Canada – Grassroots Coalition Launches Nationwide Day of Action Against Elbit Systems’ Supply Chain as Global Campaign Against Israeli Arms Giant Intensifies

Source: Arms Embargo Now Coalition

As federal governments ignore popular demands for comprehensive arms embargoes, Canadian communities take enforcement into their own hands, joining international efforts to dismantle Elbit Systems’ global operations.

WHEN: Thursday, August 13, 2026

WHERE: At priority Elbit suppliers in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland

WHO: Campaign representatives and local organizers available for broadcast and print interviews in English and French across all Canadian time zones.

VISUALS: Formal “Notice of Complicity” deliveries to corporate leadership, high-visibility street postering, overnight vigils, banner drops, and worker flyer distributions outside industrial parks.

CANADA — Tomorrow, grassroots organizations across Canada will execute a coordinated coast-to-coast Day of Action to “Put Elbit On Notice,” targeting over 40 manufacturing facilities, technology firms, and logistics suppliers spanning every major industrial region and calling on them to cut their ties with Elbit Systems. The coordinated push marks a strategic turn in global anti-war organizing: where state authorities systematically refuse to enforce international law or honor popular demands for a comprehensive arms embargo, civil society is intervening directly at the point of production.

The Canadian campaign targets the secondary infrastructure of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, responsible for producing the vast majority of the land forces hardware, munitions, and combat drones driving ongoing mass violence in Gaza, Lebanon, and across the region. While federal regulators hide behind dual-use loopholes and allow component pipelines to flow uninterrupted, local groups are deploying a decentralized strategy—adopting individual suppliers to render ongoing commercial ties with Elbit politically toxic, operationally inconvenient, and reputationally untenable.

This ground-up enforcement strategy has already established a clear proof-of-concept. Following targeted community outreach and direct warnings, major suppliers are breaking rank. Most recently, executive leadership at a Montréal-based Elbit supplier formally confirmed to campaign organizers that the firm has severed all ties with Elbit Systems and will accept no future orders. This follows previous victories, including Ottawa-based Calian GNSS halting satellite hardware exports to Elbit, as well as major financial divestments by institutions like Scotiabank under sustained public pressure.

Tomorrow’s nationwide mobilization connects Canadian factory gates directly to an escalating global wave of resistance against Elbit Systems, joining factory occupations, maritime supply disruptions, and corporate contract cancellations worldwide.

“When a government actively shields arms dealers and ignores the popular mandate to end complicity in genocide, the people must enforce the embargo themselves,” said organizers with the Arms Embargo Now coalition. “Elbit Systems cannot function without a global network of secondary suppliers. As recent company withdrawals prove, direct community exposure leaves these firms with a stark choice: cut ties with Elbit or face total public accountability. Tomorrow, we scale that pressure across the country.”

Economy – Yen rescue unravelling, US intervention is already failing: deVere CEO

Source: deVere Group

The historic US yen intervention, the first in nearly three decades, is
already coming apart, and the shift has happened faster than most
investment positioning reflects, warns the CEO of one of the world's
largest independent financial advisory organisations.

Nigel Green of deVere Group's [1] warning comes as the yen has weakened
past 159 per dollar, retracing roughly half of the gains from July's
joint intervention, when the US bought yen for the first time since 1998
to support the currency alongside Japan.

The pair has moved from levels near 152 immediately after that
intervention back toward the psychological 160 threshold, undoing much
of what the coordinated action was designed to achieve.

“A currency defence that gives back half its gains within weeks is not
holding. It is failing in slow motion, and the pace of that unwind is
genuinely alarming,” explains Nigel Green.

This matters well beyond currency traders.

A weakening yen defence raises borrowing costs and inflation risk for
the world's fourth-largest economy, threatens to reignite the yen-funded
carry trades that have quietly propped up demand for riskier assets
globally, and tests whether Washington and Tokyo can coordinate policy
credibly at all, a question every central bank watching from the
sidelines is now asking about its own alliances.

The timing of the Bank of Japan's response is where the deVere CEO says
the real damage was done.

“On the same day the US made its first currency intervention in nearly
three decades, the Bank of Japan sat on its hands,” he says.

“Every lesson from financial market history says coordinated action
needs multiple reinforcing moves to actually shift psychology.

“Japan had one shot to back Washington's move with its own, and it
blinked.”

This hesitation reflects a genuine split at the top of US and Japanese
policy, not simply bad timing.

“Bessent has spent a year arguing tightening is essential to fix yen
weakness. Takaichi has spent that same year terrified of choking off a
growth story investors have genuinely bought into,” explains the deVere
CEO.

“Markets do not run on public statements of unity. They run on whether
the two people steering policy actually want the same outcome, and right
now, they clearly do not.”

He points to the numbers behind that hesitation as the real story for
investors.

“The Bank of Japan's benchmark rate sits at just 1%, even after two
hikes. Inflation has run above target for most of the past four years,”
he says.

“A gap that wide against the Federal Reserve does not stay quiet.
Currency markets test imbalances like this constantly, and intervention
only buys time, it does not close the gap.”

History is doing more to shape Tokyo's caution than markets currently
appreciate, Nigel Green argues.

“Takaichi's own political mentor endorsed a Bank of Japan hike in 2006,
watched growth stall, and was out of office within a year,” he says.

“The memory is not abstract to her. It is the reason investors betting
on fast, decisive tightening from Tokyo are likely to be waiting a lot
longer than they think.”

He is blunt about what happens if Tokyo continues to move cautiously
while Washington pushes for speed.

“Markets are pricing in another hike by October. Japan has only moved
that aggressively once before, in 1989, at the height of its asset
bubble,” Nigel Green says.

“Betting on a repeat of that pace, from a government this nervous about
its own popularity, is a serious assumption to build a portfolio
around.”

Nigel Green concludes with a direct warning to investors watching from
outside Japan.

“This is not a Tokyo problem. It is a global one,” he says.

“Whether you're holding Japanese assets directly, or, perhaps more
likely, your portfolio is quietly leaning on a weak yen without you
fully realising it, this is the moment to check.

“Don't wait for 160 to be the wake-up call. By then, it's likely already
too late to act ahead of it.

“When two allied governments can't agree on the basics of a currency
rescue, that's the moment smart money moves.”

deVere Group is one of the world's largest independent advisors of
specialist global financial solutions to international, local mass
affluent, and high-net-worth clients. It has a network of offices
around the world, more than 80,000 clients, and $14bn under advisement.

The views expressed in this media release are solely those of the sender
and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cision.

Global Economy – Global Barometers move in opposite directions in August – KOF

Source: KOF Economic Institute

After two months of joint advancement, the Global Economic Barometers move in opposite directions in August: the Coincident Barometer declines, while the Leading Barometer maintains the upward tendency of previous months. Both remain above the 100-point mark, indicating the continuation of moderate growth for the world economy.

In the August edition, the Global Coincident Economic Barometer decreases by 0.4 points to 103.2 points, after four months of increases. In opposite direction, the Global Leading Economic Barometer rises by 2.7 points to 104.4 points, the highest level since February 2022 (106.3 pts.). The Asia, Pacific & Africa region and Western Hemisphere contribute negatively to the Coincident Barometer, while the rise in the Leading Barometer is driven mainly by the positive contribution from Asia, Pacific & Africa.

“The world economy continues to recover, with Europe also showing genuine signs of actual improvement. Despite the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and the adverse weather conditions affecting at least Europe, the sustained improvement in the leading indicator suggests that this may not just be a short-lived phenomenon. Unfortunately, sudden geopolitical events have surprised us before”, comments Jan-Egbert Sturm, Director of KOF Swiss Economic Institute.

Coincident Barometer – regions and sectors

The 0.4-point decrease in the Coincident Barometer in August results from a negative contribution of 0.5 points from both Asia, Pacific & Africa and the Western Hemisphere, while Europe contributes positively with 0.6 points. As a result, the Western Hemisphere records the highest level among the regions, despite the decrease; and Europe reaches 100.8 points, the highest level since July 2022 (100.9 points). Thus, the indicators across the different regions remain above 100 points.

Among the coincident sectoral indicators, Wholesale and retail trade, Services, and Construction rise this month, while Economy (aggregation of business and consumer indicators) and Industry fall. As a result, Industry maintains the highest level among the sectors, and Wholesale and retail trade reaches the 100-point mark.

Leading Barometer – regions and sectors

The Global Leading Barometer rises by 2.7 points in August, with the Asia, Pacific & Africa region contributing positively with 2.9 points and Europe with 0.2 points, while the Western Hemisphere contributes in the opposite direction, with -0.4 points. Nevertheless, the Western Hemisphere maintains the highest level among the regions, while Asia, Pacific & Africa and Europe reach their highest levels since February and May 2022, respectively. The Leading Global Barometer leads the world economic growth rate cycle by three to six months on average.

Among the leading sectoral indicators, only Construction declines this month. The Economy indicator reaches the highest level since February 2022 (106.2 points), and Industry reaches the highest level since March 2022 (105.8 points).

Solomon Islands Government reviews CDF Act 2023 to strengthen governance

Source: Solomon Islands Government Ministry of Rural Development

MONDAY 10TH AUGUST, 2026

The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) is one of the 24 ministries within the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) machinery. MRD is established on the 28th September, 2007.

Its core mandates as contained under Legal Notice 164 in accordance with the Constitution of Solomon Islands is to oversee the effective planning and implementation of Government’s Rural Development Policies.

Our vision is to ensure all rural Solomon Islanders become meaningfully participated in development activities to improve their social and economic livelihood.

Government through the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) is conducting a desk review of the Constituency Development Funds Act 2023 to improve governance and efficiency in the constituency development program.

Minister for Rural Development, Hon. Danial Waneoroa, announced this in Parliament while responding to the Speech from the Throne last week, saying the review, underway since the start of the year – has identified key areas requiring legislative change.

“MRD's primary focus is to improve our CDF legislative framework, ensuring efficiency in the constituency development program and that the program is fit-for-purpose,” the Minister said.

He said the review also aims to strengthen accountability for public funds used through the CDF.

“While MRD has seen notable improvements in this area, there is room for further improvement, including strengthening reporting mechanisms for Constituency Offices,” he said.

Minister Waneoroa added that the overall governance structure of the program also needs attention, with a specific review planned for the functions and roles of Constituency Development Committees (CDCs).

“This may need to be undertaken to improve how these structures function within the constituency development program, and perhaps other rural development programs in Solomon Islands,” he said.

Turning to planning, the Minister stressed its importance to any development program.

“MRD will work towards creating a planning guideline for the constituency development program, ensuring communities' development needs are identified and, most importantly, resourced through the CDF,” he said.

“This process must begin at the community level – demonstrating community-led prioritisation and empowerment in rural development. I believe it is now time to facilitate an environment for rural communities to participate more actively in our development planning processes.”

Solomon Islands – All 50 Constituencies to undergo CDF Audit – Minister Waneoroa

Source: Solomon Islands Government Ministry of Rural Development

MONDAY 10TH AUGUST, 2026

The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) is one of the 24 ministries within the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) machinery. MRD is established on the 28th September, 2007.

Its core mandates as contained under Legal Notice 164 in accordance with the Constitution of Solomon Islands is to oversee the effective planning and implementation of Government’s Rural Development Policies.

Our vision is to ensure all rural Solomon Islanders become meaningfully participated in development activities to improve their social and economic livelihood.

The Minister for Rural Development, Honourable Daniel Waneoroa, says all 50 constituencies will undergo a Constituency Development Fund (CDF) audit, reaffirming the GREAT Coalition Government's commitment to good governance.

The Minister told Parliament that CDF audits are planned for every constituency at least once in a parliamentary term.

“I am pleased to announce that the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) officially launched the Community Participatory Audit (CPA) on 29 June 2026 to scrutinise Constituency Development Funds under the new CDF Act 2023,” Minister Waneoroa said, responding to the Speech from the Throne in Parliament last week.

“Rather than taking the conventional route of financial auditing, OAG – with technical support from the United Nations Development Programme in the Pacific (UNDP) and the World Bank – developed the Community Participatory Audit approach. We believe CPA suits the context and development environment of Solomon Islands.”

Minister Waneoroa added that because CDF is a people-centred development programme, auditing it through the CPA approach strengthens local participation in holding leaders accountable.

“With CPA, communities take part directly in data collection, analysis, and building recommendations alongside official OAG auditors. The approach gives community groups a direct, active role in auditing their own constituency,” he said.

The Minister told Parliament that CPA has been piloted in two constituencies – North Guadalcanal and East Are'are.

“I must thank my two Member of Parliament colleagues for leading this process on behalf of the remaining 48. You have done well. The report for North Guadalcanal is being finalised by the Office of the Auditor-General and will be published soon.

“Our support for this initiative is grounded in our commitment to the rule of law, strengthened good governance, and improved, effective delivery mechanisms – reaffirming the GREAT Government's commitment to good governance,” Minister Waneoroa said.

The Skills That Survive America’s Job Market Turbulence: What Nearly a Million U.S. Job Postings Tell Us About Tech Tools Demand

Source: Oxylabs

Researchers have found that cloud platforms and baseline infrastructure tools drive employer demand across more than 850,000 listings.

Vilnius, Lithuania, August 10, 2026.
– The U.S. labor market just

posted

its worst monthly numbers in over a year. But for tech professionals wondering where to invest their time, the skills employers want haven't changed.

A

new analysis

by Oxylabs, a web intelligence company, examined roughly 850,000 U.S. tech job postings published between January 2025 and March 2026. The finding: cloud platforms and foundational infrastructure tools – not the buzziest skills on social media – dominate hiring requirements.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) appears in 30% of all postings. It is followed by Microsoft Azure (24%), Git (21%), Excel (15%), Google Cloud Platform or GCP (14%), Kubernetes (14%), Docker (13%), Power BI (9%), Terraform (8%), and Tableau (7%).

Nearly 42% of all analyzed postings required knowledge of at least one major cloud platform. AWS and Azure also emerged as the most co-mentioned duo, appearing together in 15% of job descriptions.

The report highlights a market heavily weighted toward infrastructure, with cloud platforms accounting for 47% of all tool mentions, followed by DevOps tooling at 30% and business intelligence at 18%.

“The picture we saw after analyzing close to a million job postings largely confirms what experienced developers would guess – cloud, infrastructure, and data skills are in high demand. Where it gets more interesting is in the proportions: cloud platforms and DevOps tooling dominate job ads even more heavily than survey-based rankings suggest, while some high-visibility skills (the ones trending on X or headlining conference talks) appear less often than you might think,” said Andrius Kūkšta, Tech Lead at Oxylabs.

Data Infrastructure Beats Online Hype

Despite ongoing tech layoffs, hiring activity rose sharply earlier this year, with the first quarter of 2026 accounting for 39% of all listings in the dataset – 3.7 times more activity than the same period a year earlier.

Software engineering roles represented the largest share of posting volume at 38%, followed by Data Science and AI/ML at 14%, Tech and Engineering Management at 14%, and DevOps and Cloud roles at 12%.

The distribution of tool requirements across function categories reveals a market that is heavily weighted toward infrastructure and deployment, with more specialized data and analytics skills concentrated in narrower segments of the workforce.

Looking at the five broad tool categories analyzed, Data Storage and Infrastructure tools – primarily cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP – account for 47% of all tool mentions across tech job postings. DevOps and Developer Experience tools, led by Git and including Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform, represent 30%.

Business Intelligence and Analytics tools – Power BI, Tableau, and Looker – account for 18%. Data Ingestion and Transformation tools such as dbt, Fivetran, Kafka, and Airbyte make up just 4%, while Orchestration and Observability tools like Airflow represent 1%.

“Chasing the most ‘advanced’ or talked-about tools without building cloud fundamentals first is a risky strategy. The data suggests professionals should first identify their target role category, then master the toolset specific to that path,” said Kūkšta.

Regional Patterns and Industry Demand

Geographically, California led total posting volume at 13%, followed by Texas at 8% and New York at 5%. However, Virginia stood out by posting nearly three times as many tech jobs per capita as the national average, driven by its massive concentration of data centers serving major cloud providers.

While AWS was the top-requested cloud platform across the majority of states, Azure took the lead across a specific cluster of Upper Midwest and Southern states, including Minnesota, Indiana, and Tennessee, reflecting regional enterprise ties in manufacturing and healthcare.

Outside of the core tech sector, which generated 45% of all listings, professional services accounted for 17% of hiring demand, followed by finance and manufacturing at 8% each. Media and entertainment also emerged as an active recruiter for cloud-native talent, relying heavily on AWS and Git for digital production pipelines.

The full research report is available

here

.

About the Expert

Andrius Kūkšta

is a Tech Lead in the R&D team at Oxylabs. Over more than eight years there, he has progressed through roles including Analyst, Software Engineer, ML Engineer, Data Engineer, and R&D Engineer. He has contributed to several core products and is the author or co-author of five patents based on Oxylabs technologies. His work focuses on the latest AI and emerging technologies, translating trends into practical solutions. Outside of work, he is involved in sports analytics for the basketball club Žalgiris Kaunas.

About the Oxylabs Research Team

Oxylabs Research is the research and storytelling team at Oxylabs. We use ethical, compliant Oxylabs scraping tools to collect only publicly available web data – never private, paywalled, or personal data – and turn it into clear, timely insights that help everyone make sense of a fast‑changing technological, economic, and social reality. Our work is designed to support original reporting and analysis by journalists and to serve the broader public good. About Oxylabs

Established in 2015, Oxylabs is a web intelligence platform and premium proxy provider, enabling companies of all sizes to utilize the power of big data. Constant innovation, an extensive patent portfolio, and a focus on ethics have allowed Oxylabs to become a global leader in the web intelligence collection industry and forge close ties with dozens of Fortune Global 500 companies. Oxylabs was named Europe’s fastest-growing web intelligence acquisition company in the Financial Times FT 1000 list for several consecutive years. For more information, please visit:

Oxylabs

Africa – S&P Global Ratings Confirms ShafDB’s Sustainability Finance Framework Meets International Green and Social Bond Standards

Source: Shelter Afrique Development Bank

Nairobi, Kenya – 6th August 2026 – S&P Global Ratings has confirmed Shelter Afrique Development Bank's (ShafDB) Sustainability Finance Framework fully in alignment with the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) Green Bond Principles, Social Bond Principles, and Sustainability Bond Guidelines.

S&P Global Ratings has also announced the official publication of ShafDB's Sustainable Finance Framework and the corresponding Second-Party Opinion (SPO).

The validation comes ahead of the Bank's planed issuance of the West Africa FCFA bond and the East Africa multi-currency bonds, as it enhances financing to bridge the growing housing deficit in Africa.

The Sustainable Finance Framework, developed with the technical assistance of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), through the Global Trust Fund (GTF) for Sustainable Finance in collaboration with the Duche of Luxembourg, establishes the Bank's comprehensive framework for the issuance of Green, Social and Sustainable (GSS) financing instruments. GGGI has partnered with ShafDB in designing the Sustainable Finance Framework, identifying eligible project categories, aligning the Framework with international market standards and strengthening the Bank's readiness to access sustainable capital markets.

The framework aligns ShafDB's funding strategy with internationally recognized market principles, including the ICMA Green Bond Principles, Social Bond Principles, Sustainability Bond Guidelines, and the LMA Green and Social Loan Principles.

The independent Second-Party Opinion, issued by S&P Global Ratings, confirms that the Framework is aligned with international market standards and recognizes its strong contribution toward financing housing and urban infrastructure projects that deliver meaningful environmental and social benefits across Africa.

The bond issuance will support the financing and refinancing of eligible projects in sectors including affordable housing for low- and middle-income households; socially inclusive housing projects; green residential buildings; energy-efficient and water-efficient housing; and climate-resilient housing infrastructure.

These investments directly contribute to addressing Africa's housing deficit while supporting climate resilience, environmental sustainability and inclusive economic development in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The publication of the Sustainable Finance Framework supports the Bank's upcoming sustainable bond issuances, including its inaugural FCFA bond programme in the WAEMU regional capital market and future thematic issuances across Africa.

Commenting on this achievement, Thierno-Habib Hann, Managing Director of Shelter Afrique Development Bank, stated:

“As an independent Second-Party Opinion (SPO), this rating reflects and further confirms our alignment with international best practices and reinforces ShafDB's strategy to finance projects with meaningful environmental and social impact, while mobilizing sustainable capital for affordable housing, climate resilience, and urban development across Africa. We thank our Partners, GGGI and other service providers, for their invaluable support.”

Nabil Mahfoudh, Director of Treasury at Shelter Afrique Development Bank, added, “This Framework provides ShafDB with a strong platform to access the rapidly growing sustainable finance market and diversify our funding sources. It will support our strategy of issuing Green, Social and Sustainability Bonds in African and international capital markets while ensuring that the funds mobilized generate measurable environmental and social impact.”

Katerina Syngellakis, Africa Regional Director at GGGI, emphasized. “GGGI is proud to support Shelter Afrique Development Bank in establishing a Sustainable Finance Framework that will help mobilize capital towards affordable, climate-resilient and inclusive housing across Africa. This milestone demonstrates the growing role of sustainable finance in addressing development challenges while advancing climate goals.”

ShafDB has been on an ambitious reform pathway, re-affirming its commitment to working with global and regional partners.

The Sustainable Finance Framework and the S&P Global Ratings Second-Party Opinion are available on the Shelter Afrique Development Bank website and S&P Global Ratings links below:

About Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB)

Established in 1982 in Lusaka, Zambia and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB) is a Pan-African Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) dedicated to promoting and financing sustainable housing, urban development and related infrastructure. It operates through a shareholding of 44 African governments and two institutional shareholders: The African Development Bank (AfDB) and African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa-Re).

The institution finances housing and related infrastructure across the housing value chain, both on the demand and supply sides, through its four (4) business lines: Financial Institutions Group (FIG), the Project Finance Group (PFG), the Sovereign and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Group, and the Fund Management Group (FMG).

About GGGI

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to supporting and promoting strong, inclusive and sustainable economic growth in developing countries and emerging economies. GGGI works with governments, financial institutions and private-sector partners to mobilize climate finance and accelerate the transition to low-carbon and resilient development.

Universities – Scorching summers and heatwaves linked to poorer mental health in children

Source: Flinders University

6 August 2026

As record-breaking heat grips communities worldwide and Australia prepares for an intense El Niño summer, new research provides the first global review linking high temperatures and heatwaves to poorer mental health in children and young people.

Published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, the findings show that adverse mental health outcomes increase by almost 1% for children with every 1 °C rise in daily temperature.

Drawing on data from 23 global studies examining the relationship between temperature, heatwaves, and mental health, the review found children aged 5 to 18 years are the most vulnerable. Their risk of poor mental health outcomes increases by 25% during heatwaves and by 1.5% in higher temperatures.

Flinders University epidemiologist, Associate Professor Jacqueline Stephens, a co-author of the study, says climate is driving more frequent and severe high temperatures and heatwaves in Australia and around the world, posing increasing public health risks, particularly for children and young people.

“There’s a range of reasons why children are more susceptible to changes in climate that are linked to social and developmental stressors, including disruptions to outdoor activities, their education, and recreational opportunities,” says Associate Professor Stephens from the College of Medicine and Public Health.

“The impacts can include sleep disruption during hot nights, which can affect wellbeing and emotional regulation, as well as indirect effects to parents’ mental health, caregiving stress, and family conflict, all of which increase during heatwaves and extreme weather events that are becoming more common.

“Adolescence is also a sensitive period for mental health development, which can increase susceptibility to extreme heat. Higher temperatures have also been associated with poorer learning and academic performance in children.”

Co-author, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology Corey Bradshaw from Flinders University, says the findings support the need to integrate mental health into climate-adaptation efforts and to develop targeted interventions for children and young people.

“Our modelling shows high temperatures and heatwaves lead to increased emergency visits, anxiety and depression, and suicide attempts, so targeted intervention strategies at scale need to be introduced in countries like Australia where severe weather is becoming commonplace”, says Professor Bradshaw from the College of Science and Engineering.

“Children and young people are especially vulnerable because of their physiological and behavioural susceptibility to heat, because they’re still developing and have a lower likelihood of adopting protective behaviours during extreme heat events.

“Our review also found that risks were higher in developed countries, potentially reflecting the effects of urban heat islands as well as greater support seeking to combat the impact on young people’s mental health.”

By contrast, the weaker impacts of heat in middle-income countries could be due to under-reporting rather than lower vulnerability within the population, according to the authors.

Co-author, Dr Syeda Hira Fatima, from the HEAL Global Research Centre at the University of Canberra and affiliated with Flinders University, says the findings highlight the need to move beyond understanding the risks of extreme heat and consider how children and young people can be better protected as temperatures rise.

“These findings highlight the need to think beyond the immediate physical health effects of extreme heat and consider how children’s mental health and wellbeing can also be protected,” says Dr Fatima.

“In Australia, an important next step is to better understand where and how children are exposed to heat in their everyday environments and develop practical, child-focused responses.

“This could include adaptations such as cooler classrooms, better ventilation and shaded outdoor spaces, alongside research to determine whether these measures translate into meaningful improvements in children’s mental health and wellbeing.”

The authors acknowledge evidence for heatwave-related mental health outcomes should be interpreted cautiously until more evidence is available.

The research – ‘First global synthesis of heat-related mental health impacts in children and young people: a systematic review and meta-analysis’, by Shevonne Kwan, Jacqueline Stephens, Corey J.A. Bradshaw, Blesson M. Varghese, Kirrilly Thompson, Melinda A. Judge, Peter N. Le Souëf and Syeda H. Fatima – has been published in International Journal of Epidemiology DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyag121

Investment Sector – Investors are underpricing how close the Fed is to a September hike – deVere Group

Source: deVere Group

August 5 2026

Investors should be preparing their investment portfolios for a possible US interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve next month, warns the CEO of one of the world's largest independent financial advisory organisations.

Nigel Green of deVere Group's warning comes as CME FedWatch data now puts the odds of a quarter-point hike at September's meeting at 61.4%, up sharply from 50.6% just a month ago.

The probability of a larger half-point move has meanwhile fallen to zero, down from 25% a week earlier, suggesting markets have converged on a smaller, more deliberate increase rather than a dramatic shift.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari was one of three dissenters at July's meeting, arguing for an immediate quarter-point hike on the grounds that corporate earnings and the labour market show little sign of policy being restrictive.

It marked the first three-way dissent of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's tenure. Oil prices have also pushed above $100 a barrel in recent weeks, adding fresh pressure to the inflation outlook.

Nigel Green says the scale of the shift in market pricing over the past month is the real headline for investors.

“A jump from roughly even odds to well over 60% in a single month tells you the debate inside the Fed has genuinely changed, not just the mood on trading desks.”

The deVere CEO points to the return of energy-driven inflation as the clearest signal that policymakers are running out of room to stay patient.

“Oil back above $100 a barrel changes the calculation quickly for any central bank still chasing a 2% target,” he notes.

“Officials who felt comfortable holding steady in June are now looking at a very different inflation picture heading into September.”

He argues portfolios positioned for easier policy this year now carry meaningful risk.

“A lot of investors had built positions around the idea that cuts were coming in 2026,” he says.

“The thesis has been quietly falling apart for weeks, and a lot of exposure to long-duration bonds and richly valued growth names hasn't caught up with where the data actually points.”

Nigel Green expects the dollar and rate-sensitive sectors to move well before the Fed's decision itself.

“Markets price probability, not certainty, and 61% is already doing real work across currencies and equities,” he explains.

“A stronger dollar and firmer margins for financials tend to show up early in this kind of shift. Highly leveraged companies and richly valued growth stocks are usually the first to feel it.”

He adds that Kashkari's dissent should be read as a genuine signal rather than a one-off.

“Three policymakers voting for an immediate hike tells you a meaningful bloc inside the Fed already believes the case for staying on hold has weakened. This view is clearly gaining ground.”

Nigel Green concludes: “Six weeks ago the base case was a hold, maybe even a cut later in the year.

“Now a hike looks like the more likely outcome. Investment portfolios built for the old narrative need a serious review before September, not after.”

deVere Group is one of the world's largest independent advisors of specialist global financial solutions to international, local mass affluent, and high-net-worth clients. It has a network of offices around the world, more than 80,000 clients, and $14bn under advisement.

Universities – New research challenges long-held belief that dodos were ‘bird brains’ – Flinders

Source: Flinders University

The Mauritian dodo – a global symbol of human-caused extinction, and one of the world’s largest pigeons – may not have deserved its reputation as silly simpleton and may have been the only member of its group to live in the dark.

An international study, led by Canada’s University of Lethbridge Iwaniuk Labhttps://scholar.ulethbridge.ca/iwaniuk/Facilities and including Flinders University researchers, has shown that the dodo’s brain was not smaller than expected for a bird of its whopping size.

The team also found several traits in its skull and brain that are usually only found in birds that are active at dusk or night, according to University of Lethbridge PhD student Sara Citron and Professor Andrew Iwaniuk.

“Dodos have always been portrayed as silly or confused birds, a reputation that probably came from their trusting behaviour that resulted in hundreds of animals being killed in a very short time,” says PhD candidate Ms Citron. “Otherwise, very little was known about the dodo’s habits and behaviour, so we set out to change that.”

Professor Vera Weisbecker,https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/vera.weisbecker Professor in Evolutionary Biology from Flinders University’s College of Science and Engineering, says: “We suspected that dodos were better adapted to seeing in darker conditions. They had slightly larger eyes, but unusually small optic lobes, an area of the brain that processes light.

“This could mean that its visual abilities are poorer, because small optic lobes often mean that the light reaches the brain through fewer nerves.

“We see similarly small optic lobes in many nocturnal birds, like the elusive Australian night parrot or the New Zealand kakapo, indicating they relied little on sight and were active mainly at night,” says Professor Weisbecker, a co-author of the study.

The researchers also suspect that the resulting vision was more ‘pixelated’ and light-sensitive overall.

The team – including Flinders PhD student Aubrey Keirnan and researchers from the Smithsonian Institution, National Museums Scotland and University of Copenhagen – studied computed tomography (CT) to scan the skulls of three dodos and a range of other pigeons from museums all over the world. They also included the dodo’s closest relative, the extinct Rodrigues solitaire, which was the world’s largest pigeon.

This allowed the researchers to compare skulls and the imprint of the brain in the skull.

“We found a range of other traits that we need more data to fully interpret. For example, we suspect that dodos may have relied quite strongly on their sense of smell because the area of the brain related to smell was quite large, unlike the Solitaire and other pigeons. But there just isn’t enough comparative data to truly test this,” says Ms Keirnan.

Senior author Associate Professor Andrew Iwaniuk, from the University of Lethbridge, says: “There is no evidence that the dodo was any less intelligent than its relatives — and we know that pigeons are pretty smart.

“The dodo has the most unusual skull with a strangely domed head, but the part of its brain that determines cognition was exactly as big as what one would expect for a bird of its size,” he says.

Researchers conclude that the reputation of being a rather dim bird was probably due to its fatal tendency to curiously approach other dodos when they were in distress.

“These gentle animals were possibly quite social. Like many island species, they were also used to a life without predators. They may simply have had no reason to learn fearful behaviour,” says Ms Citron.

“Calling them ‘stupid’ for being naive makes it sound like they deserved to go extinct, which is so unfair.

“We are quite confident that dodos were active at dawn, dusk or night-time, which would make it the only nocturnal pigeon in the world. Perhaps this gave it an advantage over the many strictly day-active turtles that lived on Mauritius. At night-time, it may have been able to escape competition for food sources with other species, such as the island’s many turtles.”

By releasing this new data, the group hopes other researchers will find out more from other museum collections to further broaden knowledge of the famous dodo.

The new article, ‘The sensory world of the Dodo and Solitaire revealed by endocast and skull anatomy’ (2026) by S Citron (University of Lethbridge), CA Hipsley (University of Copenhagen), J Hume (Natural History Museum), H James (Smithsonian Institution), P Hosner (Natural History Museum of Denmark), K Czeibert (Eötvös Loránd University), A Keirnan (Flinders University), ACCR Silva (Lethbridge), S Walsh (National Museums Scotland), V Weisbecker (Flinders) and A Iwaniuk (Lethbridge), has been published in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (Oxford University Press) doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlag123.