Asia Pacific Report

“This is the last time you’ll see me… they brought me here to kill me.”

These chilling words by detained and tortured Palestinian paediatrician Dr Hussam Abu Safiya were cited by an Amnesty International advocate today at a rally denouncing the failure of New Zealand media to highlight his plight.

Dr Abu Safiya, a paediatrician and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told his lawyer this while on a visit earlier this month, explained Amnesty International’s people power manager Margaret Taylor.

Amnesty international is one of the many global human rights watchdogs and medical organisations that have been campaigning and demanding the release of the paediatrician and former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, destroyed by Israeli forces.

• READ MORE: Israel has stepped up its persecution of Dr Abu Safiya
• Gaza genocide – how many UN findings will the West ignore?
• ‘The essence of childhood has been destroyed’

Speaking to pro-Palestinian activists and supporters in the 145th consecutive week of protests since the genocidal Israeli attacks were unleashed on the besieged Gaza enclave, Taylor described Dr Safiya’s plight.

Taylor said lawyer Nasser Odeh had stated that since Dr Abu Safiya’s transfer to the notorious underground detention facility Rakevet, he had faced daily beatings, threats and abuse.

“Nasser observed fresh bruises and torture marks on Dr Abu Safiya’s head and across his body, leaving him barely recognisable,” she said.

“He also said that Dr Abu Safiya arrived at their meeting with his hands and feet shackled, and on the verge of losing consciousness.”

Question the ‘crime’
Taylor challenged the protesters to question the alleged crime — he has never been charged with any offence — that Israel had used as a pretext to “treat him so badly”.

“Is it because Dr Abu Safiya refused to abandon his patients even when the IDF bombed his hospital among many other hospitals in Gaza into inoperability?” she asked.

“Is it because he was one of the most prominent voices denouncing the devastation of Gaza’s healthcare system, the targeting of ambulances and the killing of fellow medical practitioners?

“Is it because Dr Abu Safiya — this specialist in child healthcare — could bear witness to Israel’s deliberate targeting, injuring and killing of Palestinian children?”

Sadly, said Taylor, since Dr Abu Safiya’s detention in December 2024 in increasingly more inhumane conditions, “we don’t need his evidence”.

“Most recently we’ve heard from [Australian expert on international human rights law] Chris Sidoti, talking [in New Zealand] to the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory’s most recent report,” Taylor said.

“Unequivocally, the commission found that Israeli security forces are perpetuating its genocide by deliberately targeting and killing Palestinian children.

“More than 20,000 Palestinian kids killed, more than 50,000 Palestinian kids injured and all children living in a dystopian world of fear, death and inadequate access to all but the most basic food, healthcare, housing and education.”

‘Irrefutably documented’
Taylor explained how Amnesty International continued to “irrefutably document” that Israel had and was continuing to commit genocide in Gaza, apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

“All those crimes against humanity have also been witnessed by health practitioners like Dr Abu Safiya who have valiantly sought to repair and heal the innocents caught up in targeted attacks by an IDF armed and funded by Western governments.

“Dr Abu Safiya is guilty of no crime — yet he has been held without charge or trial for more than 18 months.

“He has been tortured and ill treated — including severe physical and psychological abuse and prolonged solitary confinement.”

Dr Abu Safiya had been denied adequate medical care and access to independent monitors, including the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC).

“Not only must the Red Cross have access to Dr Abu Safiya — but they must also be granted access to all other Palestinians detainees.

“One of Dr Abu Safiya’s sons was killed in a drone attack on Kamal Adwan hospital. Ibrahim was just 15 and despite that tragedy Dr Abu Safiya kept working.

Bravely speaking out
“His second son Elias continues to bravely speak out for his father’s release.

“Elias has urged us all to intervene before it is too late — ‘The world’s silence today could mean the loss of an innocent human life,’ he has said.

“It is that silence — in the face of Israel’s overwhelming brutality to this good man and to countless innocent Palestinians — that we all have been challenging month on month. And we must continue to do so.

“Don’t be silent — talk about the amazing Dr Hussam to your friends and whānau.”

Criticising the media for its failure to cover this story, she called on the public to write letters to the editor, spread news on social media — “or submit your own articles”.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/18/they-brought-me-here-to-kill-me-nz-media-slammed-over-ignoring-plea/

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

The Trump administration has announced a renewed crusade against “far-left terrorism,” which sounds okay if you don’t know that the word “terrorism” only ever means “behavior which goes against the agendas of the Western empire.”

The United States has for example placed sanctions on UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese for calling attention to Israeli atrocities in Gaza, justifying the move by claiming the human rights expert has “expressed support for terrorism”.

In the UK, police have been arresting people on terrorism charges just for holding signs which say “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”.

• LISTEN: A reading by Tim Foley
• READ MORE: US wants to globalise fight against far-left terrorism
• US urges global crackdown on ‘far-left terrorism’ – NZ says focus on behaviour rather than labels

The designation has nothing to do with actual acts of terrorism as the average Westerner conceives of that notion. In 2024, the US government removed its $10 million bounty on former Al Qaeda leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (AKA Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) because he facilitated Washington’s regime change agendas in Syria, where he is now the sitting president.

You can literally be a leader in the most notorious terrorist network on earth and still see that designation disappear into thin air as soon as you start assisting the geostrategic ambitions of the empire.

The US has signalled that it will refocus its so-called counterterrorism efforts on repressing leftwing groups.

In a speech to officials from more than 60 countries on Thursday, secretary of state Marco Rubio said “far-left terror” had been overlooked for too long.

It comes as… pic.twitter.com/hXQ5PZRfX7

— Novara Media (@novaramedia) July 17, 2026

The White House announced on Thursday that it has launched “an unprecedented global offensive against the transnational threat of Radical Left terrorism,” under which “far-left extremism will be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world has long reserved for jihadist terrorism.”

Journalist Ken Klippenstein reports that according to leaked documents from Marco Rubio’s State Department, groups to be targeted under the new marching orders will include “violent far-left and anarchist networks and other violent extremist actors,” as well as “violent pro-Iranian and antisemitic networks” and “militant anti-tech and eco-terrorist movements.”

Authoritarian implications
The move is premised on a White House memo known as NSPM-7, a directive that critics have been warning about for months due to its dangerously authoritarian implications and lack of congressional approval. In the words of Trump advisor Stephen Miller, NSPM-7 “directs, for the first time in American history, all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest, and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country.”

This line strongly echoes the language of a 1967 FBI memo describing the goals of the J Edgar Hoover program COINTELPRO to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralise the activities of black nationalist hate-type organizations and groupings.”

Secretary Rubio hosted the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism – under President Trump’s leadership this @FBI has been proud to support this important work through National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) 7, focusing federal law enforcement to investigate… pic.twitter.com/AIn0aX29Hl

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) July 16, 2026

Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI conducted covert operations under COINTELPRO to infiltrate and subvert Black civil rights groups, the Communist Party USA, Vietnam War protester organizations, and feminist groups with the goal of stomping out all meaningful leftward political movement in the United States.

The feds never fully stopped running such programmes of course – groups like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter were known to have been targeted by police surveillance and infiltration. But it’s clear the rightists in the White House are aiming for something far more aggressive, and FBI Director Kash Patel sounds super stoked about the chance to become a 21st century J Edgar Hoover.

“Secretary Rubio hosted the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism – under President Trump’s leadership this FBI has been proud to support this important work through National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) 7, focusing federal law enforcement to investigate and disrupt organizations engaging in political violence and terrorism,” Patel said on Twitter regarding the latest escalation.

So it seems the United States is looking at a reinvigorated COINTELPRO for the 2020s, this time with police drones and AI-assisted mass surveillance. As Americans become more and more hostile toward US warmongering, more and more fed up with the state of Israel, more and more convinced that their government doesn’t care about them, and more and more discontented with what unbridled capitalism is doing to their bank accounts, their society, and their world, their rulers are responding with the iron fist of tyranny.

Measures will remain
And what makes all this especially threatening is that you know whatever measures they roll out while the Republicans are running things will remain in place when the Democrats are in power, because as we have discussed here many times before, it is the Democratic Party’s job to prevent leftward movement in the United States.

This will be one of those many, many times the Republicans did something evil and the Democrats just quietly kept it running in the background to protect the interests of the capitalist empire. Because that is their job.

But the fact that this is happening in the first place should inspire hope, not despair. The empire managers aren’t ramping up authoritarianism because it’s easy and fun; they’re doing it because they need to.

They know they’re losing their grip, and they know that they are vastly outnumbered by the ordinary human beings who just want a better world for their children.

They are afraid. And they are afraid because they are losing.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/18/caitlin-johnstone-theyre-launching-a-new-cointelpro-for-the-21st-century/

COMMENTARY: By Saige England

Last night I attended a packed meeting in Lyttleton against the takeover attempt by DP World of the Lyttleton Port. This is a local, regional, national, and international issue.

The meeting was organised by New Zealanders for A Democratic Economy. It was chaired by John Minto, a long time campaigner for human rights.

Think evil predator company with a track record in taking over international ports — sackings, enviro hazards and links to Epstein…  and you have DP World in a nutshell.

• READ MORE: Dubai-based DP World replaces chief named in Epstein files
• Top Canadian pension fund halts deals with UAE firm over Epstein ties
• Bribery allegations threaten DP World’s expansion plans in India
• Major multinational port operator paid zero tax in Australia while raking in billions
• Other DP World reports

I have researched the history of DP World and it is accused of being corrupt — and good at keeping the corruption out of sight — but that’s the way with these tax-evading companies.

Who pays for their profits? The people, the taxpayers through rate-hikes and workers, through redundancies. DP World loves replacing people with AI.

Predator companies like this start on the port and move into other areas because ports are a gateway to transport and other industries.

This is a local, regional, national and international issue about power and control.

It is about power being taken out of the hands of people and placed in the hands of predator companies.

Workers made redundant
Last night heard from workers who have been made redundant water side. Men who cared about community.

We heard from Gerard Loader, secretary at the Lyttelton Branch of the Maritime Union of New Zealand and who is also the national vice-president of the union.

Loader presented as a union official, and also as a boy who grew up, married, had children and works in Lyttleton. He recalled the days when Lyttelton was a hive of activity, a harbour full of ships, trucks, trains, seafarers and “wharfies”.

He gave relevant background to the development of the takeover.

In 2023, the Lyttleton Port Company (LPC) appointed a new CEO in Graeme Sumner and chair of the board Barry Bragg.

“Not long after that we started hearing rumours of plans to privatise city assets, with DP world being mentioned more than once,” said Loader.

“So with the support of the greater community we lobbied council and demonstrated at the CCHL AGM achieving our goal of keeping our assets in public control, albeit with a lot of contorted right-leaning faces looking on in disappointment.”

Battle won, but war continues
That battle was won, but the war is far from over, he said.

“Since early 2024 we have been challenging or asking all LPC management, board members, councillors etc about the persistent rumours of DP World wanting to lease the port operations as a way to get around the mandate of keeping the port in public ownership, and to a man they have all denied or deflected the issue saying they know nothing or it is out of their hands, or we cannot interupt the process as we have to follow due diligence etcetera.

“Then to hear the announcement in June of Tonui (3 runanga and DP World) putting in an unsolicited bid to CCHL for the leasing out of port operations for a 30-year contract was a slap in the face to not only the employees at LPC but the people and ratepayers of Christchurch who have basically been lied to for the last two years by everyone, as DP World and Tonui have been negotiating behind closed doors on this, and in the words of LPC CEO Graeme Sumner, the worst kept secret in Canterbury.”

Barry Bragg is chair of LPC board, was on the Ngāi Tahu Property board for seven years, and is the deputy chair of Stevensons Limited who specialise in concrete and construction.”

Loader said the fact that Bragg claimed he “knew nothing about it”, when asked directly at the Christchurch City Council meeting on June 3, raises more questions than it answers.

Whether the powers that be had full knowledge, or they truly knew nothing while a deal of this magnitude was being discussed, as a ratepayer was “deeply concerning”, Loader said.

“Whose interests do they have at heart?”

End of people’s control
He added that if this “deal” proceeds it would be the end of the port being controlled by the people in the interests of Christchurch city and all profits going back to the Canterbury region.

Rather, the port would be controlled by a huge foreign monopoly which would only have their profit margin at the heart of the operation.

His words were sobering. There is no illusion that control has already slipped and deals are being made behind the scenes.

That is typical of Dubai-based DP World.

The broligarchy is alive and kicking and it does not care about the Tangata or the Whenua or the Moana.

We heard from researcher Edward Miller, of the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability (CICTAR) who has investigated DP World’s control of Australian ports.

This company evades tax and so rates rise. Rise and rise. The burden on tax payers is massive because the company is all about profit and not about sharing or caring for community.

The port is the first point of take over and not the last.

Need to stop this
We need to stop this. We need to stop this asset sale and others.

We need to ensure our community is heard and heeded, and not made redundant.
Councils and the government work for us. It is not the other way around.

We heard from poet Gary McCormick who said we, the people, have power. We have the power to stop this. We are the voice.

We heard from Māori women who talked about the generations to come. We heard form Māori women who talked about the terrible effect this would have on the environment. A greedy parasite controlling the port.

We heard from Sara Campbell who spoke eloquently and passionately about the toll this will take on our environment.

“We’re living in a rapidly warming world. The last 11 years have been the hottest on record.

“Aotearoa now has the highest proportion of threatened species in the world.

“And right here in Whakaraupō, the ecology is under immense pressure. This harbour is home to our nationally vulnerable Hector’s dolphins.”

And yet:

“I truly believe we can stop DP World,” she said.

And the crowd cheered.

“And I believe we can change how the port is run. To a model where we’re actually at the table. Where mana whenua and the unions are strategic partners in decision making.”

No media present
As for me, I will try to publish articles in the media on this but the news media was not there. The newspapers were not present. Radio was not present.

Once the port mattered to media. Now, where is it?

We need to notice this. We need to draw attention to it, we need to join the protest against it. Or it will be too late. And what then?

As Gerard Loader said: “When my grandson asks what I did to stop it, I want to be able to tell him I did everything I could.”

Community for community. Rise people, rise.

Saige England is a humanitarian journalist and activist for community and the environment. She was present in support of community action. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

• Sign the petition Keep Our Port Public to show there is no public mandate for privatisation
• More information on Our Port Public website

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/18/saige-england-a-tale-of-power-being-taken-from-the-people-and-handed-to-predator-companies/

President Donald Trump’s obsession with unfounded claims of election fraud has defined his second term in office. But in recent months his fixation has moved from executive nominee litmus tests and executive orders reinforcing proof of citizenship to vote into legislation – dragging Congress into the fray.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE America Act, featured heavily in Trump’s primetime speech on July 16, 2026.

It’s become the focus of the administration in recent months, eclipsing prior legislative efforts by proposing stringent and widespread voting changes. The proposed law, which would federalize elections, require additional documentation in order to vote and curtail mail-in registration and ballots in all states, faces major logistical, legal and political hurdles.

The act, which is stuck in limbo between the U.S. House and Senate, has dominated and derailed the summer’s legislative calendar. In the House, Republican members delayed votes on major legislation in an effort to pressure the Senate to take the bill up for a vote, and it has become a sticking point in other unrelated legislation.

The controversial act has also soured the relationship between Trump and members of his party, leading him to refuse to sign a bipartisan housing bill passed by Congress. Although the bill became law without his signature, Trump’s preoccupation with the SAVE America Act ultimately denied congressional Republicans an opportunity to tout a bipartisan, popular policy win.

Yet, despite mounting political pressure, Congress hasn’t budged.

This tension between Trump’s priorities and congressional inaction is noteworthy because Republicans control both chambers. But as a political scientist who studies the evolving power of congressional leadership, I find inaction on the SAVE America Act to be more than a reflection of Trump’s waning popularity among Republican lawmakers. Rather, congressional hesitation on what would be the largest election reform in decades reflects an awareness of constituent needs and lawmakers’ own reelection risks.

What’s the latest?

House Republicans have been quick to blame the Senate – and the 60-vote filibuster threshold the legislation must overcome to receive a vote on the Senate floor – for the inaction.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has brought the legislation to the floor for at least three votes in an effort to pressure the Senate to take up the legislation. In July 2026, Johnson took a more creative approach, relenting to conservative lawmakers by including portions of the SAVE America Act in a House-passed bill to fund the State Department.

These actions are largely theatrical. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said since February 2026 that there aren’t enough votes to move the SAVE America Act through the Senate, telling Fox News in June that “the votes currently aren’t there.” Although Senate Republicans could vote to remove the filibuster, which Trump has also requested, they have not.

Even in the House, the slim margins of Republican control have made it challenging for Johnson to keep the party together on the controversial issue. And Johnson’s gambit to attach the SAVE America Act to important legislation risks not only derailing bipartisan policy but another government shutdown, too.

If Republicans were serious about electoral reform, including moderate reforms that the majority of Americans do support, their approach would be like that used for other major legislation: bipartisan. Instead, partisan passage of a controversial bill, with a known Senate blockade, presents half-hearted strategy that avoids true responsibility.

Legal and logistical hurdles

The SAVE America Act would be confusing, time-consuming and expensive, and it would not provide funding to help states implement changes.

Changing election processes warrants precision and time, too. As Republican Sen. Thom Tillis noted, “Do you honestly believe that we can have this thing up in 50 states? There’s no funding. There’s no specific implementation instructions.”

Beyond logistics, the legality of federalizing election processes is murky.

Congress does have the power to mandate election requirements. But under Article 1, Section 4, of the Constitution, while Congress can outline parameters, states are responsible for election administration.

For example, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 reinforced citizenship as a requirement, but states maintained responsibility for creating their own form and enrollment process. The SAVE America Act attempts to circumvent this by requiring federal possession of voter rolls.

Uncertainty for American citizens

Beyond legal challenges, the SAVE America Act introduces very real implications for American voters – and the members of Congress who represent them.

While the act’s stated goal is to ensure only citizens vote, citizenship requirements for voting are already federal law. In practice, many scholars believe the bill would make it more difficult for eligible voters to engage in the democratic process.

For rural Americans, most of whom are represented by Republican members of Congress, the act would sharply restrict mail-in registration and mail-in voting. More than 5 million Americans would need to drive an hour or more to register to vote, with some voters facing drives as long as eight hours.

For women who changed their name after marriage, a trait more likely to be associated with Republican women, voting would require marriage certificates in addition to birth certificates.

First-time voters, young voters on college campuses and voters who have recently moved could also face the hurdle of finding and presenting this documentation in person.

Members of Congress, particularly those who represent rural areas, are likely aware of this reality. Disenfranchising or, at best, confusing their voters risks their own electoral success, too.

Safety and security of upcoming elections

One of Trump’s first acts following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Slaughter in June 2026, which allowed the president to remove executive branch officials without cause, was to fire the remaining members of the bipartisan, Senate-confirmed Election Assistance Commission.

The agency is the point of contact for states regarding election administration processes, offering resources, guidance and expertise on voting logistics. If the SAVE America Act were to pass, this office would be integral to ensuring changes are unbiased and fair across all 50 states.

Coupled with warnings that Trump may invoke emergency powers over election administration, aggressive actions by the Department of Justice to control voter rolls, partisan redistricting, and now a vacated election commission, the SAVE America Act risks further disrupting elections. All while these elections have already been secure and overwhelmingly free of fraud.

As Tillis noted to reporters, “They’re being disingenuous to suggest to the American people they could possibly be operational by this election. And so then it begins to make me wonder … if we’re just beginning to undermine the underlying integrity of any of our elections. And I think that’s dangerous, and I think it’s wrong.”

Trump’s grip on Republicans

Does Congress’ hesitation to pass the SAVE America Act reflect a weakened Trump grip on the Republican party? Possibly. The president is more unpopular than he has been at any point during his second term. Ignoring Trump on the SAVE America Act may be a risk worth taking to some members.

But for most Republican members of Congress, appeasing Trump remains key to primary and electoral success. The president’s record on primary endorsements – even for Senate incumbents – remains strong, as he continues to define the party. Among constituents, some provisions of the SAVE America Act are popular among MAGA-aligned voters, making it an important electoral issue for members representing deep-red districts.

By publicly supporting the act, but relying on the Senate to serve as a doorstop to House-passed legislation, Congress falls into a familiar pattern that allows conservative members to appeal to the president while using procedure to block legislation that would make major changes to voting, mere months from Election Day.

Congress’ hesitance to pass the SAVE America Act is more than a test of its relationship with Trump. It’s an example of Congress doing what it was intended to do: represent its constituents.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/republicans-control-congress-so-why-is-trumps-save-america-act-stuck/

Manchester has always been an English city that tells its story through culture. Its reputation was not built solely through a global crucible of industry, commerce or politics but through music, football, television, art and a tradition of creative self-invention.

The northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. This series considers what some have dubbed Manchesterism and what it might mean for the future of the UK.

Few cities have translated local culture into international influence quite like Manchester. It is the city that gave the world Joy Division, The Smiths, New Order, Oasis and The Stone Roses; where Factory Records and The Haçienda redefined independent music and club culture; where punk, post-punk, rave and Britpop became part of a distinctive civic identity.

But Manchester’s creative influence extends far beyond music, encompassing internationally recognised comedy, theatre, television, literature, visual art and festivals. It is a city whose cultural output has consistently shaped how Britain is imagined around the world.

Manchester is no longer simply a place on the map; it has become a globally recognised cultural brand built on creativity, reinvention and an unwavering confidence in its own identity.

That identity is important because culture in Manchester has never been decorative. It has long functioned as civic infrastructure; shaping how the city understands itself, how it responds to moments of crisis and renewal, and how it presents itself to the world.

Music, in particular, has provided a shared language through which successive generations have expressed ideas about class, community, resilience and belonging.

It is against this backdrop that Andy Burnham’s mayoralty should be understood as he becomes the UK’s prime minister.

For much of the modern era in British politics, culture has been treated as an optional extra: valuable for tourism, regeneration or economic growth, but rarely considered central to how places function.

Burnham took a noticeably different approach.

Culture and ‘Manchesterism’

Throughout his time as mayor of Greater Manchester, culture was increasingly positioned not as a luxury but as part of the region’s strategic infrastructure. Culture matters because it creates economic value, but also because it creates civic value: fostering belonging, confidence and the conditions in which communities flourish.

Part of that perspective appears rooted in Burnham’s own relationship with music. Unlike politicians who occasionally deploy popular music as an electoral prop, Burnham’s engagement with Manchester’s musical culture feels authentic and longstanding (despite the fact that he is originally from Merseyside, and supports Everton).

He has become one of the clearest exponents of a distinctly contemporary “Manchesterism”. No longer simply shorthand for swagger, musical heritage or post-industrial resilience; Manchesterism has evolved into a civic philosophy that combines cultural confidence with social purpose. It treats culture not as decoration but as infrastructure: something that underpins economic renewal, public wellbeing and collective identity.

Read more:
Andy Burnham: what to expect from the UK’s likely next prime minister

Now he has moved onto the national stage, the question is not simply whether he will take Manchester’s policies with him. It is whether this evolving form of Manchesterism can itself become a national political language.

His greatest political innovation may not be a single transport scheme or cultural initiative, but the demonstration that investment in music, creativity, local identity and civic pride can sit at the heart of modern government rather than at its margins.

As Manchester continues to reinvent itself as an internationally recognised cultural city, Burnham’s politics appear to be evolving alongside it. The relationship has never been one-way.

He has helped shape the city’s contemporary identity, just as the city has shaped his political imagination. Now, as he enters national leadership, it may be this distinctive model of culturally informed civic leadership – born in Manchester but increasingly relevant far beyond it – that proves his most enduring legacy.

Indie music and Manchester icons

Burnham’s social media posts and running playlists reveal an affection for the independent music that has shaped both the city and his own generation.

The playlists move comfortably between Manchester icons and other British acts, such as The La’s, suggesting someone whose soundtrack has been formed as much by post-industrial Britain as by Westminster.

Musical taste is rarely just about entertainment. It often reflects values.
The music Burnham returns to is characterised by independence, community, experimentation and a certain scepticism towards established power.

From The Smiths to The Stone Roses, these are artists who emerged from a city that repeatedly reinvented itself after industrial decline. Their music speaks of resilience, ambition and some sense of civic pride without sentimentality. Those themes have become remarkably consistent features of Burnham’s political language.

His connection to Manchester’s music scene therefore feels less like political performance than political formation.

His administration’s creation of the night time economy adviser, establishment of the Greater Manchester Music Commission, advocacy for grassroots music venues, and sustained backing for major cultural institutions all reflect an appreciation that cultural ecosystems are interconnected.

Via the Greater Manchester Music Commission in particular, music was recognised not simply as part of the city’s heritage but as a strategic asset with implications for economic growth, skills, health, education, tourism and international reputation. Rather than viewing culture as something to preserve, Burnham’s administration increasingly treated it as something to invest in.

This Is The Place

But perhaps nowhere was Burnham’s understanding of culture more visible than in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack in 2017.

At a moment of profound grief, one of the defining public responses was not a government statement or policy announcement but Tony Walsh’s poem, This Is The Place.

Performed before thousands gathered in Albert Square, it articulated a version of Manchester rooted in solidarity, creativity and resilience.

The moment resonated because it demonstrated that culture was not simply reflecting Manchester’s identity; it was actively producing it.

What has frequently been missing from politics is an understanding that people experience places emotionally as well as economically. Burnham’s contribution has been to recognise that identity itself matters.

People do not simply inhabit cities. They develop attachments to them. They inherit stories about them. Music venues, festivals, football clubs, libraries, theatres and public spaces all contribute to those attachments. Culture becomes one of the ways communities imagine themselves.

As Burnham enters 10 Downing street, the more interesting question is whether this contemporary form of Manchesterism will travel with him. The city’s distinctive blend of cultural confidence, civic identity and creative ambition has become more than a local political style. It offers a model of how culture can shape economic development, public life and place-making.

If that vision gains national traction, Burnham’s most significant legacy will not simply be the projects he championed in Greater Manchester, but the argument that culture is not an optional extra to be supported once economic priorities have been met. It is a fundamental part of how resilient, innovative and internationally recognised places are made.

Manchester understood that long before politics did.

I am a member of the GM Music Commission.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/how-manchester-created-manchesterism-from-music-and-culture-to-political-power/

For the second time in a year, there have been public protests in Ukraine in response to a decision by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

In July 2025, protests erupted when Zelensky tried to curb the powers of two independent corruption agencies, forcing him to backtrack. The trigger for the latest protests was the dismissal of Ukraine’s popular defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.

This is not the first time Zelensky has reshuffled his defence team. Oleksii Reznikov, who had been defence minister since 2021, was dismissed in 2023 following a string of high-profile corruption scandals.

He was replaced by Rustem Umerov who, after two years in office, was moved to the role of secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, as part of a full-scale cabinet reshuffle.

Umerov’s replacement, former prime minister Denys Shmyhal, lasted almost exactly six months before another reshuffle linked to the long fallout from the corruption scandals of summer 2025. Shmyhal was moved to the energy ministry and replaced by Fedorov.

What distinguishes Fedorov’s ousting is that this is the first time a reshuffle has been carried out for reasons of internal disagreement within Zelensky’s core team.

In a press conference on July 16, Fedorov accused the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, of blocking his reform initiatives and dividing the country. Their rift had become increasingly public. Fedorov and Syrskyi had apparently each demanded that the other be dismissed, rather than finding the compromise Zelensky wanted.

That the president sided with the commander-in-chief rather than his defence minister seemingly defies all logic. Fedorov had been an advocate of drone warfare during his earlier tenure as Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation, a role he assumed at the beginning of Zelensky’s tenure as president in 2019.

Since Fedorov was appointed minister of defence in January, Ukraine has made significant progress in stalling Russia’s momentum in the war. Key to this has been an intensified campaign of strikes against Russian oil infrastructure – one of the backbones of the country’s war economy.

Fedorov also moved to reform procurement policies in the defence ministry. In June, he stated that his team’s efforts to enforce competitive tendering for defence contracts had saved more than US$100 million (£74 million) by cutting the costs of 155mm artillery shells.

This is one probable source of Fedorov’s conflict with Syrskyi, who decides which weapons systems and military equipment should be procured. More than an issue of corruption, the rift is about control – and a clash of cultures between the moderniser, Fedorov, and the more traditional military leadership around Syrskyi.

After his dismissal, Fedorov apparently refused to continue in an advisory role for Zelensky. Two key advisors in the defence ministry, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov and Serhii Sternenko, as well as the deputy commander of the air force, Pavlo Yelizarov, have all now resigned.

These developments further underline the internal strategic disagreements over the direction of Ukraine’s war effort.

Fedorov’s replacement

Zelensky’s initial choice for his next defence minister was Ihor Klymenko, who apparently declined the role and is set to take up the post of secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council instead.

As a former national police chief who had been Ukraine’s interior minister since 2023, Klymenko was seen as someone who could resolve Ukraine’s continued recruitment crisis. This is arguably the area in which Fedorov failed to make sufficient progress.

In light of sustained rumours about a new mobilisation of Russian troops for the war in the autumn, it is clear that Ukraine’s manpower problem is becoming more acute and needs an urgent resolution.

According to Fedorov’s diagnosis of the scale of the problem, 2 million Ukrainians are currently wanted for draft evasion, and 200,000 soldiers are absent without official leave.

Less clear, however, is why Klymenko was touted for the role. As interior minister, he was at least part of the problem caused by so-called “busification” – the forcible seizure of military-age Ukrainian men by recruitment officials. Klymenko has consistently maintained that these officials have acted within the boundaries of martial law.

Klymenko’s refusal to accept the position may also have been an implicit acknowledgement of how difficult a job any reform of recruitment would be. This is particularly the case given Zelensky’s highly public commitment to eradicating busification, during his press conference with the outgoing British prime minister, Keir Starmer, in Kyiv on July 16.

Yevhenii Khmara, a major general and acting head of the Ukrainian intelligence service SBU, has now been appointed as acting defence minister. Given Kharma’s previous role in supporting Ukraine’s intensifying air campaign against Russia, his appointment placates critics of the Fedorov dismissal. These include members of Zelensky’s own party, who saw Klymenko as insufficiently aligned with Fedorov’s strategy in the war.

But a realignment with Fedorov’s vision of how to win the war will do little to address either the recruitment issue or the underlying conflict with Syrskyi. That this will likely fester could be particularly destabilising, because the timeline towards Kharma’s parliamentary confirmation is unclear.

Under Ukrainian law, Kharma first has to resign from active military service before he can take on the civilian role of defence minister. He then has to be formally nominated by the president, after which the Ukrainian parliament must approve his appointment.

Like the summer 2025 corruption crisis, Zelensky will probably weather this storm. But the price he is likely to pay is a further erosion of his authority – and a shrinking of his inner circle of trusted advisors.

This is an unnecessary and unwelcome distraction from a defence effort that had finally seemed to put Ukraine on the front foot, for the first time since the end of 2022.

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 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/ukraines-defence-shake-up-exposes-rift-in-zelenskys-inner-circle/

As mayor of Greater Manchester, one of Andy Burnham’s most eye-catching policies was his agenda for public transport. This centred on the creation of a more integrated and inclusive “London-style” system, and the aim was that everybody should be able to access reliable, safe and affordable public transport across the region.

The idea behind his flagship “Bee Network” is the joining up of buses, trams, rail, cycling and walking under one brand, with simple fares and better coordination.

Burnham and his team at local government body Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) fought to turn back Margaret Thatcher’s bus deregulation policies, which opened the market up to private providers. They then brought buses back under local control through franchising.

In practice, this means that rather than letting commercial operators take charge, TfGM makes the decisions on routes, frequency, fares and integration. Services around the city centre are free.

The northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. This series considers what some have dubbed Manchesterism and what it might mean for the future of the UK.

Outside London, Greater Manchester is the first area to achieve this considerable shift towards an integrated public transport network. Other metropolitan authorities plan to follow its lead, and most people in the region credit Burnham’s leadership for this success.

In a departure from the England-wide policy of a £3 cap on bus fares introduced in January 2023, the Bee Network has retained its £2 cap on fares. The Bee Network also allows “hopper-style” ticketing, which lets passengers change buses within a time window without paying again. There have also been fare freezes for 2026 and expanded concessionary travel for older and disabled passengers.

Problems outside the centre

But there are still significant challenges. A key question is whether the quality and reliability can improve enough to generate sustained growth in passenger journeys. Greater Manchester’s official bus strategy targets a 30% increase in bus use by 2030, equivalent to nearly 50 million additional journeys each year.

It is also unclear whether funding for fare subsidies will remain stable given wider policy pressures, such as the need to provide affordable social housing and support for businesses.

But arguably, the most important of these challenges is the ongoing problem of transport-related social exclusion. I have serious doubts around whether orbital and cross-borough journeys in Manchester’s urban periphery will improve enough for the Bee Network to benefit communities beyond the city centre. This is particularly the case for deprived boroughs such as Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan.

Research I was involved in looked at low-income and transport-poor communities in these peripheral areas. It found that limited public transport, especially bus services, continues to make it harder for people to get jobs, study or access healthcare and social activities.

While the Bee Network is working well in the centre of Manchester, it largely serves those who already enjoy a high standard of bus services. It remains to be seen whether the same high standards can be achieved in Greater Manchester’s district centres, and it’s likely to prove even more challenging in its semi-rural areas.

Karen Lucas receives funding from Department for Transport and Transport for Greater Manchester. She consults with Ipsos, Steer and Arcadis

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/yes-burnhams-bee-network-has-transformed-central-manchester-but-thats-not-the-whole-picture/

Spain will play Argentina in the Fifa World Cup final on Sunday. The highly anticipated match takes place in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, with the teams vying for the most coveted prize in football.

Attacking flair and physicality will no doubt play a role. But we could also see an underappreciated element of football come to the fore: geometry.

In their 2-0 World Cup semi-final win over France, Spain formed neat passing triangles around the French players. This sometimes made it look as if Spain had extra people on the field.

Wherever a Spanish player received the ball, two teammates appeared at different angles – with their French opponents seemingly always arriving a fraction too late.

The triangle mattered not because it was neat, but because it gave Spain choice and France uncertainty. Each pass forced a French defender to commit to one possible future: press the ball, block the inside route, or protect the space behind. By the time that choice was made, the ball had often moved and the geometry had changed again.

Spain were not simply finding space. They were controlling when and where the next space would appear.

Forcing choices

Put three attackers in a straight line and one defender can often block both supporting players. But move one supporting player sideways and the passing lines separate.

The defender must choose which route to close. Press the ball and a pass can go around them. Protect the inside route and the outside may open. If another defender steps across, a Spanish player can attack the space left behind.

A useful football triangle does not need equal sides or 60-degree angles. Its best shape changes with defenders’ positions, body orientation, ball speed and the space available.

A narrow triangle is easy to squeeze because one defender may block both lanes. A wide one makes the pass travel farther, giving an opponent more time to intercept it.

In their semi-final match against France, Spain found the middle ground again and again – close enough for quick combinations, but far enough apart to stretch France’s press.

A pitch made of probabilities

Football geometry is a problem of time as well as space. A passing lane is not open simply because no defender is standing in it. The key question is whether the ball reaches the receiver before an opponent reaches the interception point.

A diagram shows where players are – but a useful model of the game asks where players can get to. Research using player-tracking data estimates control of the pitch from players’ position, direction, speed and acceleration. The result is a constantly changing map of who is most likely to reach each area first.

Pedro Porro’s 58th-minute semi-final goal offered a compact example when, after exchanging passes with teammate Dani Olmo, he continued his run to score Spain’s second. The first pass shifted the defenders’ focus. Porro’s movement created a new angle for the return.

A living network

Three-player combinations make this idea even harder to defend. Spain’s strength was not just one triangle, but the speed with which several overlapped. A midfielder could be one corner of multiple shapes, connected to a defender, full-back, winger and another midfielder.

Passing-network research describes players as points and passes as links. Yet a final network diagram for a given football match misses something important: Spain were rebuilding those links with every movement and first touch they made.

The value of a pass is not only where the ball goes, but how it changes what could happen next. That is why ten sideways passes are not automatically better than one pass that removes two defenders.

The shape that conquered basketball

Triangles are not unique to football. Under head coach Phil Jackson (1987-1998), US basketball team the Chicago Bulls made frequent use of a tactic called Tex Winter’s triangle offence. This places three players on one side of the court to create passing, cutting and scoring routes.

The sport was different but the principle was the same: triangles preserve alternatives. Close one route and another remains; follow the ball and space opens elsewhere.

In their match against Spain, France’s problem was not simply a lack of running. Pressing works only when several defenders move together and close connected passing options.

After the match, Kylian Mbappé said there had been “a lack of communication” in France’s pressing. Spain kept moving before France could reorganise.

A triangle on a tactics board does nothing by itself. Its power depends on players scanning before receiving, opening their bodies, and using the first touch to preserve the option of more than one next action.

The deeper contest was between Spain’s speed of reconfiguration and France’s speed of recognition. Spain kept changing the problem faster than France could solve it. The triangles were visible – but their real advantage was control over what could happen next.

Will we see a similar approach deployed in the final? Argentina will no doubt be closely studying their opponent’s tactics from other matches. But geometry will still play a prominent role – and may even prove a deciding factor.

Conor Boland 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/2026/07/17/geometry-football-and-the-world-cup-final/

AI companies increasingly want to move their operations into space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has applied to launch over a million AI data centre satellites and ultimately build them on the moon.

Jeff Bezos, Google, OpenAI and others have similar plans. The idea is to harness 24/7 solar energy and, in Bezos’s vision at least, to move all polluting industries off-world, re-zoning Earth for humans and nature.

It’s an intriguing plan. But once you factor in the whole life cycle, from water and rocket fuel used to launch these satellites into space, to keeping them cool and eventually disposing of old satellites, the environmental case becomes less clear.

Outer space, out of mind

Off-worlding polluting industries is not a new idea. In the 1970s, when the last Iranian oil crisis caused rocketing fuel prices, Nasa kicked off a plan to build huge solar plants in space. The idea flopped when the oil began to flow again.

Nasa also explored the prospect of storing nuclear materials on the moon and blasting hazardous waste at the sun. These plans may have been feasible from an engineering perspective but were politically impossible due to the risk of radioactive particles eventually falling back to earth.

Since data centres need so much energy, much of it for AI, such astronomical ideas are back on the table. Regular Earth-based data centres were responsible for around 5% of all electricity used in the US last year, for instance, mostly using fossil fuels. Their share of US power demand will likely triple by 2028.

The fragile frontier

That’s why the cold vacuum of space, with its endless supply of solar energy, is being pitched as a more sustainable alternative to big, noisy, hot data centres in our back yards.

Meanwhile, a recent petition from environmental law charity Earthjustice, is calling for a comprehensive review. They argue these proposals fail to acknowledge any environmental impact. “This is not just poor planning and a missed opportunity”, the petition states, “it violates federal law”.

Indeed, SpaceX’s planning applications come with assurances of no meaningful environmental impact. “It’s always sunny in space,” according to Musk, who says orbital data centres are “obviously the only way to scale”.

Yet data centres in space would be even more prone to overheating than those on earth. That’s because, like a Thermos flask, space keeps things hot. There’s no water or air to carry excess heat away. Instead, keeping powerful AI chips cool in orbit requires massive ammonia-filled radiators that let heat escape as infrared radiation. This isn’t very efficient and those radiators are much larger than the computers they cool. Lifting these huge structures to orbit would require a lot of rocket fuel.

Most plans for orbital data centres depend on the future success of SpaceX’s heavy-lift Starship. But every Starship launch burns over 1,000 tonnes of liquid methane, releasing around 80,000 tonnes of CO₂ (about the same as what 20,000 cars emit in a year). The warming associated with soot emissions in the upper atmosphere is 500 times more intense than the same emissions at ground level. We know soot from rockets reduces stratospheric ozone – the stuff shielding us from harmful UV rays. In the lower atmosphere, most soot falls back to Earth in weeks. In the stratosphere, soot stays there for up to four years, prolonging its damaging effects.

While it is always sunny in space, solar panels degrade much quicker there. Microchips are also easily damaged, falling prey to a phenomenon known as “bit flipping” – when high-energy particles rewrite memory hardware randomly changing data from 1 to 0. Retrieving busted hardware from space is not financially viable. SpaceX satellites have a five-year shelf life before being incinerated as they fall back to Earth. The environmental impacts of things burning up in the atmosphere are not well known.

Musk’s AI satellites would be connected by lasers. Should any one of the million or so satellites become untethered and collide with another, it would create further debris, creating more risk of collisions, more debris, and so on. Scientists call this the Kesler Syndrome and worry that orbital debris fields could hinder human activities in space for a very long time.

Orbital data centres would have a huge water footprint too. To catch toxic dust and protect their concrete launch pad from heat damage, a typical spaceport uses a deluge system releasing around 2 million litres of water with every launch. SpaceX has repeatedly broken environmental laws with its deluge system, allowing contaminated run-off from Starship launches to enter protected waters off the coast of Texas.

Some suggest these sci-fi schemes are designed to prop up SpaceX’s teetering stock price, rather than humanity’s computing needs. Others see orbital data centres as just one of many ambitious visions to tackle the environmental costs of AI. Either way, my research suggests this quest to off-world the industry’s headaches will have profound implications that are not well understood.

Peter Howson has received research funding from the British Academy.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/why-ais-environmental-footprint-wont-disappear-into-orbit/

Flying abroad for a summer holiday is not as simple as it used to be. Geopolitical uncertainty has already disrupted flight schedules and fuel prices this year.

For many, staying closer to home will seem like a sensible option. And in the UK, warmer summers could also make staycations much more appealing.

But for others, the allure of foreign holidays will always remain.

So the challenge for travel companies is to demonstrate that an overseas holiday is worth the risk. Our research on tourism suggests that at times like this, consumers seek reassurance and expertise. And for tour operators and travel agents, this presents an opportunity.

When travel seems straightforward, consumers may be happy to organise their own flights, hotels and transfers online. But when disruption and uncertainty are likely, trusted intermediaries become more valuable.

There is evidence this is already happening in the UK. More people are turning to trusted travel agents to steer them through the uncertainty of conflicts, economic crises and extreme weather.

For a good travel operator does more than sell flights and accommodation. They can reduce complexity and vulnerability, and offer support when things change.

This reassurance should perhaps be made more visible in marketing. Flexible booking terms, clear refund policies, Atol cover (government-backed protection for travellers) and guidance about disruption should not be buried in small print.

Our research suggests that for cautious travellers, the destination matters of course – but so does having confidence that someone will help if things go wrong.

Operators should also continue to promote deals, as price remains important. But they should aim to focus particularly on value.

For instance, all-inclusive holidays reduce uncertainty around the cost of food, drink and activities. Package holidays can simplify decisions and provide clearer protection than booking separate elements independently. Flexible payment plans can make holidays appear more manageable.

Tour operators should also appeal explicitly to the emotional value of travel, embracing the reasons that make going abroad so appealing – the sense of escape, of adventure and memory-making with loved ones.

In this way, travel abroad can be framed as an investment in experience and memories laden with emotional value.

Research also suggests that many travellers are drawn to experiences that help them express a distinctive sense of self. This gives operators another way to frame value: authentic local culture, distinctive experiences and memorable occasions that are difficult to replicate at home.

But this emotional promise needs practical backing. Travellers want evidence that their money, time and plans will be protected – which means an increasingly important aspect of any travel agent’s role is communicating the experiences of fellow travellers.

Holiday memories

A strong strategy for the industry would show why overseas holidays are still worthwhile, and explain clearly how risks will be managed. A UK government report found that travellers see tour operators as trusted messengers during times of disruption. And clear communication can reduce confusion and build trust.

Demand for overseas travel remains strong, even as booking behaviour is changing. There is evidence that plenty of people plan to travel in the next 12 months.

Travellers are not necessarily turning away from holidays abroad. But they are becoming more careful about when, where and how they book.

People do not simply stop travelling when the world feels uncertain. They adapt. Consumers substitute destinations, shorten trips, book later, travel off-peak, reduce spending or move towards providers they trust.

Tourism has repeatedly bounced back from major disruptions, including the pandemic. But each disruption make tourists more cautious, more likely to compare options, and more demanding of travel providers.

Success will depend less on offering the cheapest holidays than on building lasting customer relationships. Cautious tourists are buying more than flights, hotels and sunshine. They are buying confidence that their limited time and money will be well spent.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/worried-about-booking-a-holiday-abroad-heres-how-travel-operators-can-provide-reassurance/

A new law created in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster, which aims to prevent state cover-ups, has finally passed through the UK’s House of Commons.

The Hillsborough Law has been championed by the campaign for truth and justice which emerged from the tragedy that unfolded on April 15 1989, during an FA cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. A crowd crush resulted in the deaths of 95 people. Another person died in March 1993 as a result of injuries sustained that day, with a similar final death in July 2021.

A subsequent public inquiry and an inquest found that in the aftermath of the disaster, South Yorkshire Police deliberately engaged in a strategy of denial and obfuscation – blaming fans for the tragedy.

South Yorkshire Police released statements suggesting intoxicated, ticketless Liverpool fans had caused the crush. The force also altered witness statements to remove negative comments about police conduct during the investigation. These baseless accusations were promoted in parts of the British media as fact.

As a result of campaigning by families of Hillsborough victims, a number of state-mandated investigations were held into the disaster. Initial inquests and a public inquiry did little to reveal the truth.

But in 2009, the Bishop of Liverpool James Jones was appointed to chair the Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP), which finally put survivors and families first and ensured the questions they wanted to have answered fundamentally drove the panel’s work.

The HIP was made possible only as a result of tireless campaigning in the face of years of denial and disappointment. It definitively dispelled the myth of fan culpability, revealing the true causes of the Hillsborough disaster to be a combination of longstanding safety issues and unprecedented police mismanagement of the crowd as well as the subsequent establishment cover-up.

A positive legacy

Campaigners’ struggles raised questions about how those in positions of power were able to shift blame in the wake of disasters. These questions only became more salient in the aftermath of the panel’s report. Campaigners were also vindicated in 2016, when new inquests finally ruled that the fans who died as Hillsborough had been unlawfully killed. Yet this too raised profound questions about how this truth could have been surpressed for so long.

Further scandals, including the Post Office Horizon IT scandal and the Grenfell Tower fire, each pointed to the need for greater accountability and candour from people in positions of power. In seeking to build a positive legacy out of trauma, the Hillsborough community has led the fight for this through what has been dubbed the “Hillsborough Law”, which passed unanimously through the House of Commons on July 14.

The original Hillsborough Law (the Public Office Accountability Bill), was introduced before Parliament in 2017 by Andy Burnham. He had developed a close link with the Hillsborough campaign for justice, having raised their cause in Parliament in 2009 after he was heckled at a 2009 anniversary event held at Anfield whilst serving as culture secretary.

It had been drafted by lawyers who had worked with Hillsborough victims’ families, and it made two key demands. First, that those in public life must tell the truth during police investigations (an “active duty of candour”) into disasters like Hillsborough. Second, that communities directly affected by disasters have access to funds to cover their legal representation, addressing their financial imbalance.

However, the 2017 general election interrupted the bill’s passage through parliament. Burnham subsequently left Westminster to become the mayor of Greater Manchester, and the legislation was not reintroduced.

In the wake of further cover-ups including Grenfell and Post Office Horizon, in 2022 the Hillsborough Law Now campaign launched. It involved a number of community campaigns such as Grenfell United and allies including Burnham and Liverpool MP Ian Byrne.

During his speech to the Labour party conference in 2024, Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed that Labour would pass the Hillsborough Law.

However, Labour missed its self-imposed deadline for introducing the bill before the 36th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, citing the need for more time “to draft the best version” of the bill.

Campaigners were concerned that Labour might be watering down the Hillsborough Law, amid pressure to exempt security services from the duty of candour on the basis that requiring them to do so could compromise national security, and rumours that Labour was considering ditching the proposal for funding of legal representation to avoid footing hefty legal costs.

In the face of this, the Hillsborough Law Now campaign quickly mobilised, lobbying the prime minister directly and campaigning publicly for the law to be enacted in full.

Following negotiations between the prime minister and families of the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing who argued that their fight for truth and justice was harder because of failures in security service candour, this will now happen – with no exceptions.

The political legacy of the Hillsborough Law

For Starmer, ensuring the Hillsborough Law passed through the Commons was one of his last acts as prime minister. Having personally promised some of the relatives that he would ensure the law was enacted, he now seeks to frame it as a key part of his own legacy.

Starmer’s successor, Burnham, was a key early proponent of the Hillsborough Law. Burnham has linked the bill to broader questions. Burnham asked: – “What kind of country we want to be? One where power is concentrated in distant institutions, or one where it is shared more fairly with the people and places those institutions are meant to serve.”

The Hillsborough Law will not be a magic bullet for ensuring truth and accountability in the wake of major disasters. But it might be a step towards shifting the balance between powerful figures and the communities affected by disaster and cover-ups.

Nathan Critch 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/2026/07/17/why-the-hillsborough-law-has-finally-been-passed-37-years-on/

I first read the Odyssey at university. I was surprised by how much I loved it considering how old and how blokey it was (blood, war, boys being boys) – not to mention the fact it is 12,109 lines of epic poetry.

It’s a story about coming home (too soon?), following Odysseus and his men as they try to get back to the island of Ithaca after the Trojan War. Credited to Homer, the tale features men, monsters and gods. At around 3,000 years old, it remains a ripping yarn that many have tried their hand at adapting or expanding.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood stays true to the epic poetry form while giving voice and agency to Odysseus’s long-suffering wife Penelope and her chorus of maidens as they wait on Ithaca for him to return.

Circe by Madeleine Miller is another brilliant book in the same ilk that expands the tale of the goddess who becomes Odysseus’s lover and guide home. More recently, Ralph Fiennes skilfully turned his hand to playing a fittingly sinewy Odysseus (he’s a ripped warrior but he is nearly 50 and has been away from proper food for a while) in The Return, which focuses on the climactic conclusion to Homer’s epic tale.

Director Christopher Nolan has now taken on the epic and is receiving rave reviews. I will be seeing it this weekend for sure and am ready to be blown away by what critics are calling a masterpiece that harks back to the epics of old Hollywood.

While you can expect myth and magic with a story that sees gods changing the winds, cyclops attacks and men becoming pigs, the land and sea across which Odysseus sails is real. In this piece, Pragya Agarawal, explores how ancient geographers and modern researchers have traced Odysseus’s travels. As she notes, the journey home is what grounds this tale and this piece has got me very excited to see how Nolan has depicted that.

Read more:
Can we map The Odyssey? How ancient geographers and modern researchers have traced Odysseus’s travels

Family expectations

Pragya is an expert not just in the history of cartography, but also in gender inequality, feminism, racism and reproductive justice. So when I heard about a novel centred on a woman discovering that marriage, motherhood and doing everything “right” hadn’t brought the life she expected, I knew I wanted Pragya to review it.

First House opens with its unnamed narrator being told by her husband that he wants a divorce. She can’t believe it: marriage is hard, she tells herself, but you endure it – that’s what her parents did. As Avni Doshi’s protagonist falls apart and rebuilds herself, the identity she’d worked so hard to create dissolves, forcing her to confront the possibility that the life she’d been praised for wasn’t the one she truly wanted.

First House explores the pressures of culture, family, society and personal myth-making, asking what we deny ourselves by clinging to expectations and inherited ideas of success. Is it possible not to want children even if you have them? What is marriage for? I devoured this book, and Pragya found it a refreshing, deeply contemporary feminist tale.

First House by Avni Doshi is out now

Read more:
First House: a visceral story about the collapse of a ‘perfect’ life and the imagining of a new one

Another story about family ties and inherited debts, is Shannon Sanders’ debut novel The Great Wherever. After inheriting a share of her family’s Tennessee farm, Aubrey travels south hoping to solve her financial problems. What she finds is her inheritance is highly contested and within its walls lies generations of family secrets, watched over by the ghosts of her ancestors. The house was bought by her great-grandfather, one of the first Black landowners in the community, and sits on the land on which her family was once enslaved.

Spanning decades of Black American history, The Great Wherever is a sweeping story about land, inheritance, race and generational wealth, asking how much we owe the past. In this piece, expert in American literature Sharon Monteith explores how the novel uses the voices of ancestors to illuminate the history of African American dispossession, inheritance and resilience. The result is a moving reflection on memory, legacy and the enduring importance of land in Black American history.

The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders is out now

Marie Maitland

Most people know Anne Lister as “Gentleman Jack” and regard her as the “first modern lesbian”. However, centuries earlier another remarkable woman was writing about love between women.

Marie Maitland, a 16th-century Scottish gentlewoman, was an unmarried, well-educated and financially independent. For centuries, she has been acknowledged as the author of the Maitland Quarto manuscript, which is a significant collection of poetry in Scots from 1586.

Poem 49 in the manuscript is a lyrical exploration of one woman’s romantic desire for another. It is this poem that sits at the heart of historian and translator Ashley Douglas’s new book, With My Own Hand: The Secret Life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s Sixteenth Century Sappho.

Drawing on a host of recently discovered historical records, the book tells the fascinating story of Maitland and her manuscript in the hopes of placing her back into history. As our reviewer, English scholar Dianne Watt writes, the book is a “thoughtful and often speculative reconstruction of this early modern woman’s queer life”.

With My Own Hand: The Secret Life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s Sixteenth Century Sappho by Asheley Douglas is out now

Read more:
The 16th-century lesbian poet who could be Scotland’s answer to Gentleman Jack

While getting my hair cut this week I noticed that for the hour or so I had been in the chair the same artist had been on repeat on the speakers. My toes were tapping beneath the sweeping salon cape and I had to ask who it was. To my surprise it was Madonna. Yes, Madge is back and she is once again putting out bangers.

Confessions II is a return to the dancefloor, but it’s not just full of earworms with surface-level lyrics about hedonism. Our reviewer argues that beneath the house beats and club nostalgia lies Madonna’s most vulnerable songwriting yet, with lyrics reflecting on grief, family, ageing and past relationships. Rather than simply revisiting an old sound, Confessions II reveals an artist willing to confront her own fallibility while reaffirming her place as one of pop’s great innovators.

Confessions II is out now

Read more:
Confessions II: a euphoric return to form that reveals a more vulnerable Madonna

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/mapping-the-odyssey-what-you-should-watch-read-and-listen-to-this-week/

The Trump administration has decided that destroying the habitat of endangered species is not harmful.

Think about that.

Habitat loss is the No. 1 reason species become endangered. Red-cockaded woodpeckers need mature long-leaf pine forests to reproduce. Endangered western monarch butterflies depend on pesticide-free milkweed for food. Pacific salmon must have clean, cool rivers for spawning. If coastal water becomes too polluted, manatees will starve.

Yet, on July 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Interior formally rescinded the so-called harm rule under the Endangered Species Act, removing language that has protected species from losing millions of acres of habitat.

As a law professor who has followed these issues for over five decades and litigated early cases under the Endangered Species Act, I believe this effort to gut the nation’s premier wildlife conservation law is unjustified and unlawful.

I see several reasons the rule change is not likely to survive the legal challenges that have already begun.

Origins of the Endangered Species Act

Enacted in 1973 at the behest of President Richard Nixon and passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress, the Endangered Species Act’s stated purpose is to “provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1978 described the act’s role more plainly: to “halt and reverse the trend of species extinctions whatever the cost.”

The act requires federal agencies to designate habitat for species as critical if it is deemed “essential to the conservation and recovery” of that species. Once habitat is designated, federal agencies are required to “insure” that their actions are not likely to result in the “destruction or adverse modification” of such habitat. All of this is spelled out in the text of the law itself.

The ‘take’ prohibition

The Endangered Species Act prohibits the unauthorized “take” of protected species. It broadly defines “take” to include deliberate actions such as hunting and trapping, but also those that “harm or harass” individual members of the protected species.

The prohibition applies to everyone: individuals, corporations, states and municipalities, tribes and others. The act is by far the most important federal law protecting habitat on nonfederal land.

“Take” is a term of art in wildlife law with deep roots in Anglo-American jurisprudence. It has always included requirements to conserve habitat. The earliest wildlife laws in England also required landowners to retain adequate forage and cover for wildlife, in addition to regulating hunting and fishing.

In 1975, shortly after Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Department of Interior created the rule defining harm to include “acts or omissions that actually injures or kills wildlife,” including habitat degradation that “significantly disrupts essential behavioral patterns, which include, but are not limited to, breeding, feeding or sheltering.”

The rule was revised somewhat in 1981 to clarify that harm “may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering.”

The 1982 Endangered Species Act amendments

In 1981, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that habitat destruction qualifies as an unlawful take under the Endangered Species Act, ruling in a case brought on behalf of an endangered bird called the palila.

Congress reacted to that ruling by amending the act to create the incidental take program. I testified in favor of this provision during the hearings.

The incidental take program provides a way to reduce conflicts between protected species and commercial development by authorizing only those takes that meet strict rules to minimize and mitigate the impact on the species in question. Over the years, hundreds of incidental take permits have been issued covering over 47 million acres of habitat.

If Congress didn’t believe habitat destruction and degradation constitute “harm” under the statute, why would it require permits and plans to offset habitat loss?

This will factor into the litigation to come challenging the move to rescind the harm rule.

The Sweet Home decision

The controversy over the harm rule reached the Supreme Court in 1995 in a case brought by the timber industry in Oregon. In Sweet Home Communities for a Greater Oregon v. Babbitt, the court upheld the harm rule by a vote of 6-3.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the court’s majority opinion. He cited multiple reasons for upholding the rule as a “reasonable interpretation” of congressional intent under the then-prevailing Chevron Doctrine:

• First, Stevens wrote that the ordinary meaning of “harm” naturally encompasses habitat modification that results in actual injury or death to members of an endangered or threatened species.

• Second, under relevant Supreme Court precedent, every word in a statute must be given effect. Thus the word “harm” must encompass indirect as well as direct injuries or it would have no meaning that does not duplicate the other words in the definition of “take.”

• Third, the fact that Congress amended the act to authorize incidental take permits with habitat conservation plans strongly suggests that Congress intended for the law to prohibit both direct and indirect causes of death or injury.

Justice Antonin Scalia dissented in that case, arguing that the word “harm” applies only to an action “directed immediately and intentionally against a particular animal.” Or as he put it, “A strikes B.”

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor disagreed, arguing in a sharp exchange with Scalia: “… to make it impossible for an animal to reproduce is to impair its most essential physical functions and to render that animal, and its genetic material, biologically obsolete. This, in my view, is actual injury.”

The Loper Bright ruling’s impact

Fast-forward to 2024, when the Supreme Court, in deciding Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, formally abandoned the Chevron Doctrine. In doing so, it ruled that the courts must decide what the “best reading” of statutory text is without deferring to agency interpretations.

The Trump administration argues that the Loper Bright ruling means that the court’s decision in Sweet Home is no longer good law because Stevens’ majority opinion relied on the Chevron doctrine.

Instead, the Trump administration argues that Scalia’s dissent is actually the best reading of “harm” and is now the law of the land.

However, in the majority opinion in Loper Bright, Chief Justice John Roberts cautioned: “We do not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework.” In short, it is not enough to say a precedent relied on Chevron and suggest it is no longer valid.

The Trump administration will have to overcome the presumption that the Sweet Home ruling remains the law unless the current Supreme Court overturns it.

Where we go from here

Environmental groups and tribes have already filed multiple lawsuits challenging the repeal of the harm rule.

In addition to defending the validity of the Sweet Home decision as the best reading of the law, the cases allege a number of procedural flaws in how the Department of Interior changed the rule.

Those include alleged violations of the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to prepare an environmental impact statement; violations of the Endangered Species Act by failing to engage in consultation regarding the impacts of the rescinding of the harm rule; and failure to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act to justify and explain the basis for wholesale repeal of the harm rule without proposing an alternative.

While the administration is likely counting on getting the case to the Supreme Court before its time in office runs out, I expect the strategy of the challengers will be to delay the litigation by filing lawsuits in multiple courts and asking the courts for preliminary injunctions to block the rule change pending the cases’ outcome. That would allow a future administration to reinstate the rule.

The stakes are huge for the nation’s most imperiled species. Over two-thirds of listed species depend on nonfederal land for their survival and recovery. The harm rule is the single most important reason they are still alive and have a chance of recovery.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/why-trumps-move-to-gut-the-endangered-species-act-likely-wont-hold-up-in-court/

During roasting-hot summer days, more and more people make their way to swimming pools, lakes, rivers and other spots where they can access water to stay cool.

But while water activities provide a refreshing escape from the heat, they can also be a source of danger. In the U.S., drowning is a leading cause of accidental death for children. More than 900 children die from accidental drownings each year.

For autistic children, the danger is more acute: Their risk of drowning is up to 160 times higher than that of their peers without autism.

That may be because autistic children are often strongly drawn to water – whether for play or to seek out the sound, feel, sight of water shimmering in the sunlight or the sense of calm experienced in the water. And they can sometimes have greater difficulty finding swimming lessons than their peers.

We are an occupational and recreational therapist team that studies effective approaches for teaching swimming and water safety to autistic children. We also train future therapists on these methods.

Our goal is to equip families, caregivers and therapists with some practical steps to keep autistic children safe around water.

Drowning dangers for autistic children

Many autistic children tend to wander, which can lead them away from safe, supervised areas into unprotected,
unsupervised settings – and potentially toward hazards like open water. This puts these children at increased risk for drowning, particularly if they do not know how to swim.

Swimming lessons can help reduce drowning risk, but changes to traditional classes may be required in order to meet the unique needs of autistic learners.

Autistic children communicate in a wide variety of ways, ranging from nonspeaking to highly talkative. The environment of a busy pool may trigger sensory overload and distress, causing children to cry or want to leave. Overload can also lead to difficulty following instructors’ directions. They may need extra time and assistance for emotional regulation, or need encouragement and motivation to stay engaged. Some may not want to be touched and prefer visual examples for learning new skills in the water.

For the average swim instructor, who may be teaching up to 10 children at a time and may not have training in supporting autistic children, figuring out how to meet individual needs can be a challenge.

Adaptive swim lessons, which are provided by instructors experienced at meeting autistic children’s unique learning and behavior needs, may better set them up for success. These lessons tend to have fewer participants, or even offer one-on-one instruction, allowing for plenty of individual attention. The instructor may use tools and strategies such as play-based approaches, visual schedules, sensory strategies or a consistent routine to help the child feel comfortable and successful.

Swim lessons that meets a child’s needs

Perhaps the most important step you can take is to enroll your child in aquatic instruction that meets their specific learning and sensory needs. This can be anything from traditional group lessons at a community pool to individual lessons with a therapist – and many variations in between.

Research shows that swim lessons that are designed to meet the individual needs of autistic children and offer one-on-one support in a group setting successfully improve their swimming skills.

Many community-based aquatic programs – for example, the YMCA, the local parks and recreation department, private swim schools or therapy centers – offer adaptive swim instruction with options for one-on-one support.

If you don’t see options that work for your child, or if your child’s swim instructor needs further assistance, consider asking your child’s occupational, behavioral, physical, speech or recreational therapist to join the lesson to help support their needs so they can learn successfully. For example, if communication presents a challenge during swimming lessons, a speech therapist can share effective alternative communication strategies with the swim instructor.

To prepare for swimming lessons, make a list of your child’s strengths and areas of concern to share with the instructors. Consider how your child’s specific interests might help them overcome aspects of water safety that they might find challenging. For example, if the child loves learning about dinosaurs, think about how dinosaur toys can be included in swimming lessons.

Water safety basics

Families and caregivers can take several additional steps to keep autistic kids safe around water.

A good starting point is learning about the 5 Layers of Protection, described by the National Drowning Prevention Alliance. These action items can help everyone improve safety in or near the water.

The five layers are:

• Setting up barriers, such as fences and alarms
• Actively supervising children while they are in the water
• Encouraging children to use personal flotation devices, such as life jackets
• Helping kids gain basic swimming skills
• Being prepared for emergencies – for example, being ready to call 911 and perform first aid or cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

No single precaution provides enough of a safeguard on its own, so it’s best to combine multiple strategies within each of the five layers – for example, using door alarms, plus pool alarms and fencing around pools, to prevent a child from entering a pool unattended.

It’s also important to think through your child’s specific strengths and areas of concern when it comes to water safety. For example, they might be comfortable in the water or be physically strong – but they might not know how to swim, or might struggle with following instructions or have trouble identifying dangerous situations like rip currents or water too deep for them to stand in.

Other behaviors that put autistic children at risk of drowning include drinking water while swimming, which puts them at risk for accidentally inhaling water; and holding their breath for prolonged periods, which can lead to fainting underwater.

Wider learning opportunities

About 1 in 31 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism. Given the prevalence of the condition, there are undoubtedly autistic children in your community and among your friends and family members.

Friends, family members and community members who want to learn more about how to keep autistic children in their community safe around the water can find a range of free courses and resources available online.

The American Red Cross offers an online course on water safety for parents and caregivers.

Resources specific to autism include the Safety on the Spectrum Water & Wandering Program, developed by the Autism Society, and Swim and Water Safety, part of the Autism Safety Guide developed by Autism Speaks.

Tana Carson owns shares in Adaptive Associates, a clinical and research consulting company. She receives funding from the “Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Autism Research Program under Award No. HT9425-25-1-0126 (or AR240070) and No. HT94252510205 (or AR240048). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense”. She is affiliated with Kids 4 Kids USA and Friends of Jacobs Aquatic Center and consults for Underwater Hypoxic Blackout Prevention.

Tania Santiago Perez owns Swim Flow LLC, which provides swim lessons to people of all abilities. She receives funding from the “Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Autism Research Program under Award No. HT9425-25-1-0126 (or AR240070) and No. HT94252510205 (or AR240048). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense”. She is affiliated with Barrier Free Divers, ThumbsUp International, and the Southeast Recreational Therapy Symposium.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/autistic-children-drown-at-alarming-rates-swim-lessons-and-water-safety-strategies-can-save-their-lives/

A little-noticed presidential national security directive is now the legal engine behind a wave of terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters.

That domestic campaign now has an international dimension, one that American officials had been planning for months, culminating on July 16, 2026, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism drew representatives from more than 65 countries to Washington. The gathering was informally called the “Antifa summit.”

Rubio described antifa-aligned networks as sharing infrastructure across borders and accused Iran and Cuba of helping bankroll the movement, without offering evidence. The White House declared the summit the start of an “unprecedented global offensive” against what it calls “radical left terrorism.”

This offensive is built on the same domestic legal architecture that has now sent American activists to prison for decades.

That architecture is National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, which for the first time appeared to authorize preemptive law enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.

Nearly a year later, that blueprint has moved from paper into practice.

The Justice Department has built task forces staffed by counterterrorism prosecutors. The FBI has set up its own NSPM-7 mission center to oversee investigations into left-wing movements, including a joint effort with the IRS to investigate nonprofit groups.

The Justice Department has used this machinery to convict activists and send some of them to prison for decades.

NSPM-7 was not passed by Congress. It’s a lesser-known tool of executive power: a presidential memorandum.

As an international relations scholar who has studied U.S. foreign policy decision-making and national security legislation, I recognize that presidents can take several types of executive actions without legislative involvement: executive orders, memoranda and proclamations.

This structure allows the president to direct law enforcement and national security agencies, with little opportunity for congressional oversight.

Presidential national security powers

Executive memorandums direct agencies to prepare reports, implement policies or align programs with the administration’s priorities. Unlike executive orders, they aren’t required to be published. When they relate to national security, like NSPM-7, they’re called national security directives – many of which stay classified and may not be declassified for years or decades.

The stated purpose of NSPM-7 is to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence, focusing mainly on perceived threats from the political left. The memorandum identifies “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as potential indicators that a group or person will commit domestic terrorism.

The memorandum claims that political violence originates with “anti-fascist” groups that hold the following views: “support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

The strategy includes preemptive measures to disrupt groups before they engage in violent political acts, empowering multiagency task forces to investigate potential federal crimes related to radicalization and the groups’ funders. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s December 2025 implementation memo went further, ordering a five-year review of agency files on antifa. A task force staffed with counterterrorism and organized-crime prosecutors is carrying out these investigations.

‘Domestic terrorist organizations’

The memorandum directs the Department of Justice to focus FBI resources from approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces on investigating “acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons” for the purpose of “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.”

NSPM-7 also allows the attorney general to propose groups for designation as “domestic terrorist organizations.” That includes groups that engage in “organized doxxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder.”

Existing laws allow the secretary of state to designate groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” that are then subject to financial sanctions.

But these laws do not permit the president to label domestic groups this way.

That gap hasn’t stopped prosecutions. In Texas, eight defendants tied to a “North Texas Antifa Cell” were sentenced in June 2026 for a 2025 armed confrontation at the Prairieland immigration detention center. One man received 100 years, and others who never fired a weapon still drew decades in prison under terrorism sentencing guidelines.

In Minnesota, 15 members and associates of a group called Direct Action Minnesota were indicted in June 2026 on conspiracy and assault charges. A 94-page indictment cited behavior such as wearing an “I’m Antifa!” sweatshirt, possessing a bullhorn or including a devil emoji in a Signal message.

Defining terrorism

NSPM-7 marks a major conceptual shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, departing from approaches that primarily targeted foreign threats.

Earlier directives, dating to Ronald Reagan’s presidency, treated terrorism as a global menace countered through military power and diplomacy. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration reframed it as a domestic challenge after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

After 9/11, the Bush administration fused counterterrorism with national defense through the global war on terrorism. The Obama administration later tried to narrow those powers, asking whether targeted individuals “pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons” — a standard focused on tactics and capture feasibility, not ideology.

The first Trump administration used a “travel ban” against several “terror-prone” countries, while President Joe Biden redirected focus toward weapons of mass destruction.

Notably, the “domestic terrorist” label itself has rarely produced actual charges. The State Department designated four antifa-aligned groups as foreign terrorist organizations. But antifa is a decentralized movement, not a formal group with a roster.

This designation lacks any real legal weight because U.S. law has no formal domestic terrorist organization category. Creating one risks infringing on First Amendment protected speech. Domestic terrorism itself is not a chargeable offense.

Prosecutors have instead leaned on older statutes such as material support for terrorism and conspiracy laws, tools originally built for cases like the ones above, not protest movements.

First Amendment rights at risk

There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law; definitions vary by purpose – criminal law, intelligence collection, civil liability.

Definitions in all those areas typically focus on identifying violent or dangerous acts done with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy.

But more than redefining terrorism, NSPM-7 reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief.

The First Amendment generally prevents the government from punishing people for unpopular opinions. It also protects the ability for people to associate to advance public and private ideas in pursuit of political, economic, religious or cultural goals.

The directive’s emphasis on ideological orientations – “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism” and “anti-American” views – as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizes First Amendment rights.

Thirty-one members of Congress sent a letter to Trump in October 2025 expressing “serious concerns” about NSPM-7, warning that it poses “serious constitutional, statutory and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest or ideological speech.”

As the ACLU warns, any definition of terrorism that includes ideological components risks criminalizing people or groups based on belief rather than based on violence or other criminal conduct.

Congress has declined to create a domestic complement to the foreign terrorist designation in large part because of the potential for impinging on First Amendment–protected association and speech.

But I fear that chilling speech may be the point.

Silencing dissent

NSPM-7 does not criminalize previously legal conduct.

Rather, it states that the Trump administration will focus investigations around the identity and ideology of supposed perpetrators. Prioritizing investigations into this broad swath of ideologies serves to instill fear, silencing anti-fascist and other messages in opposition to the Trump administration.

Law professor Steve Vladeck frames this chill as “obeying in advance,” in which organizations self-censor rather than risk investigation, prosecution or defending against the “domestic terrorist” label. Federal judges in the Prairieland case have shown little sympathy for that distinction: One judge described the protest itself as “an assault on democracy,” even for defendants who never touched a weapon.

Although left-wing violence has risen in the past decade, empirical evidence shows it remains far below historical levels of right-wing or jihadist violence.

Most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, accounting for the vast majority of domestic terrorism fatalities.

Yet NSPM-7 focuses disproportionately on left-wing ideologies. NSPM-7 departs from prior U.S. counterterrorism frameworks by prioritizing the suppression of ideologically motivated dissent, even where, as in Minnesota, judges have already dismissed roughly half of similar federal cases for lack of evidence.

This is an updated version of a story originally published December 3, 2025.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/rubios-international-antifa-summit-takes-place-after-trumps-national-security-policy-has-already-sent-left-wing-us-activists-to-prison-for-decades/