Sand underpins everything from skyscrapers to smartphones. Sharp sand (as opposed to rounded desert sand) is the key ingredient in concrete, while high-purity silica sand is essential for making the silicon chips that power our digital devices.
Yet the relentless extraction of this seemingly abundant resource is pushing river systems to the brink of collapse, displacing communities and fuelling a billion-dollar black market.
Despite its critical role in modern society and urban development, the environmental and social effects of sand mining remain largely hidden from public scrutiny. The UN’s environment programme (Unep) warns that global sand consumption now exceeds 50 billion tonnes annually.
That’s way beyond estimated natural replenishment rates of 15 billion to 20 billion tonnes annually. Despite this, sand mining remains largely unregulated, with devastating ecological and social consequences.
Rivers are the lifeblood of ecosystems and communities. They transport sediment, shape landscapes and sustain wildlife.
But our team’s research on the Lower Mekong river reveals that sand mining is depleting sediment stocks at an alarming pace, causing riverbeds to lower and banks to erode. However, new hi-tech surveillance could improve the enforcement of sand mining regulations and improve resilience for these riverbed communities.
A site of bank erosion on the Mekong River at Rokar Koang, Kandal Province due to intensive mining for sand. Despite some remediation efforts, some homes close to the failure site have been completely destroyed since this photo was taken in February 2022. Andy Ball/University of Southampton, CC BY-NC-ND
As sea levels rise and riverbeds are lowered due to sand mining in the Mekong delta, saltwater spreads further upstream into freshwater areas. This threatens agricultural productivity in the “rice bowl” of south-east Asia. Sand mining also undermines the delicate balance of ecosystems like the Tonle Sap lake – a critical fish nursery and food source for millions.
The Mekong river in Asia flows through six countries, supporting more than 60 million people. In Cambodia, sand mining has become a multi-million-dollar industry, driven by a construction boom fuelled by Chinese investment.
Along the Mekong river, my team has documented sites of severe bank erosion using hi-tech equipment. Voi Thy, a 43-year-old resident of Roka Koang commune, has had to move her house multiple times since 2016 due to collapsing riverbanks – a direct consequence of sand mining.
Although existing research focuses exclusively on the physical damage, sand mining also erodes cultural and communal ties. Rivers are not just sources of water and food. They can be spiritual and cultural anchors.
Julian Leyland explains how sand mining threatens river ecosystems.
In Cambodia, traditional fishing practices and sacred sites are disappearing as rivers are stripped of their sediment. For communities that have lived alongside these waterways for generations, the loss is profound, severing connections to their heritage and identity.
The loss of livelihoods is equally devastating. Fishers and farmers, once reliant on the river’s bounty, are seeing their incomes vanish.
Many, like Vanna, a local fisherman who features in our Lost Lands documentary, are forced to leave their rural homes for cities, where they often find precarious work in poorly regulated industries. This migration fractures communities and places additional strain on urban infrastructure, creating a ripple effect of social and economic challenges.
Tayang Sam, a bricklayer from Cambodia’s remote Ratanakiri orovince, casts his net on sand pumped from the Mekong into the wetlands. Four years ago, he could catch 50-60kg of fish each day, but now he says there’s Andy Ball/University of Southampton, CC BY-NC-ND
The Cambodian government denies that dredging is responsible for the erosion, claiming it stabilises riverbanks – a claim disputed by our team. Strengthening cross-border governance and enforcing extraction limits are critical to addressing this crisis. But time is running out.
The global sand trade is valued at over US$2.3 billion (£1.8 billion) annually, with demand predicted to double by 2060. Much of this economic gain is concentrated in wealthy cities, while the costs are disproportionately borne by local communities in extraction regions. In many sand-rich areas, people face displacement as their riverbanks erode and homes collapse into the water.
The high value and ease of sand extraction have led to the rise of illicit mining networks. In some areas, so-called “sand mafias” control extraction sites, using intimidation and violence to secure their dominance. The lack of legal oversight fosters corruption, with mining permits often being issued through opaque processes. That can further marginalise local communities.
Given the clandestine nature of illegal sand mining, monitoring extraction rates has historically been difficult. However, recent advances in remote sensing and deep learning technology offer new opportunities for surveillance.
As part of our new Hidden Sands project, we are using high-resolution satellite imagery and ground-based cameras to map riverbed sand mining across the Mekong delta. With more accurate real-time insights into the volumes of sand being extracted, policies can be more effectively enforced.
Houses rumoured to belong to Cambodia’s elite are built on a filled-in section of the Boeung Tumpun, Phnom Penh’s largest wetlands. This diverse ecosystem stores 70% of the rain and wastewater from Phnom Penh, helping to prevent flooding. CC BY-NC-ND
Sustainable sand use
A growing body of organisations, such as the conservation charity World Wide Fund for Nature and Unep, are calling for urgent regulatory intervention and alternative sourcing strategies. Building on the conclusions of previous work, sustainable sand management in the Mekong needs to drastically change.
Stricter regulations, and enforcement of those laws, would ensure more sustainable sourcing of sand and help curb illegal mining activities. The development of alternative recycled construction materials, such as manufactured sand from industrial byproducts, could reduce the pressure on river sources of sand.
Once extracted or manufactured, fairer distribution of those resources can be better achieved through community-led conservation and employment initiatives, for example, that can build resilience and protect cultural heritage of traditional practices.
Without intervention, the unchecked exploitation of river sand will continue to degrade ecosystems, threaten wildlife and exacerbate social and economic inequalities. Governments, industry leaders and researchers must collaborate to ensure sand extraction is sustainable and equitably managed. Until then, global demand for sand shows no signs of abating.
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In Latin America, deeply ingrained cultural beliefs about gender roles – what women and men should and shouldn’t do – persist. This is despite increased involvement by women in traditionally male spheres, such as business and politics.
And these ideas are held among young people, too. A studyin 2020 found that only 32% of adolescents in Latin America fully support gender equality. My past research has found that in Mexico, 63.6% of teenagers believe women should not be involved in politics.
In Chile and Colombia, however, teens’ support for gender equality is much higher. This disparity suggests that gender attitudes are shaped by broader social and political contexts.
My recent research with colleagues suggests that schools have the power to shape students’ beliefs about gender equality.
We found that there is a link between classes in which open discussion takes place and students with a strong grasp of civic topics and support for gender equality. We also found that schools with supportive and inclusive environments are linked with more positive attitudes among students towards gender equality.
The influence of inequality
The economic and political landscape of Latin America plays a role in restricting gender equality. Latin America is one of the most economically divided regions in the world, with extreme concentrations of wealth at the top and poverty at the bottom. This extends to education. Children from wealthier backgrounds have access to better education, further reinforcing inequality. Studies show that lower levels of education are linked to prejudices such as sexism.
And economic inequality is not the only challenge. Despite the fact that most Latin American countries transitioned to democracy over 40 years ago, political instability remains widespread. Alarmingly, many people still see authoritarianism as a solution to social issues.
This belief is particularly strong among young people. A 2016 study found that 69% of secondary students in five Latin American countries thought a dictatorship would be justified if it solved security problems. Authoritarian mindsets are strong predictors of sexism.
This means it is challenging to achieve gender equality in a society where authoritarianism and inequality remain deeply rooted.
Our research analysed data from a large-scale study of 25,319 eighth graders (aged 13-14) in 888 schools in Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Peru.
We explored the relationships between the socioeconomic background of students, the promotion of open classroom discussions by teachers, the level of civic knowledge, the ideological climate that schools have and the attitudes toward gender equality held by students. We wanted to explore how far education can be associated with these views.
We found that educational practices account for 19% of the variation in students’ support for gender equality. In other words, what happens inside the classroom matters.
Open discussions
Schools that foster open classroom discussions about political and social issues help students develop critical thinking skills and tolerance. This kind of open dialogue counteracts authoritarian beliefs. It creates a space where students can challenge traditional gender roles.
Inclusive educational practices are not confined to wealthier schools. They can be embraced by any school committed to enhancing educational equity and embracing diverse student needs. But research suggests that students from wealthier backgrounds are more likely to endorse gender equality. This reflects their access to better education and civic knowledge.
Students with higher civic knowledge are more likely to support gender equity. Understanding rights, democracy, and social structures gives students the tools to question inequality and advocate for change.
However, the challenge is that many students are still exposed to authoritarian ideologies – both at home and in school.
Our research revealed a concerning trend. Schools with authoritarian climates tend to reinforce gender biases rather than challenge them. This suggests that if we move students with lower personal support for authoritarianism to an environment where authoritarianism is dominant, those students are susceptible to adopting sexist attitudes. Students are not just shaped by their own beliefs but by the ideological views of their peers.
This means that while schools have the potential to promote gender equity, they can also reinforce inequality if authoritarian ideas dominate the school culture.
Latin America’s structural inequalities and political instability create significant barriers to gender equality. Schools, particularly in underprivileged areas, can counterbalance this by encouraging open discussion and civic education, even in societies resistant to change. Education systems have the potential to play a key role in setting the trajectory of gender equality in Latin America.
Natalia López-Hornickel receives funding from the South West Doctoral Training Partnership (SWDTP).
Cities can be deeply unwelcoming places for wildlife. They are noisy, difficult to get around, full of people and heavily reliant on artificial lighting. Yet some species do better in urban areas than in rural ones.
Research is showing that animals of the same species that live in cities and the countryside are behaving differently. These disparities will probably grow since
over half of people worldwide now live in urban areas, and cities and towns are getting bigger.
A recent study from Tel Aviv University found that Egyptian fruit bats living in urban parts of Israel gave birth two and a half weeks earlier than rural populations. This gives them an advantage as they are more likely to reproduce twice per year.
In the urban areas in the study there was a higher abundance and diversity of fruit trees. In Tel Aviv, for instance, the trees are watered. This means there is fruit for a longer period across the year, meaning more reliable food supplies for the bats.
They may also be benefiting from the urban heat island effect, with warmer temperatures reducing the harshness of the winters felt by their rural neighbours.
Most species perceive humans as predators, so our presence disturbs and distracts them from feeding and breeding. To survive in human-dominated cities, animals must therefore be bold.
This is something researchers have studied for a while in wildlife like foxes. Urban foxes are often more confident in their response to new food when it is presented in a novel object like a puzzle box.
Urban birds, from robins to feral pigeons, are also bolder. In a 2008 study scientists found that urban birds are more tolerant of human disturbance than rural ones), allowing humans to approach them closely.
The birds that reacted less to approaching humans were descended from a large number of generations since urbanisation, showing a long history of adaptation. This behavioural change helps these animals to adjust their stress responses when they are exposed to new situations. If they did not do this, they would suffer with chronic stress.
To test whether this boldness in birds is due to evolutionary adaptations, one 2006 experimental study in Germany hand-raised blackbird chicks taken from both an urban centre and a nearby forest.
They kept all the birds in the same environment until they were adults and then tested their acute stress responses when the birds were caught and handled. The birds from the city had a lower stress response, suggesting that this difference was genetically determined.
However, urban birds tend to be less successful in raising chicks than those in more natural areas. Although birds can take advantage of food provided by people in many cities and towns across the world – whether directly in bird feeders, or by scavenging on our discarded food – urban areas do not provide enough of the invertebrate prey that many nestlings need.
Many of these changes in urban species are difficult for people to detect, but one in particular becomes clear when you spend time in cities across the world. Have you noticed that whichever city you visit there seem to be many animals of the same species?
Scientists call this biotic homogenisation. It happens when places start to become increasingly similar over time with the species that you can find there.
This process begins with the exodus of species that cannot tolerate living alongside humans. Large mammals, often predators, are the first to go as an area becomes increasingly urbanised.
Then the non-native species begin to move in. Feral pigeons, rats, starlings and many other species are introduced by people over time, whether accidentally or deliberately, until a point is reached when the biodiversity found in one city, say in the US, starts to resemble another in Europe.
Urbanisation is continually changing our relationship with animals and how we perceive nature. Although scientists debate whether we have entered the Anthropocene (a new geological age based on significant planetary changes caused by humans) it is undeniable that humans have and still are moulding landscapes to suit our needs.
The growth of cities and other urban areas is set to continue, with future urban expansion predicted to swallow 11-33 million hectares of natural habitat by 2100, an area the size of Norway. Indeed, humans are becoming the largest driving force in the evolution of wildlife.
Becky Thomas 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 following story is the winner of The Conversation Prize for writers, a competition run in partnership with Faber and Curtis Brown. Read more about the competition here.
A young man called David Lace sits in a windowless interrogation room in a Portsmouth police station. He has just been arrested over a spate of burglaries across the city. Out of the blue, in the middle of the interview he tells the detectives something extraordinary. He’s killed someone, he says. A young woman.
He can’t live with himself anymore. The guilt is driving him mad. In the bleak little room he confesses everything. But Lace is never charged with murder. Never put on trial. Never jailed. Instead, all that happens to another man. An innocent man called Sean Hodgson. The Lace confession, along with all the forensic evidence with Lace’s DNA goes missing. Hodgson serves 27 years in prison.
When five police officers turn up at his mother’s flat on October 20 2004, Sam Hallam knows they have made a mistake. A few days earlier a 21-year-old was stabbed to death in a street brawl. Hallam had heard about it but wasn’t there. He explains all of this to the police officers who arrest and later charge him. He explains it to the jury during his trial. No one listens. Hallam is jailed for life. He is 17 years old.
But wasn’t all of this sorted out years ago? Aren’t miscarriages of justice a bit … 1980s?
While millions might have once tuned into Rough Justice and Trial and Error to watch investigations into miscarriage of justice cases, those shows are now long gone, cancelled due to lack of interest. Even legendary investigative journalists like David Jessel packed up and moved on, admitting that the game had changed.
They may have gone under the radar for a while but these types of cases never went away, and it now seems we’ve entered a period where there are more than ever. Perhaps the reason no one noticed is because of a relentless campaign to turn the clock back, to a time when the innocent were fair game.
When the Birmingham Six were trying to overturn their convictions they were thwarted again and again over 16 years by a stubborn and dismissive establishment. The attitude was epitomised in the iconic judgment by Lord Denning. He refused to countenance the idea of them being innocent because that would damage the integrity of the system – and in his opinion the system needed to be protected at all costs. In his judgment Denning said:
If the six men win, it will mean that the police were guilty of perjury, that they were guilty of violence and threats, that the confessions were involuntary and were improperly admitted in evidence and that the convictions were erroneous. That would mean the Home Secretary would either have to recommend they be pardoned or he would have to remit the case to the Court of Appeal. This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say: It cannot be right these actions should go any further.
For decades the “appalling vista” approach held while the injustices grew and grew. But on a bright spring morning in 1991 the whole thing exploded in a visceral, cathartic dam-burst.
Amid chaotic scenes outside the Old Bailey the Birmingham Six were released and one of them, Paddy Hill, grabbed a microphone and unleashed a savage attack on the institutions that had taken his freedom:
For 16 and a half years we have been used as political scapegoats. The police told us from the start they knew we hadn’t done it. They told us they didn’t care who had done it. They told us that we were selected and they were going to frame us. Justice, I don’t think the people in there have got the intelligence nor the honestly to spell the word, never mind dispense it. They’re rotten.
A crisis was erupting that threatened the legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system. Swift action was needed and so on the very day that the Birmingham Six convictions were quashed, the government established the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice.
Nothing it appeared, would ever be the same again.
Out of the Royal Commission sprung a new body – the Criminal Cases Review Commission – given the sole task of investigating miscarriages of justice. The message was sent out loud and clear: the innocence crisis had now been solved and the media, the criminal justice system and the politicians needed to move on to more pressing issues.
But while no one was looking, a silent counter-revolution was happening.
The great rebranding
Stealthily and relentlessly a hostile environment for victims of miscarriages was being created. The first target was to undermine the actual term “miscarriage of justice” itself. In a seminal speech in 2002 Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that “the biggest miscarriage of justice in today’s system is when the guilty walk away unpunished”.
Blair was calling for a reappraisal of what we considered an injustice. Essentially what was being assumed was that the “innocence crisis” had been dealt with and energies should now be focused on other areas where the criminal justice system was misfiring; namely, in the effective punishment of the guilty. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
The right wing press gleefully embraced this reframing. Newspapers like The Sun and Express, who had not concerned themselves with miscarriages of justice before Blair’s intervention, were now falling over themselves to expose these new injustices. Two headlines in the Express read: “Rapist who was free to strike again: This is a travesty, a real miscarriage of justice,” and “Don’t let them get away with murder: Proposals that would see murderers spend less time in jail are the biggest miscarriage of justice we have seen”.
The rebranding of “miscarriage of justice” was so successful that in 2006 when The Sun asked its readers: “Do you know about a miscarriage of justice? Call us on 020 7782 4104”, it did not need to explain to anyone what it was talking about – its readers knew exactly what the paper meant. They knew it was looking for tales of “evil perverts” and “crooks” who got “soft sentences” so that it could use its “Justice Campaign to have lenient judges turfed out”.
But the creation of a hostile environment for the innocent still had a long way to go. It was one thing to convict people – and sentence them to longer terms – the next thing was to ensure they stayed there.
And so a concerted campaign began to strengthen the finality of convictions – essentially making it near impossible to challenge guilty verdicts. Technology helped. Since 2011, most court transcripts have been recorded digitally. But without fanfare the decision was taken to routinely delete them.
It means that while it is possible to access full records of Victorian court cases, modern court transcripts vanish after seven years and they are eye-wateringly expensive. An MP was recently quoted £100,000 for a Lucy Letby court transcript. In the US, defendants automatically get a copy of their court records – in the UK the records are destroyed, and no one has ever really explained why.
So if you are trying to challenge your conviction you may not have access to – or cannot afford – your court records. But what about the evidence that convicted you? We are all familiar with the US movies and documentaries that show lawyers saving prisoners from death row or prison sentences thanks to new DNA evidence. Why doesn’t that happen in the UK? Because in 2014 the Supreme Court decided that a defendant no longer has the right to access any of this evidence. It ruled:
What is essentially sought by the claimant is access to material to enable the case to be re-investigated and re-examined. The time for that investigation and examination was the trial.
All police forces now have a template letter in which they explain that due to this judgment they will not grant access to any evidence after conviction, and every appeal lawyer in the country has enough of these letters to wallpaper their offices.
The commission that was once lauded as an example for the rest of the world is now such a shambles that when the scandal broke about the handling of the Andrew Malkinson case, who had been wrongfully imprisoned for rape, the chair of the CCRC was in Montenegro, promoting her property business. Helen Pitcher told her social media followers that she was “having an amazing time at Milos Mussels bar”. The CCRC said Pitcher was on a lunch break while working remotely from Montenegro that day and that she did not manage her own social media. Pitcher said: “The CCRC is a remote-working organisation, and I sometimes work from a property I own abroad.”
In January, Pitcher resigned saying she had been made a scapegoat for the Malkinson affair. Those involved in criminal appeals used to laugh at how hapless the CCRC was – they are now in open despair.
The handful of cases that make it through the CCRC and to the Court of Appeal face another fight against the odds – the court normally rejects at least a third of these cases.
Victims of injustice such as members of the Birmingham Six say they would never have been freed if the CCRC had investigated their case. And if you do somehow manage to beat all the odds and overturn your conviction – like Victor Nealon – you will leave the Court of Appeal with a grand total of £89 in your pocket. It does not matter if you have unfairly spent decades in prison, if imprisonment has destroyed your physical and mental health and laid waste to your relationships and reputation. It’s still £89. There is no compensation for the stolen years, for the outrageous injustices you have suffered.
Nealon and Sam Hallam took their claims for compensation all the way to the European Court of Human Rights and lost. But the judges said the current UK system for compensation was “a hurdle which is virtually insurmountable”. The hostile environment against the innocent was now complete.
They also know that there will be no comeback if things go wrong – no officer in any of the major miscarriages of justice cases has ever been convicted of anything. The attempt to prosecute officers in the Cardiff Three case collapsed – due to disclosure problems.
Once someone is convicted their court records will be deleted or made unaffordable, their legal aid will be slashed and they will be denied access to any of the evidence that convicted them. Their only option will be to apply to a crumbling and aimless institution which even the legal system views as a joke.
This is how they system wins and how the victims of injustice are betrayed. This is how you convict the innocent.
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Brian Thornton 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.
Congratulations to Brian Thornton from Winchester University who is the 2025 winner of The Conversation Prize for writers, for his story Convicting the Innocent, a look at the systemic barriers facing people wrongly convicted of a crime.
We asked academics to submit a 2,000-word article and book pitch for the competition, run in partnership with Faber and Curtis Brown, and were overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of submissions we received. It was very difficult to pick just one winner from across countless themes and styles.
Brian’s article and book idea was shortlisted by the teams at The Conversation, Curtis Brown and Faber for its strong storytelling, exploring systematic failings in the legal system, and the strong use of case studies that brought colour to this subject.
The judges said: “The research on the current failings of the legal system would be of great interest to the general public, especially following the fallout from the Post Office scandal. The essay is well written and punchy, if shocking and unnerving. The use of case studies to tell the story works really very well, and makes the piece immediately emotionally gripping – with great potential to work as a non-fiction book.”
Brian said: “I’m delighted and honoured to have won the Conversation Prize for writers. My article focuses on miscarriages of justice and how the system fails innocent people. It’s an important topic but one that is so often ignored by media organisations because of the complexity of the cases and the opacity of the legal system.”
I think that’s why The Conversation is different – it provides a platform for writers to tackle complex and challenging topics and allows them the time and space to do them justice. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to highlight this important issue – hopefully it may get people talking and thinking about how to solve it!“
Brian is a senior lecturer and programme leader for the BA (Hons) Journalism course at the University of Winchester, and a former producer for BBC Newsnight. He is also one of the founders of the Winchester University’s Crime and Justice Research Centre, which specialises in issues related to miscarriages of justice, and is founder and director of the Winchester Innocence Project.
Brian wins £1,000 and mentorship from both Faber and Curtis Brown. You can read his winning story here.
Close runners up in the competition were Yvonne Reddick for Fire on Winter Hill and Nicholas Carter for Living Stone.
Fire on Winter Hill blended nature writing, memoir, family obsessions and the politics of climate change and made an impression throughout the shortlisting process for both the style of the essay and thoughtfulness of the proposal, which showcased a great talent for storytelling. Written as a personal account following in the footsteps of the author’s father, who worked on oil frontiers from the North Sea to Oman, the judges said Fire on Winter Hill was an “affecting memoir” that “beautifully and originally explores the link between mountains and oil.”
Living Stone gave a glimpse into a world we don’t ordinarily think about – turning the story of lichens and their relationship with stone into a highly original piece of writing. The judges said: “We’d also like to make a special mention of Living Stone, which explores how lichens bring stone to life – blurring the boundary between the living and the non-living. This topic has great potential to work as a book, arguing that western, narrow scientific definitions means lichens are ultimately understudied and undervalued.”
A big thank you to our judges, Miriam Frankel, senior science editor at The Conversation UK, Priya Atwal, historian, broadcaster and community history fellow at the University of Oxford, and Alice Hunt, professor of early modern literature and history at the University of Southampton. The Conversation Insights team Paul Keaveny and Mike Herd. And to Fiona Crosby, senior commissioning editor for non-fiction at Faber, and Elliot Prior, associate agent at Curtis Brown.
President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
If there are any limits to a president’s power, it wasn’t evident from Donald Trump’s speech before a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025.
In that speech, the first before lawmakers of Trump’s second term, the president declared vast accomplishments during the brief six weeks of his presidency. He claimed to have “brought back free speech” to the country. He declared that there were only two sexes, “male and female.” He reminded the audience that he had unilaterally renamed an international body of water as well as the country’s tallest mountain.
“Our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed, and perhaps will never witness again,” Trump asserted.
It’s true that the U.S. Constitution’s crucial section about the executive branch, Article 2, does not grant the president unlimited power. But it does make this figure the sole “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States.”
Before Trump’s speech, protesters outside had taken issue with Trump’s wielding of such unchecked power. One protester’s sign said, “We the People don’t want false kings in our house.”
With those words, she echoed a concern about presidential power that originated more than 200 years ago.
Many Americans, including these protesting in Washington, D.C. on March 4, 2024, have long resisted the idea of the president as a king. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
Remnants of the monarchy
When the Constitution was written, many people – from those who drafted the document to those who read it – believed that endowing the president with such powers was dangerous.
Ratified after a lot of huffing and puffing, on May 29, 1790, by rather nervous citizens, the text of the Constitution had stirred many controversies.
It wasn’t just the oftentimes vague language, which includes head-scratchers such as the very preamble, “We the People of the United States.” Nor was the discomfort due solely to the document’s jarring brevity – at 4,543 words, the U.S. Constitution is the shortest written Constitution of any major nation in the world.
Adams would eventually become the nation’s second president in 1797. Even though he was a staunch supporter of the Constitution, he was honest enough to take a hard look over the political layout of the new nation. And what he found were remnants of the British monarchy and traces of a king whose unchecked abuses had led the Colonists to demand their independence in the first place.
John Adams, left, one of four founders pictured here, was concerned that the Constitution gave the president ‘Regal Authorities and Powers.’ Stock Montage/Archive photos, Getty Images
In a 1787 article published in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, “An Old Whig” – identity unknown – wrote, “The office of President of the United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous.”
As the commander in chief of the Army, the American president “is in reality to be a king as much a King as the King of Great Britain, and a King too of the worst kind – an elective King.”
Consequently, as the author of this article resolved, “I shall despair of any happiness in the United States” until this office is “reduced to a lower pitch of power.”
‘Subjects of a military king’
Concern over a commander in chief declaring martial law, no matter the legality of the measure, was similarly on the minds of the Americans who had read the Constitution.
In 1788, a patriot who went under the pseudonym of “Philadelphiensis” – real name, Benjamin Workman – issued a sweeping warning. Should the president decide to impose martial law, “your character of free citizens” would be “changed to that of the subjects of a military king.”
Another power given to the president was also universally considered extremely dangerous: that of granting pardons to individuals guilty of treason.
Maryland Attorney General Luther Martin reasoned that the treason most likely to take place was “that in which the president himself might be engaged.” What the president would do, Martin wrote, would be “to secure from punishment the creatures of his ambition, the associates and abettors of his treasonable practices, by granting them pardons.”
George Mason, who participated in the Constitutional Convention and also drafted Virginia’s state Constitution, foresaw a gloomy scenario. He shivered at the idea of a president who would “screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.”
Choosing ‘villains or fools’
The framers did limit executive power in one significant way: The president of the United States is subject to impeachment and, upon conviction of treason or other high crimes, removal from office.
But in the meantime, the president may enact irreparable damage.
The Constitution was finally ratified – but only begrudgingly by the American citizens, who feared a president’s abuse of power. More persuasive than the legal restraints placed on the office, the belief that the people would choose their leader wisely tipped the scale toward approval.
Also, 18th-century common sense deemed it improbable that a person without virtue and magnanimity would run for the nation’s highest office. Americans’ faith in their first president, the upstanding George Washington, helped convince them that all would end well and their Constitution would be sufficient to protect the republic.
The Federalist Papers, the 85 essays written to persuade voters to support ratification, were suffused with this optimism.
People “of the character marked out for that of the President of the United States” were widely available, said the Federalist #67.
“It will not be too strong to say,” reads Federalist #68, “that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.”
In the Nov. 1, 1787, edition of The Independent Gazetteer, one reader wrote, ‘The office of President of the United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous.’ ConSource
Government of laws?
Adams wasn’t so optimistic. He wavered. And then he flipped the issue on its head.
After almost 250 years of uninterrupted republican life, Americans are used to thinking that their nation is secured by checks and balances. As Adams kept repeating, America aims at becoming “a government of laws, and not of men.”
Americans, in other words, have long believed it is their institutions that make the nation. But the opposite is true: The people are the soul and the conscience of the republic.
Everything, in the end, boils down to the character of these people and the control they assert over who becomes their most important leader.
Maurizio Valsania 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.
If you head to the shops to buy bread, you’ll face a variety of different options.
But it can be hard to work out the difference between all the types on sale.
For instance, you might have a vague idea that wholemeal or wholegrain bread is healthy. But what’s the difference?
Here’s what we know and what this means for shoppers in Australia and New Zealand.
Let’s start with wholemeal bread
According to Australian and New Zealand food standards, wholemeal bread is made from flour containing all parts of the original grain (endosperm, germ and bran) in their original proportions.
Because it contains all parts of the grain, wholemeal bread is typically darker in colour and slightly more brown than white bread, which is made using only the endosperm.
Australian and New Zealand food standards define wholegrain bread as something that contains either the intact grain (for instance, visible grains) or is made from processed grains (flour) where all the parts of the grain are present in their original proportions.
That last part may sound familiar. That’s because wholegrain is an umbrella term that encompasses both bread made with intact grains and bread made with wholemeal flour. In other words, wholemeal bread is a type of wholegrain bread, just like an apple is a type of fruit.
Don’t be confused by labels such as “with added grains”, “grainy” or “multigrain”. Australian and New Zealand food standards don’t define these so manufacturers can legally add a small amount of intact grains to white bread to make the product appear healthier. This doesn’t necessarily make these products wholegrain breads.
So unless a product is specifically called wholegrain bread, wholemeal bread or indicates it “contains whole grain”, it is likely to be made from more refined ingredients.
Which one’s healthier?
So when thinking about which bread to choose, both wholemeal and wholegrain breads are rich in beneficial compounds including nutrients and fibre, more so than breads made from further-refined flour, such as white bread.
The presence of these compounds is what makes eating wholegrains (including wholemeal bread) beneficial for our overall health. Research has also shown eating wholegrains helps reduce the risk of common chronic diseases, such as heart disease.
The table below gives us a closer look at the nutritional composition of these breads, and shows some slight differences.
Wholegrain bread is slightly higher in fibre, protein, niacin (vitamin B3), iron, zinc, phosphorus and magnesium than wholemeal bread. But wholegrain bread is lower in carbohydrates, thiamin (vitamin B1) and folate (vitamin B9).
However the differences are relatively small when considering how these contribute to your overall dietary intake.
Which one should I buy?
Next time you’re shopping, look for a wholegrain bread (one made from wholemeal flour that has intact grains and seeds throughout) as your number one choice for fibre and protein, and to support overall health.
If you can’t find wholegrain bread, wholemeal bread comes in a very close second.
Wholegrain and wholemeal bread tend to cost the same, but both tend to be more expensive than white bread.
Margaret Murray 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 U.S. officially imposed new 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on March 4, 2025, following through on a long-delayed pledge from President Donald Trump. American consumers and businesses are now bracing for higher costs and potential supply disruptions.
Although tariffs, or taxes on imports, are a pillar of Trump’s economic policy, the move still surprised many observers, since Mexico and Canada are among the U.S.’s traditional allies and top trading partners. The administration further rattled global supply chains by doubling existing tariffs on Chinese goods to 20%.
As an economist who studies global trade, I wanted to know how the 25% import duties on Canada and Mexico would affect different parts of the country. So I conducted a state-by-state impact analysis.
What I found is alarming: The U.S. economy could face an annual loss of US$109.23 billion. This shortfall would mean rising costs of everyday goods for American families and would disproportionately affect certain states. My analysis focused exclusively on the effects of U.S. tariffs, so it didn’t take retaliation from Canadaor Mexico into account. If it did, the losses would be even greater.
Unequal burdens for states, higher prices for families
Imagine your grocery bill surging by 17.5% to 25%, car parts costing hundreds of dollars more, and your favorite local restaurant raising prices as imported ingredients become unaffordable. Because tariffs drive up consumer prices, these scenarios, or others like them, will soon become reality across the U.S.
But not all Americans will be affected equally, I found. States that are deeply connected to North American supply chains will suffer the biggest economic blows. Texas, with its strong trade ties to Mexico and key role in energy, would lose $15.3 billion. California’s diverse economy would take a $10.2 billion hit. Michigan, heavily reliant on auto manufacturing, would face a $6.2 billion blow – over 1% of its gross domestic product.
The biggest losers from the policy on a per-capita basis would be smaller, trade-dependent states that lack the flexibility to absorb such a shock. New Mexico, Kentucky and Indiana would be among the hardest hit, with projected GDP losses ranging from 1.12% to 1.48%. These states rely heavily on manufacturing and specialized industries, making them particularly vulnerable to rising costs and supply chain disruptions.
Take New Mexico. While it may not experience the largest total economic loss, it would bear the highest per-person burden. That $1.73 billion hit to its economy would translate to $822 for every resident – a devastating blow in a state where incomes are already below the national average.
Indeed, the likely effects of tariffs will be felt especially hard by American families. For example, a family of four in New Mexico would see an estimated $3,288 additional annual costs, equivalent to three months of grocery bills or an entire year’s utility expenses. Families in Kentucky and Indiana would also bear heavy financial burdens, paying an extra $3,120 and $2,836, respectively. Even in wealthier states such as Texas, the added annual costs would reach over $2,000 per household.
For middle- and lower-income families, these aren’t trivial costs. They represent difficult trade-offs, forcing households to cut back on essentials, delay major purchases or dip into savings to make ends meet.
A truck crosses the Ambassador Bridge, a border crossing between Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and Detroit, Mich., on March 1, 2025. Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty Images
Where industry will face a tough hit
Perhaps no industry would suffer more than the auto sector, particularly in states such as Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky. These regions rely on a highly integrated North American supply chain, where components cross borders multiple times before a final product reaches consumers. Tariffs would disrupt this delicate balance, leading to price increases, reduced production and job losses.
My conservative estimate shows that such disruptions could cost the industry approximately $28.2 billion, putting around 680,000 jobs at risk across manufacturing, parts production and sales operations. And the ripple effects would extend beyond automakers to suppliers, dealerships and local economies.
But the pain wouldn’t stop there. Manufacturing, which plays a critical role in 17 of the top 20 states most affected by tariffs, would also face rising costs and shrinking profit margins. The agricultural sector – vital in at least 10 states – would endure higher input costs and potential retaliatory tariffs from Mexico and Canada. Past trade disputes have shown that American farmers often bear the brunt of such policies, with lost export markets and declining revenues.
During the U.S.-China trade war of 2018-2019, for example, American farmers suffered over $27 billion in losses, with soybean exports dropping by 71% and states such as Iowa, Illinois and Kansas losing billions in GDP. The federal government paid affected farmers more than $23 billion to offset these losses. Similar – and possibly worse – challenges loom now.
Retaliation from Mexico and Canada could deal a heavy blow to agricultural exports – including corn, beef and dairy – that anchor local economies, especially in Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Both countries have threatened countermeasures targeting key U.S. exports, raising concerns among farmers and agribusinesses. Retaliatory tariffs could shrink profit margins, further disrupt supply chains, and create uncertainty for producers relying on these markets.
Looking at the bigger picture
The new Trump tariff regime represents a fundamental shift in how the U.S. engages with its closest economic partners. While ostensibly meant to strengthen American industry, the tariffs on offer have serious side effects that will likely cause widespread disruptions for businesses, consumers and entire state economies.
Trade isn’t just about numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s about real people, real businesses and the intricate economic fabric that connects the nation. Changes to this system can come at a high price. Safeguarding American jobs and ensuring economic stability entails recognizing the realities of global trade and considering the trade-offs of instituting new policies.
While tariffs are one method of disrupting the status quo, they are far from the only way. Indeed, reform is also possible through targeted policies – including negotiated trade agreements, investment incentives and workforce development programs – that address trade concerns without altering deeply integrated supply chains.
Bedassa Tadesse 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 unfolding trade war between is expected to have far-reaching consequences for people and businesses on both sides of the border. How can Canadians navigate the trade war and minimize the financial strain of the tariffs?
As experts in supply chain management, we aim to break down the impact of these tariffs and offer practical strategies for Canadians to help navigate the economic turbulence ahead.
How consumers react to trade wars
When the news of a potential trade war is first publicized, consumers tend to react by monitoring the situation until further information is available.
With a trade war breaking out, both consumers and retailers will need to adapt.
Shortages are likely to occur as new importation procedures slow the time products take to cross the border. The ensuing delays, along with higher tariff rates, will push some retailers to raise prices to cover cost increases. Others may limit purchases to discourage hoarding behaviour.
Some firms may even take advantage of the situation by raising prices on products not covered by the tariffs to pad their profits — a practice known as “greedflation,” which happened during the pandemic. Another potential consequence is “shrinkflation,” where package sizes become smaller while prices remain unchanged.
As consumers adapt by changing their shopping habits or using their stockpiled reserves, some of the shortages may be eased. However, retailers may struggle to manage their inventories as demands fluctuate — a phenomena known as the “bullwhip effect.” Navigating these shifts will require careful planning.
Challenges of buying domestic
Trump’s trade war has intensified calls to “buy Canadian” as a way to support domestic products.
However, fully replacing imports with domestic goods presents significant challenges. Many Canadian farmers and manufacturers lack the capacity to quickly scale up production to meet demand, at least in the short run.
Production costs may also be significantly higher in Canada than abroad, which is a major reason for relying on imports in the first place. Apparel manufacturing is a good example. It has a high labour component — the reason that most of it has been moved to low-cost countries in Asia.
Furthermore, trade wars create uncertainty, making farmers and manufacturers hesitant to make large-scale investments that may not pay off once the trade conflict ends. While this approach foregoes potential short-term gains for long term stability, it also exacerbates shortages and price hikes during and after the trade war.
The new normal
Unlike one-off events like hurricanes, or fluctuating disruptions such as COVID-19, the outcome of a trade war is difficult to predict. This makes it difficult to forecast what the “new normal” will be.
Certainly, some consumers who substitute domestic products for imported products may continue to do so in the long run. However, others may switch back to imported products if the tariffs are lifted and prices are lowered.
Knowing that this might happen, domestic producers may not ramp up production during a tariff war. Those who do increase production may later find themselves with excess capacity and inventory surpluses after the conflict ends.
Consumer acceptance of the price increases, adjustments to new higher cost supply chain structures, or efforts to maintain profit margins, may potentially establish a higher baseline prices in the post-trade-war economy.
Navigating the trade war
How can Canada best shield itself from the effects of the trade war? The easy answer is to become more self-reliant, but this is a costly option that requires technology, skilled labour and capital investments.
As a result, this option should only be chosen for the most necessary and essential items, like certain pharmaceuticals and food staples. Other strategies must also be considered:
Engaging in honest communication: Governments and retailers should regularly update the public on negotiations, new tariff schedules and potential price changes, reducing the guesswork that fuels panic buying and stockpiling. Transparency allows individuals to make the best purchasing decisions.
Protecting low-income consumers: Retailers should limit sales quantities of staple products during disruptions to avoid hoarding behaviour. Governments should consider tax relief and subsidies aimed at budget-constrained individuals to relieve the burden of higher tariff-related costs.
Supply chain disruptions inevitably result in higher costs and product shortages, often impacting low-income households the hardest. Even after the trade war ends, higher prices may persist as the new norm. To minimize the impact of tariffs, governments and enterprises need to adopt policies that reduce economic strain and result in fairer outcomes for all.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tracy Smith-Carrier, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Royal Roads University
To eradicate poverty, we need policy actions that address the root of financial hardship. A basic income does just that.(Shutterstock)
Over half of Canadians feel “financially paralyzed” by the cost-of-living crisis, according to a recent poll. As life becomes more unaffordable for more people, we need governments to create policies that will improve public health and well-being.
One such policy is a basic income guarantee: an unconditional cash transfer from government to ensure people can meet their basic needs and live with dignity.
A basic income guarantee differs from the universal basic income (UBI) model often discussed. While a UBI is set at the same amount and made available to everyone, a basic income guarantee is targeted to those need it, through a benefit that rises as income declines.
Our recently published research looks into one basic income program, the Ontario Basic Income Pilot that was launched in 2017 but abruptly ended the following year. We conducted a study to understand how Ontario’s pilot impacted the lives of those who participated in it.
We interviewed 46 participants across four cities included in the pilot. We asked about their experiences before the pilot, during their participation in it and after its abrupt end.
In 2017, the Ontario government, under then-premier Kathleen Wynne, launched the Ontario Basic Income Pilot to test the efficacy of an unconditional cash transfer. A total of 4,000 people were enrolled, and the pilot was slated to run in Hamilton, Lindsay, Brantford and Thunder Bay over a three-year period.
Set at 75 per cent of the low-income measure (one of Statistics Canada’s three poverty lines), the pilot provided $1,415 monthly for single people and an additional $500 for people with disabilities (up to $1,915 monthly), with every dollar earned subject to a 50 per cent claw-back.
Despite a campaign promise to complete the pilot, incoming premier Doug Ford abandoned it in 2018. Participants weren’t forewarned but learned of its cancellation like everyone else — on the news or through social media.
The pilot’s guiding principles, written by the late-Senator Hugh Segal, affirmed that “no individual will be made worse off during or after the pilot, as a result of participation in the pilot.” Our study, however, indicates that the mental health of many participants was demonstrably worsened in the pilot’s demise.
With a three-year promise of stable income, participants told us of being able to plan better for their futures. Some pursued higher education, others found better paying and more stable jobs or started their own businesses. Some moved into better housing, leaving behind mold-infested or poorly maintained dwellings, only to plead with their landlords to break their new leases after the pilot was cancelled.
We found that increased income security improved participants’ mental health, reduced their stress and allowed them to improve diets with healthier food options. Some spoke of no longer having to rely on food charity as they could go the grocery store like everyone else.
Interviewees described what life is like in poverty: not being able to go out for a cup of coffee with friends or buy gifts for your children on their birthdays, not being able to entertain family over the holidays or go out and socialize.
Some had not disclosed their financial situation to family or friends because their sense of shame was so profound. Yet, feeling unable to discuss their situation essentially cut them off from valuable sources of social support.
Structural violence
Ontario’s premature cancellation of the pilot was an act of structural violence — a policy decision that caused needless and avoidable harm and suffering. Anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes explains that structural violence refers to “the invisible social machinery of inequality that reproduces social relations of exclusion and marginalization.”
Structural violence upholds the poverty, racism, sexism and other social inequities that lead to higher rates of illness, suffering and premature death. It is often invisible and can result from policy omissions, but the termination of the pilot was a public, deliberate decision.
By throwing participants’ lives and carefully laid plans into chaos, and thrusting them back into poverty, our research shows the Ontario government’s policy decision caused significant harm.
The cost of mental illness in Canada already amounts to over $50 billion annually (in direct health-care costs and lost productivity) but without intervention could increase to $291 billion by 2041.
Poverty is not caused by personal failings. It is the social environment people live in that has the greatest impact on life trajectories.
To eradicate poverty, we need policies that address the root of financial hardship. A basic income does just that. The Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada recently released estimates that show a basic income, using parameters similar to the Ontario pilot’s, could cut poverty by up to 40 per cent. This is an affordable option with the potential for broad positive effects.
We already have the Canada Child Benefit for families and the Guaranteed Income Supplement for older adults that provide forms of a basic income guarantee, although these benefits must be enlarged to be truly adequate. What we need now is a program that provides a robust income floor beneath which no one can fall.
Whatever their ideological leanings, politicians have a duty to advance policies that bolster public health and well-being. Improving mental health through a basic income is a wise investment, one that will prevent the needless suffering of generations to come.
Tracy Smith-Carrier has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from the Canada Research Chairs program.
Elaine Power has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Daniel Del Gobbo, Assistant Professor and Chair in Law, Gender & Sexual Justice, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
United States President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender and gender diverse (trans) women athletes from competing in women’s sports, at the beginning of his presidential term on Feb. 5, showed the president accelerating a long-standing moral panic about queer and trans people.
Bearing the offensive title “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” the executive order misinterprets a U.S. law called Title IX to suggest falsely that trans-inclusive policies in collegiate and elite-level sports are somehow harmful to cisgender women. The force of this claim is backed by a threat: ban trans women, or face having your funding rescinded. The order came following a flurry of political movesentrenching transphobia in U.S. law and society.
The moral panic around trans women athletes can be seen in Canada as well. In both countries, the issue has emerged as fundamental to a right-wing strategy that positions trans women athletes as scapegoats, fuelling social anxieties about trans inclusion and gender equality more broadly. As leading trans scholar and professor of political science, women’s and gender studies Paisley Currah puts it, “the situation is dire — an unrelenting assault on our ability to go about our daily lives.”
Canadian universities must take action to protect trans students as part of a comprehensive strategy to promote gender equality on campuses.
Myths about trans women athletes, debunked
Right-wing commentators rely on two main arguments in support of banning trans women athletes.
The first argument is the so-called “lost opportunity” argument, which holds that trans women athletes prevent cisgender women from participating by taking up limited spots reserved for women. This claim is based on a misapprehension.
The number of trans athletes competing in women’s sports at the collegiate and elite levels is extremely small. In 2024, NCAA President Charlie Baker told a U.S. Senate panel that, to his knowledge, fewer than 10 of the 510,000 student athletes competing in NCAA schools were trans. It is unclear how many identify as trans women, a group that is systemically underrepresented in every level of sports, both in terms of participation and results in competitions.
The second argument is the so-called “unfair advantage” argument, which roots itself in the idea that “natural” biological sex-based differences exist that give trans women a competitive edge. This claim is equally problematic.
In 2024, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport released a review of research that summarized the data on trans women athletes. It found that research in this area is limited, often methodologically flawed and inconclusive in its results. Evidence indicates that trans athletes who have undergone testosterone suppression, for example, have no clear advantages over cisgender women.
Even if certain advantages exist, however — and that’s a big “if” — the fact remains that cisgender male athletes like Michael Phelps, an American swimmer and 23-time Olympic gold medalist, are celebrated for their physiological differences from other athletes. The choice to ban trans athletes is based on a pretext, not principle.
Harms of excluding trans people
Trans women athletes have faced backlash. A notable target of these attacks is Lia Thomas, a trans swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania and the NCAA Division I champion who was banned from competing at the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials.
As of February 2025, Fox News had published over 3,200 stories about Thomas, many of which contain dehumanizing language about trans people.
Racialized and Indigenous athletes face additional obstacles, particularly when they fail to meet racial and gender stereotypes about women. The barriers are often greatest in colonial sporting cultures where whiteness is upheld as a standard of femininity.
At the 2024 Olympics, right-wing commentators singled out Imane Khelif, a cisgender woman from Algeria who won the gold medal in women’s 66 kg boxing, based on false claims that she was trans. President Trump repeatedly misgendered Khelif, feeding the fire of racist, misogynistic and transphobic attacks that scrutinized Khelif’s appearance and behaviour to assess her gender conformity.
Effects on campus
Myths about trans athletes have turned Canadian universities into battlegrounds. In 2024, Harriette Mackenzie, a trans basketball player at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, B.C. spoke out about her mistreatment, saying she was physically targeted by an opposing team after their coach said she should not have been allowed to compete against cisgender women.
Cases like Mackenzie’s affect not only trans students who experience discrimination on campus at disproportionate rates. They affect everyone because transphobia reinforces the gender binary and its assumptions about how people should look, act and compete in sports. The problem extends to broader academic climate and culture at universities, given that escalating rhetoric and hatefulness can amplify risks of gender-based violence on campuses.
Every province has passed human rights legislation providing that students have the right to be free from discrimination on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. Canadian universities have a legal and moral responsibility to provide trans women athletes with equal opportunities to participate in campus life.
As a first step, universities should protect trans athletes in their non-discrimination and gender-based violence policies, many of which have been criticized on equality grounds. Through needs assessments studies (like the one conducted at University of British Columbia focussed on trans, two-spirit and gender diversity, completed in 2023), universities can identify gaps in their policies and programming and make recommendations.
Consider the issue of access. Many universities continue to show men’s and women’s bathrooms and locker rooms on campus maps without highlighting the location of trans-inclusive facilities. Research confirms that trans students are more likely to feel isolated and marginalized when campus services exclude them.
Additionally, universities should expand their athletics programs, improve training for coaches and staff, and create gender and sexuality support and affinity centres to celebrate the achievements of trans athletes and foster acceptance of trans students generally. These efforts should form part of a comprehensive strategy to promote equality, diversity, inclusion and decolonization on campuses, particularly in the face of right-wing pressure to curb these initiatives without good reason.
Finally, it bears mentioning that for many trans athletes, particularly those who face barriers to inclusion in other family and community spaces, the opportunity to participate in sports is more than a human right — it can be life-saving for them. Athletics provide an important outlet for trans people’s self-expression, discovery and community building at a formative time in their lives. Gender equality is not a game for these students. Universities must recognize that.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Muhammad Ilyas Nadeem, PhD Candidate in Obesity & Diabetes | Public Scholar (2024-2025), Concordia University
For too long, societal attitudes have focused on blaming individuals for poor lifestyle choices, ignoring the deeper, multifaceted causes of obesity.(Shutterstock)
Many people who have struggled with their weight have been told to “eat less and move more.” Others have spent years juggling trendy diets, from keto to fasting, with minimal results. Despite their best efforts, what they often hear from physicians, friends, family and even strangers, is that they lack discipline. However, for many people with obesity, their bodies are fighting against them — a battle dictated by biological mechanisms beyond sheer willpower.
Obesity is a critical public health concern affecting millions worldwide. Yet, it is often oversimplified as an issue of personal choice. Canadian data highlights the staggering prevalence of obesity (26.6 per cent) and diabetes (8.1 per cent). For too long, societal attitudes have focused on blaming individuals for poor lifestyle choices, ignoring the deeper, multifaceted causes of the condition.
The need to understand obesity beyond lifestyle changes is urgent — particularly through scientific inquiry into its genetic, environmental and physiological roots. It is beyond the simple equation of calories in versus calories out; this perspective only serves to create stigma by oversimplifying the science.
Through identifying these specific dysfunctions, researchers can work towards therapies that restore SAT function rather than simply reducing body weight.
Researchers are exploring the cellular and genetic aspects of these different fat depots, and their link with obesity and diabetes. (Shutterstock)
Research from our metabolism, nutrition and obesity (MON) lab at Concordia University focuses on understanding the adipose tissue (fat tissue) environment to uncover how these complex mechanisms and their interactions can lead to the development of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. The goal is to eventually use our discoveries to provide more effective treatment approaches based on individual differences.
One aspect that can contribute to individual differences is where fat is stored in the body. SAT from the lower body, around the hips and thighs, seems to function differently from SAT around the belly in the upper body. We are exploring the cellular and genetic aspects of these different fat depots, and their link with obesity and diabetes.
Instead of blaming individuals, we need to shift the conversation towards understanding these pathophysiological mechanisms. By doing so, we can develop targeted treatments that address the root causes of obesity rather than relying on generic, often ineffective solutions.
The need to shift our perspective on obesity is not solely a medical necessity but a societal one. (Shutterstock)
Obesity Canada reports that failing to treat obesity costs Canada $5.9 billion in health care and $21.7 billion in lost workplace productivity annually, with a $5.1 billion hit to government revenue from premature deaths and reduced workforce participation. Women with obesity face disproportionate impacts, earning four per cent less and being 5.3 per cent less likely to be employed than those with a healthy weight.
In 2023, obesity-related diseases placed over 10,000 seniors in long-term care, costing $639 million. Yet, fewer than 20 per cent of privately insured Canadians have access to approved treatments, and bariatric surgery wait times stretch up to eight years — reinforcing harmful stigma and delaying essential care.
The need to shift our perspective on obesity is not solely a medical necessity but a societal one. The stigma attached to excess weight and obesity prevents people from receiving medical treatment, drives mental illness and perpetuates damaging myths. A more empathetic, science-based approach could help reshape public attitudes and clinical practices.
Millions of people have been misled by the myth that self-control can cure obesity. Seeing obesity as a chronic metabolic disease rather than a moral one is a way forward for effective remedies. The future of obesity treatment depends on research-driven, personalized interventions — ones that substitute blame with knowledge and stigma with support. Only then can we fully address this global public health crisis.
Sylvia Santosa receives/has received funding from NSERC, CIHR, CRC, MITACS, CFDR, QBIN, HSF. She is affiliated with Obesity Canada, and Canadian Nutrition Society.
Cristina Sanza and Muhammad Ilyas Nadeem do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eunyoung Choi, Postdoctoral Associate in Gerontology, University of Southern California
Extreme heat increases the risk of a number of diseases, including kidney and heart conditions.Spencer Platt/Getty Images
What if extreme heat not only leaves you feeling exhausted but actually makes you age faster?
Scientists already know that extreme heat increases the risk of heat stroke, cardiovascular disease, kidney dysfunction and even death. I see these effects often in my work as a researcher studying how environmental stressors influence the aging process. But until now, little research has explored how heat affects biological aging: the gradual deterioration of cells and tissues that increases the risk of age-related diseases.
New research my team and I published in the journal Science Advances suggests that long-term exposure to extreme heat may speed up biological aging at the molecular level, raising concerns about the long-term health risks posed by a warming climate.
My colleagues and I examined blood samples from over 3,600 older adults across the United States. We measured their biological age using epigenetic clocks, which capture DNA modification patterns – methylation – that change with age.
DNA methylation refers to chemical modifications to DNA that act like switches to turn genes on and off. Environmental factors can influence these switches and change how genes function, affecting aging and disease risk over time. Measuring these changes through epigenetic clocks can strongly predict age-related disease risk and lifespan.
Research in animal models has shown that extreme heat can trigger what’s known as a maladaptive epigenetic memory, or lasting changes in DNA methylation patterns. Studies indicate that a single episode of extreme heat stress can cause long-term shifts in DNA methylation across different tissue types in mice. To test the effects of heat stress on people, we linked epigenetic clock data to climate records to assess whether people living in hotter environments exhibited faster biological aging.
We found that older adults residing in areas with frequent very hot days showed significantly faster epigenetic aging compared with those living in cooler regions. For example, participants living in locations with at least 140 extreme heat days per year – classified as days when the heat index exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.33 degrees Celcius) – experienced up to 14 months of additional biological aging compared with those in areas with fewer than 10 such days annually.
This link between biological age and extreme heat remained even after accounting for a wide range of individual and community factors such as physical activity levels and socioeconomic status. This means that even among people with similar lifestyles, those living in hotter environments may still be aging faster at the biological level.
Even more surprising was the magnitude of the effect – extreme heat has a comparable impact on speeding up aging as smoking and heavy alcohol consumption. This suggests that heat exposure may be silently accelerating aging, at a level on par with other major known environmental and lifestyle stressors.
Long-term public health consequences
While our study sheds light on the connection between heat and biological aging, many unanswered questions remain. It’s important to clarify that our findings don’t mean every additional year in extreme heat translates directly to 14 extra months of biological aging. Instead, our research reflects population-level differences between groups based on their local heat exposure. In other words, we took a snapshot of whole populations at a moment in time; it wasn’t designed to look at effects on individual people.
Our study also doesn’t fully capture all the wayspeople mightprotect themselves from extreme heat. Factors such as access to air conditioning, time spent outdoors and occupational exposure all play a role in shaping personal heat exposure and its effects. Some individuals may be more resilient, while others may face greater risks due to preexisting health conditions or socioeconomic barriers. This is an area where more research is needed.
What is clear, however, is that extreme heat is more than just an immediate health hazard – it may be silently accelerating the aging process, with long-term consequences for public health.
Large swaths of the U.S. population are experiencing long stretches of extreme heat, as this map of cumulative heat days from 2010 to 2016 shows. Eunyoung Choi, CC BY-ND
Older adults are especially vulnerable because aging reduces the body’s ability to regulate temperature effectively. Many older individuals also take medications such as beta-blockers and diuretics that can impair their heat tolerance, making it even harder for their bodies to cope with high temperatures. So even moderately hot days, such as those reaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.67 degrees Celcius), can pose health risks for older adults.
As the U.S. population rapidly ages and climate change intensifies heat waves worldwide, I believe simply telling people to move to cooler regions isn’t realistic. Developing age-appropriate solutions that allow older adults to safely remain in their communities and protect the most vulnerable populations could help address the hidden yet significant effects of extreme heat.
Eunyoung Choi receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute on Aging.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Catherine Waite, Research Associate, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge
A stonechat on the edge of a solar farm.Joshua Copping
The UK’s installed capacity of solar power expanded rapidly over the past decade to reach 17.2 gigawatts (GW) in 2024 – enough electricity to power roughly 4 million homes. The government aims to raise solar generation capacity to 70 GW by 2035. And by 2050, the government’s advisers estimate that as much as 90 GW of solar power may be needed to achieve net zero emissions.
Building solar farms – large-scale installations of solar panels on agricultural land – will have to be done carefully, to avoid exacerbating another environmental crisis: the dwindling variety of wildlife, or biodiversity.
However, surprisingly few studies have examined the impact of solar farms on biodiversity. Our new research is one of the first to study the impact of solar farms on birds in the UK. And, hectare-for-hectare, we found that solar farms in the farm-rich East Anglian countryside that were managed with biodiversity in mind contained a greater number of bird species, and more birds overall, than surrounding cropland.
During spring 2023, we used the breeding bird survey method to survey solar farms in the East Anglian fens that were under different management styles.
These sites ranged from intensively managed solar farms, in which the grass surrounding panels is cut or grazed short throughout the year, with no hedgerows or small trees, to mixed-habitat solar farms where infrequent cutting or grazing has allowed wildflowers, trees and hedgerows to grow along boundary fences. For comparison, we also surveyed the surrounding farmland.
Good habitats for birds
We found that the number of birds on the mixed-habitat solar farms was typically twice that of the intensively managed sites, and three times higher than adjacent high-yielding cropland. The number of species on mixed-habitat solar farms was 2.5 times higher than both of the alternatives.
Our study also showed that solar farms offer important habitat for a number of threatened bird species. In fact, birds such as yellowhammer, linnet, greenfinch and corn bunting, which are of particular concern to conservationists due to their declining national populations, were considerably more abundant on mixed-habitat solar farms.
Perhaps our results aren’t that surprising. After all, the mixed-habitat solar farms we surveyed contained many of the features birds prefer (similar to nature-friendly farms in less intensively farmed areas). These features include hedgerows, which can offer berries to eat and crevices to shelter in, particularly for birds adapted to woodland habitats. The tall and diverse vegetation around the solar panels contains a variety of habitats, with insect prey or seeds for food. The intensively managed cropland and solar farms had none of these features.
By providing the right habitat, birds have been naturally drawn to these solar farms in an area that sorely lacks it.
A golden opportunity
So, solar farms can benefit biodiversity in rural landscapes dominated by intensive agriculture in the UK. Especially when they are designed to allow plants to grow around the panels, and have hedgerows or trees in the margins. Prioritising the needs of wildlife when planning solar farms could help the UK meet its climate commitments while helping nature.
When grass was allowed to grow long on solar farms, it appeared to encourage birds. Joshua Copping
What’s more, our previous research has shown that the UK has enough land to deploy 90 GW of solar power – enough to meet suggested capacity by 2050 – without damaging bird populations at a national scale or affecting food production. Our new findings should allay public concerns about some of the risks of renewable energy to wildlife.
We have a golden opportunity for finding multiple functions for land: generating clean energy while restoring biodiversity at the same time.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Catherine Waite receives funding from The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Joshua Copping receives funding from The Natural Environment Resource Council (NERC) and is employed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kirsty Pringle, Atmospheric Scientist and Project Manager, Software Sustainability Institute, University of Edinburgh
Netflix’s new drama Toxic Town tells the true story of a group of women from Corby in Northamptonshire, UK, who gave birth to children with limb differences in the 1980s and 90s. The children were born with shortened arms or legs or missing fingers. The drama follows their battle to uncover the cause and their subsequent fight for justice.
This skilful portrayal of a real-life tragedy isn’t just compelling drama, it’s a stark warning about the dangers of weak environmental protections. With the UK no longer following EU environmental standards and the US rolling back key pollution regulations and scaling down environmental enforcement, the issues at the heart of Toxic Town feel more urgent than ever.
As two atmospheric scientists, we were pleased to see Netflix taking on this recent event in UK history.
Corby’s industrial heritage mirrors that of many English towns: for decades, the town’s steelworks provided jobs. Then in the 1980s they were decommissioned, leaving behind high unemployment and thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste. While many areas have decommissioned steelworks, the difference here is that environmental procedures for decommissioning hazardous waste appear not to have been followed.
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Waste from the steelworks was transported through town in lorries to sites for long-term storage. Despite government advice to ensure their lorries were cleaned and their loads covered to prevent contamination, dirty, uncovered lorries carrying hazardous waste were repeatedly driven through the area, allowing toxic sludge to spill out on to the roads.
Drivers were also paid bonuses for extra loads, which encouraged them to ignore regulations and cut corners. And, as the sludge spilled from their lorries dried, it turned into dust that was carried through the air and inhaled by residents, including pregnant mothers.
Crucially, this dust was not typical air pollution which, while harmful, doesn’t usually come from contaminated land so doesn’t contain high concentrations of heavy metals and industrial chemicals. Yet, to the naked eye, Corby’s toxic dust would have been pretty indistinguishable from everyday grime.
What is clear, however, is that there was a lot of it. During the 2009 court case against what was then Corby Borough Council, which was responsible for the steelworks’ decommissioning, residents recalled the orange dust coating surfaces and filling the air. Many stressed the need to wash their cars frequently as they quickly became coated in dust.
As the show depicts, in 1999 concerns were raised about the impact of the pollution by mothers in the area who had given birth to children with upper limb differences. Northamptonshire Health Authority conducted an initial investigation and concluded the problem was no worse than elsewhere in England and Wales.
Inexplicably, even among environmental researchers, the Corby toxic waste case remains relatively unknown despite being a landmark legal case. It was the first time a link between airborne pollution and limb differences in children was officially established.
The council lost the case and was found liable for public nuisance, negligence and breach of statutory duty. It disputed the verdict but reached a confidential private settlement with the families.
Corby’s story has been dubbed the “British Erin Brockovich”. This is due to its parallels with the famous US environmental lawsuit in which Erin Brockovich, a legal clerk, helped build a case against Pacific Gas and Electric who were fined US$330 million (£415 million) for contaminating the water supply in Hinkley, California.
Why environmental regulation matters
It’s tempting to watch Toxic Town with the reassurance that such a disaster couldn’t happen again. Surely, with modern environmental monitoring and stronger regulations, we are now better protected?
Environmental protections are only as strong as the political will to enforce them. History has repeatedly shown that weak or poorly enforced regulations can lead to catastrophic consequences. For example, the Bhopal gas disaster in India in 1984 saw a toxic gas leak that killed thousands.
The Love Canal incident in the US in the 1970s exposed residents to hazardous waste, causing birth defects and illness. And the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the US in 2010, which became one of the largest marine oil spills in history.
Despite such repeated events, environmental regulation is increasingly dismissed by some politicians and industry leaders as red tape –a bureaucratic burden that hampers industrial and economic growth.
The UK’s exit from the EU means that it no longer needs to adhere to EU environmental regulations, including the Reach law which mandates the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals, It’s the main EU law that governs chemicals to protect both the environment and human health. While not flawless, Reach is considered to be the most robust chemicals regulation in the world and because of global supply chains, it often encourages manufacturers beyond Europe to comply.
The attitude of the new administration in the US to environmental protection laws has caused considerable concern across the global scientific community. There has been a rollback of more than 100 environmental regulations, including 39 relevant to air and water pollution. Most of these rule reversals have already been enacted, just over a month into the new administration.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has had 168 staff placed on leave and environmental groups have warned “that these cuts put minority and lower income families living close to polluting sites at risk”. In parallel, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), another federal agency which monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditions, is facing drastic cuts to it’s staff and budget. These cuts harm the capacity of the US to monitor and enforce environmental regulations.
What happens in the US often sets a precedent for other countries. It is worrying that reducing environmental protection in the US may encourage other countries, including the UK, to follow suit.
So, far from being a thing of the past, we could be witnessing a return to the toxic times seen in Corby if we fail to prioritise stringent environmental safeguards. As solictor Des Collins starkly reminds us at the end of the drama: “A town that is made by burning up red tape and using it as fuel does so much damage.”
Kirsty Pringle receives funding from UKRI.
Jim McQuaid receives funding from UKRI, Horizon Europe, The Royal Society and Defra
A bill that proposes to ban first-cousin marriage in the UK will receive its second reading in the House of Commons on March 7.
The bill, proposed by Conservative former minister Richard Holden, follows the introduction of a ban on cousin marriages that came into effect in Norway in 2023 and a planned ban in Sweden from mid-2026.
Different reasons might be given for proposing to ban first-cousin marriage. However, one significant reason given by supporters of these bans is concern for public health. Holden claimed in his speech to parliament that: “First-cousin marriage should be banned on the basis of health risk alone.”
In the UK, a long-standing research study of childhood outcomes in Bradford, where there has traditionally been a high rate of cousin marriages within the Pakistani community, recently found that children of first cousin parents had higher rates of learning and speech problems and more visits to hospitals and doctors.
The increased incidence of certain genetic illnesses in children of related parents has long been recognised. When parents are closely related, they are more likely to carry the same faulty genes.
If both parents pass on the same faulty gene to their child, the child has a higher chance of developing a genetic illness (about double the risk of parents who aren’t related). The Bradford study had earlier found that first-cousin marriages were linked to 30% of cases of birth defects in the studied population.
The recent study suggests that even once you exclude those children diagnosed with recessive genetic conditions – and even after adjusting for other risk factors such as poverty – the children had higher rates of illness and developmental problems.
Although it is laudable to wish to seek measures to prevent health and learning problems in future children, there is a fundamental ethical challenge.
Banning first-cousin marriage will not prevent children from having genetic illness or health problems, rather, it will prevent some children from being born and mean that different children (with a lower chance of genetic or other problems) are born instead.
Harm principle
A basic legal and ethical principle, defended by the 19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill, is that states are only justified in restricting the basic freedoms of individuals to prevent harm to others. But if we take the “harm principle” seriously, then the health case for a marriage ban dissolves. There will be no child who is saved from illness or harm because of a law banning first-cousin marriage.
It might be thought that a ban would still be justified, based on community health rather than for the sake of specific children. The idea would be that it would be important to prevent first-cousin marriage because of the high rate of genetic illness in offspring. Perhaps the hope would be to reduce pressure on the health system. But there are several problems with this argument.
First, most children of parents who are first cousins are healthy. The rate of genetic or congenital problems is 6% (compared with 3% in parents who are not related). This means that 94% of children will not have genetic or congenital problems. Or to put it another way, given the small additional risk, over 30 couples would have to be prevented from marrying to prevent one child from being born with an inherited genetic problem. The same argument applies to the extra learning problems seen in the Bradford study that were not diagnosed as genetic problems: most children of first-cousin parents did not have learning difficulties or serious illness.
Next, a ban on cousin marriage to reduce the rates of illness or learning problems in their offspring would represent an attempt to prevent certain people from having children for the sake of benefiting the population. But once we frame it in that way, it is clear that such an effort would be eugenic, based on a particular group’s perceived genetic fitness to reproduce.
Such a policy would be an example of some of the most troubling forms of eugenics: restricting basic freedoms (the freedom to marry and have children) for the sake of the common good.
Third, the health-based reason to ban first-cousin marriages is because of the elevated rate of birth defects and health problems in children. However, the rate of these problems is also increased in parents who are related more distantly. And in close-knit ethnic groups there can be shared genes and increased rate of congenital problems (so-called endogamy), even without cousin marriage.
If we ban first-cousin marriages, families could shift to others within their extended family. Or, if we wanted to prevent higher rates of birth defects, we might need to ban not just first- and second-cousin marriages, but also marriage within ethnic communities. But that would look even more problematic.
How should we respond then to the high rates of health and learning problems in communities like those in Bradford?
One important response is to be aware of the additional needs of those communities (Bradford has areas that are among the most deprived in the UK) and to ensure that the needs of children are addressed.
A second response is to provide education to families and to young people who are potentially marrying so that they are aware of the increased risks associated with cousin marriage and can make informed decisions.
Finally, there are more sophisticated and targeted ways of identifying risks for couples while respecting their reproductive rights. So-called expanded reproductive carrier screening could identify before they become pregnant, whether both partners in a couple are carriers for the same genetic illness. That could help them to decide whether to have children together, whether to use other techniques – such as IVF – to prevent genetic illness or to adopt. That expanded screening isn’t currently available on the NHS, but it could be made available to couples who are related.
We should be concerned about higher rates of illness in the children of parents who are related. But the ethical answer isn’t to ban them from getting married.
Dominic Wilkinson receives funding from the Wellcome Trust.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women globally. But, in part thanks to screening programmes, over 75% of those diagnosed with breast cancer in England now survive for ten years or more.
However, due to a complex combination of racial disparities in the quality of healthcare patients receive, social factors such as poverty, and differences in tumour biology, Black women in the UK are more likely to die from the disease than women from other ethnicities.
Research shows that Black women in the UK are less likely to take part in breast screening programmes but are more likely to die from the disease from late diagnosis. So, why are Black women less likely to attend breast screenings when it could help save their lives?
I was part of a team that reviewed all the studies which examined the barriers to breast cancer screening which Black women in the UK experience.
The review found significant gaps in existing research on breast cancer in the Black community and barriers preventing Black African and Black Caribbean women in the UK in partaking in potentially life-saving breast cancer screenings. We reviewed nearly 1,000 papers, but only eight articles included Black women.
The review found that previous research often grouped Black women from diverse backgrounds together, including Black African and Black Caribbean, masking important cultural nuances and different experiences. Additionally, the limited research available primarily focused on women who either attend screenings or who are ineligible, overlooking the crucial perspectives of those who are eligible but do not participate.
As part of our research, we also wanted to identify any effective interventions to improve screening uptake for Black women – but we found no interventions that exclusively targeted Black women.
Our study found that barriers were physical, emotional, cultural and related to healthcare. Black women who believed breast cancer could be treated if caught early were more likely to attend screening. Some of the key barriers, though, seem applicable to women from all ethnic groups. For example, fear of positive diagnosis.
Cancer diagnosis is often seen as a death sentence but we found that Black women, in particular, are less likely to discuss breast cancer. Our review found that fear, stigma and negative perceptions of cancer contributed to a strong culture of silence which hindered responses to screening.
Our review also found that many Black women who participated in the studies placed a high value on family relationships. Some Black African women, for example, were worried that if they were diagnosed and treated for breast cancer their partner might leave them or that their marriage prospects could be negatively affected because potential partners might think that cancer runs in their family.
Barriers from healthcare structure were also flagged. Black women reported difficulties in attending screening appointments during work hours and lack of evening or weekend appointments prevented some women in full-time employment from attending screening.
The review found that knowledge and awareness of breast cancer could be low, especially among some women born outside the UK, some of whom believed they weren’t vulnerable to breast cancer because they weren’t familiar with it in their country of birth. This shows a need for more culturally sensitive research on breast cancer screening in the Black communities.
To reduce health disparities, then, and to enhance awareness of breast cancer screening, we recommend tailored community health programs and outreach initiatives that resonate with the people they are targeting.
Anietie Aliu is affiliated with University of Surrey
Aliu, A.E., Kerrison, R.S. and Marcu, A. (2025), A Systematic Review of Barriers to Breast Cancer Screening, and of Interventions Designed to Increase Participation, Among Women of Black African and Black Caribbean Descent in the UK. Psycho-Oncology, 34: e70093. https://doi-org.surrey.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/pon.70093
Ireland urgently needs to decolonise its higher education system. British rule spanned several centuries in Ireland and policies during this time sought to replace Irish culture with British norms, leaving a legacy that continues to influence Irish higher education.
Today, Ireland is a wealthy and confident nation state. But this hides a colonial past which saw its language, culture and intellectual heritage systematically suppressed. Our education system has long been shaped by English-speaking and, recently, specifically American intellectual ideas. This has left limited space for Irish perspectives and thinkers.
Ireland has grown close in many respects to nations which were once colonising powers. It has taken on many of their entrenched practices. For education, this includes the export of western “expertise” to non-western countries, known as “helicopter research”. This is where researchers from wealthy countries study communities in lower-income countries without involving local researchers.
Another well-known phenomenon, known as “white saviourism”, positions western experts as heroic figures, bringing solutions to “underdeveloped” regions without understanding the local context. Irish professionals are not exempt from this dynamic.
Grassroots, student-led initiatives such as “Why Is My Curriculum White?” and “Liberate My Degree” have emerged from students’ demands to challenge the Eurocentric dominance of university teaching. These initiatives also push for greater inclusivity and representation within higher education.
Recently, a movement emerged, led by Trinity College Dublin’s Students’ Union (TCDSU), advocating for greater recognition of Irish language rights within the university. The union prominently displayed a banner reading “Cá bhfuil an Ghaeilge?” (“Where is the Irish?”) on the university’s iconic Campanile (its bell tower). These efforts aimed to draw attention to the need for stronger representation of the national language in signage, official communications and advertisements: a call that TCD promptly addressed.
Questioning hierarchies
As mentioned, English and American frameworks continue to shape much of Irish university education, sidelining Ireland’s intellectual traditions. This affords little space to Irish thinkers in fields such as Initial Teacher Education (ITE) or psychology.
This issue also finds expression in cultural practices, such as the frequent mispronunciation of Irish names. Names like Siobhán, Aoife, and Tadhg are often treated as comedic challenges in US media, which is widely consumed in Ireland, reducing their rich linguistic and cultural significance to punchlines. While seemingly trivial, this reinforces a broader disregard for linguistic diversity and reflects the ways Irish identity has been marginalised, even in the modern era.
Addressing these challenges requires more than tokenistic gestures. In higher education, decolonisation involves reclaiming neglected voices and critically examining our assumptions and biases. Decolonisation is not about simply adding Irish or non-western thinkers to reading lists but about fundamentally reshaping how knowledge is framed, taught and contextualised.
Efforts to decolonise must address the specifics of Irish identity, such as the revival of the Irish language and culture. Post-independence, these efforts have faced accusations of elitism and uneven implementation. Future efforts must take an inclusive approach that integrates perspectives from migrants and minority communities, reflecting the multicultural reality of today’s Ireland.
Decolonising the higher education system in Ireland requires an approach that acknowledges the legacies of colonialism and privilege, and recognises that Ireland takes part in many practices today that come from that colonial mindset.
But by taking the right approaches, Ireland can create an education system that authentically represents its past, present and future.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The typical adult in the UK spends nearly two hours on social media per day. And for younger users, this can easily be up to five hours. The likes of Instagram or TikTok seem to draw us into their ever-changing feeds and it’s difficult to tear ourselves away from these platforms.
Now our latest study shows that even our body reflects a state of being glued to the screen when we are on social media.
We asked 54 young adults to browse their Instagram on their phone for 15 minutes as they would normally do in their daily life. However, in our study we had attached electrodes to their chest and fingers that allowed us to record their heart rate and “skin conductance”, which is an indicator of sweating. Psychologists can use these physiological markers to infer subtle mental states and emotions. We also added a control condition where our participants read a news article on their phone, just before they logged onto Instagram.
What we found was that, relative to the news reading condition, scrolling away on Instagram led to a marked slowing of participants’ heart rate while, at the same time, increasing their sweating response.
From other research we know that such a pattern of bodily responses shows that someone’s attention is fully absorbed by a highly significant or emotional stimulus in their environment – it’s a state of simultaneous excitement and deep immersion into something very meaningful to us.
Importantly, from the control condition we knew that it was not just being on the phone or reading that caused this bodily response. So there seems to be something special about social media that can easily engross us.
The most intriguing effect in our study happened when we interrupted participants at the end of their Instagram stint and asked them to go back to reading another news article. Rather than snapping out of the excitement and returning to a calmer state, participants’ sweating response increased further, while heart rate also increased rather than slowed down further.
Is it addiction?
What was going on? What helped us interpret these effects were participants’ ratings of their emotions. We collected these before their social media bout and at the time we asked them to log off.
Participants reported being stressed and anxious when they had to disconnect from their feed. They even reported having social media cravings at that moment. So it looked like the physiological response that we observed when participants had to log off reflected another form of arousal – but this time it was more negative and stress-related.
Such bodily and psychological stress responses also occur when people with a substance addiction go through withdrawal during abstinence or after quitting “cold turkey”. So were these signs that we observed “withdrawal” from Instagram?
The answer to this question is not straightforward. However, our study may give us some clues. After the experiment, we asked all participants to fill in a questionnaire assessing symptoms of “social media addiction”.
While this concept is controversial and currently not recognised as a mental health disorder, the questionnaire told us something about how social media use can negatively affect someone’s daily life. This can even include their work or school results, or lead to conflict with their partners.
Notably, we did not see any heart rate and sweating differences between participants who scored high or low on these addiction measures. That means, that all our participants showed a pattern of excited immersion during use and stress-related arousal when use was interrupted.
We don’t think that this finding means that we are all addicted to social media though. Instead, we believe that social media offers very powerful rewards. And some of its features may indeed have an addictive dimension, such as the personalised short-video streams that trap us in an endless loop of entertaining content.
Critically however, our previous study shows that it is primarily the social aspect of social media that drives most people to use it so intensively. This also means that – in contrast to drugs – social media taps into basic human needs: we all want to belong and to be liked.
So if we recognise the existence of “social media addiction”, we might also need to recognise a “friendship addiction”. We should therefore exert caution with the term addiction in the context of social media – the risk is that normal behaviour could become “pathologised” and lead to stigma.
And, as our previous research indicates, we may be just fine abstaining or cutting down from social media for a while without experiencing dramatic changes to our wellbeing (either positive or negative). The reason for this is that in contrast to drugs, we can satisfy our needs through other means – for instance, by talking to people.
Niklas Ihssen 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 Steve Christopher, Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice (Police Programmes), De Montfort University
At the end of last year, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (an independent judiciary body) made a shocking landmark judgement. The tribunal found that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Metropolitan Police had unlawfully conducted surveillance into two investigative journalists.
The PSNI was forced to pay £4,000 in damages to Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney, producers of No Stone Unturned, a 2017 documentary about alleged police collusion in the unsolved Loughinisland massacre in 1994.
The two journalists were arrested in 2018 by the PSNI over leaked documents that appeared in the film. Their arrest was later ruled unlawful. Suspecting that this was one of multiple attempts by the police to identify their sources, McCaffrey and Birney brought a complaint. The tribunal’s subsequent investigation and ruling has revealed the extent of the surveillance on the pair, and drawn attention to more examples of surveillance on journalists. These are now being investigated by a review set up after the tribunal’s ruling.
The PSNI admitted last year to making 823 applications for communications data for journalists and lawyers over 13 years. Additionally, more than 4,000 phone communications between 12 journalists were monitored by police over three months.
The force also admitted employing covert tactics against 320 journalists while intercepting over 4,000 telephone calls and texts between McCaffrey, Birney and a dozen BBC journalists. This is espionage on an industrial scale.
The treatment of the journalists has rightly raised concerns about press freedom. But as a senior detective who specialised in covert policing, and who now lectures criminal investigation students about the practice, I find this case extremely worrying for the future integrity of covert policing in the UK.
Covert policing and human rights
Covert policing refers to a combination of clandestine policing tactics used to
lawfully access information and evidence that may not otherwise be obtainable. These tactics are an essential investigative tool in tackling contemporary organised and serious crime – they are not intended to police the 4th estate.
Journalistic confidentiality is a privilege legally protected from covert policing, other than in exceptional circumstances. These privileges (along with legal and medical) are basic and sacrosanct, and cannot simply be ignored or trampled upon. Hence, the reason for the checks and balances in the process of authorising covert policing.
I was a member of various national working groups which worked tirelessly around the turn of the millennium to legitimise and regulate clandestine tactics through the introduction of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and its associated codes of practice.
To comply with human rights, the deployment of covert policing must be justified, necessary, proportionate and lawful. Law enforcement agencies employing theses tactics are held accountable through oversight by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
This framework has largely proved to be very effective and compliant with the relevant laws and human rights. Although there has been a rise in the number of complaints by private individuals to the IPT since 2017, less than 4% were actually found to have failed to comply with the framework.
UK law enforcement and the public are still coming to terms with serious and systematic abuses by undercover police officers targeting campaigners over a period of 40 years. Against that backdrop, it is imperative that the deployment of covert policing by law enforcement agencies complies with the governance regime put in place.
The tribunal found that in the case of Birney and McCaffrey, the former PSNI chief constable did not comply with the necessary legal requirements to authorise the surveillance operation. They said that the constable failed to “consider whether there was an overriding public interest justifying an interference with the integrity of a journalistic source”. Clearly, there is public interest in identifying who was responsible for the Loughinisland massacre, which is what the journalists were seeking to do with their documentary.
Trust in police
At the heart of this calamity lies public confidence and legitimacy in policing. The British public believes in press freedom to expose unacceptable behaviour, especially by public servants, and greatly dislikes the abuse of power by the police to prevent that.
In this case, the police service has again overstepped the mark by its egregious conduct. And I am concerned that it is merely the tip of the iceberg. Given the collaboration between the PSNI and Met police reported in this case, it would be very surprising if such proactive “monitoring” of journalists was not underway in many forces.
McCaffrey, Birney and others are right to call for a public inquiry to establish the extent of such covert operations by the police service. There is a clear and significant danger when the police extend their clandestine reach to unjustifiably and unnecessarily spy on journalists. A review of the extent of such operations across the UK would be in the interests of transparency and accountability. It would also go a long way to repairing the damage caused to public trust in the police and covert policing by this case.
Steve Christopher 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 Adam Behr, Senior Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle University
“In any civilised community the arts … serious or comic, light or demanding, must occupy a central place. Their enjoyment should not be regarded as something remote from everyday life.” This was a central statement in the white paper (a statement of policy intent) issued 60 years ago by Jennie Lee, the UK’s first minister for the arts under Labour prime minister Harold Wilson in 1965.
Outlining A Policy for the Arts – The First Steps was the first white paper for the arts (and the only one until 2016), and suggested that the arts should be publicly supported, also arguing for increased local and regional support besides national institutions.
Many of Lee’s assertions still ring true today, not least that, “Today’s artists need more financial help, particularly in the early years before they have become established”. There were echoes of that 1965 statement of support for the arts in Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy’s recent announcement of a £270 million funding package. Indeed, the timing was no accident, Nandy explicitly referenced Lee’s “vision for accessibility in the arts”.
This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.
It’s a broadly welcome intervention for a sector in straitened circumstances. A drop of more than 30% investment through local authorities in England since 2010, and of 21%, overall has left organisations struggling to maintain infrastructure, creating a drag on new developments. So an injection of government support for public assets like museums and libraries is a necessary step to stem the decline.
Much, though, has changed since 1965. Absent from Lee’s communitarian account of governmental support for the arts is the language of economic return. The intervening decades have seen a sea change in the logics of arts funding.
While the stated benefits of arts to society – and particularly education – remain salient, the emphasis has shifted over time from support to “investment”, with the arts and culture increasingly recognised and valued for, as Nandy puts it, “their growth potential to drive our economy forward”.
This rhetorical and practical co-mingling of “culture” with the “creative industries” is a longitudinal shift. In political terms this was made clear by the 1997 rebranding of the Department for National Heritage (the first “culture” department, founded by Conservative prime minister John Major in 1992) as the Department for Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) the last time Labour returned from a long spell in opposition.
This defence of arts funding in “instrumental” terms (its economic return, or value in bumping up educational achievements) is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there’s a risk of losing sight of culture’s intrinsic value as something worthy of support – art for art’s sake.
At the same time, it has been accompanied by a move away from the more patrician conception of what merited state support. National institutions and the “high arts” were the main focus in the birth of the arts councils as part of the major overhaul of the role of the state – the postwar consensus – after the second world war.
This points towards wider tensions in arts funding and the DCMS portfolio that derive from the evolving landscape since 1965. There was a strong emphasis in Lee’s paper, and in Nandy’s recent announcement, on buildings, infrastructure and established spaces. Vital as these are, the idea of what counts as culture has moved on and expanded since then.
Even beyond their economic potential, the cultural value of practices more traditionally associated with commercial activity has become more central to the national conversation.
Arts education has also become strategically important in both economic terms and in supporting widening access to opportunities across society, requiring a broad conception of “the arts”. The barriers between high art and popular culture have become porous, and this has a bearing on state support, especially when cultural activity overall is reeling from a pandemic and years of austerity.
This is at the heart of those sectors left out of the current largesse. Drawing on both economic and cultural arguments Michael Kill, chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, has noted the absence in Nandy’s proposal of live music venues, nightclubs and festivals.
“The government has placed traditional and heritage culture at the forefront while completely ignoring the vital creative spaces that fuel innovation, inspire younger generations, and contribute significantly to our economy,” he wrote recently.
DCMS funding is also a microcosm of any government spending in that it also comes with questions around opportunity cost (as the recent announcement about boosting the defence budget and immediate ramifications for foreign aid also make clear). Here too, the grassroots are a factor.
Mark Davyd of the Music Venue Trust, for instance, has pointed out that his suggested “£20m to open 40 new grassroots music venues” was derided, but that there’s “£15m to build yet another hall for the National Railway Museum and £5m to build a poetry centre, and nobody thinks that £20m is funny.”
Also rising rapidly up the agenda are concerns about the longer term impact of AI on creative careers, another area in which the DCMS – and the Department of Science Innovation and Technology – might see their plans for growth at odds with those in the creative industries and organisations.
Artists are objecting to a suggested exception to copyright restrictions that would require them to actively “opt out” of their work being used to train AI models, and which benefit AI companies with the presumption that works can be used for that purpose.
None of this is easy, especially after a long period of austerity in the arts, and a context of global uncertainty. But Nandy’s recent announcement of funding can only be seen as a holding action to halt the deterioration.
To realise Jennie Lee’s vision, a more substantive, structural approach is needed, one that brings those activities at the grassroots, and at the margins of traditional views of “culture” under the umbrella of funding.
Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin
When Israel signed a ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza on January 15, the agreement was structured in three phases. Phase one, a six-week period in which Hamas would release hostages in return for Israel releasing Palestinians detained in its jails, ended on March 1.
The shaky deal has held for the full six weeks – just. At one point Hamas threatened to halt the exchange of hostages when it said Israel was breaching the terms of the deal. The Netanyahu government responded – with US backing – by threatening to end the ceasefire in mid-February, saying that Hamas was not living up to its side of the deal.
The hostage releases have continued, although Israelis have been shocked and angered at the condition of some of the hostages after 17 months in captivity. Hamas has also taken advantage of the world’s gaze during hostage releases to stage large parades of its fully armed fighters.
On March 1, as stage one of the deal was due to end, Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a full blockade of humanitarian aid entering Gaza. Middle East expert, Scott Lucas, answered our questions as to what is happening and how this situation may play out.
Why has Israel decided to block humanitarian aid to Gaza?
The Netanyahu government’s blocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s population is part of a scheme to avoid a phase two of the ceasefire, while putting pressure on Hamas to extend phase one.
That would allow the Israeli government to pursue the return of the remaining 59 hostages, alive or dead, held by Hamas while avoiding the requirements of phase two – notably the withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza and the restoration of a Palestinian government in Gaza.
Of course, those who will pay the cost are more than 2.2 million Gazans, around 90% of whom have been displaced amid 17 months of mass killing. But Israel’s leaders are counting on that causing little concern, or at least significant action, by the international community.
Wasn’t the ceasefire deal dictated by a timetable?
Phase one of the agreement only stipulated that discussions for a phase two to begin within 14 days of implementation, which would have been about the start of February.
But the Netanyahu government reportedly sent mediators to Qatar without the authority to discuss phase two, only to ensure that hostage releases continued. The limit of its cooperation has been sending representatives to Egypt and conferring with Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, with current discussions suggesting little prospect of agreeing phase two.
What is driving Netanyahu’s decision-making right now?
Netanyahu’s vow has been “absolute victory over Hamas”. But as there is no sign that Hamas is going to disband – or even that its leaders will leave the Gaza – there is zero chance of that happening in phase two.
That assessment is compounded by pressure on Netanyahu from hard-right ministers and supporters, such as finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and former national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Their powerful hard-right factions only accepted phase one if there was no follow-up and certainly no return to the aim of allowing Palestinian self-determination in Gaza.
On the other side, Netanyahu faces families of hostages and their supporters, who say the priority must be the return of those held by Hamas. Thus the “solution”, proposed by the US and backed by the Israeli government is for a six-week extension until the end of Ramadan and Passover, or until April 20. Half the hostages would be released on day one of the extension and the remainder once a permanent ceasefire is agreed.
Hamas is unlikely to agree to that provision, as the hostages are their only leverage in discussions for a lasting ceasefire and their continued place in Gaza. But Netanyahu can frame their refusal in such as way as to blame Hamas for not wanting a peaceful solution and as an excuse for resuming military operations.
Where is the White House in all this?
For now Netanyahu can count on US backing for the pressure on Hamas and the extension of phase one.
Donald Trump’s ego trip was to claim credit for the phase one ceasefire. Since then, he and his officials have shown little interest in supporting a phase two. Instead, the US president has proposed what would amount to an ethnic cleansing of Gazans – removing and relocating them to other Arab countries to make way for his dream of a “Middle East Riviera” on the coast.
He shared a bizarre AI-generated video with a vision of “Trump Gaza”, complete with a gilded, giant statue of him as he and Netanyahu sit topless and sip drinks on the beach amid bearded belly-dancers.
Perhaps widespread Israeli military operations, and the consequent mass killing of civilians, would dent Trump’s “peacemaker” image. But it is likely that Israel could get US officials to back the “Blame Hamas” rationale. And, meanwhile, the administration is fine with the Israelis expanding their military presence and settlements in the West Bank.
What about the Arab world?
After more than a year of negotiations, the phase one settlement brought some relief to Egypt and Qatar, the chief sites of discussions. Jordan, always at risk of being unsettled by assaults on Palestinians, encouraged further talks. Gulf States, their plans for “normalisation” with Israel in tatters, could envisage a gradual return to the process.
But all of this has foundered on the lack of possibility for phase two. Most Arab leaderships have no affection for Hamas, but with no clear Palestinian alternative, they have no appetite for contributing to the necessity security arrangements.
So the easy option for now is to condemn the excesses of others, such as Trump’s ethnic cleansing whim or Netanyahu’s threat of renewed attacks. The tougher option is to envisage any untangling of the knot around Israeli occupation and Gaza governance.
That may mean that, without giving an endorsement, most Arab States will be happy with the kicking of the can down the road in a phase one extension.
Scott Lucas 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 Alex Fitch, Lecturer and PhD Candidate in Comics and Architecture, University of Brighton
The ultimate villain of DC Comics, the Joker, has been brought to screen many times. From Cesar Romero’s 1960s camp prankster in Batman: The Movie (1966), to Jack Nicholson’s villain-with-flare in Tim Burton’s iconic Batman (1989) and Heath Ledger’s wonderfully textured psychotic criminal in The Dark Knight (2008).
Though he’s never the hero, the “crown prince of crime” usually dominates whatever film he’s in.
Other versions of the character have been less well received. Critics disliked Jared Leto’s take in Suicide Squad (2016), calling the film “shallow”, and many fans loathed his gang-style tattoos and makeup.
Joaquin Phoenix’s downtrodden schizophrenic Arthur Fleck in Joker (2019) was initially championed by audiences and critics. But the film felt disconnected from Joker’s history and more like a critique of poverty and social isolation than a comic book movie.
Phoenix’s reappearance in sequel Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) was widely panned, due to an incoherent plot and unusual choice of the jukebox musical genre.
This is the landscape that welcomes The People’s Joker, a parody film with an LGBTQ+ twist. Written by Vera Drew and Bri LeRose, and directed by and starring Drew in the lead role, it has just started a screening tour of the UK.
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Set in an alternate (unaffiliated and unofficial) DC universe, this semi-autobiographical dark comedy explores Drew’s real-life gender transition, using a fictional alter-ego, “Joker the Harlequin”. This character is used as a metaphor for the difficulties of transgender adolescence.
The film is a re-imagining of Drew’s coming of age story. She moves to Gotham City, trying to launch a comedy act in a place where comedy has been outlawed. After a poor audition, she decides to create “anti comedy”, supported by a slew of recognisable Batman villains such as the Riddler, Mr Freeze and Poison Ivy.
Alternate versions of famous characters
As the film conjures provocative versions of familiar characters – both similar and radically different to previous incarnations seen on screen – The People’s Joker is well timed to compete with changes to the official cinematic superhero universes made by Marvel and DC.
These film universes have leant into multiverse storytelling, with different versions of the same characters (such as Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland’s Spider-Men) leaving their respective universes to team-up or cause havoc.
As such, it seems apt that The People’s Joker name-checks multiple versions of Batman characters, and includes them in the same film.
The trailer for The People’s Joker.
Drew’s character is a mix of both Harley Quinn and the Joker, while a former comic-book Robin, Jason Todd, becomes a Leto-style Joker. The film uses this opportunity to satirise Leto’s characterisation including the “damaged” forehead tattoo that annoyed fans.
Drew dances to a song called Party Woman, a not-so-subtle reworking of Party Man by Prince, which soundtracked the arrival of Nicholson’s Joker in Batman (1989). The film also satirises Phoenix’s dance on a flight of steps in both of his Joker movies.
Reimagining continuity
The People’s Joker mines Batman comic lore and gleefully stirs it up. Todd announces: “Before I was Jason Todd my name was Carrie Kelley” (a young, female iteration of Robin who appeared in Frank Miller’s landmark graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns).
Old speculation around the nature of Batman and Robin’s relationship is also referenced when Todd notes that after he transitioned, Batman made a pass at him.
These name-checks and motifs are cleverly used and a perfect fit for their new context. Smylex (the Joker’s rictus grin inflicting poison) becomes a teen medication riffing on Ritalin, and metaphor for the repression of identity. This ironically also leads Drew to discover that she can use Smylex-induced humour to deflect attention from her secret identity and transition.
A film starring two different versions of the Joker has a surprising precedent. DC Comics has run a storyline since 2016 that suggested Batman had actually come up against three different Jokers. All three then teamed up in a 2020 mini-series.
This goes hand in hand with Joker: Folie à Deux, and the Gotham TV series which both suggest a new Joker will arrive when a previous one dies.
A clip from The People’s Joker.
The People’s Joker matches its anarchic content with stylistic surrealism: blurred backgrounds, extensive use of green screen, bargain basement makeup, periodic slips into animation or action figures, and CGI effects to create the rictus grins. These all give the film a hallucinogenic feel, culminating in an ending where Drew sails through the sky with fifth-dimensional imp Mister Mxyzptlk, floating between an infinite number of possible timelines.
With various superhero franchises leaning into different media, continuities and multiverses, The People’s Joker follows in the tradition of previous re-imagingings of Batman.
As many authorised comic book films are starting to feel like they’re retreading too familiar ground, hopefully the critical appreciation of this film will point towards stranger and more unique comic adaptations yet to come.
Alex Fitch previously received funding from Design Star for PhD research.
Julia Round 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.
Inspiring stories of female entrepreneurs are a familiar part of International Women’s Day. Typically, these portraits follow a narrative arc of adversity, resilience, passion and success. The message is that women are skilled, resourceful and successful entrepreneurs.
However, one thing you are unlikely to learn from these role model stories is how much (or perhaps more pertinently, how little) money the founder pays herself. While this partly reflects taboos on discussing money, it contributes to a gendered veil of silence regarding the very poor personal incomes of most women entrepreneurs.
My research on female founders in the UK suggests that entrepreneurship rarely pays for women. It may also exacerbate gendered financial precarity, particularly as women get older. This hidden picture of women’s entrepreneurial poverty will form part of my submission to the UK government’s public inquiry into female entrepreneurship this spring.
I spent two years interviewing more than 50 women in London from various backgrounds. They had established their enterprises in diverse sectors, with the hope of generating at least a living-wage income.
But a self-sustaining income proved an elusive goal for most. Only four had matched or surpassed their former salary in employment. This was less than 8% of my sample. A further three managed to bring in about £2,000 a month – similar to a living-wage income in London at the time.
Eight women paid themselves (sometimes) around £1,000 a month, despite working for their business full time. A similar number generated up to £100 a week. The rest – more than half the sample – took no income at all.
While some were in early-stage entrepreneurship, many had been investing labour and resources into their venture for four or more years without generating pay for themselves. Some women were supported by partners or savings, others relied on state benefits, paid employment or drastically reduced their living standards.
Lian, for example, moved into her business premises to slash her living costs. Lucy had not socialised for four years and Rebecca complained that her house was “falling apart”.
Bleak about the future
Coping on a low entrepreneurial income was not simply a question of foregoing discretionary spending. At 49, Rebecca admitted she often felt “really bleak about the lack of a pension”, while Lucy, 39, worried that she would end up “penniless in the gutter”. As few women were investing in a pension, the research suggests that, in the UK at least, women’s entrepreneurship could worsen both gender income gaps and long-term financial equality.
Notably, most women had received support from enterprise programmes and business advisers. Four women took loans from the UK government’s Start-up Loan Company, which lends up to £25,000 at commercial rates, and targets non-traditional founders such as women and young people.
However, three had returned to paid employment to service the loan, reducing the time they had to grow the business. This included Stacie, who said: “Forget my time, I’ve never paid myself. Never. Basically, the money that came in went straight back to the loan.” Stacie’s entrepreneurship journey had nonetheless been packaged into a celebratory success story on the Start-Up Loan’s website.
Analysing social patterns in household economic structures and women’s entrepreneurial income suggests two things.
First, it is now relatively easy for women in the UK to borrow money to start a business. But it is very difficult for them to raise enough funds to develop an income-generating enterprise.
Second, women who had salaried partners or family wealth could afford to invest their labour into growing their business. This gives them a substantial advantage over single women. Single mothers especially face a stark choice between investing their time in their business or in employment to meet household needs.
While many male entrepreneurs also struggle to generate income, my research highlights specific gendered issues.
Notably, gendered norms around social value mean women often disguise disappointment with low incomes and make a virtue out of non-financial rewards.
Reflecting on the £100 a week she earned from her craft business, Maggie said: “I just love … talking to people and hearing about their lives and just having a good chat.” But having a good chat does not pay bills. Maggie, a widower, was anxious to grow the business to replace her former income of £38,000 a year and come off benefits.
Second, fear of violating gendered norms may inhibit some women from pursuing profit. Most women were adamant they must not appear “greedy”.
Greta, for example, had switched her for-profit business plan to a social value buy-one-give-one model because she feared that being seen as “profiteering” would derail her brand story. Yet, the extra costs of a social-value buiness model imposed serious constraints on her future income.
The income disappointment of female entrepreneurs can be overlooked when their stories are repackaged into inspirational stories of innovation. Me dia/Shutterstock
The income disappointment women revealed is not reflected in the public discourse. Lian, Stacie and many other non-earning interviewees were publicly hailed as successful, contented, female entrepreneurial role models at enterprise events as well as in digital and traditional media outlets.
As Deanna remarked: “Founders are the new celebrities.” Such role model stories, devoid of any facts about income, feed a pernicious myth that entrepreneurship is a desirable, feasible and sustainable career for all women.
But my research also indicates ways of approaching the hidden financial impact. We need much better evidence about incomes for women business owners – and we need to make this public. Conversations about what holds women back from talking about the income they need is important. Paying yourself a decent income is not greed.
It should also be made clear that social value goals can harm income prospects.
And, given the UK’s goals of financial equality, we should be honest and ask if encouraging women to open businesses is even the right thing to do.
All research participants’ names have been changed.
Sarah Marks received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for this research.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pinar Dinc, Associate Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science & Researcher, Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University
Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), has called on the group to disarm and dissolve itself. In a letter read out by his political allies in Istanbul, Turkey, on February 27, he wrote: “I take on the historical responsibility for this call … All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”
Two days later, the PKK’s executive committee declared a ceasefire to its armed struggle against the Turkish state. The conflict, which began in 1984 with the aim of establishing an independent Kurdish state in response to state oppression, has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
Öcalan has been imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since 1999, when he was captured by Turkish security forces in Kenya. But he has remained the leader of the PKK throughout and has kept his strong personality cult among the Kurdish freedom movement.
He was the force behind the PKK’s shift away from its separatist goals in the 2000s. He argued that the solution to the Kurdish question in the Middle East was for greater autonomy and Kurdish rights through the idea of “democratic confederalism”, built on the pillars of direct democracy rather than a nation-state model.
In his letter, Öcalan repeated this argument. He blamed the past 200 years of capitalist modernity for the break up of the alliance between the Kurds and the Turks. And he highlighted the importance of a truly democratic society and political space for a lasting solution to the Kurdish struggle.
Öcalan’s letter mainly addressed the Turkish public and international community, and is likely to have been “approved” by the Turkish state. As such, it was rather short, at times vague, and did not propose a detailed framework about the peace process between Turkey and the PKK.
But after Öcalan’s letter was read out, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy party (DEM), shared with journalists an additional remark Öcalan had made.
Öcalan had apparently said: “Undoubtedly, in practice, the laying down of arms and the dissolution of the PKK require the recognition of democratic politics and a legal framework”. This point suggests that Öcalan’s call to disarm is merely the beginning of a long process to bring the conflict to a close.
The PKK has announced that, in order for disarmament and dissolution to be put into practice, Öcalan needs to lead this congress personally. This indicates an expectation for Öcalan to gain some sort of freedom to communicate and direct the process.
Support for dissolution
Leading figures from several pro-Kurdish groups have welcomed the order for the PKK to disarm. This has included Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and Salih Muslim, the former co-chairperson of the Democratic Union party (PYD) in Syria.
Öcalan’s call has also received support from the international community. This includes the US and UK, which alongside many other nations, recognise the PKK as a terrorist organisation. On February 27, US National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told CNN that the announcement was “a significant development” that “we believe will help bring peace to this troubled region”.
Perhaps most importantly, Öcalan’s announcement has been welcomed almost unanimously by political parties in Turkey. Only the ultra-nationalist Good and Victory parties oppose the call to dissolve the PKK, seeing any negotiations with the group as compromising national integrity.
But, despite this important step towards peace, it remains difficult to see an imminent end to the Kurdish struggle in Turkey. The Justice and Development party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement party, which have ruled Turkey together since 2023, have been continuing their oppression of the democratic sphere.
They have replaced elected Kurdish mayors with government officials, while also imprisoning democratically elected Kurdish politicians. And people in the media, civil society and other democratic movements, such as the People’s Democratic Congress, have been criminalised and detained.
At the same time, Turkey considers the SDF and other Kurdish organisations like the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the PYD as offshoots of the PKK. It has supported its militia force in Syria, the Syrian National Army, to stop the Kurdish autonomous region on its border from achieving political status, seeing it as a direct threat to national security.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has warned the PKK of further action if the process of disarmament is stalled. In a post on X on March 1, Erdoğan wrote: “If the promises are not kept … such as delaying, deceiving, changing names … we will continue our operations, if necessary, until we eliminate the last terrorist”.
This signals an expectation from the Turkish state that they want all of the groups they associate with the PKK, armed and non-armed, to also disband. However, Abdi has asserted that Öcalan’s call for the PKK to dissolve does not apply to the group he leads. “If there is peace in Turkey, that means there is no excuse to keep attacking us here in Syria”, Abdi said.
The Syrian National Army has been launching attacks in northern Syria to capture territory from the SDF, with fighting particularly intense around the Tishreen Dam.
So far, the only positive approach from the Turkish government has been signalling a possible change in the constitutional definition of citizenship to go beyond ethnic criteria. This would be a first step towards a more pluralist and inclusive description of citizenship in Turkey, where people from several ethnic groups have lived for centuries.
There are various concerns over the ways in which the dissolution process will be carried out. But the possibility of peace is valuable as it opens up democratic avenues for struggle. Resolving the Kurdish question, one of Turkey’s most pressing unresolved issues, will pave the way for progress in other areas such as democratisation and freedom of expression.
Pinar Dinc is the principal investigator of the ECO-Syria project, which receives funding from the Strategic Research Area: The Middle East in the Contemporary World (MECW) at the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden.
Sometimes AI isn’t as clever as we think it is. Researchers training an algorithm to identify skin cancer thought they had succeeded until they discovered that it was using the presence of a ruler to help it make predictions. Specifically, their data set consisted of images where a pathologist had put in a ruler to measure the size of malignant lesions.
It extended this logic for predicting malignancies to all images beyond the data set, consequently identifying benign tissue as malignant if a ruler was in the image.
The problem here is not that the AI algorithm made a mistake. Rather, the concern stems from how the AI “thinks”. No human pathologist would arrive at this conclusion.
These cases of flawed “reasoning” abound – from HR algorithms that prefer to hire men because the data set is skewed in their favour to propagating racial disparities in medical treatment. Now that they know about these problems, researchers are scrambling to address them.
Recently, Google decided to end its longstanding ban on developing AI weapons. This potentially encompasses the use of AI to develop arms, as well as AI in surveillance and weapons that could be deployed autonomously on the battlefield. The decision came days after parent company Alphabet experienced a 6% drop in its share price.
This is not Google’s first foray into murky waters. It worked with the US Department of Defense on the use of its AI technology for Project Maven, which involved object recognition for drones.
When news of this contract became public in 2018, it sparked backlash from employees who did not want the technology they developed to be used in wars. Ultimately, Google did not renew its contract, which was picked up by rival Palantir instead.
The speed with which Google’s contract was renewed by a competitor led some to note the inevitability of these developments, and that it was perhaps better to be on the inside to shape the future.
Such arguments, of course, presume that firms and researchers will be able to shape the future as they want to. But previous research has shown that this assumption is flawed for at least three reasons.
The confidence trap
First, human beings are susceptible to falling into what is known as a “confidence trap”. I have researched this phenomenon, whereby people assume that since previous risk-taking paid off, taking more risks in the future is warranted.
In the context of AI, this may mean incrementally extending the use of an algorithm beyond its training data set. For example, a driverless car may be used on a route has not been covered in its training.
This can throw up problems. There is now an abundance of data that driverless car AI can draw on, and yet mistakes still occur. Accidents like the Tesla car that drove into a £2.75 million jet when summoned by its owner in an unfamiliar setting, can still happen. For AI weapons, there isn’t even much data to begin with.
Second, AI can reason in ways that are alien to human understanding. This has led to the paperclip thought experiment, where AI is asked to produce as many paper clips as possible. It does so while consuming all resources – including those necessary for human survival.
Of course, this seems trivial. After all, humans can lay out ethical guidelines. But the problem lies in being unable to anticipate how an AI algorithm might achieve what humans have asked of it and thus losing control. This might even include “cheating.” In a recent experiment, AI cheated to win chess games by modifying system files denoting positions of chess pieces, in effect enabling it to make illegal moves.
But society may be willing to accept mistakes, as with civilian casualties caused by drone strikes directed by humans. This tendency is something known as the “banality of extremes” – humans normalise even the more extreme instances of evil as a cognitive mechanism to cope. The “alienness” of AI reasoning may simply provide more cover for doing so.
Third, firms like Google that are associated with developing these weapons might be too big to fail. As a consequence, even when there are clear instances of AI going wrong, they are unlikely to be held responsible. This lack of accountability creates a hazard as it disincentivises learning and corrective actions.
The “cosying up” of tech executives with US president Donald Trump only exacerbates the problem as it further dilutes accountability.
Tech moguls like Elon Musk cosying up to the US president dilutes accountability. Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock
Rather than joining the race towards the development of AI weaponry, an alternative approach would be to work on a comprehensive ban on it’s development and use.
Although this might seem unachievable, consider the threat of the hole in the ozone layer. This brought rapid unified action in the form of banning the CFCs that caused it. In fact, it took only two years for governments to agree on a global ban on the chemicals. This stands as a testament to what can be achieved in the face of a clear, immediate and well-recognised threat.
In fact, banning the use and development of certain types of weapons has precedent – countries have after all done the same for biological weapons. The problem lies in no country wanting another to have it before they do, and no business wanting to lose out in the process.
In this sense, choosing to weaponise AI or disallowing it will mirror the wishes of humanity. The hope is that the better side of human nature will prevail.
Akhil Bhardwaj 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 50 American individuals and couples who gave or pledged the most to charity in 2024 committed US$16.2 billion to foundations, universities, hospitals and more. That total was 33% above an inflation-adjusted $12.2 billion in 2023, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s latest annual tally of these donations. Media mogul and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg led the list, followed by Netflix co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings, along with his wife, Patty Quillin. Businessman Michael Dell and his wife, Susan Dell, pledged the third most in 2024.
Neither MacKenzie Scott nor Elon Musk, both of whom announced donations large enough to land them on this list, provided enough information for the Chronicle to include them. Musk didn’t name the nonprofits to which he gave stock, and Scott declined to confirm how much money she put into the donor-advised funds through which she gives. Known as DAFs, these funds are savings accounts reserved for charitable giving.
The Conversation U.S. asked David Campbell, Lindsey McDougle and Susan Appe, three philanthropy scholars, to assess the significance of these gifts and to consider what they indicate about the state of charitable giving in the United States.
What trends stand out overall?
Appe: I think it’s good to see that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, an Iranian-American entrepreneur born in France, with his wife Pam, are among the top 12 donors. Omidyar is the only foreign-born philanthropist on this list who reported giving to democracy promotion in the U.S. through his Democracy Fund. The Omidyars also funded the AI Collaborative, a group that promotes artificial intelligence governance based on democratic values, and their Omidyar Network, an organization promoting responsible technology.
Omidyar is one of seven immigrants among 2024’s top U.S. donors. The others are Herta Amir, who was born in what was then Czechoslovakia; Sergey Brin, a Russian immigrant; the Pagidipati family, which came from India; K. Lisa Yang, who was born in Singapore; Michele Kang, who immigrated from South Korea; and Joe Wen, a Taiwanese immigrant.
In 2024, as in most years, many of these wealthy donors supported prestigious universities and large hospitals and stowed millions in their own foundations and donor-advised funds. Although it’s impossible to predict exactly what their foundations and DAFs will support in the future, history suggests that they’re unlikely to focus on addressing systemic issues such as economic inequality.
McDougle: It doesn’t appear that any of these top 50 donors are Black or Latino. This lack of representation is undoubtedly a reflection of broader societal disparities and may influence how individuals from these groups perceive their own potential as philanthropists.
Philanthropic capacity often correlates with wealth accumulation, and significant gaps in wealth between racial groups are likely to have a direct influence on who we see in the Philanthropy 50. Black families, for instance, possess just 15% of the wealth of white families, while Hispanic families have only about 22%. These wealth disparities likely prevent many Black and Latino Americans from having the wealth necessary to engage in large-scale philanthropy.
This reality highlights the need for the nation’s leading philanthropists to fund initiatives that focus on addressing systemic barriers to economic equality. MacKenzie Scott has been doing this through the millions of dollars she has donated to support racial equity and economic mobility.
Addressing these disparities also involves changing the narrative around who is considered a philanthropist. As I have argued before, underrepresented groups may not always see themselves as philanthropists, partly due to limited resources and the historical portrayal of philanthropy as the domain of the wealthy. But by redefining philanthropy to include a broader spectrum of giving, philanthropy can play a pivotal role in leveling the playing field and creating more opportunities for all.
What surprises you about the biggest donors?
Appe: The absence of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Google co-founder Larry Page and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also stands out due to the presence of many other tech billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, on this list.
Campbell: In addition to Elon Musk, a South African immigrant, not making this list for the second year in a row – even though he is the richest person in the world – Jeff Bezos isn’t listed either. Few private citizens have sought to change American society more than they have – Musk most recently through his role in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and Bezos through actions he takes as the owner of The Washington Post and the founder of Amazon, among other initiatives.
I believe that it is worth asking why neither of these men, who rank among the wealthiest Americans, made the list this year. While Musk gave too little information to make the list, his previous giving choices raise questions about his commitment to philanthropy as a way to advance the public good. In 2022 and 2023, for example, his foundation gave away less money than required by law and supported organizations that benefit him and his interests, such as schools attended by his children.
Do you have concerns about the big gifts these donors provide?
McDougle: The nonprofits receiving these large donations can end up in a precarious situation if that funding suddenly stops. When nonprofits rely too heavily on a few wealthy donors, they may be forced to make abrupt decisions like cutting crucial programs or laying off staff. Obviously, this underscores a core problem with overdependence on these types of major gifts: They can leave nonprofits in a bind and unable to sustain their operations without continued long-term support.
This is particularly problematic if it affects a nonprofit’s ability to engage in long-term planning. As such, when focusing on the giving of the super rich, it is important to consider not just the immediate benefits of their generosity but also the potential instability it can create for the recipients if their gift is not managed strategically.
Campbell: The total given by America’s top donors in 2024 was the sixth-highest in the past decade, after adjusting for inflation. I’d expected to see a larger amount, given that 2024 was the second straight year of stock market gains of 20% or more.
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, the top donors gave nearly twice as much to charity as they did this past year; and they gave close to $8 billion more than that in 2021. Why haven’t the wealthiest Americans sustained that level?
Giant gifts to universities, museums and hospitals are surely making a meaningful difference in America and the world. But I wonder why these donors tend not to focus on the challenges facing those who have the least.
To be sure, some of these philanthropists use the foundations they or their relatives control to help meet the basic needs of Americans struggling to get by and address issues such as poverty, disease prevention and criminal justice reform. Melinda French Gates, Warren Buffett, and John and Laura Arnold all directed much of their giving in 2024 to those kinds of foundations.
What do you expect or hope to see in 2025 and beyond?
Top philanthropists have been slow to react so far. However, the MacArthur Foundation just announced plans to increase its giving over the next two years. MacArthur president John Palfrey said this is a response to what he called a “major crisis” brought on by the Trump administration’s spending cuts. I will observe whether other foundations or some of the wealthiest Americans follow suit.
Still, philanthropy cannot fill all these gaps. The $60 billion in foreign aid cuts represent a sliver of the trillions the Trump administration wants to slice from the federal budget. If it succeeds, donors will have countless other priorities.
Campbell: Events that took place during the first Trump administration, like the murder of George Floyd, the erosion of democratic norms and the separation of immigrant families, led philanthropists to embrace giving that addressed these issues, notably diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. In the early days of the second Trump administration, prominent donors like Mark Zuckerberg have enthusiastically backtracked on their own DEI policies. I am now watching how other donors position themselves relative to the Trump administration’s objectives – as cheerleaders, combatants or something in between.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Arnold Ventures have provided funding for The Conversation U.S. in the past. The Gates foundation currently provides funding for The Conversation internationally.
David Campbell receives grants from the Learning by Giving Foundation and the Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation to support the experiential philanthropy course he teaches at Binghamton University. He also serves as the chair of the Klee Foundation board.
Lindsey McDougle and Susan Appe 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.
Three days after he was released from prison in December, a Tibetan village leader named Gonpo Namgyal died. As his body was being prepared for traditional Tibetan funeral rites, marks were found indicating he had been brutally tortured in jail.
Gonpo Namgyal is the victim of a slow-moving conflict that has dragged on for nearly 75 years, since China invaded Tibet in the mid-20th century. Language has been central to that conflict.
Tibetans have worked to protect the Tibetan language and resisted efforts to enforce Mandarin Chinese. Yet, Tibetan children are losing their language through enrolment in state boarding schools where they are being educated nearly exclusively in Mandarin Chinese. Tibetan is typically only taught a few times a week – not enough to sustain the language.
My research, published in a new book in 2024, provides unique insights into the struggle of other minority languages in Tibet that receive far less attention.
My research shows that language politics in Tibet are surprisingly complex and driven by subtle violence, perpetuated not only by Chinese authorities but also other Tibetans. I’ve also found that outsiders’ efforts to help are failing the minority languages at the highest risk of extinction.
Tibetan culture under attack
I lived in Ziling, the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau, from 2005 to 2013, teaching in a university, studying Tibetan and supporting local non-government organisations.
Most of my research since then has focused on language politics in the Rebgong valley on the northeast Tibetan Plateau. From 2014 to 2018, I interviewed dozens of people, spoke informally with many others, and conducted hundreds of household surveys about language use.
I also collected and analysed Tibetan language texts, including government policies, online essays, social media posts and even pop song lyrics.
When I was in Ziling, Tibetans launched a massive protest movement against Chinese rule just before the Beijing Olympics in 2008. These protests led to harsh government crackdowns, including mass arrests, increased surveillance, and restrictions on freedom of movement and expressions of Tibetan identity. This was largely focused on language and religion.
Years of unrest ensued, marked by more demonstrations and individual acts of sacrifice. Since 2009, more than 150 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule.
Not just Tibetan under threat
Tibet is a linguistically diverse place. In addition to Tibetan, about 60 other languages are spoken in the region. About 4% of Tibetans (around 250,000 people) speak a minority language.
Government policy forces all Tibetans to learn and use Mandarin Chinese. Those who speak only Tibetan have a harder time finding work and are faced with discrimination and even violence from the dominant Han ethnic group.
Meanwhile, support for Tibetan language education has slowly been whittled away: the government even recently banned students from having private Tibetan lessons or tutors on their school holidays.
Linguistic minorities in Tibet all need to learn and use Mandarin. But many also need to learn Tibetan to communicate with other Tibetans: classmates, teachers, doctors, bureaucrats or bosses.
In Rebgong, where I did my research, the locals speak a language they call Manegacha. Increasingly, this language is being replaced by Tibetan: about a third of all families that speak Manegacha are now teaching Tibetan to their children (who also must learn Mandarin).
The government refuses to provide any opportunities to use and learn minority languages like Manegacha. It also tolerates constant discrimination and violence against Manegacha speakers by other Tibetans.
How do Manegacha communities resist and navigate language oppression?
Why does this matter?
Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule dates back to the People’s Liberation Army invasion in the early 1950s.
When the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, that resistance movement went global. Governments around the world have continued to support Tibetan self-determination and combat Chinese misinformation about Tibet, such as the US Congress passage of the Resolve Tibet Act in 2024.
Outside efforts to support the Tibetan struggle, however, are failing some of the most vulnerable people: those who speak minority languages.
Manegacha speakers want to maintain their language. They resist the pressure to assimilate whenever they speak Manegacha to each other, post memes online in Manegacha or push back against the discrimination they face from other Tibetans.
However, if Tibetans stop speaking Manegacha and other minority languages, this will contribute to the Chinese government’s efforts to erase Tibetan identity and culture.
Even if the Tibetan language somehow survives in China, the loss of even one of Tibet’s minority languages would be a victory for the Communist Party in the conflict it started 75 years ago.
Gerald Roche has received funding for this research from the Australian Research Council. He is also affiliated with the Linguistic Justice Foundation.
Flowing clockwise around Antarctica, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the strongest ocean current on the planet. It’s five times stronger than the Gulf Stream and more than 100 times stronger than the Amazon River.
It forms part of the global ocean “conveyor belt” connecting the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. The system regulates Earth’s climate and pumps water, heat and nutrients around the globe.
But fresh, cool water from melting Antarctic ice is diluting the salty water of the ocean, potentially disrupting the vital ocean current.
Our new research suggests the Antarctic Circumpolar Current will be 20% slower by 2050 as the world warms, with far-reaching consequences for life on Earth.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is like a moat around the icy continent.
The current helps to keep warm water at bay, protecting vulnerable ice sheets. It also acts as a barrier to invasive species such as southern bull kelp and any animals hitching a ride on these rafts, spreading them out as they drift towards the continent. It also plays a big part in regulating Earth’s climate.
Unlike better known ocean currents – such as the Gulf Stream along the United States East Coast, the Kuroshio Current near Japan, and the Agulhas Current off the coast of South Africa – the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is not as well understood. This is partly due to its remote location, which makes obtaining direct measurements especially difficult.
Understanding the influence of climate change
Ocean currents respond to changes in temperature, salt levels, wind patterns and sea-ice extent. So the global ocean conveyor belt is vulnerable to climate change on multiple fronts.
Theoretically, warming water around Antarctica should speed up the current. This is because density changes and winds around Antarctica dictate the strength of the current. Warm water is less dense (or heavy) and this should be enough to speed up the current. But observations to date indicate the strength of the current has remained relatively stable over recent decades.
This stability persists despite melting of surrounding ice, a phenomenon that had not been fully explored in scientific discussions in the past.
What we did
Advances in ocean modelling allow a more thorough investigation of the potential future changes.
The model captures features others often miss, such as eddies. So it’s a far more accurate way to assess how the current’s strength and behaviour will change as the world warms. It picks up the intricate interactions between ice melting and ocean circulation.
In this future projection, cold, fresh melt water from Antarctica migrates north, filling the deep ocean as it goes. This causes major changes to the density structure of the ocean. It counteracts the influence of ocean warming, leading to an overall slowdown in the current of as much as 20% by 2050.
Far-reaching consequences
The consequences of a weaker Antarctic Circumpolar Current are profound and far-reaching.
As the main current that circulates nutrient-rich waters around Antarctica, it plays a crucial role in the Antarctic ecosystem.
Weakening of the current could reduce biodiversity and decrease the productivity of fisheries that many coastal communities rely on. It could also aid the entry of invasive species such as southern bull kelp to Antarctica, disrupting local ecosystems and food webs.
A weaker current may also allow more warm water to penetrate southwards, exacerbating the melting of Antarctic ice shelves and contributing to global sea-level rise. Faster ice melting could then lead to further weakening of the current, commencing a vicious spiral of current slowdown.
This disruption could extend to global climate patterns, reducing the ocean’s ability to regulate climate change by absorbing excess heat and carbon in the atmosphere.
Ocean currents around the world (NASA)
Need to reduce emissions
While our findings present a bleak prognosis for the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the future is not predetermined. Concerted efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could still limit melting around Antarctica.
Establishing long-term studies in the Southern Ocean will be crucial for monitoring these changes accurately.
With proactive and coordinated international actions, we have a chance to address and potentially avert the effects of climate change on our oceans.
The authors thank Polar Climate Senior Researcher Dr Andreas Klocker, from the NORCE Norwegian Research Centre and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, for his contribution to this research, and Professor Matthew England from the University of New South Wales, who provided the outputs from the model simulation for this analysis.
Taimoor Sohail receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Bishakhdatta Gayen receives funding from Australian Research Council (ARC). He works at University of Melbourne as ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor. He is also A/Prof. at CAOS, Indian Institute of Science.
This week, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea issued an appeal to the international community. She expressed concern about the future of civil society work on North Korean human rights.
The cause for alarm is a sudden freeze on the funds of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)- a US nongovernmental organisation.
One major beneficiary of funds from the NED are groups documenting and helping to stop human rights abuses in North Korea.
The funding halt threatens to damage further the lives of people living under one of the world’s most egregious authoritarian regimes.
What is the NED?
The NED is a US institution with a long history in its foreign policy, described as a “bastion of Republican internationalism”. Established by an act of Congress, it was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.
With bipartisan support, the NED is squarely based on core Republican values of spreading democracy through the world. It supports the work of nongovernmental organisations in more than 100 countries every year.
While it is unclear why Elon Musk, in his role in the Department of Government Efficiency, has suddenly taken aim at this institution, the consequences of cutting off funding overnight are easy to see.
One result is the likely end of decades-long work on North Korean human rights.
How this affects North Korea
One of the groups hit hard by this funding freeze is the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights. The original single-issue North Korean human rights organisation, it’s now planning to shut its doors.
Without NED funding, it says it cannot cover its running costs, such as paying the rent or staff salaries.
It also can’t continue its important work investigating and documenting human rights abuses suffered by North Korean people.
The Citizens’ Alliance is just one of many groups, most of which are based in South Korea, that rely on the NED for their work.
The political environment in South Korea is uncertain and precarious for North Korean human rights activists. Despite efforts to diversify funding sources over many decades, there are few other options.
I have studied this question in-depth and over two decades. It’s a problem that cannot be overcome overnight, or even in the medium term, as it’s so deeply embedded, both politically and socially.
In the absence of funding opportunities in South Korea, Seoul-based groups must look abroad.
Yet many of the international support schemes available exist to fund in-country democratisation and human rights efforts.
The authoritarian regime in North Korea is so complete that no active, open civil society efforts can safely take place. The movement relies entirely on transnational activism and so doesn’t neatly fit into existing funding schemes.
On top of this, the funding freeze comes at a particularly bad time, with South Korea in a state of political turmoil. In the wake of the President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment following his declaration of martial law, it is unclear what the future of the limited number of existing initiatives will be.
Putting North Korea in the spotlight
For a long time, the plight of those suffering human rights abuses inside the secretive country was not well known to the outside world.
For decades, civil society groups built coalitions, gathered information, wrote reports, compiled databases, held public awareness-raising events, and lobbied politicians at all different levels. They then succeeded in bringing about the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry into North Korean Human Rights.
This inquiry, chaired by Australia’s Michael Kirby, has been the definitive document on North Korean human rights for more than ten years.
Its findings of gross violations of human rights inside the country have formed the evidentiary basis for international action on North Korean human rights. Examples of the report’s findings include:
the use of political prison camps, torture, executions and other sorts of arbitrary detention to suppress real or perceived political dissent
an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and association
the use of access to food as a means of control over the population.
Non-profit North Korean human rights groups remain at the centre of this work. Having succeeded in putting the issue squarely on the international agenda, they continue to press for greater attention on the human rights situation from the international community.
But now this work could all end more suddenly than anyone could have expected.
More power to a dictator
The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights has paused all but its most urgent programs and launched an appeal for donations. Executive Director Hannah Song has described the situation as a crisis of “a massive and sudden cut to funding that threatens the crucial work of those on the frontlines”.
Sokeel Park, the leader of another nongovernmental group working in this space, described it as “by far the biggest crisis facing NGOs working on this issue since the start of the movement in the 1990s”.
This is no exaggeration. The North Korean human rights movement has had an outsized effect on the international community’s awareness and understanding of how the North Korean government maintains order and represses dissent.
So who wins out of this? North Korea’s Supreme Leader and dictator, Kim Jong-un.
Back in 2018, US President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address centred on the human rights violations suffered by the North Korean people at the hands of the authoritarian regime. Trump declared:
we need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose.
Now, by effectively silencing the government’s most vocal critics, the Trump administration appears to be giving breathing room to one of the world’s most atrocious authoritarian regimes.
Danielle Chubb 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.
