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February 27, 2026

How the Seattle Seahawks’ sale will score a touchdown for charity 8 years after Paul Allen’s death

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Reid Kress Weisbord, Distinguished Professor of Law and Judge Norma Shapiro Scholar, Rutgers University – Newark

Paul Allen, wearing a gray jacket, salutes the crowd during a celebration of the Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl victory in 2014. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

When Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen died on Oct. 15, 2018, he left behind an estimated US$26 billion that he wanted to largely leave to charity.

Allen died at 65 of septic shock after a yearslong cancer battle. He’s back in the news because his estate is finally selling an asset that represents nearly a quarter of his fortune: the Seattle Seahawks football team, which he bought in 1997 for roughly $200 million.

The sale of the 2014 and 2026 Super Bowl champions could fetch more than $6.5 billion – a potentially record-breaking sum.

Allen never married and he had no children. His sister, businesswoman Jody Allen, is his estate’s trustee and executor. She’s now overseeing the Seahawks’ sale.

As law professors who study the transfer of property after death, we can explain why it often takes a long time for complex estates to settle following the death of ultrawealthy people.

Settling the estates of billionaires

When most people die, the distribution of any wealth they leave to their heirs or charitable causes can be relatively straightforward.

If all goes well, the process will take a few years at most. Homes, vehicles, bank accounts and retirement assets can usually be relatively quickly sold or transferred to members of the family or friends of the deceased.

When people hear that an estate is still being sorted out years after someone’s death, they often assume that big disputes have interfered with the settlement process.

Indeed, high-profile celebrity estates, including those that celebrity musicians such Prince and Aretha Franklin left behind, have been delayed by legal battles.

But delays are common even without conflicts, particularly when an estate is very large or complex.

Similar to sprawling empires

As you might imagine, billionaires’ estates are different. They tend to be more like sprawling business empires than what your beloved aunt left behind when she died. Multibillion-dollar estates usually take many years to unwind because they involve complex assets that are hard to assess and sell.

Some of Allen’s holdings, for example, were patents, which often complicate estate administration because intellectual property rights can be difficult to value for tax purposes.

Although the contents of Allen’s will were made public in 2018, the specifics of his estate plan remain confidential.

That’s because he used a private family office to manage his wealth – and he left all of his property owned at death to a private trust.

The specific terms of that trust aren’t publicly known, but his family foundation continues to support charitable causes tied to the arts, the environment and the engagement of young people in civic life.

An ecstatic woman holds a shiny trophy aloft while a man behind her pumps his fist into the air. — Jody Allen, the sister of the Seattle Seahawks’ late owner Paul Allen, lifts the Vince Lombardi Trophy as she celebrates with head coach Mike Macdonald after the Seattle Seahawks won their second Super Bowl in 2026.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

Unwinding unusual assets

Sports teams, while clearly valuable, are infrequently sold. That makes them some of the hardest assets to get rid of after an owner’s death.

Jody Allen, as her brother’s executor and trustee, has a legal obligation to sell the team for as much money as possible, which requires careful timing and good business judgment when appraising the asset’s fair market value.

She managed the sale of another sports franchise Allen owned, the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, in 2025. The reportedly $4.25 billion deal brought the estate revenue that’s also slated for charity. The timing of the Seahawks’ pending sale – shortly after their latest Super Bowl win – is most likely intended to maximize the amount of money the estate will collect from the eventual buyer.

But some of the National Football League’s rules can complicate a team’s sale.

Other team owners and league officials, for example, must approve any change of ownership. Approval requires the support of more than three-quarters of the league’s other owners.

The NFL also requires all teams to submit a succession plan that explains what will happen if their owner dies to reduce the chance of any disruption that could arise from uncertainty of ownership.

Bulking up his endowment

Once the sale does go through, the money could end up in the foundation Paul Allen co-founded.

Allen donated more than $2 billion during his lifetime to support a wide range of causes primarily tied to medical research, education, the arts and the environment.

Like many ultrawealthy donors, he gave through his own foundation, now called Allen Family Philanthropies.

Six years after his death, it had a roughly $1.4 billion endowment and made more than $62 million in grants annually. Jody Allen, who co-founded Allen Family Philanthropies with her late brother, serves as its board chair and president.

The sale of the Trail Blazers, like the upcoming sale of the Seattle Seahawks, may make his foundation far bigger – leading to even more charitable gifts for years to come.

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

– ref. How the Seattle Seahawks’ sale will score a touchdown for charity 8 years after Paul Allen’s death – https://theconversation.com/how-the-seattle-seahawks-sale-will-score-a-touchdown-for-charity-8-years-after-paul-allens-death-276577

February 27, 2026

Drug company ads are easy to blame for misleading patients and raising costs, but research shows they do help patients get needed treatment

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Anna Chorniy, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Institute for Humane Studies

The United States is one of just two countries where drugmakers can advertise directly to patients. BrianAJackson/iStock via Getty Images

It’s a familiar experience for many Americans: You’re watching your favorite show and suddenly you’re ambushed by an ad for a drug whose name sounds like a Wi-Fi password, before a relentlessly cheerful voice tells you to “Ask your doctor” and then blasts through a side-effect list that’s laughably long.

But that might soon change. After nearly 30 years of giving pharmaceutical companies free rein to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers, U.S. officials are now seeking to curb this practice.

Soon after his appointment in 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated that he believes direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs has contributed to overmedication and inflated health care costs, and that stronger oversight is long overdue. Meanwhile, politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for banning direct-to-consumer drug ads outright – though the Food and Drug Administration has so far focused on restricting “digital” loopholes and enforcing the laws about advertisement.

As a health economist who studies how health care policies shape decisions made by doctors and patients, I agree that the practice can steer patients toward heavily marketed brands instead of the most appropriate treatment.

But the research on how such advertising affects patients is more nuanced. Many rigorous studies show that these ads can benefit patients’ health by encouraging them to seek lifesaving treatment for conditions such as depression and heart disease and sparking conversations with their doctors. In my view, within the realities of the U.S. health care system, getting rid of direct-to-consumer drug advertising may do more harm than good.

The origins of US prescription drug advertising

Only two countries – the U.S. and New Zealand – allow drug companies to advertise prescription medications directly to the public. Elsewhere, this practice is banned out of concern that short ads cannot adequately explain medical risks and that prescribing decisions should remain under physicians’ control.

And for good reason: Research on risk statements in drug ads on television shows they are often dense, fast-paced and paired with distracting visuals, making them difficult for consumers to understand.

In the European Union, Canada and Japan, for example, manufacturers may run disease awareness campaigns but cannot name specific products.

The U.S. approach to regulating drug advertising evolved gradually over more than a century. Congress’ 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act was the first major federal step in drug oversight. It required manufacturers to label their products accurately and to disclose the presence of key ingredients.

An old-fashioned illustration of a herald arriving on horseback to a pharmacy to promote Carter's Little Liver Pills — An early 20th-century advertisement for a cure-all medicine called Carter’s Little Liver Pills, made by a Pennsylvania company. In 1959 the Federal Trade Commission made the company take ‘liver’ out of the name.
Wellcome Collection, CC BY

For decades, pharmaceutical marketing focused on physicians by advertising in medical journals, visits by sales representatives and providing free samples. Drug companies still market heavily to physicians, but FDA policies and television changed the calculus.

By the 1960s and ’70s, the reach of mass media prompted companies to communicate complex medical information in brief commercial formats. The 1962 Kefauver–Harris Amendments, which required drugmakers to prove their products were both safe and effective to receive FDA approval, also gave the FDA explicit authority over prescription drug advertising. This allowed the agency to police exaggerated claims and require that promotional materials present a fair balance of benefits and risks, including clear disclosure of known side effects.

In the 1980s, several pharmaceutical companies experimented with marketing drugs directly to consumers in magazines and newspapers. The FDA paused these efforts in 1985 to study their effects but later allowed them to resume.

An opening for television ads

The pivotal change came in 1997, when the agency issued draft guidance that television ads needed to present only major risk information and could direct viewers elsewhere – via phone lines, print materials or websites – for the full details.

Reliable, up-to-date figures are hard to come by, but according to a widely cited estimate, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry now spends more than US$6 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising, roughly twice the amount spent in 2012.

In September 2025, the FDA announced it would revoke this change, restoring pre-1997 standards for fuller disclosure, and would more aggressively enforce currently existing rules for direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Despite growing interest from policymakers and Congress to ban them outright, a total ban likely would not survive a Supreme Court challenge.

How direct-to-consumer ads affect patients

Studies show direct-to-consumer drug advertising increases demand for medications and prompts more doctor visits and diagnoses. Policymakers and the FDA specifically have raised concerns that these ads mislead patients, encouraging them to overuse or inappropriately use drugs and choose more expensive treatments over less costly alternatives. This, in addition, could raise drug prices and result in wasteful spending. But research convincingly demonstrating this has been difficult to come by.

For example, a 2023 analysis showed that drug companies spend more on advertising drugs that have been rated as having relatively lower clinical benefit than on drugs that offer higher clinical benefit. This may imply, according to the authors, that drug companies are trying to steer patients to drugs that physicians would be less likely to prescribe.

Interestingly, though, rigorous research showed that direct-to-consumer advertising increases prescribing of both advertised and nonadvertised drugs – suggesting that overall this increase is serving patients.

U.S. health officials are moving to restrict direct-to-consumer drug advertising.

Demonstrated benefits

For all the criticism that these ads are deceptive, the evidence indicates they can generate substantial clinical benefits for patients.

Research finds that ads bring patients into care, while leaving prescribing decisions largely in physicians’ hands, resulting in more patients being diagnosed and treated. For example, according to a 2022 study on antidepressants, advertising encouraged more people to start treatment and expanded overall use, especially for underdiagnosed conditions.

During the 2008 election season, political ads displaced drug commercials, providing a natural experiment on the effects of direct-to-consumer drug advertising. One study probed that period to examine ads for cholesterol-lowering medications known as statins, which are some of the most widely prescribed medications in the U.S. It found that removing drug ads reduced sales.

That study also ran a simulation banning drug ads entirely to show that doing so would have reduced new statin users by about 600,000 in 2008. Combining their estimates with clinical evidence on the drug’s benefits, the researchers found that health gains from additional treatment outweighed the costs of advertising.

Another study took advantage of the rollout of Medicare Part D, which helps cover the cost of prescription drugs, as a natural experiment. After Part D expanded drug coverage, pharmaceutical advertising increased more in areas with larger Medicare populations. In those areas, researchers found that more patients began treatment and stuck with it.

Importantly, the number of prescriptions also rose for nonadvertised drugs, including lower-cost generics, suggesting that advertising expanded overall treatment rather than simply shifting patients to heavily promoted brands.

It’s easy to single out pharmaceutical ads aimed at patients, but they are only one piece of a complex health care system – one in which drug manufacturers, providers, insurers and pharmacies all have financial incentives that shape which medications patients can access.

For example, drug company marketing directly to physicians does skew prescribing, increasing drug costs, with little evidence that patients receive better or more appropriate treatment as a result. Yet in the absence of direct-to-consumer advertising, patients’ choices of medications would be more heavily controlled by that dynamic.

The challenge for policymakers will be to curb misleading promotion without cutting off patients’ access to reliable information or undermining their role in directing their own care – and that will likely require addressing broader issues in the health care system.

Anna Chorniy 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.

– ref. Drug company ads are easy to blame for misleading patients and raising costs, but research shows they do help patients get needed treatment – https://theconversation.com/drug-company-ads-are-easy-to-blame-for-misleading-patients-and-raising-costs-but-research-shows-they-do-help-patients-get-needed-treatment-265724

February 27, 2026

There aren’t enough geriatricians – here’s how older adults can still get the right care

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jerry Gurwitz, Professor of Geriatrics, UMass Chan Medical School

Geriatricians are trained to look beyond individual illnesses that older adults may face, and instead to look at the bigger picture of aging. MoMo Productions/DigitalVision via Getty Images

More than 70 million baby boomers – those born between 1946 and 1964 – are alive today. In 2026, the oldest of them are turning 80.

With longer lives often comes more complicated health needs: multiple chronic conditions, long lists of medications, balance problems that can increase the risk of falls, and changes in memory. Many older adults also begin relying more on spouses, children or other family members to help manage medical decisions.

Ideally, health care in later life should go beyond just treating individual diseases and medical conditions. It should aim to help older people maintain health, independence and optimal quality of life for as long as possible.

Doctors and nurse practitioners trained in geriatrics specialize in doing exactly that. As a geriatrician for nearly four decades, I’ve seen how the right care for older people can prevent falls, reduce risk of medication side effects and help patients make medical decisions that reflect their goals and wishes.

The problem? There just aren’t enough of us. Finding a health care provider with expertise in geriatrics can be extraordinarily difficult. But there’s good news: You can use a few simple strategies that geriatricians rely on to have more productive conversations with your or your family member’s doctor.

A whole-person approach to aging

Geriatricians are trained to see the bigger picture of aging. They don’t just treat individual diseases – they also focus on preserving independence, function and safety. That includes addressing memory changes, balance problems, complex medication regimens and the difficult trade-offs that often come with complicated medical decisions.

Older adult couple speaking with a doctor — New symptoms in older adults should not just be blamed on aging.
Morsa Images/E+ via Getty Images

A geriatrician can help patients and their families weigh whether a test or procedure will truly improve their patient’s life. Specialists in geriatrics know that most falls have multiple causes – and that practical steps like reviewing medications or improving home safety can prevent the next one.

They also recognize that in older adults, new symptoms should not be blamed simply on aging. Sometimes they can be due to drug side effects. For example, stopping certain sleep medications can reduce confusion and daytime drowsiness, and limiting or avoiding use of opioids for pain relief can prevent debilitating constipation.

Unfortunately, geriatrics is a specialty with a dearth of providers. Nationally, there are fewer than 12 geriatric physicians and 10 geriatric nurse practitioners per 100,000 older Americans. In many rural areas, there are none. And the shortage is unlikely to improve anytime soon. That’s because medical students and advanced practice nurses rarely choose to specialize in geriatrics, and many medical schools provide no formal training in the care of older adults.

This means most older adults will be cared for by clinicians without specialized geriatric training. But older patients and families can still steer care in the right direction by using a straightforward framework geriatricians follow called the “5Ms.”

A geriatrician’s framework

This mnemonic captures the core principles of optimal geriatric care. The letters stand for mind, mobility, medications, multicomplexity and matters most. The importance of each of these essentials of care for older adults may seem obvious, but it’s amazing how often they are overlooked when doctors without training in geriatrics take care of their older patients. Here’s how you can think about them in speaking with your doctor:

Mind: About 10% of adults age 65 and older have dementia, and another 22% have mild cognitive impairment. If you’ve noticed changes in your memory – forgetting appointments or conversations, forgetting to take medications, struggling with bills or relying more on family for help with tasks you once handled easily – bring it to your doctor’s attention. These concerns don’t always surface unless you mention them. When doctors know about memory problems, they can check for treatable causes, adjust medications or recommend further evaluation and lifestyle changes that may be of benefit.

Aging well means maintaining health, independence and optimal quality of life for as long as possible.

Mobility: Each year, about a third of older adults report at least one fall, and 1 in 10 suffer a fall-related injury. Make sure to tell your health care provider if you have fallen, feel unsteady when standing or walking, or if you worry about falling. Request advice about how you can improve strength, flexibility and balance to reduce the risk of falls and serious injury.

Medications: Four out of every 10 Americans age 65 and older take five or more different medications every day, and 1 in 10 take 10 or more. Any new symptom in an older person could be due to a drug side effect of their medication. So don’t be afraid to ask whether every medication you are taking is absolutely necessary, or whether a new symptom you are experiencing might be a side effect. If you see multiple health care providers who each prescribe medications to you, ask for a comprehensive review of your medications to make certain that nothing is being missed and all your drugs and dosages are appropriate.

Multicomplexity: About 75% of older adults live with two or more chronic medical conditions. When you are followed by several specialists – who limit their focus to a single disease – your care can become fragmented. That often means long medication lists, frequent tests and recommendations that don’t always fit together. A whole-person approach looks at how everything connects. You and your family can help by asking your primary health care provider to step back and review the full picture – all medications, all specialists and any upcoming tests – and help coordinate a clear, organized plan that is best for you.

Matters most: Asking yourself to pin down what matters most to you is a simple but powerful way to help your doctors understand what to prioritize in thinking through your care. With that information, your doctor can look beyond focusing on any one disease or condition and instead work with you to support your personal goals for a good old age. Maybe it’s being able to walk to the mailbox without falling. Or staying in your own home for as long as possible. Or avoiding medications that make you sleepy or confused. Or staying out of hospitals and emergency rooms. Whatever it is, it’s important to have your health care provider focus on your own priorities.

Aging well is not about having more doctor’s appointments or medical tests, nor is it about taking more medications. It’s about getting the kind of health care that will maintain function, independence and quality of life into old age. You may not be able to find a geriatrician, but you can definitely help your doctor better understand the care that’s right for you or your loved one.

Jerry Gurwitz receives funding from the National Institute on Aging. He serves as a paid consultant to United Healthcare.

– ref. There aren’t enough geriatricians – here’s how older adults can still get the right care – https://theconversation.com/there-arent-enough-geriatricians-heres-how-older-adults-can-still-get-the-right-care-269789

February 27, 2026

I’m a linguist with Tourette’s – here’s what I want people to understand after Baftas controversy

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amanda Cole, Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics, University of Cambridge

I am a sociolinguist who specialises in how language is understood and interpreted in society. I also have Tourette syndrome. Tourette’s is a genetically determined neurological condition in which a person produces both motor and vocal tics (movements and sounds), and in most cases occurs with conditions such as autism, OCD, ADHD and sensory processing difficulties.

I am typically very private about my condition, but I feel compelled to write about it following events at the 2026 Baftas ceremony, where Tourette’s advocate John Davidson produced several offensive tics, including the N-word which was aired in error in the BBC coverage. I do not pretend for one moment to be able to fully understand how traumatising and deeply upsetting hearing such language must be for black people.

But the misinformed views circulating online suggesting that Davidson must be a racist deep down, or that his tic was akin to a Freudian slip are fundamental misunderstandings about Tourette’s that need to be addressed.

Davidson has coprolalia, a particularly distressing type of Tourette’s that affects between 10% and 20% people with the condition. Coprolalic tics are when a person says offensive or obscene things. They are deeply upsetting for the person who produces them and they are not intentional. Often, the tic is the very worst thing that they could possibly say in any given situation, and the opposite of what they truly believe.

Davidson has said that his tics “have always been so aggressive that I have no idea when they are coming or what they will be”.

Many people do not know that I have Tourette’s. I can often suppress my tics, or they are subtle enough to fly under the radar. But suppressing tics requires a great deal of concentration, and I often feel itchy and uncomfortable. Tic suppression is not always possible and women tend to be able to mask their tics to a greater degree than men.

Even when a person can suppress a tic, they can only be held off for so long. The length of time differs from person to person and moment to moment. Whenever I get home after being around people other than my family, I am often overwhelmed by tics.

Meaning and intention

When we hear speech, our brains work quickly to make sense of its meaning. This includes both the literal meaning and the intention behind it. This is referred to as Gricean implicatures. A classic example is if a person says, “the window is open”, they might not just be stating a fact: they may be telling you that they are cold and would like you to shut the window.

Tics are very different to language. Vocal tics can have literal meaning, but there is typically no intention behind them. The words and phrases that a person produces are no more meaningful than grunts, coughs, sniffs or whistles which are also very common vocal tics. They are a neurological event.

In my own household – the only place I really feel safe to tic – we continually (and quite successfully and often tacitly) discriminate between the things I say which I mean, and those which are a tic and should be entirely disregarded. Sometimes this is straightforward, such as when I say “good night” at seven in the morning. Other times it is more complicated. My tics include saying my husband’s or my son’s names aloud, but I am not addressing them and they do not need to respond.

However, words can still be hurtful even if they are not said with an intent to hurt. I am in no way suggesting that it is wrong to feel deeply upset or offended by coprolalic tics. It has been well established that the way the Baftas and BBC managed Davidson’s tics let down both black people and people with Tourette’s. But I hope that a greater understanding of Tourette’s and that tics do not reflect a person’s beliefs or character can inform discussions about how we view offensive tics.

Tourette’s can be an incredibly difficult condition to live with. A reported 87% of adults living with Tourette’s experience physical pain because of their tics, 72% have considered suicide at some point in their lives and 60% believe their tics have prevented them from fulfilling their fullest potential.

I thought that vocal tics would ruin my life and any potential future career. The first tics I developed as a teenager were motor tics. I was terrified that I would develop vocal tics – which I did.

I have since established myself in a career I love, and yet I ask myself: would I have got here if I could not suppress my tics as successfully as I can? Or if what I said was vulgar or offensive rather than harmless and sometimes humorous? Sadly, I think the answer is no.

We have a duty as society to support people with Tourette’s to realise their potential. People with Tourette’s may need specific adaptions, but we also have a lot to offer. A range of research has found some extraordinary skills in people with Tourette’s such as being creative, articulate, quick-thinking, empathetic and having exceptional focus and problem solving.

I wish I could tell my younger self – sick with worry and feeling that Tourette’s was a curse I couldn’t escape – that sometimes Tourette’s is my greatest strength.

Amanda Cole 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’m a linguist with Tourette’s – here’s what I want people to understand after Baftas controversy – https://theconversation.com/im-a-linguist-with-tourettes-heres-what-i-want-people-to-understand-after-baftas-controversy-276915

February 27, 2026

Victory in Gorton and Denton is historic for the Greens – and cataclysmic for Britain’s two-party politics

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Tonge, Professor of Politics, University of Liverpool

The Green party’s dramatic capture of Gorton and Denton, supposedly one of Labour’s safest parliamentary constituencies, offers yet more evidence of the fragmentation of British politics.

The Green candidate, 34-year-old plumber Hannah Spencer, won 40.69% of the vote, a notable 12 points ahead of Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin (28.73%). Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia came third, with 25.44% of the vote.

In terms of size of majority toppled, this was the sixth-worst byelection defeat ever for Labour. Gorton had been Labour for more than 90 years. In what is now Greater Manchester, Labour has had to defend 20 seats at byelections since the second world war, and has been successful in 16 cases.

Although Labour might dismiss a byelection defeat as a mid-term blip, this is a government which has failed to enjoy a honeymoon period, led by a prime minister who has plumbed new depths in popularity ratings. It is also worth noting that turnout on Thursday was identical to that at the general election.

For Keir Starmer, it was a truly awful result. But Labour really lost this byelection over a month ago, when its national executive committee (NEC) blocked the candidature of Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and believed by many to be the one person who might have held the seat for the party.

Starmer spoke against Burnham standing and his view held sway at that NEC meeting by eight votes to one. The one vote in favour of Burnham standing came from a Manchester MP, Lucy Powell, who was elected Labour’s deputy leader last year after being mysteriously sacked from the cabinet by Starmer.

The prime minister had good reasons for his stance. An early exit by Burnham from the mayoralty would trigger a difficult byelection across the region. But the overarching reason for blockage appeared to be Starmer’s personal political security.

Popular among Labour members and perhaps the one rival to Starmer around which the parliamentary party could coalesce, Burnham might have offered a potential leadership challenge. He is also highly popular in Greater Manchester, averaging two-thirds of the vote in the three mayoralty contests he has fought. The newly elected Green MP Spencer trailed Burnham by a huge 375,000 votes in the most recent mayoral election in 2024.

Clearly, this poor result increases the pressure on the prime minister, but two things remain in his favour. First, Labour MPs may find it difficult to unite behind a clear challenger. Entry barriers are high; 80 MPs need to support the person prepared to raise their head above the parapet. Second, the economy is showing signs of improvement, which might eventually stem the flow to the Greens on the left. On the right, the exodus towards Reform may be slowed by the decline in net migration.

Yet things will get worse before they might get better for Labour. The Scottish parliament, Welsh senedd and English local elections are a mere 69 days away, and offer a bleak vista of large seat losses. Labour’s control of the senedd seems sure to end and the party has to defend the bulk of council seats being contested.

The end of two-party politics?

The Gorton and Denton result confirmed the death of old loyalties in British politics. Given the existence of four-party politics in Scotland and Wales and the electoral significance of the Liberal Democrats in England, the two-party duopoly has long been gone, perhaps never to return. Politics has never been as fragmented across parties.

For the first time in England, Labour finds itself challenged by a significant party of the left, while Reform on the right challenges both Labour and the Conservatives.

That the right vote is splintered offers some succour to Labour. An even split between Reform and the Conservatives could allow Labour to win again at the next general election, with an even more pitifully low percentage share of the vote than the one in 2024 which nonetheless yielded two-thirds of the Westminster seats.

This fragmentation may widen voter choice, but not all is healthy. This was at times a toxic byelection. The Greens argued it was possible to be jointly concerned with Gaza and Gorton. They were, however, accused of sectarianism, for example by by issuing Urdu-language leaflets and a campaign video showing Starmer greeting the Indian prime minister, Hindu nationalist Modi, to appeal to Muslim voters.

Reform, on the other hand, has been accused of racism in targeting the white vote and showing scant regard for the large Muslim minority within the constituency. Its candidate, former academic Matt Goodwin, was already controversial for his views questioning whether non-white people born in the UK could be classed as British.

Meanwhile, the first-past-the-post voting system struggles to deal with the reality of modern multiparty politics, with abject disproportionality between vote shares and levels of representation. But that fragmentation increasingly seems permanent.

Jonathan Tonge 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. Victory in Gorton and Denton is historic for the Greens – and cataclysmic for Britain’s two-party politics – https://theconversation.com/victory-in-gorton-and-denton-is-historic-for-the-greens-and-cataclysmic-for-britains-two-party-politics-277001

February 27, 2026

Tracey Emin: A Second Life – Tate Modern’s must-see retrospective explores trauma and transcendence

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pippa Catterall, Professor of History and Policy, University of Westminster

The most powerful art speaks of and to the emotions. It tackles trauma and cathartically helps us to cope with it. It acknowledges pain, suffering and betrayal. It goes beyond an aestheticised veneer to raw emotion. It seeks to touch not just the eyes, but the soul.

The major retrospective of Tracey Emin’s career at London’s Tate Modern does just that, and features her most significant surviving works. It also reflects her characteristic subjects, techniques, materials and approaches.

The monumental bronze I Followed You to the End (2024), displayed on the approach to the Tate, is a foretaste of the anguished bodies in the statues within. These and the agonised black lines, floods of blood-red and bleak white backgrounds of paintings like Rape (2018) graphically engage with such traumatic experiences.

Emin made her name in the 1990s through dramatic installations and art that unflinchingly confronted the visceral realities of women’s bodies. These used her own body and experiences to create artworks that connected emotionally as raw cries of anguish. Or of lost innocence.

The latter comes out particularly in her short film Why I Never Became a Dancer (1995), deliberately placed near the start of the exhibition. In this, affectionate shots of Emin’s childhood hometown of Margate jarringly contrast with her narration of sexual abuse and misogyny.

This voiceover reflects Emin’s talent for pithy, poignant and allusive language. Appliqued into quilts such as Mad Tracey from Margate. Everyone’s Been There (1997), or expressed in the emotionally charged titles of artworks and neon signs, Emin’s words – as well as her body – confront her trauma.

Some of these works do so by foregrounding love, desire, longing, betrayal and abuse. Others resist the silence and stigma that have for so long shrouded women’s bodily functions.

The exploration of the soul

Throughout the exhibition, Emin’s work is deeply personal. Yet, by centring her own experience, Emin also humanises and universalises it. You don’t have to have had an abortion, or even be a woman, to respond emotionally to a work like The Last of the Gold (2002), publicly exhibited here for the first time.

Similarly, her textual contributions universalise the experiences of victimhood. Her handwritten memoir, Exploration of the Soul (1994), for example, movingly conveys a child’s attempt to understand the cruelty of unspoken racism.

Despite the trauma, throughout there’s an indomitable sense of defiance. Sewn into the quilt No Chance (WHAT A YEAR) (1999) a small text responds to her rapists pointing abusively at her: “I was only 13 and even then I knew they were pointing the wrong way.” In the same way, Why I Never Became a Dancer ends with Emin defiantly showing us her moves.

This combination of vulnerability and strength gives Emin’s work its emotional richness. This also comes out in her determination to document the trauma of her cancer. In works that take on the taboos around this disease, Emin depicts the procedures that our society squeamishly hides away in hospitals and the impact that these have had upon her body.

Of course, one of the most celebrated of her works does not directly feature her body but its absence. Yet My Bed (1998) is still a self-portrait of the traces of her life. Alongside the dishevelled bed and assorted detritus on and around it, what really struck me, seeing it for the first time, were the adjacent suitcases, packed and ready and the layered stories wordlessly conveyed in this installation. My Bed may on one level be an extended metaphor for struggling with depression, but the suitcases also speak of the will to escape.

Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made (1996) is another even larger installation dealing with depression. It takes up an entire room in this exhibition. During pregnancy and in the aftermath of her abortions, Emin found it impossible to paint. The text behind the box containing this installation states: “I hated my body … I was suffering from guilt and punishing myself so I threw myself in a box and gave myself three and a half weeks to sort it out. And I did.”

The result is an insight into the artist’s studio as well as their body and mind. It reminded me of the installation of Francis Bacon’s studio in Dublin. Emin has cited the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch as a major influence, even holding an exhibition of her own work alongside that of Munch entitled The Loneliness of the Soul at the Royal Academy in 2021. Yet, to me, the comparisons with Bacon are more striking, both in the subject matters of sex and trauma and in the solemnity of their larger canvases.

This was particularly marked in the final room. Throughout the exhibition the walls are painted a petrol blue, the same shade that Bacon used for oppressive interiors such as Man at a Washbasin (1954). This, combined with subdued lighting, produces a womb-like atmosphere. The intimacy this creates both heightens the emotional connection and impact on the viewer and shows Emin’s work to best effect.

It might seem odd to create such an ambience when so many of the artworks deal with trauma. Yet, although Emin observes what is happening to her body, literally in the case of I Watched Myself Die and Come Alive (2023) that fills the final wall of the final room, her art also has a detached, transcendent quality.

The spiritual atmosphere of that final room, with identically sized canvasses hung along it like altarpieces – including one of The Crucifixion (2022) – speaks through the spectral traces of bodies in the artworks more of the soul than the body, less of trauma than of the transcendence of pain.

Tracey Emin: A Second Life is at the Tate Modern from February 27 2026 to August 31 2026.

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Pippa Catterall 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. Tracey Emin: A Second Life – Tate Modern’s must-see retrospective explores trauma and transcendence – https://theconversation.com/tracey-emin-a-second-life-tate-moderns-must-see-retrospective-explores-trauma-and-transcendence-277014

February 27, 2026

Atmospheric dust: the overlooked suspect in urban air pollution

Source: The Conversation – France – By Emmanouil Proestakis, National Observatory of Athens

Cities are rapidly becoming the defining residential space of human life. Over 55% of the global population lived in urban areas in 2018, a proportion projected to reach nearly 68% by 2050, according to the United Nations (UN).

While this unprecedented urban growth fuels innovation and economic activity, it simultaneously concentrates human exposure to environmental stressors and intensifies urban environmental pressures. In this context, the World Health Organization (WHO) has underlined the multifaceted challenges and severe risks that poor air quality poses to socioeconomic activities and human health. And although emissions – such as NO₂, SO₂, CO₂ and O₃ – are the usual suspects when it comes to air quality degradation, our recent study highlights that atmospheric dust that accumulates over urban areas represents an additional and considerable, yet frequently overlooked, contributor to adverse health implications.

Mineral dust’s impact on Public health deserves more attention

Among the aerosol species contributing to air quality degradation, atmospheric dust originating from natural sources and anthropogenic activities is often considered less consequential. However, this assumption overlooks a growing body of research evidence reporting on airborne dust as a health hazard and neglects several important facts.

To begin with, dust is not a marginal component of the total aerosol load. By mass, dust is the second-most abundant aerosol type globally, surpassed only by sea-salt particles, and the dominant component of the atmospheric aerosol load over large continental areas.

More specifically, it has been estimated that natural sources – mainly arid and semi-arid areas – emit around 4,680 teragrams (Tg) (1 Tg= 1 billion kilograms) of dust into the atmosphere each year. Yet, this estimate does not account for all the dust present in the atmosphere.

Globally, natural processes contribute to approximately three quarters of the total dust load, with the remaining quarter linked to human activities frequently evolving around urban and highly industrialised areas, including transportation, infrastructure development, land-use change, deforestation, grazing and agricultural practices.

To put this into perspective, this staggering airborne dust mass exceeds 615,000 times the equivalent weight of the Eiffel tower released globally into the atmosphere each year.

Furthermore, these particles composing the atmospheric dust layers are far from uniform in size. Large-scale experiments, (designed to study atmospheric pollutants in detail) focusing on mineral dust and employing airborne in situ instrumentation have revealed that particles in wind-transported atmospheric layers range widely in size, from less than 0.1 μm (roughly the size of a SARS-CoV-2 virus (coronavirus) to more than 100 μm (approximately the diameter of a human hair).

More concerning is that accumulated evidence from epidemiological studies links airborne dust to multiple adverse health outcomes. While coarse mineral dust is often considered relatively harmless, typically causing minor skin irritation or allergic reactions even over long exposure periods, it is a completely different story when it comes to fine particles. Because of their small size, these fine particles allow for deep lung penetration that potentially triggers respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, allergic reactions, even cancer. Beyond these direct effects, scientists are still exploring the role of dust as a carrier for bacteria, as suggested by meningitis outbreaks in the Sahel desert.

Fine particles, big questions

These concerns naturally raise a series of questions: to what extent have the fine-mode and coarse-mode fractions of airborne dust changed over highly industrialised and densely populated urban areas in the past two decades?

Can we detect meaningful, increasing or decreasing temporal trends in these changes? Which major cities currently experience, or are likely to experience in the near future, dust concentrations exceeding WHO air quality safety thresholds?

Megacities under the microscope: 15 years of satellite observations reveal how dust levels are changing

To gain a better understanding of how much dust urban populations are actually breathing in, our recent study examined satellite-based Earth observations spanning over 15 years. We examined the accumulation and temporal dynamics of dust in the lowest atmospheric layer above the Earth’s surface in 81 of the world’s largest cities and urban areas (with populations exceeding 5 million), where human activity and exposure are most prevalent.
The results reveal several important takeaways:

Atmospheric dust unequivocally poses a hazard to public health in a substantial number of major urban areas worldwide. Based on population data and projections provided by the UN approximately 9 out of 10 of the roughly 800 million people living in the 81 largest cities are exposed to dust levels exceeding annual-mean air quality safety thresholds. A clear geographic pattern emerges, with the most affected urban areas located in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, East Asia, and the Sahel.
Dust levels appear to be declining in most large cities. However, this encouraging, seemingly positive news comes with two important caveats: in many cases, the temporal declining trends are not statistically significant and frequently the overall dust burdens remain considerable. In other words, even where reductions are observed, they may not translate into meaningful reductions in health risk.
Looking ahead to the near future, the challenge is unlikely to disappear. According to estimates provided by UN, urban populations in these megacities are projected to grow, reaching more than 1 billion people in the mid-thirties.

Consequently, atmospheric dust will remain an environmental health hazard, however, of a lower degree due to the apparent declining atmospheric load compared to present-day conditions, yet potentially affecting a larger number of individuals.

From science to policy: tackling the hazard of airborne dust

In response to mounting scientific evidence that airborne dust poses a risk to human health, countries are strengthening air quality legislation and launching national and international initiatives to confront dust-related challenges.

Efforts such as the World Meteorological Organization’s SDS-WAS, DANA and CAMS NCP among others, reflect growing collaboration to improve monitoring, modelling, and the translation of science into practical solutions. At the same time, governments are moving to align regulations with WHO recommendations.

For instance, the European Union’s revised Ambient Air Quality Directive explicitly recognises natural aerosols like dust as a cumulative health hazard. Together, advancing research, coordinated policy, and improved regulation provide a stronger foundation for action.

As urbanisation accelerates, tackling air quality, including atmospheric dust, is becoming central to protecting public health, strengthening urban resilience, and ensuring a more sustainable future for the world’s rapidly growing cities.

Created in 2007 to help accelerate and share scientific knowledge on key societal issues, the Axa Research Fund – now part of the Axa Foundation for Human Progress – has supported over 750 projects around the world on key environmental, health & socioeconomic risks. To learn more, visit the website of the AXA Research Fund or follow @ AXAResearchFund on LinkedIn.

A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!

Emmanouil Proestakis has been supported by the AXA Research Fund for postdoctoral researchers under the project entitled “Earth Observation for Air-Quality – Dust Fine-Mode (EO4AQ-DustFM).

– ref. Atmospheric dust: the overlooked suspect in urban air pollution – https://theconversation.com/atmospheric-dust-the-overlooked-suspect-in-urban-air-pollution-276422

February 27, 2026

How China is betting cheap AI will get the world hooked on its tech

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nicholas Morieson, Research Fellow, Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at a very Chinese time in its life. Recent moves from Chinese AI labs are throwing the dominance of American “frontier labs” such as Google and OpenAI into question.

Last week ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, released an AI video-generating tool called Seedance 2.0 which produces high-quality film-like clips from text prompts, with a casual disregard for copyright concerns. This week Anthropic, the US company behind the chatbot Claude, said three Chinese AI labs created thousands of fake accounts to harvest Claude’s answers in a practice called “distillation” which can be used to improve AI models.

These events have led to suggestions that China may be gaining the upper hand in the battle to dominate AI. So, is China winning the “AI race”?

Cheap, widely used tools

While most advanced frontier models are still made by American companies, China is pushing hard to develop cheap, widely used AI tools, which could create global dependence on Chinese platforms.

Reuters reports the industry is bracing for a “flurry” of low-cost Chinese AI models, with Chinese systems repeatedly driving usage costs down.

What’s the plan? China’s official AI policy documents suggest China sees AI as “a new engine for building China into both a manufacturing and cyber superpower”, and “a new engine of economic development”.

Since 2017, China has recognised that the technology is at the centre of “international competition”. “By 2030,” one key policy document says, China’s AI “technology and application should achieve world-leading levels, making China the world’s primary AI innovation center”.

This focus on becoming the dominant player in AI helps explain why Chinese firms are pushing hard on price. If you can make your AI cheap enough, you might just make it globally ubiquitous.

Cost helps determine who adopts AI first, and which models are first implemented in software and services. Even if the United States remains ahead on most elite benchmarks, Chinese products could still become globally influential if they are widely used and widely depended upon.

High-tech soft power

But China does not present its AI technology to the world as only benefiting itself. Instead, it’s pitched as a contribution to humanity.

A 2019 statement of “governance principles” from a national AI governance expert committee argues that AI development should enhance “the common well-being of humanity” and “serve the progress of human civilization”.

These phrases portray AI as a technology that advances the human story itself, rather than only serving Chinese interests. It suggests Chinese AI leadership is good for everyone.

This is an example of Chinese soft power. Tools such as Seedance may threaten Hollywood’s business model, but they do something else too. High-quality, low-cost generative media can spread quickly.

If Chinese systems become widespread, they can influence creators, developer habits, and platform dependencies, especially in non-Western markets that need affordable tools and may dislike American tech dominance.

The spread of the ‘Chinese model’

For liberal democracies such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, the growth of Chinese AI tools creates a strategic headache. It will not be easy to manage security concerns about Chinese technology while avoiding technological isolation if Chinese AI tools become widely adopted.

There is a darker side to China’s AI tools. US think-tank Freedom House describes China as having the world’s “worst conditions for internet freedom”, and suggests other nations are now “embracing the ‘Chinese model’ of extensive censorship and automated surveillance”.

In 2022, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued rules for the algorithms that curate news feeds and short video platforms. Providers are required to “uphold mainstream value orientations” and “vigorously disseminate positive energy”.

These algorithms are important because they shape what people see and what is suppressed. As a result, these rules suggest the Chinese government is deeply concerned with controlling information across its social media platforms and AI tools.

A dilemma for third parties

Not every Chinese AI tool is a propaganda weapon. Rather, China is building world-class AI technology within an authoritarian system that prioritises the control of information.

This means China’s ability to make generative AI commercially powerful will likely also, despite its claims about serving “human civilisation”, make censorship and narrative management cheaper and easier.

China’s business and soft-power model is a much bigger story than just Seedance’s cavalier attitude towards copyright or Anthropic’s concerns about intellectual property. China’s goal is to build AI tools that rival those created by America’s tech giants, and to make them inexpensive and adopted globally.

For other countries, this may create a dilemma. Once a technology becomes a standard, it can be difficult to justify using a different product.

The question that remains is whether liberal democracies can adopt China’s low-cost products without drifting into dependence on systems shaped by an authoritarian political model.

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

– ref. How China is betting cheap AI will get the world hooked on its tech – https://theconversation.com/how-china-is-betting-cheap-ai-will-get-the-world-hooked-on-its-tech-276878

February 27, 2026

Michael Caine’s voice is iconic. Why would he sell that to AI?

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Amy Hume, Lecturer In Theatre (Voice), Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne

Few actors are imitated as often as Michael Caine. Even Michael Caine has imitated Michael Caine.

His voice has been used in birthday card greetings and been the source of jokes in various comedy sketches. It is synonymous with a certain type of Britishness.

Last week, artificial intelligence company ElevenLabs announced Caine has licensed his voice to the company. It will be available on their ElevenReader app, which allows you to listen to any text in a voice of your choosing, as well as being available on their licensing platform, Iconic Marketplace.

To understand why Caine’s voice is so iconic (and wanted by AI) we need to look deeper at what people actually hear in it.

Why do people love listening to Michael Caine?

Caine was born in London in 1933. His mother was a cook and a cleaner, and his father worked in a fish market. Caine speaks with a Cockney accent, setting him aside from most other actors of his generation.

Cockney hails from London’s East End and is often associated with London’s working class – think Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady, the Artful Dodger from Oliver!, or Bert the Chimney Sweep from Mary Poppins (although Dick van Dyke’s accent is not the most accurate, it’s still recognisably Cockney).

Traditionally, you were said to be a true Cockney if you were born within earshot of the Bow Bells – the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow church on Cheapside.

That distinctiveness matters because the accent carried heavy class meaning in mid-20th century Britain.

We don’t hear many contemporary examples of Cockney. Accents change and evolve over time and it has gradually been replaced by a new dialect called Multicultural London English (MLE).

While most actors of his age acquired a “stage accent” – known as Received Pronunciation (RP) – Caine made a conscious decision to hold onto his working-class roots and not change his accent. Instead, he built his career on it.

He once said,

I could’ve gone to voice lessons, but I always thought if I had any use […] I could fight the class system in England.

His accent became cultural capital and helped him land roles in Alfie (1966), The Italian Job (1969) and Jack Carter (1971). By the 1970s, he was a British cultural icon.

What do we hear when we hear celebrity voices?

Hearing a person’s voice is never just about acoustics. We hear social meaning: culture, identity, character and story.

Sociolinguist Asif Agha coined the term “enregisterment” to describe how a way of speaking becomes publicly recognised as signalling particular social types and values.

Over time, Caine’s voice has become enregistered as a recognisable Cockney accent associated with East London and historically linked to a working-class identity. Hearing his voice activates a socially shared register of meanings attached to Cockney.

This contrasts with, say, Queen Elizabeth II, whose accent was enregistered with royalty, prestige and wealth.

Another useful concept here is what sociolinguists sometimes call “dialectal memes”: the images and character types that circulate around particular accents. These memes are transmitted through books, television, film, and even celebrity figures themselves.

Caine has been a carrier of Cockney dialectal memes in popular culture.

When you look at it this way, AI voice licensing commodifies not just the acoustic properties of Caine’s voice, but the enregistered social meanings audiences recognise in it.

What AI licensing means for Caine

ElevenLabs describes its Iconic Marketplace platform as “the performer-first approach the entertainment industry has been calling for”. Through licensing, actors maintain ownership of their voices in a digital, AI landscape.

Caine licensing his voice theoretically ensures he receives credit and compensation, and prevents unauthorised clones appearing elsewhere.

It is possible this is exactly the direction actors want AI to go in – for use of their voice to be controlled by themselves, with clear credit and payment.

However, this model is not without risk to the actor or the listener. We should ask: do we need to hear something in Caine’s voice? Will we process information differently or hear it with more authority if it’s delivered in the voice of a cultural icon like Caine?

Giving power over to machines

People who admire Caine may want him to read to them. Some will be willing to pay for it. We need to remain conscious of the decisions we are making here.

In the 1960s, computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of the world’s first chatbot, Eliza, warned about the dangers of forming relationships with machines. He was alarmed to see users confiding in Eliza and responding to the chatbot as if it actually understood them, even when they knew it did not.

What happens if an AI voice is not actually generic, but recognisably tied to a real human?

An actor’s likeness and voice may be protected with licensing, but their human self is not. That creates a pathway to attachment or even infatuation.

Caine is not just licensing his voice, but also the Cockney persona audiences recognise in it. Suddenly, a machine speaks with the authority of a real human behind it.

Amy Hume 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. Michael Caine’s voice is iconic. Why would he sell that to AI? – https://theconversation.com/michael-caines-voice-is-iconic-why-would-he-sell-that-to-ai-276506

February 26, 2026

Four years of bitter conflict in Ukraine

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

This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

It would be wrong to say Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, four years ago this week, came out of the blue. For months there had been worrying reports of a huge build-up of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border. Through the winter of 2021/22, Moscow scoffed at suggestions it was planning to invade its neighbour as “alarmist”. But at the same time the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was making aggressive noises, issuing demands for Nato to pull its troops back from its eastern front and calling for a ban on Ukraine’s accession to the western alliance.

And on February 21, he made a speech in which he called Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space” which had been taken over by a neo-Nazi “puppet regime” that should be removed.

Still, it was a shock to wake in the early hours of Thursday February 22 to learn that Putin had launched what he called a “special military operation … to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years”. Images began to emerge of tanks and armoured vehicles with the now-familiar “Z” (a Russian victory symbol) streaming across the borders from Russia and Belarus, the latter the shortest route to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

A diagram showing the build-up of Russian troops near the Ukraine borders at the end of 2021. — How Russian forces assembled in the winter of 2021/22, according to US intelligence sources.
US intelligence reported in the Washington Post.

Four years and about 1.8 million casualties later, Russia has gained about 75,000sq km of territory, about 12% of Ukraine to add to the 7% it had occupied since it annexed Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. The war has developed into a “meat-grinder” – Russia’s advances have been glacially slow and very costly, an estimated 78 casualties per square kilometre in 2025.

But if, as many insist, the war on the battlefield itself has slowed into something resembling a stalemate, the geopolitical shifts that have accompanied the conflict have been considerable – particularly since Donald Trump was elected for a second term as US president, promising to end the conflict, “in a single day”. Of course, like many of his campaign promises this has proved to be pie in the sky, but the US president’s cordial relations with Putin, his decision to curtail US financial aid to Kyiv and his apparent support for many of the Russian president’s war aims have come as an unpleasant surprise for Ukraine and its allies.

Another big feature of this war, the biggest armed conflict in Europe since 1945, has been the huge technological changes we’ve seen employed on the battlefield. Stefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko call it the “drone war”, as both sides have become heavily reliant on unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) for both combat and reconnaisance. Wolff – an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham – and Malyarenko – of the National University Odesa Law Academy – have been regular contributors to our coverage of the conflict since February 2022.

This week they are part of a panel of experts analysing the four years of conflict, alongside Wolff’s colleague Mark Webber as well as Scott Lucas of University College Dublin, both also regular contributors. They have looked into the key issues raised by the four years of conflict, including the way the war has been prosecuted, the involvement of the US president and the potential for China and/or Europe to break the stalement: Beijing potentially abandoning its support for Moscow or Europe vastly increasing its support for Ukraine in an attempt to tip the balance in Kyiv’s favour.

It’s hard to imagine any reasons to be cheerful about the conflict. But optimists may take heart at the prospect of trilateral talks in March between Ukraine, Russia and the US. Realistically the prospect of the talks achieving anything significant seem pretty bleak at present. Russia continues to take Ukrainian territory and even if these are snail’s pace advances, Putin will consider that they add leverage to Russia’s negotiating position. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, will consider that the cost of this slow pace of advance, both in terms of casualties and the damage the war is now certainly doing to Russia’s economy, are good reasons to keep going. Surveys suggest he is supported in this by the majority of Ukrainians.

In the end it will probably be sheer exhaustion that forces and end to the conflict, writes Alex Titov of Queen’s University Belfast. Without the wholehearted support of the US president, Ukraine cannot defeat Russia on the battlefield. And, despite the massive advantage in manpower, Russia is really beginning to feel the
effects of this war of attrition – both on the health of its economy and its ability to attract enough new recruits to replace the casualties who are being either killed or wounded faster than they can be replaced. For this reason alone, Titov sees chinks of light in what is a very dark time.

Let’s share Titov’s cautious optimism for the present. Say a peace deal is struck sometime soon, Ukraine is faced with a massive task of rebuilding. The most recent World Bank estimate is that this will take more than a decade and cost around US$588 billion (£435 billion). The biggest and most immediate question facing Kyiv and its allies, writes Olena Borodyna, a senior geopolitical risks advisor at ODI Global is how this can be funded.

The consensus is that Ukraine will need to find ways to incentivise private-sector investment in reconstruction, something for which Borodyna sees varying amounts of enthusiasm for from Ukraine’s partners and friends. Part of the problem is the volatile security situation, which represents a considerable risk moving forward. Add to that the corruption which has dogged Ukraine since well before the invasion and the incentive to invest looks very shaky indeed.

Another big problem, she writes, is that so many Ukrainians left the country since February 2022, which has caused acute labour shortages. The challenge of persuading people to return will be paramount and here again, the lack of security will work against Ukraine.

There is also the strong possibility that political developments in Europe could affect the level of support for Kyiv, with elections in countries such as France, Italy and Denmark. There are already several EU members which are pretty openly hostile to the notion of supporting Ukraine, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary – the latter is already trying to obstruct a vital €90 billion (£78 billion) to help cover Ukraine’s needs for 2026 and 2027.

Peace deal or not, it’s a long and hard road ahead for Ukraine.

But adversity can often be inspiring. Hugh Roberts, an expert in language and culture at the University of Exeter, has been charting the upsurge in Ukrainian poetry since the invasion. He has unearthed two poets who have come to represent this cultural renaissance: Yaryna Chornohuz and Artur Dron’.

Both have served in Ukraine’s armed forces. Chornohuz is still a drone operator of the Ukrainian Marine Corps in the frontline city of Kherson. Dron’ signed up in February 2022, four years before he reached the age of conscription. He’s now a veteran following serious injury. The words of both are available in English and both have been recognised with major literary awards in their home country.

Roberts gives us some of their most moving lines.

Death in Mexico

Also this week, we heard of the death of Mexican drug kingpin Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as El Mencho, in what was reportedly a massive military operation involving what appears to have been hundreds of troops and the killing of 74 people, including 25 national guard officers.

Repercussions will continue for some time, writes Raul Zepeda Gil, an expert in crime and conflict at King’s College London. The apprehension or killing of a cartel boss often causes a spike in violence as other criminal groups try to cut in on the cartel’s operations. There also likely to be a bitter and violent power struggle within El Menche’s organisation, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

There has already bee speculation that Oseguera may be succeeded by his wife, Rosalinda González Valencia. Otherwise known as “La Jefa” (the boss), she is alleged to control the cartel’s finances, although apart from a five-year jail spell for money laundering, there has reportedly never been enough evidence of the wrongdoing of which she is suspected to charge her with anything else.

Adriana Marin, who specialises in terrorism, organised crime, and transnational threats in Latin America, examines the prominent role some women have played in organised crime gangs.

Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.

– ref. Four years of bitter conflict in Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/four-years-of-bitter-conflict-in-ukraine-277000