ANALYSIS: By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report

In what is probably one of its most shameful acts ever, the Pacific Islands Forum has betrayed one of its founding principles in admitting Israel — already a global rogue pariah state — as a development partner in the middle of the genocide of an Indigenous people, the Palestinians.

As decisions of this nature are made by consensus, it means that all 18 member states of the region’s main political body – including Australia and New Zealand – have given their blessing.

The move undermines the Forum’s founding commitment in 1971 to regional decolonisation.

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Six Pacific countries and territories — American Samoa, French Polynesia (Mā’ohi Nui), Guam (Guåhan), New Caledonia (Kanaky), Pitcairn and Tokelau – are still on the UN Decolonisation list.

And there are also questions about West Papua with supporters of independence long claiming the 1969 Act of Free Choice was fraudulent process – and branded as an “Act of No Choice”.

A perception of arrogance and deceit about the Israel partnership process has also angered many in the Pacific.

Israel move condemned
Already, two regional civil society groups have condemned the move after news emerged about the controversial move – not by a Forum announcement, but by a social media post by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.

They are the Suva-based ecumenical Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), which has called for a review of the decision, and the Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGO), which has challenged the “Blue Pacific” mantra, arguing “an ocean of peace is not built on occupation – Pacific civil society questions the Pacific Forum on Israel partnership”.

Another diplomatic achievement: Israel joins the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) as a Forum Partner.

The Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, Baron Divavesi Waqa, has informed me that Israel has been accepted as a Forum Partner, following a decision at the meeting of the Forum’s member state leaders in Palau.

This follows my visit to Fiji in June, where I met with the Secretary General and presented Israel’s request to join the Forum.

Strengthening ties with the Pacific Island nations is one of my objectives. Earlier this year, I opened Israel’s Embassy in Fiji, which also serves nine other Pacific Island nations, all friendly to Israel.
Under the current government, three of these countries, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Nauru, have opened embassies in Jerusalem.

As a Forum Partner, Israel will participate in a framework for cooperation in areas of mutual interest, based on regional priorities and Israel’s expertise in water management, desalination, agriculture, tackling climate change, innovation and sustainable development.

Israel and the Forum will also develop a joint action plan setting out practical areas of cooperation and a mechanism to monitor progress.

— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) October 20, 2026

Reminding the Pacific over the failure of partnership with Indonesia regarding accountability over the Melanesian region of West Papua, “inviting another state that perpetrates occupation and denies self-determination repeats that mistake, and weakens the principle on which our decolonisation depends”, PRNGO warned the move could split the Pacific.

This controversy comes at a time when Israel has been ranked as the world’s most unpopular country because it has consistently trampled on international law, and ignored eight decades of resolutions by the United Nations, the very body that created the State of Israel in 1947 through Resolution 181 — by partitioning Palestine when the Zionists only controlled 7 percent of the land in the British mandate of Palestine with 30 percent of the population, yet granting it 55 percent as their share of land at independence.

Jerusalem and Bethlehem would become an international zone. Palestine with about 70 percent of the population of almost 1.9 million, comprising mostly Arabs, and other non-Jewish communities, would have been left with 45 percent of the land under the UN Partition plan and, unsurprisingly, rejected it.

Israel unilaterally declared independence the following year and armed Zionist militia and terrorist gangs began a campaign of ethnically cleansing and expelling some 750,000 Palestinians and razing at least 450 Arab villages known as the Nakba (the “catastrophe”).

This set in motion eight decades of illegal occupation, militarisation, wars and repression of the Indigenous Palestinian people. Since October 2023, Israel has launched 100,000 attacks on five Middle East countries and territories.

Voted against decolonisation
At the UN Decolonisation Committee (C-24) meeting last week, Israel and the United States were the only two countries that voted against decolonisation, and the US unsuccessfully attempted to end the committee’s mandate.

In a statement issued yesterday, the PRNGO Alliance declared: “We understand our communities’ real needs for water, food security, agriculture, development and climate adaptation. The urgent need for resources across the region is increasing, and partnerships to secure such are important.”

However, “our concern is that the Forum family will welcome, without condition, a state in continuing breach of international law. We reject antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, and mourn every civilian life lost, Israeli and Palestinian.”

Israel’s war on Gaza since the “breakout” attack on southern Israel from the “world’s largest open air prison”, by Hamas and other resistance fighters on 7 October 2023, has led to more than 75,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — being slaughtered.

Although a sham ceasefire was declared in October 2025, Israel has continued attacking the besieged enclave almost daily since then killing at least 1500 people, mostly children, and has failed to honour the terms of the first phase of the peace agreement. US President Donald Trump’s brokered Board of Peace is widely regarded to be a failure.

Last year, the Belgian-based Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar — the very person who announced the Forum partnership.

Seeking an arrest warrant
The foundation announced at the time that it was seeking an arrest warrant for Sa’ar for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s military assault on Gaza since October 2023.

It was alleged by the foundation that as a senior member of Netanyahu’s cabinet, Sa’ar had played “a central role in shaping and implementing policies that have led to mass displacement, collective punishment, and systematic attacks on Palestinian civilians”.

Although it is understood Sa’ar is not being formally investigated by the ICC, the court had already issued arrest warrants in November 2024 against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and is believed to be investigating other officials.

The PRNGO Alliance statement cited the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, Advisory Opinion on 19 July 2024 that found Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful and that it must be ended “as rapidly as possible”.

The UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016) affirmed that the Israeli settlements had “no legal validity” and were “a flagrant violation under international law”. Also, the UNSC Resolution 478 (1980) called on States to withdraw their diplomatic missions from Jerusalem.

Yet “three Forum members of Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Naoero [formerly Nauru] have opened embassies there; Samoa has announced plans to follow, and Israel’s announcement cites them,” said the PRNGO statement.

Israeli forces launch a “targeted” raid in Hebron after a shooting killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded several others, as Palestinians fear “collective punishment” days ahead of Israel’s October 27 elections.

Follow our LIVE coverage: https://t.co/FL4SrZ5U5K https://t.co/DHUJNFknqd

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 24, 2026

Deprivation of Gaza’s water
Noting the mounting death toll with Israeli violations since October 2025 “ceasefire”, the statement said: “Human Rights Watch found Israel’s deliberate deprivation of Gaza’s water amounts to extermination and acts of genocide.

“FAO reports nearly 87 percent pf Gaza’s cropland damaged. The war’s emissions, an estimated 33 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, fall on islands like ours. Water, food and climate security cannot be offered with one hand and destroyed with the other.”

The PRNGO statement highlighted the fact that under international law, “a ceasefire requires a complete halt to the attacks, and allows unimpeded entry of humanitarian relief at scale.

“It would end unprecedented Israeli settlement expansion and terror, guaranteeing the right of displaced Palestinians to return home, prohibit forcible transfers and end collective punishment.

“Our Forum leaders have called on all the world to uphold the UN Charter, including the sovereign equality of all states and the rights of all peoples to exist in peace and security.”

The PRNGO statement recalled that in September 2025, “our leaders declared the Blue Pacific as an Ocean of Peace, grounded in the UN Charter and international law.”

“As we said in July, a genuine Ocean of Peace means security ‘founded on justice, sovereignty, self-determination, environmental stewardship and the wellbeing of our peoples’. It rests on a strong rejection of militarisation and great power rivalry at our expense.

“A regional partnership with Israel would further facilitate and advance security cooperation, military technologies and infrastructures, in addition to the growing military exercises and security treaties crowding our ocean.”

Pacific regionalism rested on solidarity based on shared values, not merely on shared resources, PRNGO said.

Whose voice will be silenced?
“This partnership will unravel: not strengthen, that weave. It risks dividing the Forum family, tying our voice at the United Nations to bilateral favours, and making the Pacific complicit in a conflict far from our shores. Who stands to benefit from this partnership? Whose voice will it silence?

“The Pacific remembers the cost of occupation, and our peoples continue to struggle under colonisation, nuclear testing and environmental destruction. In Kanaky New Caledonia, Ma’ohi Nui, Guahan and West Papua, the struggle for self-determination continues.

“West Papua is a long standing item on our leaders’ agenda. Since 2019, they have asked Indonesia, a Forum Dialogue Partner since 2001, to allow a visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights — a visit Jakarta offered in 2018.

“It has not eventuated, yet a similar partnership has brought delay: not accountability. Inviting another state that perpetrates occupation and denies self-determination repeats that mistake, and weakens the principle on which our decolonisation depends.”

The PRNGO Alliance demanded:

• The Forum Troika — Solomon Islands, Palau and New Zealand — reflect on its concerns over partnerships;
• Forum leaders review Israel’s partnership and suspend all engagements until Israel complies with the ICJ and UN Security Council resolutions;
• The Forum Secretariat publish the basis for the Israel decision and ensure any partnership agreement commits to international law;
• Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Naoero return their embassies to Tel Aviv, consistent with Resolution 478, and Samoa reconsider its plan; and
• All Forum members ensure no partnership, aid, or security, cyber or surveillance cooperation helps maintain the occupation.

The day before the response by PRNGO, the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), an umbrella organisation representing Christian churches and national councils across 18 countries and territories in the region, called for all engagement with Israel to be suspended until it complied with international court rulings and UN resolutions.

General secretary Reverend James Bhagwan told RNZ Pacific Waves that the region needed to apply consistent standards to its international relationships.

“We cannot invoke the [International Court of Justice] for our islands and ignore the fact that the ICJ, in 2024, stated that Israel must end its occupation of Palestinian territory as soon as possible,” he said.

Reverend Bhagwan, who is also a signatory to the PRNGO statement, was speaking in response to Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Viliame Gavoka who had claimed the “entire Pacific Islands identify with Israel” and their relationship with the country was “biblical, ageless and real”.

Responses from New Zealand
In New Zealand, the coalition government of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon which is fighting desperately to be re-elected on November 7 with tight opinion polls predicting a possible hung Parliament, has been struggling to justify support for the Forum move.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters described criticism of Israel’s inclusion in PIF as an “insult” to Pacific Island countries, adding that the decision by the Pacific leaders should be respected. However, the opposition parties led by Labour demanded explanations.

John Minto, national organiser of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), the largest activist group in New Zealand, which has been organising weekly protests against Israel for the past three years, said: “Wow – a tiny country in the Middle East is now joining the Pacific Islands forum [as a second-tier partner].

“This has nothing to do with supporting the Pacific but has everything to do with using Pacific nations to provide cover and legitimacy to a racist, apartheid state currently committing genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and conducting pogroms against Palestinian Communities across the Occupied West Bank.

“Sickening complicity by Pacific leaders!”

The chair of the Palestine Forum of New Zealand, Maher Nazzal, has called on the government to “explain itself”, especially in view of New Zealand becoming the host for the Pacific Islands Forum next year.

“Technical cooperation must not shield any state from scrutiny under international law,” he said.

Support Palestinian self-determination
Writing in the Otago Daily Times, John Hobbs, a doctoral scholar and former career public official at the University of Otago’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, has a clear-cut message for the post-election government next month:

“New Zealanders and our political parties must act and be part of the global momentum to end the brutality in Gaza, to reverse the illegal occupation of the West Bank, support Palestinian self-determination and hold Israel to account.

“To do otherwise represents a moral failure as citizens of Aotearoa New Zealand and it will severely damage our reputation among many of our traditional allies, trading partners, and the international community.”

A poignant lesson also for the Pacific.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/24/shameful-move-by-pacific-islands-forum-undermines-decolonisation/

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Halloween is one of the few holidays centered around children. When else can students come to school dressed like astronauts, monsters and witches, or ring strangers’ doorbells to ask for candy?

But of course there’s a darker side to the holiday.

Horror’s bloody images lurk in the shadows – from ghouls leering over people’s lawns to skeletons hanging from trees – whether invited or not. Thoughtful adults might wonder, what is the right amount of scary for a child?

As a professor of children’s literature, and a writer of children’s books, I turn to the great author and illustrator Maurice Sendak for a hint.

A child’s mother once told Sendak that her pre-schooler was terrified of his classic 1963 book “Where the Wild Things Are,” which brings the reader into the world of an imaginative child, Max, after his mother sends him to his room without dinner. Through his imagination, Max journeys to a world of fantastical creatures called Wild Things.

No matter how many times this mother read “Where the Wild Things Are” to her young child, he screamed.

“What are you, a sadist?” Sendak answered. “Read him something else.”

“Why,” he continued, “would any one book be right for every child?”

When considering the benefits and drawbacks of scary books to get in the spirit of Halloween, some possible choices come to mind, along with some reminders to both overly cautious and sometimes careless adults.

Facing your jitters head on

To start, Felicia Bond’s 1987 “The Halloween Performance,” later republished as “The Halloween Play,” is a perfect Halloween picture-book classic, appealing to all ages and offering humor and suspense.

Bond is the illustrator of the 1985 children’s best seller, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” and subsequent books. An adorable young mouse features in this Halloween story, as well.

The plot revolves around a mysterious “small but important part” that Roger, a nervous, brown mouse, has landed in the school Halloween performance.

Costumed skeletons and witches don’t bother him – but his jitters about performing on stage do.

Roger overcomes stage-fright to shine in the school performance. He may inspire other children to overcome their own feelings of nervousness at Halloween and make fun memories.

Frog and Toad show that fear can be fun

Frog and Toad are Arnold Lobel’s beloved, amphibian best friends from his children’s series published in the 1970s.

Though they have very different personalities, both Frog and Toad enjoy the thrill of playing with fear. In “Shivers,” a story in the book “Days with Frog and Toad,” Frog tells Toad a tale about “the old dark Frog” who combs the woods in search of tasty children.

Toad keeps asking, “Is this real?” Frog answers like any good storyteller, “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.”

Together the duo enjoy scaring themselves into a teeth-chattering but delightful evening.

They show young readers that, in the right doses, fear can be fun: ask any kid scream-laughing on a roller-coaster.

In another story, “Dragons and Giants,” Frog and Toad test their own heroism after reading fairy tales about dragons and giants.

“The people in this book are brave,” said Toad.
“They fight dragons and giants, and they are never afraid.”

“I wonder if we are brave,” said Frog.
Frog and Toad looked into a mirror. “We look brave,” said Frog. “Yes, but are we?” asked Toad.

Frog and Toad are both fearful and brave, as most of us are.

Wise children’s stories reinforce the truth that it’s natural to be both, sometimes at the same time. “Frog and Toad” features color illustrations in subtle greens and browns, leaving enough space for kids to imagine new facets of themselves – the timid and the bold.

Scary stories can be a natural part of childhood

Fear is inevitably woven into the fabric of children’s lives.

Nightmares, for example, spring from unknown sources, though studies show they are intensified by trauma, emotional disturbances and exposure to violence.

Bad dreams – like scary stories – work as fire drills for the developing brain.

“Bad dreams may even provide evolutionary protection for the young, by allowing children to practice bravery while they are safely at home and in bed,” writes Dierdre Barrett, editor of the book “Traumas and Dreams.” She notes that children are smaller and more “vulnerable to many more threats than adults. Nightmares … reflect this vulnerability.”

Recognizing the difference between fantasy and reality is a form of practicing fear management – which strengthens resilience and resistance.

Maybe that’s why some older elementary school kids actively seek out frightening reading.

When written well and thoughtfully, such books provide more delight than dismay. The only hair-raising thing about Alvin Schwartz’s “Scary Stories” is Stephen Gammell’s high-contrast, dreamlike art. Schwartz, a writer and folklorist, gathered spooky tales from all over the United States and compiled them into three of the most popular children’s books of the 1980s.

While Schwartz retells classic folklore tales with humor and goosebumps in equal measure, Gammell’s powerful drawings nudge children wordlessly toward the ghoulish. It’s a good match: The three-book series has proven irresistible to young readers for 40 years.

At the darkest haunting edge of the children’s horror genre, books like Roald Dahl’s “The Witches” totter between imaginatively eerie and terror-producing.

In this book, ordinary-seeming women unmask themselves as grotesquely evil witches. Their goal is to capture human children, transforming them into mice that they will trap and kill.

Navigating scary things, safely

What constitutes protection and when does it deny the child a chance to explore their fears? I believe we want our children to enjoy adventures, to test themselves and discover inner courage when they least expect it.

We also don’t want them to be haunted for life. The right books for the right child at the right time can help children and adults safely navigate those waters.

I wrote the book “Monster Mama,” with pictures by Stephen Gammell, who also illustrated the “Scary Stories” series.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/boo-feeling-scared-on-halloween-can-be-fun-for-children-but-can-sometimes-push-their-limits/

Asia Pacific Report

A Palestinian advocacy group has called on the New Zealand government to act against the “weaponisation” and “engineering” of starvation by Israel in its ongoing war on Gaza Strip.

“Palestinian survival must never be a bargaining chip,” says Palestine Forum of Palestine chair Maher Nazzal in response to news this week that the UN World Food Programme is being forced to cut food aid for about 500,000 Palestinians and Israel tightening its blockade of the enclave.

A so-called “ceasefire” was declared last October but at least 1500 Palestinians have been killed in almost daily Israeli attacks since then. More than 75,000 Palestinians — mostly children and women — have been killed in the war on the enclave since October 2023.

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Both Israel and New Zealand are facing elections – Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday and New Zealanders on November 7.

“Famine doesn’t always begin with a failed harvest or a natural disaster,” said Nazzal in a statement today. “It can begin with decisions — decisions to restrict food, obstruct humanitarian assistance, destroy essential infrastructure and deny a population access to the necessities of life.

“The situation in Gaza demands that the international community confront an urgent question — when the means of survival are systematically undermined, can hunger still be treated as an unavoidable consequence of war?”

Nazzer said the deliberate use of starvation against civilians was prohibited under international humanitarian law.

No collective punishment
“Food, water, medicine and humanitarian assistance must never be used as instruments of collective punishment, coercion or political leverage,” he said.

“The destruction of agricultural land, food production facilities, water systems, bakeries and other essential infrastructure, combined with restrictions on humanitarian access, can devastate a population’s ability to sustain itself.

“Where such deprivation is deliberately imposed or knowingly maintained in violation of international law, responsibility and accountability must follow.

Palestinians in Gaza faced a “daily struggle for food, clean water, medical care and survival”.

The Palestine Forum of New Zealand has called on the New Zealand government to:

• Demand sustained humanitarian access and the delivery of sufficient food, water, medicine and other essential supplies into Gaza;
• Press for an end to policies and actions that unlawfully deprive civilians of the necessities of life;
• Support independent investigations and accountability for violations of international humanitarian law;
• Pursue meaningful diplomatic and economic measures, consistent with international law, to prevent further atrocities; and
• Work with international partners to ensure civilian protection and a just and lasting peace grounded in Palestinian self-determination.

“Humanitarian concern without effective action is not enough,” said Nazzal. “Governments must use the diplomatic, legal and economic tools available to them to protect civilian life and uphold international law.”

Nazzal said the Palestine Forum of New Zealand stood for justice, human rights, accountability and the right of the Palestinian people to live in freedom, dignity and security.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/palestine-forum-calls-on-nz-to-act-against-weaponised-engineered-gaza-hunger/

Pacific Media Watch

“You’re not just reporting on the story … you are the main character.”

That’s how award-winning Palestinian journalist and human rights defender Maha Hussaini sums up her experience while “documenting history” in Israel’s three-year genocidal war on Gaza.

In the latest episode of Middle East Eye’s “The Gaza Podcast”, host Hussam Tannera sits down with Hussaini, who shares what it means to report on starvation and displacement while experiencing them firsthand.

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And he discusses how her articles written during total blackouts ended up cited before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

From the psychological toll of survivor’s guilt to the unique layers of suffering experienced by women, Maha opens up about the reality on the ground during genocide.

She reflects on why documenting history matters, even when international law fails, and proposes the one human right Palestinians need most: “The right to live without having to prove that our lives are worth saving.”

Gaza journalists death toll
According to the Gaza Government Media Office, at least 263 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023.

Counts from major international organisations vary due to differing verification criteria and methodology:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented at least 189 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reports at least 203 Palestinian media workers have been killed.

Reporting while starving.             Video: Middle East Eye

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reports nearly 220 journalists and media workers have been killed.

The United Nations has verified 220 to 240+ deaths in the enclave.

Additional figures reported by the Gaza Government Media Office include 433 injured, dozens arrested or detained, and several missing.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/gaza-media-why-we-document-history-even-if-accountability-feels-distant/

Halloween kicks off a series of religious and cultural festivals to honor the dead, including All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day and the Day of the Dead. But deceased loved ones don’t disappear from people’s social worlds once the ghost and skeleton decorations come down.

Present in memory and tradition, the dead can shape people’s identities and behaviors long after they die. Recent survey data shows that almost 44% of Americans report that they have felt the presence of a deceased relative or that they have communicated with a deceased relative in the past year alone.

Researchers lack basic knowledge about this shadow population. As demographers, we typically study the living. But in our recent work, we asked a very unusual demographic question: What does a population of our deceased relatives look like?

Characterizing an unusual population

Our research typically categorizes the living population by age groups and other demographic attributes. In our recent study, we took our analysis a step further to estimate the size and age distribution of the currently living population’s deceased relatives. We focused specifically on deceased grandparents, parents, siblings, spouses and children.

To do this project, we relied on a modeling framework called demographic microsimulations. This approach produces results only for Black and white Americans. The method cannot estimate relative populations living outside of the United States, so it excludes groups with high percentages of foreign-born individuals who have family abroad.

Our study focused on the populations as of July 2020, but for the purposes of this article, we updated our analysis and weighted results to the estimated population as of October 2026.

Because estimating the deceased relative population is not a common exercise in our field, we had to make some modeling decisions. We counted only deceased relatives who died after the birth of at least one person still alive; if no one remains who could remember them, we did not include them.

Also, we counted deceased persons based on how many relatives they have in the living population. For example, if a deceased 60-year-old man is survived by a spouse, an adult child, a grandchild and a sibling, we count him in the deceased relative population four times, reflecting his being remembered by four living individuals. As such, the deceased relative population we quantified is really a count of how many direct relative ties remain to those who are dead.

And finally, we classified deceased relatives according to their age at death. We believe this represents the age many people will most clearly remember their deceased loved ones. Of course, we categorize the living population by their current age.

Deceased relatives of today’s Americans

Our results included several key findings.

First, the deceased relative population is large. Our model estimated that the living Black and white populat,ion representing about 217 million people, had 755 million ties to deceased close relatives. That’s a population more than three times the size of the living population. For every under-15-year-old out trick-or-treating on Halloween, there are about 21 deceased relatives remembered.

Second, our model shows that, on average, the deceased relatives died 25 years ago. That the average deceased relative has been remembered for a quarter of a century makes it clear that loved ones are often suspended in memory for years, even decades, after their deaths.

Third, over half of the deceased relative population was born more than 100 years ago – even before the term “trick-or-treating” took hold in the U.S. Around 10% of the deceased relatives were born before 1900, with 140,000 of them born before the Civil War – these are the remembered grandparents of today’s oldest individuals. These results speak to how generations of the seemingly long ago past still have a direct tie to the living.

The Halloween season reminds us of ghosts, spirits and ancestors. Whatever their beliefs, many Americans also carry relationships with people who are no longer alive: grandparents whose recipes they still make, parents whose advice they still hear, spouses whose absence shapes their days.

These relationships are deeply personal, but together they form a vast and previously unstudied shadow population. By quantifying and characterizing the deceased relative population, our research reveals just how many people no longer appear in the census yet remain an integral part of our social world.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/ancestors-all-around-millions-of-dead-people-linger-in-americans-memories/

Governments and organizations around the world began scrambling on Oct. 21, 2026, to fix a vulnerability in software that runs their websites, a bug that could give hackers access to data and control of websites. The flaw in PHP, the programming language that powers much of today’s web, prompted urgent warnings from the U.S. National Security Agency, cybersecurity agencies and software vendors.

A researcher at Calif, a security research firm, found the flaw in August 2026 using an advanced artificial intelligence model from OpenAI. The firm alerted the nonprofit that manages PHP. However, word of the flaw leaked before the PHP organization released patches for its software, and according to Amazon Web Services officials, hackers began “broadly” attempting to exploit it.

The vulnerability has implications far beyond a single company or platform, because PHP is a key piece of software that helps run millions of websites. So, what is PHP, what role did AI play in uncovering the vulnerability, and should the average user worry?

PHP: The foundation of the web

PHP is a programming language that powers most websites. For a modern website to provide dynamic content, visual elements and searchable features, a program must run on the web server and take user input, whether that is entering a web address or clicking links and buttons. Estimates suggest that around 70% of websites run on PHP.

PHP operates on a web server in two main parts: the core PHP system – the engine and runtime libraries – and the individual PHP scripts, which are the custom programs that actually implement a website. When you interact with a website, PHP scripts run, take user input and produce the output your web browser displays.

The vulnerability

The current security issue sits directly in the core PHP system and the libraries it uses. When a vulnerability exists at this deep level, it can allow an adversary to exploit the system. In this case, they can run unauthorized commands on the computer hosting the website, which allows attackers to access data and gain full control of the website.

This vulnerability is not a mistake in an individual website’s code. The issue lies in the core PHP system, making every unpatched system running PHP vulnerable. Since websites are accessible to anyone on the internet, adversaries can easily find PHP-based websites using automated tools. From there, they can run an exploit program that takes advantage of the vulnerability.

This exploit code is called PHP2Shell. This name comes from the fact that the exploit gives the attacker “shell access,” a cybersecurity term for direct command-line control of the computer running the website. Shell access bypasses the website interface, giving adversaries a window to enter commands and access all the website’s data.

AI: A double-edged sword

What makes this vulnerability particularly interesting is how it was discovered. This exploit came to light through a process known as coordinated disclosure, in which cybersecurity researchers report the flaw to PHP developers before publicizing it.

This discovery shows the power of AI in cybersecurity. For decades, finding subtle software flaws required large teams of specialists manually reviewing code. Today’s AI systems can examine vast codebases and identify unusual patterns in hours or days. These models can analyze millions of lines of code in seconds, spotting subtle memory management bugs that human auditors might miss over decades of software development. The PHP vulnerability has existed in the core PHP code for over a decade, and AI helped researchers find it.

However, this also shows that attackers can use these same tools to locate and exploit vulnerabilities. The same reasoning capabilities that help security researchers find flaws first can also let attackers rapidly scan the web for vulnerable targets and automate the creation of tools to exploit the vulnerabilities.

This illustrates why it is so critical for security teams to use AI to find vulnerabilities and report them safely and actively. AI can also help release patches that mitigate these vulnerabilities.

Should you worry?

Many government agencies, universities, hospitals and businesses rely on PHP-based systems. While individual internet users are unlikely to be directly affected, organizations that delay patching could expose sensitive data, risk having their operations disrupted or give attackers a foothold into larger networks.

PHP runs entirely on remote web servers. If you are an everyday internet user visiting websites, you do not need to download a patch or fix your personal computer.

However, if you manage a website, blog or server, even a small site built on popular content management systems such as WordPress, you should check your server administration panel or web host immediately to ensure your PHP software is updated to the latest patched version. If a third party hosts your website, check with them to see whether they have patched for these vulnerabilities.

The PHP2Shell discovery illustrates a new reality for cybersecurity. In our interconnected world, keeping web infrastructure secure is a continuous race. As AI tools become standard for both cyber defenders and online adversaries, maintaining fast patching habits remains our most essential defense.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/php-is-in-the-foundation-of-70-of-websites-heres-what-it-is-and-why-a-flaw-in-the-software-is-a-major-hacking-threat/

The NHS has a substantial carbon footprint. Yet one part of its environmental impact receives relatively little attention: maternity care.

The health service is responsible for an estimated 4% to 5% of England’s greenhouse gas emissions. A 2025 report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists estimated that selected maternity care activities in England generated about 205,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) in 2022–23.

CO₂e expresses the warming effect of different greenhouse gases, such as methane, as an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. The analysis excluded some maternity services, so the total footprint is likely to be higher.

Nearly 29% of the emissions across the activities studied came from Entonox, commonly known as gas and air. It contains nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Using it during regular contractions over four hours has an estimated warming effect of 237kg CO₂e.

Travel to appointments also contributes to emissions. An analysis at the Whittington, a hospital in north London, estimated that a patient’s return journey to an antenatal appointment generated an average of 1.23kg CO₂e.

Hospitals also use large quantities of disposable equipment. Ready-to-use formula bottles and teats, single-use cups and clinical waste containers are routinely used once and discarded.

Pregnancy is sometimes described as a “teachable moment”, when people may be particularly receptive to health information. Environmental advice could become part of those conversations, including discussions about feeding a baby or choosing pain relief.

Responsibility for reducing emissions

But placing responsibility on parents creates ethical problems. Maternity care in the UK is already under intense pressure. The 2022 Ockenden review documented serious failures in maternity safety, while the 2024 birth trauma inquiry highlighted how women’s concerns were dismissed or ignored.

Read more:
Maternity care needs more than answers: it needs change

Against that background, asking someone in labour to weigh the climate effects of pain relief alongside their comfort and safety could create another burden at an already demanding time.

Measuring emissions can help hospitals improve how services are designed. But carbon targets should not be used to restrict access to caesarean birth or pain relief. Decisions about care should respect each person’s needs and informed choices.

In a small interview study involving 12 people who had used nitrous oxide during labour, most wanted environmental information to be available during pregnancy. However, they were unsure whether knowing its impact would change their choice of pain relief. Participants also considered reducing emissions to be primarily the responsibility of healthcare organisations.

A more useful approach is to change how maternity services are delivered while protecting patient choice.

Some NHS maternity services are already doing this. At Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals, a project introduced virtual ward support and care at home for patients with severe pregnancy sickness. By reducing hospital stays, it cut emissions by an estimated 538kg CO₂e over one month. The team projected an annual saving of around 6,462kg if those reductions continued.

Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has introduced technology that captures exhaled gas and air and breaks down the nitrous oxide into nitrogen and oxygen, allowing women to continue using gas and air during labour while reducing its environmental impact.

Other changes involve purchasing and waste. Thousands of ready-to-use plastic formula bottles and teats are used in maternity care. A 2019 letter from Irish researchers published in the British Medical Journal highlighted waste from unconsumed formula and discarded packaging. Reducing this could lower emissions without restricting access to formula for those who need or choose it.

Similar questions apply to disposable products throughout maternity wards. Clinicians work in systems designed around single-use equipment and established waste procedures. Changing those systems is likely to be more effective than expecting individual clinicians to improvise greener alternatives.

At the midwife-led White Horse birth centre in Swindon, staff have replaced plastic containers used to dispose of placentas with alternatives made from 96% paper, reducing plastic use and costs.

Breastfeeding illustrates how complicated individual responsibility can become. Compared with exclusive formula feeding, exclusive breastfeeding for six months has been estimated to have a carbon footprint 95kg to 153kg CO₂e lower per baby.

But feeding decisions depend on health and personal circumstances, including the support available to parents. A more useful approach would be to provide effective support for anyone who wants to breastfeed, while reducing unnecessary waste and emissions from the way formula is purchased, prepared and supplied by maternity services.

Better care, lower emissions

The Green Maternity Challenge, part of a programme led by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, brought together nine NHS teams to test ways of reducing emissions while improving maternity care. Several projects involved redesigning services to make treatment easier to access or reduce unnecessary hospital stays.

Better care and lower emissions can go together. But treating sustainability only as a fortunate side effect risks overlooking opportunities to design maternity services deliberately around lower-carbon care.

Hospitals should examine where their emissions come from and give staff the knowledge and resources to reduce them. Changes to purchasing and waste systems, alongside suitable lower-emission technologies, can help services become greener while protecting safe care and informed choice.

Childbirth will always carry an environmental footprint. Health services have the responsibility and practical means to reduce the impact through changes to how care is organised and delivered. Those changes should protect choices without placing additional burdens on the person giving birth.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/greener-maternity-care-starts-with-changing-hospitals-without-putting-pressure-on-pregnant-women/

On Oct. 20, 2026, a week before Israel’s elections, dozens of men were detained on suspicion of evading the draft – arrests that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “unacceptable.”

The young men attend ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, religious schools, whose students were long exempt from the military service mandatory for most Israelis. A 2024 court ruling that Haredi men must be drafted alongside other Jewish youth intensified the conscription debate. Netanyahu’s government has failed to either legalize the draft exemption or enforce the court’s ruling, though he has said Haredim who are not studying should enlist.

With Israel’s military fighting in several conflicts, those exemptions have become increasingly unpopular: The vast majority of Jewish voters want Haredi communities to share the burden. Haredi political parties, however, are key potential coalition members as Netanyahu attempts to secure his political future. Although a relatively small percentage of the population, the Haredim hold disproportionate sway in Israel’s parliamentary system.

Growing population

Haredi Jews strictly observe Jewish religious law and often disapprove of liberal interpretations. They typically live in Haredi-majority neighborhoods where large families are the norm – six children, on average – and about half of the men devote themselves to full-time religious study. The poverty rate is 33%, more than double the percentage for non-Haredi Jews.

The Israeli public is about 14% Haredi, but the community is growing quickly because of its high birth rate. Projections by the Central Bureau of Statistics estimate that almost a quarter of Israelis will be Haredi by 2050.

Haredi communities are diverse and represented by two main political parties. Haredim who are Ashkenazi – Jews whose ancestors came from northern and eastern Europe – are linked to United Torah Judaism, or UTJ. Those who are Sephardi or Mizrachi, meaning their ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East, are linked to Shas.

A third Haredi party, Haredi Public, was formed in July 2026. The party says it will represent Haredim who feel underserved by Shas and UTJ, emphasizing employment and poverty, housing development and the education system. Unlike the other two Haredi parties, it has included women on its candidate list.

Conservative allies

Elections for the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, use a proportional representation system. Any party that receives more than 3.25% of votes receives seats based on the fraction of votes it received. Each party allocates its seats to members based on a list of candidates published before elections.

Having multiple parties with similar target demographics risks dividing the vote, leaving that group with fewer representatives in the Knesset. Shas and UTJ have agreed to share their surplus votes in the 2026 election to maximize their overall seat share.

Because of the low electoral threshold, many parties are able to win seats. No Israeli party has ever attained the 50% share needed to control parliament by itself. As in other countries with similar systems, it is very common for parties to form coalitions and govern as a team.

Likud, one of the major conservative parties, has led most governing coalitions for the past two decades, with party leader Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. Haredi parties are seen as strong conservative allies, and they have been key coalition members for Likud administrations. Today, as Netanyahu faces challenges from other right-wing parties over his handling of Oct. 7, 2023, and several wars, Likud may need them even more.

Landmark ruling

The fact that Likud has needed Haredi parties to form coalitions has given them negotiating power. For many years, one of their priorities has been draft exemptions for religious education.

Military service is mandatory for most groups in Israel, although Muslim and Christian Arab citizens are generally exempted. Jewish Israelis see conscription as a unifying experience and a costly demonstration of commitment to the state. Starting at age 18, most women serve two years and most men serve almost three years. Former soldiers can be called up as reservists into their 40s, depending on their training.

For decades, Haredi men received de facto exemptions. It was, effectively, one of several government arrangements that subsidize Haredi communities. Religious schools for teen boys and married men receive government payments for each student. Given the communities’ low employment rates, large families and high poverty rates, many families rely on public support.

In 2024, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that a blanket exemption from military service for Haredim was not legal. Netanyahu’s government struggled to enact a compromise between those who favored drafting Haredim and the Haredi parties; the failure to find a lasting legal way to exempt Haredi men led Shas and UTJ to leave the Likud-led coalition in 2025.

Growing tensions

Nonetheless, this ruling has not led to mass conscription.

Haredi groups have held public protests, and many have ignored draft notices. While tens of thousands of men are draft eligible but not serving, and most of them are Haredi, fewer than 500 evaders have been arrested in 2026. Netanyahu argues against arrests, saying they discourage men from enlisting without coercion.

In July 2026, at the urging of Haredi parties, the government passed a law to temporarily prevent arresting draft evaders. Some members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition opposed the law, however, and right-wing opposition parties filed petitions to challenge it in court.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – leader of the Together alliance, and seen as a key contender to oust Netanyahu – has threatened to cut subsidies to the Haredi community if they continue to defy the draft. Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the centrist Yashar party, is another top contender to replace Netanyahu. He has proposed allowing 3% of Haredi men exemptions to study, while drafting the majority.

As the number of conflict zones increases – Gaza, southern Lebanon and Iran, as well as deployments in the West Bank – the unequal burden of military participation is a growing source of resentment among many conscripted Israelis and their families. Seven in 10 Jewish Israelis favor drafting the Haredim.

Shas and UTJ, however, have declared they will not join a coalition unless it promises to codify the draft exemption into law.

Shifting coalitions

When the Haredi parties exited Netanyahu’s coalition, Likud replaced them with nationalist parties that emphasize the state and Jewish supremacy. Particularly notable was the decision to include the Jewish Power party, an offshoot of an earlier group banned for racism; including Kahanist groups was long seen as a red line.

Haredi communities, on the other hand, tend to prioritize religious Jewishness over the state. Most Haredim do not consider themselves Zionist, and a small percentage are anti-Zionist. They argue that it was sacrilegious for people to create a state of Israel rather than waiting for God to return Jews to the land of Israel. Where nationalist politicians emphasize the secular state and military service, Haredim see their religious study as service to the Jewish community.

As Likud’s changing coalition shows, Netanyahu’s alliances are strategic rather than ideological. I believe his decision to side with the Haredim on the recent draft legislation suggests his coalition is open to revision after the October 2026 election.

As the Haredi community grows, its power in the electoral system will become less disproportionate. In a democratic framework, a large social group would deserve proportional representation and influence. As such, the tension between their electoral power, their demands for exemptions and subsidies, and the tolerance of non-Haredi Jews will persist as a political challenge.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/why-ultra-orthodox-parties-hold-so-much-sway-in-israeli-politics/

Several characters have worn the mantle of the villain Clayface in DC comics across eight decades – but the two most prominent must surely be Basil Karlo and Matt Hagen.

Karlo, the first Clayface, who debuted in June 1940, was a B-movie actor who had no superpowers but did have a thirst for blood and a penchant for crime. In the 1950s Batman adventures, Clayface reappeared in the shape of Matt Hagen, a treasure hunter whose accidental encounter with radioactive material gave him the power to transform into a lumbering mass of muddy goo with superhuman strength and the ability to shapeshift into any likeness.

Other comic book versions of Clayface have come and gone over the decades, but for his big screen debut DC has opted to bring back Matt Hagen once again. This time Clayface is centre stage in a supervillain origin story, with a generous helping of body horror – a sub genre that has enjoyed renewed popularity in recent years.

In the film’s contemporary reimagining, Hagen is a Hollywood actor whose career high is ended when his face is brutally disfigured by mobsters in revenge for sleeping with their gang boss’s girlfriend. A desperate Hagen decides to put himself forward as a human guinea pig for the testing of an experimental formula containing microscopic AI.

This treatment promises to regrow damaged cells and repair the body to its original form. At first the results are promising, but then, in response to emotional excitement – especially anger – his flesh begins to warp and take on an unpredictable life of its own.

Following the comics, Hagen learns to shift his malleable face to mimic others. He uses these new abilities in a gory revenge rampage on the gangsters that assaulted him and wrecked his career.

While Clayface doesn’t live up to its genre-bending promise of a comic book body horror, it’s not an unmitigated disaster. The film is entertaining and features enough imaginative sequences to forgive some of its more prosaic and one-dimensional aspects.

I was excited at the prospect of a supervillain story from writer and director Mike Flanagan. The horror impresario is responsible for some brilliant recent adaptations, including the peerless Haunting of Hill House for Netflix. I was also hugely impressed with his risk-taking, imaginative update of Stephen King’s debut novel Carrie. However, Flanagan stepped back from the lead writing role – likely because of scheduling conflicts with Carrie.

He retains a co-writing credit. But there’s little in this film that recalls Flanagan’s sensitivity for character and the nuanced dialogue of his best work. A full rewrite by British-Iranian screenwriter Hossein Amini (the excellent Drive, the not-so-excellent The Snowman) may be partly responsible for the film’s tonal uncertainty and an oddly noncommittal feel to much of the action.

The finished product seems to be grappling with the daring originality of its premise and the need for mainstream appeal.

A strong lead for thin material

That said, Clayface’s lead, Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries, carries the weaker aspects of the script extremely well with an admirable commitment to his character’s horrific transformations. The film’s best scenes show Hagen confronting what could either be seen as an exciting new body with superhuman abilities or a terrifying total degeneration.

Harries’ energetic performance produces some memorable sequences where Hagen wrestles with his unruly body, the best of which features a battle to keep his dysfunctional, goopy eyelids from sealing shut. Prosthetic effects are blended effectively with CGI – and horror fans should enjoy the effort and commitment from both the actor and the effects crew.

There are distinct shades of Coralie Fargeat’s outrageous and brilliant mainstream body horror breakthrough The Substance (2024). Clayface shares that relentlessly gory film’s interest in the shallow vanity of celebrity and the lengths the protagonist goes to in order to preserve youth and beauty in a skin-deep world.

Also, the connection between Hagen’s emotional state and his progressively warping flesh results in an interesting exploration of male mental health and its impact on the physical body. That a supervillain origin story tackles these kinds of themes is in itself quite admirable.

Clayface also has strong echoes of David Cronenberg’s masterful and influential piece of body horror The Fly (1986). In this classic, Jeff Goldblum’s scientist accidentally splices his DNA with that of a housefly. His transformation begins as a thrilling set of new abilities before becoming a full bodily breakdown into a grotesque creature.

Clayface aims to tread similar terrain, but simply can’t replicate Cronenberg’s ability to walk the line between terror and wonder at the body’s strange transformations.

The main obstacle to Clayface’s success, however, is the surface-level characterisation and very basic sketching of the supporting ensemble of cliched and cartoonish mobster types. This is most glaring in the eye-rolling love story thrown in to encourage emotional connection with the central characters.

This is something The Fly managed to pull off around the horror as scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) and science journalist Veronica “Ronnie” Quaife (Geena Davis) fall in love and try to defy the odds stacked against them. Theirs is an incredibly convincing performance of chemistry, which was certainly helped by the fact the two actors were dating. Sadly, Clayface just can’t replicate it.

While Clayface’s goriest sequences are full of the imaginative horror that only an enthusiast of the genre could conceive, its dialogue and character remains thin. The movie offers neither the emotional nuance typical of Flanagan at his best nor leans knowingly into the over-the-top tropes of gangsters or the mythology of the comics.

Instead, Clayface falls in a passable middle ground that may be overly tame for horror fans accustomed to the wild spectacles of Fargeat and Cronenberg’s work while also being overly icky and violent for comic book film fans.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/clayface-tries-to-tap-into-the-success-of-body-horror-but-cant-reach-the-genres-gory-depths/

Every autumn, the British Film Institute celebrates the best in cinema with a ten-day festival in London and across the UK. This year showcased a slate of compelling films – some of which are exceptional and look certain to garner industry accolades in the coming year.

The big stand-out is Elsinore, which was presented in the opening gala screening. Directed by Simon Stone, the film is likely to be Britain’s main Oscars contender, with special recognition going to its star Andrew Scott.

Scott plays the Scottish actor Ian Charleson as he prepares for the 1989 National Theatre production of Hamlet. Charleson, best known for his 1981 role as the Olympic athlete Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire, was seriously ill with Aids at the time. He died in January 1990, soon after completing the run.

Hamlet is famously a tragedy of self-doubt, and Elsinore thus lifts the conventional biopic contrast of public triumph with private tragedy by demonstrating the potential of drama to both express and elevate reality. Through his transcendentally emotional performance, Scott reveals an actor at the top of his game. Expect tears.

The festival’s closing gala The Debut provides a fitting bookend, with Jesse Eisenberg’s comedy of a timid housewife who belatedly finds her voice when auditioning for a community theatre musical.

Where Elsinore finds the tragic parallels between stage and life, The Debut offers the pleasures of theatre’s consoling fantasy. The film’s star, Julianne Moore, conveys the subtle gradations from fragility to strength in her character’s onstage transformation into a woman about to take control of her life.

The relationship of art to reality has a more political significance in another of the festival’s triumphs, La Bola Negra. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s historical drama weaves together three timelines revolving around a frustrated playwright who has been left a mysterious document in the will of his estranged grandfather.

The film shifts between this story and that of his grandfather’s experience as a somewhat reluctant fighter for the fascist forces in the Spanish civil war, and then to a visualisation of a lost work, La Bola Negra, by gay socialist poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. Regarded as modern Spain’s most influential literary figure, the poet and dramatist was killed at the age of 38 by the fascists at the beginning of the war.

As well as historical periods, the film interweaves feelings of political commitment, queer desire, and poetic imagination, thereby intermingling visions of better futures, past possibilities, and the danger that we might lose what we hold most dear.

Behemoth! was one of the festival’s big Hollywood premieres, starring Pedro Pascal as a professional cellist and oddly passive Lothario. Its classical music milieu recalls 2022’s Tár, but Behemoth! is both far straighter and less weighty.

I enjoyed it as a film whose real star is its eclectic collage of musical genres that give rhythmic propulsion to its tale of an admittedly listless protagonist undergoing a midlife crisis. Although Pascal is the star, the show is stolen by an uproariously unhinged performance by Olivia Wilde.

Critics gave unanimous praise to Carol Morley’s semi-autobiographical depiction of post-punk Manchester, 7 Miles Out. But they reserved unanimous disdain for Klara and the Sun, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s speculative meditation on companionship, mortality and robot intelligence. Director Taika Waititi made the, shall we say, brave decision to translate the source novel’s compassionate understatement into whimsical farce, eschewing its sensitivity without any discernible gain in humour.

A few other films I found disappointing suggest a difficulty that contemporary culture has in narrating its own origin. One of these was Ink, Danny Boyle’s adaptation of the stage play charting the first year of Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of The Sun newspaper.

This was undoubtedly a fateful moment in the making of modern Britain, but the film’s hyperactive visual style fails to make up for its attention deficits as it skirts everything from the decline of deference to the sexual revolution, trade union power, the morality of sensationalism, demagogic populism and a kidnap plot that merits a separate film of its own.

Such confusion also mars Primetime, a dramatisation of NBC’s reality series To Catch a Predator and its unscrupulous quest for top ratings.

Much slower than either of these, but also failing to live up to its own self-importance, is Fjord, Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes winner about a Romanian family that emigrates to Norway only to find their conservative religious beliefs punished by the self-styled liberal state.

A few films got the balance between dramatic depth and political breadth right. One is Artificial, which casts Andrew Garfield in the role of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, portraying him as an evil schemer who sold artificial intelligence to the devil.

Another is Wild Horse Nine, a fictional black comedy from Martin McDonagh set in 1973 in pre-coup Chile. The plot revolves around a dysfunctional couple of CIA agents taking part in covert US operations to destabilise the Allende government. Played by Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich, the bickering agents take a trip to Easter Island so the elder of the pair can see the stone heads before he dies.

We can end however with a special commendation for a film whose depth is not achieved through the grandeur of its subject matter but its deliberate smallness. Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love begins with a documentary filmmaker assuring a sceptical producer that public interest exists for a film about corporate restructuring.

This opening forms in essence a bet that Possible Loves makes with its audience. The film follows the uneasy friendship between the documentarist and a working-class woman, its only plot point whether her monosyllabic and apparently violently troubled husband, who was laid off several years earlier, will consent to give an interview.

This deliberate smallness opens out onto the question of what remains when the great battle to save his job is long in the past, but whose resentment remains, determining family, class, friendship and self-worth in ways that are no less devastating for being intimately personal.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/london-film-festival-round-up-a-five-star-weepie-a-sweeping-spanish-epic-and-a-misspent-youth-in-post-punk-manchester/

When actor Christina Applegate revealed that she had been misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), she described the experience as “very unnerving” and “really confusing”.

For five years, MS had provided an explanation for her symptoms. Now, although those symptoms remained, the diagnosis that had helped her make sense of them was gone.

“I haven’t gotten better… If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways,” she explained. She also described feeling that she had lost the “reason” that had helped her make sense of her daily struggles.

Being told you don’t have a disease might seem like good news. But for someone living with symptoms, losing a diagnosis can mean losing an explanation for their suffering, along with the hope that explanation provides.

My ethnographic research into the experiences of people living with multiple conditions helps explain why. Through interviews and observations, I explored how diagnoses shape people’s understanding of their symptoms, their expectations for treatment and their sense of what the future might hold.

One participant in my London-based study had spent years living with debilitating back pain, struggling to get out of bed in the morning. After tests and referrals, a rheumatologist suggested that her symptoms might have an inflammatory cause.

Although this was only a possible diagnosis, it changed how she understood her condition. The specialist introduced medical terms that helped her make sense of symptoms that seemed confusing and unpredictable.

For the first time, there appeared to be an explanation for her suffering. The possibility of identifying an inflammatory condition also offered hope of treatment and specialist care.

But that hope was short-lived. Weeks later, a scan showed no evidence of the suspected inflammation. She was discharged from the clinic without the answers she had hoped for.

Her symptoms had not disappeared, and in the months that followed, her mental health deteriorated markedly.

Unlike Applegate, this participant had never received a confirmed diagnosis that was subsequently withdrawn. But both experiences reveal how much can be invested in a medical explanation, even before it is established.

For the woman in my study, the disappointing test result meant losing a possible way forward after years of uncertainty.

How diagnoses can shape experience

A diagnosis can influence much more than the treatment someone receives. It can also change how they interpret their symptoms and what they expect from their illness.

Research suggests that the attention we pay to bodily sensations can influence how we experience and report them.

In a 2024 experimental study, researchers found that repeatedly asking people about their symptoms increased the number they reported. This effect was particularly pronounced among people with higher levels of health anxiety or existing symptom distress.

These findings do not mean that symptoms are imagined or caused by receiving a diagnosis. They suggest that our awareness and interpretation of bodily sensations can be influenced by the circumstances in which we experience them.

A diagnosis can also create new fears.

When Applegate first received her MS diagnosis, she spoke about experiencing a profound depression and feeling fatalistic about her future.

People with physical health conditions have an increased risk of depression, although this can reflect many factors, including the effects of illness itself.

Another participant in my research described how her quality of life deteriorated after receiving a diagnosis of a chronic condition.

Before the diagnosis, her symptoms had been difficult to interpret. Afterwards, she increasingly understood them as possible signs of deterioration.

She felt that her quality of life had declined significantly following the diagnosis, rather than simply after the onset of her symptoms.

This illustrates how receiving a medical explanation can alter someone’s expectations about their future, particularly when a condition is presented as chronic or difficult to treat.

Research on nocebo effects offers one possible insight into the relationship between expectations and symptoms. Experimental studies have shown that negative expectations can increase experiences of pain through psychological and physiological processes.

This does not establish that the diagnosis caused my participant’s deterioration. However, it helps illustrate why the expectations surrounding illness deserve attention alongside its physical effects.

What happens when the diagnosis disappears

A diagnosis can provide access to treatment, but it may also offer recognition, reassurance and a sense of belonging.

Applegate has spoken about finding support within the MS community. Losing her diagnosis therefore raised questions extending beyond her medical treatment, including her place within a community that had become important to her.

For people with persistent symptoms, the absence of a diagnosis can also create difficulties in having their experiences understood and taken seriously.

Researchers studying unexplained symptoms have highlighted the disadvantages people can face when they lack a shared explanation for what they are experiencing.

This is why a negative test result does not necessarily resolve a patient’s difficulties. It may rule out one possible cause while leaving the symptoms, and the need for care, unchanged.

The challenge for healthcare professionals is to communicate diagnostic uncertainty without leaving patients feeling abandoned.

A 2024 study of GP consultations found that doctors varied considerably in how they explained plans for managing uncertain diagnoses. Some offered detailed guidance, while others provided less information about what patients should do if symptoms persisted or worsened.

For patients who have lost a diagnosis, continuing care might involve explaining why the original diagnosis has changed, acknowledging the distress that this can cause and agreeing on the next steps for investigation or symptom management.

These conversations also need to recognise that ruling out a particular disease does not invalidate the symptoms someone continues to experience.

Applegate’s experience illustrates something important about the role diagnoses play in people’s lives. They can shape how we understand our bodies, our relationships with others and our expectations for the future.

When a diagnosis is withdrawn, those understandings may have to be rebuilt, even as the symptoms that prompted the original investigation continue.

For doctors, the responsibility does not end when a diagnosis is ruled out. Patients still need help making sense of what is happening to them, especially when medicine cannot yet provide a clear answer.

For this research, Esca van Blarikom received funding from he National Institute for Health and Care Research ARC North Thames. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the National Institute for Health Research and Care or the Department of Health and Social Care. This work was also supported by funding from the Centre for Public Engagement at Queen Mary University of London and the Worshipful Company of Curriers.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/diagnostic-uncertainty-why-losing-a-diagnosis-can-be-as-difficult-as-receiving-one/

Moths seem to be made for Halloween. They’re largely nocturnal, often outlandish in appearance and bear creepy names such as Lunar Thorn, Cloaked Carpet, Bordered Gothic and (best of all) Puss Moth.

The webs of the ermine moth caterpillar cover trees like ghostly shrouds, while the hairy caterpillars of the oak processionary moth release rash-inducing toxins.

Spookiest of all is the Death’s-head Hawk-moth, which bears a skull-like mark on its thorax and can squeak like a mouse. This is the moth that appears, albeit in altered form, on the poster for the film The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Two historical prints held at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam speak to the long-held suspicion of moths within European society. In one work by the printmaker C. Galle, a group sets out with lamps to destroy moths before they can eat the crops (or produce caterpillars that do). In another, by Jan Luyken, women inspect the holes that moths have made in fabric. The Old English origins of the word “moth” denote a primarily destructive, parasitical creature.

Read more:
The Silence of the Lambs introduced the world to forensic entomology – but how much has the science changed since?

Meeting with moths

Unlike butterflies (who doesn’t like butterflies?) humans have always found moths hard to love. I certainly didn’t give moths much consideration until this year, when I started researching representations of moths and spending time with the moths themselves. I’ve since become something of a moth evangelist.

From March of this year my son and I set up a Skinner moth trap in our small suburban garden in Leicester, rising early every morning to identify the moths that visited during the night. My expectations were low, especially in the first few weeks, when we caught little. But then May and June came, and every morning brought new gifts. My son took charge of the counting and by September we had identified a hundred different species.

If you think moths are all small, brown creatures, think again. Even in the UK, and despite their rapidly decreasing numbers, moths are astonishingly diverse and outstandingly beautiful, ranging widely in size, colour and temperament. Some of them – most famously, the luminously pink and green Elephant Hawk-moth – are disarmingly cute and docile and will happily sit on your hand.

The art of moths

The magic of moths has attracted artists for centuries. A good place to start is the Flemish artist Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1601), whose delicate watercolour sketches of moths remain astonishingly lifelike. I especially like his depiction of the furry Hummingbird Hawk-moth: one of a few day-flying moths and one of a few species benefiting from recent rises in temperature.

Even more astonishing is the work of the pioneering German naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), who published three books detailing the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths (or what she called “summer-birds” and “moth-birds”). Merian’s elegantly composed images were the first to situate moths within their wider environment, identifying which species preferred which plants.

Outside of the world of natural history, moths have tended to be given a marginal role. However, some artists have been as drawn to moths as moths are drawn to light. In 1959, for example, the Scottish artist John Maxwell (1905-1962) painted a series of colourful, abstracted moth paintings, including Night Flowers and Garden at Night (Moth).

Moths are especially well served by contemporary artists. The Peruvian contemporary artist Lorena Solís Bravo has considered the moth through the lens of queer ecology. Their 2024 film myth, moth, mother celebrates the mystery and transformative power of moths. The Devon-based printmaker Sarah Gillespie, meanwhile, has created a series of mesmerising mezzotint prints of moths. “I wasn’t looking for moths when I started drawing them around ten years ago,” Gillespie has explained “they came and found me. Their numbers may be in appalling decline but for me their presence has become ever more insistent”.

More recently, the artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg unveiled The Length of a Moment, three public sculptures at Oxford North, which visualise the flight of a moth interacting with the scent of a flower. Situated in an area rich with historic meadows, this artwork draws attention to diminishing moth populations and the need for better environmental management.

My favourite moth in art, however, comes courtesy of the 18th-century Indian artist Shaikh Zain al–Din. The moth that appears in his 1778 watercolour is the famous Death’s-head Hawk-moth. Here, however, it lacks the sinister and spectral nature of the moth from The Silence of the Lambs. Instead Shaikh Zain al–Din gives us a moth just going about its everyday (or every night?) business.

This isn’t the moth as a symbol of death, or as a muncher of clothes or crops (of the circa 2,500 species of moth found in the UK, only two actually eat clothes). This is a moth doing what moths do well: feeding from and pollinating plants, providing food for birds and looking rather beautiful while doing so. This image is a timely reminder that moths are much less weird and way more wonderful than most people think.

Samuel Shaw has previously received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/moths-in-art-history-centuries-of-creativity-reveal-the-beauty-of-a-misunderstood-insect/

Climate change is increasing flood risk across the UK. As floods become more frequent and intense, communities are increasingly encouraged to become resilient and “live with water”. Yet in some flood-prone areas, residents are rejecting these calls, concerned that resilience is less about helping communities and more about transferring responsibility from institutions to citizens.

Resilience is often considered to be a positive idea. It suggests that people can adapt to uncertainty, to prepare for disruption, and recover quickly when floods strike. But my research suggests many communities are deeply uncomfortable with this messaging. Some reject it altogether.

My research with three flood action groups in north-west England drew on 17 semi-structured interviews and extensive participant observation over a five-year period.

One resident told me rather bluntly: “Resilience offers hope. But for me it’s false hope. A way of telling people, you’ll flood. What are you going to do about it?”

Debates about resilience reveal more fundamental concerns: who should bear responsibility for managing the consequences of climate change? And how much can reasonably be expected of citizens and communities?

For much of the 20th century, flood management was dominated by efforts to protect people and property through engineered defences, embankments and complex drainage systems. Though this approach continues to this day, governments and policymakers now also encourage people to “live with water”, accepting that some degree of flooding is inevitable. Property owners are advised to install flood doors, change flooring and fit water-resilient furniture and kitchens. They’re also encouraged to sign up for warnings, arrange adequate insurance cover and develop action plans for when the waters rise.

On the surface, this seems sensible. Who would not want communities that can recover quickly from disasters? Yet it can sit uncomfortably with many of those expected to become more resilient.

Read more:
Driving through water is the biggest cause of death during floods – here’s how it can happen

Many participants in our research expressed concern that resilience agendas shifted responsibility away from institutions onto communities. Several people I spoke to rejected the language of resilience because it implied they should adapt to repeated flooding and recover independently. As one participant reflected: “Resilience? It’s safe to say I’m not a fan. It’s all about you (pointing a finger at themselves). You’re the one with the problem.”

Some residents were particularly sceptical about interventions such as property level resilience measures, which have become increasingly important for community flood risk management. Many viewed these measures as sticking plasters rather than solutions to the underlying causes of recurring flood risk. As one flood action group leader explained, “people want to see spades in the ground. They want to see defences going in”.

Resilience is becoming politically contested

Though often presented as a technical solution, resilience has become a source of contestation and debate. Rather than accepting expert advice at face value, many residents challenged authorities, questioned planning decisions, and demanded greater accountability and investment in flood protection.

Such concerns do not occur in a vacuum. Many flood-affected communities have experienced prolonged pressure on public services and local government budgets. Against this context, calls to become more resilient can be interpreted as yet another expectation that communities manage problems that were once addressed collectively.

In particular, many objected to resilience when it appeared a substitute for investment, protection and institutional responsibility. As one interviewee put it: “All these agencies and the council, they’re telling us to be resilient. But what are they doing to help us be resilient and protect us? What are they doing to be resilient themselves?”

Adaptation is essential. But if the notion of resilience is to receive public acceptance, it can’t become a substitute for public investment and institutional accountability. Communities are more likely to embrace resilience when it’s a collaborative effort involving local authorities, agencies and community organisations. Resilience then becomes a shared responsibility, rather than an expectation placed upon residents.

Communities are not rejecting adaptation. But they are questioning approaches that ask them to live with water while feeling increasingly alone in dealing with its consequences.

Paul O’Hare does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/as-flood-risk-rises-some-communities-question-the-idea-of-resilience/

This year’s El Niño, the natural weather phenomenon that drives variations in temperature and winds across the Pacific, has prompted the UK government to pledge £15 million to help vulnerable countries such as Malawi, Kenya and Zambia prepare for droughts, floods and food shortages.

But the UK’s economic response will go beyond international aid. The Bank of England has identified El Niño as one of the key factors that could increase food inflation in 2027.

This connection between a climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean and supermarket prices (and possibly interest rates) in the UK is a clear demonstration of how extreme weather is an economic issue as well as an environmental one.

Environmentally speaking, the effects of El Niño can be devastating, bringing severe drought to some regions and severe flooding to others. And a stronger El Niño has a larger influence on global weather patterns than a weaker one.

This year’s event, already the strongest on record, is expected to peak later this year, and could cause global economic problems if it has a negative effect on major agricultural producers or transport routes.

Poor harvests can cause international agricultural prices to rise. Higher energy costs can simultaneously make fertiliser, processing and transportation more expensive.

The UK is particularly exposed to climate-related disruptions because of the international nature of its food supply (about 42% of its food is imported).

But these effects are rarely immediate. Many food manufacturers and retailers use risk management techniques to limit their exposure to sudden changes in prices, which can initially shield consumers from international shocks.

The Bank of England made this point explicitly, saying the potential effects of El Niño are likely to emerge gradually, rather than causing widespread food shortages or dramatic price rises.

And the central bank of Spain found that the effect of El Niño varies according to commodity, time period and agricultural policy.

For the most part, disasters with regard to food supply can be avoided with the right kind of human intervention. Businesses adapt. Farmers change production decisions. Trade shifts towards alternative suppliers. Governments intervene.

El Niño should therefore be viewed as a potential source of risk and volatility, rather than as a confident prediction that UK food prices must rise.

Everything everywhere

But what happens when several external shocks occur together?

The Bank of England has considered this possibility too, warning that a strong El Niño alongside renewed energy disruption could put much greater pressure on UK food prices.

If extreme weather also affects major shipping routes, the effects on import prices could become stronger still. This is where a climate event potentially becomes a monetary policy problem, as central banks treat El Niño as a factor that may cause them to raise interest rates.

In a recent meeting, the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee identified severe El Niño conditions as one possible source of additional pressure on agricultural prices, alongside energy markets and other global supply risks.

And this perhaps explains the thinking behind the UK government’s plan to help countries prepare for El Niño. The £15 million pledge announced in September 2026 is based on the idea of “anticipatory action”: releasing money before a predictable emergency rather than waiting until the economic damage has occurred.

The government says around 35% of humanitarian shocks can be predicted in advance, while less than 1% of global humanitarian funding currently goes towards anticipatory action.

Weather or not

There is a broader financial principle at work here.

If climate forecasts contain economically useful information, financial decisions can respond before losses actually occur.

So food importers can reconsider commodity and currency strategies to guard against shocks. Banks can incorporate weather-related supply disruption into their financial evaluations, and companies can stress-test supply chains against simultaneous commodity, energy and transportation shocks.

Governments can connect climate forecasting more closely with food security and planning for economic resilience.

And while they may not be able to predict exactly what El Niño will do to the price of a shopping basket, they can certainly act in a way that recognises the fact that information about future weather has financial value.

The UK government has shown that it is using weather forecasts to release humanitarian finance before disasters happen overseas. Those forecasts no longer provide key information just for meteorologists, farmers and fishing boats.

Increasingly, they contain vital financial data.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/23/how-el-nino-could-push-up-your-mortgage-and-grocery-bills/