Director Walter Salles’s first feature film since 2012, the Oscar-nominated I’m Still Here is a return to home ground, and a return to strength, for the Brazilian auteur. At 68, Salles reconnects with his youth, telling a story in which he does not figure, but takes up the role of witness to the pain of others.
I’m Still Here is adapted from the autobiographical novel Ainda Estou Aqui by Salles’s contemporary, the writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva. The novel recounts Paiva’s father’s disappearance in 1971, under the repressive dictatorship of Emílio Garrastazu Médici, through the memories of the author’s mother, Eunice Paiva.
In Salles’s film, the Paivas lead an enchanted life in a house facing Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, until the long arm of the military regime wrecks their dream.
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Beloved family head, Rubens (Selton Mello), an engineer and congressman secretly collaborating with the underground opposition, is kidnapped by state police under the pretence of a routine interrogation. It then befalls his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) to sustain family life and give their children a sense of future while trying to find out what happened to her husband.
It’s the second act of the film, particularly the harrowing yet restrained sequences of Eunice’s days-long detention, that reveal the stakes of the story. Her traumatic experience in jail and increasingly desperate search for her husband afterwards is framed as a transformative journey. It’s one that will culminate 25 years later, when the memory of the disappeared is reinstated in the official archives of the nation’s history.
I’m Still Here adopts a linear style of storytelling and classical three-act structure (stability, disruption, reparation) that serves historical closure, reinforced by the display of the Paiva family’s photographic archive in the closing credits.
This familiar convention takes on a special poignancy in I’m Still Here, where the private archive is a powerful alternative to a discredited “official” media narrative. The reconstruction of everyday life conveys endurance and resistance. This in turn brings to the fore the gendered dynamics of the Paiva household.
Rubens’s underground political activity against the regime means that he leads a double life to which Eunice, for all her loving closeness to her husband, remains ignorant of. This is sorely tested when Rubens disappears. With him the main source of income, it leaves Eunice and the children to cobble together a new existence in São Paulo.
Adopting Eunice’s perspective throughout, the film observes how her relationship with her eldest daughters begins to fracture as they find different ways of coping with traumatic loss and an uncertain future. However, the film stays clear of melodrama, leaving Eunice to internalise the process instead.
In the lead role, the prolific 59-year-old actor Fernanda Torres carries the film as effortlessly in fitted pencil skirts and chic geometric patterns of late 1960s fashion. Her screen chemistry with the slightly younger Selton Mello – they are the perfect couple while happiness lasts – is palpable.
Torres’s controlled, nuanced performance navigates the family’s shift in fortunes with measured calm and steely determination, even as she gradually comes to terms with the fact that she’s on her own.
In this way, the film is a clear-cut tribute to a “feminine” politics of resilience. This matches the preference for a linear biopic over focus on fraught alliances and betrayals that may have determined the course of 1970s political life in Brazil.
Despite its stark subject matter and suffering heroine, the retro pleasures of I’m Still Here form one of the film’s strongest aspects. The measure of the family’s loss is given by a sweeping first act. Despite the all too readable signs of what’s to come (the film opens with Eunice enjoying a solitary swim in crystalline waters, disturbed by the sound of helicopters hovering above), the viewer is invited to live in the joyous present of the Paiva household.
The dynamic camerawork captures the energy of the children, connecting the space of the beach with the open-doors house where Eunice and Rubens act as genial hosts for their friends.
Through references to the vibrant tropicália musical movement the film celebrates and mourns not only the centrality of music to Brazilian cultural life, but the tastes of a cosmopolitan, white liberal middle class (to which Salles also belongs) whose lives and aspirations were cut short by the dictatorship.
Torres’s real-life mother, the decorated Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro, plays the older Eunice in the film’s closing scenes. The match is near perfect, as they both command the same intense yet guarded look.
Eunice’s character arc signifies the nation’s rise to consciousness. She goes back to study in her forties, becoming a lawyer working on behalf of the rights of indigenous women and in support of the families of the disappeared.
This personal engagement in justice and reparation is blighted by dementia. In 2014, the nonagenarian Eunice played by Montenegro is a silent, wheelchair-bound Alzheimer sufferer. This epilogue, shot in bleached digital textures vividly contrasts with the vibrant memories captured in the (recreated) Super-8 films shot by the Paivas.
As Brazil pulls itself together after the twin catastrophes of COVID and Bolsonarism, I’m Still Here’s cautionary tale for the present may be curtailed by the fact that its emotional core is placed so firmly in mourning its past, depicted as a idyllic moment of happiness and optimism before Brazil was robbed of its future.
Belén Vidal receives funding for her research project AGE-C. Ageing and Gender in European Cinema, Co-investigator which is funded by VolkswagenStiftung, 2023-2026.
A loggerhead turtle nesting. Mollie Rickwood, CC BY-NC-ND
Rising global temperatures are a particularly acute threat for the world’s sea turtles. That’s because the temperature of a turtle’s nest controls the sex of their offspring.
Coming ashore onto a beach (often the beach from where they hatched), sea turtles use their flippers to carefully scoop out the sand and create flask-shaped nests in the sand in which they lay their eggs. There is no maternal care for these nests – their success depends solely on the environment. Hotter nests will produce more female hatchlings, but fewer babies will survive into adulthood once temperatures rise above a critical threshold.
Unless sea turtles find a way to counteract rising nest temperatures, climate change could produce an increasing number of females and fewer offspring – a frightening scenario for sea turtle biologists like us.
Fortunately, we were pleased to discover that green and loggerhead turtles that breed in North Cyprus are arriving earlier in the year to offset some of the impacts of rising incubation temperatures.
Since the early 1990s, the Society for the Protection of Turtles and our team at the University of Exeter have been working together to monitor and protect the green and loggerhead turtles that nest on the beaches of North Cyprus.
Every summer, a team of dedicated volunteers patrols nesting beaches to record every nest that has been laid. They place temperature data-loggers into these nests and tag every female they encounter. The result is a unique database of over 1,300 individual female turtles for whom the date, location and hatching success of her nests is known.
Using this database, we were able to show that, since 1992, green and loggerhead turtles in North Cyprus are nesting more than half a day earlier each year (greens 0.61 days, loggerheads 0.78 days). Before the mid 2000s, no turtles had been recorded nesting before June, but now we expect to see quite a few nests from the start of May.
Do the seasons feel increasingly weird to you? You’re not alone. Climate change is distorting nature’s calendar, causing plants to flower early and animals to emerge at the wrong time.
This article is part of a series, Wild Seasons, on how the seasons are changing – and what they may eventually look like.
If temperatures keep rising at current rates, we estimated that to maintain current sex ratios, the loggerhead turtles would need to keep nesting half a day earlier each year. To prevent a decrease in hatching rates, they’ll need to nest 0.7 days earlier each year.
This means that, for the time being, our loggerheads are shifting their nesting dates early enough to maintain current incubation temperatures and, therefore, sex ratios and hatching success. Good news.
Though our study in loggerheads offers cause for optimism, there is no guarantee that the females will continue to nest earlier and earlier each year. To try to understand if this might be the case, we wanted to understand whether temperature was the main factor driving this earlier nesting.
Temperature isn’t everything
For individual green turtles, we confirmed that the temperature is an important factor in causing them to nest earlier. In fact, we found that individual females will nest 6.47 days earlier for every degree celsius increase in sea temperature.
However, we also showed that how many times a female has bred before and the number of times she lays eggs in a breeding season explain an equal amount of the variation in her lay dates. These observations have important effects when we think about what is happening to the green turtle population as a whole.
As a result of conservation measures such as protecting the nests from predation and relocating nests laid too close to the high water line we have seen a big population increase in the green turtles at our study site in North Cyprus. Since 1992, numbers have grown from 55 nests per year to over 400.
Understanding the current trend of earlier nesting is complicated. But, for now, we can be assured that sea turtles are doing just enough to counteract the negative effects of climate change – which is fantastic news.
The turtles are doing their bit. Now, it is up to us to ensure the continued conservation and long-term monitoring of this charismatic ocean ambassador to give them the best chance of survival in our changing world.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Annette Broderick receives funding from the Darwin Initiative, MAVA Foundation, Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society
Robin Snape is affiliated with The Society for the Protection of Turtles (SPOT).
Mollie Rickwood 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 – Africa – By Andrew Robert Donaldson, Senior Research Associate, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town
The reason for the abrupt cancellation was the failure of the minister to get cabinet approval for the proposal to raise value added tax (VAT) from 15% to 17%. VAT is the second biggest contributor to tax collection after personal income tax, followed by corporate taxes.
The strongest opposition to the idea came from parties that have joined the African National Congress in a government of national unity which was formed after the ruling party lost its majority in polls in June 2024.
To understand the finance minister’s efforts to raise VAT it’s helpful to revisit the revenue proposals of a year ago.
In the 2024 budget, all the additional revenue was to come from a “stealth tax” on personal income. Because personal income tax is levied at increasing rates as income rises, the tax burden rises as wages go up if tax thresholds are not adjusted for inflation.
In the Treasury’s estimates, R16.3 billion (US$889 million) was raised in 2024/25 by not making inflation-related adjustments to the personal income tax brackets and rebates. This meant that another 200,000 income-earners became taxpayers, and everyone’s effective tax rate was raised.
This has been a long-standing trend. Over the past decade, the tax threshold (for individuals under the age of 65) has declined from R115,000 (in today’s prices) to R95,750, bringing about 850,000 more people into the tax net.
Above the threshold, tax rates were raised by one percentage point in 2015 and the 45% rate was introduced in 2017.
As a strategy for raising personal income tax, the results have been impressive. Personal income tax has increased from 8% of GDP in 2014 to nearly 10%. In the nine months to December 2024, personal income tax increased by over 13% compared with the same period in 2023. Even after taking account of the revenue windfall from retirement fund withdrawals following recent reforms, this signals a substantial erosion of households’ disposable income.
But that is precisely the problem. Taxes collected on goods and services (mainly VAT and excise duties) increased by just 0.4% last year by comparison with 2023. Revenue from corporate income tax declined. The implication is clear: higher taxes on personal income are at least partially offset by reduced consumption and declines in revenue from other sources.
So the Treasury has taken the view, this year, that there should be relief given in the personal income tax and that additional revenue will have to come from taxes on consumption.
There are good reasons for this: personal income tax has contributed a rising share of the overall tax burden over the past decade, while households also face rising costs of electricity, housing and services. However, raising VAT also has its downsides: it generates revenue by raising prices relative to the costs of production, and effectively also reduces households’ spending power.
The Treasury’s estimate is that an increase in VAT from 15% to 17% would raise an additional R60 billion (US$3.3 billion) in revenue. To offset the impact on low-income households, the schedule of basic foods that don’t attract VAT will be extended beyond the present list of 21 items to include various specified meat cuts and tinned and bottled vegetables. In addition, above-inflation adjustments to social grants are proposed.
The main argument against increasing the VAT rate is that it is regressive – it has a greater impact on lower-income households than on the rich. But a two percentage point VAT increase would also be a substantial shock to overall consumption spending. It would temporarily raise inflation and it would have a negative impact on business income and profitability.
The arguments for a higher VAT rate, rather than other tax increases, are in part about its broad base and comparative ease of collection.
There are nonetheless valid concerns from an administrative perspective. The Treasury argues that other countries have higher VAT rates than South Africa (Morocco, Turkey, Brazil and India, for example). But this is not in itself protection against the potential impact of a higher tax rate on non-compliance and tax fraud.
The upsides
There may be deeper economic considerations behind the Treasury’s tax proposal.
The most compelling arguments for VAT as a revenue source are in its basic design structure: what is taxed and what is not. There are two key features. The first is that it taxes imports and zero-rates exports. The second is that the VAT base excludes investment.
The import VAT is sometimes seen as an unfair form of trade protection. But it simply levels the consumption tax across foreign and domestic-produced goods. And it’s simpler than excise and sales taxes.
The important consideration for domestic production is that by comparison with alternative taxes on income, the VAT encourages exports.
The exclusion of investment from the VAT base caused some controversy when the tax was introduced in 1990. Some argued that this would bias economic development in favour of capital and against labour. But investment and employment are complements. To achieve higher rates of employment, South Africa needs far greater levels of investment. Since 2013, investment has fallen as a percentage of GDP from 19% to less than 15%: nowhere enough to generate growth sufficient to bring down South Africa’s unemployment rate.
Because the VAT base is consumption, not investment, it supports expansion of the economy’s productive capacity.
Managing the fallout
But this doesn’t change the short-term impact on the cost of living that would result from a VAT rise. A higher tax burden will reduce demand and inhibit growth at first, before potentially contributing to fiscal stability and lower interest rates.
If the tax increase is to be avoided, then the spotlight will have to fall on the expenditure side of the budget. This is a far harder discussion than tax policy – there are a thousand options to consider, and there are vested interests wherever you look.
If Godongwana’s VAT rate increase is to be rejected, tough choices on the alternatives will have to be confronted.
Andrew Robert Donaldson is a former National Treasury official.
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Guilherme Casarões, Professor of Political Science, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo da Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV/EAESP)
The indictment filed by the attorney general’s office on Tuesday February 18 against Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and 33 other people is the country’s most eagerly awaited – and most important – political event of recent months. The document doesn’t really contain any new elements: almost all of the facts presented were already included in the indictment filed by the federal police in November last year.
There are two major developments. The first is Bolsonaro’s accountability for a process of democratic subversion, which lasted until the events of January 8, 2023. It all began in 2021, as soon as the supreme court overturned convictions against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and paved the way for his return to the electoral game.
The decision in favour of Lula led Bolsonaro to adopt, according to the complaint, “a growing tone of rupture with institutional normality”. Since then, the president, his allies and supporters have begun to question the legitimacy of the Supreme Court (based on the slogan “Supreme is the people”), as well as the suitability of the electronic ballot boxes.
Anti-democratic narratives were inspired by Trump slogans
In both cases, the anti-democratic narratives were inspired by Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign slogans, such as “stop the steal” and “big lie”. Emulating Trumpism has been an inseparable part of Bolsonaro’s political strategy since his 2018 presidential campaign.
The second new development concerns the characterisation, as a coup attempt, of a set of decisions and plans that don’t fit the classic model of institutional rupture. Since Brazil’s republican political history has been marked by coups d’état, a common strategy in Jair Bolsonaro’s defence is based on the idea that if there was no attempt to put tanks on the streets or close down congress, there was no intention to break up democracy.
In his 272-page report, Paulo Gonet argues that a contemporary coup can happen by other means. In the Brazilian case, the attempt was marked by the overt use of disinformation mechanisms, often by the president himself and members of the government, to promote distrust in institutions and the electoral process, produce social instability and ensure that Bolsonaro remained in power, even after being defeated at the polls.
But the complaint goes further. It wasn’t just an attempt to undermine democracy with widely disseminated narratives and attacks on supporters on social media. In the words of the attorney general, among the objectives of the criminal organisation set up for the coup were to carry out “kidnappings, arrests and killings” in order to guarantee control of the three branches of government and the re-establishment of law and order.
High-ranking officers were part of anti-democratic plan
The report says according to the coup plan, called “Green and Yellow Dagger”, members of the army special forces would assassinate the supreme court justice, Alexandre de Moraes, as well as the winners of the 2022 election, Lula da Silva and his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin. The plan had already been known for a few months, but Gonet brings elements to support the case that Jair Bolsonaro was not only aware of these steps, but that he agreed to them.
The accusations against the former president also shed light on the role of the military in the coup plot. Officers of all ranks, starting with members of the president’s inner circle, such as Admiral Almir Garnier and Generals Augusto Heleno, Paulo Sérgio Nogueira and Walter Braga Netto, were integral parts of the anti-democratic planning.
Bolsonaro continues to deny all the accusations and is trying to stay alive politically. And the complaint puts Bolsonaro in the position of being politically persecuted. Victimisation is one of the far right’s most popular strategies, as it allows them to project themselves, in the name of the people, against an empty and frightening enemy (the “system”).
Although Gonet was very careful in drafting his complaint as an exclusively legal piece, Bolsonaro – in congress and on the networks – was quick to denounce an alleged persecution against “the greatest political leader Brazil has ever seen”. In other words, the tension against political institutions is in full swing.
Bolsonarismo remains the main opposition force
The accusation also has the potential to inflame Bolsonaro’s supporters, with possible electoral consequences. The next national election in Brazil is a year and a half away and Bolsonaro remains the main opposition force. Figures such as former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro and the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, are projected as candidates for the 2026 presidential race.
Faced with a weak government, whose popularity has fallen from 35 per cent to 24 per cent since December, a Bolsonarism unified by the narrative of persecution will be a major problem for Lula. This narrative will be tested in mid-March, when national demonstrations have been called against the current government – and in favour of Bolsonaro.
Finally, we must monitor how the White House responds to political events in Brazil. We know that pressure from the Biden administration was crucial in preventing the coup d’état from materialising in 2022. Trump and his allies, such as Elon Musk and Marco Rubio, are open critics of Lula and the decisions of the supreme court.
It’s unlikely that the Trump administration, a month after taking office, will treat the Brazilian political situation as a priority. But the road to 2026 will be long and tortuous, and challenges to democracy can come from both inside and outside the country.
Guilherme Casarões não presta consultoria, trabalha, possui ações ou recebe financiamento de qualquer empresa ou organização que poderia se beneficiar com a publicação deste artigo e não revelou nenhum vínculo relevante além de seu cargo acadêmico.
You may have noticed that changes in weight are sometimes accompanied by changes in your period.
But what does one really have to do with the other?
Maintaining a healthy weight is key to regular menstruation. Here’s why – and when to talk to your doctor.
The role of hormones
The menstrual cycle – including when you bleed and ovulate – is regulated by a balance of hormones, particularly oestrogen.
The ovaries are connected to the brain through a hormonal signalling system. This acts as a kind of “chain of command” of hormones controlling the menstrual cycle.
The brain produces a key hormone, called the gonadotropin-releasing hormone, in the hypothalamus. It stimulates the release of other hormones which tell the ovaries to produce oestrogen and release a mature egg (ovulation).
But the release of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone depends on oestrogen levels and how much energy is available to the body. Both of these are closely related to body weight.
Oestrogen is primarily produced in the ovaries, but fat cells also produce oestrogen. This is why weight – and more specifically body fat – can affect menstruation.
Fat cells produce oestrogen, a hormone with a key role in the menstrual cycle. Halfpoint/Shutterstock
Can being underweight affect my period?
The body prioritises conserving energy. When reserves are low it stops anything non-essential, such as reproduction.
This can happen when you are underweight, or suddenly lose weight. It can also happen to people who undertake intense exercise or have inadequate nutrition.
The stress sends the hypothalamus into survival mode. As a result, the body lowers its production of the hormones important to ovulation, including oestrogen, and stops menstruation.
Being chronically underweight means not having enough energy available to support reproduction, which can lead to menstrual irregularities including amenorrhea (no periods at all).
This results in very low oestrogen levels and can cause potentially serious health risks, including infertility and bone loss.
Missing periods is not always a cause for concern. But a chronic lack of energy availability can be, if not addressed. The two are linked, meaning understanding your period and being aware of any prolonged changes is important.
How about being overweight?
Higher body fat can elevate oestrogen levels.
When you’re overweight your body stores extra energy in fat cells, which produce oestrogen and other hormones and can cause inflammation in the body. So, if you have a lot of fat cells, your body produces an excess of these hormones. This can affect normal functioning of the uterus lining (endometrium).
Excess oestrogen and inflammation can interfere in the feedback system to the brain and stop ovulation. As a result, you may have irregular or missed periods.
It can also lead to pain (dysmenorrhea) and heavier bleeding (menorrhagia).
Being overweight can sometimes worsen premenstrual syndrome as well. One study found for every 1 kg increase in height (m²) in body mass index (BMI), the risk of premenstrual syndrome went up by 3%. Women with a BMI over 27.5 kg/m² had a much higher risk than those with a BMI under 20 kg/m².
Sometimes weight changes are linked to hormonal balances that indicate an underlying condition.
For example, people with polycystic ovary syndrome may gain weight or find it hard to lose weight because they have a hormonal imbalance, including higher levels of testosterone.
The syndrome is also associated with irregular periods and heavy bleeding. So, if you notice these symptoms, it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor.
Similarly, weight changes and irregular periods in midlife might signal the start of perimenopause, the period before menopause (when your periods stop altogether).
Small changes in when your period comes or how long it lasts are usually harmless.
Similarly, slight fluctuations in weight won’t usually have a significant impact on your period – or the changes may be so subtle you don’t notice them.
But regular menstruation is an important marker of female health. Sometimes changes in flow, regularity or the pain you experience can indicate there’s something else going on.
If you notice changes and they don’t feel right to you, speak to a health care provider.
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.
Imagine you have just finished a workout. Your legs are like jelly, your lungs are burning and you just want to collapse on the couch.
But instead, you pick yourself up and go for a brisk walk.
While this might seem counterintuitive, doing some light activity after an intense workout – known as “active recovery” – has been suggested to reduce soreness and speed up recovery after exercise.
But does it work or is it just another fitness myth?
What is active recovery?
Active recovery simply describes doing some low-intensity physical activity after a strenuous bout of exercise.
This is commonly achieved through low-intensity cardio, such as walking or cycling, but can also consist of low-intensity stretching, or even bodyweight exercises such as squats and lunges.
The key thing is making sure the intensity is light or moderate, without moving into the “vigorous” range.
As a general rule, if you can maintain a conversation while you’re exercising, you are working at a light-to-moderate intensity.
Some people consider doing an easy training session on their “rest days” as a form of active recovery. However, this has not really been researched. So we will be focusing on the more traditional form of active recovery in this article, where it is performed straight after exercise.
What does active recovery do?
Active recovery helps speed up the removal of waste products, such as lactate and hydrogen, after exercise. These waste products are moved from the muscles into the blood, before being broken down and used for energy, or simply excreted.
This is thought to be one of the ways it promotes recovery.
In some instances active recovery has been shown to reduce muscle soreness in the days following exercise. This may lead to a faster return to peak performance in some physical capabilities such as jump height.
This means active recovery can be used regularly after exercise without the risk of affecting the benefits of the main exercise session.
There’s evidence to the contrary too
Not all research on active recovery is positive.
Several studies indicate it’s no better than simply lying on the couch when it comes to reducing muscle soreness and improving performance after exercise.
In fact, there’s more research suggesting active recovery doesn’t have an effect than research showing it does have an effect.
While there could be several reasons for this, two stand out.
First, the way in which active recovery is applied in the research varies as lot. It’s likely there is a sweet spot in terms of how long active recovery should last to maximise its benefits (more on this later).
Second, it’s likely the benefits of active recovery are trivial to small. As such, they won’t always be considered “significant” in the scientific literature, despite offering potentially meaningful benefits at an individual level. In sport science, studies often have small sample sizes, which can make it hard to see small effects.
But there doesn’t seem to be any research suggesting active recovery is less effective than doing nothing, so at worst it certainly won’t cause any harm.
When is active recovery useful?
Active recovery appears useful if you need to perform multiple bouts of exercise within a short time frame. For example, if you were in a tournament and had 10–20 minutes between games, then a quick active recovery would be better than doing nothing.
Active recovery might also be a useful strategy if you have to perform exercise again within 24 hours after intense activity.
For example, if you are someone who plays sport and you need to play games on back-to-back days, doing some low-intensity active recovery after each game might help reduce soreness and improve performance on subsequent days.
Similarly, if you are training for an event like a marathon and you have a training session the day after a particularly long or intense run, then active recovery might get you better prepared for your next training session.
Conversely, if you have just completed a low-to-moderate intensity bout of exercise, it’s unlikely active recovery will offer the same benefits. And if you will get more than 24 hours of rest between exercise sessions, active recovery is unlikely to do much because this will probably be long enough for your body to recover naturally anyway.
The good news is you don’t have to do a lot of active recovery to see a benefit.
A systematic review looking at the effectiveness of active recovery across 26 studies found 6–10 minutes of exercise was the sweet spot when it came to enhancing recovery.
Interestingly, the intensity of exercise didn’t seem to matter. If it was within this time frame, it had a positive effect.
So it makes sense to make your active recovery easy (because why would you make it hard if you don’t have to?) by keeping it in the light-to-moderate intensity range.
However, don’t expect active recovery to be a complete game changer. The research would suggest the benefits are likely to be small at best.
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.
Archaeologists in Egypt have made an exciting discovery: the tomb of Pharaoh Thutmose II, a ruler who has long been overshadowed by his famous wife and half-sister, Queen Hatshepsut.
The remarkable find is located in the Western Valley (a burial ground for queens rather than kings), near the complex of Deir el-Bahari, which houses the funerary temple of Hatshepsut. Both of us worked together as archaeologists at this spectacular site some 15 years ago.
Thutmose II’s tomb has been labelled the first, and biggest, discovery of a royal tomb since Tutankhamun’s tomb was found just over 100 years ago.
Despite being totally empty, it’s a crucial element in further understanding a transformative period in ancient Egyptian history.
Hatshepsut’s forgotten brother and husband
Thutmose II (also called Akheperenre) reigned in the first half of the 15th century BCE. This made him the fourth ruler of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty, which marked the beginning of the New Kingdom period.
Thutmose II likely ruled for a little over ten years, although some scholars believe his reign may have lasted only three years.
He was the son of a great pharaoh Thutmose I and his lesser wife, Mutnofret. He married his half-sister Queen Hatshepsut according to the royal custom, to solidify the rule and bloodline. Together they had a daughter named Nefrure.
Thutmose II’s mummy was discovered in 1881 but his original tomb was unknown until now. Wikimedia
Upon his death, his wife Hatshepsut became the sixth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty – and arguably one of the most famous and successful female rulers of all time.
Military activities
As the successor of Thutmose I, Thutmose II continued his father’s military policy in the southern regions of Egypt.
According to preserved inscriptions, he ordered the brutal suppression of a rebellion against Egyptian rule in the land of Kush (in present-day north Sudan). As a result, a significant number of prisoners were brought to Egypt – possibly as part of a campaign.
But Thutmose II’s military campaigns were minor in comparison to the grand conquests of his predecessors and successors. Most historians believe he was a weak ruler and that Hatshepsut had a major role in governing the country, even long before his death. However, others contest this.
Thutmose II’s short reign left modest traces of building activity in Karnak, one of the largest religious centres in ancient Egypt, located in present-day Luxor.
The structure, of which only fragments survive, features a unique decoration depicting Thutmose II, Hatshepsut as his royal wife before she became a ruler, and their daughter Nefrure. The origins of the monument are uncertain. It’s possible Thutmose II started it and Hatshepsut finished it.
The monument was reconstructed by French researchers and can now be admired at the Open Air Museum in Karnak.
Karnak is one of the most important religious centres in Ancient Egypt. Katarzyna Kapiec
Other monuments of Thutmose II were found in the southern regions of Egypt, such as in Elephantine, in the city of Aswan, and in northern Sudan (likely connected to his military campaigns).
The condemnation of Hatshepsut’s memory
Interestingly, the name of Thutmose II became strongly associated with many of Hatshepsut’s constructions due to the actions of Thutmose III.
Regarded as one of the greatest warriors, military commanders and military strategists of all time, Thutmose III was the nephew and stepson of Hatshepsut, and co-ruled with her as a regent.
At the end of Thutmose III’s reign, some 20 years after Hatshepsut’s death, he carried out a large-scale campaign to remove or alter Hatshepsut’s names and images. Scholars call this “damnatio memoriae”, or condemnation of the memory.
An example of Hatshepsut’s ‘damnatio memoriae’ at Deir el-Bahari. Hatshepsut’s cartouches (left) were defaced, while Thutmose III’s (right) remained untouched. Wikimedia
This was likely due to concerns about securing the throne for his successor, Amenhotep II, by linking him to his male ancestors.
In many cases, Hatshepsut’s name was replaced with that of Thutmose II, making him the principal celebrant in temples built by Hatshepsut, such as in Deir el-Bahari.
View at the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari at the dawn. Katarzyna Kapiec
What does Thutmose II’s empty tomb tell us?
The newly discovered tomb reveals fresh details about the status of Thutmose II and his role in the sociopolitical structure of 15th century BCE Egypt – a period of territorial expansion, wealth and political intrigue. It also sheds light on the perception of his rule at the time.
Thutmose II has been painted as an ineffectual ruler. And the latest findings don’t contradict this.
Unlike his father Thutmose I, who expanded Egypt’s reign through military strength, or his stepson Thutmose III, who became one of the most famous Egyptian warrior-kings, his modest tomb suggests his legacy may not have been as widely celebrated as others in his dynasty.
The tomb’s location is also intriguing, as it is near the tombs of royal wives, including the cliff tomb of Hatshepsut, which was prepared for her when she was still a royal wife.
Thutmose II’s mummy was discovered in the so-called Royal Cache in Deir el-Bahari in 1881, alongside other royal mummies. Many royal mummies were relocated here for protection from flooding and during the uncertain times of the 21st Dynasty (circa 1077–950 BCE), some 400–500 years after Thutmose II’s original burial.
However, experts suspect Thutmose II’s tomb might have been emptied even earlier due to flooding from a waterfall above it.
The two of us speculate another tomb may have been built for him, and is still awaiting discovery.
An 1881 photograph of some of the coffins and mummies found in DB320, taken before the mummies were unwrapped. Wikimedia
Ultimately, Thutmose II’s reign remains shrouded in mystery due to the lack of available records. The search for his tomb – from Western Valley, through the Valley of the Kings, all the way to Deir el-Bahari – spanned centuries.
Despite its poorly preserved state, and its scarcity compared with Tutankhamun’s splendorous tomb, this discovery will expand our understanding of the overlooked figure of Thutmose II, and the role he played in setting up the reign of Hatshepsut – arguably the most successful of the four female pharaohs.
In fact, paving the way for the ascent of Hatshepsut may have been his greatest contribution.
Anna M. Kotarba-Morley receives funding from Australian Research Council and previously received funding from National Centre of Science in Poland.
Katarzyna Kapiec receives funding from National Science Centre in Poland
Thirty-four artworks created with artificial intelligence (AI) have gone up for sale at Christie’s in New York, in the famed auction house’s first collection dedicated to AI art.
Christie’s says the collection aims to explore “human agency in the age of AI within fine art”, prompting viewers to question the evolving role of the artist and of creativity.
Questions are not all the collection has prompted: there has also been a backlash. At the time of writing, more than 6,000 artists have signed an open letter calling on Christie’s to cancel the auction.
What’s in the collection?
Sougwen Chung’s Study 33 (2024) was created through a process that captured data from an EEG headset and a computer vision system tracking body movement and fed it to a painting robot called D.O.U.G._4. Sougwen Chung / Christie’s
The Augmented Intelligence collection, up for auction from February 20 to March 5, spans work from early AI art pioneers such as Harold Cohen through to contemporary innovators such as Refik Anadol, Vanessa Rosa and Sougwen Chung.
The showcased pieces vary widely in their use of AI. Some are physical objects, some are digital-only works – sold as non-fungible tokens or NFTs – and others are offered as both digital and physical components together.
Some have a performance aspect, such as Alexander Reben’s Untitled Robot Painting 2025 (to be titled by AI at the conclusion of the sale).
After generating an initial image tile, the work iteratively expands outwards, growing with each new bid in the auction. As the image evolves digitally, it is translated onto a physical canvas by an oil-painting robot. The price estimate for the work ranges from US$100 to US$1.7 million, and at the time of writing the bid sits at US$3,000.
Alexander Reben’s Untitled Robot Painting 2025 involves art generated by AI and painted by robot as bids come in. Alexander Reben / Christie’s
Claims of exploitation
The controversy surrounding this show is not surprising. Debates over the creation of AI art have simmered ever since the technology became widely available in 2022.
The open letter calling for the auction to be cancelled argues that many works in the exhibition use “AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license”.
Embedding Study 1 & 2 (from the xhairymutantx series) (2024) by Holly Herndon and Matt Dryhurst explores the concept of ‘Holly Herndon’ in generative AI models. Holly Herndon and Matt Dryhurst / Christie’s
The letter says:
These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them.
[Christie’s] support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivizes AI companies’ mass theft of human artists’ work.
Copyright and cultural appropriation
Refik Anadol’s Machine Hallucinations – ISS Dreams (2021) is a video work used an AI model trained on publicly available images taken from the International Space Station. Refik Anadol / Christie’s
There are several attempts by artists to bring legal proceedings against AI companies underway. As yet, the key question remains unresolved: by training AI models on existing artworks, do AI models infringe artists’ copyright, or is this a case of fair use?
Artists who are critical of AI are rightly concerned about losing their incomes, or their skills becoming irrelevant or outdated. They are also concerned about losing their creative community – their place in the creative ecosystem.
Last year, Indigenous artists withdrew from a Brisbane art prize, highlighting concerns about AI and cultural appropriation.
At the same time, many AI artists don’t use copyrighted material. Refik Anadol, for instance, has stated that his work in the Christie’s collection was made using publicly available datasets from NASA.
How the ‘work’ of art is changing
The Christie’s event occurs during a major shift in what it means to be an artist, and to be creative. Some participants in the show even question whether the label of “artist” is even necessary or required to make meaningful imagery and artefacts.
Many non-artists may wonder – if AI is used, where is the real “work” of art? The answer is that many forms of work will look different in the age of AI, and creative endeavours are no exception.
Creativity gave humans an evolutionary edge. What happens if society censors or undermines certain forms of creativity?
Pindar Van Arman’s Emerging Faces (2017) was created via two AI agents: one attempted to generate images of faces, while the other stopped the process as soon as it recognised the image as a face. Pindar Van Arman / Christie’s
Clinging to traditional ideas about how things are done ignores the bigger picture. When used thoughtfully, technology can stretch our creative potential.
And AI cannot make art without human artists. Creating with new technologies requires context, direction, meaning, and an aesthetic sense.
In the case of the Christie’s auction, artists are doing much more than typing in prompts. They iterate with data, refine models, and actively shape the end result.
This evolving relationship between humans and machines reframes the creative process, with AI becoming more like a “conversational partner”.
What now?
Calling for the Christie’s auction to be cancelled may be shortsighted. It oversimplifies a complex issue and sidesteps deeper questions about how we should think about authorship, what authenticity means, and the evolving relationship between artists and the tools they use.
Whether we embrace or resist AI art, the Christie’s auction pushes us to rethink artistic labour and the creative process.
At the same time, Christie’s may need to take more care to produce collections that are sensitive to contemporary issues. Artists have real concerns about loss of work and income. A “move fast and break things” approach feels ill-suited to the thoughtfulness associated with artistic production.
Harold Cohen’s Untitled (i23-3758) (1987) was produced with the groundbreaking AARON image-generating AI system. Harold Cohen / Christie’s
Beyond protest, more education and collaboration is required overall. Artists who do not adapt to new technologies and ways of creating may be left behind.
Equally important is ensuring AI does not diminish human agency or exploit creatives. Discussions around achieving sustainable and inclusive AI could follow other sectors focusing on equally sharing benefits and having rigorous ethical standards.
Examples might come from the open source community (and organisations such as the Open Source Initiative), where licensing and frameworks allow contributors to benefit from collective development. And in the tech realm, some software companies (such as IBM) do stand out for their rigorous approach to ethics.
Rather than cancelling the Christie’s auction, perhaps this is a moment for us to reimagine how we do creativity and adapt with AI.
But are artists – and audiences – prepared for a future where the nature of being an artist, and creativity itself, is radically different?
Jessica Herrington 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.
A month in, and it is clear even to conservatives that US President Donald Trump is attempting to fundamentally reshape the role of the American president.
Trump and his supporters sees the natural authority of the American president in broad terms, similar to those of the Russian president, or a king. Trump, in fact, has already likened himself to a king.
This desire to “Russify” the presidency is not an accident: Trump and many of his supporters admire the king-like power that Vladimir Putin exercises as Russian president.
Russia’s system of government is what I call a “crown-presidential” system, which makes the president a kind of elected king.
Two powers are central to this role.
First, like a king, the Russian “crown-president” does not rely on an elected legislature to make policy. Instead, Putin exercises policy-making authority unilaterally via decree.
Putin has used decrees to wage wars, privatise the economy and even to amend the constitution to lay claim to the parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia since 2014.
He has also used these decrees in a performative way, for example, by declaring pay raises for all Russian state employees without any ability to enforce it.
Over the last month, Trump has made similar use of decrees (what the White House now terms “presidential actions”).
He has issued scores of presidential decrees to unilaterally reshape vast swathes of American policy – far more than past presidents. Trump sees these orders as a way of both exercising and demonstrating his vast presidential power.
Control over the bureaucracy
Second, like a king, Putin does not allow the Russian legislature to use the law to organise the executive branch and create agencies independent of presidential control. Instead, he has unquestioned dominance over both the organisation and staffing of the executive branch. This has given him vast power to dominate politics by controlling information gathering and legal prosecutions.
A similar push is underway in the United States. Trump has appointed key loyalists to head the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Moreover, he is seeking to restructure the executive branch by abolishing some agencies altogether and vastly reducing the size of the workforce in others.
Can the courts stop Trump?
Trump’s attempt to Russify the American presidency undermines the American constitutional order.
Courts are the natural “first responders” in this kind of crisis. And many courts have blocked some of Trump’s early decrees.
This legal response is important. But it is not enough on it own.
First, the US Supreme Court might be more willing to accept this expansion of presidential power than lower courts. In a ruling last year, for example, the court granted the president immunity from criminal prosecution, showing itself to be sympathetic to broad understandings of executive power.
Second, presidential decrees can be easily withdrawn and modified. This can allow Trump and his legal team to recalibrate as his decrees are challenged and find the best test cases to take to the Supreme Court.
Third, parts of the conservative right have long argued for a far more powerful president. For instance, the idea of a “unitary executive” has been discussed in conservative circles for years. This essentially claims that the president should be able to direct and control the entire executive branch, from the bureaucracy to prosecutors to the FBI.
These arguments are already being made to justify Trump’s actions. As Elon Musk has said, “you could not ask for a stronger mandate from the public” to reform the executive branch. These arguments will be made to courts to justify Trump’s expansion of power.
Fourth, even if the Supreme Court does block some decrees, it is possible the White House will simply ignore these actions. We had an early glimpse of this when Trump posted that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law”.
Vice President JD Vance has also said judges “aren’t allowed” to block the president’s “legitimate power”.
The importance of political mobilisation and messaging
Trump’s aggressive use of presidential power is not just a constitutional crisis, it is a political one. For those seeking to resist, this is too important to just be left to the courts; it must also involve America’s key political institutions.
The most obvious place to start is in Congress. Lawmakers must act decisively to assert the legal power granted to them in the constitution to check the power of the presidency. This would include active Congressional use of its budgeting power, as well as its oversight powers on the presidency.
This could happen now if a few Republicans were to take a principled position on important constitutional issues, though nearly all have so far preferred to fall in line. Democrats could retake both branches of Congress in the midterm elections in 2026, though, and assert this power.
The states can and should also act to resist this expansion of presidential power. This action could take many forms, including refusing to deploy their traditional police powers to enforce decrees they view to be unconstitutional or unlawful.
In mobilising to defend the constitution, these institutions could appeal to the American people with more than the narrow legal argument that Trump’s acts are unconstitutional. They could also make the broader political argument that turning the American president into a Russian-style, elected king will foster a form of inefficient, unresponsive and corrupt politics.
Or, in the words of The New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, “it’s the corruption, stupid”.
Time is of the essence. Russia shows the more time a “crown-president” is able to operate, the more entrenched this system becomes. For those hoping to preserve American democracy, the time is now for not just legal, but political resistance.
William Partlett 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.
As French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls lands in New Caledonia tomorrow to pursue talks on its political future, the situation on the ground has again gained tension over the past few days.
The local political spectrum is deeply divided between the two main opposing camps, the pro-independence and those wanting New Caledonia to remain part of France.
The rift has already culminated in May 2024 with rioting resulting in 14 deaths, several hundreds injured, thousands of job losses due to the destruction, burning and looting of businesses, and a material cost of over 2 billion euros (NZ$3.7 billion).
Valls hosted talks in Paris with every party represented in New Caledonia’s Congress on February 4-9.
Those talks, held in “bilateral” mode, led to his decision to travel to Nouméa and attempt to bring everyone to the same negotiating table.
It is all about finding an agreement that would allow an exit from the Nouméa Accord and to draw a fresh roadmap for New Caledonia’s political future.
However, in the face of radically different and opposing views, the challenge is huge.
The two main blocs, even though they acknowledged the Paris talks may have been helpful, still hold very clear-cut and antagonistic positions.
Each camp seems to have their own interpretation of the 1998 Nouméa Accord, which has until now defined a roadmap for further autonomy and a gradual transfer of powers.
The main bloc within the pro-independence side, Union Calédonienne (UC), which since last year de facto controls the wider FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front), has been repeatedly placing as its target a new “Kanaky Agreement” to be signed by 24 September 2025 and, from that date, a five-year “transition period” to attain full independence from France.
Within the pro-independence camp, more moderate parties, such as PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), have distanced themselves from a UC-dominated FLNKS, and are favourable to some kind of “independence in association with France”.
On the pro-France side, the two main components, the Les Loyalistes and the Rassemblement-LR, have shown a united front. One of their main arguments is based on the fact that in 2018, 2020 and 2021, three successive referenda on self-determination have resulted in three votes, each of those producing a majority rejecting independence.
However, the third and latest poll in December 2021 was boycotted by most of the pro-independence voters.
The pro-independence parties have since challenged the 2021 poll result, even though it has been ruled by the courts as valid.
Pro-France parties are also advocating for a change in the political system to give each of New Caledonia’s three provinces more powers, a move they described as an “internal federalism” but that critics have decried, saying this amounted to a kind of apartheid.
Talks required since 2022 The bipartisan talks became necessary after the three referendums were held.
The Nouméa Accord stipulated that in the event that three consecutive referendums rejected independence, then all political stakeholders should “meet and examine the situation”.
There have been earlier attempts to bring about those talks, but some components of the pro-independence movement, notably the UC, have consistently declined.
Under a previous government, French Minister for Home Affairs and Overseas territories Gérald Darmanin, after half a dozen inconclusive trips to New Caledonia, tried to push some of the most urgent parts of the political agreement through a constitutional reform process, especially on a change to New Caledonia’s list of eligible registered voters at local elections.
This was supposed to allow citizens who have resided in New Caledonia for at least ten uninterrupted years to finally cast their votes. Until now, the electoral roll has been “frozen” since 2009 — only those residing before 1998 had the right to vote.
Pro-independence parties protested, saying this was a way of “diluting” the indigenous Kanak votes.
The protest — in the name of “Kanak existential identity” — gained momentum and on 13 May 2024 erupted into riots.
Now the sensitive electoral roll issue is back on the agenda, only it will no longer be tackled separately, but will be part of a wider and comprehensive scope of talks regarding New Caledonia’s political future.
Heavy schedule for Valls On Thursday, Valls unveiled his programme for what is scheduled to be a six-day stay in New Caledonia from 22-26 February 2025.
During this time, he will spend a significant amount of time in the capital Nouméa, holding talks with political parties, economic stakeholders and representatives of the civil society and law and order agencies.
He will also travel to rural parts of New Caledonia.
In the capital, two solid days have been earmarked for “negotiations” at the Congress, with the aim of finding the best way to achieve a political agreement, if all parties agree to meet and talk.
On Tuesday, February 25, Valls also intends to pay homage and lay wreaths on independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou and anti-independence leader Jacques Lafleur’s graves.
They were the leaders of FLNKS and (pro-France) RPCR, who eventually signed the Matignon Accords in 1998 and shook hands after half a decade of quasi civil war, during the previous civil unrest in the second half of the 1980s.
Valls was then a young member of French Prime Minister Michel Rocard (Socialist) who enabled the Matignon agreement.
On several occasions, over the past few days, Valls has stressed the grave situation New Caledonia has been facing since the riots, the “devastated” economy and the need to restore a bipartisan dialogue.
He told public broadcaster NC La Première that since the unrest started had France had provided financial support to sustain New Caledonia’s economy.
‘Fractures and deep wounds within New Caledonia’s society’ “But blood has been shed . . . there have been deaths, injuries, there are fractures and deep wounds within New Caledonia’s society,” Valls said.
“And to get out of this, dialogue is needed, to find a compromise . . . to prevent violence from coming back. I still believe those (opposing) positions are reconcilable, even though they’re quite far apart,” he said.
“I’m very much aware of the difficulties . . . but we have to find an agreement, a compromise.”
One clear indication that during his visit to New Caledonia the French minister will be walking on shaky ground came a few days ago.
When, speaking to French national daily Le Monde, he recalled the Nouméa Accord included a wide range of possible perspectives from “a shared sovereignty” to a “full sovereignty”, there was an immediate outcry from the pro-French parties, who steadfastly brandished the three recent referendums opposing independence and urging the minister to respect those “democratic” results.
“Respecting the Nouméa Accord means respecting the choice of New Caledonians”, said Les Loyalistes-Le Rassemblement-LR in a media release.
“Shared sovereignty is the current situation. It’s all in the Nouméa Accord, which itself is enshrined in the French Constitution”, Valls replied.
Over the past six months, several notions have emerged in terms of a political future for New Caledonia.
It all comes down to wording: from independence-association (Cook Islands style), to outright “independence” or “shared sovereignty” (as suggested by French Senate President Gérard Larcher during his visit in October 2024).
A former justice minister under Socialist President François Hollande, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, well-versed in New Caledonian affairs, suggested an innovative wording which, he believed, could bring about some form of consensus — the term “associated state”, could be slightly modified into “associated country” (“country” being one of the ways to describe New Caledonia, also described as a sui generis entity under French Law).
Urvoas said this would make the notion more palatable.
Pro-France meetings indoors On Wednesday evening, in an indoor multi-purpose hall in Nouméa, an estimated 2000 sympathisers of pro-France Rassemblement and Loyalists gathered to hear and support their leaders who had come to explain what was discussed in Paris and reiterate the pro-France bloc’s position.
“We told [Valls] the ‘bilaterals’ are over. Now we want plenary discussions or nothing,” pro-France Virginie Ruffenach told the crowd.
“We will tell him: Manuel, your full sovereignty is No Pasaran! (in Spanish ‘Will not pass’, a reference to Valls’s Spanish heritage),” said Nicolas Metzdorf, who is also one of the two New Caledonian MPs in the French National Assembly, speaking to supporters brandishing blue, white and red French flags.
Metzdorf said he hoped that supporters would show up during the minister’s visit with the same flags “to remind him of three “no” votes in the three referenda.
A ban on all open-air public meetings is still in force in Nouméa and its greater area.
The two-flag driving licence declared illegal. Image: New Caledonia govt
Double flags banned on driving licences Adding to the current tensions, an announcement also came earlier this week regarding a court ruling on another highly sensitive issue — the flag.
The ruling came in an appeal case from the Paris Administrative Court.
It overturned a ruling made in 2023 by the former New Caledonian (pro-independence) territorial government to add the Kanak flag to the local driving licence, next to the French flag.
In its February 14 ruling, the Appeal Court stated that the Kanak flag could not be used on such official documents because “it is not the official flag” of New Caledonia.
The court once again referred to the Nouméa Accord, which said the Kanak flag, even though it was often used alongside the French flag, had not been formally endorsed as New Caledonia’s “identity symbol”.
The tribunal also urged the new government to make the necessary changes and to re-circulate the former one-flag version “without delay”.
Meanwhile, the government is bearing the cost of a fine of 100, 000 French Pacific francs (about US$875) a day, which currently totals over US$43,000 since January 1.
The “identity symbols”, as defined by the Nouméa Accord, also include a motto (the wording ‘Terre de Parole, Terre de Partage’ — Land of Words, Land of Sharing’ was chosen) and even a national anthem.
But despite several attempts since 1998, no agreement has yet been reached on a common flag.
This week, hours after the court ruling, an image is being circulated on social media declaring: “If this flags disturbs you, I’ll help you pack your suitcase” (“Si ce drapeau te dérange, je t’aide à faire tes valises”).
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s announcement this week that the island nation will open a diplomatic mission in Jerusalem has been labelled “an act of aggression” by Palestine.
On Tuesday, the Fiji government revealed that Cabinet had decided to locate its consulate in Jerusalem, which remains at the centre of the Palestine-Israel decades-long conflict.
According to an overwhelming United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES‑10/19 on 21 December 2017 (128-9), Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as capital of Israel is “null and void”.
Previous UN Security Council resolutions demarcated Jerusalem as the capital of the future state of Palestine.
The Fijian government said in a statement: “Necessary risk assessments will be undertaken by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence, in consultation with relevant agencies, prior to and during the establishment process.”
Fiji and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1970 and have partnerships in security and peacekeeping, agriculture, and climate change.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Rabuka said he “received a phone call from my friend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressing his gratitude for Fiji’s decision to open a diplomatic mission in Jerusalem.”
“Even though very brief, we reaffirmed our commitment to strengthening Fiji-Israel ties,” he said.
I commend the Republic of Fiji’s government for its historic decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Thank you, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka @slrabuka, friend of Israel. Thank you Fiji! 🇮🇱🇫🇯 pic.twitter.com/IxCkjPnhQ6
‘Violating international law’ “With this decision, Fiji becomes the seventh country to violate international law and UN resolutions regarding the city’s legal and political status and the rights of the Palestinian people,” it said in a statement.
The seven countries include Papua New Guinea.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemns the decision of PM @slrabuka to relocate Fiji’s embassy to occupied #Jerusalem.
This move blatantly violates international law and UN resolutions, and places #Fiji on the wrong side of history. https://t.co/5x1bCECNXO
— Palestine Australia, Aotearoa NZ and Pacific (@PalestineAusNZ) February 19, 2025
“This decision is an act of aggression against the Palestinian people and their rights.
“It places Fiji on the wrong side of history, harms the chances of achieving peace based on the two-state solution, and represents unacceptable support for the occupation and its crimes.”
The statement added that Fiji’s move “blatantly defies UN resolutions at a time when the occupying power is escalating its attacks against Palestinians across all of the Palestinian Territory, attempting to displace them from their homeland.”
The ministry said that it would continue to take political, diplomatic, and legal action against countries that opened or moved their embassies to Jerusalem.
“It will work to hold them accountable for their unjustified actions against the Palestinian people and their rights.”
In September 2024, Fiji was one of seven Pacific Island nations that voted against a United Nations resolution to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
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.
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.
This six-week newsletter course from The Conversation will bring you research-backed advice and tools to help improve your relationships, your career, your free time and your mental health – no supplements or skincare required. Sign up here to start your glow-up at any time.
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.
