Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jennifer Power, Principal Research Fellow, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University

Last week, scientists announced the birth of eight healthy babies in the United Kingdom conceived with DNA from three people. Some headlines have called it “three-person IVF”.

The embryo uses the DNA from the egg and sperm of the intended father and mother, as well as cells from the egg of a second woman (the donor).

This process – known as mitochondrial replacement therapy – allows women with certain genetic disorders to conceive a child without passing on their condition.

While it’s raised broader questions about “three-parent” babies, it’s not so simple. Here’s why it’s unlikely this development will transform the diverse ways LGBTQ+ people are already making families.

What this technology is – and isn’t

The UK became the first country in the world to allow mitochondrial donation for three-person embryos ten years ago, in 2015.

In other countries, such donations are banned or strictly controlled. In Australia, a staged approach to allow mitochondrial donation was introduced in 2022. Stage one will involve clinical trials to determine safety and effectiveness, and establish clear ethical guidelines for donations.

These restrictions are based on political and ethical concerns about the use of human embryos for research, the unknown health impact on children, and the broader implications of allowing genetic modification of human embryos.

There are also concerns about the ethical or legal implications of creating babies with “three parents”.

Carefully and slowly considering these ethical issues is clearly important. But it’s inaccurate to suggest this process creates three parents.

First, the amount of DNA the donor provides is tiny, only 0.1% of the baby’s DNA. The baby will not share any physical characteristics with the donor.

While it is significant that two women’s DNA has been used in creating an embryo, it doesn’t mean lesbian couples will be rushing to access this particular in vitro fertilisation (IVF) technology.

This technique is only used for people affected by mitochondrial disease and is closely regulated. It is not available more widely and in Australia, is not yet available even for this use.

Second, while biological lineage is an important part of many people’s identity and sense of self, DNA alone does not make a parent.

As many adoptive, foster and LGBTQ+ parents will attest, parenting is about love, connection and everyday acts of care for a child.

How do rainbow families use IVF?

Existing IVF is already expensive and medically invasive. Many fertility services offer a range of additional treatments purported to aid fertility, but extra interventions add more costs and are not universally recommended by doctors.

While many lesbian couples and single women use fertility services to access donor sperm, not everyone will need to use IVF.

Less invasive fertilisation techniques, such as intrauterine insemination, may be available for women without fertility problems. This means inserting sperm directly into the uterus, rather than fertilising an egg in a clinic and then implanting that embryo.

Same-sex couples who have the option to create a baby with a sperm donor they know – rather than from a register – may also choose home-based insemination, the proverbial turkey baster. This is a cheaper and more intimate way to conceive and many women prefer a donor who will have some involvement in their child’s life.

In recent years, “reciprocal” IVF has also grown in popularity among lesbian couples. This means an embryo is created using one partner’s egg, and the other partner carries it.

Reciprocal IVF’s popularity suggests biology does play a role for LGBTQ+ women in conceiving a baby. When both mothers share a biological connection to the child, it may help overcome stigmatisation of “non-birth” mothers as less legitimate.

But biology is by no means the defining feature of rainbow families.

LGBTQ+ people are already parents

The 2021 census showed 17% of same-sex couples had children living with them; among female same-sex couples it was 28%. This is likely an underestimate, as the census only collects data on couples that live together.

Same-sex couples often conceive children using donor sperm or eggs, and this may involve surrogacy. But across the LGBTQ+ community, there are diverse ways people become parents.

Same-sex couples are one part of the LGBTQ+ community. Growing numbers of trans and non-binary people are choosing to carry a baby (as gestational parents), as well as single parents who use donors or fertility services. Many others conceive children through sex, including bi+ people or others who conceive within a relationship.

While LGBTQ+ people can legally adopt children in Australia, adoption is not common. However, many foster parents are LGBTQ+.

When they donate eggs or sperm to others, some LGBTQ+ people may stay involved in the child’s life as a close family friend or co-parent.

Connection and care, not DNA

While mitochondrial replacement therapy is a remarkable advance in gene technology, it is unlikely to open new pathways to parenthood for LGBTQ+ people in Australia.

Asserting the importance of families based on choice – not biology or what technology is available – has been crucial to the LGBTQ+ community’s story and to rainbow families’ fight to be recognised.

Decades of research now shows children raised by same-sex couples do just as well as any other child. What matters is parents’ consistency, love and quality of care.

Jennifer Power receives funding from the Australian Department of Health, Disability and Aged Care and the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Here’s why 3-person embryos are a breakthrough for science – but not LGBTQ+ families – https://theconversation.com/heres-why-3-person-embryos-are-a-breakthrough-for-science-but-not-lgbtq-families-261462

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nathan Cooper, Associate Professor of Law, University of Waikato

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will issue a highly anticipated advisory opinion overnight to clarify state obligations related to climate change.

It will answer two urgent questions: what are the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate and environment from greenhouse gas emissions, and what are the legal consequences for states that have caused significant harm to Earth’s atmosphere and environment?

ICJ advisory opinions are not legally binding. But coming from the world’s highest court, they provide an authoritative opinion on serious issues that can be highly persuasive.

This advisory opinion marks the culmination of a campaign that began in 2019 when students and youth organisations in Vanuatu – one of the most vulnerable nations to climate-related impacts – persuaded their government to seek clarification on what states should be doing to protect them.

Led by Vanuatu and co-sponsored by 132 member states, including New Zealand and Australia, the United Nations General Assembly formally requested the advisory opinion in March 2023.

More than two years of public consultation and deliberation ensued, leading to this week’s announcement.

What to expect

Looking at the specific questions to be addressed, at least three aspects stand out.

First, the sources and areas of international law under scrutiny are not confined to the UN’s climate change framework. This invites the ICJ to consider a broad range of law – including trans-boundary environmental law, human rights law, international investment law, humanitarian law, trade law and beyond – and to draw on both treaty-related obligations and customary international law.

Such an encyclopaedic examination could produce a complex and integrated opinion on states’ obligations to protect the environment and climate system.

Second, the opinion will address what obligations exist, not just to those present today, but to future generations. This follows acknowledgement of the so-called “intertemporal characteristics” of climate change in recent climate-related court decisions and the need to respond effectively to both the current climate crisis and its likely ongoing consequences.

Third, the opinion won’t just address what obligations states have, but also what the consequences should be for nations:

where they, by their acts and omissions have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment.

Addressing consequences as well as obligations should cause states to pay closer attention and make the ICJ’s advisory more relevant to domestic climate litigation and policy discussions.

Global judicial direction

Two recent court findings may offer clues as to the potential scope of the ICJ’s findings.

Earlier this month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights published its own advisory opinion on state obligations in response to climate change.

Explicitly connecting fundamental human rights with a healthy ecosystem, this opinion affirmed states have an imperative duty to prevent irreversible harm to the climate system. Moreover, the duty to safeguard the common ecosystem must be understood as a fundamental principle of international law to which states must adhere.

Meanwhile last week, an Australian federal court dismissed a landmark climate case, determining that the Australian government does not owe a duty of care to Torres Strait Islanders to protect them from the consequences of climate change.

The court accepted the claimants face significant loss and damage from climate impacts and that previous Australian government policies on greenhouse gas emissions were not aligned with the best science to limit climate change. But it nevertheless determined that “matters of high or core government policy” are not subject to common law duties of care.

Whether the ICJ will complement the Inter-American court’s bold approach or opt for a more constrained and conservative response is not certain. But now is the time for clear and ambitious judicial direction with global scope.

Implications for New Zealand

Aotearoa New Zealand aspires to climate leadership through its Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019. This set 2050 targets of reducing emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide) to net zero, and biogenic methane by 25-47%.

However, actions to date are likely insufficient to meet this target. Transport emissions continue to rise and agriculture – responsible for nearly half of the country’s emissions – is lightly regulated.

Although the government plans to double renewable energy by 2050, it is also in the process of lifting a 2018 ban on offshore gas exploration and has pledged $200 million to co-invest in the development of new fields.

Critics also point out the government has made little progress towards its promise to install 10,000 EV charging stations by 2030 while axing a clean-investment fund.

Although a final decision is yet to be made, the government is also considering to lower the target for cuts to methane emissions from livestock, against advice from the Climate Change Commission.

With the next global climate summit coming up in November, the ICJ opinion may offer timely encouragement for states to reconsider their emissions targets and the ambition of climate policies.

Most countries have yet to submit their latest emissions reduction pledges (known as nationally determined contributions) under the Paris Agreement. New Zealand has made its pledge, but it has been described as “underwhelming”. This may present a chance to adjust ambition upwards.

If the ICJ affirms that states have binding obligations to prevent climate harm, including trans-boundary impacts, New Zealand’s climate change policies and progress to date could face increased legal scrutiny.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Do countries have a duty to prevent climate harm? The world’s highest court is about to answer this crucial question – https://theconversation.com/do-countries-have-a-duty-to-prevent-climate-harm-the-worlds-highest-court-is-about-to-answer-this-crucial-question-261396

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sara Webb, Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology

On July 1, astronomers spotted an unusual high-speed object zooming towards the Sun. Dubbed 3I/ATLAS, the surprising space traveller had one very special quality: its orbit showed it had come from outside our Solar System.

For only the third time ever, we had discovered a true interstellar visitor. And it was weird.

3I/ATLAS breaking records

3I/ATLAS appeared to be travelling at 245,000 kilometres per hour, making it the fastest object ever detected in our Solar System.

It was also huge. Early estimates suggest the object could be up to 20km in size. Finally, scientists believe it may even be older than our Sun.

Could it be alien?

Our first assumption when we see something in space is that it’s a lump of rock or ice. But the strange properties of 3I/ATLAS have suggested to some that it may be something else entirely.

Harvard astrophysics professor Avi Loeb and colleagues last week uploaded a paper titled Is the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Alien Technology? to the arXiv preprint server. (The paper has not yet been peer reviewed.)

Loeb is a controversial figure among astronomers and astrophysicists. He has previously suggested that the first known interstellar object, 1I/ʻOumuamua, discovered in 2017, may also have been an alien craft.

Among other oddities Loeb suggests may be signs of deliberate alien origin, he notes the orbit of 3I/ATLAS takes it improbably close to Venus, Mars and Jupiter.

We’ve sent out our own alien probes

The idea of alien probes wandering the cosmos may sound strange, but humans sent out a few ourselves in the 1970s. Both Voyager 1 and 2 have officially left our Solar System, and Pioneer 10 and 11 are not far behind.

So it’s not a stretch to think that alien civilisations – if they exist – would have launched their own galactic explorers.

However, this brings us to a crucial question: short of little green men popping out to say hello, how would we actually know if 3I/ATLAS, or any other interstellar object, was an alien probe?

Detecting alien probes 101

The first step to determining whether something is a natural object or an alien probe is of course to spot it.

Most things we see in our Solar System don’t emit light of their own. Instead, we only see them by the light they reflect from the Sun.

Larger objects generally reflect more sunlight, so they are easier for us to see. So what we see tends to be larger comets and asteroid, especially farther from Earth.

It can be very difficult to spot smaller objects. At present, we can track objects down to a size of ten or 20 metres out as far from the Sun as Jupiter.

Our own Voyager probes are about ten metres in size (if we include their radio antennas). If an alien probe was similar, we probably wouldn’t spot it until it was somewhere in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.

If we did spot something suspicious, to figure out if it really were a probe or not we would look for a few telltales.

First off, because a natural origin is most likely, we would look for evidence that no aliens were involved. One clue in this direction might be if the object were emitting a “tail” of gas in the way that comets do.

However, we might also want to look for hints of alien origin. One very strong piece of evidence would be any kind of radio waves coming from the probe as a form of communication. This is assuming the probe was still in working order, and not completely defunct.

We might also look for signs of electrostatic discharge caused by sunlight hitting the probe.

Another dead giveaway would be signs of manoeuvring or propulsion. An active probe might try to correct its course or reposition its antennas to send and receive signals to and from its origin.

And a genuine smoking gun would be an approach to Earth in a stable orbit. Not to brag, but Earth is genuinely the most interesting place in the Solar System – we have water, a healthy atmosphere, a strong magnetic field and life. A probe with any decision-making capacity would likely want to investigate and collect data about our interesting little planet.

We may never know

Without clear signs one way or the other, however, it may be impossible to know if some interstellar objects are natural or alien-made.

Objects like 3I/ATLAS remind us that space is vast, strange, and full of surprises. Most of them have natural explanations. But the strangest objects are worth a second look.

For now, 3I/ATLAS is likely just an unusually fast, old and icy visitor from a distant system. But it also serves as a test case: a chance to refine the way we search, observe and ask questions about the universe.

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

– ref. Could the latest ‘interstellar comet’ be an alien probe? Why spotting cosmic visitors is harder than you think – https://theconversation.com/could-the-latest-interstellar-comet-be-an-alien-probe-why-spotting-cosmic-visitors-is-harder-than-you-think-261656

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Julian Savulescu, Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, The University of Melbourne

A young woman needs an abortion and the reasons, while urgent, are not medical. A United States Navy nurse at Guantánamo Bay is ordered to force-feed a defiant detainee on hunger strike.

These very different real-life cases have one connecting thread: the question of whether a health professional can conscientiously object to carrying out a patient’s request.

Freedom of conscience is often held up as a purely noble principle. But when it’s used to deny health care, it means a single person’s beliefs are dictating what is best for another person’s physical and mental health – which can have devastating, even fatal, results.

In our recent book, Rethinking Conscientious Objection in Healthcare, colleagues and I conclude doctors should not be free to make medical decisions based on their personal beliefs.

It’s not noble to refuse care

Freedom of conscience is strongly – but not absolutely – protected under international human rights law. It is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This principle has often been used for moral purposes: for example, to resist orders to torture or kill.

But after researching use of conscientious objection by health professionals, I have concluded it is seriously flawed when used to deny patients health services. This is especially so when particular doctors have a monopoly on service provision, as is the case with abortion and assisted dying in many rural and regional areas of Australia.

In Australia, doctors are allowed to conscientiously object to abortion, although nearly all states require referral to other service providers or information about how to access the relevant service.

In practice, these laws are not enforced and sometimes disregarded.

A doctor’s refusal can mean patients can be denied the standard of care they need, or indeed, any care at all.

Health-care professionals are not like pacifists refusing conscription into the military, opposing something forced upon them. They freely choose health-care careers that come with obligations and with ethical stances already established by professional codes of conduct.

People are free to hold whatever beliefs they choose, but those beliefs will inevitably close off some options for them. For example, a vegetarian will not be able to work in an abattoir. That is true for every one of us. But what shouldn’t happen is a doctor’s personal beliefs closing off legitimate options for their patient.

4 guiding questions

Instead of personal values, there are four key secular principles we propose that doctors should rely on when deciding how to advise patients about sensitive procedures:

• is it legal?

• is it a just and fair use of any resources that might be limited?

• is it in the interests of the patient’s wellbeing?

• is it what the patient has themselves decided they want?

Of course, there will be times when some of these principles are in conflict – that is when it is important to apply the most crucial ones, the wellbeing of the patient and the patient’s own wishes.

In Ireland in 2012, a young woman named Savita Halappanavar went to an Irish hospital for treatment for her miscarriage. Doctors knew there was no hope of the pregnancy surviving but refused to evacuate her uterus while there was still a fetal heartbeat, for fear of breaching Ireland’s anti-abortion laws. The result: Savita died of septicaemia at 31.

If doctors had put the patient’s wellbeing first, they would have given her that termination, despite the law, and it would have saved her life.

These are the principles that should have been applied to the examples above: the woman seeking an abortion for career reasons or the nurse refusing to force-feed prisoners.

The doctor (or nurse) should ask: Is it what the patient has autonomously decided they want? Will it lead to the best outcome for both their physical and their mental health?

If abortion will promote a woman’s wellbeing, it is in her interests. Hunger strikers should not be force-fed because it violates their autonomy.

An unfair burden

While doctors’ personal values are important, they should not dictate care at the bedside. Not only can this disadvantage the patient, but it places an unfair burden on colleagues who do accept such work, and must carry a disproportionate load of procedures they might find unpleasant and financially unrewarding.

It also creates injustice. Patients who are educated, wealthy and well-connected already find it easier to access health care. Conscientious objection intensifies that unfairness in large swathes of the country because it further limits options.

Two countries with excellent health-care systems, Sweden and Finland, do not permit conscientious objection by medical professionals.

In Australia, it is time we do the same and strongly limit conscientious objection as a legal right for health professionals. We should also ensure those entering the discipline are prepared to take on all procedures relevant to their specialty.

And lastly, but most importantly, we should educate them that the patient’s interests and values must always come first. An individual doctor’s sense of moral authority should not be permitted to morph into medical and moral authoritarianism.

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

– ref. Doctors shouldn’t be allowed to object to medical care if it harms their patients – https://theconversation.com/doctors-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-object-to-medical-care-if-it-harms-their-patients-260003

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Lachlan Goold, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Music, University of the Sunshine Coast

Ozzy Osbourne, the “prince of darkness” and godfather of heavy metal, has died aged 76, just weeks after he reunited with Black Sabbath bandmates for a farewell concert in his hometown of Birmingham in England.

His family posted a brief message overnight: “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning.”

John Michael Osbourne changed the sound of rock music and leaves behind a stellar career spanning six decades, numerous Grammy awards, multiple hall of fame inductions – and a wave of controversy.

An agent of change

In 1969, from the ashes of various bands, Geezer Butler (bass), Tony Iommi (guitar), Bill Ward (drums) and Osbourne formed the band Earth.

Realising the name was taken, they quickly changed their name to Black Sabbath, an homage to the 1963 Italian horror anthology film.

With the Summer of Love a recent memory, Black Sabbath were part of a heavy music revolution, providing an antidote to the free loving hippies of the late 60s period.

Despite making their first two albums cheaply, Black Sabbath, released in February 1970, and Paranoid, released September that same year, they were a global success.

Their approach was laden with sarcasm and irony. American audiences mistook this for satanic worship, positioning them as outsiders (albeit popular ones).

After Black Sabbath’s early successes, they were managed by the notorious Don Arden, whose daughter Sharon Levy was the receptionist. More than any musical bond Osbourne had in his life, Sharon would be the most influential character throughout his life.

Osbourne recorded eight albums with Black Sabbath (some to critical acclaim) and was then kicked out (by Sharon) due to his troubles with drugs and alcohol.

Ozzy solo

Osbourne’s solo career has always been managed by Sharon. While recording his second solo album, Diary of a Madman, guitarist Rhodes died in a tragic light plane crash. Osbourne was close to Rhodes and fell into a deep depression, after never having lost someone so close.

Sharon and Osbourne married only months after this incident. His struggle with drug use did not stop him from making further solo records alongside various guitar players, continuing with moderate success throughout his career.

On the road, Osbourne put the John Farnham’s last tour trope to shame.

He held his last ever gig more times than one can count with names like No More Tours (1992–93), Retirement Sucks (1995–96) and No More Tours 2 (2018–19).

This lament for touring led to the most successful era of Osbourne’s career. After being rejected for the 1995 Lollapaloza festival bill, Sharon (and their son Jack) started Ozzfest; initially an annual two-day multiband festival headlined by Osbourne, held in Phoenix, Arizona, and Devore, California.

Subsequently becoming a national – and then international – tour, Ozzfest led to a successful partnership with MTV, which led to the reality TV show The Osbournes premiering in 2002. Here, his previous and ongoing battle with drugs was obvious, proudly on display – and ridiculed – to huge global audiences.

The spectacle of a rich rockstar and his family featured a constant barrage of swearing, battles with lavish TV remotes, canine therapy, never-ending chaos, and Osbourne constantly yelling “Sharrrooon” like a twisted maniacal loop of A Street Car Named Desire.

Struggles and controversies

Osbourne suffered multiple health conditions over the years, rarely concealing the state of his physical or mental wellbeing.

Notably he’s struggled with drug and alcohol abuse his whole career with drug recovery centres using Osbourne as an exemplar. In 2007 he disclosed he suffered from the Parkinson’s adjacent condition Parkinsonian syndrome. In 2019 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

This resulted in him being unable to walk for his final Back to the Beginning show in Birmingham on July 5 2025.

And Osbourne’s career had more than its fair share of controversy. He bit the head off a dove and a bat (celebrated with a commemorative toy), and urinated on the Alamo cenotaph. He was taken to court multiple times, but was never convicted.

Ozzy and me

As a white middle-class boy growing up in the Brisbane suburbs in the 80s, heavy metal music appealed to my testosterone and pimple filled body.

Exploring the secondhand record shops of Brisbane, I would’ve bought my first copy of Black Sabbath around 1985. The sound of thunder and a distant church bell before the first drop-D riff enters seemed like the antithesis to sunny Queensland and 80s pop.

As my life became obsessed with the recording studio and the vociferous music scene in Brisbane in the post-Joh era, and those drop-D riffs influenced a new style that swept the world in the early 90s.

Osbourne’s influence was huge and through grunge, his sound was reborn. Grunge was a marriage of the Sabbath-like drop-D riffs with the energy of punk and the melody of the Beatles.

Listening to Black Sabbath and Ozzy records, equipped me with a sonic palette ready to capture the wave of alternative music emmerging from the Brisbane scene.

While Ozzy’s death is no surprise (except for those who never thought he’d last this long), we should take pause and remember an icon with an endless energy for entertaining, a passion for music, and changing the expectations of popular culture for more than 50 years.

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

– ref. The incredible impact of Ozzy Osbourne, from Black Sabbath to Ozzfest to 30 years of retirement tours – https://theconversation.com/the-incredible-impact-of-ozzy-osbourne-from-black-sabbath-to-ozzfest-to-30-years-of-retirement-tours-258820

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Timothy Piatkowski, Lecturer in Psychology, Griffith University

Eighteen-year-old Mark scrolls Instagram late at night, watching videos of fitness influencers showing off muscle gains and lifting the equivalent of a baby elephant off the gym floor.

Spurred on by hashtags and usernames indicating these feats involve steroids, soon Mark is online, ordering his first “steroid cycle”. No script, no warnings, just vials in the mail and the promise of “gains”.

A few weeks later, he’s posting progress shots and getting tagged as #MegaMark. He’s pleased. But what if I told you Mark was unknowingly injecting toxic chemicals?

In our new research we tested products sold in Australia’s underground steroid market and found many were mislabelled or missing the expected steroid entirely.

Even more concerning, several contained heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and cadmium. These substances are known to cause cancer, heart disease and organ failure.

What are anabolic steroids, and who is using them?

Anabolic steroids are synthetic drugs designed to mimic the effects of testosterone. Medical professionals sometimes prescribe them for specific health conditions (for example, hypogonadism, where the body isn’t making enough sex hormones). But they are more commonly taken by people looking to increase muscle size, improve athletic performance, or elevate feelings of wellbeing.

In Australia, it’s illegal to possess steroids without a prescription. This offence can attract large fines and prison terms (up to 25 years in Queensland).

Despite this, they’re widely available online and from your local “gym bro”. So it’s not surprising we’re seeing escalating use, particularly among young men and women.

People usually take steroids as pills and capsules or injectable oil- or water-based products. But while many people assume these products are safe if used correctly, they’re made outside regulated settings, with no official quality checks.

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Read more:
Get big or die trying: social media is driving men’s use of steroids. Here’s how to mitigate the risks

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Our research

For this new study, we analysed 28 steroid products acquired from people all over Australia which they’d purchased either online or from peers in the gym. These included 16 injectable oils, ten varieties of oral tablets, and two “raw” powders.

An independent forensic lab tested the samples for active ingredients, contaminants and heavy metals. We then compared the results against what people thought they were taking.

More than half of the samples were mislabelled or contained the wrong drug. For example, one product labelled as testosterone enanthate (200mg/mL) contained 159mg/mL of trenbolone (a potent type of steroid) and no detectable testosterone. Oxandrolone (also known as “Anavar”, another type of steroid) tablets were sold claiming a strength of 10mg but actually contained 6.8mg, showing a disparity in purity.

Just four products matched their expected compound and purity within a 5% margin.

But the biggest concern was that all steroids we analysed were contaminated with some level of heavy metals, including lead, arsenic and cadmium.

While all of the concentrations we detected were within daily exposure limits regarded as safe by health authorities, more frequent and heavier use of these drugs would quickly see people who use steroids exceed safe thresholds. And we know this happens.

If consumed above safe limits, research suggests lead can damage the brain and heart. Arsenic is a proven carcinogen, having been linked to the development of skin, liver and lung cancers.

People who use steroids often dose for weeks or months, and sometimes stack multiple drugs, so these metals would build up. This means long‑term steroid use could be quietly fuelling cognitive decline, organ failure, and even cancer.

What needs to happen next?

Heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and cadmium often contaminate anabolic steroid products because raw powders sourced from some manufacturers, particularly those in China, may be produced with poor quality control and impure starting materials. These metals can enter the supply chain during synthesis, handling, or from contaminated equipment and solvents, leading to their presence in the final products.

Steroid use isn’t going away, so we need to address the potential health harms from these contaminants.

While pill testing is now common at festivals for drugs such as ecstasy, testing anabolic steroids requires more complex chemical analysis that cannot be conducted on-site. Current steroid testing relies on advanced laboratory techniques, which limits availability mostly to specialised research programs such as those in Australia and Switzerland.

We need to invest properly in a national steroid surveillance and testing network, which will give us data‑driven insights to inform targeted interventions.

This should involve nationwide steroid testing programs integrated with needle‑and‑syringe programs and community health services which steroid-using communities are aware of and engage with.

We also need to see peer‑led support through trusted programs to educate people who use steroids around the risks. The programs should be based in real evidence, and developed by people with lived experience of steroid use, in partnership with researchers and clinicians.

Timothy Piatkowski receives funding from Queensland Mental Health Commission. He is affiliated with Queensland Injectors Voice for Advocacy and Action as the Vice President. He is affiliated with The Loop Australia as the research lead (Queensland).

– ref. Pumped up with poison: new research shows many anabolic steroids contain toxic metals – https://theconversation.com/pumped-up-with-poison-new-research-shows-many-anabolic-steroids-contain-toxic-metals-261470

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Amra Lee, PhD candidate in Protection of Civilians, Australian National University

Australia has joined 28 international partners in calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and a lifting of all restrictions on food and medical supplies.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong, along with counterparts from countries including the United Kingdom, France and Canada, has signed a joint statement demanding Israel complies with its obligations under international humanitarian law.

The statement condemns Israel for what it calls “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians” seeking “their most basic need” of water and food, saying:

The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity […] It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.

Weapon of war

Gazans, including malnourished mothers denied baby formula, face impossible choices as Israel intensifies its use of starvation as a weapon of war.

In Gaza, survival requires negotiating what the United Nations calls aid “death traps”.

According to the UN, 875 Gazans have been killed – many of them shot – while seeking food since the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operating in late May. Another 4,000 have been injured.

More than 170 humanitarian groups have called for the food hubs to be shut down.

Gaza has been described as the “hungriest place on Earth”, with aid trucks being held at the border and the United States destroying around 500 tonnes of emergency food because it was just out of date.

More than two million people are at critical risk of famine. The World Food Programme estimates 90,000 women and children require urgent treatment for malnutrition.

Nineteen Palestinians have starved to death in recent days, according to local health authorities.

We can’t say we didn’t know

After the breakdown of the January ceasefire, Israel implemented a humanitarian blockade on the Gaza Strip. Following mounting international pressure, limited aid was permitted and the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations.

As anticipated, only a fraction of the aid has been distributed.

About 1,600 trucks entered Gaza between May 19 and July 14, well below the 630 trucks needed every day to feed the population.

Israeli ministers have publicly called for food and fuel reserves to be bombed to starve the Palestinian people – a clear war crime – to pressure Hamas to release Israeli hostages.

Famine expert Alex De Waal says Israel’s starvation strategy constitutes a dangerous weakening of international law. It also disrupts norms aimed at preventing hunger being used as a weapon of war:

operations like the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation are a big crack in these principles [that is] not going to save Gaza from mass starvation.

Palestinian organisations were the first to raise the alarm over Israel’s plans to impose controls over aid distribution.

UN Relief Chief Tom Fletcher briefed the UN Security Council in May, warning of the world’s collective failure to call out the scale of violations of international law as they were being committed:

Israel is deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Since then, clear and unequivocal warnings of the compounding risks of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing have intensified from the UN, member states and international law experts.

Weaponising aid

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation claims it has handed out millions of meals since it began operating in the strip in May. But the UN has called the distribution model “inherently unsafe”.

Near-daily shootings have occurred since the militarised aid hubs began operating. Malnourished Palestinians risking death to feed their families are trekking long distances to reach the small number of distribution sites.

While the foundation denies people are being shot, the UN has called the aid delivery mechanism a “deliberate attempt to weaponise aid” that fails to comply with humanitarian principles and risks further war crimes.

Jewish Physicians for Human Rights has rejected the aid’s “humanitarian” characterisation, stating it “is what systematic harm to human beings looks like”.

Human rights and legal organisations are calling for all involved to be held accountable for complicity in war crimes that “exposes all those who enable or profit from it to real risk of prosecution”.

Mounting world action

Today’s joint statement follows growing anger and frustration in Western countries over the lack of political pressure on Israel to end the suffering in Gaza.

Polling in May showed more than 80% of Australians opposed Israel’s denial of aid as unjustifiable and wanted to see Australia doing more to support civilians in Gaza.

Last week’s meeting of the Hague Group of nations shows more collective concrete action is being taken to exert pressure and uphold international law.

Th 12 member states agreed to a range of diplomatic, legal and economic measures, including a ban on ships transporting arms to Israel.

The time for humanity is now

States will continue to face increased international and domestic pressure to take stronger action to influence Israel’s conduct as more Gazans are killed, injured and stripped of their dignity in an engineered famine.

This moment in Gaza is unprecedented in terms of our knowledge of the scale and gravity of violations being perpetrated and what failing to act means for Palestinians and our shared humanity.

Now is the time to exert diplomatic, legal and economic pressure on Israel to change course.

History tells us we need to act now – international law and our collective moral conscience requires it.

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

– ref. Suffering in Gaza reaches ‘new depths’ – Australia condemns ‘inhumane killing’ of Palestinians – https://theconversation.com/suffering-in-gaza-reaches-new-depths-australia-condemns-inhumane-killing-of-palestinians-261547

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Roy Ebel, PhD Candidate in Evolutionary Biology, Museums Victoria Research Institute

Monitor lizards, also known in Australia as goannas, are some of the most iconic reptiles on the continent. Their lineage not only survived the mass extinction that ended the reign of non-avian dinosaurs, but also gave rise to the largest living lizards on Earth.

Today, these formidable creatures pace through forests and scrublands, flicking their tongues as they go.

A new study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society looks beneath their skin. For the first time, it reveals hidden bone structures that may hold the key to the evolutionary success of goannas in Australia.

An essential organ

The skin is an organ essential for survival. In some animals, it includes a layer of bone plates embedded among the skin tissue. Think of the armour-like plates in crocodiles or armadillos: these are osteoderms.

Their size ranges from microscopic to massive, with the back plates of the stegosaurus as the most impressive example.

We have only just started to understand these enigmatic structures. Osteoderms can be found in animal lineages that diverged up to 380 million years ago. This means these bone plates would have evolved independently, just like active flight did in birds, pterosaurs and bats.

But what is their purpose? While the advantage of flight is undisputed, the case is not as clear for osteoderms.

The most obvious potential would be for defence – protecting the animal from injuries. However, osteoderms may serve a far broader purpose.

In crocodiles, for example, they help with heat regulation, play a part in movement, and even supply calcium during egg-laying. It is the interplay of these poorly understood functions that has long made it difficult to pinpoint how and why osteoderms evolved.

A cutting-edge technique

To help resolve this enigma, we had to go back to the beginning.

Surprisingly, to date science has not even agreed on which species have osteoderms. Therefore, we assembled an international team of specialists to carry out the first large-scale study of osteoderms in lizards and snakes.

We studied specimens from scientific collections at institutions such as the Florida Museum of Natural History, the Natural History Museum in Berlin, and Museums Victoria.

However, we soon learnt that this came with challenges. Firstly, the presence of osteoderms can vary dramatically between individuals of the same species. Secondly, there is no guarantee that osteoderms are sufficiently preserved in all specimens.

Most importantly, they are buried deep within skin tissue and invisible to the naked eye. Traditionally, finding them meant destroying the specimen.

Instead, we turned to micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), an imaging technique similar to a medical CT scan, but with much higher resolution. This allowed us to study even the tiniest anatomical structures while keeping our specimens intact.

Using computer-generated 3D models, we then digitally explored the bodies of lizards and snakes from all parts of the world. Incorporating data from prior literature, we processed almost 2,000 such samples in our search for osteoderms.

To illustrate our results, we devised a technique called radiodensity heatmapping, which visually highlights the locations of bone structures in the body.

For the first time, we now have a comprehensive catalogue showing where to find osteoderms in a large and diverse group; this will inform future studies.

Not just anatomical curiosity

What we found was unexpected. It was thought only a small number of lizard families had osteoderms. However, we encountered them nearly twice as often as anticipated.

In fact, our results show nearly half of all lizards have osteoderms in one form or another.

Our most astonishing finding concerned goannas. Scientists have been studying monitor lizards for more than 200 years. They were long thought to lack osteoderms, except in rare cases such as the Komodo dragon.

So we were all the more surprised when we discovered previously undocumented osteoderms in 29 Australo-Papuan species, increasing their overall known prevalence five times.

This isn’t just an anatomical curiosity. Now that we know Australian goannas have osteoderms, it opens up an exciting new avenue for further studies. This is because goannas have an interesting biogeographic history: when they first arrived in Australia about 20 million years ago, they had to adapt to a new, harsh environment.

If osteoderms in goannas showed up around this time – possibly owing to new challenges from their environment – we’d gain crucial insights into the function and evolution of these enigmatic bone structures.

Not only may we just have found the key to an untold chapter in the goanna story, our findings may also improve our understanding of the forces of evolution that shaped Australia’s unique reptiles as we know them today.

Roy Ebel receives funding from the Australian Government’s Research Training Program.

– ref. New study peers beneath the skin of iconic lizards to find ‘chainmail’ bone plates – and lots of them – https://theconversation.com/new-study-peers-beneath-the-skin-of-iconic-lizards-to-find-chainmail-bone-plates-and-lots-of-them-260700

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Andrew Dodd, Professor of Journalism, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

If Rupert Murdoch becomes a white knight standing up to a rampantly bullying US president, the world has moved into the upside-down.

This is, after all, the media mogul whose US television network, Fox News, actively supported Donald Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election result and paid out a US$787 million (about A$1.2 billion) lawsuit for doing so.

It is also the network that supplied several members of Trump’s inner circle, including former Fox host, now controversial Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth.

But that is where we are after Trump filed a writ on July 18 after Murdoch’s financial newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, published an article about a hand-drawn card Trump is alleged to have sent to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. The newspaper reported:

A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.

The Journal said it has seen the letter but did not republish it. The letter allegedly concluded:

Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.

The card was apparently Trump’s contribution to a birthday album compiled for Epstein by the latter’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence after being found guilty of sex trafficking in 2021.

Trump was furious. He told his Truth Social audience he had warned Murdoch the letter was fake. He wrote, “Mr Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but obviously did not have the power to do so,” referring to Murdoch handing leadership of News Corporation to his eldest son Lachlan in 2023.

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Read more:
How Rupert Murdoch helped create a monster – the era of Trumpism – and then lost control of it

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Trump is being pincered. On one side, The Wall Street Journal is a respected newspaper that speaks to literate, wealthy Americans who remain deeply sceptical about Trump’s radical initiative on tariffs, which it described in an editorial as “the dumbest trade war in history”.

On the other side is the conspiracy theory-thirsty MAGA base who have been told for years that there was a massive conspiracy around Epstein’s apparent suicide in 2019 that included the so-called deep state, Democrat elites and, no doubt, the Clintons.

Trump, who loves pro wrestling as well as adopting its garish theatrics, might characterise his lawsuit against Murdoch as a smackdown to rival Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant in the 1980s.

To adopt wrestling argot, though, it is a rare battle between two heels.

A friendship of powerful convenience

Murdoch and Trump’s relationship is longstanding but convoluted. The key to understanding it is that both men are ruthlessly transactional.

Exposure in Murdoch’s New York Post in the 1980s and ‘90s was crucial to building Trump’s reputation.

Not that Murdoch particularly likes Trump. Yes, Murdoch attended his second inauguration, albeit in a back row behind the newly favoured big tech media moguls. He was also seen sitting in the Oval Office a few days later looking quite at home.

But this was pure power-display politics, not the behaviour of a friend.

Remember Murdoch’s derision on hearing Trump was considering standing for office before the 2016 election, and his promotion of Ron De Santis in the primaries before Trump’s second term. Murdoch’s political hero has always been Ronald Reagan. Trump has laid waste to the Republican Party of Reagan.

Murdoch knows what the rest of sane America knows: Trump is downright weird, if not dangerous. This, of course, only makes Murdoch’s complicity in Trump’s rise to power, and Fox News’ continued boosterism of Trump, all the more appalling.

But, in keeping with Murdoch’s relationship to power throughout his career, what he helps make, he also helps destroy. Perhaps now it’s Trump’s turn to be unmade. As a former Murdoch lieutenant told The Financial Times over the weekend:

he’s testing out: Is Trump losing his base? And where do I need to be to stay in the heart of the base?

And here is Murdoch’s great advantage, and his looming threat.

A double-edged sword

The advantage comes with the scope of Murdoch’s media empire, which operates like a federation of different mastheads, each with their own market and aspirations. While Fox News panders to the MAGA base, and The New York Post juices its New York audience, The Wall Street Journal speaks, and listens, to business. Each audience has different needs, meaning they’re often presented with the same news in very different ways, or sometimes different news entirely.

Like a federation, though, News Corp uses its various operations to drive the type of change that affects all its markets.

It might work like this. The Wall Street Journal breaks a story that’s so shocking it begins to chip away at MAGA’s unquestioning loyalty of Trump. This process is, of course, willingly aided by the rest of the media. The resulting groundswell eventually allows Fox News and the Post to tentatively follow their audiences into questioning, and then perhaps criticising, Trump.

The threat is that before that groundswell builds, Murdoch is seriously vulnerable to criticism from a still dominant Trump, who can turn conspiracy-prone audiences away from Fox News with just a social media post. Trump has already been busy doing just that, saying he is looking forward to getting Murdoch onto the witness stand for his lawsuit.

If the Fox audience decides it’s the proprietor who’s behind this denigration of Trump, they may decide to boycott their own favoured media channel, even though Fox’s programming hasn’t yet started questioning Trump.

The Murdochs’ fear of audience backlash was a major factor in Fox’s promulgation of the Big Lie after Trump’s defeat in 2020. The fear their audience might defect to Newsmax or some other right-wing media outfit is just as real today.

History littered with fakery

We also need to consider that Trump might be right. What if the letter is a fake?

Murdoch has form when it comes to high-profile exposés that turn out to be fiction. Who can forget the Hitler Diaries in 1983, which we now know Murdoch knew were fake before he published.

Think also of the Pauline Hanson photos, allegedly of her posing in lingerie, all of which were quickly proved to be fake after they were published by Murdoch’s Australian tabloids in 2009.

There was also The Sun’s despicable and wilfully wrong campaign against Elton John in 1987 and the same paper’s continued denigration of the people of Liverpool following the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989.

But while Murdoch’s News Corp has a history of confection and fakery, the Wall Street Journal has a reputation for straight reportage, albeit through a conservative lens. Since Murdoch bought it in 2007, it has been engaged in its own internal battle for editorial standards.

Media rolling over

What Trump won’t get from Murdoch is the same acquiescence he’s enjoyed from America’s ABC and CBS networks, which have both handed over tens of millions of dollars in defamation settlements following dubious claims by Trump about the nature of their coverage.

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Read more:
ABC’s and CBS’s settlements with Trump are a dangerous step toward the commander in chief becoming the editor-in-chief

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In December 2024, ABC’s owner Disney settled and agreed to pay US$15 million (A$23 million) to Trump’s presidential library. The president sued after a presenter said Trump was found guilty of raping E. Jean Carroll.

Trump had actually been found guilty by a jury in a civil trial of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and was ordered to pay her US$5 million (A$7.6 million).

CBS’ parent company, Paramount, did similarly after being sued by the president, agreeing in early July to settle and pay US$16 million (A$24.5 million) to Trump’s library. This was despite earlier saying the case was “completely without merit”.

Beware the legal microscope

From Trump’s viewpoint, two prominent media companies have been cowed. But his campaign against critical media doesn’t stop there.

Last week, congress passed a bill cancelling federal funding for the country’s two public-service media outlets, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).

Also last week, CBS announced the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s stridently critical comedy show, although CBS claims this is just a cost-cutting exercise and not about appeasing a bully in the White House.

Presuming the reported birthday letter is real, Murdoch will not bend so easily. And that’s when it will be important to pay attention, because at some point Trump’s lawyers will advise him about the dangers of depositions and discovery: the legal processes that force parties to a dispute to reveal what they have and what they know.

If the Epstein files do implicate Trump, the legal fight won’t last long and the media campaign against him will only intensify.

Right now we have the spectre of Murdoch joining that other disaffected mogul, Elon Musk, in a moral crusade against Trump, the man they both helped make. The implications are head-spinning.

As global bullies, the three of them probably deserve each other. But we, the public, surely deserve better than any of them.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Could Rupert Murdoch bring down Donald Trump? A court case threatens more than just their relationship – https://theconversation.com/could-rupert-murdoch-bring-down-donald-trump-a-court-case-threatens-more-than-just-their-relationship-261532

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Derek R. Peterson, Ali Mazrui Professor of History & African Studies, University of Michigan

Fifty years ago, Ugandan President Idi Amin wrote to the governments of the British Commonwealth with a bold suggestion: Allow him to take over as head of the organization, replacing Queen Elizabeth II.

After all, Amin reasoned, a collapsing economy had made the U.K. unable to maintain its leadership. Moreover the “British empire does not now exist following the complete decolonization of Britain’s former overseas territories.”

It wasn’t Amin’s only attempt to reshape the international order. Around the same time, he called for the United Nations headquarters to be moved to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, touting its location at “the heart of the world between the continents of America, Asia, Australia and the North and South Poles.”

Amin’s diplomacy aimed to place Kampala at the center of a postcolonial world. In my new book, “A Popular History of Idi Amin’s Uganda,” I show that Amin’s government made Uganda – a remote, landlocked nation – look like a frontline state in the global war against racism, apartheid and imperialism.

Doing so was, for the Amin regime, a way of claiming a morally essential role: liberator of Africa’s hitherto oppressed people. It helped inflate his image both at home and abroad, allowing him to maintain his rule for eight calamitous years, from 1971 to 1979.

The phony liberator?

Amin was the creator of a myth that was both manifestly untrue and extraordinarily compelling: that his violent, dysfunctional regime was actually engaged in freeing people from foreign oppressors.

The question of Scottish independence was one of his enduring concerns. The “people of Scotland are tired of being exploited by the English,” wrote Amin in a 1974 telegram to United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. “Scotland was once an independent country, happy, well governed and administered with peace and prosperity,” but under the British government, “England has thrived on the energies and brains of the Scottish people.”

Even his cruelest policies were framed as if they were liberatory. In August 1972, Amin announced the summary expulsion of Uganda’s Asian community. Some 50,000 people, many of whom had lived in Uganda for generations, were given a bare three months to tie up their affairs and leave the country. Amin named this the “Economic War.”

In the speech that announced the expulsions, Amin argued that “the Ugandan Africans have been enslaved economically since the time of the colonialists.” The Economic War was meant to “emancipate the Uganda Africans of this republic.”

“This is the day of salvation for the Ugandan Africans,” he said. By the end of 1972, some 5,655 farms, ranches and estates had been vacated by the departed Asian community, and Black African proprietors were queuing up to take over Asian-run businesses.

A year later, when Amin attended the Organization of African Unity summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, his “achievements” were reported in a booklet published by the Uganda government. During his speech, Amin was “interrupted by thunderous applauses of acclamation and cheers, almost word for word, by Heads of State and Government and by everybody else who had a chance to hear it,” according to the the report.

It was, wrote the government propagandist, “very clear that Uganda had emerged as the forefront of a True African State. It was clear that African nationalism had been born again. It was clear that the speech had brought new life to the freedom struggle in Africa.”

Life at the front

Amin’s policies were disastrous for all Ugandans, African and Asian alike. Yet his war of economic liberation was, for a time, a source of inspiration for activists around the world. Among the many people gripped by enthusiasm for Amin’s regime was Roy Innis, the Black American leader of the civil rights organization Congress of Racial Equality.

In March 1973, Innis visited Uganda at Amin’s invitation. Innis and his colleagues had been pressing African governments to grant dual citizenship to Black Americans, just as Jewish Americans could earn citizenship from the state of Israel.

Over the course of their 18 days in Uganda, the visiting Americans were shuttled around the country in Amin’s helicopter. Everywhere, Innis spoke with enthusiasm about Amin’s accomplishments. In a poem published in the pro-government Voice of Uganda around the time of his visit, Innis wrote:

“Before, the life of your people was a complete bore,

And they were poor, oppressed, exploited and economically sore.

And you then came and opened new, dynamic economic pages.

And showered progress on your people in realistic stages.

In such expert moves that baffled even the great sages,

your electric personality pronounced the imperialists’ doom.

Your pragmatism has given Ugandans their economic boom.”

In May 1973, Innis was back in Uganda, promising to recruit a contingent of 500 African American professors and technicians to serve in Uganda. Amin offered them free passage to Uganda, free housing and free hospital care for themselves and their families. The American weekly magazine Jet predicted that Uganda was soon to become an “African Israel,” a model nation upheld by the energies and knowledge of Black Americans.

As some have observed, Innis was surely naive. But his enthusiasm was shared by a great many people, not least a great many Ugandans. Inspired by Amin’s promises, their energy and commitment kept institutions functioning in a time of great disruption. They built roads and stadiums, constructed national monuments and underwrote the running costs of government ministries.

Patriotism and demagoguery

Their ambitions were soon foreclosed by a rising tide of political dysfunction. Amin’s regime came to a violent end in 1979, when he was ousted by the invading army of Tanzania and fled Uganda.

But his brand of demagoguery lives on. Today a new generation of demagogues claim to be fighting to liberate aggrieved majorities from outsiders’ control.

In the 1970s, Amin enlisted Black Ugandans to battle against racial minorities who were said to dominate the economy and public life. Today an ascendant right wing encourages aggrieved white Americans to regard themselves as a majority dispossessed of their inheritance by greedy immigrants.

Amin encouraged Ugandans to regard themselves as frontline soldiers, engaged in a globally consequential war against foreigners. In today’s America, some people similarly feel themselves deputized to take matters of state into their own hands. In January 2021, for instance, a right-wing group called “Stop the Steal” organized a rally in Washington. Vowing to “take our country back,” they stormed the Capitol building.

The racialized demagoguery that Idi Amin promoted inspired the imagination of a great many people. It also fed violent campaigns to repossess a stolen inheritance, to reclaim properties that ought, in the view of the aggrieved majority, to belong to native sons and daughters. His regime is for us today a warning about the compelling power of demagoguery to shape people’s sense of purpose.

Derek R. Peterson receives funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

– ref. Idi Amin made himself out to be the ‘liberator’ of an oppressed majority – a demagogic trick that endures today – https://theconversation.com/idi-amin-made-himself-out-to-be-the-liberator-of-an-oppressed-majority-a-demagogic-trick-that-endures-today-256969