Review | Jotup

Most people who think they are allergic to penicillin aren't

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Allergies vary between us, but someone allergic to penicillin typically develops a rash, itching and swelling.

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Allergies vary between us, but someone allergic to penicillin typically develops a rash, itching and swelling.
Typically, it is made when using penicillin to treat a feverish child with signs of an infected ear or throat.
This is done because someone allergic to penicillin typically responds badly to the next dose of penicillin, which can include the potentially lethal condition known as anaphylaxis.
If you think you have a penicillin allergy it would be wise to discuss and confirm this with your doctor.

Visa exploitation review urges tougher penalties and a ban on temporary migrants in sex work. Would this solve the problem?

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

This is in addition to legislation it has already introduced to strengthen employer compliance measures to protect temporary migrants from exploitation.

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This is in addition to legislation it has already introduced to strengthen employer compliance measures to protect temporary migrants from exploitation.
But the Nixon review goes further, with more than 30 recommendations.
Importantly, it has placed the compliance dimension into the visa processing system instead of keeping it mainly within Australian Border Force.

Cracking down on misconduct by migration agents

Among its recommendations, the Nixon review called for strengthening the compliance and investigative powers of the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority to address misconduct by registered migration agents.
It noted:
[Registered migration agents] may perceive that engaging in such illegal activity is low risk, and high reward.
[Registered migration agents] may perceive that engaging in such illegal activity is low risk, and high reward.
The review also said overseas migration agents are currently not required to be registered with the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority to provide immigration advice, which it recommended changing.

A ban on temporary migrants in the sex industry?

Canada, for instance, has implemented a ban on any temporary migrants working in this sector.
The review recommended a similar ban in Australia, as well as increased penalties for those found to be hiring temporary migrants for the sex industry, saying:
The prohibition of temporary migrants working in the sex industry would send a strong and clear message that the Australian government has no tolerance for the exploitation of temporary migrants.
The prohibition of temporary migrants working in the sex industry would send a strong and clear message that the Australian government has no tolerance for the exploitation of temporary migrants.
Some advocates in the sex industry, such as the Scarlet Alliance), believe a full ban would not stop exploitation in the sex industry, it would just drive it further underground.

Reducing backlogs in visa processing

The Nixon review also focused on the lengthy processing times for some visa subclasses, which it said cumulatively could last up to a decade.
There’s a clear link between government under-funding, visa processing backlogs and compliance issues.
The backlogs create an incentive to engage in fraudulent asylum claims because claimants have appeal rights for longer periods of time.
In this way, a bridging visa that is issued pending an Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) decision can act like a quasi-work visa.

Press release - Parliament argues for a top-up to multi-annual budget for crisis response

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

As for the debt payments resulting from the Recovery plan, MEPs demand that they be positioned above the EU’s budgetary caps.

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As for the debt payments resulting from the Recovery plan, MEPs demand that they be positioned above the EU’s budgetary caps.
This is to ensure that EU programmes directly benefiting citizens are not compromised, especially given the potential volatility of these costs with rising interest rates.
Press conference
A press conference with EP President Roberta Metsola and the co-rapporteurs takes place after the vote on 3 October at 14:00 in the Parliament’s press conference room in Strasbourg.
We are reinforcing the budget with top-ups for migration and ensuring flexibility to respond to crises.

John Edwards' opening speech at DPPC 2023

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

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AI-generated misinformation: 3 teachable skills to help address it

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

To my surprise, some asked ChatGPT about my biography.

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To my surprise, some asked ChatGPT about my biography.
To overcome this threat, educators need to teach skills to function in a world with AI-generated misinformation.

Worsening the misinformation problem

Generative AI stands to make our existing problems separating evidence-based information from misinformation and disinformation even more difficult than they already are.
Text-based tools like ChatGPT can create convincing-sounding academic articles on a subject, complete with citations that can fool people without a background in the topic of the article.

New critical thinking applications needed

This approach will likely serve less well in an age where AI can so easily spoof the very cues we look to in order to assess quality.
While there are no easy answers to the problem of misinformation, I suggest that teaching these three key skills will better equip all of us to be more resilient in the face of these threats:

1. Lateral reading of texts

Rather than reading a single article, blog or website deeply upon first glance, we need to prepare students with a new set of filtering skills often called lateral reading.
In lateral reading, we ask students to search for cues before reading deeply.
Doing this task well implies the need to prepare students to consider different types of research.

2. Research literacy

This means teaching students about research quality, journal quality and different kinds of expertise.
Thinking about research quality also means becoming familiar with things like sample sizes, methods and the scientific process of peer review and falsifiability.

Technological literacy

We don’t think about who creates the technology and how biases of programmers play a role in what we see.
Through these three skills: lateral reading, research literacy and technological literacy, we will be more resistant to misinformation of all kinds — and less susceptible to the new threat of AI-based misinformation.

The rise and 'whimper-not-a-bang' fall of Australia's trailblazing rock press

Retrieved on:

Monday, October 2, 2023

But there really was a time when exposure to culture was mediated by curators who had far too much power over what we all saw, heard or experienced.

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But there really was a time when exposure to culture was mediated by curators who had far too much power over what we all saw, heard or experienced.
We had a film press, a television press, a literary press – and a music press.
Nonetheless, I would read rock publications voraciously and I never passed up the opportunity to contribute.
There were also things that Fell failed (or perhaps chose not) to include.

Molly, Lily and Go-Set

Set up by university students, whose only prior experience was Monash University’s paper, Go-Set quickly filled a need for information and connection among pop fans.
Enthusiastic writers like Lily Brett, Ian (Molly) Meldrum, Johnny Young and Douglas Panther conveyed the inside story of the lives of musicians and celebrities, while maintaining a particular accessibility for their “teens and twenties” readers.
Go-Set’s publisher, Philip Frazer, went on, in a haphazard way, to bring a Rolling Stone franchise to Australia.

Street papers: ‘uniquely Australian’

Their extensive advertising revenue from venues, record companies and related industries allowed these publications to be provided at no cost.
The street paper killed RAM and Juke, not by being anywhere near as good, but far, far cheaper.
Fell loves the “street papers”, and one gets the sense he would happily have written about them alone.
Read more:
How a 'pot-smoking, acid-gobbling smart-arse' became the producer behind some of Australia's greatest music

Undeniable soap operas

What’s the word for respecting an author’s restraint, while wishing there was just a bit more goss within their pages?
Of course, there were many links between the producers of music magazines and the people they wrote about.
By links, I don’t just mean romantic or domestic entanglements, though I do mean that, of course.
There are also great, undeniable soap operas.
A public spat between Steve Kilbey of The Church and music journalist Stuart Coupe in the early 1980s springs to mind.

Smash Hits and Rolling Stone

Back to the topic of Countdown: Fell pays its competitor, Australian Smash Hits, minimal notice.
Fell didn’t talk to anyone from (or even really about) Australian Smash Hits.
Rolling Stone has, of course, a 50-year history in Australia.
Whereas Australian Smash Hits was often criticised for including content from its British parent, the first decade of Rolling Stone in this country was typically little more than a distillation of old cut-and-pastes from the American magazine.

‘I thought it was sci-fi nonsense’

I was impressed that he believed it, but I thought it was sci-fi nonsense.
Of course, there is still a music press: look at the preposterously overblown global influence of Pitchfork, for instance.
In Australia, the music press only takes print form in the most boutique of varieties, like Melbourne magazine Efficient Space.

There's a thriving global market in turtles, and much of that trade is illegal

Retrieved on:

Monday, October 2, 2023

In August 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an advisory about an 11-state outbreak of salmonella bacteria linked to pet turtles.

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In August 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an advisory about an 11-state outbreak of salmonella bacteria linked to pet turtles.
Global trade in turtles is big business, and the U.S. is a leading source, destination and transit country.
I also use the global wildlife trade to teach important ecological concepts and research skills.
Here’s what we know about trade in turtles and how it threatens their survival.

Life in the slow lane

Most turtles reach reproductive maturity late in life and have relatively few eggs, not all of which produce successful offspring.
To put this in context, compare a common female snapping turtle from the northern U.S. with a female white-tailed deer.
It can take a female turtle her entire life to generate one or two offspring that in turn reach adulthood and replace her in the population.
Terrapins reside in brackish water zones, where rivers flow into oceans and bays, and feed heavily on snails.

In global demand

Today, people use turtles as pets; sources of food, jewelry and other curios; and in traditional medicines and religious and cultural practices.
Fish and Wildlife Service, nearly 127 million turtles were exported just from the U.S. between 2002 and 2012.
There’s no good way to quantify how many native turtles are harvested from the wild.
Historic demand for sea turtles, diamondback terrapins and snapping turtles as food led to such crashes in populations that management agencies had to regulate their harvesting.
To curb pressure on wild populations, state agencies are prohibiting or limiting personal collection and possession of native turtles.

Black market turtles

For example, in 2019 a Pennsylvania man was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $250,000 for trafficking thousands of protected diamondback terrapins.
Rare species such as wood turtles and Blanding’s turtles, as well as uniquely patterned individual turtles, command top value on the black market.
Between 1998 and 2021, U.S. enforcement agencies intercepted at least 24,000 protected freshwater turtles and tortoises from 34 native species that were being illegally traded across the U.S.

How to help

Aziz Pahad: the unassuming South African diplomat who skilfully mediated crises in Africa, and beyond

Retrieved on:

Friday, September 29, 2023

Together with a small group of foreign policy analysts, I worked with Aziz over the span of 30 years, shaping the post-apartheid South African government’s approach to international relations and its foreign policy.

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Together with a small group of foreign policy analysts, I worked with Aziz over the span of 30 years, shaping the post-apartheid South African government’s approach to international relations and its foreign policy.
We spent countless hours debating foreign affairs and the numerous crises and challenges government had to face as a relative “newcomer” in continental African and global affairs.
Sadly, towards the end of his career as a diplomat he witnessed the slow decline of South Africa’s stature and influence in global affairs.

The Mandela and Mbeki years

Under presidents Nelson Mandela (1994-1999) and Thabo Mbeki (1999-2008), South African diplomats who’d sharpened their skills during many years of exile became sought-after as facilitators and mediators.
Under their guidance Africa converted the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union, and reset relations with the international community via the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
Neither could it withstand the grand corruption which reached its apogee in South Africa under former president Jacob Zuma (May 2009 - February 2018).

Preparatory years

The congress became involved in the broader anti-apartheid struggle in later years.
In 1963, Aziz completed a degree in sociology and Afrikaans at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
It eventually shaped government’s more formal foreign policy of 2011, entitled Building a Better World: The Diplomacy of Ubuntu.
It lives on as the Institute of Global Dialogue, based at the University of South Africa.

Role in government

From there, he was appointed by President Mandela as deputy minister of foreign affairs.
This enabled him to play an unassuming but key mediating and facilitation role dealing with major crises on the continent and beyond.
Aziz resigned from government and parliament in 2008, shortly after Mbeki was removed as president of the ANC in 2007.

The ‘diplomat-scholar’

He played a prominent role, with his brother Essop, in a small but influential think-tank, the Concerned Africans Forum.
In 2015 he headed the short-lived South African Council on International Relations.
The council was established by the government as a body of experts and a sounding board for senior decision-makers.

Liquidity conditions and monetary policy operations from 10 May to 1 August 2023

Retrieved on:

Friday, September 29, 2023

Review, Maintenance, Excess, Eurosystem, Policy, ERMS, Iraqi Governing Council, Indian MRO Industry, ECB, Table A, APP, Remuneration, Environment, Rare-earth element, Bank, Security (finance)

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