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Maps / charts / interactives Archives - 360
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2,351 |
Video Archives - 360
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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2,407 |
Voice conspiracies follow the ‘fake news’ playbook - 360
Micah Goldwater
Published on October 12, 2023
It’s no surprise the disinformation used in Australia’s Voice debate follows the pattern of COVID-19 conspiracies. There’s a method in the ‘fake news’ mayhem.
Australians preparing to vote in the Indigenous Voice referendum are facing a barrage of conspiracy theories: baseless allegations that the Voice involves reparations, land seizures, the United Nations and claims of “apartheid”.
The degree and spread of disinformation ahead of the 14 October vote is similar to that experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic: most Australians knew, or knew of, someone who was radicalised into believing conspiracy theories about the virus, lockdowns or vaccines.
Despite the vast differences between the pandemic and the referendum, the playbook used by disinformation merchants is strikingly similar. This kind of overlap is common.
Endorsements of conspiracy theories are correlated: if you endorse one conspiracy theory, you are more likely to endorse another, even if the two have little in common.
This is partly explained by psychological reactance, a sensitive and angry response to perceived infringements on personal autonomy. This theory underpins why some people, when explicitly told not to do something, feel more compelled to do it.
A second related factor is feeling a loss of control. Psychological reactance and the feeling of losing control work together, because people more sensitive to infringements on autonomy are more likely to feel they’re losing control of their lives.
The COVID lockdowns were a source of autonomy infringements. There was a correlation between those high in trait reactance and those opposed to lockdowns, perhaps because that subset prioritised personal autonomy over public health.
For many in this position, engaging with conspiracy theories seemed to help regain a sense of control. In the QAnon conspiracy, believers see themselves both as persecuted victims losing their place in the world and heroes fighting back against elites.
Feeding this is a distrust of societal institutions. The former school principal who shot two police officers in Queensland in December 2022 was a prime target for disinformation after becoming unwell and losing his career within a public institution.
He experienced the powerful combination of distrust and a sense of losing control over his life that made him more vulnerable to conspiracies.
Disinformation campaigns stoke a distrust of institutions partly because it protects their cause from efforts by those very institutions to correct their lies. If the source of correction is undermined to the point it is not trusted, no amount of evidence is likely to convince a conspiracy theorist.
Australia seemed to be relatively unaffected by COVID conspiracy theories. Although its biggest cities saw anti-lockdown protests, apparent levels of compliance with rules and the initial high vaccination rate suggests conspiracies had a limited effect.
But disinformation may be affecting the Voice referendum: as false information started entering the mainstream, support for the ‘No’ vote went up.
Fake news spreads on social media faster than real news. Real news can often be procedural, dull and slow moving. Fake news tends to be the opposite: when someone fabricates a story, they tend to make it interesting.
The Voice referendum is procedural in the sense that it does not grant specific powers. It’s more attention-grabbing when someone claims this body will have veto powers over parliament, even though it won’t have such power.
A major part of the disinformation focuses on how much more power the Voice will have or how great its consequences will be — such as economic or land reparations — than what the proposal actually contains and the real likely consequences.
The disinformation effectively implies non-Indigenous people and government bodies will lose their power and status, politically, socially and economically.
Social identity and status are intertwined in our social order. The disinformation campaign about the Voice alleges it is a threat to our social order and the positions of all non-Indigenous people in society.
It’s particularly threatening for people who see the economy as a zero-sum game: if someone else wins, they lose. When someone’s social identity and status is threatened, they stop thinking rationally and are more prone to twisting the information they have to fit prior assumptions.
Some approaches to combating disinformation focus on individuals at the point they decide to share a social media post, such as requiring users to privately endorse a post as true before posting to reduce the sharing of false information.
Another strategy is known as “prebunking”, or debunking before exposure, where there are attempts to warn people about fake news before they are exposed to it, focusing on the motivation to manipulate that false information.
However, these strategies neglect the deeper psychological drivers that make some susceptible to misinformation.
People who have lost a sense of control in their life or trust in societal institutions often benefit from being empathically listened to. Having loved ones, and in some cases professional help, assisting can help people regain their sense of self.
The starting point to helping anyone buying into disinformation is presenting counter-evidence because some are simply misinformed. If that fails, understanding what they find threatening might help light the path forward — if they don’t believe the evidence, it might because they feel their social identity and social status is under threat.
Sometimes, even an informed and empathetic approach isn’t enough. Stronger interventions to stop disinformation at the source, rather than just convincing people to not believe it, might have more impact.
Analysing patterns of fake news spread can help target where to shut the pipeline.
Social media platforms have eluded regulators under the guise of free speech, but free speech doesn’t mean unlimited reach on a global platform.
Committing to regulating social media is not the same as doing it effectively. The public would benefit from having ways to cut off disinformation and unreliable sources, as long as it doesn’t censor political speech that defies popular or government narratives.
There are proposals to regulate social media in multiple ways, such as requiring more rigorous content moderation and having more transparency around political posts that are paid to be spread. Others have pointed out that proposals for new disinformation regulation should include news media companies, in addition to social media.
However, it’s not yet clear how to properly incentivize or penalise media companies effectively to prevent them from enabling the spread of disinformation. Complicating the issue is if elected politicians directly spread disinformation to their supporters.
It would still help if there was more transparency around how these platforms work. Knowing how and why algorithms sometimes boost disinformation might help people come up with a solution. Many experts are focusing on how spreaders of disinformation take advantage of vulnerabilities in social media’s designs.
The goal of disinformation campaigns is to prevent rational debate. When an issue of national consequence like the Voice referendum arises, having space for clear, thoughtful discussion is important for a functioning democracy.
The forces behind disinformation do not want different social groups to establish a common ground. Instead they want distrust and for every group to see every other as a threat. For example, disinformation that reduces the certainty of climate science results in less cooperation, and more self-interested actions that do not prevent climate change.
So, until those spreading harmful disinformation are held to account, it will be tough to rebuild societal trust.
Micah Goldwater is a cognitive scientist in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney, and project leader for the Fighting Truth Decay research node at the Charles Perkins Centre
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on October 12, 2023
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2,408 |
Voice debate derailed by misinformation and confusion - 360
Lachlan Guselli
Published on October 10, 2023
Australia’s Voice to Parliament referendum looks set to fail as a confused public struggles to tell fact from fiction.
On 14 October, Australians will vote in a referendum to amend their constitution. They will be asked to write ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the following question:
“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?”
The referendum question stems from the requests made in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a document signed by 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders at a constitutional convention in 2017. It called for the establishment of a ‘First Nations Voice’ in the Australian Constitution.
The referendum question lay dormant until 2022, when new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced he would put the question to the people within his first term in office.
Since then, Albanese’s government and an Indigenous Voice to Parliament have been inextricably linked, the success or failure of the referendum becoming tethered to the political fortunes of a new prime minister.
It carried political risk. Referenda don’t have an excellent record in Australia, with just eight being successful from 44 attempts. The most recent successful vote was in 1977.
A year ago, support for the referendum sat at around 65 percent. However, a week from the vote, the constitutional amendment seems unlikely to succeed.
According to John Evans of Swinburne University, the length of the campaign has harmed its chances.
“I think giving such a long gestation period towards the vote means that the No campaign can really mobilise and create doubt in Australian people about what the voice is, how it’s going to work and what it means for Australian society,” he said.
Helming the No campaign is Australia’s Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, backed by the majority of his conservative Liberal Party.
Flanking Dutton prominently in supporting the No vote have been two Indigenous Australians, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and campaigner Warren Mundine. Both are tightly linked with .
Separately, what has been dubbed the ‘progressive ‘No’ campaign’ has emerged, led by independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, who split from the Australian Greens over the party’s support of the referendum.
The debate has become mired in partisan fighting, with both campaigns accusing the other of racism, misinformation and misleading the public.
University of Sydney’s Duncan Ivison said the Indigenous Voice referendum debate “has been marred by fear.”
The hostile tone of discourse has troubled many, as television debates between elected officials descend into heated arguments.
And when the public pick up their phones, they’re seeing more polarised social media feeds affected by algorithms known to promote divisive content.
Micah Goldwater and Joanne Gray from University of Sydney compare the degree and spread of disinformation ahead of the 14 October vote to the COVID-19 pandemic:
“Despite the vast differences between the pandemic and the referendum, the playbook used by disinformation merchants is strikingly similar.”
“The goal of disinformation campaigns is to prevent rational debate. When an issue of national consequence like the Voice referendum arises, having space for clear, thoughtful discussion is important for a functioning democracy.”
University of Adelaide’s Victoria Fielding believes sowing discontent doesn’t stop with online provocateurs.
“Social media often shoulders much of the blame for muddying the public sphere with hate and misinformation, but Australia’s mainstream news media also failed to deliver accurate, quality information about the referendum,” she said.
Her report for advocacy group Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission claims the Murdoch family-run News Corp disproportionately platformed No campaign arguments, making it “harder for the public to access diverse views.”
When the Australian Electoral Commission said in August it would not consider an ‘x’ marked on a ballot paper as a formal vote, Dutton claimed on national radio: “Australians just want a fair election, not a dodgy one, and I don’t think we should have a process that’s rigged.”
He repeated his concerns on national television, calling for a fair process and accusing the Prime Minister of “loading the system and trying to skew it in favour for the yes vote.”
It sparked debate online over the fairness and legitimacy of the vote. However, the electoral commission’s policy has been the standard since 1988, rejecting the criticism as “based on emotion rather than the reality of the law.”
Regardless of the result on 14 October, reviewing the performance of Australia’s institutions during such a vexing cultural moment may uncover some exploited vulnerabilities.
Within a cacophony of competing interests, the Australian people have been asked one question: “Do you approve this proposed alteration?”
However, it may be hard to hear the question above the noise of everything else.
Duncan Ivison, University of Sydney
Victoria Fielding, University of Adelaide
Australia’s Voice referendum debate has been a mess, with one powerful media company a big factor. So why haven’t its rivals held it to account?
Samantha Vilkins, Queensland University of Technology
Political polling in the voice debate reflects its own ecosystem, where the numbers are the story rather than being used to help tell it.
Greg Austin, University of Technology Sydney
Analysts have suggested there’s a secret Chinese government campaign trying to influence the referendum. Here’s why that’s highly unlikely.
Micah Goldwater and Joanne Gray, University of Sydney
It’s no surprise the disinformation used in Australia’s Voice debate follows the pattern of COVID-19 conspiracies. There’s a method in the ‘fake news’ mayhem.
Jioji Ravulo, University of Sydney
Australia’s Indigenous Voice referendum could also be seen as a referendum on how the nation will be perceived by its Pacific neighbours.
This article was updated on 6 November 2023 to correct the year of the last successful referendum in Australia to 1977.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Australia’s Voice” sent at: 08/10/2023 17:48.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on October 10, 2023
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2,409 |
Voices still missing from online activism - 360
Sutanuka Banerjee, Lipika Kankaria
Published on November 25, 2022
The internet allows women to find solidarity but it doesn’t allow everyone to have an equal voice.
Jyoti Singh was a young Indian medical student who in 2012 was gang-raped in a moving bus and assaulted with an iron rod, before being thrown out and left to die. The landmark Nirbhaya case, as it became known, enraged men and women and protests erupted across the country. Many took their frustrations online, demanding justice and social change which attracted global attention. People used hashtags to draw attention to the incident and raise real-world concerns about women’s safety in public spaces.
But as effective as online activism was in this case, such movements fail to include all women. In some instances, online activism may not be adequate in reducing gender-based violence.
Digital activism has rightly been credited with raising significant awareness. The Nirbhaya case eventually led to an amendment of the Indian Penal Code and Evidence Act on laws related to sexual offences, with significant changes including quicker trials, and the death penalty for rare cases of violent rapes. Such activism creates safe spaces for women who are often marginalised in their societies. Social media, blogs and forums allow women to discuss personal and political issues from reproductive rights to verbal and non-verbal attacks, wage inequities and autonomy over their bodies, which they might not otherwise be able to address without online solidarity.
Despite women experiencing violence in different ways — shaped and influenced by their perceived class, caste, race, gender, nationality and sexuality — this online connection becomes a form of feminism without borders, allowing local voices to be heard globally.
It was particularly valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic when domestic violence increased significantly — what the UN described as a ‘shadow pandemic’. Feminist activism gained momentum online as lockdowns prevented physical mobilisation.
The effects of online activism can reverberate to the real world. Women occupied the streets of Delhi for two weeks in solidarity with Nirbhaya. The January 2017 Women’s Rights march that began in the United States drew international attention by spreading to countries like Peru, Kenya and the Czech Republic through the hashtag #WhyIMarch. It became one of the largest globally synchronised protests in history catalysed by social media.
Other earlier movements like #WhyLoiter, based on a 2011 book of the same title in India, and its Pakistani counterpart #GirlsAtDhabas in 2015, raised the issue of public places being dominated by men. Women demanded safety and their right to enjoy public spaces independently. The movement condemned street harassment as a form of oppression and encouraged women to post pictures of them drinking tea or having fun in public spaces. But digital activism is limited by the willingness of people and politicians to enact long-term change. A decade on from the Nirbhaya case, the patriarchal nature of Indian society has hardly changed.
Illiterate women who have limited or no access to the internet are still excluded from online spaces. Feminist movements in developing countries have largely been restricted to elites and are not proliferating among the working class and rural populations.
International movements, like #MeToo, failed to address the multi-layered forms of abuse that happen to trans women, Dalit women, LGBTQ and other marginalised communities. While there is some visibility of other sexual identities in online campaigns, like #loveforall and #pridemarch, it often doesn’t spread as widely internationally due to pre-existing cultural biases.
Another dimension to digital media activism is online bullying, trolling and harassment that often blurs the distinction between the ‘real’ and ‘virtual’. In many instances, activists have faced threats of violence, rape and death online with varying impacts on the individual. The internet can provide a haven for women. It holds vast potential for networking, organising and learning, irrespective of geographical boundaries. But it has limitations. For it to truly become a revolutionary force of change, it will first need to improve on its inclusivity to ensure all voices can be heard.
Sutanuka Banerjee is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology Durgapur, India. She obtained her PhD from the Aalborg University, Denmark.
Lipika Kankaria is a research scholar at the National Institute of Technology Durgapur, India working under the supervision of Dr Sutanuka Banerjee.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 25, 2022
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Voters back Maldives change in foreign policy - 360
Athaulla A Rasheed
Published on May 1, 2024
A parliamentary supermajority is a chance for Mohammad Muizzu’s government to overhaul foreign policy, but Maldives thrives by embracing all willing partners.
Maldives is changing quickly.
The country has held two elections within the past seven months, and both signal the country is changing drastically under Dr Mohamed Muizzu’s leadership.
Muizzu came to power following September 2023’s presidential election on the back of an “India out” slogan. This agenda drove nationalist sentiments against foreign influence in Maldives.
Upon taking office, his government initiated the withdrawal of a regiment of Indian military personnel based in Maldives to operate two helicopters and a Dornier aircraft for search and rescue operations.
It was followed by meetings and various agreements with Turkey and China which both raised India’s anxiety.
Last September’s landslide has now been cemented with a supermajority in the parliamentary election held on April 21, 2024. Muizzu’s ruling party, the People’s National Congress (PNC), has secured more than two-thirds majority of the 93-seat parliament.
While Miuzzu’s inauguration address last November prioritised the interests of the Maldivian people and national sovereignty, protection of human rights and upholding international law, the combined result of the presidential and parliamentary elections bring into sharp focus the perceived tug-of-war for Maldives allegiances in the region.
India and China both see Maldives as a strategic ally in their posturing for regional dominance.
Such ‘on and off’ external tension has shaped the way in which outside observers today frame the policy shifts in Maldives following elections.
With a bigger majority, it remains to be seen if the government will be less inclined to bend towards political pressure from the likes of India and China.
But the reality is not so simple, with Miuzzu intent on Maldives playing a more balanced strategic game, welcoming relations with all parties.
During the 2013-2018 rule of former president Abdulla Yameen, the government was met with external pressure, namely India and its like-minded Indo-Pacific allies, due to expanded foreign investments from China.
The pressure was eased only after Yameen’s predecessor Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s government reiterated the ‘India-First’ policy in 2018 — a decision making India the preferred country for Maldives in its policy decision making.
In the past, any incoming president would normally make India or Sri Lanka their first international port of call for diplomatic visits.
However, Muizzu chose Turkey as the first country to visit after his inauguration. As a result, Maldives today benefits from a sophisticated high-level technology platform composed of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 tactical drones.
Then, in January 2024, Muizzu visited China and as part of the new initiatives met with his counterpart, president Xi Jinping, and signed around 20 agreements with China — including security related engagements. In February, the movement of the Chinese research, Xiang Yang Hong 03, in Maldives waters received high criticism from India.
All of these swirling, competing interests do little to benefit policy choices as the rising tension became pegged to Sunday’s election results, creating future worries both in Maldives and abroad.
A mere securitisation of Maldives foreign engagements could in fact undermine the national and foreign policy objectives of such a small state.
Maldives is a tourism-dependent developmental state. Its island infrastructure, supporting a multi-billion dollar industry, has been continuously threatened by climate change.
Mega-infrastructure development projects have prevented coastal erosion and tidal swells. Therefore, the true security priority for the Maldives is to ensure climate-resilient development in its foreign partnerships, which are an important part of the development agenda.
Muizzu does not appear to be interested in Maldives jostling as part of a big powers security competition expressing the desire for Maldives to partner with all countries, including India, the US and Japan — all members of the Quad, which was created to keep China’s perceived expansionism in check.
The engagement in defence and security partnerships is a unique opportunity for Maldives — a country facing multifaceted security concerns such as maritime crimes compounded by climate impacts.
In this respect, a strategic approach to security cooperation can be started by identifying the capability gaps — Maldives projects a strong economy with high human development index. This can involve enhancing investments to fill those gaps by strengthening the existing joint operations.
The February 2024 Dosti exercise between India, Maldives and Sri Lanka was an indication of continued, successful collaboration between Maldives and India’s defence forces.
Other Indo-Pacific partners, including the US and Australia, have improved domestic-focused diplomatic platforms to help mutual capability building in defence cooperation.
Australia opened its Malé-based High Commission in 2023. The establishment has enhanced people-to-people and institutional links, including defence sector cooperation, between the Canberra and Malé.
As part of institutional links, research engagements, such as ANU’s ongoing research on Indian Ocean security issues involving Maldives defence and security sector, also indicate Canberra’s role in obtaining deeper understanding of Maldives’ regional security interests.
The recent return of the Indo-Pacific Endeavour (IPE) to Maldives further stresses the importance of the shared importance Maldives and Australia have placed in the Indian Ocean security.
Mutually beneficial projects in the defence and security sectors can achieve a high level of investor confidence and success for Maldives. Rather than settling on isolationist policies, like-minded Indo-Pacific partners need to engage domestically and tease out mutual opportunities rather than focus on total victory.
Athaulla A Rasheed is a PhD candidate at The Australian National University. His focus is on international relations and security of small island developing states (SIDS). He is a former foreign service officer and diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives, and holds a PhD in political science from University of Queensland, Australia.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 1, 2024
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Wake up to the fact sleep is a big deal - 360
Shahirah Hamid
Published on February 12, 2024
Explore the multifaceted world of sleep, understanding its impact on health and well-being.
Sleeping for 10 or maybe even 14 hours may sound excessive.
But Hollywood actress Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey) claims she can barely function with less than 10 hours of sleep. The 34-year-old star believes in prioritising sleep and dozing off for up to 14 hours. Her claim made headlines and prompted the response: How is it even possible to sleep for 14 hours?
In an interview on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Johnson clarified that she’s not a monster who demands to sleep hours on end. She stressed that she could easily sleep for 14 hours or more and even joked that if she took an Ambien, she would most likely wake up the next year. “I don’t have to take anything to sleep like that either, I can just sleep like that,” she quipped.
Sleep is essential to our well-being, influencing everything from brain development and immunity to metabolism. However, having a good night’s rest is both a privilege and a luxury. Achieving good quality sleep is more difficult for people with underlying health conditions, new parents, those living in conflict areas, underserved communities, and more.
Sleep is a serious business. Our pursuit of a good night’s sleep has sparked a surge in the use of sleep aids, trackers, and even self-medication, raising concerns about orthosomnia—an unhealthy fixation on achieving the “perfect” sleep. Even meditation app, Calm partnered with Grammy award winner and pop sensation, Harry Styles to narrate a series of sleep stories called Dream With Me, inviting listeners (mainly adoring fans) to fall asleep to his soothing voice.
360info explores sleep beyond this focus, taking a multidimensional approach that acknowledges its interconnectedness with mental health and overall well-being. By delving into diverse aspects such as health, insomnia treatment, developmental considerations, and perinatal/postpartum sleep, uncovering a comprehensive understanding of achieving the perfect sleep.
Rethinking sleep (infographics) by Shahirah Hamid
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on February 12, 2024
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"author": "Shahirah Hamid"
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Waking up to AI's sleep loss potential - 360
Simon Angus
Published on August 8, 2022
Everyone sleeps, but we have few tools for measuring the sleep the world is getting at scale. AI and sleep could help us study global shocks in near-real time.
It’s not unusual to hear people complaining about tiredness multiple times a day, but why? Sleep is fundamental to human health, but because it’s so private, there are few tools for measuring how much sleep everyone is getting at scale. Existing methods use time diaries, sleep surveys, sleep laboratories or, more recently, wearable technology to measure sleep. But none of these approaches is ready to tackle a global sleep-loss pandemic.
A Monash University study asked a different question: could the massive data we all generate when connecting to and disconnecting from the internet help researchers understand sleep?
As internet addresses go online and offline through the day, they track the daily human behavioural cycle: a trough in the early hours, followed by rising activity through the day to a peak in the evening, and then a sharp drop-off overnight.
And yet, no two cycles are the same: day of the week matters (heading downtown Friday night depresses internet activity), stay-at-home orders certainly matter (we go online earlier and longer), and even dips in activity during prayer times during Ramadan are visible in traditionally Muslim regions.
The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) asks Americans about their previous day’s activities, including when they woke up and when they went to sleep. The Monash study used survey data for 81 US cities over a six-year period to calculate when residents slept and woke up each year, then used internet activity-data to make the same calculation.
The researchers then trained a machine-learning algorithm to track how changes in internet use over a day relate to the average waking and sleeping times in each city.
When asked to predict the expected average sleep duration for a city the algorithm had never seen before, it was accurate to within 20 minutes. When estimating the average morning wake-up time, it was accurate to within nine minutes.
The researchers repeated this result when using daily electricity-demand data instead of internet data to predict sleep. But there’s something fundamentally different about internet-activity measurements compared to electricity-demand data: global availability. The US has a highly functioning electricity bureaucracy, but not all countries do. Internet-activity measurement, on the other hand, can be remotely and consistently measured for any internet-connected device on the planet.
This suggests the amount of sleep we are collectively getting can be estimated for any (internet-connected) city on the planet in near real time.
This kind of research has a huge range of applications, including impact mapping during natural disasters, documenting internet shutdowns associated with human-rights violations, and even providing internet-availability assessments during the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Whether this approach can be applied globally remains to be seen. The technology and sleep habits of Americans may be unique. If so, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model that learns the internet–sleep association in the US will fall down outside its borders. Another potential pitfall is internet patterns are likely affected by the technology mix at play – the internet signature of a ‘mobile-first’ continent such as Africa could be vastly different to that of North America, which relies heavily on fixed broadband internet.
Like so many challenges in the application of AI to health sciences, the answer to both hurdles lies with widening the training pool for the model. The more measurements researchers have from traditional sleep studies, in more countries, cultures and technology contexts, the more confidence they can have in any model prediction.
Should a global sleep observatory (from internet measurements) arise, population health and sleep scientists will perhaps gain the most.
If major shifts in internet use reveal similar changes in sleep patterns, researchers may flock to the field and use more precise tools to investigate further. Likewise, significant global shocks such as pandemics and recessions can be studied in near real time for their impact on our sleep, prompting the right public health messaging around mental health and sleep, better technology and app design, and timely education around the importance of sleep in times of stress.
Simon Angus is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, Monash University, a co-founder of SoDa Laboratories, Monash Business School, and co-founder and the Director of the Monash IP Observatory, Monash University, and co-founder and director of KASPR Datahaus Pty Ltd.
Dr Angus receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, the Judith Neilson Institute, and the Defence, Science & Technology Group (Australian Government Department of Defence).
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on August 8, 2022
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Want to stop another pandemic? Consider a flexitarian diet - 360
Giulia Wegner, Kris Murray, Laura McCoy
Published on July 6, 2022
Stemming global warming and species extinction requires a rethink of the global food system. The risk of pandemics could be the trigger for change.
Asking everyone to become vegan is not realistic or even desirable. But livestock production has the highest environmental footprint of all foods. If the global human population continues to grow and adopt livestock-based diets, we are unlikely to slow global warming or stem the alarming rate of species extinction.
Flexitarian diets could feed the growing world population with less greenhouse gas emissions. Another potential benefit is reduced risk of disease outbreaks and pandemics.
Flexitarians consume large amounts of plant-based foods (including vegetable proteins like pulses, nuts and seeds), modest amounts of fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy, and small quantities of red and processed meat.
If more of us were flexitarian there would be a reduction in livestock production and a stemming of the unprecedented expansion of farmland into tropical wildlands. This could reduce contact between wild animals, livestock and people and the likelihood of pathogens jumping from one to the other.
Habitat destruction negatively impacts large wild animals in particular, while ‘generalist’ species of rodents, bats, birds, and primates that are better adapted to human-modified landscapes remain or increase. Some of these species are known ‘reservoirs’ for infectious diseases of livestock and humans. Intensive livestock farms further increase the likelihood that domesticated animals become intermediate hosts for wildlife-borne diseases, often amplifying the risk of their transmission to humans.
A flexitarian dietary shift would have other public health benefits too, such as reducing obesity, diabetes, heart diseases and colorectal cancer.
Diets low in livestock source foods are central to creating a sustainable global food system – particularly if partnered with shifts to environmentally friendly and organic farming, and cutbacks in food losses and wastage. Research suggests greater investment in crop varieties, cattle breeds and management practices better suited to low-input organic farming could significantly increase productivity.
There are many measures available to governments and businesses to promote healthier and more sustainable levels of consumption of livestock source food, such as through education in schools, training of physicians and pediatricians, eco-labels on food packaging, taxation of meat and dairy consumption, food procurement for workplaces, schools and hospitals, and a statutory duty for retail and hospitality sectors.
These measures should target excessive consumption in wealthier economies and the expanding metropoles of developing economies. In poorer rural areas of developing countries, home gardening as well as smallholder livestock development programmes can help decrease malnutrition, with fewer environmental impacts. Populations inhabiting lands that are inhospitable for crop cultivation – such as hunter-gatherer and pastoralist communities – would instead continue to rely conspicuously on animals for nutrition. Yet, the low environmental impacts of their subsistence way of living are not comparable to those of dense and better-off urban populations.
Governments tend to dodge such interventions for fear of public backlash. And yet there is public expectation of government leadership in tackling such a complex challenge.
The harvest and trade of tons of wild meat from tropical forests to meet increasing demand from nearby cities is not helping, as it constitutes another potential path of emergence of infectious disease.
In the absence of effective state law enforcement and sustained campaigns to reduce urban demand, bans do not work. Consumers’ strong preferences for wild meat mean they may continue to purchase it despite price increases induced by a ban, giving rise to black markets. In the case of ‘luxury meat’, increased price and rarity may even drive-up demand.
Outright bans can have other undesired effects. While in most cities and towns legumes, fish and livestock source proteins are easily available at affordable prices, there are indigenous and rural communities who rely on hunted meat for a vital part of their nutrition and income. Their rights to sustainably provision themselves within their territories should be safeguarded.
Bans also shift wild meat trade to illegal, unregulated channels where less attention is usually paid to biosecurity measures necessary to prevent contagion from wildlife-borne diseases.
Containing tropical wild meat hunting and trade by curbing demand in urban areas and extractive outposts should therefore be implemented while promoting access rights and biosecurity measures among communities in remote subsistence areas.
Interventions in rural communities should provide wild meat hunters, traders, and butchers with training in inexpensive biosecurity measures they can easily adopt to avoid infection from contact with wild animals. These include wearing protective clothing when handling wild animals, wrapping carcasses to prevent blood from contacting cuts in people’s skin, and cooking wild meat thoroughly before eating. Biosecurity measures should also be extended to livestock and wildlife farms, abattoirs, food markets and restaurants.
Other physical distancing measures should also be practiced at farms and markets, such as fencing and reducing livestock densities to minimise contact with wild herbivores, planting fruit trees visited by bats at a distance from livestock sites, and limiting the number of animals on sale in live animal markets.
The incidence of infectious diseases originating in wild animals is high and may be increasing. This may be yet another sign of how our degradation of ecosystems is undermining the capacity of our planet to sustain human health and wellbeing.
Dietary shifts away from livestock source foods and reductions in tropical urban wild meat demand are crucial to simultaneously protect the environment, safeguard poorer communities, and reduce the risk of further disease outbreaks and pandemics.
Giulia Wegner is a researcher at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) of the University of Oxford, UK. She works with local communities on environmental rights and sustainable development.
Kris Murray is an Associate Professor in Environment and Health at the MRC Unit The Gambia @ LSHTM and the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London. He works on infection and global change.
Laura McCoy is the Curator of Natural History for Manx National Heritage. She has worked on projects for natural history museums worldwide.
Kris Murray is supported by the Medical Research Council UK.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “World Zoonoses Day” sent at: 07/07/2022 08:19.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 6, 2022
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"author": "Giulia Wegner, Kris Murray, Laura McCoy"
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War threatens food security in Russia and beyond - 360
Stephen K. Wegren
Published on April 4, 2022
Its invasion of Ukraine has imperilled Russia’s plans for increased grain yields and higher-value exports.
Since 2014 Russia has pursued two primary goals in its food policy. Domestically, it has strived for food security through import substitution and self-sufficiency in several basic commodities. Internationally, it has strived to increase the value and volume of its food exports, especially wheat and other grains. The war in Ukraine threatens both goals.
Russia had already started its sowing campaign in the south before the war. In 2021 it planted 80.4 million hectares, and it intended to plant 81.3 million hectares in 2022, 29.5 million of which would be occupied by wheat. After the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government allocated 25 billion roubles in subsidised credit to facilitate a successful sowing season, in addition to an original 28 billion roubles in short-term credit.
In 2021 Russia produced 121 million tonnes of grain, including 76 million tonnes of wheat. Before the war, Russia’s 2022 harvest was estimated at 125 million to 130 million tonnes, including 80 million to 83 million tonnes of wheat. Once the war began, those estimates were lowered to 121 million to 123 million tonnes, including 76 million tonnes of wheat.
Although Russia’s 2022 early-sowing campaign appears to be going well, future sowing seasons may be affected by a seed deficit. Russia has devoted resources to improving its own production of high-yield seed in recent years, but historically it has imported about half its seeds, mostly from the West.
In March 2022 Russia decided to allow seed imports from 11 countries previously subject to import restrictions. These countries are primarily in the Eurasian Economic Union, where phytosanitary violations have occurred.
The world’s largest producer of agricultural machinery, John Deere, has pulled out of the Russian market. This means previously purchased machinery will not be serviced and spare parts will not be available to Russian farmers. The precipitous decline in the value of the Russian rouble against the US dollar will make the purchase of Western agricultural machinery from third-party sellers prohibitively expensive.
Several large fast-food companies have withdrawn from the Russian market. The closure of 850 McDonald’s restaurants in Russia made headlines, but the withdrawal of Pizza Hut and Burger King was also important because a significant portion of the population frequently eats at fast-food outlets.
One survey showed that 50 percent of the 1600 respondents aged under the age of 30 ate fast food every day. Some people in Russia argue that Russian fast food can replace Western restaurants, but this author’s observations indicated that the lines for Western fast food were always much longer than for Russian fast food, especially among people under 30.
Hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs at Western fast-food restaurants. Unlike the West, where working at a fast-food restaurant is a teenage rite of passage, in Russia working at a fast-food restaurant is popular with people in their 20s and 30s because of the relatively high wages and better-than-average working conditions. These people – some of whom would have been supporting families on this income – must now find alternative employment in a declining economy.
To combat rising food prices, the State Duma is considering restrictions on price increases for some of the most important food groups, to protect low-income consumers. The Duma is also considering restarting free distribution of land plots to allow people to grow their own food.
Russia’s agricultural exports totaled US$37.7 billion in 2021, US$11.4 billion of which came from grain. The second-largest revenue source was oil fats, at US$7.2 billion. In 2021 Russia’s largest export market was the European Union at US$4.7 billion, followed by Turkey at US$4.3 billion and China at US$3.5 billion. The war with Ukraine will deprive Russia of the European food market and, importantly, hard currency.
On 15 February 2022, Russia’s 11-million-tonne quota for exports to states outside the Eurasian Economic Union went into effect. It will run until 30 June 2022. The forecast for grain and wheat exports in Russia’s 2022 agricultural year (1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023) was lowered to 28 million tonnes of grain and 23 million tonnes of wheat, representing a more than 30-percent decrease from 2021 for both.
Sanctions are an important restraint on Russia’s grain trade because Western banks do not want to do business with Russian grain companies. Further, if Russia defaults on its international debt, it will be shut out from future loans for many years.
Moreover, on 14 March 2022 the Russian government introduced temporary bans on the export of grain and sugar to countries in the Eurasian Economic Union. The export of grain – wheat, rye, barley, and corn – will be banned until 30 June 2022, and sugar exports will be banned until 31 August 2022. These restrictions show that the Russian government prioritises domestic food security over foreign trade.
The countries with the most to lose in any reduction of Russian grain exports are in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Egypt is a major client for Russian wheat and is the world’s largest importer of that crop. Turkey also buys large amounts of Russian cereals. These and other authoritarian countries throughout the region not only depend on Russian grain to maintain food supplies but also subsidise bread and other grain products.
As global grain prices rise, those governments will face financial pressure to maintain previous subsidy levels. The last time the region experienced a spike in prices and tight global supplies, the Arab Spring popular uprisings occurred. These led to regime change in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and set off a civil war in Syria that continues to the present.
Curtailment of the wheat trade from Russia also affects Afghanistan, Yemen and Ethiopia, which are experiencing high degrees of food insecurity and even localised famine.
In March 2022 Russia’s ministry of trade recommended ceasing fertilizer exports. In 2021 Russia produced almost 25 million tonnes of chemical fertilizer, of which about 65 percent was exported. The cessation of fertilizer exports will affect sowing and harvests in Europe, Latin America, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Since 2014 Russia has been a central player in the international food market, ranking first or second in wheat exports every year. The war in Ukraine will change its status as an emerging food superpower.
Russia’s war with Ukraine and Western sanctions put at risk the government’s goals for the agricultural sector as expressed in the current State Programme, which runs from 2019 to 2025. Specifically, the goal to raise grain output to an annual level of 140 million tonnes by 2025 will confront such difficulties as importing foreign high-yield seed, sourcing spare parts for machinery and acquiring foreign pesticides.
Western nations have imposed sanctions on the Russian economy and frozen its overseas assets. This will mean that the Russian government’s subsidisation of future sowing seasons and agriculture in general will come under pressure. As domestic food security takes priority, Russia surely will not meet its goal of increasing food exports by 50 percent over 2020 levels by 2024.
Stephen K. Wegren is Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Political Science, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA. His most recent books are The Food Revolution in Russia: The Transformation of the Food System (Routledge, 2021) and Russia’s Role in the Contemporary International Agri-Food Trade System (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). Prof Wegren declared no conflicts of interest in relation to this article.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on April 4, 2022
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"url": "https://360info.org/war-threatens-food-security-in-russia-and-beyond/",
"author": "Stephen K. Wegren"
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Warning: This planet is protected by video surveillance - 360
Erik Gartzke, Bryan R. Early
Published on May 2, 2022
Spying from space has lifted the veil over the battlefield, diffusing the fog of war and lessening the utility of aggression.
No one likes to be caught in the act. Homes and businesses use CCTV cameras as a deterrent against crime and to document criminal behaviour when it occurs. Something similar can be said to have occurred in the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cameras in space are recording the activity of the war, sharing the movement of Russian forces with all of us, and documenting their war crimes.
Ordinary citizens watching the evening news will know more about Russian troop dispositions in and around Ukraine than many heads of state would have been able to access in previous century’s conflicts. In a 2021 study, researchers found nations possessing reconnaissance satellites were less likely to be attacked than other states. Surprise is an attractive and useful force multiplier in war — an attacker that can invade unannounced is more likely to win a war or major dispute. Spying from space using satellite technology makes it much harder for a nation to achieve strategic, or even tactical surprise, especially when attempting to conduct a larger, more intensive attack.
The number of governments possessing their own reconnaissance satellites remains limited but has steadily grown, especially over the past two decades. This includes SpaceX, a leading private space exploration company, placing a Ukrainian reconnaissance satellite into orbit for the first time in January of this year. Open-source satellite imagery has become ubiquitous, but such imagery only became commercially available in 2000. The quality of satellite images’ resolution has also dramatically increased. Possessing national satellites still provides governments with significant advantages in having real-time access to satellite imagery and offers the ability to direct where satellites look.
The deployment of Russian troops in and around Ukraine has been the focus of intense interest and concern since Russian President Vladimir Putin began his country’s armoured build-up in late 2021. The availability of ‘eyes in the sky’ meant Putin could not achieve strategic surprise. So, Putin did not try to hide the possibility of invasion. Instead, Russian officials capitalised on the prospect of an attack — making demands of NATO and the West — to the point that many observers suspected Putin was bluffing.
He was not — in part because of Russia’s superior surveillance capabilities. The United States and the United Kingdom highlighted the risk of a Russian invasion, in several instances predicting the how, when and where of attacks to the point that Russian commanders were forced to adjust their invasion plans. As tanks rolled into Ukraine from the west of Russia, the annexed Crimean peninsula and Belarus, photographic evidence led to international condemnation and sanctions. Some have credited the widespread availability of surveillance imagery of the Russian build-up and invasion with assisting in both the pace and scale of the international reaction.
But even a generally effective deterrent fails some of the time. Surveillance cameras record violations of the law because criminals are sometimes foolish or brazen enough to commit their transgressions anyway.
Such is the case with Putin’s invasion. We have all witnessed in near real time the scope of the Russian president’s ambitions, attacking Ukraine on multiple fronts, with multiple apparent military objectives and political goals. Russian officials stretch our credulity when they claim, for example, that Russia only ever intended to solidify control over the region of Donbas (on the eastern edge of Ukraine), when we have all seen the photos of long columns of Russian military vehicles stalled on the roads leading to the capital, Kyiv.
The ability to document actions from on high allows the world to judge for itself whether Russian forces are targeting civilians. Russian denials that its forces were involved in war crimes are shown to be inconsistent with commercial satellite imagery detailing the location of bodies that were later recovered after Russian forces withdrew from cities like Bucha. Pictures of Mariupol, taken from space, show a city reminiscent of urban centres in the grip of World War Two. They tell quite a different story than official claims from Moscow.
Defeat in the north has led the Russian military to revise its focus of attack to the south-east of Ukraine. This is due in no small part to the impact of space surveillance on Russian plans. Satellite imagery has allowed international observers to track the progress — or lack thereof — of Russian armoured columns day by day.
Much has been made of the success of Ukrainian forces in interdicting these columns, destroying a substantial amount of Russian armour and killing or putting to flight Russian troops. But successful interdiction requires intelligence; mobile Ukrainian units, armed with anti-tank weapons, such as the US Javelin missile or the British Next generation Light Anti-tank weapons, still require information on the location of tanks in order to intercept them.
Some of this information has been gleaned by RPVs (remotely piloted vehicles), such as the Turkish-made Bayraktar drones. Video imagery taken by Bayraktars and other RPVs has been a staple on social media covering the war. But even drones need to have an inkling of where to look. It is an open secret that Western intelligence agencies are actively assisting in Ukraine’s defence. Utilising various resources, the US has provided Ukraine’s government with timely satellite imagery and intelligence to assist its defensive efforts.
One of the unique benefits of space surveillance is the ability to disseminate information about a nation’s espionage efforts without compromising sources and methods. Unlike a human spy, a satellite can be seen to be spying and still continue to do so.
National leaders contemplating aggression will have to reflect on the effect space reconnaissance technology has had in making aggression more difficult.
Over the past weeks, Russian forces have re-deployed to eastern Ukraine to concentrate their aggression on the Donbas. We know this because it is being photographed. Ukraine’s army possesses an important advantage that embattled defenders in the past often lacked. An attacker could ‘screen’ its movements, maintaining tactical surprise by preventing those in the defence from knowing where they would be attacked next. Today, Ukrainian soldiers already know where Russia is preparing to strike. This can aid the Ukrainian armed forces both in preparing their defences and in taking the initiative to counter Russian manoeuvres.
Spying from space has lifted the veil over the battlefield, diffusing to some degree the fog of war and lessening the utility of aggression. It has made it possible for the world to see and document violence and transgressions that in the past might be undocumented, ignored or disputed. It can be an important mode of protection, deterring aggressors and criminals and aiding in their containment or punishment if necessary.
Erik Gartzke is a professor of political science and director of the center for Peace and Security Studies (cPASS) at the University of California, San Diego.
Bryan Early (@b_r_early) is an associate professor of political science and the associate dean for research at the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 2, 2022
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"author": "Erik Gartzke, Bryan R. Early"
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Water worries: Indonesia and the US have plenty in common - 360
Eka Permanasari, Derry Wijaya, Dian Nostikasari
Published on March 25, 2024
Despite being on other sides of the planet, Jakarta and Iowa are staring down similar issues around water hygiene and supply.
On the surface, Jakarta has little in common with the US state of Iowa.
The Indonesian capital is a coastal tropical city of over 11 million people, three times as many as temperate, landlocked Iowa. Most people in the majority Muslim city don’t eat pork. Iowa is the largest producer of pork products in the US.
Dig below the surface, however, and you find that Jakarta and Iowa face strikingly similar problems of water scarcity and water pollution.
Jakarta is crossed by 13 rivers which are clogged with garbage and heavy sediment. It makes the city more prone to flooding and allows debris to pile up. Its rivers are heavily polluted with e-coli bacteria, largely a result of untreated municipal sewage.
Several parts of Jakarta such as Pasar Minggu, Matraman and Palmerah have especially high levels of e-coli bacteria due to how close septic tanks are to groundwater sources. In these regions, many residents still bathe in the water and use it when washing clothes, despite the contamination.
Iowa also has dire pollution problems.
The Midwestern state with rolling greenery is one of the top-ranked in the US for agriculture, but this comes at the expense of water quality. The state has a water pollution crisis, caused by the excessive use of nitrogen and phosphorus in crop production.
With 90 percent of Iowa’s land designated farmland, and a population of 23 million pigs (seven times the human population), an enormous part of Iowa is geared toward agriculture and crop production.
Residents across the state face the burden of paying for expensive water treatment facilities, but those living in small rural towns pay roughly three times more for nitrate treatment systems.
People in the Des Moines area can purchase and operate more efficient nitrate removal technology to serve the city and several affluent suburbs, lowering the cost of treatment per person.
Low-income communities and people of colour are likely to live in places where higher levels of nitrate exist in polluted drinking water, presenting potentially fatal health risks such as baby blue syndrome and cancer.
This is because many smaller rural towns such as Ottumwa, Perry, Marshalltown, and Storm Lake are also home to low-income and people of colour working in large-scale farms, meat processing and packing industries.
Iowa’s nitrate pollution runoffs add approximately 50 percent to the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone, a low oxygen area spanning over 16,000 square kilometres which can kill marine life.
Jakarta and Iowa have addressed their water issues in their own ways.
Iowa has pushed various incentives and conservation strategies relying on voluntary buy-in from farmers, but its water quality issues have hardly budged. Polk County, home of the state’s capital building, introduced a ‘batch and build’ model in which the government works directly with vetted contractors to build conservation projects on private land.
The model makes it easier for landowners to build rainscaping practices, aimed at improving water quality.
The last significant shot at regulation from the US government came in 1972 with the Clean Water Act. In the 52 years since, it has become unfit for purpose. Stricter regulation and monitoring, such of oversight of manure management plans from pig producers, would go a long way towards addressing water quality issues in these localities.
Jakarta’s residents rely on groundwater and surface water as their primary sources.
The city is facing ground subsidence as a result of excessive groundwater use. It has tried a number of approaches to fix it: restricting groundwater use, building infiltration wells for absorbing rainwater, expanding pipelines for recycled water and improvingthe city’s sewage system. But, as Jakarta rapidly urbanises, these efforts are not enough to fully address the water scarcity issues.
Water quality issues are only going to be properly addressed when a combination of government agencies, local communities and people from private industry can help comprehensively fix the issue.
Technology offers a number of promising ways to improve water sanitation – geospatial analytics, artificial intelligence, remote sensing and the Internet of Things (the practice of connecting objects to send and receive data) can help.
This has been effective in one of India’s most polluted lakes, Chennai’s Lake Sembakkam. AI and the Internet of Things have been used to measure and monitor water quality in the lake, using a cloud-based platform and installing sensors in the lake to track its health, issuing an alert when water quality drops to concerning levels.
This technology has given many in the community real-time information to decide how they use and conserve the water around them. The data from such monitoring, along with satellite imagery helps in other ways: it allows policy-makers and planners to better understand water quality and put plans into motion, including decisions around water purification technologies.
For Jakarta, Iowa and other regions dealing with degraded water quality, this can be a matter of life or death. Each year, the World Health Organization attributes about 2 million deaths to poor sanitation, unclean water and substandard hygiene.
The UN says over 40 percent of the world suffers from severe water stress as global demand for water exceeds supply. The release of medical waste, toxic chemicals and household waste into the atmosphere puts densely populated residential areas especially at risk of contamination.
This also harms the environment: roughly 42 percent of untreated household wastewater is discharged into rivers and ocean, causing severe pollution. Water scarcity is worsened by climate change, which affects rainfall, increases droughts and floods and reduces the availability of water.
The rate of reuse for the estimated aggregate of domestic and industrial wastewater generated stands at 11 percent. Insufficient sanitation and contaminated water sources play a large role in the spread of waterborne diseases.
Jakarta and Iowa represent the range of our water supply and sanitation crisis: one in a rising Asian power, seeking to unravel decades of river pollution, and the other in the American heartland, desperate to balance its commercial interests with community health.
As water scarcity looms as a growing issue, the challenges faced by each region represents what may become a more prevalent concern globally.
Eka Permanasari is an Associate Professor of Urban Design at Monash University Indonesia and Monash Urban Transformation Hub.
Derry Wijaya is an Associate Professor of data science at Monash University University.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 25, 2024
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"author": "Eka Permanasari, Derry Wijaya, Dian Nostikasari"
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We don't know enough about the high seas to protect them - 360
Fiona Chong, Matthew Spencer
Published on June 8, 2023
Beyond any country’s jurisdiction, relatively little is known about the high seas and the life it contains. As high sea activities ramp up that needs to change.
When the long-distance swimmer Benoît Lecomte swam across the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2019 to highlight plastic pollution on the high seas, he found the surface ocean ecosystem teeming with life among the human waste.
In particular, samples collected by his support team suggested a high concentration of floating life sometimes occurred in the same region as the floating plastic, likely having been brought there by the same physical forces.
Contrary to public belief, this region of the North Pacific is not just full of rubbish.
This is important, because organisations such as The Ocean Cleanup have been working in the region to clean up plastic.
Cleaning up plastic is generally viewed as a positive endeavour because of the negative impacts of debris on marine life. However, it may at the same time disrupt thriving ecosystems on the sea’s surface.
It is a prime example of a new high seas activity whose impacts on a little-studied ecosystem are unclear, taking place in an area beyond national jurisdictions, where the international legal framework governing these activities is ambiguous.
The high seas, being far away from land, are data poor.
We have some knowledge of the natural history of floating species such as the by-the-wind sailor (Velella velella), but we still know relatively little about these organisms’ distributions, life history and genetic diversity.
The few surveys undertaken do not even agree on where and when these organisms are most abundant, making it difficult to assess the impact of any new activity on the ecosystem.
Another recent example of a new activity in a data-poor ecosystem beyond national jurisdictions is deep sea mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
As the global demand for renewable energy technologies increases, industry is looking to extract useful minerals such as cobalt and manganese from deep sea polymetallic nodules to make batteries.
Yet 92 percent of over 5,000 species found recently in the zone are new to science, and evidence suggests mining disturbances can continue to affect seabed communities almost 30 years on.
This highlights the importance of balancing the urgent societal need for climate change mitigation and pollution reduction with the relatively poorly-known biology of the high seas.
In data-poor regions, modelling of possible outcomes can often shine light on the potential effects of new activities.
The population growth rate of floating organisms for example, is one of the key parameters determining the possible effects of clean-up efforts on them.
Larger species are expected to have slower population growth and therefore are more strongly affected by the clean-up devices.
With the current state of knowledge, the effects of plastic removal on floating organism populations could be anywhere from negligible to substantial.
But there are many reasons why society should care about the human impacts on floating organisms so far away.
A review of the scientific literature for this ecosystem’s contribution to people shows a number of direct and indirect connections between the high seas and society.
These floating organisms are critical habitats and refuges for young fishes, which spend part of their life cycle in the open ocean.
The Malabar trevally Caranx malabaricus was observed to take shelter under the blue button jelly Porpita, and was distressed when separated from its Porpita. When offered the choice of another Porpita individual the fish showed affinity for its existing Porpita partner.
Floating life forms are also important food sources for seabirds, sea turtles, and commercially important fish such as tuna, transferring energy from the open ocean to seas closer to shore and even on land via tuna fisheries.
A loss of these organisms could have knock-on effects on the functioning of other ecosystems, ultimately affecting wider society.
To reduce the conflict between cleaning up and the surface ocean ecosystem, the most important steps are reducing plastic production and stopping human debris from entering the ocean.
These steps could be achieved by behaviour change, better waste management, intercepting and removing debris from rivers and coasts and holding the fishing industry accountable for ghost nets.
It may also be possible to improve the design and control of cleanup systems: active steering of clean-up systems might help minimise the removal of ocean surface organisms relative to plastic.
At the heart of the issue remains the fact that the high seas are data poor, so more empirical data needs to be collected in these regions to understand the biology of the ecosystems, from the surface ocean to the deep sea.
A holistic approach in addressing new environmental problems is critical going ahead.
Multidisciplinary research in this area, with the development of enhanced observing systems to understand complex physical and biological interactions, will allow informed management decisions and recommendations to be made for new high seas activities.
is a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science short-term fellow at the University of the Ryukyus, Japan; and a PhD student at the University of Hull, United Kingdom, currently working on coral population ecology and genetics.
is a community ecologist and lecturer at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom.
The authors’ research referred to in this article was supported by the University of Liverpool’s Institute for Risk and Uncertainty and NASA.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on June 8, 2023
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"author": "Fiona Chong, Matthew Spencer"
}
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We ingest plastics every minute of the day - 360
Murthy Chavali
Published on February 9, 2023
There is no escape from them as they are in the air we breathe and in the everyday products we use.
When you wake up in the morning, wash your face, apply a skin lotion, take a drink of water, clean your teeth and step outside for a walk near the beach your body is most likely ingesting microplastics the entire time, through your mouth, your nose and your skin.
There is no escape.
It’s bad enough that we ingest microplastics in our food and water. But they also —literally — get under our skin. Microplastics have been reported in consumer products such as face creams, face washes and various other cosmetic products.
They are often in the form of small microbeads which are widely used in health and beauty products.
These minute particles – less than 5mm – carry a wide range of chemicals, the most common being polyethylene, which has been associated with serious health outcomes including cancer, heart disease and poor foetal development.
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Studies show that microplastics from cosmetics and toothpaste may be absorbed by the skin which could lead to cell damage on the skin's outer surface (the epidermis). Researchers are investigating whether these plastic particles can penetrate the deeper layers of our skin.
Microplastic absorption through the skin and the possible detrimental effects of extensive skin contact with plastic particles (e.g., from dust, microbeads and liquid hand cleansers) are now a focus for investigators.
We also breathe in many microplastics. As they accumulate in the respiratory system, they could potentially cross into the brain via the bloodstream. Microplastic particles have been discovered in human lung tissue. The chemical composition of these particles may cause acute and chronic respiratory problems.
While microplastics can be inhaled, the bulk of them are ejected by the self-clearing mechanism of our airways. Still, some may linger in the lungs, triggering a localised response, including inflammation, particularly in those with compromised respiratory systems.
This study showed that microplastic concentrations in indoor air were up to 28 times higher compared to outdoor environments, highlighting the need for stricter precautions in homes and offices. Microplastics in the atmosphere come from various sources including synthetic textiles and everyday polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products around us.
Stepping out for fresh air isn’t necessarily a means of escape. Sea breeze and sea spray can also be a consistent source of microplastics in the air. One study estimated about 136,000 tons of microplastics are emitted from marine waters to the atmosphere as sea spray annually.
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These particles are easily transported to nearby areas. For example, an air mass trajectory study revealed microplastics can travel as far as 95km through the atmosphere.
Microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air often contain these microplastics which in turn carry toxic chemicals such as polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
But there is not yet sufficient information about the fate and risk of airborne microplastics in the air around us.
With evidence of the increased consumption of single-use plastics, notably, face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is critical to push and invest in more detailed research on the impact of microplastics on our health.
While plastics have gained immense popularity in modern life since the mid-1950s, the resulting plastic waste and mismanagement in disposal have caused ecological problems. Plastic abandoned in the environment is prone to breaking down, leading to the generation of microplastics and nanoplastics which reached marine and animal life and subsequently humans.
To examine the accumulation of these toxic particles in humans through the food chain in diverse regions requires careful planning and coordination involving ecologists, pathologists, and epidemiologists.
Reliable exposure data is also essential for risk assessment and management. Policymakers could start now to implement plastic waste reduction policies at the national and international levels.
Prof Dr Murthy Chavali is Dean (Research), Department of Science, Faculty of Science & Technology, Alliance University, Bengaluru, India. He declares no conflict of interest.
This article has been republished for World Environment Day 2023. It was originally published on February 9, 2023.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on February 9, 2023
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We need science, and we need to defend it from attack - 360
Doug Hilton
Published on April 17, 2024
Trust in science: Australia isn’t as polarised as the US, but we can’t afford to be complacent.
Recent criticism of science in some quarters has distracted from an important truth: overwhelmingly, the Australian public has confidence in science, and recognises the intrinsic value of scientists.
Nine in 10 Australians think science and scientists are crucial to solving Australia’s biggest future challenges. Importantly, four in five Australians also say they want to hear more from scientists about their work.
This enormous trust in science is built on the long and laudable track record science has of advancing national interests and creating benefits for our country.
Historically, Australia has been ahead of the curve with its scientific research and technological advancement.
From improving healthcare to protecting our environment, from fostering economic resilience to addressing global challenges like pandemics and climate change, scientific research has been the catalyst for progress, prosperity and ultimately a better future for all Australians.
Our science eco-system is also thriving.
As a country, we have excellent universities and world-class research facilities. Our population is, by and large, well educated, and tertiary educated Australians are most trusting of science.
An example of why that’s important is that Australia’s public’s trust in vaccine science remains high despite the best efforts of vocal fringe groups, like those who made headlines throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
But not for a moment can we take any of this for granted.
This is an era shaped by misinformation and conspiracy theories, a time where calculated efforts are made to erode public confidence in the critical pillars of civil society including scientific organisations, independent electoral commissions, the courts and the public service.
This is a period where the nuanced exchange of ideas is too-often overshadowed by polarised narratives, a time when distrust pervades public discourse.
We have seen this quite strikingly in the US, where there has been a continued decline in public trust in scientists in recent years, and the share of Americans who say science has had a mostly positive effect on society has fallen.
A recent example of this dynamic in play is in Florida, which has been tackling a measles outbreak but the state’s surgeon general – a COVID-19 vaccine sceptic – has been described as ignoring medical science to stop it.
The subsequent exchanges on the issue on social media – including many troubling and often patently false anti-science conspiracy theories – are typically caustic and the voices supporting the best, most medically-sound course of action are lost in the sadly familiar claim-counter-claim world where the earth is flat, 5G networks cause COVID, and billionaires are microchipping humans via vaccines!
It would almost be darkly funny if it wasn’t so serious.
The very foundation of trust in science, upon which our ability to tackle the grand challenges that confront us, is being eroded. If that continues, then with it goes many of our reasons for hope and optimism.
The scientific process depends on an open and transparent discussion of data, models, methods and conclusions.
That means scientific debate is central to scientific progress. In contrast, distortion, disparagement, and rejection of the scientific process to justify a particular policy position, rather than discussing the merits of policies themselves, is corrosive and even dangerous.
There is a critical difference between debating the merits of a policy direction based on established facts and seeking to undermine those facts to suit a particular position.
Disparaging science, scientists and scientific organisations creates an incredibly dangerous environment where the community distrusts high-quality advice. As a community, we must demand our policy makers debate the policy without denigrating the science and when that happens, it must always be seen as a red line, and called out.
So much depends on community trust in science.
It provides the compass with which we will best be able to navigate humanity’s greatest challenges. Conversely, the consequences of undermining community trust in science can be catastrophic: a loss of public confidence in science at a time when we need it the most.
That is not a theoretical statement or hyperbole – confidence in science matters profoundly, as we saw in countries that distrusted infectious disease research and epidemiology during the COVID pandemic. People died, in their millions, more often the most vulnerable in the community.
Trust in science will also define our future.
As a nation, as a global community, if we lose trust in climate and environmental scientists, in meteorologists, in renewable energy innovators, we will leave future generations with a mess from which humanity may never recover.
As a community we are now making – or will soon make – enormously important decisions about everything from how we continue to respond: to climate change and the loss of biodiversity, to how we best use AI and quantum computing, to how we respond to the next pandemic.
Those decisions depend on public attitudes. That means it’s critically important the community understands why they can have confidence in science and its methods, and how it’s different from religion or opinion or social media or politics.
Part of meeting this challenge sits with scientists.
We need to get better at ‘lifting the bonnet’ on science and explaining how the engine works.
We need to continue to foster public understanding of the scientific process and nourishing a conversation around how knowledge is built systematically over time.
We need to explain how science is a system of building knowledge gained through observation and experimentation, where ideas are subjected to rigorous and transparent scrutiny, discussion, debate, and are open to further examination.
We need to demonstrate how conclusions are often reviewed and revised, especially as new data comes to hand and evidence builds so it’s the rigour and transparency in a process built around documenting, testing, contesting, and reviewing that underpins trust in science.
As scientists and as a community, we need to talk more about that. Because demystifying science and promoting transparency, understanding and open debate is the best way not just to protect community trust in science, but to build it.
And with the formidable challenges of the 21st century confronting us we need to do that now, more than ever.
Dr Doug Hilton AO is Chief Executiuve of Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on April 17, 2024
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"author": "Doug Hilton"
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We need to talk about obstetric violence - 360
Vijayetta Sharma
Published on February 21, 2024
Expectant mothers deserve proper care when giving birth. Instead, some face forced surgery, bullying, coercion and insufficient pain relief.
Women being threatened with beatings for screaming during labour. Women forced to deliver babies on the floor despite the availability of labour beds. Women handed plastic bags containing the unwashed bodies of their stillborn children.
These are just some of the horrific stories that have emerged from investigations into abuse and mistreatment of expectant mothers in several parts of India.
The deplorable condition of primary health centres and lack of facilities in rural areas are breeding grounds of obstetric violence at the hands of doctors, midwifes and others, which has been compared to rape.
An accredited social health activist from Ropar district in Punjab told this researcher how one woman pretended to go to the toilet and fled a primary health centre out of fear of the treatment she’d receive.
“When she did not return from the toilet after 10 minutes, I rushed to the village,” the social worker said.
“To my surprise, I found her with the lady sarpanch (elected head of the village). The baby’s head was out when she reached home.”
Obstetric violence –defined as mistreatment, disrespect and abuse or dehumanised care of women during childbirth — is a public health problem that directly affects rates of maternal mortality.
Forced surgery, lack of consent for procedures such as episiotomies and vaginal examinations during birth, bullying, coercion and non-cooperative attitudes are common.
Gendered shame, insufficient pain relief and unethical medical practices are other crude manifestations of this medical malpractice.
Across the world, there is an under-recognised history of obstetric violence.
These obstetric practices mirror the attitudes of abusive men in that they attempt to coercively control women through manipulation and violence, name-calling and character attacks.
Obstetric violence can also be directed towards women by other women or be marked by aspects of violence that deviate from protocol. These practices all infringe on the basic principles of autonomy, justice, dignity and the obligation of a physician not to harm the patient.
Women’s subordinate social position in many countries enables this practice to silently continue behind closed doors.
A culture of impunity gives health providers a free hand.
The irony is that many medical professionals consider labour-room abuse justified as a delivery strategy. They argue about what degree of violence can be considered gentle, justifying certain acts as “non-violent”.
Passive submission to obstetric violence, dismissal of women’s voices in labour, normalisation of violence, power dynamics between health professionals and patients, and training models that ignore obstetric violence practices all exacerbate the situation in labour rooms.
Abortion-related obstetric violence has been more frequent in settings that legally restrict abortions.
Threats and violence at the hands of midwifes during birthing has been compared to rape.
Indeed, obstetric violence is also sometimes termed “birth rape“.
Qualitative studies show that such abusive experiences exacerbate victims’ anxiety, helplessness, anger and fear, with many lapsing into postpartum depression or post-traumatic stress disorders.
While there is no specific law against obstetric violence under Indian law, it is considered a human rights violation under international law.
In January 2023, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognised obstetric violence as a human rights violation after a pregnant woman in Argentina, who was found to have a dead foetus in her ninth month of pregnancy, died of cardiac arrest after she was hospitalised to induce labour.
The court found she had not received appropriate medical treatment considering known risk factors of her pregnancy which led to death of the foetus, and wasn’t given necessary information on treatment alternatives.
In 2022, the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women found that a forced C-section delivery without informed consent was performed on a Spanish woman — who was also forbidden from eating during labour — had been subjected to obstetric violence and violation of her human rights.
Some countries do recognise obstetric violence in national laws.
Obstetric violence as a legal term was introduced in Venezuela in 2007 when the “Organic Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence” came into force. Several other countries in South and Central America have recognised obstetric violence as a legal concept, including Argentina, Mexico, and Uruguay.
Despite concerns about different types of obstetric violence raised by human rights organisations, social movements and academics, there is a dearth of investigations, evidence-based record creation and legislation.
Clear statistical data on the prevalence of obstetric violence worldwide is missing, despite campaigns and living in an age marked by digitisation, artificial intelligence and ethical governance.
Governments have largely ignored the issue, and this medical malpractice has been overlooked and loosely defined by public and private healthcare institutions. This can be pinned to the failure of the medical establishment to confront maternal health issues.
Healthcare institutions and professionals could be first to be held responsible for episodes of obstetric violence on their premises.
Carefully chartered management and policy strategies to identify obstetric violence — and track how it applies along lines of class, gender, race, and medical power — would help offer respite to expecting mothers.
If these practices are not treated, progress bywomen’s reproductive rights movements, which have fought hard for dignity of care and bodily integrity, could backslide.
Healthcare institutions and professionals could be made fully accountable for unethical practices inside or outside the labour room which diminish the women’s dignity during delivery.
The judicial system’s role in recognising and punishing obstetric violence in India needs strengthening. The law could introduce safeguards for women’s rights and choices in obstetric care — ensuring each mother can choose her birthing position, support person and pain control (including non-pharmacological methods) — and that she is given equitable treatment irrespective of caste and socio-economic status.
Obstetric violence legislation in India could clearly lay down the authority, definitions and remedies for physical abuse, verbal abuse, non-confidential and non-consented care, negligent and discriminatory care, and non-dignified care towards women in all stages of pregnancy, childbirth and new motherhood.
These laws could cover private and public births, as well as home births.
Adoption and use of birth plans by public and private healthcare organisations could help reduce, control or eradicate obstetric violence and misogyny in birth practices.
Women feeling safe and cared for during their pregnancy will result in better maternal and child health.
Ultimately, a flourishing care regime that prioritises women’s concerns, pain management and dignity requires that women are given the right to participate in decisions concerning their labour.
Dr. Vijayetta Sharma is Associate Professor of Public Policy at Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies. She has been a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Indian School of Business (ISB). Her research areas are maternal and child health, social security, and governance. She specialises in public policy and management and has worked in management courses with academicians across the globe.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on February 21, 2024
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Welcome to a brave new world of therapeutics - 360
Emily Pilkington, Rekha Shandre Mugan
Published on May 22, 2024
The field of RNA therapeutics has expanded incredibly over the last 30 years, and mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are just the start.
It was a case of perfect timing.
Scientists had been researching how to use RNA for medical purposes for more than 40 years when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020.
They’d already had some success with an RNA therapeutic approved in 2018 to treat people with the rare hereditary disease familial amyloid polyneuropathy.
But the use of RNA in Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s widely-used COVID vaccines put the molecule on a much bigger stage.
RNA stands for ribonucleic acid. Think of it as the spin-off of the more well-known DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid.
All humans have naturally-occurring RNA in their cells — the molecule is vital to the everyday upkeep of healthy cells and acts as the cell’s internal messaging system.
RNA is a set of instructions given by DNA, which is like the boss in the cell’s headquarters — the nucleus. These RNA instructions are sent out to the factory floor of the cell — the cytoplasm — for the cellular machinery to follow.
The field of RNA-based therapeutics lets scientists write their own set of instructions for cells to follow.
The different types of RNA allows for different types of therapeutics to be developed.
Arguably, the type of RNA that people are most familiar with is messenger RNA, abbreviated to mRNA.
mRNA is a type of coding RNA. Think of it like an instruction manual that teaches a cell to build a specific protein, similar to what you would get to build flat-pack furniture like a desk or a bookcase.
mRNA therapeutics include the COVID vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, which give cells a blueprint to make their own copy of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in order to train people’s immune systems to recognise and defend against the virus.
Why mRNA vaccines have been so lauded is that they are often cheaper and faster to make than traditional vaccines, and are generally safer and more efficient at producing an immune response.
However, mRNA vaccines are not limited to battling infectious diseases.
Basically, a vaccine is anything that trains the immune system to fight something.
In cancer, mRNA vaccines provide instructions to make proteins that teach the immune system how to find and destroy cancer cells without hurting the healthy cells around them.
These vaccines can be both prophylactic — given to healthy people to prevent certain cancers — or therapeutic — given to cancer patients to assist the body in fighting certain cancers. This is because unlike with other diseases, cancer patients sometimes can’t mount a sufficient immune response on their own.
Despite the complexity of cancer, there are multiple mRNA-based vaccines currently in human trials.
This includes Moderna’s mRNA vaccine against melanoma — currently in phase III clinical trials for use in combination with Merck’s approved cancer drug Keytruda — which teaches the immune system to selectively take down tumour cells.
BioNTech, in collaboration with Genentech, has an mRNA vaccine in phase II human trials to treat colorectal cancer. And the University of Florida is undertaking a phase I clinical trial for an mRNA vaccine to tackle the most common type of brain tumour.
If even one of these vaccines is successful, it will mark the beginning of a new generation of cancer treatments which will hopefully improve patient survival rates.
Beyond vaccines, mRNA can have as many functions as can be written into their biological coding.
One application mRNA is being developed for is protein replacement therapy.
Sometimes cells may naturally lack the capacity to make their own mRNA for a specific protein in-house or the instructions they have are faulty, leading to nonfunctional or toxic forms of the protein mistakenly being built.
This is the case for certain genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis, where cells produce a faulty copy of a protein called cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator, or CFTR, which causes unhealthy levels of mucus to build up in the lungs.
By providing regular deliveries of the correct mRNA to the cells, they can start making the normal protein instead.
RCT2100, a cystic fibrosis mRNA drug developed by ReCode Therapeutics, is one of multiple mRNA drugs currently in human trials for this application.
Here, an inhaled form of mRNA is introduced to the lung cells to help them produce healthy CFTR proteins, with the aim of reducing the build-up of thick mucus and alleviating the symptoms experienced by cystic fibrosis patients.
If successful, such mRNA therapeutics can address unmet clinical needs and the lack of effective treatments, particularly for people diagnosed with rare genetic disorders.
Another type of RNA is silencing or small interfering RNA, abbreviated to siRNA. This is a type of non-coding RNA, which means it can’t instruct a cell to build a protein.
Instead, siRNA is like a gag order — designed to put a halt to the production of faulty or undesirable proteins.
siRNA instructs cellular machinery to seek out and intercept any copies of a specific mRNA out for delivery, and then tear them in half before they can be read by the cell’s manufacturing systems.
This leaves the cell with unfinished instructions which it cannot build from, and so it discards the mRNA.
Patisiran, for example, is an siRNA therapeutic approved in 2018 to treat the rare hereditary disease familial amyloid polyneuropathy, by instructing cells to stop making a faulty, toxic form of the protein transthyretin.
Over the past 30 years, scientists have faced and overcome multiple challenges in the development of RNA therapeutics.
One of the major breakthroughs has been the development of the lipid nanoparticle delivery system — a synthetic ‘envelope’ for the RNA instructions, protecting it from the harsh conditions in the body and allowing more precise delivery to targeted cells.
As a result, the field of RNA therapeutics has expanded incredibly.
As of late 2023, there are more than 80 mRNA therapeutics in human trials, with at least five new clinically approved mRNA drugs coming to market and many more in the registration process.
This isn’t including the myriad therapeutics in preclinical stages being developed by hundreds of companies and academic institutes worldwide, and medicines being developed using other types of RNA.
While there is still room for improvement, with RNA therapeutics the future looks bright.
Dr Emily Pilkington is a research fellow at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Her research interests include mRNA delivery technologies for applications in immunity and disease, in particular lipid nanoparticle formulation design.
Dr Rekha Shandre Mugan is a research fellow at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. She works on a project establishing and conducting a host of in vitro pharmacological and pharmacokinetic assays. Her research interests include mRNA delivery for applications in immunity and disease using lipid nanoparticles.
Both Dr Pilkington and Dr Shandre Mugan are project managers for mRNA Core, a collaborative initiative to foster the development of mRNA therapeutics towards clinical applications.
They’ve received funding for their research from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 22, 2024
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"author": "Emily Pilkington, Rekha Shandre Mugan"
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We‘ll need years of warning to deflect an asteroid - 360
Bruce A. Conway
Published on June 30, 2022
Using a spacecraft to knock an asteroid off a collision course is the best planetary defence we have. But it will take complex calculations, and plenty of time.
Astronomers deal with vast distances and spans of time, so on that scale, it was only moments ago the real danger of asteroids and comets came into sharp focus.
In 1994 the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet collided with Jupiter – an event predicted a year in advance and watched in real-time via the Hubble telescope. Humankind had already seen the craters on the Moon, legacy of numerous asteroid impacts, and photos of the asteroid-blasted Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908. When we watched a comet strike the solar system’s largest planet, though, we saw with absolute clarity the threat asteroids and comets pose to Earth. A potential collision is inevitable – the only unknown is how soon it will happen.
If we have enough warning, our planetary defence is most likely to be kinetic impact: sending a spacecraft to collide with the threatening object, slightly changing its momentum and eventually deflecting it from its original path.
We will need years to spare between the spacecraft’s impact with the hazardous object and the object’s close approach to the Earth. The mass of the spacecraft might be 10,000 to 1 million times less than the mass of the object, so even if the spacecraft could travel 10 to 15 kilometres per second, the impact might change the velocity of the object by only 1 centimetre per second – or less.
In the best-case scenario, that means a deflection of about 1 kilometre per day. But the object may need to be deflected by many thousands of kilometres depending on its trajectory – and that easily adds up to several years. We could shorten the time by sending successive spacecraft, each adding to the resulting deflection, as we would probably do in case an individual spacecraft failed in its mission.
Researchers have spent years determining how such a mission might be planned. Finding the optimal solution is not straightforward. As with many engineering problems, there are trade-offs and complications, and many variables to consider.
These include the launch date, the direction of the departure from Earth, the thrust ‘programme’ i.e. the time history of the direction the continuous low-thrust solar-electric engine should point, and finally, the date of impact (which determines the location of the object at impact). This constitutes a large problem in astrodynamics and optimisation for which intuition is almost useless.
Because we need so much time to deflect the asteroid, it’s reasonable to assume the earliest possible launch and impact are best, to allow the longest time for the impact to have an effect. The difficulty is the Earth and the object are both moving around the Sun, so the relative geometry continuously changes. This affects both the time required and the relative velocity at impact (higher is better, but the direction is also critically important).
The trajectory also determines how much fuel the spacecraft will consume. Larger consumption means less spacecraft mass at the time of impact and a reduced deflection effect. All the variables interact in a complicated way, but fortunately, numerical methods can determine the values yielding maximum deflection at the object’s closest approach to the Earth.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, launched in late 2021, aims to test the kinetic impact defence. The DART spacecraft’s goal is to collide with a particular small asteroid orbiting a much larger one. If all goes to plan, the small asteroid’s motion will be monitored after the collision to see what effect the impact had. The asteroid’s orbit around a larger asteroid will make its motion easier to track.
DART will not be the first trial of the method. In July 2005, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft collided with a comet, though for scientific reasons having nothing to do with hazardous-object deflection. But the mission proved a spacecraft could be targeted for such an impact despite the split-second timing required.
We have identified most of the many thousands of space objects in our planetary neighbourhood, particularly the largest and most dangerous. None of them has even a small probability of collision in the next few decades. It is very unlikely that a large, undetected object is on a collision course and that there is not enough time for the kinetic impact mechanism to work.
This doesn’t mean a new, dangerous object won’t be found: several new asteroids are detected every day now we are searching for them in earnest (which wasn’t true even two decades ago).
We can’t be complacent. The Chelyabinsk asteroid impact in 2013 demonstrated that a ‘small’ (20-metre) object can go undetected – all the way into the Earth’s atmosphere. Doing more tests like DART and developing a spacecraft for the kinetic impact mission are cheap insurance against the possibility we will need them.
Bruce A Conway is Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana, United States. He is the author of many research papers, book chapters and two books on orbital mechanics and optimisation.
No conflicts of interest were declared in relation to this article.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on June 30, 2022
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"author": "Bruce A. Conway"
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What a suicide registry database should look like - 360
Andrian Liem
Published on April 19, 2023
By capturing data on suicide cases and rates, a registry database can help provide better intervention programmes.
Content warning: This article discusses sensitive topics such as suicide that some readers may find distressing.
Decriminalising suicide alone is not enough to address the causes of suicidal behaviour or thought. Accurate data on suicide rates and attempts is critical to understanding the problem and developing effective prevention strategies.
These include providing crisis helplines, training health workers, establishing referral systems, implementing surveillance systems, conducting research and evaluating interventions.
Suicide registry databases can provide important information on demographics, risk factors and trends in suicidal behaviour. This information can be used to develop targeted suicide prevention interventions that address the needs of different populations. From the data collected, countries can identify risk factors and develop programmes that lead to improved mental health outcomes and a reduction in suicide rates over time.
According to the World Health Organization, as of 2021, only 80 member states have good-quality vital registration data that can be used directly to estimate suicide rates.
Finland’s Institute for Health and Welfare maintains a national suicide register which collects data on all suicides and suicide attempts in that country. The data is used to develop targeted suicide prevention interventions, such as outreach programmes for high-risk groups and training programs for healthcare professionals.
Similarly, in Croatia, the Committed Suicides Registry, established in 1986 at the Croatian Institute of Public Health, is a special health-statistical instrument for recording and monitoring data on the suicide cases of individuals in that country.
Collecting and reporting suicide data can be challenging. Stigma, fear of legal repercussions, and cultural or religious beliefs can prevent individuals from reporting suicide attempts or deaths. This can result in underreporting of suicide cases and inaccurate data.
In some countries such as Bangladesh, Brunei, Malaysia and Myanmar, where suicide is still considered a crime, individuals may face legal consequences if they are caught attempting suicide. As a result, suicide cases may be underreported and the true magnitude of the problem unknown, which then can hinder efforts to develop effective prevention strategies.
There is also a risk of over-reliance on suicide registry databases, which can lead to a narrow focus on prevention efforts. Suicide is a complex issue that can have multiple contributing factors, including mental illness, social isolation and economic factors. While suicide registry databases provide important data, countries can also consider these broader social and economic factors in developing suicide prevention strategies.
Inadequate resources and infrastructure may also become obstacles in low-income countries. Many low-income countries have limited mental health resources and may not have the capacity to collect and report suicide data effectively. The safety of individuals who have attempted suicide could be at stake without secure technology and data protection protocols. This could also be an issue in high and middle-income countries.
A cyberattack in 2020 on Vastaamo, a Finnish company that provides psychotherapy services, resulted in the hacker accessing the records of about 40,000 patients. The hacker demanded a ransom from the company or threatened to publish the data online. Some of the leaked data included notes from therapy sessions, diagnoses, personal identity codes and contact details. The company tried to negotiate with the hacker but failed. The hacker then contacted individual patients and demanded a ransom for each record.
The incident highlights the need for steps to ensure data collected through suicide registries is stored securely and accessed only by authorised individuals. This can include measures such as data encryption, regular security audits and training of staff on data privacy and security protocols. Additionally, individuals who have attempted suicide must be informed about the use and storage of their data and have the right to request that their information be deleted or anonymised.
There is also a risk that suicide registry databases can be used for punitive measures, such as prosecution or stigmatisation of individuals who have attempted suicide. The criminalisation of suicide reinforces the idea that suicide is a criminal act rather than a mental health issue, further stigmatising those who are struggling with suicidal thoughts.
Discussing suicide registry databases cannot be separated from discussing decriminalising suicide.
Since 1936, suicide has been a criminal offence in Malaysia under Section 309 of the Penal Code but in late 2021, the Malaysian government announced it would finally abolish the act. In the same year, Malaysia’s Ministry of Health revealed it was planning to develop a National Suicide and Fatal Injury Registry which is expected to be completed in 2023. With an allocation of MYR 4 million (USD$904,000), the system can provide detailed and accurate statistics on suicides and fatal injuries to strengthen policy development efforts and suicide prevention programmes.
But there is another act that could be revised to support adequate suicide registry databases. The Malaysian Mental Health Act 2001 regulates the admission, detention, care, treatment and protection of people with mental disorders. The act was enacted in 2001 but only came into force in 2010 and is still not fully implemented and enforced due to various challenges such as inadequate resources and a lack of awareness and coordination among stakeholders.
It is important to expand the definition of mental disorders to include suicidal behaviour and other mental health conditions that may increase the risk of suicide. This should ensure an individual will get proper mental health treatment instead of punishment.
Encouraging mandatory reporting of suicide cases by health professionals, police, forensic units and other relevant parties along with providing clear guidelines on how to obtain consent from a next-of-kin or legal representative of the deceased person for data collection and sharing would help understand the problems.
Combined with a mechanism for data protection and confidentiality that complies with international standards and ethical principles along with creating a provision for periodic review and evaluation of the suicide registry database by an independent body or committee, should ensure its quality and safety.
Suicide registry databases are important tools for understanding and preventing suicide. However, countries must also be aware of the limitations and potential risks associated with them such as underreporting, privacy concerns, over-reliance and punitive measures. By addressing these challenges, countries can develop effective suicide intervention strategies that address the unique needs of different individuals while protecting their privacy and dignity.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, visit https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp.
Andrian Liem is a research fellow at the Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. Andrian’s research interests include global mental health, gender and sexuality, and health justice. He tweets at @liemandrian.
Editors Note: In the story “Decriminalising suicide” sent at: 17/04/2023 10:28.
This is a corrected repeat.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on April 19, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-a-suicide-registry-database-should-look-like/",
"author": "Andrian Liem"
}
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2,424 |
What a sustainable construction supply chain looks like - 360
TamilSalvi Mari
Published on November 21, 2023
The building industry is a substantial contributor to pollution. Making it sustainable and more eco-friendly has many challenges.
In the heart of a bustling city, construction of a new skyscraper is underway. Cranes swing, workers toil and cement mixers whirl, embodying human ambition and progress. Yet, amid this rapid development, a pressing question looms: what is the environmental cost?
The building industry will come under the microscope at this month’s COP28 summit in Dubai, UAE, a city risen from the sand where cranes are an almost permanent feature of the skyline.
Often lauded as an engine of economic growth and infrastructure development, construction is a substantial contributor to environmental pollution.
Take aluminium. It is lightweight and resistant to corrosion. But the environmental price of aluminium production is steep, marked by energy-intensive processes with harmful consequences on health and the environment.
One study highlights the alarming emissions of aluminium manufacturing, including carbon dioxide, sulphur, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, mercury-containing compounds, and halogenated particles with fluorine.
Astonishingly, this production sector accounts for a significant 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissionswhich has resulted in calls for swift action within the supply chain which urge construction stakeholders to confront their polluting practices and reduce their environmental footprint.
Vigilant monitoring of manufacturing processes and the effective enforcement of environmental laws and regulations have the potential to propel cleaner production practices, mitigating environmental impact.
In July 2022, a Malaysian aluminium smelting company was fined MYR36,000 (USD$7,707) for violating environmental pollution regulations under Malaysia’s Environmental Quality Act of 1974.
But with stricter enforcement of environmental regulations, such as low-impact development, comes higher operating costs for builders.
These higher construction costs, in turn, can lead to higher consumer prices for homes and other buildings, particularly eco-friendly structures with advanced materials, like those built to standards such as Passivhaus in the UK.
The positives are apparent. While buyers and renters are faced with increased upfront costs, these are balanced by long-term energy savings.
At the same time, there are opportunities for manufacturers of eco-friendly building materials, leading to an expanded global market for green construction materials.
The flipside of that, however, is increased compliance costs, requiring construction companies to allocate resources for material sourcing and pollution mitigation.
Despite these challenges, the need to internalise external pollution costs promotes research and innovation within the construction industry.
Construction firms around the world are now embracing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics in their business. As part of their environmental commitment, these firms champion sustainable procurement, which compels the supply chain to share the environmental responsibilities linked to the materials they provide.
This approach considers resource depletion, carbon emissions and waste generation, aligning with the principles of making the polluters pay.
Swedish building firm Skanska is a leader in this with its sustainable procurement policy, which prioritises sustainable material sourcing.
It engages its suppliers to actively reduce their carbon footprint and manage environmental and social impact. Skanska’s commitment is evident in its exclusive collaboration with suppliers who understand the nature of their products and their responsibility to protect the environment while maintaining positive relationships with their employees and local communities.
The polluter pays principle places the onus on those responsible for pollution to bear the cost. Originally concerned with allocating costs related to pollution prevention and management, the principle has evolved to encompass expenses tied to accidental pollution prevention, control, and clean-up.
The concept of green supply chain management integrates environmental considerations to reduce the consumption of materials and unintended environmental consequences.
Sustainable supply chain management is a more comprehensive concept, encompassing environmental, social and economic aspects of manufacturing, labour practices and corporate social responsibility.
Sustainable supply chain management aligns with the polluter pays principle by promoting responsible sourcing, waste reduction, and carbon footprint reduction. It ensures polluters bear the costs of mitigation and prevention.
Government regulations can help, particularly in encouraging responsible sourcing of materials and sustainability standards.
California’s Green Building Standards Code (CALGreen) mandates sustainable construction practices, while tax incentives and certification programs such as Singapore’s Green Mark Scheme and the United States LEED Certification offer financial rewards for adhering to sustainability standards.
In Malaysia, the Green Building Index (GBI), endorsed by the government, promotes sustainable construction practices, and projects achieving GBI certification receive recognition and incentives. Additionally, governments require environmental impact assessments for major projects, which assess and minimise environmental impact.
However, the practical application of the polluter pays principle faces hurdles with enforcement, cost and compliance. Smaller building firms in particular often struggle to meet the cost of compliance or any penalties.
The absence of consistent standards also leads to confusion and higher costs for construction companies operating across different countries.
Complex permit applications and environmental impact assessments can be time-consuming. Poor monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations, primarily in developing countries, undermine the effectiveness of the policy, allowing some construction companies to evade environmental responsibilities. For example, illegal sand mining persists despite bans.
Public awareness and education play a critical role in conveying the importance and implications of the polluters pay policy. Workshops, awareness campaigns, and education programmes ensure communities are well-informed about environmental regulations and the responsibilities of construction companies. Transparency in project planning enables communities to voice concerns.
The construction industry is at a crossroads, balancing progress and environmental responsibility. The increasing adoption of sustainability practices fosters innovation as the industry meets the costs of pollution.
However, challenges persist in practical implementation and ensuring transparency. Strict adherence to the polluter pays principle within the construction supply chain is imperative for shaping a sustainable and responsible future.
Ts. Dr. TamilSalvi Mari is a Program Director for the Master of Science in Virtual Design and Construction at Taylor’s University, Malaysia. Salvi’s research is centred on sustainable built environments, with a particular focus on energy efficiency, digitisation, decarbonisation, and creating humane living spaces.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 21, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-a-sustainable-construction-supply-chain-looks-like/",
"author": "TamilSalvi Mari"
}
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2,425 |
What are marine heatwaves and are they happening more often? - 360
Sofia Darmaraki
Published on August 21, 2023
Marine heatwaves are occurring more frequently, but what exactly are they?
High temperatures and heatwaves across the globe saw records broken in July 2023 on land and in the oceans.
The oceans serve as the Earth’s heat reservoir, absorbing substantial amounts of thermal energy as a result of their continuous interaction with the atmosphere.
Under specific conditions, prolonged periods of unusually high temperatures in the oceans are called marine heatwaves, much like their atmospheric counterparts.
These higher temperatures could be driven by increased heat input from the atmosphere, decreased heat losses from the ocean or the transfer of warmer water masses through currents.
Over the past two decades these events have become more prevalent and widespread, having been observed in various areas of the global ocean, in both regional and large scales, at the surface of the ocean and at depth.
In particular, recent data shows the occurrence of marine heatwaves surged by 34 percent between 1925 and 2016.
While the exact mechanisms triggering marine heatwaves vary from region to region, researchers have identified two primary contributing factors.
In some instances, the atmospheric conditions themselves play a pivotal role.
During such episodes, stagnant air masses and prolonged high temperatures in the atmosphere conspire to heat the ocean’s surface, setting the stage for a marine heatwave event.
This pattern was notably evident during a 2012 North Atlantic event, which saw one of the highest sea surface temperatures ever recorded.
In other cases, the main driver is the movement of ocean currents, which transport relatively warm water masses to new areas.
When these warm masses converge in specific regions, they cause a rapid and abrupt increase in the sea’s surface temperature, as witnessed in the 2015 Tasman Sea event.
The effects of marine heatwaves can be significant, impacting marine ecosystems and coastal communities that rely on the oceans for sustenance and livelihoods.
Apart from resulting in the loss and/or the degradation of ecosystem services, the most significant repercussions of marine heatwaves are observed in marine organisms.
These include unprecedented mass deaths of marine species, seabirds, kelp forests, seagrass and other coastal vegetation.
Marine heatwaves also lead to extensive species migration, abrupt shifts in the composition of ecological communities — for example, an influx of more tropical fish species — as well as coral bleaching and harmful algal blooms.
Such ecological upheavals have far-reaching effects on the nutrition and economic activity of communities dependent on fishing.
They can prompt significant socioeconomic ramifications, through negative effects or even the collapse of commercially valuable fisheries as a response to marine heatwave-related declines of fish stocks.
This can ultimately lead to economic and political tensions between nations or affect the aquaculture industry with disease outbreaks in commercially important species.
Marine heatwaves are not as easy to predict as their atmospheric counterparts because their physical drivers are more variable as well as local-scale oceanographic features, such as strong ocean currents and upwelling, which may help or hinder their development.
However, forecasts can be improved if their physical drivers are linked to large-scale climate modes, which are easier to predict in advance. Scientists have used climate models to help make seasonal forecasts of when marine heatwaves might occur, including predicting subsurface marine heatwaves.
Collaborative efforts among scientists, using cutting-edge technology and data-driven approaches, are at the forefront of attempts to enhance predictive capabilities.
Successful forecasting systems can help fisheries adapt to the increased occurrence of marine heatwaves through the implementation of a series of measures — such as management of catchments, restrictions on fishing and the establishment of marine protected areas — if sufficient warning is provided.
As the impacts of marine heatwaves reverberate across the globe, understanding the complex interplay between the oceans and the atmosphere is crucial for predicting the occurrence of these extreme events.
In the face of climate change, conserving and protecting our oceans becomes ever more critical.
Therefore improving marine heatwave predictability is crucial to empower communities and ecosystems alike to adapt and build resilience.
By better understanding the science behind marine heatwaves and taking collective action, people can work towards a more resilient and sustainable future for the oceans.
Dr Sofia Darmaraki is a physical oceanographer and climate extremes researcher at the Coastal & Marine Research Laboratory of the Institute of Applied & Computational Mathematics in the Foundation for Research and Technology — Hellas (FORTH). Her research interests include the investigation of physical processes behind extreme warm/cold events in the ocean in the context of climate change.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on August 21, 2023
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"author": "Sofia Darmaraki"
}
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2,426 |
What are universities for? - 360
Suzannah Lyons
Published on May 8, 2024
Are universities fit for purpose in the 21st century?
Universities serve as hubs of knowledge creation and dissemination: driving advances in healthcare, technology, human rights, and our understanding of ourselves and the universe.
They aim to foster economic dynamism, social cohesion and enhance our quality of life, and play a crucial role in furthering our sovereign capability and strengthening foreign relations through enduring research networks.
In Australia, the worth and impact of universities loom large in national conversations. But as universities navigate myriad roles and responsibilities, are they delivering on their promise?
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “University challenge” sent at: 06/05/2024 07:26.
This is a corrected repeat.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 8, 2024
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{
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://360info.org/what-are-universities-for/",
"author": "Suzannah Lyons"
}
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2,427 |
What Australia gets wrong about the right to protest - 360
Sarah Moulds
Published on August 30, 2023
Australians might think their right to march in the streets is constitutionally guaranteed, but it isn’t.
Modern democracies are under pressure.
Conventional approaches to politics, governance and representation are being rejected by groups and individuals who feel their voices are not being heard. People are taking to the streets or adopting other ways to protest in response to government decisions.
The right to protest, or more specifically, the right to peaceful assembly is protected under international law and supported by other key democratic freedoms, including freedom of expression and association.
But at a domestic level, legal protection for the ‘right to protest’ depends on two important factors: whether a country’s constitution places limits on making protest illegal and the type of powers given to authorities tasked with enforcing anti-protest laws.
It is easy to think of countries where both of these factors are missing.
In Myanmar, the military junta has arrested more than 16,000 pro-democracy supporters, and arbitrarily changed laws, including bringing police under armed forces control.
There are effectively no limits on the scope of criminal law and police must use their powers to uphold the authoritarian regime.
In other places, such as Indonesia, the right to assembly, association and expression of opinion is explicitly included in the constitution, but protesters remain subject to significant risk of prosecution, discrimination and sometimes mistreatment at the hands of law enforcement.
This has played out with Indonesian efforts to regulate and control the provinces of Papua and West Papua, on the western half of the island of New Guinea, which provoked protests from West Papuan communities and separatist groups.
Indonesian authorities responded by using excessive force to break up protests and passed new criminal offences, including reinstating prison sentences for insulting the government and banning unauthorised demonstrations.
In Australia, many assume the right to protest is protected by law, but in fact no specific legal protections for the right exist.
This is because, unlike almost every other democracy in the region, Australia does not have a Bill of Rights.
The right to peaceful assembly is included in human rights legislation in the states of Victoria, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory and it is possible to conduct a lawful ‘public assembly‘ in some places, with the approval of police or other authorities.
However the ‘right to protest’ is not an enforceable individual right and can be removed or limited by other laws.
The only relevant constitutional protection is an implied freedom of political communication, a concept Australia’s High Court developed to protect the system of representative democracy set out in the Australian Constitution.
This implied freedom works in a different way to an individual human right. It puts limits on parliaments making laws that disproportionately restrict political communication (such as laws banning political advertising) but does not require parliaments or governments to protect an individual’s right to protest or freedom of speech in any way.
This means that state and territory governments can respond harshly, and often very quickly, to new forms of protest that challenge their political agenda or disrupt certain parts of the community.
We see this in climate activism, where protesters are adopting creative methods to voice dissent, including defacing artworks, planting stink bombs and interrupting conferences.
State governments are responding by imposing increasingly serious fines and jail terms.
For example, in May 2023, an activist from the group Extinction Rebellion dangled off a South Australian city bridge as part of a protest timed to coincide with a meeting of major oil and gas companies. Commuters along busy North Terrace in Adelaide were delayed by roadblocks set up by emergency services in response to the stunt.
The activist was charged with several offences, including obstructing a public place.
The next day, the South Australian government introduced changes that increased the fine for that offence from AUD$750 to AUD$50,000 (USD$485 to $32,395) or a three-month jail sentence. Protesters can also be charged with the costs of any police and other emergency services called to the scene.
These amendments were passed by the lower house by lunchtime, debated by the upper house within a week, and became law without any community consultation.
Laws imposing harsh penalties on protesters have also been passed in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
Some believe these laws are an appropriate response to ‘extreme’ behaviour by activists. Others consider them overreach and a distraction from dealing with substantive policy issues, such as climate change.
But both camps regularly assume there is a legally protected right to protest in Australia that can be used as a basis for deciding whether the government’s response is fair in the circumstances.
In reality, no such legal right exists.
In this regard, Australia has more in common with its more authoritarian neighbours than it might like to admit.
It too must re-evaluate its approach to protecting human rights if it wants to create opportunities for inclusive civic participation and peaceful resolution of differences.
And in doing so, Australia must guard against the growing sense of distrust in democracy that is plaguing the region.
Dr Sarah Moulds is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of South Australia and co-founder of the Rights Resource Network SA. She is passionate about parliaments and connecting citizens and communities with lawmakers. In 2022 Dr Moulds was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to explore how to empower young people to engage effectively with Australian parliaments.
The researcher is the volunteer Director of the Rights Resource Network SA.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on August 30, 2023
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"author": "Sarah Moulds"
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2,428 |
What Australia's new gas strategy gets wrong - 360
Samantha Hepburn
Published on May 24, 2024
Australia’s gas future must involve energy security and climate security. The new government strategy fails to strike this balance.
In the transition to net zero, the key challenge for Australia is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while balancing energy security.
The truth is, finding this balancewill remain impossible as long as we continue to equate energy security with fossil fuel expansion. Climate security cannot be treated as a secondary consideration, disconnected to our economic future. Climate security is our economic future.
Unfortunately this is not the message underpinning the government’s recently released Future Gas Strategy.
In this report, the government recommends an expansion of gas development in Australia, thereby ensuring that natural gas will continue as a firm component of Australia’s power mix until 2050.
The strategy positions natural gas as a vital export underpinning a wide range of economic activity, and providing essential firming services as the renewable power generation capacity expands and coal-fired power exits.
In doing so, the report fails to address the profound concerns associated with expanding fossil fuel projects within a rapidly warming globe.
The need to decarbonise the fossil fuel sector has never been more pressing and — as the International Energy Agency has made very clear — this means no new fossil fuel projects can be developed if the world is to remain within the safe limits of global heating and avoid the catastrophic consequences of an escalating climate emergency.
The report articulates what it describes as six core gas principles.
The first Principle, ‘Getting to net zero emissions by 2050,’ argues that that expanding natural gas is possible because gas usage can be abated or offset to meet Australia’s net zero commitments.
According to the report, increased efficiency and electrification of processes, along with the replacement of gas with low-emission gases and offsetting remaining emissions, will ensure we meet our climate commitments while providing the energy security Australia needs.
In other words, the strategy blithely assumes that expanding gas is an economic priority and that abating or offsetting gas emissions is not only possible but actually the most effective way of achieving net zero.
The difficulty with this assumption is that the new gas projects being proposed are estimated to dramatically increase current emissions. This means that abatement and offsets cannot possibly counter the impact.
For example, the lifetime emissions from the proposed Burrup Hub expansion by Woodside in the Pilbara are estimated to be roughly 13 times Australia’s annual emissions and 30 times the total savings made by the current safeguard mechanism leading up to 2030.
What’s more, one of the key abatement measures proposed within the strategy, carbon capture sequestration (CCS), is itself far from perfect.
Questions remain about whether carbon capture technology is actually commercially viable — or just a Trojan horse used by fossil fuel lobbyists to gain entry to conversations about sustainable energy.
There is little evidence that carbon capture works at scale.
To date, the only commercially active project in Australia has been the Gorgon project on Barren Island in Western Australia. Despite an approval premised on capturing 80 percent of the Gorgon project’s emissions, during the 2020/21 financial year, failure leakage and error meant that emissions ranged from 157 percent to 226 percent above the environmental impact statement estimation and in total, the excess emissions that were not supposed to be in the atmosphere amounted to 15,977,663 tCO2e.
In late 2022, an analysis of carbon capture and storage programs found that several of the world’s largest projects are significantly underperforming. Of the 13 flagship cerbon capturemschemes analysed by that global report, most have captured much less CO2 than expected.
The danger in rationalising the expansion of fossil fuel upon carbon capture, as the gas report does, is that new projects approved on this basis may well fail. If they do, they will release unapproved emissions, and that damage cannot be undone.
The remaining gas principles set out in the report essentially argue that, in order for gas to remain affordable and for energy security to continue within a transitioning framework, the expansion and development of new gas supply projects is vital. This includes the promotion and development of new gas import facilities.
Unfortunately, these remaining principles do not make it clear that skyrocketing gas prices on the east coast of Australia are a direct product of the failure of successive governments to regulate the liquefied natural gas (LNG) export market. In the absence of new laws to regulate the export market, high gas prices are likely to increase.
Australia produces enormous quantities of gas, but we export almost all of it. Last year we exported nearly 81 million tonnes — nearly 90 percent of total production — thereby leaving only 10 percent for the domestic market.
As the export market expands, the cost of gas for the domestic consumer on the east coast will correspondingly expand.
There is no guarantee that supply from new projects will be directed to increase domestic supply and address pricing concerns.
The absence of a regulatory mechanism compelling producers to reserve a percentage of gas for the domestic market means that if exports continue to expand domestic consumers will continue to compete with an international market.
The report does not propose any regulatory measure to address these concerns.
It suggests that domestic consumers will purchase Australian gas on the international market then store it in expensive new import facilities. But that idea is absurd and completely unnecessary.
Implementing new mandatory requirements compelling producers to retain a greater percentage of natural gas from existing projects for the domestic market would resolve pricing and supply concerns.
Such a strategy would not undermine economic development or interfere with our reputation with trade-partners. Rather, it would compel multi-national gas producers to give appropriate regard to national interest — incorporating both energy and climate security concerns — when extracting a public resource with a potent capacity to contribute to global warming.
Rather than risking our pathway towards net zero and our international climate commitments with unnecessary and unconscionable plans for fossil fuel expansion, the Australian government must reassess its priorities. Reserving supply from existing gas projects should be the imperative.
Samantha Hepburn is a Professor of Law in Deakin Law School. Previously, Samantha was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the Australian National University. She completed her PhD from the University of Melbourne. Samantha teaches and researches in the area of property and land law, as well as mining, energy and environmental law and has published books and articles in these areas. Samantha has a strong research interest in unconventional gas regulation in Australia and is also examining the regulatory development of carbon capture sequestration both in Australia and internationally.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Energy” sent at: 21/05/2024 10:38.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 24, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-australias-new-gas-strategy-gets-wrong/",
"author": "Samantha Hepburn"
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2,429 |
What can be done about the homes crisis - 360
Chris Bartlett
Published on May 31, 2023
The world faces a squeeze on affordable housing.
The world is facing a housing squeeze. By the end of this decade, the UN estimates that 40 per cent of the world’s population will need access to adequate housing.
Already, housing affordability is at crisis levels in many countries. Surging prices mean millions cannot afford to buy a home.
How policymakers address the issue will have ramifications for a generation struggling to afford a roof above their heads.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Housing affordability” sent at: 29/05/2023 07:49.
This is a corrected repeat.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 31, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-can-be-done-about-the-homes-crisis/",
"author": "Chris Bartlett"
}
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What can be done to help Australia’s biodiversity - 360
Natalya Maitz
Published on March 14, 2023
Australia’s most powerful law protecting the environment hasn’t done enough to stop the rapid decline of the nation’s wildlife.
The regent honeyeater is a small bird, mostly black, with speckles of soft yellow dotted down its body. Its chirp is a scratchy warble that coos through pockets of Australia’s eastern coast. A critically endangered species, there are believed to be fewer than 400 left in the wild. A high-priority threat to their survival is habitat loss from residential and commercial development.
Australia’s main law protecting the environment has been in place since 2000. As of now, it doesn’t mention climate change. Businessman Graeme Samuel said reform was “long overdue” in an independent October 2020 review. The law — the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 — is the cornerstone statute that is supposed to protect critically endangered species like the regent honeyeater.
The law governs, among other things, clearing land for developments. If a project is likely to have a “significant impact” on surrounding ecology (classified as “matters of national environmental significance”), the development must be referred to the Australian government with an outline of the intended action. The government can either stop the action, allow it to proceed as proposed, or decide further review is necessary.
In theory, this is a sound system. In practice, the laws aren’t working. Between 2000 and 2015, 63 percent of weighted potential habitat loss in Queensland and New South Wales was cleared in determinations that received little, if any, pushback from the initial referral application.
The urban development sector cleared 2209 hectares of land providing potential habitat for the regent honeyeater between 2000 and 2015 in Queensland and New South Wales, 99 percent of which occurred under referrals that were waved through by the government. Predominantly, the projects put before authorities were small lots of land with a median area of three hectares.
The regent honeyeater population is among several threatened by this pace of development. The number of threatened species has increased by an average of eight percent over the past five years. Depleted population numbers among regent honeyeaters are beginning to interfere with fundamental behavioural characteristics. Urban sprawl isn’t going anywhere and is expected to intensify over the next 20 years. The many threatened species inhabiting these urban areas, which rely on the remnant patches of vegetation for survival, will likely require stronger protections than is currently provided by law.
Issues with law partly come down to its construction, which is vaguely defined in parts and vulnerable to exploitation. The process relies on honesty from developers hoping to get their project approved. It’s not unusual for applications to describe the to-be-impacted environment as already “degraded”, suggesting its preservation is less of a priority. The Australian government appears to lack access to reliable data to critically examine claims like this, leaving them to trust the applicant (who has a financial motive to get the project approved) and external hired consultants.
But even honest information can be misapplied. The law defines “significant impact” vaguely, meaning advocates for a development have flexibility in mounting a case to get their project approved. And, because there are few objective standards for what “significant impact” is to an environment, decision-makers also have little guidance on how to rule. This leaves room for subjective factors to sway a verdict.
Where that happens, there’s little transparency. Decision-makers don’t have a set of measurable standards by which their ruling has to be justified, so there’s little accountability for verdicts. This leaves open the perception — just or not — that social and economic factors are given undue weight over environmental considerations. If that’s the case, more referrals could be waved through.
When lucrative developments, politics and the environment mix, it becomes a complicated cocktail. The lack of stringent, defined guidelines within the law makes it more difficult for all sides.
Poor administration of Australia’s environmental law is affecting attempts to protect threatened biodiversity. Only seven percent of all potential habitat cleared in Australia is even referred to the government for consideration. Factoring in projects that get waved through, possibly as little as four percent of all land providing potential habitat in Queensland and New South Wales undergoes thorough assessment under Australian environmental law.
These thorough assessments are the main institutional pipeline in which mitigations and offsets can be applied, transforming environmentally destructive projects into developments with, what should be, a non-significant net impact on local biodiversity.
Change doesn’t require tearing the entire system down. Investments in databases to give the government better data would better inform the decision-making process. If authorities had a clearer picture on habitat mapping, monitoring species populations and a spatial tracker on former approvals, they’d have the context and information to more confidently judge referrals that came before them.
Decision-makers would also benefit from stronger wording in the law, especially around defining “significant impact”. Establishing a quantitative threshold for habitat destruction for each protected matter would be a tough task, but one that would provide much stronger protections. Much like the provisions already in place for koalas, these thresholds should promote compliance — making it harder to downplay the environmental significance if it falls short of an objective standard. To ensure rigid, fair standards, a scientific committee with up-to-date ecological knowledge can help craft the standards.
Australian wildlife is rapidly declining and Australia’s keystone legislation will influence which direction it takes from here. Samuel’s call for reform in 2020 has yet to be met but in the face of mounting evidence of the law’s ineffectiveness, action might need to be taken sooner rather than later to prevent more ecological destruction.
Natalya Maitz is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. Her research focuses on biodiversity conservation with a particular focus on threat management, strategic planning, and evaluating environmental policy.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 14, 2023
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"author": "Natalya Maitz"
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2,431 |
What universities can do better to deliver on their promise - 360
Suzannah Lyons
Published on May 8, 2024
From climate change to collaborating better with industry, universities are facing a range of challenges. Here are some ways they might respond.
The world around us is changing, which provides an opportunity for universities to recast their relationship with their students and the broader public.
There are three demands that universities could expect to be made of them in a climate-changed world, writes University of Technology Sydney’s Associate Professor Tamson Pietsch.
Universities will be asked to become more sustainable both in terms of their own behaviour and who they invest and partner with, and to achieve this more quickly in keeping with the urgency of the challenge we’re confronting.
They are needed to produce the knowledge and skills we’ll need to transition to a lower emissions economy, and to be places where a society in flux can come together and figure things out.
One way to assist with the transition to a lower carbon world is by Australian universities meeting the demand for training in the specialised skills needed by our Indo-Pacific neighbours seeking to decarbonise their economies, write Climateworks Centre’s Trang Nguyen and Luke Brown.
They also have a role to play in unlocking networks between Australian companies and neighbours in the region.
Political, educational and community leaders need to respond urgently to the current Pro-Palestinian student protests, writes The University of Western Australia’s Professor James Arvanitakis.
And rather than relying on riot police, as has occurred in the US, university leadership should be engaging directly with the students’ demands and dealing with antisemitic and anti-Islamic rhetoric as hate speech.
He also calls for a return of complex and intractable topics to the classroom and giving students the opportunity to work through them alongside classmates and teachers with which they may disagree.
Improving the ability of Australian public universities to collaborate better with industry resists a one-size-fits-all approach, write Southern Cross University’s Associate Professor Michael B. Charles and Adjunct Associate Professor David Noble, but fostering more grassroots innovation and embracing greater risk-taking would be a good start.
Australian innovation could also benefit from industry being part of the conversation when national priorities for research funding are set and funding decisions are made, writes Federation University Australia’s Professor Iven Mareels.
In Malaysia policy reforms for a more inclusive educational future are needed, writes University of Nottingham Malaysia’s Associate Professor Rozilini Mary Fernandez-Chung.
By expanding scholarship and support programmes for underprivileged students regardless of their racial background, Malaysia could mitigate the need for racial quotas, she said.
Making universities better workplaces isn’t only about more government money but rather far more transparency on how it is spent, writes Deakin University’s Professor Louise C. Johnson.
More could be done to limit, and even turn around, the casualisation of the workforce and strengthen academic freedom itself.
And the proliferation of university managers would benefit from better understanding the broader purpose of universities in society beyond their financial and narrowly educational roles, particularly as the world around us changes.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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Published on May 8, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-can-universities-do-better-to-deliver-on-their-promise/",
"author": "Suzannah Lyons"
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What cost for riches from the ocean floor? - 360
Tasha Wibawa
Published on July 5, 2023
The regulatory body for deep sea mining is under pressure to accept mining applications, but what are the risks?
The clock is ticking for the International Seabed Authority, the regulatory body for deep sea mining, which will need to begin considering applications for commercial mining from July 9.
It comes after Nauru pulled a so-called two-year trigger in 2021, meaning the Pacific Island nation intends to submit plans to mine for critical minerals such as cobalt in the international seabed between Hawaii and Mexico.
Deep sea mining is a relatively new field and there are currently no official laws surrounding it.
The trigger means the Seabed Authority will have to consider Nauru’s application, regardless of whether it has finalised laws to protect the seabed or not.
While the consequences of full-scale mining are still unknown, it will likely affect ocean-dependent communities the most, particularly across the Pacific where mining opportunities are being explored.
In this special report, the experts investigate the potential environmental and social impacts of deep sea mining — on the supply chain, the fisheries industry and for those who rely on the ocean for food, livelihoods and culture.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Mining the deep” sent at: 03/07/2023 07:49.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on July 5, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-cost-for-riches-from-the-ocean-floor/",
"author": "Tasha Wibawa"
}
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What COVID-19 taught us about antibiotics misuse - 360
Kamini Walia
Published on September 6, 2023
Plenty of mistakes were made in the use of antibiotics during the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to learn from them to curb the growth of antimicrobial resistance.
Rampant overuse of antibiotics during the COVID-19 pandemic — largely because of lack of knowledge — fuelled the growth of antimicrobial resistance but also delivered two key lessons for the future. Ironically, the pandemic-induced overuse of antibiotics also makes a future bacterial or viral pandemic even more likely.
Key lessons reinforced by the pandemic were that the use of antibiotics needs to be rationalised and, to achieve that, medical professionals and the broader public need to understand why.
The overuse of antibiotics for COVID-19 was largely caused by the lack of specific treatment for the virus. Ignorance of the cause and the rapid evolution of COVID-19 gave the medical fraternity little time to develop evidence-based strategies. So COVID-19 patients with or without the evidence of co-infections or secondary infections received futile treatments, leading to higher health costs, growing antimicrobial resistance and in some situations also more deaths.
Antimicrobial drugs, including antibiotics and antifungals, are the foundation of modern medicine and an integral part of sustainable healthcare systems. When prescribed appropriately and equitably, they save lives. However, their misuse contributes to the development of resistance, making some infections harder to treat because they no longer respond to the drugs available. The result then is patients experience prolonged illness, longer hospital stays, higher costs of treatment and increased risk of death.
The COVID-19 pandemic magnified the growth rate of antimicrobial resistance, largely because of ignorance and fear. The overuse of antibiotics to treat COVID-19 patients hindered infection control and prevention practices in health systems. The consequences were devastating, leading to an enormous strain on health systems and financial resources.
In India, studies showed a surge in the use of azithromycin alongside the rise of COVID-19 as most cases of fever in patients with suspected COVID-19 were prescribed azithromycin. In hospitalised patients, the use of broad spectrum agents, especially carbapenems, was the norm. The scientific approach to infection control was also hampered by the fear of the pandemic and ignorance of precautions.
To compensate for the deficiencies, doctors resorted to the rampant use of antibiotic and antifungal agents. These measures were further fuelled by evolving knowledge that fungal infections were more common in severely ill patients with COVID-19.
Doctors soon learnt their lessons. It would be prudent to apply these lessons now, to prevent antimicrobial resistance from assuming alarming proportions in the future. The only way to limit antimicrobial resistance in hospitals and communities is to instil the idea of responsible and rational use of antimicrobials. That comes through educating and creating awareness about the problem in the community and the physicians.
The practice of antimicrobial stewardship needs to be strengthened at all levels of public health systems. Antimicrobial stewardship is the systematic effort to educate and persuade prescribers of antimicrobials to follow evidence-based prescribing to stem antimicrobial overuse and resulting antimicrobial resistance.
There is a need to plug gaps in the current practice and application of antimicrobial stewardship. Since most Indian government hospitals do not have infectious disease physicians, a clinician with a passion for stewardship can be trained for that role. Physicians at all levels need to be educated against prescription of antimicrobials without confirming the diagnosis of an infection.
Investment into diagnostic routines, such as quality laboratories and point-of-care diagnostics for bacteria, fungi and viral infections is critical. A lot of antimicrobials during COVID-19 were prescribed to prevent secondary infections. The practice of good infection control can inspire physicians to prescribe responsibly and can be achieved in hospitals by a good infection control team.
Guidelines that can be easily implemented and customised for low and middle-income countries can ensure the standardisation of infection control practices in the smaller hospitals that make up the bulk of facilities in a country like India. Infection control in hospitals needs to be strengthened and diagnostic stewardship improved. Facilities with the right antimicrobial stewardship team can ensure appropriate prescribing practices and increased multidrug-resistant organism monitoring.
The World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Selection and Use of Essential Medicines created the AWaRe Classification of Antibiotics in 2017 as a tool to support antibiotic stewardship efforts. The classification puts antibiotics into three groups: Access, Watch, and Reserve, to emphasise the significance of appropriate use while also accounting for the impact of various antibiotics on antimicrobial resistance.
It is a useful tool for monitoring antibiotic consumption, defining targets and monitoring the effects of stewardship policies. Doctors need to be educated about the AWaRe classification and the hazards of using broad-spectrum antimicrobials.
The increasing use of broad spectrum antimicrobials is the result of a range of factors. They include the lack of definitive diagnosis of the disease-causing pathogen, increasing antimicrobial resistance to other antibiotic classes, lack of availability of first-line penicillin antibiotics and even the marketing and promotion practices of drug manufacture. The withering away of broad spectrum antimicrobials from AWaRe’s Watch and Reserve classification groups by physicians is not a good sign.
This practice results in limited and more expensive treatment options for drug-resistant infections in Indian patients and can result in higher associated suffering and death. Making antimicrobial stewardship part of undergraduate and post-graduate medical education is also vital.
With the diminishing power of antibiotics to treat infections due growing antimicrobial resistance, the threat of a bacterial pandemic or a viral pandemic — accompanied by secondary bacterial infections resistant to the available stock of antimicrobials — remains potent. Investments in healthcare systems to provide trained personnel, well equipped laboratories and creating awareness about the threat of drug-resistant superbugs is the only way forward to pandemic-proof a crisis that is already severe.
Dr Kamini Walia is a senior scientist at Division of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi. She leads the ICMR initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Fighting superbugs” sent at: 04/09/2023 09:45.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on September 6, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-covid-19-taught-us-about-antibiotics-misuse/",
"author": "Kamini Walia"
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What does 2024 hold in the fight against climate change? - 360
Lachlan Guselli
Published on December 29, 2023
2023 was another record-breaking year in the fight against a changing climate, just not the kind that many had hoped for.
The United Nations World Meteorological Organization’s key messages from its most recent update read that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, greenhouse gas levels continue to increase, sea surface temperatures and sea level rise are at record levels, while Antarctic sea ice has hit record lows.
Charity Save the Children estimates that at least 12,000 people died from floods, wildfires, cyclones, storms, and landslides globally in 2023, 30 percent more than in 2022.
It offers a dire outlook for the year ahead.
In spite of this, the calendar will roll over to 2024, and the global struggle to limit emissions continues under predictions that conditions will worsen as the impacts of El Nino are felt.
In 2024 COP 29 will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, another host staking its economic boom on the export of oil and natural gas. This is despite UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell calling December’s COP 28 summit in Dubai the “beginning of the end” for the fossil fuel era.
How long that timeline is may become clearer, as predictions that the world could edge above the 1.5c degree threshold temporarily on its way to potentially another record-breaking year.
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Published on December 29, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-does-2024-hold-in-the-fight-against-climate-change/",
"author": "Lachlan Guselli"
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What does rights of nature mean for development? - 360
Craig Kauffman
Published on January 6, 2023
As biologists gain a better picture of the world around us, views on who we are as humans on this planet are shifting. Ecology shows the world is actually not a collection of separate parts, but a set of nested systems that sustain life. Many Indigenous people would point out they have understood this for millennia and it has informed their customary law and practices.
But Western legal systems are only just beginning to bring a biological understanding of the world to the law. ‘Rights of nature’ is a legal idea that has gained interest since the 1970s. Recently, a push to recognise rights of nature has resulted in more than 300 legal initiatives across the world.
Rights of nature laws have implications for how we think about development. Most people agree that ‘sustainable development’ is a worthy goal. But there is plenty of disagreement on what development means and what exactly should be sustained. The way it is usually practiced seems to be about sustaining growth in our consumption of resources, while trying to minimise the negative consequences for the environment, human health, and the like. This approach is based on a worldview that sees humans as separate from the rest of the natural world and views the natural world as stocks of resources to produce economic wealth.
But economic growth is impossible forever, since we live on a finite planet. Instead, the rights of nature approach argues the goal should be sustaining the functioning of Earth’s systems and ecosystems that generate the conditions necessary for life.
Laws recognising the rights of ecosystems — like forests or rivers — to exist, regenerate their natural cycles, evolve naturally, and be restored when damaged, are meant to support this goal.
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The crucial thing about natural systems is they’re all connected. Humans and non-humans alike are interconnected in mutually dependent, reciprocal relationships: humans are not separate from nature. Human health and wellbeing is dependent on the health and wellbeing of the planet. Importantly, this means natural entities such as trees, rivers, soil, and animals are not independent stocks of resources that can be depleted without endangering the other entities in the system – including people.
Because rights of nature understands people are part of nature, there is no expectation people will not damage nature in the course of living. It is not like a conservation approach where nature is walled off from people. The goal is not for people to have no impact on the rest of the natural world – this is of course impossible. Rather, the goal is to require people to manage their behaviour in a way that allows natural systems to regenerate and evolve naturally.
At a superficial level, much economic activity would look the same if rights of nature were implemented more widely. People would still take from nature things they need to live (air, water, food, energy, medicine, building materials, etc.). However, rights of nature sees this as part of a reciprocal relationship. Since nature provides the conditions for life, it follows that people have obligations to nature as part of this relationship. Since ecosystems don’t accept cash payment, humans could ‘pay the bill’ by instead helping restore an ecosystem’s ability to regenerate its natural cycles. And people cannot exploit the ecosystem to the point it is permanently damaged or altered.
The fact that existing rights of nature laws, like New Zealand’s Te Awa Tupua Act, recognise ecosystems as being able to possess property shows rights of nature does not make property obsolete.
While it may sound odd to think of rivers holding water rights and selling water as property, this is conceptually no different than people selling their blood to blood banks, which is legal in some parts of the world. Legally, people are individuals. But biologically, the human body is an ecosystem that supports trillions of organisms. More specifically, people’s bodies are actually a collection of 11 interdependent systems (skeletal, muscular, nervous, etc.).
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People are more than the sum of their parts; all the body’s systems must be functioning together for a person to live. In this sense people are very much like ecosystems like forests or river ecosystems. A blood bank may withdraw a limited amount of blood from a person’s system and buy it to use as they wish. In this instance, the blood is treated as property that is bought and sold (much like a river’s water might be). The blood (water) is not the legal person; the human being (river ecosystem) is. The human being is more than just their blood, just as a river ecosystem is more than just its water.
Because people are legal persons with rights, there is a limit to how much of a person’s blood a blood bank can withdraw. It cannot withdraw so much that the person’s systems stop functioning. If this happened, representatives of the blood bank would likely be charged with murder. Moreover, blood banks will typically give donors a glass of orange juice or something to replenish fluids and create new red blood cells in the body. There is a recognition of the obligation to help restore the person’s systems after inflicting some harm. The same logic applies in the case of ecosystems like watersheds having rights.
Rights of nature does not mean humans cannot still benefit from ecosystems, including by impacting them in ways that inflict limited harm. It means humans have the obligation to restore the health of the ecosystem, and people would be legally prohibited from polluting or extracting so much at one time that it prevents the ecosystem from functioning and regenerating.
Within a rights of nature framework, there is plenty of space for markets and economic activity. But it would look more like a circular economy than today’s economy based on infinite exponential growth in consumption and production. The goal of development would be improving human wellbeing, rather than consumption for consumption’s sake.
Craig Kauffman is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon. He is the author of numerous articles and two books on ecological law, rights of nature, and sustainable development, including The Politics of Rights of Nature: Strategies for Building a More Sustainable Future (MIT Press 2021). Kauffman is also a member of the United Nations Knowledge Network on Harmony with Nature. This research was undertaken with the support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Rights of nature” sent at: 03/01/2023 12:19.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on January 6, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-does-rights-of-nature-mean-for-development/",
"author": "Craig Kauffman"
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What does the future of fertility look like? - 360
Piya Srinivasan
Published on November 6, 2023
With falling birth rates and rising longevity, World Fertility Day is a good time to take stock of the future of baby making.
There is no joy like the joy of becoming a parent. Sadly, for millions of people around the world, they will never experience that joy.
November 2 is World Fertility Day and comes just months after a World Health Organization report which showed 1 in 6 people worldwide experience infertility issues.
Fewer people are having children with birth rates falling worldwide. The increasing cost of living, more women in the workforce, lower child mortality and climate change all being partly responsible.
This has been accompanied by rising demand for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) which has become big business in developed and developing economies. The global fertility market is expected to reach USD$84 billion in 2028.
The time is ripe to ask whether legal, social, economic and technological arrangements have kept up. What are the challenges evolving alongside the rapid growth of the fertility industry and what legal and ethical problems do they pose?
Rising longevity and falling birth rates put pressure on public finance and compel governments to make policies to reverse demographic decline.
The distance between the lab and the clinic is shrinking as new fertility treatments increase people’s chances of having babies in less painful ways.
Australia’s first public egg and sperm bank opened in July 2023 as part of the Victorian state government’s initiative to establish a Public Fertility Service.
Despite the prevalence of ART for close to 50 years, access to fertility treatment remains a fraught question. Should governments and the private sector play a greater part in improving quality of care and regulatory control?
AI’s increasing role in improving chances of having a baby has the potential to revolutionise reproductive healthcare but with ethical and medico-legal safeguards in place. To make ART and AI-led treatments more democratic remains a problem to be addressed.
In India, the social discourse of infertility is met with stigma but finds no recognition in its health policies. For reproductive rights to go hand-in-hand with fertility governance can ensure better reproductive health outcomes for poorer populations.
Male infertility, meanwhile, remains the elephant in the room, laying the burden of conception squarely on women’s shoulders. That infertility among men can be indicative of other underlying ailments is frequently ignored.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “The Fertility Industry” sent at: 02/11/2023 07:33.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on November 6, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-does-the-future-of-fertility-look-like/",
"author": "Piya Srinivasan"
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What Europe's AI regulation moment will mean for the world - 360
Chris Marsden, George Christou
Published on August 2, 2023
The European Union’s AI regulation has some predicting a spate of Brussels copycats. Close, but not quite.
“It is the AI moment.”
So went the declaration from International Telecommunications Union Secretary-General Doreen Bodgan-Martin at the conclusion of a UN summit in Geneva on 7 July 2023.
At a historic UN Security Council meeting 11 days later, Secretary-General António Guterres agreed. So did nations and regulators.
A desire has emerged from powerful quarters to protect citizens from the potential harms of AI — issues that are known (discrimination, privacy violations, copyright theft) and those which are not. Yet.
Most nations have approached issues like this by allowing sectors to individually regulate AI, such as aircraft design and flight safety. The infamous Boeing 737 MAX — which was grounded for over 18 months following two crashes within five months that killed 346 people — is one egregious example of regulatory failure.
Other fields that have proactively regulated on AI include medical information (presiding over robot surgery and scan analysis), automated vehicles (the yet-to-materialise Tesla robot taxis and ‘Full Self Drive’ [sic]) and policing social media networks to protect against harms like disinformation.
Some countries, such as the US, Japan and the UK, don’t see the need for regulation to go beyond the combination of adaptive sectoral regulation and potential international agreements supplementing more speculative risks discussed in the so-called G7 Hiroshima Process.
Others want to go further.
More can be done. Generic laws could regulate AI across broader society. China has already published its law governing AI as part of its social control measures, which includes internet filtering through its ‘Great Firewall of China’ and a social credit scoring system.
China intends to strictly control the use of AI much like it has with social media, banning Facebook, Google and TikTok from operating inside its borders (even though the latter has a Chinese parent company).
Liberal democracies will not adopt the Chinese approach but may go further than the US, UK and Japan. The largest consumer market, the European Economic Area, is planning to adopt the so-called ‘AI Act’, which is actually a European Regulation on AI.
Over two years since it was first proposed, the Act is locked in negotiations within the EU. It may take until April 2024 to properly pass. But it’s not possible to simply lift the EU’s AI Act and implant it in a different jurisdiction: it is part of a series of laws in European institutions and such an Act would be lost in translation.
There’s a name for when EU law is adopted and adapted in other nations: the ‘Brussels Effect’, named after the city which hosts the EU’s headquarters.
It most often is invoked when describing the reaction to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force in 2018 and has been widely hailed as setting a much-copied global standard for data protection.
But an unnuanced analysis of the Brussels Effect is problematic. Many countries did not adopt the GDPR, but instead a separate law (the Convention 108+) from the Council of Europe, a Strasbourg-based 47-member human rights organisation which predates the EU.
In 2023, a group of interdisciplinary experts unanimously concluded that the Brussels Effect either wasn’t possible or, if it was, would be limited.
They found the AI Act would sit within the ‘digital acquis’, a large body of previously agreed laws with an interlocking web of powers and powers, all of which would need reproducing to make sense of the additions the AI Act provides.
If such a Brussels Effect in AI is unlikely or highly constrained, there is a model nations could adopt.
Despite the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and UN Education Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) both agreeing declarations of AI ethics principles, these are non-binding.
That leaves Strasbourg’s Council of Europe.
Unlike EU laws, Conventions by the Council of Europe do not take direct effect in national law. Other nations beyond the Council’s 47 members can sign onto Conventions through international agreement.
For instance, the Council’s Convention 108+ has 55 members, including Canada and countries across Latin America and Africa.
The Council of Europe has brokered beyond its members going back decades, notably a 2001 cybercrime treaty that included not only Canada, but Japan and the US.
The Convention 108+ is proof of what Oslo University’s Lee Bygrave has described as a ‘Strasbourg Effect‘, an alternative to the Brussels phenomenon.
The Strasbourg Effect could fuel the way forward on AI. The Convention will likely be similar to the EU’s AI Act, but with key distinctions. The Convention is being negotiated with the US, UK and Japan and is likely to adopt a more flexible approach, with more co-regulation with industry and independent experts where appropriate.
As the Council of Europe is primarily a human rights organisation, it is also likely to pay more attention to the human rights implications of AI deployment.
The Convention also has the advantage of being created in mid-2023, as opposed to the EU’s Act which started in 2021. This means it can better address the foundational Large Language Models that emerged in early 2023, such as ChatGPT, Bard and others.
In 2024, as the EU’s AI Act and the Council’s AI Convention are finalised, other liberal democracies, such as Australia, UK, Brazil, Japan and US, are expected to adopt and adapt these laws.
When the rush starts, there is more likely to be a Strasbourg Effect of nations copying the Convention than any Brussels Effect.
AI’s regulation ‘moment’ that Bodgan-Martin heralded in July will last for years and be an exercise in international legal coordination. It is best it be comprehensive and careful to ensure the power of AI is deployed for the good of humanity.
Chris Marsden is Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Technology and the Law at Monash University and an expert on Internet and digital technology law, having researched and taught in the field since 1995.
George Christou is Professor of European Politics and Security at the University of Warwick, UK. He has published widely on European Politics and Security and he is the Editor for Palgrave’s New Security Challenges Series.
Prof Marsden’s and Prof Christou’s research was undertaken with financial assistance from the Monash-Warwick Activation Fund
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Regulating AI” sent at: 31/07/2023 06:00.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on August 2, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-europes-ai-regulation-moment-will-mean-for-the-world/",
"author": "Chris Marsden, George Christou"
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What happens to Australia's COVID-19 data after the pandemic? - 360
Katina Michael, Roba Abbas
Published on November 30, 2021
By Katina Michael and Roba Abbas
The COVID-19 pandemic forced Australians to share more data than they would ordinarily be comfortable sharing — state-level Quick Response (QR) code mandates required people to check-in and out everywhere.
These measures were important to notify people who had come into proximity with a confirmed COVID-19 case, but came at a price: citizens were handing over an unprecedented amount of sensitive information to governments — their name, their location at a specific date and time and, often, details of accompanying dependents.
A databank like this should be governed carefully and stored securely — this has not been the case. Laws surrounding the mandatory collection of data gathered by QR code-based check-ins have either come “after the fact”, or have not been communicated well to the public.
After the federal COVIDSafe app floundered, state governments scrambled to create their own QR-code apps. While it was mandatory for businesses to collect customer visits during COVID, they could opt to choose from a small number of implementation options. For example, third-party suppliers, MyGuestList and ImpactData, stored tens of millions of check-ins on their databases by developing their own custom check-in apps using the state government’s Application Programming Interface (API).
Nothing is stopping these companies from exploiting this data for their own benefit, or their clients’ benefit. The law does not prohibit these entities from analysing the collected data to determine users’ spending patterns, if their annual turnover is less than $3 million a year.
Australians have broadly complied with this new level of monitoring because of the public health imperative, but also because of the assurances made by governments. Citizens were told by government bodies that their data was safe, but there have been breaches of trust.
For example, after repeated claims that QR code check-in apps would retain data for only 28 days, SA Health breached its own guidelines, storing QR code data indefinitely until an audit discovered the alleged error. On at least six occasions, state police forces (e.g. Western Australian Police without a search warrant and Queensland Police with a search warrant) have accessed check-in data for criminal investigations after assurances this would not be allowed. Victoria Police attempted to access the data and were blocked from doing so.
In a positive development, some states (e.g. NSW) have now introduced laws preventing the retrospective or secondary use of COVID QR code data. The Service NSW (One-stop Access to Government Services) Amendment (COVID-19 Information Privacy) Bill 2021 recently came into effect.
Australians are still waiting to be told whether check-in data is being housed on servers in the United States — which was purportedly the case for the federal government’s COVIDSafe app. Storing Australian data in the United States would subject users to the Cloud Act, American legislation that allows personal information to be accessed under subpoena.
This lack of transparency is worrying given how much personal information has been stored: within four months of launching in Oct. 2020, for example, the Service NSW app lodged 30 million check-ins. Indicative numbers for Service NSW report 50.6 million check-ins in May 2021 alone. In Victoria, an estimated 18 million check-ins were recorded in the fortnight of May 13 and May 31, 2021.
Not only are citizens giving up data that links their identity to their movements on the app, but the identities of ‘dependents’ (when checking in on behalf of family members or friends). If there was a major hack to any of the state’s major cloud service providers, this data would be compromised. It would provide the capability to potentially create a web of social connections, like a social network of sorts, only physical in nature.
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The shortcomings and lack of transparency in QR code data storage partly arose from public health directives delivered in a flurry. Businesses scrambled to figure out how they would address new government rules, with very little notice or guidance, before more prescriptive directions were delivered.
This is a major lesson for the government, organisations and the Australian public to be better prepared for technology rollouts during periods of emergency declaration or disaster. Australia has experience using apps and visualisation dashboards in its bushfire history (e.g. the Rural Fire Service’s app, FiresNearMe). The COVIDSafe app implementation demonstrated issues of accessibility and the QR code system rollout overlooked inclusivity, for example did not account for those living with vision impairment.
Governance frameworks are necessary to harness the power of technology in the public interest. It’s everyone’s responsibility. While new technologies are not silver bullet solutions, we will increasingly become accustomed to using them more effectively over time.
Australia must be more considered as it charts its course to post-pandemic life. Governments need to answer persisting questions: Moving forward, what will happen to the gathered data? Can we relax check-in and check-out mandates at low-risk venues? Can we securely store QR codes and vaccine certificates in a single app? And what of counterfeit QR codes being set up surreptitiously to redirect smartphone traffic?
These questions and others must be resolved to avoid QR code systems becoming a default surveillance mechanism after the public health crisis ends. If states terminate check-in mandates after vaccination rates reach 95 percent, as promised in New South Wales, the challenge of breaking this ingrained habit will begin.
Handing over such sensitive data already feels normalised for many, and unless citizens are made aware of their rights they will continue to do so.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Terri Bookman of IEEE Society on the Social Implications of Technology and Vanessa Teague of Australian National University provided editorial input into this article.
Katina Michael is a professor at Arizona State University, a Senior Global Futures Scientist in the Global Futures Laboratory and has a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence. She is also the founding editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society.
Roba Abbas is a Lecturer and Academic Program Director with the Faculty of Business and Law at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She is also co-editor of the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 30, 2021
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"author": "Katina Michael, Roba Abbas"
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What happens when things get too hot to handle? - 360
Azliyana Azhari, Raksha Pandya-Wood
Published on July 12, 2023
Hotter, drier conditions associated with El Niño can be detrimental to our health. These tips may help.
The two hottest days ever recorded were just last week, according to data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction. The high heat is due to a combination of the El Niño weather event and ongoing emissions of carbon dioxide.
Malaysia, like many parts of Asia, has been grappling with a heatwave for months.
The Malaysian health ministry has recorded 39 cases of heat-related illness up to June. Twenty-three of those were heat exhaustion, 11 were heat cramps and five were heat strokes.
Even animals were not spared. A Malaysian feedlot manager lost 20 head of cattle ostensibly due to heat stress.
After the heatwave, the region is now projected to deal with mild El Niño conditions until September before intensifying by November, leading to a notable decrease in rainfall ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent in Malaysia.
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El Niño often corresponds with higher temperatures and less rain. The drier conditions mean fires, particularly in forests and areas engaged in land-clearing practices.
Experts warn significant amounts of smoke and pollutants will lead to a worrying haze situation.
These changes can have significant impacts on human health. Experts say we need to prepare for extreme weather events in order to protect lives and livelihoods.
Well-known health impacts of El Niño are vector-borne diseases including malaria, dengue and yellow fever and water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrheal infections.
However, it is also crucial not to overlook the effect that El Niño can have on non-communicable diseases and learn to manage or minimise the impact.
Research shows a strong link between heat stress with climate change and El Niño.
According to WMO, the onset of El Niño will greatly increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and the ocean.
Rising temperature brings hotter and drier conditions to Malaysia, increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses such as heat stroke, heat exhaustion, heat cramps and heat rashes.
Prolonged exposure to high temperatures can cause symptoms like sweating, confusion, dry skin and heat rashes, and in severe cases, it can lead to heat stroke.
The sudden increase in temperature during an abnormal period affects the metabolism of internal organs resulting in failure of the heart, kidneys, lungs and other major organs.
Heat stress could be minimised by spending less time outside during the peak sunshine hours, finding shade or carrying an umbrella for shade. Children, people with disabilities and older people are particularly vulnerable and should stay out of the sun entirely during peak sunshine.
During its peak, El Niño can affect air quality.
Research suggests that pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and ozone particles can irritate respiratory systems, by triggering asthma attacks and increasing the risk of respiratory infections.
Respiratory related diseases could be minimised by checking the air quality index and avoiding going outdoors during peak unhealthy air periods. Masks and an inhaler can help. Homes can be kept clean and dust-free with an air purifier.
Prolonged exposure toextreme weather events, displacement, and socio-economic disruptions caused by El Niño can contribute to climate anxiety, affecting an individual’s psychological and mental health.
During the drier and hotter conditions, people may spend more time indoors feeling anxious. Although Malaysia has little published research on this, eco anxiety is real although not yet considered a mental health disorder.
Positive mental health and well-being conditions can be optimised during the peak El Niño period by exercising indoors or during the cooler hours, consuming a balanced diet, practising good sleep hygiene, reaching out to people and maintaining healthy self-care activities.
As temperatures get warmer, food will go bad quicker, therefore extra care should be taken when handling food.
One study showed a link between climate change and food poisoning. Changes in temperature, humidity and rainfall can impact food safety by altering the levels and ecology of pathogens, leading to an increased risk of diarrheal diseases and the spread of illnesses.
Food poisoning occurs when there is an infection or irritation of the digestive tract, caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites and chemicals which can be/ live on food.
Food poisoning can be avoided by exercising safe food preparation techniques and consuming fresh and healthy foods.
Government ministries and healthcare providers are taking measures to address the health impact of El Niño including health surveillance and early warning systems, strengthening healthcare infrastructure and comprehensive public health education and awareness.
Communication efforts should focus on promoting adaptive behaviours and strategies to mitigate El Niño health impacts tailored to the local context to convey specific health risks in different regions.
A recent survey by the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub Malaysia node reported that the Malaysian public listens and trusts scientists and subject matter experts in conveying information about climate change and they are worried that misinformation and fake news stories are being communicated to them.
Researchers, healthcare providers and communications experts, such as journalists, play a pivotal role in conveying accurate and understandable information related to the health impacts of El Niño.
Healthy information can help keep the population healthy by empowering individuals to make informed decisions to address the health impacts of El Niño. Collaborative efforts between authorities, experts and individuals are particularly important to minimise the impacts of El Niño.
is a postdoctoral research fellow in climate change communication at the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub (MCCCRH), Monash University Malaysia. Her expertise is within the climate-related atmospheric hazards and emission management and her current research is centred on communicating the impacts of climate change and promoting the importance of climate action. She tweets at @AzAzhari_
Raksha Pandya-Wood is a postdoctoral fellow and project manager at MCCCRH, Monash University Malaysia. Raksha brings expertise from the social science and global health disciplines to climate change. She specialises in community engagement. She tweets at @RPandyaWood.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 12, 2023
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"author": "Azliyana Azhari, Raksha Pandya-Wood"
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What if women designed the energy transition? - 360
Reihana Mohideen
Published on November 22, 2021
By Reihana Mohideen, University of Melbourne
For people in large parts of the world, ‘energy access’ still means packing large bundles of firewood to carry home on their head for cooking and heating. Some 750 million people still have no access to electricity and it’s often women that bear the brunt of extra chores required to cook and clean without power.
It’s a stark contrast to the grey-suited leaders – mostly men – who recently debated climate and energy policy in rainy Glasgow at COP26. Here, the parties discussed integrating gender considerations into climate policy, building on earlier work.
In 2021, the COVID-19 crisis has made basic electricity unaffordable for 30 million more people, largely in Africa.
But the pandemic provides the world with an opportunity. Where once energy systems design was dominated by male engineers, the movement to renewable energy, known as the ‘energy transition’ has the potential to transform how energy is produced, distributed and consumed.There‘s the chance to leapfrog different stages of the slow-moving energy transition, while simultaneously prioritising women’s employment and livelihoods and reducing their ‘time poverty’ due to the burden of care work.
To ‘build back better’ must mean to build back differently.
In developing South Asia, community energy systems are being driven by a combination of technology and socio-economic considerations. When supported by the right policy environment, the poor, women and marginalised groups can participate in renewable energy industries from their inception. This includes financial assistance and tariff incentives to enable the uptake of new technologies by all sections of society.
In the Maldives, power generation in the outer islands from old diesel systems was replaced with solar-PV-Battery hybrid community energy systems, scattered over 160 islands.
The benefits included lower CO2 emissions, reduced local air pollution, lower electricity costs due to reduction of imported diesel and, in the case of Dhiffushi island, the integration of additional assets, such as ice-making machines, operated and maintained by the island development councils. Women’s development committees played a major role driving an increase in income from fishing and other community enterprises.
Technical standards can also play a role as we rethink system design for people, not only technical efficiency. For example based on sustainable development goals including to “enhance the use of enabling technology …. to promote the empowerment of women”. This requires drawing women into the process by which technology is designed, developed and used.
Gender equality can be integrated as an explicit objective of system design, based on specific indicators and metrics, such as reducing women’s time spent on household chores and increasing women’s income through time spent on employment or income generation activities.
Developing communities need systems with enough capacity to go ‘beyond the light bulb’ to provide pumped water on tap, power medium- to high-power appliances, and deliver refrigeration.
In rural electrification programs, gender equality and women’s empowerment can be incorporated as an objective in models and power industry plans.
And in general, women’s employment in STEM industries is likely to help promote gender equality in energy design. The challenge is extending good one-off examples across the industry and its institutions, as well as the systems and projects that we design. This requires a transformation in how we work, produce, and consume, and the energy transition provides us a historic opportunity to do this.
In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis people have been reminded of the importance of resilience and how energy systems are interconnected with health, transport and digital infrastructure. A failure in one can lead to cascading failures elsewhere and the poor in the poorer countries are the most vulnerable.
Just as carbon dioxide emissions are now a pillar of design in many systems, social considerations should be a factor in design of new energy systems.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Dr Reihana Mohideen is an electrical engineer and currently a Principal Advisor in social implications of technology at the Nossal Institute, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne.
Reihana Mohideen’s research received financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank. Reihana Mohideen declared no conflicts of interest in relation to this article.
Editors Note: In the story “Energy in Transition” sent at: 22/11/2021 09:19.
This is a corrected repeat.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 22, 2021
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"author": "Reihana Mohideen"
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What is COP and why should I care? - 360
Susie Ho, Gerry Nagtzaam, Sali Bache, Peter Graham
Published on November 21, 2023
Progress on climate issues may be slow but COP remains the best mechanism for pressuring governments to make the changes needed to avert catastrophe.
COP, or the Conference of the Parties, represents an annual global gathering dedicated to addressing the dire existential threat posed by the climate crisis.
This intergovernmental event, however, is a source of considerable controversy, primarily due to the perceived lack of substantial progress in combating the climate catastrophe.
Since its inception in 1995, each COP has yielded only incremental reductions in emissions. The grand-scale, systemic transformations necessary to achieve the objectives set forth in the Paris Agreement still appear frustratingly distant.
Nevertheless, it’s essential to acknowledge the formidable challenges in reaching consensus on climate issues among 198 participating countries.
Remarkably, COP has achieved some pivotal milestones, most notably the Paris Agreement.
Therefore, despite its concerningly sluggish pace, COP remains the most potent mechanism for exerting pressure on governments to instigate the profound changes needed to either restrict global warming to 1.5°C or, at the very least, to remain within the 2°C threshold.
Formally, COP assumes the role of the supreme decision-making body within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and its subsidiary agreements.
The UNFCCC, which came into force in March 1994, seeks to forestall perilous human interference with the climate system. It underscores the necessity of achieving this objective within a time frame that allows ecosystems to naturally adapt to climate change, safeguards food production, and promotes sustainable economic development.
The objective is not to halt global warming entirely, which is no longer feasible, but to mitigate and adapt to its negative impacts to prevent greater catastrophe.
Today, the UNFCCC boasts nearly universal membership, with 198 countries that have ratified the convention designated as parties.
During COP gatherings, all parties convene to scrutinise convention implementation and forge decisions imperative to its effective execution, including institutional and administrative arrangements. These decisions are included in COP output documents such as the “Glasgow Climate Pact” and the “Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan”.
Decisions are reached by consensus, which enables individual nations to exert substantial, often disproportionate, influence.
Over the years, significant resistance has emanated from prominent developed nations such as the US, Russia, China and Australia, often underpinned by economic concerns.
In part, this is because the convention primarily assigns the responsibility of leadership in global action to developed nations, which have consented to support climate change initiatives by providing financial aid, knowledge, and technology to less-developed nations.
This is because the world’s most vulnerable nations are on the frontline of the climate crisis, suffering disproportionately, yet contribute the least to carbon emissions.
The precise scope and mechanisms for such support remain subjects of heated debate, with the Global Environment Facility presently overseeing a system of grants and loans.
Notably, COP27 in Sharm El-Sheik established a Loss and Damage Fund to compensate less-developed nations for the harm caused by emissions that have largely come from industrialised nations, although the timeline for its operationalisation remains uncertain, leading many to fear it may come too late for many vulnerable countries and communities.
COP meetings convene annually, unless parties decide otherwise. The inaugural COP meeting was held in Berlin in March 1995.
The rotation of the COP presidency mirrors the five recognised UN regions (Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe and Others).
As a result, there’s a propensity for the venue to alternate among these groups. For instance, Australia has tendered a bid to host COP31 in 2026 in partnership with Pacific Nations.
On the ground at COP, there’s a whirlwind of activity, divided between negotiations and the pavilion areas, which are characterised by the simultaneous occurrence of hundreds of sessions.
The negotiations predominantly centre on the countries (parties) involved, leaving civil society participants – comprising researchers, non-profit organisations, activists, youth, Indigenous communities, business leaders, and other stakeholders – on the periphery of decision-making proceedings.
These stakeholders often find themselves stationed in an expo-style zone adjacent to the formal negotiations, where they showcase their work and attempt to influence proceedings. In more recent times criticisms have emerged of greenwashing.
The level of interaction between policymakers and civil society remains limited, a contentious issue in its own right.
The role and value of this burgeoning civil society circus at COP has become the subject of heated debate. Some argue it inadvertently fosters greenwashing rather than genuine action, suggesting that the focus should be squarely on the negotiations themselves.
Contrarily, others contend it provides a vital platform for civil society to voice its concerns and present new research, and directs the world’s media spotlight towards the most critical issue of our time.
COP holds immense significance because it serves as the crucible for pivotal global decisions, such as the Paris Agreement.
For example, the inaugural COP in Berlin in 1995 (COP1) marked the commitment of major countries to annual discussions on climate change and emissions reductions.
At COP3 in Kyoto (1997), the Kyoto Protocol emerged, obliging industrialised nations to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and establishing the carbon market.
COP13 in Bali (2007) augmented the Kyoto Protocol with the Bali Road Map, involving all countries.
The official target of limiting temperature rise to below 2°C crystallised at COP15 in Copenhagen (2009).
Most notably, COP21 in Paris in 2015 culminated in the unanimous adoption of the Paris Agreement by all nations, with the objective of capping global temperature increases at 2°C, ideally aiming for 1.5°C (although current progress remains sorely insufficient).
Consequently, the UNFCCC has intensified its focus on urgency. Instrumental in this has been the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC was established in 1989 as a joint intergovernmental initiative of the World Meteorological Organization and UN Environment Programme and their assessment reports and special reports have been key in precipitating significant COP decisions and climate action.
Loss and damage is a cross-cutting issue, specifically determining the compensation that developing nations should receive from industrialised nations for damages incurred due to unsustainable practices.
Associate professor Susie Ho is the director of the Monash Innovation Guarantee in the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor Education.
Associate Professor Gerry Nagtzaam is a world recognised environmental scholar whose research focuses on the intersections between environmental law, politics, history and economics.
Dr Sali Bache is the international policy lead at Climateworks, with a focus on the Asia Pacific region.
Peter Graham is an Associate Professor in Architecture at Monash University, and the Executive Director of the Global Buildings Performance Network, an international network of experts dedicated to achieving the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from the buildings sector.
This article originally appeared in Lens, published by Monash University. Monash will be at COP28. Published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 21, 2023
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What is the ‘nature’ in the rights of nature? - 360
Alex Putzer
Published on January 6, 2023
Irene Garcia, advisor to the mayor of Curridabat, a town near San José, the capital of Costa Rica, wants to grant legal rights to bees. Not only bees, in fact, all pollinators of the plants that populate the city. Her proposed amendment is part of a growing movement that wants to give rights to nature. According to this idea, bees, rivers, and mountains should have rights just like humans. In a city, however, the boundary between what’s artificial and what’s nature becomes blurry, posing the question of which ‘nature’ in the ‘rights of nature’ should be protected.
Curridabat is one of more than 400 rights of nature initiatives in almost 40 countries around the world. Promoted mostly by local activists like Irene, the idea, developed in the 1970s and implemented since the mid-2000s, has entered national laws as well as multinational debates. In 2008, Ecuador became the first, and still only, country to enshrine the rights of nature in its constitution. “Nature … has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes,” the constitution says. But as with more than two-thirds of all initiatives, ‘nature’ remains undefined.
While this might not seem to be a problem at first glance, on closer inspection, it becomes one. Nature is constantly changing. And for the past few centuries, humans have had a massive impact on this change. The United Nations estimates that humans have altered 77 percent of land and 87 percent of oceans. In 2020, the weight of human-made items exceeded the weight of all living beings. Add to this accelerating climate change, the looming mass extinction of species, and other planetary boundaries that are about to be crossed and it becomes clear why some want to name the contemporary geological epoch ‘the Anthropocene’ — the epoch of humans.
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With nature an elusive concept, acknowledging the human place in the dynamics of nature can become tricky. To borrow a phrase from the late US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, nature may be impossible to define, but most people think they know it when they see it.
Western societies commonly define nature as everything that is not human, creating a divide between artificial and natural. The same cultures, however, also believe humans are part of nature: any biologist will confirm that humans are animals. From just a Western perspective, four major overlapping, and contradicting, definitions of nature exist. The number rises, although not significantly, if non-Western worldviews are also considered.
Different definitions dictate what humans can and cannot do. Seeing humanity apart from nature encourages conservation efforts: touch it and you spoil it. Seeing humanity as a part of nature favours restoration efforts: touch it, but carefully.
But if humans are part of nature, perhaps we should simply get rid of dualistic mindsets. After all, the idea of wilderness has historically caused a lot of trouble. It is not so easy. Completely abandoning the human-nature dualism would make not only humans natural but also everything that humans do. The existence of climate change would be as natural as the lack of meaningful policies against it.
Besides, dualistic mindsets are not exclusive to the West. Many of the indigenous groups that actively supported the rights of nature in the Ecuadorian constitution follow the philosophy of Yanantin, a complementary dualism that envisions a more harmonious relationship, while still acknowledging a division.
Human-nature dualism is not the only sticking point for defining nature. Using nature to guide morality in human behaviour is random, at best, and detrimental, at worst. Individual animals are nature, but so are groups. Single entities are nature, so are processes. Nature is in balance but also in chaos. Nature is resilient but fragile; invasive and native; physical and spiritual.
Depending on the perspective, everything can be classified as being natural. A highway could be as natural as the national park through which it passes. The word means so many different things to different people that it is almost useless.
The fuzziness of what ‘nature’ is becomes particularly accentuated in urban settings. Cities are commonly defined as places exclusively built by and for humans. Just like a swallow building a nest, humans build the environments in which they thrive. But a growing number of scientists see urban nature as worth studying. Urban ecologists research spontaneous vegetation or urban wildlife.
The message is clear: cities would not be what they are without nature. Plants and animals, but also rivers and rocks are co-architects of these ecosystems. And while humans use technology to build their own habitat, nature uses it too. Those swallows use rafters and eaves as artificial substitutes for wild nesting places. As such, cities represent overlapping and shifting combinations of natural and built environments.
Cities are the places where a wide variety of interests are considered, debated, and balanced with each other. Applying the rights of nature in this context increases the number of relevant stakeholders. If given citizenship, the pollinators of Curridabat should be allowed to have their say in urban decision-making. With a right to the city that includes not only humans but also non-humans, clashes of interests are unavoidable.
The outlook of disagreements, however, should not keep anyone from advancing the idea of rights for nature. Clashes between different human rights — think of freedom and security — are commonplace but do not lead to us abandoning either. Some debates will lead to a preference for freedom, while others will favour security.
Every environmental protection effort implicitly or explicitly decides for one aspect of nature and against myriad others. The rights of nature in a human-altered world render this often unconscious bias more visible. The entangled realities of urban and human-altered natures deserve as much consideration as human-independent ones.
The balancing act of acknowledging both human and non-human stakeholders and creating an inclusive future requires a clear vision of what nature means. This does not require the need to settle for any specific definition. Just as the science of ecology has shown, many different approaches make for the best resilience to predictable or unpredictable catastrophes.
Introducing the rights of nature in political deliberations will make decision-making processes more complicated. Representatives will need to juggle a variety of interests, rights, and natures. At the same time, the decisions coming out of it are likely to be fairer and more just.
When thinking about pollinator citizenship, Irene is aware of this complexity. It does not change her mind. As with any historical expansion of who holds rights, she underlines the fact that it is all about justice in the end.
Alex Putzer is writing his dissertation on the rights of nature in urban environments at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Italy, with affiliations at MIT, UPenn, and The New School in the United States. He is a United Nations Harmony with Nature Expert and advises on initiatives in Europe and Latin America.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Rights of nature” sent at: 03/01/2023 12:16.
This is a corrected repeat.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on January 6, 2023
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"author": "Alex Putzer"
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What is the point of elections in Thailand? - 360
Gregory Raymond
Published on July 26, 2023
There was hope after Thailand’s election that this would be a ‘liberal moment’ for the nation but those hopes have been dashed.
Hopes for any kind of reformist government taking power in Thailand are fading fast.
On 19 July, Phum Jai Thai, a conservative party with the third largest bloc of seats, announced it would not support the PM candidate chosen by Pheu Thai (the party with second most seats) if it remains in a coalition with the Move Forward Party which won the most seats at May’s election.
The coalition was already in trouble after the Constitutional Court announced it would investigate Move Forward leader and Prime Ministerial hopeful Pita Limjaroenrat about shares he inherited in a non-functioning media company, which saw him immediately suspended as an MP.
These moves have probably put unendurable pressure on the ‘democracy’ coalition of eight, formed after the May elections.
Many of the Pheu Thai party members may well be eyeing up the greener pastures of government, rather than the reformist policies of Move Forward, and may not be concerned about the criticism they’ll receive for entering into coalition with proxy parties for the military.
A week earlier, the unelected Senate blocked Limjaroenrat’s bid to become PM. This was in spite of his party winning the most seats of any and his heading of a coalition commanding 313 seats in a house of representatives of 500.
Once again, democratic dreams in Thailand die a slow death.
There was such hope after the 14 May election that this would be a ‘liberal moment’ for Thailand and indeed Southeast Asia.
A fresh-faced, liberal and intelligent prime ministerial candidate caught the imagination of Thai people, tired of rule by grumpy generals.
They voted for his party in droves, but now he looks set to be neutralised by Thailand’s conservative courts. Just as Thanatorn Juangroongruangkit channelled the hopes of Thailand’s youth in 2019 and was subsequently barred from politics in January 2020.
Perhaps it is time for observers to tackle the unappetising question: “What is the point of elections in Thailand?”
In the wake of the Cold War, Thailand experienced its longest ever period of democracy, 14 years from 1992-2006. But since then, the goalposts for an elected government have continued to move, making it harder for them to survive.
The government of Thaksin Shinawatra achieved a landslide victory in 2005, on the back of unprecedented policies that acknowledged Thailand’s underprivileged and rural sectors.
But Thaksin’s meddling with military promotions ruffled feathers. More importantly, his demagogic standing unnerved those invested in the monarchy remaining Thailand’s most important institution.
Despite Thaksin’s removal and exile after the 2006 coup, leaders of his party were felled one by one, twice after important election wins: Samak Sunderavej in 2008, Somchai Wongsawat in 2008, and finally Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014 via a coup.
These three had neither the standing to compete with the monarchy, nor the temerity to interfere with the military, but nonetheless they were removed through means other than elections.
There have been 13 coups, 20 constitutions and rule by the military or its proxy parties for seven out of every 10 years since 1932, when Thailand ended its absolute monarchy.
That is not to say there has been no progress. Outright military dictatorships remain rare, Thailand’s level of democratic participation has increased, and through the tenure of parties like Thaksin’s the yardsticks of what good policy looks like have shifted in such a way that some things like free health care or a minimum wage are no longer debated.
What determines this pattern of change and continuity is Thailand’s political trajectory being driven by three forces: the conservative establishment seeking to preserve power and privilege, the broader population seeking greater participation in politics, and the external international environment.There has been significant change in all three dimensions.
First, the external environment. The United States is less powerful than in the decades after the Cold War and its brand of liberal democracy appears to be fading too. At the same time China’s market Leninism is providing an alternative model and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has become less liberal and democratic, notwithstanding Indonesia’s breakthrough.
Second, the conservative establishment has become better at looking like a democracy but not actually being one. It is more inclined, for example, to use judicial means to remove movements rather than military coups.
This notion of sophisticated authoritarianism, coined by Australian political scientist Lee Morgenbesser, tells us why authoritarian states have elections: they create enough uncertainty for the international and in particular the Western community to decide that they will carry on business as usual.
Many governments — if they care — will have observed that Thailand had an election and will not read the fine print on what has happened since, such is the level of mind-numbing complexity in Thailand’s political dynamics.
Third, while Thailand’s demography is changing such that its youth are increasingly impatient with Thailand’s authoritarianism and conservative nostalgia, they are not able to shift a conservative establishment confident it can face down mass protests should they erupt.
This, unfortunately, is the lesson drawn from both the 2010 and 2020 mass protests in Bangkok.
The forces against Thailand transitioning to genuine democracy remain formidable.
is a lecturer in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University, researching Southeast Asian politics and foreign relations.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 26, 2023
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"author": "Gregory Raymond"
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What it takes to stop misinformation - 360
Reece Hooker
Published on January 19, 2023
Much like the US Capitol riots, Brazil’s violent uprising shows how quickly misinformation can degrade a democracy.
When supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country’s Congress, comparisons were made to the 2021 US Capitol Building riot. Like the American attack, the invaders were extremists acting in the name of an ousted right-wing president and — in both cases — the insurrections came following elections rife with misinformation.
Regulating misinformation without suppressing free speech has been a persistent headache for governments around the world. Australia’s updated misinformation code still doesn’t capture all messenger services, while new laws in Turkey are “micro-managing and throttling social media” in the eyes of journalists.
If there was hope social media platforms would step in where governments couldn’t, recent developments aren’t encouraging. When it comes to moderating misinformation, Facebook’s parent company Meta is slashing jobs after underwhelming earnings and might be stepping away from news altogether. The ascendant TikTok is rife with misinformation and Twitter has rarely escaped headlines since billionaire Elon Musk took the reins.
Daniel Angus, Professor of Digital Communication at Queensland University of Technology says Musk’s leadership has sent Twitter’s moderation backwards.
“He has trashed the platform’s online safety division and as a result misinformation is back on the rise,” he says.
“[Musk] looks to technological fixes to solve his problems. He’s already signalled to upping use of AI for Twitter’s content moderation. But this isn’t sustainable nor scalable, and is unlikely to be the silver bullet.”
Experts point out no single billionaire can take down misinformation — it’ll take a multi-faceted all-hands response from governments, businesses, civil society activists and consumers.
Disinformation agents often do their damage by buying up advertising space to post misleading content. Publishers hosting the ads either don’t know (if the process is automated) or don’t care (high click rates make them money). Busting the cycle requires creative thinking.
The Global Disinformation Index, a not-for-profit group aimed at compiling data to help advertisers make informed decisions about where to place their brands, has found it effective to engage with legitimate brands whose products were appearing next to disinformation.
Co-founder Daniel J. Rogers, who is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University, says: “Advertisers end up with their brands appearing alongside unsuitable content, harming their reputation and costing them money.
“We seek to balance out that equation. Advertisers were missing data on where on the web disinformation was occurring. With that information they could avoid those platforms, safeguarding their brand and directing funds away from disinformation peddlers.”
The US Trust ratings agency Newsguard is also fighting disinformation and has audited most media outlets in Australia and New Zealand. The ratings are sent to advertising agencies and brands, urging them to only support outlets that provide online safety for readers and support for democracies.
When misinformation spreads, it’s better to correct than let it fester. Anya Schriffrin, senior lecturer at Columbia University, says it’s crucial to catch false information before it escapes into the world.
“Corrections may also aggravate the problem: due to the exposure effect, audiences seeing something twice may believe it more; or corrections may only enhance distrust in the media,” she says.
“Establishing more prevalent fact-checking also helps create and support a culture of truth and signalling, and may build relationships among journalists. The creation of global standards for truth could help advertisers make better decisions about who they support, and build trust back in the media.”
Ensuring citizens are media literate is a strong protective mechanism to limit the damage. This could include widespread state programs that help equip news consumers with the skills to think critically about the content they’re exposed to and help discern the credible from the untrustworthy.
Tanya Notley, Associate Professor of Media at Western Sydney University says a media-literate citizen is a strong contributor in a democracy.
“A fully media-literate citizen will be aware of the many ways they can use media to participate in society. They will know how media are created, funded, regulated, and distributed and they will understand their rights and responsibilities in relation to data and privacy.”
Misinformation and disinformation would be considerably defanged if people simply didn’t believe it. Conspiracy theories gained a foothold in many countries during the COVID pandemic. In Australia, the far-right movement latched on to conspiracies about widespread vaccine deaths which involved tech magnate Bill Gates and then-US Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci.
Mario Peucker, senior research fellow at Victoria University, suggests understanding why some gravitate towards conspiracy theories is the key to unlocking a strategy to blunt their influence.
“Only then, can nuanced strategies be developed to prevent more people falling down misinformation rabbit-holes — and, possibly, restoring a space where robust public debate can replace ideologically parallel communities.”
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Taming misinformation” sent at: 17/01/2023 08:48.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on January 19, 2023
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"author": "Reece Hooker"
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What jetskis, horses and gun-toting leaders have to do with international peace - 360
Cristiane de Andrade Lucena Carneiro
Published on August 23, 2022
As states gather in Geneva this week for the Eighth Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), it is important to understand how the dynamics of countries led by right-wing populist leaders will inform the negotiations. A significant number of arms exporters are now led by populist regimes. Amongst these, several countries have fallen below the threshold of democratic rule, while others are likely to follow suit.
The erosion of democracy associated with rising populism is problematic for compliance with the ATT. Borderline authoritarian regimes are less transparent and do not value accountability. These are two tenets of multilateral disarmament embedded in the Arms Trade Treaty. Authoritarianism is also associated with a short time horizon, where political leaders discount the future in favour of more immediate benefits, for example, campaign contributions from interest groups, including weapons groups. As the late political scientist James Q. Wilson pointed out this makes it hard to advance the agenda of public policies where benefits are perceived as diffuse while costs are perceived as concentrated. And finally, democracy is key to promoting ‘principled’ (as opposed to interest-based) enforcement of legal commitments by nations. Principled enforcement has special relevance in the context of the ATT, because regulation of the trade in conventional weapons is not prone to tit-for-tat actions: reciprocity won’t work to promote compliance.
For example, since June 2020, China has agreed to the provision of the ATT that prohibits the transfer of conventional weapons if these weapons are likely to be used for the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity or grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Enforcement based on the principle of reciprocity would ask of any country that wants to reprimand China for violating that provision, to incur the same treaty violation by endorsing illegal arms transfers. This is not only absurd, but it would amount to a dangerous race to the bottom. That’s why principled enforcement, the need to uphold the rule of law and countering the erosion of democracy, is important.
The latest report from democracy advocate Freedom House confirms the decline in democracy and the associated rise in right-wing populism. The phenomena no longer spares any continent in the world: from the United States under Donald Trump, to India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to Central and Eastern Europe. Latin America is no exception. Given the sheer size of Brazil and its share of the international arms trade, analysts should keep a close eye on President Jair Bolsonaro and the Brazilian arms industry. Despite the country’s ratification of the ATT, the government has steered away from a commitment toward disarmament to rather a celebration of the ‘armed civilian’ as guarantor of their own safety.
Since Bolsonaro was elected President in January 2019, he has sent repeated messages and enacted public policies encouraging Brazilians to carry guns – in a direct confrontation with the Brazilian Statute of Disarmament. This rhetoric goes hand-in-hand with a foreign policy that has departed from the usual tenets of Brazilian diplomacy, such as respect for legally binding commitments, for example the ATT. Brazilian arms exports and sale of ammunition are on the rise; underreporting of Brazilian foreign arms trade is a recurrent problem; while handguns amongst civilians and heavy weaponry amongst criminal organisations are spreading. With respect to disarmament and gun control, the international stage mirrors domestic politics. Or perhaps it is the other way around.
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Should President Jair Bolsonaro be reappointed in the upcoming October 2 national elections, Brazil could be a few steps from withdrawing from the ATT. This is a function of both the erosion of the rule of law in Brazil as well as a loud demonstration of right-wing populism.
Beyond Brazil, in India under Modi, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Russia under President Vladimir Putin, right-wing populist leaders have a predilection for arms exports and often stylise their leadership as the ‘military strong man’.
María Esperanza Casullo analyses the phenomenon extensively in a book chapter, “How to Become a Leader: Identifying Global Repertoires for Populist Leadership.” The ‘military strong man’ exploits feelings of insecurity among the population of a country – both with respect to domestic as well as international threats. Arming the average civilian conveys a (false) sense of security, while arming the country to communicate a sense of the infallible dominance of the sovereign state.
Both strategies are informed by political survival in that the leader embodies the strength — often physical strength — that is required to protect the citizen and to safeguard state sovereignty. The imagery abounds of Bolsonaro in Brazil riding motorcycles and jet-skis; other leaders prefer riding horses. Security within and outside national borders then becomes contingent on the political tenure of the populist leader; his constituents are tasked with assisting the leadership with patriotic vigilance.
In 2022, more than ever before, the delegations and organisations present at the Eighth Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty should emphasise the cooperation-enhancing features of the treaty. Conventional disarmament and the regulation of the trade in conventional arms should be seen as public goods, wherein the collective effort of all states parties is essential to counter the temptations embodied in right-wing populism.
Cristiane Lucena Carneiro is Associate Professor at the University of Sao Paulo and a member of the Acaua Newsletter editorial team. She declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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Published on August 23, 2022
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"author": "Cristiane de Andrade Lucena Carneiro"
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What next as the planet gets hotter - 360
Chris Bartlett
Published on July 20, 2023
Temperature records are tumbling as unprecedented heatwaves hit the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia.
The planet is baking.
Southern Europe is sweltering through a record heatwave with temperatures tipped to surpass the European record of 48.8C.
In Italy, people have been warned to brace themselves for “the most intense heatwave of the summer and also one of the most intense of all time” with a red alert for 16 cities. Rome registered a record high temperature of 41.8C on Tuesday.
The southwestern United States has experienced almost three weeks of 43C-plus days and China recorded its hottest ever day on Sunday.
????️ Extreme levels of heat are affecting large parts of the Northern Hemisphere
⚠️ Exceptionally high temperatures are breaking records in places and dangerously hot weather will continue in many areas during the next week pic.twitter.com/zebYqdZXGH
— Met Office (@metoffice) July 17, 2023
Phoenix, Arizona broke a 49-year-old record on Tuesday with the city’s 19th consecutive day of temperatures 43.3C or higher
In China, the remote northwest township of Sanbao in Xinjiang’s Turpan Depression recorded 52.2°C on Sunday 16 July, state-run newspaper Xinjiang Daily reported.
In Iran, the Persian Gulf International Airport weather station registered a heat index value — the apparent “feels like” temperature to the human body — of 67C on Sunday. Heat indexes of 71C are considered the upper threshold of what humans can endure.
The spikes in temperatures across the northern hemisphere come two weeks after the the planet recorded its hottest-ever day on July 3, only for that record to be broken the following day.
Extreme heat events have become more intense and now last on average about 24 hours longer than 60 years ago, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
???? Update on the Tmax recorded yesterday in the Death Valley, #California.
????️129°F/53.9°C at Saratoga Spring
— Thierry Goose (@ThierryGooseBC) July 17, 2023
However, it’s not only the northern hemisphere experiencing warmer weather. Australia is in the middle of winter but has had record-high winter temperatures for July, prompting unseasonal plant behaviour.
All this comes after Asia suffered through weeks of a heatwaves that saw temperatures hit record levels in some countries.
To top it all off, an El Nino weather system is underway. El Niños tend to push global temperatures up, increasing the chance of 2023 being the hottest year ever recorded.
The World Meteorological Organization says it is likely the planet will break the 1.5 degrees barrier sometime in the next five years. Earth’s hottest year was 2016. It says there is a 98 percent chance one of the next five years will exceed that.
They say the extreme heat was at least 30 times more likely because of climate breakdowns caused by human activity.
The heat surge is due to increasing emissions and a likely El Niño weather pattern later this year. Indeed, researchers from Australia’s CSIRO have found human activity has likely caused changes to El Nino.
This article has been updated and republished to reflect the record heatwave affecting most of the northern hemisphere. It was originally published on May 22, 2023.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Heatwave hell” sent at: 20/07/2023 07:39.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 20, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-next-as-the-planet-gets-hotter/",
"author": "Chris Bartlett"
}
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What really works to reduce poverty - 360
Naila Kabeer
Published on October 18, 2022
Understanding why some poverty reduction programmes work and others don’t calls for a better understanding of the people involved.
Bangladesh, often held up as a model for poverty reduction, has influenced many poverty reduction initiatives around the world.
In 2002, Bangladeshi development organisation BRAC pioneered a new approach to transform the lives of women in extreme poverty within two years. The model has been tried out in other parts of the world since, but recent evaluations deliver a lesson in why there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to poverty.
A pilot in India’s West Bengal ran between November 2006 and August 2009. Around 300 women were chosen to participate in the pilot and were supplied with mainly goats, sheep, poultry and fish. They were prompted to organise themselves into peer-support groups and were trained to manage the revenue generated from their assets. They were also provided a basic monthly income and health support in the initial phase of the project. Local microfinance banks were asked not to offer services to the 24 villages covered by the project in order to protect the pilot from the influence of their financial services.
The pilot was evaluated in 2011 and a follow-up study carried out in 2018. The researchers used qualitative methods, such as life histories, assessments by participants, and staff interviews. This allowed the impact of the project to be linked with the context of the participants and their individual circumstances, so that variations in impact could be explained.
It turns out extreme poverty is not the product of material deficits alone but also identities and experiences of being marginalised. The pilot in West Bengal included a mixture of disadvantaged social groups: previously ‘untouchable’ dalit castes, adivasis (tribal groups) and sections of the Muslim population. These are not only among the poorest groups in India but also face the most severe discrimination.
Even though all the participants were living far below the poverty line, the project affected them differently, exacerbated by their identity, adding dependency, humiliation and discrimination to poverty, hunger and debt. Women from the different social groups differed in their ability to translate the support provided by the project into goals that they valued.
One significant factor was the human resources they were able to draw on – the ratio of earners to dependents where ‘dependency’ reflected age, illness, disability, unemployment or irregular employment.
Another was the human capital of earning members of their household, that is, their health, skills, experience and initiative; very few had formal education. Adivasi and dalit women had worked outside the home much longer than most, sometimes from childhood, and were better placed to take advantage of new opportunities.
Marital relationships also played a role. Where there was a high level of cooperation between husband and wife, the women could implement their livelihood strategies. By contrast, where there was family conflict or a controlling male figure, the participants were less able to take advantage of opportunities. Some marital relationships changed over time as the balance of power within the marriage began to shift in favour of the women. The women who still managed to progress were those whose husbands’ behaviour improved over the course of the project, a change some attributed directly to the project.
The amount of space available to participants also dictated which forms of livestock they favoured and how many they could raise: goats were less favoured by those with limited space because they could not be tied in one place and often encroached on neighbour’s fields, leading to major conflicts. Those who had sufficient land to excavate a pond were able to take up fishing.
Finally, past experience mattered. The adivasi community had never before been the focus of development efforts. As a result, the adivasi women highly valued the material assets they were given as well as the training, advice and mentoring they received. But the support they received did not happen in a vacuum. Most adivasi women very quickly replaced some or all of their project livestock with pigs, not included among the assets distributed by the project, because their community has long experience with raising and selling pigs.
Given the focus of the project, the most predictable change was the strengthening and diversification of the household asset base. The accumulated assets were also a considerable source of pride for many women and, with livestock, objects of affection. Improvements in the asset base translated into improved food security and diversity in their diet — concrete material needs.
The project opened up the idea of saving and borrowing. Most of these women had not thought of saving earlier, since they barely earned enough to survive. The practice of saving with peer-support groups, with deposits carefully recorded in each member’s savings book, and savings funds deposited in a group account with the bank, imposed an external discipline as well as protecting their savings. Many participants spoke of the personal changes that resulted from their experiences in the project. The qualitative surveys had frequent references to concepts such as ‘courage’, ‘mental strength’ and ‘self-confidence’ to tackle new activities, to think beyond subsistence, to plan for the future and to participate in social life in a way that they had not previously thought possible.
But for some women, there was a real lack of progress. They were unable to expand, or even retain, their assets due to deaths, thefts or deliberate destruction by jealous villagers. And they did not have the strength to recover.
For women who faced restrictions on their ability to engage in outside work, such as a chronically ill family member, abandonment by a husband or lack of support from other family members, the outcomes were different. Most of their project livestock and poultry died. In other cases, the restrictions to work outside home came from jealous and violent husbands or religious conservatism among Muslim families.
While randomised control trials are often and are held up as ‘the gold standard’ for evaluation, what they gain in rigour they can lose in depth and understanding. The qualitative approach factors in the participants’ own assessments and the particularities of their specific contexts. It is not enough to know whether a pilot worked but also why it worked, offering real implications for formulating policy.
is professor of gender and development in the Departments of International Development and Gender Studies, London School of Economics, UK.
The research was undertaken with support from MasterCard Foundation/Economic and Social Research Council and Department for International Development, UK.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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Published on October 18, 2022
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What school principals do is crucial to students’ emotional wellbeing - 360
Nathern Okilwa, Bruce Barnett
Published on January 27, 2023
COVID-19 devastated school learning, especially for marginalised students, but resourceful principals have shown how they can make a difference.
School principals in some disadvantaged areas across the United States resorted to innovative strategies to keep their students engaged with virtual learning during the height of lockdowns.
They organised to loan struggling kids laptop computers, created wi-fi hotspots, visited homes and conducted lessons in their driveways. They even placed encouraging signs of support in their front yards and formed car parades through their neighbourhoods, according to research from the University of Texas at San Antonio. For students’ families, they created food banks and located community mental health services. These efforts kept many students and families engaged in virtual lessons, rather than dropping out of school.
“When you serve marginalised kids, you have to create systems of opportunities so that no child digs themselves into a hole they can’t get out of,” a secondary principal in South Texas told researchers.
Despite this, the after effects of COVID-19 continue to impact schools across the US. Teachers are quitting or retiring in record numbers, staff absenteeism has dramatically increased and hiring qualified substitute teachers is nearly impossible.
The ongoing effects of the pandemic on students’ academic performance and emotional wellbeing are also far from over, especially for those in underprivileged communities. School leaders report families still need assistance to help their children cope with these challenges.
Academic performance focuses on students’ intellectual and cognitive development, while social-emotional wellbeing refers to their ability to manage and cope with impulses, emotions, and feelings. The two cannot be separated: children’s social-emotional wellbeing significantly affects their cognitive abilities.
Over 80 percent of American schools report ongoing problems with students’ social-emotional wellbeing, including increased misconduct, disrespect to staff and use of prohibited electronic devices. There is chronic absenteeism and heightened anxiety, depression and social withdrawal observed in students of all ages.
Test scores for most schools in the US have plummeted below 2019 levels, with students in high-poverty schools scoring 20 percent lower in maths and 15 percent lower in reading than their counterparts in low-poverty schools. High schools in marginalised communities report significantly fewer high school seniors pursuing post-secondary education.
Research over the past 25 years has shown how school principals can influence students’ academic performance. Since 2010, a consortium of researchers from the International School Leadership Development Network has examined successful principals serving high-need, marginalised communities. Given the pandemic’s effects on schools, these researchers have pivoted to understanding how school leaders are contending with these changing circumstances.
At the onset of the pandemic, school leaders quickly established new school operations, procedures and expectations while attending to the emotional turmoil experienced by staff, students and families. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the immediate switch to online learning platforms, school leaders not only developed new policies and practices dealing with grading, graduation requirements and online lessons, but also clarified expectations for teachers, including guidelines for conducting online learning sessions, responding to emails, contacting parents and tutoring students.
In the US, South Texas school principals and assistant principals recognised the overwhelming stress experienced by their staff, students and parents, and were keenly aware of the need to address their emotional needs. They emphasised the importance of constantly communicating with staff to update them on the latest developments and expectations from the district and addressing teachers’ slipping morale by implementing virtual games and team building activities. One school leadership team conducted weekly mental health check-ins with their staff and created a newsletter summarising mental health resources in the area.
The leaders in these schools incorporated social-emotional wellbeing into the curriculum and implemented a positive behaviour program for students. They sought the help of school counsellors to address disciplinary issues and partnered with community agencies to help students experiencing trauma. A primary school assistant principal in South Texas said, “the days of being an instructional leader without (understanding) social-emotional learning is no longer an option”.
The principals understood that re-engaging students and families was critical because, “virtual learning created students with ‘escape’ strategies rather than ‘coping’ strategies,” as a primary school assistant principal in South Texas told researchers.
Principals also acknowledged the unique circumstances of serving under-resourced communities, including the need for older students to work to support their parents and siblings. Many of these students spent more time working during the pandemic. But with the return to in-school learning, a South Texas secondary school principal noted “fewer students [are] participating in school activities, such as choir, orchestra, and athletics”.
But many schools in the US continue to struggle to meet the emotional needs of their students due to students missing important early socialisation experiences at school, losing family members and friends to COVID-19 and watching parents contend with job loss.
The International School Leadership Development Network found that school leaders have a desire for professional development to better deal with students’ social-emotional development and classroom management strategies. They want to raise their awareness of effective emotional wellbeing activities through classroom activities that address student disengagement and disruptions. As well as ways to better provide mental health services for struggling families. They noted these issues should be better embedded in preparation programs for future school leaders, but it’s currently not considered a priority.
While research demonstrates a positive relationship between students’ social-emotional development and academic achievement, no studies have yet to reveal how schools and their leaders have made headway into improving students’ behavioural and social learning outcomes.
This unexamined area is essential to improving and helping schools all over the world overcome the ongoing effects of the pandemic on children’s education. Conducting qualitative, mixed method and experimental research can reveal promising interventions for addressing students’ mental and emotional needs. Educational researchers, like those in the International School Leadership Development Network, aim to make a substantial contribution to educational leadership practice by undertaking these important studies.
Nathern Okilwa, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Bruce Barnett, PhD, is professor emeritus in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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Published on January 27, 2023
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"author": "Nathern Okilwa, Bruce Barnett"
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What ‘straight sport' can learn from the Gay Games - 360
Dr lisahunter, Dr Richard Pringle
Published on November 13, 2023
The Gay Games’s policy on transgender athletes provides a model that could be adopted by many ‘mainstream’ sporting events.
The Gay Games, a major international multi-sport event, is underway in Hong Kong and Guadalajara, Mexico.
As seen with the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the Summer Paralympics, mega sporting events play an important role in celebrating human diversity. But the Gay Games has a particularly compelling history in this respect: Founded in 1982, at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the ensuing moral panic, the Gay Games has allowed LGBTQIA+ athletes to participate without stigma and fully be themselves.
This year, the Gay Games continue to provide timely, valuable lessons in inclusion. In particular, its gender policy — which allows athletes to participate in the gender division with which they self-identify — provides a model that could be adopted by many ‘mainstream’ sporting events.
The 2023 Games follow many months of global headlines focusing on debates around which gender divisions transgender athletes should be allowed (or not allowed) to compete in.
In Australia, transgender children’s participation in sport was heavily debated during the 2022 Federal Election. The issue has spilled over into school sports, particularly in the US, where 20 states have imposed bans on trans athletes within schools or universities.
A cascade of international sporting associations have also tightened rules concerning transgender athletes in recent years.
In 2020, World Rugby banned transgender athletes from competition, followed by international cycling (UCI), swimming (FINA) and World Athletics banning trans women from women’s events. In the US, the issue has become such a political hot topic that CNN has described restricting trans rights as a new potential “litmus test for Republican candidates”.
At the elite level, most major sporting events have historically operated on a two-sex system, which adopts a binary view of sex and determines sex as either male or female by external anatomical criteria deemed at birth.
The Olympic Gamess — the largest sporting event in the world — has a complex history of sex-verification tests. Over the decades, the International Olympic Committee has used and rejected various verification techniques, including visual inspection (1948), manual inspection (1966), chromatin testing (1967) and testosterone testing (2006).
These techniques were not just humiliating at times, but were also deemed scientifically unreliable for determining whether a body was ‘female’ or not. The testosterone testing regime has also been revised three times since 2011, after experts disagreed on the scientific reliability of various tests.
This two-sex system facilitates sexism generally and transphobia specifically, researchers Richard Pringle and Erik Denison have argued. Despite being pervasive in sport, this binary division does not match what science knows about sexual anatomy, the researchers have explained. That is, science has been unable to determine with any consistency the factors or substances that constitute a female or male body.
As early as the mid-19th century, French anatomist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilare asserted that human sexual anatomy consisted of five category types. And in 2015, science journalist Claire Ainsworth, in an article in Nature on the difficulties of sex verification and the comprehension of sex as a spectrum, wrote, “[I]f you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask.”
So too is the same advice for gender. A recent research paper in Integrative and Comparative Biology explained that “sex and gender are both complex and multifaceted”, adding: “There is a remarkable level of diversity within and between sexes and sex traits of individuals.”
Internationally, sports such as surfing have recently created new policies for gender categorisation, reflecting the tensions around competition, inclusion, fairness and encouraging greater participation.
The International Surfing Association Transgender Policy adopted this year by World Surfing League, for example, requires testosterone testing, but is less aggressive in those requirements compared with other international-level sports such as athletics. In general, grassroots or community surfing seems more willing to deal with these issues in a trans-inclusive way than elite, international-level events, as forthcoming research by lisahunter explores.
The Gay Games — which focus on participation and inclusion, rather than the overt desire to determine athletic supremacy — has taken a different approach to the Olympics and other major ‘mainstream’ events. Overall, the event organisers have demonstrated a willingness to consult, develop, revise and negotiate requirements — and engage with tensions associated with safety and fairness — for trans-inclusive competition.
In 1994, the Gay Games initiated athlete choice of a binary gender category. As researcher Caroline Symons has explained in her work tracing the history of trans inclusion in the Gay Games, it was the first international sports event to include “transgender participants within its policy and procedures, including those who were in transition or who could not complete their sex change for financial and/or medical reasons”.
The Sydney Gay Games in 2002 defined gender by social identity: In the game of netball at those Games, the solution was for women’s, men’s, mixed and transgender competitions, with negotiations of rules and membership according to the gender that participants lived. These measures included removing the burden of proof from athletes to provide documentation, and instead assuming that all are genuine in their gender category selection. This was the most inclusive gender policy developed at that time, and it remains in place today.
There are mental health benefits to this approach.
While no studies have been done specifically on Gay Games athletes’ mental health, it is fair to infer that denying acceptance and inclusion in the gender category with which an athlete identifies could exacerbate the health and well-being problems faced by trans people.
Trans young people in Australia experience high levels of mental distress. Almost eight in 10 (79.7 percent) have self-harmed; more than 82 percent have experienced suicidal thoughts, and almost half (48.1 percent) have attempted suicide, while three in four participants have been diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety. Higher rates of self-harm, suicide and drug/alcohol addictions faced by trans people are explained in direct relation to the discrimination they have faced.
This is not to say that the planning of the 2023 Gay Games was perfect or without controversy.
Hong Kong originally won the bid to host the Games, in part, as an important political step to promote LGBTQIA+ inclusion within the broader Asian region. Yet in 2020, Hong Kong imposed one of the strictest Covid prevention regimes and, at the same time, China began cracking down on ‘effeminate men‘. This resulted in the decision to scale back the scope of the Games in Hong Kong and to invite Guadalajara to co-host.
Currently, with China tightening its totalitarian grip on Hong Kong, transgender people face strong forms of discrimination throughout China, and LGBTQIA+ people more broadly in China face greater legal and social challenges in comparison to non-LGBTQIA+ people. The decision for Hong Kong to co-host has therefore been somewhat controversial, including Taiwan announcing it would not send a team due to safety concerns.
As noted, discrimination against trans people is not isolated to China. With the recent rise in fundamentalism and right-wing populism, there has been a spate of hate-filled protests and hybrid media attacks towards many represented in LGBTQIA+ communities across the globe. At the same time, there is increasing affirmation of LGBTQIA+ athletes as role models and Pride celebrations in different sporting codes.
In these contentious times, sport has become a site where sexuality and gender challenges have been played out, more recently, by trans athletes. This is an important reflective moment for sport’s ability to exclude — and include.
Supporting individuals and groups to participate in sport allows us all to gain from the benefits of rich diversity, research has found. It enables us to explore more clearly how sport can engage with concepts like fairness, human rights and competition, in order to function as a social good.
The Gay Games provides insight into how sport, and society, can become more inclusive, affirm difference and mitigate discrimination including that based on sex, gender and sexuality.
Dr lisahunter (they/it, non-identifying) has researched, taught and published in areas of pedagogy, diversity, movement, health, gender and sexuality, teacher education, physical culture and sport, surfing, Health & Physical Education, and qualitative methodologies.
Dr Richard Pringle (he/him) is Professor of Sport, Health and Physical Education in the Monash University School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education. His research predominantly focuses on social in/justices as related to genders, ethnicities and sexualities within the contexts of sport, health and schooling.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 13, 2023
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"author": "Dr lisahunter, Dr Richard Pringle"
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What the Asia-Pacific needs to leap forward on climate action - 360
John Thwaites
Published on September 18, 2023
To break their ‘two steps forward, one step back’ routine on climate action, the Asia-Pacific needs to start delivering on ambitious emissions targets.
The Asia-Pacific’s greenhouse gas emissions keep rising and in some respects the region is going backwards. Climate action was the only Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 13) in which outcomes went backwards in the Asia-Pacific between 2015 and 2023.
Progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 13, taking “urgent action to address climate change”, has been a case of two steps forward, one step back in the Asia-Pacific.
Over the past two years, countries in the Asia-Pacific have made strides: China and Indonesia have undertaken to transition their economies to net zero by 2060, Australia and most Southeast Asian countries by 2050.
China has massively invested in renewable energy. Indonesia has slowed deforestation, Vietnam has significantly expanded solar energy and Australia is aiming for more than 80 percent of electricity to be renewable by 2030.
But a 2023 UN report said SDG 13 is “slipping away”, and the Asia-Pacific was “both a victim … and a perpetrator of climate change”. There’s work to do in getting SDG 13 back on track.
Climate finance has increased but falls short of what is needed for both mitigation and adaptation efforts. The financing gap is widening in emerging and developing economies due to discrepancies in financing cost.
For example, the estimated cost of capital for a solar PV panel in key emerging economies was between two and three times higher than in advanced economies and China.
The Asia-Pacific has vast potential to accelerate climate actions with strengthened collaboration. Increasing grid connectivity across Southeast Asian countries through the ASEAN Power Grid initiative can enhance energy security, increase efficiency of power procurement and increase renewable energy uptake.
Increasing knowledge sharing and capability development is also critical to progress in the region. For instance the ASEAN Green Future project, a collaboration between the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Climateworks Centre and research groups across Southeast Asia, has shown coordinating to build and strengthen low-carbon value chains can catalyse a rapid transformation of Southeast Asia into a global low-carbon hub.
An informed and collective response will form the bedrock of future success. The Asia-Pacific’s diverse economic landscapes and policy contexts can shape adaptation strategies, resilience building and emission reduction techniques.
In adaptation, as in mitigation, this knowledge exchange is pivotal, particularly in catalysing funding and policy support for the most vulnerable nations.
Climate change is leading to more intense and frequent extreme weather events, and there are severe vulnerabilities in the region, including sea level rise in the Pacific, and flooding and typhoons in tropical Asia.
A person living in Asia and the Pacific is six times more likely to be affected by disaster events than someone living outside the region, resulting in thousands of lives lost and millions of dollars of economic damages.
The number of lives lost in disasters is dwarfed by the deaths attributable to air pollution, much of it caused by burning coal.
Of the seven million premature deaths globally resulting from air pollution, more than four million were in Asia and the Pacific. Reducing reliance on coal helps mitigate climate change and also has an immediate health benefit for people living in the region.
While some countries make progress, others grapple with unique challenges.
Indonesia, for instance, stands at a pivotal juncture. The announcement at the G20 in 2020 of USD$20 billion dollars of finance to support a Just Energy Transition Partnership in Indonesia has, along with the global resources race fuelled by the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act, created meaningful opportunities for the transition in Indonesia.
However, more policy reforms are needed to increase renewable energy uptake. Indonesia has significant capacity for solar power, but regulatory constraints make it very difficult to compete.
Given the urgent need to address climate change, the imperative is not only setting goals or targets, but delivering on them.
In Australia, targets supported by meaningful policy and economic incentives have been key to progress: electricity generation by renewable sources has grown by 167 percent over 10 years, driven by meaningful policy and incentives to make those targets reality.
John Thwaites is a professorial fellow at Monash University, and Chair of both Monash Sustainable Development Institute and Climateworks Centre. He is also a Co-Chair of the Leadership Council of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
This article is part of a special report on the ‘State of the SDGs’, produced in partnership with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on September 18, 2023
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"author": "John Thwaites"
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What to watch at COP28 - 360
Reece Hooker
Published on November 21, 2023
Dubai is hosting the world’s biggest climate conference amid war, economic trouble and increasing climate challenges. Will the big talk translate into action?
The COP28 conference will kick off in Dubai’s Expo City on 30 November, helmed by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
The world is well beyond the point of consensus that action on climate needs to happen and fast. But the task of translating the rhetoric into the action needed to keep global warming below the internationally agreed target of 1.5 degrees Celsius is a mighty one.
Early indications are promising. Even though US President Joe Biden is skipping the conference, his administration is working with China to broker a new climate agreement to follow their progress at COP27.
Looming over these crucial negotiations is the host country and its Gulf oil state allies. There is scepticism over anointing Al Jaber, a fossil fuels executive, as the lead delegate of a climate conference.
The Sultan espouses a commitment to resolving climate change and preaches the benefits of an “integrated approach” that brings oil and renewables to the table. COP28 will be an important flashpoint to put the claims to the test.
360info turns to the experts to provide an overview of COP28: what led to this moment, what might happen in Dubai and what it could mean moving forward.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 21, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-to-watch-at-cop28/",
"author": "Reece Hooker"
}
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What voice will we give to Australia's future? - 360
Lisa Jackson Pulver
Published on January 25, 2024
The wellbeing of our nation should be at the forefront of our minds right now — and we need to get the history right.
As we move toward January 26 this year, I do so with a heavier heart than usual. There are a few reasons for this. The history of January 26 is indelibly inked, yet what comes next remains a challenge.
The result of the 2023 Indigenous Voice referendum, where Australia decided Aboriginal people should not be recognised in the Constitution, nor have a say in matters that affect us, has hit many of us hard.
The ongoing promotion of January 26 as a day to “celebrate all the things we love about Australia” serves to minimise the challenges that this moment represents for Aboriginal people and for our non-Indigenous allies.
There are many things everyone can agree January 26 marks: it is the moment that Captain Arthur Phillip set foot on the soil of Sydney Cove and claimed the land of this continent for the British. He did so through an assumption of terra nullius. This was in keeping with 18th century European practices of colonisation whereby they justified sovereignty through means of occupation (assumption of terra nullius), cession (treaty) or conquest (military force).
Terra nullius was found much later to be nothing more than a legal fiction. It failed to recognise Aboriginal peoples’ society and relationships with the lands, waters and skies for what it was: pre-existing sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
We have always known, and the laws of Australia have recognised since 1993, that Australia was not terra nullius. This crucial detail underpins the ongoing challenges of national identity when it comes to January 26.
Many people believe January 26 is the day Australia came into being. It’s not.
Australia was not Australia until the ratification of the 1901 Constitution, which had followed a series of constitutional conventions, the first in 1891. This heralded a new phase in the colonisers’ history, creating a Commonwealth of six colonies under one federal system, based on the British Westminster System.
Aboriginal peoples were not included in the constitutional conventions, nor were any represented in any early Australian parliament.
Despite this, the new Constitution contained two specific clauses pertaining to Aboriginal peoples. Section 51(xxvi) around not being able to make specific laws regarding Aboriginal people; and, notably in this context, Section 127 which excluded Aboriginal people from being counted a part of the Australian population in the national census. All other Australians were ‘amongst the people’ in the Australian Constitution.
A few decades later, the 1938 sesquicentenary saw Aboriginal people bussed in to Sydney from Menindee in far west New South Wales, locked in nearby horse stables and forced to participate in the inaccurate re-enactment of Phillip’s landing.
On the same day, a historic meeting of the Australian Aborigines League and the Aboriginal Progressive Association was held in Sydney at Australia Hall declaring January 26 a “Day of Mourning” and seeking citizenship rights and freedom for all Aboriginal peoples.
January 26 has only been a national public holiday since 1994. Before then, the date was variously acknowledged as First Landing Day, Anniversary Day, Foundation Day, Survival Day and the Day of Mourning.
Despite the fact that Aboriginal people were not reported as ‘amongst the people’ in the census, it is known that the Aboriginal population had dropped dramatically from that of 1788. By 1901, an estimated 150,000 Aboriginal people accounted for 4 percent of the total population, estimated to be around 3,788,120.
Only in the 1967 Referendum was Section 127 — excluding the reporting of the numbers of Aboriginal people — repealed, along with an adjustment to Section 51(xxvi), deleting the phrase “other than the aboriginal race”.
There were striking consequences for deciding not to include Aboriginal population data in the national Census, not only constitutional ones — as important as they are. By rendering people invisible, inequity in health, education, rights of free movement, education, health and more — were profound, intergenerational, the effects of which continue.
Most jurisdictions held various acts and rights over each Aboriginal child, with periods ranging from Separation, Segregation, Protection and then Assimilation. Since then, the government has been able to measure and report the state of Aboriginal people to the Australian people.
A lot has happened following the 1967 referendum. In 1971, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were included in Census results for the first time. Communities, advocates and allies worked tirelessly to form the first Aboriginal Medical Service, Aboriginal Legal Aid, Education Consultative Committee, Women’s Groups and the Land Rights movements. Many of these groups were world first and remain in the hands and control of the community. These groups and others like them provide bespoke services to their local peoples.
Despite the knowledge of the many equity gaps in health, education and wellbeing, many of these services remain under-resourced, rely on annualised funding, and are not able to fully provide the services their communities need nor plan for programs consistently into the future.
These gaps are exacerbated by the fact many Aboriginal people live far from health, education and other services, with some having to travel hundreds of kilometres for care. Even today, the life expectancy for Aboriginal people is comparable with the whole of Australian data of the early 1980s. In other words, our key measure of health, life expectancy, remains more than 40 years behind that of other Australians.
Since the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples offered by then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 13 February 2008, the history of this nation is no longer in dispute. The effects of the original act of Arthur Philip and the Crown are still seen today in health outcomes, incarceration rates, out of home care, criminalisation of the effects of intergenerational grief, among others. The Annual Close the Gap reports and commentary still show life disparities across health, employment, home ownership and educational attainment.
Australia is rich. It has a life expectancy higher than the OECD average, lower preventable mortality, hosts the 12th largest economy in the world and has some of the highest household income with a place in the top 10 GDP.
The Indigenous Voice referendum was a step towards completing the unfinished business of this land. The ensuing debate saw most agree on the profound disadvantage Aboriginal people and the many injustices faced by people since 1788.
This same debate also saw a significant toxicity in Australian society — we had to ask the 96 percent of people who do not identify as Indigenous about letting us have a say about our own affairs. We asked all Australians to recognise us in the constitution of this land.
Despite nearly half of all Australians being born overseas, or being a child of such parents, Australia still said No. Is this an artefact of some sort, where many recent Australians don’t recognise the colonial history of these lands, or of the continuing habitation of this place by Aboriginal people for 60,000-plus years?
A Yes vote would have meant so much to us, and have little or no day to day effect on the rest of the Australian people. I despair the lack of generosity, or insight, or knowledge in this decision by the majority of Australia.
Yet, there is a thirst for reconciliation, in some form. But — for me — the outcome of the same referendum shows the underbelly of harm, disadvantage and grievance for all to see. Still, all agree ‘something’ must be done.
For decades, we have heard new governments, departments, research groups and mainstream peak bodies make promises, get in tune with a new strategy or policy. Many prime ministers over decades “claimed to support Indigenous recognition, but failed to achieve it”.
The idea that the debate around January 26 can be resolved by ignoring the complex history, by not facing the inequalities that have been the result of it and hoping that the ongoing health disparities will resolve over time without implementing the solutions offered by Aboriginal people, needs to end.
This year, January 26, offers a chance to reflect on who we are as a nation. Aboriginal peoples across the land have always known what it is to be on these ancient lands.
I hope that one of the wealthiest nations on earth can look beyond its blinkers and get it right for Aboriginal people. Listen to Aboriginal people and the community peak bodies that represent so many of us. Don’t water down what these groups are asking for, or the sound solutions they present.
The ongoing promotion of January 26 as a day “celebrate all the things we love about Australia” serves to minimise the challenges that this moment represents for Aboriginal people.
We have a real opportunity to become a good ancestor for those who come after us, as those before have been for us. Right now, I don’t hold much hope — other than hope I am wrong.
Lisa Jackson-Pulver is a Koori woman and is an epidemiologist and public health practitioner. She is currently the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy and Services at the University of Sydney.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Indigenous affairs” sent at: 25/01/2024 07:38.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on January 25, 2024
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"author": "Lisa Jackson Pulver"
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What we can learn from the Semai people to protect against climate change - 360
Cyren Wong
Published on December 21, 2022
In Malaysia, the Indigenous concept of badi is not superstition or taboo, it’s about respecting the land, environment and wildlife to avoid negative impacts.
“In the forest, you never know who is related to whom,” says a Semai villager.
The Semais, one of Malaysia’s largest Indigenous groups, have a rich system of beliefs, practices and traditions connected to their ancestral lands’ ecosystem and environment. They offer a highly localised strategy for mitigating unwanted disasters such as environmental degradation, a global pandemic or the occurrence of major zoonotic diseases.
When the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, the Semai community blamed it in part on society as a whole having incurred ‘badi’. The badi was so severe it spread beyond the confines of the original offenders to the entire world.
Semais see badi as a negative consequence of over-exploiting or disrespecting nature and other creatures, spiritually inducing sickness and bad luck. It can affect humans on an individual level but also has the potential to spread beyond the borders of a village to affect other communities or even the entire world.
The vagueness around badi and its control over so many aspects of Semai life might seem perplexing to outsiders. Anthropologist Robert Dentan explained that the Semai like many Indigenous communities often engages in what is known as “ad hoc empirical testing”; a form of reflexive adaptation of the community to challenges faced whereby the definitions of taboos and customs are necessarily broad to accommodate for the unpredictability of natural phenomena. The undefinable “tragedy” that must be mitigated through avoiding badi can take on various forms and negative events are often only attributed to badi retrospectively. By reflecting on their actions and their consequences, the Semai badi is also articulated in the context of behaviours and lessons that need to be enforced among future generations.
The Semai live in close proximity to wildlife, creating a path for zoonotic diseases or the transmission of animal pathogens to humans to occur. By evading badi, the Semai believe they can prevent contracting any animal-borne diseases, especially during hunting and gathering.
Badi is most commonly known among Semai hunters and their wives whose responsibilities are to prepare the animals for consumption. A wide range of practices and beliefs could be attributed to badi, from the way animals are killed and the type of animals to how they are stored before consumption. For example, you should not keep two different kinds of animals near one another, and ensure animal blood does not mix, transfer, or touch human bodies while hunting and slaughtering animals. When asked the reason for these taboos around hunting and food, the Semai people would succinctly describe it as precautions taken to avoid incurring badi.
Though often phrased as ‘local food superstitions’ or ‘taboos’ by past observers, our growing engagement with Indigenous communities and understanding of their knowledge and identities have presented an alternative view.
But this is not the same time-worn ‘ecologically noble savage’ debate which assumes an essentially a-contextual, holistic and mutually beneficial relationship between Indigenous peoples and the environment.
The Semai, like any other communities, are subjected to the same social and ecological pressures of climate change and global warming. Just as the composition of animals in the rainforest has changed, so too has the Semai’s adaptation to the changing environment.
The mass extinction of native wildlife and the migration of animals to escape destruction and encroachment has forced Indigenous communities to struggle with the loss of culturally significant plants and animals. They have been exploring new ways of engaging with the existing resources. In the Ulu Geroh village in Perak, Malaysia, butterflies, which were once considered sacred to Ngku, the feared Thunder God have now been collected en masse and sold for money to buy food as the Semais can no longer hunt and sustain themselves.
However, the practices and beliefs of the Semai people still impart a valuable lesson in temperance and moderation. As one Semai villager would surmise, “the world is changing all around us. We are entering new relationships with nature and have no idea what the implications of our actions will be. But we may have no choice in the matter, but we must approach with caution, never take more than we need or be overcome by greed as we try to understand our new place in it.”
Dr Cyren Wong is an anthropologist and ecologist who specialises in the study of Indigenous communities, humanity’s relationships with nature, and tropical terrestrial ecosystems. He is also the head of the Malaysia Immersion and Pathways, a field-based research and education hub under the Vice President (Education) portfolio at Monash University Malaysia. Follow his Facebook page, Naturetalksback with Dr. Cyren Asteraceya to know more about his latest outreach work.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on December 21, 2022
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"author": "Cyren Wong"
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What we don't know about women as ‘weapons of war’ - 360
Yolanda Riveros-Morales and Jacqui True
Published on March 8, 2022
We still don’t know just how widespread and systematic the use of sexual violence is in conflict zones.
Sexual violence, a weapon of war recognised by many governments and international institutions, impacts thousands of people during and after conflicts. But how widespread and systematic it is largely remains a mystery which researchers are hoping to solve with improved data collection.
It’s clear women and girls are at heightened risk of this type of violence in the rapidly deteriorating war underway in Ukraine.In conflict situations, sexual and gender-based crimes are war tactics used by both government and armed non-government groups.
In Colombia, a country with a long history of civil conflict, credible estimates put the number of conflict-related sexual violence victims between 1959 and 2020 at 15,760. The true figures are likely to be higher, and of those affected more than 90 percent were women and girls.
There is often no reliable real-time data from conflict-affected countries or those experiencing political fragility and tensions. This data is needed to better understand the patterns of sexual and gender-based violence during different phases of conflict. Including how widespread and systematic sexual violence is, in what locations it’s occurring in, who the perpetrators, victims and survivors are.
Without accurate data it’s challenging to reduce sexual violence that disproportionately affects women and girls.
To fill this data gap, researchers are building a database with predictive power based on news articles and open access non-governmental organisation reports in eight countries. All have experienced different types of conflicts between 2000 and 2020. They are Myanmar and the Philippines in Southeast Asia; Syria and Iraq in the Middle East; Nigeria, Central African Republic and South Sudan in Africa; and Colombia in Latin America.
For each report of sexual violence, information is extracted to identify where the event occurred, the type of violence, the characteristics of the victim, survivors and perpetrator. But importantly, why the victims were the object of the crime. Other data being assessed includes other human rights violations which occurred simultaneously, the estimated number of sexual crimes, and when and in which location the event occurred.
It’s clear sexual and gender-based violence is systematic from the existing data gathered. Very different to isolated cases of intimate partner or domestic and family violence, where the main perpetrators are found within the homes of the victims. The repertoire of violence that most women and girls in conflicts are subjected to goes far beyond single acts of rape.
Sexual crimes occur with different frequencies and include kidnapping for sexual purposes, forced marriages and maternity, trafficking for sexual exploitation, forced nudity, mutilation of women’s bodies, and forced abortions.
Both government and armed non-government groups have used sexual crimes to exert power within civil society, punish or impose social norms, or as a cost-effective way to move people from their lands and homes.
In Myanmar, for example, data from the reports analysed between 2016 and 2017 show it’s systematically used by those involved in ethnic-religious conflicts in Rakhine and Shan state. In several cases, there is evidence of double victimisations of women and girls who live in shelters. They are women who were victims of rape subsequently forced into marriages to maintain their family’s honour, or lured into sex trafficking networks hoping to provide food supplies and security for their families.
Data also revealed other factors exacerbating sexual violence in countries currently affected by armed conflict or following it. Natural disasters or the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have increased the number of cases. Sexual violence reports more than doubled during COVID-19 lockdowns between March and May 2020 in Nigeria. The Federal Capital Territory Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Response Team went from receiving between five and six weekly sexual violence reports, to 13 incidents per week during the pandemic.
Under international law, it is the nation’s responsibility to guarantee recovery pathways for victims and survivors, as well as their access to justice. These pathways help victims prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases or other infections. It also guarantees mental health care to overcome trauma, and to pursue perpetrators through the judicial system.
Accurate, searchable databases can help to break the silence on the experiences of victims and survivors and prevent future acts. Silence prevails with no information, and no data. And governments would not provide services or reparations without hard evidence.
Information is persuasive, detailed data even more so in ensuring governments design and implement policies that work to prevent violence.
Yolanda Riveros-Morales is a research fellow at Monash University’s Gender, Peace and Security Centre.
Dr Jacqui True FASSA FAIIA is a professor of international relations, and director of the Gender, Peace and Security Centre at Monash University.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 8, 2022
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"author": "Yolanda Riveros-Morales and Jacqui True"
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What we know so far about microdosing psychedelics - 360
Vince Polito
Published on October 11, 2022
Taking small quantities of psychedelics over time might improve your mood but there’s a lot we don’t understand.
Following a long period of prohibition, psychedelic drugs have once again found their way into science labs and clinics, with growing evidence showing they may be important new tools in mental health.
This new wave of research has driven a shift in cultural attitudes towards psychedelics. Hallucinogenic drugs like mescaline and psilocybin — the active component in ‘magic mushrooms’ — have been used in cultural and religious rituals for centuries. Typically these substances were taken at high doses that led to profound alterations in consciousness.
Recently, however, ‘microdosing’ has emerged — the practice of regularly taking psychedelic substances at very low doses, which does not lead to marked changes in conscious awareness. This idea only entered into public conversation in 2011 but since that time has become a popular worldwide trend, with proponents claiming regular dosing in this way can lead to a range of psychological and physical benefits.
The most commonly described method of microdosing is to take one tenth to one twentieth of a typical recreational dose every three or four days. Many microdosers report improved cognition and mental health, and there is evidence of microdosing leading to changes in pain perception, mood and attention. But studies also indicate that at least some of microdosing’s effects may be due to the user’s expectations, meaning the true causes of these changes remains unknown.
Regardless of whether the effects are based on expectation or pharmacology, microdosing is having a considerable impact on peoples’ lives. In one striking study, more than 50 percent of participants ceased using traditional antidepressant medications after they started microdosing. Similarly, people who microdosed claim it is more effective than pain medication treatments, leading 27.5 percent of respondents to stop taking their medications.
Survey studies of microdosers consistently report that the practice leads to reduced levels of depression and improved mood. These findings have, so far, not been replicated in lab settings, however all of the lab studies to date have involved healthy participants taking just one to seven doses. It may be that the antidepressant effects of microdosing only emerge after more consistent dosing, or it may be that these effects are only observable in clinical populations.
Survey and mobile-app based studies have shown that microdosers report increased attention, improved mindfulness, and greater ability to focus. Microdosing has also been found to help reduce smoking and other illicit substance abuse. But while people who microdose reported lower levels of substance use disorders, they also report a higher likelihood of recreational substance use. No lab studies have assessed the effects of microdosing on other substance use.
There is evidence that microdosing leads to brain changes. One study, investigating microdoses of LSD, found altered connectivity across the brain’s limbic system that was associated with changes in mood. Similarly, two studies investigating psilocybin microdosing found reduced activity in the default mode network. These findings are broadly compatible with findings from high-dose psychedelics and the mechanisms of traditional antidepressants.
Microdosing research continues to grapple with how to conduct well designed, meaningful studies. It’s very difficult to conduct trials of a mind-altering substance without raising expectations, and it would be unethical not to fully inform participants of what they might experience. But it’s also too early to claim that results are mainly driven by the placebo effect. Until we have well-controlled studies that investigate the effects of a sustained period of microdosing (for example, at least four to six weeks), and until we have tested possible clinical effects in populations experiencing mental illness, we cannot be sure about the therapeutic potential of these low doses.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, visit Find a helpline for free, confidential support from a real person over phone, text or online chat in your country.
Vince Polito is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Psychological Sciences at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His research investigates cognitive and neurological changes in altered states of consciousness. He has investigated attentional capacities in meditation, psychiatric symptoms of disturbed control, states of flow in expertise, hypnotic suggestions, and body representation alterations in virtual reality.
This work was supported by a Macquarie University Research Fellowship.
Vince Polito was previously a consultant for Mydecine Innovations Group.
This article has been republished following the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announcement that from July 1 this year, medicines containing the psychedelic substances psilocybin (found in magic mushrooms) and MDMA can be prescribed by authorised psychiatrists for mental health treatment. It was first published on October 10, 2022.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on October 11, 2022
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"author": "Vince Polito"
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What will an El Niño bring next to India? - 360
Chirag Dhara, Roxy Mathew Koll
Published on July 12, 2023
India’s vital monsoon rains can be disrupted by an El Niño which is a major concern for crop production.
India’s monsoon was delayed by three weeks this year.
This meant far lower rainfall across the subcontinent in early June and a vicious heatwave which saw temperatures in some areas of Uttar Pradesh hit 47 degrees Celsius.
A delayed and weak monsoon is usually the case when an El Niño develops in the (northern-hemisphere) Spring, as has been the case this year, after three consecutive years of La Niña. Predictive models suggest the El Niño will continue strengthening in coming months.
El Niño events profoundly influence extreme weather events around the world, with far-reaching consequences for food production, water availability, and the wellbeing of both people and ecosystems.
Implications for India are significant, with the impact on agricultural production being one of the most pressing concerns.
El Niño events have been associated with amplifying temperature rise, heat extremes, and inducing more erratic rainfall patterns over the subcontinent.
Historically, at least half of the instances of El Niño have been directly linked to droughts during the summer monsoon season.
In 2015, Chennai in southern India experienced an extraordinary rainfall event, in which the region witnessed its heaviest one-day rainfall in over a century.
This event has been attributed partly to the extreme El Niño event between 2014 and 2016. The torrential downpour resulted in over three million people being deprived of essential services, and the costs to the Indian economy were estimated at USD$3 billion.
The impact of these events serves as a stark reminder of the far-reaching effects that escalating extreme weather events can have on communities and economies.
The collective impacts of these changes on agricultural production can compromise food and water security.
It is essential, therefore, to dissect how future changes in climate and El Niño events will combine to affect India’s monsoon in the coming years.
With the oceans absorbing around 93 percent of the additional heat from global warming, El Niños are becoming stronger.
Most climate models project that fluctuations in rainfall related to El Niños will increase significantly in the next few decades.
This increase is attributed to the global warming-induced rise in atmospheric moisture content.
According to climate models, the connection between El Niño and the Indian summer monsoon will intensify in the future, especially if we continue with high carbon emissions.
In simple terms, this means that the impact of El Niño on the Indian monsoon will become even more pronounced.
In addition to projected increases in erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, and heatwaves due to climate change, the forecast of amplifying El Niño impacts on the Indian monsoon have led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth report to assess India as the most vulnerable nation in Asia concerning impacts on crop production.
This underscores the urgency of wide-ranging adaptation and risk mitigation actions in India.
It is essential to embrace crop varieties and livestock more resilient to the changing climate. We can reduce reliance on specific crops by altering cropping patterns and promoting diverse crop systems.
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research actively develops crop varieties resilient to climate variations and can withstand diseases.
Despite some improvements in irrigation infrastructure, around 50 percent of agriculture still depends on rainfall. Efficient irrigation and water management practices will play an essential role in reducing the water requirements of Indian agriculture.
Implementing water and soil moisture conservation methods, along with agroforestry and forestry initiatives, can help retain soil moisture, prevent erosion, and maintain a healthy ecological balance.
Adaptation strategies must also encompass the livestock and fishery sectors, which are susceptible to climate impacts.
Diversifying livestock breeds, and improving animal health management, can enhance the resilience of these sectors.
Similarly, ensuring sustainable fishing practices, protecting and restoring fish habitats, and monitoring fish populations are crucial to enhancing resilience.
Indigenous communities’ knowledge is vital in adapting to the challenges posed by a changing climate. In India, Indigenous farmers have preserved many climate-resilient varieties of seeds that can withstand droughts, floods, and high salinity. By utilising these seeds, farmers can enhance their resilience to an increasingly variable climate.
Investing in training and capacity-building programs for farmers is crucial in addition to embracing traditional knowledge.
These initiatives give farmers the knowledge and skills to adapt to a changing climate and practice resilient agriculture. Financial incentives, such as agriculture insurance, play a significant role in providing a safety net for farmers and can help protect them from potential losses caused by extreme weather events.
During May and June, heatwave forecasts and a close monitoring of the monsoon can help inform early warning systems.
These systems can alert farmers about impending extreme conditions and provide guidance on potential remedial measures. The ongoing Agrometeorological Advisory Services led by the Indian Meteorological Department have already disseminated weather forecasts to farmers through TV, radio, and SMS.
Scaling up these initiatives to reach more farmers and ensure everyone can access necessary weather information will be essential.
Chirag Dhara is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Krea University, India. He was a lead author of India’s official climate change report (2020), and a contributing author to IPCC AR6 (2021).
Roxy Mathew Koll is a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, and a lead author and reviewer of recent IPCC reports.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 12, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/what-will-an-el-nino-bring-next-to-india/",
"author": "Chirag Dhara, Roxy Mathew Koll"
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2,457 |
What will become of the Commonwealth under Charles III? - 360
Craig Prescott
Published on May 5, 2023
Republicanism was seen as a move against Queen Elizabeth II during her reign. Now the Commonwealth is at a crossroads.
With the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the glue that bound 56 disparate nations is gone. The future for the British Commonwealth is less certain under Charles III.
The Commonwealth faces two main questions: the constitutional future of the Commonwealth realms, and the future of the Commonwealth itself.
Elizabeth II personified the monarchy’s link to the past. For good or ill, she was part of the Commonwealth story
The Commonwealth grew from eight to 56 nations under Elizabeth. During her reign, republican sentiment was viewed as a move against the Queen. It’s now portrayed as a move towards full nationhood.
The Commonwealth was designed as a community of equals. It was never intended to be a second version of the British Empire — countries such as Rwanda, Mozambique and Gabon joined despite lacking any connection to the United Kingdom’s colonial past.
In addition to the UK, the Commonwealth realmsare the 14 countries where the king is head of state. The king is represented by a governor-general, who exercises on his behalf the powers held by the Crown — making it, in this sense, the only international monarchy. As they are independent countries, the future of the monarchy is a question for each Commonwealth realm.
While it is one thing for the UK to retain the monarchy, it’s another question for the realms. It may not make sense for the Head of State of Australia to be a monarch who lives thousands of kilometres away.
In the Commonwealth realms, the monarchy has been viewed as a link to the ‘mother country’ as each realm gradually became an independent state. But it could also be seen as preventing fully independent states from achieving complete nationhood.
Being the head of state of 15 countries increases the demand on the royal family for engagements. Each realm is entitled to expect the monarch, as head of state, and by extension, members of the royal family to conduct domestic engagements. This has been one justification for the British royal family to be larger than its European counterparts.
However, the king has let it be known that he wishes to “slim down” the monarchy with fewer royals conducting engagements, which will make it increasingly difficult to meet demands and expectations. If the monarch is absent from a realm, then the question of becoming a republic may answer itself.
In some realms, even if there is a majority in favour of becoming a republic, delivering change can be problematic.
Should they seek to replicate the position of governor-general with an indirectly elected president chosen by the legislature or pursue a directly elected model? Both approaches have their challenges.
Allowing the legislature to appoint the president via an indirectly elected model would be the least constitutionally disruptive, but may not prove popular among the public — as Australia found in 1999. And politicians are naturally wary of being directly elected by the public as it could challenge their authority.
The presidency of the Republic of Ireland may provide the best of both worlds: directly elected but without challenging the authority of government or parliament to govern. A president can serve for seven years, renewable once. To seek election, they must be nominated by at least 20 members of the Oireachtas, or four of the 31 county or city councils. A president who has served one term can nominate themselves to seek reelection for a second term, but their powers are strictly regulated by the Constitution. By convention, the president steers clear of matters of party political controversy.
Any move to a republic must comply with the pre-outlined procedures for a constitutional change. For example, in Jamaica, a two-thirds majority of both houses and a referendum is required to become a republic — a significantly higher hurdle than in other countries.
In Guyana, the constitution only requires a simple majority from the members of the National Assembly, and became a republic in 1970. Barbados moved to a republic more recently in 2021, meeting the threshold for a two-thirds majority. This was an easy threshold to meet, as the Barbados Labour Party, which campaigned on the promise of becoming a republic, won a landslide at the 2018 referendum. Barbados showed the key political dynamic of republicanism — if there is the will to become a republic, it cannot be suppressed forever.
Becoming a republic does not mean total rupture from the past. Since 2007, a Commonwealth realm that became a republic no longer needed to reapply for membership of the Commonwealth. Barbados has become a republic, but remains a member of the Commonwealth, as have Malta which became a republic in 1974 and Mauritius which became a republic in 1992.
The question is, what does being a member of the Commonwealth mean? This is a difficult question to answer.
In 2012, the UK’s House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee concluded “The Commonwealth is failing to realise its great potential. In recent years it has been too often both silent and invisible: silent on occasions when members flout its principles and invisible to its people.”
Over ten years later, little has changed. But the links between Commonwealth members are much deeper than merely sharing a monarch. It has a particular role in fostering democracy and the rule of law amongst its members.
For example, through electoral observation missions and providing a forum to share best practices on issues such as anti-corruption. On cybercrime, the Commonwealth assisted Botswana and Trinidad and Tobago with the reform of their legislation.This is an example of how the Commonwealth can assist small states. These are defined as those with a population of less than 1.5 million, which make up 33 of the Commonwealth’s 56 members. These small states sit alongside members of the G8, Australia, Canada and the UK, and much larger countries including India, Pakistan and Malaysia.
The Commonwealth more generally can provide a form for small states to get their particular concerns heard, not only in the Commonwealth, but more broadly amongst other international organisations.
Members of the Commonwealth enjoy close relations with each other. All the members from Africa are also part of the African Union. Australia, New Zealand and Canada continue to maintain deep links with the UK. Together with the United States, they are all members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement. Australia, together with the UK and the US, have created AUKUS, a security pact which aims to facilitate Australia’s nuclear capability.
The nature of its membership means the Commonwealth may be uniquely placed to play a role in combating climate change. Countries such as Bangladesh, the Seychelles and Mauritius may bear the brunt of climate change, while countries including India, Canada and Australia are some of the world’s highest emitters of CO₂. But to do so, the Commonwealth would need to secure a unity of objectives and a set of institutions which it has never done before.
While the future of the Commonwealth and its realms may be changing, it still provides a grounding root for many nations. Becoming a republic does not mean severing all links with Britain. That has never been the case and will not be.
Dr Craig Prescott, Bangor University, Wales. He writes widely on constitutional and political issues in the UK. He is currently writing Modern Monarchy to be published in early 2024 by Agenda Publishing.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 5, 2023
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"author": "Craig Prescott"
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What will e-transport look like in 10 years? - 360
Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian, Saad Mekhilef, Saeid Ghazizadeh, Alex Stojcevski
Published on November 22, 2023
A future of wireless EV charging is close, but there are challenges to be overcome to get there.
Picture the scene: you’re driving your electric vehicle to the shops and notice the battery is running low.
Not to worry. You park in an available bay, and while you shop for groceries and have a cappuccino, your car is charging. No cable, no worries. The entire process is automated.
Thanks to recent advancements in wireless power transfer research, it has become feasible to charge EVs without the need for a cable, just like the wireless chargers already in use for smartphones.
This is the future of EVs. And it’s not far away.
Far from former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s fear that EVs could “end the weekend“, Christmas holidays at the beach in the near future could benefit from built-in wireless charging infrastructure on the highways you take to get there.
This will allow you to charge your EV while travelling on the road, known as dynamic wireless charging.
Most EVs today can travel more than 300km on a single charge — further than most people will need for day-to-day use, but not far enough when you’re embarking on a longer journey.
But with dynamic wireless charging technology integrated into highway infrastructure, range anxiety will no longer be something you’ll have to think about.
You also won’t have to buy a more expensive EV with a bigger battery capable of covering hundreds of kilometres — batteries being the most expensive part of an EV — when your average daily travel distance is just a few tens of kilometres.
The extensive list of EV benefits is quite appealing — not least how they can help reduce the world’s transport-related greenhouse gas emissions.
However, there is still a long way to go before we reach that utopia.
Despite their environmentally-appealing facade, EVs produce more carbon emissions during the manufacturing phase than their internal combustion engine counterparts.
This is primarily attributed to the environmentally unfriendly processes of producing the bulky batteries used in EVs.
Before a mid-size EV even hits the road, an analysis estimated it would have produced 8,100kg of CO2. However this will be offset over the life of the EV, thanks to its carbon-free propellant.
Whether charged via a cable or wirelessly, the environmental impact of EVs also depends on the carbon footprint of their energy source.
If the electricity used to recharge it is sourced only from coal-fired power plants, a mid-size EV like the Tesla 3 would have to be driven 125,000km to surpass the environmental performance of a petrol-fuelled Toyota Corolla.
However, if the grid recharging it is fully powered by renewable sources, this break-even point falls to below 14,000km.
The electricity grid must be capable of accommodating such a tremendous influx of EVs and renewable resources.
EVs are not just like other items you have at home. The charging process of an electric car might take up to 22 kilowatts of power — or 10 times the power consumed when ironing or using your hairdryer at maximum capacity.
Handling such an enormous amount of power at a national grid level, coupled with the unpredictable nature of renewable resources requires a grid that is not only more intelligent but also more sustainable and decentralised than current infrastructure.
The grid first needs to be digitalised to keep up with the complex demands of the growing number of EVs using it and the increasing prevalence of renewable energy resources feeding into it.
What this means is that a future grid is a data-driven, AI-integrated network which enables all the energy entities — from consumers to distributed generators and renewable resources — to interact digitally with each other as well as with the overall main network.
The rise of artificial intelligence, and its related applications, present promising opportunities to manage these highly sophisticated energy grids efficiently.
Another challenge to overcome is improving the batteries that power EVs themselves.
As well as current batteries being expensive, bulky and hard to sustainably produce, they can also be easily damaged.
For example, fast chargers for EVs allow you to recharge quickly but they also inject a massive amount of energy into the battery in a very short time, causing greater depreciation and degradation of the battery.
There is also the problem of what to do when the battery reaches the end of its usefulness in an EV, with work underway to see if they can be repurposed for stationary use at solar or wind farms.
Researchers are developing a process for recycling EV batteries at the end of their life and breaking them down into their component parts which only produces low emissions.
But EV batteries have their upsides too, such as their ability to feed energy back into the grid through bidirectional chargers and vehicle-to-grid technology.
Such a future is already here for some EV drivers in South Australia.
Picture another scene: you’re driving your EV to the shops and the money you’ll make feeding energy back into the grid while you’re shopping will cover the cost of your coffee and a spot of lunch nicely.
Associate Professor Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian is the Director of the Siemens Swinburne Energy Transition Hub and Discipline Coordinator of Electrical and Electronics Engineering in the School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include renewable energy systems, electric vehicles, microgrids, smart grids and AI-integrated energy systems.
Professor Saad Mekhilef is a distinguished professor in the School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology and an honorary professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Malaya. His research interests include power conversion techniques, control of power converters, maximum power point tracking, renewable energy, and energy efficiency.
Saeid Ghazizadeh is a PhD student in the School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology. His doctoral research is on wireless charging technologies for electric vehicles.
Professor Alex Stojcevski is Dean of the School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology. His research interests include advanced statistics and big data, power system stability and control, smart grids and microgrids, electric vehicle research, artificial intelligence in manufacturing and power system stability and control.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 22, 2023
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"author": "Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian, Saad Mekhilef, Saeid Ghazizadeh, Alex Stojcevski"
}
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What you need to know about your sleep gadgets - 360
Sean P.A. Drummond
Published on February 12, 2024
Sleep gadgets have become ubiquitous but getting the information you need from them is more straightforward than you might think.
Sleep technology is big business. All those watches, bedside devices, and mattress sensors designed to measure our sleep have become insanely popular.
Perhaps you received a gadget at Christmas or resolved to use the one you already have to improve your sleep this year.
Now you’re left with questions: “How do I make sense of the information the device is providing?” or “What does it actually mean to improve my sleep, and how the heck do I do that?”
Fortunately, the answers are more straightforward than you think.
Most sleep tech (or consumer sleep technology) is pretty good at determining how much sleep you got last night, how consolidated that sleep was, and when it occurred.
Those are the three most important factors to consider when trying to maximise the benefits of your sleep: quantity, quality, and timing.
Sleep quantity is simply the total number of hours and minutes of sleep you get. Adults need to average at least seven hours of sleep per night for optimal health.
Sleep quality, at least when measured objectively, is the percentage of time you try to sleep that you are actually asleep. No one sleeps 100 percent of the night. Around 85 percent or more is perfectly normal.
Sleep timing is exactly what it sounds like: the clock times you go to bed at night and wake up in the morning.
Here, regularity is the key. Currently, the recommendation for good sleepers is to go to bed and wake up within the same one-hour window every day. If you are currently struggling with insomnia, you probably want that window to be more like 15 minutes, as fixing insomnia requires tighter control of your sleep.
There are good reasons to focus on quantity, quality, and timing. Those are the aspects of sleep that best correlate with physical and mental health.
Sleep quantity predicts cardiovascular health (high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes) so strongly, it is included in the American Heart Association’s Essential Eight factors to protect cardiovascular health (alongside diet and exercise, among others).
Sleep quality, or the lack thereof in the form of insomnia, is a risk factor for a variety of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, alcohol dependence, and suicide.
Regularising sleep timing is a newer focus in the field of sleep health, and has quickly emerged as important for all-cause mortality and other health considerations.
That is, people with the most irregular sleep die earlier, regardless of cause, than those with the more regular sleep.
It is important to note, though, the measure of regularity in that study included more than just sleep timing. Nonetheless, sleep timing is a significant driver of sleep regularity.
Sleep quality and sleep timing are also both important for suicide. Specifically, being awake in the middle of the night is associated with a higher risk of attempted and successful suicide than being awake during the day.
There are ways to optimise sleep quantity, quality, and regularity.
First, make sleep a priority. Far too often, we trade away sleep in favour of work or social activities. This undermines all three aspects of sleep health.
Treat sleep as the pillar of health that it is — on equal footing with a good diet and regular exercise. Ok, ok. Maybe you are not so great at those other two, either.
Second, pick an ideal bedtime and wake time. Make your sleep window at least eight hours, so you can sleep at least seven hours.
Are you a morning person, an evening person, or somewhere in between? When we are most likely to feel sleepy and alert are, in part, biologically driven by our circadian rhythms. Try to honour your natural rhythm when selecting your sleep schedule.
Of course, our daily responsibilities can limit flexibility in our sleep schedules, but try to find a balance that respects your natural rhythms. To maximise regularity, it is important to keep the same schedule seven days a week.
If you have to compromise, focus more on a regular wake-up time than bedtime. Waking up at the same time everyday helps to reset your circadian rhythms, which in turn, helps you maintain a regular sleep schedule.
Third, make your bedroom sleep-friendly. This includes many of the sleep hygiene recommendations you have probably heard about: dark room, comfortable temperature, free of sleep distractions like television and electronic devices; use a bedtime routine; do nothing in bed but sleep.
Fourth, give yourself plenty of bright light in the morning, especially in the first few hours after waking up. Light is the biggest signal to our brain that we should be awake and the strongest regulator of our circadian rhythm.
In addition to light, physical activity, eating, and social activities help regulate our rhythms. In fact, Social Rhythm Therapy is an evidence-based treatment for mood disorders focusing on regularising the timing of sleep and these other behaviours to help stabilise mood. So, a focus on regularising your sleep schedule and circadian rhythms can also potentially help your mood.
Finally, try not to stress about your sleep. No one sleeps perfectly and everyone wakes up a few times during the night.
Ironically, trying to sleep actually makes it harder to sleep. One of the biggest factors interfering with many people’s sleep is stress about not sleeping well. Instead, realise if you do not sleep well tonight, you are more likely to sleep better tomorrow night.
The question now is how tech can help you improve your sleep.
The good news is consumer sleep technology can generally determine your sleep quantity, quality, and timing quite well.
Most of these devices use movement, and many also use heart rate, to determine if you are awake or asleep. From there, they can calculate sleep duration (by counting up all the minutes you were asleep), sleep quality (by dividing the amount of sleep by the time you were in bed trying to sleep), and sleep timing (by reporting the clock time of the first and last minute of sleep or by user input).
You can use this information to determine if you are meeting the basic guidelines described above. If you make changes to your sleep habits, you can track how that changes sleep quantity, quality, and timing.
Be aware, though, not all information gadgets provide is equally useful. Many of them provide proprietary ‘sleep scores’. These are generally black boxes, so we have no idea how they actually relate to sleep health. Most sleep experts recommend ignoring those scores.
Also, many gadgets claim to measure sleep stages (often labelled light, deep, and Rapid Eye Movement, or REM, sleep).
However, independent evaluations uniformly show they perform poorly at identifying specific sleep stages, often mislabelling large percentages of any given sleep stage. This is actually not terribly surprising.
The gold-standard measure of sleep relies on measuring brain electrical activity. Movement and heart rate cannot be expected to measure sleep the same way as measuring brain activity.
So, relying on sleep stage information from these types of gadgets to evaluate your sleep quality might lead to unreliable conclusions.
However, that might not matter if you stick to the big three: sleep quantity, quality, and timing.
Professor Sean P.A. Drummond is a professor of clinical neuroscience at Monash University, Director of Research Programs and Infrastructure in the School of Psychological Sciences and a researcher in the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health. His research interests include the cognitive neuroscience of sleep and sleep deprivation, the treatment of insomnia, and the mechanistic role sleep plays in PTSD and mood disorders.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on February 12, 2024
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"author": "Sean P.A. Drummond"
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2,460 |
What's behind the deadly riots in New Caledonia - 360
Adrian Muckle
Published on May 23, 2024
The violent unrest in New Caledonia is alarming. Sadly, the island territory is no stranger to violence.
New Caledonia, France’s Pacific island territory, remains under a state of emergency as deadly riots continue to grip the country. Here’s what’s worth knowing about the crisis.
The country is experiencing a wave of violence on a scale not seen since the terrible events of the 1980s — a period of near civil-war between supporters and opponents of independence that ended with landmark political accords in 1988 and 1998.
In rioting involving up to 9,000 people , there has been large-scale destruction and looting of public infrastructure and businesses across the capital, Nouméa. Large parts of the city and key roads are cut off by barricades. The damage thus far has been estimated at €200 million.
As of Friday midday, there have been five reported deaths. Two of the dead are gendarmes, who were shot (one, from an accidental gunshot.)
The other three indigenous Kanak people (two men aged 20 and 36 and a woman aged 17) who are believed to have been shot in two separate incidents, probably by local residents who have armed themselves to defend their neighbourhoods.
France’s government has taken the extraordinary measure of declaring a state of emergency, which took effect early Thursday morning and will remain in place for at least 12 days. International flights in and out of the country are suspended, and curfews in place.
At least 1,000gendarmes and police have been deployed, with more soon to arrive, and the French Army has been called on to secure key strategic points.
The immediate catalyst for this crisis is a proposed change to New Caledonia’s provincial electoral rolls.
In Paris on Wednesday, France’s National Assembly endorsed a proposed new constitutional law that would allow French residents who have lived in New Caledonia for a decade the right to vote in provincial elections.
The proposed change would add up to 25,000 voters to New Caledonia’s local electoral roll. It would do this by overturning a 2007 measure enshrined in France’s constitution that “froze” New Caledonia’s provincial electoral rolls to allow only French citizens who were admitted to vote in the 1998 elections (with some narrow exceptions) and their adult descendants to participate in the elections that determine local political policy and the composition of the country’s Congress.
By profoundly modifying the electorate without reaching a local political consensus, the reform would reverse a key element of the 1998 Nouméa Accord, which has guaranteed civil peace for more than 25 years and made possible a process of decolonisation.
Some New Caledonians fear the proposed change — which now requires ratification by a two-thirds majority of the Congress of Versailles — would dilute the share of the vote held by the Kanak people.
The Kanak people have long resented French rule. They say allowing French incomers to vote would hamper New Caledonia’s chances of gaining independence.
The root cause of the current crisis, however,is the French government’s failure in 2021 to create the conditions for a third independence referendum that would be beyond all moral and political reproach.
The 1998 Nouméa Accord provided for up to three referenda on independence. In the second referendum in 2020, the vote in favour of independence was a very significant 47 percent — up 4 percent on the first referendum in 2018. The strength of the vote for independence came as a great surprise to French authorities and local “loyalist” parties.
A third referendum took place in 2021 under highly contested conditions in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. That timing was strongly protested by the independence movement which then called for a boycott. That boycott was massively supported and not just by independentists: the abstention rate was 56 percent. Of those who did vote, 96 percent voted to remain with France.
While the 2021 referendum was technically legal, it has been deemed to be morally and politically flawed, in that the majority of voters including the majority of indigenous Kanak and independentists did not participate.
France’s government and “loyalist” parties, though, have steadfastly refused to concede that there was anything wrong with the conditions governing that referendum .
They argue that New Caledonians have voted three times to remain with France; that the 1998 Nouméa Accord is no longer fit for purpose; and that many of its provisions, including the electoral restriction, need to be reformed.
The pro-independence view, broadly, is that there can be no reforms until the issue of the third referendum is resolved.
Pro-independence groups are open to reaching an agreement on electoral reform in the future, but they want that to be part of a wider accord or agreement that includes a pathway to a further referendum and a continuation of the decolonisation process which in their view has not ended.
In the short term, they are calling on French authorities for a dialogue mission and for sufficient time for negotiations to take place in good faith without the threat of an imposed constitutional change.
Dr Adrian Muckle is a senior lecturer in Victoria University of Wellington’s School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations. Dr Muckle is an historian of the Pacific islands region (including its intersection with histories of NZ and of France) in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Much of his research focuses on colonial rule and its legacies in New Caledonia. His most recent work (with historian Isabelle Merle) is: The Indigénat and France’s Empire in New Caledonia: Origins, Practices and Legacies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 23, 2024
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"author": "Adrian Muckle"
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2,461 |
What’s inside northern India's winter smog? - 360
Vinayak Sinha, Abhishek Mishra
Published on January 10, 2024
Reassessing agricultural practices, irrigation, handling of crop residue and prevention of open fires could be a win-win for air quality and quality of life.
Every January millions of people across India’s Ganges plain find themselves caught in fog — cloud at ground level.
This cloud then mixes with smoke from open fires lit for heating and cooking and vehicle exhaust, turning the fog into a toxic smog that shrouds the country for weeks.
Besides air quality deterioration, it also reduces visibility, disrupts travel as well as the transportation of goods and can even lead to loss of life. The livelihood of millions of people is affected.
The Indian meteorological department defines a fog event to have occurred when visibility reduces to 1000 metres or less.
In the last 40 years, there has been a five-fold increase in the number of poor visibility days in the Indo-Gangetic Plain.
Like all clouds, the main ingredient of fog is water vapour.
Pollutants in the air in the form of microscopic aerosol particles soak up the water vapour and grow to larger droplets blocking solar light by scattering and absorption.
The high aerosol load reduces radiation from reaching the surface, thereby cooling the ground. At the same time, it warms the layers of the atmosphere above the ground, which in turn lowers the “boundary layer height”.
The “boundary layer height” is like a lid over the lower atmospheric layer into which surface emitted and chemically formed pollutants accumulate.
During summer, the height of this lid over the Indo-Gangetic Plain reaches 2000m or more during the daytime and is still several hundreds of metres high at night.
By winter, however, the height of this lid drops several hundred metres. The same air pollution emissions then accumulate and build up within a much smaller container (that is reduced in volume by as much as five times compared to Summer), resulting in higher air pollutant concentrations.
These further aggravate the duration and intensity of the fog.
This is what causes the visibility to decrease, preventing airplanes from landing and slowing down cars and trains.
Economic losses due to these disruptions easily exceed several hundred million rupees every year.
During November, paddy stubble burning adds significantly to the aerosol burden and pollution.
By late December and early January, the extra open fires for cooking and heating by the vast population who cannot afford cleaner technologies, become the major sources of air pollutants.
The lower temperatures that accompany fog episodes trigger more open burning for heating — scenes of people huddled around these small fires are a common sight across the region’s cities and villages during winter.
These open fires end up releasing more aerosol particles, which can prolong the fog event by providing additional particles that can soak up the water vapour and swell to produce more fog droplets.
Such open fire emissions release copious amounts of both gaseous and aerosol pollutants into the air, a noxious cocktail that, when combined with the aerosol–radiation feedback, strengthens the spread of the thick blanket of smog over the region.
Several toxic chemicals like isocyanic acid and benzene, a human carcinogen, are also released.
While these factors significantly affect the fog lifecycle, without large scale regional availability of moisture, they would only result in air pollution aggravation, as in the November cycle.
What distinguishes the late December and early January periods from November, is the influx of water vapour near the ground through the rainfall induced by the extra-tropical weather system known as Western Disturbance.
This moistens the ground. The irrigation of the winter wheat crop provides even more water for evaporation, in addition to the existing natural water bodies (ponds, rivers and canals) present in the region.
Further, the occurrence of “atmospheric rivers” as a result of moisture transported from the Arabian Sea, also adds to the water vapour in the air during winter.
Over the past few decades, there has been a documented increase in fog frequency, persistence, and intensity over the region.
The most intense fog events predominantly occur from midnight to 8am.
This is when wind speeds are low, promoting stagnant conditions for accumulation. Surface water vapour easily condenses through the night-time cooling of the ground. The ground air cools to its dew point – thereby condensing the water vapour in it to liquid droplets.
Dissipation of the fog occurs during daytime due to surface warming and when wind speeds pick up. However, this may not happen for prolonged periods.
This is the most common type of fog that occurs over the Indo-Gangetic Plain and in scientific parlance is referred to as “radiation-fog”.
Research such as the winter fog experiments program led by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and several other national research institutes in India, are attempting to find out more about the phenomenon.
Right now, there are still more “unknowns” than “knowns”.
Further scientific efforts are needed to design focused regional field studies with comprehensive chemical and meteorological observations to unravel the chemistry of fog. This will help with improved fog forecasts that can alert citizens with more accurate and timely warnings.
As for improving air quality and minimising fog, a serious investigation of prevalent agricultural practices, in particular for irrigation and handling of crop residue, and preventing open fires will help. This can be done by providing access to cleaner energy technologies for heating and cooking along with better waste disposal.
This would be a win-win for air quality and improved quality of life for the millions that inhabit this dynamic developing region of the world.
Vinayak Sinha is Professor at, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, India.
Abhishek Mishra is Scientific Officer with the Bihar Mausam Sewa Kendra.
Dr. Vinayak Sinha’s research projects have received funding from the Ministry of Earth Sciences India.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Asia’s dirty air” sent at: 09/01/2024 14:35.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on January 10, 2024
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"author": "Vinayak Sinha, Abhishek Mishra"
}
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What’s needed to educate boys about gender violence - 360
Michael Flood
Published on November 29, 2023
More boys and young men are being taught about gender violence, respect and consent, but better programs and online tools will help.
In my 20s I joined a march of 400 men through the streets of Melbourne, Australia, under banners emphasising our commitment to ending men’s violence against women.
Thirty-plus years ago, that was one of the first times men joined with women and took collective action to end gender-based violence, but these days such action is not so strange.
As the UN marks 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, more men are playing a role in ending men’s violence against women and girls.
The numbers of men who take part in efforts such as the White Ribbon Campaign have increased, initiatives focused on engaging men and boys have proliferated in the last decade, and there are organisations and networks engaging men across the world.
More men are speaking up when they hear victim-blaming comments, talking to their sons about how to have healthy relationships, and joining campaigns to end domestic and sexual violence.
There are common pathways to why these men make a commitment to ending violence against women.
Some men hear women’s experiences of suffering violence, whether from a female friend or relative or a public survivor advocate, and realise that no one should have to go through this. Some men have political and ethical commitments, whether to simple values of fairness or to ideals of justice and equality, and they see that men’s violence is fundamentally at odds with these. Some men are exposed to feminist ideas, whether by mothers or at school or university.
Other men grew up with alternative role models, such as fathers and uncles who modelled respect and non-violence. Still others feel constrained by traditional, rigid masculinity and support women’s efforts to challenge the gender norms and inequalities that feed violence against women.
Finally, some men are the victims of violence themselves and this fosters a deep antipathy to violence and abuse.
Men’s anti-violence advocacy has existed for at least four decades. My first taste of this work was in the grassroots network Men Against Sexual Assault in the early 1990s: holding rallies and marches, running workshops with boys and young men, and trying to challenge sexist social norms.
However, in the last few years there has been a major surge in interest in engaging men and boys in violence prevention.
Violence prevention programs aimed at men and boys have proliferated. These include primary prevention programs, intended to prevent initial perpetration and victimisation and aimed at general groups of men or boys, and secondary and tertiary prevention programs, aimed at those already using violence or at risk of doing so.
There is increasing attention to involving men in the prevention and reduction of specific forms of violence and abuse, including sexual violence and workplace sexual harassment.
The work is getting smarter, with growing attention for example to diversities and inequalities among men themselves.
There is widespread community support: a 2020 survey in Australia found that just under 80 percent of people agree that “there are things that all men can do to help prevent violence against women”. Only 4 percent disagreed.
There is growing evidence demonstrating that well-designed interventions can make positive change. There is also growing policy and funding support. In Australia’s national prevention frameworks and policies, there has been an increased focus on challenging harmful forms of masculinity and engaging men and boys in prevention.
These trends are visible too across the world, where violence prevention policy, programming and advocacy shows increased attention to engaging men and boys. None of this means that work with men and boys is the only way or the most important way to prevent and reduce gender-based violence. But it does mean that this should be part of our efforts.
The most common violence prevention strategy aimed at males involves educating boys and young men. In schools and elsewhere, programs invite males to think critically about norms of masculinity, teach about healthy and respectful relationships, and encourage non-violence and gender equity.
Well-designed educational programs – multi-session, interactive and participatory, aimed at tackling the gendered drivers of violence and abuse, and taught by skilled educators – can reduce violent attitudes and even actual rates of perpetration. Other educational efforts are aimed at fathers, men in particular workplaces, male faith and community leaders, and others.
A second strategy involves community development and mobilisation. Although these are less common than education, they are just as vital.
Mobilising men as anti-violence advocates, working in partnership with women and women’s rights groups, is a powerful way to foster both personal and collective change.
Community-level strategies that target modifiable characteristics of the community – structural, economic, political, cultural or environmental – are necessary to reduce the risk of violence perpetration and victimisation.
Communications and social marketing are a third type of strategy. They range from efforts involving print, radio, TV or internet materials to multi-component community campaigns that include on-the-ground events and mobilisation. Communication campaigns are valuable for shifting the widespread social norms – of male dominance in families, male sexual entitlement, and so on – that feed into some men’s use of violence.
Although engaging men and boys in ending gender-based violence is firmly on the agenda in a growing number of countries, there is much to be done.
We need to scale up the work, as much of it is small and scattered. We need to orient it less towards changing individuals and their relationships and more towards changing the organisations and structures that shape these.
We need to increase the capacity of educators and practitioners to work effectively with men and boys. We need explicit standards for effective practice in work with men and boys, although checklists, funding guidelines, and other principles are starting to emerge.
We must make far more use of online tools and spaces for engaging men and boys, and we must intervene in the sexist online communities through which some boys and men are radicalised into misogyny and violence against women.
Men and boys have a vital role to play, with women and girls, in ending gender-based violence. Prevention efforts can engage men and boys: to foster non-violence and gender equity, to harness men’s and boys’ positive influence on other boys and men, and to shift the patriarchal masculine norms and cultures that are at the root of gender-based violence.
Professor Michael Flood is a researcher and advocate at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Gender violence” sent at: 24/11/2023 11:24.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on November 29, 2023
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"author": "Michael Flood"
}
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What's the deal with social media and youth mental health? - 360
Scarlett Smout, Jillian Halladay, Louise Thornton
Published on April 11, 2024
Increasing use of social media and smartphones often cops the blame for an increase in youth mental health issues but the reality is not so simple.
We are in the middle of a mental health crisis.
Two new studies show that Americans are more worried about their mental health than their physical health. In the UK, research by King’s College London found people of all ages agree that young people are struggling with their mental health, with parents blaming the COVID pandemic. In Australia, mental health services are in a ‘constant state of crisis’.
The trend has been around for some time, however, with significant increases in mental ill-health over the past two decades.
In Australia, these spikes in psychological distress (a general indicator of mental ill-health) are driven by “millennials” and “Gen-Zs”.
The most recent Australian data shows that 40 percent of 16 to 24-year-olds (Gen Z) experienced a mental disorder in the preceding 12 months, an increase from 26 percent in 2007.
This rise in distress among young people has parents, policymakers and researchers concerned, and young people themselves list mental health as one of their top three personal concerns.
While there isn’t nationwide data in younger adolescents, a three-state survey of 6,639 Australians aged 11-14 found 16 percent reported moderate-to-severe anxiety, 17 percent reported moderate-to-severe depression, and 14 percent had high psychological distress.
The key question to answer is what might be behind it.
The advent of smartphones and social media is one of the biggest changes, and challenges, young people have adapted to.
Surprisingly, there’s no recent nationally representative data on adolescent smartphone ownership but in the study mentioned above, 85 percent owned a smartphone in Year 7 (2019) and this had grown to 93 percent by Year 10 (2022).
This increase in smartphone use has risen alongside the explosion in social media.
In 2013, 97 percent of Australian adolescents were already using social media (on any device). A 2017 study found teens averaged more than three hours of social media use a day across at least four different social media platforms.
When looking at these two trends side-by-side, it might appear we have found our solution to youth mental health: restrict screen time.
Restrictions are happening, with the UN calling for a global ban on smartphones in schools. Every state in Australia now bans smartphones in the classroom.
In the US state of Florida, a new law bans children aged under 14 from social media platforms and requires 14- and 15-year-olds to get parental consent. In the UK, parents are agitating for age restrictions for smartphone ownership while China is investigating curfews for internet access on mobile devices.
However, while reducing smartphone use at schools may reduce distraction from learning, the jury is out on whether reducing screen time is the ticket to widespread improvements in youth mental health. It’s the same with time spent on social media.
We can’t conclude that more time on social media equals worse mental health.
Adolescent social media behaviours often vary widely, so limiting investigations to time spent – and in turn simply moving to reduce time spent – is a blunt approach.
What the evidence is increasingly showing is that it is likely the types of interactions and content that young people experience on social media that matter.
We know that experiences online can be both enriching and damaging.
In a recent study led by Australia’s eSafety Commission, four in ten adolescents had experienced at least one negative interaction online in the prior six months, but nine in ten had engaged in positive online behaviours.
We also know that sometimes social media will be the first, and only, place young people seek health advice and support, and this can be enriching or potentially harmful depending on the accuracy of the information.
University of Sydney researchers asked a diverse group of young people from the PREMISE and Matilda Centre’s Youth Advisory Board what they thought about the connection between social media and escalating mental health problems.
The members mentioned that social media may amplify existing issues for youth mental health by pushing unrealistic lifestyle and beauty standards, increasing their exposure to distressing news and highly polarised social and political perspectives, diminishing their ability to tolerate boredom, or replacing other forms of active leisure.
However, they also highlighted that social media can foster connections, provide ways to make a living, and be a platform for engaging youth-tailored mental health education.
Overall, they felt that social media is not the root cause nor the solution to addressing escalating youth mental health problems.
Given smartphones and social media are here to stay, it is essential we take a harm minimisation approach and equip adolescents with the tools to use social media in a mentally healthy and safe way.
While Australia has national guidelines recommending that adolescents limit their recreational screen time to two hours per day, we must move beyond a focus on time spent.
This requires an approach that empowers young people with the skills to critically evaluate content online, respond to cyberbullying, protect their body image, manage safety (including preventing strangers from contacting them, and reporting harmful content and interactions), foster in-person connections, balance time spent on social media with other health promoting activities, and recognise and respond if social media use is overly encroaching on their lives.
There is also a clear place for balanced and reasonable parental monitoring.
But young people, their families, and schools should not bear all the responsibility.
Social media providers must do more to safeguard the wellbeing of young users. This can be instigated by governmental regulation and pressure, such as the push for Tinder to do more to address violence against women.
But hopefully soon we’ll see a shift towards social media companies taking responsibility and working with experts to investigate and minimise harms arising on their platforms.
If you are a young person and would like help with mental health concerns, you can find help in your region through HelpGuide.org/find-help.
Scarlett Smout is a Research Associate and final year PhD Candidate at the Matilda Centre, University of Sydney. Her research is focussed on the interplay between lifestyle behaviours, social determinants, and mental health in adolescents. Ultimately, her goal is to identify key targets for policymakers and adolescents themselves in order to tackle mental health issues.
Dr Louise Thornton is a senior research fellow and Program Lead for Digital Interventions and Engagement at the Matilda Centre, University of Sydney and Deputy Director of the Healthy Minds Research Program at the Hunter Medical Research Institute. She leads research to identify and understand the most effective ways digital technologies can be leveraged to reduce chronic disease risk and improve people’s mental health.
Dr Jillian Halladay is a registered nurse, epidemiologist, and assistant professor at McMaster University’s School of Nursing in Canada. She is also a faculty affiliate at the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research, McMaster University and a research affiliate at the Matilda Centre, University of Sydney. Her research is designed to enhance our understanding of the biopsychosocial factors that contribute to co-occurring substance use and mental health concerns among young people.
Dr Halladay is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Health System Impact Embedded Early Career Researcher Award.
The authors would like to acknowledge Professor Tim Slade and Professor Cath Chapman who contributed to this work and are leading further research in this space.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Mental health” sent at: 11/04/2024 08:57.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on April 11, 2024
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"author": "Scarlett Smout, Jillian Halladay, Louise Thornton"
}
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When an AI can call code blue - 360
Sherif Gonem
Published on August 8, 2022
Artificial intelligence can help spot the early signs of deteriorating patients in hospital wards, but its application is yet to be tested.
Monitoring vital signs — heart rates, respiratory rates, blood pressure and temperature — can give nurses and doctors a pretty good idea of how unwell someone is. But researchers began noticing something was going wrong in UK hospital wards — crucial signs of patient deterioration were being missed.
Researchers at the University of Nottingham, UK, are developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm that can take account of the vital signs history of a patient, including the trend over time and the degree of variability. Tools like these can help medical staff spot early signs of deteriorating patients and treat life-threatening conditions before it’s too late.
Reviewing the charts from patients who have suffered a cardiac arrest often reveals a pattern of worsening vital signs in the hours beforehand. It was soon recognised that combinations of abnormal vital signs were associated with a higher risk than a single abnormal sign. Which is why Early Warning Scores are largely used to assign a number to each vital sign and added together to give a total score. For example, one widely used score in the UK is the National Early Warning Score-2 (NEWS-2) — if you score five or more you should get an urgent medical review, seven or more and the medical team will come running.
But there is still a problem — even the best scoring systems produce a large number of false alarms. This can lead to doctors being called unnecessarily, potentially diverting them from seeing a truly unwell patient. Even worse, repeated false alarms can lead to a psychological phenomenon known as alarm fatigue, when clinical staff stop taking the alarms seriously due to the ‘crying wolf’ effect. The scores being used can also miss subtle signs of declining health. For instance, if a vital sign is moving in the wrong direction but still within the normal range.
The problem with current early warning scores is that they are too simplistic. They needed to be twenty years ago, when figures were calculated by hand on paper charts. But now many hospitals are moving to electronic recording of vital signs. The large datasets of vital signs recorded within these systems can be used to train and validate AI algorithms to detect the deterioration of a patient’s health more effectively. Studies on how to best utilise AI in these circumstances have also been done by groups in Oxford and Portsmouth and Cambridge. In both of these cases, the AI algorithms showed improved accuracy compared to previously published scores.
But proving that an algorithm works on paper or within a computer processor is not the end of the story. Real-world clinical trials are needed to see whether more accurate AI algorithms will be beneficial for patients.
In one recently published study, researchers in the United States introduced a system of alerts, driven by a bespoke machine learning-based scoring system, to a network of 19 hospitals in Northern California. The investigators found a reduction in deaths after using the system, but it’s not clear whether there would be the same results with simpler pen and paper scores since a direct comparison was not done. It may seem obvious that a more accurate AI-based score will be beneficial, but this remains to be proved.
We know that nurses do not follow early warning scores blindly — they use their clinical judgement when deciding whether to call a doctor. So perhaps human intuition is already filling in the gaps left by the simple early warning scores, and a more complex AI score is not needed. The bottom line is we need to do the trials to find out.
Implementing AI solutions in a clinical setting comes with other challenges. The new algorithms need to be integrated with existing electronic health record systems, which can pose technical problems. More importantly, the output of AI algorithms needs to be transparent and interpretable to be trusted by clinicians.
University of Nottingham researchers are currently developing a module that will provide a verbal or graphical explanation for the output of their AI algorithm. If doctors and nurses can see why a patient has been given a high-risk score, they can make a more informed judgement as to how urgently that patient needs to be seen. One explainable prediction model was recently developed by researchers in Aarhus, Denmark.
There are other exciting developments on the horizon. Wearable sensors have been developed that can monitor vital signs continuously rather than intermittently. These could provide earlier detection of deteriorating patient health by picking up changes in vital signs immediately, rather than waiting for the next scheduled set of clinical observations. AI algorithms may be needed to handle the continuous streams of data produced by these devices.
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is undertaking the first large-scale UK pilot of a wearable patch for continuously monitoring respiratory rates, through funding from the digital arm of the National Health Service. The results are expected in late 2023.
Researchers anticipate that AI and wearable devices will help keep patients safe in hospital wards within the next five to ten years. These novel technologies will act as extra eyes and ears, but they will complement rather than replace the clinical judgement of healthcare professionals.
Dr Sherif Gonem is an honorary Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham, UK. His research received funding from the UK Medical Research Council and Nottingham University Hospitals Charity.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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Published on August 8, 2022
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"author": "Sherif Gonem"
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When can I get my new household robot? - 360
Ingrid Zukerman
Published on August 22, 2022
We’d all love to have a smart robot in our house that understands spoken natural language, just like those in sci-fi films. How far are we from this dream?
An anonymous author once mused that “AI is the science of making computers act like the ones in the movies”. Assuming they meant something like the computer on the starship Enterprise or Rosie, the household robot from “The Jetsons”, what would be required to achieve this dream? And where do we stand?
A modest version of a household robot should be able to understand and respond to simple spoken instructions in natural language (any language spoken by people, such as English, Spanish or Chinese). It should be able to run errands and perform basic chores, and its responses should be reasonable. That is, we can’t expect robots to be correct all the time, but in order to be trustworthy, a robot’s responses should make sense.
For our household robot to react reasonably to requests such as “get the blue mug on the table”, it should be able to deal with several issues, such as perceptual homonymy (words that mean different things under different perceptual conditions), syntactic ambiguity, and user vagueness and inaccuracy. It should also be able to recognise users’ intentions, the potential risks of actions and adapt to different users.
Perceptual homonymy applies to intrinsic features of objects, such as colour and size, and to spatial relations. For example, when talking about a red flower or about a person’s red hair, the two colours are usually completely different. In other cases, the intended colour may be hard to determine, or an object could have several colours.
Size depends on the type of an object. For instance, a particular mug may be considered large in comparison to mugs in general, but it is usually smaller than a small vase. In addition, context matters: objects seem smaller when placed in large spaces, and if there are two mugs on a table — a larger one and a smaller one — and a user requests a large mug, our robot should retrieve the former.
Spatial relations can be divided into topological relations (indicated by prepositions such as “on” and “in”) and projective relations (signalled by prepositional phrases such as “in front of” and “to the left of”).
Looking at topological relations, “the note on the fridge” may be vertically on top of the fridge or attached to the front of the fridge with a magnet. Also, if we ask our household robot for “the apple in the bowl”, an apple sitting inside a fruit bowl would satisfy this requirement, but so would an apple on top of a pile of apples in a bowl (even if this apple exceeds the height of the bowl), because it is within the control of the bowl (if we move the bowl, the apple will move with it). However, if an apple was glued to the outside of the bowl, it would still be within the control of the bowl, but we wouldn’t say it is in the bowl.
Projective relations depend on a frame of reference, which may be the speaker, the robot or a landmark. For example, if we ask our household robot to pick up the plant to the left of the table, do we mean our left or its left? A similar decision would be made when interpreting “the plant in front of the table”, but not for “the plant in front of the mirror”, as a mirror has a “face” (it only has one front).
These problems are exacerbated by errors in Automated Speech Recognition — the technology that allows people to speak to computers. Automated Speech Recognition errors may happen due to out-of-vocabulary words or rare words, which a speech recogniser may mishear as a common word, or words that are being used outside their usual context. Table 1 illustrates three errors made by a speech recogniser for the description “the flour on the table”.
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Our AI should be able to cope with misheard and out-of-vocabulary words. For instance, if we request “the shiny blue mug”, and our robot can’t identify shiny objects, it should still be able to generate a useful response, such as “I can’t see ‘shiny’, but there are two blue mugs on the table, which one do you want?”. Eventually, our robot should be able to learn the meaning of some out-of-vocabulary words.
The robot will also have to contend with syntactic ambiguity, vagueness and inaccuracy. Syntactic ambiguity occurs when the phrasing of a description licenses several spatial relations. For instance, if we ask for “the flower on the table near the lamp”, who should be near the lamp? The flower or the table? A request for “the blue mug on the table” is vague when there are several blue mugs on the table, and inaccurate when the mug on the table is green, or the blue mug is on a chair.
Having some concept of a speaker’s intention, and of the implications of requested actions, would help our robot respond appropriately. If we are thirsty, then even if our request is ambiguous or inaccurate, the robot could bring one of several mugs. But this is not the case if we want to show our special mug to a friend. What if we ask the robot to throw a chair? When would it be appropriate for our robot to question our request, and when should it just comply? An implicit assumption made by optimisation-based response generation systems is that there is one optimal response for each dialogue state. However, our response-generation experiments have shown that different users prefer different responses under the same circumstances, and that several responses are acceptable to the same user. Therefore, it is worth investigating user-related factors, such as habits, preferences and capabilities, which influence the suitability of an AI’s responses.
Moving forward, in order to generate suitable responses to a user’s request, an AI should be designed with the ability to assess how good its favourite candidate interpretation is, how many other good candidates there are, and how they differ from this favourite interpretation.
To achieve that, our AI would have to keep track of alternative interpretations; and for each interpretation, the AI would compute the probability that it was intended by the speaker and the utility associated with it. This probability, in turn, would incorporate the probabilities of the following factors: the output of the speech recogniser, the syntactic and semantic structures of the user’s request, and the pragmatic aspects of the interpretation.
Previous work has offered a computational model that implements this idea with respect to descriptions comprising simple colours, sizes and spatial relations. To reach a desirable endpoint, this approach would have to be extended to consider the more complicated issues raised above. Designed correctly, AIs of the future should consider all these factors to determine whether its interpretations make sense; and they should be able to discern between several plausible interpretations, and decide when to ask and when to act.
Professor Ingrid Zukerman works in the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in the Faculty of Information Technology. Her areas of research are explainable AI, dialogue systems, trust in devices, and assistive systems for elderly and disabled people.
The research on which this article is based was funded in part by the Australian Research Council.
Professor Zukerman extends many thanks to Wendy, Ashley and Debbie Zukerman for their helpful comments during the preparation of this article.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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Published on August 22, 2022
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"author": "Ingrid Zukerman"
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When choice saves lives - 360
Tanmay Bagade
Published on July 11, 2022
Women’s rights are more than a moral crusade, the lives of thousands of women and children hang on a woman’s ability to make her own choices.
Gender equality is literally a matter of life or death. The World Health Organization found that mother and child deaths can be prevented when governments improve gender equality, among other things. An extensive review of available research also found improvement in gender equity and contraception-use to be critical factors in reducing maternal and child mortality.
A key part of gender equality is allowing a woman to have the same ability to choose whether or not to have a child as a man. Removing that prerogative is known as reproductive coercion, and it takes many forms. It can include sabotaging contraception, controlling fertility decisions or controlling the outcome of the pregnancy. Reproductive coercion is a form of domestic violence that both men and women are capable of. Mostly commonly it is perpetrated by partners and in-laws, usually removing a woman’s voice from the decision.
The recent removal of the right for United States women to seek abortion has renewed debate on the rights of women around the world. The US Supreme Court’s decision has repudiated decades of progress towards achieving gender equality. And the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive rights policy organisation, believes it is part of a wider push for state-level reproductive coercion: “Almost every reproductive health-related initiative from the Trump administration and social conservatives in Congress has fallen along a spectrum of coercion,” Guttmacher’s communications director Joerg Dreweke writes.
Many other governments outside of the US, such as Poland, the Phillipines and Honduras, also have direct or indirect coercive policies for population control by restricting or limiting contraception or abortions — all targeting women’s rights.
Restricting women’s reproductive rights has repercussions on physical health and equality. But millions of women worldwide don’t have the ability to choose when or how many times they get pregnant, whether they want a child or when to stop having children.Globally, 810 women die daily due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth — a woman every two minutes — due to preventable causes. At the same time 13,800 children under five years die each day — the equivalent 10 children per minute — which could otherwise be prevented.
Despite knowing a child’s health is closely linked to the health and autonomy of their mother, we still don’t know which aspects of women’s wellness directly affects it. For decades, death has been treated as a ‘disease’ where the risks are managed using medicines or clinical interventions. Indeed several life-saving interventions depend on a mother’s perception, knowledge, attitude, and, most importantly, ability to have control over her child’s healthcare.
However, thinking about death as a disease problem misses the bigger picture of equity in health. Child mortality can be viewed through the lens of women’s rights, maternal wellbeing and gender equality. Maternal control over health choices can be achieved if there is an improvement in women’s education and employment status. Maternal autonomy is strongly linked to a woman accessing children’s healthcare services.
The World Health Organization report found maternal and child mortality can rapidly decline, particularly in low or middle income countries, when there’s a nationally-specific and tailored approach to reduce poverty, hunger, improve education and gender equality.
Investing in higher education for women, paid employment, improving representation in leadership and parliament, reducing gender-based violence, and preventing child marriage can significantly reduce child mortality, according to a study based on data from 193 countries. Contraception can prevent more than 85 million unintended pregnancies a year. However, as of 2014, more than 225 million women were not receiving adequate access to contraception.
The United Nations’ women’s rights framework outlines the critical aspects needed to improve maternal and child health by addressing gender equality. Human rights have been mentioned many times in academic publications as being a tool to address root causes of death concerned with discrimination and access to healthcare services.
Restricting reproductive health rights of women has significant repercussions on women’s health and wellbeing especially on maternal and child health globally. Far from being an emotional or moral issue, women’s rights and gender equality save lives.
Dr Tanmay Bagade is a Lecturer in Medical Education and Global health at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where he is the coordinator of several courses in the Master’s of Public Health. He is an Obstetrician who has previously worked as a clinician and project manager to build capacity to reduce maternal and child mortality in India, Somalia, and Papua New Guinea.
He declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 11, 2022
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When femvertising backfires - 360
Shafiullah Anis, Juliana French
Published on May 10, 2024
Western-centric femvertising can provoke uneasiness and controversies in non-Western markets. Understanding local culture and collaboration are crucial.
The rise of femvertising — using feminist ideals in advertising to promote products — has sparked debates about its role in empowering women.
Originally hailed as a progressive step toward gender equality, femvertising has encountered complex challenges, particularly when campaigns are used in different cultural markets.
There are potential contradictions inherent in using femvertising to promote feminist messages.
In 2021, the “Know Your V” campaign by Libresse in Malaysia tried to destigmatise female anatomy but received significant backlash and calls for a boycott.
Using vulva imagery on packaging and ads inspired by Nyonya Kebaya, a traditional garment, was seen as “vulgar” and a misappropriation of cultural symbols by many religious groups. The brand was forced to withdraw its campaign and explained it was never its intention to offend any woman or the community.
This incident highlights the importance of adopting cultural context and sensitivity in femvertising.
When femvertising adopts Western feminist interpretations of empowerment in certain non-western contexts—such as body positivity through the public display of private parts—it can alienate women who do not subscribe to such interpretations.
In Malaysia, many viewed the depiction of the vulva on Libresse packaging as “unnecessary” and as deviating from the scientific explanation of the menstrual process. It was perceived not only as dishonorable to women but also as “an exploitation of women’s bodies in advertising.”
Malaysian women embraced empowerment and gender equality, but rejected the “one-size-fits-all” approach to Western ideals.
Femvertising faces criticism for reducing feminism to a marketing tool. By promoting gender equality while lacking female representation in leadership or addressing pay gaps, companies are seen as hypocritical.
This turns a social movement into a commodity and undermines the broader goals of feminism.
Some argue that femvertising promotes individual empowerment through consumption, ignoring systemic inequalities, referred to as post-feminist ideology. In a post-feminist ideology, where collective struggle against patriarchy is considered a thing of the past, purchasing certain products is presented as the solution to gender issues, overshadowing collective efforts to dismantle societal barriers. This narrow focus on consumerism sidelines the ongoing struggle for gender equality.
Femvertising often targets middle and upper-class women, neglecting women of other classes, races, or sexuality. This exclusion of many women fails to address their diverse needs and challenges and falls well short of providing meaningful empowerment.
Companies could conduct thorough cultural research, collaborate with local NGOs, communities and cultural experts, and involve diverse women in the campaign creation process. This would ensure messages are culturally relevant and avoid accusations of cultural imperialism.
Brands could also incorporate an educational aspect that addresses local gender issues, providing valuable information and sparking discussions that can lead to real change.
While the pitfalls of west-centric femvertising are significant, they don’t render the practice of femvertising futile.
Instead, they highlight the need for a deeper understanding and more thoughtful approach to global marketing strategies. By respecting cultural differences and involving local communities in the creation of feminist messages, femvertising has the potential to be a powerful force for gender equality.
The goal is not just to sell products but to inspire and enact change that elevates all women, respecting their unique cultural and social contexts.
This approach not only avoids the traps of cultural imperialism but ensures the message of empowerment is heard and welcomed across diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Shafiullah Anis is a lecturer in marketing at School of Business, Monash University Malaysia. His research focuses on consumption, social inequalities, and AI technology, broadly lying within the domains of consumer culture theory.
Juliana A. French is the head of the department of marketing and a senior lecturer with Monash University Malaysia. She studies the complexities surrounding the issues of race and religion in Malaysia that are demonstrated in the everyday consumption behavior of Malaysian women.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 10, 2024
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2,468 |
When give and take can stop places being loved to death - 360
Phoebe Everingham
Published on September 7, 2022
Tourism isn’t the problem, mass consumption is. Here’s how we can shift the dial.
Glaring issues plagued destinations dependent on tourism even prior to COVID-19. Overtourism overwhelmed communities — depleting resources, damaging environments and pricing out locals from their own neighbourhoods.
Rather than a rush to return to business as usual as international travel restarts, an opportunity exists to rethink how we do tourism.While many are focused on the role of tourism in post-pandemic economic recovery, tourism that emphasises social cohesion and sustainable consumption will contribute to a healthier tourism future.
Overconsumption in mass tourism led to the degradation of local ecosystems. Once-pristine sites that tourists come to see, like Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh Island in Thailand, have had to be shut down to recover. An emphasis on catering for and privileging tourists’ needs created social problems, including inflated prices making locations unaffordable for locals.
Understanding tourism’s role in the economy is important when considering options outside of tourism revenue. In mass tourism, the bulk of revenue does not always go back to the community. Investors can come from different, often foreign locations, taking their profits with them. Locals are often left doing poorly paid menial jobs and do not receive the maximum financial benefits from the industry.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown what’s important in life: health, social connection and the natural environment. Collaborative consumption centres on more ethical forms of economic exchange. This includes supporting locally-owned businesses and prioritising the needs of the local community and natural environment. Collaborative consumption also focuses on the intangible aspects of economic transactions, including cultural immersion.
In volunteer tourism, the exchange between cultures is at the heart of transactions. Tourists who want a more ‘authentic’ and meaningful connection with locals stay for longer periods of time. The money they spend is more likely to filter into local livelihoods and businesses, rather than large scale-tourism hot spots. Rather than exploitative, profit-driven exchanges, volunteer tourism tends to focus on exchanges that are mutually beneficial. It puts the needs of the community above profits.
For example, Arte del Mundo, a not-for-profit volunteer tourism organisation in Ecuador, provides opportunities for local communities and visiting tourists to work together on projects for the local community. The organisation created spaces where children could come after school to read, play and be creative with international volunteer tourists. The library is a buzzing community space for creative activities. It hosts Intercambio, a language exchange program for adults and tourists and a small community theatre. However, with any form of consumption, even ethical consumption, volunteer tourism runs the risk of being heavily monetised and geared towards profits.
When volunteer tourism is commodified, projects can be manufactured to meet the needs and desires of tourists, rather than having a meaningful contribution to locals. The framing of volunteer tourism as a ‘development aid’ rather than as a cultural form of tourism recalls problematic neo-colonial stereotypes of poor communities being ‘needy’ and tourists as ‘saviours’. This takes the focus away from the root causes of poverty, such as inequality and poor resource management. Volunteer tourism can avoid this by focusing on creativity, joy, play and mutual intercultural exchange.
Tourism can be done with a focus on social justice if it moves away from monetary exchanges. Collaborative consumption shifts the power balance in more equal ways between tourists and hosts — crucial in achieving peace and justice in tourism. The opportunities for doing tourism differently in the future are endless.
Dr Phoebe Everingham is a teacher and researcher at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds a PhD in Human Geography and is an internationally recognised critical tourism scholar.
She declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on September 7, 2022
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"author": "Phoebe Everingham"
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When governments use AI to predict what the people want - 360
José Ramón Saura
Published on October 3, 2022
Governments can and do use artificial intelligence to direct their citizens and their policy. But are we prepared for how far it could go?
Governments have access to large amounts of data which they can — and often do — use to analyse and predict their citizens’ behaviours using artificial intelligence (AI) strategies.
However while AI can help policy-makers by delivering highly accurate predictions, identifying trends and patterns, predicting complex associations and improving profitability, it may also introduce risks to citizen’s privacy and security and threaten free decision-making in society.
Researchers from three Universities in Spain explored these risks in a study which surveyed government officials about their institution’s use of artificial intelligence. One councillor said that AI had helped his town predict outcomes to assist in making better decisions during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
“The use of artificial intelligence to predict possible infections and deaths has been used with statistical models. These models have helped us to both improve health care and the movement of people in cities when a lockdown has been necessary,” the councillor said. However, the same official also noted: “the use of applications to track the location of user devices, although always anonymously, has highlighted the need to regulate the use of both artificial intelligence technology and other similar technologies.”
Another Spanish politician who was interviewed said: “We use artificial intelligence to predict possible criminal acts in the city. When artificial intelligence and our analyses tell us that there is a neighbourhood where serious crimes, such as murder, can be committed, we increase the number of police patrols in those neighbourhoods.”
The recent exponential growth in the use of AI has seen the new field of behavioural data science emerge, which combines techniques from behavioural sciences, psychology, sociology, economics, and business, and uses the processes from computer science, data-centric engineering, statistical models, information science and or mathematics to understand and predict human behaviour using AI.
While this predictive power can be deployed to better design and implement policy, as the first councillor noted, privacy concerns are growing. As more data is obtained from citizens, predictions may soon reach similar levels of effectiveness as that of observations, raising concerns around state surveillance. Governments with this kind of intelligence could risk breaching privacy and impeding free decision-making in society.
Illicit use of such technology can be applied to modify citizens’ behaviour, including influencing election outcomes. For example, US Facebook users’ behavioural data was analysed using behavioural prediction algorithms developed by Cambridge Analytica, and employed to modify the election results in the 2016 US presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.
Many questions remain around the risks to citizens’ privacy posed by government use of AI and behavioural data science. These include: the ethics of collecting and analysing data generated non-intentionally by citizens; how the outputs obtained by government from such data analysis should be explained to citizens; and whether (and in what ways) such analysis may violate people’s privacy.
Governments can better meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of effective, accountable and responsive institutions if they use AI to improve services to citizens and society, and adopt ethical principles and values to ensure the privacy of citizens.
Solutions could include developing legislation related to AI and behavioural data science to limit potential unethical uses and avoid the non-legitimate or non-lawful use of this technology. Effective government practice and policy will help citizens have more trust in the use of AI, behavioural data science and mass analysis of collective behaviour and intelligence.
In today’s global culture where the internet is the main tool of communication, data and decisions based on behavioural analysis have become essential for public actors, however with legislation often one step behind technology, many societies are currently under-prepared for this inevitable future.
Jose Ramon Saura is associate professor of Digital Marketing, Rey Juan Carlos University in Spain. His research explores theoretical and practical insights within digital marketing and user generated content (UGC), focusing on data mining, knowledge discovery and information sciences. He has worked with a wide range of companies including Google, Deloitte, L’Oréal, Telefónica or MRM/McCann. He declares no conflict of interest.
This article was originally published on September 29, 2022.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: Jose Saura, Rey Juan Carlos University
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on October 3, 2022
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"author": "José Ramón Saura"
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When journalists are targets, we all suffer - 360
Peter Greste
Published on May 3, 2023
Autocrats know that controlling the media is the first step in controlling the population. It’s why journalists are increasingly in the firing line.
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As we mark the 30th anniversary of the World Press Freedom Day, there is one number that tells us a lot about the state of press freedom globally: 363. That’s how many journalists were in prison across the planet as of December 1 last year, according to a snapshot by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists.
Since then the number has risen, most notably with Russia’s arrest and jailing of the Wall Street Journal‘s Moscow correspondent Evan Gershkovich on spying charges. “Evan is a member of the free press who — right up until he was arrested — was engaged in news-gathering. Any suggestions otherwise are false,” the Journal has said in a statement.
The number of detained journalists is alarming for several reasons. First, it is a record by a significant margin. The previous year it was 302 (also a record). Apart from a few minor dips, it has been steadily increasing since 2001. This latest number is almost three times higher than what it was when World Press Freedom Day was first announced 30 years ago, and four times higher than the lowest point at the turn of the millennium. And remember, the World Press Freedom Day was set up to help defend a principle widely recognised as a cornerstone for any functioning democracy.
Data released to 360info by CPJ.
The reason things deteriorated so badly at a time when democracies are supposed to be advancing partly lies in two other numbers, and the story behind Evan Gershkovich’s detention.
The first number, 199, refers to those journalists who’ve been imprisoned on what the Committee for the Protection of Journalists describes as ‘anti-state’ charges. That’s things like sedition, treason, espionage, breaches of national security, and terrorism. Although the statistics are too crude to say exactly why that is the case, all the signs point to 9/11.
Soon after Al-Qaeda launched its attacks on that horrific day, then-US President George W. Bush declared the ‘war on terror’. At the time, with the dust still settling on the wreckage of the Twin Towers, few people quibbled with the semantics, but one colleague presciently quipped that Bush had just declared war on an abstract noun.
Unlike so many conflicts of the past, the war on terror was a battle not so much over tangible things like ethnicity, land or water, where journalists are witnesses rather than participants. Instead, it was a fight over ideas – a struggle between liberal democracy and Islamic theocracy. In that kind of war, the battlefield extends to the place where ideas themselves are transmitted, in other words, the media. This idea is much less abstract than it sounds.
In the post-9/11 world, terrorism and national security became touchstones for politicians everywhere. They gave governments a licence to pass a host of draconian laws that strengthened state power beyond physical things like lives and property, into control over information and ideas. They did that by loosening the definitions of what constituted ‘terrorism’ and ‘national security’. In Egypt for example, human rights groups accused the government of using terrorism as an excuse to pass a suite of laws that have then been used to shut down anyone who criticises the government, and lock up journalists who talk to those critics.
In 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism, Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin, said: “The intersection of these multiple legislative enactments enable increasing practices of arbitrary detention with the heightened risk of torture, the absence of judicial oversight and procedural safeguards, restrictions on freedom of expression, the right to freedom of association and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.”
She could have been speaking of any of the world’s most prolific jailers of journalists. Iran currently tops the list, imprisoning dozens mostly for covering the ongoing protests over head scarves. China is next, going after reporters who’ve tried to cover the government’s crackdown on the Uighur community in Xinjiang province. And ever since a failed coup in 2016, Turkey has also been enthusiastically imprisoning critics and journalists on terrorism charges.
The other deeply troubling figure is 86 percent. That is the proportion of journalist murders around the world that remain unsolved. Consider that for a moment. Almost nine out of 10 killers of journalists are free and unpunished.
It is always going to be hard working out who is responsible for killing a journalist on a front line with a rocket much less hold them to account, but in its most recent report on the issue (from 2022), the UN calculated that 78 percent of journalist murders happened off the clock, away from work, in the streets or at home, sometimes in front of their families.
That number for impunity makes it very difficult to escape a chilling conclusion: the authorities are generally either directly involved, or simply don’t care enough to seriously investigate. And either way, the effect is the same – reporters brave enough to keep working have tended to opt for the safe, easy stories, smothering serious scrutiny of the actions of the powerful.
As someone who has lost far too many close friends and colleagues, and who has spent time in prison on terrorism charges, I have an obvious personal interest in speaking out about the murders and detentions of journalists. But this is not about me and my fellow reporters.
One thing autocrats clearly understand is that the first step in controlling the public is to control the flow of information. That is why the first place to send your tanks in any coup is the local TV broadcaster; and why throwing a few journalists behind bars is always the start of a general crackdown on dissidents and critics.
It is also why Evan Gershkovich is in so much trouble. In March, he travelled to the city of Yekaterinburg for a story about the attitudes of Russians to the war in Ukraine and the private military contractors, the Wagner Group.
It was a risky assignment given the increasingly toxic relationship between Moscow and Washington over the Ukraine war, but the talented 31-year-old American reporter knew the country well, and no foreign journalist had been detained in Russia since the end of the Cold War.
His trip was short. Soon after he arrived in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s domestic intelligence service, the FSB, announced he’d been arrested and charged with, “espionage in the interests of the American government”. He was last seen on April 18 in a Moscow court where his appeal against detention was denied. He appeared calm and was pictured smiling. Marks on one of his wrists appeared to show where he had been kept in handcuffs.
Gershkovich, his newspaper and the US government all vigorously deny the allegations, and it now seems clear he has become a pawn in a wider struggle. By imprisoning a high-profile American journalist on spurious espionage charges, the Russian authorities have achieved three goals.
First, they’ve acquired a bargaining chip they can use to extract concessions from the US government. Second, they can use the journalist as ‘proof’ of American perfidy in Russia. And finally – and perhaps most disturbingly – they have sent an unequivocal message to every journalist working in the country: If you cover us critically, you too will find yourself in prison. With the Journal’s correspondent now facing decades behind bars, that country has suddenly become much darker.
Professor Peter Greste is a former foreign correspondent who spent 25 years working for the BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera. In December 2013, he and two of his colleagues were arrested in Cairo and charged with terrorism offences. In letters smuggled from prison, he described the arrests as an attack on media freedom, and was released after more than 400 days. He is now a professor of journalism at Macquarie University and a founder of the advocacy group, the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Press freedom” sent at: 01/05/2023 09:24.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 3, 2023
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When local matters, food quality improves - 360
Anitra Nelson
Published on June 29, 2022
Degrowth focuses on quality products, local economies and basic needs. It promises a more ecologically sustainable future.
Small-scale free-range pig farmer Tammi Jonas recently appeared in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation expose on corporate food giant JBS. The biggest meat company in the world, JBS has been pursuing endless growth under a cloud of corruption scandals, devouring more and more of the global food industry. Shoppers at any of the three largest Australian supermarkets are likely eating products from JBS. When Jonas learned of JBS’s takeover of her local abattoir near Daylesford in Victoria, she was “gutted”.
Jonas’ Jonai Farms & Meatsmiths, operates under very different principles to JBS. It employs ‘degrowth’ approaches to save land, work-time and money. Degrowth focuses on quality, re-localising economies and satisfying basic needs and promises a more ecologically sustainable future.
As climate change affects harvests and Russia’s war on the Ukraine has cut vital food exports, resulting scarcity has pushed up international grain prices. This year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the European Union’s European Environment Agency, have pointed to degrowth, or decoupling growth from prosperity, as a strategic approach to prevent and mitigate the impacts of climate change and curb limitless growth. Jonai Farms is an example of degrowth in practice.
Jonai Farms feed their pigs damaged or surplus foods, such as brewers’ grain, eggs and milk that producers would otherwise waste, creating a net ecological benefit by diverting many tonnes of organic ‘waste’ from landfill, and exiting the fossil-fuel-intensive model of segregating feed production from livestock farming. Water is moved around the property by old piston pumps powered by secondhand solar panels via treadmill motors salvaged from the local tip. Pigs’ heads become pâté de tête, excess fat makes beautiful soap, and bones are transformed into bone broth before being pyrolised in a retort to become bonechar, which is then returned to the soil to help produce a small commercial crop of garlic. Using fewer pigs actually results in greater output, and minimises waste pollution and landfill in the process. A local council artisan agriculture project, which promotes ethical, agro-ecological and regenerative farming, supports degrowth enterprises like Jonai Farms.
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On the other side of the world, Cargonomia is an umbrella degrowth organisation in Budapest, Hungary. Zsámboki Biokert, an organic micro-farm located 50km from Budapest, and bicycle couriers Golya Futar along with bike making, repairing and hiring enterprise Cyclonomia, are all partners within Cargonomia’s network. They combine their efforts in an organic seasonal food box order scheme. Along with neighbouring partner farms, the four-hectare Zsámboki Biokert supplies food for the boxes with deliveries made and coordinated by Gólya Futar to collection points in Budapest. A city delivery node typically comprises 25 closely located families. The scheme enhances urban eaters’ knowledge about challenges faced by the farmers. The garden team is open to hearing about eaters’ choices, exploring affordable and nutritious options for mutual benefit. Volunteers can get involved in farm activities or within Cargonomia’s network.
During COVID, mainstream agriculture and manufactured food production with long supply chains broke down leaving shoppers anxious, even prompting ugly runs on basic retail products. Meanwhile, in Budapest, courier bikes continued to operate even when there were limits on other vehicles. They provided quality food with secure delivery. Participants continued warm relations of solidarity and care in both production and distribution of their food.
Just as Cargonomia is multi-pronged, partnering with a range of organisations in many other activities, degrowth practitioners learn multiple skills. Logan Strenchock is a Zsámboki Biokert famer and works at Budapest’s Central European University. He trains students on the farm, incorporates interns into wider Cargonomia activities, and engages in conscious food consumption movements. Meanwhile, practitioners develop a range of niche initiatives producing and training others to ferment and preserve foods, hand making beer and juices, foraging mushrooms, crafting cheeses from local herds and so on.
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Degrowth evolved as a concept over 50 years ago. This century it has become highly visible, especially in Europe, in sustainable transport campaigns and activities around collective self-provisioning in a range of areas. Degrowth targets impending challenges associated with over-consumption and inequity, unmet needs, failing democracies and unsustainable ecosystems. With projects on the ground addressing the looming impacts of climate change and food insecurity, degrowth is moving policymakers and attracting attention from all those keen to curb carbon emissions and live sustainably.
Anitra Nelson is Honorary Principal Fellow at University of Melbourne, co-author of Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide (2020) and co-editor of Food for Degrowth (2021) which explores ecologically-sound localised practices of collective self-provisioning.
This article is part of a Special Report released to coincide with Covering Climate Now’s joint Food & Water coverage week.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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Published on June 29, 2022
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When shopping online is deadly - 360
Yusi Anggriani, Stanley Saputra
Published on July 27, 2022
Buying medicines on the internet saves time and money, but it could be deadly. Indonesia is working to regulate online pharmacies and improve public safety.
Shopping online is fast and easy, but sometimes when the order arrives it will be the wrong size or colour – or perhaps even a fake version of a brand-name item. That’s frustrating when it’s a T-shirt or a pair of shoes, but when it comes to medicines, low-quality and counterfeit products can kill.
Online shopping for pharmaceuticals is big business in Indonesia. It offers plenty of price options, and apps such as Halodoc and K-24. Some apps are approved by Indonesia’s food and drug authority, so consumers believe this is a safe way to get medicines. They are also glad to avoid the queues and administrative hassles of the puskesmas (government-run clinics), where it’s said the medicines are low quality anyway.
The Indonesian health ministry launched regulations in 2020 to control online pharmacies and protect society from fake medicines. Of the thousands of online pharmacies, only 12 have an online licence. The rest are illegal and potentially sell fake medicines. None of the pharmacies on popular e-commerce platforms are registered with the ministry, even if they seem to have an ‘official store’ logo and have been verified by the platforms. The regulation and e-commerce effort to control them seems far away from success, sellers are adept at manipulating the system trying to ban them.
As online pharmacies grow, the risk consumers will receive fake medicine also grows. The trade in fake medicines is worth as much as 470 trillion rupiah (US$31 billion) in middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
In early January 2022, three men were arrested in Bogor, after producing fake ethical medicines in their automotive workshop. At the end of 2020, two men were arrested in Mataram, Nusa Tenggara Barat, when they purchased fake medicines online from Jakarta and allegedly planned to re-sell them. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, people became frantic about getting antimalarials because they were believed to be a cure. The total number of fake medicines distributed in the online market remains unknown, but the risk is high.
Fake medicines imitate the genuine article, but they may endanger health, prolong illness and even cause death. For example, poor-quality antimicrobial medicines promote bacterial resistance to antibiotics. When patients develop antibiotic resistance, they need stronger antibiotics to battle infection, and may face death if their infection cannot be managed.
In 2017, fake antimalarials in sub-Saharan Africa caused 64,000 to 158,000 deaths. Fake medicines lead to distrust of vaccines’ and medicines’ effectiveness, and cost consumers more because their low doses are less effective and can prolong treatment. They also burden the health system.
The economic cost of fake antimalarials in sub-Saharan Africa averaged US$21.4 million to US$52.4 million per year because of the treatment needed to manage the additional cases they created.
Indonesia’s health-care program has struggled to stay within its budget and faces a deficit of 51 trillion rupiah (US$3.4 billion). One strategy to keep the program financially sustainable is to reduce the budget for medicines. Some might question whether this would lead to poor-quality medicines, but findings from Brawijaya University and The George Institute show that universal health-care provisions such as Indonesia’s national insurance scheme provide quality medicines.
Given the constrained budget and complex procurement system, medicine manufacturers found it difficult to maintain their production quality.
Getting medicines through unlicensed channels carries a high risk, but formal and licensed channels carry risks too. In 2019 Indonesia’s Food and Drugs Administration launched a case against a pharmaceutical distributor that had repackaged generic and expired medicines into new packaging and sold it to 197 drug stores at a higher price. An investigation of an infant’s death in 2016 uncovered a fake-vaccine syndicate that had been operating for over 10 years. Members of the syndicate, including medical staff, had distributed the vaccines to 47 private hospitals and health clinics.
For the perpetrators of these schemes, the motive is clear: vast profits. For patients who buy medicines through unofficial channels, the incentive is usually to save money, because fake medicines tend to be cheaper. While fake medicines may be found anywhere, going to clinics or hospitals is safer than buying medicines online. Getting medicines through Indonesia’s national insurance program usually ensures good quality too.
Those queues at the puskesmas are worth it for safe, authentic medicines. And the time spent in the queue could be used to order a new pair of shoes online. With any luck, when they arrive they’ll be the real deal.
Yusi Anggriani is a lecturer of Public Health in the Faculty of Pharmacy Pancasila University, Jakarta Indonesia. She leads Systematic Tracking of At-Risk Medicines (STARmeds) Her research interests are Pharmacoeconomics, and public health.
Stanley Saputra is the Engagement Manager for the STARmeds study.
STARmeds is a joint research project among Pancasila University in Indonesia, Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, and Erasmus University in the Netherlands, . It is supported by the UK National Institute of Health Research.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 27, 2022
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"author": "Yusi Anggriani, Stanley Saputra"
}
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When states give love a bad name - 360
Piya Srinivasan
Published on April 10, 2024
The reshaping of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms by bringing young adults’ sexual choices under the radar of the state has sinister implications.
In his poem Law like Love, the great British-American poet W.H. Auden immortalized what many of us struggle to understand about the law. What are its limits? And how does it legislate on matters of the heart?
The Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code 2024, now a law, has a strange clause: Part 3 requires that all live-in relationships — a clause applicable even to non-residents — be registered with the local police station in India’s Uttarakhand.
Not registering within a month of cohabiting can attract a jail term of three months and a penalty of up to $120. It also excludes queer couples from its ambit, ignoring major milestones in granting equal rights to India’s LGBTQIA community.
The Uniform Civil Code was a poll promise by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 general election. In becoming law just over a month away from the upcoming general elections, this can be seen as steps towards its actualization.
But in bringing the sexual choices of young adults under the radar of the state, this unsubtle reshaping of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms has other sinister implications. Not only does this create possibilities for surveillance, it allows for the creation of a database of couples that do not fall within state-sanctioned ideas of love.
It also means that neighbors and landlords become sources of moral policing and gatekeeping in housing societies in both small and big cities, rapidly shrinking already precarious grounds for live-in couples.
This can be read as the latest in a line of legislations towards regulating desire: a spate of anti-conversion laws across Indian states; the demand for securing parental consent for love marriages in Gujarat; and numerous love-jihad campaigns.
This begs the question: what is love in India?
Honour killings — of those who dare to love across caste and religion, outside the prescribed boundaries approved by family and society — continue with impunity, scarring the landscape of romantic love in India. The societal odds are against these brave couples.
A whopping 93 percent of Indian marriages are arranged, occurring within the same caste and community. The preservation of caste supremacy through marriage has been popularised by the 2020 Netflix reality TV show Indian Matchmaking, which advocates a selective breeding of non-resident Indian populations based on caste and colour.
In 2023, Indians were confounded by a request from the Animal Welfare Board to go hug a cow on February 14, and for Cow Hug day to replace the vastly more popular St. Valentine’s Day. This is also a reminder that “gau mata” or the sacred mother cow becomes the beacon of a heteronormative, masculinist version of statehood propped on cultural homogeneity and religious polarization.
Amidst this desire to govern who one lives with and loves, the idea of love remains as political a decision as a private one.
As the Indian state moves closer towards assuming the role of father figure and sanctioning who we love, this 360info package examines the regulation of love across societies and what it means for citizens.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on April 10, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/when-states-give-love-a-bad-name/",
"author": "Piya Srinivasan"
}
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2,474 |
When the choice is between poor-quality medicine and no medicine at all - 360
Yasuhide Nakamura
Published on July 27, 2022
Poverty drives the market in inferior medicines just as it drives other examples of inequality. A socially integrated approach is needed to fight the problem.
“A patient wanted to buy antibiotics for a bruise. They want antibiotics even for influenza.” Indonesian pharmacists had alarming stories when researchers interviewed them about their experiences.
But the story gets even more alarming: 2021 research shows that 70 percent of Indonesian pharmacies dispense antibiotics without a prescription. And many Indonesians who cannot afford appropriate health care buy prescription-only drugs, including antibiotics, in the informal sector for self-treatment.
In Indonesia, licensed drug stores (which are different from pharmacies) often sell antibiotics, evading inspection by the authorities. The informal and formal sectors – licensed and unlicensed sellers, grocery stores and pharmacies – are entangled. The Indonesian distribution channels for medicines are said to be the most complicated in the world.
When prescription-only drugs are distributed without a prescription in pharmacies it seems that regulations don’t work. When they are distributed by unlicensed sellers, it shows there is a market beyond the reach of laws and regulations. Both are characteristics of a world in which low-quality drugs are prevalent. The question remains whether the problem can be solved simply by tightening regulations.
Low-quality generic drugs are a major challenge for low- and middle-income countries in two ways. First, the high availability of low-quality antimalarials and antibiotics in these countries seems to relate to demand: many consumers need these drugs. Second, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), an emerging group of low- and middle-income countries, need to develop their pharmaceutical business as an export industry.
A technological foundation is required to meet both these needs: satisfying local demand and succeeding as an export industry. Standards are a core element of this foundation. Pharmaceutical standards of efficacy and safety are driven by the need to protect human life. In other words, it is not possible to design pharmaceutical standards solely in terms of efficiency and convenience.
But willingness to comply with standards is not the same as achieving them. Cost is the main obstacle here. All stakeholders in a society must be motivated (incentivised) to comply with the relevant standards. It is not enough simply to strengthen laws and regulations. Medicine quality depends on a social system where all stakeholders – including approval, manufacturing, distribution and marketing entities, as well as medical practitioners and patients – receive appropriate incentives and advantages.
The public dispensary system in India is a social security system that benefits many poor people, but it is not a sound system in this respect. Officials have been caught taking bribes, and the bargaining process between suppliers and the government provides strong temptation for manufacturers to cut corners on production, making low-quality medicines to eke out greater profits.
By contrast, the public health care service in Japan is a rare example of a system designed immediately after the Second World War that continues to operate extremely well. The medical service provided under the universal health insurance system is fair, reasonably inexpensive and of good quality for all. There is ample incentive for both providers and patients to use the services. For this reason, the problem of low-quality drugs in Japan is much smaller than in other countries.
Where standards are lax and incentives to comply with them are few, there is ample room for malicious criminals. Even legitimate suppliers can find it difficult to avoid the temptation to cut costs and deviate from standards and regulations. In this way the market sees a mixture of counterfeit products made by criminals and low-quality drugs made by legitimate suppliers who fall short of specifications.
The World Health Organization (WHO) International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT), established in 2006, defined and sought to eradicate counterfeit medicines but was silent on substandard ones. This led to significant opposition from low- and middle-income countries.
Low and middle-income countries take the view that counterfeit drugs are different from substandard drugs. But the WHO’s definition did not make this distinction clear, and internationally the two types of low-quality medicine were mixed up. High-income countries such as the United States and Germany supported IMPACT and sought to protect their intellectual property rights against emerging countries. This added to the backlash from low- and middle-income countries.
Intellectual property rights are the largest barrier to converting innovative new drugs to generic drugs, and adding them to the WHO’s model list of essential medicines. Many of the medicines in the model list are generic drugs, among which substandard drugs have been prevalent in low- and middle-income countries.
When IMPACT was established, antiretrovirals to treat HIV (AIDS) were prime candidates for inclusion in the model list from a global public health point of view, but this challenged the international rules of intellectual property rights. The conflict between the two worlds – developed and developing economies – comes clearly into view here.
IMPACT failed because from the very beginning advanced economies and international organisations drove the process, leaving the interests of a range of countries behind. The WHO needed to change course.
Tackling the proliferation of low-quality medicines is not merely a matter of enhancing pharmaceutical regulation, defining counterfeit medicines, and making technical improvements. It is also a question of international politics.
Public health policy needs to look beyond the quality of medicines to the impoverishment of those who need them. Those who risk falling into poverty if they buy good-quality medicine are forced to make a choice between low-quality medicine and no medicine at all. Paradoxically, even low-quality drugs can be a saving grace for many in the informal sector. At the same time, intellectual monopoly rights are not only the rights of one company or one industry but also a source of economic growth for some countries.
Health care is a scarce economic resource, and countries around the world are working to correct the uneven distribution of this resource. But the situation is not structurally uniform in all countries, and their external considerations are even more individualised. The gap between the ideal goals of regulation and the constraints of reality needs to be recognised.
The problem of low-quality medicines has the same source as the problem of economic inequality among people. It needs to be addressed at the same fundamental level.
Professor Yasuhide Nakamura is a professor emeritus of Osaka University, President of Friends of WHO Japan, and a senior fellow professor of the National College of Nursing at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Japan.
He declares no conflict of interest in relation to this article.
Professor Nakamura thanks Dr Satoru Kimura for his excellent work in adapting material from their book, Poor Quality Pharmaceuticals in Global Public Health, to become this article.
Image published under Creative Commons.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 27, 2022
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"author": "Yasuhide Nakamura"
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2,475 |
When Tunisia changed its laws to protect women, it shook the Arab world - 360
Ladan Rahbari
Published on November 25, 2022
Arab women have been suffering from layers of marginalisation and invisibility over the years but a nation is leading the way to change that.
Tunisia has long been a pioneer of women’s rights in the Arab world. The country, with a female prime minister and female judges in courts — a rarity for Arab countries — led the way with a groundbreaking law against all forms of gendered violence in 2017.
Arab women have long suffered from layers of marginalisation and invisibility due to stagnant social traditions and patriarchal culture, so the new law was celebrated as a landmark step to protect women from all forms of violence. It serves as a blueprint for other Arab nations to follow.
The struggle to control Muslim women’s bodies has taken different forms across countries and contexts, ranging from enforcing the hijab (Islamic headscarf) in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran to banning it in European countries, such as France and Switzerland.
One of the most disturbing forms of exploitation of women’s bodies is gendered violence ranging from female circumcision, virginity testing to domestic violence and honour killings.
Tunisia’s law sought to ensure equality and respect for human dignity by adopting a comprehensive approach to fight different forms of violence in the political, economic, social, and sexual domains through public campaigns.
The law highlighted that violence against women can happen anywhere and can impact everyone — it is not just a private or domestic issue. The law increased the recognition of these forms of violence so Tunisian society takes them more seriously.
It was made possible in part by women’s engagement with different forms of ‘cyberfeminism’, where women employ various social media tools to advance their cause. Many years of hard work, dedication, and perseverance by Tunisian women paved the way.
The passing of the new law included repealing some previous laws, including the controversial ‘Article of Shame’. This law came to be widely known as the ‘marry your rapist law’ as it provided rapists with a legal loophole to escape punishment if they married their victims. A similar version of this law still exists in Russia, Venezuela and Thailand.
Achieving any progress in gender equity across the Arab world, as elsewhere, requires three parallel struggles at the political, social, and legal levels. Neglecting one of these struggles harms women’s advancement. For example, the amended guardianship law in Saudi Arabia restricted women’s travel but also impeded women’s social autonomy and societal participation. Repealing the law became an important step to advance the rights and social status of Saudi Arabian women.
Waves of gender-related reforms across the Arab region, including in Lebanon and Jordan, signal an era of Arab women’s activism. Overcoming the unjust laws and cultural practices which hinder their progress and threaten their status as equal citizens will require new strategies to ensure sufficient intervention, support and resistance. The varying political, economic and social make-up of different nations will mean it will come at different speeds. But Tunisia has set the ball rolling from here.
Sahar Khamis is an associate professor of communication and an affiliate professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an expert on Arab and Muslim media.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 25, 2022
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"author": "Ladan Rahbari"
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When war is no deterrent to a desperate job-seeker - 360
Chandan Nandy
Published on April 29, 2024
Unemployment at home pushes thousands of Indians to look overseas for work – even war zones. What’s missing is a coherent policy to protect them.
Migration is most easily explained in the following terms: people move from one country to another if the expected benefits exceed the costs. That is, if there are jobs and better wages.
But how do we explain the movement of labour from certain Indian states to countries at war, such as Russia and Israel?
While illegal outmigration from India is nothing new — one study found that about 725,000 Indians now live illegally in the US — the movement of people to conflict zones reflects potential migrants’ desire to escape desperate conditions at home for a relatively better life elsewhere, even when confronted with human emergencies caused by war.
Indians migrating to Russia and then finding themselves thrown into the conflict as combatants, and hundreds of people in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana states signing up for jobs in Israel, underscore an important point: migrating to conflict zones is considered a better choice to the uncertainties caused by lack of employment at home.
A recent report made two startling claims: one, about 83 percent of India’s youth grapple with “soaring unemployment”. Second, the proportion of educated youth (15 to 29 years old), with at least secondary level education, among the country’s total unemployed youth jumped from 35.2 percent in 2002 to 65.7 percent in 2022.
Most Indian states suffer from the unemployment scourge, but a handful stand out.
Unemployment in Haryana was 2.9 percent in 2013-2014, it then trebled in 10 years. Punjab’s unemployment rate stood at 8.6 percent in October 2023. Kerala recorded the highest unemployment in India with 28.7 percent in the 15-29 age group category even as the national average was 10 percent.
There is no official record of illegal immigration or how many Indians take to surreptitious means to enter a foreign country. The Indian government admits that it “encourages only legal form of mobility and migration” and only data on migrant workers is maintained.
The government does not curb illegal immigration – it cannot since it is a consequence of labour conditions at home – but it has information that “several unscrupulous” agents and travel agents use underhand means to advance their business of “manpower recruitment” for overseas employment.
Indian labour migration to the Arab Gulf countries has largely been orderly due to their strict immigration regulations and labour laws. But what about India’s migration policies? India has never had any dynamic, over-arching labour migration policy.
It would respond to the demands in the Gulf countries some of which have, from time to time, been embroiled in deadly conflicts. These responses were largely piecemeal.
The India-Israel labour agreement stems from New Delhi’s strong and “friendly” bilateral political relations with Tel Aviv.
Inked in May 2023, before the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the agreement has been roundly criticised by activist organisations for not taking into consideration the security of Indian workers, especially when they were to work in a state not immune to violent cross-border conflict.
There is now no knowing how the latest round of conflict between Israel and Iran might unfold in the weeks, if not months, to come.
Indian authorities have, meanwhile, suspended the movement of workers to Israel.
While uncertainty prevails on when the security situation in the region might normalise, India will have to rethink its ill-conceived strategy to send – or allow – its workers to Israel and other conflict areas such as Russia and focus on instituting a sound and well-rounded policy that would meet the labour demand-supply needs elsewhere.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on April 29, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/when-war-is-no-deterrent-to-a-desperate-job-seeker/",
"author": "Chandan Nandy"
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When you can't trust your eyes anymore - 360
Scarlett Jia Wen Seow
Published on April 3, 2024
Deepfakes are threatening privacy and security. Detection methods using deep learning aim to combat this but there’s a long way to go.
It started in 2017 when Reddit users uploaded sexually explicit videos using the faces of women celebrities superimposed onto adult film actresses’ bodies.
The emergence of such disturbing videos was a result of a sophisticated deep learning algorithm known as “deepfake”.
It sent shockwaves through the world, threatening privacy and societal security. Within a year, Reddit and other online platforms banned these deepfake porn videos but the problem does not stop there.
This advanced technique enables the replacement of one person’s likeness with another’s. Some popular examples include applying filters to alter facial attributes; swapping faces with celebrities; transferring facial expressions; or generating a new selfie based on an original photo.
The malicious use of deepfakes has the potential to cause severe psychological harm and tarnish reputations, marking it as a powerful tool capable of inciting social panic and threatening world peace.
The development of robust deepfake detectors which are trained to identify the distinct features that distinguish a fake image from a real one, is crucial.
Traditional approaches focus on analysing inconsistencies in pixel distribution, leading to unusual biometric artefacts and facial textures, such as unnatural skin texture, odd shadowing, and abnormal placement of facial attributes, which serve as key indicators for deepfake detection.
However, the evolution of deep learning technology, such as diffusion models, transformers, and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), has made conventional approaches vulnerable.
GAN is the leading technique in deepfake generation. It consists of two models: a generator that creates images and a discriminator that attempts to distinguish whether the image is real or fake.
Initially, deepfake images might display noticeable flaws in pixel distribution. Yet, guided by feedback from the discriminator, the generator learns from its successes and failures to refine its technique. Over time, through continuous training, the generator becomes increasingly adept at producing indistinguishable images.
As the digital landscape evolves, the battle against deepfakes has ushered in a new era of detection methods. These are increasingly focusing on deep learning approaches rather than undergoing the tedious process of manually crafting features.
These methods utilise a “black box” approach through convolutional neural networks for feature extraction. This approach allows the model to automatically learn and derive the discriminative features directly from the training data or input features via deep neural networks, streamlining the deepfake detection process.
Within this transformative scenario, researchers are dedicating efforts to develop detection models that specifically target deepfake images from diverse sources to enhance the model’s effectiveness in real-world scenarios while minimising the computational resources needed during training.
Their goal is to transform these models by restructuring the model into user-friendly tools that can be seamlessly integrated with social media platforms and applications.
But the journey doesn’t end there. For developers and researchers, continuous learning and adaptation becomes paramount.
It is crucial to ensure that the detection models remain effective against the evolving techniques used in deepfake generation, which present challenges in detection and responsible use.
Tackling these challenges requires significant technical innovation as well as ethical foresight, coordinating policy, aligning with tools, and engaging in broad public dialogue.
It is this comprehensive strategy that will be necessary to truly advance the technology and to do so responsibly and widely enough to make it effective so that it is intended and widely accepted.
“Seeing is believing”, in an era where deepfakes blur the line between reality and fiction, the pursuit of truth becomes more important than ever.
The development of deepfake detection technology serves as far more than a technical challenge. Instead, it emerges as a beacon in our unrelenting pursuit of authenticity.
Here, we are reminded that even as our eyes may be deceived, our dedication to preserving accuracy ensures that reality will always flicker through.
In the war against digital deception, deepfake detection’s central and essential role remains as our watchful sentry, ensuring that even in the age of deepfakes, seeing can still mean believing.
Dr Scarlett Seow received her PhD in Information Technology from Monash University in 2023. Her research focuses on the design and development of a reliable detection model that is robust against most of the deepfake generation methods and adversarial attacks. She’s currently a sessional tutor at Monash University Malaysia.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on April 3, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/when-you-cant-trust-your-eyes-anymore/",
"author": "Scarlett Jia Wen Seow"
}
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Who listens when young people rage against the machine? - 360
Lachlan Guselli
Published on March 4, 2024
In a world over saturated with voices, anger offers a way of finally being heard, but is emotion overriding our will to fix the world’s problems?
As key elections play out across 2024, many in civic society will speak profoundly about the importance of institutions and how collectively, we the people, need to bolster them against the rising tide of populism and authoritarianism.
However, the same institutions that advocate for this appear to many young people tin-eared to public sentiment on things like the cost of living, rising wealth inequality and access to affordable housing, secure work and real action on climate change.
It is within this paradox/vacuum that polarisation takes hold and where populists or would-be authoritarians tend to harvest their support.
Donald Trump, Geert Wilders, Viktor Orban all may appear unpalatable to sober centrist liberal ideals, yet they were all democratically successful at the ballot box.
In many of these elections, it was the youth vote that catapulted their success, as a protest against the status quo.
Young people are angry, and we are all to blame.
Particularly angry are the young men of ‘Gen Z’.
In January the Financial Times reported that “under-30s are undergoing a great gender divergence.” where men are as much as 30 percent more likely to be ultra conservative than women in countries like South Korea, the United States and across Europe.
Social media content which essentially leverages emotional levers for money plays a key part in this demographic, as a lack of regulation leaves many open to the world of “rage farming.”
However, attributing to much of this, according to Cambridge University is “economic exclusion” caused by high youth unemployment and wealth inequality.
“This is the first generation in living memory to have a global majority who are dissatisfied with the way democracy works while in their twenties and thirties” the 2020 study claimed.
The defence of democracy may well be the fight of the age, however added to the list of the climate crisis and conflicts across the globe, it may once again be drowned out in the noise.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 4, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/when-young-people-rage-against-the-machine-who-listens/",
"author": "Lachlan Guselli"
}
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Where are Indonesia's women leaders? - 360
Sharyn Davies
Published on March 8, 2024
With the election over, Indonesia gears up to celebrate women’s day. It’s a timely reminder of how far women in leadership have to go in the nation.
There was something missing among the main candidates for Indonesia’s presidency in February’s election: women.
But did you know Indonesia has already had a woman president?
In 2001, Megawati Sukarnoputri became president of the largest Muslim nation in the world.
Most people are surprised to hear this: When they think about Indonesia, they think about how gender equality remains a significant challenge.
They’re not wrong. The country of 270 million is struggling with issues including limited access to education for girls and underrepresentation of women in leadership roles.
The country scored 69.7 percent in the latest World Economic Forum gender report card. With a global gender gap rank of 87, it sits just below the middle of the world index.
It could even lean on Australia for help.
Megawati finished her term as president in 2004, meaning it’s been 20 years since the country had a female leader.
In last month’s election, only a few women ran.
Increasing women’s participation in decision-making needs to happen by promoting women’s leadership and representation in political, economic, and social spheres through measures such as quotas, affirmative action policies and leadership training programs.
Social norms, however, present a roadblock.
While women’s right to leadership in Indonesia has been implicitly guaranteed in the constitution, traditional social roles and, more recently, the Islamist resurgence in Indonesia, have served as social barriers to the acceptance of women as leaders.
Gender norms still emphasise the role of women as mothers and carers in Indonesia, contributing to women’s low rates of participation in the formal workforce and in leadership.
While Megawati broke traditions with her gender, she was the daughter of a former president and none of her policies advanced gender equality.
So, true progress is not just about ensuring that women get elected, but that candidates who get elected will promote gender equality.
A key priority for promoting gender equality in Indonesia is addressing gender-based violence.
One in three Indonesian women has experienced violence at the hands of a spouse or someone known to them.
Young women and women in unregistered marriages are at a higher risk of domestic violence, according to data from the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection. There is also a high risk of domestic abuse in households where the husband has more than one wife.
In 2022, Indonesia introduced landmark legislation targeting sexual violence.
The law, which followed more than a decade of advocacy by activists, recognises nine types of sexual violence not covered in existing laws. It also requires that police, prosecutors and judges who handle cases of sexual violence use a victim-centred approach to case handling. This is a start.
Also underway are a range of measures to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, including strengthening laws and policies, providing support services for survivors, and promoting gender-sensitive attitudes and behaviours.
But while the sentiment is there, action is not yet resulting in tangible gains.
There remain very few support services for domestic violence survivors, as myself and a group of other Australian and Indonesian researchers have found.
Work also needs to be done on promoting women’s economic empowerment.
Women’s labour force participation in Indonesia has remained almost unchanged for more than two decades, hovering at just above 50 percent. That’s despite declining early marriage rates, lower fertility and structural changes to the economy.
Opportunities for women to participate fully in the workforce — including through skills training, access to finance and resources, and support for women entrepreneurs and small business owners — are desperately needed. This is particularly the case among Indonesia’s ageing farmer workforce, where older women are a growing demographic.
The World Bank has observed that as Indonesia moves toward middle-class jobs and growth of manufacturing and services sectors, “the work-care nexus is becoming a constraint to women’s ability to seek paid work.”
Indonesia is also lagging on workplace flexibility for mothers. Formal sector employers do not generally offer flexible workplace conditions. In this context, female labour force participation is low as many women leave the formal workforce when they get married and have children.
Access to education and healthcare for women also needs improvement.
Child marriage remains an issue in Indonesia, with a national prevalence rate of 11 percent as of 2019. This impacts girls’ education, as many child brides are forced to leave school. Indeed, research indicates a girl’s chances of finishing secondary school decline for each year she is married before her 18th birthday.
There is also a cultural bias against girls’ education in some rural areas, where girls are more likely to be excluded from school.
The availability of health care in rural areas is another pressing issue for the country
The maternal mortality rate reported at 177 per 100,000 live births in 2017 is the third highest in Southeast Asia.
Access to family planning services and other forms of reproductive healthcare is often limited due to cultural and religious beliefs, which can lead to unintended pregnancies and maternal mortality.
Ensuring equal access to quality education and healthcare services for women and girls, including addressing barriers such as poverty, cultural norms, and geographic remoteness, is needed.
While some of these gender equity priorities can be tackled nationally, regional partnerships can help them progress too.
Australia, a large and relatively wealthy neighbour that has signalled an interest in deepening ties with Indonesia, can support bilateral capacity-building initiatives.
Australia already provides funding and technical assistance to Indonesian organisations and government agencies working to advance gender equality, including grassroots women’s organisations, NGOs, and government departments. The KONEKSI grant scheme is a prime example as Australia has provided AUD$50 million.
Going forward, Indonesia can continue to work with Australia to advocate for policy and law reform to promote gender equality and women’s rights, and to foster partnerships and collaboration.
Australia could help by coming to the table with more investment in education and healthcare for women and girls, including scholarships, school infrastructure projects and initiatives to address gender-based barriers to healthcare services.
It could help promote women’s economic empowerment by supporting initiatives that provide women with economic opportunities, such as vocational training programs, microfinance initiatives and support for women-led businesses and cooperatives.
By working together, Australia and Indonesia, along with other key stakeholders, can advance gender equality and women’s empowerment and create a more inclusive and equitable region for all.
This article was changed on March 7, 2024 to state that Megawati Sukarnoputri was appointed president, not elected.
Sharyn Davies is an Associate Professor in Indonesian Studies at Monash University and is recognised internationally as an expert in the field of Indonesian Studies and for her contributions to the study of gender, sexuality, policing, social media, and moral surveillance. A/Prof Davies is also Director of the Herb Feith Indonesia Engagement Centre. She received her PhD from the University of Western Australia (Anthropology and Asian Studies) and prior to her appointment at Monash was at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand. Sharyn has held visiting fellowships at Cambridge, Yale, Sydney, Peking and Airlangga universities, and has been awarded Fulbright, Leverhulme and Marsden funding.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Investing in women” sent at: 07/03/2024 13:06.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 8, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/where-are-indonesias-women-leaders/",
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Where did India’s millions of working women go? - 360
Rajendra P. Mamgain
Published on October 18, 2022
Nearly 40 million women have left the workforce in India since the turn of the millennium despite an economic boom. Now, there’s a window to reverse the trend.
Since the turn of the millennium, women have been leaving the workforce in India. Over 40.4 million fewer women are in paid work today than in 2004. Despite making up nearly half of India’s population, women represent less than one third of the workforce.
But the spiral can turn around, and India has a strong economic incentive to ensure it does. India’s GDP over the past two decades could have been 43 percent larger if women had the same work participation rate as men, Oxfam estimates. And India’s international standing is suffering: the country ranks 135 among 146 in the 2022 Global Gender Gap Index, owing largely to low work participation rates among women and poor health indicators.
The decline in women’s work is pushing all age groups and sectors into poverty but the dropoff was particularly pronounced among youth aged between 15 and 24, those with lower levels of education and working in agriculture and construction sectors in rural India.
The agricultural sector, a historically strong employer of people with fewer formal qualifications, is relying on less labour as farm mechanisation improves. And while rising enrolment in education among women is encouraging, there remains a shortage of paid job opportunities outside of farming for many who graduate — prompting them to leave the workforce altogether. While 3.9 million more women are working in salaried positions than a decade ago, the general trend is worrisome.
About 70 percent of women who work in India are doing low-paid jobs on a casual wage and/or unpaid family labour, and many are still recovering from the shockwaves of the pandemic and its related economic disruptions. About 56 million Indians were pushed back into poverty during the pandemic, with women and other vulnerable population groups mostly impacted.
Turning it around relies not just on more work being available, but better quality work. Central and state governments have been active in trying to fix the problem, launching several programmes that promote self-employment and wage employment.
The Deen Dayal Upadhya-National Rural Livelihood Mission is aimed at promoting self-employment through Self-Help Groups, small groups of workers who receive government assistance to take up income-generating activities. Another programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, guarantees 100 days’ manual wage employment to participating unskilled workers.
Self-Help Groups have a record of alleviating poverty and empowering women. The Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has greatly helped lift household incomes and granted some women more financial autonomy.
But even the scheme, a success story, had clear cases of gender and class-based inequalities with its implementation: work was generally allocated with no consideration of different gender realities, such as “responsibilities for child care and differences in physical strength”.
Policymakers can learn from what has worked in these initiatives. Targeting resources towards growth industries, particularly in roles that can sustainably employ and upskill workers with low levels of education is a blueprint that has worked elsewhere.
In China, women-focused public programmes such as training, cooperatives, and extending women lines of credit helped reduce poverty faster and improve the livelihoods of poor households. Bangladesh considerably raised its labour force participation rates among women by focusing on creating demand for female labour in the textile industry.
Rural Indians in particular are reliant on the government improving the range and quality of infrastructure in their reach, mostly in education and health. Young people especially would benefit from investment in their foundational education and skill training, helping the next generation of Indian workers adapt in a fast-changing and demanding skill landscape.
This transformative journey would be much easier, faster and inclusive by augmenting the capacities and capabilities of local level institutions, such as Panchayat Raj Institutions (village-level local bodies) on a sustained basis. This requires large public investment at least over the next five years, along with incentivising private investment to rural areas in a big way. Providing land rights to women jointly with men for their economic empowerment would be a critical advancement, but it remains a major challenge generating domestic support.
Self-help groups can be promoted for land pooling and cooperative farming, as has been successful in the case of Kudumbashree in Kerala and Deccan Development Society in Telangana. Programmes like the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme could be more successful if the government took a page from many countries who provide childcare and flexible working arrangements to assist women engaging in work. India’s maternity act, amended in 2017, mandates large employers to provide child care facilities (crèche) at the workplace; the follow through is still lacking.
India’s next chapter of economic development will hinge on whether they can get the follow through right on many of the targeted, gender-sensitive reforms on the table. There are clear incentives to bring women back into the workforce, but the pathway relies upon considered policy that accounts for the unique challenges women face.
is a development economist with three decades of research and teaching experience in areas of labour, employment, human development and public policy. The views expressed are of his own.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on October 18, 2022
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"author": "Rajendra P. Mamgain"
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Where to next in Australia's battle with Elon Musk and X? - 360
Terry Flew
Published on April 30, 2024
The Australian government’s battle with Elon Musk and X over violent content appears admirable, but will it change anything for those vulnerable to its harm?
Over three days in April, Australia’s delicate social media ecosystem was blown apart.
The thin line between online regulation and the circulation of disinformation unravelled. In its place now sits a new polarised debate between free speech absolutism and the safeguarding of users from violent content.
Two stabbing attacks in Sydney — including one which was live streamed — narrowed the focus on the significant role of social media platforms when public violence occurs.
After the attacks that killed six people and wounded many others in the Bondi Junction Westfield shopping mall on April 13, social media wrongly identified the assailant as a young Jewish university student. The allegation was picked up by one of Australia’s leading commercial TV networks before it was corrected, leading to racist and anti-Semitic online commentary about the individual because of the false rumours.
The stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel two days later at an Assyrian Church of Christ in south-western Sydney was live streamed to the world, sparking demand the raw, unedited footage be removed from social media platforms altogether.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner ordered social media platform X to remove graphic videos of the church stabbing from its site.
While X complied with the requirement to delete the content from its Australian sites, it rejected the call to apply a global takedown. In doing so, it risks fines of AUD$782,500 per day for failing to comply with the directive by the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, to take down material that would be refused classification under the Classification Act.
X CEO Elon Musk mocked the Commissioner as “the Australian Censorship Commissar” and posted on his own profile an image associating X with a brightly-lit castle proclaiming free speech and truth and other platforms with a castle beset by dark clouds and lighting that pointed to censorship and propaganda.
Musk’s self-proclaimed stance as a “free speech warrior”, while inconsistent with his conduct towards critics of him or X, is a part of his global branding of X as “anti-woke”, which has seen him described as “the second most important person in MAGA“.
An unusual degree of political bipartisanship emerged in the responses of Australian political leaders.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called Musk an “arrogant billionaire, who thinks he’s above the law“, while Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones described X as a “playground of criminals and cranks“.
Opposition Senate leader Simon Birmingham observed that “They (social media companies) absolutely should be able to quickly and effectively remove content that is damaging and devastating to the fabric of society,” while Greens communications spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young described Musk as a “cowboy … making money and profiting off outrage and hatred.”
The conditions are now in place for a protracted battle between X and the Australian Government about whether compliance can be forced on the company to a directive of the eSafety Commissioner. Three issues can be identified as likely to play out.
First, there is the question of whether Australian Internet laws can be extended internationally. X has argued that the Australian eSafety Commissioner cannot demand a global takedown of content, as such decisions can only be made through international law. In response, the Commissioner argues that the use of VPNs and other devices to evade geo-blocking means that violent content that is clearly illegal under Australian law can still be accessed by Australians.
Second, it presents a significant challenge to a model of digital platform regulation that combines heavy fines for breaches of guidelines with the expectation that industry self-regulation and corporate social responsibility will mean that they will not be enacted in practice.
Such an approach was pioneered in the European Union as a way of “ratcheting up” platform conduct without seeking to directly regulate online content by putting in place penalties that were sufficiently severe to constitute a credible threat to the companies’ financial bottom line.
As eSafety Commissioner since 2015, Julie Inman Grant has referred to this approach in the Australian context as Safety by Design, working with tech companies to incorporate higher regulatory standards into their everyday business practice.
X’s experience in Australia draws attention to the limits of this “soft law” based approach. X withdrew from the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation (ACPDM) administered by the Digital Industry Group Inc. (DIGI) after an adverse finding against it in a case undertaken by the advocacy group Reset.Tech Australia.
As a result, X effectively sits outside of the self-regulatory framework to which as Twitter, it had originally been a signatory. The company is clearly prepared to contest fines against it in the courts rather than choose the path of compliance assumed under the co-regulatory, safety-by-design-model.
The question arises as to whether the Australian Federal Government can, or should, set in place its own laws to govern X’s conduct with regard to issues such as misinformation or content regulation, given that the self-regulatory model has proven ineffectual in being able to enforce X’s compliance with industry guidelines. The Australian Government is reintroducing its Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill to Parliament after a consultation process that elicited over 2,400 submissions in response.
The relationship between proposed misinformation laws and existing powers under the Online Safety Act will be the subject of considerable debate, and recent developments have given new impetus to calls for governments to act to set rules for the conduct of global social media platforms.
Finally, the case of X and the global reach of Australian Internet laws points to a broader set of issues around national governments and global digital platforms. What has been termed the “regulatory turn” in Internet governance has seen governments increasingly seek to apply national laws to digital platform companies in areas such as competition policy, content regulation, dealings with content providers such as news publishers, and ethical issues related to the uses of artificial intelligence (AI).
The impetus for such measures has often been the sense that the global tech giants simply disregard requests to change and use their market power to steamroll governments.
Until now, this has only disempowered citizens seeking some form of agency against these tech giants. A change of posture from governments could help shift that narrative.
Terry Flew is a Professor of Digital Communication and Culture at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Professor Flew is leading a team of researchers in developing the International Digital Policy Observatory, an online database to track policies and regulations dealing with misinformation, AI regulation, online harms, cybersecurity and digital identity.
The research was undertaken with funding from the Australian Research Council through its Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) program.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on April 30, 2024
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"author": "Terry Flew"
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Who gets to control the Indian Ocean’s 'tollgate'? - 360
Dhananjay Tripathi
Published on March 18, 2024
The Maldives is a key player in the Indian Ocean, positioning itself to benefit from India and China’s rivalry.
India is about to start withdrawing its military personnel from the Maldives – 80 men in uniform who operate two helicopters and a Dornier aircraft that provide humanitarian and medical services in the Indian Ocean nation.
After years of close relations with India, the Maldives elected a new president, Mohamed Muizzu, last year. One of his first directives on assuming office was that India withdraw its “military presence” from the archipelago.
Muizzu is widely perceived to be “pro-China”. But that is not the whole story.
The domestic politics of the Maldives tends to swing between pro-India and pro-China political players and has considerable impact on its foreign policy.
Muizzu’s predecessor, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, for example, was close to New Delhi and resolutely maintained an “India First” policy. Now the pendulum seems to have swung to the other extreme.
The Maldives has become a playground for strategic competition between the big powers in Asia.
Its geostrategic location makes it important for both Asian giants – India and China.
Maritime scholars describe the Maldives as the “toll gate” between the western Indian Ocean chokepoints of the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Hormuz and the eastern Indian Ocean chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca.
More than half of India’s external trade and 80 percent of its energy imports passes through the sea-lanes close to the Maldives.
For China 80 percent of its crude oil imports from the Gulf pass through the Strait of Malacca. Experts believe that over-dependence on the Strait of Malacca increases China’s energy supply vulnerability.
Over cautiousness of China about the Indian Ocean region sea lanes is often described as its “Malacca dilemma” – a possible scenario when an antagonist blocks the sea lanes. To avoid this, China has invested heavily in its navy with special focus on the Indian Ocean.
Beijing is especially apprehensive of US and Indian influence in the Indian Ocean. It perhaps believes that a deepening Indo-US partnership, especially in the Indo-Pacific context, can make things difficult for it as well.
Aware of these potential challenges, China has sought to increase its strategic presence in the Indian Ocean. It now has a formidable presence at strategically located ports such as Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka.
Gwadar, which is part of the China -Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Belt and Road Initiative, is just 400km from India. The port is managed by China Overseas Port Holding Company, which is under a legal obligation to support the People’s Liberation Army’s overseas operation, if and when necessary.
The Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka is controlled by the China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited and is also a cause of concern for India.
China is involved in building or financing 17 ports in the region, of which it is directly involved in the construction of 13.
In 2017, China established a military base in Djibouti and it is now eyeing to expand its military presence in Africa.
With a strong Chinese presence in the Maldives, the so-called “string of pearls” strategy of surrounding India with its strategic naval presence in the Indian Ocean will reach its logical conclusion.
In 2022, China also launched the China-Indian Ocean Region Forum on Development and Cooperation.
In the forum’s second meeting in 2023, more than 350 representatives from 30 countries participated. The central theme was “Boosting Sustainable Blue Economy to Build Together a Maritime Community with a Shared Future”.
These are all examples of Chinese focus on defending its strategic interest in the Indian Ocean, if not dominating it.
India has taken serious note of Chinese strategic expansion.
It has followed a two-pronged strategy to safeguard its interests.
India has tried to consolidate its position in the region by investing in its armed forces and developing better ties with countries in the region. It also launched an initiative called SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) in 2015.
The SAGAR plan seeks to build a climate of trust and openness, address regional concerns, increase maritime cooperation, resolve maritime issues in a peaceful manner and enjoins all Indian Ocean countries to adhere to international maritime rules and norms.
It is one of India’s biggest maritime diplomatic initiatives encompassing security, economic and ecological issues. It projects India as the “net security provider” in the region.
Apart from the SAGAR initiative, India started the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium in 2008 to foster better maritime ties with the navies of Indian Ocean states. There are 25 members and eight observers, including China.
In 1992 India initiated the “Dosti (Friendship)” exercise to link the Coast Guard forces of India and the Maldives. Sri Lanka joined in 2012.
Recently, ‘Dosti-16’ was held in the Maldives, even when there were ongoing controversies about the presence of Indian military personnel in the country.
The second prong of the Indian strategy is to develop closer alliances with the US and other Western powers active in the Indian Ocean. The increasing engagement of India in the region and the close military cooperation between the Quad nations are indicators of this.
In recent months, India-Maldives relations have captured the headlines not only because of the “notice” served on India to remove its military personnel.
There have also been acerbic statements about India by Maldivian ministers trying to woo tourists away from the Maldives and media commentary in India critical of President Muizzu’s government.
The change in government in Maldives is usually cited as the reason. But this is not the whole story.
It ignores the underlying intensity of the Sino-India competition in the region. Tension on the China-India border in the Himalayas remains high and India is apprehensive about the increasing footprint of China in South Asia, while China is suspicious of the growing defence cooperation between India and the West.
There is a larger political tussle between the two Asian heavyweights going on in the Indian Ocean and it is likely to be ongoing and not going to be limited to only the Maldives.
Dhananjay Tripathi is Chairperson and Associate Professor, Department of International Relations, South Asian University, New Delhi.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 18, 2024
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"author": "Dhananjay Tripathi"
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Who speaks for Earth? - 360
Ian Crawford
Published on April 12, 2022
As space science matures and accelerates, the time has come for a democratically accountable UN to moderate human activity beyond Earth.
In his best-selling book Cosmos astronomer Carl Sagan asks: “Who speaks for Earth?” As humanity continues to explore the universe, a UN space agency could provide much stronger international oversight of space activities than the relatively weak treaty regime under which spacefaring nations currently operate.
Sagan’s question is essentially political: which country, which body, which agreement represents our planet as a whole as humanity moves out into space? In the early years of the space age, the underlying geopolitical context was shaped by Cold War competition. This political contest drove technical triumphs such as the flight of Russian Yuri Gagarin in 1961 and the landing of US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin on the moon just eight years later. Many scientific benefits resulted from this early period of competition, especially from the Apollo program. However, international competition is essentially a negative geopolitical driver for space exploration.
Fortunately, over the ensuing decades international cooperation has increased significantly. Fifteen nations, including the US and Russia, cooperate on the International Space Station (ISS), and 26 of the world’s space agencies, including the multinational European Space Agency (ESA), coordinate their activities through the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG).
The ISS is a good example of a positive geopolitical driver for space cooperation because it was, at least in part, born out of a post–Cold War desire to build diplomatic bridges between Russia and the West. Whether this cooperation will survive the current crisis in Ukraine remains to be seen, but the underlying geopolitical logic for international cooperation in space will remain. Returning to an era of Cold War competition between nation states, increasingly joined by poorly regulated commercial companies, is unlikely to be a sustainable model for 21st-century space activities. Indeed, some of the geopolitical dangers of unregulated competition in space have recently been articulated by the international relations scholar Daniel Deudney in his book Dark Skies.
Back in 1984 planetary scientist William Hartmann in his book Out of the Cradle proposed a ‘golden rule’ of space exploration:
Space exploration must be carried out in a way so as to reduce, not aggravate, tensions in human society. Every decision, each policy, must be tested against this principle.
The world lacks global political institutions that are strong enough to legitimately speak for humanity in the transnational domains beyond Earth. At present, human activities in space are guided by a framework of internationally recognised policies, including several intergovernmental treaties (most notably the 1967 Outer Space Treaty), and internationally accepted guidelines (such as the COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy. These agreements provide an excellent foundation on which to build, but they do not satisfactorily address many issues. They would also be difficult to enforce.
Grenville Clark and Louis Sohn suggested a possible way forward in 1962 in the second edition of their book on UN reform, World Peace Through World Law. There they advocated the creation of a ‘United Nations Outer Space Agency’ designed “to ensure that outer space is used for peaceful purposes only; and … to promote … exploration and exploitation of outer space for the common benefit of all mankind”. Significantly, one of its proposed functions would be “to prevent disputes relative to the occupation and control of the Moon or any other planet … by having the Agency take over [in the name of the United Nations] any control which may be advisable and possible as soon as any such bodies are reached [by spacecraft]”.
Seyom Brown and Larry Fabian revisited the concept in their 1975 article ‘Toward mutual accountability in the nonterrestrial realms’ when they advocated the creation of an ‘Outer Space Projects Agency’. They envisaged that all countries would belong to this agency, and that, among other responsibilities, it would be “empowered to give final approval to all … outer space exploration projects for civilian purposes, under guidelines requiring international participation and the international dissemination of all data and results”.
The success of the ESA, established in 1975 and now comprising 22 member states, clearly shows that large international space agencies are practical and can result in many scientific and cultural benefits. There has not yet been any serious attempt to expand this concept to a global scale, although a positive start was made in 2007 when 14 of the world’s space agencies developed the Global Exploration Strategy. This initiative resulted in the formation of the ISECG, which could be viewed as a tentative step towards a global space agency.
As advocated by Clark and Sohn, the obvious overarching political authority for a world space agency would be the United Nations, especially since space is beyond national boundaries. This was recognised at the dawn of the space age with the creation of the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs and the General Assembly’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in 1958. Since then the UN has been instrumental in negotiating the current legal regime that governs human activities in space, and it continues to act as a valuable global forum for coordination, decision-making and information-sharing related to international space activities. An excellent recent example is the October 2021 General Assembly Resolution The “Space 2030” Agenda: space as a driver of sustainable development, which aims to use space technologies to solve ongoing quality-of-life problems on Earth.
The time may have come to give the UN operational responsibility for space activities, and the creation of a UN space agency would facilitate this. However, even if furnished with its own space agency, the UN’s ability to “speak for Earth” would be compromised because, as currently constituted, the world’s citizens are not directly represented in its decision-making structure. Increasing the democratic accountability of the UN is desirable for many reasons, quite apart from space policy. One way to achieve this, as articulated by Jo Leinen and Andreas Bummel in their book A World Parliament: Governance and Democracy in the 21st Century, would be to add an elected Parliamentary Assembly to the UN’s governing organs. Deciding the structure and voting rights of a UN Parliamentary Assembly would doubtless be fraught with difficulties, but it would greatly strengthen the legitimacy of the UN in all its areas of responsibility, on Earth and in space.
Compared to the present organisation of international space activities, these suggestions may seem far-reaching and perhaps utopian. Yet, as the tempo of space activity ramps up in the 21st century, including the likely use of space resources and the possibility of encountering alien life, it seems unavoidable that strengthening international space-governance institutions will be required. The key proposals of establishing a world space agency and greater involvement of the UN in space activities were identified 60 years ago at the beginning of the space age. Implementing them would go a long way to satisfying Hartmann’s ‘golden rule’ of space exploration and, crucially, answering Sagan’s question about who speaks for all of us here on Earth.
Ian Crawford is professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birkbeck College, University of London. The argument presented here is developed in more detail in his chapter “Who Speaks for Humanity?” in Astrobiology: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy (edited by Octavio Chon Torres and Ted Peters, Scrivener Publishing, 2021). He has no conflicts to declare.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Space wars” sent at: 11/04/2022 09:29.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on April 12, 2022
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"url": "https://360info.org/who-speaks-for-earth/",
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Who will clean up Indonesia’s dirty cop problem? - 360
Fachrizal Afandi
Published on December 6, 2022
Corruption is rife within Indonesia’s police ranks but it’s unclear whether there is the appetite to clean up their act..
Two weeks after the Kanjuruhan football stadium stampede which killed more than 130 people, Indonesian President Joko Widodo summoned hundreds of regional police chiefs and high-ranking officers to the presidential palace. He warned them against repressive approaches and banned officers from exhibiting a lavish lifestyle.
Apart from their brutality, Indonesian police officers are notorious for having a lot of money to buy luxury goods.
The highest salary a police officer can earn is 5.9 million rupiah (US$383) per month. In addition they can earn up to an extra 34.9 million rupiah (US$2267) per month in bonuses. Although officers are prohibited from owning luxury items and there are punishments for those who violate these regulations, many high-ranking police and their families flaunt their luxury lifestyles without any sanction. In 2020, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairperson, Police Commissary General Firli Bahuri, was sanctioned for displaying a hedonistic lifestyle. He kept his job.
Jokowi’s warning about police officers’ luxurious lifestyles was nowhere near enough – it does not touch the root of the problem: inherent corruption within police nationwide.
On the same day as Jokowi’s meeting with high-ranking police officers in the state palace, West Sumatra police chief, Inspector-General Teddy Minahasa Putra was arrested for selling 5kg of confiscated crystal methamphetamine. Teddy allegedly received 300 million rupiah (US$19,440) per kilogram from selling seized narcotics.
Then news broke about another corruption case involving police. Former Samarinda City Police intelligence unit officer, Ismail Bolong, testified about bribes and illegal mining activities in East Kalimantan. In a recording, Ismail admitted personally conveying bribes totalling 6 billion rupiah (US$388,819) to the Chief of Police Criminal Investigation Department Commissaries, General Agus Andrianto, in three instalments between September and November 2021. Although Ismail withdrew his statement and apologised to Agus a few days later, a former chief internal security bureau at national police internal affairs division, Brigadier-General Hendra Kurniawan, backed up Ismail’s original statement and said Agus had received illicit money from illegal mining.
Although the reformasi regimes established the Corruption Eradication Commission in 2003 to prevent and prosecute corruption in law enforcement institutions, prosecuting high-ranking police officers isn’t simple.
In 2012 the Commission did succeed in prosecuting Inspector General Djoko Susilo for graft and money laundering. But in 2015, it failed to prosecute Commissaries General Budi Gunawan who was a suspect in a graft case during his tenure as the head of the Career Development Bureau at the National Police headquarters from 2004 to 2006. The police retaliated by arresting Commission chairperson Abraham Samad and Commissioner Bambang Wijayanto.
These cases show how the government has failed to clean up police corruption. Leading expert on Indonesian police affairs Jacqui Baker says police reform is dead because political elites have no incentives to reform the institution.
After the Soeharto military regime fell in 1998, police seized illegal businesses from the army. Positions held by military officers are now filled by the police, such as several Director-Generals at the Ministry of Transportation and the Director-General of Corrections in the Ministry of Law and Human Rights. President Jokowi also appointed a former National Police Chairman as Minister of Interior. The current chairperson is also an active high-ranking police officer.
Apart from replacing the army’s position in state civilian bureaucracy, the police also took over the army’s role in securing a large amount of illicit money from businesses. A Charta Politika survey found corrupt practices in the police were perceived as the highest among public institutions.
The chances of eradicating corruption among police is slim without a push from civil society. The opportunity might come in 2024 in presidential and parliament elections. Voters should look to any political party which proposes a real program to reform the police.
Any program needs a transparent and accountable system for the police by adding stricter procedures to audit police properties annually and make them open to the public. The next president could also ensure the Corruption Eradication Commission readjusts its main mission to prosecuting corrupt police officers. These substantive actions are necessary to clean the dirty rub.
Fachrizal Afandi is a lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Brawijaya University, Malang Indonesia. He is chairperson of Brawijaya University Center for Criminal Justice Research (PERSADA UB), and the co first author with Adriaan Bedner of “Between Upholding the Rule of Law and Maintaining Security: Criminal Justice Actors in Indonesia’s Constitution” in Constitutional Democracy In Indonesia edited by Melissa Crouch. Dr Afandi declared that he has no conflict of interest and is not receiving specific funding in any form.
Twitter: @FachrizalAfandi
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Combating corruption in democracies” sent at: 05/12/2022 13:37.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on December 6, 2022
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"author": "Fachrizal Afandi"
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Who wins in the US, China climate arms race - 360
Wesley Morgan
Published on November 7, 2022
Souring diplomatic relations between the world’s leading economies and biggest polluters could supercharge the race to net zero.
This year’s COP27 UN climate summit is being held amid heightened geopolitical competition. Growing rivalry between the United States and China will make global consensus harder to achieve, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine casts a long shadow over the talks. It’s not all bad news, however. Even as East-West competition hampers unified climate action, it is also accelerating the global shift to clean energy.
The US and China are key to tackling the global climate crisis. They are the world’s largest economies and biggest polluters. Together, they represent 38 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Any action they take to cut emissions will determine how fast the world continues to warm.
Collaboration between these two carbon titans has been key to recent global action on climate. A bilateral deal between the US and China paved the way for the breakthrough 2015 Paris Agreement — which has been signed by more than 190 countries and provides a framework for addressing the climate crisis.
Both the US and China reinforced global co-operation at last year’s COP26 talks in Glasgow. The US committed to cutting its emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. China committed to a peak in carbon emissions by 2030, and to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. They also issued a joint statement on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s, in which both nations committed to “accelerate the transition to a global net zero economy” and pledged to deliver new emissions targets in 2025.
Since COP26 in November 2021, diplomatic relations have soured amid growing talk of a new cold war. Taiwan has become a flashpoint. When US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, Beijing responded by suspending a China-US Climate Working Group and cancelled planned bilateral meetings covering issues like methane emissions, forestry and clean energy.
New climate legislation in the US signals Washington is serious about becoming a clean energy powerhouse. The Inflation Reduction Act — passed by Congress in September — allocates more than US$369 billion to the transition to renewable energy. This is the single largest climate spend in US history and eclipses the next-largest investment in clean energy — US$90 billion from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Measures contained in the Inflation Reduction Act are expected to create 60 gigawatts of renewables capacity each year — double the amount the US deployed last year.
The US legislation is also intended to displace China as a key supplier of clean technology and components for solar, wind and batteries. Through a range of incentives, the Inflation Reduction Act aims to establish a clean technology manufacturing base in the US. Carmichael Roberts from Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures estimated the legislation will spur the creation of up to 1,000 new clean tech companies.
Still, the US has a lot of catching up to do. China is the world’s largest emitter — driven by its reliance on coal-fired power — but it is also the clear global leader in clean energy production and deployment. While the US installed 30 gigawatts of renewable energy last year, China deployed 180GW. In 2021, China alone accounted for 46 percent of the world’s construction of new renewable energy infrastructure. China also dominates global production of solar panels, batteries, wind-turbines and electric vehicles. More than 80 percent of solar panel production is concentrated in China, and this is expected to reach over 95 percent by 2025.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February sent shockwaves through global energy markets. The war forced a rethink on energy security in Europe especially, as it exposed a reliance on Russian energy. Russia is a major fossil fuel producer — the world’s largest exporter of gas, second largest of oil, and third largest of coal. Europe is especially reliant on Russian gas. Before the invasion, 40 percent of the gas used to heat European homes and drive industrial processes came from Russia.
In the short term, the war has seen European policymakers scrambling to find new sources of gas ahead of the upcoming winter — the first in 50 years without Russian energy supplies. Major economies like Germany have built new import terminals to switch from piped Russian gas to liquefied gas shipments from the US and the Middle East. France has also moved to keep existing nuclear power plants online, while other countries are burning more coal.
However these short-term measures are not long-term climate solutions. It appears Vladimir Putin has done more to speed up the clean energy transition in Europe than anyone else, by making the transition to clean energy an issue of security. Almost all major EU economies have raised their renewable energy targets in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In May, the European Union set out a plan — called REpowerEU — to cut Russian gas imports by two thirds this year and to end them altogether before the decade is out. The strategy will cut Europe’s overall gas use — not just Russian gas — by a third by 2030. It also sets more ambitious 2030 targets for renewable energy and energy savings; and requirements for new buildings to add rooftop solar installations.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the benefits of renewables for energy security. Countries moving away from coal, oil and gas will be less captive to the nations that produce them, and less exposed to international price hikes and disruptions to supply chains.
Geopolitical rivalry will make it harder to arrive at consensus during COP27 climate negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh. But it is also clear that competition among major powers is accelerating — not slowing — the global shift to clean energy. The signal through the noise is that the end of the fossil fuel era is coming closer.
The direction of travel is now clear. The majority of countries — together representing more than 90 percent of the world economy — have committed to achieving net-zero emissions in the coming decades. Most of the developed world has pledged to at least halve emissions this decade. As climate and energy policy moves to the centre of global geopolitics, the world’s biggest economies — the US, China and Europe — are working to seize the economic and political advantages of leading the race to net zero. Thankfully, it is likely that competition is here to stay.
Wesley Morgan is a senior researcher with the Climate Council, and a research fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, hosted at Griffith University.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “COP 27” sent at: 31/10/2022 09:29.
This is a corrected repeat.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on November 7, 2022
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"url": "https://360info.org/who-wins-in-the-us-china-climate-arms-race/",
"author": "Wesley Morgan"
}
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Who's afraid of quantum computing? - 360
Chris Ferrie
Published on July 31, 2023
The road to a quantum future may be longer and more winding than some expect, but the potential it holds is profound.
If the Sydney Harbour Bridge was rebuilt today engineers would design, build and test the new bridge in virtual worlds before a sod of dirt was turned.
Digital simulation has revolutionised science and technology, improving efficiency, reducing costs and significantly mitigating risks.
It could also do the same for medicine.
Today, drugs are not designed so much as ‘discovered’ because digital computers can’t simulate the molecular interactions within the human body, and hence can’t provide invaluable insights that would propel the development of novel treatments and cures.
Herein lies the promise of quantum computers.
In the future, chemistry will be simulated on quantum computers to design and test new drugs, materials and exotic new forms of matter.
Only time will tell if this will be a utopia, a technological doomsday scenario or just the mundane steady march of progress.
A quantum algorithm is a step-by-step set of instructions that changes quantum information, much like a conventional algorithm is a step-by-step set of instructions that changes digital information (the bits and bytes of your mobile phone and other computers).
Quantum information is encoded by the fine details of energy and matter, revealed over the last century by quantum physics and controllable by precision engineering at the microscopic scale.
Rather than the 0s and 1s of digital technology, quantum bits (or qubits) can be represented by long lists of numbers.
In the 1990s, it was discovered some problems could be solved with far fewer steps if they were encoded in qubits rather than bits.
This shortcut was so enticing, an international scientific effort began to build machines to do this in a fast and reliable way.
These machines are called quantum computers, and 30 years later, proof of principle prototype devices have been successfully built.
Quantum computer science researchers have compiled a list, called the Quantum Algorithm Zoo, of over 60 quantum algorithms that are believed to run in fewer steps than the best classical algorithm for the same problem.
The first on the list is also the most famous — Shor’s factoring algorithm. Factoring is the process of breaking a large number (like 21) into the smaller numbers which produce it through multiplication (21 = 7 × 3).
For very large numbers, this is such a difficult problem for digital computers that the vast majority of communication systems (like the internet) use it for security.
However, Shor’s algorithm requires far fewer steps to solve the problem, which is a big deal for privacy and security.
Many problems can be thought of as a search for the best solution among a large list of possible solutions.
Grover’s search algorithm is another famous quantum algorithm that takes fewer steps to reach an answer than a classical search algorithm for especially difficult problems.
It’s not yet known which real world problems will yield a significant practical advantage, but difficult problems of this type abound in critical areas including climate modelling, financial portfolio optimisation and artificial intelligence.
More recently, researchers have suggested and provided proof of principle examples of training quantum devices to learn through examples, potentially ushering in a new paradigm of artificial intelligence.
Accurate simulation of chemical interactions require calculations arising from the theory of quantum physics. These are required to design new drugs, fertilisers, batteries and other materials.
The details of how practical a quantum computer might be in any particular instance are yet to be worked out, but a programmable quantum computer could virtually mimic the real world at this fundamental level in principle.
Often, the real transformative power of a technology lies not in its immediate applications, but in the ones that can’t be foreseen.
Reflecting on the early days of the internet, few could have predicted the advent of online shopping, social media, or streaming services.
Similarly, while it is anticipated quantum technology will revolutionise fields like cryptography, drug discovery and climate modelling, its ultimate impact could be something that can’t yet be conceived.
With all of this potential comes a lot of hype. But that must be tempered with a dose of reality.
In the past decade, quantum computers have slowly moved out of university physics departments into the engineering laboratories of large multinational corporations and start-up companies.
Research has transitioned from pure scientific discovery to being in service of specific engineering challenges. Indeed, these are some of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced.
Quantum computers currently require extremely low temperatures or ultra-high vacuum to operate.
The degrees of freedom that encode quantum information are fragile — every stray particle they come in contact with is likely to cause an irreparable error.
Whereas the lifetime of a bit currently encoding your digital information might be billions of years, the lifetime of today’s qubits is a thousandth of a second.
Still, there has been a steady march of improvement in quantum technology over the past few decades.
History teaches us that technology transitions tend to be slower than initial hype predicts. The transition to quantum technology won’t be like flipping a switch — it will continue to be a gradual process.
To bring this all into perspective, it must be remembered that fear often arises from the unknown.
The complexities of quantum technology can be daunting, but that does not mean they are insurmountable.
The road to a quantum future may be longer and more winding than some expect, but the potential it holds is profound. And so, it is with a realistic yet optimistic lens that humanity should approach this emerging technology.
Who’s afraid of quantum technology? Perhaps those who fear change, the unknown, or the challenges that inevitably accompany technological breakthroughs.
Yet, embracing quantum technology might be less about overcoming fear and more about fostering understanding, encouraging patience, and maintaining an open mind to the unlimited possibilities this technology promises to bring.
Associate Professor Chris Ferrie is a quantum researcher at the University of Technology Sydney’s Centre for Quantum Software and Information. His research interests include quantum estimation and control, and in particular, the use of machine learning to solve statistical problems in quantum information science. He is also the author of a number of children’s books including Quantum Computing for Babies.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 31, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/whos-afraid-of-quantum-computing/",
"author": "Chris Ferrie"
}
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2,487 |
Who’s willing to pay for sustainability in the Pacific? - 360
Isabella Massa, Guillaume Lafortune, Simona Marinescu
Published on July 11, 2022
After major setbacks to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Pacific needs fairer access to financing as it fights to overcome climate challenges
Crises in climate, geopolitics and global health have caused major setbacks for the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 global benchmarks adopted by all UN member states in 2015 in pursuit of a more equitable world.
Small Island Developing States, which include 13 island countries and seven territories in the Pacific, have suffered the direct health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as its indirect consequences, such as a contracting global economy and supply-chain disruptions. Meanwhile, energy prices are increasing, geopolitical tensions are on the rise, and the climate crisis continues to hit island nations hard.
Rich countries and International Financial Institutions need to help finance the physical infrastructure and human capital required to make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals in Small Island Developing States and strengthen the resilience of these economies.
Small Island Developing States are a distinct group of 58 small, remote, undiversified and highly open countries located in the Caribbean Sea, the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the South China Sea. In August 2020, in a letter to the Alliance of Small Island Developing States, the UN Secretary-General committed the UN to producing a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index for Small Island Developing States to better define the special case for development these small nations represent, and expand their access to resources such as concessional financing. In December 2020, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution mandating the UN undertake technical work to develop an index and propose options for its use. Due to compounded vulnerabilities, Small Island Developing States have lower long-term development potentials.
A higher degree of structural vulnerability, as measured by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s pilot Multidimensional Vulnerability Index, is found to be associated with a lower SDG Indexscore, a tool developed by the Network to measure countries’ progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Being structurally vulnerable is associated with lower performance on Goal 1 (no poverty) and Goal 3 (good health and well-being), and on issues such as food insecurity. The limited fiscal capacity of Small Island Developing States cannot absorb the growing costs of climate mitigation and adaptation, without which, the atoll countries of the Pacific such as Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu would have an uncertain future.
Pacific Islands are particularly vulnerable to economic and financial external shocks, as well as to the impact of climate change and natural hazards. When COVID-19 struck, Small Island Developing States heavily dependent on the tourism sector and remittance flows suffered severe economic recessions and job losses. Fiji, Guam and Vanuatu saw a drop in annual GDP in 2020 of 15.7 percent, 11.9 percent and 6.8 percent respectively, compared with 6 percent in the European Union and 3.4 percent in the United States.
Climate change and natural disasters also pose increasingly severe risks to small island economies, as shown by the recent volcanic eruption, tsunami and ashfall in Tonga, and by shrinking the land areas of several Pacific islands due to rising sea levels. Small island economies are also more often affected by a severe ‘triple burden’ of malnutrition, where undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies coexist with growing rates of obesity and related noncommunicable diseases.
Pacific Islands import 80 percent of their food and have the world’s highest prevalence of obesity and noncommunicable diseases. The Sustainable Development Goals include a bedrock principle to “leave no one behind”. Small Island Developing States need the financing to invest in the physical infrastructure (such as renewable energy and digital technologies) and human capital (such as health and education) they need to make progress on the goals.
Yet most of them cannot borrow on reasonable terms. The International Monetary Fund has issued an important study measuring the extra costs facing Small Developing States, including 23 Small Island Developing States, in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. The Fund’s conclusion is that none of the Small Developing States can fund the goals on their own – they need extra financing from the rest of the world. In order to channel more international financing to Small Island Developing States, including Pacific Islands, rich countries – especially the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) – could step up their commitments to finance climate mitigation and adaptation globally. Rich countries and their fossil-fuel companies have pumped out the lion’s share of carbon-dioxide emissions, the main cause of climate change.
Yet these rich countries fell short on their commitment to mobilise US$100 billion per year for climate finance. These countries could also tax the fossil-fuel industry to help cover the rising global costs associated with their emissions. International financial institutions could better integrate vulnerability and countries’ needs in their criteria for allocating concessional finance and funding. Small Island Developing States struggle to mobilise the financing needed to achieve the goals mainly because gross national income per capita is still used to determine access to concessional or grant resources. Small island economies, most of which are high-income and middle-income countries, are considered too rich to have access to development financing, although they are suffering repeated devastating environmental disasters, and several simultaneous shocks are paralysing their economies, endangering their populations.
International financial institutions could revise eligibility criteria for access to development cooperation, considering countries’ specific needs in addition to gross national income per capita. To allow assistance to be delivered to Small Island Developing States, it is essential that structural vulnerabilities are recognised while allocating concessional funds. The development of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index requested by the UN Secretary-General, as well as the establishment of a high-level expert panel that will be tasked with finalising the index by 2022, represent key steps towards this end.
Innovative financing solutions, such as Sustainable Development Goal bonds, could also play an important role in supporting goal-related investments in Small Island Developing States. That said, according to the existing rating systems, most such states do not have creditworthiness and so cannot have access to these financial instruments unless support is provided by International Financial Institutions to de-risk bonds and raise debt in capital markets. The International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights, an international reserve asset created to supplement the official reserves of its member countries, could be used to leverage additional funding to support development.
Debt swaps such as debt-to-development, debt-to-climate or debt-to-environment are state-contingent tools that could be used by Small Island Developing States to restructure their growing debt and free up resources for development and Sustainable Development Goal progress.
World leaders will have several opportunities to take action to support progress on the Sustainable Development Goals in vulnerable countries, including at the High-Level Political Forum in early July, COP Climate 27 in November, COP Biodiversity 15 in December and the SDG Summit in September 2023. A global plan to finance sustainable development in Small Island Developing States and vulnerable countries could turn the tide.
Isabella Massa is senior economist at the Paris Office of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), where she leads the work on Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Previously, she worked as Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London (UK), and as an independent consultant for several international organisations.
Guillaume Lafortune is vice president and head of the Paris office at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). He joined SDSN in 2017 to lead work on SDG data, policies and financing. Previously, he served as an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Government of Québec (Canada).
Simona Marinescu, PhD is a member of Scotia Group, a group of prominent internationalists and leaders in politics, academia, law and business whose goal is to lay the foundations for concerted global action to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis. She co-authored in 2022 the Energy, Law and Ethics Research Book with the Queen Mary University of London focusing on environmental, social and governance standards to decarbonize development financing. She is a guest lecturer at the National University of Samoa and UN Resident Coordinator in Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau.
A list of SDSN donors and partners can be found here.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on July 11, 2022
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"author": "Isabella Massa, Guillaume Lafortune, Simona Marinescu"
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Why a cure for HIV remains elusive - 360
Paula Cevaal, Michael Roche, Sharon Lewin
Published on December 1, 2023
Advances in cancer treatment, gene editing and mRNA technology are helping researchers in their pursuit of an HIV cure.
World AIDS Day on December 1 is an opportunity to reflect on the spectacular progress made towards preventing and treating HIV — but a cure for the virus 39 million people are currently living with remains elusive.
While antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV stops the virus from replicating, stops people from getting sick and stops a person with HIV from infecting others, treatment for people with HIV must be continued for life.
ART doesn’t cure HIV because the virus has a sneaky trick: it can hide and become inactive, a state known as latent infection.
Once a person stops treatment, the latent virus becomes active again and resumes replication.
But drawing on advances in cancer treatment, gene editing and mRNA technology, researchers continue to make significant strides in pursuit of an HIV cure.
Globally, scientists are actively developing and testing interventions that specifically tackle latent virus, with the eventual goal to achieve virus-free control after stopping antiviral treatment.
In the 40 years since the discovery of the virus, complete eradication and cure of HIV have been achieved in six exceptional cases.
These individuals all underwent stem cell transplants to treat life-threatening blood cancers, with all but one receiving stem cells from donors with a rare genetic trait that makes their cells resistant to HIV.
As a result, all six individuals were able to stop ART after the intervention, and the virus has not reappeared after years of follow-up.
However, due to the high risk of complications associated with stem cell transplant procedures, they are not a viable pathway towards a cure for the broader HIV community. Nonetheless, these cases have shown the world that an HIV cure is possible.
Several therapeutic strategies are under investigation to reduce and control the latent HIV reservoir, without the need for invasive stem cell transplants.
One approach seeks to find treatments that force the latent virus out of its hidden, inactive state.
This process of reactivation can result in the death of the infected cell or its recognition and elimination by the immune system. This can be done safely, preventing nearby cells from becoming infected, by activating the virus while the person with HIV is on ART.
An alternative strategy involves the use of drugs to drive the persisting virus into further hiding.
In this permanent state of latency, the virus remains dormant and can never be reactivated. While this approach does not eradicate the pool of infected cells, it would mitigate the risk of the virus re-emerging when ART is stopped.
Both these approaches are still under development so are not yet being used in the clinic.
Other approaches aim to enhance the immune system’s ability to control HIV, in the absence of antiretroviral therapy.
Recent small-scale clinical trials have shown that boosting immune function with HIV-specific antibodies or an HIV vaccine can allow approximately one third of participants to stop ART for a defined period and still keep the virus under control.
While these are very encouraging findings, larger trials are needed, along with a better understanding of why and how some participants can sustain virus control while others cannot.
HIV researchers are also learning from new therapies being deployed to fight cancer.
Immunotherapy has revolutionised cancer treatments. Unlike traditional cancer treatments that poison the tumour itself, this new type of medicine targets the immune system.
One form of immunotherapy, called anti-PD1, has achieved remarkable results in the treatment of certain cancers, by reinvigorating an exhausted immune system.
The immune system of people with HIV also gets exhausted, even with treatment.
Australian researchers have been studying what happens in people with HIV on antiretroviral therapy who also have cancer and receive anti-PD1.
Findings reveal that anti-PD1 can not only wake up the virus directly, but can also reinvigorate the immune system, specifically the components that target HIV.
Studies underway of anti-PD1 in people with HIV on antiretroviral therapy who don’t have cancer, are showing promise.
One concern is toxicity, so Australian and Singaporean researchers are leading a study administering anti-PD1 at a reduced dose — ranging from one tenth to one hundredth of the standard dose — to reduce any adverse effects.
Another technique being developed is using gene editing to specifically delete HIV from infected cells.
In July 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration granted Fast Track designation for a first-in-class gene therapy, EBT-101.
EBT-101 is designed to ‘cut out’ and incapacitate HIV within latently infected cells using gene editing, with a Clinical Phase I/II Trial currently underway.
Gene editing is a rapidly changing field, with new technologies enabling the direct injection of the gene-editing machinery in individuals, rather than having to remove cells to process the gene editing outside of the body.
Rigorous monitoring of participants in these trials is essential to ensure no off-target gene editing occurs, where unintentional changes to human DNA occur instead of targeting viral DNA. There is no evidence to date this is happening, but long-term follow-up will be needed.
Beyond targeting the virus itself, the ability for gene editing to make cells resistant to infection or to increase immunity is also being evaluated in clinical trials involving people with HIV on ART.
The COVID-19 pandemic allowed for the rapid development of mRNA technology for vaccines, but it could also help in the search for an HIV cure.
This new technology has significant implications for next-generation medicines, which can be delivered by mRNA wrapped in a fat bubble, called a lipid nanoparticle.
These lipid nanoparticles can be designed to reach specific diseased organs or cells, and deliver therapeutics at this precise location.
Researchers are taking advantage of these new ways to deliver gene-editing tools to cure HIV.
A lipid nanoparticle is being developed that can specifically deliver mRNA to a resting T-cell where HIV hides in the body.
The mRNA has been designed to activate the virus, which would then allow it to be knocked out by the person’s own immune system. Initial results in test-tube models are promising. The next step will be to test this approach in animal models of HIV.
While the science for finding an HIV cure rapidly advances, people living with HIV around the world remain keen to know when a cure will be available and whether it will be available globally.
Any cure that is developed must be not only effective but also scalable and widely accessible in order to solve the great challenge that is HIV.
Dr Paula Cevaal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, working on developing mRNA lipid nanoparticles as therapeutics towards an HIV cure.
Dr Michael Roche is a senior research fellow at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. Dr Roche is a virologist whose work focuses on finding strategies to kill HIV that persists on treatment.
Professor Sharon Lewin is a leading infectious diseases expert and the inaugural Director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. She is also a Melbourne Laureate Professor of Medicine at The University of Melbourne and the President of the International AIDS Society (IAS).
As an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist, her laboratory focuses on basic, translational and clinical research aimed at finding a cure for HIV. Her laboratory is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC), the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Foundation for AIDS Research, mRNA Victoria and multiple commercial partnerships. Professor Lewin is on the advisory boards to Gilead Sciences, Merck and Abbvie.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on December 1, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-a-cure-for-hiv-remains-elusive/",
"author": "Paula Cevaal, Michael Roche, Sharon Lewin"
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Why are sugary drinks still sold in schools? - 360
Agnes Erzse, Safura Abdool Karim, Karen Hofman
Published on September 27, 2022
Soft-drink manufacturers are targeting Africa, but industry-led pledges to reduce the sale of sugary drinks subvert better government-led policy options.
Two years after Coca-Cola South Africa voluntarily pledged to fight high rates of childhood obesity by removing sugary drinks and their advertisements from primary schools in Gauteng province, 31 percent of school tuck-shops were still advertising itand 54 percent were still selling sugary soft drinks.
Self-regulation by drink manufacturers who commit to stop marketing their product to certain sectors of society has no public health benefit. Worse, these voluntary commitments are often prompted by government efforts to regulate unhealthy food and substituted for more effective government policy and legislation.
A plethora of evidence now shows that consuming sugary drinks, including soft drinks and fruit juices, can lead to obesity and put people at risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes and, ultimately, lead to premature death.
Over the past few years, the amount of sugar and sugary drinks consumed in low- and middle-income countries, has rapidly increased. This increase is not an accident. Consumption of these unhealthy drinks is decreasing in Europe and other wealthy countries, but soft drink manufacturers identifying Africa as a growth market have begun a systematic expansion into the continent, influencing the physical, economic, policy and sociocultural surroundings that people live in, and steering their choices and diet towards unhealthy options.
The alarming increase in poor-diet-related diseases poses a particular problem for countries in which there are resource constraints and fragile healthcare systems already burdened with high rates of malaria, HIV and tuberculosis. As a result, people in these settings who develop diet-related diseases have significantly worse health outcomes than people elsewhere.
However, unlike many other health conditions, most diet-related non-communicable diseases are preventable with relatively cost-effective fiscal and policy interventions. Individuals buy more unhealthy foods when they are cheap, available and accessible and when marketing promotes these products as very desirable. Regulations intended to drive up prices and make these foods more expensive and restrict where they can be sold and advertised are proven to prevent disease. Introducing a tax on sugary drinks is a key public health strategy to reduce consumption of unhealthy food, with many countries showing these taxes reduce how much people purchase and drink.
Other effective and inexpensive measures include limiting or prohibiting certain harmful ingredients (such as sodium or trans-fats), restricting advertising of unhealthy foods to children and introducing simpler labels to explain the healthfulness of foods.
However state and local government efforts to tax beverages or remove them from schools face intense opposition, particularly from industry. Governments also face pressure from international bodies such as the United Nations, who have called for governments to collaborate with industry and endorsed the use of voluntary commitments — as opposed to mandatory regulation — in the fight against diet-related diseases.
Allowing industries to self-regulate may be appealing in low-income countries which may lack the money to enforce mandatory regulations and which can rely on these industries to promote economic growth. However, policing voluntary commitments and self-regulation is often left up to the producers themselves who can only be responsible for their own product.
When Coca-Cola South Africa pledged to remove in-school products, students were still able to purchase sugary drinks from rival suppliers and Coca-Cola’s in-school advertising was commonly the branded fridge — often the school’s only fridge — so the incentive to request its removal was low.
Strong evidence shows that South Africa’s 2018 mandatory tax on sugary drinks reduced sugar consumption with positive consequences for public health, and more than two thirds of the foods covered by sodium-limiting regulations are compliant with the law.
People consume far more unhealthy foods in an environment that is engineered by industry to encourage its consumption, so where governments choose to adopt interventions (rather than rely on voluntary self-regulation) they will likely see higher compliance, more effective implementation and better public health outcomes.
Safura Abdool Karim is a public health lawyer and researcher who focuses on using laws to improve health. Her work on the development and evaluation of non-communicable disease prevention interventions such as front of package labelling and sugary beverage taxes in Sub-Saharan Africa has supported policy change in a number of countries. She declares no conflict of interest.
Agnes Erzse is a senior researcher at the SAMRC/ Wits Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science – PRICELESS SA at the Wits School of Public Health, Johannesburg. Her research focuses on priority setting to improve maternal and child nutrition and engaging the public in the priority setting process. Her research is supported by the SAMRC/Wits Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science – PRICELESS SA (grant number 23108).
Karen Hofman is research professor and founding director of the SAMRC/ Wits Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science – PRICELESS SA at the Wits School of Public Health, Johannesburg. She leads policy research to evaluate interventions both inside the health system and in other sectors that provide the biggest return on investment for health. She initiated the research that culminated in the sugary beverage tax. She declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on September 27, 2022
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-are-sugary-drinks-still-sold-in-schools/",
"author": "Agnes Erzse, Safura Abdool Karim, Karen Hofman"
}
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Why Aussies will give King Charles a fair go - 360
Sally Raudon
Published on May 5, 2023
As Charles is set to be crowned it’s unclear if he’s inherited the love felt for his mother or whether it’s time for Australian republicans to stage a new push.
A transition to a new sovereign inevitably prompts questions about whether the monarchy remains fit for purpose and whether the time for republicanism has finally arrived.
However, it’s unlikely Australians will be sending King Charles III packing anytime soon.
The Aussie sense of fair play means he should be given a chance — he has waited long enough for the job. And the new king has long had an affection for Australia, where he lived and worked as a young man.
Australians also felt a deep respect and affection for Charles’s mother, Elizabeth, when she was queen. Even Australia’s republican leaders, such as former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, recognised that affection made it harder to seek constitutional reform during her lifetime.
In 2015, researchers looked at how the crown functioned in Australian society compared to the United Kingdom and the post-colonial Commonwealth realms of Canada and New Zealand, and predicted the likelihood of republican reform in any of these countries.
Since then, there’s been plenty of royal detritus under the bridge: Prince Harry’s rift with the rest of the family, legal scandals, accusations of racism, financial scrutiny, then the death of the Queen herself.
In 2022, the incoming Australian Labor government — traditionally republican — bolstered the cause by appointing Matt Thistlethwaite as the first-ever Assistant Minister for the Republic.
Australia has come much closer to republican reform than Canada and New Zealand. In the 1999 republican referendum, 45 percent of voters opted to move to a republic.
For some republicans, this had been the great political cause of their lives. They still speak about it with great emotion.
Many republicans expressed a quiet confidence that the Queen’s death would trigger reform, or at least a renewed debate.
Support for Australia becoming a republic remains at similar levels according to recent polls.
But, as lawyer George Williams argued, waiting for the Queen’s death was “a bogus delaying tactic”. If constitutional reform was the right thing to do, Australians should not wait for events in the UK to trigger it.
The barriers for Australian republican reform remain high.
First, royal succession is automatic and legally protected. The moment one monarch dies, the next monarch succeeds. Constitutional monarchy comes with ideas of perpetuity baked in.
Second, passing a referendum in Australia requires a double majority: the majority of votes, in a majority of states. It effectively gives small states a veto, making reform by referendum so difficult former PM Robert Menzies said getting a yes vote from the Australian people was “one of the labours of Hercules”.
Third, while many Australians want reform, there is no sense of urgency and a general worry about the cost of change. Monarchists airily dismiss interest in constitutional reform as a liberal elite preoccupation and ask what would really change if Australia became a republic.
The research showed many Australians felt politically and emotionally attracted to republicanism but also had great affection and respect for Elizabeth II.
People do not seem to have the same attachment and reverence for Charles III — yet.
Enthusiasm for the new monarch might grow in the excitement of the coronation pageantry in May 2023 and any subsequent royal tour, as monarchists hope.
But it’s highly unlikely to be on the scale of Queen Elizabeth’s 1954 Australian tour, when reportedly three quarters of the population saw the young queen.
Compare this to the UK where the republican cause is muted, despite some popular misgivings about the royals themselves.
Canada, like Australia, has a written constitution requiring a very high level of public support to enforce change. The monarchy is far more part of Canada’s national identity than it is Australia’s. Monarchy is seen by many as a Canadian thing, one that does not conflict with ideas of Canadian independence and a confident national identity.
When New Zealand moves towards republicanism, it will be led by Māori. Possibly, as iwi (tribes) receive, through the Waitangi Tribunal, compensation for wrongs done to them, Māori will have less use for the crown as a treaty partner.
Some in the Waitangi Tribunal have suggested that in the 21st century the crown now stands for Māori as much as for pākehā (white New Zealanders).
And, under New Zealand’s unwritten constitution and unicameral parliament, the reform process could be as simple as a parliamentary vote.
In Australia, the monarchy retains an ambiguous significance in a country where many people remain committed to republican reform.
While republicans face stubborn opposition to reform from committed monarchists, the real threat is a public which simply has more pressing concerns.
A social anthropologist, Dr Sally Raudon is a Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Associate at Cambridge University. Her research focuses on death, citizenship, the body and sovereignty in settler states.
Her research cited in this article was funded by the Marsden Fund administered by the Royal Society Te Apārangi of New Zealand.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: The Crown as a constitutional symbol in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 5, 2023
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"author": "Sally Raudon"
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2,491 |
Why Australian students need to learn about Southeast Asia – and its languages - 360
Sharyn Davies
Published on March 6, 2024
Australia is keen to engage with its nearest neighbours in Southeast Asia, but is backsliding on learning the region’s languages.
Australia is eager to deepen its ties with Southeast Asia – but it’s backsliding on learning the region’s languages.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has recognised the value of Australians learning Bahasa Indonesia, a key language from the Southeast Asian bloc. As he put it in 2022: “more Australians speaking Bahasa Indonesia will be vital to deepening our relationship.”
However, at last count, in 2020, just 1 percent of Australia’s domestic university students were studying an Asian language. That’s a decline from 1.75 per cent in 2005.
Only 828 of those were studying Bahasa Indonesia.
Albanese is this month hosting leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for a “Special Summit”. The summit aims to strengthen partnerships with the Southeast Asian region — which is projected to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2040, presenting major economic opportunities for Australian business.
The geo-political importance of Asia is more important than ever. More than one-fifth of global trade transits through the South China Sea, making the area a vital trade route.
The summit will focus on emerging leaders and business as priority areas.
But despite education being crucial to Australia’s ties with Southeast Asia since the 1950s, with Australian institutions and governments vowing for decades to increase “Asia literacy”, it seems Australia’s students are not adequately prepared to speak Southeast Asian languages.
And getting more to learn Bahasa Indonesia is a big ask.
The state of learning languages in Australia overall is poor.
Only 8 per cent of Australian students said they are learning two or more foreign languages in 2018 – a shockingly low figure compared to 50 per cent of students across OECD countries.
But even when students do study a language in their final years of school, Southeast Asian languages barely get a look-in.
Japanese, French, German and Mandarin have been among the most common languages taught in schools nationwide over the last few years. One study from 2017 found that Greek, Italian and French all ranked higher than Vietnamese, which took eighth place. Indonesian was the fifth most-taught language that year.
The trend away from Indonesian and other Southeast Asian languages undermines Australia’s Asia literacy at the very time when Australia seeks to emphasise its relationship with the region.
It’s also a step back since the Keating years. In 1995, then-Prime Minister Paul Keating launched the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools (NALSAS) strategy to actively promote the learning of Asian languages, including those from Southeast Asia.
The scheme ran until 2002 – a period in which time Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) enrolments in Indonesian more than doubled. But NALSAS has had a tumultuous history since. It was discontinued by the Howard government in 2002; partly revived by the Rudd government in 2009; then discontinued by the Gillard government in 2012.
Learning the languages of this neighbouring region is key to building meaningful partnerships with this bloc. Indonesia, for example, is an emerging global powerhouse with a population of almost 274 million. More than 1 million Australians visit Indonesia each year.
Diplomacy is vital to securing defence and trade relations.
Australia would never expect a delegation from Southeast Asia to have no one speaking English, yet Australia seems to assume that our partners won’t mind if we don’t speak their language.
As a sign of goodwill, we need at least some trade and defence delegations speaking local languages.
An understanding of Southeast Asia is also, simply, part of being a good neighbour. To really understand a country and its culture you need to know its language. Could anyone understand Australia without understanding “bonza”, “you little ripper”, “she’ll be right”?
As Australia’s largest neighbour, our relationship with Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries is of vital importance.
The Federal government acknowledges its trade and investment with the region has not kept pace with the growth of Southeast Asian economies. It is now time to walk the talk.
Sharyn Davies is an Associate Professor in Indonesian Studies at Monash University and is recognised internationally as an expert in the field of Indonesian Studies and for her contributions to the study of gender, sexuality, policing, social media, and moral surveillance. A/Prof Davies is also Director of the Herb Feith Indonesia Engagement Centre. She received her PhD from the University of Western Australia (Anthropology and Asian Studies) and prior to her appointment at Monash was at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand. Sharyn has held visiting fellowships at Cambridge, Yale, Sydney, Peking and Airlangga universities, and has been awarded Fulbright, Leverhulme and Marsden funding.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 6, 2024
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"author": "Sharyn Davies"
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2,492 |
Why Australians can’t say ‘don’t know’ in Voice debate - 360
Duncan Ivison
Published on October 10, 2023
Australia’s Voice referendum is a choice about hard democratic conversations and owning up to our history. The question is whether we’re ready to have them.
Australia’s Indigenous Voice referendum debate has been marred by fear. The ‘No’ campaign, for instance, tells voters ‘if you don’t know, vote no‘, while federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says the proposal will ‘re-racialise’ the Australian constitution.
The two claims clearly contradict each other: you can’t say you don’t understand how the Voice will work and, in the same breath, that it will re-racialise the country. But it highlights the extent to which democracy is, among other things, about choices.
In a democracy, you get to choose between one candidate or another; between one set of policies or another; and to act on certain emotions or feelings over others — feelings like anger and resentment versus hope and optimism.
On 14 October, Australians get to choose whether to amend their constitution to include an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament to advise government on matters affecting them.
But we also get to choose what we pay attention to. When confronted by something we don’t understand, we can choose to learn more, to ask questions, and seek answers — or not.
Neither side questions the relative disadvantage Indigenous people suffer from today when compared to the rest of the population.
The gaps in life expectancy, health, education, and the over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system are all too familiar. What people disagree about is what to do about it.
Australians also can’t claim to know at least something about the history that has led to the proposal for a Voice in the first place.
That history is written into our nation’s legal and political DNA: historians like Henry Reynolds, Lyndall Ryan, David Marr and Andrew Fitzmaurice have documented Australia’s frontier wars and massacres that characterised the country’s early settlement, as well as the history of legal and philosophical justifications (and critiques) of Australian colonialism.
The Australian High Court’s 1992 Mabo decision confirmed that Australia’s Indigenous people had pre-existing, distinctive ownership of land before colonisation, overturning the assumption of Australian courts until then that dispossession was not only complete, but justified at the time of settlement.
But there have also been many Indigenous-led initiatives — from 1788 onwards — to try and resolve, peacefully, the issue of their proper place in Australia’s legal and political order. And, importantly, they have drawn on democratic tools in doing so.
In 1927, the Wiradjuri elders Jimmy Clement and John Noble attended the opening of Parliament House, in the presence of the Duke and Duchess of York — later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth — to press their claims of unceded Indigenous sovereignty.
There were the 1963 Yirrkala bark petitions, the 1967 Gurindiji petition to the Governor-General, the 1972 Larrakia petition to the Queen, the 1988 Barunga Statement presented to Prime Minister Bob Hawke and the 1993 Eva Valley Statement, which proposed a principled framework for dealing with the aftermath of the Mabo decision.
The limited, hard-won advances that emerged on the back of these claims have come from Indigenous activism, rather than government initiative.
For example, the 1967 referendum, which changed the constitution to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to be counted in the census and for the Commonwealth to make laws for them, emerged from a decade of Indigenous mobilisation led by activists Faith Bandler, Pearl Gibbs, and Jessie Street.
The origins of the 1992 Mabo decision stretched back to the Indigenous-led Wave Hill walk-off that began in 1966, and to legal action launched by Eddie Mabo and others against the Queensland government to recognize the land rights of the Meriam people.
The 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart is yet another attempt to engage the Australian community on fundamental questions about the place of Indigenous peoples in our liberal democratic institutions.
All these initiatives called for a combination of land rights and improved political representation. They are, ultimately, calls for a deepening of Australia’s democratic conversation, rather than special pleading for a separate or illiberal set of alternative political arrangements.
But whether non-indigenous Australians have really heard these appeals is unclear. And it’s a global problem. Wherever Indigenous peoples have pressed their claims for greater equality and their rights to lands, territories, and resources, they have been met with resistance.
These conversations are hard in Australia because they require us to grapple with the concrete and complex reality of the experiences of Indigenous Australians today.
The central claim of the Uluru Statement is clear: “we seek constitutional reform to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country”.
A rightful place — meaning not just any place, certainly not the place they have been relegated to since 1788.
Not a place where, as has happened time and time again, governments can ignore or override the specific concerns expressed by Indigenous people. We saw this in relation to the recommendations of the 1997 Stolen Generations Report, many of which remain unimplemented.
A previous representative body, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, established to oversee various Indigenous programs and advise the government, was abolished by the Howard government in 2005.
And all levels of government continue struggling to meet the targets established through the Closing the Gap process to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ socio-economic well-being.
Thus, a rightful place requires a different way of thinking about constitutional and political change, one that offers an alternative to decades of policy failure However, this doesn’t require somehow departing from liberal democratic values or institutions. Rather, it calls for a renewal and recommitment to them.
What an Indigenous Voice to parliament is proposing to do, ultimately, is create the conditions for realising the fair value of political equality for Indigenous people.
The claim that a constitutionally recognised Indigenous consultative body introduces new racial divisions into Australian citizenship relies on an overly simplistic understanding of equality and identity, as well as our history.
There are indeed forms of identity politics that introduce and reinforce social divisions. But that isn’t the case here.
The main issues at stake are not based on vague assertions about cultural identity and self-worth, or that identity claims provide the grounds for a moral or political veto on liberal democratic outcomes.
Rather, the motivations underpinning the proposal for a Voice to parliament are informed by concrete claims about basic rights denied and injustices ignored, both in the past and in the present. That is what the long history of petitions, legal challenges and statements highlights.
But the proposal also makes clear that these issues can’t be solved overnight. History is not so easily overcome. Instead, it appeals to one of democracy’s greatest features: its relentlessly open-ended nature.
French political theorist Claude Lefort put it best when he said democracy is a system ‘founded upon the legitimacy of a debate as to what is legitimate and what is illegitimate’ — a debate that is necessarily without guarantees and without end.
But there are still some conditions, and limits, to even the most open-ended forms of democratic debate.
The Uluru Statement speaks to one of the most important: that others shouldn’t be able to undermine the standing of fellow citizens as fundamentally free and equal.
That’s something Australia has consistently done to its Indigenous people.
A ‘No’ vote at the referendum means sticking with the status quo and the political default settings of the past century.
Saying ‘Yes’ doesn’t guarantee anything, but it keeps the democratic conversation going, now with a clear proposal for how to improve decision-making and representation regarding matters affecting Indigenous people,
The deliberative and democratic character of the Voice — including its careful embedding within Australia’s parliamentary system — is a new and innovative proposal in the long and too often sorry history of Indigenous peoples’ engagement with the Australian state.
Duncan Ivison is Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Australia’s Voice” sent at: 08/10/2023 07:41.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on October 10, 2023
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"author": "Duncan Ivison"
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Why Bangladesh's democracy is on life support - 360
Mubashar Hasan
Published on September 15, 2023
Political meddling and state violence could break Bangladesh’s fragile hold on democracy.
A potentially long political crisis is looming over Bangladesh before a date is even set for next year’s elections.
Since its birth as an independent country in 1971, Bangladesh has had a troubled relationship with democracy and the rule of law, undergoing the assassination of its founding president and a series of coups and countercoups in its first decades.
The political landscape has been characterised by an array of governance systems, shifting between one-party rule, military control, electoral democracy and an autocracy under a civilian government.
The country’s political system now closely resembles Russia, with a group of oligarchs enjoying immense financial benefits and heavily invested in keeping the current regime in power.
With an election coming in January 2024, the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has been raising the pressure, taking to the streets in a series of massive rallies to demand the election be held under a neutral caretaker government.
However, the governing Bangladesh Awami League, is adamant it will go ahead with the election under current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The last election considered free and fair took place in 2008 and catapulted Hasina to power the following year.
Elections in 2014 and 2018 were marked by controversies. The 2014 election faced opposition boycotts. Major liberal democracies including the US and Australia called for a new vote but India, Russia and China expressed no problem with the result.
While the US voices concerns about democratic backsliding in Bangladesh, China and Russia continue to lend support to the current regime.
In an apparent rebuke to US pressure on Hasina, China’s Ambassador to Bangladesh recently said his country would not meddle in Bangladesh’s internal affairs, and Russia denounced what it called interference by the US envoy in Bangladesh.
India’s position remains complex. It must navigate its historical and close ties with Bangladesh while confronting allegations of enabling authoritarianism.
A free and fair election would likely stop Bangladesh’s authoritarian slide and pave the way for greater accountability. The economy is struggling and unemployment is rising.
For a country full of young people, with a larger Muslim population than Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran combined, a functioning democracy might offer the only chance to return a sense of optimism.
However, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party could boycott the upcoming election if their demand for a caretaker government is not met. Even then, they would likely persist with countrywide street protests.
Although the opposition participated in the 2018 election, the vote was marred by allegations of intimidation, repression of the opposition and widespread vote rigging, including ballot stuffing for the ruling party.
Transparency International Bangladesh found multiple anomalies in 47 out of 50 seats it surveyed for voting integrity.
Hasina has insisted that “the people” are with her because of the country’s economic growth and infrastructure development during her tenure. She has been lauded by the World Bank and the United Nations, while US economist Jeffrey Sachs has hailed her leadership.
The police, judiciary and state bureaucrats are seen as all-in for Hasina. Meanwhile, the international community, especially the US, may take further measures — such as additional sanctions and visa bans — against those it views as tampering with the electoral process.
Elections used to be a cause for celebration in the country. Now millions of younger people are finding their basic right to choose their leaders has been suppressed, while draconian anti-free speech laws have squelched their ability to criticise the powerful.
Human rights organisations have accused Sheikh Hasina’s government of brutal tactics, including forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and imprisonment of critics and opposition figures.
According to Human Rights Watch, more than 600 people have disappeared since 2009. Security forces have been implicated in 600 extrajudicial killings since 2018. Swedish investigative news site Netra News found a secret prison named Aynaghar (‘house of mirrors’) in Dhaka Cantonment where missing people are allegedly held.
In December 2021, the Biden administration announced the US would impose sanctions against the elite paramilitary force Rapid Action Battalion and six of its former officials, as well as current and recent heads of the Bangladesh Police. The US State Department also imposed a visa ban on two former police officials and their family members for gross human rights violations.
The New York Times noted that millions of opposition activists were on trial in a display of how politicised the judiciary had become.
Nobel Laurate Muhammad Yunus is facing 198 court cases and a Deputy Attorney General who said that Yunus was facing judicial harassment has been sacked.
The World Jurist Project ranks Bangladesh 127 out of 140 countries in its rule of law index. Freedom House ranks the country as partly free, and the latest World Press Freedom Index ranks Bangladesh at 163 — lower than Afghanistan (152) and autocratic Cambodia (147).
Meanwhile, politicians and businessmen with deep ties to the current government have reportedly bought homes and established companies in the US, Canada, Singapore and elsewhere.
Dr Mubashar Hasan is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, Norway. His research was funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on September 15, 2023
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"author": "Mubashar Hasan"
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Why building more won't make houses affordable - 360
Nicole Gurran
Published on May 31, 2023
Governments around the world are searching for how to fix housing affordability, but the solutions will have to be local and community based.
From Sydney to San Francisco, the housing affordability crisis is affecting communities across the world.
Younger generations priced out of home ownership are locked in a precarious private rental market, while declining government support for social housing and income support has pushed lower income renters to the brink of homelessness.
A growing chorus claims these problems could be fixed by simply building new homes. According to this view, housing is more expensive because there’s not enough new supply. They argue that land use regulation and planning processes restrict new construction, adding costly delays and uncertainty to the development process.
Others contest that simple ‘supply side’ narratives ignore the ‘demand side’ factors underlying global house price inflation, such as low cost credit under financial deregulation, or government incentives to encourage property investment.
They point to the political power of property industry groups who seek to maintain housing demand while lobbying for lower regulations. Some even caution that wholesale rezoning reforms will unleash waves of redevelopment and gentrification, displacing lower income earners.
Historically, land use zones and restrictive development controls have operated as barriers to new and more diverse housing development.
Dubbed ‘exclusionary zoning’, in many parts of the United States, for instance, restrictive ‘single family’ zones continue to prevent multi-unit dwellings and apartments. Often local communities oppose changes to these rules and contest developments they regard to be out of ‘character’ with their neighbourhood.
In recent years a counter movement dubbed ‘Yes In My Backyard’ (YIMBY) has emerged, gaining particular steam in North America.
Calling for regulatory reforms to dismantle barriers to diverse and higher density development, the YIMBY movement argues that more housing will resolve affordability pressures. It calls for higher density apartments to be permitted in residential areas, housing targets to be imposed on local communities, and to make planning processes faster and more certain.
These approaches are used in many parts of the world. For instance, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, local governments have long been to ‘upzone’ to accommodate higher density housing in response to state mandated targets. Uncooperative councils are able to be overruled by the state which also dictates the nature and extent of development controls for subdivision, building height and appearance.
The uncertainty associated with local politics or neighbourhood opposition has been managed by referring all contentious developments to expert panels. Legal appeal rights are strictly limited, meaning that objectors are not able to appeal a planning approval — although developers can challenge a refusal in court.
However, land use regulation may not be the primary barrier preventing new housing development.
Regulatory barriers are unlikely to explain a shortfall of new housing supply if there are high numbers of residential development applications and approvals coming through the planning process, but fewer homes being commenced or completed. Instead, market conditions, such as the cost and availability of finance, or issues around labour and materials will cause producers to reduce new construction.
Further, since commercial housing developers need to return profit, they time the release of new properties to optimise, rather than lower, their sales prices.
YIMBYS argue that even high end housing construction would improve affordability across the market. This is because higher income earners will move into better quality accommodation, releasing other units to filter down the market.
However, the evidence to support this filtering is mixed. Although research in some countries has shown that new rental supply can moderate and even reduce local rents, in countries like Australia, an overall increase in housing units hasn’t improved affordability at the bottom of the market. This may be because wealthier people purchase second homes for holidays or the short term rental market, or because the new housing supplied is not in the locations of greatest demand.
New supply will only moderate prices if it is both cheaper than other properties in the market, and a suitable substitute for households looking to relocate. For instance, new apartments on the city fringe will not impact on house prices in inner ring suburbs which are more accessible to employment opportunities.
Government money is needed to support housing that is affordable and appropriate for very low income earners. The minimum cost of delivering housing, comprising physical construction costs, land and the profit required for taking on the risk, means that appropriate accommodation for low income earners is unable to be delivered by the market.
Governments can fund the difference between the capital costs of new construction and the amount able to be paid by target groups. They can also use their planning system levers to ensure affordable homes are included in new developments. ‘Inclusionary zoning’ requirements are used in many US cities to deliver affordable units, while in England, the planning system produces a significant proportion of the total new affordable supply.
By subsidising affordable housing development, and supporting affordable housing developers to access land or enter into partnerships with private providers, governments boost overall supply even when market conditions are weaker.
In Australia, despite the range of regulatory reforms to support new and diverse housing supply, governments have been reluctant to require affordable homes as part of new developments. So despite a construction boom, dramatically increasing the number of new dwellings overall and multi-unit housing in particular, the shortage of homes available and affordable to those on low incomes has continued to rise.
The solutions to housing affordability problems are multi-pronged, and should be tailored to local conditions.
Governments could direct subsidies towards affordable supply outcomes rather than simply support property investment and regulate rental providers to ensure tenants are protected from unfair evictions, rent rises, and substandard accommodation.
Removing regulatory barriers to new and diverse housing production may be part of the solution in cities where supply constraints persist. But additional strategies are needed to fix the shortage of affordable homes.
Nicole Gurran is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and the Director of the Henry Halloran Research Trust at the University of Sydney.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Housing affordability” sent at: 29/05/2023 10:04.
This is a corrected repeat.
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on May 31, 2023
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Why China is targeting global auditors - 360
Yvette To
Published on August 18, 2023
China’s concern over data security, geopolitical tensions, and regulatory changes pose challenges for businesses dealing with competing compliance demands.
As Chinese president Xi Jinping said a decade ago: “Whoever controls big data technologies will control the resources for development and have the upper hand.”
To tighten the reins on who has access to Chinese companies’ data, China has taken aim at one of the global pillars of international finance and commerce, the world’s biggest auditing and consulting firms..
When Beijing asked state-owned enterprises and domestically listed companies in May to increase security checks on their auditors, it was part of a larger, global, power play on control of data. Particularly about how they handle sensitive information.
Currently, the ‘Big Four’ — Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) — control the lion’s share of auditing work for Chinese companies.
There are plenty of reasons why the Chinese government would want local firms to ditch these mostly US-based firms and appoint homegrown companies instead, as was reported in February.
Beijing is worried about the vast amounts of Chinese data that foreign-linked firms have access to through their auditing and consultancy services. As a show of force, local offices of several foreign-linked consultancy firms were raided recently as part of anti-espionage investigations by Chinese enforcement agencies.
The trend to tighten oversight on Chinese firms took off in 2020 when the government scuttled the initial public offering of Alibaba’s fintech company, Ant Group, in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Since then, the Chinese government has tightened regulation of various sectors in the economy, rectifying what it regards as commercial malpractices that undermine national interests.
So far, those that have been subject to tightened scrutiny include Big Tech platform companies, private tutoring and online insurance businesses. Companies were fined, forced to withdraw overseas IPO and demanded to restructure.
This state scrutiny of commercial activities eventually spread to accounting firms this year.
In May, the Ministry of Finance, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued a joint directive, requesting state-owned enterprises and domestically listed companies increase security checks on their auditors.
According to the directive, Chinese businesses should include specific clauses in their contracts with auditors, specifying the responsibilities and requirements for information security protection on the part of the auditors.
In February a media report suggested that the Chinese government had urged state-owned enterprises to appoint local auditors after their current contracts expire.
Although Chinese regulators have not issued official guidelines on this, it would not be a surprise that Chinese policymakers want strategic firms to decouple from US interests.
Ongoing technological rivalries between the US and China, coupled with new regulations on both sides which give governments greater power to inspect foreign companies, have aggravated trade and investment relations between the two superpowers.
Since being permitted to operate in China from the 1990s, the Big Four accounting firms with headquarters in the US have expanded and dominated the Chinese market.
According to rankings compiled by the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Big Four occupied the top places in the Chinese market in 2021, reaping a combined revenue of 20.6 billion Chinese yuan (USD$2.87 billion) from their clients in China, who were mainly Hong Kong-listed and US-listed companies.
Their involvement in large public companies is also strong. Of China’s 98 central state-owned enterprises in 2021, 24 of them were audited by the Big Four.
Two reasons are behind Chinese leaders’ preference for homegrown auditors.
First, auditors have full access to their clients’ business information and financial status.
Some of the information, such as those relating to company strategies, customer data, state support and personal details of senior management, are not only commercial secrets, but also content that is regarded by Chinese leaders as strategic and sensitive.
Chinese policymakers also want to keep data of firms engaging in advanced technology out of the reach of foreign entities, for reasons of maintaining industrial and technological competitiveness.
Second, foreign auditors or local accounting firms linked to a foreign parent company have to comply with laws in the jurisdiction of their parent firm.
This may result in situations in which China’s interests will be undermined. For example, auditors linked to a US parent firm may be requested by US law enforcement agencies to hand over certain data of their Chinese clients.
To secure confidence from their Chinese clients, the Big Four in China have been stressing their operational independence from their US parent firms, as far as auditing and consulting services are concerned.
In the event of a standoff, auditors have little room to manoeuvre but to leave such conflicts to be resolved by government and regulators between the two countries.
Using local or Hong Kong-based auditors may reduce complications and prevent details of Chinese businesses being surrendered to foreign entities because of legal requirements.
There are questions on whether Beijing’s concerns are valid or another form of discreet protectionism to favour domestic auditors in a market dominated by the Big Four.
At the heart of Beijing’s concern is the link between the local offices of Big Four accounting firms and their US-based parent companies which could undermine the interests of Chinese companies and the Chinese Communist Party.
Despite carrying a global brand, local operations of the major audit firms are legal entities owned by local equity partners. In other words, they are not owned or controlled by their parent firm.
Belonging to a global network of firms, these member firms adhere to auditing and management standards that are adopted across the network. They pay the head office a fee in return for marketing, IT, and other logistical support. The headquarters also provides direction on overall business strategies.
Chinese firms, especially those listed or intend to list overseas, see value in these firms because of their global networks and expertise. As these firms adopt auditing and management practices that are approved by major developed economies, they are more able to gain investors’ confidence.
Operating in China, the China practices of the Big Four are subject to Chinese laws. In the wake of stringent data security measures introduced by the Chinese Communist Party in recent years, these accounting firms have also adopted additional measures to comply with rules governing the protection, localisation, and cross-border transfer of data.
Many multinationals in China have revamped their IT systems, or created new ones only to serve the Chinese market. An integrated global IT infrastructure no longer meets regulatory requirements in China. Ernst & Young in China has been in a dispute with its global headquarters about payments for group IT services that cannot be used in China.
To ensure Chinese data is stored locally, the China offices of global auditing firms operate on a server separate from other offices, including Hong Kong. Staff at other offices are restricted from accessing data of clients on the mainland.
Since Hong Kong does not have similar data laws, no reciprocal arrangements are put in place.
Companies and employees are doing more than is required by laws to protect themselves. Some firms have restricted staff from travelling out of the country with their work phones and laptops.
Decoupling the China operations from other businesses may be a way to reconcile conflicting data-related requirements faced by a multinational. However, this also means additional costs to operate in China.
What has made data security top of the policy agenda has a lot to do with what’s happening inside China.
It’s no secret Chinese leaders want to turn China into a leading power in digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI).
Data and AI-enabled technology can strengthen political governance and address development bottlenecks.
Importantly, taking a lead in data and AI offers China the opportunity to leapfrog development and potentially overtake leading Western technology powers.
Therefore, Chinese leaders see data as critical assets for the country’s development. Managing and securing this data requires a governance regime.
Over the past few years, Beijing has passed new laws to strengthen the protection of domestic data — which it regards as vital to national security — and restrict its cross-border transfer.
Three new laws now form the framework of the data governance landscape in China — the Cybersecurity Law (2017), the Data Security Law (2021) and the Personal Information Protection Law (2021).
For businesses, more and more content now sits within the scope of national security and is subject to layers of regulatory scrutiny.
Among various provisions of these data security laws, the areas that create complications for businesses are related to data localisation and data transfer.
Chinese data security laws require all data generated in China to be kept within the country; any transfer of such data overseas requires the approval from Chinese regulators. Businesses are not allowed to pass on any data stored in China to foreign government agencies without approval from the Chinese government.
Data has also become a battlefield among major powers. Contests over ideology, market share, and the control of critical assets have led to a changing regulatory environment. New rules governing disclosures in foreign jurisdictions have further heightened China’s fears of being compelled to surrender sensitive data.
Take the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act. Passed in the US in 2020, it stipulates that companies trading on American exchanges would face delisting if US regulators are denied access to their audit papers for investigation for three consecutive years.
After lengthy negotiations, China finally agreed to allow US regulators to inspect audit working papers of Chinese companies listed on American exchanges. The law and its enforcement have triggered the voluntary exit of seven Chinese state-owned enterprises from US stock exchanges.
The withdrawal indicates the Chinese Communist Party’s prioritisation of data protection over capital investment by state-owned enterprises in foreign markets.
It could also be the case that the audits of these companies would be found not meeting US regulatory requirements.
In their first round of inspections of US-listed Chinese companies, US regulators reported deficiencies in the audits conducted by two Big Four offices in Hong Kong and China.
The battle over data access and protection between the big powers has put businesses in a difficult position, caught between conflicting demands of regulators in different jurisdictions. Any parties passing on any data stored in China to foreign government agencies without approval from the Chinese government constitutes a violation of the data security law.
This restriction conflicts with the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act of the US, which gives US enforcement agencies the right to access electronic data, regardless of where such data is stored.
Medium-sized auditing firms in China are expected to win some market share if the Big Four are gradually driven out of the contest.
That doesn’t mean homegrown auditors will become big winners.
In terms of scale and expertise, only one homegrown accounting firm — Pan China International — made it to the top 10 (fifth position) in the CICPA 2021 ranking; others — the Big Four, BDO, Moore Stephens Da Hua, Baker Tilly, RSM, were all member firms of a larger international network, though not necessarily US-linked.
There are signs that some state firms have begun considering switching to non-Big Four auditors.
The Board of Jiangxi Bank, a city-level commercial bank, recommended changing the company auditor from KPMG to BDO last year. BDO is also a global network of accounting firms headquartered in Belgium. It served 19 central state-owned enterprises clients in 2021.
Meanwhile, regulatory rules in China require Chinese companies to rotate their auditor every eight years. This would allow non-Big Four companies to capitalise on the changing regulatory climate and win new contracts.
For the time being, the new guidance on auditors is understood to be applied to companies on the mainland, but not their offshore operations. Hong Kong subsidiaries of Chinese state-owned enterprises and listed companies are not under the pressure to shift auditors, though their parent companies may be requested to do so.
The Big Four in Hong Kong are the preferred auditors of many Hong Kong subsidiaries of Chinese listed companies, such as tech companies which are looking to raise money and their profile in international markets. They also have a sizeable portfolio of state-owned clients, including the banks and insurance companies, oil conglomerates and telecom leaders.
For those Hong Kong subsidiaries with extensive overseas businesses, the recent top-down instruction on auditors is unlikely to trigger immediate withdrawals from the Big Four. To some businesses, the global network and expertise of the Big Four are valuable resources.
Particularly in the financial services, complex reporting and regulatory rules mean that not all auditing firms are capable of handling more sophisticated disclosures.
Sometimes, smaller auditors are susceptible to pressures from their clients, thus compromising their independence as external auditors. International investors also tend to have more confidence in financial disclosures prepared by globally recognised brands than local Chinese auditors.
Other firms with less sophisticated reporting needs may shift to non-Big Four firms due to the shifting regulatory environment. Close rivals to the Big Four, such as BDO Limited, Mazars Hong Kong, Baker Tilly Hong Kong, are expected to benefit if state-linked companies discard the Big Four. It was reported that smaller local auditors had won new contracts from the Big Four.
Although it is possible for a Chinese parent company to use a non-Big Four firm as its domestic auditor but a Big Four company as its international auditor, in practice companies will prefer using auditors from the same network across its business operations, in order to align accounting standards and reduce audit risk.
Therefore, any change of auditor at the Chinese parent firm, due to added pressure from the top, will affect the auditing contract of its subsidiaries in Hong Kong.
This suggests that companies may face the dilemma between meeting their business and auditing needs on one hand, and pleasing Chinese policymakers on the other.
Companies which deviate from government direction may find themselves under stricter scrutiny of regulators. Failure to meet data security requirements will also result in hefty penalties.
Yvette To is a postdoc at the Department of Public and International Affairs, City University of Hong Kong. She writes about the politics surrounding Chinese technology firms. The work described in this paper was fully supported by a fellowship award from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (CityU PDFS2021-1H11).
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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Published on August 18, 2023
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"author": "Yvette To"
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Why decriminalising suicide is not enough - 360
Nurus Sakinatul Fikriah Mohd Shith Putera, Siti Nuramani Abdul Manab
Published on April 19, 2023
Malaysia’s move to decriminalise suicide is a positive step but much more is needed to help those suffering.
Content warning: This article discusses sensitive topics such as suicide that some readers may find distressing.
When the bill to decriminalise suicide in Malaysia was finally tabled in parliament, lawmakers were supportive of the government’s plan and believe it is a progressive way forward for mental health reforms.
The bills were tabled for the first reading by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform), Azalina Othman Said and the second reading of the bills will be tabled during the next sitting. The effort was initiated in 2020 to help prevent suicide attempts, destigmatise suicide and encourage those suffering to get the help and treatment they need. Malaysia’s Health Ministry voiced support the following year as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the need to address mental health issues. However, the crime of aiding and abetting suicide under sections 305 and 306 of the Penal Code will still remain but with heftier punishment for cases involving vulnerable groups.
The efforts to decriminalise suicide in Malaysia have spurred a series of engagement sessions and meetings with government agencies, parliamentarians, state assemblymen and relevant ministries. This mirrored a similar campaign in India, where stakeholder engagement played a crucial role in highlighting the importance of decriminalising suicide. The discussions in Malaysia provided an opportunity for experts and policymakers to explore viable strategies and recommendations that can enhance mental health support once suicide is no longer considered a criminal offence.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), suicide claims the lives of more than 700,000 individuals worldwide annually, which equates to one life lost every 40 seconds with 77 percent of these deaths in low and middle-income countries. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for those aged between 15 and 29.There are still at least 17 countries, including Malaysia, where suicidal behaviour is a criminal offence. In Malaysia it carries a maximum penalty of up to three years in prison.
Many survivors suffer from an underlying mental health condition. They are not just denied the support they need but — along with family members — also face possible arrest or threats. These remnant laws of British colonial rule view suicide as a transgression against God. Interestingly, acceptance of the concept that mental or emotional distress is biological in nature, exacerbated by the environment and other physical factors has helped society towards becoming more sensitive to this issue. Hence, there have been numerous calls to repeal the law.
What happens after Malaysia decriminalises suicide is pivotal. The effort is already undermined by numerous competing factors even at the proposal stage. There is a grave imbalance between the need to protect the sanctity of human life, the entwined religious and cultural belief system, and the right to self-determination, among others.
The reluctance to repeal the law is heavily influenced by the lingering legacy of British colonial rule that considers the act of criminalising attempted suicide as deterring others from committing the same ‘sin’. Regardless that there is insufficient data supporting the decrease in the suicide rate, criminalisation continues to be a convenient avenue in addressing situations as foreign as suicidal behaviour and that ‘the law is doing something’. It is no surprise this has resulted in a vague interpretation of Malaysia’s Section 84 of the Penal Code and Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code relating to criminal responsibility and fitness to plead, suggesting that repealing Section 309 of the Penal Code is unnecessary.
These provisions are applicable to those charged under Section 309 and are said to be a better alternative than removing Section 309 altogether. While Section 342 pertains to evaluating an individual’s ability to stand trial and fitness to plead, Section 309 criminalises attempted suicide.
The process under Section 342 involves a lengthy evaluation process that may take up to a month in a designated psychiatric hospital while individuals who are tried under Section 309 require immediate action by enforcement officers to safeguard the well-being of the individual. Based on a study not all patients who were charged for attempting suicide within the premises of the psychiatric hospital were assigned for assessment under Section 342 based on the discretion of the magistrate. This process questions the effectiveness of the provision to allow for critical mental health support for people who attempt suicide.
Criminalising suicide is rarely associated with positive changes in preventing suicide though decriminalising has its own uncertainties. One study indicated an inconsistent relationship between decriminalisation and the suicide rate. In Canada and Ireland, suicide rates increased after suicide was decriminalised in 1972 and 1993 respectively.
However, suicide rates in Sri Lanka had decreased since attempted suicide was decriminalised in 1998. This may have been due to suicide prevention initiatives implemented following the repeal of the law.
The uncertain outcomes of decriminalising suicide may have impeded efforts in a conservative and religious country like Malaysia despite growing calls for action since 2019, with another push by the health ministry in 2020 when it proposed a moratorium on the prosecution and conviction of suicide attempts.
In 2021, several groups renewed their call for Section 309 of the Penal Code to be repealed after years of advocating the issue. Unfortunately, things are divided between these groups and policymakers, stalling prospects of decriminalisation.
Without a concerted effort by a coalition of groups working towards a common goal, it may take longer to build the momentum needed for an official action to roll out. This reflects the absence of shared evidence-based research in Malaysia in delineating common objectives and reliable information to inform dialogue and policy decisions. For instance, the Association of Women for Action and Research, a suicide prevention organisation in Singapore, has shared its findings with the Singaporean government on the psychological repercussion of criminalisation via case studies conducted among those who have attempted suicide. Carefully evaluating Section 309 of Singapore’s Penal Code proved that scientific research can foster greater collaboration between stakeholders, resulting in more effective suicide prevention and support efforts.
Suicide has long been a subject of conflicting legal, ethical, medical, religious, cultural, and human rights outlooks. Each perspective holds different assumptions regarding the causes, consequences, and implications, which shape how we understand and address this issue. The presumption that there ought to be a repeal of the law reflects modern society, but the law alone may not solve everything.
Reconciling the many concerns of various stakeholders requires the adoption of a collaborative care approach which centres on the provision of assistance and resources to individuals experiencing a crisis, with the primary objective of mitigating the imminent danger of harm and prioritising safety.
Legislators could go further than decriminalisation and include improving access to mental health services, expanding the availability of mental health clinics and providers and reducing barriers — social stigma, cost and geography — to accessing mental health care. Malaysians are hopeful that with healthcare professionals onboard and an attorney-general chamber’s report mentioned in Hansard revisiting the Mental Health Act 2001 to improve on its response to address mental disorder issues will provide adequate protection of the rights of the patient and enable a shift from the management and treatment of mental illness to prevention and intervention initiatives.
Systematically analysing a legislative move is among the lessons learned from India where despite the implementation of the Mental Health Care Act in 2017 and subsequent de facto decriminalisation of suicide, suicide prevention efforts have stalled. As a result, police and health professionals are ill-equipped with adequate training and are inept at providing appropriate support to survivors. While the building of mental health resources and infrastructures is progressing, the government can focus its initiatives on destigmatising suicide and encourage people to seek help through public education campaigns.
The government has demonstrated a commendable commitment to reducing the stigma surrounding mental health issues by acknowledging the importance of mental health and resorting to a more empathetic approach for individuals with suicidal thoughts.
Decriminalising suicide is just the beginning of a long and arduous journey towards creating a society that values the complexity of mental health issues and provides the necessary support. It signifies an unwavering commitment to advocating better mental health policies, breaking down the barriers that prevent individuals from receiving treatment and creating a safe and nurturing environment for everyone.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, visit https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp.
Nurus Sakinatul Fikriah Mohd Shith Putera is a law lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) specialising in interdisciplinary law. Siti Nuramani Abdul Manab is a senior law lecturer at the Faculty of Law, UiTM with an extensive academic background in criminal procedure and criminal law. Siti Nuramani was a deputy public prosecutor at the Attorney General’s Chambers of Malaysia.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Decriminalising suicide” sent at: 17/04/2023 12:36.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on April 19, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-decriminalising-suicide-is-not-enough/",
"author": "Nurus Sakinatul Fikriah Mohd Shith Putera, Siti Nuramani Abdul Manab"
}
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Why Delhi and Washington need each other - 360
Collins Chong Yew Keat
Published on June 21, 2023
If India wants to counter China in the region, it will need American help. The question is how long it will delay this.
China’s no-holds-barred intent and playbook in Asia and beyond have caused realignments of policies and approaches by nations in the region.
With the US deemed to be late in the game of regaining regional dominance and reasserting pushback against China, there is now increasing regional anxiety.
In comes India. While Delhi has historically been a regional leader in the non-aligned movement since the Cold War, realities that entrap Delhi’s security outlook have created a new strategic clarity of the India First doctrine.
In this calculation, Washington has limited options, one being to compartmentalise and fashion ties with Delhi. Likewise, India too has limited options but to work with the US to secure its long-term security orientations.
Well aware of Beijing’s encirclement through the ‘strings of pearls’ theory, the increased Chinese presence in India’s arch nemesis Pakistan and increasingly in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will need urgent and strategic counterbalance responses.
However, India’s capacity is stretched and Beijing’s expansionism has already forced Delhi to increase its military capabilities and to court its neighbours and the Southeast Asian region in more practical terms, catching up on lost ground and regaining historical connectedness.
The Himalayan border is strategically critical not only to Delhi but also to the West as a crucial second front in stymieing Beijing’s reach and distracting its capacity in the Indo-Pacific, especially in the South China Sea and Taiwan.
This creates a win-win situation for Delhi and Washington. The former will need the latter’s extended deterrence support in securing this front, especially in denying China from re-engaging crucial neighbouring players including Pakistan and Afghanistan in the event of an all-out conflict over the border which will give it the upper hand in the event of a protracted conflict.
Washington will need Delhi to maintain a high-intensity readiness and uncompromising stance on border sovereignty to divert Beijing’s attention and resources.
With the loss of Afghanistan as a strategic geographical asset in counterbalancing China’s Central Asia manoeuvres, India remains the most crucial US partner in encircling China from its most vulnerable land front, its western flank.
US influence over areas under the First and Second Island Chains will be equally important as control of the Nicobar Island chain and this gives Delhi the ultimate card.
While Beijing is increasing its Indian Ocean presence to break Delhi’s backyard advantage, Delhi remains considerably behind in the naval race and submarine capacity.
The US is indispensable for Delhi in keeping Beijing out of the Indian Ocean and the strategic base in Perth, Australia for the AUKUS submarines remains significant for both Delhi and Washington.
The base will provide extended deterrence and integrated maritime security and awareness for the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the critical Malacca, Sunda and Lombok straits in Southeast Asia. The latter two remain passageways for Beijing’s submarines to the Indian Ocean.
The US remains the only player capable of supporting India in extending her naval presence and in setting up a blockade in times of conflict to thwart Beijing’s options in the Indian Ocean.
The same tool is mutually needed by both Delhi and Washington at the tip of the entrance to the Strait of Malacca to choke Beijing on food and energy supplies.
Delhi’s own ‘necklace of diamonds’ to foil China’s ‘strings of pearls’ strategy will need the US to complete developing its military readiness and resilience.
India’s peaceful rise as a global player has often been overlooked, but its future regional role in counterbalancing Beijing is insufficient without full head-on support from the US.
Delhi is well aware of its late entry into the Indo-Pacific theatre. For it to counter Beijing’s hard and soft power overtures will require a sustainable, domestic economic and military capacity and a robust network of trusted allies and partners.
Both factors remain elusive and the US is a critical factor in ensuring Delhi gets these two-pronged fronts to secure its own security and ensure its global rise remains on track.
For this, Modi is realistic enough not to fully embrace Nehru’s stance on neutrality and sees the need for a more strategic and lasting model in keeping Beijing out, Washington in, Moscow in the balance and Delhi on the course of regional stability and leadership.
While Delhi’s long-term security assurances will need the inevitable systemic support from Washington, its short-term interests are slightly more susceptible to Moscow’s and Beijing’s aim of using Delhi as both an economic opening and geostrategic leverage in checkmating Washington.
Delhi remains defiant of Washington’s displeasure for not displaying toughness on Vladimir Putin in halting Russian oil purchases. But the oil imports remain crucial for Delhi’s economic and security dependence separate from historical indebtedness to Moscow.
Delhi is also wary of Washington’s courting of Islamabad in trying to deny Beijing’s presence in Pakistan. While Washington can remain tolerant for now, Delhi’s room to manoeuvre is running thin as it tries to squeeze every bit out of its own diplomatic unpredictability.
As much as Modi yearns for Washington’s economic, technological and security assurances, he has also kept his options wide open. While major powers are caught in a dominant power trap and sense of great state autism which hinder policy shifts and compromises, Delhi has better capacity and short-term advantages in moulding its leverage.
The US sees Beijing as its most serious long-term challenge and Delhi is desperately needed as the main anchor in checking Beijing both geographically and in a combined hard power deterrence.
India and the US are not divided ideologically but national interests and immediate survival needs are paramount which have spurred India’s non-abidance to Washington’s full spectrum of expectations.
Friendshoring to maximise US capacity in facing Beijing and for potential de-risking and de-coupling will need Delhi’s unrelenting support as a trusted partner. Delhi on its own will not be able to break Beijing’s regional hegemonic status, not with its current internal capabilities and readiness.
Without breaking from its famous non-aligned model, India — unlike regional players — is not able to plot to get the best out of both worlds, as the outcome will be likely worse for Delhi.
With relatively successful prospects, the US can face off against Beijing without India but can India survive without the US?
Collins Chong Yew Keat is attached to the Centre for Civilisational Dialogue, Universiti Malaya, focusing on strategy and security. He declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “India-US Summit” sent at: 19/06/2023 06:00.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on June 21, 2023
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Why disability inclusion is important for climate resilience - 360
Molly M. King
Published on January 31, 2024
Manywith disability live in poverty, in low-income countries that are vulnerable to climate disasters. Yet climate resilience planning excludes their voices.
Globally, more than a billion people have a disability. Most live in poverty and 80 percent live in low- and middle-income countries, which are more susceptible to climate disasters. Because of this, and sometimes because they are also members of other minorities, disabled people are much more likely to experience the worst impacts of climate change.
People with disabilities are two to four times more likely to be hurt or die in climate-related disasters such as heatwaves, wildfires and floods.
During the 2017 flooding in rural New South Wales in Australia, those with disabilities were disproportionately impacted by unstable housing, displacement, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
When northern Bangladesh faced unprecedented flooding in June 2022, many with disabilities did not receive sufficient support from the government to reach safety and access to shelter, health care, and food.
Even though the disability community is especially at risk from climate change, there has been a significant lack of attention from researchers, activists and government officials when it comes to studying and addressing climate change planning for this group.
The only international disability-specific policy is the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which mandates that people with a disability are entitled to equality and freedom discrimination. The 2013 Incheon Strategy, specific to Asia and the Pacific, encourages disability-inclusive disaster preparedness by linking the strategy’s goals to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Apart from these, people with disabilities are frequently left out of the planning and response strategies for climate-related disasters, exposing them to higher risks during extreme weather events and other emergencies tied to climate.
Furthermore, buildings and infrastructure are often not accessible, making it challenging to evacuate or access emergency services during a disaster. Many emergency management plans and policies fail to consider the specific needs of people with disabilities, heightening their vulnerability during disasters.
Various factors contribute to this exclusion, such as the absence of accessibility in emergency shelters and communication systems. Barriers to safe evacuation can be even greater for those with mobility aids, wheelchairs or requiring a guide dog.
The failure to incorporate inclusive planning and response measures can leave people with disabilities even more susceptible to the adverse impacts of climate change.
An equitable approach to climate change vulnerability recognises that certain groups — including people with disabilities — are more susceptible to its effects.
Disability-inclusive climate justice advocates for all people with disabilities, but also takes into account other intersecting inequalities that make disabled people particularly vulnerable to exclusion from disaster planning, natural hazards and their aftermath.
Race, class, gender and nationality all affect disabled people’s access to resources — or whether their community even has the proper resources. The harm caused by colonial history, which itself has contributed to the crises we face with the environment and society, influences how well different groups can adapt.
Disability climate justice seeks equitable access to resources, including information to help with planning and adaptation to climate-related risks.
There is no single solution to disability inclusion, as people with different disabilities may have distinct needs. However, the responsibility should not be left on the individual to create their own accommodations and be constantly prepared for disaster to strike.
Ideally, individuals with disabilities should be part of planning for climate resilience. Turning to people with disabilities to take charge in leadership and disaster planning, at all levels, could help with effective change, as they can recognise disability-specific needs and what resources are lacking.
Diversifying activism and policy advocacy in terms of disability — as well as other identities like age, race and ethnicity, and location – would facilitate solutions that work for everyone and help people shape the future they want to live in.
Creating accessibility for everyone in programs aimed at generating green jobs, along with implementing policies that advocate for disability inclusion during transitions, provides a chance to enhance climate change adaptive capacity.
Ultimately, incorporating individuals with disabilities into discussions about climate adaptation planning will strengthen the resilience of communities.
Molly M. King is an Assistant Professor in Santa Clara University’s Sociology Department whose work focuses on inequalities in information and knowledge and the implications of these inequalities for people’s lives. Her current projects focus on scientific careers and knowledge about climate change. When she is not professing, she also enjoys camping, having fun with her dog, playing wheelchair basketball, and spending time with family and friends.
Additional reporting and contribution by Christina Nelson, who is a research assistant for Molly King and a 4th year Sociology, Spanish, and Sustainable Food Systems student at Santa Clara University. She is graduating in June 2024.
Financial support for related research was generously provided by a College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Grant and an Environmental Justice and the Common Good Initiative Research Grant at Santa Clara University.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Climate resilience” sent at: 14/02/2024 17:35.
This is a corrected repeat.
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Published on January 31, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-disability-inclusion-is-important-for-climate-resilience/",
"author": "Molly M. King"
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Why do autocrats insist on sham elections? - 360
Derek Hutcheson
Published on March 19, 2024
As Vladimir Putin wins yet another term in the Kremlin, the question remains what is the point in having an election at all?
Russians have gone to the polls in a presidential election that — unsurprisingly — elected Vladimir Putin once again for a fifth presidential term.
Vybor — the Russian word for ‘election’ — also means ‘choice’. And although there were four candidates on the ballot, choice was largely lacking.
Putin won 87.8 percent of the vote, the highest in Russia’s post-Soviet history.
Russian elections have become increasingly less competitive over time, but this year’s contest has been perhaps the most mundane.
Putin’s competitors on the ballot paper were three members of parliament with little public profile.
The Communist candidate — 75-year old agrarian Nikolai Kharitonov — lost a presidential election to Putin already back in 2004.
Nationalist Leonid Slutsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, campaigned with the slogan ‘Zhirinovsky’s deeds live on’, relying on the charisma of his firebrand predecessor Vladimir Zhirinovsky (1946-2022), in the absence of much of his own.
And the third candidate — 40 year-old Vladislav Davankov — has only been a member of parliament since 2021 and has little name recognition outside political circles.
All three voted unanimously with all other deputies in autumn 2022 for the annexation of eastern Ukrainian regions into Russia.
Since the election result was seemingly a foregone conclusion, what was the point of holding it in the first place?
First, even if the outcomes are not in doubt from the outset, election victories still buttress the legitimacy of electoral authoritarian leaders.
Despite dismissing the election last summer as a costly ‘pointless bureaucracy’, the president’s official spokesperson Dmitrii Peskov last week claimed that the country’s democracy was ‘the best’, an important message if he is later to present the election result as genuine.
Though Putin’s long-term opinion poll approval rating stands at 86 percent, victory at the ballot box — even in a skewed playing field — cements the idea that there is no alternative to the incumbent president.
Second, as in Soviet times, elections play a role in mobilising society.
Putin has taken advantage of his incumbency to ramp up the pace of his official engagements in recent weeks, opening hospitals, flying fighter jets and delivering his annual two-hour ‘State of the Union’-style address to parliament.
This ensured he gathered nearly 1000 minutes of TV news coverage in the last week of February — nearly all of it formally relating to his duties as president, rather than as a participant in the election campaign.
This dwarfed the television coverage of the other candidates, who received just 7 to 17 minutes each in the same week.
By refusing to participate in the televised election debates, Putin has further starved the other candidates of relevance. At the same time, electoral commission campaigns to encourage turnout — as well pressures from above from state enterprises and municipal employers — were used (as in the past) to drive normally politically apathetic voters to the polls.
Third, elections allow the regime to check its degree of control across the country. Russia is divided into 83 regions (excluding the illegally annexed regions of Ukraine), spread across 11 time zones, meaning that steering everything from Moscow is a significant challenge.
Notwithstanding the predictability of the overall result, turnout rates and support levels for Putin and the pro-Kremlin parties generally vary considerably in each election.
The election results serve as an examination to see which regional governors can best demonstrate their regions’ loyalty and mobilise their support bases for the Kremlin, as well as highlighting any regions where there may be above-average risks from opposition support or apathy.
Finally, the backdrop of Russia’s war on Ukraine serves an important propaganda purpose.
With the economy on a war footing, for the presidential administration it is important to show that the Russian public still backs Putin and that Western sanctions and Russia’s limited success on the battlefield is not affecting his popularity adversely.
Ukraine, whose resistance to Russian aggression has been presented as a wider fight for democracy, has been forced by the war to postpone its own presidential contest, providing a contrast with Russia’s message of ‘business as usual’.
There may, of course, still be the odd surprise before the final results are certified.
After the 2011 parliamentary election, there were widespread protests at perceived vote-rigging. The widow of the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny — whose funeral on 1 March in southern Moscow was unexpectedly attended by thousands — called for all who were against Putin to turn up simultaneously at polling stations at 12pm on the final day of voting.
Given the ramping up of repression and restrictions on free speech since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, however, only a limited number of people were prepared to take heed of these calls. Thus, as in Soviet times, it seems we are effectively back to vybory bez vybora: elections without choice.
Derek S. Hutcheson is a Professor of Political Science at Malmö University, Sweden and Pro Dean of Malmö University’s Faculty of Culture and Society. He has researched extensively on Russian and post-Soviet politics.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Is this democracy?” sent at: 18/03/2024 07:40.
This is a corrected repeat.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 19, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-do-autocrats-insist-on-sham-elections/",
"author": "Derek Hutcheson"
}
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2,500 |
Why do some Filipinos support police shoot-to-kill policy? - 360
Danielle P. Ochoa
Published on June 14, 2023
People’s moral reasoning involved making sense of who the agents and victims are and their perceived intentions.
The Philippine Government’s war on drugs has been described as “large-scale extrajudicial violence”, with more than 12,000 people reportedly being killed since its introduction in 2016.
The true numbers are estimated to be up to three times that and continue to grow today.
Despite this, many Filipinos have expressed support for the policy.
It was introduced as a key policy under former president Rodrigo Duterte with many families, mostly from poor backgrounds, left without answers on why their family members were killed.
Justice remains unlikely for victims and their families under current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who declared the administration would cut off contact with the International Criminal Court after it rejected his appeal to stop investigating.
Many of these killings were carried out under what the policy called “Project Tokhang” — officially described by the Philippine National Police as “the conduct of house-to-house visitations to persuade suspected illegal drug personalities to stop their illegal drug activities”.
Its actual implementation has involved thousands of deaths and other human rights violations.
One way to understand why a morally questionable policy can gain such popularity is by considering how people make sense of harm differently.
Research analysing Filipino young adults’ moral justifications for the policy shows how the information which is available, accessible and relevant to them can be used to justify their position.
It found people’s moral reasoning involved making sense of who the agents and victims are and their perceived intentions.
Those who supported the policy blamed drug war victims for being guilty of crimes and bringing harm to themselves and others, echoing Duterte’s comments on criminality and the dehumanisation of drug users.
They also saw the police as potentially vulnerable victims acting in self-defence according to protocols, reflecting Duterte’s administration’s widely-circulated, but unsupported claims, that those who were killed were suspects who fought or resisted arrest — creating a grey area justifying the use of deadly force.
In cases where the killing was clearly intentional and lacked signs of resistance, those in support of tokhang portrayed perpetrators as acting independently of the policy, such as corrupt rogue policemen and unidentified vigilantes. Those who disagreed with the policy highlighted the vulnerability of those killed by the police in drug operations, drawing from messages on the disproportionate victimisation of the poor and social circumstances which lead to drug addiction.
They magnified the policy’s harmfulness, emphasising the government’s alleged intentions by allowing the police to actively cause harm. They also recognise the innocent and vulnerable victims beyond the supposed targets of police operations, including children and family members.For the most part though, people’s positions were not so clear-cut.
In many cases, ambiguity was made possible by grey areas created by two crucial factors.
Seeing the policy, and by extension, the administration and the police as having good intentions and benefits for rehabilitating drug users and maintaining peace and security. And a lack of clarity about the circumstances surrounding individual killings.
So when the intentions are made out to be good and the cause of harm is unclear, it becomes more difficult to condemn the policy outright.
While the study focused on a limited range of respondents and a distinct issue in one country, these patterns can resonate across different contexts and help understand how people make sense of policies and policing.
People draw from, combine and reconstruct messages about victims and perpetrators of harm to come to their own moral conclusions and justifications. But people’s ability to produce different positions also depends on the accessibility and relevance of these different messages based on individuals’ characteristics and context.
When these messages are more accessible and people have more opportunities to express their position, they can adopt positions more consistently and easily.
The challenge then is to find ways for messages consistent with a just society to multiply and gain more traction. More avenues for respectful deliberation overall would hopefully contribute to better discussions beyond echo chambers.
Danielle P. Ochoa is an associate professor at the University of the Philippines, Diliman Department of Psychology. She is currently the secretary of the National Association for Sikolohiyang Pilipino.
This research was funded by the University of the Philippines Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs Local Faculty Fellowship and the Philippine Social Science Council Research Award Program.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on June 14, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-do-some-filipinos-support-police-shoot-to-kill-policy/",
"author": "Danielle P. Ochoa"
}
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2,501 |
Why elderly women are better off living with their daughters - 360
M Niaz Asadullah, Pataporn Sukontamarn, Nopphawan Photphisutthiphong, Yen Thi Hai Nguyen
Published on March 8, 2024
Living with daughters can help lower gender wellbeing inequality in old age. But for that, cultural traditions in Asian societies need to change.
Asia faces a unique demographic crisis. By 2050, the continent will have over a billion elderly people, the most in the world.
For decades, social demands for age care have had unintended consequences for women in some Asian countries such as China, India and Vietnam.
An ageing mother is seen by many as an unwanted burden in patriarchal Asia, leaving them at greater risk of poverty in their later years.
There is a societal expectation of older women living out their years with their children, in particular sons. But new research on Thailand suggests if elderly women live with daughters, they can expect happier outcomes.
The research also shows that living with daughters with a university degree further increases happiness in old age. Added benefits of living with daughters are reduced feelings of loneliness, improved self-reported health status, and improved financial conditions.
Overall, our results suggest that living with daughters can help lower gender wellbeing inequality in old age. But they also hint at the enduring influence of culture.
Gender inequality manifests in premature mortality of girls and women and is the culmination of various forms of neglect reinforced by societal preference for a son.
Over the past 50 years this has resulted in a significant gender imbalance, with the number of “missing women” — those who never made it to adulthood — doubling to 142 million by 2020.
In China, Japan and South Korea, populations are shrinking. While Southeast Asia is still growing, countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia are also rapidly ageing.
More than half of the older population in the region is female, many of whom have suffered multiple forms of economic discrimination and social exclusion.
Gender disparity in work participation and pay combine to create a gender gap in old-age pensions, leaving women with fewer savings in old age. In Asian societies with limited government provisions, intergenerational family support is the main form of social protection in old age. Family solidarity is key to fulfilling the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing 2021–2030.
Forms of support from children to older parents include caregiving, financial support, emotional support, as well as companionship. These together can improve subjective wellbeing in old age.
However, as elderly parents increasingly rely on their adult children for old age care, another form of gender bias emerges in the provision of care. Cultural norms also play a role in determining who assumes the responsibility of caring for aged parents.
In most parts of developing Asia, girls are neglected from childhood. This accumulation of lifelong neglect reduces her value and reinforces the social stance of elderly women as a burden or unwanted.
Proverbs such as “raising a daughter is like watering your neighbor’s garden”, based on widely-held perceptions of women’s inferior social status, have discouraged investment in girls in India.
In Vietnam, only sons carry on the family name prompting authors of the novel When the Light Is Out to write: “To have one boy is to have an heir, whereas to have ten girls is to have no descendants.”
Older parents living with their sons is the norm in both countries. Daughters tend to move to their husbands’ homes after marriage and are more likely to care for their mother-in-law than for their own mother.
Academic research confirms that most older people in Vietnam live with a married son.
In India, up to 79 percent of older people live with their sons while only 39 percent live with daughters.
In China, only a handful (4.82 percent of fathers and 6.46 percent of mothers) choose to live with their daughters.
In Thailand, 29 and 32 percent of older people live with sons and daughters, respectively.
Removing social biases that favour sons can be just as valuable for parents in ageing societies.
In Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia, women do not face extreme forms of discrimination at birth such as female infanticide as was the case in China, India and Vietnam, leading to reports about a shortage of potential wives in China.
Sex ratio at birth has been steady and balanced in Thailand for the past five decades while the majority of Thais desire at least one child of each sex.
In Thailand, daughters are more likely to be equally valued as sons. In the well-known Thai novel Four Reigns, the main character, Ploi, prays that her third child will be a daughter as she has already given birth to two sons.
In our recent analysis of data on thousands of elderly men and women in Thailand, we show how co-residence with daughters is associated with higher levels of happiness among older parents.
Our findings suggest that ageing parents living with at least one child, in particular a daughter, are on average happier than those living alone.
Evidence on the value of daughters for old age care aside, governments could invest in institutional provisions in old age regardless of gender. Otherwise, rapid population ageing in Asian societies may only increase the double burden of care that has held back women’s development.
As our research also showed, investing in women from the beginning is a way of ensuring the wellbeing of elderly Asian populations.
Another area for policy intervention is women’s access to education. Most countries have made progress in this regard.
In Thailand, between 1970 and 2019, the percentage of women who completed upper secondary education increased from 0.7 percent to 35.11 percent.
In comparison with men, the proportion in 1970 was only approximately half. Today, the proportion is identical, implying that an equal number of boys and girls are entering higher education in Thailand.
However, traditional gender attitudes remain embedded in Asian societies. Contemporary textbooks are replete with cases portraying females as the weaker sex. Women and girls are missing from textbook lessons with examples of professionals and non-traditional occupations.
Paradoxically, as more boys and girls are schooled, traditional gender norms become further reinforced. Over-representation of women in traditional roles is also a challenge even for otherwise gender-equal countries such as Thailand and Malaysia.
Alongside investment in women’s development through better access to schools and jobs, Asia’s rapidly ageing societies also need to prioritise investments that remove hidden biases against women.
Prioritising reforms of school textbooks with the goal of overturning gender stereotypes would be a good starting point.
M. Niaz Asadullah, Professor of Development Economics at Monash University Malaysia, is Head of the Southeast Asia cluster of the Global Labor Organization.
Pataporn Sukontamarn is an Associate Professor at the College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University.
Nopphawan Photphisutthiphong is a Lecturer at the College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University.
Yen Thi Hai Nguyen is a Research Fellow at Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Editors Note: In the story “Investing in women” sent at: 07/03/2024 06:00.
This is a corrected repeat.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on March 8, 2024
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-elderly-women-are-better-off-living-with-their-daughters/",
"author": "M Niaz Asadullah, Pataporn Sukontamarn, Nopphawan Photphisutthiphong, Yen Thi Hai Nguyen"
}
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2,502 |
Why empowering teachers is key to a sustainable future - 360
Karen Chand, Shannon Kobran
Published on September 18, 2023
Students demand transformative education, but can our education systems keep up?
The world’s learners are not equipped to face the challenges of an unsustainable future.
While education has long been heralded as a crucial catalyst for sustainable development, the potential of education to drive impactful environmental, economic, and societal change has yet to be met.
Target 7 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Quality Education (SDG 4.7) calls for “all learners to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development”, including areas like climate and environmental education, global citizenship education, and human rights education.
At the United Nations Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, 114 countries submitted National Statements of Commitment to advance and transform education.
Seventy-nine of those country commitments refer to education for sustainable development or associated themes, such as global citizenship education and 21st-century skills. Many education systems have also introduced innovative policies to bring these topics into the classroom.
Belize announced at the summit that it was integrating a dedicated socio-emotional learning programme into its early childhood curriculum. Greece introduced its compulsory Skills Lab module in 2021, teaching students across the country the hard and soft skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Meanwhile, climate change, environmentalism, and sustainability themes have been part of the Costa Rican primary and secondary school curriculum for at least a decade.
And at the sub-national level, in 2020, America’s New Jersey became the first state in the country to set standards for interdisciplinary climate change education in its K-12 public schools.
But commitments do not always result in action, and policies do not always translate into impact. Despite the inspiring examples set by Greece, Costa Rica and others, most systems struggle to make meaningful progress towards transformative education for sustainable development.
The roadblocks are universal, including curricula largely based on passive instead of experiential learning and mechanical and top-down approaches that ignore the imperative to adapt to special needs and circumstances.
Teachers who lack adequate training in sustainable development to be able to effectively impart its corresponding knowledge, skills, and values is another hurdle.
One example of these roadblocks comes from Malaysia, where researchers from the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) conducted a pilot study to assess the extent to which education for sustainable development has become mainstream in the national education system.
The study revealed that, while major policy documents like the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 show priorities consistent with the principles of education for sustainable development — active learning, critical thinking, leadership, ethics, multiculturalism, and future-readiness — implementation is short on the ground.
Similarly, primary school curricula and textbooks for science, English, and Malay language include references to themes of environmental protection and social inclusion, but these themes are not explicitly linked with students’ lived realities or the greater societal need for sustainable development.
One Year 6 science lesson has students learn about animal extinction by identifying extinct and endangered species around the world, but the textbook misses a crucial opportunity to develop students’ awareness on a range of related issues.
These include habitat loss taking place locally due to deforestation; the magnitude of altered spaces in students’ own locality; the competing factors at play between conservation and land-clearing for development, urbanisation and agriculture; and how biodiversity loss worsens the impacts of climate change.
Putting facts and figures into context by using maps, data, and news articles, and encouraging debate and inquiry would help students relate better to the learning, ignite a sense of ownership of an issue and inspire them to play a role in building solutions.
In this way, lessons can also transcend disciplinary silos and cut across all subjects, such as mathematics, languages, art, and civics. However, since these approaches are not explicitly dictated by the textbook, they are largely left to teachers to employ on their own initiative.
The absence of teacher training in sustainable development stands in the way of delivering education for sustainable development competencies, such as integrated problem-solving, critical thinking, systems thinking, self-awareness, and collaboration.
Through interviews with teachers, school leaders, academics, non-government organisations and Education Ministry representatives, SDSN’s Malaysia study shows that most teachers lack access to capacity-building for education for sustainable development.
Teachers who seek these opportunities on their own can find their efforts hampered by school leaders and peers hesitant to undertake any activity that doesn’t contribute to key performance indicators like attendance or standardised test scores.
The Ministry understands the importance of education for sustainable development and supports teacher training reform, but struggles to implement this alongside other competing priorities, such as digital deployment and infrastructure improvements.
These challenges are not unique to Malaysia. Around the world, teachers are overburdened with large class sizes, limited resources, insufficient training, outdated structures, and excessive demands on their time.
This is happening as students are demanding education that teaches them about climate change, social justice, and the skills they need to thrive in an increasingly complex world.
Comprehensive systems change — encompassing policy reform, curriculum revision, content development, and teacher training — is necessary to truly deliver holistic education for sustainable development.
These changes are not easy and they take time, but they are already happening. Belize, Greece, Costa Rica, New Jersey and other pioneers offer examples that can be adapted.
Taking the findings of their Malaysia study, SDSN is working with the Education Ministry to develop a school-by-school education for sustainable development capacity-building intervention adapted to local realities.
All dimensions of sustainability — environmental, social, and economic — will be addressed and localised to enrich the existing curriculum. There will be deliberate emphasis on stimulating education for sustainable development competencies across all learning domains: cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioural.
To help teachers rise above rigid structures and administrative burdens, the training will emphasise the role of teachers in shaping their students’ futures, reorienting them to a teacher’s core purpose.
Eventually, a replicable approach and supporting resources can be made available to other communities and countries to adopt and adapt according to the aspirations they hold for their younger generations.
SDSN already has plans to bring the project to other Southeast Asian countries. A panel discussion held at SDSN’s ASEAN Workshop on Sustainable Development in July 2023 showed that Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand face identical challenges.
Like Malaysia, they are grappling with how to turn national commitments into impact on the ground. Panellists affirmed their partnership aiming to turn policy into action.
The call for education transformation is loud and clear. Every society desires education that allows all its youth to realise their fullest potential and to become active participants and change-makers in an economically secure, ecologically stable, and socially just future.
Education systems now need to catch up.
Like sustainable development itself, transforming education requires the active participation of every level of society including teachers, parents, school leaders, policymakers, and, of course, students.
By refocusing our approach to education and by equipping stakeholders with appropriate support, we can push education systems to deliver on the commitments made at the Transforming Education Summit and enable society to fulfil the promises of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Karen Chand is the Director of Education Studies at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). Her research was undertaken with financial support from the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation.
Shannon Kobran is the Regional Team Lead for Asia at SDSN’s SDG Academy. Both she and Karen Chand are based at Sunway University, Malaysia.
This article is part of a special report on the ‘State of the SDGs’, produced in partnership with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on September 18, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-empowering-teachers-is-key-to-a-sustainable-future/",
"author": "Karen Chand, Shannon Kobran"
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2,503 |
Why G20’s debt-relief strategy is failing - 360
Biswajit Dhar
Published on September 8, 2023
The Indian Prime Minister says a G20 strategy has driven global debt restructuring since his country assumed leadership. That’s not the full picture.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is about to host G20 leaders in New Delhi, has boasted about his country’s role in easing global debt stress.
“In 2023, under India’s presidency, the G20 gave a significant boost to debt restructuring through the Common Framework,” Modi said.
But despite Modi’s boast, the Common Framework is flawed and needs drastic reform. Without that reform, the growth of many developing countries will be hindered.
The framework is a successor to the G20’s pandemic debt suspension initiatives and established a permanent mechanism to help low-income countries dealing with unsustainable debt.
Modi points to three countries — Zambia, Ethiopia and Ghana — he says have made “notable advancements” on debt restructuring using the framework since India assumed leadership of the G20 in 2023.
But the framework has only helped those few countries and only to a degree. It has only kept them solvent, doing just enough to let debt-ridden countries meet basic obligations without providing meaningful relief from arrears.
It also excludes the increasing proportion of debt owed to private creditors and multilateral agencies. And it does not deal with the growing challenge of middle-income countries also facing spiralling debt.
There are 69 low-income countries that need immediate restructuring of their debts. Unsustainable debt can prompt a default on repayments and can contribute to further declines in economic growth, a drop in investment, increased inflation and a devaluation of currency.
Debt restructuring can provide countries breathing space so their economies can recover.
When India assumed the presidency of the G20, Modi spoke ambitiously of helping low-income countries clear debt challenges. There seemed to be momentum to address the framework’s inherent design flaws and promise for a road map to ensure sustainable results.
But, under India’s leadership, little has been done to reduce the debt burden on low and middle-income countries. Three meetings with G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors have only delivered vague reiterations that they “stand by all the commitments made in the Common Framework for Debt Treatments”.
But reform would be significant as the pandemic’s effects continue to be felt.
Low-income countries are suffering from increasing debt, hindering their ability to invest and comfortably meet their repayment obligations.
Between 2018 and 2021, total debt service payments of low-income countries had risen from USD$10.6 billion to USD$18 billion — a 71 percent increase.
As a result, the ratio of total debt service payments to exports of goods, services and primary income grew from 11.5 percent to nearly 17 percent.
Meanwhile, the ratio of debt service payments to gross national income nearly doubled.
Several middle-income countries, notably Sri Lanka and Pakistan, have also been caught in debt traps: cycles of borrowing money to meet existing debt obligations.
Is the framework set up to achieve its goals?
The G20’s pandemic initiative intended to temporarily suspend debt service payments for 73 countries, but only to bilateral creditors — countries which directly lent to another country.
Debt obligations to multilateral agencies — organisations or institutions that pool funds from several countries — and private creditors were excluded.
By the end of 2019, bilateral creditors accounted for 25 percent of the outstanding external debt stocks of developing economies. By 2021, it had dropped to 21 percent.
However, debt owed by low income countries to private creditors had increased, from below 14 percent in 2010 to more than 32 percent a decade later.
Low-income countries owed private-sector creditors about USD$14 billion in 2010, increasing to more than USD$83 billion over the next decade.
The G20’s framework aims to benefit low-income countries, ignoring the debt burden of middle-income countries.
Even if they fell within the framework’s remit, which mostly addresses debt payments owed to other countries, it would do little to reduce the strain.
For instance, Pakistan’s bilateral official donors accounted for 30.5 percent of its total outstanding external debt. In Sri Lanka, the corresponding figure was 20.3 percent. The rest of its debt comes from the private sector or multilateral donors.
Since the framework launched, only four countries have asked to restructure their debts: Chad, Ethiopia, Zambia and Ghana.
Chad was the first in January 2021. It took until December 2022 to reach a deal with its major creditor.
The agreement was criticised by then-World Bank president David Malpass, who argued it would not result in actual debt reduction.
Zambia only reached an agreement with official creditors to reduce its debt burden in July 2023, while Ethiopia’s creditor committee has struggled for more than two years to find a solution. Ghana’s creditor committee was formed in July 2023.
With limited success, the G20’s debt-reduction initiative risks fading into irrelevance — like many reduction attempts since the debt crisis in the 1980s.
From the experiences of the four countries that have tried to engage with the G20 framework, it seems clear it is not designed to relieve debtors but simply ensure they can service their debts.
Basic changes to the structure of the framework were not mentioned, even though that would help deliver on Modi’s promise to address the “threat of unsustainable debt facing some developing nations”.
Biswajit Dhar is a former professor of economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is Distinguished Professor at Council for Social Development, New Delhi.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on September 8, 2023
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"url": "https://360info.org/why-g20s-debt-relief-strategy-is-failing/",
"author": "Biswajit Dhar"
}
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Why have efforts to eradicate TB been so slow? - 360
Andreas Kupz, Harindra Sathkumara
Published on February 19, 2024
Tuberculosis is one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases — but the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically slowed efforts to eliminate it.
Tuberculosis is the world’s most deadly infectious disease. But lofty global plans to stamp out this global killer by 2030 were dramatically slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
When COVID struck, the world swiftly responded, pouring unimaginable amounts of money into the development of new drugs and vaccines. In stark contrast, tuberculosis (TB) has persisted for centuries, yet many people in the developed world remain largely unaware of it, and vaccine development has received little attention.
A new push for action, brought on by rising case numbers around the world, could finally make a difference in the fight against TB — but only if that commitment is sustained.
In 2021, global deaths from TB increased for the first time in almost a decade: the disease claimed 1.5 million lives that year, up from 1.4 million in 2020 and 1.2 million in 2019. Lockdowns, disruptions in healthcare, and the redirection of resources hampered active case finding, diagnosis and treatment, reversing gains made in recent years.
Some experts believe that COVID-19 has reversed two decades of progress in the fight against TB — a significant setback from which it will take at least five years to recover.
TB is a preventable and usually curable disease. But it remains staggeringly widespread: almost one-quarter (23 percent) of the world’s population is infected with the TB bacteria.
Many latently infected with TB are unaware they have the disease, as they don’t experience symptoms, which include cough, fever, fatigue and weight loss. But for some, it’s deadly: over the last two centuries, TB has claimed more than a billion lives.
While TB has plagued humanity for thousands of years — with signs of the disease found in Egyptian mummies — the global campaign to eliminate TB dates back to 1882, when German physician Robert Koch provided the evidence that TB is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb).
In the 1900s, national public health campaigns spread across Europe and the United States as the disease remained prevalent. Following the rise of drug-resistant TB strains in the 1980s, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a declaration of a global health emergency in 1993.
The campaign to eradicate TB gained further momentum in 2014 when the WHO launched the post-2015 End TB Strategy in support of the Sustainable Development Goals. The aim was ambitious: a 95 percent reduction in TB deaths by 2035. The strategy called for new treatments, improved diagnostics, increased research investment, universal health coverage and, importantly, an effective vaccine.
While progress has been made over the years, the journey towards eliminating TB has been slower than expected and has hit many roadblocks, including the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
TB deaths declined again in 2022 and 2023 — indicating that post-COVID, the fight against TB was back on in earnest — but the setbacks of 2020 and 2021 have taken a toll. If the current trajectory persists until 2050, it is estimated that TB could bring more than 27 million deaths and economic losses exceeding USD$13 trillion.
Several key barriers to stamping out TB remain.
First, the bacterium causing TB, Mtb, has developed sophisticated defences to evade the immune response, allowing it to remain dormant within the human body, particularly the lungs, for decades. About 90 percent of infected people will never develop active disease. This is known as latent TB infection (or LTBI), and it makes TB even more challenging to diagnose and treat.
As well as being complex, TB diagnosis is also not always accurate. The disease can be present in several forms — latent infection, subclinical disease and active disease.
Each form requires different tests to diagnose.
Subclinical TB can be identified only by looking for abnormalities detectable by rare, ultra-sensitive tools. This is further complicated by resource limitations in low- to middle-income countries, often contributing to underdiagnosis and uncontrolled transmission.
An additional challenge: treating TB involves six to 12 months of antibiotic therapy. This poses a substantial financial strain on healthcare services, especially in developing nations, as well as on patients in countries where out-of-pocket costs are involved.
Poor adherence often results in antimicrobial resistance. Mtb ranks among the most multi-drug resistant bacteria.
Drug resistance is an alarming obstacle to TB prevention and treatment, making treatment of the disease harder and longer. Treatment of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is complicated. It can take up to two years and requires hospitalisation. It’s also expensive. Treating the most drug-resistant form of the disease in the US, for example, can cost USD$568,000, excluding productivity costs such as lost income.
Extensive and totally drug resistant Mtb strains have also been reported, highlighting the magnitude of drug resistance in TB infections. Papua New Guinea, Australia’s closest neighbour, has one of the highest rates of MDR-TB in the world — and while Australia reports low rates of these strains, their introduction into Australia is a national health security risk.
Finally, the only licensed vaccine for the disease, Bacille Calmette Guérin (BCG), introduced in 1921, is not perfect. While it prevents severe forms of TB in children and has already been given to over four billion infants, its efficacy against pulmonary TB in adults is limited.
This hundred-year-old vaccine requires a better successor to prevent TB disease and stop the transmission cycle.
Research on TB is slow and logistically challenging compared with other infectious agents.
It not only requires specialist laboratories and highly trained personnel, but also faces the hurdle of the bacteria’s slow growth. Unlike most pathogenic bacteria that can be cultured in the laboratory within 24 hours, Mtb usually takes as long as four weeks to grow, meaning experiments are naturally more time-consuming and expensive.
In today’s fast-paced and output-driven academic environment, only a handful of scientists are willing to make TB their primary research focus.
Compounding the issue is the pharmaceutical industry’s limited interest in TB. Clinical trials for TB vaccines, known for their prolonged and costly nature, discourage the active engagement of the key industry stakeholders.
As of January 2024, there were only 17 TB vaccine candidates listed in the active clinical trial pipeline. This is in stark contrast to the rapid and extensive development of vaccines seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. By November 2020, barely 12 months after the disease’s discovery, there were already 48 COVID vaccine candidates undergoing clinical trials on humans.
The world seems to be awakening to the urgency.
The Global Plan to End TB 2023-2030, released by the StopTB Partnership, calls for significant investment and action to end TB as a public health challenge by 2030.
In September 2023, at the second United Nations high-level meeting on TB, world leaders adopted a declaration for a renewed pledge to end the TB epidemic. As part of this pledge, the world committed to provide USD$5 billion of annual funding for TB research by 2027.
If honoured, this financial support may offer real hope, reigniting the fight against TB and enabling researchers to carry on the battle initiated by Robert Koch 142 years ago against one of humanity’s oldest adversaries.
Andreas Kupz is an NHMRC Investigator and Associate Professor. He leads the Tuberculosis Vaccinology Group at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University. Andreas studied biology at Humboldt-University in Berlin and completed a PhD in microbiology and immunology at the University of Melbourne. He performed his postdoctoral training at the Max-Planck Institute for Infection Biology. His research focuses on interactions between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the host immune system and their implications for the development of new TB vaccines, including in the context of immunosuppression.
Dr Harindra Sathkumara works as a postdoctoral researcher in the Tuberculosis Vaccinology Group at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM), James Cook University. Harindra completed his undergraduate studies in Biomedical Science at the University of Greenwich, UK and obtained his PhD in infectious diseases and immunology at AITHM, James Cook University, under the supervision of A/Prof Andreas Kupz. With a strong background in immunology and infectious diseases, his ongoing research focuses on understanding complex immune mechanisms underlying vaccine-induced protection and tuberculosis infections, particularly in immunocompromised hosts.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
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news-360info
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2024-05-27T18:22:32.821463
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Published on February 19, 2024
|
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"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"url": "https://360info.org/why-have-efforts-to-eradicate-tb-been-so-slow/",
"author": "Andreas Kupz, Harindra Sathkumara"
}
|
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