Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Blair, Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav, The University of Western Australia

Why are middle school students losing interest in physics? Why is Australia falling behind in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)?

We in the Einstein-First project think we have the answer. It is because students’ internet experience of science is in complete conflict with the school curriculum.

Read more:
Why don’t we teach Einstein’s theories in school?

For National Science Week, I spoke to 650 students aged from 5 to 11. I asked if they had heard of black holes. At least 80% raised their hands.

Where do we find black holes in the school curriculum? We don’t. You can’t talk about black holes using 19th-century physics because they are all about curved space and warped time.

Students have made it clear to us they think science at school is about “old stuff”.

This is why we must modernise the curriculum. We must replace 19th-century concepts with 21st-century concepts, and teach everyone the language of modern physics, starting in primary school.

Today we launch our book Teaching Einsteinian Physics in Schools. It is designed to spearhead a revolution in school science starting from year 3.

Young students grasp Einsteinian concepts

Einstein’s discoveries in 1905 started a conceptual revolution. The final steps, Einstein’s theory of gravity in 1915 and de Broglie’s 1924 discovery that all matter and radiation have a combination of waviness and bulletiness (normally called wave particle duality), radically changed physicists’ ideas of space, time, matter and radiation. These discoveries are the foundational concepts for almost all modern technology.

Read more:
Explainer: what is wave-particle duality

Ten years ago I asked: “Is it possible to teach Einsteinian concepts in primary school?” Colleagues said: “Of course not. You have to learn Newton’s physics first!”

I responded bluntly! Newtonian physics is wrong, both conceptually and factually. It says things can travel arbitrarily fast and gravity travels instantaneously, time is the same everywhere, mass and energy are independent of each other, and the universe runs like clockwork.

Our team ran an initial trial teaching Einsteinian physics in a primary school. Our most astonishing discovery was that children were not astonished: they just took the ideas in their stride. This led to eight years of trials in a variety of primary and high schools.

We taught the students that light comes as photons that have a combination of waviness and bulletiness, that space is curved by matter and this changes geometry, and that time is different on top of a mountain. None of this particularly surprised them.

And the children loved it. One year 3 teacher said:

“By the end they were using vocabulary and clearly understanding concepts that would normally not be introduced until high school. It was really hard to drag them away from their activities. What was surprising was that they so easily accepted concepts that most adults and teachers find very difficult.”

Activity-based learning works — and it’s fun

The children love the activity-based learning. And they love toys, so we use toys wherever possible.

We use Nerf gun bullets as toy photons, ping-pong balls as toy electrons and toy molecules made of magnetic tennis balls and ping-pong balls. Sometimes we use toy cars as photons and use objects with increasing mass to increase their bulletiness (i.e. momentum). These toys allow experiments such as the dissociation of toy molecules by toy UV photons to explain why UV light can break our DNA and cause skin cancer, and why radio (and 5G!) photons are safe because they have much less bulletiness.

Einsteinian physics has enormous explanatory power, whether at the level of quantum interactions or gravity. Einsteinian gravity describes space as an elastic fabric. We use lycra as our two-dimensional toy spacetime. The stretching of space and time is easily measured and almost all gravitational phenomena can be observed by rolling various balls on the lycra, as the video below shows.

Read more:
Curious Kids: why is there gravity?

Students at all levels love to play with these spacetime simulators. They study how photon trajectories are deflected when space is curved, how gravity gradient forces tear up comets, how orbits change their orientation in space (called precession), how stars and planets form and how galaxies get their shapes. As a year 7 teacher said:

“[It] makes it much easier to talk to students about interesting things, like the latest black hole discovery.”

Lessons that make sense of our world

The absorption of infrared photons by CO₂ molecules drives climate change. Toy molecules held together by magnets allow students to explore the different ways a CO₂ molecule vibrates compared with an O₂ molecule, and learn how photon absorption causes this.

We combine our toys with real but relatively low-cost devices, such as solar panels, electric drills, LED lights and laser pointers.

Laser pointers allow the waviness of light to be explored in a whole range of interference experiments. Solar panels demonstrate bulletiness, photons ejecting electrons, and are ideal for almost all electricity and energy studies at primary and middle school. A solar panel can drive a 12V electric drill, which can be used for lifting, creating frictional heat and using energy that comes from converting photons to a stream of electrons – the photoelectric effect for which Einstein won the Nobel Prize.

Helping teachers overcome their fears

The biggest obstacle to introducing Einsteinian physics is the scare factor for teachers. People still claim it’s too difficult for teachers. We have found if we put the activity first, like geometry on woks for example, teachers with no science background easily grasp the concept that the shape of space can be measured doing geometry.

Teaching Einsteinian Physics in Schools is based on international experience involving more than 20 authors. It is presented at the level needed for school teachers, including some material for senior high school.

It is free of scary equations because these, whether Einsteinian or Newtonian, have no place in the school curriculum. Instead we teach lots about how to deal with the huge numbers and tiny numbers we must envisage to deal with the universe, as well as probability and “the maths of arrows” (vectors) because these powerful concepts are important for everyone.

Most students will not specialise in physics. The goal of Einstein-First is that all students should finish the compulsory years of science with the basic knowledge and vocabulary of our best understanding of the physical universe.

Read more:
We must include more women in physics — it would help the whole of humanity

After trialling our year 7 program on gravity, a teacher reported:

“The lessons feature the modelling of concepts with hands-on ‘concrete’ materials, an instructional approach that provides multisensory learning opportunities allowing all students to be successfully included.”

“Girls benefit especially from the way the program is presented with group learning and activities. It is not intimidating, and teachers like myself enjoy the program because it makes my teaching feel much more worthwhile.”

“The notable thing about the Einsteinian physics lessons is that students are fully engaged, disruption is rare, and students with learning difficulties are practically indistinguishable from mainstream students.”

Einstein-First is a collaboration led by UWA, Curtin and
ANU, and funded by the Australian Research Council with additional
support from the WA government, the Independent Schools
Association of WA, the Gravity Discovery Centre and the Science
Teacher’s Association of WA.
I wish to acknowledge the enormous contributions of our team members including Jyoti Kaur, Kyla Adams, Shon Boublil, Anastasia Popkova, Darren McGoran, Aishwarya Banavathu, David Wood, David Treagust, Susan Scott, Grady Venville, Li Ju, Marjan Zadnik, Elaine Horne, Richard Meagher, Steve Humfrey and especially my co-editor, Magdalena Kersting, who took on the prodigious task of putting together our book Teaching Einsteinian Physics in Schools.

– ref. Einstein’s too hard for school science? No, students love learning real modern physics – https://theconversation.com/einsteins-too-hard-for-school-science-no-students-love-learning-real-modern-physics-166270

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia Collins, Lecturer of Mathematics, Edith Cowan University

Swiss researchers at the University of Applied Sciences Graubünden this week claimed a new world record for calculating the number of digits of pi – a staggering 62.8 trillion figures. By my estimate, if these digits were printed out they would fill every book in the British Library ten times over. The researchers’ feat of arithmetic took 108 days and 9 hours to complete, and dwarfs the previous record of 50 trillion figures set in January 2020.

But why do we care?

The mathematical constant pi (π) is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, and is approximately 3.1415926536. With only these ten decimal places, we could calculate the circumference of Earth to a precision of less than a millimetre. With 32 decimal places, we could calculate the circumference of our Milky Way galaxy to the precision of the width of a hydrogen atom. And with only 65 decimal places, we would know the size of the observable universe to within a Planck length – the shortest possible measurable distance.

What use, then, are the other 62.79 trillion digits? While the short answer is that they are not scientifically useful at all, mathematicians and computer scientists will be eagerly awaiting the details of this gargantuan computation for a variety of reasons.

What makes pi so fascinating?

The concept of pi is simple enough for a primary school student to grasp, yet its digits are notoriously difficult to calculate. A number like 1/7 needs infinitely many decimals to write down – 0.1428571428571… – but the numbers repeat themselves every six places, making it easy to understand. Pi, on the other hand, is an example of an irrational number, in which there are no repeating patterns. Not only is pi irrational, but it is also transcendental, meaning it cannot be defined through any simple equation featuring whole numbers.

Mathematicians around the world have been computing pi since ancient times, but techniques to do so changed dramatically after the 17th century, with the development of calculus and the techniques of infinite series. For example, the Madhava series (named after the Indian-Hindu mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama), says:

π = 4(1 – 1/3 + 1/5 – 1/7 + 1/9 – 1/11 + …)

By adding more and more terms, this computation gets closer and closer to the true value of pi. But it takes a long time — after 500,000 terms, it produces only five correct decimal places of pi!

Read more:
How a farm boy from Wales gave the world pi

The search for new formulae for pi adds to our mathematical understanding of the number, while also letting mathematicians vie for bragging rights in the quest for more digits. The infinite sum used in the 2020 recordbreaking effort was discovered in 1988 and can calculate 14 new digits of pi for each new term that is added to the sum.

While breaking the record may be one of the key motivators for finding new digits of pi, there are two other important benefits.

The first is the development and testing of supercomputers and new high-precision multiplication algorithms. Optimising the computation of pi leads to computer hardware and software that benefit many other areas of our lives, from accurate weather forecasting to DNA sequencing and even COVID modelling.

The latest computation of pi was 3.5 times as fast as the previous effort, despite the extra 12 trillion decimal places – an impressive increase in supercomputing performance in just 18 months.

The second is the exploration of the very nature of pi. Despite centuries of research, there are still fundamental unanswered questions about the way its digits behave. It is conjectured that pi is a “normal” number, meaning all possible sequences of digits should appear equally often.

For example, we expect the digit 3 to appear as often as the digit 8, and the digit string “12345” to appear as often as “99999”. But we don’t even know if each decimal digit appears infinitely often in pi, let alone whether there are more complex patterns waiting to be discovered.

Read more:
3.14 essential reads about π for Pi Day

The data for the new pi computation have not yet been released, as the researchers are awaiting confirmation from the Guinness Book of Records. But we hope there will be many mathematically interesting treasures within the numbers.

We will never “finish” computing the digits of pi – there will always be more to find and new records to break. If you don’t happen to own a supercomputer, but you have a thirst for computing decimal digits (and a PhD in mathematics), why not try other interesting irrational numbers like √3 (only known to 10 billion digits), the tribonacci constant (20,000 digits), or the Twin Prime Constant (1,001 digits). You may not make the morning news, but it’s arguably an easier way to write yourself into the record books.

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

– ref. Why bother calculating pi to 62.8 trillion digits? It’s both useless and fascinating – https://theconversation.com/why-bother-calculating-pi-to-62-8-trillion-digits-its-both-useless-and-fascinating-166271

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niamatullah Ibrahimi, Lecturer in International Relations, La Trobe University

“We want the world to trust us.”

In the Taliban’s first press conference since seizing control of Afghanistan, this message was intended to allay fears of what a return to power could mean for the country.

In the wake of the Taliban’s stunning sweep across Afghanistan, attention is now focused on whether it can translate its rapid military gains to a political victory. This would require negotiating a governing system that can achieve both domestic and international legitimacy.

The movement’s media-savvy leadership has attempted to downplay fears of the return of its former repressive regime. However, the Taliban has not yet spelled out an alternative political system, aside from offering vague promises of pardons for government and military personnel and that women could continue to participate in society in accordance with sharia law.

Read more:
‘I feel suffocated’: Afghans are increasingly hopeless, but there’s still a chance to preserve some rights

In Kabul, which remains under the watchful eyes of the world, the group has largely shown restraint while pursuing an active media campaign. However, there are reports of summary executions, revenge killings of government officials and soldiers, forced marriages of young girls with Taliban fighters, and communications disruptions coming from other provinces.

For many Afghans who remember the previous Taliban regime in the late 1990s, trust will need to be earned.

Who are the Taliban?

The Taliban first emerged in 1994 during the anarchy and civil war that followed the collapse of the pro-Soviet government of President Najibullah in April 1992.

After it took control of Kabul, the movement tortured and killed the president, hanging his body from a pole, and declared a new government, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The group attracted international headlines for its violent suppression of women and minorities like the Shi’a Hazaras, as well as the restriction of all civil and political rights. It banned women and girls from attending school and joining the workforce, and prohibited music and photography.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, a local religious figure with no notable reputation in Islamic law or Afghan politics.

While the Taliban primarily sought to establish its rule over Afghanistan, it also attracted many foreign jihadist groups — most prominently Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, these groups had shifted their focus to the west, particularly the United States, as their main enemy.

The Taliban relied on brutal and excessive force to dominate much of Afghanistan from 1996–2001. The movement did not develop governance institutions that could provide for political representation — such as establishing a parliament — or perform basic state functions such as delivering social services to the people.

As a result of its repressive policies, it turned Afghanistan into a pariah state. It was only recognised by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These countries saw the group as a proxy to limit the increasing influence of India, Iran and Russia, which were providing support to a coalition of anti-Taliban forces.

Read more:
Afghanistan only the latest US war to be driven by deceit and delusion

The Taliban’s fundamental weaknesses led to its rapid disintegration following the US-led military intervention in 2001.

The movement’s key leaders then fled to Pakistan, where they launched an insurgency against the new Afghan government and US-led NATO forces. After the death of its founder, Muhammad Omar, in 2013, the Taliban selected his deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad, to replace him. He was killed in a US drone attack in 2016.

Since then, Haibatullah Akhunzada has been leading the group, though it has been years since he’s been seen in public. (There were even rumours he died last year due to COVID, which the Taliban denied.)

Much of the international focus has instead been on the leaders in the Taliban’s political office in Doha. This was set up in 2013 to facilitate direct negotiations between the Taliban, the United States and the Afghan government.

Can the Taliban govern with legitimacy?

In its attempts to establish a new government, the Taliban is likely to face some difficult choices.

First, an attempt to the restore the Islamic Emirate is likely to cost it international recognition, legitimacy and aid. This will, in turn, weaken its prospect of consolidating its hold internally and limit its capacity to govern.

The challenges facing the group are immense. Afghanistan is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by COVID-19, a severe drought and a looming hunger emergency. The World Food Program says malnutrition levels are soaring and some 2 million children need nutrition treatment to survive.

The Taliban also needs revenue. The previous Afghan government was heavily reliant on foreign aid. But according to a recent UN report, the Taliban largely finances itself with criminal enterprises, including drug trafficking, opium production, extortion, and kidnapping for ransom. The UN estimates its annual income as anywhere from US$300 million (A$413 million) to US$1.6 billion (A$2.2 billion).

The Taliban spokesperson said in his press conference this week that Afghanistan will no longer be an opium-producing country. Without significant foreign aid, however, the question remains how the Taliban would sustain its emirate if it abandons its main source of income.

Second, if the Taliban embraces a more pluralistic and inclusive political system with fundamental human rights, especially with respect to women, it may face opposition from its more radical factions and rank-and-file members, who have spent years fighting to restore its emirate.

Another important constituency that the Taliban will risk alienating is its regional and global jihadist allies. These groups are now celebrating its victory, but they may turn against the Tablian if it is seen as compromising on its core ideological principles.

The movement has so far avoided dealing with these questions through vague rhetoric. But now it is in control, these issues are becoming urgent priorities.

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.

– ref. The Taliban wants the world’s trust. To achieve this, it will need to make some difficult choices – https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-wants-the-worlds-trust-to-achieve-this-it-will-need-to-make-some-difficult-choices-166191

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Chen, Research Fellow at Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, University of Auckland

Fast isolation of infected individuals is key to containing any outbreak of COVID-19, including the Delta variant, and contact tracing is a critical part of this process.

Since the first case was confirmed on Tuesday, six more people have tested positive, including a fully vaccinated health worker at Auckland City Hospital and a teacher at Avondale college. Genome sequencing has also confirmed that the original infection is linked with the Delta outbreak in New South Wales.

The first case was using the NZ COVID Tracer app, which has helped to keep track of where he had been during the five days he is thought to have been infectious. But unfortunately, we know from national statistics that the majority of New Zealanders have not been scanning enough.

Over the last month, we’ve seen 500,000-700,000 QR code scans and manual entries on any given day, coming from 300,000-400,000 active users. This equates to just under 10% of the adult population in New Zealand.

Epidemiological modelling shows we need at least 60% of the population participating in digital contact tracing, and ideally 80%, to have confidence there will be sufficient information to control any outbreak, anywhere in the country.

This has contributed to the decision to place the whole country in a level 4 lockdown, because the government does not have confidence that we, as a country, have enough information to support rapid contact tracing.

We have been a long way from the target level of participation, but it’s not too late to add manual entries into the app to help speed up the process now as we try to get the spread under control.

Speed of contact tracing is essential

On the positive side, about 1.5 million devices are using the Bluetooth Tracing function, which equates to just under 40% of all adults. But the Bluetooth system is limited in its usefulness for digital contact tracing because it has a higher likelihood of error and provides less information to the Ministry of Health. It’s complementary to the QR codes and manual entries, not a replacement.

We need to be keeping records of where we have been before cases appear in the community, but now that there is an outbreak, it becomes even more important that we have those records.

In the unfortunate event that you or someone you have interacted with gets COVID-19, those records could make the difference between a small number of cases and the hundreds of daily cases we’re seeing in parts of Australia.

If you can’t or don’t want to use NZ COVID Tracer, it’s fine to use Rippl, or to keep your own written records. Even when we get out of lockdown again, it is likely the virus will still be in New Zealand and we will need to be able to respond quickly to further cases.

Read more:
Not just complacency: why people are reluctant to use COVID-19 contact-tracing apps

When the government is making the decision on whether to lock the country down or not, one of the key pieces of information is whether they have confidence they could isolate the right people quickly enough.

If we don’t have enough contact tracing information, we have little choice but to isolate everyone through a lockdown. It’s not the only factor that plays into that decision, but it is an important one.

Data privacy

The NZ COVID Tracer app is designed to support contact tracing efforts, by making it easy for individuals to keep track of where they have been and who they have been near, whether that is through scanning QR codes, adding manual entries, or turning Bluetooth Tracing on.

This is so that if you get COVID-19, then you can provide that information in a format that is easy to understand for the contact tracers, and saves time. It also means that the Ministry of Health can send contact tracing locations of interest and relevant Bluetooth ID numbers to your device, which are then checked against the diary on your device so that you can be alerted as quickly as possible.

It’s important to note that the government only gets to see the data if you test positive for COVID-19 and provide the data voluntarily — you can review the privacy impact assessment for more details.

Read more:
Smartphones and contact-tracing: balancing care and surveillance

If you haven’t used NZ COVID Tracer in a while, it’s worth updating the app and seeing the new features. The Ministry of Health has been updating it regularly and it now contains a lot more information, and it is easier to enter manual entries.

The fight against COVID-19 is a marathon, not a sprint. We need to build up and maintain all the good habits: washing hands, wearing masks, physically distancing where possible, and collecting information to support contact tracing. If we can keep it up, then we might have more confidence about our ability to respond to cases in the future.

Andrew Chen has provided some informal advice to the Ministry of Health and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, but has no financial relationship.

– ref. New Zealanders haven’t been scanning in enough, and that contributed to the need for a full lockdown – https://theconversation.com/new-zealanders-havent-been-scanning-in-enough-and-that-contributed-to-the-need-for-a-full-lockdown-166330

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl McPhee, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, Bond University

Am I not pretty enough? This article is part of The Conversation’s new series introducing you to the unloved Australian animals that need our help.

Australia’s oceans are home to a startling array of biodiversity — whales, dolphins, dugongs and more. But not all components of Aussie marine life are the charismatic sort of animal that can feature in a tourism promotion, documentary, or conservation campaign.

The echiuran, or spoon worm, is one such animal. It is also called the penis worm.

There is no “Save the Echiuran Foundation” and no influencers selling merchandise to help save them. But these phallic invertebrates are certainly worth your time as integral and fascinating members — of Australia’s marine ecosystems.

What makes them so interesting?

Taxonomists have classified echiurans in various different ways over the years, including as their own group of unique animals. Today, they’re considered a group of annelid worms that lost their segmentation. There is uncertainty about the exact number of species, but an estimate is 236.

The largest echiuran species reach over two metres in length! They have a sausage-shaped muscular trunk and an extensible proboscis (or tongue) at their front end. The trunk moves by wave like contractions.

Most echiurans live in marine sand and mud in long, U-shaped burrows, but some species also live between rocks. And they’re widespread, living up to 6,000 metres deep in the ocean all the way to the seashore, worldwide.

For example, one species, Ochetostoma australiense, is a common sight along sandy or muddy shorelines of Queensland and New South Wales, where it sweeps out of its burrow to collect and consume organic matter.

In fact, their feeding activities are something to behold, as they form a star-like pattern on the surface that extends from their burrow opening.

In another species, Bonella viridis, there is a striking difference between the males and females — the females are large (about 15 centimetres long) and the males are tiny (1-3 millimetres). Most larvae are sexually undifferentiated, and the sex they end up as depends on who’s around. The larvae metamorphose into dwarf males when they’re exposed to females, and into females when there are no other females present.

Males function as little more than a gonad and are reliant on females for all their needs.

Why they’re so important

Echiurans perform a range of important ecological functions in the marine environment. They’re known as “ecosystem engineers” – organisms that directly or indirectly control the availability of resources, such as food and shelter, to other species. They do this mainly by changing the physical characteristics of habitats, for example, by creating and maintaining burrows, which can benefit other species.

Echiurans also have a variety of symbiotic animals, including crustaceans and bivalve molluscs, residing in their burrows. This means both animals have a mutually beneficial relationship. In fact, animals from at least eight different animal groups associate with echiuran burrows or rock-inhabiting echiurans — and this is probably an underestimate.

They’re beneficial for humans, too. Their burrowing and feeding habits aerate and rework sediments. Off the Californian coastline, for example, scientists noted how these activities reduced the impacts of wastewater on the seabed.

And they’re an important part of the diet of fish, including deepwater sharks such as the houndsharks, and species of commercial significance such as Alaskan plaice. Some mammals feast on them, too, such as the Pacific walrus in the Bering Sea, and the southern sea otter. In Queensland they also contribute to the diet of the critically endangered eastern curlew.

And many people eat them in East and Southeast Asia, where they’re chopped up and eaten raw, or used as a fermented product called gaebul-jeot. They (allegedly) taste slightly salty with sweet undertones.

The unloved billions

In Australia there is very little known about the biology and ecological roles of our echiuran fauna. This can also be said of many of Australia’s soft sediment marine invertebrates — the unloved billions.

We simply do not understand the population dynamics of even the large and relatively common echiuran species, and the human processes that threaten them. Given their role as ecosystem engineers, impacts to echiuran populations can flow on to other components of the seabed fauna, imperilling entire ecosystems.

We can, in general terms, predict that populations have suffered from the cumulative effects of urbanisation and coastal development. This includes loss and modification of habitats, and changes to water quality.

Populations may also be harmed by undersea seismic activities used in oil and gas exploration, but this is still poorly understood. Until recently, scientists knew only of the threats seismic activity posed to the hearing of whales and dolphins. It’s becoming clearer they can also affect the planet’s vital invertebrate species.

It is a dilemma for marine conservation when so little is known about a species that impacts cannot be reliably predicted, and where there is little or no impetus to improve this knowledge base.

We cannot simply presume an animal does not play an important role in an ecosystem because it lacks charisma.

In George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, it was said “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”. This remains abundantly true in terms of how humans view animals. But we must move away from this philosophy if we are to conserve and restore the planet’s fragile ecosystems.

Read more:
Meet the broad-toothed rat: a chubby-cheeked and inquisitive Australian rodent that needs our help

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

– ref. Meet the penis worm: don’t look away, these widespread yet understudied sea creatures deserve your love – https://theconversation.com/meet-the-penis-worm-dont-look-away-these-widespread-yet-understudied-sea-creatures-deserve-your-love-163728

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Honorary Professional Fellow, University of Technology Sydney

Infections of the Deltra strain are increasing across Australia. A significant number of recent outbreaks have been in schools.

In the earlier waves of the COVID outbreak, in 2020, evidence showed children were getting COVID at much lower rates than adults, and the advice from experts was to keep schools open. But a series of papers later showed children were at similar risk of infection to adults.

This is even worse with Delta. According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the Delta variant is about twice as infectious as the earlier strains. And preliminary data suggest children and adolescents are at greater risk of becoming infected with this variant, and transmitting it.

Read more:
Is it more infectious? Is it spreading in schools? This is what we know about the Delta variant and kids

The World Health Organization has recognised SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is airborne. The evidence for aerosol transmission is now enough for the Australian Infection Control Expert Group (ICEG), which advises the federal government, to have recently amended its earlier advice that COVID-19 was only spread by contact and droplets:

ICEG has also recognised broader circumstances in which there may be potential for aerosol transmission […] ICEG […] notes the risk may be higher under certain conditions, such as poorly ventilated indoor crowded environments.

“Poorly ventilated indoor crowded environments” accurately describes conditions at many schools. Even in lockdown, schools are still open for children of essential workers and classrooms in use can have relatively high occupancy.

In or out of lockdown, poorly ventilated schools are a super-spreader event waiting to happen.

How are schools ventilated?

Most schools are naturally ventilated. This means windows must be open to deliver fresh air which will dilute and disperse airborne pathogens.

It is not a coincidence the current Australian outbreaks are happening in winter, when naturally ventilated buildings, including most schools, are more likely to have their windows shut to keep the heat in.

Some schools, particularly those with open learning spaces, have buildings too deep for natural ventilation and are mechanically ventilated. This may involve air conditioning, but not all air conditioning includes ventilation. For instance, a split system air conditioner typically recirculates air inside a space whereas ventilation introduces fresh air into the building.

Read more:
The pressure is on for Australia to accept the coronavirus really can spread in the air we breathe

Mechanically ventilated buildings are supposed to have around 10 litres per second (l/s) of fresh air per person. But the temptation to throttle back fresh air to save energy and money is ever present. And even with 10 l/s per person coming in, there may be places with poor ventilation. This includes stairwells, lifts, corridors and assembly spaces.

As aerosols may persist in the air for hours, schools with poor ventilation become a high risk for transmission and kids can take it back to their families.

We have been measuring ventilation in schools and other buildings in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide using a carbon dioxide (CO2) meter. This is because C02, which is exhaled by humans, is a good proxy for the level of ventilation in a space.

Outside air is about 400-415 ppm (parts per million) of CO2 and well ventilated indoor environments are typically below 800 ppm with best practice around 600 ppm.

Our informal measurements show many newer mechanically ventilated buildings are not well ventilated. Perhaps counter-intuitively, older style naturally ventilated school buildings with leaky wooden windows on both sides of the room and high ceilings often appear to perform well.

Just looking at a building is not a reliable guide to how well ventilated it is.

What schools need to do

We can do several things to ensure schools are well ventilated. The first is to ensure the school has access to a CO2 metre and takes action where CO2 is above 800 ppm.

If the building has windows and doors, open them. This may require kids and teachers putting on an extra layer of clothing, turning up the heating, providing supplementary heaters and making revised security arrangements.

Anything required to keep people safe and thermally comfortable in a well ventilated space is likely to be much cheaper than dealing with an outbreak.

Serviceable standalone NDIR sensor type CO2 meters can be bought online for less than A$100 and more sophisticated networkable devices are available for under A$500.

Read more:
Australian children are learning in classrooms with very poor air quality

If the space is mechanically ventilated, a school will need to get a mechanical engineer to work out how the system can be improved. In the meantime, staff could try opening doors, using fans to mix air in large volume spaces or move activities outside.

Where improvements in ventilation are not immediately possible, portable air purifiers can reduce the amount of virus in the air. An air purifier will need at least a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate absorbing) filter to be effective and has to be matched to the size of the room. A typical classroom may need two devices to work and a large open plan space may need several.

In future, we will need to change building regulations to deliver safe, clean air in schools. For now, we just need to do the best we can. It may be as simple as opening the windows.

Geoff Hanmer is consulting to Radic8 in relation to the effectiveness of their air purifiers and is also working with a number of suppliers to develop solutions to improving indoor air quality including Renson and Kaiterra.

Bruce Milthorpe is consulting to Radic8 in relation to the science behind air purifiers.

– ref. Poorly ventilated schools are a super-spreader event waiting to happen. It may be as simple as opening windows – https://theconversation.com/poorly-ventilated-schools-are-a-super-spreader-event-waiting-to-happen-it-may-be-as-simple-as-opening-windows-165958

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Navid Constantinou, ARC DECRA Research Fellow, Australian National University

From movie suggestions to self-driving vehicles, machine learning has revolutionised modern life. Experts are now using it to help solve one of humanity’s biggest problems: climate change.

With machine learning, we can use our abundance of historical climate data and observations to improve predictions of Earth’s future climate. And these predictions will have a major role in lessening our climate impact in the years ahead.

Read more:
Satellites reveal ocean currents are getting stronger, with potentially significant implications for climate change

What is machine learning?

Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence. While it has become something of a buzzword, it is essentially a process of extracting patterns from data.

Machine learning algorithms use available data sets to develop a model. This model can then make predictions based on new data that were not part of the original data set.

Going back to our climate problem, there are two main approaches by which machine learning can help us further our understanding of climate: observations and modelling.

In recent years, the amount of available data from observation and climate models has grown exponentially. It’s impossible for humans to go through it all. Fortunately, machines can do that for us.

Observations from space

Satellites are continuously monitoring the ocean’s surface, giving scientists useful insight into how ocean flows are changing.

NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission — scheduled to launch late next year — aims to observe the ocean surface in unprecedented detail compared with current satellites.

But a satellite can’t observe the entire ocean at once. It can only see the portion of ocean beneath it. And the SWOT satellite will need 21 days to go over every point around the globe.

Is there a way to fill in the missing data, so we can have a complete global picture of the ocean’s surface at any given moment?

This is where machine learning comes in. Machine learning algorithms can use data retrieved by the SWOT satellite to predict the missing data between each SWOT revolution.

Obstacles in climate modelling

Observations inform us of the present. However, to predict future climate we must rely on comprehensive climate models.

The latest IPCC climate report was informed by climate projections from various research groups across the world. These researchers ran a multitude of climate models representing different emissions scenarios that yielded projections hundreds of years into the future.

Read more:
Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns

To model the climate, computers overlay a computational grid on the oceans, atmosphere and land. Then, by starting with the climate of today, they can solve the equations of fluid and heat motion within each box of this grid to model how the climate will evolve in the future.

The size of each box in the grid is what we call the “resolution” of the model. The smaller the box’s size is, the finer the flow details the model can capture.

But running climate models that project forward hundreds of years brings even the most powerful supercomputers to their knees. Thus, we’re currently forced to run these models at a coarse resolution. In fact, it’s sometimes so coarse that the flow looks nothing like real life.

For example, ocean models used for climate projections typically look like the one on the left below. But in reality, ocean flow looks much more like the image on the right.

Unfortunately, we currently don’t have the computational power needed to run high-resolution and realistic climate models for climate projections.

Climate scientists are trying to find ways to incorporate the effects of the fine, small-scale turbulent motions in the above-right image into the coarse-resolution climate model on the left.

If we can do this, we can generate climate projections that are more accurate, yet still computationally feasible. This is what we refer to as “parameterisation” — the holy grail of climate modelling.

Simply, this is when we can achieve a model that doesn’t necessarily include all the smaller-scale complex flow features (which require huge amounts of processing power) — but which can still integrate their effects into the overall model in a simpler and cheaper way.

A clearer picture

Some parameterisations already exist in coarse-resolution models, but often don’t do a good job integrating the smaller-scale flow features in an effective way.

Machine learning algorithms can use output from realistic, high-resolution climate models (like the one on the right above) to develop far more accurate parameterisations.

As our computational capacity grows — along with our climate data — we’ll be able to engage increasingly sophisticated machine learning algorithms to sift through this information and deliver improved climate models and projections.

An interactive model of NASA’s SWOT satellite.

Navid Constantinou receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. How machine learning is helping us fine-tune climate models to reach unprecedented detail – https://theconversation.com/how-machine-learning-is-helping-us-fine-tune-climate-models-to-reach-unprecedented-detail-165818

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philippa Specker, Scientia PhD scholar at the Refugee Trauma and Recovery Program, School of Psychology, UNSW

While the COVID-19 pandemic is weighing heavily on everyone’s mental health, people from refugee backgrounds may be uniquely affected, owing to their past traumatic experiences.

As survivors of war and persecution, many refugees have faced the threat of death because of their race, religion, political stance or social group. Some have endured conflict that involved restrictions on their movements, and major social and economic upheaval.

As a result, aspects of the current pandemic may be reminiscent of past traumatic experiences. And this overlap between past and present can have serious and far-reaching consequences for refugee mental health.

Our research, published today, found being reminded of past traumatic experiences was the strongest predictor of poor mental health among a group of refugees living in Australia.

Some key findings

During 2020, we surveyed 656 adult refugees living in Australia (predominantly in New South Wales and Victoria) about their experiences during COVID-19 and their mental health.

We then explored the relationships between particular COVID-related stressors and mental health outcomes — post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, health anxiety and daily functioning.

The most prevalent stressors were concern about contracting COVID-19, and concern about their family becoming infected, which 66.5% and 72.1% of participants reported respectively. These worries were associated with more severe PTSD symptoms and health anxiety symptoms.

Difficulties engaging socially due to having to stay at home were also common, and were linked to increased depression. Refugees already experience high levels of isolation and loneliness, so they’re likely to be particularly vulnerable on this front.

But the strongest predictor of all mental health outcomes was COVID-19 serving as a reminder of past trauma. Some 41.1% of participants said the pandemic reminded them of difficult or stressful experiences in their past, and these respondents reported increased PTSD, depression, health anxiety and poorer daily functioning.

Read more:
Explainer: what is post-traumatic stress disorder?

This matches with our clinical experience

Our experience in providing psychological therapy to refugees with PTSD is consistent with these findings.

PTSD affects about one in three refugees and is a psychological condition that can follow traumatic experiences. A person with PTSD continuously experiences intrusive and distressing memories of past trauma.

The pandemic is having a profound yet invisible impact on many refugees because it is reminding them of their very worst memories.

For instance, we’ve heard from some clients that the sight of empty streets is prompting flashbacks of air raids. For others the sensation of wearing a face mask brings up memories of being gagged or hooded during imprisonment and torture.

Some have said lockdowns, quarantine, and a heightened police and army presence in their communities are distressing reminders of political terror or detention.

The interplay of past trauma and current circumstances may have serious effects on mental health. Further, this can put refugees at a greater risk of harm generally, with heightened fear creating a barrier to leaving the house for legitimate reasons such as buying food, exercising, getting tested for COVID-19 or accessing medical support.

What can we do?

With the escalating COVID-19 outbreak in western Sydney and south-western Sydney, it’s important to remember these suburbs are home to the majority of the refugee population in NSW.

The good news is there are things we can do to minimise the burden of the pandemic on refugee communities. Consultation and engagement with community leaders and experts are the best tools to ensure public health measures and messaging are culturally sensitive and trauma-informed.

For example, providing clear and inclusive information in multiple languages can be an effective way to dispel fears and misinformation. Unfortunately, translated health advice has been lagging.

Read more:
Lockdowns make people lonely. Here are 3 steps we can take now to help each other

During lockdowns, authorities need to carefully consider the use of police and army personnel, and transparently communicate their plans with the public.

They also need to emphasise there are safe pathways for accessing essential services, such as online medical consultations.

Finally, the psychological effects of this pandemic will likely be felt long after the final restrictions have been lifted. So continued funding of mental health services that support refugees will be essential.

There’s resilience too

Refugees enrich Australian society and have a long history of showing resilience in the face of social and economic upheaval. Having already overcome tremendous adversity in their home countries, refugees may be well-placed to navigate the challenges of living through a pandemic. We can all learn a lot from Australia’s refugee communities.

But it can be hard to stay resilient when your sense of safety is threatened. Now is a timely opportunity for government to reflect on the unintended implications of the pandemic on refugee mental health, and ensure steps are taken to prevent unnecessary suffering.

Read more:
Refugees without secure visas have poorer mental health – but the news isn’t all bad

Angela Nickerson receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Belinda Liddell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

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

– ref. For refugees in Australia, life during COVID lockdowns recalls the trauma of war and persecution – https://theconversation.com/for-refugees-in-australia-life-during-covid-lockdowns-recalls-the-trauma-of-war-and-persecution-165884

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Singarayer Florentine, Professor (Restoration Ecologist), Federation University Australia

Australian native plants are having a moment in the sun, with more of us seeking out and planting native species than in the past. Our gardens — and our social media feeds — are brimming with beautiful Australian native blooms.

But not all Australian native species belong in all Australian environments. In fact, many have become pests in places far from their original homes.

They can crowd out other native endemic species, affect the local balance of insects and other animals, wreck soils and even increase fire risk.

Here are three Australian native plants that have become invasive species after ending up in places they don’t belong.

Sydney golden wattle (Acacia longifolia subspecies longifolia)

Originally extending from East Gippsland in Victoria up about as far as Brisbane in Queensland, this species is undoubtedly photogenic. It’s also an invasive weed in parts of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.

It was spread across the nation by well-meaning gardeners who saw it as a charming ornamental plant. However, its seeds made their way into the wild and took off — it’s what’s known in my field as “a garden escapee”.

Like many weeds, this species can capitalise on a natural disaster; after fire it can send out shoots from its base. Acacias are often one of the first species to sprout following a bushfire. They’re now completely dominant and spreading in many areas.

Seeds of Sydney golden wattle can last in the soil for many decades, long after the parent plants have died. The heat from a fire cracks the hard seed coat, allowing water to enter and germination to take off.

In the Grampians, in Victoria, Sydney golden wattle is causing terrible soil problems. Many native plants endemic to this area don’t like high levels of soil nitrogen, but Acacia longifolia subsp. longifolia is a nitrogen-fixing plant.

In other words, it increases the nitrogen in the soil and changes the soil nutrient status and even physical aspects of the soil. It can grow tall and produce a lot of foliage, which reduces the amount of light coming to the ground. That makes it harder for native species lower to the ground to survive.

This is a major challenge, especially in biodiversity-rich places like the Grampians.

Coast wattle (Acacia longifolia subspecies sophorae)

The blooms on Acacia longifolia subspecies sophorae (Coast wattle) look more or less the same as many other wattles, but the leaves are a bit shorter and stubbier.

Originally, Coast wattle occurred along the east coast from western Victoria — up about as far as Brisbane and down south as far as Tasmania (where Sydney golden wattle did not occur naturally).

It was originally restricted to sandy sites at the top of beaches but has been deliberately planted as a “sand-binder” in other sites. It’s also naturally spread into heathlands inland of the beaches and is now causing huge problems around our coasts.

Like the earlier example, it dominates local ecosystems and displaces native species endemic to the area (particularly in our species-rich heathlands), which affects local insect habitats. It is also now modifying natural sand dune patterns.

It is increasing fire risk by changing heathland plant profiles from mostly short shrubs of limited bulk to tall, dense shrublands with much higher fuel levels.

Coast teatree (Leptospermum laevigatum)

As with Coast wattle, Coast teatree was formerly restricted to a narrow strip on sandy soils just above the beaches of south-eastern Australia. But it has now spread into nearby heathlands and woodlands. It’s even reached as far as Western Australia.

This teatree plant is now considered an invasive species in parts of Victoria and South Australia.

Although the mature plants are usually killed by fire, the seeds are abundant and very good at surviving; they pop out of their capsules after fires.

They are high-density plants that burn quickly in a fire. They are very quick to take over and push out endemic species.

For example, parts of the Wilson’s Prom National Park in Victoria, which was originally a Banksia woodland, have now been converted almost to a teatree monoculture. It is very sad.

A call to action

Authorities are trying their best to keep these and other native invasive species under control, but in some cases things may never go back to the way they were. Sometimes, the best you can hope for is just to strike a balance between native and invasive species.

When you do landcare restoration work or home gardening, I urge you to look up the plant history and see if the species you’re thinking of planting is listed as one that might cause problems in future.

When you go to purchase from a nursery or plant centre, be cautious. Think twice before you bring something into your garden. Too many species have “jumped the garden fence” and now cost us a great deal in control efforts and in native species loss.

Lots of apps, such as PlantNet, can help you identify plants and see what is native to your area.

Australia has spent billions trying to control invasive species and environmental weeds. Anything you can do to help is a bonus.

Singarayer Florentine has received funding from the ARC, the federal government and the Victorian government.

– ref. Planning to plant an Australian native like wattle? Read this first — you might be spreading a weed – https://theconversation.com/planning-to-plant-an-australian-native-like-wattle-read-this-first-you-might-be-spreading-a-weed-165165

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury

This review contains minor spoilers for the first six episodes of Nine Perfect Strangers.

Nine Perfect Strangers is a polished take on wellness culture that is less “eat the rich” than “pass the Kool-Aid”. Adapted from Liane Moriarty’s bestselling 2018 novel, it takes place at a secretive, high-end wellness retreat called Tranquillum, an on-trend Scandi dream of bare light wood and open spaces overseen by a mysterious Russian woman, Masha (Nicole Kidman).

Nine people — a grieving family, a couple on the rocks, and four individuals in crisis — have signed up for a ten-day plunge into self-actualisation. As Masha and the staff gleefully tell one another, the group is volatile. By halfway through the season, bets are on as to who is going to completely lose it, and how much damage they are going to do.

As the dreamy, psychedelic title sequence suggests, Masha’s version of therapeutic practice may be a little less conventional than the guests have anticipated. Tranquillum’s invasive techniques are barely masked by the soft voices and benign smiles of the staff. Behind the scenes, conflicts are getting out of hand.

Masha’s background is also murky. She brings the same ruthlessness to her role as wellness guru as she did her prior life as a CEO, before a life altering experience took her from boardroom to yoga studio.

As she ups her surveillance of the guests and her idiosyncratic therapeutic “protocols”, her motivations and sense of ethics are opaque. We know there has been tragedy at the retreat before, but for her, the promise of nine cathartic breakthroughs – nine changed lives – justifies the ethically dubious and probably illegal means.

She’s also being threatened; Tranquillum is not so safe.

Suspense, and dramedy

As in producer David E. Kelley’s other collaborations with Kidman, Big Little Lies (2017-19) and The Undoing (2020), the camera frequently lingers on Kidman’s uncanny face, emphasising moments of emotional intensity. She’s intense and willowy, Galadriel by way of Gwyneth Paltrow. It is nearly impossible to trust or read her.

These narrative lines provide a sense of mounting suspense, but the series’ mysteries are really window dressing. They are ultimately secondary to a very traditional character dramedy that wants to have things both ways.

Nine Perfect Strangers opens with overt suspicion of the commodification of wellness, present in both the (well-founded!) concerns of the characters and the framing of the retreat itself. Tranquillum offers the sort of bougie, self-indulgent therapeutic experience only the navel-gazing, super-rich can buy.

Read more:
Marketing, not medicine: Gwyneth Paltrow’s The Goop Lab whitewashes traditional health therapies for profit

But this initial satirical impulse is just a hook; there’s little critique present. Instead, as the show progresses, each desperate character embraces the process and addresses their damage.

There’s an uncomfortable sense that the over-priced, therapeutic model which distils trauma into bon mots, timetabling catharsis and manipulating its subjects, might not be a bad thing.

The show’s aesthetic heightens as the doors of perception open. Director Jonathan Levine offers luscious close-up sequences of fruit being macerated and blitzed for daily smoothies, capturing a dual sense of sensuality and latent threat. Images start to distort, colours intensify, and the camera roams woozily. Editing ably charts emerging alliances, catching fleeting glances and moments of candour.

Although the show is set in the US, the Australian location — which is rich with bamboo, bird of paradise flowers and banyan trees — gives a sense we are somewhere outside of the “real” world.

Stellar performances

The dialogue is clever and often funny – eminently quotable. As relationships develop, and the retreat intensifies, the exceptional ensemble cast shines. The guests, who have been carefully selected by Masha, are there to heal each other as well.

They share pointed intimate conversations while lazing on pool toys or sitting in swinging bowers surrounded by outdoor lamps. Each performer balances groundedness and vulnerability, even as their characters loosen their grip on reality.

The show cares about its characters (mostly), even as it puts them through the wringer, although it’s hard to feel sorry for a lottery winner whose wealth has led to existential boredom (Melvin Gregg).

Bestselling author Frances (Melissa McCarthy) is a bundle of shame and self-recrimination who strikes up an alliance with Tony (Bobby Cannavale), an abrasive burnout.

Grieving mother Heather (Asher Keddie) swings from depression to dreamy elation, as her husband Napoleon (Michael Shannon) loses grip of his happy-go-lucky exterior and succumbs to his pain. Their daughter Zoe (Grace Van Patten) celebrates her 21st birthday, supported by the guests but haunted by the death of her twin brother.

Lars (Luke Evans) is a prickly control freak with a hidden agenda. Samara Weaving gives a particularly beautiful, brittle performance as a sweet rich girl whose Instagram-perfect exterior hides extreme distress. Carmel (Regina Hall) is a woman on the edge, straying very close to a “crazy black woman” trope.

‘Maybe I’m hollow’

As Lars announces, “so much self-loathing, so little time”. But does the “nudge, nudge” self-awareness of the show make up for its conventional, reductive view of trauma?

Frances confesses her best-selling novels are gimmicky: they’re “shallow takes on whatever the flavour of the moment is, and I shove some romance into it – they’re hollow”, finishing with “maybe I’m hollow”.

After one of Masha’s speeches, another character asks “what did that mean? It sounded like it had meaning”.

In contrast to the excoriating satirical take on wealth and boredom present in television series The White Lotus, it’s hard not to see such comments as a get out of jail free card.

Nine Perfect Strangers is well-shot, entertaining and more than a little pulpy, but if you’re searching for enlightenment then it would pay to look elsewhere.

Read more:
Freud, Nietzsche, Paglia, Fanon: our expert guide to the books of The White Lotus

Nine Perfect Strangers will be streaming on Amazon Prime in Australia and New Zealand from this Friday.

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

– ref. Nine Perfect Strangers review: sharp dialogue and excellent performances can’t hide the hollowness of the story – https://theconversation.com/nine-perfect-strangers-review-sharp-dialogue-and-excellent-performances-cant-hide-the-hollowness-of-the-story-165949

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Hoadley, Associate Professor, University of Auckland

The question of whether New Zealand accepts some moral responsibility to help Afghans who worked with its armed forces has now been answered. But another question remains: will high ideals be brought to earth by political and practical obstacles?

To its credit, the New Zealand government responded quickly to the news that Taliban fighters had entered Kabul and had been photographed sitting at the desk of runaway ex-president Ashraf Ghani.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern rewrote the agenda for Monday morning’s cabinet meeting. By mid-afternoon, flanked by her minister of defence and chief of defence force, she announced New Zealand’s three main aims:

• to get an estimated 53 New Zealand citizens out of Afghanistan

• to assist 37 Afghans who worked for the NZ Defence Force or other NZ agencies, and up to 200 members of their immediate families, to leave Afghanistan and, if they wish, immigrate to New Zealand

• to consider inducting other Afghans at possible risk.

Three initiatives underpin implementation of the policy:

• to work with other governments with a presence in Kabul (which New Zealand no longer has) — specifically Australia but likely also the United States, Britain, Canada and others

• to support the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international agencies and NGOs to help displaced and at-risk Afghans

• to deploy an air force C-130 transport aircraft to Afghanistan (or a nearby country) to bring New Zealanders and refugees to New Zealand.

Read more:
As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

The logistical challenge

Special visas will be issued after a cabinet decision to relax previous immigration criteria that had, until now, held up approval of many Afghans’ applications.

But we don’t yet know whether arriving Afghans will be given priority in scarce MIQ hotel rooms for the mandatory 14-day quarantine period, displacing hundreds of New Zealanders queuing to return home from overseas.

Existing spaces are booked until the end of this year and the delta variant has raised the stakes, so accommodating up to 300 arrivals from Kabul will challenge the integrity of the government’s border control regime.

It’s also unclear where the air force will operate from if Kabul airport, already closed to civilian aircraft, is closed by the Taliban to military rescue flights. Related to this, where will the 40-strong air force support crew be accommodated?

And why was a C-130 turbo-prop plane, with a passenger capacity of only 92 and which will take several slow trips to carry the expected numbers of New Zealanders and Afghans, chosen ahead of an air force Boeing 757 with a capacity of 239 passengers and shorter flight times?

Finding and accommodating refugees

We also don’t yet know how applicants will make contact with immigration officials, given New Zealand no longer has a diplomatic post in Afghanistan.

Complicating matters, many former interpreters from Bamiyan Province, where New Zealand’s Provincial Reconstruction Team operated from 2003 till 2013, are hiding from the Taliban in the mountains, far from Kabul airport.

They are ethno-religious Hazara, a Shia minority singled out by the Sunni Taliban for especially harsh treatment, so New Zealand has a uniquely deep obligation to help them.

Read more:
How Joe Biden failed the people of Afghanistan — and tarnished US credibility around the world

New Zealand has already inducted 44 former employees and 96 immediate family members from Bamiyan. In 2001 New Zealand took 131 of the Tampa refugees, many of them Afghans. New arrivals will find a helpful community of established compatriots, so it’s to be hoped harmonious integration will not be an issue.

But as recently as last month the immigration minister was saying there was no plan to resettle more applicants from Bamiyan – despite a group of 20 former interpreters pleading to the prime minister by cellphone from their mountain hiding place – because they didn’t meet strict immigration criteria.

Because the rules have now been relaxed, there will undoubtedly be more pressure to take wider family groups.

Only the beginning

So, practical obstacles may yet test the commendably high ideals announced on Monday. This crisis will challenge the integrity of immigration and refugee programs – with hundreds of prior applicants from around the world already in the queue.

How the New Zealand public reacts, and whether it affects the government’s approval ratings (negatively or positively) is hard to predict. But there is no doubt New Zealand will do its fair share, alongside its larger allies.

Read more:
As Afghanistan falls, what does it mean for the Middle East?

With modest resources and fewer diplomatic posts, New Zealand may need help from better-placed governments. But such co-operation is to be expected in the interests of an orderly and humane evacuation before the Taliban take control of Kabul airport.

After the rescue of as many Afghans as possible, it will be time for all of us to reflect on those left behind to face an uncertain future under a harsh Taliban regime. Many will also be pondering the ultimate question: was it worth it?

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

– ref. As New Zealand mobilises to help in Afghanistan, its rescue response faces serious challenges – https://theconversation.com/as-new-zealand-mobilises-to-help-in-afghanistan-its-rescue-response-faces-serious-challenges-166179

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

Urgent medical resources are being dispatched to western NSW in a vaccination and support drive after the alarming spread of COVID into Aboriginal communities there.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the first of five Australian Defence Force vaccination teams will arrive on Wednesday.

An initial Australian Medical Assistance Team (AUSMAT) – which is multidisciplinary health group – will also be sent within a couple of days. AUSMATs can help shore up local hospitals and health services where that might be needed.

COVID has now spread to areas including Bourke, Broken Hill, Brewarrina, Gilgandra, Walgett and Dubbo.

With a large Indigenous population in these areas and a low vaccination rate, COVID presents an especially serious threat. Aboriginal people are vulnerable because they often already have other health conditions.

Most of the about 117 cases in western NSW are among Indigenous people, particularly young people.

The Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, said that nationally 169,000 Indigenous Australians (30%) had had their first vaccine, and 69,000 or 15% had had two doses.

The rates are much lower than for the general community, where more than a quarter of eligible Australians (26.9%) are now fully vaccinated.

Wyatt said Indigenous leaders were stepping up and “we’re seeing straight talking happening”.

He said some Indigenous people had been fearful of adverse effects of being vaccinated.

“People are now believing that it is time for them to take the proactive action. And the elders and the leaders are ensuring that the straight messages, straight talking is now part of what communities are hearing.”

Dharriwaa Elders Group at Walgett called for more resources and help in a statement last week.

“Many of our Elders and others in Walgett experience health and social issues that make them vulnerable to contracting COVID-19. The impact on our community could be devastating,” they said.

Pat Turner, CEO of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO), said the shortage of Pfizer and people’s reluctance to have AstraZeneca had been problems in the rollout in western NSW.

“People put their back up against getting AstraZeneca,” she said. They had also thought they were a long way from Sydney, where the NSW outbreak was centred.

With the spread of the virus people were now realising they needed to be vaccinated, Turner said. But she was still “very concerned” about the situation in western NSW.

She said one of the problems Aboriginal health centres had was a shortage of staff due to state border closures, as well as nurses not coming from New Zealand.

She welcomed the dispatch of the defence and AUSMAT teams and that increased supplies of Pfizer had been prioritised as well as more testing capacity and personal protective equipment.

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

– ref. Medical dash as COVID spreads among Indigenous people in western NSW – https://theconversation.com/medical-dash-as-covid-spreads-among-indigenous-people-in-western-nsw-166279

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stuart Ralph, Associate Professor and malaria researcher, The University of Melbourne

Governments around the world have enacted unprecedented responses to minimise the spread of COVID to preserve both individual health and health systems.

In enacting these responses, governments have repeatedly used rhetoric invoking notions of war. Often they’ve painted the virus as an “invader” and a “wicked enemy”.

Read more:
Stop calling coronavirus pandemic a ‘war’

Such language was arguably useful to help mobilise resources and underscore the seriousness of the situation to the community.

However, ongoing use of military rhetoric, war metaphors and, in some cases, the direct involvement of military personnel in public health communication and local responses may undermine efforts to control the virus — especially among communities most vulnerable to COVID.

The language of war

Among the most tangible examples of militarisation of Australia’s COVID response was the appointment of Lieutenant General John Frewen as commander of the national COVID vaccine taskforce.

Another is the launch by Frewen of a military themed vaccination campaign “arm yourself”.

These approaches to getting the vaccine rollout back on track are perhaps unsurprising given the warlike language invoked by leaders in Australia and elsewhere. Two weeks ago, Scott Morrison said “this has been a long war against this virus, and there have been many, many battles”.

Framing health strategies as a war against disease is a long-standing approach for garnering support and attracting funding for disease control and eradication programs.

This method was central to the conception of post-WWII “campaigns” against infectious diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.

Such metaphors may be useful for simplifying complex biomedical concepts or encouraging public vigilance.

But health communicators increasingly urge us to reduce the use of military metaphors in describing our responses to disease.

In the context of cancer, perceiving the illness as an active enemy can lead people to be more fatalistic and more likely to perceive preventative behaviours as futile.

Using militaristic language inevitably defines those who succumb to disease as losers of a battle. Writer and activist Susan Sontag suggested wrapping disease in metaphors risks inappropriate inferences that people who contract, die or suffer from disease didn’t try hard enough. This may result in discouragement and shame among people affected.

Read more:
Queensland’s coronavirus controversy: past pandemics show us public shaming could harm public health

Deploying soldiers in Sydney is inappropriate

Another example of the inappropriate use of the military has come in Sydney’s current outbreak, where uniformed soldiers are now being deployed to enforce lockdown.

This presence is clearly causing some distress and resentment among local community leaders as it did in suburbs of Melbourne last year.

It’s incongruous that this same military is simultaneously being used to deliver public health messages that rely on engagement, trust and transparency.

South Western Sydney is rich in culturally and linguistically diverse communities where Arabic and Vietnamese are widely spoken as first languages, and is home to many refugees and First Nations people.

Many of these people have good reason to regard armed forces as unreliable sources of public assistance. In these communities the use of the army in enforcing lockdowns will inevitably undermine its dual role as a source for trusted health-care messages.

This may also resonate poorly with migrants from countries where authoritarian governments use the military and police to control and intimidate communities.

This month’s vaccine coverage data show South Western Sydney has some of the lowest uptake of COVID vaccines in the country. A non-military approach will be required to address this.

In public health messaging, the use of militaristic or violent language also risks alienating other parts of the intended audience. Some Australians, for example LGBTQI+ people and people with disability, have been historically excluded from the military or militaristic narratives.

For many Australian women too, the use of aggressive and warlike language amid the pandemic has been particularly ill-fitting. Social inclusion policy strategist Amy Haddad has pointed out the military language employed around COVID in Australia has been particularly gendered.

Masculine and martial calls from the prime minister to “summon the ANZAC spirit” disregard many groups, and particularly many women who are central to the primary health-care roles in responding to COVID.

Stuart Ralph receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, and has received funding from the World Health Organization.

Mark Stoové is a recipient of a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Research Fellowship and has received investigator initiated research funding from Gilead Sciences and AbbVie, and consultant fees from Gilead Sciences, for activities unrelated to this work. He has also received funding to support research and program activities from the Commonwealth and Australian jurisdictional governments.

– ref. Using military language and presence might not be the best approach to COVID and public health – https://theconversation.com/using-military-language-and-presence-might-not-be-the-best-approach-to-covid-and-public-health-166019

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

Graphic pictures of mayhem confront the world as desperate Afghans attempt to flee their country, after the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul.

Australia’s moral responsibly to evacuate people who assisted the Australian Defence Force, and may now face Taliban retribution, has become an important part of our exit from this lost war.

The government is mounting a rescue mission for some of these people, as well as for Australians still in the country. But speaking on the podcast, Anthony Albanese describes the government’s effort as “the latest example of too little, too late”.

Meanwhile, in Australia at present there are more than 4,200 Afghan refugees on temporary visas. Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Tuesday that “at this stage” no visa holder will be asked to return to Afghanistan. Scott Morrison said the government “had no plans” to return any of these people.

Albanese says the government should give them permanent residency.

“The idea that people, for example many of whom are Hazaras, are on temporary protection visas – the idea that the circumstances are going to change, that these are temporary circumstances – is just not real” Albanese says.

“It doesn’t acknowledge the circumstances which these people confront. And we want them to fully participate in Australian society, and they should have the capacity to become full Australian citizens.”

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Anthony Albanese says Afghans in Australia should be given permanent residency – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-anthony-albanese-says-afghans-in-australia-should-be-given-permanent-residency-166280

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Plank, Professor in Applied Mathematics, University of Canterbury

New Zealanders are back in their bubbles after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a three day alert level 4 lockdown for the entire country, and a seven day period for Auckland, following the confirmation of a community case — most likely infected with the Delta variant.

This is the first community case since February and it’s more than a year since the last country-wide lockdown.

The infected man was unvaccinated and is thought to have been infectious since Thursday. He travelled to the Coromandel for the weekend, and tracing is now underway to establish all close and casual contacts and the Ministry of Health has published locations of interest.

During the lockdown, schools and businesses will remain closed, people will have to stay at home, except for supermarket shopping, exercise in the neighbourhood and necessary medical treatment or testing.

We won’t know for sure it is the Delta variant until genome sequencing results come back, but 100% of COVID-19 cases in MIQ facilities over the past few weeks have been Delta infections, and it’s a safe bet this community case is too.

The government warned last week New Zealanders should expect a swift and sharp response if a case of the Delta variant was detected in the community, because it’s so infectious and can spread much more quickly. It may also cause more severe illness.

Moving the whole country to Alert Level 4 is definitely the right move and will give us the best chance of nipping this outbreak in the bud before it can get too large.

Delta is a game changer

We measure the spread of COVID-19 using the reproduction number (R number), which is the average number of people someone with the virus infects. If the R number is bigger than 1, the outbreak is growing and case numbers will climb. If it’s less than 1, the number of cases is on the way down.

After New Zealand went into alert level 4 in March 2020, our best estimate of the reproduction number was between 0.3 and 0.55. During Auckland’s alert level 3 lockdown last August, we estimated R was between 0.55 and 0.75. At the time this was great news — it meant that alert level 3 was enough to control outbreaks without the need for more restrictive rules.

Delta changed all that. We know from data overseas that this variant is about twice as transmissible as the strain of COVID-19 we were dealing with in 2020.

Read more:
What are COVID-19 variants and how can you stay safe as they spread? A doctor answers 5 questions

This doesn’t necessarily mean Delta doubles the R number – it depends on the types of contact and the restrictions that are in place. But doubling the R number is a reasonable first approximation.

Unfortunately, this means it’s likely an alert level 3 lockdown would not be enough to contain a Delta outbreak.

Luck will play its part

Currently, about 18% of New Zealanders are fully vaccinated and another 14% have had their first dose. This will reduce the R number by perhaps 15-20% nationally. But that’s not enough to bring it below 1 at level 3.

These are all ballpark numbers and there are lots of assumptions and approximations involved. But altogether, it means alert level 3 would likely not be enough to control an outbreak once it has become established.

Alert level 4 should be enough if we all play our part. But if the R number is close to 1, case numbers could be slow to come down.

Read more:
Is Delta defeating us? Here’s why the variant makes contact tracing so much harder

There is a lot of luck involved in the early stages of an outbreak. What happens next will depend partly on whether we’ve had a superspreading event and whether the virus has been spreading in groups with high contact rates or low vaccine coverage.

We’ll get a lot more information from the contact tracing, genome sequencing and testing results over the next few days. If we are lucky, there will be a close link to the border with minimal exposure to the community. If this is the case, we could get away with just a handful of cases.

But if the virus has been spreading undetected for a significant period of time, there could easily be more than 100 people infected by now and a strict lockdown is our only available option.

New South Wales is a warning

Although the case lives in Auckland, the virus could be anywhere in the country. We know the infected man has travelled to the Coromandel region, and it’s likely he will have come into contact with people from other parts of New Zealand. The national alert level change buys us some time to see results of testing and contact tracing to assess how widely the outbreak has spread.

One thing we’ve learned from watching Sydney over the past two months is that half-measures can quickly lead to disaster. While we wait for more information, our best option is to go hard now and then relax later if it turns out we have avoided the worst.

If we wait until we know how many cases are out there are, there’s a risk things could get a whole lot worse. With Delta there are no second chances.

If we all play our part, there’s every reason to think this outbreak can eventually be crushed. How long that takes will depend on how many other people have been infected.

In the meantime, it’s time for the team of five million to come together once again to stay home and save lives — and tune in once again for Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield’s afternoon press conferences for the latest updates.

Michael Plank is affiliated with the University of Canterbury and receives funding from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Te Pūnaha Matatini, New Zealand’s Centre of Research Excellence in complex systems.

– ref. After its first suspected Delta variant community case, New Zealand goes into short, sharp nationwide lockdown – https://theconversation.com/after-its-first-suspected-delta-variant-community-case-new-zealand-goes-into-short-sharp-nationwide-lockdown-166276

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nematullah Bizhan, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Development Policy Centre, Australian National University, and Senior Research Associate with the Global Economic Governance Program, Oxford University, Australian National University

Two days ago, a close friend in Afghanistan told me Kabul seems like a graveyard. Silenced. Helpless. And hopeless.

This reminds me of the empty streets and hopelessness during my time under the Taliban’s rule in the late 1990s. People sold their household belongings on the streets of Kabul and other cities to feed their families or pay for their travel costs to leave the country. Education for girls above year six was banned. Women were not allowed to work.

During those five years from 1996-2001, the Taliban established a theocratic totalitarian regime. After the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and the rapid demise of the republic this week, Afghans are concerned the group will revert to its old policies and they will lose their guaranteed, fundamental rights.

Perhaps people are right. No sign of change is yet apparent from the Taliban.

Read more:
Afghan refugees can no longer wait — Australia must offer permanent protection now

Women are the most concerned. Following the recent fall of Herat, the third-largest city in Afghanistan, women and girls were told by the Taliban to go back to their homes when they went to work or university.

A prominent journalist in a city in the north of Afghanistan told me that a Talib came to his house four times asking where he was. He was safe in a different location, but he was terrified because of concern for the security of his immediate family members. This doesn’t match the “change” narrative of the Taliban’s political leadership, granting amnesty to everyone.

And a well-known activist and analyst told me today, “I don’t have the ability to stay here in this situation. I feel suffocated. God help us. I don’t know what will happen.”

Bleak days, but still a chance to preserve gains

Uncertainty and fear are common among people now in Afghanistan. Many have reacted to Taliban takeover by attempting to leave the country en masse. At Kabul’s airport, thousands rushed onto the tarmac and some were so desperate they held onto an American military jet as it took off. On that day, seven people were killed.

The army, economy and critical public services have all collapsed in a matter of weeks. Afghans feel betrayed by the Biden administration and its allies, and even their own president, who fled the country, leaving them in chaos.

As one source in Afghanistan told me, the Taliban also betrayed Afghans, using the peace process with the US to buy time and capture Afghanistan. Afghans now have no one to trust.

Afghanistan is now in grave danger. Even though we have not lost everything, we will do so soon, especially if the international community and the UN sit idle.

The hard-won gains that were achieved in the last two decades may perish. The fundamental rights of citizens, including freedom of expression and equal access to education and work, are at great risk.

Still, there is a chance to preserve some gains and prevent the humanitarian crisis from deepening.

Many questions have yet to be answered. It is not yet clear whether the new governing arrangement will be a return to the Taliban’s former Islamic emirate. It’s also not clear if there will be a political settlement with the elements of the previous government. Of even if there will be an armed resistance against the Taliban’s rule.

How the international community can help

While the US and its allies have lost much of their leverage in Afghanistan, they still can make a positive contribution in three areas.

First, they can provide protection to vulnerable people and those at greater risk of persecution by the Taliban. This can occur by offering special refugee intakes and granting protection to Afghans who had already applied for protection and are stuck in limbo — as Canada has done.

Second, the international community can put pressure or even impose sanctions on the Taliban and those countries supporting them to preserve the gains achieved in the last two decades.

How the UN responds will be key. The UN, which has more than 3,000 staff working in Afghanistan, will soon have to decide whether to recognise the Taliban government and give it the Afghanistan seat. The Security Council has called for talks on a new government, but stronger action could have a real impact on the Taliban’s actions.

Third, the international community must provide humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people and others affected by the recent war.

In addition to this, the powers in the region — China, Pakistan, Iran and Russia — can also play a vital role. But their intentions are unclear. Some have tacitly welcomed the Taliban victory, while also increasing their security forces on the border with Afghanistan.

The least they can do is keep their borders open to those Afghans who are vulnerable and are seeking refuge in a third country.

Afghanistan has seen so much fighting and instability over the past four decades, fuelled by great power and regional rivalries. This has caused unparalleled human suffering and tragedy. One day these powers may feel regret for their actions, but now is the time for empathy – for Afghanistan and its people.

Read more:
As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

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

– ref. ‘I feel suffocated’: Afghans are feeling hopeless, but there’s still a chance to preserve some rights – https://theconversation.com/i-feel-suffocated-afghans-are-feeling-hopeless-but-theres-still-a-chance-to-preserve-some-rights-166171

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Crosby, Lecturer, Department of Economics, Macquarie University

With the launch of the Paramount+, Australian consumers of video streaming are arguably drowning in choice.

We now have more than a dozen “subscription video on demand” services to choose from, with many dozens more options available worldwide to anyone with a VPN to get around geoblocks.

But all this competition isn’t actually making things easier. It’s likely all this “choice” will see more of us turning to piracy to watch our favourite films and televisions shows.

The problem is that services are competing (at least in part) through offering exclusive content and original programming.

Paramount+, for example, is offering content from Paramount Pictures and other entertainment companies owned by entertainment conglomerate ViaComCBS. These include Showtime, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Its catalogue ranges from the Indiana Jones and Harry Potter movies to popular TV shows Dexter, NCIS and The Big Bang Theory.

This content may have been available on your preferred services. But the end goal — as with Disney+ and others — is for all ViaComCBS-owned content to be exclusive to Paramount+.

Here the problem for the consumer becomes evident. How many subscription services do you want to join? Subscribing to the six most popular video streaming services — Netflix, Stan, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Binge, and Apple TV+ — will cost you about $60 a month. How much more are you willing to pay for a new service to watch a favourites film or TV show now only that service?

The temptation to turn to piracy is clear.

Losing aggregation

The emergence of video streaming services such as Netflix was heralded as an effective way to curb illegal downloads. But how Netflix did this at first was in aggregating content. It provided a convenient, cost-effective and legal way to access a large catalogue of TV shows and movies; and consumers embraced it.

But as the streaming market has developed, the loss of content aggregation appears to be leading back to piracy.

As an example, according to analytics company Sandvine, the file-sharing tool BitTorrent accounted for 31% of all uploads in 2018; in 2019 it was 45%. As Sandvine explained:

When Netflix aggregated video, we saw a decline in file sharing worldwide, especially in the US, where Netflix’s library was large and comprehensive. As
new original content has become more exclusive to other streaming services, consumers are turning to file sharing to get access to those exclusives since
they can’t or won’t pay money just for a few shows.

This trend has been amplified by COVID-19 lockdowns, with traffic to illegal TV and movie sites reportedly surging in 2020. A survey for the Australian Government found 34% of respondents consumed some form of illegal content in 2020.

Read more:
Will Amazon’s purchase of MGM mark the end of Netflix’s reign?

Lessons from music

Why should this be happening more for TV shows and movies and not for music?

There’s an important difference. Services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal offer you just about all the music there is. You don’t need to sign up to one to listen to The Beatles and another to hear Taylor Swift. You need only sign up to one.

Research has shown that a consumer’s willingness to pay is often anchored around the initial information they are exposed to. Viewers accustomed to paying for one streaming service might be reluctant to pay for as many as six.

In a survey of about 3,000 US TV watchers in February, 56% said they felt overwhelmed by the number of streaming services on offer.

Deloitte’s Australian Media Consumer Survey 2019 found that almost half of streaming video on demand subscribers said it was hard to know what content is available on what service. Three-quarters said they wanted the content in one place, rather than having to hunt through multiple services.

Read more:
Stream weavers: the musicians’ dilemma in Spotify’s pay-to-play plan

Seeking a one-stop shop

Although it is not yet clear how many video streaming services the Australian market can support, high-profile failures both at home and overseas should serve as a warning.

But in the absence of a legal one-stop-shop for TV and movies, people will take matters into their own hands.

Illegal streaming platforms that aggregate content from multiple video streaming services into a single interface are becoming more widespread. Such services typically use an open-source media player, coupled with cheap jailbroken hardware and a VPN to access a plethora of illegal entertainment.

Until the industry offers a legal alternative to such platforms, the popularity of such services is only likely to grow.

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.

– ref. The more video streaming services we get, the more we’ll turn to piracy – https://theconversation.com/the-more-video-streaming-services-we-get-the-more-well-turn-to-piracy-166090

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney

The 17 socioeconomic targets in the Closing the Gap report intend to reduce the incarceration rate of First Nations people. Despite this, according to the recent Productivity Commission update on the Closing the Gap targets, First Nations incarceration rates are still rising.

Over the past 30 years, incarceration rates have more than doubled to unprecedented levels for First Nations people. Yet, violent offending convictions for Aboriginal people have decreased in NSW and across Australia.

This could be due to entrenched racism in the justice system. Sentencing courts are key gatekeepers for prisons and are therefore, in part, accountable for the high rates of First Nations incarceration.

What is required in sentencing is a process of “re-storying”, or truth-telling. Aboriginal storying in sentencing promotes the principles of truth-telling by placing power in the hands of the Aboriginal person and their community to tell their story.

Through this, non-custodial pathways can be identified, drawing on the person’s strengths and community avenues for healing. Re-storying provides resistance to racist stereotypes in courts that contribute to the over-incarceration of Aboriginal people.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation notes that laying bare the truths of Aboriginal people is a way to counter and expose racism.

There must be a process for truth-telling in sentencing that compels action. However, there also needs to be systemic change that recognises prisons as a harm rather than a solution for First Nations people.

It is also critical that courts recognise and redress their role in over-incarceration, which the Canadian Supreme Court has begun to do. This includes critically reflecting on how unconscious bias can influence judicial decision-making.

Read more:
Australia’s news media play an important role reminding the country that Black lives still matter

A history of assuming guilt influencing criminal justice systems

Casting Aboriginal people as criminals has been happening since the earliest days of colonisation when Aboriginal people were deemed outcasts on homelands.

Ambēyaŋ scholar Callum Clayton Dixon identifies how Aboriginal peoples were “officially deemed criminals by colonial authorities” to justify colonial land takeover of a sovereign people.

Governor George Arthur in NSW claimed ahead of a military attack on Aboriginal people in 1828,

The Aboriginal natives of this colony are and ever have been a most treacherous race.

In 1839, the Sydney Herald reported:

…if strong measures be not soon adopted, these ruthless savages will go on, adding one crime to another.

Today, the legal narrative of Aboriginal people’s offending – laid bare in prosecutor’s statements – is worsened by the assumption and measurement of criminal “risk”.

The language and measurements of risk inform pre-sentence reports prepared for courts by community corrections. They use a deficit metric to influence decisions on sentencing. Rather than identifying strengths, community corrections treat First Nations peoples’ backgrounds and circumstances as a problem.

Australian and Canadian research has found that such reports reinforce racist assumptions about First Nations people.

A risk framework focused on perceived deficits of Aboriginal people positions them, according to Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman and health professor Chelsea Watego and colleagues, as “in need of ‘fixing’ and ‘moulding’ (usually by white hands).”

Read more:
Excessive strip-searching shines light on discrimination of Aboriginal women in the criminal justice system

Deficit narratives in sentencing

Listening to the life stories of First Nations people on their terms provides an antidote to the usual deficit narrative in courts.

This approach is adopted in Canadian Gladue reports, which are First Nations-narrated pre-sentence reports. They illustrate the First Nations person’s holistic circumstances and needs, including how they have been failed by the system. These have the potential to reduce prison sentences, according to the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

This approach is also being implemented by the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service through Aboriginal community justice reports. This initiative draws on the lessons of the Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto when it established Gladue reports.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, an Aboriginal community-controlled organisation, bears witness to how Aboriginal voices are stifled in sentencing courts, and their lives reduced to the sum of criminal histories and risks. Promoting First Nations strengths and self-determination in truth telling is at the heart of its work. This includes through re-storying in sentencing.

Reflecting on the role of the Yoo-rrook Commission (Victoria’s truth-telling process), CEO Nerita Waight articulated:

Self-determination is the only way Aboriginal people will ever get justice. Self-determination is too often stifled by bureaucracies that exclude or sideline Aboriginal voices.

The role of Aboriginal community justice reports

Aboriginal community justice reports were recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission in its 2017 inquiry into First Nations over-incarceration.

Aboriginal community justice reports seek to provide a more complete picture of a person’s life and circumstances. They endeavour to amplify the aspirations, interests, strengths, connections, culture, and supports of the individual, as well as the adverse impact of colonial and carceral systems on their life.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Services began a trial using these reports this year. Twenty will be produced over the next two years by Aboriginal report writers who are working with the Aboriginal person before the court. The person’s own words and experiences will form the substance of the reports.

This approach acknowledges the Aboriginal person is the expert in their own journey, and conveys the person’s circumstances and a deeper understanding of their life, ties to family, community, ancestors and their involvement with government institutions.

Reports will be trialled in the County Court – both Koori County Court and mainstream criminal division. Aboriginal people who request a report will also receive support from Aboriginal caseworkers to build their own path forward.

The process of speaking “one’s own voice” with an Aboriginal worker preparing the report is intended to restore dignity and empower the person to take responsibility and a lead role in their healing, rather than just be judged.

Read more:
Carceral feminism and coercive control: when Indigenous women aren’t seen as ideal victims, witnesses or women

Moving forward with truth telling and re-storying practices

Aboriginal community justice reports are part of a growing momentum for Aboriginal narrative reports in sentencing.

In addition to Victoria, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations in other parts of Australia, including Five Bridges in Queensland and Deadly Connections in New South Wales, are taking the lead in producing reports that involve truth-telling in sentencing.

However, truth-telling needs to involve systemic change. The Aboriginal community justice reports coincide with the self-determination work of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and other Aboriginal organisations to build community programs and advocacy that pushes back on colonial carceralism.

This is true to First Nations radical scholarship that heeds,

Processes of re-storying and truth-telling are not effective without some larger community-centred, decolonising actions behind them.

Thalia Anthony receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Andreea Lachsz is Head of Policy, Communications and Strategy at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.

Nerita Waight is the Chief Executive Officer of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.

– ref. The role of ‘re-storying’ in addressing over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – https://theconversation.com/the-role-of-re-storying-in-addressing-over-incarceration-of-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples-163577

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Reid, Professor Emeritus of Education, University of South Australia

The education debate in Australia has, for some time now, been marred by the presence of a simple binary: explicit teaching, or direct instruction, versus inquiry-based learning.

Simply put, explicit teaching is a structured sequence of learning led by the teacher, who demonstrates and explains a new concept or technique, and kids practise it. Inquiry-based learning is student-centred and involves the students, guided by the teacher, creating essential questions, exploring and investigating these, and sharing ideas to arrive at new understanding.

A recent article in The Weekend Australian by Noel Pearson has breathed new life into this dichotomy.

It lays the blame for Australia’s declining Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores on the fact most teachers are using inquiry-based approaches — although the evidence for this is not presented.

And it says explicit teaching is the answer.

Pearson’s argument leans on a recent Centre for Independent Studies paper by Emeritus Professor John Sweller. In that paper, Sweller outlines his research on “cognitive load theory” – the idea we need to finesse a new concept until it enters our long-term memory and becomes almost second nature – to demonstrate that explicit teaching produces better learning outcomes than inquiry-based learning.

Read more:
I had an idea in the 1980s and to my surprise, it changed education around the world

Pearson urges teachers, politicians and policymakers to forget inquiry-based learning and adopt explicit teaching as their educational guiding star. In my view they should be very wary of doing so because the case is based on at least three serious flaws.

1. Teachers use more than one approach

First, the argument against inquiry-based learning assumes teachers use only one approach to teaching – either explicit or inquiry-based.

In my experience of teaching and working with teachers in schools, most educators move up and down a teacher-centred and student-centred continuum on a daily basis. They select, from a toolkit of teaching approaches, one that best suits the purposes of the topic or program, the context of the study, and their students’ interests and needs.

In other words, teachers sometimes employ explicit teaching and sometimes inquiry-based approaches. Indeed, they might draw on explicit teaching at a specific moment during a guided inquiry.

The idea teachers are straitjacketed to one approach is an affront to their professionalism.

2. Not all inquiry-based methods are the same

Second, the argument is based on a misguided view about what constitutes inquiry-based learning.

Sweller and Pearson maintain inquiry learning began six decades ago with the work of American cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner and his concept of “discovery learning” in the 1960s.

With discovery learning, instead of students being given the information to learn, they are given (or choose themselves) questions or problems and use their prior knowledge and experiences to test new understandings. Bruner argued that, as well as gaining new knowledge, students would develop crucial skills such as questioning and critical thinking, along with curiosity and a love of learning.

Pearson writes: “The great majority of Australian schools follow Bruner, even today, with only a minority of teachers and schools delivering teacher-led instruction.”

Apart from the fact he doesn’t cite any evidence to support this assertion, the implication here is that the development of inquiry-based learning stopped in the 1960s with Bruner. It didn’t.

When Bruner’s work first gained prominence it was adapted to the teaching of science, and then slowly spread to other areas of the curriculum. Over the next 50 years, through practice and research, a number of different models of inquiry learning have developed – each with different emphases – such as problem-based and project-based inquiry.

More than this, inquiry-based approaches differ in such matters as purpose and method. Thus they can vary in approach such as inductive and deductive inquiry, and in the extent to which teachers are in control of topic choice and process. There can be strong teacher guidance (structured inquiry, controlled inquiry), or students can have greater freedom to discover and investigate (modified free inquiry).

Read more:
Explainer: what is inquiry-based learning and how does it help prepare children for the real world?

In other words, there is no homogenous model of inquiry-based learning. If people want to criticise inquiry-based approaches they need to be explicit about which model they are judging.

3. Flawed data used to justify the argument

The third flaw in the argument is that much of the research used to show explicit teaching produces better learning outcomes is based on data that are contaminated by the confusion about what constitutes inquiry-based learning.

Take the research published by McKinsey and Company in 2017, which Pearson cites as exposing the “detrimental effects of inquiry learning”. That research uses student interviews conducted by the OECD in the 2015 PISA tests to find out about the extent to which some students experienced inquiry learning in their science classes.

The questions were based on the understanding that inquiry in science involves students in practical experiments and class debates, with the teacher giving them time to explain ideas and use the scientific method. But, for all the reasons explained above, this is a very narrow view of inquiry-based learning.

Read more:
Explainer: what is explicit instruction and how does it help children learn?

Notwithstanding these limitations, the OECD aggregated the students’ responses and correlated them with the PISA scores in science to arrive at an index of inquiry-based instruction. This purported to show that, for many countries, there was a negative correlation between inquiry-based learning and success in the science tests.

Despite the warped view of inquiry and the inadequate methodology on which the OECD report was based, once the report hit the public domain its findings were further distorted. The results based on interviews with 15-year-old students about their science teaching classes were turned into generalisations about teaching in all subjects across all year levels.

Such research tells us very little about inquiry-based learning itself. And yet it is used to demonstrate the superior outcomes produced by explicit teaching.

There’s a variety of useful teaching models — and this includes explicit instruction — which have been designed for different purposes. It is the educator’s task to select the most appropriate given the context.

Creating simplistic binaries in a field as complex and nuanced as education impoverishes the debate.

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

– ref. Teachers use many teaching approaches to impart knowledge. Pitting one against another harms education – https://theconversation.com/teachers-use-many-teaching-approaches-to-impart-knowledge-pitting-one-against-another-harms-education-166178

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Howard, Deputy Section Editor: Arts + Culture

Freud and Nietzsche may not be what you have in mind when thinking of pool-side reads, but they are among the books flipped through in The White Lotus — the tense, new TV drama about the lives of the rich and privileged as they overlap at a Hawaiian resort.

Are Paula and Olivia truly delving into the mind of the anti-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon, or indeed, into Camille Paglia’s deconstruction of the Western literary canon? Or are they just books for show: an intellectual performance to hide secret glances and gossip?

Either way, frequent book covers speak loudly in the show. So here, then, is what the experts think you should know about these props and the stories they tell.

Maybe you will find one to pick up the next time you fly off for your island holiday. Just try to avoid the White Lotus resort.

The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud

“If I cannot bend the heavens above, I will move Hell.” Sigmund Freud quotes the poet Virgil to describe his aim in this book of explaining the meaning of dreams — by recourse to his theory of the unconscious mind.

Freud always considered Interpretation of Dreams his masterpiece, and ensured it would be published in 1900 to mark its significance.

Dreams had traditionally been viewed as either senseless or vehicles of communication with the divine. Freud instead contended all dreams involve the fulfilment of a wish.

In adults, he wrote, many of the wishes we have are of such an “edgy” nature their fulfilment would wake us up if staged too directly.

So, in order to at once fulfil these unconscious wishes and stay asleep, the “dream work” of the sleeping mind distorts the wish, using mechanisms of displacement (making insignificant things seem important, and the other way around), condensation (bringing together multiple ideas in single images), and transforming words into the seemingly random images.

Packed with striking dream analyses, and containing perhaps the best systematic statement of Freud’s theory of the mind, this book is an influential classic.

—Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy

Read more:
Unravelling the mysteries of sleep: how the brain ‘sees’ dreams

The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon

Psychiatrist and anti-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon was born in 1925 in the French colony of Martinique. After the second world war, he studied in France. Later, in 1953, he moved to Algeria, joining the Algerian National Liberation Front.

The Wretched of the Earth (originally published as Les damnés de la terre in 1961) was written at the height of the Algerian War of Independence. Based on Fanon’s first-hand experience of working in colonial Algeria, it is a classic text of postcolonial studies, examining the physical and psychological violence colonised people experience.

Fanon’s book is a lucid and damning account of the impact of colonialism: the ways it irrevocably changes people, their societies and their culture.

A passionate call to resist colonisation and oppression, The Wretched of the Earth was seen as dangerous by colonial powers at the time of its publication. It is still an important anti-colonial work today.

—Isabelle Hesse, Lecturer in English

Read more:
Why Fanon continues to resonate more than half a century after Algeria’s independence

Sexual Personae, by Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990) is a provocative survey of Western canonical art and culture.

On its publication, Sexual Personae was considered iconoclastic, groundbreaking and subversive for, as Paglia wrote, its focus on “amorality, aggression, sadism, voyeurism and pornography in great art”.

The book was both lauded for its insights into sex, violence and power; and labelled anti-feminist and sinister in its views about gender and sexuality.

Sexual Personae discusses the decadence and enduring influence of paganism in Western culture. Paglia connects sexual freedom to sadomasochism and argues that our self-destructive and lustful Dionysian impulses are in tension with our Apollonian instincts for order.

Named after Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966), Paglia’s book charts recurrent types in the Western imagination, such as the “beautiful boy”, the “femme fatale” and the “female vampire”. Through these personae, she discusses works such as the Mona Lisa, Wuthering Heights and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Particularly famous is the chapter on Emily Dickinson and Paglia’s analysis of the brutal and sadistic metaphors in Dickinson’s poetry.

Paglia’s Sexual Personae is both electrifying and divisive; still one of the most important texts in 1990s sexual politics.

—Cassandra Atherton, Professor of Writing and Literature

My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend (2011), the first volume of her Neapolitan Series, is a feminist coming-of-age story that begins with a mystery.

In the first few pages, a distinguished writer, Elena (known as Lenù), learns an old friend, Raffaella (or Lila), has disappeared without a trace. Lila’s disappearance prompts Lenù to begin writing the story of her life, focusing particularly on the pair’s complicated friendship.

Focusing on their childhood in 1950s Naples, she writes unsentimentally of poverty, violence, familial conflicts and organised crime.

The novel is densely plotted and written with unsparing accuracy about the characters of Naples, but Lenù’s candid narration makes for an utterly engrossing reading experience. In plain, fast-paced prose she describes a grim childhood full of misogyny and domestic violence, but enlivened by her friendship with Lila.

Ferrante gives us a moving portrait of friendship. Over the course of the novel, both girls begin to see glimpses of how they might move beyond the limitations of the world they have inherited.

—Lucas Thompson, Lecturer in English

Read more:
Elena Ferrante: a vanishing author and the question of posthuman identity

The Portable Nietzsche, edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann

For Nietzsche, to write philosophy was to render one’s experience into life-affirming art — even if that art rocked the very foundations of culture itself.

Walter Kaufmann’s translations in The Portable Nietzsche (1954) showcase much of the power and beauty of one of the finest minds in Western culture.

Here is Nietzsche’s devastating psychological portrait of St Paul; here is the infamous announcement of the death of God. They sit together with his complex notion of cheerfulness practised in the face of the terrifying collapse of certainties.

Despite his reputation in some quarters as a malevolent destroyer, Nietzsche’s actual aim of avoiding nihilism is well-captured here.

His cavorting and richly subversive “fifth gospel”, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is reproduced in full, as is Twilight of the Idols, one of his last works and a fine condensation of his mature project.

Kaufmann’s translations are now dated and his selection of Nietzsche’s works is occasionally eccentric, but The Portable Nietzsche goes an admirable way to presenting Nietzsche’s many aspects: the shy recluse, the loather of anti-Semites, the brilliant transfigurer of pain into texts of depth and beauty, and the lover of life, come what may.

—Jamie Parr, Lecturer in Philosophy

Read more:
Explainer: Nietzsche, nihilism and reasons to be cheerful

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Galdwell’s Blink (2005) opens with an anecdote about a kouros: an ancient Greek statue bought by the Getty Museum in 1985 for just under $10 million. Despite months of due diligence to check the authenticity of the statue, the Getty was duped – the statue had been made in the 1980s.

The discovery of the fake was attributed to an art historian who, according to Gladwell, knew as soon as he clapped eyes on it that it was not the real deal.

This instant of recognition (a “blink”) is what Gladwell describes as the “power of thinking without thinking”. Gladwell argues going with your gut can often lead to far superior decisions than thinking things over.

Blink is an entertaining collection of anecdotes, from art-historians to “marriage-whisperers” who can tell if a relationship is going to last from watching split-second videos of partners interacting. But, as the saying goes, the plural of anecdote is not data.

—Ben Newell, Professor of Cognitive Psychology

None of these strike your fancy? The characters also pick up Judith Butler, Aimé Césaire and Jacques Lacan — just more light reads on feminism, colonialism and psychoanalysis.

White Lotus is now streaming on Binge.

– ref. Freud, Nietzsche, Paglia, Fanon: our expert guide to the books of The White Lotus – https://theconversation.com/freud-nietzsche-paglia-fanon-our-expert-guide-to-the-books-of-the-white-lotus-166187

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW

Just hours after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Australia joined the international community in calling for the “safe and orderly departure of foreign nationals and Afghans who wish to leave the country”.

The scenes at Kabul airport yesterday were far from orderly, though US forces are now reportedly working to secure the airport so evacuation flights can resume.

If safe departure for Afghans can be coordinated, then it must be a transparent and flexible process — one that is additional to other pathways. And it must begin now.

Canada has already moved quickly, announcing it will resettle up to 20,000 women leaders, journalists and human rights activists who have fled Afghanistan, in addition to the evacuation of former locally-engaged staff.

A “path to protection”, as the Canadian government has called it, has been long overdue for many in Afghanistan who were associated with Australia or other foreign governments, such as interpreters and embassy staff.

Some have waited for years, stymied by overly strict eligibility criteria (a previous Canadian program was only open to those employed for 12 consecutive months).

Bureaucratic hurdles and long delays

Australia, Canada, the US and many European nations have decades of experience in offering special visa schemes for asylum seekers in circumstances such as this.

These processes allow people who are at risk of persecution or other serious harm – but are still in their home countries – to enter another country for the purpose of accessing protection under international refugee and human rights law.

The US, for example, settled more than half a million Vietnamese this way following the Vietnam War, as well as thousands of locally engaged staff from northern Iraq in the mid 1990s. In recent years, Australia has used this visa model – known as “in-country processing” – to settle Yazidi refugees from Iraq.

Australia’s “in-country” visa process has rarely been quick, but applications from some former employees in Afghanistan have dragged on despite dedicated lobbying from Australian Defence Force veterans.

Read more:
View from The Hill: There’s no getting away from it – we’ve all failed Afghanistan’s hopeful girls

Just days before the Taliban victory, for example, former employees of the Australian embassy in Kabul sent a letter to the Australian government, describing the persistent bureaucratic hurdles and long delays they have faced in applying for Australian visas.

And in recent years, some former employees of foreign governments were forced to flee Afghanistan rather than wait for formal protection visas, leaving them in limbo abroad and at risk of deportation home.

These processes should be transparent from the start. Would-be refugees need to know how the application process will work — and how long it will take — to decide if it is the best option for their circumstances.

Australia must expand its humanitarian uptake

The Australian government has said it will evacuate some Afghans from the country when “the situation allows”.

But any visa process must be flexible enough to include Afghan graduates of Australian universities who returned home – and have since received death threats – as well as family members of staff who have already left the country.

Former interpreters in the United States and Australia have struggled to obtain visas for their loved ones.

The Asia Pacific Network of Refugees and the Refugee Council of Australia have both called on the Australian government to offer asylum to others in Afghanistan, especially “women and children at risk as well as other human rights defenders in grave danger”.

This would mean expanding Australia’s resettlement program to admit more Afghans beyond the humanitarian intake of 13,750 people already planned for 2021-22. Canberra has done this before.

As Sitarah Mohammadi and Sajjad Askary, Melbourne-based deputy chairs within the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network and members of the Hazara ethic minority from Afghanistan, have recently argued, Australia offered 12,000 places for Syrians in 2015. They said,

A similar scheme can be established for the most persecuted and high risk groups, such as the Hazaras, who are already at risk of mass atrocities.

Helping Afghans who flee across borders

Of course, a dedicated safe and orderly departure program may depend on the tacit consent of the Taliban. In the current context, safe departure will be extremely difficult for applicants who are not already in Kabul, or who are on the run or in hiding from the Taliban.

To be meaningful, then, efforts to secure safe and orderly exit must never replace other avenues through which people fleeing Afghanistan may seek international protection.

Read more:
As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

This includes the right of individuals to make their own way out of Afghanistan to apply for protection in another country. And in cases when people have been rejected from the “in-country” application process, this must not prejudice their ability to apply for protection through other pathways.

Australia’s refugee program should also be opened to the thousands of Afghans currently stuck in Indonesia. Young people and families have been waiting there for years for a resettlement place abroad. Many are in desperate circumstances, as one family told the BBC:

We registered ourselves with the [UN High Commissioner for Refugees] in 2015. But we’ve not been contacted since then. We have been forgotten.

Some have even contemplated trying to reach Australia again by boat, according to a report today.

Permanent protection for Afghans already here

In Australia, the Asia Pacific Network of Refugees has also called on the government to protect Afghan nationals already living in this country.

This would include granting permanent protection to the more than 4,000 people who have already sought asylum in Australia and are living on temporary visas. This prevents refugees from reuniting with family members and forces them to live with the threat of deportation hanging over their lives.

According to Zaki Haidari, an ambassador for the Refugee Advice and Casework Service in Sydney and a temporary visa holder, the Taliban takeover proves

once again that it is not safe for us to go back and not safe for our families.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said today all Afghan citizens who were in Australia on a temporary basis would be supported by the government, adding

no Afghan visa holder will be asked to return to Afghanistan at this stage.

The words “at this stage” fall well short of Australia’s moral and legal obligations to Afghan refugees, and provide little comfort to temporary visa holders. With a range of options to expand protection for people at risk both within and outside Afghanistan, the Australian government must stop attaching qualifiers to its response, and start acting decisively and with humanity.

Claire Higgins receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Afghan refugees can no longer wait — Australia must offer permanent protection now – https://theconversation.com/afghan-refugees-can-no-longer-wait-australia-must-offer-permanent-protection-now-166180

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Buried within the prime minister’s response to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is just about everything we’re at risk of getting wrong at the Glasgow climate talks in October.

After slamming China — whose emissions per person are half of Australia’s — for not doing more to cut emissions, Scott Morrison said the Glasgow talks were the “biggest multilateral global negotiation the world has ever known”.

If he treats the talks as just another (big) negotiation, we’re in trouble.

The way the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade usually treats negotiations is hold something back, hold out the prospect of “giving it up,” and then only make the concession if the other side gives something in return. Even if holding back damages Australia.

Cars are a case in point. From an economic point of view, there is no reason whatsoever to continue to impose tariffs (special taxes) on the import of cars — none, not even in the eyes of those who support the use of tariffs to protect Australian jobs. Australia no longer makes cars.

Yet the tariff remains, at 5%, making it perhaps A$1 billion harder than it should be for Australians to buy new cars (although nowhere near as hard as it was in the days when the tariff was 57.5%).

The tariff seems to be in place largely to give the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade something to negotiate away in trade agreements: for use as what the Productivity Commission calls “negotiating coin”.

Here’s how it worked in the 2014 Australia-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Australia agreed to remove the remaining 5% tariff on Korean cars, “with consumers and businesses to benefit from downward pressure on import prices”.

But Australia didn’t remove the tariff on car imports altogether, which would have given us a much bigger benefit but denied the department negotiating coin.

The next year the department did it again, agreeing to give up the tariff on imported Japanese cars in the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (but not on other cars) so Australians could “benefit from lower prices and/or greater availability of Japanese products”.

Two years later, it did it again, with cars from China.

When the UK and European agreements are negotiated, it’ll do it there too.

Australia holds back reforms

Eventually Australians will get what they are entitled to. But the point is that rather than advancing the cause of free trade, the department has held back, treating a win for the other side as a loss for us, when it wasn’t.

The Centre for International Economics believes the much bigger earlier set of tariff cuts lifted the living standard of the average Australian family by A$8,448.

Had our trade negotiators been in charge, we would still be waiting. Instead the Hawke and then the Keating governments pushed through unilateral reductions, asking for nothing in return.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

As former Trade Minister Craig Emerson put it, this gave Australia “credibility in international trade negotiations way beyond the relative size of our economy”.

Does that sound like the sort of thing Australia might need at Glasgow, to have enough credibility to urge even bigger emitters to deliver the kind of cuts on which our futures and future temperatures depend?

It won’t work with China

The prime minister is right to say that China is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, even though its emissions per person are low. Its high population means it accounts for 28% of all the greenhouse gases pumped out each year. The next biggest emitter, the United States, accounts for 15%

But China’s status is new. Until 2006 it pumped out less per year than the United States. Because the US has had mega-factories and heating and so on for so much longer, it is responsible for by far the biggest chunk of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere: 25%, followed by the European Union with 22%.

China might reasonably feel that countries like the US that have done the most to create the problem should do the most to fix it.

Like Australia, the US pumps out twice as much per person as China and has much more room to cut back.

On the bright side, China knows that being big means it is in a position to make a difference to global emissions in a way that other countries cannot on their own. And that’s a position that can benefit its citizens.

China’s latest five-year plan, adopted in March, commits it to cut its “carbon intensity” (emissions per unit of GDP) by 18%. If it beats that five-year target by just a bit (and it has beaten its previous five-year targets) its emissions will turn down from 2025.

It is aiming for net-zero emissions by 2060.

Australia needs China’s help

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that Australia is especially susceptible to global warming. We’re facing less rain in winter, longer heatwaves, drier rivers, more arid soil and worse droughts.

We are right to want China to do more, but the worst way to achieve it is to say “we won’t lift our ambition until you lift yours”.

Hardly ever a worthwhile strategy, it is particularly ineffective when we don’t have bargaining power.

Read more:
Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns

The only power we’ve got is to set an example, unilaterally, as we did with tariffs. And to ramp up our ambition.

If Australia said it would do more, and didn’t quibble, it might just count for something.

It’s all we can do, and it’s the very best we can do.

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

– ref. Australia is at risk of taking the wrong tack at the Glasgow climate talks, and slamming China is only part of it – https://theconversation.com/australia-is-at-risk-of-taking-the-wrong-tack-at-the-glasgow-climate-talks-and-slamming-china-is-only-part-of-it-166154

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

Prince Andrew is making headlines again for all the wrong reasons.

In November 2019 he stood down from royal duties “for the foreseeable future” over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal (and a disastrous TV interview to try and tell his side of the story).

His public image and royal career is already all but ruined. But with fresh legal action in the United States, is he now in trouble legally?

The story so far

The prince had a friendship with the late paedophile Epstein that dated back more than 20 years. He was first named in the Epstein scandal in 2015, when Virginia Giuffre claimed she had been forced to have sex with the prince, which he denies.

Allegations re-emerged in 2019 that Prince Andrew had been a willing participant in sexual liaisons organised by Epstein’s then-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell (whose affairs continue to be probed by US prosecutors).

Guiffre said she had been a victim of Epstein’s sex trafficking and abuse from 2000 to 2002, starting when she was 16. The prince says he has “no recollection” of ever meeting her. In November 2019 Scotland Yard reviewed the matter and announced it was not going to open a formal criminal investigation, as it “would be largely focused on activities and relationships outside the UK”.

A new, civil claim

Matters took another turn last week when Giuffre (now living in Australia) filed a civil claim in a New York court under its Child Victims Act, accusing Prince Andrew of the torts of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

À lire aussi :
New laws give victims more time to report rape or sexual assault – even Jeffrey Epstein’s

The legal suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. It has been made possible because the act gives claimants a generous time frame in which to commence new claims on the basis of historical allegations.

A consequence of the civil action will be that Prince Andrew will be called, formally, to answer questions under oath. As Giuffre’s lawyer, David Boies says:

It’s one thing to ignore me. It’s another thing to ignore the judicial process of the state of New York and the United States […] If Prince Andrew does not take seriously the rule of law in this country, he is being very ill-advised.

Legal trouble?

Clearly, the headlines are very bad PR. But is there legal trouble for the prince? To examine this, we need to look at three associated questions.

• how does Giuffre’s claim differ from Scotland Yard’s suspended review of the allegations of criminal behaviour?

• can the royal family be sued?

• is a legal judgement in the United States enforceable against a British citizen living in England?

What’s different this time?

The key issue here is that the standard of proof required for a civil claim is not as high as the requirement of proof “beyond reasonable doubt” that would guarantee a criminal conviction.

One can succeed in a claim alleging battery and emotional distress if a court determines that it was “more likely than not” the prince had a sexual liaison with Giuffre.

The most notorious example of the difference between criminal and civil proceedings is found in the case against former actor and football star OJ Simpson.

In 1997, a year after Simpson had been acquitted of the murders of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, their families filed a civil suit alleging wrongful death. A civil jury awarded them US$33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages, by implication finding Simpson responsible for the crimes.

Suing the royal family

While the queen enjoys what is referred to as “sovereign immunity”, members of the royal family are not above the law when it comes to matters such as these.

Typically a formal letter of request would be issued by the New York court, asking the prince to give evidence under a mechanism called “mutual legal assistance”. Because it’s a civil case, not a criminal one, the prince cannot be extradited to the US.

The High Court of Justice in England would then appoint a master of their court to oversee a private hearing. Prince Andrew could seek to have the mutual legal assistance request stopped as an abuse of process if he were able to establish that it was being undertaken vexaciously.

If the hearing proceeds, Prince Andrew would be entitled to legal representation as anyone else would. Questions would be put to him by lawyers representing Giuffre. He could refuse to answer these questions — and would not be in contempt if he remained silent.

The New York court would then make a determination according to the evidence presented. That could add months to the process.

US judgments in England

Do American rulings apply to citizens living in England? The answer is yes, but it’s complicated. This field of law is governed by the international rules regarding the enforcement of foreign judgments.

À lire aussi :
Prince Andrew: the monarchy has a long history of dismissing women’s suffering

Interestingly, there is no treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom facilitating the enforcement of successful civil judgements across the Atlantic. So, if Giuffre’s suit is decided in her favour (which becomes more likely if the prince refuses to be involved) the judgement would form the basis of a completely new debt recovery legal action in England.

That could add another significant delay to the entire episode, as this new proceeding would be defended by the prince’s legal team. The legal costs to both sides would be eye-watering, although it is possible the Giuffre lawyers are being retained on a “contingency” basis (no-win, no-fee).

According to media reports, the prince has been staying at Balmoral with the queen, while talking with his lawyers.

We can only assume these calls will become more frequent in the weeks to come.

Rick Sarre is the President of the SA Council for Civil Liberties

– ref. The PR disaster around Prince Andrew has taken a legal twist — what does this mean for the Duke of York? – https://theconversation.com/the-pr-disaster-around-prince-andrew-has-taken-a-legal-twist-what-does-this-mean-for-the-duke-of-york-166108

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katharine Kemp, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW, UNSW

I spent last week studying the 26,000 words of privacy terms published by eBay and Amazon, trying to extract some straight answers, and comparing them to the privacy terms of other online marketplaces such as Kogan and Catch (my full summary is here).

There’s bad news and good news.

The bad news is that none of the privacy terms analysed are good. Based on their published policies, there is no major online marketplace operating in Australia that sets a commendable standard for respecting consumers’ data privacy.

All the policies contain vague, confusing terms and give consumers no real choice about how their data are collected, used and disclosed when they shop on these websites. Online retailers that operate in both Australia and the European Union give their customers in the EU better privacy terms and defaults than us, because the EU has stronger privacy laws.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is currently collecting submissions as part of an inquiry into online marketplaces in Australia. You can have your say here by August 19.

The good news is that, as a first step, there is a clear and simple “anti-snooping” rule we could introduce to cut out one unfair and unnecessary, but very common, data practice.

Deep in the fine print of the privacy terms of all the above-named websites, you’ll find an unsettling term.

It says these retailers can obtain extra data about you from other companies, for example, data brokers, advertising companies, or suppliers from whom you have previously purchased.

Read more:
It’s time for third-party data brokers to emerge from the shadows

eBay, for example, can take the data about you from a data broker and combine it with the data eBay already has about you, to form a detailed profile of your interests, purchases, behaviour and characteristics.

The problem is the online marketplaces give you no choice in this. There’s no privacy setting that lets you opt out of this data collection, and you can’t escape by switching to another major marketplace, because they all do it.

An online bookseller doesn’t need to collect data about your fast-food preferences to sell you a book. It wants these extra data for its own advertising and business purposes.

You might well be comfortable giving retailers information about yourself, so as to receive targeted ads and aid the retailer’s other business purposes. But this preference should not be assumed. If you want retailers to collect data about you from third parties, it should be done only on your explicit instructions, rather than automatically for everyone.

The “bundling” of these uses of a consumer’s data is potentially unlawful even under our existing privacy laws, but this needs to be made clear.

Time for an ‘anti-snooping’ rule

Here’s my suggestion, which forms the basis of my own submission to the ACCC inquiry.

Online retailers should be barred from collecting data about a consumer from another company, unless the consumer has clearly and actively requested this.

For example, this could involve clicking on a check-box next to a plainly worded instruction such as:

Please obtain information about my interests, needs, behaviours and/or characteristics from the following data brokers, advertising companies and/or other suppliers.

The third parties should be specifically named. And the default setting should be that third-party data are not collected without the customer’s express request.

This rule would be consistent with what we know from consumer surveys: most Australian consumers are not comfortable with companies unnecessarily sharing their personal information.

There could be reasonable exceptions to this rule, such as for fraud detection, address verification or credit checks. But data obtained for these purposes should not be used for marketing, advertising or generalised “market research”.

Can’t we already opt out of targeted ads?

Online marketplaces do claim to allow choices about “personalised advertising” or marketing communications. Unfortunately, these are worth little in terms of privacy protection.

Amazon says you can opt out of seeing targeted advertising. It does not say you can opt out of all data collection for advertising and marketing purposes.

Similarly, eBay lets you opt out of being shown targeted ads. But the later passages of its Cookie Notice state:

your data may still be collected as described in our User Privacy Notice.

This gives eBay the right to continue to collect data about you from data brokers, and to share them with a range of third parties.

Many retailers and large digital platforms operating in Australia justify their collection of consumer data from third parties on the basis you’ve already given your implied consent to the third parties disclosing it.

That is, there’s some obscure term buried in the thousands of words of privacy policies that supposedly apply to you, which says that Bunnings, for instance, can share data about you with various “related companies”.

Of course, Bunnings didn’t highlight this term, let alone give you a choice in the matter, when you ordered your hedge cutter last year. It only included a “Policies” link at the foot of its website; the term was on another web page, buried in the detail of its Privacy Policy.

Such terms should ideally be eradicated entirely. But in the meantime, we can turn the tap off on this unfair flow of data, by stipulating that online retailers cannot obtain such data about you from a third party without your express, active and unequivocal request.

Who should be bound by an ‘anti-snooping’ rule?

While the focus of this article is on online marketplaces covered by the ACCC inquiry, many other companies have similar third-party data collection terms, including Woolworths, Coles, major banks, and digital platforms such as Google and Facebook.

Read more:
Here’s how tech giants profit from invading our privacy, and how we can start taking it back

While some argue users of “free” services like Google and Facebook should expect some surveillance as part of the deal, this should not extend to asking other companies about you without your active consent.

The anti-snooping rule should clearly apply to any website selling a product or service.

With lockdowns barring many of us from visiting physical shops, we should be able to make purchases online without being unwittingly roped into a company’s advertising side hustle.

Katharine Kemp receives funding from The Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation. She is a Member of the Advisory Board of the Future of Finance Initiative in India, the Centre for Law, Markets & Regulation and the Australian Privacy Foundation.

– ref. How one simple rule change could curb online retailers’ snooping on you – https://theconversation.com/how-one-simple-rule-change-could-curb-online-retailers-snooping-on-you-166174

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland

In light of last week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report confirming human activity is “unequivocally” driving global warming, here’s a striking statistic: in Auckland, road transport modes are responsible for 35% of the city’s climate-altering emissions.

Overall, road transport accounts for nearly 43% of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, an increase of over 100% since 1990. Given the nation’s streets are still clogged with conventionally powered vehicles, what can we collectively do about it — as citizens and in our cities?

According to the hyperbolic mantra of the #bancars movement, it’s time to get drastic. Of course, the slogan makes a catchier hashtag than the more rational policy objective: reduce the number of vehicles people own and the kilometres they are driven each year.

It’s also catchier than the policy prescription: invest in alternative modes and infrastructure that would charge drivers the full social cost of driving; and restrict the number of vehicles that can enter dense urban centres through congestion pricing schemes.

But part of the problem with convincing people to get out of their cars is that we rarely examine the true costs of our dependence on them: the personal costs, the financial costs, the cost to health and the cost of investment in road infrastructure — and that’s before we get to the cost to the planet.

Driving is still too cheap

You could walk into a friendly room and quickly have the mood turn hostile by arguing the so-called “ute tax” doesn’t go far enough. The fact is, however, we already pay in numerous ways for our addiction to cars.

A portion of that cost is paid directly by the driver — buying, insuring and fuelling the car. To some degree (though probably less than many believe) drivers also pay for building and maintaining roads through the fuel tax or road user charges.

Read more:
Aggressive marketing has driven the rise of the double-cab ute on New Zealand streets — time to hit the brakes?

These are all labelled private costs because they are paid for directly from the driver’s wallet. To which we can add the less tangible costs to personal and collective productivity of those wasted hours stuck in traffic.

What few of us factor into our own car ownership calculations, though, is the cost we must bear as a society. It’s the pollution from a car’s tailpipe that causes an
increased risk of asthma. It’s the carbon dioxide that flows from that same tailpipe and contributes to a warming climate. It’s the NZ$5 billion cost of road crashes across the country each year.

Paying the real price

These are a massive uncharged bundle of expenses everyone in New Zealand must pay in some way, caused by each driver but not directly paid by the driver.

These “externalities” — the costs beyond the immediate expense of choosing to drive — are social costs. Some argue these are in fact higher than the private costs of driving, and orders of magnitude greater than the social cost of cycling or walking.

Read more:
Can the city cycling boom survive the end of the Covid-19 pandemic?

Basic economics tells us that when only the private cost of an activity is charged it appears cheaper than it really is, thereby encouraging that activity. But when the social costs are charged, the activity is more expensive — and less attractive.

Logically, then, to reduce pressure on our roads and environment, drivers should face a charge that more closely reflects the actual cost of driving. That is, the cost of clogged roads, air pollution, climate change, injury and death.

Congestion charges work

One solution has already been pursued by other cities. Although some predicted the end of life as we know it when London introduced charges for inner city driving, in practice the congestion charge significantly improved the quality of life and business.

It also created a significant new stream of revenue for the public transportation system, and for cycling and walking infrastructure. Other cities take a similar approach with good results, including Singapore, Oslo and Milan. Even in the car-loving US, New York is moving closer to a congestion charge.

Read more:
Four ways our cities can cut transport emissions in a hurry: avoid, shift, share and improve

This could be done in a city like Auckland, where the main CBD streets are often choked with traffic. This congestion increases the cost of delivering goods to businesses, adds to commute times, reduces the reliability of public transportation, and makes using active modes like walking and cycling much more dangerous.

Congestion pricing could, as in London, provide important additional revenue to Auckland’s transit network. Aucklanders currently face the third-highest public transport fare in the world. This cost reduces the viability of public transport. With lower fares, or even free fares, Aucklanders would rush to public transportation.

Read more:
Why calling ordinary Kiwi cyclists ‘elitist’ just doesn’t add up

Money to pay for better things

With the additional revenue, the city could also expand the fledgling network of cycleways, getting more people out of cars and e-scooters off footpaths. All of this would result in fewer cars on the road, faster travel times for everyone and less need for more expensive road building and maintenance.

No, we don’t have to #bancars altogether. But there is substantial room to inject a bit more rationality into our transport policy.

We could better share existing roads with other modes, reduce pressure on the climate and help those who rely on public transport to get more places more affordably.

Market forces got us to where we are today. If we want to address the climate emergency, we will need to harness the power of pricing and pay the real cost of our car addiction.

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

– ref. To get New Zealanders out of their cars we’ll need to start charging the true cost of driving – https://theconversation.com/to-get-new-zealanders-out-of-their-cars-well-need-to-start-charging-the-true-cost-of-driving-166167

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Toole, Professor of International Health, Burnet Institute

Cases of COVID-19 are surging around the world, but the course of the pandemic varies widely country to country. To provide you with a global view as we approach a year and a half since the official declaration of the pandemic, The Conversation editors from around the world commissioned articles looking at specific countries and where they are now in combating the pandemic.

Here, Mike Toole, Professor of International Health at the Burnet Institute, writes about how China went from pandemic epicentre with a dark history of silencing those who spoke out about the risks of the virus, to rapidly containing the virus in its latest outbreak. You can see the whole collection of articles here.

On January 5, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement that five days earlier, it was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province.

By January 3, 2020, a total of 44 cases had been detected. According to Chinese authorities, some patients were vendors and customers in the Huanan Seafood market.

And so it began

The outbreak was not widely reported at the time, although the BBC posted a piece two days before the WHO statement. I first learnt of it on January 8 from the New York Times. Having been involved in many epidemic responses and knowing that several viral pandemics – such as SARS and avian influenza – had originated in China, the story piqued my interest.

By then, the causative agent had been identified – a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. Investigators had not yet found evidence of person-to-person transmission.

And where did this virus come from? Well, we don’t really know. The WHO investigative team came to the following conclusion:

At this stage, it is not possible to determine precisely how humans in China were initially infected with SARS-CoV-2. However, all available evidence suggests that it has a natural animal origin and is not a manipulated or constructed virus. SARS-CoV-2 virus most probably has its ecological reservoir in bats.

Read more:
I was the Australian doctor on the WHO’s COVID-19 mission to China. Here’s what we found about the origins of the coronavirus

China’s response to the Wuhan outbreak

During early January 2020, a group of doctors in Wuhan who had been trying to alert colleagues to the risks of the outbreak were apprehended by security police and forced to sign statements denouncing their warnings. One of them, Dr Li Wenliang, later died of coronavirus infection.

On January 23, authorities sealed off Wuhan, a city of 11 million. However, the mayor estimated up to five million people were able to leave beforehand during Spring Festival and the virus spread to every province and region in the country.

By then, person-to-person transmission had been confirmed.

On January 30, the WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern. By this time, China had reported 9,692 cases and 213 deaths.

Among patients, about 20% had become seriously ill and the rest had a mild illness, the WHO said.

On February 11, the WHO announced the official name of the novel disease: COVID-19. While the virus had been detected in more than 20 countries, the majority of cases were in China.

By mid-February, the country had reported more than 66,000 cases and 1,600 deaths. The health system was quickly overwhelmed and measures were taken like building two large new hospitals in Wuhan with a combined 2,500 bed capacity in the space of two weeks.

And then it was over

The seven day rolling average of new daily cases reached a peak of 4,670 on February 13. Just 30 days later it was down to 19. However, it should be noted that China only reports cases that are symptomatic, which may underestimate total SARS-CoV-2 infections.

This remains one of the most rapidly contained outbreaks of COVID-19 in the world during the entire pandemic.

Since that first wave, China has been determined to maintain zero COVID with just an occasional cluster disturbing the peace. By almost every metric, China ranks highly in containing the coronavirus.

Since April 1, 2020, the country has reported just over 12,800 new cases in a population of 1.4 billion. That’s about the same number recorded in Timor-Leste with a population one thousandth the size of China.

Overall, China has reported 66 cases per million population compared to 112,362 per million in the United States. This low number has been due to a combination of quick, early lockdowns, widespread testing and sometimes harsh limitations on people’s movements. The latter have been criticised by human rights advocates.

The vaccine rollout has picked up pace and 1.8 billion doses of CoronaVac and Sinopharm, both manufactured in China, have been administered, enough to vaccinate 66% of the population.

Read more:
What are the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines? And how effective are they? Two experts explain

While there have been concerns about these vaccines, real world data in Chile indicate CoronaVac is 67% effective against infection and 85% effective against hospitalisation.

A study in Bahrain found Sinopharm is 90% effective against infection and higher against hospitalisation.

Since late July, China has faced its biggest challenge since the first wave in Wuhan. An outbreak of the Delta strain, which began at Nanjing airport, led to 526 cases in Jiangsu province in the first two weeks of August and has spread to 12 cities, including Wuhan.

This prompted the activation of epidemic containment protocols including mass testing, demarcating neighbourhoods deemed risky and restricting movement in affected cities.

The strategy seems to be working – by August 15, new daily cases declined for the fifth consecutive day.

What lessons can China offer the world?

It’s hard to compare China with any other country. Its mass urban testing strategy, for example, is not feasible in most countries.

But, what China has clearly demonstrated is that zero tolerance of COVID-19 reaps enormous health and economic benefits. While China’s economy shrank by 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020, it grew by a record 18.3% in the first quarter of 2021.

By contrast, the Eurozone economy shrunk by 0.6% and the UK economy shrunk by 1.5% in the same quarter.

That should be food for thought for those who agitate for “living with COVID-19”.

Michael Toole receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council

– ref. From ground zero to zero tolerance – how China learnt from its COVID response to quickly stamp out its latest outbreak – https://theconversation.com/from-ground-zero-to-zero-tolerance-how-china-learnt-from-its-covid-response-to-quickly-stamp-out-its-latest-outbreak-165963

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, ARC DECRA fellow, The University of Melbourne

A major new report published last week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained grave warnings on where Earth’s climate is headed. So what happens if humanity doesn’t get its act together? How bad could climate change actually get?

The IPCC report canvassed various scenarios, from the most terrifying to the best possible case. It’s increasingly unlikely Earth will follow the path of very high greenhouse gas emissions, represented in dark red on the graph below, which would very likely lead to global warming of 3.3℃ to 5.7℃ this century.

But given current policy settings, it’s plausible Earth will follow a mid-range emissions scenario such as that represented in orange. Such a pathway would lead to global warming of between 2℃ and 3.5℃, relative to pre-industrial levels.

So what will Earth look like under warming of that magnitude? And what will life on this planet be like? Academic research can shed light on those crucial questions. And a warning: the answers are confronting.

An angrier, less hospitable world

The IPCC report confirmed Earth has warmed 1.09℃ since pre-industrial times. This level of warming is already causing significant damage.

Around the world over the past few months, the damage has been strikingly evident. Record-shattering heatwaves have struck North America’s west and southern Europe, while extreme rain and flooding has hit central Europe and China.

At 3℃ global warming, heatwaves would be even more frequent, intense and longer, while extreme rain will be heavier. The relationship between average global temperature and heat extremes is very strong, although this varies across regions.

Over Australia, heatwaves are expected to be slightly hotter than the corresponding global warming threshold. So with 3℃ of global warming, the hottest day of a heatwave will be about 3.6℃ warmer than pre-industrial conditions.

What’s more, heatwaves in Australia are projected to become four to five days longer for each degree of global warming.

Read more:
Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns

The IPCC findings show in some parts of the world, there’s a clear relationship between future increases in global warming and a rise in extreme rainfall events. This includes the eastern part of the United States, Alaska and western Canada, Europe and parts of Russia and Africa. The projected increase applies to both daily rainfall events and those lasting five days.

Explore future projections of extreme rainfall and other climate variables with the IPCC’s interactive climate atlas.

Climate change has already damaged the world’s coral reefs. The Great Barrier Reef has bleached three times in the past five years, giving little time for the ecosystem to recover. In a 2018 report, the IPCC found coral reefs would decline by a further 70-90% under global warming of 1.5℃. Virtually all reefs would be lost with 2℃ warming.

Bushfire risk also increases the more we let the climate warm. As the Australian Academy of Science outlined in a report earlier this year, extreme fire days in Australia will increase with global temperatures.

Greater increases are projected for southern and eastern Australia. However, in much of Australia the frequency of extreme fire days increases by 100-300% once 3℃ global warming is reached.

And conditions conducive to mega-fires – such as those which occurred during the 2019-20 Black Summer – will occur more often over southeast Australia under continued climate change, especially during late spring.

Read more:
Seriously ugly: here’s how Australia will look if the world heats by 3°C this century

On thin ice

The more the planet warms, the more we risk triggering disastrous irreversible changes known as “tipping points”. Scientists have identified several potential tipping points which might occur – especially if the climate warms by more than 2℃, in line with the IPCC’s midway scenario.

For example, global warming may cause the West Antarctic ice sheet to collapse, resulting in several metres of sea level rise. The exact extent of global warming required to trigger such changes is very uncertain, and climate projections suggest we won’t hit any trigger points this century.

However, these irreversible changes remain a distinct possibility if greenhouse gas emissions continue their current trajectory.

Read more:
Rising seas and melting glaciers: these changes are now irreversible, but we have to act to slow them down

The choice is ours

Some climate changes we’ve described under the midway emissions scenario are awful for society and our environment.

And as CSIRO climate scientist Pep Canadell, a coordinating lead author of a chapter of the IPCC report, told the Guardian last week, if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated “there is no bottom end to how much damage we can create”.

Humanity is now at a crossroads. The IPCC says if we halve global greenhouse gas emissions within the next 15 years, and reach net-zero emissions before 2060, we have a more than 90% chance of keeping global warming below 2℃.

That means every action matters. Each fraction of a degree of global warming prevented will reduce the climate damage and increase the chance Earth avoids the most catastrophic impacts of global warming.

Read more:
IPCC says Earth will reach temperature rise of about 1.5℃ in around a decade. But limiting any global warming is what matters most

Andrew King receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Nerilie Abram receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the international Climate Crisis Advisory Group.

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Future Fellow, and a chief investigator with the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.

– ref. There’s no end to the damage humans can wreak on the climate. This is how bad it’s likely to get – https://theconversation.com/theres-no-end-to-the-damage-humans-can-wreak-on-the-climate-this-is-how-bad-its-likely-to-get-166031

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew J. Martin, Scientia Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology, UNSW

The speed and scale of the shift to remote online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has really tested students’ adaptability. Our study of more than 1,500 students at nine Australian high schools during 2020 found strong links between their level of adaptability and how they fared with online learning.

Students with higher adaptability were more confident about online learning in term 2. And they had made greater academic progress by term 4.

The important thing about these findings is that adaptability is a teachable skill. Later in this article we discuss how to teach students to be more adaptable.

What is adaptability and why does it matter?

We have been investigating adaptability for more than a decade. The term refers to adjustments to one’s behaviours, thoughts and feelings in response to disruption.

The pandemic certainly tested every student’s capacity to adjust to disruption. The switch to remote learning involved huge change and uncertainty.

Research has demonstrated positive links between adaptability and students’ engagement and achievement at school and university. As for online learning, the picture is complicated by the many factors identified as affecting its success. These include access to technology, academic ability, instructional quality, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and specific learning support needs.

The pandemic disruptions added to this complexity.

What did the study find?

Our latest study involved a survey of 1,548 students in nine schools in 2020. It covered a period of fully or partially remote online learning in maths (from the start of term 2).

We used the Adaptability Scale to assess how much students were able to respond to disruption in their lives. They were presented with nine statements, such as “To assist me in a new situation, I am able to change the way I do things.” Students were asked to respond on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

They also answered questions about:

• their confidence as online learners

• online learning barriers such as unreliable internet, inadequate computing/technology, and lack of a learning area to concentrate

• online learning support, such as satisfaction with the online learning platform

• home support, such as help from parents and others.

In the term 2 survey, we tested students’ maths achievement. In term 4, they did a second maths test.

We found students with higher adaptability were significantly more confident about online learning in term 2. These students also had higher gains in achievement in term 4. Online learning confidence in term 2 was linked to term 4 achievement gains.

After allowing for the many other factors affecting online learning, we found adaptability had a direct positive impact on student achievements.

Online learning support and online learning barriers also affected students’ online learning confidence. Support was linked to higher confidence, and barriers to lower confidence.

Thus, as well as focusing on increasing students’ adaptability, parents and schools should strive to minimise barriers to online learning and optimise supports.

So how do you teach students to be adaptable?

Boosting adaptability involves teaching students how to adjust their behaviour, thinking and feelings to help them navigate disruption. For example, in the face of new online learning tasks and demands, we could explain to students how to:

1. adjust their behaviour by seeking out online information and resources, or asking for help — an example would be asking a teacher to help with an unfamiliar online learning management system such as Canvas or Moodle

2. adjust their attitude by thinking about the new online task in a different way — for instance, they might consider the new opportunities the task offers, such as developing new skills that can be helpful in other parts of their lives

3. adjust their emotion by minimising negative feelings, or shifting the focus to positive feelings, when engaged in unfamiliar activities — for example, they might try not to focus on their disappointment when the teacher’s approach to online learning doesn’t match the student’s preferences or skill set.

Adaptability is a skill for life

Of course, these adjustments are helpful for navigating all sorts of disruption. Teaching young people adaptability gives them a skill for life.

It can be helpful to let students know that the three adjustments are part of a broader adaptability process — and they have control over each point in the process. The process involves:

1. teaching students how to recognise important disruptions to their life so they know when to adjust their behaviour, thinking and feelings

2. explaining to students the various ways they can make these adjustments to navigate the disruption (using strategies like those described above)

3. encouraging students to take note of the positive effects of these adjustments so they realise the benefits of adaptability and are motivated to adapt in future

4. inspiring students to practise their adjustments to behaviour, thinking and feelings so adaptability becomes a routine part of their lives.

It is fair to say adaptability comes more easily to some students than others. However, our longitudinal research among high school students has shown adaptability can and does change over time. It is a modifiable personal attribute. This is great news.

In the face of massive disruptions by COVID-19, we are constantly advised to adjust to a “new normal”. Part of this new normal is the increasing presence of online learning. Our findings show adaptability is an important personal attribute that can help students in their online learning during the pandemic — and likely beyond.

Robin P. Nagy receives funding from the Research Training Program for his PhD.

Andrew J. Martin and Rebecca J Collie 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.

– ref. Students who are more adaptable do best in remote learning – and it’s a skill we can teach – https://theconversation.com/students-who-are-more-adaptable-do-best-in-remote-learning-and-its-a-skill-we-can-teach-165003

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Costanza, Professor and VC’s Chair, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Coastal communities around the world are facing increasing threats from tropical cyclones. Climate change is causing rising sea levels and bigger, more frequent storms.

Many coastal communities are pondering what to do. Should they build massive seawalls in a bid to protect existing infrastructure? Do they give up on their current coastal locations and retreat inland? Or is there another way?

In the US, the US Army Corps of Engineers has proposed building a 20-foot high giant seawall to protect Miami, the third most populous metropolis on the US east coast. The US$6 billion proposal is tentative and at least five years off, but sure to be among many proposals in the coming years to protect coastal communities from storms.

Read more:
A 20-foot sea wall won’t save Miami – how living structures can help protect the coast and keep the paradise vibe

But seawalls are expensive to build, require constant maintenance and provide limited protection.

Consider China, which already has a huge number of seawalls built for storm protection. A 2019 study analysed the impact of 127 storms on China between 1989 and 2016.

Coastal wetlands were far more cost effective in preventing storm damages. They also provided many other ecosystem services that seawalls do not.

How wetlands reduce storm effects

Coastal wetlands reduce the damaging effects of tropical cyclones on coastal communities by absorbing storm energy in ways that neither solid land nor open water can.

The mechanisms involved include decreasing the area of open water (fetch) for wind to form waves, increasing drag on water motion and hence the amplitude of a storm surge, reducing direct wind effects on the water surface, and directly absorbing wave energy.

Wetland vegetation contributes by decreasing surges and waves and maintaining shallow water depths that have the same effect. Wetlands also reduce flood damages by absorbing flood waters caused by rain and moderating their effects on built-up areas.

In 2008 I and colleagues estimated coastal wetlands in the US provided storm protection services worth US$23 billion a year.

Our new study estimates the global value of coastal wetlands to storm protection services is US$450 billion a year (calculated at 2015 value) with 4,600 lives saved annually.

To make this calculation, we used the records of more than 1,000 tropical cyclones since 1902 that caused property damage and/or human casualties in 71 countries. Our study took advantage of improved storm tracking, better global land-use mapping and damage-assessment databases, along with improved computational capabilities to model the relationships between coastal wetlands and avoided damages and deaths from tropical cyclones.

The 40 million hectares of coastal wetlands in storm-prone areas provided an average of US$11,000 per hectare a year in avoided storm damages.

Read more:
Rising seas allow coastal wetlands to store more carbon

Pacific nations benefit most

The degree to which coastal wetlands provide storm protection varies between countries (and within countries). Key factors are storm probability, amount of built infrastructure in storm-prone areas, if wetlands are in storm-prone areas, and coastal conditions.

The top five countries in terms of annual avoided damages (all in 2015 US dollar values) are the United States (US$200 billion), China (US$157 billion), the Philippines (US$47 billion), Japan (US$24 billion) and Mexico (US$15 billion).

In terms of lives saved annually, the top five are: China (1,309); the Philippines (976); the United States (469)l India (414); and Bangladesh (360).

Other ecosystem services

Coastal wetlands also provide other valuable ecosystem services. They provide nursery habitat for many commercially important marine species, recreational opportunities, carbon sequestration, management of sediment and nutrient run-off, and many other valuable services.

In 2014 I and colleagues estimated the value of other ecosystem services provided by wetlands (over and above storm protection) at about $US 135,000 a hectare a year.

But land-use changes, including the loss of coastal wetlands, has been eroding both services. Since 1900 the world has lost up to 70% of its wetlands (Davidson, 2014).

Preserving and restoring coastal wetlands is a very cost-effective strategy for society, and can significantly increase well-being for humans and the rest of nature.

With the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones and other extreme weather events projected to further increase, the value of coastal wetlands will increase in the future. This justifies investing much more in their conservation and restoration.

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

– ref. Forget massive seawalls, coastal wetlands offer the best storm protection money can buy – https://theconversation.com/forget-massive-seawalls-coastal-wetlands-offer-the-best-storm-protection-money-can-buy-165872

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

Review: Ablaze, directed by Alec Morgan and Tiriki Onus

Opera singer Tiriki Onus comes across a dusty, aged suitcase stowed away in the basement. It belonged to his grandfather, Bill Onus, and contains lots of still images — including young men painted up for Corroboree. Not long after, a reel of film surfaces from another archive. It has no notation or audio, but is believed to be linked to Bill Onus.

Tiriki’s interest is sparked, and he begins a quest to better understand his grandfather’s life: a man who had passed before he was born, but who loomed large.

The film Ablaze, directed by Tiriki with Alex Morgan, is the culmination of Tiriki’s quest to understand the history of the lost footage, the contents of this suitcase archive, and the grandfather he never knew.

Born in 1906, Bill Onus was a civil rights activist, artist, performer and entrepreneur. He was a leading figure in his Yorta Yorta and Cummeragunja community and later at the Aboriginal epicentre of Fitzroy, Melbourne, where he lived as an adult.

As a child, Onus and his people in south eastern Australia experienced the escalating power of the NSW Aborigines Protection Board to control everyday lives and movement. Having your children removed was a constant threat. Exercising culture was prohibited. The government appointed mission managers exercised their power in cruel and inhumane ways, withholding food and quashing any objections with violence.

Read more:
Capturing the lived history of the Aborigines Protection Board while we still can

As an adult, Onus was inspired by the 1933 recording of Joe Anderson (King Burraga) speaking back to this authority, and he would speak out himself through film, photography and theatre.

Across his lifetime, he created a platform for many Aboriginal artists, directed plays and curated extravagant shows to tell the stories of Aboriginal lives and culture, military service and survival.

In a nation blighted by incomprehension of Aboriginal rights, Onus’ storytelling attempted to bring to wider attention the plight of his people and the call for equality.

Film and advocacy

From a young age, Onus combined his advocacy for Aboriginal rights and passion for film.

In the 1930s, he was invited to work on Charles Chauvel’s Uncivilised (1936), a cliche-ridden, Tarzan-inspired “white chief among the dangerous savages” story.

In the 1940s he worked — this time with an apparently enhanced advisory role — on Harry Watt’s The Overlanders (1946), a feature film about drovers driving a large herd of cattle some 2,500 kilometres across northern Australia.

Working on these films exposed Onus to poverty, violence and wage labour exploitation on pastoral stations beyond the south east.

Both Onus’ own experiences and his observations from the north fuelled his fight for Aboriginal equality and the desire to make films of his own.

As Ablaze shows, these ambitions were achieved in his documentary of the stage production White Justice in 1946. Performed at Melbourne’s New Theatre in conjunction with the Australian Aborigines league, White Justice referenced the Aboriginal strike in the Pilbara at that time.

This strike, over a vast territory of pastoral lands, saw Aboriginal workers seek independence from oppression and tyranny at the hands of the pastoralists. The now familiar images of chained Aboriginal men come from this time, a punishment in retaliation for their insubordination.

The family believes he made many more films, but they were all lost in a fire in the 1950s. Tiriki Onus’ discovery of the lost footage, including footage of the stage play, of returned Aboriginal servicemen and of Onus’ boomerang throwing prowess, finally gives an insight into the stories Bill Onus wanted to tell.

Change through stories

In Ablaze, Tiriki Onus interviews family, film historians and community leaders to understand his grandfather and the contents of the lost footage. He combines Bill Onus’ footage with other archival sources, including the expansive and now very useful files from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

Ablaze is a very personal journal, as Tiriki works to better understand what shaped his grandfather’s life and how his grandfather shaped him.

The lost footage takes us on a biographical journey that stretches out across a range of themes now familiar in the Aboriginal civil rights movement. One of the more interesting themes to emerge is Bill Onus’ comprehension of performance: how grand shows were necessary to achieve political change.

Like his grandson, Bill Onus knew storytelling: on film, the stage and in lavish theatre halls. He knew stories could be used as a vehicle for change and reach wide audiences.

Onus’ films never screened nor reached those wider audiences; the stage shows never toured nationally or internationally. But the power of First Nations film and extraordinary creative practice today finds rich lineage in his now revealed work.

Ablaze is streaming at MIFF now.

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

– ref. Ablaze review: a powerful, personal portrait of Aboriginal activist and filmmaker Bill Onus – https://theconversation.com/ablaze-review-a-powerful-personal-portrait-of-aboriginal-activist-and-filmmaker-bill-onus-165870

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

As the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan finally captured Australians’ attention, Scott Morrison had some well rehearsed talking points during a Monday media blitz dominated by COVID and the lost war.

The questions were predictable. The answers were, to be blunt, mostly trite.

Had it all been a waste?

“It’s always Australia’s cause to fight for freedom, and whatever the result, whatever the outcomes of that, Australians have always stood up for that.”

But it hadn’t achieved anything?

“Everyone who has fallen in an Australian uniform, for our values and under flag, has died in the great cause of freedom, and they are great heroes.”

What had been the point?

“The point was to deny Osama bin Laden and to hunt him down, and to deny al-Qaeda a base of operations in Afghanistan.”

Morrison said he was “absolutely devastated” about the future for the women and girls.

Read more:
The world must not look away as the Taliban sexually enslaves women and girls

The government is currently concentrated on getting out Australians (there are more than 130 in Afghanistan), and Afghans who have previously assisted our forces, as translators and the like.

Morrison insisted this is being undertaken efficiently, although things seem slow, and it surely could have helped if we’d kept our embassy open a few weeks longer while the processing was being done. The accountability will come later.

It’s obvious Morrison does not want to engage in any substantial debate about the whole Afghanistan debacle – another war in Asia in which the United States and its allies have been routed.

Morrison is on strong enough ground when he says the point had been to deny – after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks in the US – a base to al-Qaeda and to hunt bin Laden.

That indeed was a proper justification for the initial attack. Afghanistan was a terrorist haven and the west could not afford to leave it as such.

But what came after was another matter. To suggest it is always worth Australians dying for the cause of freedom, win or lose, does not really cut it as an argument.

Of course Australia is a bit player in this long-in-the-making disaster. The Afghan government had been a fragile house of cards, even if its collapse was surprisingly fast once the Americans (first Trump, then Biden) instituted the US exit.

America and its allies, including Australia, had failed to successfully train and motivate an Afghan military force to have the strength and will, when left on its own, to resist the Taliban. The US withdrawal also took out vital capability the Afghan military needed to function.

The Australian forces, and those of other countries, did good things for civilians over the past two decades including for women and their daughters. But after a glimpse of another, better life, all or much of that will now be reversed, and the outlook is bleak for a generation of girls.

During a private trip to Afghanistan in 2002 I met Benafsha, then 19, who told me she wanted to be a doctor, or an engineer.

She was in ninth grade at Ferdous High School in Kabul, run by Catholic Relief Services, where she was catching up on the time when she couldn’t study during the Taliban regime.

“I will be educated. My life will be better than my mother’s,” Benafsha said. It’s not a hope the average 19-year-old girl in Afghanistan will be able to feel today.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne did not exaggerate when she told Sky: “For women and girls I fear this is devastating”.

Morrison, Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement late Monday, “The Taliban must cease all violence against civilians, and adhere to international humanitarian law and the human rights all Afghans are entitled to expect, in particular women and girls”.

Not much chance, on the Taliban’s previous record.

Read more:
How Joe Biden failed the people of Afghanistan — and tarnished US credibility around the world

Promoting democracy and rebuilding a country proved to be much harder for the coalition that went into Afghanistan than inflicting an initial military defeat.

Determined insurgents, fanatically committed to their ideology, are the most difficult enemies to overcome. They regroup.

John Howard took Australia into Afghanistan, and then out of it at the end of 2002, to facilitate supporting George W Bush’s ill-judged mission in Iraq. He re-engaged Australia in Afghanistan in 2005.

Howard has told the Canberra Times, “I have absolutely no regrets about the decision my government took 20 years ago to involve this country. It was the right thing to do.” But reportedly he wouldn’t be drawn on whether it had been wise to stay.

The Howard government’s decision to return in 2005 is hard to justify in terms of Australia’s national interest.

Australia’s prolonged involvement in Afghanistan, and its role in Iraq were driven by its commitment to the US alliance, as had been its participation in that other failure, the Vietnam war.

Successive Australian governments have judged that the alliance, as the bedrock of Australia’s military security, demands quid pro quos when the US asks us to join in military operations.

The 70th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty is imminent. Howard invoked ANZUS for the first time in the wake of the September 11 attacks, which occurred while he happened to be in Washington.

The alliance is much broader than the formal ANZUS treaty, but the anniversary is a time to reflect on the extent to which the alliance has made some of our key international decisions virtually automatic, regardless of what might be our own distinctive interests.

Sadly but inevitably, Afghanistan’s pain will soon fade from the attention of both the Australian media and our politicians. For all the present talk, the fate of the Afghan women will disappear from our consciousness. When we in Australia talk about “women’s issues” we are usually distinctly near-sighted.

Read more:
As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

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

– ref. View from The Hill: There’s no getting away from it – we’ve all failed Afghanistan’s hopeful girls – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-theres-no-getting-away-from-it-weve-all-failed-afghanistans-hopeful-girls-166205

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

As the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan finally captured Australians’ attention, Scott Morrison had some well rehearsed talking points during a Monday media blitz dominated by COVID and the lost war.

The questions were predictable. The answers were, to be blunt, mostly trite.

Had it all been a waste?

“It’s always Australia’s cause to fight for freedom, and whatever the result, whatever the outcomes of that, Australians have always stood up for that.”

But it hadn’t achieved anything?

“Everyone who has fallen in an Australian uniform, for our values and under flag, has died in the great cause of freedom, and they are great heroes.”

What had been the point?

“The point was to deny Osama bin Laden and to hunt him down, and to deny al-Qaeda a base of operations in Afghanistan.”

Morrison said he was “absolutely devastated” about the future for the women and girls.

Read more:
The world must not look away as the Taliban sexually enslaves women and girls

The government is currently concentrated on getting out Australians (there are more than 130 in Afghanistan), and Afghans who have previously assisted our forces, as translators and the like.

Morrison insisted this is being undertaken efficiently, although things seem slow, and it surely could have helped if we’d kept our embassy open a few weeks longer while the processing was being done. The accountability will come later.

It’s obvious Morrison does not want to engage in any substantial debate about the whole Afghanistan debacle – another war in Asia in which the United States and its allies have been routed.

Morrison is on strong enough ground when he says the point had been to deny – after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks in the US – a base to al-Qaeda and to hunt bin Laden.

That indeed was a proper justification for the initial attack. Afghanistan was a terrorist haven and the west could not afford to leave it as such.

But what came after was another matter. To suggest it is always worth Australians dying for the cause of freedom, win or lose, does not really cut it as an argument.

Of course Australia is a bit player in this long-in-the-making disaster. The Afghan government had been a fragile house of cards, even if its collapse was surprisingly fast once the Americans (first Trump, then Biden) instituted the US exit.

America and its allies, including Australia, had failed to successfully train and motivate an Afghan military force to have the strength and will, when left on its own, to resist the Taliban. The US withdrawal also took out vital capability the Afghan military needed to function.

The Australian forces, and those of other countries, did good things for civilians over the past two decades including for women and their daughters. But after a glimpse of another, better life, all or much of that will now be reversed, and the outlook is bleak for a generation of girls.

During a private trip to Afghanistan in 2002 I met Benafsha, then 19, who told me she wanted to be a doctor, or an engineer.

She was in ninth grade at Ferdous High School in Kabul, run by Catholic Relief Services, where she was catching up on the time when she couldn’t study during the Taliban regime.

“I will be educated. My life will be better than my mother’s,” Benafsha said. It’s not a hope the average 19-year-old girl in Afghanistan will be able to feel today.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne did not exaggerate when she told Sky: “For women and girls I fear this is devastating”.

Morrison, Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement late Monday, “The Taliban must cease all violence against civilians, and adhere to international humanitarian law and the human rights all Afghans are entitled to expect, in particular women and girls”.

Not much chance, on the Taliban’s previous record.

Read more:
How Joe Biden failed the people of Afghanistan — and tarnished US credibility around the world

Promoting democracy and rebuilding a country proved to be much harder for the coalition that went into Afghanistan than inflicting an initial military defeat.

Determined insurgents, fanatically committed to their ideology, are the most difficult enemies to overcome. They regroup.

John Howard took Australia into Afghanistan, and then out of it at the end of 2002, to facilitate supporting George W Bush’s ill-judged mission in Iraq. He re-engaged Australia in Afghanistan in 2005.

Howard has told the Canberra Times, “I have absolutely no regrets about the decision my government took 20 years ago to involve this country. It was the right thing to do.” But reportedly he wouldn’t be drawn on whether it had been wise to stay.

The Howard government’s decision to return in 2005 is hard to justify in terms of Australia’s national interest.

Australia’s prolonged involvement in Afghanistan, and its role in Iraq were driven by its commitment to the US alliance, as had been its participation in that other failure, the Vietnam war.

Successive Australian governments have judged that the alliance, as the bedrock of Australia’s military security, demands quid pro quos when the US asks us to join in military operations.

The 70th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty is imminent. Howard invoked ANZUS for the first time in the wake of the September 11 attacks, which occurred while he happened to be in Washington.

The alliance is much broader than the formal ANZUS treaty, but the anniversary is a time to reflect on the extent to which the alliance has made some of our key international decisions virtually automatic, regardless of what might be our own distinctive interests.

Sadly but inevitably, Afghanistan’s pain will soon fade from the attention of both the Australian media and our politicians. For all the present talk, the fate of the Afghan women will disappear from our consciousness. When we in Australia talk about “women’s issues” we are usually distinctly near-sighted.

Read more:
As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

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

– ref. View from The Hill: There’s no gilding the lily – we’ve all failed Afghanistan’s hopeful girls – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-theres-no-gilding-the-lily-weve-all-failed-afghanistans-hopeful-girls-166205

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University

In the 19th century, the phrase “The Great Game” was used to describe competition for power and influence in Afghanistan, and neighbouring central and south Asia territories, between the British and Russian empires.

Neither side prevailed in what became known as the “graveyard of empires”.

Two centuries later, an American superpower has been reminded of a similar reality.

The Afghanistan debacle, in which a 300,000-strong US-trained and equipped Afghan army collapsed in hours serves as a reminder of the limits of American power in the wider Middle East.

Read more:
As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

US President Joe Biden may be enduring the sharpest criticism for a disastrously executed withdrawal. But there is plenty of blame to go around, dating back to the original ill-fated decision to “nation build” a country that has resisted outside interference for thousands of years.

After the fall of Kabul and the hasty US withdrawal from a country on which it had squandered US$1 trillion dollars, the question remains: what next for the Middle East?

This is a question whose arc stretches from Morocco in the west to Pakistan in the east, from Turkey in the north down into the Gulf and across to the Horn of Africa.

Every corner of the Middle East and North Africa will be touched in some way by the failure of American authority in Afghanistan, the longest war in its history.

America’s reckoning is also shared by its NATO allies and countries like Australia. Australia’s ill-considered participation in an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan should attract censure.

A new Saigon?

Inevitably, comparisons are being made between America’s panicky withdrawal from Kabul and similar scenes in Saigon, 46 years ago.

In some respects, the Afghan situation is more concerning because so much of the Middle East is at risk of descending into chaos.

The defeat of the South Vietnamese army in 1975 might have influenced developments in the neighbouring states of Indo-China, but fallout was largely contained.

Afghanistan is different in the sense that while America’s credibility and self-confidence was battered in Vietnam, it remained the dominant military force in the western Pacific before China’s rise.

Read more:
In Kabul’s ‘Saigon moment’, Australia faces the shame of repeating its mistakes exiting the Vietnam war

In the Middle East, a diminished Washington – in which confidence in its ability to stand by its commitments has been shaken, if not shattered – will find that its authority will be much questioned.

This comes at a time when China and Russia are testing American resolve globally. In the region itself, Turkey and Iran are already seeking to fill a vacuum exposed by an American failure.

Beijing and Moscow, for their own reasons, have an interest in Afghanistan’s future. For China, that goes beyond just sharing a border, while for Russia it is historical concerns about Afghan extremism infecting its own Muslim populations and those of nation states on its periphery.

Recently, China has been cultivating Taliban leaders. Its foreign minister Wang Yi held a well-publicised meeting with the Afghan Taliban’s political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Barada last month.

Then there is Pakistan, which has supported the Taliban both covertly and overtly over the years. Islamabad will see in the American extreme discomfort opportunities for itself to assume a more significant regional role.

This is not to forget Pakistan’s close ties to China, and its fractious relationship with the United States.

In Afghanistan itself, the Taliban may live up to its undertakings that it has changed and that it will seek to establish consensus rule in a country riven by bloody ethnic and tribal divisions.

Given early indications of brutal Taliban reprisals against its enemies and the panicked reaction of shell-shocked Afghan population it would take a leap of faith to believe much has changed.

What implications will it have in the Middle East?

Will the al-Qaeda and Islamic State franchises be allowed to re-establish themselves in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan? Will the Taliban re-emerge as a state sponsor of terrorism? Will it continue to allow Afghanistan to be used as a giant market garden in the opium trade?

In other words, will the Taliban change its ways and behave in such a manner that it does not constitute a threat to its neighbours, and the region more generally?

From America’s perspective, its exit from Afghanistan leaves its attempts to breathe life into the nuclear deal with Iran as its main piece of unfinished Middle East business – if we put aside the seemingly intractable Israel-Palestine dispute.

Attempts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) have formed a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s efforts to engage more constructively in the Middle East.

Progress has been faltering. The election of a new hardline Iranian president further complicates efforts to achieve compromise. Failure to resuscitate the JCPOA, abandoned by President Donald Trump, will add a new layer of uncertainty – and risk – to Middle East calculations.

There will have been no more interested party in developments in neighbouring Afghanistan than the leadership in Tehran. Iran’s relationship with the Taliban has been fraught at times, cooperative at others, given the anxiety in Tehran over mistreatment of Afghanistan’s Shia population.

Shia Iran and the Sunni fundamentalist Taliban are not natural partners.

Further afield, the latest developments in Afghanistan will be capturing the close attention of Gulf states. Qatar has provided a diplomatic haven for the Taliban during peace talks with the vanquished Ghani government. This peace initiative, under US auspices, is now revealed to have been a foil for the Taliban’s ambitions to return to power in its own right.

How any reasonable observer could have believed otherwise is confounding.

Saudi Arabia will be unsettled by developments of the past few days because it is not in Riyadh’s interests for American authority in the region to be undermined. But the Saudis have their own longstanding links with the Taliban.

In Saudi Arabian foreign policy, Afghanistan is not a zero sum game.

More generally, the hit to US standing in the region will be worrying for its moderate Arab allies. This includes Egypt and Jordan. For both, with their own versions of the Taliban lurking in the shadows, events in Afghanistan are not good news.

Read more:
The latest ‘spasm’ of violence in Gaza is unlikely to be the last

The Taliban success in Afghanistan will also have implications for the most combustible corner of the Middle East. In both Iraq and parts of Syria where the US maintains a military presence, the American exit will be unsettling.

In Lebanon, which has become to all intents and purposes a failed state, the Afghanistan debacle will be adding to the gloom.

Israel will be calculating the implications of the setback suffered by its principal ally. Increased Middle East instability would not seem to be to Israel’s advantage.

In this next phase, America will no doubt pull back from all but its most pressing Middle East commitments. This will be a time for it to reflect on what lessons might be learned from the painful Afghanistan experience.

One lesson that should be paramount as far as America and its allies are concerned: fighting “failed state” wars is a losing proposition.

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

– ref. As Afghanistan falls, what does it mean for the Middle East? – https://theconversation.com/as-afghanistan-falls-what-does-it-mean-for-the-middle-east-166169