As we head towards a federal election, the Labor government recently announced a funding package worth A$573 million for women’s health.
The funding includes $100 million to support two national trials for pharmacies to provide the oral contraceptive pill and treatments for uncomplicated urinary tract infections over the counter.
The question of whether or not pharmacists should be able to provide the oral contraceptive pill without a prescription from a GP has long been a topic of debate.
We asked five experts for their thoughts. Should pharmacists be able to provide the pill over the counter without a script?
Four out of five said yes. Here are their detailed responses.
United States President Donald Trump has made a series of high-profile threats against Canada and other countries since his second term began a month ago — but his proposed educational reforms also require serious attention.
The 10 principles for educational revision include “restoring parental rights” by allowing parents to vote to appoint local school principals; abolishing teacher tenure, which will undermine teachers’ unions; and introducing merit pay. In addition, there are plans to “create a credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values and support the American Way of Life.”
Trump declared during his inauguration speech that “we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves — in many cases, to hate our country … All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.”
Evidently, significant educational reform is a high priority.
Reforms to the American education system should be cause for concern for Canadians. The overt attacks on public education that we are seeing in the U.S. are already occurring in Canada, albeit often in more insidious and fragmented ways.
The parental rights movement also aims to undermine school-based sexual health education, which most parents support.
Across provinces
In 2023, Saskatchewan passed a Parents’ Bill of Rights requiring parental consent for children under the age of 16 to use a different pronoun or name in school.
This year, Alberta introduced a more expansive bill banning gender-affirming care for children under the age of 16 and banning trans women and girls from competing in female sports.
The parental rights rhetoric, a dog-whistle for anti-2SLGBTQ+ views, is not new in Canada. However, it seems to be finding renewed energy, especially in conservative-led provinces.
Anti-2SLGBTQ+ rhetoric can also found in recent attempts to advocate for book bans (like in Chilliwack B.C. and in Manitoba in 2022) or in protests against Drag Queen story hours (in Ontario in 2023).
Similarly, attempts to undermine teachers and their unions are occurring.
For example, the Manitoba government recently passed Bill 35. The legislation was introduced under the premise of addressing teacher sexual misconduct, but the bill’s language was broadened to include teacher “competence” and “professionalism.”
Strong public schools rely on qualified teachers whose professional judgment and autonomy is protected and supported, in part, by teacher unions.
The events unfolding in the U.S. should act as a warning to Canadians, calling us to pay close attention to what is happening in our local school districts and school boards.
Being able to understand and identify regressive reform efforts and how they are subverting public education and democracy — as we endeavour to foster and build real relationships in our local school communities — is of urgent and national concern.
Melanie D. Janzen receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is a volunteer for People for Public Education Manitoba.
Jordan Laidlaw is a volunteer for People for Public Education Manitoba.
In the 2022 federal election, two demographics were key to the final outcome: women and young people.
With another election fast approaching, will they swing the result again?
To answer this question, I turned to the Australian Election Study (AES) data spanning the period from 1987 to 2022, to investigate how different demographics have voted over time.
I found that, generally, Australian women and young people tend to favour left-of-centre parties.
However, specific election issues can have a substantial impact, making the political context of each election crucial. So what can we expect this time around?
Young women are increasingly progressive. Young men – particularly Gen Z (born after 1994) – are leaning more conservative in many countries, including the United States, China, South Korea and Germany.
My analysis of the Australian data mirrors global trends, but with a twist.
Young Australian women are moving sharply to the left. But unlike in many other countries, young Australian men are also shifting left, just at a slower pace.
Australia’s leftward move across generations is reflected in both self-placement on a left-right ideological scale, and in the vote in federal elections.
In the 2022 Australian election, the Coalition received its lowest-ever share of the women’s vote at just 32%.
Only 24.3% of Millennials (21.9% of men and 25.7% of women) voted for the Coalition in 2022.
These are the lowest levels of support for either major party among younger people in the history of the survey.
Among Gen Z, a slightly higher proportion of 24.6% voted for the Coalition (34.0% of men and 19.8% of women).
What’s driving this?
In theory, women’s leftward shift is driven by several factors. These include higher education levels, greater participation in professional work, and exposure to feminist values. Despite Australia’s post-industrial, egalitarian image, persistent gendered inequalities and discrimination also play a role.
Meanwhile, young men’s move to the left can be attributed to progressive and egalitarian socialisation. Plus, unlike in other countries, Australia lacks Donald Trump-like figures who could mobilise anti-feminist or hardline conservative sentiments. This limits the expression of such views at an aggregate level.
This leftward shift is, in part, a generational effect – or at least a reflection of the times.
The generational angle is crucial, as the 2025 federal election will be the first in which Millennials and Gen Z together will outnumber Baby Boomers as the dominant voting bloc in Australia.
This shift should shape how political parties campaign, whom they target, and which issues take centre stage.
Policies are voter priorities
My analysis highlights another important angle. Over the study period, voting decisions have increasingly been driven by policy issues, with 48% of Australians citing them as the primary factor. This is followed by party affiliation (29%), party leaders (14%) and local candidates (9%).
In 2022, 54% of voters reported policy issues as the main factor influencing their choice.
Across election years, I identified the most prominent and recurrent election issues that voters identified as influential. I added these issues to my model to see how people who care about these issues lean (left-right) and whether men and women differ in their political leanings (progressive-conservative). I also considered other factors known to impact voting, including:
sociodemographic factors (education, marital status, social class, home ownership and rural/urban residency)
familial socialisation (what their parents’ political preferences were)
social network factors (whether they’re religious or a member of a union)
electoral context (what each respondent said were the most important voting issues)
Overall, women tend to be slightly more left-leaning on policy issues than men, and while this difference is statistically significant, it is small and the general trend holds across both sexes.
Compared with Boomers, each successive generation is more likely to vote for a left party. Gen Z is the most left-leaning (though their smaller sample size warrants some caution in interpretation).
So who votes for whom?
Unsurprisingly, people vote according to who they think will best address the policy areas they care about most.
Those prioritising interest rates, taxation or economic management favour right-wing parties. Voters most concerned with health, Medicare and climate change are more likely to vote for the left.
Education, class and social networks matter, too. Highly educated, working-class, non-religious and union-affiliated voters tend to support left parties. So, too, do those raised in left-leaning households.
While the size of these effects varies slightly between men and women, the overall direction remains the same.
How might this play out in 2025?
The thing about election issues is that they are highly time-sensitive. Take the GST: it was one of the defining issues of the 1998 election, yet was largely irrelevant after 2004.
In recent years, left-leaning issues — the environment, health and Medicare — were more likely to be front-of-mind when Australians all of ages headed to the polls. This gives Labor and the Greens an issue-owner advantage.
Cost of living (spanning day-to-day expenses, interest rates and housing affordability) has now become the defining issue of this election cycle. At first thought, among the two major parties, the Coalition is traditionally seen as a better economic manager.
However, my analysis from 2022 election data shows that, compared with the 2019 election, fewer people considered the Coalition the best manager of the economy among those who considered it the most important election issue.
Further, for the first time in the past five elections, a majority of the voters perceived Labor as more aligned with their own views on immigration, refugees and asylum seekers. These issues, historically seen as Coalition strongholds, are also likely to be key this time around.
For the Coalition, this is bad news. But for Labor, the challenge is twofold: retaining younger, progressive voters while addressing broader economic anxieties.
With growing voter volatility and a diminished sense of party loyalty, neither major party can rely on a stable base.
Australians are increasingly willing to shift allegiances, including to the increasing supply of independent alternatives. Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will have to convince voters they have the best solutions for the key issues.
Intifar Chowdhury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Australian subscribers to the print edition of The New Yorker will know the feeling: it arrives once a week, or sometimes, as buses do, in pairs.
You may briefly regret the environmental impact of all that paper, but once it’s unwrapped it’s a source of anticipation. You check out the cover, read Shouts and Murmurs, and flip through the cartoons.
You might even tackle the book reviews or dive into an article. But most of all, you inhale the history of a century of brilliantly edited and stainlessly written essays.
The New Yorker will publish four issues to mark its centenary, including this one featuring the magazine’s mascot, Eustace Tilley. The New Yorker
100 years, thousands of issues, countless stories
The New Yorker has evolved alongside a century of monumental change. From the roaring 20s to the age unfolding, it has been a steadfast investigator of history, covering wars, political upheavals, cultural shifts and social revolutions.
It has also fostered the growth of renowned editors such as William Shawn, Robert Gottlieb and Tina Brown, all of whom helped shape it into an institution.
Antiguan-American novelist Jamaica Kincaid has written dozens of New Yorker articles over the decades. Wikimedia
When The New Yorker was founded in 1925 by Harold Ross, it was a lighthearted, satirical magazine designed for the city’s social elite. Early issues leaned into what articles editor Susan Morrison called a “fizziness and café society […] vibe.”
Originally focused on humour and satire, the magazine gradually developed into a serious publication known for long-form journalism, in-depth political analysis and high-calibre fiction.
World War II marked a turning point. The war demanded serious, in-depth reporting, and The New Yorker rose to the challenge.
It was the war which really helped The New Yorker find its feet in terms of important non-fiction reporting […] with many more substantial writers on staff able to cover subjects at length and in detail and with authority.
The shift towards serious investigative journalism was evident in the groundbreaking 1946 publication of John Hersey’s Hiroshima, which took up an entire issue. The approach of dedicating extensive space to a single subject was repeated at key historical moments, such as the death of Princess Diana and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
A special issue was released on September 15 1997 to memorialise Princess Diana. The New Yorker
Compelling readers to slow down and engage
With some 47 issues delivered annually, The New Yorker demands readers carve out time to engage deeply with a range of hard-hitting topics. Its style of slow investigative journalism can’t be consumed in a few seconds while scrolling through social media.
Alongside its seriousness, it retains some of its effervescence through comics and extraordinary breadth, drawing readers into unexpected topics – neuroscience, fountains, squirrels – through meticulously crafted narratives.
The magazine continues in this dual function tradition, reflecting the nuance of the wider world within its covers. The tension between the immense depth and breadth of content and the finite time of readers adds to its allure. It’s a challenge for those willing to invest the time to peruse and digest its pages.
David Remnick, editor since 1998, has guided the magazine with a vision that blends tradition and innovation. In his own words, the goal is to
persist in our commitment to the joys of what Ross first envisaged as a comic weekly. But we are particularly committed to the far richer publication that emerged over time: a journal of record and imagination, reportage and poetry, words and art, commentary on the moment and reflections on the age.
The elegant trappings of a storied past
While the approach to content has evolved, some aspects of The New Yorker have remained consistent. Its visual identity, for instance, has been remarkably stable: famously done in an illustrative style, and unadorned by headlines or teasers.
The vintage aesthetic of the illustrative covers traces its origins back to 1925. The magazine employs a mix of in-house artists and freelance illustrators, with a history of collaboration with notable artists including Saul Steinberg and Art Spiegelman.
Over time, the cover art has maintained a focus on bold, thought-provoking imagery that addresses timely issues. Many covers have become cultural history, such as the black-on-black 9/11 cover.
Today, the New Yorker’s pared-back style conveys a quiet authority. It’s not swayed by fleeting trends, but remains steadfast in its dedication to art and culture, and its origins.
More than a magazine
Subscribing to The New Yorker isn’t just a matter of interest; it’s an act of intellectual self-definition. Our media choices are powerful tools in our process of self-creation.
The New Yorker has built an enviable devotion among its readers. Their homes are filled with stacks of old issues, unopened, standing as testament to their ongoing relationship with the publication.
To subscribe to the magazine is to participate in a cultural shorthand – an aspiration toward intellectual engagement. Shutterstock
Owning the magazine also signals an affiliation with a specific reading class, regardless of whether the content is ever read. The very act of displaying The New Yorker fashions an image of sophistication, intellectualism and cultural awareness.
But the stacks come with a distinct kind of guilt, too. What does it say about you that you haven’t made time to stay up to date with one of the world’s most famous outlets for investigative journalism and cutting-edge fiction?
This tension speaks to the dual nature of The New Yorker experience: holding onto a subscription signals a commitment to personal growth, yet unread magazines reflect the complexity of modern life – where time for deep, reflective reading competes with daily obligations and the instant gratification offered by digital media.
The New Yorker’s significance isn’t just about the quality of its investigative journalism or the breadth of its storytelling; it’s about identity. To subscribe is to participate in a cultural shorthand – an aspiration toward intellectual engagement.
And who knows, if you hold onto your copies long enough, perhaps they’ll become valuable relics commanding prices in the thousands, much like the first issue does today.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In 1987, UK researchers lamented how schools were organised “around the assumption that the nuclear family is the norm”. Families who did not fit this model were “either ignored (tactfully) or categorised as abnormal”.
Several generations have passed through schools since then. And as we know, it remains very common for parents to be separated or divorced. In Australia, about 28% of children under 14 have parents who are separated.
But in our new research, interviewees report surprisingly little has changed in schools’ interactions with separated parents in the past 40 years.
They say schools still treat the nuclear family as the default and assume students have a mum and dad who are together.
Schools are preoccupied with the ‘primary parent’
We interviewed 11 separated parents about their experiences with their children’s schools. These parents were a subgroup from our previous study, which found more than half of separated parents surveyed had negative experiences with their children’s teachers, principals and school administrators.
Our interviewees repeatedly talked about how school information systems (regardless of whether they were for private or public schools) required families to identify a “primary parent”.
This was the parent who the school contacted if the child was unwell or to discuss a school-related issue. This parent also received all school-related communications: newsletters, excursion notes, medical updates, report cards and invoices for school fees.
There seemed to be no way for school systems to accommodate diverse families for whom identifying a “primary parent” was more complicated.
A number of separated parents said they needed to “combat” the school to receive the same updates and information as the nominated primary parent. One father’s contact details had to be entered into the system’s allergy advice section to flag he should be contacted if his child became unwell.
Another father told us his child’s school insisted the primary parent “needs to be the mother”, even though he had majority care.
Separated parents in our study said they needed to ‘combat’ their child’s school to get important information. Peopleimages.com/Shutterstock
The type, amount and timing of information non-primary parents received primarily depended on their relationship with their ex-partner. For amicably separated parents, the situation was difficult but workable. As Amanda told us:
[One of the biggest challenges] is trying to work out ‘Did you get this email?’, ‘Did you get that one?’, ‘What’s happened with this note?’, and then kind of working out amongst ourselves how to best manage that if only one of us is receiving information.
But parents in high-conflict situations sometimes found themselves shut out by the other parent or the school itself.
Even though there were no court orders in place, Michael reported his children’s mother excluded him from school communications and withheld information, which made it impossible for him to be actively involved in his children’s schooling.
When I contacted the school and said, you know, that I either wasn’t receiving any information or that all the notices suddenly weren’t coming to me, they said, ‘Oh, we’re not going to get involved’. And so, I was left completely out of it.
The ‘primary parent’ is contacted if a child is sick at school or if there is a school-related issue that needs to be discussed with the child’s family. Chai Te/Shutterstock
Situations can be manipulated
Parents also reported the primary parent can manipulate school interactions. In high-conflict relationships, school information can be used to elevate one parent into a position of power.
Again, Michael explained how his children’s mother kept from him important information about school fees and homework. His ex-partner’s legal team then used his non-payment of fees and lack of signatures in a homework book to demonstrate Michael’s purported lack of engagement in his child’s schooling and to imply his negligence as a parent.
This is an extreme example. However, Michael’s situation speaks to the complex politics of parent–school engagement.
While some parents found teachers open and receptive to involving both parents, others reported some teachers “take sides” and can be unresponsive to parent requests for basic school-related information.
What about step-parents?
Some parents in our study had become step-parents after re-partnering. These parents explained they were heavily involved in the day-to-day lives of their step-children but the school did not recognise them as parental figures.
Step-parents didn’t have access to parent–teacher interviews and school reports, or even basic information about school activities. While acknowledging the primacy of the biological parent, step-parents wondered why the school could not include all parent figures in a child’s education.
As Michelle explained:
I guess it takes a while to be fully recognised as a parent or carer […] It’s just that it would have been nice if there was a little bit more of a conscious effort from the school.
The nuclear family is still seen as ‘normal’
While working with separated parents is not a new phenomenon for schools, it seems to be an area in which schools have made little progress.
Our research demonstrates schools need more effective policies and procedures so all parents can be included and involved. Schools also need improved support and education for staff in how to manage high-conflict co-parenting relationships.
Finally, school systems, including data infrastructures and software, must be able to accommodate and properly acknowledge diverse families.
As the 1987 study noted:
Until each school defines its philosophy of the family in a realistic way, teachers, parents, and pupils have no option other than to collude in maintaining the fiction that the nuclear family is normal.
Names have been changed.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
As we head towards a federal election, the Labor government recently announced a funding package worth A$573 million for women’s health.
The funding includes $100 million to support two national trials for pharmacies to provide the oral contraceptive pill and treatments for uncomplicated urinary tract infections over the counter.
The question of whether or not pharmacists should be able to provide the oral contraceptive pill without a prescription from a GP has long been a topic of debate.
We asked five experts for their thoughts. Should pharmacists be able to provide the pill over the counter without a script?
Four out of five said yes. Here are their detailed responses.
In the past 12 months, more than 1,300 people have died on Australia’s roads. In January alone, there were 114 road deaths in Australia – roughly 20% more than the average for that month over the previous five years.
Our new study projects these tragedies are set to continue over the next 25 years, despite a commitment by Australian governments to achieving zero deaths on the nation’s roads by 2050.
Published in the journal Injury, our study uses a modelling tool to forecast the number of road fatalities in 2030, 2040 and 2050. Importantly, it also identifies the people and regions at higher risks, which provides an opportunity for taking a more nuanced and targeted approach to road safety.
Clear trends
Improved vehicle safety technology, stricter traffic laws and public awareness campaigns have led to a significant drop in the number of road deaths over the past several decades in Australia. But tragically, the number of people dying on Australia’s roads is still high.
The data reveal some clear trends. For example, weekdays see fewer fatalities, likely due to routine commuting and lower-risk behaviours. On the other hand, weekends, particularly Saturdays, experience spikes linked to alcohol consumption and more social travel.
December emerges as the deadliest month. This is likely driven by holiday travel surges, with secondary peaks in March and October tied to school holidays and seasonal weather changes that affect road conditions.
Geographic disparities further complicate the picture. Urban centres in New South Wales and Victoria such as Sydney and Melbourne account for 35% to 40% of fatalities, in part because of dense traffic volumes, complex intersections and pedestrian-heavy zones.
In contrast, rural and remote areas, though less congested, have more severe road accidents because of inadequate road infrastructure and higher speed limits. For example, the Northern Territory, with vast stretches of high-speed highways, records the highest fatality rate, while the Australian Capital Territory, with its urban planning emphasis on safety, reports the lowest.
Speed zones of 51–80 km/h are particularly lethal for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. This underscores the crucial role of speed management in urban and rural areas alike.
Demographic risks also remain entrenched. For example, men constitute more than 70% of fatalities – in part because they are more likely to engage in risky behaviour such as speeding and drunk driving. Young drivers (17–25 years) and middle-aged adults (40–64 years) are also over-represented due to a combination of inexperience, overconfidence and high mileage.
In good news, child fatalities (0–16 years) have sharply declined. This reflects the success of targeted measures like child seat laws and school zone safety campaigns.
To forecast these trends over the next 25 years, our new study used a modelling tool called Prophet developed by tech company Meta.
We fed 35 years of road data – from 1989 to 2024 – into the model. This data came from Australia’s Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics. It incorporated variables such as road user type, age, gender, speed limits and geographic location.
To refine predictions, we also incorporated public holidays such as Christmas and Easter.
Prophet outperformed other models we tested, including SARIMA and ETS. It did a better job at modelling past changes in road safety. And it especially excelled at handling non-linear trends, multiple seasonal patterns (daily, weekly, yearly) and the effects of holiday periods.
An unmet target
The findings of the study are cause for some cautious optimism.
Overall, by 2050 fatalities are expected to decline. But Australia’s ambitious zero fatality target by the middle of the century will remain unmet.
The modelling indicates annual male fatalities will drop from 855 in 2030 to 798 in 2050, while female fatalities will plummet from 229 to 92.
There will also be a drop in the number of child fatalities – from 37 in 2030 to just two in 2050. But the model shows a troubling rise of the number of older drivers (over 65) dying on Australia’s roads – from 273 in 2030 to 301 in 2050. This reflects Australia’s ageing population, with more people expected to have both reduced mobility and reduced reflexes.
Motorcyclist fatalities buck the overall trend, rising from 229 in 2030 to 253 in 2050. This signals urgent needs for dedicated lanes and better rider education.
Regionally, Queensland and the Northern Territory lag due to rural road risks. Urban areas with speed limits lower than 80 km/h show steadier declines.
Motorcyclist fatalities are expected to rise from 229 in 2030 to 253 in 2050. FotoDax/Shutterstock
A shared priority
Based on these findings, our study provides several recommendations to mitigate the risk of death on Australia’s roads.
Speed management: enforce dynamic speed limits in high-risk zones such as school areas and holiday corridors, and expand 80 km/h zones on rural highways.
Targeted campaigns: launch gender-specific safety initiatives for men (for example, anti-speeding programs) and age-focused interventions, such as mandatory refresher courses for drivers over 65.
Infrastructure upgrades: invest in rural road safety such as median barriers and better signage, as well as dedicated cyclist pathways.
Technology integration: accelerate the adoption of autonomous vehicles to reduce crashes caused by human error and risky behaviours, and pilot artificial intelligence-driven traffic systems for real-time hazard detection.
Expand public transport: subsidise off-peak travel and rural transit networks to reduce how much people – particularly high-risk groups – depend on car travel.
Better enforcement: strengthen weekend and nighttime policing of roads and deploy more mobile speed cameras during peak holiday periods.
By following these recommendations, Australia can move closer to its vision of safer roads. Our findings underscore that sustained progress demands not only rigorous policy, but also community engagement.
Ali Soltani has received funding from the Flinders Foundation, the National Road Safety Action Grant (NRSAGP), and the Lifetime Support Authority Grant in 2024. He is also a FIAS (French Institute of Advanced Studies) Fellow, Le Studium, under the Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission (2024–25). Additionally, he has affiliations with the Planning Institute of Australia, SA Branch, and has received multiple research and travel grants.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sadaf Mollaei, Arrell Research Chair in the Business of Food and Assistant Professor, Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, University of Guelph
Even with the growing public interest around plant-rich diets, the number of people adopting these diets remains low, particularly in Canada. Rethinking what we call these foods could help.(Shutterstock)
“Vegan,” “vegetarian,” “meatless,” “plant-based,” “plant-rich,” “plant-forward,” “animal-free”: these are all terms used to describe foods or diets that are mostly or completely made of non-animal sources.
This list can go on and, although these terms are to some extent related, they’re not the same. For example, the term “vegan,” coined in 1944 by The Vegan Society, is used to define products that contain no animal-based ingredients.
According to Canada’s Food Guide, “vegetarian diets are those that exclude some or all animal products,” whereas a plant-based diet is defined as one that “puts more emphasis on eating plant foods such as vegetables and fruits, whole-grains and legumes (beans) and less emphasis on eating animal foods.”
In another definition, The British Dietetic Association describes a plant-based diet as “based on foods that come from plants with few or no ingredients that come from animals.”
For many, plant-based foods are often perceived as an unfamiliar option that lacks in taste or does not align with their cultural food norms. Many consumers are also confused about the true meaning of these terms, which makes choosing food more complicated.
What is the result of all this confusion and perceived barriers? Even though there are a variety of plant-based food options available in stores, and various restaurants offering vegan/vegetarian dishes or full menus, plant-based foods are not many people’s choice.
Many consumers are confused about the meaning of labels like ‘vegan,’ ‘plant-based’ and ‘plant-forward.’ (Shutterstock)
A recent report by Globe Scan, an international insights and advisory firm, showed that “although 68 per cent of people worldwide express interest in consuming more plant-based foods, only 20 per cent do so regularly, down from 23 per cent in 2023.”
The report noted that with rising food costs, many consumers have returned to “cheaper, familiar foods” rather than plant-based alternatives. Therefore, there is a growing need for more population-level support and interventions to help consumers navigate their food choices.
The responsibility and pressure to make the “right” choice should not be solely on the consumer. They cannot be expected to make radical and sudden changes to their eating habits such as entirely eliminating meat. However, small modifications, such as gradually reducing animal-based food (instaed of complete elimiation) and moving towards plant-rich diets, is a promising solution.
So, what does this mean for food producers, restaurant owners and decision-makers who want to promote their products? They should use appealing language and framing to describe food, whether it’s the description on a menu or labels on a package. It’s important to avoid using labels that create more confusion or reinforce the feeling of unfamiliarity.
Here are four low-cost tips and recommendations that could help positively influence consumer choices:
1) Leverage the halo effect
The halo effect is a cognitive bias where one positive characteristic or impression of a product influences the overall perception. In terms of food labelling, this means people might be more likely to purchase food if the name is appealing to them.
Research shows labelling food vegan can decrease consumers’ taste expectations and, in turn, their purchasing intentions. On the contrary, labels and names that use appealing language that promotes delicious, high-quality food, evokes enjoyment and increases positive reactions is a strategy that has proven effective in altering consumer choices.
Using variants of ‘plant-based’ in food labelling instead of vegan or vegetarian has proven to increase mainstream consumer purchasing intent. (Shutterstock)
2) Emphasize the role of sensory appeal
A study by The Good Food Institute found that consumers responded more favourably to plant-based burgers described with indulgent terms compared to those labelled with health-focused or restrictive language.
Why? Because using descriptive language that highlights the taste, texture and overall eating experience attracts a broader audience. Terms such as savoury, juicy or spicy can enhance the appeal of plant-based dishes. Think about “Juicy American Burger” versus a plant-based alternative that might be described simply as “Vegan Burger.”
3) Refrain from using terms with negative connotation
Steer clear of labels that may imply restriction, compromise or carry unintended negative connotations. Instead focus on terminology that implies inclusivity and offers complementary choices. The terms vegan and vegetarian are shown to be associated with negative stereotypes and feelings among some consumers, particularly the term vegan.
Steer clear of labels that may imply restriction, compromise or carry unintended negative connotations. (Shutterstock)
A further recommendation is to avoid labels such as plant-based milk “substitute” (for example for oat milk) or “veggie burger,” which can imply a replacement for existing choice and create an unnecessary competition between the choices.
4) Highlight provenance and culinary tradition
Plant-rich diets are not a new invention. Many food cultures around the globe have been plant-based for many years. Therefore, there is no need to reinvent the wheel to come up with labels and names. Take falafel, for example: it is essentially a veggie burger with a different name, yet it is popular among consumers.
Research also demonstrates highlighting food origins (also known as the country-of-origin effect) and including geographic references makes foods more appealing; for example, Panera Bread had a boost is soup sales by changing the name of one dish from “Low Fat Vegetarian Black Bean Soup” to “Cuban Black Bean Soup.”
Adopting a plant-rich diet is considered healthy and can be budget-friendly. Using language that appeals to consumers, instead of unfamiliar terms that may have negative associations for many people, can help encourage these dietary choices among a broader group of consumers.
Sadaf Mollaei does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This collage shows (left to right) Shudu, Miquela Sousa, imma, and Rozy — four “vritual influencers” who collectively have over 3 million followers on Instagram alone. @shudu.gram, @lilmiquela, @imma.gram, @rozy.gram/Instagram
You probably know what an “influencer” is — people with large, highly engaged social media followings who have the power to sway beliefs and purchasing decisions.
But you might not have yet heard of virtual influencers.
They’re like human influencers … but they’re not human. They’re characters brought to life by CGI and AI, designed to target demographic groups from a first-person perspective.
Virtual influencers are becoming more popular and prevalent every day. A full-blown industry has sprung up around them — an industry with agencies and companies dedicated to creating and managing them, with some of the top personas earning millions annually.
But our guest today has noticed a troubling pattern — many virtual influencers are crafted as young women of colour. And their creators are often men with different racial identities who work at marketing agencies.
Jul Parke is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information specializing in social media platforms, digital racism, virtual influencers and AI phenomena. She is currently a visiting scholar at New York University.
Parke’s doctoral research explores what motivates companies and creators to produce these virtual, racialized women, which she says is a new form of commercializing gender and racial identity in digital spaces.
As we enter the era of AI proliferation, it seems virtual influencers are here to stay. There are at least 200 digital personalities out there today, and platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are rolling out new tools that will enable everyday users to craft their own virtual personas.
Given the absence of laws for non-humans, the rise of virtual influencers on social media raises a whole host of urgent ethical questions about authenticity online.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Katya Alkhateeb, Senior Researcher in International Human Rights Law & Humanitarian Law at Essex Law School and Human Rights Centre, University of Essex
The capture of Damascus by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad last December sent shockwaves through Syria’s political landscape, heralding an unprecedented shift in power. The rise to power of HTS, formerly the Al-Nusra Front, is a litmus test for assessing whether militant Islamist organisations can evolve through state-building.
At the heart of transforming Syria must be the development and safeguarding of women’s rights. This will prove a revealing lens through which to measure the sincerity of HTS’s professed reforms.
But so far a stark disparity has emerged between their rhetoric of inclusivity and reality. This appears to involve perpetuating entrenched institutional practices of patriarchal conservatism.
After seizing Damascus, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa took pains to project an image of inclusive governance. He claimed: “Syria is a nation of many identities and beliefs, and our duty is to ensure they coexist peacefully within a just system.” He highlighted that 60% of university students in the city of Idlib are women, and portrayed HTS as a moderate force that values women’s roles in society.
Yet interviews with senior regime figures as well as policy decisions and governance practices expose these statements as hollow. Instead they suggest a deep-seated commitment to hardline religious conservatism.
The new administration’s official spokesperson, Obaida Arnaout, said recently that appointing a woman to a role in the ministry of defence would not “align with her essence, her biological and psychological nature”. This was framed as acknowledging women’s suitability for other roles, but it ultimately reflects a deeply conservative, patriarchal attitude.
Likewise, the appointment of Aisha al-Dibs to lead the office for women’s affairs initially appeared to signal progress. But her first few statements suggested a regressive agenda.
Blaming civil society organisations for “rising divorce rates”, she vowed that “the constitution will be based on Islamic Sharia”. She added that she would “not allow space for those who disagree with my ideology”.
Al-Dibs’s vision of empowerment appears to be rigidly conservative. It effectively reduces women’s roles to family, husband and domestic priorities.
These two examples highlight in HTS what appears to be a strategy of commandeering state institutions to enforce a radicalised version of Islam, a key trait of political Jihadism.
The new HTS-backed justice minister, Shadi al-Waisi epitomises this trend. In 2015, as a judge in the northern city of Idlib – at the time under the control of the Al-Nusra Front – he was recorded on video ordering women to be executed for adultery. An HTS representative has since dismissed this as “a phase we have surpassed”. But Al-Waisi still argues that since most people in Syria are Muslim, religious Sharia law should take priority.
As far as women’s role in the judiciary is concerned, a statement from Arnaout casts doubt on whether they will be allowed to continue to act as judges, a hard-won right under the Assad regime. In 2017, 30% of judicial posts were occupied by women.
But in an interview with Lebanese TV channel Al-Jadeed in December 2024, Arnaout said: “Certainly, women have the right to learn and be educated in any field, whether in education, law, the judiciary, or other fields, but the job has to suit her nature.” She added: “For a woman to assume a judicial position, this could be examined by experts, and it is too early to talk about it.”
Education policy has also become a key battleground. The new administration has introduced sweeping reforms. These include dropping evolution and big bang theory from science and changing the history curriculum to reflect a more Islamic slant.
Beyond the classroom, HTS’s hardline policies pervade public life. Women are segregated on buses, strict dress codes are heavily propagated. Meanwhile building new mosques is taking precedence over rebuilding war-torn infrastructure.
HTS’s unwillingness to embrace genuine pluralism suggest the regime is more interested in rebranding its ideology than in reforming it.
Diplomatic promises and realities on the ground
While determining how to engage with the HTS regime, other countries need to be aware of this. They must act in the knowledge that rhetoric of inclusivity appears – at present at least – to be simply that: rhetoric. Firm pressure from international stakeholders such as the United Nations will be needed to hold HTS accountable to a transition to a fully inclusive new system of government.
A conference held in Paris on February 13 and attended by representatives of a broad range of Arab and European countries underscored the international commitment to this principle. Delegates produced a joint statement that called for: “A peaceful, credible, orderly and swift inclusive transition … so that a representative and inclusive governance that represents all components of Syrian society and includes women from the onset can be formed.”
The explicit mention of women and inclusive representation in this statement stands in stark contrast to the reality of the transitional process. Just a day earlier, on February 12, the appointed preparatory committee for the upcoming National Dialogue Conference, which will thrash out a new “political identity” for Syria, revealed the limitations of this commitment.
While the seven-member committee includes two women, five members have strong ties to Islamist movements and three of the seven are directly linked to HTS.
The committee’s composition notably fails to represent Syria’s diverse ethnic and religious communities, with no Kurdish, Alawite, or Druze representatives. This raises questions about the genuine commitment to inclusive governance in the transition process.
The contradiction between HTS rhetoric and its actions on diversity and inclusivity, especially when it comes to respecting women’s rights, is not just a domestic issue but a critical test of its global standing.
The new regime’s treatment of women and its enforcement of conservative ideology in violation of legal and human rights expose its broader intentions. Failing to address these signs risks condemning Syria to a repressive future.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When I first arrived at the top secret Porton Down laboratory, I was aware of very little about its activities. I knew it was the UK’s chemical defence research centre and that over the years it had conducted tests with chemical agents on humans.
But what really happened there was shrouded in mystery. This made it a place which was by turns fascinating and scary. Its association with the cold war, reinforced by images of gas mask-wearing soldiers and reports of dangerous (and in one case fatal) experiments, also made it seem a little sinister.
The shroud of secrecy resulted in it being the subject of some lively fiction, such as The Satan Bug by Alistair MacLean, which revolves around the theft of two deadly germ warfare agents from a secret research facility and in the “Hounds of Baskerville” episode of the BBC drama Sherlock in which the hero uncovers a sinister plot involving animals experiments.
Even Porton’s own publicity material recognises that where secrecy exists imagination can take flight, and attests:
No aliens, either alive or dead have ever been taken to Porton Down or any other Dstl [Defence Science and Technology Laboratory] site.
But it’s also the place where in recent years scientists analysed samples confirming that a Novichok nerve agent had been used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter (coincidentally, just a few miles away). And where an active research programme on Ebola played an important role in the UK’s support to Sierra Leone during the 2014 outbreak.
So what is the truth? Over three years my research took me into the heart of the mystery, as I studied its extensive historical archive. The reality was not as I expected. I came across no aliens, but I did discover records of experiments that ran from the ordinary, through to the bizarre. And sadly, in one isolated case, the lethal.
Arriving at Porton Down, for example, was unexpectedly low key. The main gate is located off a public road on an otherwise quiet stretch between Porton Down village and the A30. It is in many ways visually similar to the entrance to Lancaster University in the north of England where I work as a lecturer in epidemiology.
Bar some signs announcing it as the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (dstl) of the Ministry of Defence, the road is devoid of obvious security. No barriers block entry. This sense of the extraordinary hiding behind the ordinary was reinforced by the undistinguished visitor car park from where it is a short walk to the nondescript single story reception building.
There is also (perhaps unusually for a government chemical weapons research centre) a bus stop next to the main gate, from where you can get the number 66 to Salisbury.
So on my first visit in 2002 I made that short walk from the visitor car park to the reception and announced myself. I was pleased to find I was expected and looked into the security camera as bidden. After a hard stare from the receptionist I was issued, on that my first day, with a temporary pass. On it was written: “MUST BE ACCOMPANIED AT ALL TIMES” in bright red.
My contact, Dawn, arrived and led me through the main gate where security started to become more obvious. An armed policeman gave us a small nod as we passed through, his hands staying firmly on the machine gun strapped to his chest. Dawn paid little attention other than a brief hello and we were inside, heading to the headquarters.
It was from here that the management of Porton Down organised the programmes of testing which had ultimately resulted in my presence there – to research the health effects of chemical experiments on humans.
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Since its inception in 1916 it has researched chemical weapons, protective measures against chemical weapons, and has recruited over 20,000 volunteers to participate in tests in its research programmes.
Hut 42 – opening the archive
This archive was opened to my colleagues and I after previously being firmly hidden from public view. This shift in approach was the result of government approval for a study into the long-term health of the human volunteers. The action was triggered by complaints from a group of people who had been tested on and who claimed their health had been damaged as a result.
The government was also keen to ward off accusations of cover ups. In 1953 Ronald Maddison, a young RAF volunteer, died in a nerve agent experiment at the site. The original inquest was held in secret and returned a verdict of misadventure. But in 2004 the government ordered a second, public, inquest.
This, along with a police investigation into the behaviour of some of the Porton Down scientists persuaded the government to fund independent research into the health effect of the experiments.
A research group from the department of public health at the University of Oxford won IS WON RIGHT WORD? sk I was part of that group. Porton participated fully and opened its doors and archive to the project. I went ahead of the research team to deal with the practicalities of gaining access. My first task was to set up an office. So Dawn led me onwards to the building that had been put aside for our use.
We passed into the inner, more secure, area. This part of Porton Down was where the main scientific work was carried out. This inner secure area was surrounded by a high chain link fence and there was one principal entry point, next to a guard room.
Inspecting our passes was another armed MoD police officer. Alerted by my red pass he was all for barring my way until Dawn stepped in. Now vouched for, we were waved through and passed onwards to the building that would become my home for the best part of three years – hut 42.
‘People had neat handwriting then’
Hut 42 was a nondescript redbrick, single-story building, which sits next to the main library and information centre and from the outside could be mistaken for a school boiler room. In it were five desks and several metal filing cabinets closed with combination locks.
Our purpose there was to study the historical archive, including the handwritten books of experiment data. We then transferred that material into a database for later analysis. This process took four people two years of hard work, but we were lucky.
Porton Down’s record keeping was excellent. Early on I had worried that handwritten records would be hard to decipher and had asked a Porton Down librarian whether they would be legible. “Definitely”, was the reply. “People had neat handwriting then. It’s the records from the 1970s you’ll have to watch. They’re dreadfully scrappy,” he said.
And so it was proved. The records of tests from an era before computers, carried out with substances such as mustard gas, were routinely neatly and clearly documented.
Porton Down experiment book, showing drop tests to the arms during one of the first nerve agent tests.
A picture of a page in one of the experiment books on which is recorded the first nerve agent test for Tabun on April 10, 1945. Thomas Keegan
I met Porton Down’s resident medical doctor in the archive to start discussing the nature of the experiments. Simon (not his real name) was in his mid-thirties with boyish curly hair and an anorak. “You’ll find everything you’ll need in here, in these cupboards,” he said. “First, I’ll show you how to open the cupboard. It’s like this”, he said. “A five number combination. Five times anticlockwise to reach the first number, four times clockwise for the second, three times anticlockwise for the third and so on.”
There was a pause while he demonstrated. “Sometimes they can be a bit sticky”, he said after the first attempt. He got the cupboard open on the second try.
The archive was a mixture of handwritten experimental and administrative records. The administrative records were essentially lists of attendees with dates and personal characteristics such as age. The experimental records reported the results of the tests with people in a variety of ways. Some were in the form of descriptive text, others used pictograms to record the site visually, for example where a drop of mustard gas was placed on the skin. Many contained tables of data, all hand drawn and as legible as if they had been printed. Our cupboards contained around 140 such books spanning a period from the start of the second world war to the end of the 1980s.
The story the records told was a fascinating one.
In the 50 years following the outbreak of the second world war, Porton Down encouraged over 20,000 men, nearly all members of the UK armed forces, to take part in experiments at the site.
These men (the regular armed forces had yet to admit women) took part in a programme of tests that ran from experiments using liquid mustard “gas” dropped onto bare skin to inhalation of nerve agents. There were also tests with antidotes and other gasses and liquids too.
Chemical experiments
The records show that between 1939 and 1989, over 400 different substances were tested at Porton. Mustard gas, sarin, and nitrogen mustard were frequently tested. These chemicals are known as “vesicants” for their ability to cause fluid filled blisters (or vesicles) on the skin or any other site of contact. First world war soldiers were familiar with the horrors of this gas, which was first used by Germany at the Battle of Ypres in 1915. John Singer Sergeant’s powerful painting Gassed expressed the effect of mustard gas on soldiers exposed in the trenches.
Other major chemical tests were riot control agents, such as CS and CR, these being the only chemicals tested that have been used by UK forces in peacetime, their purpose being crowd control.
Mostly, we were kept far away from anything other than paper records. As Britain had given up its chemical arsenal and any offensive capability in the 1950s, there was, as Simon had explained, no stores of chemical agents at Porton Down, except of course, small amounts of those that were needed to test human defences. By a circuitous route however, I came nearer to some than I was expecting.
‘Would you like a sniff?’
Hut 42, was not, it turned out, wholly for our use. While some Porton staff shared access to the archive and popped in now and then to examine records and take photocopies, the building had one other permanent resident – Porton Down’s in-house historian Gradon Carter. Carter was in his late 70s and had worked at Porton Down as an archivist for more than 20 years. He prided himself on knowing more than anyone alive about the history and administration of the institution.
He wore tweed and had the air of a world weary Latin master, but rather than the accoutrements of his trade being Latin textbooks, his were the paraphernalia of chemical warfare. Around his desk were examples of gas masks from various periods of history, and on the wall, posters inviting people to “always carry your gas mask”.
One of his exhibits was a box, about the size of a packet of breakfast cereal, which contained glass phials, each carefully labelled with the contents. These included mustard gas, lewsite and phosgene.
The box was from the 1940s. It was a training tool to help troops recognise different gasses on the battlefield. “Would you like a sniff of mustard?”, he offered. It so happened I did. Nearly 60 years after it was first bottled, I can report that Carter’s mustard gas had very little smell, but I was reluctant to get close to test any of its other properties. He re-corked it. “Some lewisite?” he suggested.
Lewisite was produced in 1918 for use in the first world war but its production was too late for it to be used. Another vesicant, it causes blistering of the skin and mucous membranes (eyes, nose, throat) on contact.
I declined Carter’s kind offer.
Other chemicals appeared in the records less frequently. There were the lovely vomiting agents, which are designed to winkle their way under your gas mask to make you sick, which will make you take off your gas mask making you vulnerable to the next wave of attack by, for example, nerve agents.
These agents were relatively standard members of a chemical arsenal. In an effort to expand its horizons, Porton Down opened its collective mind in the early 1960s to the usefulness of psychedelics in warfare and tested LSD for its potential as a disruptor of enemy military discipline.
The tests showed that troops became unable to put up much of a fight, but ultimately the chemicals were rejected as means of mass disruption. You can see a video of a test at Porton Down with LSD below.
In the video, a troop of Royal Marines can be seen taking part in an exercise during which they are given LSD. Not long afterwards the men become barely capable of military action and seem to find almost everything funny. One man seems not to know which end of a bazooka to point at the enemy.
The most commonly tested substances at Porton, according to our data, were mustard gas, lewisite and pyridostigmine (more of which later) with thousands of tests undertaken. Less frequently tested were a basket of chemicals including sodium amytal (a barbiturate) and more strangely perhaps, 49 tests with pastinacea sativa – the irritant wild parsnip.
Not all men who took part in tests did so with chemical agents. Many visited Porton Down and were “tested” with substances that were not intended to be harmful but which must have been providing useful information of some kind. Some people were tested with “lubricating oil” (498 people) and “ethanol” (204 people). Many tests were with protective equipment such as materials for protective suits and with respirators.
Nerve agent tests
Around 3,000 people were tested with nerve agents. The number of nerve agents tested was not extensive, with six principal agents recorded. These were tabun, (known as GA), soman (GD), sarin (GB), cyclo sarin (GF), and methylphosphonothioic acid (VX).
The period of nerve agent research ran from the early postwar period to the late 1980s, and coincided with the cold war, when military tension between the Nato countries and the USSR was high.
The archive was rich in information on these tests. The records included detail of the time and place of each test along with details of who took part, noting both staff and volunteer participants. Records on the early tests are especially revealing.
Chambers like this were used to carry out tests on nerve agents. Thomas Keegan
For example, in 1945 nerve agents were not yet known to Porton Down scientists. They had come close to discovering nerve agents when they had worked on PF-3, a chemical of the same organophosphate type as the nerve agents, but they had not thought it sufficiently toxic.
However, these agents were well known to German scientists, and to the German military who weaponised them during the second world war. Despite fears to the contrary, gas was not used in the fighting, though Germany had clearly prepared for chemical warfare.
Nazi agents and gin and tonic
Advancing US forces moving through Germany came across stockpiles of artillery shells in a railway marshalling yard near Osnabrück that contained suspicious liquids. The markings on the shells – a white ring on one type and green and yellow rings on the other – were new to the Americans. The shells were sent to the US and Porton Down for investigation.
After initial analysis, Porton scientists found that the shells with the white ring contained tear gas. The other contained an unknown substance (later it would be named tabun).
Tabun is one of the extremely toxic organophosphate nerve agents. It has a fruity odour reminiscent of bitter almonds. Exposure can cause death in minutes. Between 1 and 10 mL of tabun on the skin can be fatal.
On April 10 1945, after some laboratory tests, the scientists decided to test the new chemical on people. In fact, as Carter pointed out to me, disaster could have struck immediately as the first nerve agent to arrive at Porton for testing was transported to the lab in a test tube stoppered only with cotton wool.
Thinking this was a new variety of mustard gas, they placed drops on the participants’ skin. The scientists also placed drops in the eyes of some rabbits. The records show that before any serious effect to the humans could be noted one of the rabbits died, giving the scientists running the tests a fright.
The chemical was quickly wiped off the men’s arms and the test ended there. According to a brief memoir supplied by Carter, Dr Ainsworth (who was involved in the tests) said that Captain Fairly (the Porton scientist being tested on) had been shaken by the experience but recovered “after a stiff gin and tonic in his office”.
This sporting attitude to self-testing was not uncommon among scientists, however. Dr Ainsworth later tested a method for reducing the effect of a splash of nerve agent on the skin which involved a tourniquet and opening a vein – something he thought worked well.
But he was used to the pioneering methods of the day. “Taste this,” the pharmacologist John (later Sir John) Gaddum had ordered on one previous occasion. Dr Ainsworth sipped the liquid offered and reported that it tasted a little like gin. “That’s strange”, Professor Gaddum said. “I can’t taste anything. It’s diluted lewisite and the rats simply won’t drink it.”
Back at the wartime testing lab they were keen to find out more about what was now understood to be a new type of chemical agent developed by German scientists and weaponsied by their armed forces. The following week, ten people were exposed in a chamber, at the higher concentration of 1 in 5 million. In the pioneering spirit not uncommon at Porton, four of the subjects: Commandant Notley, Major Sadd, Mr Wheeler and Major Curten were Porton staff. Major Curten reported having a tightness of chest, and a slight contraction of the pupils, unlike the commandant who had no reaction but thought the gas smelled of boiled sweets.
An undated photograph of the southern end of the Porton Down campus showing the bus stop outside. The grey building is thought to be one of the exposure chambers. Thomas Keegan
Later that morning the scientists had another go, this time at a higher concentration, 1 in 1 million. The symptoms were now more noticeable, with more than one person vomiting and others needing treatment the following day for the persistent symptoms of headaches and eye pain.
Given what we have since learned about tabun, it seems at the very least cavalier of the scientists to conduct these tests on themselves and others. They were were lucky not to have been seriously injured or even killed, but those were the risks they seemed willing to take.
Fatal consequences
The last entries in the archive for nerve agent tests were for 1989 so newer compounds such as novichok, used in an attempted assassination in nearby Salisbury, were not included. One later nerve agent tested in the 1960s was VX, then a scarily potent new nerve agent.
According to the Centers for Disease Control in the US, VX is one of the most toxic of the known chemical warfare agents. It is tasteless and odourless and exposure can cause death in minutes. As little as one drop of VX on the skin can be fatal.
It was not developed into a weapon by the UK, as by then it had abandoned an offensive capability, but tests were carried out on a relatively small number of volunteers. I mentioned VX to Carter. He recalled that the first sample of VX was first discovered, accidentally, at an ICI chemical factory in the UK and sent to Porton in the regular post. Luckily, nobody was exposed.
In one notorious episode however, the tests of nerve agents on humans did not go as expected.
As I referred to earlier, in 1953, during an early nerve agent experiment, the young airman, Ronald Maddison died. Testing was paused at Porton after an inquiry by the eminent Cambridge academic Lord Adrian and limits on exposures were set after resumption in 1954. A second inquest into the death returned a verdict of unlawful killing in 2004.
One of the founders of the Porton Down Veterans Group, Ken Earl was in the same experiment. He remembered vividly being in the same chamber as Maddison, and while not affected seriously at the time, felt his health issues later in life were directly related to the test. In an interview with the BBC, he attributed the many health problems he suffered through his life, including skin conditions, depression and a heart irregularity, to his experience at Porton Down.
Our research could not establish a direct link to the kind of ill health Earl suffered. But our data on the short-term effects did show a good deal about the immediate aftermath of a nerve agent exposure, similar to the type Earl experienced.
The physiological effect of exposure to nerve agents varies greatly between individuals as our previous research has shown. The strength of symptoms varies too. Five of the six participants in the same test as Maddison did not report adverse effects other than feeling a bit cold.
However, tests before this had shown that certain effects were consistently seen with nerve agent exposures. In July 1951 six people participated in a test with soman. The lab book notes:
5/5 experienced pain in eyes, blinker effect and blurred vision 30 minutes after exposure (these symptoms continued for 24 hours). 1 participant vomited 4 hours after exposure. 2 participants vomited 24 hours after exposure. Eye pain and vision improved after 48 hours but not normal – return to normal after 5 days. 4/5 given multiple doses of atropine.
While these effects must have been unpleasant, it is also shown that participants in nerve agent tests had between one and two “exposures”. Those in tests with other chemicals such as mustard gas may have had many.
To further regulate exposures, strict limits on the amount of nerve agent allowed in tests were imposed after Maddison died. The levels of exposure typically experienced by servicemen induced: pinpoint pupils (miosis), headaches, a tightness in the chest and vomiting. These symptoms recur many times in the records, as does documentation of the drugs used to treat them, typically atropine and pralidoxime.
A new era
Despite the range of agents which have been developed, chemical weapons have rarely been used by states in conflict, perhaps held back by adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention or by their difficulty of use.
Despite this they were used by Iraq (not then bound by the CWC) in the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), who used mustard gas and tabun against Iranian troops. They have also been used by states against civilians – for example by Iraq against its Kurdish population and more than once by Syria against its civilian population between 2014 and 2020.
In 2017, North Korean agents used VX to assassinate Kim Jong-nam, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And more recently the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent. He later recovered only to die in a Russian prison in early 2024.
These are not just remote threats. As I previously noted, a particularly high-profile example of a state using a chemical weapon to kill someone took place in the UK in 2018 when it is alleged that the Russian state tried to kill an ex-KGB spy using small quantities of the then new and especially toxic nerve agent Novichok.
Sergei Skripal, the intended victim, and his daughter Yulia survived the attack.
A public inquiry heard how the Skripals were found slumped in a park in Salisbury. While the presence of nerve agents was not at first suspected, the emergency services noted how the Skripals suffered from a range of symptoms including pinprick pupils, muscle spasms and vomiting. For those experienced with nerve agents these symptoms are typical.
But these symptoms were not known to Nick Bailey, a detective sergeant who had been assigned to check over a house in Salisbury, home to the two people that had recently been found collapsed. This should have been routine but the first indication to DS Bailey that something was amiss was when he looked in the mirror.
His pupils, normally wide open at this time of night, had shrunk into pinpricks. He was also beginning to feel very strange. But it was when Bailey’s vision fractured and he vomited that he knew something was seriously wrong.
It would later become clear that the agents sent to kill Skripal had sprayed the liquid nerve agent onto the door handle of the Skripal house. Sergei and his daughter both used the handle and were poisoned. So was Bailey, who had closed the door and locked it after his checks on the house later that evening.
Four months later, the boyfriend of Dawn Sturgess found a discarded perfume bottle in nearby Amesbury, picked it up and then later gave it to her as a present. Neither could have imagined it had been used to bring Novichok to Salisbury and left behind by the attackers. Sturgess died after spraying the contents onto her skin. Her boyfriend survived.
It was in partnership with experts at Porton Down that the local health services were able to treat the victims. According to the inquiry, a key challenge was for the hospital to work out what had poisoned the Skripals so they could treat them effectively. Porton Down worked nonstop to determine what type of nerve agent had been used. Once the cause was known the hospital was able to save the Skripals’ lives.
That Porton Down is situated just a few miles from Salisbury where the Novichok attack took place was probably useful to those treating victims. The Russian state however, used this proximity to try to muddy the waters of accountability for the poisoning, but there seems little doubt that blame for the nerve agent poisoning lies with Russia.
Despite the efforts of those agents, five out six people poisoned with Novichok survived, not unscathed perhaps, but alive. That they did so is in some way the result of the expertise and knowledge gained over years of nerve agent research at Porton Down.
It seems clear that the more information about the effects of nerve agent exposure that are known outside specialist research circles the better. Though nerve agent attack is extremely rare the events in Salisbury and Amesbury have shown they are not impossible.
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The research study that took Thomas Keegan to Porton Down was led by the University of Oxford and funded by the Medical Research Council.
Browse through Donald Trump’s ghostwritten memoir, The Art of the Deal, and you’ll come across an aphorism which will go some way to explaining the US president’s approach to negotiating. Having established that he would do nearly anything within legal bounds to win, Trump adds that: “Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition.”
It’s an idea which makes a lot of sense when you consider Trump’s record. We saw it time and again on the campaign trail, as he sought to seal the deal with the US public by repeatedly denigrating first Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris. Which begs the question, in seeking to make a deal to end the war in Ukraine, exactly who he sees as the competition he needs to denigrate: Vladimir Putin or Volodymyr Zelensky?
Trump has certainly gone out of his way to excoriate the Ukrainian president over the past day or two, both in public and on his TruthSocial platform. He has variously blamed Zelensky for starting the war, called him a “dictator without elections” and a “modestly successful comedian … very low in Ukrainian polls” who “has done a terrible job, his country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died”.
Putin, meanwhile, takes a rather different view of how to seal a deal with the US president. Far from denigrating Trump, he has set out to charm the flattery-loving president with a view to driving a wedge between the US and Europe, claiming that EU leaders had “insulted” Trump during his election campaign and insisting that “they are themselves at fault for what is happening”.
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The Russian president will be well pleased with the events of the past week or so. After three years of increasing isolation under the Biden presidency, he’s now back at the top table with the US president – two powerful men discussing the future of Europe.
For the man who, in 2005, complained that the collapse of the Soviet Union had been “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century, to be back deciding the fate of nations is a dream come true, writes James Rodgers of City St George’s, University of London.
Rodgers, a former BBC Moscow correspondent, observes that Putin has fulfilled this mission having “conceded not an inch of occupied Ukrainian territory to get there. Nor has he even undertaken to give back any of what Russian forces have seized since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.”
Not only that, but Putin also appears to have enlisted US support for one of the key objectives that encouraged him to invade Ukraine in the first place: preventing Ukraine from joining Nato. That much was clear from the US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech to European defence officials last week. The views of Washington’s European allies (and of the Biden administration) – that Ukraine’s membership of Nato is a matter for the alliance members to decide with Ukraine as a sovereign state in control of its own foreign policy – don’t appear to matter to Trump and his team.
Meanwhile, Trump’s policy volte-face over Ukraine and, more broadly, European security in general has driven a dangerous wedge between the US and its allies in Europe. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, responded by convening a meeting on Monday of the leaders of what the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, described as “the main European countries”. This turned out to include Germany, the UK, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as the Nato secretary-general and the presidents of the European Council and European Commission.
Passing over the question of how the leaders of the Baltic states felt about this, given they all share a border with Russia (as does Finland) and presumably are well aware of the vulnerability of their position, the fact is Europe is deeply divided over its response to the situation.
As Stefan Wolff observes, the Weimar+ group of countries that met in Paris only represent one shade of opinion within the EU. Meanwhile, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is openly scathing about European efforts to support Ukraine, posting on X: “While President @realDonaldTrump and President Putin negotiate on peace, EU officials issue worthless statements.”
Wolff, an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham, notes that disrupting European unity is a stated aim of the Project 2025 initiative which has guided, if not Trump himself, many of his close advisers. The past week, taking into account both Hegseth’s meeting with European defence ministers and the subsequent appearance by the US vice-president, J.D. Vance, at the Munich Security Conference, has gone a fair way down the path towards achieving that disruption.
At the same time, Vance’s lecture to the conference – during which he was heavily critical of Europe as “the enemy within” which was undermining democracy and threatening free speech – will have united most of those present in anger and dismay at his remarks.
Trump has declared that Zelensky is a “dictator” because he cancelled last year’s election in Ukraine. In fact, Ukraine’s constitution provides that elections are prohibited during periods of martial law. And martial law has been in force since the day of the invasion on February 24 2022.
Lena Surzhko Harned, a professor of political science at Penn State University, writes that the delegitimisation of Zelensky is a tactic Putin has been striving for from the very start. The Kremlin has pushed the narrative that there is no legitimate authority with which to negotiate a peace deal, and that Zelensky’s government is “illegitimate”.
“What Putin needs for this plan to work is a willing partner to help get the message out that Zelensky and the current Ukraine government are not legitimate representatives of their country,” writes Harned. “And into this gap the new US administration appears to have stepped.”
Despite Zelensky still enjoying relatively strong support in recent opinion polls, an election campaign in the middle of this conflict would be a needlessly divisive exercise. And that’s before you consider the potential for Russian interference, which would be seriously debilitating for a country fighting for its survival.
Putin knows all this – and he also knows by framing the issue in a way that suggests Ukraine is dragging its feet over peace, he will enjoy a propaganda coup. And that’s what he is doing, with the apparent support of the US president.
Another way Putin hopes to discredit the Ukrainian leadership is by deliberately excluding it from the talks – at least for the present. Zelensky has said, with the support of his European allies, that there can be no deal without Ukrainian participation.
It’s easy to see why Zelensky and his allies are so adamant that they should be involved, writes Matt Fitzpatrick, a professor of international history at Flinders University. History is littered with examples of large powers getting together to decide the fate of smaller nations that have no agency in the division.
Three such shameful debacles determined the history of much of the 20th century – and not in a good way. The Sykes-Picot agreement divided the Middle East between British and French spheres of influence, and sowed the seed for discord which continues to this day. The Munich conference of 1938, at which the fate of Czechoslovakia was decided without any Czech input, showed Adolf Hitler that naked aggression really does pay. And having failed to learn from either of these, in 1945 the Big Three (Russia, the US and Britain) got together at Yalta to carve up Germany, thereby setting the scene for the cold war.
One of Trump’s assertions this week has been that Zelensky had his chance to strike a deal and avoid all the bloodshed and much of the territorial loss suffered by Ukraine in the three years of war. Reacting to questions about why Zelensky or any Ukrainian diplomats hadn’t been involved in the talks, he scoffed: “Today I heard: ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years … You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
Stephen Hall, who specialises in Russian and post-Soviet politics at the University of Bath, recalls the early talks in the spring of 2022. He says that the idea – also floated in the press by several commentators – that Ukraine should have concluded a peace deal in March or April of 2022 after talks in Istanbul is absurd.
While there was momentum for peace, particularly on Kyiv’s part, the two sides were a long way apart on issues such as the size of Ukraine’s military and the fate of territories such as Crimea. “Had Ukraine done a deal based on the Istanbul communique, it would have essentially led to the country becoming a virtual province of Russia – led by a pro-Russian government and banned from seeking alliances with western countries,” Hall writes.
And in any case, back then there was scant support among Ukraine’s allies in Europe and the Biden White House for appeasing Putin by offering him concessions in return for aggression. But that’s now history. Trump and his team appear to have already granted the Russian president some of his dearest wishes before the negotiations proper have even started.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Hall, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics, University of Bath
It has been an eventful and, for Ukraine and its European allies, alarming past week or so. First they heard that the US president, Donald Trump, had spent 90 minutes on the phone with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. In one stroke, Trump upended three years in which his predecessor, Joe Biden, had sought to isolate Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On the same day, February 12, Trump’s newly installed secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, told a gathering of senior defence officials in Brussels that Europe would no longer be the primary focus for US security policy, and that Ukraine could not hope to regain the territory Russia had illegally occupied since 2014, nor join Nato.
Hegseth added that not only would the US not contribute to any peacekeeping force in Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, but that any European peacekeeping operation would not be done under the protection of Nato’s Article 5.
This was soon followed by the US vice-president, J.D. Vance, telling the Munich Security Conference that it was Europe, not Russia or China, that was the main security threat – the “enemy within” that fostered anti-democratic practices and sought to curtail free speech.
This week, a US team led by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, sat down with their Russian opposite numbers led by the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to discuss peace negotiations. Ukraine was not represented. Nor was Europe. Following that, and perhaps taking his cue from Hegseth, Lavrov declared that Russia would not accept any European peacekeepers in Ukraine – deal or no deal.
Meanwhile, Trump has taken to his TruthSocial media platform to repeat several favourite Kremlin talking points. Ukraine was responsible for the war, he said. Its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was a “dictator” who had cancelled elections, and whose popularity with his own people was now as low as 4% (it’s actually 57%, at least 10 points higher than Trump’s rating in the US).
Trump also mocked Zelensky’s concern at his country’s exclusion from the Riyadh talks, telling reporters: “Today I heard: ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years … You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
This leads us back to the Istanbul communique, produced at the end of March 2022 after initial peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Antalya, Turkey. Some US commentators have suggested Ukraine could now be better off had it signed this deal.
Istanbul communique
What happened in Istanbul, and how close Russia and Ukraine were to an agreement, has been hotly debated, with some arguing a deal was close and others refuting this.
Ukraine reportedly agreed to a range of concessions including future neutrality, as well as giving up its bid for membership of Nato. Russia, in turn, would apparently have accepted Ukraine’s membership of the EU. This concession, incidentally, is still on the table.
But there were sticking points, primarily over the size of Ukraine’s armed forces after a deal – Kyiv reportedly wanted 250,000 soldiers, the Kremlin just 85,000 – and the types of weaponry Ukraine could keep in its arsenal.
There were also issues about Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territory, particularly Crimea – this was projected to be resolved over 15 years with Russia occupying the peninsula on a lease in the meantime. Another Kremlin demand was for Zelensky to stand down as president, with the presidency being taken up by the pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk.
Negotiations continued through April 2022, only to break down when Russian atrocities were reported in Bucha, a town Ukrainian troops had retaken as part of their spring counter-offensive. But the fact is, an agreement was never really close.
The UK’s former prime minister, Boris Johnson, has taken much flack over reports that he urged Zelensky not to accept the deal. But there was never a realistic chance this deal would be acceptable to Ukraine. A neutral Ukraine with a reduced military capacity would have no way to defend itself against any future aggression.
Had Ukraine done a deal based on the Istanbul communique, it would have essentially led to the country becoming a virtual province of Russia – led by a pro-Russian government and banned from seeking alliances with western countries. As for joining the EU, it was the Kremlin’s opposition to Kyiv’s engagement with the EU in 2013 which provoked the Euromaidan protests and led to Russia’s initial annexation of Crimea the following year.
What next?
Kyiv signing the Istanbul communique may have quickly stopped the war and the killing. But the Kremlin has repeatedly shown it cannot be trusted to adhere to agreements – you only have to look at the way it repeatedly violated the Minsk accords of 2015, which attempted to end hostilities in eastern Ukraine.
Further, a deal that rewards Russian aggression by agreeing to its taking of territory and demanding the neutrality of the victim would undermine global security, and encourage other illegal foreign policy adventurism.
If the Trump administration has the blueprint of a fair peace deal, it’s hiding it well at this point. Instead, European leaders have been put in a position where they must face the prospect of having to fund Ukraine’s continued defence, while coping with a US retreat from its security guarantees for Europe as a whole.
Either that or, as my University of Bath colleague Patrick Bury wrote on X this week, accept some pretty dire consequences.
Europe is facing a crisis that it could have prepared for after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. With Trump back in power, the relationship between the US and Europe appears increasingly fractured. But Europe too is bitterly divided over how to approach this crisis.
Britain and France initially talked up the idea of providing troops as peacekeepers in Ukraine – but Germany adamantly refused to go along with that plan. Both Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer have since rethought the idea (although there is a report that the UK prime minister has considered a scheme for a 30,000-strong “monitoring force” away from the ceasefire line).
The Kremlin reacts to signals. While it was clearly preparing for the invasion in late 2021, Joe Biden’s statement that he would not send troops to defend Ukraine showed the limits to US involvement. A message that Europe is prepared to dispatch peacekeepers to Ukraine now would send a strong signal to Putin – and the Trump administration – that Europe is serious.
Stephen Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Judith Brocklehurst, Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art Mixed Media, University of Westminster
On entering the Saatchi Gallery’s latest exhibition, which is simply titled Flowers, you might think that you have just walked into a supersized florist’s shop, surrounded by bunches and bunches of blooms.
The aroma of dried flowers comes from Rebecca Louise Law’s monumental arrangement La Fleur Morte (2025), which was created through workshops with people from the local community. As in a flower shop, the viewer is overwhelmed by a heady mix of colour, shape and smell.
Flowers offers an overview of flora not only in contemporary art but in their wider cultural significance. Rooms are loosely organised by theme and medium, with an occasional nod to more serious subjects, such as eroticism, death, danger or decay.
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The first room, Roots, offers historical context for the show, from Van Gogh to William Morris’s floral designs. Dutch 17th-century paintings are recreated for the digital age in Bob and Nick Carter’s video work Transforming Flowers in a Vase (2016).
The irreality of their digitally revived bunch of flowers, presented in a heavy wooden frame, reminds us that those masterly paintings were themselves a construct.
Painters have often arranged flowers that bloomed at different times of the year together in one image. As Bart Cornelis, curator at London’s National Gallery, explained when discussing Dutch flower paintings in 2017, these arrangements are “not realism [but] “a construct … In a sense, that’s what makes it art”.
In the next space, In Bloom, Jim Dine’s black-and-white lithograph Sunflowers (2011) stands out amid the profusion of bright yellows, reds, greens and pinks. With the colour stripped away, the eye is drawn to the flowers’ structure and their dark-seeded heart.
Speaking about the connection between plants and people, artist and subject, Dine has said that “if my personality is revealed in a plant drawing … it would be just the emotion and the way I felt when I depicted it at that moment, that day – or as the days go on, the building up of layers like the unconscious”. This work feels deeply connected to those early Dutch paintings and their small, often-missed memento mori.
In the same room, a whole wall is dedicated to an image of Jeff Koons’ two-storey sculpture Puppy (1992), a dog covered in bedding plants.
Koons’ notorious overt commercialism leads the viewer back to the sense of being in a shop – this time offering high-end floral fashion and jewellery. In one corner, glass display cases hold jewelled brooches by “curatorial partners” Buccellati. Next to them are Marimekko prints in an oversized poster display rack.
Beauty and danger
Stepping into the next room, the viewer moves from shopping arcade back into a gallery to look at flowers in photography and sculpture. Here are more decadent arrays, where visitors are drawn like pollinators to William Darrell’s trippy kinetic sculpture The Machinery of Enchantment (2025).
By the nature of its subject, this show is full of colour and form. It is a reminder that, as art writer Patrick J. Reed explained in relation to photographer and painter Edward Steichen’s 1936 exhibition of freshly cut bouquets of Delphiniums:
The significance of flowers, then as now, is linked to traditions, tastes and class distinctions. To appreciate fine vegetation means to understand, if not possess, ‘well-bred’ decorum; to understand when and how to navigate manicured botanical refreshment.
With Flowers, the Saatchi Gallery offers visitors this opportunity in abundance.
Upstairs, the exhibition is more conceptually curated. The true symbolic power and pervasiveness of flower imagery comes to the fore in a room full of film posters, album sleeves and book covers.
Among them are the disturbingly beautiful posters for Jonathan Glazer’s film Zone of Interest by Neil Kellerhouse. Images from the film spring to mind: the garden next to the concentration camp; the profusion of flowers fertilised by ashes from the ovens. Monstrous actions are shielded by nature.
The relationship between beauty and danger becomes more overt in one of the final rooms, Science: Life or Death. Suddenly, we are amid less decorative fare. Here, under glass domes, are Emma Witter’s exquisitely intricate sculptures of flowers – chillingly, all made of tiny bones.
So, among the seductive splendour of form and colour lurks the reality of depictions of flowers in the contemporary art world. A construct balanced between the need to reflect on human frailty through the relationship with delicate mutable blooms and the harsh edge of producing seductive profitable goods.
Judith Brocklehurst does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
After months of wrangling over public debt and spending decisions, the German government collapsed in November 2024. Among the many disagreements between the parties which made up the governing coalition was how to pay for measures to combat climate change.
Seeking to take advantage of disillusioned voters (who in recent years showed record support for the Greens), populist parties have since cast doubt on the idea of tackling environmental issues at all.
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), for example, the rightwing party which denies the existence of man-made climate change, has raised concerns about energy security and the economic cost of green alternatives.
If the AfD’s broader aim was to take green issues off the political agenda, the plan appears to be working. In the run-up to the general election on February 23 2025, migration and the economy are the most important issues for voters (each on 34%), with climate change lagging far behind (13%).
Nor has the environment been a priority in the parties’ election campaigns. In the first TV debate between the chancellor, the social democrat Olaf Scholz, and his most likely successor, the conservative Friedrich Merz, the topic was ignored almost entirely. A lack of political will and fear of losing voters appear to have relegated environmental policies to the sidelines.
Others want it back at the top of the agenda. Germany’s foreign intelligence service, for example, describes the climate crisis as one of the major risks facing the country, alongside terrorism and war.
Business associations have urged the next government to address climate change mitigation for the sake of German jobs. The Federation of German Industries has demanded an increase in public spending on climate change of as much as €70 billion (£58 billion). Younger voters have called for a nationwide protest to bring the subject back into politicians’ minds.
So have German voters really become sceptical about dealing with climate change?
In a recent study, we found that people who planned to vote for the AfD and the leftwing populist BSW party are indeed sceptical of the need for far-reaching climate policies.
Among voters of these two parties, only 23% (AfD) and 41% (BSW) think that an energy transition is necessary to achieve national climate goals. For Green party voters that figure is 93%, and for SDP supporters it’s 83%.
Voters across the political spectrum have different priorities when it comes to energy supply. For populist party supporters, energy costs trump everything, with only 12% of AfD and 20% of BSW voters considering low emissions important.
These voters are also less likely to assume the energy transition would have positive effects on jobs, and are more likely to fear rising energy costs and security of supply. In short, they are afraid of the social and economic consequences of the energy transition. It is this fear that the far right appears to have been able to mobilise.
Climate costs
Our results are backed up by other research which shows that poorer voters are concerned about the potential costs associated with net zero ambitions.
There is also uncertainty about the possible effects on employment. Many people in Germany believe there will be job losses in their local community as a result of the transition to green energy, and 25% worry they will lose their job.
While these results may seem gloomy, we also found majority support – even among AfD voters – for climate change policies where communities benefit financially from local renewable energy projects, and where citizens feel they have more of a voice in how the energy transition comes into effect.
People want to be heard and participate in a potential transformation. Previous research in psychology has shown that participating in processes and a perception of fairness can increase acceptance.
Research also shows that people fear the effects of climate policies on their personal finances, and that these perceived costs inhibit environmentally friendly behaviour.
But the climate crisis won’t go away, no matter who governs Germany in the coming years. More “once-in-a-century” floods and droughts will hit the nation and bring the climate crisis back to the top of the political agenda.
When this happens, politicians need to ensure they have a positive and credible vision of the future ready to present to voters – where the costs are shared fairly. This will make it harder for populist parties to play on economic worries, and easier to persuade German voters to prioritise the climate crisis.
Vera Trappmann receives funding from Hans Böckler Foundation
Felix Schulz receives funding from the Hans-Böckler-Foundation.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex
Jimmy Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981, considered the treaties signed in 1977 to cede control of the Panama Canal to Panama, ending over a century of strained relations, one of the crowning achievements of his administration.
Today, Panamanians are uncertain whether Donald Trump will abide by these treaties – and are nervous about what could happen next. Panamanian journalists that I have spoken with are increasingly concerned that the US will invade.
Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out using the US military to seize the Panama Canal, if necessary, despite boasting that he had an impeccable record of not starting any new wars.
While this appears to be a huge departure in US foreign policy towards Latin America, the US has had a long history of invading, meddling, supporting coups and offering clandestine support to violent non-state actors in the region.
One historian has noted that the US participated (directly and indirectly) in regime change in Latin America more than 40 times in the last century. This figure does not even take into account failed missions that didn’t result in regime change, such as the US’s orchestrated invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961.
When the US is not intervening, its approach to the region has been described as “benign neglect”. During these interludes, Latin America was mostly ignored while the US prioritised other geopolitical interests.
Return to the old ways?
But Trump’s latest threats to Panama are a return to the paternalistic era of US foreign policy towards Latin America. This arguably started with the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 — a framework that aimed to protect US interests in the region from European aggression. Latin America essentially became the US’s backyard. At the time, the Monroe Doctrine received some support from Latin American countries that were hoping for independence from Europe and republican forms of government.
But this would change with the increasingly interventionist posture of US president Theodore Roosevelt during his two terms from 1901 to 1909. On November 18 1903, when Panama was just 15 days old, Roosevelt signed the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty , in which the US promised to support Panamanian independence from Colombia in exchange for rights to build and operate the Panama Canal. Reportedly the deal was engineered by a Frenchman, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, and no Panamanians were involved. This was the era of “big stick diplomacy” where the US would muscle its way into getting what it wanted with a series of credible threats.
During the cold war, Washington’s stance in Latin America became even more interventionist. The US backed authoritarian rule by right-wing military dictatorships in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguary and Honduras.
The US government provided organisation, financial and technical support for military regimes that were disappearing, kidnapping, torturing and murdering their political opponents, during Operation Condor in the 1970s. Democratically elected leaders Jacobo Árbenz and Salvador Allende were removed from power with the help of US covert action in Guatemala in 1954, and Chile in 1973, respectively.
The US was also responsible for funding and training violent non-state groups such as the Contras, a rebel force which was set up in Nicaragua to oppose the Sandinista government. The US also supported the right-wing Arena government which was accused of setting up death squads during the bloody civil war in El Salvador) in which thousands of civilians were killed.
With the Carter administration’s human rights-focused foreign policy, the US finally did the right thing when it came to returning the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. To accomplish this, Carter had to work hard to build bipartisan support to see the long-term benefits of improving US-Panamanian relations and improving US relations with Latin America more generally.
From the US standpoint, the canal was no longer economically important. At the same time, the canal had become an issue of national pride in Panama, with mass student-led protests breaking out on January 9 1964 when Panamanians were barred from flying their national flag in the US-controlled canal zone. The day became known as Martyr’s Day after 21 Panamanians were killed by US troops.
Relations improved after the Carter-Torrijos treaties were signed. But the US returned to an interventionist strategy when it send nearly 26,000 troops to invade Panama during Operation Just Cause in 1989 – the largest US deployment since the Vietnam war.
Though the goal to remove Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega (who had formerly been on the CIA payroll) was achieved, more than 500 Panamanians were reportedly killed. Unofficial estimates suggest there may have been as many as 2,000-3,000 deaths.
Six months after the 1989 invasion, I went to Panama for the summer, and saw first-hand the destruction caused. Looting had been rampant, with millions of dollars worth of goods stolen. There were concerns that the economy in Colón (Panama’s second largest city) wouldn’t be able to recover.
The impoverished neighbourhood of El Chorillo in Panama City was overwhelmed by a massive use of firepower, including F-117 stealth bombers, Blackhawk helicopters, Apache and Cobra helicopters, 2,000-pound bombs and Hellfire missiles.
In spite of the devastation, the US could, at least, argue that it invaded in order to restore democracy in Panama. But fast forward to today and Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t care about democracy and human rights. He does care, however, about increasing Chinese economic influence in Latin America – and this high-profile pushback is actually about bullying the Panamanian government to stop doing deals with Beijing.
And while the seizure of the Panama Canal would probably make very little difference to the US economy, it would make a huge impact to the economy of Panama. The Panamanian government astutely made important investments to enlarge the canal from 2007-2016, and today the canal’s revenues are worth US$5 billion (£3.9 billion), or about 4% of Panama’s GDP.
The “America first” agenda fails to understand how long-term alliances work, how soft power works, and the importance of having credibility and a vision. In the past, the US has often been aggressive, assertive and interventionist in Latin America, with Trump it looks like all these qualities are back.
Natasha Lindstaedt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
President Donald Trump has actually described Ukraine’s widely admired wartime President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “a dictator” and falsely claimed he started the war.
In a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump mused about an American takeover of the Gaza Strip by removing its occupants to neighbouring countries and developing the region as a seaside resort. This would very likely constitute a war crime.
Snubbing international law
Trump’s return to the American presidency marks a normalization of this type of threat.
Trump is obviously unsentimental about America’s longtime allies, including the innermost circle of English-speaking democracies — the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australian and New Zealand — that make up the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.
A group of countries that wouldn’t normally be fussed about the transition from one American president to another is now very nervous about how far Trump is going to go.
During the first angry weeks of Trump’s second presidency, the U.S. appears to be signalling a return to an anarchic and explicitly colonial imagining of the world. In this regard, Trump’s disdain for the rule of law at home tracks a potentially even greater disdain for the international legal order, one that’s existed since 1945.
Trump, not historically much of an imperialist in his rhetoric, has now doubled down on classical imperialist threats as he repeatedly proposes expanding the physical map of the U.S., musing in particular about Greenland, Panama, Canada and now Gaza.
Greenland holds a strategic interest for the U.S. — there’s already an American airbase on the island — since its location is increasingly important as the Arctic ice melts and amid greater competition from Russia and China.
But Canada? At least Trump agreed at a news conference before taking office that military force was off the table. Instead, Canada only had to worry about “economic force” being used to annex it.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told business leaders that Trump’s talk about annexing Canada is “the real thing,” aimed at obtaining Canada’s critical minerals.
He’s not only peacocking on the global stage, he is also telegraphing that he holds international legal norms in even lower esteem than the norms of his own country, where he is a convicted felon. This situation is as alarming as it unprecedented.
Right now, cognitive dissonance in the form of status quo bias poses a real danger in terms of Trump’s dismissal of the rule of law. This means that folks are somehow convincing themselves that the undoing of the global rules-based order in real time is just a blip; things will somehow ramp down and return to normal.
But the evidence is glaringly to the contrary.
Trump is plainly communicating his wishes: a new age of American imperialism. At first few took him seriously. Now we all are. Canada, due to its proximity to and reliance on the U.S., must especially face a new reality in which an American president casually and repeatedly threatens its sovereignty.
Canada, America’s closest ally in terms of shared language, culture and geography, should be the first and not the last to start believing Trump’s threats to annex it.
Even when Trump is no longer in office, neither Canadians nor any of America’s other allies can be certain someone just like him will not be returned to power by the U.S. voters. That means America’s western allies, like Canada and Denmark, must learn the lessons Latin American and Middle Eastern countries learned along time ago: America is a threat.
Some might ask: Aren’t these American problems for the American people? As Canadians can attest, no. Trump poses grave dangers to the rest of the world due to the unique place the U.S. occupies in the geopolitical system.
Nothing about Trump’s second presidency bodes well for America’s allies and friends, including Canada.
A kleptocrat who regards friends and allies as transactional customers and for whom everything is “just business,” including national security, Trump poses an existential threat not only to America, but to the international world order.
Jeffrey B. Meyers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world now knows the exact price for American military support of Ukraine. During a recent interview with Fox News, United States President Donald Trump put a $500 billion price tag on American aid to the war-torn country.
But there was a catch: the exchange should be made in the form of Ukraine’s valuable natural resources, including rare earth minerals. “We have to get something. We can’t continue to pay this money,” Trump said in the interview.
But there’s little doubt Ukraine’s natural resources will be an important element in future diplomatic negotiations.
Always a strategic factor
Ukraine’s rich natural resources have always been a strategic factor in the war. To some extent, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was driven by the interest to capture and control these resources — including critical minerals, fertile farmland and energy reserves.
The timing of the military campaign against Ukraine may not have been determined solely by the country’s attempts to develop its natural resources, but they have certainly been a factor. Most of these deposits, including oil and gas fields, are located in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, which are currently either under Russian occupation or near the front line.
Ukraine’s mineral wealth
Ukraine’s mineral wealth amounts to about 20,000 mineral deposits and 116 types of minerals. Most of these deposits are unexplored, with only 15 per cent of all the deposits active prior to the Russian invasion.
According to recent estimates, Ukraine has the largest titanium reserves in Europe and seven per cent of the world’s reserves, as well as the largest lithium reserves in Europe. It also has significant production capacity when it comes to rare earth minerals.
China’s dominance in this sector means diversifying the supply of rare earth minerals has geopolitical importance, especially for the U.S. and the EU. They want to ensure the supply comes from a strategic partner — Ukraine.
Ukraine’s fertile soil — or chernozem, humus-rich grassland soils used extensively for growing cereals and raising livestock — is also economically and strategically important, making the country one of the largest exporters of food globally.
Last but not least, Ukraine’s biodiversity, landscapes and ecosystems — some of which have been severely damaged due to the war — are invaluable to the country’s natural environment and essential for the health and well-being of Ukrainians.
The fate of Ukraine’s mineral riches will largely depend on how the conflict and post-conflict processes unfold.
But their existence has already proven to be of strategic importance in the war — first, to Russia, and now to the U.S. as well.
Ukraine’s natural wealth and how it features in current conversations about the future of the conflict reminds us about the central role resource politics can play in shaping war and peace.
Nino Antadze does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Leda Stawnychko, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Organizational Theory, Mount Royal University
When approached thoughtfully, difficult conversations can provide greater control over your career and workplace interactions.(Shutterstock)
Many professionals struggle with difficult conversations in the workplace, particularly when emotions run high. Your first performance review, for example, was probably uncomfortable. Here’s why.
What makes these conversations challenging isn’t just the subject matter, but the discomfort, tension or uncertainty about how the other person will react.
Neuroscience research shows that when conflict is anticipated, the amygdala — the emotional centre of the brain — activates, flooding the body with stress hormones and making it harder to think clearly and respond calmly.
However, with awareness and preparation, you can learn to manage this stress response and approach difficult conversations with confidence.
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Preparing yourself for these conversations
Conflict is a significant source of stress in the workplace. Employees who cite conflict as their primary source of stress lose about 55 days of productivity per year. This issue is particularly critical for early-career supervisors, for whom conflict resolution is an essential leadership skill.
Understanding why these conversations feel difficult — and learning how to approach them effectively — can help you build stronger workplace relationships, enhance your credibility as a manager and create a more positive professional environment.
One strategy for reducing stress around these conversations is to reframe them as opportunities to strengthen professional relationships. When handled well, these difficult conversations can help you feel more in control of your career and workplace interactions.
Here are three difficult conversations you’ll likely face early in your career, along with strategies for how to navigate them effectively.
For early-career supervisors, developing conflict resolution skills is especially critical, as effective leadership depends on the ability to navigate tough discussions. (Shutterstock)
However, advocating for fair compensation is not just about money — it’s about recognizing your value and setting the foundation for your career growth. To navigate this conversation effectively:
Frame your value strategically: highlight your skills, achievements and your contributions to the organization, emphasizing measurable impact.
2. Setting boundaries at work
Feeling the pressure to prove yourself by agreeing to every request is natural, particularly when you are trying to get established in your field. While a strong work ethic is valuable, consistently overextending yourself can lead to burnout.
Learning how to communicate your limits can help you maintain long-term productivity and professionalism. To address this conversation:
Know your priorities: before setting boundaries, understand what’s reasonable for you. Do you perform best with structured work-life balance, or do you prefer a flexible work-life integration approach? Does your work require uninterrupted, focused work?
Focus on organizational success: instead of framing boundaries as personal limitations, explain how they contribute to overall team efficiency. For instance: “If I can schedule deep-focus time in the morning, I’ll be able to deliver higher-quality work more efficiently.”
3. Addressing workplace conflict
Disagreements and miscommunications are inevitable in any workplace. Addressing workplace conflicts with emotional intelligence and professionalism is key to maintaining strong relationships and credibility. Instead of avoiding the conversation, approach it with curiosity and a focus on problem-solving:
Seek first to understand: before jumping to conclusions, gather all relevant information and reflect on possible perspectives. Could there have been a miscommunication? Was there an external factor at play?
Use future-focused language: avoid accusatory statements and keep the conversation future-orientated toward solutions. You could say, for example: “Let’s establish a process so we’re aligned moving forward.”
By handling these conversations directly and professionally, you demonstrate leadership skill. Addressing misunderstandings openly and respectfully also contributes to a healthier and more collaborative workplace for everyone’s benefit.
Mastering the art of conversation early in your career can set you apart as a thoughtful, capable professional. (Shutterstock)
Rather than allowing unresolved tensions to escalate — or pushing you to consider leaving a job — remind yourself that discomfort is temporary. Being able to cope with feeling uncomfortable is an important career skill to develop.
Whether it’s negotiating your salary, setting boundaries or resolving misunderstandings, these discussions can influence your professional reputation and how colleagues and managers treat you in the workplace.
Taking proactive steps to engage in these conversations with confidence can set the foundation for sustained career success. Start practising these conversations now; the sooner you start, the more skilled you’ll become, and your future self will thank you.
Leda Stawnychko has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Anamika Choudhary does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Talking about climate change is never easy. The issue is complex and upsetting. Headlines bring bad news way more often than good ones.
Techniques based on the extensive analysis of theories and research from social psychology, sociology, environmental and media studies can pave the way for a consistent approach to climate action commitment and citizen empowerment.
Here are five ways to communicate climate stories in a way that keeps people engaged and motivated to take positive action.
1. Give people agency
According to the seminal research published in 1974 by the Canadian-American social psychologist Albert Bandura, humans are capable creatures who can overcome fears and lead happier, motivated lives when led correctly. He conducted a famous experiment with people who were afraid of snakes.
In one scenario, an assistant was holding a snake in their hands or keeping it in a cage, while the scared person was watching. In another scenario, the person was given a snake to hold, in a controlled environment, with the assistants eager to take the snake back at any signs of the person’s discomfort. Bandura discovered that looking at someone holding a glossy, hissy reptile did not improve one’s sense of empowerment much.
However, actually handling the scary creature allowed people to feel more in control – and more likely to overcome their fear. This approach is known for boosting people’s sense of agency. By tackling the problem with one modest action at a time, a person is likely to become more reassured in their capacity to challenge larger issues.
In terms of climate communication, we need to be able to control at least small bits of the situation in order to be psychologically equipped to tackle bigger challenges. Climate communicators can give practical suggestions on lifestyle amendments, feasible activism techniques, political involvement – to nourish the sense of empowerment in the audience.
2. Localise the issue
While researching for my new book, Effective Climate Communication, I discovered that many countries with fewer resources struggle to present local stories related to climate change. They tend to rely on the western agenda of UN climate summits or global reports.
The shortage of correspondents on the ground (see studies on Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria and South Africa, countries in South America and Asia), makes many media in the developing countries ignore the very local consequences of the global heating. When people are less prepared for extreme weather, they’ll be less empowered to demand change from their governments or invest in weather-resilient crops and other prevention techniques.
By capturing perspectives from the local businesses and scientists, people can talk more easily about the direct effects of climate change on the local environment.
For instance, Greenpeace Indonesia focused on three themes on their Instagram page: the imagery of floods and humans affected, the call to switch to renewable energy, and the argument against the “omnibus” bill, which allows coal companies renew their licenses easily every ten years.
Connecting the local impact of climate change with the possible solution – reducing coal mining – brought a considerable number of clicks and comments to the stories. Although the link between Instagram and public opinion is hard to prove, the omnibus bill is still widely contested by Indonesian society.
3. Make stories relatable
Unless you’re called Elon Musk, Bill Gates (the co-founder of Microsoft) or Ursula von der Leyen (president of the European Commission), you don’t have a direct control over the management of climate change at a global level. Yet, it would be amazing to hear more stories of people who may be giving up long-haul flights, rejecting meat and divesting their pension from the fossil fuel funds. There are so many stories that can be told to inspire feelings of connection and hope.
Stories must be made relatable to engage a wider audience in positive climate conversations. fizkes/Shutterstock
According to classic “social proof” theory, if we can be sure that any new behaviour is the social norm, then we’ll be more eager to change. The moment people consider that refraining from eating meat, flying and buying unnecessary stuff are common patterns in their social circles, they will find it easier to follow suit, as shown by this study on the flying intentions of Germans, or research on the effect of social communities on pro-climate decisions in Europe.
4. Avoid ‘doomism’
Watching thrillers about the end of the world on the TV screen can be escapist and weirdly soothing. But witnessing the apocalypse unfold in front of us, through multiple news notifications and social media posts, is less gratifying. The narratives that compare climate change to the end of the humanity are supposed to incite action – but more often than not they lead to freeze or withdrawal reactions.
In some newsrooms, the practice of “the three Ds” flourishes in the face of the planetary problem – denial, delay-ism and dismissal. Doomist storytelling opens the doors for fake prophets and self-proclaimed superheroes who promise to fix the problem but end up in populism and scapegoating.
Avoiding doomism allows for “stubborn optimism”, a concept endorsed by Christiana Figueres, the ex-head of the UN climate change convention from 2010 to 2016. It is the dual approach of acknowledging the severity of the issue and the cost of the delays to action, but looking at the present state of affairs as an opportunity to avoid bigger damage and focus on the near-term solutions.
5. Create a new normal
Having a special climate change section within a media publication is a nice sign that the organisation cares about the problem. But how likely are people to click on it just to discover another ambush of negative stories? Including climate references in the majority of stories, from fashion to travel, helps normalise climate change as a backdrop to all aspects of our lives.
There’s no need for preaching. Nobody wants to be patronised for their decision to take a flight to see the family that lives far away. But subtle travel listicles about local destinations, creative meat-free recipes or an imaginative reinvention of fashion advice as restyling, not buying, can offer up alternatives in creative ways.
It should not be a taboo topic at dinner parties or social events. Avoid “othering” the climate change issue and help people stay aware and committed to tackling the elements of it.
Being aware of climate change as a new norm is healthier than trying to push it away and deny it’s happening. Engagement with the biggest story of our time is the best catalyst for change that we have.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Anastasia Denisova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Ahead of the election on February 23, many German voters are deeply concerned about the economy – and for good reason. The German economy is in a recession and has been shrinking for two consecutive years. In fact, it is now about the same size as it was in 2019, even as some of its peers among the world’s advanced economies have experienced solid growth (on the left of the chart below).
This matters for voters, who have experienced stagnating real incomes and remain pessimistic – expecting real incomes to decline further.
GDP and productivity growth of Germany, UK and US:
There could be several reasons for Germany’s economic malaise. First, fiscal policy in Germany is tighter than in other countries, meaning higher taxes and lower public spending. Due to the “debt brake” enshrined in its constitution, Germany is severely restricted in running budget deficits, except when the government declares an emergency, as it did due to COVID.
The last coalition government collapsed over a dispute about whether to declare another emergency over the war in Ukraine in order to increase borrowing capacity. This did not happen, and as a result Germany’s fiscal deficit has remained relatively moderate. The argument goes that a larger deficit might have boosted economic growth.
Second, for decades, Germany has relied on foreign demand to sustain economic growth at home. During the first two decades of the 21st century, it benefited greatly from China’s integration into the world economy.
To build up its productive capacity, China relied heavily on machinery produced in Germany and it purchased a significant number of German cars. However, this is no longer the case. As China has moved to the technology frontier, it no longer depends as much on German cars or machinery.
However, both factors only go so far in accounting for the stagnating German economy. For if demand – domestic or foreign – is too weak to sustain growth, this should be reflected in falling prices.
Yet prices have been rising strongly. Inflation in Germany has been running high over the last couple of years.
And it has not been systematically lower than in, say, the US or the rest of the euro area. Over the next 12 months, households expect inflation to be above 3% – well above the European Central Bank’s 2% target.
Another relevant indicator also suggests that lack of demand is unlikely to be the main reason for Germany’s stagnation. Unemployment is low in Germany, lower than in most European countries and hardly higher than in 2019.
Instead, adverse supply conditions are key, as reflected in households’ expectations of falling incomes and higher inflation.
Overall, supply is simply the combination of labour and capital inputs (for example, the size of the workforce and the machinery or premises available to them) along with productivity or technology, which tells us how much output we get from the labour and capital inputs. Germany is facing a triple crisis in this regard – expensive energy, weak labour supply and low productivity growth.
First, there are energy prices, which have been pushed up everywhere by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the effect has been particularly strong in Germany due to its direct dependency on Russian gas.
The outgoing government, in which the Greens have been a key player, is widely credited with trying to accelerate Germany’s green transition. This raised the costs of the transition above those caused by the European Emissions Trading System, whereby polluters pay for their emissions.
While it is difficult to determine the exact contributions of the war and the green transition to the rise in energy prices, both clearly act as a drag on growth, particularly on the supply side (that is to say, production potential).
The productivity problem
But Germany faces more fundamental supply-side challenges. The second issue becomes apparent when comparing GDP per hour worked (a measure of a country’s productivity, as seen on the right of the chart above).
Here, the trends in Germany and the UK are quite similar, implying that Germany’s lower economic growth relative to the UK is primarily due to people working fewer hours. This, in turn, may reflect demographic changes, migration that does not contribute to the labour force or shifting preferences in the wake of COVID.
The third issue is productivity growth. Consider the increase in GDP per hour worked in the US, which has risen by more than 10% as shown in the chart above, dwarfing the developments in both Germany and the UK. Common causes of weak productivity growth include ageing infrastructure, low private sector investment, a lack of start-ups and fewer new companies growing into multinational leaders.
A turnaround requires far-reaching improvements in supply conditions. In terms of energy, Germany should avoid measures such as introducing more regulation on the heating or insulation of new and existing homes, and instead rely on the EU-wide emissions trading scheme to curb emissions.
In the labour market, increased participation or skilled migration is needed, supported by policies that encourage people to retire later and entice more women into the workforce.
Productivity growth remains the most challenging issue. A good start would be increased funding for universities and reduced regulation, particularly for AI technology.
Deepening the EU’s single market, for example by removing restrictions on cross-border energy trade to allow firms to access cheaper electricity, would enhance competition and drive productivity growth. This way, companies could expand and create well-paying jobs.
Finally, an additional boost may come from higher defence spending, not only to address the much-needed improvement of Germany’s external security but also because it has been shown to increase productivity.
While immigration may be a major talking point for the German electorate in the coming vote, the economy – as ever – will be an important factor in measuring the mood of the country.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Stephen Appiah Takyi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
Urban parks in Kumasi, the capital city of Ghana’s Ashanti region, are fast disappearing or in decline. Kumasi was designed 60 years ago as a “garden city”, with green belts, parks and urban green spaces. These have been encroached on by developments and are in a poor condition.
Like other cities in Ghana, Kumasi has been growing. According to the latest population data from Ghana’s Statistical Service, the population of Kumasi in 1950 and 2024 was 99,479 and 3,903,480 respectively. The city’s current annual population growth rate is 3.59%.
This growth is a challenge for city authorities.
Adding to the challenge is the fact that in Ghana, political authorities and traditional leadership exist together. It’s the capital of the Ashanti Region and the capital of the ancient Ashanti Kingdom. Most of the land is owned by the traditional authority. This makes it difficult sometimes for city authorities to enforce planning regulations.
We are urban planners who have conducted research on environmental planning, urban informality and inclusive city development. We studied the extent to which areas demarcated as urban parks in the Kumasi Metropolis have been rezoned, and why there’s been encroachment into urban parks.
Our study showed that 88% of the 16 parks studied in the Kumasi Metropolis had either been rezoned or encroached upon by other land uses. This was done in an unplanned way. Zoning regulations have not been enforced and urban sprawl has not been controlled. Part of the reason is that land scarcity drives up its value and customary authorities have an incentive to allow other uses. As a result, the city has lost green spaces that are important for their environmental, traditional and recreational functions.
Decline of urban parks in Kumasi Metropolis
To understand why Kumasi has been losing its green spaces, our study looked at 16 parks across six communities within the Kumasi Metropolis.
The World Health Organization recommends there should be 9m² of green space per city dweller. We calculated that Kumasi currently has only 0.17m² of green space per city dweller.
We also noted significant changes in land zoned for parks. This was mainly due to the politics of land ownership and administration. Other social factors played a part too. The results of the research showed that out of the 16 existing parks studied, 14 (88%) had been rezoned to residential or commercial use or encroached upon by other uses.
The rezoning of parks was gradual, unapproved by local planning authorities, and unplanned. Existing land tenure arrangements and laxity in the enforcement of laws are some of the barriers affecting park development and management in the city.
An official of the city’s Physical Planning Department indicated that places zoned as parks were supposed to be owned, controlled, managed and protected by the state. But this was not the case, because of the complex land tenure arrangement of the city, where most land is customarily owned.
Though Ghana’s land tenure system recognises customary ownership, the determination of land use remains the responsibility of local planning authorities. Land sold for physical developments must conform to an approved scheme prepared by the Physical Planning Department. In most cases, the parks rezoned by the customary owners were in contravention with spatial planning laws (such as the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016).
The representative of the planning department noted that even though it prepared layouts that made provision for parks and open spaces, it was often helpless when it came to enforcement and other land use regulations. We were told that information about the land ownership and transfer process between government agencies and customary landowners was not made available to the department.
Due to poor coordination and increased demand for land for development, about 88% of land demarcated for park development across the study communities had been leased or sold to private developers by the customary landowners.
Our study also revealed a lack of funding for parks development and management. All the agency officials confirmed that parks were planned for but the funds to support their development and management were inadequate. They explained that property values rose as a result of urban development, leading to intense competition among various land uses. We were told that landowners were willing to sell any land available in their community at a higher value without considering its use in the community.
Bringing back the green
The once green city of Kumasi has lost much of its foliage. We suggest that this decline can and should be stopped.
City authorities can incorporate cultural elements that highlight the identity of neighbourhoods to promote ownership and a sense of place in the design of parks. Local planning institutions, custodians of land and residents should collaborate so that plans meet everyone’s needs.
Traditional authorities, together with relevant city authorities, should consciously ensure that parks are developed, protected, managed and sustained. Laws and regulations which guide park use and protection should be enforced strictly.
Finally, parks and green spaces can only survive if there is sustainable funding. City authorities could consider green taxation and charges. For example, they can fine residents whose activities threaten the environment, and use the money to fund parks and green spaces. A percentage of property tax can be dedicated to the protection and development of green spaces in the city.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Captain Ibrahim Traoré is the interim leader of Burkina Faso, having taken over the position following a coup which he led against Lieutenant Colonel Paul Henri Damiba in September 2022. The 37-year-old captain had supported Damiba, his commanding officer, in a putsch earlier that year against former president Roch Marc Kaboré.
Since Traoré has been in power, Burkina Faso has played a key role in the withdrawal of three west African states from the regional body Ecowas. Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali have formed an alternative, the Alliance of Sahel States. The Conversation Africa asked researcher Daniel Eizenga where the country was headed under Traoré’s leadership.
Who is Ibrahim Traoré?
Traoré was born in 1988 in Bondokuy, a small town on the route connecting Burkina Faso’s second city – Bobo Dioulasso – and its fourth largest, Ouahigouya. He completed secondary school in Bobo Dioulasso, then moved to the nation’s capital, where he studied at the University of Ouagadougou.
After completing his undergraduate education, Traoré joined the army in 2010 at the age of 22. He undertook his officer training in Pô at the Georges Namoano Military Academy, an officer school for the Burkinabe armed forces. He graduated as a second lieutenant in 2012 and served as a peacekeeper in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission to Mali (Minusma) after being promoted to lieutenant in 2014.
After his stint with Minusma, Traoré took part in missions in northern Burkina Faso as part of a special counterterrorism unit. He was promoted to captain in 2020 at the age of 32.
Damiba led a coup against Kaboré in January 2022. He then assigned Traoré as chief of an artillery regiment in the North Central region of Burkina Faso.
As it became clear that Damiba was losing popularity within the junta, Traoré and a group of junior officers organised a coup. They seized on public and military outrage around an ambush that left 11 soldiers and dozens of civilians dead.
What has been the response to his rule in Burkina Faso?
Some media reports suggest that the young captain and his junta enjoy popular support throughout the country. Some have even drawn comparisons between Traoré and Burkina Faso’s earlier leftist revolutionary military leader, Captain Thomas Sankara. It’s true that the two captains did take power at the age of 34. But the comparisons end at their rank and age.
During the 1980s and nearing the end of the cold war, Sankara came to power as ideological division split the Burkinabe armed forces. Officers supporting Sankara led a coup in 1983. Viewed as a Marxist revolutionary, Sankara attempted to enact political reforms. They included policies to boost public political participation, empower women, address environmental degradataion and reduce inequalities.
Traoré’s position is much more precarious. Most military officers did not participate in either his coup or the one led by Damiba, underscoring the fragmented state of Burkina Faso’s armed forces. Traoré’s junta has claimed there have been multiple attempts at destabilisation or coups. This highlights the arbitrary means by which power has changed hands and the inherent instability present under junta rule.
To shore up his position, Traoré has launched a restructuring drive. This has included redirecting revenues from taxes, the mining sector, and other sources of public revenues into defence coffers. He has also mobilised volunteers to fight violent extremists as part of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, a junta-sponsored civilian militia. There are reports that forced conscription has been used to send “volunteers” to the front lines of battle. The conflict data indicate that the strategy is not working.
Traoré may not be as popular among ordinary people as he is often portrayed. This is inferred from the violent repression of critics, multiple alleged coup attempts as well as the ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis. He has cracked down hard on independent voices. Journalists, civil society leaders, political party leaders and even judges have been targeted by the junta with its forced conscription tactics and other forms of violent repression.
Aiming to boost support for himself immediately following the coup, Traoré trained his sights on capturing the anti-French sentiment. He blamed the French for many of the country’s woes and cast Damiba as a close French ally. Within a few months, Traoré demanded the French withdraw its security presence from Burkina Faso altogether.
Since the French withdrawal, Russian mercenaries have been seen providing protection for Traoré and reportedly supporting operations near the border with Mali. However, only some 100-300 Russian forces have gone to Burkina Faso. This suggests that the focus is on regime security for Traoré and his junta.
What does the future hold?
Traoré’s actions have not improved the security situation in the country. There have been at least 3,059 violent events linked to militant Islamist groups since he came to power in October 2022. This is a 20% increase in comparison to two years preceding the coup. The number of fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence nearly doubled from 3,621 in 2022 to 6,389 in 2024.
The violence has also spread throughout the country to affect nearly every region and increased along Burkina Faso’s southern border. It’s likely that the data is under-reported.
The junta has claimed to have foiled several coup plots since Traoré’s power grab. A foiled plot came in September 2024 only a few weeks after the deadliest massacre the country has ever suffered. Violent extremists killed hundreds of civilians outside the town of Barsalogho. Civilian fatalities linked to militant Islamist groups have increased from 721 in 2022 to 1,151 deaths in 2024.
Perhaps more worrying are the civilian fatalities linked to the military or its sponsored militia.
The violence in Burkina Faso presents an alarming outlook in which the collapse of the country cannot be ruled out. The military has reemerged as the principal political actor. By some counts the military has been directly or indirectly in power for 45 of the 65 years since Burkina Faso became independent.
All the while, the militant Islamist insurgency embroils more and more of the countryside at great human cost. Some estimates place the number of people displaced by violence as high as 3 million, though the junta will not provide an official figure. That is more than 10% of the population of some 24 million people. Another million or more students may not be in school due to conflict and ongoing insecurity.
Despite the effort to present Traoré as a bold reformer and saviour, the political, security and economic ramifications from his junta rule will reverberate through Burkina Faso for decades to come.
Daniel Eizenga has previously received funding from a Minerva Initiative research grant through the University of Florida to conduct research in Burkina Faso towards his Ph.D. Dr Eizenga is currently a research fellow with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Imperialist rhetoric is becoming a mark of President Donald Trump’s second term. From asserting that the U.S. will “take over” the Gaza Strip, Greenland and the Panama Canal to apparently siding with Russia in its war on Ukraine, Trump’s comments suggest a return to an old imperialist style of forcing foreign lands under American control.
The term “empire” often evokes the Romans, the Mughals or the British, but the U.S. is an imperial power, too. In the 19th and early 20th century, American presidents expanded U.S. territory westward across the continent and, later, overseas, acquiring Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands, Guam and the Philippines.
After that, outright territorial conquest mostly ceased, but the U.S. did not give up imperialism. As I trace in my 2023 book, “Dying by the Sword,” the country instead embraced a subtler, more strategic kind of expansionism. In this veiled imperialism, the U.S. exerted its global influence through economic, political and threatened military means, not direct confrontation.
Embracing traditional U.S. imperialism would upend the rules that have kept the globe relatively stable since World War II. As an expert on U.S. foreign policy, I fear that would unleash fear, chaos – and possibly nuclear war.
No redrawing borders
One of the most fundamental principles of this post-war international system is the concept of sovereignty – the idea that a nation’s borders should remain intact.
Work by the late political scientist Mark Zacher outlines how, since World War II, the international community – including the U.S. – has largely upheld this standard.
But imperialism still shapes world politics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is a blatant instance of imperial ambition justified by alleged historical grievances and national security concerns. Russia’s invasion set a dangerous precedent by undermining the principle that borders can’t be changed by force and that countries shouldn’t resort to aggression.
Putin’s precedent, in turn, has raised concerns that another great power may attempt to forcibly redraw international borders.
Respect for national sovereignty has made the world more stable and less violent.
The decline of traditional imperialism after World War II led to a flourishing of independent nation-states. As former colonial powers gradually relinquished control of their holdings in the second half of the 20th century – voluntarily or after losing wars of independence – the number of sovereign countries increased dramatically. The U.N. had 51 member countries in 1945 and over 150 by 1970.
The U.N. was founded on the idea that people of all countries should have a say in how they build their own futures. Today, 197 countries try to work together through the U.N. on a wide range of global issues, including defending human rights and reducing global poverty.
When a major power like the U.S. openly embraces imperialist rhetoric, it further weakens the already fragile rules that keep this delicate collaboration working.
The U.S. has long engaged in this form of influence. It has often pursued its imperialist agenda in what I would call a more “gentlemanly manner” than historical empires with their bloody physical conquests.
During the Cold War, for example, the U.S. established extensive dominance over much of the globe. In Latin America and the Middle East, it used economic aid, military alliances and ideological persuasion rather than outright territorial expansion to exert its control. Russia did the same in Eastern Europe and its other spheres of influence.
Demonstrators in Panama City insist ‘Panama Canal is Not For Sale’ following Donald Trump’s threats to seize the canal, Jan. 20, 2025. Arnulfo Franco/AFP via Getty Images
Today, China excels at nonviolent imperialism. Its Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure construction project launched in 2013, has created deep economic dependencies among partner nations in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Trade and diplomatic ties between China and those regions are much closer today as a result.
Nuclear era
A critical distinction between imperialism past and present is the presence of nuclear weapons.
In previous eras, great powers frequently fought wars to expand their influence and settle disputes. Countries could attempt to seize territory with little risk to their survival, even in defeat.
The sheer destructive potential of nuclear arsenals has changed this calculus. The Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction guarantees that if one country launches a nuclear weapon, it will quickly become the target of nuclear counterattack: annihilation for all sides.
Any major war between nuclear-armed nations now carries the risk of massive, potentially planetary, destruction. This makes direct conquest an irrational, even suicidal strategy rather than a calculated political maneuver.
And it makes Trump’s old-school imperial rhetoric particularly dangerous.
If the U.S. tried to annex foreign territory, it would almost certainly provoke serious international conflict. That’s especially true of the most strategic places Trump has threatened to “take over,” like the Panama Canal, which links 1,920 ports across 170 countries.
These imperialist threats, even if they’re not intended as serious policy proposals, are already ratcheting up global tensions.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino — a pro-American ally — has flatly ruled out negotiating with the U.S. over control of the Panama Canal. Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, says its territory of Greenland is “not for sale.” And Palestinians in Gaza, for their part, fiercely reject Trump’s plan to move all of them out and turn their homeland into a “Middle East Riviera,” as have neighboring Arab countries, which could be expected to absorb millions of displaced Palestinians.
Rhetoric shapes perception, and perception influences behavior. When an American president floats acquiring foreign territories as a viable policy option, it signals to both allies and enemies that the U.S. is no longer committed to the international order that has achieved relative global stability for the past 75 years.
With wars raging in the Middle East and Europe, this is a risky time for reckless rhetoric.
Monica Duffy Toft does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Tatsiana Kulakevich, Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, University of South Florida
Traditional Russian wooden nesting dolls depict U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a gift shop in Moscow on Feb. 13, 2025. Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP via Getty Images
The United States’ steadfast allegiance to Ukraine during that country’s three-year war against Russia appears to be quickly disintegrating under the Trump administration. President Donald Trump on Feb. 19, 2025, called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a dictator” and falsely blamed him for the war that Russia initiated as part of a land grab in the countries’ border regions.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said on Feb. 19 that Trump is trapped in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “disinformation space.”
The U.S. and Russia have long been adversaries, and the U.S., to date, has given Ukraine more than US$183 billion to help fight against Russia. But that funding came when Joe Biden was president. Trump does not appear to be similarly inclined toward Ukraine.
Amy Lieberman, a politics editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Tatsiana Kulakevich, a scholar of Eastern European politics and international relations, to understand the implications of this sudden shift in U.S.-Russia policy under Trump.
Kulakevich sees Trump’s moves that could be perceived as self-interested as instead part of a calculated strategy in preliminary discussions.
Can you explain the current dynamic between the U.S., Ukraine and Russia?
People should not panic because the U.S. and Russia are only holding exploratory talks. We should not call them peace talks, per se, at least not yet. It was to be expected that Ukraine was not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia because there is nothing to talk about yet. We don’t know what the U.S. and Russia are actually discussing besides agreeing to restore the normal functioning of each other’s diplomatic missions.
People are perceiving the U.S. and Russia as being in love. However, Trump’s Russia policy has been more hawkish than often portrayed in the media. Looking at the record from the previous Trump administration, we can see that if something is not in the interests of the U.S., that is not going to be done. Trump does not do favors.
In 2019, Trump also issued economic sanctions against a Russian ship involved in building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. These sanctions tried to block Russia’s direct gas exports to Germany – this connection between Russia and Germany was seen by Ukraine as an economic threat.
Based on Trump’s talks with Russia and remarks against Ukraine, it could seem like the U.S. and Russia are no longer adversaries. How do you perceive this?
There are no clear indications that Russia and the U.S. have ceased to be adversaries. Despite Trump’s occasional use of terms like “friends” in diplomacy, his rhetoric often serves as a tactical maneuver rather than a genuine shift in alliances. A key example is his engagement with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, where Trump alternated between flattery and threats to extract concessions.
Even if the U.S. is meeting with Russia and the public narrative seems to say otherwise, strategically, abandoning Ukraine is not in the United States’ best interests. One reason why is because the U.S. turning away from Ukraine would make Russia happy and China happy. Trump has treated China as a primary threat to the U.S., and China has supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also still saying that everyone, including Ukraine, will be at the table for eventual peace talks.
The allegations that Russia was holding some information over Trump and blackmailing him started long before this presidential term and did not stop Trump from imposing countermeasures on Russia during his first term. The first Trump administration took more than 50 policy actions to counter Moscow, primarily in the form of public statements and sanctions.
What does the U.S. gain from developing a diplomatic relationship with Russia?
Trump is a transactional politician. American companies could profit from the U.S. aligning with Russia and Russian companies, as some Russian officials have said during the recent Saudi Arabia talks with the Trump administration. But the U.S. could also benefit economically from the Trump’s administration’s proposed deal with Ukraine to give the U.S. half of Ukraine’s estimated $11.5 trillion in rare earth minerals.
Zelenskyy rejected that proposal this week, saying it does not come with the promise that the U.S. will continue to give security guarantees to Ukraine.
Historically, since the Cold War, there has been a diplomatic triangle between the Soviet Union – later Russia – China and the U.S. And there has always been one side fighting against the two other sides. Trump trying to develop a better diplomatic relationship with Russia might mean he is trying to distance Russia from China.
A similar dynamic is playing out between the U.S. and Belarus’ authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, a co-aggressor in the war in Ukraine. Lukashenko is close with both Russia and China. The U.S. administration is looking to relax sanctions on Belarusian banks and exports of potash, a key ingredient in fertilizer, in exchange for the release of Belarusian political opposition members who are imprisoned. There are over 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus. This U.S. foreign policy strategy is aimed at providing Lukashenko with room to grow less economically dependent on Russia and China.
A worker clears snow from a cemetery in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Feb. 17, 2025. More than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in combat since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. Pierre Crom/Getty Images
Is this level of collaboration between the U.S. and Russia unprecedented?
While U.S.-Russia relations are often defined by rivalry, history shows that pragmatic cooperation has occurred when both nations saw mutual benefits – whether this relates to arms control, space, counterterrorism, Arctic affairs or health.
Moreover, the U.S. has always prioritized its own interests in its relationship with Russia. For example, the U.S. and its allies imposed sanctions on Russia’s uranium and nickel industries only in May 2024, over two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This was due to the United States’ strategic economic dependencies and concerns about market stability if it sanctioned uranium and nickel.
Even after Russia invaded Crimea – an area of Ukraine that Russia claims as its own – in 2014 and provided support for Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbass region, the U.S. and other Western countries imposed largely symbolic sanctions. This included freezing assets of Russian individuals, restricting some financial transactions and limiting Russia’s access to Western technology.
We should also notice that Trump in January 2025 promised to sanction Russia if it does not end the Ukraine war. The U.S. still has not removed any existing sanctions, which signals its commitment to a tough stance on Russia, despite perceptions of a close relationship between Trump and Putin.
Given Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy, his tough rhetoric on Zelenskyy could be a deliberate negotiation strategy aimed at pressuring Ukraine into making greater concessions in potential peace talks, rather than signaling abandonment.
Tatsiana Kulakevich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
During the first few weeks of the second Trump administration, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a lot of things about longtime allies that caused frustration and outright friction among the leaders of those countries.
Trump and Vance indeed appear to disdain close alliances, favoring an America First approach to the world. A New York Times headline characterized the relationship between the U.S. and Europe now as “A Strained Alliance.”
As a former diplomat, I’m aware that how the U.S. treats its allies has been a crucial question in every presidency, since George Washington became the country’s first chief executive. On his way out of that job, Washington said something that Trump, Vance and their fellow America First advocates would probably embrace.
France sent soldiers, money and ships to the American revolutionaries. Within three years, after a major intervention by the French fleet, the battle of Yorktown in 1781 effectively ended the war and America was independent.
Isolationism, then war
American political leaders largely heeded Washington’s warning against alliances throughout the 1800s. The Atlantic Ocean shielded the young nation from Europe’s problems and many conflicts, and America’s closest neighbors had smaller populations and less military might.
That began to change when Europe descended into the brutal trench warfare of World War I.
Initially, American politicians avoided becoming involved. What would today be called an isolationist movement was strong, and its supporters felt that the war in Europe was being waged for the benefit of big business.
But it was hard for the U.S.to maintain neutrality. German submarines sank ships crossing the Atlantic carrying American passengers. The economies of some of America’s biggest trading partners were in shreds; the democracies of Britain, France and other European countries were at risk.
President Woodrow Wilson led the United States into the war in 1917 as an ally of the Western European nations. When he asked Congress for a declaration of war, Wilson touted the value of like-minded allies, saying, “A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations.” The war was over within 16 months.
Prosperity came along with the peace, helping the U.S. quickly develop into a global economic power.
However, within a few years, American politicians returned to traditional isolationism in political and military matters and continued this attitude well into the 1930s. The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 was blamed on vulnerabilities in the global economy, and there was a strong sentiment among Americans that the U.S. should fix its internal problems rather than assist Europe with its problems.
Alliance counters fascism
As both Hitler and the Japanese Empire began to attack their neighbors in the late 1930s, it became clear to President Franklin Roosevelt and other American military and political leaders that the U.S. would get caught up in World War II. If nothing else, airplanes had erased America’s ability to hide behind the Atlantic Ocean.
In January of 1941, Roosevelt gave his annual State of the Union speech to Congress. He appeared to prepare the country for possible intervention – both on behalf of allies abroad and for the preservation of American democracy:
“The future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders. Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, and Asia, and Africa and Australasia will be dominated by conquerors. In times like these it is immature – and incidentally, untrue – for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.”
As World War II ended, the wartime alliance produced two longer-term partnerships built on the understanding that working together had produced a powerful and effective counter to fascism.
A ‘news bulletin’ from August 1945 issued by a predecessor of the United Nations. Foreign Policy In Focus
Postwar alliances
The first of these alliances is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The original members were the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and others of the wartime Allies. There are now 32 members, including Poland, Hungary and Turkey.
The aims of NATO were to keep the peace in Europe and contain the growing Communist threat from the Soviet Union. NATO’s supporters feel that, given that the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and in the Ukraine today are the only major conflicts in Europe in 80 years, the alliance has met its goals well. And NATO troops went to Afghanistan along with the U.S. military after 9/11.
The other institution created by the wartime Allies is the United Nations.
The U.N. is many things – a humanitarian aid organization, a forum for countries to raise their issues and a source of international law.
In addition to these formal alliances, many of the same countries created institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States and the European Union. The U.S. belongs to all of these except the European Union. During my 35-year diplomatic career, I worked with all of these institutions, particularly in efforts to stabilize Africa. They keep the peace and support development efforts with loans and grants.
Admirers of this postwar liberal international order point to the limited number of major armed conflicts during the past 80 years, the globalized economy and international cooperation on important matters such as disease control and fighting terrorism.
Detractors point to this system’s inability to stop some very deadly conflicts, such as Vietnam or Ukraine, and the large populations that haven’t done well under globalization as evidence of its flaws.
The world would look dramatically different without the Allies’ victories in the two World Wars, the stable worldwide economic system and NATO’s and the U.N.’s keeping the world relatively peaceful.
But the value of allies to Americans, even when they benefit from alliances, appears to have shifted between George Washington’s attitude – avoid them – and that of Franklin D. Roosevelt – go all in … eventually.
Donald Heflin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Yufei Ren, Associate Professor of Economics, Labovitz School of Business and Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth
Trustworthy managers get better performance reviews, recent research shows.Andrey Popov/Getty Images
National Leadership Day, which takes place every Feb. 20, offers a chance to reflect on what truly defines leadership – not just strategy or decision-making, but the ability to build trust. In an era of rapid change, when teams look to leaders for stability and direction, trust is the invisible currency that fuels organizational success.
While my study focuses on one sector, its lessons extend far beyond that. It offers insights for leaders in any field, from corporate executives to community organizers.
Understanding the impact
In China, as in the U.S., the restaurant industry is known for high turnover rates and cutthroat competition. But our study found that managers who demonstrate trustworthiness can keep employees from fleeing to rivals, creating a more stable and committed workforce.
First, we conducted a field experiment in which we asked managers at around 115 restaurants how much money they were willing to send to employees in an investment game – an indicator of trust. We then found that for every 10% increase in managers’ trust-driven actions, employee turnover fell by 3.7 percentage points. That’s a testament to the power of trust in the workplace.
When managers are trustworthy, workers tend to be more loyal, engaged in their job and productive. Employees who perceive their managers as trustworthy report higher job satisfaction and are more willing to exert extra effort, which directly benefits the organization.
We also found that when employees trust one another, managers get better performance evaluations. That makes sense, since trust fosters improved cooperation and innovation across the board.
Practical steps to foster trust
Fortunately for managers – and workers – there’s a lot of research into how to be a more trustworthy leader. Here are a few insights:
• Empower your team. Let employees take ownership of their responsibilities and make decisions within their roles. This not only boosts their engagement but also aligns their objectives with the broader goals of the organization. Empowerment is a key strategy in building trust.
• Be fair and transparent. Managers should strive to be consistent in their actions, address concerns promptly and distribute rewards equitably. Those practices can create a psychologically safe and supportive work environment.
• Promote collaboration. Encourage an atmosphere in which employees can openly share ideas and support one another. Activities that promote team cohesion and open communication can significantly enhance trust within the team.
• Measure and manage trust. Implementing regular surveys or feedback sessions can help assess and manage trust levels within an organization. Consider integrating trust metrics into performance evaluations to emphasize their importance.
Some takeaways for National Leadership Day
Whether helming a business, a nonprofit or a local community initiative, leaders should recognize that being trustworthy isn’t just a “soft skill.” It’s a measurable force that drives success. By making trust-building a deliberate goal, leaders can create stronger, more resilient teams.
So this National Leadership Day is a good time to reflect: How do you build trust in your leadership? And how can you foster a culture of trustworthiness?
Managers should commit to leading with trust, acting with integrity and fostering workplaces where people feel valued and empowered. The impact will speak for itself.
Yufei Ren does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Five years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many U.S. cities are still adjusting to a new normal, with more people working remotely and less economic activity in city centers. Other factors, such as underfunded pension plans for municipal employees, are pushing many city budgets into the red.
Urban fiscal struggles are not new, but historically they have mainly affected U.S. cities that are small, poor or saddled with incompetent managers. Today, however, even large cities, including Chicago, Houston and San Francisco, are under serious financial stress.
This is a looming nationwide threat, driven by factors that include climate change, declining downtown activity, loss of federal funds and large pension and retirement commitments.
Spending cuts abound in many U.S. cities as inflation lingers and pandemic-era stimulus dries up.
Why cities struggle
Many U.S. cities have faced fiscal crises over the past century, for diverse reasons. Most commonly, stress occurs after an economic downturn or sharp fall in tax revenues.
Florida municipalities began to default in 1926 after the collapse of a land boom. Municipal defaults were common across the nation in the 1930s during the Great Depression: As unemployment rose, relief burdens swelled and tax collections dwindled.
Declaring bankruptcy was not a cure-all. It allowed cities to refinance debt or stretch out payment schedules, but it also could lead to higher taxes and fees for residents, and lower pay and benefits for city employees. And it could stigmatize a city for many years afterward.
In the 1960s and 1970s, many urban residents and businesses left cities for adjoining suburbs. Many cities, including New York, Cleveland and Philadelphia, found it difficult to repay debts as their tax bases shrank.
The New York Daily News, Oct. 30, 1975, after U.S. President Gerald Ford ruled out providing federal aid to save the city from bankruptcy. Several months later, Ford signed legislation authorizing federal loans. Edward Stojakovic/Flickr, CC BY
In the wake of the 2008-2009 housing market collapse, cities including Detroit, San Bernardino, California, and Stockton, California, filed for bankruptcy. Other cities faced similar difficulties but were located in states that did not allow municipalities to declare bankruptcy.
Even large, affluent jurisdictions could go off the financial rails. For example, Orange County, California, went bankrupt in 2002 after its treasurer, Robert Citron, pursued a risky investment strategy of complex leveraging deals, losing some $1.65 billion in taxpayer funds.
Today, cities face a convergence of rising costs and decreasing revenues in many places. As I see it, the urban fiscal crisis is now a pervasive national challenge.
Events like wildfires and flooding have twofold effects on city finances. First, money has to be spent on rebuilding damaged infrastructure, such as roads, water lines and public buildings. Second, after the disaster, cities may either act on their own or be required under state or federal law to make expensive investments in preparation for the next storm or wildfire.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (center) discusses wildfire recovery in Pacific Palisades, Calif., Jan. 27, 2025. Cleaning up after the wildfires, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures, will include disposing of several million tons of toxic ash and debris. Drew A. Kelley/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images
Increasing uncertainty about the total costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change will inevitably lead rating agencies to downgrade municipal credit ratings. This raises cities’ costs to borrow money for climate-related projects like protecting shorelines and improving wastewater treatment.
Underfunded pensions
Cities also spend a lot of money on employees, and many large cities are struggling to fund pensions and health benefits for their workforces. As municipal retirees live longer and require more health care, the costs are mounting.
For example, Chicago currently faces a budget deficit of nearly $1 billion, which stems partly from underfunded retirement benefits for nearly 30,000 public employees. The city has $35 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and almost $2 billion in unfunded retiree health benefits. Chicago’s teachers are owed $14 billion in unfunded benefits.
Policy studies have shown for years that politicians tend to underfund retirement and pension benefits for public employees. This approach offloads the real cost of providing police, fire protection and education onto future taxpayers.
In my view, President Donald Trump’s administration is highly unlikely to bail out urban areas – especially more liberal cities like Detroit, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Trump has portrayed large cities governed by Democrats in the darkest terms – for example, calling Baltimore a “rodent-infested mess” and Washington, D.C., a “dirty, crime-ridden death trap.” I expect that Trump’s animus against big cities, which was a staple of his 2024 campaign, could become a hallmark of his second term.
Detroit officials respond to disparaging remarks about the city by Donald Trump during a campaign speech in Detroit, Oct. 10, 2024.
Resistance to new taxes
Cities can generate revenue from taxes on sales, businesses, property and utilities. However, increasing municipal taxes – particularly property taxes – can be very difficult.
In 1978, California adopted Proposition 13 – a ballot measure that limited property tax increases to the rate of inflation or 2% per year, whichever is lower. This high-profile campaign created a widespread narrative that property taxes were out of control and made it very hard for local officials to support property tax increases.
Thanks to caps like Prop 13, a persistent public view that taxes are too high and political resistance, property taxes have tended to lag behind inflation in many parts of the country.
The crunch
Taking these factors together, I see a fiscal crunch coming for U.S. cities. Small cities with low budgets are particularly vulnerable. But so are larger, more affluent cities, such as San Francisco with its collapsing downtown office market, or Houston, New York and Miami, which face growing costs from climate change.
Workers in North Miami Beach, Fla., distribute sandbags to residents to help prevent flooding as Hurricane Milton approaches the state on Oct. 8, 2024. AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
One city manager who runs an affluent municipality in the Pacific Northwest told me that in these difficult circumstances, politicians need to be more frank and open with their constituents and explain convincingly and compellingly how and why taxpayer money is being spent.
Efforts to balance city budgets are opportunities to build consensus with the public about what municipalities can do, and at what cost. The coming months will show whether politicians and city residents are ready for these hard conversations.
John Rennie Short does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Charles J. Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton
Surveys suggest growing support for school choice, such as in Ohio, even as voters reject such policies in referendums.AP Photo/Samantha Hendrickson
The school choice movement received a major boost on Jan. 29, 2025, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order supporting families who want to use public money to send their children to private schools.
The far-reaching order aims to redirect federal funds to voucher-type programs. Vouchers typically afford parents the freedom to select nonpublic schools, including faith-based ones, using all or a portion of the public funds set aside to educate their children.
The vast majority of children in the U.S. attend traditional public schools. Their share, however, has steadily declined from 87% in 2011 to about 83% in 2021, at least in part due to the growth of school choice programs such as vouchers.
Modern voucher programs expanded significantly during the late 1980s and early 1990s as states, cities and local school boards experimented with ways to allow parents to use public funds to send their kids to nonpublic schools, especially ones that are religiously affiliated.
While some programs were struck down for violating the separation of church and state, others were upheld. Vouchers received a big shot in the arm in 2002, when the Supreme Court ruled in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause permitted states to include faith-based schools in their voucher programs in Cleveland.
Currently, 13 states and Washington, D.C., offer one or several school choice programs targeting different types of students. Total U.S. enrollment in such programs surpassed 1 million for the first time in 2024, double what it was in 2020, according to EdChoice, which advocates for school-choice policies.
In 2025, Tennessee became the 13th state to pass some sort of school choice program, despite opposition from public school supporters. AP Photo/George Walker IV
Trump’s order
At its heart, Trump’s executive order would offer discretionary grants and issue guidance to states over using federal funds within this K-12 scholarship program. It also directs the Department of Interior and Department of Defense to make vouchers available to Native American and military families.
In addition, the order directs the Department of Education to provide guidance on how states can better support school choice – though it’s unclear exactly what that will mean. It’s a task that will be left for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for secretary of Education, once she is confirmed.
Research suggests few academic gains from vouchers
The push to give parents more choice over where to send their children is based on the assumption that doing so will provide them with a better education.
But other data don’t always back up the notion that school choice policies meaningfully improve student outcomes. A 2023 review of the past decade of research on the topic by the Brookings Institution found that the introduction of a voucherlike program actually led to lower academic achievement – similar to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 2017 review by a Stanford economist Martin Carnoy published by the Economic Policy Institute similarly found little evidence vouchers improve school outcomes. While there were some modest gains in graduation rates, they were outweighed by the risks to funding public school systems.
Criticisms of voucher programs aside, many parents who support them do so based on the hope that their children will have more affordable, high-quality educational options. This was especially true in Zelman, in which the Supreme Court upheld the rights of parents to remove their kids from Cleveland’s struggling public schools.
There is little doubt in our minds that in some cases school choice affords some parents in low-performing districts additional options for their children’s education.
But in general, the evidence shows that is the exception to vouchers, not the rule. Evidence also suggests most children – whether they’re using vouchers to attend nonpublic schools or remain in the public school system – may not always benefit from school choice programs. And when it takes money out of underfunded public school systems, school choice can make things worse for a lot more children than it benefits.
While the poor reading and math scores cited in Trump’s executive order suggest that change is needed to help keep America’s school and students competitive, this order may not achieve that goal.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Cancer arises when your cells grow uncontrollably and refuse to die when they should. Normally, your body is equipped with regulatory processes to prevent this chaos. One such mechanism involves a protein called p53. Often dubbed the “guardian of the genome,” this protein plays a pivotal role in ensuring that your cells grow, divide and die in an orderly fashion. When p53 malfunctions, the result is often cancer.
Learning about how p53 works has not only deepened how scientists understand cancer, but also provided promising avenues for new treatments.
In my work as a cancer researcher, I study the underlying mechanisms of how tumors develop and resist treatment. By understanding how cancer cells bypass safeguards like p53, scientists can find better ways to stop them, leading to more effective treatments for patients.
How p53 works
Each cell contains DNA that instructs it how to function. Over time, this instruction manual can accumulate errors due to various factors like exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays, smoking or even just natural wear and tear.
This is where p53 comes in. It acts like a vigilant proofreader, detecting errors in DNA and deciding how to handle them. If the damage is minor, p53 instructs the cell to repair it. But if the damage is beyond repair, p53 triggers a process called apoptosis, or programmed cell death, ensuring the faulty cell doesn’t turn cancerous.
In more than half of all human cancers, p53 is either missing or dysfunctional. This often happens when the gene that encodes for p53 is mutated or deleted. Without a functioning p53, errors in DNA go unchecked, allowing damaged cells to multiply and form tumors.
Given its crucial role in preventing cancer, p53 has become a major target for drug development.
Over the years, scientists have devised various strategies to target the p53 pathway, or the network of molecules p53 controls to regulate cell growth, repair DNA damage and trigger cell death. Rather than acting alone, p53 interacts with multiple molecular pathways – some of which researchers are still discovering – that help determine a cell’s fate.
Treatment approaches aim to restore or mimic p53’s function in cells where it has gone awry. For example, scientists have developed small molecules that can bind to mutant p53 and stabilize its faulty structure, restoring its ability to bind DNA and regulate genes. Drugs like PRIMA-1 and MIRA-1 essentially “rescue” p53, allowing it to resume its role as the cell’s guardian.
Even when p53 is missing, scientists can still target the processes it normally controls to treat cancer. For example, drugs can activate apoptosis or halt cell division in ways that mimic p53’s normal function. Drugs like ABT-737 or Navitoclax can block proteins in the p53 pathway that usually stop apoptosis, allowing cell death to occur even when p53 is absent.
Targeting p53’s overseers
Researchers are also investigating other proteins that interact with p53 as potential treatment options. Because the p53 pathway is highly complex, targeting different parts of this network presents both opportunities and challenges.
My colleagues and I are studying two other closely related proteins that regulate p53 by marking it for destruction when it’s no longer needed. These proteins, called MDM2 and MDMX, become overactive in cancer and break down p53.
p53 is quickly activated to respond to DNA damage.
Researchers have developed drugs to block MDM2 or MDMX, but targeting just one of these proteins is often not enough. If one is blocked, the other can step in and continue to destroy p53. Most existing drugs are also much better at blocking MDM2 than MDMX due to subtle differences in the latter’s shape, including a smaller area for p53 to bind. This makes it harder for drugs designed to target MDM2 to effectively bind to or reach MDMX.
To find molecules that could bind to both MDM2 and MDMX, researchers traditionally synthesize and test each molecule individually, which is often time-intensive and costly. In contrast, my colleagues and I used computer modeling tools to simulate how thousands of molecules might interact with the proteins, allowing us to narrow down potential candidates much more quickly.
We identified a small molecule we called CPO that shows promise in its ability to target both MDM2 and MDMX. Our models showed that CPO may have a stronger ability to block both MDM2 and MDMX than another molecule that researchers previously found could inhibit both of these proteins in cell culture.
More research is needed to confirm whether CPO works in living systems the same way it does in our computer predictions. If CPO is as safe and effective in cell and animal models, it may offer another treatment option for cancers where MDM2 and MDMX are overactive.
p53 and cancer treatment
The journey to fully harnessing the p53 pathway for cancer therapeutics is ongoing, and researchers are exploring several promising options.
Advances in gene-editing technologies like CRISPR are opening doors to directly correct p53 mutations in cancer cells.
Additionally, researchers are exploring combination therapies that pair p53-targeting drugs with other treatments, such as immunotherapy, to amplify their effectiveness.
Like other cancer treatments, one major challenge is ensuring the drugs target p53 in cancer cells and spare healthy cells from unnecessary damage. Achieving this balance will be crucial in translating these therapies from the lab to the clinic.
Prosper Obed Chukwuemeka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
