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Cyber Cold War? The US and Russia talk tough, but only diplomacy will ease the threat

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ahmed Ibrahim, Lecturer (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan University

Patrick Semansky/AP

Over the past few years, tensions have been rising between Russia and the United States — not in conventional military terms, but in cyberspace. The issue came to a head at this month’s summit in Geneva, when US President Joe Biden threatened reprisals over allegedly Russian-backed cyber-attacks on US targets.

This confrontation first rose to global attention in 2016, when the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported Russia had directly influenced the outcome of the presidential election, favouring the Republican candidate Donald Trump by hacking and leaking 60,000 emails from the private account of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign director.

Then, in 2020, a major cyber attack on IT firm SolarWinds compromised the security of a wide range of US government and industry entities, including the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held Russia responsible for the incident, although Trump himself went against the consensus, seeking to downplay the attack and blame China instead.

Microsoft president Brad Smith described it as the “largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen”. Microsoft began investigating the attack after many of its customers were caught up in it, including major tech companies and federal agencies.

Russia denied any involvement in the SolarWinds incident, publicly rejecting what it described as “unfounded attempts of the US media to blame Russia for hacker attacks on US governmental bodies”.

The attack was ultimately attributed to a cyber-criminal group called Nobelium, which has continued to be active and allegedly perpetrated a series of cyber-attacks earlier this year, although there is no clear evidence it did so with Kremlin backing.

Fuel pipelines and black angus steak

More recently, the US Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, which crippled the largest oil pipeline in the US, was attributed to a Russian cyber-mercenary gang codenamed DarkSide.

That was followed last month by an attack on meat processor JBS, shutting down parts of its operations in the US, Canada and Australia, and severely disrupting global meat supplies. This time the FBI pointed the finger at REvil, another profitable Russian-based cyber-criminal group.

In both of these cases, the victims reportedly paid ransoms to resume their operations. While this is expensive and arguably encourages future attacks, disruptions in operations can be even more costly.

The FBI claims to have recovered more than US$2 million of the ransom paid by the Colonial Pipeline Company.




Read more:
The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack and the SolarWinds hack were all but inevitable – why national cyber defense is a ‘wicked’ problem


A few weeks before the Colonial Pipeline attack, the Biden administration imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its cyber-meddling in US elections. But the US has now understandably made combating ransomware attacks its top priority.

The Ransomware Task Force, convened in December 2020 by Microsoft and leading tech security firms, called for global cooperation to tackle the ransomware threat and break its business model.

Does the US engage in similar activities?

The US is certainly known for its cyber-offensive capabilities. Perhaps the most widely reported engagement was the 2010 Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

In 2015, the US Cyber Command and National Security Agency successfully hacked key members of ISIS, while the following year Wikileaks revealed the CIA had developed a powerful suite of hacking tools.

The US has both the capability and the motivation to conduct extensive cyber-infiltration of its adversaries.




Read more:
Cyber attacks can shut down critical infrastructure. It’s time to make cyber security compulsory


At this month’s US-Russia summit in Geneva, Biden talked about establishing cyber-norms and declaring certain critical infrastructure as off-limits.

This list identified 16 sectors that should be excluded from offensive action, including government facilities, IT systems, energy infrastructure, and food and agriculture — all four of which have come under suspected Russian-backed attack in recent years.

Some cyber-security advocates have criticised US strategies in recent years as being too weak. Biden’s comments at the Geneva summit seem to be an attempt to strike a firmer tone.

So is this the start of a cyber-war?

Cyberspace is considered the fifth domain for warfare, after land, sea, air and space. But the truth is that IT systems are now so ubiquitous that they are also firmly embedded in the four other domains too, meaning a successful cyber attack can weaken an enemy in many kinds of ways.

This in turn can make it hard to even define what counts as an offensive act of cyber-war, let alone identify the aggressor.

Although the Kremlin continues to deny any association with cyber-criminal gangs such as DarkSide or REvil, Russia nevertheless stands accused of giving them safe harbour.

How do we stop global cyber attacks?

The recent Ransomware Task Force report specifically attempted to address the issue of ransomware. But it also offers useful advice for countering state-backed cyber-crime. It recommends:

  • coordinated, international diplomatic and law-enforcement efforts to confront cyber-threats

  • establishing relevant agencies to manage cyber incidents

  • internationally coordinated efforts to establish frameworks to help organisations that are subject to cyber-attacks.

Successfully stamping out international cyber-attacks will be tremendously hard, and is ultimately only achievable with good diplomacy, trust, cooperation and communication.

While global superpowers continue to sponsor cyber-attacks on foreign shores while decrying attacks against their own assets, all we end up with is the virtual equivalent of mutually assured destruction.

The Conversation

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Cyber Cold War? The US and Russia talk tough, but only diplomacy will ease the threat – https://theconversation.com/cyber-cold-war-the-us-and-russia-talk-tough-but-only-diplomacy-will-ease-the-threat-163171

Can the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines affect my genetic code?

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Archa Fox, Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow, The University of Western Australia

guteksk7/shutterstock.com

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are set to become the mainstay of Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout as the year progresses, according to the latest government projections released this week.

From September, up to an average 1.3m doses of the Pfizer vaccine plus another 125,000 doses of the yet-to-be approved Moderna vaccine are expected to be available per week. These figures are set to rise from October, as use of the AstraZeneca vaccine drops.

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA vaccines, which contain tiny fragments of the genetic material known as “messenger ribonucleic acid”. And if social media is anything to go by, some people are concerned these vaccines can affect their genetic code.

Here’s why the chances of that happening are next to zero and some pointers to how the myth came about.

Remind me, how do mRNA vaccines work?

The technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is a way of giving your cells temporary instructions to make the coronavirus spike protein. This protein is found on the surface of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The vaccines teach your immune system to protect you if you ever encounter the virus.

The mRNA in the vaccine is taken up by the cells in your body, ending up in the liquid inside each cell known as the cytoplasm. Our cells naturally make thousands of our own mRNAs all the time (to code for a range of other proteins). So the vaccine mRNA is just another one. Once the vaccine mRNA is in the cytoplasm it’s used to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

The vaccine mRNA is short-lived and is rapidly broken down after it’s done its job, as happens with all your other mRNA.

Typical mammalian cell, showing different parts, such as nucleus and cytoplasm
Vaccine mRNA is in the cytoplasm and once it’s done its job, it’s broken down.
www.shutterstock.com



Read more:
What is mRNA? The messenger molecule that’s been in every living cell for billions of years is the key ingredient in some COVID-19 vaccines


Here’s why the mRNA can’t insert into your genetic code

Your genetic code is made up of a different, but related, molecule to the vaccine mRNA, known as DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid. And mRNA can’t insert itself into your DNA for two reasons.

One, both molecules have a different chemistry. If mRNAs could routinely insert themselves into your DNA at random, this would play havoc with how you produce proteins. It would also scramble your genome, which is passed on to future cells and generations. Life forms that do this would not survive. That’s why life has evolved for this not to happen.

The second reason is vaccine mRNA and DNA are in two different parts of the cell. Our DNA stays in the nucleus. But vaccine mRNA goes straight to the cytoplasm, never entering the nucleus. There are no transporter molecules we know of that carry mRNA into the nucleus.




Read more:
Not sure about the Pfizer vaccine, now it’s been approved in Australia? You can scratch these 4 concerns straight off your list


But aren’t there some exceptions?

There are some extremely rare exceptions. One is where genetic elements, known as retro-transposons, hijack cellular mRNA, convert it into DNA and insert that DNA back into your genetic material.

This has occurred sporadically throughout evolution, producing some ancient copies of mRNAs scattered throughout our genome, to form so-called pseudogenes.

Some retroviruses, such as HIV, also insert their RNA into our DNA, using similar methods to retro-transposons.

However, there is a vanishingly small chance of a naturally occurring retro-transposon becoming active in a cell that has just received a mRNA vaccine. There’s also a vanishingly small chance of being infected with HIV at precisely the same time as receiving the mRNA vaccine.

Blood sample labelled with HIV - Test
There’s a vanishingly small chance of being infected with HIV at precisely the same time as having an mRNA vaccine.
from www.shutterstock.com

Even if a retro-transposon were to become active or a virus such as HIV were present, the chances of it finding the COVID vaccine mRNA, among the tens of thousands of natural mRNAs, is extremely unlikely. That’s because vaccine mRNA is degraded within several hours of entering the body.

Even if vaccine mRNA did become a pseudogene, it would not produce the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but just one of the viral products, the harmless spike protein.




Read more:
4 things about mRNA COVID vaccines researchers still want to find out


How do we actually know this?

We know of no studies looking for vaccine mRNA in the DNA of people who have been vaccinated. There is no scientific basis on which to suspect this insertion has happened.

However, if these studies were to be carried out, they should be relatively straightforward. That’s because we can now sequence DNA in single cells.

But in reality, it will be very hard to ever satisfy a naysayer who is convinced this genome insertion happens; they can always argue scientists need to look deeper, harder, in different people and in different cells. At some point this argument will need to be laid to rest.

So how did this myth come about?

One study reported evidence for coronavirus RNA integrating into the human genome in cells grown in the lab that had been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

However, that paper did not look at the mRNA vaccine, lacked critical controls and has since been discredited.

These types of studies also need to be seen in context of the public’s wariness of genetic technology more broadly. This includes the public’s concerns about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), for instance, over the past 20 years or so.

But GMOs are different to the mRNA technology used to make COVID vaccines.
Unlike GMOs, which are produced by inserting DNA into the genome, vaccine mRNA will not be in our genes or passed to the next generation. It’s broken down very quickly.

In reality, mRNA technology has all sorts of applications, beyond vaccines, including biosecurity and sustainable agriculture. So it would be a pity for these efforts to be held back by misinformation.




Read more:
Will the COVID vaccine make me test positive for the coronavirus? 5 questions about vaccines and COVID testing answered


The Conversation

Archa Fox receives funding from The Australian Research Council and the NHMRC. She is The Chair of the RNA Network of Australia and on the Board of Directors for the RNA Society (2020/2021)

Traude Beilharz receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

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

ref. Can the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines affect my genetic code? – https://theconversation.com/can-the-pfizer-or-moderna-mrna-vaccines-affect-my-genetic-code-162590

New research shows how Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people don’t feel fully accepted by either community

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Braden Hill, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Edith Cowan University

A new Western Australian study, one of the first of its kind, reveals the complex experiences of those living at the intersection of being both Indigenous and part of the LGBTIQ+ community.

Two reports produced as part of this Healthway-funded Breaking the Silence project are based on data insights from a survey of health care professionals and focus group sessions of health services and 63 Indigenous LGBTIQ+ community members.

This research was conducted by Indigenous LGBTIQ+ researchers and led by Edith Cowan University’s Kurongkurl Katitjin Centre for Indigenous Education and Research.

The findings provide valuable insights and recommendations for the health, education and community services sector in supporting Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people.
There is a pressing need to respond effectively to the mental health concerns impacting Indigenous LGBTIQ+ communities nationally.

Pride despite discrimination

This research found many Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people feel a strong sense of pride in who they are and their unique position in being able to challenge misconceptions about being Indigenous in queer communities and queer in Indigenous communities. Being able to support younger people as they negotiate these intersections was also fulfilling.

While many queer Indigenous people value the ability to educate others about this complex identity position, this responsibility can also be burdensome.

Participants frequently experienced heterosexism and racism. They often felt invisible or marginalised within the LGBTIQ+ community, Indigenous communities and broader society:

  • more than 73% reported experiencing discrimination in the past 12 months

  • discrimination included being ignored or teased, maliciously ‘outed’, followed in public, or being victims of physical violence and other crimes

  • close to 13% experienced homelessness or housing insecurity because of their sexual orientation or gender identity

  • participants experienced both racism and queerphobia, but racism was more frequently observed as being most problematic.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including those in the queer community, dating apps also present particular challenges. Many participants indicated they purposefully do not mention they are Indigenous in seeking to form online connections within the LGBTIQ+ community due to a fear of racism.

Intersection of identities clashing

More than half of the participants felt little or no sense of connection to the LGBTIQ+ community as Indigenous people.

Participants also reflected on having to endure micro-aggressions from non-Indigenous queer people. Stereotyping and forms of “casual” racism – being told they don’t look Aboriginal or made to feel like a “token” inclusion – were common examples.

A key issue for a third of participants was the sense of invisibility they felt within Indigenous communities due to their sexual and/or gender identity.

Some chose to hide their sexual orientation for fear of not being accepted by Elders and community leaders. Interestingly though, Elders who engaged in the research were very supportive of promoting acceptance.

A desire to form connections with other queer Indigenous people was of great importance. Many participants also described the constant negotiation of identities, surveying risks, or hiding parts of one’s self as being exhausting.




Read more:
How young LGBTQIA+ people used social media to thrive during COVID lockdowns


Inclusive health care and support is needed

A main focus of this research was Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander/LGBTIQ+ peoples’ access to, and experiences with, a range of health, education, and social services.

Participants emphasised the importance of LGBTIQ+ friends, families, GPs, and counselling services in providing responsive care and support in times of need.
Participants also highlighted significant levels of trust in Aboriginal community controlled health organisations.

This indicates more could be done by Indigenous health organisations to include Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people’s needs in their services.

All organisations that were surveyed expressed clear intentions to become better informed about the specific needs of Aboriginal LGBTIQ+ clients.

Community members and health care/support professionals also identified steps to improve care for queer Indigenous people. These included employing and retaining Indigenous LGBTIQ+ staff, using inclusive language, implementing specialist staff training, and initiating conversations on inclusion with boards and executives.

However, broader policy changes are also needed in health practices, including:

  • more extensive Indigenous LGBTIQ+ leadership on all Indigenous LGBTIQ+ matters

  • inclusive health and support services that welcome Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people proactively as both clients and staff

  • better national and state level data collection relating to Indigenous LGBTIQ+ communities and improved data collection within health and support services

  • ongoing professional development and training at all levels within an organisation

  • greater representation of Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people in public awareness/education campaigns and leadership positions

  • implementation of anti-racism strategies in organisations providing support or community connection to Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people

  • greater awareness of trans issues and safe referral pathways for Indigenous trans people.

Both racism and queerphobia must be addressed for Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people to feel a sense of connection and belonging within their communities. Courageous conversations about discrimination in all organisations and the wider Australian society are well overdue.

The Conversation

Braden Hill receives funding from a Healthway Exploratory Research Grant.

bep.uink@murdoch.edu.au receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Australian Research Council (ARC), Australian Government Department of Health, the Society for Research for Child Development, and Healthway.

Dameyon Bonson is an independent suicide prevention practitioner, in particular Indigenous LGBTIQ+ suicide prevention inclusive practice. He is also the Founder of Black Rainbow, Australia’s first and only national Indigenous LGBTIQ+ suicide prevention charity organisation.

Jennifer Dodd receives funding from a Healthway Exploratory Research Grant

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

ref. New research shows how Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people don’t feel fully accepted by either community – https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-how-indigenous-lgbtiq-people-dont-feel-fully-accepted-by-either-community-161096

Fiji government must give ‘critical’ covid-19 crisis timeline, says lawyer

By Felix Chaudhary in Suva

The Fiji government and other health experts must give the country a covid-19 crisis timeline, says prominent lawyer Richard Naidu.

He said they must provide some indication of how bad the pandemic would get and when they believed things would improve.

Naidu said this was imperative because the future of Fiji was dependent on the information.

“Businesses need to budget ahead,” he said.

“Many employers want to spread their remaining cash to help their workers.

“But they don’t know how long they will have to do it.

“Welfare organisations need to plan their future support for people who have been kept away from their work and have no income.

Schools need to plan
“Schools and parents need to plan for how long students will not be in class.

“Health professionals and family members need to plan for how to look after chronically ill people without access to normal health care.”

Naidu said the Fijian people needed a best case and worst-case scenario.

“And, of course, we need to know whose assessments they are,” he said.

“The government’s experts may say one thing.

“Other experts may take a different view.

“We need to weigh the credibility of the information we are given.”

Real-time information
Naidu said getting real-time information from the Health Ministry was critical to decision-making “but equally important are projections for the next three-month and six-month periods”.

He said Fijians needed to understand the possible number of cases the country would face and where they would peak.

“We also need to understand when those numbers will begin to decline and when we will return to some level of community safety.”

Health Secretary Dr James Fong did not respond to the concerns raised by Naidu.

RNZ News reports that the Fiji government has announced that it was too early to say if the coronavirus would be an endemic disease in the country.

This comes amid 12 deaths and more than 2000 infections recorded since the latest outbreak started in April. Prior to this, there were two deaths and 70 cases in March 2020.

Felix Chaudhary is a Fiji Times reporter. This article is republished with permission.

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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

_Homo_ who? A new mystery human species has been discovered in Israel

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Langley, Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University

Yossi Zaidner

An international group of archaeologists have discovered a missing piece in the story of human evolution.

Excavations at the Israeli site of Nesher Ramla have recovered a skull that may represent a late-surviving example of a distinct Homo population, which lived in and around modern-day Israel from about 420,000 to 120,000 years ago.

As researchers Israel Hershkovitz, Yossi Zaidner and colleagues detail in two companion studies published today in Science, this archaic human community traded both their culture and genes with nearby Homo sapiens groups for many thousands of years.

The new fossils

Pieces of a skull, including a right parietal (back of the skull) and an almost complete mandible (jaw) were dated to 140,000–120,000 years old, with analysis finding the person it belonged to wasn’t fully H. sapiens.

The Nesher Ramla mandible and skull.
Avi Levin and Ilan Theiler, Sackler / Tel Aviv University

Nor were they Neanderthal, however, which was the only other type of human thought to have been living in the region at the time.

Instead, this individual falls right smack in the middle: a unique population of Homo never before recognised by science.

Through detailed comparison with many other fossil human skulls, the researchers found the parietal bone featured “archaic” traits that are substantially different from both early and recent H. sapiens. In addition, the bone is considerably thicker than those found in both Neanderthals and most early H. sapiens.

The jaw too displays archaic features, but also includes forms commonly seen in Neanderthals.

The bones together reveal a unique combination of archaic and Neanderthal features, distinct from both early H. sapiens and later Neanderthals.

Are there are more of these people?

The authors suggest fossils found at other Israeli sites, including the famous Lady of Tabun, might also be part of this new human population, in contrast to their previous Neanderthal or H. sapiens identification.

The “Lady of Tabun” (known to archaeologists as Tabun C1) was discovered in 1932 by pioneering archaeologist Yusra and her field director, Dorothy Garrod.

Extensively studied, this important specimen taught us much about Neanderthal anatomy and behaviour in a time when very little was known about our enigmatic evolutionary cousins.




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If Tabun C1 and others from the Qesem and Zuttiyeh Caves were indeed members of the Nasher Ramel Homo group, this reanalysis would explain some inconsistencies in their anatomy previously noted by researchers.

The mysterious Nesher Ramla Homo may even represent our most recent common ancestor with Neanderthals. Its mix of traits supports genetic evidence that early gene flow between H. sapiens and Neanderthals occurred between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago. In other words, that interbreeding between the different Homo populations was more common than previously thought.

Even more puzzling, the team also found a collection of some 6,000 stone tools at the Nesher Ramla site.

These tools were made the same way contemporaneous H. sapiens groups made their technology, with the similarity so strong it appears the two populations — Nesher Ramla Homo and H. sapiens — were hanging out on a regular basis. It seems they weren’t just exchanging genes, but also tips on tool-making.

And there was fire!

The site also produced bones of animals caught, butchered, and eaten on-site. These findings indicate Nesher Ramla Homo hunted a range of species, including tortoise, gazelle, aurochs, boar and ostrich.

Furthermore, they were using fire to cook their meals, evident through the uncovering of a campfire feature the same age as the fossils. Indeed, the Nesher Ramla Homo were not only collecting wood to make campfires and cook, but were also actively managing their fires as people do today.

Exposure of animal bones and lithic artifacts in the layer with the Nesher Ramla Homo fossils.
Yossi Zaidner

While the earliest indications of controlled use of fire is much older — perhaps one million years ago – the interesting thing about this particular campfire is the evidence that Nesher Ramla people tended to it as carefully as contemporary H. sapiens and Neanderthals did their own fires.

Most impressive is that the campfire feature survived, intact, outside of a protected cave environment for so long. It is now the oldest intact campfire ever found in the open air.

In sum, if we think of the story of human evolution like an Ikea bookcase that isn’t quite coming together, this discovery is effectively like finding the missing shelf buried at the bottom of the box. The new Nesher Ramla Homo allows for a better-fitting structure, although a few mysterious “extra” pieces remain to be pondered over.

For example, exactly how did the different Homo groups interact with each other? And what does it mean for the cultural and biological changes that were occurring for Homo populations in this period? Continuing to work with these questions (the “extra pieces”) will help us build a better understanding of our human past.




Read more:
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The Conversation

Dr Michelle Langley is a Senior Research Fellow in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution and Lecturer in Archaeology in the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

ref. _Homo_ who? A new mystery human species has been discovered in Israel – https://theconversation.com/homo-who-a-new-mystery-human-species-has-been-discovered-in-israel-163084

We found traces of humanity’s age-old arms race with coronaviruses written in our DNA

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yassine Souilmi, Visiting Investigator, Australian National University

NIAID-RML, CC BY-SA

A coronavirus may have swept across East Asia more than 20,000 years ago, leaving traces in the DNA of people in modern China, Japan and Vietnam. Our research, published in Current Biology, found evidence of genetic adaptation to the coronavirus family of viruses in 42 genes in modern populations in these regions.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is so far responsible for more than 3.8 million deaths and billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide. The coronavirus family also includes the related MERS and SARS viruses, both of which have caused significant deadly outbreaks in the past 20 years.

Our results show how the hunt for genetic traces of historical viral outbreaks may help us treat the outbreaks of the future.

Pandemics may be as old as human history

We have had pandemics before. In the 20th century alone, three variants of the influenza virus each resulted in wide-ranging outbreaks that killed millions: the “Spanish Flu” of 1918-20, the “Asian Flu” of 1957-58, and the “Hong Kong Flu” of 1968-69.

Historical records of outbreaks caused by viruses and other pathogens stretch back thousands of years. It seems plausible that these interactions go back even further, to the earliest periods of human prehistory.




Read more:
This isn’t the first global pandemic, and it won’t be the last. Here’s what we’ve learned from 4 others throughout history


The ancient migrations that saw our ancestors spread out from Africa across the world would have introduced them to new pathogens. Like many other environmental challenges, these ancient viral encounters may have triggered adaptions that helped our ancestors survive. These adaptations may have included physiological or immunological changes that improved resistance to infection or reduced the health impacts of the disease.

Adaptation to disease can leave genetic traces

Over the past few decades, geneticists have devised powerful statistical tools to uncover genetic traces of historical adaptation events that remain present within the genomes of people living today. These tools have allowed scientists to discover genes that mark adaptations for high-altitude living and the adult consumption of milk, among other things.

Our team was curious to see whether historical encounters with ancient coronaviruses have left any such trace in today’s human populations. Besides revealing historical coronavirus outbreaks, this information may hold new insights in the genetic basis of coronavirus infection and how these viruses cause disease in modern humans.




Read more:
What is a virus? How do they spread? How do they make us sick?


Viruses are simple creatures with one objective: to make more copies of themselves. But their simple biological structure means they cannot reproduce independently.

Instead, they must invade the cells of other organisms and hijack their molecular machinery. Viral invasions involve attaching and interacting with specific proteins produced by the host cell, which we call viral interacting proteins (VIPs).

The marks of ancient coronavirus

We applied cutting-edge computational analyses to the genomes of more than 2,500 people from 26 populations around the world. We found signatures of adaptation in 42 different human genes that encode VIPs.

These VIP signals were present in only five populations, all of them from East Asia – the likely ancestral homeland of the coronavirus family. This suggests the ancestors of modern East Asians were initially exposed to coronaviruses around 25,000 years ago.

Further testing revealed that the 42 VIPs are primarily expressed in the lungs, which is the tissue most affected by COVID-19 symptoms. We also confirmed these VIPs interact directly with the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the current pandemic.

Other independent studies have also shown that mutations in VIP genes may mediate SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and the severity of COVID-19 symptoms. In addition, several VIP genes are either currently being used as drug targets for COVID-19 treatments or are part of clinical trials for this purpose.

Several of the adaptive VIPs identified in our study are also drug targets for other types of viruses, such as Malaria and Hepatitis C. Several of these drugs have been successfully repurposed, and suggests that others could potentially be repurposed for COVID-19 treatment.

By uncovering the genes impacted by historical viral outbreaks, our study points to the promise of evolutionary genetic analyses as a new tool for fighting future outbreaks.

The Conversation

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. We found traces of humanity’s age-old arms race with coronaviruses written in our DNA – https://theconversation.com/we-found-traces-of-humanitys-age-old-arms-race-with-coronaviruses-written-in-our-dna-163254

We found more than 54,000 viruses in people’s poo — and 92% were previously unknown to science

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Hugenholtz, Professor of Microbiology, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland

Shutterstock

Research published today in Nature Microbiology has identified 54,118 species of virus living in the human gut — 92% of which were previously unknown.

But as we and our colleagues from the Joint Genome Institute and Stanford University in California found, the great majority of these were bacteriophages, or “phages” for short. These viruses “eat” bacteria and can’t attack human cells.

When most of us think of viruses, we think of organisms that infect our cells with diseases such as mumps, measles or, more recently, COVID-19. However, there are a vast number of these microscopic parasites in our bodies — mostly in our gut — that target the microbes that live there.




Read more:
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Everybody poos (but not all poo is the same)

There has recently been much interest in the human gut microbiome: the collection of microorganisms that live in our gut.

Besides helping us digest our food, these microbes have many other important roles. They protect us against pathogenic bacteria, modulate our mental well-being, prime our immune system when we are children, and have an ongoing role in immune regulation into adulthood.

It’s fair to say the human gut is now the most well-studied microbial ecosystem on the planet. Yet more than 70% of the microbial species that live there have yet to be grown in the laboratory.

We know this because we can access the genetic blueprints of the gut microbiome via an approach known as metagenomics. This is a powerful technique whereby DNA is directly extracted from an environment and randomly sequenced, giving us a snapshot of what is present within and what it might be doing.

Biologists estimate there are a few hundred trillion viruses living within and outside our bodies.
Shutterstock

Metagenomic studies have revealed how far we still have to go to catalogue and isolate all the microbial species in the human gut — and even further to go when it comes to viruses.

11,810 samples of poo

In our new research, we and our colleagues computationally mined viral sequences from 11,810 publicly available faecal metagenomes, taken from people in 24 different countries. We wanted to get an idea of the extent to which viruses have taken up residence in the human gut.

This effort resulted in the Metagenomic Gut Virus catalogue, the largest such resource to date. This catalogue comprises 189,680 viral genomes which represent more than 50,000 distinct viral species.

Remarkably (but perhaps predictably), more than 90% of these viral species are new to science. They collectively encode more than 450,000 distinct proteins — a huge reservoir of functional potential that may either be beneficial or detrimental to their microbial, and in turn human, hosts.

We also drilled down into subspecies of different viruses and found some showed striking geographical patterns across the 24 countries surveyed.

For example, a subspecies of the recently described and enigmatic crAssphage was prevalent in Asia, but was rare or absent in samples from Europe and North America. This may be due to localised expansion of this virus in specific human populations.

One of the most common functions we discovered in our molecular field trip were diversity-generating retroelements (DGRs). These are a class of genetic elements that mutate specific target genes in order to generate variation that can be beneficial to the host. In the case of DGRs in viruses, this may help in the ongoing evolutionary arms race with their bacterial hosts.

Intriguingly, we found one-third of the most common virally-encoded proteins have unknown functions, including more than 11,000 genes distantly related to “beta-lactamases”, which enable resistance to antibiotics such as penicillin.

Linking gut viruses to their microbial hosts

Having identified the phages, our next task was to link them to their microbial hosts. CRISPRs, best known for their many applications in gene editing, are bacterial immune systems that “remember” past viral infections and prevent them from happening again.

They do this by copying and storing fragments of the invading virus into their own genomes, which can then be used to specifically target and destroy the virus in future encounters.

We used this record of past attacks to link many of the viral sequences to their hosts in the gut ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, highly abundant viral species were linked to highly abundant bacterial species in the gut, mostly belonging to the bacterial phyla Firmicutes and Bacteroidota.

So what can we do with all of this new information? One promising application of an inventory of gut viruses and their hosts is phage therapy. Phage therapy is an old concept predating antibiotics, in which viruses are used to selectively target bacterial pathogens in order to treat infections.

There has been discussion of potentially customising people’s gut microbiomes using dietary interventions, probiotics, prebiotics or even “transpoosions” (faecal microbiota transplants), to improve an individual’s health.

Phage therapy may be a useful addition to this objective, by adding species or even subspecies-level precision to microbiome manipulation. For example, the bacterial pathogen Clostridioides difficile (or Cdiff for short) is a leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhoea that could be specifically targeted by phages.

More subtle manipulation of non-pathogenic bacterial populations in the gut may be achievable through phage therapy. A complete compendium of gut viruses is a useful first step for such applied goals.

It’s worth noting, however, that projections from our data suggest we’ve only investigated a fraction of the total gut viral diversity. So we’ve still got a long way to go.




Read more:
How do viruses mutate and jump species? And why are ‘spillovers’ becoming more common?


The Conversation

Phil Hugenholtz P.H. is a co-founder of Microba Life Sciences, which is a microbial genomics company
developing microbiome-based diagnostics and therapeutics and offers metagenomic gut
microbiome reports.

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

ref. We found more than 54,000 viruses in people’s poo — and 92% were previously unknown to science – https://theconversation.com/we-found-more-than-54-000-viruses-in-peoples-poo-and-92-were-previously-unknown-to-science-163258

The sentencing of George Floyd’s killer has lessons for policing in Australia and New Zealand too

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Mehigan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Canterbury

www.shutterstock.com

The imminent sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the 2020 murder of George Floyd will be closely watched around the world. While the crime happened in the United States, its resonance in the Black Lives Matter movement has been truly international.

In New Zealand and Australia, the June 25 sentencing offers an opportunity to take stock of racial disparities in their own criminal justice systems. They may be geographically distant, but we shouldn’t imagine the underlying cultural problems are exclusive to the US.

Floyd’s death was not just brutal and outrageous, but also distressingly routine. While some high-profile police killings of Black people have made the news and triggered protests and rioting, countless others have gone without the same coverage or impact.

For every Eric Garner (suffocated in 2014 by the NYPD while saying “I can’t breathe”) or Freddie Gray (who died of a broken spine after his arrest in Baltimore in 2015), there have been multiple other cases.

The conviction of Chauvin is therefore to be welcomed, not least because it shows such prosecutions can be successful. But it’s also important to remember that US policing itself has not necessarily changed very much, despite the past year’s protests and ongoing advocacy for reform.

At heart, the police remains a brutal institution. Some US police forces can be traced back to slave patrols in the 1700s, established to chase down escaped slaves or quell revolts. The culture of an institution built by one race for the subjugation of another is hard to change without some kind of radical reinvention.

Policing in a post-colonial era

Again, this is not something confined exclusively to the US. The police forces of New Zealand and Australia were established as component parts of a colonial project that clearly harmed and disadvantaged their respective Indigenous populations.

This foundational fact is reflected in the reality of policing today. Police forces built to enable colonial subjugation will not change simply because sections of modern society have developed a more progressive racial outlook.

Even if you argue the history of colonial policing does not actively inform contemporary police cultures in Australia and New Zealand, there is no denying the outcomes for Indigenous people in their criminal justice systems are lamentable.




Read more:
Australia’s news media play an important role reminding the country that Black lives still matter


It is now just over 30 years since the landmark report of Australia’s Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. In that time, 474 Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander people met their deaths following police contact. That equates to more than one such death each month.

In New Zealand, Māori are seven times more likely than Pākehā to be at the receiving end of police violence. If the outcomes are not fatal as often as in Australia, deaths in custody still reflect a serious racial disparity.

In 2012, the Independent Police Complaints Authority reviewed the 27 deaths in custody from the previous decade. Almost half were Māori. If this is a small sample, it still mirrors the disproportionately high number of Māori in the prison system: Māori make up 16% of the country’s population but 52% of prisoners.

People listening to speeches at a Black Lives Matter rally in Auckland
The Black Lives Matter movement went global: Aucklanders listen to speeches during a rally in 2020.
GettyImages

A long way to go

These discrepancies are hard to explain away. There is clearly a race problem in criminal justice in Australia and New Zealand, just as there is in the US.

The conviction and sentencing of Derek Chauvin may signal change, but it will take time. President Joe Biden supports proposed laws around police misconduct and racial profiling, but advocates are frustrated by the slow pace of reform.

Calls to “defund the police” in the US, and growing disquiet at the increasingly paramilitary nature of US policing, may not yet have direct echoes in Australia and New Zealand.




Read more:
The United States is at risk of an armed anti-police insurgency


But if and when George Floyd’s killer is sent to jail himself, we should take the opportunity to reflect on how far our own criminal justice systems have to go.

The Black Lives Matter movement demonstrates there is a global appetite for meaningful change to policing practices, as the protests in Australia and New Zealand highlighted.

This year, New Zealand has begun a government process of apologising for the dehumanising “dawn raids” of the 1970s, when Pasifika people deemed to be overstaying their visas were dragged from their homes by police and deported.

The history of colonial policing is something we are still processing — moving beyond those colonial (and often racist) mindsets towards a system that values rights, accountability and the rule of law. The moment is ripe for reform.

The Conversation

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

ref. The sentencing of George Floyd’s killer has lessons for policing in Australia and New Zealand too – https://theconversation.com/the-sentencing-of-george-floyds-killer-has-lessons-for-policing-in-australia-and-new-zealand-too-162164

Australia’s media industry shed 5,000 journalists to survive – what does this mean for those who left, and those left behind?

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University

Lukas Coch/AAP

In the 2000s, the internet shredded the media’s business model. The media’s influence fragmented and many employees paid the price.

Between 2012 and 2016, thousands of Australian journalists lost their jobs in large redundancy rounds as the industry scrambled to try to stay alive. The bulk of redundancies happened in print media because historically, they employed the largest number of journalists.

The disruption to traditional business models – and the rush to find a new one — has been much discussed from a financial perspective. But what about the journalists who left the industry or those left behind in stripped-down newsrooms?

Disrupted lives

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (the journalist’s union) estimates up to 5,000 Australian journalists have left the industry over the past decade.

The New Beats study has been charting what happened to journalists after they left, including through regular surveys. In partnership with the National Library of Australia, we have also conducted “whole-of-life” interviews with close to 60 journalists for the library’s oral history collection.

Journalists at Michael McCormack's farewell press conference as Nationals leader.
Senior journalists provide younger colleagues with story ideas, phone numbers and essential advice.
Lukas Coch/ AAP

Some of them are well known — David Marr for example — while others worked behind the scenes as sub-editors. A minority of them soon found another job in the mainstream media, while some used their redundancy packages to fund projects to reinvent journalism. Others went to the so-called dark side of public relations while others left the media altogether.

Our new book, Upheaval: Disrupted Lives in Journalism, tells their story. It aims to give a picture of what it was like to work in journalism when the media had resources and a lot of influence and then what happened as disruption began in earnest during the mid-2000s.

The cost of cost-cutting

Along with redundancies, annual intakes of trainees or cadets (where young journalists are not only hired but trained) were at best paused, at worst stopped. Sub-editing was outsourced to standalone production companies like Pagemasters or cut to skeletal levels.

It is hard to see immediately how this affects the journalism that continues to be produced every day — although glaring typographical errors or headline bloopers are visible to the naked eye. Less visible is the loss of informal mentoring and advice provided by senior journalists, admittedly often expressed with back-of-the-axe bluntness!




Read more:
Australians are not aware news outlets are in financial trouble: new report


Senior journalists were the ones encouraged to take redundancies because they were on higher salaries. In the first New Beats survey, conducted in 2014, 54% of respondents were aged 51 and over.

This is a huge loss of knowledge and experience. Senior journalists would often provide contact details for useful sources or remind younger colleagues what the prime minister had said abut the topic at hand five years ago. They would warn less experienced colleagues about legal or ethical minefields and help them find the strongest news lead.

What this meant was fewer journalists and less experience in newsrooms but greater demands to produce stories across print, audio, video, online and social media.

The quality of journalism today compared to a decade ago was not the focus of our study. What is hard to measure but vitally important is the absence of stories that might have been covered once but aren’t now. The public can’t know what it isn’t told.

Informal mentors

One of our interviewees, Guardian investigative reporter Anne Davies, recalled how as a young journalist at the Australian Financial Review, she got a tip law firm, Freehills, was about to merge with another legal practice. She told her chief of staff she might have a story. “Come on, sit next to me”, he said, and they wrote it together.

Glenn Dyer really looked after the cadets […] he’d walk in and he’d go, ‘Davies, I want you to follow up. It’s on page four of The Australian’ […] he got us really charged up about the thrill of the chase.

Veteran journalist and author George Megalogenis also benefited from mentoring, but in a less direct way. At Melbourne’s Sun newspaper, cadets like him were seated at the top of the sub-editors’ table, one chair away from the editor-in-chief. They were encouraged to learn through osmosis.

You got to see news judgements made every night […] I spent a lot of time eavesdropping.

The New Beats’ annual survey in 2017 highlighted the decline of informal mentoring and lack of experience in newsrooms. As one respondent, by then a retired 66-year-old, said:

The lack of corporate knowledge and mentoring have already been damaged, possibly beyond repair. Older experienced minds have been replaced with younger and cheaper folks. No criticism of them. We were all like them at some stage and fed off the experience of others. I can still name my mentors and carry many of their ideas with me.

What’s the solution?

Who, if anyone, is replacing these informal mentors? There are still some experienced hands in the news media and the ability of younger journalists to adapt and learn should not be underestimated.

There is anecdotal evidence among journalism academics that recent graduates working in newsrooms are reaching out to them for guidance as they struggle to deal with the difficulties of covering COVID-19, including hyper-scrutiny of their work, and of abuse and trolling on social media. The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance provides regular workshops for members on various aspects of journalistic work.

AAP journalists at a meeting in their newsroom.
Senior journalists, on higher salaries, have been more likely to take redundancies.
Stephen Saphore/AAP

The union and journalism lecturers can provide support and assistance but reporting the news is a fast-paced job that throws up knotty issues amid great pressure that need to be resolved immediately.

By interviewing journalists who experienced redundancy, we learned many still care deeply about the craft of reporting. Collectively they are a repository of what Aristotle called practical wisdom.

We captured some of that wisdom, and at times could hear one generation of journalists talking to the next. They were encouraging and cautioning and emboldening, while also being aware of the pressures making journalism harder nowadays. There is an enduring need for this kind of intergenerational learning.

There is also a challenge for those managing now-reduced newsrooms to find ways to do this. Those former journalists may no longer be sitting across the partition but they are still ready and able to share their knowledge when, and if, they’re asked.




Read more:
Media Files: Australians’ trust in news media is falling as concern over ‘fake news’ grows


The Conversation

Matthew Ricketson received funding from the Australian Research Council for work connected to this article. One of the partner organisations for the research project is the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. He is their representative on the Australian Press Council.

Andrew Dodd received funding from the Australian Research Council to support research on this topic.

ref. Australia’s media industry shed 5,000 journalists to survive – what does this mean for those who left, and those left behind? – https://theconversation.com/australias-media-industry-shed-5-000-journalists-to-survive-what-does-this-mean-for-those-who-left-and-those-left-behind-162937

Novavax is absent from Australia’s 2021 vaccination schedule. But it could be a useful booster later on

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Berry, Professor of Viral Immunology, Murdoch University

Novavax recently released excellent results from phase 3 clinical trials, finding its COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated 90.4% efficacy overall after two doses given three weeks apart.

The results, from close to 30,000 people in the United States and Mexico, found the vaccine demonstrated 100% protection against moderate and severe COVID-19, and was highly protective against circulating variants of interest and concern. It also has a good safety profile.

It’s important to note these results came directly from Novavax in a press release, and we’re still waiting to see the data published in a peer-reviewed journal. Once this happens, it’s likely Novavax will apply for approval from medical regulators around the world.

But this process will take a few months. The Therapeutic Goods Administration has said it doesn’t expect to receive the final data it needs to approve the vaccine until September. And in the COVID Vaccination Allocation Horizons, information the government released this week setting out vaccine allocation until the end of 2021, Novavax is not mentioned.

So by the time Australia is ready to deliver Novavax — the country has 51 million doses on order — we may well have completed most of the vaccine rollout with the AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The situation will be similar in other countries, such as the United States.

However, that doesn’t mean Novavax won’t play an important role in Australia’s fight against COVID-19.

How does Novavax work?

Novavax is designed using protein-based technology. This is different from the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is a viral vector vaccine, and Pfizer and Moderna, which use mRNA technology.

Novavax works by introducing a part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus — the spike protein — to the immune system. The spike protein used is made in insect cells and doesn’t contain any live components of the virus. It can’t replicate or cause COVID-19.

To help the vaccine generate a stronger protective response, it uses an adjuvant, which is a molecule that boosts the immune system. The adjuvant Novavax uses is based on saponin, a natural extract from the Chilean soapbark tree.

An illustration of SARS-CoV-2.
COVID-19 vaccines work by targeting the spike protein, a protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2.
Shutterstock

In some countries, Novavax could be used as an initial COVID vaccine. It will be relatively easy to distribute because it can be stored at regular fridge temperatures.

In other countries where most people will have already received two vaccine doses by the time Novavax becomes available, the vaccine could be used as an annual booster — on its own or as a supplement in formulated vaccines.




Read more:
What is Novavax, Australia’s third COVID vaccine option? And when will we get it?


A potential booster

Let’s say you’re writing a book. You write your first draft — that’s the first dose of vaccine. Then you edit and refine the final draft — that’s the second dose. You could say annual booster vaccines are like updated editions. Perhaps the original book is also translated into different languages, just as boosters could cover viral variants around the world.

In slightly more scientific terms, after the first vaccine dose, certain cells in our immune system (normal B cells) are activated and produce a primary antibody response. After the second vaccine dose, a slightly different flavour of immune cells (memory B cells) mount a stronger antibody response more rapidly.

But this immune memory can wane over time. Boosters may be needed to enhance immune memory responses to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in people who have previously been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Boosters could also be important as new variants emerge. Vaccines can often be reformulated to protect against new viral variants when original formulations aren’t working as well.

So even if Novavax isn’t the first or second COVID vaccine in our arms, it could be an important tool in our arsenal as we continue to navigate the pandemic.

A person with a bandaid on their upper arm.
Novavax could potentially be used as a booster vaccine down the track.
Shutterstock

What about in combination with the flu shot?

Novavax has recently revealed the efficacy of its COVID vaccine was roughly the same in a study where an influenza vaccine was administered simultaneously. This data, although yet to be peer-reviewed, signals Novavax could potentially be given alongside the annual flu shot.

In the future, we could even have the flu shot and Novavax combined in one vaccine. Novavax has designed and is currently testing a vaccine which combines SARS-CoV-2 and influenza spike proteins (called a multivalent vaccine).




Read more:
Can I get AstraZeneca now and Pfizer later? Why mixing and matching COVID vaccines could help solve many rollout problems


SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly evolving and we need to future-proof Australia against viral variants. As our knowledge of COVID-19 builds, we must develop strategies for more robust protection.

Rather than a fast sprint, our immune systems likely need to be primed for an ultra-marathon. Thinking about vaccines beyond the “first wave” of vaccination will be key.

The Conversation

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

ref. Novavax is absent from Australia’s 2021 vaccination schedule. But it could be a useful booster later on – https://theconversation.com/novavax-is-absent-from-australias-2021-vaccination-schedule-but-it-could-be-a-useful-booster-later-on-163014

US scheme used by Australian farmers reveals the dangers of trading soil carbon to tackle climate change

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Simmons, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, University of New England

Shutterstock

Soil carbon is in the spotlight in Australia. A key plank in the Morrison government’s technology-led emissions reduction policy, it involves changing farming techniques so soils store more carbon from the atmosphere.

Farmers can encourage and accelerate this process through methods that increase plant production, such as improving nutrient management or sowing permanent pastures. For each unit of atmospheric carbon they remove in this way, farmers can earn “carbon credits” to be sold in emissions trading markets.

But not all carbon credits are created equal. In one high-profile deal in January, an Australian farm sold soil carbon credits to Microsoft under a scheme based in the United States. We analysed the methodology behind the trade, and found some increases in soil carbon claimed under the scheme were far too optimistic.

It’s just one of several problems raised by the sale of carbon credits offshore. If not addressed, the credibility of carbon trading will be undermined. Ultimately the climate – and the planet – will be the loser.

sunset on farm with cattle and trees
The integrity of soil carbon trading must be assured.
Shutterstock

What is soil carbon trading?

Plants naturally remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the air through photosynthesis. As plants decompose, carbon-laden organic matter is added to the soil. If more organic matter is added than is lost, soil carbon levels increase.

Carbon trading schemes require the increase in soil carbon levels to be measured. The measurement methods are well-established, but can be costly and complex because they involve collecting and analysing large numbers of soil samples. And different carbon credit schemes measure the change in different ways – some more robust than others.

The Australian government’s Emissions Reduction Fund has a rigorous approach to soil sampling, laboratory analysis and calculation of credits. This ensures only genuine removals of atmospheric carbon are rewarded, in the form of “Australian Carbon Credit Units”.

Farmers can choose other schemes under which to earn carbon credits, such as the US-based carbon offset platform Regen Network.

Regen Network’s method for estimating soil carbon largely involves collecting data via satellite imagery. The extent of physical on-the-ground soil sampling is limited.

Regen Network issues “CarbonPlus credits” to farmers deemed to have increased soil carbon stores. Farmers then sell these credits on the Regen Network trading platform.

Regen Network video explaining its remote sensing methods.

‘A number of concerns’

It was Regen Network which sold Microsoft the soil carbon credits generated by an Australian farm, Wilmot Station. Wilmot is owned by the Macdoch Group, and other Macdoch properties have also claimed carbon credits under the Regen Scheme.

Regen Network should be applauded for making its methods and calculations available online. And we appreciate Regen’s open, collaborative approach to developing its methods.

However, we have reviewed their documents and have a number of concerns:

  • the dry weight of soil in a known volume, also known as “bulk density”, is a key factor in calculating soil carbon stocks. Rather than bulk density being measured from field samples, it was calculated using an equation. We examined this method and determined it was far less reliable than field sampling

  • Estimates of soil carbon were not adjusted for gravel content. Because gravel contains no carbon, carbon stock may have been overestimated

  • The remote sensing used by Regen Network involved assessment of vegetation cover via satellite imagery, from which soil carbon levels were estimated. However, vegetation cover obscures soil, and research has found predictions of soil carbon using this method are highly uncertain.




Read more:
The Morrison government wants to suck CO₂ out of the atmosphere. Here are 7 ways to do it


Wilmot increased soil carbon, or “sequestration”, through changes to grazing and pasture management. The resulting rates of carbon storage calculated by Regen Network were extremely high – 7,660 tonnes of carbon over 1,094 hectares. This amounts to 7 tonnes of carbon per hectare from 2018 to 2019.

These results are not consistent with our experience of what is possible through pasture management. For example, the CSIRO has documented soil carbon increases of 0.1 to 0.3 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year in Australia from a range of methods to increase pasture production.

We believe inaccurate methods have led to the carbon increase being overestimated. Thus, it appears excess carbon credits may have been awarded.

Many carbon trading schemes apply rules to ensure integrity is maintained. These include:

  • an “additionality test” to ensure the extra carbon storage in the soil would not have happened anyway. It would prevent, for example, farmers claiming credits for practices they adopted in the past

  • ensuring sequestered carbon is maintained over time

  • disallowing double-counting of credits – for example, by preventing a country claiming credits that have been sold offshore.

The Emissions Reduction Fund and other well-recognised international schemes, such as Verra and Gold Standard, apply these rules stringently. Regen Network’s safeguards are less rigorous.

Responses to these claims from Regen Network and Macdoch Group can be found at the end of this article. A full response from Regen can also be found here.

diagram. showing arms, money, laptop and leaves over world map
Carbon trading is a way for farmers to make money by changing their land management practices.
Shutterstock

Not in the national interest?

Putting aside the problems noted above, the offshore sale of soil carbon credits generated by Australian farmers raises other concerns.

First, selling credits offshore means Australia loses out, by not being able to claim the abatement towards our own government and industry targets.

Second, soil carbon does not have unlimited emissions reduction potential. The quantum of carbon that can be stored in each hectare of soil is constrained, and limited by factors such as land availability and climate change. So measures to increase soil carbon should not detract from society’s efforts to reduce emissions from fossil fuel use.

And third, ensuring carbon remains in soil long after it’s deposited is a challenge because soil microbes break down organic matter. Carbon credit schemes commonly manage this by requiring a “buffer” of unsold credits. If stored carbon is lost, farmers must relinquish credits from the buffer.

If the loss is greater than the buffer, credits must be purchased to make up the difference. This exposes farmers to financial risk, especially if carbon prices rise.




Read more:
We need more carbon in our soil to help Australian farmers through the drought


farmer sits on rock
Poorly managed carbon trading schemes can put farmers at financial risk.
Shutterstock

Getting it right

Soil carbon is a promising way for Australia to substantially reduce its emissions. But methods used to measure gains in soil carbon must be accurate.

Carbon markets must be regulated to ensure credit is awarded for genuine abatement, and risks to farmers are limited. And the extent to which offshore carbon markets prevent Australia from meeting its own obligations to reduce emissions should be clarified and managed.

Improving the integrity of soil carbon trading will have benefits beyond emissions reduction. It will also improve soil health and farm productivity, helping agriculture become more resilient under climate change.


Regen Network response

Regen Network provided The Conversation with a response to concerns raised in this article. The full nine-page statement provided by Regen Network is available here.

The following is a brief summary of Regen Network’s statement:

– Limited on-ground soil sampling: Regen Network said its usual minimum number of soil samples was not reached in the case of Wilmot Station, because historical soil samples – taken before the project began – were used. To compensate for this, relevant sample data from a different farm was combined with data from Wilmot.

“We understand the use of ancillary data does not follow best practice and our team is working hard to ensure future projects are run using a sufficient number of samples,” Regen Network said.

– Bulk density: Regen Network said the historical sample data from Wilmot did not include “bulk density” measurements needed to estimate carbon stocks, which required “deviations” from its usual methodology. However the company was taking steps to ensure such estimates in future projects “can be provided with higher degrees of accuracy”.

– Gravel content: Regen Network said lab reports for soil samples included only the weight, not volume, of gravel present. “Best sampling practice should include the gravel volume as an essential parameter for accurate bulk density measurements. We will make sure to address this in our next round of upgrades and appreciate the observation!” the statement said.

– Remote sensing of vegetation: Regen Network said it did not use vegetation assessment at Wilmot station. It tested a vegetation assessment index at another property and found it ineffective at estimating soil carbon. At Wilmot station Regen used so-called individual “spectral bands” to estimate soil carbon at locations where on-ground sampling was not undertaken.

– Sequestration rates at Wilmot: Regen Network said while it was difficult to directly compare local sequestration rates across climatic and geologic zones, the sequestration rates for the projects in question “fall within the relatively wide range of sequestration rates” reported in key scientific studies.

Regen Network said its methodology “provides a conservative estimate on the final number of credits issued”. Its statement outlines the steps taken to ensure soil carbon levels are not overestimated.

– Integrity safeguards: Regen Network said it employs standards “based both on existing standards of reputable programs […] and inputs from project developers, in order to come up with a standard that not only is rigorous but also practical”. Regen Network takes steps to ensure additionality and permanence of carbon stores, as well as avoid double counting of carbon credits generated through their platform.

A more detailed response from Regen Network can be found here.


Wilmot Station response

Wilmot Station provided the following response from Alasdair Macleod, chairman of Macdoch Group. It has been edited for brevity:

We entered into the deals with Regen Network/Microsoft because we wanted to give a hint of the huge potential that we believe exists for farmers in Australia and globally to sequester soil carbon which can be sold through offset markets or via other methods of value creation.

Whilst we recognise that the soil carbon credits generated on the Macdoch Group properties in the Regen Network/Microsoft deal will not be included in Australia’s national carbon accounts, it is our hope that over time the regulated market will move towards including appropriately rigorous transactions such as these in some form.

At the same time we have also been working closely with the Australian government, industry organisations, academia and other interested parties on Macdoch Group properties to develop appropriate soil carbon methodologies under the government’s Climate Solutions Fund.

This is because carbon measurement methodologies are an evolving science. We have always acknowledged and will welcome improvements that will be made over the coming years to the methodologies utilised by both the voluntary and regulated markets.

In any event it has become clear that there is huge demand from the private sector for offset deals of this nature and we will continue to work towards ensuring that other farmers can take advantage of the opportunities that will become available to those that are farming in a carbon-friendly fashion.

The Conversation

Aaron Simmons is a Technical Specialist in Climate Change Mitigation with the NSW Department of Primary Industries and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow with The University of New England. Aaron has received funding from Australian Wool Innovation, Grains Research and Development Corporation, Cotton Research and Development Corporation, Dairy Australia and the Commonwealth government.

Annette Cowie is a Senior Principal Research Scientist in the Climate Branch at the NSW Department of Primary Industries, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Environmental and Rural Science at the University of New England. She has received funding for soil carbon research from NSW and Commonwealth government programs. Annette is a member of Soil Science Australia, a not-for-profit, professional association for soil scientists and people interested in the responsible management of Australia’s soil resources.

Brian Wilson is a member of academic staff and researcher at the University of New England and a Principal Research Scientist with NSW State Government. He has received research income from a range of State and Commonwealth organisations to engage in research relating to soil carbon.

Mark Farrell has received funding for soil carbon research from Commonwealth, State and industry programmes. He is a member of Soil Science Australia, a not-for-profit, professional association for soil scientists and people interested in the responsible management of Australia’s soil resources.

Matthew Tom Harrison is an Associate Professor and Systems Modelling Team Leader at the University of Tasmania. He receives funding from the Commonwealth and Tasmanian Government, as well as Meat & Livestock Australia. His research examines pathways for improving the sustainability of agricultural systems, including avenues for greenhouse gas emissions mitigation through soil carbon sequestration.

Peter Grace has received funding from federal government sources and Rural Development Corporations with respect to sustainable agricultural systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Richard Eckard receives funding from Commonwealth Government, as well as Meat & Livestock Australia and Dairy Australia.

Vanessa Wong receives funding from the Victorian State Government and the Australian Research Council. She is currently the President of Soil Science Australia, a not-for-profit, professional association for soil scientists and people interested in the responsible management of Australia’s soil resources

Warwick Badgery is a Research Leader in Rangelands and Pasture with the NSW Department of Primary Industries and has honorary positions with Melbourne University and China Agricultural University. He receives funding from the Federal Government, Meat and Livestock Australia and the food Agility CRC for agricultural systems and soil carbon research.

ref. US scheme used by Australian farmers reveals the dangers of trading soil carbon to tackle climate change – https://theconversation.com/us-scheme-used-by-australian-farmers-reveals-the-dangers-of-trading-soil-carbon-to-tackle-climate-change-161358

Podcasting overcomes hurdles facing unis to immerse students in the world of workers’ experiences

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mim Fox, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, University of Wollongong

Shutterstock

Podcasting is helping to revolutionise tertiary education. Universities have found themselves caught between shrinking budgets and an official insistence that they make graduates job-ready. Academics have had to be creative and flexible about how they engage their students with crucial learning, and podcasting is one way to do this.

In the past year, universities have been denied JobKeeper payments to retain staff, seen the government’s “job-ready graduates” funding and tuition fee changes prioritise some disciplines over others, and then had funding cut despite international student revenue losses.

Despite the constraints of this post-COVID world, universities must still produce graduates for the caring professions dominated by women, such as health and community services, that we arguably need most. The budget did increase funding for sectors such as aged care and child care – but what about the education of the future workers needed to provide social services?




Read more:
Big-spending ‘recovery budget’ leaves universities out in the cold


The business world has been talking about “pivoting” in the post-COVID environment, and academics have had to do the same. Universities have been known for their large lecture theatres, but these are no longer acceptable in a world of social distancing.

Instead, university courses are now being taught either remotely, with students studying from home, or in a blended fashion involving a combination of home engagement and smaller face-to-face classes. Academics have had to meet the challenge with shorter pre-recorded lectures, smaller classes and flexible modes of delivery that students can engage with from home.

This has been easier for some degrees than for others. It’s a challenge for health and social sector degrees, such as social work and human services, that have a large practical component.

We know the best way to teach a student to work with people is to have them work with people. In the current climate, this has become more difficult.

Despite these challenges, academics have found it’s possible to teach core practice skills remotely. Using technologies such as podcasting is one way to prepare students for eventually working with people.

Why are academics choosing podcasting?

The popularity of podcasting has increased in recent years as a direct and accessible way to consume large amounts of content, and this includes its use in education. Increasing numbers of education-focused podcasts are appearing on free online platforms.




Read more:
Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry


Members of the Social Work Stories Podcast team
The Social Work Stories team has been creating podcasts tailored to students’ needs.
Author provided

It has been a natural step for academics to use these podcasts in their teaching. They are also creating their own podcast content. This ensures these podcasts are discipline-specific and tailored to their students’ needs.

Podcasting has the potential not only to tell stories for passive listening, but also to engage the listener in the practice of critical thinking. Critical thinking is highly regarded across disciplines as a key graduate attribute that contributes to a job-ready workforce.

It is crucial in the flexible study environment that students are able to engage in critical thinking, regardless of where that study takes place.




Read more:
Thinking about thinking helps kids learn. How can we teach critical thinking?


The discipline of social work, taught at universities across Australia, is no exception. As an allied health profession employed largely in the health and community services sector, current circumstances have had direct impacts on social work practices and education. Job-ready graduates need to have professional practice skills built into their studies.

The Social Work Stories Podcast

The Social Work Stories Podcast showcases examples of de-identified cases from the coalface. The hosts analyse the anonymous social workers’ stories. Drawing out the complexities of social work practice enables listeners to critically engage with the content along the way.


The Social Work Stories Podcast, Author provided

Listeners are asked to “listen out” for theories that are being used, or moments of practice dilemmas or inspiration. In this way they are getting a taste of the experience of social work.

In one episode a social worker discusses the dilemmas involved in providing end-of-life care in hospital. In another a social worker discusses the challenges of providing information on consent to a group of male adolescents. It is as though listeners themselves are working on the cases being discussed.




Read more:
‘We are in a bubble that is set to burst’. Why urgent support must be given to domestic violence workers


Social Work Stories audio clip.
Author provided8.13 MB (download)

The Social Work Stories Podcast comes from a collaboration between the University of Wollongong and social work practitioners. It now has an international reach of 96 countries and more than 250,000 downloads. Social work graduate programs regularly use the podcast in their curriculum across Australia.

Podcasting has allowed academics to be creative in their course delivery despite the political and financial pressures on the sector. It offers one way forward in a difficult time for academia in Australia.

The Social Work Stories Podcast is available on iTunes and Spotify, with Twitter handle and Instagram @SOWKStoriesPod.




Read more:
Podcasts and cities: ‘you’re always commenting on power’


The Conversation

Mim Fox receives funding from the National Health & Medical Research Council.

ref. Podcasting overcomes hurdles facing unis to immerse students in the world of workers’ experiences – https://theconversation.com/podcasting-overcomes-hurdles-facing-unis-to-immerse-students-in-the-world-of-workers-experiences-161274

COVID has disrupted our big cities, and regional planning has to catch up fast

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Byrne, Professor of Human Geography and Planning, University of Tasmania

Blaine O’Neill/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Since the 1950s, the world has experienced a sixfold increase in the number of people living in cities. City dwellers now outnumber rural residents globally and in many individual countries. But the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to disrupt the trajectory, scale and form of urbanisation.

Cities, by virtue of their size, have recorded more deaths than surrounding rural areas, though this may not be linked to density. In the USA, small cities and towns have been hit hard. And social and economic disruption appears worse in cities in the developing world.

The pandemic is refocusing planners’ attention on the vulnerability of cities to natural hazards and other threats. Securing food, water and energy, sustaining health services and maintaining critical supply chains are seen as more important than ever. Planners are also concerned about rising social inequality.




Read more:
Why coronavirus will deepen the inequality of our suburbs


The pandemic has fast-tracked some trends

In developed nations like Australia, more city dwellers are moving to the suburbs and beyond, believing they offer better security and quality of life. Australian Bureau of Statistics data from 2020 show our capital cities experienced a net loss of 11,200 people from outward migration. This is also happening in less developed countries, where rural-urban migration patterns have in some cases reversed.

It’s too early, though, to tell if these shifts are permanent.




Read more:
Has COVID really caused an exodus from our cities? In fact, moving to the regions is nothing new


The impacts of COVID-19 have heightened de-growth and counter-urbanisation trends. Reduced public transport use (down by as much as 52% nationally in 2020) and lower demand for commercial space (occupancy rates fell to as low as 24% in some cities), are changing the look and feel of many central business districts. Business profits and government revenue have been reduced.

The opposite is occurring in some suburbs and towns. These areas are experiencing a squeeze on rental availability, rising property prices and more traffic congestion.

Some commentators are suggesting the future of cities will be radically different. So what does this mean for urban planning?




Read more:
How COVID all but killed the Australian CBD


Cities require co-ordination to function properly

Cities are complex entities. They require a high degree of co-ordination in providing services (such as water supply, waste management), housing and infrastructure (for example, energy generation and distribution). Regional planning often performs that role.

Regional planning was developed following the second world war to co-ordinate decision-making across jurisdictions within metropolitan areas. To achieve desired city planning objectives, planners needed a way to better manage rapid population growth and the many interactions of landowners, property developers, businesses and local governments.

Regional plans developed by Australian states from the 1940s to 1970s, for example, sought to contain and focus urban growth pressures. This was done by managing land use, designating urban growth corridors and boundaries, and protecting key resources (forests, water catchments, farmland) from incompatible development. Most regional plans were based on a central core surrounded by suburbs, with radiating transport lines (railways and freeways) connecting the two.

1948 poster promoting the Cumberland County Plan for Sydney
The cover of a public information booklet about the Cumberland County Planning Scheme for Sydney (1948)
City of Sydney Archives



Read more:
COVID has proved working from home is the best policy to beat congestion


Beware quick fixes that ignore new trends

As countries recover from the pandemic’s impacts, the temptation is to use quick fixes to stimulate economic activity — such as unlocking large areas of land for housing. But planning urban areas to meet the needs of present and future generations requires strategic decision-making. Will we need all those new houses or large infrastructure projects if our urban populations grow more slowly than expected?

The forces currently driving people away from cities and the impacts this is having on built environments and urban populations cannot be ignored. We need to ask if they are temporary, or if they signal a long-term change to our cities.

We also need to recognise that huge investments in urban infrastructure have been made since the 1950s. It is unlikely we will simply abandon our cities.




Read more:
Why COVID-19 won’t kill cities


Even with larger numbers of people moving to suburbs and the countryside, we will still need to supply infrastructure such as new roads, powerlines, water pipes, sewers and waste management facilities. But regional planning must adapt to the “new normal”, as the current approaches might no longer be fit for purpose.

What does the future hold?

Trends in working from home, online shopping, peer-to-peer transport such as Uber, distributed energy generation (from rooftop solar and other local sources), waste recycling (such as circular metabolism) and new models of finance and funding (such as modern monetary theory) are all affecting the complex systems needed to keep urban areas functioning.

Although vaccines may help life return to some level of normality in the coming years, many of the drivers of counter-urbanisation will continue. Some people will want to keep working from home. Other will want more opportunities to interact with nature. Many will want to live in what planners are calling 20-minute neighbourhoods.




Read more:
People love the idea of 20-minute neighbourhoods. So why isn’t it top of the agenda?


Changing supply chains may result in a rise in new types of local manufacturing. Hydrogen-based energy could make new modes of transport viable — such as smaller, on-demand buses for suburban public transport. We may see the rise of more polycentric cities, like Los Angeles, where suburban centres of employment include local manufacturing.

Regional planning must adjust to these trends. Some large-scale infrastructure projects might need to be rethought. Transit systems will likely need to include autonomous vehicles. Large-scale greening of cities will be necessary to reduce higher temperatures accompanying climate change, if we are to prevent avoidable deaths among older populations.

Elderly couple sit on a bench in shade under street trees
Climate change means urban greening needs to be part of strategic urban planning to counter extreme heat.
Shutterstock



Read more:
How do we save ageing Australians from the heat? Greening our cities is a good start


We will probably also experience new ways of involving citizens in decision-making, such as co-design.

Regional planning has the capacity to stimulate innovation in housing provision, alternative forms of employment and co-ordinating new systems of transport and energy distribution. But planners must catch up fast if they are to play a role in shaping the future of our cities.

The Conversation

Jason Byrne undertakes research in partnership with the Southern Tasmanian Councils Authority, Local Government Association of Tasmania and Tasmanian Climate Change Office. Jason has previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA), and sits on the PIA Tasmanian Divisional Committee

ref. COVID has disrupted our big cities, and regional planning has to catch up fast – https://theconversation.com/covid-has-disrupted-our-big-cities-and-regional-planning-has-to-catch-up-fast-139969

Vital Signs: how to halve serious injuries and deaths from teenage driving accidents

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

Shutterstock

Teenage drivers are a risky bunch. They are inexperienced and don’t always drive carefully, sometimes with tragic consequences. Various studies indicate 15-30% of teens have an accident in their first year of driving. In many countries driving fatalities are the leading cause of death among teenagers.

The policy question is what to do about it.

One can imagine a number of options, from the light touch (such as information campaigns and advertisements) to the dramatic (such as raising the legal driving age).

Many jurisdictions have introduced laws to restrict the driving privileges of younger drivers. But it’s not always easy to tell if such laws are effective.

One could look at places that have the laws and compare them to accident statistics from places without such laws. But this might be misleading.

It is possible those laws were introduced in places with a bigger problem. Suppose the laws have reduced driving fatalities, but only to the same level as places with less severe problems in the first place. With no difference in the teen driving fatality rate between jurisdictions with or without driving restrictions, it could be incorrectly concluded the restrictions have no effect.




Read more:
More Mad Max than max safety: teenagers don’t dream of safe cars


The identification problem

This is an example of what economists call the “identification problem” – figuring out how to identify the true causal effect of a policy intervention.

To identify the causal effect, one needs to know the right counterfactual – that is, what would have happened if the policy had not been introduced. To put it another way, the group affected by the policy needs to be compared with the right control group.

This is a big general issue on which economists have been working for decades. In that time many useful techniques have been developed to address the identification problem across the social sciences.

The development of this set of tools is what MIT economist Joshua Angrist (one of the leading scholars in this endeavour) has called “the credibility revolution”.

It’s a revolution because we now have ways to credibly identify the causal effect of different policy interventions. That allows us to provide sensible policy prescriptions based on empirical evidence.

It even permits scholars to understand the size or “magnitude” of the effects and to undertake careful cost-benefit analysis.

An Australian policy experiment

Back to those troublesome teenage drivers.

In 2007 New South Wales introduced a law that banned drivers in their first year of a provisional licence from carrying two or more passengers under the age of 21 between 11pm and 5am.

As economists Tim Moore and Todd Morris write in a working paper published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research in April, about 3% of all accidents by first-year drivers occurred while carrying multiple passengers between these hours. But these accidents accounted for about 18% of fatalities.

Moore (an Australian, now at Purdue University in Indiana) and Morris (at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Germany) saw the NSW policy as an ideal opportunity to test the effectiveness of teen-driving restrictions.

So how did they make sure they had the right counterfactual?

They used one of the classic techniques from the identification revolution, known as the “difference-in-differences” – or DID – method.

This technique was made famous (in academic and policy circles) by a path-breaking 1994 paper by David Card and Alan Krueger (both then economists at Princeton University) on how minimum wage laws affect employment.

To put it at its simplest, rather than comparing one group to another or one group before and after a policy change, the DID method involves comparing the changes over time in one group to the changes over time in another.

Moore and Morris calculated changes in the restricted period (11pm–5am) then compared those to the changes in accidents during the daytime (8am–8pm). This allowed them to control for other factors affecting crash risks.

What they show is striking. The restriction reduced crashes by first-year drivers by 57%, and hospitalisations and fatalities by 58%.

With the restrictions, crashes in the 11pm-5am window dropped from about 18% to 4% of fatalities involving first-year drivers. That’s an effective policy.




Read more:
Automated vehicles may encourage a new breed of distracted drivers


Long-run effects

If you were sitting in an academic seminar hearing these results, you might ask: “OK, but what happens after the first-year restrictions roll off?”

Remarkably, Moore and Morris also find reductions in nighttime multi-passenger crashes in the second and third years. There are no clear differences in the years that follow, but by then crash rates are down to one-fifth of the first-year level.


Impacts on nighttime multi-passenger crashes

Charts showing Immediate and subsequent impacts on night-time multi-passenger crashes, from the paper 'Shaping the Habits of Teen Drivers' by  Timothy Moore & Todd Morris.

Timothy Moore & Todd Morris, ‘Shaping the Habits of Teen Drivers’, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2021.

In other words, these restrictions seem to have a persistent effect even after the policy intervention is no longer in place.

There is a broader lesson in this. Policies can have long-run effects, even after the folks targeted by the policy are no longer “being treated”. This is well known in some educational interventions. Experiments with small financial rewards for students and parents, for example, have shown improvements in things like attendance and performance continue even after the incentives are discontinued. It is worth looking out for with policies in other areas.

In any case, NSW – and Australia more generally – seems to have cracked the case on teen driver safety.

Thanks to Moore and Morris, and their NBER working paper, it’s an insight from which the rest of the world can learn.

The Conversation

Richard Holden is president-elect of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

ref. Vital Signs: how to halve serious injuries and deaths from teenage driving accidents – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-how-to-halve-serious-injuries-and-deaths-from-teenage-driving-accidents-163351

Australia’s handling of the pandemic ranked more accountable than most, but not perfect

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Miranda Stewart, Professor, The University of Melbourne

Governments worldwide spent more than US$14 trillion fighting the health and economic effects of the coronavirus in 2020, much of it very quickly.

Among other things the timing of budgets was changed, procedural requirements bypassed, parliaments not consulted, and information not released.

In a new study comparing 120 countries, Australia was found to be one of only four countries — along with Norway, Peru and the Philippines — whose processes were assessed as having “adequate” accountability.

The International Budget Partnership study found that almost three-quarters of the countries studied (87 out of 120) failed to manage their immediate financial response in a transparent and accountable manner.

Almost two-thirds failed to provide transparency in procurement, half bypassed their parliaments, and only a quarter published expedited audit reports.

No countries were judged as having had “substantive” accountability.

Australia’s accountability practices included delivering an Economic and Fiscal Update in place of its postponed May budget and establishing an opposition-chaired Senate select committee to monitor its responses to the pandemic.

Despite the parliament only meeting intermittently early in the pandemic, the select committee and other parliamentary committees continued to hold public hearings virtually to fill the accountability gap.

Nevertheless, the Senate select committee faced difficulties in gaining access to the government’s underlying modelling of its response packages.

Adequate, if not substantive, accountability

As well, the Australian National Audit Office failed to get an increase in funding to deal with the extra work necessitated by the government’s responses to the pandemic. Instead, its funding was cut in the October budget.

And the Morrison government failed to publish an analysis of the gender impact of its responses, something that became problematic as it emerged women had been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.




Read more:
Women’s Budget Statement more of a first step than revolution


The global study was completed in January 2021, with Australia’s accountability practices examined by the Australian National University’s Tax and Transfer Policy Institute.

Since then, there have been welcome developments.


Commonwealth Treasury

The May 2021 budget reversed the budget cuts to the Audit Office by allocating an extra A$61.5 million over four years, enabling it to take on more staff to conduct more post-pandemic performance audits.

And the long-absent women’s budget statement returned to the official budget papers.

It’s too early to know whether these changes will make a lasting difference.

Much will depend on how the content of the women’s budget statement and funding of the audit office develop.

A lasting difference would give Australia a chance to be assessed next time as “substantively” accountable.

The Conversation

Miranda Stewart receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Miranda Stewart and Teck Chi Wong led the Australian Survey response in the International Budget Partnership (IBP) Open Budget Index Survey, including the COVID19 module discussed in this article, supported by funding from the IBP to the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, The ANU.

Miranda Stewart and Teck Chi Wong led the Australian Survey response in the International Budget Partnership (IBP) Open Budget Index Survey, including the COVID19 module discussed in this article, supported by funding from the IBP to the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, The ANU.

ref. Australia’s handling of the pandemic ranked more accountable than most, but not perfect – https://theconversation.com/australias-handling-of-the-pandemic-ranked-more-accountable-than-most-but-not-perfect-163081

Friday essay: rethinking the myth of Daphne, a woman who chooses eternal silence over sexual assault

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle

Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, made between 1622 and 1625. Stefano Chiacchiarini/Shutterstock

Ancient Greek myths and folktales are shaping popular culture, from big-budget films to television series to novels. You can even find advice on how to look like a Greek goddess or heroine on your wedding day, with gowns inspired by Aphrodite and Helen of Troy (among others).

In particular, myths of transformation have appeal to artists and writers who are attracted to the challenge of retelling stories of shifting forms — the strange movements between human and animal or plant. Such states of flux can shed light on our own understanding of identity.

Among the many mythical figures changed through metamorphosis is the nymph or dryad, Daphne. One of the mythical beings who cared for trees, springs and other natural elements, Daphne was the child of Peneus, a Thessalian river god.

Her decidedly sad and violent story, in which she is transformed into a tree to escape the lustful attention of the god Apollo, gives rise to the ancient explanation of the creation of the laurel tree, known as “daphne” by the ancient Greeks.

Daphne’s plight continues to intrigue artists. Today, new interpretations are finding fresh ways of reading this influential, much contested myth, with its themes of sexual violence and bodily autonomy.

Andrea Schiavone, Apollo and Daphne, 1542.
Wikimedia Commons

Parthenius (1st Century BCE-1st Century CE) provides the earliest complete extant version of the myth of Daphne and Apollo. As a grammarian, Parthenius collected stories from texts now lost to us. Still, his version of the story can be traced to earlier works dating to the 3rd century BCE, suggesting the myth is even older.

Parthenius’ version begins with Leucippus, the son of a mythic king of Pisa, falling in love with the beautiful nymph. Daphne was favoured by the goddess Artemis, who bestowed upon her the gift of shooting a straight arrow. Leucippus contrived to spend time with Daphne by dressing as a woman and joining her during a hunt.

But this enraged Apollo, who also desired Daphne. He encouraged Daphne and her fellow female hunters to bathe in a nearby stream. When Leucippus refused to join them, the women stripped him, discovering his ruse and stabbing him with their spears.

Apollo, then took his chance:

but Daphne, seeing Apollo advancing upon her, took vigorously to flight; then, as he pursued her, she implored Zeus that she might be translated away from mortal sight, and she is supposed to have become the bay tree which is called daphne after her.

Apollo and Daphne by Rupert Bunny, early 1920s.
Wikimedia Commons

‘Destroy this beautiful figure’

The Latin poet, Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE) retells Daphne’s story in Book 1 of his epic poem of transformation myths, the Metamorphoses. Ovid explains that Apollo’s desire was caused by Cupid, whom Apollo had slighted. In response, Cupid shot Apollo, causing him to feel intense passion for Daphne. But she was shot with another type of arrow, ensuring she would not reciprocate his attraction.




Read more:
Guide to the classics: Ovid’s Metamorphoses and reading rape


Ovid’s version depicts a frightened Daphne fleeing her pursuer with language that paints her as a hare hunted by a greyhound. Daphne’s fear of being caught by Apollo as he chases her is evoked with visceral realism. Her transformation comes when she no longer has the strength to run:

With her strength used up, she went pale with fear and,
overcome by the effort of her frantic flight and gazing upon the waters of Peneus,
she cried: ‘bring help, father, if your waters possess divine power!
By changing it, destroy this beautiful figure by which I generated too much desire.’

With her prayer scarcely completed, a heavy torpor took possession of her limbs: her soft breasts were bound by a thin layer of bark,
her hair grew into foliage, her arms into branches;
her feet, just now so swift, hold fast in sluggish roots,
a crest possessed her facial features, radiance alone remained in her.

Even without human form, Daphne is not saved from Apollo’s lust. After her transformation, Apollo reaches out to touch the trunk of the tree, which shrinks from him.

In the final lines of this episode, Ovid reveals what Apollo does with this tree’s leaves: they are woven into a laurel wreath and around his quiver and lyre, to be used in rituals performed in his honour.

While Daphne is saved from the assault of her human form, she is nonetheless forcibly objectified for the sake of Apollo’s desire.

Loss of self

Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne.
Wikimedia Commons

Since antiquity, the story of Daphne has been retold over and over again – painted, sculpted, performed and analysed.

We can gaze at Daphne in all manner of poses in museums and galleries throughout Europe. The Galleria Borghese in Rome displays Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Daphne being seized by Apollo in a life-size, marble statue.

Completed in 1625, it depicts Apollo’s intense determination as he seizes the nymph by the waist with one hand even though she is in the very process of turning into a tree.

While his face is eerily peaceful, Daphne’s replicates the fear that underscores Ovid’s description.

In this way, Bernini’s sculpture is Ovid’s poetry in material form. Masterpieces of art and literature, respectively, compromise us by the beauty that depicts a narrative of attempted rape.

A rear view of the Bernini sculpture.
Eva Petrilllo/Shutterstock

The Louvre has Giambattista Tiepolo’s version of the myth, dating to approximately 1774. Here, a baby Cupid hoists Daphne as if she were a ballerina while Apollo seems somewhat discombobulated. An aged Peneus slumps on the ground, seemingly exhausted from his transformative magic.

While Bernini’s Daphne is shocked and traumatised, Tiepolo’s nymph — with her attendant narrative of fear and suffering — has been tamed for a genteel Baroque audience. This silly and passive rendition of sexual assault is accentuated by the delicate shoots of foliage that grow from Daphne’s right hand.

Giambattista Tiepolo, Apollo and Daphne, circa 1774.

Historically, scholarship has shown a deep-seated patriarchal interpretation of the myth, rendering Daphne’s role in her own transformation as secondary to the actions of masculine power, represented by Apollo.

The creation of the laurel wreath, for instance, recorded by Ovid, has been interpreted as an act of mourning, turning Daphne’s transformed body into a symbol of Apollo’s grief.

Feminist interpretations, however, remind us Apollo’s intention was to rape Daphne. Thus his grief was firmly based on his failed attempt and nothing more. These interpretations encourage us to consider the intense violence inherent in the myth.

As a tree, leafy and earth-bound, Daphne’s loss of self is both physical and psychological. No longer human, she loses the ability to express herself through her facial features, and the power of speech. Like so many women in the myths of transformation, Daphne is perpetually silenced. She can only “speak” through the rustling of leaves.

The burden of women’s historic experience of sexual harassment, violation and rape is also vividly chronicled in Daphne’s story. Ovid, a master of narratives of violence and abuse, reveals Daphne’s burden by suggesting she sees herself as partly accountable for Apollo’s pursuit of her. In her prayer to her father, she begs to be relieved of her beauty, which she believes has caused the god’s actions.

Her pleas have echoed across millennia in the self-admonishment of many women and their desire to become invisible to the male gaze. Daphne achieves a form of invisibility — or so she thinks — in her new form as a mass of leaves and bark. But, as Ovid tells us, not even as a tree can she escape the god’s persistent lust.

The sheer absurdity of the entire myth begs the question: would a woman prefer to become a tree than be raped?

Modern interpretations

In the 20th century, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux and Ossip Zadkine all reworked Daphne; painting and sculpting her for a modernist audience.

Zadkine’s sculpture, Daphné (1958) mirrors yet mocks Bernini’s work, rendering the nymph as a powerful root-bound tree of monumental grandeur and ungainly defiance. She, however, remains silent.

In a new exhibition opening at Melbourne’s Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Australian audiences can see some of Daphne’s incarnations over the centuries, including early works, such as Anthonie Waterloo’s etching of Apollo and Daphne (1650s) and Agostino dei Musi’s engraving from 1515.

Agostino dei Musi, Apollo and Daphne 1515, engraving, 23.0 x 17.0 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, purchased 1937.
Photograph: AGNSW

Traditional works celebrating the so-called grandeur of classical mythology so much in vogue in the Renaissance (and beyond) are joined and contested by competing interpretations. These include Erik Bünger’s Nature see you (2021), a video essay on the world-famous but inherently vulnerable gorilla, Koko; and Ho Tzu Nyen’s 2 or 3 Tigers (2015), a digital projection that meditates on tigers in the Malay context.

In both works, we see the story of Daphne as sentient nature in the form of gorilla and tiger, and nature both mythical and metaphorical. We also see nature as silent and therefore fragile in a world of human gods who are just as ruthless and destructive as their mythical counterparts.

Ho Tzu Nyen, 2 or 3 Tigers 2015 (video still), synchronized two-channel HD projection, 12 channel sound, 18:46 mins.
Courtesy the artist and Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong

Daphne’s humanity — her womanhood — is also referenced in Wingu Tingima’s paint on canvas, Kawun (2005). Based on the traditional Indigenous Australian story of the Seven Sisters, Tingima’s work suggests the trauma of women as they travel to escape the desires of the Ancestral Being Nyiru, who is determined to take one of them as his wife.




Read more:
Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters is a must-visit exhibition for all Australians


Like Daphne, the sisters escape by ascending to the sky and transforming into the constellation known as the Pleiades.

This rich exhibition approaches the myth of Daphne from many angles. Working back and forth through time, mixing traditional ways of seeing with vital contemporary narratives (including the Anthropocene, #MeToo, and post-humanism), it is an uncomfortable reminder of the power of myth and its own vulnerability to the forces of transformation.

A Biography of Daphne opens at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne on June 26 and runs to September 5 2021.

The Conversation

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Friday essay: rethinking the myth of Daphne, a woman who chooses eternal silence over sexual assault – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-rethinking-the-myth-of-daphne-a-woman-who-chooses-eternal-silence-over-sexual-assault-162521

Grattan on Friday: Blowin’ in the wind with Barnaby

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Scott Morrison is fond of telling his troops they’re in a boat. On Thursday he said Barnaby Joyce was “a wind in the sails”. Perhaps better described as a gale hitting the craft, some nervous Liberals would think.

Political life changed dramatically for Morrison this week. Whether Joyce’s elevation will benefit or harm the government at the election is an open question, but right now it is a massive complication for the PM.

It’s unleashed a battle over power within the Coalition, and it’s intensified the perennial difficulties on climate policy.

The surreal backdrop in this final week of parliament before the winter break was Morrison quarantined at The Lodge, looming “virtually” over House of Representatives members, while Joyce, following his Tuesday swearing in, occupied the PM’s chair at the centre table, the focus of attention.

To say the least, the symbolism was unfortunate. As Morrison said in another context, nothing beats being face to face. Being on a screen, upstaged by your unpredictable new right hand man, is an especially unhappy place.

Behind the scenes, Morrison and Joyce negotiated the terms of their partnership. In the open, the restored leader let the Nationals run riot, in a way we haven’t seen for a long time.




Read more:
View from The Hill: Nationals give Scott Morrison a muscle man to deal with — especially on net zero


In the Senate on Wednesday and then in the lower House on Thursday Nationals moved amendments on water, challenging the Murray Darling Basin plan, in an open split with the Liberals. At one point Peter Dutton, as leader of the House, was trying to shut down Damian Drum, the chief Nationals whip.

The water ploy was a gesture, and the revolt is said to have been in the pipeline for months and would, its proponents say, have gone ahead under Michael McCormack.

But for Joyce it was a convenient message to Morrison: the new leader is willing, if need be, to fight dirty to get as much as he can of whatever he wants.

Morrison’s problems on climate policy, hard enough before this week, have just increased substantially. And indeed, so has the internal dilemma the Nationals face on the issue.

Previously it was thought McCormack and deputy David Littleproud might be open to some deal so Morrison could embrace the target of net zero by 2050 (firming his present stance of reaching net zero “preferably” by 2050).

But Joyce has a history of opposing a 2050 target. Despite this Littleproud (who remains deputy) continued this week to signal that he could see a deal. That’s a very odd situation.

In prime ministerial circles they remain hopeful of a deal, on the basis that Morrison and Joyce are pragmatists and money can smooth the way.

But opposition within the Nationals to the 2050 target was one important driver of the Joyce coup. If he did a backflip, that would anger many followers. He’s privately been sticking to his position this week.

In an exercise that had critics quickly recalling Joyce’s $100 roast during the carbon debate of the Labor years, Nationals senator Matt Canavan, a confidant of Joyce, conjured up a spectre of net zero in the cattle industry.

“Every cow emits about 2300kg of carbon dioxide equivalent gases a year,” Canavan wrote in The Australian. “The CSIRO estimated last year that to reach net zero emissions we would need to start with a carbon price of $30 a tonne now. Even a relatively small cattle producer runs about 1000 head. So they would be up for a $70,000-a-year cost under a net-zero policy.

“By 2050, the price would rise to more than $200 a tonne, taking the carbon bill on your steaks to a whopping $400,000 per year, per farm.”

Canavan will be a significant player in the months ahead, and in the climate debate. Formerly resources minister, he has not sought to return to the ministry. Potentially he is both an influence on Joyce (he once worked for him), and also, as a backbencher, a tosser of grenades to remind the Liberals of the Nationals’ clout.

Warren Entsch, a Liberal who holds the north Queensland marginal seat of Leichhardt, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, put the other view.

“If the Nationals were really concerned about the livelihoods of farmers, perhaps they would do more to advocate for and enable the sector’s autonomy – rather than going off half-cocked and riding roughshod over a net zero 2050 emissions target.

“They might also like to consider what an increasingly warmer climate will mean for Australian agriculture,” Entsch said.

Unless Joyce shifts his position, Morrison surely can’t endorse the target. Joe Biden and Boris Johnson may or may not understand the concept of being “Barnaby’d”.

While the Joyce coup has transformed the dynamics within the Coalition, it wasn’t the worse thing confronting Morrison this week. That remains COVID and the flawed vaccine rollout. For all the numbers Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt sprout, the public are frustrated and weary and many people are worried.

The latest outbreak in NSW has seen fresh border closures and restrictions, and hit the state parliament – one minister has COVID and special arrangements were required to get the state budget passed. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said: “Since the pandemic has started, this is perhaps the scariest period that New South Wales is going through.”

COVID even wormed its way into the Barnaby story, with Joyce briefly absent at the start of Thursday’s question time because he thought he might have been a contact of a close contact (he was given an okay by a health official).

The rollout is still blighted by a shortage of supplies of Pfizer, hesitancy about vaccination in general and resistance to AstraZeneca in particular, and inadequate availability of convenient vaccination points.

Even limited outbreaks are disruptive, costly and unnerving, and there is always the danger of a major one occurring.

It may be, however, that the recent appointment of Lieutenant General “JJ” Frewen as COVID tsar is starting to improve the efficiency of the rollout. He’s asking a lot of questions, and bringing in some of his own logistics people to help with the organisation.




Read more:
Barnaby Joyce’s return, and John Anderson’s loss, is symbolic of a political culture gone awry


Frewen’s task, while waiting for more Pfizer supplies, is to get the rollout architecture into better shape. This includes improving communication with the public and relations with the states, and ensuring there are more channels for delivering the vaccines when extra doses arrive.

A lot is now riding on Frewen’s performance. But, inevitably, not all the federal health bureaucrats are happy to find their patch taken over by the military man. It’s another power struggle in Canberra.

The Conversation

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

ref. Grattan on Friday: Blowin’ in the wind with Barnaby – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-blowin-in-the-wind-with-barnaby-163381

Fiji may be facing heavy covid disaster within month, warns health official

By Michael Field of The Pacific Newsroom

Fiji could face around 600 covid-19 deaths within about eight weeks, and 50,000 active cases, unless decisive government-led action is taken quickly on controlling the epidemic.

Diplomatic sources have told Pacific Newsroom that increasing alarm in Australia and New Zealand has prompted their Suva diplomats to urge Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama to institute a month-long hard lockdown across Fiji.

He and his associate, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, are refusing, claiming it will inflict severe economic damage.

But that may be happening anyway and international aid bodies are quietly preparing for food shipments into Fiji, akin to cyclone relief.

The looming covid disaster could be the largest public health crisis since the New Zealand ship Talune introduced H1N1 influenza into Suva in 1918, resulting in around 9000 deaths in a month or six percent of the population.

Global models
Since April 10, when covid Delta arrived in Fiji from India, via Singapore, its growth track has followed the global models.

Government leaders knew what was coming, as Fiji’s Medical Services’ Head of Health Protection, Dr Aalisha Sahukhan, spelt out on June 23: “Today we have reported a record number of cases, and this has been happening regularly over the last week.

“And the daily case numbers will only increase. What we warned would happen when this outbreak started around two months ago is happening.”

The comment plainly implies that the mathematical warnings were not listened to.

Dr Aalisha Sahukhan 240621
Fiji’s Head of Health Protection Dr Aalisha Sahukhan … “What we warned would happen when this outbreak started around two months ago is happening.” Image: The Pacific Newsroom

She was speaking as they reported 279 new cases of covid, taking the number of active cases to 2479.

Active cases are, data shows, doubling every seven to eight days.

The existing numbers, combined with the global experience, point to Fiji in early August having had 600 deaths and over 50,000 active cases.

When speaking on Wednesday, Sahukhan said there had been 13 deaths due to covid-19 in Fiji, with 11 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April.

Infection rate
She noted that the daily test positivity rate in Fiji had reached 4.9 percent. This rate measures the number of positive covid results for every 100 tests.

It shows how well a country is testing and, taken with the number of confirmed cases, aids in understanding community spread.

“We are just 0.1 percent below the 5 percent [World Health Organisation] threshold that indicates widespread community transmission,” she said.

Dr Sahukhan said Fiji authorities were working on mathematical modelling to project how big the epidemic would be.

“India at the peak of the outbreak that happened in May went to 280 cases per million population per day, the United Kingdom at the peak of their outbreak was at over 800 per million population per day,” she said.

“Right now we are at 187 cases per million population per day, which is 166 cases per day.

“If our daily cases rise to a peak similar to the UK, we should expect approximately 700 cases per day at a 7-day average.”

She said they had to worry about the severe cases that required hospitalisation and deaths.

“As the cases have risen, it has largely overwhelmed our contact tracing capacity in the Lami-Suva-Nausori zone.

“This has happened in every other country that has faced this number of cases relative to their population.”

Suva covid clusters 230621
Covid cases in Suva as at 23 June 2021. Image: Fiji MOH

Next wave
What comes next, the next wave, was most concerning.

“The wave of people with severe illness requiring hospitalisation and the deaths that will come with it,” she said.

“We have just started to see the beginning of that wave now.”

The wave would crash on to medical facilities.

“Our hospitals are not overwhelmed.”

But as they fill with covid patients, other sick people would not get care.

“We have seen this happen in other countries.”

Behind the scenes Fiji’s problem is being made worse by the appalling rates in frontline workers.

Nearly half of the Navy now has covid, for example. Large clusters are occurring among police stations and units.

Many frontline workers are known to be wearing their protective gear wrongly, and many believe their first dose of vaccine is offering protection from covid when it is not.

Fiji data follows others
Statistical data seen by government officials and Pacific Newsroom are showing that Fiji’s covid growth is accurately following pathways set by other countries. For local Fiji reasons — from villages spread on Viti Levu to island scattering — the situation may be worse.

Fiji covid statistics 230621
Fiji covid statistics as at 23 June 2021. Graphic: Fiji MOH

These factors, Fiji officials are being told, is also why covid will not achieve vaccine inspired herd immunity in Fiji.

Population density could leave Fiji with chronic covid for years to come.

Making matters worse is the way covid has forced the closure of facilities at various times.

These include the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH), the Queen Elizabeth Barracks (which was providing frontline troops), naval vessels and the Ministry of Health Incident Management Team and warehouse.

Other hospitals and health centres hit include those at Valelevu, Raiwaqa, Makoi, Kamikamica and Nadi.

Republished from The Pacific Newsroom with permission.

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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

AJF, RSF and other media freedom watchdogs condemn China’s ‘suffocation’ of free press

Pacific Media Watch newsdesk

Apple Daily has announced its imminent closure in a dark day for Hong Kong’s press freedom and democracy, sparking condemnation by global media freedom watchdogs.

The Australian-based Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, Reporters Without Borders in Paris and the Committee to Protect Journalists were among the watchdogs that issued statements criticised the crackdown by authorities that has forced Hong Kong’s last pro-democracy daily to close.

Founded by Jimmy Lai, who is currently jailed on a series of charges including unlawful assembly, fraud and “colluding with foreign forces”, Apple Daily has been a longstanding and well-read publisher for 26 years.

This closure comes days after more than 100 police raided their offices, arrested five Apple Daily executives and froze their assets on Monday. Another columnist was arrested yesterday afternoon.

These incidents occurred under a new National Security Law, which critics say restricts the territory’s autonomy and undermines the human rights of its citizens.

Peter Greste, spokesperson and director of the AJF said:

“Since the national security law was introduced, we’ve seen: the arrest and ongoing detention of Jimmy Lai as he awaits trial; the freezing of a news publisher’s assets so they can no longer pay their staff; the mass-raid of the publisher’s offices – in numbers fit for terrorists – and the arrest of five executives; and the arrest of a columnist during a company board meeting only days later.

‘This is not normal’
“This is not normal. This is not democracy,” said Dr Greste, who is also the UNESCO chair in journalism at the University of Queensland, Brisbane.

“Press freedom and democracy cannot function when journalism in the public interest is restricted or denied. Apple Daily was a vocal critic of the government, but that should not be a crime.

“They were a legitimate news outlet. If a publisher like Apple Daily cannot exist in Hong Kong anymore, it is hard to see what remains of their democracy.

“The AJF implores Hong Kong to re-commit to the democratic principle of press freedom, release the Apple Daily journalists and employees now in custody, and unfreeze the company’s assets so they can continue to report freely.”

In Paris, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) deplored the “suffocation” of independent media following the announcement by the parent Next Digital media group’s board of directors yesterday that Apple Daily would cease all its operations from Sunday, June 27, due to the government’s decision to freeze its financial assets, leaving the media outlet unable to pay their employees and suppliers.

On Tuesday, June 22, RSF submitted an urgent appeal to the United Nations, asking the organisation to “take all necessary measures” to safeguard press freedom in Hong Kong.

“The tearing down of Apple Daily, one of the last major Chinese-language media critical of the Beijing regime, after years of harassment, is sending a chilling message to Hong Kong journalists,” said Cédric Alviani, RSF East Asia bureau head.

Erasing press freedom
“If the international community does not respond with the utmost determination, President Xi Jinping will know that he can erase press freedom in Hong Kong with complete impunity, as he has already done in the rest of China.”

In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists also denounced the Chinese government’s “outrageous efforts to stomp out critical voices in Hong Kong”.

Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia programme coordinator, said: “Even under colonial rule, the people of Hong Kong enjoyed robust freedom of expression. China has managed to snuff that out, in stark violation of firm commitments it made to the people of Hong Kong during the handover from British rule in 1997.”

Apple Daily, launched in 1995, was one of the last major Chinese-language media to still dare publish information contradicting the Beijing regime’s propaganda and editorials critical of its authoritarian policies, and for many years it was the target of harassment by government and pro-Beijing camps.

On the 17 June 2021, approximately 500 police officers raided its headquarters and five executive staff members were arrested on suspicion of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces”, a crime that bears a life sentence under the National Security Law imposed last year by the Chinese regime.

Apple Daily founder and 2020 RSF Press Freedom Awards laureate, Jimmy Lai, detained since December 2020, was recently sentenced to a total of 20 months in prison for taking part in three “unauthorised” pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and also faces six other procedures, including two charges for which he risks life imprisonment.

On the May 28, RSF submitted another urgent appeal asking the UN to “take all measures necessary’ to obtain his immediate release.

Hong Kong, once a bastion of press freedom, has fallen from 18th place in 2002 to 80th place in the 2021 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

The People’s Republic of China, for its part, has stagnated at 177th out of 180.

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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Cardiac arrests in young people — what causes them and can they be prevented or treated? A heart expert explains

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Orchard, Postdoctoral Fellow, Centenary Institute; and Adjunct Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney

Wolfgang Rattay/AP/AAP

On June 12, 16,000 spectators at Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium and millions of viewers around the world watched in shock as Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen’s heart stopped.

Late in the first half of Denmark’s opening game of the Euro 2020 soccer tournament against Finland, the 29 year-old was running just after a throw-in and suddenly collapsed. It appears he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest.

Fortunately, he was quickly attended to by a medical team with full resuscitation equipment, who administered CPR and successfully used a defibrillator. Erikson survived and has been fitted with an implantable cardiac defibrillator. This is a small device which is connected to the heart and fitted under the skin. If a dangerously abnormal rhythm is detected, it will deliver an electric shock to the heart to try to restore a normal rhythm.

So how often do cardiac arrests happen in young people? What are the risk factors, and can they be prevented?

Cardiac arrests during sport are extremely rare. If you’re playing sport next weekend, you should go ahead in the knowledge it’s almost certain not to happen. The benefits of exercise far outweigh the risks.

But because events like this do happen, albeit very rarely, we need public venues to have good emergency plans to improve survival, including the widespread availability of defibrillators.

There have been some recent improvements in this regard in Australia. For example, defibrillators are now installed in all Coles and Woolworths stores nationally, and there are several programs to support rollout of defibrillators and emergency action plans to community sports clubs. But there’s still room for improvement.

Am I at risk? How often does this happen?

Sudden death from cardiac arrest in a young person is a very rare but tragic outcome. The baseline risk in Australia for people under 35 is 1.3 per 100,000 people per year, with 15% occurring either during or immediately after exercise.

Across all ages, there are 20,000 sudden cardiac arrests in Australia that occur out of hospital every year, and sadly only 10% of people survive.

It’s also worth remembering a cardiac arrest isn’t exactly the same thing as a heart attack. A heart attack occurs when one of the coronary arteries is blocked, stopping blood supply to part of the heart. A cardiac arrest is when the heart stops pumping blood around the body, and can occur due to a heart attack or another cause.

The major causes of cardiac arrest depend on age. In people over 35, the vast majority are caused by coronary artery disease, where arteries supplying blood to the heart are blocked or damaged.

In people aged under 35, there’s no single major cause of cardiac arrest. Some of the conditions that can cause cardiac arrest in young people include:

However, 40% of sudden cardiac deaths in young people remain unexplained even after autopsy.

Is cardiac screening the answer?

Cardiac screening in young people looks for certain heart abnormalities that haven’t yet been detected. It’s common for elite and professional athletes in Australia and internationally, and is mandatory for young athletes in some countries, for example Italy and Israel.

This screening usually includes a “12-lead electrocardiogram” or ECG, which is a painless test that involves putting some sticky dots on the body and recording the electrical activity of the heart over a ten second period.

However, ECG screening cannot detect all of the conditions which can cause sudden cardiac arrests. This is because some conditions don’t show ECG abnormalities before a cardiac arrest.

Eriksen’s condition was likely in that category, because we know he had regular heart screenings while at Tottenham and these hadn’t shown any problems.

Medicare in Australia funds heart health checks for people who are middle aged or older, but not in younger people. This is similar to most countries. Other than in professional athletes and those with a family history, most professional bodies don’t recommend widespread screening of younger people because the risk of cardiac arrests is so low overall.

How else can we prevent sudden cardiac death? Defibrillators and data

The best strategy for preventing sudden cardiac death at any age is having defibrillators widely available. A defibrillator is a device that can analyse the heart’s rhythm and deliver an electric shock if needed. This can shock the heart back into a normal rhythm.

While they obviously can’t stop the cardiac arrest happening in the first place, they are crucial to survival once they do happen. Early access to a defibrillator can improve survival to almost 90%.

However, access needs to be very quick, ideally within 2-5 minutes, as we know the chances of survival drop by 10% for every minute of delay before defibrillation.

We also need as many as people as possible to be regularly trained to provide CPR.

Fabrice Muamba, a former midfielder for the Bolton Wanderers soccer team in the UK, was lucky to survive after he collapsed and his heart stopped on the field during a 2012 FA cup quarter-final.

Muamba, who recovered after he received CPR and 26 defibrillator shocks, last week voiced his support for defibrillators to be a legal requirement in public places in the UK. Ideally, Australia could also introduce a similar requirement to have defibrillators in public venues, supported by widespread CPR training (including how to use a defibrillator) to improve survival rates from out of hospital cardiac arrests.

In addition to defibrillators and CPR training, venues such as schools and sporting stadiums need to have good cardiac emergency plans so they can respond efficiently and effectively if someone’s heart stops.

Some of the conditions that are diagnosable prior to a cardiac arrest run in families, such as “Long QT syndrome”. So, it’s important to seek medical advice for anyone with a family member who has had cardiac arrest under the age of 40.




Read more:
In cases of cardiac arrest, time is everything. Community responders can save lives


Importantly, anyone who has any worrying symptoms should seek medical advice, especially fainting or collapse during exercise.

Finally, research projects such as the Australian End Unexplained Cardiac Death (EndUCD) registry are urgently needed to identify the underlying causes of cardiac death in young people so we can prevent deaths from sudden cardiac arrest.

The Conversation

Dr Jessica Orchard is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centenary Institute, University of Sydney and honorary Cardiac Research Fellow at Cricket Australia. She is supported by a Heart Foundation fellowship.

ref. Cardiac arrests in young people — what causes them and can they be prevented or treated? A heart expert explains – https://theconversation.com/cardiac-arrests-in-young-people-what-causes-them-and-can-they-be-prevented-or-treated-a-heart-expert-explains-163276

Politicians criticising women for ‘outsourcing’ parenting need a reality check. Here it is

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Associate Professor in Sociology and Co-Director of The Policy Lab, The University of Melbourne

Shutterstock

During a heated exchange in a Coalition party room meeting about childcare subsidies, a male MP stated working women are “outsourcing parenting”.

The notion that working mothers are failing their children is nothing new. Derived from the Victorian era, notions of women as moral guardians of the family were a way to showcase new-found wealth. Having enough money for women to stay home was a serious indicator of class status.

But times have changed. These days, the majority of couple families have both parents employed even when children are infants, toddlers and preschool-aged. We have ditched the corsets and hoop skirts, so why do we continue to view mothers’ employment as a threat to parenting?




Read more:
It takes a village: why sending your kid to childcare isn’t ‘outsourcing parenting’


Mothers: all things to all people (but especially to children)

Victorian ideologies of separate spheres of work and family life, and distinct parenting roles for mothers and fathers, have given way to notions of intensive parenting. Today, parents are expected to provide time-intensive, one-on-one and expert guided care to their children. This forms one plank of “good” parenting as a way to ensure children are not only well tended but also prepared for increasingly unstable futures.

The pressure is on parents to solve problems of rising inequality, globalisation and declining earnings by ensuring children can read, play the violin, trade stocks and speak fluent Mandarin by the age of five. It is no surprise mothers feel stressed, time-pressed and overwhelmed.

The benefits to children of childcare

Added to this pressure is the notion that putting children into paid care so mothers (and fathers) can work is “outsourcing” mothers’ parental responsibilities.

Research shows there are tremendous benefits to children’s access to high-quality universal care, including increased language skills and better cognitive and socio-emotional skills. These benefits are long-term, leading to higher educational outcomes, greater likelihood of completing university degrees and reduced incarceration rates.

High-quality childcare is close to the silver bullet to improving children’s long-term well-being. It is a public good that keeps giving. Yet we stigmatise childcare in ways we don’t other forms of education.




Read more:
Having a second child worsens parents’ mental health: new research


Fathers play a critical role in parenting

When it comes to childcare, the cultural narrative places the onus on mothers as solely responsible for children’s first five years. Just like the notion that women are better multi-taskers and men are “dirt blind”, this is a pernicious myth that disadvantages mothers, fathers and children alike.

Fathers today are more engaged in children’s emotional development than previous generations. Fathers who are more emotionally nurturing have children who are better able to achieve their goals in a healthy way, are more emotionally resilient and egalitarian in their partnerships.

So, we do fathers a true disservice in perpetuating myths that mothers are the natural nurturers and fathers are incompetent, disconnected and irresponsible.

Some politicians need a reality check

These political comments are also out of step with the views of Australian constituents. We ran an experiment in which we asked over 1,000 respondents about whether using childcare would hurt a prime ministerial candidate’s electability. The experiment switched genders to test if this produced different responses to male or female candidates.

Our sample reported that women prime ministers would be more electable if they had full-time help. And they viewed women and men prime ministerial candidates who outsourced this care as equally competent, capable, likeable and caring.

Our respondents viewed having children and being a good parent as critical to success as a prime minister, but did not punish women candidates for ‘outsourcing’ this care. Importantly, they also didn’t reward our candidates for having a stay-at-home partner. So, the National party’s male politicians (such as Matt Carnavan, George Christensen, Gerard Rennick and Terry Young) who hold the idea that the Australian public views paying for childcare as problematic is not borne out in our data.

Perpetuating gender myths causes much more harm than using childcare

Women continue to be held accountable against gender myths that aren’t supported by the science or our experimental study. The longer politicians and others perpetuate these false claims, the slower we are in reaching gender parity and closing income-based gaps in children’s long-term outcomes.

The Conversation

Leah Ruppanner receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Andrea Carson receives funding from the Australian Research Council to study political participation of women at the local government level.

ref. Politicians criticising women for ‘outsourcing’ parenting need a reality check. Here it is – https://theconversation.com/politicians-criticising-women-for-outsourcing-parenting-need-a-reality-check-here-it-is-163357

Cramming cities full of electric vehicles means we’re still depending on cars — and that’s a huge problem

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kurt Iveson, Associate Professor of Urban Geography and Research Lead, Sydney Policy Lab, University of Sydney

Shutterstock

This week, the NSW government announced almost A$500 million towards boosting the uptake of electric vehicles. In its new electric vehicle strategy, the government will waive stamp duty for cars under $78,000, develop more charging infrastructure, offer rebates to 25,000 drivers, and more.

Given the transport sector is Australia’s second-largest polluter, it’s a good thing Australian governments are starting to plan for a transition to electric vehicles (EVs).

But transitioning from cities full of petrol-guzzling vehicles to cities full of electric ones won’t address all of the environmental and social problems associated with car dependence and mass manufacturing.

So, let’s look at these problems in more detail, and why public transport really is the best way forward.

Mounting disadvantage and health issues

EVs do have environmental advantages over conventional vehicles. In particular, they generate less carbon emissions during their lifetime. Of course, much of the emissions reductions will depend on how much electricity comes from renewable sources.

But carbon emissions are only one of the many problems associated with the dominance of private cars as a form of mobility in cities.

Let’s start with a few of the social issues. This includes the huge amount of space devoted to car driving and parking in our neighbourhoods. This can crowd out other forms of land use, including other more sustainable forms of mobility such as walking and cycling.

There are the financial and mental health costs of congestion, as well, with Australian city workers spending, on average, 66 minutes getting to and from work each day. Injuries and fatalities on roads are also increasing, and inactivity and isolation associated with driving can impact our physical health.

Car-dependent cities also contribute to disadvantage for people who don’t have access to cars, and uneven financial vulnerability associated with the high costs of car ownership and use.

Indeed, some of these problems could be made worse — for instance, subsidies for EVs could end up favouring wealthier people who can afford new cars.




Read more:
Australian city workers’ average commute has blown out to 66 minutes a day. How does yours compare?


Mining for resources

A mass global uptake of EVs will generate major environmental problems, too. Most concerning of these is the use of finite mineral resources required for their construction, and the environmental and labour conditions of their extraction.

This was recently highlighted in a recent report by the International Energy Agency. As the agency’s executive director Fatih Birol said, there’s a

looming mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions and the availability of critical minerals that are essential to realising those ambitions.

Minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper are key ingredients required to make EVs.

As the report noted, EVs use double the amount of copper than conventional vehicles. EVs also require considerable amounts of lithium, cobalt and graphite that are hardly required at all for conventional vehicles. And it expects demand for lithium to grow 40-fold between 2020 and 2040, driven by EV production to meet climate targets.

There are better ways to cut transport emissions than greater uptake of electric vehicles.
Shutterstock

There is considerable discussion of Australia’s natural advantage as a supplier of some of these minerals, as we have large reserves of lithium and rare-earth metals beneath parts of the continent.

But before governments and mining bodies rush to exploit these reserves, they need to ensure much more is done to avoid the injustices perpetrated against Traditional Owners and their lands and heritage. The recent appalling destruction at Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto’s iron ore operation is just one example of this.




Read more:
Rio Tinto just blasted away an ancient Aboriginal site. Here’s why that was allowed


Mining also has its own environmental problems, such as land clearing and associated biodiversity loss, the pollution and contaminants it produces, and intensive water use.

The conditions of extracting these critical minerals in other parts of the world are dire. There’s the oppressive working conditions in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the conflict over Indigenous rights in Chile’s lithium mining areas, and environmental destruction associated with mining rare earth minerals in China.

Lithium mine with brine pools
Mining for rare-earth metals such as lithium comes with enormous environmental impacts.
Shutterstock

Broadening ideas about transport

To focus on these problems is not to suggest the new policies on electric vehicles are unimportant, or that they don’t stand to have some positive environmental impact.

The point is private EVs are not a solution to the combined challenges of reducing our urban environmental footprints and making better cities for all, and that they have their own problems.

Instead, we should develop a good mass public transport system with extensive and frequent coverage. Alongside urban development with a more even distribution of jobs, services and opportunities, investing in better public transport could reduce car dependence in our cities.

This would have a range of environmental and social benefits: making more space available for people instead of machines, extending the benefits of mobility to people who can’t or don’t drive, and reducing demand for finite minerals.

Even fossil-fuelled public transport has fewer emissions than conventional car travel. Data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows the most fuel-efficient buses and trains generate less than half the carbon emissions per passenger kilometre of fuel-efficient cars. Of course, public transport powered by renewables will be even better.

Trams on Swanston Street
Melbourne’s tram network is the biggest in the world.
Shutterstock

But as things stand, we are far from having such a city. The benefits of good public transport and public services are unevenly distributed across our cities.

In Sydney, for example, there are significant investments in new public transport infrastructure in some parts of the city, such as Metro West and the recently completed North West Metro. There are welcome commitments to reduce emissions in that sector, too.

But we’re a long way from planning new developments and redevelopments to make public transport a viable alternative to cars. The lack of public transport infrastructure in newly constructed, master-planned estates on Sydney’s urban fringe is the most glaring example.




Read more:
Climate explained: the environmental footprint of electric versus fossil cars


Ultimately, it’s important that a transition to electric vehicles doesn’t dominate the discussion we need to have about urban transport.

Our challenge is to simultaneously reduce the carbon footprint of different forms of transport, while also thinking much more broadly about the sustainability and justice of the system of mobility that’s so central to daily life in our cities.

The Conversation

Kurt Iveson has received funding for previous research from the Australian Research Council, the Henry Halloran Trust, and the City of Sydney.

ref. Cramming cities full of electric vehicles means we’re still depending on cars — and that’s a huge problem – https://theconversation.com/cramming-cities-full-of-electric-vehicles-means-were-still-depending-on-cars-and-thats-a-huge-problem-163247

If I could go anywhere: the ‘cathedral’ at Blythburgh that rises from the marshes

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Miles Pattenden, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry/Gender and Women’s History Research Centre, Australian Catholic University

Shutterstock

In this series we pay tribute to the art we wish could visit — and hope to see once travel restrictions are lifted.

A church, an ancient heap of flints, rises up, cavernous, through mist and marshes. The “Cathedral of the Marshes”, they call it. This is Blythburgh on England’s windswept Suffolk coast.

The landscape here is oppressive, bleak. And what man once made is quickly being lost to nature: sea erodes land.

Nearby, the parish at Easton Bavents almost completely perished centuries ago beneath the waves. Bare traces remain of the great medieval port of Dunwich five miles south.

Yet Blythburgh’s Holy Trinity stands tall, majestic even, a near-perfect expression of the mature perpendicular style of English Gothic architecture.

East Anglia is dotted with such archaic oratories, which exercise a remarkable hold over the English psyche. These churches are our public monuments, as Simon Jenkins has noted. But they are also memory palaces that enshrine a thousand years or more of history.

Names, dates, materials, shapes: they link us to lives, tastes, communities and faiths of the long forgotten. To visit such a place is to do more than admire. It is to commune with the past, marvelling in its reinvention as a foreign country and at how far we ourselves have come.

Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh Suffolk England UK known as the ‘Cathedral of the Marshes’.
Wikipedia, CC BY



Read more:
If I could go anywhere: the dizzying spectacle of Gaudí’s Basílica de la Sagrada Família


Far from the madding crowd

I used to visit Blythburgh as a kid. My Dad liked it here: the lonely desolation a tonic for the hustle and bustle of Cambridge’s university life.

His love of churches inspired me. In Ely and St Edmundsbury
we went to cathedrals together. At Orford and Long Melford he showed me the brasses and stained glasses.

But Blythburgh’s impression on me was always greatest. It had atmosphere — that intangible je ne sais quoi that comes from time and place and feeling.

The view from above and within the church.

Blythburgh’s mein is wistful and melancholy, the result of centuries of diminishing relevance and (mostly) benign neglect.

This sort of place inspired Benjamin Britten to opera and M. R. James to ghost stories. After all, the set of Peter Grimes and A warning to the curious is just a hearty walk away along the coast.

The magic here is that you are never quite sure you are truly alone, however drab or empty the space might seem. Another James story, Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad tells of an encounter on one of the beaches round about. The protagonist, a young professor, finds a little bronze object which he blows. The rest is all chasing and shadows: pure Gothic horror.

As a kid, the tale terrified me.

The darkest of M. R. James stories hints at the dangers of intellectual pride and the failure to acknowledge forces we can’t understand.



Read more:
Cathedrals of light, cathedrals of ice, cathedrals of glass, cathedrals of bones


Watched over by angels

A church first stood in Blythburgh before 654 CE. That was the year King Penda of Mercia slaughtered King Anna of East Anglia and his son in battle. Anna’s followers brought their bodies here for burial.

The present building is mostly 15th-century. In this part of England those days were what Evelyn Waugh called the fat days of wool shearing and the wide corn lands.

wooden angel
Weathered and watching angels inside the roof.
Wikipedia, CC BY

Nearly all the current plan was laid out then: the languid nave, the capacious chancel, memorial chapels in the aisles, benches, monuments, font and the immense hammerbeam roof.

That roof: it protects the congregation from more than just the elements. A throng of angels, their faces serene but their wings aflutter, stand guard over those who sit on pews below.

The pews themselves are works of art, with carved poppy heads parading saints and seasons, works of mercy and sins personified.

wooden carving
A poppy head carving at the end of a pew depicts the sin of Slander.
Wikipedia, CC BY

Here, Slander brandishes his tongue, Gluttony his paunch, Hypocrisy his false piety and Sloth his bedgown. There, a man comforts the sick, another visits a prisoner, a third buries his dead.

This kind of delicate, intricate carving demanded the highest levels of skill possessed of medieval craftsmen.

Other churches have their own sacramentals, but Blythburgh’s are amongst the most beautiful and haunting. Spartan white walls and a clear, clean glass clerestory — the bandages of Reformation trauma? — only enhance the effect.




Read more:
The Dig’s romanticisation of an Anglo-Saxon past reveals it is a film for post-Brexit UK


An elegy to time

Blythburgh’s decline has been a long time in coming. The Reformation, an early blow, destroyed the priory which abutted the church.

The tower’s steeple fell in 1577 and its lack of resurrection somehow seems to symbolise this part of Suffolk’s gentle retreat thereafter into bucolic backwater.

In the 1640s, “Smasher Dowsing” and his men attacked the church’s art and icons, stripping the roof of half its angels. A parochial itch to shoot at jackdaws nesting in the rafters may have caused further damage in the 18th century.

church statue
Jack keeps time, if only for himself.
Wikipedia/Chris Gunns, CC BY

Victorian antiquaries restored the place to something of its former glory. But today, few come to worship in Blythburgh’s paludal “cathedral”.

The village itself houses just 300 souls and the locality, in the hinterland of a bird sanctuary, is best known as a haven for sailboats and as a twitchers’ paradise.

Inside the tower, a sombre armoured Jack-o-the-Clock from 1682 still keeps time. His baleful inscription: “As the hours pass away, So doth the life of man decay”.

The church, which has borne silent witness to countless other plagues, disasters, and wars, endures even now in its gloomy spot.

I glimpse it still from half a world away, an eerie greyness cloaking it with a salt wind from the sea.

The Conversation

Miles Pattenden has previously received research funding from the British Academy, the European Commission, and the Government of Spain.

ref. If I could go anywhere: the ‘cathedral’ at Blythburgh that rises from the marshes – https://theconversation.com/if-i-could-go-anywhere-the-cathedral-at-blythburgh-that-rises-from-the-marshes-161659

UNESCO has always been mired in politics and squabbling, but this shouldn’t detract from its work

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Hill, Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef made the international headlines this week. It was not good news for the reef, described by David Attenborough as “one of the greatest and most splendid natural treasures that the world possesses”.

A report tabled by the World Heritage Centre of UNESCO recommended adding the reef to the list of 53 other World Heritage sites considered “in danger” — a move the Morrison government suggested was motivated by political pressure.

The “in danger” classification matters to Australia since the reef is estimated to support 64,000 jobs and contribute A$6.4 billion to the economy per year.

If the World Heritage Committee downgrades the reef’s status as a World Heritage site, this will almost certainly damage its attractiveness as a tourism destination and thus Australia’s economic benefit.

But why does such a report from this UN agency matter so much? The reason is the World Heritage Committee has significant clout on the global stage — and politics have indeed been an unfortunate part of its operations since its inception.

The Australian government said it was ‘blindsided’ by the UN recommendation to list the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in-danger’.
KYDPL KYODO/AP

‘Clearly there was politics behind it’

UNESCO’s mandate to build peace through international cooperation in education, the sciences, culture and media freedom stems from its founding principles in 1945 after the second world war. The preamble to its constitution declares,

… since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.

Nations are elected to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee at a biennial conference of all 193 UNESCO member states. This committee has significant power — it is authorised to make decisions on behalf of the world. And though the UN member states may complain about its decisions, none can challenge the committee’s independence or authority.

The current chair of the World Heritage Committee is China, which adds to the reason why Australia has protested so loudly at its recommendation.

Australia’s environment minister, Sussan Ley, and minister for foreign affairs, Marise Payne, were immediately on the phone to UNESCO’s director-general, Audrey Azoulay, in Paris, to express their deep concerns. Ley said,

This decision was flawed and clearly there was politics behind it, and that has subverted the proper process.

The head of UNESCO’s World Heritage Marine Program, Dr Fanny Douvere, pointed out, however, that the report was a rigorous scientific document with inputs from Australia’s own Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and official government reports on water quality — assessed and analysed by an expert team in the World Heritage Centre.

Furthermore, she said, work on the report started years ago, and the Chinese government was “not aware” of the recommendations being made.

We have yet to see how this altercation will play out, likely at the next meeting of the World Heritage Committee in China in July.

How UNESCO is structured

Behind the scenes at UNESCO, there is a complex play of international politics and UN bureaucratic processes and actions which do, at times, have an influence on the agency’s work.

I was appointed to a senior level within UNESCO from 1995–2005, working in both a field office and at its headquarters in Paris, and I played a central role in the organisation’s attempts to reform and decentralise its operations in the early 2000s. So, I have good knowledge of the beast from the inside.

The first thing to realise is there is a divide between headquarters and the field. Nearly all attention is focused on UNESCO’s headquarters. This is where member state ambassadors have their offices and all the important committees are based. As a result, decisions on international conventions and actions are the province of the officialdom in Paris.

But this is not where the most effective program action happens — this is the work of the more than 50 field offices around the world. And the UNESCO field offices do make a real difference.

In my own work in Indonesia, as examples, we reformed the country’s entire basic education system from centralised rote learning to decentralised open classroom exploration. We also helped the country move from total censorship of the media by helping pass legislation to ensure a free press and built a radio network of 32 independent stations across the country trained in investigative journalism.

Headquarters provided excellent technical assistance, but the field office ran the show and found the funding.

Much of the criticism aimed at UNESCO is focused on its over-bureaucratic structure and poor productivity. This criticism is largely fed by the attention placed on what happens at headquarters in Paris, not at the field offices in places like New Delhi, Jakarta and Maputo.




Read more:
Australian government was ‘blindsided’ by UN recommendation to list Great Barrier Reef as in-danger. But it’s no great surprise


Member states withdrawing funding

The second thing to realise about UNESCO is it is a “technical” agency, not a “funding” organisation like, for example, the UN Development Program.

Because funding is dependent on member states, this has real consequences. Sensitive political issues can cause member states to become upset, prompting them to withdraw from the organisation — with their funding.

For instance, after Palestine was added as a full member in 2011, both the US and Israel stopped paying their dues. The US, which accounted for more than 20% of UNESCO’s budget, accrued some US$600 million in unpaid dues.

The Trump administration then pulled the US out of the organisation altogether after the World Heritage Committee designated the old city of Hebron in the West Bank as a Palestinian World Heritage site in 2017. The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, called UNESCO’s politicisation a “chronic embarrassment”.

Israel and the US opposed the move to designate Hebron a Palestinian World Heritage site that was also ‘in danger’.
Bernat Armangue/AP

This wasn’t the first time the US withdrew. In 1984, the Reagan administration pulled out of UNESCO amid complaints about the way it was run and what one American official, Gregory Newell, called “extraneous politicisation”. He decried what he perceived as

… an endemic hostility toward the institutions of a free society — particularly those that protect a free press, free markets and, above all, individual human rights.

Keeping in mind UNESCO’s mandate

UNESCO’s listing of the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” is at its heart a moral decision concerned with minimising the effects of climate change and stimulating member states into action.

Because it is playing out at headquarters level, however, there is the whiff of political involvement. This is, after all, where states play power politics with their memberships, funding and influence.




Read more:
Is UNESCO World Heritage status for cultural sites killing the things it loves?


But the organisation is so much more when you move away from the glitter of the world’s capitals and into the field. Here, the agency’s business is about building trust and connecting with communities to make change happen.

This is in keeping with UNESCO’s mandate, which is important to remember when attention is diverted to self-interested squabbling among its members.

The Conversation

Stephen Hill was previously employed by UNESCO from 1995 until the end of 2005.

ref. UNESCO has always been mired in politics and squabbling, but this shouldn’t detract from its work – https://theconversation.com/unesco-has-always-been-mired-in-politics-and-squabbling-but-this-shouldnt-detract-from-its-work-163353

It takes a village: why sending your kid to childcare isn’t ‘outsourcing parenting’

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurien Beane, Course Coordinator, Queensland Undergraduate Early Childhood, Australian Catholic University

Shutterstock

A Coalition party room meeting this week debated the A$1.7 billion childcare package announced in the budget, which would increase subsidies for families with more than one child in care and remove a cap on subsidies for higher-income families.

Some MPs reportedly argued childcare shouldn’t be the only type of care being subsidised and parents should also get help for staying at home with kids. One MP reportedly suggested working women were “outsourcing parenting” by sending their kids to childcare.

Leaving aside the fact sending your kid to childcare doesn’t preclude you from parenting at home when your kid isn’t in childcare, early childhood education and care – which includes childcare and preschool – is an important part of a child’s development.

Parents are thought to be a child’s first and most influential educator. But children are also raised in the community. They learn important social, emotional, physical and cognitive skills and abilities during the critical time of their development. The course of human history over millennia shows raising a child takes a village.

It takes a village

Both nature and nurture influence successful development in children. Nature stems from biological factors children inherit from parents. Nurture is the environment children are exposed to. This is influenced by parents, siblings and caregivers in the home, as well as educators and peers in early education and care settings, and the broader community.

Young children need relationships with parents and other caregivers in society to develop important social and cognitive skills. Australia’s early childhood learning framework (equivalent to a curriculum) is called Belonging, Being and Becoming. This highlights its focus on children’s relationships, social skills and becoming members of society.




Read more:
Increasing the childcare subsidy will help struggling families — and the economy


There is no one size fits all guide for parenting as each family is different.

At times, parenting can be challenging with competing demands and responsibilities. Many of these can have an effect on children, and families could need support. Parents with mental and physical health challenges may sometimes be less able than others to engage their child in typical childhood activities without assistance from the community.

Father on the phone in front of his laptop while holding kid who is trying to touch everything on the desk.
Parenting can be challenging and childcare is is a valuable support, a part of the village.
Shutterstock

The community includes many important supports to raise children such as relatives, health and parenting services.

For instance, a study of women who required admission to residential parenting services (around 80% needed help to settle the child) found over half had a history of mental health issues. The study’s authors noted Australian women were not routinely receiving the psychological and social help they needed. They wrote:

Parents have lost the village it takes to raise a child and increasingly feel isolated and unsupported.




Read more:
1 in 3 new mums struggle to get their baby to sleep, but some women have a tougher time


Early childhood education and care centres are one important part of our village.

They form a support network established to ensure parents’ and children’s lifelong success. Around three in five Australian children (925,900 children) aged 0-4 attended some form of childcare in 2017. And nearly 296,000 (90%) of eligible children were enrolled in a preschool program in the year before full-time school.

Typically, the centres open at 6am and close at 6pm. Children can start enrolment from birth and will enter the nursery with an educator to child ratio of 1:4.

For parents who have experienced challenges parenting at home, or who may need help due to other commitments such as work, the option of early childhood education and care is precious. In 2015, the Productivity Commission estimated around 165,000 Australian parents would like to work more, but were prevented due to poor accessibility or affordability of suitable childcare.

Is there such a thing as too much childcare?

The average weekly attendance in early education and care centres per child was 26.1 hours in December 2020. For long day care, the average was 30.5 hours per child, or around three days per week. This suggests parents still have many hours per week for parenting their children at home.

Evidence shows participation in quality early childhood education for at least 15 hours per week benefits children’s overall development and provides them with important social and emotional skills.

Mum reading book with daughter in a living room tent.
Children spend around 26 hours per week in childcare, leaving a lot of time for parenting at home.
Shutterstock

But there are some families who do require a lot more childcare. In 2008, a census of childcare services found 757 children across Australia were attending long daycare services for at least 60 hours a week. And a further 9,426 children were in care for between 50 and 60 hours a week at the time of the census in May 2006.

More recently, ABS data show 28,200 children attended long daycare for 45 hours or more in 2017.

In 2018, a Canadian study published some worrying findings about risks of too many hours of full time childcare. Statistical analysis showed significant differences in increased levels of hyperactivity, anxiety and aggression for children who attended more than 30 hours per week of childcare, in comparison to those who attended ten hours per week.

We would need more research to show the ways these risks depend on the nature and nurture of the child, the quality of the centre and staff, and influences of the community, government and funding.




Read more:
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We also don’t know why some children attend long hours at childcare. It may be for many reasons, including being in the child support system and parental health. In all these circumstances, as already discussed, childcare is an important and necessary social support.

We all play a role in raising children. It’s not a matter of outsourcing.

The Conversation

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

ref. It takes a village: why sending your kid to childcare isn’t ‘outsourcing parenting’ – https://theconversation.com/it-takes-a-village-why-sending-your-kid-to-childcare-isnt-outsourcing-parenting-163264

Dirty secrets: sediment DNA reveals a 300,000-year timeline of ancient and modern humans living in Siberia

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elena Zavala, PhD Student, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Collection of sediment DNA samples in the Main Chamber of Denisova Cave. Bert Roberts, Author provided

In the foothills of the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia lies Denisova Cave. It is the only site in the world known to have been inhabited by the eponymous Denisovans and their close relatives the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) — which overlapped at times — as well as by some of the earliest modern humans (Homo sapiens) to have dispersed into northern Asia.

Our new study pieces together the history of this site over the past 300,000 years from fragments of ancient DNA that survived in the cave sediments. Our findings reveal multiple turnovers of archaic and modern humans during this period, as well as major changes in the diversity of other animals.

We discovered Denisovans were the earliest toolmakers at the site, while Neanderthals were the sole human occupants between about 130,000 and 80,000 years ago. The first modern humans arrived much later, just as the last Denisovans and Neanderthals were leaving the scene.

We also detected marked changes in the types of human and animal DNA around 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, coincident with major shifts in climate and environmental conditions.

Genetic ghosts

Excavations in the cave by our Russian colleagues have unearthed about a dozen fossils of Denisovans and Neanderthals over the past 40 years, but none of modern humans.

Rather, the presence of modern humans at the cave has been surmised based on the recovery of artefacts made from stone, animal bones and teeth, mammoth ivory, ostrich eggshells, marble and gemstones.

The rarity of fossils at the site has also meant that questions persist about when different groups of humans occupied the cave, and which of them was responsible for making specific artefacts.

We managed to put flesh on the missing bones by using genetic traces of ancient humans and various other mammals preserved in the cave sediments. And we did so without having to find more fossils.

Project leader, Matthias Meyer, in the ancient DNA clean lab at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Our latest work is the most comprehensive study yet of ancient DNA extracted from sediment at any single site in the world. It builds on our trailblazing research published in 2017.

We extracted mitochondrial DNA from more than 700 samples and anchored them to a timeline for Denisova Cave, generating a detailed picture of which humans and animals were present at this famous site at various times in the past.




Read more:
Fresh clues to the life and times of the Denisovans, a little-known ancient group of humans


Turbulent times

We retrieved ancient human DNA from 175 sediment samples — more than ten times the number of human fossils found at the site. Several interesting findings emerged from our genetic analyses.

We found Denisovans were present at the cave, on and off, from 250,000 years ago until 60,000 years ago. And they were the only humans at the site between 250,000 and 200,000 years ago, so we can now say with more confidence they likely produced the stone tools recovered from these layers.

Denisovan fossils and ancient DNA have been found at only one other site, on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

Meanwhile, Neanderthals first appeared at Denisova Cave about 200,000 years ago, with a variety of DNA that was previously unknown. They vanished from the site about 40,000 years ago, around the same time Neanderthals disappeared in other parts of Eurasia.

Importantly, we could only find traces of Neanderthal DNA in sediments dated to between 130,000 and 80,000 years ago at Denisova Cave — and none of Denisovans.

Summary timeline of the different types of human, bear and hyaena DNA in sediments at Denisova Cave. White gaps indicate missing parts of the sedimentary sequence. The graph on the left shows the changes in climate between relatively cold and warm conditions recorded in drill cores from Lake Baikal, also in southern Siberia.
Bert Roberts

This time interval coincides with a major change in Earth’s climate: the start of the last interglacial. This was a relatively warm period similar to the present. It marked a switch from one type of Denisovan DNA before 130,000 years ago to another after 80,000 years ago.

This matches previous findings from genetic analysis of Denisovan fossils, which indicated a possible turnover in Denisovan populations. It also coincides with a population replacement of Neanderthals in Spain about 100,000 years ago — again identified from ancient DNA in cave sediments.

We also recovered the ancient DNA of modern humans from sediments deposited at Denisova Cave within the last 60,000 years. No modern human fossils have been found at the site, so these traces of DNA — from the same layers as the jewellery and pendants made from stone, bone, tooth and ivory — are the first direct evidence of Homo sapiens’ presence at the cave.

Selection of stone tools and personal ornaments made from bone, tooth and ivory recovered from the same sediment layers as modern human ancient DNA.
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Denisova zoo

We recovered other ancient animal DNA from 94% of the sediment samples. This is providing new vistas into cave use by more than 12 taxonomic families of mammals, including species such as bear, hyena, wolf and woolly mammoth.

Previous studies have shown the cave was occupied at times by hyenas and bears. Our findings take this further, revealing cave bears dominated between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, after which brown bears became more abundant.




Read more:
Dishing the dirt: sediments reveal a famous early human cave site was also home to hyenas and wolves


We also identified two major shifts in the types of hyena present at different times, with turnovers occurring when climatic conditions changed from relatively warm to cold 200,000 years ago, and from relatively cold to warm 100,000 years ago.

The timing of these turnovers, coupled with the patterns we discovered for Denisovans and Neanderthals, suggests these events were likely connected to environmental changes.

A guided tour of our key findings, presented by the lead author of the study, Elena Zavala from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Sediment diaries

The power of sediment DNA lies in the fact that sediments are ubiquitous at archaeological and palaeontological sites. Even tiny samples can contain genetic traces of a variety of animals — including humans — in the absence of fossils.

Sediments also often contain plant remains and other materials that can be used to reconstruct ancient environments, with timelines obtained by directly dating sediment grains.

By sampling sites with high densities of sediment DNA, the ebb and flow of humans and other animals can be compared to records of past environmental change. Making these crucial connections can help illuminate the dark corners of our planet’s history.

The Conversation

Elena Zavala receives funding from the Max Planck Society.

Matthias Meyer receives funding from the Max Planck Society.

Richard ‘Bert’ Roberts receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Zenobia Jacobs receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

ref. Dirty secrets: sediment DNA reveals a 300,000-year timeline of ancient and modern humans living in Siberia – https://theconversation.com/dirty-secrets-sediment-dna-reveals-a-300-000-year-timeline-of-ancient-and-modern-humans-living-in-siberia-161585

With Aung San Suu Kyi facing prison, Myanmar’s opposition is leaderless, desperate and ready to fight

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer, University of South Australia

As Aung San Suu Kyi finally faced court last week to defend herself against a litany of politically motivated charges, Myanmar is continuing its downward spiral into state failure.

Suu Kyi was arrested following the February 1 coup by the military and charged with alleged corruption, inciting public unrest and other offences. If she is found guilty, which is a near certainty, she may well be imprisoned for the rest of her life.

The popularity of Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party have been consistently underestimated by a range of domestic and international analysts, and even by the Myanmar military itself. But her role will now change as her case takes a stop-start journey through the tightly held and persistently manipulated judicial process.

With Suu Kyi facing another lengthy detention, Myanmar’s diverse democracy movement is now operating independently of the NLD and its ageing leadership. Nearly five months after the coup, opposition to the junta is growing, but it is effectively leaderless and has been de-linked from Suu Kyi’s fate.

Most troubling, the evolving crises facing the long-suffering people of Myanmar are not just framed by political repression and violence. They include the heavy burdens of poverty, food shortages and unemployment, along with the collapse of the healthcare and education systems.

The coup-makers have put their own narrow interests — eliminating the NLD and retaining absolute power — in front of everything else. Even the COVID-19 pandemic receives almost no attention under the current conditions.

It is no wonder millions of Myanmar people are so angry and fed up — and why some are looking for more violent solutions. There is now potential for the country’s smouldering civil wars in its mountainous borderlands to spread into its major cities.

Increasing violence on both sides

The ongoing reign of terror by the military junta includes the recent burning of more than 200 homes in a village in central Myanmar and the tortures and deaths of at least 21 detainees.

Altogether since the start of the coup, some 900 people have been killed during protests or other activities and almost 5,000 others are currently detained.

Smouldering houses in Kinma village after military troops burned it the night before.
AP

In response, there is a growing militancy among some civilians, with the establishment of people’s defence forces across Myanmar.

In addition, ethnic armed groups in Myanmar’s periphery, some of which have been at war with the military since the 1940s, have joined forces with the protest movement. For the first time since the 1988 uprising against the military, civilians from the Bamar (Burman) ethnic majority are now being trained by these groups or have enlisted with them.

Attacks on government forces include bombings, targeted assassinations of village administrators and those seen to support the junta, and the killing of 25 alleged “undercover soldiers” by an ethnic armed group in Kayin (Karen) State.

The United Nations has expressed alarm at the “recent acts of violence that illustrate a sharp deterioration of the human rights environment across Myanmar”.

Some seasoned analysts have argued the increasing militancy of the military’s opponents may cause problems for the protest movement, with the junta better able to paint them as terrorists and the international community becoming uncomfortable supporting a violent “terrorist” movement.

A pragmatic response is for the political wings of the opposition, including the exiled national unity government, formed by the NLD and ethnic minority representatives, to ensure there is adequate distance between themselves and any violent operations.

This is a standard model in Myanmar’s long decades of conflict, as seen with the separation of the civilian and military wings of various ethnic minority organisations such as the Karen National Union and Karen National Liberation Army.

The model obviously presents risks, however, as civilian leaders can expect to be held to account for the activities of their militant peers.

Some faint hopes of reconciliation

In the hope of rehabilitating the patchy reputation of Myanmar’s democrats as a force for human rights, the national unity government announced a seismic shift in official policy toward the Muslim Rohingya community in early June.

The government pledged to implement a new citizenship act that bases “citizenship on birth in Myanmar or birth anywhere as a child of Myanmar citizens”. This should effectively offer Rohingya and some other ethnic minorities full citizenship for the first time.

This statement is part of a broader shift in public sentiment regarding the Rohingya across most of Myanmar. Until recently, they have been largely friendless in the country, enduring decades of discrimination and repression. This included the brutal clearance operations in 2017 that led to 740,000 refugees fleeing into Bangladesh in a matter of months.

The coup has resulted in a reassessment of the treatment of the Rohingya. A recent social media campaign, for instance, featured people wearing black and adopting the three-fingered salute of the opposition under the “Black4Rohingya” hashtag.

International response must be stronger

These positive developments come at a time when the international community appears increasingly powerless to effect positive change in Myanmar.

Calls to ban arms exports and economic engagement with the military are growing much louder. But direct material support for the Myanmar’s democrats will be just as important, as will the creation of a viable model of regional diplomacy.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has again proved too slow and inept when faced with a serious test of its mandate.

An important UN General Assembly resolution on June 18 calling on “all member states to prevent the flow of arms into Myanmar”, meanwhile, passed with an overwhelming majority. However, several ASEAN members, along with Russia and China (Myanmar’s major arms suppliers), abstained.

The courage and creativity of the protesters and the civil disobedience movement have already won them much credit with Myanmar’s desperate population. But in the months ahead, this alone will not be enough to succeed.

A genuinely pan-ethnic, society-wide coalition is needed, along with well-timed and properly targeted support internationally, to have any chance of ending military dominance in Myanmar once and for all.

The Conversation

Nicholas Farrelly has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council for Myanmar-focussed work. He is on the board of the Australia-ASEAN Council, which is an Australian government body. These are his personal views.

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

ref. With Aung San Suu Kyi facing prison, Myanmar’s opposition is leaderless, desperate and ready to fight – https://theconversation.com/with-aung-san-suu-kyi-facing-prison-myanmars-opposition-is-leaderless-desperate-and-ready-to-fight-162428

Stopping, blocking and dampening – how Aussie drugs in the pipeline could treat COVID-19

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vasso Apostolopoulos, Professor of Immunology and Associate Provost, Research Partnerships, Victoria University

Shutterstock

While widespread vaccination is key in our fight against COVID-19, people who are infected still need better treatment to improve their chance of survival and making a full recovery.

Early on, the world had high hopes for a range of repurposed medications which had previously been approved to treat other conditions – including hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir and ivermectin – to treat COVID-19. But the results have been disappointing.

Diseases caused by viruses are among the most difficult to treat, due to their ability to invade and repurpose infected cells. This limits the ability for drugs to directly act on the virus.




Read more:
Developing antiviral drugs is not easy – here’s why


Yet researchers around the world are finding ways to overcome these barriers and directly target the coronavirus, including in Australia. So what’s being developed here and how do they work?

Interfering with the virus

Researchers at Queensland’s Menzies Health Institute, in collaboration with scientists from the United States, have developed a novel treatment which targets key genes of the coronavirus, stopping the virus’s ability to replicate.

The treatment uses an engineered particle called a small interfering RNA (si-RNA), which detects and binds to areas of the host’s genome, where the virus resides.

The si-RNA is encased in a nanoparticle to protect it as it travels through the bloodstream. It enters all cells in the host’s body, but will only act on the cells infected by the virus.




Read more:
Have Australian researchers developed an effective COVID-19 treatment? Potentially, but we need to wait for human trials


Studies in mice showed the treatment reduced the amount of the virus in the lungs by more than 90%.

It’s unclear if the results will translate to humans, but if they do, it could potentially protect infected people from severe disease and make them less likely to transmit the illness to others.

If it is successful, the researchers estimate the treatment could be available in 2023.

Enhancing our antibodies

Another strategy is to block the virus from invading all together.

A number of research teams across Australia are working on engineered antibody treatments, which hunt out and bind to the virus before it enters a cell, effectively blocking it out.

Researchers at the Garvan and Kirby institutes in New South Wales are building on research developed after the 2003 SARS outbreak to create treatments using monoclonal antibodies. These antibodies are generated in the lab and mimic the immune system response to infection.

Once these monoclonal antibodies are injected into an infected person, they bind to the virus and stop it from invading host cells. They also mark it for destruction by the other immune cells.

While this research is in the pre-clinical (lab testing) phase, the researchers at Garvan are already working with clinicians at the Kirby institute to identify the best antibodies and move them through to human clinical trials.

As monoclonal antibody treatments are widely used in a range of diseases, these could potentially be deployed quickly for patients with COVID-19, or to protect people who have been exposed to the virus, to stop them getting sick and becoming infectious.

Another team at the Walter and Elizabeth Hall Institute in Melbourne is harnessing unique “nanobodies”, which are significantly smaller than human antibodies, derived from the immune system of alpacas.

These nanobodies have powerful and specific binding capacity. By vaccinating the alpacas with a synthetic component of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, nanobodies targeting the virus can be identified and synthesised for human use.

While these treatments are in the very early stages of development, they could prove revolutionary for all kinds of infectious and non-infectious diseases.

Preventing serious lung injury

While some treatments aim to neutralise the virus, others are being developed to protect patients from the consequences of COVID-19.

One of the most severe reactions to an infection with the coronavirus is a widespread inflammatory reaction known as a “cytokine storm”, causing severe damage to the lungs.

While potent anti-inflammatory drugs such as hydrocortisone can help to prevent this response, they also can have severe side-effects such as bone weakening, immune system weakening, psychiatric symptoms and insomnia.

Researchers at the Victor Chang Cardiac Institute and St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney are proposing to trial a novel stem cell therapy, in an attempt to counteract this inflammatory storm.

While they haven’t disclosed specifically which cells they are planning to use, human studies show stem cell treatments can suppress inflammatory responses from the immune system.

The researchers are seeking approval for clinical studies and are using a stem cell that has been used in humans previously – potentially speeding the pathway to clinical use.




Read more:
Could a simple pill beat COVID-19? Pfizer is giving it a go


Another anti-inflammatory drug to control the damaging levels of immune response to the viral infection is being developed by Implicit Bioscience.

Its drug has already shown promising preliminary results in small trials for acute lung injury and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (AML, a rare neurological disease also known as motor neurone disease), with phase 2 trials for AML due to be completed in 2021.

Two trials at major medical centres, one led by the US National Institutes of Health and the other by Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative, are now underway to test whether the drug is effective in patients with severe COVID-19.

Nasal sprays to stop coronavirus infecting us

Australian biotech company Ena Respiratory is developing a nasal spray to fight COVID-19.

These nasal sprays contain a compound designed to trigger a rapid immune response in the upper airways. This allows the immune system to destroy the virus and infected cells before serious disease can occur.

Ena Respiratory’s product, called INNA-051, has produced promising results in animal models, with up to a 96% decrease in SARS-CoV-2 virus replication.

The next step is to see if these results translate to humans.

Close up of a person holding a nasal spray in their hand.
A nasal spray in development aims to trigger an immune response in the upper airways.
Shutterstock

Australia has a long history of strong performance on the world stage in research. Fortunately, this has continued through the COVID-19 pandemic, with a number of key developments and innovations as described, which show promise for translation to human clinical trials.

Developments are continuing, including research by Vasso and her team into novel re-purposed and experimental drugs aimed at stopping coronavirus replication. This is a collaboration between Victoria University and researchers from the United States and Greece, and the team hopes to be able to report on its progress soon.




Read more:
I’m a lung doctor testing the blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors as a treatment for the sick – a century-old idea that could be a fast track to treatment


The Conversation

Vasso Apostolopoulos’ COVID-19 research has received internal funding from a Victoria University research grant and from philanthropic donations

Maximilian de Courten is director of the Mitchell Institute a Think Tank for Education and Health Policy.

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

ref. Stopping, blocking and dampening – how Aussie drugs in the pipeline could treat COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/stopping-blocking-and-dampening-how-aussie-drugs-in-the-pipeline-could-treat-covid-19-162349

The government’s idea of ‘national environment standards’ would entrench Australia’s global pariah status

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martine Maron, ARC Future Fellow and Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland

A growing global push to halt biodiversity decline, most recently agreed at the G7 on Sunday, leaves Australia out in the cold as the federal government walks away from critical reforms needed to protect threatened species.

The centrepiece recommendation in a landmark independent review of Australia’s national environment law was to establish effective National Environment Standards. These standards would have drawn clear lines beyond which no further environmental damage is acceptable, and established an independent Environment Assurance Commissioner to ensure compliance.

But the federal government has instead pushed ahead to propose its own, far weaker set of standards and establish a commissioner with very limited powers. The bill that paves the way for these standards is currently before parliament.

If passed, the changes would entrench, or even weaken, already inadequate protections for threatened species. They would also create more uncertainty for businesses affected by the laws.

Australia’s ineffective environment law

Australia is one of only a handful of megadiverse countries. Most of our species occur nowhere else — 87% of our mammals, 93% of our reptiles, and 94% of our frogs are found only here in Australia.

Yet, Australia risks global pariah status on biodiversity. Last week, threatened species experts recommended the koala be listed as endangered, despite a decade of protection under national environmental law. And this week, a UNESCO World Heritage committee recommended the Great Barrier Reef be listed as “in danger”.

Indeed, Australia has one of the worst track records in the world for biodiversity loss and species extinctions.

Bleached coral
This week the World Heritage committee recommended the Great Barrier Reef be put on the in-danger list.
Shutterstock

Australia’s national environment law — the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act — was introduced 20 years ago, and has not slowed extinction rates. In fact, threatened species populations are declining even faster.

This isn’t surprising, given the lack of mandated funding for threatened species and ecosystems recovery, poor enforcement of the law, and the lack of outcome-based environmental standards. It has allowed for hit after hit on important habitats to be approved.

The independent review of the EPBC Act, led by former competition watchdog chair Professor Graeme Samuel, set out how Australia can turn this around.

Samuel concluded the EPBC Act is no longer fit for purpose, and set out a comprehensive list of recommended reforms, founded upon establishing new, strong national environmental standards.

And he included an explicit warning: do not cherrypick from these recommendations.

Double standards

So how do the government’s proposed standards, released in March, compare to the Samuel review’s recommended version?

The Samuel review’s standards specified what environmental outcomes must be achieved by decisions made under the EPBC Act, such as whether a particular development can go ahead. For example, the standards would have required that any actions must cause no net reduction in the population of endangered and critically endangered species.




Read more:
To fix Australia’s environment laws, wildlife experts call for these 4 changes — all are crucial


Samuel developed these standards by consulting multiple sectors, and attracted general support. The government’s proposed standards bear no resemblance to these.

Instead, the government’s proposed standards repeat sections of the existing EPBC Act, adding zero clarity or specificity about the outcomes that should be achieved.

Standards like these risk significant and irreversible environmental harm being codified. They are the antithesis of the global push for outcomes-based, nature-positive standards.

The bill underpinning the standards would let actions be approved even if they caused substantial environmental harm, as long as the decision maker — currently the federal environment minister — believed other activities would render the overall outcome acceptable.

To help illustrate this, let’s say a mining operation would lead to significant destruction of koala habitat. The decision maker could consider this acceptable if they thought an unrelated tree-planting program would offset the risk to the koala — even if they had no say over whether the tree planting ever actually went ahead.

A koala with a joey on its back on a branch
Last week experts recommended the koala be listed as endangered.
Shutterstock

What about the responsibilities of the Environment Assurance Commissioner? Samuel recommended this commissioner would oversee the implementation of the standards, and ensure transparency.

But the government’s proposed Environment Assurance Commissioner would be prevented from scrutinising individual decisions made under the EPBC Act.

So, hypothetically, if a risky decision was being made — such as approving new dam that could send a turtle species extinct — checking if the decision complied with required standards would be beyond the commissioner’s remit. Instead, the commissioner would focus on checking processes and systems, not ensuring environmental outcomes are achieved.




Read more:
A major report excoriated Australia’s environment laws. Sussan Ley’s response is confused and risky


The deficiencies in the proposed standards have caught the attention of Queensland environment minister Meaghan Scanlon. Last year, the federal government introduced a different bill that would allow it to hand its responsibility for approving actions under the EPBC Act to the states. But Scanlon says the state won’t partake in this re-alignment of responsibility, unless the federal government introduces stronger national environment standards.

They’ve also caught the attention of the key cross-bench senators, whose support will ultimately determine whether the government’s standards prevail.

Getting left behind

With such a rich diversity of wildlife, Australia has a disproportionate responsibility to protect the Earth’s natural heritage. And we owe future generations the opportunity to experience the amazing nature we’ve grown up with.

If we are to turn around Australia’s appalling track record on biodiversity, the government’s proposed standards are not a good place to start.

In October, nations worldwide will agree to a new global strategy for protecting biodiversity, under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The strategy looks set to include a roadmap to halt and reverse biodiversity decline by as early as 2030. Australia risks being left behind in this global push.

And last week, the G7 nations endorsed a plan to reverse the loss of biodiversity, and to conserve or protect at least 30% of land and oceans, by 2030.

These commitments are crucial – not only for wildlife, but for humans that depend on ecosystems that are now collapsing. When nature loses, we all suffer.




Read more:
‘Existential threat to our survival’: see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing


The Conversation

Martine Maron receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub. She was a member of the consultative group that provided advice on the development of the National Environmental Standards during last year’s EPBC Act review. She is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, President of BirdLife Australia, and a Governor of WWF-Australia.

Brendan Wintle receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub, the Victorian Government, the NSW Government, the Ian Potter Foundation, and the Hermon Slade Foundation. He was a member of the consultative group that provided advice on the development of the National Environmental Standards during last year’s EPBC Act review.

Craig Moritz receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with the Australian Academy of Science. He was a member of the consultative group that provided advice on the development of the National Environmental Standards during last year’s EPBC Act review

ref. The government’s idea of ‘national environment standards’ would entrench Australia’s global pariah status – https://theconversation.com/the-governments-idea-of-national-environment-standards-would-entrench-australias-global-pariah-status-163082

‘You’re the best!’ Your belief in your kids’ academic ability can actually improve their grades

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip D. Parker, Professor and Deputy Director, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University

Shutterstock

We have all met the parent who thinks their kid is the next Picasso or Einstein regardless of the evidence. But it’s hard to know if these beliefs are helpful or harmful.

Overly optimistic parents could reduce their kids’ drive to work harder and give them a false idea of the opportunities available to them. Or this same optimism could fill the child with confidence, kindle their self-belief and give them the courage to try harder.

We set out to discover which of these possibilities is most likely. We found a mother’s optimism about how good their child is in maths and reading consistently benefited children.

In our study, when a mum’s optimism was higher, their child gained better school results and their interest in school subjects increased. But gender stereotypes could get in the way. Mums were consistently more optimistic about their sons in maths and their daughters in reading.

We know kids from wealthy backgrounds often have better academic results and numerous academic advantages over their peers. We may also think wealthier parents are generally more optimistic about their children’s success.

But we found only modest and generally inconsistent evidence mothers’ optimism was more likely among the wealthy. More importantly, our findings that optimism leads to better school outcomes and more academic interest was the same regardless of a mother’s socioeconomic status.

Father with son on his shoulders with both flexing their muscles.
Is it better for a parent to cheer on their kid, or give them hard truths?
Shutterstock

What we did

Grumbling about how every child needs a participation trophy these days is a common refrain. Back in the “good old days”, some might say, kids got hard truths and parents spurred their children to greater heights by grudgingly giving praise and pessimistically assessing their child’s academic performance.

We wanted to find out whether parents could benefit their children most by being a bit more optimistic or by laying down hard truths.

We used data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). This data comes from 2,602 Australian children and their primary caregiver.

The primary caregiver in the data was almost always a mother, so we focused on them. But we think our results would be true for all parents and guardians.

Included in the longitudinal study was an assessment by mothers about whether their child was below average, average or above average in reading and maths performance.

We then matched the mother’s assessment of their child to the child’s NAPLAN results in the same year.




Read more:
One quarter of Australian 11-12 year olds don’t have the literacy and numeracy skills they need


This gave us insight into whether children’s grades in maths and reading actually were below average, average or above average.

Where mums judged their child’s maths and reading performance more positively than school results suggested, we called this optimism. We called more negative judgements pessimism.

We used the resulting optimism or pessimism data from one year and showed how this impacted NAPLAN and academic interest two years later. So we’d look at the data for year 3 and how this changed in year 5, for example.

Thus, we were able to show that mothers optimism and pessimism was associated with change in academic outcomes two years later.

Mum on her tees fixing her son's school tie. He's wearing uniform and backpack.
Mums were more optimistic about their child’s ability than their child’s school results suggested.
Shutterstock

We also found, on average, mums were more optimistic about their child’s ability than their child’s school results suggested. We found this not only improved their kid’s later school results but also increased their interest in school.

For example, lets imagine a child who scores in the 50th percentile in their year 5 NAPLAN numeracy test. Let’s also imagine their mother is more optimistic about her child’s ability than usual (specifically one standard deviation more optimistic than she usually is). Our results suggest this child will move up to the 55th percentile in the year 7 NAPLAN numeracy test.

In comparison, if this mother was more pessimistic than usual, the same child could expect to fall to the 45th percentile by year 7.

Could other factors be responsible for these results?

A child’s results could appear to be influenced by their mother’s confidence in them, when the influence is actually due to other factors such as the child having changed schools between the first NAPLAN test and the next. We used some relatively new statistical methods to ensure any pre-existing differences between participants (such as socioeconomic status, urban or rural residence, or private or public schools) could not easily provide an alternative explanation for our findings.




Read more:
Green space around primary schools may improve students’ academic performance


These methods are not perfect and other alternative explanations for our findings are still possible. This includes differences between participants that develop during the course of the study. But our study provides more confidence than usual studies that find a correlation between two factors. So, we are relatively confident a mother’s optimism was really having the impact we saw.

Mothers showed some gender stereotyping

We found optimism sometimes varied depending on the child’s gender. In particular, mothers’ optimism often aligned with gender stereotypes that boys are better at math and girls are better at reading.

Girl reading book on the couch.
On average, mothers thought their daughters were better at reading than their sons.
Shutterstock

Mothers were more optimistic about their sons’ ability in maths than their daughters’ and more optimistic about their daughters’ ability in reading than their sons — even if both performed just as well.

Other research shows parents with strong beliefs that girls are bad at maths tend to give homework help that is both intrusive and controlling. This could lead to poorer school results and reduced motivation.




Read more:
Girls score the same in maths and science as boys, but higher in arts – this may be why they are less likely to pick STEM careers


How does optimism help?

But how does optimism help kids succeed? We think there are a few ways. Other research suggests parents invest more time and resources (such as tutors) in their child’s education if they believe their child can be successful. Likewise, having someone in your corner can be a powerful motivator to try harder in school.

But could unrealistic optimism be damaging? There was some evidence in our study that too much optimism could be neutral or even harmful. But this was only true at very extreme levels, and the evidence was pretty weak.

We think the reason even extreme levels of optimism may not be detrimental because the world will do a pretty good job of keeping kids’ egos in check.

Our results reinforce the powerful role parents can play in the academic success of their children. The findings also contradict some people’s beliefs you must be cruel to be kind or that a parent’s role is to provide their children with a reality check.

The Conversation

Philip D. Parker receives funding from the ARC and the NHMRC.

Jake Anders receives research funding from UKRI Economic and Social Research Council, the Nuffield Foundation, and the Education Endowment Foundation.

Taren Sanders receives funding from the ARC and the NSW Department of Education.

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

ref. ‘You’re the best!’ Your belief in your kids’ academic ability can actually improve their grades – https://theconversation.com/youre-the-best-your-belief-in-your-kids-academic-ability-can-actually-improve-their-grades-161881

Meat pies, desert, bloody dingoes: new Australian film Buckley’s Chance brims with dated cultural cliches

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia

Transmission Films

Review: Buckley’s Chance, directed by Tim Brown.

It’s a classic trope of Australian cinema: a foreigner comes here and discovers a wild, rugged place, replete with dangerous and surreal animals and dangerous and weird people.

It’s Walkabout, it’s Razorback, it’s Frog Dreaming. It’s been a common motif throughout the history of Australian cinema and literature and has been discussed in a variety of ways.

In the early 19th century, poet Barron Field fetishised the grotesqueness of Australian flora and fauna. Last century, historian Geoffrey Blainey famously wrote about the “tyranny of distance”, and architect Robin Boyd discussed the “Australian ugliness”.

In the 21st century, apart from a few cinematic outliers — Wolf Creek, Red Dog — it seemed as though Australian culture (if there is such a thing as a national culture) had finally relaxed into itself, freed of the necessity for endless definition and redefinition the enduring “wild and rugged” cliches.

As part of a thriving global culture, Australia could make original, cool films like Upgrade or Snowtown without the continued compulsion to try to sell itself in all its banal glory. Alas, director-producer Tim Brown’s new family schlocker Buckley’s Chance puts this suspicion to rest.

Tried and true and careless

An Australian-Canadian co-production, every cliché of the “foreigner in Australia” narrative is recycled here. The film follows Ridley (Milan Burch) who, following his father’s death, is forced to move with his mum, Gloria (Victoria Hill), from New York City to outback Australia to live with a grandfather, Spencer (a sleepy Bill Nighy), he has never met.

Once in the Great Southern Land, Ridley befriends a dingo he rescues from a barbwire fence with whom he immediately identifies. Ridley is also a lone “fish out of water,” separated from his “pack”, forced on an outback survival adventure when he crosses paths with a couple of menacing goons trying to make Spencer sell his property.

Of course, Ridley triumphs and starts loving Australia.

Along the way, he meets a down to earth and wise Indigenous man, Jules (Kelton Pell), who offers appropriately sage advice. He comes across funny sunburned men with very long beards; meat pies eaten by the truckful; and the word “bloody” used ad nauseam.

There are wild animals that are oh so different — goats that run at you, giant snakes — nicknames handed out willy-nilly (“I think it’s an Australian thing,” Ridley’s mum tells him), a town called Budgie’s Knob, an Australian outback that is “very dangerous”.

At one point, Spencer tells Ridley he’ll toss his camera in a “billabong” if he keeps using it, becoming the first Australian, fictional or not, I think I’ve heard use the word outside of a discussion of surfing.

Kelton Pell as Jules Churchill
Buckley’s Chance sticks to the tropes, including the wise Indigenous elder guiding the young white boy.
Transmission Films

The problem isn’t the film’s adherence to a tried and true formula, or its absolutely rudimentary narrative, but the flat, careless execution of it all. It all seems so terribly contrived in its attempts to affect us both comedically and dramatically. At one point Ridley’s mum says to him: “No more Mad Maxing around the outback” (!).

The music is melodramatic without being emotionally effective, heavy-handed in its attempts to make the viewer feel something (while at the same time oddly anachronistic, like something from a 1950s B-Western). The performances are either tired (Nighy) or over-anxious (Burch, as a kid, can be forgiven for his poor American accent; the same can’t be said for Hill as his mum).

Bill Nighy under a sign, reading Buckley's Chance backwards.
You could be forgiven for thinking you were watching a 1950s B-Western.
Transmission Films

It’s hard to pinpoint a single problem. With better music, some of the lameness of the humour or the stilted, soap opera-esque acting may have been diffused. And the ending might have had the emotional impact it warranted.

Watchable … but that’s about it

It’s not all bad; in fact, much of it is watchable (arguably, this makes it less interesting). The footage of the outback is fine — beautiful, panoramic — but so standard in the age of the cheap drone it ceases to be particularly striking.

It’s nice watching a boy and a dingo walking across a giant movie screen, though even the footage of the dingoes is a little disappointing — there’s not enough of it.

One can only imagine the filmmakers are targeting a foreign market (a la Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, which, for all its glossy tedium, is a more skillfully rendered advertisement for Australia than this film). The Australian cliches are too rife, and too on the nose, to imagine any Australian viewer liking this – other than, perhaps, the very young.

There’s even dialogue explaining the origins of the phrase “Buckley’s chance” (it’s obviously very Australian to frequently use this idiomatic gem).

Film still
Straight out of 1980s Australiana.
Transmission Films

It’s genuinely difficult to understand how this film was made in the 21st century. In their pandering to mainstream clichés regarding Australianness, the same could be said of Wolf Creek and Red Dog.

But Wolf Creek is a lean, mean film, shocking for its violence, an immersive extravaganza that rightfully has an international reputation as a superb horror film. Red Dog features compellingly dynamic performances from humans and animals alike, an offbeat narrative, and is shot astonishingly well.

As a 1980s-style family exploitation film, Buckley’s Chance is a curious artefact. It is possibly worth watching for its fundamental weirdness. But as a narrative film on its own terms,there’s no reason to see it. And there’s Buckley’s many people will do so.

Buckley’s Chance is in cinemas from today.

The Conversation

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

ref. Meat pies, desert, bloody dingoes: new Australian film Buckley’s Chance brims with dated cultural cliches – https://theconversation.com/meat-pies-desert-bloody-dingoes-new-australian-film-buckleys-chance-brims-with-dated-cultural-cliches-162858

Covid infections in Fiji soar with record 279 cases – four deaths

By Timoci Vula in Suva

Fiji has reported its highest daily total of positive covid-19 infections with 279 cases reported as of 8am today as the outbreak continues to soar.

The ministry has also reported four deaths attributed to the virus.

Health Secretary Dr James Fong announced these figures in the covid-19 update this evening.

He said of those cases, 46 are from existing containment zones or quarantine facilities in Nadi.

That includes 22 from Nawajikuma, 8 from Tramline, and 16 are close contacts in quarantine facilities.

He said the remaining 233 cases are from the Lami-Nausori Containment Zone, and 196 cases of which are from existing areas of concern.

“That means they are either from known clusters or they have a potential link to an existing case,” Dr Fong said.

“All 279 of these new patients are currently in isolation at home or in a facility.”

Details on four deaths
For the four deaths, Dr Fong said the first two deaths were announced yesterday as being under investigation to determine if they were caused by covid-19.

He said the first was a 57-year-old male who was admitted to the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH) for a pre-existing non-covid medical condition, and he tested positive during his admission.

“The second was a 66-year-old female who was declared dead on arrival to the emergency department at CWM Hospital. In accordance with protocol, she was swabbed, and tested positive for covid-19.

“Their doctors have now confirmed that covid-19 caused the deaths of both these individuals,” Dr Fong said.

The third death, he said was a 62-year-old male from Nausori who was referred to the CWM Hospital yesterday from Nausori Health Centre in severe respiratory distress.

“He had obvious signs and symptoms of severe covid-19 and he tested positive later in the day.

“Despite the efforts of the medical team at CWM Hospital, he died late yesterday afternoon.

Fourth death
“The fourth death is a 77-year-old female who had been admitted at CWM Hospital for a pre-existing non-covid medical condition.

“She tested positive during her admission and died today. Her doctors have confirmed that she died due to covid-19.”

Dr Fong said there were nine other patients admitted at CWM Hospital with severe cases of covid-19, and one of those patients was a 30-year-old with no pre-existing illness.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

NZ’s capital moves to covid alert level 2 after Sydney tourist scare

RNZ News

The Wellington region moved to alert level 2 at 6pm today after an Australian tourist who visited the New Zealand capital on the weekend tested positive for covid-19 on his return to Sydney.

Wellington, Wairarapa and Kāpiti Coast are now at alert level 2 until 11.59pm on Sunday but the rest of the country remains at alert level 1.

Cabinet is expected to review the alert level settings again on Sunday.

The Sydney man and his partner flew into Wellington on flight QF163 arriving in the capital shortly after midnight on Saturday and returned to Sydney at 10.13am on Monday.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said in a briefing this afternoon the man had worked at a healthcare centre in Bondi where a positive covid-19 case was seen and the information suggests that it is likely he was infected before travelling to New Zealand.

The man had one dose of AstraZeneca vaccine about 10 weeks ago and thoroughly used the Covid Tracer App while in New Zealand, Hipkins said.

When the person left Sydney there were only four community cases of the virus, though that had since grown significantly. Because of the links to Bondi, New Zealand officials are working under the assumption they have the Delta variant.

Quarantine-free travel paused
Quarantine-free travel with New South Wales had already been paused at 11.59pm last night, for at least 72 hours, but that was before officials were notified about the positive case.

The Wellington covid-19 scare. Video: RNZ News

Alert level 2 means people can go to school and work but should follow public health measures and consider others around them.

  • If you are sick, stay home. Do not go to work or school. Do not socialise.
  • If you have cold, flu or covid-19 symptoms, call your doctor or Healthline on 0800 358 5453 and get advice about being tested.
  • If you have been told to self-isolate you legally must do so immediately and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on testing

Alert level 2 conditions also mean no gatherings of more than 100 people, strict rules on hospitality and social distancing.

Testing centre booked out as demand spikes
The Ministry of Health advises people who have been at locations of interest in Wellington to call Healthline, but this afternoon an answering machine stated that due to “exceptional call volumes” the call could not be answered telling callers that further information was available online.

People on social media have been complaining about extremely long wait times if they do get through.

A central Wellington covid-19 testing site in Taranaki Street this afternoon prioritised people with symptoms or who had been at locations of interest today.

At times today there were up to 100 people queuing from Taranaki Street around the corner onto Arthur Street, and dozens of cars were driving through the testing clinic.

Many were being turned away if they had not booked a time to be tested, and were handed information to call Healthline by the staff managing the site.

This evening Capital and Coast District Health Board (DHB) confirmed the centre was already fully booked for tomorrow, though other centres would be available.

A new testing centre opened at Hataitai Park Netball courts this afternoon and the DHB said testing was still available there tomorrow, as well as at primary care facilities.

A GP clinic testing in Karori said it had done about 10 times its usual number of tests.

Locations of interest
The Ministry of Health issued a list of locations visited by the tourist on Saturday and Sunday.

People who visited some locations are being advised to get a test immediately and self isolate for the full 14 days.

That includes the 600 people who visited the Surrealist Exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa from 4pm to 5.45pm on Saturday, June 19. The national museum closed for a deep clean and up to 2500 visitors and staff may be required to isolate.

Whitby Collegiate School closed for the remainder of the week as a precaution after holding its senior school ball at Te Papa on Saturday night. Eight of its staff were there to set up for the ball at the same time as the new case visited, and their absence would also mean reduced staffing.

People who visited Jack Hackett’s Irish Bar on the corner of Taranaki Street and Inglewood Place on June 19 between 8.45pm and 12am are also being advised to get a test immediately and self isolate for the full 14 days.

The list includes Wellington restaurants and cafes Floridita’s, Lido, Pickle & Pie, One Red Dog and Highwater Eatery at certain times on either Saturday or Sunday.

The tourist stayed at the Rydges Hotel in Featherston Street which is also on the ministry’s list.

Four close contacts of the person have been identified, two are in Palmerston North and two are in Tauranga. All four are isolating and returned negative initial Covid-19 tests today.

Some 58 passengers who came into New Zealand from Sydney early on Saturday morning are considered close contacts and will have been contacted, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said.

They would all have been notified last night and will be ringing Healthline directly.

  • Updates on the locations of interest are on the Ministry of Health website here.
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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji records two covid deaths amid record 180 new cases

By Lice Movono, RNZ Pacific correspondent in Suva

Fiji’s covid19 case count broke records again yesterday as medical authorities recorded another two deaths at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWM) in the capital Suva.

Two men, a 68-year-old and a 42-year-old are the latest certified covid deaths.

The CWM Hospital is investigating another two covid-positive deaths – a 57-year-old man who had other conditions and a 66-year-old woman who was pronounced dead on arrival but who tested positive for covid-19.

There have now been nine covid-19 deaths in Fiji, two from 2020 and seven since this outbreak of the Delta Variant began in mid April.

Eight covid-19 positive deaths from CWM Hospital have been attributed to other illnesses.

Of the new cases reported, increases have been mostly from the Central Eastern division towns of Lami, Nasinu and Nausori adjacent to the capital Suva with cases in neighbourhoods previously covid-free as well as increases to previously known clusters.

Concerning trends include two more cases from Lautoka City which had been covid free for more than a month. On Denarau Island in Nadi, there are new cases in hotels where frontliner screening teams have been accommodated and off duty medics from Suva’s CWMH have served their post-shift quarantine.

100+ cases a day
Fiji hit the 100 cases a day mark on June 13 and, according to Health Secretary Dr James Fong, the country’s national 7-day average daily test positivity rate sits at 4.4 percent and is increasing.

The positivity rate is a measure of positive results against the total of all tests conducted and high can mean infection is moving fast through a community or that there isn’t enough testing.

However, with Fiji’s testing capabilities boosted in recent weeks, the latest of which was through the donation of new equipment from the New Zealand government, the Fiji Head of Health Protection, Dr Aalisha SahuKhan, confirms enough tests are being conducted in the country.

The World Health Organisation considers 5 percent to be high. Elsewhere in the world, regions have had to maintain a below 5 percent positivity rate for 14 days before public health restrictions can reopen.

Screening clinics in 56 centres operate throughout Fiji with 5998 people screened and 933 swabbed in the last reporting period up till 8am Tuesday.

With an extra 50,000 AstraZeneca vaccines donated by the Australian government earlier in the week, the MOH has managed to administer one dose to 256,117 people which is 44 percent of its over 18-year-olds. A total of 18,000 of those people are now fully-vaccinated. The government has in total deployed 274,124 doses.

In the reporting period announced last night, 86 patients have recovered so Fiji has 1631 active cases in isolation. There have been 2200 cases since April 2021 alone and 2270 since March 2020.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

AUSMAT team arrives in Fiji.
Members of the AUSMAT team arrive in Fiji. Image: RNZ
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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Bridging visas for three months granted to Tamil family

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Three members of the Biloela Tamil family have been given bridging visas for three months, which will allow the parents work and study rights.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke has granted the visas to Nades and Priya Murugappan and their elder daughter Kopika.

The status of the younger daughter Tharunicaa – whose illness and transfer from Christmas Island for medical care led to the government relocating the family to live in Perth – is unchanged, and she remains in “community detention”.

While she is now out of hospital Tharunicaa is to have medical treatment for some time.

The family will still be prevented from moving from Perth.

Tharunicaa’s status is the subject of a complicated legal battle as the Murugappan fight against deportation.

The government’s determination that the family should go back to Sri Lanka is on the grounds the parents have been found not to be refugees.

The family will continue to have access to government-provided housing, health care, schooling and support services.

If all four were on bridging visas they would not be entitled to the house they are now living in.

The family applied for the bridging visas last week, and the deadline for Hawke to make a decision came this week.

The timing coincided with Barnaby Joyce’s elevation to Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister. Joyce has spoken strongly for the family being sent back to Biloela. But government sources said Joyce had had no influence on the decision.

The Conversation

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

ref. Bridging visas for three months granted to Tamil family – https://theconversation.com/bridging-visas-for-three-months-granted-to-tamil-family-163285

Politics with Michelle Grattan: Sussan Ley and Terri Butler on the Great Barrier Reef being ‘in danger’

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The government’s response to the UNESCO recommendation that the Great Barrier Reef be listed as “in danger” was one of surprise and shock.

The recommendation will be considered at UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee meeting next month.

While the proposal calls attention to the need to address the effect of climate change and other factors which are degrading the reef, the government alleges it’s part of wider global politics.




Read more:
Australian government was ‘blindsided’ by UN recommendation to list Great Barrier Reef as in-danger. But it’s no great surprise


Environment Minister Sussan Ley is adamant UNESCO’s recommendation represents “international politics at play” which have “subverted the normal and proper process.”

In the background, the government points to China – which chairs the World heritage Committee – but Ley treads carefully.

“Others can make judgements about what those international politics are…”

“If the politicisation of a process that we have constructively contributed to for over 40 years is now going to be the norm, the points that I will make with the 21 member countries [on the committee] and others who might influence them is that this is the moment to reflect on what the World Heritage Committee is all about and consider the risk to your own properties.

“Because if the entire system is politicised, then we aren’t going to be acting in the interests of the natural heritage values of these places.”

Her opposition “shadow” Terri Butler wouldn’t speculate on what might be underlying the decision but “Australians would be very disappointed if they thought there was anything behind the decision other than concern for the reef.”

“What’s important here is for people to be able to have confidence in UNESCO in this decision making process.”

Butler says heading off the listing is important not just to avoid discouraging tourists from overseas but also for Australia’s image on the global stage.

“It’s really important [the government] demonstrate to the world they’re serious about protecting the reef, preserving it for future generations. And if they do that, they should also be in a position to fight really hard to avoid this particular listing.

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A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

The Conversation

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

ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Sussan Ley and Terri Butler on the Great Barrier Reef being ‘in danger’ – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-sussan-ley-and-terri-butler-on-the-great-barrier-reef-being-in-danger-163286

The case for a Tasmanian AFL team, from an economist’s point of view

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney

No one did a cost-benefit analysis before accepting Tasmania into the Commonwealth. Should the Australian Football League do the same?

Tasmanians have pushed for their own AFL team since the 1980s, when the Victorian Football League first accepted interstate teams (beginning with the West Coast Eagles and the Brisbane Bears) into the fold, then rebranded as the AFL in 1990.

Non-Victorian teams now comprise almost half the competition – Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland each having two teams. But bids from Tasmania – which established its first local Australian Rules football league in 1879 – have been rebuffed.

The state was regarded as too small, too poor and a “captured” market not worth giving a licence to. The AFL instead focused on the non-traditional AFL states of NSW and Queensland, and their larger TV audiences. The last two teams, the Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Sydney Giants, were added to the league in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Tasmanians have had to make do with a few “home” games being played in Hobart and Launceston by the North Melbourne Kangaroos and Hawthorn Hawks – for which the Tasmanian government has paid about A$8.5 million a season.

It’s time for the AFL to consider adding a Tasmanian team.

Local passion

The “spiritual” or emotional case for Tasmania has always been strong.

It has produced a long list of champions, including Laurie Nash, Darrel Baldock, Brent Tasman “Tiger” Crosswell, Royce Hart, Peter Hudson, Ian Stewart, Brendan and Michael Gale, Robert Shaw, Alistair Lynch, Nick and Jack Riewoldt, Rodney Eade and Matthew Richardson.

The game between Hawthorn and Essendon in Launceston last Sunday – watched by a capacity crowd of about 15,000 – demonstrated local enthusiasm for the game. Tellingly, though, there appeared to be more Bombers fans despite it technically being a Hawks home game. It showed Tasmanians have not warmed to the Hawks or Kangaroos as their own.

Why should Tasmanian taxpayers pay for Hawthorn and North Melbourne to play in Launceston and Hobart respectively when they could have their own team?

Tasmania has changed. Its economy has improved and its population is growing. Attractions such as the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) and the Dark Mofo Festival symbolise its confidence. In the decade since MONA’s establishment, visitor numbers to Tasmania have grown about 45%, and the amount they spend by about 60%.

Making a business case

The Tasmania government established a task force in 2019 to develop a business case for a local AFL club. Chaired by former Virgin Australia chief executive Brett Godfrey, the endeavour was intended to support the AFL granting such a licence. The plan was presented to the AFL in February 2020.

The task force suggested a Tassie team could feasibly rely on a support base similar to the successful Geelong Cats, or to the National Rugby League’s North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville.

Geelong’s population is about 265,000. Townsville’s is about 196,000, with the population of northern Queensland being about 510,000. Both the Cats and Cowboys attract crowds and TV audiences higher than their league averages.

A Tasmanian AFL team would draw on support from a state population of about 525,000, playing home games in both Hobart (population about 240,000) and Launceston (about 69,0000).

Small town success

A good international example of the potential of a “small town team” comes from Wisconsin and its National Football League team, the Green Bay Packers.

Green Bay, with a population of about 325,000, is just the third-biggest city in Wisconsin (after Milwaukee and Madison). Yet the Packers have won more NFL championships (13) than any other team.

Green Bay Packer Aaron Jones running for a touchdown in a game against the Carolina Panthers on December 19 2020.
Green Bay Packer Aaron Jones running for a touchdown in a game against the Carolina Panthers on December 19 2020.
Matt Ludtke/AP

Granted, the Packers are the only NFL team in Wisconsin (population about 5.8 million). But compare that to the combined populations of New York and New Jersey (about 28 million) supporting three teams, or California (40 million) also with three teams. The Packers are among of the NFL’s top 10 most watched teams, attracting an average TV audience of about 15.5 million.

A social case, also

In the unusual economics of sports there are good reasons to look beyond the business case to the social case.

Sports competition is not pure competition. The AFL intervenes in multiple ways to create a level playing field. For example, it caps the amount teams can spend on salaries, and gives the teams that perform badly one season better draft picks in the next. “Football socialism” is what former Carlton president John Elliott called it.

Would the AFL Women’s League (AFLW) have been established on purely economic grounds? Probably not. But there have been good reasons to subsidise its creation. Among other things, it has helped boost female participation in sport and strengthened grassroots footy clubs through having both girls’ and boys’ teams. In the long run the AFLW could also well bring in economic benefits.

Moreover, if the AFL designed a national competition from scratch, would anyone think it economically viable to have nine of the 18 teams based on suburbs within 10km of the Melbourne CBD?

Preserving the Victorian Football League’s clubs as much as possible wasn’t about cost-benefit analyses either. It was an emotional case too.

So the business case is important, but let’s not dismiss the other reasons for a club that would bring the AFL one step closer to truly being the national game.

The Conversation

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

ref. The case for a Tasmanian AFL team, from an economist’s point of view – https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-a-tasmanian-afl-team-from-an-economists-point-of-view-163166

What is the ‘unified protocol’ for PTSD? And how can it help?

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Berle, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology, University of Technology Sydney

ChameleonsEye/www.shutterstock.com

Many of us experience at least one potentially traumatic event in our lifetime. These can include accidents, natural disasters, exposure to war and combat, or physical and sexual assault.

Humans are resilient and most adjust well afterwards. However, some people may develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when emotional difficulties persist.

The most common symptoms include re-experiencing the trauma through nightmares and upsetting reminders of the event; avoiding reminders of the event; chronic feelings of being alert and “on guard” for danger; and profound changes to beliefs about themself, the world and the future.

The good news is we have a number of evidenced-based treatments for PTSD. And one showing promise is the “unified protocol”.

Trauma-focused treatments

All common first-line PTSD treatments involve some sort of “processing” of the trauma memory. We call these treatments “trauma-focused”.

By repeatedly recalling the memory of the trauma in a safe and controlled way, the person can start to see that event as having occurred in the past; it’s no longer happening in the “here and now”. The person also learns the memory itself is not inherently dangerous or something to avoid.




Read more:
Explainer: what is post-traumatic stress disorder?


When PTSD isn’t the only problem

However, not everyone gets better with “trauma-focused” treatment. Treatment seems to be successful for a third of people, partially successful for another third and the rest may not significantly improve.

Most people with PTSD also experience depression, high levels of anger, severe anxiety, or a combination of these. Substance use is also common. And these other difficulties reduce the chances of standard treatment working.

So, in recent years, we’ve seen the emergence of “transdiagnostic” therapies. These aim to address common underlying processes thought to contribute to a wide range of emotion-related disorders. These approaches may be particularly useful for people who have more than one emotional disorder.

This is where the “unified protocol” for treating emotional disorders comes in.

A review, led by our team at University of Technology Sydney, indicated people with anxiety disorders and depression can expect significant improvement from completing the structured and skills-based modules that form the treatment.

These modules include a range of emotion regulation skills to help the person accept or reappraise negative emotions. People do not eliminate these emotions entirely, but learn to respond to them in the most effective way possible.




Read more:
There’s a strong link between anxiety and depression, and sleep problems, and it goes both ways


How about the ‘unified protocol’ for PTSD?

Earlier this year, a randomised controlled pilot trial led by our team at Phoenix Australia, University of Melbourne, provided hope the “unified protocol” might also help people with PTSD.

The trial included 43 adults who had been through a traumatic event and who had developed post-traumatic stress symptoms, many with a PTSD diagnosis. Some also had depression or anxiety.

People with post-traumatic stress symptoms who had 10-14 hour-long sessions of the “unified protocol” once a week had fewer PTSD symptoms at the end of treatment, and at six months after the treatment, than people who were free to choose any psychological or pharmacological treatment.

We think people in the “unified protocol” group did better because this treatment may address PTSD in a different way than directly targeting the trauma memory.

In other words, the “unified protocol” may help the person better regulate emotions and reduce them avoiding distressing emotions. So PTSD symptoms may improve without a specific focus on the trauma memory.




Read more:
What makes a good psychologist or psychiatrist and how do you find one you like?


However, we have still have much to learn. That’s why our research team at the University of Melbourne is conducting a larger randomised controlled study.

This will hopefully tell us which people might better respond to the “unified protocol” and which to trauma-focused treatment.

Having a range of treatments for PTSD, which work in different ways, can potentially help the many Australians with PTSD. Ideally, this will allow clinicians and their clients to make an informed decision about which treatment is best.


If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. More information about PTSD and support is available from Phoenix Australia. The Australian Clinical Psychology Association provides a free Find a Clinical Psychologist service. Or you can see your GP for other referral options.

The Conversation

David Berle consults to Fortem Australia, which supports first responders and their families. He has previously received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australian Research Council and Defence Health Foundation.

Professor Meaghan O’Donnell has received funding support from a NHMRC Program Grant and a grant from the Canadian Centre for PTSD to conduct this research.

ref. What is the ‘unified protocol’ for PTSD? And how can it help? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-unified-protocol-for-ptsd-and-how-can-it-help-162435

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