Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Nichol, Lecturer in Law, CQUniversity Australia

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has confirmed it is introducing a controversial new policy that will ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s events.

The IOC stated eligibility for women’s events will be determined by a “once-in-a-lifetime” sex test, which would prevent transgender women and those with differences in sexual development from competing.

It is an abrupt U-turn after the IOC previously left athletes’ eligibility up to their respective sports federations.

Reactions to the decision were unsurprisingly fierce.

From a legal point of view, it opens up a can of worms and will no doubt affect many athletes from the top level down to grassroots.

What is the test?

The IOC says “eligibility for the female category is to be determined in the first instance by SRY gene screening to detect the absence or presence of the SRY gene”.

It added:

Based on scientific evidence, the IOC considers the presence of the SRY gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced male sex development.

SRY stands for “sex determining region Y” gene. The presence of the SRY gene is associated with men’s typical sexual development.

Read more: World Athletics’ mandatory genetic test for women athletes is misguided. I should know – I discovered the relevant gene in 1990

Any athlete whose test shows the presence of the SRY gene will be banned from the women’s category.

The screening will be done via an athlete’s saliva, a cheek swab or blood sample.

The IOC stated it is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports.

Why did the IOC make this move?

In September 2025 the IOC established a working group to examine scientific, medical and legal developments in this space.

The IOC said the group reached a consensus that “male sex provides a performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power and endurance”.

IOC president Kirsty Coventry said:

At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat. So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.

The IOC added it had surveyed more than 1,100 Olympic athletes, which revealed “a strong consensus that fairness and safety in the female category required clear, science-based eligibility rules, and that protecting the female category is a common priority”.

At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender woman to compete at an Olympic Games. She finished last in the super‑heavyweight category.

The policy is widely expected to be adopted by individual sports federations, although many have already implemented similar testing in recent months, including World Athletics and World Aquatics.

It will be implemented for women’s events at the Olympic Games, Youth Olympics and Games qualifiers, from Los Angeles 2028 onwards.

Human rights law and sport

The IOC’s decision may be in opposition to several laws that aim to ensure everyone has the right to participate in sport.

The United Nations’ International Charter of Physical Education and Sport states access to and participation in sport is an international human right.

In 2019, a UN Human Rights Council resolution called on sports governing organisations such as the IOC to implement policies and practices that comply with international human rights.

International human rights laws require countries protect and promote human rights.

As many international sports governing organisations such as the IOC are based in Europe, the European Convention on Human Rights also applies to the new genetic testing rule. The IOC policy may violate this.

The UN Human Rights Council states genetic sex testing as an eligibility requirement for women’s sport violates athletes’ international rights to equality, bodily and psychological integrity and privacy.

While many support the IOC’s new policy, others argue the athletes now banned from competing in women’s sports are not being granted basic, long-agreed human rights.

Affected athletes may challenge the new rules in the Court of Arbitration for Sport – world sport’s top court, which has in the past heard cases on gender eligibility.

The IOC’s new rule may also violate the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine and domestic laws in many countries that prohibit genetic testing unless a health purpose is achieved.

Those left on the sidelines

This policy is a monumental shift from world sport’s most powerful authority.

It has sparked celebration among some, and anger and disbelief among others.

There will be aftershocks, maybe in the form of appeals or lawsuits. Where it leaves the few transgender and intersex athletes who want to compete in elite women’s sports is anyone’s guess.

– ref. The Olympics’ transgender athlete ban is a legal and moral minefield – https://theconversation.com/the-olympics-transgender-athlete-ban-is-a-legal-and-moral-minefield-279445

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Damien O’Meara, Lecturer, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University

When Nora (Claudia Karvan) breaks her leg, her son Darcy (Luke Wiltshire) – a trans man – returns home to see her for the first time since he came out. It doesn’t take long before Darcy realises there’s another presence in his childhood home: a ghost of his younger pre-transition self, Dee (Jazi Hall).

Homebodies examines the rift between a trans man and his mother through a haunting that confronts them with the conversations they never had.

The series is created by AP Pobjoy, a transmasculine writer and director, as part of the SBS Digital Originals initiative, which seeks to support risk-taking, short-form projects and emerging talent both on- and off-screen.

Homebodies contributes a complex story rarely seen on our screens. It addresses one of the major gaps in LGBTQ+ stories in Australian television: representations of trans men. In a study I conducted with Whitney Monaghan, we identified just three representations of trans men in Australian television drama between 2000 and 2019.

The trans homecoming narrative

Darcy’s return home drops audiences into a story in which many questions seek to be answered. The themes of “journey” and “homecoming” are major features of the transition narrative. They provide the arc through which trans characters affirm identity and their sense of belonging.

Such narratives are seen in films such as Close to You (2023), starring Elliot Page, in which he portrays a trans man returning home to a family gathering. Ultimately, in this film a homecoming is found in the life he has made for himself.

Narratives of self-acceptance can disrupt the traditional ideas of homecoming. Homebodies explores elements of the literal returning home. But Darcy’s acceptance of himself is settled.

The story gives space for an exploration of the challenging, interpersonal relationship between him and his mother through the haunting of an unresolved rift.

Refreshingly, this is done without Darcy ever doubting his understanding and acceptance of himself.

Hauntings as catharsis

Homebodies takes on aspects of a specific mode of Australian gothic cinema, and takes on the gothic genre’s engagement with hauntology – the ways the past can haunt the present – as pivotal for this trans homecoming narrative.

Dee is a haunting of something left behind. This includes some obvious aspects: she uses Darcy’s deadname and she/her pronouns. But also, Dee represents a version of Darcy in which his existence was not yet a consideration. In the moments when he clashes with Nora, it seems Dee is a manifestation of what his mother wants him to be.

In some ways that feels true, but Dee is also part of a past Darcy is not acknowledging.

Such a story could feel too literal: having a trans man confront his pre-transition self. But Dee is not just a dramatic foil to allow for the exposition of how he came to this place in his life. Rather, he is sharing that journey with who he was before it started.

The value of such conversations stems from the authenticity behind the story. Pobjoy creates a story that is specific. While gender and sexually diverse stories continuously run the gamut of having to be representative to those who are underrepresented and seeking to see themselves onscreen, they can also end up being didactic by the nature of reaching beyond that community.

The value is that such stories create understanding – the risk is they lose their specificity if they try to serve too many interests.

Homebodies strikes an effective balance in its specificity, while feeling like a story audiences will be able to connect with in big or small ways.

One factor that might contribute to this success is that this short series is a product of SBS’s Digital Originals initiative.

Digital first for new and emerging voices

Homebodies is the latest example of the impact of digital-first initiatives for Australian television, following shows such as Latecomers (2023), a rom-com featuring two disabled leads, and Iggy & Ace (2021), which explores drug and alcohol addiction and mental health in queer communities.

These emerging talent programs have become a key site for screen industry development in Australia, and often tell complex stories about underrepresented communities.

Short episodes and online distribution are lower-risk investments for traditional broadcasters, and here underrepresented voices are getting opportunities not previously seen on Australian television.

Through such short series, public-service broadcasters are foregrounding centrally queer stories, investing in local content during the ongoing disruption of streaming.

Homebodies is a prime example of the value of such initiatives. An emerging original voice – in Pobjoy as creator – given the space to dive into a narrative rarely seen on Australian television. And Homebodies won’t just be online: it is also screening on SBS television.

But there are questions about where investment might scale. With the recent loss of Matchbox Pictures and Tony Ayres Productions, there are concerns about the challenges faced by other production houses, and the future of specific local stories in Australian television drama.

Read more: Why one of Australia’s most successful TV production companies is being shut down

While streaming quotas seem to promise new opportunities in the future, the reality of their impact remains theoretical. The number of hours, the variety of genres, the prominence of our local stories all remain unknowns.

Homebodies is a promising example of what is possible, when given the chance.

Homebodies is on SBS and SBS On Demand from Saturday.

– ref. Homebodies: bold TV about a trans man, his mother and the conversations they never had – https://theconversation.com/homebodies-bold-tv-about-a-trans-man-his-mother-and-the-conversations-they-never-had-277500

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice and Criminology, Bond University

With petrol and diesel prices soaring, we’re hearing more reports of alleged fuel thefts from petrol stations, farms, trucks and even parked cars.

Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association’s chief executive officer Rowan Lee told AAP this week that fuel theft from service stations had increased by between 8–30% nationally since the start of the Middle East war. Even before the conflict began, fuel theft was costing retailers around A$80 million a year.

Police in several states have warned they expect more thefts to come.

Here’s how past surges in fuel prices have driven up “drive-off” thefts, how common such thefts are – and what to do if you see one happening.

Predicting fuel thefts from petrol prices

There is good evidence, both from Australia and overseas, that fuel price spikes do drive up fuel thefts.

A report by the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research compared eight years of service station fraud – largely fuel theft – from 1998 to 2006 against the average monthly price of petrol in Sydney.

It found “a strong correlation” between higher petrol prices and the increase in petrol theft.

For every 10 cent increase in the price of a litre of petrol at the time, the report estimated:

we can expect up to 120 extra reported incidents of service station fraud for that month in NSW.

The researchers also found “service station fraud in any given month can be predicted from the average price of petrol one month earlier”.

‘Significant’ links between price spikes and theft

More recent studies have been done overseas. For instance, a 2023 study of English and Welsh fuel thefts found that when petrol prices were relatively stable, fuel cost changes had little impact on petrol thefts. But sudden surges in higher fuel prices – like the kind we’re seeing now in response to the Middle East war – were found to be “significantly associated” with higher levels of the crime.

Another UK study looked at the relationship between the price of commodity goods, like fuel, and levels of related crime. It found a “positive crime-price elasticity” for fuel – meaning if the price of fuel went up, so did the theft of fuel.

Similarly, a 2015 German study found that the fuel price had a statistically significant effect in increasing fuel theft.

How common in petrol theft?

The available data on fuel drive-offs across Australia is patchy, varying state by state.

Last week, South Australian police reported a 37% jump in fuel thefts: 221 fuel thefts in the week ending March 15, up from 162 the week before. As the state’s Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said:

A substantial number of people — 97 — have done it [for] what we would describe as the first time. That’s a significant increase in the rate of first offenders.

Stevens also warned his officers may have to stop investigating drive-off thefts at service stations, unless pre-paid pumps were urgently introduced to stop the “completely preventable” crime.

The rate of fuel theft varies over time, as well as by state.

In NSW, figures provided to The Conversation by the state’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show “fail-to-pay” drive-offs have risen over the past decade, up from 9,097 in 2016 to 13,423 to the end of 2025, after a peak of 15,326 in 2024.

In the 2018-19 financial year Queensland police data recorded around 27,800 fuel drive-off offences: about 76 per day.

In mid-2025, that was down to 61 thefts a day. That put the state on track to record roughly 22,300 fuel drive offs by the end of the year.

From texts to fines or even jail time

Facing tens of thousands of drive-offs, seven years ago Queensland Police came up with a novel response: texting or emailing drivers suspected of drive-off thefts. Those messages say to contact the service station and pay immediately, or face a fine and potential criminal prosecution.

When first trialled in 2019, initial reports showed that of the 4,723 messages Queensland Police sent, 2,190 drivers went back to the station to pay for their fuel.

In many states, the maximum penalty for fuel theft can be five to ten years in jail. However, someone engaging in a fuel drive-off for personal use is much more likely to be fined.

Factors such at the criminal history of the offender, how many offences were committed and the nature of the offending would also determine the outcome.

Different states prosecute the crime differently. For instance, in NSW a drive-off offence is typically prosecuted as “fraud”, not theft, because the fuel was voluntarily provided by the station – and the thief has then dishonestly taken it without paying.

How do you report petrol theft?

If you see a petrol theft happening and it could be dangerous, most police services across Australia recommend calling Triple Zero (000).

But when the offence has already happened and the thief has gone, retailers or others are encouraged to report the theft online. Police in some states, including NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, have dedicated websites on reporting fuel drive-offs.

Given the evidence about fuel price spikes leading to more fuel drive-offs, the longer this Middle East war drags on, the more we’re likely to hear from police about the need to do more about rising theft.

– ref. ‘Drive-off’ fuel thefts cost $80 million even before the war – and they’re heading up – https://theconversation.com/drive-off-fuel-thefts-cost-80million-even-before-the-war-and-theyre-heading-up-264365

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland

Easter chocolate is all over supermarket shelves. Some people reach straight for milk chocolate eggs while others pause at the darker varieties, assuming they’re healthier.

Dark chocolate has gained a reputation as the “better” choice because it usually contains more cocoa and less sugar than milk chocolate.

But is dark chocolate actually healthier?

Let’s see how the evidence stacks up.

How do they compare?

All chocolate begins with the cocoa (or cacao) bean. Cocoa beans are the seeds of the Theobroma cacao tree, a tropical plant native to Central and South America.

Processing the bean gives you cocoa solids (the bitter part) and cocoa butter (the fat part that gives chocolate its smooth texture).

Chocolate is made from cocoa solids, cocoa butter and sugar. Milk chocolate also contains milk powder or condensed milk.

Dark chocolate typically contains a much higher proportion of cocoa solids, usually 50–90%.

Milk chocolate generally contains 20–30% cocoa solids, with the remaining bulk made up of milk ingredients and sugar.

How about nutritional benefits?

Because dark chocolate contains more cocoa solids than milk chocolate, it naturally provides slightly higher amounts of certain minerals.

This table shows the differences between milk chocolate (30% cocoa) and dark chocolate (more than 60% cocoa) per 20-gram serve. That’s about one row of a Lindt chocolate block.

As you can see, dark chocolate provides more minerals such as magnesium, iron and zinc. It also contains noticeably more caffeine (but far less than in a typical cup of coffee, which would contain about 100mg).

Milk chocolate offers significantly more calcium due to its milk solids, but it generally contains more added sugar.

Cocoa is naturally rich in plant compounds called polyphenols. These act as antioxidants in the body, helping to protect the body’s cells from damage.

Because dark chocolate contains more cocoa, it naturally contains higher levels of these compounds. In fact, dark chocolate contains roughly five times more flavanols (a type of polyphenol) than milk chocolate.

Compared to other foods often praised for their antioxidant content, cocoa contains around 17 times more catechins (another type of polyphenol) per serving than black tea. It also contains around three times more than red wine.

Does dark chocolate improve your health?

Research into cocoa and dark chocolate has produced some interesting findings, particularly about heart health.

Cocoa flavanols appear to help blood vessels relax and support better blood flow. Some clinical trials have reported small reductions in blood pressure and improvements in measures of blood vessel function after consuming cocoa products.

There is also broader evidence suggesting diets rich in flavanols may be linked with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease overall.

However, these findings come with important caveats.

Many of these trials use cocoa extracts containing high levels of flavanols. Others contain specially formulated chocolate rather than the typical chocolate bars or Easter eggs you’d find in supermarkets. The doses tested are also often far larger and far more concentrated than what people normally consume.

A large umbrella review (a review of reviews) involving more than one million participants did find links between eating chocolate and lower risks of cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes.

But the overall quality of evidence was rated as weak or very low, largely because many of the studies were observational. Observational studies can identify patterns, but they cannot prove chocolate itself caused those benefits.

The bottom line is that cocoa does contain beneficial plant compounds but the chocolate most of us enjoy is not a health supplement.

But I thought dark chocolate has less sugar?

Choosing dark chocolate doesn’t automatically make it the healthier option, especially where sugar is concerned. Some dark chocolate contains surprisingly high amounts.

Depending on the cocoa percentage and recipe, some dark chocolate products contain 40–50% sugar.

So a 150g dark chocolate Easter bunny containing 50% sugar, for example, can contain about 19 teaspoons of added sugar.

This applies to Easter eggs too. Some dark chocolate Easter eggs sold in supermarkets still list sugar as one of their first and main ingredients, ahead of cocoa butter. This means sugar makes up a significant chunk of what you’re eating.

So it’s always worth flipping the packet over and checking the ingredients list and nutritional panel to be sure.

What to choose this Easter?

Dark chocolate has a nutritional advantage over milk chocolate. But how much depends on the cocoa percentage and how it’s been made.

As a general rule, aim for 70% cocoa or more, and flip the packet over before you buy. In a higher-quality dark chocolate, cocoa should appear first in the ingredients list – not sugar.

A higher-quality dark chocolate might have its ingredients listed in this order: cocoa mass, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, sugar, vanilla.

A lower-quality dark chocolate might look like this: sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, emulsifiers, flavour, milk solids.

If sugar is listed first, it’s the largest ingredient by weight.

Beyond that, choose chocolate you actually enjoy and watch your portion size. Remember that your overall diet matters far more than a few Easter eggs.

The real health benefit of Easter chocolate? The enjoyment of sharing it.

– ref. Is dark chocolate healthier than milk chocolate? 2 dietitians explain – https://theconversation.com/is-dark-chocolate-healthier-than-milk-chocolate-2-dietitians-explain-278062

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity Australia

Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle continues to amaze us with its long journey across northern Australia.

This cyclone began life near the Solomon Islands on March 16, when moist air rose rapidly and created a low-pressure zone. Narelle crossed the Cape York Peninsula last Friday as an intense but compact category 4 system, and continued a steady westerly track across the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Today the cyclone crossed as a dangerous category 4 cyclone near Exmouth, in the far northwest of WA. So far, Narelle has travelled more than 5,700 kilometres since it formed as a system near the Solomons, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

It is relatively rare for an individual tropical cyclone to affect Queensland, the NT and WA. The last time was Severe Cyclone Ingrid in 2005 and Cyclone Steve in 2000. The final path of Narelle is likely to be very similar to Steve, with its final dissipation in the Great Australian Bight.

A large and severe cyclone

Narelle is a much more severe cyclone than Steve, however. The system is now twice the size it was when it reached far north Queensland a week ago — as measured by the area of strong gales around its eye. These damaging winds now extend 200–260km from the centre, while destructive storm-force winds extend 110–210km, and the very destructive core of hurricane-force around the eye is 90–130km wide.

The cyclone’s larger core poses a significant threat to settlements in its path from both severe winds and intense rainfall. Dangerous storm surge and ocean inundation is also a high risk for exposed coastal locations along its path. There will be much greater impact if it passes by at or near high tide.

So far, wind and storm surge damage from the cyclone has been minimal, as it has tracked over more sparsely populated areas. Its worst impacts have been heavy rain and flooding across NT catchments, which were already saturated from weeks of monsoonal rain. The west of the continent is unlikely to be so lucky.

An unusually predictable path

Narelle’s track, forward speed and intensity have been remarkably predictable compared with many cyclones in the Australian region. Prevailing easterly winds under the cyclone, associated with a subtropical high pressure ridge over southern Australia, have propelled it along at 15–25km per hour over the past week.

Narelle is now being steered around the northwestern periphery of the same high-pressure system, and this is why its track is now more to the south southwest. It is expected to intensify over warm ocean waters. It will continue to move in a more southerly direction and maintain intensity as a dangerous category 4 cyclone until later today, before weakening to a still severe category 3 system near Shark Bay. The towns of Onslow and Exmouth are expecting severe impacts as the core winds pass over them, with wind gusts of up to 250km per hour. Further south, Carnarvon is expecting winds up to 200km per hour this afternoon.

Weakening over land

The world heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef is likely to be severely affected by the cyclone as its core winds pass along its entire length. This is a double whammy for the reef, after the severe 2025 marine heatwave caused catastrophic coral bleaching and high mortality. Some areas lost up to 60–80% of coral. Coral reefs that are already stressed by coral bleaching are likely to take longer to recover, if they are struck soon after by a powerful tropical cyclone.

Narelle will still be a severe category 3 system when it tracks through Shark Bay, probably on Friday, but will begin to weaken as it moves over land south of the tourist town of Denham. An approaching upper trough from the Southern Ocean will begin to interact with the cyclone and force it to track more quickly to the south-southeast. This will see it weaken to a category 2 as it passes just inland of the major town of Geraldton. Due to forecast changes in wind speed and direction near the cyclone from the west, the strongest winds will shift to its eastern flank and the system will begin to lose its tropical cyclone characteristics.

The people of Kalbarri and Northampton, small towns north of Geraldton, will be on edge as they remember April 2021, when the towns suffered serious damage from category 3 Tropical Cyclone Seroja.

The WA capital Perth is likely to avoid the core of the cyclone as it undergoes extra-tropical transition. This is when a cyclone loses its tropical warm core and becomes more extra-tropical in structure, meaning its strong winds and heavy rain can be expected to spread out from the centre over a wide area of the greater southwest during Saturday.

On the positive side, widespread rainfalls are forecast for most of the WA Wheatbelt. This will be welcomed by farmers as they typically sow their winter wheat crops between late April and June.

Tropical cyclones becoming more intense

It’s too early to draw a link between Cyclone Narelle and background global heating of the oceans and atmosphere, largely driven by rising greenhouse gases from the combustion of fossil fuels. This will require detailed attribution studies, which factor in natural variations in the climate system with those being driven by human-driven climate change.

Numerous studies now confirm globally tropical cyclones are becoming more intense and delivering higher short-term and daily rainfall than in the past. In the Australian region, there has been a decline in overall cyclone frequency in recent decades, but the ones we’re getting now are more intense and producing more rainfall. This trend is expected to continue under future global heating.

– ref. Cyclone Narelle is now larger and ‘more severe’ as it crosses the Western Australian coast – https://theconversation.com/cyclone-narelle-is-now-larger-and-more-severe-as-it-crosses-the-western-australian-coast-279322

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hutchinson, PhD Candidate, International Relations, Australian National University

Since the Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Australia, Wahidullah Waissi, and his staff have continued to represent the people of Afghanistan under the most trying circumstances.

They have continued to provide diplomatic and consular services in Canberra. This includes issuing passports and verifying Afghan drivers’ licences for those who have fled the Taliban to live in Australia.

In 2024, however, the Taliban government in Kabul wrote to the Australian government to request the embassy be closed.

The embassy does not represent the Taliban; it has stood firmly against their authority to run the country. It continues to strongly defend the human rights of all Afghans, with a particular focus on women and girls.

Last September, the Australian government asked the Afghan embassy to stop offering consular services. Now, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has advised the Afghan embassy in Canberra to close completely in June.

Notably, the Australian government doesn’t recognise the Taliban and is unlikely to accept a Taliban ambassador. So it’s not as though the de facto Afghanistan government can just send a new ambassador to Canberra.

However, closing this embassy would put many vulnerable Afghans – including women and girls fleeing the Taliban – at significant risk.

The embassy represents the state, not the Taliban

If the embassy were controlled by the Taliban, we would not want them here. But there is no requirement under diplomatic law for an embassy to have a connection to a government.

As Afghanistan expert William Maley has argued, Australia has had a policy since 1988 of “recognising states, not governments in our diplomatic relations”.

Not only are the legal arguments provided for the closure spurious, he argues, but closing this embassy is an insult to Australian personnel who fought the Taliban for 20 years. It would be a gift to the Taliban.

Azadah Raz Mohammad, an Afghan lawyer at Melbourne University and legal advisor for the End Gender Apartheid campaign, told me the closure of the embassy is “deeply concerning”. She said:

The absence of formal diplomatic representation risks further isolating an already vulnerable diaspora community, undermining access to documentation, rights, and essential consular support.

For example, one Afghan woman who is an Australian permanent resident was recently threatened with deportation to Afghanistan when visiting her husband in China. Her supporters told me she had been a member of the Afghan National Police in the past, so would be at high risk of Taliban violence should she be returned. She had travelled to China on her Afghan passport.

But by the time she tried to return to Australia, she only had five months left on the passport, which is why Chinese customs threatened to deport her.

Without consular support in Australia, she had not been able to renew her passport, or receive consular assistance. More cases like this will arise when the embassy closes.

Issuing passports

For some time after the Taliban retook control of Kabul, the embassy was able to issue a small number of Afghan passports.

These were of great value to those who received them. In some cases, these passports saved lives, allowing people wanted by the Taliban for their work with the previous government to escape. This included policewomen or women’s rights supporters.

Recently, the Taliban ceased recognising such passports. But this only means they can’t be used by people needing to leave or enter Afghanistan, or other countries aligned with the Taliban. Afghans in Australia can still use them to visit family in other countries.

The Afghan embassy was, until recently, able to renew passports that were nearing expiry for people who weren’t eligible for Australian travel documents. Fees charged for this service were an especially important revenue stream for the embassy given it was without funding from Kabul.

The embassy also had to cease verifying other official Afghanistan documents, such as drivers’ licences. These are important for Afghans trying to rebuild their lives in exile; they can help with getting an Australian drivers’ licence.

Policy trend

Australia’s Department of Home Affairs recently changed the priority processing criteria for humanitarian visas for Afghans.

This meant removing any priority based on categories of specific vulnerability such as ethnicity, sex or LGBTQI status.

Instead, processing is now prioritised based on the relationship of the applicant with the proposer of the visa. For example, a mother sponsoring her son to come to Australia, or a husband sponsoring his wife to come here.

My forthcoming research for paper for the Australian Journal of International Affairs shows how problematic it is to ignore the most at-risk Afghans in visa applications.

Future diplomatic need

It’s possible great change is unfolding in the region. In Iran, on Afghanistan’s western border, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in recent US and Israeli airstrikes, along with other senior officials.

To Afghanistan’s south, Pakistan’s defence minister has declared his country is in open war with the Taliban. Experts fear an ongoing conflict, and many organisations have called for de-escalation.

If the Taliban are to ever be removed from power in Afghanistan, Australia needs an Afghan ambassador in Canberra to support communication and diplomacy during such a change.

– ref. Closing the Afghan embassy in Canberra would put many vulnerable Afghans at significant risk – https://theconversation.com/closing-the-afghan-embassy-in-canberra-would-put-many-vulnerable-afghans-at-significant-risk-276855

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gehan Gunasekara, Professor of Commercial Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

Anyone who has recently travelled to the United States will be familiar with biometric checks – facial and fingerprint scans – used at the border.

It is the same technology platform that is used in airports elsewhere in the world. New Zealand’s passports, for instance, are among those that now carry encrypted biometric information, matched to a traveller’s face as they pass through border smart gates.

Because the data is used for a specific purpose and remains tightly controlled by the countries that hold it, these advanced systems have been relatively uncontroversial.

But that could change. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now requiring countries including New Zealand to enter a new arrangement – known as an Enhanced Border Security Partnership – as a condition of keeping visa-free travel to America.

Countries that do not sign on risk losing that access, placing them under pressure to agree despite unresolved questions.

Documents released by the DHS suggest the arrangement could involve direct access to other countries’ government databases, including law enforcement and biometric data – raising serious privacy concerns.

Biometric data is especially sensitive: if compromised, it cannot be replaced like a credit card. Around the world, it is regulated through bespoke rules such as New Zealand’s recently adopted Biometric Processing Privacy Code.

However, the US proposal is largely shrouded in secrecy and may be exempt from privacy and freedom of information laws due to carve-outs in immigration legislation.

Given the stakes involved, it is clear the US proposal should be transparent, enabling countries such as New Zealand the opportunity for public debate and scrutiny before signing on.

Europe pushes back

The New Zealand government has confirmed it is in talks with the US, but has so far provided little detail on what information might be shared or what protections would be in place.

It is not alone in confronting this challenge. The European Union has been able to push back and is likely to negotiate compromises that preserve strong privacy protections aligned with European norms.

Its independent European Data Protection Supervisor recently issued an opinion statement outlining key concerns, as well as the minimum safeguards needed to protect privacy and human rights.

Earlier agreements between the two blocs show that such safeguards are possible.

One example is the Passenger Name Record (PNR) agreement established after the September 11 attacks. This requires airlines to transfer certain data before a passenger boards a flight to the United States.

Its many provisions include limiting the use of data to combating terrorism or serious transnational crime, masking identifiable personal information after six months and placing data in a dormant database with restricted access.

What’s now on the table is a very different proposition. Unlike PNR – which involves sharing a single dataset for a specific purpose – DHS documents suggest large-scale transfers of biometric and other data to the US.

In response, the European Data Protection Supervisor has demanded explicit authorisation and access logging requirements, rather than granting automatic access. It has also stressed the need for strict necessity.

What cards can NZ play?

For New Zealand, the US proposal is troubling because it could potentially enable access to law enforcement data currently governed by the Privacy Act, with strict rules on transparency and who can access it.

There is a risk this could extend to police vetting data, which includes not only criminal convictions but also information on potential suspects, such as intelligence photos of individuals. If so, this could undermine the presumption of innocence where no charges have been laid.

What can New Zealand do? It might turn to protections that were set out in a Ministerial Policy Statement governing cooperation between domestic intelligence agencies and their overseas counterparts.

Following a critical 2019 report by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security – which highlighted risks of shared information being used in ways that could contribute to human rights abuses – this statement was strengthened with tighter safeguards.

But for now it is unclear what steps New Zealand will take – or how the US will respond to any issues it raises. It is also concerning that, compared with the much larger European Union, the country is in a weak position to negotiate how this new partnership is applied.

One can only hope it does not prove to be a Trojan horse for New Zealanders’ data privacy.

– ref. Will a new border deal with the US open a backdoor into Kiwis’ personal data? – https://theconversation.com/will-a-new-border-deal-with-the-us-open-a-backdoor-into-kiwis-personal-data-278416

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation

This is the text from The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up here to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

The five-day deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz handed to Iran by Donald Trump on Monday expires some time tomorrow and the Islamic Republic needs to “get serious before it is too late” – or so the US president has announced on his TruthSocial platform.

You’ll recall that this deadline replaced another deadline which was due to expire on Monday night, after which the US and Israel would obliterate Iran’s power plants and plunge the country into darkness. Happily Trump pulled back from this plan, reporting that talks were progressing very well, so he would extend the deadline until March 27.

For their part, Iranian officials denied that negotiations were even underway, while US officials said contacts were at a very early stage. This has prompted speculation that the US president was seizing even the most informal of contacts as an “off ramp” to save face over not following through with his threat.

Certainly Trump’s oft-repeated assurance that the war in Iran has been won and that Iran’s senior officials (whoever remains after Israel’s highly successful campaign of assassinations) are “begging” the US to make a deal looks a rather optimistic assessment from the US president.

Far from collapsing in a heap after the death of the former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, the regime is showing its resilience. Its targeting of US installations in the region are hurting the Gulf states and there are signs that Israel’s Iron Dome is fracturing in parts under the volume of Iranian missile attacks (this reportedly also happened during the 12-day war last year). Conservative estimates are that the war is costing the US and Israel more than US$1 billion £740 million) a day.

But it has been Iran’s ability to shut down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz that has arguably turned this into a world war, despite the unwillingness of many of America’s allies, particularly in Europe, to get involved. An estimated 20% of the world’s gas and oil transit the strait each day along with other vital supplies. Or at least it did before the end of February. Now very little is getting through and the consequences are being felt globally.

It’s not as if the US and Israel couldn’t anticipate that Iran would react to their attacks by closing down the strait. Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, an expert in Iranian history at the SOAS, University of London, walks us through nearly five decades in which Iran responded to every crisis by threatening to close the strait. Is is, he argues, a key plan in Iran’s security policy.

Read more: Iran has been threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz for years – it’s a key part of Tehran’s defence strategy

Meanwhile, it appears that the US is dusting off a 15-point peace plan it developed in May last year and which has already been rejected by Iran.

Critics say the chances of Iran acquiescing to the plan were negligible then and remain so now. It calls for Iran to give up all its uranium and agree to hand control of its civil nuclear programme to an outside panel. And, controversially, it seeks to control what Iran spends the money it gains if sanctions are relaxed.

This has prompted analysts to ask whether this plan was simply produced to give the US an explanation as to why it changed its mind over hitting Iran’s power plants. Bamo Nouri and Inderjeet Parmar, experts in international politics at City St George’s, University of London, think it the resurfacing of this plan is the strongest indication yet that Washington is beginning to fear that it has become embroiled in an unwinnable war.

Read more: ‘Girl math’ may not be smart financial advice, but it could help women feel more empowered with money

Certainly this conflict has not gone the way Trump and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu might have wanted. But – as with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, this should have been predictable. Jason Reifler, a political scientist at the University of Southampton, asserts that the US in particular, has embarked on this conflict with no clear goals or thought-through strategy.

Failing to ask for authorisation via the United Nations (and for America, the the US congress) was a bad start, meaning the war had a legitimacy deficit from the word go. The reason for launching the conflict has veered from halting Iran’s nuclear programme to regime change and back again. And the strategy of assassinating Iran’s leadership has produced a rally-round-the-flag effect that few had anticipated.

Add to that the devastatingly effective use of drones by Iran (which the war planners in the US and Israel must surely have picked up on from the experience in Ukraine), means that the two countries are often forced to counter munitions worth US$20,000 with missiles worth millions of dollars. Meanwhile, the pain from Iran’s closure of the closing the strait will only get worse.

Read more: Iran war lacks strategy, goals, legitimacy and support – in the US and around the world

Holy war?

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, held a religious service at the Pentagon yesterday, at which he called on god to “grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence”. Hegseth appears to see this as a holy war in which he has clearly cast himself as a crusader, even sporting a tattoo reading, “Daus vult” (god wills it) – reportedly the rallying cry for the attempt to “liberate the Holy Land” in the 11th century.

Toby Matthiesen, senior lecturer in global religious studies at the University of Bristol observes here the way in which all parties to this conflict have used religion to garner support. Of course, claiming the approval of one’s chosen deity is a time-honoured tactic that even Nazi Germany tried. But it feels a little incongruous in the 21st century.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the sight of Donald Trump in the middle of a prayer huddle in the Oval Office was an amusing oddity. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s reference to the Old Testament story of the Amalekites, whom god told the children of Israel to annihilate, “men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” is frankly chilling. Parts of the Islamic world has flocked to Iran’s defence (although not with particular enthusiasm in the Sunni countries of the Gulf, which Iran is bombarding with ballistic missiles).

Read more: God on their side: how the US, Israel and Iran are all using religion to garner support

Trang Chu and Tim Morris, meanwhile, believe that this conflict has been nearly five decades in the making. Just as Iran has always denied the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, many people in the US and Israel have long been committed to the destruction of Iran as a theocracy. Accordingly the way the two sides talk about each other has hardened over the years. Language on each side no longer reflects a criticism of their adversary’s behaviours, it has become a verdict on their moral character.

So to Iranians, the US is the “Great Satan”, while Iran is described in America as part of an “axis of evil”. Our experts believe that, this language “not only describes the enemy, but actively participates in creating it”. The observe that once you start to think these sorts of things about your adversaries, the idea of engaging in negotiation tends to become secondary to the desire to simply defeat or destroy them. Which is terribly dangerous, as we’re seeing.

Read more: How the words that Iran and America use about each other paved the way for conflict

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– ref. Iran was always going to close the Strait of Hormuz – https://theconversation.com/iran-was-always-going-to-close-the-strait-of-hormuz-279371

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynn Akesson, Professor Emerita of Ethnology in the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University

The Swedish painter Margareta Magnusson died on March 12 aged 92. She became famous in 2017 for coining the smart and humorous concept of döstädning in a book known in English as The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. The book was rapidly translated into an impressive number of languages, exporting the notion of death cleaning internationally.

Death cleaning is a decluttering practice where you go through what you own and get rid of things so that, when you die, the process of sorting your affairs is easier on your loved ones.

The year the book was published, the concept found its way into the Swedish Language Council’s annual list of new words. These annual lists feature new expressions that, the council hopes, say “something about today’s society and the year that has passed”. This undoubtedly holds true for death cleaning.

While döstädning quickly became part of everyday Swedish language, the habit of cleaning out belongings before dying was not entirely new. It is, however, no coincidence that the concept appeared when it did rather than, say, in the 1950s when ordinary homes were not yet so crowded with things. The increasing need for death cleaning has to do with living in a consumer society amid an accelerating overflow of possessions.

In earlier times, the importance of setting matters right before death was more concerned with relations: with God, relatives, friends, enemies, neighbours and so forth. In a Christian context, this last rite is known as Commendation of the Dying, known also as death bed rites.

In 1734, the establishment of an estate inventory, or bouppteckning, (a comprehensive list of a deceased person’s assets, property and debts at the time of death) became mandatory in Sweden by law. Although the law was not strictly enforced in its first decades, the inventories that do exist from this time are fascinating.

These early inventories belong to a range of people, from wealthy noblemen to widows of limited means with no more possessions than a set of clothing and few kitchen utensils. Many things listed were manufactured at home, and the few items that were purchased were highly valued. In a society like this, there was no need for death cleaning in the sense of clearing out. On the contrary, objects were passed on between generations or sold at well-attended local auctions.

Death cleaning is a form creating order and tidiness, which have often come with moral narratives closely tied with them. In this, the role of death cleaning now and in the past does have something in common.

In both cases, a person’s posthumous reputation is at stake, and leaving behind an untidy home or unsolved personal matter tells an unwanted story to the living of the person who has passed. Different stories can be crafted by getting rid of belongings or leaving them in good condition to pass on. What a person’s death cleaning looks like is a matter shaped by time and culture.

In memories collected by The Folk Life Archives at Lund University of the decades around 1900, people stress the importance of well-filled cabinets and cupboards as part of an impressive estate inventory. Such bounty was also meant to elicit admiration among visitors at the local auction. At that time, it was important to demonstrate good housekeeping by displaying your possessions, the more the better. Reading The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, talking to people engaged in death cleaning and in my general work, I have seen how, nowadays, the same effect is achieved by leaving behind a minimum of things.

This change in cultural preferences naturally reflects changes in material conditions. In societies where goods are relatively easy to acquire – both in terms of cost and availability – we all have a lot more. As such, death cleaning has become a good deed. Not burdening surviving relatives with sorting through unwanted items has become an act of love and care. However, it is worth noting that the idea of death cleaning is an ideal not everybody can live up to. Many people still find it difficult to part with their belongings.

The international fascination with the Swedish art of death cleaning invites reflection on widespread fantasies of the Nordic region. Media representations of Scandinavia frequently emphasise tropes of minimalism and emotional restraint. Such framing may contribute to the global appeal of döstädning, yet risks obscuring the more complex and culturally grounded logic underpinning the practice.

Positioned within Swedish everyday life, death cleaning is less an exotic cultural curiosity and more a meaningful negotiation of material abundance, kinship responsibilities and existential reflection.

– ref. The Swedish concept of ‘döstädning’ or death cleaning is about more than just getting rid of things – https://theconversation.com/the-swedish-concept-of-dostadning-or-death-cleaning-is-about-more-than-just-getting-rid-of-things-279030

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Murat Ungor, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Otago

In recent years, there has been no shortage of warnings about the fragility of New Zealand’s largely imported fuel supply.

Now, motorists are seeing the cost of that vulnerability at the pump. Across the country, petrol has surpassed $3.30 a litre on average. On Auckland’s Waiheke Island, locals protested after prices at a local station exceeded $4 a litre.

The catalyst, of course, is the US and Israel’s ongoing war on Iran. It has disrupted key supply chains and pushed Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, over $100 a barrel.

There is no sign yet of Iran ending its effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly 20% of all the world’s oil shipments flow.

New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon has called the crisis “one of the most significant oil shocks we’ve had in history”.

For his government, this moment should surely have prompted a hard look at the country’s deep dependence on imported fuels – and what sustainable alternatives there are to reduce it.

A small country, far from fuel

New Zealand is an island economy heavily dependent on imported fuel, and any sustained disruption ripples quickly through everyday costs.

The reason lies in both geography and infrastructure. Until 2022, the Marsden Point refinery supplied around 70% of the country’s refined fuel. Its closure meant New Zealand now relies entirely on imported petrol, diesel and jet fuel, sourced mainly from refineries in Singapore, South Korea and China.

Those refineries, in turn, depend on crude oil that travels through the Strait of Hormuz. In effect, New Zealand faces a double exposure: higher global prices and the risk of delayed supply.

The government says New Zealand currently holds around seven weeks of supply, in storage and on ships already bound for our shores.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has acknowledged that buffer relies on “ships like this continuing to turn up.” It was designed to smooth over short disruptions, not absorb a sustained global crisis. Officials are already planning for scenarios lasting eight to twelve weeks.

Who gets hit first?

Diesel – the fuel that powers trucks, tractors, fishing boats and construction equipment – is the bigger economic problem. Its price has risen faster than petrol and its impact is wider.

As Luxon put it, diesel “powers up so much of our economy” and is “the key pacing item.” New Zealand’s economy moves on trucks. Almost everything its consumers buy at the supermarket, from the milk produced in the Waikato to the lettuce grown in Pukekohe, has been on the back of a diesel-guzzling truck.

In agriculture, the impact is a double blow: farmers need diesel to run tractors and milk tankers, and they depend heavily on fertilisers.

The Strait of Hormuz also carries significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilisers. Higher fuel costs plus higher fertiliser costs squeeze farm margins from both sides.

Food prices follow. Fresh fruit and vegetables are particularly vulnerable: their short shelf life means there is no slack to absorb sudden freight cost increases. Treasury has modelled a scenario in which inflation hits 3.2% by June.

Aviation faces its own squeeze. Jet fuel is a specialised product with no domestic refining fallback. Air New Zealand has already suspended its earnings guidance and warned of fare hikes.

What can NZ actually do?

Price changes affect rich and poor differently. The government has targeted relief at those who need it most: around 143,000 working families with children will receive a $50-per-week boost through the in-work tax credit for as long as petrol stays above $3 a litre, at a total cost of up to $373 million.

Willis has explicitly ruled out broader handouts, warning of a vicious spiral of inflation. Luxon has drawn the same lesson from the pandemic, cautioning against too much spending. The government has also widened the pool of fuel suppliers by accepting imports meeting Australian specifications.

But this crisis also exposes a longer structural problem. New Zealand has one of the highest car ownership rates in the world – 815 light vehicles per 1,000 people in 2024.

Road transport consumes nearly 40% of all the energy used in the country, yet electricity accounts for less than 1% of transport energy use. That gap is the problem, but also the opportunity.

Electric vehicles, electric buses and electrified freight all reduce exposure to the next oil shock. As fuel prices rose, Auckland recorded 2.25 million public transport trips in a single week: a seven-year high. People make rational choices when price signals are strong enough.

But transition at scale takes time.

Electric vehicles make up roughly 3% of the light vehicle fleet, and electric heavy trucks remain a niche technology. Farming, fishing and air travel have no quick electric alternative. Even an accelerated shift would leave most of New Zealand dependent on petrol and diesel for many years.

Ultimately, New Zealand cannot control what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. But it can control how much we depend on it. The question is whether it starts now – or waits to find itself just as exposed when the next crisis hits.

– ref. Distant conflict, local crisis: is this oil shock the wake-up call NZ needed? – https://theconversation.com/distant-conflict-local-crisis-is-this-oil-shock-the-wake-up-call-nz-needed-278983