Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sue Turnbull, Honorary Professor of Communication and Media Studies, University of Wollongong

Dame Stella Rimington, former director general of the UK’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, MI5, and author of several spy thrillers, has died this week, aged 90.

A decade ago, Rimington came to Melbourne to promote her latest spy thriller, featuring her alter ego Liz Carlyle, also an MI5 agent. I was invited, as convenor of Sisters in Crime Australia, to interview her before an appreciative audience at Readings bookshop in Hawthorn. They were clearly delighted to be hearing from a real-life spy – especially one widely credited as the blueprint for Judi Dench’s version of M in the Bond movies.

Tall, elegant, impeccably dressed and sharp as a stiletto, Dame Stella was everything we wanted her to be: a woman who had made it to the top in the macho world of espionage.

Her literary legacy includes a 2001 autobiography, Open Secret, (widely seen as disappointing) and several spy thrillers, which gained a dedicated following. Her 2004 debut thriller, At Risk, was praised in the Guardian as “a cracking good thriller” with “nitty-gritty insider detail”. Together, her books provide a fascinating insight into a clandestine world more usually presented from what she herself described as a masculine point of view.

“When you think about it, all fictional spies are blokes, and spy writers when I started were chaps too,” she told the Edinburgh International Book Festival of her Liz Carlyle novels in 2015. “So I was certain that my character was going to be female. I wanted her to reflect accurately what a female does in my former service.”

Both of her female protagonists, Carlyle and CIA agent Manon Tyler (in her final two novels), reflected aspects of her own personality. Their adventures, blended with the challenges of ordinary life – relationships, workplace politics, insecurities – took readers around the world as they dealt with “fictional” threats to the nation.

An accidental spy

Sir Richard Moore, head of MI6, the foreign intelligence branch of the UK secret service, has called Rimington a “true trailblazer”. MI5 itself states it “underwent far-reaching transformation under Dame Stella’s leadership”, reports the BBC.

But she never set out to be a spy. Born in South London in 1935, she went to Edinburgh University in 1954, where she earned a master’s degree in English and literature – which shows where a good humanities degree can get you. After training as an archivist, she married John Rimington, who she accompanied to India when he took up a position at the High Commission in New Delhi.

After two years of tea parties and amateur dramatics, Rimington was asked to help out with some office work for one of the First Secretaries, who just happened to be working for MI5. As she later explained, she was subsequently “tapped on the shoulder”. Eventually, she would climb from the “typing pool to the top”.

Her elevation was never going to be easy in the hard-drinking, masculine culture of the 1970s secret service, when women were paid much less than their male counterparts. Describing herself and her female colleagues as “restive”, Rimington admitted it took something of a rebellion in the ranks before women were recognised as equals, culminating in her appointment as the first female director of MI5 in 1992.

She was also the first head of MI5 to be publicly identified, before retiring in 1996. Her family were forced to flee their London house to escape the tabloids, which published headlines like “Housewife super spy”. She later said it was the point where she “felt most unsafe”. She was, however, broadly in favour of greater public openness about the UK’s intelligence services.

Given the presumed end of the Cold War, the major threats Rimington had to deal with were largely those of domestic terrorism: threats she was required to report to then prime minister John Major. Apparently, there was often very little information to go on, at which point Major would respond “Oh well, Stella, do your best”, which she invariably did.

Booker judging and a publishing uproar

After her retirement, Rimington maintained an active public life, joining the boards of such venerable British institutions as Marks and Spencer.

In 2011, she served as chair of the judging panel for the Man Booker Prize. This created something of a stir, when the judges espoused “readability” and the ability to “zip along” as criteria they would use to assess the prize. This did not go down well – and some critics called the subsequent shortlist “was the worst in decades”.

Defending the judges’ decision at the awards ceremony, Rimington had the temerity to compare the publishing world to the KGB, thanks to its use of “black propaganda, destabilisation operations, plots and double agents”. Sounds like a great idea for a crime novel – of which she wrote a few.

Her autobiography and novels had to be submitted to MI5 for vetting and clearance. She was occasionally asked to change names and places.

Asked to write a new introduction to an anthology of stories edited by Hugh and Graham Greene, The Spy’s Bedtime Book, Rimington suggested the spy novel is “in a special class of literature in which the real and the imaginary can be mixed in any proportion, so long as they both are present”. Arguably, this is true of all literature.

The world is still dangerous

As Rimington informed the audience at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne in 2012, the world is still a dangerous place. Then, she pointed to the continuing rise of domestic terrorism, instability in the Middle East and Putin’s ongoing aggression towards the West. How right she has proved to be – which is hardly any consolation.

“There’s so much to discover in spy stories,” she once said. “It’s a small ‘lifting of the curtains’ of a world that people know exists but don’t know much about.”

Rimington was an exceptional woman whose books document the challenging times she lived through, from an insider’s unique perspective on the front line. The line between the reality of Stella Rimington and the fiction she created may be hard to draw – which makes them fascinating reading.

Sue Turnbull isChair of the BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival

– ref. Spy novelist Stella Rimington, the first female head of MI5, was a ‘true trailblazer’ – https://theconversation.com/spy-novelist-stella-rimington-the-first-female-head-of-mi5-was-a-true-trailblazer-262799

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ivan Franceschini, Lecturer, Chinese Studies, The University of Melbourne

Last month, the Cambodian government launched the largest crackdown to date on the online scam industry that has taken root in the country and operated largely in the open.

On July 16, a directive from Prime Minister Hun Manet acknowledged the growing threat posed by the industry and instructed provincial officials, law enforcement agencies, the courts and the national gambling commission to take action.

As police began raiding scam sites across the country, Telegram channels used by cyber criminals went into a frenzy, warning others of the seriousness of the crackdown.

Some posts claimed the police were setting up roadblocks across the country, detaining people without passports and demanding bribes for their release. Videos also circulated showing mass evacuations from compounds.

The government was soon trumpeting its success. In late July, it announced that raids had been conducted at nearly 140 locations, leading to the arrests of more than 3,000 suspects from at least 19 countries, more than half of them from China and Vietnam.

Significantly, the authorities said very few of these “suspects” had been held against their will. However, we know from our research, previously published in The Conversation, that thousands of people have been trafficked or duped into these compounds and forced to work in conditions akin to modern slavery.

The crackdown was met with praise from China and other countries. Many of these governments have been struggling with the consequences of the scam industry, whether through the trafficking of their citizens to Cambodia or scammers targeting victims in their countries.

However, despite the scale of the operation – and the government’s pledge to “get rid” of scam syndicates in Cambodia – there is widespread scepticism these efforts will be enough to dismantle the industry.

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Read more:
Scam Factories: the inside story of Southeast Asia’s brutal fraud compounds

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Simmering border tensions

The crackdown last month coincided with a brief conflict between Thailand and Cambodia that displaced more than 300,000 people.

Analysts have pointed to long-simmering tensions over the countries’ border and rising tensions over the death of a Cambodian soldier in a skirmish in May as the reason for the hostilities.

However, Thailand has attributed the conflict to its own crackdown on Cambodian scam operations.

Earlier this year, Thailand cut power and internet service to the border scam hotspot of Poipet City.

Then, in early July, Thailand took the unprecedented step of going after a powerful Cambodian senator and tycoon known to own large properties in Poipet that Thai authorities allege are connected to online scam operations.

Thailand’s criminal court issued an arrest warrant for the senator and raided his properties in Thailand. The authorities also targeted his children and their Thai assets.

In response, a Cambodian official accused Thailand of long being a “central hub for transnational crimes” in Southeast Asia and “shifting blame” for the problem to Cambodia.

A spokesperson for Cambodia’s Senate also said the case against the senator was exaggerated and false, calling it an act of “revenge”. The senator himself did not respond to attempts by Cambodian media to reach him.

Although Thailand has ramped up efforts to tackle the scam industry in recent years, its leaders are likely using the issue to bolster public support at home, while bloodying the noses of Cambodian elites they allege are profiting from the industry.

Large operations continue to operate

Amid this war of words, Cambodian authorities insist the crackdown on the industry will continue.

To Cambodia’s credit, this latest campaign was national in scope, unlike previous crackdowns that were mostly confined to the coastal city of Sihanoukville, a major scamming hub.

Still, familiar patterns quickly began to surface. As in the past, the authorities have focused on small to mid-sized operations, while the largest operators seem to have been left untouched.

In many cases, these major compounds were reportedly tipped off in advance and evacuated. A significant number of scammers have since relocated to large compounds close to the Vietnam border, which seem to be operating without interference.

Indeed, one of us (Ling) joined a rescue team in early August trying to reach a Chinese man who claimed to have been trafficked into a compound hidden deep in the hills of Mondulkiri Province near the border.

The man couldn’t pinpoint his exact location, but through messages with the rescue organisation over several months, the team was able to gradually determine where he was being held – and the scale of the scamming enterprise.

Weeks after the crackdown, Ling joined the team on a field visit to assess the situation. From the hilltops at night, they saw lights flickering across the slopes coming from what appeared to be several buildings surrounded by sparse jungle.

With only one exposed access road to the site, the team couldn’t get close without being detected. But there was no doubt the compound was active and bustling, as were several others in the area that Ling observed on her trip.

The Chinese man was still inside at that time, but since then, there has been no word from him.

What needs to be done

Crackdowns on scam compounds have failed in the past because they don’t address the two fundamental pillars that allow the industry to flourish. One is the powerful local networks that protect scam operators. The other is the sophisticated physical infrastructure of the compounds.

As long as the elites who provide scam operators with cover remain untouched and the compounds remain intact, scammers can quickly get back to work when the pressure subsides.

Periodic crackdowns may shake things up temporarily, but the people being arrested tend to be low-level workers, not those at the top.

Once these campaigns are over, scamming activities simply restart. Operators may go quiet until the storm passes or move to safer locations. Confiscated equipment can be replaced, as can the workers.

The cycle can only be broken by longer-term measures to tackle the structural and systemic issues that prop up the industry in these countries, such as corruption and weak law enforcement.

Given the transnational nature of the industry and complicity of the authorities and elites in host countries, it also requires a more determined effort from global governments, law enforcement, and the finance and tech companies whose products and services are exploited by scam operators.

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Independent researcher Mark Bo contributed to this report.

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. Cambodia is vowing to ‘rid’ the country of scam compounds. But we’ve seen several still operating in the open – https://theconversation.com/cambodia-is-vowing-to-rid-the-country-of-scam-compounds-but-weve-seen-several-still-operating-in-the-open-262792

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Adam Brumm, Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University

Stone tools dating to at least 1.04 million years ago have been found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. This means early hominins made a major sea crossing from the Asian mainland much earlier than previously thought – and they likely didn’t have any boats.

This discovery, made by a team of Indonesian archaeologists working in collaboration with Australian researchers, is published today in Nature.

It adds to our understanding of how extinct humans once moved across the Wallace Line – an imaginary boundary that runs through the Lombok Strait in the Indonesian archipelago.

Beyond this line, unique and often peculiar animal species – including hominins – evolved in isolation.

Hominins in Wallacea

The oceanic island zone between the Asian and Australian landmasses is known as Wallacea.

Previously, archaeologists have found hominins lived here from at least 1.02 million years ago, thanks to discoveries of stone tools at Wolo Sege on the island of Flores. Meanwhile, tools dated to around 194,000 years ago have been found at Talepu on Sulawesi.

The human evolutionary story in the islands east of the Asian landmass is strange.

The ancient human species that used to live on the island of Flores were small in stature. We know this thanks to the fossils of Homo floresiensis (popularly known as “hobbits”), as well as the 700,000-year-old fossils of a similar small-bodied hominin.

These discoveries suggest it could have been the extinct Asian hominin Homo erectus that breached the formidable marine barrier between this small Wallacean island and mainland Southeast Asia. Over hundreds of thousands of years, their body size reduced in what’s known as island dwarfism.

To the north of Wallacea, the island of Luzon in the Philippines has also yielded evidence of hominins from around 700,000 years ago. Just recently, fossils of a previously unknown diminutive hominin species, Homo luzonensis, were found here.

So how and when did ancient human species cross the Wallace Line?

The Sulawesi stone tools

Our new study reveals the first evidence a sea crossing to Sulawesi may have happened at least 1 million years ago. That’s much earlier than previously known, and means humans reached here at about the same time as Flores, if not earlier.

A field team led by senior archaeologist Budianto Hakim from the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN), excavated a total of seven stone artefacts from the sedimentary layers of a sandstone outcrop in a modern corn field at Calio in southern Sulawesi.

In the Early Pleistocene, there was a river channel nearby. This would have been the site of hominin tool-making and other activities such as hunting.

The Calio artefacts consist of small, sharp-edged fragments of stones (flakes) that the early human tool-makers struck from larger pebbles they most likely found in nearby riverbeds.

To produce these flakes, the hominins hit the edge of one stone with another in a controlled manner. This would fracture the first stone in a predictable way.

This tool-making activity left telltale marks on the stones that can be clearly distinguished from naturally broken rocks. So we can say unequivocally that hominins were living in this landscape, making stone tools, at the time the ancient river sediments that comprise the sandstone rock were accumulating.

And that was a very long time ago. Indeed, the team confirmed an age of at least 1.04 million years for the stone artefacts based on paleomagnetic dating of the sandstone itself, along with direct dating of a pig fossil found alongside the artefacts.

Who were these hominins and how did they get to Sulawesi?

As noted earlier, previous research has shown that archaic, stone tool-making hominins managed to get across from the Asian continental landmass to colonise at least some islands in Wallacea.

The discovery of the extremely old stone tools at Calio is another significant new piece of the puzzle. This site has yet to yield any hominin fossils, however. So while we now know there were tool-makers on Sulawesi 1 million years ago, their identity remains a mystery.

Indeed, there are many fascinating questions that remain unanswered, including how these hominins were able to cross the Wallace Line in the first place.

When sea levels were at their lowest, the shortest possible distance between Sulawesi and the nearest part of the adjacent Asian landmass would have been about 50 kilometres.

This is too far to swim, especially since the ocean currents are far too strong. It’s also unlikely these archaic hominins had the cognitive ability to develop watercraft capable of making sea voyages. Setting sail over the horizon to an unseen land would have required advanced planning to gather resources – something they probably weren’t capable of.

Most likely, then, they crossed to Sulawesi from the Asian mainland in the same way rodents and monkeys are suspected to have done – by accident. Perhaps they were castaways on natural “rafts” of floating vegetation.

Our discovery also leads us to wonder what might have happened to Homo erectus on the world’s 11th largest island. Sulawesi is more than 12 times the size of Flores, and much closer to the adjacent Asian mainland.

In fact, Sulawesi is a bit like a mini-continent in itself, which sets it apart from other Wallacean islands. If hominins were cut off in the ecologically rich habitats of this enormous island for a million years, would they have undergone the same evolutionary changes as the Flores hobbits? Or might something completely different have happened?

To unravel this fascinating story, we will continue to search the islands of Wallacea – especially those close to the Asian mainland – for ancient artefacts, fossils and other clues.

Adam Brumm receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Basran Burhan is a researcher at Pusat Kolaborasi Riset Arkeologi Sulawesi (BRIN-Universitas Hasanuddin).

Gerrit (Gert) van den Bergh has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

Maxime Aubert receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Renaud Joannes-Boyau receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. This stone tool is over 1 million years old. How did its maker get to Sulawesi without a boat? – https://theconversation.com/this-stone-tool-is-over-1-million-years-old-how-did-its-maker-get-to-sulawesi-without-a-boat-262337

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Melanie O’Brien, Associate Professor in International Law, The University of Western Australia

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a provisional ruling in a case brought by South Africa against Israel, alleging genocide in Gaza. The court found Palestinians have a “plausible” right to protection from genocide in Gaza and that Israel must take all measures to prevent a genocide from occurring.

Since then, United Nations experts and human rights groups have concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. In recent weeks, others have done the same, including leading genocide scholars and two Israeli human rights groups.

While the ICJ case may take years to play out, we asked five Australian experts in international law and genocide studies what constitutes a genocide, what the legal standard is, and whether the evidence, in their view, shows one is occurring.

Melanie O’Brien is the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). This piece does not represent the view of IAGS.

Ben Saul is the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, an independent expert appointed by consensus of the member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Eyal Mayroz served as a counterterrorism specialist with the Israeli Defence Forces in the 1980s.

Paul James and Shannon Bosch 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. Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza? We asked 5 legal and genocide experts how to interpret the violence – https://theconversation.com/is-israel-committing-genocide-in-gaza-we-asked-5-legal-and-genocide-experts-how-to-interpret-the-violence-262688

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nigel Stork, Emeritus Professor in the Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, Griffith University

Insects are arguably the most important animals on the planet. Their variety is unparalleled in nature, and they carry out vital tasks such as pollinating plants and providing food for other animals.

But all is not well in the insect world. Research over the last few years has shown sustained declines in insect species and numbers. It appeared Earth was witnessing a global-scale crash in insects – and climate change was partly to blame.

The evidence was mostly confined to temperate regions in the Northern Hemisphere. But our new research – published today in Nature – shows it’s also happening in the tropics, where most of Earth’s species live.

We found significant biodiversity loss in spiders, as well as insects including butterflies and beetles. The likely culprit is long-term changes to the El Niño cycle, caused by climate change. It suggests the life-support system underpinning the tropics is at serious risk in a warmer world.

Uncovering the effects of El Niño

El Niños vary massively across tropical regions, but are often characterised by hot and dry conditions (as opposed to the cool and moist conditions of La Niña).

Alternating El Niño and La Niña events can naturally cause many insects to come and go. That’s due to changes in temperature and moisture levels which can affect insect breeding, life cycles and behaviour.

But as climate change worsens, strong El Niño events are becoming more frequent and intense. We wanted to know how this affected insects in tropical regions.

To find out, we examined 80 existing studies of insects in relatively pristine tropical forests – mostly from the tropical Americas. We linked that data to measures of strength in El Niño and La Niña through time.

We found cause for concern. El Niño events appear to cause a rapid decline in both insect biodiversity, and the ecological tasks they perform. These trends were persistent and highly unnatural.

Several types of insects have become more rare in the tropical Americas over recent decades. These included butterflies, beetles and “true bugs” – insects from the order Hemiptera distinguished by two sets of wings and piercing mouthparts used to feed on plants. Butterflies in tropical Asia were also declining.

The strongest declines were in rare insects that would naturally decrease during El Niño. These insect populations would usually bounce back in a La Niña. But climate-fuelled El Niños are causing many populations to fall so far, they cannot recover.

Drastic changes to forests

Our findings suggest the diversity of tropical insects could be chipped away with every El Niño event. This is not just a problem for the species themselves, but other parts of the ecosystem that depend on them.

Our research also involved modelling the decomposition and consumption of leaves by insects across the tropical Americas, Asia and Africa. Both processes are crucial to the health of tropical forests.

Decomposition fluctuated in line with the abundance of termites, which are probably the most important decomposers in the tropics. And worryingly, the amount of live leaves consumed by insects appears to have crashed in recent decades. This correlated strongly with the crash in butterflies and beetles.

These drastic changes may have implications for food webs and other organisms that rely on insects.

A difficult future ahead

Our research could not take in the huge diversity of tropical insects – most of which have not yet been formally described by scientists. But it points to a difficult future for insects – and their habitats – as climate change worsens.

Little data exists on insect numbers in Australia’s Wet Tropics, in Queensland. However, monitoring work is underway at facilities such as the Daintree Rainforest Observatory. Such projects will help us better understand changes in insect biodiversity under climate change.

More research is also needed at other locations around the world. Given the fundamental role insects play in supporting life on Earth, the urgency of this work cannot be overstated.

Nigel Stork receives funding from Australian Research Council grant DP200103100

Adam Sharp receives funding from Hong Kong University Grants Committee Collaborative Research Fund (C7048-22GF).

– ref. Climate-fuelled El Niño events are devastating butterflies, beetles and other tropical insects – https://theconversation.com/climate-fuelled-el-nino-events-are-devastating-butterflies-beetles-and-other-tropical-insects-262625

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer, International Studies, University of South Australia

The military junta that overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government in 2021 is preparing the ground for national elections in December and January.

The junta’s hope is these deeply flawed elections would consolidate its power and provide it with a fig leaf of legitimacy.

Helping its cause are moves by the Trump administration indicating it may be looking to bring the Myanmar junta in from the cold.

A week ago, US President Donald Trump removed sanctions on some allies of Myanmar’s generals and their military-linked companies, a move condemned by the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar.

Then came reports the Trump administration was exploring opportunities to access Myanmar’s rare earth minerals in an effort to sideline its strategic rival, China.

An election charade

On July 31, Myanmar’s military regime cancelled the nationwide state of emergency it had kept in place since the coup, a necessary precondition from 2008 for holding elections under the military-authored constitution.

Hours later, however, it reimposed a state of emergency in dozens of townships where opposition forces are either in control or gaining ground. It then declared martial law in these areas.

This underlined the junta’s lack of control over much of the country, which would make holding a free and fair election virtually impossible.

Last year, the military was unable to conduct a full census to be used to compile voter rolls. It was only able to count 32 million people in just over half the country’s townships; it had to estimate another 19 million people in areas outside its control.

This week’s order also handed power from the commander-in-chief of the military to a head of state, which was presented as a return to civilian governance. However, power didn’t actually change hands – Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the coup and military, remains in control as acting president.

Opposition groups have said they will boycott the election, which the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar called a “fraud”.

Myanmar’s rare earths bonanza

Myanmar’s generals may also try to use Trump’s apparent interest in the country’s rare earths as leverage in their attempt to normalise relations with the United States ahead of a poll.

China is not only a large miner of rare earths, it dominates the processing required to use them, accounting for around 90% of global refining.

In recent years, China has begun reducing its own mining and increasing its extractions from neighbouring Myanmar, the third-largest producer in the world.

Rare earth mining has exploded in northern Kachin State since the coup, much of which is controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), an ethnic armed group that opposes the junta.

Late last year, it seized two important rare earth mining towns from the military and demanded a greater role in taxing exports to China, which initially closed the border in response.

However, trade soon resumed after the two sides reached a deal on export taxes.

No path forward for Trump

Two different proposals have reportedly been put to Trump for ways to access Myanmar’s rare earth deposits. One would entail opening talks with the junta; the other talking directly with the KIO.

Part of this effort could entail Trump reducing the punitive 40% tariffs his administration imposed on Myanmar to sweeten the deal.

Yet, challenges remain to making this a reality. The mines are located in the contested war-torn mountains of northern Myanmar bordering China, which are controlled by the KIO. There is no real infrastructure capable of transporting exports to India’s remote northeastern states in the opposite direction. The only other export route is south through territory controlled by the junta or other ethnic armed groups.

In addition, any attempt by the US and its allies to extract thousands of tons of rare earth material away from China’s borders would likely anger Beijing. It could
pressure the KIO by reducing fuel and food imports coming from China.

The group’s independence and ability to fight the junta relies on trade with China. It would not take long for such an agreement to fall apart.

Finally, rare earths mining is extremely polluting and dangerous. Even under Trump, it is unlikely US companies would gamble on the inevitable reputational and legal risks that would accompany such a project, especially in a war zone.

No reasons for warming relations

In essence, any attempt by the Trump administration to secure rare earths from Myanmar through any intermediary will not go anywhere.

There is therefore no justification, on any grounds, for the Trump administration to reduce sanctions on Myanmar’s generals or their cronies.

Likewise, although the junta is attempting to legitimise its brutal rule by offering a patina of constitutional processes, its elections will not bring real change to the country.

Myanmar’s people have repeatedly demonstrated over the past four decades, in every remotely free and fair election, that they do not want the military involved in the governance on their country.

If the junta does go ahead with this election, the world’s governments should call it out for the farcical charade of democracy it will represent. This includes the administration in Washington.

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

– ref. As Trump lifts sanctions on Myanmar elites, is he eyeing the country’s rare earth reserves? – https://theconversation.com/as-trump-lifts-sanctions-on-myanmar-elites-is-he-eyeing-the-countrys-rare-earth-reserves-262594

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ilan Noy, Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The words and pictures documenting the famine in the Gaza strip are horrifying.

The coverage has led to acrimonious and often misguided debates about whether there is famine, and who is to blame for it – most recently exemplified by the controversy surrounding a picture published by the New York Times of an emaciated child who is also suffering from a preexisting health condition.

While pictures and words may mislead, numbers usually don’t.

The Nobel prize-winning Indian economist Amartya Sen observed some decades ago that famines are always political and economic events, and that the most direct way to analyse them is to look at food quantities and prices.

This has led to decades of research on past famines. One observation is that dramatic increases in food prices always mean there is a famine, even though not every famine is accompanied by rising food costs.

The price increases we have seen in Gaza are unprecedented.

The economic historian Yannai Spitzer observed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that staple food prices during the Irish Potato Famine showed a three- to five-fold increase, while there was a ten-fold rise during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. In the North Korean famine of the 1990s, the price of rice rose by a factor of 12. At least a million people died of hunger in each of these events.

Now, the New York Times has reported the price of flour in Gaza has increased by a factor of 30 and potatoes cost 50 times more.

Israel’s food blockade

As was the case for the UK government in Ireland in the 1840s and Bengal in the 1940s, Israel is responsible for this famine because it controls almost all the Gaza strip and its borders. But Israel has also created the conditions for the famine.

Following a deliberate policy in March of stopping food from coming in, it resumed deliveries of food in May through a very limited set of “stations” it established through a new US-backed organisation (the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation), in a system that seemed designed to fail.

Before Israel’s decision in March to stop food from coming in, the price of flour in Gaza was roughly back to its prewar levels (having previously peaked in 2024 in another round of border closures). Since March, food prices have gone up by an annualised inflation rate of more than 5,000%.

The excuse the Israeli government gives for its starvation policy is that Hamas controls the population by restricting food supplies. It blames Hamas for any shortage of food.

However, if you want to disarm an enemy of its ability to wield food supplies as a weapon by rationing them, the obvious way to do so is the opposite: you would increase the food supply dramatically and hence lower its price.

Restricting supplies and increasing their value is primarily immoral and criminal, but it is also counterproductive for Israel’s stated aims. Indeed, flooding Gaza with food would have achieved much more in weakening Hamas than the starvation policy the Israeli government has chosen.

The UN’s top humanitarian aid official has described Israel’s decision to halt humanitarian assistance to put pressure on Hamas as “cruel collective punishment” – something forbidden under international humanitarian law.

The long-term aftermath of famines

Cormac Ó Gráda, the Irish economic historian of famines, quotes a Kashmiri proverb which says “famine goes, but the stains remain”.

The current famine in Gaza will leave long-lasting pain for Gazans and an enduring moral stain on Israel – for many generations. Ó Gráda points out two main ways in which the consequences of famines endure. Most obvious is the persistent memory of it; second are the direct effects on the long-term wellbeing of exposed populations and their descendants.

The Irish and the Indians have not forgotten the famines that affected them. They still resent the British government for its actions. The memory of these famines still influences relations between Ireland, India and the UK, just as Ukraine’s famine of the early 1930s is still a background to the Ukraine-Russia war.

The generational impact is also significant. Several studies in China find children conceived during China’s Great Leap Forward famine of 1959–1960 (which also killed millions) are less healthy, face more mental health challenges and have lower cognitive abilities than those conceived either before or after the famine.

Other researchers found similar evidence from famines in Ireland and the Netherlands, supporting what is known as the “foetal origins” hypothesis, which proposes that the period of gestation has significant impacts on health in adulthood. Even more worryingly, recent research shows these harmful effects can be transmitted to later generations through epigenetic channels.

Each day without available and accessible food supplies means more serious ongoing effects for the people of Gaza and the Israeli civilian hostages still held by Hamas – as well as later generations. Failure to prevent the famine will persist in collective memory as a moral stain on the international community, but primarily on Israel. Only immediate flooding of the strip with food aid can help now.

Ilan Noy is a dual citizen of both New Zealand and Israel.

– ref. Soaring food prices prove the Gaza famine is real – and will affect generations to come – https://theconversation.com/soaring-food-prices-prove-the-gaza-famine-is-real-and-will-affect-generations-to-come-262486

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Peter Draper, Professor, and Executive Director: Institute for International Trade, and Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Trade and Environment, University of Adelaide

Last week, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order updating the “reciprocal” tariff rates that had been paused since April.

Nearly all US trading partners are now staring down tariffs of between 10% and 50%.

After a range of baseline and sector-specific tariffs came into effect earlier this year, many economists had predicted economic chaos. So far, the inflationary impact has been less than many predicted.

However, there are worrying signs that could all soon change, as economic pain flows through to the US consumer.

Decoding the deals

Trump’s latest adjustments weren’t random acts of economic warfare. They revealed a hierarchy, and a pattern has emerged.

Countries running goods trade deficits with the US (that is, buying more than they sell to the US), which also have security relationships with the US, get 10%. This includes Australia.

Japan and South Korea, which both have security relationships with the US, were hit with 15% tariffs, likely due to their large trade surpluses with the US.

But the rest of Asia? That’s where Trump is really turning the screws. Asian nations now face average tariffs of 22.1%.

Countries that negotiated with Trump, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines, all got 19%, the “discount rate” for Asian countries willing to make concessions.

India faces a 25% rate, plus potential penalties for trading with Russia.

Is Trump winning the trade war?

In the current trade war, it is unsurprising that despite threats to do so, no countries have actually imposed retaliatory tariffs on US products, with the exception of China and Canada. Doing so would drive up their consumer prices, reduce economic activity, and invite Trump to escalate, possibly limiting access to the lucrative US market.

Instead, nations that negotiated “deals” with the Trump administration have essentially accepted elevated reciprocal tariff rates to maintain a measure of access to the US market.

For many of these countries, this was despite making major concessions, such
as dropping their own tariffs on US exports, promising to reform certain domestic regulations, and purchasing various US goods.

Protests over the weekend, including in India and South Korea, suggested many of these tariff negotiations were not popular.

Even the European Union has struck a deal accepting US tariff rates that once would have seemed unthinkable – 15%. Trump’s confusing Russia-Ukraine war strategy has worried European leaders. Rather than risk US strategic withdrawal, they appear to have simply folded on tariffs.

Some deals are still pending. Notably, Taiwan, which received a higher reciprocal tariff (20%) than Japan and South Korea, claims it is still negotiating.

Through the narrow prism of deal making, it is hard not to escape the conclusion that Trump has gotten his way with everyone – except China and Canada. He has imposed elevated US tariffs on many countries, but also negotiated to secure increased export market access for US firms and promised purchases of planes, agriculture and energy.

Why economic chaos hasn’t arrived – yet

Imposing tariffs on goods coming into the US effectively creates a tax on US consumers and manufacturers. It drives up the prices of both finished goods (products) and intermediate goods (components) used in manufacturing.

Yet the Yale Budget Lab estimates the tariffs will cause consumer prices to rise by 1.8% this year.

This muted inflationary impact is likely a result of exports to the US being “front-loaded” before the tariffs took effect. Many US importers rushed to stockpile goods in the country ahead of the deadline.

It may also reflect some companies choosing to “eat the tariffs” by not passing the full cost to their customers, hoping they can ride things out until Trump “chickens out” and the tariffs are removed or reduced.

Who really pays

Despite Trump’s repeated claims that tariffs are a tax paid by foreign countries, research consistently shows that US companies and consumers bear the tariff burden.

Already this year, General Motors reported that tariffs cost it US$1.1 billion (about A$1.7 billion) in the second quarter of 2025.

A new 50% tariff on semi-finished copper products took effect on August 1. That announcement in July sent copper prices soaring by 13% in a single day. This affects everything from electrical wiring to plumbing, with costs ultimately passed to US consumers.

The average US tariff rate now sits at 18.3%, the highest level since 1934. This represents a staggering increase from just 2.4% when Trump took office in January.

This trade-weighted average means that, on typical imported goods, Americans will pay nearly one-fifth more in taxes.

Alarm bells

The US Federal Reserve is concerned about these potential price impacts, and last week opted to maintain interest rates at their current levels, despite Trump’s pressure on Chairman Jerome Powell.

And on August 1, economic data released in the US showed significant slowing in job creation, some worrying signs in economic growth, and early signs of business investment paralysis due to the economic uncertainty unleashed by Trump’s ever-changing tariff rates.

Trump responded to the report by firing the US Bureau of Labour Statistics commissioner, a shock move that led to widespread concerns official US data could soon become politicised.

But the worst economic impacts could still be yet to come. The domestic consequences of Trump’s tariff policies are likely to amount to a massive economic own goal.

Nathan Howard Gray receives funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Peter Draper 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. It might seem like Trump is winning his trade war. But the US could soon be in a world of pain – https://theconversation.com/it-might-seem-like-trump-is-winning-his-trade-war-but-the-us-could-soon-be-in-a-world-of-pain-262434

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Daniela Ceccarelli, Reef Fish Ecologist, Australian Institute of Marine Science

Official analysis of 124 reefs on the Great Barrier Reef shows coral cover has dropped sharply after a record-breaking marine heatwave in 2024, prompting grave fears over the trajectory of the natural wonder.

Over the past few years, fast-growing corals had pushed the Great Barrier Reef’s coral cover to record highs. But those corals were known to be extremely vulnerable and one bad summer away from losing those gains.

Our new report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) shows these fears have been realised. The percentage of living hard coral covering the Great Barrier Reef’s surface dropped in each region we surveyed.

The recent extreme highs and lows in coral cover are a troubling phenomenon. It raises the prospect that the Great Barrier Reef may reach a point from which it cannot recover.

Another global marine heatwave

In healthy corals, tiny algae produce both the coral’s main food source and its vibrant colours. When the water gets too warm, the algae are expelled and the coral’s tissue becomes transparent – revealing the white limestone skeleton beneath. This is called coral bleaching.

Coral can recover if temperatures are reduced and the relationship with the algae is restored, but it’s a stressful and difficult process. And if recovery takes too long, the coral will die.

In June 2023, a marine heatwave bleached coral reefs from the Caribbean to the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

It reached Australia’s east coast in February 2024, causing extensive coral bleaching. Aerial surveys showed three quarters of 1,080 reefs assessed had some bleaching. On 40% of these reefs, more than half the corals were white.

In the aftermath, in-water surveys measured how much coral died in the northern, central and southern Great Barrier Reef. The worst damage lined up with the highest levels of heat stress.

Sharp declines in coral cover

AIMS has surveyed reefs of the Great Barrier Reef each year since 1986, in a project known as the Long-Term Monitoring Program. It is the most extensive record of coral status on any reef ecosystem in the world.

One component of the surveys involves towing an expert observer behind a boat around the full perimeter of each reef. The observer records the amount of live, bleached and dead coral. These observations are then averaged for each location, and for each of the three regions of the Great Barrier Reef.

After each monitoring season we report on the percentage of living hard coral covering the Great Barrier Reef’s surface. It’s a coarse but robust, reliable indicator of the state of the Great Barrier Reef.

Coral losses this year were not uniform across the Great Barrier Reef. On the northern Great Barrier Reef, from Cape York to Cooktown, average coral cover dropped by about a quarter between 2024 and 2025 (from 39.8% to 30%). The largest declines on individual reefs (up to 70% loss) occurred near Lizard Island.

Reefs with stable or increasing coral cover were mostly found in the central region, from Cooktown to Proserpine. However, there was still a region-wide decline of 14% (from 33.2% to 28.6%), and reefs near Cairns lost between 17-60% of their 2024 coral cover.

In the southern reef (Proserpine to Gladstone) coral cover declined by almost a third. In the summer of 2024, southern reefs experienced the highest levels of heat stress ever recorded, resulting in substantial coral loss (from 38.9% to 26.9%).

The declines in the north and south were the largest in a single year since monitoring began 39 years ago.

Despite these losses, the Great Barrier Reef still has more coral than many other reefs worldwide, and remains a major tourist attraction. It’s possible to find areas that still look good in an ecosystem this huge, but that doesn’t mean the large-scale average hasn’t dropped.

More frequent bleaching events

Mass coral bleaching is becoming more frequent as the world warms.

Before the 1990s, mass bleaching was extremely rare. That changed in 1998 with the first major event, followed by another in 2002.

Back-to-back bleaching events occurred for the first time in 2016 and 2017. Since then, bleaching has struck the Great Barrier Reef in 2020, 2022, 2024, and again this year. The impacts of this year’s bleaching event will be revealed following the next round of surveys.

The time between these events is shrinking, giving corals less time to recover. Cyclones and crown-of-thorns starfish are also continuing to cause widespread coral loss.

You’ll see in the following charts how the percentage of coral cover has changed over time. The vertical yellow lines show the mass coral bleaching events increasing in frequency.

Confronting questions

The coral reefs of the future are unlikely to look like those of the past. The loss of biodiversity seems inevitable.

But will the reefs of the future still sustain the half a billion people that depend on them for food and income? Will they continue to protect coastlines from increasing storm activity and rising sea levels? These are confronting questions.

Effective management and research into reef adaptation and recovery interventions may bridge the gap until meaningful climate action is achieved. But above all, the key to securing a future for coral reefs is reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Daniela Ceccarelli works for the Australian Institute of Marine Science, a publicly funded research organisation that receives funding from the Australian government, state government departments, foundations and private industry.

David Wachenfeld works for the Australian Institute of Marine Science, a publicly funded research organisation that receives funding from the Australian government, state government departments, foundations and private industry.

Mike Emslie works for the Australian Institute of Marine Science, a publicly funded research organisation that receives funding from the Australian government, state government departments, foundations and private industry.

– ref. World’s biggest coral survey confirms sharp decline in Great Barrier Reef after heatwave – https://theconversation.com/worlds-biggest-coral-survey-confirms-sharp-decline-in-great-barrier-reef-after-heatwave-260563

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Grant Hansman, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, Griffith University

Norovirus is the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis outbreaks worldwide. It’s responsible for roughly one in every five cases of gastro annually.

Sometimes dubbed the “winter vomiting bug” or the “cruise ship virus”, norovirus – which causes vomiting and diarrhoea – is highly transmissible. It spreads via contact with an infected person or contaminated surfaces. Food can also be contaminated with norovirus.

While anyone can be infected, groups such as young children, older adults and people who are immunocompromised are more vulnerable to getting very sick with the virus. Norovirus infections lead to about 220,000 deaths globally each year.

Norovirus outbreaks also lead to massive economic burdens and substantial health-care costs.

Although norovirus was first identified more than 50 years ago, there are no approved vaccines or antiviral treatments for this virus. Current treatment is usually limited to rehydration, either by giving fluids orally or through an intravenous drip.

So if we’ve got vaccines for so many other viruses – including COVID, which emerged only a few years ago – why don’t we have one for norovirus?

An evolving virus

One of the primary barriers to developing effective vaccines lies in the highly dynamic nature of norovirus evolution. Much like influenza viruses, norovirus shows continuous genetic shifts, which result in changes to the surface of the virus particle.

In this way, our immune system can struggle to recognise and respond when we’re exposed to norovirus, even if we’ve had it before.

Compounding this issue, there are at least 49 different norovirus genotypes.

Both genetic diversity and changes in the virus’ surface mean the immune response to norovirus is unusually complex. An infection will typically only give someone immunity to that specific strain and for a short time – usually between six months and two years.

All of this poses challenges for vaccine design. Ideally, potential vaccines must not only induce strong, long-lasting immunity, but also maintain efficacy across the vast genetic diversity of circulating noroviruses.

Recent progress

Progress in norovirus vaccinology has accelerated over the past couple of decades. While researchers are considering multiple strategies to formulate and deliver vaccines, a technology called VLP-based vaccines is at the forefront.

VLP stands for virus-like particles. These synthetic particles, which scientists developed using a key component of the norovirus (called the major caspid protein), are almost indistinguishable from the natural structure of the virus.

When given as a vaccine, these particles elicit an immune response resembling that generated by a natural infection with norovirus – but without the debilitating symptoms of gastro.

What’s in the pipeline?

One bivalent VLP vaccine (“bivalent” meaning it targets two different norovirus genotypes) has progressed through multiple clinical trials. This vaccine showed some protection against moderate to severe gastroenteritis in healthy adults.

However, its development recently suffered a significant setback. A phase two clinical trial in infants failed to show it effectively protected against moderate or severe acute gastroenteritis. The efficacy of the vaccine in this trial was only 5%.

In another recent phase two trial, an oral norovirus vaccine did meet its goals. Participants who took this pill were 30% less likely to develop norovirus compared to those who received a placebo.

This oral vaccine uses a modified adenovirus to deliver the norovirus VLP gene sequence to the intestine to stimulate the immune system.

With the success of mRNA vaccines during the COVID pandemic, scientists are also exploring this platform for norovirus.

Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a type of genetic material that gives our cells instructions to make proteins associated with specific viruses. The idea is that if we subsequently encounter the relevant virus, our immune system will be ready to respond.

Moderna, for example, is developing an mRNA vaccine which primes the body with norovirus VLPs.

The theoretical advantage of mRNA-based vaccines lies in their rapid adaptability. They will potentially allow annual updates to match circulating strains.

Researchers have also developed alternative vaccine approaches using just the norovirus “spikes” located on the virus particle. These spikes contain crucial structural features, allowing the virus to infect our cells, and should elicit an immune response similar to VLPs. Although still in early development, this is another promising strategy.

Separate to vaccines, my colleagues and I have also discovered a number of natural compounds that could have antiviral properties against norovirus. These include simple lemon juice and human milk oligosaccharides (complex sugars found in breast milk).

Although still in the early stages, such “inhibitors” could one day be developed into a pill to prevent norovirus from causing an infection.

Where to from here?

Despite recent developments, we’re still probably at least three years away from any norovirus vaccine hitting the market.

Several key challenges remain before we get to this point. Notably, any successful vaccine must offer broad cross-protection against genetically diverse and rapidly evolving strains. And we’ll need large, long-term studies to determine the durability of protection and whether boosters might be required.

Norovirus is often dismissed as only a mild nuisance, but it can be debilitating – and for the most vulnerable, deadly. Developing a safe and effective norovirus vaccine is one of the most pressing and under-addressed needs in infectious disease prevention.

A licensed norovirus vaccine could drastically reduce workplace and school absenteeism, hospitalisations and deaths. It could also bolster our preparedness against future outbreaks of gastrointestinal pathogens.

Grant Hansman works at Griffith University as an independent research leader on norovirus therapeutics.

– ref. Could we one day get vaccinated against the gastro bug norovirus? Here’s where scientists are at – https://theconversation.com/could-we-one-day-get-vaccinated-against-the-gastro-bug-norovirus-heres-where-scientists-are-at-258909