Asia Pacific Report

Palestine protesters in Aotearoa New Zealand celebrated an unprecedented 150 weeks of continuous rallies in the heart of Auckland today and were told by a human rights advocate they were the “rainbow people — offering hope”.

Kathy Voyles, who describes herself as a global citizen dividing her time between New Zealand and The Netherlands, said Gaza was “standing at a knife’s edge” and sometimes hope seemed far away.

“And then I remember the late, great Susi Newborn, who said, ‘You can’t sink a rainbow.’

• READ MORE: Resident in Israeli-besieged Qusra home in Palestine says food and water running low
• Other Gaza protest reports

“We are that rainbow people. We are that hope.”

She warned that the Israeli leaders would face justice for their horrendous crimes and atrocities, and spoke of a former head of state who had eventually paid a price.

“I will never forget that day in June 2001 when the former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, who was responsible for so many deaths in the former Yugoslavia who came to The Hague to be put in prison.”

Voyles remembered so many people who had worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

“The ICC, ICTY and other tribunals have tried 200 people from all around the world. The Serbian government got him to The Hague despite his followers objecting.”

Breached Genocide Convention
Milosevic died of a heart attack in 2006 before the genocide trial could conclude, but the ICC separately found him guilty of breaching the Genocide Convention.

Another former leader, ex-Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, is currently in The Hague awaiting trial for crimes against humanity or murder and attempted murder over mass killings during the eight-year so-called “war on drugs”.

The ICC also wants Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on arrest warrants for the alleged war crimes of starvation, and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

“Now we know that Israel and the US are doing their best to close down the ICC — and that must not happen,” said Voyles.

“They are doing that because they are scared.

“One thing that I did learn while working in that field in The Hague is that national governments hate to be shamed and embarrassed, no matter how strong they think they are.

“We have signed up to various [human rights] conventions even though our government is doing its best to forget that.

“So let’s keep reminding them.”

Message of hope
Voyles reminded the protesters of her initial message today of hope.

“So I say there is hope. And for our own mental health we must continue to do what we do.

“Every week until there is a rainbow and hope for the people left in Gaza and the Occupied Territories, for Sudan, for the Congo, for Yemen, for West Papua, for the people of Myanmar and so many others.

“We cannot forget them ever.”

One way of taking action was to get everyone enrolled to vote in New Zealand and “then we change this inept government”.

“Out with Chris Luxon, Winston Peters and David Seymour. We want leaders who are us, not the I.”

Honour to speak
Voyles said it was an honour to speak for the people of Palestine – Gaza and the Occupied Territories. At least 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the genocide and more than 1200 people since the so-called “ceasefire” declared in October 2025.

She challenged the crowd to keep “endlessly, ceaselessly talking, tweeting and emailing about it.”

The kaikōrero for the rally in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square, Lamees Elthiny, paid tribute to the crowd for their resilient 150 weeks of protest.

Everyone had been “fighting the battle of Palestine in their own way”, she said.

“Everyone is standing for humanity, but doing it differently. And we decided to keep coming over and over again here to Britomart and our voices will be heard until Palestine is free.”

Adnan Swaid, a Nakba victim, son of Palestinian refugee parents and freedom activist who had lived for 50 years as a stateless human being, spoke of Israel’s ever-growing Zionist crimes.

“Since the establishment of the Zionist idea in the 18th century, the Zionist lying machine was established as well for producing and spreading of Zionist lies,” he said.

Compelling poems
Jacqueline “Jax” Taylor of the Stand With Palestine Waiheke community group recited two compelling poems.

“All the world’s best poets have a little drinkie to help when the words won’t flow,” she said introducing one of her poems that she had compiled in dedication to the ‘150 Weeks’!”

Ihumatao and Rocket Lab protester Brendan Corbett praised a Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa-backed lawsuit that was filed in the High Court at Wellington this week seeking a judicial review of the New Zealand government approval for the launching of BlackRock spy satellites that are alleged to be complicit with the Gaza genocide.

“The lawsuit is charging that our Ministers of Space, Judith Collins, and the latest one, Chris Penk, and now Paul Goldsmith, who is yet to be selected, but he has got the job,” Corbett said.

“These people had signed a launch certificate to allow Rocket Lab to launch BlackSky satellites that have a contract to act with the IDF to target across Israel, across Palestine.

“The research after months and months has resulted in the lawyers being super confident that they can get a conviction — so well done to these lawyers.”

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/15/palestine-protesters-told-they-are-rainbow-people-of-hope-after-150-weeks-of-gaza-protest/

Special Corespondent

Maritime intelligence firm Kpler counted 13 vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday.

The number is small. But the number is not the story.

The story is that nine of those 13 took the Iranian-approved route. The route American warned ships against using.

• READ MORE: Trump says he will declare Hormuz US territory ‘pretty soon’
• Other war on Iran reports

Now the question is: Trump says the strait is “under our control”. So whose instructions are the ships following?

The answer is in the arithmetic. Sixty-nine percent of them ignored the American warning and entered Iran’s lane.

That is not a statement. Not a claim. That is a vote.

And the vote was cast by people with hundreds of millions of dollars floating on that water.

Plain language
CNN put it in plainer language. They wrote that the figure does not reflect Trump’s repeated insistence this week that the strait is “open” and under American control.

But today’s article will not only be about counting ships. Because Iran has done something on paper as well, and it has barely been discussed.

In May, Iran created an institution — the Persian Gulf Strait Authority.

According to a report by the US Congressional Research Service, Iran declared that no vessel may pass through the Strait of Hormuz without a valid passage permit issued by this authority.

Notice what that is. It is not a threat. It is administration.

A threat can stop a ship, but build a permit system and you never need to stop one. The ship comes to you and asks for permission.

And this is where Iran’s strategy becomes visible. Early in the war, Iran attacked vessels. That was a display of strength, but it carried a cost — every attack drained away the world’s sympathy.

A legal face
Now Iran attacks less and sells permits instead. Same result, but the face of it is legal.

There is one more line in the CRS report, and it is the foundation of this strategy. Iranian leaders claim it was the June memorandum of understanding that granted them the right to administer shipping through this strait.

Which is Iran saying:”We did not seize this power. You signed it over to us on paper.”

And what Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on June 23 is now coming true. He said “management of the strait will never return to the way it was before the war”.

But, yes, there is a big “but” here. And it would be unjust not to say it.

That same CRS report notes that Iran’s claim runs counter to geographic reality, because the Strait of Hormuz comprises the territorial waters of both Iran and Oman.

Which means Iran is not legally the sole owner of this strait. On paper, Iran’s claim is weak.

Iran’s lane followed
But paper and water are not the same thing. Whatever the law says, on Thursday nine ships followed Iran’s lane.

Now to America’s answer.

On Friday, the US Treasury issued new sanctions. The targets were Iran’s Shahr Bank, along with individuals, exchange houses and companies spread across several countries, accused of helping Iran move hundreds of millions of dollars clandestinely.

The Treasury said itself that this was its eighth set of sanctions in 2026 against Iran’s alleged shadow-banking system.

Eighth. Eight times in one year.

Now the question is: if seven did not work, why would the eighth?

That is the problem with sanctions. The first one lands a blow. The second raises the pressure. But what does the eighth do?

The eighth only announces that the previous seven did not work.

The new normal
And the strangest thing of all is the oil price. CNN reported that despite no sign of the war ending, and despite traffic through the strait staying low, oil prices are falling.

So you can see for yourselves. The market is no longer listening to war news. The market has decided this is the new normal.

And once something becomes “normal”, the urgency to change it fades.

Meanwhile, on Thursday evening, Abu Dhabi’s state oil company ADNOC said two of its vessels were attacked while transiting Hormuz. No injuries.

Who attacked them? ADNOC did not say. No group claimed responsibility.

Since the war began, 15 ADNOC vessels have been attacked in total. One crew member killed, 20 injured.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is an American ally. And the ally’s ships are burning every week.

Now a word on something that touches South Asian countries too.

Floating Iranian oil
Early in this war, America adopted a tactic — temporarily lifting sanctions on roughly 140 million barrels of Iranian oil already floating at sea, so that supply would rise and prices would fall.

America’s Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, told Fox News at the time that this oil had previously gone mainly to China. Now it could go elsewhere. He named the places — such as India, Bangladesh or elsewhere

He added that sanctions on the banks would remain in place, so Iran would not see a cent of that money.

Think about what that means. Iran’s oil gets sold, South Asian countries get to buy it, and Iran does not get the money.

Developing countries are offered cheap oil as bait while Iran’s own asset is released onto the market, and the proceeds stay locked inside the American banking system.

That is not trade. That is imperial accounting.

Here I will not quote anyone else. I will give you my own opinion.

Paper ‘control’ v ships moving
The shape of this war is becoming clear now. Everything Trump is doing is on paper. Sanctions, Truth Social posts, declarations of “total control”.

Everything Iran is doing is on the water. Which route, whose permission, which ship and when.

In March, Trump called on China, France, Japan, South Korea and Britain to send ships, “let us open the strait together”. Nobody answered.

Five months on, America has drawn a route through that same strait, and the ships are avoiding it and choosing Iran’s.

Control written on paper, or ships moving on water — which of the two is real power?

Let me finish with the number I started with.

Thirteen ships. Nine on Iran’s route.

Trump says the strait is ours. The ships’ captains are saying something else.

And at sea, the captain has the last word.

Republished from Iran International under Creative Commons.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/15/strait-of-hormuz-its-not-just-the-numbers-its-the-ships-vote-and-thats-for-iran/

As the Ukraine war approaches its four-and-a-half year milestone, the sustainability of the coalition of support for Kyiv has once again become a key question on the minds of Europeans.

YouGov data from February 2026 shows considerable variation among Europeans in support for maintaining the war effort. Support for a negotiated peace has overtaken that for holding out for Russian withdrawal in France, Germany and Spain. Ukraine has also become a key political issue in Italy ahead of elections in 2027.

Larger parties, such as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and the centre-left Democratic party, have maintained their support for Ukraine. But smaller parties both on the left and right, including the Five Star Movement and Lega Nord, are showing little appetite for continuing military aid.

How can we assess how much strain the coalition of western democracies supporting Ukraine is really under? After all, we have seemingly been here several times before. We believe the key is understanding the sources of “war fatigue” and the willingness and ability of parties to capitalise on it.

War fatigue

One the many unfair aspects of the war is the contrast between the autocratic Russian regime, which is able to mobilise societal resources rapidly and impose its will on its own citizens, and the coalition supporting Ukraine.

Maintaining this disparate coalition requires constant maintenance of the relationship with other coalition partners and with domestic electorates to ensure continued support is forthcoming and to prevent the defection of partners.

However, citizen support is not something that can be taken for granted. As conflicts become drawn out, this support can increasingly come to waver.

War fatigue isn’t just a question of the longevity of a conflict. It is also a question of the costs imposed upon citizens and their cumulative impact over time. Fighting wars implies trade-offs between public and military spending, which citizens may not be willing to tolerate over the long term.

Vladimir Putin’s weaponisation of the energy supply to Europe, by periodically tightening the flow of natural gas, reflects a keen awareness on the Russian president’s part of this dynamic. His bet seems to be that Russian resolve can outlast that of the Europeans.

War fatigue also depends on the perception of success. Citizens will be far more willing to support the cause if they think there is a high likelihood of victory. They will be less willing to back initiatives where there will be no return.

The first wobbles in the coalition, in late 2023, reflected these dynamics. They coincided with rising energy prices across Europe and the faltering of Ukraine’s strategic position as promised funds were tied up in the US Senate.

Translating citizens’ dissent into a direct challenge to the war effort depends on the supply of political opposition. And whether owing to deals and agreements between political leaders, ideological predisposition or a sense of responsibility, almost all mainstream parties in Europe continue to support the coalition.

Data from a December 2025 EU-VALUES survey, which asked experts to rate observations of fatigue for Ukraine support on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very frequently), highlights a significant divide between perceptions of elite and public fatigue across Europe.

Citizens seem to have become sceptical of supporting Ukraine. But this view does not appear to be shared by European political elites, who largely continue to support the policy.

Perceived war fatigue in EU member states

So far, political opposition to supporting Ukraine has tended to come from radical parties on the far right and far left, such as the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany and Podemos in Spain.

But the overall picture among radical right parties on supporting Ukraine is mixed. There is similar equivocation among radical left parties. Parties such as Die Linke on the left in Germany and the National Rally on the right in France are deeply divided on the issue.

The efficacy of the challenge these parties present is also unclear. On the one hand, spoilers such as former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and current Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico have proved highly disruptive. They have been accused of holding EU sanctions packages on Russia hostage.

On the other hand, radical right parties have often remained out of government and where they have come close to power – as with Geert Wilders in the Netherlands – would-be coalition partners have extracted clear commitments not to pull support from Kyiv.

The election of Donald Trump as US president in November 2024 complicated this picture. Trump’s arrival and subsequent freezing of aid raised the costs of supporting Ukraine for European governments, made Ukrainian victory appear less likely and gave succour to the radical right.

But his attacks on European trade and security interests placed radical right parties in an awkward position and made a pro-Trump worldview more difficult to sell at home.

Shifting battlefield momentum

Recent evidence has suggested the battlefield momentum is shifting in Ukraine’s favour. Ukrainian strikes on the Russian energy grid and logistics centres, for example, have been well publicised.

In a meeting with Trump on July 28, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, also seemingly convinced his US counterpart of his ability to win the war. The meeting took place shortly before the Senate voted to approve new sanctions on countries purchasing Russian oil.

Such momentum may help to quell dissent among citizens and galvanise western support insofar as it suggests a speedier end to the conflict on terms that would vindicate the actions of coalition members.

It is too early to tell how these events will play out. But any reversal of Kyiv’s fortunes bodes well for the ability of western and European leaders to keep their citizens on board with the task of defending Ukraine.

Benjamin Martill has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 962533. He is affiliated with Chatham House and the Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations.

Adam Holesch is the project manager of the EU-VALUES network. The EU-VALUES expert survey, the results of which are presented in this article, was conducted within the framework of the EU Research and Education Network on Foreign Policy Issues: Values and Democracy (EU-VALUES), co-funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101127854.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/european-war-fatigue-may-be-growing-but-ukraines-recent-momentum-could-buy-time/

Across Europe, running a home – whether you need to keep it cool in the summer or heat it during winter – usually means burning imported gas. That wastes energy and creates carbon emissions, contributing to climate change. The European Commission’s new electrification action plan aims to end that era, mapping out a drive to double electricity’s energy share from 23% to 46% by 2040.

“I have always looked forward to the day that our energy system is based on electrons, not molecules,” said Vangelis Tzimas, who heads an energy policy unit at the European Commission’s science service, in response to this news.

Electrons, not molecules. It sounds abstract, but for homes, it is the difference between a house that burns something and a house that doesn’t.

Buildings consume 40% of all the energy Europe uses, most of it for heating with gas boilers, so this is where this shift will succeed or fail. I measure energy performance as part of my work, through sensors in Irish social housing, and the data points to four reasons why electricity is superior to gas.

The most persuasive one is efficiency. A gas boiler burns fuel and gives you, at best, one unit of heat per unit of gas. A heat pump delivers three to four units of heat per unit of electricity.

A heat pump, essentially a fridge running in reverse, gathers warmth from the outside air and keeps working even in freezing weather. Run it the other way and it cools your home too, which matters more with every record summer.

So why doesn’t every house already have a heat pump? It’s expensive to buy one, and even to run it. Before government grants, installing a heat pump costs around £10,000 in the UK and close to €30,000 (£26,000) in Germany. In contrast, a new gas boiler will only set you back roughly £2,500.

This massive price gap isn’t about the technology. Steep labour costs, high VAT, and a shortage of installers mean the same machine costs twice as much across borders.

These upfront costs are being tackled through subsidies and low-interest loans. In the UK, the government introduced a clean heat market mechanism to try and increase competition and drive down prices of heat pumps by 2027. To fund the transition in the EU, the European Investment Bank is spending €75 billion on grids, storage and heat pump manufacturing.

Upfront bills form half a heat pump’s lifetime expense, but running costs are the real hurdle. Because EU electricity costs three times more than gas, a heat pump’s impressive efficiency is entirely cancelled out at the meter. In the UK, where electricity is 4.3 times more expensive, this greener technology actually costs more to run.

This difference between electricity and gas prices, called the “spark gap”, is partly because taxes are significantly higher for electricity than gas. The European Commission is finally imposing a legal obligation on EU governments to tackle this pricing accident. They are being asked to shrink the gap by 2030 to no more than 2.5 for households, by reducing the tax for electricity; allowing VAT cuts on heat pumps, electric cars and home batteries; and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies after 2030.

Britain has started to close the price gap too. The 2025 autumn budget shifted most green levies off electricity bills and into general taxation, which trimmed the ratio to around 4.3 from 4.7 in April 2026.

These strategies are the right way forward, because countries where the gap is smallest already sell around three times as many heat pumps as those where it is widest.

If the spark gap falls to 2.5, to match a 90% efficient gas boiler, a heat pump needs to generate 2.25kW of heat per kilowatt of power. UK data shows every unit tested beat that benchmark, meaning owners should save money in the long run. Once the spark gap is reduced, the heat pump will become a cheaper way to cool or warm a house.

The European Commission electrification plan puts emphasis on heat pump installations that allow heat-recovery ventilation. These can capture up to 90% of the warmth from outgoing stale air and transfer it to incoming fresh air — meaning heat you already paid for gets reused. The aim is to nearly double heat pump installations that allow heat recovery from 2.4 million a year in 2025 to 4 million by 2030.

The second reason why electricity wins is your home’s carbon footprint. Every time you burn gas, CO₂ exits the flue. An electric home burns nothing. Its emissions depend on how the electricity was made, which is improving every year: around 70% of Europe’s electricity already comes from home-grown clean sources.

That phrase “home-grown” is the third reason, and the one that finally motivated European politicians to commit to change. Molecules must come from somewhere, and for Europe that mostly means abroad; anyone who watched their bills after the 2022-23 gas crisis knows how much that dependence costs.

Electrons can be made at home, from our own wind, sun and water. The European Commission estimates that its plan could cut gas imports by more than 70% and shave up to €260 billion a year off Europe’s fossil fuel import bill by 2040. After which, the prices can be set by the EU’s own investment decisions, not by wars on the other side of the world.

Everything must work together

The final reason is the benefits from energy-efficient homes. It is now four years that I have been monitoring Irish social housing – a mix of new apartments and older dwellings that had a deep energy retrofit (a comprehensive, whole-building upgrade to radically improve energy efficiency).

My sensors record their electricity consumption, indoor temperature, humidity and air quality around the clock. The data shows that homes are more energy-efficient when different measures complement each other: insulation and the fixing of drafty air leaks, correctly sized heat pumps that suit the space, ventilation that keeps air fresh without throwing warmth away.

But even the best kit only goes so far. How we set the thermostat, use appliances, and time our energy use during lower cost off-peak windows matters just as much as hardware efficiency. Occupant behaviour alone can cause heating energy use to vary threefold. This means that our daily choices can result in savings that almost match major technical upgrades (albeit delaying dinner and bath times isn’t a reality for families with young children).

Smart meters make those choices visible. Home energy monitoring apps make it easier for households to shift power-hungry chores to off-peak hours. Add rooftop solar into the mix, and buildings transform from passive energy consumers into localised mini power stations. According to European Commission scientists, rooftop solar on Europe’s 271 million buildings could meet 40% of the continent’s long-term electricity needs.

That is the quiet promise inside “electrons, not molecules”. It’s a system that’s immune to gas shocks that can continue cooling you through heatwaves. Europe has simply decided to make it everyone’s normal.

Lala Rukh receives funding from Research Ireland for the ERBE Centre for Doctoral Training under grant agreement No 18/EPSRC-CDT/3586. She is affiliated with the University of Galway, Ireland and MaREI, the Research Ireland Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine research and innovation.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/four-reasons-why-fully-electric-homes-can-be-affordable-and-efficient/

Five years on from seizing power in Kabul on August 15 2021 and consolidating its hold through the whole of Afghanistan, the Taliban claims to have ended the country’s decades-long war and achieved security.

International troops have withdrawn and the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has collapsed. Daily security incidents, such as suicide attacks and roadside bombs that were mostly carried out by the Taliban in their two-decades-long insurgency, have since decreased. Conflict indicators such as those gathered by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) – a widely used metric for assessing whether a country is at war based on conflict-related civilian casualties – suggest that Afghanistan has been at peace since 2022.

Officials of the Islamic Emirate (IE) of Afghanistan, the name chosen by the Taliban for the cuntry’s government, regularly refer to improvements in security conditions as part of their image projection. A June 2025 statement on the webpage of the Arg – the presidential palace – by IE spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, rejected a UN report on ongoing security risks from Afghanistan and claimed that the country is at peace for the first time in decades.

But it is difficult to verify the security conditions under the IE’s rule under the regime’s tight control on information. Legitimate doubts can also be raised about the regime’s interpretation of security.

War-related casualties have indeed dropped. But the generalised intimidation and fear that afflicts Afghanistan seriously undermines the IE claims regarding security achievements.

The severe repression particularly affects the mental and physical security of Afghan women and girls, who make up more than half of the population. Around 2.2 million girls are currently excluded from secondary school. Women have also been progressively pushed out of public life.

The IE has issued more than 100 decrees that violate the fundamental rights of women and girls. The UN has assessed that a state of gender apartheid now exists.

Based on a report by the UN’s rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennet, successive decrees have intensified and expanded discrimination against women and girls. The report highlights the wide-ranging restrictions on civic space and violations against ethnic and religious groups. It also reports an alarming increase of corporal punishment under the IE’s rule.

In one of its first acts after seizing power in August 2021, the IE reestablished the Ministry of the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The ministry was notorious for its violent and arbitrary methods in prosecuting what it considered un-Islamic behaviour during the Taliban regime of the mid-1990s. It has issued a series of draconian laws which have re-established a climate of fear among Afghans in recent years, according to the UN.

Independent reports have also documented systematic persecution of former government officials, despite the regime’s granting of a general amnesty.

Meanwhile, recent border clashes between the IE and neighbouring Pakistan belie the IE’s claim of having restored total security. The IE is accused by Pakistan of hosting members of the Pakistani extremist group Tehrek-I Taliban (TTP) that has increased its attacks in Pakistan in recent years.

Pakistani attacks on targets in Afghanistan, including aerial bombardments, have led to many casualties. A Pakistani attack on what it said was “military and terrorist infrastructure”, but what was actually a rehab centre in Kabul, killed 269 people.

In a sign that Iran might also be growing impatient with the IE, the Islamic Republic invited opposition figure, Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), to attend the funeral of Iran’s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli bombardment on February 28.

While the NRF operates primarily as a small-scale armed opposition, Massoud remains a prominent political figure for some key Afghan constituencies. By hosting Massoud alongside an official Taliban delegation, Iran reiterated regional preferences for a negotiated political settlement involving a cross-section of Afghan interests rather than recognising the Taliban’s territorial dominance as a full and consolidated peace.

The relative security in today’s Afghanistan is due to the main perpetrator, the Taliban, ceasing its violence after gaining political power – hardly a notable success.

Coercive order

The regime’s officials have also highlighted achievements in other areas, such as revenue collection. Recent reporting by the World Bank shows a 6% year-on-year increase in revenue collection in 2026. However, the level of domestic revenues in Afghanistan remains generally low.

And even if it were possible to cast revenue collection in a positive light, the regime’s fiscal policy remains opaque because it does not report how it allocates the revenues it collects. Merely collecting money from ordinary people under coercion does not constitute proper governance.

Afghanistan’s people continue to rely on foreign aid to receive basic public services such as healthcare. Drastic reductions in assistance pose a serious challenge to efforts to address the intensifying humanitarian disaster affecting ordinary Afghans under the IE’s rule.

The stability of Afghanistan’s currency, the Afghani, has also been hailed by the regime as a success story. It was feared that the Afghani’s exchange rate would undergo sharp devaluation due to exposure to domestic and external shocks after the collapse of the former republic and the freezing of Afghanistan’s reserves. But this didn’t happen. Much of the currency’s stability can be attributed to the continued inflow of billions in aid, which has been instrumental in supporting the Afghani’s exchange rate.

Dependence on foreign aid has been the single most important economic story in Afghanistan over the past five years.

The Taliban’s record should therefore neither be dismissed nor accepted at face value. Its achievements show that it has become remarkably capable of imposing coercive order. Five years on, the harder question is what kind of order it has created, who gets to participate in it, and what Afghanistan is being asked to sacrifice to sustain it.

Kaweh Kerami receives funding from UKRI-ESRC (Grant Ref: UKRI2528) for his postdoctoral research hosted at Durham University. For full project details, visit: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=UKRI2528

Kambaiz Rafi 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/taliban-claims-five-years-of-peace-in-afghanistan-but-women-and-girls-face-oppression/

In Colorado, a full-time worker must earn US$36.44 an hour to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30% of their income on rent, according to a recent report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The state’s minimum wage is $15.16. Someone earning that would have to work 96 hours a week, more than two full-time jobs, to cover rent.

The report ranks Colorado as the 12th-least-affordable state in the country for renters.

In July 2026, Congress offered state and local leaders a new set of tools to expand housing supply when it passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the most significant federal housing legislation in decades. It authorizes relatively little new spending. Instead it offers competitive grants and technical assistance to state and local governments that ease the local rules that slow housing construction and raise its cost, and it loosens federal restrictions on how existing housing dollars can be spent.

I direct the Center for Housing Research and Innovative Solutions at the University of Denver, where we study how Colorado and states across the Mountain West can expand housing supply and lower housing costs. Before that, I led the Office of Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which evaluates proposed housing legislation, during the years when many of the ideas behind this new law were being developed and debated.

Housing costs are now central to Colorado politics. In a statewide poll in spring 2026, voters were more likely to call the cost of housing “a very big problem” than any other cost they were asked about. Whoever wins the governor’s race in November will inherit that problem along with a new federal law that could help address it. They will also take office just as federal agencies begin writing the rules that determine how much the law actually delivers and what states get out of it.

What the new law offers Colorado

Much of the federal act rewards changes that Colorado has already spent several years making. One provision authorizes competitive grants for local governments that revise parking mandates and minimum lot sizes or streamline permitting and environmental review for new construction. A 2024 Colorado state law eliminated parking requirements near transit, and Denver has since dropped them entirely.

Colorado also legalized accessory dwelling units statewide in 2024, letting homeowners build small backyard or garage apartments without needing a special hearing or approval. What that law could not supply was money. The federal act now lets Federal Housing Administration home improvement loans finance these units, pairing permission the state already granted with financing that has been hard to find.

The same pattern appears in construction rules. Colorado is one of four states that have legalized single-stair apartment buildings, a design that allows small apartment buildings to be served by one stairwell rather than the two that American building codes have long required, freeing up floor space and making it possible to build apartments on narrow lots. The new law directs federal officials to issue guidance for these buildings and authorizes grants to test their safety and cost.

Financing rules are shifting too. Banks are the main investors in the federal low-income housing tax credit, the largest subsidy for building affordable apartments. Developers sell those tax credits to banks in exchange for cash to build with. But federal regulators cap how much of a bank’s capital can go into such investments. The act raises that ceiling from 15% to 20%. Banks can now buy more credits, putting more equity into each deal, just as state housing subsidies shrink. The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, the state agency that awards those credits to developers, lobbied Congress for the change.

What Colorado learned that other states can use

Colorado’s most useful contribution to other states may not be any single law but rather the machinery the state built to make those laws function.

Housing subsidy in the United States is fragmented, and assembling it consumes time and money that could otherwise go into buildings. The ROAD Act does not eliminate that fragmentation, but it trims some federal requirements that make stacking subsidies expensive, and it gives states a reason to make their own programs easier for developers to combine.

Colorado has been chipping away at this problem. In 2025 the state, its housing finance authority and the city of Denver launched Housing Hub Colorado, a single portal that aligns their application timelines and requirements. A shared application accepted by all three is expected later this year.

The portal came out of the Colorado Housing Consortium, a coalition launched in 2025 that brings together more than 120 people from state and local government, developers, lenders, philanthropies and nonprofits. Its members surveyed the field, ranked the barriers driving up construction costs, and picked three to work on first: a shared funding application, a revolving loan fund, and pooling demand for modular construction.

The lesson for other states is practical. A project stalls if any one of these fails: land it can be built on, permits that arrive on time, financing that closes, and a builder who can deliver at a price that works. Fixing one at a time leaves the others to block the project, which is why states that coordinate across agencies can act quickly when federal money and guidance arrive.

Colorado’s experience is also a caution. Passing a reform and implementing it are different things. In 2025, six of Colorado’s 105 home-rule cities, which under the state constitution control their own zoning, sued the state over the 2024 laws and over Gov. Jared Polis’ move to withhold state grant money from cities that don’t comply. Bills to limit how large a lot cities can require for a single home, and to allow lot splitting, died in the state Senate in 2026 after local governments objected to the state overriding their zoning decisions.

This is where research and measurement matter. Colorado has been at this since 2022, when voters passed Proposition 123, dedicating a share of state income tax revenue to affordable housing. Its reforms are now far enough along to evaluate, and knowing which produced housing and which produced only paperwork can inform other states considering similar measures. This knowledge will also help federal officials assemble the model zoning and land-use practices the law directs them to publish for states and cities to adopt voluntarily. The HUD research office I used to lead is responsible for developing these guidelines.

What the law will not do

The new federal law is designed to make new housing cheaper and faster to build, not to help people pay for homes that already exist. Focusing on new production has limits. It does little for households whose incomes are too low to pay for housing at any price. Three in four eligible low-income renter households nationally receive no federal rental assistance because the programs are underfunded.

Colorado is testing that limit. To close a $1.5 billion budget shortfall this year, lawmakers moved $130 million out of Proposition 123, with most of the cut falling on programs that build rental housing for low-income families. Regulatory reform costs little and can do a great deal, but it does not replace subsidies. The likely result is less subsidized housing built in Colorado over the next few years, at the same time the new federal law is making it easier to build housing generally.

Some of the state’s own barriers also remain. Colorado law gives condominium owners up to eight years after a building is finished to sue over construction defects, and the insurance costs that follow have long pushed developers toward building apartments instead. Condominiums are one of the few paths to entry-level homeownership. State lawmakers did act: A 2025 law offers builders more protection from lawsuits if they agree to third-party inspections and warranties. But homebuilders expect it to take six to eight years to affect premiums. The federal law does not touch the issue.

Why the next year matters

Federal agencies must still write regulations, conduct studies and launch programs as part of the new federal law, work that could take years at HUD, whose staff has been sharply reduced. Despite that, analysts at the Pew Charitable Trusts argue that jurisdictions that update their zoning, building codes and permitting policies now will be best positioned to win the new grant funding.

Colorado already knows how to do this work. What it has not yet demonstrated – and what the next governor and the state’s mayors now have a chance to show – is whether reform on paper becomes homes people can afford.

Read more of our stories about Colorado.

Solomon Greene is affiliated with the National Housing Law Project (Vice President of Board of Directors).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/congress-just-passed-a-housing-law-that-rewards-states-for-reform-heres-why-colorado-has-a-head-start/

The people of Clacton have spoken. Well, 44% of them have, with the majority of eligible voters staying at home rather than cast their ballot in the byelection. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, the winning candidate, also stayed away – snubbing the count at Clacton leisure centre after claiming police had warned him of an organised campaign to disrupt proceedings.

In the end, Farage received 63% of the vote, amounting to an endorsement from only 28% of the eligible electorate. That his second-place rival was a joke candidate standing as an “independent space warrior” wearing a bin-shaped helmet would seem to bear out the Daily Mail’s observation that “when voters are shouting at you, it’s bad. When they’re laughing at you, it’s over”. Count Binface received 9,455 votes – one in four of those cast.

Byelections are supposed to take place because a member is no longer able to serve. In Farage’s petulant speech of July 7, when he stood down as MP for the Essex constituency, he objected to being held accountable for undeclared payments from a foreign national. He stated that he could make some “real big money” in the US, where he said he had “plenty of offers”.

Farage went on to say he wanted the people of Clacton to judge him and now – after the votes have been counted – says the result “speaks for itself”.

Read more:
Why Nigel Farage is resigning as an MP, only to stand again – expert analysis

But this byelection was not an opportunity for the voters of Clacton to scrutinise the sources of Farage’s finances. No hard evidence was presented to them. And they have other things to do with their time than pursue the kind of forensic investigation that a parliamentary standards commissioner will be able to carry out. Now that Farage is once again an MP, the previously opened probe resumes.

It is not as if the voters of Clacton don’t have other pressing issues to think about. According to government findings, one part of the constituency (Jaywick) is the most deprived area in England. The number of people in Clacton leaving school with no formal qualifications is reckoned to be the second highest of any town in England. Parts of the district has one of the lowest life expectancies and highest under-75 mortality rates nationwide. Nearly half of the working-age population is economically inactive, heavily exceeding the national average.

This is a population that may well want to be pick a fight with “the establishment”. But promoting the career of a multimillionaire politician is probably not the best way to go about it

An expression of mood, not politics

So what does this byelection say about contemporary British politics? The Farage narrative suggests that it is about the heroic representation of the real people by a leader who is uniquely capable of speaking their language.

But what was most striking in the Clacton panto-plebiscite, where a record 34 candidates faced off against each other, was the cynical disconnect between Westminster politics and the experiences of people who feel ground down and institutionally neglected. (Not to mention so far from political decision-making that one in four of them chose to vote for a bloke with his tongue in his cheek and a bin over his head.)

This byelection was less about political choices than the expression of a public mood – democracy as a register of feelings rather than the “who gets what, when and how” summed up by American political scientist Harold Laswell.

Farage does not offer his followers a way out of their deprived status. After all, the one cluster of policies that really motivates him – ending mass immigration – is hardly going to invigorate Clacton. It is one of the least ethnically diverse constituencies in England, with 96% of residents classed as white.

The story that Farage tells – and he does so masterfully – is of a last-ditch attempt to save Britain from contamination by globalism, as if any contemporary nation state could possibly stand alone against the might of transnational corporations and the all-powerful bond markets.

Fittingly for a coastal town MP, Farage is a King Canute, publicly promising to hold back the cosmopolitan waves while privately accepting gifts from overseas billionaires.

The problem with Farage’s narrative is that it requires ongoing supplies of rhetorical fury to stir the passions of its believers. Reform UK faces competition from Rupert Lowe’s far-right Restore Britain party, with its support from Elon Musk, who fell out with Farage apparently over the Reform leader’s unwillingness to back far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.

The narrative of deep resentment has a self-inflating quality. For every outrage identified or manufactured, there is always greater public fury that can be ignited. The competition between rival groups to arouse ever-greater degrees of what Farage has called “pure cold rage” can have dangerous consequences.

It is unclear whether the electoral absurdity at Clacton will be seen by historians as a precursor to Farage’s reputational rehabilitation and onward march to Downing Street, or a further step on the slippery slope towards greater political ugliness. Either way, Count Binface’s footnote status in the chronicles is assured – along with the nearly 10,000 voters who believed that their future would be best represented by a dustbin.

Stephen Coleman 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/what-the-battle-between-nigel-farage-and-count-binface-really-tells-us-about-britains-mood/

In this fourth part in our series on how the UK has changed in the past 25 years, we look at health.

Life expectancy and illness

Michael Murphy, Emeritus Professor of Demography, London School of Economics

A good way to follow the health of a nation is to glance at what is known as period life-expectancy. This calculates how long a person born today would live if the current death rates remained exactly the same for the rest of their life. This had two major turning points in the UK over the period: a marked slowdown in improvements from around 2011, and a sharp, historically unprecedented fall in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The slowdown in improvement from the early 2010s was part of a wider pattern across high-income countries. The UK and the other five largest of these nations, including France, Germany and Italy, experienced similar stagnation, although the UK’s was somewhat more persistent.

How has the UK changed since the start of the century? From Blair to Burnham, from the dotcom era to AI agents, time has certainly not stood still. In this six-part series, a team of some 35 experts look at everything from defence spending to species populations to the rise of populism to try and make sense of the intervening years.

The graph below also shows that contrary to frequent claims that the UK’s mortality performance is uniquely poor, its period life-expectancy gains were broadly similar to these comparator countries and the OECD average between 2000 and 2024. For example, France’s period life-expectancy increased by an annual average of only four days more than UK over that time.

Changing life-expectancy

The most dramatic disruption occurred with the COVID 19 pandemic. The UK’s 179,000 COVID-related deaths in 2020–21 represented the largest mortality shock since the second world war. As it turned out, the nation’s mortality rate peaked in 2020 and has fallen each year since. By 2024 it had returned to levels close to 2019, the lowest ever, and we’ve seen a similar trend across western Europe.

Read more:
Britain’s quarter century: shrinking families, ethnic tensions and queer winners and losers

The long-term implications of the pandemic remain uncertain, but they are potentially severe and likely to affect all groups of society. Many people have experienced life-changing effects from long COVID. Evidence from earlier pandemics, including the 1918–19 influenza pandemic, also suggests that babies in their mothers’ wombs may have experienced long-term negative health effects from exposure to the virus.

Causes of death

Underlying these mortality trends in the UK are shifts in the major causes of death. In 2024 cardiovascular disease (26%), cancer (26%), respiratory disease (12%) and dementia (9%) accounted for three quarters of deaths in England.

Changes in cause of death classification make it difficult to see whether these have changed long term. But the early 2000s saw rapid declines in cardiovascular mortality, for instance, driven by improvements in treatment, prevention and reductions in smoking.

However, these gains have slowed, and since 2019 progress in reducing cardiovascular deaths has stalled. This reflects a combination of fewer medical breakthroughs in related chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and rising pressures on the health and social care systems.

More generally, changing risk factors will be important for the future. We’re smoking much less today, from 26% of adults in 2001 to 11% in 2023, which reduces the scope for further mortality gains from tobacco controls.

In contrast, obesity has become the top lifestyle danger, with the proportion of adults classified as obese in England rising from 20% in 2001 to 30% in 2024. These trends imply a growing future burden of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and also certain cancers, with long lag times before the full effects are observed.

This rise in obesity will also be contributing to rising levels of non-fatal but disabling conditions. As many as 26% of adults report chronic pain, and half of those report high-impact pain (meaning long-term pain that severely limits your ability to function in daily life). Low back pain is now the leading cause of years lived with disability in the UK, mirroring global trends.

Mental disorders are rising steadily, with common mental health conditions increasing from 17.5% in 2000 to 22.6% in 2023-24 among working age adults. The rates are higher among younger people: 26% among 16-24 year olds compared with 10% among those aged 75 and over.

There also appears to have been an increase in poor health in general. Witness the fact that healthy life expectancy in England increased modestly between 2000–02 and 2017–18 (the last period that did not include the COVID-19 pandemic), but only around half of additional years gained were spent in good health.

While mortality improvements are likely to resume, they may do so at a slower pace than in the late 20th century. The ageing population, rising obesity and worsening health among younger people all pose risks. The prolonged deterioration in US mortality linked to drug related deaths and “deaths of despair” also illustrates that you certainly can’t assume progress will continue. The UK’s future health will depend on its ability to address chronic disease, reduce risks like obesity and strengthen its ability to respond to future shocks.

Eating and drinking habits

David Dearlove, Principal Researcher, Healthy Life Mission, Nesta

Jurin Katayama, Analyst, Healthy Life Mission, Nesta

Lydia Leon, Senior Mission Manager, Healthy Life Mission, Nesta

In 2001 meal deals were a novelty, phones had buttons, and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was a year-old watchdog. Twenty-five years on, Britain’s relationship with food is very different, with big changes in the types of food available and how we buy it, as well as how it is promoted and regulated.

When it comes to how people buy their food, supermarkets still dominate. The retail landscape has been disrupted by the rise of discounters like Aldi and Lidl, whose market share climbed from a mere 3% in 2002 to about 14% by 2021. But given that large supermarkets continue to supply over 80% of our average daily calorie intake, their influence over public health remains profound.

Food bought outside of the home has seen large changes. Across Great Britain, the density of fast food outlets – meaning per head of the population – rose by 36% between 2011 and 2024, outpacing the 17% growth in supermarket density. This supply surge reflects shifting demand – while only a quarter of UK adults ate out once a week or more between 2008 and 2012, in 2021 this rose to over 60%.

Unfortunately, food prepared out of home rarely is the healthy choice. Most of these meals exceed the recommended calorie intake for an eating occasion, and about 20% of meals contain over half the total recommended daily intake.

This physical saturation is mirrored in our digital lives, as ordering food to our door has become easier than ever. When Just Eat launched in 2001, ordering food online was a novelty. Today, platforms such as Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats connect us to thousands of takeaways at any hour, with their market worth £13.9 billion (2024). Online grocery shopping has also risen, from barely existing in 2001 to now making up around 12% of the grocery market.

Ever more marketing

The way food is bought and promoted has not only gone more digital, but is now dominated by pervasive marketing and personalised nudges. Outdoor food and drink advertising, covering everything from billboards to train carriages, has more than tripled in real terms over the past two decades, now accounting for £590 million in advertising-spend a year. The rise of apps and loyalty schemes has also expanded the ways customers can be reached, with regular notifications and time-limited “special” deals designed to make us order more often and in larger amounts.

Of the £2.4 billion spent on UK food advertising in 2024, investment in nutritious alternatives remains negligible. For instance, while advertising focusing on fruit and vegetables now accounts for less than 5% of traditional food and non-alcoholic drink advertising budgets, unhealthy foods account for closer to a third.

There has also been a shift in the regulatory landscape. We’ve seen a gradual move away from voluntary schemes such as Public Health England’s calorie, salt and sugar reduction programmes towards more interventionist policies, including the 2018 Soft Drinks Industry Levy, which incentivised many manufacturers to reduce sugar content to avoid charges.

Expanding on this, in 2025 the government announced the introduction of the healthy food standard policy. This will require large food businesses, including supermarkets, to report on the healthiness of their sales, and meet mandatory targets for improvement. Yet while the regulatory framework is improving, further intervention will be necessary to get the nation to eat more healthily.

Alcohol and drug use

Ian Hamilton, Honorary Fellow (Associate Professor) in Addiction at the University of York

Drugs, like fashion, change over time. Since the millennium, for instance, we have seen a surge in cocaine use. Once regarded as an expensive drug used by the elite, it is now more affordable than ever and more potent, which explains its greater popularity.

This has been facilitated by increased global supply and organised crime groups able to transport and distribute the drug effectively. Unfortunately, rising use has been accompanied by an equally rapid increase in cocaine fatalities, with nearly 1,300 in 2024 in England and Wales alone.

The last 25 years has witnessed the emergence of synthetic drugs, particularly synthetic opiates, which are much more potent than the traditional organic opiates such as heroin. Like cocaine, the rise in synthetic drugs has seen an increase in drug-related deaths, with the UK having the highest mortality rate in Europe.

Another group of synthetic drugs that have emerged are novel psychoactive substances, also known as legal highs, even though they were banned a decade ago. Examples include spice, a synthetic form of cannabis, and the stimulant referred to as monkey dust.

Read more:
Britain’s quarter century: wealth and widening inequality

As with all drugs, the negative consequences of using them are not experienced equally. It is the vulnerable, poor, homeless and living in the most deprived areas of the UK that are more likely to die or suffer poor health from using these drugs. Synthetic drugs have caused havoc and misery in prisons and among rough-sleeping populations.

Drug use in the UK 2000-25

Cannabis remains the most widely used illicit drug in the UK. Adult use has remained stable over the last 25 years. However, this disguises the trend of falling cannabis use for young people (aged 16-24 years) since 2020.

Alcohol and the internet

Without a doubt, the advent of the internet has directly and indirectly shaped which drugs are widely used and those that are not. For example the data shows that since the millennium, young people have shunned alcohol.

This is thought to be due in part to young people not wanting to be seen to be intoxicated or behaving badly because of drinking on social media. In parallel, this cohort are more health conscious and keen to adopt a healthy lifestyle which doesn’t include alcohol.

Over the same period, consumption of alcohol by adults has remained relatively stable. Older adults are now more likely to drink than their younger counterparts: 84% of those aged 55-64 years old compared to 65% aged 16-24 years old.

Alcohol-related deaths in the UK

The internet has also opened access to drugs through platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram. People can simply browse dealer menus via Instagram, for example, or message a Telegram bot, and have drugs brought to their door within the hour.

What hasn’t changed is drug policy. Successive governments have stuck with the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, despite the fact that applying a 50-year-old policy to contemporary patterns of drug use is a terrible mismatch. When this legislation was enacted many of the most widely used drugs today didn’t exist. There is also nowadays a consensus that drug use should be framed by health rather than penal policy.

Yet there is no political appetite for policy change, just the continued mantra of getting tough on drugs by trying to disrupt supply and distribution. In contrast, organised crime is innovative and adaptable.

Sexual behaviour

Soazig Clifton, Academic Director for Britain’s National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), University College London

By the early 2000s Britain had experienced decades of social and demographic change dating back to the second world war. Marriage rates had fallen, people were having children later and in smaller numbers, and family structures had become more diverse.

These changes were accompanied by increasingly liberal attitudes towards sexuality. Same-sex relationships were becoming more socially accepted. Younger generations were having sex earlier and marrying or cohabiting later than previous generations.

Public concern had also shifted. The widespread fears around HIV/Aids that had characterised the 1980s and early 1990s were receding. Attention had turned to the UK’s rate of teenage pregnancy, which was among the highest in Europe, and rising levels of chlamydia and other sexually transmitted infections.

The best evidence on population trends in sexual behaviour comes from Britain’s National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), one of the largest scientific studies of sexual behaviour in the world. Conducted approximately every decade since 1990, Natsal provides representative snapshots of the population, offering a unique window into Britain’s changing sex lives.

The most recent published survey, Natsal-3 (2010-12), documented substantial changes in women’s sexuality during the 2000s. Women reported higher numbers of sexual partners and more same-sex experiences, with one in six women reporting sexual experience with another woman.

Vaginal and oral sex remained the core of the heterosexual sexual repertoire since the first survey in 1990. However, the 1990s and 2000s also saw increases in heterosexual anal sex, reported by around one in six people by 2010-12.

Yet despite increasing diversity in sexual behaviour, Natsal identified another trend: people were having sex less often. Among 16-44-year-olds in 2010-12, the median frequency of sex was three times per month, compared to four times in the two previous surveys.

Where are we now?

The latest Natsal data, collected between 2022 and 2024, will be published later this year. It will provide the first comprehensive picture of Britain’s sex lives after a decade shaped by economic uncertainty, the COVID pandemic and the growing digitalisation of everyday life. For the first time, Natsal-4 collected data on online sexual activities, including pornography use and sexting, as well as expanding measures of gender to include transgender and non-binary identities.

Other data sources offer clues about what we might find. Natsal-COVID, an online survey conducted during the pandemic, suggested further declines in sexual frequency and potential reductions in behaviour associated with sexually transmitted infections (although these comparisons are limited by methodological differences).

Read more:
Britain’s quarter century: Blair, populism and the battle over human rights

Meanwhile, data from the Office for National Statistics shows increasing numbers of people identify as LGBTQ+. Research with adolescents in Britain and other European countries has also shown declines in sexual experience. These changes sit alongside broader shifts in young people’s lives, including declining rates of smoking and drinking, rising levels of poor mental health and high rates of loneliness, more time online and less time socialising face-to-face.

Whatever Natsal-4 reveals, the picture will probably keep evolving. Societal change and new technologies including AI are likely to shape our sexual behaviour and intimate relationships in ways we cannot yet predict.

Mental health

Kevin Stone, Associate Dean for Partnerships and Business Development (Health and Social Care), University of South Wales

Sarah Vicary, Professor of Social Work and Mental Health, The Open University

In 2000, care in the community was gaining ground, but provision remained uneven. Although the closure of long-stay psychiatric hospitals had reshaped the system, hospital admission remained a dominant response to people experiencing an acute mental health crisis. Patient voices were also beginning to emerge more strongly against a backdrop of stigma, with growing demands for better quality care in both primary and secondary services.

Since then, we have seen significant changes in attitudes and responses to mental health needs. Mental health is no longer seen simply as a private struggle that should be hidden, but increasingly as a public health concern.

Awareness-raising has helped to create a culture in which speaking about mental health is more acceptable than it was in 2001, and more actively encouraged everywhere from workplaces to schools to the home. For those with severe diagnoses, the shift away from institutional care before the 1990s towards community-based support has also been clear.

Nonetheless, we are seeing more children and young people reporting adverse childhood experiences, trauma and neglect, all of which can lead to significant mental health needs. We also continue to see high numbers of detentions under mental health legislation involving people in severe mental distress, with a disproportionate impact on men from ethnic minority groups.

Mental health-related absences from work continue to be a problem – stress, depression and anxiety cost 22 million working days in 2024/25. Societal barriers like stigma still prevent many people from discussing their declining mental health or seeking help early, which undermines effective prevention.

The transformation

When it comes to raising awareness, anti-stigma campaigns such as Time to Change, led by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, alongside World Health Organization initiatives, have contributed to changing behaviour and attitudes. World Mental Health Day each October and campaigns led by YoungMinds have helped reinforce this message. The same goes for public figures and people with lived experience, such as Stormzy and Davina McCall.

We have seen the growth of mental health first aiders in the workplace, mental health champions in schools, and helplines offering non-judgmental listening and support.

The principle that mental health should be valued as highly as physical health (known as parity of esteem), has increasingly shaped NHS policy. The NHS commissioners who oversee health services within particular areas have reinvented mental health services to place greater emphasis on community-based support and treatment.

This has included dedicated mental health workers in emergency departments, and doctors connecting patients to non-medical community activities to help improve their outlook (this is known as social prescribing). Access to psychological therapies has also improved and is now recognised through NHS Talking Therapies in GP practices and primary care settings.

The authorities are also giving more attention to societal factors affecting people’s mental health. When patients come to GPs with anxiety triggered by things like debt or poor housing, they are expected to refer them to a link worker to help overcome these problems. It’s now increasingly recognised that responses to mental health needs should never be about medication alone. There has also been growing recognition of the role played by family members, nearest relatives, friends and unpaid carers.

Yet NHS services are still too often forced to respond to crisis rather than prevent it. Funding pressures and workforce shortages have combined with the increased demand for mental health services to place the system under growing strain.

As well as addressing this, the wider challenge is to build a society and system that values prevention, compassion, choice, dignity and timely support. That way, mental health won’t just be protected in moments of crisis, but throughout the course of everyday life.

The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.

Kev Stone is a researcher for Resources For Nearest Relatives.

David Dearlove, Ian Hamilton, Jurin Katayama-Flores, Lydia Leon, Michael Murphy, Sarah Vicary, and Soazig Clifton 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/britains-quarter-century-experts-in-sex-mental-health-nutrition-and-addiction-assess-the-nations-changing-wellbeing/

By Iliesa Tora of RNZ Pacific

The Fiji High Court has ruled that the Commission of Inquiry report into the appointment of Barbara Malimali as FICAC Commissioner, in its entirety, is null and void.

Justice Dane Tuiqereqere also found that the COI report was unlawful, and that its adverse findings were irrational and it has been quashed

It has also been found that President Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu and Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka failed to provide the applicants with natural justice.

• READ MORE: Judge rules COI report is unlawful and null and void, and President, PM and COI breached principles of natural justice
• Other COI reports

Malimali challenged the report with former Attorney-General Graham Leung, and lawyers Wylie Clarke and Laurel Vaurasi.

Local media said the judge has determined that the President, the Prime Minister and the Commission of Inquiry, breached principles of natural justice for not giving the applicants the opportunity to respond to the adverse findings against them.

Fiji Village News said Justice Tuiqereqere ruled that the work of the Commission of Inquiry after 1 February 2025, including the report, is ultra vires or unlawful.

He found that the extension of the Commission of Inquiry beyond 31 January 2025 was ineffective.

As a result, the actions of the Commissioner after that date, including the completion of his report dated 1 May 2025, were unlawful, Fiji Village News stated.

Justice Tuiqereqere has also found that adverse findings and recommendations against the applicants including Malimali, former Attorney-General Graham Leung and lawyers Wylie Clarke and Laurel Vaurasi were unlawful, including those relating to a meeting at the FICAC office on 5 September 2024.

‘Praise God for the win’
The applicants had further challenged the decision by the President, on the advice of the Prime Minister, to release the Commission of Inquiry report publicly.

Malimali and her lawyer Tanya Waqanika are on the island of Kadavu and responded to the ruling in a Facebook post, saying justice had been served.

“Praise God for the win,” Waqanika said in her post.

“It has been a hard battle fighting to clear Barbara Malimali’s name from the COI taxpayer funded $4m (and counting) crocodile hunting failed expedition.

“Barbara Malimali and me are here in my village and we just received the news that we WON our HBJ No 9/26 Judicial Review case against the Fiji Government (well, all the Respondents names are Govt representatives).

The judge also said the COI Chair, David Ashton-Lewis, should have provided a draft of the adverse findings against the applicants to them and an opportunity to respond before compiling the report.

The Commission of Inquiry was the brainchild of Rabuka.

In June, the High Court rejected the Prime Minister’s attempt to stall its ruling that the country’s former anti-corruption chief was illegally sacked.

In February, Justice Dane Tuiqereqere found that the President — on the advice of the Prime Minister — “unlawfully” dismissed Barbara Malimali, the head of FICAC

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/fiji-court-rules-coi-report-into-malimali-appointment-was-unlawful-null-and-void/

Legislation to tighten eligibility for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) could be be passed as early as next week, after a Labor-led Senate committee today recommended the bill be passed.

The bill, introduced in May and amended in July, aims to slow NDIS spending growth by A$37.8 billion over four years. Much of this would come from tightening access to the scheme and reducing some forms of participant funding.

Government modelling suggests around 240,000 existing participants could leave the NDIS by 2031. Another 110,000 people who might otherwise have entered would be diverted to other programs.

Throughout the Senate committee inquiry’s public hearings, there was broad agreement that the NDIS needs reform, particularly to address fraud and exploitation.

But there was intense disagreement – from participants and their families, advocates, health professionals, the Greens and independent Senator David Pocock – over who should bear the cost of making it sustainable.

So what what’s set to change? And who will be most affected?

What the changes mean for people with disability

1. To join the NDIS, you’ll need to show you’ve tried all publicly available treatments

Under the proposed rules, applicants will need to show they have undertaken all “appropriate treatment” before their impairment is accepted as permanent and they’re eligible to join the NDIS.

The Greens negotiated amendments to the bill that have narrowed this requirement.

The original bill said a person would need to show they had exhausted all other treatment options. Under the amended bill, treatments that are regularly used in Australia and publicly funded can be considered. Restrictive practices cannot count as appropriate treatment.

This addresses some of the concerns raised during the inquiry.

But a treatment can still be publicly funded and difficult to access because of long waiting lists, a lack of specialists or where someone lives.

2. Funding for social participation will be reduced

Some participants could lose a substantial share of the funding they rely on to take part in social and community life. This funding can pay for the support people need to leave home, travel safely, attend appointments, work, study, volunteer or spend time with family and friends.

The government plans to reduce budget allocations for social, civic and community participation by 50%, and capacity-building daily activities by 10%, as plans are renewed or reassessed.

With less support, some people may become more isolated or have to give up activities that help them remain independent and connected to their community. Families may also be left to provide more unpaid care.

Read more:
Cutting community participation budgets isn’t needed to save the NDIS

3. Ineligible people may have no alternatives

People who are found no longer eligible for the NDIS face another problem: what will replace it?

The government says people can increasingly rely on mainstream services, foundational supports or programs such as Thriving Kids.

But many of these alternatives are still being developed and may not provide the same level of individual support.

This means some people could lose access to the NDIS before another service is ready to help them. Their support needs would remain, with families and already stretched health, education and community services left to fill the gap.

Who could be hit hardest?

People with psychosocial disability from mental illness may be especially vulnerable. Their conditions can fluctuate and may be difficult to capture through a standardised assessment.

They also rely heavily on social and community participation funding, one of the areas targeted for reductions.

People with intellectual disability, Down syndrome and vision impairment may also be heavily affected because social and community participation supports often make up a larger share of their plans. These supports help people leave home, maintain relationships and participate in everyday community life.

Children and young people are likely to be particularly affected by the tighter eligibility rules. Government modelling suggests around 154,000 of the 241,000 existing participants expected to leave the NDIS by 2031 will be aged 18 or under.

About 145,000 people expected to leave have autism or developmental delay as their primary disability.

People in regional and remote communities could also have fewer alternative services available if NDIS support is reduced.

First Nations people would face additional barriers where services are not locally available or culturally appropriate.

Families and unpaid carers may ultimately be left to fill some of these gaps where replacement services are not yet in place.

What happens next?

The bill must first pass parliament and this could happen as early as next week. The changes will then be introduced in stages.

From October 2026, some participants will begin seeing reductions to social and community participation and related capacity-building funding when their plans are renewed or reassessed.

Thriving Kids would also begin its staged roll-out from this date.

Read more:
No diagnoses and no gap fees for physios and speechies. What else do we know about Thriving Kids?

From February 2027, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) will begin applying tighter rules when deciding which supports it will fund. These rules would first apply to new participants and then gradually to people already in the scheme as their plans are reviewed.

From April 2027, participants will begin moving to new framework planning, where a new support-needs assessment would be used to determine plan budgets.

From January 2028, when the biggest changes come into effect, applicants will face a stricter test of whether their disability is permanent and would be assessed using a standard measure of how their disability affects everyday life.

New applicants aged eight and under with developmental delay or autism and low-to-moderate support needs will generally be directed to Thriving Kids rather than the NDIS.

Existing participants will then be progressively reassessed under the new eligibility rules over three years.

Mona Nikidehaghani 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/with-ndis-changes-set-to-pass-heres-who-bears-the-cost-of-making-it-sustainable/

What do Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Volodymyr Zelensky and Mojtaba Khamenei have in common? The military power that they can all command is far easier to use than to convert into political success.

They command vastly different resources and pursue different goals. Trump and Putin lead nuclear powers (it’s generally accepted that Netanyahu does too, but Israel has never acknowledged this). Trump, Putin and Netanyahu all started wars.

Zelensky inherited a frozen conflict that escalated into full-scale invasion. Khamenei inherited both a war and Iran’s highest office at once, becoming supreme leader in March 2026 after his father was killed in the US-Israeli strikes that opened the conflict on February 28.

Trump can order devastating strikes but not answer how Iran fits into a future regional security order. Netanyahu can destroy infrastructure across Gaza, Lebanon and Iran but not guarantee security for Israel. Putin can sustain an invasion for years, yet still can’t force Ukraine into territorial compromise. Zelensky can deny Russia victory but his forces struggle to recover occupied territory. And Khamenei can make defeating Iran costly but he can’t stop the US or Israel from trying.

Such stalemates are not new. That they have become seemingly unbreakable, however, is. The old logic of asymmetric warfare was relatively simple: the weak can prevent the strong from winning by using unconventional tactics and weapons to offset superior firepower. Russia discovered this in Afghanistan, the US rediscovered it there almost half a century after Vietnam. Neither was defeated in battle, yet both withdrew once superior firepower failed to produce a sustainable outcome.

To some extent, this logic still plays out in Ukraine and Iran. Ukraine doesn’t need to invade Russia to frustrate Putin – it needs to remain sovereign and prevent Moscow from dictating its future. Iran doesn’t need to defeat the US military or destroy Israel – it needs to preserve the regime and persuade adversaries that further escalation carries unacceptable costs.

A weaker country’s victory doesn’t require conquering territory or destroying an enemy’s forces – it may simply mean survival. This creates an imbalance: an aggressor must achieve something, a defender only has to prevent it. Putin loses if he cannot impose a settlement on his terms and Zelensky succeeds by denying it to him. Trump and Netanyahu may degrade Iranian capabilities, but if the regime survives, Khamenei can claim he has not been defeated.

The stronger side loses by not winning. The weaker side wins by not losing.

Time the great leveller

In this logic of asymmetry, time has always been a weapon of its own. Powerful states want speed – shock, collapse, a quick exit that doesn’t look like a forever war. Weaker actors play for time.

Ukraine’s survival in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion transformed the war, giving Kyiv time to mobilise society and secure western support, before then exploiting its ability to innovate, which has gone some way towards levelling the battlefield.

Iran’s cheap drones, missile attacks, sea mines and threats to energy infrastructure don’t need to defeat a superior coalition outright – only to prolong uncertainty and erode its adversaries’ will to continue.

In both wars, the battlefield has become wider than the front line – to such an extent that the two wars are increasingly connected. Ukraine’s air campaign is degrading the oil pipelines and refineries funding the Kremlin’s war effort and its drone strikes in the Caspian Sea disrupt Russian drone supplies to Iran.

Iran and its proxies have turned military confrontation into a broader economic and political crisis – a “forever war”– well beyond the Middle East by threatening infrastructure and shipping routes of its neighbours in the Gulf and the Red Sea.

No strategic vision

The military forces that the weak and strong alike are able to muster can destroy infrastructure and kill commanders. But without an overarching strategy this remains just destruction.

This does not mean military superiority has ceased to matter. Stronger powers still have an enormous capacity to destroy infrastructure, degrade military capabilities, seize territory and improve their bargaining position.

In Ukraine, Putin may ultimately come away with territory he can present as a gain. But that is very different from his original ambition of bringing Ukraine back under effective Russian control.

The same applies to Iran: the US and Israel can destroy significant military capabilities of the regime and set back its nuclear programmes, but military superiority alone cannot guarantee that Iran will not rebuild and revive them, much less produce a political order in Tehran to the liking of Washington and Tel Aviv.

Strong powers retain an extraordinary ability to destroy and impose costs. What has diminished is their ability to turn that advantage into durable political control or decisive political outcomes. Trump wants leverage without another forever war. Netanyahu wants security that battlefield dominance alone can’t deliver. Putin wants territorial and political control that firepower hasn’t secured.

But weaker powers struggle, too. Zelensky must turn resistance into a sustainable future. Khamenei needs to preserve deterrence despite a war that began by killing his father and predecessor. Neither of them lacks instruments of power. But they do lack a clear path from those instruments to a stable and acceptable end state.

This is where the old logic of asymmetry is beginning to break down: neither conventional military superiority nor unconventional tactics of warfare seem to be able to break stalemates anymore. Winning wars may simply no longer be possible at all.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the Nato Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He also regularly provides advice to governments and international organisations. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

Martin Waehlisch 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/ukraine-and-iran-why-military-strength-doesnt-mean-winning-wars/

The Productivity Commission has recommended undoing the controversial 2018 changes to the distribution of goods and services tax (GST) revenue between the states that has cost taxpayers A$23 billion.

It has proposed reinstating the system that existed before the Morrison government’s deal that gave billions of dollars in extra funds to Western Australia, at the expense of the other states.

The commission’s 124-page interim report finds the reforms were “a costly mistake” and “have not achieved their intent”. It says:

The 2018 changes tried to achieve too much and moved too far away from the system’s core objective. The result is a system that is now more complex, less consistent and more costly.

Credit to the Productivity Commission for producing a clear and rigorous report. The 2018 “reforms” were bad policy. The sooner they are unwound the better. The federal government should adopt its recommendations in full.

How WA benefits

The report confirms what critics have long argued: the deal benefits only WA, and taxpayers in every other state and territory foot the bill.

It also documents potential perverse outcomes. For instance, WA’s GST distribution would rise if another state is hit by a natural disaster and receives extra GST funding.

Estimates compiled from Treasury data by economist Saul Eslake suggest WA would by 2028–29 have received about $43 billion more than under the pre-2018 rules.

Why is the GST redistributed?

Every country with a federal system faces the same issues: which level of government should tax, which should spend, and how to divide revenue between them.

Australia, like other federations including the United States, Canada, Germany and Brazil, splits taxing and spending responsibilities between national and state governments.

All broadly agree on responsibilities for spending. National defence, economic stabilisation and broad social safety net programs sit naturally with the federal government, as they require national coordination.

States tend to do best on services closer to citizens, such as schools, policing, hospitals and local infrastructure. They are better positioned to understand and respond to local needs.

The division of taxation is less clear-cut, and different countries do very different things.

Australia concentrates almost all tax collection at the federal level. Personal income tax, corporate income tax and GST are all collected by the Commonwealth. State taxes, including payroll tax, stamp duty and land tax, account for less than 20% of total revenue.

This creates the first fundamental problem in Australia’s system of federal finance: how is revenue collected nationally distributed to the states to fund education, health and other services? Australia’s solution is to pass on the GST revenue (supplemented with Commonwealth grants).

How much should each state receive?

Before 2018, Australia operated on the principle that every citizen should have access to similar standards of government services.

However, simply dividing the GST pool on a per-person basis does not achieve equal service standards, for two reasons.

First, states differ substantially in their capacity to raise their own revenue. Some states have more valuable property markets, with larger stamp duty and land tax bases; some, such as WA, collect larger mining royalties than others.

Second, the cost of delivering a standard of service varies enormously by state. Providing healthcare, education and infrastructure costs much more per person in remote areas such as the Northern Territory.

Before 2018, both these factors were assessed annually by the Commonwealth Grants Commission, an independent body established in 1933. Since July 2000 that has included advice on how to distribute the billions in revenue collected nationally through the GST.

For most of its history, it took account of disadvantages and gave each state the funds to deliver a broadly equal standard of service provision for schools, hospitals and so on. States more able to raise their own revenue received a smaller GST share.

This approach is regarded internationally as best practice; scholars of federal systems point to Australia’s pre-2018 model as an example to emulate.

The picture changed in 2018

Then, in 2018, Australia largely abandoned its principles. The law was amended to
replace full equalisation.

The new system gave all states a guaranteed minimum share of the GST pool, regardless of their actual revenue. This meant WA actually received more GST revenue than it needed to meet its assessed needs.

The new Productivity Commission review found WA received 113% of its needs, while other states only received 98% of their fiscal needs.

There were also billions of dollars in additional federal top-up payments to the GST pool to ensure no state was worse off. But this wasn’t free and was paid for by all Australian taxpayers.

This was a special deal for a single state, dressed up as a national reform.

Political dysfunction was a side effect

Beyond the direct costs documented in the Productivity Commission’s new report, the 2018 changes produced a further, less visible cost: they encouraged unproductive lobbying and interstate rivalry.

Rather than focusing on serving their own citizens, states increasingly focused on lobbying the federal government for special treatment resembling WA’s deal.

This poor use of political energy and public resources corrodes the cooperative federalism the original distribution model was designed to support.

Three options, one clear answer

The Productivity Commission’s report sets out three options.

Its recommended option is that the government “transition back to the pre-2018 system”, reversing the Morrison-era changes and restoring the Commonwealth Grants Commission’s original processes.

This is the right choice. The government should adopt it.

The alternatives are inferior. The second-best option it outlines has the federal government commit to direct payments to any state that is materially disadvantaged by a “dominant” state effect. This would essentially compensate states harmed by the 2018 formula on a case-by-case basis. In practice, this would amplify state-based lobbying for “special” recognition.

The final option effectively leaves current arrangements in place, preserving WA’s advantaged position indefinitely, at the continuing expense of taxpayers in every other state and territory. It would not address any of the problems the Productivity Commission has identified.

Australia built a budget equalisation system the rest of the world regarded as best practice, then dismantled it in 2018 for political expediency.

The Productivity Commission has handed the government a clear, evidence-based path back to a fairer and more defensible system. It’s a path the government should follow.

Robert Breunig 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/a-costly-mistake-new-review-finds-giving-wa-billions-in-extra-gst-was-unfair-to-other-states/

The devastating recent deaths of three toddlers in Queensland, linked to low iron levels, have understandably left many parents wondering whether their own child is getting enough iron.

The good news is that life-threatening iron deficiency is uncommon.

But being low in iron is one of the most common nutrient deficiencies in young children. So it’s worth understanding why iron matters and how to tell if they’re getting enough. There are simple ways to help children meet their iron needs.

Why is iron important?

Iron helps carry oxygen around the body and plays an important role in brain development, growth, immune function and learning.

If a child doesn’t get enough iron, their iron stores gradually become depleted. Over time this can lead to iron deficiency anaemia, where their blood doesn’t have enough haemoglobin (an iron-rich protein) to carry oxygen efficiently.

Iron deficiency during infancy and early childhood has also been associated with poorer cognitive, behavioural and motor development. So prevention and early recognition are important.

What are the signs your child might have low iron?

The early signs of low iron can often be challenging to identify, as toddlers can have these symptoms for a range of reasons.

Children with low iron may seem:

• more tired than usual

• pale

• irritable

• less interested in eating

• slower to gain weight or grow

• less energetic when playing.

Some children also develop pica, where they crave or chew non-food items such as dirt or paper.

Having one or more of these symptoms doesn’t necessarily mean your child has low iron.

But if you’re concerned about their diet, growth, development or energy levels, it’s worth discussing this with your GP, child health nurse or accredited practising dietitian.

How do health professionals check iron levels?

Iron deficiency can’t be diagnosed based only on symptoms. If a health professional suspects low iron, they will likely recommend a blood test.

The blood test usually measures ferritin, which reflects the body’s iron stores, as well as haemoglobin, which helps identify whether iron deficiency has progressed to anaemia.

A child can have low iron stores long before they develop anaemia, so doctors often consider both the blood test results and the child’s overall health.

Does drinking too much milk cause iron deficiency?

Cow’s milk can be part of a healthy toddler diet, but drinking large amounts can increase the risk of iron deficiency.

There are a few reasons why. First, cow’s milk contains very little iron. Second, toddlers who drink a lot of milk may fill up before meals, leaving less appetite for iron-rich foods. Third, replacing a variety of foods with milk reduces opportunities to eat foods that naturally contain iron.

Australian guidelines recommend limiting cow’s milk to around 500 millilitres a day after 12 months of age, while continuing to offer a wide variety of foods.

What if my toddler is still breastfeeding?

Breastfeeding continues to provide many nutritional and developmental benefits throughout the second year of life and beyond.

Breast milk contains iron, and babies absorb its iron very well. However, from around six months of age, breast milk alone no longer provides enough iron to meet a growing baby’s needs.

For infants who are formula fed, standard infant formula sold in Australia contains iron in line with Australian food standards.

Whether a baby is breastfed or formula fed, Australian infant feeding guidelines recommend introducing iron-rich complementary foods such as lean beef, chicken, chickpeas and baked beans from around six months while continuing breastfeeding if desired.

Read more:
Do governments know what to do with street art?

Practical ways to increase iron

Fortunately, helping toddlers meet their iron needs does not need to be complicated.

Parents and carers can offer a variety of iron-rich foods across the week, including lean red meat, chicken, fish, eggs, legumes (such as baked beans or chickpeas in hummus), tofu and iron-fortified breakfast cereals.

If you’re choosing a breakfast cereal, turn the packet over and look at the nutrition information panel or ingredient list. If iron has been added, it will usually be listed among the vitamins and minerals. Examples include Weet-Bix and NutriGrain.

If your child enjoys plant-based iron sources such as baked beans, lentils or tofu, serving them alongside foods rich in vitamin C (such as orange segments, strawberries, kiwi fruit or capsicum) helps the body absorb more of the iron.

Don’t worry if your toddler refuses one particular food. Many children go through phases of eating only a handful of favourite foods. The goal is to continue offering a variety of nutritious options over time rather than expecting a perfectly balanced diet every day.

Read more:
5 picky eating habits – and how to help your child overcome them

The bottom line

Iron is an essential nutrient during early childhood. Most toddlers who are offered a variety of nutritious foods, including iron-rich foods, will meet their iron needs.

If you’re worried your child may have low iron, talk with your GP, child health professional or accredited practising dietitian. They can assess your child’s diet, growth and development and decide whether blood tests are needed.

Early recognition and treatment of iron deficiency are important, but the focus for most families should remain on offering a varied, enjoyable diet that supports healthy growth over time.

Lauren Ball receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Health and Wellbeing Queensland, Heart Foundation, Gallipoli Medical Research and Mater Health, Springfield City Group. She is a director of Dietitians Australia, a director of the Darling Downs and West Moreton Primary Health Network and an associate member of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/worried-your-toddler-isnt-getting-enough-iron-heres-what-parents-need-to-know/

He’s an intergalactic space warrior from the planet Sigma 9 and a part-time politician on Earth.

He also wants to nationalise the singer Adele, abolish the auto-renew function for online subscriptions, cap the price of ice creams and he has a giant garbage bin for a head.

Count Binface is a contender in the by-election for the parliamentary seat of Clacton in the UK. He’s up against Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who resigned from the seat in July amid scrutiny over his personal finances.

Professor of Modern History Richard Toye from Exeter University says Count Binface has managed to draw attention to common criticisms of the conservative leader.

When interviewers say, for example, “have you ever been to Clacton?” he says, “Well, I didn’t think this was a requirement for the job on the basis of Nigel Farage’s behaviour because he’s not really known for turning up and being there very often.”

But Count Binface isn’t the first joke candidate to run in a British election. In 1963, a 22-year-old musician named David Sutch contested in a by-election under the National Teenage Party.

Although he lost, the main policy he campaigned on — reducing the voting age from 21 to 18 years old — did eventuate.

It was only changed in the late 1960s when [the voting age] was reduced to 18. So actually something which he’d been saying was a kind of a spoof policy just a few years earlier, actually became a real policy.

But if a man with a bin for a head can run for parliament what does this say about democracy and electoral processes?

I think it says that politics is a spectacle and we enjoy it. Count Binface is fun. In general I don’t think that comedy characters are an issue because, perhaps they do increase the interest of politics when it is important that people engage.

Disclosure statement

Richard Toye 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.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Isabella Podwinski, Justin Bergman and Ashlynne McGhee. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/13/from-count-binface-to-ai-steve-why-are-we-voting-for-joke-candidates/

While the world’s attention is fixated on the US blockade of Iranian ports and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Russia has been subjecting Ukraine to a blockade of its own in the Black Sea, imperilling Ukraine’s summer grain harvest.

Ukraine is the world’s largest exporter of sunflower seeds and sunflower oil (50% of the global supply), the third-largest exporter of barley (18%), the fourth-largest for corn (16%), and the fifth-largest for wheat (12%).

Russian forces have struck at least 50 Ukrainian cargo ships since June, killing more than 30 civilians. This included a strike on a ship off the coast of Odesa on July 19, which killed ten people onboard. After this attack,
commercial ships stopped travelling to Ukrainian seaports.

Ukraine has retaliated with its own attacks on Russia’s Black Sea ports, including one this week on two major grain terminals in the city of Novorossiysk, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet.

Early Friday, Reuters reported that Ukraine has offered Russia a deal to halt attacks on civilian targets in the Black Sea, as concerns for global grain supplies begin to mount.

Blow to Ukrainian farmers

More than 90% of Ukraine’s agricultural products are exported via Black Sea ports. The blockade of Ukraine’s ports has already been devastating for the country’s farmers.

According to one economist, the blockade could cost the country around 1–1.5% of its gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of the year.

Ukraine expects a grain harvest of about 60 million tonnes this year. But Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotsky said the grain export forecast will only be around 38-40 million tonnes for the 2026–27 fiscal year, a 12% drop from previous estimates.

The delays in exports could cause a domino effect. Once this year’s harvest is completed in the next few weeks, it will be impossible to find enough storage facilities for the crops. Delays in exports will also mean broken contracts with foreign buyers. This will mean less money going to farmers and delays in tax payments to the government.

Beyond causing damage to the Ukrainian state and local budgets, human rights groups have accused Russia of aiming to supplant Ukraine as the global leader in many agricultural exports – this is a key strategy behind its actions.

Russian attempts to weaponise Ukraine’s food exports also have historical parallels. After Ukraine became part of the Soviet Union in the 1920s, Soviet leaders used food as a political and economic weapon to subjugate Ukraine’s population, causing the mass famine in 1932–33 known as the Holodomor.

Alternative routes to market

The current situation is similar to the blockade Russia imposed on Ukrainian ports at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Back then, the United Nations and Turkey were able to broker a temporary deal between Ukraine and Russia, the Black Sea Grain Initiative, to allow shipping to resume. Russia pulled out of the deal a year later.

The situation is not as critical as it was then, at least not yet. Ukraine’s agricultural sector has some flexibility to withstand the current crisis.

To support Ukrainian farmers in response to the renewed blockade, Ukraine’s government has approved an emergency support package and is seeking additional support from the European Commission.

Also, this week, the Ukrainian government held negotiations with Poland on expanding alternative export routes. However, exporting grain through Poland led to protests by Polish farmers in 2023 who were concerned about cheaper Ukrainian grain flooding the Polish market. Poland subsequently imposed a ban on Ukrainian grain.

Another option is to ship exports through the Romanian port of Constanța, as well as through Hungary and Moldova. Moldova said this week it would allow 600,000 tonnes of Ukrainian grain to transit through its country by the end of the year.

Moving grain by rail or road, though, is much more expensive than by sea. Low water levels on the Danube River are also posing a problem.

The ball now appears to be in Russia’s court, with Ukraine’s offer of a truce on Black Sea attacks. Russia’s own grain exports could fall by more than half in August compared to previous years, due to disruptions in the Black and Azov seas.

The naval blockade is already causing significant disruptions to global markets, as well. If Russia does not agree, the situation will become much more critical – not only for Ukraine but also regional and global food security.

Iryna Skubii’s position is funded by the Ukrainian Studies Support Fund of the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/14/russia-is-cutting-off-ukraines-grain-exports-again-threatening-a-critical-harvest-and-global-food-security/