Category: Evening Report

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney

On March 11, Iranian Sports Minister Ahmad Donyamali announced he saw “no possibility” of the country’s men’s national soccer team taking part in the World Cup scheduled for North America in June and July this year.

That prognosis came in the wake of US and Israeli military attacks on Iran, which have triggered a crisis across the Middle East.

Never before has a World Cup host nation been at war with one of the countries participating in the tournament.

The failure to find a diplomatic solution to longstanding multilateral tensions has not only impacted the supply of oil and trade routes, it has complicated one of the world’s largest sporting events.

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Read more: Trump’s war language is aggressive and extreme. It also offers some insight into his thinking

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Prizing peace, enacting war

In 2025, Gianni Infantino, president of soccer’s governing body – Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) – announced the inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize”.

FIFA, he said, intended to recognise:

the enormous efforts of those individuals who unite people, bringing hope for future generations.

In January 2026, US President Donald Trump was deemed the most worthy recipient of this accolade.

That is despite a litany of conduct at odds with the award, such as the US partnering Israel in the Gaza conflict, as well as the Trump administration’s “rapid authoritarian shift”, which has brought a substantial decline of civic freedoms at home.

Two months after Trump received his “peace prize”, the US partnered with Israel to provoke war against Iran.

Little wonder some critics have argued Trump’s award ought to be revoked.

Will Iran be welcome at the World Cup?

After meeting Infantino on March 10, Trump provided assurance the Iranian team would be “welcome to compete”.

Soon after, though, Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform there would not be a welcome mat:

I really don’t believe it’s appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety.

This veiled warning prompted a rebuke from the Iranian team, which insisted: “no individual could exclude a country from the World Cup”, and that it was the responsibility of a host nation to provide security guarantees for participants.

The players want to take part, even if their national sports minister feels it is a forlorn hope.

At this stage, scheduled friendly games against Nigeria and Costa Rica in Turkey, intended as preparation for the World Cup, are going ahead.

Pitch perambulations

Iran is scheduled to play three group-stage games in California and Seattle at the World Cup.

Competing in the United States is a sticking point for the Iranian Football Federation (FFIRI), which is responsible for the team.

FFIRI head Mehdi Taj stated:

We will prepare for the World Cup. We will boycott the United States but not the World Cup.

The Iranian hope, therefore, is the team be permitted to play in either Canada or Mexico, which are co-hosting with the US.

Mexico appears willing to play ball: on March 17, President Claudia Sheinbaum stated: “the nation stands prepared to host Iran’s group-stage matches should circumstances require”.

FIFA though said it was unwilling to move Iran’s matches from the US.

For the Iranians, the ability to take part seems more important than chasing a trophy: teams that make the final will play at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium and Iran does not wish to play in the US.

Meanwhile, FIFA is privately pondering contingency arrangements should Iran not take part.

This includes making Iran’s place in the tournament vacant – which would mean a walkover for opponents – or replacing it with a team from either Iraq or the United Arab Emirates, both of which narrowly missed qualifying via the Asian Football Confederation pathway.

That said, Iraq is already scheduled to play the winner of a match between Bolivia and Suriname for a spot in the World Cup.

The UAE lost to Iraq in the relevant Asian Confederation match, yet should Iraq win its intercontinental playoff match, the team from the Emirates might be given a FIFA free kick into the World Cup.

Political football

FIFA states it is a “politically neutral” body.

But this has not stopped it excluding Russia from qualifying matches for the 2026 World Cup.

FIFA insists it did so for operational reasons: many countries refused to play against Russia, and if games were scheduled there would be concerns about security.

Privately, Infantino might be relieved Israel did not qualify for the World Cup, as both of these considerations may have come to light in the wake of the Gaza war and more recent attacks against Lebanon and Iran.

The withdrawal (or banning) of a team from the World Cup or qualifying matches has happened on a few occasions:

In each of these cases there were no follow-up penalties by FIFA.

If Iran withdraws from the World Cup, will FIFA sanction the FFIRI and, by extension, the national men’s team? A yellow card is feasible – a financial penalty. A red card is also possible – such as exclusion from the 2030 World Cup.

However, FIFA has the discretion not to impose any penalty, especially as the circumstances go beyond sport and have no parallel in World Cup history.

– ref. A host nation at war with a participant: uncertainty and tension swirl around soccer’s World Cup – https://theconversation.com/a-host-nation-at-war-with-a-participant-uncertainty-and-tension-swirl-around-soccers-world-cup-278191

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/a-host-nation-at-war-with-a-participant-uncertainty-and-tension-swirl-around-soccers-world-cup-278191/

Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, joined by, for the first time in six years except for yesterday, Juan González, also in New York. It’s great to be with you again, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Thanks, Amy. And welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.

As the US and Israel’s unprovoked war on Iran enters its 25th day, President Trump is claiming that Iran has begun negotiations with the United States, but the Iranian government has dismissed the claim as “fake news”, accusing Trump of trying to manipulate financial and oil markets.

Over the weekend, Trump threatened to, quote, “obliterate” Iranian power plants if Iran did not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Monday night. But on Monday, Trump reversed course, extended his deadline to five days and repeatedly claimed the US was now in productive conversations with Iran.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “With Iran, we’ve been negotiating for a long time. And this time, they mean business. And it’s only because of the great job that our military did, is the reason they mean business. They want to settle, and we’re going to get it done, I hope.”

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Earlier in the day, President Trump claimed he might personally take joint control of the Strait of Hormuz with Iran’s next ayatollah.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “It will be jointly controlled.”

REPORTER: “By whom?”

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “Maybe me. Maybe me.”

REPORTER: “You want the United States to be in control of the Strait of Hormuz?”

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “Me and the ayatollah, whoever the ayatollah is, whoever the next ayatollah — look, and there’ll also be a form of a — a very serious form of a regime change.

“Now, in all fairness, everybody has been killed from the regime. They’re really starting off. There’s automatically a regime change.

“But we’re dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. The people within know who they are. They’re very respected.

“And maybe one of them will be exactly what we’re looking for. Look at Venezuela, how well that’s working out. We are doing so well in Venezuela with oil and with the relationship between the president-elect and us. And maybe we find somebody like that in Iran.”

AMY GOODMAN: Despite Trump’s claims of US-Iran negotiations, US Central Command says US forces, “continue to aggressively strike,” Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran has retaliated by striking other Gulf nations and Israel. Israeli officials said Iran has launched seven missile barrages since midnight, targeting Tel Aviv and other cities. The Israeli military said one of the missiles that hit Tel Aviv carried a 220-pound warhead. Israel’s Health Ministry said nearly 4800 people have been injured by Iran’s attacks on Israel since the war began.

We go now to London, where we’re joined by Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator under Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. His recent piece for Zeteo is headlined “Why Netanyahu Duped Trump Into the Illegal War With Iran.”

Well, Daniel Levy, thanks so much for being with us again. Why don’t you explain that headline?

DANIEL LEVY: Well, good to be with you, Amy and Juan.

Netanyahu himself and other Israeli leaders, although he’s been at the helm for much of the last three decades, have, during an awfully long period, told us Iran is at the precipice of becoming a nuclear power.

By the way, we should always remind ourselves, Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the region. But they’ve been telling us, “It’s imminent. We have to act now.” And they’ve been trying to pull successive American presidents into that war, to launch such a military campaign.

They’ve never succeeded. You have had American presidents across the decades, from whichever party has been in power, who have created an extremely indulgent, permissive environment for Israel in the region, and in particular when it comes to Israel’s consistent war crimes against the Palestinians.

What you have not had is a president who could be led into this kind of a military operation. And we’re seeing right now, in almost the last month of this war, precisely why. But this president is made of different stuff, less serious stuff, apparently, and Netanyahu saw his opportunity.

But the reason, I think, why this was of such significance for Netanyahu is we are in a new era. It’s not an era of a Pax Americana with — alongside all that indulgence of Israel, there were still certain brake mechanisms. This time, Israel sees us in an era of what I would call a Pax Greater Israel.

This is about how far Israel can extend its dominion, how much of a hard-power, dominant hegemon it can be in the region, seizing parts of Syria or of Lebanon, trying to finish an eradicationist approach to the Palestinians. And crucially, to do that, you have to weaken Iran militarily, to remove some kind of deterrent.

You can only do that with the US, so you need to pull the US into this war. If that means further accelerating American decline and even accelerating Israel’s loss of support in America, then it’s a price to pay. It’s kind of “use it or lose it,” because those things are happening anyway.

In saying all of this, I don’t want to suggest that America has no agency in this. There are things to do with the Trump administration, the neocons, the people who still have positions of influence in the US that have brought them into this. But that’s what Netanyahu is trying to achieve, to achieve Greater Israel, domination in the region, including the weakening of the Gulf, which is intentional, at the expense of America bleeding further reputational, political, economic assets in this war.

[embedded content]
Trump’s ‘Israel First’ Iran War                       Video: Democracy Now!

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Daniel Levy, you’ve also written that, quote, “The idea that this is a war to serve American rather than Israeli interests resonates primarily in three spaces: the gullible, the true believers (especially of end times religious [thinking]), or those who are paid-up members of Israel’s echo chamber.” Could you elaborate?

DANIEL LEVY: Yes. I think there is a lot of attention being paid to this question of who does this serve. Now, you can make the case that you also have a US government that is locked into its own kind of logic of war.

You have, if I may suggest, a decline anxiety in the US. You have an attempt to reassert primacy and preponderance. I don’t think that is or can go well. You have Marco Rubio, for instance, telling the Europeans, “Join us in the next Western century of imperial domination.”

That can perhaps play out in the Western Hemisphere — the crime committed with the kidnapping of a leader in Venezuela, the illegal blockade on Cuba. But if you travel too far afield to find monsters to slay, and if you have an incoherent strategy and an incompetent administration implementing that strategy, then things are going to go very badly wrong, which was entirely predictable in this illegal war of choice launched by the US and Israel.

And therefore, if you look at this, and even if you factor in the attempt to assert American interest, this war would not have happened if Israel’s leader had not been there whispering in the president’s ear, making the case.

[There were] seven bilateral meetings in the first 13 months of the second Trump term between Trump and Netanyahu, two meetings in the eight weeks leading up to the launching of this illegal war, daily phone calls, we are told, now information coming out in The New York Times that the Mossad apparently bamboozled Americans with the idea that if you could decapitate some of the regime leadership, the Mossad could foment a coup on the streets, that you could arm Kurdish groups from the outside to take geographical parts of Iran to start dismantling the central state.

You really have to be, therefore, either extremely gullible, as I suggested, or a true believer that, well, this is high risk, but it’s worth it, because what maybe you’re ideologically committed to, the Greater Israel cause, maybe that comes from a place of evangelical dispensationalist belief in the end times, or you simply are part of an echo chamber whose wheels are greased very consistently.

And we see that play out over so many years in American politics. That’s what I’m suggesting. And I do think that the attempt to suggest this is more than Israel first, that somehow this serves America’s interest, are not going to go well, and Israel will pay a tremendous price for that over time.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you also — there appears to have been a shift in the last few days in how the Israeli government permits damage within Israel from Iranian attacks to be publicised by the press, because, clearly, during the first two weeks of the war, Israel essentially prevented any kind of images, from the US media especially, going out to the world.

Now, in the last few days, it’s almost as if Netanyahu and the government want their own people and the rest of the world to see some of this damage. I’m wondering your thoughts about this. Has there been a change in approach or tactics by the Israeli government?

DANIEL LEVY: So, I’m not so sure. I think it’s an interesting question to dwell upon. But what one might be seeing is an inability, and therefore a degradation of credibility if Israel tries to claim that none of this destruction is happening — in other words, an inability to prevent those images from coming out — when those strikes are now causing very significant damage. I don’t want to exaggerate that, either. I don’t think that is what causes this unnecessary war to come to an end.

But what one perhaps has to look to is, if you remember, early on in the war, one of the real questions, as this became a war of endurance, almost a war of attrition, was: Could the US and Israeli side sufficiently deplete Iran’s missile-launching capacity before Iran both sufficiently degraded the interception capacity on the Israeli and US side — so they have to be a bit more selective in terms of what they use the interceptors for, because they can’t take everything out and they are going to run out — and also Iran apparently holding back some of its heavier kit, because in its strategy, it assumed this could go on for a long time, and it had to have a plan for week one, week two, week three? And so, I think, to the extent to which we’re seeing more images, it is likely because that equation hasn’t played well for the US and Israel, and because we’re seeing more damage being done.

I think you have a war where Israel has a strategy. It’s an extremely ambitious overreach strategy in terms of not regime change, but regime collapse, state collapse, implosion, the dismantling of the Iranian state, where Iran has a strategy of escalating horizontally, testing American endurance and holding out and winning that way.

But I think you’d be really hard pushed to find a coherent strategy on the US side.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a clip of President Trump speaking to reporters about US aims in negotiations.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “No nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon, not even close to it, low key on the missiles. We want to see peace in the Middle East. We want the nuclear dust.

“We’re going to want that, and I think we’re going to get that. We’ve agreed to that. … If this happens, it’s a great start for Iran to build itself back, and it’s everything that we want.

“And it’s also great for Israel, and it’s great for the other Middle Eastern countries.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, Daniel Levy, you are a former Israeli negotiator under two Israeli prime ministers. If you can respond to what he’s saying, and also to what Iran is saying, that the idea that there’s any negotiation going on is fake news intended to “manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped,” said the speaker of Iran’s parliament?

DANIEL LEVY: So, there are a couple of things going on here, and I want to try and disentangle those. First of all, the question of: Are negotiations taking place? And what I think is very clear is that there are channels of communication via third countries.

Those have been available all the time. Partly, one has to understand that countries in the region, who were not a party to launching this war nor to the decision to go to war, who, in fact, cautioned against this war, in the Gulf and elsewhere, they are feeling tremendous blowback and taking hits from this war, and they are keen to bring it to an end.

There may be some who, for some reason, still believe America can do the job and that they should trust America’s competence and coherence in attempting to do so. I think most are not in that camp. They know the cost is too high, and they are experiencing daily what it means to rely on America for your security, and the answer is not good.

So, there are a number of states, also beyond that — Türkiye has been super active, Pakistan, for instance, Egypt — who are maintaining open channels with both parties and obviously sending messages, because, by the way, the whole world is suffering from this — higher fuel, food, fertiliser prices, etc. So there are active channels. Are they talking directly? I don’t know. I doubt it. But I also think it doesn’t matter very much.

What matters is the question you kind of raise there, Amy, which is: Are these talks, first of all, intended to produce an outcome? Was this another American deployment of diplomacy as a ruse?

We saw in the lead-up to this war that America played with negotiations, attempted that as a distraction, but actually intended to go for the military option. So, is this trying to buy some time while the US waits for a third aircraft carrier, more of your taxpayer dollars, to be deployed in the West Asia-Middle East region?

Was this a Monday-morning pre-stock market intervention on the part of the president? Because if there’s one thing he does pay attention to, it’s that. So, was he trying to calm the markets, give himself a few more days, or is this a serious attempt to chart a path to deescalation?

If it is the latter, then that would have to include an acknowledgment that in negotiations you have to listen to the other side. You have to take into account their interests. If you go in with maximalist positions, often designed by the worst elements of maximalism in your administration and by the Israelis intentionally trying to make sure that talks cannot succeed, then — guess what — the talks won’t succeed.

So, if you think you can impose on Iran in these talks things that you couldn’t achieve in your military assault or things that they weren’t willing to accept beforehand, then the talks are doomed to fail.

The one thing that may be working to our benefit is not who might host these talks. It’s certainly not the fact that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff might be involved, because that would be very bad news indeed, given their record of failure, if they’re the only people.

But the one piece of good news is that the loose and perhaps nonexistent relationship between what Trump says and the realities out there in the real world, that relationship means that Trump can claim what he likes, because what we’re probably looking for is three victory speeches, given in Tehran, Jerusalem and Washington, DC.

They won’t align. They won’t match up. But they might allow for a cessation and then for some of these issues to be addressed afterwards.

But as long as that doesn’t happen, we still have to contend with the fact that Israel has been driving a lot of the escalatory logic in this war. It will continue to attempt to prevent a ceasefire. It’s not alone. There are certainly American sources trying to do that, as well.

Israel is still on the impunity high from its Gaza genocide, which has led us here. And we have to contend with the fact that each time you try and get a “mission accomplished” victory image, you might escalate, leading to a further cycle of escalation, and then that can collapse any putative path out of this.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Daniel Levy, we only have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you — while the war is continuing in Iran and Israeli forces are in Lebanon, the settlers in the West Bank continue to perpetuate violence against Palestinians, and the IDF continues to attack Palestinians in Gaza. I’m wondering your sense of how this has basically faded from the international view while the war against Iran continues.

DANIEL LEVY: Well, I wish I could say that it needed the war in Iran in order to shift attention away from this, in order for Israel to be able to continue to not be held accountable and to get away with these daily violations of international law and with these appalling atrocities against the Palestinians, but it didn’t take the war.

Israel is doing that, and it will continue to do that unless and until it is held to account, it is contained and deterred. And, of course, you also see 1 million displaced in Lebanon and the attempt, apparently, to reestablish a zone of Israeli domination there, still in control of territory in Syria, as well.

But I also want to challenge this notion that the problem in the West Bank is the settlers. There is no armed settler militia without the IDF. The settlers roam the West Bank with the active backing of Israel’s military.

Occasionally, they may call a handful of people to account and say, “No. Stop.” But most of the occupation and the entrenchment of a matrix of control and an apartheid regime, that is run not by lone settlers. That is run by the Israeli state. That is run by the IDF.

It is the IDF and the Israeli state that run that regime of control, that also, as you mentioned, despite the so-called ceasefire, are in control of about 60 percent directly of Gaza, carrying out daily military assaults, daily killings of Palestinians in Gaza, still not allowing the necessary humanitarian assistance or shelter into Gaza, and, in parallel, conducting the largest military intervention in the West Bank, the largest displacement and destruction, often focused on refugee camps, like Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur al-Shams, that we have seen since 1967.

I think this will ultimately end very badly for Israel and generate tremendous blowback. But in the meantime, it is again the Palestinians bearing the brunt.

AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Levy, we want to thank you so much for being with us, president of the US/Middle East Project, former Israeli peace negotiator under Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. We’ll link to your piece in Zeteo, “Why Netanyahu Duped Trump Into the Illegal War With Iran.” You can follow Levy’s writings on his Substack.

Republished from Democracy Now! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/israel-first-ex-israeli-negotiator-daniel-levy-on-why-netanyahu-led-trump-into-illegal-iran-war/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tazman Davies, PhD Candidate, Food Policy, George Institute for Global Health

Every Australian shopper knows the pull of cheap junk foods lining supermarket shelves. Meanwhile, the cost of fresh fruit and vegetables continues to climb.

So it’s little wonder conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes are so common, and Australia’s health-care system struggles to cope.

But what if policies could help level the playing field? And what would that mean for our health, and health-care expenditure?

Our new research, published today in The Lancet Public Health, estimates a 20% tax on unhealthy foods could prevent 212,000 premature deaths and save A$14.9 billion in health-care costs over the lifetimes of Australian adults alive today.

We estimated the health impact could be even greater if the tax revenue is used to subsidise fruit and vegetables.

What we did

By “unhealthy foods”, we mean sugary drinks, lollies, salty snacks, biscuits, pastries, processed meat and ice cream. These are the kinds of foods the Australian Dietary Guidelines says we should limit for optimal health. Yet most Australians find them hard to resist.

We modelled how taxing these foods by 20% could shift the type of food Australians buy. This could be a 20% tax on the retail price or a 20% tax applied at the point of manufacture (an excise tax). But our modelling didn’t specify the type, just that the price would increase by 20%.

We also modelled the knock-on effects on weight, blood pressure and chronic disease over the lifetimes of adults aged 20 or greater in Australia.

We then estimated what would happen if we used that revenue to subsidise fruit and vegetables, and any extra health benefits this would have.

We also looked at how these impacts could differ for households across the socio-economic spectrum – from the poorest 20% to the richest 20% – to see how taxes and subsidies might affect people in different financial situations.

What we found

We estimated the 20% tax could cut purchases of unhealthy foods by about 8–26% depending on the category.

This could lead to 660,000 fewer cases of type 2 diabetes and 787,000 fewer cases of heart disease over the remaining lifetimes of Australian adults alive today. In turn, this could prevent about 212,000 premature deaths.

The economic returns could be substantial. We estimated a total reduction of $14.9 billion in health-care costs. That’s a health-care cost saving of $781 per adult over their lifetime.

While the average Australian could pay about $139 more in tax each year, the policy could help make Australia fairer: low-income Australians could experience roughly 76% greater health benefits than high-income Australians. This is because low-income Australians bear the greatest burden of diet-related illness and could see the largest reductions in purchases of unhealthy foods.

So this measure would ease the unequal burden of obesity, diabetes and heart disease on those affected the most.

The revenue raised could also be enough to reduce the average cost of fruits and vegetables by 19–26% across the population. This could ease cost of living pressures, avert 194,000 more cases of heart disease and prevent an additional 45,000 premature deaths.

Implementing the tax and subsidy together would also come at no net cost to the government.

How does this compare to a sugar tax?

You might have heard about proposals for a “sugar tax” that taxes sugary drinks. It’s an approach the World Health Organization endorses.

But we estimated extending these taxes to unhealthy foods more broadly could deliver around seven times the health benefits.

Similarly, the tax-and-subsidy package we modelled could have a greater impact than mandating the Health Star Rating, restricting junk food advertising, reducing harmful ingredients in products (such as salt), or running a national healthy eating campaign.

This doesn’t mean the tax-and-subsidy package alone will fix the enormous personal and health-care costs of unhealthy diets in Australia. But our findings reinforce its potential to be a powerful policy lever the government should consider.

After all, we know price is a strong driver of the foods we buy.

What now?

Australian politicians are debating a tax on sugary drinks. This is a great start, but our findings suggest Australia should consider a broader system of taxes and subsidies for much greater impact.

Public support for such measures is strong. Around 53% of Australians support a tax on unhealthy foods, rising to around 72–74% if the revenue is used to subsidise fruit and vegetables.

The subsidies could be delivered through existing avenues. These include using vouchers, via school programs, retail subsidies in First Nations communities, and healthy food prescription programs.

Advocacy from health and community groups could help drive policy uptake. In Colombia, such sustained advocacy led to the introduction of a 20% tax on unhealthy foods. Evidence suggests this is improving population diets without affecting jobs in the food industry.

Australia has navigated similar debates before. Tobacco taxes, once controversial, have contributed to large reductions in smoking while funding initiatives such as the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation.

Given unhealthy diets and being overweight now drive more chronic disease than smoking, we should be considering equally sensible measures – including food taxes and subsidies – to help Australians act on their best intentions at the supermarket.

– ref. We showed a 20% tax on junk food would save more lives than a sugar tax – https://theconversation.com/we-showed-a-20-tax-on-junk-food-would-save-more-lives-than-a-sugar-tax-277965

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/we-showed-a-20-tax-on-junk-food-would-save-more-lives-than-a-sugar-tax-277965/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wilkins, Professor of Policy and Health, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

Methamphetamine has become dramatically cheaper over the past seven years, even as authorities report record seizures, according to the latest New Zealand Drug Trends Survey.

The annual online survey of over 8,800 people who use drugs shows wholesale prices of the illegal and harmful substance (per gram sold to dealers) have fallen by 41%, while street-level “point” prices (0.1 gram retail deals) have dropped by 27%.

Once adjusted for inflation, the declines are closer to 50%. A gram of meth that cost an average of $563 in 2017 now sells for about $253 in inflation-adjusted terms in 2025.

This trend is striking because retail prices of illegal drugs often remain unchanged for years. For example, a cannabis “tinny” (about 1–1.5 grams) has typically cost $20–25 in New Zealand for more than two decades, reflecting the need for quick and simple transactions.

The sustained price falls therefore point to deeper changes in how the methamphetamine market is operating. Australia has recently observed a similar pattern.

Importantly, the shift can’t be attributed to any changes in drug purity. Recent testing suggests average purity levels often exceed 70%, approaching the theoretical maximum of about 80% for the hydrochloride salt form.

In other words, methamphetamine is not only cheaper, but often highly potent.

Already, the drug is estimated to cause hundreds of millions of dollars in harm to New Zealand communities, through impacts to hospital emergency departments, mental health and drug treatment systems and social services – and to users themselves in terms of lives derailed and family relationships fractured.

All of this raises critical questions: what is driving these price drops, how long will they continue and what might they ultimately mean for meth’s social toll?

Competition, enforcement or demand?

We can point to several factors that might be contributing to the falling prices.

Illegal drug markets are often assumed to be controlled by organised crime groups who are able to keep prices high. But the widespread price declines across New Zealand – including in regions with the strongest gang presence – suggest the market remains competitive.

Could the price drops reflect sellers feeling they face less risk of arrest? Given New Zealand Police and Customs have been reporting record seizures every year since 2019, that doesn’t seem plausible.

In 2019, the law was changed to direct police not to arrest people found with small amounts of drugs unless it was in the public interest. While this may have reduced enforcement risk for users, it was not intended to change the situation for dealers selling grams.

If anything, the policy partly aimed to free up resources to focus on suppliers.

We might also assume that meth has simply become cheaper to make. With multiple ways to synthesise methamphetamine using different precursor chemicals, manufacturers may have found lower-cost methods over time.

But production costs can make up only a fraction of the final street price, with large mark-ups added along the distribution chain. That means even big savings in production may have little effect on retail prices.

Might the trend signal fewer buyers? Methamphetamine might well be reaching the end of its “product cycle” as cocaine gains popularity. Yet wastewater data show meth consumption doubled in late 2024 – hardly an indication of falling demand.

Are cartels the culprit?

The most convincing explanation lies away from New Zealand’s shores, in new global sources of methamphetamine supply.

New Zealand and Australia have traditionally sourced methamphetamine from lawless regions of Asia known as the Golden Triangle. More recently, however, growing seizures have been linked to Mexican drug cartels, often transiting through Canada.

Australian authorities say these cartels can supply methamphetamine at less than one-third the price of Asian producers and that about 70% of seized meth now originates from North America.

It may also explain the rising supply of cocaine in New Zealand, with Mexican cartels deeply involved in global cocaine trafficking. Methamphetamine trafficked from Mexico is also often routed through Pacific Island countries such as Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, which have strong trade, transport and cultural links with New Zealand.

On top of this, digital drug markets – including darknets and social media sales – may be lowering the cost of finding alternative sellers and better deals, increasing competition and pushing prices down.

This may also explain why methamphetamine is not the only drug to experience price declines in recent years.

We have also tracked substantial falls in the price of MDMA (ecstasy), a drug increasingly purchased via social media. Digital drug markets may also reduce the need for multiple layers of local distribution, lowering costs.

While we believe Mexican cartel supply is the most likely driver of methamphetamine price declines, the other explanations cannot be ruled out.

More research is needed to better understand the supply-and-demand implications and effects of changes in enforcement intensity, risk of violence and victimisation, production costs, price formation and modern digital drug markets.

Untangling these forces will be the focus of our future work, helping policymakers to respond more effectively to what remains one of New Zealand’s most damaging illegal drug.

– ref. The price of meth has been plunging in NZ. Are Mexican cartels driving the drop? – https://theconversation.com/the-price-of-meth-has-been-plunging-in-nz-are-mexican-cartels-driving-the-drop-277490

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/the-price-of-meth-has-been-plunging-in-nz-are-mexican-cartels-driving-the-drop-277490/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eef Hogervorst, Professor of Biological Psychology, Loughborough University

The Mediterranean diet – rich in olive oil, fish, vegetables and legumes – has long been linked to better heart health. Growing evidence suggests it may also help support brain health as we age, with a brain-focused variation of the diet drawing increasing scientific attention.

It is called the Mind diet. The name stands for Mediterranean-Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay – though what matters more than the acronym is what it actually involves: plenty of green vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, berries, poultry and fish, with olive oil as the main cooking fat, and limited amounts of red meat, butter, cheese, fried food and sweets. It combines the most brain-friendly elements of two well-studied eating patterns: the traditional Mediterranean diet and the Dash diet, which was originally developed to lower blood pressure.

A recent analysis from the long-running Framingham heart study examined the diets of adults aged 60 and over and assessed how these dietary patterns were associated with brain scan data collected later in the study. Those who followed the Mind diet most closely tended to have more grey matter – the tissue associated with memory and decision-making – and showed less overall loss of brain volume over time.

Both findings point in the same direction: that this way of eating may help keep the brain in better shape as we get older.

This is not the first study to suggest a link between diet and dementia risk. An earlier analysis combining 12 observational studies found an overall reduction in dementia risk of between 15 and 22% among people who followed Mediterranean-style diets, with the Mind diet showing the strongest effect of the three patterns studied. That is a meaningful difference, even if it cannot be taken as proof that diet alone is responsible.

Within the Framingham study, berries and poultry stood out as particularly beneficial for grey matter. This fits with what other research has suggested. Blueberries, for instance, have been the subject of several small trials, with one recent study finding improvements in memory even in people already showing early signs of memory problems.

Since red and processed meat have been linked to higher dementia risk in other studies, replacing them with chicken may be part of why poultry appears beneficial.

Some of the findings were less straightforward. Fried food, as expected, was associated with worse outcomes. But whole grains, generally considered one of the healthier staples, produced a surprisingly weak result.

The reasons are unclear, though large amounts of bread and pasta – even wholegrain varieties – may raise blood sugar enough to offset some of the benefits. The evidence on whole grains and brain health remains mixed, and this is one area where more research is needed.

It is also worth noting who, in the Framingham study, was most likely to follow the Mind diet. They tended to be women, non-smokers, well-educated, and less likely to be overweight or to have diabetes, high blood pressure or heart disease. All of these factors are independently associated with better brain health, which makes it genuinely difficult to untangle how much of the benefit comes from the diet itself, and how much from the broader lifestyle it tends to accompany.

What the science can and can’t tell us

This is the central challenge facing all research in this area. Most of the studies are observational, meaning they track what people eat and what happens to them over time, rather than randomly assigning people to follow a particular diet and measuring the results.

Observational studies can show associations, but they cannot prove cause and effect. Self-reported diet data is also unreliable at the best of times – and particularly so among people whose memory is already beginning to fail.

The few trials that have actually put the Mind diet to the test have produced mixed results. One small three-month study found no improvement in memory or thinking skills, though participants did report better mood and quality of life.

Another trial found improvements in both brain scans and mental performance, but the participants were obese middle-aged women who also lost weight during the study, making it hard to know how much the diet itself contributed. Three months is also a short window in which to expect measurable changes in brain structure, and longer trials may yet tell a different story.

None of this means the Mind diet is not worth following. The broader evidence – across multiple studies and populations – consistently points in the same direction, and there is little downside to eating more vegetables, berries, fish and olive oil.

But diet is only one piece of a much larger picture. Not smoking, staying active, keeping blood pressure and blood sugar under control, and maintaining social connections all appear to matter at least as much when it comes to keeping the brain healthy in later life.

The Mind diet is not a cure for dementia, and it would be misleading to present it as one. What the evidence does suggest is that the food choices we make over decades – not just in later life, but across adulthood – may quietly shape the health of our brains in ways that only become visible much later. That is not a guarantee, but it is a reasonable basis for eating well.

– ref. This Mediterranean-style diet could keep your brain sharp as you age – new study – https://theconversation.com/this-mediterranean-style-diet-could-keep-your-brain-sharp-as-you-age-new-study-278461

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/this-mediterranean-style-diet-could-keep-your-brain-sharp-as-you-age-new-study-278461/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Reifler, Professor of Political Science, University of Southampton

Approximately one month into the Iran war, public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic is decidedly opposed to this conflict. A recent CBS/YouGov poll shows that 60% of the public oppose military action against Iran, as do a similar percentage in the UK: 59%.

As a political scientist who studies public attitudes about foreign policy and the use of force, my research addresses an important question: under what conditions do people support military action? Based on this research, the widespread opposition to American military action against Iran is completely understandable, as the action lacks the usual foundations for support from domestic as well as international audiences.

Decades of research in political science show that broad support for use of the military rests on three key pillars: purpose, likelihood of success and legitimacy. When these elements are present, support can be high. It can even be maintained in the face of significant costs, both financial and in terms of lives lost. When they are absent, support tends to be weak, polarised and prone to erosion.

At present, these key ingredients are missing.

What’s the objective?

First and foremost, the Trump administration’s strategic rationale remains poorly articulated. Public support for military action is strongly tied to policy goals. When citizens believe force is being used to prevent a clear and immediate danger, they are far more likely to support it. But the US has not made the case that Iran was close to achieving a nuclear weapon – or posed other imminent threats for that matter. The CBS/YouGov poll confirmed that the public does not believe the rationale for war has been convincingly articulated – by a count of 68% to 32%.

In the first few days of the bombing, US president Donald Trump strongly advocated regime change as a reason for the war. But among voters there is little appetite to change another country’s domestic politics. A majority thinks this is not important, although now it has started, a small majority of respondents (53%) felt it would be a mistake to leave the regime in power. It’s a big political risk though – American voters don’t have to cast their memories back far to think of unsuccessful regime change missions.

What does winning look like?

The ambiguity surrounding mission goals complicates the second key element: what constitutes success? Airstrikes can damage nuclear facilities or disrupt Iran’s ballistic weapons programme. But they can’t eliminate the scientific knowledge or technical know-how which will enable to regime to rebuild. And, clearly, if previous strikes were as decisive as the US president, Donald Trump, has claimed, the current action would be unnecessary. The rest of the world knows that too.

The same question about what qualifies as success also applies to regime change. Killing the leadership is one thing, but creating a stable government that breaks from the Islamic revolution and protects American interests is quite another. The essential nature of politics is that there are competing factions, which will want to build or maintain governmental structures that advantage those interests. The the type of government Iran might adopt under a regime change scenario – and which faction(s) will control the levers of domestic power – are two dramatic unknowns.

Any plan to completely disempower the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would risk a re-run of the disastrous de-Baathification strategy after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Leaving the IRGC even partially in power leaves the civilian population at continued risk and would hardly make it easier to achieve American aims – whatever they may be. As we’re still seeing in Libya, a power struggle between factions is unlikely to produce the sort of result the region – and the wider world – want to see.

Is this a legitimate war?

Finally, there are severe concerns regarding the legitimacy of the war. Citizens rely on cues from their political leaders and institutions to inform their view about the use of force. The Trump administration had not made a sustained case for the need for military action before the war, nor has it secured Congressional authorisation or bipartisan support. There is no clear domestic consensus supporting the use of force.

Not only is there no clear signal of legitimacy domestically, the same is true internationally. Multilateral backing — especially through institutions such as the United Nations security council — has historically played an important legitimising role (especially to reassure domestic audiences who want a second opinion). This is is absent here – in fact, key US allies have expressed their opposition. The UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has declared military action against Iran is “not our war”, language remarkably similar to that of Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius. Having foregone building international support prior to the use of force, the US is now struggling for support from allies — particularly when it comes to protecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

None of this means the operation will be uniformly unpopular. Partisan attachment is also important: those who back the administration are likely to view the operation more favourably. Accordingly, a majority of Republicans (84%) support the action, though there is a strong divide between Maga (92%) and non-Maga (70%) Republicans.

Meanwhile, Democrats (92%) and independents (69%) overwhelmingly disapprove of the conflict, so domestic support for the conflict is extremely narrow. The factors that sustain backing beyond a president’s core supporters — perceived necessity with clear strategic goals, confidence in eventual success of the mission, and legitimacy conferred by domestic or international institutions — are conspicuously absent.

Over time, events on the ground may change how the public views the conflict. Iranian efforts to expand the scope of conflict – particularly when directed at US allies – could swing support towards the American action. Or, a unified Iranian opposition could quickly coalesce on who and what replaces the Islamic Republic government. These are just two possibilities seen through rose-tinted spectacles – frankly, developments that complicate America’s position seem just as likely.

Without significant changes in clarity of goal, verifiable indicators of success, or signals of legitimacy from persuasive actors outside the administration, support will diminish. But the consequences are graver than the domestic popularity of an American military operation. Sidelining institutional constraints – such as Congressional authorisation and international institutions – erodes limits on the use of force.

When the US ignores these constraints, it invites other countries to do the same, resulting in a more unstable and insecure world.

– ref. Iran war lacks strategy, goals, legitimacy and support – in the US and around the world – https://theconversation.com/iran-war-lacks-strategy-goals-legitimacy-and-support-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-279114

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/iran-war-lacks-strategy-goals-legitimacy-and-support-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-279114/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rose Marroncelli, Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University

Denim is present in practically every country in the world and is widely adopted as one of the most common forms of everyday attire. Its appeal spans generations and social groups: jeans are worn worldwide by those who follow fashion and those who do not, by people seeking to stand out and by those who prefer to blend in. However, many of us have never found the perfect pair.

Although denim has been produced since the 16th century, its association with American culture and durable workwear emerged during the Californian gold rush of the 1850s. It was during this time that Levi’s – now arguably the most recognisable denim brand – was established.

Levi Strauss, an immigrant entrepreneur who arrived in California from Bavaria in the 1850s, opened a dry goods business catering to miners. One of his customers, the tailor Jacob Davis, developed the innovative use of metal rivets to reinforce stress points in work trousers, making them more durable. Strauss and Davis jointly patented this technique, and the Levi’s brand was born.

Blue jeans were originally a seen as symbol of labourers (like the miners) and they also gained a strong association with cowboys. In the decades that followed, denim jeans evolved from practical workwear into one of the most iconic and enduring symbols of global fashion and culture. Film stars such as Marlon Brando and James Dean popularised the jeans and t-shirt look to a young generation in the 1950s. These films personified motorcycle-loving nonconformists, and 1950s Hollywood embraced denim as the garment of rebellion.

Today, the cultural significance of denim jeans has moved beyond early associations with workwear, the cowboy and the teenage rebel, to become a staple worn by people of all ages and backgrounds.

Finding the perfect pair

Denim jeans are often seen as a problematic fashion product in terms of sustainability, because their production leaves a considerable environmental footprint.

Cheap prices on the high street can encourage consumers to treat denim products as short-term items, reducing their lifespan. Cotton, which is commonly the main fabric for denim, is incredibly water intensive; the production of one pair of jeans uses approximately 7,500 litres of water.

Different components involved in the making of a single pair of jeans, such as denim, thread, cotton and buttons, can originate from different countries all over the world. This raises questions regarding the environmental costs involved in the production process. Further issues include that jeans are often not made from single fibre materials and therefore cannot be recycled.

Adding to sustainability concerns, at the consumer level, the perfect pair of jeans remains an elusive concept. But in a recently published book chapter, I explain that the perfect pair of jeans is elusive for a reason. Jeans have to be correct for the individual wearer in terms of comfort, social and personal identity, and also the complexity of fit.

Previous reports have focused on women’s struggle to find jeans that fit and are flattering. The inability to find the perfect pair of jeans may encourage overconsumption, due to repeated purchasing based on poor fit.

My research shows that this is an issue which applies to all genders. The men I spoke to noted how they resented paying a higher price for brands like Levi’s, so spent less by purchasing cheap, high street alternatives. This attitude can lead to overconsumption, as low price points achieved through low-quality production often compromise product longevity.

This demonstrates the perpetuating cycle of fast fashion, driven by cheap, low-quality production, and contradicts the original purpose of jeans of being highly durable and having longevity. The combination of highly environmentally damaging production processes with overconsumption results in even greater environmental harm.

Retailers can make efforts to reduce the trend of overconsumption with better fitting garments. However, fit is a complex issue for retailers as well as consumers. For the retailer, producing jeans in a wide range of sizes and styles is often not cost effective, and complex sizing systems can also confuse the consumer.

Technology could provide future solutions to improving the accuracy of fit. Personalised virtual fitting, made possible through improvements in 3D human shape recognition, could ensure improved fit for the consumer. This would benefit online shoppers, although the technology does remain in its infancy, and is yet to be adopted by major online fashion retailers. Virtual fitting rooms also cannot replicate the feeling of denim next to the skin, so although the fit may be perfect, comfort could be compromised.

Ultimately, the enduring challenge of finding the “perfect pair” of jeans highlights not only the garment’s cultural significance but also the opportunity for the fashion industry – and consumers – to move toward more sustainable, better-fitting and more thoughtfully designed denim for the future.

– ref. A brief history of denim – and why the ‘perfect pair’ of jeans remains elusive – https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-denim-and-why-the-perfect-pair-of-jeans-remains-elusive-276118

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/a-brief-history-of-denim-and-why-the-perfect-pair-of-jeans-remains-elusive-276118/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Rowe, Associate Professor in Education, Deakin University

At this time of the school year, many schools are asking families to pay fees. These are not private schools, but public schools.

The fees are voluntary and go towards a range of items such as stationery, textbooks and excursions.

The voluntary fees range from hundreds to thousands of dollars per child, per year.

This often depends on the socioeconomic status of the school, with more advantaged or select-entry public schools tending to ask parents to contribute more.

Are schools allowed to do this?

Yes, public schools can ask families for fees. But they cannot force parents to pay. The precise rules around fees for public school students also differ from state to state.

For example, in Victoria, public schools must provide students “with free instruction”.

But they can ask parents to make voluntary financial contributions in two categories: “curriculum contributions” and “other contributions”. Schools do not have to be specific about each item within this category but this could involve things such as stationery, library books and IT programs used in classrooms.

Schools might ask parents to contribute towards extracurricular activities, which must be categorised as “optional”. These include excursions, camps, sports programs, music programs or non-curriculum-based school events such as graduations.

In New South Wales, parents might be asked to contribute towards “mandatory excursions” such as camps, swimming and athletics carnivals, and incursions – where experts or performers come to the school.

State governments – such as in NSW – emphasise to parents how voluntary school contributions are “at the discretion of parents and carers” and “there must be no incentives or penalties tied to voluntary contribution payments”.

This is helpful and important for parents who cannot afford to pay. As The Age reported this week, many parents are struggling to pay these fees. But it also puts further pressure on schools to fund basic operations and meet government funding shortfalls.

Why is this happening?

Public schools ask parents to make voluntary contributions because they need the funds. These voluntary contributions are important to the school.

State governments have consistently not met their funding targets for public schools. On current timelines – and provided future governments deliver the funds – schools will not have their full funding entitlements until 2034.

This puts school principals in a very difficult situation. Their schools are not properly funded by the government and there are limits to their ability to seek additional funds from parents.

How do schools make up the shortfall?

Many parents might not know that principals spend a lot of time applying for competitive funding government grants, as my 2024 study showed.

These grants can be for a range of reasons, such as paying for a school bus, or fixing a school wall.

But many of these applications are unsuccessful. There is no feedback available to principals and it is common for them to seek the funding year upon year.

Are there alternatives?

There have been some recent government polices to help with the costs of public schooling. But these are directed at families, not schools.

In 2025, the Victorian state government provided parents with a A$400 school saving bonus. This was provided directly to parents to help with uniforms, textbooks and school activities.

However, it was schools who had to administer the voucher. This meant extra work and costs for schools. The state government did not allow any additional funding to schools to meet this cost. So it had little-to-negative impact for schools when it comes to meeting their funding needs.

The South Australian government has pledged to abolish voluntary parent fees in public schools. It says this will save families more than $8,000 over the life of a child’s schooling.

But with the state’s schools not receiving their full funding entitlements for eight years, this will create an ongoing shortfall for schools.

This is yet another reason why we need full funding for public schools immediately, rather than a commitment to do so in 2034.

– ref. Why are public schools asking parents to pay fees? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-public-schools-asking-parents-to-pay-fees-278985

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/why-are-public-schools-asking-parents-to-pay-fees-278985/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tauel Harper, Associate Professor in Communications and Media, Murdoch University

The US military action in Iran may have an unintended secondary effect – ending the cultural dominance of the internal combustion engine and ushering in the age of electric vehicles.

Back in the 1970s, a sudden increase in the price of oil led to the public embracing smaller and more fuel efficient cars; similarly, the choking of the Strait of Hormuz, and the resultant high cost of oil, is driving a historic surge of interest in electric vehicles.

Google Trends data shows that almost three times as many Australians searched for “electric vehicles” on March 23 when compared to February 27, the day before the US started to bomb Iran and the cost of oil (and fuel) started to skyrocket. The increase in RSV (Relative Search Volume) represents a 278% increase in Australians searching for “electric vehicles”.

While research shows a number of factors influence Australians’ choice to own an electric vehicle, the price and availability of energy clearly plays a central role and the weight of public opinion is slowly shifting towards embracing EVs.

EV interest remains over time

Historically, the relationship between the cost of petrol and interest in electric vehicles (EVs) is even more telling. The graph below shows a clear pattern of higher petrol prices leading to more searches for EVs.

While the most notable feature of this data is the dramatic increase in searches for EVs since the US attacks on Iran began, it’s also interesting that while interest in EVs often drops as oil prices return to “normal”, it never drops back down to its previous level. Once sparked, our interest in EVs remains higher than before.

For instance, after the spike in oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, you can see a similar spike in searches for EVs. However, even after the oil price had dropped back down and stabilised, the Relative Search Volume (RSV) of Google searches for EVs remained at a higher level than before the invasion.

This suggests consumers retain some interest in EVs after the increase in oil prices has passed. Perhaps these global oil crises prompt the realisation that relying on energy imported from the other side of the world is more tenuous than relying on energy from your own rooftop.

A pragmatic interest in saving money

My colleagues and I recently explored Australia’s cultural attitudes to EVs. We argued increasing access to household solar energy was driving an enthusiasm for a new relationship with energy. But long-held anxieties around range, infrastructure, gender roles and national image, as well as traditionalist hold outs like enthusiast car culture and engine sounds, as factors that inhibit the take up of EVs in Australia.

However, the clear signal this trend data sends is that Australians are a pragmatic lot. If using an EV might save them money, then they are interested.

The data also presents a warning to car makers that have “bet against” the rise of the electric vehicle. Porsche, Lambourghini and Ferrari have all recently announced plans to reconsider or scale back their production of EVs. This is based on their assessment of shifts in the “political climate”, with security and trade taking precedence over “environmental concerns”.

While economic driving may not be a concern for many Ferrari drivers, Toyota has also made the decision to “not go all in” on electric. Instead, it offers only one full EV in Australia, amid a range of internal combustion and hybrid options. This bet against electric vehicles may look foolish if oil prices continue to rise.

Is this the ‘critical mass’ for EVs?

Google trends data is an enigmatic metric. It tells you how interest in things changes but not how much interest there is overall. According to sales data, there was a slump in EV sales in 2024, but EV sales in February 2026 were already 95% higher than they were in February 2025. The evidence of Google Trends suggests March’s results will show even more of an increase.

While technological change can be difficult to initiate, new technologies tend to reach a tipping point when they reach a “critical mass” of public adoption. Like the move from LPs to CDs to streaming services, what starts out as idiosyncratic can soon become a norm. Similarly, technology that once seemed here to stay can quickly become outdated.

With the cost of petrol rising once again, and Australians increasingly harnessing their solar electricity, we are rapidly normalising the benefits of electric vehicles.

I’d like to acknowledge the contribution to this article of my colleague, car enthusiast and academic Damian Fasolo, whose understanding of car culture contributed significantly.

– ref. Our interest in electric vehicles has grown due to oil price spikes. And it’s likely to remain – https://theconversation.com/our-interest-in-electric-vehicles-has-grown-due-to-oil-price-spikes-and-its-likely-to-remain-278664

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/our-interest-in-electric-vehicles-has-grown-due-to-oil-price-spikes-and-its-likely-to-remain-278664/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert W Jones, Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Leeds

It is a truth, though not one universally acknowledged, that a country house possessed of spacious grounds must be in want of a large fortune. A film or television company might offer one, or at least an honourable provision.

The forthcoming marriage of Harewood House in west Yorkshire to Netflix, is much like any other in this respect. The union will produce a new version of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (from whose work I have been very obviously scrumping), to be released later this year. Harewood will become Pemberley, Mr Darcy’s famously enticing home. Yorkshire will pose as Derbyshire.

Harewood is a grand house. Whether it is too grand for Pemberley is hard to say. In the book, Mr Darcy’s annual income of £10,000 is a huge sum. But the house might be contested in other ways too.

The estate has been the seat of the Lascelles family since 1738, when the Gawthorpe and Harewood Castle estates were acquired with money gained in the West Indies, from owning enslaved people, plantations, ships, warehouses and their associated goods and crops (as the estate’s website explains). The current owners, aware of the implications of the source of their inheritance, are among the cofounders of the Heirs of Slavery group, which advocates for compensation to address the ongoing consequences of slavery.

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Built between 1759 and 1771, the house boasts interiors designed by fashionable architect Robert Adam and furniture by Thomas Chippendale. Its serious art collection features Sir Joshua Reynolds, J.M.W Turner, Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Thomas Lawrence. Reynolds’s painting Mrs Hale as Euphrosyne (1762-64) graces, as she should, the splendid Adam-designed music room.

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Read more: Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter captures the spirit of two great geniuses, born 250 years ago

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Historian Mark Girouard’s classic study Life in an English County House: A Social and Architectural History (1978) still helpfully explains places like Harewood. He writes that these houses served several functions; business and work for much of the time, though the labour that sustained its splendours occurred in the Caribbean. They were also spaces intended for leisure and diverse forms of public and private sociability. Each activity was allocated (if imperfectly) different spaces within the house.

More recent studies academic studies, such as Karen Lipsedge’s Domestic Space in the British Eighteenth-Century Novel (2012) have developed this interest, explaining how space and gender interconnect. The music room at Harewood, with Mrs Hale as its central focus, would have held a special function in this respect.

Visiting Pemberley

Great houses like Harewood were designed to receive and impress guests. Any visitor would have needed to negotiate the shifting codes of privacy and publicity that might be in play (they were never static).

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Read more: Netflix to remake Pride and Prejudice – why Jane Austen novels make perfect period adaptations

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The further into a house you were allowed, the more you entered a private realm where distinctions of rank might be in abeyance. In Pride and Prejudice the awful Lady Catherine de Bourgh knows this, doesn’t care and ploughs on. She enters the intimate space of the Bennet family’s drawing room where she expects to be accorded all respective and deference. Brilliantly, she isn’t. But she cannot be refused either and is guided to the more public realm of the garden.

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In their Georgian heydays great houses like Harewood would have received many inveigling visitors, though they were not all like the bumptious, bungling de Bourgh. It is in this capacity that Pemberley is encountered in Pride and Prejudice, though its eligible but prideful owner (Darcy) has made the house intriguing long before.

Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, take their tour of the Derbyshire at the opening of the third volume of the novel. Elizabeth is still composing herself after the horrors of Darcy’s proposal and the revelations of his letter, detailing Mr Wickham’s atrocious conduct with its obvious implications for her young sister. As soon as Elizabeth sees the house and its grounds, she is taken with it and reflects: “To be mistress of Pemberley might be something.”

While the house is praised repeatedly in the novel, it is the views from Pemberley, not the “fine carpets and satin curtains” (which any house might have) which appear to attract Elizabeth most. There are several references to windows, and what can be seen from them in these scenes.

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If Darcy is redeemed in Elizabeth’s eyes at Pemberley, it is partly because he proves himself to be a good landlord. The change in Austen scholarship, especially since the last Pride and Prejudice adaptation, has been tremendous. Elizabeth has appeared more and more independent, less easily impressed by Darcy. Her perspective is now seen as far more important than all his trees, however much they convey his status.

Harewood and its prospects have changed too since Austen’s day. The landscape has altered. From some of Harewood’s windows you can still see what remains of Lancelot “Capability” Brown’s improvements: his clumps of trees and the great lake he introduced. But the Victorians removed a great deal.

What will the new Elizabeth see from Harewood — and what, in turn, will the viewer see? How might the new Darcy delight and interest his guest? Not by plunging into the lake surely. And from which window might Elizabeth finally catch that brilliant view?

– ref. Netflix’s new Pride and Prejudice features Harewood House as Pemberley – here’s what the estate reveals about Austen’s world – https://theconversation.com/netflixs-new-pride-and-prejudice-features-harewood-house-as-pemberley-heres-what-the-estate-reveals-about-austens-world-277786

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/netflixs-new-pride-and-prejudice-features-harewood-house-as-pemberley-heres-what-the-estate-reveals-about-austens-world-277786/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Mary Hallinan, Senior Research Fellow, Department of General Practice and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Medicinal cannabis has become a routine part of health care in Australia far more quickly than many expected.

What began in 2016 as a tightly controlled pathway for patients with complex conditions that had not responded to other treatments has grown into a large, mainstream prescribing market. Today, medicinal cannabis is increasingly delivered through telehealth and online platforms.

But our health system was not designed for this demand, nor for the shift in prescribing practices. So many of the safeguards in place for other medicines don’t exist for medicinal cannabis.

Now, Australia’s medicines regulator is deciding how best to update medicinal cannabis prescribing and regulation to make it safer.

Its yet-to-be released review is focusing on “unapproved” medicinal cannabis products, ones that are legal but that it hasn’t assessed to make sure are safe, of good quality and actually work.

The rise and rise of medicinal cannabis

Prescribing of medicinal cannabis rose sharply from 2019. By the end of 2025, publicly available Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) data I analysed shows close to one million approvals for medicinal cannabis in Australia.

However, the systems needed to monitor safety, effectiveness and longer-term outcomes have lagged behind this rapid growth.

Doctors told us as far back as 2018 (in research published in 2021) of their concerns about medicinal cannabis prescribing. They described how the rollout had occurred before the system was fully prepared.

At the time, they raised the potential for fragmented care (patients seeking health care from multiple professionals, not all aware of what the others were prescribing), limited guidance for prescribers, and the absence of routine mechanisms to monitor benefit and harm.

These concerns have persisted as the market has grown, and changed.

From oils to flower, and telehealth

Over time, publicly available TGA data I analysed shows a shift in the type of medicinal cannabis prescribed.

Herbal products – such as dried flowers you smoke and inhale – are increasingly prescribed at higher rates than oral oils containing cannabis extract. This shift from oils to herbal products matters.

Inhaled cannabis is absorbed rapidly through the lungs, with effects felt within minutes, making it one of the fastest ways cannabis acts in the body. But oils are absorbed more slowly through the gut, have delayed onset, and can take hours to reach peak effect.

But this shift towards inhaled cannabis (with its rapid onset) challenges the conventional way medicines are prescribed. This would be to start off with a low dose, then monitor the effects (known as the “start low and go slow” approach).

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Medicinal cannabis prescriptions have skyrocketed in Australia, mostly for legal but unapproved products we don’t even know work or are safe. In this series, experts tease out what’s fuelling the rise of medicinal cannabis, the fallout, and what needs to happen next.

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Approvals for THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) dominant products are also rising, according to publicly available TGA data I’ve analysed.

THC is psychoactive and can cause side effects such as impaired cognition, anxiety and, in some people, psychosis.

When medicines, including the less-psychoactive cannabidiol (CBD) products, are prescribed by someone other than a person’s usual doctor, it is often unclear who is responsible for monitoring any harm.

There’s also been a rise in product-specific telehealth consultations for prescribing medicinal cannabis. With these, there’s often limited contact with a patient’s regular doctor.

This matters because many patients prescribed cannabis are also taking antidepressants, sedatives, opioids or other medicines with overlapping side-effects.

Products containing THC can cause sedation, dizziness and cognitive impairment. Both THC and CBD can interact with other drugs, altering blood levels and increasing the risk of harm.

So we end up with a system in which prescribing often occurs in one place, while monitoring occurs elsewhere, or nowhere in particular.

Limited evidence, social media filling the gap

Many others have written about the limited, robust evidence for whether medicinal cannabis works for a range of conditions, including for anxiety, pain and sleep. Based on the evidence to date, it’s unlikely to reduce your anxiety, pain or help you sleep.

Reviews show a similar lack of evidence for mental health conditions more broadly and for substance use disorders.

These are among the many reasons Australians are prescribed medicinal cannabis.

This means health professionals are often prescribing medicinal cannabis in the absence of clear benchmarks for benefit, harm or how long treatment should last.

So patients are increasingly turning to social media, online forums and internet searches to share experiences, compare products, discuss dosing strategies, and interpret side-effects.

While shared experience can be valuable, it is a poor replacement for medical oversight, particularly for patients using multiple medicines or inhaled cannabis products where dose, timing and drug interactions matter.

What needs to happen next?

The federal government has announced reforms requiring medicines prescribed online or via telehealth to be visible in My Health Record, alongside any clinical context.

This means patients and doctors will have a more complete picture of someone’s medicines, including medicinal cannabis. That’s especially the case if they are prescribed in different settings.

But visibility alone is not enough to prevent the safety issues I’ve highlighted.

We need to examine how medicinal cannabis is promoted and prescribed, how it is used in mental health care and by young people, how safety risks are managed, and whether current regulatory arrangements remain fit for purpose.

We need to move towards nationwide oversight and monitoring of medicinal cannabis prescribing. This could include analysing secure, de-identified data from electronic medical records, linked across care settings, to provide the real-world evidence needed to support safer prescribing, detect emerging harms, and inform policy.

If we had that, we could answer:

• who is using medicinal cannabis, and for which conditions?

• which health professional starts the treatment, and how?

• what benefits are patients experiencing?

• what adverse effects, interactions and longer-term harms may be occurring?

Medicinal cannabis is now part of routine health care, and it should be monitored with the same level of accountability expected of any other widely used medicine.

– ref. Medicinal cannabis has gone mainstream. But Australia’s struggling to cope – https://theconversation.com/medicinal-cannabis-has-gone-mainstream-but-australias-struggling-to-cope-271744

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/medicinal-cannabis-has-gone-mainstream-but-australias-struggling-to-cope-271744/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul M. Garrett, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

You’ve only been in the shopping centre for a few minutes, but back in the car park, you suddenly freeze. Where did I park? The memory feels gone. You guess and start to head left. Then you see the sign – “Blue Zone 1” – and realise your guess was correct.

This everyday experience is at the heart of new research colleagues and I have published in the journal Computational Brain & Behavior.

It shows that even “wrong” short-term memories may not be empty guesses.

What is short-term memory?

When we compare options, debate opinions, and recall very recent events, we hold this information in our “working memory”, also known as our short-term memory.

Researchers agree short-term memory has its limits – most people can only keep four or fewer items in mind at any one time. But the nature of these limitations is debated.

One popular “slot” theory suggests information is either stored fully or not at all. Think of this like a light switch: on or off. If the light is off, any resulting decision is a stab in the dark.

A competing “resource” theory suggests information is stored with different levels of accuracy. Think of this like a lighthouse shining through fog. Some memories are lit up, clear and strong. Others are just out of sight, fuzzy and only touched by the faintest of light.

If true, these fuzzy signals may still help us recognise important information and make good decisions, even when it feels like the memory has disappeared entirely.

Searching for the signal

My colleagues and I used advanced models of decision speed and accuracy to test whether “guessed” memories contained useful information for a subsequent recognition decision.

Put simply, if memory works like a light switch, then guesses will contain no useful information when assessed in a later recognition task.

However, if guesses come from fuzzy memories, then even wrong recollections will contain some useful information for later recognition.

To test these theories, we showed participants up to six colourful dots. After hiding the dots, we then asked them to recall the colour of one of the previous dots on a colour wheel.

Once they’d chosen their colour, we gave them a second shot.

After calculating their response error, we presented the correct colour alongside an alternative one that was located an equal yet opposite distance from the response location as the correct colour on the colour wheel. This ensured the target and alternative (or “distractor”) colours were similarly difficult to recognise, relative to the participant’s initial recollection.

We then asked participants to recognise the correct colour from among the pair.

Fuzzy or gone?

As expected, people recalled colours less precisely when they had more items to remember. But what happened when their answers looked like guesses?

We first separated “guessed” memories (for example, responses made on the wrong side of the colour wheel) from memories centred on the correct colour.

The rate at which participants accurately recognised the correct colour far exceeded chance following guesses for four or fewer items (more than 70%) and on average, was above chance for six items (55%).

Our modelling shows why: even when recall looked very wrong, people were still drawing on the same fuzzy memory trace to achieve better than chance recognition.

We didn’t take this finding at face value.

Using the latest computational methods, we considered alternative accounts: swap errors (where the wrong item was initially recalled and then corrected for during recognition), complex guessing patterns, varying memory limits, and combinations thereof.

No other account explained our findings.

Why ‘fuzzy’ short-term memories matter

Daily life rarely gives us the time or mental space to rely on perfect recall, especially when the information we’re retrieving isn’t all that crucial: the exact location of our parked car or the exact details of an acquaintance’s face.

Our work shows that even when short-term memories feel like they’re gone, they may still hold information that’s useful for making correct decisions.

Understanding this is important.

We often treat short-term memory like a light switch. But that might be leaving people in the dark.

For example, comprehensive short-term memory tests need to assess not only recall, but how recognition memory helps people achieve their daily tasks.

Our work encourages people to reevaluate “guesses” as low-precision memories.

For example, instead of dismissing mistakes as errors, educational tools might use recognition prompts to probe memory lapses and encourage learning.

Our work also supports the use of redundant information when navigating settings using short-term memories. “Blue Zone 1” is a great memory prompt to navigate a car park, but it’s also incredibly helpful in other settings such as hospitals.

Finding ways to better support short-term memory for people’s everyday decision-making, as in the above examples, is a matter for future research.

For now, when you next feel a memory is lost, know that it might not be gone. With any luck, it’ll be there, catching just enough light to lead you in the right direction.

– ref. Gone but not forgotten: how fuzzy memories improve decision-making – https://theconversation.com/gone-but-not-forgotten-how-fuzzy-memories-improve-decision-making-278883

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/gone-but-not-forgotten-how-fuzzy-memories-improve-decision-making-278883/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marianne Hanson, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland

Israel’s avowed goal in the Middle East war is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet, the double standard associated with this is hardly sustainable in the long run.

The worst-kept secret in the world of nuclear politics is that Israel possesses a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons. It began developing these in the 1950s and reached a fully operational capability by the late 1960s.

Although Israel refuses to confirm or deny this fact, arms control organisations have assessed that the country has some 80–90 nuclear weapons.

In recent days, Iran targeted Israel’s nuclear facility in the southern town of Dimona, injuring more than 100 people. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for restraint to avoid a “nuclear accident”.

A program shrouded in secrecy

There is much evidence to support the existence of Israel’s arsenal.

In 1963, then-Deputy Defence Minister Shimon Peres famously stated Israel would not be the first to “introduce” nuclear weapons to the Middle East. What this actually meant was spelled out a few years later by the Israeli ambassador to the US. For a weapon to be “introduced”, he said, it needed to be tested and publicly declared. Merely possessing them did not constitute introducing them.

Several whistleblower accounts, intelligence reports and satellite imagery confirm the extent of the Israeli program and its capabilities.

More recently, Amichai Eliyahu, a far-right minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, alluded to using nuclear weapons in Gaza – a tacit acknowledgement of Israel’s capabilities. He was later reprimanded by Netanyahu.

And in 2024, Avigdor Lieberman, a former defence and foreign minister, threatened to “use all the means at our disposal” to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. He added: “It should be clear at this stage it is not possible to prevent nuclear weapons from Iran by conventional means.”

It is important to remember that Israel not only developed its nuclear weapons in secret – employing subterfuge, misleading claims, and even the suspected theft of bomb-grade nuclear material from the United States – it has also rejected international inspections of its facilities and refused to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This treaty has been signed by almost every state in the world.

Concerns over Iran’s program

Iran, meanwhile, has never had a nuclear weapon, though its program has been the source of international concern for more than a decade.

In 2015, Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (also known as the Iran nuclear deal) with the US, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, which imposed restrictions on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. This included inspections by IAEA monitors.

However, Trump scuppered the plan in 2018. Since then, Iran has enriched uranium to levels well above those needed for its energy program. And last year, the IAEA said Iran was non-compliant with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations for failing to provide full answers about its program.

But since the current war began, US and international officials have confirmed that Iran was not close to developing a nuclear weapon and did not pose an imminent nuclear threat to the US or Israel.

In short, there is no truth to the claim, made for almost 40 years by Israel, that Iran is “weeks away” from acquiring the bomb. The IAEA made clear two years ago that a nuclear weapon requires “many other things independently from the production of the fissile material”.

Getting close to nuclear threshold status, but stopping short of developing an actual bomb, likely provides a fall-back position for Iran. If Iran were to feel pushed or threatened, it could, in time, accelerate its energy program towards a weapons program. Or it could use this enriched uranium as leverage in negotiations with the US.

Nuclear powers need to show restraint

This brings us back to a major question: can double standards about who can and cannot develop a nuclear weapon be sustained indefinitely?

Israel’s nuclear arsenal has been tacitly accepted by the West, implying there are “right hands” and “wrong hands” for nuclear weapons. But this is a risky and ultimately unsustainable position.

As Australia’s Canberra Commission noted in 1996, as long as any one state has nuclear weapons, other states will want them, too.

This is precisely why many states voted in 2017 to adopt the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty’s purpose is to make the possession, threat and use of nuclear weapons illegitimate for all states, not just for some, on the basis of international humanitarian law.

Signed by 99 states so far, the treaty recognises that nuclear weapons promise massive destruction to civilians and combatants alike, and that even a “small” nuclear war will cause catastrophic damage.

At the end of the day, a consistent approach to nuclear weapons is more likely to prevent nuclear proliferation (by Iran or other states) than the current mess, where some states are tacitly permitted to have these weapons (and wage war on others), while other countries are not.

It is possible we are at a tipping point when it comes to nuclear proliferation, with some countries suspected of wanting to develop nuclear weapon capabilities. This includes US allies South Korea and Japan.

Are the nuclear weapons states ultimately willing to accept the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and disarm in the interest of global peace and security? If they don’t, then the current trajectory of keeping one’s own nuclear weapons and waging war against states that don’t have them will only weaken an already crumbling rules-based international order.

– ref. Israel wants to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But should it have nuclear weapons itself? – https://theconversation.com/israel-wants-to-destroy-irans-nuclear-program-but-should-it-have-nuclear-weapons-itself-278801

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/israel-wants-to-destroy-irans-nuclear-program-but-should-it-have-nuclear-weapons-itself-278801/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Moyle Ogbeide-Ihama, Academic Lead Indigenous Knowledges, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University

Ngank, the sun, warms a morning in Bunuru, the second summer season, on Boorloo Whadjuk Noongar lands.

I’m sitting outside the Art Gallery of Western Australia, here to see the I AM exhibition. This collection of Aboriginal artworks has been drawn from the State Art Collection by Carly Lane, a Murri woman from Queensland, and curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art at the gallery.

A small crowd is now milling, waiting for the ten o’clock opening. One man cannot wait. I watch him walk to the locked glass doors, press his nose and the palms of his hands against the pristine pane, and stare longingly inside, trying to catch someone’s attention. He retreats, then returns, four times in as many minutes.

It’s a space he wants to enter, but he’s not allowed in – yet. I think about the traditional custodians of the land I’m on. They’ve been here for tens of thousands of years, yet from 1927 to 1954 they were restricted by law from being in this very spot without a permit.

Ironically, this segregation was instigated by the Chief Protector of Aborigines, who sought to create a refuge for white citizens. It’s within living memory for some and indelibly marked in the spirits of others through deep time.

Soon, we are all invited in. The man rushes to the front and disappears into the building.

It takes me no time to realise this collection is not driven by aesthetics alone. It is a coming together of rich individual identities voicing their history, knowledge and lived experiences so that, collectively, the greater palette of Peoples emerges.

It privileges the multiple stories of creation, of connection to Country and people, and life lived within the complex realities of a colonised existence.

Articulating identity

Gordon Bennett’s Painting for a New Republic (The inland sea) spreads itself across the wall. It marks the start of a journey centring the many facets of identity. The canvas echoes foundations of his personhood, both inherited and imposed. As we unite with the blood red, blacks, bright yellow and white of his bold marks, we ask ourselves who we are too.

I am urged to stand in front of Making the Warakurna to Warburton Road, by Judith Yinyika Chambers of the Nganyatjarra People of Western Australia. This story is brought to life with tjanpi grass, raffia, acrylic wool and wire – media both old and new – woven together to spin a yarn about community.

It reminds me of Ian Abdulla’s paintings and I am transfixed. I am sitting around the karla (campfire) with them. I can hear the axe head’s dull thump into the tree trunks followed by its echo, the tractor’s throaty gurgle, and the dog’s sharp incessant bark amid all the activity.

Tamisha Williams of the Manyjilyjarra People of Western Australia shares her photographic digital works printed on cotton rag paper, Chilling out Ngurra (home). The muted brightness of these images insists you pause and contemplate what home is.

Christopher Pease’s Whalers arrests my attention. Oil on canvas, it is beautifully realised. Noongar iconography is transposed over 19th century prints, a harpooned whale with a target painted on its side, struggling in the wake of the assault.

I am taken back to Albany, Minang Country where my father was born. As a child my Nanna took me on a drive to the top of the hill above the whaling station, the bloody sight and offensive stench keeping the visit short.

Ancestral presence and resistance

The Wandjina, the Supreme Creator of the Ngarinyin, Worrorra, and Wunambal peoples from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, is a welcome sight. He stares out from Leah Umbagai’s ochre and pen drawing, Baddaa Badaa (I’m telling you a story), summoning eye contact.

Donny Woolagoodja’s linocuts – Namarali (Worrorra God) and Wandjina the Rainmaker – invite quiet reverence.

Humour abounds too. Tiwi man Mai Luki Harry Carpenter’s carving of the Spirit Man Purukapali has an arresting grin that is hard to take your eyes off, like he’s told a joke only he understands.

I also love Julie Dowling’s painting of Noongar warrior Yagan, surrounded by colonisers – homogenous and dull in their aspect and appearance.

Dianne Jones, a Ballardong Noongar artist, brings irreverence and satire to the space with her photographic digital prints, her own image seamlessly merged into classic stereotypical images of 1940s suburban mums going about their lives. She instils an Aboriginal presence in places previously marred by blunt exclusion.

Yhonnie Scarce’s glass installation confronting the dark history of British nuclear testing in South Australia will stay with you long after you’ve left the building, as will Fiona Foley’s bold print of the Hedonistic Honky Haters, HHH#1 (pictured in the header image).

The curation of I AM is mindful and cohesive, a visual and textural manifesto of Australia’s Indigenous art. It is not an exhibition to rush through. You’ll be so glad to view it for yourself. I know I am.

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I AM is currently showing at AGWA. The exhibit will have two major rotations, introducing new works in August 2026 and again in early 2027.

– ref. I AM: a powerful declaration of Indigenous identity at the Art Gallery of Western Australia – https://theconversation.com/i-am-a-powerful-declaration-of-indigenous-identity-at-the-art-gallery-of-western-australia-277497

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/25/i-am-a-powerful-declaration-of-indigenous-identity-at-the-art-gallery-of-western-australia-277497/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lurion De Mello, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Macquarie University

It’s been hard to ignore growing fears of a looming fuel shortage in Australia. Conflict in the Middle East has led to what the International Energy Agency has called the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”.

The federal government has been at pains to reassure the public Australia’s fuel supply is secure until mid-April. Tankers carrying diesel, petrol and jet fuel are already heading here from places such as India, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. In the short term, supplies look steady.

However, there’s one fuel where Australia is particularly exposed: diesel. Our whole economy depends on it. Trucks that move our food and goods around, machinery used in farming and mining, and even backup generators all rely on diesel.

And because most of it is imported and takes weeks to arrive, even a small disruption could cause serious problems. Recent price spikes are a sign of how sensitive the system is. Hundreds of service stations around Australia have reportedly run out of fuel due to soaring demand.

This is where our diesel goes now, why switching off supply would cause major problems – and some of the hard choices we could face as a country if things get worse.

Keeping things moving

Diesel is a crucial fuel for a wide range of industries. One of the most important uses of diesel is simply moving people (and small loads) around.

According to the Australian Industry Group, by activity, 26% of diesel consumption goes to powering cars and utes.

After that, trucks and mining sit close behind, each accounting for 24% of consumption. Other significant use activities include agriculture (8%) and manufacturing (7%).

And it’s important not to forget the importance of diesel in various other essential functions for communities. Many remote areas, for example, rely on diesel power as a backup power source.

Similarly, when power goes out at a hospital, diesel generators are an important source of backup electricity, where continuity of power is crucial.

Why is it hard to switch?

There are a few key reasons why switching away from diesel is so hard. One is that diesel is the preferred fuel for large vehicles and heavy industry.

Many of diesel’s key uses – powering freight and long-distance trains, trucks or even large shipping vessels – require a huge amount of energy. In very simple terms, diesel contains more energy per litre than petrol. It’s also more fuel-efficient than petrol. That fuel efficiency has enticed many Australians to buy diesel vehicles.

Over the past 15 years, there’s been a surge in diesel sales, with more small trucks and vans on the road required to keep up with Australia’s booming demand for online deliveries.

Our transport and industry infrastructure in Australia is built around access to diesel. Transitioning away from this fuel can’t be done easily or in a hurry.

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Read more: Why do we use gasoline for small vehicles and diesel fuel for big vehicles?

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How bad could things get?

If diesel stops flowing to Australia (or is severely restricted), one of the most immediate impacts will be on freight.

It’s highly unlikely there will be no diesel at all. But if we can’t get enough stock into the country, what is available could become extremely expensive.

Many freight companies will be unable to absorb these costs, and so will likely push them onto their customers in the form of higher prices.

It’s more difficult to speculate about the speed and severity of other impacts, such as on food production or the cost of construction. But these effects could be significant in a prolonged crisis.

What’s on the way

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said on Sunday six fuel tankers scheduled to arrive in Australia had been cancelled or deferred, but that this was out of 81 expected in total.

My own analysis, using the latest shipping data from financial data firm LSEG, indicates fuel is still headed for and arriving in Australia.

At the time of this article’s publication, there were no visible fuel shipments scheduled beyond April 14. But that isn’t necessarily any reason to panic. Typically, departure data is only made available within a couple of weeks before a ship departs (sometimes only a few days before).

It will be important for the government to remain transparent about exactly how much is expected to come into the country.

Tough choices

If we zoom out to the bigger picture, Australia’s reliance on diesel is the result of years of particular choices.

If the situation doesn’t improve before mid-April, the country could face hard choices – such as rationing fuel, requiring people to work remotely if possible and minimise travel, or switching to alternatives such as electric vehicles.

But our reliance on diesel isn’t inevitable, and other systems are possible. For one, Australia is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Why isn’t our economy based around this prime asset?

Nations such as India and China have already demonstrated how transport can pivot away from diesel, rolling out both LNG-powered and electric trucks in large numbers.

Even if it’s resolved soon, this crisis will have forced Australia to finally confront tough questions about its energy security.

– ref. Australia has plenty of diesel for now. But running out could upend our economy – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-plenty-of-diesel-for-now-but-running-out-could-upend-our-economy-278981

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/24/australia-has-plenty-of-diesel-for-now-but-running-out-could-upend-our-economy-278981/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hazel Moir, Honorary Associate Professor; economics of patents, geographical indications and other “IP”; trade treaties, Australian National University

Nearly eight years ago Australia and the European Union (EU) launched trade negotiations. Finally, today Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and EU President Ursula von der Leyen signed an agreement in Canberra.

Von der Leyen said the deal would remove nearly all tariffs and add about A$8 billion to Australia’s economy a year. She told reporters:

It will become easier for Australia to export to the European Union based on high standards.

Overall the EU, with its 450 million people, is Australia’s third-largest trading partner. In 2024, two-way trade was A$110 billion. In practical terms, however, our exporters are selling into 27 different countries, each with their own culture and retail system.

When Australia walked away from negotiations in 2023, it was because of problems with the EU’s demand for naming rights for food and drink products and the very limited EU offer for tariff-free quotas to sell our agricultural goods in Europe.

The trade negotiations restarted in June last year with a renewed sense of urgency following US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs that upended global trade.

Improved market access for beef

The announcement today demonstrates some improvement in the market access offer for beef. The background to the quota limitations on selling Australian beef in Europe is complex, but the agreement is disappointing for both the beef export and lamb export industries.

They had pushed for quotas of 50,000 and 67,000 tonnes respectively, but have only achieved 35,000 and 25,000 tonnes.

The actual outcome is a compromise, increasing existing quotas eightfold, but falling far short of industry demands.

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But it is likely European farmers will still object, as they did with the recent EU-Mercosur trade agreement with South American nations.

Prosecco at home, but not abroad

Turning to naming rights, the standout names that had been disputed until today were parmesan, feta and prosecco. In Australia these are common names – parmesan and feta are names for cheese varieties, similar to cheddar and brie.

Australian producers have always been allowed to use the name prosecco for wine made from prosecco grapes, under our bilateral wine treaty with the EU.

Because prosecco is globally recognised as a grape variety name, Australia has also been able to export prosecco-labelled wine, though not to the EU itself.

Under today’s deal, Australia will give up the right to export wine under the prosecco name and the bilateral wine treaty will be amended to reflect this change, to be phased in over ten years.

Continued domestic use of the word prosecco will be subject to as-yet-undisclosed new labelling requirements.

In 2013 the EU attempted to register the name prosecco in Australia as a certification trademark, but this was rejected. Today’s compromise partly reverses that outcome.

This is a clear loss: it recognises our sovereignty at home, while sacrificing a valuable naming right abroad. Industry sources put the value of this at around A$7 million a year.

What about the cheese makers?

The outcome for parmesan is good, while for feta it seems to at least equal the arrangements for Canada.

Parmesan has now been accepted by the EU as a common name in Australia. This parallels existing EU recognition of parmesan as a common name in its other trading partners, such as South Korea and Japan. Producers of feta will be able to continue to use the name feta.

This is a long and complex treaty and so far only summaries are available. Once the detailed legal wording becomes available, there will be nuances that are not evident today. This includes issues such as the right of existing feta producers to sell their businesses, complete with current naming rights.

Our boutique spirits industry

A little-discussed loss in the trade agreement is the lack of any proper opposition process to dispute the names the EU wants protected by the treaty. This could be of particular concern to new operators in the burgeoning boutique spirits industry.

The EU has achieved “protection” for 231 spirit names and there will be no due process to object to these.

Buyers beware: EU labels can be misleading

Consumers will also need to be aware of the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of product labels for EU products.

These are exempt from EU regulations requiring that the label state the country of origin of the main ingredient, where this differs from the country of production.

For example, Bresaola della Valtellina – an Italian product – is made from meat imported from Brazil. Nowhere on the label is this disclosed.

On other fronts, claims about improved labour access to Europe remain to be demonstrated, as do claims that European investment in Australia will increase.

The 5% tariff on imported European cars has been removed and this will level the playing field with other vehicle imports.

But easing Australia’s luxury car tax should not have been necessary. This tax was simply a means of ensuring the wealthy paid a fairer share of tax. There are no trade-related reasons to change it.

Overall, there are large claims as to the benefits of this trade treaty. But some – such as mutual recognition of professional qualifications – will take many years to implement. Only time will tell if the mooted benefits are real wins for Australia as a whole and whether they offset losses such as to prosecco exporters.

– ref. Prosecco makers lose out as Australia seals EU free-trade deal after 8 long years of talks – https://theconversation.com/prosecco-makers-lose-out-as-australia-seals-eu-free-trade-deal-after-8-long-years-of-talks-278877

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/24/prosecco-makers-lose-out-as-australia-seals-eu-free-trade-deal-after-8-long-years-of-talks-278877/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Watson, Professor in Conservation Science, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland

On paper, Australia is a conservation success story.

Over the past 15 years, we’ve dedicated vast areas of land to conservation. Our primary goal has been to protect our unique plants, animals, and ecosystems. As a result, Australia now has one of the largest protected area estates in the world, covering roughly 22% of the country.

That’s an impressive achievement, and a significant step towards our goal of protecting 30% of Australia’s land by 2030.

But there’s a problem. Our new analysis shows we’re not protecting the places that matter most for Australia’s diverse wildlife and environments.

So what are we actually conserving? And what should change?

More land but no more protection

Our recent analysis of Australia’s network of protected areas shows, between 2010 and 2022, we’ve nearly doubled the amount of land under protection. Protected land refers to areas which are specifically set aside to conserve nature. However, this expansion has done little to help our most at-risk animals, plants, and ecosystems.

Our national list of threatened species, which identifies the plants and animals most at risk of extinction, illustrates this. Since 2010, we’ve only slightly increased the amount of protected land that’s home to threatened species. Based on our data, in that time this figure rose by an average of just 3%.

Worse still, 160 species have virtually no protection. That’s roughly 10% of our endangered species list. Many others species only have a very small amount of their habitat inside the fences of protected areas.

One example is the Margaret River burrowing crayfish, a critically endangered crayfish from Western Australia. Currently none of its two remaining habitats are protected.

And the Grey Range thick-billed grasswren, a bird endemic to New South Wales, is now critically endangered because of habitat loss and agriculture. However none of its habitat, found just north of Broken Hill, is formally protected.

Tragically, these are not exceptional cases. And they are exactly the plants and animals that protected areas are designed to protect.

The same is true for Australia’s ecosystems, which are geographic areas where plants and animals interact with their natural environment. Nationally, we have nearly 100 ecological communities which are listed as threatened. But in the last decade, we’ve only improved protection for a handful of these.

And some still have no protection. The critically endangered weeping myall woodlands in the Hunter Valley, Sydney’s blue gum high forest and the iron-grass natural temperate grassland of South Australia are just three examples.

So what’s gone wrong?

For decades, we’ve tended to protect land that is more remote and less productive. Our findings suggest this pattern is continuing today.

However, many of Australia’s at-risk plants, animals, and ecosystems are found in heavily modified landscapes. These include areas which have been cleared for agriculture or are close to towns and cities. But under current conservation models, we’re much less likely to protect these kinds of land.

As a result, we are expanding protected areas but not necessarily where they matter most.

To be clear, protecting some of these landscapes is incredibly valuable. This is especially true given the current and future impacts of climate change. And in Australia, we’ve done well to protect nearly half of intact ecosystems by including them in nature reserves.

But protecting intact ecosystems is just one piece of the conservation puzzle.

Getting our priorities right

Australia has committed to protect 30% of our lands and waters by 2030. This is known as the “30 by 30” target. We are also a leader in the so-called high ambition coalition of 124 countries which have pledged to meet this same target.

But to protect our biodiversity we need to focus on which land is protected, not just how much. A hectare in the wrong place will have little effect, while a hectare in the right place can be the bridge between survival and extinction.

So as Australia moves towards the “30 by 30” target, the key challenge will be ensuring we protect land strategically, not opportunistically.

The good news is, we now have the tools to do so. Australia has some of the best biodiversity data in the world. This is because the Australian government has invested in ecologists from around the country, allowing them to closely study endangered species.

However, what we’re missing is a commitment to use this information. So far, we’ve largely measured progress using one blunt metric: total area protected. This metric is easy to communicate but is dangerously misleading. It tells us very little about whether protected areas are in the right location or are being managed well.

If we’re serious about halting species extinctions within the next five years, we need to change course now. Here are three ways to do that.

Without this shift, we risk meeting our “30 by 30” target while failing to save our most threatened species and ecosystems. That would be a hollow victory.

– ref. Australia has dedicated more than 20% of its land to conservation but not where it matters most – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-dedicated-more-than-20-of-its-land-to-conservation-but-not-where-it-matters-most-278543

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/24/australia-has-dedicated-more-than-20-of-its-land-to-conservation-but-not-where-it-matters-most-278543/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Juan Zahir Naranjo Cáceres, PhD Candidate, Political Science, International Relations and Constitutional Law, University of the Sunshine Coast

On March 16, Cuba’s national electricity grid collapsed for the third time in four months, plunging 10 million people into more than 29 hours of darkness. Hospitals struggled to keep generators running, water pumps shut down and refuse piled up on streets where collection trucks have sat empty for weeks.

The immediate cause is a fuel shortage building since January, when the United States cut off Cuba’s oil supply following the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.

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Mexico, which had become Cuba’s largest oil supplier, accounting for an estimated 44% of the island’s crude imports in 2025, halted deliveries under threat of US tariffs.

This is economic warfare – and it’s not new. But recent US government rhetoric has intensified the long-running tensions, leaving Cuba’s future up in the air.

‘Weaken the economic life of Cuba’

In 1960, a senior US State Department official wrote that “every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba” in order to “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government”.

That logic has guided US policy for more than six decades. This includes a full trade embargo in 1962 and the extraterritorial reach of the Helms-Burton Act in 1996.

In the 2024 General Assembly debate, Cuba’s foreign minister reported cumulative losses from the trade embargo of US$1.5 trillion (around A$2.1 trillion).

The first Trump administration’s reversed Obama-era diplomatic openings. Then, in January 2026, the second administration signed an executive order imposing a fuel blockade.

UN human rights experts have condemned it as “a serious violation of international law”.

Meanwhile, the war in the Middle East – which has sent Brent crude prices surging past US$110 (A$156) a barrel – is sharpening the political calculus.

With the 2026 US midterm elections looming and President Donald Trump’s approval ratings in decline, Cuba is caught in the crosshairs.

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Read more: Why is Trump so obsessed with Venezuela? His new security strategy provides some clues

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The rhetoric of regime change

On January 28, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Marco Rubio disavowed plans to topple the Cuban government but added: “I think we would like to see the regime there change”.

By March, the language had escalated sharply. Trump told reporters: “I think I can do anything I want with it. They’re a very weakened nation.”

That a sitting president openly claims he can “do anything” with a sovereign state is not merely a breach of diplomatic norms — it’s contrary to the UN Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state. The United States ratified that charter in 1945.

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Under Article VI of its own constitution, ratified treaties are the “supreme Law of the Land”. Threatening Cuba therefore violates not only international law, but also US constitutional law.

The question is who enforces the law. In a system where checks and balances have been hollowed out, the answer is increasingly: no one.

The V-Dem Institute’s 2026 Democracy Report now classifies the United States as an electoral democracy only — no longer a liberal one. Analysts have placed the country “on the cusp of autocracy”. The state that presumes to impose democracy on Cuba is rapidly dismantling its own.

Behind the rhetoric, a negotiation track is taking shape. Reports suggest Rubio has opened a back-channel to Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro (known as “Raulito”), the grandson of former President Raúl Castro, while Washington pushes for the current Cuban president’s removal as a precondition for any deal.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel responded defiantly, accusing Washington of using economic weakness as “an outrageous pretext to seize” the country. “Any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance”, he warned.

Pressure on multiple fronts

Washington has pressured governments across the region to terminate medical cooperation agreements with Havana, slashing a crucial revenue source. Cuba’s overseas health brigades – dating back to 1963 – had some 24,000 professionals across 56 countries at their peak.

But Cuba is not without allies. Russia has dispatched a tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude, expected to arrive in Cuba early April. A Hong Kong-flagged vessel, loaded with Russian diesel off Cyprus, was diverted to Trinidad and Tobago in late March after the US Treasury Department explicitly barred Russian fuel shipments to Cuba.

More structurally significant is China’s role. With Beijing’s support, Cuba has connected 49 new solar parks to its grid in 12 months, tripling solar’s share of electricity generation from 5.8% to more than 20%.

Cuba also produces roughly 40% of its oil domestically – a significant achievement for a blockaded island.

But the shortfall remains devastating. On March 20, the Nuestra América Convoy arrived in Havana. Made up of 650 delegates from 33 countries carrying 20 tonnes of humanitarian aid by air and sea, it was a gesture of international solidarity that underscored just how dire the crisis has become.

What will happen next?

Firm predictions would be reckless, but three scenarios deserve attention.

First, we could see continued strangulation paired with negotiations, culminating in a “deal” Trump can sell domestically.

Second, the US could pursue a destabilisation strategy in which Cuba’s government fails under the weight of the blockade and growing unrest. The March 16 blackout already saw protesters attack a Communist Party office in central Cuba.

Third, the Trump administration could choose a sudden show of force if an incident provides a pretext – particularly if the Middle East campaign continues to flounder. Rubio, it bears remembering, has always been more neoconservative hawk than MAGA isolationist. Military solutions are not foreign to his political instincts.

None of these outcomes is certain. The signals to watch are the pace of negotiations, the trajectory of the Middle East war, and whether Washington’s demands remain maximalist.

What is clear is the humanitarian cost is already being borne by ordinary Cubans – and the decisions being made in Washington owe far more to domestic political calculations than to international law.

– ref. Cuba has been in Washington’s crosshairs for decades. The Iran war is raising the stakes – https://theconversation.com/cuba-has-been-in-washingtons-crosshairs-for-decades-the-iran-war-is-raising-the-stakes-278774

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/24/cuba-has-been-in-washingtons-crosshairs-for-decades-the-iran-war-is-raising-the-stakes-278774/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clarice Tang, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, Victoria University

Can you hold your breath until you’re almost bursting to take another breath in? This urgent feeling that you need to get more air is called “air hunger”.

You may feel this sensation when you exercise intensely and push to your limit. Your breath will usually return to normal quickly once you’ve stopped exerting yourself.

But some people – such as those living with lung conditions or severe anxiety – experience air hunger frequently in their day-to-day lives. Air hunger, which is sometimes described as “drowning” or “suffocating” from a lack of air, can be incredibly distressing.

And it can be hard not to panic.

So, what helps if you experience air hunger? And when should you get help?

What is air hunger?

Many conditions can cause shortness of breath (also called dyspnoea). These commonly include heart diseases and lung conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or long COVID.

Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, air hunger is not the same as shortness of breath.

Air hunger is an extreme and distinct feature of breathlessness: the feeling you can’t get enough air or take a full breath in.

This sensation can make people take bigger breaths or breathe faster, to try and get more oxygen. But this can actually make the feeling of breathlessness worse. Some people may also find they yawn or sigh a lot as they try to get more air.

For some people, an episode may be brief and resolve on its own. Others may pass out and need immediate medical attention to regain their breath.

In addition to difficulty breathing, symptoms can include chest tightness, sweating, dizziness and coughing. If you experience any of these symptoms, especially for the first time, you should seek immediate medical attention by calling triple 0.

Identifying the cause

The key to treating air hunger is understanding what’s behind it. So a doctor will first try to identify the underlying cause.

Air hunger may happen as part of an acute condition that causes breathlessness. For example, if you have a chest infection, you may struggle to breathe deeply and get enough oxygen. When you recover from the illness, you may no longer experience the feeling that you’re unable to fill your lungs.

But air hunger can also be a feature of a chronic condition. Those who live with severe heart or lung conditions – such as congestive cardiac failures or interstitial lung diseases – may never feel they can breathe deeply or fully fill their lungs. This can significantly limit their ability to exercise or participate in everyday activities.

Living with mental health conditions such as an anxiety or panic disorder can also mean frequent episodes of air hunger.

Even when air hunger resolves by itself, you should still see your doctor for further assessment, to identify the cause and work out how to manage it.

What a doctor will look at

Your doctor will typically observe your breathing rate and ask about your symptoms, how often you experience air hunger, and how much distress it causes.

They may also ask you to rate your shortness of breath using a Borg scale, which involves picking a number on the scale to best describe how short of breath you feel.

Your doctor will also measure vital signs such as your pulse rate and oxygen saturation levels. Oxygen saturation means how much oxygen is actually making it into your bloodstream, and can be measured with a device called a pulse oximeter.

If you’ve felt short of breath regularly over at least six weeks, you may need to do further testing. A lung function test or an exercise stress test can provide a comprehensive report on your lung capacity and how well your lungs and heart function under stress. Your doctor may also be refer you to a specialist.

What helps?

Depending on the cause, you may be prescribed medication, such as inhalers or oxygen for a lung condition. Opioids (morphine) or benzodiazepines (diazepam) may alleviate symptoms, but these would only be used in the short term, due to the risk of becoming dependent.

Apart from medications, breathing and relaxation techniques may help some people manage the unpleasant sensation. These include:

• pursed lip breathing: pucker your lips and focus on blowing the air out slowly, until you are able to take a big breath in

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• mindful breathing: find a relaxed resting position where you can draw your attention to your breath and focus on regaining control of your rate of breathing

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• timed breathing: while moving, time your breath with your body. For example, focus on breathing out when stepping with your right leg and breathing in when you step out with your left

• the cool fan technique: blow a fan (electric or hand-held) directly onto your face. The cool air stimulates the nerves in the face to reduce the sensation of breathlessness. A cool washer on your face may help create the same effect.

When to seek help

To manage air hunger episodes, you should follow your health professional’s advice about how and when to take medications.

Your doctor will also provide you with a management plan to guide you and your loved ones on what to do when you have an air hunger episode. Check in with your doctor regularly, as the plan may need updating if or when your condition changes.

In an emergency, or if you are experiencing air hunger for the first time, always call triple 0.

– ref. What is ‘air hunger’? And can it be treated? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-air-hunger-and-can-it-be-treated-271409

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/24/what-is-air-hunger-and-can-it-be-treated-271409/

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Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/24/er-report-a-roundup-of-significant-articles-on-eveningreport-nz-for-march-24-2026/