China Navy Ship (NS) Gaoyouhu taking part during the multinational naval exercise AMAN-25 in the Arabian Sea near Pakistan’s port city of Karachi on February 10, 2025.Photo: AFP/SUPPLIED
China is deploying a large number of naval and coast guard vessels across East Asian waters, at one point more than 100, in the largest maritime show of force to date, according to four sources and intelligence reports reviewed by Reuters.
China is in the middle of what is traditionally a busy season for military exercises, though the People’s Liberation Army has not made any announcements of large-scale officially named drills.
Still, the rise in activity is happening as China and Japan are in a diplomatic crisis after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said last month that a hypothetical Chinese attack on democratically-ruled Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.
Beijing has also been angered by an announcement last month by Taiwan President Lai Ching-te of an extra $40 billion in defence spending to counter China, which views the island as its own territory.
The Chinese ships have massed in waters stretching from the southern part of the Yellow Sea through the East China Sea and down into the contested South China Sea, as well as into the Pacific, according to four security officials in the region.
Their accounts were corroborated by intelligence reports from a country in the region, which detailed the deployment. Reuters reviewed the reports on condition it did not name the country.
As of Thursday morning, there are more than 90 Chinese ships operating in the region, coming down from more than 100 at one point earlier this week, the documents showed.
The operations exceed China’s mass naval deployment in December last year that prompted Taiwan to raise its alert level, the sources said.
Tsai Ming-yen, director-general of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, said on Wednesday that China is now in what is generally the most active season for its military drills.
As of Wednesday morning, China has four naval formations operating in the western Pacific, and Taiwan is keeping tabs on them, Tsai said, without giving details.
“So we must anticipate the enemy as broadly as possible and continue to watch closely for any changes in related activities,” he said, when asked if China could stage any new Taiwan-specific drills before the end of the year.
China’s defence and foreign ministries, as well as its Taiwan Affairs Office, did not respond to requests for comment.
Taiwan has a full and real-time grasp of the security situation in the Taiwan Strait and the broader region and “can ensure there are no concerns for national security”, Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement.
Taiwan will continue working closely with international partners to deter any unilateral actions that could threaten regional stability, she added.
‘Creating risk’
One of the officials, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation, said Beijing had begun dispatching a higher than usual number of ships to the region after November 14, when it summoned Japan’s ambassador to protest Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan.
“This goes far beyond China’s national defence needs and creates risks for all sides,” said the official briefed on the matter, adding Beijing was testing the responses in regional capitals with the “unprecedented” deployment.
Japan’s Self-Defense Forces declined to comment specifically about Chinese military movements, but said it did not assess that there had been a “sharp” increase in activities since November 14.
“Notwithstanding that point, it is believed that the Chinese military is seeking to enhance its ability to conduct operations in more distant maritime and air spaces through the strengthening of its naval power,” it said in a statement.
Together with warplanes, some of the Chinese vessels in the area have carried out mock attacks on foreign ships. They have also practised access-denial operations aimed at preventing outside forces from sending reinforcements in the event of a conflict, the source said.
Two other sources said countries in the region are tracking the development closely, but added they so far do not think the deployment carries significant risks.
“There’s a big outing,” one of those sources said. “But apparently just routine exercises.”
The number of Chinese ships near Taiwan, however, did not rise significantly, according to the first official and the intelligence reports.
-Reuters
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Cyclone Senyar hit South and Southeast Asian countries in late November. In Indonesia, the island of Sumatra, especially its northern parts, took the worst hit.
The storm set off flash floods and landslides that tore through towns, killed hundreds of people, and pushed thousands of families out of their homes. Many houses were submerged to their rooftops or swept away entirely, while rivers turned into sudden, violent torrents.
But this wasn’t just a natural disaster brought on by intense rain. Weather was only part of the story. The real damage occured when extreme rainfall collided with an already weakened ecosystem.
The result was a deadly catastrophe.
When forests are cleared and the land is degraded, the ecosystem loses its natural ability to act as a “sponge.” Rainwater that once slowly seeped into the forest floor now rushes over the land, turning into torrential runoff that crashes into people’s homes.
This is why the recent floods in Sumatra must be understood not only as a hydrometeorological phenomenon, but as a sign of ecosystem collapse: the soil–forest–water cycle is degrading, exacerbated by decades of deforestation and land-use change.
Healthy soil: A silent water absorber
Healthy soil works like a sponge. It is rich in organic matter and full of pores and channels created by roots and soil organisms. Well-maintained soil can absorb remarkably large volumes of water.
A forest is not only a collection of trees. It is a hydrological system whose functions extend from underground to the atmosphere. Plant roots create pathways for water to seep into the soil, the canopy slows the fall of rain, and leaf litter protects the surface from erosion. Trees absorb water from the soil and release it through transpiration, helping regulate humidity and rainfall patterns.
When forests are cleared for plantations, mining, or agricultural expansion, the soil’s capacity to absorb water collapses. The roots that once bound the soil decay. The soil loses its protection. Leaf litter disappears. Organic matter declines, the soil becomes compacted, eroded, and damaged.
As a result, the landscape loses its ability to absorb water, runoff increases, and slopes in hilly and mountainous regions become unstable. Meanwhile, rivers receive large amounts of water in a short time. When they cannot contain it, they overflow, triggering deadly floods.
In North Sumatra, the Batang Toru, a major river in the Tapanuli Selatan highlands, flows through one of the most biodiverse mountain ranges.
Its watershed provides water for irrigation, household use, fisheries, and micro-hydropower.
The surrounding tropical rainforest is the last primary forest block in this region, serving as home for a huge biodoversity and acting as a natural buffer against floods and landslides.
But this resilience is rapidly disappearing. The northern zone of Batang Toru, at 300–400 metres elevation, has been opened up for mining since 2010. Forest clearing for oil palm plantations continued until 2024.
Our latest satellite analysis shows that approximately 1,550 hectares of the forests in the area have lost their vegetation cover, leaving bare soil highly susceptible to erosion in the Batang Toru watershed.
Degraded slopes like these can no longer absorb rainfall or stabilise the watershed. Communities downstream become increasingly vulnerable when extreme storms hit.
In West Sumatra, a week earlier, relentless rainfall soaked Padang City. Rainfall intensity rose sharply: daily totals increased from 37 mm on 19 November to 145 mm on 27 November 2025, with total accumulation exceeding 770 mm. The soil finally gave way, unable to hold any more water in its pore network.
An estimated 152 hectares of forest have been lost in the upstream areas of the Batang Kuranji and Batang Aie Dingin rivers in Padang City. As a result, the entire water cycle has been disrupted. Groundwater recharge declined, surface runoff increased, and rivers turned “ferocious,” with surging discharge volumes that triggered flooding.
When rain falls, the water is clear. But during floods, it turns brownish-yellow or even black — a sign that eroded soil has been carried away by the flow.
Four days after the flash floods, the Batang Kuranji (19.68 km) and Batang Aie Dingin (14.27 km) rivers in Padang remained brownish-yellow, flowing rapidly towards Padang Beach.
Communities suffer the consequences, while coastal ecosystems become increasingly choked by sediment.
The four rivers in Padang originate in the Bukit Barisan Mountains, where their exposed soil surfaces easily wash away during heavy rain.
Ecosystem-based disaster adaptation
We often see deforestation and soil degradation as local issues. But the scale of the impacts shows that these problems carry national consequences.
As extreme rainfall becomes more frequent, every damaged watershed becomes a risk multiplier.
In areas with healthy soils and intact forests, storms can still cause damage, but the ecosystem absorbs part of the impact. In critically degraded areas, the same storm can escalate into a major disaster.
Taking the lesson from Sumatra, this shows that a climate resilience strategy cannot rely solely on levees, dams, or emergency responses. We must rebuild the ecological infrastructure that regulates water flow.
Maintaining the soil–forest–water relationship is essential for our safety — now and in the future.
Thus, we must protect remaining forests, especially headwater catchments and peatlands; restore degraded soils by increasing organic matter, expanding agroforestry, and promoting sustainable farming practices; and include soil-health and land-cover indicators in flood-risk planning.
Ecosystem-based adaptation, from reforestation to planting vegetation along riverbanks, must go hand in hand with engineered solutions.
If we only react to disasters without restoring the ecological buffers that prevent them, future floods will be even bigger and more deadly.
Extreme weather will always come. But we can reduce the impacts by restoring forests and improving the condition of the soils beneath our feet so that the next storm does not have to become the next tragedy.
Para penulis tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi di luar afiliasi akademis yang telah disebut di atas.
Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Marlize Lombard, Professor with Research Focus in Stone Age Archaeology, Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg
New genetic research is shedding light on some of the earliest chapters of our human history. In one of the largest studies of its kind, scientists analysed DNA from 28 individuals who lived in southern Africa between 10,200 and a few hundred years ago. The study provides more evidence that hunter-gatherers from southern Africa were some of the earliest modern human groups, with a genetic ancestry tracing back to about 300,000 years ago. Marlize Lombard, an archaeologist whose research focuses on the development of the human mind, breaks down the key findings.
Why did you study the DNA of ancient hunter-gatherers in southern Africa?
According to the genetic, palaeo-anthropological and archaeological evidence, modern humans – Homo sapiens – originated in Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago and then spread around the world. But the evolutionary process of exactly how, where and when this happened is debated.
Africa has the greatest human genetic diversity and the hunter-gatherers of southern Africa represent some of the oldest known genetic lineages. They can therefore reveal more about where and when we originated as a species.
After thousands of years of migration, modern African populations have a mixed genetic heritage. So their genomes are not very helpful for understanding our deep evolutionary history. For that, we need to look at genetic variation among individuals living before large-scale population movements on the continent.
In southern Africa, it means going back to before about 1,400-2,000 years ago. It also means that such rare ancient hunter-gatherer DNA can provide valuable information, not available in the DNA of living people.
What we specifically wanted to learn from the ancient southern African DNA was to which extent the biological and behavioural patterns we observe in the fossil and archaeological records were continuous and particular to the region.
For example, at a South African fossil-bearing site called Florisbad, we have a human skull dating to about 260,000 years ago that shows a possible transition from Homo heidelbergensis into Homo sapiens. And from about 100,000 years ago there was a rapid increase in technological innovations such as paint-making, glue-making and long-range weapon use.
We sequenced the DNA of 28 ancient individuals from what is now South Africa, all dating to the Holocene epoch that started about 11,700 years ago. DNA sequencing “reads” the order of the chemical base-pairs that make up an individual’s DNA. This helps us to reconstruct a person’s genome, or their complete set of genetic information. Among other things, it can tell us something about the individual’s biological and behavioural characteristics.
Eight of the individuals used to live near the coast at Matjes River, in today’s Western Cape province. Several others lived at inland sites across South Africa. We dated their remains with radiocarbon dating, finding that the oldest died about 10,200 years ago at Matjes River and the most recent died just 280 years ago in the Free State. (All DNA from archaeological contexts is scientifically known as ancient DNA.)
What did the DNA reveal?
Our study shows that the genetic makeup of the southern African hunter-gatherer population didn’t change much for 9,000 years across the whole of South Africa, not only in the southern Cape, even though their technologies and lifeways may have changed or differed during this time.
All ancient southern Africans dated to more than 1,400 years ago had some unique Homo sapiens genetic variations. The ancient DNA had genes associated with UV-light protection, skin diseases, and skin pigmentation. These could have been essential to life on southern Africa’s grasslands and fynbos. Among the genetic variants that were common to ancient and modern humans were genes related to kidney function (potentially connected to improved water-retention) and immune-system related genes.
About 40% of the ancient southern African genes are associated with neurons, brain growth and the way that human brains process information today. Some of these gene variants may have been involved in the evolution of how humans pay attention today. Attention is a cognitive or mental trait that seems to have evolved differently in African Homo sapiens compared to the now extinct Neanderthals and Denisovans from Eurasia. It may have played a role in the successful spread of Homo sapiens out of Africa after about 60,000 years ago.
What does this tell us about human evolution and population migration?
Our work shows that some biological adaptations for becoming modern humans were unique to southern African hunter-gatherers who lived in a relatively large, stable population for many thousands of years south of the Limpopo River.
Co-author and geneticist from Uppsala University in Sweden, Carina Schlebusch, commented that
Because we now have more unadmixed ancient genomes from southern Africa, we are gaining better population-level insights, and a much clearer foundation for understanding how modern humans evolved across Africa.
Our findings contrast with linguistic, archaeological and some early genetic studies pointing to a shared ancestry or long-term interaction between different regions of Africa. Instead, it seems that southern Africa may have offered humans a climate and landscape refuge where hunter-gatherers thrived, adapting to a place rich in plant and animal resources for 200,000 years or more. During this time, we see no genetic evidence for incoming populations. Instead, sometime after about 100,000-70,000 years ago, small groups of southern African hunter-gatherers may have wandered northwards, carrying with them some of their genetic and technological characteristics.
According to population geneticist Mattias Jakobsson at Uppsala University,
these ancient genomes tell us that southern Africa played a key role in the human journey, perhaps ‘the’ key role.
Up to now, humans seemed to have developed their modern anatomical (physical) form before they developed modern behaviour and thinking. Learning more about ancient genes could help to close this gap, especially once more becomes known from genetic studies of other ancient African forager groups, and indigenous peoples elsewhere on the globe.
Marlize Lombard works for the University of Johannesburg. She received funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa.
Flames engulf bamboo scaffolding across multiple buildings on November 26, 2025.Photo: Tyrone Siu/Reuters via CNN Newsource
Hong Kong authorities rushed on Thursday to remove mesh netting on all buildings undergoing renovation across the city after the material was blamed for fanning a blaze last week that has killed at least 159 people.
The government late on Wednesday ordered the immediate removal of scaffolding nets on all public and private residential buildings by Saturday, to “protect public safety and put residents and businesses’ minds at ease.”
The move comes as authorities investigate the cause of the city’s deadliest fire in decades, having pointed to the mesh for fuelling an inferno that engulfed seven high-rise apartment blocks at the Wang Fuk Court complex on November 26.
Thick smoke and flames rise as a major fire engulfs several apartment blocks at Wang Fuk Court in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on November 26, 2025. Four people died after multiple blocks in a Hong Kong residential estate went up in flames on November 26, with local media earlier reporting that some residents were trapped.Photo: Yan Zhao / AFP
Renovation work across the financial hub will effectively grind to a standstill for an undefined period of time as inspectors verify the netting meets safety standards.
At a housing estate in Sha Tin, around 15 minutes drive from the Wang Fuk complex, workers began dismantling protective netting on Thursday morning.
C.K. Lau, an 82 year old retiree living at the Sha Tin housing estate, said removing the nets reduced the chance of a similar type of incident.
“The residents feel better if they (the government) agree to take it down. So they agreed to take it down within this week.”
Police have arrested a total of 21 people in their probe into the fire.
Among them are 15 from various construction companies suspected of manslaughter, including two directors and an engineering consultant from Prestige Construction, the main contractor at Wang Fuk Court.
A further six from the fire service installation contractor have been arrested on suspicion of fraud.
Authorities said substandard plastic mesh and insulation foam used during renovation work at the doomed estate likely fuelled the 40-hour inferno, while fire alarms were also not operating properly.
A man looks at the aftermath of a major fire that swept through several apartment blocks at the Wang Fuk Court residential estate in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on 28 November, 2025.Photo: DALE DE LA REY / AFP
Residents of Wang Fuk Court, home to 4,600 people, were told by authorities last year they faced “relatively low fire risks” after they complained about fire hazards posed by the renovations, the city’s Labour Department said.
In response to calls for transparency and accountability, city leader John Lee has also ordered a judge-led committee to investigate the fire and review oversight of building renovations.
Contractors to bear cost of removal
More than 200 private buildings, along with more than 10 public housing and government buildings, will have to remove the netting, Development Secretary Bernadette Linn said on Wednesday, adding that contractors must bear the costs.
Hong Kong’s building department aims to issue a new code of practice next week, requiring all scaffold net materials to be sampled on site. The nets will only be installed after being certified by designated laboratories as compliant with relevant requirements.
Authorities are also investigating suspected false safety documents for netting from a Shandong, China-based manufacturer used at two renovation sites in the city.
Prestige, the main contractor at Wang Fuk Court, was involved in renovations work at one of those sites, according to authorities and notices at the site seen by Reuters.
Prestige did not respond to calls and letters left at their shuttered offices.
Of the 159 bodies found since the Wang Fuk Court blaze, authorities say 140 have been identified – 91 females and 49 males, aged between one and 97 years.
Residents check clothing donated for them after fire swept through several apartment blocks at the Wang Fuk Court residential estate in Hong Kong on 27 November 2025.Photo: AFP / Dale De la Rey
Foreign domestic helpers from Indonesia and the Philippines are among 31 people still missing.
More than 2,900 residents have been put in temporary accommodation, the government said, with 1,152 staying in hostels, camps or hotel rooms. Another 1,765 residents have moved into transitional housing units.
-Reuters
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Sydney motorists experienced lengthy delays following the closure of Sydney’s M4 on Thursday morning.Photo: ABC News
Drivers have been stuck in Sydney’s M4 tunnel for several hours over fears part of its concrete roofing could tumble onto traffic.
Transport for NSW said the motorway was closed to westbound traffic between Haberfield and North Strathfield on Thursday morning because of emergency roadworks.
Transurban, which owns and operates the tunnel, said one of three westbound lanes was in the process of being reopened.
Transport for NSW coordinator general Howard Collins said engineers found “a couple of large bulges” in the sprayed concrete lining, called shotcrete, of the tunnel roof overnight.
“[The engineers] were concerned that if there was a major issue with this shotcrete, it could fall on vehicles,” he said.
Mr Collins said the entire section would be closed again at 10pm tonight so further remedial work could be carried out.
‘Exorbitant’ delays
NSW Minister for Roads Jenny Aitchison said drivers had spent an “exorbitant amount of time” in the tunnel, with some reportedly waiting up to four hours inside.
“Ultimately, this is a failure of privatisation. This tunnel is privately operated,” she said.
Frustrated motorist Jonathan Cooper said he was stuck in the tunnel for more than an hour after leaving Glenmore Park.
“You could see everybody getting really anxious themselves, like nobody was letting anybody in,” he said.
Mr Cooper had been travelling to the airport this morning to meet family who had returned from a cruise.
He said communication about the incident should have been clearer on radio and LED traffic signs throughout the city.
“I wasn’t listening to the news or anything like that, and I shouldn’t have to rely on radio stations to tell me that there’s a problem in there,” he said.
“I think they need to consider how they’re going to fund everybody’s tolls for this morning, to have to pay for the privilege of sitting in traffic for an hour.”
Communication breakdown
Mr Collins criticised Transurban’s handling of the incident, saying there was a “frustrating” lack of communication from the company as the government tried to step in.
“We’ve offered engineers, all sorts of equipment. Unfortunately, those offers have not been readily accepted,” he said.
“It is frustrating. My crews and teams who really want to get people around the network did find it very difficult to get information from this organisation.
“We will investigate and work with the timelines, and go through this with Transurban, to ensure that motorists are not put through this pain again.”
Shadow Roads Minister Natalie Ward said the NSW government should have issued earlier warnings so drivers knew to avoid the motorway.
“Jenny Aitchison, as roads minister, should have been out there this morning communicating to motorists, not waiting until after her leisurely lunch,” she said.
“It’s not acceptable to blame everybody else when you are the roads minister.”
More delays expected
Despite the partial reopening of a single westbound lane, Transurban has warned drivers to expect delays this afternoon and to avoid the area.
Transurban said in a statement one of the westbound lanes would be reopened on Thursday afternoon, with the rest of the tunnel to reopen “as soon as it is safe to do so”.
“Two of the three lanes in that small section of the tunnel between Haberfield to Homebush will remain closed,” the statement said
“Motorists are advised to expect delays this afternoon and avoid the area if possible.”
The toll-road operator said planned maintenance closures on Thursday night would go ahead with reopening expected on Friday morning.
Motorists affected by the traffic gridlock have been offered a refund by contacting Linkt on 133 331 or its app.
-ABC
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Remember when Twitter used to be good? I reckon it peaked somewhere around the first COVID lockdowns.
In those days, there was a running gag on the site where everyone would refer to it as a “hellscape”. And it did invite some of the worst that humanity has to offer. Opinions, as the old joke goes, are like assholes: everybody has one.
But if you curated your Twitter feed effectively, you could have immediate scrolling access to the best journalism and cultural commentary, excellent podcasts and comedians, film criticism and book reviews, the latest trends in food, music or clothing, decent information about public health, live stream feeds of smart people on the ground at the most pressing events of the day, not to mention the wisecracks and insights of your friends.
It was like being perpetually part of an in-crowd. The promise of a world where potentially anyone could feel connected, in touch, popular.
Review: Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It – Cory Doctorow (Verso)
Then came the rumours that the increasingly fascist-curious Elon Musk was scheming to buy the platform. Not possible, we thought at first. It would be a terrible business decision. And anyone interesting or important would flee overnight.
Then Musk did buy Twitter, horribly rebranding it as X. Then we speculated (or hoped) it would drive him bankrupt. Then it didn’t. Then, through deliberate and explicit effort, it went to shit.
Musk decided he would raise money by selling the coveted blue-checks, a form of authentication previously reserved for those who had developed their influence organically. He changed the algorithm to reflect his own views and fired moderators tasked with weeding out misinformation and hate speech. As a result, the platform formerly known as Twitter was soon full of ads, gore, porn, toxicity, AI slop and scams of all variety.
Yet, as if trapped by their established followings or perhaps some contagious fear of missing out, people stayed. Calls to migrate en masse to other liberal-coded platforms largely failed.
For some reason, this logic seems to be taking over all social media, even the internet itself. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, Google, Apple, Uber, Spotify: everything turns to shit. And no one is able to escape.
To paraphrase a song about another way we get trapped by misplaced desires: welcome to the Hotel Crapifornia. You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.
An inhuman nightmare
In 2022, Canadian journalist, novelist and activist Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe the degeneration of the internet.
Back when the internet was good, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Doctorow was every hipster’s hero. His blog Boing Boing was required reading for anyone interested in emerging technologies. If you wanted to be recognised as cool, you entered the coffee shop conspicuously carrying a copy of his latest book. It seemed that no one knew more about where technology had come from, and where it was likely to go. He was our prophet.
His 2003 novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, for example, was a dystopian story of a post-scarcity world where monetary currency had been replaced with what Doctorow called “whuffie” – essentially a measure of how much others respect you.
This was just before social media stormed into all our lives, with its vertiginous economy of likes and followers, attention and influence.
All these years later, Doctorow’s Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It is an attempt to explain how the great dream of the internet – its powerful democratising potential, its incredible capacity to generate human communities and circulate human knowledge – turned into an inhuman nightmare.
We were offered a world of connection and cooperation – an open-source paradise of instant and free access, liberated from the fetters of both corporate ownership and state control.
What we got was a world of ruthless monopolies and oligarchs who control a colossal surveillance apparatus capable of tracking our most private behaviours, producing a population of powerless, compliant consumers – people who have no choice but to keep using their abysmally bad products, because there is nowhere else to go.
Prisoners of our own devices
“Enshittification” is not just a clever term for the grumpy complaint of an ageing Gen-X tech-head. Doctorow wants to develop it as a formal concept that explains the process by which internet platforms, applications and innovations go from being loved by their users to being despised.
Beginning with the case studies of Facebook, Amazon and the iPhone, then expanding out to more or less every platform on the internet, Doctorow proposes that enshittification has three basic stages.
First, platforms are good to their users. People genuinely want to participate. A community develops, but not much profit is made.
Second, in an effort to monetise this new community, platforms are good to companies. They offer them access to markets through advertising or shipping or proprietary arrangements.
Finally, they find a way to screw over those business customers as well as their users to claw all excess value back for themselves.
That is how we arrived at what Doctorow calls “a giant pile of shit”.
Amazon is the easiest example to explain. It started by providing a service that people wanted: fast cheap delivery of products. It then attracted business customers by providing a means to increase profit and market share.
But then, like a medieval warlord, it crushed all competition and used its market dominance to compel tributes from its business customers, in the form of fees that absorbed and exceeded whatever extra profit they may have made in the first place.
At this point, Amazon has absolutely no reason to improve its service. In fact, in order to siphon off even more value by cutting costs, it has every reason to make its service worse.
For Doctorow, the problem is not that some or many internet platforms follow this kind of enshittifying procedure; it is that almost all of them do. And given the ubiquity of the internet in our daily lives, particularly with the advent of the smartphone, our entire world has become enshittified.
We are now in what Doctorow calls the “enshittoscene”. To return to the musical reference mentioned above: we are all just prisoners here, of our own devices.
As Doctorow notes, it is easy to predict how the tiny handful of ghouls who benefit from this situation are likely to respond. Well, they are going to say, it might not be great, but that’s capitalism. And as everyone knows, capitalism is the worst system, except for all the others.
But Doctorow refuses to accept the familiar neoliberal logic of “there is no alternative”, because members of his generation (which also happens to be mine) know this is a sham. We know there is an alternative, because we have seen it with our own eyes. The internet was not always shit. It used to be good. And it could be good again.
Doctorow’s proposals for recreating a good internet – one that combines the autonomy and choice of the old internet with the mass scale of the current shit internet – are fourfold: competition, regulation, interoperability and tech-worker power.
In the first instance, Doctorow insists that the internet today is not capitalist at all. Following the economist Yanis Varoufakis, he calls it “technofeudalist”. Like medieval landlords, the tech overlords don’t make money in the enshittoscene by creating or circulating new products. They make it by owning the platforms for the creation or circulation of products and compelling everyone else to rent space on those platforms.
Smashing these rentier monopolies and opening spaces for healthy competition is step one. But doing so will require robust antitrust regulations, which can break the near-monopolies enjoyed by tech companies like Google and prevent anti-competitive corporate mergers. Avenues for enshittification must be shut down by law and this must be coordinated at an international level.
These laws must guarantee the interoperability of all technological systems. Currently, one of the most expensive fluids on planet earth is HP printer ink. HP sets the price unilaterally, because they construct their printers so that no other ink cartridges will work.
In the enshittoscene, the principle of anti-interoperability spreads across nearly all platforms and products. But regulation could ensure that all technological operating systems are compatible with one another, just as regulation ensures that household electronic devices are compatible with uniform powerpoints.
Finally, and most importantly, the people who work in tech industries can be empowered to realise the ethos of collaboration and innovation that, by and large, they share. For the truth is, Doctorow suggests, that most of the people who actually do the work in the enshittoscene – those who build and manage the platforms – hate it as much as the users do. And empowering them would go a long way towards empowering all of us.
Charles Barbour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The first half of Stranger Things’ (2016–) final season has received almost 60 million views in five days – making it Netflix’s largest ever English language debut. But the reception has been marred by controversies surrounding actor David Harbour, who plays Jim Hopper, an ex-police chief in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana.
Harbour has been the subject of pop culture news for several weeks now, following the release of ex-partner Lily Allen’s new album. The pair separated in December, 2024, after four years together.
A little over a month ago, Allen released West End Girl – her first full-length album in seven years. It’s a blistering critique of her former partner, and accuses him of cheating during their marriage.
Online, Stranger Things viewershavepointedout they can no longer view Hopper – one of the “good guys” on the show – the way they did before Allen’s accusations surfaced.
The line between public and private
The public’s reaction to the couple’s highly-publicised separation is an interesting case study into how social media platforms now shape celebrity culture.
Both Allen and Harbour are successful in their respective fields and have large online followings. They are connected to fans who appreciate their work – many of whom are invested in their personal lives.
And while such parasocial relationships between stars and fans have existed since the dawn of Hollywood, social media platforms are reconstructing what can be defined as “public” and “publicity” – as well as the counterpoints of “private” and “privacy”.
Today’s platforms use algorithms to amplify subtle behaviours, interactions and personal qualities in celebrities that may have once flown under the radar. Putting the magnifying glass on stars in this way helps us feel “closer” to them – further blurring the line between the person and their onscreen personas.
And this inability to separate both explains why numerous stars through the decades have opted to keep certain aspects of their identity (such as their sexuality) hidden.
Two top-rated comments made under an Instagram post promoting Allen’s new album. Instagram
A social media golden girl
Allen has used Instagram (where she has about two million followers) and TikTok (420,000 followers) to get word of her new album out. It’s clear from her promotional material – and her history with social media – that she knows how to leverage an online audience.
Allen was already a hit on MySpace back in 2006. She had tens of thousands of “friends” on the then-ubiquitous platform, and sold about four million copies of her album Alright, Still (2006) in the first week of its release.
Harbour also has a huge online presence, including some 8.4 million Instagram followers. Interestingly, though, he has been relatively silent about the breakdown of his marriage.
He is now also the subject of headlines focused on allegations, first published in a Daily Mail report, that Stranger Things co-star Millie Bobby Brown filed a bullying and harassment complaint against him before filming began in 2024.
In the recent press tour, Brown told outlets she “felt safe” and has a “great relationship” with Harbour. Still, the initial Daily Mail report seems to have taken root in coverage surrounding the tour.
A new age of celebrity
Stardom has been transformed in the era of social media.
One question now is figuring out the extent to which scandals that are amplified by social media actually impact celebrities’ careers, and how this compares to coverage in the pre-social media age. If fans start to see Harbour as a “bad guy” because of the press and social media chatter, will this affect the quantity or types of roles he gets in the future?
And is it acceptable for social media platforms and influential users to have such outsized power in driving pop culture narratives?
On one hand, fans arguably deserve to know the character of the artists they choose to support. On the other, it’s concerning to think tabloids such as the Daily Mail could potentially derail someone’s career using unverified reports and unnamed sources.
David Marshall is an emeritus professor at Deakin University. He is also an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham – Ningbo China and Co-chair of the Power of Prestige (PoP) research conference. In addition, he is one of the founders/editors of the journal Persona Studies and M/C Journal: Media and Culture.
Myanmar’s military regime has announced elections will be held in three phases, starting on December 28 and concluding in January.
Two outcomes are certain: first, the military-aligned party will be recorded as winning and, second, the government in exile – the National Unity Government – will fade even further into the background.
In the close to five years since the military seized power in February 2021, the country has been engulfed in a civil war, with the military pitted against People’s Defence Forces and numerous ethnic armed organisations. Thousands of resistance protestors, fighters and politicians, including President Win Myint and the ever-popular leader Aung San Suu Kyi, remain imprisoned.
The military controls the levers of government and holds all the major population centres. But its brutal air, artillery and drone attacks have failed to crush the resistance. The resistance has captured large swathes of territory, restricting the upcoming elections to only 274 of the nation’s 330 townships (constituencies).
Inside and outside the country, the elections are seen as a sham. The military-stacked Union Election Commission has deregistered political parties for failing to meet criteria it has set, such as having a certain number of party members or offices. It has also dissolved Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.
Citizens criticising the election on social media have been sentenced for up to seven years in prison with hard labour. For some offences, the death penalty applies.
The elections are an attempt to gain the legitimacy, at home and abroad, that currently eludes the military regime. They are designed to demonstrate authority and give an impression of effective control. By simulating compliance with international democratic norms, the regime hopes to promote a sense of normalcy, consolidate power and open the door to greater international engagement, all the while preserving the status quo.
The National Unity Government living in exile and a myriad of its international supporters are calling on the international community to not send election observers. Instead, they want the world to denounce the sham election.
ASEAN leaders are insisting that a cessation of violence and inclusive political dialogue precede elections. They have rebuffed an invitation to send observers.
The best the regime could hope for is that some individual ASEAN member states join Russia and Belarus in sending observers. However Thailand, the most ambivalent ASEAN member, which has argued the election should serve as a foundation for a sustainable peace process, is now saying it will be difficult for ASEAN re-engage with Myanmar. China is believed to be supportive of elections, but has not committed publicly to sending observers.
Continued Western ostracism won’t matter to the junta, for whom regional legitimacy is more important than either domestic or Western legitimacy.
Neighbouring countries are concerned about peace and stability on their borders, high levels of irregular migration, the impact of unregulated mining that pollutes rivers flowing through their countries, the flourishing production and trade in heroin and methamphetamine, and the proliferation of cyber scam centres enslaving and defrauding their citizens.
Citizens of these countries demand their governments address these issues, and the elections will make contact with the regime more defensible. It won’t be a case, as it was before, of competing views on whether engagement or isolation is the better way to bring about reform in Myanmar.
This time, there will be no delusions about reform. Rather, neighbours will be concerned with their national interest agenda, and will ride out any accusations of appeasement and complicity in atrocity crimes. After all, authoritarian elections and dealing with authoritarian regimes is not unusual in Southeast Asia.
It would be a mistake to see the elections in 2025–26 as a re-run of the 2010 elections. Those elections were held under the 2008 constitution, which ushered in a reformist government led by a former general.
The elections will not be a transition to civilian or parliamentary rule. Nor will they be an exit ramp for coup leader Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing. To ensure his own safety, he will want to remain in a role where the apparatus of the state will protect, not prosecute, him.
The elections will be a sham, but they will usher in changes to the military line-up. The current commander will no doubt become president and choose a compliant military officer as his replacement as commander-in-chief. The parliament will be dominated by the military and military-aligned parties.
In the immediate aftermath of the election, it will be hard to see any change in the fear and violence that are the tools of choice for regime survival.
However, under Myanmar’s tattered constitution, the military commander is not answerable to any civilian authority, even the president. Min Aung Hlaing’s replacement might at some point become his own man and favour a negotiated end to the conflict.
That is, the elections open the possibility of some diffusion of power. Although this seems unlikely now, it may be better to have this (albeit remote) possibility rather than no election and a continuation of the status quo – a brutal military dictatorship and relentless war of attrition.
The National Unity Government in exile needs to engage with the reality that elections will be held, bringing the junta greater regional engagement, rather than wishing for some imagined day of meaningful international support. Otherwise, it could fade even further into the background.
Nicholas Coppel is affiliated with the Australia Myanmar Institute, a not-for-profit group, and is a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar.
Flood management is a priority for many governments around the world. Recent floods have led to hundreds of deaths and caused significant damage in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Albania, Kenya and elsewhere.
While many scientific and technical reports show that floods are becoming larger and more common, these reports may be underestimating how their frequency is changing. Flood sizes get the spotlight, however governments and experts need to also consider their frequency to address implications overlooked by traditional management methods.
The consequences are severe. We can build infrastructure like dikes and dams bigger so they withstand larger once-in-a-century floods. But if we don’t capture how floods of all sizes (including the 100- and 200-year events) are becoming way more common, infrastructure can weaken and fail faster than we expect.
In our recently published study, we examined a range of scientific, technical and governmental documents to assess whether practices today help us reliably predict flood risks. We found that many of the factors contributing to the severity of a flood could respond much more strongly to climate and landscape changes than traditional methods imply, calling for change in our flood prediction practices.
Nature’s flood “ingredients” include rainfall, snow, soil wetness and energy for snowmelt, which combine in many “recipes” to trigger floods. Human influences like climate change, land use and land cover changes can alter these recipes, making floods bigger and more common. Understanding how human activity causes these effects on floods means predicting flood frequency and size together.
However, short flood records make it difficult to estimate the frequency and size of large floods. Without overcoming this challenge, assessments can produce unreliable results.
These practices together produced a widespread perception in risk assessments where flood sizes rise rapidly, or steeply, per change in frequency (called a “heavier tail”).
To make reliable flood projections, we first need to identify a region’s natural flood frequencies and sizes, and which climate and landscape features drive them. With this solid baseline, we can determine how human activities shift flood frequencies and sizes, if floods are sensitive to human influence and what this means for society.
By adopting stronger practices, our study predicts that many regions could see very different frequency-size relations: flood sizes could increase more slowly per change in frequency.
It signals a more “fragile,” or super sensitive, flood regime than what current methods imply. When we disturb the climate or landscape, large floods can react strongly; they become much more common, reflecting what we see in many places today.
This knowledge can help governments effectively manage the land while mitigating major jumps in flood frequency.
Effective flood management must include strong policies, nature-based solutions, and infrastructure designed for size and strength to withstand both larger and more frequent floods.
In B.C., landscape features like mountains, forests, lakes, wetlands and floodplains spread out floods, lowering their peaks and making large events rarer. However, these same features make floods react strongly to changes in the climate and landscape.
Flood risk management must work with nature, maintaining or increasing the landscapes’ ability to store floodwaters. Our policies must address flood risk at the source through effective land management, recognizing that key causes of urban floods could lie thousands of kilometres away in the distant uplands. With strong policies and interventions both upstream and downstream, we can proactively manage floods.
Samadhee Kaluarachchi receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, the Gordon and Nora Bailey Fellowship in Sustainable Forestry, and the Mary and David Macaree Fellowship.
Younes Alila receives funding from Mitacs Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emma Humphries, Research Fellow, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen’s University Belfast
“Pink goes good with green.” This is a lesson we learned from Glinda (Ariana Grande) in Wicked part one. But do you remember the line that comes after that?
“Goes well with green.”
A small, easily missed comment from the green-skinned outsider Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), but one that reveals something important about language and common usage. Hierarchies of “correct” and “incorrect” language are not just found in grammar books and classrooms, but in popular culture too.
From “holding space” to “sex cardigans”, Wicked continues to dominate popular culture, but one thing that has been overlooked is Elphaba’s insistence on correct language.
In the first film, we see Elphaba ostracised and eventually positioned as public enemy number one by the Oz propaganda machine. From the film’s very opening, a flashforward to citizens celebrating Elphaba’s death, her unpopularity is made clear in the song No One Mourns The Wicked.
One way in which the filmmakers signal Elphaba’s unlikeability is through her often awkward, borderline rude social encounters, including when she first meets her frenemy, Glinda. It’s safe to say that the two characters don’t hit it off and Elphaba’s correction seems to upset Glinda.
Glinda: I could care less what others think.
Elphaba: Couldn’t.
Glinda: What?
Elphaba: You couldn’t care less what other people think. Though, I … I doubt that.
In the land of Oz, where people “pronuncify” and “rejocify”, are “disgusticified” and “moodified”, Elphaba’s comments demonstrate the idea that there is only one correct way to use language and that incorrect language should be corrected.
From stage to cinema
Elphaba’s corrections are not in the original stage musical. They were added to the film. The adaptation of a stage show for film offers an opportunity to modernise and change parts of the story that have been controversial or become outdated.
One excellent example of this in Wicked is its improvement of the stage show’s depiction of disability. The addition of language policing, however, is more disappointing. Because when we correct someone’s language, it’s about much more than the words themselves.
Correcting language is not neutral. When we place value on using language correctly, those who fall short often find themselves judged and discriminated against.
The policing of correct language can be seen as a gatekeeping tool, deciding who belongs and who is excluded. This has inevitable consequences for diversity. The way we speak, write and sign can reflect many aspects of our identities: where and how we grew up, our gender, age and race.
Rules and rebellion
With the run time of the films almost doubling that of the stage show, there is much more time devoted to character development in the films. Elphaba’s language pedantry has been added to demonstrate how she can rub people up the wrong way. However, it also suggests an adherence to authority and to socially constructed rules that stands in contrast to her character more broadly.
Elphaba is an outsider who starts the film wanting to be “degreenified”, but by the end of Wicked part one and as a main storyline in Wicked: For Good, she is willing to sacrifice her safety and reputation to do what is morally right, rather than what is socially acceptable.
Adherence to the strict rules of correct language suggests the opposite: a tendency to want to be accepted and to uphold the societal status quo. Elphaba resists social norms in every other respect, yet the film makes her a standard grammar enforcer.
Given that this trait is absent from part two, rather than undermining her personality as a resister, perhaps this further signals Elphaba’s journey from wishing to fit in to fully embracing her outsider status. Indeed, Elphaba’s insistence on correctness speaks to a broader challenge facing anyone positioned as an outsider: having to work that much harder to be accepted.
Glinda’s (famous) need to be popular and her interests in social climbing align with traits of a language enforcer, yet her behaviour tells a different story. She corrects language only once and it concerns her original name, Galinda. When Dr Dillamond, a professor at Shiz University – who also happens to be a goat – struggles to pronounce the “gah” in Galinda, Glinda corrects his pronunciation and berates him.
This moment, present in both the stage musical and the film, does not reflect a desire to uphold the prescriptive rules of the language, but rather a personal motivation. Glinda’s name is central to her self-image and public persona, and protecting that matters to her.
Beyond Oz
In an era when equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives are being rolled back, and languages other than English face renewed marginalisation, Wicked offers a case study in how linguistic hierarchies operate under the radar of popular culture. But there are plenty other examples. Think about Ross in Friends, Ted in How I Met Your Mother and Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory – all notorious language correctors.
Elphaba’s corrections are more than just a shorthand to signal an abrasive character. They reflect the linguistic hierarchies and gatekeeping that exist beyond Oz. Using language “correctly” is a marker of belonging and shows adherence to societal norms.
Across the two films, Elphaba moves from wanting to conform and erase a stigmatised part of her identity, her skin colour, towards rebellion against convention. It’s clear she questions blind adherence to political power, but perhaps this extends further to questioning the rules we construct around language.
Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
Emma Humphries receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust and is currently employed by Queen’s University Belfast.
