Category: Academic Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor

The US government “remains upbeat” about the prospects for at least a ceasefire in Gaza, according to the latest reports from Washington, where the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been meeting the US president, Donald Trump.

Netanyahu handed the US president a letter nominating him for the Nobel peace prize, saying he deserved it for “forging peace, as we speak, in one country in the region after another”. But as yet there are no signs that either Hamas or Israel have moved any closer to accepting each other’s terms.

In fact, reports emerging from the White House meeting are that the two leaders discussed the displacement of much of the Palestinian population. And a plan revealed by the Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, proposed the contruction of a “humanitarian city” at Rafah in the north of the Gaza Strip to house more than 600,000 Palestinians.

The Conversation’s senior international affairs editor, Jonathan Este, spoke with Middle East expert, Scott Lucas, of University College Dublin to address this and other questions.

The two leaders’ discussions in Washington seemed to centre around displacement of the Palestinian population in lieu of a two-state solution. What does this tell you about the chance of a ceasefire deal?

I am fascinated – and sometimes disillusioned – by how some media outlets, led by the nose, miss the main story. Last week Donald Trump pronounced on social media that Israel had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire and Hamas “should take this deal”.

But the Netanyahu government has not accepted the framework, circulated by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, let alone consented to a halt of their attacks, which have continued even as the Israeli prime minister travelled to Washington to meet the US president.

As Trump hosted Netanyahu in the White House on Monday, the line was that the US president was “upbeat on Gaza ceasefire talks”. Meanwhile, few of them seemed to notice the important development. Hamas responded to the US framework with proposals for the staged release of 28 of the remaining 50 Israeli hostages over the 60 days while Israeli troops withdrew from positions inside the Strip and humanitarian aid was restored.

But the Israeli government has thus far not given a substantive response. Instead, while pursuing a plan for the long-term military occupation of Gaza, it may also be seeking the displacement of a large portion of the more than 2.2 million population.

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Hard-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, such as finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and internal security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, have long called for more than a million Gazans to be moved out of the territory. Reports over the weekend confirmed that this is not rhetoric. Israeli businessmen and venture capitalists have reportedly been working on plans for postwar Gaza, to include a “Trump riviera”, mirroring the displacement declaration by the US President, and an “Elon Musk smart manufacturing zone”.

On Tuesday, security cabinet member Ze’ev Elkin, a Netanyahu loyalist, proclaimed “a substantial chance” for a ceasefire. But Qatari negotiators have said there are currently no talks, only discussions with each side about the framework for talks.

Meanwhile, citing the killing of five Israeli soldiers in Gaza on Sunday night by an improvised explosive device, Ben-Gvir said: “We should not negotiate with those who kill our soldiers. They should be crushed to pieces, starved to death, and not resuscitated with humanitarian aid that gives them oxygen.”

He called for “a complete siege, crushing them militarily” and reiterated the plan for “encouraging [Palestinian] immigration and [Jewish] settlement — these are the keys to complete victory”.

Smotrich also called for a ban on any aid to Gaza: “In addition, I demand … that any territory that was conquered and cleansed of terror with the blood of our fighters not be abandoned.”

So I am not optimistic at the moment.

Looking at the region as a whole, two events have ‘reset’ the Middle East: the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s recent 12-day war. Can you tell me more about the kaleidoscope effect these two events had?

In October 2023, there was no open-ended war in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu’s focus was on curbing the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, blocking any possibility of a two-state solution. His tactic was to ease the economic pressure on Gaza and Hamas, maintaining that organisation as a balance against its West Bank rivals.

Hamas ripped up that approach with its mass murder on October 7 – the first of the two kaleidoscope moments which changed the whole picture in a matter of hours. The attack triggered the deadly Israeli response that continues 21 months later. That response did not “destroy” Hamas, as Netanyahu pledged, but it led the Israelis to take on other foes in the region.

Pursuing its “octopus doctrine”, Israel severely damaged one of the tentacles, Hezbollah, when it destroyed much of the Lebanese group’s leadership in the autumn of 2024. It assassinated senior Iranian commanders and officials in Damascus, and received a further boost when Turkish-backed factions toppled the Assad regime in December.

The 12-day war in June aimed to destroy the head of the octopus: Iran. Israel’s strikes and assassinations killed much of the country’s military leadership and many of its top nuclear scientists. The supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, hid in a bunker, only emerging on July 6. But Israel failed to topple his regime, as it had hoped.

The war was another kaleidoscope moment. Israel had its regional victory. But paradoxically, because there has been no resolution in Gaza, this has come at the cost of further international isolation. Gulf States, having moved away from “normalisation” with Israel, put out tougher statements about “genocide” of Gazans and the violation of Iranian sovereignty. Saudi Arabia’s state media highlighted a letter from Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi to Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan for “ways to support and enhance [relations] across all fields”.

This implies that for any normalisation to occur, Israel must end its military operation in Gaza?

That question cuts to the chase. The Gulf states, with the notable exception of Qatar, are no friends of Hamas. They might even have accepted the destruction of the group if Israel had been able to accomplish it quickly.

But there is no way that they can publicly acquiesce in the killing of almost 60,000 Gazans, the large majority of them civilians, and the humanitarian blockade that threatens every single person living in the Gaza Strip. Nor will they want to see Israel export Gazans across the region in an echo of the 1948 “Nakba” whose legacy is the millions of Palestinians living in refugee camps across the Middle East.

Netanyahu can pursue his “absolute destruction” of Hamas by pursuing the destruction and displacement of Gazans. Or he can try to capitalise on his war with Iran through links with Arab countries. He cannot do both.

Will Donald Trump get his Nobel peace prize?

I don’t know, for that is a question which does not have a logical answer.

Herny Kissinger was the US secretary of state who oversaw an escalation of the Vietnam war in which up to 3 million Vietnamese, 310,000 Cambodians, 62,000 Laotians and 58,220 US service members died. The singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer aptly noted: “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

We are in a world where having caused so much disorder and chaos, having enabled violence, including Israel’s open-ended war, Donald Trump may succeed in a pose as “peacemaker”.

Some may see the least worst option as flattery, which seems to work as a strategy for dealing with the US president. They may accept the White House theatre in which Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, personally hands Trump a peace prize nomination.

Meanwhile, in the past 24 hours, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, the number of casualties in Gaza rose to 57,575 people killed and 136,879 wounded. Twenty hostages spent another day in limbo. That’s what matters here.

– ref. As Netanyahu meets Trump in Washington, what hope for peace in Gaza? Expert Q&A – https://theconversation.com/as-netanyahu-meets-trump-in-washington-what-hope-for-peace-in-gaza-expert-qanda-260722

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Leah McLaughlin, Research Fellow in Health Services, Bangor University

Every week, thousands of people with kidney disease in the UK spend long hours in hospital receiving life-saving dialysis. For many, this means travelling to a kidney unit three times a week and sitting through sessions that last four hours or more. It’s a huge commitment that affects people’s ability to work, travel and maintain a normal social life.

But for many with kidney failure, there’s another option: dialysis at home. It’s more flexible, often less disruptive and, in the long run, more cost-effective for the NHS. So why do most people still choose hospital dialysis?

A parliamentary summit in May reflected on how to make dialysis more accessible to patients at home. My colleagues and I published research on this topic in 2019. Working in partnership with people who have kidney disease, their families, NHS staff, dialysis providers and kidney charities, we explored the barriers to home dialysis, and how to overcome them.

People with kidney failure need either a transplant or regular dialysis to filter waste from their blood. Despite NHS guidance that at least 20% of people on dialysis should be supported to have this treatment at home, this target isn’t being met in many parts of the UK.

Our research team, which included people who had experienced dialysis, held discussions with 50 people from across Wales. Many told us that hospital dialysis was presented by healthcare staff as the default option. For those who had not yet come to terms with needing dialysis, or who had delayed planning due to the unpredictable nature of kidney disease, hospital treatment felt like the path of least resistance.

Some were concerned about the disruption home dialysis might bring. This included changes to their living space or worries that partners or family members might become their carers. Others valued the routine and regular social contact of hospital dialysis.

Healthcare professionals may unintentionally reinforce this choice. Some feel more comfortable monitoring patients in clinical settings or are unsure about how to support home dialysis effectively. In some cases, home dialysis isn’t an option because local services don’t have the infrastructure to support it.

Rather than simply identifying problems, we worked together to develop practical solutions. In 2021, working with patients, healthcare professionals, charities, commissioners and industry, we devised a new service plan that outlines how kidney services could be redesigned to support more people to choose home dialysis.

One important finding was the power of talking to others already doing it. It’s not just about practical advice, but reassurance that it can work.

We also identified the need for better training for both professionals and patients. People told us they wanted to understand their options earlier, ideally a year before dialysis starts. That means tackling difficult topics, such as advance care planning, sooner and with the right support.

Social care also has an important role to play. People with complex needs – like living alone, having mobility challenges, or experiencing financial hardship – may need home support, welfare advice or help navigating the system.

The cost of choice

In a linked study, published in 2022, we analysed the costs of different dialysis options. Home dialysis was found to cost between £16,000 and £23,000 per person per year.

Hospital dialysis costs more, between £20,000 and £24,000, rising to over £30,000 when ambulance transport is needed. This suggests that encouraging more people to have dialysis at home could deliver savings for the NHS.

In Wales, where all kidney services are coordinated through a single clinical network, home dialysis is more widely available. But in England, services are more fragmented, so access can depend on where you live.

Even if these changes were implemented, fundamental issues may still prevent progress. Beneath the surface of patient satisfaction lies a deeper problem – the NHS dialysis service is no longer working as intended.

Transport is one of the most frequently cited concerns among people receiving hospital dialysis, and no one seems satisfied with current arrangements. But satisfaction surveys fail to capture the complexity of the situation.

People often begin dialysis in a unit that isn’t closest to home due to availability. Later, when given the option to move closer or switch to home dialysis, they may decline. These dialysis units begin to function as surrogate families, offering comfort, routine and social interaction, especially for people who live alone or are isolated.

This emotional connection can obscure the bigger picture. Patients may focus on transport as the issue, rather than recognising that their own decisions – shaped by understandable human needs and system design – are part of the wider challenge.

Staff are caught in the same dynamic. They worry about losing patients they’ve built relationships with or fear someone may not cope alone. But as a result, the service ends up operating not to help people live well for longer but to preserve a sense of satisfaction with a suboptimal status quo.

By focusing too heavily on keeping people content with the status quo, we risk obscuring what’s truly working, or not. Worse, we may end up wasting already limited resources trying to fix problems that are byproducts of a system shaped more by sentiment than strategy.

Meanwhile, staff are caught in the middle, trying to deliver care under mounting pressure, with increasingly blurred expectations.

What needs to change

To break out of this cycle, different questions should be asked, and not just whether people are satisfied, but whether they are living well, maintaining independence and receiving care that truly reflects their needs and values.

Our research shows that people already on home dialysis are a valuable and underused resource. They can offer support and insight to others who are starting their treatment.

The collaborative approach we used could be a model for other parts of the NHS. By designing services with people, not just for them, we can move closer to a future where more people live comfortably with kidney disease, and care that truly fits around their lives and not the other way round.

Leah McLaughlin receives funding from Health and Care Research Wales. She is affiliated with the Wales Kidney Research Unit.

We would like to acknowledge Dr Gareth Roberts Chief Investigator of the Dialysis Options and Choices study. Dr Gareth Roberts is a Consultant Nephrologist and Associate Medical Director at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and is clinical lead of the Welsh Renal Clinical Network.

– ref. Why many kidney patients are still choosing hospital dialysis – and how the NHS can help more people access care at home – https://theconversation.com/why-many-kidney-patients-are-still-choosing-hospital-dialysis-and-how-the-nhs-can-help-more-people-access-care-at-home-254747

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University

No man more embodied Thatcherism in the eyes of the public in the 1980s than Norman Tebbit, who died on July 7, aged 94.

Though certainly no yuppie, Lord Tebbit entitled his memoirs Upwardly Mobile. Margaret’s Thatcher’s triumph was also his. She saw in the Essex MP just the uncompromising approach to transforming Britain to which she too was committed.

Both had been disgusted by the Conservative government of Edward Heath blinking when it sought to face down trade unions in the early 1970s. The experience was elemental to their plan for government.

Others were more important to the New Right/neoliberal project elected in 1979: Conservative minister Keith Joseph, and Thatcher’s two chancellors, Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson.

But Tebbit provided something no one else in Thatcher’s cabinet could: an innate connection with white, working-class voters, who may once have been Labour – Tebbit lauded Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin – but whose values were held to have been washed away in the postwar tide of union militancy, social permissiveness, European integration, and mass immigration.

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He became a Conservative almost because, rather than in spite, of his background. “Essex man” was a presiding personification of the period.

Unlike almost all of Thatcher’s ministers, Tebbit did not go to university, but left school at 16 to encounter the “closed shop”: that one had to be a member of a particular union to work in a particular workplace. He became determined at that moment to end this practice, and with it so much else of postwar social democracy.

Thirty years later he did, as Thatcher’s secretary of state for employment. Tebbit’s 1982 Employment Act avenged the unions’ defeat of Heath. Union rights were weakened, never to be restored, and those of employers emboldened. It was a significant contribution to Thatcherism’s ledger.

As secretary of state for trade and industry, Tebbit pursued privatisation – the return (as its proponents, simply, put it) of nationalised industries to the private sector – with passion. The postwar settlement in Britain was being upended.

Public image

In an age before the televising of parliament (much less 24-hour news and social media), Tebbit cut through in a way few politicians did.

At at a time of inner-city violence, the public knew Tebbit’s unemployed father, decades earlier, didn’t riot but “got on his bike and looked for work”. No one else could have been called – in the words of Labour’s Michael Foot – a “semi-house-trained polecat”. TV’s puppet satire Spitting Image portrayed him as the “Chingford Strangler”, dressed in biker leathers.

Tebbit felt no need for his contempt for socialism to be leavened by charm or humour. There was invariably a slight sense of menace. He had no interest in ingratiating or propitiating. And so he was as loved by Conservative party members as he was hated by the left. He welcomed their hatred.

Tebbit in particular despised the swinging 60s – fittingly, he entered parliament in the election in which Harold Wilson’s government was unexpectedly ejected – and its legacy of “insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, naive, guilt-ridden, wet, pink orthodoxy”. Thus his trenchancy on immigration, overseas aid (a “sink of iniquity, corruption and violence”), sexuality (he was one of the few still to use the word “sodomite”) and Europe (he was a Eurosceptic before Euroscepticism).

In 1990 Tebbit asked of British-born people of Asian heritage: “Which side do they cheer for? Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?”. Tebbit’s “cricket test” is second only to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech in the annals of inflammatory – they and their supporters would say candid – rhetoric relating to immigration. Neither would mind the association.

Read more:
Tory humiliation down to campaign length and cult of May – Norman Tebbit Q&A

What silenced most – if not quite all – of his critics, was Tebbit at his most vulnerable. Following the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel Brighton in 1984, live television footage of him, only partially clad in his pyjamas, covered in dust, being stretchered out of the rubble, became the defining image of the atrocity.

The following year Thatcher moved him from trade and industry to, less happily, chairman of the Conservative party. It was a job that required a lighter touch than Tebbit’s.

Nevertheless, as chairman, he delivered the Conservatives’ third election victory, of 1987 – ensuring the permanence of the transformation – only to immediately retire to the backbenches. Margaret, his wife, had been paralysed by the bomb, and he devoted himself to her care for more than 30 years until her death.

As warranted as his departure from government may have been, Thatcher “bitterly regretted” losing him, a feeling she felt for few. Her defenestration in November 1990 is much harder to imagine had Tebbit still been in the cabinet.

Norman Tebbit’s conservatism and nationalism harked back to an earlier age, yet presaged the populism of the 2020s. In his remarks following the news of Tebbit’s death, Nigel Farage said he thought him “a great man”.

Tebbit’s values endure in public discourse, in more ways than he might have expected even a few years ago. But in his last months he was either unable, or unwilling, to say whether those values were those of the Conservatives, the traditional party of the right, or of another project. That may be a final Tebbit “test”.

Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Norman Tebbit, Conservative minister known as Thatcher’s enforcer, dies at 94 – https://theconversation.com/norman-tebbit-conservative-minister-known-as-thatchers-enforcer-dies-at-94-260716

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura O’Flanagan, PhD Candidate, School of English, Dublin City University

American filmmaker David Cronenberg is a leading figure in body horror, a film genre that explores disturbing and often grotesque aspects of the human body. Films such as The Fly (1986), eXistenZ (1999) and Crimes of the Future (2022) depict scenes of physical mutilation, illness and technological invasion to represent deeper fears about identity, society and the human condition.

Through intense bodily imagery, Cronenberg’s films raise powerful questions about human relationships with technology and nature. As our relationship with technology rapidly evolves alongside escalating environmental catastrophe, there is a timely significance in these ideas.

His latest film, The Shrouds, evokes the writing of Stacy Alaimo, a scholar known for her work exploring the connections between the human body, the environment, and the social forces that shape both. Alaimo’s work combines feminist and materialist ideas and examines how our bodies are physically connected to the world around us – not separate from nature or society, but shaped by both ecological systems and social structures.

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Like Cronenberg, Alaimo is interested in the entanglement of human flesh with more-than-human worlds, alongside the interplay between bodies and objects.

In The Shrouds, the body, specifically that of Becca (Diane Kruger) is placed firmly at the centre of the story. Appearing both as a decaying corpse and naked in dream sequences, her body bears fresh surgical scars which are unbandaged and exposed.

Becca’s body is shown as intensely vulnerable, a gendered depiction of femaleness which is controlled literally by the male gaze through the “shroud”, a piece of sci-fi wearable tech. It comprises a suit of MRI and X-ray cameras which encases a corpse, allowing decomposition to be monitored through a live video link with an app.

This conceit embeds Becca both in the Earth and in technology, creating deeply memorable imagery which challenges viewers to think about death, grief and the environmental ethics surrounding human burial.

The presentation of Becca’s body evokes Alaimo’s concept of transcorporeality. In her 2010 book Bodily Natures, Alaimo describes transcorporeality as the idea that “the human is ultimately inseparable from ‘the environment’” – continually transformed through interactions with the landscape, chemicals, technology and non-human forces. Becca’s corpse, decaying in real-time on a live link, highlights this connection.

Grief: the fictional and the personal

The film opens with Karsh (Vincent Kassel), Becca’s bereaved husband, in a dentist’s chair being told, “Grief is rotting your teeth”. The film as a whole can be read as a meditation on how grief seeps into and changes the body.

Written following the death of David Cronenberg’s wife (and initially conceived of as a Netflix series), Cronenberg has rejected the idea that it is fully autobiographical. It is, however, difficult to fully separate the director from the story.

Cassel as Karsh physically resembles Cronenberg in the film, blurring the boundary between fiction and the personal. Physical duplication is a disorienting motif of the film. Kruger reappears as Becca’s sister Terri and as an animated AI assistant named Honey.

Alongside the grotesque images of her decaying body, these versions of Kruger are especially striking. Cassel’s performance as the controlling and obsessive Karsh is nuanced and understated. His desire to monitor Becca’s decomposition is presented as a logical step to regain possession of her from her illness, and is deeply disturbing.

It also has ominous and timely resonance in our modern world, where controversial technology exists that permits artificial intelligence to create avatars of the dead to comfort the bereaved.

The film becomes a mimetic piece on grief, where boundaries between imagination and reality dissolve. Cronenberg’s frequent collaborator Howard Shore provides an ambient score that reinforces this dissolution. Ethereal and bass-rich, it features spacious, slowly evolving melodies wrapped in velvety synth textures which evoke a dream-like soundscape.

As the plot progresses into a tangle of conspiracy theories, lines blur between Karsh’s dreams and reality. Background plots drift unresolved, characters are vaguely sketched. Themes of environmental activism versus capitalist enterprise, the exploitation of technology, illegal surveillance and government corruption are all threaded through the story, but none are fully realised. This is not a film which offers a straightforward narrative or closure. Like grief, it remains raw, fluid and difficult to contain.

Throughout, the film returns to Becca’s decaying body, encased in a shroud that is described as both toxic and radioactive, an object of controversy for eco-activists. “She’s dead, remember, she can’t do anything,” Karsh’s companion reminds him.

But this is not true for Becca. In death, her body is watched and consumed by systems of surveillance and ecological anxiety. Symbolising Alaimo’s concept of transcorporeality, Becca’s decaying corpse, wrapped in technology, but buried in the Earth, is deeply connected to the environment and cannot be separated from it. Her body is influenced by both its natural surroundings and social factors such as the shroud’s technology, outside interference and Karsh’s control.

Karsh asserts that burial is a complex matter, converging politics, religion and economics. The Shrouds raises questions that touch on all of these, but provides no tangible answers. Some viewers will be frustrated by the film’s lack of logical structure and resolution. But it is also fair to say that this is how it mirrors the pathways of grief itself: unwieldy, unpredictable and consuming.

Laura O’Flanagan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Shrouds: new Cronenberg film is an elusive meditation on death, grief and environmental ethics – https://theconversation.com/the-shrouds-new-cronenberg-film-is-an-elusive-meditation-on-death-grief-and-environmental-ethics-260009

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Fiona McAuliffe, Lecturer of Ecology, Scotland’s Rural College

In the early 2000s, golden eagles soared once again over the hills of Donegal in northwest Ireland, for the first time in nearly a century. Their return was celebrated as a landmark in Irish conservation, a hopeful sign that one of the island’s most iconic predators was back.

But two decades on, the reality is sobering. The population remains small with just five territorial pairs and an estimated total population of just 20-25 birds. Breeding success is poor, and the golden eagle’s future in Ireland is uncertain. So what went wrong?

Our research published in the Irish Naturalists’ Journal suggests the problem isn’t with the eagles themselves – it’s with the landscape they were released into. On paper, Donegal’s uplands looked ideal: open terrain, low human disturbance and ample wild prey. But over time, key parts of that ecosystem have quietly unravelled.

Golden eagles rely on a steady supply of prey to thrive and raise chicks – notably red grouse and Irish hares. Yet, during our recent surveys along transects (predetermined lines through an area) and footage from camera traps in and around Glenveagh national park, the uplands seemed eerily quiet. Not just quiet of eagles, but of the smaller animals they prey on for food. The landscape looked wild, but had lost some of its vital living components.

When comparing the available prey biomass, that’s the combined weight of grouse and hares per unit area, Donegal had 74-83% less prey than equivalent areas in the Scottish Highlands where golden eagles are thriving. That’s an enormous shortfall. Without enough food, adult eagles must travel further to hunt and spend more energy – and so are less likely to raise chicks successfully. A few lean years can tip a small population like this into crisis.

Why is prey so scarce? One of the main culprits is overgrazing. Red deer numbers have exploded across Ireland in recent decades. In places such as Donegal, their constant browsing and grazing has severely degraded upland habitats. This damages the heather moorlands that grouse and hares depend on, leaving them with less cover and fewer food sources.

Add to this the growing pressure from medium-sized predators, including foxes and badgers. Without apex predators such as wolves or lynx to keep them in check, these “mesopredators” flourish. This well-documented phenomenon is known as mesopredator release where populations of mid-sized predators increase after the loss of top predators, often leading to greater pressure on prey species, such as ground-nesting birds and young hares, compounding the challenges for these struggling prey species.

And while Ireland’s conservation laws look strong on paper, implementation often lags behind. Some protected areas remain heavily grazed, burned or unmanaged. Management plans are either missing, unenforced or outdated. This weakens the very protections meant to sustain wildlife.

A lesson for rewilding

The reintroduction of golden eagles was based on the best available knowledge at the time. But ecosystems aren’t static. What may have been viable habitat in the 1990s no longer meets the needs of a breeding eagle population today.

Reintroducing a species isn’t enough. The systems that sustain it also need to be restored. The clichéd paradigm that nature-is-good and humans-are-bad isn’t helpful. Instead modern landscapes are often so degraded that they can’t recover if left alone.

Conservation can facilitate active recovery. Real rewilding is about more than simply “putting animals back” and “letting nature take its course”. It is about putting systems back: predators, prey, plants and the processes that connect them.

Despite the challenges, the golden eagle population has not failed in Ireland – not yet at least. To turn the tide, conservation efforts must go beyond charismatic species and focus on landscape restoration. That means reducing overgrazing, supporting prey recovery, rebalancing predator dynamics and making sure protected areas are actually protected.

Encouragingly, Glenveagh national park has begun some of this work, by reducing deer overgrazing and regenerating native woodlands. If this landscape restoration is sustained and expanded, golden eagles could still thrive in a more balanced, functioning upland ecosystem.

These birds are more than just a symbol of wildness. They are a litmus test of ecosystem health. Right now, they’re telling us something important. Something those calling for the reintroduction of other top predators, including wolves, would do well to consider.

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Golden eagles were reintroduced to Ireland, but without prey they’re now struggling to thrive – https://theconversation.com/golden-eagles-were-reintroduced-to-ireland-but-without-prey-theyre-now-struggling-to-thrive-258832

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cahal Moran, Visiting Fellow in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics and Political Science

During my adult life, I have never experienced what it’s like to live in a “good” economy. Starting with the global financial crash in 2008, which hit just as I began studying economics, the world seems to have lurched from crisis to crisis and the UK economy even more so.

Some of those crises, like the crash and COVID, are sudden shocks. Others have been more gradual, such as increasingly unaffordable housing or the rising dominance of the world’s ultra rich.

As I explore in my new book, Why We’re Getting Poorer, the result of these crises is an economic system which works for some much more than it does for others. Here are four reasons why you may be feeling let down.

1. Grasping for growth

Like many of his fellow leaders across the world, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, is aiming to make economic growth the primary mission of his government. And understandably so.

A growing economy puts more money in people’s pockets and brings other benefits such as low unemployment. But economic growth is not easy (in the UK it has been poor for a long time).

That’s because there’s no GDP dial that a prime minister or president can simply turn up. Research shows that economic growth is an amorphous and difficult goal which depends on many factors – geopolitical, demographic, technological – outside any single country’s control.

One option is to focus on achievable goals around investment, like the public investments of £113 billion on homes, transport and energy planned in the UK. But big projects can take a long time to build and develop, so even if they do boost growth, it can take a while for households to feel the benefits.

2. Inherent inequality

Against the backdrop of low growth in the UK has been high inequality, under Conservative and Labour governments. And again, inequality is an international issue.

The wealth of the richest people in the world skyrocketed over COVID, buoyed in many cases by the increased importance of the tech sector during lockdowns. Even before the pandemic, wealth inequality was a problem across the globe.

This imbalance has given the very richest opportunities to buy up commercial competitors, indulge in space travel and control large parts of the media, exerting extreme economic, social and political power. Needless to say, their economic priorities are not the same as everyone else’s.

Meanwhile, communities and regions may be left behind, with declining physical and social infrastructure. People living in hollowed out areas where incomes and opportunities are limited are unlikely to feel that the economic system is working for them.

3. Globalisation

Globalisation has made a lot of people – in places like China, India and Brazil – better off. But it is not a system which ensures economic benefits for everyone.

With global competition, big businesses are often under pressure to reduce costs. Free trade deals have often failed to enforce labour standards or redistribute gains to poorly paid workers, and in many cases simply made the rich richer.

Such a distorted form of economic governance, where large sections of society end up feeling left behind was bound to provoke a response. Some would link it to recent political events like Brexit and the presidencies of Donald Trump, whose international tariffs are a clear attempt to reverse the rise of globalisation.

Since the pandemic, more fault-lines have been exposed. The global economy has become too dependent on certain regions, epitomised by Taiwanese dominance in the manufacturing of semiconductors, or European reliance on Russia for gas and oil.

Recent years have also seen supply chain bottlenecks, leading to shortages of goods including cars, phones and even salad ingredients. Inflexible global systems have been ineffective, and internationally agreed fixes are hard to achieve.

4. Climate change

World news at the start of 2020 was dominated by the massive wildfires raging across Australia. At the start of 2025, Los Angeles burned.

As the global climate shifts and lurches, extreme weather events are becoming more common. Floods, hurricanes and extreme temperatures look to be the likely outcome.

When sea levels rise, countless coastal cities will experience flooding, and many Pacific islands may disappear altogether. The UN’s climate science advisory group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that humanity will struggle with food production, disease and massive migration.

This will all result in huge economic costs, impeding growth and disrupting livelihoods across the world. According to the IPCC, the impacts could range from extreme weather events disrupting infrastructure to changing weather reducing yields in agriculture, forestry and fishing.

Yet many countries appear to be backtracking on their commitment to reducing emissions. It seems they would prefer to deal with the fallout of climate change rather than invest in potential solutions like carbon taxes, walkable cities or alternative fuels. But such acts of self-harm are not a sound basis for a prosperous economy, society or planet.

Cahal Moran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Four reasons why many of us feel the global economy is not on our side – https://theconversation.com/four-reasons-why-many-of-us-feel-the-global-economy-is-not-on-our-side-252220

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steve Faulkner, Senior Lecturer in Exercise Physiology, Nottingham Trent University

The Tour de France is often called the world’s biggest annual sporting event. Each July up to 12 million people line the roadside, while the cumulative TV audience tops 3 billion viewers across 190 countries.

In 2025, 184 riders will compete in teams of eight, racing a punishing 3,500 km route with nearly 50,000 metres of climbing – roughly the height of Mount Everest six times over. Across 21 stages riders tackle time trials, flat sprints and brutal mountain passes through the Alps, Pyrenees and Massif Central.

Professional cyclists possess extraordinary endurance and are capable of generating high power outputs day after day. Yet, despite having far less training and support, in recent years a number of amateur cyclists have begun riding the Tour route just days before the pros. The Tour 21 is one such effort and offers cyclists a chance to follow in the tyre tracks of the elite while raising money for a good cause.

In 2021 I joined 19 others to ride the full route in support of Cure Leukaemia, with a shared goal of raising £1 million for blood cancer research. As a blood cancer survivor diagnosed at 16, this challenge combined my love of cycling, my background in science and my deep desire to give back to the community that helped save my life. It was also a unique opportunity to study how amateur cyclists cope with one of the most demanding endurance events in the world.

The research findings were published in the Journal of Science and Cycling, to coincide with 2025’s Grand Départ (the official start of the race) in Lille.

Training for the impossible

Originally, the study planned to include lab-based physiological assessments of the amateur cyclists undertaking the Tour de France route, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to adapt and rely instead on data from training diaries. These gave us insight into how much (or little) training had been done leading up to the ride, and how riders managed the physical and mental strain during the event itself.

While professional cyclists typically train 20–25 hours a week – often at altitude, with tailored coaching and racing schedules – our group of amateurs had full-time jobs, were typically 15–20 years older than the pros and trained around seven to ten hours a week.

Our preparation was far from ideal, averaging just 47km per ride and 350 metres of climbing; a fraction of what the Tour demands. In fact, this amounted to less than 10% of the required climbing during the mountain stages.

Once the ride began, the contrast between training and reality was stark. The group averaged nearly seven hours of riding a day, a 300% increase from their usual routine. Within four days signs of overtraining began to emerge: riders were no longer able to elevate their heart rates, a classic marker of central nervous system fatigue and excessive physical stress.

As the days progressed, performance metrics continued to decline: heart rates dropped, power outputs fell and mood scores deteriorated. The cumulative fatigue was undeniable.

Surprisingly, when we compared our amateur data to metrics from professional riders, we found that although pros ride at much higher power outputs, amateurs were subject to greater relative stress. On some days they spent almost double the time in the saddle, which meant they operated closer to their physical limits, with far less time for recovery – and often suboptimal sleep and nutrition.

By the final week many of the riders could no longer produce the same power they had in the first few days. In some cases, heart rates wouldn’t rise above 100 beats per minute – a clear sign of accumulated fatigue and physiological overload.

How to prepare for an ultra-endurance challenge

If you’re planning to take on a major endurance event – whether it’s cycling, running, or hiking – here are some lessons from the road:

1. Train specifically for the event

Your training should mirror the challenge ahead. For the Tour, this meant preparing for long, back-to-back days with significant climbing. Mimic the intensity, volume and terrain as closely as possible.

2. Understand how quickly fatigue builds

Over multiple days, fatigue doesn’t just accumulate – it compounds. Listen to your body, adapt your plan and include plenty of recovery time.

3. Prioritise nutrition and recovery

These two factors can make or break your performance. You’ll need to consume enough energy to fuel the effort, but avoid excessive intake that leads to unnecessary weight gain. Recovery – through sleep, rest and refuelling – is equally vital.

4. Work with an experienced coach

More than fancy bikes or high-tech gear, a good coach is your best investment. They can help tailor your training plan, track your progress and adapt strategies as needed. Don’t underestimate this support.

A ride to remember

Completing the Tour de France route is a monumental achievement for any cyclist — amateur or pro. In 2021, our team not only rode the full route, but also raised over £1 million for Cure Leukaemia. For me, it marked a deeply personal milestone in my cancer journey.

Throughout those 21 days, I thought often of the physical and emotional battles I faced during treatment; moments when I didn’t know if I’d survive, let alone ride across France. That experience gave me the resilience to keep going, even when my body was screaming to stop.

Riding the Tour taught me that we’re capable of far more than we realise, especially when we ride with purpose.

Steve Faulkner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. I rode the Tour de France to study its impact on the human body – here’s what I learned – https://theconversation.com/i-rode-the-tour-de-france-to-study-its-impact-on-the-human-body-heres-what-i-learned-260524

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jane Hamlett, Professor of Modern British History, Royal Holloway University of London

King Edward VII, the son of Queen Victoria, ascended the throne upon her death in 1901, but unlike his mother, he ruled for a very short period and died in 1910. His reign, along with the years immediately before the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, are known as the Edwardian period.

Taking in this particular era, The Edwardians: Age of Elegance at the King’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace, focuses on the artistic patronage of Edward VII and his wife Alexandra of Denmark, and their son George V and his wife Mary of Teck.

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Edward and Alexandra were married in 1863, and as Prince and Princess of Wales the pair were leading tastemakers in Victorian upper-class society in the years before Edward came to the throne at the beginning of the 20th century.

This is often regarded as a golden age before the carnage and disruption of the great war saw the world indelibly change. However, the exhibition is not confined to these years and also reaches back into the Victorian period (1837-1901).

Those hoping to experience some of the glamour of the royal family won’t be disappointed. The first room takes visitors into the heady atmosphere of the Marlborough House set which centred around Edward and Alexandra’s residence in St James’s. One case commemorates the 1871 Waverley Ball which marked the centenary of popular Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott. Alexandra’s elaborate Mary Queen of Scots costume – a silk dress with gold lacings – is on display.

The pageantry of the court is communicated through a series of stunning narrative paintings including the Danish artist Laurits Tuxen’s The Garden Party at Buckingham Palace (1897-1900) and The Family of Queen Victoria in 1887 (1887) painted for her golden jubilee in 1887.

This theme is picked up in the second large room, which focuses on the lavish world of the court. Here, the opulent 1911 coronation robes of George and Mary and a case of necklaces and jewellery take centre stage. This exhibit is the star of the show with plenty of visitors posing for photographs in front of it.

Royals as art collectors

But beneath all the glitz and glamour there’s a subtler story about how the royal family worked as collectors and their wider role in Britain and beyond. One of the most interesting things about the exhibition is that it reveals the personal taste of the royals, through what they chose to collect.

Horses, dogs and yachts are prominent. Edward’s dog Caesar, the wire-haired fox terrier who famously followed his funeral procession in 1910, appears in several images, and his race horse Persimmon is also represented.

Edward and Alexandra were patrons of leading artists of the day – he owned a number of works by the popular Victorian painter Frederic Leighton, while she collected art by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne Jones. Alexandra also supported Minton’s pottery studio in the 1870s, which employed many women artists.

The exhibition also reveals Alexandra’s personal artistic activities. Like many upper-class Victorian women, she was a keen photographer and creator of photo albums. In the second half of the 19th century, album-making offered women an outlet for creativity and emotional expression. An album of designs made by Alexandra in the 1860s features photos arranged in a spiders web, with family and friends transformed into butterflies and insects.

Royal patronage was often about international connections. Alexandra’s Danish heritage is expressed through pieces from the Royal Copenhagen porcelain manufacturing company, including a massive porcelain cabinet, featuring an ornamental roof topped by a group of dancing monkeys surrounding a large swan.

A larger room is devoted to objects amassed on visits and through diplomatic exchange with the colonies which at the time included India, part of Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Increasingly speedy travel networks brought the world closer in the late 19th century and the royal family were able to travel further and more frequently than ever before. These visits played an important role in Britain’s imperial identity, and underlined the nation’s global power.

Between 1875 and 1876 Edward toured India. This trip produced a dazzling array of diplomatic gifts, such as a case filled with ornately decorated Indian weapons. After the visit Edward created a special Indian room for them at Marlborough House. Today, they sparkle in their cabinet for the exhibition’s visitors.

The exhibition does a good job of revealing the importance of imperial connections to the royal collections and the role of the royals in the larger colonial project, but in places I would have liked to know more about the stories behind these objects.

There’s a tension between the precise attribution of the work of British and European artists and the objects that have been gifted from the colonies – almost all labelled “unidentified maker”.

The absence of such information is the product of longstanding curatorial habits that shaped these collections in the past and continue to determine what we know about them today. This does mean that there are some absences about the origins and makers of these things, which could have been acknowledged more in some of the exhibition text.

This was particularly evident when looking at a large portrait of the Maori dancer Terewai Horomona by Gottfried Lindauer. The image has an elaborate frame with a plaque declaring it was presented to the Prince of Wales by the New Zealand commissioner for the Colonial and India Exhibition, 1886.

The commentary states that Edward was “enchanted” with the portrait which was “promptly gifted” to him. But this might have been better used as an opportunity to give some thought to the woman whose image was framed, presented and exchanged.

Overall, though, this is an enjoyable exhibition that reveals the royal social world, patronage and imperial connections, and tells a fascinating story about the artistic taste and activities of the lesser-known monarchs of the early 20th century.

Jane Hamlett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Edwardians: Age of Elegance – a glimpse into royal patronage of the arts in the early 20th century – https://theconversation.com/the-edwardians-age-of-elegance-a-glimpse-into-royal-patronage-of-the-arts-in-the-early-20th-century-259909