On April 24, 2025, Indonesia made a masterful geopolitical move. Jakarta granted Fiji US$6 million in financial aid and offered to cooperate with them on military training — a seemingly benign act of diplomacy that conceals a darker purpose.
“There’s no need to be burdened by debt,” declared Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka during the bilateral meeting at Jakarta’s Merdeka Palace.
More significantly, he pledged Fiji’s respect for Indonesian sovereignty — diplomatic code for abandoning West Papua’s struggle for self-determination.
This aligns perfectly with Indonesia’s Law No. 2 of 2023, which established frameworks for defence cooperation, including joint research, technology transfer, and military education, between the two nations.
This is not merely a partnership — it is ideological assimilation.
Indonesia’s financial generosity comes with unwritten expectations. By integrating Fijian forces into Indonesian military training programmes, Jakarta aims to export its “anti-separatist” doctrine, which frames Papuan resistance as a “criminal insurgency” rather than legitimate political expression.
The US $6 million is not aid — it’s a strategic investment in regional complicity.
Geopolitical chess in a fractured world Indonesia’s manoeuvres must be understood in the context of escalating global tensions.
The rivalry between the US and China has transformed the Indo-Pacific into a strategic battleground, leaving Pacific Island nations caught between competing spheres of influence.
Although Jakarta is officially “non-aligned,” it is playing both sides to secure its territorial ambitions.
Its aid to Fiji is one move in a comprehensive regional strategy to diplomatically isolate West Papua.
Flashback to West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (left) meeting Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in Suva in February 2023 . . . At the time, Rabuka declared: “We will support them [ULMWP] because they are Melanesians.” Image: Fiji govt
By strengthening economic and military ties with strategically positioned nations, Indonesia is systematically undermining Papuan representation in important forums such as the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), and the United Nations.
While the world focuses on superpower competition, Indonesia is quietly strengthening its position on what it considers an internal matter — effectively removing West Papua from international discourse.
The Russian connection: Shadow alliances Another significant yet less examined relationship is Indonesia’s growing partnership with Russia, particularly in defence technology, intelligence sharing, and energy cooperation
This relationship provides Jakarta with advanced military capabilities and reduces its dependence on Western powers and China.
Russia’s unwavering support for territorial integrity, as evidenced by its position on Crimea and Ukraine, makes it an ideal partner for Indonesia’s West Papua policy.
Moscow’s diplomatic support strengthens Jakarta’s argument that “separatist” movements are internal security issues rather than legitimate independence struggles.
This strategic triangulation — balancing relations with Washington, Beijing, and Moscow– allows Indonesia to pursue regional dominance with minimal international backlash. Each superpower, focused on countering the others’ influence, overlooks Indonesia’s systematic suppression of Papuan self-determination.
Institutionalising silence: Beyond diplomacy The practical consequence of Indonesia’s multidimensional strategy is the diplomatic isolation of West Papua. Historically positioned to advocate for Melanesian solidarity, Fiji now faces economic incentives to remain silent on Indonesian human rights abuses.
A similar pattern emerges across the Pacific as Jakarta extends these types of arrangements to other regional players.
It is not just about temporary diplomatic alignment; it is about the structural transformation of regional politics.
When Pacific nations integrate their security apparatuses with Indonesia’s, they inevitably adopt Jakarta’s security narratives. Resistance movements are labelled “terrorist threats,” independence advocates are branded “destabilising elements,” and human rights concerns are dismissed as “foreign interference”.
Most alarmingly, military cooperation provides Indonesia with channels to export its counterinsurgency techniques, which are frequently criticised by human rights organisations for their brutality.
Security forces in the Pacific trained in these approaches may eventually use them against their own Papuan advocacy groups.
The price of strategic loyalty For just US$6 million — a fraction of Indonesia’s defence budget — Jakarta purchases Fiji’s diplomatic loyalty, military alignment, and ideological compliance. This transaction exemplifies how economic incentives increasingly override moral considerations such as human rights, indigenous sovereignty, and decolonisation principles that once defined Pacific regionalism.
Indonesia’s approach represents a sophisticated evolution in its foreign policy. No longer defensive about West Papua, Jakarta is now aggressively consolidating regional support, methodically closing avenues for international intervention, and systematically delegitimising Papuan voices on the global stage.
Will the Pacific remember its soul? The path ahead for West Papua is becoming increasingly treacherous. Beyond domestic repression, the movement now faces waning international support as economic pragmatism supplants moral principle throughout the Pacific region.
Unless Pacific nations reconnect with their anti-colonial heritage and the values that secured their independence, West Papua’s struggle risks fading into obscurity, overwhelmed by geopolitical calculations and economic incentives.
The question facing the Pacific region is not simply about West Papua, but about regional identity itself. Will Pacific nations remain true to their foundational values of indigenous solidarity and decolonisation? Or will they sacrifice these principles on the altar of transactional diplomacy?
The date April 24, 2025, may one day be remembered not only as the day Indonesia gave Fiji US$6 million but also as the day the Pacific began trading its moral authority for economic expediency, abandoning West Papua to perpetual colonisation in exchange for short-term gains.
The Pacific is at a crossroads — it can either reclaim its voice or resign itself to becoming a theatre where greater powers dictate the fate of indigenous peoples. For West Papua, everything depends on which path is chosen.
Ali Mirin is a West Papuan from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands that share a border with the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He graduated with a Master of Arts in international relations from Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.
India and Pakistan have seen the scenario play out before: a terror attack in which Indians are killed leads to a succession of escalatory tit-fot-tat measures that put South Asia on the brink of all-out war. And then there is a de-escalation.
The broad contours of that pattern have played out in the most recent crisis, with the latest step being the announcement of a ceasefire on May 10, 2025.
But in another important way, the flare-up – which began on April 22 with a deadly attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed – represents significant departures from the past. It involved direct missile exchanges targeting sites inside both territories and the use of advanced missile systems and drones by the two nuclear rivals for the first time.
These changes have coincided with domestic political shifts in both countries. The pro-Hindu nationalism of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has heightened communal tensions in the country. Meanwhile Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, has embraced the “two-nation theory,” which holds that Pakistan is a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims and India for Hindus.
This religious framing was even seen in the naming of the two countries’ military operations. For India, it is “Operation Sindoor” – a reference to the red vermilion used by married Hindu women, and a provocative nod to the widows of the Kashmir attack. Pakistan called its counter-operation “Bunyan-un-Marsoos” – an Arabic phrase from the Quran meaning “a solid structure.”
The role of Washington
The India-Pakistan rivalry has cost tens of thousands of lives across multiple wars in 1947-48, 1965 and 1971. But since the late 1990s, whenever India and Pakistan approached the brink of war, a familiar de-escalation playbook unfolded: intense diplomacy, often led by the United States, would help defuse tensions.
In 1999, President Bill Clinton’s direct mediation ended the Kargil conflict – a limited war triggered by Pakistani forces crossing the Line of Control into Indian-administered Kashmir – by pressing Pakistan for a withdrawal.
Similarly, after the 2001 attack inside the Indian Parliament by terrorists allegedly linked to Pakistan-based groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage engaged in intense shuttle diplomacy between Islamabad and New Delhi, averting war.
And after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which saw 166 people killed by terrorists linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, rapid and high-level American diplomatic involvement helped restrain India’s response and reduced the risk of an escalating conflict.
As recently as 2019, during the Balakot crisis – which followed a suicide bombing in Pulwama, Kashmir, that killed 40 Indian security personnel – it was American diplomatic pressure that helped contain hostilities. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later wrote in his memoirs, “I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019.”
A diplomatic void?
Washington as peacemaker made sense: It had influence and a vested interest.
During the Cold War, the U.S. formed a close alliance with Pakistan to counter India’s links with the Soviet Union. And after the 9/11 terror attacks, the U.S. poured tens of billions of dollars in military assistance into Pakistan as a frontline partner in the “war on terror.”
Simultaneously, beginning in the early 2000s, the U.S. began cultivating India as a strategic partner.
A stable Pakistan was a crucial partner in the U.S. war in Afghanistan; a friendly India was a strategic counterbalance to China. And this gave the U.S. both the motivation and credibility to act as an effective mediator during moments of India-Pakistan crisis.
Today, however, America’s diplomatic attention has shifted significantly away from South Asia. The process began with the end of the Cold War, but accelerated dramatically after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. More recently, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have consumed Washington’s diplomatic efforts.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, the U.S. has not appointed an ambassador in New Delhi or Islamabad, nor confirmed an assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs – factors that must have hampered any mediating role for the United States.
And while Trump said the May 10 ceasefire followed a “long night of talks mediated by the United States,” statements from India and Pakistan appeared to downplay U.S. involvement, focusing instead on the direct bilateral nature of negotiations.
Should it transpire that Washington’s role as a mediator between Pakistan and India has been diminished, it is not immediately obvious who, if anyone, will fill the void. China, which has been trying to cultivate a role of mediator elsewhere, is not seen as a neutral mediator due to its close alliance with Pakistan and past border conflicts with India. Other regional powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia tried to step in during the latest crisis, but both lack the power clout of the U.S. or China.
This absence of external mediation is not, of course, a problem in itself. Historically, foreign interference – particularly U.S. support for Pakistan during the Cold War – often complicated dynamics in South Asia by creating military imbalances and reinforcing hardline positions. But the past has shown external pressure – especially from Washington – can be effective.
Breaking the norms
The recent escalation unfolded against the backdrop of another dynamic: the erosion of international norms since the end of the Cold War and accelerating after 2001.
More recently, Israel’s operations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria have drawn widespread criticism for violations of international humanitarian law – but have resulted in limited consequences.
In short, geopolitical norms have been ebbed away and military actions that were once deemed red lines are crossed with little accountability.
For India and Pakistan, this environment creates both opportunity and risk. Both can point to behaviors elsewhere to justify assertive actions that they have undertaken that, in previous years, would have been deemed a step too far – such as attacks on places of worship and sovereignty violations.
Multi-domain warfare
But what truly distinguished the latest crisis from those of the past is, I believe, its multi-domain nature. The conflict is no longer confined to conventional military exchanges along the line of control – as it was for the first five decades of the Kashmir question.
Both countries largely respected the line of control as a de facto boundary for military operations until the 2019 crisis. Since then, there has been a dangerous progression: first to cross-border airstrikes into each other’s territories, and now to a conflict that spans conventional military, cyber and information spheres simultaneously.
Reports indicate Chinese-made Pakistani J-10 fighter jets shot down multiple Indian aircraft, including advanced French Rafale jets. This confrontation between Chinese and Western weapons represents not just a bilateral conflict but a proxy test of rival global military technologies – adding another layer of great-power competition to the crisis.
In addition, the use of loitering drones designed to attack radar systems represents a significant escalation in the technological sophistication of cross-border attacks compared to years past.
The conflict has also expanded dramatically into the cyber domain. Pakistani hackers, claiming to be the “Pakistan Cyber Force,” report breaching several Indian defense institutions, potentially compromising personnel data and login credentials.
Simultaneously, social media and a new right-wing media in India have become a critical battlefront. Ultranationalist voices in India incited violence against Muslims and Kashmiris; in Pakistan, anti-India rhetoric similarly intensified online.
Cooler voices prevailing … for now
These shifts have created multiple escalation pathways that traditional crisis management approaches weren’t designed to address.
Particularly concerning is the nuclear dimension. Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine is that it will use nuclear weapons if its existence is threatened, and it has developed short-range tactical nuclear weapons intended to counter Indian conventional advantages. Meanwhile, India has informally dialed back its historic no-first-use stance, creating ambiguity about its operational doctrine.
Thankfully, as the ceasefire announcement indicates, mediating voices appear to have prevailed this time around. But eroding norms, diminished great power diplomacy and the advent of multi-domain warfare, I argue, made this latest flare-up a dangerous turning point.
What happens next will tell us much about how nuclear rivals manage, or fail to manage, the spiral of conflict in this dangerous new landscape.
Farah N. Jan 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.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:We begin today’s show looking at Israel’s ongoing targeting of Palestinian journalists. A recent report by the Costs of War Project at Brown University described the war in Gaza as the “worst ever conflict for reporters” in history.
By one count, Israel has killed 214 Palestinian journalists in Gaza over the past 18 months, including two journalists killed on Wednesday — Yahya Subaih and Nour El-Din Abdo. Yahya Subaih died just hours after his wife gave birth to their first child.
Meanwhile, new details have emerged about the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, the renowned Palestinian American Al Jazeera journalist who was fatally shot by an Israeli soldier three years ago on 11 May 2022.
She was killed while covering an Israeli army assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Shireen and another reporter were against a stone wall, wearing blue helmets and blue flak jackets clearly emblazoned with the word “Press”.
Shireen was shot in the head. She was known throughout the Arab world for her decades of tireless reporting on Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel initially claimed she had been shot by Palestinian militants, but later acknowledged she was most likely shot by an Israeli soldier. But Israel has never identified the soldier who fired the fatal shot, or allowed the soldier to be questioned by US investigators.
But a new documentary just released by Zeteo has identified and named the Israeli soldier for the first time. This is the trailer to the documentary Who Killed Shireen?
DION NISSENBAUM: That soldier looked down his scope and could see the blue vest and that it said “press.”
ISRAELI SOLDIER: That’s what I think, yes.
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: US personnel have never had access to those who are believed to have committed those shootings.
DION NISSENBAUM: No one has been held to account. Justice has not been served.
FATIMA ABDULKARIM: She is the first American Palestinian journalist who has been killed by Israeli forces.
DION NISSENBAUM: I want to know: Who killed Shireen?
CONOR POWELL: Are we going to find the shooter?
DION NISSENBAUM: He’s got a phone call set up with this Israeli soldier that was there that day.
CONOR POWELL: We just have to go over to Israel.
DION NISSENBAUM: Did you ever talk to the guy who fired those shots?
ISRAELI SOLDIER: Of course. I know him personally. The US should have actually come forward and actually pressed the fact that an American citizen was killed intentionally by IDF.
FATIMA ABDULKARIM: The drones are still ongoing, the explosions going off.
CONOR POWELL: Holy [bleep]! We’ve got a name.
DION NISSENBAUM: But here’s the twist.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:The trailer for the new Zeteo documentary Who Killed Shireen? The film identifies the Israeli soldier who allegedly killed Shireen Abu Akleh as Alon Scagio, who would later be killed during an Israeli military operation last June in Jenin, the same city where Shireen was fatally shot.
AMY GOODMAN:We’re joined right now by four guests, including two members of Shireen Abu Akleh’s family: her brother Anton, or Tony, and her niece Lina. They’re both in North Bergen, New Jersey. We’re also joined by Mehdi Hasan, the founder and editor-in-chief of Zeteo, and by Dion Nissenbaum, the executive producer of Who Killed Shireen?, the correspondent on the documentary, longtime Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent based in Jerusalem and other cities, a former foreign correspondent. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
We welcome you all toDemocracy Now!Dion, we’re going to begin with you. This is the third anniversary, May 11th exactly, of the death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Talk about your revelation, what you exposed in this documentary.
DION NISSENBAUM: Well, there were two things that were very important for the documentary. The first thing was we wanted to find the soldier who killed Shireen. It had been one of the most closely guarded secrets in Israel. US officials said that if they wanted to determine if there was a crime here, if there was a human rights violation, they needed to talk to this soldier to find out what he was thinking when he shot her.
And we set out to find him. And we did. We did what the US government never did. And it turned out he had been killed, so we were never able to answer that question — what he was thinking.
But the other revelation that I think is as significant in this documentary is that the initial US assessment of her shooting was that that soldier intentionally shot her and that he could tell that she was wearing a blue flak jacket with “Press” across it.
That assessment was essentially overruled by the Biden administration, which came out and said exactly the opposite. That’s a fairly startling revelation, that the Biden administration and the Israeli government essentially were doing everything they could to cover up what happened that day to Shireen Abu Akleh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go to a clip from the documentary Who Killed Shireen?, in which Dion Nissenbaum, our guest, speaks with former State Department official Andrew Miller. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs in 2022 when Shireen was killed.
ANDREW MILLER: It’s nearly 100 percent certain that an Israeli soldier, likely a sniper, fired the shot that killed or the shots that killed Shireen Abu Akleh. Based on all the information we have, it is not credible to suggest that there were targets either in front of or behind Shireen Abu Akleh.
The fact that the official Israeli position remains that this was a case of crossfire, the entire episode was a mistake, as opposed to potentially a mistaken identification or the deliberate targeting of this individual, points to, I think, a broader policy of seeking to manage the narrative.
DION NISSENBAUM: And did the Israelis ever make the soldier available to the US to talk about it?
ANDREW MILLER: No. And the Israelis were not willing to present the person for even informal questioning.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was State Department official — former State Department official Andrew Miller, speaking in the Zeteo documentary Who Killed Shireen? He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs in 2022 when Shireen was killed.
I want to go to Shireen’s family, whom we have as guests, Anton Abu Akleh and Lina, who are joining us from New Jersey. You both watched the film for the first time last night when it premiered here in New York City. Lina, if you could begin by responding to the revelations in the film?
LINA ABU AKLEH: Hi, Amy. Hi. Thank you for having us.
Honestly, we always welcome and we appreciate journalists who try to uncover the killing of Shireen, but also who shed light on her legacy. And the documentary that was released by Zeteo and by Dion, it really revealed findings that we didn’t know before, but we’ve always known that it was an Israeli soldier who killed Shireen. And we know how the US administration failed our family, failed a US citizen and failed a journalist, really.
And that should be a scandal in and of itself.
But most importantly, for us as a family, it’s not just about one soldier. It’s about the entire chain of command. It’s not just the person who pulled the trigger, but who ordered the killing, and the military commanders, the elected officials.
So, really, it’s the entire chain of command that needs to be held to account for the killing of a journalist who was in a clear press vest, press gear, marked as a journalist.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Anton, if you could respond? Shireen, of course, was your younger sister. What was your response watching the documentary last night?
ANTON ABU AKLEH: It’s very painful to look at all these scenes again, but I really extend my appreciation to Zeteo and all those who supported and worked on this documentary, which was very revealing, many things we didn’t know. The cover-up by the Biden administration, this thing was new to us.
He promised. First statements came out from the White House and from the State Department stressed on the importance of holding those responsible accountable. And apparently, in one of the interviews heard in this documentary, he never raised — President Biden never raised this issue with Bennett, at that time the prime minister.
So, that’s shocking to us to know it was a total cover-up, contradictory to what they promised us. And that’s — like Lina just said, it’s a betrayal, not only to the family, not only to Shireen, but the whole American nation.
AMY GOODMAN: Mehdi Hasan, you’ve backed this documentary. It’s the first big documentary Zeteo is putting out. It’s also the first anniversary of the founding of Zeteo. Can you talk about the proof that you feel is here in the documentary that Alon Scagio, this — and explain who he is and the unit he was a part of? Dion, it’s quite something when you go to his grave. But how you can absolutely be sure this is the man?
MEHDI HASAN:So, Amy, Nermeen, thanks for having us here. I’ve been on this show many times. I just want to say, great to be here on set with both of you. Thank you for what you do.
This is actually our second documentary, but it is our biggest so far, because the revelations in this film that Dion and the team put out are huge in many ways — identifying the soldier, as you mentioned, Alon Scagio, identifying the Biden cover-up, which we just heard Tony Abu Akleh point out. People didn’t realise just how big that cover-up was.
Remember, Joe Biden was the man who said, “If you harm an American, we will respond.” And what is very clear in the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen who spent a lot of her life in New Jersey, they did not respond.
In terms of the soldier itself, when Dion came to me and said, “We want to make this film. It’ll be almost like a true crime documentary. We’re going to go out and find out who did it” — because we all — everyone followed the story. You guys covered it in 2022. It was a huge story in the world.
But three years later, to not even know the name of the shooter — and I was, “Well, will we be able to find this out? It’s one of Israel’s most closely guarded secrets.” And yet, Dion and his team were able to do the reporting that got inside of Duvdevan, this elite special forces unit in Israel.
It literally means “the cherry on top.” That’s how proud they are of their eliteness. And yet, no matter how elite you are, Israel’s way of fighting wars means you kill innocent people.
And what comes out in the film from interviews, not just with a soldier, an Israeli soldier, who speaks in the film and talks about how, “Hey, if you see a camera, you take the shot,” but also speaking to Chris Van Hollen, United States Senator from Maryland, who’s been one of the few Democratic voices critical of Biden in the Senate, who says there’s been no change in Israel’s rules of engagement over the years.
And therefore, it was so important on multiple levels to do this film, to identify the shooter, because, of course, as you pointed out in your news headlines, Amy, they just killed a hundred Palestinians yesterday.
So this is not some old story from history where this happened in 2022 and we’re going back. Everything that happened since, you could argue, flows from that — the Americans who have been killed, the journalists who have been killed in Gaza, Palestinians, the sense of impunity that Israel has and Israel’s soldiers have.
There are reports that Israeli soldiers are saying to Palestinians, “Hey, Trump has our back. Hey, the US government has our back.” And it wasn’t just Trump. It was Joe Biden, too.
And that was why it was so important to make this film, to identify the shooter, to call out Israel’s practices when it comes to journalists, and to call out the US role.
AMY GOODMAN: I just want to go to Dion, for people who aren’t familiar with the progression of what the Biden administration said, the serious cover-up not only by Israel, but of its main military weapons supplier and supporter of its war on Gaza, and that is Joe Biden, from the beginning.
First Israel said it was a Palestinian militant. At that point, what did President Biden say?
DION NISSENBAUM: So, at the very beginning, they said that they wanted the shooter to be prosecuted. They used that word at the State Department and said, “This person who killed an American journalist should be prosecuted.” But when it started to become clear that it was probably an Israeli soldier, their tone shifted, and it became talking about vague calls for accountability or changes to the rules of engagement, which never actually happened.
So, you got to a point where the Israeli government admitted it was likely them, the US government called for them to change the rules of engagement, and the Israeli government said no. And we have this interview in the film with Senator Chris Van Hollen, who says that, essentially, Israel was giving the middle finger to the US government on this.
And we have seen, since that time, more Americans being killed in the West Bank, dozens and dozens and dozens of journalists being killed, with no accountability. And we would like to see that change.
This is a trajectory that you’re seeing. You know, the blue vest no longer provides any protection for journalists in Israel. The Israeli military itself has said that wearing a blue vest with “Press” on it does not necessarily mean that you are a journalist.
They are saying that terrorists wear blue vests, too. So, if you are a journalist operating in the West Bank now, you have to assume that the Israeli military could target you.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go to another clip from the film Who Killed Shireen?, which features Ali Samoudi, Shireen Abu Akleh’s producer, who was with Shireen when she was killed, and was himself shot and injured. In the clip, he speaks to the journalist Fatima AbdulKarim.
FATIMA ABDULKARIM: We are set up here now, even though we were supposed to meet at the location where you got injured and Shireen got killed.
ALI SAMOUDI: [translated] We are five minutes from the location in Maidan al-Awdah. But you could lose your soul in the five minutes it would take us to reach it. You could be hit by army bullets. They could arrest you.
So it is essentially impossible to get there. I believe the big disaster which prevented the occupation from being punished and repeating these crimes is the neglect and indifference by many of the institutions, especially American ones, which continue to defend the occupation.
FATIMA ABDULKARIM: [translated] We’re now approaching the third anniversary of Shireen’s death. How did that affect you?
ALI SAMOUDI: [translated] During that period, the occupation was making preparations for a dangerous scenario in the Jenin refugee camp. And for this reason, they didn’t want witnesses.
They opened fire on us in order to terroriSe us enough that we wouldn’t go back to the camp. And in that sense, they partially succeeded.
Since then, we have been overcome by fear. From the moment Shireen was killed, I said and continue to say and will continue to say that this bullet was meant to prevent the Palestinian media from the documentation and exposure of the occupation’s crimes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Ali Samoudi, Shireen Abu Akleh’s producer, who was with Shireen when she was killed, and was himself shot and injured.
We should note, Ali Samoudi was just detained by Israeli forces in late April. The Palestinian journalist Mariam Barghouti recently wrote, “Ali Samoudi was beaten so bad by Israeli soldiers he was immediately hospitalised. This man has been one of the few journalists that continues reporting on Israeli military abuses north of the West Bank despite the continued risk on his life,” Mariam Barghouti wrote.
The Committee to Protect Journalists spoke to the journalist’s son, Mohammed Al Samoudi, who told CPJ, quote, “My father suffers from several illnesses, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and a stomach ulcer . . . He needs a diabetes injection every two days and a specific diet. It appears he was subjected to assault and medical neglect at the interrogation center . . .
“Our lawyer told us he was transferred to an Israeli hospital after a major setback in his health. We don’t know where he is being held, interrogated, or even the hospital to which he was taken. My father has been forcibly disappeared,” he said.
So, Dion Nissenbaum, if you could give us the latest? You spoke to Ali Samoudi for the documentary, and now he’s been detained.
DION NISSENBAUM: Yeah. His words were prophetic, right? He talks about this was an attempt to silence journalists. And my colleague Fatima says the same thing, that these are ongoing, progressive efforts to silence Palestinian journalists.
And we don’t know where Ali is. He has not actually been charged with anything yet. He is one of the most respected journalists in the West Bank. And we are just seeing this progression going on.
AMY GOODMAN: So, the latest we know is he was supposed to have a hearing, and that hearing has now been delayed to May 13th, Ali Samoudi?
DION NISSENBAUM: That’s right. And he has yet to be charged, so . . .
AMY GOODMAN:I want to go back to Lina Abu Akleh, who’s in New Jersey, where Shireen grew up. Lina, you were listed on Time magazine’s 100 emerging leaders for publicly demanding scrutiny of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, the horror.
And again, our condolences on the death of your aunt, on the killing of your aunt, and also to Anton, Shireen’s brother. Lina, you’ve also, of course, spoken to Ali Samoudi. This continues now. He’s in detention — his son says, “just disappeared”.
What are you demanding right now? We have a new administration. We’ve moved from the Biden administration to the Trump administration. And are you in touch with them? Are they speaking to you?
LINA ABU AKLEH: Well, our demands haven’t changed. From day one, we’re calling for the US administration to complete its investigation, or for the FBI to continue its investigation, and to finally release — to finally hold someone to account.
And we have enough evidence that could have been — that the administration could have used to expedite this case. But, unfortunately, this new administration, as well, no one has spoken to us. We haven’t been in touch with anyone, and it’s just been radio silence since.
For us, as I said, our demands have never changed. It’s been always to hold the entire system to account, the entire chain of command, the military, for the killing of an American citizen, a journalist, a Palestinian, Palestinian American journalist.
As we’ve been talking, targeting journalists isn’t happening just by shooting at them or killing them. There’s so many different forms of targeting journalists, especially in Gaza and the West Bank and Jerusalem.
So, for us, it’s really important as a family that we don’t see other families experience what we are going through, for this — for impunity, for Israel’s impunity, to end, because, at the end of the day, accountability is the only way to put an end to this impunity.
AMY GOODMAN: I am horrified to ask this question to Shireen’s family members, to Lina, to Tony, Shireen’s brother, but the revelation in the film — we were all there last night at its premiere in New York — that the Israeli soldiers are using a photograph of Shireen’s face for target practice. Tony Abu Akleh, if you could respond?
ANTON ABU AKLEH: You know, there is no words to describe our sorrow and pain hearing this. But, you know, I would just want to know why. Why would they do this thing? What did Shireen do to them for them to use her as a target practice? You know, this is absolutely barbaric act, unjustified. Unjustified.
And we really hope that this US administration will be able to put an end to all this impunity they are enjoying. If they didn’t enjoy all this impunity, they wouldn’t have been doing this. Practising on a journalist? Why? You know, you can practice on anything, but on a journalist?
This shows that this targeting of more journalists, whether in Gaza, in Palestine, it’s systematic. It’s been planned for. And they’ve been targeting and shutting off those voices, those reports, from reaching anywhere in the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:And, Anton, if you could say — you know, you mentioned last night, as well, Shireen was, in fact, extremely cautious as a journalist. If you could elaborate on that? What precisely —
ANTON ABU AKLEH: Absolutely. Absolutely. Shireen was very careful. Every time she’s in the field, she would take her time to put on the gear, the required helmet, the vest with “press” written on it, before going there. She also tried to identify herself as a journalist, whether to the Israelis or to the Palestinians, so she’s not attacked.
And she always went by the book, followed the rules, how to act, how to be careful, how to speak to those people involved, so she can protect herself. But, unfortunately, he was — this soldier, as stated in the documentary, targeted Shireen just because she’s Shireen and she’s a journalist. That’s it. There is no other explanation.
Sixteen bullets were fired on Shireen. Not even her helmet, nor the vest she was wearing, were able to protect her, unfortunately.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Mehdi Hasan, you wanted to respond.
MEHDI HASAN: So, Tony asks, “Why? Why would you do this? Why would you target not just a journalist in the field, but then use her face for target practice?” — as Dion and his team reveal in the film. And there is, unfortunately, a very simple answer to that question, which is that the Israeli military — and not just the Israeli military, but many people in our world today — have dehumanised Palestinians.
There is the removal of humanity from the people you are oppressing, occupying, subjugating and killing. It doesn’t matter if you’re an American citizen. It doesn’t matter if you have a press jacket on. It only matters that you are Palestinian in the sniper’s sights.
And that is how they have managed to pull of the killing of so many journalists, so many children. The first documentary we commissioned last year was called Israel’s Real Extremism, and it was about the Israeli soldiers who go into Gaza and make TikTok videos wearing Palestinian women’s underwear, playing with Palestinian children’s toys. It is the ultimate form of dehumanisation, the idea that these people don’t count, their lives have no value.
And what’s so tragic and shocking — and the film exposes this — is that Joe Biden — forget the Israeli military — Joe Biden also joined in that dehumanisation. Do you remember at the start of this conflict when he comes out and he says, “Well, I’m not sure I believe the Palestinian death toll numbers,” when he puts out a statement at the hundred days after October 7th and doesn’t mention Palestinian casualties.
And that has been the fundamental problem. This was the great comforter-in-chief. Joe Biden was supposed to be the empath. And yet, as Tony points out, what was so shocking in the film is he didn’t even raise Shireen’s case with Naftali Bennett, the prime minister of Israel at the time.
Again, would he have done that if it was an American journalist in Moscow? We know that’s not the case. We know when American journalists, especially white American journalists, are taken elsewhere in the world, the government gives a damn. And yet, in the case of Shireen, the only explanation is because she was a Palestinian American journalist.
AMY GOODMAN:You know, in the United States, the US government is responsible for American citizens, which Biden pointed out at the beginning, when he thought it was a Palestinian militant who had killed her. But, Lina, you yourself are a journalist. And I’m thinking I want to hear your response to using her face, because, of course, that is not just the face of Shireen, but I think it’s the face of journalism.
And it’s not just American journalism, of course. I mean, in fact, she’s known to hundreds of millions of people around world as the face and voice of Al Jazeera Arabic. She spoke in Arabic. She was known as that to the rest of the world. But to see that and that revealed in this documentary?
LINA ABU AKLEH: Yeah, it was horrifying, actually. And it just goes on to show how the Israeli military is built. It’s barbarism. It’s the character of revenge, of hate. And that is part of the entire system. And as Mehdi and as my father just mentioned, this is all about dehumanizing Palestinians, regardless if they’re journalists, if they’re doctors, they’re officials. For them, they simply don’t care about Palestinian lives.
And for us, Shireen will always be the voice of Palestine. And she continues to be remembered for the legacy that she left behind. And she continues to live through so many, so many journalists, who have picked up the microphone, who have picked up the camera, just because of Shireen.
So, regardless of how the Israeli military continues to dehumanise journalists and how the US fails to protect Palestinian American journalists, we will continue to push forward to continue to highlight the life and the legacy that Shireen left behind.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:Well, let’s turn to Shireen Abu Akleh in her own words. This is an excerpt from the Al Jazeera English documentary The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.
SHIREEN ABU AKLEH: [translated] Sometimes the Israeli army doesn’t want you there, so they target you, even if they later say it was an accident. They might say, “We saw some young men around you.” So they target you on purpose, as a way of scaring you off because they don’t want you there.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was Shireen in her own words in an Al Jazeera documentary. So, Lina, I know you have to go soon, but if you could just tell us: What do you want people to know about Shireen, as an aunt, a sister and a journalist?
LINA ABU AKLEH: Yes, so, we know Shireen as the journalist, but behind the camera, she was one of the most empathetic people. She was very sincere. And something not a lot of people know, but she was a very funny person. She had a very unique sense of humor, that she lit up every room she entered. She cared about everyone and anyone. She enjoyed life.
Shireen, at the end of the day, loved life. She had plans. She had dreams that she still wanted to achieve. But her life was cut short by that small bullet, which would change our lives entirely.
But at the end of the day, Shireen was a professional journalist who always advocated for truth, for justice. And at the end of the day, all she wanted to do was humanise Palestinians and talk about the struggles of living under occupation. But at the same time, she wanted to celebrate their achievements.
She shed light on all the happy moments, all the accomplishments of the Palestinian people. And this is something that really touched millions of Palestinians, of Arabs around the world. She was able to enter the hearts of the people through the small camera lens. And until this day, she continues to be remembered for that.
AMY GOODMAN: Before we go, we’re going to keep you on, Mehdi, to talk about other issues during the Trump administration, but how can people access Who Killed Shireen?
MEHDI HASAN: So, it’s available online at WhoKilledShireen.com, is where you can go to watch it. We are releasing the film right now only to paid subscribers. We hope to change that in the forthcoming days.
People often say to me, “How can you put it behind a paywall?” Journalism — a free press isn’t free, sadly. We have to fund films like this. Dion came to us because a lot of other people didn’t want to fund a topic like this, didn’t want to fund an investigation like this.
So, we’re proud to be able to fund such documentaries, but we also need support from our contributors, our subscribers and the viewers. But it’s an important film, and I hope as many people will watch it as possible, WhoKilledShireen.com.
AMY GOODMAN:We want to thank Lina, the niece of Shireen Abu Akleh, and Anton, Tony, the older brother of Shireen Abu Akleh, for joining us from New Jersey. Together, we saw the documentary last night, Who Killed Shireen? And we want to thank Dion Nissenbaum, who is the filmmaker, the correspondent on this film, formerly a correspondent with The Wall Street Journal. The founder of Zeteo, on this first anniversary of Zeteo, is Mehdi Hasan.
Leo, 69, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is originally from Chicago, and has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru.
He became a cardinal only in 2023 and has become the first-ever US pope.
PCC general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said he was not a Vatican insider, but there had been talk of cardinals feeling that the new pope should be a “middle-of-the-road person”.
Reverend Bhagwan said there had been prayers for God’s wisdom to guide the decisions made at the Conclave.
“I think if we look at where the decisions perhaps were made or based on, there had been a lot of talk that the cardinals going into Conclave had felt that a new pope would need to be someone who could take forward the legacy of Pope Francis, reaching out to those in the margins, but also be a sort of a middle-of-the-road person,” he said.
Hopes for climate response Reverend Bhagwan said the Pacific hoped that Pope Leo carried on the late Pope Francis’s connection to the climate change response.
He said Pope Francis released his “laudate deum” exhortation on the climate shortly before the United Nations climate summit in Dubai last year.
“The focus on care for creation, the focus for ending fossil fuels and climate justice, the focus on people from the margins — I think that’s important for the Pacific people at this time.
“I know that the Catholic Church in the Pacific has been focused on on its synodal process, and so he spoke about synodality as well.
“I know that there were hopes for an Oceania synod, just as Pope Francis held a synod of the Amazon. And I think that is still something that’s in the hearts of many of our Catholic leaders and Catholic members.
“We hope that this will be an opportunity to still bring that focus to the Pacific.”
He said they were confident Pope Leo would pick up many of the issues Francis was well known for, like speaking up for climate change, human trafficking and the plight of refugees; and within the church, a different way of meeting and talking with one another — known as synodality — which is an ongoing process.
“I think any pope needs to be able to challenge things that are happening around the world, especially if it is affecting the lives of people, where the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.”
Pope Leo appeared to be a very calm person, he added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
IMO, this sounds like an expression of sorrow and regret about the conflict, and about the evils it is feeding and fostering. Regardless, the institute has described that comment by Davis as antisemitic.
“‘You cannot claim to champion social cohesion while minimising or rationalising antisemitic hate,’ the institute said. ‘Social trust depends on moral consistency, especially from those in leadership. Peter Davis’s actions erode that trust.’”
For the record, Davis wasn’t rationalising or minimising antisemitic hate. His comments look far more like a legitimate observation that the longer the need for a political-diplomatic solution is violently resisted, the worse things will be for everyone — including Jewish citizens, via the stoking of antisemitism.
The basic point at issue here is that criticisms of the actions of the Israeli government do not equate to a racist hostility to the Jewish people. (Similarly, the criticisms of Donald Trump’s actions cannot be minimised or rationalised as due to anti-Americanism.)
Appalled by Netanyahu actions Many Jewish people in fact, also feel appalled by the actions of the Netanyahu government, which repeatedly violate international law.
In the light of the extreme acts of violence being inflicted daily by the IDF on the people of Gaza, the upsurge in hateful graffiti by neo-Nazi opportunists while still being vile, is hardly surprising.
Around the world, the security of innocent Israeli citizens is being recklessly endangered by the ultra-violent actions of their own government.
If you want to protect your citizens from an existing fire, it’s best not to toss gasoline on the flames.
To repeat: the vast majority of the current criticisms of the Israeli state have nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism. At a time when Israel is killing scores of innocent Palestinians on a nightly basis with systematic air strikes and the shelling of civilian neighbourhoods, when it is weaponising access to humanitarian aid as an apparent tool of ethnic cleansing, when it is executing medical staff and assassinating journalists, when it is killing thousands of children and starving the survivors . . . antisemitism is not the reason why most people oppose these evils. Common humanity demands it.
Ironically, the press release by the NZ Israel Institute concludes with these words: “There must be zero tolerance for hate in any form.” Too bad the institute seems to have such a limited capacity for self-reflection.
Footnote One: For the best part of 80 years, the world has felt sympathy to Jews in recognition of the Holocaust. The genocide now being committed in Gaza by the Netanyahu government cannot help but reduce public support for Israel.
It also cannot help but erode the status of the Holocaust as a unique expression of human evil.
One would have hoped the NZ Israel Institute might acknowledge the self-defeating nature of the Netanyahu government policies — if only because, on a daily basis, the state of Israel is abetting its enemies, and alienating its friends.
Footnote Two: As yet, the so-called Free Speech Union has not come out to support the free speech rights of Peter Davis, and to rebuke the NZ Israel Institute for trying to muzzle them.
Colour me not surprised.
This is a section of Gordon Campbell’s Scoop column published yesterday under the subheading “Pot Calls Out Kettle”; the main portion of the column about the new Pope is here. Republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.
We’ve visited Ground Zero. Not once, but three times. But for generations, before these locations were designated as such, they were the ancestral home to the people of the Marshall Islands.
As part of a team of Greenpeace scientists and specialists from the Radiation Protection Advisers team, we have embarked on a six-week tour on board the Rainbow Warrior, sailing through one of the most disturbing chapters in human history: between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs across the Marshall Islands — equivalent to 7200 Hiroshima explosions.
During this period, testing nuclear weapons at the expense of wonderful ocean nations like the Marshall Islands was considered an acceptable practice, or as the US put it, “for the good of mankind”.
Instead, the radioactive fallout left a deep and complex legacy — one that is both scientific and profoundly human, with communities displaced for generations.
Between March and April, we travelled on the Greenpeace flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, throughout the Marshall Islands, including to three northern atolls that bear the most severe scars of Cold War nuclear weapons testing:
Enewetak atoll, where, on Runit Island, stands a massive leaking concrete dome beneath which lies plutonium-contaminated waste, a result of a partial “clean-up” of some of the islands after the nuclear tests;
Bikini atoll, a place so beautiful, yet rendered uninhabitable by some of the most powerful nuclear detonations ever conducted; and
Rongelap atoll, where residents were exposed to radiation fallout and later convinced to return to contaminated land, part of what is now known as Project 4.1, a US medical experiment to test humans’ exposure to radiation.
This isn’t fiction, nor the distant past. It’s a chapter of history still alive through the environment, the health of communities, and the data we’re collecting today.
Each location we visit, each sample we take, adds to a clearer picture of some of the long-term impacts of nuclear testing—and highlights the importance of continuing to document, investigate, and attempt to understand and share these findings.
These are our field notes from a journey through places that hold important lessons for science, justice, and global accountability.
Our mission: why are we here? With the permission and support of the Marshallese government, a group of Greenpeace science and radiation experts, together with independent scientists, are in the island nation to assess, investigate, and document the long-term environmental and radiological consequences of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands.
Our mission is grounded in science. We’re conducting field sampling and radiological surveys to gather data on what radioactivity remains in the environment — isotopes such as caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239/240. These substances are released during nuclear explosions and can linger in the environment for decades, posing serious health risks, such as increased risk of cancers in organs and bones.
But this work is not only about radiation measurements, it is also about bearing witness.
We are here in solidarity with Marshallese communities who continue to live with the consequences of decisions made decades ago, without their consent and far from the public eye.
Stop 1: Enewetak Atoll — the dome that shouldn’t exist
At the far western edge of the Marshall Islands is Enewetak. The name might not ring a bell for many, but this atoll was the site of 43 US nuclear detonations. Today, it houses what may be one of the most radioactive places in the world — the Runit Dome.
Once a tropical paradise thick with coconut palms, Runit Island is capped by a massive concrete structure the size of a football field. Under this dome — cracked, weather-worn, and only 46 centimetres thick in some places — lies 85,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. These substances are not only confined to the crater — they are also found across the island’s soil, rendering Runit Island uninhabitable for all time.
The contrast between what it once was and what it has become is staggering. We took samples near the dome’s base, where rising sea levels now routinely flood the area.
We collected coconut from the island, which will be processed and prepared in the Rainbow Warrior’s onboard laboratory. Crops such as coconut are a known vector for radioactive isotope transfer, and tracking levels in food sources is essential for understanding long-term environmental and health risks.
The local consequences of this simple fact are deeply unjust. While some atolls in the Marshall Islands can harvest and sell coconut products, the people of Enewetak are prohibited from doing so because of radioactive contamination.
They have lost not only their land and safety but also their ability to sustain themselves economically. The radioactive legacy has robbed them of income and opportunity.
One of the most alarming details about this dome is that there is no lining beneath the structure — it is in direct contact with the environment, while containing some of the most hazardous long-lived substances ever to exist on planet Earth. It was never built to withstand flooding, sea level rise, and climate change.
The scientific questions are urgent: how much of this material is already leaking into the lagoon? What are the exposure risks to marine ecosystems and local communities?
We are here to help answer questions with new, independent data, but still, being in the craters and walking on this ground where nuclear Armageddon was unleashed is an emotional and surreal journey.
Stop 2: Bikini — a nuclear catastrophe, labelled ‘for the good of mankind’
Unlike Chernobyl or Fukushima, where communities were devastated by catastrophic accidents, Bikini tells a different story. This was not an accident.
The nuclear destruction of Bikini was deliberate, calculated, and executed with full knowledge that entire ways of life were going to be destroyed.
Bikini Atoll is incredibly beautiful and would look idyllic on any postcard. But we know what lies beneath: the site of 23 nuclear detonations, including Castle Bravo, the largest ever nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States.
Castle Bravo alone released more than 1000 times the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The radioactive fallout massively contaminated nearby islands and their populations, together with thousands of US military personnel.
Bikini’s former residents were forcibly relocated in 1946 before nuclear testing began, with promises of a safe return. But the atoll is still uninhabited, and most of the new generations of Bikinians have never seen their home island.
As we stood deep in the forest next to a massive concrete blast bunker, reality hit hard — behind its narrow lead-glass viewing window, US military personnel once watched the evaporation of Bikini lagoon.
On our visit, we noticed there’s a spectral quality to Bikini. The homes of the Bikini islanders are long gone. In its place now stand a scattering of buildings left by the US Department of Energy: rusting canteens, rotting offices, sleeping quarters with peeling walls, and traces of the scientific experiments conducted here after the bombs fell.
On dusty desks, we found radiation reports, notes detailing crop trials, and a notebook meticulously tracking the application of potassium to test plots of corn, alfalfa, lime, and native foods like coconut, pandanus, and banana. The potassium was intended to block the uptake of caesium-137, a radioactive isotope, by plant roots.
The logic was simple: if these crops could be decontaminated, perhaps one day Bikini could be repopulated.
We collected samples of coconuts and soil — key indicators of internal exposure risk if humans were to return. Bikini raises a stark question: What does “safe” mean, and who gets to decide?
The US declared parts of Bikini habitable in 1970, only to evacuate people again eight years later after resettled families suffered from radiation exposure. The science is not abstract here. It is personal. It is human. It has real consequences.
The Rainbow Warrior arrived at the eastern side of Rongelap atoll, anchoring one mile from the centre of Rongelap Island, the church spire and roofs of “new” buildings reflecting the bright sun.
n 1954, fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear detonation on Bikini blanketed this atoll in radioactive ash — fine, white powder that children played in, thinking it was snow. The US government waited three days to evacuate residents, despite knowing the risks. The US government declared it safe to return to Rongelap in 1957 — but it was a severely contaminated environment. The very significant radiation exposure to the Rongelap population caused severe health impacts: thyroid cancers, birth defects such as “jellyfish babies”, miscarriages, and much more.
In 1985, after a request to the US government to evacuate was dismissed, the Rongelap community asked Greenpeace to help relocate them from their ancestral lands. Using the first Rainbow Warrior, and over a period of 10 days and four trips, 350 residents collectively dismantled their homes, bringing everything with them — including livestock, and 100 metric tons of building material — where they resettled on the islands of Mejatto and Ebeye on Kwajalein atoll.
It is a part of history that lives on in the minds of the Marshallese people we meet in this ship voyage — in the gratitude they still express, the pride in keeping the fight for justice, and in the pain of still not having a permanent, safe home.
Now, once again, we are standing on their island of Rongelap, walking past abandoned buildings and rusting equipment, some of it dating from the 1980s and 1990s — a period when the US Department of Energy launched a push to encourage resettlement declaring that the island was safe — a declaration that this time, the population welcomed with mistrust, not having access to independent scientific data and remembering the deceitful relocation of some decades before.
Here, once again, we sample soil and fruits that could become food if people came back. It is essential to understand ongoing risks — especially for communities considering whether and how to return.
Our scientific mission is to take measurements, collect samples, and document contamination. But that’s not all we’re bringing back.
We carry with us the voices of the Marshallese who survived these tests and are still living with their consequences. We carry images of graves swallowed by tides near Runit Dome, stories of entire cultures displaced from their homelands, and measurements of radiation showing contamination still persists after many decades.
There are 9700 nuclear warheads still held by military powers around the world – mostly in the United States and Russian arsenals. The Marshall Islands was one of the first nations to suffer the consequences of nuclear weapons — and the legacy persists today.
We didn’t come to speak for the Marshallese. We came to listen, to bear witness, and to support their demand for justice. We plan to return next year, to follow up on our research and to make results available to the people of the Marshall Islands.
And we will keep telling these stories — until justice is more than just a word.
Kommol Tata (“thank you” in the beautiful Marshallese language) for following our journey.
Shaun Burnie is a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Ukraine and was part of the Rainbow Warrior team in the Marshall Islands. This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa and is republished with permission.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mark Yenson, King’s University College, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Vice-President and Academic Dean (Interim), Western University
The 133 cardinal electors sequestered in the Sistine Chapel elected a new pope May 8. The choice was a surprise — Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost, who has carried out most of his ministry in Peru, before being elevated to Vatican roles by Pope Francis.
When applied to individual Catholics, the terms “liberal” and “conservative” can mean very different things. One could be conservative in regard to liturgy and church practice while being strongly committed to anti-racism and environmentalism.
Or one might be considered a social conservative on issues such as marriage, sexuality and gender while holding clearly left-wing, social democratic views on the role of government.
Even if Catholics are comfortable self-identifying as liberal or conservative Catholics, we should not treat these terms as if their meaning were obvious — especially since even as purely political terms the meaning of “liberal” or “conservative” is contested.
Papacy as institution
Things become all the more complicated when we are talking about the pope, the supreme head of the Catholic Church. The papacy as an institution is conservative by definition.
The pope is considered the successor of the Apostle Peter, and his job description is precisely to maintain the unity and catholicity (“wholeness”) of the Church’s life, not only in space but through time — that is, to ensure continuity.
But because of this role to maintain the fullness of a tradition and the unity of the Church, the pope cannot be conservative (or liberal) in a political sense.
Instead of trying to impose political categories, it makes more sense to try to uncover the internal dynamics and motivations of a pope’s teaching and ministry. For example, Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical letter,Laudato si’, was a landmark in Catholic teaching on ecology. Far from being a political manifesto, the letter presents a vision of the human being within creation, informed by the Bible, theological reflection and modern Catholic social teaching. Francis frequently references the social thought of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who himself affirmed that the Church “must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone.”
As the British theologian Anna Rowlands astutely notes, Catholic social teaching “functions as a social philosophy that never fully baptizes a liberal philosophy or sentiment. It remains locked in a complex dialogue … with liberal democracy.”
Another example that subverts the liberal/conservative dichotomy was the well-known response of Pope Francis to a journalist’s question about homosexuality in the priesthood: “Who am I to judge?” Francis did not overturn “conservative” teachings in sexual ethics.
But he did speak as a member of the Jesuit religious order and as a pastor, who knows that the general law must be applied in specific cases that introduce complexities and require nuanced concrete responses.
There was also a tacit appeal to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), that an individual is bound to follow their conscience.
For his part, Benedict XVI (as then-Cardinal Ratzinger), in a 1991 address to American bishops in Dallas, alluded to “the classical principle of moral tradition that conscience is the highest norm which [the human person] is to follow even in opposition to authority.” According to this principle, while church teaching authority would inform conscience, “conscience … would retain the final word.”
There is no doubt that LGBTQ+ Catholics were able to hear something different in Francis’s language than they had heard in Benedict’s. However, both Benedict and Francis could appeal to shared principles, which were theological rather than political, and not reducible to liberal versus conservative categories.
In the American context at the moment, “conservative Catholic” in its most radical form blends theological traditionalism — devotion to the traditional Latin mass, emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy and opposition to Francis’s reformist papacy — with support for the Republican party and MAGA movement.
As professor of moral philosophy Massimo Borghesi has argued, this radical conservative opposition to Francis has its genesis in the pro-capitalist Catholic neo-conservatism of the 1980s and 90s, and is a predominantly American phenomenon.
In addition, as writer and editor James T. Keane noted in a 2021 article in the Jesuit magazine America, the political polarizations that have seeped into the American Catholic Church should not set the map for the rest of the world, least of all the papacy. It is important to remember this fact as the first North American pope begins his pontificate.
Choice of name Leo
Cardinal Robert Prevost, who has become Pope Leo XIV, has given indications of being critical of the Trump administration on issues of peace and migration, very much in line with Francis.
His choice of the name Leo harkens back to Pope Leo XIII, the pope credited with initiating modern Catholic social teaching, and signals an emphasis on the Church’s advocacy for peace and justice. The new pope’s first Urbi et Orbi (“To the City and to the World”) address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica signalled continuity with Francis — peace, dialogue, encounter, bridge-building.
And Pope Leo’s career as a missionary, bishop and Vatican cardinal outside of the U.S. means that his context is not confined to the polarizations of the U.S. Catholic Church and its bishops.
Will the new Pope, Leo XIV, be liberal or conservative? Pope Francis did not fit neatly into these categories: I hope Pope Leo won’t either.
Mark Yenson 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.
Rhino beetles are just one insect species being traded illegally. Lightboxx/Shutterstock
Four men were recently arrested and fined for attempting to smuggle more than 5,000 ants out of Kenya. Aiming to sell them as part of the exotic pet trade, these ants were being stored in individual test tubes and syringes with small amounts of cotton wool for transportation. This unusual case highlights an important yet overlooked aspect of wildlife trafficking.
Wildlife trafficking is a crime against nature which occurs mainly because of consumer demand. Trafficking refers to the illegal smuggling and continued exploitation of wild animals, plants or timber. That includes, as in this case, insects.
Much conservation effort, reporting, study and enforcement activity focuses on recognised species such as rhinos. Wildlife trafficking is often associated more with these charismatic species and products made from them such as elephant tusks and rhino horn.
But wildlife trafficking includes a whole spectrum of illicit animal trade from poaching and smuggling to the distribution of protected and endangered species. There is also thriving illegal trade in insects.
Globally, insect species are declining. This is caused by an array of threats such as pollution, pesticides, climate change and urbanisation. Although the extent of the harm being caused by trafficking is unknown, this adds further pressure to species that already face extinction.
Protections for insects vary. The conservation status of each ant species affects their level of protection both nationally and internationally.
Ants that are on the red list – which is the largest classification of endangered species produced by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – and classed as critically endangered or endangered cannot be captured, killed or disturbed in any manner. An example is the anathema ant, which is currently listed as an endangered species.
International law puts controls on wildlife that may be threatened by trade. Some ants are protected under UK law which makes it an offence to disturb or destroy the nests of species like the red wood ant.
This case shows how wildlife trafficking extends to areas such as the smuggling of, and illegal trade, in ants. Some organised crime groups have moved from smuggling drugs and weapons to trafficking in plants, medicinal compounds and animals – including insects. Organised crime can include smaller and partially disorganised groups and networks. Where there is money to be made smuggling, networks will target wildlife.
The scale of the insect smuggling problem is unknown. Many cases will go unreported due to the clandestine nature of the trade. As such, both law enforcement and the wider public might not know or care about this being an offence.
Although there have been some insect trade seizures, law enforcement agencies are often underresourced and may view wildlife crimes as a low priority in comparison to other areas of criminality, such as drugs.
Often, insects are easily concealed. For example, 37 rhino beetles were discovered at Los Angeles International airport hidden within sweet and crisp packets.
Even once insects are seized, it can be difficult to identify the species to find out whether they are protected, given so many different levels of protections for species internationally.
Invasive species risk
Insect trafficking could introduce non-native species to new places. If they establish a breeding population and pose a threat to local ecosystems, they can become known as “invasive species”. Invasive species can outcompete native species for food. Some destroy habitats. Others have the potential to bring new diseases to a country.
Not only can invasive insects pose threats to the environment such as the ongoing issue of invasive Asian hornets within Europe, but also affect people. Hawaii spends US$10 million (£7.5 million) on invasive species control measures – US$2.4 million of that is set aside just for coconut rhinoceros beetles.
Although predicting which species and when they may become invasive is a challenge, insect trafficking can cause serious consequences. Undervaluing some species protections provides avenues for traffickers, so enforcing trafficking laws for all wildlife, including insects, is crucial.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Angus Nurse is a member of the Wild Animal Welfare Committee.~
He has previously received funding from animal welfare NGOs for research into wildlife and animal law not related to the subject of this article.
Elliot Doornbos 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.
Satellites are the invisible backbone of modern life. They guide airplanes, help us find our way with GPS, deliver TV and internet, and even help emergency services respond to disasters. But a new kind of computer – quantum computers – could put all of this at risk.
Quantum computers are not just faster versions of today’s computers. They work in a completely different way, using the peculiar rules of quantum physics. While they have not yet reached their full capabilities, quantum computers are expected to be game changing provided that the technological hurdles can be overcome.
For example, they are expected to be able to solve certain mathematical problems that would take classical computers millions of years. In some cases, quantum computers could solve such difficult problems in just seconds or minutes.
It’s very difficult to predict exactly when practical quantum computers will become available. However, progress is being made both in the design of more powerful quantum processors and in overcoming other hurdles to their development.
The new capabilities presented by quantum computers could help push forward areas such as science and medicine. For example, they could carry out the complex simulations needed to design new materials and more effective drugs. They could also improve our simulations of the Earth’s future climate.
However, there’s a catch: quantum computers could also break the codes that keep our digital world safe.
Experts around the world are working urgently to develop new kinds of digital “locks” that can’t be cracked by quantum computers – an area known as “post-quantum cryptography”. These new codes are being tested and approved by international bodies, while governments are starting to plan how to upgrade everything from satellites to bank systems.
The digital locks that protect satellite signals, bank accounts and private messages are based on mathematical puzzles that regular computers can’t solve quickly. Quantum computers, however, would be able to crack these puzzles with ease.
You might think that satellites are safe because they’re far away and hard to reach. But as the technology required to attack them becomes cheaper and more widely available, satellites are becoming targets for hackers and hostile governments. Today, it’s possible for skilled attackers to intercept satellite signals or try to send fake commands.
Staying ahead of the curve
Most satellites are designed to last for decades. This means the security systems we put in place now need to be strong enough to withstand not just today’s threats but tomorrow’s as well – including the threat from quantum computers.
In the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre has published a roadmap for moving to quantum-safe security. It has set a date of 2035 by which organisations should aim to migrate all their systems to post-quantum cryptography – the new digital codes that should protect against hacking by quantum computers. The message is clear: both private- and public-sector organisations need to start preparing now, so that by the time quantum computers are ready, our most important systems – including satellites – are already protected.
Updating a satellite’s security isn’t as simple as updating your phone’s software. Once a satellite is in orbit, it’s very hard – sometimes impossible – to change its systems. That’s why new satellites being designed today must use quantum-resistant security from the start.
It’s also necessary to design these systems so they can work efficiently across more than one satellite, because some spacecraft are designed to collaborate with each other in what are known as “swarms”.
If we don’t act now, the data sent to and from satellites could one day be read or even tampered with by anyone with a powerful enough quantum computer. That could mean anything from disrupted GPS signals to attacks on emergency communications or threats to national security.
No country can solve this problem alone. It will take scientists, engineers, governments and international organisations working together to make sure our digital infrastructure is ready for the quantum age.
The good news? The world is already moving in this direction. By building in the protections against quantum computers now, satellites that connect and protect us can be secured – no matter what the future brings.
Panagiotis (Panos) Vlachos’s employer, Mastercard, covers his tuition fees. He is an active volunteering member of CyberPeace Builders and ISC2’s Code TaskForce.
The UK is facing what charities are calling an eating disorder epidemic, with an estimated 1.25 million people affected. These conditions have the highest mortality rate of any mental health illness, making early intervention and education urgent.
Yet, within the world of sport, eating disorders often go undetected and unchallenged. Disordered behaviour, such as restricting food intake, purging, binge eating, or abusing laxatives, are sometimes normalised in competitive environments, embedded into routines and disguised as dedication.
Eating disorders thrive in silence. They’re secretive, isolating and can affect athletes of all genders, ages and backgrounds, whether at grassroots or elite levels.
In sport, several factors can trigger or worsen disordered behaviour: pressure to perform, body dissatisfaction, weight-category requirements and cultural ideals of what an “athletic” body should look like.
In this context, harmful practices like dehydration, extreme weight-cutting and overtraining often become accepted – and are sometimes even encouraged.
In some sports, the risks are tragically clear. Take bodybuilding. One heartbreaking example is 20-year-old Jodi Vance, who died from heart failure caused by dehydration during preparations for a competition.
In combat sports and martial arts, eating disorders are frequently acknowledged, yet meaningful solutions are rarely discussed. Fighters like Paige VanZant and Kay Hansen have openly shared their struggles with disordered eating, which in many sports, is still dismissed as just “part of the process”.
Extreme tactics
Even worse, some coaches perpetuate a toxic culture by fat-shaming athletes or joking about serious conditions like bulimia. In such environments, young athletes can become trapped in cycles of physical and emotional harm.
In my own research with UK-based mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters, I spent months observing and interviewing athletes across various gyms. Many described extreme weight-loss tactics before fights – dropping both fat and water weight in dangerously short time frames. These methods took a toll on both their bodies and mental health.
I witnessed fighters collapse from exhaustion and dehydration. I heard coaches make jokes about eating disorders. One fighter told me: “I don’t even recognise myself anymore,” echoing the public experiences of UFC fighter Paddy Pimblett, who has shared his struggles with binge eating and body image.
These stories hit close to home.
During my own time in MMA, I developed atypical anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder. I was praised for rapid weight loss – not for my skill or performance. At one point, I was training to the point of experiencing heart palpitations, dizziness and nausea. Yet, these symptoms were brushed off as signs of “good training”.
Eating disorders don’t discriminate
Even when I lived in a larger body, I was still suffering from an eating disorder. This is a crucial reminder: you cannot tell if someone is unwell just by looking at them. This isn’t just an issue in fight sports. Disordered eating affects athletes across many disciplines.
In fact, disordered thoughts can affect athletes at any stage of their careers. Today, even after competing internationally in American football and Australian rules football, I still live with disordered thinking around food and body image.
There have been some encouraging policy changes. In MMA, emergency rules now ban extreme weight-cutting methods like IV rehydration, where fluids and electrolytes are administered directly into a vein, bypassing the digestive system. British Gymnastics, the body governing competitive gymnastics in the UK, has banned coaches from weighing athletes – a major move given the sport’s documented issues.
Coaches can either be a force for recovery – or part of the problem. They must be better trained to spot early signs of disordered behaviour, provide support and promote a culture that values mental wellbeing over appearance.
To create safer sporting environments, we need better signposting for athletes on how to get help, education for coaches and staff on eating disorder awareness, a cultural shift from bodily perfection and towards sustainable performance and health and athlete-first policies that protect both physical and mental wellbeing.
Recovery is possible. But prevention – through awareness, education and empathy – can save lives long before treatment is ever needed.
Sport should be a place for strength, growth and resilience – not hidden harm.
If anything in this article causes distress or concern about eating disorders, visit the BEAT website for more information and support.
Zoe John received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for her Doctoral research.
Zoe also volunteers as a lived experience ambassador for the eating disorder charity, Beat.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Manjeet Ridon, Associate Dean International, Faculty of Arts, Design & Humanities, De Montfort University
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien intricately blends historical and speculative fiction to tackle contemporary global issues. It explores migration, the refugee crisis, identity politics and cultural conflict.
At the heart of the novel is Lina, a young girl who escapes her homeland with her ill father. She finds herself in a mysterious, shape-shifting place known only as “the Sea”. This ambiguous setting, likened to a temporary shelter or refugee camp, serves as a metaphor for statelessness, displacement and a loss of identity. The Sea’s geography is deliberately unclear – as is Lina’s origin, her homeland and the fate of the rest of her family. This emphasises the book’s themes of rootlessness and exile.
Lina arrives in the Sea as a child and remains there into her late 50s, bound by her loyalty to her ailing father. She lives in limbo, experiencing the heartache of her mother and brother’s absence and haunted by her family’s fragmentation.
Lina’s life becomes one of stillness and minimalism, revolving around caring for her father. She finds solace in the few items she brought with her, notably three volumes from The Great Voyagers encyclopaedia. She becomes obsessed with these books, reading them repeatedly until she has memorised them. They come to shape her intellectual and emotional world.
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These volumes also form the intellectual structure of the novel. In her mind, they are personified as three characters – Blucher, Bento and Jupiter. Each represents a distinct philosophical perspective and embodies historical figures from different periods and places, including Europe and Asia. They, like Lina, are portrayed as refugees living in the Sea. They appear across different stages of her life – adolescence, adulthood and old age – offering guidance and companionship.
Blucher is modelled after Hannah Arendt, the German-American philosopher and historian who escaped Nazi persecution. Through her, the novel explores themes of dehumanisation and survival under oppressive regimes.
Bento’s character represents the figure of Baruch Spinoza, the 17th-century Portuguese-Jewish philosopher. He was excommunicated from his Amsterdam community due to his radical and rationalist views of religion, reason and freedom. From him, Lina learns about the cost of intellectual and moral independence.
Jupiter resembles the Chinese poet Du Fu, who suffered political and personal turmoil due to his criticism of the state during the Tang dynasty (AD618 to 907). His story conveys the risks of speaking truth to power and the ethical sacrifices such acts may demand.
Through interactions with these three, Lina gains insights into resilience, suffering, and the philosophical implications of exile and survival.
Author Madeleine Thien was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 2016. Wiki Commons, CC BY-SA
Blucher teaches her about the psychological strategies used by Holocaust survivors, including the detachment of self from suffering. Bento’s story reveals the loneliness of ideological estrangement and the commitment required to uphold your beliefs against societal rejection. Jupiter imparts the painful consequences of challenging authority, and how artistic and political expression often come at great personal cost.
Enduring and resisting
While the novel is set in a speculative future, its most potent and emotionally resonant passages are grounded in the historical experiences of Blucher, Bento and Jupiter.
Lina’s story is less compelling and comparatively more subdued. It serves as a lens through which the reader reflects on a dystopian world shaped by today’s challenges – rising nationalism, populism and polarisation, and environmental collapse. Her story symbolises the psychological toll of prolonged displacement and the quiet endurance of everyday life under extraordinary pressures.
Ultimately, The Book of Records is a sobering meditation on the human condition in times of crises. It critiques historical cycles of oppression while illustrating how people retain dignity, compassion, and philosophical depth in the face of adversity.
Lina’s companionship with Blucher, Bento and Jupiter becomes a testament to how survival is not merely about endurance, but about how we preserve and interpret our values. The novel emphasises that even amid chaos, acts of kindness, understanding and intellectual inquiry remain vital forms of resistance.
Manjeet Ridon 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 Heather Laird, Senior Lecturer in the School of English and Digital Humanities, University College Cork
Palestinian literature is unique. It stands apart for its ability to capture a nation’s identity in exile – shaped not by borders, but by memory, resistance and longing.
The settings of modern Palestinian literature include Israel, the occupied territories, countries more broadly in the Middle East, and locations further afield. Four notable writers are particularly worth exploring: Emile Habibi, Ghassan Kanafani (now both dead) and more recent authors, Isabella Hammad and Anwar Hamed.
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Emile Habibi (1922-96) was one of about 150,000 Palestinian Arabs who remained in the territory that became Israel in 1948. He started writing in his mid-40s in response to a claim by an Israeli politician that Palestinians no longer existed in Israel, because if they did, they would have their own literature.
In his novel, The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist (1974), the central character flees to Lebanon in 1948, but soon afterwards is allowed to return home on the understanding that he will become an informant for Israeli intelligence. Despite his cooperation with the state of Israel, Saeed is beaten and imprisoned, finally learning from a fellow prisoner that his Palestinian identity is worthy of respect.
Ghassan Kanafani (1936-72) was one of approximately 750,000 Palestinians who were expelled from or fled Mandatory Palestine in 1948. A political thinker, journalist and revolutionary, his writings documented the horrors of war and occupation, and include Men in the Sun (1962), a short novel that features three Palestinian men who have been living for ten years in refugee camps in Iraq and are now attempting a dangerous desert journey to Kuwait.
Isabella Hammad (1992-) was born in London and raised by a British-Irish mother and a Palestinian father. Unlike Habibi and Kanafini, whose literary works were published initially in Arabic, Hammad writes in English. Her 2024 novel, Enter Ghost, imagines a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the West Bank. Its central character is a London-based actress who grew up in Israel as a Palestinian Arab and becomes involved in the Hamlet production while visiting her sister in Israel.
Though featuring disparate settings, Palestinian literature is linked by recurring motifs. Olive trees and keys, in particular, hold resonance in Palestinian culture. Many Palestinians kept the keys to their houses when they fled or were forced from Mandatory Palestine in 1948. These keys became symbols of loss of home and hope of return.
Palestinian identification with olive trees is grounded in the economic importance of olives for generations of Palestinian farmers. In the context of exile, the olive tree is emblematic of a long-standing connection to the land, adding specificity to a more generalised yearning for home.
In Kanafani’s Men in the Sun, the oldest Palestinian refugee reminisces about the olive trees he once owned, with his current lack of income leaving him no option but to set out on the hazardous journey to Kuwait where Palestinians are finding work as labourers in the oil fields.
The haunting of the present by the past is another common concern of Palestinian literature. In Habibi’s The Pessoptimist, the protagonist is confronted by “ghost-like” figures who ask if he has met anyone from their razed villages while journeying to Israel. This prompts him to reflect on his encounter with a woman attempting to return home and on the military governor who subsequently re-banished her and then watched in surprise as she grew bigger rather than smaller while walking away.
Another of Habibi’s literary works, a short story titled The Odds-and-Ends Woman (1968), mentions the “roving spirits” who, after an absence of 20 years, are making the journey from “the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Amman, even as far as Kuwait” to Israel in the hope of briefly seeing their former homes. In Hammad’s Enter Ghost, Palestinian characters discuss at length the relevance of Hamlet’s dead father to Shakespeare’s play.
Many works of Palestinian literature employ a serious tone when providing insight into the harsh realities of life for post-1948 Palestinians. Kanafani’s Men in the Sun, for example, is notable for its gritty naturalistic descriptions.
But Palestinian literature is more varied in tone and genre than might be expected. It also includes writings, such as Habibi’s The Pessoptimist, that employ humour to explore the circumstances of post-1948 Palestinians. And, more recently, Anwar Hamed (1957-) has applied a science-fiction sensibility to established motifs in Palestinian literature.
Hamed’s short story, The Key (2019), is set in 2048 in an Israel protected by a high-tech “gravity wall” – an invisible barrier that is programmed to allow only those who have the “key” embedded in their microchips to enter and exit.
The central character is an Israeli whose grandfather collected pictures of exiled Palestinians “clutching rusty keys to houses that no longer existed”. These photographs scared him “more than any arms deal being signed by neighbouring countries”, given the persistent “stubbornness” they revealed. The gravity wall has been designed for security purposes, but also to consign those rusty keys to the past.
But while this wall seems impenetrable, the boundary between past and present is porous. The story’s central character lives a comfortable existence cushioned from “the chaos” beyond the wall. But then the ghostly sound of a key turning in the lock of his apartment door starts to wake him up at night.
The first indication in the story that all Israelis are similarly affected is when the central character is informed that his doctor is inundated with requests for sleep medication. Unable to get an appointment, he decides to pay the doctor a visit outside of work hours.
The story ends with the doctor blowing a hole in his own apartment door with his old service rifle, and possibly killing the central character in the process. The doctor’s irrational reasoning is that with no lock left for an intruder to insert a key, he can finally sleep.
There are many reasons to read Palestinian literature. But chiefly, in innovative fictional ways, it gives voice to the challenging experience of belonging to a nation in exile.
These writings are also a reminder that injustices, if left unaddressed, refuse to be consigned to the past.
Heather Laird 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.
The treaty suspension reflects a growing regional trend: South Asian countries are increasingly treating water as a strategic asset rather than a shared resource amid rising mistrust, climate stress and geopolitical competition.
The region is home to nearly a quarter of the global population, and relies on huge transboundary rivers fed by Himalayan glaciers – the so-called “Third Pole” of freshwater reserves. A breakdown in water diplomacy could trigger environmental collapse, humanitarian crises and geopolitical instability. The weaponisation of water must be urgently addressed as a global climate justice issue.
A flashpoint occurred in August 2024 when devastating floods affected nearly 5.8 million people in Bangladesh. Some Bangladeshi officials accused India of releasing excess water from a large dam upstream without warning. India denied responsibility, citing extreme rainfall and standard dam operations. Nevertheless, the incident reignited longstanding tensions between the two countries.
Complicating matters further is China recently approving the construction of the world’s largest hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet, which becomes the Brahmaputra in India. This massive project has raised alarm about China’s ability to exert control upstream, and the ecological risks for India and Bangladesh downstream.
China hasn’t signed formal water-sharing agreements with its neighbours, but its growing presence in regional water infrastructure signals a dramatic shift in south and east Asian hydro-politics.
Climate change is making things worse
Recent climatic trends are making transboundary rivers an increasing focus of geopolitical friction. These trends include accelerated glacier melt, erratic monsoon patterns, and intensifying extreme weather.
While melting glaciers will temporarily boost the flow of rivers, the long-term prognosis is bleak. If emissions and warming trends continue, many glacier-fed rivers – including the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra – could see dramatically reduced flows by the end of the century. This will directly affect hundreds of millions of people who depend on them.
The crisis is being intensified by changes in the Himalayas. The region is warming faster than the global average, with a shift from snowfall to rainfall that disrupts the timing and volume of water that flows down from the mountains to the fields and cities below.
At the same time, unsustainable groundwater extraction has pushed South Asia’s reserves of underground water toward collapse, threatening both food and water security.
A dangerous precedent
A collapse or suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty could set a dangerous precedent. Importantly, the threat is less about India cutting off water flows – an unlikely and technically challenging act – and more about the erosion of trust, transparency and data sharing.
One of the treaty’s most valuable features has been the routine sharing of data on things like water levels, river flow and dam operations. Pakistan needs this data to forecast floods and droughts, plan its irrigation, generate hydropower effectively and manage its drinking water, yet India is indicating it will no longer honour these obligations.
But India’s strained water relations are not limited to Pakistan. Bangladesh and Nepal have often felt sidelined or pressured in negotiations, and India’s indication that it may reconsider longstanding treaties raises concerns in both countries.
This is especially the case as the Ganges Water Treaty nears its 2026 expiration: the vast Ganges river flows through India and irrigates much of Bangladesh – and the treaty guarantees Bangladesh a minimum river flow.
Other key agreements, such as the Mahakali Treaty and Kosi river accord with Nepal, and the Teesta water-sharing deal with Bangladesh, remain largely unimplemented, breeding mistrust. These failures undermine confidence in regional water diplomacy and cast doubt on India’s commitment to equitable cooperation.
None of this is helped by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh all continuing to rely on outdated irrigation methods that mean they use more water than necessary. As climate change intensifies floods, droughts and glacial melt, there is an urgent need to reform existing water treaties to reflect present-day climate, hydrological and geopolitical realities.
Canals, like this one in Punjab, India, irrigate much of South Asia. Hussain Warraich / shutterstock
The Indus Waters Treaty, negotiated in the 1960s before the emergence of modern climate science, no longer accounts for these transformations. Indeed, most water treaties in the region remain rooted in technocratic, engineering-centric frameworks which fail to address extreme climate variability and its cascading impacts.
The upcoming expiration of the Ganges Water Treaty, and the pending negotiation of other basin agreements, present a critical opportunity to rethink water governance in South Asia.
Though the Indus flows through India before Pakistan, in other basins, India is downstream. This is the case with the Brahmaputra, where it demands upstream cooperation from China.
Undermining the Indus treaty could weaken India’s own position in future negotiations and strain its relations with Nepal and Bangladesh, while giving China more influence in South Asian hydro-politics. China is already expanding its footprint by offering billions in loans to Bangladesh and strengthening ties with Nepal, particularly around water infrastructure.
Many of the world’s largest rivers begin in the Himalayas or the Tibetan Plateau. JudeMakesMaps, CC BY-SA
Weaponising water is a perilous strategy that may backfire. The weakening of water diplomacy in South Asia is not just a regional threat; it endangers global climate security.
In the face of escalating climate change impacts and recurring disasters, updating transboundary agreements like the Indus Waters Treaty, Ganga Water Treaty, and Kosi and Teesta accords is no longer optional – it is an urgent necessity with enormous consequences.
Mehebub Sahana receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joshua Forstenzer, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Co-Director of the Centre for Engaged Philosophy, University of Sheffield
Homer’s Iliad is one of the foundational stories of European civilisation. The Iliad is a long poem – an epic – thought to have first been put down in writing in the eighth century BC, though the story is set several hundred years before, perhaps as early as the 12th or 13th century BC.
It explores a few crucial violent weeks within a much longer war between an alliance of Greek city-states and the city of Troy over Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. In it, we find ancient Greek gods and humans sharing a common reality. They concurrently star as the central characters of both a mythological and an earthly dramatic encounter, on which the fate of a people rests.
In his work, public philosopher Cornel West argues that there is a “gangster” inside all of us. The challenge, West teaches, is to learn to keep these “gangster elements” in check so that we can still live with decency and integrity in an often violent and unjust world. This struggle, I contend, is at the heart of both Homer’s Iliad and the art of battle rap.
This article is part of Rethinking the Classics. The stories in this series offer insightful new ways to think about and interpret classic books and artworks. This is the canon – with a twist.
Battle rap is an art form where two or more MCs confront one another in a freestyle rap that includes boasts, insults, wordplay and disses (related to but not to be confused with rap beefs like the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud).
The history of this kind of verbal jousting goes back at least to flyting – poetic duels usually involving rhyming insults, widespread in northern Europe in the late medieval era. (See Assassin’s Creed Valhalla for its recent reimagining.) And it also has African roots. But its latest iteration is thought to have emerged in the hip-hop scene in New York in the 1980s. The 1981 Busy Bee versus Kool Moe Dee battle at the Harlem World club in New York is an important part of hip-hop lore.
The rap battles featured in 8 Mile brought the scene mainstream attention.
It was arguably the 2002 film 8 Mile, however, that starred real battle rap legend, Eminem, that made the art form well known beyond hardcore rap aficionados. Today it is a pop culture streaming event, with millions of followers and official leagues.
The object of a battle rap is to display flow, braggadocio and quick wit. Humour is often a plus, but lyrically dexterous, rhythmic, creative “burns” are the name of the game.
So what do the Iliad and battle rap have in common?
Both art forms encourage us, the listeners, to react, reflect and ultimately select with which speaker to side. We are thrust into the centre of the action without much of a narrator to explain things.
Both the Iliad and rap battles are part of the oral poetic tradition, since we think the Iliad was orally recited for generations before it was put down in writing. They are therefore both addressed to a live audience.
Emily Wilson, who translated The Iliad in 2023, gives a lively contemporary reading.
The Iliad is a story of war between Greeks and Trojans, but also of “beefs”. Menelaus versus Paris over the hand of Helen. Achilles versus Agamemnon, the king of the Greeks who wrongs him by expropriating one of his slaves. And Achilles versus Hector, the Trojan prince who kills Patroclus, Achilles’s closest friend.
The high moment of the poem is arguably the encounter between Achilles and Hector. Before they battle to the death, Hector offers Achilles a deal: whoever wins won’t disrespect the other’s body.
In response, Achilles belows: “Curse you, Hector, and don’t talk of oaths to me. Lions and men make no compacts, nor are wolves and lambs in sympathy: they are opposed, to the end. You and I are beyond friendship: nor will there be peace until one or the other dies.”
Achilles is calling out Hector’s attempt at showing nobility of character, because Hector tries to separate the duty to wage conflict from rage and disrespect of his enemy. Achilles flatly rejects the proposal. For him, the only reason to fight is to satiate his grief-induced rage and so no respect can be given even after death.
The battle of Hector and Achilles as imagined in Troy (2004).
Ultimately, Achilles kills Hector and desecrates his body, but Hector was clearly the better man. Two worldviews collide. Which one should we side with?
In a battle rap, the question of how we judge which MC to be victorious is always at stake. Do we side with the MC who best “rocks the mic” by pleasing the audience, or the one who more lyrically and intelligently cuts the opponent to the bone?
Here are five more themes shared by The Iliad and battle rap.
1. The pursuit of fame
Battle rap has made gifted MCs into street rap legends. Long before record deals were the prize, MCs battled for respect and street fame.
This pursuit of legendary status also lies at the very heart of The Iliad, as Achilles is warned by his mother, the goddess Thetis, that he will die if he fights in the Trojan war, but in return his “glory never dies”.
2. Communal belonging
Battle rappers and the warriors in The Iliad act in their own name but they also represent wider groups heralding from different places. They all, in some way, carry responsibility for and aim to bring reflected fame to their respective communities.
3. Displaying skill
Most battle raps take the form of a take down of the opponent, but the real object is to demonstrate verbal prowess. Simply entertaining will not cut it. “You now have to make sense of what you say, in order for us to give you the power,” summarises hip-hop legend KRS-One.
The Iliad opens with a muse telling the audience that the epic will recount the “wrath of Achilles”, but in fact we find skilful interventions in speech that make us wonder whether the reasons for conflict can ever justify the grief it causes.
4. An honour code
What is truly worth living and dying for are central themes in The Iliad, as in battle rap. There we find talk of loyalty, honour, respect, courage, friendship and fame.
The overt answers given can be taken as embraces of a certain kind of toxic masculinity where dominance, rage, cunning and violence are celebrated, but maybe these answers subtly point to their ultimate hollowness.
Lurking behind the repeated injunction to “be the best”, battle rap and Homer’s epic invite the question of what is truly worth admiring: skill, dominance, wealth, integrity, courage, beauty, truth, justice, love or glory? They provide no singular answer.
5. Creativity and living within the ‘funk’ of life
Instead, we are left to sit within what West calls the “funk of life” – the mess of it all. From there, we can see that the stories we tell ourselves have the power to shape and define our actions and our very lives.
So the main question becomes: at a time when simplistic stories of violence and domination are presented to us as easy answers to complex social realities, can we create new and richer stories of our own?
Joshua Forstenzer’s work receives funding from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture as part of its Templeton-funded Life Worth Living project (https://lifeworthliving.yale.edu/).
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura Hood, Senior Politics Editor, Assistant Editor, The Conversation (UK edition)
Editor Stephen Khan (left) with award winner Professor Paul Whiteley, University of Essex handed the trophy by The Conversation’s patron, Professor Sir Paul Curran.The Conversation
Paul Whiteley, emeritus professor of government at the University of Essex, has been named as the 2024 winner of the Sir Paul Curran award for academic communication.
The prize is awarded every year to an academic who has shown exceptional skill, dedication and engagement in communicating their knowledge to readers.
Paul has contributed 120 articles to The Conversation since August 2014, helping readers understand the seismic political shifts that have taken place over that period. He’s written about British and US politics, Brexit, emerging and historical electoral patterns and voter behaviour. He has contributed to The Conversation’s coverage of every British election that has taken place since launching in the UK and has written some of our strongest, evidence-based analysis of Brexit since the referendum in 2016. Paul was one of the contributors who answered The Conversation’s call for submissions in its earliest days and has featured regularly ever since.
The Politics + Society team asked for Paul to be recognised this year in particular because his work formed the cornerstone of The Conversation’s 2024 election coverage. He analysed dozens of past elections to help us understand where the campaign was going wrong for former prime minister Rishi Sunak, and issued some warnings to the Labour party about the perils of a victory based on low turnout. He also helped readers digest the various MRP polls that appeared to be shaping as well as measuring the campaign.
Paul’s award was linked to his work analysing the rise of the Reform party at a time when hard evidence is hard to come by. Paul has looked at how protest voting is tied to Reform voting, and what it means for Reform to be advancing in the polls at this stage in the electoral cycle. He’s issued advice to Labour and the Conservatives as they try to produce a response to this new electoral threat.
More recently, Paul has turned his attention to US politics to help readers understand the politics of Donald Trump.
On the night, we thanked Paul for his 120 articles and looked forward to reading his next 120.
Highly commended
This year, two academic writers also received commendations.
Michelle Spear, professor of anatomy at the University of Bristol, was highly commended for her “entertaining, illuminating and often hilarious” articles about the human body. Her work has included fact checks on full-body deodorants and collagen supplements. Michelle was also the author of a grizzly investigation for Guy Fawkes night that looked at what actually happened when people were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Ruth Itzhaki professor emeritus of molecular neurobiology at the University of Manchester and visiting professorial fellow at the University of Oxford, received special commendation for her work on the viral cause of Alzheimer’s. Ruth and colleagues first identified a possible link between cold sores and susceptibility to Alzheimer’s in later life. She wrote an Insights long read as part of the Uncharted Brain: Decoding Dementia series in 2022, and in recent weeks has written again following greater recognition, decades later, of her work.
A huge thank you to Paul, Michelle and Ruth for their work with The Conversation over the years, and to all our authors – without whose efforts there would be no conversation.
Almost 2,000 years ago in modern-day Uttar Pradesh, India, someone deposited a cache of gems inside a reliquary (a container for holy relics), along with some bone fragments and ash. The gems were precious, but the bones and ash even more so, for according to an inscription on the reliquary, they belonged to Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.
The Piprahwa gems were placed along with the Buddha’s bodily relics (śarīra) as an offering inside a stūpa (A Buddhist funerary structure that contains relics and acts as a place of pilgrimage). Such an offering is not only supposed to generate “merit” (puṇya) and hopefully a good rebirth for the devotee, but is also an act of devotion and gratitude to the Buddha.
In 1898, a British land owner, William Claxton Peppé, ordered the excavation of that same stūpa on his land in colonial India and discovered the reliquary. The bodily relics were sent to the Buddhist king of Thailand, many of the gems went to the former Imperial Museum in Calcutta and Peppé was permitted to keep the rest.
This latter portion was due to be put up for auction at Sotheby’s Hong Kong this month, just days before the Buddhist holy day of Vesak – and it has generated controversy. Not only has the sale been described as perpetuating colonial violence, but the Indian government demanded that auction house Sotheby’s halt the sale or it would seek legal action. Sotheby’s has complied, for now.
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Peppé’s great-grandson, Chris Peppé, explained in an article for Sotheby’s: “From the time we received the Piprahwa gem relics, my cousins and I have sought to make them available for viewing by the public (ideally a Buddhist public) to see at no cost to the institution borrowing them.” This has resulted in the gems being displayed in museums around the world. The cousins also set up The Piprahwa Project website, which allows people to access all the research materials that they have gathered.
Chris Peppé has said that he hopes that the sale will help people see to see the gems and connect with those that left them and the Buddha himself. His great-grandfather, he says, ordered the excavation to provide work for his tenant farmers.
As a Buddhist and the grandson of an Anglo-Indian man myself, my past straddles this colonial divide more than most. Putting aside the ethical issues around excavating a sacred site in the first place, and the uncomfortable tie-in to other instances of colonial looting by the British in India, the truly extraordinary thing is that these gems were put up for sale at all.
If they really were mixed together with the bodily relics of the Buddha, then these gems were in physical contact with them and intended to be paired with them for posterity. That means that, in a Buddhist context, there is no essential difference between the gems and the actual remains of the Buddha.
The Sri Lankan historical chronicle The Mahāvaṃsa (written in the 5th or 6th-century AD) states that “if we behold the relics we behold the Conqueror”, aka Buddha. As art historians Conan Cheong and Ashley Thompson write in their recent journal paper on the topic: “At the very least, we can affirm that for many Buddhists, historically and today, these ‘gems’ are śarīra of the Buddha and as such are imbued with the Buddha’s living presence.”
Buddha in the west
Speaking to the Guardian after the auction was postponed Peppé said: “In light of the Indian government’s sudden interest in the gems, 25% of auction proceeds will be donated to the displaying of the main Kolkata collection of the Piprahwa gems for Buddhists and the larger public to enjoy. Another 25% will be donated to Buddhist institutions.” With regards to his and his two relatives’ right to sell the gems, he added: “Legally, the ownership is unchallenged.”
As an expert in Buddhist philosophy, I believe that to put a price on something that possesses such a sacred status for millions of people worldwide is both disrespectful and morally objectionable.
The sale is also not something I could ever imagine happening regarding objects linked with any other religious figure. If a piece of intact clothing, for example, was found to have been worn by Jesus, would this be put up for sale? Of course, it would be massively valuable, but any financial considerations would surely be outweighed by its religious importance for the world’s billions of Christians. Why should it be any different with Buddhist relics?
Another phenomenon inadvertently revealed by the fact of the sale is the ongoing commercialisation of Buddhism in the west. To many westerners, the Buddha and Buddhism are increasingly viewed as commodities to be bought and sold.
Cheaply made Buddha statues and Buddha-faced plant pots adorn the shelves of garden centres and are then used to decorate living rooms and gardens. Clothes, lamps, beach towels and even shoes embellished with images of the Buddha can be purchased easily. The Buddha is frequently regarded as an ornament or fashion item rather than a sacred figure in a manner that, again, is rarely done with any other religiously significant person.
Buddhas are common garden decorations in the west – but it’s hard to imagine a Jesus-themed equivalent. Radek Havlicek/Shutterstock
From all this, selling actual Buddhist relics is not a large step. As with the commodification of other religions in the west such as Hinduism and Islam, commercialisation always simultaneously involves decontextualisation. It is an example of what philosopher Sophia Rose Arjana in her book Buying Buddha, Selling Rumi (2020) terms “the religious marketplace”.
As she writes: “Religions associated with the east – Hindu, Buddhism, Islam – are also commodified. Their symbols are marketed by entrepreneurs and corporations and then consumed by everyone from non-religious spiritualists to ambivalent mystical seekers.”
Religious traditions, practices, images and artefacts must be stripped of their native contexts and sacred meaning. Through this auction, the Piprahwa gems are considered ancient jewels to be admired ascetically rather than religious relics.
Given their importance to global history and our human story, the Buddha and Buddhism are worthy of a lot more respect than they are currently afforded. While Buddhism teaches that everything is impermanent, we are lucky enough to still possess treasures such as the Piprahwa gems, and we should value them – and learn from them – while we can.
Lee Clarke 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 Genecy Calado de Melo, Lecturer in Operative and Primary Care Dentistry, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences
noriver/Shutterstock.com
A few drops of saliva can now reveal what used to require a scalpel, a syringe or a scan.
Scientists have developed ways to analyse spit for the tiniest traces of illness – from mouth cancer to diabetes, and even brain diseases like Alzheimer’s.
Unlike blood tests or biopsies, saliva is easy to collect, painless and inexpensive. During the COVID pandemic, some countries used saliva-based testing for rapid screening.
This isn’t entirely new. Scientists first noticed the diagnostic potential of spit decades ago. In the 1980s, researchers used saliva to detect hormones and drug use. By the 1990s, it was being explored as a way to detect HIV.
What’s new is the speed and precision. Today’s techniques can detect subtle molecular shifts that would have been impossible to measure just a few years ago.
Saliva holds a surprising amount of information. It’s full of tiny fragments of DNA, RNA, proteins and fats – many of which change when disease takes hold. Researchers have already shown that saliva can be used to detect changes linked to diabetes, Parkinson’s, heart disease and some cancers.
A recent study even showed saliva could help distinguish between healthy people and those with mild cognitive impairment, a possible early sign of Alzheimer’s.
In dentistry, spit science is being studied for early signs of gum disease and even the risk of tooth decay.
A light-based technique called Raman spectroscopy is one of the latest tools being used to scan saliva for hidden chemical changes. It works by bouncing harmless light off molecules in a spit sample and reading the pattern it sends back – a kind of fingerprint for what’s happening inside your body.
It sounds like science fiction, but the technology is already being used in labs to detect early signs of cancer and other diseases often before symptoms appear.
This could be a gamechanger for oral cancer, which often starts with small, painless changes inside the mouth that are easy to miss. Early detection is vital, but many people don’t realise they have a problem until it’s much harder to treat.
A simple spit test during a regular dental check-up could help find cancer early, before it spreads.
It’s not just about cancer, either. Saliva is being trialled as a tool to monitor everything from stress levels to infections.
What makes saliva so appealing is its simplicity – no needles, no specialist clinics. Samples can often be collected at home, posted to a lab and analysed within hours. This could make a huge difference in places with limited access to healthcare or for people who avoid doctors out of fear, cost or time.
Of course, not every disease leaves a clear marker in spit and researchers are still working out which conditions saliva can reliably detect. But the idea of using what’s already naturally produced by the body to give an early warning is a powerful one. It could help catch disease when it’s most treatable, save lives and make healthcare faster, cheaper and more comfortable for everyone.
There’s still work to be done before spit tests become part of routine check-ups. Larger clinical trials are needed and researchers are still fine tuning the best ways to analyse and interpret the data. But the direction of travel is clear: the days of saliva being seen as just drool are over.
Saliva may not seem glamorous, but thanks to the rise of spit science, it’s fast becoming one of the most promising tools in the fight against disease. A future where your dentist, doctor, or even you could spot health problems early with nothing more than simple spit.
Genecy Calado de Melo received funding from Science without Borders – Brazil (2015).
Cathy E. Richards 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.
Satellites are the invisible backbone of modern life. They guide airplanes, help us find our way with GPS, deliver TV and internet, and even help emergency services respond to disasters. But a new kind of computer – quantum computers – could put all of this at risk.
Quantum computers are not just faster versions of today’s computers. They work in a completely different way, using the peculiar rules of quantum physics. While they have not yet reached their full capabilities, quantum computers are expected to be game changing provided that the technological hurdles can be overcome.
For example, they are expected to be able to solve certain mathematical problems that would take classical computers millions of years. In some cases, quantum computers could solve such difficult problems in just seconds or minutes.
It’s very difficult to predict exactly when practical quantum computers will become available. However, progress is being made both in the design of more powerful quantum processors and in overcoming other hurdles to their development.
The new capabilities presented by quantum computers could help push forward areas such as science and medicine. For example, they could carry out the complex simulations needed to design new materials and more effective drugs. They could also improve our simulations of the Earth’s future climate.
However, there’s a catch: quantum computers could also break the codes that keep our digital world safe.
Experts around the world are working urgently to develop new kinds of digital “locks” that can’t be cracked by quantum computers – an area known as “post-quantum cryptography”. These new codes are being tested and approved by international bodies, while governments are starting to plan how to upgrade everything from satellites to bank systems.
The digital locks that protect satellite signals, bank accounts and private messages are based on mathematical puzzles that regular computers can’t solve quickly. Quantum computers, however, would be able to crack these puzzles with ease.
You might think that satellites are safe because they’re far away and hard to reach. But as the technology required to attack them becomes cheaper and more widely available, satellites are becoming targets for hackers and hostile governments. Today, it’s possible for skilled attackers to intercept satellite signals or try to send fake commands.
Staying ahead of the curve
Most satellites are designed to last for decades. This means the security systems we put in place now need to be strong enough to withstand not just today’s threats but tomorrow’s as well – including the threat from quantum computers.
In the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre has published a roadmap for moving to quantum-safe security. It has set a date of 2035 by which organisations should aim to migrate all their systems to post-quantum cryptography – the new digital codes that should protect against hacking by quantum computers. The message is clear: both private- and public-sector organisations need to start preparing now, so that by the time quantum computers are ready, our most important systems – including satellites – are already protected.
Updating a satellite’s security isn’t as simple as updating your phone’s software. Once a satellite is in orbit, it’s very hard – sometimes impossible – to change its systems. That’s why new satellites being designed today must use quantum-resistant security from the start.
It’s also necessary to design these systems so they can work efficiently across more than one satellite, because some spacecraft are designed to collaborate with each other in what are known as “swarms”.
If we don’t act now, the data sent to and from satellites could one day be read or even tampered with by anyone with a powerful enough quantum computer. That could mean anything from disrupted GPS signals to attacks on emergency communications or threats to national security.
No country can solve this problem alone. It will take scientists, engineers, governments and international organisations working together to make sure our digital infrastructure is ready for the quantum age.
The good news? The world is already moving in this direction. By building in the protections against quantum computers now, satellites that connect and protect us can be secured – no matter what the future brings.
Panagiotis (Panos) Vlachos’s employer, Mastercard, covers his tuition fees. He is an active volunteering member of CyberPeace Builders and ISC2’s Code TaskForce.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández, Professor of Hispanic Theology and Ministry, Catholic Theological Union
Players observe a minute of silence in memory of Pope Francis before the Spanish league soccer match between Real Madrid and RC Celta de Vigo at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid on May 4, 2025.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images
The world of sport is “a constellation of many stars,” Pope Francis told La Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italian daily sports newspaper, during a wide-ranging interview in January 2021.
On April 21, 2025, that world lost, if not one of its brightest stars, then certainly one of its highest-placed advocates in Francis. In his youth, Francis was only ever a street athlete, but he was an avid and lifelong sports fan, especially when it came to soccer. In fact, Francis incorporated his love of the beautiful game into his outlook as pope – for him, sport was a way to communicate with people from all backgrounds and all corners of the globe.
With Leo XIV now installed as Francis’ successor, that sporting theme could continue in the Vatican, though the center of gravity may migrate from soccer to baseball. As befitting a U.S. pope, Leo is known to be a fan of the national pastime, in particular his native Chicago White Sox.
Always ‘un cuervo!’
Long before the papacy, even before his first steps toward priesthood, for Jorge Mario Bergoglio – the boy who would go on to become Pope Francis – there was his hometown sports club, Buenos Aires’ San Lorenzo de Almagro.
It was “part of my cultural identity,” Francis later said, so much so that he maintained his club membership throughout his life.
That became news upon his death, when a photo of his club card went viral. Argentine sports fans noted that his membership card number, 88235, coincided with his age, 88, and the moment of his death in Argentina time: 2:35 AM.
Francis’ relationship with San Lorenzo de Almagro was marked by mutual affection. The team memorialized him in various ways. They noted how he continues to accompany them by emblazoning on their jerseys his image and the words “juntos por la eternidad” or “together forever.”
In a touching video tribute posted on social media following Francis’ death, the club affirmed his belonging, from his childhood through his papacy, as “un cuervo” – or “crow,” a nod to the nickname for the team and its fans rooted in the club’s founding by a Catholic priest. In Lunfardo, a dialect in Buenos Aires, “cuervo” is also slang for priest. For his team, “Papa Cuervo” was “never just one more fan, he was always one of us.”
A sporting world pays tribute
And it wasn’t just his home team that mourned Francis’ death.
On the day of his passing, moments of silence preceded play from Citi Field, the home of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets, to Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, the temporary soccer venue of Spanish soccer giant Barcelona.
In Italy, soccer matches were rescheduled to honor the national period of mourning, and players and coaches from AS Roma filed into St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects.
Pope Francis holds a tennis racket presented to him by the Italian Tennis Federation in 2015. AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
Across social media platforms, the sporting world responded to the loss of one they considered their own. Spanish tennis champ Rafael Nadal tweeted his condolences and observed that the day was indeed “un día triste,” or “sad day.”
The NFL’s New Orleans Saints expressed condolences and commemorated their relationship with the pope, a connection born of a digital anomaly. Each time Francis posted #Saints on his X – formerly Twitter – account, it automatically tagged the NFL team, which did not mind the accidental blessings.
When global attention turned to speculating about the next pope, the soccer world continued to mourn and honor their star. From April 29 to May 1, each Champions League semifinal match – youth, women’s and men’s alike – was preceded by a moment of silence.
In the words of world soccer body UEFA’s president Aleksander Čeferin: “Pope Francis was a beacon of hope for… (a) humanity that will now remain orphaned of that voice – tireless and powerful – that always rose in defense of the poor, the humble, and the vulnerable to call for respect, acceptance, and equality and to implore a peace that always seemed distant …”
Pope Francis is given a San Lorenzo’s shirt as he greets the faithful prior to his first ‘Urbi et Orbi’ blessing from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica during Easter Mass on March 31, 2013. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Sport as language of life
For Francis, sport was more than a game or a pastime.
It was a vernacular, and soccer was his dialect. He was fluent and it showed. He recognized in sport the potential to communicate in what he called a universal language that “extends across borders, language, race, religion and ideology; it possesses the capacity to unite people, together, by fostering dialogue and acceptance.”
The online archive of his pontificate contains well over 60 sport-related audiences, messages and letters, including video greetings on occasions such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and Super Bowl LI in 2017.
Sport emerged early as one of Jorge Bergoglio’s native tongues, bound intimately to memory, family, identity and belonging – threads also evident in his canon of teachings on sport. In “Hope,” his 2024 autobiography, Francis dedicates a chapter to sport and weaves stories of his beloved soccer throughout the book in a manner that reveals how “the experience of the people and their passions” became for him a source and site for his theology of encounter.
A commitment to inclusivity is a constitutive element in his teaching on both sport and encounter. Among those who paid tribute on Francis’ passing were the organizers of the Paralympic Games, who posted: “Today humanity lost a great man … passionate about sport and passionate about inclusion, which epitomizes everything the Paralympic Movement stands for.”
‘Getting in the game’
Francis urged, “‘Get in the game’ not only in sports … but also in life, in the search for the good, without fear but with courage and enthusiasm. Get in the game with others and with God … Place your talents at the service of the encounter among people, of friendship and of inclusion.”
He put this into practice with the launch and sponsorship in 2019 of Athletica Vaticana, a dedicated sports body for the city-state. He also gave his blessing and backing to St. Peter’s Cricket Club, the first-ever Vatican women’s soccer team, and Sport at the Service of Humanity, a collaborative global movement that seeks to “leverage the power of Faith and Sport as a platform for good.”
“Get in the game” was a call intended not only for athletes – amateur, collegiate, Special Olympian, professional – but for street-ballers, schoolyard players, fans and gamers of all kinds. In sports and play, Francis found the potential for a “school of peace” because they provided opportunities “to go outside of our own walls and learn how to participate, to overcome, to struggle together,” charting ways forward for church and society “to overcome all forms of discrimination and exclusion.”
Francis never forgot the joys or even the sorrows of sports as a player or as a fan. “Playing is a right,” he wrote in his memoir, “and there’s also the hallowed right not to be a champion.”
Behind every ball, he saw a kid with a dream and aspirations, and he recognized himself on the soccer field – a “pata dura,” the kid with two left feet, “sleeves rolled up, and often with grazed knees.” On the sports field, like elsewhere, he recognized and took delight in the beauty of God.
The link between the papacy and the sporting world looks set to continue under Pope Leo XIV.
The media quickly noted that soccer aficionado Francis had been succeeded by an amateur tennis player and fan.
The new pope’s brother had to resolve an online dispute by affirming Leo is a fan of the South Side’s Chicago White Sox and not the North Side’s Cubs.
Regardless, the city’s two baseball franchises responded with dueling stadium signs claiming the pope as their own. Meanwhile, ESPN reported that NBA teammates Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, former Villanova Wildcats-turned-New York Knicks chatted about a possible alumni reunion with the newest rising star in the constellation of sports: Pope Leo XIV.
Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández 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 – UK – By Parveen Akhtar, Senior Lecturer: Politics, History and International Relations, Aston University
Reform’s success at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives in recent local elections has triggered speculation that it is on course for significantly more representation in parliament at the next general election.
This is a remarkable position for such a young party to be in. And perhaps just as remarkable is the fact that the chairman of a party defined by identity politics and opposition to immigration is a Muslim son of Sri Lankan immigrants.
Zia Yusuf is credited with professionalising Reform. Under his watch a number of constitutional changes have been made, including granting the party chair the authority to revoke membership, take disciplinary measures against and suspend candidates, as well as growing and building a national level party infrastructure.
Given the constant battles of the past – the candidates accused of racist comments at the 11th hour, for example – these election results suggest this professionalisation drive has paid off. The numbers are impressive, Reform has surpassed 230,000 members, leads ten councils, has 799 councillors, five MPs and two regional mayors.
Ben Habib, former co-deputy leader of Reform, has called for Yusuf to be removed over a dispute that erupted earlier this year that resulted in the suspension of Rupert Lowe, one of the Reform MPs elected in July 2024.
Senior-level party in-fighting persists, albeit increasingly behind closed doors (like the traditional parties). The Lowe row initially looked like it could end the way so many other such incidents have, but was quickly neutralised. Lessons have been learned.
Yusuf’s rise
Now a millionaire businessman, Yusuf was born in Scotland, to parents who migrated to the UK in the 1980s. He calls himself a “British Muslim patriot” and has been one of Reform’s biggest donors. Introducing himself at the Reform rally in Birmingham in June 2024, (a speech he described as a love letter to Great Britain), Yusuf said he became a Reform donor because “I love Britain, I love my country.”
Reform took 4 million votes in the last general election but came away with just five parliamentary seats. Lessons, again, were learned. In these local elections, Reform was on almost every ballot paper, the focus was on getting out the activists, running local campaigns that could deliver every vote in the first-past-the-post system.
Luke Campbell, a former professional boxer and now Reform’s mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire’s Facebook campaign exemplifies the blending of local issues (a long-broken water fountain in Hull city centre) with incumbent party performance and national accountability: “If the Lib Dems can’t fix a water fountain, how can they fix a region?”
Momentum is clearly behind Reform. It has become the de facto home of many disaffected, defecting Conservative councillors and has attracted some big names from the Conservative party. These include former government minister Andrea Jenkyns (now a Reform mayor), and Tim Montgomerie, a Conservative party member for over 30 years and one-time adviser to Boris Johnson.
And in a major coup for Yusuf, Reform now has former Conservative party donor and billionaire Nick Candy as its treasurer. Candy, for the moment appears happy with a backstage role, raising funds. Yusuf however, has been public facing, on the campaign trail, at the counts, doing the media circuit.
A delicate path
Yusuf’s appointment as Reform’s chairman did not go uncontested and he has faced racist and Islamophobic abuse, including from Reform supporters. A sample of the kind of rhetoric swirling around opposition to Yusuf could be found on X. As one user reportedly said: “I voted Reform to get Britain back for the British, not for it to be led by a Muslim. I will be resigning my membership tomorrow.”
We of course don’t know if they saw through on that threat, and judging by Reform’s current membership numbers, few people voted against Yusuf with their feet. However, as another X user’s view suggests, he occupies a difficult position in a rightwing party: “I personally don’t buy the ‘good Muslim’ line. If he believes in the Qur’an, and is still chairman at the next election, I won’t be voting Reform again.”
Laurence Fox, the actor turned political activist, stated on his X account: “There cannot be a valid opposition party in the UK with @ZiaYusufUK anywhere near it. A Britain focused party cannot have a Mohammedan as the chair. Islam is not your friend if you believe in free speech, family and British culture. You cannot buy us.”
Meanwhile conspiracy theories have emerged claiming Yusuf is a plant trying to damage the party from the inside.
No doubt Yusuf’s position is at times an uncomfortable one. Yet he insists the response to his appointment has been “overwhelmingly positive”.
Given some of the comments on social media by Reform supporters, it’s clear that not everyone is convinced that it’s possible to be a British Muslim patriot. Yusuf himself remains steadfast in the face of personal abuse. He continues to stand behind the party leader who has never publicly called out the racism and Islamophobia he faces.
Yusuf has ploughed his money and his time into Reform because, he insists, of his love for Britain and his belief that the country gave his immigrant parents the chance to start a new life when they needed it – a country that he now thinks needs him to stand up and defend it against what he sees as open borders and uncontrolled immigration.
On this, Yusuf mirrors the sentiments in my forthcoming research with colleagues on British Muslims and Brexit. We’re finding that Muslim Leave voters were similar to mainstream Leave voters in wanting to reduce immigration, which they believed threatened the British way of life.
Yusuf, it seems, is on a personal mission to show that being the son of immigrants doesn’t exclude him from his beloved country. Perhaps he feels he has to be more vocal about his love of country, more attuned to British values and more anti-immigration to prove that love.
So far, he has proven valuable in mainstreaming the Reform party. Now that the party is on the up, he may be more valuable than ever.
Parveen Akhtar has previously received funds from the ESRC and the British Academy.
Saunas have long been spaces for rest, recovery, and even the occasional business deal. Personally, though, they’re not my cup of tea: too claustrophobic, too stifling and always with that distinct sensation that my nasal hairs have been singed away by the heat.
Watching that episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets trapped in a sauna and emerges looking like a steamed clam – miraculously alive – was the final nail in the coffin. I haven’t stepped into one since.
Despite my reservations, sauna culture is rich and diverse, transcending borders and histories. While they’re an integral part of Scandinavian life, especially in Finland, saunas also appear in the traditions of Japanese, Mexican and Native American cultures. There are many variations to experience – from yoga and life drawing sessions, to being gently flogged with birch branches. To each their own.
In recent years, the concept of refreshment in sauna culture has taken on altogether different dimensions. In the UK, more are now hot-footing their way to the sauna instead of the pub than ever before.
As a new social and wellbeing hub, fusing elements of bar and sauna cultures, it makes sense. But what of going the whole hog and drinking alcohol – before, during and after sauna sessions?
Why mix booze with 80°C heat in the first place? Perhaps it’s the natural fusion of two social rituals: relaxing in a sauna and enjoying a drink with friends. Or maybe it appeals to the hedonist seeking novel pleasures and euphoria.
Still, the question remains: what are the effects – and risks – of drinking alcohol in the sauna?
Numerous studies have explored the potential health benefits of sauna use. For instance, Japanese researchers have studied Waon therapy, literally, soothing warm therapy, (a lower-temperature sauna treatment) in patients with ischaemic heart disease, where narrowed arteries increase the risk of heart attacks.
Sauna use may also help manage high blood pressure and certain lung diseases. Some research also suggests benefits such as improved wound healing and even lower risks of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
The heat is on
But it’s not all steam and serenity. To understand the risks, especially when alcohol is involved, we need to look at how the body responds to heat – and to booze.
The hypothalamus, a region deep in the brain, regulates our core temperature. In response to heat, it boosts blood flow to the skin and ramps up sweating, helping us cool down. But this also increases the risk of dehydration. Combine that with alcohol, a diuretic that further depletes fluids, and the risk rises significantly.
Both alcohol and high temperatures can affect cardiovascular function, often lowering blood pressure and increasing heart rate. This can lead to dangerous heart rhythm abnormalities (arrhythmias).
Then there’s the impact on the brain. Alcohol of course impairs judgement and coordination – two things you’d definitely want intact in a room full of heat, slippery surfaces and scalding water.
Put all this together and what do you get? A dehydrated, overheated, intoxicated subject with a racing heart and plummeting blood pressure. Dizziness, fainting and confusion may follow, raising the risk of falls, burns, or even drowning.
Collapsing or falling unconscious in the sauna can prove dangerous. One sobering example comes from a case reported in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, where a person sustained severe injuries, including burns, in just seven minutes of sauna exposure – tragically resulting in death. Another study from Finland found a growing link between accidental sauna deaths and alcohol intoxication.
The key takeaway here? If you’re going to drink, do it after your sauna session – not before or during. Those who are intoxicated should avoid saunas altogether, or at the very least, be closely supervised.
Basic safety advice still applies: limit sauna sessions to short durations, cool down afterwards (via swimming or showering) and rehydrate with non-alcoholic beverages.
While the science behind saunas is still evolving, their millennia-long appeal speaks for itself. They offer real benefits – but mixing heat with alcohol could be a cocktail that burns more than it soothes.
Dan Baumgardt 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.
The 2026 Nasa budget proposal would slash around US$6 billion (£4.4 billion) in funding. This is a huge reduction, amounting to around 25% of recent Nasa budgets. The savings would mainly come from Nasa science programmes, potentially devastating high profile missions and international collaborations.
However, the budget proposal also represents an intentional redirection of Nasa’s focus by government through resource allocation. The state has long supported the development of a robust commercial space sector, and this budget is a further step in that direction.
Congress will have the final say and the cost to science could be high if the budget goes through without major amendments. One casualty could be Mars Sample Return (MSR), a joint endeavour with the European Space Agency that is intended to retrieve Martian soil and rock collected by the Perseverance rover and deliver it to laboratories on Earth.
An audit of MSR released in February 2024, suggested that the mission’s overall cost could exceed US$7.5 billion (£5.6 billion). The timescale for the mission was also slipping into the 2040s.
Nasa agreed to look at quicker and cheaper ways of carrying out the mission, a process which is ongoing. But as a big ticket item under the agency’s Science Directorate, MSR could nevertheless be cancelled if the proposed budget were to be passed.
Other projects likely to be affected include the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which aims to investigate dark energy and exoplanets, and the DaVinci mission to Venus, which seeks to study the planet’s dense atmosphere and surface composition. Since the James Webb Space Telescope is already constructed and operating, it is expected to continue doing so.
However broader funding reductions for Nasa’s Science Mission Directorate, from US$7.3 billion (£5.4 billion) to US$3.9 billion (£2.9 billion), may limit the scope of future projects and the pipeline of early innovations.
The Nancy Grace Roman telescope could be one casualty of the budget proposal. Nasa
The proposed budget could also lead to an accelerated retirement for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule. These are the vehicles designed to carry US astronauts to the Moon under a Nasa programme called Artemis.
This programme aims to establish a permanent US base on the Moon, allowing astronauts to carry out science and to learn how to make use of lunar resources –such as the abundant water ice sitting in craters at the poles.
This ice could be turned into water for life support and chemically split to provide propellant for spacecraft. This could bring down the cost of space exploration because it would avoid having to transport supplies from Earth.
The retirement of the SLS and Orion would happen after the Artemis III mission, which is planned to be the first to land astronauts on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. This decision suggests that the administration has heeded those who warn that if China gets to the Moon’s surface before the US, it could damage American space leadership.
But it also implies that White House officials are in no hurry to build up a sustained presence on the lunar surface, as laid out under the Artemis plan, since finding replacements for Orion and the SLS will take time.
With each SLS launch costing upwards of US$4 billion, the rocket’s longer term financial sustainability has been repeatedly called into question. Cancelling the SLS and Orion could also lead to thousands of job losses. These concerns are valid. However, in a robust industry, there is opportunity for people.
Globally, the space industry is growing fast, with a value of US$570 billion (£427 billion) in 2023, having grown 7.4% from the previous year. A flexible and vibrant industrial sector could offer ample opportunity for displaced workers.
Other commercial players such as Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and Sierra Space are developing their own launch systems, crewed vehicles, and – in some cases – space stations. This competitive ecosystem accelerates innovation and reduces costs, which ultimately benefits the broader economy and the country.
Having said all that, critics say an extended hiatus in crewed lunar exploration while commercial companies develop these spacecraft may hand China the advantage when it comes to establishing a dominant presence on the Moon.
Past precedent
The White House budget proposals are a request and not law. Congress has the final say in whether these programs are retired and when. There are precedents: in 2010 the Obama administration proposed the wholesale cancellation of the second Bush administration’s Constellation program to return to the Moon. However, Congress intervened to rescue the Orion spacecraft.
While Constellation’s two rockets – the Ares I and Ares V – were technically cancelled, the SLS (which in many ways resembles the Ares V) was conceived as a compromise.
If approved, the proposed budget cuts would usher Nasa more strongly towards an orchestrator or “systems integrator” role. This would see the agency convening and coordinating a complex web of commercial, academic, and international participants. Nasa would therefore shift towards focusing on oversight, seeding innovation, and ensuring mission coherence.
The agency already has experience of public-private partnerships such as the programs that resupply the International Space Station with cargo and crew. The Artemis programme also aims to involve private companies as partners rather than simply contractors.
The proposed cuts would indeed disrupt the agency, but they are also emblematic of a shift in national priorities toward support for the development of space capabilities by private companies. Many Nasa programmes carry high symbolic or scientific value – sometimes both.
But in some cases, their costs are difficult to defend when commercial alternatives could be developed for either the full mission or parts of the mission at a fraction of the cost.
As Nasa shifts toward an orchestrator role and the commercial space sector matures, these changes, though painful in the short term, may serve the interests of US leadership in space over the long term.
Loizos Heracleous 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 sprinkle of cinnamon on your porridge, a pinch of turmeric in your curry, or a dash of ginger in your biscuits – these popular spices are kitchen staples around the world. For centuries, spices haven’t just been used to flavour food but also valued in traditional Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine for their healing properties. But could something as innocent as a spoonful of spice interfere with your medication?
Take cinnamon, for example. Sourced from the bark of Cinnamomum trees, it contains active compounds like cinnamaldehyde, eugenol and coumarin. Cinnamon oil, derived from the bark or leaves, is often used in food flavouring, fragrances and herbal remedies.
Cinnamon has been linked to a range of potential health benefits: it’s rich in antioxidants, it may reduce inflammation, it helps regulate blood sugar levels, it lowers the risk of heart disease, and even improves brain function. Traditionally, it’s also been used to ease digestion and ward off infections.
But a recent study from the University of Mississippi has raised concerns that cinnamon could reduce the effectiveness of certain medications. In lab tests, cinnamaldehyde was found to activate receptors that speed up how drugs are cleared from the body – potentially making them less effective. While this research is still in the early stages and hasn’t yet been tested in humans, it raises important questions about how cinnamon interacts with modern medicines.
The type of cinnamon matters too. The cinnamon commonly found in supermarkets – cassia cinnamon – is cheaper, widely available and comes from parts of Asia. Ceylon cinnamon, often labelled as “true cinnamon,” originates from Sri Lanka and is generally more expensive. Cassia cinnamon contains higher levels of coumarin, a natural compound that can harm the liver in high doses, according to studies. Coumarin is also a known anticoagulant, meaning it helps prevent blood clots, which is useful in medicine but risky when combined with blood-thinning drugs like warfarin.
There have been a few case reports suggesting that cinnamon supplements could increase the risk of bleeding when taken with anticoagulants. This is probably due to coumarin affecting liver enzymes responsible for breaking down drugs like warfarin. Some research also suggests cinnamon could potentially interact with other medications, including painkillers, antidepressants, anti-cancer drugs and diabetes medications.
But before you throw out your spice rack, it’s important to remember: the risks come from high doses, particularly in supplement form. A light sprinkle of cinnamon on your porridge is unlikely to cause problems.
Small doses
Another spice with medicinal promise – and potential risks – is turmeric. Known for its vivid yellow colour and use in both cooking and traditional medicine, turmeric contains curcumin, a compound praised for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.
However, information on turmeric’s interactions with medications is still limited. Most of what we know comes from lab and animal studies, which don’t always translate directly to humans. Still, there’s evidence that curcumin can affect how some drugs are metabolised, particularly by interfering with liver enzymes. This means it could potentially interact with antidepressants, blood pressure medications, chemotherapy drugs and certain antibiotics.
Turmeric also has natural blood thinning properties, which could amplify the effects of medications like warfarin or aspirin. Animal studies suggest turmeric may also lower blood sugar, meaning it could increase the effects of anti-diabetic drugs or insulin. Additionally, turmeric has been shown to reduce blood pressure, which, when combined with blood pressure medications, could cause an excessive drop.
As with cinnamon, these effects are most often linked to high dose supplements, not the small amounts used in food.
Ginger is another spice celebrated for its health benefits, particularly its anti-nausea and anti-inflammatory effects. But its active compounds, including gingerol, may also influence how your body handles medications.
Ginger can act as a mild blood thinner, which means combining it with anticoagulants could raise the risk of bleeding. The evidence is mixed when it comes to ginger and diabetes: while some studies suggest it may lower blood sugar, more research is needed to fully understand the effect it may have when taken alongside anti-diabetic medications.
High doses
While lab studies suggest these spices may affect how the body processes certain medications, the vast majority of these effects have been observed in high doses –usually from supplements, not everyday cooking.
If you’re taking medications, especially blood thinners, diabetes medicines, or chemotherapy drugs, it’s worth having a quick chat with your doctor or pharmacist before starting any new herbal supplements. But for most people, using spices in typical culinary amounts is safe – and a delicious way to add both flavour and potential health benefits to your meals.
So go ahead: sprinkle, pinch, or dash – just be mindful of what’s in your medicine cabinet – and be wary of taking any herbal supplement in high does.
Dipa Kamdar 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 Gabriele Abels, Jean Monnet Professor for Comparative Politics & European Integration, University of Tübingen
When the CDU/CSU and the SPD sealed their coalition agreement to form the next German government, the would-be chancellor Friedrich Merz proudly announced: “Germany is back on track”. Against a backdrop of considerable geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges, the partners wanted to send clear signal not only to the German public, but also to the European and international partners. After three years of intense government infighting, a new, stable administration was in charge in Germany.
However, a very different message was ultimately sent when a routine vote to confirm Merz as chancellor became an unprecedented fiasco.
Merz failed to gain enough support to be confirmed as chancellor, having lost votes from his own coalition. Merz did manage to secure the parliament’s nomination in a second round of voting, but there is now plenty of gossiping about who was responsible for this disaster. Who in his coalition was taking “revenge” by voting against him in this secret ballot – and on what grounds?
Merz will have to work to move beyond this early blow to his authority and implications in the domestic and international arena. His first action was to embark on a multi-capital tour to meet his fellow European leaders. This is a strong sign of his intentions as chancellor – to look outward, emphasising foreign policy.
Prioritising defence and consolidating power
For a long time, continuity has prevailed when it comes to Germany’s policy towards Europe. However, relations with neighbours are currently undergoing a period of transition due to a changing international environment. A big step came under former social democratic chancellor Olaf Scholz, who overturned post-war policy by announcing a €100 million investment in the military in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Merz now wants Germany to become a “leading medium-size power”. The coalition agreement signed between Merz’s CDU/CSU and the social democratic SPD, grants the chancellor a stronger role in order to achieve this aim.
The 144-page document, entitled “Responsibility for Germany” (Verantwortung für Deutschland), prioritises defence, deterrence and strengthening resilience — in military, economic, political and social terms.
EU partners expect leadership from the new German government and a stronger commitment from Merz in particular, because of his first-hand experience as a member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1994. Merz is certainly committed to European integration and to the EU, which is mentioned in the coalition agreement as “a guarantor of freedom, peace, security and prosperity”.
The coalition agreement emphasises closing ranks with the European partners. Merz cemented this commitment by visiting Paris and Warsaw the day after taking office to announce a reboot of the “Weimar triangle” – a regional allegiance between France, Germany and Poland created in 1991 – as a commitment to what he sees as Germany’s two most important European partners.
There are strong elements of continuity between this government’s approach to Europe and that of its predecessor. There remains an unwavering commitment to the EU and NATO and comprehensive support for Ukraine. What is, however, new, is the strong emphasis on defence in the coalition agreement.
“We want to be able to defend ourselves, so that we don’t have to defend ourselves,” the document states.
With this in mind, a long-held conservative ambition is being realised — the creation of a national security council (Bundessicherheitsrat) within the federal chancellery. This gives the chancellor a stronger role in foreign policy.
In addition, the new minister for foreign affairs, Johann Wadephul, is a Merz loyalist from the CDU. Traditionally, this was a role held by the junior coalition partner. This new situation, in which the chancellor and minister for foreign affairs are from the same party, plus the new national security council, means that power is concentrated in the chancellery.
Further afield
Beyond the immediate neighbourhood, positioning Germany towards the US, China and Israel are high on the agenda. In line with the German “Staatsräson” – an element of foreign policy that recognises Israel’s right to exist and sees Israeli security as a German national interest.
Merz announced in February 2025 that he is willing to find “means and ways” to welcome the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Berlin. This despite the the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against him. Such a visit would be a breach with the strong German tradition of rule of law and the respect for multilateral institutions.
Merz is also known to be a transatlanticist and his camp had already reached out to the US administration before taking office. Tariff wars are detrimental to the German economy given the strong dependence on exports to the US. It is similar for China, another important trading partner, but also a “systemic rival” which requires a sound “de-risking” strategy.
Yet, given the destructive Trump presidency and the insecurity when it comes to the US commitment to European security, a policy towards the US will be paramount. Strengthening relations with the UK in cooperation with the EU partners is meant to go some way to balancing the lack of US support, especially in relation to Ukraine.
Merz appears willing to take up these challenges and to focus his chancellorship on EU and foreign policy. It helps that the conservative European People’s Party (of which the CDU/CSU is a member) currently dominates the European Parliament and that the powerful position of European Commission president is currently held by a German, in the form of Ursula von der Leyen.
Yet the ballot fiasco in the national parliament shows that Merz is more vulnerable at home than he would like to be. This may end up frustrating his ambition to lead change in Europe.
Merz also still needs to win the trust of ordinary Germans, too. He is not a popular chancellor. Less than 40% Germans have trust in him and women especially dislike his style. In addition to efficient policymaking, he will need to improve on his pointed and polarising communicative style if he is to reach out to the people.
Gabriele Abels is a member of the Europa-Union Deutschland which belongs to the Union of European Federalists.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael Beverland, Professor of Brand Management, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex
Whatever you think of his personality or politics, it’s impossible to deny the success of Donald Trump as a brand. Supporters and detractors across the world are transfixed by his second term as US president.
And so far, many corporate brands appear keen to get alongside him. The leaders of Tesla, Amazon and Meta were all prominent guests at Trump’s inauguration in January 2025.
By then, Mark Zuckerberg had already shifted company policy on fact checking to be more aligned with the political wind. Weeks later, retail giants Walmart and Target had rolled back diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Even the NFL, which had so infuriated Trump in his first term with its support for diversity, has come to heel.
So now that Trump is back in town, is the only option available to big US organisations to swing to the right? Well, not necessarily.
Our research suggests that the rise of populism actually represents an opportunity for brands to rebuild a sense of shared national identity.
And the most well-known brands are the best placed to do this. Their familiar place in people’s everyday lives gives them huge power as non-political agents of collective identity which can cross divides of race, class, geography and age.
A great example of this was during the presidential election campaign when Trump’s team wanted to organise a publicity stunt involving the Republican candidate “working” at a branch of McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.
Trump’s love of the golden arches is well known, but McDonald’s is a strongly non-political brand. So what should it do? Refuse and risk a backlash, or accept and be accused of taking sides?
In the end, the company’s response was a masterclass in neutrality.
McDonald’s told its employees that the company was neither red (Republican) nor blue (Democrat), but golden. Referring to both presidential candidates’ love of McDonald’s, the company made it clear that the permission granted to Trump illustrated one of their core values, stating: “We open our doors for everyone”.
The plan worked. And this was partly down to McDonald’s being widely thought of as an authentic brand which connects people.
Research has shown that people really value a company’s place in local communities. And McDonald’s is a place which hosts children’s birthday parties, where you can catch up with friends, where you might even have had your first ever job.
This kind of power to unify is something other brands can do too. As something our earlier research shows, brands can benefit from bringing people together, by creating a sense of shared identity.
Brand new
In New Zealand for example, ANZ Bank was widely applauded for a campaign featuring Indian immigrants. The advert tells the story of a father and son and their mixed cricketing loyalties (the parent to India, the child to New Zealand).
It is a tale of immigrants achieving their version of the national dream, through hard work and trademark Kiwi humour. This kind of narrative-driven campaign does not pitch one side against another, but instead highlights the things that bind people together.
Similarly in the UK, the department store John Lewis has become a seasonal advertising staple as it reminds customers of their shared rituals over Christmas. And Kraft’s “How do you love your Vegemite” campaign allowed new immigrants to participate in local snacking rituals, helping them feel Australian.
In the US, a 1971 Coca Cola commercial (one of the most lauded adverts ever) presented a united multi-cultural collection of young people as a response to the anti-Vietnam war counter-culture.
So far, American brands have struggled to navigate the ever-shifting pronouncements coming from the White House in Trump’s second term. Amazon for example, quickly went back on its decision to list the cost of tariffs on products after it was branded a “hostile move”.
But one brand does stand out. And that’s Ford.
Perhaps it was inevitable that the car maker which came to symbolise successful 20th century American manufacturing would get this right. And the company’s decision to extend employee discounts to all consumers in what it describes as “unprecedented times” is a clever move.
Some might call it a cynical tactic to embrace Trump’s tariffs and encourage Americans to buy American. But the firm (which will likely take a huge hit from more expensive imported parts and materials) is doing much more than that.
Its new campaign (with the slogan “From America for America”) reminds US citizens that the brand is part of their lives, regardless of their political home. Supportive full-page print ads go further, setting out the firm’s long history spent backing the people of America.
One Ford executive says that the campaign is about “authenticity” and Ford being a brand “that all consumers can rely on, especially in these uncertain times”.
Authenticity is much prized when the political landscape is so polarised. And while divisions cannot be healed solely by brands, they can help to remind us of shared values and a sense of community. And in doing so, dial down those political tensions.
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.
Reform UK’s surge in recent local elections is not an isolated incident but a culmination of long-term economic and social shifts that have reshaped British society. It is the latest chapter in a narrative that includes the 2016 Brexit referendum and reflects a broader disillusionment with mainstream politics.
To respond to their losses in these elections and the wider trend, Labour and the Conservatives must not treat the Reform vote as a transient protest but as a symptom of systemic challenges.
Structural forces, digital disruption, demographic shifts and austerity have all eroded trust in institutions and fuelled demands for radical change. Reform UK’s success lies in its ability to channel these grievances, often thanks to the crafty use of social media, into a political platform. It’s imperative for mainstream parties to address the root causes of discontent if they wish to fend off Reform as an electoral threat.
The structural roots of discontent
Reform’s rise is deeply tied to a series of interconnected crises that have left communities feeling abandoned. Digital disruption has transformed the economy, with e-commerce and automation eliminating jobs in local retail and manufacturing. This has led to the decline of high streets, which have become symbols of economic marginalisation.
At the same time, demographic shifts have seen younger, more skilled workers move to major cities, leaving behind ageing populations in rural and smaller towns. This exodus has created a sense of neglect.
The 2008–2009 financial crisis further exacerbated these trends, as economic downturns hit already vulnerable regions hard. Unemployment spiked, and austerity measures introduced in the aftermath of the crisis deepened the divide. Public services such as libraries, youth clubs and adult education centres faced severe budget cuts. The notable worsening of public service delivery made it very tempting for politicians to attribute blame for faltering services on pressures arising from immigration.
Reform taps into this “geography of loss” and offers a political platform that promises to address the pain of marginalisation, albeit, never from a position of actual political responsibility.
The daily experience of decline
The erosion of community infrastructure has become a visceral experience for many. Closed community centres have reduced opportunities for social interaction, leading to increased isolation and, in some cases, rising gang activity. Shuttered shops and the decline of local businesses have weakened the sense of place in towns and cities, removing vital “third spaces” where people gather, connect, and build relationships. These spaces, once the heart of local life, have given way to empty storefronts and underused public areas.
At the same time, shrinking council budgets have left local governments struggling to maintain basic services. Public spaces that once served as hubs for civic engagement are now in disrepair, becoming visible signs of institutional failure. This physical decay has become a metaphor for systemic neglect, reinforcing the perception that mainstream parties have abandoned these communities. The result is a deepening sense of disillusionment, as residents feel that their needs are not being met and their voices are not being heard.
Possible healing shocks on the horizon
Emerging trends may offer opportunities to reverse some of the damage caused by structural forces. Remote work, which gained momentum during the pandemic, has the potential to reshape regional economies. It enables skilled workers to relocate to smaller towns and rural areas, bringing with them spending power and civic capacity. If sustained, this shift could help revitalise peripheral communities by reducing the concentration of economic activity in major cities.
The adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) also presents both challenges and opportunities. While AI threatens some high-status cognitive and licensed roles, it may also compress the wage premiums that have favoured big-city professionals. This could slightly ease the sharpest edges of inequality, as the benefits of AI-driven productivity are more evenly distributed. However, the transition must be managed carefully to avoid exacerbating existing divides.
Digitally enabled public services, such as chatbots for benefits and predictive maintenance for infrastructure, could improve service quality even under fiscal constraints. These tools could improve the performative state capacity, increase the state’s presence in areas where it has felt absent, rebuilding trust in institutions. Yet, it may also require a renegotiating of the informational boundaries of the state as AI thrives on interconnected data. By leveraging these shocks, mainstream parties could begin to address the spatial and skill gaps that populists exploit.
To reclaim legitimacy and counter populist momentum, mainstream parties must adopt targeted, evidence-based policies. Protecting communities that have been left behind during economic transitions is critical.
Workers displaced by retail automation need support to retrain, and funding is needed to repurpose high streets for new uses such as community workshops, health hubs and community centres. These initiatives would not only create new opportunities but also restore a sense of agency for those who have felt excluded from the economy.
Planning reforms to convert empty retail spaces into co-working hubs and housing would further support this transition, creating vibrant, inclusive communities.
Rebuilding social infrastructure is equally vital. Restoring per-capita funding for youth clubs, libraries and adult education centres would revive community spaces and foster social cohesion. Making grants conditional on measurable outcomes such as reducing crime rates and increasing volunteering participation would add an extra layer of benefit for local populations.
Populism in Britain is not a cultural accident, but the political expression of decades of skill-biased, place-biased, and age-biased shocks, culminating in an austerity programme that localised pain. Reform UK surfs this wave, but the tide can turn. By cushioning ongoing transitions (remote work, AI), visibly reviving public spaces, and sharing new sources of economic value with smaller towns and younger generations, mainstream parties can reclaim legitimacy.
The challenge is not only to respond to populist demands but to reimagine the role of the state in fostering social cohesion and economic opportunity. The path forward lies in proactive, inclusive policies that address the tangible, everyday experiences of decline and restore faith in the political system.
Thiemo Fetzer has benefited from research funding from ESRC, CAGE, UKRI, and the European Research Council.
Harvard President Alan Garber says this would be “highly illegal.” Several U.S. senators, all Democrats, have urged the IRS inspector general to see whether the IRS has begun auditing Harvard or any nonprofits in response to his administration’s requests or whether Trump has violated any laws with his pressure campaign.
The Conversation U.S. asked Philip Hackney, a nonprofit law professor who previously worked in the office of the chief counsel of the IRS, and Brian Mittendorf, an expert on nonprofit accounting, to explain what it would take for the federal government to revoke a university’s tax-exempt status.
Can Trump order the IRS to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status?
No.
First, the IRS rarely revokes an organization’s charitable tax-exempt status for failure to operate for a charitable purpose.
Before the IRS can do that, tax law requires that it first audit that charity. And it’s illegal for U.S. presidents or other officials to force the IRS to conduct an audit or stop one that’s already begun. Even doing either of those things indirectly is a crime. The punishment can include fines and imprisonment.
Worried that future presidents or officials might abuse the IRS, a Republican-led Congress later passed Section 7217 of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998.
That provision prohibits presidents and vice presidents, as well as other officials and their staff, from instructing, “directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.”
President Richard M. Nixon holds a tax bill he signed into law in 1970, four years before he resigned. Part of his legacy is that it’s now more clearly illegal for presidents to use the IRS as a political weapon. Bettmann/Getty Images
What does it take for a nonprofit’s tax-exempt status to be revoked?
This can’t happen on a whim. The IRS first has to audit the nonprofit. If it obtains evidence of wrongdoing – and a court upholds that finding – the IRS can proceed.
The government has to find that the nonprofit’s operations have a “substantial nonexempt purpose.” That’s because these tax exemptions are provided only to organizations that are organized and operated primarily for charitable purposes, such as education, religion or scientific research.
Any audit of Harvard would involve a large team of IRS agents familiar with higher education, which would work on this probe for months. The process could take years.
If, after completing that audit, that team were to determine that Harvard violated the rules, the IRS would have to send Harvard a proposed revocation letter. Harvard then would have 30 days to file an appeal with the IRS. Were the IRS to propose such a revocation, we would be shocked if Harvard didn’t take that step.
If the IRS Office of Appeals were to uphold the revocation, the IRS would send a revocation letter to Harvard. But Harvard would have the right to challenge that official revocation in court under Section 7428 of the tax code.
How often does this happen?
Very rarely. Almost never for private schools. The only legal precedent the Trump administration could perhaps invoke is Bob Jones University v. United States.
That policy put the small Christian university on the spot because it barred the admission of Black students until 1971. At that point, it began to accept Black students but only if they were married to another Black person. The school justified this restriction by voicing its belief that the Bible forbids interracial marriage and dating. In 1970, the IRS had notified the university that it intended to cancel Bob Jones’ tax-exempt status.
The IRS issued a final revocation in 1976 after determining that Bob Jones University continued to discriminate with the ban on interracial dating and marriage. And in 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the IRS’ action in an 8-1 decision.
The court’s majority wrote that an institution should be denied charitable status “only where there can be no doubt that the activity involved is contrary to a fundamental public policy.”
Harvard President Alan Garber responds to Trump’s threats in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
What’s the Trump administration’s rationale?
Many signs indicate the Trump administration would try to use the fundamental policy limitation to revoke Harvard’s status. We’re unaware, though, of what alleged violation of a “fundamental public policy” the IRS might invoke if it were to carry through on Trump’s threat to strip Harvard of its charitable status. The Trump administration has signaled that it might rest its case on Harvard’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Harvard subsequently enrolled fewer new Black students, indicating that it had changed its admissions policies. Regardless, there are many precedents finding elements of diversity, equity and inclusion to be activities that do further a charitable purpose.
We believe the Trump administration would be unlikely to prevail in the courts with an anti-DEI argument should it try to use one to justify stripping Harvard of its tax-exempt status.
What happens if a big nonprofit loses its charity status?
Because many state and municipal tax breaks are tied to federal tax status, losing tax-exempt status can also lead to local tax penalties. One compelling local tax break afforded to many charities is an exemption from property tax. Universities with large amounts of buildings and land – as Harvard has – would especially feel the pain.
Without charity status, organizations that rely on grants from local, state and federal government sources, as well as private sources such as other charities, will find many of those sources of funding largely cut off. This is because many grant providers require all recipients to have tax-exempt status.
The Internal Revenue Manual, which guides IRS agents in carrying out their work, indicates a number of other problems that would arise after revocation. For instance, an agent is required to consider the impact on the organization’s deferred compensation plans and tax-exempt bonds.
Does the government appear to have a strong case against Harvard?
There’s been little concrete information about the basis for Harvard losing its status. Most of what we know comes from social media posts and media interviews.
The Trump administration has attacked Harvard for its efforts to increase its diversity and its response to antisemitism on its campus. In response to concerns about these issues, Harvard has retooled its DEI office and begun to roll out reforms to combat both antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias.
But it is hard to argue that these issues would be central to Harvard and its educational mission, let alone warrant it losing its tax-exempt status.
What’s the impact then?
Given the steep climb it would be to prove that the organization has strayed from its educational mission, and not just taken some actions the White House dislikes, we find it hard to imagine a viable path toward the IRS revoking Harvard’s charitable status.
That doesn’t mean there will not be any consequences from the administration’s campaign against Harvard.
The daily onslaught of public attacks coupled with the ongoing legal battles are a drain on Harvard officials’ time and energy.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
As the Class of 2025 graduates into an uncertain and fast-changing working world, they face a crucial question: What does it mean to be successful?
Is it better to take a job that pays more, or one that’s more prestigious? Should you prioritize advancement, relationship building, community impact or even the opportunity to live somewhere new? Sorting through these questions can feel overwhelming.
I am a business school professor who spends a lot of time mentoring students and alumni in Generation Z – those born between 1997 and 2012. As part of this effort, I’ve surveyed about 300 former undergraduate students and spoken at length with about 50 of them.
Through these conversations, I’ve watched them wrestle with the classic conflicts of young adulthood – such as having to balance external rewards like money against internal motivations like wanting to be of service.
I recently revisited their stories and reflections, and I compiled the most enduring insights to offer to the next generation of graduates.
Here’s their collective advice to the Class of 2025:
1. Define what matters most to you
Success starts with self-reflection. It means setting aside society’s noise and defining your own values.
When people are driven by internal rewards like curiosity, purpose or pleasure in an activity itself – rather than outside benefits such as money – psychologists say they have “intrinsic motivation.”
Research shows that people driven by intrinsic motivation tend to display higher levels of performance, persistence and satisfaction. Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile’s componential theory further suggests that creativity flourishes when people’s skills align with their strongest intrinsic interests.
The alternative is to “get caught up in society’s expectations of success,” as one consulting alum put it. She described struggling to choose between a job offer at a Fortune 500 company or one at a lesser-known independent firm. In the end, she chose to go with the smaller business. It was, she stressed, “the right choice for me.” This is crucial advice: Make yourself proud, not others.
One related principle I share with students is the “Tell your story” rule. If a job doesn’t allow you to tell your story – in other words, if it doesn’t mirror your vision, values, talents and goals – keep looking for a new role.
2. Strive for balance, not burnout
A fulfilling life includes time for relationships, health and rest. While many young professionals feel endless pressure to hustle, the most fulfilled alumni I spoke with learned to take steps to protect their personal well-being.
For example, a banking alum told me that business once dominated his thoughts “24/7.” He continued, “I’m happier now that I make more time for a social life and paying attention to all my relationships – professional, personal, community, and let’s not forget myself.”
And remember that balance and motivations can change throughout your life. As one alum explained: “Your goals change and therefore your definition of success changes. I think some of the most successful people are always adapting what success means to them – chasing success even if they are already successful.”
3. Be kind, serve others and maximize your ‘happy circle’
“Some people believe to have a positive change in the world you must be a CEO or have a ton of money,” another alum told me. “But spreading happiness or joy can happen at any moment, has no cost, and the results are priceless.”
Many alumni told me that success isn’t just a matter of personal achievement – it’s about giving back to society. That could be through acts of kindness, creativity, innovation, or other ways of improving people’s lives. A retail alum shared advice from her father: “When your circle is happy, you are going to be happy,” she said. “It’s sort of an upward spiral.”
Your “happy circle” doesn’t need to consist of people you know. An alum who went into the pharmaceutical industry said his work’s true reward was measured in “tens of thousands if not millions of people” in better health thanks to his efforts.
In fact, your happy circle doesn’t even need to be exclusively human. An alum who works in ranching said he valued the well-being of animals – and their riders – more than money or praise.
4. Be a good long-term steward of your values
Success isn’t just about today – it’s what you stand for.
Several alumni spoke passionately about stewardship: the act of preserving and passing on values, relationships and traditions. This mindset extended beyond family to employees, customers and communities. As one alum who majored in economics put it, success is “leaving a mark on the world and creating a legacy that extends beyond one’s quest for monetary gain.”
One alum defined success as creating happiness and stability not just for herself, but for her loved ones. Another, who works in hospitality, said he had a duty to further his employees’ ambitions and help them grow and develop – creating a legacy that will outlast any title or paycheck.
In an analysis by the organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry, Gen Z employees were found to be more prone to burnout when their employers lacked clear values. These findings reinforce what my students already know: Alignment between your values and your work is key to success.
Final words for the Class of 2025
To the latest crop of grads, I offer this advice: Wherever life takes you next — a family business or corporate office, Wall Street or Silicon Valley, or somewhere you can’t even imagine now — remember that your career will be long and full of ups and downs.
You’ll make tough choices. You’ll face pressures. But if you stay grounded, invest in your well-being, celebrate your happy circle and honor your values, you’ll look back one day and see not just a job well done, but a life well lived.
Bon voyage!
Patrick Abouchalache 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.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning Americans about the ever-increasing and potentially deadly recreational use of nitrous oxide products, particularly among young people.
Marketed with names like “Galaxy Gas” and “Miami Magic,” and often sold in steel cartridges known as “whippets,” these products are cheap and readily available at gas stations, convenience stores, smoke shops and major retail outlets, including Walmart. They’re also sold online.
Recreational and continued use of nitrous oxide can cause a wide range of serious health problems, and in some cases, death.
A long list of potential harms
The list of serious side effects from frequent use is long. It includes: cognitive impairment, memory problems, hallucinations, headaches, lightheadedness, mood disturbances, blood clots, limb weakness, trouble walking, peripheral neuropathy, impaired bowel or bladder function, spinal cord degeneration and irreversible brain damage. Vitamin B-12 deficiency is common and can lead to nerve and brain damage.
Deaths in the U.S. attributed to abuse of nitrous oxide jumped more than 100% between 2019 and 2023; over a five-year period, emergency department visits rose 32%.
All told, more than 13 million Americans have misused nitrous oxide at least once during their lifetimes. This includes children: In 2024, just over 4% of eighth graders and about 2% of 12th graders said they’ve tried inhalants. Nitrous oxide is among the most abused of these inhalants due to its low cost, easy availability and commercial appeal – one flavor of the gas is named “pink bubble gum.”
Pure nitrous, inhaled for a quick high, can be lethal.
The few studies on the use of nitrous oxide are limited mainly to case reports – that is, a report on a single patient. Although limited in scope, they’re alarming.
Physicians began using it in the U.S. around the mid-19th century after Horace Wells, a dentist, attended a stage show – called “Laughing Gas Entertainment” – and saw the numbing effect that nitrous oxide had on audience volunteers. By coincidence, Wells was having a wisdom tooth removed the next day, so he tried the gas during his procedure. The nitrous oxide worked; Wells said he felt no pain. Thereafter, medicinal use of the gas was gradually accepted.
As of May 2025, four U.S. states – Louisiana, Michigan, Alabama and California – have banned the recreational use of nitrous oxide, and more than 30 states are working on legislation to ban or at least restrict sale of the products. In addition, numerous lawsuits filed against the manufacturers are in court.
Through appropriate legislation, regulation, education and intervention, nitrous oxide abuse can be slowed or stopped. Otherwise, these products – with their sleek packaging and attractive social media campaigns that obscure their dangers – remain a growing threat to our children.
Andrew Yockey 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.
There are two individuals intrinsic to any presidential effort to restructure government: the president himself and the person he entrusts with the task.
In 2025, Musk has been the person designated to carry out the president’s aims.
But while Taft worked with Congress to launch his effort, Trump hasn’t followed that route. And the men each president asked to lead their efforts were vastly different in the responsibility given to them, and different in values as well as temperament.
Power on Pennsylvania Avenue
Among the many historic attempts by presidents to streamline federal government, Taft’s administration provides a distinct parallel to an administration attempting to make government more efficient.
The Taft administration’s early 20th-century equivalent to the Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was called the Commission on Economy and Efficiency.
Taft also delegated the work of this reorganization to trusted Cabinet subordinates, rather than an outsider who was not confirmed by Congress. Other presidents of Taft’s generation would have found it unthinkable to delegate such consequential work to someone outside of the bureaucracy to the extent that Trump has empowered Musk.
The work of Taft’s commission took place during a time of turmoil for the role and power of the president, as the country itself became more powerful and its governance more complex, calling for increased efficiency through streamlining.
Studying and streamlining government
Taft organized his commission in 1910, a year into his presidency. It lasted until his divided party led to his election defeat in 1912.
The commission’s aims were tied to economy and efficiency – as the commission itself was named. Indeed, Secretary of the Navy George von Lengerke Meyer, one of Taft’s trusted Cabinet members, concisely explained how the “main object was the establishment of a system which would enable the Secretary to administer his office efficiently and economically, with the advice of responsible expert advisers, ensuring continuity of policy for the future.”
Taft came to the presidency in 1909 with clear concepts of how the nation’s top office needed to become more powerful to meet the growing country’s burgeoning needs.
Taft was critically aware of existing inefficiency, with bureaucratic work overlapping at expense to the government, without any clear mandate, job description or hierarchy. The vision of the commission is clear in a diagram for the War Department that sought to streamline the bureaucracy, conglomerating the existing 18 divisions into eight.
A chart of the Taft commission’s proposed streamlining of what was then called the ‘War Department.’ archive.org
The Commission on Economy and Efficiency focused on providing solutions for this clearly defined problem of government inefficiency. At the time of Taft’s final message to Congress in 1913, the commission had submitted 85 reports to Taft encouraging the reorganization of executive departments, including new and specifically defined roles for government employees.
One of the reports from Taft’s commission, which he delivered to Congress. Google Books
Long-term, targeted changes
Unlike the radical unilateral actions taken by DOGE, the Taft commission recommended action to Congress for the long term, while making more targeted changes to the executive bureaucracy behind the scenes.
Despite Taft’s pleas stressing the need to sustain these changes beyond his tenure, Congress was tired of the empowerment of the executive by Republican presidents Theodore Roosevelt, followed by Taft, and had no incentive to support reorganization.
This is in direct contrast to Trump and Musk’s less substantiated concerns over “fraud and abuse” or ongoing vague concerns over the size and cost of the federal government. That phrasing may inspire more consensus over the problem, but not necessarily the solution.
Taft’s choice to head his commission, Frederick Cleveland, was a kindred spirit who believed in a strengthened presidency. Cleveland was an academic with past affiliations with the University of Pennsylvania and New York University. Congress accepted Cleveland’s nomination, seeing him as a pioneer in the realm of public administration.
Cleveland reflected the Taft administration’s approach of wanting to remold the government without animosity toward federal workers specifically or the government more broadly. He embraced the Progressive Era ethos in seeking to rectify inefficiency.
Streamlining did not equate to big cuts. The priority remained ensuring the American government could meet the increased demands of the new century.
Similar to DOGE, the White House was the command center for the Commission on Economy and Efficiency. That enabled Taft to manage reorganization of the executive branch from the Oval Office.
Not all of the modernizing and streamlining of the federal government would come at the behest of Taft’s commission.
Impatient to implement change while awaiting the commission’s reports, and with the commission hampered by a decrease in congressional funding in 1912, Taft had immediately sought improvement within his own administration.
But when the commission’s reports were finally available, Taft was in the unfortunate position of being a lame duck and could do little besides emphasize the need for further action.
While limited in the short term, the commission’s reports were later credited for major changes: “Although the report fell on deaf ears in Congress, it would become an essential roadmap for the budget reforms of 1921. The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 addressed and mirrored the concerns and proposals of the Commission’s Report,” as described by the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Unlike DOGE, the approach of Taft and his commission focused on streamlining rather than gutting federal bureaucracy.
That approach was reflective of an era when experts were revered and sought after rather than maligned. As an experienced bureaucrat, Taft characteristically directed that the problem of government inefficiency be studied. This secured his legacy, as his agenda was eventually put into practice and embraced, proving his reflective approach to be ahead of its time.
Laura Ellyn Smith 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.
