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A new year means new fitness goals. But options for people with disability are few and far between

Retrieved on: 
Mercredi, janvier 17, 2024

Adults living with disability can experience a range of benefits from participating in community-based physical activities such as dance, Tai Chi and yoga, our recently published review found.

Key Points: 
  • Adults living with disability can experience a range of benefits from participating in community-based physical activities such as dance, Tai Chi and yoga, our recently published review found.
  • Yet adults with disability are less physically active than those without disability, with inclusive community-based physical activities few and far between.
  • This puts people with disability at increased risk of further disability.

Benefits of physical activity

  • Our systematic review included 74 trials with 2,954 men and women living with mild-to-moderate physical and intellectual disability.
  • All but one of these physical activities were delivered in condition-specific groups (for example, a group for people with Parkinson’s disease).
  • Benefits included improvements in walking, balance and quality of life, and reductions in fatigue, depression and anxiety.

Considerations for physical recreation in the community

  • Some physical recreation activities included in the review used adjustments and extra equipment to be suitable for people with disability.
  • Most local community-based recreation groups should be able make simple adjustments to meet the needs of people living with mild to moderate disability.
  • It may also limit the confidence of the person with disability to join a local class.

Access to services is a basic right

  • Australia also has a Disability Discrimination Act (1992).
  • But this seems to provide little incentive for services to take active measures to prevent disability discrimination.


The commission’s final report recommended strengthening laws to protect people with disability, prevent discrimination, and build a more inclusive society. Momentum and expectation is growing in Australian society for better inclusion for people living with disability.

So what can we do for better physical activity inclusion?

  • First, more physical activity options suitable for people with disability are needed in the community.
  • People with disability will then be able to choose an activity that suits their needs and preference.
  • Second, community-based physical activities need to enable the person with disability to access the setting safely and have equipment suitable to use.
  • Anne Tiedemann has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund.
  • Cathie Sherrington has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund.

Long after Indigenous activists flee Russia, they continue to face government pressure to remain silent

Retrieved on: 
Mercredi, janvier 17, 2024

Today, however, Sulyandziga, 61, and his family members continue to be harassed by the Russian government.

Key Points: 
  • Today, however, Sulyandziga, 61, and his family members continue to be harassed by the Russian government.
  • Beyond repression at home, the Russian government is increasingly trying to silence activists like Sulyandziga even after they leave Russia.
  • This kind of harassment is called transnational repression, and it means that Indigenous activists are vulnerable in exile as well as at home.

Indigenous people of Russia

  • Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has legally recognized 47 Indigenous peoples, though more than 150 groups claim Indigenous status.
  • There was a flowering of Indigenous activism in Russia during the more open politics of the 1990s.
  • But Indigenous peoples remain among the most socially and economically marginalized groups in Russia.

Indigenous activism and Russia’s war in Ukraine

  • Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has created new problems for Indigenous communities in Russia.
  • Driven by poverty and patriotic appeals, young men from Indigenous communities enlist in the military in disproportionately high numbers.
  • Some Indigenous exiles have exercised their new freedoms by protesting Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Russian government’s pressure on Indigenous people

  • The Russian government uses the tools of transnational repression against Indigenous activists who have left Russia.
  • These include damaging activists’ reputations in media coverage, initiating spurious legal cases, confiscating their property and harassing relatives and colleagues who remain in Russia.
  • Ruslan Gabbasov, an activist from the Bashkir ethnic minority in the Russian region of Bashkortostan, left his homeland in 2021 due to increasing pressure on his activism.

A foreign policy concern

  • These anti-war groups compare Russia’s violence toward Ukrainians with their own histories of oppression and call for decolonization in the region.
  • Repression also is designed to drive a wedge between Indigenous communities in Russia and activists abroad who maintain connections via online platforms such as Telegram.
  • The Russian government had labeled his original organization a foreign agent, even before he fled to the U.S.
  • Pavel Sulyandziga, president of the Batani International Indigenous Fund for Solidarity and Development and visiting scholar at Dartmouth College, contributed to this article.


Laura A. Henry 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.

Uganda's battle for the youth vote – how Museveni keeps Bobi Wine’s reach in check

Retrieved on: 
Mercredi, janvier 17, 2024

Young people aged below 30 make up about 77% of the country’s population of 47 million people.

Key Points: 
  • Young people aged below 30 make up about 77% of the country’s population of 47 million people.
  • Opportunities remain limited, with two-thirds of Ugandans working for themselves or doing family-based agricultural work.
  • Bobi Wine’s run at the presidency in the 2021 election highlights the reality that capturing the youth vote in Uganda is complex.
  • The outcome of the 2021 elections defied expectations, given Uganda’s large and underemployed youth population and the emergence of Bobi Wine.


the structural capture of youth representation in Ugandan politics
diverse economic incentives for political loyalty in the form of loan schemes, grants and short-term employment
well-spun political narratives that draw on entrenched views of youth as beholden to their elders and the state.

New wine, old bottles

  • Commentators worldwide suggested his candidacy represented a real and unprecedented threat to Yoweri Museveni’s longstanding rule.
  • This is about the same proportion of votes that has accrued to the main opposition candidates in Uganda since multi-party elections resumed in 2006.
  • There were also reports of the ruling party dishing out money to potential voters, with instructions to vote for Museveni.
  • Contemporary tactics used by the ruling party to co-opt the youth converge with these historically rooted methods of regime consolidation.

Splitting the youth

  • First, the youth are organised into a “special interest group” reinforced through quota systems.
  • Political structures, such as youth MPs and representatives, absorb youth representation under regime authority and entrench regional divisions.
  • Ahead of the 2021 election, Museveni gave state appointments to popular musicians with wide youth appeal who had been working closely with Bobi Wine’s party.
  • Youth are often recruited as election workers, special police constables and crime preventers.

What hope for Bobi Wine?

  • In northern Uganda, for example, young people have lived through a recent history of devastating conflict and still struggle with its legacies.
  • Against this backdrop, if Bobi Wine contests in 2026, he is likely to struggle again.
  • Arthur Owor, the director for research and operations at the Centre for African Research, is a co-author of this article.


Rebecca Tapscott receives funding from the ESRC-funded Centre for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID) and the Gerda Henkel Foundation's Special Programme for Security, Society and the State. Anna Macdonald receives funding from the ESRC-funded Centre for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID).

Domestic violence: criminalising coercive control in France could bring more justice to victims

Retrieved on: 
Mercredi, janvier 17, 2024

Over the last decade in many European countries, legislators, magistrates, government ministers, law enforcement agencies, lawyers and service providers have recognised that prevailing approaches to domestic violence were failing and have adopted the new model of “coercive control” to reframe domestic violence as a crime against rights and resources rather than as an assault.Criminalising coercive controlDrawing on interviews with several hundred French professionals, victims, service providers and academics, the Chandler-Vérien French parliamentary mission on domestic violence tasked by Prime Minister Borne with improving the judicial treatment of domestic violence stressed the urgency of translating coercive control into law and called on coercive control to be at the core of future information campaigns and professional training.

Key Points: 


Over the last decade in many European countries, legislators, magistrates, government ministers, law enforcement agencies, lawyers and service providers have recognised that prevailing approaches to domestic violence were failing and have adopted the new model of “coercive control” to reframe domestic violence as a crime against rights and resources rather than as an assault.

Criminalising coercive control

  • Drawing on interviews with several hundred French professionals, victims, service providers and academics, the Chandler-Vérien French parliamentary mission on domestic violence tasked by Prime Minister Borne with improving the judicial treatment of domestic violence stressed the urgency of translating coercive control into law and called on coercive control to be at the core of future information campaigns and professional training.
  • We believe that enacting a coercive control offence in France would be a significant advance in the equality agenda.

Coercive control: a “liberty crime”

  • Coercive control has been referred to as a “liberty crime” because of the experience of entrapment it produces, analogous to being held hostage.
  • The rights infringed upon include autonomy, dignity and self-determination, even more so when victims have a disability.


current domestic-violence laws have failed to hold perpetrators accountable and to protect victims, mainly women and children;
the lack of social control and legal sanctions encourages aggravation and recidivism, creating a revolving door in French courts and prisons;
victims confront situations that more closely resemble captivity than an assault.

A system of impunity

  • The French state’s High Council for Equality has found that the conviction rate for perpetrators of domestic violence amounted to a “true system of impunity”.
  • The gap between the current criminalisation of domestic violence and its reality as experienced by victims can erode trust in the justice system.
  • The conviction rate of perpetrators and the number of domestic homicides in France reflect the perpetrators’ lack of accountability.

Surveillance, isolation, intimidation, control, personalised credible threats

  • In most cases, violence and/or sexual abuse is accompanied by intimidation, isolation, control tactics, and personalised credible threats.
  • These begin in the house and can extend to every activity, including work, and involve children, other family members and unrelated others, including professionals, as spies, informants or co-victims.
  • Because perpetrators aim to monopolise all the resources and privileges available in a relationship or family space, their adult partner is usually their primary target.
  • But any person who is seen as obstructing this monopoly is likely to be targeted as a secondary victim, including children, grandparents, siblings, friends, neighbours, coworkers, as well as law and social services professionals.

What about the children?

  • Coercive control of women by men is the most important cause of violence against children and child homicide outside war zones.
  • This often occurs after a separation, in the context of legal proceedings relating to the child’s custody and parental rights or during visiting rights.


The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

'I never lost a fight against a man': the story of the only woman to join Japan's notorious yakuza

Retrieved on: 
Mercredi, janvier 17, 2024

These are signs of affiliation to the yakuza – Japan’s notorious criminal syndicates.

Key Points: 
  • These are signs of affiliation to the yakuza – Japan’s notorious criminal syndicates.
  • Typically a woman involved with the yakuza might be an anesan, a boss’ wife who takes care of young affiliates and mediates between them and her husband.
  • But she went one step further – Nishimura is the only woman who has ever partaken in the sakazuki ceremony of exchanging sake cups.

Joining the gang

  • Her memories revolve around her authoritarian father and the bamboo stick he would use to discipline her.
  • Her life took a turn when one night she received a call: her friend was in a fight and needed help.
  • She joined alongside a cohort of male recruits, performing daily tasks, and eventually taking part in the group’s criminal activities.

Master of finger cutting

  • As an affiliate, she ran prostitution and drugs businesses, collected debts and mediated disputes between rival groups.
  • When she cut off her own little finger to apologise for a collective mistake in a ritual known as yubitsume, she realised she had a knack for it.
  • Members who could not go through with the amputation themselves would ask Nishimura to do it for them, garnering her the nickname of “master of finger cutting”.
  • She rejoined her old group, but meth had changed the boss that she adored, and in two years she left for good.

Life after crime

  • She found a job in the demolition business and a modest home where she now lives alone.
  • She lives a quiet life, trying to be accepted by the community and to help others.
  • Her story redefines the boundaries of gender roles and allegiance in the brutal world of Japanese organised crime – a unique journey of identity and belonging.


Martina Baradel receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 101029138.

What is frostbite, what are the signs and how should we treat it?

Retrieved on: 
Mercredi, janvier 17, 2024

Thankfully, with the right preventative and protective measures, the human body can survive these icy temperatures.

Key Points: 
  • Thankfully, with the right preventative and protective measures, the human body can survive these icy temperatures.
  • Here’s what you need to know about identifying and treating the most common cold injury: frostbite.
  • However, despite our bodies’ inherent temperature controls, without the right protection, we might still be vulnerable to cold weather injuries.
  • For frostbite to occur, exposed body parts need to be subjected to a temperature that is below minus 0.55°C.
  • At this temperature it will take several hours for exposed skin to become frostbitten.
  • For example, temperatures in the -20s can cause frostbite on exposed skin in under 30 minutes.

Who does it affect?

  • However, with the global population beginning to live in harsher environments and an increase in winter and snow sports, this is likely to increase in the general population.
  • Reduced ability to sense the cold also increases the frostbite vulnerability of those who’ve had a stroke or have peripheral nerve damage.
  • The consumption of alcohol also reduces blood pressure, which may also reduce the amount of blood pumped to extremities.

Symptoms

  • Preserving the core body temperature is key to keeping the brain, heart, kidneys and lungs functioning and preventing hypothermia.
  • This cooling brings about tingling and numbness of the exposed areas, and skin flushes red or white as the body frantically tries to rewarm itself.
  • This initial stage is known as frostnip, and, although uncomfortable, leaves no permanent damage to tissues.

Treatment and prevention

  • For frostbite, immediate medical treatment should be sought – sadly the pain of recovery is often far worse than the injury.
  • Rewarming is the process of bringing the affected parts back to functioning body temperature.
  • However, where ice crystals have damaged tissue, blisters are common and the nerves become hypersensitive, causing excruciating pain.


Adam Taylor 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.

Dave Chappelle has built a reputation for ‘punching down’ on trans people – and now he’s targeting disabled people

Retrieved on: 
Mercredi, janvier 17, 2024

Chappelle recalls being “very disappointed” at having to pretend to be speaking to Kaufman, when he could clearly see it was Carrey.

Key Points: 
  • Chappelle recalls being “very disappointed” at having to pretend to be speaking to Kaufman, when he could clearly see it was Carrey.
  • “That’s how trans people make me feel.” Whether or not non-transgender people find it funny, it is a joke that stabs at the fundamental insecurity of being trans.
  • It takes the stance of biological essentialism: that people have innate and intractable traits by virtue of their biology.

Mirroring prejudice

  • Chappelle is either unaware or just doesn’t care that the term is decades out of date.
  • It slips into mockery when, bereft of understanding, it does nothing more than mirror prejudice.
  • He says:
    there’s probably a handicap in the back right now ’cause that’s where they make them sit.
  • there’s probably a handicap in the back right now ’cause that’s where they make them sit.
  • Instead, it seems he embraces being an “equal opportunity” offender who mocks disability as a defence for his long-running transgender jokes.

The impacts of mockery

  • His jokes rely on prevailing disgust about transgender bodies and increasingly politicised insistence that transgender people are not real women or men.
  • These views shared in popular culture are coming to inform anti-trans policy in healthcare, education and the justice system.
  • As the majority of the general population do not know a trans person, the media has significant influence over perceptions of trans people.
  • Throughout four Netflix specials, Chapelle has made no effort to understand the object of his jokes or the impact of his mockery on their daily lives.


The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Kush: what is this dangerous new west African drug that supposedly contains human bones?

Retrieved on: 
Mardi, janvier 16, 2024

Another reason might be the drug content of the bones themselves, if the deceased was a fentanyl or tramadol user.

Key Points: 
  • Another reason might be the drug content of the bones themselves, if the deceased was a fentanyl or tramadol user.
  • The drug is reported in both Guinea and Liberia, which share porous land borders with Sierra Leone, making drug trafficking easy.
  • The danger of the drug is twofold: the risk of self-injury to the drug taker and the highly addictive nature of the drug itself.
  • The effectiveness of legislation alone is questionable, and many of those who attend the very limited rehabilitation centres return to drug use.

The shame and pleasure of masturbation: Poor Things gets girls’ early sexual feelings right

Retrieved on: 
Mardi, janvier 16, 2024

Yorgos Lanthimos’ film follows Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a scientist’s experiment created from a woman’s body and a child’s mind.

Key Points: 
  • Yorgos Lanthimos’ film follows Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a scientist’s experiment created from a woman’s body and a child’s mind.
  • But I think it is wrong to read Poor Things as a film about grown women.
  • It accurately depicts girls’ early sexual feelings and shows us some more positive ways of understanding girlhood sexual desire.

Discovering sexuality

  • Early in the film, Bella teaches herself to masturbate and is delighted by her discovery.
  • Many of my interviewees had similar memories, often describing themselves as “exploring” their bodies and finding enjoyable sensations in the process.
  • Interviewees, including Nicole, were normally aged between five and 10 during these experiences (which are normal and common among children).
  • Interviewees regularly described their early forays into masturbation as disconnected from adult sexuality.

Girls are interested in sex


In the recent past, the media depicted boys as much more sexual than girls, who were supposedly interested in romance instead. Even magazines like Dolly – which catered to girls and spoke openly about sex – assumed girls’ sexual impulses would be awakened by their boyfriends’ advances.

  • This is clear even in well-meaning advice to girls about not being “pressured” into sex, which presupposes girls would not initiate sex themselves.
  • She concluded:
    obviously you’re not meant to have fun like that […] obviously you’re not meant to do it yourself.
  • obviously you’re not meant to have fun like that […] obviously you’re not meant to do it yourself.

A healthy sexuality

  • Several interviewees told me they learned the word “masturbation” from Dolly, which portrayed it as a normal and healthy practice.
  • “Oh, that’s what I’ve been doing”, thought Nicole when she found instructions on how to masturbate in the magazine.
  • She develops a healthy relationship to her sexuality; she knows sex should be enjoyable for her, not just for men, and that she should not be coerced into it.
  • We can show future generations there is nothing shameful about sexuality.
  • Read more:
    Poor Things: meet the radical Scottish visionary behind the new hit film

    *Names have been changed.


Saskia Roberts 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.

Thinking of using an activity tracker to achieve your exercise goals? Here's where it can help – and where it probably won't

Retrieved on: 
Mardi, janvier 16, 2024

Doing more physical activity is a popular and worthwhile goal.

Key Points: 
  • Doing more physical activity is a popular and worthwhile goal.
  • If you’re hoping to be more active in 2024, perhaps you’ve invested in an activity tracker, or you’re considering buying one.
  • And will a basic tracker do the trick, or do you need a fancy one with lots of features?

Why use an activity tracker?

  • Most people have a vague idea of how active they are, but this is inaccurate a lot of the time.
  • Once people consciously start to keep track of how much activity they do, they often realise it’s less than what they thought, and this motivates them to be more active.
  • By tracking steps or “activity minutes” you can ascertain whether or not you are meeting the physical activity guidelines (150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week).
  • Research has shown the most popular brands of activity trackers are generally reliable when it comes to tracking basic measures such as steps and activity minutes.

But wait, there’s more

  • Resting heart rate This is your heart rate at rest, which is normally somewhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute.
  • Your resting heart rate will gradually go down as you become fitter, especially if you’re doing a lot of high-intensity exercise.
  • Your risk of dying of any cause (all-cause mortality) is much lower when you have a low resting heart rate.
  • Heart rate during exercise Activity trackers will also measure your heart rate when you’re active.
  • The more oxygen your body can process, the harder you can work, and therefore the fitter you are.
  • Inactive women and men would have a VO₂max lower than 30 and 40 ml/kg/min, respectively.
  • A reasonably good VO₂max would be mid thirties and higher for women and mid forties and higher for men.
  • For athletes, VO₂max is usually measured in a lab on a treadmill while wearing a mask that measures oxygen consumption.


Corneel Vandelanotte receives research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the National Heart Foundation of Australia, and the Medical Research Future Fund. He also receives funding from Health and Wellbeing Queensland and Wellbeing SA for delivering the 10,000 Steps program.