Unsplash From corporate breakfasts to office morning teas, this week workplaces across Australia will mark NAIDOC Week. Held in early July every year, it’s a celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ history, culture and achievements.

But even as work colleagues get together to celebrate NAIDOC Week, our recent research shows racism against Indigenous workers is still common. More than half (58%) Indigenous people we surveyed reported experiencing racism sometimes, often, or very often at work.

It’s little wonder a parliamentary inquiry on racism, hate and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has had almost 600 submissions. That inquiry is holding hearings around Australia for at least another month.

Those hearings come in the wake of an attempted bombing of a peaceful Invasion/Survival Day rally in Boorloo/Perth on January 26 this year. A 31-year-old man was charged with engaging in a terrorist act, after allegedly throwing a home-made explosive into a crowd of thousands of people.

Luckily, it failed to detonate. In that context, what more can workplaces do about racism against Indigenous people all year around? Our research points to three practical, proven solutions for employers – plus a gap in national workplace policy that’s yet to be fixed.

Read more: Half a century on, NAIDOC Week is still both a party and a protest The glacial pace of change Our Centre for Indigenous People and Work published the Gari Yala: Speak the Truth report earlier this year.

It’s based on a survey of 1,158 Indigenous workers, balancing people living in cities, rural, regional and remote locations. It also reflects diversity in gender, Indigenous people with caring responsibilities and with disability, and rainbow mob.

It’s the only Australian report of its kind: capturing Indigenous experiences of work, told and developed by First Nations people. Our research shows how racism at work – both institutional and between individuals – does real harm.

It drives down job satisfaction, makes people more likely to look for another job, and stops people recommending their employer to others. In our first survey back in 2020, just 26% of Indigenous workers reported having never heard racial slurs or “jokes” about Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people at work.

When we ran the survey again in 2025, it was 29%. That is a small sign of improvement. But if that rate of change continues, it will take generations before Indigenous workers no longer have to hear racist comments at work.

Why having this plan matters Among the most striking findings in this latest survey were the practical differences that showed up between workplaces with and without Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs).

Our analysis found: half (50%) of Indigenous workers in RAP organisations rarely or never experience racism, compared to 36% elsewhere RAP organisations are three times more likely (34% versus 10%) to have both an anti-racism complaints process and training RAP organisations were more likely to strengthen career pathways for Indigenous employees RAP organisation employees reported reduced burdens of unpaid cultural labour, such as not being asked to organise Reconciliation Week events, or being asked a large number of questions based on their identity.

As one person in their 40s from Brisbane said: In the past I would not openly share my Indigenous identity at work due to fear of racism in the workplace and from customers […] In my current workplace I shared my identity as I felt safe to do so and was involved in RAP working groups and an Indigenous employee network.

RAPs are not a silver bullet. But they do provide structure and accountability for organisations. That makes them one of the most practical tools we have to drive change in workplaces. For employers, expanding the reach, quality and ambition of RAPs is one of the most effective ways to build fairer, more inclusive workplaces.

Two areas workplaces are lagging on In addition to developing RAPs, the 1,158 people we surveyed told us two more things made a real difference to feeling safer at work: anti-racism complaint procedures and anti-discrimination training.

However, we also found an alarming lack of progress: only one in three employees we surveyed said their organisation had a racism complaint procedure only 36% said their organisation provided relevant anti-discrimination training only 21% said their organisation provided both (training and complaint procedure).

These figures have barely moved since the first Gari Yala survey in 2020. Many reported that when racism was raised, systems failed to respond effectively – or even punished the complainant. As one person told us: Every single person I have reported for racial discrimination to my supervisor has been promoted.

A regional Queensland worker in their 40s summed up what needs to change: When racism is reported, it must be taken seriously, acted upon swiftly and met with appropriate outcomes. Ignoring it only reinforces unsafe environments and silences First Nations voices.

Read more: ‘I feel I’m making a difference’: how Blak women are working to build safer workplaces Tackling racism like sexism Having a Reconciliation Action Plan, proper anti-racism complaint procedures and anti-discrimination training are all ways employers can make a real difference on racism at work.

But we also need more proactive prevention and accountability. That’s why our Centre for Indigenous People and Work, along with others including the federal race discrimination commissioner, have called for racism to be treated as seriously as sexism under the law.

Since December 2022, Australian workplaces have had a “positive duty” under the Sex Discrimination Act. This imposes a legal duty on employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sexual discrimination and harassment. So far, there has been little movement on bringing in a similar duty on racism.

But we are hopeful the current inquiry on racism against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will consider whether this could make a difference.

Nareen Young receives research funding from NAB Foundation.

She is a member of the National Tertiary Education Union and the Australian Labour Party.

As well as being the assistant director of the Centre for Indigenous People and Work at the University of Technology Sydney, Josh Gilbert is the Aboriginal Co-Chair of Reconciliation NSW.

Jane O’Leary 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/2026/07/05/how-employers-can-get-serious-about-tackling-racism-against-indigenous-workers/

OPEN LETTER: By John Minto It is hard not to feel the deepest sense of shame as a New Zealander following the United Nations Independent Commission report released last week. (UN report details the “overwhelming” scale of children killed in Gaza).

This report details Israel’s direct targeting of Palestinian children in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank. Most know the shocking case of Hind Rajab but this report exposes not just the deliberate, casualised killing of children individually but its industrial scale.

READ MORE: A UN report details the ‘overwhelming’ scale of children killed in Gaza. It raises grave legal questions Gaza genocide – how many UN findings will the West ignore? Other Gaza genocide reports It’s easy to see how this has occurred.

A study by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has found 62 percent to 76 percent of Jewish Israelis partially or fully agree that there are “no innocents in Gaza”. Israeli political and military leaders have used such genocidal rhetoric against Palestinians for decades, and particularly in the last three years.

These leaders have set the tone for the behaviour of the public and the individual soldiers who do the killing. Dehumanising a population as Israeli leaders have done is always the first step to genocide.

The most tragic aspect, however, is this would not have happened had the New Zealand government and other Western governments sanctioned Israel decades ago for the brutality of its illegal occupation in Palestine, its ethnic cleansing and its mass killing of Palestinian children as detailed in the UN report.

They are still silent even now — choosing to stand with those killing the children. The shame of their betrayal of New Zealand values will last for generations. John Minto is national campaign coordinator of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

This letter was first published by The Press.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/05/john-minto-the-shame-of-nzs-betrayal-of-gazas-children/

Highways, rail networks, airports, national healthcare systems, defence and information technology… As governments around the world prepare to invest heavily in critical infrastructure, an important question remains: who ensure that the major projects to deliver it are well governed and how?

Global infrastructure investments are expected to exceed $150 trillion through 2050, with annual spending increase from US$4.4 trillion in 2024 to US$6.9 trillion in 2050.

Europe alone is preparing to account for a major share of these investments through increasingly ambitious policy instruments: from Jean-Claude Juncker’s €315 billion Investment Plan for Europe in 2014, to the €806 billion NextGeneration EU package in 2020, to Mario Draghi’s call in September 2024 for an additional €800 billion every year, close to 5% of EU GDP, in decarbonisation, digital and strategic technologies, and defence.

Why is governance the missing piece? Each initiative has been larger and more ambitious than the last. Yet despite the visibility of these plans, the projects they fund are often poorly governed – running over budget and behind schedule.

This issue is at the heart of our recent book on governance frameworks for major public projects which support the delivery of infrastructure, enabling and facilitating social and economic activities. 𝘎𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘔𝘢𝘫𝘰𝘳 𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴: 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘌𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴, by Vedran Zerjav, Morten Welde and Gro Holst Volden, (Wiley, 2026).

Wiley A governance framework refers to the systems, processes, and regulations government implement to improve the likelihood of projects being delivered according to plan and within an allocated timeframe and budget. These frameworks determine who makes decisions, how projects are evaluated, what information is required before funding is approved, and how lessons are retained after completion.

Our comparative study centred on ten national and provincial governments: Norway, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, the United States, Canada, the province of Quebec, and Australia – as well as supranational entities such as the European Union and the World Bank.

The book focuses on governance arrangements introduced at the topmost level of government for national infrastructure, with Quebec included as a province-level comparator. For many countries in our sample, governance frameworks were introduced between 2000 and 2010 (with Canada as a notable exception, having introduced its first framework in 1978), providing an opportunity to assess their strengths and weaknesses.

Our analysis identifies the practices that distinguish governments with consistently better outcomes. Norway stands out as an example of how a project governance framework can operate in a well-functioning institutional setup.

After the Norwegian Ministry of Finance introduced mandatory external quality assurance in 2000 for all public investments above NOK 1 billion (around €85 million), a 2015 study found that the share of large Norwegian road projects experiencing cost overruns fell from 72% before the framework to 27% afterwards.

A 2024 paper looking more broadly at 96 Norwegian government projects found just 25% had cost overruns, with the average project delivered 4.4% below budget. The framework is strictly managed – exemptions are not easily obtained – and independent quality assurance gives ministries a clear incentive to build internal expertise rather than rely on consultants.

Major projects delivered under this regime include the Ferry-free E39 coastal highway programme on Norway’s west coast and a multi-decade series of fjord crossings whose appraisal and quality assurance run through the State Project Model.

The Norwegian case also illustrates a broader pattern: well-governed delivery rests on clear ownership through the project lifecycle, capable public-sector project owners – the agencies that commission, build and operate national infrastructure, such as Norway’s Statens vegvesen – with their own in-house technical capacity, and learning systems that feed evaluations of completed projects back into the next decision.

Whether the frameworks work as intended may depend on transparency and development of skills, and whether the framework is mandatory. In line with that, our comparison points to several current challenges. Accountability is not always accompanied by full transparency.

It remains a central objective across the governments we studied, but is not pursued consistently. In Canada, for example, “Cabinet Confidence” is frequently invoked to restrict access to information requested by journalists, researchers, and the public.

While confidentiality serves a legitimate purpose, it also limits independent scrutiny of major public projects. Another challenge is that large-scale projects are often announced with fanfare before a robust business case has been completed, as noted in the case of Australia.

Australia’s Snowy Hydro 2.0 – announced in 2017 at A$2 billion – was reset to A$12 billion in 2023 and is now undergoing a further reassessment. In June 2026, the Australian National Audit Office reported that the project’s final cost and completion date remain unknown.

At the same time, independent review mechanisms often lack permission to cancel or terminate projects that present significant risks and concerns. Across the governments we compared, governance frameworks for major public projects have already generated key benefits.

What differences did the frameworks make?

Overall, the experience from the cases suggests that the various frameworks have positively contributed to: An improvement of the quality of decision-making A streamlining of key processes An improvement of cost control in some countries, but challenges remain A disciplined effect on political decisions; however, the tension between politics and rational planning is a perennial issue.

Based on these findings, we recommend the following: Governments should place emphasis on rigorous project appraisal before political commitment is made. Independent quality assurance should play a crucial role: instead of relying solely on internal assessments, external experts should review business cases, cost estimates and rationales before projects can move forward.

Accountability should be clearly assigned throughout the project lifecycle. Governments should build in-house technical expertise and prioritise learning capabilities that feed lessons from completed projects into future investment decisions. Governance frameworks should incorporate local stakeholders in management processes, encouraging different actors to collaborate in identifying solutions and addressing issues before conflicts escalate.

Taken together, these findings make the case for a sustained cross-country conversation – one that lets governments share experience and learn from one another.

Sharing experience through networks like the Concept Symposium at NTNU, the UK’s IPA/NESTA, and similar communities – engaging civil servants, practitioners and academics, conducting independent evaluations, and systematically reviewing completed projects – can help ensure that future investments deliver lasting public value rather than costly disappointments.

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.

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Olivier Choinière is an affiliated researcher at the University of Ottawa’s Centre on Governance and a research fellow at the CDA Institute.

Vedran Zerjav is an associated member of the NTNU Concept Research Programme.

The research was funded through the NTNU Concept Research Programme

Maude Brunet ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/05/how-do-governance-frameworks-operate-and-what-can-major-public-projects-gain-from-them/

Following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, Russia endured a period of violent criminal lawlessness known as the “wild 90s”. Organised crime spiked, with gangs taking control of banks, factories and other lucrative markets. Contract killings, shootings and car bombings became part of urban life.

There are now fears that the Ukraine war will give rise to a similar situation as members of Russia’s army, as well as former convicts who were pardoned in exchange for military service, return from the frontlines.

A variety of conditions enabled organised crime to flourish in the 1990s. Weak state institutions, economic turmoil and mass privatisation following the Soviet Union’s collapse created a governance vacuum in Russia. As criminologist Federico Varese, of the University of Oxford, explains in his work, criminal groups stepped in to provide “private protection” in areas where the state was ineffective or absent.

They provided services such as contract enforcement, debt recovery and physical business security. Sociologist Vadim Volkov, meanwhile, describes the rise of “violent entrepreneurs” who commodified coercion in an environment where legal institutions had largely collapsed.

Russia’s murder rate surged in this period. Between 1990 and 1994, it more than doubled to a peak of over 33 killings per 100,000 people. This made Russia’s murder rate among the highest globally. Russian soldiers preparing for military action in Ukraine.

Dmitriy Kandinskiy / Shutterstock Contemporary Russia presents a different picture. Following Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in 1999, the Russian state has consolidated its authority. Putin quickly expanded the state’s security apparatus while reasserting control over criminal networks.

In many cases, organised crime has become integrated into systems of governance, complementing the state’s political or strategic interests. For example, criminal networks have facilitated sanctions evasion by transporting restricted goods through parallel trade routes and acquiring sanctioned technologies via intermediary networks in third countries.

Reinforcing this transformation The Ukraine war is likely to reinforce this more recent transformation. Expanded western sanctions imposed since the start of the war have widened opportunities for illicit trade and smuggling networks. But the most significant consequences arise from the social and security challenges associated with large-scale military demobilisation.

Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has mobilised hundreds of thousands of military personnel. This includes up to 180,000 former convicts. Many of these people have experienced prolonged exposure to combat. Military service does not inherently lead to criminality and it would be inaccurate to suggest that all returning veterans are likely to become offenders.

However, evidence from post-conflict societies such as Colombia, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and Bosnia-Herzegovina suggests that poorly managed demobilisation can reshape criminal markets. Research on disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration consistently demonstrates that unemployment, psychological trauma and weak institutional support creates opportunities for criminal groups to recruit former combatants.

Military service also teaches soldiers organisational skills beyond battlefield experience such as logistics, intelligence gathering and network management. These skills are all transferable to contemporary organised crime. In modern organised crime environments, traditional racketeering is complemented by cybercrime, cryptocurrency laundering and transnational financial crime.

Even if only a small proportion of military personnel returning from Ukraine become involved in criminal activity, they could change the composition and improve the operational sophistication of Russian crime groups. While the circumstances differ, the case of Colombia illustrates how poorly managed demobilisation can transform organised crime.

In the 2000s, over 30,000 fighters from right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia were demobilised. A minority of these former combatants subsequently joined or established criminal organisations. They provided military training, discipline and networks, aiding the capabilities of organised crime.

These groups rapidly became major players in the Colombian organised crime ecosystem. A Human Rights Watch report found they became major perpetrators of drug trafficking, extortion and violence. Estimates suggest they controlled up to half of the Colombia’s cocaine exports by 2011.

The Russian state is far stronger than the one that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. WorldStockStudio / Shutterstock The Russian state is far stronger than the one that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This makes a wholesale resurgence of traditional criminal violence unlikely. Instead, the Ukraine war looks set to accelerate a new generation of criminal networks that are more professional, militarised and embedded within state structures. However, the Kremlin still faces a difficult balancing act.

Contemporary Russian governance has relied upon managing and exploiting criminal groups. And Moscow appears wary of the broad social instability that would emerge if criminal organisations become sufficiently powerful or autonomous to operate beyond state control.

Russia has thus began preparing plans for the return of veterans from Ukraine. The Kremlin has implemented initiatives such as the “Time of Heroes” programme. This programme channels selected veterans into public administration and political office following their demobilisation.

Although limited, such planning reflects official recognition that domestic consequences of war will extend beyond the battlefield.

Regardless of these efforts, the distinction between organised crime and state power in Russia is likely to become harder to draw than at any point since the end of the cold war.

Adriana Marin 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/2026/07/03/ukraine-war-sparks-fears-of-an-organised-crime-resurgence-in-russia/

Gajus/Shutterstock When a student can’t submit their essay because the household’s only device is being used by three siblings for school, or because their mobile data ran out mid-lecture, they are experiencing digital poverty.

Digital poverty describes a cluster of overlapping disadvantages: lack of access to devices, unreliable or unaffordable internet connectivity, and insufficient digital skills to make meaningful use of online resources even when access exists. According to a 2023 report, between 13 and 19 million people over the age of 16 in the UK are experiencing this in some form.

Researchers describe digital poverty as operating across three levels. These are poor access to digital technologies, poor digital literacy and skills, and a reduced ability to convert digital access into real-world benefits, such as securing a job, managing finances or navigating health systems.

Each level compounds the next. In higher education, all three levels matter. There’s an assumption that young people are naturally tech-savvy because they grew up with Instagram and TikTok.

But a student who owns a smartphone but has never used a university’s virtual learning environment, an online library database or a collaborative document platform is not digitally “ready” for modern degree study, regardless of how fluent they might be on social media.

Yet many universities continue to design their courses, and assess their students, as if reliable broadband and a personal laptop are simply a given. They are not. Witnessing digital poverty COVID-19 forced higher education online almost overnight.

The effect on students without adequate digital access was stark.

An Office for Students survey of 1,416 students during lockdown found that 52% said their learning had been affected by slow or unreliable internet, 71% reported lacking a quiet study space, and 18% were affected by not having access to a suitable device at all.

At the Open University, where many students come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and have non-standard entry qualifications, the picture was even more complex. Students sharing a single device with four household members. Adults studying on their children’s tablets.

People trying to write assignments on smartphones. This might be practical for browsing, but not for sustained academic work. The pandemic made these realities visible. But the inequalities that produced them had been building for years – rooted in income inequality, regional infrastructure gaps and a cost-of-living crisis that pushed broadband off the list of things people could afford.

Some students are hit harder than others The evidence consistently shows that digital poverty does not affect everyone equally. Research carried out in the UK found that Black, Asian and minority ethnic students were significantly more likely to face digital barriers than their white peers.

Among Black, African and Caribbean students surveyed, 43% reported poor wifi as a problem during online learning, compared to 35% of white students. More than one-third struggled with mobile data costs. Nearly one in five had no safe, private space to work.

Some students do not have anywhere private to do their work without interruptions. Bricolage/Shutterstock Digital exclusion doesn’t just make learning harder – it reduces engagement and accelerates dropout. Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, those classed as Neet (not in education, employment or training), and those enrolled in access-level qualifications such as foundation degrees are particularly vulnerable.

Data from Open University access modules shows that of students who visited the module website fewer than 20 times, only seven out of 289 submitted their final assessment. Of those who visited over 100 times, 342 out of 356 did.

Digital engagement and academic success are deeply intertwined. A human rights issue There is a growing international consensus that internet access is not a luxury but a right. Mexico recognised it as a constitutional right in 2013.

Finland enshrined it in law as far back as 2010. In 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council called on all states to accelerate efforts to bridge digital divides. The UK is a signatory to that resolution.

Framing digital access as a human right matters because it changes what we think is required of institutions and governments. It is not enough to treat digital poverty as an unfortunate circumstance that universities might occasionally help students navigate.

It needs to be understood as a structural injustice that demands a structural response. Institutions are not powerless here. Lending laptops and wifi hotspots, offering hardship grants that cover broadband costs, integrating digital literacy training into curricula rather than bolting it on as an afterthought.

These measures make a real difference to real students. But universities also need to audit their own assumptions. Designing courses that require simultaneous video streaming, real-time collaboration tools and high-bandwidth content without considering students on capped mobile data plans is not neutral.

It is, in effect, a design choice that advantages the already advantaged. The most important shift, though, is cultural. Digital poverty needs to stop being treated as a personal failing or a logistical inconvenience and start being treated as what it is: a systemic barrier to equal participation in education.

Until it is, the sector’s commitments to widening access will ring hollow for the students who need them most.

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/2026/07/03/digital-poverty-is-holding-university-students-back/

York city centre. Clare Louise Jackson/Shutterstock Air pollution is often portrayed as something that affects entire cities. In fact, levels can vary enormously over just a few metres. Our research shows that one of the greatest challenges for academics is not simply measuring air pollution, but making it visible and meaningful enough for people to recognise how it shapes their everyday lives.

Traditional air quality monitoring relies heavily on fixed monitoring stations, which are positioned at specific locations around a city. These stations provide highly accurate and valuable measurements, but they can only represent conditions at a limited number of points.

Air quality varies significantly across environments. It can also change dramatically over short distances and timescales depending on things like traffic volume, street layout, weather conditions, and local or regional sources of emissions. So, two people travelling along the same route at different times of the day may experience very different levels of exposure to pollutants in the air.

York air map shows data collected by citizen scientists across the city. https://www.yorkairmap.org, CC BY-NC-ND Combining scientific methods with creative approaches can help people better understand environmental issues that are otherwise difficult to perceive.

We used our expertise in creative design and atmospheric science to create the York air map, an online resource designed to make complex environmental data more accessible, meaningful and relevant to people’s lives. This project investigates urban air pollution using 16 small monitors attached to bicycles.

We involved people as citizen scientists to collect data over six-week blocks during their daily cycling commutes across the city, which has a population of just over 200,000. Through citizen science projects like this, people can collaborate with researchers and contribute to data monitoring programmes.

And because these bicycles are being ridden through a wide range of spaces that might usually go unmeasured, this provides us with new data.

Each cyclist can see the data change in real-time through a commercial air quality sensor and accompanying phone app, so any spikes in air pollution can be attributed to what they are currently experiencing on the route.

This helps people connect to the statistics in a more tangible way. Read more: Using art to tackle air pollution: a story from a Nairobi slum Our findings show that air pollution exposure is not evenly distributed across the city.

Despite recognising some pollution hotspots, we have found that fluctuations can occur within short distances depending on external factors and the rider’s actions and movements. For instance, are there road works happening? Are there high-polluting vehicles in front of you?

Are you riding through a park or along a canal? Are you riding past active construction sites? Because air pollution is so complex and is constantly changing, this research can challenge people’s perceptions of air quality.

It is easy to assume, due to yearly averages, that pollution exposure in a city like York is low. But people can be exposed to high concentrations over short timescales – and repeated exposure in this way may cause long-term health effects.

Beyond scientific measurements Our project champions citizen scientists to engage with the information in different ways. York air map translates complex environmental data into forms that are accessible, engaging and relevant to wider audiences. One of us (Clare Nattress) has transformed air quality data into maps, visualisations, an informative zine, public exhibitions and community workshops designed to encourage discussion about air quality and environmental health.

We encouraged our 16 citizen scientists, seasonally, to write pollution diaries and record their daily experience of commuting to work or taking a leisurely bicycle ride. The diaries showed that riders became more attuned over time to their surroundings, noticing smells and sources more clearly when spikes showed up on the app.

One exhibition displayed smellable filters. These are small white filters that have been exposed to various sources in the laboratory. Visitors were invited to smell each one and guess which sources they came from. This helped people recognise sources of air pollution such as wood burning, BBQs, perfumes and household cleaning products.

They could then link our statistics with real sources of air pollution in their surroundings. We each take roughly 20,000 breaths a day – and the quality of the air we breathe changes depending in part on the choices we make.

Air pollution isn’t just a problem for big factories or capital cities; it’s happening right here on our streets and in our homes.

Dr Clare Nattress has received funding from York St John University QR Internal Funding.

York Environmental Sustainability Institute (YESI) at the University of York. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). With thanks to our creative friends at United by Design.

Daniel Bryant received funding from York Environmental Sustainability Institute (YESI) at the University of York and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/03/how-creative-maps-make-air-pollution-more-visible/

Nuns as teachers are historically associated with anything but progress. Often stereotyped as exactors of cruel discipline, nuns in the classroomv are thought of as wielding rulers – and worse – ready to rap disobedient children’s knuckles.

And yet, during the 19th century, Catholic sisters were, in their own way, radicals as they engaged in work that challenged the norms of their time: the education of girls. At that time, the education of women was still controversial.

Some even argued that academic study was detrimental to women’s health, potentially causing infertility. The standard education for a middle-class girl involved home schooling with an emphasis on social accomplishments in preparation for the marriage market, while working-class girls often started work as early as eight years old.

Catholic sisters defied the low intellectual expectations of women of their time by providing education not only for well-to-do girls but also for poor ones.

While women in Catholic orders are most often thought of as living in cloistered retreat, the 19th century saw a dramatic rise in women living religious lives out in the world, engaging in education, nursing and other forms of social care.

By 1880, these sisters, the term for women in active congregations, comprised 80% of Catholic women in religious orders. The growth of girls’ education Catholic sisters were not only leaders in education in Catholic countries but also made important contributions to girls’ education in Britain.

Following the 1829 Catholic Relief Act, which dismantled the penal laws against Catholics, a flood of religious orders arrived. In the 19th century, approximately 10,000 nuns and sisters lived in England and Wales as part of 105 orders, which grew to 175 by 1937.

The majority of these were engaged in education.

Congregations such as the Faithful Companions of Jesus, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the Ursulines, and the Sisters of Mercy established schools for girls across Britain with particular concentrations in London and the industrialised urban areas in the northwest and west Midlands.

These women were contemporaries of better-known education pioneers like Frances Mary Buss and actively participated in the growth of girls’ education.

Contrary to the popular notion of convents as finishing schools for elite young ladies, Catholic schools in Britain ran the gamut, from fee-paying boarding schools to “poor schools”, which provided free education to girls from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Catholic “poor schools” were larger and more rigorous than the contemporary “dame schools” in which local women provided education in their homes and the “ragged schools”, which gave free education and other resources to children in need.

They provided religious education alongside reading, writing and functional skills training to serve the needs of a new influx of Irish immigrants.

While their focus on religious education might not accord with modern notions of progress, these schools were radical for their time as they countered the rigid Victorian association of women with the private domestic sphere.

By engaging in public processions and prize days, Catholic schools celebrated girls as individuals who were visible in the public sphere. The Catholic sisters who taught these girls modelled an alternative to the idea that a woman should exist solely for her family.

While the numbers of students taught by Catholic sisters is hard to gauge, we get some sense from examples like the Faithful Companions of Jesus, the first foreign order to set up schools after the Catholic Relief Act.

The order ran more than 20 schools across the country in addition to working in primary schools and establishing night schools, teaching thousands of girls in poor parts of Liverpool and Manchester as well as in London.

Another order, the Sisters of Mercy, the largest convent network in the UK, taught in 41 elementary schools, 24 schools for middle and upper-class girls, nine orphanages as well as training schools for servants and five night schools.

Between the first and second world wars, there were almost 1,600 Sisters of Mercy educating over 40,000 children. Rather than remaining marginal and detached, these schools kept pace with changes in the British education system. As a series of education acts between the late 19th and mid 20th century (culminating in the Butler Education Act of 1944) made free schooling a right, Catholic sisters taught more and more children.

In order to keep providing education to a maximum number of students, these schools obtained grants from the government, which meant that they had to conform to national standards. Grant-aided schools also required certificated school teachers, so women’s congregations began to open their own teacher training colleges.

Inspection reports by the Board of Education show that Catholic girls’ schools offered rigorous educational programmes that kept up with the latest teaching developments. One 1901 inspection of a school in Birkenhead run by the Faithful Companions of Jesus reports that the geography course was “founded on some of the best modern textbooks.

The lessons heard on the days of inspection were carefully prepared and thoughtfully given … The school possesses some good modern maps, and the equipment is constantly receiving additions”. The changes in girls’ education over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries were dramatic.

Between 1851 and 1900, female literacy rose from 51% in 1840 to over 90% by 1900. In 1878, the first women were accepted for degrees at a UK university (the University of London). Catholic sisters played a surprising role in these transformations.

They opened some of the first formal schools for girls in the country, not only keeping up with developments in national education but sometimes anticipating them. Far from being an obstacle to women’s progress, nuns were significant players in the movement for equal education.

Alexandra Verini receives funding from The Faithful Companions of Jesus.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/03/how-radical-victorian-nuns-pioneered-education-for-poor-girls/

The plans for the 250th anniversary of the American revolution, which kicks off in earnest on July 4, have drawn media scrutiny in the US. One issue has been the subject of recurrent discussion: the role of President Donald Trump.

Behind this scrutiny is the claim that Trump is co-opting the anniversary for his own agenda. His administration’s alleged sidelining of the non-partisan “America250” commission, which was established by Congress in 2016, in favour of his rival “Freedom 250” organisation has drawn particular comment.

The 250th anniversary, it seems, has become a hotly contested battleground. This is not entirely without precedent. As historian Michael Hattem explains in his 2024 book, The Memory of ‘76, Americans have long argued over the revolution’s lessons and legacy.

This can be traced to the late 18th century, when US politics began to assume some of the adversarial qualities all too familiar today. In the 1790s, the arguments were generally between Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans.

For Federalists, who were keen to rebuild the relationship with Britain, July 4 celebrations often emphasised order and strong government. For the Democratic-Republicans, however, the anniversary offered an opportunity to criticise what they saw as Federalist fealty to Britain.

The result was that July 4 commemorations often became highly partisan. A statue of Alexander Hamilton on the campus of Columbia University in New York. Spiroview Inc / Shutterstock Competing claims on July 4 recurred in subsequent decades, especially during the 1850s when sectional tensions between the north and south worsened.

At the centre of these tensions was slavery. For African-American abolitionists, the ideals articulated by the Declaration of Independence provided weapons with which to attack the evil of slavery in the south.

The most powerful example of this was an 1852 speech given by Frederick Douglass in which he pointedly asked: “what to the slave is the fourth of July?” The outbreak of civil war in 1861 further intensified the sectional divide over July 4.

Many white southerners even drew parallels between the south’s status in the union and that of the 13 American colonies in the British empire.

According to this view, just as American colonists had been oppressed by the “tyranny” of Britain’s King George III – who they held responsible for the imposition of taxes and restrictive legislation – so was the south similarly oppressed by the north’s refusal to countenance the expansion of slavery.

By tracing this connection, historian Paul Quigley notes that these southerners used July 4 to present “themselves as the real Americans and northerners as traitors”. This was the memory of 1776 used to justify secession. The view of the then-president, Abraham Lincoln, was of course the complete opposite.

For him, it was the union which was the true heir to the ideals of July 4. Yet more arguments over the revolutionary past followed during the centennial of 1876. The anniversary came amid an economic recession and towards the end of the period known as “Reconstruction”.

This period had seen the federal government readmit southern states into the union while also attempting to secure the rights of the formerly enslaved. For some white northerners, the centennial was seen as an opportunity to promote reconciliation with the south.

One consequence of this was that African-American contributions to the revolution were marginalised, something black communities in turn actively contested. Attempts by local elites to dominate July 4 commemorations in cities like Boston similarly provoked pushback from recent immigrants and minority groups determined to ensure their inclusion in the commemorations.

As a result of these tussles, the centennial of 1876 was marked by what historian Jack Noe has called “the deep sectional, partisan and racial divisions of an unreconciled nation”. The 1976 bicentennial Similar to its predecessor, the 1976 commemorations followed an enormously divisive conflict: the Vietnam war.

And, again like the 1870s, the anniversary also unfolded during an era of economic uncertainty. An oil crisis in 1973, caused by an embargo imposed by oil-producing countries in the Middle East, was quickly followed by a recession that lasted until 1975.

There were even accusations of corruption levelled at the Bicentennial Commission, which had been created to plan the 200th anniversary, and linked to the activities of the Nixon administration. The commission was dissolved in 1973 and replaced by a new organisation called the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration.

US citzens march the streets of Philadelphia in protest against the Vietnam war, 1976. Wikimedia Commons The bicentennial was thus another fraught anniversary. There were high-profile events in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, some of which were attended by Queen Elizabeth II at the invitation of the then-US president, Gerald Ford.

Following the social unrest of the Vietnam era, as well as the political turmoil of the Watergate Scandal which had led to the resignation of Richard Nixon as president in 1974, many Americans found escape in patriotic nostalgia.

The anniversary even drew interest abroad. One small village in northern England, Warton in Lancashire, marked the occasion with a ten-day party due to its ancestral connections to George Washington. Elsewhere though, the 200th anniversary again revealed domestic division.

From the left came criticisms of excessive commercialisation, with historian Jesse Lemisch identifying a slew of what he called “bicentennial schlock”. In some American towns and cities, meanwhile, commemorations likewise exposed discord. In Boston, for instance, the anniversary became tied up with local tensions linked to the desegregation of schools.

The revolutionary past has long been a contested battleground in the US, particularly during periods of partisan politics, social tumult and economic uncertainty.

In this regard, the 250th anniversary has much in common with its predecessors.

Sam Edwards has previously received funding from the ESRC, the US-UK Fulbright Commission, the US Army Heritage and Education Centre, and the George Washington Presidential Library (Mount Vernon).

Sam is a Governor of The American Library in Norwich (a memorial to the World War II Second Air Division, USAAF) and a Trustee of Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire (the ancestral home of George Washington).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/03/how-the-us-has-celebrated-its-independence-over-the-years/

John Trumbull’s 1819 painting depicting the Declaration of Independence being presented to Congress on July 4 1776. US Capitol rotunda/Wikimedia Commons This newsletter was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

This weekend marks 250 years since the Second Continental Congress, representing the 13 American colonies, assembled in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence. The country had already been at war for more than a year and would continue its armed struggle against Britain for another seven.

But on July 4 1776, the United States of America was born. The ideas that found expression in the Declaration were not new. Tensions between the British crown and its American colonies had been percolating for years.

And the philosophical ideas behind America’s revolutionary fervour were also finding expression in Europe, particularly in France and Britain.

As Tom Cutterham, a professor of American history at the University of Birmingham, writes, the sort of ideas that inspired America’s revolutionary thinkers had for some years “been closely tied to questions about corruption, oligarchy and executive tyranny in Britain itself”.

He points to the likes of Thomas Paine, John Wilkes, Granville Sharp and Catharine Macaulay who were writing passionate arguments against British despotism. Macaulay argued that the authority of a monarch rests on a contract between ruler and ruled which, if broken by the monarch, is void.

It’s an idea which is said to have inspired Benjamin Franklin’s contribution to the Declaration of Independence. Cutterham tells the stories of the Britons who supported America’s struggle to throw off its colonial masters.

Read more: America at 250: the Britons who supported the War of Independence This weekend’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday comes at a time of deep division in the US. There are even two separate organisations planning rival events.

One – America250 – was set up in 2016 by the US congress and signed into law by Barack Obama. The other – Freedom250 – was launched in 2025 by the current president, Donald Trump. The former was specifically established as a bipartisan committee, while its hard to see that latter as anything but a partisan expression of the president’s vision of America.

The situation mirrors the debate raging in the US over American history itself, writes Andrea Loux Jarman, an expert in US constitutional law at Bournemouth University. As Jarman notes, early on in Trump’s second presidency, he issued an executive order, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which targeted what the administration likes to call “woke history”.

Part of this has involved removing or rewriting information panels in museums which, the order says: “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times)”. Instead educational information should “focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people”.

Needless to say information in museums and galleries about the horrors of slavery are among the “woke history” on the Trump administration’s target list. It’s a row which is likely to find its way to the Supreme Court before it can be resolved, writes Jarman.

Read more: As the United States turns 250 there is bitter rivalry over who gets to tell the country’s story With this ideological struggle in mind, it’s vital that the celebrations do not overlook the huge contribution that African Americans have made to their country’s history, writes Jenny Woodley, a specialist in American history at Nottingham Trent University.

Even as the founding fathers were honing the ideas that would overthrow British rule, in 1772 an enslaved woman named Phillis Wheatley published a poem that compared her enslavement to “the iron chain, Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand Had made, and with it meant t’enslave the land”.

Nearly two centuries later, in his I Have a Dream speech, Martin Luther King Jr called the Declaration of Independence a “promissory note” that guaranteed all people their inalienable rights. He said the bank of justice was not bankrupt and it was time for all Americans to “cash this check”.

Martin Luther King: US constitution was a ‘promissory note to which every American was to fall heir’. But as the US celebrates 250 years since this promissory note was issued, “the ‘bank of justice’ is looking increasingly short of funds”, writes Woodley.

She says it’s vital this celebration is one that is shared by all Americans, or – to borrow from the US constitution: “We the people”. Read more: USA at 250: the Black American struggle for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness It’s commonplace to read of American democracy as “an experiment” or a “work in progress”.

For many of us, just how fragile that work remains was illustrated by the events of January 6 2021, when a mob stormed the US capital in an attempt to prevent Congress from ratifying the results of the 2020 election, which Trump still insists was fraudulently stolen by his opponents.

Happily democracy prevailed that day. But over its 250 years there have a number of occasions when the US has been deeply divided and democracy itself was thought to be imperilled. Historian Sarah Trott, of York St John University, recounts five of the most dangerous moments for the American experiment.

Read more: America at 250: five times the US constitution has come under threat Ukraine on the offensive For more than four years Ukraine has endured a war of aggression from its much larger neighbour Russia.

And, despite the Russian expectation that Ukraine would capitulate in less than a week after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has so far proved resilient in the face of whatever Russia has thrown at it.

And in recent weeks the mood music coming out of both Moscow and Kyiv has changed significantly. Mounting Russian casualties, shortages of food and fuel and an apparent deadlock on the frontlines are taking their toll on Russian morale.

Meanwhile the success of Ukraine’s drone warfare and its ability to strike at targets deep inside Russia have enabled it to chalk up some important successes.

This is especially the case in Crimea, writes Jennifer Mathers, who explains why the peninsula, often referred to as the “jewel in the crown” of Putin’s vision for a pacified Ukraine, is of such significance in this war.

Read more: State of emergency in Crimea as Ukraine focuses pressure on ‘jewel in Putin’s crown’ But four years of war have taken a huge toll on civilian life in Ukraine, especially for those families who have been divided by the conflict.

Irina Kuznetsova, who researches the impacts of displacement for people in Ukraine’s war-torn regions, details the obstacles faced by separated Ukrainian families. Read more: Ukrainian families have been torn apart by the war – reunifying them is no easy task Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK.

Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/03/america-at-250-still-a-democratic-experiment/

When it comes to covering the Middle East, News Corporation has two guiding principles. The first is that it supports Israel, which means it opposes any nation, organisation or individual that doesn’t. This support is decades old and it’s unwavering, even in the face of global condemnation of Israel for the atrocities committed in Gaza.

News’ loyalty doesn’t just determine news content in the foreign pages of its newspapers. It also shapes the way it covers local events, down to who gets targeted for criticism. Young Jewish lawyer Sarah Schwartz has campaigned against Israel’s human rights abuses.

For this, she has been subjected to sustained criticism that has demonstrated the other principle guiding News’ coverage. You could call this the “we’re‑always‑right‑no‑matter‑what” approach, which allows News to sustain its editorial assaults even in the face of inconvenient inconsistencies.

On the one hand, News has attacked Schwartz for being supposedly antisemitic. On the other, it has criticised her for calling out the antisemitism she’s been subjected to by her Zionist opponents. But when you’re always right no matter what, this is not an inconsistency at all.

Her story demonstrates how News goes about contriving controversy to discredit both individuals and what they’re saying, with little regard for the effect it has on the person being targeted. We interviewed her about her experience of News’ coverage last August.

Like so many other liberal Jews, Schwartz was appalled by Israel’s conduct in Gaza. She joined with several others to form an organisation called the Jewish Council of Australia, a diverse coalition of Jewish academics, lawyers, writers and teachers.

They represent people who believe Israel’s response was not only disproportionate, but counterproductive to regional security and peace. This posed something of a threat to News, which for several decades has championed Israel and the Zionist cause.

The notion of a Jew speaking out against Israel and in defence of Gaza challenged the News line that Israel can do no wrong and that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. Initially, News outlets wrote a few disparaging pieces, dismissing the council as unrepresentative and irrelevant, even though its membership was steadily growing and its board comprised many high‑profile and influential people.

But then Schwartz did something that gave News an opportunity to sharpen its attack. ‘Painted as a Judenrat’ In January 2025, she was invited to speak at the “pre-event” for an academic antiracism conference. “The Greatest Race Debate” was held at a university, but billed as a comedy event.

Essentially, it used the format of a debate to call out the absurdity of what constitutes race conversations in this country; everyone was to give their best “worst” takes on race debates in Australia. So, Schwartz entered into the spirit of things by creating a cartoon image of a caped superhero whose chest carries the letters “DJ”.

She titled the slide “Dutton’s Jew”, to depict the then opposition leader’s stereotyping of Jews as anti‑immigrant and hateful of Muslims, using them as “a human shield”.

She said: “For Dutton and his ilk, Jews are just the perfect avatars to use to peddle racism, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment.” Admittedly, the term “Dutton’s Jew” was open to misinterpretation and what unfolded could have been predicted.

But at that stage, Schwartz wasn’t as media savvy as she’s since become. The Australian and Murdoch’s Brisbane daily, The Courier Mail, pounced on the story, although they did take the time to add an important clarification, requested by Schwartz.

She wanted to make it clear she wasn’t saying Jews were anti‑immigration and hateful of Muslims; this was about Dutton’s conception of Jews. In other words, it was political commentary. Unfortunately, some of the subsequent stories left out that important distinction.

They referenced the “Dutton’s Jew” cartoon as if to make the point that Schwartz was controversial, maybe even antisemitic.

Both papers stayed on the story, with follow‑ups about federal ministers criticising the Queensland University of Technology for hosting the event, and vice chancellor Margaret Sheil rushing to apologise for any “hurt and offence” the conference caused.

They also covered Sheil’s decision to commission former Federal Court judge John Middleton to determine whether the Jewish community had been vilified. A few months later, Middleton found that nothing Schwartz said was racist.

He concluded, “Ms Schwartz’s slide was photographed and delivered to The Australian and The Courier Mail devoid of context” and “Ms Schwartz’s depiction of ‘Dutton’s Jew’ was not critical of Jewish people themselves, but of the way in which political figures may typecast Jewish identity to serve particular narratives”.

But Middleton’s report came too late to stop the abuse Schwartz was copping from online activists such as pro‑Israel advocate Zara Cooper, who according to Schwartz posted “over 600 times” on Instagram about Schwartz and the Jewish Council of Australia.

One image was of a rat, another was of Schwartz’s face superimposed over a train. Was the latter suggesting she would be deported to a concentration camp for siding with Palestinians? Schwartz told us she was “painted as a Judenrat, as someone who is collaborating with Nazis because Nazis and Palestinians had become conflated in some Zionists’ minds”.

She says her opponents became “utterly fixated” by the idea of her being harmed by Palestinians, the very people she was defending. It became so extreme that Schwartz went to the police. This is when things got a little crazy, because, as Schwartz says, up until then the paper’s “whole narrative had been that Jewish people have been the victim of antisemitism”.

But when Schwartz, as a Jewish person, complained about being the victim of antisemitism, The Australian switched.

Its line suddenly became, she says: “That’s outrageous that she’s going to the police, she’s trying to suppress her enemies.” When the police proposed an intervention order against Cooper to stop the online abuse, Schwartz says the newspaper suggested she was a hypocrite because she was “a lawyer who cares about free speech”.

When the matter first went to court, Schwartz insisted the paper correct its claim that she, rather than the police, had initiated the intervention order. She says the paper bullied her by republishing the “incredibly distressing” memes that surfaced online.

“I think those images are antisemitic; whatever you want to say, they are certainly racialised, they are attacking me because I’m Jewish and because I hold a particular political view. The Australian is then republishing those images in articles that are smearing me.” Schwartz says the pressure made it “untenable for the intervention order to proceed” so she asked the police to withdraw it.

She says, “It’s like the bullies won.” For her part, Zara Cooper told The Australian, “I have never met Sarah Schwartz.

I have never spoken with her, threatened her, posted private information about her or encouraged others to do so.” ‘A malicious pile-on’ Schwartz says a particularly hurtful aspect of the paper’s coverage was an opinion piece by Indigenous scholar Professor Marcia Langton, who wrote that Schwartz “deeply offended Jewish Australians and other Australians, including me”.

Referring to the “Dutton’s Jew” cartoon, Langton said, There was nothing satirical about this message. It was objectively anti-Semitic in its depiction of her nemesis, the ‘bad Jew’, who [Schwartz] imagines has lost all agency and is an unwitting puppet of various warmongering masters.

Langton concluded, “As a Jewish friend said to me about this, the ‘good Jew/bad Jew’ narrative is the ‘absolute epitome of anti‑Semitic conspiracy theory’.” Schwartz’s requests for corrections to Langton’s column prior to publication were ignored by the paper, she told us.

Following publication, her lawyer argued the piece took the cartoon out of context and portrayed Schwartz as an antisemite who had publicly represented all Jews as “bloodthirsty monsters”.

The lawyer asserted the opinion piece “contributed to a malicious pile‑on, attacking Ms Schwartz and attempting to inflict maximum personal and reputational harm on her, based on an entirely false premise that does not withstand the slightest scrutiny.” The Australian denied the allegations and warned it would invest heavily in defending what it said was clearly an opinion piece on a matter of public interest.

A ‘serious threat to News’ narrative’ Schwartz has had time to ponder why she became a News target: “I think I represent a really serious threat to News’ narrative that criticism of Israel is antisemitic.” She told us, “News wants to use Jews to bolster their right‑wing claims, but I and the Jewish Council of Australia represent a real threat to that.” She accuses the Murdoch press of “working hand in hand with Zionist lobby groups with the intention to silence me or shame me or stop my advocacy”.

Creating a negative image of a person under attack is a fundamental component of a Murdoch campaign. Schwartz says the papers “cultivated this image of me as controversial, obscene, dangerous, frivolous or attention seeking”. This “false narrative” was based on “concocted events”, but its effect was powerful: “Now when they refer to me they can refer to me as just a controversial individual,” says Schwartz.

When an article appeared with a headline describing her as a “Radical fringe Jewish voice”, she knew “they were complete in their objectification of me”. This sort of treatment is damaging because it reaches so many different audiences.

“Maybe I can explain individual incidents to people in my life who still read The Australian, but I’ll never be able to get over this confected persona they’ve created for me,” she told us.

“I think that’s the most hurtful thing.” Even within her own community, the coverage is caustic.

“There is just a whole segment of the Jewish community who now look at me as someone who is antisemitic and who is offensive and who is radical, and that affects me going about my day‑to-day life, going to synagogue, going to Jewish communal events.” While on one level this coverage is just about one person in a far corner of the world, far removed from the atrocities of the Middle East, it is also indicative of News’ broader coverage of the conflict and of its framing of both Jewish and Muslim people.

News is unquestioningly loyal to Israel and Zionism, and deeply sceptical of, if not aggressive towards, Israel’s enemies, both perceived and real. And that means News is especially hostile towards Muslims and the Islamic faith.

Something nasty and scary and manipulative In a recent interview for The Atlantic, Rupert’s youngest son, James, described the way tabloid culture “is contrarian for the sake of it” and “delights in poking people in the eye”.

He said, “At its worst, it metastasizes into something nasty and scary and manipulative.” By that definition, Fox News should be classified as tabloid, but so too The Times and The Australian, even though the latter still retains its broadsheet format.

Along with many News mastheads, they’ve been poking at Muslims and Islam for decades. They’ve aggravated fear and done little to encourage understanding or tolerance. And, like a cancer, that kind of coverage has spread and metastasised in grotesque forms.

No longer is there a need for the proprietor to hammer out his fury in the middle of the night in the New York Post newsroom, as Murdoch had in 1977, when a group of radical Hanafi Islamists seized control of three buildings in Washington DC and held 149 people hostage.

By now, everyone knows where he, and consequently his publications, stand. Islam is posed as an ever-present threat to Western society and Judeo-Christian values. Muslims are too often characterised as hateful and untrustworthy. The Palestinian side of the current conflict does not warrant equal treatment because News stands with and for the other side.

Therefore, it almost didn’t matter how Israel responded to Hamas’ atrocities of October 7 2023. It was always going to be considered proportionate, regardless of how many thousands of innocent Palestinians were killed. On the first anniversary of the war, many media outlets paused to reflect, most with at least some balance.

There was recognition that both sides had suffered trauma and loss, which in some cases prompted analysis about the blurred boundaries between defence and retribution. The Weekend Australian, however, had no interest in balance. Despite devoting 13 broadsheet pages to the topic, it could not find room to even note that 100,000 Palestinians had been injured and that two million had become refugees.

The Weekend Australian instead blamed the Australian government for abandoning Israel, while focusing on Israeli suffering and instances of antisemitism within Australia. The paper described the conflict as “Israel’s war in defence of world order”.

As Paul Barry, the then presenter of the ABC’s Media Watch, noted, “42,000 dead Palestinians rarely get a mention” and there was “not one picture or human story of a Palestinian child, woman or family”.

Barry concluded, “To call the coverage one-eyed is the understatement of the year. It is quite frankly astonishing and a journalistic disgrace.” It was happening in every corner of the News empire. In February 2025, Trump had a thought bubble.

Along with annexing Greenland, turning Canada into the 51st state, retaking the Panama Canal and giving Putin Ukraine, he had an idea that the United States could “take over” and “own” Gaza. After the Palestinian people were resettled somewhere else, the US could turn Gaza into a new Middle East Riviera, where there would be “unlimited numbers of jobs and housing”.

As you’d hope, reputable media outlets pulled apart the plan, and within minutes revealed its thoughtless cruelty. World leaders said it was inconceivable. Arab leaders said it was a violation of international law. But the idea found supporters on Fox News.

Ainsley Earhardt, the co-host of Fox & Friends, asked her audience, “If you have the opportunity for economic development, and supplied unlimited number of jobs and housing, and a good, fresh, ‘beautiful piece of land’ like he calls it, why wouldn’t you consider it?” She seemed genuine, like she actually believed it, when she asked, “Why wouldn’t they say thanks for doing this?” But perhaps the most egregious example was provided by Sharri Markson, a host on Murdoch’s Sky News Australia.

In 2025, Markson scored a 16-minute interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but then wasted it by asking not a single probing question. Instead, she provided a platform for Netanyahu to further his personal attack on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had just announced Australia would recognise the state of Palestine.

She declared, as fact, that the Albanese government was “aiding and abetting” a “propaganda campaign” against Israel.

Many of her questions were mini editorials, like this one: “Is it true you still plan to take over Gaza and eliminate the terrorists if they do agree to a deal?” She nodded in agreement throughout the interview.

“Absolutely, absolutely,” she added enthusiastically as he explained Israel’s good conduct. The result was that she let a man charged with war crimes off the hook. The interview was widely condemned. Veteran television interviewer Ray Martin told Media Watch it was a “sycophantic endorsement” that “failed journalism 101”.

In a responding statement, Markson said she “had been inundated with high praise from leading editors and journalists, describing the interview as outstanding, first class and agenda setting”.

‘Determined avoidance’ of other perspectives The company’s editorial line was on display in its coverage of the Bondi Beach massacre in December 2025, when two terrorists killed 15 people, and injured a further 40 who were celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

News Corp mastheads rightly deplored the appalling violence and questioned whether the Australian government had heeded warnings about such an attack. The papers rightly commemorated and mourned the loss of innocent life, and investigated and exposed the ugly ideologies and personal pathologies behind the killings.

But inevitably – and sadly for the health of public discourse – the coverage displayed a determined avoidance to present any perspectives other than its own on the rise of antisemitism in Australia.

This is an edited extract of Getting Murdoched: How Murdoch’s Media Wields Power and Punishment by Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson (Hardie Grant).

Matthew Ricketson worked on staff at News Corp Australia publications, The Australian between 1986 and 1989, and The Sunday Herald in 1989.

Andrew worked as a journalist at The Australian newspaper between 1999 and 2004.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/02/friday-essay-how-the-murdoch-medias-loyalty-to-israel-births-hypocrisy-attacks-and-failed-journalism/

In May, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced plans to double the capacity of Canada’s electricity grid by 2050, using natural gas in the name of “powering Canada strong.” Almost all Canadian natural gas these days is derived from hydraulic fracturing — known as fracking — an industrial process involving large amounts of water laced with chemicals pumped long distances underground.

Many of the chemicals used in fracking are harmful to humans and include carcinogens such as PFAS (commonly referred to as “forever chemicals”) and endocrine disruptors. These chemicals can leak into the environment through spills, pipes that eventually erode and crack, and evaporation into the air when stored in open wastewater ponds.

The toxicity of this chemical mix is further exacerbated by naturally occurring radioactive materials and heavy metals unearthed from deep underground during the fracking process.

Another source of health harms from residential proximity to this industry is air pollution from diesel traffic, compressor stations and the venting and flaring of methane and other volatile organic gases — all of which are integral to shale gas extraction.

Residential setback regulations Jurisdictions where fracking takes place acknowledge the potential harms from living nearby active wells through a key regulation termed a “residential setback” — defined as the minimum allowable distance between where a person lives and the construction of an active well.

As part of an ongoing study, we recently examined setback distances in two Canadian provinces (British Columbia and Alberta) and four American states (California, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Texas) with major shale gas industries. It turns out that B.C. and Alberta have the shortest and least protective residential setback regulations compared to their major U.S. counterparts.

This distance — a mere 100 metres — is significantly shorter than California’s and Colorado’s default setback distances at 975 metres and 610 metres respectively.

California’s 975-metre regulated setback distance not only applies to private residences but also covers other “sensitive receptors,” defined as education resources, community resource centres, health-care facilities, live-in housing or any business open to the public.

There is no mention in B.C.’s regulations of other “sensitive receptors” except a non-binding policy to disallow gas wells within 1,000 metres (one kilometre) of a school. A drill pad seen from above.

The evidence base for health harms associated with living close to active oil and gas wells emerged long after B.C.’s setback regulations were created in 2010. (Tim Takaro), CC BY Impact on health Researchers have used residential setbacks as a way to measure individuals’ exposure to fracking activity and its association with a variety of health outcomes.

Several studies have demonstrated that mothers living closer to active gas wells are at greater risk of having smaller babies. This can lead to significant developmental and other health challenges later in life. The farthest distance within which impaired fetal growth was observed in these studies was 10 kilometres — a distance 1,000 times greater than B.C. and Alberta’s currently regulated 100-metre setback distance.

Other studies report higher rates of congenital birth defects among infants born to mothers living within 10 kilometres of an active well compared to mothers living farther away. A shorter distance to the nearest well has been linked to more self-reported symptoms in several studies.

In one community-based survey in Pennsylvania, a significantly higher proportion of survey respondents living within 457 metres of a gas well reported symptoms than those living beyond that distance. The researchers further reported that when a gas well, compressor station or impoundment pit was 457 to 1,219 metres away, 27 per cent of participants reported throat irritation.

This increased to 63 per cent at 152 to 457 metres, and to 74 per cent at less than 152 metres. This pattern was similar for sinus problems and headaches. California researchers found that people living less than 200 metres from oil wells had significantly poorer lung function test results compared to those living beyond that distance.

Other health harms using setbacks to measure exposure reported greater risk of gestational hypertension within one kilometre of an active well and adverse mental health among a group of American and Canadian women attempting to conceive within two kilometres of an active well.

All these studies report health harms occurring at distances far greater than B.C.’s currently regulated 100-metre setback. Other studies, deploying exposure measures that combine residential proximity and density of wells, found a wide range of human health harms.

These include higher rates of childhood leukemia and other cancers, heart and lung diseases and overall mortality within perimeter distances greater than 100 metres. Vulnerable populations Environmental exposures are also not equally distributed across and within populations.

B.C.’s shale gas industry is located in the northeast area of the province. This is a rural and remote part of B.C. that’s the traditional territory of Treaty 8 First Nations who rely on the land for food, water sources, ceremonial practices and cultural identity.

One study set in northeast B.C. reported that areas with high proportions of Indigenous people experienced more air pollution compared to areas with a low proportions of Indigenous people. The study reported a similar pattern and even larger disparity in areas with high versus low socio-economic vulnerability.

Rural B.C.’s northeast is experiencing a massive expansion in the number of active wells to meet the increasing demand from B.C.s new liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. The harms from these wells are minimally regulated at best and not subject to cumulative environmental assessments.

The evidence base for health harms associated with living close to active oil and gas wells emerged long after B.C.’s setback regulations were created in 2010. The burden of these health harms are likely to worsen with the current fracking boom.

Setback regulations remain the only lever that affords some protection to those bearing the greatest health risks from shale gas development. Provincial and federal governments have made the unfortunate decision to go “full-bore” on expanding fracking.

There is an urgent need to align regulatory setbacks with environmental health evidence and best practices to protect peoples’ health.

Margaret McGregor is a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

Deborah Curran is the Executive Director of the Environmental Law Centre.

Élyse Caron-Beaudoin receives funding from CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, and the University of Toronto.

Kevin Berk is a former Articling Student at the Environmental Law Centre.

Tim K.

Takaro receives funding from SFU School of Medicine as Planetary Health Lead. He is a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/02/b-c-and-alberta-fall-behind-on-fracking-safety-distances-for-residents/

Childhood vaccination rates have slumped globally. In several countries, people are more hesitant about getting vaccinated. Populist political actors promote distrust of government and scientific institutions. And the disinformation economy means we can’t agree on the facts behind policy debates.

Did COVID vaccine mandates – which placed legal limits on where people who didn’t receive a COVID vaccine could go or work – produce this mess? Some scholars in the United States seem to think so.

Australia’s COVID inquiry found COVID vaccine mandates drove vaccine hesitancy and scepticism. It drew a clear line between mandates and mistrust in government and medical science. But it’s hard to establish COVID vaccine mandates were entirely to blame for today’s laundry list of woes.

It’s difficult to disentangle the effect of vaccine mandates from those of other coercive COVID-era policies, such as lockdowns or border closures. Yet, the mandates had their after-effects, as my colleagues and I are discovering.

Leaders thought vaccine mandates were needed We are evaluating the effects of COVID vaccine mandates on the uptake of COVID vaccines, how people felt about the mandates, groups that may have been harmed, and how mandates have been legally contested.

As part of this ongoing MandEval project, I have interviewed more than 130 senior people in government and policy in Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe and California to find out why many decision-makers thought vaccine mandates were necessary.

Although the analysis of these interviews has yet to be published, generally speaking each Australian state and territory had its own reasons to mandate COVID vaccinations, as did governments overseas. Leaders anticipated some negative consequences.

They worried about backlash, including from people who were willingly complying with other prevention policies such as lockdowns and border closures. They feared people might start resisting, or become less trustful of vaccinations in the future.

But they believed vaccine mandates were necessary to protect lives. The policies certainly produced higher vaccination rates. But there may be a cost: childhood vaccination coverage is now sub-optimal in Australia. More parents are succumbing to misinformation about vaccines than in pre-pandemic times.

Uptake of adolescent and adult vaccinations is even more worrying. Yet individuals disgruntled by COVID vaccine mandates aren’t driving all these changes. Less direct mechanisms are also contributing. So what’s going on? COVID vaccine mandates have contributed to “reactance”, where people respond to limits on their freedom by pushing back.

Mandates can also worsen political polarisation on vaccination. This is where political “camps” are divided over questions of vaccination’s safety or benefits. This is dangerous, because high rates of vaccination rely on it being boring and bipartisan.

Influencers get on board, following the money that can be made through public engagement on divisive issues. Even before the pandemic, foreign actors were using bots to fuel vaccination debates with the goal of destabilising societies.

There are both financial and geopolitical incentives for content creators to prompt outrage or polarisation. As the disinformation economy thrives, populist politicians capitalise on low trust and high disenchantment with institutions. In this environment, a small number of people – but larger than before COVID – refuse vaccinations.

Nevertheless, mandates are, at best, one driver among many. These problems also plague countries that largely avoided vaccine mandates. Lowering trust in government A distrust of vaccines is also related to a distrust in government and health care institutions.

For instance, people’s concerns about the safety or efficacy of vaccines can reflect deeper worries about the expert systems that govern vaccination programs. Such distrust animated the minority who refused vaccines well before COVID vaccine mandates.

COVID vaccine mandates have also eroded some people’s perceptions of government. My team’s research in Western Australia found people who refused COVID vaccines already viewed government negatively, but when governments introduced mandates they had a sense of being morally punished.

This produced nightmarish predictions of industrial-scale persecution and harms. Based on their dismay and distrust, several of our participants who had vaccinated routinely before the pandemic vowed to never do so again. More recently, we tried to understand the political shifts of mandate opponents in the otherwise progressive city of Fremantle.

Our new publication details how potential participants’ deep distrust of government and university researchers meant they declined to take part altogether or were sparing in what they would reveal. Read more: In the rare event of a vaccine injury, Australians should be compensated What next?

If we are to use vaccine mandates in the future, we need to work differently with communities before the next emergency disease outbreak. Building trust in vaccination and government institutions is not easy in the present environment.

However, governments can lead with transparent communications about vaccinations’ benefits, risks and uncertainties, and with programs that are accessible and well-communicated. We also need mechanisms in place to allow communities to participate in decision-making about such outbreaks.

Governments could establish panels of citizens who could comment on proposed policies, question experts, and provide recommendations about communications. We must also communicate the reasoning behind vaccine mandates more clearly. Populations need to hear transparent ethical reasoning and to understand the public benefit.

Finally, there’s the issue of vaccine side effects. We know vaccines, like all medicines, come with the risk of side effects. But during the pandemic, this was generally thought to be far lower than the risk of side effects of catching COVID.

The COVID inquiry recognised the importance of a compensation scheme for rare vaccine injuries. But Australia’s scheme was short-lived and was criticised for being difficult to access. The inquiry noted very few claims had been paid out.

Without an accessible and fair scheme, disgruntled consumers learn to distrust government motives and programs. This sentiment threatens vaccination programs not just during a pandemic, but afterwards too. I acknowledge feedback on this article from Chris Blyth, Amy Thomasson, Jane Williams and Chas Dolphin.

I recognise the wider MandEval team’s ongoing intellectual contributions.

Katie Attwell leads ‘MandEval: Effectiveness and Consequences of Australia’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates’ funded by the Medical Research Future Fund of the Australian Government (Grant ID: 2019107).

She has received an unrestricted research grant from SANOFI Winthrop Industrie, Grant: RSV501. All funds were paid to her institution.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/02/we-cant-entirely-blame-covid-vaccine-mandates-for-lower-vaccination-rates-today-its-not-that-simple/

Only rarely in the 250 years since the signing of the US Declaration of Independence has an 18-month period commanded as much global attention as the opening years of the second Trump administration.

Since taking office for the second time, US President Donald Trump has reshaped the federal bureaucracy, launched sweeping tariffs and military strikes, and is even physically rebuilding some of the very foundations of the nation’s capital.

The immediate aftermath of Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 saw some of the largest swings in Australian views of the United States on record. Our new poll results suggest Australians have now largely made up their minds on Trump’s America.

But they are questioning why Australia needs its alliance with the US at all. What we found In May 2026, the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in collaboration with YouGov, polled more than 1,000 Australians on their views of the US.

Our results paint a picture of an Australian public wrestling with a rapidly shifting strategic landscape — and Australia’s place within it. In 2025, perceptions of the US tumbled to new lows. And in 2026, these views appear to have solidified.

Most Australians (58%) continue to say the second Trump administration has been bad for Australia. This includes a ten percentage-point increase since last year in those who describe the administration as “very bad”. Australians are far more likely to say the US is harmful rather than helpful in Asia.

It’s a sharp reversal from sentiment just four years ago. They continue to express concern about US institutions: from the future of US democracy (71%) to potential political violence in the country (83%). And less than half think the US alliance makes Australia more secure.

Perhaps most strikingly, less than a third of Australians (31%) think the Australian government has properly explained why Australia even needs the alliance at all. Uncomfortable bedfellows But what do Australians think their government should actually do about the alliance?

Despite their pessimism, just 15% of Australians want Australia to abandon it. Around half (49%) of those surveyed even say Australia needs the US alliance “more than ever” — more than twice the number who disagree. The 2026 Lowy Poll similarly shows record low levels of trust in Washington but robust support for the alliance.

In January this year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a headline-grabbing Davos address which called for middle powers to “act together” in an era of “rupture” for the international order. This vision appears to be popular with the Australian public.

When asked to consider alternatives to the alliance, 75% of respondents supported forming stronger relationships with other middle powers around the world. Only a handful disagreed with doing so. A public divided Our poll indicates a bottoming out in views of Trump among Australians.

Opinions have trended more negative this year compared with last. But the bulk of the dramatic change in Australian opinions on the US occurred immediately in the months following Trump’s inauguration, rather than as a result of more recent developments.

In other words, Australians long ago made up their mind on the US president. This mirrors Trump’s generally steady favourability ratings among Americans over most of the past decade. Demographic breakdowns also reveal a country divided on political and social lines when it comes to many of these key questions.

Australian men are twice as likely as women to describe the US as mostly helpful in Asia. Labor voters are twice as likely as Coalition voters to describe it as mostly harmful. Labor voters are also significantly more open to Australia becoming closer to China or having a policy of neutrality compared with Coalition voters.

Younger Australians under 35 years old are half as likely as those over 65 to support a higher defence budget or to agree that the alliance is more needed “than ever”. A challenging future The Australian government faces a difficult foreign policy landscape, balancing between an unpredictable security ally and a volatile Indo-Pacific region.

While our results suggest Australian views of Trump have stabilised, broader questions about the alliance — what it means for Australia’s security and the region, and the government’s rationale for it — may still be up for debate.

As the US barrels towards midterm elections in November — and the contours of the 2028 presidential election begin to take shape — navigating this tension is likely to be a central challenge for Australian foreign policy in the years to come.

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/2026/07/02/after-250-years-of-american-independence-what-do-australians-think-about-the-us/

Rob Harcourt Every summer, communities across northern Australia brace for the tropical cyclone season. Tropical cyclones draw their power from the warm seas, extracting heat and moisture from ocean water. To improve cyclone forecasting – and better protect lives and property – we enlisted an unlikely ally: deep-diving sea turtles equipped with oceanographic sensors on their shells.

At times these turtles have encountered powerful tropical cyclones, allowing their sensors to gather and can gather critical information on how the temperature in the water changes as the storm passes overhead. How oceans affect cyclones Tropical cyclones are fuelled by warm tropical seas.

Higher sea surface temperatures usually generate more powerful storms. As a cyclone passes over the ocean, its powerful winds and waves churn the water around like a blender. This action mixes warm surface water with cooler water from deeper down, leaving behind a “cool wake” – colder ocean water left behind on the sea surface.

This cooling reduces the heat available to the storm, which can in turn can limit its strength. Traditionally, cyclone forecasters have focused on sea surface temperatures, but the ocean depths also matter. If cooler water sits just below the surface, a storm can rapidly cool the sea surface by mixing it upwards.

But if warm water extends deeper down, the mixing does not have the same cooling effect. This means forecast accuracy is highly dependent on the ocean temperatures below the waves. Observing northern seas Despite the key role northern Australian seas play in shaping tropical cyclones, we have surprisingly few observations below the surface.

The region, which includes the Timor and Arafura seas between Australia and Indonesia, is vast, remote, and shallow. This makes it difficult or expensive to use traditional ocean observation methods. Ships and underwater ocean gliders can only sample small areas, and nobody wants to collect measurements in the middle of a cyclone.

Australia needs an ocean observing system that can work in all weathers in this region. Following a collaboration between the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Integrated Marine Observing System, CSIRO and Macquarie University, the University of Western Australia, UNSW and traditional owners, we think we’ve found one.

Turtle power: how it works To address the data desert to Australia’s north, we have enlisted the help of deep-diving olive ridley and flatback sea turtles, which lay their eggs on beaches around tropical Australia.

Biologists have tracked sea turtles for decades using miniaturised GPS tags. Building on experience from overseas, we paired a GPS tracker with an oceanographic probe that measures temperature when the turtle dives, sometimes as deep as 80 metres.

The temperature data is transmitted almost immediately by satellite, making it available to forecasters in near real time. Over several deployments on 46 animals between 2014 to 2024, the turtles took more than 8,000 ocean temperature snapshots across northern Australia, from the Pilbara to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Locations of sea-turtle temperature profiles from the first deployment on flatback turtles between 2010 and 2014. Points are colored by individual turtles. Christopher Chapman Into the maelstrom In April 2023, a tropical storm formed off the Kimberley coast.

This storm, named Ilsa, would go on to become a Category 5 cyclone and register the Bureau of Meteorology’s fastest-ever recorded sustained winds: 219 kilometres an hour. Tragically, two fishing vessels were caught in the storm, and eight people died.

As Ilsa was drawing energy from the warm Timor Sea, it passed directly over one of our turtles carrying ocean instruments. This reptile, seemingly unbothered by the maelstrom above, collected sub-surface observations within the eye of the storm – before, during, after the storm’s passage.

From the turtle observations, we found Ilsa’s cold wake cooled the ocean surface by about 2°C. Had the storm stayed still, this cooling would have potentially reduced Ilsa’s strength from category five to category 4.

Excited by this result, we matched turtle observations with the Bureau of Meteorology’s historical storm database. Our turtles had taken real time observations within the core of five tropical cyclones, including the category four Cyclone Rusty.

In all but one case, turtles observed strong cooling of the ocean as the storm passed overhead. When we compared the turtle data with a state-of-the-art ocean model, we found a potential weakness in Australia’s weather forecasts.

Our turtle observations indicated the ocean model did not capture the mixing of deeper, cool water with the warm surface, the very process that causes the cold wake. This can lead to overestimates of cyclone intensity.

Sentinel turtles To improve tropical cyclone forecasts, we need reliable sub-surface ocean observations. But ocean observation is expensive and developing an all-weather observing system is beyond the capabilities of many of the nations most vulnerable to tropical storms.

The instruments we used can be deployed on land with minimal equipment, and the Olive Ridley turtle lives in tropical seas.

Sea turtles could become a key part of observing cyclone weather systems, protecting lives and livelihoods across the tropics.

Christopher Chapman receives funding from the Australian Climate Service.

Clive McMahon receives funding from the Integrated Marine Observing System and the National Geographic Society.

Rob Harcourt receives funding from the Integrated Marine Observing System

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/02/sea-turtles-diving-through-the-eye-of-the-storm-help-develop-better-cyclone-forecasts/

Physics-based simulations can help identify which peptide antibiotics can kill a bacteria like E. coli, pictured here using electron microscopy. (Nurgul D / Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA By 2050, scientists estimate that antibiotic-resistant infections will be associated with more than eight million deaths around the world every year.

These are bacterial infections that resist traditional antibiotics like penicillin. They can develop when you eat contaminated food, have an open wound or undergo surgery. E. coli is a good example, as several strains have become highly resistant to conventional antibiotics.

They can also arrive as secondary infections, like pneumonia after a virus. Professor Alexander Fleming, who first discovered penicillin, in his laboratory at St Mary’s, Paddington, London (1943). (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY We need new antibiotics and designing them is difficult.

It can take 10 years and more than one billion dollars to bring just one new drug to market. And 10 out of 13 new antibiotics developed since 2017 are already ineffective against at least one type of bacteria.

A potential solution is to use generative AI models, guided by trained scientists, to come up with designs for never-before-seen molecules. Physics-based simulations, where a computer mimics the laws of reality, can then help us figure out whether they would make good drugs in a fast and cost-efficient way.

The peptide haystack All methods need a starting point. “Develop a new drug” isn’t a specific enough prompt. If we were looking for a needle in a haystack, we would at least need to know which haystack to look in.

One good haystack for drugs, especially antibiotics, is peptides. Peptides are short proteins that can perform many different functions in our bodies. For example, insulin, which is widely used to treat diabetes, is a naturally occurring peptide in the body.

Vancomyin is another peptide and an important antibiotic that is created in nature as a defence mechanism by bacteria that live in the soil. Both occupy a place of honour on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines.

We can use AI and physics-based simulations together to design new peptides that will kill bacteria. A good AI model has two parts: one that can quickly dream up millions of new designs (the generator) and one that can recommend which design to simulate next (the recommender).

This diagram shows the workflow scientists use when designing drugs with physics and AI. The recommender generates letters specifying the different amino acids that make up a peptide. Training the generator The recommender is a bit like the YouTube algorithm that suggests videos you might want to watch next.

It’s useful, important and tricky to set up just right. In fact, our lab has recently published a research paper that examines a few different strategies for generators and recommenders. In our research, we tested what kinds of information are most useful to include when training the generator.

While it’s possible to provide a generator with almost any available information about peptides, we showed it was better to give it just a tiny bit of very relevant information than a lot of semi-relevant information.

Why might this be important?

Because in many cases we only have a little bit of relevant information: only a few peptides out of the hundreds of thousands we know of have been experimentally tested, for example, for antimicrobial properties.

We also tested different strategies for the recommender, and found a way to more accurately visualize the path that it takes through peptide search space. Why not just use the generator by itself? Well, like any AI-generated content, we have to validate it before trusting it.

A deadly dance That’s where physics comes in! Peptides perform their functions by changing their shapes. For example, the unusual drug Ziconotide is a painkiller that works by physically “jamming” the proteins that send pain signals in the spine.

Many peptide antibiotics, or “antimicrobial peptides,” have fluctuating shapes that depend on their proximity to the outside of a cell. Each copy of an antimicrobial peptide is a dancer in a choreography. One dance is performed near the cell of a mammal, while a different, deadlier dance is performed near the cell of a bacterium.

This second dance can kill a microbe like E. coli by attacking and breaking apart the membrane. We can validate the molecules the AI recommends by peeking at the performance our peptide dancers put on near different kinds of membranes.

Without effective antibiotics, routine procedures such as hip replacements and C-sections can become life-threatening. (Unsplash/Volodymyr Hryshchenko) Video game physics engine In physics-based simulations, we put many peptides near a simplified membrane, surround the whole system with a box of water and treat every atom as a soft sphere.

Then, using something like a video game physics engine, we can watch how the atoms of the peptides and membrane dance as time goes on. Some people call this an “in silico” microscope, which allows us to zoom in and watch what happens at the molecular scale.

With this molecular microscope in hand, we can validate generated peptides. If we see modelled peptides disturbing a simplified bacteria membrane, then we can say it is likely antimicrobial. If we see it disturbing a simplified red blood cell membrane, then we can say it is likely toxic.

By doing this, we can pre-screen novel, never-before-seen peptides for non-toxic antimicrobial activity before wasting experimental effort. And we can also use the information we get from these simulations to improve our generators and our recommenders.

That way, scientists can avoid the time-consuming process of identifying promising peptides, and devote their laboratory experiments to validating their clinical use and safety.

This could mean more, cheaper drugs, exactly when we need them most.

Rachael (Ré) A Mansbach receives funding from NSERC through the Discovery Grants Program (grant #RGPIN-2021-03470) and the Canada Research Chairs Program (grant number CRC-2020-00225), and from FRQNT through the local protein-focused research group PROTEO.

They hold funding from Concordia University’s School of Health. They consult with the local biotechnology firms 9Bio, Molecular Forecaster, and Modulari-T. Several of these consultations have been funded by the Mitacs program.

Jyler Menard receives funding from an NSERC CGS-D scholarship, and Concordia University.

He has volunteered with, and is a student member of, the protein-focused research group PROTEO. He also works for the biotechnology start-up 9Bio Therapeutics Inc.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/02/how-generative-ai-and-physics-can-help-design-new-antibiotics/