Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Marta Khomyn, Senior Lecturer, Finance and Data Analytics, Adelaide University

Elon Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX has filed confidential papers ahead of a planned public company listing on the US NASDAQ stock exchange.

The initial public offering (IPO) for the company controlled by the world’s richest man is targeting a total valuation of US$2 trillion. Musk plans to list only a small fraction of the company to raise US$75 billion from public investors, which would still make it the largest IPO in history.

So, why is SpaceX planning to go public? And what does the IPO mean for investors who might want a tiny slice of the action?

The backstory

SpaceX says it aims to “make humanity multiplanetary”. You would expect no less from Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002.

His company’s breakthrough was to re-use as much of the rocket and launcher vehicle as possible. This slashed launch costs to as little as 5% of the costs in the early 2000s, and turned commercial space flight from science fiction into reality. The company says it has now completed about 600 successful rocket landings.

Yet, for all its space ambitions, SpaceX still derives 50–80% of its revenue from Starlink, a communications business, which provides satellite internet to over 10 million users around the world.

In February 2026, SpaceX merged with xAI, the loss-making AI company behind the Grok chatbot, in what was the largest private merger transaction on record. The deal valued xAI at US$250 billion and SpaceX at US$1 trillion, creating a combined entity worth US$1.25 trillion.

The merger has helped to set the stage for the SpaceX IPO.

Musk suggested the IPO proceeds will be used for launching up to one million data centre satellites into space. The idea is that space-based data centres would be powered by abundant solar energy, and therefore bypass the constraints of electricity and water usage on Earth.

Bending the rules for the IPO

SpaceX may be the first of three mega-IPOs this year, ahead of potential listings of AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI.

If it goes ahead with plans to raise US$75 billion, that would represent just 3.75% of the company’s total value. It means the vast majority of SpaceX would remain in private hands, owned by Musk himself and a handful of early private investors. In stock market terms, this is called a low “free float”.

Normally, companies that only list such a small percentage of their total value would not qualify for inclusion in major stock market indices like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ 100.

The NASDAQ normally requires at least a 10% free float of shares in a given company. But to allow a potential listing of SpaceX to be included in the index, the exchange has introduced a special adjustment to the weighting of shares and removed the 10% minimum.

NASDAQ also reduced the normal “seasoning period” before a newly listed company can join the index from three months to just 15 trading days. Again, this is to accommodate the SpaceX listing.

For investors in passive funds, including exchange-trade funds (ETFs), this matters a lot. Currently, more than US$600 billion of investors’ money is with passive funds that track the NASDAQ 100 index. As soon as SpaceX joins the index, these investors will automatically be buying in. The concern is that allowing giant companies such as SpaceX to enter the index too quickly could lead to big price swings, which would expose millions of investors to high volatility.

SpaceX wants investors to value it at US$2 trillion, but it only earned US$15 billion in revenue last year. At that rate, it would take 133 years of revenue just to match its current asking price.

Tesla, one of the most expensive stocks in the world, would take just 13 years — making SpaceX’s price tag ten times higher.

Other leading market indices, such as S&P 500 and FTSE Russell, are also bending their rules to fast-track the inclusion of very large, newly listed companies.

Many more investors have their money in funds that track S&P indices compared to Nasdaq 100 – more than US$16 trillion in passive funds track the S&P. If the S&P 500 follows NASDAQ’s lead and changes its own rules to accommodate SpaceX, the wave of automatic buying would be even larger.

What does this mean for investors?

Musk’s companies have long been the darlings of non-professional, retail investors, and SpaceX would be no exception. In fact, the company said it aims to sell up to 30% of its shares to non-institutional, individual investors.

With SpaceX’s sky-high valuation, investors need to stop and think before buying in. But when powerful companies can rewrite the rules in their own favour, thinking carefully becomes a luxury. Markets only work when everyone plays by the same rules, and right now, not everyone is.

Marta Khomyn 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. Musk’s SpaceX is shaping up as the biggest IPO on record. It’s also bending the rules to do so – https://theconversation.com/musks-spacex-is-shaping-up-as-the-biggest-ipo-on-record-its-also-bending-the-rules-to-do-so-280271

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Tony Wood, Assistant Professor of History, Modern Latin America, University of Colorado Boulder

In Latin America, as in other parts of the world, the second Trump administration has adopted an increasingly aggressive policy.

From drone strikes on purported drug traffickers to increased tariffs on imports, and from the blockade on fuel shipments and threats of invasion in Cuba to the Jan. 3 military incursion into Venezuela, the U.S.’s more coercive approach to its hemispheric neighbors evokes an earlier period of U.S. foreign policy.

Many commentators have found echoes of the 1989 capture of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega in the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Others highlighted the longer history of U.S. interventions in Latin America stretching back through the Cold War. That includes the Nixon administration’s support for the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende in Chile or the CIA-sponsored removal of Guatemala’s elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, in 1954.

Yet as a historian of early 20th-century Latin America, I believe the Trump administration’s approach to Latin America more closely resembles an older pattern of U.S. policy. Between 1900 and the mid-1930s, U.S. forces intervened in one Latin American country after another. This practice was often justified by the Roosevelt Corollary, President Theodore Roosevelt’s addition to the Monroe Doctrine. In cases of “chronic wrongdoing,” Roosevelt said in 1904, the U.S would find itself compelled to exercise an “international police power” in defense of U.S. interests.

But crucially, how Latin Americans responded to the U.S. exerting its dominance in the early 20th century may hold some lessons for the present day. One of the major side effects of the U.S.’s so-called gunboat diplomacy was an upsurge of resistance and anti-imperialist thinking in the region’s political life.

The roots of anti-imperialism

In the 30 years after Roosevelt asserted the U.S.’s right to intervene across the hemisphere, U.S. forces occupied Cuba three times – in 1906-09, 1912 and 1917-21. They also occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924. In Nicaragua, the U.S. deployed the Marines from 1912 to 1925 and then again from 1926 to 1933, waging a counterinsurgency in which it used aerial bombardment for the first time.

Across much of the region, then, this was a time when the U.S. was quick to resort to force, unburdened by any concerns for Latin American countries’ sovereignty.

Yet this era of external intervention also coincided with a period of remarkable political ferment, which I describe in my recently published book, “Radical Sovereignty.”

In one place after another, from Buenos Aires to Mexico City and from Havana to Lima, movements sprang up that put forward sharp critiques of U.S power. Many of them grew out of student organizations in the late 1910s, while others drew on the rising strength of labor unions and newly formed leftist political parties.

In 1923, rural workers in the Mexican state of Veracruz formed a Peasant League. From the outset, they saw local issues as closely interwoven with international ones, and they argued that there was a compelling reason for this. As the league put it, “Our internationalism is not the child of a crazed enthusiasm for empty phrases … but of the need to take preventive measures, to bolster ourselves against the enemy,” which they identified as “the imperialism of North America.”

Many of Latin America’s radical movements at this time were inspired by the recent example of the Mexican Revolution. The new Mexican Constitution of 1917 had nationalized the country’s land and natural resources, putting it on a collision course with U.S. companies and landowners.

Others still were energized by the global repercussions of the Russian Revolution. This, of course, included several brand-new communist parties across the region. But at the time, many others in Latin America saw the Bolsheviks as part of a global anti-colonial wave.

Mexico City as activist hub

My book explores the key role Mexico City played as a gathering point for these different political tendencies.

They included groups ranging from Mexican peasant leagues to the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, an anti-imperialist movement formed by Peruvian exiles. Many of these organizations converged under the umbrella of the Anti-Imperialist League of the Americas. Founded in Mexico City in 1925, it soon had chapters in a dozen more countries across the region.

Between them, these movements brought into focus the novel features of U.S. power. As the Cuban student leader and communist Julio Antonio Mella saw it in 1925 – at a time when his native country was highly dependent on the U.S. but formally sovereign – the U.S. was distinct. Unlike European empires, it largely refrained from direct control of territories, though it had pressed the Cubans to include in their 1901 constitution a provision allowing it to intervene in the island at will.

In Mella’s view, the U.S. was clearly an empire, one that mainly exercised its dominance through commercial or financial pressures. For him, the dollar and Wall Street were as central to U.S. power as the halls of government in Washington, D.C.

For Ricardo Paredes, an Ecuadorean doctor who founded the country’s Socialist Party in 1926, a new term was required to capture Latin American countries’ contradictory position. Formally sovereign, they were not colonies as such. Yet they were economically and politically subordinated to Washington and Wall Street – “dependent countries,” as he phrased it in 1928.

For the Peruvian poet Magda Portal, a leading member of the anti-imperialist American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, U.S. dominance played out differently in different parts of Latin America.

In a series of lectures she gave in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in 1929, Portal divided the region into zones. While countries such as Argentina or Brazil were mainly sites for U.S. investment, Mexico and the Caribbean were regularly subjected to U.S. military force. Or, as Portal put it, “Here imperialism wears no disguise.”

Portal concluded her lectures with a phrase that combined her analysis of U.S. dominance with a resonant appeal for unity: “We have a single and great enemy; let us form a single and great union.”

United states of resistance?

Yet while there was much Latin American anti-imperialist thinkers could agree on, there were also profound divergences between them. This included questions of strategy as well as issues of principle. What role should different classes play in their movement? How radical a transformation of society were they pushing for? And what kind of state should emerge from it?

Over time, these differences turned into deep rifts that pitted revolutionaries against democratic reformists, internationalists against nationalists, and pro-Soviets against anti-communists. These disagreements played an important role in Latin American politics over the rest of the century.

While many of these rifts became especially prominent during the Cold War, they developed out of earlier divisions over how best to counter U.S. dominance.

The anti-imperialist upsurge of the 1920s and ’30s was formative for a generation of Latin American radicals. Several of those who entered political life during these years went on to play key roles in major events of the 20th century. Raúl Roa, for example, who served as foreign secretary for Cuba’s revolutionary government from 1959 to 1976, was first politicized in the island’s anti-imperialist movement of the 1920s.

The men and women whose political visions were formed in the interwar period carried those ideals forward into the Cold War era. In important ways, the 1920s and 1930s laid vital groundwork for later and better-known radical movements.

Past is, of course, not always prologue. It is impossible to predict what the long-term consequences of current U.S. policy in Latin America will be, especially given the rightward tilt that is currently unfolding across the region.

But looking at the region’s anti-imperialist traditions does point to one possible outcome: The U.S.’s newly aggressive stance will, sooner rather than later, fuel a resurgence of anti-imperialist sentiment as the organizing principle for a new generation of activists.

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

– ref. Trump’s coercive tactics in Latin America evoke era of gunboat diplomacy – and the rise of anti-imperialism it helped spur – https://theconversation.com/trumps-coercive-tactics-in-latin-america-evoke-era-of-gunboat-diplomacy-and-the-rise-of-anti-imperialism-it-helped-spur-279238

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Marika Sosnowski, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne

After weeks of bombardments in southern Lebanon that have killed more than 2,000 people and displaced more than one million residents, Israel has announced a ten-day ceasefire with Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, vowed to keep Israeli troops in southern Lebanon to create a ten-kilometre “security zone”, raising immediate questions about whether the ceasefire would actually stop Israeli attacks against Hezbollah.

After a previous ceasefire in late 2024 ended 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli troops continued to launch airstrikes and carry out targeted killings of Hezbollah fighters.

People like to bound events such as wars with tidy dates and years. It makes them easier to understand and entertains the fantasy that historic events are neat, with understandable beginnings, middles and eventual ends.

But in reality, the messiness and complexities of war rarely hold to these manmade boundaries.

Instead, even after a ceasefire or a peace agreement is in place, many dynamics of war continue. This is the paradox of such agreements: they might end one phase of a conflict, but they inevitably usher in another.

The good and bad of ceasefires

Take Israel’s war in Gaza as an example.

The war came to an end after Israel and Hamas signed the Gaza Peace Plan, a 20-point deal brokered by the Trump administration, in October 2025.

The terms are relatively broad, vague and aspirational. But the deal has had many benefits. The ceasefire decreased Israel’s bombardments of Gaza. The remaining Israeli hostages captured on October 7 2023 were swapped with Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Somewhat more aid now enters the strip than during the war.

However, the agreement also created other negative dynamics and enabled many problems caused by the war to continue.

For example, after the deal was signed, the public and media attention shifted away from the violence continuing to be committed by Israel to other events. This has meant that in the wake of the peace deal, near-daily Israeli attacks have continued, but with much less scrutiny. Israeli-supported violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has also escalated.

Humanitarian aid entry into the Gaza Strip also remains vastly below the levels delineated by the peace agreement. And serious discussions about the future governance or development of Gaza – mandated under the peace plan in multiple points – remain uncertain amid the noise of other wars and global events.

We can see similar dynamics in Iran, barely a week after another vaguely worded ceasefire agreement was signed between the US and the Iranian regime.

It appears the regime has taken the opportunity provided by a two-week “peace” to crack down on internal dissent. And in what appears to be an attempt to enhance its negotiating position for future peace talks, the Trump administration has launched a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

The short-term truce between Lebanon and Israel might offer Lebanese civilians some level of reprieve. However, it may also provide Israel with a quiet week away from the media spotlight to reinforce its military occupation of southern Lebanon.

To create Israel’s security zone, Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military would demolish buildings in Lebanese towns near the border and prevent displaced Lebanese from returning to their homes. Netanyahu made clear Israeli troops would remain.

This can all be more easily accomplished with a ceasefire deal in place.

Short attention spans

Globally, dozens of countries are currently experiencing armed conflict. Many people scan the news regularly as a way of keeping informed and bearing witness to the dynamics of these wars, casualty figures and how they might potentially end.

This glorified horror plays into our current “headline culture”, which tends to encourage clickbait, sensationalised content and virality. It also means public attention on a particular conflict is not necessarily driven by the scale of suffering, but by media coverage. Because of digital media, we have now a proximate and persistent view of human suffering and death that does not always translate into ongoing attention and action.

Whether parties to a conflict will reach a ceasefire or peace agreement is certainly worthwhile and important news. However, once a deal is signed, media and public attention often shifts to other more “active” (and also worthy) conflicts. There is currently no shortage of wars to choose from.

Because we believe a conflict has “ended” with a deal, what comes after the ceasefire or peace agreement tends to remain obfuscated or under-reported.

The peace agreement paradox

Ceasefires and peace agreements are certainly not always a harbinger of peace or a neat full-stop to a war story.

Arguably, the parties to these deals are increasingly aware of the “peace” agreement paradox and are making their political and military calculations accordingly.

If we truly want to grapple with what war and peace directly entails for millions of people in an increasingly complex and volatile world, we need to broaden our understanding about what we mean by ceasefires and peace agreements – and keep up a level of scrutiny long after the deals are signed.

Marika Sosnowski 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. Israel and Lebanon have a ceasefire, but global attention shouldn’t move on. This isn’t a tidy end to the war – https://theconversation.com/israel-and-lebanon-have-a-ceasefire-but-global-attention-shouldnt-move-on-this-isnt-a-tidy-end-to-the-war-280816

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Marika Sosnowski, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne

After weeks of bombardments in southern Lebanon that have killed more than 2,000 people and displaced more than one million residents, Israel has announced a ten-day ceasefire with Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, vowed to keep Israeli troops in southern Lebanon to create a ten-kilometre “security zone”, raising immediate questions about whether the ceasefire would actually stop Israeli attacks against Hezbollah.

After a previous ceasefire in late 2024 ended 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli troops continued to launch airstrikes and carry out targeted killings of Hezbollah fighters.

People like to bound events such as wars with tidy dates and years. It makes them easier to understand and entertains the fantasy that historic events are neat, with understandable beginnings, middles and eventual ends.

But in reality, the messiness and complexities of war rarely hold to these manmade boundaries.

Instead, even after a ceasefire or a peace agreement is in place, many dynamics of war continue. This is the paradox of such agreements: they might end one phase of a conflict, but they inevitably usher in another.

The good and bad of ceasefires

Take Israel’s war in Gaza as an example.

The war came to an end after Israel and Hamas signed the Gaza Peace Plan, a 20-point deal brokered by the Trump administration, in October 2025.

The terms are relatively broad, vague and aspirational. But the deal has had many benefits. The ceasefire decreased Israel’s bombardments of Gaza. The remaining Israeli hostages captured on October 7 2023 were swapped with Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Somewhat more aid now enters the strip than during the war.

However, the agreement also created other negative dynamics and enabled many problems caused by the war to continue.

For example, after the deal was signed, the public and media attention shifted away from the violence continuing to be committed by Israel to other events. This has meant that in the wake of the peace deal, near-daily Israeli attacks have continued, but with much less scrutiny. Israeli-supported violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has also escalated.

Humanitarian aid entry into the Gaza Strip also remains vastly below the levels delineated by the peace agreement. And serious discussions about the future governance or development of Gaza – mandated under the peace plan in multiple points – remain uncertain amid the noise of other wars and global events.

We can see similar dynamics in Iran, barely a week after another vaguely worded ceasefire agreement was signed between the US and the Iranian regime.

It appears the regime has taken the opportunity provided by a two-week “peace” to crack down on internal dissent. And in what appears to be an attempt to enhance its negotiating position for future peace talks, the Trump administration has launched a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

The short-term truce between Lebanon and Israel might offer Lebanese civilians some level of reprieve. However, it may also provide Israel with a quiet week away from the media spotlight to reinforce its military occupation of southern Lebanon.

To create Israel’s security zone, Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military would demolish buildings in Lebanese towns near the border and prevent displaced Lebanese from returning to their homes. Netanyahu made clear Israeli troops would remain.

This can all be more easily accomplished with a ceasefire deal in place.

Short attention spans

Globally, dozens of countries are currently experiencing armed conflict. Many people scan the news regularly as a way of keeping informed and bearing witness to the dynamics of these wars, casualty figures and how they might potentially end.

This glorified horror plays into our current “headline culture”, which tends to encourage clickbait, sensationalised content and virality. It also means public attention on a particular conflict is not necessarily driven by the scale of suffering, but by media coverage. Because of digital media, we have now a proximate and persistent view of human suffering and death that does not always translate into ongoing attention and action.

Whether parties to a conflict will reach a ceasefire or peace agreement is certainly worthwhile and important news. However, once a deal is signed, media and public attention often shifts to other more “active” (and also worthy) conflicts. There is currently no shortage of wars to choose from.

Because we believe a conflict has “ended” with a deal, what comes after the ceasefire or peace agreement tends to remain obfuscated or under-reported.

The peace agreement paradox

Ceasefires and peace agreements are certainly not always a harbinger of peace or a neat full-stop to a war story.

Arguably, the parties to these deals are increasingly aware of the “peace” agreement paradox and are making their political and military calculations accordingly.

If we truly want to grapple with what war and peace directly entails for millions of people in an increasingly complex and volatile world, we need to broaden our understanding about what we mean by ceasefires and peace agreements – and keep up a level of scrutiny long after the deals are signed.

Marika Sosnowski 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. Israel and Lebanon have signed a ceasefire. But this isn’t a tidy end to a war and attention moves on quickly – https://theconversation.com/israel-and-lebanon-have-signed-a-ceasefire-but-this-isnt-a-tidy-end-to-a-war-and-attention-moves-on-quickly-280816

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Professor of History, Australian Catholic University

When Pope Leo XIV condemned threats to destroy Iranian civilisation as “truly unacceptable” in April 2026, the backlash was immediate. US President Donald Trump unleashed a tirade against the pope on social media, accusing him of being “weak on crime”, “terrible for foreign policy”, and acting like a politician rather than a religious leader.

But the exchange that followed matters more than the accusation. Confronted with criticism from Trump, Leo did not retreat. He made his position explicit: he was not afraid to speak, because his task was to proclaim the gospel.

Leo said he had “no fear of the Trump administration”, and “I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing”.

That response clarifies the logic of his pontificate. Leo XIV is not trying to enter politics. He is defining the limits within which politics can operate.

Trump’s attack was heightened when he posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, which caused an outcry even among his supporters. He has since deleted the post.

God, not politics

Pope Leo’s opposition to the Iran war is not political in origin. It is moral and theological. It rests on a consistent claim: power must be judged, violence must be restrained, and invoking God to justify destruction is a distortion of both religion and public life.

From the beginning of his pontificate, Leo XIV has made this clear. Elected on May 8 2025, he used his first public address to call for dialogue, unity, and what he described as an “unarmed and disarming peace”. This was not positioning. It was a statement of purpose.

Since then, his interventions have followed a clear pattern. In 2025, as conflicts intensified in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, he called repeatedly for ceasefires, humanitarian protection, and renewed diplomacy. He avoided strategic language. Instead, he focused on human dignity and the moral cost of war.

The pattern continued into 2026. On March 8, as the Iran conflict escalated, he called for an end to bombing and urged that “weapons may fall silent” to allow dialogue. On April 11, at a prayer vigil in St Peter’s Basilica, he sharpened his language. He warned of a “delusion of omnipotence” driving war and declared: “Enough of war”.

These are not policy prescriptions. They do not tell governments how to conduct war. They ask whether such wars can be justified at all.

This distinction lies at the centre of the current dispute. Political leaders operate within frameworks of interest, security, and power. Leo XIV operates within a framework of moral judgement. When those frameworks collide, his interventions are labelled political.

Yet his response to Trump shows he does not accept that framing. He has insisted his role is not to compete with political authority, but to speak from the gospel, even when that provokes criticism.

This is not new, but it is unusually explicit. Leo is drawing a line between two forms of authority: one grounded in power, the other in moral responsibility. He does not claim to direct political outcomes. He claims the right, and the duty, to judge them.

Beyond war

The same logic shapes his interventions beyond war. On migration, he has framed the issue in terms of human dignity, questioning whether harsh treatment of migrants can be reconciled with a consistent ethic of life. On social questions, he has resisted partisan categories, insisting moral coherence matters more than political alignment.

His engagement with artificial intelligence follows the same pattern. In December 2025, he warned that technological development must serve the common good, not concentrate power in the hands of a few. The question, again, was not technical but ethical: what does it mean to respect human dignity in a changing world?

Across these issues, the method is consistent. Leo XIV begins with principles, not interests. He does not align with factions. He applies moral reasoning to contemporary problems, even when doing so invites political backlash.

This approach reflects his formation. Born in Chicago in 1955 and shaped by decades of pastoral work in Peru, he encountered the realities of violence, inequality, and political instability firsthand. Those experiences did not draw him into politics. They reinforced a conviction that power must be accountable to moral limits.

His intellectual work supports this view. In his 1987 doctoral thesis, he argued authority is not domination but service, grounded in a moral order rather than human will. That understanding carries into his papacy. When Leo XIV speaks, he does not seek to exercise power. He seeks to define its boundaries.

This is why his interventions provoke strong reactions. They do not remain abstract. They challenge real decisions, real policies, and real uses of force. They question the assumptions that underpin them.

In a political culture that often treats moral claims as secondary, this is disruptive. It exposes a tension that cannot easily be resolved: whether decisions about war, migration, or technology can be separated from questions of right and wrong.

Leo XIV’s answer is clear. They cannot.

His exchange with Trump brings that tension into focus. Trump’s criticism reflects a familiar expectation: that religious leaders should avoid direct engagement with political decisions. His response rejects that expectation. He does not present himself as a political actor. He presents himself as a moral voice that cannot be silent.

There is also a longer perspective at work. Political leaders operate within electoral cycles. Their decisions are shaped by immediate pressures. The papacy operates across generations. Its interventions are rarely decisive in the moment, but they shape how events are judged over time.

Leo XIV’s stance on the Iran war belongs to that longer horizon. It is not an attempt to determine outcomes. It is an attempt to set limits: on power, on violence, and on the use of religious language to justify either.

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski 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. Pope Leo’s resolute response to Trump attack reveals a man of God, not politics – https://theconversation.com/pope-leos-resolute-response-to-trump-attack-reveals-a-man-of-god-not-politics-280469

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By John Hart, Emeritus Faculty, US government and politics specialist, Australian National University

US President Donald Trump’s recent intemperate exchanges with the pope, his depiction of himself as a Christ-like figure and his threat to wipe out the civilisation of Iran have raised questions about his mental capacity to carry out his job.

This week, former CIA Director John Brennan joined calls for the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution to be invoked to remove Trump from the presidency, which he said was “written with Donald Trump in mind”.

So what is the 25th Amendment and how would it work?

What does the amendment say?

The amendment is designed to clarify some constitutional ambiguities in the event the president is unable to continue in the role. The first three sections of the amendment are straightforward and uncontroversial.

Section 1 simply states that if a vice president succeeds on the death or resignation of the president, they become president (that is, not merely acting president).

Section 2 provides the mechanism for filling a vacancy in the vice presidency.

Section 3 provides for the president to temporarily hand over the powers and duties of office to the vice president during a period of incapacity (for example, such as undergoing anaesthetic).

Section 4 is a much more complex and potentially difficult arrangement to relieve a president of the duties and responsibilities of office temporarily. The 25th Amendment tackles the problem of presidents who are unfit to continue in office, but don’t recognise their disability.

It is this section of the amendment that is currently making news because of the reaction to Trump’s recent social media posts and behaviour, and the efforts of some leading figures in Washington to invoke the 25th Amendment provision to remove Trump from the presidency.

The disability clause

Section 4 of the amendment works like this. The vice president and a majority of departmental heads declare to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president pro tem of the Senate – the Senate’s second-highest ranking official – that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. If approved, the vice president becomes acting president until such time as the president submits “a written declaration to the contrary.”

After that declaration is made, the president resumes the powers and duties of office unless the vice president and a majority of the heads of the executive departments challenge the president’s response within four days.

If that happens, Congress has 21 days to debate and decide the issue by a two-thirds vote of both houses.

It should be noted the amendment refers to “a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments” and not the Cabinet, as is often mentioned when the disability clause is reported in the media. Trump’s Cabinet consists of 21 members, only 15 of whom are principal officers of executive departments.

So, if the disability provision were to be implemented, the vice president would need eight of the department heads to join him.

The process also depends on the willingness of just one person – the vice president – to implement it, because the procedure doesn’t work with only a majority of the departmental heads.

Finally, even if the amendment was implemented, it wouldn’t actually remove Trump from the presidency. He would remain president, albeit relieved of the powers and duties of office for a temporary period. And JD Vance would only have the title of acting president.

How would it work in Trump’s case?

Even assuming the very unlikely possibility that Vance and eight of the 15 department heads would be willing to implement it, there would be a lot of uncertainty about how the 25th Amendment would work against Trump.

The major weakness of the amendment in Trump’s case would be the provision that allows the president to override the determination of the vice president and the majority of department heads by simply informing Congress that “no inability exists”.

No medical evidence is required, and the amendment doesn’t define “inability”.

Whatever his mental state may be, Trump is not physically disabled, so there would appear to be no physical impediment to him signing a piece of paper declaring that “no inability exists.”

The amendment doesn’t even require Congress to review the president’s “no inability exists” letter. Trump would be restored to the presidency the moment he transmitted the document.

For the process to be taken further, the vice president would have to move against Trump a second time, both houses of Congress would have to debate Trump’s mental state, and super-majorities in both chambers would be necessary to relieve Trump of his duties again. It would risk the 25th Amendment turning into a constitutional crisis.

All of this means any claim the 25th Amendment was “written with Donald Trump in mind” must be questioned. It may be appropriate for a president who is suffering major physical disabilities, such as Woodrow Wilson following his stroke in 1919, or James Garfield’s slow lingering death in 1881. But it is less well equipped to deal with a president who may or may not be mentally incapacitated but is physically able to fight back.

The 25th Amendment is about dealing with the temporary disability of a president not a method of impeaching the president by other means. Impeachment remains the only constitutional way of holding a president to account.

John Hart 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. What is the 25th Amendment and could it be used to remove Trump from office? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-25th-amendment-and-could-it-be-used-to-remove-trump-from-office-280732

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Symon Braun Freck, PhD Candidate, School of Engineering, DeathTech Research Team, The University of Melbourne

This week, Nicole Kidman revealed she is training to become a death doula. She told an audience at the University of San Francisco it “may sound a little weird”, but she was inspired after her mother died in 2024.

Observing how her family wasn’t able to provide the support they hoped they could, Kidman wished there were “people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care”. This is how she came to explore the field of death doulaship.

The concept of a doula is often familiar: you might have heard of a birth doula, who supports a family through pregnancy. A death doula works in a similar capacity, as a community partner offering support to the dying.

There is no singular definition for doulas, but those within the field often describe their work as “holding space” for their client. They act as a neutral third-party, working between the family, end-of-life care professionals and funeral professionals.

Though there are training programs that offer certifications for death doulas, their work varies widely depending on the preferences of the doula and the type of assistance sought by the client.

You may have even acted as a death doula within your own community, aiding the dying or their loved ones without the official title.

A new model for dying

Dying, death and funerals were once a sacred communal process taken care of by family in the comfort of their home. As death became institutionalised, medicalised and professionalised over the late 19th and early 20th centuries, loved ones were pushed to the wayside as they did not have the proper training to care for the dead in the eyes of the industry.

By the mid 1900s, the family parlor was no longer the central meeting spot to lament over mortality, and the funeral industry as we understand it today was in full swing.

This shift slowly gave way to a host of paraprofessionals. Death doulas and death midwives, an ancient practice, reemerged in the early 2000s.

Stemming from the Greek term δούλα, meaning female servant, doulas serve as community helpers in liminal periods, most commonly birth and death. They seek to fill the gaps medical and funeral personnel are unable to attend.

Not everyone who acts in this role calls themselves a “death doula”. They are also known as soul guides, compassionate companions and vigilers, among other titles.

I volunteered, researched and worked in thanatology – the study of death and dying – for over a decade before completing my death doula training. The hands-on experience I gained working with death before my training program was crucial in shaping my ability to communicate about mortality.

Most people want to talk about death, but they’re faced with the conversation too late. In their most vulnerable hour, the dying and their loved ones are expected to make impossible decisions with little guidance. That’s where death doulas come in.

Easing the burden

Kidman said “as my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide”.

While many family members are elected as surrogate decision-makers throughout the end-of-life process, it is common they feel highly uncertain about the choices they’re making.

The assistance and support of third-party advocates, like death doulas, helps ease the burden on family members and offers a neutral perspective during a vulnerable period.

I came into this work because I experienced deaths at a young age, and I understood my capacity to deal with death. Similarly to Kidman, many doulas I have interviewed came to the work after a loss of their own, with a newfound desire to share what they learned through their experience to help others in an inevitable time of need.

Death doulas can specialise their work, electing to work with pets, stillbirths, children, cognitive decline and many other types of loss.

Some doulas may enter work with a client years before a death, working on more administrative tasks like advanced care planning. Others may join right before a death occurs, focusing on sitting bedside. A third doula may specialise their work around funeral planning, coming in to help facilitate an at-home funeral.

No two doula practices are identical, just like no two deaths are identical.

If you are wondering if you should join a death doula training program, my response would be that increasing your death literacy is always beneficial, but there are many ways to get a death education.

Before diving in, explore what is drawing you to the profession and if you want to do this work for others or if you are seeking the knowledge for yourself. Both are wonderful motivations, but they could lead to different outcomes in the type of program you choose to attend or the kind of death education you seek.

We’re all going to die, and it’s never too soon to start talking about it.

Symon Braun Freck receives funding from the University of Melbourne as part of her research. Symon also runs a consulting firm (SBF Creative), a death-tech company (AI Death Doula), and a personal blog, all focused on thanatology. She received her death doula training from the University of Vermont. Symon is a Certified Thanatologist through ADEC and affiliated with NEDA, The Open to Hope Foundation, and Death with Dignity.

– ref. Nicole Kidman is training to be a ‘death doula’. What is a death doula? – https://theconversation.com/nicole-kidman-is-training-to-be-a-death-doula-what-is-a-death-doula-280725

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sarah Lawson, Academic Registrar at St Barnabas College in the University of Divinity, PhD Candidate in Ancient Linguistics, Faculty of Arts and Education, CSU, Charles Sturt University

Most of us are used to thinking of “religion” in terms of a belief in God or gods. Perhaps the big hitters of world belief systems come to mind – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism or, in Australia, the Dreamtime.

But philosophers of religion and human belief systems tend to make it a bit more complicated for us. They like to expand what we think of as religious belief.

One philosopher, William James, defined religion as “the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves [to it]”.

When we think of religion this way, we can conceive of a lot more “unseen orders” or religions in the world than just the big, organised religions and belief in supernatural phenomena.

For example, most of us believe in the unseen order of “queuing” and believe that our greater good comes from harmoniously adjusting ourselves to its rules. These might include “first come, first serve,” “no cuts,” “join at the end,” “leaving the queue forfeits your place” and more.

Other unseen orders we interact with daily might include “manners”, “tall-poppy-ism,” or even “civil law”. James helps us understand how these beliefs function cognitively and emotionally, and how they affect our behaviour just like a traditional religion.

In Bluey, one of the most interesting religions is “Play”.

Play, religion and Bluey

Play functions as a unifying unseen order all the characters align themselves to throughout the show.

The cast whole-heartedly believe in this unseen order of Play, with rules which ought to be harmoniously followed in order to reach the supreme good. This unifying belief centres the characters on the good of bonding, love and fun.

The pursuit of these ideals is rewarded both within the show by the characters and metatextually as the “gods” of the show (Joe Brumm and the other writers) bend the world towards them.

So, what are the central beliefs of the religion of Play in Bluey? My research found four key rules which the characters consistently adjust themselves to.

1. Don’t interrupt or stop. No one in the show ever willingly interrupts or stops mid-game, best illustrated by the episode Stumpfest.

2. Follow the agreed rules. Rules and “playing properly” are very important to the characters, most aptly illustrated by the episodes Shadowlands and Library.

3. Be enthusiastic. There are no half-measures or dissent allowed, illustrated by Octopus and Whale Watching.

4. Games should have happy endings, because the real world often doesn’t. This is the theme of the 2024 special The Sign.

‘Contextualising’ religions

The religion of Play is not without difficulties. The show spends a surprising amount of time questioning and exploring these rules, especially when they harm or hinder rather than help the characters seek good.

This is parallel to the process of “contextualising” real-life organised religions. Contextualising is when the practices or beliefs of religions are explored and changed over time to better suit the time and place the religion finds itself in and allow more people to comfortably and positively engage with the greater good of the religion.

For example, many houses of worship have adjusted standing and kneeling practices for prayer to accommodate folks with physical disabilities and an ageing population. Likewise, many religious services that were once performed in ceremonial languages (like Latin, Sanskrit or Classical Arabic) are now done in the contemporary language of the community.

Bluey can offer us some lessons in contextualising our own religions, beliefs or non-religion.

In the episode Shop we see worrying too much about how the unseen order works (the rules of a game) can stop you from engaging in the unseen order (having fun). Engaging is far more important than rules.

Episodes Charades and Helicopter teach inclusion and flexibility in play. Modifying the rules is acceptable so that more people can join in.

In Copycat we see the benefit of stories and playing out games with sad or unexpected endings. Different practices can illuminate more depth or diversity.

In Driving, Chilli interrupts to understand the game better, and can then better align her enthusiasm to the game. Some rules are less important than others – breaking a minor rule might be necessary to follow a more important rule.

And in Pass the Parcel, a parent changes the practice of the game, back to how he played as a child with only one prize rather than a prize in every layer. This change to the unseen order is at first taken with great difficulty by the children and parents alike, but in the end is appreciated: the reward is greater than the growing pains.

Adjustment and contextualisation can be hard, but also rewarding.

What we can learn about practicing religion

The rules of the belief system are only a means to an end. The rules are a way of aligning oneself with the unseen order for the greater good. The rules are not the greater good in and of themselves.

Bluey teaches us three important lessons about practicing religion through its depiction of the religion of play:

• participation in the unseen order is more important than the specific rules

• extreme and rigid adherence to the rules can be harmful to those around us and ourselves

• there is more than one way to practice an unseen order without giving up the supreme good that we all seek.

There is more than one way to play a game, just as there is more than one way to practice a religion.

Sarah Lawson 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. Can we consider ‘play’ to be a religion? Bluey certainly thinks so – https://theconversation.com/can-we-consider-play-to-be-a-religion-bluey-certainly-thinks-so-274977

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Annabel Blake, PhD Candidate, Human-Computer Interaction, University of Sydney

In 2022, the founders of chatbot startup Character.AI launched a platform where anyone could create interactive characters powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

The app exploded, quickly growing to more than 20 million users who created more than 10 million chatbot characters.

Many of the users creating those characters were young people – until they weren’t. In November 2025, under mounting public and legal pressure surrounding youth suicides linked to its use, Character.AI banned users under 18. The decision was made after a number of attempts to improve youth safety, including parental controls and stricter content filters.

The ban is an attempt to keep teens safe from potential harm. But the more creative, playful and emotionally expressive AI experiments they were doing have also been silenced.

Our new research, published in the proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery CHI Conference 2026, captures and preserves the new ways youth are experimenting with AI, so that we can build towards something better.

What do teens actually use AI chatbots for?

In 2026, three in ten US teenagers use AI daily. The idea of using AI for companionship has dominated media headlines and app stores, with hundreds of apps on offer.

Media coverage of AI companions taps into two primary fears. One is that young people will replace human friendships with AI. The other is that engaging with sycophantic chatbots instead of real people will result in teens losing their social skills.

These concerns are important. But companionship accounts for a surprisingly small share of why young people actually use AI. A recent Pew Research Center survey found the top uses by teens are seeking information (57%), doing homework (54%) and “for fun” (47%). Only a small percentage (12%) used AI for emotional support or advice. Romance and loneliness alleviation frequently rank among the lowest motivations for teen AI use: 4–6% and 8–11%, respectively.

When the public narrative almost exclusively frames AI chatbots as companions, it risks overlooking the bulk of how teenagers spend their time with AI.

Our team set out to understand what young people choose to do with AI when they’re free to use it outside of school contexts – seeking fun, messing around, and creating characters of their own design.

AI as entertainment

Before the ban, Character.AI was a popular “AI entertainment” destination for young people. It still has a viral TikTok channel, and has characters from popular youth media, from Peppa Pig to Call of Duty.

Our team spent more than eight months, between July 2024 and March 2025, immersed in Character.AI’s official community on online chat platform Discord, with more than 500,000 members. We systematically analysed 2,236 posts by young people aged 13–17. Of those users the majority, 68.2%, identified as female or non-binary; and 59% had created their own AI characters.

Through an analysis of youth discussion on the platform, we identified three core intents behind engagement with Character.AI: restoration, exploration and transformation.

Restoration

my favourite period comfort bot is Percy Jackson

Young people used characters for emotional comfort, venting, escapism and mood management. Rather than mirroring a formal clinical practice, we observed youth discussing “comfort bots” where young people engaged in soft, tender and gentle roleplay with familiar characters.

Beloved book characters would comfort people on their period, or characters from popular comics would give someone a pep talk for an upcoming math test.

Exploration

Character.AI has helped me find that creative spark within myself

Young people explored boundaries, engaged in creative world-building, and extended their fandoms. One teen wrote a three-book-long saga through character interactions. Another created a troupe of travelling theatre characters inspired by their love of theatre. They reported this use transferred skills into the real world, boosting creativity and improving their writing.

Transformation

I have characters who struggle with mental health issues and I tend to project on my personas during RP [roleplay]

Young people used AI to try on different identities, process real-life relationships, and re-author difficult real-life scenarios. Some people created “clones” of themselves, with superpowers or self-affirming versions of themselves.

Inspired by reality, they discussed creating characters that reflected real-world challenging relationships, such as “toxic friends”, “annoying sister”, or “foster care agent”.

Characters created with purpose

We also mapped seven distinct character archetypes young people were creating and discussing:

• Soother – emotionally supportive figures
• Narrator – a cast of characters for roleplays
• Trickster – jesting, testing and transgressive chats
• Icon – remixed celebrities or fandom figures
• Dark Soul – angsty, emotionally complex characters
• Proxy – modelled after real people in their lives, and
• Mirror – clones of the self.

These archetypes are a central finding of our research. Instead of sycophantic or romantic chatbot engagement, young people are purposefully creating characters that are angsty, transgressive, playful, creative and reflective.

This shows we need to stop treating “companion AI” as if it’s one homogeneous thing. Treating AI chatbots as a single category is like treating all screen time as the same experience, whether a child is watching Bluey with family or doomscrolling short-form content at night, alone on their phone when they should be sleeping.

Towards better chatbots

The American Academy of Paediatrics recently shifted screen-time guidelines from set time limits to a framework that accounts for the individual child, their use, family relationships and their environment.

The same logic should apply to AI chatbots. This means moving beyond asking adults about their child’s use of AI, testing AI products with fake accounts that assume certain use cases, and banning access before listening to young people – their experiences, their experiments and their ideas for the future.

Banning is a reaction to bad design, but it doesn’t lead to better, safer AI products for teens.

The answer is not to permanently keep young people away from AI. Rather, it’s to build AI that deserves their trust, fosters their creativity and keeps them grounded in the physical world with families, friendships and communities.

Annabel Blake is a Design Researcher at Canva with a focus on AI, and conducted this research independently as part of their PhD.

Eduardo Velloso has recently received funding from Google. He has previously received research funding from Meta, Microsoft, and Snap.

Marcus Carter is a recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (#220100076) on ‘The Monetisation of Children in the Digital Games Industry’. He has previously received funding from Meta, TikTok and Snapchat, and has consulted for Telstra. He is a previous president and board member of the Digital Games Research Association of Australia.

– ref. How do teens really use AI companions? With more creativity than you might think – https://theconversation.com/how-do-teens-really-use-ai-companions-with-more-creativity-than-you-might-think-278532

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ali Mamouri, Research Fellow, Middle East Studies, Deakin University

The Trump administration claims its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is working, with nine ships complying with orders to turn around.

One of those was a Chinese-owned tanker called the Rich Starry that turned around in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday to head back through the strait.

Iran, meanwhile, maintains it still has control over the strait and it will determine which ships transit through the crucial waterway. It also said if its ports are threatened, “no port in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman will remain safe”.

No matter how the blockade plays out, Iran will be in a far better position in the long term when it comes to maintaining control over the strait – not the US.

Iran’s powerful new tool

For decades, Iran had threatened to use the Strait of Hormuz as leverage against its adversaries. It avoided doing so, however, until the current war against the United States and Israel, which it sees as existential.

Ironically, while the US and Israel aimed to weaken Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities, the conflict has given Tehran a powerful new tool – control of the strait.

Tehran is now likely to make this control a core part of its long-term strategic thinking. In fact, Iran’s negotiators in the recent peace talks with the US had added Iranian sovereignty over the strait to their list of demands.

This leverage serves at least three key purposes.

First, it provides significant revenue potential from the tolls and transit fees it is already charging ships going through the strait.

By imposing minimal transit-related costs — estimated at around US$1 per barrel or up to US$2 million (A$2.8 million) per tanker — Iran could reportedly generate some US$600 million (A$836 million) per month from oil and another US$800 million (A$1.1 billion) per month from gas shipments.

Economists say at least 80% of the tolls would be paid by the Persian Gulf states – or as much as US$14 billion (A$20 billion) a year on oil alone.

Second, the strait functions as a security guarantee. By demonstrating its ability to disrupt a critical global energy artery, Iran has raised the cost of any future military action against it. This creates deterrence through economic risk rather than purely military means.

Third, it gives Iran geopolitical leverage, particularly with countries in the Global South. Control over the strait allows Iran to bargain with energy-dependent states, encouraging them to circumvent US sanctions on the regime and deepen economic engagement in exchange for concessions accessing the strait.

The US is now trying to neutralise Iran’s leverage over the strait. Yet, this “siege of a siege” faces clear structural limitations.

For one, Iran’s control over the strait is much easier to maintain than a US blockade in international waters. Even with allied support (which has yet to materialise), the US would struggle to restrict access to the strait for an extended period. Such an effort would be highly costly for the US military and would have significant consequences for the global economy.

In this sense, Hormuz risks becoming America’s Suez moment — a strategic chokepoint that reveals the limits of power rather than its reach.

How will China react?

But could China, which buys more than 80% of Iran’s oil, play a role in pressuring Iran to relax its control over the strait?

It has not done yet, and is unlikely to do. So far, China is blaming the US and rejecting its blockade.

In fact, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun used forceful language this week, calling the blockade “dangerous and irresponsible”.

Although one Chinese tanker has been turned around, others have transited through the new “tollbooth” system in recent days. This is an indication of China’s need and willingness to abide by Iran’s new rules – at least for the moment.

While China is exposed to the US blockade – about 40% of its oil imports come through the waterway – it has prepared for this moment.

It has diversified its oil imports to avoid being too reliant on any one supplier. And China is believed to have enough petroleum reserves to replace imports via the strait for up to seven months.

Still, it remains to be seen if China would support a toll system in the long term. Despite Beijing’s silence so far, some experts believe it would oppose this. China has repeatedly stressed the need to return to “normal passage” through the strait as soon as possible.

China’s expanding role in the region

China also stands to benefit from the political shifts that could come after the war.

The war has pushed the Gulf states toward a shared realisation that alignment with the US and partnership with Israel do not necessarily guarantee their security.

As a result, they may seek to diversify their relationships. This is reflected in the crown prince of Abu Dhabi’s visit to Beijing this week.

Trade between the Gulf states and China has grown significantly, with total exchanges reaching approximately US$257 billion (A$358 billion) in 2024, narrowly surpassing the Gulf’s combined trade with major Western economies.

China is also expanding its diplomatic footprint in the region, helping to mediate the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023 to normalise relations and playing an indirect role in the recent Pakistan talks between Iran and the US to end the war. It clearly sees a bigger role in the region in the future.

Looking ahead, Iran may seek to leverage this moment to pursue a more regionally based security framework with the Gulf states, potentially with China acting as a guarantor or facilitator. Such a development would mark a significant departure from the longstanding US role as the primary security provider in the region.

Ali Mamouri 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. Iran has a powerful new tool in the Strait of Hormuz that it can leverage long after the war – https://theconversation.com/iran-has-a-powerful-new-tool-in-the-strait-of-hormuz-that-it-can-leverage-long-after-the-war-280442