Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Muir, Professor in Education (STEM), Australian Catholic University

What do you remember about maths at school? Did you whizz through the problems and enjoy getting the answers right? Or did you often feel lost and worried you weren’t keeping up? Perhaps you felt maths wasn’t for you and you stopped doing it altogether.

Maths can generate strong emotions in students. When these emotions are negative, it leads to poor mathematical wellbeing.
This means students do not feel good when doing maths and do not function well. They may experience feelings of hopelessness and despair, and view themselves as incapable of learning maths.

Poor mathematical wellbeing, if not addressed, can develop into maths anxiety). This can impact working memory (which we use for calculating and problem-solving) and produce physical symptoms such as increased heart and breathing rates. It can also lead to students avoiding maths subjects, courses and careers.

Research shows students often start primary school enjoying and feeling optimistic about maths. However, these emotions can decline rapidly as students progress through school and can continue into adulthood.

Our new, as-yet-unpublished, research shows how this can be an issue for those studying to become teachers.

Our research

We frequently see students enter our university courses lacking confidence in their maths knowledge and ability to teach the subject. Some students describe it as “maths trauma”.

To better understand this issue, we surveyed 300 students who are studying to be primary teachers. All were enrolled in their first maths education unit.

We asked them to recount a negative and positive experience with maths at school. Many described feelings of shame and hopelessness. These feelings were often attributed to unsupportive teachers and teaching practices when learning maths at school.

Read more:
‘Maths anxiety’ is a real thing. Here are 3 ways to help your child cope

‘I felt so much anxiety’

The responses describing unpleasant experiences were highly emotional. The most common emotion experienced was shame (35%), followed by anxiety (27%), anger (18%), hopelessness (12%) and boredom (8%). Students also described feeling stupid, afraid, left behind, panicked, rushed and unsupported.

Being put on the spot in front of their peers and being afraid of providing wrong answers was a significant cause of anxiety:

The teacher had the whole class sitting in a circle and was asking students at random different times tables questions like ‘what is 4 x 8?’ I remember I felt so much anxiety sitting in that circle as I was not confident, especially with my six and eight times tables.

Students recalled how competition between students being publicly “right” or “wrong” featured in their maths lessons. Another student recalled how their teacher held back the whole class until a classmate could perfectly recite a certain times table.

Students also told us about feeling left behind and not being able to catch up.

In around Year 9, I remember doing algebra, and feeling like I didn’t ‘get’ it. I remember the feeling of falling behind. Not nice! The feeling of gentle panic, like you’re trying to hang on and the rope is pulled through your hands.

Students also described the stress of results being made public in front of their classmates. Another respondent told us how the teacher called out NAPLAN maths results from lowest to highest in front of the whole class.

‘I was scared of maths teachers’

In other studies, primary and high school students have said a supportive teacher is one of the most important influences on their mathematical wellbeing.

In our research, many of the students’ descriptions directly mentioned “the teacher”. This further shows how important the teacher/student relationship is and its impact on students’ feelings about maths. As one student told us, they were:

[…] belittled by the teacher and the class [was] asked to tell me the answer to the question that I didn’t know. I felt lost and embarrassed and upset.

Another student told us how they were asked to stay behind after class after others had left because they didn’t understand “wordy maths problems”.

[there were] sighs and huffs from the teacher as it was taking so long to learn. I was scared of maths and maths teachers.

But teachers were also mentioned extensively when students reflected on pleasant experiences. Approximately one third of student responses mentioned teachers who were understanding, kind and supportive:

In Year 8 my teacher for maths made it fun and engaging and made sure to help every student […] The teacher made me feel smart and that if I put my mind to it I could do it.

What can we do differently?

Our research suggests there are four things teachers can do differently when teaching maths to support students’ learning and feelings about maths.

1. Work with negative emotions: we can support students to tune into negative emotions and use them to their advantage. For example, we can show students how to embrace being confused – this is an opportunity to learn and with the right level of support, overcome the issue. In turn, this teaches students resilience

2. Normalise negative emotions: we can invite students to share their emotions with others in the class. Chances are, they will not be the only one feeling worried. This can help students feel supported and show them they are not alone

3. Treat mathematical wellbeing as seriously as maths learning: teachers can be patient and supportive and make sure maths lessons are engaging and relevant to students’ lives. When teachers focus on enjoying learning and supporting students’ psychological safety, this encourages risk-taking and makes it harder to develop negative emotions

4. Ditch the ‘scary’ methods: avoid teaching approaches that students find unpleasant – such as pitting students against each other or calling on students for an answer in front of their peers. In doing so, teachers can avoid creating more “maths scars” in the next generation of students.

Chrissy Monteleone, Matthew Sexton and Kerrie Petersen also contributed to the research study explained in this article.

Tracey Muir has received funding from the Australian Research Council for other projects not related to this article.

Julia Hill received funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship, which was not related to this article.

Sharyn Livy has received funding from the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority, Department of Education Victorian, Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership, Australian Research Council, Catholic Diocese of Parramatta and Catholic Education Melbourne for other projects not related to this article.

– ref. ‘I was scared’: many student teachers had bad maths experiences at school. Here’s how they can do better – https://theconversation.com/i-was-scared-many-student-teachers-had-bad-maths-experiences-at-school-heres-how-they-can-do-better-245647

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathleen Walsh, Professor of Finance, University of Technology Sydney

This article is part of The Conversation’s “Retirement” series where experts examine issues including how much money we need to retire, retiring with debt, the psychological impact of retiring and the benefits of getting financial advice.

About 36% of homeowners still have a mortgage when they retire, up from 23% a decade ago.

This increase in mortgage debt is due to soaring property prices, changes in retirement ages and easy access to drawdown equity loans (where you use your home as security to get a loan, which can be used to fund travel, medical costs and other expenses).

So, what are the options for homeowners who carry debt into retirement?

Option 1: keeping the home and the debt

If you keep the family home in retirement, you get to own a property and can still receive the age pension.

For example: Jackie has a home worth A$2 million with a $200,000 mortgage. She also has $800,000 in superannuation. She is 67 but is not eligible for the age pension because her assessable assets – her super – is above the $695,500 cut off.

If Jackie takes $200,000 from her super and repays the outstanding mortgage debt, she will save on interest and principal repayments for the next ten years. She will also reduce her assessable assets by $200,000. This makes her eligible for a part pension.

So while Jackie has less super, she gets to receive a pension and gets all the subsidies associated with being a pensioner.

Option 2: downsizing to clear the debt

Downsizing can extinguish any remaining debt, and can free up money for holidays, restaurants and the good life in retirement. It also enables a move to a more age-friendly home or apartment.

And the government does provide a superannuation incentive via the downsizing contribution.

This allows homeowners over 55 who have lived in their home for more than ten years to make a one-off contribution of $300,000 (singles) and $600,000 (couples) to their super, using money from the sale of their home.

But when a person reaches pension age, currently 67, any money in super will be included in the government’s assessment of your financial assets and income. It could mean you don’t qualify for a pension or pensioner subsidies.

Of the approximately 2.6 million who receive a part or full the age pension, only 78,000 people have taken up this initiative. That begs the question if this option really does create a true financial downsizing incentive.

Think again of Jackie, the woman with the $2 million home and the $200,000 in mortgage debt. Say she decides to sell her home and move to a smaller house close to family and friends. This will incur about $40,000 in selling and marketing fees, and stamp duty of around $62,000 on her new $1.4 million apartment.

Downsizing leaves her with $1.1 million in financial assets (after transaction costs), which means that Jackie is not eligible for the pension.

While she’ll be able to fund a comfortable lifestyle, this decision to downsize may not be as attractive as keeping the house.

The decision to sell and move has cost her an extra $100,000 in transaction costs and her pension.

So, people need to think carefully about downsizing. It can allow people to move closer to children, grandchildren, and the services they need – but these must be balanced against the financial implications.

What about renters?

Paying market rent while on a fixed income can be very hard, so renting is a challenge for retirees.

According to the 2021 census, women aged 55-64 and those over 65 are among the fastest-growing groups experiencing homelessness.

The good news is many profit and not-for-profit retirement communities provide rental models and discounted entry contributions to residents with limited means (but there are often waiting lists).

Retirement village residents may also be eligible for rent assistance depending on their circumstances.

Rent assistance is an extra $5,751 per year in social security benefits and provides extra financial support to eligible age pension recipients.

Retirement communities provide vulnerable older Australians a unique opportunity to move into a community under a leasehold or licence agreement. More than 260,000 senior Australians live in about 2,500 retirement communities across the country.

While a retirement village may not be the first option for many retirees, they can provide affordable accommodation.

Making the best choice

Navigating housing decisions as you approach retirement means balancing financial, emotional, and lifestyle considerations.

Homeowners retiring with a mortgage face a choice: keep their home or downsize to alleviate debt.

Keeping the home and accessing super to pay the outstanding debt improves cash flow and allows you to keep your biggest asset.

Downsizing helps eliminate debt and boosts the super balance, but comes with extra transaction costs (and you may end up with less pension, or none at all).

Seeking professional financial advice is crucial, and ensure they are a registered financial advisor.

Jemma Briscoe is director of Aged Care Gurus where she develops educational resources and software for professionals advising on retirement-related matters.

Kathleen Walsh 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. Retiring with debt? Experts explain downsizing, using super for your mortgage, and pension eligibility – https://theconversation.com/retiring-with-debt-experts-explain-downsizing-using-super-for-your-mortgage-and-pension-eligibility-240679

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Hook, Senior Lecturer in Law, Western Sydney University

Rachel Gunn, aka Raygun, is no stranger to controversy. In August the university lecturer went viral for her quirky, marsupial-inspired breakdancing at the Olympics.

Over the weekend, Gunn was back in the spotlight. Raygun: The Musical, a “parody exploration” of Gunn’s journey to the Paris Olympics from Australian comedian Steph Broadbridge, was cancelled due to a legal complaint from Gunn and her lawyers.

A statement from Gunn’s legal and management team cited “misuse of intellectual property” and the need to protect Raygun’s brand.

The law is clear, Gunn is unlikely to be able to enforce intellectual property over her name, her persona, and her dance moves, and there are exceptions and rights for Australians to parody without it being infringement. But does this matter if legal threats are enough to stop artists from taking risks?

Does Raygun own her name?

In Australia we have both copyright – protecting literary, artistic, dramatic and musical works – and trademarks – protecting signs used as badges of origin for a brand.

In Australia, it is generally accepted you cannot copyright short titles, slogans, single words and names, but you can protect names as trademarks when used as brands for specific classes of goods or services.

This means even invented names like “Exxon” cannot be protected by copyright, but it can be a trademark for the oil and gas giant.

While “Raygun” is a clever play on words, it does not qualify for copyright protection. Using it in the title of a production like “Raygun: The Musical” is not copyright infringement.

In August, Gunn applied to register “Raygun” as a trademark for various classes including entertainment and clothing. She has others awaiting examination: one for her in silhouette kangaroo hop and another for the photograph of the same. Once these are accepted and not successfully opposed, they will be registered as trademarks.

Trademarks are personal property that confer powerful rights to protect the goodwill of the business in which the mark is used.

Under the Trade Marks Act, Gunn could enforce her rights against people also using Raygun (or similar) as a trademark in relation to their own entertainment or clothing businesses, for example when selling clothing, or if using the mark as the brand of a movie company.

This definition of infringement can make enforcement against parodies difficult. For example, in a case where Greenpeace used AGL’s logo in a campaign against climate pollution, the court ruled Greenpeace’s parodic use of the logo didn’t amount to Greenpeace using AGL’s logo as their brand.

Similarly, unless a parody uses Gunn’s trademarks as a trademark, rather than as the subject matter, an infringement claim would likely fail.

Does Raygun own her persona?

In Australia, there is no right of publicity, meaning a person’s likeness and name are open for others to use, adapt and parody. Broadbridge can call a character in her musical Raygun.

In the statement from Gunn’s legal and management team, they said the use of the name Raygun “by a comedian without approval has caused confusion among the public”.

As parodies involve mockery, it would be difficult to establish the legal standard that the public were confused that she endorsed the musical.

Does Raygun own her dance moves?

The general concept of a dance, a dance style and individual dance moves are not protected by copyright.

However, choreography can be protected as a dramatic work under the Copyright Act when it is original and has been documented, such as being recorded in a video. Copyright arises automatically when these criteria are met.

Copyright owners of dance choreography have exclusive rights, including the right to reproduce the work in a material form (such as a recording) and to perform the work in public.

Broadbridge was allegedly told she couldn’t do the kangaroo dance. For infringement to be proven, the musical would need to replicate Gunn’s exact choreography or a substantial part of it.

Even then, the fair dealing defence for parody or satire could apply if the use was fair and for parody. This defence would likely succeed, as it involves imitating an earlier work with humour or mockery.

Stifling free expression?

Intellectual property law encourages creation and compensates creators. Most jurisdictions, including Australia, have complex rules and exceptions.

Nevertheless, there is a risk that cease and desist demands that overlook credible defences can stifle creativity.

In Australia, there is no standalone right to parody, and so an infringement notice can be levied – even in cases where parody or satire can be a defence. This means comedians such as Broadbridge are on the back foot and have to defend their parody when receiving a legal threat. If they don’t have capacity to fight, they have to give up the right rather than bear the costs of litigation.

It is not surprising that legal threats can have a chilling effect on creativity and lead to self-censorship.

As Broadbridge told 7 News:

I don’t know how it will be for creativity if I will have lawyers breathing down my neck telling me what I can and can’t say on stage.

Satire, humour and parody are hallmarks of Australian culture. If a parody causes “serious harm” to reputation, defamation law can intervene. But using IP law to censor creativity harms us all.

Italy has a “fair balance approach”: instead of treating parody as a defence, a parody of a work is considered beyond the scope of copyright enforcement, as it is not viewed as a derivative work.

Australia is unlikely to adopt such a stance, but steps need to be taken to ensure the entertainment industry is more comfortable to support parodies, even when threatened with litigation.

Without anyone game enough to defend parodies in the courts the Australian larrikin sense of humour Gunn herself exhibited at the Olympics may be too risky to exhibit.

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. Raygun’s claim against a parody musical may not stand up: here’s what the law says – https://theconversation.com/rayguns-claim-against-a-parody-musical-may-not-stand-up-heres-what-the-law-says-245571

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Higham, Professor of Tourism, Griffith University

Surging global tourism emissions are driven almost entirely by 20 countries, and efforts to rein in the trend aren’t working.

That is the main finding of our new research, published in Nature Communications today. It represents the most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of tourism emissions yet conducted.

The study draws together multiple datasets, including those published directly by 175 governments over 11 years (2009-2020). It uses the United Nations-endorsed “measurement of sustainable tourism” framework and draws on tourism expenditure and emissions intensity data from national accounts.

The findings reveal serious challenges ahead, given the wider context. The UN Environment Programme reports a 42% reduction in current global emissions overall is needed by 2030 (and 57% by 2035). If not, the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees will be lost.

But global tourism emissions have been growing at double the rate of the global economy. Our study reveals that between 2009 and 2019, emissions increased by 40%, from 3.7 gigatonnes (7.3% of global emissions) in 2009 to 5.2 gigatonnes (8.8% of global emissions) in 2019.

While global tourism emissions fell dramatically in 2020-2021 due to COVID-19, the rebound to pre-pandemic levels has been rapid.

Massive growth without a technological fix

Tourism-related emissions increased at a yearly rate of 3.5% from 2009 to 2019. By comparison, global economic growth in general over that period was 1.5% per annum. If this growth rate continues, global tourism emissions will double over the next two decades.

The carbon intensity of every dollar of tourist spending is 30% higher than the average for the global economy, and four times higher than the service sector.

The primary driver of rising emissions is high growth in tourism demand. The rapidly expanding carbon footprint is predominantly from aviation (21%), use of vehicles powered by petrol and deisel (17%), and utilities such as electricity supply (16%).

Slow efficiency gains through technology have been overwhelmed by this growth in demand.

Aviation accounted for half of direct tourism emissions, making it the Achilles heel of global tourism emissions. Despite decades of promises, the global air transport system has proved impossible to decarbonise through new technologies.

20 countries dominate emissions

Our research revealed alarming inequalities in emissions growth between countries. The United States, China and India accounted for 60% of the growth in tourism emissions between 2009 and 2019. By 2019, these three countries alone were responsible for 39% of total global tourism emissions.

Three-quarters of total global tourism emissions are produced by just 20 countries, with the remaining 25% shared between 155. Remarkably, there is now a hundred-fold difference in per-capta tourism footprints between countries which travel most and those which travel least.

Of the top 20, the US (as a foreign destination, as well as its citizens travelling) had the largest tourism carbon footprint in 2019 – nearly 1 gigatonne. It was responsible for 19% of the total global tourism carbon footprint, growing at an annual rate of 3.2%.

In 2019, the US tourism carbon footprint was equivalent to 3 tonnes per resident, ranking 12th globally among countries with the highest per-capita tourism emissions.

As a destination, the United Kingdom ranked 7th globally, at 128 megatonnes (2.5% of the total). In 2019, UK residents produced 2.8 tonnes of emissions per person, ranked 15th globally.

Australia’s tourism carbon footprint ranked 14th globally (82 megatonnes). Its resident per-capita tourism carbon footprint in 2019 was 3.4 tonnes (8th globally). This underscores the high emissions being driven by long-haul air travel for inbound and outbound international trips.

In 2019, New Zealand’s per-capita tourism carbon footprint was 3.1 tonnes per resident (10th globally). Like Australia, dependence on long-haul international travel is a problem that cannot be ignored.

4 pathways to decarbonising tourism

For the first time ever, this year’s UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP29) included tourism. UN Tourism endorsed our study and acknowledged tourism now contributes 8.8% of total global emissions.

It reported that COP29 “marks a turning point, when ambition meets action, and vision transforms into commitment […] to positive transformation for a better future for our planet”.

But our research shows the combination of tourism demand growth on one hand, and the failure of technology efficiency gains on the other, present enormous barriers to tourism carbon mitigation.

Despite this, we have identified four pathways towards stabilising and reducing global tourism emissions:

1. Measure tourism carbon emissions to identify hotspots. Our research provides evidence of the tourism sub-sectors driving high emissions growth, including aviation, energy supply and vehicle use. These hotspots must move onto a 10% annual emissions reduction pathway to 2050.

2. Avoid excessive tourism development and identify sustainable growth thresholds. National tourism decarbonisation strategies must now define and implement sustainable growth goals, most urgently in the 20 highest-emitting tourism destinations.

3. Shift focus to domestic and short-range markets, and discourage long-haul markets. Actively managing growth in demand for air travel is the most obvious first step, which might involve regulating long-haul air travel demand.

4. Address inequality between countries by factoring in the social costs of carbon emissions. Controlling current patterns of relentless growth in long-haul air travel aligns with a more socially equitable approach to tourism, which is needed to address these inequalities.

The fundamental purpose of our research is to give policymakers and industry leaders greater clarity about tourism’s impact on global emissions. The challenge then is to develop evidence-based policy and regulation to achieve urgent tourism decarbonisation.

The authors acknowledge the contributions of Stefan Gössling, Manfred Lenzen and Futu Faturay who were part of the research team on this project, and who coauthored the Nature Communications paper on which this article is based.

James Higham receives funding from the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour Programme.

Ya-Yen Sun receives funding from the Australian Research Council to support this project.

– ref. Surging global tourism emissions are driven by just 20 countries – major new study – https://theconversation.com/surging-global-tourism-emissions-are-driven-by-just-20-countries-major-new-study-244036

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

Anthony Albanese will promise a re-elected Labor government would guarantee three days of subsidised child care without people having to undertake an activity test.

In an address on Wednesday to an early education event in Brisbane, Albanese will say every family earning up to $530,000 would have access to this guarantee. The plan would cost $427 million over five years and begin in January 2026.

The present activity test determines the maximum number of hours of subsidised care per fortnight. Activities include paid work, studying, volunteering and looking for work. The more hours of activity, the more hours of subsidised care people can receive. There are exemptions for low income earners and some other families.

Under the prime minister’s promise, those accessing subsidised care of more than three days would still have to meet an activity test.

The recent Productivity Commission inquiry into early childhood education and care recommended the activity test be entirely scrapped.

In his speech, released in part ahead of delivery, Albanese says the activity test puts “extra weight on the shoulders of parents who are already doing the hard yards of looking for work while locking their children out of early education.

“Denying them those learning skills and social skills that get you ready for school.”

He says too often those children who miss out on early education are those for whom it would make the most difference.

“Our Three Day Guarantee will ensure every family can afford three days of high-quality early education.”

Labor wants to “build a universal child care system. Simple, affordable and accessible, for every family.”

But Albanese stresses the plan does not mean mandatory attendance. “The choice will be up to parents, as always, as it should be. But we want families to have a real choice. We want to make sure that your decision isn’t dictated by where you live, or what you do for a living.”

Albanese says this term the government has been putting the foundations for a universal system into place. The single biggest commitment it took to the last election was its cheaper child care policy, he points out.

This investment has cut the cost of child care for more than one million families, with the average family saving more than $4.400, he says.

He says next week’s budget update will show Commonwealth funding for child care subsidies w
increasing by $3.1 billion over the next four years, supporting an extra 200,000 children.

The Productivity Commission in its report said the activity test was brought in to boost workforce participation. But it had “cemented a view” among some disadvantaged families that early childhood education was “only for people who have jobs”.

“The test was tightened in 2018 to reduce the number of subsidised hours families could access without meeting the activity test. The Child Care Package Evaluation, undertaken after this tightening, showed that it is not clear that labour force participation goals have been achieved,” the report said. “Changes in employment and other activities were small and not necessarily attributable to the activity test.”

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. Anthony Albanese to promise three days subsidised child care without an activity test – https://theconversation.com/anthony-albanese-to-promise-three-days-subsidised-child-care-without-an-activity-test-245668

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

In the seemingly never-ending psychodrama surrounding Rupert Murdoch and his family, life has imitated art. Again.

A report on December 9 in The New York Times revealed details of the recent secret hearing in a Nevada probate court that was literally prompted by the epic HBO drama Succession.

In April last year, immediately after the airing of the Succession episode in which family patriarch Logan Roy dies, leaving both family and media business in chaos, Elisabeth Murdoch asked her legal representative on the family trust to send what was called the “Succession memo”.

Her aim was to avoid another episode of life imitating art. Her father had moved to change an irrevocable family trust that had been created after the end of his second marriage to Anna Murdoch in the late 1990s. Rupert’s move was designed to weaken Elisabeth’s position and that of her siblings Prudence and James, while enabling the family patriarch to effectively rule from the grave through his eldest son, Lachlan.

Read more:
Rupert Murdoch’s real-life succession drama is underway in a Nevada courtroom. What might happen next?

The probate commissioner in Nevada who heard Rupert Murdoch’s application, Edmund Gorman “resoundingly” ruled against his attempt to change his family trust in a way that would have secured Lachlan’s position atop the global media empire.

Gorman was scathing in his ruling, saying father and son had acted in “bad faith” in their bid to change an “irrevocable” family trust that divides control of Fox News and News Corporation equally among Murdoch’s four eldest children from his first and second marriages: Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James.

In the 96-page ruling, Gorman described the plan to change the trust as a “carefully crafted charade” to permanently consolidate Lachlan’s executive roles inside News, “regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries” of the family trust.

The implications of the ruling are seismic, and commentators are already tracking the potential aftershocks. Eric Beecher, a former Murdoch editor, now chair of Private Media and author of The Men Who Killed the News, wrote in Crikey:

The leadership of both Murdoch companies, News Corp and Fox (combined market capitalisation of around US$40 billion), is now deeply uncertain as a result of the commissioner’s ruling. The non-Murdoch shareholders — who own more than 80% of each company — have woken up to the news that their chairman is likely to lose his job when his father dies, the family that controls those companies’ voting shares is locked in a bitter legal fight, and control of those companies is precarious. And shareholders and markets hate uncertainty.

Gorman’s ruling is not the end of the matter, however. It’s technically a recommendation to the Probate Court, which a district judge will ratify or reject.

Whatever the judge decides is open to appeal, which a lawyer for Rupert and Lachlan has already said they plan to do. Meanwhile, the other three siblings have released a statement welcoming the decision and expressing hope that “we can move beyond this litigation to focus on strengthening and rebuilding relationships among all family members”.

Good luck with that. The strongly worded ruling seems likely only to drive the parties further apart.

The family business and the business of family

The New York Times has previously reported it was Lachlan who initiated the plan to change the trust in mid-2023, following Elisabeth’s “Succession memo”. In consultation with his father’s lawyers and advisers, Lachlan drafted a plan to change the provisions of the family trust, which they called “Project Harmony” – “perhaps too optimistically”, commissioner Gorman remarked wryly.

Gorman’s ruling quotes from a text message Lachlan sent to Elisabeth before the trust met late last year:

Today is about Dad’s wishes and confirming all of our support for him and for his wishes. It shouldn’t be difficult or controversial. Love you, Lachlan.

At the meeting, Rupert said he loved all his children but “these companies need a designated leader and Lachlan is that leader”. This sweetness-and-light sentiment from Rupert jarred with Lachlan’s description of James as the trust’s “troublesome beneficiary”.

By “troublesome” the plan was obliquely referring to the split in the family between Lachlan and Rupert – who are wedded to a media empire that is both right-wing and profitable – and James, who severed all ties with the company over its denialist coverage of climate change and its credulous reporting of baseless conspiracy theories about the result of the 2020 US presidential election.

Rupert, like his fictional counterpart Logan Roy, has always been conflicted about his family and his media business. The empire has been his single biggest driving force for more than 70 of his 93 years. He alone built it and ran it. He has always overseen it as a family business despite its complexity, scale and need to continually adapt to the changing media landscape.

A common thread through the eight biographies of Murdoch published over the past four decades is that he loves his children. But as Jim Rutenberg, one of the two New York Times journalists who broke the Nevada stories, has pointed out, Lachlan, James and Elisabeth “are desperate to show their father that they can succeed and the only way they can do that is by succeeding in his business – the media”.

Commenting in the seven-part 2022 documentary series, The Murdochs: Empire of Influence, Rutenberg said: “By making his family the business and the business his family, Rupert left his family just as broken up as his company was when he sold [in 2018] to Disney”.

Where will the final season end?

The Murdoch family drama, then, has a few episodes left in it. If it is hard to see how it can end any more happily than Succession’s fourth and final season, we should also be allowed to imagine what New Corp could look like post-Rupert.

Let’s look at what the global media company could become without either the chairman emeritus looking over the chief executive’s shoulder, or even his ghostly spectre looming large, as would have been the case if the litigation in Nevada had succeeded.

If Prudence, Elisabeth and James can assert control, sideline Lachlan, and settle on a unified path forward, they can potentially reshape the company and redefine its journalism.

If they have already war-gamed it, and surely by now they have, the three siblings would know their greatest risk is alienating their current audiences, subscribers and advertisers.

In Australia, News operates in a virtual monopoly, so it can shapeshift with fewer consequences. But the US market is awash with emerging right-wing alternatives, each of which is eager to steal a share of the Fox audience. These viewers are the people who make Fox such a valuable commodity, and they’re the reason why it’s been so hard to stand up to Trump and his anti-democratic tactics, even on the odd occasions when Rupert and Lachlan wanted to.

The challenge is to somehow bring those audiences along for whatever transition the siblings envisage for the company. Can it be done, and if so, how?

The company’s own history suggests editorial change can happen quickly and audiences do tend to retain some loyalty. Murdoch’s takeover of The New York Post in the 1970s shows it is possible to radically change a masthead’s editorial position while expanding its audience, in that case from a mostly Democrat-leaning readership to a larger and more conservative one. But that was a moribund newspaper due for a radical makeover. There’s no guarantee it would work in reverse.

Fox News is arguably at the peak of its powers. The incentive to impose change has everything to do with journalistic standards and nothing to do with finances. In 2023–24 the Fox Corporation’s net income was US$1.5 billion (A$2.35 billion).

Even so, it must be possible to introduce incremental changes that reacquaint Fox viewers with more considered and ethical journalism without scaring them off. This wouldn’t work universally. Some of the demagogues who couldn’t cope would have to go – Sean Hannity springs to mind, as does former Fox firebrand Tucker Carlson.

Under new management, News could reintroduce some of the elements lost to Talk-TV in the mid-1980s, when the US scrapped the fairness doctrine that guaranteed balance and greater civility on the airwaves. It could ensure programs canvas different views, ask devil’s-advocate questions, and investigate issues without fear or favour.

Change of this nature wouldn’t be easy. News Corp has an echelon of editors across its global mastheads, most of whom are culture warriors and battle-hardened loyalists. They can and probably would work together to undermine progressive change.

During his tenure as the Australian head of News Corp, well before he became chair of the ABC, Kim Williams saw how the editors sneeringly white-anted his efforts to introduce reform. Even Lachlan Murdoch discovered that senior staff could undercut him. Paddy Manning recounts in his 2022 biography of Lachlan Murdoch, The Successor, that the infamous Roger Ailes did just this as Lachlan was learning the ropes at Fox in the early 2000s.

The three siblings will need resolve to dispense with those who get in their way, and they’ll need to introduce firm but gradual changes that don’t unduly scare their audiences or the market. But if Prudence, James and Elizabeth do share such a vision and are up for a fight, the world could soon be in for a fascinating media transition.

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. Rupert Murdoch loses his legal battle, leaving future of media empire in the balance – https://theconversation.com/rupert-murdoch-loses-his-legal-battle-leaving-future-of-media-empire-in-the-balance-245665

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Oliver A.H. Jones, Professor of Chemistry, RMIT University

Fluoride is back in the news, after incoming US “health czar” Robert F. Kennedy Jr called for its removal from drinking water.

At the same time, the Australian Medical Association (Queensland) recently urged local councils to reintroduce fluoride to water supplies, amid rising incidence of oral disease.

So what is fluoride, and why is it so controversial?

What is fluoride?

Fluoride is a natural substance found in rocks (for example, the mineral fluorite) as well as water sources, soils and plants.

The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines recommend three compounds for fluoridating water: sodium fluoride, sodium fluorosilicate and fluorosilicic acid.

Usually, one of these compounds is added – under carefully monitored conditions – during drinking water treatment before it is sent to the tap.

Is it good for our teeth?

Fluoride helps prevent cavities by making tooth enamel more resistant to acids from bacteria in your mouth.

The addition of small amounts of fluoride to drinking water to prevent dental decay began in the United States in 1945. This resulted from health officials in a Colorado City noticing residents had stained but remarkably healthy teeth.

This was traced to the high levels of fluoride naturally present in the local water. Research later confirmed while excess fluoride can cause cosmetic discoloration, lower concentrations still prevented cavities without harmful side effects.

In Australia, fluoride was first added to water in Beaconsfield, Tasmania in 1953.

Today, around 90% of Australians can access fluoridated water at levels of between 0.6 to 1.1 mg/L. This is estimated to have reduced tooth decay in Australia by 26–44%.

This does depend on where you live as there are different policies in different states and territories. For example, about 28% of Queenslanders do not have fluoridated water.

What are people worried about?

There has always been opposition to fluoridation. This includes the argument it is “government overreach” since we can’t easily opt out from drinking tap water.

A 2019 study also claimed fluoride affected the IQ of children. But this work has been roundly criticised and a 2024 study detailed serious weaknesses in the study design.

Multiple reviews of high-quality studies from many different countries, including the US and Australia, have found no evidence of harm.

One study followed people over 30 years, testing their IQs at various ages, and found no link between fluoride levels and IQ scores.

Working out what’s safe

It’s reasonable to want to know what’s in our drinking water and to ensure it is safe. But discussions about toxicity are meaningless without context.

Excessive fluoride intake can have harmful effects, such as weakened bones (skeletal fluorosis). But the key word is “excessive”.

Anything can be toxic to humans if the dose is too high, even water itself. The amount of fluoride needed to cause harm is much higher than you get from drinking water.

In Australia, the National Health and Medical Research Council recommends states and territories fluoridate their drinking water supplies within a range of 0.6 to 1.1 mg/L.

Recently, authorities decided to deliver bottled water for children under 12 and pregnant women in two remote Northern Territory communities with high natural levels of fluoride (1.7 to 1.9 mg/L). This measure was taken as a precaution in response to community concerns, not because any harmful effects were recorded.

Lessons from places that removed fluoride

The risks of adding fluoride to water are extremely low. But several recent cases demonstrate the very real health risks of not fluoridating water.

The Canadian city of Calgary removed fluoride from drinking water in 2011. Seven to eight years later, dental cavities in children were significantly higher in Calgary compared to nearby Edmonton, which did not remove fluoride.

In 2015, Buffalo, New York removed fluoride from its water supply. Dental problems increased so much parents sued the city for harming their children.

Israel is another interesting case. The introduction of nationwide water fluoridation in 2002 significantly reduced children’s dental issues. This trend reversed in 2014, when fluoridation was discontinued – despite the government introducing free dental care for children in 2010.

An equity issue

The evidence has continually demonstrated fluoride is not only safe – it has significant benefits for oral health.

Some of the benefits of fluoride can be achieved via fluoridated toothpaste or fluoride treatments at the dentist.

But dentistry is not included in Medicare. Fluoridating water (or table salt, as used in many European countries) remains one of the most equitable ways to ensure these benefits are not only for those who can afford it.

Oliver A.H. Jones receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), various water utilities and the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Victoria for research into environmental pollution. He is also the deputy director of the RMIT University Water: Effective Technologies and Tools (WETT) Research Centre.

– ref. Fluoride in drinking water is in the spotlight again. Let’s not forget how it transformed our oral health – https://theconversation.com/fluoride-in-drinking-water-is-in-the-spotlight-again-lets-not-forget-how-it-transformed-our-oral-health-245162

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer in Marketing, Research School of Management, Australian National University

Not so long ago, sports and entertainment were separate: each had their own distinct place in our minds.

In the streaming era, that has become somewhat blurred. If anything, we now have to filter through all the types of content available to entertain us, rather than having to search from a limited range of offerings.

Sport is now a form of entertainment, competing against a broad range of direct and indirect competitors who are essentially fighting over their slice of the cake in this attention economy.

Sports and sports teams have had to adapt quickly to this changing era through different methods, such as how they use social media.

The four Es of great content

Broadly speaking, for any content to be effective with its intended market, it needs to have four basic elements: entertainment, engagement, experiential and emotions.

Sport, as a whole, ticks those four boxes quite well (but only when it is being played). Just look at the Matildas’ World Cup phenomenon in 2023.

Our need to be entertained is now constant, even hourly. Previously, this presented a challenge for sports: how to keep and maintain connection with audiences when sport wasn’t being played?

Content competitors, such as YouTube, have something for us to watch 24/7.

Sports and sporting teams then realised they had to start to provide content when games weren’t being played to keep relevance and resonance with their markets. And do so with the four E’s in mind.

Say hello to your brand new social media feed.

Early on this content was hit and miss. But in the past few years it has picked up to the point where the four Es are being ticked off by most teams.

This engagement can all draw in extra money via ticket sales, memberships, merchandise and experience packages, such as Hawthorn’s social media-fuelled financial boost last season.

There has also been assistance from successful fly-on-the-wall documentary series on everything from the Australian cricket team, to Formula 1, to cycling, which have deepened resonance between brand and consumer.

So how to judge success in this area? The ultimate compliment of social media content is the share. And some teams, such as Greater Western Sydney in the AFL, are getting more and more.

Success, right? Maybe, but there are other criteria to consider.

Brand personality and connection

Success in marketing is rarely binary. Another important dimension to why sports have started to have more fun with their social media feed relates to brand personality and brand connection.

These theories are the bedrock behind how we value brands, and how brands have been slowly moving away from formal to fun.

We connect with brands that fit our personalities. Have an outdoorsy identification? Say hello to SUVs like Ford Ranger, or clothing like Kathmandu. Sophistication? Apple. Beachy? Billabong.

Value means loyalty, and loyalty means less switching behaviour.

Walking the thin white line tightrope

However, sport has a treacherous path to walk on this.

Ultimately, the core content is the sporting contest. If it veers away from the on-field battles and results too much, it runs the risk of losing connection with the loyal supporters who become confused over what the brand stands for.

There are also risks through simple human error and poor decision-making by those who run the social media accounts – the Monty Panesar tweet by Cricket Australia in 2013 being one case in point.

More recently, after the 2024 AFL draft, St Kilda was left red-faced after sending a message to a wrong number instead of a player they had just drafted. The club at least had fun with their blunder, posting their mistake on social media.

And of course there are numerous examples on social media where individual athletes, via secondary association, such as Stephanie Rice’s tweet, can result in brand damage.

At the same time, silence in the digital era means losing connection, relevance, and eventually value.

And if sports truly want to say they represent all, and not just the core fans, they need to find ways to grow that connection.

The new AFL team Tasmania Devils – set to enter the league in 2028 – are a good example of a club that is doing that, maintaining a balance between functional offering and entertainment.

A whole new ball game

Content is here to stay and sporting clubs are still learning how to use this strategy effectively. If they stop now, they will become a secondary content provider in our minds rather than a primary one.

The next markets, like Gen Alpha – a generation born into technology from 2010-25 – already have stronger resonance with online content providers like Mr Beast than they do a sports team.

A decade or so ago, most sports and teams used social media primarily to relay match day updates and results, news and merchandise opportunities.

Now, social media is as integral as any other marketing strategy, and the digital environment is fought over just like teams do on the field, court or pitch.

Andrew Hughes 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 social media games: why sports teams and leagues aren’t just competing on the field – https://theconversation.com/the-social-media-games-why-sports-teams-and-leagues-arent-just-competing-on-the-field-244273

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Woinarski, Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University

More than 95% of Australian animals are invertebrates (animals without backbones – spiders, snails, insects, crabs, worms and others). There are at least 300,000 species of invertebrate in Australia. Of these, two-thirds are unknown to western science.

This means there are huge gaps in our knowledge of Australia’s invertebrates. Our new study, published today in the journal Cambridge Prisms: Extinction, indicates there has been a catastrophic under-recording of Australia’s species extinctions.

Our best estimate is that 9,111 invertebrate species have become extinct in Australia since 1788. This dwarfs the current official estimate of the total number of extinctions across all plant and animal species in Australia: 100.

The extinction of so many invertebrate species is not an arcane concern for those few people who care about bugs. Invertebrates are the building blocks of almost all ecological systems.

Loss of invertebrates will destabilise those systems. It will negatively impact the resources we depend upon, like pollination, cycling of nutrients into the soil, clean air and waterways.

Re-calculating the loss

To date, assessments of historic and ongoing biodiversity loss in Australia have been heavily skewed towards vertebrates, especially mammals and birds. This bias has also driven the efforts to prevent the loss of such species.

These conservation efforts are important. But in having such a focus, we have neglected the invertebrates. We haven’t adequately recognised which invertebrates are at the highest risk of extinction, or which have already been lost.

The most widely used estimate for the total number of extinctions of all Australian plants and animals since 1788 is “just” 100 species.

Of these, only ten are invertebrates. And only one invertebrate species, the Lake Pedder earthworm, is officially listed as extinct by the Australian government.

In our study, we used a range of approaches to estimate a more realistic figure for the number of invertebrate extinctions, and to predict how many will become extinct in 2024.

We took the proportional extinction rates of Australian vertebrates and plants and extrapolated this to the number of Australian invertebrates. Separately, we also extrapolated the proportion of extinctions recognised among all of the world’s invertebrates to the number of Australian ones.

To estimate the current extinction rate – the number of invertebrates that are going extinct as you read this article – we had to make assumptions. One option was that our estimated number of extinctions from 1788 to 2024 fell equally across the years.

However, it’s more likely the annual rate of extinctions of Australian invertebrates has increased over time. This is due to increasing habitat loss and other threats as Australia’s human population has grown.

Any such study will have many unknowns, unavoidable uncertainties and caveats. Because of this, we derived broad bounds to our estimate of Australian invertebrate extinctions. It ranges from about 1,500 species at the lower end to nearly 60,000 at the upper end.

This vast number of extinctions is not simply a historical blemish. Importantly, we estimate that the current rate of extinctions of Australian invertebrates is between one and three species every week.

Most of the Australian invertebrate species that have gone extinct will not yet have been formally described. Many may never be so. We have coined the term “ghost extinctions” for those species that have been lost without a trace – with no evidence they ever existed.

Why so many extinctions?

Many of the factors that have caused extinctions in Australian plants and vertebrates also threaten invertebrates. These include extensive habitat destruction, invasive species, degradation and transformation of aquatic environments, and changed fire regimes.

For invertebrates, added to that cocktail of threats is the widespread use of insecticides, pesticides and herbicides.

Many invertebrates are at high extinction risk because they live in small areas, can’t easily move, and are highly sensitive to change. They also often share habitats, so we get entire groups of highly at-risk invertebrate species hanging on in remnant islands of habitat (known as “centres of endemism”).

Many of these at-risk invertebrates are also members of ancient lineages which stretch back millions of years. They would have survived through a world with dinosaurs and the arrival of mammals. Now, they have met a world with humans.

How can we stop invertebrate extinctions?

Currently, conservation priorities in Australia are informed by formal listings of individual threatened species. It’s an important conservation mechanism, but it fails the vast majority of invertebrate species.

We just don’t have enough data, evidence or resources to list each one. As a result, most imperilled invertebrates are excluded from protection.

Our results are a wake-up call.

Preventing extinctions of invertebrate species is a formidable challenge. A first step is for everyone to be aware of the huge distortion in conservation efforts and awareness, and the likely magnitude of invertebrate extinctions.

We can help lower the rate of invertebrate extinctions, but it will take a shift in thinking.

To provide better protection across all of Australia’s biodiversity, we need to better protect centres of endemism and better control key threats (such as habitat destruction and broad-scale use of insecticides).

Governments and research organisations must give more priority to taxonomic research – the naming and describing of new species. We also need more comprehensive monitoring by government agencies, conservation groups and citizen scientists of invertebrate populations, to identify new threats as they arise and to protect species and places.

In 2022, Australia signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It joined 196 countries pledging a commitment to zero new extinctions.

If Australia is losing one to three invertebrate species per week, the “zero extinctions” goal is pushed into a whole new realm of accountability. Unless we address this decline, that pledge of zero extinctions is destined to failure.

The authors would like to acknowledge the co-authors of this research: Michael Braby, Australian National University; Heloise Gibb, La Trobe University; Mark Harvey, Western Australian Museum; Sarah Legge, Charles Darwin University; Melinda Moir, Western Australia Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development; Brett Murphy, Charles Darwin University; Tim New, La Trobe University; and Michael Rix, Queensland Museum.

John Woinarski is a member of the Biodiversity Council, a Director of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, and a member of the Science Advisory Committee of Invertebrates Australia.

Jess Marsh is Conservation Lead at Invertebrates Australia, a Councilor on the Biodiversity Council and a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission.

– ref. Around 9,000 species have already gone extinct in Australia and we’ll likely lose another this week – new study – https://theconversation.com/around-9-000-species-have-already-gone-extinct-in-australia-and-well-likely-lose-another-this-week-new-study-241362

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rajeev Pillay, Postdoctoral Fellow in Ecology, University of Northern British Columbia

We are now in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, caused by our emergence as a planet-shaping force. Species are going extinct far faster than the average natural rate of loss.

In response, conservationists are working to safeguard biodiversity strongholds such as tropical rainforests, famed for their remarkable richness of species. Many of these rainforests are household names, from the Amazon to the Congo to Australia’s Daintree and Wet Tropics.

But these rainforests are being steadily cut down or degraded. It’s entirely possible for rainforests to look good in satellite images even though logging, mining or road-building mean they have become poor homes to species able to thrive only in the absence of major human disturbance, such as West Africa’s iconic Diana monkey (Cercopithecus diana).

How much rainforest is still in good condition and able to sustain the Daintree’s cassowaries and tree kangaroos, the Amazon’s sloths and anacondas and the Congo Basin’s forest elephants, bonobos and okapi? We looked at over 16,000 species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians in our new research to answer this question.

At first glance, it seemed like good news – up to 90% of the geographic ranges of these species were still covered in forest. But when we drilled down further, we found the real problem. Barely 25% of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests are still of high quality. For threatened species and those in decline, there’s just 8% of their habitat left in good condition.

What makes a rainforest high quality?

To protect rainforests, conservationists have long focused on a key goal: reduce deforestation. The theory is that by slowing or stopping the rate at which trees are felled, rainforest habitat can be preserved.

We measure deforestation by looking at rates of native forest cover loss and assessing the size of the remaining canopy. But while forest cover is vital for many species, it’s not enough. Maintaining forest cover without considering its quality means ignoring major human sources of damage, such as logging, roadbuilding and mining which make rainforests increasingly degraded.

Degraded rainforests aren’t lifeless. They’re often full of life. But the species you find are usually those that thrive in disturbed, open areas such as the edges of forest, roadsides and agricultural lands. Such species take advantage of human-made disturbance to expand. This comes at the expense of many other forest dependent species, who often decline or disappear.

To be able to distinguish high quality from degraded rainforests, our team used high-resolution imagery of global rainforests from three NASA satellites to calculate the height of trees, canopy cover and how long the rainforest had stood without pressure from human industries.

We combined these three variables into a single measure of forest structural condition and overlaid our results with a map of major industrial human pressures such as expansion of cities, creation of farmland and building roads.

Bringing these data sources together lets us rank the condition of rainforests, which we dub the Forest Structural Integrity Index, first developed in 2020.

High quality rainforests have a multi-layered structure – a lower understorey of shrubs and small trees, a midstorey of medium trees, a canopy of the taller trees and an emergent layer where unusually tall trees poke through the sea of green.

In forests degraded by logging, very tall, tall and medium trees are logged or severely damaged, while the understorey is overtaken by dense brush. We know high quality rainforests are linked to a lower risk of extinction for vertebrates.

High quality rainforest is getting harder to find

In our research, we define high quality rainforest as those left undisturbed since 2000, with little pressure from human industry. These forests have over 75% canopy cover and trees over 15 metres, indicating they are older.

High quality forests are better homes for wildlife than degraded forests, when we look at how many species live there, how plentiful these species are and how broad and functional the ecosystem is. High quality rainforests also provide irreplaceable ecosystem services to the planet and humans, such as stabilising the climate by sequestering large amounts of carbon in their wood.

Unfortunately, our new research shows the extent of the damage we have done. Only a fraction of rainforest cover can now be considered high quality habitat for over 16,000 mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian species – even though 90% of their geographic ranges are still “forested”.

What does this look like? Take the golden bowerbird (Prionodura newtonia), endemic to Queensland’s Wet Tropics. Its habitat appears well preserved, with 84% of its range still forested. But when we drill down, we find only 36% of the rainforest can still be considered high quality.

In West Africa’s rainforests, the Diana monkey still has forests covering 80% of its range – but just 0.7% of high quality.

What should we do?

These findings are a wake-up call. They suggest many seemingly safe species could be at real risk of extinction. Just because a forest is still standing doesn’t mean it’s able to be a home.

This points to the urgency of stopping deforestation as rapidly as possible. Our last tracts of undisturbed tropical rainforest have to be protected.

But it also shows us that ending deforestation isn’t enough by itself. Many of the world’s surviving rainforests are not in great shape. We should let these rainforests recover by banning industrial-scale timber extraction, road building and other major pressures.

In 2022, nations promised to end the routine destruction of tropical rainforests and other highly biodiverse areas within a decade.

We’re halfway to 2030, and tropical rainforests are still being felled or burned, even if there are some signs of progress.

Changing course away from a human-made mass extinction means redoubling our efforts to safeguard tropical rainforests, for nature and for us.

James Watson has received funding from the Australian Research Council, National Environmental Science Program, South Australia’s Department of Environment and Water, Queensland’s Depart of Environment, Science and Innovation as well as from Bush Heritage Australia, Queensland Conservation Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society and Birdlife Australia. He serves on the scientific committee of BirdLife Australia and has a long-term scientific relationship with Bush Heritage Australia and Wildlife Conservation Society. He serves on the Queensland Government’s Land Restoration Fund’s Investment Panel as the Deputy Chair.

Rajeev Pillay 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. Ravaged jungle: just 25% of the world’s surviving tropical rainforests are in good condition – https://theconversation.com/ravaged-jungle-just-25-of-the-worlds-surviving-tropical-rainforests-are-in-good-condition-245475

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sujatha Raman, Professor and UNESCO Chair-holder, Australian National University

Signed exactly 76 years ago today, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the world’s most translated document. It is widely acknowledged as the foundation of international human rights work, not just in legal settings but in wider civil society.

But few know that among the many social and political freedoms defined by the declaration is a human right to science. Article 27 of the declaration positions this right in the cultural sphere, stating:

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

This right might seem meaningless at a time when governments around the world have slashed funding for science and appear to be ignoring scientific evidence for how to address global problems such as climate change.

But there’s much more to the right to science than what you might immediately think of. It can also serve as a spark for human imagination and curiosity. And this is where its true power resides.

The evolution of the right to science

Interpretations of the right to science have evolved a lot over the past decade.

It was initially interpreted mainly as the right of scientists to do their research and the public’s right to access and benefit from this research. But this led to no small share of conundrums. For example, what if the right to do research is at odds with the human rights of affected communities?

This conflict arises in virtually all fields, from anthropology and archaeology to computer science and the life sciences. For example, building a laboratory or collecting data for research can potentially put a community at risk of losing their heritage, identity or livelihood. Some scholars therefore argue that the right should also include a duty to anticipate and take steps to ameliorate such tensions.

The United States National Academies have also begun to recognise that access and benefit doesn’t automatically follow from biomedical research. In fact, research may increase inequities if it’s not conducted in line with the principles of fairness, justice, equity and the common good.

Equally, what are we forgetting if we treat the public only as a beneficiary of science done by credentialed researchers?

The right to science is also about the right to participate in science and in decisions about research.

For example, it means Indigenous peoples have the right to be recognised as knowledge producers – a sentiment captured in Australia by researchers acknowledging that First Nations peoples are also the First Astronomers.

The International Science Council’s recently released framework nicely captures these nuances. It states that the right allows people to participate in and enjoy the benefits of science.

The right to science as a force for curiosity

Most of these discussions see the right to science as a way to protect fundamental freedoms – conjoined with responsibilities – of both scientists and the public. But a different meaning emerges when we remember the right to science is also a cultural right.

In a keynote address to an international conference in Switzerland in 2015, Farida Shaheed, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights, explained how the right to science and the right to culture are inextricably linked. Both entail, she said, the conditions for:

people to reconsider, create and contribute to cultural meanings, expressions, or manifestations and ways of life.

This highlights how the right to science can serve as a force to galvanise the more positive role of curiosity and the imagination. As such, it can be a spark for a new ethos of curiosity-driven research for the planet.

Curiosity in a time of crisis

The role of science in policy making and practice is at a crossroads.

Governments routinely invoke geopolitical competitiveness and commercial success as reasons for supporting research – particularly on so-called “critical technologies” such as quantum computing.

Yet the planet faces interconnected crises of climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and deepening inequalities. The response to this must therefore include all of humanity while creating space for researchers to be curious about different possible futures and pathways for designing them.

The International Science Council’s initiative on Science Missions for Sustainability is predicated on the understanding that we won’t achieve the ambitions of the United Nations 2030 agenda with siloed thinking or new technologies alone. The council calls for all disciplines to work together to produce actionable knowledge oriented towards practical solutions for our planetary challenges.

Humans thrive on curiosity even in times of crisis. We have many examples from the 20th century of curiosity-driven research yielding a “giant pool of ideas” from which came many of the technologies we take for granted today. The challenge now is to harness and support this curiosity in ways appropriate to the scale and scope of the challenges we currently face.

We know from history that worlds are created and changed not just through new technologies and market-based solutions, but also through culture and social innovation.

The right to science provides a welcome stimulus for thinking more deeply, creatively and curiously about these interrelationships in developing policies for research.

Sujatha Raman receives funding from the Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials led by Imperial College London. She has previously received funding from CSIRO, the Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust and UK Research Councils.

Brian Schmidt has received funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a non-executive Board Member of Astronomy Australia Limited, and the Giant Magellan Telescope Observatory, is Chair of Singapore’s Academic Research Council, and is on the Research Board of CIFAR.

– ref. The human right to science is 76 years old. It’s a reminder for us all to be more curious – https://theconversation.com/the-human-right-to-science-is-76-years-old-its-a-reminder-for-us-all-to-be-more-curious-245158

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Gurvich, Associate Professor and Clinical Neuropsychologist, Monash University

By 2050, around 135 million people worldwide will be living with dementia. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. Women are more likely than men to develop Alzheimer’s disease, even after accounting for women living longer.

The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease most commonly occur after the age of 65. However, changes in the brain begin decades before symptoms start. For women, this typically coincides with their transition to menopause.

Menopause results from the body decreasing production of two hormones made by the ovaries: oestrogen and progesterone. These hormonal changes are associated with a wide range of symptoms, including hot flushes, night sweats, difficulties sleeping, reduced libido, mood changes and brain fog.

Menopause hormonal therapy (also called hormone replacement therapy or HRT), including oestrogen alone or oestrogen combined with a progesterone, has been prescribed to help with menopausal symptoms for decades.

But how does menopause hormone therapy affect the risk of dementia? And why do some studies say the therapy increases the risk, while others say it reduces it?

Hormones and the brain

A large body of pre-clinical (animal based) research shows oestrogen helps protect the brain. It reduces any damage to nerve cells and supports overall brain health.

Receptors that respond to oestrogen are in areas of the brain related to reproductive functions. But they’re also in areas of the brain important for learning, memory and higher-order cognitive abilities such as planning, organisation and decision making.

The loss of the “neuroprotective” effects of oestrogen after menopause is thought to contribute to more cases of Alzheimer’s disease in women than men.

Clinical studies have also shown women who have a medical or surgical menopause before the age of natural menopause have a higher lifelong risk of dementia and cognitive impairment.

This risk appears to be reduced in women who take oestrogen therapy after their surgery.

This has led researchers to hypothesise that adding oestrogen back – via menopause hormone therapy – might protect and maintain women’s cognitive health.

However, the research findings have not been consistent.

Could menopause hormone therapy impact dementia risk?

Concern about dementia risk and menopause hormone therapy have been partially driven by the unexpected findings from a landmark study conducted more than two decades ago.

The findings showed hormone therapy use in post-menopausal women, 65 years and older, was associated with an increased risk for dementia.

However, these studies have some key limitations:

1) most of the women were aged over 65 and more than ten years post-menopause

2) the type of oestrogen and progestogen (a synthetic form of progesterone) used may have less benefit on brain health.

The most recently published systematic review and meta-analysis of scientific data linking hormone therapy to the risk of Alzheimer’s disease included findings from 51 different reports that were published up to 2023.

The results showed if hormone therapy was initiated in midlife, or more generally within ten  years of the final menstrual period, there was a decreased risk of later-life Alzheimer’s disease compared to women not using any hormone therapy.

The greatest reduction in risk was associated with oestrogen-only hormone therapy.

In contrast, when considering using hormone therapy in late-life, or more than ten  years after menopause, oestrogen-only therapy had a neutral effects on Alzheimer’s disease risk.

However, oestrogen-progestogen therapy was associated with a risk increase.

Only one clinical trial has been published since this meta-analysis. This study examined the long-term effects of menopause hormone therapy use initiated in early menopause.

Women were on average aged 52.8 years and 1.5 years post-menopause when they entered this trial. They were randomly assigned to an oestrogen (with or without progestogen) or placebo for four years.

Researchers followed 275 women up ten years later. They found no cognitive effects (no harm nor any benefit) based on whether women were exposed to 48 months of hormone therapy or a placebo.

What affects your risk?

It appears the effects of menopause hormone therapy on dementia risk are influenced by several factors. These include when someone starts taking it, how long they take it for, the type of hormones used, and the person’s genetic and health background.

1. When therapy starts: the critical window hypothesis

One key factor in determining the effect of menopause hormone therapy on cognitive function and the risk of dementia appears to be when therapy starts relative to menopause. This is called the “critical window hypothesis”.

According to this hypothesis, oestrogen may help protect neurons in the brain only if started early in the menopause transition, particularly within a few years of menopause, when the brain may still be more responsive to hormones.

2. Type of menopause hormone therapy and the role of progesterone

The type of hormones included in hormone therapy can vary widely in their molecular structure as well as their physiological actions.

Different types of oestrogens (such as estradiol or conjugated oestrogen) and the inclusion of a progestogen (needed for women who have not undergone a hysterectomy) may have different impacts on brain health and dementia risk.

Some studies suggest adding a progestogen to oestrogen therapy could counteract some of the cognitive benefits of oestrogen alone, possibly by blocking oestrogen receptors in the brain.

3. The role of vasomotor symptoms

Vasomotor symptoms, such as hot flushes and night sweats, are the hallmark of menopause. Experiencing more vasomotor symptoms has been linked to poorer memory as well as an increase in biological markers associated with dementia risk.

Therefore, one possible pathway by which menopause hormone therapy may moderate Alzheimer’s disease risk is via their effects on reducing vasomotor symptoms.

4. An person’s genetic and health background

The greatest genetic risk factor for older-onset Alzheimer’s disease is carrying one or more copies of a specific version of the APOE gene, called APOE e4.

There is an emerging hypothesis that women who have this genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease may show the greatest benefit from using hormone therapy.

What does this mean for you?

The clinical and scientific community are still debating whether menopause hormone therapy may play a role in Alzheimer’s disease risk.

Overall, the decision to use hormone therapy should be individualised, taking into account your age and timing of menopause, health status and specific menopause symptoms.

We need more research before we can make clear decisions about the role of hormone therapy and dementia risk, but based on the current evidence, hormone therapy may be beneficial if started early in the menopause transition, particularly for women at genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Caroline Gurvich has previously received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Rebecca Cooper Foundation and Perpetual Trustees.

Samantha Loi has previously received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Yulgibar Alzheimer’s Research Program and Young Peoples in Nursing Home National Alliance.

Rachel Furey 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. Does menopause hormone therapy increase or decrease your risk of dementia? Here’s the science – https://theconversation.com/does-menopause-hormone-therapy-increase-or-decrease-your-risk-of-dementia-heres-the-science-242111

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Diane Colombelli-Négrel, Senior Lecturer, Animal Behaviour, Flinders University

On Granite Island off South Australia, a colony of little penguins is fighting to survive. About two decades ago, the penguins numbered 1,600 adults – now there are just 30.

It is important for scientists to monitor and study this little penguin colony, to observe their behaviours and stop their numbers from declining.

In our latest research project, my colleagues and I captured footage of the penguins over several breeding seasons, as part of a study into their parenting behaviours. It provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into the unseen world of these vulnerable birds.

So let’s take a look at what Granite Island’s little penguins get up to when humans aren’t watching.

The world’s tiniest penguin

Little penguins (Eudyptula novaehollandiae) are the world’s smallest penguin species. They typically grow to about 35 centimetres and weigh an average 1.2 kilograms. They live in coastal waters in Tasmania and southern Australia – including on Granite Island, about 100 kilometres south of Adelaide.

The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway, and draws up to 800,000 visitors a year.

The stark decline in little penguin numbers on Granite Island is due to several factors. They include predators such as fur seals and foxes, changing environmental conditions, declines in fish numbers, and human disturbance.

My colleagues and I have spent years studying the Granite Island penguin colony. Our latest research gathered thousands of hours of footage to determine if a particular personality trait – boldness – affected the penguins’ breeding and parenting.

Home after a day at sea

The footage starts with a stream of little penguins waddling under a boardwalk, returning from sea. They have spent most of the day in the water, hunting for food such as fish and squid. Little penguins forage about their body weight in food every day.

The penguins return to their nests after dark, to rest and feed their chicks. They do this in groups – possibly to avoid predators – before heading to their separate burrows.

They tend to travel quietly, to avoid attracting attention. But out at sea or back in their burrows, little penguins can be quite vocal, making sounds such as short quacks, growls and brays.

The footage shows one penguin bumping into another in the dark – but this doesn’t mean they don’t see well. Little penguins have excellent vision, even at night. Because the birds don’t move well on land, they often feel exposed and in a hurry to get home.

The birds are quite territorial and can get into disputes with others in the colony. The footage shows two males fighting by standing tall and pecking each other. One is probably defending its nest.

Hello, lover

Little penguins are monogamous. The breeding season runs over spring and summer, when there is lots of food around.

Males establish the burrows, which are usually in rock crevices or under thick vegetation. They then try to attract a female by demonstrating their quality – either through vocal displays or defending territory.

The footage shows a male and female penguin greeting each other, before getting down to business. Then we cut away, to give the lovebirds some privacy!

Across a breeding season, little penguin pairs typically rear one or two clutches during autumn and winter. Each clutch consists of one or two eggs. The penguins take turns sitting on the eggs while the other feeds at sea.

Keeping their plumage looking tip-top

In the footage we see two little penguins preening themselves during a quiet moment. This is important to remove parasites and keep their plumage healthy.

Despite their small bodies, little penguins have an estimated 10,000 feathers. The feathers are downy at the base, providing a layer of insulation which helps keep them warm during long days at sea.

The feathers are also waterproof thanks to an oily liquid the penguins secrete from a gland near their tails, which they spread over their body when preening.

Now for some family time

After the eggs hatch, the parents take turns to guard their chicks for three weeks while the partner fishes at sea. When this period ends, the parents leave the chicks alone in the burrow while they fish, returning every one to five days to feed them.

The footage shows the chicks excitedly jumping on a parent in the nest. We also see the chicks practising their vocal calls and stretching their tiny wings by flapping them madly. This is all important practice for being a grown-up penguin.

The parent-offspring relationship was the focus of our new research. When humans are around a lot – as they are at Granite Island – penguins can be bolder and more aggressive. We predicted bold individuals would invest less time in parental care, as has previously been observed in other bird species.

But this was not the case. We found a penguin’s boldness has no bearing on its performance as a parent, such as how often it returned to the nest, fed its chicks, or stayed overnight.

The next phase of our research will examine factors such as the quality of food the parents feed to chicks, or whether personality traits other than boldness might affect their child-rearing.

Protecting our little penguins

Humans are disturbing animal habitats at an alarming rate. We intend to keep studying – and filming – Granite Island’s little penguins to understand how this pressure is affecting them.

If you are ever lucky enough to observe little penguins anywhere in Australia, please take care of them by sticking to a few simple guidelines outlined in full here.

They include:

• stay at least five metres away
• don’t use camera flashes – it can temporarily blind the penguin
• don’t shine a torch directly at the penguin
• keep dogs away at all times
• don’t get between a penguin and its burrow or chicks.

Diane Colombelli-Négrel receives funding from the Waterhouse Club, Friends of Encounter Birds, the Save
Granite Island Penguins Committee, the Sir Mark Mitchell Foundation and DEW Environment Citizen Science Small Grants.

– ref. ‘Unseen world’: researchers capture fascinating footage of the world’s smallest penguins in a bid to save them – https://theconversation.com/unseen-world-researchers-capture-fascinating-footage-of-the-worlds-smallest-penguins-in-a-bid-to-save-them-245472

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robin Smit, Adjunct Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney

Road transport is responsible for a substantial share of global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. So reducing these emissions is a high priority.

In the European Union (EU), CO₂ emissions from new passenger cars have been regulated for more than 15 years. The range of policy measures includes mandatory CO₂ emission targets.

But Australia’s mandatory New Vehicle Efficiency Standard will only come in next year, without other supporting policy measures.

In our new research, my colleagues and I compared the two car fleets and examined their emissions in detail. We found Australian cars are typically larger, heavier and less efficient, producing 43% more emissions than their EU counterparts. The results demonstrate the vital role of well-designed, ambitious policies and regulations in driving down emissions.

What we did

Car emissions by country depends on many factors. These include the level of dependence on cars, travel behaviour, consumer preferences, marketing, car types and sizes, fuel efficiency requirements, purchase price, running costs and, importantly, government policies.

Policy levers range from financial incentives, taxes and regulations through to other measures such as information campaigns.

In collaboration with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, we collected information about the respective car fleets in Europe and Australia.

We obtained region-specific vehicle specifications including vehicle sales, car make and model, weight, size, rated power, battery capacity and certified emissions performance. We extracted this from previous studies, publicly available data sets and information in Europe and Australia.

We then fed this information into detailed simulation models to estimate emissions in a wide range of real-world conditions, for each fleet. This included the effects of different driving conditions and climates.

What we found

Our research revealed Australian cars are larger and heavier than EU cars, which has direct consequences for emissions.

New vehicles in both the EU and Australia must be certified, with their fuel consumption and emissions tested against emission limits, before they can be sold.

But the test procedure differs between the EU and Australia. The EU uses a modern procedure, whereas Australia still uses an outdated and unrealistic test developed in the 1970s – ironically called the New European Drive Cycle test.

In the four years from 2018 to 2021, the difference between certified CO₂ emissions of new cars registered in Australia and the EU increased by 20%. This was mainly due to the more rapid rise of EVs in Europe.

Then there’s the difference between certified emissions and what actually happens on the road, often referred to as the “gap”. We found the gap between certified CO₂ emissions and real-world emissions is larger in Australia. In Europe the average gap for petrol and diesel cars is 15–20%, whereas in Australia it is 30–35%.

Differences in vehicle weight and size, driving style, climate, and the use of air conditioning contribute, but the outdated test protocol is a major factor.

The gap is particularly large for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle emissions are three to four times higher on the road in both Europe and Australia.

Why? Largely because certified emissions performance assumes these vehicles will drive in electric mode 75–90% of the time, while the reality is more like 25%. So in practice, these vehicles mostly drive around as high-emitting petrol or diesel cars.

Overall, we estimated the real-world CO₂ emissions of the registered on road fleets in 2021 were 143 grams per kilometre for the EU and and 204 grams per kilometre for Australia. This means the average Australian car on the road is producing 43% more greenhouse gas emissions than the average EU car.

Mandatory CO₂ emission targets work

Our research shows mandatory CO₂ emission targets are effective in reducing emissions from both (new) passenger cars and, over time, the fleet as a whole. But this only happens if they are well designed.

With its long-standing regulations, the EU has significantly reduced CO₂ emissions, mainly through increased sales of low- or zero-emission vehicles. Conversely, Australia has relied on ineffective voluntary emission standards so far, with relatively slow uptake of electric vehicles and slow or even no progress in reducing emissions as a result.

We found the shift towards electric vehicles is crucial for achieving carbon neutrality goals. Having a higher proportion of zero- and low-emission cars in new EU car sales was the main reason the region’s 2020 emission reduction targets were met.

Without this, 70% of manufacturers would have failed to meet the EU standards. That’s because the emissions performance of conventional diesel and petrol cars have hardly improved.

This is in line with recent research that found only a shift to lightweight battery-electric vehicles, alongside deep decarbonisation of the electricity grid, will get Australia close to net zero by 2050.

Both regions have designed similar paths for future emissions reduction efforts. However, EU targets have been set for a longer term (2015-35). Australia has only set annual targets for the period 2025 to 2029.

Our research suggests sales of battery electric cars will need to increase in each region to meet future CO₂ emissions targets. In the EU, electric vehicle sales will need to hit 50% by 2030 to meet its target. In Australia, electric vehicle sales will need to reach 60% by 2029 to meet its more lenient target.

Shaping future policy

As the EU shows, setting ambitious, effective and legally binding emissions targets can drive innovation and transform markets.

But mandatory targets are not enough on their own. Complementary policies are needed, such as providing incentives to purchase electric cars, and developing charging infrastructure. This holistic approach looks beyond vehicle technology to also consider solutions such as promoting active travel, improving public transport and reducing the need for travel altogether.

Our research also clearly shows Australia needs to update official test procedures. It’s crucial to include on-board fuel consumption monitoring in the new standard, as is done in Europe, to monitor real-world fuel/electricity use and emissions.

Future regulations should consider incorporating the emissions over the life of a vehicle from manufacturing and fuel/energy production to recycling and disposal.

Accurate information for consumers, as well as properly designed government policies, will help Australia finally start reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport.

Robin Smit is the founding Research Director at the Transport Energy/Emission Research (TER) consultancy.

– ref. Australians’ cars are typically larger, heavier and less efficient than in Europe – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/australians-cars-are-typically-larger-heavier-and-less-efficient-than-in-europe-heres-why-243834

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Ogden, Associate Professor in Global Studies, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

Anyone who has followed New Zealand’s protracted trade negotiations with India will know any new announcement of progress needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ hint last week that talks may be resuming is therefore best taken as a sign of optimism rather than anything more tangible. After all, negotiations go back as far as 2010, but had largely stalled by 2015.

A lot has changed since then, not least the advent of a second Trump presidency in the US, and shifting power balances in the Asia-Pacific region exemplified by the AUKUS security pact.

Wellington’s desire for a free trade agreement with New Delhi is clearly already a delicate balancing act. These new dynamics will make it more delicate still. But engaging with India remains vital, given its increasingly prominent global influence.

In many ways, India’s rise is not unlike China’s was – and New Zealand can learn from its trade and diplomatic relationships with Beijing. If India is roughly where China was 15 years ago, we can see clear portents of what the future holds.

India’s rise

In 2023, India’s GDP was US$14.54 trillion, the world’s fourth largest economy, behind the United States, China and the European Union. China hit that level during 2009.

But India’s current annual GDP growth of 7.6% now outstrips all those other countries. If maintained, it will result in India matching China’s 2023 GDP of $34.64 trillion in 14 years. Given India’s population overtook China’s in 2023, that timeframe may be smaller.

India’s expanding financial capacity has been matched by growing military expenditure. In 2023, India spent $83.57 billion on defence, third behind the US and China. Beijing was spending an equivalent amount in 2009.

India was also the world’s largest arms importer from 1950 to 2023. Like the US, China and Russia, it possesses a “nuclear triad” of land-based, submarine and airborne capability.

Like China, India has a large landmass (the world’s seventh largest) and is pivotal to trade routes crossing the Indian Ocean, as well as being close to China, the preeminent trading nation at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region.

Negative realities

India, like China, is also led by a forceful, self-assured and outspoken autocrat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is one of the world’s two largest political groups – the other is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Both leaders harness often strident domestic nationalism and common colonial histories to inspire popular notions of being or becoming great powers.

But exceptionally high levels and prolonged periods of economic growth – averaging 9.33% per year from 1980 to 2022 in China, and 6.46% per year from 1990 to 2023 in India – also put national development goals at risk.

High energy consumption and levels of pollution have seen natural environments deteriorate in both countries. And both India and China have suffered from endemic corruption since liberalising their economies.

Prevalent political dynasties in India – the equivalent of China’s “princelings” (the offspring or relatives-by-marriage of Communist Party veterans) – concentrate wealth and privilege within elites.

And, like China, India also stands accused of repressing ethnic and religious minorities, particularly against the Muslim portion of Kashmir and against various communities in the northeast, particularly in Assam.

Future fractures

Despite those human rights concerns, both India and China have – at different times – been courted and engaged by the West for strategic reasons.

In the 1970s, the US sought closer relations with China as a countermeasure against the Soviet Union, at the time Washington’s primary rival. Nowadays, the US seeks enhanced ties with India to counter the rise of China.

Both approaches were and are open to accusations of shortsightedness and political cynicism. The US rapprochement with China in the 1970s occurred during the depths of the Cultural Revolution, and Washington was muted in its criticism of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

Similarly, the perceived need to curb China’s rising power and influence means the West is prepared to work around India’s internal political realities. But this has arguably emboldened Indian foreign policy, with its intelligence services accused of targeting Sikh separatists in Canada, the UK and the US.

As contemporary US-China relations tip towards what has been called a “new Cold War”, one can imagine a future where the US and India face off in the same way. Given India’s trajectory, that might happen as soon as 2040.

Were that to happen – and given China’s slowing economy, ageing population and decoupling from the West – then India may well become China’s successor.

Of course, we can’t predict the future, but all of these considerations will need to be part of New Zealand’s calculations if and when trade negotiations with India truly begin in earnest. And they must remain part of Wellington’s wider strategic calculations in the decades to come.

Chris Ogden is a Senior Research Fellow with The Foreign Policy Centre, London.

– ref. India is the new China – NZ needs to see the bigger picture in trade negotiations – https://theconversation.com/india-is-the-new-china-nz-needs-to-see-the-bigger-picture-in-trade-negotiations-245557

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Wallis, Professor of International Security, University of Adelaide

At first blush, today’s announcement that Australia and Nauru have signed a security treaty offers something for both countries. Australia increases its influence in a region in which it feels threatened by China. Nauru receives economic assistance and reliable banking services.

But important questions remain unanswered.

For the past decade, Australia has been concerned about China’s ambitions in the Pacific Islands region. It is also conscious that the diplomatic landscape of the region has become more “crowded and complex”, as Australia now cooperates – and competes – with a wider range of partner countries in the region.

Australia has therefore ramped up its development assistance, infrastructure lending, security initiatives, labour mobility and migration opportunities, as well as other policies in the region.

It has also developed an appetite for greater integration with Pacific Island countries. The 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper identified Australia’s aim as being to “integrate Pacific countries into the Australian and New Zealand economies and our security institutions”.

Most famously, during a 2019 speech, Kevin Rudd proposed Australia should offer citizenship to people from Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu in exchange for control of their seas and fisheries. Versions of this proposal had been circulating in Canberra for years, but with limited support. Chinese influence has changed the calculation.

Todays’ announcement of the Nauru–Australia Treaty, a year after the signing of the Falepili Union Treaty between Australia and Tuvalu, seems to vindicate this call for integration by Rudd and others.

Under the Nauru–Australia Treaty, the two countries agree to “deepen and expand security cooperation”, and “consult and consider” in the event of threats. Then there is the big-ticket item: Nauru will “mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on matters relating to Nauru’s security”. This echoes the language used in the Falepili Union with Tuvalu.

Australia has effectively acquired a veto over Nauru and Tuvalu entering any security arrangement with China. This has been Australia’s major concern in the region since Solomon Islands and China entered into a security agreement in 2022. With respect to Nauru, this was further heightened after it switched diplomatic recognition to China in January 2024.

So, the Nauru–Australia Treaty seems like a diplomatic “win” for Australia.

In exchange, Australia has agreed to provide A$100 million of budget support over five years to help Nauru’s “economic resilience, fiscal stability and prosperity”.

Australia will also provide A$40 million over five years to support Nauru’s security and policing needs, particularly the work of its recently appointed National Security Advisor.

Crucially, it will support the Commonwealth Bank to step in to provide banking services in Nauru, after Bendigo Bank announced it would withdraw. This helps secure Nauru’s economic future and removes Nauru’s risk of becoming “unbanked”.

So it seems like a similar “win” for Nauru.

But the treaty has several aspects that are still unclear.

First, how does it sit with Australia’s history with Nauru? As Nauru’s coloniser, Australia oversaw – and benefited from – the extraction of much of Nauru’s surface during phosphate mining. Mismanagement of the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust, established at independence to help return some profits to the people of Nauru, has been a major cause of Nauru’s longstanding economic woes since the 1990s.

But Australia also contributed to Nauru’s challenges through its policy of processing and resettling refugees in Nauru.

Second, Nauru’s democracy has not always benefited from Australia’s presence. Conscious of the need to maintain good relations with the Nauru government to keep its refugee processing centre open, and more recently to counter Chinese influence attempts, Australia has at times been reluctant to comment on the erosion of political rights in Nauru.

This was exemplified during the trial of the “Nauru 19”, who were prosecuted for protesting against government corruption. At the time, retired Australian judge Geoffrey Muecke, who sat on the Nauru Supreme Court, described the prosecution as a “shameful affront to the rule of law”. Will the treaty similarly constrain Australia in the future?

Third, the treaty requires Australia to provide extensive support to the Nauru government’s economic policies. Nauru has agreed it will “ensure integrity, transparency and accountability in its fiscal and financial management systems to prevent fraud, corruption, and misconduct”. But given Australia’s strategic interests in maintaining the treaty, what will Australia do if the Nauru government does not meet this undertaking?

Fourth, critics will justifiably ask questions about the impact of the treaty on Nauru’s sovereignty, echoing concerns raised about the Falepili Union, and before that, Rudd’s 2019 proposal.

In this regard, to dilute its apparent power, Australia may have been better off pursuing a trilateral security agreement that also included New Zealand, of the type proposed by Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown.

On one reading, Australia has taken advantage of the vulnerabilities of Nauru (economic and banking) and Tuvalu (climate change) to secure the treaties and advance its strategic interests.

During the 1960s negotiations on Nauru’s decolonisation, Nauruan negotiators rejected Australia’s proposal to create a relationship of “free association” because they had access to the wealth of the Phosphate Royalties Trust.

Today’s treaty, by contrast, goes a long way to solving several of Nauru’s pressing economic challenges. In exchange, the “cost” – constraints on Nauru’s future security partnerships – may not be seen as steep as they were more than half a century ago. Time will tell.

The Australian government must now sell the Nauru–Australia treaty to an Australian people struggling to meet cost-of-living pressures. This may be easier than the Falepili Union, because a migration pathway is not a key feature of the Nauru deal.

But at the same time, the absence of migration reveals the elephant in the room: for decades the Australian taxpayer has been propping up the economy of an island whose main resource – sovereignty – it mined via its “Pacific Solution” to house refugees. Now it will do so in perpetuity for its strategic interests.

Joanne Wallis receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Defence. She is a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

Jack Corbett currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the UK’s SIDAR programme.

– ref. At first glance, Australia’s new treaty with Nauru seems to be a win-win. But questions remain – https://theconversation.com/at-first-glance-australias-new-treaty-with-nauru-seems-to-be-a-win-win-but-questions-remain-245562

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marika Sosnowski, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne

Sometimes nothing happens for years. And then years – decades even – happen in a few days.

Over the past ten days, a range of Syrian rebel forces led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have mounted an offensive against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. They first captured Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city and economic hub, and then swept rapidly south through Hama, Homs and finally Damascus.

The rebels were met with little to no resistance from the Syrian regime, nor its Russian, Iranian or Hezbollah allies. And so, the 54-year-old regime led by Hafez al-Assad and then his son Bashar has now fallen.

While it may seem like these events came out of nowhere, the rapid fall of the Assad regime has a long history.

A ‘long-breath’ strategy of appeasement

For decades, Hafez al-Assad, Syria’s autocratic ruler from 1970–2000, had adopted a pragmatic strategy that involved building relationships with a sometimes unlikely array of state and non-state allies, proxies and clients. This “long-breath” strategy was helpful in keeping relations with everyone open, even if those relations were in many cases extremely precarious.

For example, the regime gave preferential treatment to minorities (predominantly Alawis and other quasi-Shiite groups) and other benefits to the Sunni and Christian establishment. These policies meant these groups had a vested interest in the continuation of the regime.

Bashar al-Assad continued this tradition when he came to power following his father’s death.

However, he also initiated liberalisation policies in the early years of his rule that emboldened a new genre of loyalist paramilitary forces. These were often headed by many of Syria’s newly minted business elite who, in large part, created armed groups to protect their economic fiefdoms. These pro-state militia groups tended to be less disciplined than the national army, and more corrupt.

In March 2011, the uprisings across the Middle East spilled over into Syria, leading to the first public protests in the country in decades. Determined to avoid Libya’s fate of external intervention, the Syrian regime quickly opened fire on unarmed protesters, killing many.

This was the start of Syria’s devastating 14-year civil war.

The emergence of Russian-led armed factions

The Russians joined the conflict in mid-2015. One of their conditions of entry into Syria: a single, traditionally structured military command for them to work with.

This necessitated various local militia groups, such as the National Defence Force and Kataeb al-Baath, being absorbed into the Syrian army through the establishment of a new Fourth Corps aligned with the Russians.

Due to the unruly behaviour of many of these militias, Russia later set up a Fifth Corps in an attempt to restructure the Syrian army around personnel who were both reliable and loyal to Moscow.

Then, reconciliation agreements between the regime, Russia and various rebel groups from 2016 to 2018 facilitated the integration of armed rebel groups into the Russian-led Fourth and Fifth Corps, as well as an Iranian-led division of the Syrian army. Under the terms of these reconciliation deals, men in rebel-held communities who had deserted or dodged their mandatory Syrian army conscription were expected to join within six months.

As Syrian researcher Abdullah al-Jabassini has explained, these agreements led to a precarious security situation in southern Syria.

The agreements aimed to end fighting and restore state control over rebel-held areas. However, many of the once-rebel factions who were now, on paper at least, linked to the Syrian army, Russia and Iran, continued to operate with relative freedom and impunity. This ran counter to the regime’s presumed strategy of re-consolidating its control over the country.

Many of these local armed groups continued to provide security to their communities, even erecting barriers at the entrances of each city to prevent the entry of the Syrian Army.

A former Syrian governor told me in an interview in 2022:

In Houran [southern Syria], generally, there is no regime control. It remains impossible for the regime to enter Busra al-Sham, Daraa City, Tafas and their surroundings, due to certain considerations or guarantees. But of course, there are no guarantees but their arms.

For the last few years, the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran seemed to have some ability to control these ex-rebel groups and militias that supposedly now operated under their purview.

However, this control was an illusion. In the past ten days, the regime’s forces have completely disintegrated in the face of the opposition’s offensive.

The army’s fractured levels of control and lack of resources, the dire economic sitution in the country (which resulted in soldiers not being paid), and the low morale and corruption at almost every level could not sustain a military – or a security state.

A state-in-waiting

For more than 50 years, Syria was a suffocating kingdom of silence. People had little ability to collaborate or negotiate in meaningful ways. This made forming any common vision for Syria’s political future a daunting undertaking.

Under Assad, Syria experts Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila Al-Shami have written that “the most cunning and sycophantic” prospered.

[…]there was no culture in the deep sense of the word, only a framework empty of meaning populated by hired intellectuals, with the exception of a very few real thinkers, who were marginalised.

But since the relative freezing of active combat in 2020, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian National Army (linked to the Syrian Interim Government and Turkey) and the Kurdish-led forces in northeastern Syria have had time to learn and consolidate.

They have spent the past few years training and preparing their armed forces. They have also developed complex systems of governance, capable of meeting the needs of millions of people.

Across northern Syria, these opposition groups and their political wings have set up a state-in-waiting, with ministries of economy, trade, education and humanitarian affairs. The groups also established their own civil and land registration systems, something normally considered the sole purview of recognised states.

It’s right to be wary and sceptical, particularly of HTS’s supposed transformation from al-Qaeda affiliate to national liberation movement that will represent all Syrians. However, the early signs are promising. The immediate release of prisoners from the Assad regime’s infamous prison system, for example, was a deeply symbolic move aimed at endearing rebel forces to the Syrian population.

When it liberated Aleppo, HTS fighters also secured banks to avoid looting. To build trust and boost morale among the local population, it diverted the electricity being funnelled to large factories to civilian residences.

The group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, now going by his legal name Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said he is willing to dissolve HTS in favour of creating a new structure that is more representative and capable of serving the current needs of all Syrians.

A new chapter is beginning for Syria, its people and the world. The Syrian regime, a cult of personality built on the Assads, has fallen, offering hope to other people in the Middle East and beyond who continue to live under authoritarian dictatorships that change is indeed possible.

May Syrians’ 2011 cry of “Dignity! Freedom! Bread!” continue to prevail.

Marika Sosnowski received funding from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and the Swedish Research Council to research Syria’s supposedly post-war landscape from 2020-2023.

– ref. Why Bashar al-Assad’s security state collapsed so dramatically in Syria – https://theconversation.com/why-bashar-al-assads-security-state-collapsed-so-dramatically-in-syria-245555

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

Anthony Albanese has announced an Australian Federal Police Special Operation Taskforce to combat antisemitism, after criticism from within and outside the Jewish community that the government has not done enough to deal with the escalating issue.

Following a meeting of cabinet’s national security committee, the prime minister faced the media on Monday afternoon flanked by Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw, the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, the Attorney- General, Mark Dreyfus, and the Immigration Minister, Tony Burke.

Earlier in the day, Friday’s attack on Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue was formally declared a “likely terrorist incident”. This upgrades the investigation to come under the Joint Counter-terrorism Team, which includes the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and ASIO.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton told a Melbourne news conference that while there had not been sufficient evidence on Friday to label the firebombing a terrorist incident, the investigation since had made “significant progress” and had reached the threshold.

The declaration of a terrorist attack was advised by a joint management committee meeting of federal and state police, and ASIO, on Monday morning. The upgrade means the tougher anti-terrorism laws apply, rather than the law covering arson. The anti-terrorism law includes the power of preventative detention.

Albanese, who will visit the Melbourne synagogue this week, said Special Operation Avalite was in response to the Friday attack, that followed the attack on Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns’ office in Melbourne and an incident in Sydney in which a car was set set on fire and other cars were vandalised with anti-Israeli graffiti.

Kershaw said: “Special Operation Avalite will be an agile and experienced squad of counter-terrorism investigators who will focus on threats, violence, and hatred towards the Australian Jewish community and parliamentarians.

“In essence, they will be a flying squad to deploy nationally to incidents.

“The Commonwealth offences Special Operation Avalite will investigate will include emerging violence, urging violence against members or groups, advocating terrorism, advocating genocide, using a carriage service to make a threat, and using a carriage service to menace or harass.”

While Patton refused to give details of the synagogue investigation, so as not to compromise it, he indicated the police were looking at three suspects.

Albanese and other politicians had already labelled the incident a terrorist attack, but to be officially declared one, it had to meet certain criteria.

AFP Deputy Commissioner for National Security Krissy Barrett told the Melbourne joint news conference the transition of the attack to come under the Victorian Joint Counter-terrorism team was a “crucial turning point in the investigation”.

“Joint counter-terrorism teams include the best terrorism investigators in the country, and a JCTT investigation unlocks more power, more capability, and more intelligence,” she said.

She said since the attack, the AFP, ASIO, and Victoria Police had been in regular contact, and this meant “that now it has been allocated to the Joint Counter-terrorism Team, we are already well-prepared, well-briefed, and well-progressed”.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan told the news conference her government would immediately seek advice on strengthening the state’s laws to protect people going to their place of worship.

Albanese seemed to brush off a question about whether there should be a national cabinet meeting on antisemitism. “What we want to do is to act. If people want to have a phone hook up, I’m very welcome for that to occur.”

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. Albanese announces antisemitism taskforce, as synagogue firebombing investigation upgraded – https://theconversation.com/albanese-announces-antisemitism-taskforce-as-synagogue-firebombing-investigation-upgraded-245564

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siân Halcrow, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Otago

Content warning: this story deals with infant loss and human remains acquired historically for use within museum contexts.

A collection of fetal and baby skeletal remains at the University of Otago’s W.D. Trotter Anatomy Museum shows how those on the margins of 19th and early 20th century New Zealand society contributed to medical knowledge – with or without the consent of their loved ones.

The museum is a repository for more than 2,000 anatomical models and “specimens”. It is largely unknown how many of these remains came to be part of the museum’s collection.

But our new analysis of the skeletal remains and associated historical records of babies in the collection from pre-birth to up to one year old show they were largely born to unmarried mothers or lower-class families.

The museum’s collection mirrors a global historical phenomenon where the bodies of society’s most vulnerable — such as infants, the poor, and the marginalised — were used for medical education.

The origins of anatomical collections

New Zealand’s 1875 Anatomy Act mirrored British laws that allowed the use of unclaimed bodies from public institutions, like hospitals and asylums, for anatomical study.

These laws disproportionately affected impoverished families. Hospitals were able to retain custody of the deceased when families lacked financial means for burial or an individual’s body lay “unclaimed”.

Our archival analysis focused on the University of Otago Register of Anatomical Material of body acquisitions from 1876-1941 and associated birth and death certificates.

We were looking for the remains of babies less than one year of age (the medical meaning of infant). We found skeletal remains ranging from five months in-utero up to three months of age.

The skeletal analyses found there were at least 32 infants, and a range of bones from individuals of different ages.

Seven of the 18 infants with records available were born to unmarried mothers, and many were from working class families.

Many of these babies were stigmatised as “illegitimate” and their mothers were often forced to birth in homes for the unmarried.

There is evidence for two dying from birth trauma, one including the possible use of forceps during birth. There is evidence for dissection on some individuals.

There are also four individuals with developmental anomalies whose remains may have been kept for dissection and education as examples of anatomical “oddities.”

Although the archival analysis of age and cause of death are similar to our skeletal analysis, we cannot determine which remains belong to specific individuals.

The structures keeping babies from families

It can be argued that structural violence – the harm inflicted by societal structures and institutions — played a central role in the lives of these mothers and infants. It is part of the reason they were included in the collection.

For example, this was a period when single mothers found themselves in charity-run homes where their children were more likely to be relinquished to medical institutions.

This coincided with a push for the development of anatomical collections by physicians who held significant power within the medical systems at the time.

The uneven power-balance between the mothers and those around them may have made it harder for the families to retain their babies’ remains.

Prioritising respect and consent

Today, the existence of such collections raises challenging ethical questions, and we acknowledge the sensitive nature of studying these remains.

How do we reconcile the scientific value of these remains with the history behind their acquisition? Can the study of these collections offer insights without perpetuating historical injustices?

At present the remains are carefully curated within the museum. These skeletal remains are invaluable for teaching in anatomy.

By doing this new research, we can better inform ourselves of the ethical challenges of teaching with these remains and inform students of when and how they were acquired.

The stark contrast between historical and modern ethical standards is evident in New Zealand’s Human Tissue Act 2008, which mandates explicit consent for the use of human remains.

As we navigate the legacy of these collections, it is important to contextualise them within their historical framework.

This requires acknowledging the social inequities that led to their creation and ensuring contemporary practices prioritise respect and consent.

This work is dedicated to the babies who died and were subsequently kept in the W.D. Trotter Museum.

Sian Halcrow receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

Megan Southorn received funding from a University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship and the Maurice and Phyllis Paykel Trust.

Stephie Rose Lončar 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. Forgotten histories: what fetal and baby remains in medical collections tell us about inequality – https://theconversation.com/forgotten-histories-what-fetal-and-baby-remains-in-medical-collections-tell-us-about-inequality-244931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide

Concern has been rising over the use of a feed supplement, Bovaer 10, to reduce methane production in cows.

Bovaer 10 consists of silicon dioxide (basically sand), propylene glycol (a food stabiliser approved by Food Safety Australia New Zealand) and the active compound 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP).

There has been an enormous amount of misinformation about the safety of 3-NOP, with some labelling milk from herds fed the additive as “Frankenmilk”. Others have been concerned it could make its way to humans via beef.

The bottom line is that 3-NOP is safe. Let’s unpack some of the major misunderstandings.

Why do we need to reduce methane production?

In our attempts to reduce global warming, most of the focus has been on CO₂ as a a major human-produced greenhouse gas. But methane is also a greenhouse gas, and although we produce less of it, it is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂.

Agriculture is the largest human-produced source of methane. As cattle herds expand to fuel our increasing desire for meat and milk, reducing methane production by cows is an important way to reduce greenhouse emissions.

There are several ways to do this. Stopping the bacteria in cows’ stomachs that generate methane from making methane is one approach.

The methane cows and sheep produce is not from the animals themselves, but from microbes that live in their digestive systems. 3-NOP stop the enzymes that do the final step of methane synthesis in these microbes.

3-NOP is not the only compound trialled as a feed additive. A seaweed-based Australian product, Rumin8, for example, is also under development. Saponins, soap-like chemical compounds found in plants, and essential oils have also been investigated.

However, 3-NOP is currently one of the most effective treatments.

But isn’t it a poison?

There is concern on social media about Bovaer “poisoning our food”.

But, as we say in toxicology, it’s the dose that makes the poison. Arsenic, for example, is lethal at 2–20 milligram per kilogram of body weight.

In contrast, 3-NOP was not lethal at the doses used in safety studies, up to 600 mg 3-NOP per kg of body weight. At 100 mg per kg of body weight in rats, it had no adverse effects.

What about reproductive issues?

The effect of 3-NOP on reproductive organs has caused a lot of comment.

Research in rats and cows found that doses of 300–500 mg per kg of body weight resulted in ovarian and testicular shrinkage.

To put that in perspective, to achieve the same exposure in humans, a 70 kg human would need to consume 21–35 grams (around 2 tablespoons) of pure 3-NOP a day every day for weeks on end to see this effect.

No human will be exposed to this amount as 3-NOP does not enter milk – it’s fully metabolised in the cow’s gut.

No cow will be exposed to these levels either.

What about cancer?

3-NOP is not genotoxic or mutagenic, meaning it can’t damage DNA. So 3-NOP’s effects are dose-limited, meaning small doses aren’t harmful while very high doses are (unlike radiation, where there is no safe dose).

At a dose of 300 mg per kg of body weight, researchers found benign tumours in the small intestines of female rats, but not male rats, after 2 years of daily consumption. At a 100 mg of 3-NOP per kg of body weight, no tumours were seen.

Cows are consuming less than 2 grams Bovaer 10 a day (of which only 10% or 0.2 grams, is 3-NOP). This is around 1,000 times less than the acceptable daily intake of 1 mg 3-NOP per kg of body weight a day for a 450 kg cow.

This level of intake will not result in tumours, or any of the other adverse effects.

So how much will humans be exposed to?

Consumers of milk and meat will be exposed to zero 3-NOP. 3-NOP does not get into milk or meat: it is completely metabolised in the cow’s gut.

Farmers might be exposed to a small amount handling the feed additive and industrial workers producing 3-NOP will be potentially exposed to more. Farmers and industrial workers already wear personal protective equipment to reduce exposure to other agricultural chemicals – and are recommended to do so with Bovear 10 as well.

How extensively has it been tested?

3-NOP has been developed over 15 years, subject to multiple reviews by the European Food Safety Authority, the United Kingdom’s Food Safety Authority and others.

It has been extensively tested over months of exposure to cattle with no adverse effects. Some studies actually say it improves milk and meat quality.

Bovaer has been approved for use in dairy cattle by the European Union since 2022 and in Japan in 2024. It is also used in many other countries, including in beef products in Australia.

Very little 3-NOP enters the environment (less than 0.2% of the ingested dose), it does not accumulate and is readily broken down so is not an environmental risk.

Since humans are not exposed to 3-NOP though milk and meat, long-term human exposure is not an issue.

What does Bill Gates have to do with it?

Bill Gates has invested in a different feed treatment for methane, the Australian seaweed based Rumin8. But he has nothing to do with Bovaer 10.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given research grants to the company that makes 3-NOP for malaria control research, not for 3-NOP.

The bottom line is that adding 3-NOP to animal feed poses no risk to consumers, animals or the environment.

Ian Musgrave has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to study adverse reactions to herbal medicines and has previously been funded by the Australian Research Council to study potential natural product treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

– ref. Bovaer is added to cow feed to reduce methane emissions. Does it get into milk and meat? And is it harmful for humans? – https://theconversation.com/bovaer-is-added-to-cow-feed-to-reduce-methane-emissions-does-it-get-into-milk-and-meat-and-is-it-harmful-for-humans-245364

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

Friday’s attack on Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue has been formally declared a “likely terrorist incident”. This upgrades the investigation to come under the Joint Counter-terrorism Team, which includes the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and ASIO.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton told a news conference that while there had not been sufficient evidence on Friday to label the firebombing a terrorist incident, the investigation since had made “significant progress” and had reached the threshold.

The declaration of a terrorist attack was advised by a joint management committee meeting of federal and state police, and ASIO, on Monday morning. The upgrade means the tougher, anti-terrorism laws apply, rather than the law covering arson. This anti-terrorism laws include the power of preventative detention.

While Patton refused to give details of the investigation so far, so as not to compromise it, he indicated the police were looking at three suspects.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other politicians had already labelled the incident a terrorist attack, but to be officially declared one, it had to meet certain criteria.

AFP Deputy Commissioner for National Security Krissy Barrett told the joint news conference the transition of the attack to come under the Victorian Joint Counter-terrorism team was a “crucial turning point in the investigation”.

“Joint counter-terrorism teams include the best terrorism investigators in the country, and a JCTT investigation unlocks more power, more capability, and more intelligence,” she said.

She said since the attack, the AFP, ASIO, and Victoria Police had been in regular contact, and this meant “that now it has been allocated to the Joint Counter-terrorism Team, we are already well-prepared, well-briefed, and well-progressed”.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan told the news conference her government would immediately seek advice on strengthening the state’s laws to protect people going to their place of worship.

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. Synagogue firebombing formally declared ‘terrorist’ incident and investigation upgraded – https://theconversation.com/synagogue-firebombing-formally-declared-terrorist-incident-and-investigation-upgraded-245564

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siân Halcrow, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Otago

Content warning: this story deals with infant loss and human remains acquired historically for use within museum contexts.

A collection of fetal and baby skeletal remains at the University of Otago’s W.D. Trotter Anatomy Museum shows how those on the margins of 19th and early 20th century New Zealand society contributed to medical knowledge – with or without the consent of their loved ones.

The museum is a repository for more than 2,000 anatomical models and “specimens”. It is largely unknown how many of these remains came to be part of the museum’s collection.

But our new analysis of the skeletal remains and associated historical records of babies in the collection from pre-birth to up to one year old show they were largely born to unmarried mothers or lower-class families.

The museum’s collection mirrors a global historical phenomenon where the bodies of society’s most vulnerable — such as infants, the poor, and the marginalised — were used for medical education.

The origins of anatomical collections

New Zealand’s 1875 Anatomy Act mirrored British laws that allowed the use of unclaimed bodies from public institutions, like hospitals and asylums, for anatomical study.

These laws disproportionately affected impoverished families. Hospitals were able to retain custody of the deceased when families lacked financial means for burial or an individual’s body lay “unclaimed”.

Our archival analysis focused on the University of Otago Register of Anatomical Material of body acquisitions from 1876-1941 and associated birth and death certificates.

We were looking for the remains of babies less than one year of age (the medical meaning of infant). We found skeletal remains ranging from five months in-utero up to three months of age.

The skeletal analyses found there were at least 32 infants, and a range of bones from individuals of different ages.

Seven of the 18 infants with records available were born to unmarried mothers, and many were from working class families.

Many of these babies were stigmatised as “illegitimate” and their mothers were often forced to birth in homes for the unmarried.

There is evidence for two dying from birth trauma, one including the possible use of forceps during birth. There is evidence for dissection on some individuals.

There are also four individuals with developmental anomalies whose remains may have been kept for dissection and education as examples of anatomical “oddities.”

Although the archival analysis of age and cause of death are similar to our skeletal analysis, we cannot determine which remains belong to specific individuals.

The structures keeping babies from families

It can be argued that structural violence – the harm inflicted by societal structures and institutions — played a central role in the lives of these mothers and infants. It is part of the reason they were included in the collection.

For example, this was a period when single mothers found themselves in charity-run homes where their children were more likely to be relinquished to medical institutions.

This coincided with a push for the development of anatomical collections by physicians who held significant power within the medical systems at the time.

The uneven power-balance between the mothers and those around them may have made it harder for the families to retain their babies’ remains.

Prioritising respect and consent

Today, the existence of such collections raises challenging ethical questions, and we acknowledge the sensitive nature of studying these remains.

How do we reconcile the scientific value of these remains with the history behind their acquisition? Can the study of these collections offer insights without perpetuating historical injustices?

At present the remains are carefully curated within the museum. These skeletal remains are invaluable for teaching in anatomy.

By doing this new research, we can better inform ourselves of the ethical challenges of teaching with these remains and inform students of when and how they were acquired.

The stark contrast between historical and modern ethical standards is evident in New Zealand’s Human Tissue Act 2008, which mandates explicit consent for the use of human remains.

As we navigate the legacy of these collections, it is important to contextualise them within their historical framework.

This requires acknowledging the social inequities that led to their creation and ensuring contemporary practices prioritise respect and consent.

This work is dedicated to the babies who died and were subsequently kept in the W.D. Trotter Museum.

Sian Halcrow receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

Megan Southorn received funding from a University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship and the Maurice and Phyllis Paykel Trust.

Stephie Rose Lončar 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. Forgotten histories: what fetal and baby remains tell us about inequality in medical collections – https://theconversation.com/forgotten-histories-what-fetal-and-baby-remains-tell-us-about-inequality-in-medical-collections-244931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University

Who could have predicted that after nearly 14 years of civil war and five years of stalemate, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria would collapse in just a week? With Assad’s departure, the pressing question now is what lies ahead for Syria’s immediate future.

When opposition fighters led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized the major city of Aleppo in late November with minimal resistance, commentators widely believed it marked the beginning of the Assad regime’s downfall. Many anticipated a bitter fight to the end.

Assad was caught off guard, and his forces were clearly unprepared. He withdrew his remaining troops from Aleppo to regroup and gain time for reinforcements to arrive from Russia and Iran, and hope the opposition fighters would stop there.

It wasn’t to be. Emboldened by their swift success in Aleppo, HTS fighters wasted no time and advanced on Hama, capturing it with ease. They quickly followed up by seizing Homs, the next major city to the south.

Russia provided limited air support to Assad. But Iran, having depleted its forces in Hezbollah’s defence against Israel in Lebanon, was unable to offer significant assistance and withdrew its remaining personnel from Syria. Meanwhile, Assad’s frantic calls for support from Iraq did not go anywhere.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the morale of Assad’s forces and leadership plummeted. Fearing retribution in the event of the regime’s collapse, defections began en masse, further accelerating Assad’s downfall.

And on the last day, Assad fled the country, and his prime minister officially handed over power to HTS and its leadership. It marked the end of 54 years of Assad family rule in Syria.

The Assad legacy

The Assad family, including Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, will likely be remembered by the majority of Syrians as brutal dictators.

The modern state of Syria was established in 1920 following the Sykes-Picot Agreement in the aftermath of the first world war. Syria became a League of Nations mandate under French control, only gaining independence in 1944. Following a tumultuous period, including a failed unification with Egypt, the Ba’ath Party seized control in 1963 through a coup that involved Hafez al-Assad.

In 1966, Hafez al-Assad led another coup alongside other officers from the Alawite minority. This ultimately resulted in a civilian regime, with Hafez al-Assad becoming president in 1970.

Hafez al-Assad established himself as an authoritarian dictator, concentrating power, the military and the economy in the hands of his relatives and the Alawite community. Meanwhile, the Sunni majority was largely marginalised and excluded from positions of power and influence.

Hafez al-Assad is most infamously remembered for his brutal suppression of the opposition in 1982. The uprising, led by the Islamic Front, saw the opposition capture the city of Hama. In response, the Syrian army razed the city, leaving an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 civilians dead or disappeared and decisively crushing the rebellion.

Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, and, the least likely candidate, his younger son, Bashar al-Assad, assumed the presidency. Having been educated in the West to become a doctor, Bashar al-Assad projected a moderate and modern image, raising hopes he might usher in a new era of progress and democracy in Syria.

However, Bashar al-Assad soon found himself navigating a turbulent regional landscape following the September 11 2001 terror attacks and the US invasion of Iraq. In 2004, after the United States imposed sanctions on Syria, Assad sought closer ties with Turkey. He and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became friends, removing visa requirements between their countries and making plans to establish economic zones to boost trade.

Erdoğan and Assad then had a falling out during a series of events in 2011, a year that marked a turning point for Syria. The Arab Spring revolts swept into the country, presenting Assad with a critical choice: to pursue a democratic path or crush the opposition as his father had done in 1982.

He chose the latter, missing a historic opportunity to peacefully transform Syria.

The consequences were catastrophic. A devastating civil war broke out, resulting in more than 300,000 deaths (some estimates are higher), 5.4 million refugees, and 6.9 million people internally displaced. This will be Assad’s legacy.

Syria’s immediate challenges

Syria now has a new force in power: HTS and its leadership, spearheaded by the militant leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. They will face immediate challenges and four key priorities:

1) Consolidating power. The new leadership will now try to ensure there are no armed groups capable of contesting their rule, particularly remnants of the old Assad regime and smaller factions that were not part of the opposition forces.

Critically, they will also need to discuss how power will be shared among the coalition of opposition groups. Al-Jolani is likely to become the founding president of the new Syria, but how the rest of the power will be distributed remains uncertain.

It seems the opposition was not prepared to take over the country so quickly, and they may not have a power-sharing agreement. This will need to be negotiated and worked out quickly.

The new government will likely recognise the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the territories it controls as an autonomous region within Syria. An independent Kurdish state, however, will be strongly opposed by Turkey, the main external backer of the opposition.

Yet, history seems to be moving in favour of the Kurds. There is now the eventual possibility of an independent Kurdish state, potentially combining northern Iraq and northeastern Syria into a single entity.

2) International recognition. Syria is a very complex and diverse place. As such, the new government can only be sustained if it gains international recognition.

The key players in this process are Turkey, the European Union, the United States and Israel (through the US). It is likely all of these entities will recognise the new government on the condition it forms a moderate administration, refrains from fighting the Kurdish YPG, and does not support Hezbollah or Hamas.

Given their unexpected success in toppling Assad so quickly, the opposition is likely to accept these conditions in exchange for aid and recognition.

3) Forming a new government. The question on everyone’s mind is what kind of political order the opposition forces will now establish. HTS and many of the groups in its coalition are Sunni Muslims, with HTS having origins linked to al-Qaeda. However, HTS broke away from the terror organisation in 2016 and shifted its focus exclusively to Syria as an opposition movement.

Nevertheless, we should not expect a democratic secular rule. The new government is also unlikely to resemble the ultra-conservative theocratic rule of the Taliban.

In his recent interview with CNN, al-Jolani made two key points. He indicated he and other leaders in the group have evolved in their outlook and Islamic understanding with age, suggesting the extreme views from their youth have moderated over time. He also emphasised the opposition would be tolerant of the freedoms and rights of religious and ethnic minority groups.

The specifics of how this will manifest remain unclear. The expectation is HTS will form a conservative government in which Islam plays a dominant role in shaping social policies and lawmaking.

On the economic and foreign policy fronts, the country’s new leaders are likely to be pragmatic, open to alliances with the regional and global powers that have supported them.

4) Rebuilding the country and maintaining unity. This is needed to prevent another civil war from erupting — this time among the winners.

A recent statement from HTS’s Political Affairs Department said the new Syria will focus on construction, progress and reconciliation. The new government aims to create positive conditions for displaced Syrians to return to their country, establish constructive relations with neighbouring countries and prioritise rebuilding the economy.

Syria and the broader Middle East have entered a new phase in their modern history. Time will tell how things will unfold, but one thing is certain: it will never be the same.

Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy.

– ref. After 5 decades of brutal rule under the Assads, Syria is at a crossroads. Here are 4 priorities to avoid yet another war – https://theconversation.com/after-5-decades-of-brutal-rule-under-the-assads-syria-is-at-a-crossroads-here-are-4-priorities-to-avoid-yet-another-war-245538

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University

Who could have predicted that after nearly 14 years of civil war and five years of stalemate, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria would collapse in just a week? With Assad’s departure, the pressing question now is what lies ahead for Syria’s immediate future.

When opposition fighters led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized the major city of Aleppo in late November with minimal resistance, commentators widely believed it marked the beginning of the Assad regime’s downfall. Many anticipated a bitter fight to the end.

Assad was caught off guard, and his forces were clearly unprepared. He withdrew his remaining troops from Aleppo to regroup and gain time for reinforcements to arrive from Russia and Iran, and hope the opposition fighters would stop there.

It wasn’t to be. Emboldened by their swift success in Aleppo, HTS fighters wasted no time and advanced on Hama, capturing it with ease. They quickly followed up by seizing Homs, the next major city to the south.

Russia provided limited air support to Assad. But Iran, having depleted its forces in Hezbollah’s defence against Israel in Lebanon, was unable to offer significant assistance and withdrew its remaining personnel from Syria. Meanwhile, Assad’s frantic calls for support from Iraq did not go anywhere.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the morale of Assad’s forces and leadership plummeted. Fearing retribution in the event of the regime’s collapse, defections began en masse, further accelerating Assad’s downfall.

And on the last day, Assad fled the country, and his prime minister officially handed over power to HTS and its leadership. It marked the end of 55 years of Assad family rule in Syria.

The Assad legacy

The Assad family, including Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, will likely be remembered by the majority of Syrians as brutal dictators.

The modern state of Syria was established in 1920 following the Sykes-Picot Agreement in the aftermath of the first world war. Syria became a League of Nations mandate under French control, only gaining independence in 1944. Following a tumultuous period, including a failed unification with Egypt, the Ba’ath Party seized control in 1963 through a coup that involved Hafez al-Assad.

In 1966, Hafez al-Assad led another coup alongside other officers from the Alawite minority. This ultimately resulted in a civilian regime, with Hafez al-Assad becoming president in 1970.

Hafez al-Assad established himself as an authoritarian dictator, concentrating power, the military and the economy in the hands of his relatives and the Alawite community. Meanwhile, the Sunni majority was largely marginalised and excluded from positions of power and influence.

Hafez al-Assad is most infamously remembered for his brutal suppression of the opposition in 1982. The uprising, led by the Islamic Front, saw the opposition capture the city of Hama. In response, the Syrian army razed the city, leaving an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 civilians dead or disappeared and decisively crushing the rebellion.

Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, and, the least likely candidate, his younger son, Bashar al-Assad, assumed the presidency. Having been educated in the West to become a doctor, Bashar al-Assad projected a moderate and modern image, raising hopes he might usher in a new era of progress and democracy in Syria.

However, Bashar al-Assad soon found himself navigating a turbulent regional landscape following the September 11 2001 terror attacks and the US invasion of Iraq. In 2004, after the United States imposed sanctions on Syria, Assad sought closer ties with Turkey. He and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became friends, removing visa requirements between their countries and making plans to establish economic zones to boost trade.

Erdoğan and Assad then had a falling out during a series of events in 2011, a year that marked a turning point for Syria. The Arab Spring revolts swept into the country, presenting Assad with a critical choice: to pursue a democratic path or crush the opposition as his father had done in 1982.

He chose the latter, missing a historic opportunity to peacefully transform Syria.

The consequences were catastrophic. A devastating civil war broke out, resulting in more than 300,000 deaths (some estimates are higher), 5.4 million refugees, and 6.9 million people internally displaced. This will be Assad’s legacy.

Syria’s immediate challenges

Syria now has a new force in power: HTS and its leadership, spearheaded by the militant leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. They will face immediate challenges and four key priorities:

1) Consolidating power. The new leadership will now try to ensure there are no armed groups capable of contesting their rule, particularly remnants of the old Assad regime and smaller factions that were not part of the opposition forces.

Critically, they will also need to discuss how power will be shared among the coalition of opposition groups. Al-Jolani is likely to become the founding president of the new Syria, but how the rest of the power will be distributed remains uncertain.

It seems the opposition was not prepared to take over the country so quickly, and they may not have a power-sharing agreement. This will need to be negotiated and worked out quickly.

The new government will likely recognise the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the territories it controls as an autonomous region within Syria. An independent Kurdish state, however, will be strongly opposed by Turkey, the main external backer of the opposition.

Yet, history seems to be moving in favour of the Kurds. There is now the eventual possibility of an independent Kurdish state, potentially combining northern Iraq and northeastern Syria into a single entity.

2) International recognition. Syria is a very complex and diverse place. As such, the new government can only be sustained if it gains international recognition.

The key players in this process are Turkey, the European Union, the United States and Israel (through the US). It is likely all of these entities will recognise the new government on the condition it forms a moderate administration, refrains from fighting the Kurdish YPG, and does not support Hezbollah or Hamas.

Given their unexpected success in toppling Assad so quickly, the opposition is likely to accept these conditions in exchange for aid and recognition.

3) Forming a new government. The question on everyone’s mind is what kind of political order the opposition forces will now establish. HTS and many of the groups in its coalition are Sunni Muslims, with HTS having origins linked to al-Qaeda. However, HTS broke away from the terror organisation in 2016 and shifted its focus exclusively to Syria as an opposition movement.

Nevertheless, we should not expect a democratic secular rule. The new government is also unlikely to resemble the ultra-conservative theocratic rule of the Taliban.

In his recent interview with CNN, al-Jolani made two key points. He indicated he and other leaders in the group have evolved in their outlook and Islamic understanding with age, suggesting the extreme views from their youth have moderated over time. He also emphasised the opposition would be tolerant of the freedoms and rights of religious and ethnic minority groups.

The specifics of how this will manifest remain unclear. The expectation is HTS will form a conservative government in which Islam plays a dominant role in shaping social policies and lawmaking.

On the economic and foreign policy fronts, the country’s new leaders are likely to be pragmatic, open to alliances with the regional and global powers that have supported them.

4) Rebuilding the country and maintaining unity. This is needed to prevent another civil war from erupting — this time among the winners.

A recent statement from HTS’s Political Affairs Department said the new Syria will focus on construction, progress and reconciliation. The new government aims to create positive conditions for displaced Syrians to return to their country, establish constructive relations with neighbouring countries and prioritise rebuilding the economy.

Syria and the broader Middle East have entered a new phase in their modern history. Time will tell how things will unfold, but one thing is certain: it will never be the same.

Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy.

– ref. After 55 years of brutal rule under the Assads, Syria is at a crossroads. Here are 4 priorities to avoid yet another war – https://theconversation.com/after-55-years-of-brutal-rule-under-the-assads-syria-is-at-a-crossroads-here-are-4-priorities-to-avoid-yet-another-war-245538