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In a hectic 24 hours of trade diplomacy, US President Donald Trump has paused his threatened 25% tariffs on US imports from Canada and Mexico, while keeping 10% tariffs on imports from China.

Australian companies with operations in Canada or Mexico such as Rio Tinto, whose Canadian operations export billions of dollars of aluminium to the US, have won a temporary reprieve. But the risk of weaker economic growth in China will weigh heavily on companies that export to our largest trading partner.

And Trump has hinted all US imports of aluminium and copper, including from Australia, may be his next target.

The Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Tuesday that although Australia is not immune when there are escalating trade tensions, “we are pretty well-placed to navigate them.”

However, even if Australia manages to stay out of Trump’s sights, Australians cannot expect to come out of a trade war unscathed. Due to the complexity of global supply chains, it is difficult to predict exactly how Australia would be affected, but here are a few key factors that would likely come into play.

Our largest trading partner

About 40% of Australia’s exports go to China, making it the biggest destination by far, according to data for 2023 from UN Comtrade. Most of this is Australian iron ore and other minerals that are used in China’s construction and manufacturing sectors.

If Trump’s tariffs further slow the
already sluggish Chinese economy, this will reduce demand for the goods it buys from Australia.

If China’s demand for iron ore falls significantly, this will not only hurt the Australian mining sector, but it could trigger a fall in the Australian dollar, making the things Australians buy from abroad more expensive.

But the size of the impact of the latest tariffs on China remains to be seen. China has already absorbed the tariffs from the first Trump administration, and the latest increase is much smaller than the 60% tariff he previously proposed.

Trade diversion

The one positive effect for Australia of US tariffs on other countries is that, because they raise the price of other countries’ exports to the US, they may make some Australian exports more competitive. This is something economists call trade diversion. For example, the tariffs on Canadian aluminium would have shifted US demand toward aluminium produced in Australia.

The tariffs on China will divert relatively little trade to Australia because there is not much overlap between the products China and Australia export to the US.

But China’s retaliatory tariffs could make a significant impact. China responded to the US tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term with tariffs on American wheat and other agricultural products. A similar move this time could create an opening for Australian farmers to fill the gap.

But it is not all good news. The US exports diverted away from the Chinese market will also compete with Australian products in other countries. So, while Australian wheat may become more competitive in China, US wheat may displace Australia’s in the Philippines.

A weaker Aussie dollar?

Tariffs also tend to cause the currency of the country imposing them to rise because they reduce demand for goods denominated in foreign currencies.

The flip side is a weaker Australian dollar, which dropped to a five-year low after the tariffs were flagged. The currency has now fallen nearly 10% since November.

Again, this raises the cost of imports to Australia, which could lift inflation.

Network disruption

If the tariffs on Canada and Mexico are confirmed in 30 days’ time, the greatest impact will be in the supply chain disruption they will cause.

Analyses of the tariffs Trump imposed on China in 2018 found most of the cost was borne by US businesses that use imported inputs. But because North American production networks are so highly integrated, and have been for decades, the effect of tariffs on Canada and Mexico will be much more disruptive to all North American producers.

As economic networks expert Ben Golub explains, the concern is not just that auto prices will rise, but that if key parts of the production network fail, such as if small but important intermediate suppliers go out of business, the effects of the tariffs could cascade into major disruptions.

Eventually, businesses will develop alternative supply chains, but the short-run pain could be considerable.

For Australians, this could mean higher prices and supply disruptions, not just for the products we buy from the US, but for anything that depends on a North American supplier at any stage in the production process.

We are still feeling the effects of the supply chain disruptions caused by COVID, including the jump in inflation in 2021 and 2022 and the subsequent high interest rates and global backlash against incumbent political parties. That includes Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office.

Similar disruptions may be in store if this skirmish becomes a major global trade war. Even if Trump’s promised tariffs never actually materialise, we may still see the same effects on a smaller scale because the trade policy uncertainty from just the threat of a trade war has similar effects on business activity as actual tariffs.

Whatever transpires, even if Australia can escape direct involvement in a trade war, it cannot escape the shockwaves that reverberate through the global economy. The question is whether it will be a ripple or a tsunami. Läs mer…

You wake up exhausted from yet another hot night of tossing and turning, with very little sleep.

So you might be tempted to buy a “cooling blanket” after reading rave reviews on social media. Or you might have read online articles with taglines such as:

Stop waking up in a puddle of sweat with our roundup of the best cooling blankets – including a top-rated option from Amazon that ‘actually works’.

But what are cooling blankets? And can they help you get a restful night?

We know a cooler bedroom is best

First, let’s look at why a cooler environment helps us sleep better at night.

Our body’s internal temperature has a circadian rhythm, meaning it fluctuates throughout the day. A couple of hours before bed, it drops about 0.31°C to help you fall asleep. It will drop about another 2°C across the night to help you stay asleep.

During sleep, your internal temperature and skin work together to achieve a balance between losing and producing heat. Your skin has sensors that pick-up changes in the environment around you. If it gets too warm, these sensors let your body know, which may cause you to kick-off blankets or bed clothes and wake more often leading to poorer sleep quality.

Sleep quality is an important component of sleep health ensuring you get the physical, mental and emotional benefits that come from a good night’s sleep.

The ideal temperature for sleep varies depending on the season and type of bedding you have but falls between 17°C and 28°C. Keeping your sleeping environment within this range will help you to get the best night’s rest.

So what are cooling blankets?

Cooling blankets are designed to help regulate your body temperature while you sleep.

Different technologies and materials are used in their design and construction.

We’re not talking about hospital-grade cooling blankets that are used to reduce fever and prevent injury to the nervous system. These use gel pads with circulating water, or air-cooling systems, connected to automatic thermostats to monitor someone’s temperature.

Instead, the type of consumer-grade cooling blankets you might see advertised use a blend of lightweight, breathable materials that draw moisture away from the skin to help you stay cool and dry through the night. They look like regular blankets.

Common materials include cotton, bamboo, silk or the fibre Lyocell, all of which absorb moisture.

Manufacturers typically use a thread count of 300-500, creating air pockets that enhance airflow and moisture evaporation.

Some blankets feature a Q-Max rating, which indicates how cool the fabric feels against your skin. The higher the value, the cooler the fabric feels.

Others feature phase change materials. These materials were developed by NASA for space suits to keep astronauts comfortable during a spacewalk where temperatures are from roughly -157°C to 121°C. Phase change materials in cooling blankets absorb and hold heat producing a cooling effect.

Some cooling blankets use NASA technology developed for space suits.
Summit Art Creations/NASA/Shutterstock

Do they work?

If you believe online reviews, yes, cooling blankets can cool you down and help you sleep better in warmer weather or if you get too hot using normal sheets and blankets.

However, there is little scientific research to see if these consumer-grade products work.

In a 2021 study exploring sleep quality, 20 participants slept for three nights under two different conditions.

First, they slept with regular bed sheets in an air-conditioned room with the temperature set to their preference. Then, they used cooling bed sheets in an air-conditioned room where the temperature was set 3°C higher than their preference.

Participants reported good sleep quality in both conditions but preferred the warmer room with its cooling sheets.

This may suggest the use of cooling bedding may help provide a more comfortable night’s sleep.

But everyone’s cooling needs varies depending on things like age, health, body temperature, the space you sleep in, and personal preferences.

So while these products may work for some people who may be motivated to leave a good review, they may not necessarily work for you.

Are they worth it?

There’s a wide variety of cooling blankets available at different prices to suit various budgets. Positive customer reviews might encourage a purchase, especially for individuals experiencing disrupted sleep at night due to heat.

Yet, these cooling blankets have limited scientific research to show they work and to say if they’re worth it. So it’s up to you.

Lots of choice, but little scientific evidence to back them.
Screenshot Google Shopping

What else can I do if I’m a hot sleeper?

If a cooling blanket isn’t for you, there are other things you can do to stay cool at night, such as:

using air conditioning or a fan
placing a damp towel under or over you
wearing lightweight or minimal sleepwear and avoiding thick or synthetic fabrics, such as nylon, that can trap heat
if you usually share a bed, on hot nights, consider sleeping by yourself to avoid excess body heat from your partner.

On a final note, if you often struggle with hot, disturbed sleep, you can check in with your health-care provider. They can see if there is a medical explanation for your disturbed sleep and advise what to try next. Läs mer…

Picture writing the numbers 1 to 5 in a horizontal line, from smallest to largest. Where did you put 1? If you placed 1 on the left and 5 on the right, you share this preference with most humans.

Humans are not alone in this preference. Some other primates, and even some birds, also order small-to-large quantities from left to right. Although, some animals do prefer to order quantities from right to left.

This is known as the mental number line, and it shows how brains typically organise information. But why do our brains do this?

To investigate how and why brains order numbers, it’s sometimes useful to step back in time. How did a common ancestor of humans and insects order information? To find out, we can compare the results of humans and bees: we last shared a common ancestor more than 600 million years ago.

Two recent studies on bees have revealed a lot about how tiny brains order numbers.

One study, conducted by a team in Europe, showed that bees prefer to order lower numbers on the left and higher numbers on the right, just like many humans. Our new study, led by Jung-Chun (Zaza) Kuo and her supervisory team, has explored how numbers and space interact in the bee brain.

‘Number’ and ‘space’

As humans, we link the concepts of “space” and “number”. This means there is a logic to how we order numbers (typically from left to right in ascending order: 1, 2, 3, 4 … and so on).

Studies have shown humans may also have a vertical – bottom to top – preference when processing numerical information efficiently.

There may also be educational influences, especially due to language and writing direction. Some languages, like English, write from left to right. Others, such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew or Arabic, can be written in other directions. Writing direction can influence how we prefer to order numbers.

Meanwhile, honeybees are efficient learners and show evidence of being tiny mathematicians. In past research, they have been shown to add and subtract, understand the concept of zero, use symbols to represent numbers, order quantities, categorise numbers by odd or even, and show evidence of linking numbers to spatial information like size.

The competency bees show around numbers makes them an ideal animal to look at how number and space interact in a miniature brain.

Do bees have a mental number line?
Scarlett Howard

How did we test bees in our study?

We gave freely flying bees sugar water for visiting an image of three circles printed on a card: this was our “reference number”. The card was hung in the centre of a large circular screen, with a drop of sugar water on a platform underneath it.

As the bees repeatedly visited the reference number, they learned an association between the number three, the centre of the circular screen, and a reward. In between visits, bees took the sugar water back to their hive to be made into honey.

After bees had learned to associate number (three) and space (middle) with a reward, we tested them on numbers higher and lower than three, to see if they had linked space and number.

We showed bees images of a higher number (four circles) and a lower number (two circles). Two identical images of four shapes were shown simultaneously on the left and right sides of the screen. If bees preferred the larger number on the right, they would fly to the quantity of four presented on the right more than when four was presented on the left.

We did the same for the smaller number of two shapes. If bees preferred four circles on the right and two circles on the left, that would reveal they have a left-to-right mental number line, like humans.

We also tested if bees had a preference to order numbers upwards or downwards, and found no preference for linking space and number vertically. However, bees did prefer options that were towards the bottom of the circular screen.

The image on the left (a) shows a diagram of the screen apparatus. In the right panel (b) we see a bee flying towards an image of three yellow dots on a grey background.
Jung-Chun (Zaza) Kuo

So, how does the bee mental number line work?

The study by the European team found bees have a consistent left-to-right mental number line. This means they prefer to order lower numbers on the left and higher numbers on the right.

Our study has confirmed bees prefer to order higher numbers on the right. But we also found bees preferred to visit the right side of the screen. The preference of bees to order numbers from left-to-right and to visit the right side of the circular screen interacted in an intriguing way.

The bees in our study showed a preference for higher numbers on the right, but not for lower numbers on the left. This could be because the right-side bias we observed cancelled out the preference for smaller numbers on the left.

Taken together, the findings of both studies confirm that bees do possess a left-to-right mental number line and also that they have a bias towards the right side of their visual space.

Our team suggests such biases – for example, how most humans are right-handed – may be an important part of how brains make sense of ordering information in the world.

The birds and the bees (and the apes)

By looking at the behaviours of animals, we can sometimes learn more about ourselves.

These two recent studies on bees show there is a complex interaction between ordering numbers and how spatial relationships are processed by an insect brain.

We now know that the preference to order numbers from left to right exists in several very different animal groups: insects, birds and apes. Perhaps evolution has landed on this preference as an advantageous way to process complex information. Läs mer…

I sign this Treaty with my hand, but with the mana of my ancestors.

So said Hōne Heke, the first rangatira (chief) to sign the Treaty of Waitangi. To emphasise the gravity of this sentiment, he then mentioned two of his predecessors by name: Kaharau and Kauteawha.

It would be difficult to imagine a statement that could invest more mana in the Treaty than this. And Heke was not alone in his view of the agreement.

Many other rangatira similarly regarded the Treaty as a kawenata (covenant) of utmost importance, including some going as far as putting a representation of their tā moko (facial tattoo) on the document.

How each rangatira interpreted the Treaty’s provisions remains open to speculation. But what they committed themselves to abiding by was the text of the agreement (either the English version, or in the case of most signatories, the translation in te reo Māori).

That text was comprised of a preamble, followed by three operative articles. Some rangatira read it, some had it read to them. But as far as all the parties were concerned, that was the entirety of the Treaty.

In the 1990s, however, suggestions began to surface about a mysterious “fourth article” guaranteeing religious protections. It was not part of the text, but supposedly a verbal promise that amounted to a provision of the agreement.

The idea has gained sufficient traction for supporters to petition parliament late last year to recognise the fourth article, just as debate about the Treaty Principles Bill was heating up. But it is a claim that needs to be treated with caution and scrutiny.

Religious protections

Prior to the first signing of the Treaty – at Waitangi – the Anglican missionary Henry Williams had observed that some Catholic rangatira were reluctant to commit to the agreement.

The Catholic Bishop, Jean-Baptiste Pompallier, had queried British motives and insisted Catholic rangatira should receive specific protection from the Crown. Williams then read out a hastily-prepared statement to clarify the issue:

The Governor wishes you to understand that all the Maories (sic) who shall join the Church of England, who shall join the Wesleyans, who shall join the Pikopo or Church of Rome, and those who retain their Maori practices, shall have the protection of the British Government.

Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompallier.
Wikimedia Commons

Williams noted that this statement “was received in silence. No observation was made upon it; the Maories, and others, being at perfect loss to understand what it could mean.”

And there the matter ought to have ended: a peripheral detail in a momentous day. But this minor episode was disinterred from its historical obscurity in 1995 at a meeting of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference.

The clerics announced that a “fourth article was added to the Maori text of the Treaty signed at Waitangi, at the request of Bishop Jean Baptiste […] This article guaranteed religious freedom for all in the new nation, including Maori.”

Some Anglicans soon endorsed this position. The “fourth article” thus entered the bloodstream of Treaty discourse and began to circulate freely.

Missing evidence

There are several objections to the claim of a fourth article of the Treaty.

Firstly, if it was regarded as a part of the Treaty at the signing on February 6 1840, then we would expect to see both contemporaneous confirmation of this, and subsequent evidence that is consistent with it.

Yet, these categories of evidence are largely absent. Indeed, mention of a “fourth article” before the 1990s does not exist.

The sentiment of the fourth article is also absent from the instructions for the Treaty issued by Lord Normanby, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, in 1839.

Indeed, far from the Crown wishing to guarantee freedom of cultural or religious beliefs, Normanby made it explicit that only those Māori customs the British regarded as acceptable would be protected:

[The] savage practices of human sacrifice and cannibalism must be promptly and decisively interdicted; such atrocities, under whatever plea of religion they may take place, are not to be tolerated in any part of the dominions of the British Crown.

Therefore, as far as one party to the Treaty was concerned, the idea of the fourth article was never in contention. What was explicitly promised to all people was the protection of the British government, and not the protection of all customs held by Māori.

Treaties are written

As every other contemporaneous source confirms, no rangatira sought this fourth article, and around 90% of rangatira who signed the Treaty (in places other than Waitangi) did not have this so-called fourth article read to them (and so could not have consented to it).

William Hobson, first Governor of New Zealand.
Wikimedia Commons

Nor was it included in the text of copies of the agreement that were subsequently circulated around the country, and neither Hobson nor Pompallier suggested it was an “article” as such.

International law requires that treaties be in a written form. This certainly has been the convention as far as European treaties are concerned, extending back several centuries.

It makes any suggestion Hobson admitted an oral article extremely problematic. Likewise, New Zealand’s domestic law also specifies the Treaty contains only three articles.

Furthermore, if spoken commitments have the status of an article, then what about other verbal commitments made at some of the Treaty signings? Singling out one statement as a presumed article is inconsistent. Either the principle of all verbal commitments in such a setting constitute articles of the Treaty, or none does.

Previous attempts to insert the fourth article into the country’s constitutional framework have gone nowhere. And in the absence of more persuasive historical evidence, it’s likely to stay that way.

As the late Kingi Tūheitia succinctly put it: “The Treaty is written. That’s it.” Läs mer…

As the political debate turns to government spending, the questions loom: is it too high, and will Peter Dutton be able to get away with keeping his proposed cuts mostly under wraps?

On Tuesday the Business Council of Australia will launch its election ambit claims. In the following two days, about 30 CEOs from big companies will descend on Parliament house to argue their case to Treasurer Jim Chalmers, his opposition counterpart Angus Taylor, and some crossbenchers.

The BCA’s “election blueprint” calls for real expenditure growth to be capped at 2% a year, and the tax-to-GDP ratio to be capped at 23.9%.

The December mid-year budget update forecasts expenditure growth of 5.7% in 2024-25, more than 2 percentage points above the rate of inflation, forecast to be 2.75%. For later years it forecasts real expenditure growth in line with or below inflation.

The budget update projected a tax-to-GDP ratio of 23.4% in 2024-25, rising to 23.5 in 2025-26 and staying there for the rest of the forward estimates. The Coalition had a 23.9% cap which was abolished by Chalmers.

On spending the BCA says: “One way to fight inflation is to limit money pushed into our economy. Commonwealth Government spending is expected to increase to 26.5 per cent of GDP in 2024-25 and 27.2 per cent of GDP in 2025-26.

”Outside the pandemic period, this is the highest level of spending as a share of GDP since 1986-87. Having even more dollars chasing a limited supply of goods and services risks prolonging inflation and interest rates staying higher for longer.

”While this is not to suggest that we should not be taking government action to support our most vulnerable, we must have an overall whole-of-government aim to get spending under control.”

Among other “asks” on the BCA wish list are an investment allowance to encourage innovation, various measures to promote deregulation, action to remove bottlenecks for approval processes, and abolition of (or increase in) the R&D expenditure threshold.

Meanwhile Labor is seizing on Peter Dutton’s plans for major cuts to the public service, a familiar target for Coalition oppositions, and other cuts in government “waste”..

Dutton said on Sunday Labor had put 36,000 additional places into the public service. A Coalition government would not allow the public service “to balloon,” although it would protect “frontline” positions, he told the ABC.

Most of the Coalition’s spending cuts, however, would not be announced until after it was in government.

Dutton said he would not have a commission of audit, as the Abbott government did.

“Many of us have sat around the expenditure review committee. We know what we’re doing,” he said. “We’ve worked […] with many of the departmental heads that are there now, and I have no doubt that we’ll be able to find where Labor has put fat into the system that is not helping do anything but drive inflation.”

The Minister for the Public Service, Katy Gallagher, said Dutton was “so arrogant […] that he’s decided he doesn’t have to tell anyone about where [his cuts are] coming from until after the election.

”He has said he will cut 36,000 Canberra-based public servants.[…] We know that will have impacts right around the country,” she said on Monday.

“It will have impacts on anyone who wants to use Centrelink, anyone who wants to get their payments sorted, anyone who’s after compensation – for example, veterans. All of that is at risk under Peter Dutton’s plan. And he’s so arrogant and reckless that he’s openly saying he will do this, but he’s not actually going to tell you how he does it until he’s in government.

”He needs to come clean on that today. He needs to come clean on where these cuts are coming from and how he’s going to do them.” Läs mer…

Once again, a presidential administration headed by Donald Trump is in the spotlight over allegations of hidden fascist sympathies. This time, it’s precipitated by what one observer called a “stiff-armed salute” that presidential supporter and adviser Elon Musk did twice during inauguration festivities.

Critics have said it is a clear Nazi salute, while others have claimed it was just an awkward motion. Perhaps it was just the world’s worst dab.

Musk turned the controversy over his gesture into something like a joke about Nazis. On X, he posted, “Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations!” and “Bet you did nazi that coming.”

This is not the first time that Trump or someone close to him has been accused of sending fascist messages, even if they denied doing so. Nor even is it the first time a well-known figure endorsing Donald Trump has been accused of giving a Nazi salute.

As a scholar of far-right extremism, I regularly review instances of coded fascist symbols and other right-wing messages being sent by public figures and their supporters, some more obvious than others.

In plain sight

Like Musk, TV commentator Laura Ingraham ended a fiery speech endorsing then-candidate Trump in 2016 with a rigidly outstretched arm with her palm down – in the exact manner German Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s and rank-and-file modern neo-Nazis perform the “Sieg Heil,” or Nazi salute. Ingraham dismissed the criticism and in 2025 defended Musk’s action.

Laura Ingraham speaks and gestures at a Trump rally in 2016.

In 2021, the Conservative Political Action Conference set up its center stage in the shape of an odal rune. That is an ancient pagan symbol coopted by Germany’s Nazi regime and worn prominently during World War II on the uniforms of the brutal Waffen SS units. Social media erupted in outrage over the likeness, and columnists spilled much ink. Event organizers rejected the criticism, calling it “outrageous and slanderous.”

Trump himself has been reluctant to criticize white supremacists. In August 2017, he responded to a reporter’s statement that neo-Nazis had “started” the violence during and after a rally they held in Charlottesville, Virginia, by saying “(t)hey didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis. And you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.”

During the September 2020 presidential debate, Trump responded to a request from moderator Chris Wallace to condemn right-wing paramilitary groups by instead referencing one of them, saying, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

Just a few months later, several Proud Boys members would help spearhead the violent insurrection against the peaceful transfer of power at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Some of them were convicted of federal crimes for their efforts, though upon retaking office in 2025, Trump pardoned them or commuted their sentences.

More overtly, in November 2022 Trump invited Kanye West to dinner at Mar-a-Lago, despite West’s having posted antisemitic remarks recently on social media. Also at the dinner was well-known antisemite and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, whom Trump denied knowing anything about ahead of time, saying he arrived “unexpectedly” with West.

The night before the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, people carrying torches and chanting fascist slogans marched through the University of Virginia campus.

Coded messages

In other more abstract and lesser-known incidents, Trump may make his sympathies known without making direct statements himself. And I have personally observed white supremacists remark upon – and take encouragement from – these implied messages on Telegram channels dedicated to antisemitism and hate.

In February 2018, during Trump’s first term as president, the Department of Homeland Security issued a 14-word press release titled “We Must Secure The Border And Build The Wall To Make America Safe Again.” I and other investigators of far-right extremism attributed this phrase’s use to a clear dog whistle of the common white supremacist saying known as “the 14 words” – “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

In June 2020, Facebook removed Trump campaign ads for iconography invoking Nazi concentration camp symbols that “violat(ed) our policy against organized hate.” A campaign official disputed the association, saying other groups, including Facebook and anti-fascist groups, used the same symbol.

In September 2024, pro-Trump CEO Mike Lindell’s company MyPillow ran a sale discounting a pillow from $49.98 to $14.88. Critics quickly pointed out that this aligned with the 14-word white supremacist slogan and the numerical reference “88” that white supremacists use to mean “Heil Hitler,” because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. Lindell denied any connection between the price and right-wing messaging.

A list of the 14 people whose Jan. 6-related sentences President Donald Trump commuted.
Screenshot of WhiteHouse.gov

And on the very day he was inaugurated for his second term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people, including at least two alleged members of the Proud Boys, for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021. And he commuted the sentences of 14 people, including four members of the Proud Boys.

This extraordinary move was applauded by Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was among those pardoned. Others who received presidential clemency said they were grateful to Trump and encouraged by his action.

Signaling fascism

Sending these sorts of fascist and white supremacist messages allow Trump and his supporters to court right-wing extremist supporters while claiming innocence in the face of public outrage.

If they deny the allegations of veiled fascism or white supremacy, Trump and his backers can claim their opponents are inflamed against them and conducting ideological witch hunts.

Family members and friends of people imprisoned for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021, wait outside the Washington, D.C., jail for their release on Jan. 22, 2025.
Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images

But failure to directly deny allegations of fascism is a common strategy used by far-right and radical conservative movements seeking to obscure deeper links to extremist groups to avoid public backlash.

The lack of explicit admission can end up leaving these actions and symbols open to interpretation. Trump’s MAGA movement members, led by his inner circle of advisers and lieutenants, have consistently sought to use outrage and anger to generate additional momentum and attention for their agenda.

But as the old saying goes, “where there’s smoke there’s fire” – and in this case the smoke is probably closer to a book-burning bonfire in Berlin than a tiki torch carried in Charlottesville. Läs mer…

People living with disabilities, ranging in severity, regularly face barriers. Oftentimes, built environments are designed in ways that fail to consider the needs of those in situations of disability. That can include improperly sized ramps for wheelchair users or public spaces that are not sensory friendly.

One 2024 study found that most buildings in Canada are not accessible for people with disabilities.

This lack of accommodation can have a serious impact on a person’s quality of life. For example, people with disabilities report challenges in their workplaces, such as a lack of automatic door openers and poor signage and way-finding.

If our public spaces are not accessible to all, then they cannot be truly public. The first step in changing our built environment is to bring awareness to the different forms of disabilities that people in Canada experience.

The number of people in Canada living with disabilities increased by about five per cent from 2017 to 2022. In 2022, the Canadian Survey on Disability showed that 27 per cent of Canadians aged 15 years and older had one or more disabilities that impacted their daily activities.

As a professor in a school of design and the dean of the Faculty of Environmental Design at the Université of Montréal, I believe it’s urgently important to explore how faculties of architecture, design, landscape architecture and urbanism can inform design practices through the way we teach and conduct research.

Our objective must be to teach students how to make our built environment more inclusive and universally accessible through creative means rather than basic technological add-ons.

In 2022, the Canadian Survey on Disability showed that 27 per cent of Canadians aged 15 years and older had one or more disabilities that impacted their daily activities.
(Shutterstock)

Solutions remain cumbersome and stigmatizing

In 2022, 72 per cent of people with disabilities reported that they experienced one or more barriers to accessibility due to their condition. The Canadian government has recognized these challenges by setting ambitious nationwide accessibility targets for 2040.

Standards exist for accessibility and inclusivity in Canada, but they are not systematically applied. Furthermore, when designing for universal accessibility, the emphasis is on conformity rather than experience, on separation rather than integration, and on functionality rather than fulfillment.

Take, for example, a multi-storey office building that provides separate entrances and facilities for people with disabilities. The building complies with the minimum accessibility requirements set by local building codes, but does so in a way that isolates people with disabilities rather than integrating their needs into the overall design. This building does not provide the same experience to all people and therefore separates rather than includes diverse populations.

The universal accessibility of public spaces and buildings is a complex design problem. It is especially difficult for retrofits, since solutions can quickly become costly, particularly in heritage buildings.

But if changes are managed carefully, costs can become manageable. Universal accessible design is also challenging for new buildings and spaces, but if universal design is prioritized right from the outset of a project, architects and developers can create inclusive environments that accommodate diverse needs without incurring substantial additional expenses.

Universities that offer teaching and research programs in universal accessible design can make a real difference.
(Shutterstock)

How universities can help

Universal accessible design is not just a question of following a set of codes, but rather a question of designing for an equitable, qualitative accessible experience. This means ensuring that all people, regardless of their physical or mental situations, are offered equivalent spatial experiences.

Universities that offer teaching and research programs in a universal accessible design can make a real difference. But it’s integral that teaching is developed alongside the research, as understanding of needs and best practices are in continual renewal.

Faculties with such programs and courses could achieve this by enabling students through creative engagement of this difficult subject. Furthermore, being in these design environments allows students to understand these societal issues as leverage for innovative solutions, rather than just satisfying building codes.

Those designing university courses should ensure issues of universal accessibility are embedded throughout a student’s academic journey, and included in a way that helps empower the graduating students.

Students graduating from these programs will become the young professionals in the fields of design, architecture, urbanism or landscape architecture.

Unfortunately, the exact likelihood of students specializing in universal accessibility — and applying their knowledge in their careers — is challenging due to limited specific data. But there is an increasing recognition of the importance of accessibility in various sectors, leading to more roles that require expertise in universal design and inclusive practices.

For instance, in Québec, efforts are being made to integrate and retain people with disabilities in the workforce, highlighting the need for professionals trained in inclusive access and universal accessibility.

A field manager in Calgary looks over blueprints for converting office space into residential apartments in December 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Accessiblity in the classroom

Incorporating more discussion on universal accessibility in the classroom and in university research environments can help students apply their expertise in the design of our built environment throughout their careers.

Yet, higher education institutions are still not giving enough attention to courses related to universal accessibility and design. Institutions in Canada often struggle with how to provide students living with disabilities with barrier-free environments.

A national research project led by the Université of Montréal called Quality in Canada’s Built Environment is bringing together research groups from universities across the country to develop solutions based on the lived experiences of people living with diverse conditions. This is a key research approach to help sensitize students across the many programs touching the built environment that is also having an impact on student learning experiences.

In 2020 alone, more than 77,000 students graduated in the fields of architecture and related studies in Canada. If every graduate is sensitized to the barriers faced by people living with disabilities, we could begin to see a shift in how our built environments are imagined and constructed by those who design them.

By fostering dialogue between research, education and practice, universities can ensure a future where accessibility is seamlessly integrated into the every day. Läs mer…

We are in a rapidly changing visual culture where it is increasingly inadequate to take images at face value.

There is an ever-increasing prevalence of image manipulation and AI imagery. And in the attention economy, our attention has become a precious, sought-after resource. Images participate in this redirection of our attention with an endless production line of new, stimulating content to maximise user engagement.

In this environment, there is an increasing demand to prioritise visual literacy with the same rigour as we do with writing and reading.

We need to look more closely at images – to practise slow looking.

What is it you’re looking at?

The act of slow looking involves taking a pause and thoroughly describing what you see.

Often, we jump to the image’s meaning by identifying its contents. But it is important to discern what the image actually “looks like” and how this influences its reading.

The aim of looking slowly is not just to verify what is real, fake or AI. After all, there will become a time when it is too difficult and time-consuming for the average person to determine every AI-generated image without a watermark or label.

While the ability to detect whether something is AI is one important skill, this should not be the only reason to practise slow looking. To only determine if it is fake or real can ignore what an AI image can also tell us about our cultural climate.

In December, Madonna shared a deepfake of her embracing the Pope from digital artist RickDick.

Satirical images of the pope have a long history. As early as the 16th century, artists depicted the head of the Catholic Church alongside the profane as a means of critique and provocation.

RickDick’s deepfakes, in their eerie sense of realness, prove a new means to continue to satirise and provoke viewers in the digital age. We can deduce on close inspection that these images of Madonna and the Pope are not real photographs, but we can look even further to also discern what nevertheless gives these AI images their potency.

Fake or not, the lifelike, intimate embrace of the two icons probes an old but ongoing friction between perceived acts of blasphemy in pop culture and the sacred authority of the church.

In this etching from 1555, the Pope has three heads: one wears the papal tiara, one wears a turban, and one is an infant.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The act of slow looking develops visual literacy. It examines why certain images go viral, why some move us above others and what they say about our reality, values or beliefs.

Beginning to look slowly

To begin this practice, imagine you are trying to describe an image to a friend who cannot see it. What’s happening in the image? What is its scale? What colours are used? How is it made? Where and how are you viewing it – on your phone, a billboard or poster?

Adopt a questioning stance to spot possible biases or blind spots – your own, or of the creator of the image. What is possibly missing from the image? Whose perspective is it or isn’t it showing?

This process can be significantly enhanced through using your hands: draw or paint what you see. It doesn’t need to be expensive or time-consuming. Nor do you need to be “good” at it. Drawing on a scrap piece of paper with an old ballpoint pen you have on your desk for even just a few minutes can connect the mind and body into a deep awareness of your visual field.

Try drawing what you see, to really examine it and have a deeper connection with it.
Eepeng Cheong/Unsplash

Pick anything to draw from your immediate surroundings or screens. This is all about the process: it is not the goal to have a finished artwork.

Key details that weren’t apparent before will emerge through this creative practice and help you analyse how an image works, why it is or isn’t engaging and what are its multiple possible meanings.

Slowing down

That we should look more slowly in our fast-paced, oversaturated visual culture is not a new concept, especially in the art community.

Numerous galleries such as London’s Tate Gallery, the National Gallery of Australia , and most recently Ipswich Art Gallery’s 2024 Arriving Slowly exhibition host “slow looking” events to initiate this practice.

These events often take the form of a guided tour and provide prompts to build the viewer’s analytical skills, with the additional benefit of building a communal engagement to look slowly together.

We are all creators and consumers of images. It is important for all of us to reflect on where our attention is being directed, and why, in the constant flood of images.

We have a shared responsibility in how we examine images. Now, more than ever, our visual literacy would benefit from creative practices to slow us down. At both individual and collective levels, we should prioritise looking intently at how our images remember the past, define our present, and envision the future. Läs mer…

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the French publication of Michel Foucault’s dark masterpiece, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

A book of vast historical scope, written with lyrical intensity, it is one of the most influential philosophical works of the 20th century and remains unsettlingly prescient today.

As the subtitle suggests, the book at one level charts a history of the modern prison system. It was written when Foucault was involved in the Maoist organisation Group d’Information des Prisons, following a wave of French prison revolts in the early 70s.

What most struck Foucault about these revolts, he writes, was that they were protests not only against the cruelty of the guards. They were “also revolts against model prisons, tranquillisers, isolation, the medical and educational services”.

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The seeming paradox here, that the inmates were also protesting seemingly progressive elements of “model” prisons like education programs, frames the argument of Foucault’s monumental book.

More than just a history of prisons, Discipline and Punish shows how modern forms of knowledge are generated by new kinds of power relations. These shape people’s lives, behaviours, and “subjectivity”, he argues, in ways even more far-reaching than royal, feudal, and religious powers once did.

Knowledge and power

Foucault had made his name with his 1960 work on the history of the modern human sciences, The Order of Things. By the 1970s, he was deploying German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche’s method of “genealogy”.

This approach aimed to uncover, through historical studies, how modern forms of knowledge about human beings – from criminology and sociology to psychology – are not produced in isolation from sociopolitical phenomena. These “human sciences”, Foucault came to argue, are engendered in, and by, the practices of social institutions like military barracks, asylums, hospitals, prisons, and schools.

Michel Foucault in 1981.
Alexis Duclos/AAP

The forms of power which operate in these institutions have eluded previous political analyses, Foucault claimed. For they are not only wielded by the police, judges, political leaders, managers, or captains of industry. Nor do they necessarily overtly prohibit forms of conduct deemed unacceptable by authorities.

Rather, these forms of power operate invisibly, as soon as we enter many public buildings: in the organisation of classrooms, the architecture of prisons, even the planning of cities and the schedules that structure our workdays. And they shape people’s everyday behaviours, expectations and self-understandings from the ground up.

Discipline and Punish hence poses a radical challenge to widespread modern understandings of power and society. It especially challenges the “humanistic” idea that advances in knowledge and technology always enhance human freedoms.

“The man described for us by modern humanism, whom we are invited to free,” Foucault declares, “is already in himself the effect of a subjection much more profound than himself.”

Contrasts

Discipline and Punish starts with a dramatic contrast. We open with the spectacular 1757 punishment, under the monarchy of Louis XV, of a convicted parricide known as Damiens: publicly led in front of the Church of Paris, then subjected to the most brutal physical torture. Damiens’ lacerated body was quartered by four horses, then its stump burnt at stake before leering crowds.

Foucault next shifts abruptly to the exacting list of rules “for the house of young prisoners in Paris,” just 80 years later. These rules replace bodily torture with the rigid, nonviolent disciplining of prisoners’ behaviours. Nothing here is left to chance or choice: even micro-details such as when and how the prisoners wash, undress, pray, and prepare for sleep. Their every movement, even their recreation, is subject to scheduling, calculation, and discipline.

There could scarcely be a greater contrast between these two forms of punishment. “We have … a public execution and a timetable”, Foucault drily states. At issue are two ways in which power has operated in European societies.

In the ancien régime, punishment was an almost carnivalesque public event. There was no science to its exaction, no deep interest in the condemned individuals’ wider life or motivations, and no ambition to rehabilitate the guilty – at least in this life.

In modern penitentiaries, we have the regimentation of prisoners’ behaviours, behind closed doors. Every action is ideally observable, but only by their wardens, not by the public.

In modern penitentiaries, every move is observable.
Ben Margot/AAP

The bodies of the prisoners remain untouched, unless they become violent. But this is because it is now their inner identity or “soul”, as Foucault puts it, that the institution is targeting.

The aim is the prisoners’ correction, cure, or “normalisation”. Thus, their actions, motives, histories, psychologies and social backgrounds, become available as objects of knowledge. Each prisoner becomes a “case” for “assessment” and “examination” by welfare workers and social scientists.

This new form of power enables classifications, divisions, and rankings of inmates that were previously inconceivable, with targeted modulations of treatment and rehabilitation.

“Power produces knowledge” in the modern prison system, Discipline and Punish contends. And “power and knowledge directly imply one another”.

Panopticism

The paradigmatic form of this “power-knowledge” is the model prison or “panopticon” imagined by 19th century utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham.

This prison, ideally, should be circular. In the centre is a watch tower, from which its occupant can see in all directions. Around this surveillance hub are the inmates’ cells. In contrast to a medieval dungeon, this makes them permanently visible to the “enlightened” scrutiny of their keepers.

This design works because the prisoners know they are always observable – even if there is no one actually watching in the central tower. Prisoners are prompted to internalise the gaze of their keepers and to “watch themselves”, lest they err.

Plan of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison.
Blue Ākāśha/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

The whole scheme maximises efficiency, getting the prisoners to regulate their behaviour with the least manpower or expenditure of force. It also unobtrusively extends the reach of power inside the very minds of the inmates.

What makes Bentham’s “model prison” so significant for Foucault is how its principle of operation, “panopticism”, has been increasingly applied elsewhere. His book examines other examples of this “disciplinary power” in schools, workshops, factories, and military facilities.

More recently, arguably, the principles of panopticism have shaped open plan offices, call centres and public buildings, even sports arenas. They can be seen too in the proliferation of surveillance cameras in our suburbs and cities. Then there is the internet and social media, where each mouse click can be recorded, collated, and sold as predictive behavioral data.

Tourists rest under the shadow of surveillance cameras in Tiananmen Square.
Roman Pilipey/AAP

Previous analyses of power, Foucault concludes:

are not adequate to describe, at the very centre of the carceral city, the formation of the insidious leniencies, unavowable petty cruelties, small acts of cunning, calculated methods, techniques, ‘sciences’, that permit the fabrication of the disciplinary individual.

Invoking Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s work on the Soviet gulags, Foucault describes the disciplines developed in modern prisons as engendering a “carceral archipelago” in modern societies.

Resignation rather than hope?

A revolutionary work like Discipline and Punish was bound to provoke criticism, alongside adulation and emulation.

Foucault has been charged with mixing empirical insights into modern power with “normative confusions”, meaning that it is unclear where he stands in relation to the forms of power he critiques. The reader is clearly intended to feel outrage, as we read Foucault’s analyses of disciplinary power rendering subjects “docile”. Yet this outrage seems to rely on intuitions about human dignity of which Foucault was deeply sceptical.

By presenting disciplinary power as ubiquitous in modern societies, critics argue, Foucault has overstretched his revolutionary insights. His position contentiously collapses the differences between modern, democratic and openly authoritarian societies.

Moreover, any prospects of resistance to disciplinary power – or even analyses that would identify spaces of relative social or political freedom – seem doomed in advance.

Foucault arguably did not clarify the situation by saying modern power produces its own resistances, and everything is dangerous. These obscure statements seem to license resignation, rather than hope.

What is clear is that Discipline and Punish, at 50, has lost none of its provocative power. Nor, any of its relevance. Our ceaseless technological and social transformations continue to engender new means of surveillance, potentials for illiberal abuse, and pressures towards conformity. We ignore these at our own individual and collective risk.

The book remains the inescapable starting point, and work of reference, for understanding these evolving forms of peril and power. Läs mer…

A virulent strain of bird flu continues to spread across the world. Australia, New Zealand and Pacific nations are the only countries free from the infection, but this will no doubt change.

Known as “Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza” or H5N1, the bird flu strain had killed more than 300 million birds worldwide as of December last year, including both poultry and wild bird populations.

Birds have always been part of the cultures and livelihoods of Australia Indigenous people. They feature in songs and dance, and are used for food and customary practices such as ceremonies and craft. Many of these practices continue today.

To date however, Indigenous peoples have not been adequately included in federal government planning for the arrival of H5N1.

So what is the likely result? Agencies and organisations will be ill-prepared to support Indigenous people experiencing intense social and cultural shock. And the opportunity to draw from the strengths of Indigenous organisations to tackle this impending disaster will have been squandered.

Birds are integral to the cultures and livelihoods of Indigenous people. Pictured: an egret takes flight in the Kakadu National Park.
Dean Lewins/AAP

What is H5N1?

First identified in Hong Kong in 1997, H5N1 has since spread globally.

H5N1 is a viral infection primarily affecting birds – both poultry and wildlife. As overseas experience has shown, it can lead to population declines in wild birds and disrupt local ecosystems. Infected birds may exhibit symptoms such as lethargy, respiratory distress and neurological signs such as paralysis, seizures and tremors, and sudden death.

The virus also affects mammals including humans.
Since November 2003, more than 900 human cases have been reported across 24 countries. About half these people died.

While Australia has suffered several severe avian influenza epidemics since the 1970s, the H5N1 strain has not yet affected birds in Australia. But when it does, the damage may be profound.

H5N1 has since spread globally. Pictured: conservation officers in Singapore tag a sandpiper before it is tested for the virus.
LAW KIAN YAN/EPA

Birds are vital to Indigenous culture

Australia’s diverse, unique bird population comprises about 850 species, 45% of which exist only in Australia.

Birds are highly significant to many Indigenous groups.

The adult magpie goose and its eggs, for example, are an important food source for groups in the Kakadu region.

In Tasmania, Indigenous groups are revitalising customary practices by harvesting mutton birds. And bird feathers are used by Indigenous artisans in fashion and jewellery-making.

If H5N1 makes birds sick and diminishes their populations, Indigenous people’s livelihoods and wellbeing – social, emotional, and spiritual – will be severely affected.

Indigenous bush guide Patsy Raglar preparing meat including magpie goose meat for dinner in Kakadu National Park.
CRAIG JOST/AAP

Many birds are already struggling

Of greatest concern are the fate of threatened and endangered bird species. Indeed, Australia’s Threatened Species Commissioner, Dr Fiona Fraser, has warned the forthcoming H5N1 event may be more ecologically devastating than the 2019–20 bushfires.

Migratory birds, such as waders that travel from Siberia to lake systems throughout Australia, may take years or decades to return – if they return at all.

Even relatively healthy bird populations, such as emus, may be at risk in areas where local populations are dwindling.

The challenge has become more pronounced following the 2019–20 bushfires that affected vast areas of Australia’s southeast. Biodiversity in these burnt forests was later found to have declined, especially in bird populations.

These challenges mean Australia’s native bird populations may struggle to remain healthy and sustainable, and their availability to Indigenous groups is likely to diminish.

Australia’s native bird populations may struggle to remain healthy after H5N1 hits.
Dean Lewins/AAP

Mobilising Indigenous know-how

Indigenous people are deeply engaged in caring for Country and caring for their communities. This makes them a strategic asset when planning for the arrival of H5N1.

For example, Indigenous rangers are deeply engaged in land and water management including habitat restoration and biodiversity surveys. So, they are well placed to protect and monitor native species.

Traditional Owners and Indigenous rangers manage 87 dedicated “Indigenous Protected Areas” covering 90 million hectares of land and six million hectares of sea.

Indigenous health organisations will also be crucial to identifying human illness, should rare animal-to-human transmissions occur.

Shire councils and land councils are also well-placed to identify and monitor the impacts of bird flu.

Indigenous people are already deeply engaged in caring for Country. Pictured: Indigenous Rangers removing nets from an Arnhem Land beach.
NORTHERN AUSTRALIA HUB/AAP

It’s time for Indigenous inclusion

Indigenous inclusion in the federal government’s response to the threat H5N1 has been late and inadequate

This means Australia is already behind in supporting Indigenous groups to understand the threat and how to respond if they observe it – including how to deal with sick or dead birds.

To fill these gaps in public information, National Indigenous Disaster Resilience at Monash University has produced a bird flu fact sheet.

Indigenous community organisations demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for leadership during COVID-19. The muscle memory to mobilise in response to another outbreak remains strong.

Indigenous groups must be centred in preparing and responding to H5N1. What’s more, Indigenous culture needs to be foregrounded when considering how the virus might affect the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic wellbeing of communities.

In response to concerns raised in this article, a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said the federal government was “working to engage with First Nations communities to ensure we meet community needs” before and during an outbreak of H5N1.

The department’s Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy was surveilling for avian influenza in northern Australia, including working with Indigenous Rangers. Indigenous engagement has also included presentations delivered virtually and on-country.

“By fostering close partnerships with First Nations communities and Indigenous rangers, and leveraging access to a broad collaborative network, NAQS is able to facilitate trusted avenues for First Nations communities and Indigenous rangers to report concerns about wild bird health across northern Australia,” the spokesperson said.

States and territories were planning local responses, and nationally coordinated, culturally appropriate communication activities were being developed. The spokesperson said Parks Australia was also working with Traditional Owners at jointly managed national parks, and with the Indigenous Protected Areas network, in developing plans to prepare and respond to any H5N1 detection. Läs mer…