Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ligin Joseph, PhD Candidate, Oceanography, University of Southampton

The final week of November was devastating for several South Asian countries. Communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand were inundated as Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar unleashed days of relentless rain. Millions were affected, more than 1,500 people lost their lives, hundreds are still missing, and damages ran into multiple millions of US dollars. Sri Lanka’s president even described it as the most challenging natural disaster the island has ever seen.

When disasters like this happen, the blame often falls on a failure in early warnings or poor preparedness. This was the case with major floods in Kerala, south India, in 2018, which devastated my hometown.

But this time, the forecasts were largely accurate; the authorities knew the storms were coming, yet the devastation was still immense.

So, if the forecasts were good enough, why were the impacts still so severe?

Weak winds, extreme rain

One emerging explanation is that these storms were not dangerous because of their winds, but because they produced unusually intense rainfall.

Consider Cyclone Ditwah. Its peak winds were around 75 km/h (47 mph). That’s windy, but nothing special. In the UK, it would be classified merely as a “gale” rather than a “storm”. It was far weaker than the 220 km/h winds of the powerful 1978 cyclone that also struck Sri Lanka. Yet Ditwah still caused massive devastation.

What explains this apparent contradiction? It’s too early to say definitively, but climate change is likely a part of the story. Even when storms are not especially strong in wind terms, the amount of rain they carry is increasing.

A warmer atmosphere holds more water

A well established meteorological rule helps explain why. For every degree of global warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture.

As the planet warms, the air above us becomes a larger reservoir, waiting to dump more water on us. When storms form, they can tap into this expanded supply, often in extremely short bursts. Even if wind speeds are modest, the rainfall alone can be catastrophic.

The oceans matter even more

Warming oceans play an even more powerful role, as cyclones draw their energy from warm ocean waters. Satellite data from late November shows just how warm the eastern Indian Ocean was, with large areas more than 1°C above normal during Ditwah and Senyar.

Such warm anomalies are no longer unusual. The oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases, and long-term observations show a clear upward trend in ocean temperatures.

That doesn’t necessarily mean cyclones are becoming more frequent – their formation still depends on other ingredients, such as low wind shear (small differences in wind speed and direction with height) and the right atmospheric structure.

What warmer oceans do change, however, is the amount of energy available to any storm that does manage to form. When the ocean is warmer, cyclones have more fuel and evaporation increases, loading the atmosphere with moisture that can fall as intense rain once a storm develops. Even weak cyclones can therefore hold exceptional amounts of rain.

The winds near the surface help this process along. As they move across the ocean, they sweep away the moisture-filled air just above the water and replace it with drier air, allowing evaporation to continue. Put together, warmer oceans, higher evaporation, and an atmosphere that can store more moisture, these factors can significantly intensify the rainfall associated with cyclones.

Coastline hugging makes flooding worse

Local geography amplified these effects. Both Ditwah and Senyar formed unusually close to land and travelled along the coastline for an extended period. This meant they stayed over warm waters long enough to continuously draw moisture, but remained close enough to land to dump that moisture as intense rainfall almost immediately.

Cyclone Ditwah, in particular, moved slowly as it approached Sri Lanka. Slow-moving storms can be especially dangerous as they repeatedly dump rain over the same area. Even if winds are weak, this combination of warm seas, coastal proximity and slow forward speed can be devastating.

A new threat

These storms suggest that climate change – especially ocean warming – is reshaping the risks posed by cyclones. The most dangerous storms may no longer simply be the ones with the strongest winds, but also the ones with the most moisture.

Forecasting systems, including new AI-powered weather models, are getting better at predicting cyclone tracks and wind speeds. Yet rainfall-driven flooding remains far harder to forecast. As oceans continue to warm, governments and disaster agencies will need to prepare for storms that may be weak in wind but extreme in rain.

These insights are based on preliminary analysis and emerging scientific understanding. More detailed peer-reviewed studies will be needed to pinpoint exactly why Ditwah and Senyar produced such extreme rainfall. But the pattern that is emerging – weak cyclones delivering outsized floods in a warming world – must not be ignored.

Ligin Joseph receives funding from the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

– ref. Even ‘weak’ cyclones are being turned into deadly rainmakers by fast-warming oceans – https://theconversation.com/even-weak-cyclones-are-being-turned-into-deadly-rainmakers-by-fast-warming-oceans-271550

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

Ukraine is under unprecedented pressure, not only on the battlefield but also on the domestic and diplomatic fronts.

Each of these challenges on their own would be difficult to handle for any government. But together – and given there is no obvious solution to any of the problems the country is facing – they create a near-perfect storm.

It’s a storm that threatens to bring down Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and deal a severe blow to Ukraine’s western allies.

On the frontlines in eastern Donbas, Ukraine has continued to lose territory since Russia’s summer offensive began in May 2025. The ground lost has been small in terms of area but significant in terms of the human and material cost.

Between them, Russia and Ukraine have suffered around 2 million casualties over the course of the war.

Perhaps more importantly, the people of Ukraine have endured months and months during which the best news has been that its troops were still holding out despite relentless Russian assaults. This relentless negativity has undermined morale among troops and civilians alike.

As a consequence, recruitment of new soldiers cannot keep pace with losses incurred on the frontlines – both in terms of casualties and desertions.

Moreover, potential conscripts to the Ukrainian army increasingly resort to violence to avoid being drafted into the military. A new recruitment drive, announced by the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, will increase the potential for further unrest.

Russia’s air campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure continues unabated, further damaging what is left of the vital energy grid and leaving millions of families facing lengthy daily blackouts.

The country’s air defence systems are increasingly overwhelmed by nightly Russian attacks, which are penetrating hitherto safe areas such as the capital and key population centres in south and west. It’s a grim outlook for Ukraine’s civilian population who are now heading into the war’s fourth winter. A ceasefire, let alone a viable peace agreement, remains a very distant prospect.

The political turmoil that has engulfed Zelensky and his government adds to the sense of a potentially catastrophic downward spiral. There have been corruption scandals before, but none has come as close to the president himself.

The amounts allegedly involved in the latest bribery scandal – around US$100m (£75 million) – are eye-watering at a time of national emergency. But it is also the callousness of Ukraine’s elites apparently enriching themselves that adds insult to injury.

The latest scandal has also opened a potential Pandora’s box of vicious recriminations. As more and more members of Zelensky’s inner circle are engulfed in corruption allegations, more details of how different parts of his administration benefited from various schemes or simply turned a blind eye are likely to emerge.

This has damaged Zelensky’s own standing with his citizens and allies. What has helped him survive are both his track record as a war leader so far and the lack of alternatives.

Without a clear pathway towards a smooth transition to a new leadership in Ukraine, the mutual dependency between Zelensky and his European allies has grown.

Whose side is the US on anyway?

The US under Donald Trump is no longer, and perhaps never has been, a dependable ally for Ukraine. What is worse, however, is that America has also ceased to be a dependable ally for Europe.

America’s new national security strategy, published last week, has exploded into this already precarious situation and has sent shockwaves across the whole of Europe. It casts the European Union as more of a threat to US interests than Russia.

It also threatens open interference in the domestic affairs of its erstwhile European allies. And crucially for Kyiv, it outlines a trajectory towards American disengagement from European security.

Read more:
What the US national security strategy tells us about how Trump views the world

This adds to Ukraine’s problems – not only because Washington cannot be seen as an honest broker in negotiations with Moscow. It also decreases the value of any western security guarantees. In the absence of a US backstop, the primarily European coalition of the willing lacks the capacity, for now, to establish credible deterrence against future Russian adventurism.

Efforts by the coalition of the willing cannot hide the fact that a fractured European Union whose key member states, like France and Germany, have fragile governments that are challenged by openly pro-Trump and pro-Putin populists, is unlikely to step quickly into the assurance gap left by the US. The twin challenge of investing in their own defensive capabilities while keeping Ukraine in the fight against Russia to buy the essential time needed to do so creates a profound dilemma.

Can Europe and Ukraine go it alone?

Without the US, Ukraine’s allies simply do not have the resources to enable Ukraine to even improve its negotiation position, let alone to win this war. In a worst-case scenario, all they may be able to accomplish is delaying a Ukrainian defeat.

But this may still be better than a peace deal that would require enormous resources for Ukraine’s reconstruction, while giving Russia an opportunity to regroup, rebuild and rearm for Putin’s next steps towards an even greater Russian sphere of influence in Europe.

At this moment, neither Zelensky nor his European allies can therefore have any interest in a peace deal negotiated between Trump and Putin.

A resignation by Zelensky or his government is unlikely to improve the situation. On the contrary, it is likely to add to Ukraine’s problems. Any new government would be subject to the most intense pressure to accept an imposed deal that Trump and Putin may be conspiring to strike.

Eventually, this war will end, and it will almost certainly require painful concessions from Ukraine. For Europe, the time until then needs to be used to develop a credible plan for stabilising Ukraine, deterring Russia and learning to live and survive without the transatlantic alliance.

The challenge for Europe is to do all three things simultaneously. The danger for Zelensky is that – for Europe – deterring Russia and appeasing the US become existential priorities in themselves and that he and Ukraine could end up as bargaining chips in a bigger game.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

Tetyana Malyarenko receives funding from the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and the Research Council of Norway (project WARPUT, 361835, implemented by Norwegian Institute of International Affairs).

– ref. New US national security strategy adds to Ukraine’s woes and exacerbates Europe’s dilemmas – https://theconversation.com/new-us-national-security-strategy-adds-to-ukraines-woes-and-exacerbates-europes-dilemmas-271556

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Precious Chatterje-Doody, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Studies, The Open University

On a recent visit to India, Vladimir Putin personally announced the launch of RT India, a new Kremlin-funded broadcaster. It is part of the established RT (formerly Russia Today) network. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, RT lost its license to broadcast in the UK, was banned in the EU and was forced to close in the US.

But the closure of RT’s western broadcast operations did not mark the end for the network. It has been using creative tactics to reach western audiences, including allegedly covertly funding Conservative influencers in the US.

As the launch of RT India shows, it has also been reorienting towards audiences further afield. Based on our prior research, we know how RT tailors its operations for different audiences, and how it adapts to changing political realities.

This means we can start to unpack where the launch of RT India falls within Russia’s broader information strategy, and what we can expect from it.

The first important point is that RT India didn’t come from nowhere. It’s part of Russia’s broader “turn to the south”. This approach has followed the steady deterioration of relations between Moscow and western capitals, especially since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

RT, for its part, has targeted non-western audiences for years. RT Arabic was launched in 2007, and RT en Español – highly active in Latin America – in 2009. Yet the partial loss of western markets after the invasion of Ukraine has led RT to redirect resources from its stable budget (31 billion rubles, or about £303 million in 2025) towards new target audiences.

Sub-Saharan Africa – a Russian priority since the late 2010s – is a notable example. Both RT’s French and English-language channels have substantially increased their Africa-focused content, and dozens of cooperation agreements have been signed with African media outlets. RT Brasil, RT’s Portuguese-language site, was launched in February 2023. The @RT_India_news account on X was created in September 2022, well before the launch of the RT India television channel.

RT has spent a lot of time, effort and money honing its craft. It knows how to package its content so that it doesn’t look like a Russian influence operation.

One common strategy is platforming presenters that the audience knows and trusts. For US audiences, this included Occupy’s Abby Martin and William Shatner of Star Trek fame.

In the UK, political personalities like ex-SNP leader the late Alex Salmond (who paused his show after the full-scale invasion) and politician and former Celebrity Big Brother contestant, George Galloway, who still frequently appears on RT. On RT India, it’s Bollywood star Anupam Kher and politician and author Shashi Tharoor.

Another key objective for RT is building a shared identity with the audience. For RT America and RT UK, this was by appealing to people who saw themselves as critical thinkers, prepared to challenge the untrustworthy “establishment”. For RT India, it’s a similar idea. But the untrustworthy “establishment” isn’t domestic, it’s global – and specifically, western.

West v the rest

Our ongoing research indicates that, as with the RT channels targeting audiences in places like Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, RT India revives Russia’s Soviet-era anti-colonial strategic narrative.

This rhetoric frames contemporary Russian foreign policy as a continuation of Soviet anti-imperialist engagement, and accuses the “collective west” of neocolonial intentions. It argues for strengthening ties across the so-called “world majority” of states that see themselves as disadvantaged in an international system that favours the “collective west”.

It ignores the privileges that Russia enjoys within this system (such as permanent UN Security Council membership and veto power), and advocates for a multipolar, “de-westernised” international order.

These narratives are reflected in RT India’s advertising campaigns. In late 2023 to early 2024, its first campaign featured billboards stating, “Why does the west still see India as a third-world country?” and, “They think you believe, we believe you think,” with images of 10 Downing Street and the White House in the background.

The 2025 launch campaign for the TV channel, displayed in airports, metro stations and along major roads in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, presented RT as “A new voice from an old friend”. Its bio on X describes it as, “Not anti-western … just not western,” reinforcing the “west v the rest” framing.

When it comes to the war in Ukraine, RT amplifies the narratives promoted by the Kremlin and ruling Russian elites. On RT India, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is routinely framed as a defensive “special operation” aimed at protecting Russian-speaking populations from what it calls the “Kiev regime”.

Western support for Ukraine is framed as neo-colonial warmongering. By tapping into ongoing social debates about the horrors of European colonialism, this alternative and misleading representation of the conflict becomes relatable.

It’s true that India has a history of friendly relations with Russia – and the Soviet Union before that. And the evils of European colonialism should not be denied. But Putin didn’t personally launch RT India just to make these points. What is more, the imperial nature of Russia’s relations with Ukraine is something that RT India certainly won’t acknowledge.

Now, as ever, the RT network is selectively representing the world to try and build support for the Kremlin’s international goals.

Precious Chatterje-Doody is PI for the ‘War and Order’ research project funded by UKRI Network Plus ‘Shifting Global Polarities: Russia, China, and Eurasia in Transition’.

Maxime Audinet is co-investigator for the ‘War and Order’ research project funded by UKRI Network Plus ‘Shifting Global Polarities: Russia, China, and Eurasia in Transition’”. His research conducted within the research chair on ‘Influence and Counter-Influence Strategies in the Digital Environment’ at INALCO is supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research

– ref. RT India: how the Kremlin is spreading its ‘west v the rest’ narrative to a global audience – https://theconversation.com/rt-india-how-the-kremlin-is-spreading-its-west-v-the-rest-narrative-to-a-global-audience-271416

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Helen Atherton, Professor of Primary Care Research, University of Southampton

There are more than 1.4 million appointments a day in general practice in England. Traditionally, patients booked by telephone, braving the “8am scramble”. However, a higher proportion of people are now contacting their GP surgery online than by phone, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics.

The UK government recently instructed GP surgeries to offer online consultations from 8am to 6.30pm every day. Online consultation allows patients to explain their problem online. The online forms are checked, and patients are then spoken to on the phone or invited in for an appointment if needed.

Different GP surgeries use different online consultation tools, so you might not use the same system as friends or family.

Using online consultation requires internet access and the ability to write about your problem. This is easy for some people, but more difficult for others. Research shows that people living in the most deprived areas are less likely to be aware of or use online GP services.

This “deprivation gradient” is worrying because those who are worst off often have the greatest health needs. We cannot be sure that the increase in contacts with GP surgeries means everyone who needs care is actually getting it.

When researchers have looked at who uses online consultation, it is most popular with women, younger people, those in employment and people with long-term conditions. Having used the GP website before and being a frequent internet user also increases the likelihood of using online services. These groups probably make up a large share of those counted by the Office for National Statistics.

Barriers

Some barriers are obvious – not having internet access or digital skills. A 2024 survey in the UK found that 38% of households struggled with digital skills and 17% lacked functional skills, such as having an email account. Other barriers are less obvious – patients are often confused by the different online options, and reception staff are not always able to guide them.

Introducing online consultation has meant big changes for GP surgeries in a short space of time. In the 2025 General Practice Patient Survey, just 51% of patients found it easy to contact their surgery via the website, and 49% via the NHS app. There is still a lot of work to make online consultation an inclusive option for everyone.

People want easier ways to see their doctor, and digital options can fit into busy routines. Now that online consultations are common, it’s important to understand who uses them and how they affect access to GPs. By looking at these patterns, we can help ensure online consultations improve access for everyone, rather than creating new barriers.

Helen Atherton receives funding from the NIHR.

Helen Atherton has collaborated with eConsult Ltd, a provider of online consultation software, who jointly fund a PhD studentship with the University of Warwick of which she is a PhD supervisor. The PhD is about how online consultation tools impact on clinical decision making. Helen has not worked for, consulted for or owned shares in eConsult and has not benefited financially from her association with them.

– ref. As online GP use overtakes phone calls, who’s being left behind? – https://theconversation.com/as-online-gp-use-overtakes-phone-calls-whos-being-left-behind-271260