AM Edition: Top 10 Economic Articles on LiveNews.co.nz for April 2, 2026 – Full Text

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Celina Su, Professor of Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center

Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield delivered her first State of the City address on March 31, 2026, at Mumford High School on the city’s northwest side.

In the speech, Sheffield touted the accomplishments of her administration’s first 90 days, which included bringing the cash assistance program RxKids to Detroit. Sheffield also announced a new initiative called Ride to Rise, which offers free bus service to the city’s K-12 students year-round.

Sheffield stressed mandates to tackle poverty, support youth development and seniors, build more single-family homes, increase homeownership and make the city a welcoming place for small businesses to grow and thrive.

That commitment to improving the lives of Detroiters, according to Sheffield, is reflected in the $US3 billion budget she introduced on March 9, 2026.

“This budget is a statement of our priorities and our values,” Sheffield said during the address.

Giving residents a say

One thing that’s missing from her budget proposal is any mention of participatory budgeting – something that Sheffield often championed during her 12 years serving on the City Council.

On the campaign trail, Sheffied said that participatory budgeting allows “residents to feel empowered and have a direct say in how their tax dollars are spent.”

I’m a professor of political science and author of a recent book called “Budget Justice” about grassroots politics. I think Sheffield had it right on the campaign trail – communities around the country want to democratize the budget process so that local governments better address their needs and increase transparency and accountability.

I gained this perspective by serving on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s transition team on community organizing, mass governance and participatory budgeting.

Participatory budgeting is a democratic experiment that gives constituents, rather than elected officials, power to decide how to allocate a portion of public funds. Although Detroit often holds community engagement forums and open calls for grant funding, participatory budgeting differs because it puts the power of the purse into the people’s hands.

Cities need democracy between elections

I first encountered participatory budgeting in 2011. Leaders from the grassroots organization Community Voices Heard and others helped to bring it to New York City during the Occupy Wall Street protests. Protesters who were part of that movement questioned why banks received governmental bailouts while households struggling with predatory student debt did not. I joined the rulemaking steering committee for New York’s new participatory budgeting process and stayed involved for the next decade.

New York’s process consists of four stages each year. In the fall, residents learn about the process through public service announcements, local media, door-knocking outreach or word of mouth. They then attend neighborhood assemblies where they pitch thousands of proposals for community projects. Frequently, a simple question gets them started: “How would you spend $1 million of the city’s budget?”

Meeting face to face matters. I’ve observed dozens of these assemblies, and people are much less likely to troll others in person than they are online, when they are anonymous and fueled by keyboard courage.

Over each winter, some residents volunteer to research and curate the proposals that will end up on the ballot. They also work with city agencies to develop ideas into full-fledged proposals. In New York, these projects have ranged from curb extensions at intersections identified as dangerous by local residents to summer arts camps and conflict resolution training programs.

Each spring, residents vote for the proposals that they want implemented.

Each summer, winning projects get funded.

In New York City, voting week for 2026 participatory budgeting proposals is April 11-19.

Engagement beyond voting

In the fiscal year 2026 budget cycle, New Yorkers allocated $30 million in public funds as part of the city’s $116 billion budget.

The nonprofit Community Development Project reported that 68% of the 17,000 people who voted on participatory budget proposals at the time of the survey had never worked together on a community issue before. Roughly 1 in 4 stated that they were not eligible to vote in regular elections, primarily because of being under age 18 or holding an undocumented immigration status.

For many, participatory budgeting helped them to understand their communities in new ways. As one participant put it, “I was able to see the needs (of) the community in a way I’ve never seen before. … I didn’t know how bad of an asthma cluster there was in public housing. I don’t have kids, so I don’t know about needs at school. I don’t have any relatives who live in senior housing, so I didn’t know about the issues they faced.”

Participatory budgeting also produced ripple effects. Participants were 8.4% more likely to vote than those who had not participated in the process. The effects are even greater for those who have lower probabilities of voting, such as low-income and Black voters.

In Detroit, only 22% of voters took part in the most recent municipal election. Participatory budgeting could be a tool for increasing turnout.

No shortcuts for meaningful participation

In my experience, participants need to feel they are doing meaningful work.

Research shows that participatory budgeting works best when communities allocate significant pots of money through the process, when residents are trained and encouraged to stay engaged beyond the process, and when combined with efforts to change practices in other parts of government, too.

In Boston, the Better Budget Alliance works to make sure projects that didn’t get funded through the city’s participatory budgeting process still get included in community demands for the larger city operating budget, and vice versa.

In New York, the Mamdani administration has just announced a new Office of Mass Engagement that aims to deepen the levels of transparency, listening and follow-through in the city.

In other words, experiments such as participatory budgeting can serve as an entry point to transformational change.

That change may look like the ambitious and growing national people’s budgets movement, which brings together local residents and community groups to protest budget cuts on essential services, articulate budget priorities and democratize the budget process. Unlike participatory budgeting, the movement’s campaigns often ask questions regarding divestments – for example, from jail expansions – as well as investments. It also concerns itself with taxes and the revenue side of the budget, and how budgetary powers should be shared by the mayor, city council, agencies and residents.

A beginning in Brazil

In Brazil, where participatory budgeting first began, the process was seen as an investment in working-class residents. Brazilian cities that implemented the process collected 16% more in taxes than cities that did not implement the process. Cities with participatory budgeting were seen as more legitimate, making their residents more willing to support additional taxes. These cities also boasted of higher tax collection and compliance rates.

Participatory budgeting also helped residents to harness the popular pressure and political will to reject development projects – such as luxury hotels – that they felt reflected business interests more than public needs. Because citizens expressed interest in providing funds for prenatal health, prominent political scientists even credit participatory budgeting with lowering infant mortality.

In American cities such as New York and Detroit, participatory budgeting processes could in time take on more challenging issues, such as universal day care or social housing.

Opaque budgets and an austerity mindset lead to distrust in government, perpetuating anti-tax sentiments.

This undermines the capacity of government to get things done. Robust participatory budgeting can help residents press for what they value most and serve as a tool to help cities such as Detroit thrive.

Celina Su served on New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration transition team’s subcommittee on community organizing. She also served on the New York city-wide steering committee for participatory budgeting and advised the process for its first decade, from 2011 to 2021.

– ref. What Detroit can learn from participatory budgeting processes in NYC, Boston and Brazil – https://theconversation.com/what-detroit-can-learn-from-participatory-budgeting-processes-in-nyc-boston-and-brazil-278764

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Can Cinar, Honorary Visiting Researcher, City St George’s, University of London

On paper, the numbers look astonishing. The annual rate of inflation in Argentina has plummeted from 211% in 2023 to 31.5% by the end of 2025.

President Javier Milei is taking plenty of credit for the drop. And he spent some time on Wall Street last month, pitching his “chainsaw” approach to public spending as a triumph against inflation.

But as a political economist who has tracked the cyclical history of economic crisis in Argentina, I see a much grimmer story unfolding.

For the drop in inflation is certainly not a victory for Argentine productivity. It’s a byproduct of a deliberate and engineered collapse in people’s wages.

Milei hasn’t fixed the engine of Argentina’s economy, he has simply turned it off. Since he took office in 2023, the country’s manufacturing output has dropped dramatically, with over 2,000 businesses shutting down and 73,000 jobs lost.

In the automotive sector, factories are operating at just 24% of capacity.

These aren’t just dry statistics. Real wages have been crushed so hard that demand for Argentine goods has evaporated. If a manufacturer is only using a third of its machinery because nobody can afford their goods, they lose their ability to put up prices, and inflation rates stop rising.

By drastically reducing demand, Milei has not solved the inflation puzzle. He has simply removed some of the pieces, by making the population too poor to participate in the Argentine economy.

On top of this, the fear of mass unemployment means workers have no choice but to accept an ever smaller share of the nation’s economic pie. Again, low wages serve to prevent the upward spiral of prices.

So the supposed victory over inflation is actually the institutionalisation of lower wages and a lower standard of living for most people.

A recently passed law (officially named “labour modernisation”) reinforces this new reality. It has effectively increased many workers’ hours and reduced their protections, making labour both cheaper and more disposable.

The new legislation has been criticised as a return to working practices of the 19th century. Far from modernising work, it is about normalising a lower wage share of GDP and ensuring that the shrinking slice of the national income for the Argentine worker isn’t just a temporary emergency, but a permanent feature of the model.

And while the government highlights 4% GDP growth forecasts for 2026, that growth is focused in sectors like agriculture, mining and lithium, which create very few jobs. For the average urban worker the economy hasn’t recovered – it has simply bottomed out at a new, lower standard of living.

Wages down, inflation down

That doesn’t mean that the drop in inflation counts for nothing. There has been a genuine sense of relief after the triple-digit chaos of 2023.

The simple ability to shop at a supermarket without the price of goods changing dramatically in days will mark a deep psychological shift for many Argentinians.

But that shift is not based on solid ground. Inflation hasn’t been tamed by a more efficient economy – it has been starved into submission.

Yet remarkably, Milei’s “miracle” is already being packaged for export. From the radical fiscal cuts proposed by Trump in the US to the nationalist platforms of Orbán in Hungary and the Vox party in Spain, Milei and his model are being touted as a blueprint for other economies struggling with inflation.

But what looks like a triumph to some is, in reality, a deepening social crisis. Milei’s Argentina is not a blueprint to be followed. It is a warning of what happens when the cure for inflation is more lethal than the disease itself.

For this level of wage suppression is a stark reminder of Argentina’s economic crisis of 2001, a period of total state failure, sovereign default, bank freezes and 20% unemployment that left a permanent scar on the national psyche.

To have surpassed that level of wage suppression today is a damning indictment of Milei’s approach. But while 2001 was a sudden collapse of a monetary system, the 2026 reality is a slow, institutionalised asphyxiation.

The question for the coming years is how such a model can possibly be sustained. Milei has left the country with no economic levers to pull for a genuine recovery.

With negative net reserves, a domestic market in ruins, and multi-billion dollar IMF and private debts hanging over the country, the government’s path is now dictated entirely by a desperate need for dollars that turns every domestic policy into a plea for foreign capital.

This has created an economic vacuum in which there is no credit for small businesses, no surplus for public investment and no consumer demand to entice private capital back into the real economy.

That is why the administration’s pitch to New York investors in March was essentially a desperate plea for capital to fill this void. But Wall Street is not generally in the business of building factories or creating jobs in Argentina.

If anything, its investors will be looking for easy short-term profits in a newly deregulated market. And what emerges then is an economically divided Argentina. On one side of this will be a thriving enclave of mining and agribusiness designed for the global market, and on the other, a vast urban industrial wasteland where millions of Argentinians struggle desperately to make ends meet.

Can Cinar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Javier Milei’s inflation ‘miracle’ in Argentina is a warning to the world, not a blueprint – https://theconversation.com/javier-mileis-inflation-miracle-in-argentina-is-a-warning-to-the-world-not-a-blueprint-278840

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-French

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Blandine Chelini-Pont, Professeur des Universités en histoire contemporaine et relations internationales, Aix-Marseille Université (AMU)

Aux États-Unis, de plus en plus d’institutions religieuses se mobilisent pour protester contre les opérations de l’Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), dont l’objectif premier est de procéder à l’expulsion des supposés « millions de migrants clandestins » présents sur le sol du pays. Entre les recours juridiques, la mise en place de réseaux d’alertes ou encore l’aménagement des églises en espaces de refuge, elles jouent un véritable rôle dans la défense des sans-papiers.

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Alors que de nombreuses Églises chrétiennes ont ouvertement fait part de leur opposition à la guerre déclenchée contre l’Iran le 28 février dernier, on observe depuis plusieurs mois que de plus en plus de responsables religieux américains contestent l’action des agents fédéraux de l’Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Loin d’être une réaction conjoncturelle, cette mobilisation s’est intensifiée tout au long de l’année 2025, au fur et à mesure que l’ICE se déployait sur l’ensemble du territoire et outrepassait son périmètre administratif et pénal. L’agence fédérale est normalement chargée de s’occuper des infractions au droit de l’immigration (personnes sans papiers et en situation irrégulière), des processus de reconduite aux frontières (rétention, expulsion) et, aussi, des enquêtes sur les filières criminelles transnationales impliquant des étrangers (traite humaine, blanchiment d’argent, fraude documentaire, narcotrafic, armes). Or elle a commencé à agir en négligeant aussi bien les procédures qui l’encadrent que son obligation de coopérer avec les autorités et les juridictions locales.

Ses agents de terrain – dont les effectifs ont doublé et devraient tripler sur les trois années à venir – se sont transformés en véritable milice armée agissant en toute impunité pour faire du chiffre.

Cette évolution, perçue comme une dérive régressive par de nombreux responsables religieux, alimente une critique morale qui aboutit à la remise en cause de l’ensemble des dispositifs légaux relatifs à la lutte contre l’immigration clandestine. La mobilisation, fortement portée par l’Église catholique, s’élargit en un véritable réseau interchrétien et interreligieux qui entre désormais directement en interaction avec le champ politique et judiciaire.

Mobilisation catholique

Tandis que le pape Léon XIV, lui-même américain, ne mâchait pas ses mots en dénonçant le virage en cours et en appelant à plus d’humanité aux États-Unis, la mobilisation s’est incarnée d’abord dans l’engagement de figures épiscopales majeures, telles que le cardinal Joseph Tobin, archevêque de Newark, véritable porte-voix de la dignité des migrants. Les diocèses des régions frontalières, aux fortes populations hispaniques, ont été particulièrement sensibilisés (n’oublions pas que la majeure partie des personnes arrêtées et expulsées par l’ICE sont originaires d’Amérique latine).

Des évêques du Nouveau-Mexique, comme Mgr John Wester de Santa Fe ou Mgr Peter Baldacchino de Las Cruces, se sont fait entendre, de même que, au Texas, Mgr Mark J. Seitz, d’El Paso, qui a explicitement appelé les agents de l’ICE à refuser d’exécuter des ordres injustes, s’inquiétant que « la frontière (soit) désormais partout ».

L’archevêque Gustavo García-Siller de San Antonio est allé plus loin. Il a dénoncé un système devenu « une industrie » honteuse, structuré autour d’intérêts économiques, notamment à travers les centres de détention privés. En effet, le budget de l’ICE est passé d’environ 9,7 milliards de dollars (8,4 milliards d’euros) en 2025 à plus de 11 milliards de dollars (9,5 milliards d’euros) en 2026. Un plan pluriannuel, voté en octobre dernier, atteint plus de 60 milliards d’euros. Avec l’augmentation des effectifs de ses agents, ce budget colossal doit permettre l’extension massive des capacités de détention, estimée à 33 milliards d’euros.

L’évêque Mario Dorsonville, ancien auxiliaire de Washington, responsable des questions migratoires et aujourd’hui décédé, avait insisté de son côté en 2024 sur la responsabilité morale de l’Église à dénoncer la criminalisation des migrants. Les propos qu’il avait tenus restent, aujourd’hui, une sorte de référence pour les catholiques américains.

À Chicago, le cardinal Blase Cupich a également dénoncé les atteintes par l’ICE à la liberté religieuse des personnes interpellées, soulignant que les autorités fédérales entravaient de manière tout à fait illégale l’action pastorale et interdisaient les visites et l’exercice du culte aux personnes en détention.

À New York, le cardinal Timothy Dolan, pourtant estimé proche du gouvernement actuel, est devenu un détracteur régulier de ses politiques d’immigration.

Sur le terrain, un réseau dense d’acteurs religieux et laïcs s’est mis en place. Les jésuites y sont particulièrement présents à travers des figures comme le père Christopher Collins ou le père James Martin, qui articulent action pastorale, plaidoyer médiatique et engagement politique.

Des organisations comme le Jesuit Refugee Service USA, en lien avec les pays d’Amérique centrale, les Catholic Charities ou encore le NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, lancent des actions en justice contre l’ICE au nom des personnes « enlevées ». L’action de ces structures permet de transformer une indignation morale en capacité d’action organisée.

Mobilisation interchrétienne et interreligieuse

Bien d’autres Églises américaines se font également entendre. L’Église épiscopalienne, sous l’impulsion de figures comme Michael Curry (ancien primat) et d’évêques diocésains comme John Harvey Taylor (Los Angeles), s’engage fortement contre les politiques de détention et les « raids ». Plus de 150 évêques épiscopaliens ont signé des déclarations communes dénonçant les pratiques de l’ICE.

Dans le monde luthérien, l’Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), dirigée par Yehiel Curry, s’implique aussi, à travers ses synodes locaux, notamment dans le Minnesota (où se trouve Minneapolis, la ville où des agents de l’ICE ont abattu en janvier Renee Good et Alex Pretti) où Curry est en poste et où les luthériens sont nombreux. Leurs responsables ont eux aussi participé à des actions judiciaires pour garantir l’accès pastoral aux migrants détenus.

L’United Church of Christ, historiquement engagée dans les luttes pour les droits civiques, la Presbyterian Church (USA) ou encore la United Methodist Church prennent les mêmes positions publiques et soutiennent les mêmes réseaux d’accueil. Au final, on assiste à une convergence interchrétienne de la mobilisation, avec l’organisation de très nombreuses actions et manifestations communes.

La convergence dépasse enfin le cadre chrétien pour s’inscrire dans une dynamique interreligieuse. Des organisations musulmanes comme le Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), ainsi que des réseaux juifs progressistes comme l’HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), accompagnent les coalitions religieuses de défense des migrants.

Dans certaines villes comme Chicago, Los Angeles ou Minneapolis, ces coalitions interconfessionnelles organisent des formations aux droits des personnes migrantes. Cela renforce la légitimité de la mobilisation, en la fondant sur des principes communs positifs de dignité humaine et de justice. Surtout, cette mobilisation empêche les leaders évangéliques soutenant l’ICE de monopoliser l’espace médiatique.

Une continuation du mouvement Black Lives Matter

La notion de « résistance morale » structure profondément cette mobilisation. Elle renvoie à une tradition historique de contestation de l’injustice légale, héritée notamment des mouvements abolitionnistes et des droits civiques. Elle se manifeste à la fois dans les discours – éditoriaux, sermons, déclarations publiques – et dans les pratiques. Elle transforme les acteurs religieux en « entrepreneurs moraux », capables de contester la légitimité d’une politique publique au nom de principes supérieurs.

Cela a récemment été le cas avec l’engagement des Églises dans le mouvement Black Lives Matter (BLM), contre le racisme systémique et la violence policière. Des figures religieuses comme le révérend William J. Barber II ou le révérend Al Sharpton se sont trouvés aux premiers rangs lors des mobilisations BLM. Les églises ont servi de lieux de rassemblement, d’organisation et de légitimation morale.

De la même manière, sur la question migratoire, les églises deviennent des espaces de refuge, de coordination et de contestation. La différence des publics concernés n’est d’ailleurs pas si « éloignée », puisqu’un préjugé raciste s’exprime fortement derrière la traque des sans-papiers, les agents de l’ICE pratiquant systématiquement le « délit de faciès ».

La mobilisation actuelle en faveur des sans-papiers a approfondi le maillage interchrétien et interconfessionnel, entamé dans le mouvement BLM. Elle ajoute, aux manifestations de rue, les actions de terrain disséminées, incluant recours juridiques et procédures institutionnelles.

Des paroisses, des églises et des réseaux associatifs ont mis en place des dispositifs d’accueil, parfois dans le cadre du mouvement des « sanctuary churches ». Des organisations, comme United We Dream ou Faith in Action, collaborent avec des communautés religieuses pour organiser des réseaux d’alerte en cas de raids. Des bénévoles accompagnent les migrants dans leurs démarches juridiques, financent des avocats et assurent une présence dans les centres de détention.

Ces actions traduisent le passage d’une mobilisation morale à une véritable infrastructure de solidarité, capable de répondre concrètement à la logique d’expansion territoriale de l’ICE.

Impact politique

La mobilisation religieuse anti-ICE entre aussi directement en interaction avec le champ politique. En février 2026, un groupe de 44 représentants démocrates – dont la plupart sont catholiques – mené par Rosa DeLauro du Connecticut, et incluant des figures comme Nancy Pelosi, Joaquin Castro ou James McGovern – s’est publiquement opposé à l’expansion de l’ICE. Leur déclaration a explicitement mobilisé des arguments moraux et religieux, dénonçant une politique incompatible avec la dignité humaine.

De la sorte, même si la Chambre des représentants, où les républicains sont à peine majoritaires (218 sièges contre 214), a voté, fin mars l’intégration de l’ICE dans le budget du Departement of Homeland Security – le ministère dont dépend l’ICE –, les arguments des démocrates, qui dénoncent l’absence de contrôle des recrues à tous les niveaux, le surarmement « effrayant » et les salaires disproportionnés, ont porté au Sénat. Bien qu’à majorité républicain (53 sièges contre 47), ce dernier a voté le budget du DHS sans y inclure le financement de l’ICE. À ce jour, le budget 2026 de l’ICE est bloqué, même si la loi exceptionnelle votée en juillet 2025, le One Big Beautiful Bill Act, continue de lui assurer un financement faramineux.

Enfin, il faut souligner que si plusieurs figures conservatrices, comme le speaker républicain de la Chambre Mike Johnson, tentent de justifier les politiques migratoires par des références bibliques, d’autres semblent hésiter. Ainsi, le vice-président J. D. Vance, qui affiche volontiers son catholicisme, a dans un premier temps raillé les évêques qui s’indignaient des coupes totales de subventions fédérales pour les associations de terrain, les traitant en substance de grippe-sous grincheux, avant de s’en excuser, reconnaissant le caractère excessif de ses propos. Même s’il manifeste pour l’instant un solide optimisme sur les performances de l’ICE, il pourrait tenter d’infléchir sa position, tout comme il cherche à le faire (et à le faire savoir) à propos de la guerre en Iran…

Blandine Chelini-Pont ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Aux États-Unis, la forte mobilisation des organisations religieuses contre les actions de l’ICE – https://theconversation.com/aux-etats-unis-la-forte-mobilisation-des-organisations-religieuses-contre-les-actions-de-lice-279380

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Robyn Klingler-Vidra, Vice Dean, Global Engagement | Associate Professor in Political Economy and Entrepreneurship, King’s College London

One firm, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), produces more than 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips. These chips are essential for smartphones, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and cutting-edge military systems.

Taiwan’s dominance of advanced chips acts as a chokepoint for the global economy. Days or weeks without their manufacturing would affect the supply and price of numerous products around the world. This is comparable to how the current disruption to shipping in the Persian Gulf due to the Iran war is affecting oil-dependent markets globally.

Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing supremacy has transformed the island nation into what I have described in my research as a “niche superpower”. It wields outsized global influence by commanding a strategically indispensable industry.

Taiwan did not stumble into this position. In the 1970s, Taiwanese technocrats recognised that the nation could not immediately compete at the world’s electronics frontier. One of them was Kwoh-Ting Li, then minister of economic affairs, who is often referred to as the “father of Taiwan’s economic miracle”.

At that time, Taiwan lacked the financial capital and technological skills to compete with industry leaders such as Japan and the US. So rather than trying to dominate the entire semiconductor industry from design through to production, Taiwanese policymakers focused on building capabilities in precision manufacturing. This is the most operationally demanding part of the semiconductor value chain.

Established in 1973 by the Taiwanese government, the Industrial Technology Research Institute carefully acquired semiconductor process technology through licensing agreements with the now defunct US firm Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It then trained a generation of Taiwanese engineers.

The pivotal moment came in 1987, when Morris Chang established TSMC. Chang, a US-trained engineer who had spent decades at American semiconductor multinational Texas Instruments, devised what is now known as the “pure-play foundry” model.

Rather than designing and manufacturing its own branded chips, this meant that TSMC would manufacture chips for other firms. This strategic choice was transformative because it reassured American and European semiconductor companies that TSMC would not compete with them. It allowed major tech firms such as Qualcomm and later Nvidia to outsource chip production to Taiwan without fear of intellectual property leakage or strategic rivalry.

The Taiwanese semiconductor industry grew within the Hsinchu Science Park, a major industrial cluster south of the Taiwanese capital of Taipei. By the early 1990s, Hsinchu Park hosted more than 140 chip manufacturing firms and employed around 30,000 workers. The strength of the cluster attracted legions of Taiwanese engineers back from the US, helping Taiwan become the global leader in the production of advanced semiconductors.

The ‘silicon shield’

Taiwan’s semiconductor dominance has played an overt role in protecting the island from its existential threat – a Chinese invasion. This phenomenon was explicitly named in 2021 in an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine, where the former Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, argued that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry acts as a “silicon shield”.

The dependence of the global economy on Taiwanese-made advanced chips, she argued, means the disruption caused by a Chinese invasion would trigger catastrophic global economic consequences. Taiwan’s allies would thus be compelled to come to its defence.

In recent years, Taiwan’s silicon shield has come under threat. Following the start of US export restrictions on advanced chipmaking equipment to China in 2020, Beijing has accelerated its efforts to build indigenous capacity in chip manufacturing. It has significantly increased investment in its semiconductor industry.

Semiconductors were the underperformer in the Made in China 2025 strategy, through which Chinese leadership aimed to transform their nation into a high-tech manufacturing superpower. China fell short of its goals for the localisation of semiconductor production and global market share, missing targets by the 2025 deadline.

However, Chinese chip manufacturers like HiSilicon and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation have been gaining momentum. A proposal by 13 Chinese chip industry executives in March outlined aims to increase self-sufficiency to 80% by 2030. China’s semiconductor self-sufficiency is currently around 33%.

At the same time, Washington is pushing to bring semiconductor manufacturing back onshore. Biden-era initiatives such as the Chips and Science Act offered incentives for TSMC’s sprawling manufacturing facility in Arizona, which opened in 2022 as part of US efforts to boost domestic chip production.

These incentives for TSMC included up to US$6.6 billion (£5 billion) in direct investment and significant tax credits. TSMC committed an initial US$65 billion to the plan, with the Trump administration announcing in March 2025 that the company would boost its US investment by a further US$100 billion.

Elon Musk also recently announced plans for advanced chip facilities in Texas for his two companies, Tesla and SpaceX. In light of Musk’s concerns that companies like TSMC are not producing the volume of chips his companies need, the so-called “Terafab” venture aims to consolidate every stage of the semiconductor production process under one roof and is expected to cost in the range of US$25 billion. Other companies investing in chip fabrication in the US include Micron, Texas Instruments and Intel.

Despite US and Chinese efforts, replicating Taiwan’s manufacturing ecosystem is difficult. It requires not only capital and equipment, but also knowledge that has been accumulated over decades as well as dense supplier networks and an unparalleled engineering workforce.

TSMC has struggled to hire talent in Arizona, and has resorted to flying thousands of workers in from Taiwan in a bid to improve the skills of locals. And while TSMC is now producing semiconductors at the cutting edge of 2-nanometre scale, the Chinese self-sufficiency goals aim to have “entirely domestically produced equipment” for the less sophisticated 7-nanometre and 14-nanometre generations of chips.

The difference between 2nm and 7nm chips is significant – a 45% increase in performance while using 75% less power. The narrower chips are used for advanced processes such as cutting-edge AI, while the wider ones are used in a broader range of electronics, like smartphones, desktop processors and automobiles.

Taiwan’s semiconductor story is ultimately one of strategic foresight. By choosing manufacturing over design, embedding itself within US-led technological networks and cultivating world-class process expertise, Taiwan transformed structural vulnerability into structural power.

Through its semiconductor dominance, Taiwan stands out as the quintessential niche superpower. But history shows that superpower status, including in niches, is never permanent. The technological frontier moves, rivals learn and allies hedge.

For Taiwan, remaining indispensable to the global economy will require not only staying ahead technologically. It will also require carefully orchestrating the political, financial and human capital foundations that made its silicon shield possible in the first place.

Robyn Klingler-Vidra received a research grant from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation between 2019 and 2023. The grant funded research on the educational and professional background of north-east Asia’s innovation policy leaders across the post-war period. The study was published in World Development in April 2025 and is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X25000646.

– ref. How Taiwan came to dominate the global chip industry – https://theconversation.com/how-taiwan-came-to-dominate-the-global-chip-industry-276939

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Flavio Macau, Associate Dean – School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University

If you’d never heard of the Strait of Hormuz before, you probably have by now. Iran’s effective closure of the waterway, which usually carries about 20% of the world’s oil and gas, has put severe pressure on the global economy.

Now, some analysts are warning a new flashpoint could emerge: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

That’s because on March 28, the Houthis, a military group that controls large parts of northern Yemen and is aligned with Iran, entered the war, launching missiles towards Israel for the first time since the war with Iran began.

Yemen is situated on one side of the strait, and the Houthis have previously attacked shipping in the Red Sea, causing major disruption in late 2023 and 2024.

Bloomberg now reports Iran has approached the Houthis to prepare for a similar campaign.

Here’s why all eyes will be back on the Houthis, Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea, and what disruption of a second major chokepoint could mean for the world economy.

What is the Bab el-Mandeb Strait?

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is about 30 kilometres wide at its narrowest point. It is situated between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula to the northeast and Eritrea and Djibouti in Africa on the west.

Its name literally means “Gate of Tears” in Arabic, after its famously treacherous sailing conditions.

It has become so important because, along with the Suez Canal in Egypt, it allows ships to transit directly between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean by passing through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Before the Suez Canal’s opening in the 19th century, ships had to travel all the way around the southern tip of Africa to join these two points.

An oil tanker leaving Saudi Arabia to go to the Netherlands, for example, only has to travel 12,000 kilometres if it goes via the Red Sea, compared with more than 20,000 kilometres going south around Africa.

As you’d expect, that’s much faster too. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), a trip between the Arabian Sea and the Netherlands that takes 34 days the long way around is shortened to just 19 days.

What passes through it?

In normal times, as much as 14% of global maritime trade goes through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Detailed data on what passes through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is somewhat limited. But fossil fuels are a major component.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that in 2025 about 4.2 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum liquids crossed the Bab al-Mandeb Strait per day. That’s about 5% of global production.

Given most ships use the Suez Canal as well, official data from the Suez Canal Authority allow us to paint a detailed picture of Red Sea shipping.

In the final quarter of 2025, about 40% of the 3,426 ships passing through the Suez Canal transported fossil fuels: (1,330 oil tankers, 88 liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships).

Bulk and general cargo made up another 40% (1,339 ships), typically transporting agricultural commodities such as corn, wheat and soybeans, and also coal and iron ore. Container ships made about 13% of the traffic (459 ships).

Notably, total traffic through the Red Sea has declined considerably since Houthi attacks on shipping in late 2023 and 2024, even though these attacks have largely stopped.

Can the strait be closed?

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait can’t be “closed” entirely. Its narrowest point is still a considerably wide waterway. And unlike the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is not a “cul-de-sac”, where the passage is closed at one end with only one way out. Ships can still exit to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal.

That’s little comfort for those bound for Asia, which would then have to round Africa to do so, adding weeks to the journey.

Notably, Saudi Arabia had already built a “Plan B” to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, called the East-West pipeline. This pipeline connects Abqaiq in the north with Yanbu on the Red Sea, and had already begun pumping oil at almost full capacity in response to the conflict.

But oil bound for Asia from this new exit point still has to pass through Bab el-Mandeb to avoid the long way around, meaning it could be disrupted.

We’ve been here before

To get a sense of how the Houthis could disrupt shipping again, we can look to the most recent Red Sea crisis.

According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), 67 incidents were recorded between November 2023 and September 2024. Some ships only suffered minor equipment damage. But others faced severe fires, flooding and structural damage after being hit by missiles or drones.

However, there have been relatively few attacks since 2024. And the strait was never totally “closed” per se: some ships continued to pass through throughout the crisis.

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Read more:
Today’s global economy runs on standardized shipping containers, as the Ever Given fiasco illustrates

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The mere threat of attacks

These same tactics would probably apply today. But for shipping companies, the mere threat of attacks may be enough to slow or restrict shipping. There are significant risks to civilian crew, who face a threat to life.

Adding to this, insurance costs could become prohibitive enough to close the route in practical terms. Back in 2024, insurance costs were about 0.6% of the value of the cargo on a ship. After the Red Sea crisis, this rose as high as 2%.

The effective closure of both the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb at the same time would be severely disruptive to global supply chains and the global economy.

Flavio Macau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why a second global shipping chokepoint could soon live up to its name as the ‘Gate of Tears’ – https://theconversation.com/why-a-second-global-shipping-chokepoint-could-soon-live-up-to-its-name-as-the-gate-of-tears-279548

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Dennis Murphy, Ph.D. Student of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology

Before dawn on March 1, 2026, Iranian Shahed drones struck two Amazon Web Services data centers in the United Arab Emirates. A third commercial data center in Bahrain was hit, though it is less clear whether it was deliberately targeted. Iran has also indicated that it considers commercial data centers to be targets.

This is the first time that a country has deliberately targeted commercial data centers during wartime. Data centers have been targets of espionage and cyberattacks in the past, notably when Ukrainian hackers destroyed data stored in a Russian military-affiliated data center in 2024. This, however, was a physical attack. Drones damaged buildings.

Advances in artificial intelligence have increased the importance of data centers. The U.S. military, in particular, has made great use of AI systems for decision support in its attacks on Iran and Venezuela. Given how important data centers are, Iranian forces could be targeting the infrastructure Iran’s leaders believe is supporting strikes on Iran.

It is not altogether clear that these particular data centers were used by the U.S. military. Instead, the attacks may have been part of a broader effort to punish the United Arab Emirates for its ties with the U.S.

In my experience as a Ph.D. candidate at Georgia Tech studying how technology drives changes in international security, I don’t think the attacks signal any significant change in the nature of warfare. But they are forcing nations to recognize that data centers are targets of war – even if they don’t directly support military operations.

Data centers and the cloud

The United States military is increasingly incorporating advanced AI capabilities into its decision support systems. From the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to supporting military strikes against Iran, the U.S. has been using AI, especially Anthropic’s Claude, for intelligence analysis and operational support.

AI is unlocking faster ways to carry out operations in war, but the AI tools the military often uses are not located on a plane or ship. When a service member uses Claude, the computing infrastructure that powers the model and its analysis usually goes to a secure Amazon Web Services cloud that hosts secret government data and software tools.

Commercial data centers are where the cloud lives. The next time you pull up Netflix and watch your favorite shows, you are likely streaming the programming from a data center, possibly AWS. When AWS data centers go down, outages affect all sorts of entertainment, news and government functions.

With AI as a driver of economic growth, data centers are key forms of infrastructure. They ensure that AI can continue to run, as well as much of the underlying internet that governments and industry rely on. When Iran attacked the UAE’s data centers, it caused widespread disruption to the local banking system.

Commercial data centers enable most of the technology that runs the modern world, including AI systems. Disrupting them is key to disrupting the military and society of a country. Given that AWS provides and operates many of the commercial data centers where the cloud lives, it is likely that its data centers will continue to be targeted in conflict.

Going after US allies

Researchers at Just Security noted on March 12, 2026, that the United States requires cloud-computing service providers to store government and military data within the U.S. or on Department of Defense bases: “Moving such data to Amazon data centers in the Gulf region would require special authorization; we are unaware if that has been granted.”

Nevertheless, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the strikes were against data centers supporting “the enemy’s” military and intelligence activities. And 10 days after the initial attack on the data centers, an Iranian news agency claimed that major tech company data centers and other physical assets in the region were considered “enemy technology infrastructure.”

Instead of military reasons, Iran may well have targeted the UAE to rattle the global economy and garner attention. Given the prominence of the Gulf as a major recipient of U.S. technological investment, the attack may also have been a symbolic one aimed at the heart of U.S.-Gulf cooperation. AI infrastructure such as commercial data centers is a growing part of U.S. leadership in the region, and this war could jeopardize the future of AI infrastructure in the Gulf.

Growing importance, easy targets

Though data centers are increasingly important for national security, the economy and society at large, it can be tempting to suggest these strikes represent a fundamental shift in the nature of war. While that is a possibility, it is important to remember that Iran launched thousands of missiles and drones at targets in the UAE. Though the vast majority were intercepted, the two that struck data centers are a small portion of the ones that got through to civilian targets in UAE territory, including strikes on airports and hotels.

The relative vulnerability of commercial data centers – they are large, relatively fragile and lack dedicated air defenses – suggests that the ones in the UAE may have been targets of opportunity or convenience. In other words, they were hit because they could be hit.

Nevertheless, it seems likely that as the use of AI tools and other cloud-based resources continues to grow in importance for countries around the world, commercial data centers will be targets in future conflicts.

Dennis Murphy is affiliated with Georgia Tech, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the RAND Corporation, the Notre Dame International Security Center, and the Astra Fellowship. He previously was affiliated with Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Marine Corps University, and the Cambridge University ERA Fellowship.

– ref. Why Iran targeted Amazon data centers and what that does – and doesn’t – change about warfare – https://theconversation.com/why-iran-targeted-amazon-data-centers-and-what-that-does-and-doesnt-change-about-warfare-278642

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Craig Fehrman, Adjunct instructor at the Media School, Indiana University

In April 2026, four astronauts are scheduled to fly around the Moon. As part of NASA’s Artemis II mission, they will become the first humans to do so in half a century. One crew member, pilot Victor Glover, will become the first Black astronaut to ever orbit the Moon.

Glover’s achievement is worth celebrating. But it’s also worth remembering that he belongs to a long and underappreciated history. America’s first Black explorer didn’t fly an Apollo rocket or sail with the U.S. Exploring Expedition. He traveled with Lewis and Clark, and he was known by a single name: York.

I’m a historian who spent five years writing a book about Lewis and Clark, and I found new documents that show York was one of the most important people on their expedition. Even in a party that could number as many as 45 men, York stood out – for his courage, his skill and his sacrifices that helped the famous captains reach the Pacific Ocean.

York’s life as a slave

York was born in Virginia around 1770. Growing up, he was a creative and sociable child, unusually tall with dark hair and a dark complexion – “black as a bear,” a contemporary noted.

He was also enslaved by the Clarks. William Clark, who was around the same age, was also unusually tall, though his hair was a rusty red, and sometimes the boys played together. But the playing stopped once York turned 9 or 10. That’s when he joined the adult slaves in working full time. That’s also when he began to note the differences between his life and William’s – differences that became only clearer once William started ordering him around.

In the 1780s, the Clark household headed to Kentucky. York met a Black woman there and married her. He also became William’s “body servant.”

A body servant was a slave who stayed close to his owner and prioritized his comfort, laying out his clothes and serving his meals. When Meriwether Lewis asked Clark to join his expedition, in 1803, Clark ordered York to accompany him.

Perhaps York was excited for this adventure. Perhaps he was not – it would be punishing, and he would be separated from his wife.

Either way, York didn’t have a choice.

The Corps of Discovery

York proved his worth from the start. Once they reached St. Louis, the soldiers, later known as the Corps of Discovery, rushed to raise winter quarters. Working in hail and snow, York and the others built log huts. They needed rough planks for their tables and bunks, but the carpenters had only a single whipsaw to make them. They chose two men to operate this crucial tool. One of them was York.

On May 14, 1804, the corps began ascending the Missouri River. York helped row and tow the party’s barge, which was the size of a semi-truck trailer. He carried a rifle and hunted – according to the expedition’s journals, he was only the fifth named member to bring down a buffalo. York cooked for the captains. He collected scientific specimens. He nursed the sick, including several soldiers and, later on, Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman who would also prove essential to the expedition’s success.

The soldiers were not always kind in return. During this period, officers rarely brought along enslaved body servants. York’s race probably made some of the men angry or uncomfortable. One day, someone threw so much sand in his face that it nearly blinded him. Clark claimed it was “in fun,” but he also wrote that York was “very near losing his eyes,” and no one else got cruelly sprayed with sand.

That fall, during councils with Native leaders, York played a surprising and vital role. The Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa all crowded in to see him and to touch his skin. They had never met a Black person before, and York showed off his strength and played with the Native children. Later, the Arikara said York was “the most marvelous” thing about the corps.

The next year, the expedition crossed the Rockies and the Continental Divide. York’s most important – and most overlooked – contributions came soon after. On the Columbia River and its tributaries, the party had to dig out five new canoes and then paddle them through treacherous rapids.

Lewis and Clark allowed only their best rivermen on these foaming, rock-riven waters. One of them was almost certainly York. During my research, I found an unpublished letter in which Clark praised York’s ability to “manage the boats.”

Just as important, York was a strong swimmer, a rare thing in an era when many people never learned to swim.

York’s life as an explorer

On the Columbia River, the corps survived a series of terrifying choke points – soggy hazards they referred to as the “Long Narrows” and the “Great Chute.” After that came the ocean. They had traveled together for more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers), and when the captains asked the men to vote on where to put their final winter quarters, they made sure to ask York, too.

It was the latest sign that his role had changed during this epic journey. But those changes began with York. In the West, he found ways to make choices and assert himself. He sent a buffalo robe to his wife in Kentucky. When Clark told him to scale back his performances for Native people, York ignored him – because he wanted to, and because he could.

York’s vote was also evidence that, like Victor Glover today, he was an official American explorer, a key member of a sprawling, federally funded mission. From 1804 to 1806, the government devoted a larger percentage of its budget to the corps than it devotes to NASA today.

Part of that money was earmarked for York. The Army gave officers who brought along their slaves a monthly ration or its cash equivalent. When the corps made it home, the government paid US$274.57 for York’s labor, a sum similar to what the privates received. But that money didn’t go to York. It went to Clark.

The hidden history of Black explorers

There have been many Black explorers in American history. Thomas Jefferson launched other expeditions besides Lewis and Clark’s, and those expeditions also included enslaved people, though their names have not survived. Isaiah Brown served on the Wheeler Survey, which mapped the West in greater detail after the Civil War. Matthew Henson accompanied Robert Peary on his Arctic expeditions, which received some federal support. More recently, NASA has depended on Black astronauts such as Guy Bluford, Mae Jemison and Jeanette Epps, among others.

York and Victor Glover are, for now, the first and most recent examples of this inspiring tradition. But their contributions go beyond that. When the captains asked York to vote on the winter quarters, they were acknowledging in some small way that he’d proven he was more than a body servant.

Of course, York had always been more than that. It just took 4,000 miles for Lewis and Clark to see it.

Craig Fehrman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Astronaut Victor Glover is the latest in a long line of Black American explorers − including York, the enslaved man who played a key role in the Lewis and Clark expedition – https://theconversation.com/astronaut-victor-glover-is-the-latest-in-a-long-line-of-black-american-explorers-including-york-the-enslaved-man-who-played-a-key-role-in-the-lewis-and-clark-expedition-279168

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anja Shortland, Reader in Political Economy, King’s College London

It took less than three minutes for an organised crime gang to steal a Renoir, Matisse and a Cezanne painting collectively worth around €9 million (£7.8m) from a private museum near Parma, Italy in March 2026. This is the second high profile art heist in recent months, after the theft of jewellery worth €9.5 million (£8.25m) from Paris’s Louvre in October 2025.

The items stolen are clearly valuable. But, as an expert in the governance of criminal markets, I can tell you acquiring the goods is only the first step. Turning this loot into cash is fraught with risk .

The Italian government takes the protection of its cultural heritage seriously, with a whole department of the Carabinieri (Italian police) devoted to the theft of arts and antiquities. This department scans the global art trade for forged, stolen and illegally exported treasures, demanding their return.

There is little chance of selling the stolen masterpieces on the international art market – even at a knockdown price. Whereas in the past dealers and auction houses might have turned a blind eye to the fishy origins of an outstanding artwork, over the past two decades the norms and procedures of the market have tightened considerably.

Anyone who buys art without checking whether a former owner has registered their interest in the object fails the bona fide (good faith) test. This means that they cannot obtain a good title and so the legal property right remains with the person or institution the artwork was stolen from. Also sales of stolen art where the seller sidestepped due diligence can be voided, meaning the money must be returned.

So reputable dealers and auction houses take their duty of care very seriously. At the very least they check the freely accessible Interpol database of stolen art before the sale. However, private databases – like that of the Art Loss Register – provide greater peace of mind, listing many more lost and stolen objects and limit searching to those with a legitimate interest in an object. When a register finds that someone is trying to bring a stolen artwork into the open market, they collect and pass on all information that could lead the police to its location or the people involved in its sale or storage.

Anything fresh from a museum wall is therefore unsaleable – unless it is jewellery that can be broken up and sold as (expensive) scrap. So, what might be the financial motivation behind this theft?

A Bond-style villain ordering favourite paintings to adorn their lair is an unlikely explanation. Yes, paintings could be stolen to order, but buying art on the open market to launder money is less risky. With high rewards for information or the return of stolen artworks, security and omerta (the code of silence) would have to be completely watertight when displaying stolen treasures.

On the other hand, “rewards for information” could be a motivation for theft in itself. In the middle of the last century, insurers regularly paid “finders” with so little scrutiny that high-value art theft became a profitable low-risk occupation. Institutions like the Art Loss Register broke that cosy coexistence and instead used any leads to help the police conduct recoveries and sting operations.

Nowadays, it is only safe to negotiate a deal over a “finder’s fee” when a stolen object has changed hands so many times that the line to the original thieves is lost in the mist of time. Even so, the ultimate “finder” would be lucky to realise more than 10% of the painting’s value, which they would also likely have to share with the thieves and various shady underworld owners along the way.

However, there is a third reason to steal artworks. Organised crime groups sometimes use stolen artworks as bargaining chips to negotiate more lenient punishment. For example, the Dresden jewellery thieves kept a few pieces of their haul aside to use their recovery to negotiate shorter sentences. Penitentos (“repentant ones”) who want to leave mafia organisations also sometimes provide information on the whereabouts of missing treasures. If there is a perception that stolen artworks can used to reduce a prison sentence or financial compensation package, their underworld value can grow far beyond the finder’s fee.

While it is difficult to verify the assertion that stolen artworks are used as collateral in drug deals, several unique treasures have indeed been retrieved from properties owned by senior mafiosi. These works have not been found in temperature controlled galleries, but rolled up in dank places that make museum curators weep with despair. Let us hope that the beautiful artworks from Parma are treated with respect until we see them again.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Anja Shortland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Selling stolen art is tricky, so why even bother heisting it? An expert explains – https://theconversation.com/selling-stolen-art-is-tricky-so-why-even-bother-heisting-it-an-expert-explains-279700

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Danny Bradlow, Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria

By Easter 2026 it was still not clear when – or how – the war initiated by Israel and the US against Iran would end. But what was already clear was that it would harm Africa in a number of ways.

Firstly, it would adversely affect the global supply and prices of oil and gas, fertilisers and food. Secondly, local currencies would be affected. More than a month after the war had started a number of African currencies had begun to lose value against the US dollar.

Thirdly, interest rates stopped falling and further rate increases were highly likely. Fourth, there will be a decline in access to affordable foreign financing.

How should Africa respond?

African countries cannot avoid being harmed by the current Gulf war. Nevertheless, based on my work in international economic law and global economic governance, I think there are two lessons that, if followed, can help the continent emerge from the crisis in a better place.

First, governments and societies need to be pragmatic. Their first priority must be to do whatever they can to mitigate the impact of the war, particularly on their most vulnerable citizens. This will require governments to make trade-offs.

They will have to reallocate budgets to at least maintain the level of imports necessary to meet the society’s basic needs. They will need to convince their creditors to help finance their necessary imports. They will also need to persuade them to be flexible enough that they leave governments with at least some policy space.

Second, states and societies need to identify opportunities within the crisis for actions that over the medium term can help them meet their financing, economic, environmental and social challenges. This requires collaboration between the state and its non-state stakeholders. Business, labour, religious groups, civil society organisations and international organisations all have something to contribute.

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Read more:
Oil price surge is hurting African economies: scholars in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa take stock

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Action in the short run

The focus of Africa’s efforts in the short term must be on minimising the negative effects of the war and on managing the state’s external debts in the most sustainable and effective way.

This is easy to state, but hard to implement. This is particularly the case in the current international environment, in which it is not realistic to expect donor countries and other international sources of finance to be particularly generous.

African countries will need to convince their creditors to acknowledge that this crisis is beyond Africa’s control and that they should not compound the pain that’s being experienced. This will require, at a minimum, that the creditors agree to suspend debt payments for the next year.

Creditors have already accepted the principle that debt payments can be suspended when debt challenges arise from sources beyond the debtor’s control. Many of them have accepted clauses requiring such action under specific conditions in their most recent debt contracts. They also did this during COVID.

Second, African countries, which are already heavily indebted, should challenge their multilateral creditors to accept the consequences of being among the biggest creditors for the continent. This includes the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank. By custom these institutions are treated as preferred creditors. This means that they get paid before all other creditors. Instead of participating in any debt restructurings, they also make new loans to the debtor in crisis. This shifts the debt restructuring burden onto the debtor’s other creditors. It also increases the total amount owed to the multilaterals.

This cannot continue. These institutions need to be more creative in providing Africa to financing. This should include:

• Using their financial resources to guarantee the financial transactions of African countries so that they can reduce their borrowing costs and attract new equity investments.

• More generously supporting innovative debt for development swaps. These involve creditors agreeing with African sovereign debtors to convert a portion of the existing debts into financing for specific local projects, for example in health or education.

• Helping African governments convert their foreign exchange denominated debts into local currency debts at affordable interest rates.

Third, governments should work with the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions to use these institutions more effectively to finance African development. For example:

• They should require the institutions to only undertake transactions that are consistent with their development mandates. This means no more opaque transactions like the recent one that the African Finance Corporation concluded with Senegal.

• African governments should take the necessary action to activate the African Financial Stability Mechanism that they agreed to establish last year. This would create a useful financial safety net for the continent.

Fourth, African governments must build on the efforts they began last year to become a more effective advocate for African development financing interests at the international level. Among these efforts was the initiative by African ministers of finance to develop common African positions on sovereign debt restructurings. Another was South Africa’s launch of the African Expert Panel that proposed a number of initiatives on African debt and development financing.

In the medium term

African countries should advocate for the IMF to review its governance arrangements so that it becomes more accountable and responsive to developing countries, including African states and societies.

They should also advocate for the IMF to more use its existing resources, including its gold reserves, more creatively to support Africa.

Second, Africa should call for a debate on the preferred creditor status of multilateral financial institutions. This has become particularly relevant because the members of the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions are claiming that, like all other multilateral financial institutions, they are entitled to this status.

It is not clear that there are good arguments for excluding these institutions from preferred creditor status while protecting the position of the legacy institutions. This suggests that there is a need for some general principles that help determine which institutions should be treated as preferred creditors. These should be acceptable to all multilateral financial institutions and other market participants.

Third, African societies must make every effort to demonstrate that they are taking control of their own development. They should demand that their governments and all other actors in African development finance behave responsibly in regard to the financial, economic, environmental and social aspects of these transactions.

Another medium term objective should be to limit the illicit financial flows that are so often associated with international trade and investment. This goal would be advanced by the successful conclusion of the current efforts to agree on a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.

Danny Bradlow is s Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Global Development Policy Center, Boston University and a Senior Fellow, South African Institute of International Affairs

– ref. Iran war: what African countries can do to get through the crisis and emerge in a better place – https://theconversation.com/iran-war-what-african-countries-can-do-to-get-through-the-crisis-and-emerge-in-a-better-place-279689

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Elizabeth Baisley, Assistant Professor, political studies, Queen’s University, Ontario

In the wake of Trans Day of Visibility, the risks of being seen are clearer than ever, from rising hate crimes and online harassment to the spread of anti-trans legislation.

But visibility alone is not enough. Trans people are still systematically under-counted or obscured in the data that shapes policy.

In an era when policy and even advocacy are increasingly data-driven, counting trans people properly in data remains essential — without it, inequality cannot be adequately addressed.

To do so, we need to improve data collection, analysis and sharing practices.

Current data collection methods fall short

Although governments and organizations are increasingly collecting data on trans people, current methods can lead to under-counting.

When Canada became the first country in the world to publish census data on trans and non-binary people, it collected that information using a household questionnaire. Parents of trans youth might have been the ones filling out the answers for their children.

This likely contributes to under-counting because younger people are typically more likely to identify as trans — except 15- to 19-year-olds, who often still live with their parents.

The drop-off is lower in countries like Scotland, which use private, individual questionnaires, offering a potential model for others.

But even when trans people are included in data sets, they can disappear during analysis.

Grouping LGBTQ2S+ data can be misleading

Trans people can disappear during analysis when grouped with other LGBTQ2S+ people, a pattern seen across both academia and community-based research.

For example, studies on political candidates that treat LGBTQ2S+ people as a single group often find little evidence of discrimination, yet studies examining trans candidates separately show that they face voter bias.

Similarly, while LGBTQ2S+ candidates overall raise less money than straight, cisgender candidates, the causes differ. For many sexual minority candidates, funding gaps stem from structural inequalities in incumbency, past political experience and district competitiveness, while trans candidates would still raise less money even if those inequalities disappeared.

Disaggregated analyses therefore show that targeted interventions — such as bias-reduction efforts and dedicated funds — remain necessary for trans candidates.

Some organizations have recognized the perils of aggregation and worked to produce research that makes trans people and their experiences visible. The Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC), Canada’s leading data collector on queer and trans health, offers a compelling example.

Initially focused on cisgender gay, bisexual and queer men, CBRC later expanded to include trans men, non-binary and Two-Spirit people. However, as samples broadened further to include all queer and trans identities, subgroup-specific findings risked being overshadowed unless data were disaggregated in reporting. In response, the organization began producing research that specifically examines trans experiences.

But even when data are collected and analyzed appropriately, access remains an obstacle.

Barriers to accessing trans-specific data

Sharing data can also pose barriers to trans-specific advocacy and policymaking when that data is inaccessible or only released in aggregate forms.

The 2021 census highlights this issue. Apart from Statistics Canada’s original release and a report showing poorer socioeconomic outcomes, we still know very little about trans people.

Statistics Canada usually only makes gender-based data from the 2021 census publicly available under the categories “Men+” and “Women+,” randomly assigning non-binary people to either group and not indicating whether anyone is trans.

If researchers want information about trans people, they must request access to a Research Data Centre through a lengthy process involving security clearance, fingerprinting, a credit check and long wait times, making it difficult to study these communities.

Steps to improve trans visibility

A few practical and co-ordinated changes in how data are collected, analyzed and shared would improve trans visibility. Here are four ways to start:

1. Involve trans people in data collection, analysis and publishing decisions. Inclusion may strengthen both legitimacy and data quality, as trans people may propose questions that elicit better responses from their communities. Lived knowledge can therefore inform analysis and decisions about sharing results.

2. Build disaggregation into reporting requirements for governments and organizations. If we care about gender-based inequalities, data must be disaggregated to identify distinct barriers and design targeted responses. Without it, policy and advocacy will miss those most affected.

3. Design data collection procedures to include trans people. Gender or sex questions are widespread. The question is not whether we collect data on trans people — we already do — but whether we design collection procedures with everyone in mind, allowing accurate counting and disaggregated analyses.

4. Look for opportunities to analyze and share data on trans people. Organizations often have statistical and ethical concerns around data on trans people. Although statistical analyses usually require large groups, it is still possible to analyze data on small groups when their patterns differ clearly from others. Alternatively, data can also be examined qualitatively.

Although we share ethical concerns around trans people’s privacy, there is often a way to share data without making individuals identifiable.

Visibility is complicated, but being counted in data is essential.

While better practices won’t fix everything, they are a good place to start. Because without better data, we cannot design effective policy or advocate for meaningful change. Let’s ensure trans people are counted, too.

Elizabeth Baisley has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Francesco MacAllister-Caruso previously worked for the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC) from 2020 to 2025.

Quinn M. Albaugh has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Counting trans people: Why better data collection is essential for better policy – https://theconversation.com/counting-trans-people-why-better-data-collection-is-essential-for-better-policy-278957