Most of us spend around a third of our lives in bed. Sleep isn’t just downtime; it’s essential for normal brain function and overall health. And while we often focus on how many hours we’re getting, the quality of our sleep environment matters too. A clean, welcoming bed with crisp sheets, soft pillowcases and fresh blankets not only feels good, it also supports better rest.
But how often should we really be washing our bed linens?
According to a 2022 YouGov poll, just 28% of Brits wash their sheets once a week. A surprising number admitted to leaving it much longer, with some stretching to eight weeks or more between washes. So what’s the science-backed guidance?
Let’s break down what’s actually happening in your bed every night – and why regular washing is more than just a question of cleanliness.
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That fresh sweat may be odourless, but bacteria on our skin, particularly staphylococci, break it down into smelly byproducts. This is often why you wake up with body odour, even if you went to bed clean.
But it’s not just about microbes. During the day, our hair and bodies collect pollutants, dust, pollen and allergens, which can also transfer to our bedding. These can trigger allergies, affect breathing, and contribute to poor air quality in the bedroom.
Dust mites, fungi and other unseen bedfellows
The flakes of skin we shed every night become food for dust mites – microscopic creatures that thrive in warm, damp bedding and mattresses. The mites themselves aren’t dangerous, but their faecal droppings are potent allergens that can aggravate eczema, asthma and allergic rhinitis.
If you sleep with pets, the microbial party gets even livelier. Animals introduce extra hair, dander, dirt and sometimes faecal traces into your sheets and blankets, increasing the frequency at which you should be washing them.
When: Weekly, or every three to four days if you’ve been ill, sweat heavily, or share your bed with pets.
Why: To remove sweat, oils, microbes, allergens and dead skin cells.
How: Wash at 60°C or higher with detergent to kill bacteria and dust mites. For deeper sanitisation, tumble dry or iron. To target dust mites inside pillows, freeze for at least 8 hours.
Mattresses
When: Vacuum at least weekly and air the mattress every few days.
Why: Sweat increases moisture levels, creating a breeding ground for mites.
When: Every two weeks, or more often if pets sleep on them.
Why: They trap skin cells, sweat and allergens.
How: Wash at 60°C or as high as the care label allows. Some guidance recommends treating these like towels: regular and hot washes keep them hygienic.
Duvets
When: Every three to four months, depending on usage and whether pets or children share your bed.
Why: Even with a cover, body oils and mites eventually seep into the filling.
How: Check the label: many duvets are machine-washable, others may require professional cleaning.
Your bed may look clean – but it’s teeming with microbes, allergens, mites and irritants that build up fast. Washing your bedding isn’t just about keeping things fresh; it’s a matter of health.
Regular laundering removes the biological soup of sweat, skin, dust and microbes, which helps to reduce allergic reactions, prevent infections and keep odours at bay. And as research continues to show the profound effect of sleep on everything from heart health to mental clarity, a hygienic sleep environment is a small but powerful investment in your wellbeing.
So go ahead – strip the bed. Wash those sheets. Freeze your pillows. Your microbes (and your sinuses) will thank you.
Sweet dreams – and happy laundering.
Primrose Freestone 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.
Abschied (Parting) by Sebastian Haffner (1907-1999) is dominating the bestseller charts in Germany. It has been published posthumously, over 25 years after his death, after the manuscript was found in a drawer.
The novel is a love story between Raimund, a young non-Jewish German student of law from Berlin, and Teddy, a young Jewish woman from Vienna. Raimund and Teddy meet on August 31 1930 in Berlin and the novel covers the time they spend in Berlin and Paris together.
Abschied was written between October 18 and November 23 1932, just before the Nazi takeover. It reads in the breathless, immediate manner in which it was clearly conceived. It also gives a personal insight into the zeitgeist of the final months of the Weimar Republic.
Haffner was born Raimund Pretzel in Berlin, where he trained as a lawyer. He disagreed with the Nazi regime and emigrated to London in 1938. There, in order to protect his family in Germany from potential Nazi retribution he changed his name.
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It is estimated that around 80,000 German-speaking refugees from Nazism lived in the UK by September 1939. Most of these refugees were Jewish, but there was also a sizeable number who, like Haffner, had fled for political reasons. Many politically committed exiles arrived soon after 1933 but this was not the case for Haffner. In the 1930s he was busy being a young man in Berlin, training as a lawyer and enjoying himself.
Haffner’s father was an educationalist who had a library with 10,000 volumes. As a young man Haffner liked reading, and toyed with the idea of becoming a writer and journalist, but his father advised him to study law and aim for a career in the civil service. Political developments in Germany made this option increasingly unpalatable. Initially Haffner found it difficult to see a way out. As he wrote in Defying Hitler: “Daily life […] made it difficult to see the situation clearly.”
In the book he also describes how he and other Germans acquiesced to the new regime. Haffner was disgusted with his own reaction to the SA (the Nazi party’s private army) entering the library of the court building where he was a pupil, asking those present whether they were Aryan and throwing out Jewish members of the court.
When questioned by an SA man, Haffner replied that he was indeed Aryan and felt immediately ashamed: “A moment too late I felt the shame, the defeat. I had said, ‘Yes’. […] What a humiliation to have answered the unjustified question whether I was Aryan so easily, even if the fact was of no importance to me.” Haffner never really took up his career as a lawyer, because it would have meant upholding Nazi laws and Nazi justice. Instead he started working as a journalist and writer, first in Germany and after his escape in 1938 in the UK.
Life in the UK
Soon after his arrival in the UK, Haffner finished a book titled Defying Hitler (1939). The memoir was both autobiographical and a political history of the period – but after the outbreak of the second world war it was considered not polemical enough, and was dismissed as an unsuitable explanation for the rise of Nazism at the time. But the intermingling of private and public history is of great interest to readers in the 21st century. Defying Hitler was published posthumously in German (2000) and in English (2003) and became a bestseller in both languages.
After Defying Hitler, Haffner turned to writing another book, Germany: Jekyll and Hyde (1940). It was more clearly anti-Nazi and focused on his journalism – during the war, he worked for the Foreign Office on anti-Nazi propaganda and he was later employed by The Observer as a political journalist. The book was a success, and Winston Churchill is said to have told his cabinet to read it.
The handwritten manuscript for Abschied, which was never published in Haffner’s lifetime, was found in a drawer by his son Oliver Pretzel, some time after his father’s death.
The German critic Volker Weidemann who wrote the epilogue to Parting toys with the idea that it was never published because its focus on the love story was considered a bit too trivial for such a great writer. Thanks to his work for The Observer after 1941, Haffner was a well-regarded political journalist and historical biographer. He became the paper’s German correspondent in 1954, and was well known for his column in West Germany’s Stern magazine and for his biographies, including one on Churchill (1967).
The perspective of a young non-Jewish German living a relatively ordinary life in the early 1930s makes Abschied a fascinating read. Academics have been exploring everyday life under Nazi rule for nearly half a century now, but it seems that modern readers are still keen to learn about it today.
Perhaps the novel resonates with so many German readers because we live in a time where many struggle with the inevitable continuation of everyday life while politics is becoming ever more extraordinary.
Andrea Hammel 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 afterlife is not typically associated with aggressive pets and insatiable worms. But these are exactly the creatures that appeared to an unnamed woman recluse living in Winchester, England, over the course of three nights in the summer of 1422. The woman was an anchoress. That means she had chosen – and subsequently vowed – to live in solitary confinement within a small cell attached to a church for the rest of her life.
The recluse wrote a vivid account of her vision and sent it to her confessor and a circle of influential churchmen. Her letter, known today as A Revelation of Purgatory, makes her one of the earliest known women writers in the English language.
Despite deserving this accolade, the Winchester recluse did not appear alongside her more famous contemporaries or near contemporaries, Julian of Norwich (1342 – after 1416) and Margery Kempe (circa 1373 – after 1438), in the British Library’s hugely successful recent exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. One likely reason for this is that the manuscript copy of the full account of the vision was not available for display at the time. That situation has now changed.
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The British Library has just announced the purchase of five medieval manuscripts from Longleat House in Wiltshire. One of these manuscripts contains the complete surviving version of the recluse’s letter, which, although referred to in an incomplete version elsewhere as “a revelation recently shown to a holy woman”, is untitled in this particular manuscript. This may be another reason for this woman’s writing having been overlooked until very recently. This exciting purchase will hopefully now give the Winchester recluse and her writing the attention they deserve.
Angels feeding souls through a purgatorial furnace in the 15th century manuscript Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Wikimedia Commons
In her vivid, technicolor visions, the recluse watched a dead friend, a nun named Margaret, ushered to the forefront of purgatory by a cat and dog that she had adored and pampered when she was alive.
Transformed into vicious satanic minions, Margaret’s former pets joined the many devils responsible for doling out her punishments. They tore endlessly at her flesh and bit and scratched her relentlessly. They did so to remind her that, as a nun, she had broken her vows by keeping them as her companions in her nunnery and by devoting too much love and attention to them.
In Margaret’s heart, too, a voracious little worm had taken up residence – a so-called “worm of conscience” – that was intent on consuming her from the inside out as part of her torment.
So deeply troubling was this vision of her friend’s suffering that the Winchester recluse immediately summoned her young maid, and the two women started to pray for the nun’s soul. On the very next day the recluse decided there was nothing for it but to document her visions of Margaret’s fate. She not only detailed all she had seen, but also stipulated which prayers, and how many, should be said on behalf of poor Margaret to deliver her from her suffering and help her reach the gates of heaven.
The recluse’s letter is very specific about the date of these visions: they took place on St Lawrence’s day, August 10 1322, which fell on a Sunday that year. There was – and still is – a small church dedicated to this saint very close to the cathedral in Winchester (the so-called Mother Church of Winchester).
As an anchoress, the author would almost certainly have occupied a cell attached to a church somewhere in Winchester. This would also have allowed her the time and the space for contemplation, study and writing.
As has been argued in a recent blog and podcast for the University of Surrey’s Mapping Medieval Women Writers project, it is quite possible that the Church of St Lawrence was the location of her cell, where she experienced her visions, and where she wrote down her account of them.
This manuscript now permanently joins an unparalleled collection of medieval women’s writing in England held in the British Library. It includes not only The Book of Margery Kempe, manuscripts of both the short and long texts of Julian of Norwich’s Revelations, but also the Lais and Fables of Marie de France, the Boke of Saints Albans attributed to Juliana Berners, and the letters of the 15th-century Norfolk gentlewoman Margaret Paston and other female family members.
As such, the work of this unnamed Winchester anchoress now takes up its rightful place alongside the writing of her hitherto better-known literary sisters.
Diane Watt has received funding from the AHRC, British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.
Liz Herbert McAvoy received funding for an associated project from the Leverhulme Trust.
Amy Louise Morgan 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 Simone Abram, Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Director of Durham Energy Institute, Durham University
David Iliff / shutterstock
Thousands of new electricity pylons are to be built across parts of England under the government’s plans to decarbonise the electricity. And some people aren’t happy.
A glance at recent Daily Telegraph articles seem to suggest most of the genteel English countryside is about to be taken over by evil metal monsters. Headlines talk of “noisy” pylons set to “scythe through” “unspoiled countryside”, leading to a “pylon penalty” for house prices and even “mass social unrest”.
While some of the stories are rather over the top, they reflect a genuine unease, and there have been significant campaigns against pylons. In Suffolk, for instance, resistance is building against plans for a 114-mile-long transmission line connecting new offshore wind farms to Norwich and beyond.
So why do these towering steel structures evoke such powerful feelings?
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Pylons have had a particular fascination since they were first introduced in the 1920s. Even then, the biggest challenge was to get “wayleaves” (permission) to cross farmland. To calm rural protest groups, the government’s electricity board commissioned an architect, Reginald Blomfield, to design transmission towers with an eye to “visual amenity”.
Pylon cleaning, 1946. Smith Archive / Alamy
In the most protected areas, expensive underground cabling was used to hide the transmission lines altogether. The board used its copious marketing materials to emphasise that this option was around six times more expensive, and therefore only for exceptional use. By the 1940s pylons were much cheaper than underground cables, providing a techno-economic rationale that remains politically persuasive today.
Why we love the countryside
One reason pylons are so controversial is related to a particularly English fascination with landscape. The geographer David Matless wrote some years ago of the “powerful historical connection” between Englishness and a vision of its countryside. People feel a degree of ownership over a varied landscape, encompassing lowland and upland, north and south, picturesque and bleak, and often have strong opinions about what “fits”, what constitutes “heritage” and what is “out of place”.
Even if most of England is privately owned and commercially farmed, many people still imagine the land as a public good tied to national sentiments and see pylons as intruders in the landscape.
Intruders? Pylons in England’s Peak District. Martin Charles Hatch / shutterstock
This could also explain why proposals to build infrastructure across the English countryside often provoke significant objections. My research on planning in the Home Counties (the areas surrounding London) back in the 1990s revealed a very determined population of well-educated and well-resourced people willing to spend significant amounts of time and money ensuring that the landscape met their expectations.
Concerted efforts had seen off a proposal from the then Conservative government to build a motorway through the Chiltern Hills to the west of London, for example.
There were, and still are, innumerable village groups willing to turn up to public enquiries and to pay lawyers to launch appeals and legal challenges. They may have been sceptical of the more grungy road protesters (historically embodied by the indomitable Swampy), but there was certainly common purpose.
My conclusion at the time was never to underestimate the effectiveness of local action where people’s vision of the English countryside was challenged. More recently, plans to run the HS2 rail line through those same hills ran into fierce local opposition, which prompted significant redesigns.
That’s all well and good, but today we face catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss. Wind turbines are one of the most effective ways to decarbonise electricity supplies, but they are in different places from the old coal and gas power stations. Ironically, the same love of landscape that pushed wind farms out to sea now fuels opposition to the cables that bring the power back to land.
Democratic decisions?
One of the challenges here is that decisions over things like high-voltage transmission lines are based on models that seek to “optimise” the design of equipment, on the basis of cost or effectiveness, or both. These models have no way to account for landscape and heritage value or aesthetics and should never be the sole basis for decisions about infrastructure.
Running pylons across Suffolk might be the cheapest route with least electrical loss, but is it the best option? What would the alternatives be? Starting the discussion from the basis of techno-economic modelling often preempts a properly balanced debate.
This isn’t an argument for or against big pylons. It’s a call for more democratic planning and not less.
Studies consistently show that people resent being excluded from decisions that reshape their landscape and environment. Planning is a political process, and in any such process, humiliating your opponent rarely leads to long-term harmony.
Top down decisions about “national infrastructure” may save time on paper but are not a good way to make progress. It appears autocratic and shifts objectors onto the streets or into the courts.
Real consultation takes time and effort. But it builds trust and leads to better outcomes.
Maybe pylons are the least-worst option. Maybe not. But we won’t know unless we ask – and listen.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Simone Abram receives funding from EPSRC for research on integrated energy systems and equality, diversity and inclusion in energy research. She received funding from the Norwegian Research Council for research on socially-inclusive energy transitions. Her Chair is co-funded by Ørsted UK but she does not represent the company in any way and any views expressed here remain independent.
Professional athletes from around the world spend years training to compete in some of the UK’s biggest summer sporting tournaments: Wimbledon and the British Open. But not all tournament hopefuls will make it to the finals — and some may even be forced to drop out due to a variety of sporting injuries, from torn anterior cruciates to strained shoulders.
Their elbows are at risk too. In fact, two of the most common reasons for elbow pain relate to sporting injuries — the aptly named (and dreaded) tennis and golfer’s elbow.
But it isn’t just professional athletes who are at risk of developing these common elbow injuries. Even those of us sitting on the sidelines or watching from our couches can find ourselves struck down by them – even if we don’t participate in either of these sports.
In general practice, we see patients with elbow conditions fairly frequently. Elbows can become swollen as a result of repetitive strain, gout and can be fractured by a fall.
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Tennis and golfer’s elbow are also common reasons people visit their GP. Both share root causes, arising from inflammation and degeneration of the forearm tendons, which attach either side of the elbow. These typically cause pain on the sides of the joint, which can radiate down the affected side toward the wrist. Establishing which side is injured is crucial to diagnosis.
The reason these conditions are associated with sports is because of the actions that are typical when playing them – the same actions which can result in injury.
Take tennis and one of its killer moves: a lethal backhand stroke, which was part of the tournament-winning arsenal of champions such as Roger Federer, Justine Henin and Stan Wawrinka. Tennis elbow seems to be more strongly associated with the one-handed backhand, affecting the outer side of the elbow.
The cause of tennis elbow can be pinpointed to a poor technique in the backhand stroke or grip. Problems with equipment, such as an incorrectly strung or a too-heavy racquet, might also exacerbate the problem.
Notably, this problem is actually observed less frequently in professional players compared to recreational players. This is probably because of their expertise, form and access to the best equipment and physiotherapy.
Golfer’s elbow refers to pain on the inner side, closest to the body. One action that can cause it is the golfer’s swing, where the player contracts their arm muscles to control the trajectory of the club. Doing so with poor technique or incorrect grip can irritate and damage the tendons. The golfer’s swing uses different muscles to a backhand stroke, so the injury occurs on the opposite side of the elbow.
Both conditions have some overlapping symptoms despite affecting different tendons. For instance, some patients may note pain when using their wrist – such as turning a doorknob or shaking someone’s hand. It can be also be present at rest too – affecting other simple functions, such as using a keyboard.
Tennis elbow is around five to ten times more common than golfer’s elbow, since these tendons are used more frequently in sport and daily life.
Confusingly, the conditions are actually not exclusive to these sports. Some golfers can develop tennis elbow, while some tennis players can develop golfer’s elbow. This is because both games feature a combination of techniques that can affect the tendons on either side.
Other sports that might also lead to a similar type of elbow injury include throwing sports (such as javelin), and batting or other racket sports – including baseball, cricket or squash. Weightlifting moves such as deadlifts, rows and overhead presses can also put considerable strain on the elbows too.
You can even develop golfer’s or tennis elbow without taking part in either of these sports. Certain hobbies and occupations which strain or damage the tendons come into play here. Workers who are heavy lifters or use vibrating machinery, such as carpenters, sheet metal workers or pneumatic drill operators, are prime candidates.
Treating a sore elbow
If you develop golfer’s or tennis elbow, standard protocol is to “rice” – rest, ice, compress and elevate. Painkillers such as paracetamol and ibuprofen can also help. In many cases, symptoms resolve themselves within a few weeks.
Depending on the severity of the injury, you may also be sent to physiotherapy or given an elbow support or splint. For really severe cases that aren’t getting better with the usual remedies, more invasive treatment is needed.
Steroid injections into the affected area can act to reduce inflammation – but have variable effects, working better for some patients than for others.
Autologous blood injection is a therapy where blood is taken from the patient and then re-injected into the space around the elbow. The thought behind this rather odd-sounding treatment is that the blood induces healing within the damaged tendon. The method is now undergoing a renaissance – and a variation of it, which uses platelet-rich plasma derived from the blood sample.
Surgery is possible, too – but is generally reserved for severe, non-responsive cases or those where a clear anatomical problem (such as damaged tendons or tissue) are causing the symptoms.
Whether or not you’re a tennis or golf pro, persistent elbow pain isn’t normal. It’s best to speak to your doctor to figure out the cause so you can get back to the court or putting green.
Dan Baumgardt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
“Are we stopping again already?” It’s a familiar complaint on family road trips and one that’s often aimed at women. From sitcoms to stand-up routines, the idea that women have smaller bladders has become a cultural punchline. But is it anatomically accurate?
The short answer? Not really. The full picture reveals a more complex – and far more interesting – interplay between anatomy, physiology and social conditioning. Women might feel like they need to go more often, but their actual bladder size isn’t significantly different.
The detrusor is a layer of smooth muscle that forms the bladder wall. Its unusual elasticity – a quality known as compliance – allows it to stretch without triggering constant “full” signals. When nature calls, it contracts forcefully to empty the bladder.
An inner lining, the transitional epithelium, behaves like biological origami, it stretches and flattens to accommodate expanding volume, all while shielding underlying tissues from the toxic contents of stored urine.
Thanks to this clever design, your bladder can expand and contract throughout a lifetime without tearing, losing tone, or sounding false alarms – most of the time.
So where does sex come into it?
In structural terms, male and female bladders are more alike than different. Both comfortably hold around 400–600 millilitres of urine. What surrounds the bladder can influence sensation and urgency, and this is where the differences begin.
In men, the bladder nestles above the prostate and in front of the rectum. In women, it sits in a more crowded pelvic compartment, sharing space with the uterus and vagina. During pregnancy, the growing uterus can compress the bladder – hence the dash to the loo every 20 minutes in the third trimester.
Even outside pregnancy, spatial constraints may mean the bladder triggers a sense of urgency earlier. Some studies suggest women are more likely to feel bladder fullness at lower volumes – possibly due to hormonal influences, increased sensory input or the dynamic relationship between pelvic floor support and bladder stretch.
The pelvic floor – a sling of muscles supporting the bladder, uterus and bowel – is crucial. In women, it can be weakened by childbirth, hormonal shifts or simply time, altering the coordination between holding on and letting go.
Much of that control hinges on the external urethral sphincter – a ring of voluntary muscle that acts as the bladder’s gatekeeper, helping you wait for a socially convenient time to void.
A part of the pelvic floor complex, and like any muscle, it can lose tone or be retrained. Meanwhile, urinary tract infections (more common in women due to a shorter urethra) can leave the bladder hypersensitive, upping the frequency of urination even after the infection has passed.
Toileting habits can vary across cultures. But from a young age, many girls are often taught to “go, just in case” or avoid public toilets. These habits can train the bladder to empty prematurely, reducing its capacity to stretch.
Meanwhile, boys are often given more leeway – or encouraged to wait. Anyone who has ever “hovered” over a toilet seat will also recognise that hygiene concerns will influence behaviour. Over time, the bladder learns. You can’t change its size, but you can train its tolerance.
Bladder training, a technique championed by the NHS and the British Association of Urological Surgeons, involves gradually increasing the time between toilet trips. This helps reset the feedback loop between bladder and brain, restoring capacity and reducing the sensation of urgency.
Often combined with pelvic floor exercises, it’s an effective, non-invasive way to take back control – especially for those with overactive bladder syndrome or stress incontinence.
So women may not have smaller bladders, but they may have less room to manoeuvre, both anatomically and socially. The next time someone rolls their eyes at a toilet stop, remind them: it’s not about weak willpower or tiny tanks. It’s about anatomy, habit and hormones.
Michelle Spear 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.
Across much of Europe, the engines of economic growth are sputtering. In its latest global outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sharply downgraded its forecasts for the UK and Europe, warning that the continent faces persistent economic bumps in the road.
Globally, the World Bank recently said this decade is likely to be the weakest for growth since the 1960s. “Outside of Asia, the developing world is becoming a development-free zone,” the bank’s chief economist warned.
The UK economy went into reverse in April 2025, shrinking by 0.3%. The announcement came a day after the UK chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delivered her spending review to the House of Commons with a speech that mentioned the word “growth” nine times – including promising “a Growth Mission Fund to expedite local projects that are important for growth”:
I said that we wanted growth in all parts of Britain – and, Mr Speaker, I meant it.
Across Europe, a long-term economic forecast to 2040 predicted annual growth of just 0.9% over the next 15 years – down from 1.3% in the decade before COVID. And this forecast was in December 2024, before Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policies had reignited trade tensions between the US and Europe (and pretty much everywhere else in the world).
Even before Trump’s tariffs, the reality was clear to many economic experts. “Europe’s tragedy”, as one columnist put it, is that it is “deeply uncompetitive, with poor productivity, lagging in technology and AI, and suffering from regulatory overload”. In his 2024 report on European (un)competitiveness, Mario Draghi – former president of the European Central Bank (and then, briefly, Italy’s prime minister) – warned that without radical policy overhauls and investment, Europe faces “a slow agony” of relative decline.
To date, the typical response of electorates has been to blame the policymakers and replace their governments at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, politicians of all shades whisper sweet nothings about how they alone know how to find new sources of growth – most commonly, from the magic AI tree. Because growth, with its widely accepted power to deliver greater productivity and prosperity, remains a key pillar in European politics, upheld by all parties as the benchmark of credibility, progress and control.
But what if the sobering truth is that growth is no longer reliably attainable – across Europe at least? Not just this year or this decade but, in any meaningful sense, ever?
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For a continent like Europe – with limited land and no more empires to exploit, ageing populations, major climate concerns and electorates demanding ever-stricter barriers to immigration – the conditions that once underpinned steady economic expansion may no longer exist. And in the UK more than most European countries, these issues are compounded by high levels of long-term sickness, early retirement and economic inactivity among working-age adults.
As the European Parliament suggested back in 2023, the time may be coming when we are forced to look “beyond growth” – not because we want to, but because there is no other realistic option for many European nations.
But will the public ever accept this new reality? As an expert in how public policy can be used to transform economies and societies, my question is not whether a world without growth is morally superior or more sustainable (though it may be both). Rather, I’m exploring if it’s ever possible for political parties to be honest about a “post-growth world” and still get elected – or will voters simply turn to the next leader who promises they know the secret of perpetual growth, however sketchy the evidence?
To understand why Europe in particular is having such a hard time generating economic growth, first we need to understand what drives it – and why some countries are better placed than others in terms of productivity (the ability to keep their economy growing).
Economists have a relatively straightforward answer. At its core, growth comes from two factors: labour and capital (machinery, technology and the like). So, for your economy to grow, you either need more people working (to make more stuff), or the same amount of workers need to become more productive – by using better machines, tools and technologies.
Historically, population growth has gone hand-in-hand with economic expansion. In the postwar years, countries such as France, Germany and the UK experienced booming birth rates and major waves of immigration. That expanding labour force fuelled industrial production, consumer demand and economic growth.
Why does economic growth matter? Video: Bank of England.
Ageing populations not only reduce the size of the active labour force, they place more pressure on health and other public services, as well as pension systems. Some regions have attempted to compensate with more liberal migration policies, but public resistance to immigration is strong – reflected in increased support for rightwing and populist parties that advocate for stricter immigration controls.
While the UK’s median age is now over 40, it has a birthrate advantage over countries such as Germany and Italy, thanks largely to the influx of immigrants from its former colonies in the second half of the 20th century. But whether this translates into meaningful and sustainable growth depends heavily on labour market participation and the quality of investment – particularly in productivity-enhancing sectors like green technology, infrastructure and education – all of which remain uncertain.
If Europe can’t rely on more workers, then to achieve growth, its existing workers must become more productive. And here, we arrive at the second half of the equation: capital. The usual hope is that investments in new technologies – particularly AI as it drives a new wave of automation – will make up the difference.
In January, the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, called AI “the defining opportunity of our generation” while announcing he had agreed to take forward all 50 recommendations set out in an independent AI action plan. Not to be outdone, the European Commission unveiled its AI continent action plan in April.
Keir Starmer announces the UK’s AI action plan. Video: BBC.
Despite the EU’s concerted efforts to enhance its digital competitiveness, a 2024 McKinsey report found that US corporations invested around €700 billion more in capital expenditure and R&D, in 2022 alone than their European counterparts, underscoring the continent’s investment gap. And where AI is adopted, it tends to concentrate gains in a few superstar companies or cities.
In fact, this disconnect between firm-level innovation and national growth is one of the defining features of the current era. Tech clusters in cities like Paris, Amsterdam and Stockholm may generate unicorn startups and record-breaking valuations, but they’re not enough to move the needle on GDP growth across Europe as a whole. The gains are often too narrow, the spillovers too weak and the social returns too uneven.
Yet admitting this publicly remains politically taboo. Can any European leader look their citizens in the eye and say: “We’re living in a post-growth world”? Or rather, can they say it and still hope to win another election?
The human need for growth
To be human is to grow – physically, psychologically, financially; in the richness of our relationships, imagination and ambitions. Few people would be happy with the prospect of being consigned to do the same job for the same money for the rest of their lives – as the collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrated. Which makes the prospect of selling a post-growth future to people sound almost inhuman.
Even those who care little about money and success usually strive to create better futures for themselves, their families and communities. When that sense of opportunity and forward motion is absent or frustrated, it can lead to malaise, disillusionment and in extreme cases, despair.
The health consequences of long-term economic decline are increasingly described as “diseases of despair” – rising rates of suicide, substance abuse and alcohol-related deaths concentrated in struggling communities. Recessions reliably fuel psychological distress and demand for mental healthcare, as seen during the eurozone crisis when Greece experienced surging levels of depression and declining self-rated health, particularly among the unemployed – with job loss, insecurity and austerity all contributing to emotional suffering and social fragmentation.
These trends don’t just affect the vulnerable; even those who appear relatively secure often experience “anticipatory anxiety” – a persistent fear of losing their foothold and slipping into instability. In communities, both rural and urban, that are wrestling with long-term decline, “left-behind” residents often describe a deep sense of abandonment by governments and society more generally – prompting calls for recovery strategies that address despair not merely as a mental health issue, but as a wider economic and social condition.
The belief in opportunity and upward mobility – long embodied in US culture by “the American dream” – has historically served as a powerful psychological buffer, fostering resilience and purpose even amid systemic barriers. However, as inequality widens and while career opportunities for many appear to narrow, research shows the gap between aspiration and reality can lead to disillusionment, chronic stress and increased psychological distress – particularly among marginalised groups. These feelings are only intensified in the age of social media, where constant exposure to curated success stories fuels social comparison and deepens the sense of falling behind.
For younger people in the UK and many parts of Europe, the fact that so much capital is tied up in housing means opportunity depends less on effort or merit and more on whether their parents own property – meaning they could pass some of its value down to their children.
‘Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism’, a discussion hosted by LSE Online.
Stagnation also manifests in more subtle but no less damaging ways. Take infrastructure. In many countries, the true cost of flatlining growth has been absorbed not through dramatic collapse but quiet decay.
Across the UK, more than 1.5 million children are learning in crumbling school buildings, with some forced into makeshift classrooms for years after being evacuated due to safety concerns. In healthcare, the total NHS repair backlog has reached £13.8 billion, leading to hundreds of critical incidents – from leaking roofs to collapsing ceilings – and the loss of vital clinical time.
Meanwhile, neglected government buildings across the country are affecting everything from prison safety to courtroom access, with thousands of cases disrupted due to structural failures and fire safety risks. These are not headlines but lived realities – the hidden toll of underinvestment, quietly hollowing out the state behind a veneer of functionality.
Without economic growth, governments face a stark dilemma: to raise revenues through higher taxes, or make further rounds of spending cuts. Either path has deep social and political implications – especially for inequality. The question becomes not just how to balance the books but how to do so fairly – and whether the public might support a post-growth agenda framed explicitly around reducing inequality, even if it also means paying more taxes.
In fact, public attitudes suggest there is already widespread support for reducing inequality. According to the Equality Trust, 76% of UK adults agree that large wealth gaps give some people too much political power.
Research by the Sutton Trust finds younger people especially attuned to these disparities: only 21% of 18 to 24-year-olds believe everyone has the same chance to succeed and 57% say it’s harder for their generation to get ahead. Most believe that coming from a wealthy family (75%) and knowing the right people (84%) are key to getting on in life.
In a post-growth world, higher taxes would not only mean wealthier individuals and corporations contributing a relatively greater share, but the wider public shifting consumption patterns, spending less on private goods and more collectively through the state. But the recent example of France shows how challenging this tightope is to walk.
In September 2024, its former prime minister, Michel Barnier, signalled plans for targeted tax increases on the wealthy, arguing these were essential to stabilise the country’s strained public finances. While politically sensitive, his proposals for tax increases on wealthy individuals and large firms initially passed without widespread public unrest or protests.
However, his broader austerity package – encompassing €40 billion (£34.5 billion) in spending cuts alongside €20 billion in tax hikes – drew vocal opposition from both left‑wing lawmakers and the far right, and contributed to parliament toppling his minority government in December 2024.
Such measures surely mark the early signs of a deeper financial reckoning that post-growth realities will force into the open: how to sustain public services when traditional assumptions about economic expansion can no longer be relied upon.
For the traditional parties, the political heat is on. Regions most left behind by structural economic shifts are increasingly drawn to populist and anti-establishment movements. Electoral outcomes have shown a significant shift, with far-right parties such as France’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) making substantial gains in the 2024 European parliament elections, reflecting a broader trend of rising support for populist and anti-establishment parties across the continent.
Voters are expressing growing dissatisfaction not only with the economy, but democracy itself. This sentiment has manifested through declining trust in political institutions, as evidenced by a Forsa survey in Germany where only 16% of respondents expressed confidence in their government and 54% indicated they didn’t trust any party to solve the country’s problems.
This brings us to the central dilemma: can any European politician successfully lead a national conversation which admits the economic assumptions of the past no longer hold? Or is attempting such honesty in politics inevitably a path to self-destruction, no matter how urgently the conversation is needed?
Facing up to a new economic reality
For much of the postwar era, economic life in advanced democracies has rested on a set of familiar expectations: that hard work would translate into rising incomes, that home ownership would be broadly attainable and that each generation would surpass the prosperity of the one before it.
However, a growing body of evidence suggests these pillars of economic life are eroding. Younger generations are already struggling to match their parents’ earnings, with lower rates of home ownership and greater financial precarity becoming the norm in many parts of Europe.
Incomes for millennials and generation Z have largely stagnated relative to previous cohorts, even as their living costs – particularly for housing, education and healthcare – have risen sharply. Rates of intergenerational income mobility have slowed significantly across much of Europe and North America since the 1970s. Many young people now face the prospect not just of static living standards, but of downward mobility.
Effectively communicating the realities of a post-growth economy – including the need to account for future generations’ growing sense of alienation and declining faith in democracy – requires more than just sound policy. It demands a serious political effort to reframe expectations and rebuild trust.
History shows this is sometimes possible. When the National Health Service was founded in 1948, the UK government faced fierce resistance from parts of the medical profession and concerns among the public about cost and state control. Yet Clement Attlee’s Labour government persisted, linking the creation of the NHS to the shared sacrifices of the war and a compelling moral vision of universal care.
While taxes did rise to fund the service, the promise of a fairer, healthier society helped secure enduring public support – but admittedly, in the wake of the massive shock to the system that was the second world war.
In 1946, Prime Minister Clement Attlee asked the UK public to help ‘renew Britain’. Video: British Pathé.
Psychological research offers further insight into how such messages can be received. People are more receptive to change when it is framed not as loss but as contribution – to fairness, to community, to shared resilience. This underlines why the immediate postwar period was such a politically fruitful time to launch the NHS. The COVID pandemic briefly offered a sense of unifying purpose and the chance to rethink the status quo – but that window quickly closed, leaving most of the old structures intact and largely unquestioned.
A society’s ability to flourish without meaningful national growth – and its citizens’ capacity to remain content or even hopeful in the absence of economic expansion – ultimately depends on whether any political party can credibly redefine success without relying on promises of ever-increasing wealth and prosperity. And instead, offer a plausible narrative about ways to satisfy our very human needs for personal development and social enrichment in this new economic reality.
The challenge will be not only to find new economic models, but to build new sources of collective meaning. This moment demands not just economic adaptation but a political and cultural reckoning.
If the idea of building this new consensus seems overly optimistic, studies of the “spiral of silence” suggest that people often underestimate how widely their views are shared. A recent report on climate action found that while most people supported stronger green policies, they wrongly assumed they were in the minority. Making shared values visible – and naming them – can be key to unlocking political momentum.
So far, no mainstream European party has dared articulate a vision of prosperity that doesn’t rely on reviving growth. But with democratic trust eroding, authoritarian populism on the rise and the climate crisis accelerating, now may be the moment to begin that long-overdue conversation – if anyone is willing to listen.
Welcome to Europe’s first ‘post-growth’ nation
I’m imagining a European country in a decade’s time. One that no longer positions itself as a global tech powerhouse or financial centre, but the first major country to declare itself a “post-growth nation”.
This shift didn’t come from idealism or ecological fervour, but from the hard reality that after years of economic stagnation, demographic change and mounting environmental stress, the pursuit of economic growth no longer offered a credible path forward.
What followed wasn’t a revolution, but a reckoning – a response to political chaos, collapsing public services and widening inequality that sparked a broad coalition of younger voters, climate activists, disillusioned centrists and exhausted frontline workers to rally around a new, pragmatic vision for the future.
At the heart of this movement was a shift in language and priorities, as the government moved away from promises of endless economic expansion and instead committed to wellbeing, resilience and equality – aligning itself with a growing international conversation about moving beyond GDP, already gaining traction in European policy circles and initiatives such as the EU-funded “post-growth deal”.
But this transformation was also the result of years of political drift and public disillusionment, ultimately catalysed by electoral reform that broke the two-party hold and enabled a new alliance, shaped by grassroots organisers, policy innovators and a generation ready to reimagine what national success could mean.
Taxes were higher, particularly on land, wealth and carbon. But in return, public services were transformed. Healthcare, education, transport, broadband and energy were guaranteed as universal rights, not privatised commodities. Work changed: the standard week was shortened to 30 hours and the state incentivised jobs in care, education, maintenance and ecological restoration. People had less disposable income – but fewer costs, too.
Consumption patterns shifted. Hyper-consumption declined. Repair shops and sharing platforms flourished. The housing market was restructured around long-term security rather than speculative returns. A large-scale public housing programme replaced buy-to-let investment as the dominant model. Wealth inequality narrowed and cities began to densify as car use fell and public space was reclaimed.
For the younger generation, post-growth life was less about climbing the income ladder and more about stability, time and relationships. For older generations, there were guarantees: pensions remained, care systems were rebuilt and housing protections were strengthened. A new sense of intergenerational reciprocity emerged – not perfectly, but more visibly than before.
Politically, the transition had its risks. There was backlash – some of the wealthy left. But many stayed. And over time, the narrative shifted. This European country began to be seen not as a laggard but as a laboratory for 21st-century governance – a place where ecological realism and social solidarity shaped policy, not just quarterly targets.
The transition was uneven and not without pain. Jobs were lost in sectors no longer considered sustainable. Supply chains were restructured. International competitiveness suffered in some areas. But the political narrative – carefully crafted and widely debated – made the case that resilience and equity were more important than temporary growth.
While some countries mocked it, others quietly began to study it. Some cities – especially in the Nordics, Iberia and Benelux – followed suit, drawing from the growing body of research on post-growth urban planning and non-GDP-based prosperity metrics.
This was not a retreat from ambition but a redefinition of it. The shift was rooted in a growing body of academic and policy work arguing that a planned, democratic transition away from growth-centric models is not only compatible with social progress but essential to preventing environmental and societal collapse.
The country’s post-growth transition helped it sidestep deeper political fragmentation by replacing austerity with heavy investment in community resilience, care infrastructure and participatory democracy – from local budgeting to citizen-led planning. A new civic culture took root: slower and more deliberative but less polarised, as politics shifted from abstract promises of growth to open debates about real-world trade-offs.
Internationally, the country traded some geopolitical power for moral authority, focusing less on economic competition and more on global cooperation around climate, tax justice and digital governance – earning new relevance among smaller nations pursuing their own post-growth paths.
So is this all just a social and economic fantasy? Arguably, the real fantasy is believing that countries in Europe – and the parties that compete to run them – can continue with their current insistence on “growth at all costs” (whether or not they actually believe it).
The alternative – embracing a post-growth reality – would offer the world something we haven’t seen in a long time: honesty in politics, a commitment to reducing inequality and a belief that a fairer, more sustainable future is still possible. Not because it was easy, but because it was the only option left.
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Peter Bloom 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. His latest book is Capitalism Reloaded: The Rise of the Authoritarian-Financial Complex (Bristol University Press).
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Vice-Rector for International Affairs of St Petersburg University Sergey Vladimirovich Andryushin greeted the members of the delegation on behalf of the Rector of the University Nikolay Mikhailovich Kropachev. Emphasizing the friendliness between the University and its Chinese partners, the Vice-Rector recalled the words of Confucius that the arrival of friends from afar is a great joy.
Thanks to the China International Education Foundation, a direct cooperation agreement between St Petersburg University and the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Russian Federation, the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in St Petersburg and all those who participated in this work, we have managed to increase the volume of our cooperation with Chinese partners over the past few years and maintain the highest level of our school of Sinology. It is not without reason that the rector of St Petersburg University Nikolay Kropachev says that the University can rightfully be called “the strongest center for the study of China in Russia.”
Vice-Rector for International Affairs of St. Petersburg State University Sergey Andryushin
As part of cooperation with partners from the PRC, more than six thousand people at St Petersburg University received the opportunity to learn the language of this country, almost seven thousand people passed the HSK test, more than one hundred students received a scholarship to study in China, more than two hundred students took part in a summer school of the Chinese language at the Capital Normal University in Beijing, and 24 joint international conferences and 150 major events with the participation of young people and experts from Russia and China were held.
The University has about a hundred educational programs with a Chinese component, within which it is possible to study not only the language, but also economics, culture and other subject areas related to China. At St. Petersburg State University, about one and a half thousand people study Chinese and more than two thousand citizens of the PRC are students of the University.
Academician Yan Wei emphasized that he was pleased to have the opportunity to visit Saint Petersburg State University, a distinctive feature of which he considers to be the optimal combination of fundamental education and academic freedom.
In China, we have heard a lot about St. Petersburg since childhood; many places and names that are significant for us are associated with this city: the cruiser Aurora, Nevsky Prospect, the scientist and encyclopedist Lomonosov, who studied at St. Petersburg University and initiated the creation of Moscow State University.
Chairman of the Board of the China International Education Foundation, Academician Yang Wei
According to the Chinese guests, many leading universities in China are interested in cooperation with St. Petersburg State University. Academician Yan Wei noted that the St. Petersburg State University School of Sinology has the highest level of scientific research, and expressed hope that with the support of the University’s leadership, sinological endeavors will continue to develop successfully.
The basis for teaching Chinese studies at St. Petersburg University is the additional educational program “Confucius Institute at St. Petersburg University”, the main focus of which is the study of the Chinese language, testing in the Chinese language, participation in exchange programs with Chinese universities, holding joint events, and translating literature.
The Confucius Institute at St. Petersburg State University is implemented with the support of the Chinese State Committee for the Promotion of the Chinese Language Abroad, the Capital Normal University (Beijing) and the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in St. Petersburg. The agreement on the establishment of the scientific and educational project was signed in July 2005.
The delegation of the China International Educational Foundation also met with teachers of the Department of Chinese Philology of St. Petersburg State University, professors Alexey Anatolyevich Rodionov, Alexander Georgievich Storozhuk, head of the additional educational program “Confucius Institute at St. Petersburg State University” associate professor Dmitry Ivanovich Mayatsky, associate professor of the Capital Normal University of the People’s Republic of China He Fang and teacher Liu Limei.
At the meeting, Dmitry Mayatsky introduced the guests to the DOP “Confucius Institute at St. Petersburg State University”, and also told the guests about important aspects of educational activities, which include Chinese language courses, exams to determine the level of Chinese language (HSK, HSKK, YCT, BCT), Chinese language competitions (including regional competition “Chinese Language Bridge” for students of universities of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region), events of the Chinese Culture Student Club and joint summer schools of the Chinese language at the Capital Normal University.
As part of cultural and educational activities, events are regularly held at which university students and residents of St. Petersburg can become acquainted with the traditional and modern culture of China: film festivals, arts festivals, exhibitions, Traditional Chinese Holidays.
The University staff are also actively translating works of Chinese classical and modern literature, write and publish scientific monographs, textbooks, research Chinese written monuments stored in the library collection of St. Petersburg State University. It has become a good tradition to hold an annual event at the University scientific conferences Andwriters forums.
Chairman of the Board of the China International Education Foundation, Academician Yang Wei, highly praised the work of the teachers of St. Petersburg State University and expressed deep gratitude to them for their selfless work. “St. Petersburg University is a unique example and model that other Russian universities should follow,” noted Mr. Yang Wei. “The University has become a unique bridge of humanitarian cooperation between Russia and China.”
A lively dialogue took place between the members of the delegation of the China International Education Foundation and the University’s teachers, during which current issues and prospects for cooperation between the foundation and St. Petersburg State University were discussed. The Chinese partners expressed their readiness to continue to provide comprehensive support to the university’s endeavors.
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
TORONTO, July 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Fengate Asset Management (Fengate) today released its 2024 Sustainability Report (the report), demonstrating the firm’s continued commitment to responsible investment in Canada and the United States (U.S.).
Fengate’s second firmwide sustainability report, the latest report details the significant progress made in several key areas between January and December 2024, including responsible labour, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data management, climate risk management, and economic impact reporting. The full 2024 Sustainability Report is available here.
“Fengate was founded with a fundamental commitment to upholding our responsibilities to our stakeholders, our environment, and our communities, as we believe responsible investment is critical to delivering long-term, sustainable value,” said Lou Serafini Jr., President and CEO of Fengate. “This report demonstrates that we can achieve impactful results by being thoughtful in the opportunities we pursue, in the decisions we make, and by selecting the right partners to help deliver our projects.”
The report also highlights key accomplishments from across Fengate’s infrastructure, private equity, and real estate businesses. Highlights include:
Engaging labour responsibly: Fengate Infrastructure’s LAX Consolidated Rent-a-Car (ConRAC) project in Los Angeles was delivered under a Project Labour Agreement (PLA), creating more than 5,000 jobs and generating US$200 million in wages for the local workforce throughout construction. More than 4.1 million union construction labour hours were generated, with all of North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) trades involved.
Raising the bar for sustainable design: Fengate Real Estate’s Harmony Commons student residence project delivered for the University of Toronto became the largest passive house-certified building in Canada, and the largest passive house dormitory in the world. The building consumes 70% less energy and contributes 90% less GHG emissions per person in peak conditions and eliminates the use of fossil fuels for heating and cooling.
Moving the needle on the energy transition: With nine renewable energy assets throughout the U.S., Fengate Infrastructure achieved a capacity of 749 megawatts (MW), generating more than 1.9 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of renewable energy in 2024.
Enhancing nature protection: A third of Fengate Real Estate’s 600-acre Friday Harbour Resort in Innisfil, Ontario, is dedicated nature reserve. Every measure has been taken to ensure that natural wildlife – including 40 species of birds, deer, and red fox – are protected. Additionally, new wetlands have been created to provide enhanced habitat opportunities for a range of flora and fauna.
Improving resource conservation: Fengate partnered with U-PAK Emerald Energy to divert 100% of landfill waste from the office buildings it manages to achieve zero waste, with 628 metric tonnes of waste diverted, 2,093 tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions avoided, and 125 MWh of electricity generated from waste.
Elevating industry leadership: Fengate was recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for the 17th consecutive year, named as one of Canada’s Top Small & Medium Employers, and was recognized by Great Place to Work Canada as a Best Workplace for Financial Services, Women, Inclusion, Mental Wellness, Today’s Youth, Giving Back, and Most Trusted Executive Teams. The firm also achieved a 5/5 PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment) score on policy, governance, and strategy for the 2024 assessment period.
About Fengate Fengate is a leading alternative investment manager with more than $24 billion in assets under management, focused on infrastructure, private equity, and real estate strategies. With offices in Toronto, Miami, and Houston, and 300 team members across North America, Fengate leverages more than 50 years of entrepreneurial experience to deliver excellent investment results on behalf of its clients. Learn more at www.fengate.com.
Media contact Dale Gago Communications and Marketing Business Partner Fengate Asset Management dale.gago@fengate.com 437 326 1473
Peterborough’s historic cathedral is the venue for ARU Peterborough’s graduation ceremony on 11 July
The first cohort of ARU Peterborough students to join the city’s new university in 2022 are preparing to celebrate their graduation this week, with many having already secured skilled jobs in the local area.
Peterborough Cathedral will host this year’s graduation ceremony for ARU Peterborough students at 2pm on Friday, 11 July.
Students who have studied undergraduate degrees, degree apprenticeships, postgraduate courses and professional development qualifications will cross the cathedral stage to mark the formal completion of their studies.
“Congratulations to all our graduates on their success. This graduation ceremony marks a historic milestone for ARU Peterborough. It is a celebration of the achievements of our first cohort of students and reflects our mission to create opportunities, drive social mobility, and deliver high level skills tailored to local and national needs.
“This graduation also signals the beginning of an exciting new chapter for our university and community, as we expand our academic offer with a range of new courses available to start this September.”
Principal of ARU Peterborough, Professor Ross Renton
The first graduation is a landmark moment for the city, which until the opening of ARU Peterborough, was known as a higher education “cold spot”. The university has provided opportunities for many students to develop their skills – opportunities they might not have had otherwise.
James Johnson, 26, is to start work after graduation at local firm ParkAir as an Embedded Software Engineer. The Applied Computer Science graduate from Yaxley said: “It’s unlikely I would’ve attended university if it wasn’t for ARU Peterborough. I was 24 when I enrolled and going further afield wasn’t an option.
“Finding a local job straight after graduation means a lot. At the start, I was a little uncertain if university was right for me. This proves going to ARU Peterborough was the right thing to do.”
Faaizah Hussain, who lives in Peterborough and has studied for a BSc (Hons) degree in Accounting and Finance at ARU Peterborough, will give the Vote of Thanks speech at the graduation ceremony on 11 July.
Faaizah, who has now enrolled on a Postgraduate Certificate in Education to become a teacher, said: “I had already secured an apprenticeship and hadn’t planned on going to university until I found out about ARU Peterborough. I wasn’t keen on moving away or commuting long distances, and I didn’t realise there was a university here until my mum came across an advert and told me about it.
“Studying at ARU Peterborough has far exceeded my expectations. The one-to-one support has helped shape both my confidence and my character. University turned out to be so much more than I imagined – there wasn’t just academic guidance, there was genuine care from the tutors.
“Throughout my time here, I’ve taken on so many different roles. I co-founded a student society, was elected as a student governor, became a course representative, and worked as a student ambassador, which I absolutely loved. ARU Peterborough really gives you the platform to grow and get involved in ways that make a lasting impact on not just your own student experience, but the university’s future as a whole.”
Kazim Raffiq-Fazal, from Peterborough, has been a student ambassador during his computer science degree course and has just started a job at a Cambridgeshire software development company.
Kazim, 20, said: “I did my A-levels here in Peterborough and I knew university would be the next step for me. I went to a few open days at other institutions but I knew I wanted to study close to where I was living. I went to an open day at ARU Peterborough, met some of the lecturers and saw what the course contained, and it was everything I was looking for.
“I don’t think I would have had the same experience if I had gone to university elsewhere. Studying close to home has allowed me to spend less time commuting and I have been able to take part in more study and activities.
“In my second year I did an internship at a software company and that led to an offer to work for them after I graduated.”
ARU Peterborough is a partnership between Anglia Ruskin University, Peterborough City Council and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.
“Huge congratulations to the first ever graduates of ARU Peterborough. This is both a personal achievement for each student and a landmark moment for our city.
“ARU Peterborough is transforming lives, tackling the higher education cold spot we faced, and building a pipeline of talent that meets the needs of local businesses. It’s helping people gain the skills and confidence to succeed and thrive in our local economy.
“This day is another example of what can be achieved through ambition and partnership between the City Council, ARU and the Combined Authority. And it marks just the beginning of ARU Peterborough’s growing role in the city’s regeneration and success.”
Paul Bristow, Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
“Firstly, a huge congratulations to all those who will be graduating on 11 July.
“When the concept of ARU Peterborough was created, its vision was to teach skills businesses in Peterborough are calling out for – andfor these to be skills needed for careers of the future.
“These are the very first set of graduates who will be leaving ‘job ready’. It will help ensure we retain our brightest and most hard working students, delivering confident and capable employees to our businesses and helping our city to flourish for years to come.”
Councillor Nick Thulbourn, cabinet member for growth and regeneration at Peterborough City Council
PORTLAND, Ore.—A dedicated Louisiana educator has been elected to the executive committee of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union. Dr. Tia T. Millswas chosen by thousands of fellow educators at the NEA’s Representative Assembly.
Mills—a special education teacher from Baton Rouge and the current president of the Louisiana Association of Educators—brings nearly two decades of experience, a bold commitment to social justice, and a proven history of mobilizing public support for public schools. She will now contribute her invaluable expertise and inexhaustible energy to NEA’s mission to ensure every student has access to a quality public education, regardless of their ZIP codes. Her leadership comes at a time when communities nationwide are gathering to confront rising challenges and unprecedented opportunities for our public schools.
“Dr. Tia Mills has been an inspirational leader in Louisiana, and I am confident she will bring that same commitment to NEA’s national efforts advocating for equity and racial and social justice in public education,” said NEA President Becky Pringle.“She leads with passion and purpose and understands what it means to build power from the ground up. Tia’s voice will be an extraordinary asset to the Executive Committee as we continue to work for the public schools all our students deserve and the respect all educators have earned.”
A strong and tireless advocate for students and their educators, Mills has received numerous accolades, including the NAACP’s Benjamin Hooks Keeper of the Flame Award, the NEA Foundation’s Horace Mann Award, and recognition as one of Southern University’s 40 Under 40. Her leadership extends beyond the classroom, serving on the board of Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Civil Rights for Louisiana, and the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus Foundation. Mills’ courageous advocacy will be a driving force as NEA continues its pursuit of equity, excellence, and a flourishing democracy in classrooms and on campuses nationwide.
“It’s been such a joy to be gathered with my union siblings from across the country,” said Mills. “I saw a room filled with people with passion and dedication for our association. I’m so eager to bring their voices and their values with me into my service on the Executive Committee.”
Nearly 7,000 educators are in Portland, Oregon, for the 168th Annual Meeting and 104th RA, the organization’s top decision-making body, which sets Association policy for the coming year. Delegates will complete an agenda, which includes adopting a budget, a legislative agenda for the next year, electing executive committee members, and addressing new business items.
For more information on NEA’s Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly, go to www.nea.org/ra
Keep up with the conversation on social media at #NEARA
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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professionalemployeeorganization, representing more than 3 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, students preparing to become teachers, healthcare workers, and public employees. Learn more at www.nea.org.
Grief in childhood is often misunderstood and overlooked. A common misconception is that children don’t grieve because they’re too young to understand loss. But just because children don’t express grief the way adults do, it doesn’t mean they aren’t grieving.
Lilo’s grief is never directly named in the film, but it’s everywhere — she lashes out, isolates herself and clings tightly to Stitch. These behaviours mirror how many children express grief through actions rather than words.
Research from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network notes that young children often grieve through behaviour — aggression, regression, somatic complaints or withdrawal. This is tied to their stage of cognitive development.
In one scene, Lilo insists on feeding a sandwich to her pet fish Pudge, believing he controls the weather — an imaginative ritual that helps her feel a sense of control in a world that feels uncertain and unstable. In multiple scenes she refuses to listen to her sister Nani, reflecting how grief often shows up through routines, symbolic actions or emotional withdrawal.
Grief can make children feel ‘different’
The Canadian Alliance for Children’s Grief estimates that one in 14 children in Canada will lose a parent or sibling before age 18. Yet despite how common it is, childhood grief is often overlooked — especially in schools, where emotional pain may go unnoticed.
Feeling ‘different’ may go unnoticed in schools. (Disney)
In Lilo & Stitch, we see this reality through Lilo. She knows she doesn’t fit in and asks her sister why no one likes her. Her classmates tease her for being “weird” and emotionally reactive. In one scene, she tries to share a handmade bracelet during dance class, only to be mocked and excluded. The moment may seem small but it reveals a deeper truth: grief can make children feel isolated, overwhelmed and fundamentally different from their peers.
Research confirms this. Studies in the Journal of School Psychology show that bereaved children often describe themselves as “not normal” or “different,” especially when their peers haven’t experienced a similar loss. Without safe, validating spaces to process their grief, these feelings can lead to loneliness, behavioural struggles and low self-esteem.
Grief grows with us
Grief in childhood isn’t a single moment — it evolves and deepens over time. As children grow, so does their understanding of what they’ve lost. They often revisit their grief at new developmental stages, carrying it in different ways.
Lilo & Stitch reflects this beautifully. Lilo doesn’t talk much about her parents’ death, but we see her grief in the routines she clings to — like listening to Elvis or sharing old family photos. These aren’t just quirks; they’re ways she keeps her parents close.
This reflects what grief researchers call the continuing bonds theory, which emphasizes that maintaining emotional connections to the deceased can support healthy adaptation. Grief isn’t something children “get over.” It’s something they learn to carry — with support, connection and love.
They don’t replace what was lost, but they become a space where grief and love can coexist.
One of the film’s most memorable lines captures this truth:
“This is my family. I found it, all on my own. It’s little and broken but still good. Yeah… still good.”
Connection is the path to healing
Just as grief is rooted in love, healing is rooted in connection.
Lilo’s healing comes from presence. Despite the chaos he brings, Stitch stays. Nani, overwhelmed and unsure, keeps showing up.
Their love and steady, unconditional presence allow Lilo to begin feeling safe enough to grieve and grow.
‘Lilo & Stitch’ trailer.
This reflects what attachment research tells us: strong, secure relationships are among the most powerful protective factors for children navigating loss. When a child feels emotionally safe with a caregiver, they’re better able to regulate emotions, build resilience and integrate the pain of loss into their development. In bereavement, the presence of a stable, responsive adult can determine whether a child’s grief becomes traumatic — or transformative.
In Lilo & Stitch, connection becomes both the container for Lilo’s grief and the bridge to her healing. The film gently reminds us: love may be the reason we grieve, but it’s also the most powerful way through it.
How caregivers can support a grieving child
1. Maintain routine and consistency.
In times of grief, structure helps children feel safe. Predictable routines — like mealtimes, bedtime rituals and daily rhythms — offer a sense of stability when everything else feels uncertain
2. Normalize and validate emotions.
Help your child name what they’re feeling and let them know it’s OK. Say things like, “It’s OK to feel that way,” or “Whatever you feel is welcome here.” Validation helps reduce shame and gives children permission to process their grief openly.
3. Answer questions honestly.
Children need truthful, age-appropriate information about what has happened. Avoid euphemisms like “went to sleep” or “passed away,” which can cause confusion. Instead, use clear, simple language: “Their body stopped working and they died.” Honesty builds trust and supports children’s cognitive and emotional development as they process the permanence of death.
4. Seek support.
Grief can feel overwhelming — for children and their parents or caregivers. Reach out to school counsellors, grief therapists or local support groups, because support can reduce isolation, support expression and improve coping in grieving families.
Elena Merenda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rebecca Woods, Associate Professor, Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology, University of Toronto
A photograph of a steppe mammoth on display at the Australian Museum in Sydney.(Unsplash/April Pethybridge), CC BY
In just the last several months, de-extinction — bringing back extinct species by recreating them or organisms that resemble them — has moved closer from science fiction to science fact. Colossal Biosciences — an American for-profit de-extinction startup headed by geneticists George Church and Beth Shapiro — announced two major achievements almost back-to-back.
In the first, scientists spliced part of the woolly mammoth’s genome into mice to create “woolly mice,” incredibly cute pom-pom like rodents sporting coats that express the genes of long-extinct woolly mammoths.
Reuters reports on the woolly mice developed by Colossal Biosciences.
Just a few weeks later, Colossal announced an even bigger achievement, claiming to have brought back the dire wolf, a contemporary of the woolly mammoth who, like their Ice Age proboscidean co-travellers, last roamed the Earth roughly 10,000 years ago.
Woolly mammoths are at the forefront of these controversial de-extinction efforts. Despite a deep bench of more recently extinct species — the dodo, the moa, passenger pigeons, the bucardo, quagga, thylacine, aurochs and a whole host of others — readily available to take centre stage in de-extinction efforts, woolly mammoths figure prominently in de-extinction stories, both scientific and popular.
Woolly mammoths featured prominently in the imagery of Revive & Restore, a “genetic rescue” conglomerate of scientists and futurists headed by tech-guru Steward Brand; in 2021, Colossal “established ownership” over woolly mammoth revival. Colossal’s own logo visualizes CRISP-R, the gene-splicing technology that facilitates de-extinction, and the signature spiralled tusks of Mammuthus primigenius.
In popular culture, woolly mammoths have been a source of fascination for the last several centuries. Thomas Jefferson famously held out hope that live mammoths would be found beyond the frontier of American colonialism in the late-1700s, while early excavations of American mastodons were major events in the early 1800s. American painter Charles Willson Peale captured the first such excavation in oils, and later capitalized on that mastadon’s skeleton in his Philadelphia museum.
At the same time, woolly mammoths have also become an emblem of the contemporary climate crisis. During the recent wave of defacing famous artwork in order to draw attention to the climate crisis, environmental activists painted the (fortunately artificial) tusks of the Royal B.C. Museum’s woolly mammoth model bright pink.
In a 2023 publicity stunt, the Australian cultured-meat startup, Vow, unveiled a mammoth meatball produced out of the woolly mammoth’s genome with sheep DNA as filler. Not for sale, the mammoth meatball was scorched before an audience at the Dutch science museum, Nemo.
The stunt was intended to call attention, again, to the plight of the Earth’s climate, the unsustainability of industrialized food systems and the potential for lab-grown meat to square this particular circle.
Model animals
For a creature that no human being has ever seen live and in the flesh, woolly mammoths certainly get a lot of media exposure. How did this long-extinct species become the emblem of contemporary extinction and de-extinction?
People have been interacting with the remains of woolly mammoths for hundreds of years. Dig a hole deep enough almost anywhere in the northern hemisphere, and you are apt to come across the bones or maybe the tusks of extinct mammoths or mastodons.
In early modern Europe, mammoth fossils were famously interpreted as the bones of unicorns and giants before being recognized as belonging to elephant-like creatures around 1700. Only around 1800 were mammoths recognized as a distinct and extinct species of proboscidea.
Local peoples who came across these remains, apparently recently dead but belonging to creatures they never saw walking the Earth’s surface, surmised that they were great burrowing rodent-like animals that tunnelled through the ground and perished if they accidentally came into contact with atmosphere.
Despite their association with the distant past, woolly mammoths have long resonated with modern human cultures as their fossilized or preserved body parts entered economic practices and knowledge systems alike. But as the extinction of once numerous species like the passenger pigeon, the American bison and African elephant began to loom over the late 19th century, woolly mammoths took on new meanings in the context of modern extinction and emergent understandings of human evolution.
A mural by by paleoartist Charles R. Knight depicting wooly mammoths, displayed at the American Museum of Natural History. (United States Geological Survey)
Revolutions in geology, archeology, paleontology and related disciplines were changing long-held assumptions about the origin of humankind.
Narratives of the rise of “man the hunter” arose in natural history institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum in Chicago. These origin stories were explicitly connected to the presumed extinction of woolly mammoths and their evolutionary relatives, the mastodons.
These led to some of the most powerful expressions of mammoths in visual form, like the frescoes and paintings produced by renowned paleoartist Charles R. Knight.
At the same time, cave paintings in France, Spain and elsewhere came to light in the early 20th century. For example, the 40,000-year-old frescoes at Rouffignac, France clearly depicting woolly mammoths were interpreted as further evidence of this deep and powerful historical connection.
It is this connection — the association of the rise of modern humankind with the decline and extinction of the woolly mammoth — that feeds today’s continued fascination. Notions of human complicity in extinction stories have long been embedded in modern scientific understandings of woolly mammoths. It is no accident that woolly mammoths are so central to de-extinction projects and climate activism alike.
Rebecca Woods received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Olayinka Ajala, Associate professor in Politics and International Relations, Leeds Beckett University
More than 40 Malian soldiers were killed and one of the country’s military bases was taken over in early June 2025 in a major attack by an al-Qaeda linked group, Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), on the town of Boulikessi.
The same group launched an attack on the historic city of Timbuktu. The Malian army claimed it repelled the Timbuktu attack and killed 14 terrorists.
Terrorist groups have attacked Boulikessi in large numbers before. In October 2019, 25 Malian soldiers were killed. The target was a G5 Sahel force military camp.
Timbuktu has been in the sights of terrorist groups since 2012. JNIM laid siege to the city for several months in 2023. Timbuktu has a major airport and a key military base.
In neighbouring Burkina Faso, there have been running battles in recent months between the military and terrorist groups. About 40% of the country is under the control of groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Military bases in the country have also been targeted.
Mali and Burkina Faso are under military rule. Insecurity, especially increasing terrorist attacks, were key reasons the military juntas gave for seizing power in both countries.
Military camps are attacked to lower the morale of the soldiers and steal ammunition. It also sends a message to locals that military forces are incapable of protecting civilians.
I believe there are four main reasons for an increase in large scale attacks on military bases in the region:
the loss of the US drone base in Niger, which has made surveillance difficult
an increase in human rights abuses carried out in the name of counter terrorism
a lack of a coordinated approach to counter terrorism
constant changes of tactics by the terrorists.
Identifying and addressing these issues are important to counter the trend.
Why are the attacks increasing?
First is the loss of the US drone base in Agadez, Republic of Niger, in 2024 after the military seized power in the country.
I was initially sceptical when the drone base was commissioned in 2019. But it has in fact acted as a deterrent to terrorist groups.
Terrorist organisations operating in the Sahel knew they were being watched by drones operating from the base. They were aware surveillance information was shared with member states. The loss of the base has reduced reconnaissance and surveillance activities in the region.
Second, an increase in human rights abuse in the fight against terrorism in the region is dividing communities and increasing recruitment into terrorist groups. A report by Human Rights Watch in May 2025 accused the Burkina Faso military and allied militias of killing more than 130 civilians during counter-terrorism operations.
The report argued that members of the Fulani ethnic group were targeted in the operations because they were perceived to have relationships with terrorist groups. Terrorist groups are known to use such incidents to win the hearts and minds of local populations.
Third, the lack of a coordinated approach to counter terrorism in the region is reversing the gains made in the last decade. Major developments have included the dissolving of the G5 Sahel. This grouping was created in 2014 to enhance security coordination between members. The members were Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Niger. The organisation launched joint counter-terrorism missions across member states but was dissolved in December 2023 after Niger and Burkina Faso withdrew.
The weakening of the Multinational Joint Task Force due to the military coup in Niger and the countries’ strategic repositioning is undermining counter-terrorism initiatives. Task force members were Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin.
The mandate of the task force is to combat Boko Haram and other terrorist groups operating around the Lake Chad basin. After its establishment in 2015 the task force achieved significant progress. In January 2025, Niger suspended its membership, putting the fight against terrorism in the region in jeopardy.
Fourth, terrorist groups in the region are becoming more sophisticated in their approach. In April 2025, JNIM terrorists were suspected of launching a suicide drone attack on Togolese military positions.
For its part, the military in the Sahelian countries are struggling to adapt to the terrorists’ new tactics. In the last few years, there has been a proliferation of drones in Africa by states and non-state actors.
Halting the trend
To combat the increasing attacks by terrorist groups, especially large-scale attacks on military positions, four immediate steps are necessary.
First, nation states need to invest in surveillance capabilities. The loss of the drone base in Niger means Sahelian states must urgently find new ways of gathering and sharing intelligence. The topography of the region, which is mainly flat, with scattered vegetation, is an advantage as reconnaissance drones can easily detect suspicious movements, terrorist camps and travel routes.
In addition, countries fighting terrorism must find a way to improve the relationship between the military (and allied militias) and people affected by terrorism. My latest publication on the issue shows that vigilante groups engaged by the military forces are sometimes complicit in human rights abuse.
Training on human rights is essential for military forces and allied militias.
Terrorism funding avenues must be identified and blocked. Large scale terrorist attacks involve planning, training and resources. Funding from illegal mining, trafficking and kidnapping must be identified and eradicated. This will also include intelligence sharing between nation states.
As the numbers and intensity of terrorist activities are increasing across the Sahel, immediate action is necessary to combat this trend.
– West Africa terror: why attacks on military bases are rising – and four ways to respond – https://theconversation.com/west-africa-terror-why-attacks-on-military-bases-are-rising-and-four-ways-to-respond-258622
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Maurice Hutton, Research Associate, School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester
Kontuthu Ziyathunqa – Smoke Rising – was what they used to call Bulawayo when the city was the industrial powerhouse of Zimbabwe. Now, many of its factories lie dormant or derelict. The daily torrent of workers flowing eastward at dawn, and back out to the high-density western suburbs at dusk, has diminished to a trickle.
But there is an intriguing industrial-era institution that lives on in most of the older western suburbs (formerly called townships). It is the municipal beer hall or beer garden, built in the colonial days for the racially segregated African worker communities. There are dozens of these halls and garden complexes, still serving customers and emitting muffled sounds of merriment to this day.
Like other urban areas in Rhodesia (colonial Zimbabwe), Bulawayo was informally segregated from its inception, and more formally segregated after the second world war. Under British rule (1893-1965) and then independent white minority rule (1965-1980), municipal drinking amenities were built in the townships to maintain control of African drinking and sociality. At the same time, they raised much-needed revenue for township welfare and recreational services.
I researched the history of these beer halls and gardens as part of my PhD project on the development of the segregated African townships in late colonial Bulawayo. As my historical account shows, they played a key role in the contested township development process.
From beer halls to beer gardens
Bulawayo’s oldest and most famous beer hall, MaKhumalo, also known as Big Bhawa, was built more than a century ago. It still stands at the heart of the historic Makokoba neighbourhood. It’s enormous, but austere, and in the early days it was oppressively managed. Drinkers would describe feeling like prisoners there.
The more picturesque beer gardens began to emerge in the 1950s, reflecting the developmental idealism of Hugh Ashton. The Lesotho-born anthropologist was educated at the Universities of Oxford, London and Cape Town, and took up the new directorship of African administration in Bulawayo in 1949.
Beer gardens emerged in the 1950s.Bulawayo Housing and Amenities Department
He was tuned into new anthropological ideas about social change, as well as developmental ideas spreading through postwar colonial administrations – about “stabilising” and “detribalising” African workers to create a more passive and productive urban working class. He saw a reformed municipal beer system as a key tool for achieving these goals.
Ashton wanted to make the beer system more legitimate and the venues more community-building. He proposed constructing beer garden complexes with trees, rocks, games facilities, food stalls and events like “traditional dancing”. So the atmosphere would be convivial and respectable, but also controllable, enticing all classes and boosting profits to fund better social services. As we shall see, this strategy was full of contradictions…
Industrial beer brewing
A colonial beer advert.Masiyepambili
MaKhumalo, MaMkhwananzi, MaNdlovu, MaSilela. These beer garden names, emblazoned on the beer dispensaries that stick up above the ramparts of each garden complex, referenced the role that women traditionally played in beer brewing in southern Africa. This helped authenticate the council’s “home brew”.
But the reality was that the beer was now produced in a massive industrial brewery managed by a Polish man. It was piped down from steel tanks at the tops of the dispensary buildings into the plastic mugs of thirsty punters at small bar windows below. (It was also sold in plastic calabashes and cardboard cartons.)
Masiyepambili
And the beer garden bureaucracy, which offered a rare opportunity for African men to attain higher-grade public sector jobs, became increasingly complex and strictly audited.
As the townships rapidly expanded, with beer gardens dotted about them, sales of the council’s “traditional” beer – the quality of which Ashton and his staff obsessed over – went up and up.
Extensive beer advertising in the council’s free magazine mixed symbols of tradition (beer as food) with symbols of modern middle-classness.
Beer monopoly system
The system’s success relied on the Bulawayo council having a monopoly on the sale of so-called “native beer”. This traditional brew is typically made by malting, mashing, boiling and then fermenting sorghum, millet or maize grains. Racialised Rhodesian liquor laws restricted African access to “European” beers, wines and spirits.
So, the beer hall or garden was the only public venue where Africans could legally drink (apart from a tiny elite, for whom a few exclusive “cocktail lounges” were built). The council cracked down harshly on “liquor offences” like home brewing.
This beer monopoly system was quite prevalent in southern and eastern Africa, though rarely at the scale to which it grew in Bulawayo. Nearly everywhere, the system caused resentment among African townspeople, and so it became politically charged.
Beer delivery lorry at Esiqonweni.Maurice Hutton
In several colonies, beer halls became sites of protest, or were boycotted (most famously in South Africa). And they usually faced stiff competition from illicit drinking dens known as shebeens.
In Bulawayo, the more the city council “improved” its beer system after the Second World War, the more contradictory the system became. It actively encouraged mass consumption of “traditional” beer, so that funds could be raised for “modern” health, housing and welfare services in the townships. Ashton himself was painfully aware of the contradictions.
In his guest introduction to a 1974 ethnographic monograph on Bulawayo’s beer gardens, he wrote:
The ambivalence of my position is obvious. How can one maintain a healthy community and a healthy profit at one and the same time? I can almost hear the critical reader questioning my morality and even my sanity. And why not? I have often done so myself.
Many citizen groups – both African and European – questioned the system too. They called it illogical, if not immoral; even some government ministers said it had gone too far. And when some beer gardens were constructed close to European residential areas, to cater for African domestic workers, many Europeans reacted with fear and fury.
As Zimbabweans’ struggle for independence took off in the 1960s, African residents increasingly associated the beer halls and gardens with state neglect, repression, or pacification. They periodically boycotted or vandalised them. Nevertheless, with few alternative options, attendance rates remained high: MaKhumalo recorded 50,000 visitors on one Sunday in 1970.
After independence
After Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, the township beer gardens remained in municipal hands. They continued to be popular, even though racial desegregation had finally given township residents access to other social spaces across the city.
The colonial-era municipal beers continued to be produced, with Ngwebu (“The Royal Brew”) becoming a patriotic beverage for the Ndebele – the city’s majority ethnic group.
Beer dispensary valves at Umhambi.Maurice Hutton
But with the deindustrialisation of Bulawayo since the late 1990s, tens of thousands of blue collar workers have moved to greener pastures, mostly South Africa. The old drinking rhythm of the city’s workforce has changed, and for the young, the beer gardens hold little allure. Increasingly, they have been leased out to private individuals to run.
Nevertheless, there is always a daily trickle of regulars to the beer gardens, where mugs and calabashes are passed around among friends or burial society members. Some punters play darts or pool. And there are always some who sit alone, ruminating – perhaps in the company of ghosts from the past.
The beer gardens of Bulawayo embody the moral and practical contradictions of late colonial development – and the ways in which such systems and infrastructures may live on, but change meaning, in the post-colony.
– Alcohol and colonialism: the curious story of the Bulawayo beer gardens – https://theconversation.com/alcohol-and-colonialism-the-curious-story-of-the-bulawayo-beer-gardens-256511
More than 40 Malian soldiers were killed and one of the country’s military bases was taken over in early June 2025 in a major attack by an al-Qaeda linked group, Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), on the town of Boulikessi.
The same group launched an attack on the historic city of Timbuktu. The Malian army claimed it repelled the Timbuktu attack and killed 14 terrorists.
Terrorist groups have attacked Boulikessi in large numbers before. In October 2019, 25 Malian soldiers were killed. The target was a G5 Sahel force military camp.
Timbuktu has been in the sights of terrorist groups since 2012. JNIM laid siege to the city for several months in 2023. Timbuktu has a major airport and a key military base.
In neighbouring Burkina Faso, there have been running battles in recent months between the military and terrorist groups. About 40% of the country is under the control of groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Military bases in the country have also been targeted.
Mali and Burkina Faso are under military rule. Insecurity, especially increasing terrorist attacks, were key reasons the military juntas gave for seizing power in both countries.
Military camps are attacked to lower the morale of the soldiers and steal ammunition. It also sends a message to locals that military forces are incapable of protecting civilians.
I believe there are four main reasons for an increase in large scale attacks on military bases in the region:
the loss of the US drone base in Niger, which has made surveillance difficult
an increase in human rights abuses carried out in the name of counter terrorism
a lack of a coordinated approach to counter terrorism
constant changes of tactics by the terrorists.
Identifying and addressing these issues are important to counter the trend.
Why are the attacks increasing?
First is the loss of the US drone base in Agadez, Republic of Niger, in 2024 after the military seized power in the country.
I was initially sceptical when the drone base was commissioned in 2019. But it has in fact acted as a deterrent to terrorist groups.
Terrorist organisations operating in the Sahel knew they were being watched by drones operating from the base. They were aware surveillance information was shared with member states. The loss of the base has reduced reconnaissance and surveillance activities in the region.
Second, an increase in human rights abuse in the fight against terrorism in the region is dividing communities and increasing recruitment into terrorist groups. A report by Human Rights Watch in May 2025 accused the Burkina Faso military and allied militias of killing more than 130 civilians during counter-terrorism operations.
The report argued that members of the Fulani ethnic group were targeted in the operations because they were perceived to have relationships with terrorist groups. Terrorist groups are known to use such incidents to win the hearts and minds of local populations.
Third, the lack of a coordinated approach to counter terrorism in the region is reversing the gains made in the last decade. Major developments have included the dissolving of the G5 Sahel. This grouping was created in 2014 to enhance security coordination between members. The members were Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Niger. The organisation launched joint counter-terrorism missions across member states but was dissolved in December 2023 after Niger and Burkina Faso withdrew.
The weakening of the Multinational Joint Task Force due to the military coup in Niger and the countries’ strategic repositioning is undermining counter-terrorism initiatives. Task force members were Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin.
The mandate of the task force is to combat Boko Haram and other terrorist groups operating around the Lake Chad basin. After its establishment in 2015 the task force achieved significant progress. In January 2025, Niger suspended its membership, putting the fight against terrorism in the region in jeopardy.
Fourth, terrorist groups in the region are becoming more sophisticated in their approach. In April 2025, JNIM terrorists were suspected of launching a suicide drone attack on Togolese military positions.
For its part, the military in the Sahelian countries are struggling to adapt to the terrorists’ new tactics. In the last few years, there has been a proliferation of drones in Africa by states and non-state actors.
Halting the trend
To combat the increasing attacks by terrorist groups, especially large-scale attacks on military positions, four immediate steps are necessary.
First, nation states need to invest in surveillance capabilities. The loss of the drone base in Niger means Sahelian states must urgently find new ways of gathering and sharing intelligence. The topography of the region, which is mainly flat, with scattered vegetation, is an advantage as reconnaissance drones can easily detect suspicious movements, terrorist camps and travel routes.
In addition, countries fighting terrorism must find a way to improve the relationship between the military (and allied militias) and people affected by terrorism. My latest publication on the issue shows that vigilante groups engaged by the military forces are sometimes complicit in human rights abuse.
Training on human rights is essential for military forces and allied militias.
Terrorism funding avenues must be identified and blocked. Large scale terrorist attacks involve planning, training and resources. Funding from illegal mining, trafficking and kidnapping must be identified and eradicated. This will also include intelligence sharing between nation states.
As the numbers and intensity of terrorist activities are increasing across the Sahel, immediate action is necessary to combat this trend.
Olayinka Ajala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Maurice Hutton, Research Associate, School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester
Kontuthu Ziyathunqa – Smoke Rising – was what they used to call Bulawayo when the city was the industrial powerhouse of Zimbabwe. Now, many of its factories lie dormant or derelict. The daily torrent of workers flowing eastward at dawn, and back out to the high-density western suburbs at dusk, has diminished to a trickle.
But there is an intriguing industrial-era institution that lives on in most of the older western suburbs (formerly called townships). It is the municipal beer hall or beer garden, built in the colonial days for the racially segregated African worker communities. There are dozens of these halls and garden complexes, still serving customers and emitting muffled sounds of merriment to this day.
Like other urban areas in Rhodesia (colonial Zimbabwe), Bulawayo was informally segregated from its inception, and more formally segregated after the second world war. Under British rule (1893-1965) and then independent white minority rule (1965-1980), municipal drinking amenities were built in the townships to maintain control of African drinking and sociality. At the same time, they raised much-needed revenue for township welfare and recreational services.
I researched the history of these beer halls and gardens as part of my PhD project on the development of the segregated African townships in late colonial Bulawayo. As my historical account shows, they played a key role in the contested township development process.
From beer halls to beer gardens
Bulawayo’s oldest and most famous beer hall, MaKhumalo, also known as Big Bhawa, was built more than a century ago. It still stands at the heart of the historic Makokoba neighbourhood. It’s enormous, but austere, and in the early days it was oppressively managed. Drinkers would describe feeling like prisoners there.
The more picturesque beer gardens began to emerge in the 1950s, reflecting the developmental idealism of Hugh Ashton. The Lesotho-born anthropologist was educated at the Universities of Oxford, London and Cape Town, and took up the new directorship of African administration in Bulawayo in 1949.
He was tuned into new anthropological ideas about social change, as well as developmental ideas spreading through postwar colonial administrations – about “stabilising” and “detribalising” African workers to create a more passive and productive urban working class. He saw a reformed municipal beer system as a key tool for achieving these goals.
Ashton wanted to make the beer system more legitimate and the venues more community-building. He proposed constructing beer garden complexes with trees, rocks, games facilities, food stalls and events like “traditional dancing”. So the atmosphere would be convivial and respectable, but also controllable, enticing all classes and boosting profits to fund better social services. As we shall see, this strategy was full of contradictions…
Industrial beer brewing
MaKhumalo, MaMkhwananzi, MaNdlovu, MaSilela. These beer garden names, emblazoned on the beer dispensaries that stick up above the ramparts of each garden complex, referenced the role that women traditionally played in beer brewing in southern Africa. This helped authenticate the council’s “home brew”.
But the reality was that the beer was now produced in a massive industrial brewery managed by a Polish man. It was piped down from steel tanks at the tops of the dispensary buildings into the plastic mugs of thirsty punters at small bar windows below. (It was also sold in plastic calabashes and cardboard cartons.)
And the beer garden bureaucracy, which offered a rare opportunity for African men to attain higher-grade public sector jobs, became increasingly complex and strictly audited.
As the townships rapidly expanded, with beer gardens dotted about them, sales of the council’s “traditional” beer – the quality of which Ashton and his staff obsessed over – went up and up.
Extensive beer advertising in the council’s free magazine mixed symbols of tradition (beer as food) with symbols of modern middle-classness.
Beer monopoly system
The system’s success relied on the Bulawayo council having a monopoly on the sale of so-called “native beer”. This traditional brew is typically made by malting, mashing, boiling and then fermenting sorghum, millet or maize grains. Racialised Rhodesian liquor laws restricted African access to “European” beers, wines and spirits.
So, the beer hall or garden was the only public venue where Africans could legally drink (apart from a tiny elite, for whom a few exclusive “cocktail lounges” were built). The council cracked down harshly on “liquor offences” like home brewing.
This beer monopoly system was quite prevalent in southern and eastern Africa, though rarely at the scale to which it grew in Bulawayo. Nearly everywhere, the system caused resentment among African townspeople, and so it became politically charged.
In several colonies, beer halls became sites of protest, or were boycotted (most famously in South Africa). And they usually faced stiff competition from illicit drinking dens known as shebeens.
In Bulawayo, the more the city council “improved” its beer system after the Second World War, the more contradictory the system became. It actively encouraged mass consumption of “traditional” beer, so that funds could be raised for “modern” health, housing and welfare services in the townships. Ashton himself was painfully aware of the contradictions.
In his guest introduction to a 1974 ethnographic monograph on Bulawayo’s beer gardens, he wrote:
The ambivalence of my position is obvious. How can one maintain a healthy community and a healthy profit at one and the same time? I can almost hear the critical reader questioning my morality and even my sanity. And why not? I have often done so myself.
Many citizen groups – both African and European – questioned the system too. They called it illogical, if not immoral; even some government ministers said it had gone too far. And when some beer gardens were constructed close to European residential areas, to cater for African domestic workers, many Europeans reacted with fear and fury.
As Zimbabweans’ struggle for independence took off in the 1960s, African residents increasingly associated the beer halls and gardens with state neglect, repression, or pacification. They periodically boycotted or vandalised them. Nevertheless, with few alternative options, attendance rates remained high: MaKhumalo recorded 50,000 visitors on one Sunday in 1970.
After independence
After Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, the township beer gardens remained in municipal hands. They continued to be popular, even though racial desegregation had finally given township residents access to other social spaces across the city.
The colonial-era municipal beers continued to be produced, with Ngwebu (“The Royal Brew”) becoming a patriotic beverage for the Ndebele – the city’s majority ethnic group.
But with the deindustrialisation of Bulawayo since the late 1990s, tens of thousands of blue collar workers have moved to greener pastures, mostly South Africa. The old drinking rhythm of the city’s workforce has changed, and for the young, the beer gardens hold little allure. Increasingly, they have been leased out to private individuals to run.
Nevertheless, there is always a daily trickle of regulars to the beer gardens, where mugs and calabashes are passed around among friends or burial society members. Some punters play darts or pool. And there are always some who sit alone, ruminating – perhaps in the company of ghosts from the past.
The beer gardens of Bulawayo embody the moral and practical contradictions of late colonial development – and the ways in which such systems and infrastructures may live on, but change meaning, in the post-colony.
Maurice Hutton received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the University of Edinburgh’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences to conduct the research on which this article is based.
Source: State University “Higher School of Economics” –
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CHICAGO, July 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NanoGraf, the largest silicon oxide anode material producer in the United States, today announced Thomas Redd as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Francis Wang, who has led the company since 2015, will remain at NanoGraf as a technical advisor.
Redd’s appointment marks NanoGraf’s transition from R&D-driven growth to full commercial execution. He will direct the company’s expansion into new civilian markets, deepen existing defense partnerships, and oversee the ramp-up to large-scale domestic production at NanoGraf’s Chicago manufacturing facilities.
“NanoGraf combines three attributes that make scaling compelling: a defensible technology platform, an execution-tested team, and clear market momentum,” said Redd. “With a fraction of the capital raised by some peers, Francis and the team have already validated next-generation battery performance in the toughest field conditions. The task now is to manufacture at scale and meet demand.”
Redd brings more than 25 years of leadership in clean technology, advanced manufacturing, and resource-recovery businesses. As CEO of Continuus Materials, he commercialized a process that converts mixed plastic and fiber waste into composite roof-board products.
“Building and leading this team of accomplished and committed researchers and operators as CEO has been the great honor of my career,” said Wang. “We’ve made great progress getting next-gen battery technology into the hands that need it, and I’m excited to support Tom as he takes the reins. With the NanoGraf Board, I looked long and hard for the right person to lead NanoGraf in this new era of commercialization and manufacturing, and we found Tom to be the perfect fit. I’m proud of how far NanoGraf has come since I joined in 2015, and I am even more excited about where we’re going next.”
Redd joins NanoGraf following a number of recent milestones for the company. Since 2024, NanoGraf:
Wang, who joined as CEO in 2015, led the company through a period of intense technical advancement, commercialization, and recognition.
About Thomas Redd
Thomas Redd is NanoGraf’s newly appointed CEO. A seasoned executive with expertise in clean technology and advanced manufacturing, Redd previously served as CEO of Continuus Materials, where he led the scaled production of recycled plastic and fiber into composite roof cover boards. Prior, he held CEO roles in clean tech where he led commercialization and fundraising efforts. Redd holds engineering degrees from the University of Virginia and Utah State University and an MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.
About NanoGraf
NanoGraf is the largest silicon oxide anode material producer in the United States. Its patented silicon anode technology, Onyx™, improves energy density by 30% compared to synthetic graphite at cost parity on a per energy basis. NanoGraf’s silicon anode technology is in use by the military and is drop-in ready for use in any lithium-ion battery, across consumer, industrial, and defense applications. NanoGraf is a spinout of Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory. For more information, visit nanograf.com. To request samples of Onyx, contact Tim Porcelli, NanoGraf’s VP of Business Development.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is swarmed by members of the media after a cabinet meeting at Government House on July 1, 2025.Anusak Laowilas/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is currently feeling the sharp end of the country’s powerful judiciary.
On July 2, 2025, Thailand’s Constitutional Court suspended Paetongtarn from office as a result of a leaked phone conversation in which she was heard disparaging Thailand’s military and showing deference to former the prime minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, despite an ongoing border dispute between the two countries. Initially set for 14 days, many onlookers believe the court’s suspension is likely to become permanent.
Meanwhile, far from the prime minister’s office is Arnon Nampa, another Thai national whose future is at the mercy of the Thai judiciary – in this case, the Criminal Court.
Arnon, a lawyer and internationally recognized human rights defender, is one of 32 political prisoners imprisoned over “lèse majesté,” or insulting the Thai monarchy. He is currently serving a sentence of nearly 30 years for a speech questioning the monarchy during pro-democracy protests in 2020. Unless he is both acquitted in his remaining cases and his current convictions are overturned on appeal, Arnon will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
The plights of Paetongtarn and Arnon may seem distant. But as a historian of Thai politics, I see the cases as connected by a judiciary using the law and its power to diminish the prospects for democracy in Thailand and constrain the ability of its citizens to participate freely in society.
Familiar troubles
The Shinawatra family is no stranger to the reach of both the Thai military and the country’s courts.
Paetongtarn is the third of her family to be prime minister – and could become the third to be ousted. Her father, Thaksin Shinawatra, was removed in a 2006 military coup. Her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted prior to the May 22, 2014, coup. In common with past coups, the juntas who fomented them were shielded from the law, with none facing prosecution.
For now, it is unclear whether Paetongtarn’s suspension is the precursor to another coup, the dissolution of parliament and new elections, or a reshuffle of the cabinet. But what is clear is that the Constitutional Court’s intervention is one of several in which the nine appointed judges are playing a critical role in the future of Thai democracy.
Protecting the monarchy
The root of the judiciary’s power can be found in the way the modern Thai nation was set up nearly 100 years ago.
But throughout, the monarchy has remained a constant presence – protected by Article 112 of the Criminal Code, which defines the crime and penalty of lese majesté: “Whoever defames, insults, or threatens the king, queen, heir-apparent or regent shall be subject to three-to-fifteen years imprisonment.”
The law is widely feared among dissidents in Thailand both because it is interpreted broadly to include any speech or action that is not laudatory and innocent verdicts are rare.
Although Article 112 has been law since 1957, it was rarely used until after the 2006 coup.
Since then, cases have risen steadily and reached record levels following a youth-led movement for democracy in 2020. At least 281 people have been, or are currently being, prosecuted for alleged violation of Article 112, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
In protests in Bangkok and in provinces across the country, they called for a new election, a new constitution and an end to state repression of dissent.
On Aug. 3, 2020, Nampa added another demand: The monarchy must be openly discussed and questioned.
Without addressing such a key, unquestionable institution in the nation, Arnon argued, the struggle for democracy would inevitably fail.
This message resonated with many Thai citizens, and despite the fearsome Article 112, protests grew throughout the last months of 2020.
Students at Thammasat University, the center of student protest since the 1950s, expanded Arnon’s call into a 10-point set of demands for reform of the monarchy.
Making it clear that they did not aim to abolish the monarchy, the students’ proposal aimed to clarify the monarchy’s economic, political and military role and make it truly constitutional.
As the protests began to seem unstoppable, with tens of thousands joining, the police began cracking down on demonstrations. Many were arrested for violating anti-COVID-19 measures and other minor laws. By late November 2020, however, Article 112 charges began to be brought against Arnon and other protest leaders for their peaceful speech.
In September 2023, Arnon was convicted in his first case, and he has been behind bars since. He is joined by other political prisoners, whose numbers grow weekly as their cases move through the judicial process.
Capricious courts
Unlike Arnon, Paetongtarn Shinawatra is not facing prison.
But the Constitutional Court’s decision to suspend her from her position as prime minister because of a leaked recording of an indiscreet telephone conversation is, to many legal minds, a capricious response that has the effect of short-circuiting the democratic process.
So too, I believe, does bringing the weight of the law against Arnon and other political prisoners in Thailand who remain behind bars as the current political turmoil plays out.
Tyrell Haberkorn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jorge Heine, Outgoing Interim Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Boston University
Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, center, flanked by India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, and South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaks at the summit of Group of 20 leading economies in Rio de Janeiro on Nov. 19, 2024.Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images
In 2020, as Latin American countries were contending with the triple challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, a global economic shock and U.S. policy under the first Trump administration, Jorge Heine, research professor at Boston University and a former Chilean ambassador, in association with two colleagues, Carlos Fortin and Carlos Ominami, put forward the notion of “active nonalignment.”
Five years on, the foreign policy approach is more relevant than ever, with trends including the rise of the Global South and the fragmentation of the global order, encouraging countries around the world to reassess their relationships with both the United States and China.
It led Heine, along with Fortin and Ominami, to follow up on their original arguments in a new book, “The Non-Aligned World,” published in June 2025.
The Conversation spoke with Heine on what is behind the push toward active nonalignment, and where it may lead.
For those not familiar, what is active nonalignment?
Active nonalignment is a foreign policy approach in which countries put their own interests front and center and refuse to take sides in the great power rivalry between the U.S. and China.
It takes its cue from the Non-Aligned Movement of the 1950s and 1960s but updates it to the realities of the 21st century. Today’s rising Global South is very different from the “Third World” that made up the Non-Aligned Movement. Countries like India, Turkey, Brazil and Indonesia have greater economic heft and wherewithal. They thus have more options than in the past.
They can pick and choose policies in accordance with what is in their national interests. And because there is competition between Washington and Beijing to win over such countries’ hearts and minds, those looking to promote a nonaligned agenda have greater leverage.
Traditional international relations literature suggests that in relations between nations, you can either “balance,” meaning take a strong position against another power, or “bandwagon” – that is, go along with the wishes of that power. The notion was that weaker states couldn’t balance against the Great Powers because they don’t have the military power to do so, so they had to bandwagon.
What we are saying is that there is an intermediate approach: hedging. Countries can hedge their bets or equivocate by playing one power off the other. So, on some issues you side with the U.S., and others you side with China.
Thus, the grand strategy of active nonalignment is “playing the field,” or in other words, searching for opportunities among what is available in the international environment. This means being constantly on the lookout for potential advantages and available resources – in short, being active, rather than passive or reactive.
So active nonalignment is not so much a movement as it is a doctrine.
Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, right, and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser attend the first Conference of Non-Aligned Countries in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in September 1961. Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
It’s been five years since you first came up with the idea of active nonalignment. Why did you think it was time to revisit it now?
The notion of active nonalignment came up during the first Trump administration and in the context of a Latin America hit by the triple-whammy of U.S. pressure, a pandemic and the ensuing recession – which in Latin America translated into the biggest economic downturn in 120 years, a 6.6% drop of regional gross domestic product in 2020.
ANA was intended as a guide for Latin American countries to navigate those difficult moments, and it led us to the publication of a symposium volume with contributions by six former Latin American foreign ministers in November 2021, in which we elaborated on the concept.
Three months later, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the reaction to it by many countries in Asia and Africa, nonalignment was back with a vengeance.
Countries like India, Pakistan, South Africa and Indonesia, among others, took positions that were at odds with the West on Ukraine. Many of them, though not all, condemned Russian aggression but also wanted no part in the West’s sanctions on Moscow. These sanctions were seen as unwarranted and as an expression of Western double standards – no sanctions were applied on the U.S. for invading Iraq, of course.
And then there were the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the resulting war in the Gaza Strip. Countries across the Global South strongly condemned the Hamas attacks, but the West’s response to the subsequent deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians brought home the notion of double standards when it came to international human rights.
Why weren’t Palestinians deserving of the same compassion as Ukrainians? For many in the Global South, that question hit very hard – the idea that “human rights are limited to Europeans and people who looked like them did not go down well.”
A third development is the expansion of the BRICS bloc of economies from its original five members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to 10 members. Although China and Russia are not members of the Global South, those other founding members are, and the BRICS group has promoted key issues on the Global South’s agenda. The addition of countries such as Egypt and Ethiopia has meant that BRICS has increasingly taken on the guise of the Global South forum. Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leading proponent of BRICS, is keen on advancing this Global South agenda.
All three of these developments have made active nonalignment more relevant than ever before.
How are China and the US responding to active nonalignment – or are they?
I’ll give you two examples: Angola and Argentina.
In Angola, the African country that has received most Chinese cooperation to the tune of US$45 billion, you now have the U.S. financing what is known as the Lobito Corridor – a railway line that stretches from the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Angola’s Atlantic coast.
Ten years ago, the notion that the U.S. would be financing railway projects in southern Africa would have been considered unfathomable. Yet it has happened. Why? Because China has built significant railway lines in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia, and the U.S. realized that it was being left behind.
For the longest time, the U.S. would condemn such Chinese-financed infrastructure projects via the “Belt and Road Initiative” as nothing but “debt-trap diplomacy” designed to saddle developing nations with “white elephants” nobody needed. But a couple of years ago, that tune changed: The U.S. and Europe realized that there is a big infrastructure deficit in Asia, Africa and Latin America that China was stepping in to reduce – and the West was nowhere to be seen in this critical area.
In short, the West changed it approach – and countries like Angola are now able to play the U.S. off against China for its own national interests.
Why? Because Argentina has a very significant foreign debt, and Milei knew that a continued anti-China stance would mean a credit line from Beijing would likely not be renewed. The Argentinian president was under pressure from the International Monetary Fund and Washington to let the credit line with China lapse, but Milei refused to do so and managed to hold his own, playing both sides against the middle.
Milei is a populist conservative; Brazil’s Lula a leftist. So is active nonalignment immune to ideological differences?
Absolutely. When people ask me what the difference is between traditional nonalignment and active nonalignment, one of the most obvious things is that the latter is nonideological – it can be used by people of the right, left and center. It is a guide to action, a compass to navigate the waters of a highly troubled world, and can be used by governments of very different ideological hues.
Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentina President Javier Milei at the 66th Summit of leaders of the Mercosur trading bloc in Buenos Aires on July 3, 2025. Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images
The book talks a lot about the fragmentation of the rules-based order. Where do you see this heading?
There is little doubt that the liberal international order that framed world politics from 1945 to 2016 has come to an end. Some of its bedrock principles, like multilateralism, free trade and respect for international law and existing international treaties, have been severely undermined.
We are now in a transitional stage. The notion of the West as a geopolitical entity, as we knew it, has ceased to exist. We now have the extraordinary situation where illiberal forces in Hungary, Germany and Poland, among other places, are being supported by those in power in both Washington and Moscow.
And this decline of the West has not come about because of any economic issue – the U.S. still represents around 25% of global GDP, much as it did in 1970 – but because of the breakdown of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
So we are moving toward a very different type of world order – and one in which the Global South has the opportunity to have much more of a role, especially if it deploys active nonalignment.
How have events since Trump’s inauguration played into your argument?
The pressures on countries across the Global South are very strong, and there is a temptation to give in to Trump and align with U.S. Yet, all indications are that simply giving in to Trump’s demands isn’t a recipe for success. Those countries that have gone down the route of giving in to Trump’s demands only see more demands after that. Countries need a different approach – and that can be found in active nonalignment.
Jorge Heine 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.
A safer, more welcoming and vibrant night-time experience in Derby is being made possible thanks to a powerful partnership between local businesses, organisations, and community leaders. Their collective efforts are helping shape a city centre where people feel confident to visit, explore and enjoy Derby City; especially after dark.
This work has recently earned Derby the prestigious Purple Flag accreditation, a national recognition awarded by the Association of Town and City Management (ATCM) to places that meet high standards for managing the evening and night-time economy.
From student safety initiatives led by the University of Derby, to late-night shopping and events at Derbion, to visible policing and coordinated city centre management by the BIDs, the efforts are wide-ranging and deeply collaborative. Companies like Vaillant are also engaging with community initiatives, reinforcing the importance of a collective approach to civic responsibility. This collaborative work not only supports Derby’s night-time economy, but also builds a stronger, more inclusive city one where everyone can feel proud to take part in its growth.
Councillor Nadine Peatfield, Cabinet Member for City-Centre, Regeneration, Strategy, Policy and leader of Derby City Council, said:
The Purple Flag is a powerful symbol of what we can achieve when our city works together. From the police and universities to businesses, venues and volunteers, everyone has a part to play in making Derby safer, more welcoming and more vibrant after dark. This isn’t just about awards — it’s about people in Derby. It’s about making sure everyone, from students to families to visitors, feels proud and confident to enjoy our city centre.
We’re committed to building on this success, working with partners now and into the future to keep improving Derby’s evening experience for all; this includes the new appointment of a City Centre Manager”
You can learn more about the Purple Flag award on the ATCM website.
There is plenty going on in Derby, learn more about what’s on by visiting the Derby LIVE webpage. You can learn more about Derby Nightlife on the Visit Derby webpage.
Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –
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From September 1, students of the Priazovsky State Technical University (PSTU) will begin studying the key course “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood” using the unique practical manual “Let’s Talk About Russia”. It was developed by employees of the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.
In recent years, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation has been actively working to reform the humanitarian block of disciplines in the country’s universities. One of the main innovations of the 2023-2024 academic year was the introduction of a patriotic-focused academic subject, “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood”. The need to develop the discipline was especially emphasized by Russian President V.V. Putin at a meeting of the State Council “On the implementation of youth policy in modern conditions”. The head of state pointed out the critical importance of this step in the context of escalating information confrontation, noting the increased vulnerability of the younger generation to targeted attacks from outside. The task has been set to give young people reliable guidelines and reliable knowledge through a fundamental academic course on the “History of Russia” and “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood”.
In response to the appeal of the teachers of the Priazovsky State Technical University to the Vice-Rector for Educational Activities of SPbPU Lyudmila Pankova, an additional print run of the textbook “Let’s Talk About Russia” was promptly printed and sent to Mariupol. The presentation ceremony took place at the A. A. Zhdanov Memorial House-Museum in Mariupol – a branch of the State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad.
The practical manual was prepared by a team of authors — teachers of the Higher School of Social Sciences of the Humanitarian Institute. The main feature of the publication is its innovative structure, which allows for an organic combination of theoretical training in the course “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood” with various analytical, project and creative tasks.
By studying the fundamental principles of statehood, value and ideological attitudes of a citizen of the Russian Federation, students will not only learn the information, but also comprehend it through dialogues, discussions, project work and the completion of creative tasks.
For example, when studying the topic “Diversity of Russian Regions”, students are offered tasks in the form of fillwords and anagrams. The game approach turns the acquisition of material into a fascinating search, developing attentiveness and analytical thinking. Working on the topic “Victories and Trials of Russia”, students create a virtual art gallery of works dedicated to the trials or victories of Russia. Reflecting on the traditional values of Russian society, students analyze how values and moral ideals are reflected in language, works of art, and are fixed in the form of quotes, images, and characters. The children select quotes and suitable images from works of literature and popular culture that most vividly demonstrate the manifestation of a specific value. It is the synthesis of theory and interactive tasks that allows us to form a meaningful personal attitude to the principles and values of Russian statehood, making the learning process as productive and engaging as possible.
At the present time, the Higher School of Social Sciences of the Humanitarian Institute is completing work on a collective monograph, “Russia’s Civilization Path,” within the framework of a single educational and methodological complex on “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood.” The monograph will become an additional resource for integration processes aimed at forming the socio-cultural sovereignty of our country.
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
A protester calls out Facebook for facilitating the spread of disinformation. AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
Every design choice that social media platforms make nudges users toward certain actions, values and emotional states.
It is a design choice to offer a news feed that combines verified news sources with conspiracy blogs – interspersed with photos of a family picnic – with no distinction between these very different types of information. It is a design choice to use algorithms that find the most emotional or outrageous content to show users, hoping it keeps them online. And it is a design choice to send bright red notifications, keeping people in a state of expectation for the next photo or juicy piece of gossip.
Platform design is a silent pilot steering human behavior.
Social media platforms are bringing massive changes to how people get their news and how they communicate and behave. For example, the “endless scroll” is a design feature that aims to keep users scrolling and never reaching the bottom of a page where they might decide to pause.
There are alternatives, however. Some companies design online platforms to defend democratic values.
Optimized for profit
A handful of tech billionaires dominate the global information ecosystem. Without public accountability or oversight, they determine what news shows up on your feed and what data they collect and share.
Social media companies say they are in the business of connecting people, but they make most of their money as data brokers and advertising firms. Time spent on platforms translates to profit. The more time you spend online, the more ads you see and the more data they can collect from you.
Tech companies design platforms based on extensive psychological research. Examples include flashing notifications that make your phone jump and squeak, colorful rewards when others like your posts, and algorithms that push out the most emotional content to stimulate your most base emotions of anger, shame or glee.
A techno-autocracy is a political system where an authoritarian government uses technology to control its population. Techno-autocrats spread disinformation and propaganda, using fear tactics to demonize others and distract from corruption. They leverage massive amounts of data, artificial intelligence and surveillance to censor opponents.
For example, China uses technology to monitor and surveil its population with public cameras. Chinese platforms like WeChat and Weibo automatically scan, block or delete messages and posts for sensitive words like “freedom of speech.” Russia promotes domestic platforms like VK that are closely monitored and partly owned by state-linked entities that use it to promote political propaganda.
Over a decade ago, tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and now Vice President JD Vance, began aligning with far-right political philosophers like Curtis Yarvin. They argue that democracy impedes innovation, favoring concentrated decision-making in corporate-controlled mini-states governed through surveillance. Embracing this philosophy of techno-autocracy, they moved from funding and designing the internet to reshaping government.
Recognizing the power that platform design has on society, some companies are designing new civic participation platforms that support rather than undermine society’s access to verified information and places for public deliberation. These platforms offer design features that big tech companies could adopt for improving democratic engagement that can help counter techno-autocracy.
In 2014, a group of technologists founded Pol.is, an open-source technology for hosting public deliberation that leverages data science. Pol.is enables participants to propose and vote on policy ideas using what they call “computational democracy.” The Pol.is design avoids personal attacks by having no “reply” button. It offers no flashy newsfeed, and it uses algorithms that identify areas of agreement and disagreement to help people make sense of a diversity of opinions. A prompt question asks for people to offer ideas and vote up or down on other ideas. People participate anonymously, helping to keep the focus on the issues and not the people.
The civic participation platform Pol.is helps large numbers of people share their views without distractions or personal attacks.
Barcelona, Spain, designed a new participatory democracy platform called Decidim in 2017. Now used throughout Spain and Europe, Decidim enables citizens to collaboratively propose, debate and decide on public policies and budgets through transparent digital processes.
Nobel Peace Laureate Maria Ressa founded Rappler Communities in 2023, a social network in the Philippines that combines journalism, community and technology. It aims to restore trust in institutions by providing safe spaces for exchanging ideas and connecting with neighbors, journalists and civil society groups. Rappler Communities offers the public data privacy and portability, meaning you can take your information – like photos, contacts or messages – from one app or platform and transfer it to another. These design features are not available on the major social media platforms.
Rappler Communities is a social network in the Philippines that combines journalism, community and technology. Screenshot of Rappler Communities
Tech designed for improving public dialogue is possible – and can even work in the middle of a war zone. In 2024, the Alliance for Middle East Peace began using Remesh.ai, an AI-based platform, to find areas of common ground between Israelis and Palestinians in order to advance the idea of a public peace process and identify elements of a ceasefire agreement.
Platform designs are a form of social engineering to achieve some sort of goal – because they shape how people behave, think and interact – often invisibly. Designing more and better platforms to support democracy can be an antidote to the wave of global autocracy that is increasingly bolstered by tech platforms that tighten public control.
Lisa Schirch receives funding from the Ford Foundation. I know the founder of Pol.is and Remesh platforms, mentioned in this article, as well as Maria Ressa of Rappler Communities.
I will not benefit in any way from describing their work.
The domestic STEM talent pool alone cannot sustain this research output. The U.S. is reliant on a steady and strong influx of foreign scientists – a brain gain. In 2021, foreign-born people constituted 43% of doctorate-level scientists and engineers in the U.S. They make up a significant share of America’s elite researchers: Since 2000, 37 of the 104 U.S. Nobel laureates in the hard sciences, more than a third, were born outside the country.
To remain preeminent, the U.S. will need to keep attracting exceptional foreign graduate students, budding entrepreneurs and established scientific leaders.
Funding and visa policies could flip gain to drain
This scientific brain gain is being threatened by the Trump administration, which is using federalresearch funding, scholarships and fellowships as leverage against universities, freezing billions of dollars in grants and contracts to force compliance with its ideological agenda. Its ad hoc approach has been described by higher education leaders as “unprecedented and deeply disturbing,” and a Reagan-appointed judge ruled that 400 National Institutes of Health grants be reinstated because their terminations were “bereft of reasoning, virtually in their entirety.”
Experts caution that these moves not only risk immediate harm to scientific progress and academic freedom but also erode the public’s trust in science and education, with long-term implications for the nation’s prosperity and security.
Citing national security concerns, the White House has also targeted visas for Harvard University’s international students and instructed embassies worldwide to halt visa interviews for all international students, citing national security and alleged institutional misconduct. Against a backdrop of court injunctions and legal appeals, the government continues its heightened “national-security” vetting, so thousands of international scholars remain in limbo.
The U.S. research brain gain starts with the 281,000 foreign STEM graduate students and 38,000 foreign STEM postdoctoral scholars who annually come to the U.S. I am one of them. After earning my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in South Africa, I left in 1986 to avoid the apartheid‑era military service, completed my chemistry doctorate and postdoc in the U.S., and joined the United States’ brain gain. It’s an opportunity today’s visa climate might have denied me.
Incentives for the best and brightest foreign science students to come to the U.S. are diminishing at the same time its competitors are increasing their efforts to attract the strongest STEM researchers. For instance, the University of Hong Kong is courting stranded Harvard students with dedicated scholarships, housing and credit-transfer help. A French university program, Safe Place for Science, drew so many American job applicants that it had to shut the portal early. And a Portuguese institute reports a tenfold surge in inquiries from U.S.-based junior faculty.
Immigrants import new ways of thinking to their research labs. They come from other cultures and have learned their science in different educational systems, which place different emphases on rote learning, historical understanding and interdisciplinary research. They often bring an alternative perspective that a homogeneous scientific community cannot match.
Immigrants also help move discoveries from the lab to the marketplace. Foreign-born inventors file patents at a higher per‑capita rate than their domestic peers and are 80% more likely to launch a company. Such firms create roughly 50% more jobs than enterprises founded by native-born entrepreneurs and pay wages that are, on average, one percentage point higher.
The economic stakes are high. Growth models suggest that scientific advances now account for a majority of productivity gains in high‑income countries.
L. Rafael Reif, the former president of MIT, called international talent the “oxygen” of U.S. innovation; restricting visas chokes that supply. Ongoing cuts and uncertainties in federal funding and visa policy now jeopardize America’s scientific leadership and with it the nation’s long‑term economic growth.
Source: State University “Higher School of Economics” –
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Some six decades ago, when Scott Wallace’s parents gifted him a Polaroid Swinger camera and leather-bound diary as a child, the seeds of journalism were planted.
No one knew back then that Wallace, now an associate professor in the UConn journalism department, would go on to become an award-winning writer, television producer, and photojournalist who’s reported from places including the front lines of war-torn Central America, jungles of South America, and post-Soviet Russia.
Similarly, no one could have foreseen the foreign policy decisions made by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, from around the same time Wallace opened that gift of a camera and journal, would have an influence on some of today’s most divisive issues.
That’s the thread woven through Wallace’s new historical memoir, “Central America in the Crosshairs of War: On the Road from Vietnam to Iraq,” which has won Gold in the Foreward INDIES Awards in the category of political and social sciences, along with a Gold IPPY from the Independent Book Publishers Association as best history book (oversized/coffee table).
He maintains the U.S. government’s decisions, denials, and deceit during Vietnam inevitably led to disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan many decades later, coming through the conflicts, civil wars, and revolutions in Central America in the 1980s.
“Our country would be less polarized,” he says of what would have happened if the U.S. behaved differently in places like El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala during those years.
“We would be dealing with a diminished immigration crisis if we had encouraged democracy in Central America and redirected the resources that we gave them for training armies and waging war,” he says. “If we instead used those same resources to build up their economies, there would have been far fewer reasons for them to leave. They’d still be there. We seriously contributed to the tearing apart of the social fabric there, and I think a lot of the people who’ve come here in the last 40 years never would have left their homes.”
Wallace sat with UConn Today recently to talk about how he got started as a journalist, his unique perspective as a firsthand witness to war, and his advice to others who want to report from the front lines.
Why have you decided to share your story now?
I was in the middle of a project in Brazil involving the struggles of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon and their efforts to defend their territories and the rainforest from predatory logging and other forms of what passes for development down there. Then, the pandemic hit, and I realized I had to move in another direction if I was to work on a monograph during that time. Even after the pandemic passed, it was near-impossible to gain entry to Indigenous communities. Even into 2021 and 2022, it was still too difficult to get into the territories where I’d been conducting my research. Part of the reason I chose the Central America project was to pivot away from Brazil, at least until it was possible to return to those sensitive Indigenous territories. Secondly, there was a lot I’d been wanting to say for a long time about my experiences as a young journalist in Central America and the abiding relevance of so many issues that have come to the fore today, including immigration and the crisis at the border. Very few people understand how much the issue of immigration from Central America has been driven by our policies from 40 years ago, when we were actively involved in supporting and fueling the military conflicts that were going on down there. It drove a lot of the immigration into the U.S. and made the conditions in those countries so difficult that people left en masse. It’s a story of unintended consequences. The third impetus for the project was the very rich trove of images I’d taken while covering those conflicts, most of which had not previously been published, along with detailed notes and compelling stories that have withstood the test of time. Those experiences formed the foundation of my career and what I’ve ended up doing as a journalist over the last 40 years.
What’s one of your ‘I-can’t-believe-I did-that’ experiences from the front lines?
We managed to get ourselves into this rural area of El Salvador in the rebel stronghold of Chalatenango Department, where there had been allegations of a massacre perpetrated by the army that the United States was arming and supporting. We managed to bluff our way past a series of roadblocks, got into rebel-controlled territory, and then got permission from the guerrillas to undertake a journey on foot down into the scene of this atrocity. After most of the day walking, we came upon a dilapidated footbridge stretching across this yawning chasm with a rushing river beneath us. The bridge was such a wreck that, out in the middle, the boards were sagging vertically to the surface of the water, and the wires on one side were basically useless. You had to pick your way across, hand over hand, with your feet on the tops of the boards. The water below was rushing at such a furious speed that the rebels advised us not to look down as we crossed because the rush of the water would make us dizzy, and we’d lose our balance and fall. Had we known what we were getting into, I’m not sure we would have gone there. But by then, we were already so far into the journey there was no going back. When we got to the scene, a horrific stench came from a good way off. It looked like a scene from a plane crash, with clothing and belongings strewn across the brush and hanging from the trees and bodies lying on the ground. It was horrific. I did my best to piece together what had happened from interviews with survivors and what we could see on the ground.
Something like that must stick with you.
I think you develop a little bit of a thick skin, and you just have to move through it. You’re there to find out what happened, and your own personal feelings are kind of secondary.
Sandinista Popular Army soldiers forcibly remove peasants to create a free-fire zone to battle Contra rebels in El Ventarrón, Nicaragua, in 1985. (Photo courtesy of Scott Wallace)
How did you get your start as a journalist?
I was thirsty for adventure and for finding out about the bigger world. I took a year off from college as an undergraduate, and, with advice from some students who were a little older than me and who had done something similar, I lined up a volunteer position in the Peruvian jungle. I went first to Mexico, studied intensive Spanish for the summer, then traveled overland through Central America, down the spine of the Andes, and out into the jungle, where I worked as a literacy instructor in an Indigenous community. During that year I discovered something new about myself. I didn’t know Spanish at all before I left, and through the process of having to put myself out there, I kind of developed a new persona as I interacted with Latin Americans and mastered the language and the culture. I loved the music, the people, and the literature. I returned to college after that, doubled up on Spanish classes, and learned how to write it and read it. I also became fascinated with what was going on in Latin America in the news. I was already a few years out of college when it dawned on me that maybe I could make a career as a journalist covering events in Latin America, since I loved writing, taking pictures, and travel. I decided to go back to school to get a master’s in journalism with the objective of going to Central America when I graduated. By this time, the early 1980s, Central America was in turmoil. The Sandinistas had taken power in Nicaragua, a civil war had erupted in El Salvador, and the Reagan Administration vowed to ‘draw the line’ against what it perceived to be communist aggression in Central America. The region was a tinderbox that seemed poised to become a new Vietnam. I knew that no news organization would send a new graduate straight into a big story. I would have to go as a freelancer, so I decided to learn as many skills as I could, because as a freelancer I knew I would have to have as many skills as possible to earn a living: write news stories, take photographs for my stories, sell my photographs to other news outlets. I also got a tip that doing radio for one of the networks was a really good way to establish yourself and bring in a steady stream of work. Just as I was about to graduate, one of my professors, who had previously been a CBS Radio correspondent, introduced me to network executives when they came to campus, and one thing led to another. They didn’t have anyone in El Salvador at that time, so I was able to land a gig as their freelance ‘stringer’ there.
What would your advice be for a journalism student or working journalist who’s hungry to do this kind of work today?
It takes a certain kind of person. You have to be passionate about the world, curious about the way the world works. You need to be an avid reader of literature as well as nonfiction, be up on current events, and follow the news closely. In all the writing classes that I teach, I require my students to accompany their stories with images, because everyone should know how to take decent pictures and how to do solid interviews. They should learn how to shoot video and record audio. Of course, now you must have a social media presence and put your stuff out there. It’s also very important to make contacts. Ply your professors or the people you meet, go to places where you’re going to meet the professionals you admire. Follow them on Instagram. See who’s excelling at the kind of work you’re interested in and reach out to them. You also should build a portfolio of writing, images, and multimedia. Persistence and patience are also important.
Compared to historians and others who’ve studied Central America and the conflicts there, do you think you have a unique perspective seeing it all firsthand?
It’s definitely a unique perspective, but sometimes I’m a little bit daunted by the intellectual capabilities and rigor of my colleagues in other departments at the University. I think my strength lies in bringing personal experiences and storytelling acumen to the narrative. In June, I was asked to do a presentation at a seminar of academics on genocide and its relationship to ‘ecocide’ – the criminal destruction of the environment – based on my work covering Indigenous struggles in jungles of the Amazon. I was pleasantly surprised by the positive reception to my presentation, in which I showed my photographs and told stories of people whose lives are impacted and threatened by deforestation, land grabbing, and the violent destruction of habitats and biodiversity. It was a way of bringing abstract concepts down to ground level. I’m not the only one who does that. All my colleagues in the journalism department similarly bring that kind of ground-truthing and storytelling to the subjects they report on.
Their names are as iconic as some of the musicians that graced their stages.
CBGB in New York.
The Troubadour in Los Angeles and Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood.
The 40 Watt Club in Georgia.
Toad’s Place in New Haven.
They’re the places where careers were launched and artists made names for themselves – bands like The Ramones and The Doors; Guns N’ Roses and R.E.M.; singers like Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell and Neil Diamond; and musicians like Frank Zappa and Michael Nesmith.
But for each iconic venue, there have been hundreds more – smaller, lesser known, underground places packed to the gills on show nights.
And for each legendary name, there have been thousands more – bands trying to make it big, songwriters looking to write a hit, or artists just looking to share their music with a welcoming audience that will resonate with them.
Evan Elmore ’27 (SFA) is working on a documentary project about Connecticut’s underground music scene, with support from an Office of Undergraduate Education IDEA Grant. (Contributed photo)
You don’t have to look to the cities to find those venues and artists either – they’re in areas both urban and rural, and right here in Connecticut as well – some advertised and others hidden from plain sight, but there for the audiences who know where to find them.
And sometimes in those audiences, and other times behind the scenes, you might find Evan Elmore ’27 (SFA), who grew up in West Hartford and started seeking out those underground venues and those independent artists – often with a camera in hand – when he was 18 years old.
“About two years ago, I started going to local shows, because some of my friends make music and they perform sometimes,” says Elmore. “They knew someone who hosts shows, so they get to perform, and I just saw what a cool community the local music scene has.”
Elmore isn’t a musician, but he is an artist – his medium is film, with a little photography thrown in as well. Which is why he started going with his musician friends to their shows.
“I was kind of backstage, since I was photographing and taking video for my friends, but it was super cool to see how it was all run,” he says. “It was just five bucks to get in, and it was an artist that I didn’t really know, but it was cool to be a part of that and see that, even though it’s on a small scale, kind of in the middle of nowhere, it was still run and still had the same energy as a big concert.”
That energy has kept Elmore going back to shows in an underground music scene that’s active and alive in Connecticut, he says, at places like Howard’s Bookstore in Torrington, which hosts open mics every Wednesday and regularly produces shows with local rappers and hardcore bands.
And at Cheery Street Station, a stomping ground for punk and metal bands in Wallingford.
And at The Dog Pound, a relatively new and inclusive basement venue in Storrs that hosts local bands of all kinds.
What all three venues and the people who frequent them have in common, Elmore notes, is the same sense of community.
“I think a lot of people would be surprised how supportive and respectful people are at these shows,” he says. “No matter where you’re coming from, and no matter if it’s bands of different fan bases or genres, everyone’s really supportive. All the bands support each other, and all the crowds are respectful, and everyone just wants to have a good time.”
It’s the scene’s energy and sense of community that Elmore is hoping to capture and share through a documentary project he’s working on this summer, supported by an IDEA Grant from the UConn Office of Undergraduate Research.
The IDEA Grant program awards funding up to $6,000 per undergraduate student to support student-designed and student-led projects, including creative endeavors, community service initiatives, entrepreneurial ventures, and research projects and other original and innovative projects. The program is available to undergraduate students of all majors at all UConn campuses.
Elmore learned about the opportunity for IDEA Grant funding for an original project through the UConn Student Daily Digest as a first-year student, and decided to apply during his sophomore year.
“I was like, I should take this opportunity and make a documentary, because that’s been done a lot of time before that with the IDEA Grant, and I enjoy documentaries, and I think they’re very doable by yourself,” says Elmore, who watches a lot of documentaries himself. “And also, just on a small scale, even with not a lot of gear or experience, you can really make something that’s impactful.”
And impact is what he’s going for, as he’s spent the first part of the summer filming at the those three venues in order to share the essence of the local music community; the feel of the venues; the histories they hold within their walls; and the stories of some of the rappers, solo artists, and indie bands who play there.
For Elmore – who started making YouTube videos when he was 15, which sparked his interest in pursuing film – this IDEA Grant documentary project is a step toward his ultimate goal, which is to start his own business that would partner with music artists and work alongside them to produce visual content.
“All types of visual content, like graphics, photos – to go on tour with artists and take photos and videos for them,” he says. “Being part of any sort of process of artistic process with music would be super cool.”
The growing film concentration at UConn, part of the School of Fine Arts Bachelor of Fine Arts program offered through the Department of Digital Media and Design, is helping Elmore work toward that goal as he hones his skills as a young filmmaker.
During the semesters in Storrs, he also works for the Neag School of Education as a student photographer and multimedia producer and as the advertising director for UCTV, the University’s student television station.
Evan Elmore ’27 (SFA), a film concentration student in the School of Fine Arts Digital Media and Design program, shoots video on scene. (Contributed photo)
“It’s pretty good to just get out there, and use gear, and work with other students on ideas and projects, and just make mistakes,” he says. “That’s the best way to learn. Just doing it.”
He faces a busy summer, though: he spent much of May and June filming, and plans to dedicate most of his time in July and August to editing, as he pushes through an ambitious timeline for his one-man, self-produced, first feature-length documentary production.
He hopes to advertise, market, and screen his film at UConn Storrs, and at some of the featured music venues, this fall.
Elmore says that anyone – whether they’re familiar with Connecticut’s underground music scene or brand new to it – would find most of the state’s local venues a welcome place.
But if you’re brand new, where should you start?
One place would be by checking out his documentary screening during the fall semester in Storrs.
But another would be with a Ruby Leftstep show, he recommends.
“They’re very popular in the local scene,” he says of the three-man, New Hartford-based indie band. “A lot of people know them, and they have a real fan base that knows all their lyrics.
“And that’s another part of the documentary,” he continues. “Getting a kind of behind-the-scenes look at these bands, their backgrounds, how they make music, how they record it, how they perform, how the band members interact with each other and their fans. That’s a big part of it.”
In 2019, a rare and shocking event in the Malaysian peninsula town of Ketereh grabbed international headlines. Nearly 40 girls age 12 to 18 from a religious school had been screaming inconsolably, claiming to have seen a “face of pure evil,” complete with images of blood and gore.
Experts believe that the girls suffered what is known as a mass psychogenic illness, a psychological condition that results in physical symptoms and spreads socially – much like a virus.
I’m a social and behavioral scientist within the field of public health. I study the ways in which individual behavior is influenced by prevailing social norms and social network processes, across a wide range of behaviors and contexts. Part of my work involves figuring out how to combat the spread of harmful content that can shape our behavior for the worse, such as misinformation.
Mass psychogenic illness is not misinformation, but it gives researchers like me some idea about how misinformation spreads. Social connections establish pathways of influence that can facilitate the spread of germs, mental illness and even behaviors. We can be profoundly influenced by others within our social networks, for better or for worse.
The spreading of social norms
Researchers in my field think of social norms as perceptions of how common and how approved a specific behavior is within a specific network of people who matter to us.
These perceptions may not always reflect reality, such as when people overestimate or underestimate how common their viewpoint is within a group. But they can influence our behavior nonetheless. For many, perception is reality.
Social norms and related behaviors can spread through social networks like a virus can, but with one crucial caveat. Viruses often require just one contact with a potential host to spread, whereas behaviors often require multiple contacts to spread. This phenomenon, known as complex contagion, highlights how socially learned behaviors take time to embed.
Watch the people in this video and see how you react.
For many millennials like me, you may react to a friend engaging in this resurrected trend by cringing and lightly teasing them. Yet, after seeing them don those denim parachutes on multiple occasions, a brazen thought may emerge: “Hmm, maybe they don’t look that bad. I could probably pull those off.” That’s complex contagion at work.
This dynamic is even more evident on social media. One of my former students expressed this succinctly. She was looking at an Instagram post about Astro Boy Boots – red, oversize boots based on those worn by a 1952 Japanese cartoon character. Her initial skepticism quickly faded upon reading the comments. As she put it, “I thought they were ugly at first, but after reading the comments, I guess they’re kind of fire.”
Moving from innocuous examples, consider the spread of misinformation on social media. Misinformation is false information that is spread unintentionally, while disinformation is false information that is intentionally disseminated to deceive or do serious harm.
Research shows that both misinformation and disinformation spread faster and farther than truth online. This means that before people can muster the resources to debunk the false information that has seeped into their social networks, they may have already lost the race. Complex contagion may have taken hold, in a malicious way, and begun spreading falsehood throughout the network at a rapid pace.
One way to combat harmful contagion is to draw on an idea first used in the 1960s called pre-bunking. The idea is to train people to practice skills to spot and resist misinformation and disinformation on a smaller scale before they’re exposed to the real thing.
The idea is akin to vaccines that build immunity through exposure to a weakened form of the disease-causing germ. The idea is for someone to be exposed to a limited amount of false information, say through the pre-bunking with Google quiz. They then learn to spot common manipulation tactics used in false information and learn how to resist their influence with evidence-based strategies to counter the falsehoods. This could also be done using a trained facilitator within classrooms, workplaces or other groups, including virtual communities.
Then, the idea is to gradually repeat the process with larger doses of false information and further counterarguments. By role-playing and practicing the counterarguments, this resistance skills training provides a sort of psychological innoculation against misinformation and disinformation, at least temporarily.
Importantly, this approach is intended for someone who has not yet been exposed to false information – hence, pre-bunking rather than debunking. If we want to engage with someone who firmly believes in their stance, particularly when it runs contrary to our own, behavioral scientists recommend leading with empathy and nonjudgmentally exchanging narratives.
Debunking is difficult work, however, and even strong debunking messages can result in the persistence of misinformation. You may not change the other person’s mind, but you may be able to engage in a civil discussion and avoid pushing them further away from your position.
Spreading facts, not fiction
When everyday people apply this with their friends and loved ones, they can train people to recognize the telltale signs of false information. This might be recognizing what’s known as a false dichotomy – for instance, “either you support this bill or you HATE our country.”
Another signal of false information is the common tactic of scapegoating: “Oil industry faces collapse due to rise in electric car ownership.” And another is the slippery slope of logical fallacy. An example is “legalization of marijuana will lead to everyone using heroin.”
All of these are examples of common tactics that spread misinformation and come from a Practical Guide to Pre-Bunking Misinformation, created by a collaborative team from the University of Cambridge, BBC Media Action and Jigsaw, an interdisciplinary think tank within Google.
This approach is not only effective in combating misinformation and disinformation, but also in delaying or preventing the onset of harmful behaviors. My own research suggests that pre-bunking can be used effectively to delay the initiation of tobacco use among adolescents. But it only works with regular “booster shots” of training, or the effect fades away in a matter of months or less.
Many researchers like me who study these social contagion dynamics don’t yet know the best way to keep these “booster shots” going in people’s lives. But there are recent studies showing that it can be done. A promising line of research also suggests that a group-based approach can be effective in maintaining the pre-bunking effects to achieve psychological herd immunity. Personally, I would bet my money on group-based approaches where you, your friends or your family can mutually reinforce each other’s capacity to resist harmful social norms entering your network.
Simply put, if multiple members of your social network have strong resistance skills, then your group has a better chance of resisting the incursion of harmful norms and behaviors into your network than if it’s just you resisting alone. Other people matter.
In the end, whether we’re empowering people to resist the insidious creep of online falsehoods or equipping adolescents to stand firm against peer pressure to smoke or use other substances, the research is clear: Resistance skills training can provide an essential weapon for safeguarding ourselves and young people from harmful behaviors.
Shaon Lahiri 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.
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