Latest news with #politicians
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Is Australia becoming a more violent country?
Almost every day, it seems we read or hear reports another family is grieving the murder of a loved one in a street brawl, another business owner is hospitalised after trying to fend off armed robbers, or shoppers simply going about their business are confronted by knife-wielding thugs. The way media and politicians talk, it seems as if we are in the middle of an unprecedented violent crime crisis. But are we? The short answer is: no. Comparing today with the past Although the numbers fluctuate from year to year, Australia is less violent today than in previous years. It is difficult to make direct comparisons over decades, because the way crimes are defined and recorded changes (especially for assault). Weapons and violence are rarely out of the media cycle in Australia, leading many to fear this country is becoming less safe for everyday people. Is that really the case, though? This is the first story in a four-part series. For crimes like domestic violence, the statistics are extremely hard to compare over time but even so, prevalence appears to have declined (although only about half of all women who experience physical and/or sexual violence from their partners seek advice or support). However, if we consider homicide and robbery (which have been categorised much the same way over time), the numbers have been falling for decades. Yes, knives and bladed weapons have been in the news recently, but this does not mean they are being used more often. Reliable, long-term statistics are not always available but the ones we have show the use of weapons has declined over time. Interestingly, this seems to have nothing to do with the weapons themselves. For instance, armed robbery and unarmed robbery both rise and fall in about the same way, at about the same time. Homicide follows a similar pattern. Not all crimes are reported to police but self-reported statistics show the same trends. Relative to ten years ago, Australians now are less likely to say they have experienced physical or threatened face-to-face assault in the previous 12 months. Places with greater socioeconomic disadvantage typically experience more violence. In Queensland, for instance, Mt Isa has higher violent crime rates than affluent areas of Brisbane. Despite differences between places, there is generally less violence than there used to be. Why is violence declining? Nobody knows quite why violence is decreasing. This is not just happening in Australia but across many developed nations. Suggestions include better social welfare, strong economies, improved education, low unemployment, women's rights and stable governance. Also, new avenues have opened up that carry less risk than violent crime – such as cyberfraud instead of robbing a bank. There is no clear, compelling explanation. Yet when we consider Australia's responses when violence does occur, measures such as bans (for example, on machetes), more police powers and more (or longer) prison sentences have become the fallback. Evidence shows these types of reactions achieve little, but in an environment of endless 'crisis' it is almost impossible to make good decisions. This is made even harder in circumstances where victims and activists push politicians to implement 'feel-good' policies, regardless of how ultimately fruitless those will be. Who are the people being violent? One thing remains the same: violent crime is primarily committed by younger men (who are also likely to be victims). Ethnicity and migration are also recurrent themes. Just as young Italians with switchblades were the focus of moral panic in the 1950s and 60s, migrants from places such as Africa and the Middle East are now held up as a danger. Ethnicity/migration history data is not always recorded in crime statistics, but the information we do have suggests a more complex picture. Factors such as exposure to warfare and civil strife can certainly play a role in people's use of violence. However, unemployment, poverty, poor education and involvement with drugs and/or gangs tend to play a much larger part. Reactions versus reality If society is less violent, why are public reactions to violence seemingly becoming more intense? Incidents that would have received little attention a decade ago now dominate public debate and single incidents – no matter how rare or isolated – are enough to provoke sweeping legislative and policy changes. Violence is political currency. The more the spectre of violence is emphasised and exaggerated, the more power people are willing to give to authorities to do something to fix it. This is also about psychology: the better things get, the more sensitive people tend to be to whatever ills remain and resilience can crumble when something bad does happen. Pandering to this by rushing to make people feel safer – while politically irresistible – has unintended consequences. When another incident occurs, as it always does, people feel even more vulnerable because they were led to believe the problem had been 'fixed'. This creates a never-ending cycle of superficial responses while underlying issues are ignored. We cannot legislate or politicise our way out of violence. The best responses are ones that identify and address actual root causes and look at the circumstances that surround violence – rather than fixating on the violence itself. This means moving away from emotional reactions and taking a clear look at why violence occurs in the first place. Until this happens, any further reductions in violence are more likely to be good luck than good management. This article is republished from The Conversation. It was written by: Samara McPhedran, Griffith University Read more: Grattan on Friday: Aggrieved Liberals stamp their feet, testing Sussan Ley's authority Progress on Closing the Gap is stagnant or going backwards. Here are 3 things to help fix it The Greens' expulsion of a co-founder is unlikely to jeopardise the party's future Samara McPhedran has received funding from various Australian and international government grant programs, including the Australian Research Council and Criminology Research Council, for a number of projects relating to violence. She has been appointed to various advisory panels and committees, including as a member of the Queensland Ministerial Advisory Panel on Weapons. She does not receive any financial remuneration or other reward for these activities. She is the Executive Director (Analysis, Policy and Strategy) of the Violence Prevention Institute Australia. She is not, and has never been, a member of any political party. The views expressed are those of the author alone.
Bloomberg
12 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
The World's Biggest Iron Ore Windfall Is Fading for Australia
Flying deep into the heart of Western Australia, Rio Tinto Group executives, politicians and media step off a chartered jet into a Pilbara airport, little more than a sunbaked shed with metal detectors. Cameras roll. Smiles flash. They are here for the unveiling of Rio's Western Range, a new open-cut mine designed to pump out 25 million tons of iron ore a year. But behind the fanfare, a harsher truth looms: Western Range isn't about growth. It's about keeping the machine running.
Arab News
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Sectarianism is in the eye of the beholder
I know it is never easy, but if we are about to have a reset then we should do the same with our perceptions of the region. Analysis of the Middle East has been dominated by two widely held beliefs: one is that conflicts are our fault because we are sectarian, and the other is that our problems are the West's fault because we have been divided into artificial states by colonialism. Both these myths belong to an era dominated by secular nationalist ideas that academia largely favored. For positive change to happen, we have to believe in ourselves and remind ourselves that, in our region, it is coexistence between sects that has been the norm and sectarian conflict the exception. We must also note that the Arab state system has been rather stable, especially if compared to that of Europe. Let me explain. First of all, sectarianism is often in the eye of the beholder. Some see it everywhere because they believe it is there. They look for it in situations that we consider mostly as normal politics. Of course, there are politicians who use sectarian speech and sometimes it works in their favor: they create the problems that they then offer to resolve. Some academics even study 'de-sectarianization' (my spellcheck insists that the word does not exist). It is as if there is a disease called sectarianism that can be treated by de-sectarianization. This blurred vision happens to people who expect complete homogeneity and do not understand coexistence. The Arab proverb that says 'me and my brother against my cousin and me and my cousin against the stranger' may be a source of confusion. This is often used to explain family and tribal solidarity, but in reality it is prescriptive rather than descriptive: it means you should stand by your brother against your cousin and stand by your cousin against a stranger, because it is often not the case. We all know that the most intense conflicts, since Cain and Abel, are between brothers. Family feuds or internal fights are driven by what Freud described as the narcissism of small differences. You do not really have to stand by your kin — in fact, this is how alliances and coalitions can develop across religious, tribal or ethnic boundaries. The debate over that proverb is also that, morally, you should stand by what is right, even if it is against your own kin. Moral sentiments, or what is culturally acceptable as a norm, are the product of numerous interactions between people. A feel for what is considered right in a society develops over time and through millions of daily exchanges. That is why societies differ — what is considered normal in one is an anomaly in the other. There are also traditional ways of resolving conflicts; sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. In a society where they do work, you will find a diverse population living together despite their sectarian, ethnic or tribal differences. They also share norms developed through long-term coexistence. In Europe, after centuries of conflict, it was resolved that people should adopt the religion of their prince, resulting in largely homogeneous divisions. In former Ottoman lands, it is diversity rather than homogeneity that is the norm — we are children of an empire that ruled over many nations. Someone coming from a society where homogeneity is the norm will find diversity abnormal and confusing; for them, everything becomes sectarian. We have to believe that diverse populations can coexist in states that cooperate, while respecting each other's sovereignty. Another misconception about the region is that the state system is artificial and therefore not viable — that we are not real nation states. This is based on the absurd notion that real states do exist and that there is a natural nation state. The whole idea of nationalism is in fact barely 150 years old and has been the cause of conflicts, rather than their solution. It is true that our borders were artificially drawn, mainly by Europeans, in the aftermath of the First World War. This was a messy affair and they did a bad job following a disastrous war and the collapse of three empires: Ottoman, Russian and Austro-Hungarian. The idea that the European state system is stable is even more of a myth than the one we are questioning about the Middle East. Nadim Shehadi The idea that three politicians, David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France and Woodrow Wilson of the US, could get it right was absurd to start with. But they did a worse job in Europe and the result was another devastating war where the boundaries of Europe were again redrawn. They came to their senses after that and worked on creating what later became the EU, which now has 27 members. The idea that the European state system is a stable one is even more of a myth than the one we are questioning about the states of the Middle East being unstable. Since the rise of nation states in the 1870s, Europe has destroyed itself twice, while borders kept changing well into the end of the 20th century. By contrast, the borders of the Arab states have been far more stable. The League of Arab States was also created post-Second World War and it has now expanded to 22 members from the original seven signatories. The Alexandria Protocol of 1944 promised cooperation in economic and cultural matters, as well as respect for each other's sovereignty. The fall of the Assad regime promises that we can go back to that. A new beginning is possible thanks to the end of an era where Arab nationalist parties sought to suppress local identities, exploit tensions between them and claim an agenda of regional domination, while deriving legitimacy from their claim of leading the Arabs in the conflict with Israel.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
The VPNs allowing youngsters to bypass Online Safety Act rules
Downloads of VPNs have exploded across Britain since age checks were introduced for pornography and other age-restricted websites last week. VPN apps have soared to the top of Apple's download charts while one provider, Proton, said it had seen a 1,800pc increase in daily sign-ups. Here's what you need to know about the technology. What is a VPN? How do they work? What are they for? Are they legal? What are the risks? What have politicians said about them? How do you verify your age under the Online Safety Act? How VPNs get around age verification What is a VPN? VPNs, or virtual private networks, are services that internet users can deploy to disguise where they are accessing the web from. Some use them to be more anonymous online, but most install VPNs to circumvent internet restrictions in their own country by routing traffic to appear as if they are online elsewhere. The UK has seen a surge in VPN use in recent days because of new online safety age checks, which are required on adult websites. How do they work? When you use the internet through a mobile network, home wi-fi connection or a public hotspot, your internet activity carries an internet protocol (IP) address, which is assigned to your router or smartphone. Websites can use this address to tell what country and region you are visiting from. A VPN prevents this. Instead of connecting directly to a website, internet traffic goes through the VPN company's computer servers, which are based in various places around the world. That server then routes the traffic back to your smartphone or computer, allowing users to 'disguise' where they are from. It is a bit like using a phone box instead of your own phone to make a call, so that the receiver cannot tell who is ringing. What are they for? VPNs are often presented as a way of protecting privacy. Millions of websites and apps tracking activity from your personal IP address could be used to target adverts or profile individuals. The programmes are popular in countries such as China, where internet access is restricted and closely monitored. However, they are also often used to get around other internet controls. Netflix has regularly sought to stop the use of VPNs to access TV catalogues in other countries, in what the company has called a game of 'whack a mole', while French sport broadcasters have demanded that VPNs block illegal streaming websites. Because websites base location-dependent controls, such as the UK's new age checks for adult websites, on a user's IP address, VPNs are now being used to circumvent these restrictions too. Are they legal? VPNs are legal in Britain, and the Online Safety Act does not change that. The requirements in the new laws are on websites to enforce age checks, not on users to follow through with them. Using a VPN to bypass TV streaming services' restrictions is not a criminal offence, but is considered a terms of service violation and could result in a ban. Any illegal online activity, such as watching pirated football games, remains illegal when using one. What are the risks? Routing all of your internet traffic through a single company involves placing a lot of trust in that provider. In theory, they could store all your browsing data or sell it to the highest bidder. One early popular VPN, Hola, was accused of commandeering users' internet addresses to trigger cyber attacks, while another, Onavo, was used by Facebook to track what rival apps were becoming popular. In response, the company gave users the ability to opt out of the feature. In 2020, several VPNs were found to be publicly exposing logs of people's internet usage. A recent investigation from the Tech Transparency Project found that some popular VPN apps were routing traffic through China. 'VPNs are privacy tools but not silver bullets as by using one, you're shifting the trust to a private company,' says Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser for security company ESET. 'So it's crucial to choose one you trust. 'While VPNs encrypt your traffic and mask your IP address from your internet service provider, they can see everything you do on the internet once the traffic reaches their servers. 'It is advisable to avoid free VPNs as some have been caught logging and selling some user data to advertisers in the past.' Mr Moore recommended using a paid VPN with a 'no logs' policy that does not store users' browsing history. Some companies go further by having these policies audited by third parties. What have politicians said about them? Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, has said that sites that advertise VPNs as a way to bypass age checks would be punished. 'If platforms or sites signpost towards workarounds like VPNs, then that itself is a crime and will be tackled by these codes,' he told The Telegraph last week. Companies are required to take reasonable steps to prevent children from seeing adult content, although detecting VPN use is seen as a consistent challenge, with providers repeatedly improving the technology they use to mask traffic. Melanie Dawes, the head of Ofcom, told MPs in May that people would use VPNs to get around the restrictions. 'A very concerted 17-year-old who really wants to use a VPN to access a site they shouldn't may well be able to,' she said. 'Individual users can use VPNs. Nothing in the Act blocks it.' When the Online Safety Act was going through Parliament under the previous Conservative government, Labour supported a further crackdown on VPNs. 'The use of VPNs exposes a serious weakness in the Online Safety Act's armoury,' said Matt Holman, an AI and data lawyer at Cripps. As their use continues, pressure may build for a further crackdown. How do you verify your age under the Online Safety Act? For those simply wishing to get past websites' new age checks, most sites give users a variety of ways to verify that they are over 18. Companies such as X, Reddit and Discord are allowing people to use software known as facial age estimation, in which they take a short video selfie that uses artificial intelligence to guess whether they are over 18 or not. Other options offered by websites include entering a credit card number or connecting to a bank account, which proves users are over 18, or uploading a government-issued ID. How VPNs get around age verification Since the Online Safety Act only applies in the UK, masking one's location means users can appear to be from any number of countries that have not enforced age checks. Websites typically do not use other location identifiers such as your phone's GPS signal to track location, largely relying on the IP address. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
The VPNs allowing youngsters to bypass Online Safety Act rules
Downloads of VPNs have exploded across Britain since age checks were introduced for pornography and other age-restricted websites last week. VPN apps have soared to the top of Apple's download charts while one provider, Proton, said it had seen a 1,800pc increase in daily sign-ups. Here's what you need to know about the technology. What is a VPN? How do they work? What are they for? Are they legal? What are the risks? What have politicians said about them? How do you verify your age under the Online Safety Act? How VPNs get around age verification What is a VPN? VPNs, or virtual private networks, are services that internet users can deploy to disguise where they are accessing the web from. Some use them to be more anonymous online, but most install VPNs to circumvent internet restrictions in their own country by routing traffic to appear as if they are online elsewhere. The UK has seen a surge in VPN use in recent days because of new online safety age checks, which are required on adult websites. How do they work? When you use the internet through a mobile network, home wi-fi connection or a public hotspot, your internet activity carries an internet protocol (IP) address, which is assigned to your router or smartphone. Websites can use this address to tell what country and region you are visiting from. A VPN prevents this. Instead of connecting directly to a website, internet traffic goes through the VPN company's computer servers, which are based in various places around the world. That server then routes the traffic back to your smartphone or computer, allowing users to 'disguise' where they are from. It is a bit like using a phone box instead of your own phone to make a call, so that the receiver cannot tell who is ringing. What are they for? VPNs are often presented as a way of protecting privacy. Millions of websites and apps tracking activity from your personal IP address could be used to target adverts or profile individuals. The programmes are popular in countries such as China, where internet access is restricted and closely monitored. However, they are also often used to get around other internet controls. Netflix has regularly sought to stop the use of VPNs to access TV catalogues in other countries, in what the company has called a game of 'whack a mole', while French sport broadcasters have demanded that VPNs block illegal streaming websites. Because websites base location-dependent controls, such as the UK's new age checks for adult websites, on a user's IP address, VPNs are now being used to circumvent these restrictions too. Are they legal? VPNs are legal in Britain, and the Online Safety Act does not change that. The requirements in the new laws are on websites to enforce age checks, not on users to follow through with them. Using a VPN to bypass TV streaming services' restrictions is not a criminal offence, but is considered a terms of service violation and could result in a ban. Any illegal online activity, such as watching pirated football games, remains illegal when using one. What are the risks? Routing all of your internet traffic through a single company involves placing a lot of trust in that provider. In theory, they could store all your browsing data or sell it to the highest bidder. One early popular VPN, Hola, was accused of commandeering users' internet addresses to trigger cyber attacks, while another, Onavo, was used by Facebook to track what rival apps were becoming popular. In response, the company gave users the ability to opt out of the feature. In 2020, several VPNs were found to be publicly exposing logs of people's internet usage. A recent investigation from the Tech Transparency Project found that some popular VPN apps were routing traffic through China. 'VPNs are privacy tools but not silver bullets as by using one, you're shifting the trust to a private company,' says Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser for security company ESET. 'So it's crucial to choose one you trust. 'While VPNs encrypt your traffic and mask your IP address from your internet service provider, they can see everything you do on the internet once the traffic reaches their servers. 'It is advisable to avoid free VPNs as some have been caught logging and selling some user data to advertisers in the past.' Mr Moore recommended using a paid VPN with a 'no logs' policy that does not store users' browsing history. Some companies go further by having these policies audited by third parties. What have politicians said about them? Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, has said that sites that advertise VPNs as a way to bypass age checks would be punished. 'If platforms or sites signpost towards workarounds like VPNs, then that itself is a crime and will be tackled by these codes,' he told The Telegraph last week. Companies are required to take reasonable steps to prevent children from seeing adult content, although detecting VPN use is seen as a consistent challenge, with providers repeatedly improving the technology they use to mask traffic. Melanie Dawes, the head of Ofcom, told MPs in May that people would use VPNs to get around the restrictions. 'A very concerted 17-year-old who really wants to use a VPN to access a site they shouldn't may well be able to,' she said. 'Individual users can use VPNs. Nothing in the Act blocks it.' When the Online Safety Act was going through Parliament under the previous Conservative government, Labour supported a further crackdown on VPNs. 'The use of VPNs exposes a serious weakness in the Online Safety Act's armoury,' said Matt Holman, an AI and data lawyer at Cripps. As their use continues, pressure may build for a further crackdown. How do you verify your age under the Online Safety Act? For those simply wishing to get past websites' new age checks, most sites give users a variety of ways to verify that they are over 18. Companies such as X, Reddit and Discord are allowing people to use software known as facial age estimation, in which they take a short video selfie that uses artificial intelligence to guess whether they are over 18 or not. Other options offered by websites include entering a credit card number or connecting to a bank account, which proves users are over 18, or uploading a government-issued ID. How VPNs get around age verification Since the Online Safety Act only applies in the UK, masking one's location means users can appear to be from any number of countries that have not enforced age checks.
