Papua New Guinea’s deployment of 37 police and Correctional Services staff to Solomon Islands on Friday was done on the back of a regional police-to-police engagement arrangement to help stem the civil unrest in Honiara.
Police Commissioner David Manning, who returned to Port Moresby from Honiaria on Friday evening on a chartered Tropicair plane, said he met his Solomon Islands counterpart Mostyn Mangau.
The first thing the PNG contingent did was to protect some of the state assets such as Henderson International Airport and Parliament House.
Manning said a further commitment was known to Commissioner Mangau and Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to increase manpower if the situation worsened.
He said that the members of the PNG contingent would work side by side and under Commissioner Mangau’s orders.
He said on the meeting with Mangau that the situation was of great concern for them given the manpower shortage in Solomon Islands.
PNG’s intervention was not just timely but was critical to them to contain the situation.
Manning said according to the brief, most of the shops in Chinatown were looted and burnt down, including the PNG-owned BSP building in Honiara.
He said an aerial view of the capital indicated that the city streets were empty with no movement of people.
He said PNG’s intervention was part of PNG’s interest in helping provide regional security.
Fiji providing 50 troops The Fiji Times reports that Fiji will today deploy a 50 troops to Solomon Islands.
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama confirmed this in Parliament yesterday in response to the upheaval in Honiara.
He said the team would be dispatched to Honiara as part of a reinforced platoon embedded with Australian Force elements on the ground.
“Another 120 troops here in Fiji will remain on standby for deployment if needed to help maintain security,” Bainimarama said.
Republished with permission on PNG Post-Courier and The Fiji Times.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. You can sign up to NZ Politics Daily as well as New Zealand Political Roundup columns for free here.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Daly, Lecturer in Planetary Geoscience, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow
Curtin University
Water is vital for life on Earth, and some experts say we should all drink around two litres every day as part of a healthy lifestyle. But beyond the tap, where does our water come from?
It flows from local rivers, reservoirs and aquifers. But where has that water originated from? Over geological time, Earth cycles water through living organisms, the atmosphere, rivers, oceans, the rocks beneath our feet, and even through the planet’s deep interior.
But what about before that? Where did Earth get its water in the first place? Scientists have long searched for answers to this question.
We studied tiny pieces of an asteroid to find out – and we think a rain of protons from the Sun may be producing water all the time on rocks and dust throughout the Solar System. In fact, up to half of Earth’s water may have been produced this way and arrived here with falling space dust.
The water puzzle
We know Earth’s water likely came from outer space early in our Solar System’s history. So, what was the primordial delivery service that gave Earth its water?
Water-rich asteroids are currently the best candidates for the delivery of water, as well as carbon-hydrogen compounds, which together make possible our beautiful habitable blue planet teeming with life.
However, water from asteroids contains a specific ratio of ordinary hydrogen to a heavier kind, or isotope, called deuterium. If all of Earth’s water were from asteroids, we would expect it to have this same ratio – but Earth water has less deuterium, so there must also be some other source of water in space with less deuterium.
However, the only thing we know of in the Solar System with lots of hydrogen but a lower ratio of deuterium than Earth is the Sun itself. This puts us in a bit of a pickle, as it’s hard to see how the hydrogen in Earth’s water could have come from the Sun.
Excitingly, we might finally have an answer to this conundrum.
Tiny pieces of asteroid
Back in 2011, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) sent the Hayabusa mission to take samples of the asteroid Itokawa and bring them back to Earth. In 2017, we were lucky enough to be allocated three extremely rare mineral particles from the sample, each about the width of a human hair.
Our aim was to study the outer surfaces of these dust particles in a brand new way to see if they have been affected by “space weathering”. This is a combination of processes which are known to affect all surfaces exposed in space, such as harmful galactic cosmic rays, micrometeorite impacts, solar radiation and solar wind.
The asteroid Itokawa was the source of grains of dust which contained a surprising layer of water. JAXA
We worked in a huge team involving experts from three continents, using a relatively new technique called atom probe tomography which analyses tiny samples at an atomic level. This let us measure the abundance and positions of individual atoms and molecules in 3D.
Near the surface of the Itokawa particles, we found a layer rich in hydroxide molecules (OH, containing one oxygen atom and one hydrogen) and, more importantly, water (H₂O, containing two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen).
This discovery of water was very unexpected! By everything we knew, these minerals from the asteroid should have been as dry as a bone.
How solar wind makes water
The most likely source of the hydrogen atoms required to form this water later is the solar wind: hydrogen ions (atoms with a missing electron) streaming through space from the Sun, then lodging in the surfaces of the dust particles.
We tested this theory in the lab by firing heavy hydrogen ions (deuterium) to simulate those in the solar wind at minerals like those in asteroids, and found that these ions react with the mineral particles and steal oxygen atoms to produce hydroxide and water.
Water created by the solar wind represents a previously unconsidered reservoir in our Solar System. And what’s more, every airless world or lump of rock across the galaxy could be home to a slowly renewed water resource powered by their suns.
This is fantastic news for future human space exploration. This life-giving water resource could potentially also be split into hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel.
Back down to Earth
So how does this revelation relate to the origin of Earth’s water?
When Earth and its oceans were forming, the Solar System was teeming with objects from kilometre-wide asteroids to micrometre-scale dust particles. These objects have been falling onto our planet (and others) ever since.
Scaling up from our small space-weathered grain, we estimated that a cubic meter of asteroid dust could contain as much as 20 litres of water. So with all the space dust that has fallen to Earth over the aeons, a lot of water from the Sun (with less deuterium) would have arrived alongside the heavier water from larger asteroids.
We calculated that around a 50:50 mix of water-rich dust and asteroids would be a perfect match for the isotopic composition of Earth’s water.
So, while sipping your next glass of water, ponder the curious thought that Earth derived up to half its water from the Sun.
Luke Daly receives funding from the UK Science Technology Facilities Council (STFC). He is affiliated with University of Glasgow, University of Oxford, and University of Sydney.
Professor Martin R. Lee receives funding from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Nick Timms and Phil Bland do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
These are very early days in terms of our understanding the Omicron variant. What is known is that it has a large number of mutations, particularly in the spike protein and it appears to be rapidly spreading in specific parts of the world.
Very early indications from Africa suggest it does not cause particularly severe disease (though the World Health Organization has urged caution given the limited data available).
At this point, it isn’t clear whether it has any greater capacity to evade vaccines than other SARS-CoV-2 strains such as Delta.
It is very common for viruses to become less virulent (that is, cause less severe disease) once they become established in a population. The classic example is myxomatosis, which killed 99% of rabbits when first introduced into Australia, but which now causes much lower mortality.
Some experts have predicted COVID will also become less severe as it transitions to an endemic level of disease – settling into a predictable pattern of infections in a given location. It’s possible the Omicron variant may be the first step in this process.
Evolutionary biology suggests variants are more likely to thrive if they increase more rapidly in the human population than current strains. This means two things: strains with a higher R number (the basic reproduction number, or the average number of people an infectious person will likely infect) will replace those with a lower R number.
Additionally, strains that lead to the host being infectious earlier will replace those that take longer to become infectious. So strains with a shorter incubation period replace those with a longer incubation period. This appears to be the case with Delta, which has a shorter incubation period than the strains before it.
Viral strain evolution needs to be considered in the particular population in which the variant appears. Disease evolution is expected to work differently in a population with low levels of vaccination compared to one with higher levels of vaccination.
In a largely unvaccinated population, like South Africa where roughly 25% of the population is vaccinated and the Omicron variant was first detected, strains with a high R number will stand a better chance of taking hold. But in a highly vaccinated population, strains that are better able to evade the vaccine will be more likely to dominate, even if they have a lower R number in unvaccinated people.
Less severe symptoms may fuel spread
So, would you expect a variant with less severe COVID symptoms to thrive? It really depends on the trade-offs between symptoms and transmissibility.
If symptoms are less severe, people are less likely to come forward to be tested and therefore are less likely to isolate. Some may not realise they have COVID at all. Therefore, a strain with low virulence (meaning it has a lower ability to cause severe symptoms in the body) may be better able to transmit to more people than highly virulent strains.
On the other hand, as appeared to be the case for Delta, some variants can cause higher viraemia than others – meaning higher levels of the virus within infected people’s bodies. The more virus present, the more likely the person is to be able to successfully transmit the disease. This is because of the dose-response relationship – the higher the infective dose, the more likely it is an infection will result.
Again, all things being equal (without yet knowing the details of exactly how specific mutations behave), higher levels of viraemia are likely to lead to more severe symptoms.
It is not clearly understood yet why Omicron is apparently highly transmissible at least in the African context, so at this stage we don’t know whether it produces higher levels of viraemia than other strains. Viral transmission is a complex multistage process, so many things may be responsible for Omicron’s high transmission rate.
What happens next is yet to be determined. Experts will look for more information on the transmissibility of Omicron, the level of viraemia it generates and the extent to which it is capable of evading either the existing vaccines or immune responses resulting from previous infection.
Omicron may well behave quite differently in a highly vaccinated population – such as we now have in Australia – compared with a population with very low levels of vaccination as is the case in most of sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, the emergence of this new variant emphasises an effective vaccination effort worldwide is necessary to overcome the COVID pandemic.
Hamish McCallum receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the US National Science Foundation and DARPA
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dion O’Neale, Lecturer – Department of Physics, University of Auckland; Principal Investigator – Te Pūnaha Matatini, University of Auckland
Phil Walter/Getty Images
Despite the emergence of the new Omicron variant, New Zealand will move to a new COVID-19 Protection Framework this Friday, with a traffic light system to mark the level of freedoms for each region.
Auckland and other parts of the North Island that are battling active outbreaks or have low vaccination rates will start at red, which means hospitality and businesses will be largely open only for fully vaccinated people. The rest of the country will be in orange, which allows for larger gatherings but restricts access for those who remain unvaccinated.
Parts of the North Island will continue to have restrictions in place, particularly for people who remain unvaccinated, once New Zealand shifts to a new system on Friday. Provided, CC BY-NC
To travel outside the Auckland boundary, anyone aged 12 or over will need to be fully vaccinated or have had a negative COVID-19 test within three days of departure. This will reduce the number of infected people leaving Auckland, but cases will spread across the country as people travel to see whānau and go on holidays.
As part of our research to build a population-based contagion network, we used electronic transaction data from previous years to derive movement patterns across the country. We show that during weeks without public holidays, just over 100,000 travellers left Auckland to visit one or more other regions.
For the summer period of 2019-2020, close to 200,000 people left Auckland each week, with travel peaking over the Christmas and New Year period. The most common destinations for these trips were Thames-Coromandel (30,000 people), Tauranga (17,000 people) and Northland (15,000 people).
While full (two-dose) vaccination levels in Auckland are almost at 90% — remembering that 90% of eligible people means only about 75% of the total population, with lower rates for Māori — rates are much lower in many places Aucklanders like to visit over summer. This provides much less protection, against both illness and transmission, and any outbreak would be larger and more rapid.
Vaccination coverage in these areas is increasing but is unlikely to be at 90% before Christmas. Holiday destinations also have health infrastructure designed for the much lower local population and face additional pressures if visitors get sick.
New Zealand’s outdoor summer lifestyle might be an advantage; transmission is greatly reduced outdoors with good air movement. But people should remain mindful anytime they move into an environment with less ventilation, such as using the toilet at the beach or sharing a car. A good rule of thumb is if you can smell perfume in the air then there’s a transmission risk.
COVID-19 is passed on through the air we breathe, which is why masking remains important, as long as the mask fits properly.
People planning to travel should reduce their risk of exposure during the two weeks before a trip.
Skip the office party (especially if they are held indoors)
consider postponing meetings until after the holidays rather than having them during the days before people are likely to travel around the country
if you decide to go ahead, make sure gatherings and parties are outdoors
avoid alcohol as it can increase the likelihood of risky behaviour
limit yourself to one meeting per week (if someone is infected, you’ll have a better chance to find out and self-isolate before passing it on)
use your contact tracer app, always
shop online
wear a mask anywhere there is a crowd, even outdoors.
Protecting people in regions with lower vaccination rates
Vaccination is the best step to reduce spread and symptom severity. But it’s not perfect. The risk of “breakthrough” infections depends on the intensity of exposure – short exposure to an infected person is less likely to result in infection and meeting indoors poses a higher risk.
When people are vaccinated, we’d expect to see most transmission happening in dwellings where people are together for long periods of time. For anyone with a breakthrough infection, vaccination approximately halves the chance of transmitting the virus.
Vaccination also reduces the risk of developing symptoms, and greatly reduces the risk of needing hospitalisation. But having milder symptoms can make it harder to detect cases, which means it remains important to get tested.
The most popular places New Zealanders like to visit over summer are remote and people living there haven’t had the same easy access to vaccination as those living in bigger cities.
Nearly a third of Northland’s eligible population remains unvaccinated, the East Cape is only 65% fully vaccinated and parts of the Coromandel Peninsula are also sitting well under ideal vaccination rates.
These places also have fewer testing facilities, which could mean outbreaks become harder to detect and manage. Many rural communities aren’t connected to town supply, so wastewater testing won’t be as useful, and emergency medical attention is harder to access.
Planning to manage COVID infections
Many residents in these remote towns, including iwi leaders, are asking holiday makers to stay away, regardless of vaccination status. Māori are already disproportionately represented in our COVID-19 statistics and have more young people who can’t be vaccinated yet.
By travelling to areas with low vaccination rates among the Māori population we risk compounding tragedy in places where health services would not cope with the level of illness.
Anyone choosing to go on holiday after weighing these factors should have a plan for what they’ll do if they or someone on their group develops COVID-like symptoms while away from their usual health support systems.
Questions to ask include:
Where will you go to get a test?
What will you do while you wait for test results?
Will it be possible for you to self-isolate while you wait for a test result?
Where is the closest medical centre? Do they operate after hours?
Is there an ambulance service and how far is the nearest hospital?
Is there good phone reception? If not, what will you do in a health emergency?
How would you manage an outbreak in your holiday accommodation?
Campers should take extra precautions by wearing masks in shared kitchens and bathrooms and using their own cleaning and hygiene products. They should keep good social distance wherever possible and minimise contact with people they don’t know.
Family gatherings will also bring together different generations, with elders who may be more vulnerable and younger people who are more mobile and more likely to be infected. A group of New Zealanders who experienced COVID-19 put together a management kit with a list of things anyone travelling will find useful.
We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Kylie Stewart, a member of the team at Te Pūnaha Matatini and the HRC-funded project Te Matatini o te Horapa — a population-based contagion network for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Dion O’Neale receives funding from the Health Research Council and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to provide research and advice on the spread of COVID-19 in Aotearoa, including the equity impacts of contagion. He is a Principal Investigator in Te Pūnaha Matatini.
Andrew Sporle runs a research consultancy which receives funding from the Health Research Council, MBIE (via research projects at the Universities of Otago, Victoria and Auckland), The University of Auckland and Ministry of Social Development, Oranga Tamariki. He is a executive member of Te Mana Raraunga and the Virtual Health Information Network.
Emily Harvey receives funding from the Health Research Council and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to provide research and advice on the spread of COVID-19 in Aotearoa, including the equity impacts of contagion. She is a Principal Investigator in Te Pūnaha Matatini, and Senior Researcher at ME Research.
Steven Turnbull receives funding from the Health Research Council and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to provide research and advice on the spread of COVID-19 in Aotearoa, including the equity impacts of contagion. He is a Research Fellow in Te Pūnaha Matatini.
Monjon, a small, native mammal in the tropical savanna under threat from fireDavid Bettini, Author provided
Environmental scientists see flora, fauna and phenomena the rest of us rarely do. In this series, we’ve invited them to share their unique photos from the field.
Native small mammals such as bandicoots, tree-rats and possums have been in dire decline across Northern Australia’s vast savannas for the last 30 years – and we’ve only just begun to understand why.
Our new research points to fire. In the most comprehensive study of small mammals and the threats they face in northern Australia, we found the length of time a habitat is left unburnt determines the number of different mammal species present, and their abundance.
This is important because Northern Australia’s tropical savanna is one of the most fire-prone regions on the planet. Our findings suggest we need to change the way we manage wildfires so we can help native wildlife come back from the brink.
Wunaamin Miliwundi Range – stunning tropical savanna where wildfires pose a huge threat to wildlife. David Bettini, Author provided
The last mammal stronghold
The remote and breathtakingly beautiful Northern Kimberley is the only place in mainland Australia where there have been no mammal extinctions. Instead, it’s a stronghold for species that are now extinct or in decline elsewhere in northern Australia, such as golden-backed tree-rats, brush-tailed rabbit-rats and northern quolls.
It’s also home to species found nowhere else in Australia, such as the monjon (the world’s smallest rock-wallaby), the hamster-like Kimberley rock rat, and the enigmatic scaly-tailed possum.
Monjon (right) and northern quoll (left), two savanna species under dire threat from wildfires. David Bettini, Author provided A golden-backed tree-rat. David Bettini, Author provided Golden bandicoot. David Bettini, Author provided
But wildfires are a significant threat to these small mammals, as well as many other plants and animals, with many officially listed as endangered or vulnerable.
This fire-proneness is driven by the monsoon climate. Wet season rainfall causes grass to grow rapidly, and a prolonged dry season causes these grasses to dry out, creating fuel. Lightning and other ignition sources from the mid to the end of the dry season from August to December result in frequent and massive high-intensity wildfires. Climate change may be exacerbating this threat.
An out-of-control fire, late in the Kimberley’s dry season. Ben Corey, Author provided The results of a fire striking late in the dry season, when grassy fuel is abundant. Ian Radford, Author provided
Fire managers, largely led by Indigenous rangers as well as state government agencies and conservation organistations, use low intensity prescribed burning in the early dry season, when vegetation is moist and conditions are cooler. This produces patchy fire scars that limit the spread of the inevitable wildfires later in the dry season.
We’ve been studying small mammals in the Northern Kimberley for the last ten years, amassing the one of the largest datasets for any study in northern Australia.
Our work confirms the critical role of feral cats and livestock (such as buffaloes, horses, cattle and donkeys) in mammal declines. Sites with more cats and livestock had fewer native mammals.
Researcher Ben Corey with a black-footed tree-rat. David Chemello, Author provided A feral cat caught prowling around the critical native ecosystem of Australia’s topical savanna. Ben Corey, Author provided
However, the most vital factor was vegetation that remained unburnt for four or more years – whether from wildfires or prescribed burns. Sites with longer unburnt vegetation, including with fruiting shrubs and trees, had far more mammals.
Pyrodiversity refers to the number of patches within a landscape, with different times since the last fire, and is something fire managers try to achieve.
Flying to remote monitoring sites, which can be near impossible to access by foot or car. Ben Corey, Author provided
However, we found pyrodiversity had a negative influence on mammals. Unburnt vegetation was the only attribute that explained the higher abundance and diversity of small mammal species.
What’s more, the benefits for small mammals increase with the size of the unburnt patch – bigger is better. These longer unburnt patches provide critical resources such as food from fruiting trees and shrubs, and shelter including tree hollows and hollow logs. They also help small mammals to evade feral cats.
Prince Regent National Park, in the remote north-west Kimberley. Ben Corey, Author provided Longer unburnt habitat in Prince Regent National Park. Ben Corey, Author provided
A conundrum for fire managers
Our findings present fire managers with a conundrum. While it’s vital to mammals, large unburnt patches are often targeted because they burn more easily and are often viewed as being risky.
We’re not suggesting there should be no prescribed burning or that current fire management has adverse effects on small mammals. In fact, we need around 25% of savannas to be burnt under milder fire-weather conditions each year to maintain longer unburnt vegetation and, therefore, achieve the best results for mammals.
However, our study does suggest fire management needs to be more nuanced than simply reducing wildfires. We mustn’t lose sight of the need to look at longer term fire patterns.
Aerial prescribed burning undertaken in Prince Regent National Park. Ben Corey, Author provided
Fire management in northern Australia is already highly sophisticated. Advances in fire scar and landscape mapping mean we have tools at our disposal to take a more strategic approach.
For example, we can identify refuge areas for mammals, as well as areas that are naturally less fire prone. We can decrease the randomness of prescribed burning by focusing on recently burnt areas and landscape features, such as rivers and cliffs, that maximise the stopping power of strategic fire scars.
A low intensity prescribed burn. Ben Corey, Author provided
But monitoring and reporting on this needs to become more widespread, and coordinated across different fire-managed areas. New fire reporting tools, such as the Savanna Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting Framework, will help make this happen.
We realise achieving this across northern Australia’s vast and remote landscapes is a formidable and expensive undertaking. But it’s essential adequate and targeted monitoring is embedded within fire management programs, so we can better track wildlife responses.
Ben Corey and Ian Radford are employed by the West Australian Government’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.
Leigh-Ann Woolley previously received funding from NESP TSR Hub. She is currently employed by WWF-Australia.
Ian Radford 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.
To say Australian universities are in crisis is to state the obvious. A common narrative suggests the most immediate cause of the current crisis is “reduced international student revenue and income from investments, such as dividends” during the pandemic. Some correlation is undeniable. However, many commentators have noted that the problems besetting our universities transcend financial issues alone and predate the pandemic.
The root causes, we suggest, lie in radical changes in how Australian universities are governed. The shift toward a quasi-corporate model of governance included a significant change in the composition of universities’ governing bodies.
In the past, a majority of their members had a background in the tertiary education sector. Today barely a third do, our research for Academics for Public Universities has found.
Some commentators see a more corporate form of university governance as both inevitable and necessary. We believe it is neither. The increasing detachment of university governance from the university community itself has serious consequences.
A recent report by The Australia Institute calculated more than 40,000 university jobs were lost in the year to May 2021. That equates to 20% of the total pre-pandemic university workforce, a rate two to three times greater than overall pandemic job losses in Australia. The number also exceeds the jobs that would be lost in total if all thermal coal mining in Australia were to end.
Courses are being increasingly cut. At the same time the costs to students of certain degrees are increasing.
Even before COVID, students were increasingly being diverted to “self-directed” online modules. This trend reduces direct contact time with lecturers and tutors. It’s a source of the very clear student dissatisfaction and distress reported by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.
Who has presided over this growing list of problems and predicaments?
Who governs our public universities?
At present, bodies commonly named councils (or senates in fewer cases, with one called a board of trustees) govern Australian public universities. Decision-making power ultimately rests with them.
As a result of a series of changes over the past few decades, these governing bodies are no longer comprised of a majority of academics and students. Instead, they have a majority of external members who are neither enrolled as students nor employed by the university. The governing bodies themselves elect many of these members.
Academics for Public Universities reviewed the composition and expertise (as advertised on university websites) of the governing bodies of all 37 Australian public universities. Of a total of 564 members, only 33% are elected from within the institutions they govern.
Moreover, only 31.5% have any expertise working in the tertiary sector, while 7.5% are student representatives. The other 61% have professional expertise in fields other than tertiary education. And 33% come from the broader corporate/private/finance/industry sector.
As a result, individual members of universities’ governing bodies inject a great level of belief, dedication and financial and commercial skills, but, by definition, limited professional expertise in tertiary education.
Ironically, this is a radical departure from corporate governance standards. Our review looked at large registered companies, such as Rio Tinto, Telstra and CSL, whose directors often sit on university councils. Their boards have 73%, 72% and 78% respectively of members with experience in the sectors they operate in.
Australian university governance also represents an anomaly internationally. A majority of academics and student representatives still govern most European universities, according to their charters.
For example, at Oxford, frequently ranked the best university in the world, 77% of governing members have experience in the university sector. And 73% have an explicit academic background.
Oxford University has a traditional and much more representative governance model, which continues to serve it well. Shutterstock
For over two decades now, Australian universities have increasingly been run like businesses by a majority of business-minded experts. The problems laid bare by the COVID-19 crisis seem to point to an abysmal failure of such an approach.
As a recent discussion paper released by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi argues: “Research and teaching should be governed by public interest and free intellectual inquiry, not the demands and pursuits of corporations” – or a commercial corporate mindset. Unless academic expertise and values return to the centre of a university’s governance structure, we fear not only will such an aspiration not be met, but also the sector-wide crisis unleashed by COVID-19 will be just one of many.
Alessandro Pelizzon is affiliated with Academics for Public Universities and is an elected academic member of Council at Southern Cross University.
Adam Lucas is affiliated with Better University Governance (UOW) and Academics for Public Universities.
I receive grants from the ARC, NHMRCt and the Flinders Foundation. I am the co-Chair of the Global Steering Council of the People’s Health Movement. I an a life member of the Public Health Association of Australia and a Fellow of the AAHMS, ASSA, AHPA.
Justin O’Connor receives funding from the Australia Research Council. He is a member of Academics for Public Universities (APU)
Peter Tregear is affiliated with Academics for Public Universities.
Renaud Joannes-Boyau is affiliated with the group Academics for Public Universities.
Richard Hil is a member of The Greens; coordinator of Critical Conversations (NFP discussion forum); volunteer with Mullumbimby Neighbourhood Centre; co-leader of research circle, Resilient Byron; member of Academies for the Public University.
Siobhan Irving is affiliated with Academics for Public Universities and the National Tertiary Education Union.
Stephen Lake is a member of Academics for Public Universities and of the National Tertiary Education Union.
David Noble, James Guthrie, and Oliver Vodeb do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Australians’ concern about the pandemic ebbs and flows dramatically as waves come and go, according to research that also shows that COVID has not shaken the nation’s social cohesion.
The Scanlon Foundation Research Institute’s 2021 Mapping Social Cohesion Report found that in July last year, 63% of respondents believed the pandemic the “most important problem facing Australia today”, while only 15% nominated the economy.
Monash University’s Andrew Markus, who wrote the report, said the spike reflected “an unprecedented level of concern obtained in response to an open-ended question that typically obtains a broad range of responses”.
But by November 2020 only 32% rated the pandemic as the most important problem, with 24% saying the economy.
Then in the July 2021 survey, with adverse publicity about the vaccine rollout and the third wave starting, the rating had jumped to 59%, and the economy was down to 9%.
This rollercoaster of public concern is especially relevant given the emergence of the new Omicron strain, about which information remains sparse. It shows how quickly developments in the pandemic can change people’s priorities.
With an election looming in the first half of next year, the Scanlon numbers highlight that what will be to the forefront of the public’s mind is unpredictable months out – partly dependent on the course of the pandemic abroad, and hence in Australia.
The Scanlon survey, which has been running since 2007, covered 3572 people in 2021 and asked more than 110 questions. It also included qualitative research.
As has been reflected in other research, the survey found that trust in government, which had been low, jumped after the pandemic hit but has started to fall. Trust in the federal government to do the right thing for Australians all or most of the time was 44% in 2021. This was 10 points down on July 2020, but remained well above the long term average.
Approval of the federal government’s response was 52% this year, down from 85% last year.
Despite the Morrison government’s periodic condemnations of prolonged harsh interstate border closures, the public were supportive.
“The state governments that were able to halt virus transmission and avoid lengthy lockdowns continued to be rated very highly with approval of the Western Australian and South Australian government close to 90%, while New South Wales, which also had enjoyed a very high level of approval in 2020, saw approval fall to 59%,” the report says.
“While there were protests against government lockdowns which gained much media attention, the survey finds that approval of lockdowns won close to 90% endorsement.”
In July this year 87% across the nation viewed lockdown restrictions as definitely or probably required. In the states most affected, the numbers were 91% in NSW and 85% in Victoria.
Despite the difficult times, Australians were remarkably optimistic about the future: 71% were optimistic in 2021, actually up from the pre-COVID 2019 figure of 63%.
Reflecting the impact of the high level of government financial help during the crisis, “the surprising finding is that in 2020 and 2021 more positive responses were obtained for a number of financial questions when compared with the previous two years”.
For example, 71% were satisfied with their present financial situation in July this year.
One dramatic change in the survey was a major increase in people’s perception of how big a problem racism is.
Since November last year there has been a 20 point rise in the proportion saying racism was a very big or big problem, to 60%.
The report says such a rise in response to a general question was almost unprecedented in the Scanlon surveys, and its timing was difficult to explain. There was no indication of an increase in the proportion of respondents with xenophobic and racist views, it says.
But in the latest survey, as in past Scanlon surveys over the years, the highest level of discrimination was reported by Australians of non-English speaking backgrounds.
Asked whether they had experienced discrimination in the last year because of their colour, ethnic origin or religion, 11% of the Australian born said they had, as did 12% of those born overseas in an English speaking country.
This compared to 34% of those born overseas in a non-English speaking country, including 38% of those born in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan, and 40% of all respondents born in Asia.
The qualitative research, undertaken by Trish Prentice, senior researcher at the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute, involved 66 interviews across all mainland states, with a focus on areas with relatively high cultural and religious diversity.
“The interviews indicate social cohesion has not been broken by the pandemic. There was no evidence of widespread tensions in communities, of conflict or the ongoing targeting of members of certain cultural communities,” the report says.
But the interviews brought out differences in the experiences and ability to cope between different cohorts in the community.
Women felt particular impacts (for example in general they had greater responsibility for home schooling) and children were affected by reduced social contact, which had implications for their development.
Parents with poor English had barriers helping their children, and those with poor literacy felt helpless in dealing with home schooling. Refugees and asylum seekers experienced a greater psychological impact.
The report constructs a “cohesion index” which combines subjective and objective indicators to build a monitor of cohesion. The indicators used were income, employment, health, education and community participation. Indicators were tracked over the decade 2008-18. Using 2007-8 as a benchmark of 100, there had been a small decline of six points in the decade.
Despite the strong social cohesion, the report points to potential threats to it, including the substantial number of young people who do not make a successful transition from school to further education, training or employment.
The research for the report was funded by the Scanlon Foundation, supplemented by the federal government. The Scanlon Foundation was established in 2001, aiming to enhance and foster social cohesion in Australia.
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.
Ardern confirmed that all of Northland would join the Auckland region in red, along with Taupō, Rotorua Lakes, Kawerau, Whakatāne, Ōpōtiki, Gisborne, Wairoa, Rangitīkei, Whanganui and Ruapehu districts.
All other regions would be in orange.
“At orange, the big change here for parts of the country which will enter into this setting is that for the vaccinated and where vaccine passes are used, there are no gathering limits,” Ardern said today.
“People can gather again safely. At red, it will feel a lot like level 2. Your vaccine pass lets you go everywhere but number limits of 100 will apply to most activities.”
For Aucklanders, the changes meant they would be able to see family and friends indoors again.
New Zealand’s new North Island traffic light zone system to be introduced on Friday. Image: RNZ
Five of the new cases were in Northland, 167 in Auckland and 10 in Waikato
123 of the new cases were yet to be epidemiologically linked
Five close contacts are self-isolating after a local border case reported yesterday in Canterbury
New omicron variant The world may not learn the true level of the threat posed by the new omicron variant of Covid-19 for several weeks, says a University of Otago scientist.
“I think it’s right to be concerned at this moment, but we need to know more,” he said.
Institute of Environmental Science and Research principal scientist of genomics professor Mike Bunce told RNZ Morning Report the country was well-placed to deal with the new threat but it was important to maintain border protections to “buy us time”.
At the weekend, the government moved nine countries into the very high risk category, restricting travel from those countries to New Zealand citizens only and requiring a full 14 days in MIQ.
The Morrison government has delayed its plan to open the international border on Wednesday to skilled workers and students, as it awaits more information about the Omicron variant of COVID.
Cabinet’s national security committee on Monday night paused the reopening – that also included humanitarian, worker holiday makers, and provisional family visa holders – until December 15.
The reopening to travellers from Japan and South Korea will also be deferred.
On Tuesday the national cabinet will meet to discuss the latest development in the pandemic.
The government said that in deferring the border opening it was acting on the advice provided by the Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly. The pause would ensure time to gather the information needed “to better understand the Omicron variant”, including how effective the vaccines are against it.
Currently the border is closed to all but vaccinated Australian citizens and permanent residents and their families and vaccinated “green lane” travellers from Singapore and New Zealand.
The deferral is a blow for businesses facing serious shortages of workers. In a comment in anticipation of the deferral Innes Willox, chief executive of the Australian Industry Group said, “We need to avoid jumping at shadows as every new COVID variant appears.
“COVID is in the community whether it is Delta or Omicron or whatever the next variant will be. Rather than more stimulus, the best support for business will come from sticking to the living- with-COVID plan and keeping our state and international borders open.”
On Wednesday the September quarter national account figures will be released that will show the economy going backwards in that quarter due to lockdowns. But on all the evidence it has been recovering strongly since.
With a handul of cases of the Omicron variant now in Australia the government is cautiously optimistic that it may be a mild illness but is taking no chances.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said: “This may be a mild version of the disease. It’s still COVID, it’s still dangerous, but there may be some quiet positive hope in what’s emerging, but it’s too early to make a definitive call”.
He has asked the Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation to review the current period between second vaccine doses and the booster shot, which is six months. The government has plenty of boosters available and would bring them forward if that were the advice.
Budget on March 29
Meanwhile the government issued the parliamentary sitting calendar for next year, that puts the budget on March 29, which would mean a May election.
The government has been signalling recently it wants another budget before the election, although some believe it would be wiser to go to the polls in March, thus avoiding having parliament sit again after this week.
When an interviewer on Monday referred to a March election, Morrison said, “the election is due by the third week in May”.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese told the ABC the calendar showed “it’s likely, even if there’s a budget, that we will sit a grand total of 10 days the House of Reps and five days the Senate in the first six months of next year”.
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.
National Party interim leader Dr Shane Reti, flanked by colleagues, prepares to announce Judith Collins has been removed as party leader.GettyImages
Many will know the definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. It’s a caution the National Party caucus would do well to bear in mind when choosing their fifth party leader in just four years at Tuesday’s caucus meeting.
They might also consider what research has shown are the warning signs that someone is not well equipped to lead or is fatally flawed in some way. The last thing they need is another derailment after the party’s recent disasters.
While we ought not to expect perfection from leaders, National has clearly had a dismal run since May 2020 when Simon Bridges was dethroned off the back of poor polling, having misread the public’s mood about Labour’s early handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
His successor Todd Muller resigned after just 53 days, leaving Judith Collins to take the helm, leading the party to a humiliating defeat at last year’s general election.
Throughout 2021, National continued to struggle under Collins’ leadership, with a recent poll reporting she had a net negative disapproval rating of 31%. Well known for her divisive style, Collins overplayed her hand last week by demoting rival Simon Bridges over a years-old misconduct allegation and was ousted by her caucus in an historic no confidence vote.
Candidate selection problems
The problem affects not only the top echelons of the National party, however. Chris Finlayson, a former senior minister from the John Key era, has also lamented the calibre of MPs and candidates, arguing recent scandals such as those involving Jamie Lee Ross, Andrew Falloon, Hamish Walker and Jake Bezzant point to problems in the party’s selection process.
Finlayson is also on record describing those entering parliament in National’s ranks in 2008, 2011 and 2014 as “amateurs and lightweights” driven by personal ambition but lacking the necessary character and skills to be effective.
Yet it is these – now in their third parliamentary terms at least – who number among the more experienced in National’s caucus.
With the stakes so high for the party as it selects its next leader, perhaps research can help inform its decision. Researchers do vary greatly in what they say great leadership requires. However, when it comes to poor leadership the consensus is much stronger.
Balancing confidence and competence
A fundamental mistake the National caucus must not make is to conflate confidence with competence. While confidence certainly is important in a leadership role, it does not automatically make someone competent.
Confidence is basically about self-belief – but such beliefs can be wildly out of touch with reality. Indeed, a common characteristic of failed leaders is a narcissistic and hubristic belief in their own brilliance.
This can frequently cause them to be rude, dismissive of the advice and concerns of others, and impulsive in their decision making – all tendencies that undermine their competence.
Confidence not grounded in actual proven competence, then, raises the risk of a leader performing poorly. Competence, on the other hand, involves mastery of the skills and knowledge required for a given leadership role.
Because of this, the caucus ought to seek objective, independent evidence of competence and be alert to any indicators of confidence that exceeds it.
Leadership traits to avoid
A 2011 review of earlier studies of promising leaders whose careers derailed also offers useful guidance. It found the inability to effectively manage relationships with others was the core cause of leaders failing.
Essentially, leaders who lack interpersonal sensitivity, who use their power to dominate others, or cannot win the trust of their followers, are at high risk of flaming out. Relationships matter because when leaders make mistakes – which they inevitably will – they cannot expect support when their relationships with others are scarred by conflict and mistrust.
The study also identified various other “habits of the unsuccessful”, including:
overestimating strengths and underestimating the competition
putting personal interests ahead of the collective
arrogance and recklessness in decision making
eliminating potential rivals and those who challenge them
excessively focusing on issues of image rather than actual work
underestimating difficulties in achieving goals and failing to plan for what could go wrong
using outdated strategies and tactics.
Had previous leaders been mindful of such concerns they might still have their jobs. What now matters for the National party caucus, however, is that it learns from its past mistakes and doesn’t vote for more of the same while hoping for a different outcome.
Suze Wilson 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.
An editorial in the Chinese English-language mouthpiece Global Times has accused Australia — and the United States — of “conniv[ing] with and even encourag[ing] the unrest” in the Solomon Islands after three days of rioting last week destroyed much of Chinatown in the capital Honiara.
“Even though [100] Australian troops and police were sent to keep order in the Solomon Islands,” said the tabloid newspaper at the weekend.
“What is right and what is not is obvious. Hence, aren’t [Prime Minister Scott] Morrison’s remarks of ‘not indicat[ing] any position’ actually a support for the evil doings?“
The Global Times is published under the umbrella of the Chinese Communist Party’s official flagship publication People’s Daily and is viewed by critics as often publishing disinformation.
“Defending against China’s influence into the South Pacific has been an outstanding geopolitical consideration of the US and Australia, which has been welcomed and longed [for] by the Taiwan authorities, because four of the remaining 15 countries that keep ‘diplomatic ties’ with Taiwan are in the South Pacific — and the future to consolidate such ties is uncertain.”
The editorial said:
Rioters ‘stormed Parliament’ “The capital city of the Solomon Islands has been under riots for days. The rioters have stormed the Parliament, set fire to a police station, and attacked Chinatown and other businesses there.
“Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare on Friday blamed foreign interference for instigating the anti-government protests over his government’s decision to cut ‘diplomatic ties’ with the island of Taiwan and establish diplomatic ties with the Chinese mainland. Though, he didn’t specify who is among the ‘other powers’ that fomented the violence.
“Sogavare emphasised that the choice to establish diplomatic ties with Beijing conforms to the trend of the times and international laws.
“The Solomon Islands is a country with nearly 690,000 people in the South Pacific region. After Sogavare assumed office in 2019, his administration made a choice to set up diplomatic ties with Beijing. However, the island of Malaita [in] the country, where most of the rioters are reportedly from, has maintained its relations with the island of Taiwan.
“The New York Timessaid the Solomon Islands has been in a ‘heightened political tug of war’, citing a former Australian diplomat stationed in the Solomon Islands saying that the US has been providing Malaita with direct foreign aid. Such analysis is representative of the US and Australia.
“Defending against China’s influence into the South Pacific has been an outstanding geopolitical consideration of the US and Australia, which has been welcomed and longed by the Taiwan authorities, because four of the remaining 15 countries that keep ‘diplomatic ties’ with Taiwan are in the South Pacific — and the future to consolidate such ties is uncertain.
“The South Pacific countries and the Chinese mainland have a strong capacity to cooperate under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. Over the years, many small nations have, on their own, chosen to have closer ties with Beijing.
‘Dollar diplomacy, coercion’ “The measures taken to prevent these small countries from establishing diplomatic ties with China have included ‘dollar diplomacy’, coercion, and inciting unrest within these countries to topple local governments.
“Australia has been offered a hand to maintain security in the Solomon Islands. Recently, Canberra has again deployed more than 100 police and defense force personnel to the country. Against this backdrop, it is not hard to imagine how easy it will be for an external force to wreak havoc there.
“Australia, the US, or the Taiwan authorities haven’t admitted to being behind the ‘foreign interference’ condemned by Sogavare. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted that Australia’s ‘presence there does not indicate any position on the internal issues of the Solomon Islands’. Canberra even alleged the move was in response to a request from Sogavare.
“Nonetheless, the Associated Press cited observers as saying that ‘Australia intervened quickly to avoid Chinese security forces moving in to restore order’. More importantly, neither Canberra nor Washington has condemned the riots in the Solomon Islands so far, despite the fact that the unrest has violated the basic spirit of democracy and the rule of law.
“Media coverage of the riots in the US and Australia was ‘matter-of-fact’ and highlighted the rioters’ political opposition to diplomatic relations with China.
“It is clear that Australia’s overall attitude, and that of the US, is to connive with and even encourage the unrest, even though the Australian troops and police were sent to keep order in the Solomon Islands. What is right and what is not is obvious. Hence, aren’t Morrison’s remarks of ‘not indicate any position’ actually a support for the evil doings?
“The government of the Solomon Islands and their people know what is really going on there. It is also not hard for the outside world to know. Prime Minister Sogavare noted there were other powers fomenting the riots, shouldn’t the international community believe the words of this legitimate leader of the Solomon Islands?”
And the PNG ?? Honiara ?? community out on the streets today for a cleanup session ? Pictures by Rodney Arofasei pic.twitter.com/HnRS3Pji6o
According to the Global Times, “this handout image taken and received on 25 November 2021 from ZFM Radio shows parts of the Chinatown district on fire in Honiara on Solomon Islands, as rioters torched buildings in the capital in a second day of anti-government protests.” Image: Global Times/VCG
One of the key characteristics of Melanesian politics is its ability to remain formless and chaotic right up until the point where, after a strange and often obscure catalysing moment, it abruptly transforms itself.
More than a few people will attribute Solomon Islands’ recent tragic political confrontation to Manasseh Sogavare, his decision to end diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and his intolerance in the face of Malaitan grievance.
Sogavare has a reputation for intransigence. He can be downright pugnacious when confronted. More than a few people have laid at least part of the blame for the 2000 coup at his feet.
But that misunderstands who he is, and how he’s managed to remain one of the most enduring characters on the Solomon Islands political scene.
Sogavare began his career as a tea boy smartly saluting the White-socked British administrators. He is extremely proud to have become the one they salute.
The diplomatic switch Those who insist on seeing the current crisis in geopolitical terms misunderstand his role in the diplomatic switch, and his approach to politics.
Sogavare is two things:
He is headstrong. His rise to power is punctuated by confrontation and inflexibility. He entered politics because the PM of the day sacked him from his role as Permanent Secretary of Finance. His first term as Prime Minister was fraught with violence and hatred.
He is a technocrat. He will seek pragmatic solutions that are conspicuously absent of ideology, or even consistency, when circumstances dictate.
When Solomon Islands held the chair of the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2015, he played a decisive role in brokering the awkward compromise that saw the MSG simultaneously elevate Indonesia’s status in the organisation and welcome the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, or ULMWP, into the fold.
If he had allowed it, the matter of membership would have gone to a vote, and the vote would have split the organisation irrevocably. Instead he found a consensus solution, albeit one that defies an intellectually consistent explanation.
This is precisely the pitfall that, if backchannel accounts are accurate, Australia led the Pacific Islands Forum into when they called for the selection of the next secretary-general to be put to a vote.
Always an outsider Born in Papua New Guinea to missionary parents from Choiseul province, he’s always been an outsider and an individualist. His lack of constituency has become his stock in trade. It’s precisely because he’s not burdened by party or policy that he continually bobs to the top of the Solomon Islands political elite.
If you had asked anyone about his stance toward China in the lead-up to the diplomatic split from Taiwan, you would likely have heard that he opposed recognition of China. But that didn’t stop him from unreservedly attacking Taiwan for its failure to address his country’s development needs.
The critique wasn’t unmerited. For decades, Taiwan elevated its ties to the political elite over its role as a development partner. The much-maligned Constituency Development Funds that have gained outsized influence over national politics were seeded by Taiwan.
CDFs are one of the key drivers of electoral corruption in the country. A close observer of Solomon Islands politics recently told me that to get elected in Solomon Islands now, you have to be either rich, or an MP.
Incumbency rates increased markedly since the CDFs were made a core component in the budget process.
It took Taiwan years to begin unhitching itself from this albatross. When they did, they left an opening for China to fill. And, in spite of their own reluctance to become stuck in the same corruption and mire that Taiwan had only just emerged from, the prize was too big to forego.
Claiming that Sogavare drove this process ignores the power of Parliament. He knew which way they were going, and he knew what he had to do if he was going to keep his hand on the wheel.
And that’s why he did what he did.
Distrust of Malaitan politicians His distrust of senior Malaitan politicians, and his apparent willingness to use dirty tricks to remove them, are well known. It’s hard to defend many of the decisions he’s made along the way.
But it is possible to understand and explain them.
Manasseh Sogavare is a party of one. He retains his hold on the highest office not in spite of this, but because of it. He presents no ideological or policy threat to any of the other MPs.
It’s precisely because of his mechanistic, arguably amoral approach to politics that he remains one of the most enduring faces on the Solomon Islands political scene.
That hardly raises him above criticism. But it should serve as a caution to anyone who naively thinks that removing him will solve the nation’s problems — or that the nation’s political problems can be solved by a policy, a party or a single man.
The question is not who can salve this wound afflicting Solomons society, but how these peoples can heal themselves.
The divisions that have fuelled this most recent rupture are deep. They span decades. To think that a bit of parliamentary musical chairs will be sufficient to fix it is folly. To think that some other smart, independent man of deep conviction is going to be able to put things to rights is to ignore the evidence right in front of our eyes.
How will history judge Sogavare? I’ll leave the last words to him. When I asked him back in 2015 about the prospect for continued violence and unrest, he said:
“We’ve been through this three times now. And if I haven’t learned anything from 2006, then… I have myself to blame.”
Dan McGarry was previously media director at Vanuatu Daily Post/Buzz FM96. The Village Explainer is his semi-regular newsletter containing analysis and insight focusing on under-reported aspects of Pacific societies, politics and economics. His articles are republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.
The United Nations has glaring problems in Samoa where the government is calling for the UN’s role in the country to be reviewed.
The most pressing immediate problem concerns the UN Resident Co-ordinator in Samoa, Simona Marinescu, and the local government’s allegation that she has interfered in domestic politics.
Samoa’s ruling Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party has accused Marinescu of breaching UN principles of neutrality by actively working against the party during this year’s election.
The FAST claim partly relates to Marinescu’s involvement in the push to increase the number of women MPs in Samoa. The issue of a quota for women’s seats in Parliament became a central point of contention in the drawn out impasse between the former ruling Human Rights Protection Party and FAST over election the election in April, which was won by FAST.
Marinescu, a former politician in Romania who took up the Apia post in early 2018, is a vocal advocate of women’s rights.
However, by pushing the women MPs issue during the testy initial post-election stages, she was accused of having favoured HRPP and its leader, Samoa’s long-time prime minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielagaoi, who aimed to prevent Fiame Naomi Mata’afa becoming the country’s first woman prime minister.
After months of court action over the election outcome, as well as rallies by HRPP supporters which FAST has accused Marinescu of helping to instigate, Fiame is now installed as prime minister — and her government has the knives out for the UN representative.
Push for law change FAST party chairman deputy prime minister La’auli Leuatea Schmidt has also questioned Marinescu’s role in a reported recommendation to legalise abortion in Samoa made as part of a submission by the UN country office for Samoa’s recent Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council.
Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa addresses the 76th UN General Assembly by video link. Image UNGA
La’auli said it was not Marinescu’s place to have pushed for changes to Samoa’s laws in the area of women’s rights, adding that she had crossed a line.
“She should not affiliate with our local domestic politics,” he said.
“That is our main concern, because we found out that she has been involved with our political affairs locally.”
The diplomat has been unavailable for RNZ Pacific’s requests to comment. Having attended COP26 in Glasgow, Marinescu remains out of the country, and it is uncertain if she is welcome to return to Samoa given the new government’s feelings.
Tuilaepa, now the opposition leader, came out in defence of Marinescu and called for an apology from La’auli whose attacks he described as “uncalled for”.
Samoan government building, Apia. Image: Johnny Blades/RNZ
Sources close to the UN in Samoa described it as unlikely that Marinescu had sought to help HRPP win government over FAST, but said her interventions were ill-judged, badly timed and came across as high-handed.
Climate project under UN corruption probe During Marinescu’s tenure in Samoa, a major climate change resilience project under the UN umbrella has gone awry with the emergence of corruption allegations.
The Vaisigano River Catchment Project, a US$65 million flood proofing project to fortify a main river in Samoa’s capital Apia from rising sea levels, was to be 90 percent funded by the UN’s Green Climate Fund.
But the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has been investigating allegations of corruption in the project since last year, and the project has stalled. In its preliminary form, the work proved insufficient to prevent significant damage from last December’s floods in Apia.
Furthermore, the Samoa Observer recently revealed that the UN’s Samoa office (a multi-country desk which also oversees the UN’s Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau programmes) was stripped of its authority to manage the Vaisigano Catchment and other development projects due to the concerns about its financial mismanagement.
The UN’s Bangkok office is now controlling expenditure over up to a dozen projects under the Samoa office, also including a US$52 million project for increasing the country’s production of renewable energy, and several projects in Niue and the Cooks.
Regarding the Vaisigano project, the UNDP said formal investigations were launched by its Office of Audit and Investigation, “appropriate follow-up actions have been initiated”, and the case had been referred to national authorities.
Mismanagement of major climate resilience projects is a concern for regional countries like New Zealand, which last month committed US$900 million over four years to support mainly Pacific countries on climate change efforts.
Climate partnership funding NZ Climate Change Minister James Shaw said New Zealand’s work in climate funding was primarily geared toward working with partner countries directly, rather than through multi-lateral funds such as the Green Climate Fund.
“One of the reasons for that is when you’re working bilaterally, directly, you’ve got much better line of sight of the projects, and so that helps us to manage around any issues of corruption that might arise.”
The Vaisigano River Project in Apia … now the subject of a UN corruption probe. Image: Samoa Observer
Sources have told RNZ Pacific of their concern that there was a lack of checks and balances over the Vaisigano Catchment Project, as well as a lack of progress in the project generally since it was signed off in 2016.
Marinescu has not had direct oversight of UNDP projects since the role was de-linked from that of Resident Co-ordinator, and new UNDP Resident Representative Jorn Sorensen arrived in late 2019.
However, Samoa’s prime minister has said she was considering lodging a formal complaint about Marinescu’s behaviour in relation to alleged interference in local politics.
FAST party wins four byelections The emerging problems in the UN Samoa relationship came as the country headed back to the polls last week for six byelections — four of them being won by the FAST party to boost their numbers in the House to 31.
The byelections were the result of post-election legal challenges, which led to HRPP election-winners for these electorates giving up their seats.
Meanwhile, Fiame’s government has called for a review of the UN role in Samoa.
La’auli has acknowledged the good work that the UN has done over many years in Samoa.
But he said the new issues that had arisen highlighted a need to revisit the relationship with the UN in the interests of protecting Samoa’s culture and Christian values.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Narelle Yeo, Senior Lecturer in Voice and Stagecraft, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney
Getty Images
The most eclectic of music theatre composers was not only a gifted wordsmith and lyricist, but also had a truly original compositional voice.
Stephen Sondheim, who died at home on the weekend at 91, had a singular ability to craft narrative in short, poignant moments, with constantly evolving, twisting and turning motifs in melodies and harmonies that signify, place, time, feeling, emotion and sensory experience.
He built a score by taking an idea – either lyrical or musical – turning it upside down and spinning it around to reveal a different view. It is clear Sondheim enjoyed the play of words, of motifs, of reinventing musical theatre to fit the changing perspectives of contemporary life. The audience in a Sondheim show revels in each character’s complexity.
Alongside his storied wordplay, exquisite melodies and complex harmonies, one of Sondheim’s greatest achievements was his ability to write women characters that actors want to play: complex women, women at the centre of a narrative, from Desiree recalibrating at the end of her career in A Little Night Music (1973) to the complicated Mary, her life revealed backwards in Merrily We Roll Along (1981).
The young writer
Sondheim’s first big break was as the lyricist on West Side Story (1957), after the book by Arthur Laurents, working with the great Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins. The experience of writing West Side Story for a young lyricist was challenging. The show came to Sondheim at 25 after meeting Laurents at the theatre, and he was convinced by his great mentor and friend Oscar Hammerstein II to take on the task.
Sondheim wanted to show his abilities in rhyme on his edits on I Feel Pretty, whose original lyric had been written by Laurent. Some commentators have struggled with the innocent simplicity of the characterisation of Maria in this song.
When Sondheim first heard her version live on stage, he famously realised that the lyricist’s voice was too strong, too self conscious and the character’s voice was weak.
He asked to change it, but by then the tune had taken off and the dye was cast.
Sondheim’s lyrical and musical output following West Side Story presented complex characters of all types, and his works have singularly elevated the Broadway diva more than any other composer/lyricist in the past 70 years.
Leading ladies
Sweeney Todd (1979), largely considered Sondheim’s epic opus, was inspired by an apocryphal story of a 19th century serial killer.
A melodrama, comic in parts and with very little dialogue, Sweeney Todd is a critique of the class divide in 19th century, Industrial England – personified by a murderous couple who cook their victims into meat pies.
While Sweeney is the man with a plan for revenge, Mrs Lovett, his accomplice and business partner, is every inch the protagonist along with him. The powerful, complex female lead was a rarity in traditional music theatre, where operatic tropes were easily assimilated, such as the virginal naif, the coquette, the old shrew.
Sondheim delighted in presenting what we think to be a stereotype and then justifying its subversion. As coarse and pained as Mrs Lovett is, she is an outlaw hero in this story.
His works championed careers of seasoned performers, creating opportunities for many actors who might have otherwise been seen as “too old” to play the leading lady.
Subsequently, actors lined up to play Sondheim women characters. A wonderful lockdown moment was Christine Baranski, Audra MacDonald and Meryl Streep singing Ladies Who Lunch from Company (1970) – a smirk to their own stage diva personas, the effects of COVID and a winking celebration of Sondheim on his 90th birthday.
I’m Still Here, from Follies (1971), is Sondheim’s self-reflexive moment for women in theatre: the ultimate female survival mantra in a tough industry.
When it was performed by Elaine Stritch at 85, and delivered in tights and a white shirt, the song revealed so much about Sondheim’s role in placing women at the centre of the stage. Sondheim’s tight, episodic rhyming lyrics, and twisting, arpeggiated, complicated music reveals so many intricacies about the life of a woman, particularly a woman of the theatre:
Black sable one day, next day it goes into hock, but I’m here
Top billing Monday, Tuesday, you’re touring in stock, but I’m here
First you’re another sloe-eyed vamp
Then someone’s mother, then you’re camp
Then you career from career to career
I’m almost through my memoirs, and I’m here.
Complicated, wise older women
Sondheim had a difficult relationship with his mother. She reportedly once wrote to him “the only regret I have in life is giving you birth”.
Despite this, he wrote complicated, wise and relatable older women, mothers and carers. This is exemplified in Children Will Listen, sung by the Witch in Into the Woods (1986):
How do you say to your child in the night?
Nothing’s all black, but then nothing’s all white
How do you say it will all be all right
When you know that it mightn’t be true?
What do you do?
Children Will Listen reveals an important moral value contained in Into the Woods, yet it is delivered by the female antagonist. This is the complicated, unexpected humanity of a Sondheim character: you think you know the character type in act one, they are revealed to be someone else in act two.
Dichotomy is possible and vital in a complex characterisation.
It will be new
Sondheim inspired a generation of women to believe complex female characters have a place at the centre of the Broadway stage.
With Sondheim’s genius’ passing on, we look to the next generation of writers and composers to continue his legacy and create an innovative place, smack bang in the centre of the stage, for not only women but for the entire range and breadth of humanity.
Anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new.
Narelle Yeo 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.
There is global concern and widespread alarm at the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.529, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called omicron.
The WHO classified omicron as a “variant of concern” because it has a wide range of mutations. This suggests vaccines and treatments could be less effective.
Although early days, omicron appears to be able to reinfect people more easily than other strains.
Australia has followed other countries and regions — including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and the European Union — and banned travellers from nine southern African countries.
Those who have returned from the nine countries – South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, the Seychelles, Malawi and Mozambique – in the past 14 days will have to isolate.
But Omicron has already been detected in other regions, including the UK, Germany, Israel, Hong Kong and Belgium. So while a travel ban on southern African countries may slow the spread and buy limited time, it’s unlikely to stop it.
As the Australian government and others act to protect their own citizens, this should be accompanied by additional resources to support countries in southern Africa and elsewhere that take prompt action.
When was Omicron detected? The variant was identified on November 22 in South Africa, from a sample collected from a patient on November 9.
South African virologists took prompt action, conferred with colleagues through the Network of Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, liaised with government, and notified the World Health Organisation on November 24.
The behaviour of this new variant is still unclear. Some have claimed the rate of growth of omicron infections, which reflects its transmissibility, may be even higher than those of the delta variant.
This “growth advantage” is yet to be proven but is concerning.
South African officials said the country is being “punished” for detecting the new Omicron variant as more countries rush to enact travel restrictions.
“Excellent science should be applauded and not punished,” the country said in a statement. https://t.co/Yicmn852uv
‘Kneejerk’ response vs WHO recommendations African scientists and politicians have been disappointed in what they see as a “kneejerk” response from countries imposing travel bans. They argue the bans will have significant negative effects for the South African economy, which traditionally welcomes global tourists over the summer year-end period.
They note it is still unclear whether the new variant originated in South Africa, even if it was first identified there. As omicron has already been detected in several other countries, it may already be circulating in regions not included in the travel bans.
Travel bans on countries detecting new variants, and the subsequent economic costs, may also act as a disincentive for countries to reveal variants of concern in future.
The WHO does not generally recommend flight bans or other forms of travel embargoes. Instead, it argues interventions of proven value should be prioritised: vaccination, hand hygiene, physical distancing, well-fitted masks, and good ventilation.
In response to variants of concern, the WHO calls on all countries to enhance surveillance and sequencing, report initial cases or clusters, and undertake investigations to improve understanding of the variant’s behaviour.
WHO warns world leaders against knee-jerk reaction to coronavirus variant from South Africa as U.K. and EU impose travel bans WHO names new variant omicron, says it’s a variant of concern but there’s a lot we still don’t know. Wear that face mask, peoplehttps://t.co/XdfnmKdf34
Omicron must be taken seriously. Its features are worrying, but there are large gaps in our current knowledge.
While further analyses are undertaken, the variant should be controlled with testing, tracing, isolation, applying known public health measures, and ongoing surveillance.
What can wealthier countries do to help? Wealthy countries such as Australia should support African nations and others to share early alerts of potentially serious communicable disease threats, and help mitigate these threats.
[…] public health actors only see downsides from drawing attention to an outbreak that has the potential to spread.
The panel recommended creating incentives to reward early response action. This could include support to:
establish research and educational partnerships
strengthen health systems and communicable disease surveillance
greatly improve vaccine availability, distribution, and equity
consider financial compensation, through some form of solidarity fund against pandemic risk.
Boosting vaccine coverage is key Vaccines remain the mainstay of protection against the most severe effects of covid-19.
It is unclear how effective vaccines will be against omicron, but some degree of protection is presumed likely. Pfizer has also indicated it could develop an effective vaccine against a new variant such as Omicron within 100 days or so.
Covid’s persistence is partly attributable to patchy immunisation coverage across many parts of the world, notably those least developed. South Africa itself is better off than most countries on the continent, yet only 24 percent of the adult population are currently fully vaccinated. For the whole of Africa, this drops to only 7.2 percent.
Greater global support is urgently needed to boost these vaccination rates.
African institutions and leaders, supported by global health and vaccine experts, have argued for mRNA vaccine manufacturing facilities on the African continent. These would prioritise regional populations, overcome supply-chain problems, and respond in real time to emerging disease threats.
Yet developing nations face significant barriers to obtaining intellectual property around covid-19 vaccine development and production.
While there is still much to learn about the behaviour and impact of omicron, the global community must demonstrate and commit real support to countries that do the right thing by promptly and transparently sharing information.
Australians have been warned to do their Christmas shopping early, as international supply chain issues are impacting global shipping. One industry under particular pressure is that of books, with printers, publishers and booksellers in Australia, the United States and Britain feeling the impact at their most important time of year.
Chris Redfern, who owns three Avenue Bookstores in Melbourne, recently told the ABC booksellers are facing “a crisis”.
While book supply chains are being affected globally, in the United States, paper and cardboard scarcity, along with labour shortages, are pressuring the situation at the printing press.
In the UK, a shortage of lorry drivers is limiting stock movement. This part of the supply chain is also being impacted in Australia. Our three major book distributors all use one company to distribute their books, and the company is reportedly “overwhelmed with demand.”
Use of a single service provider for freight makes sense for purposes of cost control, but it’s a high-risk strategy, particularly during times when flow cycles are so disrupted.
A problem for smaller players
Supply chains operations are highly-coordinated. They aim to get the right product, in the right way, in the right quantity and quality, to the right person and place at the right time at the right cost.
Most booksellers embrace the low-cost, fast-paced principles of lean supply chains: inventories are minimised with few resources wasted on books sitting idly in warehouses.
Most of the time, being able to respond to the market with agility exposes publishers, input suppliers, printers, transporters, warehouses and retailers to minimal risk.
Independent bookshops tend to only hold a few copies of each book in stock, but they can normally quickly respond to demand. Hatice Yardım/Unsplash
But this careful balance of coordinating everything begins to show stress when even one part is impacted – let alone the multiple stressors of COVID.
In the US, publishers are encouraging early ordering and bulk buying and holding large quantities of inventories to satisfy consumer demands. Large Australian book retailers like QBD and Booktopia have organised themselves in similar ways.
But smaller players, such as independent bookshops, are less able to buy in bulk or maintain large inventories. They are more likely to order only what they reasonably believe they can sell, quickly ordering more books in relation to demand.
There are some 1,900 bookstores in Australia that contribute about A$1.4 billion to the national economy. Most of the market – 84% – is made up of small players.
Even pre-COVID, the industry has been under increasing pressure. Between 2016 and 2021, the industry contracted by 6.1%, and it was expected to continue to fall. Printing of books was on the decline, and many bookstores shut or reduced their capacity.
Paper, printing, binding, logistics and warehousing have all been exposed to COVID-19 disruptions. But at the same time, when COVID hit, demand for books suddenly increased as people looked for amusement to get them through lockdown. The sudden increase in demand forced an industry in decline to play catch-up.
Demand for books increased during COVID lockdowns. Matias North/Unsplash
Books are still easy to find
However supply chain issues shouldn’t be impacting our reading at all. There is a cheap, accessible and innovative form of books not reliant on many of the steps in the traditional book supply chain: ebooks.
Readers are now capable of using technology to circumvent the printing and delivery process by buying and instantly downloading books at very low cost. But printed books are still in demand.
In 2020, 15.9% of Australians purchased an ebook but 41.2% purchased a printed book. This is in sharp contrast to music sales: physical music sales in Australia in 2020 accounted for just 11% of sales revenue.
It has been suggested people prefer the physical texture of books and our brains are hardwired to inherently process analogue information. In spite of the promising adoption of new reading technologies we remain wedded to the printed word – but even this doesn’t mean we should remain wedded to supply chains.
For the avid reader, there are many ways to get your book fix. Shutterstock
For those dedicated to print, there are many more options: choosing a book you haven’t heard of from your local bookshop, buying from second-hand bookstores, borrowing from libraries, swapping books with friends and participating in local little libraries.
Supply chains may be impacting the shelves of your favourite independent book seller, but there is no reason they should impact your reading joy.
Elizabeth Jackson 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Bartlett, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle
Last week, AstraZeneca’s chief executive officer said the company’s COVID vaccine may provide longer-lasting protection than mRNA vaccines like Pfizer’s, especially in older people.
CEO Pascal Soriot said this might explain the United Kingdom’s more stable hospitalisation rate compared to the escalating COVID situation in continental Europe.
The UK used the AstraZeneca vaccine a lot more widely than other European countries, many of which restricted its use to older age groups or abandoned using it altogether after reports of very rare blood clots.
The theory behind this is the AstraZeneca vaccine may provide more durable “T cell protection”. T cells are a crucial part of our immune system, and differ from antibodies.
There’s not enough evidence yet to support the CEO’s claim. But we do know a lot more about adenovirus vector vaccines, such as AstraZeneca’s, as they’ve been around for decades, while mRNA vaccines are relatively newer.
Theoretically, it is possible adenovirus vector vaccines do give more durable protection against COVID via T cells.
Let me explain.
What is AstraZeneca’s vaccine again?
AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine is an adenovirus vector vaccine.
This means it uses an adenovirus – a common type of virus that affects humans and many other animals. The adenovirus is genetically modified so it doesn’t replicate.
It’s used as a way to deliver the vaccine’s information into our cells.
In this case, the information packaged in the adenovirus tells our body how to make the coronavirus spike protein. This teaches our immune system how to deal with the coronavirus if we’re exposed.
Adenovirus vectors have been used in medicine for a few decades in other vaccines and also cancer therapy. They’re very good at stimulating both antibody production and T cell responses.
What are T cells?
Antibodies bind tightly to a specific target, locking onto invading viruses and preventing them from entering our cells.
But the immune system is more than just antibodies.
T cells are also really important for our immune response, and have different roles. One type, known as “killer T cells”, attack and destroy virus-infected cells.
Another type, known as “helper T cells”, interpret the nature of the infection and help the immune system respond appropriately. This includes activating killer T cells to destroy virus-infected cells, and also helping B cells make antibodies.
When viruses are not stopped by antibodies, we rely on killer T cells to eradicate the virus. And T cells almost certainly help prevent severe outcomes if you get COVID.
It’s a lot harder for a virus to escape a T cell-based immune response. So a vaccine that generates strong T cell immunity should help retain effectiveness over time against variants including Delta and Omicron.
All COVID vaccines stimulate our bodies to produce both antibodies and T cells.
So the key questions are: does AstraZeneca’s vaccine produce a longer-lasting T cell response than the mRNA vaccines? And might this be one reason why the UK, which relied heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine, has a more stable hospitalisation rate than other parts of Europe?
Unfortunately, there are not enough data yet to answer these conclusively.
There are many reasons why hospitalisation rates can vary between countries, so it’s difficult to know how much of a factor the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine would be.
But we can lean on what we know about adenovirus vector vaccines to break down this theory.
It’s possible immune memory with the mRNA vaccines isn’t as strong, and the AstraZeneca vaccine may produce a longer-lasting T cell response that supports more durable immune memory.
This could slow the loss of antibodies and generate a better killer T cell response.
Why might AstraZeneca produce a longer-lasting response?
One reason might be because the RNA in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines doesn’t last very long in the body, only a week or so, because RNA is very fragile.
But the DNA delivered by adenovirus vector vaccines will likely hang around in the body for a bit longer.
DNA is more stable than RNA, and might allow for a more prolonged, low-level activation of our immune system that provides longer-lasting protection.
This might explain longer-lasting T cell responses with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
But this is only speculative for now as such direct tests haven’t been done yet.
This isn’t about which vaccine is “better”, or picking and choosing which vaccine to get.
Both are excellent vaccines that have saved many, many lives already. We shouldn’t play a tribal game where we say we’re only going to get one type of vaccine.
It’s important to learn from both types of vaccine, while we continue to learn about immunity to COVID, so we can incorporate the best characteristics of both into next-generation vaccines that help us better fight COVID and future pandemics.
I’m sure mRNA vaccine producers will learn from this and develop new formulas to give a longer-lasting response.
It’s worth remembering Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are the first mRNA vaccines ever approved for use in humans.
There was an immediate need to get antibodies against COVID in our bodies as soon as possible, and they’ve done a fantastic job doing that.
Nathan Bartlett 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.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash announced proposed new legislation aimed at making online “trolls” accountable for their actions.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard Morrison decry trolls as “cowardly” and “un-Australian”, language that made it into the talking points at yesterday’s media conference. But is his new-found concern about trolling all it’s cracked up to be?
The proposed new legislation would give courts the power to force social media companies to pass on to people the details of their trolls, so they can pursue defamation action against them.
This decision is largely a reaction to the High Court’s upholding of the ruling in the Dylan Voller case, which now holds media companies responsible for defamatory comments posted on their social media pages. But there are some things that we need to be wary of in this legislation.
Defamation isn’t the same as trolling
Speaking to the media yesterday, Morrison argued this legislation is a necessary means to curb online trolling. But the policy proposal largely deals with issues of defamation, which isn’t necessarily the same thing.
As I have previously pointed out, trolling is a grossly overused term that encompasses a range of activities. Defamation, meanwhile, is far more specific and legally defined. To prove defamation, one has to prove the content posted has damaged the victim’s reputation.
Framing this announcement in the context of the very real harms of targeted online bullying and harassment is, I believe, disingenuous. I say this because those who suffer this kind of harassment aren’t likely to be bringing defamation suits. In short, this legislation won’t necessarily help them.
What’s more, a version of the newly announced powers already exists anyway. The recent Online Safety Act 2021 allows the e-Safety Commissioner to order social media companies to remove bullying or harassing content within 24 hours, or face a A$555,000 fine. Crucially, it also gives the commissioner powers to demand information about the owners of anonymous accounts who engage in online abuse.
Where social media companies fail to provide information about the offending poster, the newly announced laws would see them held accountable for the defamatory content. But that assumes they know this information in the first place.
Social media companies already collect users’ details on sign-up, including their name, email address, country of residence and, increasingly, telephone number. But for many social media platforms, there is nothing to stop users setting up an account with a fake name, using a throwaway email address or a “burner” phone, and then ditching all of that but maintaining the account once the information has been initially verified.
Even if the information provided is correct, it doesn’t mean the person will necessarily answer their phone or respond to an email. As one journalist asked yesterday, should social media companies be held accountable in that instance? The standard “reasonable person” assessment in law would likely find not, meaning any defamation action brought against the company itself would likely fail.
Social media ID laws by stealth
My main concern with this proposed legislation is that it will prompt social media companies to collect enough information on their users so they become readily identifiable upon request. This seems a very similar concept to the government’s suggestion earlier this year that Australians who set up social media accounts should have to provide 100 points of identification.
The other real issue, ironically enough, is one of user safety. Yes, online anonymity gives trolls a mask to hide behind, but it also allows people to access support for addiction or mental health issues, for example, or for a young LGBTQI+ person in fear of real-world violence or disapproval to find a community online. Online anonymity can be a crucial shield for victims of domestic violence who want to avoid being found by their abusers.
Forcing social media companies to provide users’ details to a court also opens up the possibility of “abuse of process”. This is where the legal process itself is used as a form of intimidation and bullying or, worse, for an abuser to gain access to their victim. The government has assured us the policy will contain safeguards against this, but has provided no detail so far on how this will be achieved.
Finally, it’s worth noting that several of the highest-profile current plaintiffs in Australian defamation cases involving social media defamation are to be found among the government itself. So while it might sound cynical, we’re entitled to wonder whom this policy is really designed to help.
Jennifer Beckett ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
What’s the meaning of Christmas? For many, it’s about feasting, family, and napping while watching the cricket.
But for e-commerce giants like Amazon, Christmas is the most lucrative time of the year. During the 2020 holiday season, Amazon processed more than A$6.6 billion in sales.
And for the warehouse and shipping workers who actually get these purchases to their destinations, the run-up to Christmas means long hours and more demanding work, often under poor conditions and with little job security.
In our research project on “automated precarity”, we are trying to learn more about workers’ experiences to understand whether conditions in Australian e-commerce warehouses are comparable to those documented overseas.
The frenzy really kicks off with the manufactured “shopping holiday” of Black Friday, which follows the US Thanksgiving holiday but has become a global event. A single day wasn’t enough, so we now also have Cyber Monday, focused explicitly on consumer spending on e-commerce platforms.
E-commerce and Christmas have become so entwined that Dave Clark, a senior executive at Amazon, calls his company’s warehouses “Santa’s workshops”.
We want to understand how things like seasonal shopping events and the promise of warehouse automation are shaping conditions for the growing number of logistics workers employed in e-commerce.
This temporary workforce often experiences some of the most intense working conditions. Aside from no job security, many workers are reportedly required to work at an accelerated pace for incredibly long hours, with the added expectation they will be available on call for the duration of the shopping season.
Traditional thinking in worker management suggests there are benefits to retaining workers who improve their skills and build loyalty to employers.
But in the United States, Amazon churns through workers at an alarming pace. Its annual employee turnover rate of 150%, nearly twice the industry average, has reportedly even led some executives to worry about “running out of workers”.
The urgency of seasonal shopping means Amazon can push workers to the max, making them work long hours doing physically demanding tasks at breakneck speeds.
Managers do not necessarily need to fire people when the rush ends – instead research and reporting suggests workers leave of their own volition, because their bodies simply cannot handle the strain any longer.
In a recent article, Canadian researcher and workers’ rights advocate Mostafa Henaway describes his experiences working in an Amazon fulfilment centre:
Amazon does not openly push people out the door. It lets the work do that on its own.
Amazon makes it easy for warehouse staff to quit. In the US, the work-management app
A to Z includes a handy ‘Submit Voluntary Resignation’ button. Screenshot via Reddit / suspici0uspackage
These conclusions are supported by reporting on working conditions at Amazon in different countries where the company operates, such as the UK and Italy.
Regardless of intent, burning through workers at a rapid rate is a consequence of how the work and conditions are designed.
Amazon workers in the US report the app they use to manage their schedules even has a handy “submit voluntary resignation” button to make the process convenient and automated.
Internal documents reportedly show Amazon executives “closely track” and set goals for a metric called the “unregretted attrition rate”, which is the percentage of workers the company is happy to see leave every year. This applies to Amazon employees, rather than temporary labour, but could suggest churning through workers is an intentional management strategy.
As well as synchronising labour needs to seasonal demands, rapid turnover of workers makes organisation and unionisation less likely. In the context of an ongoing fight by Amazon workers to unionise, shorter-term workers are less likely to have the opportunity to become union members and push for better conditions.
We asked Amazon Australia whether “burnout by design” is a deliberate strategy. Director of Operations Craig Fuller said:
These claims are baseless. We’re proud to offer a safe, enjoyable and supportive work environment for our fulfilment centre team members all year round. As with all retailers, the holiday season is our busiest time of year, and we work hard to ensure that everyone working in our buildings is supported and has a positive experience at work.
This year we have onboarded around 1,000 additional seasonal workers around Australia to support our existing workforce over the festive season. While they are hired to work over the holidays, these seasonal opportunities can also present a path to employment and a longer-term career at Amazon and we have many examples of seasonal workers who have chosen to stay on and build their career with Amazon Australia.
We continue to place tremendous value and focus on the wellbeing and safety of our team.
Will automation fix it?
Online retailers are making big investments in automation.
Amazon is aiming to finish a new A$500 million warehouse in Western Sydney by Christmas. It will be the biggest in Australia, equipped with swarms of robots ferrying items around 200,000 square metres of floor space.
Increasing automation and reports of looming massive job losses can make workers feel threatened by the risk of being made obsolete by technology.
But this highly robotic workplace will still have plenty of human workers. There are plenty of things even the most advanced warehouse robots still aren’t good at, or that humans can do more cheaply.
Workplace automation is arguably less about replacing workers and more about pushing them to keep up with the pace of machines and algorithms. More speed takes its toll: Amazon warehouses in the US reportedly have an injury rate 80% higher than the industry standard.
The holidays are here to stay
We can expect corporations to further expand shopping holidays, following in the footsteps of Amazon’s mid-year revenue-boosting “Prime Day” in June. The exhausting and precarious conditions of seasonal work are likely to spread to the rest of the year.
We fear convenient online shopping comes at the expense of burnout, exhaustion, and precarious jobs. This situation may become permanent without improved labour rights and tighter corporate regulations.
Christopher O’Neill receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra.
Jake Goldenfein is an Associate Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra.
Jathan Sadowski receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra.
Lauren Kate Kelly receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra. She works with United Workers Union.
Thao Phan is a full-time Research Fellow in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra.
The emergence of a new SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern, Omicron, has reignited global discussions of vaccine distribution, virus mutation, and immunity against new virus strains.
Some experts have suggested the emergence of a new strain could be a result of low levels of vaccine coverage in developing nations.
So how do new virus variants emerge? And what role does vaccination play? The relationship is still unclear but here’s what we know so far.
A virus is life at its most simple, and essentially contains two main elements: (1) a blueprint for reproduction (made of DNA or RNA), and (2) proteins that let the virus enter cells, take over, and start replicating.
While only a few SARS-CoV-2 viruses are needed to cause an infection, replication of the virus in the lungs is explosive. Millions of virus particles are eventually produced, and some of these viruses are then exhaled to infect another host.
Importantly, the process of duplicating the virus’ RNA is imperfect. Eventually, errors will accumulate in the growing pool of viruses, causing what we refer to as virus variants.
What is a SARS-CoV-2 variant virus and why are some of them concerning?
When viruses are transmitted from one person to another, some of the new variants will be better at entering cells or duplicating themselves than others.
In these cases, the “fitter” variants are more likely to take over and become the main virus that replicates within a population.
Over the course of the pandemic, this has occurred several times. The original SARS-CoV-2 virus that emerged from Wuhan in 2019 was later replaced by a variant called D614G, followed by the Alpha variant and now, the Delta variant.
Every time someone gets infected with SARS-CoV-2, there is a chance the virus could generate a more fit variant, which could then spread to others.
How are vaccines holding up as the virus changes?
Our current vaccines are still highly effective against SARS-CoV-2 variants, including the Delta strain. This is because the vaccines target the whole “spike” protein of the virus, which is a large protein with a relatively small number of changes across variants.
Concerningly, some SARS-CoV-2 variants (Beta, Gamma, Lambda and Mu) have been reported to “evade” immunity from vaccination. This means the immune system is unable to recognise the variant virus as well as the original strain, which reduces the effectiveness of vaccination.
However to date, the global impact of such “immune escape” strains has been limited. For instance, the Beta variant, which showed the highest amount of immune escape, was unable to out-compete Delta in the real world.
Are low vaccination rates a risk for generating new virus variants?
For now, any relationship between vaccine coverage and new SARS-CoV-2 variants is unclear.
There are two main factors that could lead to the development of new variants.
First, low vaccine coverage might increase the risk of new variants by allowing transmission within a community.
In this case, high viral replication and person-to-person transmission provides plenty of opportunity for the virus to mutate.
The relationship between vaccination and new variants is still unclear. Shutterstock
Alternatively, as vaccination rates rise, the only viruses that will be able to successfully infect people will be variants that at least partially escape the protection of vaccines.
This scenario might require continual global surveillance efforts and new vaccines to maintain long-term control of the virus, similar to the flu.
Either way, with COVID-19 almost certain to stick around, we should expect new strains will continue to be a challenge. We will need careful and active management to address this risk.
So where did Omicron come from?
The recent reports of a new variant of concern, Omicron, has raised global alarm bells.
Discovered by the impressive virus sequencing efforts of South African scientists, Omicron contains an incredible 32 changes in the spike protein alone. This includes mutations that can increase transmission and evade immunity.
So there is a risk that Omicron may spread rapidly and reduce (but not eliminate) the effectiveness of current vaccines.
With low overall vaccination coverage in southern Africa (albeit with higher population level immunity from infection), some have suggested global inequities in the supply of COVID vaccines may be responsible for the emergence of Omicron.
However, the extensive mutations in Omicron are also consistent with the virus changing over an extended time, as it replicated in a person with a compromised immune system.
Such highly mutated variants have been documentedin the past but have generally not spread widely.
Global vaccine coverage benefits us all
High vaccine coverage lessens the chance a highly mutated virus can spread. Shutterstock
Expanding global vaccine coverage by increasing supplies, ensuring equitable distribution, and combating hesitancy and misinformation remains critical.
High global vaccine coverage will limit overall viral evolution, protect immunocompromised people and lessen chances highly mutated viruses can spread, all of which can directly or indirectly lower the risks of new variants emerging.
With the global community now highly interconnected, countries will struggle to keep their citizens safe in the face of pandemic threats without embracing a framework for greater international cooperation and coordination.
Jennifer Juno receives funding from the NHMRC and MRFF.
Adam Wheatley receives funding from the NHMRC, ARC and MRFF.
The Australian government’s new temporary visa for agricultural workers is meant to fix labour shortages in the agricultural sector. But it’s a risky approach that could lead to more exploitation of low-skilled farm workers and fewer permanent skilled workers.
The agriculture sector is heavily reliant on temporary visa holders for labour, with the two main sources being “backpackers” doing three months as a condition of further stay and workers from the Pacific Island nations and Timor-Leste sponsored by employers to work full-time.
The new Australian Agriculture Visa will enable employers in the farming, forestry, fisheries and meat-processing sectors to recruit full-time workers from other countries, with the first expected to be Indonesia, and arrangements with other Southeast Asian nations to follow.
This move comes after decades of lobbying by farmers. The immediate catalyst is the new Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement, which will exempt British backpackers from the requirements of the Working Holiday Visa to complete 88 days of farm work to extend their stay. This is expected to reduce the agricultural labour force by about 10,000 workers a year.
Details of the new visa are still being finalised. Like the existing arrangements for Pacific Island and Timorese workers, visas will be sponsored, so numbers will depend on the scheme’s popularity with employers.
Standard workplace laws will apply, including the payment of award wages.
But enforcing the rights of migrant workers on farms has proven notoriously difficult. Regardless of what visa people hold, the jobs are low-wage and often in isolated areas. There is also the problem of visas binding workers to sponsoring employers, making it harder to escape mistreatment.
Opportunities for exploitation
Stories of exploitation of migrant farm workers abound. As the Fair Work Ombudsman reported in 2016, backpackers working on farms have been at risk of being a “black market, exploited labour force”.
The Pacific work visas that have been available under two programs (the Seasonal Worker Programme and Pacific Labour Scheme) are more regulated, with employers obliged to provide a minimum number of work hours at the prevailing award rate, as well as accommodation and pastoral support.
But these rules have not prevented reports of exploitation and mistreatment of workers who often speak poor English, may be unfamiliar with their workplace rights, and have no ability to quit and find a new employer.
Low-wage jobs carry particular risks under employer sponsorship rules. Skilled workers are better able to bargain for themselves and typically have options to move. But workers in entry-level roles have fewer options. The choice is often putting up, leaving the country altogether or “absconding”.
The Seasonal Worker Program and Pacific Labour Schemes are being rolled into a single scheme – the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme – that the federal government is promising will cut red tape and improve worker protections. But critics are not confident the changes will address the loopholes that facilitate exploitation.
The same concerns also apply to workers recruited under the new agricultural visa. Why would the results be any different for a new visa with fewer protections?
Many farmers want to do the right thing. But their livelihoods will be threatened if weak visa rules allow dodgy operators to mistreat migrant workers.
Sponsoring employers (typically labour hire agencies) that underpay their workers will gain an advantage, driving down costs and pushing the good guys to the brink.
A widely used agricultural visa risks supercharging these forces, making exploitation of agricultural workers more common.
But with the total number of permanent visas available each year capped at 160,000, granting permanent residency to agricultural visa holders will likely mean displacing workers with more skills.
Australia could end up swapping migrant workers who can get higher-paid jobs for those who can only get low-paid jobs. Migrants who earn less will also pay less income tax.
The government may yet expand the number of permanent visas granted each year. But increasing the quota for permanent migrants is something the Morrison government is likely to want to avoid, given the politics of population pressures on major cities. The reasons it cut 30,000 places from the permanent migration program just three years ago – housing affordability being the most obvious – haven’t gone away.
If the permanent migration program were to be expanded, lower-skilled agricultural workers should be well down our priority list.
Australia’s experience with temporary migration shows that once a new visa is established the number of migrant workers can grow quickly. A new agricultural visa could see history repeat.
Instead of rushing ahead, the Morrison government should hit pause and rethink its approach to helping farmers find workers. As it stands this dedicated visa for agricultural workers risks opening a Pandora’s box that will prove impossible to close.
Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website. Grattan Institute’s work on migration policy is currently supported by a generous contribution from the Scanlon Foundation.
Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.
Grattan Institute’s work on migration policy is currently supported by a generous contribution from the Scanlon Foundation.
As climate change worsens, bushfires are likely to become more intense and frequent. We must find new ways of managing bushfires to prevent catastrophic events altogether.
Satellite data can help in this task. It helps us identify where and when vegetation such as grass and leaves forms a continuous swath of fuel dry enough for a catastrophic bushfire to ignite and take hold.
Right now, Australia relies on foreign satellites to gather this information. These satellites are not designed to assess our unique bush landscape and its highly flammable eucalyptus. We need to develop bespoke Australian satellites to better prevent bushfires.
Today, a roadmap released by the Australian Space Agency outlines its priorities for Earth observation. It lists national bushfire fuel load monitoring as a priority “mission purpose” – recognising the need for satellites built specifically to watch Australia’s fire conditions from space.
Current satellites are not designed to assess our unique bush landscape. Chris Hocking/AAP
A quick continent snapshot
We have been developing an Australian satellite mission to monitor fuel conditions. This work helped inform the Australian Space Agency’s roadmap.
Information about fuel conditions is crucial on two counts. In the lead-up to bushfire season, it helps fire authorities decide where and when to conduct prescribed burning to reduce the amount of flammable material in the landscape, and where to focus community messaging. And when bushfires break out, it helps authorities plan where to allocate personnel and equipment.
Fuel condition can be gathered using various methods, including ground sampling, observations by plane or drone, and the satellite imagery currently available.
But generally speaking, these methods can only be used on small areas, are slow and time-consuming, or can lack accuracy. Dedicated fuel-monitoring satellites, on the other hand, could cover the Australian landmass in a matter of hours or days with great precision.
Low soil and vegetation moisture content, due to dry conditions, were a key driver of the catastrophic 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires.
Two inquiries into those fires – the national royal commission into natural disasters and the New South Wales parliamentary inquiry – highlighted the need for a continent–wide map of vegetative fuel states.
Following the Black Summer fires, the Australian Space Agency identified the need for satellite monitoring of fuel conditions which provided more rapid and frequent data, broader coverage and improved resolution. It raised the prospect of new satellite missions specific to bushfire risk management.
Lead author Marta Yebra with an official, looking at fire fuel maps derived from airborne data. Geoff Cary
Satellite data is key
Satellite sensors systematically observe Earth’s surface, allowing for analysis of fuel conditions over time.
To date, Australia has relied heavily on Earth observation data provided by foreign satellites. For example, the CSIRO has purchased a 10% share of time on the NovaSAR-1 satellite developed in the United Kingdom.
This satellite can take images of Earth through clouds and smoke, in both day and night. But it cannot provide regular operational support to Australian fire authorities.
And other satellites currently in space are not ideal for distinguishing the individual compounds that make our native eucalyptus so flammable – such as water content, lignin, cellulose and oil content. That’s because they lack the narrow spectral bands on the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum where these compounds can best be detected.
This limits Australia’s ability to accurately predict fuel conditions. A space mission dedicated to monitoring fuel loads in Australia is needed to improve bushfire management and prevention. That’s where our research can help.
Current satellite imagery helps Australian fire authorities, but could be further improved. NASA
The OzFuel mission
Our team, based at the Australian National University, recently examined the feasibility of a satellite mission to monitor Australian forest fuel from space, dubbed the OzFuel mission. This research helped inform the Australian Space Agency roadmap released today.
The OzFuel mission would measure fuel properties, as opposed to detecting fires. It would target the specific wavelengths related to dry matter, water content and other compounds of eucalypts that make them flammable, so providing a comprehensive picture of fuel loads at a continental scale.
Skykraft rendering of OzFuel imager co-hosted on a Skykraft satellite bus. Skykraft
The OzFuel microsatellite would monitor Australian eucalyptus forests from space every six to eight days during the early hours of the afternoon, when vegetation is most stressed and more easily ignites. Images would be taken at a spatial resolution of about 50 metres, which is adequate for bushfire management operations.
We propose a program of work beginning with the OzFuel demonstrator mission comprising one pathfinder satellite launched into space. We envisage the long-term vision is a group of satellites providing near-real-time analysis of fuel conditions.
An ongoing launch program such as this requires significant investment, which would be enabled through industry and government partnerships.
But this should be considered an investment into protection against catastrophic bushfires, which research suggests will cost the Australian economy up to A$1.1 billion per year over the next 50 years.
Partner investment in the OzFuel mission would also help develop Australia’s capability in small satellite missions more generally.
The risk of larger and more frequent megafires will only increase in future. Clearly, Australia needs more effective prediction, prevention and mitigation strategies to prevent a repeat of Black Summer. A space mission designed to monitor Australia’s highly flammable landscape has a crucial role to play.
James Gilbert works for the Australian National University.
Rob Sharp is the scientific lead at ANU for the sensor program on which the OzFuel mission is based. This work is part of a wider program of technical development in infrared sensor technology funded through a combination of government and private industry research awards.
Marta Yebra and Nicolas Younes do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Fisher, Co-author of the Digital News Report: Australia, Deputy Director of the News and Media Research Centre, and Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Canberra
Shutterstock
The News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code was enacted early this year in response to a call by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for strong action by the government to reduce the power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and digital platforms.
It was a fraught negotiation process, described as a three-way tug-of-war between the government, the digital platforms and the news media. The code has been strongly criticised by organisations – including The Conversation and SBS – that have missed out on deals even though they fall within its definition of news.
Another concern is for smaller and regional players that do not meet the $150,000 threshold for a news business to qualify under the code.
In early 2022, the Department of the Treasury will start its review of the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code legislation to see if it remains fit for purpose by ensuring digital platforms contribute to the sustainability of the Australian news industry.
How will they do that, given the code is yet to be put to the test?
To date, no digital platforms have been designated by the treasurer under the code. If the treasurer is satisfied Google and Facebook have adequately contributed to the Australian news industry, they may never be.
A range of commercial content agreements between Facebook and/or Google and news businesses have been concluded outside of the legislation. This allows their content to be provided on Google News Showcase and Facebook News Tab. No comprehensive list is available, but company announcements and media coverage reveal deals have been done with The Guardian Australia, Junkee, News Corp Australia, Schwartz Media, The New Daily, ABC, Australian Community Media, The Conversation, Country Press Australia, Ten, Seven West Media, Nine Entertainment Co., Times News Group, Crikey, and Solstice media, and others.
Several deals have been struck by news media outlets outside of the legislation. Mick Tsikas/AAP
These deals are commercial-in-confidence, so very little is known about how much they are worth, how the money will be spent and how effective they will be in supporting news businesses.
On the one hand, several news organisations that struck deals with Facebook and/or Google have made announcements about hiringmore journalists.
On the other hand, companies have announced reductions in print services and job cuts, despite striking deals with the platforms. Because of the lack of transparency, it is not clear how the commercial deals struck have influenced these business decisions. It is even harder to predict the longer-term impact of these content agreements on the sustainability of the news industry and whether they will contribute to a diverse Australian news ecology.
Reviewing the code will be a major task. To explore possible options, the News and Media Research Centre (N&MRC) at the University of Canberra held a Chatham House rules roundtable discussion with representatives of the news industry, platforms, government and the community.
The aim was to identify gaps in research to help inform media policy into the future. The bargaining code was one of the key topics discussed on the day. Based on our interpretation of those discussions and our research expertise, we have come up with a list of indicators to monitor the impact of the commercial content agreements on the sustainability of news businesses and the health of the wider news environment.
Different indicators are needed to reflect the distinct accountabilities of the three key actors involved: digital platforms, news businesses and government. Some of the suggested indicators below are observable and can be measured externally. Others will require collaboration with independent researchers.
Indicators to estimate the impact of the voluntary content agreements on the news industry could include:
changes in the number of journalists and other staff
closures, contractions or expansions of news outlets
the size of investment in cadets and staff training.
Other important measures would be to track the volume of public interest journalism content, as well as readership, subscription and membership figures. In the longer term, enrolments in journalism courses and their graduate employment outcomes will also provide useful indicators of the health of the industry.
The assessment of the government’s performance may include independent evaluation of current and former government support programs for the news media industry, and if other countries adopt the code. For Google and Facebook, they will need to satisfy the treasurer that the power imbalance has been corrected and enough has been done to help sustain the Australian news media.
It must be stressed that the news media bargaining code was never designed to be a silver bullet to fix the ailing news industry. It was part of a wider suite of supports for the news media that the ACCC recommended.
These suggested indicators are by no means exhaustive, but they paint a picture of the complexity of the task at hand. It will require co-operation and collaboration between government, industry and academia. After all, it is journalism in the public’s interest that is at stake here.
A copy of the N&MRC’s research priority report can be found here.
Caroline Fisher receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Social Science Research Council, and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation.
Kerry McCallum receives from the Australian Research Council and the Office of the e-Safety Commissioner
Sora Park receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Social Science Research Council, and the Alannah Madeline Foundation.
A decline in verbal skills is a source of grief for any person living with dementia.
For First Nations peoples, the loss of speech brings the added pain of lost connection to Country, community, family and culture, which are so central to their health and well-being.
Dementia is a serious emerging health issue for Indigenous people, who experience the disease at a rate between three to five times that of the general population, with onset at an earlier age.
The prevalence of dementia-related risk factors such as diabetes and vascular disease, a lack of education and awareness, and cultural considerations means diagnosis of the condition is often overlooked or delayed by health care services.
Dementia Support Australia, funded by the Australian government, has produced a set of picture cards specifically to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as their verbal skills decline and dementia symptoms progress.
Indigenous Elders suffering from dementia at alarming rates
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report Dementia in Australia, released in September, rates of dementia for Indigenous people in Australia in remote and rural communities are “among the highest in the world”.
Elders have a significant role in First Nations communities, and there is strong preference for their care to continue at home or somewhere where they can remain close to their families. There is sensitivity to the idea of removal from their communities. There is a view held by some First Nations people that dementia should not be viewed as a medical issue. Rather, it should be seen as part of the natural cycle of life and deathIt’s not a problem as long as it does not adversely affect their cultural connections or responsibilities as elders.
As identified in the recent Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, there is a pressing need for culturally sensitive support and services for First Nations people living with the condition. One area requiring focus is assistance with communication for people suffering from dementia.
A culturally safe way to communicate
The picture cards, co-designed with First Nations representatives including artist Samantha Campbell, are a simple yet, we hope, effective tool. We recognise that the inability for a person with dementia to communicate what they want or need can be frustrating for both them and care staff.
For an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person with dementia, the communication barrier with those providing care can be greater due to language and cultural differences.
Since its inception in 2016, Dementia Support Australia has assisted up to 300 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients. For consultants based in Alice Springs, about 80% of their referrals are Indigenous Australians. The picture cards are based on the learnings of this work.
The cards are the first of their kind, designed to support First Nations older people and people with dementia. Co-designing the cards involved listening to and learning what First Nations people needed.
Australian Regional and Remote Community Services, which provides care and support to older people in regional and urban communities throughout the Northern Territory and beyond, had a critical role in reviewing Ms Campbell’s work. Anthony Lew-Fatt, ARRCS Regional Manager Indigenous Programs, ARRCS Care Manager Kerrie Stevens, based in Mutitjulu, and ARRCS Care Manager Irene Snell, based in Tennant Creek, all had input.
“Trial” sessions were organised with residents living with dementia in one of ARRCS’s care homes at Alice Springs with some changes resulting to the illustrations following feedback.
The cards have been a success, with more than 1,300 sets so far downloaded or ordered since they were launched in July during NAIDOC Week.
Ms Campbell, a proud Dagoman woman, did the illustrations for all 58 cards in each set. Each picture card was carefully considered for its cultural meaning. Ms Campbell created images based on what would relate to the lived experiences of First Nations people across Australia.
For example, when illustrating the doctor picture, Ms Campbell didn’t draw the stereotype of a westernised doctor dressed in a white coat. This is because some First Nations people may perceive white coats and hospitals as places where people go to when they’re sick and don’t return home due to negative historical experiences with health services.
So the doctor is illustrated someone in a casual shirt, to depict a “friendly bush doctor”.
A set of illustrated cards is divided into eight categories of People, Activities/Objects, Food/Drinks, Personal care, Health, Feelings, Places, and Animals. Each card has the English word and includes space on the back to write the word in the language of the person.
The designs help carers and medical staff communicate with the person they are caring for. Activities such as showering, needing to see a doctor or going for a walk are communicated through the cards.
They can also help a person with dementia start a conversation or reflect on their experiences. This is an important way of revisiting past memories, usually in a positive way, and keeping these memories alive.
However, it’s just the beginning of what is expected to be a long journey towards understanding and respecting the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living with cognitive impairment.
Dementia Support Australia intends to reach out to recipients of the cards to obtain feedback on possible improvements and additional new designs for future editions. Of course, there needs to be more investigation and innovative thinking to respond fully to the prevalence of dementia in First Nations people.
HammondCare as my employer may benefit from the recognition
Samantha Campbell 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.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. You can sign up to NZ Politics Daily as well as New Zealand Political Roundup columns for free here.
With nuclear talks between Iran, the US, and the other members of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) resuming on November 29, one question looms large. Is engagement with Iran likely to bear diplomatic fruit, or be squandered?
Negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration (alongside Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia), the JCPOA represented a major effort to curtail Iranian nuclear ambitions.
The 159-page agreement committed the US and its European partners to lift longstanding sanctions to allow Iran to bring back foreign investment and sell its natural resources globally without restriction.
In exchange, Iran agreed to put a wide array of dampers on its nuclear program for 15 years. These included:
keeping uranium enrichment levels below 3.67% (the level used to produce fuel for commercial nuclear plants)
limit centrifuge numbers and the amount of stockpiled uranium
allow for greater monitoring, verification and transparency of its nuclear program by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
and shut down several facilities.
These steps would allow limited civilian activities to remain, but potential military applications would, for the time being, be neutralised.
The agreement explicitly noted that sanctions for these activities would remain in place and be treated as separate issues.
Beyond addressing the immediate crisis of possible nuclear proliferation, the agreement was intended to act as a trust-building exercise. US leaders believed that by offering an olive branch to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and acting in good faith, they could pave the way for a broader US-Iranian rapprochement. The deal would demonstrate the US could be a reliable partner for future negotiations.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the high point of the nuclear talks in 2015. Brendan Smialowski/AP
Confidence not built
Of course, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the US once again failed to anticipate arguably its biggest foil in foreign affairs: itself.
The surprise upset election of Donald Trump in 2016 threw the JCPOA into disarray. Whereas Obama had separated the issues of Iran’s nuclear program from its other destabilising acts, Trump viewed both through the same lens.
This led Washington to unilaterally withdraw from the agreement in May 2018 and implement the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign that sought to bully Iran into wider concessions.
This jarring shift occurred despite Iranian compliance with the JCPOA framework. The agreement actually continued for a year after the US withdrew in hopes the other signatories could guide Washington back to the table.
Such hopes proved fruitless, however, as Trump scorned the Europeans, levied new sanctions against Tehran, and engaged in other provocative behaviours. This included the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, a greatly respected figure in Iran.
Trump’s about-face confirmed longstanding elite Iranian views about American duplicity and sullied Obama’s uncharacteristically liberal attempt at building a working relationship with Tehran.
Feeling betrayed, Iran began escalating tensions in the Middle East – including strikes on Saudi oil processing facilities – and resumed enriching uranium well beyond the levels agreed to in the JCPOA.
Heels dug in
Many hoped that with Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US presidential election, Washington would rapidly move to reengage Tehran and return to the JCPOA agreement. Time was of the essence with Rouhani, the chief proponent of the deal in Iran, due to finish his term this August. (He was replaced by the more conservative and hawkish President Ebrahim Raisi.)
Rather than offer an act of good faith to clear the bad air, Biden signalled he expected Iran to resume adherence to the JCPOA before any US concessions would be made. At the G20 meeting last month, the US, Germany, France and Britain reaffirmed this message in a joint statement, saying
Return to JCPOA compliance will provide sanctions lifting with long-lasting implications for Iran’s economic growth. This will only be possible if Iran changes course.
Iranian diplomats, however, want the US to right its betrayal and remove sanctions before Tehran begins to comply with the agreement again.
These two intractable and incompatible positions have so far scuttled any efforts to make meaningful headway in negotiations.
For both parties, it is clear the previous terms of the JCPOA simply won’t cut it – especially now that demands from both ends are no longer limited to the nuclear discussions and the wider strategic conditions in the region have changed.
Iran may also be apprehensive due to the significant possibility of Biden as a one-term president (with a chance, however slim, he could be succeeded by Trump). Iran is also aware the US commitment to the region may not be what it once was, and that biding its time may be the best course of action.
Despite such gloom, there is cause for limited optimism through subtle gestures on both sides.
Iran has agreed to return to negotiations on November 29 without the lifting of US sanctions first. This can be considered a mild olive branch.
And US officials recently met with representatives from Persian Gulf states in Saudi Arabia to discuss potential channels of diplomacy with Tehran. They also discussed deeper economic ties once sanctions are lifted under the JCPOA.
Such an optimistic declaration suggests US policymakers are at least entertaining the possibility of a positive outcome and path forward from negotiations – despite significant pressure from Republicans in the US and Israel to the contrary.
But making predictions in the current muck of diplomatic negotiations is difficult. There may be a path towards resuscitating the JCPOA. If possible, however, it will require reestablishing a level of trust that neither side seems open to embracing, nor fostering in the current frosty diplomatic climate.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
As more and more Australians are forced into private renting, including Australians who once would have owned homes or lived in social housing, more are living in poverty, suffering financial stress and becoming homeless.
Social housing – where rents are typically capped at 25% of tenants’ incomes – used to make a big difference to the lives of many vulnerable Australians.
Infrastructure Victoria has found that it makes a big difference to homelessness. Only 7% of renters in social housing subsequently become homeless, compared to
20% of private renters.
But the stock of social housing – currently around 430,000 dwellings – has barely grown in 20 years, during a time Australia’s population has grown 33%.
Given that most social housing tenants stay for more than five years, the stagnating stock of such housing means there are few openings available for people whose lives take a turn for the worse.
We not only have fewer social houses per person, we also have vastly fewer openings for anyone looking.
The fund would leverage cheap money
Social housing is expensive. The capital cost per unit over and above what is recouped in rent amounts to about A$300,000.
A new Grattan Institute paper released on Monday makes the case for a $20 billion federal government Social Housing Future Fund, which would make regular capital grants to state governments and community housing providers.
Future funds are not unusual. The Future Fund Board of Guardians, chaired by former Commonwealth Treasurer Peter Costello already manages $247.8 billion in assets across six funds addressing problems ranging from covering federal public servants’ superannuation entitlements to drought to disability care to medical research.
Peter Costello chairs the Future Fune Board of Guardians. Dean Lewins/AAP
The endowment for the Social Housing Future Fund could be established by borrowing at today’s ultra-low interest rates. Some states, including Victoria, NSW, and Queensland already operate social housing investment funds, some financed by privatisations, others financed by government borrowing.
The funds would be managed by the existing Future Fund Board of Guardians with only the returns above inflation used to provide capital grants for housing, maintaining the real value of the fund over time.
Capital grants for new social housing units would be allocated by the existing National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation via competitive tenders after specifying dwelling size, location and subsidies for tenants.
As is the case with the existing Future Fund, the funding would be off budget, with only each year’s profits or losses affecting the budget balance.
The extra $20 billion in gross government debt would be small compared to the nearly $1 trillion currently on issue, supported by about $500 billion a year in federal government revenues.
How much could a $20 billion fund support?
A $20 billion fund that achieved after-inflation returns of 4-5%, could over time provide $900 million each year – enough to deliver 3,000 extra social housing units a year in perpetuity, assuming capital grants of $300,000 per dwelling.
Starting in 2022-23, the fund could build 24,000 social housing dwellings by 2030, and 54,000 by 2040. Future governments would be at liberty to top up the fund, helping expand the social housing share of the national housing stock.
Assuming $300,000 capital grant per dwelling, indexed to inflation. Source: Grattan analysis
The Labor Party has proposed something similar, in which funds are used for annual service payments to community housing providers rather than via upfront capital grants.
The on-budget cost of our proposal would be modest: about $400 million a year, or less than 0.1% of federal government spending in the form of interest costs.
Alternatively, part of the above-inflation return from the fund each year could be used to cover these costs, leaving $500 million available to fund the construction of nearly 1,700 new social housing units per year with no hit to the budget.
The Commonwealth should require state governments to match its contributions.
States could double the money
Any state that did not agree to provide matching contributions would be ineligible for capital grants for social housing in that year, with the savings reinvested in the Future Fund and distributed across all states the following year.
If matched state funding was forthcoming, the fund could provide 6,000 social homes a year – enough to stop social housing shrinking as a share of the total housing stock.
This would double the build to 48,000 new homes by 2030, and 108,000 by 2040, boosting the current stock by one quarter.
Assuming $300,000 capital grant per dwelling, indexed to inflation. Source: Grattan analysis
By itself, a Social Housing Future Fund wouldn’t solve the housing crisis for low-income Australians. We would still need to boost rent assistance for people on income support and do more to boost housing supply to bring rents down.
But it would give a much-needed helping hand to some of our most vulnerable, and keep social housing there for future generations should they need it.
Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.
There is global concern and widespread alarm at the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.529, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has called Omicron.
The WHO has classified Omicron as a “variant of concern” because it has a wide range of mutations. This suggests vaccines and treatments could be less effective.
Although early days, Omicron appears to be able to reinfect people more easily than other strains.
Australia has followed other countries and regions – including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and the European Union – and banned travellers from nine southern African countries.
Australians seeking to return home from southern Africa will still be able to do so. But they will have to enter hotel quarantine and be tested, as will those who have returned from the nine stipulated countries – South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, the Seychelles, Malawi and Mozambique – in the past 14 days.
But Omicron has already been detected in other regions, including the UK, Germany, Israel, Hong Kong and Belgium. So while a travel ban on southern African countries may slow the spread and buy limited time, it’s unlikely to stop it.
As the Australian government and others act to protect their own citizens, this should be accompanied by additional resources to support countries in southern Africa and elsewhere that take prompt action.
When was Omicron detected?
The variant was identified on November 22 in South Africa, from a sample collected from a patient on November 9.
South African virologists took prompt action, conferred with colleagues through the Network of Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, liaised with government, and notified the World Health Organization on November 24.
The behaviour of this new variant is still unclear. Some have claimed the rate of growth of Omicron infections, which reflects its transmissibility, may be even higher than those of the Delta variant. This “growth advantage” is yet to be proven but is concerning.
‘Kneejerk’ response vs WHO recommendations
African scientists and politicians have been disappointed in what they see as a “kneejerk” response from countries imposing travel bans. They argue the ban will have significant negative effects for the South African economy, which traditionally welcomes global tourists over the summer year-end period.
They note it is still unclear whether the new variant originated in South Africa, even if it was first identified there. As Omicron has already been detected in several other countries, it may already be circulating in regions not included in the travel ban.
Travel bans on countries detecting new variants, and the subsequent economic costs, may also act as a disincentive for countries to reveal variants of concern in future.
The WHO does not generally recommend flight bans or other forms of travel embargoes. Instead, it argues interventions of proven value should be prioritised: vaccination, hand hygiene, physical distancing, well-fitted masks, and good ventilation.
In response to variants of concern, the WHO calls on all countries to enhance surveillance and sequencing, report initial cases or clusters, and undertake investigations to improve understanding of the variant’s behaviour.
Omicron must be taken seriously. Its features are worrying, but there are large gaps in our current knowledge. While further analyses are undertaken, the variant should be controlled with testing, tracing, isolation, applying known public health measures, and ongoing surveillance.
What can wealthier countries do to help?
Wealthy countries such as Australia should support African nations and others to share early alerts of potentially serious communicable disease threats, and help mitigate these threats.
[…] public health actors only see downsides from drawing attention to an outbreak that has the potential to spread.
The panel recommended creating incentives to reward early response action. This could include support to:
establish research and educational partnerships
strengthen health systems and communicable disease surveillance
greatly improve vaccine availability, distribution, and equity
consider financial compensation, through some form of solidarity fund against pandemic risk.
Boosting vaccine coverage is key
Vaccines remain the mainstay of protection against the most severe effects of COVID-19.
It’s unclear how effective vaccines will be against Omicron, but some degree of protection is presumed likely. Pfizer has also indicated it could develop an effective vaccine against a new variant such as Omicron within 100 days or so.
COVID’s persistence is partly attributable to patchy immunisation coverage across many parts of the world, notably those least developed. South Africa itself is better off than most countries on the continent, yet only 24% of the adult population are currently fully vaccinated. For the whole of Africa, this drops to only 7.2%.
Greater global support is urgently needed to boost these vaccination rates.
African institutions and leaders, supported by global health and vaccine experts, have argued for mRNA vaccine manufacturing facilities on the African continent. These would prioritise regional populations, overcome supply-chain problems, and respond in real time to emerging disease threats.
Yet developing nations face significant barriers to obtaining intellectual property around COVID-19 vaccine development and production.
While there is still much to learn about the behaviour and impact of Omicron, the global community must demonstrate and commit real support to countries that do the right thing by promptly and transparently sharing information.
Anthony Zwi ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Solomon Islands police have arrested more than 100 suspects as Honiara townspeople clean up after three days of rioting and looting in Chinatown following a peaceful protest.
The Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) confirmed this in a statement.
“I must make it very clear here that no one is above the law,” said Police Commissioner Mostyn Mangau.
“We are expected to live and make decisions within the principles of the rule of law regardless of our positions in our society. I therefore forewarned that if anybody is found in breach of such illegal activities, police will not hesitate to arrest and deal with him/her.”
Commissioner Mangau appealed to people to “stop the looting and burning”.
“Nothing will benefit you with such activities. Let me reiterate my call to those involved in those illegal activities to stop.
“These commercial infrastructures are the beating heart for the revenue of this country and that is where the benefits drift to service all our domestic services, even our wages and daily consumption.”
‘Respect each other’ The commissioner said: “My good residents of Honiara City, as we all know, Honiara City is a multicultural society. Therefore, I as your Police Commissioner hereby appeal to each one living in the city to respect each other, as well as our visiting friends from abroad.”
He asked people to ask themselves: “Is our actions fair to all concerned? Will our actions build goodwill and better friendships? Will our actions be beneficial to all concerned?”
Commissioner Mangau said police were working closely with the office of the Director Public Persecution (DPP) for possible charges to be laid against suspects.
Cleanup starts for some in Chinatown. Locals manning the shop can not control the mob that looted the hardware & plumbing shop. pic.twitter.com/kkjfItlaFe
Solomon Islands opposition leader Matthew Wale has announced that he is filing a notice of a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare after three days of rioting has rocked the capital Honiara.
Wale said today he still did not have enough numbers for such a motion to pass, after only three resignations from Sogavare’s government so far.
The confirmed resignations are Member for West New Georgia/Vona Vona Silas Tausinga, Member for North Malaita Levi Senley Filualea, and Member for Malaita Outer Islands Martin Kealoe.
At least 11 more MPs would need to resign for the motion to succeed.
However, Wale said he had sought a political solution to the current situation as the Prime Minister’s “lack of humility” had resulted in great loss and suffering for Solomon Islands, especially in the capital Honiara.
“No one in Honiara is spared the suffering and loss caused by the tragic events of these past few days,” he said in a statement.
“Now we have been informed there has been a tragic loss of lives.”
Leaders ‘must decide’ Wale said that without a political solution this tragic situation would remain, even with foreign forces supporting the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) to regain control and maintain order in Honiara.
“The leaders must make a decision, they cannot avoid it or postpone it. This is the moment for leaders to stand up, and not run away and hide,” Wale said.
“The level of anger in the public has reached levels worse than in 2006, and if leaders are deaf and insensitive to it, they will condemn us to more trouble.
“The anger is still here.”
Wale said he has reached out to as many MPs as he can to seek dialogue on ways forward.
He said he had decided that in the search for a political solution he had lodging the notice of the motion of no confidence so that MPs would have to decide which side they are on.
“This is a crucial motion as it calls on all Members of Parliament to do what is in the best interest of our country and people,” he said.
Plea for no more violence Wale also called on protesters who had engaged in violence and looting to stop.
“Let us now allow the political process to resolve the situation in our search for a solution,” he said.
Wale called on the people of Solomon Islands to call on their MPs to resign from Prime Minister Sogavare’s government.
The opposition leader also expressed “great dismay” at the burning of the Prime Minister’s private residence at Lunga.
Wale said that even if people were angry with the Prime Minister, they must respect him and his family and their properties.
This level of violence not seen before was unacceptable.
Three dead bodies Three dead bodies have been discovered in one of the burnt out buildings in Chinatown, but two have yet to be removed, SBM Online reported earlier.
The RSIPF Media Unit confirmed to SBMOnline today that the discovery was made yesterday and fire officers were called to assist clearing the building that allowed police to locate the dead bodies.
However, because of debris in the razed shop only one was removed, two others will be moved today.
Police said they were not able to identify the bodies.
Robert Irogais editor of SBM Online. Republished with permission.
Police in Honiara have confirmed that three bodies have been found in one of the burnt out buildings in Chinatown after the rioting in the Solomon Islands.
A protest on Wednesday calling for the Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to step down lapsed into major unrest and three days of rioting.
A police forensic team are on the ground and investigations are underway.
A spokesperson said they are yet to confirm the identities of the bodies.
Local reports say the remains are of some of the looters trapped inside the building.
Most of the rioting and looting took place in Chinatown, and our correspondent there said only six buidlings are left standing.
No NZ plans to evacuate citizens New Zealand has no plans to evacuate its citizens from the troubles in the Solomon Islands, Honiara.
A protest on Wednesday calling for the Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare to stand down lapsed into major unrest which local police were unable to contain.
A spokesperson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Friday evening, the High Commission in Honiara is providing Safe Travel advice to New Zealanders in the Solomon Islands.
This includes following the instructions of the local authorities.
In the heart of China Town, where buildings are burning in all sides.This building stands. pic.twitter.com/H0Kgkf6kX7
The spokesperson said any New Zealanders in the Solomons who have not registered with Safe Travel are advised to do so as soon as possible.
There are 43 New Zealanders registered on SafeTravel, all believed to be in Honiara.
New Zealanders in Solomon Islands are also urged to exercise care and remain where they are if it is safe to do so, a MFAT spokesperson said in a statement.
“Since 19 March 2020 we have advised all New Zealanders do not travel overseas,” the spokesperson said.
Armed Honiara police in action in the Solomon Islands yesterday. Image: Georgina Kekea/RNZ Pacific
No request for help from Solomons govt – NZ Earlier, New Zealand’s Trade Minister David Parker issued a statement as acting Foreign Affairs Minister, with Nanaia Mahuta overseas on her first official trip.
Parker said New Zealand had not received any requests for assistance from the Solomons government.
“New Zealand is a long-standing partner of Solomon Islands, and there are deep and enduring connections between our two countries,” Parker said.
“Our engagement in Solomon Islands is guided by the principle of tātou tātou, or all of us acting together for the common good.
“We stand with the government and people of Solomon Islands through this difficult time,” Parker said.
Australia has deployed police and defence force personnel following a request from the Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare.
Community step in to help police RNZ Pacific correspondent in Honiara Georgina Kekea said police had been able to contain the crowd from going into the main CBD area in Honiara.
A group protecting one of the buildings in Chinatown … an RNZ Pacific correspondent reports only six buildings are left standing after three days of looting and riots. Image: Georgina Kekea/RNZ Pacific
She said most of the rioting and looting has been taking place in Chinatown and not so much in the west side of Honiara.
Kekea said members of the community in West Honiara came forward to help the police and make sure people do not damage shops or buildings along the CBD.
“Friday afternoon, some of the mothers and people in the Henderson community marched along the main CBD asking those participating in the riots to just stay back,” she said.
“It’s the Eastern part of Honiara that is still not under control.”
She also said people were looking for food on Friday and that will be an issue for those in Honiara in the coming days.
Overnight curfew The overnight curfew declared by the Solomon Islands Governor-General in the capital Honiara has ended.
Sir David Vunagi said the 7pm to 6am curfew would be repeated everyday until revoked.
Sir David had said it was a necessary measure for the preservation of public security.
Only authorised officers were allowed to move within the city during the curfew hours and anyone found breaching the restrictions would be prosecuted.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Governor General of Solomon Islands has declared a nightly curfew in the troubled capital Honiara, after a third day of looting and destruction.
Sir David Vunagi said the curfew, which started last night, will go from 7pm to 6am and be repeated every day until it is revoked.
Sir David said it was a necessary measure for the preservation of public security.
Only authorised officers are allowed to move within the city during curfew hours and anyone found breaching the restrictions will be prosecuted.
Rioting continued in Honiara yesterday, with reports protesters had set a building on fire behind the Prime Minister’s residence.
Protesters in Honiara, Solomon Islands. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lisa Osifelo
A protest on Wednesday calling for the Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to stand down has lapsed into major unrest which local police have been unable to contain.
Dozens of Australian police have arrived in Honiara to help local forces. More forces including Australian Defence Force personnel were due to arrive.
PNG security forces arrive Papua New Guinea security force personnel have also touched down in Honiara to support local police.
PNG’s Police Commissioner David Manning is leading the PNG security contingent of 35 police and corrections officers.
Its been a long 3 days. How our days were, is captured by Channel 9 News.. now feeling exhausted ? Sorry if i don’t respond to your messages yet pic.twitter.com/DU2pqbafqO
An Australian Navy vessel is also enroute to Solomon Islands.
Armed police on guard in Honiara. Image: RNZ Pacific/Georgina Kekea
Tension is high in front of Sogavare’s residence where more than a hundred protestors have been throwing rocks while police with riot shields fire tear gas.
Australia’s Federal police officers are also visible in front of the Prime Minister’s residence.
RNZ Pacific correspondent Elizabeth Osifelo reported earlier that there were checkpoints set up around the city where the eastern part had been in flames.
“There’s a lot of tension still and especially a few metres around the prime minister’s residence. There’s a group of protesters and people around there,” she said.
“The police are still trying to push people back and there’s been tear gas fired.”
There is no confirmation where Prime Minister Sogavare is at this time.
Food shortages Elizabeth Osifelo add that households in the capital were facing likely food shortages after looting during the ongoing unrest.
She said the destruction was focused on the city’s east where many businesses have gone up in flames or been emptied.
“But as of yesterday, a lot of these little canteens that are located in the residential areas have also gone out of stock so a lot of families will definitely be affected if this holds up for another day or two.”
Earlier today at the Honiara Central Market, mothers are stranded here. No warm food since yesterday. They only had fruits pic.twitter.com/RdCka9h1Gd
Opposition leader Matthew Wale … “MPs should listen to what the people are saying and not allow more destruction.” Image: RNZ Pacific/Office of the Leader of Opposition
Meanwhile, the opposition leader, Matthew Wale, is reiterating his call for the prime minister to stand down.
Wale said the basis for the unrest is a political problem, so it requires a political solution.
He categorically denies accusations that he has played a part in inciting the unrest, and is calling for MPs in the government to leave Sogavare’s coalition
“MPs should listen to what the people are saying and not allow more destruction. The violence, of course I don’t condone it. But at the same time, leaders have decisions to make,” he said.
The prime minister has said that he was elected on the floor of Parliament and can only be removed on the floor of Parliament.
Democracy ‘paralysed’ But Wale said that the country’s democratic processes were paralysed by the control of numbers in Parliament.
He said the Sogavare government’s move to switch diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China in 2019 had played a part.
“Sogavare controls those numbers because he attracts a lot of funding from loggers and — now it’s very clear — from China. So China is interferring in our domestic politics. It’s very, very clear.”
According to Wale, people are angry because the country’s system of government has become capitive to vested interests of logging and mining companies, as well as China.
“And so the interests of the people are sidelined or totally ignored and neglected, and that’s why they feel they have to take it up themselves.
“It’s a really tragic situation, it’s an unfortunate situation that people lose trust in the democratic processes.”
Wale said the national government’s persistent persecution of Malaita province had brought things to a head.
New Zealand response New Zealand’s acting Foreign Minister, David Parker, said Aotearoa New Zealand was deeply concerned at the events unfolding in Solomon Islands.
He said New Zealand was a long-standing partner of the Solomons, and there were deep and enduring connections between the two countries.
Parker said New Zealand’s engagement in the Solomons was guided by the principle of tātou tātou — everyone acting together for the common good.
He said New Zealand stood with the government and people of Solomon Islands.
Parker said New Zealand would remain in close contact with its Solomons counterparts and international partners, though there had not yet been a request for assistance.
New Zealand police were currently providing advice and support to their counterparts in the Solomons.
The High Commission in Honiara was providing SafeTravel advice to New Zealanders in the country.
Only six buildings still standing in Honiara’s Chinatown RNZ Pacific correspondent in Honiara, Georgina Kekea, said there were only six buildings still standing in Honiara’s Chinatown after two days of rioting.
Chinatown in Honiara, where some buildings still are burning. Image: RNZ Pacific/Georgina Kekea
Chinatown in Honiara, where some buildings still are burningPhoto: Georgina Kekea
She said there are also unconfirmed reports that one or more of the looters were trapped in burning buildings and lost their lives.
Kekea said there was no longer an air of tension but scavenging was continuing, though there was little left for people to steal from the destroyed businesses.
“Only six of the buildings were OK because they had locals minding the buildings, otherwise most of the buildings in Chinatown have been burnt down, scavengers now coming in and getting whatever they can and going back to their homes with it. There is nothing much left from the buildings anyway,” she said.
Georgina Kekea said the police focus was entirely on ensuring there was no more rioting, so looters were being ignored.
She said some buildings were still on fire.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Black Summer forest fires of 2019–2020 burned more than 24 million hectares, directly causing 33 deaths and almost 450 more from smoke inhalation.
But were these fires unprecedented? You might remember sceptics questioning the idea that the Black Summer fires really were worse than conflagrations like the 1939 Black Friday fires in Victoria.
We can now confidently say that these fires were far from normal. Our new analysis of Australian forest fire trends just published in Nature Communications confirms for the first time the Black Summer fires are part of a clear trend of worsening fire weather and ever-larger forest areas burned by fires.
What did we find?
Our study found that the annual area burned by fire across Australia’s forests has been increasing by about 48,000 ha per year over the last three decades. After five years, that would be roughly the size of the entire Australian Capital Territory (235,000 hectares).
We found three out of four extreme forest fire years since states started keeping records 90 years ago have occurred since 2002.
And we found that the fire season is growing, moving out of spring and summer into autumn and winter.
These trends are almost entirely due to Australia’s increasingly severe fire weather and are consistent with predicted human-induced climate change.
Our study is based on satellite and ground-based estimates of burnt forest area, and trends of nine wildfire risk factors and indices that relate to characteristics of fuel loads, fire weather, extreme fire behaviour, and ignition.
We have focused here only on the most dangerous forest fires, not the fires affecting Australia’s savanna across the tropical north.
Burnt area of forest by year. Data derived from satellite data (NOAA-AVHRR burned area) Author provided
Fire burns much more land than 25 years ago
Before the 1990s, Australia’s forest fires were infrequent, though damaging. A given area would burn at an interval between 20 to over 100 years.
The exception were rare summers which would see severe and extensive fires, such as 1939. Overall, only a small fraction of the total forest area burned in any year.
This pattern of fire behaviour no longer exists.
Years since the last forest fire (decadal mean). Data derived from satellite data (NASA-MODIS burned area) and ground/air-based data from states and territories. Author provided
Over the last 30 years, the areas affected by fire have grown enormously.
If we compare the satellite records from 1988–2001 to the period from 2002–2018, the annual average fire area has shot up by 350%.
If we include the 2019–20 Black Summer fires, that figure soars to 800% – an enormous leap.
We are seeing fires growing the most in areas once less likely to be affected by fire, such as cool wet Tasmanian forests unaccustomed to large fires as well as the warmest forests in Queensland previously kept safe from fire by rainfall and a humid microclimate. This includes ancient Gondwanan rainforests not adapted for fire.
Before 2002, there was just one megafire year in the 90 years Australian states have been keeping records – and that was 1939.
Since 2001, there have been three megafire years, defined as a year in which more than one million hectares burn.
Our fire seasons are also getting longer. Spring and summer used to be the time most forest fires would start. That’s no longer guaranteed.
Since 2001 winter fires have soared five-fold compared to 1988–2001 and autumn fires three-fold.
Overall, fires in the cooler months of March to August are growing exponentially at 14% a year.
Trends in autumn and winter burned areas over time. Data derived from satellite data (NOAA-AVHRR and NASA-MODIS burned area) Author provided
What’s driving these changes?
Imagine a forest fire starts from a lightning strike in remote bushland. What are the factors which would make it grow, spread and intensify?
A fire will get larger and more dangerous if it has access to more fuel (dry grass, fallen limbs and bark), and if the fire starts when the weather is hotter, drier and windier. Topography also plays a role, with fire able to move much faster uphill.
To get a sense of the overall risk of forest fire, temperature, humidity, windspeed and soil moisture are combined into a single figure, the Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI).
As you might expect, this index has been steadily worsening over the past 40 years. The number of very high fire danger days in forest zones has been increasing by 1.6 days per decade.
So what does this mean for fire behaviour and spread?
In what we believe is a first, we have used 32 years of fire index data across Australia’s forest zones and compared the number of very high or severe fire danger days with areas subsequently burnt by fire.
We found a clear link, with a 300 to 500% increase in burnt area for every extra day of severe fire danger, and a 21% increase in burnt area for every extra day of very high fire danger.
Could fuel loads or prescribed burning be to blame? No. We looked for trends in these factors, and found nothing to explain the rise in burnt areas.
The main driver for the growing areas burnt by fire is Australia’s increasingly severe fire weather, accounting for 75% of the variation observed in the total annual area of forest fires. This is consistent with predictions from climate change scenarios that severe fire weather conditions will intensify due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Other fire weather risks are also growing. We’re seeing more higher atmospheric conditions which can lead to the formation of fire-generated thunderstorms (known as pyrocumulonimbus clouds).
These thunderstorms emerging out of fire plumes can spread burning embers further and whip up more dangerous winds for unpredictable fire behaviour on the ground, as well as generate lightning in the fire plume that can ignite new fires far ahead of the fire front.
Dry lightning is the primary natural cause of fire ignitions. Here too, the trends are worsening in southeast Australia. We are now seeing 50% more dry lightning in forest areas in recent decades (2000–2016) compared to the previous two (1980–1999).
So could we have predicted how bad and how widespread the Black Summer fires would have been, if we had examined fire danger index forecasts in mid-2019?
In short, yes.
The huge amount of bush that burned is entirely consistent with the 34 days of very high forest fire danger across the forest zones that summer. That’s in line with the long-range bushfire weather forecasts provided to fire agencies earlier in 2019.
This means that in future years, we will be able to broadly predict the area likely to burn each fire season by examining fire index forecasts.
We can also safely – and sadly – predict that more and more of Australia will burn in years to come, with increasing numbers of megafire years.
While many factors contribute to catastrophic fire events, our Black Summer was not an aberration.
Rather, it was the continuation of fire trends beginning more than two decades ago. It is now clear that human-induced climate change is creating ever more dangerous conditions for fires in Australia.
We need to be ready for more Black Summers – and worse.
Andrew Dowdy receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Climate Systems Hub.
Pep Canadell receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program – Climate Systems Hub
Garry Cook, Juergen Knauer, Mick Meyer, and Peter Briggs do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Spain copped Covid early; as early as Italy, presumably, like Italy, directly from Wuhan, China. While the main spread of Covid19 in Europe was via the Italian and Austrian alps, the early spread of covid to the United Kingdom may have been largely from Spain.
The first chart shows that for a brief period at the end of March 2020, deaths were 150% above normal. Actual covid deaths were more than double recorded deaths. Covid19 struck Spain, hard and early. Spain barely knew what hit it.
Since the first European wave of covid, Spain has continued to suffer, though not nearly as much as other countries. In each northern summer, excess deaths exceeded recorded covid deaths; these were a mix of post-covid deaths, and deaths due to covid in periods when testing rates were low. In the winter of 2020/21, generally excess deaths were lower than recorded covid deaths, meaning that public health restrictions were reducing (and postponing) non-covid deaths.
Chart by Keith Rankin.
Looking at the ages of those who died, the initial hit was mainly to the old and very old, many of whom would have died had 2020 been an above-average influenza year. And many of whom were in nursing homes which let in the germ before they had time to raise the drawbridge. (Note that this chart plots data that is averaged over three months; so the peaks are not prominent, and they lag the actual peak dates.)
In the warmer months of 2021, however, it was the younger age groups which featured more prominently, in the post-covid toll. We now know that these deaths will include stroke victims, given the impact Covid19 infection has on a person’s propensity to suffer a stroke. (Refer, Covid-19: Stroke Foundation urging NZers to get vaccinated, RNZ, 26 November 2021.)
Chart by Keith Rankin.
The third chart shows a normal mortality profile for Spain, with the dashed lines showing excess deaths. The normal peaks for January or February represent influenza, noting that the 2015/16 winter was a low flu season. In January 2021, we can see that Covid19 took lives – more lives – in lieu of flu.
The big 2020 spike is like the death spike in New Zealand from the ‘Spanish flu’ in November 1918; short and sharp. Though, in this case the spike was short because of the lockdown measures imposed, and not because the virus rapidly burnt itself out in that location.
July/August 2021 represents Spain’s latest full wave of Covid19. It’s the ‘delta strain’, and is muted because it was summer, and because of substantial immunity in the population from a mix of vaccines and natural exposure to the disease.
Chart by Keith Rankin.
The fourth chart shows reported cases in addition to recorded and unrecorded deaths. It clearly shows the July/August 2021 wave of covid, and how covid deaths were substantially under-recorded during that wave. We also note a general pattern of cases, followed by unrecorded covid deaths, followed by a mix of recorded covid deaths and ‘saved’ non-covid deaths. (Saved non-covid deaths are non-covid deaths that did not happen because of public health restrictions.)
Chart by Keith Rankin.
Finally, the logarithmic chart that gives us the best heads-up about what is coming. The major horizontal gridlines represent ‘orders of magnitude’, with magnitude four being ten times worse than magnitude three. Spain has stubbornly stuck at 10,000 daily identified covid cases per 100 million people in the population, which is the same as 100 daily cases per million people. For the most part, this has been above the world average. (Since May 2020, Spain has been a significantly below average covid victim nation, for Europe. Some countries which initially had very few covid deaths (eg in March to July 2020), have had covid death rates four or five times as high as Spain in 2021.
The general pattern is for recorded deaths to be one percent of reported cases. The truth is that actual covid cases are probably four times higher, and that actual covid deaths (based on excess deaths) are about double; meaning the true fatality rate of people with an active covid infection is half a percent of all cases. (This excludes post-covid fatalities.) It is also important to note that the case fatality rate seems to have not changed much during the course of the pandemic.
Spain is clearly starting its 2021 winter wave of covid, though later than most other countries in Europe. The straight line for November 2021 so far represents exponential growth of cases. (In a logarithmic chart, any straight upward line represents exponential growth. Some exponential growth lines are more rapid than others.) If vaccination rates are a good predictor, Spain’s winter 2021 wave will not be as severe as those of other European countries; or of the USA. Whereas, in July Spain’s vaccination rates were on a par with those of Germany, at the beginning of November Spain’s full vaccination rate was 80% of all its population, Germany was 66%, whereas New Zealand’s was 62%, and Austria was 62%. Compared to Germany and Austria, the current big-news sufferers, Spain and New Zealand can be regarded as having more people recently vaccinated.
What matters, looking forward, is when – not whether – people were vaccinated.
——-
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Dr Robie opened the conference yesterday with his topic “Journalism education ‘truth ’ challenges in an age of growing hate, intolerance and disinformation” while Gloria spoke about the difficulties of doing investigative journalism amid this covid-19 pandemic.
Founding director of the Pacific Media Centre, Dr Robie began with a tribute “to two extraordinary and inspirational journalists, who have shed light on dark places and given the rest of us hope”.
The first of these was to Maria Ressa, chief executive of the Filipino investigative website Rappler, who, along with Russian editor Dimitry Muratov, was named a Nobel Peace prize laureate last month for safeguarding “freedom of expression”.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee described them as “representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions”.
Julie Posetti, global director of research at the International Centre for Journalists (ICJ), said the choice had been very timely and she pointed to the fact that it had been 85 years since the first working journalist had won the Nobel prize.
German investigative editor Carl von Ossietsky won the Nobel prize for his “burning love for freedom and expression”’
Award in jail Ossietsky, was incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp at the time he won the award and later died in jail.
As Gloria told the conference hosted at Auckland University of Technology, the Nobel prize put a “global spotlight on the extraordinary dangers that we journalists face today”.
“You and I are no stranger to threats to media freedom – from repressive laws to libel suits to imprisonment to death threats,” she said.
Rappler chief executive and Nobel Peace laureate Maria Ressa … safeguarding “freedom of expression”. Image: NurPhoto/Rappler/IFEX
“To many of us in the Global South, journalism has always been considered a dangerous profession long before media watchdogs started ranking countries around the world according to the freedoms enjoyed by their press.
“And yet, despite all that we have seen and experienced, it’s no exaggeration to say that this is the most challenging period for journalism. At stake today is our very existence, our relevance, and our ability to speak truth to power.
“Not only are journalists under attack. Truth is under attack,” Gloria said.
Optimism for Rappler She gave three reasons for the Filipino publication Rappler to be optimistic in spite of dealing with 11 lawsuits aimed at silencing the website.
“Every crisis is an opportunity. In the last two years, we at Rappler managed to bounce back and continue holding power to account and exposing wrongdoing,” she said.
“Part of the reason is how our ownership structure was set up. Rappler is the only journalist-owned and journalist-led media company in the Philippines. We make decisions for the public interest even if it’s bad for business.
“Second reason to be hopeful is — for journalism to matter, the community must be a part of it. In our crisis years, our community stayed with us.
“We realised that we had a core base of audience that, while not massive, shared the same value that we believe in, which is the public’s need for transparency and accountability on the part of those who lead and government them.
“At Rappler, we learned that when the going gets tough, hold the line, stick to your core, and have faith in your community of readers.
“The third reason to be hopeful is that crisis challenges our mindsets. The attacks on Rappler scared away advertisers but also compelled us to diversify our revenue stream so that today, our revenues come not just from advertising but business research, grants, membership, programmatic ads, and special projects.
Postive net income “We have not paywalled our site but we have content and activities exclusive to paying subscribers. Thankfully, we are now entering our third year of positive net income,” Gloria said.
Conference moderator Dino Cantal with Pacific Media Centre founding professor David Robie … fielding questions about covid-19 and the “disinfodemic”. Image: ACMC
Dr Robie’s second tribute was to Max Stahl whom he described as a “courageous journalist and filmmaker who sadly died at the age of 66 from cancer”.
From Timor-Leste, he made the controversial film footage of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in the capital Dili which eventually led to Timorese independence.
Filmmaker Max Stahl speaking to the 20th anniversary of Pacific Journalism Review in Auckland in 2014. Image: Del Abcede/APR
British-born Stahl returned to East Timor in 1999 and made the documentary In Cold Blood: Massacre of East Timor, for which he was decorated with the Order of Timor-Leste, the country’s highest honour and he was awarded Timor-Leste citizenship in 2019.
“The common thread linking all four of these media communicators – Maria Ressa, Dimitry Muratov, Carl von Ossietsky and Max Stahl – has been their courageous, determined relentless pursuit of ‘truth and justice’,” Dr Robie told the virtual conference.
“ ‘The truth’ – this supreme goal of journalists in holding power to account is hugely under threat by politicians, demagogues and charlatans peddling fake news and disinformation,” he said.
Dr Robie spoke about covid-19 and the “disinfodemic” – described by UNESCO as “falsehoods fuelling the pandemic”, leading to civil disobedience and attacks on medical staff the world over, including in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Violence pervaded South Pacific The violence had pervaded the South Pacific and was noticeable in Fiji and Papua New Guinea despite the high number of people being infected.
Dr Robie highlighted PNG where health authorities were forced to cancel vaccinations for fear of attacks, hence the rate is incredibly low this month, sitting at 2.5 percent,
He also addressed the infodemic and the rise of “disinformation” and the challenges it brought to the media.
Dr Robie spoke about climate change “and the disproportionate impact this is having on our Asia-Pacific region”.
A key component of the disinfodemic was the lack of fact-checking and as veteran Pacific journalist and consultant Bob Howarth had asked, why had the basics of fact-checking not “become part of journalism training in our universities and colleges?”.
Dr Robie also spoke about climate change “and the disproportionate impact this is having on our Asia-Pacific region”.
Climate ‘catastrophe’ He outlined the challenges of climate change, preferring to call it climate “catastrophe”.
“I am stressing the word catastrophe rather than merely change, That is because for the microstates of the Pacific it is already viewed as an impending catastrophe,” he told the conference.
Dr Robie said he had developed several theories and models of journalism such as “talanoa journalism”, a concept developed through a Pacific approach.
“My emphasis has been on ‘project journalism’, creating high quality coverage of issues and challenging assignments on university platforms with high standards of journalistic integrity and to foster multi-university collaboration across national boundaries.”
Police in Solomon Islands were overrun as rioters and looters tore through the capital Honiara.
RNZ Pacific correspondent in Honiara, Elizabeth Osifelo, said exhausted police were overwhelmed as more people swarmed into town in defiance of a 36-hour lockdown.
Shops in Chinatown which had survived the earlier unrest were ransacked and burned.
On the eastern side of town the Ranadi branch of Bank of the South Pacific was torched as was locally owned and operated hardware store, Island Enterprise.
Osifelo said police were doing everything they could to try and get control of the situation but they were outnumbered.
“It was all looting and just chaos. So there were a whole lot of people in the Chinatown area but there were still other locations around the eastern part of Honiara that has been really badly affected,” she said.
“A lot of businesses and a lot of buildings have been burned.”
Osifelo said the unrest had had a massive impact on law-abiding citizens and families in and around the capital who were now running low on food and basic necessities, as well as utilities like power and water which were pre-paid services in Honiara.
More looting and burning in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara yesterday as local police were overwhelmed by angry mobs. Image: RNZ/Solomons/Facebook
“Families in and around Honiara were not prepared for the basic things such as cash power, cash water and just the basic food supplies at home so the situation is and will affect a lot of families in Honiara,” she said.
Community rally to support police In some parts of the city police numbers have been bolstered by law-abiding citizens.
Elizabeth Osifelo said attempts by rioters to ransack and burn a local police station in the Naha area were thwarted when residents came to the aid of police and drove the rioters away.
She said in the western part of the city citizens were helping to man barricades and supporting police to stop the looting.
Australia sending help Australia is deploying Defence Force personnel and federal police to support local authorities in Solomon Islands.
The ABC reports Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying 23 officers from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) specialist response group were being deployed immediately.
A further 50 AFP officers would be deployed to support critical infrastructure on Friday as well as 43 Defence Force personnel.
Morrison said the deployment was in response to a request from Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare made through the instruments of a security treaty signed with Australia in 2017.
This was the same year that the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) ended, having helped restore law and order, and rebuilt the country after the bloody Ethnic Crisis which began in the late-1990s.
Pics from #Facebook telling a sad story for #Honiara. BSP bank branch in Ranadi, Island Enterprise, Chinatown shops + others burnt down. No talk yet from government #PM@Jnr_Muria ?♀️?♀️ what are we waiting for? ?? The whole city to burn down? pic.twitter.com/TxXPOQnmjz
Journalists and journalism are waging a global struggle for survival and for “truth” against fake news and alternative facts, say two Asia-Pacific media commentators.
“Without journalists who will tell it like it is no matter the consequences, the future will continue to be one of alternate facts and manipulated opinions,” Rappler executive editor Glenda Gloria told about 135 media scholars, journalists and researchers at the opening of the Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) in Auckland today.
“As we’ve experienced at Rappler, the battle to save journalism cannot be fought by journalists alone, and cannot be fought from our laptops alone. The battle for truth is a battle we must share — and fight — with other groups and citizens.
“Each time our freedoms are threatened, we should have no qualms engaging other democracy frontliners and participating in collective efforts to resist authoritarianism.”
However, she told the virtual conference hosted at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) she believed that journalists had the motivation and enough understanding now to “stop the tide of disinformation” that fuelled the spread of authoritarianism.
“In this environment, make no doubt: Journalism is activism,” added the award-winning investigative journalist and author who heads the digital website that has repeatedly angered Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte with its exposés.
Another keynote speaker, Dr David Robie, founding director of the Pacific Media Centre and retired professor of Pacific journalism at AUT, condemned a “surge of global information pollution”.
Disinformation damaging democracy He outlined how disinformation was damaging democracy and encouraging authoritarianism across the Pacific, singling out Fiji and Papua New Guinea for particular criticism.
Dr Robie cited how authorities in PNG had been forced to abandon mobile health clinics and teams of health workers carrying out covid-19 vaccination and awareness programmes because of the increasingly risky attacks against them.
Professor Felix Tan … a welcome from AUT’s Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies. Image: AUT
He said much of the content used by anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists which framed the covid-19 response as a fight between the individual and the allegedly “treacherous” state had been repackaged from US and Australia vested interests.
Dr Robie said universities could do far more in the fight against disinformation and praised initiatives such as the RMIT fact-checking collaboration with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), The Conversation news and academia project, The Juncture journalism school website, and the new Monash University backed 360info wire news service.
“The challenge confronting many communication programmes and journalism schools located in universities or tertiary institutions is what to do about authoritarianism, how to tackle the strain of an ever-changing health and science agenda, the deluge of disinformation and the more rapid than predicted escalation of climate catastrophe,” he said.
“One of the answers is greater specialisation and advanced programmes rather than just relying on generalist strategies and expecting graduates to fit neatly into already configured newsroom boxes.
“The more that universities can do to equip graduates with advanced problem-solving skills, the more adept they will be at developing advanced ways of reporting on the pandemic – and other likely pandemics of the future – contesting the merchants of disinformation and reporting on the climate crisis.”
Dr Robie, who was awarded the 2015 AMIC Asian Communications prize, pioneered several student journalist projects in the region such as intensive coverage of the 2000 Fiji coup and the 2011 Pacific Islands Forum, and more recently the 2016-2018 Bearing Witness and 2020 Climate and Covid project in partnership with Internews.
Journalism Nobel Peace Prize Glenda Gloria said her entire editorial team had been delighted when their chief executive Maria Ressa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – along with Russian editor Dmitry Muratov. Ressa was the first Filipino Nobel laureate and “some of us started calling our office the Nobel newsroom”.
“This immense pride that we feel isn’t just because Maria is our CEO, it is that the prize went to two journalists who have faced the toughest challenges imposed by authoritarian states,” Gloria said.
“More than that, the Nobel prize puts a global spotlight on the extraordinary dangers that we journalists face today.
“To many of us in the Global South, journalism has always been considered a dangerous profession long before media watchdogs started ranking countries around the world according to the freedoms enjoyed by their press.
“And yet, despite all that we have seen and experienced, it’s no exaggeration to say that this is the most challenging period for journalism.
“At stake today is our very existence, our relevance, and our ability to speak truth to power.”
The conference was opened following a traditional mihi by AUT’s acting dean of the Faculty of Design and Communication Technologies, Professor Felix Tan, and ACMC president Professor Azman Azwan Azamati of Malaysia.
Master of ceremonies duties are being shared by AUT’s Khairiah A. Rahman, the chief conference organiser, and Dino Cantal of Trinity University of Asia.
More than 40 media and communication research papers are being presented over three days with the conference ending on Saturday afternoon.
Some of the 135 participants at the opening day of the Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) conference in Auckland today. Image: AUT
A NASA spacecraft the size of a golf cart has been directed to smash into an asteroid, with the intention of knocking it slightly off course. The test aims to demonstrate our technological readiness in case an actual asteroid threat is detected in the future.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) lifted off aboard a SpaceX rocket from California on November 23, and will arrive at the target asteroid system in September, next year.
The mission will travel to the asteroid Didymos, a member of the Amor group of asteroids. Every 12 hours Didymos is orbited by a mini-moon, or “moonlet”, Dimorphos. This smaller half of the pair will be DART’s target.
Are we facing an extinction threat from asteroids?
We’ve all seen disaster movies in which an asteroid hits Earth, creating an extinction event similar to the one that killed off the dinosaurs millions of years ago. Could that happen now?
Well, Earth is actually bombarded frequently by small asteroids, ranging from 1-20 metres in diameter. Almost all asteroids of this size disintegrate in the atmosphere and are usually harmless.
There is an inverse relationship between the size of these object and the frequency of impact events. This means we get hit much more frequently by small objects than larger ones – simply because there are many more smaller objects in space.
Small asteroid impacts showing day-time impacts (in yellow) and night-time impacts (in blue). The size of each dot is proportional to the optical radiated energy of the impact. NASA JPL
Asteroids with a 1km diameter strike Earth every 500,000 years, on average. The most “recent” impact of this size is thought to have formed the Tenoumer impact crater in Mauritania, 20,000 years ago. Asteroids with an approximate 5km diameter impact Earth about once every 20 million years.
The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteoroid, which damaged buildings in six Russian cities and injured around 1,500 people, was estimated to be about 20m in diameter.
Assessing the risk
NASA’s DART mission has been sparked by the threat and fear of a major asteroid hitting Earth in the future.
The Torino scale is a method for categorising the impact hazard associated with a near-Earth object (NEO). It uses a scale from 0 to 10, wherein 0 means there is negligibly small chance of collision, and 10 means imminent collision, with the impacting object being large enough to precipitate a global disaster.
The Chicxulub impact (which is attributed to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs) was a Torino scale 10. The impacts that created the Barringer Crater, and the 1908 Tunguska event, both correspond to Torino Scale 8.
With the increase of online news and individuals’ ability to film events, asteroid “near-misses” tend to generate fear in the public. Currently, NASA is keeping a close eye on asteroid Bennu, which is the object with the largest “cumulative hazard rating” right now. (You can keep up to date too).
With a 500m diameter, Bennu is capable of creating a 5km crater on Earth. However, NASA has also said there is a 99.943% chance the asteroid will miss us.
Brace for impact
At one point in their orbit around the Sun, Didymos and Dimorphos come within about 5.9 million km of Earth. This is still further away than our Moon, but it’s very close in astronomical terms, so this is when DART will hit Dimorphos.
DART will spend about ten months travelling towards Didymos and, when it’s close by, will change direction slightly to crash into Dimorphos at a speed of about 6.6km per second.
This animation shows DART’s trajectory around the Sun. Pink = DART | Green = Didymos | Blue = Earth | Turquoise = 2001 CB21 | Gold = 3361 Orpheus.
The larger Didymos is 780m in diameter and thus makes a better target for DART to aim for. Once DART has detected the much smaller Dimorphos, just 160m in diameter, it can make a last-minute course correction to collide with the moonlet.
The mass of Dimorphos is 4.8 million tonnes and the mass of DART at impact will be about 550kg. Travelling at 6.6km/s, DART will be able to transfer a huge amount of momentum to Dimorphos, to the point where it’s expected to actually change the moonlet’s orbit around Didymos.
This change, to the tune of about 1%, will be detected by ground telescopes within weeks or months. While this may not seem like a lot, 1% is actually a promising shift. If DART were to slam into a lone asteroid, its orbital period around the Sun would change by only about 0.000006%, which would take many years to measure.
The DART mission dates and timeline events. Johns Hopkins University
So we’ll be able to detect the 1% change from Earth, and meanwhile the pair will continue along its orbit around the Sun. DART will also deploy a small satellite ten days before impact to capture everything.
This is NASA’s first mission dedicated to demonstrating a planetary defence technique. At a cost of US$330 million, it’s relatively cheap in space mission terms. The James Webb Telescope set to launch next month, costs close to US$10 billion.
There will be little to no debris from DART’s impact. We can think of it in terms of a comparable event on Earth; imagine a train parked on the tracks but with no brakes on. Another train comes along and collides with it.
The trains won’t break apart, or destroy one another, but will move off together. The stationary one will gain some speed, and the one impacting it will lose some speed. The trains combine to become a new system with different speeds than before.
So we won’t experience any impact, ripples or debris from the DART mission.
Typical asteroid orbits remain between Mars and Jupiter, but some with elliptical orbits can pass close to Earth. Pearson
Is the effort really worth it?
Results from the mission will tell us just how much mass and speed is needed to hit an asteroid that may pose a threat in the future. We already track the vast majority of asteroids that come close to Earth, so we would have early warning of any such object.
That said, we have missed objects in the past. In October 2021, Asteroid UA_1 passed about 3,047km from Earth’s surface, over Antarctica. We missed it because it approached from the direction of the Sun. At just 1m in size it wouldn’t have caused much damage, but we should have seen it coming.
Building a deflection system for a potential major asteroid threat would be difficult. We would have to act quickly and hit the target with very good aim.
One candidate for such a system could be the new technology developed by the US spaceflight company SpinLaunch, which has designed technology to launch satellites into orbit at rapid speeds. This device could also be used to fire masses at close-passing asteroids.
Gail Iles 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.
University of Canberra Professional Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Associate Professor Caroline Fisher discuss the week in politics.
This week they review the dramatic start to the final parliamentary fortnight of the year. Scott Morrison has faced revolts within his own ranks from the right and the left.
Senators Gerard Rennick and Alex Antic have been withholding their votes in the Senate in an attempt to strong-arm the government over state vaccine mandates.
In the House, Liberal moderate Bridget Archer made the bold move to second a cross-bench motion to try (unsuccessfully) to force debate on a federal integrity commission. Morrison has now confirmed the government will stick with the very limited model unveiled a year ago by former attorney-general Christian Porter. This is despite consultations that were expected to produce revisions.
The pair also canvass the government’s new religious discrimination
legislation, which is highly controversial. They also cover the government’s despatch of police and military personnel to the Solomon Islands to help quell rioting there.
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.
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