds of missiles towards Israel.
Iran has demonstrated its capacity to strike back, though Israel has succeeded in destroying many of its air defence systems, some ballistic missile assets (including missile launchers) and multiple energy facilities.
Since the beginning of the assault, Iranian officials have repeatedly called for a halt to resume negotiations. Under such intense pressure, Iran has realised it would not benefit from a prolonged war of attrition with Israel — especially as both nations face mounting costs and the risk of depleting their military stockpiles if the war continues.
As theories of victory suggest, success in war is defined not only by the damage inflicted, but by achieving core strategic goals and weakening the enemy’s will and capacity to resist.
While Israel claims to have achieved the bulk of its objectives, the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear program is not fully known, nor is its capacity to continue enriching uranium.
Both sides could remain locked in a volatile standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, with the conflict potentially reigniting whenever either side perceives a strategic opportunity.
Sticking point over Iran’s nuclear program
Iran faces even greater challenges when it emerges from the war. With a heavy toll on its leadership and nuclear infrastructure, Tehran will likely prioritise rebuilding its deterrence capability.
That includes acquiring new advanced air defence systems — potentially from China — and restoring key components of its missile and nuclear programs. (Some experts say Iran has not used some of its most powerful missiles to maintain this deterrence.)
Iranian officials have claimed they safeguarded more than 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium before the attacks. This stockpile could theoretically be converted into nine to ten nuclear warheads if further enriched to 90%.
Trump declared Iran’s nuclear capacity had been “totally obliterated”, whereas Rafael Grossi, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief, said damage to Iran’s facilities was “very significant”.
However, analysts have argued Iran will still have a depth of technical knowledge accumulated over decades. Depending on the extent of the damage to its underground facilities, Iran could be capable of restoring and even accelerating its program in a relatively short time frame.
And the chances of reviving negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program appear slimmer than ever.
What might future deterrence look like?
The war has fundamentally reshaped how both Iran and Israel perceive deterrence — and how they plan to secure it going forward.
For Iran, the conflict has reinforced the belief that its survival is at stake. With regime change openly discussed during the war, Iran’s leaders appear more convinced than ever that true deterrence requires two key pillars: nuclear weapons capability, and deeper strategic alignment with China and Russia.
As a result, Iran is expected to move rapidly to restore and advance its nuclear program, potentially moving towards actual weaponisation — a step it had long avoided, officially.
At the same time, Tehran is likely to accelerate military and economic cooperation with Beijing and Moscow to hedge against isolation. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi emphasised this close engagement with Russia during a visit to Moscow this week, particularly on nuclear matters.
Israel, meanwhile, sees deterrence as requiring constant vigilance and a credible threat of overwhelming retaliation. In the absence of diplomatic breakthroughs, Israel may adopt a policy of immediate preemptive strikes on Iranian facilities or leadership figures if it detects any new escalation — particularly related to Iran’s nuclear program.
In this context, the current ceasefire already appears fragile. Without comprehensive negotiations that address the core issues — namely, Iran’s nuclear capabilities — the pause in hostilities may prove temporary.
Mutual deterrence may prevent a more protracted war for now, but the balance remains precarious and could collapse with little warning.
Ali Mamouri 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.
A recent ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) report emphasised that to contribute in tackling climate change, ASEAN countries don’t need to immediately phase out all of their coal fleet.
The report asserted that coal will continue to be an essential part of the energy transition. It also stated that by allowing ASEAN countries more time to improve electricity grids to accommodate more renewables could help smooth the transition to cleaner energy. Put the two together, and it strongly hinted that coal might be squeezed in to buy said time.
In order to reduce damage from coal, ACE urged ASEAN member states to use clean coal technologies in coal-fired power plants. It also recommended to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) to replace “old, inefficient, and unabatable coal plants”.
Interestingly, this is also a view promoted by the World Coal Association — now Future Coal – the international coal lobbying group.
At first glance, this plan seems promising. However, relying heavily on technology oversimplifies potential risks and assumes full delivery of promises without thorough risk assessments. In this article, we provide evidence that ACE’s chosen pathway is not as good as it seems and could face significant problems in the future.
False solution
The first “clean coal technology” proposed by ACE – termed “high efficiency, low emissions (HELE)” – is mostly supercritical coal power plant. This means it uses less coal while producing more energy. This is why they’re claimed to be more environmentally friendly than sub-critical or “regular” coal power plants.
But using supercritical technology doesn’t guarantee the emission problem is solved; it has varying degrees of success in reducing coal emissions.
For example, a 2019 Australian paper found supercritical coal power plants underperformed against regular power plants with higher breakdown rates, leading to frequent electricity price spikes during 2018-2019. This was a decade after the technology was first launched in 2007.
Failing to deliver steady electricity supplies would contradict ACE’s stated goal to prevent energy shortage and provide smoother transitions towards renewable energy.
Risks of carbon capture
Another technology that ACE advocates is carbon capture and storage (CCS), which captures carbon emissions from power plants and stores them underground.
However, CCS appears to replicate past project failures. Opponents of CCS often suggest its success rate is relatively small.
The industry claims the technology can capture 95% carbon from each project. Yet, the 2023 reports from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found that no current project has consistently managed to capture more than 80% of carbon emissions. Some of them only succeeded in capturing 15% of carbon emissions.
Leakage from captured carbon underground is the other risk we might bear. This will have tremendous consequences not only by netting off the so-called mitigated emissions but also by contaminating groundwater and risking communities nearby.
According to carbon capture proponents, when done properly, the risk of leakage is minuscule. Even when it occurs, they claim it will not be catastrophic.
Some other evidence suggests that CCS is not economically viable. One of the strongest arguments against CCS is probably the diminishing returns. As one of the leading experts in carbon capture claims:
The closer a CCS system gets to 100% efficiency, the harder and more expensive it becomes to capture additional carbon dioxide.
More importantly, chasing increasingly expensive CCS technology merely prolongs the life of coal-fired power plants, which pose significant environmental risks. The same money and effort could be used to build more renewable energy infrastructure such as wind turbines or solar panels.
In addition to its potential high costs, captured carbon must be sold in the market – for various uses ranging for oil extraction to food preservation – to increase its economic viability.
The conversion will also result in approximately 25-35% of energy losses. Although there have been more research on how to improve the efficiency of the process, CO₂ utilisation has yet to be scalable.
Why the half measure?
ACE must be wary of its reliance on technological solutions. Instead, the centre should consider a double-down on less-risky and less-capital-intensive solutions with many positive impacts, such as setting up community-based renewable energy, aggressive reforestation, or even better, significant halt of deforestation.
Community-based renewable energy offers to help people in energy-poor areas to build their own energy sources. Moreover, people living in close geographical proximity can share costs and resources to install and maintain off grid renewables, encouraging more widespread adoption of cleaner energy sources with minimum problem of land use.
ACE can also reconsider replacing the “old, inefficient, and unabatable coal plants” with renewables, such as solar and wind, especially those for non-industrial electricity facilities. Those electricity generation costs have been falling rapidly for years.
As most of the ASEAN member states are developing countries, they must carefully select the most suitable technologies to adopt. With limited fiscal capacity, rashly importing an advanced technology that will require substantial startup costs potentially becomes a costly effort, yielding limited benefits.
It is puzzling why we should replace our old coal plants with new ones. It is like when we are replacing our old mobile phone with a slightly better mobile phone – instead of jumping straight to a smartphone. Why the half-measure?
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The fate of Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, is hanging in the balance after only ten months in office. A recent flare-up in a historical border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand could become her ultimate undoing.
One of Paetongtarn’s sore points is the longstanding close relationship between her father Thaksin Shinawatra and the former Cambodian prime minister and current president of the Senate, Hun Sen.
Thaksin spent 15 years in self-imposed exile after he was ousted as Thailand’s prime minister in a 2006 military coup. Hun Sen enabled Thaksin to use Cambodia as a frequent base for meeting political allies during his exile. He even named Thaksin his special advisor.
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Following Thaksin’s return to Thailand in August 2023, after which he spent six months in detention, Hun Sen visited Thaksin within days of his release on parole. This further buttressed the relationship between the two.
Conservative Thais have used this closeness to criticise Paetongtarn and her government for being “too soft” in their dealings with Cambodia. But things turned particularly ugly on June 18 when an audio recording of Paetongtarn’s 17-minute phone call with Hun Sen was leaked via his official Facebook page.
In the recording, Paetongtarn refers to Hun Sen in familial terms as “uncle” and offers to “take care of” anything he might want in exchange for a peaceful resolution to the border conflict.
She also disparages a senior Thai army general, Lt Gen Boonsin Padklang, who oversees the border region. This is a dangerous move in a country where the military has considerable political clout and a history of successful military interventions against the Shinawatras.
The leak has had a chilling effect on the close personal relations between the Shinawatras and Hun Sen. Its domestic effects have also been nothing short of disastrous for Paetongtarn.
It came at a time of deteriorating relations between Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai party and Bhumjaithai, its largest coalition partner. Bhumjaithai used the leaked audio recording to exit the ruling coalition on June 18, leaving Paetongtarn with a slim governing majority amid a major political crisis.
Paetongtarn has issued a public apology and arranged a call with Boonsin to explain her conversation with Hun Sen. On June 20, she also made a hasty trip to the border area to appear alongside Boonsin in a show of unity.
But none of these actions are likely to repair the damage. Paetongtarn now has three options.
Paetongtarn’s three options
Her first option is to dig in and continue as prime minister, a path she seems to have settled on for now. This won’t guarantee her long-term survival. Her coalition, which has been cobbled together on the back of political necessity and controversial dealmaking rather than loyalty and shared policy agendas, is still fragile.
In the wake of Bhumjaithai’s exit, other coalition partners held internal party meetings to discuss whether to follow suit or continue to stick with the embattled prime minister. For now, all remaining coalition partners have pledged their support, probably in exchange for some of the cabinet positions left vacant by Bhumjaithai.
The current cabinet reshuffle, due to be unveiled by June 27, might paper over the coalition cracks. But it won’t resolve all problems. At least three MPs from the Democrat party, Pheu Thai’s third-largest coalition partner, have signalled they would resign should their party stick with Paentongtarn.
Pheu Thai’s new largest coalition partner, the ultra-conservative United Thai Nation (UTN) party, might also cause further trouble.
The party was initially set to push for Paentongtarn’s resignation in exchange for preserving the coalition arrangements. This ultimately did not happen, but Paetongtarn cannot rest on her laurels. UTN is internally fractured, and one faction’s exit could destabilise the entire government.
Even if Paetongtarn manages to keep the coalition together, she could still be brought down by legal means. Several Bhumjaithai-aligned senators have lodged respective petitions with the Constitutional Court and the National Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate Paetongtarn for ethical misconduct.
And then there is always the possibility of another coup. The military brought down the governments of Paetongtarn’s father and later her aunt Yingluck in 2014.
Paetongtarn’s second option is to resign, making way for parliament to select a new prime minister. The selection would have to be made from a list of prime ministerial candidates submitted to the Election Commission before the 2023 election.
Pheu Thai originally fielded three prime ministerial candidates, the maximum number permitted by law. With Srettha and Paetongtarn out of the game, Chaikasem Nitisiri would be Pheu Thai’s only prime ministerial option.
However, Chaikasem is rumoured to suffer from a long-term ill health, and Pheu Thai would still need to muster sufficient support from its coalition partners. This could prove difficult as UTN is one of the only coalition parties left that still has a viable prime ministerial candidate. It could use this situation to try and take over the premiership.
Under the third option, Paetongtarn could dissolve parliament and call a snap election. This is perhaps her least attractive option.
The People’s party, the progressive successor of the Move Forward party that beat Pheu Thai to first place in the 2023 election, is enjoying a considerable surge in popularity. Going to the polls could prove too risky, not only for Pheu Thai but also for the entire conservative establishment.
None of these options are particularly promising, but they carry an important lesson about the volatility of political dealmaking. Whether Paetongtarn and – more crucially – her father will learn this lesson remains to be seen. In the meantime, all eyes will be on Thailand and the country’s military.
Petra Alderman 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.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mohammadamin Ahmadfard, Postdoctoral Fellow, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University
Artificial intelligence (AI) is quietly transforming how cities generate, store and distribute energy, acting as the invisible conductor that orchestrates cleaner, smarter and more resilient cities.
By integrating renewables — from solar panels and wind turbines to geothermal grids, hydrogen plants, electric vehicles and batteries — AI can enable cities to manage diverse energy sources as a single, intelligent system.
One striking example is the Oya Hybrid Power Station in South Africa. Here, AI-driven controls seamlessly co-ordinate solar, wind and battery storage to deliver reliable power to up to 320,000 households. Using AI makes this kind of integration not only possible, but dramatically more efficient.
Recent research shows AI can also optimize how batteries, solar and the grid interact in buildings. A 2023 study found that deep learning and real-time data helped a boarding school in Turin, Italy increase low-cost energy purchases and cut its electricity bill by more than half.
Cleaner, smarter energy grids
AI models are increasingly able to predict weather with greater precision. These predictions allow electric grid operators to plan hours ahead, storing excess energy in batteries or adjusting supply to meet demand before a storm or heatwave hits.
Using AI to respond strategically to weather is a game-changer. In Cambridge, England, a system called Aardvark uses satellite and sensor data to generate rapid, accurate forecasts of sun and wind patterns.
Unlike traditional supercomputer-driven weather models, Aardvark’s AI can deliver precise local forecasts in minutes on an ordinary computer. This makes advanced weather prediction more accessible and affordable for cities, utilities and even smaller organizations — potentially transforming how communities everywhere plan for and respond to changing weather.
AI models are increasingly able to predict weather with greater precision, allowing electric grid operators to plan ahead, storing excess energy in batteries or adjusting supply to meet demand before a storm or heat wave hits. (Shutterstock)
AI for smarter district heating and cooling
In Munich, Germany, AI is improving geothermal district heating by using underground sensors to monitor temperature and moisture levels in the ground.
The collected data feeds into a digital simulation model that helps optimize network operations. In more advanced versions, during winter cold snaps, such systems can suggest lowering flow to underused spaces like half-empty offices and boosting heat where demand is higher, such as in crowded apartments.
This intelligent, self-optimizing approach extends the life of equipment and delivers more warmth with the same energy input.
This is a breakthrough with enormous potential for cities in cold climates with established geothermal networks, such as Winnipeg in Canada and Iceland’s Reykjavik.
Although these cities have not yet adopted AI-driven monitoring systems, they could benefit from AI’s real-time improvements in efficiency, comfort and energy savings during harsh winters — a principle that holds true wherever geothermal district heating and cooling exists.
Inside the home, AI-managed smart climate systems can factor in how many people are in each room, which appliances are in use, how much natural sunlight each space receives. (Shutterstock)
Smart buildings
Inside the home, AI-managed smart climate systems can factor in how many people are in each room, which appliances are in use, how much natural sunlight each space receives and how much electricity or heat a home’s solar panels generate throughout the day.
Based on this, AI determines how to heat or cool rooms efficiently, and can transfer energy from one space to another, balancing comfort with minimal energy use.
Coastal cities and those in wind-heavy regions are using AI in other creative ways. In Orkney, Scotland, excess wind and tidal energy are converted into green hydrogen. Instead of letting that surplus power go to waste, an AI system called HyAI controls when to generate hydrogen based on wind forecasts, electricity prices and how full the hydrogen storage tanks are.
When winds are strong at night and electricity is cheap, the AI can divert surplus power to produce hydrogen and store it for later use. On calmer days, that stored hydrogen can power fuel cells or buses.
Energy storage
AI is transforming energy storage into a smart, revenue-generating force. In Finland, a startup called Capalo AI has developed Zeus VPP, an AI-powered virtual power plant that aggregates distributed batteries from homes, businesses and other sites.
Zeus VPP uses advanced forecasting and AI algorithms to decide when batteries should charge or discharge, factoring in energy prices, local consumption and weather forecasts. This enables battery owners to earn revenue by participating in electricity markets, while also supporting grid stability and making better use of renewable energy.
AI-powered dynamic line rating adjusts how much electricity a line can carry in real time, boosting capacity by 15 to 30 per cent when conditions allow. This helps utilities maximize the use of existing infrastructure instead of relying on costly upgrades.
At the local level, AI analyzes smart metre data to predict which transformers are overheating due to rising EV and heat pump use.
By forecasting these stress points, utilities can proactively upgrade equipment before failures happen — a shift from reactive to predictive maintenance that makes the grid stronger and cities more resilient.
AI-powered public transit and mobility
Transportation innovation is becoming part of the energy solution, with AI at the centre of this transformation. In New York City, energy company Con Edison has installed major battery storage systems to help manage peak electricity demand and reduce reliance on polluting peaker plants, which supply energy only during high-demand periods.
More broadly, Con Edison is deploying advanced AI-powered analytics software across its electric grid — optimizing voltage, enhancing reliability and enabling predictive maintenance. Together, these efforts show how combining energy storage and AI-driven analytics can make even the world’s busiest cities more resilient and efficient.
AI is also powering “vehicle-to-grid” innovations in California, where an AI-driven platform manages electric school buses that can supply stored energy back to the grid during periods of high demand.
By carefully managing when buses charge and discharge, these systems help keep the grid reliable and ensure vehicles are ready for their daily routes. As this technology expands, parked electric vehicles could serve as valuable backup resources for the electricity system.
Transportation innovation is becoming part of the energy solution. (Shutterstock)
AI for clean energy initiatives
AI is rapidly transforming cities by revolutionizing how energy is used and managed. Google, for example, has slashed cooling energy at its data centres by up to 40 per cent using AI that fine-tunes fans, pumps and windows more efficiently than any human operator.
Organizations like the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), in collaboration with NVIDIA, Microsoft and others, have launched the Open Power AI Consortium, which is creating open-source AI tools for utilities worldwide.
These tools will enable even the most resource-constrained cities to deploy advanced AI capabilities, without having to start from scratch, helping to level the playing field and accelerate the global energy transition.
The result is not just cleaner air and lower energy bills, but a path to fewer blackouts and more resilient homes.
Mohammadamin Ahmadfard receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Mitacs Inc. for his postdoctoral research at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Aerial view of Mangrove forest, Mandalika, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia.(Shutterstock)
Indonesia has signalled it could include blue carbon ecosystems — carbon-rich coastal and marine areas, like mangroves and seagrass — in its new climate targets. This shift follows years of relying heavily on the forestry and land sectors as well as the energy sector.
This could be a turning point, given Indonesia is one of the most important countries globally for ocean-based climate change mitigation. Indonesia’s blue carbon ecosystems are crucial, housing 22% of the world’s mangroves and 5% of seagrass meadows.
For that reason, it’s crucial that Indonesia considers establishing more protected areas for its mangrove and seagrass ecosystems as part of its new climate targets. This could shield them from harmful activities like industrial fishing, unsustainable aquaculture, massive infrastructure development and overtourism.
One way to do this is by including both ecosystems inside two kinds of protected areas. The first is marine protected areas (MPAs), which are areas designated by the government to protect essential ecosystems. The other kind — known as other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM) – are just as crucial for ecosystem protection.
Many activities are prohibited in marine protected areas, such as industrial fishing, mass tourism and mining. The government plans to increase Indonesia’s MPA cover from 8% to 10% by 2030, which is an opportunity to prioritise mangroves and seagrass.
Meanwhile, OECMs can allow Indonesia to target, recognise, and support areas beyond marine protected areas. These other conservation measures can play an important role in protecting blue carbon ecosystems across the country.
For example, the indigenous community of Rote Ndao in Eastern Indonesia’s traditional marine management system protects the local marine ecosystems – despite not being considered an marine protected area. Research shows that Indonesia has more than 390 potential marine OECMs. Many have conservation measures that have been implemented by local communities for centuries.
Key places to protect
While Indonesia still urgently requires broad investment in the collection of high-quality data for mapping blue ecosystems, our findings highlight some key priority locations for mangroves and seagrass to be included in the country’s ocean strategy.
Indonesia can set a clear and measurable area-based target to protect its mangrove and seagrass ecosystems in the upcoming climate targets. This could align the country’s climate actions on ocean and marine to its overall climate ambition. It will also lay the foundation for attracting climate financing, which Indonesia will need to achieve its targets.
Local participation is also important. Indonesia can design and implement its mangrove and seagrass ecosystems protection target with the involvement and consent of local communities. This would align with Indonesia’s existing targets, such as its Blue Economy Roadmap, to ensure coordinated efforts across government agencies.
As the world works towards net zero emissions, Indonesia has a huge opportunity to boost its climate leadership. Protecting and restoring more of the country’s carbon-rich mangroves and seagrass meadows can ensure the future thriving of marine ecosystems that so many Indonesians rely on.
Editor’s Note : In 13 August, 11.57 AM WIB, we made a correction to a sentence in the article’s previous version:
“By comparison, Papua has a large area of carbon-dense mangroves, and a low historic rate of deforestation, with no indication of this changing.”
The previous sentence was inaccurate because while the historic rate was low, the implication was deforestation would continue, when in fact there are indications this could change in the future.
We replaced the sentence with “By comparison, Papua has a large area of carbon-dense mangroves, and a low historic rate of deforestation.”
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In our guides to the classics, experts explain key literary works.
Ibn Battuta, was born in Tangier, Morocco, on February 24, 1304. From a statement in his celebrated travel book the Rihla (“legal affairs are my ancestral profession,”) he evidently came from an intellectually distinguished family.
According to the Rihla (travelogue), Ibn Battuta embarked on his travels from Tangier at the age of 22 with the intention of performing the Hajj (the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca) in 1325. Although he returned to Fez (his adopted home-town) around the end of 1349, he continued to visit various regions, including Granada and Sudan, in subsequent years.
Over the course of his almost 30 years of travel, Ibn Battuta covered an astonishing distance of approximately 73,000 miles (117,000 kilometres), visiting a region that today encompasses more than 50 countries. His journeys covered much of the medieval Islamic world and beyond, excluding Northern Europe.
In 1355, he returned to Morocco for the last time and remained there for the rest of his life. Upon his return he dictated his experiences, observations and anecdotes to the Andalusian scholar Ibn Juzayy, with a compilation of his travels completed in 1355 or 1356.
The work, formally titled A Gift to Researchers on the Curiosities of Cities and the Marvels of Journeys, is more commonly referred to as Rihlat Ibn Battuta or simply Rihla.
A painting of Ibn Battuta (on right) in Egypt by Leon Benett. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
More than a travelogue or geographical record, this book provides rich insights into 14th-century social and political life, capturing cultural diversity across nations. Ibn Battuta details local lifestyles, linguistic traits, beliefs, clothing, cuisines, holidays, artistic traditions and gender relations, as well as commercial activities and currencies.
His observations also include geographical features such as mountains, rivers and agricultural products. Notably, the work highlights his encounters with over 60 sultans and more than 2,000 prominent figures, making it a valuable historical resource.
The travels
His travels began after a dream. According to Ibn Battuta, one night, while in Fuwwa, a town near Alexandria in Egypt, he dreamed of flying on a massive bird across various lands, landing in a dark, greenish country.
To test the local sheikh’s mystical knowledge, he decided if the sheikh knew of his dream, he was truly extraordinary. The next morning, after leading the dawn prayer, he saw the sheikh bid farewell to visitors. Later, the sheikh astonishingly revealed knowledge of Ibn Battuta’s dream and prophesied his pilgrimage through Yemen, Iraq, Turkey and India.
At the time, the Middle East was under the rule of the Mamluk sultanate, Anatolia was divided among principalities and the Mongol Ilkhanate state controlled Iran, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.
Ibn Battuta initially travelled through North Africa, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, completing his first Hajj in 1326.
He then visited Iraq and Iran, returning to Mecca. In 1328, he explored East Africa, reaching Mogadishu, Mombasa, Sudan and Kilwa (modern Tanzania), as well as Yemen, Oman and Anatolia, where he documented cities like Alanya, Konya, Erzurum, Nicaea and Bursa.
His descriptions are vivid. Describing the city of Dimyat, on the bank of the Nile, he says:
Many of the houses have steps leading down to the Nile. Banana trees are especially abundant there, and their fruit is carried to Cairo in boats. Its sheep and goats are allowed to pasture at liberty day and night, and for this reason the saying goes of Dimyat, ‘Its wall is a sweetmeat and its dogs are sheep’. No one who enters the city may afterwards leave it except by the governor’s seal […]
Farmland on the banks of the Nile river today. Alice-D/shutterstock
When it comes to Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey), he declares:
This country, known as the Land of Rum, is the most beautiful in the world. While Allah Almighty has distributed beauty to other lands separately, He has gathered them all here. The most beautiful and well-dressed people live in this land, and the most delicious food is prepared here […] From the moment we arrived, our neighbors — both men and women — showed great concern for our wellbeing. Here, women do not shy away from men; when we departed, they bid us farewell as if we were family, expressing their sadness through tears.
A judge and husband
In 1332, Ibn Battutua met the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
Since Ibn Battuta dictated his work, it’s difficult to assess the extent of the scribe’s influence in recording his narratives. Despite being an educated man, he occasionally narrates like a commoner and sometimes exceeds the bounds of polite language. At times, he provides excessive detail, giving the impression he may be quoting from sources beyond his own observations.
Nevertheless, the Rihla stands out for its engaging style and captivating anecdotes, drawing readers in.
Ibn Battuta later journeyed through Crimea, Central Asia, Khwarezm (a large oasis region in the territories of present-day Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), Bukhara (a city in Uzbekistan), and the Hindu Kush Mountains. In 1332, he met Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos and travelled to Istanbul with the caravan of Uzbek Khan’s third wife. He mentions a caravan that even has a market:
Whenever the caravan halted, food was cooked in great brass cauldrons, called dasts, and supplied from them to the poorer pilgrims and those who had no provisions. […] This caravan contained also animated bazaars and great supplies of luxuries and all kinds of food and fruit. They used to march during the night and light torches in front of the file of camels and litters, so that you saw the countryside gleaming with light and the darkness turned into radiant day.
Ibn Battuta arrived in Delhi in 1333, where he served as a judge under Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq for seven years. He married or was married to local women in many of the places he stayed. Among his wives were ordinary people as well as the daughters of the administrative class.
Miniature painting in Mughal style depicting the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
The Sultan’s generosity, intelligence and unconventional ruling style both impressed and surprised Ibn Battuta. However, Muhammad bin Tughluq was known for making excessively harsh and abrupt decisions at times, which led Ibn Battuta to approach him with caution. Nevertheless, with the Sultan’s support, he remained in India for a long time and was eventually chosen as an ambassador to China in 1341.
In 1345 his mission was disrupted when his ship capsized off the coast of Calcutta (then known as Sadqawan) in the Indian Ocean. Though he survived, he lost most of his possessions.
After the incident, he remained in India for a while before continuing his journey by other means. During this period, he travelled through India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. He served as a judge in the latter for one and a half years. In 1345, he journeyed to China via Bengal, Burma and Sumatra, reaching the city of Guangzhou but limiting his exploration to the southern coast.
He was among the first Arab travellers to record Islam’s spread in the Malay Archipelago, noting interactions between Muslims and Hindu-Buddhist communities. Visiting Java and Sumatra, he praised Sultan Malik al-Zahir of Sumatra as a generous, pious and scholarly ruler and highlighted his rare practice of walking to Friday prayers.
On his return, Ibn Battuta explored regions such as Iran, Iraq, North Africa, Spain and the Kingdom of Mali, documenting the vast Islamic world.
Back in his homeland, Ibn Battuta served as a judge in several locations. He died around 1368-9 while serving as a judge in Morocco and was buried in his birthplace, Tangier.
Historic copy of selected parts of the Travel Report by Ibn Battuta, 1836 CE, Cairo. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
The status of women
Ibn Battuta’s travels revealed intriguing insights into the status of women across regions. In inner West Africa, he observed matriarchal practices where lineage and inheritance were determined by the mother’s family.
Among Turks, women rode horses like raiders, traded actively and did not veil their faces.
In the Maldives, husbands leaving the region had to abandon their wives. He noted that Muslim women there, including the ruling woman, did not cover their heads. Despite attempting to enforce the hijab as a judge, he failed.
He offers fascinating insights into food cultures. In Siberia, sled dogs were fed before humans. He described 15-day wedding feasts in India.
He tried local produce such as mango in the Indian subcontinent, which he compared to an apple, and sun-dried, sliced fish in Oman.
Religious practices
Ibn Battuta’s accounts of the Hajj (pilgrimage) rituals he performed six times provide a unique perspective. He references a fatwa by Ibn Taymiyyah, prominent Islamic scholar and theologian known for his opposition to theological innovations and critiques of Sufism and philosophy, advising against shortening prayers for those travelling to Medina.
Ibn Battuta’s accounts, particularly regarding the Iranian region, offer important perspectives into religious sects during a period when Iran started shifting from Sunnism to Shiism. He describes societies with diverse demographics, including Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis. His observations on religious practices are especially significant.
Inclined toward Sufism, Ibn Battuta often dressed like a dervish during his travels. He offers a compelling view of Islamic mysticism. He considered regions like Damascus as places of abundance and Anatolia as a land of compassion, interpreting them with a spiritual perspective.
His accounts of Sufi education, dervish lodges, zawiyas (similar to monasteries), and tombs, along with the special invocations of Sufi masters, are important historical records. He also observed and documented unique practices, such as the followers of the Persian Sufi saint Sheikh Qutb al-Din Haydar wearing iron rings on their hands, necks, ears, and even private parts to avoid sexual intercourse.
While Ibn Battuta primarily visited Muslim lands, he also travelled to non-Muslim territories, offering key understandings into different religious cultures, for instance interactions between Crimean Muslims and Christian Armenians in the Golden Horde region.
He also documented churches, icons and monasteries, such as the tomb of the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem. His observation of Muslims openly reciting the call to prayer (adhan) in China is significant.
Other anecdotes include the division of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus into a mosque and Christian church. Most importantly, his encounters with Hindus and Buddhists in the Indian subcontinent and Malay Islands provide rich historical context.
His accounts of death rituals reveal diverse practices. In Sinop (a city in Turkey), 40 days of mourning were declared for a ruler’s mother, while in Iran, a funeral resembled a wedding celebration. He observed similarities in cremation practices between India and China and described a chilling custom in some regions where slaves and concubines were buried alive with the deceased.
Ibn Battuta’s Rihla, widely translated into Eastern and Western languages, has drawn some criticism for containing depictions that sometimes diverge from historical continuity or borrow from other works. Ibn Battuta himself admitted to using earlier travel books as references.
Despite limited recognition in older sources, the Rihla gained prominence in the West in the 19th century. His legacy remains vibrant today. Morocco declared 1996–1997 the “Year of Ibn Battuta,” and established a museum in Tangier to honour him. In Dubai, a mall is named after him.
Notably, Ibn Battuta travelled to more destinations than Marco Polo and shared a broader range of humane anecdotes, showcasing the depth and diversity of his experiences.
Ismail Albayrak 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.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sara Bannerman, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Communication Policy and Governance, McMaster University
In Canada, federal political parties are not governed by basic standards of federal privacy law. If passed, Bill C-4, also known as the Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act, would also make provincial and territorial privacy laws inapplicable to federal political parties, with no adequate federal law in place.
Federal legislation in the form of the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act sets out privacy standards for government and business, based on the fair information principles that provide for the collection, use and disclosure of Canadians’ personal information.
At the moment, these laws don’t apply to political parties. Some provinces — especially British Columbia — have implemented laws that do. In May 2024, the B.C. Supreme Court upheld the provincial Information Commissioner’s ruling that B.C.’s privacy legislation applies to federal political parties. That decision is currently under appeal.
Bill C-4 would undermine those B.C. rights. It would make inapplicable to federal parties the standard privacy rights that apply in other business and government contexts— such as the right to consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information — and to access and correct personal information held by organizations.
Why should we be concerned about Bill C-4’s erasure of these privacy protections for Canadians? There are four reasons:
Until now, Canadian parties and governments have been content to use American platforms, data companies and datified campaign tactics. Bill C-4 would leave federal parties free to do more of the same. This is the opposite of what’s needed.
The politics that resulted in Trump being elected twice to the Oval Office was spurred in part by the datafied campaigning of Cambridge Analytica in 2016 and Elon Musk in 2024. These politics are driven by micro-targeted and arguably manipulative political campaigns.
Do Canadians want Canada to go in the same direction?
Are political parties spying and experimenting on Canadians via personal data collection? (Unsplash/Arthur Mazi), FAL
2. Threats to Canada’s future
Bill C-4 would undermine one of the mechanisms that makes Canada a society: collective political decisions.
Datified campaigning and the collection of personal information by political parties change the nature of democracy. Rather than appealing to political values or visions of what voters may want in the future or as a society — critically important at this historical and troubling moment in history — datified campaigning operates by experimenting on unwitting individual citizens who are alone on their phones and computers. It operates by testing their isolated opinions and unvarnished behaviours.
For example, a political campaign might do what’s known as A/B testing of ads, which explores whether ad A or ad B is more successful by issuing two different versions of an ad to determine which one gets more clicks, shares, petition signatures, donations or other measurable behaviour. With this knowledge, a campaign or party can manipulate the ads through multiple versions to get the desired behaviour and result. They also learn about ad audiences for future targeting.
In other words, political parties engaging in this tactic aren’t engaging with Canadians — they’re experimenting on them to see what type of messages, or even what colour schemes or visuals, appeal most. This can be used to shape the campaign or just the determine the style of follow-up messaging to particular users.
University researchers, to name just one example, are bound by strict ethical protocols and approvals, including the principle that participants should consent to the collection of personal information, and to participation in experiments and studies. Political parties have no such standards, despite the high stakes — the very future of democracy and society.
Most citizens think of elections as being about deliberation and collectively deciding what kind of society they want to live in and what kind of future they want to have together as they decide how to cast their ballots.
But with datified campaigning, citizens may not be aware of the political significance of their online actions. Their data trail might cause them to be included, or excluded, from a party’s future campaigning and door-knocking, for example. The process isn’t deliberative, thoughtful or collective.
3. Secret personal data collection
Political parties collect highly personal data about Canadians without their knowledge or consent. Most Canadians are not aware of the extent of the collection by political parties and the range of data they collect, which can include political views, ethnicity, income, religion or online activities, social media IDs, observations of door-knockers and more.
Some governments can and do use data to punish individuals politically and criminally, sometimes without the protection of the rule of law.
Breaches and misuses of data, cybersecurity experts say, are no longer a question of “if,” but “when.”
Worse, what would happen if the wall between political parties and politicians or government broke down and the personal information collected by parties became available to governments? What if the data were used for political purposes, such as for vetting people for political appointments or government benefits? What if it were used against civil servants?
What if it were to be used at the border, or passed to other governments? What if it were passed to and used by authoritarian governments to harass and punish citizens?
What if it was passed to tech companies and further to data brokers?
OpenMedia recently revealed that Canadians’ data is being passed to the many different data companies political parties use. That data is not necessarily housed in Canada or by Canadian companies.
If provincial law is undermined, there are few protections against any of these problems.
Strengthening democracy
Bill C-4 would erase the possibility of provincial and territorial privacy laws being applied to federal political parties, with virtually nothing remaining. Privacy protection promotes confidence and engagement with democratic processes — particularly online. Erasing privacy protections threatens this confidence and engagement.
The current approach of federal political parties in terms of datified campaigning and privacy law is entirely wrong for this political moment, dangerous to Canadians and dangerous to democracy. Reforms should instead ensure federal political parties must adhere to the same standards as businesses and all levels of government.
Data privacy is important everywhere, but particularly so for political parties, campaigns and democratic engagement. It is important at all times — particularly now.
Sara Bannerman receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and McMaster University. She has previously received funding from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s Contributions Program and the Digital Ecosystem Research Challenge.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jack L. Rozdilsky, Associate Professor of Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, Canada
Residents of Los Angeles will need to get used to federally controlled National Guard troops operating on their streets. Due to a ruling from an appeals court on June 19, United States President Donald Trump now has broad authority to deploy military forces in American cities.
This is a troubling development. All presidents have held in their grasp extraordinary powers to deploy military troops domestically. But Trump stands apart with his apparent keen interest in manufacturing false emergencies to exploit extraordinary power.
An 1878 law called the Posse Comitatus Act restricts using the military for domestic law enforcement. The broader principle being challenged by Trump’s actions in L.A. is the norm of the military not being allowed to interfere in the affairs of civilian governance.
The objective was to counter what Trump argued was a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States. In fact, these “rebellions” were largely peaceful protests in downtown L.A.
On June 9, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted an injunction restraining the president’s use of military force in L.A. The court order supported Gov. Gavin Newsom’s contention that Trump overstepped his authority.
On June 19, a decision from a panel of judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the injunction.
What this means at the moment is that Trump does not have to return control of the troops to Newsom. California has options to continue litigation by asking the Federal Appeals Court to rehear the matter, or perhaps directly asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
Moving toward authoritarianism
Trump’s June 7 memorandum facilitating his move to overrule Newsom’s authority and seize control of 2,000 National Guard troops was based on the president defining his own so-called emergency.
He claimed incidents of violence and disorder following aggressive immigration enforcement amounted to a form of rebellion against the U.S.
As Trump flexes his emergency power might, his second term has been called the 911 presidency. He has used extraordinary emergency powers at a pace well beyond his predecessors, pressing the limits to address his administration’s supposed sense of serious perils overtaking the nation.
Issues arise when the level of actual danger locally is not at all representative of what the president suggests is a full-scale national emergency. For example, demonstrations over immigration raids occupied only a tiny parcel of real estate in L.A.’s huge metropolitan area. A Los Angeles-based rebellion against the U.S. was not occurring.
As dissent over aggressive immigration enforcement actions grew, localized clashes with law enforcement did occur. Mutual aid surged into Los Angeles, where neighbouring California law enforcement agencies acted to assist one another. The law enforcement challenges never rose to the level of the governor of California requesting additional federal support.
As recent L.A. protests intensified, Trump stated: “We’re going to have troops everywhere.”
Currently, there are few guardrails in place to prevent a rogue president from misusing the military in domestic civilian affairs. Trump has been coy about whether he would tap into the greater powers available to him under the Insurrection Act.
Real emergencies presenting existential threats to America do persist. Nuclear proliferation, climate change and pandemics need serious leaders. But politically exploiting last-resort emergency laws designed to provide options to deal with genuine existential threats — not to weaponize them against protesters demonstrating against public policy — is absurd.
Jack L. Rozdilsky receives support for research communication and public scholarship from York University. He also has received research support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
We all like to imagine we’re ageing well. Now a simple blood or saliva test promises to tell us by measuring our “biological age”. And then, as many have done, we can share how “young” we really are on social media, along with our secrets to success.
While chronological age is how long you have been alive, measures of biological age aim to indicate how old your body actually is, purporting to measure “wear and tear” at a molecular level.
The appeal of these tests is undeniable. Health-conscious consumers may see their results as reinforcing their anti-ageing efforts, or a way to show their journey to better health is paying off.
But how good are these tests? Do they actually offer useful insights? Or are they just clever marketing dressed up to look like science?
How do these tests work?
Over time, the chemical processes that allow our body to function, known as our “metabolic activity”, lead to damage and a decline in the activity of our cells, tissues and organs.
Biological age tests aim to capture some of these changes, offering a snapshot of how well, or how poorly, we are ageing on a cellular level.
Our DNA is also affected by the ageing process. In particular, chemical tags (methyl groups) attach to our DNA and affect gene expression. These changes occur in predictable ways with age and environmental exposures, in a process called methylation.
Research studies have used “epigenetic clocks”, which measure the methylation of our genes, to estimate biological age. By analysing methylation levels at specific sites in the genome from participant samples, researchers apply predictive models to estimate the cumulative wear and tear on the body.
What does the research say about their use?
Although the science is rapidly evolving, the evidence underpinning the use of epigenetic clocks to measure biological ageing in research studies is strong.
Studies have shown epigenetic biological age estimation is a better predictor of the risk of death and ageing-related diseases than chronological age.
Epigenetic clocks also have been found to correlate strongly with lifestyle and environmental exposures, such as smoking status and diet quality.
In addition, they have been found to be able to predict the risk of conditions such as cardiovascular disease, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.
Taken together, a growing body of research indicates that at a population level, epigenetic clocks are robust measures of biological ageing and are strongly linked to the risk of disease and death
But how good are these tests for individuals?
While these tests are valuable when studying populations in research settings, using epigenetic clocks to measure the biological age of individuals is a different matter and requires scrutiny.
For testing at an individual level, perhaps the most important consideration is the “signal to noise ratio” (or precision) of these tests. This is the question of whether a single sample from an individual may yield widely differing results.
A study from 2022 found samples deviated by up to nine years. So an identical sample from a 40-year-old may indicate a biological age of as low as 35 years (a cause for celebration) or as high as 44 years (a cause of anxiety).
While there have been significant improvements in these tests over the years, there is considerable variability in the precision of these tests between commercial providers. So depending on who you send your sample to, your estimated biological age may vary considerably.
Another limitation is there is currently no standardisation of methods for this testing. Commercial providers perform these tests in different ways and have different algorithms for estimating biological age from the data.
As you would expect for commercial operators, providers don’t disclose their methods. So it’s difficult to compare companies and determine who provides the most accurate results – and what you’re getting for your money.
A third limitation is that while epigenetic clocks correlate well with ageing, they are simply a “proxy” and are not a diagnostic tool.
In other words, they may provide a general indication of ageing at a cellular level. But they don’t offer any specific insights about what the issue may be if someone is found to be “ageing faster” than they would like, or what they’re doing right if they are “ageing well”.
So regardless of the result of your test, all you’re likely to get from the commercial provider of an epigenetic test is generic advice about what the science says is healthy behaviour.
Are they worth it? Or what should I do instead?
While companies offering these tests may have good intentions, remember their ultimate goal is to sell you these tests and make a profit. And at a cost of around A$500, they’re not cheap.
While the idea of using these tests as a personalised health tool has potential, it is clear that we are not there yet.
For this to become a reality, tests will need to become more reproducible, standardised across providers, and validated through long-term studies that link changes in biological age to specific behaviours.
So while one-off tests of biological age make for impressive social media posts, for most people they represent a significant cost and offer limited real value.
The good news is we already know what we need to do to increase our chances of living longer and healthier lives. These include:
We don’t need to know our biological age in order to implement changes in our lives right now to improve our health.
Hassan Vally 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.
Pressure is mounting to cut costs by reducing the time it takes to earn a degree from four years to three.
Students, parents and legislators increasingly prioritize return on investment and degrees that are more likely to lead to gainful employment. This has boosted enrollment in professional programs while reducing interest in traditional liberal arts and humanities majors, creating a supply-demand imbalance.
This structure likely works well for professional majors governed by accreditation or licensure, or more tightly aligned with employment. But in today’s evolving landscape, reliance on the discipline-specific major may not always serve students or institutions well.
I see students arrive on campus each year with different interests, passions and talents – eager to stitch them into meaningful lives and careers.
A more flexible curriculum is linked to student success, and students now consult AI tools such as ChatGPT to figure out course combinations that best position them for their future. They want flexibility, choice and time to redirect their studies if needed.
And yet, the moment students arrive on campus – even before they apply – they’re asked to declare a major from a list of predetermined and prescribed choices. The major, coupled with general education and other college requirements, creates an academic track that is anything but flexible.
Not surprisingly, around 80% of college students switch their majors at least once, suggesting that more flexible degree requirements would allow students to explore and combine diverse areas of interest. And the number of careers, let alone jobs, that college graduates are expected to have will only increase as technological change becomes more disruptive.
As institutions face mounting pressures to attract students and balance budgets, and the college major remains the principal metric for doing so, the curriculum may be less flexible now than ever.
How schools are responding
The college major emerged as a response to an evolving workforce that prioritized specialized knowledge. Fuse/Corbia via Getty Images
In response to market pressures, colleges are adding new high-demand majors at a record pace. Between 2002 and 2022, the number of degree programs nationwide increased by nearly 23,000, or 40%, while enrollment grew only 8%. Some of these majors, such as cybersecurity, fashion business or entertainment design, arguably connect disciplines rather than stand out as distinct. Thus, these new majors siphon enrollment from lower-demand programs within the institution and compete with similar new majors at competitor schools.
At the same time, traditional arts and humanities majors are adding professional courses to attract students and improve employability. Yet, this adds credit hours to the degree while often duplicating content already available in other departments.
Importantly, while new programs are added, few are removed. The challenge lies in faculty tenure and governance, along with a traditional understanding that faculty set the curriculum as disciplinary experts. This makes it difficult to close or revise low-demand majors and shift resources to growth areas.
The result is a proliferation of under-enrolled programs, canceled courses and stretched resources – leading to reduced program quality and declining faculty morale.
Ironically, under the pressure of declining demand, there can be perverse incentives to grow credit hours required in a major or in general education requirements as a way of garnering more resources or adding courses aligned with faculty interests. All of which continues to expand the curriculum and stress available resources.
Universities are also wrestling with the idea of liberal education and how to package the general education requirement.
Students’ career readiness skills – their ability to think critically and creatively, to collaborate effectively and to communicate well – remain strong predictors of future success in the workplace and in life.
Reenvisioning the college major
Assuming the requirement for students to complete a major in order to earn a degree, colleges can also allow students to bundle smaller modules – such as variable-credit minors, certificates or course sequences – into a customizable, modular major.
This lets students, guided by advisers, assemble a degree that fits their interests and goals while drawing from multiple disciplines. A few project-based courses can tie everything together and provide context.
Such a model wouldn’t undermine existing majors where demand is strong. For others, where demand for the major is declining, a flexible structure would strengthen enrollment, preserve faculty expertise rather than eliminate it, attract a growing number of nontraditional students who bring to campus previously earned credentials, and address the financial bottom line by rightsizing curriculum in alignment with student demand.
One critique of such a flexible major is that it lacks depth of study, but it is precisely the combination of curricular content that gives it depth. Another criticism is that it can’t be effectively marketed to an employer. But a customized major can be clearly named and explained to employers to highlight students’ unique skill sets.
Further, as students increasingly try to fit cocurricular experiences – such as study abroad, internships, undergraduate research or organizational leadership – into their course of study, these can also be approved as modules in a flexible curriculum.
It’s worth noting that while several schools offer interdisciplinary studies majors, these are often overprescribed or don’t grant students access to in-demand courses. For a flexible-degree model to succeed, course sections would need to be available and added or deleted in response to student demand.
Several schools also now offer microcredentials– skill-based courses or course modules that increasingly include courses in the liberal arts. But these typically need to be completed in addition to requirements of the major.
Before the 20th century, students followed a broad liberal arts curriculum designed to create well-rounded, globally minded citizens. The major emerged as a response to an evolving workforce that prioritized specialized knowledge. But times change – and so can the model.
John Weigand 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.
Having GenAI generate an image can draw about 6,250 times more electricity, roughly the energy of fully charging a smartphone, or enough to keep the same light bulb on for 87 consecutive days.
The hundreds of millions of people now using AI have effectively added the equivalent of millions of new homes to the power grid. And demand is only growing. The challenge for tech companies is that few sources of electricity are well-suited to AI.
The grid wasn’t ready for AI
AI requires vast amounts of computational power running around the clock, often housed in energy-intensive data centres.
Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind provide intermittent energy, meaning they don’t guarantee the constant power supply these data centres require. These centres must be online 24/7, even when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
Major tech companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft say they are committed to eliminating CO2 emissions, making fossil fuels a poor long-term fit for them.
This has pushed nuclear energy back into the conversation. Nuclear energy is a good fit because it provides electricity around the clock, maximizing the use of expensive data centres. It’s also clean, allowing tech companies to meet their low CO2 commitments. Lastly, nuclear energy has very low fuel costs, which allows tech companies to plan their costs far into the future.
However, nuclear energy has its own set of problems that have historically been hard to solve — problems that tech companies may now be uniquely positioned to overcome.
Is nuclear energy making a comeback?
Nuclear power has long been considered too costly and too slow to build. The estimated cost of a 1.1 gigawatt nuclear power facility is about US$7.77 billion, but can run higher. The recently completed Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in the state of Georgia, for example, cost US$36.8 billion combined.
Historically, nuclear energy projects have been hard to justify because of their high upfront costs. Like solar and wind power, nuclear energy has relatively low operating costs once a plant is up and running. The key difference is scale: unlike solar panels, which can be installed on individual rooftops, the kind of nuclear reactors tech companies require can’t be built small.
Yet this cost is now more palatable when compared to the expense of AI data centres, which are both more costly and entirely useless without electricity. The first phase of OpenAI and SoftBank’s Stargate AI project will cost US$100 billion and could be entirely powered by a single nuclear plant.
Nuclear power plants also take a long time to build. A 1.1 gigawatt reactor takes, on average, 7.5 years in the U.S. and 6.3 years globally. Projects with such long timelines require confidence in long-term electricity demand, something traditional utilities struggle to predict.
One of the biggest challenges facing nuclear energy is the perception that it’s dangerous and dirty. Per gigawatt-hour of electricity, nuclear produces only six tonnes of CO2. In comparison, coal produces 970, natural gas 720 and hydropower 24. Nuclear even has lower emissions than wind and solar, which produce 11 and 53 tonnes of CO2, respectively.
Still, nuclear energy remains stigmatized, largely because of persistent misconceptions and outdated beliefs about nuclear waste and disasters. For instance, while many public concerns remain about nuclear waste, existing storage solutions have been used safely for decades and are supported by a strong track record and scientific consensus.
For decades, there was little effort to correct public perceptions about nuclear fears because it wasn’t seen as necessary or profitable. Coal, gas and renewables were sufficient to meet the demand required of them. But that’s now changing.
The world has long lived with two nuclear dilemmas. The first is that, despite being one the safest and cleanest form of energy, nuclear was perceived as one the most dangerous and dirtiest.
Now tech companies are making hundred-billion-dollar strategic bets that they can solve both nuclear dilemmas. They are betting that nuclear can offer the kind of steady, clean power their AI ambitions require.
This could be an unexpected positive consequence of AI: the revitalization of one of the safest and cleanest energy sources available to humankind.
Michael Tadrous, an undergraduate student and research assistant at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, co-authored this article.
Goran Calic 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.
Israel, with the assistance of U.S. military hardware, bombs an adversary’s nuclear facility to set back the perceived pursuit of the ultimate weapon. We have been here before, about 44 years ago.
The reactor, which the French called Osirak and Iraqis called Tammuz, was destroyed. Much of the international community initially condemned the attack. But Israel claimed the raid set Iraqi nuclear ambitions back at least a decade. In time, many Western observers and government officials, too, chalked up the attack as a win for nonproliferation, hailing the strike as an audacious but necessary step to prevent Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from building a nuclear arsenal.
But the reality is more complicated. As nuclear proliferation experts assess the extent of damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities following the recent U.S. and Israeli raids, it is worth reassessing the longer-term implications of that earlier Iraqi strike.
The Osirak reactor
Iraq joined the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970, committing the country to refrain from the pursuit of nuclear weapons. But in exchange, signatories are entitled to engage in civilian nuclear activities, including having research or power reactors and access to the enriched uranium that drives them.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is responsible through safeguards agreements for monitoring countries’ civilian use of nuclear technology, with on-the-ground inspections to ensure that civilian nuclear programs do not divert materials for nuclear weapons.
But to Israel, the Iraqi reactor was provocative and an escalation in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel believed that Iraq would use the French reactor – Iraq said it was for research purposes – to generate plutonium for a nuclear weapon. After diplomacy with France and the United States failed to persuade the two countries to halt construction of the reactor, Prime Minister Menachem Begin concluded that attacking the reactor was Israel’s best option. That decision gave birth to the “Begin Doctrine,” which has committing Israel to preventing its regional adversaries from becoming nuclear powers ever since.
In spring 1979, Israel attempted to sabotage the project, bombing the reactor core destined for Iraq while it sat awaiting shipment in the French town of La Seyne-sur-Mer. The mission was only a partial success, damaging but not destroying the reactor.
France and Iraq persisted with the project, and in July 1980 – with the reactor having been delivered – Iraq received the first shipment of highly enriched uranium fuel at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center near Baghdad.
Then in September 1980, during the initial days of the Iran-Iraq war, Iranian jets struck the nuclear research center. The raid also targeted a power station, knocking out electricity in Baghdad for several days. But a Central Intelligence Agency situation report assessed that “only secondary buildings” were hit at the nuclear site itself.
It was then Israel’s turn. The reactor was still unfinished and not in operation when on June 7, 1981, eight U.S.-supplied F-16s flew over Jordanian and Saudi airspace and bombed the reactor in Iraq. The attack killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and a French civilian.
Revisiting the ‘success’ of Israeli raid
Many years later, U.S. President Bill Clinton commented: “Everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osirak in 1981, which I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing. You know, it kept Saddam from developing nuclear power.”
But nonproliferation expertshave contended for years that while Saddam may have had nuclear weapons ambitions, the French-built research reactor would not have been the route to go. Iraq would either have had to divert the reactor’s highly enriched uranium fuel for a few weapons or shut the reactor down to extract plutonium from the fuel rods – all while hiding these operations from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
As an additional safeguard, the French government, too, had pledged to shut down the reactor if it detected efforts to use the reactor for weapons purposes.
In any event, Iraq’s desire for a nuclear weapon was more aspirational than operational. A 2011 article in the journal International Security included interviews with several scientists who worked on Iraq’s nuclear program and characterized the country’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability as “both directionless and disorganized” before the attack.
Iraq’s program begins in earnest
So what happened after the strike? Many analysts have argued that the Israeli attack, rather than diminish Iraqi desire for a nuclear weapon, actually catalyzed it.
Nuclear proliferation expert Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, the author of the 2011 study, concluded that the Israeli attack “triggered a nuclear weapons program where one did not previously exist.”
In the aftermath of the attack, Saddam decided to formally, if secretively, establish a nuclear weapons program, with scientists deciding that a uranium-based weapon was the best route. He tasked his scientists with pursuing multiple methods to enrich uranium to weapons grade to ensure success, much the way the Manhattan Project scientists approached the same problem in the U.S.
In other words, the Israeli attack, rather than set back an existing nuclear weapons program, turned an incoherent and exploratory nuclear endeavor into a drive to get the bomb personally overseen by Saddam and sparing little expense even as Iraq’s war with Iran substantially taxed Iraqi resources.
As those challenges were beginning to be addressed, Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, provoking a military response from the United States. In the aftermath of what would become Operation Desert Storm, U.N. weapons inspectors discovered and dismantled the clandestine Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
Similarly to Iraq in 1980, Iran today is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. At the time President Donald Trump withdrew U.S. support in 2018 for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, colloquially known as the Iran nuclear deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Tehran was complying with the requirements of the agreement.
In the case of Iraq, military action on its nascent nuclear program merely pushed it underground – to Saddam, the Israeli strikes made acquiring the ultimate weapon more rather than less attractive as a deterrent. Almost a half-century on, some analysts and observers are warning the same about Iran.
Jeffrey Fields receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Schmidt Futures.
But many asylum-seekers face significant challenges. Refugees formally in the asylum system are often denied residency permits, which means they face persistent insecurity, poverty and isolation
These conditions are compounded by restrictive and limited services for asylum-seekers. This deepens the precarity and exclusion refugees face within a political and economic system that treats them more like economic burdens than as human beings with rights who need help.
In response to these institutional failures, citizens, volunteers and refugees themselves have begun to build grassroots networks of care and solidarity in the ROC and beyond to support refugee communities.
In 2022 and 2023, we conducted interviews with women volunteers and refugees affiliated with The Learning Refuge, a civil society organization in the city of Paphos in southwest Cyprus that cultivates dialogue and collaboration among these two diverse groups.
Women-led initiatives
Many displaced people first arrive on the island of Cyprus through the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). However, the absence of a functioning asylum system or international legal protections leaves them in limbo.
With no viable path to status in the TRNC, most cross the Green Line that bifurcates Cyprus into the ROC, where European Union asylum frameworks exist but remain limited in practice.
In Cyprus, as in manyother countries, a variety of community-building efforts are important responses to limited or restricted state support and humanitarian aid for refugees.
Women-led efforts offer opportunities to deliver educational activities and establish networks, and to help improve the welfare and social protection of refugee women, however imperfectly.
Founded in 2015, The Learning Refuge began as community meetings in a city park. The organization then used space from a nearby music venue to conduct support activities, and later, established itself in a dedicated building.
Organizations like The Learning Refuge emerged to address the limited state support and humanitarian assistance services available to refugees.
The Learning Refuge cultivates dialogue and collaboration among a diverse group of community volunteers. (Suzan Ilcan)
The Learning Refuge cultivates dialogue and collaboration among a diverse group of community volunteers, including schoolteachers, artists, musicians, local residents, refugees and other migrants.
With the aid of 20 volunteers, the loosely organized groups provide women refugees with material support and resources to enhance collective activities, including art and music projects, while also engaging in educational and friendship activities.
While modest in scale, the organization has formed partnerships with local and international organizations, including Caritas Cyprus, UNHCR-Cyprus and the Cyprus Refugee Council to extend its outreach to various refugee groups.
The organization has also launched creative initiatives aimed at cultivating additional inclusive civic spaces. One such effort, “Moms and Babies Day,” was developed in response to the rising number of single mothers from Africa arriving on the island. These women often face poverty and isolation, and struggle with language barriers.
These efforts highlight how grassroots responses — especially those led by women — can offer partial but vital educational and emotional support to refugees struggling to find their footing in a new country.
Negotiated belonging
Through participation in The Learning Refuge, refugee women in Paphos engage in a dynamic process of negotiated belonging, navigating challenges like language barriers, gendered isolation, domestic violence and poverty while contributing to broader community-building efforts.
For example, Maryam, a Syrian woman and mother of three, told us how The Learning Refuge helped her children establish friendships and learn Greek. She also highlighted that it helped her form close ties with volunteers and other Syrian women living in Cyprus, and find paid work in the city.
The volunteers and women refugees participating in The Learning Refuge’s activities emphasized not only their capacity to develop new forms of belonging and solidarity; they also help reshape communal knowledge and generate supportive spaces for women from various backgrounds.
Our research shows that women-led community-building is an effective, though short-term, response to insufficient state support and humanitarian aid systems that leave many refugees in precarious situations.
In varying degrees, these efforts offer women and their families spaces to learn and cultivate new relationships, and foster collective projects and better visions of resettlement and refuge.
Suzan Ilcan receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.
Seçil Daǧtaș receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Bats are often cast as the unseen night-time stewards of nature, flitting through the dark to control pest insects, pollinate plants and disperse seeds. But behind their silent contributions lies a remarkable and underappreciated survival strategy: seasonal fattening.
Much like bears and squirrels, bats around the world bulk up to get through hard times – even in places where you might not expect it.
In a paper published today in Ecology Letters, we analysed data from bat studies around the world to understand how bats use body fat to survive seasonal challenges, whether it’s a freezing winter or a dry spell.
The surprising conclusion? Seasonal fattening is a global phenomenon in bats, not just limited to those in cold climates.
Even bats in the tropics, where it’s warm all year, store fat in anticipation of dry seasons when food becomes scarce. That’s a survival strategy that’s been largely overlooked. But it may be faltering as the climate changes, putting entire food webs at risk.
Climate shapes fattening strategies
We found bats in colder regions predictably gain more weight before winter.
But in warmer regions with highly seasonal rainfall, such as tropical savannas or monsoonal forests, bats also fatten up. In tropical areas, it’s not cold that’s the enemy, but the dry season, when flowers wither, insects vanish and energy is hard to come by.
The extent of fattening is impressive. Some species increased their body weight by more than 50%, which is a huge burden for flying animals that already use a lot of energy to move around. This highlights the delicate balancing act bats perform between storing energy and staying nimble in the air.
In colder climates, female bats used their fat reserves more sparingly than males – a likely adaptation to ensure they have enough energy left to raise young when spring returns. Since females typically emerge from hibernation to raise their young, conserving fat through winter can directly benefit their reproductive success.
Interestingly, this sex-based difference vanished in warmer climates, where fat use by males and females was more similar, likely because more food is available in warmer climates. It’s another clue that climate patterns intricately shape behaviour and physiology.
Climate change is shifting the rules
Beyond the biology, our study points to a more sobering trend. Bats in warm regions appear to be increasing their fat stores over time. This could be an early warning sign of how climate change is affecting their survival.
Climate change isn’t just about rising temperatures. It’s also making seasons more unpredictable.
Bats may be storing more energy in advance of dry seasons that are becoming longer or harder to predict. That’s risky, because it means more foraging, more exposure to predators and potentially greater mortality.
The implications can ripple outward. Bats help regulate insect populations, fertilise crops and maintain healthy ecosystems. If their survival strategies falter, entire food webs could feel the effects.
Fat bats, fragile futures
Our study changes how we think about bats. They are not just passive victims of environmental change but active strategists, finely tuned to seasonal rhythms. Yet their ability to adapt has limits, and those limits are being tested by a rapidly changing world.
By understanding how bats respond to climate, we gain insights into broader ecosystem resilience. We also gain a deeper appreciation for one of nature’s quiet heroes – fattening up, flying through the night and holding ecosystems together, one wingbeat at a time.
Nicholas Wu was the lead author of a funded Australian Research Council Linkage Grant awarded to Christopher Turbill at Western Sydney University.
Tariffs imposed on Canada by the United States have fuelled a surge in nationalist sentiment that played a significant role in the outcome of April’s federal election.
Mark Carney’s new Liberal government has signalled an interest in pursuing nation-building projects that hearken back to an earlier period in Canadian history.
Economic, cultural and social policy in Canada has often served the purpose of building national unity to facilitate cohesion and collective action. But some commentators have cautioned Canadians to dampen their reinvigoratedsense of pride in their nation.
Those on the right view Canadian nationalism as an obstacle to neo-liberal economic policies while the left perceives it as irredeemably flawed.
For people on the right, free trade and globalization are thought to produce the best economic outcomes, and nationalism obstructs those outcomes. But those on the progressive left argue that Canada was founded on racist policies and settler colonialism, so nationalism should be rejected because of this original sin.
Both perspectives — and the public discussion of Canada’s national identity more generally — remain mired in confusion over the nature of nations. As a political philosopher, I have worked to clear up this confusion by determining what nations are and how they evolve.
In the 19th century, French scholar Ernest Renan outlined a definition of nation that has yet to be improved upon. For Renan, a nation consists of two things: the daily commitment of a people to continue to live and work together and a collective memory of a shared past together.
In contemporary times, Irish social scientist Benedict Anderson described nations as “imagined communities,” since the character of the nation is determined by the limits of the collective imagination of its citizens.
These are subjective definitions of nations because they define national communities in terms of the identification of their members with the community.
There are other, more common objective definitions of a nation involving identity, including shared ethnicity, religion or culture. But these definitions have long been criticized since many national identities transcend ethnicity, religion, culture or any other identity markers.
Nations vs. states
A national community is distinct from a state. The state constitutes the formal political institutions of a society, while the nation is the community of people within that society who view each other as compatriots. This is why the phrase “the people” is often used as a synonym for the national community.
While some nations are stateless, in other cases, multiple nations co-exist within a single state.
In Canada, there is the Québécois nation and many Indigenous nations within the Canadian nation. Although they are distinct, states and their governments will often build national identities around themselves to enable cohesion and collective action. Canada’s national identity was systematically shaped by successive governments — from Confederation onward — to build the society that Canadians live in today.
The character of a particular nation is not fixed.
The beliefs, practices and culture of the people who choose to live and work together can be shaped into anything they collectively decide on. A nation can adopt new values, redefine its membership or have one of its definitive characteristics fade from prominence.
Accordingly, there is no reason to think that moral failings of a national community’s past must compromise it forever. A nation can, and sometimes does, recognize its past failures and become something better.
For Orwell, patriotism is devotion to a particular way of life without the desire to force it on other people, while nationalism denotes an impulse to seek power for one’s nation. Patriotism, then, is a benign, ethical form of partiality to one’s nation.
The liberal nationalist, according to Tamir, seeks to construct a national identity that adopts the correct ethical values. They hope to harness the energy of nationalism to build a nation committed to liberty, inclusivity and progress.
In 1867, George-Étienne Cartier described the Canadian identity that he and the other Fathers of Confederation sought to create as a “political nationality.” He viewed Canadian identity as being defined by shared principles rather than language or ethnicity.
More than 150 years later, political theorist Michael Ignatieff made a similar distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism. In an ethnic nation, citizens identify with each other because they belong to the same ethnic, religious or cultural community. Meanwhile, in a civic nation, the people unite behind certain civic principles, like a commitment to democracy.
Cartier’s concept of a political nationality was crucial to making sense of the political experiment that was Confederation. Having mostly abandoned their efforts to assimilate the French-Canadians, the British settlers in North America would now join with them to build a new national identity instead.
Reshaping Canadian identity
In his recent book, historian Raymond Blake explains how Canada’s post-Second World War prime ministers, through their speeches and public statements, reshaped Canada’s national identity.
Up through Louis St-Laurent, various prime ministers would refer to the “deux nations” origin of Canada as inspirational. British and French settlers had come together despite their differences to build a new society together, they pointed out.
As time went on, it became clear this definition of Canada’s national identity wasn’t nearly inclusive enough, making no mention of Indigenous Peoples.
The multicultural character of Canadian society was increasingly acknowledged by the government and Canadians at large until it was central to Canada’s identity. Canada’s national narrative has been reframed in recent years to recognize Indigenous Peoples as one of the three founding pillars of Canadian society. This evolution exemplifies exactly the change citizens should expect in a national community.
This transformation in Canadian national identity shows that national communities can change over time — including, perhaps, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against Canada.
In the end, Canadians decide what sort of nation they want to inhabit. Canada’s political nationality has proven more resilient than even some of its founders might have anticipated, but not for lack of effort. There will always remain the work of building a better nation — and it’s work worth doing.
Eric Wilkinson 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.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has sent a clear signal to the Trump administration: the Japan–US relationship is in a dire state.
After saying just days ago he would be attending this week’s NATO summit at The Hague, Ishiba abruptly pulled out at the last minute.
He joins two other leaders from the Indo-Pacific region, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, in skipping the summit.
The Japanese media reported Ishiba cancelled the trip because a bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump was unlikely, as was a meeting of the Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) NATO partners (Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan).
Japan will still be represented by Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, showing its desire to strengthen its security relationship with NATO.
However, Ishiba’s no-show reveals how Japan views its relationship with the Trump administration, following the severe tariffs Washington imposed on Japan and Trump’s mixed messages on the countries’ decades-long military alliance.
Tariffs and diplomatic disagreements
Trump’s tariff policy is at the core of the divide between the US and Japan.
Ishiba attempted to get relations with the Trump administration off to a good start. He was the second world leader to visit Trump at the White House, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs imposed a punitive rate of 25% on Japanese cars and 24% on all other Japanese imports. They are already having an adverse impact on Japan’s economy: exports of automobiles to the US dropped in May by 25% compared to a year ago.
Six rounds of negotiations have made little progress, as Ishiba’s government insists on full tariff exemptions.
Japan has been under pressure from the Trump administration to increase its defence spending, as well. According to the Financial Times, Tokyo cancelled a summit between US and Japanese defence and foreign ministers over the demand. (A Japanese official denied the report.)
Japan also did not offer its full support to the US bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this week. The foreign minister instead said Japan “understands” the US’s determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Japan has traditionally had fairly good relations with Iran, often acting as an indirect bridge with the West. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe even made a visit there in 2019.
Japan also remains heavily dependent on oil from the Middle East. It would have been adversely affected if the Strait of Hormuz had been blocked, as Iran was threatening to do.
Unlike the response from the UK and Australia, which both supported the strikes, the Ishiba government prioritised its commitment to upholding international law and the rules-based global order. In doing so, Japan seeks to deny China, Russia and North Korea any leeway to similarly erode global norms on the use of force and territorial aggression.
Strategic dilemma of the Japan–US military alliance
In addition, Japan is facing the same dilemma as other American allies – how to manage relations with the “America first” Trump administration, which has made the US an unreliable ally.
Earlier this year, Trump criticised the decades-old security alliance between the US and Japan, calling it “one-sided”.
“If we’re ever attacked, they don’t have to do a thing to protect us,” he said of Japan.
Lower-level security cooperation is ongoing between the two allies and their regional partners. The US, Japanese and Philippine Coast Guards conducted drills in Japanese waters this week. The US military may also assist with upgrading Japan’s counterstrike missile capabilities.
But Japan is still likely to continue expanding its security ties with partners beyond the US, such as NATO, the European Union, India, the Philippines, Vietnam and other ASEAN members, while maintaining its fragile rapprochement with South Korea.
Australia is now arguably Japan’s most reliable security partner. Canberra is considering buying Japan’s Mogami-class frigates for the Royal Australian Navy. And if the AUKUS agreement with the US and UK collapses, Japanese submarines could be a replacement.
Ishiba under domestic political pressure
There are also intensifying domestic political pressures on Ishiba to hold firm against Trump, who is deeply unpopular among the Japanese public.
After replacing former prime minister Fumio Kishida as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last September, the party lost its majority in the lower house of parliament in snap elections. This made it dependent on minor parties for legislative support.
Ishiba’s minority government has struggled ever since with poor opinion polling. There has been widespread discontent with inflation, the high cost of living and stagnant wages, the legacy of LDP political scandals, and ever-worsening geopolitical uncertainty.
On Sunday, the party suffered its worst-ever result in elections for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, winning its lowest number of seats.
The party could face a similar drubbing in the election for half of the upper house of the Diet (Japan’s parliament) on July 20. Ishiba has pledged to maintain the LDP’s majority in the house with its junior coalition partner Komeito. But if the government falls into minority status in both houses, Ishiba will face heavy pressure to step down.
Craig Mark 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.
Donald Trump’s latest forthright outburst was made as part of his attempts to create a peace deal with Iran and Israel. “I’m not happy with Israel,” he told reporters on June 24. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
This came a day after Trump had announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. By the next day, the ceasefire had been violated by both Iran and Israel. Trump was clearly furious, and his language showed it.
This was not a verbal slip – there was no immediate correction, no apology, no nonverbal indication of embarrassment. He just stormed off, clearly angry.
This is not the kind of language that is normally associated with a president. Some have been reported to use the f-word before, but usually behind closed doors.
Donald Trump uses the f-word in a press conference.
We expect presidents to be calm, measured, thoughtful, considered. Trump’s comment was none of these things. Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th US president, once recommended a foreign policy strategy that was based on speaking softly and carrying a big stick. He was suggesting quiet menace, but Trump showed frustration, barely contained. His furious, aggressive response was like something straight out of an old psychology textbook.
In the 1930s, psychologists developed the frustration-aggression hypothesis to explain how aggressive behaviour can arise. The hypothesis suggested that when a person’s goal is blocked in some way, it leads to frustration, which then results in aggression. Aggression was considered a “natural” way of releasing this unpleasant state of frustration. They were clearly different times.
Over the next few decades, this hypothesis was thought by most psychologists to be a gross oversimplification of complex human behaviour. It assumed a direct causal relationship between frustration and aggression, ignoring all the other situational and cognitive factors that can intervene.
Human beings are more complex than that, psychologists argued — they find other ways of dealing with their frustrations. They use their rational system of thought to find solutions. They don’t have to lash out when they’re frustrated in this seemingly primitive way.
Perhaps, that’s why many people feel shocked when they watch this US president in certain situations. To many of us, it all seems so basic, so unsophisticated, so frightening.
Fast v slow thinking
The Nobel laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), characterised the two systems that underpin everyday decision-making. His work may help with understanding of what’s going on here.
He describes system one as the evolutionary, basic system. It operates unconsciously, automatically and very quickly, handling everyday tasks like reading other people’s emotions, without any effort. It is an intuitive system designed to work in a world full of approach and avoidance, scary animals and friendly animals. It is heavily reliant on affect to guide decision-making.
In contrast, system two is slower, more deliberative. It requires conscious effort and is used for complex thinking, solving difficult problems, or making careful decisions.
The relationship between the two systems is critical, and that may get us thinking about Trump in more detail.
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Kahneman says that system one is a bit of a “workaholic”, beavering away all the time, making “suggestions” for system two to endorse. Good decisions – depend upon system two checking the suggestions of system one. But system one often jumps quickly and unconsciously to certain conclusions. System two should check them, but often doesn’t, even when it would be easy.
Here is a well-known example. Answer the following question: “A bat and ball cost one pound ten pence, the bat costs one pound more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”
One answer looks blatantly obvious – but it isn’t correct. The correct answer (after a bit of thought) is five pence.
About 80% of university students give the very quick and incorrect answer of ten pence because it “looks” right. Their system two never checked.
In many people, it seems system two is not used nearly enough. There are striking individual differences in the way that people rely on emotion and gut instinct versus the rational system in making decisions.
Emotional decisions?
It appears that Trump makes decisions very quickly (classic system one), often without extensive deliberation or consultation with advisers. Both in his presidency and in his business career, he seemed to prioritise immediate action over any sort of prolonged and thoughtful analysis. That’s why he changes his mind so often.
His decisions seem to be driven by strong emotions. His response to events, opponents and issues are often passionate and visceral. This could lead to to decisions being unduly influenced by personal feelings, first impressions based on arbitrary cues, and interpersonal perceptions, rather than anything more substantial.
Trump’s style of decision-making emphasises immediacy and emotional conviction, which can be effective in rallying supporters and creating a sense of decisiveness. However, it also can lead to unpredictable outcomes and, as has been seen again and again, somewhat controversial, impulsive actions.
Many suggest that Trump’s decision-making style reflects his background in the high-pressure and high-stakes world of business, where quick judgements and gut instinct can be advantageous in these sorts of competitive winner-takes-all environments
But the world at war is a more precarious place, where system one needs to be kept more firmly in check. Gut instincts may have a role to play, but that old lazy system two needs to be more vigilant. Especially, it would seem, in Trump’s case.
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Geoff Beattie 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.
