Category: Evening Report

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Murdoch, Distinguished Professor, University of Otago

A second Royal Commission of Inquiry into New Zealand’s experience and handling of the COVID pandemic released its substantial report today, running to several volumes and hundreds of pages.

The coalition government commissioned the inquiry to specifically examine key decisions made between 2021 and 2022, with a focus on vaccine mandates, lockdowns and testing systems.

During this period, New Zealand moved from an elimination strategy, which required strict lockdowns, border closures and social distancing, to an approach of minimisation and protection, including the rollout of vaccines.

Overall, the commission found that:

While our health system and economy may have come through the pandemic better than expected, and New Zealand recorded lower case numbers and fewer deaths per capita than other comparable countries, our society is still counting the cost of the pandemic and the response.

The commission’s report is a reminder of just how many difficult decisions had to be made. It identifies four broad lessons for improving future pandemic resilience.

These lessons matter because pandemics place extraordinary pressure on decision-making systems, health infrastructure and public trust. Preparing those systems before the next crisis arrives is critical.

1. Systems for government decision making

The first lesson focuses on improving the quality and speed of decision making during a crisis.

Looking back at the pandemic, it is clear that many decisions needed to be made quickly with incomplete evidence. Epidemiological models were evolving, real-time data were limited and the wider impacts of interventions such as lockdowns were difficult to estimate.

The commission recommends strengthening strategic capability at the centre of government, including improved data systems, stronger modelling capacity and clearer frameworks for weighing public health benefits against social and economic costs.

This is fundamental. Pandemic responses rely on timely epidemiological information. Without strong surveillance systems and modelling capability, governments risk responding either too late or with measures that are broader and more disruptive than necessary.

Preparedness therefore requires institutional capacity to analyse risk and act quickly on evidence.

2. Clearer legal frameworks for pandemic powers

The second lesson focuses on legislation and democratic safeguards.

During the COVID pandemic, New Zealand relied partly on emergency legislation to implement public health measures such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates. While these powers enabled rapid action, they also raised questions about proportionality and limits on state authority.

The commission recommends establishing pandemic legislation that clearly defines what powers governments can use, under which conditions and safeguards. It says these powers should be transparent, subject to review and grounded in human rights protections.

Legal clarity is also about trust and compliance. Public health measures work best when people understand why they are necessary and believe they are being applied fairly.

3. More agile economic policy

The third lesson addresses the economic shock created by pandemics.

The COVID crisis required large-scale fiscal support for businesses and workers as well as significant monetary policy interventions. The inquiry recommends clearer frameworks for how economic agencies should respond to future pandemics and other crises.

Although economic policy may seem separate from health policy, the connection is strong. Public health measures inevitably affect employment, education and economic activity. Economic insecurity can also worsen health outcomes and widen existing inequities.

A pandemic response therefore needs to integrate public health, economic and social policy, rather than treating them as competing priorities.

4. Planning for social impacts and recovery

The final lesson focuses on the broader social consequences of pandemics.

COVID disrupted education, strained mental health services, affected employment and reshaped community life. It also exposed, and sometimes widened, existing inequities.

The commission highlights the need to plan for these impacts earlier, rather than treating recovery as an afterthought.

This reinforces a long-standing principle that pandemics are not purely biomedical events. They are social crises as well as health emergencies, requiring attention to mental health, social cohesion, community engagement and equity.

Being prepared for next time

While the four lessons describe system-wide challenges, several of the report’s specific recommendations focus directly on strengthening New Zealand’s preparedness.

These include improving the integration and timeliness of disease surveillance systems, expanding national epidemiological modelling capability, and developing structured decision-making frameworks that allow governments to assess the health, economic and social impacts of interventions during a crisis.

The inquiry also emphasises the importance of community engagement and public trust, recommending stronger partnerships with iwi, local organisations and communities that often play a central role in delivering public health responses.

Finally, the report calls for mechanisms to review and adapt pandemic strategies as evidence evolves. The experience of the COVID pandemic showed how quickly circumstances can change as new variants emerge.

Future preparedness therefore requires systems that allow policy to adjust rapidly as scientific knowledge and epidemiological conditions shift.

The commissioners note that the report reflects relatively narrow terms of reference, concentrated on specific policy decisions during 2021 and 2022. Consequently, some wider questions about the pandemic response and preparedness fall outside its scope.

New Zealand’s response to the COVID pandemic protected many lives, particularly in the early stages. This second inquiry makes clear success in one crisis does not guarantee readiness for the next.

Future pandemics will inevitably involve uncertainty and difficult trade-offs. Strengthening the systems that support decision making and public health response will help ensure New Zealand is better prepared for whatever comes next.

– ref. COVID inquiry phase two: 4 main lessons to improve NZ’s future pandemic resilience – https://theconversation.com/covid-inquiry-phase-two-4-main-lessons-to-improve-nzs-future-pandemic-resilience-277847

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/10/covid-inquiry-phase-two-4-main-lessons-to-improve-nzs-future-pandemic-resilience-277847/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Casey Ryan Kelly, Professor of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

When Secretary of Defense James Mattis addressed the intensification of U.S. combat operations against the Islamic State group in 2017, he assured the American public of his commitment to “get the strategy right” while maintaining “the rules of engagement” to “protect the innocent.”

Mattis’ professional tone was a stark contrast to Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks following the first days of the joint U.S.-Israeli combat operations in Iran.

On March 2, 2026, after bragging about the awe-inspiring lethality of U.S. “B-2s, fighters, drones, missiles,” Hegseth casually brushed aside concerns about long-term geopolitical strategy, declaring “no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win.”

Admonishing the press for anything less than total assent, he commanded, “to the media outlets and political left screaming ‘endless wars:’ Stop. This is not Iraq.”

Two days later, Hegseth gloated about “dominance” and “control,” while asserting that the preoccupation of the “fake news media” with casualties was motivated by liberal media bias and hatred of President Trump.

“Tragic things happen; the press only wants to make the president look bad,” he said. He dismissed concerns about the rules of engagement, declaring that “this was never meant to be a fair fight. We are punching them while they are down, as it should be.”

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I’m a communication scholar who has studied MAGA rhetoric for a decade. I have observed how Hegseth and other officials in the second Trump administration refuse to abide by what recurring rhetorical situations – urgent public matters that compel speech to audiences capable of being influenced – typically demand of public officials.

The theme of this administration is that no one is going to tell it what to say or how to say it. It will be encumbered neither by norms nor the exigencies that compel speech in a democratic society.

The big man

When the U.S. goes to war, the public expects the president and the defense secretary to convince them of the appropriateness of the action. They do this by detailing the justification for military action, but also by addressing the public in a manner that conveys the seriousness and competence required for such a grave task as waging war.

But during the first week of the Iran war, Hegseth’s press briefings deviated from the measured tone expected from high-ranking military officials.

Hegseth flippantly employed villainous colloquialism – “they are toast and they know it,” “we play for keeps,” and “President Trump got the last laugh” – delivered with a combative tone that communicated masculine self-assurance.

Many observers were taken aback by his haughty tone, hypermasculine preoccupation with domination, giddiness about violence and casual attitude toward death.

During Trump’s first term, this penchant for rule-breaking was by and large isolated to the president, whose transgressions were part of his populist appeal.

Although Trump’s first cabinet members agreed on most political objectives, they attempted to rein in what they saw as the president’s more dangerous whims.

But with loyalty as the new bona fide qualification for administration officials, Trump’s second cabinet is populated with a large contingent of right and far-right media personalities like Hegseth, including Kash Patel, Sean Duffy and Mehmet Oz.

The anti-institutional ethos of far-right media explains why these officials refuse to conform to “elite” expectations and instead speak in a manner that is bombastic, outrageous and perverse.

Among them, there is little reverence for what they may perceive of as emasculating rules of tradition and politeness in a media marketplace where “owning,” “dominating,” and “triggering” your enemy is precious currency. Far-right media personalities are adept at commanding attention with showmanship and swagger.

Trump appears to have chosen Hegseth for precisely this reason: He performs the role of the big man to perfection.

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‘Kill talk’

Hegseth’s language choices and petulant tone do not demonstrate an ignorance of what rhetorical situations demand of him; instead, they reflect a refusal to be emasculated by such cumbersome norms.

When making statements about the first week of the war, Hegseth grinned as he delivered action-movie one-liners, like “turns out the regime who chanted ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ was gifted death from America and death from Israel.”

Hegseth engaged in what is known as “kill talk,” a verbal strategy, typically directed at new military recruits, that denies the enemy’s humanity and disguises the terrible costs of violence. His repetition of words like “death,” “killing,” “destruction,” “control,” “warriors” and “dominance” framed violence in heroic terms that are detached from the realities of war.

In my view, Hegseth addressed the public as a squad leader addresses military recruits. Hegseth apparently delighted in dispensing death and elevating and glorifying war. He said virtually nothing of long-term strategy beyond “winning.”

In the MAGA media world, winning is really all that matters. If winning is the only goal, then war is, by profound inference, a game, a test of masculine fortitude.

This point was made clear when the White House posted a video that interspersed footage of airstrikes on Iran with “killstreak animation” from the popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. In the game, when a player kills multiple opponents without also dying, they are rewarded with the ability to conduct a missile strike to exterminate an opposing team. Again, this message gamifies violence and obscures the destructive toll of war.

Informed by the contemptuous hypermasculinity of far-right media culture, all this taboo behavior and glorified portrayals of death convey one fundamental message: When the public most needs explanation and justification for the actions of their government, the powerful owe the public neither explanation – nor comfort.

– ref. I’ve studied MAGA rhetoric for a decade, and this is what I see in Hegseth’s boasts, action-movie one-liners and gloating over dominance – https://theconversation.com/ive-studied-maga-rhetoric-for-a-decade-and-this-is-what-i-see-in-hegseths-boasts-action-movie-one-liners-and-gloating-over-dominance-277731

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/10/ive-studied-maga-rhetoric-for-a-decade-and-this-is-what-i-see-in-hegseths-boasts-action-movie-one-liners-and-gloating-over-dominance-277731/

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

The United States was once a champion of fair trade rules. Now, it has transformed into a rampaging Viking seeking extortionate tributes.

This shift means America now uses its power to pressure even its closest allies, threatening to withdraw military protection while hitting them with punishing trade tariffs.

Australia depends on America for its security, yet we’re increasingly vulnerable to American economic pressure.

US President Donald Trump’s now illegal “Liberation Day” tariffs showed that trade is a frontline instrument of US geo-economic power rather than a technocratic domain for trade negotiators.

Trump has since announced the reimposition of 10% tariffs across the board. He then hiked the rate in a social media post to 15%.

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The world order has “ruptured”, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has warned – so it’s time for countries like Australia and New Zealand to forge a new, less US-reliant future. In this six-part series, we’ve asked top experts to explain what that future could look like – and the challenges that lie ahead.

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Not the act of a friend

The uncomfortable reality is that the United States has moved from rule setter to rule breaker.

That gives the US enormous scope to “friend coerce” its allies, threatening withdrawal of security guarantees while beating them with tariff and other trade tools.

Trump’s unilateral tariffs, layered over existing “national security” tariffs and a baseline levy on all imports, have left Australian exporters facing higher barriers.

In this environment, deeper economic integration with China brings its own geopolitical risk.

We could move to enhance our free-trade agreement with China by broadening services commitments, easing investment screening, or adding new digital and green economy rules. But this would entrench trade relations with China just as Washington is trying to “de-risk” them.

That could inflame perceptions in US security circles that Australia is hedging too far economically, even if the intent is purely commercial.

Canada faces the storm, too

Canada is experiencing US pressure first-hand. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in Australia last week, has emerged as a leading voice against what he calls economic “coercion” by dominant powers. He said countries

cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes their source of subordination.

Canada faces a particularly difficult situation. Three-quarters of Canadian exports go to the United States, making up about one-fifth of Canada’s entire economy.

Carney’s visit aimed to strengthen trade and defence ties between middle powers that share similar challenges.

Both Australia and Canada are seeking ways to reduce dependence on unpredictable American trade policies – while maintaining crucial security relationships.

The US has other options for tariffs

More country-specific tariffs are likely, using Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974. This can be applied where the US “finds” that a foreign country’s trade practices are unjustifiable, unreasonable or discriminatory to US commerce.

Countries that wobble in implementing the ad hoc trade deals agreed after tariffs were imposed will be investigated. China is already subject to four waves of tariffs, cumulatively covering two-thirds of its exports to the US.

Under a separate law, the US imposed a variety of sectoral tariffs on products, such as steel, aluminium and auto parts. More will likely follow.

Australia may be subjected to these new sectoral tariffs. They could have far greater impacts than last year’s 10% “reciprocal” tariff.

For Australia, deeply integrated with US security but increasingly exposed to US economic coercion, that poses a hard question. What can we build into our existing trade relationships to avoid becoming collateral damage in the next escalation?

Trade deals have quietly done their job

The answer is not to abandon free-trade agreements (FTAs) in favour of a vague new class of “economic security agreements”.

Rather, Australia should modernise our FTAs, investment partnerships, and financial arrangements so they provide genuine resilience when the next shock hits, whether it comes from Washington or Beijing.

Our largest goods and services partners are almost always FTA partners – we have a range of agreements with China, Japan, South Korea and other Asian nations.

These agreements have served to grow and diversify Australia’s trade over two decades.

Walking away from FTAs in the name of “economic security” would be like cancelling your home insurance because the neighbourhood has become more dangerous.

Don’t reinvent the wheel in the name of economic security

There is now a fashion for narrow “economic security” deals on critical minerals and supply-chain resilience that sit alongside FTAs.

Australia is already part of this world through bilateral critical minerals partnerships and joint-funding commitments with the US, EU, Japan, UK, South Korea, India, France and Germany.

These arrangements do not replace FTAs; they overlay and complement them.

Moreover, the essential economic security tools are already available inside modern FTAs and related instruments. These include:

• chapters on supply chain resilience, export restrictions and transparency
• provisions on investment screening and security exceptions
• cooperation on critical minerals, clean energy and advanced technologies.

Collectively, these signal to markets that partners will privilege each other when crises hit. That contributes to building economic resilience in key supply chains.

Critical minerals could be Australia’s leverage

In critical minerals, Australia holds genuine structural leverage with the US and other partners. So, too, does Canada.

Australia supplies a significant share of US imports of uranium, niobium, tantalum and vanadium ores, and titanium — all vital for nuclear energy, aerospace, defence, and advanced batteries.

We are also the world’s leading producer of lithium and a major player in rare earths, with companies such as Lynas now producing key heavy rare earths outside China for the first time.

Australia and Canada signed a series of new agreements on critical minerals during Carney’s visit.

Recent US-Australia arrangements propose substantial joint financing for critical minerals projects. The EU’s critical minerals partnership with Australia explicitly aims to reduce European dependence on China by backing Australian projects.

This gives us crucial leverage in key bilateral trade and investment partnerships, should we wish to use it.

Build collective resilience with like-minded partners

Australia’s best defence isn’t to retreat from openness, but to strengthen and diversify the rules-based system that supports it.

By working with like-minded middle powers such as Canada, the EU, Japan, and others, Australia can build resilience against economic coercion from any direction – whether from supposed friends or declared rivals.

As Carney’s visit demonstrates, middle powers face similar challenges and can achieve more by standing together than by standing alone.

– ref. As global trade rules falter, how can Australia protect itself from economic coercion? – https://theconversation.com/as-global-trade-rules-falter-how-can-australia-protect-itself-from-economic-coercion-276523

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/10/as-global-trade-rules-falter-how-can-australia-protect-itself-from-economic-coercion-276523/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne

As a young boy, I had to contend with my grandfather’s compost heap. It was a veritable Vesuvius of foul-smelling, putrescible plant waste, a metre high and hidden behind a privet hedge.

We had placed all the weedy waste in it a year before. As we started the annual spring gardening day, the first area we had to clear was the now weed-covered and unsightly compost heap.

By the time we had cleared the weeds sprouting from it, half the day and most of our energy was gone.

We were doing everything wrong. But it’s not too late for you. You can learn from our mistakes.

Making compost is a cornerstone of sustainable gardening, yet few of us understand the great science behind it.

It all comes down to understanding the requirements of the bacteria and fungi that do most of the decomposing and the processes of cellular respiration. Here’s how to work with them, not against them.

Your compost’s little helpers

For the most part, plant material is broken down by bacteria and fungi, aided by worms, other soil organisms and microbiota.

However, there are different types of bacteria and fungi, and the rates they break down organic matter vary enormously.

Some will completely break down plant material into clean, high-grade compost in just six to eight weeks.

Others, as my grandfather and I saw, could not complete the job in a year or more.

That’s in large part due to the big differences between anaerobic and aerobic respiration.

What’s the difference?

Respiration doesn’t just mean breathing. Biologically, is the metabolic process by which cells break down the energy stored in organic molecules (such as sugar and fats) to release energy.

There are two types of respiration:

• aerobic respiration, which occurs when oxygen is available, and
• anaerobic respiration, which occurs when there is little or no oxygen available.

In our cells and those of larger plants and animals, both forms of respiration can take place.

But in some micro-organisms, only anaerobic respiration is possible.

Anaerobic respiration is an ancient metabolism that evolved early in the development of life on Earth, well before larger multi-cellular organisms existed.

The processes involved in anaerobic respiration are relatively inefficient. Its chemical reactions result in the incomplete breakdown of the food and plant waste; very little energy and heat are produced along the way.

For composting, that’s a problem.

It means the plant material breaks down very slowly. Worse, the temperature is so low that weedy contaminants can survive and germinate.

This explains why my grandfather’s compost heap failed to decompose after a year, grew so many weeds and was a slimy, smelly mess. The conditions inside the heap were anaerobic from the start.

We ended up being very good at spreading weeds around his garden.

Aerobic is better

Aerobic respiration, which evolved when oxygen was more readily available on Earth, consists of many linked chemical reactions that cause plant material to completely break down.

It produces almost 20 times more energy than anaerobic respiration and generates much more heat.

This high level efficiency produces a more rapid metabolism, which quickly breaks down plant material and the heat generated kills most of the weedy contaminants in the plant litter.

This results in lovely, clean compost.

So the key to good composting is to ensure conditions are right for aerobic respiration and for crucial aerobic bacteria and fungi.

It’s vital to provide oxygen.

My top tips are:

1. if you have a compost heap, ensure it is wide, long and low (which ensures a high surface area to volume ratio), and introduce air by dragging a hoe or rake through it
2. if you use a compost tumbler or container, then rotate or stir it often
3. keep the compost moist (but not wet) over the dry summer months
4. keep your compost warm over colder months by ensuring it gets some winter sunlight
5. add some “browns”, such as dry leaves, or shredded cardboard or paper; the carbon-rich browns, added to the high-nitrogen green waste, gives a better carbon to nitrogen ratio and results in better compost.

If your compost is happy, the heat will be high enough to kill most pest eggs and parasites, and may even kill worms.

Don’t add worms to aerobic compost unless you have a worm-friendly composting system; you may end up committing wormicide. Let worms enter the compost naturally.

Rarely, heat from aerobic compost can damage thin-barked trees. So if you’re spreading it around the garden, keep it 20-50mm from the trunks of your trees.

Compost systems and heaps need not be unsightly if you follow the rules for clean and rapid composting.

Aerobic composting is rapid and is neither smelly nor slimy.

The bacteria and fungi that generate your compost efficiently need air, moisture and warmth to be their best selves.

If you resolve to provide the right conditions, you are not only recycling efficiently but getting a product every good gardener wants and needs.

– ref. 5 top tips for the perfect compost – according to science – https://theconversation.com/5-top-tips-for-the-perfect-compost-according-to-science-271403

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/10/5-top-tips-for-the-perfect-compost-according-to-science-271403/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

In a dangerous and uncertain world, what should US allies do? Draw closer to America, or pull away?

When the United States under President Donald Trump is itself among the biggest drivers of danger and uncertainty, the answer seems obvious.

Canada’s prime minster, Mark Carney, spelled it out with brutal clarity in his attention-grabbing speech at Davos in January and again speaking to the Australian parliament last week.

Middle powers like Canada and Australia must stop depending on Washington and start working more closely together to navigate a world in which the idea of a US-led rules-based order is a fiction.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he agrees with Carney. But there is a problem.

At a time when diplomatic realities, strategic imperatives and political expedience all suggest we should gently but firmly distance ourselves from Trump’s America, AUKUS ties us tighter than ever.

The need to step back from our US entanglements is clearer than ever as Washington plunges headlong into major war with Iran without any coherent strategic purpose. The way AUKUS deepens those entanglements is neatly symbolised by the presence of three Australian AUKUS trainees on the US fast-attack submarine that sunk an Iranian warship last week.

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The world order has “ruptured”, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has warned – so it’s time for countries like Australia and New Zealand to forge a new, less US-reliant future. In this new series, we’ve asked top experts to explain what that future could look like – and the challenges that lie ahead.

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‘Full steam ahead’?

The Albanese government has embraced AUKUS as the central pillar of its defence policy and a fundamental reframing of our entire strategic posture. But the future of AUKUS hangs on the whim of the most mercurial and mendacious figure in world politics.

Canberra breathed a huge sigh of relief when Trump declared AUKUS as “full steam ahead” in his meeting with Albanese in October. He seemed to brush aside the doubts and questions that have dogged AUKUS ever since Labor announced it would require the US to sell Australia at least three Virginia-class submarines.

But those doubts remain. They were apparently spelled out in the Pentagon’s review of AUKUS completed just before Albanese’s visit.

Neither Washington nor Canberra has been willing to say what it concluded, beyond admitting it raised concerns about how to “do AUKUS better”. But it’s pretty clear what the concerns are.

Here are three pressing questions that remain unresolved:

Is the US prepared to give us subs?

First, there is the problem that America has no Virginia-class subs to spare.
Ever since the plan was announced, US Navy and Defence officials, as well as members of Congress, have warned the US could not spare subs for Australia unless its shipyards can double the rate of production. Confidence in AUKUS has always depended on blind faith this will happen.

But it is not happening. The US Government Accountability Office last year reported to Congress that between 2019 and 2023, the US shipyards were forecast to build 11 Virginia-class submarines. They delivered just four.

In December, a senior Pentagon official described the situation as “borderline frightening” and a major challenge to AUKUS.

Is Australia prepared to spend more on defence?

Second, there is the problem of defence spending. There is a lot of concern in Australian defence circles that the reported pricetag of up to A$365 billion over the next 30 years will distort the defence budget by pulling funds away from other vital defence capability investments. These worries are shared in Washington.

The idea that Australia is seriously expecting to build and operate a fleet of nuclear-powered subs while also maintaining and upgrading a wide range of other expensive capabilities on a defence budget that is planned to grow to only 2.3% of GDP by the mid-2030s is seen by US policymakers as delusional. Which it is.

This worries US defence planners. They don’t want AUKUS to starve the rest of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), because they expect Australia, as a close ally, to be able to offer a wide range of forces to US-led coalitions, not just submarines.

And they understand that even if the AUKUS plan goes like clockwork, Australia will not have a viable independent nuclear sub force until the mid-2040s at the very earliest. So, AUKUS will not work for America unless Australia starts spending a lot more on defence right now.

Would Australia go to war with China?

The leads to the most serious concern of all, given the events of the last week in the Middle East: the question of how confident Washington can be that Canberra would wholeheartedly support the US in a war with China.

That includes whether Australia would allow our bases to be used by US forces to attack China, and whether we would send out forces to fight alongside America’s. These are absolutely critical issues for US policymakers.

Unless they can be very confident about Australia’s commitment, it simply makes no strategic sense for them to base their forces here or sell us submarines that could otherwise strengthen their own submarine force.

And they are not satisfied by whatever nods and winks they may getting from the Albanese government.

This was made very clear just last month by Ely Ratner, the Pentagon’s highly-respected policy lead on the Indo-Pacific under the Biden Administration. Speaking in Canberra he said, there was a “need for very serious and deep alliance conversations about our expectations around roles and missions” if a war with China were to break out.

He plainly implied these conversations had not happened yet. And the Albanese government continues to insist that no such understandings or undertakings will be entered into.

Australia needs to think about an alternative

The deeper reality is that even if these problems can be addressed, AUKUS will do nothing help the US regain its maritime supremacy in the western Pacific, which it has lost as China’s capabilities have grown.

Fundamentally, that is because the US lacks the resolve to do what would be necessary to remain the region’s primary power.

In fact, AUKUS is a perfect symbol of this: historians will see it as an attempt by America to get Australia to pay to bolster US military power against China.

But Australia is not yet prepared to do the alternative, which is to start seriously taking responsibility for our own security in a region no longer dominated and made safe for us by our powerful friends.

We will not take that step until we stop pretending to ourselves and to Washington that AUKUS somehow makes that unnecessary.

– ref. AUKUS is binding Australia to a dangerous, unpredictable leader. We need a Plan B now – https://theconversation.com/aukus-is-binding-australia-to-a-dangerous-unpredictable-leader-we-need-a-plan-b-now-276364

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/10/aukus-is-binding-australia-to-a-dangerous-unpredictable-leader-we-need-a-plan-b-now-276364/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Simon, Casual Lecturer (Education and English Departments), University of Tasmania

Every January, Hollywood is overtaken by a massive Oscar prediction game, with studios, critics and commentators all playing a role in shaping the debate.

But choosing a winner is more complicated than acknowledging a film’s artistic merit. The Oscars are decided on by a large peer group of some 10,000 Academy members, who confidentially vote for their colleagues in their specialised field. All eligible members, however, can vote on Best Picture.

In an era where nearly every major film is carefully packaged and marketed for profit, predicting an Oscar winner seems like a complex science.

The most crucial way a film positions itself as a contender relates to its status as a “prestige” picture. This is earned through highbrow themes, strategic release timing, critical acclaim, and plenty of lobbying.

What gives a film prestige?

Prestige pictures typically examine subjects that hit a nerve with Academy voters, such as injustice, intense relationships, and the triumph of the human spirit.

This thematic preoccupation is amply demonstrated through previous Best Picture winners including The King’s Speech (2010), 12 Years A Slave (2013), Philadelphia (1993) and Schindler’s List (1993). The only recent winner that seemed to deliberately reject such tropes was No Country for Old Men (2007).

This year’s top contenders also have these recognisable tropes. Hamnet, for instance, focuses on the misfortunes of William Shakespeare’s tragic family life.

Meanwhile, Sinners (which has earned a record 16 nominations) is a thrilling genre-bender, combining supernatural horror with historical injustices endured by African Americans. Its originality places it in pole position for Best Original Screenplay.

Timing, marketing and previous acclaim

The timing of a film’s release remains a key component of its prestige status. Most Oscar-nominated films are released between September and December. This keeps them fresh in voters’ minds during the nomination and voting periods.

Critical recognition also matters enormously. Voters are often fond of following the crowd and, as a result, will favour films that have already triumphed at significant events such as the Cannes Film Festival.

This year’s Best Actor race also illustrates how previous near misses, and commercial success, can build momentum for an actor.

Timothée Chalamet was previously nominated for A Complete Unknown (2024) and Call Me by Your Name (2017), and has been widely praised for his work in the blockbuster Dune franchise. This makes him a top contender for this year’s Best Actor award, even though his character in Marty Supreme is an unlikable parasitic hustler.

Similarly, front-runner Paul Thomas Anderson seems poised to claim the Best Director prize, after 11 previous nominations in various categories. His film, One Battle After Another, also connects with the zeitgeist. The current headlines about ICE raids, immigration detention centres and police crackdowns make it ahead of its time.

Oscar-winning potential is also determined by what industry insiders call “positive buzz”. Creating this buzz is a strategic and expensive undertaking, funded by major studios, that propels certain films into awards contention.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) was a good example. Warner Bros is reported to have matched the film’s production budget with an equally substantial marketing budget and secured more than 100 brand partnerships (including Airbnb and Burger King). “Pinkification” dominated social media and positioned the film as having significant cultural relevance.

20th Century Studios appear to be adopting a similar strategy for the upcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2.

Networks and lobbying

Professional networks allow certain films to benefit from what American sociologist Robert K. Merton called “cumulative advantage”. Applied here, this principle explains how established talent attracts more prestigious collaborators, producing films that Academy voters are more likely to take seriously, and therefore vote for. As a result, Oscar success becomes increasingly concentrated in the same elite circles.

The Academy’s newly introduced Achievement in Casting category is a good example of how collaborative advantage plays out in films with A-listers.

Consider Leonardo Di Caprio’s commanding presence in One Battle After Another, or the ongoing partnership between director Yorgos Lanthimos and actress Emma Stone. Stone’s cold and calculating character in Bugonia is a departure from her more empathetic roles, while Di Caprio’s fallible anti-hero father is equally far removed from previous “leading man” characters.

When famous actors play against type, they generate conversations that amplify a film’s visibility – creating awards-season talking points.

Lobbying also has a role to play. Direct lobbying involves public relations ploys to embed a movie into the audience’s consciousness and, crucially, into the minds of Academy voters. This might look like issuing industry notices, setting up magazine features, screeners, previews, free ticket offers, and special events (such as question and answer sessions).

But there’s also a form of indirect lobbying, that is arguably more effective in planting favourable stories about a film, or denigrating opponents.

Shakespeare in Love’s Best Picture win over Saving Private Ryan in 1999 remains the best example of how an aggressive campaign can override merit. In this case the campaign was backed by Harvey Weinstein – then head of Miramax (and not yet a convicted sexual abuser) – who, among other things, resorted to badmouthing Saving Private Ryan to journalists.

Oscar prediction remains a science that combines art, commerce, marketing and – to some extent – merit. It’s a dazzling lottery that rewards not the “best” in Hollywood, but the more “probable”.

– ref. The Oscars aren’t a meritocracy – there’s a complex formula for winning – https://theconversation.com/the-oscars-arent-a-meritocracy-theres-a-complex-formula-for-winning-274980

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/10/the-oscars-arent-a-meritocracy-theres-a-complex-formula-for-winning-274980/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Rinehart, Nicole Rinehart, Professor, Clinical Psychology, Director of the Neurodevelopment Program, School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University

For some children, everyday demands such “brush your teeth” or “time to get off of your computer game”, can trigger intense anxiety and extreme resistance. When this type of response affects everyday life it may fit into the pattern of behaviour known as pathological demand avoidance, or PDA.

Children with this pattern of behaviour have intense emotional reactions to parents’ and teachers’ requests that infringe on the their sense of control. This can prompt angry or punitive responses from parents or teachers, culminating in a cycle of distress and frustration for adult and child.

PDA isn’t a diagnosis or in the DSM-5, which defines mental disorders. And there is debate among experts about its key features. Like most conditions describing a cluster of psychiatric symptoms, demand avoidance exists on a continuum, with different degrees of anxiety-driven distress and control-seeking symptoms.

PDA mainly affects a subgroup of autistic children, but adults and people without autism can also have PDA.

What causes these behaviours?

Most neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism, disrupt specific brain circuits, especially in the loop between the basal ganglia, the thalamus and the cortex.

These circuits help people override impulsive responses, consider alternatives, choose suitable courses of action and initiate appropriate responses. This is known as executive functioning.

Stressful events and excessive demands can disrupt these circuits. Rather than respond flexibly, individuals with demand avoidance may get overwhelmed and become rigid, reactive and avoidant.

When non-autistic children feel inundated, they may approach their parent or display other obvious signals to indicate they feel overwhelmed. The parent or teacher can then respond to support them through it.

When autistic children feel inundated, to instil a sense of security they may avert their gaze, absorb themselves in their usual routines, display behaviours they had previously outgrown, or refuse to shift in response to stress.

Parents and teachers can misconstrue these behaviours as defiance, rather than overload, and may not respond appropriately.

Families often don’t receive the support they need

In a 2025 study, researchers interviewed 21 parents of autistic children who had features of pathological demand avoidance.

Rather than receiving consistent, integrated support from health services, parents experienced three recurring challenges:

1. health services didn’t know how to support the spectrum of demand avoidance behaviours

2. health practitioners often blamed the parents, who felt judged and inadequate

3. health practitioners tended to focus only on autistic symptoms rather than the clinically impairing anxiety and control-seeking behaviours.

These responses from health services tended to make symptoms worse.

9 ways to help your child – and yourself

While there is limited research trialling interventions for PDA, there are strategies parents of all children can implement to reduce the degree to which children feel overwhelmed with demands.

These strategies revolve around parents and teachers adopting a mindset of curiosity, humility and a willingness to learn.

This can prevent the child becoming overloaded, boost their executive functioning and enable them to respond more flexibly. It can also leave you feeling less stressed by any setbacks.

Here are nine ways you can put this into practice:

1. Embrace not knowing

Demand avoidance can be confronting and confusing. Don’t feel you need to apply the right strategy. Every child is unique and changes over time, so no one strategy will always be effective. Experiment with various approaches, blend compassion with clear expectations, and revisit ideas later if needed.

2. Stay curious, not judgemental

Recognise when you the child is acting defiantly. Then remember such behaviour often emanates from stress and overload. Remain curious – pause to consider the concerns that may be upsetting the child. Share ideas with the child and, where possible, collaborate on a plan that feels manageable and supports their autonomy.

3. Listen deeply

Recognise that defiance is often a plea for help to manage overwhelming emotions. So, when the child is defiant, acknowledge the situation and ask for their thoughts. If you listen closely to their words, you may learn how you can resolve their distress. Admittedly, children are often unsure why they’ve become upset, so they may need your help to clarify the cause and find a way forward.

4. Hold your ego lightly

Insisting on compliance often escalates distress. Relinquishing the need to be right or in control helps the child feel more at ease and willing to engage. Offering choices about how or when to complete tasks, while maintaining safety and guidance, gives children agency.

5. Accept complexity

Children with demand avoidance often have needs that don’t fit into simple categories. Accepting complexity helps adults remain flexible and open-minded.

6. Prioritise relationships

A strong and trusting relationship is the foundation for effective behaviour support. Building connection and repairing ruptures helps children feel you are supportive. This naturally reduces avoidance.

7. Notice strengths and create opportunities to shine

Children with demand avoidance often have strong abilities that can be nurtured and applied under the right conditions. Highlighting strengths and building opportunities for leadership and helping other people can build confidence and motivation.

8. Regulate yourself first

Managing your own emotions helps you respond more calmly. When a child seems defiant, observe your breath for a few seconds (partly to override the initial temptation to display anger). Once your intense emotions dissipate, your curiosity will return. A calm response also models the emotional regulation you want your child to learn.

9. Build a support team

A team of supportive adults, such as family members, teachers and support workers, helps share the load and ensures the child can always seek support when needed. Prioritising understanding, offering choices and building trust helps children feel more confident and understood.

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Read more: A new diagnosis of ‘profound autism’ is on the cards. Here’s what could change

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– ref. Your child has pathological demand avoidance? Here’s what it means – and 9 tips for what to do – https://theconversation.com/your-child-has-pathological-demand-avoidance-heres-what-it-means-and-9-tips-for-what-to-do-265677

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/10/your-child-has-pathological-demand-avoidance-heres-what-it-means-and-9-tips-for-what-to-do-265677/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marten Risius, Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland

A theory about male “sexual market value” that began in online manosphere forums is now appearing in the TikTok feeds of Australian teenagers — repackaged as AI-powered “looksmaxxing” apps.

The idea is closely tied to the incel (“involuntary celibate”) subculture. These are loose online communities of mostly young men who believe they are unable to form romantic or sexual relationships with women.

Within these spaces, users often rank men according to physical attractiveness and argue that dating success is largely determined by genetics. This worldview is sometimes called “the blackpill”.

Our research suggests that, by scoring faces and suggesting ways people can “optimise” their appearance, looksmaxxing tools are quietly mainstreaming a toxic view of masculinity and monetising insecurities.

Looksmaxxing is mainstreaming misogynistic incel ideology

Looksmaxxing describes an extreme physical optimisation of a person’s appearance, usually within a numerical rating system known as the PSL-scale.

Our TikTok network analysis reveals a dominant subculture around this concept, with so called “blackpill edits” at its heart. These usually show a conventionally less attractive person who is “mogged” (physically dominated based on looks) by a contrast with a person deemed attractive in the looksmaxxing community.

Such edits generate massive reach. One looksmaxxing influencer garnered more than 100 million views in 2025 alone.

Besides blackpill edits, the community also shares tutorial videos purportedly helping to improve one’s appearance. These include such dubious tips as recommending “mewing” (adjusting tongue posture) for a stronger jawline.

The looksmaxxing app economy

Within this ecosystem, we identified more than a dozen smartphone apps that promise to help users on their looksmaxxing journey. Essentially, all these apps offer the same service.

A user uploads a recent selfie, which an artificial intelligence (AI) model scans for arcane metrics such as “gonial angle”, “maxilla ratio” and “mentolabial angle”.

The user is then provided with an attractiveness score, and an associated rank on the PSL scale. Then, users receive a supposedly personalised assessment of their “potential”. The apps also offer generic fitness and dietary advice, but also recommendations of more niche practices such as mewing.

Monetising insecurity

Most apps hide their core features behind weekly subscriptions, usually priced around A$6. To attract paying customers, these apps are advertised in video descriptions (“Make your own reality @UmaxApp”), as well as in blackpill edits, for example by flashing rating screenshots between video clips.

Quantification, gamification and reframing

These apps are an active vector for mainstreaming an appealing version of formerly niche incel beliefs. While the focus on self-improvement seems to contradict the extreme fatalism present in dedicated incel forums, the apps act as a gateway, making harmful assumptions accessible through three key mechanisms.

First is quantification.

Incels believe every person has a “sexual market value”, usually expressed on a scale from one to ten. Looksmaxxing apps use the PSL-scale (running from one to eight), but the concept is identical: a user’s face is assigned numerical scores based on obscure calculations, reducing human worth to an AI assessment.

Second is gamification.

Scores are tied to specific ranks that often reflect key incel language, such as “low-tier normie” or “chadlite”. Much like a video game, the apps promise users the ability to “ascend” to a higher rank.

Unlike passively reading incel ideology in a web forum, these apps allow users to directly engage with the ideology by having their own faces assessed.

The third mechanism is reframing.

A key part of the success of these apps is that they provide a “recipe for ascension” instead of the traditional stream of blackpill fatalism. This makes these apps attractive to young men struggling with confidence. It’s worth noting, however, that alongside ordinary celebrities looksmaxxing ads sometimes include AI-generated versions of rich, famous sex abusers such as Jeffrey Epstein and Sean Coombs (better known as Diddy).

However, besides the reframing, the underlying assumptions are still rooted within incel ideology: a person’s ascension potential is limited and dictated by biology.

To illustrate, we observed young boys posting their selfies in the comment section of app advertisments, asking for others to rate them. In exchange, they were sometimes asked to “ropemax” – an incel term for committing suicide – if deemed incapable of ascension.

Looksmaxxing apps as a potential funnel to violence

Beyond the reframing, the foundation of looksmaxxing in underlying violent incel ideology can become quite explicit.

In a recent TikTok interaction we documented, a looksmaxxing influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers responded via video format to a user comment. The user’s profile picture was a photo of Elliot Rodger, the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings, and a celebrated “saint” within the incel community. A subsequent comment pointing out this dark connection received more than 20,000 likes.

The particular danger at hand is that looksmaxxing apps, through the mainstreaming mechanisms described above, actively target vulnerable individuals struggling with self-confidence, drawing them into a harmful and potentially violent ideology.

Looksmaxxing apps might seem like an easy cash grab fuelled by young boys going through puberty. But as long as they remain openly accessible in app stores, using viral TikTok edits to reach a massive audience, they can function as a potential radicalisation pipeline into extremist incel worldviews.

– ref. How ‘looksmaxxing’ self-improvement apps are marketing misogyny to young men – https://theconversation.com/how-looksmaxxing-self-improvement-apps-are-marketing-misogyny-to-young-men-276174

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/10/how-looksmaxxing-self-improvement-apps-are-marketing-misogyny-to-young-men-276174/

By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent

The United States military has begun the formal environmental review process for the continuation of large-scale training and testing activities in waters around the Northern Mariana Islands and on Farallon de Medinilla.

The Department of the Navy, including the US Navy and Marine Corps, along with the US Air Force, US Army and US Coast Guard, has prepared a draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement/Overseas Environmental Impact Statement for the Mariana Islands Training and Testing (MITT) programme.

The proposal would allow military readiness activities to continue at sea and on Farallon de Medinilla, an uninhabited island north of Saipan used as a live-fire training range.

According to the draft document, the activities include joint military training exercises, weapons testing, research and development, and range modernisation.

At-sea operations would occur within the Mariana Islands Range Complex, additional high seas areas north and west of the complex, and nearshore waters of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The study area remains unchanged from the 2020 review. Land-based activities previously analysed on Guam, Saipan, Tinian and Rota are not being re-evaluated in this supplement.

The updated analysis focuses on activities at sea and on Farallon de Medinilla.

Potential impacts
The draft assesses potential impacts on marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds, fish, marine habitats, cultural resources and socioeconomic uses such as fishing and shipping. It examines the effects of sonar, explosives, vessel activity and other stressors.

The Navy’s modelling predicts most effects on marine mammals would be temporary behavioural changes. A small number of injuries from explosive use are projected for marine species annually, but no population-level impacts or mortalities are predicted.

Three alternatives are analysed: a no-action alternative under which strike warfare training on Farallon de Medinilla would cease; a preferred alternative reflecting a representative year of training activity; and a second action alternative assuming maximum projected activity annually over seven years.

The notice of intent to prepare the supplemental environmental review was issued on 7 June 2025, followed by a scoping and Section 106 consultation period that ran through 22 July 2025.

The draft document was released on 2 March, triggering a public review and comment period that runs until 1 May 2026.

The final environmental impact statement is scheduled for February 2027, with a record of decision expected in mid-2027.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/us-military-opens-environmental-review-for-expanded-marianas-training-footprint/

ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on March 9, 2026.

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Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/er-report-a-roundup-of-significant-articles-on-eveningreport-nz-for-march-9-2026/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabriel da Silva, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, The University of Melbourne

Reports are emerging of black rain falling over parts of Iran in the hours after US-Israeli airstrikes on oil depots on the weekend, with some outlets describing it as “acid rain”.

Iranian residents have reported headaches, difficulty breathing, and oil-contaminated rain settling on buildings and cars. Iran’s Red Crescent Society warned rainfall following the strikes could be “highly dangerous and acidic.”

As an atmospheric chemist and chemical engineer who researches air pollution, these reports are very worrying, and indicate much more than just acid rain.

This rain would include acids but also likely a host of other pollutants that are harmful to humans and the environment in the short and long term. It may even be worse than the term “acid rain” conveys.

More broadly, the thick clouds of toxic smoke over densely populated areas in Iran are also a major problem for anyone breathing this air right now.

What could this ‘acid rain’ be?

One of the primary ways air pollutants are removed from the atmosphere is through rain. When you have significant levels of pollutants in air they will be collected by falling water droplets and “rain out” of the atmosphere.

That’s why we are getting these reports of black rain falling from the sky after the oil depots were struck – evidence of just how contaminated the local air must be.

To me, this black rain indicates toxic pollutants such as hydrocarbons, ultrafine particles known as PM2.5, and carcinogenic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have made their way into the rain.

On top of this there would be a mix of other unknown chemicals, likely including heavy metals and inorganic compounds from the building materials and everything else caught up in the initial explosions and the ensuing fires.

The smoke from the bombed oil depots would also contain sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which are precursors to forming sulfuric acid and nitric aid in the air. This acid then makes its way into water droplets, and is responsible for what we conventionally label acid rain.

The acid rain we heard so much about in past decades was primarily caused by sulfur dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. Sulfur is naturally present in crude oil but is now mostly removed at the refining stage.

Aside from the rain, it’s worth remembering that all smoke is toxic; if you can smell it, it can be at levels that are harming you.

So that level of black smoke see over densely populated areas in Iran is extremely worrying and can cause chronic short- and long-term health problems.

What are the potential health risks?

In the short term, people exposed to this black smoke in Iran might have headaches or difficulty breathing, especially if they have asthma or lung disease.

Vulnerable populations – such as older people, young children and people with disabilities – are more at risk. Exposure to toxic air pollution during pregnancy can also lead to lower birth weights.

In the longer term, exposure to the compounds in the air and in this black rain is potentially increasing people’s cancer risk. When ultrafine particles (PM2.5) are inhaled, they can get into your bloodstream. This has been linked to a range of health impacts including cancers, neurological conditions (such as cognitive impairment), and various cardiovascular conditions.

Once these heavily polluted plumes of air have their pollutants rained into natural waterways, they can also start to affect aquatic life, as well as human drinking water sources.

Another issue is that this black rain is depositing these compounds on buildings, roads and surfaces, which means they can make their way back into the air when disturbed by strong winds.

A legacy of war

There has been growing attention on the environmental impact of conflict worldwide. Part of this has emerged in the wake of past wars in Iraq and Kuwait, where there was large-scale deconstruction of oil wells and the use of burn pits.

We now know there are long-term health impacts on returning service people, including Australians. So we can assume local populations are also profoundly affected.

In the short term, people exposed to this smoke and black rain in Iran should try to wear masks or face coverings, seek refuge from it, stay indoors, close doors and windows, and try to keep the air out. It is also important to clean hard surfaces where possible, particularly indoors, to reduce exposure to deposited pollutants.

On the ground, of course, this may be very difficult to achieve in the chaos of war.

– ref. What is the ‘acid rain’ in the wake of US bombings in Iran? An atmospheric scientist explains – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-acid-rain-in-the-wake-of-us-bombings-in-iran-an-atmospheric-scientist-explains-277849

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/what-is-the-acid-rain-in-the-wake-of-us-bombings-in-iran-an-atmospheric-scientist-explains-277849/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Ozalp, Professor of Islamic Studies, Head of School, The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation, Charles Sturt University

The death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, during the holy month of Ramadan marks one of the most consequential turning points in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

His successor, his son Mojtaba Khamenei, represents both continuity and contradiction in the revolutionary system established after the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

At stake is not only who leads Iran, but what the Islamic Republic has become, nearly half a century after the revolution that promised an end to dynastic rule.

Who is Mojtaba Khamenei?

Mojtaba Khamenei is a cleric who has spent most of his career outside public office but close to power, working within the Office of the Supreme Leader. He was often seen as a gatekeeper and powerbroker rather than a public political figure with a formal portfolio.

At 17, he briefly served in the Iran–Iraq war. He only began attracting public attention in the late 1990s, by which time his father’s authority as supreme leader was firmly established.

Over time, his reputation has centred on two key features. The first is a close relationship with Iran’s security establishment, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and its hardline networks.

The second is a strong opposition to reformist politics and Western engagement.

Critics have linked him to the suppression of protests following the disputed 2009 presidential election. He is also believed to have wielded influence over Iran’s state broadcasting organisation, giving him indirect control over parts of the country’s information landscape and state narrative.

In 2019, the first Trump administration sanctioned Mojtaba, accusing him of acting in an official capacity on behalf of the supreme leader despite holding no formal government position.

Mojtaba’s legitimacy as leader

Iran’s constitution dictates that the Assembly of Experts (an 88-member clerical body) selects the supreme leader.

The assembly lists the religious, political and leadership qualifications of possible candidates. But in practice, it is not a neutral electoral body. Candidates for the assembly itself are vetted through institutions ultimately shaped by the supreme leader’s orbit, and its deliberations are opaque.

This creates a familiar Iranian scenario – the constitution supplies the choreography, while the security-clerical establishment supplies the music.

That matters when assessing why Mojtaba is seen as a viable supreme leader amid critiques he lacks the senior religious standing traditionally associated with the office.

A mid-ranking cleric, he was only given the title ayatollah in 2022. The title is necessary to become supreme leader, so the promotion signalled he was being groomed to take over from his ageing and ill father.

The revolution’s founding myth was clearly anti-dynastic. After toppling the shah, the revolution’s leaders rejected hereditary rule.

To many Iranians, a son following his father as supreme leader looks like an ideological backslide. The regime appears more like a theocratic monarchy, less the famous “guardianship of the jurist”.

Yet, it is also important to be precise. Mojtaba cannot inherit the position by bloodline alone. The assembly must select him.

Still, political systems can become dynastic without rewriting constitutions. Dynastic outcomes emerge when informal power networks, such as family ties, political patronage, security ties, and control over the media, can make one candidate appear more natural, safe or inevitable.

That has essentially been the Mojtaba story in Iran for years: a man who built influence not by winning elections, but by managing the gate to the most powerful office in the country.

The circumstances of Ali Khamenei’s death add another layer of significance and, ironically, legitimacy to Mojtaba’s ascension.

For many Shi’a Muslims, being killed during Ramadan carries deep symbolic resonance. The first imam of Shi’ism, Ali ibn Abi Talib, was assassinated during the dawn prayer in Ramadan in 661 CE, an event still commemorated each year by Shi’ite Muslims.

Shi’ite historical memory places strong emphasis on martyrdom. In particular, the death of Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at Karbala in 680 CE, symbolises the struggle between justice and oppression.

Because of this tradition, violent deaths of leaders in the past and today are framed within a broader narrative of sacrifice and resistance.

Iran’s revolutionary ideology has long drawn on these themes. If the state presents Khamenei’s death in this light, it could strengthen a narrative of martyrdom and defiance.

This, in turn, gives his son Mojtaba an aura of religious legitimacy that is very strong in the Shi’ite Muslim psyche.

How different would he be from his father?

This is the most consequential question for Iran. The answer is likely less different than many might expect.

Ali Khamenei was a figure of the revolutionary generation. His authority rested on ideological legitimacy, decades spent amassing and consolidating power, and his ability to arbitrate between competing factions. Over time, he became the system’s final referee.

Mojtaba Khamenei, by contrast, is often portrayed as a product of the security establishment, rather than a public theologian or statesman. He is known less for speeches or religious authority than for his influence and the networks he has built behind-the-scenes coordination.

If that assessment is correct, the shift would be from a leader who balanced institutions to one who may lean more heavily on the might of the IRGC. This would deepen an existing trend toward the securitisation of Iranian politics.

In a period of war and instability, regimes typically prioritise continuity and control. Mojtaba’s appeal to the establishment, therefore, appears to rest on several factors:

• his close ties to the IRGC and intelligence networks
• his long experience inside the supreme leader’s office
• his ideological alignment with hardline positions sceptical of reform and Western engagement.

A figure trusted by the most powerful security institutions also reduces the chance of power struggles or fragmentation at the top.

What might this mean for the war?

A new supreme leader rarely produces an abrupt ideological shift, especially during a military conflict. Continuity is the more likely outcome.

Mojtaba Khamenei’s profile suggests a more security-centred style of leadership with three possible ways forward.

First, domestic control may harden. Given Mojtaba’s reported ties to the security establishment, unrest is more likely to be met with swift repression rather than political accommodation.

Second, the IRGC could expand its influence in regional affairs, given how closely aligned Mojtaba is with the guards.

Third, any negotiations with the West would likely be tactical rather than transformative. They would be framed as a strategic necessity rather than an ideological shift.

And given the fact his father was killed in US-Israeli airstrikes, this will only reinforce a more hardline posture toward both countries.

In short, Iran under Mojtaba Khamenei would likely remain confrontational in rhetoric, but pragmatic when regime survival is at stake.

– ref. Who is Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader? And would he bring change – or more brutal suppression? – https://theconversation.com/who-is-mojtaba-khamenei-irans-new-supreme-leader-and-would-he-bring-change-or-more-brutal-suppression-277483

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/who-is-mojtaba-khamenei-irans-new-supreme-leader-and-would-he-bring-change-or-more-brutal-suppression-277483/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Liu, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

New Zealand has been experiencing a striking rise in company failures, focusing attention on the role of directors when facing financial trouble.

Corporate insolvencies have now reached their highest levels in 15 years, with thousands of firms entering liquidation or other formal processes in 2025.

This surge has coincided with a new Law Commission review of directors’ duties – the first comprehensive assessment since the Companies Act was passed three decades ago.

The review, due to report in 2027, will examine the core duties imposed on directors, their liability for breaches and the wider set of laws that place personal obligations on them.

At a time when a concerningly large number of companies are collapsing, two key provisions in the act should take on particular significance to the review: sections 135 and 136.

Together, they set the rules for how directors must act when a company is nearing insolvency.

When protection becomes constraint

Insolvency basically means a business can’t pay debts when they’re due, or that total debt is more than the value of all its assets. When a company is close to this point, directors may be tempted to “gamble for resurrection”.

By that stage, shareholder equity is often exhausted, meaning further risk-taking is effectively funded by creditors’ money. It is here where the two provisions, known as the insolvent trading duties, are designed to tackle the same problem in different ways.

Section 135 of the Companies Act effectively blocks directors from allowing a company to trade in a way that creates a substantial risk of serious loss to creditors. Section 136 requires directors to ensure the company can meet new obligations when they fall due.

In effect, they both stop downside risk from being shifted onto suppliers, employees and Inland Revenue once insolvency looms.

But the law is not without flaws.

Section 135 has long been criticised for its vague, open-textured language. Expressions such as “substantial risk” and “serious loss”, for instance, offer little practical guidance to directors when making business decisions.

Unlike judges, directors must make decisions in real time, often under severe financial pressure, yet their actions are judged later in court.

In such strained circumstances, the section’s lack of clarity risks pushing directors toward overly cautious decisions – or deterring them from taking risks that could help the company recover.

Another concern is that the section may even discourage sensible risk-taking in some situations.

This issue was highlighted in the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision on the high-profile case of Debut Homes Ltd v Cooper. The court noted how directors could breach the section by continuing to trade, even where it was a sensible business decision and could improve returns for some creditors.

This makes the current rules difficult to justify. If liability depends mainly on the presence of risk rather than likely outcomes, directors may favour immediate liquidation over strategies that could improve returns for creditors.

In the long run, this could lead to viable firms being liquidated too early and economic value being lost.

How NZ’s laws differ

Other jurisdictions take a more flexible approach.

In Australia, the law focuses on directors incurring new debts while insolvent rather than prohibiting continued trading altogether.

A statutory “safe harbour” also protects directors who pursue a restructuring plan reasonably likely to produce a better outcome than immediate administration or liquidation, provided certain conditions are met.

In the United Kingdom, directors become liable only once they knew or ought to have known there was no reasonable prospect of avoiding insolvent liquidation. From that point, they must take every step to minimise losses to creditors.

The United States is more permissive still. There is no general statutory duty requiring directors to cease trading upon insolvency, and courts apply a strong business judgement rule that protects directors acting in good faith, on an informed basis and without conflicts of interest.

In New Zealand, the argument for reform is not about weakening creditor protection, but that the current law may discourage legitimate rescue attempts in borderline cases. Concerns about legal risk may also deter capable individuals from accepting board roles.

The Law Commission’s review of directors’ duties offers a timely opportunity to reconsider the balance the law strikes between creditor protection and sensible risk-taking.

New Zealand could consider repealing section 135 and relying on other provisions to address irresponsible conduct. It could also introduce a statutory safe harbour modelled on Australia’s approach.

Alternatively, it could make clear that liability should arise only where creditors as a whole are likely to be worse off than under immediate liquidation, based on the information reasonably available at the time.

Whatever the review finds, it is clear the current law deserves a closer look.

– ref. Insolvencies have spiked – would a law change let more businesses trade their way out of trouble? – https://theconversation.com/insolvencies-have-spiked-would-a-law-change-let-more-businesses-trade-their-way-out-of-trouble-275220

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/insolvencies-have-spiked-would-a-law-change-let-more-businesses-trade-their-way-out-of-trouble-275220/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Calabrese, Assistant Professor, School of Public Affairs and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Middle East Institute, American University

With the Iranian regime weakened by relentless American and Israeli missiles, Washington is eyeing a familiar U.S. ally in the Middle East to help push the Islamic Republic over the edge: the Kurds.

Making up between 8% to 17% of the country’s total population, Iran’s Kurdish minority has long been persecuted under the Islamic Republic.

And since the war in Iran began on Feb. 28, 2026, reports have circulated suggesting that the CIA is actively working to arm Kurdish opposition forces with the aim of encouraging a popular uprising inside Iran.

Trump administration officials have held discussions with Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq and northwestern Iran, testing the possibility of using opposition forces to help topple whatever remains of the regime. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump personally called two of Iraqi Kurdistan’s top leaders – Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani – the day after the bombing campaign began.

All this comes amid reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been lobbying for a U.S.-Kurdish cooperation for months, and that Israel has long-established intelligence networks among Kurdish groups in Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The appeal of this approach, in this moment, is obvious: The Kurds have long-standing grievances against Iran’s clerical leaders, having suffered at their hands for 47 years. Many Kurds would welcome the Islamic Republic’s ouster. But as a close observer on Middle East dynamics, I believe that pursuing such an approach would be deeply reckless.

The logic and its appeal

The Kurds – roughly 30 million to 40 million people across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran – are the world’s largest stateless ethnic group. Promised a state in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, that prospect vanished with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Although united by shared heritage and related languages, Kurdish communities have developed distinct political cultures and leaderships, making them less a single movement than a collection of related groups.

Iran’s Kurdish minority, concentrated in the northwest, has long been at the forefront of opposition to the Islamic Republic.

Since the republic’s founding in 1979, Iran’s Kurds have faced persistent repression. The regime swiftly crushed an early Kurdish autonomy movement, executing its leaders and attacking Kurdish towns. In the decades since, Kurdish parties have been banned, cultural expression restricted, and activists publicly executed.

Kurdish towns were among the most fervent sites of protests in 2022 following the death in custody of a Kurdish-Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini. PJAK — the Kurdistan Free Life Party ideologically affiliated with the Turkish-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — has conducted intermittent armed campaigns against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for two decades.

In the current conflict, the Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s primary armed service, has already begun striking Kurdish positions, hitting them with dozens of drones. The strikes reflect Tehran’s long-standing posture: Any external pressure on the regime is treated as an opportunity for Kurdish groups to advance their own political aims, resulting in moves to neutralize that threat preemptively.

Several Kurdish groups have released public statements hinting at imminent action and urging Iranian military forces to defect.

All of which has seemingly convinced war strategists in Washington that from a purely tactical standpoint, the calculus is favorable: low American footprint and maximum disruption per dollar spent.

This is, of course, exactly the logic that drove the CIA’s support for the Mujahideen Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and the arming of Syrian rebel factions – both of which produced consequences their architects failed to foresee.

Weaponizing the Kurdish question

One of the fundamental considerations is the ethics of such a move. Using Kurdish political aspirations as a battering ram against Tehran – without any genuine commitment to Kurdish statehood or autonomy – would, in my opinion, constitute a betrayal.

And the Kurds have a long and painful history when it comes to betrayal. The United States abandoned the Iraqi Kurds after the 1975 Algiers Accord between the Shah of Iran and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with almost no warning. The accord ended Iranian support for Iraqi Kurdish rebels, whom the U.S. and Israel had been covertly backing to weaken Baghdad. When Tehran and Baghdad reached their deal, support was cut off overnight. Barzani’s movement collapsed within weeks, and Iraqi forces launched reprisals that displaced hundreds of thousands of Kurdish civilians.

Then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s famous remark – that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work” – captured Washington’s approach perfectly.

The Kurds remember this betrayal. One senior Kurdistan Regional Government official recently told CNN: “There is no doubt that the Kurdish people overwhelmingly oppose the regime of the Islamic Republic. Yet they also fear being abandoned once again.”

Pushback from allies?

The quandary that Washington faces is that any half-measures to support the Kurds would render the community in Iran vulnerable to renewed repression should the regime survive – as many observers expect. Yet stronger backing would likely face resistance from key U.S. allies in the region.

Serious arming of the Kurds in the region would inflame Turkey, in particular. Ankara considers the PKK and its affiliates — including PJAK — existential terrorist threats and has carried out repeated cross-border military operations in Iraq and Syria to suppress them. Arming PJAK would place Washington in the position of simultaneously asking Turkey, a NATO ally, to accept a strengthened PKK-linked movement on its southeastern flank.

And these tensions come at a delicate moment. After decades of insurgency, Turkey and the PKK made significant moves toward a ceasefire in 2025. Ankara would see any U.S. support for PKK-linked groups as undermining those efforts. Washington faced a similar dilemma in Syria, arming the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) against Islamic State group fighters while reassuring Turkey it was temporary – a strategy that left lasting mistrust.

A repeat in Iran could push Turkey’s patience beyond its limits.

The Kurds are not the only ethnic minority preparing for confrontation. Militant groups represneting the ethnic minority Baluchs have formed their own coalition. While there is no indication of U.S. support, a Baluch insurgency would further strain Pakistan, which is already grappling with its own Baluch unrest, conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan and heightened tensions with India. U.S. policy also has regional repercussions in Iraq, where Iran has launched drone and missile strikes in mountainous areas of Iraqi Kurdistan – likely to preempt cross-border activity.

Escalation without off-ramps

Ethical and regional questions aside, there is some doubt over how successful a strategy of arming the Kurds would be.

U.S. intelligence assessments have consistently found that Iranian Kurdish groups do not currently have the influence or resources to sustain a successful uprising.

Kurdish opposition parties both in Iran and across the region are fractured, with differing ideologies and competing agendas. Although five Iranian Kurdish groups in Iraqi Kurdistan formed a coalition days before the conflict to challenge the clerical regime, it is unclear whether they will stay united or revert to narrower separatist aims.

Some Trump officials involved in the discussions have privately raised doubts about whether the groups’ motivations align with American objectives. As one administration official told CNN: “You have a group of people who are thinking about their own interests.”

The humanitarian calculus

A Kurdish insurgency, however well intentioned, would be fought predominantly in civilian terrain. Iran’s Kurdish provinces – Kermanshah, Kurdistan, West Azerbaijan – are home to millions of people who have already paid an enormous price for their proximity to conflict.

And the Iranian regime’s response to insurgent activity has historically been indiscriminate: collective punishment, executions, the shelling of border villages.

Arming Kurdish groups risks intensified repression against exactly the population whose democratic aspirations Washington claims to support.

The regime in Tehran is under the most severe strain it has ever faced, and that strain may yet produce transformation.

But transformation imposed at gunpoint, through a proxy force assembled in days without a clear political strategy and without a plan for the morning after, is not liberation.

Rather, it recalls the same catastrophic improvisation that critics say has defined U.S. intervention in the Middle East for half a century. And for Iran’s Kurds, it could represent a new cycle of betrayal.

– ref. Arming a Kurdish insurgency would be a risky endeavor – for both the US and Iran’s minority Kurds – https://theconversation.com/arming-a-kurdish-insurgency-would-be-a-risky-endeavor-for-both-the-us-and-irans-minority-kurds-277779

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/arming-a-kurdish-insurgency-would-be-a-risky-endeavor-for-both-the-us-and-irans-minority-kurds-277779/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ken Purnell, Professor of Education, CQUniversity Australia

This year, students at The King’s School in Sydney are starting lessons later on Wednesdays. The start of the usual day has been pushed back from 8.50am to 9.40am. This is to allow students to do self-directed learning at home or school before formal lessons begin.

While the school hopes the move will build independence, later school times also better complement teenagers’ sleep patterns.

Research suggests typical school hours may be not be compatible with teenagers’ sleep needs. And this can harm their learning and wellbeing.

Why are school hours 9 ‘til 3?

The usual six-hour school day goes from about 9am to 3pm. Many public high schools and private schools also start earlier, at around 8.30am.

This convention dates back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Back then, school was timed to maximise daylight hours and fit in with factory shifts. Bus timetabling also played a role, as transport was shared between schools.

Since then, parents’ work hours and after-school activities have added constraints on top. While school hours now seem “normal,” they are not necessarily what’s best for students as they grow, or when their brains are most alert and ready to learn.

What do teenagers need?

Throughout life, the amount of sleep needed for normal functioning changes as we age. For example, babies need regular naps while older children only sleep at night.

Traditional school hours suit younger children, as they tend to fall asleep and wake up earlier than adolescents.

But around puberty, things change. Teenagers experience what sleep scientists call a “circadian phase delay”, when the body’s internal clock shifts later. This is because melatonin, the sleep hormone, is released about two hours later than in childhood.

So, many adolescents cannot fall asleep much before 11pm and can still be in biological “night” if they are forced to get up at 6am or 7am to get ready for school.

Major medical bodies recommend eight to ten hours of sleep a night for teenagers. But early-morning school starts can make this hard to manage.

Studies of school systems with early starts, shows many teenagers only get six to seven hours of sleep on a school night.

This adds up. Chronic sleep deprivation in adolescents has been linked to poorer attention and memory, greater irritability, more behaviour problems and higher rates of anxiety and depression.

Obviously, none of this is conducive to learning or healthy development.

What is more brain-friendly?

To address this, more high schools could start later.

Schools could introduce an “arrival window” rather than a hard start time. The arrival window could allow for quiet study, wellbeing check-ins, or breakfast clubs. This could let students who need it get more sleep.

Then, once school officially starts, the most demanding subjects, which require sustained focus, would be held from mid-morning.

Schools could also consider more flexible learning models. Some schools already use partial learning from home, which can help in a limited way.

For older students, the first part of the day could be online and mostly at their own pace for low-stakes tasks such as reading, short quizzes, drafting and revision. In-person teaching could start later.

Learning from home depends on reliable internet, a quiet space and adult support, which are not evenly available to all students. So schools would need to make sure space and supervision were also available at school.

What stands in the way?

Starting later also means finishing later. This would require having enough staff across flexible hours. This may be a challenge for some schools, given teacher shortages around the country.

To address this, schools could use staggered staffing and community partnerships to cover early and late blocks. For example, this could involve youth services, cultural institutions and work-based placements for students doing teaching degrees.

There may also be fears about disrupting established routines and transport timetables. Yet practical experience and modelling work in the United States shows later high school start times are feasible when systems adjust bus routes. This requires coordinated work across education and transport sectors.

In Australia, school start and finish times are typically set locally at the school level. In many states, principals generally have discretion to determine (or adjust) start times, usually through consultation with the school community.

The real question is whether we are prepared to redesign school around teenagers’ brains, rather than expecting their brains to fit a timetable built for a different century.

– ref. School hours have barely changed since the 1800s. This doesn’t suit teenagers’ sleep – https://theconversation.com/school-hours-have-barely-changed-since-the-1800s-this-doesnt-suit-teenagers-sleep-275444

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/school-hours-have-barely-changed-since-the-1800s-this-doesnt-suit-teenagers-sleep-275444/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery, Associate Dean Research and HDR, Midwifery Discipline Leader, Western Sydney University

Every pregnant woman wants to deliver a healthy baby. During labour and birth, women also want to feel listened to and respected, and to come out of the experience physically and emotionally well.

But around 28% of Australian women describe their most recent birth as traumatic.

Birth trauma can include fear for their life or their baby’s life, a loss of control, damage to the perineum or pelvic floor, disrespectful care, or mistreatment from health care providers.

Our new research paper examined birth outcomes and both physical and psychological experiences of women and babies who experienced five different types (or models) of care in Australia during the COVID pandemic.

We found that seeing the same midwife or team of midwives was associated with lower rates of intervention and birth trauma, compared with standard care.

And for some women, private obstetric care also led to lower rates of birth trauma than standard care in the public system. Let’s take a look.

Five main models of care

Most Australian women receive standard public care or GP shared care.

In standard public care, women see rotating hospital staff (midwives, obstetricians and at times, trainees) throughout pregnancy and often give birth with a midwife or doctor they’ve never met.

GP shared care is when there is an arrangement between a GP and hospital. Women see their GP most during pregnancy and hospital staff for some antenatal appointments. The GP doesn’t usually attend the birth, except in some rural, remote regions.

In continuity of care models, one or a small number of midwives and obstetricians deliver the majority of the care before, during and after birth. This includes continuity of:

• midwifery care in the public system
• private obstetric care
• private midwifery care.

When given a choice, women favour continuity of care models.

What our study found

Our study looked at the experiences of 3,682 Australian women who gave birth in 2020 and 2021.

Compared to women who had standard care, we found that those who had continuity of midwifery care (through the public system or a private midwife) were:

• less likely to be induced or have an oxytocin drip to speed up labour
• much more likely to have a vaginal birth
• more likely to have the midwife visit them at home after the birth
• less likely to have a caesarean section
• less likely to have their baby admitted to special or neonatal intensive care or receive formula in hospital when they had chosen to breastfeed
• half as likely to describe their birth as traumatic.

These differences were seen even after adjusting for differences in the groups that could affect outcomes, such as women’s age, medical risk, education, employment status, country of birth, income and mental health.

These findings line up with decades of evidence. A 2024 Cochrane review of 17 randomised controlled trials found midwifery continuity of care models reduce some birth interventions, including caesarean section, forceps and vacuum birth, and episiotomy (surgical cut to the perineum).

Our study also found that while women who had private obstetric care had higher rates of birth intervention, they had lower rates of birth trauma when compared to standard care. There was no difference in outcomes for the baby, such as admission to special care or neonatal intensive care.

This suggests when women’s choices align with their care provider’s philosophy, outcomes are better – even if intervention levels are higher. Some women seek, or are not concerned about, increased obstetric intervention. Continuity itself, regardless of who the lead health care professional is, reduces birth trauma.

What are the study’s limitations?

As with any study there are limitations. This study relied on women reporting their labour and birth outcomes, so there could be difficulties with recall that affected reporting of some health risks and other important information.

A high proportion of women responding (86%) were born in Australia and spoke English at home (92%) and only 2% were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, meaning the diversity of the Australian population is not represented.

We did not examine stillbirth or neonatal deaths as all the women responding to the survey had a live baby. So people still could have had those experiences but they weren’t captured in our data.

Why does continuity of care make a difference?

Continuity gives women a stable, familiar guide who knows their story, understands their concerns and advocates for them when the system is under strain.

It also allows for the kind of personalised care women consistently say they want and which midwives wish they could deliver more often.

Nearly half of all models of care (49%) have a midwife as the designated carer, with 16% having midwifery continuity of care throughout the maternity period.

However, midwifery continuity of care models are more common in urban centres and can be harder to access in rural and remote areas. Even in urban centres, not everyone who wants to access them can. The popularity of these programs means they fill up fast and many women miss out if they don’t book in when they are first pregnant.

Private obstetric and private midwifery models of care come with out of pocket costs and are not available everywhere. There are few private midwives and many struggle to get admitting rights into hospitals like doctors have.

The recent New South Wales Birth Trauma Inquiry recommended expanding continuity of care models to help reduce the high rates of birth trauma in Australia. Our study shows that this could make a significant difference.

– ref. Seeing the same midwife or doctor in pregnancy and labour reduces the risk of birth trauma – https://theconversation.com/seeing-the-same-midwife-or-doctor-in-pregnancy-and-labour-reduces-the-risk-of-birth-trauma-276182

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/seeing-the-same-midwife-or-doctor-in-pregnancy-and-labour-reduces-the-risk-of-birth-trauma-276182/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

The American people are bitterly divided over the conflict in Iran. The US president, Donald Trump, won office in 2024 after campaigning on a message of “no new wars”. So the conflict that began with airstrikes conducted with the Israeli military in the early hours of February 28, and which has quickly spread into the rest of the region, has polarised opinion across the country.

An Economist/YouGov poll completed on March 2 provides early information about what Americans think of the war so far. The poll asked the following question: “Would you support or oppose the US using military force to overthrow the government of Iran?”

There is a great deal of confusion about what the objectives of the war are, since the messaging from Trump, and his senior officials, has veered from preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, to destroying the country’s ballistic missile capability, to regime change.

But, from the point of view of polling, this is as good a question as any for finding out what Americans think. Altogether 32% of them support the war and 45% oppose it.

A divided society

The responses to this question analysed by gender, race, age and education appear in the graph. Those who were uncertain are not included in the totals. The graph shows that large variations exist among the different groups in relation to their attitudes to the war.

The relationship between attitudes to the war and the social backgrounds of respondents

The largest differences are in relation to race. Some 37% of white respondents support the war and 44% oppose it. In contrast 7% of black people support it and 60% oppose. Hispanics were in between these two, but rather closer to whites than to blacks.

The was a large gender difference in the responses as well with 37% of men in support but only 26% of women. A marked age difference existed too with only 21% of 18-to-29 year olds supporting and 50% opposed. At the same time some 40% of those over the age of 65 supported the war with 49% opposed. Finally, 34% of those without a college degree were in support compared with 27% with a college degree. Overall, young black women with a college degree were most likely to oppose the war, whereas older white men without a college degree were most in support.

A question of politics

The social backgrounds and attitudes to the war of respondents are interesting, but they are overshadowed by the polarisation of opinion among supporters of the political parties and ideological factions. These appear in the second chart.

The relationship between attitudes to the war and the political affiliations of respondents

The striking feature of this chart is the difference between respondents who identify with the Democrats and those who identify with the Republicans. Only 8% of Democrats support the war compared with 64% of Republicans. The highest level of support comes from respondents who are Maga (Make American Great Again) supporters. No less that 75% of them support the war and only 10% oppose it.

There is similar polarisation among liberals, which refers to anyone on the left of the ideological spectrum in the US, and conservatives. Only 8% of liberals support the war compared with 66% of conservatives. Moderates are in between the two with 25% of them supporting and 50% opposing the war.

What it could mean for November’s mid-term elections

One theory of elections argues that individuals have a set of well-defined preferences over policies and so they support the party which is closest to them in relation to these policies. In this analysis, policy preferences are summarised by the left-right ideological dimension, or alternatively by the liberal-conservative dimension in politics.

In fact, it appears that in reality the reverse is true with voters choosing a party or leader and then changing their views to fit in with those of their newly adopted party. The 47th US president is an extreme case of this, because he constantly changes his mind. Before he was elected, he promised that the US would not get involved in any more wars in the middle east. It appears that most Republicans and nearly all the Maga supporters are quite willing to go along with the U-turn and agree with anything he does.

This is a big advantage for a president who is so polarising, since it means that he can rely on a body of loyal supporters even when they don’t know the latest policy changes. However, it is a weakness when it comes to elections because the Democrats and Independents together easily outnumber the Republicans and Maga supporters in the electorate.

The Cooperative Election Study, a large-scale survey conducted at the time of the presidential election in 2024 showed that 32% of respondents in their national survey identified with the Democrats, 27% with the Independents and 30% with the Republicans. In short, the Republicans are up against a coalition of Democrats and Independents who make up just under 60% of the voters. Add the factor that many Americans are outraged by the president’s behaviour and you have a winning coalition for the opposition in the mid-term elections.

Whatever happens in the war, Trump is unlikely to recover his popularity for the Republicans not to lose control of the House of Representatives – and possibly the Senate – in the mid-term elections in November.

– ref. What Americans think of the war in Iran – https://theconversation.com/what-americans-think-of-the-war-in-iran-277627

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/what-americans-think-of-the-war-in-iran-277627/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Polina Zelmanova, PhD Candidate in Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick

Frankenstein’s female creature, also known as “the Bride”, was the first female monster to appear on screen, in the 1935 Frankenstein sequel: The Bride of Frankenstein. An unruly and rebellious figure, she has inspired dozens of adaptations since.

Most recently, the Bride, as a dramatic character, has been part of a series of creative reimaginings through an explicitly feminist lens. For instance, the dark coming of age comedy, Lisa Frankenstein (2024). It imagined the Bride (Kathryn Newton) in the role of the scientist, who accidentally brings to life a young Victorian man (Cole Sprouse).

Released just a year earlier, Poor Things (2023) brought an even more complex exploration of power, agency and consent, set in a retro-futuristic Victorian era. In it, the female creature Bella (Emma Stone) negotiates what it means to be both a scientific object and creator (being created out of the pregnant body of a woman and the brain of the mother’s unborn baby). Bella does not abide by the rules and conventions of polite society, using her body against the purpose of her creator and causing several mental breakdowns for the male characters in the process.

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Now, a new movie directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride!, brings the character to life in moody 1930s Chicago. Jessie Buckley plays the female creature brought back from the dead to be Frankenstein’s mate. But she is not the sort of creature that is inclined to serve someone else’s purpose. When Frankenstein (now the monster, not the scientist, and played by Christian Bale) calls her “the Bride of Frankenstein”, she replies: “No, just the Bride.”

Although the film promises a “Bonnie and Clyde” story – two lovers and rebels on the run from the law – this Bride refuses to belong to any man. Instead, gun in hand, she demands to be seen and heard on her own terms.

Reanimating the Bride from novel to screen

Since her inception, the Bride’s struggle has been for autonomy. She first appeared in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818), named after an egomaniac scientist who creates a creature from cadavers. In the novel, Dr Frankenstein begrudgingly agrees to make his male creature a companion, but destroys her before she can live. He is afraid she might reproduce or become even more powerful than the male creature.

Her destruction is the most violent episode in the novel and makes apparent the anxiety that her unruly female body causes to the mad scientist. The erasure of Shelley’s original female creation set the scene for the way she continues to be written out of most adaptations of the novel. This includes, most recently, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025).

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Read more: Guillermo de Toro’s Frankenstein: beguiling adaptation stays true to heart of Mary Shelley’s story

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One hundred years on from Shelley’s novel, the Bride was finally brought to life in James Whales’ The Bride of Frankenstein and played by Elsa Lanchester. Although central to the film’s title, she appears only in the final five minutes. But that was more than enough time to establish her cinematic legacy.

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She stands tall, dressed in a white gown, her dark, voluminous hair streaked with lightning. Scars and stitches run around her face. She is both alive and dead, a bride and child, beautiful and monstrous, futuristic and otherworldly. Her appearance defies categorisation, not quite the demure wife she is meant to be.

Even more memorable is the Bride’s defiant scream when she rejects the male creature and the role assigned to her by the film’s title and her creator. Feminist scholars have read this as an assertion of sexual autonomy and agency, a rejection of patriarchal control and a refusal of the role of wife and mother. She is a powerful symbol of defiance, and both costume and voice become tools for future Brides to say no to their fate. Lanchester’s Bride, however, is not able to invent alternative possibilities for herself and is ultimately destroyed by the male creature, punished for her rebellion.

The limitations of patriarchy are made even clearer in later adaptations in which Brides who choose to end their lives, such as Frankenstein Created Woman (1967). Her limited options also show the constraints of a narrative in which she is made a mere character in someone else’s story.

The creature Lily (Billie Piper) in the television series Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) is another Bride who attempts to make her own path. But the memories of her body’s previous life as a sex worker have shown her that the world is rotten to the core – her only solution is to destroy it. Lily chooses destruction over radical change, and while she rejects both Frankenstein and the male creature, the man she does willingly choose ultimately betrays her.

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For some Brides, power comes from reclaiming the role of creator. This can be seen in Lisa Frankenstein and Poor Things, but also in an earlier adaptation – the exploitation comedy Frankenhooker (1990). The film ends with the Bride taking revenge on her creator by attaching his head to female body parts.

Poor Things is one of the only films where the Bride is not only invested in radical social change, but also escapes the expectations put onto her body as a scientific and sexual object. Bella actively subverts these expectations by repurposing her body as one of personal scientific enquiry. This extends to the way she uses sex. It puts her in a complicated position in relation to exploitation and empowerment, where she is simultaneously both and neither. Instead, her actions sit somewhere on the outside of our current perceptions of both.

As Jessie Buckley’s new Bride graces our screens, she promises to follow in the footsteps of her rebellious predecessors – and a long horror tradition.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

– ref. A brief cinematic history of Frankenstein’s Bride as a feminist icon – https://theconversation.com/a-brief-cinematic-history-of-frankensteins-bride-as-a-feminist-icon-277294

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/a-brief-cinematic-history-of-frankensteins-bride-as-a-feminist-icon-277294/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martie-Louise Verreynne, Professor in Innovation and Associate Dean (Research), The University of Queensland

Innovation is one of the most celebrated yet misunderstood ideas of our time. It is invoked in policy speeches, corporate strategy decks and university mission statements. But strip away the buzzword and what remains?

In The Shortest History of Innovation, economist and federal MP Andrew Leigh offers an accessible, wide-ranging answer. Sweeping across millennia, from the wheel to artificial intelligence, Leigh argues three forces underpin most innovation: tinkering, teamwork and trade.

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Review: The Shortest History of Innovation – Andrew Leigh (Black Inc.)

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The alliteration is elegant. More importantly, however, it captures much of what innovation scholars have long observed: ideas become valuable not through inspiration alone, but through experimentation, collaboration and exchange.

Leigh’s definition aligns broadly with the OECD’s Oslo Manual, the global standard for measuring innovation. Innovation is not invention per se, but the introduction of new products, processes or organisational methods that create value.

The three ‘T’s

Leigh rightly pushes back against the myth of the lone genius. Breakthrough ideas are only the beginning. It is the grind of refinement, tinkering at the “adjacent possible”, that turns creative sparks into useful technologies.

The emphasis on teamwork is particularly welcome. Innovation requires different disciplines to work together, different organisations to partner with each other and engage with stakeholders across supply chains. That includes their customers.

The Human Genome Project, large scale research centres, and modern examples of business, government and society working together to change things all demonstrate that innovation is inherently social.

As part of an ecosystem to foster innovation, this triad works. But it is incomplete without a fourth, sometimes forgotten force: infrastructure.

Throughout the book, Leigh offers compelling illustrations of enabling conditions. The wheel did not transform transport until roads were built. The light bulb required electrification networks. Coal powered the Industrial Revolution.

Computer chips designed for video game graphics became the ones that power artificial intelligence. Universities, introduced in medieval Europe, became long-term institutional platforms for knowledge creation.

These are not footnotes to innovation; they are preconditions. Innovation flourishes when these examples of physical, intellectual and institutional infrastructure stabilise expectations and lower the cost of coordinating.

Britain’s 18th-century parliamentary system, an abundance of artisans, and access to coal created a fertile institutional environment.

Leigh frequently gestures to these enablers. But they are a central part of any innovation ecosystem. Innovation is rarely the outcome of individual brilliance alone. It emerges as a property of dense, well-connected and supported systems that allow ideas to be tested, scaled and diffused.

Leigh argues that across history, place matters – and this matches contemporary evidence. Living near centres of learning, industrial clusters, or technology hubs increases exposure to ideas and collaborators.

Acceleration and recombination

One of the most compelling threads in the book is the idea of “recombination” – innovations build on prior innovations. Mathematics developed in Persia later enabled European scientific advances. Precision machine tools in the 19th century unlocked new industries. As enabling technologies accumulate, the pace of innovation accelerates.

This virtuous spiral means that the more ideas in circulation, the greater the opportunities for recombination. This resonates strongly with contemporary innovation theory: we are increasingly remixing rather than inventing from scratch. Digital platforms, open data and interdisciplinary research intensify this dynamic.

‘Creative destruction’

But acceleration is not neutral. It amplifies both benefits and risks.

Leigh acknowledges innovation is disruptive, echoing economist Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”. He notes new technologies often displace old industries. Netflix destroyed video stores – and then came for Hollywood.

Process innovation, from Frederick Taylor’s re-engineering of work to Toyota’s continuous improvement systems, reshaped labour itself.

Innovation’s dark shadow

Innovation improves humanity’s capacity for progress and harm. These darker sides are present in the book, but not laboured. Gunpowder and the Haber process fuelled war. Coal warms the planet. The atomic bomb altered geopolitics. Marie Curie died from radiation exposure. Patents have both protected and restricted life-saving technologies.

From an ecosystem perspective, these tensions matter. Innovation is not inherently good. Incentives, governance and ethical guardrails shape it. The question is not whether societies innovate, but how they channel innovation.

The book’s overall tone, however, is optimistic. Innovation has extended life expectancy, improved nutrition, advanced medicine and raised living standards. It is credited with driving between one-third and two-thirds of global economic growth.

Government, openness and the public good

Given Leigh’s background as a sitting member of parliament, the role of government features prominently. Wartime research, public institutions and state-led programs are presented as catalytic forces. Public dollars, he argues, are best spent creating environments that encourage experimentation.

This is largely persuasive. Public investment has historically underwritten foundational technologies. Yet there is a delicate balance between public leadership and market dynamism.

Innovation ecosystems thrive not merely because governments fund them, but because institutions align: education systems, research organisations, firms, financiers and regulatory frameworks.

The book also highlights the importance of open innovation. Some inventors, such as Marie Curie and Tim Berners-Lee, chose not to patent their discoveries. Left in the public domain, ideas can spread faster and further. Yet organisations must also recoup investments.

This tension between openness and appropriation remains one of the central policy challenges of our time.

Serendipity, diversity and inequality

Leigh repeatedly returns to luck and serendipity. Leonardo da Vinci’s trajectory depended on patronage, timing and freedom to experiment. Post-it notes and friction matches emerged from unexpected discoveries.

He also acknowledges that history has not been kind to diversity. Innovation has disproportionately reflected the opportunities available to wealthy men, with notable but limited exceptions among women pioneers and bottom-of-the-pyramid innovators.

A seismic shift?

The final chapters touch on artificial intelligence. Yet one might ask whether AI is treated as simply another innovation in a long line, or as a structural transformation reshaping every domain of human endeavour.

If the accumulation of enabling technologies accelerates innovation, AI may represent not just a new tool but a meta-technology that alters the innovation process itself.

That question lingers.

– ref. Andrew Leigh maps the drivers of history’s big breakthroughs — and why they still matter – https://theconversation.com/andrew-leigh-maps-the-drivers-of-historys-big-breakthroughs-and-why-they-still-matter-277222

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/andrew-leigh-maps-the-drivers-of-historys-big-breakthroughs-and-why-they-still-matter-277222/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a stark warning in his address to the Australian parliament. The post-war global order is “breaking down”, he said, and middle powers like Canada and Australia risk subordination due to their integration with great powers like the United States.

But how entangled is Australia with the United States, and is Canada’s path the one we should follow?

Canada and Australia are “strategic cousins”, with many commonalities and shared interests. Both countries span the breadth of continents and face the Pacific Ocean. Both are free-market, common-law federations, founding members of the United Nations, Five Eyes partners, and extremely close US allies.

And both are middle powers that are active in international institutions and have been beneficiaries of the rules-based international order they helped create.

Yet, when it comes to the relationship with the US, there are some differences. Australia has long had a “fear of abandonment” from the US, while Canada has historically been worried more about entrapment and the vulnerability of its sovereignty.

The Canadians’ concern stems from their long shared border with the US: if they are unable or unwilling to defend their own borders, the US could do it for them, whether they liked it or not.

Under successive prime ministers, however, Canada’s defence spending has atrophied to the point where US President Donald Trump humiliated Carney’s predecessor as a mere “governor” of the “51st state”.

Canadians were incensed, their sense of honour tarnished. That sentiment has been reinforced by Trump’s arbitrary tariffs on Canada. Carney’s middle power push needs to be viewed somewhat through this lens.

And though Canada is looking to diversify its partnerships with other middle powers (including Australia), it can’t wean itself completely off trade with its neighbour. Nearly 80% of Canadian exports go to the US.

So, Canada’s enduring interests remain closely intertwined with those of the US, even though it doesn’t feel that way right now.

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The world order has “ruptured”, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has warned – so it’s time for countries like Australia and New Zealand to forge a new, less US-reliant future. In this new series, we’ve asked top experts to explain what that future could look like – and the challenges that lie ahead.

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Why the US needs Australia

While being similar in many ways, Australia’s predicament is also different from Canada’s. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gets this.

Australia is a largely Anglo-European transplant nation on the edge of Asia, where a rising and authoritarian China is increasingly expanding its influence and interests.

This has long made Australia a key strategic and military partner of the United States. This hasn’t changed, even with Trump’s “America first” rhetoric, shift in focus towards the Western Hemisphere and recent launching of a new war in the Middle East.

Trump isn’t going to give up the Indo-Pacific region to China. He wants to “successfully compete there”, as the National Security Strategy of 2025 puts it. This entails maintaining a robust military deterrence, with key regional allies doing more to help prevent a war.

The US sees Australia as vitally important to this deterrence. And it’s more invested in Australia than most realise.

This isn’t to say there haven’t been adjustments since Trump took power, however.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has articulated a new foreign policy based on “four Rs” – region, relationships, rules and resilience. She’s emphasised the US alliance being embedded within a broader web of relationships, rather than standing alone.

This reflects a more considered, less binary approach to the relationship. Australia is no longer seen as either a “dependent” or “independent” ally.

Rather, there is a middle ground for a middle power like Australia. This foreign policy acknowledges Australian reliance on the US military and intelligence for deterrence, but is more active in securing its own interests, particularly in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Why Australia can’t replace the US so easily

Australia has long maintained a boutique defence force. With the strong US alliance in place, Australia doesn’t need to spend too much more on defence or enact compulsory national service. It just needs to ensure its military is high-tech and interoperable with its allies.

This model relies on trusted and ongoing access to the US military for hardware (warships, aircraft, tanks, air and space defence systems) and software (the technology to operate these systems and build robust intelligence gathering and cyber defence capabilities).

This involves collaborations with a range of US firms and the expansion of a national security innovation base in Australia, part of the AUKUS agreement.

Meanwhile, Australian sailors have been training at US naval facilities and are now crewing US nuclear-propulsion submarines. Under AUKUS, these subs will be stationed at the HMAS Stirling naval base in Western Australia as part of the Submarine Rotation Force West, starting next year.

The US and Australia also operate the Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap, a signals intelligence surveillance base that provides crucial insights into the Indo-Pacific and beyond. Successive Australian governments have viewed this facility as worth the investment.

All of this shows how closely tied Australia is to the US from a military technology, equipment and intelligence standpoint. Finding alternatives to the US would be expensive, as would running legacy systems in parallel for decades.

The principal sources of alternative kit – among them, South Korea, Japan, Sweden and Germany – are all US allies, as well.

Some pundits have speculated that a more independent Australian foreign and defence policy would cost upwards of 4–5% of GDP to sustain. I believe it would cost considerably more.

Conceivably, Trump could weaponise these connections with Australia. However, Australia is not viewed in the same way as Canada on national security matters. The US administration has a keen appreciation of Australia’s importance in generating a deterrent effect in the Indo-Pacific.

Taking a more aggressive approach towards Australia would also bring incalculable harm to US interests in the region. Given what’s at stake, that remains highly unlikely.

How to be less dependent

In 2024, I wrote a paper exploring ways Australia can better respond to the “polycrisis” we face today. This includes the challenges posed by a changing climate, the green industry transformation, overstretched health services, deepening geopolitical shifts, and the growth of artificial intelligence.

I proposed a national institute to survey Australia’s options, and an incentivised but voluntary scheme for community and national service

But addressing these challenges also requires working more closely with our neighbours.

As part of this, we need a more muscular and sophisticated military force closely tied to our neighbours. This would bolster measures already being pursued in the Pacific, such as:

Australia is also taking steps to deepen security ties with Indonesia. I’ve proposed a future “regional maritime cooperation forum” starting with Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia that could collaborate on issues ranging from border security to intelligence, as well.

With so many shared interests and concerns, we can deepen ties with Canada, as well. The joint statement by Carney and Albanese last week outlines a substantial range of opportunities for expanding cooperation in critical minerals, defence and security, and strengthening institutions.

Australia is a middle power with small-power pretensions. It must manage its enduring US alliance ties while bolstering other arrangements in the region and beyond.

Working more closely with Canada would help ensure we can be a more confident, self-reliant regional leader, stepping forward in a crisis when others are reluctant. The upturned world order is an opportunity to just that.

– ref. Australia can’t easily reduce its military dependence on the US, but with Canada, we can mitigate risk – https://theconversation.com/australia-cant-easily-reduce-its-military-dependence-on-the-us-but-with-canada-we-can-mitigate-risk-276528

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/09/australia-cant-easily-reduce-its-military-dependence-on-the-us-but-with-canada-we-can-mitigate-risk-276528/