Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Colleen Murrell, Chair of the Editorial Board, and Full Professor in Journalism, Dublin City University

The world’s media are currently busy recording the tales of released Israeli hostages, freed Palestinian prisoners and their families after a ceasefire came into effect for the war in Gaza. But they are doing so while still being held at a distance from the centre of the story.

Foreign journalists have been banned by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip independently since the start of the war. And senior members of the international media are not optimistic that access to Gaza will change any time soon.

I asked Phil Chetwynd, global news director at Agence France-Presse (AFP), why he thought Israel was so insistent at keeping out external reporters. He told me:

Any situation where independent media are kept out or targeted gives rise to questions about the motivation. We are told it is because of our safety, but we have been covering wars non-stop for the past 100 years. We are ready to assume the risks. Given the extraordinary high death toll of journalists in Gaza, we have to presume it is a deliberate attempt to stop media revealing the full impact of the war and the Israeli military campaign.

Read more:
How Israel continues to censor journalists covering the war in Gaza

He reflected on how AFP would like to plan its coverage.

Our Palestinian journalists have done an amazing job, but all our Gaza staff journalists were evacuated over a year ago. They would like to return. The Palestinian freelancers who work for us have also done incredible work, but they are absolutely exhausted after two years of conflict. So we need journalists to be able to enter the Gaza Strip – I do not make a distinction between Palestinian and international.

He added:

I think it is important to have fresh eyes on the situation on the ground. I would also say it is sometimes easier for international journalists to report more freely on the activities of Hamas.

Reporting on Gaza

For the past two years, the only access Israel has provided for foreign media to enter Gaza has been under embedded conditions with the Israeli military. In the weeks following the October 7 Hamas attacks in 2023, a number of British reporters including from the BBC and Channel 4 News did avail of this restricted coverage. American correspondents and news agencies have also taken up offers.

But this access has been sporadic and has favoured Israeli journalists. In August 2025, an ABC Australia team managed to secure an “embed” trip to the Kerem Shalom aid site in southern Gaza after repeated requests were turned down.

In his report, ABC’s Matthew Doran pointed out that embeds are “highly choreographed and controlled”. However, Doran explained that he accepted the trip as “an opportunity to gain access to a site Israel is using to prosecute its case it is trying to feed the population of Gaza – an argument the humanitarian community, and world leaders, argue is full of holes”.

Doran noted that the small embed trip included an Israeli media outlet, an Israeli writer and “a handful of social media influencers”, all eager to post pro-Israeli sentiments. Israel has consistently accused the international media of succumbing to Hamas propaganda.

A number of initiatives have been tried over the past 24 months to enable external reporters access to Gaza. The Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Jerusalem has challenged the restrictions in Israel’s supreme court.

On September 11, the FPA noted that it had been a full year since it submitted its second petition to the court. But despite the urgency, it said “the court has repeatedly agreed to the [Israeli] government’s request for delays and postponed one hearing after another”.

Read more:
Gaza: high numbers of journalists are being killed but it’s hard to prove they’re being targeted

Petitions have also been sent to the Israeli authorities with the backing of international media organisations and groups such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Both of these have coupled their campaigns with calls for an immediate end to the killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who have been the world’s only eyes on the conflict as witnessed by those under fire.

According to the CPJ’s Jodie Ginsberg, writing in the Guardian in August, more than 192 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. This number includes 26 journalists whom the CPJ believes have been targeted deliberately in “the deadliest conflict for journalists that we have ever documented”.

Israel has denied targeting journalists, except in cases where it has accused particular Palestinian journalists of being terrorists. The CPJ has argued in return that Israel should stop “its longstanding practice of labelling journalists as terrorists or engaging in militant activity, without providing sufficient and reliable evidence to support these claims”.

As recently as September, the BBC along with AFP, Associated Press and Reuters launched a film calling on the Israeli authorities to allow the international press access to Gaza. It noted the media’s part in informing the world about the D-Day landings, the Vietnam war, the Ethiopian famine, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Rwandan genocide, the Syrian refugee crisis and the current conflict in Ukraine.

David Dimbleby’s narration calls on Israel to allow international reporters in, “to share the burden with Palestinian reporters there so we can all bring the facts to the world”.

But looking at the current stalemate, a cynic might ponder if the the first open access to Gaza will be to the Washington press caravanserai that will surely be allowed in to document the rebuilding of Gaza into a Trump-envisioned riviera.

Colleen Murrell has received funding from Irish regulator Coimisiún na Meán (2021-4) for research for the annual Reuters Digital News Report Ireland.

– ref. Israel is still not allowing international media back into Gaza, despite the ceasefire – https://theconversation.com/israel-is-still-not-allowing-international-media-back-into-gaza-despite-the-ceasefire-267356

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joseph Mellors, Research Associate in Management and Marketing, University of Westminster

If you ask an AI service like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to recommend a destination for your next summer holiday, it will happily provide you with a list of attractive destinations. But many of them will be very familiar.

Paris, Venice, Santorini and Barcelona are all likely to feature, because the AI algorithm is nudging you towards the same old places. The illusion of personalised advice is what makes people less likely to question it – and why AI risks intensifying overtourism.

And the use of AI for holiday inspiration is growing fast. A recent survey found it has doubled in the past year, with uptake strongest among younger travellers. Nearly one in five Britons aged 25–34 now turn to AI tools to plan their trips.

In my own research, I analysed ChatGPT’s travel recommendations and found that it gravitates towards the most visited destinations by default. Lesser-known or more sustainable locations only tend to appear when travellers explicitly ask for them.

This could easily exacerbate the overtourism which is already testing the limits of many residents in highly visited places. In Mallorca, locals are demanding limits on flights and holiday rentals, while Venice introduced a day-tripper fee in an attempt to manage visitor pressure.

AI will quickly add to that pressure if millions of holiday makers make plans using the same online filters and tips. These algorithms are trained on what’s most visible online – reviews, blogs and social media hashtags – so quickly focus on what’s already popular.

And if travellers simply accept the defaults, the result will be more of the same, and more strain on places already under pressure.

But consumers aren’t entirely powerless. With a bit more intent, AI research can yield different and fascinating destinations.

My research suggests that discerning travellers need to start by asking better and more searching questions. Generic prompts such as “the best beaches in Europe” or “beautiful city” lead straight to the same results.

Instead, try something like: “Which towns are reachable by train but overlooked in most guides?” Or maybe: “Where can I go in July that’s not a major tourist hotspot?”

Push the system, ask follow-up questions and scroll past the first few results. That’s where the surprises often lie.

You could also change your timings. AI tends to focus on peak season because that’s when the most online reviews are posted and the most travel content is published.

Asking about off-peak months is a simple way to beat this built-in bias, so perhaps specify the Italian lakes in October or the Greek islands in May.

Or ask AI to dig a little deeper for its source material. AI draws heavily on English-language content, which favours international hot spots, but is also capable of finding independent travel blogs or local tourism cooperatives.

Type in something like “Spanish-language blogs about Asturias” or “community-run agritourism in Slovenia” and you could unearth something rewarding and off the beaten track. This is the kind of thing that can really unearth the vast potential benefits of AI and its capabilities.

The road less travelled

It could also easily help you to compare the costs and timings of various travel options, and assess the carbon footprint of your journey. It just requires a little bit of digging to get past the surface layer.

After all, these systems are designed to serve up the most obvious and well-documented suggestions, not what’s diverse or sustainable. (Although the same technology could just as easily be coded slightly differently to show rail travel before air for example, or to prioritise locally run independent businesses.)

So while the convenience of AI is seductive, it can also be predictable. If your holiday plans could be copy-pasted from Instagram, any sense of adventure can easily get left behind.

Consider using AI as a starting point, not the final word. Guidebooks, local media and conversations with residents restore the unpredictability that makes travel memorable.

By asking sharper questions, shifting their timing, checking footprints and seeking local voices, travellers can use AI as a tool for discovery rather than congestion. Every prompt is a signal to the system about what matters.

The next time you ask ChatGPT where to go, make it work a bit harder. Test it, argue with it and use its extraordinary capabilities to find somewhere new – or settle for the same crowded itinerary as everyone else.

Joseph Mellors 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.

– ref. How to use AI to guide your holiday plans – by a tourism expert – https://theconversation.com/how-to-use-ai-to-guide-your-holiday-plans-by-a-tourism-expert-267277

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kai Li Lim, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia and Research Fellow in E-Mobility, The University of Queensland

More public electric vehicle (EV) chargers will be built across Australia through a A$40 million funding boost, according to a recent government announcement. The new chargers will be a mix of fast chargers and kerbside chargers.

More chargers should mean more confidence for drivers to make the switch to EVs. But as researchers who study charging networks, we see a critical design flaw. The government is focusing on expanding the number of chargers. The problem is ensuring chargers actually do what they should: charge your car.

Most EV drivers charge at home. But when they use the public network, they need to know the charger is working. To track this, the government uses a metric called “uptime”, requiring chargers to be online 98% of the time. That sounds good. But it only measures whether a charger is connected to the network – not whether you can actually use it.

Fixing this gap will be essential to give motorists confidence in EV chargers – and speed up the slow shift to electric transport.

The uptime fallacy

Imagine you’re on a long road trip. You pull into a regional town, low on charge, and find the only fast charger is blocked by a petrol car. Or maybe the payment system is down. Or the cable has been vandalised. Or the charger simply refuses to “talk” to your car, failing the digital handshake needed to start a session.

For all these cases, the charger would still pass the uptime test. It’s online, communicating with its network. But it’s not actually able to do what drivers need it to do: charge the battery.

These issues are now common in Australia, especially the failed handshake problem where charging attempts fail right after they begin due to a communication problem between car and charger.

Australia has limited data on the prevalence of the problem. Our analysis of DC fast chargers funded by the Californian government shows the scale of the problem in a similar market. We found that while charger networks reported roughly 95–98% uptime, the chance of drivers successfully charging was substantially lower at 75–83%.

Public chargers aren’t just convenience – they’re essential

Around 80% of EV charging happens at home or at work in Australia.

But the public network is a lifeline for three crucial groups.

First, the millions of people who live in apartments (about 10% of the population as of 2021) or homes without off-street parking (about 25%). For them, public kerbside chargers aren’t a backup – they’re essential.

Second are the long-distance drivers who depend on highway fast chargers to travel between cities and towns. At present, our charger locations don’t always match up with where people actually want to drive and charge. This creates potential charging deserts. A single broken charger in one of these low-access areas can ruin a family holiday or a crucial work trip.

The third group is the growing number of freight and fleet operators shifting to electric vans and trucks. Charging reliability directly affects logistics schedules and business costs.

For all these users, charger reliability is especially important. Uptime won’t cut it.

Most popular EV charger apps rely on uptime as a way to show charger reliability, but some apps go beyond this to show more useful data, such as the last successful charge. Drivers can feel more secure choosing a charger proven to have recently delivered a successful charge.

Reliability beyond uptime

One solution is to shift away from a reliance on uptime and use a better metric.

In the United States, a large industry consortium recently hashed out what this might look like. Our research contributed to one of the outcomes: new customer-focused KPIs (key performance indicators) for chargers.

How do they work? Rather than relying on network data showing a charger is online, these KPIs draw in multiple sources of data, such as:

• using charger reviews to quickly spot repeat failures such as blocked charging, payment glitches and safety issues
• using vehicle and charger telemetry to pinpoint where and why charging sessions fail (while protecting privacy)
• regular on-site audits for damage, accessibility, lighting and the ease of locating the charger to catch issues missed by data
• verifying these data sources by comparing reported uptime with actual charging success rates.

Better still, by combining this data with maintenance logs and weather patterns, we can build predictive models to forecast when a charger is likely to fail and schedule proactive repairs.

This rigorous approach would give drivers far better confidence in public chargers.

Australia could easily adopt a similar approach, given the data, partners and capabilities already exist.

The first step would be a proof-of-concept to demonstrate how to fuse data from networks, vehicle telemetry and user check-ins and reviews with real world audits. Next would be publishing an open standard for charger KPIs and work with states and networks to roll it out nationally.

Boost security

A truly reliable network must also be secure. In the US, vandalism and copper theft have become real issues. One operator has installed GPS trackers in its charging cables. Thankfully, Australia hasn’t yet seen these issues at the same scale. But it would be naive to think our network is immune. As the charger network grows, so does its vulnerability.

The solutions are to invest in proactive measures such as good lighting, CCTV and tamper-proof designs, as seen across Norway and other leading EV nations.

If these problems escalate in Australia, it will be another source of charger anxiety, where drivers fear being left with a drained battery far from home. The end result will be that more drivers stick with petrol cars or choose plug-in hybrids.

Kai Li Lim currently receives funding from the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads and has previously received funding from sources including Energy Consumers Australia and the StB Capital Partners.

Tisura Gamage receives funding from the National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST).

– ref. Blocked bays and failed handshakes: many public EV chargers are unusable – despite being ‘online’ – https://theconversation.com/blocked-bays-and-failed-handshakes-many-public-ev-chargers-are-unusable-despite-being-online-239402

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rafiqa Qurrata A’yun, Assistant Professor, Universitas Indonesia – Associate, CILIS, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne

Mass protests against the greed of politicians led to protests in late August across Indonesia, calling for major reforms to the political system and police force. Civil society groups played a key role in these events.

The protests were triggered by the plans of well-paid politicians in Indonesia’s House of Representatives to enormously increase their housing allowances. Their subsequent ridicule of public criticism only inflamed the situation.

When the protests resulted in casualties – in particular, the death of a motorcycle taxi driver run over by a police vehicle – the public anger grew, leading to riots. Public buildings, including police stations and regional legislatures, were set on fire, and the homes of some prominent politicians looted.

Police have since launched a huge crackdown involving systematic hunts for activists.

By late September, police had detained thousands of protesters and named 959 suspects (equivalent to being charged in the Australian system). They included 295 children, mostly high school students.

Among those who have been detained are young activists who played a significant role in organising and promoting the protests. These include:

• Delpedro Marhaen, head of the human rights organisation Lokataru Foundation
• Syahdan Husein, an activist associated with the student movement Gejayan Memanggil
• Muhammad Fakhrurrozi, an activist affiliated with the Social Movement Institute in Yogyakarta.

They have all been charged with incitement of violence under the Criminal Code and the vaguely worded Electronic Information and Transactions Law.

A TikToker, Figha Lesmana, also faces charges of incitement for posting an innocuous video calling on people to join the protests.

In addition, civil society organisations claim two people disappeared during a protest in Jakarta on August 29. Police say they are still trying to locate them.

Indonesia’s senior legal minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, has defended the police. He claims it would be impossible for police to arrest thousands of individuals without just cause.

However, civil society organisations say this is exactly what happened, citing the absence of a clear legal basis for many arrests, along with accusations of police misconduct. Legal aid activists say some activists were allegedly tortured to obtain forced confessions of involvement in the riots.

Rights groups also say police are seizing books they claim are subversive to use as evidence to support their arrests. These include works by Oscar Wilde and a respected Indonesian priest, Franz Magnis-Suseno.

These groups say the suspects have also been denied the right to choose their own lawyers, instead being forced to use those selected by the police.

Government responses

President Prabowo Subianto’s office has issued no statements on the arrests of civil society leaders. Prabowo is, however, appointing a commission to accelerate reform of the national police following public demands in the wake of the protests.

The national police chief has also established a new group tasked with reforming the force, comprised of more than 50 officers and advised by academics and NGO activists.

However, civil society groups have questioned the clarity and seriousness of these reform efforts, especially considering the vast majority of the members of the latter group are police themselves.

In addition, the police chief has recently issued a new regulation expanding the use of coercive measures, including firearms, in response to so-called “attacks” on the police.

Many fear this will be used to justify excessive use of force against future protestors.

What’s next?

It is unlikely the August protests will be the last. None of the underlying issues that triggered them – poor policy-making, growing poverty, the greed of politicians and police misconduct – have been resolved. The protesters’ demands, summarised in their manifesto, remain largely unaddressed.

In fact, the recent arrests suggest authorities expect more trouble. Although many of those arrested were subsequently released, their detentions still serve as an intimidating warning to civil society.

The authorities clearly believe the protest movement can expand its influence through social media. So their actions are, in fact, aimed at the broader public, particularly high school and university students, who might otherwise back future protests led by the activists.

Moreover, the arrests have kept civil society groups busy addressing the criminal charges faced by hundreds of detainees. This has diverted attention from the primary objectives of the broader protest movement.

The crackdown has major implications for Indonesia’s future. Civil society organisations are the engines for policy development in the country. They also play a vital role in monitoring government and holding it to account.

The democratic regression Indonesia has experienced over the last decade has undermined many of checks and balances that constrained earlier administrations. If civil society now becomes unable to act freely, there will be very little left to rein in the politicians whose misbehaviour sparked the riots in the first place.

Rafiqa Qurrata A’yun received funding from the Australia Awards Hadi Soesastro Prize.

Tim Lindsey receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Indonesian police arrested hundreds after August riots, sending a chill through civil society – https://theconversation.com/indonesian-police-arrested-hundreds-after-august-riots-sending-a-chill-through-civil-society-267100

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Pope, Associate Professor, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Macquarie University

After Christmas dinner in 2021, our family was glued to the television, watching the nail-biting launch of NASA’s US$10 billion (AU$15 billion) James Webb Space Telescope. There had not been such a leap forward in telescope technology since Hubble was launched in 1990.

En route to its deployment, Webb had to successfully navigate 344 potential points of failure. Thankfully, the launch went better than expected, and we could finally breathe again.

Six months later, Webb’s first images were revealed, of the most distant galaxies yet seen. However, for our team in Australia, the work was only beginning.

We would be using Webb’s highest-resolution mode, called the aperture masking interferometer or AMI for short. It’s a tiny piece of precisely machined metal that slots into one of the telescope’s cameras, enhancing its resolution.

Our results on painstakingly testing and enhancing AMI are now released on the open-access archive arXiv in a pair of papers. We can finally present its first successful observations of stars, planets, moons and even black hole jets.

Working with an instrument a million kilometres away

Hubble started its life seeing out of focus – its mirror had been ground precisely, but incorrectly. By looking at known stars and comparing the ideal and measured images (exactly like what optometrists do), it was possible to figure out a “prescription” for this optical error and design a lens to compensate.

The correction required seven astronauts to fly up on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1993 to install the new optics. Hubble orbits Earth just a few hundred kilometres above the surface, and can be reached by astronauts.

By contrast, Webb is roughly 1.5 million kilometres away – we can’t visit and service it, and need to be able to fix issues without changing any hardware.

This is where AMI comes in. This is the only Australian hardware on board, designed by astronomer Peter Tuthill.

It was put on Webb to diagnose and measure any blur in its images. Even nanometres of distortion in Webb’s 18 hexagonal primary mirrors and many internal surfaces will blur the images enough to hinder the study of planets or black holes, where sensitivity and resolution are key.

AMI filters the light with a carefully structured pattern of holes in a simple metal plate, to make it much easier to tell if there are any optical misalignments.

Hunting blurry pixels

We wanted to use this mode to observe the birth places of planets, as well as material being sucked into black holes. But before any of this, AMI showed Webb wasn’t working entirely as hoped.

At very fine resolution – at the level of individual pixels – all the images were slightly blurry due to an electronic effect: brighter pixels leaking into their darker neighbours.

This is not a mistake or flaw, but a fundamental feature of infrared cameras that turned out to be unexpectedly serious for Webb.

This was a dealbreaker for seeing distant planets many thousands of times fainter than their stars a few pixels away: my colleagues quickly showed that its limits were more than ten times worse than hoped.

So, we set out to correct it.

How we sharpened Webb’s vision

In a new paper led by University of Sydney PhD student Louis Desdoigts, we looked at stars with AMI to learn and correct the optical and electronic distortions simultaneously.

We built a computer model to simulate AMI’s optical physics, with flexibility about the shapes of the mirrors and apertures and about the colours of the stars.

We connected this to a machine learning model to represent the electronics with an “effective detector model” – where we only care about how well it can reproduce the data, not about why.

After training and validation on some test stars, this setup allowed us to calculate and undo the blur in other data, restoring AMI to full function. It doesn’t change what Webb does in space, but rather corrects the data during processing.

It worked beautifully – the star HD 206893 hosts a faint planet and the reddest-known brown dwarf (an object between a star and a planet). They were known but out of reach with Webb before applying this correction. Now, both little dots popped out clearly in our new maps of the system.

This correction has opened the door to using AMI to prospect for unknown planets at previously impossible resolutions and sensitivities.

It works not just on dots

In a companion paper by University of Sydney PhD student Max Charles, we applied this to looking not just at dots – even if these dots are planets – but forming complex images at the highest resolution made with Webb. We revisited well-studied targets that push the limits of the telescope, testing its performance.

With the new correction, we brought Jupiter’s moon Io into focus, clearly tracking its volcanoes as it rotates over an hour-long timelapse.

As seen by AMI, the jet launched from the black hole at the centre of the galaxy NGC 1068 closely matched images from much-larger telescopes.

Finally, AMI can sharply resolve a ribbon of dust around a pair of stars called WR 137, a faint cousin of the spectacular Apep system, lining up with theory.

The code built for AMI is a demo for much more complex cameras on Webb and its follow-up, Roman space telescope. These tools demand an optical calibration so fine, it’s just a fraction of a nanometre – beyond the capacity of any known materials.

Our work shows that if we can measure, control, and correct the materials we do have to work with, we can still hope to find Earth-like planets in the far reaches of our galaxy.

Benjamin Pope receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Big Questions Institute.

– ref. How we sharpened the James Webb telescope’s vision from a million kilometres away – https://theconversation.com/how-we-sharpened-the-james-webb-telescopes-vision-from-a-million-kilometres-away-262510

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Victoria Souliman, Lecturer, French and Francophone Studies, University of Sydney

When art historian Linda Nochlin famously asked “why have there been no great women artists?” in 1971, her point wasn’t that women lacked talent. It was that the art world had systematically excluded and erased them from history.

In the 50 years since, scholars and curators have worked to reclaim these forgotten women artists. But change has been slow.

The Guerrilla Girls’ activism in the 1980s, the Countess Report’s damning statistics on gender inequality in Australian galleries, and the National Gallery of Australia’s recent Know My Name initiative show the fight for recognition is ongoing.

Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940 marks an exciting new chapter in this project. The new exhibition, from the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, makes a groundbreaking contribution to recovering the stories of overlooked women artists.

Read more:
Why weren’t there any great women artists? In gratitude to Linda Nochlin

The global stage

With 222 works from 34 collections, Dangerously Modern celebrates the boldness and resilience of the first wave of professional Australian women artists who left for Europe between the turn of the 20th century and the second world war.

They went seeking advanced artistic training and the chance to compete on the global stage. Their time abroad was transformative.

Intimate portraits and domestic interiors by Florence Fuller (1867–1946) and Bessie Davidson (1879–1965) capture moments of quiet reflection. These artists navigated unfamiliar cultures, engaged with cutting-edge artistic movements and built new creative networks.

They lived far from home and maintained connections across two continents – often celebrated in one and forgotten in the other.

The exhibition sheds light on these expatriate artists. They engaged in artistic communities from bustling cosmopolitan centres like Paris and London to regional France, England, Ireland and North Africa.

It reveals the variety of artistic styles in which they worked while weaving together five themes that explore human experience and artistic purpose.

Truly modern

Bold and vibrant paintings by artists like Iso Rae (1860–1940) show their engagement with modern artistic movements.

Through painting en plein air (outdoors) and post-impressionist techniques (using vivid colours and expressive brushstrokes), these women expressed their own experience of modern life. For some, this included portraying their female lovers.

Art can help heal personal trauma. Here, in particular, these women looked at the devastation of war.

The pairing of paintings by Hilda Rix Nicholas (1884–1961) is especially powerful: The Pink Scarf (1913) glows with light, texture and delicate beauty; These Gave the World Away (1917) depicts her husband’s lifeless body on the battlefield.

By retracing the achievements and journeys of 50 expatriate women artists, the exhibition presents works never seen before in Australia. From the celebrated New Zealand artist Edith Collier (1885–1964), Girl in the Sunshine (c.1915) is notable for its bold use of colour, flattened perspective and simplified forms.

It also features works that haven’t been seen in Australia for over a century. A winter morning on the coast of France (1888) by Eleanor Ritchie Harrison (1854–95) was recently rediscovered and donated to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The exhibition also reunites works by artist friends who painted side by side.

Women at the forefront

We are privy to moments of breakthrough in these artists’ creativity and careers.

The exhibition brings together landscapes Grace Crowley (1890–1979), Anne Dangar (1885–1951) and Dorrit Black (1891–1951) painted together in 1928 while studying under the French artist André Lhote (1885–1962) in the hilltop village of Mirmande in southeastern France.

These works, to which the artists applied cubist principles (breaking down forms into geometric shapes and showing multiple perspectives), testify to both artistic freedom and each woman’s individual vision and skill.

Though such works placed them at the forefront of French modern art movements, these artists were largely overlooked back in Australia.

Why? At the time, Australia’s conservative art establishment promoted a nationalist agenda. They favoured masculine depictions of labour and Australian landscapes painted by male artists working in Australia.

This elite group marginalised not only women artists but also expatriates who participated in international artistic developments. The resulting nationalist narrative long overlooked the themes this exhibition explores.

Nora Heysen (1911–2003), daughter of celebrated landscape painter Hans Heysen, exemplifies this dual marginalisation. Despite becoming the first woman and youngest artist to win the Archibald Prize in 1938, her self-portraits – which reveal her search for identity and assertion during her London years – remained hidden from public view until the 1990s.

When Thea Proctor (1879–1966) returned to Sydney from London in the 1920s, she wrote, as the catalogue quotes, “it seemed very funny to me to be regarded by some people here as dangerously modern”.

“Dangerously modern” perfectly captures the spirit of the exhibition. These expatriate women artists were seen as threats to tradition, gender roles and to the prevailing definition of what Australian art should be.

Beyond reclaiming the place of these women in the history of Australian art, the exhibition emphasises the importance of migration in shaping artistic identity.

By recognising works created abroad as integral to Australia’s artistic story, this exhibition transforms how we understand both Australian art and modernism as a global movement.

Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940 is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until February 15 2026.

Victoria Souliman 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.

– ref. These Australian women modernist painters were overlooked, and forgotten. A century later, they are in the spotlight – https://theconversation.com/these-australian-women-modernist-painters-were-overlooked-and-forgotten-a-century-later-they-are-in-the-spotlight-266149

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toby Murray, Professor of Cybersecurity, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

Australians are once again being warned to tighten their online security and be extra alert to scammers, after up to 5.7 million Qantas customers’ personal details – including phone numbers and birthdays – were leaked to the dark web on Sunday.

Cyber crime supergroup Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters accessed the data back in June by convincing a Manila-based call centre operator to give the hackers access to their Salesforce system.

On Monday, federal Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke said: “You can’t simply outsource to other companies and think suddenly you’ve got no obligations on cyber security… There are very serious penalties.”

But what are those potential penalties for Qantas? And why is a corporate watchdog warning about even more serious data theft risks when Australian finance companies outsource their work overseas?

What penalties could Qantas face?

Law firm Maurice Blackburn has lodged a complaint over the Qantas data breach with Australia’s independent privacy regulator – the Office of the Information Commissioner – alleging the airline breached privacy laws by failing to adequately protect customer information.

When asked by the ABC, the commissioner’s office wouldn’t comment on whether Qantas would be fined over this latest breach.

So how much is the maximum fine for breaches like this?

Under the Privacy Act, serious or repeated privacy breaches can now incur fines of up to A$50 million or 30% of a company’s adjusted turnover during the period of the breach – whichever is greater.

This Qantas data breach is less serious than those that hit Optus and Medibank in 2022. For instance, hackers shared Medibank customers’ highly sensitive medical history data, and stole valuable identity document data, including credit card, passport and driver’s licence details. That matter is still before the courts.

While the Qantas data was still sensitive – including customers’ dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses, emails and frequent flyer numbers – it presents less of a risk for individual customers.

Besides penalties under the Privacy Act, Qantas also faces a potential class action, which affected Qantas customers can join.

Another potential outcome for Qantas could be a court-ordered payment scheme, in which individuals affected by the breach may be eventually entitled to compensation from Qantas.

We saw a similar arrangement for Facebook users affected by the Cambridge Analytica data breach a decade ago.

What are the rules for companies sharing your data overseas?

The Australian Privacy Act has specific provisions covering how companies handle your data when they send it overseas.

Importantly, when an Australian company gives your data to an offshore entity, the Australian company remains accountable for ensuring your data is kept safe.

This is why it’s important for Australian companies to consider carefully the potential risks of sending Australians’ data overseas.

These risks should be front of mind for Qantas, which in 2024 suffered a much smaller data breach due to alleged misbehaviour of overseas contractors.

However, these risks extend well beyond flagship companies such as Qantas.

Warnings over even more sensitive data

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) regulates Australian markets and financial services companies. Only days ago, it warned of “governance gaps” when financial services companies outsource work overseas – and potentially put Australians’ sensitive data at risk.

This year, ASIC has taken separate court action against Fortnum Private Wealth and FIIG Securities, alleging they failed to manage cybersecurity risks affecting thousands of customers.

In FIIG’s case, ASIC alleges a hacker was able to steal sensitive data including passport, bank account and tax file numbers. Those court cases are yet to be heard.

The finance sector – including banks, financial advisors and superannuation funds – consistently reports the third highest number of data breaches, after the health sector and government.

What we all need to do next

As individuals, we have relatively little control over how Australian companies handle our data, let alone the overseas companies they work with. But we can all do more to make ourselves more secure.

Be on scam watch: given how many Australians were exposed in the Qantas breach, be on the lookout now for scammers.

History suggests scammers target data breach victims, or people who think they may have been impacted by a data breach. If you receive a message you suspect is a scam, don’t respond – report it to Scamwatch.

Practise good “cyber hygiene”: avoid using the same password on multiple websites. Instead, use a password manager that saves your passwords across your computer and mobile phone.

That way, if your data is breached at Company A, it has less chance of impacting your security with Company B.

Companies need to step up too: Australian company executives would do well to ensure their governance, risk and compliance practices are up to scratch, especially on how they manage third-party risks.

As consumers, we entrust our cyber security to all of the companies with whom we interact. Those companies, in turn, owe it to us to ensure the drive to maximise profits doesn’t come at the cost of leaving customers worse off.

Toby Murray receives funding from the Department of Defence and Google. He is Director of the Defence Science Institute, which receives funding from the Commonwealth and State governments.

– ref. Beyond Qantas’ data leak, Australian finance companies are also at risk of offshore hacks – https://theconversation.com/beyond-qantas-data-leak-australian-finance-companies-are-also-at-risk-of-offshore-hacks-267311

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Fountaine, Associate Professor of Communication, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

There’s a telling moment in the documentary film Prime Minister when Jacinda Ardern reflects on her rapid rise from Labour leader to prime minister, saying she had “no time to redesign myself […] I could only be myself”.

This reference to her “true” self signals a commitment to political authenticity, a thread that runs through the award-winning documentary about Ardern’s remarkable time in office.

But in political communication, authenticity is seldom straightforward.
It is primarily understood as a “performance” of self, usually by politicians for voters, and filtered by news and social media.

Skilled politicians – on the right as much as the left – know this. And voters, too, can accept things as simultaneously “real” and manufactured.

By drawing from behind-the-scenes footage shot by Ardern’s partner and producer Clarke Gayford, and from recordings for the Political Diary Oral History Project, Prime Minister is a showcase for certain key strategies of “performed” authenticity.

This is not to say Ardern is “faking it” or that the documentary feels contrived. After all, the goal of the authentic politician is to minimise any differences between their public and private performances of self.

Consistency and ordinariness

In an increasingly mediated world, the desire for authenticity – what is perceived as honest and real – is a powerful social force. From early in her career, Ardern has understood this, presenting herself as relatable and likeable on her popular social media channels.

This consistency is commonly regarded as the central strategy of political authenticity. We see it in the film’s repeated use of footage that captures Ardern’s political values.

There’s her maiden speech to parliament about her passion for social justice, and official speeches and election rallies containing messages of kindness and compassion.

These are reinforced with childhood photos and a car trip down the street where she grew up, allowing Ardern to establish the stability of her inner self.

Conveying a sense of ordinariness is another way to build political authenticity. In Prime Minister, we see Ardern in her slippers and engaging in recognisably ordinary activities, usually involving daughter Neve: feeding, bedtime and kite flying.

The dated backdrop of the family’s private apartment at Government House adds to this impression of the commonplace. So does footage shot in their modest Auckland home, with all the usual mess of family life on display.

Motherhood is the most accessible source of ordinariness in a documentary about Ardern’s prime ministership. And it contrasts with the public events of her time in office – the Christchurch terror attack, Whakaari/White Island and the pandemic – that are so clearly extraordinary.

By regularly interspersing images of a seemingly normal home life with shots of official meetings and state dinners, Prime Minister helps defuse the tension between the ordinary and extraordinary that challenges many politicians in their quest to appear authentic.

Immediacy and intimacy

A perception of authenticity is also supported by an impression of immediacy in political communication – the creation of a shared sense of the “here and now”.

Prime Minister taps into a common cultural experience by including memorable television footage, such as the daily COVID updates. This is reinforced with scenes from Ardern’s current life in the United States, from where she responds to audio recordings made during her prime ministership.

Thanks to Gayford’s home recordings, we also hear about Ardern’s anxiety levels and sleeping problems. The visuals confirm she is tired. These recordings are not always flattering, which adds to their apparent authenticity.

The audience also gains a kind of political backstage pass, watching Ardern prepare to announce the first pandemic lockdown, distribute presents at a staff Christmas party, and attempt to work in her noisy office during the parliamentary protests.

Learning about Ardern’s pregnancy before she officially announces it, and later hearing her joke about wanting to hit opposition leader Simon Bridges after a parliamentary exchange about the Auckland lockdowns, contribute to the sense of intimate access promised by the documentary’s promotional material.

Authenticity to the left and right

All in all, Prime Minister is a compelling performance of political authenticity, complete with its own publicity machine.

But many politicians, from across the ideological spectrum, are working to convince voters of their authenticity in a time when that virtue is under attack from fake news, generative AI and disinformation.

Populist politicians who try to position themselves as “truth tellers” have a particular need to present as authentic. In fact, consistency as a tool of authenticity does not require the steadfastly “positive” attributes exhibited by Ardern in Prime Minister.

Politicians such as Auckland mayor Wayne Brown build authenticity by being consistently abrasive and outspoken.

US President Donald Trump is sometimes described as “consistently inconsistent”. But his rhetoric regularly makes use of the same recognisable words, phrases and inflections, providing regular fodder for comedians and impersonators.

How audiences respond to politicians’ performances of authenticity is ultimately influenced by their political attitudes and party identifications, as well as exposure to political information across different media.

And research shows people who regularly watch mainstream television news and view or follow political candidates’ social media accounts are primed to perceive politicians as more authentic.

But one of the paradoxes of performed authenticity is that audiences can simultaneously perceive communication as “real” while recognising it as a manipulation.

Perhaps authentic politicians are especially alert to this. If you watch Prime Minister, look out for scene where Ardern calls out Gayford for faking the housework.

Susan Fountaine 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.

– ref. Savvy politicians know how to ‘perform’ authenticity – the Jacinda Ardern doco offers a masterclass – https://theconversation.com/savvy-politicians-know-how-to-perform-authenticity-the-jacinda-ardern-doco-offers-a-masterclass-267091

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Yue Zhang, Associate Professor, Technology and Innovation, University of Technology Sydney

The trade dispute between the United States and China has resumed. US President Donald Trump lashed out at the weekend at Beijing’s planned tightening of restrictions over crucial rare-earth minerals.

In response, Trump has threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese imports.

But with the higher tariff rate not due to start until November 1, and the Chinese controls on December 1, there is still time for negotiation.

This is no longer a trade dispute; it has escalated into a race for control over supply chains, and the rules that govern global trade.

For Australia, this provides an opening to build capacity at home in minerals refining and rare-earths processing. But we also need to keep access to our biggest market – China.

A long-running battle

Since 2018, the US has sought to choke off China’s access to semiconductors and chipmaking tools by restricting exports.

China last week tightened its export controls on rare earth minerals that are essential for the technology, automotive and defence industries. Foreign companies now need permission to export products that derive as little as 0.1% of their value from China-sourced rare earths.

Rare earths are essential to many modern technologies. They enable high-performance magnets for EVs and wind turbines, lasers in advanced weapons, and the polishing of semiconductor wafers. An F-35 fighter jet contains about 417 kilograms of rare earths.

By targeting inputs rather than finished goods, China extends its reach across production lines in any foreign factories that use Chinese rare earths in chips (including AI), automotive, defence and consumer electronics.

Who holds the upper hand: chips or rare earths?

The US plan is simple: control the key tools and software for making top-end semiconductor chips so China can’t move as fast on cutting-edge technology.

Under that pressure, China is filling the gaps. It’s far more self-sufficient in chips than ten years ago. It now makes more of its own tools and software, and produces “good-enough” chips for cars, factories and gadgets to withstand US sanctions.

Rare earths aren’t literally “rare”; their value lies in complex, costly and polluting separation and purification processes. China has cornered the industry, helped by industry policies and subsidies. China accounts for 60–70% of all mining and more than 90% of rare earths refining.

Its dominance reflects decades-long investment, scale and an early willingness to bear heavy environmental costs. Building a China-free supply chain will take years, even if Western countries can coordinate smoothly.

A window for Australia?

Australia is seen as a potential beneficiary. As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to meet Trump on October 20 in Washington, many argue the rare-earths clash offers a diplomatic opening.

Trade Minister Don Farrell says Australia is a reliable supplier that can “provide alternatives to the rest of the world”. Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, has made the same case.

The logic seems compelling: leverage Australia’s mineral wealth for strategic gain with its closest security partner. But that narrative is simplistic. It risks drifting from industrial and economic reality.

The first hard truth is that Australia has the resources, but doesn’t control the market. It is a top-five producer of 14 minerals, including lithium, cobalt and rare earths, yet it doesn’t dominate any of them. Australia’s strength is in mining and extraction, rather than processing.

Here lies the strategic paradox: Australia ships the majority of its minerals to China for processing that turns ore into high-purity metals and chemicals. Building alternative, China-free supply chains to reduce US reliance on China would decouple Australia from its main customer for raw materials.

Demand from the defence sector is not enough. The US Department of Defense accounts for less than 5% of global demand for most critical minerals.

The real driver is the heavy demand from clean energy and advanced technology, including EVs, batteries and solar. China commands those markets, creating a closed-loop ecosystem that pulls in Australia’s materials and exports finished goods. Recreating that integrated system in five to ten years, after Beijing spent decades building it, is wishful thinking.

There will be no simple winner

The US restrictions on chips and the Chinese controls over rare earths are twin levers in the contest between two great powers. Each wants to lead in technology – and to set the rules over global supply chains.

We’ve entered a period where control of a few key inputs, tools and routes gives countries leverage. Each side is probing those “chokepoints” in the other’s supply chains for technology and materials – and using them as weapons. In the latest stand-off, Trump has floated export controls on Boeing parts to China. Chinese airlines are major Boeing customers, so any parts disruption would hit China’s aviation sector hard.

There will be no simple winner. Countries and firms are being pulled into two parallel systems: one centred on US chip expertise, the other on China’s materials power. This is not a clean break. It will be messier, costlier and less efficient, where political risk often outweighs commercial logic.

The question for Australia is not how fast it can build, but how well it balances security aims with market realities.

Marina Yue Zhang 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.

– ref. ‘Extremely hostile’: Trump lashes China over trade controls but there may be a silver lining – https://theconversation.com/extremely-hostile-trump-lashes-china-over-trade-controls-but-there-may-be-a-silver-lining-267294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Johanna Lim, Research Associate, Strategic Technologies, University of Sydney

The Australian Energy Market Operator estimates data centres will consume 6% of Australia’s grid-supplied electricity by 2030.

To put that in context, that’s more than the current share of Australia’s healthcare and social assistance industry.

This reflects the rapid growth of Australia’s data centre industry – the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI). This growth is, in part, being driven by multi-billion-dollar investments from major tech players including AWS, Microsoft, CDC and NextDC. Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar has even suggested Australia could become Southeast Asia’s data centre hub.

The federal government is also fertilising the data centre industry. In August, for example, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the development of “national interest principles on data centres” as an outcome of the economic reform roundtable.

The power-hungry nature of data centres, however, poses major problems for the current energy grid in Australia. But there are three steps Australia can take to help power these facilities reliably and sustainably.

Increased volatility, increased risks

Unlike households and most industries, data centres require constant power. This adds pressure to an energy grid designed for variable consumption.

As more people use AI for more complex tasks, the workloads on data centres will intensify. This leads to increased baseload demand. But it also leads to unpredictable spikes and drops in demand which the grid was not built to manage. This volatility creates real risks.

In 2024, 60 data centres in northern Virginia suddenly disconnected from the grid due to a tripped safety mechanism. This unleashed a massive surge of excess electricity – which, were it not for network operators implementing emergency countermeasures, would have caused a massive blackout.

This near-miss highlighted the fragility of the grid when faced with sudden, large-scale data centre disconnections.

Clean energy can’t do it alone

The limitations of Australia’s current energy mix are another source of volatility.

While renewable energy is central to the clean energy transition, it alone can’t meet baseload and peak demands from data centres. The problem is twofold. First, renewables are intermittent. Second, energy storage and backup options can only be scaled to a limited degree.

This means most data centres will continue to rely on coal or gas in some form.

Most data centre operators have committed to 100% renewable energy by 2030. But in practice, this often means purchasing annual renewable credits or power purchase agreements.

These mechanisms don’t guarantee clean energy during actual operations – they simply help offset annual consumption. Meeting real-time demand with clean energy is a far more complex challenge. It requires greater investment in renewables, storage and transmission infrastructure. It also requires better coordination between energy regulators, utility companies and data centre operators.

These challenges were reflected in Australia’s new climate target – a 62–70% cut below 2005 levels by 2035. This sits below the 65-75% range initially proposed by the Climate Change Authority last year. Why the reduction? Among the cited “transition risks” is the significant growth of data centres.

Becoming a global champion

Australia has an opportunity to develop policies that synchronise data centre expansion with more efficient energy and grid management.

First, Australia should promote computing methods at scale that reduce emissions but don’t compromise capabilities.

For example, smart scheduling software can automatically shift energy-intensive tasks, such as model training, to off-peak periods when renewable energy is most abundant. This wouldn’t affect more everyday, less energy-intensive tasks, such as using ChatGPT, that require immediate responses. Companies such as Google have already adopted this approach to reduce grid strain without impacting user experience.

Alongside this, data centres should be required to inform power companies in advance of large-scale AI training runs that can cause dramatic energy spikes. Companies such as Hitachi Energy have called on governments to implement such rules to support grid management, citing other energy-intensive industries, such as smelting, where prior warning is already a common practice.

Second, Australia needs to accelerate advanced energy storage innovations, including batteries, pumped hydro and thermal energy storage. Research in many of these technologies is already underway, backed by government initiatives and private investments.

Data centre company AirTrunk, for example, is exploring different ways of implementing battery energy storage systems in its new data centres. However, more targeted financial incentives and support – such as through the Future Made in Australia and the National Reconstruction Fund – can help to bridge the gap between research and commercial scalability.

Third, Australia can require data centres to set what are known as “power usage effectiveness” – or PUE – targets to drive energy efficiency.

PUE targets are calculated by dividing the data centre’s total energy use by its IT equipment energy use. A PUE closer to 1.0 indicates greater energy efficiency.

PUE limits in China helped reduce its average PUE from 1.54 to 1.48 in just one year. Similarly, voluntary initiatives such as the European Union’s code of conduct for data centre energy efficiency, have consistently lowered the average PUE among participating facilities.

There is no shying away from the reality that data centres are energy-hungry behemoths. However, with the right planning and policies, Australia could be a global champion for data centre growth that supports, not derails, the clean energy transition.

Johanna Lim previously worked as an analyst at Mandala Partners, an economics, strategy and policy consulting firm.

– ref. Power-hungry data centres threaten Australia’s energy grid. Here are 3 steps to make them more efficient – https://theconversation.com/power-hungry-data-centres-threaten-australias-energy-grid-here-are-3-steps-to-make-them-more-efficient-266992

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Sturgiss, Professor of Community Medicine and Clinical Education, Bond University

Around one in three Australian adults (32%) has a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. A further 34% has a BMI of 25 or above.

Australia’s regulator has approved Wegovy, the weight-loss version of Ozempic (semaglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide) for weight management, alongside a reduced-calorie diet and exercise.

To access these medications, adults must have a BMI of 30 or above or a BMI of 27 and a weight-related condition such as high blood pressure or sleep apnoea. The drugs aren’t subsidised on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for weight loss, so users face still high out-of-pocket costs.

These drugs work by activating the GLP-1 receptor, which increases insulin secretion and improves the liver’s use of glucose. This decreases the user’s appetite, leaving them feeling fuller after eating less. In trials, these medications reduced participants’ body weight by up to 20% and improved their health outcomes and quality of life.

But while doctors and allied health providers are reducing their reliance on BMI to guide treatment decisions, eligibility for Wegovy and Mounjaro rely on it. This needs to change.

Your BMI alone doesn’t reflect your health status

A Belgian mathematician first invented BMI in the 1830s to try and quantify the “average man”.

An American physiologist and dietitian then adopted BMI in the 1970s to screen for obesity. It has since been used a tool to screen large populations for obesity.

BMI was never meant as the sole measure for a person’s health. When we use BMI with an individual patient, it can often overestimate the risk of their weight on their health. People have a lot of muscle mass, for example, may have a high BMI but low health risks.

BMI can also underestimate a peron’s weight-related health impacts, such as the risks for elderly people with low muscle mass.

Weight doesn’t tell us the whole story about a person’s risk for poor health. But because it’s easy to see a person’s physical shape, it’s often incorrectly used as a marker of healthiness.

It’s possible to improve your health by eating a more nutritious diet and getting more active, even if your weight doesn’t change.

For people who don’t move much during the day, increasing physical activity can boost your heart, lung and mental health.

The definition of obesity might also change

Obesity is most commonly diagnosed when a peson’s BMI is 30 or above.

But earlier this year, an international committee recommended changing how obesity is diagnosed. In its view, a person with a high amount of body fat that is having an impact on their health should be diagnosed as having obesity. So should those with a BMI over 40.

However, according to its recommendations, to diagnose obesity at lower BMIs, a health practitioner should assess the person’s waist circumference or directly measure their body fat, through a special set of scales that directly measures percentage body fat.

These measurements would be assessed according to different cut-offs for obesity based on age, gender and ethnicity.

On top of these body measurements, it also proposes a new diagnosis of “clinical obesity”. This would be given when there is evidence of organ dysfunction or obesity impacting every day function. This way of diagnosing obesity looks at overall health, and not just BMI.

The committee recommended weight-loss treatments, including medications, should be individualised and evidence-based.

What other indicators could clinicians use?

Obesity is complex, with each person experiencing it differently. So rather than basing weight-loss medication eligibility on BMI, clinicians should be able to consider the potential benefits (and risks) for an individual.

The Edmonton Obesity Staging System is a good example of a measure that uses BMI plus any other health conditions the person has, how the person moves and functions day to day, and psychological symptoms such as depression or low mood.

A higher stage is associated with poorer health outcomes, such as having organ damage, being unable to work, or having major depression. A moderate stage might include having high blood pressure, having some limitations on your daily activity and subsequent impacts on quality of life. This staging could help determine who would get the most benefit from weight-loss medicines.

A more comprehensive assessment of health using the Edmonton Obesity Staging System could help patients and their doctors have an informed discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of weight-management medications. For example, the medications could be targeted to people with higher stages rather than just relying on BMI.

This could mean people with lower BMIs, but more health conditions or difficulty with physical function, could decide to use medications, as they would be more likely to have health benefits.

Don’t overlook nutrition and exercise

While medications can help many users improve their health, they won’t be suitable or work for everyone. And not everyone will sustain the same level of weight loss, especially if they’re not supported with dietary changes and exercise.

Research trials of these medications have included the best nutrition, physical activity and psychological support for patients undergoing treatment. Weight-loss drugs should always be used in conjunction with these other supports to get the best health outcomes.

Whether you use weight-loss drugs or not, if you have weight-related health issues, you’re more likely to improve your physical function, your other health conditions and quality of life if you have support from a team of health professionals. This might include a dietitian, exercise physiologist, psychologist and care from a trusted GP.

Liz Sturgiss receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council, The The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Foundation, Diabetes Australia, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation. She is affiliated with the North American Primary Care Research Group, Australasian Association for Academic Primary Care, and was an appointed member of the Guidelines Development Committee for the review and update of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Overweight and Obesity in Adults, Adolescents and Children in Australia. She is a member of the Australian Prescriber Editorial Advisory Committee and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Australian Journal of Primary Health.

Kimberley Norman conducts research as part of her role as Research Fellow with Monash University. She is affiliated with the not-for-profit group The Obesity Collective, Australia’s peak body for improving obesity health related outcomes, and Weight Issues Network, an obesity consumer group in Australia. She is affiliated with the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) and was appointed the Vice-chair (and incoming Chair 2025) of the Trainee Committee for NAPCRG.

– ref. BMI shouldn’t be the only way to assess who can access weight-loss drugs – https://theconversation.com/bmi-shouldnt-be-the-only-way-to-assess-who-can-access-weight-loss-drugs-263634

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Valentina Dinica, Associate Professor in Sustainability and Public Policy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The government’s proposed reforms of the rules governing public conservation land aim to dismantle any potential obstacle to “unleashing economic growth” in protected areas.

Currently, about a third of New Zealand’s land is under protection. This ranges from national parks (11.6%) to stewardship areas (9.4%) and conservation parks (5.7%). Twelve other designations make up the rest.

Some commercial activities are permitted – including guided walks, aircraft-based sightseeing, ski fields and animal grazing – and approved by the Department of Conservation as “concessions”.

The proposed changes to the Conservation Act include a review of land designation. The government could delist or swap up to 60% of the current area under protection.

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka said he can’t indicate which designations or locations would be delisted. Nor can he say what percentage of conservation lands would be affected – and where – because changes will be driven by demand for land.

The minister only committed to leaving untouched the designations that are difficult to change: national parks, wilderness areas, reserves and world heritage sites.

The question of whether more economic benefits can be obtained from protected areas is legitimate. New Zealand does need a radical reform of its conservation areas and legislation. There is potential for better social and economic outcomes.

But the proposal consolidates ministerial discretion to unprecedented levels and the government follows a misguided fast-track approach to permitting economic activities such as mining. This could take native biodiversity into dangerous territory.

Outdated conservation laws

New Zealand holds tight to an outdated approach known as “fortress conservation”. This limits commercial opportunities to specific areas, mostly concentrated around established facilities (roads, hotels) and the edges of designated lands. Even when regulating other activities such as energy generation or agriculture, the idea has been to “sacrifice” some spaces and keep as much land as possible “locked up”.

A key reason was that people didn’t know enough about the ecological values of the land. As a proxy, lawmakers relied on the subjective concepts of wilderness values and intrinsic values to justify strict protections over most lands.

Insufficient scientific input meant authorities have relied on “ecologically blind” zoning frameworks, such as a planning tool known as the recreation opportunity spectrum. This divides lands according to recreational opportunities and visitor needs.

But there is a better path forward – one that allows public decision making and honours international commitments, while achieving better ecological and economic benefits.

Towards regulations informed by science

This alternative approach is grounded in three key principles.

First, it uses gap analysis to identify which ecosystems and species are underprotected.

Second, it relies on regulations shaped by ecological knowledge and conservation priorities.

Third, it applies the principles of proportionality and precaution, meaning that regulatory responses should match the severity, reversibility and likelihood of environmental harm. Currently, New Zealand’s regulatory framework does not reflect this.

New Zealand has signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This means at least 30% of conservation lands must be representative of most, if not all, native ecosystems by 2030.

At present, coastal, lowland and dryland ecosystems are under-represented. In contrast, alpine and montane environments, are represented way above the recommended threshold (20% of the remaining cover for that ecosystem).

If up to 60% of conservation lands were to be swapped or delisted without prioritising representativeness, vulnerability and rarity, the ecological losses may be immense and irreversible.

Rethinking protection categories

My research develops a broader reform approach. It also reflects growing international consensus on the need for science-informed conservation planning.

I argue New Zealand should set up region-specific and nationwide fora, such as citizen assemblies or consensus conferences. Conversations should focus on specific topics, informed by scientists and iwi.

Vulnerable or under-represented ecosystems currently require stronger protection. Deliberations should indicate which activities should be limited or excluded to better protect such areas.

We must also consider vulnerability to climate change. Scientists expect that ecosystems may migrate outside protected areas.

Consensus should be built around what qualifies as a “significantly over-represented” native ecosystem. Where ecosystems are already well protected and resilient, the public should discuss whether re-designation, land exchanges or even disposals may be appropriate.

If lands are retained, consensus should be sought on the economic uses that can maintain ecological health. If the public doesn’t support land delisting or swaps, alternative strategies must be developed to improve ecological representativeness. Sustainable funding mechanisms should also be identified to support these efforts.

The Department of Conservation should work with independent scientists and iwi to develop a new zoning framework to guide commercial concessions and recreational access. This framework should capture the principles highlighted above.

When applied to each area, it should also enable the mapping of the ecological values feasible to protect. This would help select bespoke regulatory options. In turn, it would balance biodiversity and economic outcomes for each context.

Guidance for these steps should be incorporated in a new national strategy, aligned with domestic goals such as the biodiversity strategy and international commitments.

New Zealand has the expertise for smart reforms. New Zealanders have the passion for nature and patience required to engage in deliberations. But will politicians have the wisdom to avoid a totally unnecessary mutilation of conservation lands, for undefined biodiversity gains?

Valentina Dinica 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.

– ref. Reform of NZ’s protected lands is overdue – but the public should decide about economic activities – https://theconversation.com/reform-of-nzs-protected-lands-is-overdue-but-the-public-should-decide-about-economic-activities-267105

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Deputy Director, Engagement and Impact, The ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century, Australian National University

Global warming from Woodside’s massive Scarborough gas project off Western Australia would lead to 484 additional heat-related deaths in Europe alone this century, and kill about 16 million additional corals on the Great Barrier Reef during each future mass bleaching event, our new research has revealed.

The findings were made possible by a robust, well-established formula that can determine the extent to which an individual fossil fuel project will warm the planet. The results can be used to calculate the subsequent harms to society and nature.

The results close a fundamental gap between science and decision-making about fossil fuel projects. They also challenge claims by proponents that climate risks posed by a fossil fuel project are negligible or cannot be quantified.

Each new investment in coal and gas, such as the Scarborough project, can now be linked to harmful effects both today and in the future. It means decision-makers can properly assess the range of risks a project poses to humanity and the planet, before deciding if it should proceed.

Every tonne of CO₂ matters

Scientists know every tonne of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions makes global warming worse.

But proponents of new fossil fuel projects in Australia routinely say their future greenhouse gas emissions are negligible compared to the scale of global emissions, or say the effects of these emissions on global warming can’t be measured.

The Scarborough project is approved for development and is expected to produce gas from next year. Located off WA, it includes wells connected by a 430km pipeline to an onshore processing facility. The gas will be liquefied and burned for energy, both in Australia and overseas. Production is expected to last more than 30 years. When natural gas is burned, more than 99% of it converts to CO₂.

Woodside – in its own evaluation of the Scarborough gas project – claimed:

it is not possible to link GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions from Scarborough with climate change or any particular climate-related impacts given the estimated […] emissions associated with Scarborough are negligible in the context of existing and future predicted global GHG concentrations.

But what if there was a way to measure the harms? That’s the question our research set out to answer.

A method already exists to directly link global emissions to the climate warming they cause. It uses scientific understanding of Earth’s systems, direct observations and climate model simulations.

According to the IPCC, every 1,000 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions causes about 0.45°C of additional global warming. This arithmetic forms the basis for calculating how much more CO₂ humanity can emit to keep warming within the Paris Agreement goals.

But decisions about future emissions are not made at the global scale. Instead, Earth’s climate trajectory will be determined by the aggregation of decisions on many individual projects.

That’s why our research extended the IPCC method to the level of individual projects – an approach that we illustrate using the Scarborough gas project.

Scarborough’s harms laid bare

Over its lifetime, the Scarborough project is expected to emit 876 million tonnes of CO₂.

We estimate these emissions will cause 0.00039°C of additional global warming. Estimates such as these are typically expressed as a range, alongside a measure of confidence in the projection. In this case, there is a 66–100% likelihood that the Scarborough project will cause additional global warming of between 0.00024°C and 0.00055°C.

This additional warming might seem small – but it will cause tangible damage.

The human cost of global warming can be quantified by considering how many people will be left outside the “human climate niche” – in other words, the climate conditions in which societies have historically thrived.

We calculated that the additional warming from the Scarborough project will expose 516,000 people globally to a local climate that’s beyond the hot extreme of the human climate niche. We drilled down into specific impacts in Europe, where suitable health data was available across 854 cities. Our best estimate is that this project would cause an additional 484 heat-related deaths in Europe by the end of this century.

And what about harm to nature? Using research into how accumulated exposure to heat affects coral reefs, we found about 16 million corals on the Great Barrier Reef would be lost in each new mass bleaching. The existential threat to the Great Barrier Reef from human-caused global warming is already being realised. Additional warming instigated by new fossil fuel projects will ratchet up pressure on this natural wonder.

As climate change worsens, countries are seeking to slash emissions to meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement. So, we looked at the impact of Scarborough’s emissions on Australia’s climate targets.

We calculated that by 2049, the anticipated emissions from the Scarborough project alone – from production, processing and domestic use – will comprise 49% of Australia’s entire annual CO₂ emissions budget under our commitment to net-zero by 2050.

Beyond the 2050 deadline, all emissions from the Scarborough project would require technologies to permanently remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. Achieving that would require a massive scale-up of current technologies. It would be more prudent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions where possible.

‘Negligible’ impacts? Hardly

Our findings mean the best-available scientific evidence can now be used by companies, governments and regulators when deciding if a fossil fuel project will proceed.

Crucially, it is no longer defensible for companies proposing new or extended fossil fuel projects to claim the climate harms will be negligible. Our research shows the harms are, in fact, tangible and quantifiable – and no project is too small to matter.

In response to issues raised in this article, a spokesperson for Woodside said:

Woodside is committed to playing a role in the energy transition. The Scarborough reservoir contains less than 0.1% carbon dioxide. Combined with processing design efficiencies at the offshore floating production unit and onshore Pluto Train 2, the project is expected to be one of the lowest carbon intensity sources of LNG delivered into north Asian markets.

We will reduce the Scarborough Energy Project’s direct greenhouse gas emissions to as low as reasonably practicable by incorporating energy efficiency measures in design and operations. Further information on how this is being achieved is included in the Scarborough Offshore Project Proposal, sections 4.5.4.1 and 7.1.3 and in approved Australian Government environment plans, available on the regulator’s website.

A report prepared by consultancy ACIL Allen has found that Woodside’s Scarborough Energy Project is expected to generate an estimated A$52.8 billion in taxation and royalty payments, boost GDP by billions of dollars between 2024 and 2056 and employ 3,200 people during peak construction in Western Australia.

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Andrew King receives funding from the Australian Research Council (Future Fellowship and Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather) and the National Environmental Science Program.

Nicola Maher receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Wesley Morgan is a fellow with the Climate Council of Australia

– ref. For the first time, we linked a new fossil fuel project to hundreds of deaths. Here’s the impact of Woodside’s Scarborough gas project – https://theconversation.com/for-the-first-time-we-linked-a-new-fossil-fuel-project-to-hundreds-of-deaths-heres-the-impact-of-woodsides-scarborough-gas-project-266060

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Edwell, Associate Professor in Ancient History, Macquarie University

With both parties agreeing to terms, the first stages of a peace plan in Gaza are in motion. US President Donald Trump is credited (especially in Israel and the US) with having played a vital role in this development.

But why have banners appeared in Israel depicting Trump with the caption “Cyrus the Great is alive”?

Who was Cyrus and what is he renowned for?

Founder of the Achaemenid Persian empire

Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian empire (550 BCE to 330 BCE).

Under Cyrus and his successors, the Persian empire stretched across a vast array of territories, including Iran, Mesopotamia (which includes parts of modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq), Egypt, Asia Minor (which is mostly modern-day Turkey) and Central Asia.

A key moment in this imperial expansion was Cyrus’ capture of Babylon and its surrounding territory (Babylonia) (mostly in modern-day Iraq) in 539 BCE.

The Babylonian king, Nabonidus, controlled large sections of Mesopotamia and northern Arabia. A surviving clay tablet called the Nabonidus chronicle outlines the alienation of his subjects. Unpopular religious reforms and his long absences from Babylon were among the grievances.

Soon after he defeated Nabonidus, Cyrus issued a decree freeing captive Jews (and others) in Babylon.

A comparatively humane approach to governing

Nebuchadnezzar II, king of the Babylonian empire from 605–562 BCE, had captured the kingdom of Judah (in modern-day Israel and Palestinian territories) in 587 BCE.

Due to rebellions, he ransacked Jerusalem and deported thousands of Jews to Babylon.

When Cyrus freed the Babylonian Jewish exiles almost 50 year later, many returned to Judah.

The biblical book of Ezra records the decree.

Cyrus, according to this version of the story, had been commanded by God to rebuild a temple at Jerusalem that Nebuchadnezzar II had destroyed. The decree released the Jewish exiles from Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it.

In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, Cyrus was chosen by God to free the Jews of Babylon.

For this reason, Cyrus became (and remains) a legendary figure in Jewish history, though he was not Jewish himself. He was more likely a devotee of Zoroastrianism, which was fervently embraced by his successors, including Darius I (who ruled 522-486 BCE).

An ancient clay tablet from Babylon suggests Cyrus’ occupation of Babylon was peaceful. It confirms the return of exiles, but not specifically Jewish ones. Known today as the “Cyrus cylinder”, it is sometimes referred to as an ancient declaration of human rights. A replica of the tablet is on permanent display at the UN headquarters in New York.

Cyrus was remembered in antiquity for what, at the time, was a comparatively humane approach to governing.

The Greek writer Xenophon, who wrote the Cyropedia (The Education of Cyrus) in about 370 BCE, noted that:

subjects he cared for and cherished as a father might care for his children, and they who came beneath his rule reverenced him like a father.

The benevolent and altruistic reputation of Cyrus was developed in his own reign and later. As one of history’s “winners”, Cyrus would be well-pleased with the propaganda that has continued to develop about his reign.

Conquest and wealth

Cyrus was, of course, a great warrior and strategist. One of his most famous conquests was the kingdom of Lydia (modern southwest Turkey) in about 546 BCE. Its king, Croesus, was known for his incredible wealth.

Cyrus initially ordered Croesus to be burned alive. But when the god Apollo sent a rain storm, Croesus was spared, according to the 5th century BCE Greek historian Herodotus. He then became a trusted advisor of Cyrus, adding to the Persian king’s reputation for benevolence.

Cyrus was also known for large-scale construction projects. The most famous was the palace complex at his capital, Pasargadae (modern southern Iran).

The palace and other buildings were set in the midst of magnificent paradise gardens.

Today, the most intact building at Pasargadae is the tomb of Cyrus. It has become a powerful symbol of Iranian and Persian nationalism. The legacy of Cyrus is still significant in Iran today.

So, the banners comparing Trump to Cyrus appear to be drawing on the story of Cyrus’ role in freeing Jewish captives. In this framing, Gaza is cast as Babylon and Trump as the new Cyrus.

One wonders what Cyrus the Great would think of the comparison.

Peter Edwell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Israelis are hailing Trump as Cyrus returned – but who was Cyrus the Great, anyway? – https://theconversation.com/israelis-are-hailing-trump-as-cyrus-returned-but-who-was-cyrus-the-great-anyway-267312

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The Albanese government has finally announced a major retreat on its proposed controversial superannuation changes.

The plan to tax unrealised capital gains has been dumped altogether, and the proposed new $3 million threshold will be indexed, as well as a $10 million threshold that is being added.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (currently on a week’s holiday) drove the retreat, which was announced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Earlier on Monday the cabinet ticked off on the revamp of the original plan.

Chalmers said he had been working on alterations to his earlier plan for some time. He denied he had been “rolled” by the prime minister. “Of course not,” he said.

“The prime minister and I have had discussions over recent months about finding another way to satisfy the same objectives, and that’s what’s happened here,” he said.

Albanese’s caution on the original superannuation changes is being interpreted as a warning Chalmers will have difficulty getting the prime minister to agree to any ambitious tax reform he might hope to make.

The government took the original plan to tax at 30% the earnings on balances of more than $3 million to the election. That plan also included a move to tax unrealised capital gains. Critics pointed out that taxing unrealised gains would hit those with non-liquid assets such as farms in their superannuation. The failure to index the threshold would draw an increasing proportion of people into the new tax net.

The proposals have been under attack for months, including from former treasurer and prime minister Paul Keating who directly lobbied Albanese.

Keating said in a statement after the announcement, “these decisions solidify superannuation tax arrangements in a manner the community can now rely upon for the long-term security of their retirement savings and with it, their peace of mind”.

Keating went out of his way to give credit to Chalmers for the work.

Under the rejigged plan the government has added another threshold, of $10 million, to its original plan. On earnings on balances between $3 million and $10 million, the tax rate will be 30%. On earning on balances over $10 million the rate will be 40%.

At present the tax on superannuation earnings is 15%.

Chalmers said the changes were practical and pragmatic and satisfied the same objective and the original proposal.

He said there would be commensurate treatment of defined benefit interests.

The changes would extend the existing exemptions for some judges to improve consistency across jurisdictions.

The government is also increasing the low-income superannuation tax offset (the LISTO) by $310 to $810 and raising the eligibility threshold from from $37,000 to $45,000 from July 2027. This will cost $435 million over the forward estimates. The LISTO is a boost provided by the government for the superannuation of low income earners.

The start of the new plan, which had been due to begin from July 1 this year, has been delayed until July 1 next year.

The net impact on the budget of the rework is about $4.2 billion over the forward estimates, much of which is due to the one year delay in implementation.

In the first full year of operation, 2028-29, the package will bring a budget saving of about $1.6 billion in net terms, including the cost of increasing the LISTO.

Chalmers said the legislation would be introduced as soon as possible in 2026.

The treasurer spoke with the Greens – whose support the government expects to need to pass the legislation – on Monday. Later the Greens said in a statement they would look at the detail of the changes but were concerned that “the government has further weakened what should be a tax to ensure the super wealthy top 0.5% pay their fair share of tax”.

Shadow treasurer Ted O’Brien said the opposition had fought the original unfair plan all the way and this was “a victory for a coalition of common sense”.

“The treasurer has been chewed up and his tax plan has been chucked out.”

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. Jim Chalmers unveils major retreat on controversial superannuation changes – https://theconversation.com/jim-chalmers-unveils-major-retreat-on-controversial-superannuation-changes-267220

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lester Munson, Non-Resident Fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

US President Donald Trump will visit Israel and Egypt this week to oversee the initial implementation of his Gaza peace agreement, which many hope will permanently end the two-year war in the strip.

Should the peace hold, the Gaza accord will be Trump’s greatest foreign policy achievement, even surpassing the Abraham Accords of his first term that normalised relations between Israel and several Arab countries.

Given the speed with which the Trump administration has helped to negotiate the ceasefire, it is an opportune moment to assess Trump’s frenetic foreign policy at the start of his second presidential term.

The “Trump Doctrine” – the unconventional, high-energy and fast-moving approach to world affairs now pursued by the United States – has had some significant achievements, most notably in Gaza. But are these breakthroughs sustainable, and can his foreign policy approach be effective with larger geostrategic challenges?

A leaner decision-making structure

One way the Trump administration’s approach is different from previous administrations – including Trump 1.0 – is in his leaner organisation, which is more capable of implementing quick action.

Trump has revamped the national security decision-making structure in surprising ways. His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, now serves concurrently as his national security adviser. Rubio has also reduced the staff of the National Security Council from around 350 to about 150, which is still larger than many of Trump’s predecessors before Barack Obama.

There have been some missteps. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Waltz, tried to accommodate his need for speedy decision-making by establishing group chats on the Signal app for the small group of agency heads and senior advisers who advise Trump. This rightfully caused concerns about the security of classified information – especially after Waltz mistakenly added a journalist to a chat group – and he was subsequently ousted.

With a much smaller staff now, Rubio is implementing a more sustainable method for the president to communicate with his top advisers, mostly through Rubio himself and Trump’s powerful chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

Rubio has also led a top-down revamp of the bureaucratic foreign policy structures. Dozens of offices were eliminated, and hundreds of career professionals were laid off. Numerous political appointments, including ambassadorships, remain unfilled.

Many bureaus are now headed not by Senate-confirmed assistant secretaries, but by career foreign and civil service “senior bureau officials”. This keeps the number of politically appointed policymakers rather small – mostly in Rubio’s direct orbit – while keeping professional “implementers” in key positions to execute policy.

A reliance on special envoys

To set the stage for his own deal-making, Trump also uses his longtime friend and multipurpose envoy, Steve Witkoff, for the highest-level conversations. Without any Senate confirmation, Witkoff has become Trump’s most trusted voice in Ukraine, Gaza and several other foreign policy negotiations.

Massad Boulos, another unconfirmed Trump envoy, conducts second-tier negotiations, mostly in Africa but also parts of the Middle East.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, played a key role in the recent Gaza accord as well. This has raised questions of conflicts of interest. However, Trump’s emphasis on deal-oriented businessmen in diplomatic roles is intentional.

The approach appears to be very welcome in some quarters, particularly in the Middle East, where conventional diplomacy was fraught with much historical baggage.

A ‘shock and awe’ approach

On top of all this, of course, is Trump’s style and showmanship.

His most controversial statements – for example, demanding US ownership of Greenland – may seem absurd and offensive at first. However, there are genuine national security concerns over China’s role in the Arctic and the possibility an independent Greenland might serve as a wedge in a critical region. From this standpoint, establishing some US control over Greenland’s foreign policy is an entirely rational proposition.

What is unique to Trump is the pace, breadth and intensity of his personal diplomacy.

Trump’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a case in point. While Trump embraces Netanyahu in public and green-lights all of Israel’s military actions, he’s willing to say no to the Israeli leader in private. For example, Trump intervened to prevent Israel from annexing the West Bank immediately before the Gaza breakthrough.

In addition, Trump’s personal charm offensive with Arab leaders in the region – his first major foreign trip after Pope Francis’ funeral was to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – established a coalition to pressure Hamas to say yes to the deal.

It is a “shock and awe” diplomatic approach: everything, everywhere, all at once. Previous agreements and norms (including those set by Trump himself) are downplayed or discarded in favour of action in the moment.

Is there a longer-term vision?

Of course, there are downsides to the Trump approach. The past cannot be ignored, especially in the Middle East. And many previous agreements and norms were there for a reason – they worked, and they helped stabilise otherwise chaotic situations.
It very much remains to be seen whether Trump’s approach can lead to a long-term solution in Gaza. Many critics have pointed out the vagueness in his 20-point peace plan, which could cause it to fall apart at any moment.

It is not unusual for a second-term American president like Trump to focus on foreign policy, where Congress has a highly limited role and the president has wide latitude. But American presidents usually focus on achieving one big thing. Think Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran or George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq.

Today, in addition to the Gaza accord, Trump is pursuing separate diplomatic deals with all four major American adversaries: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

The logic of this is to put direct stress on the alliance of bad actors. Does Chinese leader Xi Jinping trust Russian President Vladimir Putin enough to resist Trump’s entreaties, and vice versa? How much are Russia and China worried about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un cutting a deal with Washington?

The true test of the Trump Doctrine will not be the success of the Gaza accord, but whether he can build on it to drive the West’s adversaries – mainly China and Russia – apart from each other and into weaker strategic positions.

Lester Munson receives funding from the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He is affiliated with BGR Group, a Washington DC governmental affairs firm and was previously Republican staff in the US Congress and in the George W. Bush administration.

– ref. Trump’s ‘shock and awe’ foreign policy achieved a breakthrough in Gaza – but is it sustainable? – https://theconversation.com/trumps-shock-and-awe-foreign-policy-achieved-a-breakthrough-in-gaza-but-is-it-sustainable-267316

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dileep Sharma, Professor and Head of Discipline – Oral Health, University of Newcastle

Do your gums look red and often bleed when you brush them, but they’re not painful? If so, you could have the gum disease gingivitis.

Gingivitis is one of the most common inflammatory oral diseases. It affects an estimated 50–100% of adults and children at some point in their lives.

Luckily, gingivitis can be treated if caught in time. However, if left untreated, it can lead to more severe disease that could mean losing your teeth.

Here are some tell-tale signs of gingivitis and how you can work with a dental professional to treat it.

What does gingivitis look like?

The term gingivitis tells us what to expect. It’s when the gums (the gingiva) are inflamed (-itis). It’s essentially the body’s immune response to microbes in the sticky biofilm or plaque on the tooth surface.

You might notice subtle redness of the gums, close to where they meet the teeth, or of the part of the gums between the teeth. You might notice mild-to-moderate swelling of the gums. Or your gums might bleed when you brush or floss.

It can affect the gums close to a few or multiple teeth. Sometimes, it can lead to bad breath (halitosis).

Gingivitis generally develops over time. And you’ll see the most common form starting to develop if you haven’t brushed your teeth well (and have not removed the plaque) for a few days. Gingivitis is painless to start with.

But if it’s not treated it may lead to a more severe form of disease called periodontitis. This is when you also lose some of the bone that holds teeth in place. If periodontitis is left untreated, your teeth loosen and may fall out.

How did I get it?

Several factors increase the chances and severity of gingivitis, beyond poor oral hygiene.

For instance, changes in sex hormones during puberty, the menstrual cycle, pregnancy and oral contraceptive use can increase the severity of gingivitis. This is due to increased blood flow or a change in plaque’s microbial composition.

Other conditions that can worsen gingivitis include diabetes, leukaemia, if you don’t produce much saliva, and certain medications.

An infectious disease could also be behind gingivitis. Bacterial infections (such as streptococcal disease, syphilis and tuberculosis); viral infections (herpes, human papillomavirus, hand-foot-and-mouth disease); and fungal infections (candida thrush) can all involve gingivitis. But unlike the more common type, gingivitis related to infectious disease can also come with fever and enlarged lymph nodes.

A new growth – whether benign (non-cancerous), precancerous (could develop into cancer) or cancer – can present as localised lesions with inflamed gums.

Finally, gingivitis can be traumatic. That is, if you brush your teeth too hard, use cocaine or other drugs, or burn your mouth while eating or drinking hot food and drink, you might see acute inflammation of the gums.

Can I manage it at home?

Only to a limited extent. If you get in at the early stage (one to three days of symptoms), brushing your teeth well will help remove plaque, and so some of the microbes that cause the inflammation.

But if you leave it any longer and the plaque begins to calcify, a dentist or a dental hygienist will need to remove these hardened, rough, surface deposits known as calculus.

They use tools called ultrasonic scalers or manual scalers to remove the calculus and overlying plaque. After this treatment, signs of gingivitis usually resolve.

However, if there are underlying health issues that contribute to gingivitis, they will need to be addressed to see any improvement.

For instance, this could be treating an infection before, during or after scaling. You might also be prescribed a special mouthwash to help healing or relieve symptoms.

If you have a growth, or are diagnosed with periodontitis, you’ll be referred for specialist treatment.

Can mouthwash help?

Mouthwash often helps reduce the bacterial load in plaque. But you can’t rely on it as your only treatment. It is, however, often recommended after your gingivitis has been treated professionally, during the healing phase.

Your dental health professional may recommend chlorhexidine mouthwash twice daily for up to two weeks. You can buy this in the supermarket or pharmacy.

But using mouthwash long term to manage gingivitis (or for other reasons) is not advised. Prolonged use of chlorhexidine mouthwash can lead to side effects such as staining of the teeth and an altered sense of taste.

Some mouthwash also contains a small percentage of alcohol, which might not be the best option for people with a dry mouth as alcohol can be dehydrating. You might also want to avoid these in children, who might not like the burning sensation. There are alcohol-free versions, which are just as effective.

How do I prevent gingivitis returning?

You can prevent gingivitis, and most oral diseases, by brushing your teeth well twice a day and flossing once a day.

Regular dental check-ups also give dental professionals a perfect opportunity to detect and manage most gingivitis (and tooth decay) before it progresses.

Dileep Sharma receives funding from the Dental Council of NSW, International Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research, Australian government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, International College of Dentists and Tropical Australian Academic Health Centre for his dental research projects. He is affiliated with The International Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research and Australian Dental Association.

– ref. What is gingivitis? How do I know if I have it? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-gingivitis-how-do-i-know-if-i-have-it-264335