Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shahram Akbarzadeh, Director, Middle East Studies Forum (MESF), Deakin University

Since beginning their assault on Iran, that United States and Israel have been explicit that their ultimate goal is regime change.

The attacks are supposed to present a historic opportunity for Iranians to overthrow an authoritarian state and embrace democracy.

Yet, as the Iraq war in the early 2000s made clear, regime change does not necessarily bring a liberal alternative. It first destroys the existing order and creates a political vacuum. This is fertile ground for rival factions to fight it out and settle scores.

How a new supreme leader will be chosen

The US-Israel aerial campaign has targeted the regime’s leadership and its nerve system: Iran’s military bases, missile sites and strategic infrastructure. The supreme leader of Iran and its head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is among the casualties.

While the authorities have moved fast to show they are still in charge, the death of the supreme leader is a shock.

The regime is now engaged in an existential battle for its survival. This makes the selection process for Khamenei’s successor all the more crucial.

The Iranian constitution sets out the mechanics of the succession process through a body called the Assembly of Experts. This is a collective of 88 Islamic religious scholars who have gone through a strict vetting process by the Guardian Council to confirm their loyalty to the supreme leader.

The Guardian Council is responsible for ensuring compliance with the vision set out by the supreme leader. It consists of 12 men, half appointed by the supreme leader and the other half by the head of the judiciary (himself an appointee of the supreme leader).

The council vets parliamentary candidates and bills, as well as nominations for the Assembly of Experts, which holds elections every eight years.

The Assembly of Experts represents the conservative camp in the ruling regime, and it would look for the safest option for a new supreme leader.

It will likely look for a successor who closely resembles Khamenei – resourceful and flexible enough to make tactical adjustments when necessary, but able to push hard against internal and external threats when it counts.

This is not the time to take a chance with a “moderate” alternative. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will be advocating for a hardline successor, too.

There are no obvious candidates at this point. The most likely successor had been President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter accident in May 2024.

Those who could step into the role include Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the deceased supreme leader, who has started appearing in more public events. Another possibility is Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But the wild card could be Alireza Arafi, who is currently a member of the Guardian Council, deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts and director of Iran’s Islamic seminaries. He is a seasoned politician and has significant religious standing.

There is no explicit timeframe for the appointment of the next supreme leader. Given the immediate focus on the war effort, it may take some time. It could also be postponed to avoid putting a target on the successor’s back.

In the meantime, under the constitution, a three-person interim council was formed to make decisions. This council includes Arafi; the moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian; and the hardline head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i.

Regional pressure building

Meanwhile, the IRGC has effective free rein to lead the fight against the US and Israel.

Pezeshkian, the president of Iran, is officially in charge of this effort as the head of the national Defence Council. But in practice, he is seen as a weak president with no real autonomy. He simply parroted Khamenei during the June 2025 war with Israel, and has given no indication he will try to chart a new course now. This may be expected, given Iran is under attack.

As a result, the combative IRGC is setting the agenda. We can see evidence of this in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s indiscriminate attacks on neighbouring states. For IRGC, this is not the time for a measured response, but for a show of military capabilities to punish the US-Israeli aggression. It appears to be acting according to a pre-prepared script.

Iran’s attacks on Persian Gulf countries hosting US military bases, such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, are burning bridges.

In recent years, Iran had worked hard to improve its relations with its Arab neighbours. It resumed diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia in 2023 and was deepening its bilateral ties with the Saudis for the upcoming Hajj, the annual pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca.

In return, members of six-country Gulf Cooperation Council called on US President Donald Trump to avoid a military confrontation with Iran in early January as his administration ratcheted up the rhetoric of regime change.

Now that these countries have been hit by Iranian missiles and drones, they will need to recalculate their options. They are reportedly considering ending their neutrality and striking back at Iran.

Trump has suggested the war could take four weeks. For Iran, time is on its side. As long as it can withstand the aerial strikes and inflict damage on the United States directly and indirectly – inflicting damage on the global economy – the regime will likely hold on to power.

Tehran expects that if it can hold out long enough, Trump will lose patience with the war effort and realise regime change is much harder than he anticipated.

– ref. Who could be Iran’s next supreme leader? And how is he chosen? – https://theconversation.com/who-could-be-irans-next-supreme-leader-and-how-is-he-chosen-277360

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nigel Andrew, Professor of Entomology, Southern Cross University

Right now, Australia is undertaking the world’s largest removal of invasive ants. The goal: eradicate fire ants (Solenopsis invicta).

These aggressive South American ants are named for the burning sensation of their sting. They pose risks to many native species – and to human health.

Fire ants have made it to Australia nine times, arriving in cargo ships. Eight times, authorities were able to stamp them out early. But an infestation detected in Brisbane suburb in 2001 has now spread across more than a million hectares of South East Queensland.

Authorities have used broadcast baiting to tackle fire ants, releasing pesticides over massive stretches of land since 2001. This approach works for small outbreaks. But my recent research suggests it may actually be making it easier for fire ants to spread.

When large areas are baited, the result is an ecological vacuum. Competitor species are wiped out and hardy fire ant survivors can press forward.

Fire ants are a “weedy” species. They love environments heavily modified by human behaviour, such as roadsides, industrial areas and paddocks. When baits are laid on the edge of their infestation, competitors and predators are also decimated – and advancing fire ants find it much easier to survive.

What’s behind the current strategy?

Decades ago, researchers found a weak spot for fire ants. The biggest larvae act like a distributed stomach for the colony. They take solid food, digest it and transfer it as liquid to adult ants to eat.

Queensland authorities use two insect growth regulators (Pyriproxyfen and S-methoprene) to target this stage. These chemicals are infused into tasty corn grit and soybean oil. Once taken back to the nest by workers, these delicious treats are fed to the larvae, who spread the toxins by liquid feeding. Over a few weeks, the fire ant colony collapses.

To date, eradication using this method has succeeded only in areas under 10,000 hectares. Authorities have to treat the entire area multiple times to ensure no nest is missed.

Fire ants have predators and competitors

Evidence from the United States – where control efforts have been underway since the 1950s – suggests fire ants are not actually a superior competitor.

Instead, they thrive where native ants and invertebrates are found in lower abundance and diversity. They find it much harder to penetrate undisturbed forests with thick leaf litter, where competitors and predators can repel them or keep them in check.

To spread, new queens must leave the nest, mate mid-air and land in a vacant area to start a fresh colony. This is when fire ants are most vulnerable.

In suburbs and rural areas, new queens have to run the gauntlet of invertebrate defenders. Native species such as meat ants (Iridomyrmex species) and green-headed ants (Rhytidoponera metallica) are aggressive defenders of territory. Even the invasive coastal brown ant (Pheidole megacephala) is a fierce competitor. Spiders, lacewings, earwigs, birds and predatory beetles all find a slow-moving fire ant queen to be an energy-rich meal.

These defenders should be our key allies in the fight against fire ants. Unfortunately, the chemical baits are indiscriminate. Many other invertebrates eat the baits – including rival ant species and predators.

The problem of scale

At over 1 million hectares, South East Queensland’s infestation is 100 times larger than any area ever successfully eradicated. Covering this entire area perfectly and doing so multiple times is effectively impossible.

In southern US states, authorities tried broadcast baiting for decades before giving up. In Georgia, a massive baiting program at first seemed to have succeeded. But within 14 months, fire ants had returned, moving faster and at higher densities than native ants. In Florida, new infestations are almost always found in disturbed areas where competitors were removed.

Fire ant queens can survive baiting

While newly mated fire ant queens are vulnerable to predators, they are not vulnerable to baiting.

This is due to a biological quirk. After the mating flight, a newly mated red fire ant queen digs a hole and seals the entrance for up to four weeks.

During this time, the queen lives off her fat reserves while she raises her first batch of workers. If authorities drop baits during this time, the new nest won’t be affected.

Is a precision approach better?

There’s now no chance we can eradicate these ants using broadcast baiting.

A better option is to use a number of strategies for integrated pest management. These could include:

1. Targeting nests, not areas

When nests are found, they can be removed by injecting hot water into the nest, or by applying pesticides such as fipronil. These scientifically robust methods avoid the widespread collateral damage from broadcast baiting.

2. Using precision baiting

Insect growth regulators are very effective. We can avoid collateral damage with underground bait stations (similar to termite baits) or containers only fire ants can access.

3. Boost landscape resistance

Areas of thick leaf litter and shrub cover are natural resistance zones, home to fire ant competitors and predators. Protecting and enhancing defender habitat is crucial.

4. Assess emerging technologies

Researchers are experimenting with new control methods, such as using viruses as biocontrols, genetic tools and chemicals exploiting fire ant communication methods. These have to be rapidly assessed. If any prove safe, effective and scaleable, authorities could add these to the eradication toolkit.

Time to rethink

Eradication efforts aren’t working. As my research shows, broadcast baiting may actually pave the way for a more rapid spread.

The baiting program is becoming controversial. Some communities are not comfortable with the approach, causing tension, while organic farmers can lose their certification if genetically modified baits are used.

Changing approach could cut costs, avoid killing native competitors and predators and build public trust for this long-term fight. The first step is to realise if we fight against nature, we will lose.

– ref. Is Australia’s scorched earth baiting program actually paving the way for fire ant invasion? – https://theconversation.com/is-australias-scorched-earth-baiting-program-actually-paving-the-way-for-fire-ant-invasion-276980

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law, Australian National University

The Iranian diaspora has been celebrating and governments around the world have generally not mourned the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in last weekend’s US and Israeli air strikes on Iran.

While there has been much political justification for these attacks from Washington and Jerusalem, neither has sought to legally justify their conduct. No real effort has been made to reference the acknowledged right of self-defence, most likely because the evidence for invoking self-defence did not exist. In other words, there was no prospect of Iran launching an imminent attack.

Inevitably, the legal basis for the original missile attack on Iran will become a minor detail as the conflict develops. Nevertheless, what occurred on February 28 will remain important.

Lawyers place great emphasis on precedent, and international lawyers particularly look to state practice in interpreting how international law actually operates, which can evolve over time. This allows the interpretation of international law to account for new developments, such as military force and cyber attacks.

This evolution is particularly important because international law is principally contained in, and associated with, the 1945 United Nations Charter. This means it is more than 80 years old.

Australia’s approach to force and the law

Australia has generally been prepared to adopt an evolutionary approach towards how force can be used consistently with international law.

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, for example, Australia accepted the US could exercise self-defence. So Australia supported the US’ retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan and joined “Operation Enduring Freedom”.

Similarly, the Australian government supported Israel acting in self-defence following the 2023 Hamas attacks.

Australia was more cautious with using force to militarily disarm Iraq in 2003. While it ultimately joined with the US and United Kingdom in “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, it only did so following an extensive public and political debate in Australia. This included the publication of the Howard government’s legal advice justifying military intervention.

With respect to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Australia has taken a much clearer position, pointing out the illegality of that conduct. It has joined more than 20 other countries in the International Court of Justice asserting there was no legal basis for Russia’s actions.

On January 3 2026, the US military intervened in Venezuela, resulting in the arrest and detention of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on US narco-terrorism and related drug-trafficking charges. Since then, the Trump administration has engaged in a breathtaking array of international conduct, raising multiple significant international law issues.

This includes:

• the threat to use military force to seize Greenland
• the threatened imposition of significant tariffs against six European countries in response to debates over Greenland’s future
• creation of the “Board of Peace”, initially focused on Gaza reconstruction but with a much larger global mandate potentially rivalling the United Nations
• the seizure of vessels on the high seas linked to Venezuela and Iran
• the Iranian missile strikes and a strategy targeting the Iranian leadership.

For longstanding allies such as Australia, this conduct by the Trump administration creates a significant challenge. This is especially so when seen against the backdrop of the ANZUS alliance, and now increasingly through the lens of AUKUS. Australia has to date paid $1.6 billion to the US and committed a further $3.9 billion to Australian AUKUS ship-building facilities.

The ‘say nothing’ approach

While Australia’s AUKUS future rests with the US and UK, what options does Canberra have in the face of the Trump administration’s approach to international law and international relations? It can either say nothing, or say something.

All the statements made to date by Albanese government regarding the legality of the US and Israeli conduct have been in the “say nothing” category. At most, the Albanese government has said any legal justification needs to be made by the US and Israel. To say something with respect to international law would require a clear statement that indicated Australia’s position.

Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, for example, issued a statement following the military strikes asserting that: “The attacks this morning and the spreading of the conflict to Iran’s neighbouring countries is not in line with international law.”

It should be acknowledged that it would be exceptional for Canberra to issue a unilateral statement such as this on a matter in which Australia was not directly involved. However, in these matters, the Albanese government has a record of acting together with so called “like-minded” countries such as Canada and New Zealand.

In 2024–25 the three countries issued joint statements on the Gaza conflict, outlining a shared position on international humanitarian law.

Sometimes, though, Australia is prepared to chart a course that is separate from the US. For example, Australia has adopted a different position from the US and Israel with respect to the recognition of Palestine. It has moved towards conferring formal recognition along with Canada, France and the UK in September 2025.

How the use of force is controlled and regulated is fundamental to international law and international relations. It goes to the very heart of the UN system. Australia has aspirations for a seat on the UN Security Council, commencing in 2029.

It needs to make clear whether it supports the UN Charter or the “might is right” approach of the Trump administration.

– ref. International law or ‘might is right’? Australia’s choice on Iran and other conflicts – https://theconversation.com/international-law-or-might-is-right-australias-choice-on-iran-and-other-conflicts-277357

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yaqoot Fatima, Professor of Sleep Health, University of the Sunshine Coast

Some mornings, you wake up and the dream is right there. Clear and vivid. You might still feel the emotion in your chest, and it can take a few minutes to remember where you are and what was real.

Other mornings, you open your eyes and there is nothing. Just a quiet sense of having slept.

You might know people who think they do not dream. However, the reality is we all do. Sometimes we have many in one night.

What varies is whether people remember their dreams and how often they remember them.

Dream recall myth vs reality

During the night, we cycle through periods of light sleep, deep sleep and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. A full cycle takes about 90 minutes.

People generally spend more time in deep sleep in the first half of the night and more time in REM sleep in the second half.

The main function of deep sleep is restorative: to replenish energy, repair our bodies and help store memories.

REM sleep is important for memory consolidation and emotional processing. Later in the night, REM sleep becomes longer. This is the stage most closely linked to vivid, emotional dreaming.

If you wake up during or just after REM sleep, you are much more likely to remember a dream. If you wake from deep sleep, you probably will not, even though you were dreaming earlier. It isn’t a sign something is wrong; it’s simply how the sleeping brain works.

Another myth is dreams only happen in REM sleep. While REM dreams tend to be more intense and story-like, dreaming can happen in other stages, too; they are just often quieter and harder to recall.

So if you wake up some mornings with a clear recollection of your dream, and other mornings with nothing at all, that is completely normal. It doesn’t mean you didn’t dream. It just means you woke up at a different point in your sleep cycle.

Why do some people remember their dreams more often?

Several factors affect whether you recall dreams.

As you get older, your capacity to recall dreams decreases. Some studies suggest women are more likely to remember dreams than men. Some medications, such as antidepressants and sedatives, can affect your dream recall.

Timing plays a big role. We spend more time in REM sleep later in the night, so dreams that happen closer to morning are easier to remember. Waking up briefly during the night offers a chance to remember dreams before they fade. That’s why parents of young children and light sleepers, who are more likely to wake up from REM sleep, often report remembering more dreams.

How you wake up also matters. If someone jolts you awake, the dream can vanish in an instant. But if you are woken gently, someone softly calling your name, there is a better chance the dream lingers long enough for you to remember.

Some people are naturally “high recallers” and are just better at capturing their dreams before they fade. And therefore, they consistently remember dreams.

Why do some dreams feel intense?

Dreams can sometimes feel highly emotional, dramatic or unusually vivid. This is largely because REM sleep, the stage most associated with dreaming, involves increased activation of regions of the brain that control our emotions, such as the amygdala and limbic system.

This occurs alongside relatively reduced activity in parts of the prefrontal cortex that regulate logic and emotional control.

Stress, life changes or heightened emotions can make dreams feel more intense. Dreams often reflect elements of real-life experiences as the brain tries to process events from the day and consolidate them into long-term memory.

In most cases, having intense dreams is entirely normal and part of healthy emotional processing.

So is dreaming a reflection of good sleep?

Remembering your dreams does not automatically mean you had poor sleep, and forgetting them does not mean your sleep was perfect.

Rather than using dream recall as an indicator of sleep quality, it is more helpful to focus on how you feel during the day. Indicators such as feeling rested on waking and daytime energy provide a more meaningful indicator of your sleep health.

For most people, differences in dream recall and dream intensity are normal and shouldn’t cause concern. Dream frequency varies widely among people and across lifespans.

However, it may be helpful to seek advice from a health professional if:

• you experience persistent daytime exhaustion despite adequate time in bed

• nightmares are frequent, highly distressing or interfere with your mood and functioning

• sleep is regularly disrupted by awakenings, panic or prolonged difficulty returning to sleep.

If you feel rested, functional and emotionally stable during the day, occasional vivid dreams or changes in recall are completely fine and simply part of how healthy sleep unfolds.

Read more: Could cutting back on caffeine really give you more vivid dreams? Here’s what the science says

– ref. Why do some of us vividly remember dreams and others say they ‘don’t dream’? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-some-of-us-vividly-remember-dreams-and-others-say-they-dont-dream-275569

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stella Huangfu, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

Global oil markets have reacted swiftly to escalating tensions in the Middle East as the United States and Israel continue their assault on Iran.

After oil tanker traffic through a key chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz, stopped, the benchmark oil price, Brent crude, jumped about 6% to over US$77 a barrel. It initially spiked as high as US$82, its highest level since January 2025.

A roughly US$10 jump in a matter of days is a significant move and delivers an immediate inflationary jolt for oil-importing economies.

What does this mean for households, businesses and central banks?

Why oil still matters

Oil may no longer dominate the global economy as it did in the 1970s, but it remains embedded in modern production.

It feeds directly into petrol prices, diesel, aviation fuel and shipping, and shapes the cost of transporting and producing everything from food to manufactured goods. When oil prices rise quickly, the effects spread beyond energy markets.

Economists call this a “negative supply shock”: the result is production becomes more expensive. Companies can absorb higher costs or pass them on to consumers. In practice, they usually do both.

The result is an uncomfortable mix of higher inflation and slower economic growth.

The inflation impact will weigh on central banks

The most immediate effect is at the petrol pump. Higher crude prices lift fuel costs and push up headline inflation. For households already facing cost-of-living pressures, that can be felt quickly.

For example, when the price of oil goes up by $10 a barrel, the rough rule of thumb is that the price of gasoline for US drivers could rise by about 25 cents a gallon. Elsewhere, such as Australia, it’s estimated at around 10 cents a litre more for every US$10 rise.

Transport and logistics costs also increase, and some of those higher costs filter into the broader price level over time.

How much inflation rises depends how long the disruption to oil markets lasts. A brief spike might add only a few tenths of a percentage point to inflation. A sustained increase would be more problematic.

Central banks are watching closely. Inflation in the US and Europe has eased from post-pandemic peaks. In Australia, inflation has fallen from its pandemic highs, but recent data show renewed upward pressure. Reflecting those concerns, the Reserve Bank of Australia raised the official cash rate in February.

An oil shock could weaken global growth

Higher fuel costs risk adding fresh momentum to inflation now, arriving at precisely the wrong time, just as policymakers at the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank were hoping it was coming under control.

In one of the first comments from a central banker on the economic impact of the conflict, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s governor today noted the supply shock could add to inflation pressures.

However, Governor Michele Bullock also warned that a prolonged impact on energy markets

could have adverse effects on global economic activity and result in downward pressure on inflation. It is not obvious how this might play out.

Oil-driven inflation is particularly challenging for central banks. Raising interest rates cannot affect the supply of oil. Unlike demand-driven inflation – where strong consumer spending can be cooled by higher interest rates – supply-driven inflation reflects higher production costs.

If central banks lift rates to contain prices, they risk slowing growth further. But the interest rate rises cannot directly lower oil prices.

Pressure on household budgets

Higher oil prices also squeeze household budgets.

When families spend more on fuel, they have less to spend elsewhere. Since household consumption typically accounts for around 60% of the economy in advanced economies, even modest shifts in spending can matter.

Businesses face similar pressure. Higher energy and transport costs reduce profit margins and can delay hiring or investment.

The effects vary by country. Europe is a major net energy importer. While Australia exports coal and gas, it relies heavily on imported oil and refined fuel. That leaves both economies exposed to higher global oil prices.

The United States is more mixed: higher prices support its energy sector, but still lift costs for most households.

The current jump in the oil price is not enough to trigger a global recession. But it adds another headwind as global growth moderates.

How does this compare with 2022?

The obvious comparison is the oil price surge following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Then, crude prices briefly climbed above US$120 a barrel, intensifying already high inflation. In response, the US Federal Reserve hiked rates rapidly to rein in inflation.

Today’s situation is less extreme. Prices are well below those peaks, global demand is softer, and interest rates in the United States, Europe and Australia are several percentage points higher than they were in early 2022. Inflation has been trending down in most major economies.

Still, households may be more sensitive now. After years of rising prices and higher interest rates, consumer confidence is fragile. Even moderate increases in petrol prices can influence spending.

The key question is whether this is temporary, or the start of a sustained climb.

What if prices rise further?

If oil prices continue moving higher – especially toward US$100 a barrel – the risks would increase.

Inflation would be pushed higher. Central banks could face an uncomfortable choice: tolerate higher energy-driven inflation or keep interest rates higher for longer.

Financial markets would adjust quickly, and volatility could rise.

The most serious scenario would involve supply disruptions that constrain global output, increasing the risk of slower growth combined with persistent inflation.

A shock, but not yet a crisis

For now, the 6% jump in oil prices represents a clear inflationary impulse and a moderate drag on growth. It complicates the outlook, but does not resemble past energy crises.

What matters most is persistence. If prices stabilise, the impact should be manageable. If they continue to climb, oil could again become a central driver of global inflation – and a renewed challenge for central banks.

Read more: The oil price surge is just one symptom of a supply chain network that is not fit for this age of global tensions

– ref. Why surging oil prices are a shock for the global economy – but not yet a crisis – https://theconversation.com/why-surging-oil-prices-are-a-shock-for-the-global-economy-but-not-yet-a-crisis-277228

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Speck, Emerita Professor, Art History and Curatorship, Adelaide University

These are troubled and changing times – a view of the zeitgeist that permeates Yield Strength, the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art.

The stresses and anxieties navigated on a daily basis include political extremism, challenges to social cohesion, ecological collapse, the enduring effects of colonialism, and social and economic inequality.

Yield strength is also a technical term. Taken from engineering, yield strength refers to the maximum stress a material can withstand before starting to break down.

But as the exhibition’s curator Ellie Buttrose explains in the accompanying exhibition catalogue,

metaphorically yield strength exemplifies how an awareness of another set of thresholds is forced upon us by political and environmental crises – of the finiteness of the world we inhabit and our physical and emotional capacities to respond. Fostering futures from this altered vantage point requires an understanding of the pressures that shape this moment, a respect for breaking points and a resourceful approach to alternatives.

The 24 artists in the exhibition have ambitiously taken up the challenge of considering alternative futures and working with threshold points in materials. They use a range of media from steel to digital technologies to painting.

Slow looking

Pitjantjatjara artist Josina Pumani’s rough-hewn ceramic vessels including Black Mist (2025). Their charcoal exterior and lurid red-hot interior, or vice versa, refer to the devastation wrought on Aboriginal people and their Country from 1952–63 from the British Government’s nuclear testing program.

This colonial indignity is close to her heart: her grandfather witnessed the black smoke from the atomic explosions. Pumani’s vessels, fired at 1,200 degrees, transform the clay into a hard matter symbolic of the enduring ruination of Country from radioactive fallout, and mimic somewhat the extreme heat of the fireballs released at Maralinga.

One aspect that stands out in Buttrose’s curation is her co-location of artworks. Pumani’s vessels, at the Art Gallery of South Australia, are framed by the meditative and finely dotted acrylic paintings of Walpiri artist Julie Nangala Robertson in Mina Mina Jukurrpa (2025).

The lineal mark-making depicting the contours of Country are aerial maps of ancestral land. Its netting patterns present a new style of depicting every aspect of life, travel and ceremony.

Innovation and change continues with Yolŋu artist Milminyina Dhamarrandji. Her paintings employ clan designs for which she is the senior custodian.

These intricate designs are magnified on a large digital screen at the Samstag Museum, complete with the death adder weaving in and out, all of which sit behind her painted burial poles. Old and new are one.

Dhamarrandji, whose bark paintings are also on show at the Art Gallery, works from the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre which hosts the ground-breaking digital media Mulka project.

Jennifer Matthews presents a very different future. Her beautifully constructed and interconnected stainless-steel corridors respond to the spatial pathway viewers take through a gallery space, and lead to smaller-scale exhibits.

Aptly titled Yard (2025), the work is based on the concept of a sheep run, and is an architectural form of containment. It mirrors the artist’s interest in institutional power structures, how bodies are controlled and how much free will do we have. Big questions indeed.

Thai-Australian artist Nathan Beard injects some humour and sexual tension into possible futures in his fantasy-filled surrealistic exploration of the human body in Ciceroni (2025). Truncated latex arms and fingers extend, embracing and caressing objects ranging from Thai-Buddhist sculptures to luscious fruits.

Erika Scott takes aim at the throw-away nature of high-tech and low-tech household and garden materials in contemporary times in her over-the-top environmental horror installation Necro-realist Sunscree (2026). It touches a nerve in all of us.

In a different vein, Wiradjuri artist Joel Sherwood Spring’s chilling video and installation Diggermode 2, Cloud Ceding (2025), traces a genealogy of control from the colonial to the digital era, including the physical and environmental costs of global data storage and cloud computing.

Quiet consideration

An exhibition is only ever an ephemeral event. The permanent record lies in the exhibition catalogue.

This year the catalogue has been produced in magazine format because magazines, like biennials, respond to a specific moment. The problem is the limited shelf life of a magazine. This is compounded by the fussy focus on the text’s font and poor page layout.

Quality has been traded for a street vibe. While the rationale is understandable, the magazine format does a disservice to the engaging text and long-term memory of a timely exploration of some big issues.

The focus of experimenting with materials to find threshold points has led to stand-out work such as Katrina Kain’s deeply etched and fragile copper panels, Chronicles 11 (2025) that are transformed into lurid green and russet mobiles.

The solidity once intrinsic to copper has been transformed into a form replete with vulnerability.

The rhythm of threading artists’ work through three exhibition sites, often with provocative pairings, makes for good viewing. This includes the unspoken moments in Prudence Flint’s muted paintings of semi-clad women in interiors set opposite the loud and riotous display of Erika Scott’s junk assemblage.

Yield Strength requires slow looking and quiet consideration.

The 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art is at the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Samstag Museum and the Adelaide Botanic Gardens until June 8.

– ref. The 2026 Adelaide Biennial, titled Yield Strength, requires slow looking and quiet consideration – https://theconversation.com/the-2026-adelaide-biennial-titled-yield-strength-requires-slow-looking-and-quiet-consideration-274024

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liam Burke, Associate Professor and Cinema and Screen Studies Discipline Leader, Swinburne University of Technology

Netflix’s planned acquisition of Hollywood studio Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has fallen apart at the eleventh hour, as Paramount Skydance has made a “superior” proposal to buy the conglomerate for A$156 billion.

While the independence of the companies following the acquisition is unclear, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has already discussed plans to merge the portfolios of streamers Paramount+ and HBO Max to compete with Netflix.

Netflix withdrew from the process following Paramount Skydance’s proposal. It said WBD would have been “‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price”.

Who were the winners and losers in this hotly contested bidding war? And what happens next?

Winner #1: Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav

Longtime Discovery cable network CEO David Zaslav engineered his company’s merger with Warner Bros in 2022 to create Warner Bros Discovery.

This merger also saw the combination of Discovery’s reality content, Warner Bros’ film library and HBO’s quality TV series on the streaming service Max (now HBO Max), to challenge Netflix.

But Max didn’t live up to its name, as audiences for HBO originals such as The White Lotus showed little interest in Discovery shows like Dr Pimple Popper.

Unable to significantly lift WBD’s share price, Zaslav initiated plans to separate the failing cable assets, such as Discovery, from the streaming growth areas, such as HBO Max, in preparation to sell the company.

Despite Zaslav facing continued criticism, his gambit paid off, attracting high bidders for WBD. If the Paramount deal happens, Zaslav’s personal WBD shares and equity will be valued at US$790.5 million (A$1.2 billion).

Zaslav, who recently extended his WBD contract through 2030, will be a key figure in the transition, but his role after the sale remains unclear.

Winner #2: David Ellison

David Ellison is the head of Skydance Media and son of one of the world’s richest men, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Ellison’s Skydance Media acquired the struggling Paramount Studios in 2024.

While Paramount has some storied IP such as Star Trek, Captain Kirk is no match for the Warner Bros’ cross-generational franchises – including Harry Potter, Batman and Looney Tunes.

Factoring in Warner’s coveted film library, premium HBO shows and the news might of CNN (also a division of WBD) to the Skydance Corporation, David Ellison is set to become one of the most powerful people in traditional media.

Winner #3: Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a longtime friend of Larry Ellison. The US Federal Communications Commission’s chairman, Brendan Carr, has openly praised the conservative direction of CBS since David Ellison took over the parent company Paramount. Trump vowed to stay out of the WBD sale.

Meanwhile, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos was grilled by Republican senators earlier this year over Netflix’s “woke” content. This senate hearing seemed to set the tone for what would have been a challenging regulatory process for Netflix to acquire WBD.

While Netflix was facing political opposition, David Ellison was Republican stalwart Lindsey Graham’s guest at Trump’s State of the Union address. Thus, WBD shareholders were assured the Paramount deal had Trump’s tacit approval.

Winner #4: Netflix

Netflix stock declined sharply since its plans to acquire WBD were announced in December.

Investors were nervous about this unprecedented purchase, by a company whose playbook had been “builders rather than buyers”.

News of Netflix’s withdrawal from the WBD sale has seen the streaming giant’s shares surge. The company will also receive a US$2.8 billion termination fee, paid by Ellison’s Skydance. Netflix certainly won’t leave the process empty handed.

Loser #1: the creative community

Despite concerns regarding a Netflix takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, there was comparatively little overlap between the companies. Unlike WBD, Netflix doesn’t own linear and cable stations, make movies for cinema, or have a news division.

Paramount and WBD, however, are near identical companies, albeit at different scales. The joining of these two Hollywood Studios will allow for what Ellison describes as “synergies” – being interpreted as thousands of jobs lost as duplicated departments across the two companies are combined and cut.

Loser #2: audiences

Ellison has promised to run the Warner Bros and Paramount film studios independently, and produce 30 films each year for cinema.

Audiences had similar hopes ahead of Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019. But since that deal, the combined Disney and 20th Century theatrical output has fallen by 46%. A similar decline may occur if Warner Bros and Paramount end up under the same corporate umbrella.

Also, while Elision has produced dozens of films under Skydance Media, they have been a mixed bag – with a trashy Geostorm for every crowd-pleasing Top Gun: Maverick.

By contrast, Warner Bros is coming off a year-long hot streak with Sinners, One Battle After Another and Weapons. Would such auteur-led films get made with David Ellison in charge?

Loser #3: journalism

Skydance’s 2024 takeover of Paramount quickly resulted in editorial changes at the company’s news division, as conservative political commentator Bari Weiss was brought in as the CBS editor-in-chief.

In the ensuing months senior CBS news producers have complained of “political bias”, with veteran broadcaster Anderson Cooper announcing he was leaving CBS’s flagship news show 60 Minutes amid the turmoil.

There are concerns a similar conservative agenda may be brought to WBD news network CNN, leading to more ideological driven programming across America’s prominent news networks.

What comes next?

European and US lawmakers will review the deal as concerns around merging two of the remaining five legacy Hollywood studios persist.

Nonetheless, most of the resistance to the Netflix deal stemmed from the combining of the world’s first and fourth biggest subscription video-on-demand services. As Skydance’s Paramount+ is a smaller streamer, the company does not face the same anti-competitive arguments Netflix did.

It is likely that by the time The Batman: Part II lands in cinemas in 2027 the bottom of the Warner Bros logo will read “A Skydance Corporation”.

– ref. Paramount acquires Warner Bros Discovery in mega deal: the winners, losers and Trump’s man in the middle – https://theconversation.com/paramount-acquires-warner-bros-discovery-in-mega-deal-the-winners-losers-and-trumps-man-in-the-middle-277220

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cymbeline Buhler King, Research Officer, School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University

Premiering at Sydney’s Nimrod Theatre in 1976, steve j. spears’ The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin was met with critical acclaim, touring internationally, including Off Broadway where it won three Obie Awards.

Returning 50 years on for Griffin Theatre’s Mardi Gras show, I’m intrigued to consider the impact of a play with this much visibility, interrogating state-sanctioned violence against LGBTQIA+ people. To what degree did it build impetus towards the first Sydney gay pride march in 1978?

In this one-hander directed by Declan Greene, Simon Burke plays Robert O’Brien, a cross-dressing elocution teacher. Living in Double Bay, his flamboyant lifestyle receives suspicious attention from nosy neighbours. Other characters appear in the play as invisible people that Burke addresses just off stage, or over the telephone.

Benjamin Franklin turns out not to be a founding father of the United States, but a precocious student brought to O’Brien for elocution lessons. A 12-year-old prodigy with a grandiose name and a stutter, the child happens to be brilliant. He also happens to be gay, a discovery that shocks even O’Brien.

In no time, Benjamin is smoking during lessons and bringing O’Brien naked Polaroids of himself. O’Brien is clear: such photos put him in terrible danger. O’Brien is protecting himself, but he also takes Benjamin’s education seriously, and recognises the treacherous path ahead with such coquettish tendencies.

A series of incidents expose O’Brien’s cross-dressing to the community. The neighbourhood bristles and things escalate to rocks being thrown at his windows and police coming to raid his place. O’Brien sits inside burning Benjamin’s photos, but their remains are enough to put O’Brien in the psychiatric hospital Callan Park.

The play effectively creates a time when a person could be medically imprisoned on rumoured suspicions and flimsy evidence.

A formidable performance

O’Brien’s apartment is beautifully created in every nook and cranny of the tiny stage, wings used for his extensive bookshelves (design by Isabel Hudson). We learn much about the character as we settle, house lights still up.

Sound design by David Bergman forms transitions using low-frequency drones and glitchy screeches to move the register up into a high camp zone or down into the dark tale of false accusations of paedophilia. It’s affective and unsettling, capturing the emotional register of a system that can reject a person’s right to be themselves.

Burke gives a bold, brave performance, big enough to hold the brutality and atrocity at the centre of this play. He has a ball with the part, fleshing out the stage with every inch of his being turned up to ten.

He carries us with him, giving us permission to sit at the edge of history and peer down through the ugly lens it turns on our own times.

Burke takes us through the full gamut of this material. He starts with a gyrating seduction of Mick Jagger in poster form. He flips at the ring of his phone, placing a posh English accent on top of his Aussie drawl. He moves from high camp to poignant, with gestures and chuckles that become familiar, bringing us close to the character, a portrait painted with depth and pathos.

Retreating into his apartment as the heat on him increases, his limited personal space becomes claustrophobic. Having a single actor on stage heightens how isolating vilification is.

The extremes of this performance take their toll, and Burke finds on-stage moments to restore his energy, some of which are flat. There is room for more interiority in these moments. Burke’s O’Brien is richly complex, but the audience needs more quiet time with him, and those quiet moments need to feel like they could go somewhere unexpected.

An impressive young playwright

This play was a blockbuster in 1978, despite the playwright being just 23.

An accomplished dramatic work for someone so young, there remain fault lines in it that show his inexperience.

Most notably, the playfulness of the first half drops too suddenly, leaving the audience with none of that intimacy in the second half.

It has a logic: the medications O’Brien is given at Callan Park cut him off from himself. Without that well of selfhood, he’s got nothing. It’s a strong, but harsh theatrical choice. The transition is clunky and it feels dated, leaving the final act hollow. It rings true, but doesn’t carry us with it.

If the play had been based on an historical character, specificity would sharpen the tragedy. Making him fictional widens the lens to the broader phenomenon of state-sanctioned homophobic violence.

This production challenges us to consider how far we have and haven’t come in 50 short years.

The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin is at Belvoir Downstairs, Sydney, for Griffin Theatre, until March 29.

– ref. You know you’re alive with Simon Burke in full flight on stage in The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin – https://theconversation.com/you-know-youre-alive-with-simon-burke-in-full-flight-on-stage-in-the-elocution-of-benjamin-franklin-274976

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University

The latest US-Israeli bombings in Iran differ from last year’s, because one of the stated aims this time is regime change.

Engaged in the mass murder of civilians at home and fomenting violence abroad, the current Iranian regime has few friends internationally.

Many would be glad to see Iran undergo a far-reaching program of political reform. For many in the Iranian diaspora, regime change imposed from outside is better than none.

But the historical record of imposed regime change, particularly as undertaken by the United States, is patchy at best.

Things rarely go to plan, and the long-term consequences are often disastrous.

Afghanistan and Iraq

Some immediate examples spring to mind.

Still fresh in the public mind would be the shocking scenes of desperate Afghans trying to leave Kabul in 2021 as the United States conceded it could not permanently defeat the Taliban.

This admission came after two decades, thousands of deaths of US and allied troops and tens of thousands of Afghan deaths.

Many would also remember then-US President George W. Bush’s disastrous speech in May 2003 about America’s regime change efforts in Iraq, begun in March that year. Here, Bush addressed the press while standing in front of a huge banner that said “Mission Accomplished”; the implication was regime change had been achieved in just a few months.

In fact, what followed was another decade of US fighting to try to stabilise Iraq, with actions arguably not wound up until 2018 or even beyond.

Once again this came at a huge cost to civilian lives, with The Lancet estimating as early as 2004 that around 100,000 “excess deaths” had occurred as a result of the US attempt to effect regime change there.

Thereafter, Iraq was continuously wracked by violence and civil war. Notably, ISIS took advantage of its weakened state to establish its “caliphate” on Iraqi territory, leading to yet another wave of US intervention.

But US attempts to impose regime change have a much longer and equally unsuccessful history, as well.

From the Bay of Pigs to Iran

The phrase “Bay of Pigs” has become a synonym for the inability to overthrow a government.

Aimed at overthrowing Fidel Castro in Cuba in April 1961, not only was then-US President John F. Kennedy’s foray into regime change unsuccessful (Castro died in his sleep with his regime still in control of Cuba at the age of 90 in 2016), it also led to the execution of CIA operatives there.

The US also faced the embarrassment of having to swap tractors for the freedom of the Cuban exiles who had carried out the failed invasion for them.

In 1953, the US and Britain actually did succeed in overthrowing Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq after he’d announced Iran’s oil industry would be nationalised in response to Western oil companies’ intransigence on royalties and control.

This regime change effort by the US did “succeed” in the short run, but it led to a series of events that culminated in the repressive regime the US aims to replace today.

Mossadeq’s toppling led to the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, becoming an absolutist monarch in the cruellest tradition.

His savage repression led in no small way to the 1979 Iranian revolution, which became the vehicle for the present theocratic government to come to power.

It is one of the ironies of history that the son of the dictatorial shah is now presenting himself as the logical candidate to bring democracy to a new Iran.

Read more: Iran’s exiled crown prince is touting himself as a future leader. Is this what’s best for the country?

From the colonial era to WWII

Some might reach further back and argue regime change in Germany worked after the second world war.

It is worth remembering, however, that this was far from a simple process. It involved occupying Germany for more than a generation, decades of trials against ex-Nazis and splitting the country in two for more than 40 years.

As the epicentre of the Cold War, this is hardly an experiment in regime change that could be easily replicated.

Earlier examples of regime change from the colonial period provide similar lessons.

Large armies of invading colonial forces were able to pull down governments in Africa and Asia and prop up unpopular ones.

But once the occupying forces sought to remove their militaries or lost the will to resort to massacres to reinforce their rule, the shift towards decolonisation or self-rule became increasingly irresistible.

In the Dutch East Indies, French-ruled Vietnam, British India and the Belgian Congo, governments imposed by external powers were rarely viable once the threat of force was removed.

Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring protests in 1968 – an effort to throw off Soviet-imposed rule – were quickly crushed by the USSR, showing once again that regime change “works” for as long as you are prepared to enforce it with violence.

By 1989, however, the Soviet Union’s appetite for enforcing its hegemony across eastern Europe had waned, leading to a largely peaceful transition to democracy across the region.

A failure to learn from history

Today’s US leaders are unlikely to accept the counsel of history.

But they would do well to remember the simple message of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s “Pottery Barn” rule for attempts to overthrow governments: you break it, you own it.

At present, however, the view from Washington seems to be that you can just break states and hope someone else will fix it for you.

– ref. Does regime change ever work? History tells us long-term consequences are often disastrous – https://theconversation.com/does-regime-change-ever-work-history-tells-us-long-term-consequences-are-often-disastrous-277221

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Cornwall, Lecturer in Marine Biology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

A recent report on global tipping points warned that coral reefs face widespread dieback and have reached a point from which they cannot recover.

But in our new research, we show this might not be the case for some reefs if corals can gain tolerance to rising temperatures, or if we can cut greenhouse gas emissions and restore reefs with heat-tolerant corals at scale.

Nevertheless, the outlook likely remains bleak.

Coral reefs provide habitat for thousands of other species in tropical oceans. They deliver economic value through fisheries and tourism and provide shoreline protection from storm surges and extreme weather by dampening the impact of waves.

However, coral reefs are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Our study combines previously published assessments of climate impacts on different coral reefs and reviews the scientific consensus to examine how long reef structures could persist as climate change intensifies.

Ocean warming, acidification, darkening and deoxygenation all threaten the persistence of coral reefs. Ocean warming brings marine heatwaves, which are the leading cause of mass coral bleaching that has led to a global decline in coral cover.

Corals are animals that house microalgae within their tissues that provide sugar in exchange for nitrogen. When temperatures become too hot, corals expel these symbiotic microalgae, leaving behind white skeletons.

Ocean acidification reduces the ability of corals to build their skeletons through a process called calcification. Warming, darkening and deoxygenation can also reduce calcification.

Coral reefs are built by adding calcium carbonate, coming mostly from corals but also coralline algae and other calcareous seaweeds. But as the ocean’s pH (a measure of acidity) is reduced, processes called bio-erosion and dissolution act to remove calcium carbonate.

Our meta-analysis examined how climate change affects the calcification and bio-erosion of coral reefs and we then applied these results to a global data set of reef growth.

There is no scientific consensus on which organisms will build future coral reefs. We explore four most likely scenarios:

1. Present-day extreme reefs represent the future of coral reefs. These are locations where temperatures are already warmer, waters are becoming more acidic and oxygen has dropped to conditions similar to those expected at the end of the century. These reefs are dominated by coralline algae and slow-growing heat-resistant corals.

2. Presently degraded reefs take over future reefs. These reefs are dominated by bio-eroders such as sponges and sea urchins and have low coral cover.

3. Corals can gain heat tolerance to an extent that keeps pace with low to moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Under these scenarios, only about 36% of global corals would be lost and there would be a moderate reduction in growth. These heat-tolerant reefs are dominated by faster growing corals with symbiotic microalgae that can evolve heat tolerance.

4. Reefs where restoration practices include using heat-tolerant corals that can then disperse to other regions. These restored reefs would have lower coral cover in remote regions lacking restoration or with unsuccessful restoration practices. This kind of reef restoration would need to cover half of global coral reefs to maintain net growth – an unlikely scenario.

We found coral reefs transition to net erosion under all scenarios, even under low to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, meaning they are dissolving or being eaten faster than they can grow. Only reefs with heat-tolerant corals could prevent this from occurring.

The next step for the scientific community is to determine which reefs can persist in the future using global efforts to combine information. The major issues is that we are missing measurements from large parts of the Pacific, and we do not know how deoxygenation or coastal darkening will impact coral reefs. The processes of reef bioerosion and dissolution are also poorly described.

Although the climate has been altered to the point of threatening the future survival of coral reefs, their fate is not doomed yet if we act now.

Another question is how long reef structures will persist after living corals are removed. We do not have an answer yet. It will take global efforts to rapidly obtain these measurements to better manage and protect coral reefs before climate change intensifies.

It is up to governments everywhere, including New Zealand, to better support these initiatives before it is too late.

– ref. The future remains bleak for corals – but not all reefs are doomed – https://theconversation.com/the-future-remains-bleak-for-corals-but-not-all-reefs-are-doomed-277077

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Georgia Moloney, Researcher, School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Adelaide University

Wildlife trafficking is a global crisis impacting at least 4,000 species of plants and animals, including mammals, reptiles, birds, corals and rare plants.

A shocking case from 2025 involved the seizure of 3.7 tonnes of pangolin scales in Nigeria. These scales were believed to be sourced from more than 1,900 individual pangolins.

While this case was uncovered, many more remain undetected. These crimes aren’t just pushing species toward extinction, they’re also putting people at risk. Hunting, trafficking and handling wild animals creates opportunities for diseases to jump from animals to humans. Wildlife trafficking is therefore not just a conservation crisis, but a serious threat to public health.

In our recent paper published in Conservation Biology, we present a new method for tackling this global crime. It uses a tiny sample of air extracted from a shipping container – and the incredible power of a dogs’ nose.

Traffickers exploit shipping routes

People buy and sell a wide range of wild animals and their parts for many reasons, such as pangolin scales for traditional medicines, monkeys for exotic pets, or even porcupines for bushmeat.

Traffickers exploit global transport routes to move their products, with shipping containers in particular being ideal targets.

Containers carry up to 90% of the world’s cargo, meaning products can be easily concealed and blend into the high volume of container traffic moving through ports.

Despite this, on average only about 2% of containers are physically inspected due to resource limitations.

There are few wildlife specific detection tools, and wildlife crime is often considered a low priority. Combined, this means most trafficking slips through undetected.

Bringing the scent to the dog

To bridge this gap, we investigated air sampling as a way to screen containers for wildlife without opening them, damaging cargo, or disrupting port operations.

This work was part of a four-year project, undertaken in collaboration with the world’s third largest shipping company CMA CGM.

We designed a portable air extraction device that fits onto a standard container vent and draws air through a filter to collect a sample. The sample is then presented to a trained detection dog which can indicate whether the scent of specific wildlife products is present.

In our study, we concealed pelts from five big cat species – lion, tiger, leopard, snow leopard and cheetah – inside standard-sized shipping containers. The pelts were arranged to simulate smuggling scenarios, including being hidden inside cardboard boxes to increase concealment.

Our detection dog successfully detected the pelts with almost 98% accuracy when air was extracted from the shipping container. They did so even when the pelts were concealed, demonstrating that the scent can escape into the container airspace and be reliably captured.

Detection dogs are already widely used by customs and border agencies around the world, but their ability to screen sealed containers at scale is limited. Containers are often inaccessible, stacked high, or in environments that are unsafe for dogs.

Our approach brings the scent to the dog, allowing many more containers to be screened efficiently and safely.

While the study was conducted under controlled conditions, these early results are encouraging. Pairing detection dogs with air-sampling could dramatically improve the detection of illegally trafficked wildlife hidden inside shipping containers.

The air extraction device is low cost, portable and scalable, making it well suited for use in high-risk ports and border crossings worldwide. The method could also be readily adapted for detecting other forms of trafficking, such as drugs, increasing its appeal to border agencies.

Disrupting criminal networks

Further trials are planned to validate the effectiveness of this approach in operational port environments across a broader range of wildlife products.

We are also exploring machine-based detectors to analyse samples and support the future development of this project.

However, initial findings show the dogs still outperform these technologies, which currently remain our most effective approach.

Our goal is to give frontline agencies practical tools to fight wildlife trafficking.

Through applying science-based research in the field, we can bridge enforcement gaps and detect trafficked wildlife faster, allowing us to better protect threatened species and disrupt the criminal networks behind this devastating trade.

– ref. Dogs can detect trafficked wildlife hidden in shipping containers from tiny air samples – https://theconversation.com/dogs-can-detect-trafficked-wildlife-hidden-in-shipping-containers-from-tiny-air-samples-276986

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeremie M Bracka, Law Lecturer and Transitional Justice Academic, RMIT University

As both the federal government and states across the country pass laws cracking down on hate speech, there’s been much debate about where to draw the line on what can and can’t be said.

A Victorian court has drawn that line in a landmark decision. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has found chanting “all Zionists are terrorists” at a Melbourne rally amounted to unlawful racial and religious vilification.

In the case, called Vorchheimer vs Tayeh, Vice President Judge Tran held that initiating the chant at a pro-Palestinian protest breached parts of Victoria’s Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.

The detailed ruling sheds light on how some judges are approaching these complicated questions. Here’s what it said.

What the tribunal found

The tribunal was not asked to rule on Zionism or Israel’s military actions. Its task was narrower: whether leading the chant “all Zionists are terrorists” at a large Melbourne rally was likely to incite “hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule” against Jewish people on racial or religious grounds.

Judge Tran focused on three words.

The first was “terrorists”. She described this as “one of the most extremely negative labels it is possible to attach to a person”, someone “against whom violent action is justified” and whom it is “societally acceptable to hate”.

The next word was “Zionists”. The tribunal accepted “Zionist does not mean Jew”. But it found the term carries “a deep connection with Jewish people” in historical and statistical terms.

Evidence to the court showed most Australian Jews identify as Zionist in some form. Judge Tran concluded there was likely a “very strong association” between Zionists and Jewish people in the minds of rally participants.

And finally, the word “all”. The word carried “the spectre of de-individuation, a hallmark of racism”. There was “no permission for shades of grey or human complexity”.

In assessing legality, the tribunal considered the full rally context, including Holocaust imagery and antisemitic tropes on placards. Although the signs did not explicitly name Jews, the court found repeated Nazi and Holocaust references strengthened the association between “Zionists” and Jewish identity in the minds of participants.

The tribunal also noted an “observable antisemitic and pro-violent presence” at the rally. In that setting, chanting “all Zionists are terrorists” did not operate as abstract political critique. Its “natural and ordinary effect” was to “tip many rally participants over the threshold into hatred directed towards Jewish people”.

Political vs personal

The tribunal stressed that the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act is not concerned with outlawing criticism.

Hasheam Tayeh, who said the phrase in question, argued he was engaging in political protest.

But the tribunal held there is “no right to a catchy rally slogan” if it is inherently likely to incite hatred.

The chant was not confined to criticising the Israeli government after October 7 2023. It was directed, at a minimum, against “all supporters of the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state”, the court found.

Given the tribunal’s finding that the vast majority of Australian Jews identify as Zionist in some form, the chant was therefore likely to stir hostility toward a group closely associated with Jewish identity.

The political protest defence therefore failed because the conduct was not shown to be reasonable and in good faith. The boundary is clear: speech may attack ideas, but not stir hostility against people because of who they are.

Why this matters nationally

The Victorian tribunal has drawn a clear doctrinal line. Labelling an undifferentiated group closely associated with Jewish identity as “terrorists” can amount to unlawful vilification.

Although decided under Victorian law and applying only in that state, the reasoning will resonate nationally.

Most Australian jurisdictions prohibit racial vilification. At the federal level, section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act sets a lower threshold: conduct reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” on racial grounds.

The decision comes amid a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across Australia since late 2023, with community bodies reporting record levels of threats, vandalism and intimidation.

The Bondi terror attack, which targeted a Hanukkah gathering, intensified national concern about extremist rhetoric and community safety.

Against that backdrop, courts are increasingly being asked to distinguish protest from incitement.

Words in real life

But the decision contrasts with the Federal Court ruling last year in a case called Wertheim v Haddad.

In this case, the court found certain lectures by preacher William Haddad conveyed antisemitic imputations, including claims that Jews control the media and politicians and that “the Jewish people are filthy”.

Yet other remarks criticising Israel and “Zionists” were treated as political commentary.

In the Victorian case, Judge Tran did not treat “Zionist” as an abstract ideological label. She examined how it functioned in social and historical context, including the antisemitic atmosphere in which the chant was delivered.

One approach parses language semantically. The other asks how it lands in real life.

In a climate where extremist rhetoric has intersected with real-world violence including reports that alleged Bondi attacker Naveed Akram was allegedly a follower of preacher Haddad, context is not theoretical. It can matter.

Context with consequences

The ruling will feed into the ongoing debate about how Australia regulates hate speech. It shows existing laws can address coded vilification, not only explicit slurs.

At the same time, the tribunal was careful: criticism of Israel is not unlawful, nor is opposition to Zionism automatically hate speech.

The legal line is crossed when rhetoric assigns a heinous criminal identity to an entire class of people closely associated with a racial or religious group, in circumstances where hatred is the likely result.

In a polarised environment, that boundary will remain contested. But this decision signals that courts will look beyond labels and ask how language operates in context. And in the real world, context can have consequences.

– ref. A court has drawn a clear line on antisemitic hate speech. Here’s what it said – https://theconversation.com/a-court-has-drawn-a-clear-line-on-antisemitic-hate-speech-heres-what-it-said-277095

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Johan Lidberg, Associate Professor, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University

Covering the courts can be a tough gig. The pace is fast, there are many legal considerations to be across, and media outlets are hungry for quality stories, quickly.

Our study aimed to capture the experience of senior reporters covering the courts in Melbourne and Victoria. We conducted in-depth inverviews with 12 journalists from five of the major media outlets in Victoria.

The journalists interviewed in our study described a justice system where secrecy is expanding, access to information is shrinking, and public-interest journalism is becoming increasingly difficult. These experiences point to an undermining of the open justice doctrine, which is a crucial component of liberal democracy.

Traditionally, journalists have played a crucial role in upholding open justice. Our interview data indicate that that the role of journalism in open justice is now being challenged by the Victorian judiciary.

This is how one senior reporter described how often Victorian courts breach the 2013 Open Courts Act.

Every day there are suppression orders that do not meet the basic requirements, especially in terms of providing reasons […]the requirement to give three days notice to the media is also routinely breached. (Ben Butler, investigative journalist, ABC)

Commissioned by the Melbourne Press Club, our report paints a troubling picture of how court suppression orders, limited access to court documents and constrained access to police and government sources are undermining journalists’ ability to scrutinise public institutions in Victoria.

Suppression orders in Victoria

Suppression orders are court orders restricting what can be published about an ongoing case. They are meant to be rare exceptions to the principle of open justice. But our study shows they have become and stayed routine in Victoria.

In our interviews, reporters allege that the act is routinely breached. Courts often fail to provide the required three days notice to media before issuing an order, and interim suppression orders, which require less justification, are increasingly granted and sometimes allowed to stand for months.

Journalists described a pattern where high‑profile defendants and their legal teams raise mental health concerns to justify anonymity. A recent example of this was the rape case against the youngest son of Carlton Football Club great Stephen Silvagni, Tom Silvagni. He was finally publicly named at the end of 2025 after a suppression order kept his identity secret for 545 days. The interviewees also highlighted inconsistent practices across courts and judicial officers, with little ability to challenge decisions in real time.

Restricting access to court documents

Another serious finding in our report is how difficult it has become for journalists – and by extension, the public – to access basic court information.

A decade ago, reporters could routinely obtain the brief of evidence at committal hearings. Today, many say they receive almost nothing. Without charge sheets, witness statements or indictments, journalists say they cannot accurately follow proceedings. This threatens the accuracy and completeness of their reporting.

Changes within the Magistrates’ Court have also obscured basic details. A key column indicating which police unit (such as homicide or counter‑terrorism) is involved in a matter has been removed from public listings, making it very hard to identify serious cases in advance.

The digitisation of court systems has further complicated the information access situation. Access varies between courts, fees for copies of documents are inconsistent, and many frontline court staff appear unsure what journalists are entitled to access and view.

One reporter summarised the situation:

We’re expected to fairly and accurately report on something with 1% of the information that’s actually available and before the court. So of course, prosecutors, or defence lawyers, or magistrates read the story and go, “oh, well, that’s [inaccurate]”. But we only knew one per cent of the story and we can only write what we have (Erin Pearson, court and justice reporter, The Age).

Relationship between courts and media has deteriorated

Several reporters said Victorian judicial officers are increasingly hostile toward the media, describing a “vibe shift” on the bench. Some recounted being removed from hearings, told they could not sit in court without submitting paperwork, or without a lawyer present.

Court media teams, which once held regular meetings with journalists and editors, no longer do so. Requests for meetings with chief judges have been declined or ignored. The researchers invited the chief magistrate, chief county court judge and chief justice of the Supreme Court to participate in the study, they all declined. This disengagement, we argue, is a finding in itself indicating little or no will from the Victorian courts in building trust with the public and media.

Access to government and police sources has weakened

Journalists also report declining access to human sources within police and the state government. Victoria Police no longer routinely provides the names of accused persons, making it harder for reporters to track the administration of justice on behalf of the public. Officers were described as increasingly reluctant to speak even off the record, fearing disciplinary action.

Within the state government, decision‑making authority over media access has become increasingly centralised in the premier’s private office. Some departments now provide statements with significant portions “on background”, information reporters may use but cannot attribute to its source.

A crisis for public accountability

Our benchmarking shows Australia already performs poorly by global standards of court transparency. Even within this context, Victoria stands out as one of the least open jurisdiction in the country.

Countries such as Sweden offer far greater public access to court files, including full police briefs and allow journalists to audio record court proceedings by default. The US and UK also provide broader access to court documents, supported by constitutional or statutory protections compared to Victoria and Australia.

Our report concludes that public interest journalism in Victoria is under significant strain, particularly in court reporting. The current situation threatens natural justice, democratic accountability and public trust in the legal system.

We make ten recommendations to the Melbourne Press Club in our report. Apart from a review of the implementation of the Open Courts Act Victoria, the core recommendation is the MPC acts as a facilitator to rebuild the broken relationship between the Victorian courts and the media outlets in the state. This would be in the public interest, which both the media and the courts should serve.

– ref. Open justice no more: how Victoria’s courts are stopping journalists from doing their jobs – https://theconversation.com/open-justice-no-more-how-victorias-courts-are-stopping-journalists-from-doing-their-jobs-276040