Paul Miliukov (Author) Graeme Newman (Editor and Introduction)

Russia, To-Day and To-Morrow A Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint

In the winter of 1921, a defeated statesman stood before American audiences in Boston, New York, and Chicago and delivered one of the most extraordinary eyewitness accounts of the Russian Revolution ever recorded.

Paul N. Miliukov was no distant observer. As founder and leader of Russia's Constitutional Democratic Party — the "Kadets" — he spent two decades fighting for a liberal, constitutional Russia inside the Tsarist Dumas. When the monarchy finally fell in 1917, he became Foreign Minister of the new Provisional Government, only to be forced from office within ten weeks over his insistence that Russia honor its wartime commitments to the Allies. He watched the country he had tried to build collapse first into radicalism, then into Bolshevik dictatorship — and he lived to explain why.

Russia, To-Day and To-Morrow is his reckoning: a sweeping, first-hand analysis of why the Revolution could not be averted, how the Bolsheviks seized and held power, what their regime meant for Russia's many nationalities, and how the Civil War, foreign intervention, and the catastrophic famine of 1921 reshaped the country. Miliukov writes as a trained historian even as he writes as a casualty of the events he describes — a rare combination that makes this book both an argument and an irreplaceable primary source.

This edition presents Miliukov's original 1922 text in a newly reset, corrected format, with the original maps and statistical tables restored to their places in the narrative, and a new introduction situating the book — and its author — in their historical moment.

What's inside:

• Eleven chapters tracing the Revolution from its roots in Tsarist autocracy through the rise and "decline" of Bolshevism

• Eyewitness analysis of the 1917 Revolutions, the Civil War, and Anti-Bolshevist Russia

• A full chapter on the 1921 famine and its human toll

• Original maps of Anti-Bolshevist Russia, the Soviet famine zones, and Japanese-occupied Siberia

• Contemporary statistics on population, industry, agriculture, and education under Bolshevik rule

• A new scholarly introduction on Miliukov and his place in Russian history

For readers of Russian history, the Revolution, and the century of ideological conflict it set in motion, Russia, To-Day and To-Morrow offers something no later history can replace: the voice of a man who helped shape the events — and lost.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.232.

Communist Russia: The Hammer and the Scythe is Anne O'Hare McCormick's vivid firsthand account of the Soviet Union a decade after the Russian Revolution. Based on a series of articles originally written for The New York Times, the book chronicles her travels through Moscow, Leningrad, the countryside, factories, collective farms, and government institutions as she sought to understand the world's first communist state. McCormick emphasizes that her work is not a theoretical study or political manifesto but an eyewitness exploration of a nation undergoing immense and often bewildering transformation.

Published in 1929, the book examines the emergence of the Soviet ruling class, the lives of workers and peasants, the role of women, religion, art, education, and the growing influence of Communist ideology. Rather than offering simple praise or condemnation, McCormick presents Soviet Russia as a vast social experiment whose ultimate outcome remained uncertain. Her perceptive observations, balanced prose, and willingness to question both Soviet claims and Western assumptions make Communist Russia: The Hammer and the Scythe an important contemporary record of one of the twentieth century's most significant political revolutions.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 233p.

by Charles Mercier (Author), Graeme Newman (Editor) Format: Paperback

What is insanity? A disease of the mind? A disorder of the brain? Or a failure of human beings to adjust to the world around them?

First published in 1901, Charles Mercier's Sanity and Insanity remains one of the most provocative and accessible explorations of mental disorder ever written. Rejecting superstition, moral condemnation, and simplistic medical explanations, Mercier sought to understand insanity scientifically—through the relationships among the brain, the mind, behavior, heredity, and the social environment.

In this classic work, Mercier argues that insanity is not merely a collection of strange thoughts or unusual beliefs. Rather, it is a disorder of the individual's ability to adjust to life's circumstances. Drawing on psychiatry, psychology, law, biology, and philosophy, he examines questions that remain central today:

• What distinguishes sanity from insanity?

• How are mind and brain related?

• What role does heredity play in mental illness?

• Why do stress, trauma, and life changes trigger mental breakdowns?

• How should society understand responsibility, crime, and mental disorder?

This new edition, edited and introduced by distinguished criminologist Graeme R. Newman, places Mercier's ideas in historical and scientific context. The introduction examines Mercier's influential theories of heredity and mental illness in light of contemporary psychiatric genetics, showing both where he anticipated modern science and where later discoveries have transformed our understanding of mental disorder.

Part history, part psychology, and part philosophy of mind, Are You Mad? offers modern readers a fascinating window into the origins of scientific psychiatry and the enduring debate over what it means to be sane.

For students, scholars, clinicians, criminologists, and anyone interested in the history of mental health, this remarkable work remains as challenging and relevant today as when it first appeared more than a century ago.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 286p.

by Charles Mercier (Author), Graeme Newman (Author)

What is madness? How does reason fail? When does unusual behavior become mental illness? And what responsibilities do society, medicine, and the law have toward those whose minds are disordered?

Originally published in the early twentieth century, Charles Mercier's A Textbook of Madness and Other Mental Diseases is one of the most influential and intellectually ambitious works in the history of psychiatry. A pioneering psychiatrist and leading authority on insanity, Mercier sought to do more than describe mental illness—he attempted to explain its nature, causes, classification, and relationship to human conduct.

Rejecting the conventional view that insanity is simply a disorder of thought, Mercier argued that madness is fundamentally a disorder of conduct. Through careful observation and analysis, he developed a comprehensive theory linking desire, will, feeling, thought, and memory to the ways individuals function in society. His groundbreaking hierarchical model of the mind anticipated many modern concerns with judgment, self-control, insight, and behavioral regulation.

This new edition features an extensive introduction by renowned criminologist Graeme R. Newman, placing Mercier's work within the context of modern psychiatry, psychology, criminology, neuroscience, and forensic mental health. Newman explores the enduring relevance of Mercier's ideas and their continuing influence on debates surrounding mental illness, criminal responsibility, social control, and human behavior.

Inside this volume, readers will discover:

• Mercier's pioneering definition of insanity as a disorder of conduct

• A detailed hierarchical theory of mental functioning

• Early classifications of mental illness and their historical development

• Analyses of delusions, hallucinations, dementia, paranoia, mania, and melancholia

• Discussions of crime, punishment, and criminal responsibility

• The legal treatment of insanity in Britain during the early twentieth century

• Insights into the social, biological, and psychological causes of mental disorder

• A scholarly introduction connecting Mercier's theories to contemporary research

Part historical document, part psychiatric treatise, and part philosophical inquiry into the nature of human behavior, A Textbook of Madness and Other Mental Diseases remains an essential work for students and scholars of psychiatry, psychology, criminology, law, sociology, and the history of medicine.

More than a century after its first publication, Mercier's enduring questions continue to resonate: What is sanity? What is madness? And how should society respond when the boundaries between them become uncertain?

An indispensable classic of psychiatric thought, now available in a modern scholarly edition.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 218p.

by Charles Mercier (Author), Graeme Newman (Author)

In 1901, the physician and alienist Charles Mercier set out to do something almost nobody had attempted: build one complete theory of mind that covered sanity and insanity alike, on the theory that you cannot understand madness until you understand the ordinary mind it departs from. The result is this book — four hundred pages of sustained, systematic ambition, mapping sensation, thought, will, memory, pleasure, pain, and the sense of self as a single connected machine, with delusion treated not as a foreign invasion of the mind but as ordinary belief, strained past its working tolerance.

It is a genuinely strange book to read now, and that is exactly why it's worth reading. Mercier's nervous system runs on "motion," flowing through tissue like steam through pipework — a mechanical metaphor pushed further than the science of the day could really support. He proposes scrapping the syllogism in favor of six modes of reasoning entirely his own invention, argued with total seriousness across a hundred pages, and it persuaded almost nobody. His system did not outlast the decade. And yet buried inside the wreckage of that system is a genuinely durable idea: that delusion sits on a continuum with everyday belief, rather than in a category of its own — a claim psychiatry spent most of the twentieth century arguing its way back to.

This new edition presents Mercier's text in full, extensively cleaned of over a century of accumulated OCR and scanning damage, with British-Victorian spelling and phrasing left exactly as written. A new critical introduction by Graeme R. Newman situates the book against its contemporaries — it appeared eleven years after William James's Principles of Psychology and just before Freud reached English readers — and reads it honestly: neither a lost masterpiece nor a curiosity, but a serious system that got some of the biggest questions in psychiatry wrong in interesting ways, and one genuinely important thing right early.

What's inside:

• The complete original text of Mercier's 1901 classic, unabridged

• A new critical introduction assessing Mercier's system against James, Freud, and the psychiatry that followed

• Extensive restoration of scan-damaged passages, with any unrecoverable material left honestly marked rather than guessed at

• Six major sections: Sensation, Thought, Volition, Memory, Pleasure and Pain, and Subject-Consciousness

Companion volume: How to Run a Lunatic Asylum, Mercier's 1894 administrative manual, applies the same systematizing temperament at the scale of the institution rather than the mind.

For readers who enjoy:

• The history of psychiatry and psychology before Freud

• Victorian and Edwardian systems of thought — ambitious, confident, and often wrong in illuminating ways

• Primary sources that reward a critical rather than a reverent reading

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 397p.

Graeme Newman (Editor)), Charles Mercier (Author)

In 1894, Dr. Charles Mercier sat down and wrote the single most thorough, most humorless, and — accidentally — most hilarious operations manual of the Victorian age: a complete instruction guide for running a lunatic asylum.

He was not joking. That's what makes it so funny.

Inside you'll find firm, unblinking rulings on corridor widths, the correct pitch of a drainage floor, how far apart the beds in a dormitory ought to be, the precise duties of a kitchen clerk, how to test food for adulteration, what a chaplain is and is not obliged to do, and the delicate diplomatic art of writing an annual report that satisfies the Commissioners in Lunacy without saying anything interesting at all. It is, in the truest sense, a nineteenth-century employee handbook — written with the complete sincerity of a man debating corridor widths as though they were points of theology.

It is also, in its own quiet way, a genuinely important document of early psychiatric reform: a serious argument, from inside the institution, that "no restriction is justifiable that is not required by the circumstances of the individual case." Mercier was working to drag asylum management out of the era of chains and toward something resembling human dignity — even as he remained, in every visible way, a man entirely of 1894.

This new edition restores Mercier's original text — correcting the date long misattributed as 1918 — resets it for modern readers, and adds a new introduction by Graeme R. Newman situating the book, its author, and its unintentional comedy for the twenty-first century.

What's inside:

• The complete original text of Mercier's 1894 classic, unabridged and unaltered

• A new introduction on Mercier, Victorian asylum reform, and why the book still lands as comedy

• 26 chapters covering housing, food and clothing, occupation and amusement, detention and care, and staff — the entire operational anatomy of a Victorian institution

For readers who enjoy:

• The history of medicine, psychiatry, and institutional reform

• Victorian architecture and design

• Deadpan bureaucratic writing, workplace-manual humor, and primary sources that are funnier than they meant to be.

By Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias., U.S. 

At the start of this Administration, President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 14202, Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias, highlighting decisions made by the Biden Administration that evinced discriminatory treatment of Christians.1 He established the Task Force to Eradicate AntiChristian Bias to investigate those concerns; to identify where religious discrimination may have informed the Biden Administration’s policies, practices, or decisions; and to take immediate steps to rectify weaponization of government and unlawful conduct affecting Christians. Led by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Task Force consists of seventeen principals from departments and agencies across the federal government. This report compiles the Task Force’s findings to date and summarizes what its members are doing to detect and eliminate anti-Christian bias. By addressing anti-Christian bias and religious discrimination directly, Americans can make religious discrimination unthinkable for all faiths. Our Nation’s origin and system of government bear the imprint of a Christian worldview and ethic, even as its laws protect religious pluralism. Christian beliefs, in conjunction with contemporary political thought and economic realities, influenced colonial settlers in their decision to overthrow tyranny and pursue independence. After the Revolutionary War, Christians then informed the structure and contents of the United States Constitution, its amendments, and contemporaneous state constitutions. But, when Christian beliefs about morality and human nature conflicted with the Biden Administration’s views, religious rights often suffered. The Biden Administration generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith. This affected matters of deep personal importance to nearly every American: life, family, marriage, and self-identity. I. ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIAS AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL The Biden Administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices. These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, the Biden Administration penalized Christians who lived in accordance with their beliefs. A. Enforcement Actions Key Finding 1: The Biden DOJ policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices. These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, the Biden Administration penalized Christians who lived in accordance with their beliefs. A. Enforcement Actions Key Finding 1: The Biden DOJ pursued aggressive prosecutions against non-violent, prolife, Christian demonstrators under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act but responded less aggressively to violent attacks against pregnancy resource centers. As detailed in the recent DOJ report, “The Biden Administration’s Weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act,”2 the Biden DOJ operated as an enforcement arm for abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs), especially National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and Feminist Majority Foundation. The Biden DOJ was in routine contact with these NGOs and the abortion clinics they represented but mostly disregarded pro-life groups. In most prosecutions, abortion NGOs alerted the Biden DOJ to pro-life activities and gathered evidence at DOJ’s request. Abortion NGOs prepared dossiers on Christian, pro-life advocates, including photographs and personal information about the advocates’ children. The NGOs also alerted the Civil Rights Division to their protests, rallies, and social media posts, so that the Biden DOJ could search for chargeable offenses. The Biden DOJ knowingly withheld evidence that defense counsel requested in order to prepare an affirmative defense for at least one pro-life defendant. The Biden DOJ falsely claimed to not maintain the requested evidence. Biden DOJ prosecutors also tried to screen out jurors based on their Christian beliefs. The prosecutors privately complained when a FACE case was assigned to a “very Catholic magistrate” judge who was “very particular about the bond conditions and not infringing on the [ defendants’] first amendment rights.” They privately mocked Christian pro-life views as “culty” and lambasted defendants in open court for following the guidance of their beliefs. Finally, the Biden DOJ pursued more severe charges and harsher sentences for peaceful pro-life defendants than violent pro-abortion defendants. The Biden DOJ requested an average sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants, compared to 12.3 months for pro-choice defendants. Key Finding 2: The Biden Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated, monitored, tracked, and scrutinized traditional Catholics who had engaged in no criminal misconduct. FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, Field Office was at the forefront of this effort. It justified its actions through misplaced reliance on baseless allegations from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the religious affiliation of a single law enforcement target who happened to identify himself as a “radical traditional Catholic.” In response, the Richmond Field Office conducted a low-level investigation of the target’s local church and began to consider traditional Catholics as potential violent extremists or domestic terrorists based on their preferred popes, devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass, and views on abortion, immigration, and human sexuality. Key Finding 3: The Biden Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigated churches because of what their pastors preached and Christian organizations because they applied biblical teachings to daily life. Churches and Christian non-profits have alleged that the Biden IRS failed to apply the Johnson Amendment in a viewpoint-neutral manner, appearing to investigateChristians whose religious values aligned with conservative political views, while appearing to ignore open endorsements of liberal candidates at other churches. In one matter, the Biden IRS denied a Christian organization’s application for tax-exempt status because its “[B]ible teachings are typically affiliated with the [Republican] party and candidates. This disqualifies you from exemption under IRC Section 501(c)(3)   ETC.   

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 565p.

By Julie E. Angerhofer; Maricela Cruz, Jennifer Shaw, Christine Stewart,  Artie Runkle, Erika Wolter, et al.

Firearms are the most common means of suicide in the United States and a leading cause of death among all persons aged 10–64 years. Most persons who die by suicide see a clinician in the year preceding their death; thus, health care encounters are important opportunities for suicide prevention. Persons who die by firearm suicide differ demographically and clinically from those who die by other suicide means, suggest ing that opportunities for prevention might also differ between these groups. This report examined patterns of health care use in the year preceding suicide death to identify potential oppor tunities for prevention among persons who died by firearm suicide and those who died by other means of suicide. State cause-of-death records for 2020–2022 were linked to electronic health records from health systems in Alaska (Southcentral Foundation) and Colorado and Washington (both Kaiser Permanente). Quarterly past-year health care use preceding death was examined across service settings, including primary care, outpatient mental health specialty care, emergency care, and inpatient care. During 2020–2022, across the three health systems, 683 persons died by suicide. The majority of these deaths (54.6%) occurred by firearm. Patterns of past-year health care use preceding suicide were similar for persons who died by firearm and other suicide means, with the exception of mental health care, which was significantly lower in specialty and primary care settings. These findings suggest that many persons who die by firearm suicide do not access mental health care before their death. Suicide prevention practices in health care, designed to help identify and engage persons at risk in supportive care, need to reach beyond mental health encoun ters, particularly for firearm suicide prevention. 

By Jason Corburn, Yael Nidam and Amanda Fukutome-Lopez

Urban gun violence is a critical human health and social justice issue. Strategies to reduce urban gun violence are increasingly being taken out of the domain of police and into community-based programs. One such community-driven gun violence reduction program analyzed here is called Advance Peace. Advance Peace (AP) uses street outreach workers as violence interrupters and adult mentors to support the decision making and life chances of those at the center of urban gun violence. We reported on the impact Advance Peace had on gun violence and program participants in the City of Sacramento, California, from 2018–2019. Using an interrupted time series model, we attributed a gun violence reduction of 18% city wide and up to 29% in one of the AP target neighborhoods from the intervention. We also found that of the 50 participants in the Advance Peace Sacramento program 98% were alive, 90% did not have a new gun charge or arrest, 84% reported an improved outlook on life, all received cognitive behavioral therapy, and 98% reported that their AP outreach worker was one of the most important adults in their life. Advance Peace is a viable community-driven, urban gun violence, and healing-focused program.

By Somayaji, N., Crifasi, C.K., Kim, R., Villarreal, S., Nestadt, P., Horwitz, J.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. In 2023, firearm suicide reached an all-time high in both the total number of deaths and overall rate. Approximately 27,300 individuals died by firearm suicide—averaging one death every 19 minutes.1 Over the last five years, over 50% of all deaths by suicide were due to a firearm.1 While firearms do not increase thoughts of suicide, prior research has shown that suicide attempts involving firearms are far more likely to result in death, with a fatality rate of 90% due to their high lethality.2 Furthermore, individuals who have access to guns have 3.2 times the risk of suicide.3,4 Although suicide is a complex issue, it is preventable.Temporarily removing firearms from individuals at increased risk of self-harm significantly reduces the risk of death. While people rarely substitute other suicide methods when firearms are not available, most alternative means are far less lethal, making survival more likely.2 Ninety percent of those who survive a suicide attempt do not die from suicide in the future.5 There are several frameworks that can be used to approach suicide prevention. A core framework in public health is the social ecological model. This framework was developed to illustrate the influence of individual and environmental factors on health and well-being. The evidence-based examples of firearm suicide prevention interventions that are proposed here involve action and intervention across multiple levels (individual, relationship, community, and society) to address the urgent issue of firearm suicide.  

By Werner L. HeiderJanuary 16, 2026

In early 2026, Venezuela remains a hybrid threat to the Western Hemisphere. The recent US capture of its strongman Nicolás Maduro Moros has not changed that basic reality. Authoritarian rule, criminal markets, migration pressures, and external influences undermine maritime security, finances, and regional stability. International reports document systematic repression, selective prosecution, and a largely hollowed-out separation of powers.[1] Electoral processes remain controversial, the opposition and media are under intense pressure, and constitutional guarantees are limited.[2] At the same time, Venezuela serves as a transit corridor for transnational organized crime. Reports and situation assessments show a shift in routes along the Mid-Atlantic corridor towards Europe, where semi-submersible platforms and other low-signature vessels bypass traditional bottlenecks.[3] Despite the guidelines issued by the International Court of Justice, the territorial dispute with Guyana over Essequibo continues to pose the risk of escalation in a region of growing energy policy importance.[4] The regime’s security services, political machinery, and protection rackets remain intact, and interim arrangements in Caracas have not resolved the underlying crisis. This creates a phase of ambiguity. Washington has removed the president but not the system that sustained him.

For the United States, this creates a situation in which internal security, energy supplies, supply chains, and the defense of a rules-based order in the Inter-American region are simultaneously under pressure. An effective response requires an evidence-based approach that integrates maritime operations, port integrity, financial pressure, human rights-compliant sanctions, and de-escalation mechanisms in the Essequibo region from the outset. Hybrid threats of this kind can only be contained if legal resilience and public communication are part of the planning from the outset. The first 72 hours after major events are crucial. Recent unilateral steps and hard-edged “oil or else” rhetoric make this even more important, because pressure without a visible evidentiary backbone risks eroding trust at home and among partners.

The recent presidential elections were overshadowed by arrests of opposition members, disqualifications, restrictions on civil society, and a lack of transparency in the counting and publication of votes. The Carter Center criticizes the process and questions the integrity of the announced results.[5] Amnesty International documented that the elections were followed by numerous arrests, recorded killings of protesters, and broad prosecutions marked by due process violations, obstruction of the defense, and digital repression.[6] Persistent shortages of basic goods and underfunded humanitarian programs are driving migration and straining host countries.[7]

In the overall assessment of political rights and civil liberties, Venezuela is classified as “not free.” Freedom House’s 2025 rating is 13 out of 100 points.[8] The rationale refers to systematic oppression, abuse of institutions, and a lack of transparency in government actions.[9] Security agencies, intelligence services, and pro-government groups take coordinated action against political opponents. The tactics include arbitrary arrests, harsh charges, solitary confinement, procedural obstacles for defense attorneys, and targeted stigmatization in the media. After the elections, protests were met with considerable violence. Reports document killings, torture, and abuse in detention.[10] Digital tools are used to suppress criticism, with apps and social media platforms being used as whistleblowing and surveillance tools. Taken together, these patterns explain why Venezuela is classified as “not free” and show how little the separation between government and judiciary matters in everyday life.[11]

In foreign and security policy, the government seeks support from Russia, Iran, Cuba, and China. This includes political support, technical cooperation, and elements of security assistance.[12] The US Intelligence Community’s annual threat assessment places these interdependencies in the context of broader regional developments and describes a situation in which authoritarian regimes collaborate with transnational networks and disinformation tools, thereby hindering sustainable cooperation with Western partners.[13] The dispute over Essequibo remains a source of ongoing conflict. In 2023, the International Court of Justice issued orders to stabilize the situation, calling on both states to refrain from exacerbating the situation and to avoid actions that could undermine the legal position of the other party. These orders create legal cover against escalation to open violence, even if the political environment remains unstable.

By: Ilke Adam, Jean Beaman, Mariska Jung
This open access book provides a way to understand the current manifestations of anti-racism in Europe, including changes that became particularly visible with the Black Lives Matter related protests beginning in May 2020. The so-called ‘new' anti-racism is often described as being led by racialized minorities themselves, foregrounding structural racism, and drawing connections between contemporary racism and the colonial past. But are these features truly new? And can we speak of a new 'wave' of anti-racism, and what does wave-thinking clarify or obscure? The chapters in this volume explore anti-racist struggles and practices across a range of European contexts, tracing both change and continuity over time. They illuminate how several features of antiracism, now considered distinctive -  including the leadership by racialized minorities, have deep roots, though they were pushed to the margins, unrecorded or silenced by the mainstream. Today, these voices are beginning to rise, echoing -sometimes modestly - in the centre.  By providing a solid empirical portrait of current and past anti-racist movements in different parts of Europe, this book is a vital resource for students and scholars of race, anti-racism and migration in Europe, as well as for activists and policy-makers navigating the evolving terrain of anti-racist thought and action.

By: Su Wai Mon

SYNOPSIS

This commentary examines how emerging threats across physical, cyber, undersea, and space domains are creating unprecedented risks to critical maritime infrastructure. It argues that proactive and coordinated action by industry, regulators, and governments, supported by coherent legal and regulatory frameworks, is essential to strengthening resilience. While the analysis global relevance, the piece highlights Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific as a strategic case study, demonstrating the urgent need for integrated, multi-domain, and regional cooperation to tackle evolving maritime security challenges.

COMMENTARY

Good maritime security governance requires an integrated multi-domain approach, given that emerging threats increasingly target critical infrastructure across interconnected terrestrial, digital, maritime and even space domains.

Historically, maritime security threats, whether traditional or non-traditional, were largely confined to the physical maritime domain. Today, however, the maritime threat landscape is rapidly evolving alongside advances in technology, digitalisation, and the automation of maritime infrastructure.

Ships, ports, and offshore infrastructure, such as oil and gas installations and offshore wind farms, form part of increasingly interconnected systems and are all regarded as critical maritime infrastructure. In addition, the communication systems that provide connectivity between them have become essential and therefore warrant stronger protection as critical infrastructure.

For example, space infrastructure, particularly satellites, plays a critical role in maritime operations such as navigation, communication, and surveillance, and its importance will only grow as the shipping industry becomes more reliant on higher-bandwidth connectivity to support advanced technologies, including autonomous ships, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchains, and big-data analytics.

In addition, protecting critical underwater infrastructure (CUI), subsea cables, and pipelines is increasingly crucial given their dual physical and digital vulnerabilities and their central role in global connectivity and energy security. As a result, maritime security challenges have increasingly extended beyond the physical maritime domain into the cyber and digital realms.

By Ysa Marie Cayabyab

AI-generated sexual content and platform-driven amplification are intensifying online exploitation, disproportionately harming women and children across Southeast Asia. Existing moderation approaches remain largely reactive, leaving systemic risks unresolved. Stronger governance frameworks, platform accountability, and safety-by-design measures can help prevent harm. Through regional cooperation, ASEAN is well-positioned to strengthen coordinated safeguards, protect vulnerable users, and establish shared standards for the responsible and ethical use of AI across the region.

By Jordan Grasso, Nathan Cisneros, & Ilan H. Meyer

This study uses publicly available administrative data reported by California law enforcement agencies to the California Department of Justice to examine trends in reported hate crimes in the state, with a particular focus on gender identity hate crimes. 

By Costica Dumbrava

 Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly used in the areas of migration and asylum. These technologies promise to increase efficiency, reduce uncertainty and improve decision-making. In the asylum context, AI applications are meant to reduce pressure on national asylum systems and contribute to fairer and more consistent asylum decisions. Despite potential benefits, these technologies come with significant risks. Inaccurate or biased AI applications may jeopardise the right to asylum, increase or reinforce discrimination, and diminish procedural safeguards built into the asylum process. These risks depend on the type and complexity of applications used, their role in asylum procedures, and the way in which decision-makers interact with technologies. Although the deployment of AI applications in EU asylum systems is still in the early stages, the debate about the legal, social and ethical challenges posed by these new technologies is well under way. For instance, several Member States have started using AI technologies for dialect recognition to verify information, or obtain further information, on asylum applicants' country or region of origin. There are also examples of Member States using AI applications for name transliteration, automatic transcription of speeches and case matching. The introduction of AI technologies in EU asylum systems raises several major risks, relating to: (i) inaccuracies, bias and discrimination; (ii) undermining fairness and due process; and (iii) unlawful interference with privacy and data protection.

Brussels: EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service , 2025. 12p.

By  Cachia, R., Villar Onrubia, D., Barreda Angeles,et al.

The European Commission is strongly committed to creating a safer digital environment for all citizens, specifically minors and youth. In the European Union Member States and Norway, 26 out of 28 countries have legislation addressing bullying and cyberbullying, with 13 providing specific definitions. While cyberbullying continues to increase, there is no consensus yet on a singular definition. An agreed definition would enable better measurement and monitoring cyberbullying and the effectiveness of related interventions. The widespread adoption of new technologies, like generative artificial intelligence introduce new factors that should be considered when defining cyberbullying.

HIGHLIGHTS ➔ The European Commission is committed to creating a safer digital environment for all citizens, especially minors and youth. ➔ While the prevalence of cyberbullying continues to grow, there is no consensus yet on a standardised definition. ➔ An agreed definition would i) support and inform policy making for a more effective response to cyberbullying by facilitating coordination and a globally cohesive approach, and ii) enable more accurate data collection and analysis, helping researchers and policymakers to track trends, assess the effectiveness of interventions, and make informed decisions. ➔ Almost all European Union Member States have legislation addressing bullying or cyberbullying, with 13 providing specific definitions. ➔ The rapid evolution and uptake of digital technologies (e.g., generative AI) is giving rise to new kinds of behaviours that pose challenges for defining, identifying and addressing cyberbullying. Doing so effectively requires consulting with a broad range of stakeholders, including minors, young people and vulnerable groups. 

By Rebecca Ward

This systematic review explores everyday sadism, a subclinical form of cruelty expressed through socially acceptable behaviours such as trolling, workplace bullying, and schadenfreude. Distinct from criminal and consensual sexual sadism, it is examined within the Dark Tetrad framework, complementing narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Synthesising over 85 studies using PRISMA guidelines, the review evaluates evolutionary, cognitive-behavioural, and reinforcement models, psychometric measures, and experimental paradigms. Findings highlight its prevalence across relationships, workplaces, and online spaces, and outline ethical challenges, interventions, and directions for cross-cultural and longitudinal research.

By The World Health Organization (WHO), Social Determinants of Health (SDH)

This technical report describes the prevalence, risk factors for, and consequences of child corporal punishment, which it defines as “any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light”. Globally, an estimated 1.2 billion children aged 0-18 years are subjected to corporal punishment at home each year, and between a quarter and half of children experience corporal punishment in schools. The consequences of child corporal punishment can last a lifetime and undermine physical and mental health, education, and social and occupational functioning. The report describes underlying risk factors at the individual, family, community and societal levels. It concludes that there is now overwhelming scientific evidence that child corporal punishment carries multiple risks of harm and has no benefits for children, parents, or societies. Efforts to enact and enforce laws banning corporal punishment are necessary but not sufficient, and should be complemented by efforts to support parents and teachers in the use of positive, non-violent approaches to discipline.

By César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

The border that the United States shares with México is extraordinary and illusive. It meanders through political conversations and moves from place to place, leaving courts to wonder where it is and what it means to the lives of the ordinary people who occupy this extraordinary space. Courts imagine the border as a site of exceptional danger to which they have responded by creating a law of border exceptionalism. This essay describes the normative and empirical justifications and legal doctrine of border exceptionalism before challenging its foundations. Unmoored from its justifications, there is nothing to stop the law of border exceptionalism to spread far from the borderlands.