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Have you seen that scene from Star Wars where Yoda uses the force to lift the spaceship out of a swamp? Its energy is so powerful, but what exactly is it made of?

That’s what Ela, aged ten from Melbourne, wanted to know. And so she joined our host Eloise to ask Sam Baron, a science philosopher at The University of Melbourne, to find out the answer!

You can read a print version of this story here.

The Conversation’s Curious Kids podcast is published in partnership with FunKids, the UK’s children’s radio station. It’s hosted and produced by Eloise, and this episode was executive produced by Stephen Harris. Full sound credits available here.

Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.com or record it and send your question to us directly at https://funkidslive.com/curious.

And explore more articles from our Curious Kids series on The Conversation.

Disclosure statement:

_Sam Baron receives funding from the Australian Research Council. _

Sound Credits:

The Star Wars clip is from The Empire Strikes Back, cricket bat swing from nextmaking and plastic ball rolling is from giddster both via freesound.org . Läs mer…

The debt situation in many African countries has escalated again to a critical juncture. Twenty are in, or at risk of, debt distress.

Three pivotal elements significantly contribute to this.

Firstly, the rules governing the international banking system favour developed countries and work against the interests of African countries.

Secondly, multilateral financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank focus on poverty alleviation. This is commendable. But it doesn’t address the liquidity crisis countries face. Many don’t have the necessary readily available funds in their coffers to cover urgent development priorities due to their dependency on volatile commodity exports. As a result governments turn to raising sovereign debt under conditions that are among the most unfavourable on the planet.

This perpetuates a debt dependency cycle rather than fostering sustainable economic growth.

Thirdly, there’s the significant influence of biased credit rating agencies. These unfairly penalise African countries. In turn, this impedes their ability to attract investment on favourable terms.

The convergence of these three factors underscores the imperative to implement effective strategies aimed at mitigating the overwhelming debt burden afflicting African nations. These strategies must address the immediate financial challenges facing countries. They must also lay the groundwork for long-term economic sustainability and equitable development across the continent.

By tackling these issues head-on, a financial environment can be created that fosters growth, empowers local economies, and ensures that African countries have access to the resources they need to thrive.

Rules of the banking game

The Bank for International Settlements is often called the “central bank for central banks”. It sets the regulations and standards for the global banking system.

But its rules disproportionately favour developed economies, leading to unfavourable conditions for African countries. For instance, capital adequacy requirements – the amount of money banks must hold in relation to their assets – and other prudential rules may be disproportionately stringent for African markets. This limits lending to stimulate economic growth in less attractive economies.

The bank’s policies also often overlook developing nations’ unique challenges.

Following the 2008/2009 financial crisis, the bank introduced a new, tougher set of regulations. Their complexity and stringent requirements have inadvertently accelerated the withdrawal of international banks from Africa.

They have also made it increasingly difficult for global banks to operate profitably in African markets. As a result, many have chosen to scale back their operations, or exit. The withdrawals have reduced competition within the banking sector, limited access to credit for businesses and individuals, and hampered efforts to promote economic growth and development.

The limitations of the new regulations highlight the need for a more nuanced approach to banking regulation. The adverse effects could be mitigated by simplifying the regulations. For example, requirements could be tailored to the specific needs of African economies, and supporting local banks.

Focus on poverty alleviation

Multilateral financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank play a crucial role in providing financial assistance to many countries on the continent. But their emphasis on poverty alleviation and, more recently, climate finance often overlooks the urgent spending needs.

Additionally, the liquidity squeeze facing countries further limits their capacity to prioritise essential expenditure.

Wealthy nations enjoy the luxury of lenient regulatory frameworks and ample fiscal space. For their part African countries are left to fend for themselves in an environment rife with predatory lending practices and exploitative economic policies.

Among these are sweetheart tax deals which often involving tax exemptions. In addition, illicit financial practices by multinational corporations drain countries of their limited resources.

Research by The ONE Campaign found that financial transfers to developing nations plummeted from a peak of US$225 billion in 2014 to just US$51 billion in 2022, the latest year for which data is available. These flows are projected to diminish further.

Alarmingly, the ONE Campaign report stated that more than one in five emerging markets and developing countries allocated more resources to debt servicing in 2022 than they received in external financing. Aid donors have been touting record global aid figures. But nearly one in five aid dollars was directed towards domestic spending hosting migrants or supporting Ukraine. Aid to Africa has stagnated.

This leaves African countries looking for any opportunities to access liquidity, which makes them a prey of debt scavengers. As noted by Columbia University professor José Antonio Ocampo, the Paris Club, the oldest debt-restructuring mechanism still in operation, exclusively addresses sovereign debt owed to its 22 members, primarily OECD countries.

With these limited attempts to address a significant structural problem of pervasive indebtedness it is unfair to stigmatise Africa as if it contracted debt because of its performance or bad management.

Rating agencies

Rating agencies wield significant influence in the global financial landscape. They shape investor sentiment and determine countries’ borrowing costs.

However, their assessments are often marked by bias. This is particularly evident in their treatment of African countries.

African nations argue that without bias, they should receive higher ratings and lower borrowing costs. In turn this would mean brighter economic prospects as there is a positive correlation between financial development and credit ratings.

However, the subjective nature of the assessment system inflates the perception of investment risk in Africa beyond the actual risk of default. This increases the cost of credit.

Some countries have contested ratings. For instance, Zambia rejected Moody’s downgrade in 2015, Namibia appealed a junk status downgrade in 2017 and Tanzania appealed against inaccurate ratings in 2018. Ghana contested ratings by Fitch and Moody’s in 2022, arguing they did not reflect the country’s risk factors.

Nigeria and Kenya rejected Moody’s rating downgrades. Both cited a lack of understanding of the domestic environment by rating agencies. They asserted that their fiscal situations and debt were less dire than estimated by Moody’s.

Recent arguments from the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Peer Review Mechanism highlight deteriorating sovereign credit ratings in Africa despite some posting growth patterns above 5% for sustained periods. Their joint report identifies challenges during the rating agencies’ reviews. This includes errors in publishing ratings and commentaries and the location of analysts outside Africa to circumvent regulatory compliance, fees and tax obligations.

A recent UNDP report illuminates a staggering reality: African nations would gain a significant boost in sovereign credit financing if credit ratings were grounded more in economic fundamentals and less in subjective assessments.

According to the report’s findings, African countries could access an additional US$31 billion in new financing while saving nearly US$14.2 billion in total interest costs.

These figures might seem modest in the eyes of large investment firms. But they hold immense significance for African economies. If credit ratings accurately reflected economic realities, the 13 countries studied could unlock an extra US$45 billion in funds. This is equivalent to the entire net official development assistance received by sub-Saharan Africa in 2021.

These figures underscore the urgent need to address the systemic biases plaguing credit rating assessments in Africa.

Next steps

Debates about Africa’s debt crisis often lean towards solutions centred on compensation. These advocate for increased official development aid, more generous climate finance measures, or the reduction of borrowing costs through hybrid arrangements backed by international financial systems.

These measures may offer temporary relief. But they need to be more genuine solutions in light of the three structural challenges facing African countries. Läs mer…

Wages have become the top issue for Nigeria’s organised labour movements in the past year. Reacting to recent increases in the cost of living, the labour movement has been calling for an upward review of the national minimum wage, currently N30,000 (US$24) a month. The Conversation’s Adejuwon Soyinka asks economics professor Stephen Onyeiwu if Nigeria’s minimum wage truly protects workers from poverty.

When did Nigeria get a minimum wage and why?

In 1974, the Nigerian government followed the recommendations of the Udoji Commission and increased workers’ wages. But public sector workers were the main beneficiaries. It was not until 3 September 1981 that the first minimum wage law was introduced. The law covered all full-time workers except seasonal workers and those who worked in enterprises employing fewer than 50 workers.

Its introduction was prompted by a number of factors. The Nigerian Labour Congress, an umbrella organisation of trade unions then led by Hassan Sunmonu, was vociferous in its demand for improvements in workers’ welfare. It threatened to go on strike if its demand for a minimum wage was not met. As a new government at the time, the last thing the president Shehu Shagari administration wanted was a nationwide strike.

The first minimum wage in 1981 was 125 naira per month. At the exchange rate of US$1 = 0.61 naira in 1981, this amounted to about US$204. In 2024, that minimum wage would be equivalent to about 265,000 naira (US$204) per month, going by the current exchange rate of about US$1 = 1,300 naira. So the minimum wage in 1981 was at least eight times more than the current minimum wage.

The minimum wage in Nigeria has been revised a number of times but has not kept pace with the cost of living. It became 250 naira in 1991, 5,500 naira in 2000 and 18,900 naira in 2011. The current 30,000 naira took effect in 2019.

Read more:
A gloomy May Day awaits Nigerian workers

Who is affected by changes to the minimum wage?

The Nigerian labour market has two segments. Public-sector workers are the most affected by increases in the minimum wage. This is because the government cannot violate its own law, and nearly all public-sector workers are unionised.

Most Nigerians, however, are not affected by changes in the minimum wage. This is because 92.3% of the working age employed population work in the informal sector, mostly as farmers, traders or providers of services.

Only about 8% of Nigerians (or 16 million), mainly in the public and “high-end” private sectors, would benefit from a minimum wage increase. This is in contrast to South Africa, where 60% of workers are covered by the minimum wage.

In big corporations, skilled workers are often indifferent to the minimum wage, but sometimes their wages are adjusted upwards when a new minimum is introduced.

Many workers in small and medium-sized companies – part of the 16 million referred to above – are paid the minimum wage. Some of them, especially those in family-owned businesses, are paid less than the minimum wage.

Enforcement of minimum wage laws in Nigeria is at best weak. Consequently, many workers in the private sector, especially in services, hospitality, small private clinics and non-profit organisations, earn below the minimum wage. Most are not unionised and are unlikely to benefit.

Does the minimum wage protect workers from extreme poverty?

It depends on how one measures poverty.

A nation can establish a poverty line (or a minimum income level) below which someone would be considered poor. This minimum amount is deemed adequate to maintain an acceptable living standard, given the cost of living in a given country. The line is usually set very low.

In reality, however, Nigeria’s minimum wage traps workers in a cycle of poverty if a multidimensional measure of poverty is used – one that considers income and access to health, education and living standard indicators. These include sanitation, drinking water, electricity, and housing. As of 2021, when the latest data was compiled, 47.3% of Nigerians were multidimensionally poor. That number may have gone up significantly, following the removal of fuel subsidies and a galloping inflation rate of 33%. The subsequent steep increase in the cost of living, without wage adjustments, can only push more Nigerians into poverty.

It is, therefore, possible for someone earning the minimum wage to be regarded as non-poor under the income measure, but poor when the multidimensional measure is used. The current minimum wage of N30,000 (US$24) in Nigeria cannot extricate workers from multidimensional poverty.

The number of poor people in Nigeria has been rising for the past eight years, and will continue to do so until the minimum wage reflects the cost of living and recognises the salience of social services like health, education and housing.

Another reason the minimum wage does not protect Nigerian workers from poverty is that it is not indexed to inflation. Inflation has been rising faster than wage growth in Nigeria, thereby decreasing the real purchasing power of workers. Their income buys less and less. Inflation rose from about 11% in 2008 to 25% in 2023. The minimum wage has remained the same since then.

Read more:
Nigeria’s fuel subsidy removal was too sudden: why a gradual approach would have been better

What impact has the minimum wage had on the economy?

The current minimum wage has had a negative impact on the Nigerian economy.

To make ends meet, many workers are now doing “side hustles”. Some public-sector workers are hardly available in their places of work.

The low wage has undermined morale and productivity, and created a sense of deprivation among workers.

Read more:
Seeking jobs abroad isn’t an option for young Nigerians: they don’t have the right skills

What would be a better way to combat poverty?

One way is to help people acquire skills and capabilities that are needed in the new global economy. These are skills like information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, data analytics, biotechnology, bio-informatics, industrial design, 3D printing, digital imaging, design and animation.

Nigerian workers have fallen behind in the acquisition of 21st century skills. In a survey of companies in Nigeria, 81% said they had difficulty finding workers with the relevant skills. Läs mer…

Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990.

This year, if there is no policy change, student debt balances will be increased by 4.7%.

After sustained community pressure to change the way debts are indexed, the federal government has announced plans to help students, apprentices and trainees.

How will student debts change?

This announcement is part of the 2024 federal budget on May 14. It has two components.

First, indexation for student loans will be based on whichever is lower: the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, or the Wage Price Index (WPI), which measures hourly wage rates in the same job.

Second, in a surprise move, the government will backdate the new system to 2023. The government estimates about A$3 billion in indexation debt will be cancelled, helping about 3 million Australians.

The WPI was lower than the CPI in 2023, so the 2023 indexation rate would be cut retrospectively from 7.1% to 3.2%. Based on Australian Taxation Office data, a person with average debt levels in 2023 would see their debt cut by about $800.

The change will apply to higher education HELP loans, vocational education VET Student Loans and Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans. The Student Start-up Loan and a predecessor income support loan are also expected to be covered.

The changes will need to go through parliament.

The changes, announced by Education Minister Jason Clare, still need parliamentary approval.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

Is this a good idea?

While several “lower of two indicators” indexation systems have been suggested, the idea of choosing the lower of the CPI or WPI comes from the Universities Accord final report. This was the government’s wide-ranging higher education policy review released in February.

The accord report argued a WPI cap

will ensure that the indexation of HELP debts no longer outstrips the growth in wages and the servicing capacity of debtors does not go backwards overall.

But while the government’s proposal will ease the financial pain of 2023 indexation, the WPI is not the best long-term alternative to the CPI.

It still leaves uncertainty about how high future indexation could go, including for June 1 2024.

The fine print

Student loan indexation uses a strange formula that includes CPI data from the two years prior to each March quarter. The government’s 3.2% figure for 2023 WPI indexation uses the same two-year indexation calculation as is currently used for the CPI.

The March quarter WPI data needed to calculate June 1 2024 indexation is not released until May 15. Until then, we do not have an exact WPI indexation rate for 2024. But if the WPI increases at a similar rate in the March 2024 quarter as it did in the second half of 2023, the WPI rate will be around 4.3%.

As 4.3% is lower than the CPI rate of 4.7%, the WPI rate would prevail under the government’s new policy.

A 4.3% WPI indexation would be more beneficial than the current system for those with student debt. But 4.3% would still be the highest indexation level since a GST-driven 5.3% in 2001 (after last year’s 7.1% is cut to 3.2%).

When would WPI lower indexation?

On top of these complexities, the WPI has only been lower than the CPI four times since 2000.

All four of those cases reflected unusual circumstances. Early this century, the then new 10% GST caused inflation to increase. Overseas conflicts and post-lockdown imbalances in demand and supply have triggered the current inflationary spike.

The WPI is likely to be below the CPI early in an inflationary period. Workers respond to inflation with demands for higher wages, but effects are delayed. Salaries and wages are typically revisited on set schedules, such as the annual minimum wage case, yearly employer pay reviews and multi-year enterprise agreements. These wage-setting practices create a time lag between the CPI and WPI.

But during periods of prolonged inflation, compensating wage increases plus real wage growth cause the WPI to catch up with and overtake the CPI.

This happened (by the smallest of margins) in the December 2023 quarter of this financial year. Compared with a year earlier, the WPI was up 4.2% and the CPI 4.1%.

Student debts have climbed thanks to current inflation spikes.
Diego Fedele/ AAP

The case for a maximum rate

As the government’s indexation policy moves through parliament, amendments could give borrowers more certainty. This includes the possibility of introducing a fixed maximum indexation rate to reduce the risk of student debt blowing out.

I have previously proposed indexation should be the lower of the CPI or 4%.

Any indexation system that uses the lower of two variable indexation rates runs the risk both will be high for significant periods of time. A maximum indexation rate does not.

People considering taking out a student loan, or estimating how long repaying their current loan will take, could be reassured indexation will never be more than 4% and will usually be less.

Welcome news but the bigger problem remains

Retrospective lowering of indexation will be welcome news for the 3 million Australians with student debt.

From a government perspective, their 2023 indexation revenue will still be above the 2.5% indexation average between 2000 and 2021. So in this way, it is a good compromise between competing considerations.

But the government’s fix for 2023 leaves students vulnerable to times when the CPI and the WPI are both high.

Replacing the WPI with a fixed maximum indexation rate would mean the goverment’s student loan indexation policy solves future problems as well as past ones. Läs mer…

Protest movements can look very different depending on where you stand, both literally and figuratively.

For protesters, demonstrations are usually the result of meticulous planning by advocacy groups and leaders aimed at getting a message out to a wider world or to specific institutional targets. To outside onlookers, however, protests can seem disorganized and disruptive, and it can be difficult to see the depth of the effort or their aims.

Take the pro-Palestinian protests that have sprung up at campuses across the United States in recent weeks. To the students taking part they are, in the words of one protester, “uplifting the voices of Gazans, of Palestinians facing genocide.” But to many people outside the universities, the focus has been on confrontations and arrests.

Where does this disconnect come from? Most people don’t participate in on-the-streets protests or experience any of the disruption that they cause. Rather they rely on the media to give a full picture of the protests.

For over a decade, my research has extensively explored trends in how the media shapes narratives around different kinds of demonstrations. Reporting on the campus encampments by large parts of the media fits a general pattern of protest coverage that focuses more on the drama of the disruption rather than the underlying reasons behind it – and that can leave audiences uninformed about the nuances of the protests and the movements behind them.

Covering drama over demands

Protests – from small silent sit-ins and mass marches to the current student-led encampments – share similar components.

They require a degree of planning, focus on a perceived injustice and seek reforms or solutions. Protests also, by their very nature, engage in varying degrees of disruptive actions that exist in confrontation with something or someone, and utilize strategies that attract the attention of news media and others.

These core elements – grievances, demands, disruption, confrontation and spectacle – are present in nearly all protests.

But to the media, some elements are more newsworthy than others, with confrontation and spectacle often topping the list. As a result, these elements tend to be covered more often than others.

Police advance on pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the UCLA campus on May 2, 2024.
AP Photo/Ethan Swope

In research focusing on social movements like Black Lives Matter, the 2017 Women’s March and others, I have found that time
and again, coverage tends to headline the parts of the protest that are sensational and disruptive.

And this neglects the political substance of the protests. The grievances, demands and agendas are often left in the shadows. For example, analysis of the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd conducted by myself and colleague Rachel Mourão found the Associated Press and cable news headlines were more likely to focus on disruption and chaos than police violence or protester demands.

This pattern is referred to as the protest paradigm. While there are many factors that can make this paradigm fluctuate, like the timing of stories and the location of a news organization, movements that seek to disrupt the status quo are the most likely to receive initial coverage that frames protesters as criminal, irrelevant, trivial or illegitimate components of the political system.

When the media takes notice

This pattern can be seen in the initial coverage of protests against the war in Gaza at U.S.-based universities. These protests began in 2023 and only escalated into the campus encampments seen today after months of campaigning.

In the months leading up to the encampments, many students who were engaged in advocacy efforts over the Israeli campaign in Gaza demanded, among other things, that their universities divest from businesses connected to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

Students at Brown University participated in a hunger strike in February. Also in February, a coalition of students across several historically Black colleges crafted a joint call to action across university systems. Students at my university – Michigan State – rallied support through an online petition and then lobbied at board of trustee meetings. When the board of trustees issued a statement refusing divestment of any kind, students continued to march to the steps of the main administration building where they continued to protest, all before planning the encampment protests.

Little of this made it into mainstream news reports compared to late April, when an uptick in coverage corresponded with students organizing encampments at universities and university official began to respond. Those universities that asked police to enforce the dispersion of protesters amplified the intensity of confrontation, and, in turn, amplified the news coverage.

And rather than focusing on the grievance of protesters — that is, concerns about the deaths, injuries and looming famine affecting Palestinians — in reports of the campus encampments it has been the confrontations between protesters and police that have become central to the news media coverage.

As with all trends, there are always deviations and outliers. Not all reported pieces align with the protest paradigm. In the research examining news coverage after the murder of George Floyd, we found that when reports in major news outlets deviate from the protest paradigm, it was often in work produced by journalists who have engaged deeply and frequently with a community.

In the current campus protests, it is student journalism that has emerged as an outlier in this respect. Take, for example, an article from the Indiana Daily Student published during the peak of the unrest, which explains the lesser-known last-minute administrative policy changes that ultimately disrupted protest planning logic and contributed to the arrests and temporary bans of faculty and student protesters.

Who gets quoted, who doesn’t

There are commercial reasons why some newsrooms focus on the spectacle and confrontation – the old journalism adage of “if it bleeds, it leads” still prevails in many newsroom decisions. For the initial weeks of the campus protests, this penchant for sensationalism has shown up in the focus on chaos, clashes and arrests.

But it is a decision that delegitimizes protest aims.

This delegitimization is aided by the sourcing routines journalists often fall back on to tell stories quickly and without legal consequence. In breaking news situations, journalists tend to gravitate toward – and directly quote – sources that hold status, like government and university officials. This is because reporters may already have an established relationship with such officials, who often have dedicated media relations teams. And in the case of campus protests, in particular, reporters have faced difficulty connecting with protest participants directly.

As a result, official narratives may dominate news coverage. So when officials like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott equate protesters to criminals with antisemitic intentions, that typically gets covered – certainly more than any rebuttal from protest participants.

And because readers and viewers are unlikely to be on the ground to gauge Abbott’s characterizations of protesters for themselves, the coverage can shape how a protest movement and the politics around it are understood.

The media shapes the way most people understand them. But as coverage of the protests across universities has shown, often the focus is on the spectacle rather than the substance. Läs mer…

Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe.

The government will cap the HELP indexation rate to be the lower of either the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or the Wages Price Index (WPI), backdated from June 1 last year. At present the indexation is based on the CPI.

The new indexation arrangement will be backdated to all HELP, VET Student Loan, Australian Apprenticeship Support and other student support loan accounts operating on June 1 last year.

The government’s recent Universities Accord report pointed to the need for reform of the student debt arrangements, and recommended rejigging indexation, although it did not go as far as backdating.

The report said: “Australians should not be deterred from higher education because of the increased burden of student loans”.

Australian Government

People with these debts were hit hard by high inflation, with a jump in last year’s CPI indexation rate of 7.1%. The 2023 indexation rate based on the Wage Price Index would have been 3.2%

Someone with an average HELP debt of $26,5000 will have about $1,200 wiped from their outstanding HELP loans this year.

Some 525,302 Australians owe between $20,000 and $30,000.

Australian Government

The change will need legislation.

Education Minister Jason Clare said: “The Universities Accord recommended indexing HELP loans to whatever is lower out of CPI and WPI.

”We are doing this, and going further. We will backdate this reform to last year. This will wipe out what happened last year and make sure it never happens again.”

The Minister for Skills and Training Brendan O’Connor said: “This continues our work to ease cost of living pressures for more apprentices, trainees and students, and reduce and remove financial barriers to education and training.

”By backdating this reform to last year, we’re making sure that apprentices, trainees and students affected by last year’s jump in indexation get this important cost-of-living relief.” Läs mer…

Canada’s House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will soon begin hearings on antisemitism and Islamophobia. The process comes partly in response to claims that university and college campuses are unsafe spaces.

With student protests — including at the University of Toronto and University of British Columbia — pressuring institutions to divest from Israeli militarization, the question of safety has come under scrutiny.

In Québec, a recent injunction request to clear a student encampment at McGill University was rejected by a Superior Court judge who ruled that “the plaintiffs have not personally been subjected to harassment … and their fears are for the most part subjective and based on isolated events.”

How we respond to concerns about student safety can set the stage for learning or encourage its opposite: divisiveness and censorship.

Signs and banners are shown attached to a fence next to a pro-Palestinian demonstration at an encampment at McGill University in Montréal, April 27, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Political expression on campuses

Across North America, there has been a chilling effect on political expression related to the war in Gaza and Palestine solidarity activism.

In the United States, campus events have been cancelled, students have been suspended and faculty have faced censure.

Educational institutions seem to be in crisis. Police response to campus protests, including the arrests of students and faculty, has left many questioning their right to free expression.

We are wary, however, of how the language of “safety” is being used in the Canadian context to justify government interventions into campus affairs. In Ontario, this is evident with the proposed Bill 166, the Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act, which aims to support student safety. The bill would empower the minister to influence the content of anti-racism and mental health policies, a move that faculty unions say could threaten academic freedom.

A man reads a sign of demands posted outside a pro-Palestinian encampment set up on McGill University’s campus in Montréal, April 30, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

Governing safety in Canada

The modern concept of public safety has its roots in national security legislation crafted during the First World War. The War Measures Act of 1914 allowed the government to move quickly in matters of security by skirting normal parliamentary processes. The cost, however, was widespread arrests and detention, including the internment of over 8,000 “enemy aliens.”

During the Cold War, these sweeping powers were used to monitor civil rights activists, feminists, communists, sexual minorities and others deemed security threats.

The current Emergencies Act leans on the same pre-emptive powers to guarantee “a safe and secure Canada and strong and resilient communities.” Its use, however, remains controversial.

On campuses and in classrooms across Canada, the language of safety is being used to police teaching about Palestine. Terms such as “genocide” and “settler colonialism,” important to classroom discussions about war and conflict, are now considered risky.

So what does it mean when students say they feel unsafe in classrooms and on campuses when faced with discussions of Israel and Palestine?

Protesters gather in an encampment set up on the University of Toronto campus in Toronto on May 2, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

Safety is more than a feeling

Hate and violence has no place in our educational system. Teachers and students must be safe from harm. Antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are part of the wider problem of racism in Canadian universities and colleges. Separating these forms of discrimination makes them more difficult to combat because racism is a structural issue.

Educational institutions have robust policies and practices that prohibit hate speech and discrimination while protecting free expression. However, in a climate of reduced funding for anti-racism work on campuses, politicians are magnifying perceived feelings of unsafety to justify government intervention.

In a recent post, Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather called on McGill University campus administrators to seek police assistance in response to the student encampment at the university. Yet, a police spokesperson affirmed that “no crime is being committed.”

Such an approach escalates division instead of helping to resolve it.

Protesters gather in an encampment set up on the University of Toronto campus in Toronto on May 2, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

Strategies to tolerate political differences

Rather than invite police intervention on campuses or government interference in school policies, what we really need are strategies to hold space for differences, even when they challenge our understanding of the world.

Teachers and students, both inside and outside the classroom, need to be empowered to face difficult questions. This includes examining how our institutions are implicated in the dynamics of war and genocide.

As our decades of teaching courses on conflict and war reveal, it is normal for students to feel discomfort when learning about violence and its devastating effects. Feeling uncomfortable however, is not the same as being unsafe.
Building our capacity to reflect on and examine uncomfortable feelings matters if we hope to challenge and transform the conditions that shape violence.

While some suggest a return to civility or campus dialogue is a better way forward, our experience shows that what we really need are tools for working through discomfort and heightened emotions.

An activist uses a megaphone within a pro-Palestinian encampment set up on McGill University’s campus in Montréal, April 30, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

Insight from research on trigger warnings

Trigger warnings involve the practice of providing advance notice of classroom topics that may bring up uncomfortable emotions or traumatic responses. Their use highlights how we might better prepare students for unsettling discussions and respond to their feelings of unsafety.

Research conducted on trigger warnings demonstrates they do little to reduce post-traumatic experiences. Yet, other scholars argue that what these debates signal is a wider need in classrooms to discuss power and violence.

An early analysis of a national survey with faculty and students on trigger warnings in Canada, by Natalie Kouri-Towe — one of the authors of this story — and a team of researchers, indicates that how we respond to and navigate emotional dynamics in education might be more important than giving a warning.

Indeed, researchers have argued that a more holistic approach to student learning is necessary, a view that is supported by some of our research.

In a study exploring creative approaches to challenging classroom conversations, students used photography to reflect on their emotional experiences. The result was new forms of expression and shared understanding.

These findings illustrate the power of using a variety of strategies to engage difficult subject matter.

From safety to freedom

The focus on safety detracts from the real issues at stake in higher education: protecting a diversity of thought, perspectives and speech. To accomplish this, we must equip people with the ability to work through political differences.

With respect to learning, what feels uncomfortable might not always be a threat. It may be that what students need is reassurance that their perspectives are valid and opportunities to express themselves in productive ways.

We believe educational solutions are the answer to the crises that arise during global conflicts. Using the same approaches that we equip our students with, what Canadian society needs are the strategies and confidence to face conflicting worldviews. Läs mer…

On April 30, the New York City Police Department acted to evict pro-Palestinian protestors from occupying Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall at the request of university administration. Minouche Shafik, president of Columbia University, issued a statement explaining the action as the result of the “drastic escalation of many months of protest activity” that created “a disruptive environment for everyone.”

Student protesters sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians have adopted similar tactics to those used by anti-war protesters in 1968. Grievances are escalated to the point of no return. Significant interruptions to the functioning of campus take place by staging an occupation.

Author James Kunen talks about protesting at Columbia University in 1968 and now.

What’s happening at Columbia University now can be understood through what happened on campus 56 years ago, almost to the day. Understanding what happened in 1968 gives us a situation easier to grasp than the emotionally laden current events, and can provide us with constructive clues to help undo the predicament tearing universities apart today.

Campuses torn apart

One segment of the university community is sympathetic to the impacts of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and hostage-taking by Hamas. A class action complaint claiming antisemitism has been filed, and statements contending a lack of safety for Jewish students on the Columbia campus have been made.

Another segment of the university community is sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians, who have been galvanized by viewing the scale of death in Gaza through an intersectional lens. Included in the demands by the protesters are requests that the university divest from supporting activities they deem as oppressive.

Claims of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism on the Columbia campus have also been made, and a Title IX civil rights complaint has been filed with allegations of discriminatory treatment of Palestinian students and their allies.

A house divided into two distinct camps regarding views on the Israel-Hamas war is perhaps an oversimplification of a diverse university campus environment, where many choose to avoid Middle East politics entirely as the path to civil dialogue is elusive.

Be that as it may, with loud voices present and emotions running high in a house divided, I lament that dispassionate observation and analysis are becoming drowned out in the noise.

The 1968 Columbia crisis

While there are no easy solutions to overcoming the predicament facing many campuses, considering campus crisis events from long ago can help mend fences.

The cumulative tensions related to war and peace issues reached a boiling point in the spring of 1968 for Columbia University students. An important similarity between 1968 and 2024 is that just as anti-Vietnam War protesters personalized the conflict, present day university students engaged in Gaza War protests are also making a distant war personal.

The historic Columbia student occupation began on April 23, 1968. Specific issues of discontent driving the occupation included anti-Vietnam War sentiments, demands that the university divest from military-related activities, opposition to racism and the disapproval of the university’s proposed expansion into Morningside Park.

Protest actions taken by students during the multi-day uprising included the occupation of five campus buildings and temporarily preventing the acting dean from leaving his office. About a week into the occupation, negotiations to end the standoff became futile, and on April 30 at 2 a.m., New York City police acted to remove students from occupied buildings. The arrest tally was 712, and 148 were injured.

In The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary, author James Kunen provides insights into the mindset of a student on the front lines of the protests at Columbia. At the time, Kunen was a 20-year-old writing about trying to find his own place in a turbulent environment.

The Cox Commission Report on the Crisis at Columbia, released in September 1968, provides results of the university’s investigation. Highlights of the findings were the lack of effective channels of communication between administration, faculty and students, and an endorsement supporting the creation of a representative University Senate.

Student protesters gather inside their encampment on the Columbia University campus on April 29, 2024.
(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

The past repeats

It is not too soon to have concerns that in August the Democratic National Convention in Chicago may be interrupted by Gaza War protests. The 1968 Democratic National Convention, which was also held in Chicago, was overshadowed by disruptive anti-Vietnam War protests.

An open question is whether students who are presently engaged in campus protests will take their dissent off campus during the summer months when school is out.

With reports of more than 2,000 people arrested during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the U.S. in recent weeks, the role of universities in coping with contentious societal issues is in sharp focus.

As pointed out by American political scientist Stephen Walt, academic institutions should always avoid taking sides in a war. That sentiment is drawn from a document written 57 years ago, in a past era of turmoil on campuses. “The Kalven Committee: Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action” provides lessons from the past that are relevant today as universities are coping with a new era of turmoil on campuses.

In a quote from the 1927 play A Moon for the Misbegotten, American playwright Eugene O’Neill seems to have written presciently about the current state of affairs on university campuses: “There is no present or future — only the past, happening over and over again — now.” Läs mer…

Plastic pollution and climate change have common culprits – and similar solutions.

The penultimate round of negotiations for a global pact on plastic ended yesterday in Ottawa. Nearly 200 countries have agreed that a treaty must tackle plastic pollution at every stage of its existence, from oil rigs and refineries to factories, shops and homes. But when Rwanda and Peru proposed cutting the amount of plastic produced worldwide by 40% over the next 15 years, the UN talks faltered.

This stalemate has been, at least partially, engineered by the same companies stalling climate action: fossil fuel firms and their petrochemical partners.

This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage comes from our weekly climate action newsletter. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 30,000+ readers who’ve subscribed.

Most plastics are derived from fossil fuels. Oil and gas companies extract these fuels and petrochemical firms refine and synthesise plastic from them. Reports suggest that the number of lobbyists representing both industries at the negotiations is increasing.

Recycled lobbying tactics

Reducing plastic production is the most effective way to cut pollution according to a recent study. Since a proposal for phasing down production failed to gain enough support in Ottawa however, it’s unclear what the agreement – expected later this year – will eventually look like.

“Will it be ambitious, with strict binding measures focusing on all stages of the plastics life cycle (including the ‘upstream’ stages associated with resource extraction, manufacturing and processing)?” ask Antaya March, Cressida Bowyer and Steve Fletcher, researchers who study the plastic waste epidemic at the University of Portsmouth.

“Or will it be a weaker treaty, with voluntary and country-led measures that focus mainly on waste management and pollution prevention (the ‘downstream’ stages)?”

Read more:
A global plastics treaty is being negotiated in Ottawa this week – here’s the latest

Profit-minded petrochemical companies have long insisted that downstream strategies, like ramping up recycling, are the best way to manage plastic waste. An investigation showed this was disingenuous: plastic producers knew more than three decades ago that recycling was complicated, expensive and ineffective – despite what their marketing departments said.

Today, the global recycling system is a mess, says Kutoma Wakunuma, an associate professor of information systems at De Montfort University:

“Although plastic waste can be seen as a trade between developed and developing countries, which allows the latter to be paid in exchange for dealing with that waste, this trade isn’t an equal one.”

Read more:
Plastic waste is hurting women in developing countries – but there are ways to stop it

Wakunuma describes how waste pickers in several African countries sift the imported refuse of richer nations for plastic bottles and other recyclable items. These workers, predominantly women, may be paid four pence a kilogram for what they manage to salvage, she says.

Waste pickers toil for a pittance in horrendous conditions.
Tinnakorn jorruang/Shutterstock

“And that waste sometimes ends up burned, rather than being recycled. In 2020, 40% of the UK’s plastic waste was sent to Turkey, where instead of being recycled some of it was illegally dumped and burned.”

Two billion people worldwide lack dedicated rubbish collection services. Many of them breathe toxic fumes from the open burning of plastic according to waste management experts Costas Velis and Ed Cook at the University of Leeds. This is a serious and overlooked health crisis, they say.

Read more:
Health crisis: up to a billion tonnes of waste potentially burned in the open every year

The recycling facilities of developing countries are overwhelmed. Yet oil firms see these places – where environmental regulations are typically weaker – as promising markets for more single-use plastic that is cheap and difficult to recycle says Deirdre McKay, a reader in geography and environmental politics at Keele University.

Read more:
Fossil fuel industry sees the future in hard-to-recycle plastic

Turn off the taps

Fossil fuels and petrochemicals have a long history: the first synthetic chemicals were derived from coal. In the future, global demand for oil and gas will fall as more buildings and vehicles run on renewable electricity – but emissions will remain high if fossil fuel firms are allowed to continuing ploughing money into making plastics instead say industry sustainability experts Fredric Bauer (Lund University) and Tobias Dan Nielsen (IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute).

Read more:
Oil companies are ploughing money into fossil-fuelled plastics production at a record rate – new research

Some of the solutions to plastic waste and climate change are the same. Like scrapping fossil fuel subsidies, which keep plastic production (and fossil fuel extraction) artificially cheap.

Read more:
Fossil fuel subsidies amount to hundreds of billions of dollars a year – here’s how to get rid of them

More generally, evidence supports the idea of phasing out plastic production to curb mounting pollution – and something similar is true for climate change.

Plastic production generates vast quantities of climate-heating greenhouse gas.
Mountaintreks/Shutterstock

“There is a wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating that a fossil fuel phase-out will be essential for reining in the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change,” says Steve Pye, an associate professor of energy systems at UCL.

“Since no new fields need to be brought into development, global production of oil and gas should be falling.”

Read more:
COP28 president is wrong – science clearly shows fossil fuels must go (and fast)

A legally binding agreement that aims to curtail plastic production could be the best outcome from the final summit in Busan, South Korea in late November. But even this may not deter countries and companies that make a lot of money from plastic. With equivalent climate legislation, “legally binding” in practice has meant campaigners having to drag governments and corporations through the courts for years to make them keep their promises says Rebecca Willis, a governance expert at Lancaster University.

Read more:
The UK’s Climate Change Act, once the envy of the world, faces a stress test

At the very least, campaigners on both plastic waste and climate change can benefit from combining their efforts.

“The environment appears to be drowning in plastic for the same reason that global temperatures continue to rise,” says McKay. “Fossil fuels have remained cheap and abundant.” Läs mer…

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner is scheduled to make its first flight into space with astronauts on May 6, 2024. This flight and a few others will take place take under contract with Nasa, as part of a programme to transport astronauts from Earth to the International Space Station (ISS) and back.

Following years of delays, a successful flight would provide the United States with a second operational spacecraft to carry astronauts to low-Earth orbit, after SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

Having two different spacecraft available provides a back-up option if something should go wrong with one of them. So it will secure access to space for astronauts from American soil. While Starliner will be flying to the ISS for now, it could eventually make trips to future commercial space stations, like that being built by Houston-based company Axiom Space.

Getting to space has never been easy, however. In the case of Starliner, that is something of an understatement. The project began back in 2010 as part of Nasa’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) when Boeing, along with SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada, was selected to develop spacecraft that could provide access to low-Earth orbit and the ISS.

The CCP design requirements were that the spacecraft had to be capable of ferrying at least four astronauts safely to and back from the ISS, to remain docked there for at least 210 days, and to provide at least 24 hours of life support in the event of an emergency return to Earth from orbit.

However, the project has been beset with delays, including supply chain issues, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The original contract was intended to certify Starliner for orbital operations with astronauts in 2017. However, the first orbital flight test, without astronauts, did not occur until 20 December, 2019.

Starliner will touch down on land, which removes the need for recovery ships.
NASA/Bill Ingalls

It was intended to be an eight-day mission in which the spacecraft would rendezvous with the ISS and dock, before returning to Earth. During the flight, the spacecraft’s onboard clock suffered a technical malfunction, which caused the rocket engines to fire – manoeuvring the craft into the wrong orbit. It failed to reach the ISS and returned to Earth after only two days.

Read more:
Boeing’s Starliner is about to launch − if successful, the test represents an important milestone for commercial spaceflight

After lengthy investigations and technical fixes, Boeing agreed to re-run the un-crewed flight test at its own expense. Orbital Flight Test 2 launched on May 19, 2022 – two years after SpaceX’s Crew Dragon had made its first successful crewed flight to the ISS. This time, Starliner’s flight was successful. The spacecraft reached the ISS and docked on 21 May, 2022, where it stayed for four days, before making a safe return to Earth.

In the meantime, SpaceX has managed to launch nine flights to the ISS carrying astronauts and four commercial flights carrying a mixture of civilians and astronauts from other countries. The flight on May 6 will carry two experienced Nasa astronauts aboard. They are Sunita “Suni” Williams and Butch Wilmore. Both have flown on both the space shuttle and the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

New suits

They’ll wear distinctive blue flight suits which, unlike most previous designs, feature a flexible hood rather than a solid one. The lightweight materials permit the astronauts to perform delicate tasks such as using a tablet despite having gloved hands.

Flight suits are designed only to be worn inside the pressurised environment of the spacecraft, not outside, and only during ascent to and return from orbit. However, they provide protection and life support to the astronauts if the capsule depressurises during these most hazardous phases of the flight.

Boeing flight suits feature a zip-up hood rather than a helmet.
NASA / Frank Micheaux

The combination of greater mobility, lighter weight and better dexterity, as well as a very wide field-of-view out of the hood visor, has made these suits quite popular with the astronauts who have tested them.

Starliner itself is comprised of the crew capsule and a service module. The crew capsule is the part that carries people and is made of an aluminium alloy. It can accommodate up to seven astronauts, or four astronauts with up to 100kg of cargo.

The crew capsule is reusable, meaning it can be sent back into space after completing a mission, and is designed to make at least 10 flights into orbit. One innovative design feature of the spacecraft is the absence of welded sections. The crew capsule is comprised of two sections which are bolted together, rather than welded, in order to improve structural strength.

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will launch aboard the spacecraft.
NASA/Kim Shiflett

The service module houses the electrical power systems, and four
Rocketdyne rocket engines. These are designed to rapidly separate the spacecraft from the Atlas V launch rocket in the event of an emergency during the ascent into space. They’re also used for manoeuvring the spacecraft once it reaches orbit.

Once in orbit, Starliner is capable of making a completely automated flight to, and docking with, the ISS, without any intervention from astronauts on board. However, astronauts can still take manual control of the spacecraft if necessary. Once at ISS, Starliner is designed to remain docked at the station for up to seven months.

Starliner is built in an innovative way that avoids welding pieces of metal together.
NASA/ Kim Shiflett

When it is time to return to Earth, the crew will get back in Starliner and detach from the ISS. Just prior to atmospheric entry, the service module is detached and discarded. The crew capsule then uses a combination of heat shields and parachutes to slow its speed, before touching down on land. The landing is softened for the crew by the use of airbags.

This differs from the mode of return used by Nasa’s Orion spacecraft, which will be used to visit the Moon, and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, both of which splash down at sea. By returning to land, Starliner removes the need to deploy specialist ships to sea in order to recover the spacecraft.

Despite the delays, Starliner looks to be a very capable modern spacecraft, which should provide the US with a second means of reaching the ISS and any commercial successors for years to come. There’s a lot riding on a successful performance on May 6. Läs mer…