WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: By Martyn Bradbury

The Kingmakers debate on TVNZ last night was won by the two Queens, Chlöe Swarbrick (Greens) and Qiulae Wong (Opportunity), but I think Te Pāti Māori’s co-leader Rawiri Waititi landed a killer blow to Winston Peters (New Zealand First) that he won’t recover from.

By throwing into Winston’s face his infamous 1975 quote about Māori losing their land, culture and language and becoming “kahki” Europeans, Rawiri reminded the entire country that Winston has been around so long that he has become a political hypocrite.

That is devastating because very few would remember that quote and resets Winston more recent Treaty of Waitangi bashing with the radicalism of his youth.

• READ MORE: Other NZ 2026 general election reports

That moment alone allowed Rawiri to land a knock out punch while Winston spent the rest of the debate reeling.

It was New Zealand vs Old Zealand.

The TVNZ polling clearly shows Māori voters understanding the Te Pāti Māori candidate strategy and the rush to the Greens continues to back up that vote splitting strategy.

Māori strategic voters will decide the 2026 Election.

Martyn Bradbury is publisher and editor of The Daily Blog. This article was first published by TDB and is republished with permission.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/15/rawiri-shines-at-kingmaker-debate-as-maori-voters-set-to-rock-nz-government-in-election/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Increasing media attention on menopause is helping to mitigate taboos and promote support for women going through the change.

• Food supplements, books, coaching… menopause is also becoming a lucrative market driven by actors who are influencing the way the menopausal transition is perceived.

• Social media, a space where women share their experiences and offer advice, is amplifying this phenomenon.

Long relegated to the private sphere,Menopause is now the focus of unprecedented attention both in the
media and commercially with a market value of 535 billion euros (600 billion US dollars). The amount of books, podcasts, documentaries, digital applications, food supplements and coaching programs is multiplying to support women in this stage of life. What was once a taboo subject has become a booming economic sector.

This evolution constitutes an important step forward: people are talking more about menopause, it is better understood and is gradually being recognised as a public health issue. But this visibility is also accompanied by bold marketing. As the topic enters the public arena, it also becomes a niche market opportunity.

This transformation raises a question at the heart of the analysis in All Change! Marketing and Consuming the Menopause Transition: does it genuinely meet women’s needs, or does it help create a new market built on their concerns, symptoms and desire for wellbeing?

Commercialisation that shapes perceptions of menopause

The book conceptualises the emergence of menopause as a consumer market in its own
right. This niche market is characterised by growing “climacteric market
awareness” and by the gradual
transformation of menopause into a space for commercial gain, bodily intervention and self-optimisation. (Note of the editor: The philosopher Gloria Origgi explains that “climacteric” may derive from the Greek word “klimax”, meaning step or rung. At least since the time of Pythagoras, the term referred to one of the “critical ages of life” marked by vulnerability.)

Extending this perspective, a study shows that “menopause markets” (menomarkets) do not
merely respond to pre-existing needs: they actively help shape how menopause is
understood, experienced and managed, particularly by influencing what is defined as a menopausal problem and which forms of knowledge, care and consumption are regarded as appropriate.

Taken together, these perspectives invite us to understand commodification not merely as the commercial expansion of menopause-related products and services, but as a process through which markets help produce the meanings, needs and subjectivities associated with menopause.

A rapidly expanding new market

Economic interest in menopause is partly explained by demographic changes. Women are living longer and now spend several decades in the postmenopausal stage. According to some estimates, more than one billion women worldwide will be menopausal by 2030.

In response to this reality, companies have identified a long-neglected consumer segment.

Today, the menopause industry includes dietary supplements, cosmetics, clothing designed to alleviate the discomfort of hot flushes, tracking apps and wellness retreats, even though many of these products or supposed “solutions” have not been shown to be effective.

It is important not to conflate these products with menopausal hormone therapy. This treatment is available by prescription and administered under the supervision of a gynaecologist. Long controversial, in France, as in many other countries, it is strictly
regulated.

This increase is changing how menopause is represented. It is no longer portrayed simply as a phase of ageing, but as a period requiring specific solutions, support and products. Brands present it as a challenge to be managed via appropriate consumer choices.

The rise of the ‘responsible consumer’

At the heart of this evolution is the emerging figure of the “responsible consumer”. Women are encouraged to take an active role in their health by seeking information, monitoring their symptoms and choosing products supposedly intended to improve their quality of life.

This approach reflects a broader trend: personal responsibility for our individual health. Everyone is encouraged to take charge of their wellbeing through appropriate behaviours and informed choices. If we apply this logic to menopause, this makes women the managers of their hormonal transition. They are urged to seek information, change their eating habits, increase their physical activity or invest in solutions presented as innovative.

This emphasis on responsibility can foster autonomy and a better understanding of the body. However, it also carries risks: by focusing on individual choices, it tends to shift attention away from collective responsibilities and towards personal ones.

The role of the media and social networks

Menopause owes much of its current visibility to the media and social networks. Public figures, journalists and healthcare professionals have helped bring the issue out in the open.

In the United Kingdom, documentaries by Kate Muir featuring Davina McCall have played an important role.

By giving a voice to women experiencing sometimes debilitating symptoms, they have raised public awareness of a reality that had long been overlooked. Similar action in France includes a 2024 opinion piece signed by several political and cultural figures. A parliamentary report was even submitted to the French government in 2025.

Social networks have amplified this movement. Thousands of women use them to share
their experiences, exchange advice and recommend solutions, thereby helping to reduce the sense of isolation associated with menopause.

Discussion spaces and communities centred on menopause are developing across social networks. They are organised around hashtags such as #Midlifewomen, #PerimenopauseProblems, #Breakthemenopausetaboo and #MyHormonesAreDrunk, among
others.

However, these spaces have also become prime channels for marketing strategies.
Influencers, coaches and companies promote their products there to a receptive audience. The boundary between information, personal testimony and advertising can therefore become difficult to distinguish.

A need for support that fuels commerce

Raising awareness of menopause responds to a genuine need for information. Yet it has also created favourable conditions for rapid commercial expansion.

Many companies now offer products aimed at menopausal women. Some address genuine
needs and are supported by solid scientific evidence; others rely mainly on promises of wellbeing or marketing claims that are difficult to verify.

This situation has given rise to the notion of a “menopause industrial
complex”: a
network of economic actors seeking to profit from this growing market. The problem is not the existence of commercial solutions; some innovations can improve women’s quality of life. The central issue is the scientific validity of the claims being made.

When products are presented as capable of relieving symptoms without sufficient evidence,the risk of misinformation increases. The growth of the dietary supplement market illustrates the increasing commodification of menopause. Even though evidence of effectiveness remains limited, a study
identified no fewer than 201 products on the UK market in 2026, with widely varying
formulations and prices.

Vulnerable consumers exploited by marketing

Women experiencing menopause may be particularly vulnerable. Sleep problems, anxiety, hormonal changes or difficulties at work can lead them to actively seek solutions.

This vulnerability can be exploited by certain marketing strategies. When symptoms are difficult, a promise of rapid or natural relief may appear particularly attractive. Incidentally not all women have the same ability to assess the claims presented to them. Medical knowledge, access to care and financial resources vary greatly between individuals.

Social inequalities therefore play a major role. Women with higher incomes have
greater access to specialist medical consultations or expensive products, whereas those with fewer resources face more barriers to obtaining appropriate care.

Why regulation is necessary

It is important to highlight the more absurd forms of commodification. In the United Kingdom, for example, some advertisements go so far as promoting chocolates that supposedly relieve menopause symptoms.

As the menopause market expands, regulation is becoming essential. Consumers must be able to distinguish information grounded in scientific evidence from purely commercial claims.

Health authorities have an important role to play in monitoring the claims made by
companies. Healthcare professionals also bear significant responsibility for helping women make informed decisions without relying solely on commercial messaging.

Beyond the market

The challenge, therefore, is to strike a balance between innovation, information and consumer protection. Menopause deserves to be addressed as an issue of health, equality and social justice, not merely as a market to be conquered.

Ultimately, breaking the silence around menopause represents major progress.

However, care must be taken to ensure that this visibility benefits women themselves above all, rather than serving commercial interests alone.

A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!

Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/15/menopause-is-a-biological-transition-thats-become-a-lucrative-consumer-business/

Communications Minister Anika Wells has introduced Labor’s digital duty of care bill into parliament. The legislation amends the Online Safety Act, designed to protect Australians from online harm.

At the core of the digital duty of care is the principle that online service providers – everything from social media platforms to websites, online games and messaging apps – have a duty to provide a safe environment online.

Under the bill, platforms must take appropriate action to protect Australians from seriously harmful material and conduct.

They must also protect Australian children from harmful material and conduct, such as bullying, and material promoting disordered eating or encouraging dangerous stunts. Children would also need to be protected from some harmful algorithmic design features.

In addition, the legislation would enable the minister to require tech platforms to give users tools to “manage the design features of their service”, such as providing controls over what content is recommended. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has described this “my feed, my way” initiative as a way for Australians to gain control over their social media algorithms.

Read more:
‘Digital duty of care’ laws will force tech platforms to look after users

The journey so far

The government released the exposure draft of the digital duty of care bill on September 8, opening it up to written feedback for two weeks.

Several organisations and research groups across Australia made submissions, but the government has not provided a summary of the feedback.

Experts generally welcomed the overall proactive approach: putting responsibility on online service providers to make the online environment safer for Australians.

Submissions also highlighted the importance of provisions to protect researchers, give them access to data about the platforms and people’s experience, and to allow them to use made-up “sock puppet” accounts to enable independent scrutiny of the online environment.

On the other hand, experts called for changes to make the duty more meaningful and effective. Some pointed out that enforcing it shouldn’t just fall to the eSafety Commissioner. Individuals should also be able to enforce the digital duty of care and seek remedies to harm, either individually or collectively.

Another concern was whether online service providers might overreact to the duty by demoting or removing public-interest content – such as education about illicit drug use and sexual health. Experts had a range of suggestions for what should count as “seriously harmful material and conduct”.

What does the bill look like now?

This is a large and complex piece of legislation. There are real challenges in reconciling the need for safer online environments with other interests, and in a way that’s flexible enough to adjust as the technologies, and how people use them, evolve.

In the path from exposure draft to bill, there are quite a few tweaks and changes to the language, which will need to be analysed for their impact.

The government has published an explanatory memorandum to help people understand the bill. It’s worth a read, especially where it discusses the impacts of algorithmic design.

Read more:
The 5 simple tweaks to make social media less addictive

Even on a first reading, we can already see some interesting shifts: mostly around the question of what kinds of “serious harmful material and conduct” are covered by the duty.

One notable change responds to concerns about social media encouraging gender-based violence. The definition of harmful material for adults now includes “the encouragement, promotion or incitement of gender-based violence”. It has also expanded to include non-consensual fake nude material and posting – or threatening to post – intimate images without consent.

The bill also adds that material or conduct that is a Commonwealth criminal offence will only be subject to the duty if it’s likely to cause serious harm.

Importantly, however, the biggest change is that the Minister will no longer have the power to add further categories of seriously harmful material or conduct by legislative instrument. Wells has indicated that if new categories of harm are to be added, this will now be done by Parliament passing amendments to the law.

A win for journalism and public health advocates

In response to concerns about over-inclusive content moderation and self-censorship, a new set of provisions have been added that explicitly exclude several categories of content from the duty.

These include professional news material, artistic and educational content (that is not contrary to the public interest), and scientific and academic research. A change that will please public health advocates is to exclude “material that is necessary for, or of assistance in, protecting or promoting public health and safety”, and material aimed at “reducing harms to individuals”.

Public health and harm reduction advocates will also be pleased to see that restrictions of material or conduct that “encourages, promotes, urges or instructs illicit drug use” has been removed from the bill. Advocates were concerned about the potential impacts on drug education.

However it’s not yet clear whether drug harm reduction, sex education and sexual health organisations will have any additional mechanisms to appeal if online platforms suppress or block public health outreach content.

What’s next?

Despite changes made to the bill in the past month, the Coalition remains critical of the legislation and is unlikely to support it.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said today the Greens would support the bill in principle, but are asking for much steeper penalties for big tech companies if they breach the duty. The party also wants Australians to have the ability to sue tech companies directly.

The bill will now be sent to a Senate inquiry, with a report expected before the end of the year.

Kimberlee Weatherall is a chief investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society, funded by the Australian Research Council and a range of partner organisations, and co-director of the University of Sydney’s Centre for AI, Trust and Governance, which receives funding from a range of sources as declared on the Centre’s website, including IBM and Google. She is also a member of Australia’s Open Government Partnership Forum.

Christine Parker receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.

Kath Albury receives funding from the Australian Research Council, FORTE (The Swedish Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare) and VicHealth. She undertakes occasional pro-bono advisory work with Scarlet Alliance, UNESCO, the National Association of People with HIV Australia, 1800MyOptions and ASHM. She is an ordinary member of Thorne Harbour Health.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/15/australias-digital-duty-of-care-was-just-introduced-to-parliament-so-whats-in-the-bill/

By Kaya Selby of RNZ Pacific

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/15/nzsis-to-support-fiji-intelligence-review-amid-foreign-interference-claims/

Australia’s unemployment rate has hit a five-year high of 4.7% in September, official figures show. The last time it was higher was at the end of the COVID lockdowns in October 2021.

Throughout 2026, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has increased steadily, up from 4.1% in January. The warning signs of a slowing labour market are mounting.

A weaker jobs market makes it more likely the Reserve Bank of Australia can wait before moving to raise interest rates again. After the latest jobs figures came out, market expectations of an interest rate rise in early November fell, from 30% tipping a rate rise to just 18%.

The RBA is set to meet on Melbourne Cup Day to make its next decision on interest rates.

That hard decision will now need to be made with RBA Governor Michele Bullock’s recent warning that unemployment might need to rise further having come to fruition.

What the latest data shows

Until last month, the rise in unemployment in 2026 could be explained by more people wanting to work.

But the rise in September in the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data was entirely due to fewer people being employed.

Employment fell by 39,300 in September. This was partly offset by a 31,400 fewer people looking for work. On balance, this meant 8,900 more people were unemployed.

Together, these are classic symptoms of a slowing labour market: less employment and people being discouraged from looking for work.

But there is also something in the latest numbers for anyone wanting a more positive outlook. Despite the fall in total employment, the number of people employed full-time increased by 34,300, up to 10.2 million people.

It was a decline in part-time employment, down by 73,600, which explained the overall drop. That decline was in turn behind the increase in the underemployment rate to 6.3%, up by 0.1 percentage point.

November’s rates decision isn’t simple

The RBA faces a conundrum at its November rates meeting.

The central bank officially has two jobs, known as its “dual mandate”.

On the one hand, it’s trying to keep prices for Australians stable. Its target is to keep consumer price inflation (CPI) – a measure of how fast the prices of household goods and services are rising – between 2–3%.

But it has to balance that against trying to “have as many people in jobs as possible”.

Today’s labour force survey data is the strongest sign yet that the RBA’s four rate increases in 2026 – up from 3.6% in December last year to 4.6% now – are slowing growth in the labour market.

And because the unemployment rate for August was revised up, from 4.6% to 4.7%, it means that the labour market was weaker than the RBA thought when it hiked rates in September.

Last month, Michele Bullock said unemployment might need to rise further – to somewhere between 4.5–5% – “to ease pressure on inflation”. Australia’s rate of unemployment is now right within that range.

At 4.7%, unemployment in Australia is now at the level that the International Monetary Fund, in its World Economic Outlook released this week, predicted the rate would peak at in 2027.

And the impacts of this year’s interest rate rises will still be working their way through the economy in the months to come.

So does the RBA decide it has done enough to get inflation back towards the target range?

Or will it keep going, with another rate hike? If it does, the risk is that the rate of unemployment is pushed closer to 5%, or even above.

On current numbers, 5% unemployment in Australia would mean another 45,700 people unemployed compared to these September figures.

The trade-offs for the RBA in trying to manage both inflation and keeping as many Australians in work as possible are becoming harder – and ever more real.

Jeff Borland has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/15/unemployment-in-australia-hits-a-five-year-high-of-4-7-making-a-rates-hike-less-likely/

The Albanese government has introduced its digital duty of care legislation to parliament today. The bill includes an “off switch” to allow social media users to opt out of recommender algorithms.

If passed, Australians could choose to switch off their algorithmic recommendation and consume a news feed populated by the accounts they subscribe to. It’s been welcomed by online safety advocates.

The bill echoes a model that one of the world’s largest platforms has run for more than a decade: WeChat in China.

Its long experience offers Australia an preview of what a feed unshackled from algorithms might look like. It’s not all good news.

Read more:
Australians may soon be able to switch off social media algorithms. Is that censorship?

What is WeChat?

The Chinese platform WeChat was launched in 2011 and now has one billion users globally, making it one of the primary social media services for Chinese-speakers worldwide.

The platform’s design logic was simple. WeChat was meant to be an efficiency tool. Unlike its American or Chinese counterparts, which used algorithmic recommendations to keep users on the platform, WeChat is designed for users to open the app, do what they need, close the app and put their phone away.

Algorithmic curation played a minimal role until the introduction of the short-video function “Channels” launched in 2021 to compete with Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) and RedNote (Xiaohongshu) in the rising short-video market.

Yet, WeChat largely remains focused on efficiency.

Instead of trying to hold user attention for as long as possible, WeChat is a “super app” that offers a suite of services including finance, commerce, publication, entertainment, and communications within a single platform to make it integral to people’s lives.

It’s all about the clicks

WeChat’s news feature lists stories published by “Official Accounts”, or content creators. Users only see content they follow.

Our research project, RECapture, has studied Official Accounts targeting Chinese-Australians since 2019. Our data offer a longitudinal study of monitored content.

We found the absence of algorithmic curation gives publishers significant autonomy to generate revenue independently of the app.

But within the platform itself, creators still fiercely compete for user attention. This is because users search for content they’re interested in and subscribe to accounts they find most compelling, which means subscribed accounts compete with one another for user attention within that pool.

This competition has manifested as increased publication speed. Outlets, restricted by their own budgets, produce low-quality, clickbait content, often compiled from multiple fragmented and unverified sources, to attract subscribers and maximise user engagement.

Increasingly, this race is further accelerated by the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

The logic is simple: publish early and often; the clicks roll in throughout the day. Hit the right publication timing, the so-called “golden window”, and clicks spike further. Run a striking headline, and clicks climb yet again. This is the strategy to maximise a publisher’s chances of appearing in a user’s search query and capturing their attention.

It’s clicks, clicks, clicks (or taps) that matter, as this is the metric to attract eyes to advertisements, and therefore money to the platform.

If the digital duty of care legislation passes in Australia and enough people choose to opt out of algorithms, we might see a similar increase in poor quality content here.

It’s also possible the laws won’t deliver what they promise. This is because we don’t really know how digital platforms curate users’ subscribed content. We need the platforms to be more transparent about this.

My feed, my responsibility?

Under the promise of giving Australians more control over their online environment, the government effectively offloads its responsibility of care onto individual users.

Exposure to harmful content implicitly becomes a consequence of the user’s failure to switch off their algorithm. This could let tech companies off the hook.

The legislation also reads as a compromised version of the abandoned Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill.

Rather than tasking law enforcement bodies with addressing the issue (which risked being entangled in freedom-of-speech debates), the government instead leaves citizens to manage the problems themselves.

The government knows the product harms. So, it is making sure to protect the children through the under-16 social media ban, even while individualising choices for harmful digital products for everybody else.

Getting to the root cause

The Australian government has started viewing digital platforms more critically, which is a welcome change from laissez faire attitudes of the past.

However, the government tends to understand digital platforms as a bunch of functions and tools rather than products of technology business entities, with which the government nonetheless continues to do deals.

This means the government operates on the assumption that switching off the “bad” ones, cutting off access, or introducing surveillance systems is a straightforward solution to the problems that we face in our digital environment.

What this view overlooks is that harm stems from the business model of tech companies. As long as that business model remains unchanged, harms will not disappear.

Being able to opt out of the algorithm will not shift the business model of content creators for the Australian market. And how the platforms themselves navigate this remains to be seen.

And, while the government’s legislation focuses on the problems of social media over the past decade or so, the emerging potential harms from the same big tech firms’ AI products loom.

It seems the government’s advocacy for a duty of care only extends to areas where the stakes are currently low, exhausted or no longer a priority for industry to make money from.

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/2026/10/15/what-might-turning-off-the-algorithm-look-like-chinese-social-media-provides-some-hints/

A group of Australian veterans is suing the Australian government over claims the Department of Veterans’ Affairs passed their medical data on to a university for research, without their permission.

The case relates to a 20-year research program called MATES, which used veterans’ medical data. It was closed in 2024 due to privacy concerns.

This came after an earlier investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, which found the department sent a veteran’s personal information (including name and medications) to university-based researchers, and then on to medical professionals involved in their care. This was done without their consent.

The commissioner found the department had interfered with the veteran’s privacy.

Other veterans have now launched a class action against the department for “mass and routine sharing” of their medical records over 20 years.

So, was this an outlier? Or are we all facing similar privacy threats?

Who has our health information?

Our health records aren’t just kept in our doctor’s locked filing cabinet: they’re almost always stored in electronic medical records.

Medical record information includes identifiers such as name, address, date of birth and phone number, as well as health history, medications, test and imaging results, and vaccinations.

This information held by our treating doctors is uploaded to the national My Health Record system, unless we’ve opted out.

Our personal information is also collected by government agencies, such as to process Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Medicare claims. Agencies must follow rules established by the Information Commissioner when they handle this information.

Why are researchers interested?

Researchers can be interested in our health data for research and statistical purposes. Having access to large data collections enables researchers to uncover vital new connections and insights.

A good example is the GenV study, based in Victoria. This research uses the health and educational data of around 120,000 children and parents who have given consent. It also gathers extra information from participants, using surveys and physical samples. The dataset is expected to yield insights that could address obesity, improve vaccine safety, prevent and treat asthma, and answer other major health questions.

The My Health Record system has been designed to enable people’s data to be used for research, although this hasn’t yet started. It’s expected that a data governance board will oversee research access to the dataset, with rules in place to protect people’s data.

How might researchers access our health data?

Health data is given special protection as “sensitive” data under Australian law. This means there are limited ways researchers can obtain access to this type of data.

One avenue for researchers to access and use our health data is by gaining our consent. That means we’re told about how our information is proposed to be handled, and agree to it in advance.

But the way “consent” operates can be tricky. In the commissioner’s previous investigation, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs argued it had the patient’s consent for information to be sent to researchers.

The Information Commissioner disagreed. It said the patient’s consent only covered the department’s collection of information in order to assess and manage billing claims. Consent didn’t cover the additional step of sharing the person’s data with researchers.

There are other legal gateways researchers sometimes use when they want to obtain people’s health data.

One way is if the research is “directly related” to the particular purpose the information was collected for in the first place, and the person would “reasonably expect” that research use.

For example, a cancer centre might assess outcomes from its prostate cancer patients to compare the effects of different drug regimes.

Another way is if the collection or use of information is necessary for research relevant to public health or public safety, and obtaining consent is impracticable.

In these circumstances though, the data is still protected by human research ethics committee oversight, and people might be given the chance to opt-out.

Finally, properly de-identified health data might be used for research without consent, since de-identification takes it outside legal protection.

However, the Information Commissioner’s office emphasises the use of de-identified data is not risk-free, and that privacy protection is still important in this context.

Strengthening protections for veterans’ data

All of these legal requirements apply to health information held by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

The department’s own research strategy has highlighted the need for compliance with ethical requirements and the importance of maintaining trust with veterans.

The department’s current ethics procedures – updated since the MATES study was paused – also requires potential research participants to be told that their existing or future entitlements will not be affected by their research involvement.

Lawyers acting for the veterans in the class action will seek compensation for past breaches, with a court date yet to be set.

Having a say in how your data is used

A great deal of good can come from researchers using our health information. But it’s important researchers and ethics committees take care to comply both with legal requirements and with people’s reasonable expectations about their privacy.

Our health information is inherently sensitive. There are valid reasons that people might prefer not to have that information used by researchers, even if that research could ultimately benefit society.

People concerned about the research use of their health data might choose to opt-out from the secondary use of My Health Record data that is planned to start in the future.

But in other instances, preventing further use of our health data requires reading the fine print, and asking questions about where the data is going. And sometimes, people might not be given that option.

Megan Prictor 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/2026/10/15/can-my-health-records-be-used-for-medical-research/

Last night, my husband and I watched Australia’s inaugural Michelin ceremony, live-streamed from Adelaide Convention Centre, with the anticipation usually reserved for a favourite series finale.

He is a Michelin-trained private chef. I spent over two decades in hospitality, managing restaurants and working in fine dining across Europe and Australia.

But I watched him almost as much as the screen. He recognised friends and peers being called to the stage, and his pride and emotion were clear as they received a distinction Australian restaurants had never previously had the opportunity to earn.

First published in France in August 1900 by tire manufacturers André and Édouard Michelin, the Michelin Guide now covers cities and regions in more than 25 countries and is one of the best-known culinary awards globally. Its first foray into Australia is the result of a deal with the South Australian tourism board.

In total, 77 South Australian restaurants received Michelin recognition at Wednesday night’s ceremony, with 10 earning one star, and Magill Estate Restaurant the only restaurant receiving two. The Bib Gourmand for high-quality food at an affordable price point went to 16 restaurants, and a further 50 were awarded “Michelin Selected” recognition.

The emotion on stage at the ceremony spoke to years of dedication and sacrifice, and what recognition can mean for a restaurant, a career and a destination.

Beyond the stars, what does this selection tell us about South Australia’s food culture and the people who sustain it?

Read more:
The Michelin Guide is coming to South Australia. The rest of the country will be watching

Rooted in place

Perhaps the strongest message emerging from Michelin’s selection is how deeply South Australian culinary excellence is connected to place.

Six of the 11 starred restaurants are located outside Adelaide, across the Adelaide Hills, Barossa, McLaren Vale and Clare Valley.

Contemporary Australian cuisine dominates the starred selection. At Aurora and LVN at Bird in Hand, open-fire cooking showcases the character of local ingredients, while Esmay, Aptos, and Botanic offer inventive, highly individual interpretations of seasonal produce and native ingredients.

Michelin international director Gwendal Poullennec praised the “unmistakable sense of place” running through South Australian cooking.

Multiculturalism is part of the place

Poullennec also described SA food culture as “unburdened by rigid tradition”, with kitchens telling stories extending far beyond South Australian borders.

Multiculturalism is woven through the starred restaurants offerings, from the ingredients and techniques to the people responsible for preparing and serving the food.

At arkhé, Jake Kellie’s Peking duck wontons bring Chinese culinary influences together with South Australian abalone. At Maxwell Restaurant in McLaren Vale, German-born chef Fabian Lehmann draws on his international experience, incorporating Japanese chawanmushi and Central European spätzle into a tasting menu shaped by the region’s seasons and produce.

Across the Bib Gourmand and Selected Michelin categories, this diversity becomes more explicit. Afghan, Vietnamese, Mexican, Thai, Italian, Korean and other culinary traditions are represented, including much-loved neighbourhood establishments such as Parwana Afghan Kitchen and Africola.

In many of these restaurants, food tells stories of migration, adaptation, entrepreneurship, family traditions and encounters between different ways of living and eating.

At a time when our political debates increasingly frame immigration as a problem, the Michelin acclaim is a welcome celebration of the contributions that generations of migrants have made and continue to make.

A warm welcome takes hard work

At the core of the Michelin selection is an appreciation for South Australian dining’s warmth, informality and generosity. These are qualities South Australians take pride in.

Michelin’s five criteria for stars focus exclusively on cooking, excluding service and atmosphere. Yet this sense of hospitableness ran through the ceremony, from descriptions of the food to special awards.

From Michelin-selected restaurants, the Service Award recognised Melissa Pisanelli’s genuine care for guests at Allegra Dining Room, which she runs with her husband. The Sommelier Award recognised Maxime Martin’s generous, unpretentious approach to sharing wine at Hardy’s Verandah.

Hospitality is, at its heart, a human business. The food, the welcome and the connections around a table depend on people’s skills, care and effort. Creating the warmth and ease guests enjoy can involve long, unforgiving hours, grit and determination.

That made Premier Peter Malinauskas’s tribute to hospitality professionals particularly poignant. He acknowledged the gruelling work, dedication, risks and dignity of a profession whose efforts are too often taken for granted.

As Michelin brings greater attention and expectations to South Australian restaurants, that recognition needs to extend beyond the ceremony. The generosity we value at the table should inform how we value hospitality workers: in public debate, their working conditions, and respect for their skills.

After the applause

Michelin’s inspectors have captured much of what I most admire about South Australia’s food culture: its relationship with place, its openness to different traditions and the warmth of its hospitality.

I hope this recognition brings visitors and lasting opportunities for the extraordinary talent working here. But its significance also lies in what it encourages us to recognise ourselves: the places and growers, cultural communities and hospitality workers whose knowledge and care give this food culture its character.

The stars are awarded to restaurants. What makes this selection recognisably South Australian is the network of people and relationships behind them. They deserve our pride, our respect and our support long after the applause.

Anita Manfreda 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/2026/10/15/michelin-came-for-the-food-it-found-what-makes-south-australia-special/

Manchester City’s financial misconduct case has become a test of relations between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), even entangling UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

An independent commission recently upheld 114 of the 115 charges against the English Premier League club, citing serious financial misreporting between 2009 and 2018.

The club denies the charges and has appealed. The Premier League is yet to announce sanctions.

What began as a football regulatory dispute now raises a broader question: can sporting institutions enforce their rules independently when the consequences extend into international economic and political relationships?

Guilty verdict puts the spotlight on state relationships

Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) – a private investment vehicle controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a senior UAE political figure – owns Manchester City.

The Premier League’s independent commission found, between 2009 and 2018, ADUG-attributable funding was recorded as commercial sponsorship revenue. During this time, the club won seven major titles, including three Premier League championships.

Broadly, the commission found City set up “sham” commercial and sponsorship contracts, where about 87% of reported income actually came directly from ADUG, rather than legitimate corporate sponsors.

The club allegedly inflated its revenues and reduced its reported costs by more than £900 million (A$1.7 billion). This allowed it to buy some of the best players in the world while bypassing league spending caps.

Football’s financial regulations treat commercial revenue and owner funding differently, the latter coming with strict rules. The findings concern the reporting and substance of the arrangements, rather than the legitimacy of sponsorship by state-linked businesses.

Private ownership, state-linked businesses and political authority can overlap without being legally identical. That overlap matters when a football dispute acquires diplomatic weight.

The published decision redacts sponsor names. However, Etihad Airways, the club’s major sponsor, rejects any implication of improper arrangements.

Pressure reaches the prime minister

This controversy has now reached all the way up to Burnham, due to his previous role as mayor of Greater Manchester.

After the scandal broke, he praised the owners’ investments in the city, stating they had been “a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester”.

He also expressed concern about City’s possible departure from the Premier League – which is one of the possible sanctions.

Concerns about Burnham’s possible involvement lead the head of the Premier League’s Independent Football Regulator to threaten he would quit if the prime minister interfered in its handling of the case.

Following criticism, details of his earlier contacts with the club were released on October 12. These included meetings with chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, and City representatives’ involvement in international business delegations.

Opposition MPs criticised the disclosure’s brevity.

The disclosure also noted Manchester United and the Lancashire Cricket Club participated in other delegations, presenting this engagement as routine mayoral activity. The inclusion of other clubs shows sporting organisations routinely participate in mayoral economic diplomacy.

However, it is unlikely those relationships are comparable to Manchester City’s connections with Abu Dhabi-linked investors.

Nor is it clear what was discussed with City’s leaders or whether the meetings involved wider investment interests. This matters because the club’s investors have political and business interests beyond football.

The Premier League’s disciplinary process remains separate from government and the Independent Football Regulator (IFR). The latter introduces statutory oversight of club ownership and financial sustainability but does not determine City’s appeal.

The immediate question is whether the economic importance of foreign investors could put political pressure on independent football decisions.

When the government introduced a revised Football Governance Bill in October 2024, it dropped the proposed requirement for the IFR to consider foreign and trade policy when assessing club takeovers.

This change was intended to protect the regulator’s independence.

The current tensions surrounding the UK-UAE investment could therefore test the practical boundaries between ministerial influence, regulatory independence and wider diplomatic interests.

Fan fury is at boiling point, too. Last weekend, Liverpool supporters vented their frustration and anger at City players before, during and after a game City managed to win 3-0.

Read more:
Anger, remorse, conspiracy theories: how sports fans cope when their club does wrong

The broader financial stakes

The dispute’s political significance becomes clearer when viewed within the wider UK–UAE economic relationship.

In 2021, the UK and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company established a £10 billion (A$19 billion) Sovereign Investment Partnership covering technology, infrastructure, life sciences and energy transition.

By April 2026, the UAE–UK Business Council reported nearly £30 billion (A$57 billion) in investment commitments across more than 50 investments. This extends into sectors central to Britain’s economic development, rather than being confined to football or entertainment.

These figures reflect commitments rather than completed investment, but they show the scale of the relationship and how far it extends beyond Manchester City.

Following the commission’s findings, UAE officials reportedly warned that Premier League decisions could influence bilateral relations and future investment.

Although states routinely defend their investors abroad, linking a football disciplinary process to broader economic commitments could create diplomatic pressure.

A true independence test

The City case strengthens arguments for restricting state-linked ownership, highlighting how geopolitical interests can threaten sporting independence.

Even perceived political influence risks undermining the Premier League’s integrity and commercial value.

This risk intensifies if City wins its appeal, as a legitimate outcome could still be interpreted as politically influenced.

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/2026/10/14/prime-ministers-billions-in-uae-investment-the-manchester-city-cheating-scandal-turns-political/

There’s arguably no single hormone that has grabbed hold of the collective consciousness as much as cortisol.

Social media is overflowing with information about the evils of cortisol: it messes with your face, your belly, your sleep, your skin, and, perhaps most concerning, your fertility.

There’s no shortage of gimmicks available to help fight this hormone: cortisol masks, cortisol diets, cortisol watches, cortisol-suppressing supplements.

But the widely held view that cortisol always causes problems with reproduction hinges on a key assumption that hasn’t been tested. Our new review, published in Journal of Experimental Biology, provides evidence that this assumption is flawed. In fact, cortisol may actually promote healthy reproduction.

The hormone we love to hate

Cortisol has been cast as a modern health villain, seeking to slowly destroy you. But it’s actually a critical hormone – one of a few hormones your body can’t live without.

This is because cortisol affects almost every cell in the body and helps to regulate many essential aspects of physiology, including circadian rhythm, metabolism and immune function.

Importantly, how cortisol affects you is governed by its pattern of release: the ups and downs. Social media will have you believe a cortisol “spike” is always bad news.

But precisely timed increases in cortisol are not necessarily bad – they may be exactly the signal your body needs to start one of its physiological processes, such as regulating your sleep.

The long shadow of early cortisol research

Discovered less than 100 years ago, cortisol is a relative newcomer to biology. At the time, researchers had no reliable way to measure natural cortisol levels in blood. But what they could do was manufacture synthetic cortisol, inject it, and observe the effects.

Many studies on cortisol’s effect on reproduction used injections of synthetic cortisol. However, our bodies don’t always metabolise synthetic hormones in the same way as naturally occurring hormones.

Furthermore, these injections were done without knowledge of normal hormone patterns. Cortisol was linked with stress early on, which meant that its role in other aspects of physiology was overlooked. Without actual data about normal cortisol patterns across reproductive stages, researchers assumed cortisol levels remained low unless they were spiked by some kind of stressor.

Doing manipulations before you understand a system makes it difficult to interpret the results. Concluding cortisol is bad for reproduction based on injecting high doses is like taking a blowtorch to your dinner and then concluding that heat is bad for food.

Read more:
Cortisol ‘spikes’ are normal, so when is cortisol a real problem?

What we discovered

What if cortisol is involved in reproduction? What if you need precisely timed increases and decreases to coordinate reproductive events?

To find out, we conducted a large systematic review across the animal kingdom, including studies in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. We searched the literature for any information about normal cortisol patterns across the ovarian cycle.

Most studies failed to consider natural cortisol patterns. Of the roughly 3,000 studies we screened, only 68 reported information about natural levels of cortisol during different reproductive phases.

However, of these studies, 73% reported a significant change in cortisol during healthy ovarian cycles. Across species, cortisol levels often increased around the time of ovulation.

Our results show that increases in circulating cortisol seem to play an important role in driving key reproductive events, such as ovulation.

Rethinking cortisol’s role in reproduction

This information changes the way we interpret previous studies on cortisol’s role in reproduction and fertility.

Large, imprecisely timed doses of synthetic cortisol may inhibit reproduction not simply because cortisol is “bad”, but because these manipulations scramble the body’s normal cortisol signals.

If natural cortisol is trying to deliver a set of finely tuned physiological instructions, the synthetic cortisol injections are like someone shouting gibberish over the top. The message gets lost.

Recognising that increases in cortisol may facilitate aspects of ovarian function supports a paradigm shift in how we think about the relationship between cortisol and reproduction. This challenges decades of thinking and opens the door to new explanations of, and treatments for, infertility.

It’s also a cautionary lesson on not skipping steps in the scientific process. We should always carefully observe how a system works before manipulating it. Studies using synthetic cortisol contributed to a misleading narrative about this hormone – and we’re finally correcting the record.

Kerry Fanson receives funding from La Trobe Tracey Banivanua Mar Fellowship.

Phoebe Edwards received funding from Mitacs Canada and the Toronto Zoo.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/14/stress-hormone-cortisol-is-blamed-for-infertility-but-major-new-study-hints-that-could-be-wrong/

When the first Polynesian settlers arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand some 750 years ago, they found an environment very different to the lands they left behind.

Over the centuries that followed, their descendants developed new ways of obtaining food and forging communities. But there has long been uncertainty around when – and how quickly – these shifts occurred.

Archaeologists have traditionally divided early Māori history into three broad periods. The first, from around 1250 to 1400, was marked by the establishment of settlements and hunting of moa and other native wildlife.

A less understood “transitional” period followed, before the emergence of “classic” Māori society around 1600, with more intensive food production, fortified settlements and distinctive cultural traditions.

Terms such as the “Māori Middle Ages” highlight the frustrating unknowns that still cloud this picture. Our new research now offers a more precise timeline.

By combining high-precision radiocarbon dating with detailed archaeological evidence from two sites, we have found that some economic changes began earlier than previously thought.

‘Wiggle-matching’ points to a longer history

Radiocarbon dating allows archaeologists to estimate the age of ancient remains by measuring a form of carbon that gradually decays over time. But turning these measurements into precise calendar dates can be tricky.

The amount of radiocarbon in the atmosphere has fluctuated over the centuries, meaning remains from different periods can produce similar results.

This is particularly problematic for the years between 1290 and 1400, making it hard to pinpoint when early settlements were occupied. As a result, archaeologists have often grouped sites within a broad 14th-century settlement period.

A different problem arises between 1480 and 1640, when radiocarbon levels in the atmosphere changed very little. This means remains from across that 160-year period can produce almost identical dating results, obscuring the timing of the transition to classic Māori society.

To overcome these challenges, we combined high-precision radiocarbon dating with statistical modelling that accounts for the order in which archaeological remains were deposited.

We also used “wiggle-matching”, which compares patterns in radiocarbon measurements with known fluctuations in atmospheric carbon levels to narrow down their ages.

We applied these methods to evidence from two important archaeological sites, allowing us to establish more precisely when they were occupied.

At Waihemo (Shag River Mouth), on the east coast of the South Island, archaeologists previously believed the site had been occupied for just 20 to 50 years during the 14th century.

But a series of new radiocarbon dates from twigs, bird bones and moa eggshells told a different story. The site had been used repeatedly between 1320 and 1440, rather than occupied for a single short period.

The findings also showed that by around 1410, the food sources used by its inhabitants had shifted away from moa and seals towards greater reliance on shellfish, fish, dogs and birds found in the open countryside.

This longer timeline helps explain why artefacts associated with the earliest Polynesian settlers were found alongside objects from later periods. Rather than belonging to a single early occupation phase, they reflected a gradual change in activity at the same site.

A clearer picture of cultural change

At Kokohuia, overlooking the Hokianga Harbour in Northland, our findings helped resolve another long-standing puzzle.

Archaeological evidence suggested the site was occupied only briefly, but earlier radiocarbon dating indicated it had been used for several centuries.

By analysing charred twigs and hīnau seeds – short-lived materials that provide more reliable dates than older, larger branches – we refined our dating models and narrowed down when discarded shellfish and fish bones accumulated, placing them around 1600.

We also found that ovens beneath these food remains belonged to a much earlier, discrete period, dating to around 1440.

The revised dates are consistent with other archaeological evidence, including two-piece shell fishhooks similar to those found at later Māori sites in Northland and the Coromandel. This helps resolve the discrepancy between what archaeologists found at the site and what earlier dating results suggested.

The findings from both sites provide a more nuanced picture of the changes that took place between early Polynesian settlement and the emergence of classic Māori society.

Rather than dating developments to broad periods spanning centuries, these methods can narrow the timing of events to just 20 or 30 years – roughly a generation.

This greater precision brings us closer to connecting archaeological evidence with Māori oral traditions, which preserve accounts of events and communities from the past.

The author acknowledges the support and kaitiakitanga of mana whenua, as well as fellow researchers Atholl Anderson, Louise Furey, Simon Bickler, Gerard O’Regan, Matthew Schmidt, Roderick Wallace and Peter Sheppard.

Fiona Petchey has received funding from the Marsden Fund, Royal Society Te Apārangi.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/14/how-did-early-maori-society-develop-new-research-reveals-a-clearer-timeline/

By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific

People running foodbanks in South Auckland say poverty is deepening among the Pacific community, and the high demand they are seeing is the just tip of the iceberg.

Persistent high rents and basic living costs, plus nagging debt, continue to leave Pasifika families facing tough decisions on whether to pay bills or feed their children.

As New Zealand gets ready to head to the polls on November 7, and the cost of living looms as the biggest issue for voters, the government has been touting its stewardship of the economy and signs of recovery.

• READ MORE: Other New Zealand election reports

But it is a different picture at the frontline of foodbanks such as Vinnies Tāmaki Makaurau – based in Onehunga – which is part of the national organisation of the Society of St Vincent de Paul.

Households from the Pasifika and Māori communities make up the majority of families who come to their foodbank or to access budgeting support, counselling, youth development or help with employment pathways.

“We used to see people come once every three months. Now we’re seeing people try and register with us and apply every week, every fortnight, and we just wish we weren’t the capability to do that,” Henry Elliot, a triage coordinator and financial mentor with Vinnies, said.

He said while housing insecurity, chronic illness, disability, mental health difficulties, domestic violence and other factors contributed to food insecurity, Vinnies did not have enough resources to meet the high demand.

The Onehunga base had 31,000 engagements last year — that is, people reaching out and getting responded to, either by phone, face to face meetings, online engagement, workshops, sessions, or programme participation.

Post-pandemic deprivation
According to Elliot, Vinnies has seen the level of need among Pasifika deepen since the covid-19 pandemic.

“Covid brought the need up, and then when covid kind of disappeared, and we were supposed to go back to normal lives, for lots of people their jobs were never there again; they had no work.

“Some of them still have no work, or they’re on part time, or their hours are cut. So while covid disappeared and the funding disappeared, the need for food did not.”

Meanwhile, the government this term introduced a host of sanctions on beneficiaries, which he said had left a number of people in the Pacific community needing help from Vinnies.

“Two three years into those those new rules, we’re seeing the effects. People are coming in unsure why their benefit was cut or why their benefit was slashed altogether, and then finding out that it’s because they missed a meeting, a conference, a phone call, and those sanctions that are imposed on them happen very quickly.”

A new survey by the New Zealand Food Network found that one in every three households is struggling to provide affordable, nutritious meals, with the burden falling heaviest on single parents, Pacific communities, disabled people and renters.

‘The gap is widening’
Vinnies Tāmaki Makaurau general manager Delphina Soti said it was increasingly clear that many Pasifika families were struggling to afford basics.

“Like we understand that the cost of living has gone up, inflation’s gone up, like all sorts of different things have gone up, but what people are getting paid is not going up,” Soti noted.

“So it’s 9 percent that rent’s gone up, and then cost of living — 5 percent. Then you look at income, Work and Income, our most vulnerable, 2.2 percent; and then you look at how much the incomes have gone up, it’s like 4 percent.”

She said that only about 16 percent of Pasifika in New Zealand owned homes, compared with 42.1 percent of all New Zealanders, while around two-thirds of Pasifika were renting homes.

“So if the rent is shooting through the clouds, their income is coming down, and Work and Income is coming down, what kind of planning is this as a government?

‘The poor are becoming poorer, and the gap is widening.”

This is echoed by Mangere Budgeting Services Trust CEO Lara Dolan, who said in each of the past two financial years, her organsation supported around 4000 families with food support and budgeting advice.

She said Pasifika made up 60 percent of those people.

‘Struggling big time’
“The demand for our services, financial mentoring services, has increased by 61 percent in the last two years, and the demand for food has increased by more than 100 percent, which tells me that people are struggling big time.”

Dolan said people coming to them for help were often working people drowning in debt and the high cost of living.

“Everything is getting more expensive but salaries of people are not keeping up with inflation.

“We see a lot of people who are ‘working poor’, like teachers, builders, and health care workers coming in.”

Because Vinnies does not offer food deliveries, people need to come to them to get the food packages. But getting all the way to Onehunga is too hard for some families.

Elliot said another barrier is the shame some Pacific people feel about reaching out for help.

“It’s that sense of shame or whakamā. So we try and provide that safe space where it’s as simple as going to a New World or a Pak’nSave, they don’t have to feel like they’re coming to a charity.

‘Weight off their shoulders’
“We notice that when we give them the food, a small weight’s lifted off their shoulders every time.

“Every time the person puts food in their car or in their trolley or whatever, that small weight is okay — ‘of all the problems I have in my life right now, at least I know I’ve got a meal tonight, and so do my kids.’”

Soti said Vinnies was probably only seeing about 50 percent of the families who were in need of help.

“We’ve had people here who’ve struggled to come here. We watch cars do ueys [u-turns]. They keep on turning around and going back until somebody goes. Henry goes out and waves them down — ‘come’. and they come trembling.

“They don’t want to ask, but they are connected to a whole lot of other people who are doing it tough as well. We reckon about 50 percent. We only see the tip of the iceberg.”

Community ‘come to party’
Vinnies gets some funding from the Ministry of Social Development, and then other funding from private sources and church donations.

Soti said Vinnies was grateful government support for its foodbanks, but it was nowhere near the level they needed.

However, the Pacific community has come to the party as much as it can.

“Amidst all of this, there’s so much hope. We ask our young people, ‘hey, you can be part of this food system, you can really make an impact’,” she explained.

“So they turn around and collect cans, and they don’t just collect cans. They collect to the value of $30,000 worth of cans,

Elliot said the sense of community is strong within Pacific people, which gives them resilience.

“I will say this: they’ve known struggle and poverty their entire lives, especially if they’re from New Zealand. So they know how to make it work if need be,” he said.

Families in wider context
“And while they may be shy to come to us because we are a Pacific community, they do know that the community will rally around people that need support in the long run, whether that be through their church or their village communities that operate here in New Zealand, or their families in a wider context.”

Soti said that in Aotearoa there was enough to go around — and that no one should go hungry.

“I think there is enough. You got people who’ve got billions, and then you’ve got people with absolutely nothing, and so it’s just thinking, coming back to human beings.

“Poverty seeps in when we forget that we belong to each other on a really human level. If we remember that, maybe it’s time to pull some of those resources towards those who don’t have enough of the blanket.”

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/14/poor-becoming-poorer-south-auckland-foodbanks-warn-poverty-is-deepening-among-pasifika/

Justice for Palestine

Vote for the three progressive parties — Labour, Green and Te Pāti Māori — in next month’s general election if you want to see a principled Aotearoa New Zealand foreign policy stance based on international law and justice.

Here is how Aotearoa New Zealand’s political parties stand on the Palestinian solidarity movement’s four key demands this election:

This year’s election provides the movement a crucial opportunity to educate and encourage the public to elect representatives who will take a stand for justice and be accountable to us, the people.

• READ MORE: Other Palestine Party reports

Rating footnotes:
However, Opportunity wants any goods and services produced inside the Zionist state to be “unaffected” by sanctions.

Te Pāti Māori, the Greens and Labour have committed to comprehensive sanctions, using a framework based on the Russia Sanctions Act.

The language of this Bill would offer the solidarity movement the possibility to organise together for wider-ranging sanctions (eg. targeting complicit states and international financial backers of the genocide and occupation).

While Te Pāti Māori has had the clearest and strongest position on Palestine and related issues throughout the past 3 years, their campaign is calling for electorate votes only.

Te Pāti Māori is encouraging voters to cast their party vote for the Greens or Labour.

The Opportunity Party’s commitment to sanctions targets goods produced in illegal settlements and travel bans on individuals. Opportunity would consider divesting public money if it fit UN criteria of supporting the illegal occupation.

This scorecard is endorsed by Justice for Palestine, Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) and Dayenu.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/14/vote-progressive-parties-if-you-seek-justice-for-palestine/

A shipwreck off the coast of Turkey is the oldest shipwreck in the world, our team of archaeologists believes.

There’s little left of the ship itself but based on clues from its cargo – including pottery vessels – a research team I was part of has tentatively dated the wreck to around 2700–2400 BCE.

That’s about 4,500 years ago. Prior to this discovery, the world’s oldest shipwreck was a wreck off the coast of Dokos, in Greece, thought to have been from about 4,200 years ago.

Much work remains to be done to finesse the conclusions, and a paper outlining the results is yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Yet the discovery could transform our understanding of ancient Mediterranean connections during the Early Bronze Age.

Here, and perhaps even earlier, lie the foundations of extensive trade routes as we know them today.

Searching for clues

Associate Professor Hakan Öniz of Akdeniz University, Antalya, has worked along this coastline for decades excavating ancient shipwrecks.

Acting on clues from local seafarers, Öniz found a shipwreck in shallow waters off Kekova, west of Antalya in Turkey, in 2024. Earlier this year, he contacted me and asked if I would help date some of the pottery vessels found on this wreck.

As an archaeologist specialising in desert sites, this was a singular experience. New technology, water-logged methods of excavation and laborious conservation techniques were the new normal. Yet there is always room for learning new skills in life.

Of the ship itself there is now nothing to see, owing to underwater exposure. Yet the research team has now estimated the ship and its cargo dates to around 2700–2400 BCE. However, the precise dating is still under consideration. Earlier or later dates on either side of this initial determination are also possible.

A time capsule of ancient trade

This discovery promises to re-write our understanding of early trade networks from around 4,500 years ago.

The ship is a “missing piece” in the story of networks, trade and commodity exchange in the wider eastern Mediterranean. This era includes the pyramid age of Giza and its mighty pharaohs.

What remains under the sea is a time capsule of ancient trade.

Although its direction was not known, the boat was evidently travelling along the coast of southern Turkey.

Now resting on the seabed between two islands, it is apparent the ship likely sought refuge in the lee waters during a storm. One could imagine the terror of the sailors – possibly coastal people from the Levant region – as their ship crashed against the rocks.

While timbers from the ship disappeared long ago, the remains of its precious cargo were embedded in the rocky slope along the Kekova coast.

Divers worked over the past four months to extract its pottery from barnacles clinging to the rocky underwater slope.

A closer look at pottery

Pottery is like plastic: it never goes away and just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.

Yet humble pottery vessels hold many clues about the past.

In this case, the cargo included large ceramic storage vessels or amphorae which once contained products from regions of the eastern Mediterranean.

The pots were large ovoid, flat-based jars with two handles, many featuring a raised horizontal clay “belt” around the widest part of the jar.

Through these vessels was possible to ascertain many pieces of information. This includes the likely origin of the jars and the contents exchanged across the region.

Importantly, the shape and manufacturing technique of the pots themselves help us date the cargo. By extension, this includes also the date of other pottery, and the ship itself.

The bigger picture

Compared to later periods, trade and exchange in the eastern Mediterranean during the third millennium (3000–2000 BCE) is poorly understood.

Maritime voyages during the that period are known from Egyptian texts, pottery vessels and raw materials from ancient tombs.

Around the same time as this ship struck the rocks, the ancient Egyptians were trading in the eastern Mediterranean through the port of Byblos in Lebanon.

Commodities such as cedar, tin/lead, oils, tree resins, lapis lazuli and silver, all materials that Egypt lacked, were imported by the Egyptian state.

Recent scientific research also reveals that silver was acquired by the Egyptian state around 2600 BCE. Analyses showed this silver was acquired from the Lavrion mines east of modern Athens.

While it is unlikely Egyptian ships made this journey, boats like the Kekova ship may have used the route as part of an extended international maritime network.

And what was in the jars? Remarkably there were still residues visible to the naked eye. Again, scientific analyses are pending, but could be some of the products mentioned in the Egyptian texts, possibly olive oil, wine or tree resin.

The ship may have acquired its pottery from several ports on their journey. Our best assessment at this stage of research is that some of the “belted” jars (or clays used to make them) may have originated in the Central Jordan Valley.

The coast of southern Turkey is littered with ancient shipwrecks. While maritime archaeology is a relatively recent phenomenon, some of the world’s most famous wrecks have been discovered there. Who knows what other secrets these waters hold.

The research on which this article is based was led by Associate Professor Hakan Öniz, head of the Division of Mediterranean Underwater Cultural Heritage Research, and the Department of Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Heritage in the Faculty of Art at the Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey.

Karin Sowada 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/2026/10/14/worlds-oldest-shipwreck-discovered-off-coast-of-turkey/

The hardest disease to care for when I was training as a pediatrician in the late 1970s was cystic fibrosis, a disease in which abnormally thick mucus secretions block the lungs’ airways and make it progressively harder to breathe.

Back then, there was no treatment for the disease itself. All we had was physical therapy to clear mucus from the lungs, and drugs to dilate the airways and aid breathing. We used high doses of antibiotics to treat chronic pneumonia – drugs that also generated dangerous antibiotic-resistant infections that not only made the disease progressively harder to treat but also posed a threat to other people. At the same time, we also had to manage co-occurring conditions, including diabetes, malnutrition and heart failure.

Worse, these efforts did not work. In 1979 the median age of death from cystic fibrosis was 15. While all young deaths are tragic, caring for children with a progressive, inevitably fatal disease that denied emerging adolescents the promise of adulthood was especially heartbreaking.

Cystic fibrosis treatment changed dramatically after 2012, when the biotech company Vertex Pharmaceuticals launched the drug Kalydeco (ivacaftor), followed by additional cystic fibrosis drugs Orkambi (lumacaftor/ivacaftor) in 2015, Symdeko (tezacaftor/ivacaftor) in 2018, Trikafta (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor) in 2019 and Alyftrek (vanzacaftor/tezacaftor/deutivacaftor) in 2024.

Now, the median survival age for a child with cystic fibrosis born today in the United States is 66 years. Mary Vought, the former wife of the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, stated that their daughter, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, “can live likely a full life because of this miracle drug,” and that “it is very, very, very hopeful.”

Cystic fibrosis treatments are not miracles; they required decades of research funded by a combination of public and private investments. The largest contributor to this work was the National Institutes of Health, which funded much of the pivotal research required to understand the genetics and biology of the disease. Only with this knowledge was it possible to begin searching for drugs to treat cystic fibrosis.

Ironically, the federal funding that was so critical to developing these drugs is now threatened by policies that were initially proposed by the Office of Management and Budget. Those policies, which would increase political control over federal research grants, limit peer review and curtail research on certain topics, were temporarily blocked by Congress. But several federal agencies are still pursing portions of this agenda, including the NIH.

NIH laid the foundation for treatment

My colleagues and I examined the role that federal funding from the National Institutes of Health has played in developing cystic fibrosis treatments. We found that NIH funding supported more than 6,200 published research papers on the biology of cystic fibrosis in the 27 years before Kalydeco was approved in 2012.

Some of these publications describe celebrated milestones in understanding the biology of CFTR – the gene that causes cystic fibrosis – or the disease process. Others describe the studies necessary to replicate, refute or refine these advances and ensure the necessary scientific rigor to successfully discover and develop new drugs.

Overall, we identified US$3.2 billion in NIH funding for basic research on cystic fibrosis from 1985 to 2012 and approximately $940 million in funding for applied research on potential drugs. This funding complemented at least $200 million in investments from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for the discovery or development of these drugs as well as undisclosed spending by Vertex to develop and commercialize these products.

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation acknowledged the essential role of the NIH in a 2025 letter to Russell Vought and other Trump administration leaders, writing that “ensuring that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is fully functional is critical for furthering our knowledge of the biology of CF and advancing CF therapeutic development.”

What will it take to produce future miracles?

Developing groundbreaking drugs requires a long-term, sustained commitment from the public, from the government and from industry.

FDA-approved drugs are typically based on 20 to 30 years of basic research in the lab and eight to nine years of human testing in the clinic. This work is supported, at least in part, by an average of $1.4 billion in NIH funding and as much as a reported $1.4 billion in industry funding per drug.

Russell Vought and his family have benefited from the commitment that scientists, advocates, legislators and industry leaders have placed into developing treatments that now offer patients with cystic fibrosis a normal life. A similar commitment can help find cures for patients who don’t respond to available drugs and to provide cures for cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia and other conditions.

This commitment to research is currently under threat from Trump administration proposals that would reduce NIH funding, research, training and global research collaboration. Protecting or expanding federal funding for basic research instead can help lead to innovative therapies for countless patients.

Fred D. Ledley has received research funding for related research from the National Biomedical Research Foundation, Institute for New Economic Thinking, West Health, and the National Pharmaceutical Council.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/14/cystic-fibrosis-patients-got-their-miracle-drug-thanks-to-federal-research-funding-new-trump-administration-rules-may-cut-future-miracles-short/