Category: The Conversation

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Cushion, Professor, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University

In a world of fake news and disinformation, factchecking claims and the veracity of images has become an important part of impartial journalism. People invest their trust in information sources they believe are accurate.

With this in mind, the BBC launched its Verify service in May 2023. Its more than 60 journalists routinely factcheck, verify videos, counter disinformation, analyse data and explain complex stories.

Then in June 2025, the BBC launched Verify Live, a blog that tells audiences in real time what claims they are investigating and how they are being checked.

At the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University we have been monitoring BBC Verify since its launch. And we have systematically tracked the first month of BBC Verify Live from June 3-27 this year, examining all 244 blog posts as well as the hundreds of claims and sources that featured.

We’ve found that the service places a heavy emphasis on foreign affairs. We argue that it could (and should) be used more to factcheck UK politics, enhancing the quality of the BBC’s impartiality journalism and serving the public service broadcaster’s domestic audiences.

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Our analysis found international stories made up 71% of all BBC Verify Live coverage. The coverage largely focused on verifying international conflicts and humanitarian crises, from the Middle East and Ukraine to the recent plane crash in India.

This might reflect the large number of major international stories that occurred over the first month of BBC Verify Live’s launch. But the emphasis on foreign news was also evident in our analysis of the main BBC Verify service over the last 18 months. We monitored how much the factchecking service appeared on the BBC’s News at Ten, and found it was used more often in coverage of foreign affairs.

One exception was during the 2024 general election campaign, when BBC Verify was used to challenge politicians’ claims, and scrutinise policies around migration and the economy. BBC Verify has also covered recent major political developments, like the budget and announcements of flagship government policy.

The emphasis on covering international conflicts is consistent with its editorial mission to “analyse satellite imagery, investigate AI-generated content, factcheck claims and verify videos when news breaks”. BBC Verify regularly uses satellite mapping and geolocation data, which most newsrooms do not have at their disposal, to factcheck images and social media posts.

However, the resources and expertise Verify has could also be used to more regularly factcheck false or misleading claims in domestic political issues. This could be important to building audience trust at a time when the BBC’s impartiality is regularly questioned, while helping people better understand political debates in the UK.

Our past research with media users suggests they want journalists to be bolder and more transparent when assessing the credibility of politicians’ competing claims. BBC Verify is a logical tool to do this.

Two years after it launched, Verify is considered one of the most trusted factchecking sources in the UK by the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the most used by media regulator Ofcom.

BBC Verify has proved it can effectively use its resources and expertise to unpack and challenge domestic political claims – covering the spending review and party manifestos ahead of the 2024 general election. We have previously analysed how BBC Verify robustly challenged a misleading Conservative party claim about a future Labour government raising taxes during the election campaign.

Interrogating real-time claims

BBC Verify Live takes a variety of approaches to its analysis of real-time claims. We assessed all claims appearing in blogs throughout most of June 2025 and discovered that 22% were challenged to some extent (found to be inaccurate), while 23% were upheld (considered accurate) and 13% partially upheld.

Meanwhile, 10% were still being verified at the time the blog was posted (but may have been upheld or challenged in subsequent coverage), and 12% had additional context added to them. One fifth of all claims were not subject to any clear judgement about their accuracy.

BBC Verify Live most often used the UK or official foreign governments, and their militaries or agencies, as the main corroborating sources to factcheck claims, or the focus of the claim being investigated in some stories. These made up well over three quarters of sources in factchecking coverage. There was, comparatively, limited use of think tanks, policy institutes, nongovernmental organisations, experts, academics or eyewitnesses.

Just over one in ten claims had additional context added to them (as opposed to verifying or challenging a claim). This was most often the case in blogs about domestic affairs and rival political claims.

Given the recent cuts to the BBC’s World Service, Verify’s international news agenda will bolster the public service broadcaster’s worldwide profile and credibility. Yet, for BBC Verify to enhance impartiality and trust with domestic audiences, we would argue it should play a more prominent role in routine political reporting, not just during elections or high-profile stories.

Stephen Cushion has received funding from the BBC Trust, Ofcom, AHRC, BA and ESRC.

Nathan Ritchie 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.

– ref. BBC Verify largely factchecks international stories – what about UK politics? – https://theconversation.com/bbc-verify-largely-factchecks-international-stories-what-about-uk-politics-260615

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Havovi Chichger, Professor, Biomedical Science, Anglia Ruskin University

Found in everything from protein bars to energy drinks, erythritol has long been considered a safe alternative to sugar. But new research suggests this widely used sweetener may be quietly undermining one of the body’s most crucial protective barriers – with potentially serious consequences for heart health and stroke risk.

A new study from the University of Colorado suggests erythritol may damage cells in the blood-brain barrier, the brain’s security system that keeps out harmful substances while letting in nutrients. The findings add troubling new detail to previous observational studies that have linked erythritol consumption to increased rates of heart attack and stroke.

In the new study, researchers exposed blood-brain barrier cells to levels of erythritol typically found after drinking a soft drink sweetened with the compound. They saw a chain reaction of cell damage that could make the brain more vulnerable to blood clots – a leading cause of stroke.

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Erythritol triggered what scientists call oxidative stress, flooding cells with harmful, highly reactive molecules known as free radicals, while simultaneously reducing the body’s natural antioxidant defences. This double assault damaged the cells’ ability to function properly, and in some cases killed them outright.

But perhaps more concerning was erythritol’s effect on the blood vessels’ ability to regulate blood flow. Healthy blood vessels act like traffic controllers, widening when organs need more blood – during exercise, for instance – and tightening when less is required. They achieve this delicate balance through two key molecules: nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, and endothelin-1, which constricts them.

The study found that erythritol disrupted this critical system, reducing nitric oxide production while ramping up endothelin-1. The result would be blood vessels that remain dangerously constricted, potentially starving the brain of oxygen and nutrients. This imbalance is a known warning sign of ischaemic stroke – the type caused by blood clots blocking vessels in the brain.

Even more alarming, erythritol appeared to sabotage the body’s natural defence against blood clots. Normally, when clots form in blood vessels, cells release a “clot buster” called tissue plasminogen activator that dissolves the blockage before it can cause a stroke. But the sweetener blocked this protective mechanism, potentially leaving clots free to wreak havoc.

The laboratory findings align with troubling evidence from human studies. Several large-scale observational studies have found that people who regularly consume erythritol face significantly higher risks of cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes. One major study tracking thousands of participants found that those with the highest blood levels of erythritol were roughly twice as likely to experience a major cardiac event.

However, the research does have limitations. The experiments were conducted on isolated cells in laboratory dishes rather than complete blood vessels, which means the cells may not behave exactly as they would in the human body. Scientists acknowledge that more sophisticated testing – using advanced “blood vessel on a chip” systems that better mimic real physiology – will be needed to confirm these effects.

The findings are particularly significant because erythritol occupies a unique position in the sweetener landscape. Unlike artificial sweeteners such as aspartame or sucralose, erythritol is technically a sugar alcohol – a naturally occurring compound that the body produces in small amounts. This classification helped it avoid inclusion in recent World Health Organization guidelines that discouraged the use of artificial sweeteners for weight control.

Erythritol has also gained popularity among food manufacturers because it behaves more like sugar than other alternatives. While sucralose is 320 times sweeter than sugar, erythritol provides only about 80% of sugar’s sweetness, making it easier to use in recipes without creating an overpowering taste. It’s now found in thousands of products, especially in many “sugar-free” and “keto-friendly” foods.

Trade-off

Regulatory agencies, including the European Food Standards Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration, have approved erythritol as safe for consumption. But the new research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that even “natural” sugar alternatives may carry unexpected health risks.

For consumers, the findings raise difficult questions about the trade-offs involved in sugar substitution. Sweeteners like erythritol can be valuable tools for weight management and diabetes prevention, helping people reduce calories and control blood sugar spikes. But if regular consumption potentially weakens the brain’s protective barriers and increases cardiovascular risk, the benefits may come at a significant cost.

The research underscores a broader challenge in nutritional science: understanding the long-term effects of relatively new food additives that have become ubiquitous in the modern diet. While erythritol may help people avoid the immediate harms of excess sugar consumption, its effect on the blood-brain barrier suggests that frequent use could be quietly compromising brain protection over time.

As scientists continue to investigate these concerning links, consumers may want to reconsider their relationship with this seemingly innocent sweetener – and perhaps question whether any sugar substitute additive is truly without risk.

Havovi Chichger 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.

– ref. How a popular sweetener could be damaging your brain’s defences – new study – https://theconversation.com/how-a-popular-sweetener-could-be-damaging-your-brains-defences-new-study-261500

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Filippo Menga, Visiting Research Fellow, Professor of Geography, University of Reading

Hosepipe bans have been announced in parts of England this summer. Following the driest spring in over a century, the Environment Agency has issued a medium drought risk warning, and Yorkshire Water will introduce restrictions starting Friday, 11 July. It’s a familiar story: reduced rainfall, shrinking reservoirs and renewed calls for restraint: take shorter showers, avoid watering the lawn, turn off the tap while brushing your teeth.

These appeals to personal responsibility reflect a broader way of thinking about water: that everyone, everywhere, is facing the same crisis, and that small individual actions are a meaningful response. But what if this narrative, familiar as it is, obscures more than it reveals?

In my new book, Thirst: The global quest to solve the water crisis, I argue that the phrase “global water crisis” may do more harm than good. It simplifies a complex global reality, collapsing vastly different situations into one seemingly shared emergency. While it evokes urgency, it conceals the very things that matter: the causes, politics and power dynamics that determine who gets water and who doesn’t.

What we call a single crisis is, in fact, many distinct ones. To see this clearly, we must move beyond the rhetoric of global scarcity and look closely at how drought plays out in different places. Consider the UK, the Horn of Africa, and Chile: three regions facing water stress in radically different ways.

UK: a crisis of infrastructure

Drought in the UK is rarely the result of absolute water scarcity. The country receives relatively consistent rainfall throughout the year. Even when droughts occur, the underlying issue is how water is managed, distributed and maintained.

Roughly a fifth of treated water is lost through leaking pipes, some of them over a century old. At the same time, privatised water companies have come under growing scrutiny for failing to invest in infrastructure while paying billions in dividends to shareholders. So calls for households to use less water often strike a dissonant note.

The UK’s droughts are not just the product of climate variability. They are also shaped by policy decisions, regulatory failures and eroding public trust. Temporary scarcity becomes a recurring crisis due to the structures meant to manage it.

Horn of Africa: survival and structural vulnerability

In the Horn of Africa, drought is catastrophic. Since 2020, the region has endured five consecutive failed rainy seasons – the worst in four decades. More than 30 million people across Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya face food insecurity. Livelihoods have collapsed and millions of people have been displaced.

Climate change is a driver, but so is politics. Armed conflict, weak governance and decades of underinvestment have left communities dangerously exposed. These vulnerabilities are rooted in longer histories of colonial exploitation and, more recently, the privatisation of essential services.

Adaptation refers to how communities try to cope with changing climate conditions using the resources they have. Local efforts to adapt to drought (such as digging new wells, planting drought-resistant crop or rationing limited supplies) are often informal or underfunded.

When prolonged droughts strike in places already facing poverty, conflict or weak governance, these coping strategies are rarely enough. Framing climate-induced drought as just another chapter in a global water crisis erases the specific conditions that make it so deadly.

Chile: extraction and exclusion

Chile’s water crisis is often linked to drought. But the underlying issue is extraction. The country holds over half of the world’s lithium reserves, a metal critical to electric vehicles and energy storage.

Lithium is mined through an intensely water-consuming process in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, often on Indigenous land. Communities have seen water tables drop and wetlands disappear while receiving little benefit.

Chile’s water laws, introduced under the Pinochet regime, allow private companies to hold long-term rights regardless of environmental or social cost. Here, water scarcity is driven less by rainfall and more by law, ownership and global demand for renewable technologies. Framing Chile’s situation as just another example of a global water crisis overlooks the deeper political and economic forces that shape how water is managed – and who gets to benefit from it.

No single crisis, no single solution

While drought is intensifying, its causes and consequences vary. In the UK, it’s about infrastructure and governance. In the Horn of Africa, it’s about historical injustice and systemic neglect. In Chile, it’s about legal frameworks and resource extraction.

Labelling this simply as a global water crisis oversimplifies the issue and steers attention away from the root causes. It promotes technical solutions while ignoring the political questions of who has access to water and who controls it.

This approach often favours private companies and international organisations, sidelining local communities and institutions. Instead of holding power to account, it risks shifting responsibility without making meaningful changes to how power and resources are shared.

In Thirst, I argue that the crisis of water is a cultural and political one. Who controls water, who profits from it, who bears the cost of its depletion: these are the defining questions of our time. And they cannot be answered with generalities. We don’t need one big solution. We need many small, just ones.

This article features a reference to a book that has been included for editorial reasons. If you click on one of the links to bookshop.org and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

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Filippo Menga 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.

– ref. Three types of drought – and why there’s no such thing as a global water crisis – https://theconversation.com/three-types-of-drought-and-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-global-water-crisis-260723

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Serin Quinn, PhD Candidate, Department of History, University of Warwick

Are you a pro at pickling? How about baking sourdough bread or brewing your own kombucha? If the answer is yes, you’ve probably picked up on one of the recent trends promoting fermented foods, which promise to boost your gut health and save both you and the planet from the scourge of food waste.

For the uninitiated, fermented foods include anything that uses bacteria to break down organic matter into a new product. Look around an ordinary kitchen and you’ll almost certainly find something fermented: yoghurt (milk), beer and wine (grain/fruit) or vinegar (alcohol). Not all of these will give you the promised health boost, however, which comes from “live” ferments containing probiotic microbes, usually lactic acid bacteria. In alcohol and vinegar the fermenting bacteria die during the process.

The health benefits of fermented foods are widely promoted. Some advocates, like epidemiologist Tim Spector, suggest the gut microbiome is the key to our health, while others are more cautious: in essence, although kefir is certainly good for your gut, it isn’t a cure-all. Still, the research is ongoing and diversifying: one study has even suggested that probiotics could fight the less pleasant recent phenomenon of microplastics in our stomachs.

The future of fermented foods is definitely something to keep an eye on, but equally interesting is their long past and the different fermented food fashions we see over time.

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People have been fermenting food since before the written word. Thanks to archaeological discoveries, we know that 13,000 years ago ancient Natufian culture in the Levant was fermenting grain into beer and that around the globe in Jiahu, Northern China, 9,000 years ago, a mixture of rice, honey and fruit was fermented to make early “wines”.

In fact, most cultures have at some point in their history fermented plants into alcohol, from agave pulque in Mesoamerica to gum-tree way-a-linah in Australia.

As to preserving food, archaeologists have found that nearly 10,000 years ago fish was fermented by the Mesolithic inhabitants of Sweden. Today nam pla (fish sauce made from fermented anchovies) is very popular, but fermented fish sauces were a major commodity in the ancient world, including the garum of the Romans. This was made from the blood and guts of mackerel, salt-fermented for two months. Although it might not sound very appealing, garum was an expensive condiment for the Roman nobility and was shipped all the way from Spain to Britain.

Garum eventually lost its popularity in Europe during the Middle Ages, but fermented fish made a comeback in the 18th century. In Asia fish sauces had continued strong, and colonialism brought the south Asian fish sauce kê-chiap to Europe, alongside soy sauce (fermented soybeans). Salt-fermenting oysters and anchovies in this style became popular in England and North America, and people eventually branched out to preserving tomatoes – giving us modern ketchup.

Cabbage cultures

No discussion of fermentation would be complete without pickled vegetables. Today, the most talked-about fermented vegetable is the cabbage, in the form of kimchi and sauerkraut, thanks to its strong probiotic and vitamin C content.

The historical origins of these dishes are unclear. Online articles might tell you that pickled cabbage was first eaten by the builders of the Great Wall of China 2,000 years ago and brought to Europe in Genghis Khan’s saddlebags. These kinds of apocryphal stories should be taken with more than a grain of salt.

So should the apparent connection to Roman author Pliny the Elder, who made no mention of “salt cabbage” anywhere in his works. While the Greeks and Romans loved cabbage and considered it a cure for many illnesses, they almost always boiled it, which would kill the lactobacillus.

Still, as Jan Davison, author of Pickles: A Global History, writes, literary evidence suggests that salt pickling in general does have a long precedence. Pickled gourds were eaten in Zhou dynasty China around 3,000 years ago.

It’s hard to say when sauerkraut became a common dish, but the term was in use by the 16th century and was associated with Germany by the 17th. As to Korean kimchi, research suggests this style of preservation was practised by the 13th century, only using turnips rather than cabbage.

The popularity of radish and cabbage kimchi only came about in the 16th century, alongside the use of chilli peppers. Now an iconic aspect of this bright-red dish, peppers were not part of “Old World” diets before the Columbian exchange.

History reveals our long relationship with fermented food. Our pickling ancestors were more interested in food preservation than in their bacterial microbiome – a very modern concept. Looking to past practices might even help us innovate fermentation technologies, as recent research from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels shows. I’m not sure about bringing back fermented fish guts, but more pickled turnips doesn’t sound half bad.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Serin Quinn 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.

– ref. A potted history of fermented foods – from pickles to kimchi – https://theconversation.com/a-potted-history-of-fermented-foods-from-pickles-to-kimchi-260132

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Associate Professor in the International Relations of South Asia, University of Oxford

The coils of black hose, drum skimmers designed to collect oil from the ocean’s surface, and orangey-red containment booms all looked out of place on the white sand of Mombasa’s touristy Nyali beach. But on July 9, dozens of emergency responders in red and orange hi-vis gear took over a portion of this beach. They were braving the wind and choppy Indian Ocean waves as they mock up the onshore response to a simulated oil spill at sea.

I research how countries in the western Indian Ocean cooperate to make the seas around them safer, and I was there to observe a field training exercise that brought together around 200 participants from ten coastal and island states for one week in east Africa’s largest port city. Codenamed MASEPOLREX25, it put two types of emergency response to the test.

The first was Kenya’s national-level response to marine oil pollution, guided by its national contingency plan. The second was a regional-level response that can bring in outside help from other nations. The organiser of the exercise, the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) – an intergovernmental group of Western Indian Ocean islands headquartered in Mauritius – wanted the countries of the region to rehearse a joint response to marine pollution.

The exercise put two IOC-designed regional centres through their paces. Think of them like a pair of regional helpdesks for ocean security, each with a distinct purpose.

How does it unfold?

The exercise began the day before with a briefing on the marine pollution scenario. The Kenyan authorities had received a distress call from the fictional captains of two damaged vessels.

An oil tanker with a deadweight tonnage of 50,000 had collided with a feeder ship in Tanzanian waters, just south of Kenya’s maritime zone. The captain of the tanker suspected that 3,000-to-4,000 metric tonnes of intermediate fuel oil (persistent, thick oil that won’t evaporate by itself) had spilled into the ocean.

Such an incident is plausible. A 2023 IOC-commissioned internal study pinpointed the Kenya-Tanzania border as a hotspot for marine pollution risk. Two major ports sit in close proximity in a busy maritime transit corridor.

Clustered around an incident board, Kenya’s incident management team mounted their national response. Nuru Mohammed, liaison officer for the Kenya Maritime Authority, explained that the assessment of the size of the spill and expectations of its behaviour had already led the team to anticipate the need for regional support. At this time of year, the sea current would carry the slick northward into Kenyan waters.

At the back of everyone’s minds was the 2020 Wakashio incident, in which a bulk carrier owned by a Japanese shipping company but flagged to Panama ran aground to the southeast of Mauritius. An estimated 800-to-1,000 tonnes of fuel oil spilled into the sea, affecting 30km of Mauritian coastline. The cost to marine life, food security and human health were compounded by economic and connectivity challenges posed by the COVID pandemic.

For the exercise, aerial surveillance of the mock spill triggered the first attempt at containment. A live video feed of the offshore national response showed rice husks, a substitute for the oil, afloat on the waves. Two vessels sprayed simulated oil-spill dispersants in challenging winds.

In real life, as in this exercise, oil properties determine how the spill will behave. IOC consultant Peter Taylor warned that churning waves could mix with the oil forming emulsions that were viscous and not dispersible.

We turned our attention to the chat feed on SeaVision, an information-sharing platform. A notification popped up. The Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre (RMIFC) in Madagascar had shared mapped and timestamped projections of the drift of the oil slick for the following 72 hours. The centre’s director, Alex Ralaiarivony, later explained how it could provide other technical support such as satellite imagery, and could calculate the proportions of oil that were likely to become submerged, evaporate, remain adrift and reach the shoreline.

By July 9, the fictional oil spill had reached the coast. The team on Nyali beach hurried to deploy an oil containment boom, a floating barrier that can shield sensitive areas such as shorelines.

Back at headquarters, SeaVision was busy with messages. The other centre, the Regional Coordination of Operations Centre (RCOC) in Seychelles, was urgently requesting more shoreline equipment to help with oil spills, such as booms, from regional partners. Mauritius and Madagascar both made offers to help that Kenya accepted, and the RCOC coordinated a Dornier aircraft from Seychelles for collection and delivery.

How does the emergency response work?

The two centres help countries in the Western Indian Ocean secure their maritime zones against threats such as piracy, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the trafficking of illicit goods – and marine pollution incidents.

In Madagascar, the RMIFC gathers and analyses maritime data from multiple sources to detect potential threats at sea. This enables early warning of threats like oil spills, as well as suspicious ships or boats engaged in illicit maritime activities.

The RCOC in Seychelles responds to these threats. It draws on a shared pool of aircraft and ships belonging to its members, using these to coordinate joint responses – whether through sea patrols, boarding and inspecting ships, or laying the legal groundwork to prosecute offenders.

The two regional centres serve seven states: IOC island members Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and France — through its island territory of La Réunion — as well as East African coastal states Kenya and Djibouti.

On July 10, the exercise ended with an evaluation. One takeaway was that the two regional centres could have been used even more – for instance, to coordinate technical assistance from different partners. But a key purpose of the exercise was to help participating countries understand what the centres offer, and get them used to a regional-level response.

Coastal and island states thousands of kilometres apart are being brought closer by maritime threats in their shared ocean. And the two centres are building their operational capacity to support the whole region, while also creating trust among countries. This matters in a geopolitical context of strategic competition in the Indian Ocean, where islands and East African coastal states sometimes want to put their own needs first.

At the end of the exercise, IOC officer-in-charge Raj Mohabeer reminded participants that the island and coastal states of the Western Indian Ocean have vast maritime zones and face multiple seaborne security threats to their economies, ecologies and livelihoods. “No developing country can deal with a significant marine pollution event alone.”

Kate Sullivan de Estrada receives funding from Research England’s Policy Support Fund allocation to the University of
Oxford via the Public Policy Challenge Fund. Her project under the Fund is titled “Balancing ‘Sovereignty Trade-offs’ in Small-State Maritime Security Co-operation: The Case of the Indian Ocean Commission.”

– ref. I watched a simulated oil spill in the Indian Ocean – here’s how island and coastal countries worked together to avoid disaster – https://theconversation.com/i-watched-a-simulated-oil-spill-in-the-indian-ocean-heres-how-island-and-coastal-countries-worked-together-to-avoid-disaster-260895

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alexander Bowles, Glasstone Research Fellow, Plant Science, University of Oxford

As roses fill gardens and hedgerows this season, there is a story, millions of years in the making, unfolding beneath their petals.

Analysis of rose genomes and floral structure is revealing how the stunning diversity we admire is rooted in the genes of these plants, offering new insight into how the beauty in our world is built at the molecular level.

Modern roses are a riot of colour. Some roses are showy and fragrant while others are modest and understated. Jude the Obscure is coloured in peach, Kew Gardens a soft white and Catherine’s Rose a coral pink.

Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.

This story is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.

All modern roses, in one way or another, stem from a pool of ancient ancestors. The genus Rosa first appeared over 30 million years ago, while the more recent ancestral species that gave rise to today’s roses emerged around 6 million years ago. Diversifying over this time, all modern roses have come into being from these plants.

An April 2025 study by Chinese researchers suggests that the first Rosa flowers 30 million years ago were probably yellow. The researchers studied key traits of modern roses, like petal colour and the number of petals, and mapped them onto an evolutionary tree of roses. Tracing these traits through time allowed them to see how roses have changed over millions of years. For example, the next colours to appear in rose petals were pinks and reds. They also found the ancestor of modern roses alive 6 million years ago was probably pink.

The 2025 study’s evolutionary reconstruction of key rose traits suggests the first roses were simple in form, bearing a single layer of petals. Jude the Obscure and Catherine’s Rose are both double-flowered roses, meaning their blooms have extra petals. These extra petals originated through natural mutations, which were later selected for during rose breeding.

Scent is one of the main appeals of roses in our gardens. Jude the Obscure has a strong fruity fragrance, while Catherine’s Rose is said to have a subtle hint of mango. Yet, some roses are completely scentless.

Floral fragrances come from plant compounds. For instance, roses that emit a lemony aroma owe it to the compound citronellol. Scientists aren’t sure why some Rosa species produce these compounds, but they probably help attract specific pollinators or serve as part of the plant’s defence system.

A 2024 study found that fragrant roses have more genes involved in the production of scent compounds compared to their less fragrant cousins. These fragrant plants produce compounds in high abundance, their complex aromas attracting pollinators and our senses alike. This suggests that, over time, scent production became an advantageous strategy for some roses, because it costs energy to produce these genes.

After their origin over 30 million years ago, roses gradually evolved a remarkable range of forms, colours and fragrances. Today, there are more than 300 accepted species in the genus Rosa. Fossil evidence and genetic studies suggest that the ancestors of roses first evolved in central Asia, probably in modern-day China and the Himalayan foothills. Their natural diversity helped roses adapt to temperate climates, spreading throughout Asia. From there, they gradually expanded westward, reaching Europe around 15 to 25 million years ago.

In only the last couple of centuries, roses have undergone a second wave of diversification, this time driven by human hands. Modern rose breeders selected between eight and 20 wild rose species — particularly from Asia, such as Rosa chinensis and Rosa multiflora, as well as European species Rosa gallica and Rosa canina — to create all modern cultivated varieties. This process enhanced traits that appeal to our senses and produced flowers with more petals, deeper and more vibrant colours and stronger, more complex scents.

For example, genes involved in petal development have been selected to produce fuller, double-flowered blooms. Other genes associated with pigment production have been targeted to enhance deeper and more vibrant colours. Likewise, genes involved in the synthesis of scent compounds, such as one known as NUDX1, have been favoured to intensify rose fragrance.

Other characteristics flower breeders targeted include recurrent flowering, disease resistance and reduced prickle formation. Many wild rose species originally had far more prickles than modern garden varieties. Outside of our gardens, this may leave them more vulnerable to grazing animals.

This botanical experiment, guided by human hands, has shaped the stunning diversity we cherish today. This cultivation is what sets roses apart from their close relatives. Rubus, a closely related genus including blackberries and raspberries, has more than 800 species. There are over 300 Rosa species but it is estimated there are over 35,000 varieties of modern rose.

Rose breeding is still evolving, with future varieties promising new petal shapes, enhanced pest resistance and greater resilience to climate extremes.

Beauties such as Jude the Obscure, Kew Gardens and Catherine’s Rose are the result of centuries of careful cultivation and scientific understanding. So, the next time you walk through a rose garden, take a moment to appreciate the deep history behind each bloom.

Alexander Bowles receives funding as a Glasstone Fellow at the University of Oxford.

– ref. The hidden history behind every rose blooming this summer – https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-history-behind-every-rose-blooming-this-summer-259719

Source: ForeignAffairs4

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Yvonne Breitwieser-Faria, Lecturer in Criminal Law and International Law, Curtin University

Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan.

The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II cited reasonable grounds for believing supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani were guilty of “ordering, inducing or soliciting the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.”

The warrants – the first ever on charges of gender persecution – are being hailed as an “important vindication and acknowledgement of the rights of Afghan women and girls”.

But will they improve the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, given the Taliban does not recognise the court or its jurisdiction?

The signs are not good with the Taliban denying the allegations and condemning the warrants as a “clear act of hostility [and an] insult to the beliefs of Muslims around the world”.

Erased from public life

Strict rules and prohibitions have been imposed on the Afghan people since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

Women and girls have been singled out for even worse treatment by reason of their gender.

According the warrants, the Taliban has

severely deprived, through decrees and edicts, girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion.

Women are banned from public places and girls from attending school once they turn 12.

Zahra Nader is the editor-in-chief of newsroom Zan Times which investigates human rights violations in Afghanistan. She says Afghan women and girls are being silenced, restricted and stripped of their basic human rights.

It is this discriminatory system of control of woman and girls in Afghanistan that is at the core of the court’s prosecution.

The warrants also accuse the Taliban of persecuting

other persons who don’t conform with the Taliban’s ideological expectations of gender, gender identity or expression; and on political grounds against persons perceived as ‘allies of girls and women.

This is the first time an international tribunal or court has confirmed crimes against humanity involving LGBTQIA+ victims. This marks an important milestone in the protection of sexual minorities under international law.

Crimes against humanity

International law clearly spells put the offences which constitute crimes against humanity.

The aim is to protect civilians from serious and widespread attacks on their fundamental rights. Different definitions of crimes against humanity have been included in the statutes of a handful of international tribunals and courts.

The definition under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the most comprehensive. It includes severe deprivation of personal liberty, murder, enslavement, rape, torture, forced deportation or apartheid.

Specifically, the Taliban leaders are accused under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, which states:

Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender […] or other grounds that are universally recognised as impermissible under international law.

Physical and direct violence is not necessary for persecution on “gender […] grounds” to be established. Systemic and institutionalised forms of harm, which can be the imposition of discriminatory societal norms, are sufficient.

Women and girls are often disproportionately affected by Taliban policies and rules. But proving gender-based crimes have occurred is not enough. Discriminatory intent must also be established.

The Taliban has been open about its religious beliefs and interpretations, suggesting a clear intention to persecute on the grounds of gender.

Not just symbolic

As with other cases, the court relies on the cooperation of states to execute and surrender those accused.

The interim government in Kabul which was formed after the US-led invasion in 2001 became a party to the Rome Statute in 2003. Afghanistan remains legally obligated to prosecute perpetrators of these crimes – it must accept the Court’s jurisdiction in the matter.

The Purple Saturdays Movement, an Afghan women-led protest group, is warning the arrest warrants must be more than just symbolic. Any failure to prosecute would likely result in an escalation of human rights violations:

The Taliban has historically responded to international pressure not with reform, but by intensifying such repressive policies.

Hopeful step

It is important to note the strict policies and widespread abuses targeting women and girls in Afghanistan are ongoing, despite the intervention by the International Criminal Court.

The court’s Office of the Prosecutor is stressing its commitment to pursuing “effective legal pathways” to bring the Taliban leadership to account. The Afghan Women’s Movement in Exile wants an independent international judicial committee established to monitor and accelerate the legal process.

It is not yet clear if the warrants will actually lead to arrest and prosecution in The Hague. But we know this is possible. A prime example being the the arrest earlier this year of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

At the very least, the arrests warrants are a hopeful step towards accountability for the Taliban and justice for the women and girls of Afghanistan.

Yvonne Breitwieser-Faria 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.

– ref. In a world first, The Hague wants to arrest Taliban leaders over their treatment of women – what happens next? – https://theconversation.com/in-a-world-first-the-hague-wants-to-arrest-taliban-leaders-over-their-treatment-of-women-what-happens-next-261008