Category: Evening Report

ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on March 4, 2026.

‘She made us feel comfortable’: how trusting and safe pharmacy services improve First Nations health
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jean Spinks, Associate Professor, Centre for the Business and Economics of Health, The University of Queensland Aunty Mary stands reluctantly back from the busy counter at her local community pharmacy, not quite sure how to get some help. She notices a colourful poster on the wall that

We discovered lethal new fungal diseases in wild Australian reptiles. It’s time to act fast
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shelly Butcher, PhD candidate in Wildlife Disease, The University of Queensland When a coastal carpet python was brought into a wildlife hospital in South East Queensland in August 2024, vets were confronted with something they didn’t recognise. The python had damaged scales, crusted lesions across its body

‘I want someone submissive’: Married At First Sight gives the manosphere a prime time slot
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claudia Young, PhD Candidate in Media and Communications, The University of Melbourne The current season of Married at First Sight is shaping up to be one of the most controversial yet, with the inclusion of Tyson Gordon demonstrating how the manosphere has breached containment. While the producers

‘A global energy crisis’ – Fuel price hike looms for Pacific amid Iran war
By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist Analysts are warning fuel prices are expected to jump in the Pacific following the Israeli and US attacks on Iran, and the retaliatory response by Iran. Iran borders the Strait of Hormuz, which carries 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supply, and shipments have been suspended following

Too many Indigenous women are killed by domestic violence. They are more than just numbers
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kyllie Cripps, Director Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, CI ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women (CEVAW), School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies (SOPHIS), School of Social Sciences (SOSS), Faculty of Arts, Monash University This article contains references to and the names of

Matildas effect 2.0? Why the Women’s Asian Cup is a huge moment for Australian soccer
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Crawford, Adjunct Lecturer at the Centre for Justice, Queensland University of Technology The 2026 Women’s Asian Cup is the first major women’s soccer tournament Australia has hosted since the groundbreaking 2023 Women’s World Cup. The 12-team event, which will be held in Perth, Sydney and the

AI could help us more accurately screen for breast cancer – new research
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carolyn Nickson, Principal Research Fellow, Cancer Elimination Collaboration, University of Sydney; The University of Melbourne At least 20,000 Australian women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. And more than 3,300 die from the disease. To save women’s lives, we need to detect breast cancer early. Breast

This illegal US-Israeli attack on Iran is also an assault on the United Nations
The US objective is not the security of the American people. The objective is global hegemony. The attempt is to destroy the UN and the international rule of law — an attempt that will fail, warn the authors. ANALYSIS: By Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares On February 16, 2026, one of us (Jeffrey Sachs)

A tribunal has drawn a clear line on antisemitic hate speech. Here’s what it said
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeremie M Bracka, Law Lecturer and Transitional Justice Academic, RMIT University As both the federal government and states across the country pass laws cracking down on hate speech, there’s been much debate about where to draw the line on what can and can’t be said. A Victorian

The US-Israel attack on Iran paints NZ foreign policy into a corner
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago The National-led coalition government missed a clear opportunity to defend the international rules-based order in its response to the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. It was a glaring omission, given New Zealand and most countries rely heavily

Russia wanted a new world order. This wasn’t the one it had in mind
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Edele, Hansen Professor in History, The University of Melbourne Four years ago, Vladimir Putin escalated his war against Ukraine to an all-out assault. The plan was for a quick and lively campaign and a speedy takeover of a country the Russian president thought shouldn’t exist. Victory

Severe irritability in teens can be reduced by daily doses of vitamins and minerals – new research
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia J Rucklidge, Professor of Psychology, University of Canterbury Irritability is one of the most common and distressing problems teenagers and their families face. Its main symptom is an excessive reaction to negative emotional stimuli, resulting in temper outbursts and severe irritable mood. While current treatment options

AI has powerful uses for First Nations oral cultural knowledge. Here’s how
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Vaughan, Rock Art Australia Kimberley Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of people who have died. Much of the conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) and Indigenous peoples focuses on harms, such

How to live a long and healthy life, according to the ancients
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, The University of Western Australia Just like in the modern world, people in ancient times wanted to know how to live a long and healthy life. Greeks and Romans heard fantastic tales of far-away peoples living to well beyond

‘Silky’ doesn’t mean it’s made from silk – how confusing textile language can harm the environment
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Van Amber, Senior Lecturer in Fashion & Textiles, RMIT University If you care about sustainability, buying something as simple as a pillowcase can feel surprisingly hard. Search for “sustainable sheets” and you’re flooded with familiar and tantalising promises: silky, bamboo, vegan, antimicrobial, breathable, organic. The language

Why doesn’t travel insurance cover war?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Latimer, Adjunct Professor, School of Law, Swinburne University of Technology You might think it was exactly the kind of scenario you’d buy travel insurance for in the first place. A major, unforeseen international event causes travel chaos. Flights are grounded around the world, leaving you and

Dog attacks keep happening in NZ. Why hasn’t the law kept up?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau In February of this year, the media in New Zealand both captivated and horrified the public with sensational stories of dog attacks. That line could have been written last week. It wasn’t. It appeared

US-Israel’s war of aggression – Epic Fury or Epic Screw-up?
COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle Western countries, including  Australia and New Zealand, were quick to line up to support Operation Epic Fury, the US-Israeli blitzkrieg on the Islamic Republic of Iran. They were effectively throwing international law into a cauldron of blood and mayhem.  These same Western powers — and the Gulf Arab states that stand

EDITORIAL: When Mediocrity Fails National Interest
Editorial by Selwyn Manning. The New Zealand Government’s response to Israel-US attacks on Iran has revealed a chasm. On one side are those who argue; that New Zealand must stay aligned with its 20th century allies right or wrong. On the other side are those who insist; that the long fought for reputation, of a

Donald Trump campaigned against ‘endless wars’. So why is he risking another one in Iran?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jared Mondschein, Director of Research, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney US President Donald Trump has summed up his rationale for attacking Iran fairly simply, saying “this was our last best chance to strike”. Not known for adhering to any particular lasting strategy, Trump sees each day

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/er-report-a-roundup-of-significant-articles-on-eveningreport-nz-for-march-4-2026/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shelly Butcher, PhD candidate in Wildlife Disease, The University of Queensland

When a coastal carpet python was brought into a wildlife hospital in South East Queensland in August 2024, vets were confronted with something they didn’t recognise. The python had damaged scales, crusted lesions across its body and a mysterious fungal infection that defied explanation.

When the results from skin tests came back, they revealed snake fungal disease, caused by Ophidiomyces ophidiicola, an emerging fungal pathogen linked to snake declines overseas. This was the first confirmed report in free-ranging wild Australian snakes.

In our new research, we detail this finding and two more novel fungal pathogens detected in skin samples taken from sick reptiles. All three infections produce disfiguring skin lesions. Two of the three new threats were not previously known to affect wild reptiles in Australia.

This isn’t a welcome discovery. Australia is home to an extraordinary diversity of reptiles – the highest of any country. But many species are in decline, due to climate change, habitat loss, invasive species and urbanisation.

Fungal infections aren’t usually a problem for warm-blooded animals, as most fungi can’t survive our high body temperatures. But for ectothermic (cold-blooded) reptiles and amphibians, fungi can pose a devastating threat. Chytrid fungus has triggered an ongoing wave of frog extinctions – including in Australia. We must protect reptiles from similar threats.

What did we find?

We analysed skin samples from ten sick reptiles between April 2023 and September 2024. Each had mild to severe skin lesions. They included an eastern water dragon, two eastern bearded dragons, one eastern bandy-bandy snake, one white-crowned snake and five coastal carpet pythons.

In some cases, their infection was so severe it caused crusted lesions along the entire body, prevented normal skin shedding, and caused extreme emaciation and weakness. Tragically, many reptiles had deteriorated so badly that euthanasia was the most humane option.

When we tested skin samples from these sick reptiles, we found three fungal threats from the Onygenaceae family cropping up in new hosts or locations.

1. Ophidiomyces ophidiicola – commonly known as snake fungal disease. We detected it for the first time in free-ranging Australian wildlife, causing debilitating disease in three native Australian snake species.
2. Nannizziopsis barbatae – a pathogen already known to affect wild Australian lizards, and recently highlighted in water dragons in Queensland. We report its first global detection in a snake.
3. Paranannizziopsis spp. – detected for the first time in free-ranging Australian wildlife, causing disease in eastern bearded dragons and coastal carpet pythons.

Reptiles are vulnerable

As climate change boosts global temperatures, alters ecosystems and stresses wildlife, a dangerous combination emerges. Stressed animals become more susceptible to infection, and the fungi themselves become more widespread.

Losing reptile and amphibian species to fungal diseases is devastating. Reptiles play crucial roles in our ecosystems, quietly keeping pest populations in check and helping to maintain healthy landscapes.

In recent years, herping – the reptile equivalent of birding – has become more popular.

As interest has risen, so has public concern. The only reason we know about these fungal diseases is because observant community members noticed unwell animals and sought help. Early detection remains one of our most powerful tools for understanding and containing wildlife disease.

What can you do?

Citizen scientists, wildlife enthusiasts and members of the community can all contribute.

By recognising signs of illness, reporting sick animals and practising responsible behaviour around wildlife, Australians can help protect our reptiles from these emerging fungal threats.

Report sick reptiles to track disease spread

• If you see a sick reptile, keep your distance and look for brown or yellow crusty skin lesions, abnormal shedding, swelling, wounds that don’t heal or unusually lethargic behaviour.
• If it’s safe, take clear photos and record the location.
• Contact your local wildlife rescue group, wildlife hospital or vet.
• Submit sightings to local wildlife authorities or citizen science platforms such as iNaturalist.
• Early reporting helps researchers track and manage disease spread.

Never release pet reptiles

• Captive reptiles can carry pathogens which can be harmless to them but devastating to wild populations.
• If you can’t care for your pet reptile, contact an animal rescue organisation or registered rehoming group. Never release pets into the wild.

Observe responsibly

• Avoid handling wild reptiles. In many regions this requires specific permits.
• If you are an authorised and trained handler and must move an animal, ensure your hands and equipment are cleaned between animals and locations.

What’s next?

Our novel findings in free-ranging Australian reptiles from one region in Queensland suggests there may be a hidden crisis.

We’re now surveying reptiles more broadly to understand how widespread these fungal infections are, which species are most at risk, and what environmental conditions favour disease spread.

Left unmanaged, these fungal infections could spread to threatened reptiles such as leaf tailed geckos, blind snakes, earless dragons and Nangur spiny skinks with disastrous consequences.

Understanding these diseases and controlling their spread will be essential if we are to protect Australia’s remarkable reptiles.

Wildlife vet Dr Bertrand Ng contributed to writing this article.

– ref. We discovered lethal new fungal diseases in wild Australian reptiles. It’s time to act fast – https://theconversation.com/we-discovered-lethal-new-fungal-diseases-in-wild-australian-reptiles-its-time-to-act-fast-275817

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/we-discovered-lethal-new-fungal-diseases-in-wild-australian-reptiles-its-time-to-act-fast-275817/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claudia Young, PhD Candidate in Media and Communications, The University of Melbourne

The current season of Married at First Sight is shaping up to be one of the most controversial yet, with the inclusion of Tyson Gordon demonstrating how the manosphere has breached containment.

While the producers and Channel 9 bear some responsibility for who they choose to feature on the show, the problem at hand is much larger than them.

Crash course on the manosphere

The “manosphere” emerged in the 1990s and early 2000s – but gained momentum during Gamergate in 2014. It’s made up of online subcultures – including incels, pick-up artists and “men’s rights activists” – characterised by their virulent misogyny.

Although specific ideologies vary, the manosphere is united by its opposition to feminism and its pseudo-scientific belief in gender essentialism: that gender is innate, and women and men are biologically wired to possess distinct traits.

This worldview sees men as inherently dominant and women as inherently submissive. It ultimately seeks to put both men and women into boxes that limit and control them.

Where these groups were once relegated to niche corners of the internet, in recent years they have been algorithmically amplified – in large part thanks to controversial “manfluencers” such as Andrew Tate – resulting in a wider spread of their beliefs.

Their ideas have found success particular with impressionable boys and young men, especially in a context of increased economic precarity, which the manosphere purports to have the answers to.

According to a 2024 survey of Australian men aged 16 to 34, 15% disagreed with the statement “women deserve equal rights to men” – up from 6% in 2019.

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Read more: The ‘Lost Boys’ of Gen Z: how Trump won the hearts of alienated young men

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From Trump’s appearances on manosphere-adjacent podcasts in the lead-up to the 2025 election, to Elon Musk’s frequent allusions to the “red pill”, the manosphere’s influence on politics and culture is impossible to ignore.

The manosphere infiltrates Australian TV

Married at First Sight (MAFS) is one of Australia’s most popular reality television shows.

Billed as a “social experiment”, the premise is simple: two strangers “marry” each other when they meet for the first time at the altar.

They proceed to live together, undergoing various challenges designed to test their relationship (and manufacture drama), ostensibly mimicking the hurdles they might face as a couple in the real world. At a weekly “commitment ceremony”, participants can choose to stay, or leave.

This season, one of the featured couples is Tyson Gordon and Stephanie Marshall. While both are avowedly “anti-woke”, Tyson in particular has received backlash from both the audience and his trial wife for his rigid expectations.

In addition to not wanting a “feminist who hates men”, he expresses his distaste for women with “a high body count”.

This is a well-trodden line in the manosphere, where a woman’s worth is determined by the number of sexual partners she has had. Men, of course, aren’t held to the same standard. At the same time, when Stephanie tells Tyson she’s never been in a relationship he worries she might be too “frigid”.

On paper, Stephanie is everything Tyson has asked for. Even so, he is put off by her independence and career-focused attitude and quickly dismisses her: “I want […] someone that is submissive and not masculine”.

[embedded content]

The normiefication of fringe views

Tyson is far from the first man in the MAFS franchise to uphold patriarchal views. Every season, one or two self-identified “alpha males” are cast to sow controversy and boost ratings. However, Tyson’s turn of phrase demonstrates the direct influence of the manosphere.

Even if he held misogynistic beliefs before the popularisation of Tate and his ilk, they have nonetheless given him the language to articulate his views. Stephanie recognises this: “It’s giving manosphere,” she says after their wedding.

Despite push-back from Stephanie, other cast members and the audience, Tyson’s casting represents the “normiefication” of the manosphere.

Normiefication precedes normalisation; it exposes the beliefs to a broader audience, but does not necessarily indicate their acceptance. Nonetheless, the exposure itself contributes to the shift of the “Overton window” (the range of views and opinions seen as acceptable by the majority of a population at a given time) towards a culture in which sexist perspectives are deemed legitimate.

By framing women who challenge him as “masculine”, Tyson resurfaces regressive tropes feminism has long fought to overcome – and which the manosphere is working to revive.

[embedded content]

A bigger problem than MAFS

Channel 9 and the producers of MAFS have an ethical duty to protect their participants from harm.

In 2025, the series came under fire for normalising behaviour associated with intimate partner violence. It seems they haven’t learnt their lesson. The pursuit of ratings continues to come at the expense of women.

This is unlikely to change until something horrific happens. In 2021, United Kingdom regulator Ofcom introduced stronger protections for reality television participants following a series of reality star deaths.

The mainstreaming of the manosphere doesn’t begin or end with MAFS. It is indicative of a broader political and cultural trend in which misogyny is being reinstated as an ideological norm. MAFS is helping expedite this process, along with online platform algorithms and far-right political projects.

Combating these narratives is difficult. While improved media literacy may help, it’s only one piece of a complicated puzzle. It is important we continue to push back against such beliefs in whatever way we can, lest women’s civil and political liberties are further eroded.

– ref. ‘I want someone submissive’: Married At First Sight gives the manosphere a prime time slot – https://theconversation.com/i-want-someone-submissive-married-at-first-sight-gives-the-manosphere-a-prime-time-slot-276974

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/i-want-someone-submissive-married-at-first-sight-gives-the-manosphere-a-prime-time-slot-276974/

By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist

Analysts are warning fuel prices are expected to jump in the Pacific following the Israeli and US attacks on Iran, and the retaliatory response by Iran.

Iran borders the Strait of Hormuz, which carries 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supply, and shipments have been suspended following the attacks.

Crude oil prices could climb as high as US$100 per barrel, leading to widespread concerns the Middle East war could precipitate into “a global energy crisis”.

Pacific Island fuel prices are generally high and volatile due to import dependency and shipping distance.

Saul Kanovic, an energy sector analyst at MST Financial in Sydney, told RNZ Pacific the “threat is severe”.

“If the situation doesn’t de-escalate and the passage through [the Strait of Hormuz] remains significantly disrupted, we’re looking at a global energy crisis that we haven’t seen since the 1970s,” Kanovic said.

“This could be bigger than that.”

Isolated nations suffer
Kanovic said that more isolated nations with less diversified economies would suffer from a greater exposure to these price shocks.

“Cost of transport is going to go up from a fuel cost perspective, but we might also see insurance premiums rising.”

In the Pacific, imported fuel is usually paid for by forward contracts in advance, and in bulk orders that can last months, as a hedge against price shocks.

But the impact could embed itself into freight costs, both for shipping and air, which in the Pacific is already relatively high given the distance.

Glen Craig, Vanuatu’s special envoy for international development, told RNZ Pacific the severity of the impact would depend on whether the duration of the conflict outpaced a Pacific nation’s petroleum reserves.

Not yet ‘panicking’
“No one is panicking now, but there is definitely going to be some fuel price increases at some stage,” Craig said.

“We should be okay, but it depends on how big and how long this conflict is going to go for.”

When it hits, Craig said it would likely be reflected in all imported goods on Pacific shelves, as well as tourism and regional travel.

“It’s a bit like if you’re on a busy motorway, and there’s an accident on the road 30 km ahead; it might take half an hour to trickle down to the end, but it eventually gets to you.”

“I would dare say we’re looking at something in maybe four months’ time.”

Papau New Guinea set to ‘definitely benefit’ – minister
Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko saw some potential upside for his country as a petroleum and oil exporter.

“It will definitely benefit PNG, but then there’s the other side, where fuel prices for the domestic market will then go up,” Tkatchenko said.

PNG is predominantly a petroleum gas exporter, with China, Japan and Taiwan as its biggest importers.

With LNG prices impacted by the Middle East, but PNG protected by distance, it leaves a shortage that they can fill.

“Unfortunately, it’s the consumers that will cop it, the people, and they are the ones that end up paying for it,” Tkatchenko said.

“So yeah, it’s good in one way, but definitely won’t help out people in the long run.”

A higher price means a higher tax take. According to its 2025 budget, PNG’s mining and petroleum tax drew in roughly US$971 million, a 16.5 percent increase from 2024.

The MPT, which is linked to gains from the sale of mining and petroleum goods, comprises PNG’s second largest source of tax revenue.

It may put the government in a position where it can commit to supporting consumers through any eventual price shock, as Prime Minister James Marape told local media over the weekend.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/a-global-energy-crisis-fuel-price-hike-looms-for-pacific-amid-iran-war/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Crawford, Adjunct Lecturer at the Centre for Justice, Queensland University of Technology

The 2026 Women’s Asian Cup is the first major women’s soccer tournament Australia has hosted since the groundbreaking 2023 Women’s World Cup.

The 12-team event, which will be held in Perth, Sydney and the Gold Coast, started on Sunday with the Matildas winning their first match against the Philippines. They next play Iran on Thursday night.

The tournament also doubles as a qualifier for the 2027 Women’s World Cup and represents a chance for the Matildas to win a major tournament on home soil.

While there will no doubt be huge interest in the tournament, particularly if the Matildas continue to do well, it is also an opportunity to look at the challenges facing women’s sport in general and women’s soccer in particular in the lead-up to the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

The impact of the 2023 World Cup

The 2023 Women’s World Cup was the largest major women’s sport event Australia has (co-)hosted.

It marked a significant moment in women’s sport in Australia.

It provided a space so welcoming that many self-described sports haters and fans alienated by the hypermasculinity of men’s sports were drawn to it.

It delivered a socially contagious collective experience that was diverse, representative, and feel-good.

It also showed investing in women’s sport is good business.

With more than 1.75 million tickets sold and with television audience figures exceeding even those of the AFL grand final and NRL’s State of Origin, the 2023 tournament set new benchmarks for women’s sport’s visibility and commercialisation.

The Matildas are now one of Australia’s most recognisable and marketable national sports brands. They sell out match after match, outsell Socceroos jerseys 2:1 and have commanded the “Matildas effect” – a byword for perception- and participation-changing influence and gender equality advancement.

The 2026 Women’s Asian Cup, which for the first time features its own mascot and with it accompanying engagement and merchandise opportunities, will want to leverage and extend that inclusiveness, brand and market.

More work needs to be done

While the Matildas specifically and women’s sport internationally – from basketball to ice hockey – have become more popular and more profitable, that hasn’t translated domestically.

The A-League women’s competition suffered a 26% attendance decline in 2024–25 and underinvestment in the league means players are unable to secure full-time, year-round employment.

While outlier top-tier Australian soccer players earn high salaries, 39% of women athletes don’t earn anything from sport.

A 2025 report from Australian soccer’s player development program showed many athletes are struggling with challenges around disordered eating, alcohol and anxiety.

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Read more: The Matildas keep soaring but the league, and players, beneath them are being left behind

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Women coaches also experience more adversity than men.

At a policy and advocacy level, the country’s sole Office for Women in Sport and Recreation has been disbanded by the Victorian government, and Australia still lacks a national strategy for women’s sport.

Bridging the national team-domestic league gap will be front of mind for administrators during and beyond the Women’s Asian Cup to ensure sustainability.

Areas for improvement

There will be no increase to Women’s Asian Cup prize money at the 2026 tournament – it will remain at US$1.8 million (A$2.55 million) shared between the top four teams, the same as 2022.

Compare this with the US$14.8 million ($A21 million) allocated to the men in 2023.

That 88% prize money gap signals much work still needs to be done to facilitate equality.

Media coverage is similarly lagging. While it has increased from the box-ticking “one and done” media coverage of the past, it remains largely event-based.

Social media is plugging the major media gap, raising players’ profiles and providing transformative engagement but it often entails unpaid labour to maintain an online presence.

It also exposes athletes to greater levels of online abuse.

Opportunities on and off the pitch

The 2026 Women’s Asian Cup represents a chance to prove the hype around women’s soccer is more than a one-time thing. Simultaneously, it needs to avoid counterproductive “boom time, again” narratives that emerge about every decade espousing that women’s sport has “made it”.

It also represents an opportunity to take women’s soccer in Australia to the next level.

Despite the Matildas developing a huge fan following and demonstrating much promise, not since the 2010 Asian Cup has the team been able to bring home a trophy.

The 2006 and 2010 Asian Cups (when Australia finished runners-up and champion respectively) showed the Matildas could compete.

The 2023 Women’s World Cup showed the world there was a market.

This year’s Women’s Asian Cup represents a chance to bring the two together as the Matildas seek to realise their potential and ensure sustainability by both filling stadiums and bringing home silverware.

It is a significant opportunity for the team to show it can win both off and on the pitch.

– ref. Matildas effect 2.0? Why the Women’s Asian Cup is a huge moment for Australian soccer – https://theconversation.com/matildas-effect-2-0-why-the-womens-asian-cup-is-a-huge-moment-for-australian-soccer-275428

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/matildas-effect-2-0-why-the-womens-asian-cup-is-a-huge-moment-for-australian-soccer-275428/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kyllie Cripps, Director Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, CI ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women (CEVAW), School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies (SOPHIS), School of Social Sciences (SOSS), Faculty of Arts, Monash University

This article contains references to and the names of people who are now deceased.

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Australia’s latest homicide data lay bare a grim reality for Indigenous women: lethal domestic violence is not abating.

The Australian Institute of Criminology’s report confirms what communities have long known – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are killed at rates up to six times higher than non-Indigenous women, overwhelmingly by intimate partners (76%) or family members.

Just eight weeks into 2026, four more Indigenous women have died violently in such circumstances, including the devastating Lake Cargelligo killings of Sophie Quinn along with her unborn child, “baby Troy”, her partner and her aunt, Nerida Quinn.

For grieving families, the questions are raw: are we just another statistic? Will there be justice? And what does justice even mean?

Over-representation is entrenched

The institute’s National Homicide Monitoring Program offers a stark longitudinal picture: 574 Indigenous women killed from 1989 to 2025, with at least two-thirds killed by an intimate partner (based on reports from previous years). There’s no significant downward trend.

Since the institute began tracking the victimisation rate in 2011, Indigenous women have remained far more likely to be killed than non-Indigenous women.

Yet as the 2024 Senate Inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children found, quantitative data alone do not translate to justice. Systemic racism in policing, inadequate investigations and “woefully inaccurate” records compound the loss families experience.

The Lake Cargelligo case exemplifies this crisis. The alleged shooter, Julian Ingram – Sophie Quinn’s former partner – remains at large after the deaths of Sophie, her unborn child, her aunt and her partner. The community is in both fear and mourning.

Media fixation on the manhunt often eclipses the brunt of the devastation. Sophie and Nerida were daughters, mothers, aunties and kin. John Harris was a brother, son and partner. They were not just abstract victims.

A fragmented system

Beyond the killings, families face a labyrinthine aftermath. There’s no single agency to guide them through criminal processes, trials (if it gets that far), coronial inquests, death reviews, media scrutiny and social media storms.

Fragmented services – such as state-based victim support to time-limited counselling – demand families navigate complicated systems largely on their own when they are most vulnerable.

Coronial processes are often criticised as culturally unsafe and re-traumatising. These can take place after criminal proceedings, sometimes years later, and can prolong trauma.

Indigenous families report feeling the stories of their loved ones being silenced or stigmatised, or only partial narratives being shared. These public versions can clash with the memories they have of their loved ones.

In New Zealand, the Family Violence Death Review Committee has advocated a “super-advocate” model with dedicated cultural support.

Here in Australia, even landmark inquests into Indigenous women’s deaths yield slow government responses, or none at all, leaving families to contest public stories alone.

Public discourse often reduces Indigenous women to pathology or risk, disregarding the kinship webs that defined them as loving and valued members of our communities. They deserve to be honoured as so many other Australian women have been: through dignified memorials, public acknowledgement and stories of their full humanity.

But sadly, as First Nations women, we are not. Without a mandated advocate to shield families and centre Indigenous accounts through the aftermath of a homicide, grief becomes a rollercoaster of conflicting portrayals.

Narrative sovereignty means Indigenous families hold the reins on the stories told about their loved ones. This allows First Nations people to craft, share and protect their people with the respect and ethical care kinship demands.

A dedicated “holding agency”, activated immediately upon a death, would provide a mechanism for this.

While the NZ model does not specifically state this, an Australian model could field media requests, coach families on securing social media accounts against trolls and speculation, and curate all public messaging on the family’s terms and timeline.

This isn’t just public relations. It’s trauma-informed stewardship that safeguards physical safety, honours grief’s nonlinear pace and ensures these women are never reduced to clickbait.

Words need action

There is progress being made, albeit slowly. The newly released National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Plan to End Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence is a crucial step forward.

Called “Our Ways, Strong Ways, Our Voices”, it explicitly honours our missing and murdered women and children, and commits to supporting their families through culturally grounded, community-led responses.

Yet until an action plan emerges to translate this intent into resourced, measurable steps, these remain powerful words on a page, at risk of joining the shelf of unfulfilled commitments alongside the Senate inquiry’s “toothless” recommendations.

For too many Indigenous families, justice has come to mean a perpetrator’s arrest and conviction – if that even happens – followed by a coronial finding filed away. There’s no restoration for the community rupture or protection for those still at risk.

It’s a narrow, carceral lens that measures success by court outcomes, not by whether the Quinn family or the Lake Cargelligo community as a whole can heal or feel safer.

Another round of inquiries, such as the petition calling for a Royal Commission into the killing of Australian women and girls, simply kicks the can down the road.

Indigenous women need action now. We cannot wait while others debate process when we’ve already endured countless reviews without meaningful change.

True justice would honour culturally-led healing. It would allow Indigenous families to tell their own stories and break cycles before another mother and unborn child is lost.

Governments must urgently develop and fund an action plan to support Our Ways, Strong Ways, Our Voices. They should also look at how else to support Indigenous families when they’re affected by death and violence.

The homicide data and Senate findings are not endpoints, but calls to action. We must honour these women by ensuring justice means safety, accountability and dignity for those who remain. Until then, families’ questions will be left unanswered, and the statistics will climb.

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13YARN is a free and confidential 24/7 national crisis support line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are feeling overwhelmed or having difficulty coping. Call 13 92 76.

– ref. Too many Indigenous women are killed by domestic violence. They are more than just numbers – https://theconversation.com/too-many-indigenous-women-are-killed-by-domestic-violence-they-are-more-than-just-numbers-276264

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/too-many-indigenous-women-are-killed-by-domestic-violence-they-are-more-than-just-numbers-276264/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carolyn Nickson, Principal Research Fellow, Cancer Elimination Collaboration, University of Sydney; The University of Melbourne

At least 20,000 Australian women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. And more than 3,300 die from the disease.

To save women’s lives, we need to detect breast cancer early. Breast screening, which halves women’s risk of dying from breast cancer, is key to that.

A new Australian study published today in The Lancet Digital Health suggests AI could help improve how we screen for breast cancer.

How do we currently screen for breast cancer?

Since 1992, Australia has offered free breast X-rays, known as mammograms, every two years to women aged between 50 and 74. Just over half of eligible women participate.

Of the women found to have cancer, about 25% are diagnosed between the biennial screens. These “interval cancers” are often aggressive and, unfortunately, more likely to be fatal.

In some cases, a more sensitive screening test may have detected them earlier.

The role of AI

Australia’s BreastScreen program was established in response to several major clinical trials conducted between the 1960s and 1980s. The screening technology used by the program has not substantially changed since then.

Researchers are now exploring risk-adjusted screening, which tailors screening to women based on their risk, as a way to detect more cancers earlier. This may include programs offering different technologies for women at higher risk of developing breast cancer.

Currently, we generally assess cancer risk via questionnaires that help identify if a woman has any risk factors associated with breast cancer.

One risk factor is breast density which refers to how much glandular tissue is in the breast. As well as being a risk factor for breast cancer, the higher a woman’s breast density, the harder it is to detect cancer on a mammogram.

We can also use one-off genetic testing to identify women with a higher lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. This involves looking for high-risk gene mutations such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are associated with increased breast and ovarian cancer risk. Genetic testing can also help us estimate a person’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer.

More recently, researchers have been investigating artificial intelligence (AI) as a new approach to assess breast cancer risk. A new Australian study, published in The Lancet Digital Health today, focused on a specific AI tool known as BRAIx.

What did the study involve? And what did it find?

This study used an AI tool, known as BRAIx, trained using BreastScreen Australia data to help radiologists assess mammograms.

The study assessed how well BRAIx predicted women’s risk of developing breast cancer in the next four years, among women who had a clear mammogram.

Of the 95,823 Australian women assessed, 1.1% (1,098) had developed breast cancer in the four years after they received a clear mammogram. Of the 4,430 Swedish women assessed, 6.9% had developed breast cancer within two years of a clear screen.

The study findings show that BRAIx scores were very useful for identifying women who were more likely to develop cancer one to two years after having a clear screen. Findings from the Australian dataset suggest BRAIx scores identified cancers found three to four years later, but with less accuracy.

These findings suggest BRAIx could help identify women who might benefit from additional tests. This may include an MRI (which uses a magnetic field to produce images of organs and tissue) or contrast-enhanced mammography (which uses an iodine dye to improve the visibility of a regular mammogram).

These findings reinforce a 2024 Swedish study that used an AI-based risk assessment to select women for additional testing. The researchers referred 7% of women to have a follow-up MRI, and 6.5% of were found to have cancers missed by mammograms.

Does the study have any limitations?

As with most studies, yes. Here are two.

• it’s difficult to compare BRAIx to genetic testing. This is because BRAIx is trained to find missed or emerging cancers over a four year period. In contrast, genetic testing identifies a person’s risk of developing cancer over their lifetime

• it might not use the best breast density data. This study found BRAIx more accurately predicts breast cancer risk compared to assessments based on breast density. But this breast density data was collected using a different tool to those used by the Breastscreen program. So this finding should be interpreted carefully.

So, where to from here?

The study adds to a growing body of evidence that AI risk assessment could help breast screening programs find cancers earlier.

BRAIx is now being trialled as part of the BreastScreen Victoria program, to help read mammograms. And other states are already using and evaluating different AI tools for reading mammograms.

So it may be time for Australia to conduct a national, independent review of these new tools. As part of a more risk-adjusted approach to breast screening, they could save lives.

– ref. AI could help us more accurately screen for breast cancer – new research – https://theconversation.com/ai-could-help-us-more-accurately-screen-for-breast-cancer-new-research-277079

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/ai-could-help-us-more-accurately-screen-for-breast-cancer-new-research-277079/

The US objective is not the security of the American people. The objective is global hegemony. The attempt is to destroy the UN and the international rule of law — an attempt that will fail, warn the authors.

ANALYSIS: By Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares

On February 16, 2026, one of us (Jeffrey Sachs) sent a letter to the UN Security Council warning that the United States was on the verge of tearing up the United Nations Charter.

That warning has now come to pass. The United States and Israel have launched an unprovoked war against Iran in flagrant violation of Article 2(4) of the Charter, without authorisation from the Security Council, and without any legitimate claim of self-defence under Article 51.

They are trying to kill the UN Charter and the international rule of law, but they will fail.

At the Security Council on February 28, 2026, the US and its allies directed their condemnation not at the American and Israeli aggression, but at Iran.

One US ally after the next condemned Iran for its retaliatory attacks yet absurdly failed to condemn the illegal and unprovoked US-Israeli attack on Iran. This performance by these countries was disgraceful and turned reality completely upside down.

The joint US-Israeli attacks were described by Trump as necessary because Iran “rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.”

This is of course a flat lie. As the letter of February 16 recounted, Iran agreed a decade ago to a nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was adopted by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2231.

Trump ripped up agreement
It was Trump who ripped up the agreement in 2018. In June 2025, Israel bombed Iran in the midst of US-Iran negotiations.

This time too, the Israel-US war plans were set weeks ago when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump, and the negotiations underway between the US and Iran were a charade. This seems to be the new modus operandi of the US: start negotiations and then aim to murder the counterparts.

It is easy to understand why the US allies behave in the embarrassing and self-abasing way they did at the UN Security Council. In addition to the United States, eight of the other 14 Council members host US military bases or grant the US military access to local bases: Bahrain, Colombia, Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, Panama, and the United Kingdom.

These countries are not fully sovereign. They are partially governed by the US. The US military bases house CIA operations, and the host countries constantly look over their shoulder to try to avoid US subversion in their own countries.

As Henry Kissinger famously said, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be its friend is fatal.” We can add that to host US military bases and CIA operations is to turn your country into a vassal state.

As an absurd but telling example, the Danish ambassador parroted every US talking point, pointing her finger at Iran for its aggression as if Iran had not been attacked by the US and Israel.

She completely forgot that such humiliating vassalage to the US will not play well for Denmark if the US occupies Greenland.

Truthful voices at UN
The truthful voices at the Security Council came from the countries not occupied by the United States. Russia explained correctly that the so-called West (that is, the countries occupied by the US) is engaged in victim-blaming when it points its finger at Iran.

China reminded the Council that the crisis began with the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, not with Iran’s retaliation.

Somalia’s ambassador, speaking on behalf of several African member states, truthfully portrayed the source of this recent escalation.

The UN Representative of the League of Arab States spoke brilliantly about the root cause of Israel’s mad aggression: the denial of rights to Palestinian people, and Israel’s use of mass murder and regional war to prevent the emergence of a State of Palestine.

When Iran retaliates against US military bases in the Gulf, it is exercising its inherent right of self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter. We must remember that the US and Israel are openly and repeatedly assassinating Iran’s leaders, with the aim of overthrowing its government.

When states murder a foreign head of state and attempt to destroy the government, the target of those threats is entitled under international law to defend itself.

The US-Israeli bombing murdered not only Iran’s Supreme Leader and several top government officials, but also more than 165 young girls in their school in Minab. These young children are the victims of a horrific war crime.

Complicit in war crime
The countries that gave a UN Security Council pass to the United States and Israel for these killings — notably Denmark, France, Latvia, the United Kingdom, and of course the US — are also complicit in this war crime.

This UN Security Council emergency meeting will likely be remembered as the day the United Nations ceased to function from its headquarters on American soil. An international organisation dedicated to the peaceful settlement of disputes cannot credibly operate from a country that wages illegal wars, threatens member states with annihilation, and treats UN Security Council resolutions as disposable instruments of convenience.

For the UN to survive, and we need it to survive, it will need several homes around the world — in Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and others — honouring the true multipolarity of our world.

Let us be clear about what the United States and Israel are pursuing. The US objective is not the security of the American people. The objective is global hegemony. The attempt is to destroy the UN and the international rule of law—an attempt that will fail.

Israel’s objective is to establish a Greater Israel, destroy the Palestinian people, and assert its hegemony over hundreds of millions of Arabs across the Middle East (from the Nile to the Euphrates, as US Ambassador Mike Huckabee recently asserted).

The United States’ delusional efforts at global hegemony are proceeding region by region. The US has recently claimed, in a wholly twisted supposed revival of the Monroe Doctrine, that it controls the Western Hemisphere and can dictate how Latin American countries conduct their economic and political affairs.

The US kidnapped the sitting Venezuelan president to prove the point, and it now threatens to overthrow the Cuban government as well.

US ‘owns Middle East’
Today’s war against Iran aims to prove that the US similarly owns the Middle East. The war is part of a 30-year campaign, initiated by the Clean Break doctrine, to overthrow all governments that oppose US and Israeli hegemony in the region.

Those joint Israel-US wars have included the genocide in Gaza, the occupation of the West Bank and the decades of wars and regime-change operations in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

One part of the US global plan is to commandeer the world’s oil exports and to weaken China and Russia in the process. The US seizure of Venezuela was designed to ensure American control of that country’s oil exports, especially to control the flow of oil to China.

US sanctions on Russia aim to prevent Russian oil from reaching India and China. Now the US aims to stop the flow of Iran’s oil to China. More broadly, the US aims to control the entire Gulf region plus Iran to maintain its imperial dominance.

The international order that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt helped to build after the catastrophe of the Second World War was founded on a simple and profound idea — that law and respect, not force, should govern relations among states. That idea is now being destroyed by the very nation that did most to promote it in founding the UN. The irony is bitter beyond measure.

The truth is that the devastation of the war will not directly affect the so-called West: their children will not suffer traumas or death, and their countries will not be set ablaze. The victims of this attack are the people of the Middle East. They are the expendable ones who suffer from Western arrogance, abuse of power, and addiction to war.

We close with two observations. First, the United States will not achieve global hegemony or kill the UN. The world is too large, too diverse, and too determined to resist domination by any single power, much less one with 4 percent of the world’s population.

World outside US
The world outside of the US and the countries it occupies want the UN to live and thrive. The US attempt will surely fail, but it may cause immense suffering before it does.

Second, if Israel continues its addiction to war and occupation, it too will not survive. That addiction represents a mix of theocracy and post-traumatic stress.

Part of Israel believes that it is the biblical kingdom of the 5th century BC. The other part lives in the traumatic memory of the Holocaust, and so is determined to kill any perceived adversary rather than learn to live together with it in peace.

The Israeli Ambassador’s twisted defence of Israel’s brazen attack on Iran, as usual, cited the Bible and Auschwitz as the two justifications. These are Israel’s two perennial references, but not the real world of today.

A state that depends on permanent war, permanent occupation and slaughter of the Palestinians, and the indefinite subjugation of millions of people has no viable future, and the policies that the United States is now pursuing on Israel’s behalf will accelerate rather than prevent that outcome.

The two-state solution, which the Council has endorsed repeatedly, offers Israel a path to peace. Tragically Israel rejects that. The result, eventually, will be the end of Israel itself in its current form, especially as the US population is rapidly turning against Israel’s violent theocracy and towards the cause of Palestine.

Perhaps there will be one democratic state for both Arabs and Jews living in peace, together, with an end of apartheid rule.

These are harsh truths, but emergencies demand honesty. The UN is being murdered by Israel and the United States. The Security Council must rouse itself from their military occupation by the US, and remember that they are the stewards of the UN Charter’s promise to maintain international peace and security.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed the Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. Sybil Fares is a specialist and advisor in Middle East policy and sustainable development at SDSN.

Republished under Creative Commons.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/this-illegal-us-israeli-attack-on-iran-is-also-an-assault-on-the-united-nations/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago

The National-led coalition government missed a clear opportunity to defend the international rules-based order in its response to the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

It was a glaring omission, given New Zealand and most countries rely heavily on that system to rein in the worst excesses of power.

Under article 51 of the UN Charter, states have the legal right to use force in self-defence in response to an armed attack.

But neither the US nor Israel was being attacked when they launched widespread air strikes on Iran’s missile infrastructure, military sites and senior leadership on February 28.

Indeed, just two days earlier in Geneva, the US had concluded a round of negotiations with Iran on its nuclear programme. The talks were reportedly positive, with both sides agreeing to meet again.

An exception to international restrictions on the use of force does allow a state to respond to an “imminent threat”.

However, while the Trump administration and the Israeli government have claimed their attacks were preemptive, there is little or no evidence to indicate Iran was on the verge of threatening either country.

Indeed, after a 12-day war with Iran last year, Israel claimed to have destroyed half of Iran’s missile stockpiles. The US – which briefly entered the war on Israel’s side – claimed it had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.

Confusing cause and effect

Given all this, the ongoing attacks by the US and Israel – which have also killed Iran’s head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – have to be viewed as illegal, premeditated and a further erosion of an international rules-based order.

But New Zealand’s measured diplomatic response has largely failed to recognise that reality.

The recent government statement released by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters assigned responsibility for the escalating crisis largely to Iran.

The statement had nothing to say about whether the actions taken by the US and Israel were illegal. It maintained the attacks “were designed to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security”.

In contrast, the government condemned “in the strongest terms Iran’s indiscriminate retaliatory attacks on Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan”.

Not only did this appear to confuse cause and effect, it also seemed contradictory. While the statement implied the US-Israeli attacks were justified, it still called for “a resumption of negotiations” and “adherence to international law”.

The confusion was amplified by Christopher Luxon claimed when he said, “we understand fully why the Americans and Israelis have undertaken the independent action” – but that it was up to the US and Israel to explain the legal basis for the attack.

Middle-power impotence

New Zealand’s tentative response has overlapped considerably with its allies, but there have also been differences.

Australia, Canada and the UK have similarly declined to question the legality of the attacks, and have largely blamed the repressive clerical regime in Iran for creating a climate that led to the current crisis.

Official statements from those countries have condemned the Iranian regime for killing thousands of innocent protesters, attempting to destabilise the region, launching indiscriminate retaliatory strikes and pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.

Britain refrained from explicitly backing the US-Israeli action, but has subsequently agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites.

Unlike New Zealand and the UK, Australia and Canada have publicly expressed “support” for the US – but not Israeli – efforts “to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security”.

Despite Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent speech at the World Economic Forum where he argued middle and small powers were not “powerless” in the current global context, his stance on Iran belies such rhetoric.

Carney now finds himself in the curious position of aligning Canada with Donald Trump’s war against Iran while his own country is periodically threatened with invasion by the US.

Not in NZ’s interests

On balance, the New Zealand government has failed to demonstrate the moral and legal clarity that the escalating crisis in the Middle East now requires.

If it is consoling itself that US-Israeli aggression is somehow acceptable when applied to the repressive and cruel regime in Teheran, it should be wary of accepting the aggressors’ words at face value.

Rather than having intervened militarily to improve human rights or enforce international law, it seems likelier the quest for regime change is motivated more by a desire to back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans for a recast Middle East.

That ambition involves Israel’s regional dominance, expansion into the Occupied Territories, and excludes a Palestinian state – none of which New Zealand’s official foreign policy supports.

– ref. The US-Israel attack on Iran paints NZ foreign policy into a corner – https://theconversation.com/the-us-israel-attack-on-iran-paints-nz-foreign-policy-into-a-corner-277226

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/the-us-israel-attack-on-iran-paints-nz-foreign-policy-into-a-corner-277226/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeremie M Bracka, Law Lecturer and Transitional Justice Academic, RMIT University

As both the federal government and states across the country pass laws cracking down on hate speech, there’s been much debate about where to draw the line on what can and can’t be said.

A Victorian tribunal has drawn that line in a landmark decision. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has found chanting “all Zionists are terrorists” at a Melbourne rally amounted to unlawful racial and religious vilification.

In the case, called Vorchheimer vs Tayeh, Vice President Judge Tran held that initiating the chant at a pro-Palestinian protest breached parts of Victoria’s Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.

The detailed ruling sheds light on how some judges are approaching these complicated questions. Here’s what it said.

What the tribunal found

The tribunal was not asked to rule on Zionism or Israel’s military actions. Its task was narrower: whether leading the chant “all Zionists are terrorists” at a large Melbourne rally was likely to incite “hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule” against Jewish people on racial or religious grounds.

Judge Tran focused on three words.

The first was “terrorists”. She described this as “one of the most extremely negative labels it is possible to attach to a person”, someone “against whom violent action is justified” and whom it is “societally acceptable to hate”.

The next word was “Zionists”. The tribunal accepted “Zionist does not mean Jew”. But it found the term carries “a deep connection with Jewish people” in historical and statistical terms.

Evidence to the tribunal showed most Australian Jews identify as Zionist in some form. Judge Tran concluded there was likely a “very strong association” between Zionists and Jewish people in the minds of rally participants.

And finally, the word “all”. The word carried “the spectre of de-individuation, a hallmark of racism”. There was “no permission for shades of grey or human complexity”.

In assessing legality, the tribunal considered the full rally context, including Holocaust imagery and antisemitic tropes on placards. Although the signs did not explicitly name Jews, the tribunal found repeated Nazi and Holocaust references strengthened the association between “Zionists” and Jewish identity in the minds of participants.

The tribunal also noted an “observable antisemitic and pro-violent presence” at the rally. In that setting, chanting “all Zionists are terrorists” did not operate as abstract political critique. Its “natural and ordinary effect” was to “tip many rally participants over the threshold into hatred directed towards Jewish people”.

Political vs personal

The tribunal stressed that the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act is not concerned with outlawing criticism.

Hasheam Tayeh, who said the phrase in question, argued he was engaging in political protest.

But the tribunal held there is “no right to a catchy rally slogan” if it is inherently likely to incite hatred.

The chant was not confined to criticising the Israeli government after October 7 2023. It was directed, at a minimum, against “all supporters of the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state”, the court found.

Given the tribunal’s finding that the vast majority of Australian Jews identify as Zionist in some form, the chant was therefore likely to stir hostility toward a group closely associated with Jewish identity.

The political protest defence therefore failed because the conduct was not shown to be reasonable and in good faith. The boundary is clear: speech may attack ideas, but not stir hostility against people because of who they are.

Why this matters nationally

The Victorian tribunal has drawn a clear doctrinal line. Labelling an undifferentiated group closely associated with Jewish identity as “terrorists” can amount to unlawful vilification.

Although decided by a Victorian tribunal rather than a superior court, the reasoning is likely to resonate nationally.

Most Australian jurisdictions prohibit racial vilification. At the federal level, section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act sets a lower threshold: conduct reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” on racial grounds.

The decision comes amid a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across Australia since late 2023, with community bodies reporting record levels of threats, vandalism and intimidation.

The Bondi terror attack, which targeted a Hanukkah gathering, intensified national concern about extremist rhetoric and community safety.

Against that backdrop, courts are increasingly being asked to distinguish protest from incitement.

Words in real life

But the decision contrasts with the Federal Court ruling last year in a case called Wertheim v Haddad.

In this case, the court, which is superior in the court hierarchy to the Victorian tirbunal, found certain lectures by preacher William Haddad conveyed antisemitic imputations, including claims that Jews control the media and politicians and that “the Jewish people are filthy”.

Yet other remarks criticising Israel and “Zionists” were treated as political commentary.

In the Victorian case, Judge Tran did not treat “Zionist” as an abstract ideological label. She examined how it functioned in social and historical context, including the antisemitic atmosphere in which the chant was delivered.

One approach parses language semantically. The other asks how it lands in real life.

In a climate where extremist rhetoric has intersected with real-world violence including reports that alleged Bondi attacker Naveed Akram was allegedly a follower of preacher Haddad, context is not theoretical. It can matter.

Context with consequences

The ruling will feed into the ongoing debate about how Australia regulates hate speech. It shows existing laws can address coded vilification, not only explicit slurs.

At the same time, the tribunal was careful: criticism of Israel is not unlawful, nor is opposition to Zionism automatically hate speech.

The legal line is crossed when rhetoric assigns a heinous criminal identity to an entire class of people closely associated with a racial or religious group, in circumstances where hatred is the likely result.

In a polarised environment, that boundary will remain contested. But this decision signals that courts will look beyond labels and ask how language operates in context. And in the real world, context can have consequences.

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Correction: a previous version of this article incorrectly attributed the case to a court. It was in fact heard in a tribunal. The text has been amended to reflect this.

– ref. A tribunal has drawn a clear line on antisemitic hate speech. Here’s what it said – https://theconversation.com/a-tribunal-has-drawn-a-clear-line-on-antisemitic-hate-speech-heres-what-it-said-277095

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/a-tribunal-has-drawn-a-clear-line-on-antisemitic-hate-speech-heres-what-it-said-277095/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Edele, Hansen Professor in History, The University of Melbourne

Four years ago, Vladimir Putin escalated his war against Ukraine to an all-out assault. The plan was for a quick and lively campaign and a speedy takeover of a country the Russian president thought shouldn’t exist.

Victory would reassert Russia’s status and hasten a shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world; instead of one great power (the United States), we’d have several. Russia would, of course, become one of the “greats”.

So, how’d that go?

Four years on, Russia has not found itself among fellow great powers willing to divide up the globe.

A middle power despite its great power cravings, Russia has instead been forced into a growing dependence on China while having to deal with a multitude of hostile middle powers, which often thwart its ambitions.

A greater failure is hard to imagine.

Careful what you wish for

In recent days, Russia had to watch on helplessly as the US and Israel – following Russia’s playbook – ignored international law and attacked Iran, a close Russian ally.

When Iran’s foreign minister asked his Russian counterpart for help, Sergei Lavrov sounded more like a European politician than an advocate for a new world order.

He condemned the “unprovoked act of armed aggression […] in direct violation of the fundamental principles and norms of international law”. He called for a “peaceful solution based in international law, mutual respect and a balanced consideration of interests”.

As The Guardian put it, Russia has found out a

rejection of the old rules of geopolitics have not necessarily played into its favour.

Russia underestimated the extent to which the old order gave it room to manoeuvre. Then, as long as others played by the rules, breaking them could give Russia a tactical advantage.

But once others also opted for raw power, the limits of Russia’s abilities became obvious.

Reality checks

The first reality check came on the battlefield.

Russia lost the battle of Kyiv, had to retreat from much of what it had occupied in the north of Ukraine, and was forced into a grinding war of attrition in the east.

Ukraine lost big swathes of territory in the south, which allowed Russia to establish a land bridge between Donbas and Crimea (which it illegally occupied in 2014).

But Ukraine’s government retained control of 80% of its territory. It also held onto its use of the Black Sea, a vital link to world markets.

Unable to advance meaningfully on the ground, Russia tried a criminal air war targeting civilian infrastructure, hoping to freeze Ukraine into submission.

Such tactics rarely work, but do cause untold misery and suffering for civilians.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is fending off Russia’s attempt to enforce Ukraine’s capitulation at the negotiating table.

Being a great power isn’t cheap

All Russia’s efforts are complicated by the emerging multipolar world order it had so desperately hoped to conjure into being.

Ukraine has been supported by a coalition of middle powers that are slowly finding their feet in this new reality.

Russia has discovered the hard way that its geopolitical fantasy of being a great power in this new multipolar world order comes with one tiny problem: it can’t afford it.

Its population is both declining and ageing. Its GDP (adjusted to purchasing power) is in the same ballpark as that of Japan or Germany (rather than the much larger India, to say nothing of the US or China).

And its economy is dominated by hydrocarbon exports destined for a bleak future in a quickly decarbonising world.

As one of the most consequential middle powers of the Euro-Asian landmass, with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and a sizeable military armed with nuclear weapons, it could cause significant damage trying to assert its desired great power status.

But the results were opposite to intentions.

From bad to worse

Unable to subdue Ukraine, Russia’s power projection suffered elsewhere. Its once-close relationship with Israel is on the rocks. It lost its foothold in Syria and has proved unable to support its allies in Iran and Venezuela.

In a lawless international order, it is too inconsequential to dictate the play.

While US President Donald Trump at times treats Putin as an equal, nobody else does.

True, China has celebrated a “no-limits partnership” with Russia, its biggest neighbour.

But it neither took clear sides in Russia’s Ukraine war, nor sent weapons. Instead, Beijing used Russia’s isolation to cement a relationship in which it clearly has the upper hand.

India increased its purchase of Russian oil (now at a steep discount) and continued to buy Russian weapons, but as part of a multi-vector geopolitical strategy.

Rather than a fellow great power, India saw Russia as an opportunity to be exploited in its ongoing quest for an autonomous foreign policy.

Fantasy and reality

Ukraine, meanwhile, lost the clear support from the US it had enjoyed at the start of the war, but has been supported financially and militarily by a flexible coalition of middle powers.

According to the latest data, the nearly US$75 billion (A$105 billion) in military aid the US has provided since the start of the war has amounted to only 30% of the total tally.

The remaining 70%, and all ongoing military support in the past 12 months, came from middle and smaller powers, led by Germany (20%), the United Kingdom (9%), Norway (8%) and Sweden (7%).

Thus, Russia’s war on Ukraine did hasten the emergence of a multipolar world.

It just wasn’t the one Russia had in mind.

– ref. Russia wanted a new world order. This wasn’t the one it had in mind – https://theconversation.com/russia-wanted-a-new-world-order-this-wasnt-the-one-it-had-in-mind-277195

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/russia-wanted-a-new-world-order-this-wasnt-the-one-it-had-in-mind-277195/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia J Rucklidge, Professor of Psychology, University of Canterbury

Irritability is one of the most common and distressing problems teenagers and their families face.

Its main symptom is an excessive reaction to negative emotional stimuli, resulting in temper outbursts and severe irritable mood.

While current treatment options such as psychotherapy and medications are helpful for some, they can be inaccessible or poorly tolerated.

Our new research, based on a double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial, shows broad-spectrum micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) can significantly reduce severe irritability in teenagers. Teens with severely disruptive behaviour experienced especially large improvements.

This offers a safe, scalable and biologically grounded alternative to conventional psychiatric treatments.

Urgent need for more effective treatments

Irritability cuts across many psychiatric presentations, including anxiety, depression, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other disruptive behaviour disorders.

The need for interventions that directly target irritability, have fewer side effects and are available to all communities is urgent.

Statistics on mental health in young people are especially concerning. Youth mental health has been declining globally over the past two decades and has now reached a “dangerous phase”, according to a Lancet commission.

Despite this, research consistently highlights a lack of effective and accessible treatments for severely irritable youth. This suggests a significant unmet public health need.

Our research findings are based on the Balancing Emotions of Adolescents with Micronutrients (BEAM) trial, in which 132 unmedicated teenagers (aged 12 to 17) with moderate to severe irritability were randomly assigned to micronutrients (taken as four pills three times a day) or an active placebo for eight weeks. They were monitored monthly online by a clinical psychologist.

The placebo response was high, suggesting that simply participating in the study helped many teens feel able to improve their behaviour. But micronutrients still outperformed the placebo across key clinical measures such as irritability, emotional reactivity and overall improvement.

We saw the strongest effects in teenagers with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD), with 64% responding to micronutrients compared to 12.5% on placebo. This demonstrates an unusually large effect for a psychiatric intervention.

Parents of participants receiving micronutrients rated the teens’ conduct and prosocial behaviour much higher compared with those of teens on placebo.

Micronutrient treatment was also associated with more rapid improvements in clinician‑rated irritability, parent‑reported dysphoria and teen‑reported quality of life, stress and prosocial behaviours.

One of the most notable and reassuring findings was that suicidal ideation, which about a quarter of study participants reported at the start of the trial, improved over time for both groups, but with a greater change for teens on micronutrients. Self-harm behaviour also decreased for both groups.

Only one side effect differed significantly between groups: diarrhoea was more common on micronutrients (20.9%) than placebo (6.2%). But this side effect was typically temporary and resolved by taking the nutrients with food and water.

A minority (fewer than 10%) found swallowing pills a challenge. Other side effects reported equally in both groups included occasional headaches, stomach aches or a dry mouth. These tended to dissipate within the first few weeks.

Socioeconomic background matters

The response to treatment was moderated by the teens’ socioeconomic status.

Participants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to benefit from micronutrients. This is particularly meaningful for both clinical practice and public health.

Lower socioeconomic status is typically associated with greater exposure to nutritional insufficiencies, chronic stress, reduced access to health services and higher rates of mental health difficulties.

Our findings suggest micronutrients may help address underlying nutritional vulnerabilities that may be more prevalent or more severe in disadvantaged groups.

This pattern also indicates that micronutrient supplementation, if publicly funded, could function as a low‑cost, scalable intervention, with the potential to reduce health inequities.

Many evidence‑based psychosocial or pharmacological treatments require resources – time, transportation, specialist access – that disproportionately disadvantage lower‑income families.

In our trial, all meetings between the psychologist and the teen with their family were conducted online and the micronutrients were couriered across the country, making this intervention accessible, particularly to rural communities.

Micronutrients may represent an intervention that is both accessible and responsive to the specific needs of youth who are most at risk yet often least well served by traditional care pathways.

This study was developed alongside Māori health providers and fits within a tikanga (traditional) Māori framework. It had a high percentage of Māori participants (27%) and worked closely with them, their families and health providers to assist in improving mental health outcomes.

The BEAM trial provides robust evidence that a simple nutritional approach can meaningfully improve symptoms, including emotional reactivity, conduct difficulties and even suicidal ideation.

These results are relevant for parents, clinicians, teachers and policymakers seeking safe and practical interventions, especially for young people who cannot access or do not respond well to existing treatments. The results also highlight important equity implications, as teens from lower income families showed stronger responses.

Our results cast a new lens on the cause of some psychiatric problems, often conceptualised as chemical imbalances or family dysfunction. They reframe some cases of irritability as a possible nutritional and metabolic vulnerability, one that might be addressed with greater attention to the quality of our food alongside some supplementation with broad-spectrum micronutrients.

– ref. Severe irritability in teens can be reduced by daily doses of vitamins and minerals – new research – https://theconversation.com/severe-irritability-in-teens-can-be-reduced-by-daily-doses-of-vitamins-and-minerals-new-research-276497

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/severe-irritability-in-teens-can-be-reduced-by-daily-doses-of-vitamins-and-minerals-new-research-276497/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Vaughan, Rock Art Australia Kimberley Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of people who have died.

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Much of the conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) and Indigenous peoples focuses on harms, such as cultural appropriation, cultural flattening and digital exclusion. These risks are real.

But behind them sits an assumption that rarely gets challenged: because Aboriginal cultures are ancient, they must be static. Rooted firmly in the past, to stay there. That they cannot adapt to something as disruptive as generative AI.

This misreads tens of thousands of years of history. And it misses something our work with Traditional Owners in the Kimberley in Western Australia has made increasingly clear: Indigenous cultures are not only capable of adapting to AI – the way they have always held and transmitted knowledge may make them natural users of it.

‘Say it properly’

When I (Liz) first began working with Wororra people in the Kimberley, the late Janet Oobagooma taught me Wororra words. A senior cultural Elder for the Dambimangari community, she was exacting. When I got tongue-tied, she would growl at me: “If you’re gonna talk, say it properly”.

That strictness is structural, not personal. Wororra is an oral language. There is no written form to fall back on.

All societal laws, historical records, kinship information and cultural practices accumulated over millennia must be held in living memory – encoded across an entire population in songs, mythology, art, dance and ceremony. Nothing is filed in a single place. Everything is distributed, collectively maintained, and must be practised to survive.

This is fundamentally different from Western text-based, institutionalised knowledge systems.

And it raises a practical question: if oral knowledge was never meant to be read off a page, are libraries and archives really the best way to return it to the communities it belongs to?

Locked away in archives

The renowned Wororra lawman Sam Woolagoodja – co-author Francis Woolagoodja’s grandfather – worked with anthropologists, filmmakers and linguists over decades. Among them were missionary linguist Howard Coate, filmmaker Michael Edols, and bush adventurer Malcolm Douglas, who filmed Sam repainting Wandjina rock art at Raft Point.

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Over more than 40 years Sam shared cultural knowledge with these researchers. The recordings, field notes and translations captured during this period contribute some of the most detailed documentation of Wororra culture in existence.

Today, this material sits in institutions across the country, thousands of kilometres from the communities it belongs to.

This isn’t only a matter of preservation. For Aboriginal corporations managing Country, this data informs modern governance. Genealogies determine who speaks for Country. Heritage records shape native title decisions – as traditional owners have said to each other in management forums: “people are making up their own story about us”.

What AI made possible

Working with Sam’s descendants, we set out to gather his legacy of archived cultural material and explore ways to return it to community.

We began using a generative AI tool – Claude, made by Anthropic – to assist in making sense of data provided to Howard Coate by Sam.

We used it for deciphering difficult handwriting in decades-old field notebooks, cross referencing genealogies across multiple sources, and organising hundreds of extracted PDF scans into usable files. Work that normally takes months could be completed in hours.

But the real shift came when we began directing the AI to work only within a defined set of curated sources – published research, verified archival material, community-approved records – rather than drawing from the open internet.

Within that controlled environment, we could ask questions about Wororra culture in plain language and receive grounded answers drawn only from material we trusted.

It became a way of learning through dialogue rather than reading dense academic text. For those of us working to understand a culture’s depth from scattered published sources, it accelerated learning dramatically.

This experience gave us an idea. If a curated AI environment could help researchers engage with cultural knowledge through conversation, could a purpose-built system do the same for community members – especially younger generations living in town, away from Country?

The limitations of AI

General-purpose AI still has serious limitations. It has no understanding of cultural protocols or Indigenous data sovereignty, no concept of restricted knowledge governed by gender, age or ceremonial authority.

It can present errors with complete confidence, mixing up sources, misattributing cultural information, or presenting guesswork as fact. In heritage work, accuracy is not optional.

So we are developing a purpose-built concept. A closed-system AI governed by the community, where sources are verified, culturally appropriate and collectively endorsed.

The intent is not to replace oral tradition but to give communities a way to interact with their heritage through dialogue using AI. That’s closer to how this knowledge was always meant to be used than any library shelf or academic paper.

Janet Oobagooma and the Elders who contributed to the Dambimangari community’s published history, Barddabardda Wodjenangorddee (“we are telling all of you”), always emphasised that culture is not a museum exhibit.

It is alive, it adapts, and it demands to be spoken. AI is just the latest tool that could help make that happen – if communities are the ones holding it.

– ref. AI has powerful uses for First Nations oral cultural knowledge. Here’s how – https://theconversation.com/ai-has-powerful-uses-for-first-nations-oral-cultural-knowledge-heres-how-276043

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/ai-has-powerful-uses-for-first-nations-oral-cultural-knowledge-heres-how-276043/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Latimer, Adjunct Professor, School of Law, Swinburne University of Technology

You might think it was exactly the kind of scenario you’d buy travel insurance for in the first place. A major, unforeseen international event causes travel chaos.

Flights are grounded around the world, leaving you and thousands of other travellers stranded with their travel plans in disarray. The knock-on effects lead to cancelled hotels, hire cars, work events, tour bookings and more.

That’s where the world found itself this week, as major conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran broke out in the Middle East.

But some people were caught off-guard, as they discovered cover for any impacts of war was explicitly written out of their insurance policies.

One might argue everyone needs to read the fine print. But it’s also been a long time since Australian travellers have had to grapple with a large-scale conflict affecting an entire region.

For the thousands of Australians currently stranded in or unable to travel through the Middle East, it’s almost impossible to predict how long this conflict and disruption will last.

So, are these exclusions fair? And for impacted travellers – are there any other options for support?

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Read more: Booked to travel through the Middle East? Here’s why you shouldn’t cancel your flight

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The costs of the unknown

Insurance is there to cover you against the unknown. It works by transferring risks and spreading losses.

Instead of an individual having to bear the devastating cost of something going wrong alone, they pay money (premiums) into a pool, along with many other people who face similar risks.

Insurance companies are happy to take on this risk, because they’ve carefully estimated how many people will actually make a claim, and how much they’ll need to pay them, versus those who’ll pay for cover but will statistically probably never need it.

In short, people take out insurance because they bet they’ll need it. Insurers sell it, because they bet enough people won’t.

What’s in the fine print

Despite this, almost all insurance policies have explicit exclusions: things written into the contract that the policy won’t cover.

It is very common for insurance contracts to exclude claims caused by war.

But with the travel plans of thousands thrown into disarray this week, many now possibly forced to foot the bill, there’s a broader question of fairness.

What makes a fair contract?

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Act defines contract terms as “unfair” if they:

• cause a significant imbalance in the rights and obligations of the parties under the contract
• are not reasonably necessary to protect the legitimate interests of the party who gets an advantage from the term, and
• would cause financial or other harm to the other party if enforced.

For example, a contract may be unfair if one party can avoid or limit their responsibility, but the other cannot.

A further consideration is whether the conduct of a company could be unconscionable. This is defined as exploiting a consumer’s “special disadvantage” for financial gain.

Are these exclusion clauses fair?

Do travel insurance cover exclusions due to “war” fit the definition of an unfair contract term?

One could argue your insurance company can certainly avoid or limit its liability to pay out your claim, while you cannot.

There are also complex questions around how you actually define terms such as “war” and whether the current conflict in the Middle East qualifies as one.

Until 2021, insurance contracts for consumers were carved out of a key consumer protection under the ASIC Act – the “unfair contract terms” law.

Now, however, these contracts are covered under the ASIC Act. This means a court or tribunal could rule a particular contract term in an insurance contract is “unfair”, voiding it in the contract.

However, those impacted by the current travel chaos may be clutching at straws if they are hoping for any relief via this avenue.

Most policies are bought under “standard form contracts”, meaning they are prepared by one party (the insurer) and not subject to negotiation by the other (the customer). Exclusions for war and conflict are well established and highly standard across the industry.

It’s worth noting that if the chaos is prolonged and has severe impacts, we could see class actions emerge on this issue.

Think carefully before cancelling your flight

If your travel plans have been impacted by the conflict in the Middle East and you’re worried your insurance won’t cover you, there are still some steps you can take.

First, if you are booked to travel through the region, do not cancel your flight without consulting your airline.

Many airlines are already implementing their own refund and rebooking schemes, and cancelling independently could limit or void your access to compensation under Australian Consumer Law.

Other steps you can take

If you have questions about what is or isn’t covered in a particular policy, contact your insurer.

Consider seeking independent legal advice if you have concerns. Community legal services can often provide general advice for free.

To lodge a formal complaint about any financial product, contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) on 1800 931 678 or via their website. AFCA will make a decision to uphold or reject a consumer’s claim.

Alternatively, you can contact the relevant small claims tribunal in your state or territory.

The Australian government’s Smartraveller website provides up-to-date travel advice for Australians.

– ref. Why doesn’t travel insurance cover war? – https://theconversation.com/why-doesnt-travel-insurance-cover-war-277363

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/why-doesnt-travel-insurance-cover-war-277363/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Van Amber, Senior Lecturer in Fashion & Textiles, RMIT University

If you care about sustainability, buying something as simple as a pillowcase can feel surprisingly hard.

Search for “sustainable sheets” and you’re flooded with familiar and tantalising promises: silky, bamboo, vegan, antimicrobial, breathable, organic. The language sounds reassuringly scientific and ethical, suggesting comfort, health, and environmental responsibility all wrapped up in one product.

The problem is that, in textiles, these words rarely mean what consumers think they mean.

The fashion industry is full of greenwashing, with brands using language to manipulate consumers.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s 2023 sweep into greenwashing claims identified textiles, garments and shoes as one of the most problematic sectors.

As textile researchers, we spend a lot of time unpacking product descriptions that look authoritative but often conflate different fabric components (fibre, yarn, fabric construction and finishes) into a single performance or marketing claim.

In one recent example, it took us more than 20 minutes to decode what was being sold as a “regenerated silk” fibre.

If two textile academics struggle to decipher a product description, the problem isn’t consumer literacy. It’s the way the information is being presented.

The case of the ‘silky’ pillowcase

Silky pillowcases have been heavily marketed as wellness products that will reduce wrinkles, prevent acne, and keep hair smooth and tangle-free. The promise is that a simple switch can quietly improve your life while you sleep.

In functional terms, there is some truth here. Smooth, “silky” fabrics like satin exhibit properties that are beneficial for skin and hair.

But “silky” isn’t a fibre at all.

Silk is the only naturally occurring filament fibre (meaning it is long and continuous), and most commercial silk comes from the Bombyx mori caterpillar.

Other common filament fibres are polyester and rayon (also known as viscose, which is often marketed and sold as bamboo), which are manufactured by extruding liquid polymers through spinnerets and solidifying them into long, continuous fibres.

When filament fibres are spun into yarns and woven in a satin structure, the resulting fabric is incredibly smooth.

The promises of wrinkle reduction and curl preservation being sold as features of a silky pillowcase cannot be completely attributed to a specific natural fibre’s biology. These claims are just as much as result of simply weaving smooth filament fibres into a satin weave – thus there is the exact same mechanism at work in polyester satin pillowcases that make no sustainability claims at all.

For example, bamboo is often presented as the sustainable middle ground between silk (often prohibitively expensive) and polyester (plastic) as bamboo is plant-based, fast-growing, and natural.

To make bamboo feel silky, the plant material is dissolved and extruded into viscose, a regenerated fibre, a process that strips away the original fibre structure entirely, along with many of its associated properties, such as being antimicrobial.

Conventional viscose/rayon production involves dissolving wood, bamboo or other cellulose using carbon disulfide, a chemical with health hazards, especially for exposed workers.

And while rayon is often marketed as “sustainable” because it comes from renewable resources such as trees and bamboo, old-growth forests are still often harvested to produce it.

‘Silkiness’ is vastly different to silk

At this point, the confusion isn’t just understandable — it’s structural.

Consumers are being asked to make complex ethical and sustainability judgements using language that collapses fibre, yarn type and fabric construction into a single sensory promise.

In other words, “silkiness” arises from a combination of fibre type, yarn and fabric construction, rather than whether a fibre is natural or synthetic.

This is why three very different fibres – silk, polyester and rayon – can all be turned into satin pillowcases that may feel remarkably similar, while carrying completely different environmental, ethical and end-of-life consequences.

Polyester comes from petrochemicals and releases plastic microfibres every time it’s washed. And unless rayon comes from a certified source, there’s a risk old-growth forests were harvested for the wood pulp feedstock.

By focusing on how a fabric feels, brands can imply a product inherits the cultural value of silk – luxury, smoothness, naturalness – even when the fibre itself is fossil-fuel derived or heavily chemically processed.

5 questions to ask

When assessing a sustainability claim in clothing or textiles, consumers can start with simple questions, such as:

1. What’s being highlighted and what’s being left out? Marketing often draws attention to a single fibre, plant or property while avoiding details about blends, chemical processing or finishes.

2. Where does the advertised claim come from? Is it from the fibre itself, the yarn, the fabric construction, or a surface treatment? Comfort words like “silky” or “breathable” can come from any of these.

3. Are scientific terms being used precisely or suggestively? Words like antimicrobial, organic, biodegradable and regenerated sound technical, but in clothing they’re often undefined, loosely applied and rarely backed by scientific testing.

4. What design choices shape end-of-life? Small amounts of blended fibres or elastane can prevent composting or recycling entirely, regardless of how sustainable the product claims to be.

5. What isn’t visible on the label? Finishes, coatings, sewing threads, dyes and trims are rarely disclosed, yet they materially affect durability and disposal.

Time for change

In Europe, a digital product passport on all items from 2027 will require companies to disclose not only fibre type, but also chemicals and processes used in production.

To protect consumers, it’s time Australia followed suit.

– ref. ‘Silky’ doesn’t mean it’s made from silk – how confusing textile language can harm the environment – https://theconversation.com/silky-doesnt-mean-its-made-from-silk-how-confusing-textile-language-can-harm-the-environment-271406

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/silky-doesnt-mean-its-made-from-silk-how-confusing-textile-language-can-harm-the-environment-271406/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, The University of Western Australia

Just like in the modern world, people in ancient times wanted to know how to live a long and healthy life.

Greeks and Romans heard fantastic tales of far-away peoples living to well beyond 100.

Greek essayist Lucian (about 120–180 CE) writes:

Indeed, there are even whole nations that are very long-lived, like the Seres [Chinese], who are said to live 300 years: some attribute their old age to the climate, others to the soil and still others to their diet, for they say that this entire nation drinks nothing but water. The people of Athos are also said to live 130 years, and it is reported that the Chaldeans live more than 100, using barley bread to preserve the sharpness of their eyesight.

Whatever the truth of these tales, many ancient Greeks and Romans wanted a long and healthy life.

This is how they thought this could happen.

An ancient doctor’s perspective

Ancient doctors were interested in what people who lived long lives were doing every day and how this might have helped.

The Greek physician Galen (129–216 CE), for example, discusses two people he knew personally in Rome who lived to old age.

First, there is a grammarian (someone who studies and teaches grammar) called Telephus, who lived to almost 100.

According to Galen, Telephus ate just three times a day. His diet was simple:

gruel boiled in water mixed with raw honey of the best quality, and this alone was enough for him at the first meal. He also dined at the seventh hour or a little sooner, taking vegetables first and next tasting fish or birds. In the evening, he used to eat only bread, moistened in wine that had been mixed.

Galen also tells us Telephus had some bathing habits that might seem unusual to us today. Telephus preferred to be massaged with olive oil every day and only have a bath a few times a month:

He was in the habit of bathing twice a month in winter and four times a month in summer. In the seasons between these, he bathed three times a month. On the days he didn’t bathe, he was anointed around the third hour with a brief massage.

Second, there was an old doctor named Antiochus, who lived into his 80s.

According to Galen, Antiochus also had a simple diet.

In the morning, Antiochus usually ate toasted bread with honey. Then, at lunch, he would eat fish, but usually only fish “from around the rocks and those from the deep sea”. For dinner, he would eat “either gruel with oxymel [a mix of vinegar and honey] or a bird with a simple sauce”.

Alongside this simple diet, Antiochus went for a walk every morning. He also liked to be driven in a chariot, or had his slaves carry him in a chair around the city.

Galen also said Antiochus “performed the exercises suitable for an old man”:

There is one thing you should do for old people in the early morning as an exercise: after massage with oil, next get them to walk about and carry out passive exercises without becoming fatigued, taking into account the capacity of the old person.

Galen concludes that Antiochus’ routine probably contributed to his good health well into advanced age:

Looking after himself in old age in this way, Antiochus continued on until the very end, unimpaired in his senses and sound in all his limbs.

Galen stresses that Telephus and Antiochus had some obvious things in common. They ate just a few times a day; their diet was of wild meats, whole grains, bread and honey; and they kept active every day.

What can you do?

Not all of us can live to 100 or more, as the Greeks and Romans were well aware.

However, Lucian offers us some consolation in his essay On Octogenarians:

On every soil and in every climate people who observe the proper exercise and the diet most suitable for health have been long-lived.

Lucian advised that we should imitate the lifestyles of people who have lived long and healthy lives if we want to do the same.

So, if you lived in Rome in the 2nd century CE, people like Telephus and Antiochus, who had a simple diet and kept active all their lives, would be good role models.

– ref. How to live a long and healthy life, according to the ancients – https://theconversation.com/how-to-live-a-long-and-healthy-life-according-to-the-ancients-274975

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/how-to-live-a-long-and-healthy-life-according-to-the-ancients-274975/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

In February of this year, the media in New Zealand both captivated and horrified the public with sensational stories of dog attacks.

That line could have been written last week. It wasn’t. It appeared in an article in the New Zealand Law Journal more than two decades ago.

The recent attacks that led to the death of a woman in Northland and left a father and son critically injured in Christchurch have once again forced dog control into the national conversation. But the sense of déjà vu is hard to ignore.

Writing in that article back in 2003, legal scholar Jill Jones was responding to a similar spate of attacks and the government’s proposed amendments to the Dog Control Act 1996.

Those changes were touted at the time as “significant and comprehensive”. In reality, they focused narrowly on banning the importation of particular breeds and introducing new classifications of “menacing” dogs.

The legislation was enacted within months, despite concerns it would do little to reduce attacks and risked becoming kneejerk lawmaking: a response to moral panic rather than to the underlying causes of the problem.

Reform in name, not in effect

Ultimately, the concerns were well founded. The legislation did little to solve the problem of dog attacks. In fact, a 2022 study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal showed that the problem has got steadily worse.

Those researchers identified “a nearly eight-fold increase in the risk of hospitalisation from a dog bite injury compared to forty years ago, with an incidence of 1.7 per 100,000 in 1979 rising to 13.4 per 100,000 in 2018/19”.

They also note that “this increase has come about despite regional attempts by each territorial authority at addressing this worsening problem”.

Thus, stories with sensational headlines such as “Deadly surge: Councils warn more deaths likely under weak dog laws” need to be read in context.

Despite the recent interest by news media – and the moral panic it might provoke – the awful attacks that occurred earlier this year are not out of the norm: this is a persistent issue. The public’s worry and its demands to address the problem are also entirely justifiable.

Soothing that worry will require much more emotional responses from politicians calling the owners of dogs who attack “feral” and “degenerate” and calling for stricter punishments.

Local Government Minister Simon Watts, who is in charge of the issue, has stated that “overhauling the Dog Control Act is not something that we have capacity for this term”. That raises the prospect that any short-term action will once again take the form of piecemeal, regional and ultimately ineffective responses.

Already, some local authorities have begun reviewing their bylaws in response to the media focus and public concern it has generated. However, no efforts are underway to develop a national solution.

From punishment to prevention

If the government is serious about reducing dog attacks, it would need to engage with expert advice and consider major reform.

The Dog Control Act turns 30 this year. While it has been amended over time, its core structure remains largely unchanged. Experts have long questioned its effectiveness and whether its decentralised design – which delegates the responsibility for dog control to local authorities – is still fit for purpose in addressing today’s patterns of dog ownership and harm.

This is one reason why the SPCA last week wrote an open letter to parliament calling for, among other things, a “comprehensive overhaul” of the act that would “replace outdated breed-specific provisions with evidence-based, nationally consistent risk management tools focused on individual dog behaviour and responsible ownership”.

Current legislation requires all councils to have the basics – such as a registration system and dog control officers – but leaves the details of implementing dog control policy to each individual council.

This explains the extreme regional variation in fees, educational programmes and enforcement. The 2022 study found a “seven-fold difference in the incidence of dog bites between territorial authorities with the highest and lowest rates of dog-bite injury”.

Another report found Invercargill has five times the number of prosecutions compared to Wellington, despite similar levels of registered dogs and reported attacks.

With an estimated 830,000 dogs in New Zealand, many people have important relationships with them, whether they be companions or colleagues.

There is a need for thoughtful, evidence-based policymaking that reflects the place of dogs in society and the nature of human–dog relationships. It should also consider which regulatory systems – including overseas models – have been shown to reduce harm.

Addressing the issue effectively requires national coordination and long-term planning, rather than inconsistent regional responses or short-term measures aimed primarily at easing political pressure. Any reform should focus on preventing attacks, not simply responding to them after the fact.

Progress on that work is overdue, given the harm experienced by victims and the broader responsibility to ensure safe and responsible dog ownership.

– ref. Dog attacks keep happening in NZ. Why hasn’t the law kept up? – https://theconversation.com/dog-attacks-keep-happening-in-nz-why-hasnt-the-law-kept-up-276737

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/dog-attacks-keep-happening-in-nz-why-hasnt-the-law-kept-up-276737/

COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

Western countries, including  Australia and New Zealand, were quick to line up to support Operation Epic Fury, the US-Israeli blitzkrieg on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

They were effectively throwing international law into a cauldron of blood and mayhem.  These same Western powers — and the Gulf Arab states that stand with them — may soon live to regret it.

In an article on February 21, I wrote, “A precision strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan liquefaction trains (that purify, cool, and compress the gas), for example, would drop a bomb into the world’s gas market.”

Should the Iranian state survive the terrifying onslaught, it has vowed to strike back in ways that could crash the global economy.

Early signs point to a long war
Two early signs of their potential to do so are the closure of all the civilian airports in the Gulf and the effective closure by Iran of the Strait of Hormuz.

The first one stops the daily movement of 500,000 international passengers through Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and other airports, the second cuts off the shipment of 21 million barrels of oil and gas a day (20 percent of global daily requirements).

The knock-on effects of a prolonged war are almost incalculable but as I pointed out in a recent article if Iran manages to resist the most powerful military in the world, the shockwaves will soon transfer to our own economies.

I thought that would be a measure of last resort but Iran struck the site with drones on  March 3 and — should they choose — could destroy the facility entirely which would take years to rebuild.

Qatar immediately shut down Ras Laffan, the source of 20 percent of the world’s LNG. UK wholesale gas prices immediately jumped 50 percent.

Countries like Australia and New Zealand may end up on the losing end of a bidding war for oil, LNG and agricultural petrochemicals if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

One should remember that Iran has many thousands of short range missiles and countless mines sprinkled along its coastline which will be all-but-impossible to suppress.

Nuclear propaganda and mischaracterisations
For the moment, the assassination of the Supreme Leader may see champagne corks popping in Western capitals but, as I warned recently, a decapitation strike could lead a furious or desperate Iran to lash out, sinking a US aircraft carrier by using their hypersonic missiles.

There is also a non-trivial risk that the US and Israel could use nuclear weapons if things go sideways.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/04/us-israels-war-of-aggression-epic-fury-or-epic-screw-up/

Editorial by Selwyn Manning.

The New Zealand Government’s response to Israel-US attacks on Iran has revealed a chasm. On one side are those who argue; that New Zealand must stay aligned with its 20th century allies right or wrong.

On the other side are those who insist; that the long fought for reputation, of a nation that stood for an international order based on law, justice and multilateralism, should be the guiding principles in good times and bad.

New Zealand has inched toward such societal rifts before; the Springbok Rugby tour of New Zealand in 1981; shortly followed by a generational shift and geo-political quake that came in the form of New Zealand’s anti-nuclear movement and subsequent enduring legislation. The United Nations security council endorsed response in Afghanistan to attacks on the United States shook the foundations of the Labour-Alliance coalition Government in 2001-02. And the fraudulently justified US-led invasion of Iraq triggered hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders to protest in the streets. (The Helen Clark Labour-led Government of the time refused to officially be included among the US-led coalition forces that invaded Iraq.)

In recent times, old loyalties and biases have been challenged with the genocidal disproportional response by Israel against Hamas and generally Palestinian woman, children, and the elderly whose only offence was to exist in the path of the military machine.

And now, the US Donald Trump Administration’s alliance with Israel has unilaterally justified its attacks on Iran – the murder of its supreme leader and the assassination of over 40 individuals in its operational chain of command – as a legal pre-emptive response to a perceived first-strike-plan by Iran. This, while negotiations were underway to address regional security concerns.

This is the backdrop to New Zealand Government’s response where Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters wrote on Sunday March 1:

“In this context, we acknowledge that the actions taken overnight by the US and Israel were designed to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security.

“We condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s indiscriminate retaliatory attacks on Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. We cannot risk further regional escalation, and civilian life must be protected.” (Ref. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/nz-government-statement-iran )

LISTEN: To Radio New Zealand’s The Panel, where host Wallace Chapman is joined by panellists Sue Bradford and Phil O’Reilly. First up, is an extended conversation on the US and Israel attack on Iran. Columnist and Iranian New Zealander, Donna Miles-Mojab, delivers her take on the conflict and what it means for the regime. Then, I (Selwyn Manning) give an analysis on New Zealand’s stance and the legality of the attack.

 

It’s well worth a listen, as the fault line of New Zealand debate is clear.

For those who are prepared to abandon the process of law and justice on international affairs, the statement offered clarity; that their government would stand at the side of traditional security ‘friends’ as they commit to fight against another ‘evil’ empire.

For others, the statement was another example of mediocrity from a coalition that lacks a morality within its own argument – an apparent abandonment of principles such as international law and multilateralism – frameworks that have served small significant nations like New Zealand well.

The argument follows; that New Zealand’s coalition government has jeopardised the national interest, the hard won identity respected by those nations that still hold true to multilateralism and principle.

Here’s a please explain moment:

New Zealand is a small nation, but it is a significant actor in international affairs. Once, it could be relied upon – especially on matters of principle – to articulate a strong position on breaches of international law and justice. We have held positions at the United Nations security council, have been a driven advocate among general assembly nations and a persuasive arbiter among multilateral groups such as CANZ (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) that tag-team diplomacy at the United Nations and elsewhere.

New Zealand was once a staunch advocate (and remains a member state) of the International Criminal Court. And, in matters of trade, New Zealand sought to develop common ground rather than difference – tools that have been beneficial to others in times past when conflict has raged and red-mist would otherwise have dominated attempts at a diplomatic solution.

Today’s New Zealand is a myriad of conflicting arguments; its current coalition government argues that Iran’s regime is evil so therefore the powerful must bomb it to peace.

But the fact that the Iran regime is not a paragon of virtue – either domestically or regionally – does not diminish the fact that the United States’ and Israel’s governments decided to attack – decisions that allegedly and arguably breach international law.

International law: In a rudimentary sense; it comes down to whether Israel in the first instance was legally obliged to commit a preemptive strike on Iran, murdering its supreme leader and taking out over 40 of those who were in its chain of command.

Was there an imminent threat to Israel? At this juncture, it appears not.

Were diplomatic efforts underway to address regional security concerns, through US diplomatic efforts? Yes… up until Thursday February 26.

When Opposition Is Beyond Political

Back to New Zealand: New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, on matters of geopolitics and global security, often appears to operate more like a CEO rather than the chair of a nation’s cabinet.

Widespread reports of the Prime Minister’s lack of coherency on this matter is reasonably consistent with a manager waiting to be guided by a governor, or board chair by way of policy, on the required pathway ahead.

The problem for Christopher Luxon is; he has no such external nor internal guidance. In geopolitics and matters of global security, policy alone does not help. Natural leadership qualities do.

Throughout his prime ministership, Luxon has displayed a tendency to outsource foreign affairs leadership responsibilities to his junior coalition partner, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. Or, when that doesn’t work, he leans toward Australia and/or the United States to provide direction on big picture issues.

But for many New Zealanders, New Zealand can’t have it both ways; either it (the coalition government) sides with the ‘might-is-right’ Trump-led approach to chaotic global affairs, or it sides with the multitude of countries that still hold on to principles of justice and international law.

Where will New Zealand as a society tilt? It will likely be up to New Zealand voters, later in 2026, to finally decide which way this country tracks over the next few years.

US President Trump’s vanity and sense of global imperialism has become more expansive and performative this year.

These are times when countries like New Zealand, lacking persuasive moral leadership, can easily lose their souls, and, in the process of being risk averse, risk abandoning their own sovereignty, national interest, and identity.

*******

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/03/editorial-when-mediocrity-fails-national-interest/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jared Mondschein, Director of Research, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

US President Donald Trump has summed up his rationale for attacking Iran fairly simply, saying “this was our last best chance to strike”.

Not known for adhering to any particular lasting strategy, Trump sees each day in the White House as an episode in a reality show in which he seeks an advantage over his rivals, if not to vanquish them. And Iran certainly qualifies as one of America’s most enduring rivals.

To be sure, Trump’s claim that Iran posed an imminent threat to the US is hard to justify. After all, Iran’s military and proxy groups have never been weaker.

It’s also hard for him to claim that Venezuela or Islamic State operatives in Nigeria, Syria and Iraq posed imminent threats to the US. Nonetheless, the Trump administration struck all of them over the past year.

As much as Trump may have campaigned against nation-building and “forever wars” when running for president, he certainly never campaigned against military strikes, particularly ones that entail minimal danger to American lives.

Trump campaigned in 2016 on strengthening the US fight against Islamic State. And once in office, his administration not only helped eliminate the IS caliphate – finishing the job started under the Obama administration – but also killed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The first Trump administration was also behind the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in a brazen attack near Baghdad airport.

It is likely for this reason his administration decided to go for the death blow now, when the Iranian government is at its most vulnerable.

There were also specific circumstances that have made Trump more open to limited military actions in the past:

• long-lasting, bipartisan frustration with an adversary
• the support of regional US allies and partners for a strike (or at least their toleration)
• US capability to mitigate potential responses.

And there was another undeniable factor: the increasing confidence that comes from the perceived success of previous actions. Many expected the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to result in chaos, for instance, but that has yet to happen.

[embedded content]

Decades of antagonism

This is undoubtedly a war of choice, not necessity. That said, the Trump administration is likely hoping the US can be less involved in the Middle East after this war, if it results in a different Iran.

The sentiment that fuels Trump’s antagonism towards NATO allies is the same that is motivating his war against Iran: the US wants to do less overseas.

Such a statement may appear ironic given the administration has undertaken America’s largest military attack since the invasion of Iraq 23 years ago. But this is presumably the administration’s end game with Iran, risky as it may be.

Half a century ago, Iran was second only to Israel among Middle Eastern countries with close working relationships with the United States. The post-1979 Islamic Republic, however, upended the region’s power dynamics. Iran’s top foreign policy priorities for decades have been projecting hostility towards the United States and Israel.

In that time, Democratic and Republican administrations alike have labelled Iran the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.

For years, Iran has proudly supported Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and Shia militant groups in Iraq. Such groups have killed hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of others across the Middle East. Iranian agents also sought to assassinate Trump and other senior US officials.

Iran and its proxy groups have cost successive American administrations – both Democratic and Republican – enormous political capital and resources for decades.

It should also be said the vast majority of Iranians are against the regime and have never felt more optimistic about a brighter future since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Limiting factors moving forward

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has tried to distinguish the Iran war from the “forever wars” of the past, saying, “This is not Iraq, this is not endless”.

The administration is likely aware of other key differences, too.

Compared to George W. Bush’s war against Iraq in 2003, Trump has lacklustre support for the Iran strikes.

Democratic lawmakers have called the attack both unconstitutional and against international law.

Only 55% of Republicans support the attack, despite the fact Trump himself enjoys an approval rating among members of his party of around 80%.

The Trump administration hasn’t helped itself with its incoherent messaging, either. It has used a number of justifications for the strikes, including stopping an imminent Iranian attack, destroying Iran’s ballistic missiles, preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons, cutting off support for its proxy militant groups, and regime change.

Most recently, the administration said it had to join Israel’s offensive against Iran because it was going to be drawn in by Iran’s response anyway. And Trump refused to rule out boots on the ground in Iran.

These conflicting messages don’t help sell the operation to a wary public, particularly one that is far more concerned about the economy than the Middle East. After all, the last time a foreign policy issue played a significant factor in a US election was arguably more than 20 years ago.

So, why engage in such an expensive and risky endeavour that even his own base doesn’t fully support?

One reason is the US constitution allows the president to do a lot more to change the dynamics on the ground in Iran than it does in the United States. The judicial branch, for instance, has limited Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs and deployment of federal troops domestically. Foreign policy is one area where he can be a man of decisive action.

But Trump knows a long war is not feasible. The US, Israel and their regional allies and partners face the real prospect of running low on munitions to continue defending against Iran’s far cheaper drones for the weeks or months that Trump says the war may continue.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is also facing an existential battle for its survival. The regime’s will to fight and ruthlessly effective internal security forces – combined with low US domestic support for war – means time may be on its side.

Facing increasing levels of domestic opposition, we can expect the Trump administration to try to avoid a long-term conflict in Iran. As history shows, however, it still needs an exit strategy.

– ref. Donald Trump campaigned against ‘endless wars’. So why is he risking another one in Iran? – https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-campaigned-against-endless-wars-so-why-is-he-risking-another-one-in-iran-277370

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/03/donald-trump-campaigned-against-endless-wars-so-why-is-he-risking-another-one-in-iran-277370/