Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University

The public service isn’t often considered highly newsworthy, but when it comes to how much senior heads get paid, it ignites public discussion.

Depending on the department, some heads now earn more than A$1 million a year. That’s far more than the prime minister, who earns around $622,000 annually.

The independent body that oversees the pay of top officials, the Remuneration Tribunal, recently announced it will review remuneration arrangements for Australian Public Service (APS) departmental secretaries and full-time public officers. This will happen ahead of annual adjustment decisions in 2027.

The tribunal has released a consultation paper on secretaries’ remuneration and foreshadowed one later in the financial year on public offices.

Interestingly, the consultation paper refers explicitly to the possibility of downward as well as upward ones.

So how did we get to this point? And what needs to be considered when deciding how much to pay the most senior bureaucrats?

Building political momentum

The announcement follows a series of Senate committee inquiries over the last decade into legislation proposed by crossbench senators.

Most recently, Senator Jacqui Lambie introduced a bill in 2025 proposing a cap on department sectretaries’ pay based on the remuneration of the prime minister and the treasurer.

The committee recommended against passage of the bill. But this inquiry was more extensive than those previous. It was clear other senators shared Lambie’s concerns, if not her overly blunt proposal.

In additional comments appended to the report, Coalition senators Dave Sharma and Jessica Collins called on the Remuneration Tribunal “to ensure its decisions enjoy a degree of public support and are responsive to public sentiment”. They said “it is arguable whether such high salaries need to be paid to attract the requisite talent”.

They also called on the tribunal to “be more transparent about the weight that community sentiment plays in its deliberations”.

Lambie went further, recommending a performance audit of the tribunal be conducted by the Australian National Audit Office.

It would not be surprising if Albanese government ministers, including Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher, are also uncomfortable with the level of secretaries’ pay, including compared to their own.

Years of pay rises

An underlying concern is whether the large increases determined by the Remuneration Tribunal between 2011 and 2014 went too far.

My own submissions to the Senate committee inquiries in 2018 and 2025 showed how those determinations increased pay for department heads from around seven times the average weekly earnings to more than nine times. For those in treasury and the department of prime minister and cabinet, it increased to more than ten times.

Those higher levels have been maintained by the tribunal ever since.

Secretaries’ remuneration was also increased significantly back in 1994. But that was related directly to the loss of tenure associated with the new “contract” system introduced under the Keating government.

The tribunal’s consultation paper reiterated the evidence it provided to the Senate committee inquiry that:

The Tribunal does not use private sector positions as comparators for Secretary roles.

That is disingenuous. The tribunal’s December 2011 report that guided its subsequent pay decisions refers to a report it commissioned from consultants Egan Associates. The tribunal referred to this Egan report as a “touchstone” for its assessments.

The Egan Associates report explicitly used a mix of top CEO and other private sector executive salaries as yardsticks for setting the remuneration of secretaries. The tribunal’s assessment closely followed the Egan proposals.

The tribunal is right now, however, to imply private sector pay should not be a factor in setting secretaries’ remuneration.

A complicated calculus

The current consultation paper lays out factors the tribunal says it weighs up when deciding on pay.

One thing it rightly considers is how department head salaries compare to those running key economic regulators, such as the Reserve Bank and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).

But the tribunal itself sets the regulators’ remuneration. We don’t know if they’ve used private sector comparisons to determine those or whether public sentiment was considered.

What about senior executive pay?

The tribunal also rightly highlights the relevance of the remuneration of secretaries’ direct reports. These are deputy secretaries and other Senior Executive Service (SES) employees.

But these salaries vary wildly across departments. While on average, salaries have increased in line with average national earnings, some have increased much more.

This came about because central controls on public service pay were devolved in the 1990s and 2000s. Most people on Senior Executive Service wages were placed on individual employment agreements. While such individual agreements have since disappeared, the wide variations in pay continue.

To solve this, the tribunal needs to work with the Australian Public Service Commission (which oversees Senior Executive Service pay). This should have been the priority, rather not boosting department heads’ pay to account for some of their direct reports earning high salaries.

High-status jobs

The other factors the tribunal considers largely make sense. They include the powers, responsibilities and accountabilities of secretaries; the characteristics, skills, experience or qualifications required; and the remuneration of similar offices.

Missing is any consideration of tenure. That requires government attention, but a sensible shift away from allowing termination at any time for any reason could lead to a lower rate of pay in return for greater job security. Most secretaries would probably support such a move.

The last factor listed, “the non-financial rewards associated with the office, including the status, profile, influence and professional standing conferred by Secretary roles” is key. This goes to the heart of why people join the public service in the first place.

Burgeoning research since the early 1990s has questioned an emphasis on financial incentives in the public sector. It instead stresses the importance of “public sector motivation”: that people join the public service for the common good, or to make a positive difference.

Judgements about how much to rely on public sector motivation rather than remuneration vary. Australia currently gives much more weight to remuneration than most of our counterparts.

The question is whether we are right to do so, and whether that judgement has community acceptance, including among our political representatives.

– ref. Some senior bureaucrats earn more than $1 million a year. How did we get here? – https://theconversation.com/some-senior-bureaucrats-earn-more-than-1-million-a-year-how-did-we-get-here-281009

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rajat Roy, Associate Professor, Bond Business School, Bond University

Today, Apple announced the tech company’s longtime chief executive Tim Cook will step down and transition to the role of executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors.

This change will take effect from September 1 2026. John Ternus, currently Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take over as chief executive.

However, Cook will remain in place until then to ensure a “smooth takeover”. As chairman, he’ll then take on a more strategic role of engaging with policy makers and corporate governance.

Ternus is a 25-year-veteran at Apple. He is widely seen as an internal replacement shaped by long-term succession planning. His appointment marks Apple’s first leadership transition since Cook took over from Steve Jobs in 2011.

Rather than signalling a dramatic shift, this transition is likely going to be more subtle, without a major strategic reset.

A rich legacy for Cook

Cook was only the second chief executive in Apple’s history, after cofounder Steve Jobs resigned in 2011 and died six weeks later.

Cook is widely recognised for his strengths in operations, scale and business model innovation. Under his leadership, Apple became one of the most successful global supply chain organisations reaching more than 200 markets worldwide. The company’s value grew from about US$350 billion in 2011 to US$4 trillion today.

Importantly, Cook drove a decisive shift towards service monetisation – charging users fees for Apple’s digital services and subscriptions, rather than just making money from selling devices such as iPhones, iPads and laptops. Cook’s strategy capitalised on Apple’s already massive base of 2.5 billion active devices.

Service monetisation led to high-margin revenues from Apple’s offerings such as iCloud, Apple Music and the Apple store. Consequently, Apple made more than US$100 billion in 2025 from this business, providing a stable and predictable income beyond cyclical hardware sales.

Who is John Ternus?

In contrast to Cook, Ternus has a deeply technical, product-oriented background shaped by more than two decades in hardware engineering.

At Apple, he has overseen the development of key product lines that include many iterations of the iPhone, iPad, AirPods and the Apple Watch, among others. He’s been closely associated with advances in materials, durability and performance.

Ternus spearheaded the recent introduction of the relatively affordable MacBook Neo and the radically thin yet durable iPhone Air. He also led the way on incorporating an unprecedented active noise cancellation feature into AirPods, which the company described as “world’s best”.

The difference in background between Cook and Ternus suggests a subtle but important shift in emphasis for the technology giant.

While Cook focused on transforming Apple into a highly monetised ecosystem anchored in services and global scale, Ternus is likely to reassert the importance of product-led innovation. In his current role, he’s been focusing on engineering excellence and integrating fresh technologies into Apple devices.

With Ternus at the helm, it’s likely the company will try to balance an optimised ecosystem of revenue (that is, service monetisation) with reinvigorating the hardware products that sustain it. That would make a lot of sense.

Apple faces numerous pressures

A stronger product focus under Ternus may also become the company’s response to multiple structural pressures facing Apple.

In the Cook era, Apple was often criticised for incremental innovation, in contrast to Jobs’ visionary leadership that was credited with changing modern consumer tech.

Major competitors Google and Microsoft are making rapid advances in cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI), with Apple seemingly lagging behind (although some experts say not investing as heavily in AI could be a worthwhile response to the AI hype bubble).

Apple’s device-centric approach will ensure products are meaningfully distinct from competitors through partnerships. For example, the company will be using Google’s Gemini AI as the basis for an enhanced Siri assistant. At the same time, consumers are upgrading their devices more slowly, so Apple will need more compelling product innovation to drive demand.

The company is also vulnerable to global supply chain disruption due to geopolitical tensions. This can negatively impact Apple’s timelines of product delivery, and even lead to lower-quality products if suppliers can’t fulfil Apple’s expectations. In recent years, Apple has already been addressing this by moving some of its manufacturing from China to Vietnam.

Time will tell, but so far everything suggests Ternus succeeding Cook as Apple chief executive will represent a logical and necessary calibration of strategy, rather than a radical shakeup.

– ref. Apple chief executive Tim Cook resigns after 15 years. What’s next for the tech giant? – https://theconversation.com/apple-chief-executive-tim-cook-resigns-after-15-years-whats-next-for-the-tech-giant-281122

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Taylor, Research Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

The loss of our forests is one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time.

Forests are key to curbing carbon emissions and protecting the plants, animals and humans that call Earth home.

However, we’re losing our forests at an alarming rate. Our new study shows we’ve lost roughly 300 million hectares over the past 11 years. However, it’s unclear how much of this forest has since been restored.

Either way, we’re losing a significant amount of forest despite efforts to protect it through certification, protection and other conservation schemes.

A global effort

The European Union has introduced policies aimed at eliminating products and supply chains that contribute to forest loss. Examples include palm oil, soy, coffee, cocoa, timber and rubber.

Halting forest loss is also a major focus of international declarations, such as the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use. This declaration, which more than 140 countries endorsed at the COP26 conference in 2021, aims to strengthen global efforts to reduce deforestation and land degradation.

Over the past three decades, the international community has launched forest management certification schemes to protect our forests. These include those developed by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification.

Read more: Australia’s alpine ash forests are now officially endangered. Can we save them?

These are voluntary, market-based schemes meant to ensure forests are being properly managed. These schemes aren’t state-controlled, but rely on the market to create incentives to pressure companies to comply. They do this by getting accredited auditors to independently assess forest management practices against approved or endorsed forest management standards. These schemes also encourage companies to buy products sourced from certified forests. About 10% of the world’s forests are currently certified under these schemes, equal to more than 400 million hectares.

Protected areas may also help curb forest loss. Protected areas are defined locations designed to help conserve nature. Globally, roughly 18% of our forests are in protected areas.

These two strategies should be reducing, or even stopping, forest loss. But they’re failing to do so at a global scale.

So, what’s actually happening?

In our new study, we measured how much forest each country lost each year, due to fire or other causes, from 2013 to 2023. An example of a fire-related cause is a severe fire that engulfs the tree canopy. Forest loss as a result of logging for agricultural or urban development is an example of a non-fire cause. We then compared this to how much forest area is certified or protected in each country.

Between 2013 and 2023, we estimate the amount of forest in protected areas increased from about 868 million hectares to 990 million hectares.

Despite this, our study shows over that period between 21 million and 32 million hectares of forest were lost each year. This tracks with earlier research finding a similar, and no less alarming, trend between 2002 and 2011.

Our study also found no evidence linking more certification and protected areas with less forest loss, at a country level. Between 2013 and 2023, nearly half of global forest loss happened in four countries. These include Russia, Brazil, Canada and the United States. This was mainly caused by fire in countries north of the equator, and non-fire causes in tropical regions such as Brazil.

Read more: Restoring logged forests doesn’t mean locking them up as ‘wilderness’ – it means actively managing them

What can we do?

Forest certification schemes and protected areas, while effective at a forest or local scale, may not have much of an impact on forest loss on a global level. But that’s not a reason to get rid of them.

Instead, we should consider them as just some of the tools in the toolbox. And to make them more effective, we should rethink how they are governed and implemented.

At present, forest management certification schemes are market-based. This means they are largely influenced by private companies. In contrast, most protected areas are managed by state actors, such as a country’s government.

These are two very different forms of governance that historically have not been applied in a coordinated way. For example, a government may decide to add more forest to a protected area. But if it doesn’t have the support of private companies, this may inadvertently lead to negative forest leakage. This is where unprotected forests become more vulnerable to forms of intensified logging, such as clearfelling. Clearfelling involves removing most or all of an area’s trees in one operation, meaning old-growth trees and other key parts of the forest may be lost. To avoid this, we need to coordinate certification and protected areas better.

Read more: Indigenous peoples are crucial for conservation – a quarter of all land is in their hands

Another approach that’s been effective is Indigenous-led management. This gives Indigenous communities control over how land is used and managed, including preventing deforestation and other types of illegal forest loss. Recent research suggests this approach can be effective in conserving forests, when used in conjunction with other strategies.

We also need to use the resources we get from our forests more appropriately and efficiently. The vast majority of logs cut from forests are used in short-lived and often disposable products, such as copy paper and pallets. Using precious forests for these low-value products is wasteful and inefficient. It might help reduce forest loss if these products came from recycled sources. To protect our forests, we need to do more with less.

– ref. Our efforts to halt global forest loss aren’t working: new research – https://theconversation.com/our-efforts-to-halt-global-forest-loss-arent-working-new-research-280368

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Sansom, Research Associate, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University; Research Associate, Centre for Healthy Ageing, Murdoch University

Not everyone can sleep through rumbling traffic or a spouse’s incessant snoring. If you do, you may pride yourself on being a “deep” or “heavy” sleeper.

If you struggle to fall or stay asleep, you may consider yourself a “light” sleeper.

But is there such thing as being a light or deep sleeper? And can you change how deeply you sleep?

Sleep is a cycle

Sleep is not a single, static state. Rather, it’s a cycle that unfolds and repeats across the night, in two main stages.

Stage 1: Non-REM sleep

Sleep begins with non-rapid eye movement sleep, also known as non-REM sleep. This is made up of three phases, ranging from a first phase of very light sleep, to the deepest and slowest form of sleep in the third phase.

Stage 2: REM sleep

Rapid eye movement or REM sleep comes next, usually between 80 to 100 minutes after you fall asleep. To distinguish between the two stages, scientists measure the size and speed of electrical activity in the brain, commonly known as brain waves. During this second stage, these brain waves become more active. This may be why you may have more dreams during REM sleep.

After your body completes its first round of non-REM and REM sleep, this process repeats in cycles, each lasting roughly 90 minutes.

Read more: Is sleeping a lot actually bad for your health? A sleep scientist explains

The myth of the ‘deep sleeper’

When you’re sleeping, you may appear to be unresponsive. But your brain doesn’t fully switch off. Instead, your sleeping brain shifts into a “standby mode”, allowing it to monitor your environment while letting certain information through. This process is known as sensory gating. This is why you may wake up after hearing your own name, a familiar voice or a baby’s cries. All these sounds trigger a stronger response from your brain, compared to other ordinary noises.

During the second stage of non-REM sleep, your brain maintains this standby mode through two types of brain waves. The first type is known as sleep spindles. These are brief bursts of electrical activity that help reduce how much external information your brain processes at any given time. K-complexes are the second type of brain wave that, like sleep spindles, also help you sleep more soundly.

Research suggests you get the deepest sleep during the third stage of non-REM sleep. This is when your brain is the least responsive to the outside world. However arousability, which is how likely you are to wake from sleep, changes as you go through the sleep cycle. This means it’s not scientifically possible to be a “deep sleeper” for the whole night.

What other factors affect sleep?

Here are four other factors that can impact sleep quality.

Genetics

Certain genes may influence how you sleep. An example is a common variant of the adenosine deaminase gene. This gene affects how efficiently the brain clears adenosine. Adenosine is a chemical that, over the course of the day, accumulates in your brain and makes you more sleepy. People who carry this gene variant typically experience longer periods of deep sleep, particularly of the non-REM kind. This means they generally wake less during the night.

Research also suggests people with more sleep spindles may have better sleep. One 2010 study measured how many sleep spindles each participant produced while sleeping on a quiet night. Researchers found participants with a higher number of sleep spindles were more likely to stay asleep the next night, even when noise was introduced. Emerging evidence from studies of twins shows sleep spindles are highly heritable, suggesting genetics may play a role in how many sleep spindles a person produces.

Stress

For some people, stress can significantly impact their sleep. This trait is known as sleep reactivity. For these people, a stressful day can cause them to have racing thoughts and difficulty both falling and staying asleep. They may also experience night-time spikes of the hormone cortisol, which your body releases when you feel stressed. Current research suggests sleep reactivity is one of the strongest predictors of insomnia, a sleep condition where you consistently struggle to fall and stay asleep.

Read more: Cortisol ‘spikes’ are normal, so when is cortisol a real problem?

Light

Exposure to light may also affect sleep quality. One 2013 study compared the sleep patterns of healthy young adults who slept either with or without a bedside light. It found the former group had less deep sleep and more periods of being awake. These participants also produced fewer sleep spindles over the course of the night. Other research suggests night-time exposure to light may also delay the body’s internal clock, making it harder to fall asleep at bedtime.

Other medical conditions

People with certain medical conditions may struggle to sleep. One example is sleep apnoea, a common condition where your airway is partly or completely blocked during sleep. Research suggests people with untreated sleep apnoea wake up more often and experience more light non-REM sleep. But certain treatments can help to stabilise their breathing, improving sleep quality. Pain from other conditions, such as endometriosis and irritable bowel syndrome, can also impact a person’s sleep. People with these conditions often experience painful flare-ups at night, which research shows can limit deep sleep.

Read more: An unbroken night’s sleep is a myth. Here’s what good sleep looks like

The bottom line

Many factors shape how much shut-eye you get each night. This means no one is truly a “deep sleeper”. But if you’re in need of a better night’s sleep, creating a dark, quiet and stress-free environment is a good place to start.

– ref. Wondering if you’re a ‘light’ or ‘deep’ sleeper? The science isn’t that simple – https://theconversation.com/wondering-if-youre-a-light-or-deep-sleeper-the-science-isnt-that-simple-277080

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elena Ivanova, Distinguished Professor, Physics, RMIT University

Think of how many surfaces you touch every day, from your kitchen bench to the hand rail on the bus or train, your work desk and your phone screen.

A range of nasty viruses and other germs can easily spread via these surfaces. The typical route of infection involves touching a contaminated surface – and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth.

Of course, it’s possible to clean surfaces with chemical products. But these can wear off, harm the environment or contribute to antimicrobial resistance, where germs no longer respond to medicines because of repeated exposure.

In our new study, published in Advanced Science, colleagues and I created a thin plastic surface with tiny nanoscale features, billionths of a metre in size, that mimic the nanotextured surface of insect wings and can physically rupture viruses – specifically human parainfluenza virus type 3 (hPIV-3).

This new material offers a cheap, scalable way to make surfaces such as phones and hospital equipment far less likely to spread disease.

The downsides of disinfectants

Current methods for combating the spread of viruses via surfaces usually involves cleaning to remove dirt and disinfection to remove hidden contaminants.

Disinfectant must remain wet for some time to kill germs. This can be challenging in some real-world settings.

Surfaces can also be recontaminated quickly when other people touch them. And disinfection often involves the use of harsh chemicals which can damage equipment and the environment.

Scientists have previously developed antiviral surface modifications. These strategies often involve incorporating materials such as graphene or tannic acid and other natural agents into personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, goggles, hard hats, and respirators.

These coatings are efficient. But they can pose a risk to human health. They can also be environmental hazards due to chemical leaching and have declining effectiveness over time as the potency of the active ingredients weakens.

A decade-long journey

Our journey toward a virus-bursting surface started more than a decade ago.

We initially aimed to engineer a surface so smooth that germs would simply slide off. Surprisingly, we discovered the opposite. Bacteria adhere quite readily to nanoscopically smooth surfaces.

Nature offers examples of bacteria-free surfaces. Take the water-repelling wings of cicadas and dragonflies. While these wings are self-cleaning, they act less by repelling bacteria and more as natural bactericides. That is, they kill bacteria. Natural bactericides are nature-derived “agents” that can kill germs, rather than inhibit their growth.

Experiments my colleagues and I did with gold-coated wings confirmed this bacteria-killing effect is not driven by surface chemistry, but rather by topography.

The physical nanostructures on the surface essentially force bacterial cell membranes to stretch and rupture.

Our earlier work showed that nanospike-covered silicon effectively destroys viruses on contact. But its rigid nature restricts its use on complex objects.

A lightweight, flexible and virus-bursting material

In this new study, we addressed this problem by creating a virus-bursting material that was lightweight, cost-effective and flexible.

This material is a thin acrylic film covered in thousands and thousands of ultra fine pillars. The nanotextured materials are smooth to touch. However, these nanopillars grab and stretch a virus’s outer shell until it ruptures. This kills viruses through mechanical force.

Lab tests with hPIV 3, which causes bronchiolitis and pneumonia, found up to 94% of virus particles were ripped apart or fatally damaged within an hour of contact with this material.

We discovered the distance between nanopillars matters far more than their height, with tightly packed pillars about 60 nanometres apart working best.

The mould we used to create this material can be easily scaled to provide wide-ranging industrial opportunities, from food packaging to public transport systems to hospital equipment and office desks.

Nanostructured surfaces are built for durability. But they are susceptible to the same physical, chemical, and environmental stressors as any other material, and will degrade over time.

Much remains to be discovered in the search for germ-free surfaces. But these nanotextured surfaces have enormous potential in the fight against viruses and provide an alternative to traditional, chemical-based methods.

– ref. New plastic film covered in thousands of tiny pillars can tear apart viruses on contact – https://theconversation.com/new-plastic-film-covered-in-thousands-of-tiny-pillars-can-tear-apart-viruses-on-contact-280919

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Genauer, Academic Director, Public Policy Institute, UNSW Sydney

With a shaky ceasefire in place between the US, Israel and Iran – and little progress on talks to resolve the complex issues at the heart of the war – where is this conflict going?

The most likely scenario is a frozen conflict.

A frozen conflict is not static, but is an unresolved war that continues at a low-level below the threshold of full-scale combat.

This typically occurs when a comprehensive political agreement cannot be reached, such as the fighting in eastern Ukraine from 2014 until Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. This conflict was considered frozen despite the deaths of some 14,000 military personnel and civilians and persistent cyber and information warfare.

Even if negotiations resume this week in Pakistan and an eventual agreement is reached, there are still three reasons we believe this is headed towards a frozen conflict, not a comprehensive peace agreement.

1) Trump equates ceasefires with an end to war

US President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy has shown he does not treat ceasefires as pauses for negotiations to agree on substantive political issues. Rather, he declares a ceasefire as a US success, then moves on to the next global issue.

Trump claims to have ended ten wars, including the current conflict with Iran and Israel’s war in Lebanon. A closer look reveals that in most of these conflicts, a shaky ceasefire has held while substantive issues remain unresolved.

This has left frozen conflicts in place with ongoing tensions. In India and Pakistan, which engaged in a brief armed conflict last year, for example, there is a continued risk of renewed hostilities. And a lasting peace between Thailand and Cambodia after last year’s border spats remains elusive.

Yet, Trump has walked away from these conflicts and claimed an end to war as soon as a cessation of major hostilities was in place.

2) Asymmetric wars are difficult to resolve

The current war is asymmetric because of the huge difference in military strength between the US and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other.

Iran has intentionally used asymmetric tactics to counter the US’ overwhelming military power, including targeting infrastructure in Persian Gulf countries not involved in the war and closing the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping traffic to disrupt the global economy.

Research shows asymmetric wars are inherently protracted and often open-ended. As a result, they are more likely to end in a frozen conflict than an enduring political settlement.

The reason for this is simple. The weaker actor cannot win a conventional military battle against the stronger actor. So, it tries to exhaust the more powerful nation with political, economic and psychological pressure, forcing a withdrawal and cessation of hostilities.

This is what we are seeing now between the US and Iran. Trump is feeling these rising pressures and is pursuing a ceasefire, while trying to claim a US victory.

Iran, meanwhile, has agreed to a ceasefire in a bid for survival as the weaker actor, rather than a commitment to an enduring end to the conflict.

This is reminiscent of the Taliban in Afghanistan, who survived 20 years in a frozen conflict with the US before taking back control of the country when the US withdrew.

3) There’s been no focus on the more complex issues

Neither the US nor Iran appears committed to any long-term resolution of the underlying tensions at the root of the conflict. Key among these is the question of Iran’s nuclear program.

For Washington, the first round of peace talks in Pakistan on April 11–12 were aborted because Iran refused to compromise on its nuclear program. And Iran has long argued it has an inalienable right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.

The negotiations that led to the multilateral 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear program – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – took 20 months to conclude. Trump withdrew from the agreement three years later, calling it a “horrible one-sided deal”.

Given this history, a quick and clear resolution to this complex dispute is unlikely.

Some analysts believe the US and Iran could announce a partial agreement that would leave many of the technical aspects to be ironed out later.

But Trump is now facing an opponent that is unlikely to become more accommodating with respect to its long-term “nuclear rights”. In fact, Iran has already shown its resolve by asserting a new geostrategic normal, closing the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting the global economy.

What a frozen conflict means for the region

The Iran-US war may conclude with a series of ceasefires, but will likely remain a frozen conflict due to these underlying tensions. This means more threats from both sides over Iran’s nuclear program and periodic flare-ups of violence between Israel and Iran, the US and Iran, or both.

This is much like the frozen situation in Gaza. Last October, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire under Trump’s 20-point peace plan. The first phase of the plan was then largely implemented, leading to a hostage-prisoner exchange, a decrease in Israel’s heavy bombardments of Gaza and a resumption of aid into the strip.

However, there has since been no progress on the more complex questions of the post-war governance of Gaza, redevelopment of the strip and – crucially – the disarmament of Hamas fighters. As a result, Israel has refused to completely withdraw its troops and violence has continued.

Read more: Israel and Lebanon have a ceasefire, but global attention shouldn’t move on. This isn’t a tidy end to the war

From a historical perspective, the frozen conflict in the Koreas is also instructive. The war ended with an armistice in 1953 and no peace treaty, effectively leaving North and South Korea at war to this day. This led to the North developing an underground nuclear weapons program that continues to pose a threat to the world.

Similarly, the decades-long frozen India-Pakistan conflict has led to an arms race (including the development of nuclear weapons on both sides), instability in South Asia and periodic flare-ups of violence.

A frozen conflict between the US, Israel and Iran will no doubt create similar long-term instability in the Middle East, including a possible arms race in the Middle East and more flare-ups of violence, particularly around control of the Strait of Hormuz.

– ref. 3 reasons the war between the US, Israel and Iran is headed for a frozen conflict – https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-the-war-between-the-us-israel-and-iran-is-headed-for-a-frozen-conflict-280996

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Munt, Associate Professor, Media Arts & Production, University of Technology Sydney

In the opening moments of Vladimir, Netflix’s new erotic drama series, the protagonist M (Rachel Weisz) is sprawled on a couch in her negligee, writing in her notepad. She leans towards the camera, then stares into the lens to address you, the viewer, on your couch.

In film and television, this is called “breaking the fourth wall”. It is a ploy of metafiction: a kind of self-aware mode of storytelling.

The fourth wall is the invisible plane through which the camera observes the action. To break the fourth wall is to play with – or sever – audiences’ suspension of disbelief, and abandon the norms of screen narration.

The history of breaking the fourth wall is almost as long as the history of cinema itself. Edwin S. Porter’s film The Great Train Robbery ends with an outlaw firing his gun directly towards the camera. Back in 1903, audiences ducked for cover.

Nearly a century later, director Martin Scorsese paid homage to Porter in Goodfellas (1990) in a scene where Mobster Tommy DeVito (Jo Pesci) fires his gun directly at the screen. Here, the fourth wall break is used in an existential moment for Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) – rather than for pure shock.

In fact, the shock value of the technique has depleted over time, as audiences have become more media literate.

Making the invisible visible

The fourth wall breaks from early cinema fast disappeared with the industrialisation of the medium. The rise of the American studio system privileged some film techniques over others.

The “Classical Hollywood” style – think Casablanca (1942) – was built on a premise of invisibility, from the carefully directed eye-lines of actors, to “continuity” editing that stitched together different camera angles.

In Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1959) Jean-Luc Godard opted for jump-cuts and “direct address”. This is when a character speaks to, or looks directly at, the viewer.

Today, direct address is used widely across genres, from Barbie (2023), to Marvel’s Deadpool films (2016, 2018, 2024), and Jane Austen adaptations such as Persuasion (2022).

On television, we’ve seen women creators and characters explore the power of direct address in a re-calibration of the “male gaze”.

One example is Phoebe Waller-Bridges’ confessions to the camera in Fleabag (2016–19). Cinematographer Tony Miller notes how creative camera choices work in conjunction with direct address to make viewers “complicit in her [character’s] journey”.

The direct gaze

A fourth wall break is not always dialogue-driven. In Persona (1966) film auteur Ingmar Bergman directed his actors to stare deep into the abyss of the camera lens, delivering existential malaise.

This direct gaze has been remediated for streaming programs, including in the intense close-up shots of Carmy (Jeremy Allen-White) in the final season of The Bear (2025), and knowing glances from the troubled Rue (Zendaya) in Euphoria (2019–26).

Fourth wall breaks can also be graphic. In Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) traces a square of light on the screen with her finger instead of calling Vincent Vega (John Travolta) a “square”.

And in Michael Haneke’s films Funny Games (1997, 2007) a home invader literally “rewinds” the story when a victim kills his accomplice. These kind of wall breaks call attention to the invisible membrane of the screen.

As filmmaker Mark Cousins attests in The Story of Film: An Odyssey, the medium has advanced over time through innovation and the recycling of techniques such as fourth wall breaks.

Is breaking the fourth wall back in vogue?

With the dominance of literary adaptations for the screen (and IP-driven screen stories in general) we’re likely to see more cases of direct address, as screenwriters seek to creatively refashion texts for the screen. Vladimir, for instance, is an adaptation of Julia May Jonas’ 2022 novel of the same name.

While breaking the fourth wall may have lost its shock value, it remains a bold storytelling device which, if done well, can set apart one screen production from another.

Actor Matt Damon recently pointed out how streamers such as Netflix are discussing the potential to reiterate “the plot three or four times in the dialogue” of a film, to account for people who scroll on their phone while listening to “background TV”.

Having a character speak directly to a distracted audience may be one way to return their gaze to the bigger screen.

Hyper-reality in unscripted TV

Breaking the fourth wall sits within a wider envelope of “metafictional” storytelling.

As screen culture becomes increasingly aware of its own machinery, unscripted genres such as reality TV are not merely breaking the fourth wall, but abandoning the conceit of separation entirely. The boundaries between cast, camera, story producers and audience have become increasingly porous.

Alex Baskin, executive producer of the long-running series Vanderpump Rules (2013–25), describes this as “hyperreality”. In the wake of Scandoval, the cheating scandal of Tom Sandoval, the reality TV cast started to intervene in the producers’ narrative arcs by speaking on camera about audience feedback, and providing meta commentary on their own “edits”.

When Ariana Madix (Sandoval’s ex) refused to film with him, it disrupted plans for a neat season finale based on his apology. Madix left the set, effectively ending the entire show. Fellow cast member Tom Schwartz called it a “plot twist”. Unsurprisingly, Scorsese is a fan of the show.

Meta and hyperreal storytelling will continue to be on the rise as screen creators seek to imbue a point-of-difference in a congested market – serving an ever-distracted audience.

– ref. From Fleabag to Vladimir: why has breaking the fourth wall has become so common? – https://theconversation.com/from-fleabag-to-vladimir-why-has-breaking-the-fourth-wall-has-become-so-common-280716