Category: Evening Report

COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

If Israel and the US attack Iran, the cosy worlds of Europe, Australia and New Zealand could be swept up in an economic catastrophe.

Should the Iranians survive a terrifying onslaught, they have vowed to strike back in a way that could crash the global economy.  How they could quite possibly do this is the topic of this article.

The leaders of the Islamic Republic — love them or hate them — know that they face an existential threat; that the continued existence of a unified state called Iran is imperilled.

They also know that the collective West will not stand up for international law and the proscription on launching wars of aggression. Under these circumstances a state will sacrifice anything to survive, including hitherto unthinkable acts like sinking the USS Abraham Lincoln, the glory of the American war machine.

All the signs are pointing to a new Shock and Awe campaign by the United States.

The goal, as it was in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, is a fast knock-out. Mission Accomplished in a few weeks.

War, however, seldom goes entirely to plan — the Americans never expected they would spend 20 years in Afghanistan and waste trillions of dollars to move from the Taliban regime to . . .  the Taliban regime.

Here is a selection of options open to the Iranians if they survive the initial onslaught.

Shut down all civilian flights for the duration of the conflict
Without firing a single missile, Iran can likely bring all flights into and out of the entire Gulf region to a shuddering halt. That’s 500,000 passengers per day.

More than 180 million passengers pass through Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai every year.

Simply issuing a warning that the entire Gulf region is an air combat zone will put the brakes on all major airlines, effectively severing the primary link between Europe, Asia and Australasia for as long as Iran hangs on.

Insurance companies would issue a cancel note on all policies (for airlines, passengers, airports, provisioners) for the entire region.

No airline will defy this interdiction. Would Qantas, for example, fly one of its A380s loaded with mums, dads and kids into a potential kill zone?  The Iranians could underscore the seriousness by firing a couple of missiles onto runways or using EW (electronic warfare tools) to spoof or harass planes.

In an interview with @CBSNews , Iran’s FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi said uranium enrichment is Iran’s legal right under the NPT, reaffirming peaceful nuclear policy and commitment to diplomacy
More: https://t.co/XqHaDqxOfl https://t.co/3tGlg9SJKL

— Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (@Iran_GOV) February 22, 2026

Shut down all oil and LNG shipments
Iran will likely mine the Strait of Hormuz 33 km (21 miles) wide, making it instantly uninsurable for any oil or LNG tanker to move into or out of the Gulf.  Huge numbers of smart mines (that can recognise the acoustic signature of a tanker) will be deployed as well as hundreds of semi-submersible drone boats.

Spread out across the Gulf are thousands of short-range anti-ship missiles that will be virtually impossible to suppress.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/24/how-a-us-israeli-attack-on-iran-could-crash-uk-german-nz-and-australian-economies/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Among today’s leaders, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns is notable in a couple of ways.

As a Labor leader, his views are a mix of the extremely tough and the very empathetic and compassionate. His handling of the antisemitism crisis illustrates the point.

Also, Minns usually speaks his mind, and answers questions, with a frankness many of his contemporaries shy away from.

These features were evident in Minns’ Monday comments about the cohort of 34 ISIS brides and their children that has the Albanese government tied in knots and new Opposition Leader Angus Taylor responding with a knee-jerk proposal for draconian legislation.

Minns told a Monday news conference: “I’ve got no sympathy for someone who makes a decision to go and join a dangerous ideology like Islamic State”, but “I do have sympathy and concern for the children”.

He said he’d been briefed late last year on state-federal consultations about possible arrivals from Syria.

“It’s been on an official-to-officials level, and it has to do with what happens if or when they return to New South Wales. That was a situation for previous cohorts that came back to Australia [under the Morrison and Albanese governments]. He estimates about a third of the cohort would go to NSW.

In relation to the children, Minns points out that if they stayed in their present environment, when they did return the position would likely be worse.

“I think most Australians […] would say, “well, what is going to happen to these children in the years ahead if they end up in Australia, if they are Australians? What happens to them when the media moves on and we’re two to five to ten years down the line?”

He said the NSW government would take care of the education of returning children (in a context of Australian values), while the “full force of the law” would be applied to the adults (who could face charges).

Minns’ combination of commonsense, concern and directness is in contrast to the stance of the federal government. It has toughened its rhetoric, presumably mainly to avoid being wedged by the opposition and One Nation. It may have also been less than fully transparent about federal officials’ involvement.

Minns’ views about the children are in line with comments of then home affairs minister Clare O’Neil in 2022, after a group of ISIS brides and children had been brought back. “The question for us is: is the safest thing for these 13 children to grow up in a squalid camp where they’re subjected to radical ideologies every single day and then return to Australia at some point when they’re an adult, or is it safer for us to bring them here so they can live a life around Australian values?”

Now Anthony Albanese and current Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, when referring to the children, basically say their situation is the parents’ fault and that’s that. They are more interested in keeping out the remaining cohort as long as possible – therefore pushing the problem down the track – than focusing publicly on the practicalities of when the families can no longer be stopped from returning.

The opposition’s proposal to make it a criminal offence “to facilitate the re-entry of individuals linked to terrorist hotspots or terrorist organisations, or who have committed terror related offences” is preformative politics.

These people are Australian citizens and have a right to return to Australia (with some qualifications – the government applied for an exclusion order against one person on security grounds). To make it a crime for an individual or organisation to assist them in some presently lawful manner would seem highly dubious in principle.

When we come to the practicalities: those helping have been Save the Children and respected Muslim figure Jamal Rifi. Rifi was a prominent supporter of Burke in last year’s election. In earlier years he has defended Scott Morrison against accusations of racism and is much respected by Morrison.

But home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said: “This is not about targeting a particular group or individual or organisations. It is about targeting anyone who breaks the law”.

The opposition says the private member’s bill, to be introduced in the coming sitting fortnight but destined to go nowhere, will provide that “humanitarian or security-based repatriation could continue with the express permission of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Home Affairs”.

It is about keeping repatriation formally in the hands of government, attempting to stymie self-managed returns and those who might assist them.

But we don’t have any detail, leaving exactly who would be hit as clear as mud.

Mat Tinkler, CEO Save the Children Australia, told the ABC his organisation had done two main things: provided humanitarian relief for the cohort, and advocated for the government to get them home.

“What we haven’t done is engage in any extraction or operation on the ground – that is not within our mandate and not something we would do.

“But I’m really concerned about the sentiment that this seems to express, that somehow supporting women who haven’t been charged, they haven’t been put on trial, they haven’t been convicted of any crime, and their children, who by nature and definition are innocent, trying to criminalise conduct of people seeking to bring those Australian citizens back to Australia – I think it’s a very slippery slope if we go down that path.”

– ref. View from The Hill: Chris Minns makes sense on ISIS brides’ children, while opposition adds to scaremongering – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-chris-minns-makes-sense-on-isis-brides-children-while-opposition-adds-to-scaremongering-275913

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/view-from-the-hill-chris-minns-makes-sense-on-isis-brides-children-while-opposition-adds-to-scaremongering-275913/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Austin, Senior Lecturer in Theatre, The University of Melbourne

In the shadow of Franz Kafka’s visionary dystopian fiction, the faceless, hierarchical machinery of bureaucracy has long served as a symbol of quiet, grinding despair. Kafka’s institutions are at once impenetrable and absurd, systems that trap individuals in a perpetual tension between resignation and the faint, flickering hope of change.

Playwright Jean Tong’s Do Not Pass Go sits in this tradition, offering a sharp, often darkly comic examination of conformity and resistance within the modern corporate structure.

Penny (Belinda McClory) and Flux (Ella Prince) are an unlikely duo thrown together on a surreal production line. Flux is a new recruit, still learning the rhythms and unspoken rules of the nameless organisation. Penny is a seasoned employee who has survived the most recent round of redundancies.

From the outset, they appear mismatched, an odd couple divided by age, temperament and philosophy. Penny embodies corporate compliance. She has internalised the company’s expectations so completely they seem to govern her every action. She has never taken a day off, faithfully performs the recommended workplace exercises during her breaks and refuses to take personal calls on company time. For Penny, survival depends on obedience.

Flux, by contrast, views employment as transactional, a means to an end. They are unafraid to take a mental health day and openly question procedures Penny accepts without hesitation. Their early exchanges crackle with tension, shaped by suspicion and incomprehension and the differences that seem to define them.

A sterile environment

The set (from Jacob Battista) reinforces this emotional and ideological divide. The action unfolds almost entirely within a stark white room bathed in fluorescent overhead light (lighting by Harrie Hogan), a space hovering ambiguously between factory floor and science laboratory.

It is clinical, anonymous and faintly menacing.

In this sterile environment, Penny is aghast to learn Flux did not complete the online training modules before their official start date. Flux, perplexed, asks why they would work before being paid. This small but telling disagreement encapsulates the broader philosophical gulf between them.

Tong allows the narrative to unfold at a deliberate, contemplative pace. Katy Maudlin’s direction is considered and deft. Time stretches and folds in on itself; days and months blur together in the purgatory of workplace monotony. Boxes arrive through a mysterious “box door”. Penny and Flux methodically open, catalogue and repack their contents. Pool floaties are inflated and deflated. Ribbons are measured and cut. Plastic fir tree Christmas ornaments are checked and counted.

There is no rationale or meaning to this work. As the play progresses, the boxes accumulate, slowly encroaching upon the white space. The endless stocktake becomes both a literal task and metaphor for existential stasis and ultimately reveal how difficult the rhythm of the workplace can be to resist.

Building a friendship

Initially their exchanges are stilted; Penny’s clipped, interrogative responses set against Flux’s fluid, stream-of-consciousness reflections. But the dialogue gradually softens. Each begins to absorb something of the other.

Flux helps Penny navigate her teenage daughter’s climate anxiety, gently introducing language and empathy where Penny once defaulted to confusion. In turn, Penny becomes an almost maternal figure to Flux, offering reassurance, steadiness and concern beneath her rigid exterior, specifically in relation to Flux obtaining a credit card to support their desire for costly gender affirmation surgery.

Although Penny is confused about Flux’s desire to change their body, Penny’s concern is more about Flux finding themselves in a difficult financial position. Penny and Flux’s bond becomes an act of quiet rebellion against the isolating logic of the institution.

The unseen corporate overlords loom throughout. A performance review instructs Flux to increase their productivity. At one point, a cake arrives unannounced through the box door. Penny reacts with alarm: cake preceded the last wave of redundancies, and so she promptly throws it in the bin, despite Flux’s delight. The gesture captures the atmosphere of paranoia cultivated by opaque management practices.

Beneath the humour lies a deeper inquiry into institutional oppression. As Flux encourages Penny to pursue an ADHD diagnosis, the play probes the tension between social and medical models of disability. Penny muses her suburb reportedly has a high proportion of neurodiverse residents. Is the environment producing neurodivergence, she wonders, or do neurodivergent people gravitate there because it offers belonging? The question lingers, unresolved. Flux convinces Penny to ask for workplace adjustments; Penny is unsurprised when management denies her requests.

In a powerful scene toward the end of the play, Flux offers a monologue: a compelling metaphor on difference, desire and longing, deciding not to go ahead with their surgery… yet.

The moment marks a shift in the sterile surrounds. The characters move outside of the tight confines of their workplace and a warm orange glow envelopes them. Their shared humanity – the messiness, chaos, care and connection troubling the corporate machine – is highlighted.

Do Not Pass Go is a quietly devastating meditation on labour, conformity and the fragile human connections persisting, despite them.

No easy solution is offered. Instead, the suggestion is resistance may begin in smaller, subtler acts: questioning a rule, taking a longer break, making an offer of solidarity or care to a work colleague, choosing compassion over compliance. In doing so, the play honours Kafka’s legacy while speaking urgently to the anxieties of the modern workplace.

Do Not Pass Go is at Melbourne Theatre Company until March 28.

– ref. Jean Tong’s Do Not Pass Go is Kafka for the modern corporate age – https://theconversation.com/jean-tongs-do-not-pass-go-is-kafka-for-the-modern-corporate-age-274979

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/jean-tongs-do-not-pass-go-is-kafka-for-the-modern-corporate-age-274979/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity Australia

On average, Australia’s driest town, Oodnadatta, gets just 172mm of rain a year. But the small town in inland South Australia is likely to get two years’ worth of rain in a single week.

Rainfall records are likely to topple across inland areas, as rains of 150–300mm are predicted this week, following heavy rains in recent days.

Heavy rains are lashing swathes of arid central Australia, as intensely humid tropical air from the Top End is pushed south. Alice Springs is on flood watch. The Trans-Australian rail line is cut amid track washouts. The Northern Territory’s main highway is closed.

More is to come as extreme rains continue over the driest parts of Australia this week. Severe weather warnings for heavy rain have been issued for parts of Queensland, Northern Territory, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. Intense rainfall and damaging winds from localised severe thunderstorms will lead to flash flooding. Flood warnings have been issued for rivers and streams across the entire Lake Eyre Basin. The sheer scale of this event is remarkable – and concerning.

Many remote communities will be cut off for weeks and stock losses are likely to be significant. Western Queensland is already reeling after major floods earlier this year. In coming weeks, floodwaters will engorge rivers flowing to Australia’s lowest point, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, which could fill for the second year in a row – a rare occurrence. There’s even a possibility the lake could top its 1974 depth record of 6 metres.

What’s causing this?

In recent days, a very slow-moving tropical low has intensified as it moved southeast through the NT.

On the northern and eastern flanks of this weather system lies an incredibly humid airmass from the oceans off Indonesia. As this saturated air moves south, an upper trough extending into northwest New South Wales is forecast to deepen on Tuesday, increasing the risk of heavy falls.

This combination is a recipe for intense rain. As the strengthening upper trough intersects with the humid tropical airmass, it will push saturated air higher up in the atmosphere. Once high enough, the water vapour will condense and fall as heavy rain.

The warmer the air, the more water it can hold. The tropical low is likely to stay almost stationary over central Australia all week, which means it will dump most of its water before eventually weakening.

Two fillings of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre?

Since European colonisation, Australia’s largest salt lake has only filled to near or full capacity four times – most recently in 2025.

There’s still water in many parts of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre from last year’s floodwaters. At last year’s peak, the ephemeral lake covered about 80% of its maximum extent and was just over 2 metres deep in the two deepest parts of the lake, Belt Bay and Madigan Gulf.

As of February 10, many parts of the lake still hold water. These waters came from the torrential rains that hit western Queensland almost a year ago.

Floodwaters typically take months to snake through the lake’s often-dry inland tributaries. If the lake fills again this year, it will be highly unusual.

That’s because the La Niña climate driver in the Pacific Ocean is rapidly weakening and an El Niño is likely. La Niña years tend to bring colder, wetter conditions to Australia, while El Niño years tend to be hotter and drier.

Until now, every filling of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre recorded has been linked to strong La Niña years. Last year’s partial filling took place during a moderate La Niña.

It’s getting harder to project what’s likely to happen based on past experience. When the lake filled to a record depth of 6m in 1974, widespread falls of 300–600mm fell on dry catchments. This year, many northern rivers and streams in the Lake Eyre basin were already at minor or moderate flood level before this huge rain-bearing system formed.

Is there a climate change link?

One of the most visible and devastating changes from global heating is what’s happening to the global water cycle, which moves water from lakes and oceans to clouds to rivers, lakes, snow and ice and back again.

Burning fossil fuels and other emissions have made the world 1.48°C hotter than the pre-industrial period. This is already supercharging the water cycle. This is why we’re witnessing extreme rainfall hitting more often and more intensely across the globe.

There’s a clear link between climate change and more extreme rains and floods. For every 1°C of warming, the atmosphere holds 7% more water vapour. But this figure could be even higher for short-duration rainfall, such as during severe thunderstorms.

Without attribution studies, we can’t say this week’s extreme rains have a direct climate change influence. But the overall trends are very clear.

For the dryland and desert towns, communities and stations bracing for impact, this will be small comfort. It’s crucial we don’t underestimate these rains. They are packing a punch.

– ref. Severe flooding – in central Australia? How a vast humid air mass could soak the desert – https://theconversation.com/severe-flooding-in-central-australia-how-a-vast-humid-air-mass-could-soak-the-desert-276618

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/severe-flooding-in-central-australia-how-a-vast-humid-air-mass-could-soak-the-desert-276618/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charlotte Gupta, Sleep Researcher, Appleton Institute, HealthWise Research Group, CQUniversity Australia

It’s nighttime and you’re exhausted. But the hotel bed feels wrong. The mini fridge won’t stop making that low, irritating hum. The power outlet lights feel brighter than the sun. Outside, random car honks and noises make sleep feel like a distant possibility.

Many of us struggle to sleep in new environments, even when we’re physically tired. But why? The short answer: a mix of biology and psychology.

Broken routines and missing sleep cues

Your brain is wired for predictability, especially at night, during our most vulnerable behaviour: sleep.

A combination of internal and external cues work together to create the right conditions for rest.

Internally, your body signals that it’s time to sleep by decreasing core body temperature and increasing the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin. This makes you less alert.

Externally, your environment needs to support these signals, not compete with it. At home, your typical pre-sleep wind-down habits and familiar surroundings tell your body it is safe to sleep.

But sleeping somewhere new often disrupts these sights, sounds and sensations your body relies on.

There may be different light levels (for example, from hotel room clocks or street lights), unfamiliar noises (such as elevators, traffic and neighbours) and different bedding (for instance, a firmer mattress or softer pillows).

And you may be doing different activities, such as eating out late or working on a laptop on your bed.

An alert brain in a new place

From an evolutionary perspective, lighter sleep or more frequent awakenings when we’re somewhere new may be protective, allowing us to detect potential threats more quickly and respond to danger.

This is known as the “first-night effect”. It means when we sleep somewhere new, our brains don’t fully switch off.

Brain activity recordings have shown that during the first night in a new environment, the left side of the brain remains more responsive to unfamiliar sounds, even during deep sleep, compared to the second night. Once we become familiar with the space, this vigilance usually fades.

But even when we start to get used to a new environment, other factors can still interfere with our sleep.

Stress, travel and emotions

Sleeping in a new environment can also be stressful.

Your brain may be running through logistics and to-do lists, thinking about your early flight, or scenarios where you forget important belongings. Maybe you’re also experiencing jet lag.

Emotions such as homesickness, excitement, anticipation or anxiety can disrupt sleep as well. Even positive stress – for example, feeling excited about a big trip – activates the same arousal systems in the brain as negative stress. The brain doesn’t distinguish why those systems are switched on.

Unfortunately, a heightened arousal system and sleep are competitors. When your stress response is active, it directly interferes with the brain’s ability to disengage and transition into sleep, even when you’re physically exhausted.

But some people actually sleep better away from home

For some of us, being away from home can actually remove everyday distractions: there are no household responsibilities, no unfinished tasks competing for attention, and clearer boundaries between “work time” and “rest time”.

The change of environment may also reduce bedtime rumination, which is often triggered by familiar home environments tied to stress, deadlines or to-do lists.

Better sleep when we are away may be to do with the amount of sleep we usually get at home. Research shows that individuals who are not getting enough sleep at home are likely to get better sleep when travelling.

If your sleep improves when you’re away, it might be an opportunity to consider how stimulating or busy your usual sleep environment has become – and what you can do to make it calmer.

Tips for sweet dreams at home or away

Reassure yourself. If you have a rough night of sleep in a new place it doesn’t mean something is “wrong” with you. It’s a normal, protective response from a brain that’s tuned to safety and familiarity. You might need a night or two to settle in.

Choose sleep-friendly accommodation when you can. Many hotels are deliberately designed to support good sleep and these features, such as pillow menus, melatonin-rich foods on the room-service menu, or even a personal sleep butler, can make a real difference.

Plan for a slower first day. If you know you’re sleeping somewhere new, expect that the first night might not be your best. Where possible, avoid scheduling demanding tasks the next morning and give yourself time to adjust.

Pack your sleep routine in your suitcase. Just as parents might do for their small child, pack your sleep routine with you. If you have a particular pillow case or a sleep mask, or a certain scent that helps you sleep at home, try bringing these with you so your brain has some familiar cues in an unfamiliar environment.

If you notice you sleep better away from home, take a look at your home sleep routine and environment. Keep your room cool and dark and make your bed comfortable with supportive pillows and fresh bedding. Establish a relaxing wind-down routine: dim lights and limit screens in the evening, and stick to consistent bed and wake times, even on weekends.

– ref. The ‘first-night effect’: why it’s hard to sleep when you’re somewhere new – https://theconversation.com/the-first-night-effect-why-its-hard-to-sleep-when-youre-somewhere-new-270299

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/the-first-night-effect-why-its-hard-to-sleep-when-youre-somewhere-new-270299/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodie Avery, Research Co-Lead, Chronic Reproductive Health Conditions, Robinson Research Institute, Adelaide University

If you live with pelvic pain, period pain, sex or bowel symptoms, you may have been told you could have endometriosis, and that surgery is the “gold standard” for diagnosis and treatment.

But over the past few weeks, questions have been raised about whether surgery is actually necessary for women to detect and treat endometriosis.

This week’s ABC Four Corners highlights stories of women undergoing repeated unnecessary surgeries for endometriosis which caused significant harm and left some women unable to have have children.

So where does that leave people who have or suspect they have endometriosis?

Surgery is not always necessary but can be helpful in some instances. But it’s never a simple yes-or-no decision. Let’s look at what the evidence says about who might benefit from surgery and when it’s unnecessary.

What is endometriosis and what is surgery for?

Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus (womb) grows outside the uterus – usually in the pelvis or other areas. It affects about one in seven women and those presumed female at birth.

Surgery for endometriosis has two roles:

• diagnosis: seeing whether endometriosis lesions are present

• treatment: removing or destroying visible disease.

Surgery is no longer needed for diagnosis

Historically, laparoscopy (keyhole surgery) with biopsy was considered best to diagnose endometriosis. If tissue removed at surgery showed endometrial-type cells under the microscope (histology), diagnosis was confirmed.

However, endometriosis care is evolving with imaging and our understanding of pain science is improving. Australian and international guidelines now allow clinicians to diagnose endometriosis based on symptoms.

Deep and ovarian endometriosis can often be diagnosed with specialised ultrasound or MRI. This imaging can also help guide decisions about whether or not to undergo surgery.

So surgery is no longer required to “prove” a person has the condition.

When else might surgery be unnecessary?

Surgery shouldn’t be the first and only treatment option for endometriosis.

Surgery may not be needed if symptoms are manageable with hormonal therapy, allied and complementary health therapies, and lifestyle modification, or the risks of surgery outweigh the benefits.

Just because endometriosis is there, does not mean it causes the symptoms. Adenomyosis (a condition where endometrial-like tissue grows in the muscle wall of the uterus), irritable bowel syndrome, pelvic floor dysfunction and bladder pain syndrome can coexist with endometriosis.

Sometimes treating these other conditions can improve quality of life without surgery.

When might you consider surgery?

Surgery may an appropriate treatment when:

• pain is severe and persistent, and medical therapies have not helped

• imaging suggests deep endometriosis is affecting key organs such as the bowel, bladder or ureters, which can cause complications

• fertility is affected and other options have been explored.

In these cases, surgery is considered for treatment, not diagnosis, and should be performed by an expert clinician – especially for deep or complex disease.

Early surgery may provide symptom relief, but there is little evidence lesions rapidly worsen over time or that urgent surgery improves long-term outcomes.

Although laparoscopies are generally safe, they’re still performed under general anaesthesia, which comes with risks. Other risks from surgery include:

• bleeding or infections
• damage to bowel, bladder or ureters
• adhesion formation, where scar tissue forms and fuses to other parts of the pelvis.

Even after successful surgery, pain may return over time. This doesn’t mean surgery failed or was inappropriate. It means endometriosis and pelvic pain are chronic, complex conditions.

What if the surgeon doesn’t find anything?

Sometimes a surgeon looks inside the pelvis and doesn’t see endometriosis, or histopathology (the tissue taken for analysis in a laboratory) is negative.

This may mean the disease isn’t there, but sometimes it’s not that straightforward. Surgeons may miss a lesion that is microscopic or hidden in difficult-to-access areas such as the bowel.

Histopathology accuracy also depends on many factors. The diseased part of the lesion may be missed during analysis. If the lesions are surgically burnt away (ablated), or very tiny endometriosis lesions are cut out (excised), they may be destroyed by the surgical instruments, making pathology review impossible.

Other times, abnormal-looking areas are removed, when these are in fact not endometriosis.

Questions to help you decide

If you are considering surgery for endometriosis, it can help to ask your doctor:

• what is the goal of surgery?
• what does my imaging show?
• what are the alternatives?
• what other conditions do I have that may contribute to my symptoms?
• how might surgery alleviate these symptoms?
• what is your experience with complex endometriosis?
• what improvements in pain can I realistically expect?
• what are potential complications in my case?

A good surgical consultation should discuss your symptoms, priorities, past experiences and treatments, discuss benefits, limitations and uncertainties around diagnostic tests, and treatment options.

If you feel pressured into surgery, or your surgeon quickly suggests booking surgery without offering other options, seek a second opinion.

If you decide on surgery to manage pelvic pain, your clinician should offer other treatments, such as pelvic physiotherapy and/or medication, which can be used in conjunction.

For those who aren’t planning a pregnancy, evidence shows people who use a hormonal medication to suppress oestrogen after surgery have lower rates of recurrence than those who do not.

For some, surgery is transformative. For others, it offers limited relief. Individualised care is key. The goal is to improve quality of life, not simply to find endometriosis. That decision should be made with you, not for you.

Thanks to Adelaide University Adjunct Lecturer in Gynaecology Mathew Leonardi and Endometriosis Group Leader at Adelaide University’s Robinson Research Institute Louise Hull for their input into this article.

– ref. Is surgery necessary for my endometriosis or ‘suspected’ endo? – https://theconversation.com/is-surgery-necessary-for-my-endometriosis-or-suspected-endo-276365

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/is-surgery-necessary-for-my-endometriosis-or-suspected-endo-276365/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Victoria Whitington, Associate Professor of Education (Adjunct), Adelaide University

The federal Coalition has proposed an alternative to the universal child care system involving vouchers that could be used for long daycare, family daycare, nannies or a combination of these.

Senator Leah Blyth argues in an opinion article in The Australian Financial Review that a voucher system would provide families with choice and flexibility to better meet their needs.

This would be in contrast to the current system, in which the federal government directly funds long day childcare and family day care with subsidies to the service provider. Blyth argues the subsidised system distorts the workforce.

So what are the actual problems the vouchers would address? And how would they address the current shortcomings in the system?

The child care system has bigger problems

The most recent and well publicised issues in long daycare, used by 47% of Australian families with children under five, include:

1. child safety (including abuse)

2. insufficient appropriately qualified educators and teachers

3. high educator and teacher turnover rates – educators and teachers must be able to engage with children and families over time, building relationships of trust

4. the predominance of for-profit services (75% nationally that by their structure are very likely to put profit ahead of quality of care for children

5. the undersupply of places, also called “child care deserts” – these are geographical areas where there are either insufficient or no services to meet demand.

Surely, any proposal for reform needs to address at least some of these challenges.

Would a voucher change the choices available?

The voucher proposition raises several concerns.

Choice of service implies that such services exist. Many families live in areas where there is little choice. In rural, remote and regional areas, or on the outskirts of cities, there may be just one service. Or there may be insufficient demand for a centre to be financially viable.

A focus on choice also implies parents know what childcare services are available and what they offer, and can make an informed choice.

A sparkling new building or frequent media advertising, for example, may not inform parents about staff retention rates, qualifications, or the centre’s Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority quality rating.

The Coalition argues that over-regulation strangles supply. Currently, state-based regulators are working to improve quality by shutting down consistently underperforming centres. Centres are carefully assessing educator qualifications. Reducing regulation will not address safety and quality issues.

Extending the vouchers to in-home care, such as nannies, would ignore safety issues. Measures are underway to address the employment of abusers in long daycare. But a voucher system that includes in-home nanny care could give abusers unsupervised and long day access to young children.

Given the staffing crisis, it is difficult to see how making the system less financially stable due to dependency on vouchers would encourage potential educators to consider a career in the sector.

How would centres plan for the future?

As in any organisation, whether for profit or not-for-profit, financial viability is critical. Centres must have reliable funding sources to operate a continuing service.

Salaries are the biggest cost in any service, followed by running costs. Under the current model, centres are able to plan for these costs because they know the numbers of children, their age and attendance, well in advance.

Under the proposed voucher model, funding would be more likely to fluctuate, which could make service planning difficult due to financial instability. It would also increase the administrative burden.

Vouchers would need to set the cost of care for each child per hour and per day. Because costs vary between cities and regions, it would be difficult to calculate a uniform cost per child that could apply across Australia.

Families with children with special needs often experience difficulty in finding a service. These children require costly additional support that services claim they cannot provide. Currently, an additional childcare subsidy is only available under certain conditions such as temporary financial hardship. A voucher system would need to consider this particular challenge.

Why do we put our children in early years education and care?

As a nation, we need to decide on the primary purpose of early years education and care.

Is to provide care for children so that their parents can be part of the workforce, increasing overall productivity?

Or is its purpose to provide children and families with access to high quality early childhood education and care, which is their right? If we choose the second, we need to consider whether the provision of a voucher system would align with that goal.

– ref. The Coalition has proposed vouchers for nannies or child care. It raises more questions than answers – https://theconversation.com/the-coalition-has-proposed-vouchers-for-nannies-or-child-care-it-raises-more-questions-than-answers-276268

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/the-coalition-has-proposed-vouchers-for-nannies-or-child-care-it-raises-more-questions-than-answers-276268/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Nielsen, Associate Professor, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland

A baby macaque monkey named Punch has gone viral for his heart-wrenching pursuit of companionship.

After being abandoned by his mother and rejected by the rest of his troop, his zookeepers at Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan provided Punch with an orangutan plushie as a stand-in mother. Videos of the monkey clinging to the toy have gone viral worldwide.

But Punch’s attachment to his inanimate companion is not just the subject of a heartbreaking video. It also harks back to the story of a famous set of psychology experiments conducted in the 1950s by US researcher Harry Harlow.

The findings from his experiments underpin many of the central tenets of attachment theory, which positions the bond between parent and child as crucial in child development.

What were Harlow’s experiments?

Harlow took rhesus monkeys from birth, and removed them from their mothers. These monkeys were raised in an enclosure in which they had access to two surrogate “mothers”.

One was a wire cage shaped into the form of a “mother” monkey, which could provide food and drink via a small feeder.

The other was a monkey-shaped doll wrapped in terry towelling. This doll was soft and comfortable, but it didn’t provide food or drink; it was little more than a furry figure the baby monkey could cling to.

So, we have one option that provides comfort, but no food or drink, and one that’s cold, hard and wiry but which provides dietary sustenance.

These experiments were a response to behaviourism, which was the prevailing theoretical view at the time.

Behaviourists suggested babies form attachments to those who provide them with their biological needs, such as food and shelter.

Harlow challenged this theory by suggesting babies need care, love and kindness to form attachments, rather than just physical nourishment.

A behaviourist would have expected the infant monkeys to spend all their time with the wire “mother” that fed them.

In fact, that’s not what happened. The monkeys spent significantly more time each day clinging to the terry towelling “mother”.

Harlow’s 1950s experiments established the importance of softness, care and kindness as the basis for attachment. Given the opportunity, Harlow showed, babies prefer emotional nourishment over physical nourishment.

How did this influence modern attachment theory?

Harlow’s discovery was significant because it completely reoriented the dominant behaviourist view of the time. This dominant view suggested primates, including humans, function in reward and punishment cycles, and form attachments to whoever fulfils physical needs such as hunger and thirst.

Emotional nourishment was not a part of the behaviourist paradigm. So when Harlow did his experiments, he flipped the prevailing theory on its head.

The monkeys’ preference towards emotional nourishment, in the form of cuddling the furry terry towel-covered surrogate “mother”, formed the foundation for the development of attachment theory.

Attachment theory posits that healthy child development occurs when a child is “securely attached” to its caregiver. This is achieved by the parent or caregiver providing emotional nourishment, care, kindness and attentiveness to the child. Insecure attachment occurs when the parent or caregiver is cold, distant, abusive or neglectful.

Much like the rhesus monkeys, you can feed a human baby all they need, give them all the dietary nourishment they require, but if you don’t provide them with warmth and love, they’re not going to form an attachment to you.

What can we learn from Punch?

The zoo was not conducting an experiment, but Punch’s situation inadvertently reflects the controlled experiment Harlow did. So, the experimental setup was mimicked in a more natural setting, but the outcomes look very similar.

Just as Harlow’s monkeys favoured their terry towelling mother, Punch has formed an attachment to his IKEA plushie companion.

Now, what we don’t have with the zoo situation is the comparison to a harsh, physically nourishing option provided.

But clearly, that’s not what the monkey was looking for. He wanted a comforting and soft safe place, and that’s what the doll provided.

Were Harlow’s experiments ethical?

Most of the world now recognises primates as having rights that are, in some cases, equivalent to human rights.

Today, we would see Harlow’s experiments as a cruel and unkind thing to do. You wouldn’t take a human baby away from its mother and do this experiment, so we shouldn’t do this to primates.

It’s interesting to see people so fascinated by this parallel to an experiment conducted more than 70 years ago.

Punch the monkey is not just the internet’s latest animal celebrity – he’s a reminder of the importance of emotional nourishment.

We all need soft spaces. We all need safe spaces. Love and warmth are far more important for our wellbeing and functioning than physical nourishment alone.

– ref. A viral monkey, his plushie, and a 70-year-old experiment: what Punch tells us about attachment theory – https://theconversation.com/a-viral-monkey-his-plushie-and-a-70-year-old-experiment-what-punch-tells-us-about-attachment-theory-276625

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/a-viral-monkey-his-plushie-and-a-70-year-old-experiment-what-punch-tells-us-about-attachment-theory-276625/

ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 23, 2026.

PODCAST: A View from Afar – Defining a Way Forward When the World is in Chaos
PODCAST: A View from Afar – Paul G. Buchanan: “The sad fact, though, is that the US is the center of our earthly geopolitical universe, serving as the first rock to drop in the global pond whose ripple effects are extensive, negative, and washing up in unexpected and unforeseen ways. That rock, in fact, is a black hole sucking the remnants of the rule based order into oblivion, or if not oblivion, irrelevance in a new age of power politics (might makes right, etc.). It is a dark force from which things as they exist cannot return.”

250 million-year-old amphibian fossils from Australia reveal global spread of ‘sea-salamanders’
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lachlan Hart, Lecturer, School of Education, UNSW Sydney The Kimberley region in the north-west corner of Western Australia is full of rugged ranges and gorges, and long stretches of red soil and rocky ground. The dry seasons are long, and the wet seasons often flood the Martuwarra

The work women do has changed. The case for pay equity in NZ hasn’t
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Meehan, Director, NZ Policy Research Institute, Auckland University of Technology Pay equity is back in the spotlight in New Zealand, with an unofficial “people’s select committee” about to report on last year’s legislative changes that overhauled the process and cancelled existing claims. As we await its

After the Milan Cortina medals, what comes next for Australian winter sports?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Milan Cortina 2026 was Australia’s most successful Winter Olympics. From 1936-2022, Australia won 19 medals, including six golds. This year, Australia has added another six medals, including three golds. How has this happened and what

As war in Ukraine enters a 5th year, will the ‘Putin consensus’ among Russians hold?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Rutland, Professor of Government, Wesleyan University Perceived wisdom has it that the longer a war goes on, the less enthusiastic a public becomes for continuing the conflict. After all, it is ordinary citizens who tend to bear the economic and human costs. And yet, as the

In Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights, domestic abuse has been recast as consensual kink
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Drury, PhD Candidate in History, Lancaster University Much has been done, by way of interviews and Instagram reels, to market Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights as a tale of ferocious passion and untameable desire. The question of precisely whose passion we see play out onscreen is a

How can unis balance academic freedom with the need to protect against antisemitism?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pnina Levine, Senior Lecturer, Curtin Law School, Curtin University Australian students are returning to university campuses for the start of the academic year. They do so amid highly charged debates around racism and antisemitism. Australian universities have been accused both of failing to protect freedom of speech

The ground beneath Sydney emits radiation. But it’s nothing to worry about
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Manenti, Experimental particle physicist, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney When most people hear the word radiation, their mind jumps straight to nuclear disasters, such as at Chernobyl or Fukushima. But radiation is everywhere. In fact, right now, as you read this, you are being exposed

Gaza’s cultural sites have been decimated. UNESCO’s muted response sets a dangerous precedent
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Isakhan, Professor of International Politics, Deakin University Since October 2023, Israel’s war in Gaza has caused mass human suffering. But it has also brought devastation to the cultural heritage of the Palestinian people. In our recent article in the International Journal of Heritage Studies, we documented

Planning a face lift? Why asking about your mental health doesn’t always hit the mark
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toni Pikoos, Adjunct Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology; Federation University Australia If you walk into a cosmetic surgeon’s office, you probably wouldn’t expect to be asked about your recent break-up or how you cope with stress. But in Australia, that has been standard practice for nearly

Good fungus may one day help save plants from bad fungus like deadly myrtle rust disease
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Moffitt, Associate Professor in Microbiology, Western Sydney University What do coffee, sugar, wheat, soy, eucalypts and paperbarks all have in common? They are all susceptible to parasitic rust diseases caused by fungi. Plant rust disease can easily be spotted by the characteristic orange or yellow spores

Satellite imaging is now vital for disaster management. But there are dangerous gaps in our systems
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Marie Brennan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Waikato The extreme weather events and resulting destruction that have hit New Zealand this summer are not only signs of a changing climate. They also highlight the now indispensable role of remote sensing satellite technology. Broadly, remote sensing

Beyond Gaza, Israel pushes to occupy more of the West Bank
While the world has focused on the atrocities in Gaza, Israel continues its support of illegal settlements, hostility and apartheid in the West Bank. Asia-Pacific specialist journalist Ben Bohane reports from Bethlehem for Michael West Media. SPECIAL REPORT: By Ben Bohane We are no more than 5 minutes out of Bethlehem on a crisp December

Roger Fowler, a legend of the Aotearoa solidarity movement, dies at 77
OBITUARY: By David Robie Roger Norman Fowler: 12 September 1948 – 21 February 2026 Roger Fowler, an activist legend of social justice solidarity movements from Bastion Point to resisting apartheid and racist rugby tours and freedom for Palestine, has died after a long illness. He was 77. Described by some as a “true Tāne Toa”,

Climate-related migration: Is New Zealand living up to the ‘Pacific family’ rhetoric?
SPECIAL REPORT: By Coco Lance, RNZ Pacific digital journalist Last week, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said Aotearoa’s immigration settings were “no way to treat our Pacific cousins”. “All Pacific people want is a fair go, equivalent to what other nations are getting, and they’re not getting it,” he said outside Parliament. While Peters’

How could Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor be removed from the line of succession to the throne?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor Emerita in Constitutional Law, University of Sydney The place of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, former prince and brother of the king, in the line of succession to the British throne appears to be under threat in the United Kingdom. Currently, Mountbatten-Windsor is eighth in line (after

The Epstein scandal has battered Britain’s political establishment. Can the radical-right Reform party benefit?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Wellings, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, Monash University The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office will heap yet more pressure on the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest over allegations he passed government documents to sex

ER Report: A Roundup of Significant Articles on EveningReport.nz for February 22, 2026
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 22, 2026.

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/er-report-a-roundup-of-significant-articles-on-eveningreport-nz-for-february-23-2026/

Tena Koutou Katoa welcome to a new series of A View from Afar.

For this, the sixth series of A View from Afar, political scientist and former Pentagon analyst Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning deep-dive into geopolitical issues and trends to unpick relevancy from a world experiencing rapid and significant change.

And, in this episode, the topic will be: How to Define A Way Forward When the World is in Chaos.

Since the re-election of the US President Donald Trump, Paul has been doing a lot of work… a lot of reading… and a huge amount of thinking.

Today we hear from Paul about:

1. The US Trump Administration’s “Authoritarianism at home, Imperialism abroad” currency.
2. How to deconstruct the entire “spheres of Influence” nonsense.
3. About United States fears of the rise of the Global South in a poly-centric world.
4. And Paul and I will lean-forward and consider; what to expect in the medium and longterm.

If listeners enjoy interaction in a LIVE recording environment, you can comment and question the hosts while they record this podcast. And, when you do so, the hosts can include your comments and questions in future programmes.

With this in mind, Paul and Selwyn especially encourage you to join them via YouTube, as on YouTube live interaction is especially efficient.

You can join the podcast here (and remember to subscribe and get notifications too by clicking the bell):

OK, let us know what you think about this discussion. Let the debate begin!

*******

SIGNIFICANT QUOTE PAUL G. BUCHANAN: “The sad fact, though, is that the US is the center of our earthly geopolitical universe, serving as the first rock to drop in the global pond whose ripple effects are extensive, negative, and washing up in unexpected and unforeseen ways. That rock, in fact, is a black hole sucking the remnants of the rule based order into oblivion, or if not oblivion, irrelevance in a new age of power politics (might makes right, etc.). It is a dark force from which things as they exist cannot return.”

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/podcast-a-view-from-afar-defining-a-way-forward-when-the-world-is-in-chaos/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lachlan Hart, Lecturer, School of Education, UNSW Sydney

The Kimberley region in the north-west corner of Western Australia is full of rugged ranges and gorges, and long stretches of red soil and rocky ground. The dry seasons are long, and the wet seasons often flood the Martuwarra Fitzroy River – an artery to the Indian Ocean – in the region’s south.

But if you were to travel back to the Early Triassic period, 250 million years ago, you would see a very different landscape. Back then, the land was covered in brackish water and was more like a mudflat, on the shore of a shallow bay.

Inhabiting this area were creatures a far stretch from the dingoes, rock wallabies and livestock that populate the region today. Strange amphibians, called temnospondyls, which looked like a cross between a salamander and a crocodile, dominated this era, feeding on fish and other small animals.

A new study colleagues and I have just published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology sheds new light on these animals. It shows for the first time how they were able to become an evolutionary success story.

Lost – then found

Palaeontologists uncovered fossils of these weird animals in rocks (known as the Blina shale) on Noonkanbah station, roughly 250 kilometres inland of Broome, during field expeditions in the 1960s.

Temnospondyls are an incredibly long and diverse lineage of vertebrates. Their fossil record extends some 210 million years, from the Carboniferous period through to the Cretaceous. They include prehistoric animals such as Eryops and Koolasuchus. Their story is one of great survival – one of the few vertebrate groups that persisted through the two mass extinctions at the end of the Permian and Triassic periods.

The temnospondyl discovered on Noonkanbah station was called Erythrobatrachus noonkanbahensis. It was named in 1972 by Cosgriff and Garbutt based on three fossil skull pieces that were retrieved on those field expeditions in the 1960s.

The specimens were sent to several museum collections in Australia and the United States. And some time in the following 50 years or so, they were lost.

Luckily, the Western Australian Museum retained a high quality plaster cast of one of the pieces. But our team was determined to find out more about these enigmatic fossils. We were completely blown away when one of the lost pieces turned up in a museum collection at Berkeley, in the US.

One species becomes two

Once we could look at these two pieces of Erythrobatrachus, we could see that they actually belonged to two different species of temnospondyl.

One of the original fossils was definitely unique enough to maintain the Erythrobatrachus name. The other one was more like a previously described, and well-known temnospondyl called Aphaneramma.

While both animals would have been roughly the same size (with skulls of about 40 centimetres long when complete), the shape of their skulls indicated different diets and hunting strategies.

Erythrobatrachus had a broader, more robust head and would have been a top predator in its environment.

Aphaneramma, on the other hand, had a long, thin snout probably adapted for catching small fish. They both lived in the same habitat, coexisting by hunting different prey.

A global spread

Modern amphibians are extremely sensitive to salt levels in water. This is why marine environments which have high salinity are generally not a place where amphibians like to live.

Temnospondyls of the family Trematosauria, to which both Erythrobatrachus and Aphaneramma belong, were apparently unbothered by salt water, as trematosaurid fossils are found in marine deposits around the world.

In fact, fossils of Aphaneramma have been found in localities of similar age to the Blina Shale – in Svalbard, Russia, Pakistan and Madagascar.

Trematosaurs are particularly notable as their fossils are found in rocks which date less than 1 million years after the mass extinction event at the end of the Permian period, also known as the Great Dying. This was the most catastrophic mass extinction in Earth’s history.

Confirmation that Aphaneramma’s range also included Australia shows these animals were dispersing worldwide during the earliest parts of the Mesozoic era.

Our research adds an exclamation point to just how adaptable temnospondyls were. They had an amazing ability to utilise a plethora of ecological niches to survive, even in the face of extreme global change – proving they were definitely one of evolution’s success stories.

– ref. 250 million-year-old amphibian fossils from Australia reveal global spread of ‘sea-salamanders’ – https://theconversation.com/250-million-year-old-amphibian-fossils-from-australia-reveal-global-spread-of-sea-salamanders-276162

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/250-million-year-old-amphibian-fossils-from-australia-reveal-global-spread-of-sea-salamanders-276162/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Meehan, Director, NZ Policy Research Institute, Auckland University of Technology

Pay equity is back in the spotlight in New Zealand, with an unofficial “people’s select committee” about to report on last year’s legislative changes that overhauled the process and cancelled existing claims.

As we await its findings, it’s a timely moment to ask what problem pay equity settlements are actually meant to solve.

Over the past 50 years, women in Aotearoa have changed where they work in big ways. They have moved in significant numbers into occupations once dominated by men, including law, medicine and management.

In many professions that were overwhelmingly male a generation ago, women are now well represented. But the change has been largely one-way. Men have not moved in comparable numbers into jobs traditionally done by women.

These occupations, such as teaching, nursing, and care and support roles, remain heavily female dominated. That enduring imbalance is important, because it raises the question at the heart of pay equity: have roles historically performed by women been systematically undervalued?

Our research, drawing on five decades of Census data, tracks occupational segregation patterns in New Zealand over time.

While the overall picture has shifted, the persistence of female-dominated occupations tells us why pay equity – and robust settlement processes – still matter.

Progress, but mostly in one direction

Overall, New Zealand’s labour market is less segregated by gender than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Women now work across a much wider range of occupations, and many barriers that once limited their choices have fallen.

This represents real progress. Across the economy, much of this change reflects women moving into jobs once dominated by men. Health provides a clear illustration.

The share of female doctors has risen sharply, from just 12% of GPs in 1976 to 57% in 2023. The reverse shift has been far weaker: men have moved into nursing only marginally and the occupation remains overwhelmingly female, with 89% of registered nurses women in 2023.

This imbalance helps explain why pay equity exists at all – and why it is often misunderstood. Pay equity is often confused with equal pay, but they address different problems.

Equal pay is about paying people the same for doing the same job. By contrast, pay equity, is about equal pay for work of equal value. It is a fundamental human right. It addresses whether different jobs – often in different industries – are being paid fairly relative to each other, given the skill, responsibility, effort and conditions involved.

When women are concentrated in undervalued occupations, equal pay within these jobs does not close the overall gender pay gap across the economy. If an entire occupation is underpaid relative to comparable work, equal pay within it simply preserves that imbalance.

Addressing this requires pay equity processes that allow comparisons across occupations, both within and outside the industry, so that female-dominated roles can be properly assessed against comparable work elsewhere in the labour market.

A problem of structure, not just productivity

Last year, changes to New Zealand’s pay equity legislation were passed under urgency, raising the bar for bringing and progressing claims and making it harder for workers in female-dominated occupations to have potential inequities assessed.

The subsequent “people’s select committee” inquiry, launched by ten former women MPs to allow for public submissions and closer scrutiny of those changes, has created an opportunity to revisit how pay equity operates and what it is meant to achieve.

Our research helps explain why these processes exist at all. Even after decades of change, the gendered structure of work remains.

There is often an assumption that wages simply reflect productivity – that workers are paid according to their “marginal product”, or what an extra worker adds to output. In practice, pay is shaped by more than productivity alone.

Bargaining power, pay-setting institutions and long-standing norms all matter, especially in occupations where output is difficult to measure or price. This is particularly true in care, teaching and support roles, where the value of work is real but not easily captured in market prices.

Pay equity is designed to deal with that reality. It recognises that if wages reflect institutional history as well as productivity, then undervaluation can persist even in a well-functioning labour market.

Over five decades, progress toward gender equality at work has been real – but uneven. Women have moved into many new roles. Men have not followed in the same way.

That imbalance continues to shape pay outcomes across the economy, and pay equity settlement processes were designed in response to that structural reality. As debates about pay equity continue, it is worth keeping that original purpose in view.

Pay equity is not about special treatment. It is about ensuring that work is valued fairly in a labour market where the division of jobs by gender has narrowed, but not disappeared.

– ref. The work women do has changed. The case for pay equity in NZ hasn’t – https://theconversation.com/the-work-women-do-has-changed-the-case-for-pay-equity-in-nz-hasnt-274962

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/the-work-women-do-has-changed-the-case-for-pay-equity-in-nz-hasnt-274962/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania

Milan Cortina 2026 was Australia’s most successful Winter Olympics.

From 1936-2022, Australia won 19 medals, including six golds.

This year, Australia has added another six medals, including three golds.

How has this happened and what may this success mean for the future of winter sports in Australia?

A medal rush in Italy

Jakara Anthony became our first two-time Winter Olympic gold medallist in the women’s dual moguls.

Cooper Woods (men’s individual moguls) and Josie Blaff (women’s snowboard cross) also won gold.

Scotty James became the first Australian to win three Winter Olympic medals with a silver in the men’s half-pipe, and Matt Graham added to his 2018 medal with a bronze in the men’s dual moguls.

Danielle Scott also won silver in the women’s aerials.

Other young members of the 53-strong team such as Valentino Guseli (snowboard half-pipe), Tess Coady (snowboard big air), Jackson Harvey (moguls) and Indra Brown (freeski half-pipe) also made finals and recorded top-ten results, indicating Australia should continue to be competitive in the future.

What are the reasons for this success?

Increased investment from the federal government has certainly helped.

In July 2024, the federal government announced A$489 million of funding for elite Olympic and Paralympic athletes, coaches and support staff for 2025-2026. This was 50% more than the previous government’s 2021- 2022 high performance funding.

This funding is focused on better support for training, wellbeing, event preparation and access to high-level international competitions.

In 2023 the federal government announced a specific winter sport funding boost of $1.1 million, while in November 2024, a $385 million package was announced for winter and summer sports, with the aim of ensuring Australians have world class pathways and support at all levels.

Investment in facilities has also been critical.

The Olympic Winter Institute of Australia was formed in 1998 to support the development of elite winter athletes.

It contributed to a world class moguls course at Perisher in New South Wales, where three of Australia’s 2026 medallists have trained.

Aerials and moguls skiers can now practise their jumps on the southern hemisphere’s first year-round ski jumping facility near Brisbane: the Geoff Henke Olympic Winter Training Centre which was completed in 2020.

It greatly reduces the need for these athletes to travel overseas to train.

Four of our 2026 medallists have trained here.

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Read more: How do Winter Olympians train compared to summer games athletes?

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The National Snowsport Training Centre in Jindabyne, NSW, is also world class.

Winter athletes have benefited from Australia’s European Training Centre in northern Italy. This “home away from home” for Australian athletes greatly reduces the travel required to compete in many elite events.

So what happens now?

Australia’s success at these Olympics has pushed winter sport into the mainstream. The big question is what happens next – will more people try them, and will more funding follow?

Possibly – we have seen a similar pattern in Australia before.

After the 2003 Rugby World Cup, there was a spike in junior registrations.

Similarly, women’s and girls’ soccer registrations significantly increased following the Matildas’ performance in the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

However, this is not always the case.

For example, the 2000 Sydney Olympics did not significantly increase physical activity levels in Australia, despite our successful games.

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Read more: Does sports participation boom during (or before, or after) the Olympics?

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Additionally, winter sport has tougher barriers than rugby and soccer because many are expensive, seasonal and coaches and facilities are often located far from where people live.

The Australian ski season doesn’t begin until June, meaning any surge in enthusiasm from the Winter Olympics must persist for months before people can access domestic snow fields.

The Australian Sports Commission estimates about 184,500 Australians (aged 15+) skied or snowboarded at least once in 2024.

So, there is real interest but those numbers are small compared to other popular sports.

Continued funding for athletes and facilities will help ensure greater opportunities for Australians to engage in snow sports.

Currently, non-elite athletes in Australia have limited access to year-round facilities, although some developments are being proposed in major cities.

While recent funding has contributed to our success in Milan Cortina, there are concerns about this funding continuing.

There are calls for further investment in winter sports, while Australian’s chef de mission Alisa Camplin-Warner hopes the winter games won’t be forgotten as Australia increases its focus on the Summer Olympics in Brisbane in 2032.

Australia’s success at the Winter Olympics could inspire other Australians to pursue snow sports. But if Australia wants a “Matildas effect” for winter sports, they must become easier to access for the general population.

This can happen through continued facility development, cheaper learn-to-ski/ride programs, more school links and more pathways through Snow Australia.

– ref. After the Milan Cortina medals, what comes next for Australian winter sports? – https://theconversation.com/after-the-milan-cortina-medals-what-comes-next-for-australian-winter-sports-276060

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/after-the-milan-cortina-medals-what-comes-next-for-australian-winter-sports-276060/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Drury, PhD Candidate in History, Lancaster University

Much has been done, by way of interviews and Instagram reels, to market Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights as a tale of ferocious passion and untameable desire. The question of precisely whose passion we see play out onscreen is a crucial one.

Fennel says the film reflects her personal reading of Emily Brontë’s arresting tale of generational trauma, possession and violence. I had a different experience when I first read Wuthering Heights. I became immersed in a decidedly unsexy story of abuse, and had “bad dreams in the night” over Heathcliff’s brutal nature.

Nowhere is Heathcliff’s brutality more explicit than in his treatment of Isabella Linton, who becomes his wife. Isabella is the sister (or, in Fennell’s interpretation, ward) of Edgar Linton, Heathcliff’s rival for Catherine (Cathy) Earnshaw’s affections.

Heathcliff and Isabella’s marriage is marked by severe domestic and sexual abuse. In Brontë’s novel, Isabella chooses to flee Heathcliff’s tyranny and construct a life for herself independent of him. As the literary scholar Judith E. Pike notes, this was a radical transgression of historical norms, in which Victorian morality would expect her to endure such treatment for love of her husband.

Returning to the novel recently, I was struck once more by Isabella’s decimation of her husband’s propensity towards cruelty. I believe any retelling of Wuthering Heights should be faithful to, as opposed to a taming of, its radicalism. Yet when faced with Fennell’s Isabella, I encountered not the daring figure of the source text, but a doglike submissive.

Dogged desire

The words of writer Katherine Angel came to my mind upon exiting the cinema. In her work Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, Angel argues that, in the wake of #MeToo, a heavy burden has been placed on women to “say what we want, and indeed know what we want” when it comes to sex and desire. It was Angel’s bold question, “Why must the secrets of desire be uncovered?” that reared its head in me after seeing Isabella on all fours.

As Angel contends, “context is everything” when it comes to desire. At first glance, Isabella (portrayed by Irish actress Alison Oliver) is the epitome of the “born sexy yesterday” trope: a female character who is at once physically mature and attractive, but has the mental faculties of an innocent, naive child. Only just coming into the world in her preliminary scenes, Isabella is a lover of dolls and ribbons, elaborate dresses and hairstyles.

It is this infantilised state, to the point of absurdity (in one scene, she unknowingly creates a scrapbook with flowers and mushrooms evoking genitalia), that makes Isabella’s sudden yearning for Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) all the more jarring. Capitalising on established fantasies of Elordi as the “I can fix him”“ archetype, Fennell renders Heathcliff the key to unlocking Isabella’s secret desires.

And yet, it is only when Heathcliff is spurned – after Catherine has (finally) put an end to their trysts – that the duty of sexually satisfying him falls to Isabella. From the moment he breaks through her bedroom window, he discloses all of his ill-intent towards Isabella.

Heathcliff not only desires her virginity (“Do you know what comes next?”) but her hand in marriage, all in the name of spiting Cathy. He repeats the refrain, “Do you want me to stop?” as he makes Isabella aware of the brutality he will bring down upon her. As he derides and undresses her, she clutches her crucifix and shakes her head to say, “No, go on.”

Deviating from Brontë’s story, Fennell’s Isabella is rendered a sexual submissive, a consenting party to her own abuse.

Making no attempt to leave him (as she does in the novel), Isabella relishes being the dog, literally leashed by Heathcliff. Rather than giving credence to Isabella’s words as they appear in the book – “The single pleasure I can imagine is to die, or to see him dead!” – in Fennell’s adaptation, Isabella’s deviant sexual desires are read through the words of her abuser: “I’ve sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back!”

Fennell’s “uncovering” of Isabella’s secret desires helps the audience to decide, as posited by Angel, “whether a man’s actions were justified”. In order to realise her desires for Cathy and Heathcliff onscreen, Fennell’s Heathcliff must be exonerated. And he is, most grievously, through Isabella desiring to be his sexual submissive. Only then could the film’s ending play out: Heathcliff exudes Romeo as he lays beside a dead Cathy in her “skin room” tomb.

So Isabella’s desire is invoked, in accordance with Angel’s theory, as “proof that violence wasn’t, in fact, violence”. Fennel’s Heathcliff is not cruel and abusive, but a communicative and intentional dominant partner in a BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism) relationship which Isabella, as a submissive, enthusiastically consents to.

It is deeply troubling that the drive of Brontë’s Isabella, a survivor of domestic abuse, has been reread to dramatically absolve her abuser. The girl sobbing behind me as the credits rolled attests to the success of this exoneration. Really, she should be crying over the scripting of violent abuse as consensual play.

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– ref. In Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights, domestic abuse has been recast as consensual kink – https://theconversation.com/in-emerald-fennels-wuthering-heights-domestic-abuse-has-been-recast-as-consensual-kink-276314

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/in-emerald-fennels-wuthering-heights-domestic-abuse-has-been-recast-as-consensual-kink-276314/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Rutland, Professor of Government, Wesleyan University

Perceived wisdom has it that the longer a war goes on, the less enthusiastic a public becomes for continuing the conflict. After all, it is ordinary citizens who tend to bear the economic and human costs.

And yet, as the war following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 enters its fifth year, the attitude of the Russian public remains difficult to gauge: Just over half of Russians, according to one recent poll, expect the war to end in 2026; yet a majority say that should negotiations fail, Moscow needs to “escalate” with greater use of force.

As observers of Russian society, we believe this ambiguity in Russian public opinion gives President Vladimir Putin the cover to continue pushing hard for his goals in Ukraine. Yet at the same time, a deeper dive into the Russian public’s apparent support for the war suggests that it is more fragile than the Russian president would like to believe.

Putin’s social contract

From Day 1 of the conflict, Western strategy has been predicated on the belief that economic sanctions would eventually cause either the Russian elite or its society to persuade Putin to abandon the war.

This, in turn, is based on the assumption that the legitimacy of Putinism rests on a social contract of sorts: The Russian people will be loyal to the Kremlin if they enjoy a stable standard of living and are allowed to pursue their private lives without interference from the state.

The Russian economy has been struggling since 2014, so many analysts believed that this social contract was coming under strain even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, after four years of war, the combination of exclusion from European markets and a tripling of military spending has led to economic stagnation and mounting pressure on living standards.

One problem with the social contract approach is that it tends to downplay the role of ideology.

It is possible that Putin’s “Make Russia Great Again” propaganda resonates with a significant part of the Russian public. Polling has consistently placed Putin’s approval rating above 80% since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict.

Of course, the validity of the results of polls in an authoritarian society at war cannot be taken at face value. Yet, one shouldn’t rule out that some of that support is genuine and rests not just on a stable economy but also on popular endorsement of Putin’s pledge to restore Russia’s power and influence on the world stage.

Rallying Russians

Some scholars point to a “rally around the flag” effect. There was an apparent surge in Putin’s approval rating after the use of military force against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.

It is hard to tell whether the surge in support for Putin reflects a genuine shift in opinion or just a response to media coverage and what people perceive as the acceptable response.

The Kremlin has tried to hide the costs of the war from the public: concealing the true death toll and avoiding full-scale mobilization of conscripts by recruiting highly paid volunteers. It is also trying to keep the economy stable by drawing down the country’s reserve funds.

That leaves open the question of whether the “Putin consensus” will break down at some point in the future if the costs of the war start to hit home for a majority of Russians.

The problem with polls

The consensus view among observers is that a small minority of Russians oppose the war, a slightly larger minority enthusiastically support the war, and the majority passively go along with what the state is doing.

There are still some independent pollsters conducting surveys in Russia that report a high level of support among respondents for the “special military operation” against Ukraine, with figures ranging between 60% and 70%.

A number of researchers have pointed out the difficulty in getting an accurate snapshot of Russian public opinion, given that the polling questions might make the respondent fearful of being accused of breaking laws that penalize “spreading fake news” and “discrediting the army” with a lengthy prison sentence.

The Levada Center, which is still regarded as an independent and relatively reliable pollster, conducts its interviews face to face in people’s homes but has a very low response rate. Polls conducted online, in return for monetary rewards, can try to find demographically balanced respondents, but the problem of wariness about giving answers that are critical of the regime remains. In Russia’s current political environment, refusing to answer or giving a socially acceptable response is a rational strategy.

Some scholars, such as those associated with the Public Sociology Laboratory, which looks at public sentiment in post-Soviet states, still conduct fieldwork inside Russia, sending researchers to live incognito in provincial towns and observe social practices involving support for the war.

Their ethnographic research finds little evidence for a “rally around the flag” effect in provincial Russian society. Other analysts have turned to digital ethnography of social media as an alternative source of insight. But analysts unfamiliar with the local and digital context risk mistaking performative loyalty for genuine belief.

‘Internal emigration’

Most Russian citizens try to avoid political discussion altogether and retreat into what is often described as “internal emigration” – living their own lives while keeping interactions with the authorities to a minimum.

This practice dates back to the Soviet period but resurfaced as political repression increased after Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012.

There is no doubt that there are many fervent war supporters in Russia. They are quite vocal and visible because the state allows them to be – such as the military bloggers reporting from the front lines.

Apart from looking at opinion polls and social media, one can also probe the level of genuine support for the war by looking at everyday practices. If popular support for the war were enthusiastic, recruitment offices would be overwhelmed. They are not.

Instead, Russia has relied heavily on financial incentives, aggressive advertising, prison recruitment and coercive mobilization. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of men have sought to avoid conscription by leaving the country, hiding from authorities or exploiting legal exemptions.

Symbolic participation follows a similar pattern. State-sponsored Z symbols continue to dominate public space – the letter Z is used as a symbol of support for the war, in slogans such as “Za pobedu,” which translates to “for victory.” But privately displayed signs of support have largely disappeared.

Humanitarian aid to be sent to soldiers on the front lines or occupied Ukraine is often collected through schools and churches, where participation is shaped by social or administrative pressure. But many participants frame their involvement as helping individuals rather than supporting the war itself.

Reality vs. lived experience

High-profile propaganda products frequently fail to resonate. Music charts and streaming platforms in Russia are dominated not by patriotic anthems but by an eclectic mix of songs about personal relationships, such as Jakone’s moody ballad “Eyes As Wet As Asphalt,” songs in praise of “Hoodies” and even a catchy Bashkir folk song.

Book sales show strong demand for works such as George Orwell’s “1984” and Viktor Frankl’s Holocaust memoir “Man’s Search for Meaning,” suggesting that readers are searching for ways to understand authoritarianism, trauma and moral responsibility rather than celebrating militarism.

And instead of watching the state-backed film “Tolerance,” a dystopian tale of moral decay in the West, Russians are streaming the “Heated Rivalry” gay hockey romance.

Putin’s campaign to promote what he sees as traditional values appears not to be cutting through. Divorce rates are among the highest in the world – and birth rates continue to fall.

Heading into the Ukraine war’s fifth year, the gulf between the Kremlin version of reality and the lived experience of ordinary Russians remains. It echoes a pattern we have seen before: In the final decade of the Soviet Union the Kremlin became increasingly out of touch with the views of its people.

History will not necessarily repeat itself – but the masters of the Kremlin should be conscious of the parallels.

– ref. As war in Ukraine enters a 5th year, will the ‘Putin consensus’ among Russians hold? – https://theconversation.com/as-war-in-ukraine-enters-a-5th-year-will-the-putin-consensus-among-russians-hold-275666

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/as-war-in-ukraine-enters-a-5th-year-will-the-putin-consensus-among-russians-hold-275666/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pnina Levine, Senior Lecturer, Curtin Law School, Curtin University

Australian students are returning to university campuses for the start of the academic year. They do so amid highly charged debates around racism and antisemitism.

Australian universities have been accused both of failing to protect freedom of speech and academic freedom, and failing to protect the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students and staff.

A new Australian Human Rights Commission study found more than 90% of religious Jewish students and staff had experienced racism at university. High rates were also reported for secular Jewish, Middle Eastern, Indigenous and Asian students.

The study noted how universities

face the challenge of creating respectful learning environments while allowing some discomfort in engaging with difficult ideas.

I research academic freedom and freedom of speech. As we begin semester one, how can universities balance the need to protect students, teachers and staff with the need to encourage robust and proper debates?

Academic freedom and freedom of speech

Academic freedom concerns speech or work related to teaching, study or research. Freedom of speech relates to activities on university land or in connection with the university, but not related to teaching, study or research.

Legislation requires Australian universities to safeguard freedom of speech and academic freedom and to have policies upholding these freedoms. All university enterprise agreements also contain provisions around academic freedom.

The main practical framework for universities is a voluntary model code for academic freedom and freedom of speech. This was developed by former High Court chief justice Robert French in 2019 at the federal government’s request. It is set up to “ensure” freedom of lawful speech and academic freedom, subject to other “restrictions”.

New report cards

In 2026, universities will also need to demonstrate they have taken meaningful steps to regulate antisemitic speech. They will be assessed via a report card, with grades A through to D.

This was a recommendation from the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism’s report last year. The report cards will focus on university policies, complaints processes and antisemitism awareness. Greg Craven, a former vice-chancellor of Australian Catholic University, is leading the assessment process.

Universities will be given a chance to respond and improve their performance if there are issues. The first round of reports is due in May, adding to the focus on how universities handle these issues.

How can unis respond?

Universities can take several steps if there is antisemitic speech in classes or on campus.

They can take disciplinary action (including sacking or expulsion) against unlawful speech. Unlawful speech includes incitement of violence or hatred toward “protected groups”. These are groups distinguished by a certain characteristic, including race, religion or nationality. It is also illegal to display prohibited symbols or perform the Nazi salute.

Universities can also take action against speech that disrupts its teaching and research activities or prevents it from fostering the wellbeing of students and staff. This might include derogatory slurs in classrooms, protesters coming into classrooms or chanting outside libraries and lecture halls.

There are also protections against threatening, humiliating or intimidating behaviour. This is distinct from something that is merely offensive, shocking or insulting.

This distinction can be difficult to pin down and may require universities to take detailed legal advice. But the model code can be used to protect student and staff safety, while upholding freedom of speech and academic freedom

What does this mean in 2026?

This year, universities need to demonstrate they have taken meaningful steps to regulate antisemitic speech, but without contravening freedom of speech or academic freedom.

It should mean students can debate and take opposing sides about Israel and the conflict in Gaza in an international law class, for example.

If they do this in a biology class, this would not be academic freedom. It may be freedom of speech, but could also be seen as disrupting teaching activities – and so subject to disciplinary action.

If students use derogatory slurs against each other at that time, universities may decide this not only disrupts teaching but is threatening, humiliating or intimidating and so may take disciplinary action.

What about outside classes?

Universities will need to ask similar questions if derogatory slurs, personal attacks or loud aggressive arguments or chanting occur in university corridors or elsewhere on campus.

Although the students or staff would still be exercising their rights to freedom of speech on campus, the manner of this speech can be regulated. Is aggressive chanting disrupting teaching or research? Is it threatening, humiliating or intimidating students on campus?

Under the model code, universities can ban visiting speakers if a speech is likely to be “unlawful”, “prejudice the fulfilment by the university of its duty to foster the wellbeing of staff and students” or,

fall below scholarly standards to such an extent as to be detrimental to the university’s character as an institution of higher learning.

When it comes to protests, different universities have different laws and policies. If universities allow protests, they will need to ensure they do not disrupt teaching and research or undermine wellbeing.

All this shows universities face a delicate balancing job ahead. They need to make sure they remain places of robust debate. And students and staff feel safe to study, work and participate in these debates.

– ref. How can unis balance academic freedom with the need to protect against antisemitism? – https://theconversation.com/how-can-unis-balance-academic-freedom-with-the-need-to-protect-against-antisemitism-275212

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/how-can-unis-balance-academic-freedom-with-the-need-to-protect-against-antisemitism-275212/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Isakhan, Professor of International Politics, Deakin University

Since October 2023, Israel’s war in Gaza has caused mass human suffering. But it has also brought devastation to the cultural heritage of the Palestinian people.

In our recent article in the International Journal of Heritage Studies, we documented the extent of heritage destruction in Gaza and analysed the strikingly limited response by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

We argue that UNESCO’s failures have consequences beyond Gaza, as they weaken deterrence of attacks on heritage sites globally and risk normalising impunity for these types of crimes in conflict.

Heritage destruction in Gaza

Gaza has a rich and layered heritage, with archaeological traces dating to at least 1300 BCE. It has long sat at the crossroads of many cultures, and has been controlled by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Gaza is also home to historical sites important to the three main faiths of the region – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Much of this cultural heritage now lies in ruin. UNESCO’s Gaza damage assessment list includes 150 sites that have been damaged or destroyed since the war began.

Some of these are globally significant sites. Two are on UNESCO’s World Heritage Tentative List:

Other damaged or destroyed sites include:

• the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrios Church, which dates to 425 CE and is sometimes referred to as the third-oldest church in the world

• the seventh-century Great Omari Mosque, thought to be the first mosque in Gaza, along with its 13th-century library containing rare Islamic manuscripts

• the Qasr al-Basha, a fortress also known as Pasha Palace, which was built in the mid-13th century by the Mamluk sultanate and had been turned into an archaeological museum

• a Roman cemetery (Ard-al-Moharbeen), thought to have at least 134 tombs dating back to 200 BCE.

UNESCO’s failures

Apart from creating this list, UNESCO has been relatively muted in its response, compared with the role the agency has played in other conflicts.

This doesn’t mean it’s been completely silent. It has issued several statements condemning the destruction in Gaza and calling on “all involved parties to strictly adhere to international law”.

It has also elevated one heritage site to its List of World Heritage in Danger – the Saint Hilarion Monastery. Taking this step strengthens the protections around the site, with potential penalties for intentional damage.

Yet, despite these efforts, we question whether UNESCO has truly met the moment. Our analysis identifies a pattern of omission and understatement that is difficult to reconcile with UNESCO’s own mandate and the legal architecture that exists to protect cultural property in armed conflict.

For example, UNESCO has failed to publicly invoke the 1954 Hague Convention in relation to Gaza, which aims to protect cultural sites during conflict. The agency has cited it in virtually every major conflict since its ratification.

It also didn’t seek urgent action from the UN Security Council or the UN General Assembly to protect cultural sites. The agency did this in response to the Islamic State’s acts in Syria and Iraq (including the desecration of the World Heritage site of Palmyra). In 2017, for instance, the security council passed a resolution backed by UNESCO that laid out a number of steps to help protect cultural heritage in conflict.

Similarly, UNESCO has not worked with the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice to initiate proceedings against Israel or Israeli officials for the destruction of heritage in Gaza. The agency did this after conflicts in the Balkans and Mali. These trials established the intentional destruction of cultural property during conflict as a war crime.

Finally, UNESCO has not taken its usual approach of explicitly naming Israel as the perpetrator of cultural destruction in Gaza. It has taken this step in many recent conflicts. This includes Ukraine, where is has frequently named and condemned Russia as the perpetrator.

Why has UNESCO been so cautious?

One explanation offered by critics is geopolitical constraint. UNESCO has increasingly been criticised for an overdependence on voluntary state contributions. This can make the agency reluctant to confront powerful countries for fear of alienating supporters.

This dynamic is certainly evident in UNESCO’s long and strained relationship with Israel and the US. Both formally withdrew from UNESCO in 2019 because the agency had described Israel as an occupying power in Gaza and the West Bank, and condemned its destruction of Palestinian heritage.

But we argue there’s something more troubling occurring – the erosion of UNESCO’s willingness and capacity to activate the legal and normative tools it helped build.

Once a mighty advocate for the protection of culture worldwide, UNESCO has slowly withered into a largely ineffective and technocratic agency that sidesteps complex issues and is hamstrung by internal division.

UNESCO’s response

In response to the arguments raised here, UNESCO sent a detailed email explaining its actions on heritage protection in Gaza. These are some of the points raised by a UNESCO spokesperson:

On citing the 1954 Hague Convention:

Across different conflicts, UNESCO sometimes explicitly cites the 1954 Hague Convention […] and in other instances use the broader formulation “international law”.

UNESCO also communicates with the concerned Member States bilaterally […] This has been done on several occasions through correspondence addressed to the authorities of Israel, for example to remind Israel of its obligations under the 1954 Hague Convention.

On explicitly naming Israel as a perpetrator:

UNESCO is not a judiciary body, therefore its role is not to assign responsibility. In specific case of Ukraine, there are several Security Council and/or UNESCO governing bodies decisions that may explain specific statements.

On the lack of willpower to use its tools and resources on Gaza:

UNESCO activates its legal, normative and programmatic tools within the remits of its mandate and available funds. The needs are enormous, and we take this opportunity to renew UNESCO’s call in support of the people of Gaza.

Why Gaza matters

UNESCO’s limited response to the destruction in Gaza matters. Heritage protection is not only about salvaging damaged sites and trying to rebuild them. It’s also vital for defining unacceptable conduct and deterring future violations.

When the world’s foremost body on the protection of cultural heritage limits itself to cautious generalities, it fosters a permissive environment. It allows this destruction to be treated as regrettable collateral damage of war, rather than an actionable crime. This undermines UNESCO’s credibility.

It can also set a dangerous precedent. If the large-scale destruction of heritage occurs in full view of the world, with no repercussions, future belligerents may believe the costs of heritage crimes will be tolerated.

– ref. Gaza’s cultural sites have been decimated. UNESCO’s muted response sets a dangerous precedent – https://theconversation.com/gazas-cultural-sites-have-been-decimated-unescos-muted-response-sets-a-dangerous-precedent-275091

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/gazas-cultural-sites-have-been-decimated-unescos-muted-response-sets-a-dangerous-precedent-275091/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Manenti, Experimental particle physicist, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney

When most people hear the word radiation, their mind jumps straight to nuclear disasters, such as at Chernobyl or Fukushima.

But radiation is everywhere. In fact, right now, as you read this, you are being exposed to radiation from the ground beneath your feet, the air around you, and even your own body. Radiation is not inherently bad: what matters is how much you are exposed to.

To this end, my team and I have built the first radiation map of our home town, Sydney. This map provides a new perspective of the city, showing that the ground beneath the city is constantly emitting a small amount of natural radiation. Spoiler: it’s nothing to worry about.

What is radiation?

At its most basic level, radiation is energy travelling through space.

In nature, it is often produced by radioactive elements – atoms that are unstable and so prefer to convert into other elements by releasing energy, ending up in a more stable state. This process is called radioactive decay.

When Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago, it contained radioactive elements, such as uranium, thorium and potassium. Some radioactive elements decay in a fraction of a second; others decay so slowly they are still present today.

For example, natural uranium has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years. That means it takes 4.5 billion years for half of a given amount of uranium to decay, eventually turning into lead, which is stable.

Uranium, thorium and potassium dominate natural background radiation because they combine two key features: they were abundant when Earth formed, and they have half-lives comparable to, or even longer than, the age of Earth. Many other radioactive elements either decayed away long ago or were never present in significant amounts.

Because of this, these elements are everywhere. They are found in rocks and soil, taken up by plants, eaten by animals, and ultimately end up in our bodies. That is why we are, in a very literal sense, mildly radioactive.

We said that radiation is energy. But if you zoom in far enough, that energy starts to look like it’s being carried around by tiny particles: alpha particles (helium nuclei), beta particles (electrons or positrons), and gamma rays – photons, just like light, but far more energetic.

The key difference between the types of particle is how far they manage to travel. Alpha and beta particles don’t get very far before they run out of steam. A bit of air, clothing, or skin is usually enough to stop them. For that reason, they are mostly a concern when the radioactive material ends up inside the body – for example if it is inhaled, as can happen with radon gas.

Gamma rays, on the other hand, travel easily through air and out of the ground.

That makes them more relevant for external exposure, but also extremely useful: they escape from rocks and soil and reach our detectors. This is why gamma radiation is the type we can use to map what is happening beneath our feet.

Measuring Sydney’s radiation

When I moved from Abu Dhabi to Sydney in 2024, I observed something unexpected. The natural radioactivity I was measuring around the city with a small handheld gamma-ray detector was about five times higher than what I had been used to in the United Arab Emirates.

That raised two questions: why was natural radiation higher in Sydney than in Abu Dhabi? And was it safe?

Australia does have national radiation maps. But these are mostly based on surveys carried out from aircraft flying tens of kilometres apart. They are excellent for understanding broad geological patterns, but far too coarse to tell you how radiation varies from one neighbourhood, park or suburb to the next.

My students Tengiz Ibrayev and Matilda Lawtong and I set out to build the first high-resolution, ground-based map of natural gamma radiation for metropolitan Sydney. We carried out a radiation survey across a 10 by 10 kilometre region of the city, dividing the area into a grid and visiting almost every square on foot.

At each location – usually in public parks or open green spaces – we placed a gamma-ray detector on the ground and let it measure radiation for several minutes.

This gave us reliable averages rather than quick snapshots.

We also took measurements over open water in Sydney Harbour on a ferry. Water blocks radiation coming from the ground, so this let us measure cosmic radiation from space – high-energy charged particles originating from the Sun and deep space that constantly hit Earth). We then subtracted this background radiation, so we could focus on the radiation coming from the ground.

To understand why radiation levels changed from place to place, we also collected soil samples at selected locations and analysed them in the laboratory using very sensitive gamma detectors. This allowed us to measure how much uranium, thorium and potassium were present in the soil – the elements responsible for most natural radiation.

The pattern follows geology

Radiation levels across the city do vary, but not randomly. Areas built on sandstone and shale tend to show higher natural radiation than areas dominated by younger sediments.

In other words, the pattern follows geology, not human activity.

Radiation exposure is usually measured in units called millisieverts (mSv). Your own body contributes about 0.03mSv each year, mainly from potassium naturally present in your tissues.

Across the part of Sydney we mapped, the average terrestrial gamma radiation from the ground is about 0.24mSv per year. Even the highest values we measured are well within the range of natural background radiation seen worldwide.

We are hoping to expand this work to other cities around Australia through citizen science in schools. Doing so helps us turns something abstract and invisible into something we can measure, compare and understand.

Measuring radiation replaces fear with context. It doesn’t make the world more dangerous – it makes it clearer.

– ref. The ground beneath Sydney emits radiation. But it’s nothing to worry about – https://theconversation.com/the-ground-beneath-sydney-emits-radiation-but-its-nothing-to-worry-about-274109

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/the-ground-beneath-sydney-emits-radiation-but-its-nothing-to-worry-about-274109/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Marie Brennan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Waikato

The extreme weather events and resulting destruction that have hit New Zealand this summer are not only signs of a changing climate. They also highlight the now indispensable role of remote sensing satellite technology.

Broadly, remote sensing involves gathering information about Earth from a distance – most often from satellites equipped with sensors that measure different forms of electromagnetic energy.

Operating across multiple wavelengths, these instruments can function at night and capture conditions over large areas in a single pass. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites detect ground movement and flood extent even during heavy rain and thick cloud.

Optical sensors capture detailed imagery showing building damage, blocked roads, sediment plumes and coastal change. Thermal sensors identify heat patterns and temperature anomalies that signal hotspots or stressed environments.

Together, these systems provide a reliable, real-time picture of ground conditions, especially when severe weather renders traditional monitoring impossible.

But despite this technological progress, the framework that controls access to satellite data is alarmingly fragile, leaving a disaster-prone country like New Zealand vulnerable.

Better emergency response and risk mapping

For affected communities, satellite sensing technologies can be transformative. When rivers overflow, bridges collapse and extreme weather prevents response teams from entering affected areas, satellites continue operating uninterrupted.

Authorities can use the information to rapidly determine which communities are at risk, where landslides have destabilised slopes, and which roads or bridges have failed. It sharply reduces the time between impact and emergency response.

Instead of relying on scattered reports, responders can prioritise resources, guide evacuations, plan helicopter drops and coordinate rescue operations using a shared, high-resolution map of evolving hazards.

Remote sensing remains equally valuable long after the immediate crisis. Satellite data supports damage assessments for insurance and government relief, informs the reconstruction of roads, river systems and stormwater infrastructure, and helps refine hazard models for future storms and floods.

In remote areas such as the West Coast, East Coast and alpine South Island – where monitoring networks are sparse and terrain is difficult – satellite imagery is often the only wide-area information source.

Over months and years, repeated imagery helps scientists and planners understand how landscapes are changing: whether slopes are weakening, rivers are shifting course, or coastlines are retreating under rising seas and intensifying storms.

Stronger global agreements needed

Rapid access to satellite data is supported by the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, which coordinates satellites from different agencies and companies to provide free imagery and disaster maps when activated.

New Zealand is not a member but the National Emergency Management Agency secured “user status” in 2024.

Since participation is voluntary, some experts worry there is no guarantee satellites will be tasked appropriately, no assured access to archives, and no obligation for members to respond to every request.

The legal framework around remote sensing remains sparse. Outer space law states that space activities should benefit all countries but offers little detail.

The United Nations Remote Sensing Principles encourage cooperation and “reasonable” access, but lack enforcement and set no minimum standards for timely data sharing.

As well, many high-value satellites are privately owned. Outside voluntary emergency arrangements, access depends on commercial licences, pricing and national security restrictions. These constraints can delay critical information when it is needed most.

Commercial operators refusing to provide imagery can be a major challenge. With no binding international obligations on private companies, New Zealand cannot compel access during emergencies without pre-existing contracts.

Refusals can delay situational awareness, reduce mapping accuracy and leave dangerous gaps in response planning. So it is heartening that the New Zealand Space Agency is taking steps to address the gaps in international arrangements, and ensure more reliable access to commercial satellite data.

AI complicates the picture

The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in satellite-based disaster analysis adds capability but also complexity.

AI can rapidly detect floods, classify landslides, and evaluate building and road damage. But when errors occur, accountability becomes unclear. Does it lie with the data providers, the analytics companies that process the imagery, or the public agencies relying on the outputs?

Ensuring reliability requires transparent documentation of models, inputs, thresholds and uncertainties. Robust cybersecurity safeguards are also needed to prevent deliberate attempts to alter data streams or mislead machine‑learning models (which could distort analysis during a disaster).

But no binding rules require human oversight of AI-derived remote-sensing products, leaving governments to determine how much human review is necessary for safety-critical decisions.

To strengthen national resilience, New Zealand needs to advocate for clearer international data-sharing rules, and embed privacy, transparency and human oversight in public sector workflows.

It must also treat the satellite-to-ground data chain as critical infrastructure, with built in redundancy, security and rapid incident reporting. Remote sensing is now core national infrastructure.

The extreme weather of the past months emphasises why. When storms intensify too quickly for traditional systems to cope, satellites and AI-enabled analytics help provide a rapid, scalable view of unfolding risk.

Strong agreements, responsible AI governance and resilient data pipelines ensure New Zealand gets the right data – fast – when communities need it most.

– ref. Satellite imaging is now vital for disaster management. But there are dangerous gaps in our systems – https://theconversation.com/satellite-imaging-is-now-vital-for-disaster-management-but-there-are-dangerous-gaps-in-our-systems-276274

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/23/satellite-imaging-is-now-vital-for-disaster-management-but-there-are-dangerous-gaps-in-our-systems-276274/