Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Robert Dover, Professor of Intelligence and National Security & Dean of Faculty, University of Hull

In recent weeks, Donald Trump’s supporters have begun to align around the idea that a Democrat-led “grand conspiracy” – potentially involving former president Barack Obama – has been plotting against the US president since 2016. The narrative is that the 2016 Russia investigation, which resulted in the Mueller inquiry was part of this deep-state opposition to Trump, as was the investigation into the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

The focus of the fightback by Trump’s supporters is in Miami, where a Trump-appointed US attorney, Jason A. Reding Quiñones, has begun to issue subpoenas to a wide range of former officials.

This has included former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, all of whom were involved in the federal investigation into alleged links between Russian intelligence and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The way the so-called conspiracy is unfolding will feel familiar to anyone who has watched US politics closely in the past decade. There’s been a constant stream of allegations and counter-allegations. But the narrative from the Trump camp is that the powerful “deep state” forces have been arrayed against the president. The “two-tier” justice system that has persecuted Trump can only be rebalanced by pursuing those who investigated him in 2017 and 2021.

The Grand Conspiracy contains similarities with other prominent conspiracy theories and how they spread. The QAnon movement, whose most famous claim is of a global paedophile ring run out of a Washington pizza parlour involving senior Democrats, is one where disparate claims are sporadically and partially evidenced. The political potency of these claims does not sit in the individual pieces of evidence but in the overarching story.

The story is that hidden government and proxy networks manipulate the truth and judicial outcomes and that only through pressure from “truthers” (what many people in the US who believe conspiracy theories call themselves) will wrongdoers be brought to account. Once these ideas are popularised, they take on a momentum and a direction that is difficult to control.

Campaign of ‘lawfare’

Soon after his inauguration, Trump set up a “weaponization working group” within the Department of Justice. Its director, Ed Martin, said in May that he would expose and discredit people he believes to be guilty, even if the evidence wasn’t sufficient to charge them: “If they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed.”

In the US the norm has been to “charge crimes, not people”, so this modification fundamentally changes the focus of prosecutors.

The recent subpoenas in Florida show this principle at work, effectively making legal process into the punishment. Even without full court hearings on specific charges, being forced to provide testimony or documents creates suspicion around those who are targeted. Criticism from legal officials that this is a “indict first, investigate second” method suggests that this is a break from historical norms.

Lawfare, defined as “legal action undertaken as part of a hostile campaign”, doesn’t require a successful prosecution. It merely requires enough investigative activity to solidify a narrative of suspected guilt and enough costs and pressure to seriously inconvenience those affected by it. In the new era of digital media, it’s enough to degrade the standing of a political opponent.

In that way, political retaliation has become a prosecuting objective. This is clear from what the US president has indicated in his frequent posts on his social media platforms for his enemies, such as former FBI director James Comey, who investigated his alleged links to Russia, or Adam Schiff, the senator who led his impeachment in 2019.

Hardball politics or authoritarianism?

Political scientists argue that authoritarianism is something that happens little by little. Some of these steps involve using state power to target political opponents, degrading checks and balances and making loyalty a legal requirement.

There are reasons to believe that the US seems to be tracking this trajectory currently, certainly when it comes to using the Justice Department to harass the president’s political enemies and pushing back against court judgments while attacking the judges that have issued them.

Further slides towards authoritarianism are possible because of the political potency of contemporary conspiracy movements. The right-wing QAnon movement, for example, has been exceptionally agile. It has offered its followers identity, community spaces and a logic that encourages active participation, exhorting believers to “do your own research”, for example.

In the wake of the near daily addition of material from the investigations into the allegations that the late financier, Jeffrey Epstein, ran a sex trafficking ring, involving some influential US citizens, many American citizens have concluded as a general truth that their elites do hide things. This makes it far simpler for broader conspiracies to gain traction and more difficult for politicians and journalists to work out what is conspiracy and what is evidence. This is creating a problematic feedback loop – hints of wrongdoing fuel public suspicion, and public suspicion fuels the idea of a further need for investigation.

But to suggest that anyone has control over this would be wrong. These movements can just as easily consume those seen as supporters as they do those seen as enemies. Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s determination to release the full and unredacted Epstein files could well produce negative outcomes for some Maga supporters, including prominent ones.

So, the transformation of legal process into public spectacle in America is suggestive of a drift towards authoritarianism. America’s famous “constitutional guardrails” of separation of powers, independent courts, juries and counsels will be pivotal in preventing this. They will need to stand firm.

The grand conspiracy theory might be more about seeking to isolate, and financially and emotionally exhaust opponents, while at the same time destroying America’s system of checks and balances. It might work.

Robert Dover 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. First subpoenas issued as Donald Trump’s ‘grand conspiracy’ theory begins to take shape – https://theconversation.com/first-subpoenas-issued-as-donald-trumps-grand-conspiracy-theory-begins-to-take-shape-269542

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Conor Meehan, Associate Professor of Microbial Bioinformatics, Nottingham Trent University

Flu season has got off to an early start this year in the UK – with cases spiking weeks earlier than in previous years. This has led to concerns that the UK may be on track for one of its worst flu seasons ever.

In the UK and other northern hemisphere countries, flu season tends to run from mid-November to mid-February. In the southern hemisphere, it runs from May to July.

It’s hard to know the exact number of flu cases the UK is currently seeing as most people don’t report when they have the flu. Most just stay in bed and recover. To get a picture of this year’s flu season, we rely on hospital data and GP reports. This usually only represents the most severe flu cases.

We know flu season is “starting” when about 10% of suspected cases come back positive for the influenza virus.

The UK’s flu season is already well underway – and weeks before it usually starts. This is because at the start of November we were already seeing 11% of daily tests come back positive for the flu. At the same time last year, just 3% of tests were positive. The UK crossed the 10% threshold a whole month earlier than it did last year.

School-aged children are currently most affected, with 38% of tests coming back positive for the flu – up from 30% just one week prior. Around this time last year, the number of children testing positive for flu was just under 7%.

Similar increases have been seen elsewhere, such as in Japan and across Europe.

What’s causing this early flu season?

The UK’s flu vaccine uptake seems to be almost identical to previous years, so the increase in cases cannot be explained by a fall in vaccination rates.

One likely factor contributing to the UK’s early spike in flu cases is the strain of influenza virus that’s circulating.

Flu is caused by influenza viruses – mainly the influenza A virus. There are lots of variants of this virus, so they’re usually designated by a combination of H and N numbers. For example, H5N1 is the main cause of the ongoing avian flu pandemic in birds and other animals. Seasonal flu in humans is usually caused by H3N2 and H1N1.

The seasonal flu vaccine is designed to combat these two strains, as well as an influenza B virus alongside them. This vaccine tends to be between 20-70% effective at preventing the flu, depending on the year. The vaccine tends to be most effective for school-aged children, especially in preventing severe forms of the disease.

A new vaccine is developed every year as the circulating strains of influenza can mutate over time, reducing vaccine efficacy.

Twice a year (once for each hemisphere), the World Health Organization convenes an expert panel to decide, based on the strains that circulated last year, what strains of influenza should be used to build the vaccine for the coming flu season. The vaccine almost always includes an H1N1, H3N2 and influenza B strain.

Generally, building these vaccines based on what circulated previously is quite effective. This is because any genetic changes that occur in these strains between flu seasons aren’t large enough to render the vaccine ineffective.

But this year there seems to have been an exception. A new strain of influenza, influenza A H3N2 subclade K, is now infecting the majority of people. This strain has seven mutations that differentiate it from the previous H3N2 strain. This is many more genetic mutations than what’s usually seen between seasons.

It’s too early to know why this strain has developed so many genetic mutations. But we do know that these changes appear to have made this strain slightly more transmissible compared to previous strains.

The strain’s R number (the average number of people an infected person will go on to infect) increased from the usual 1.2 for influenza to 1.4. This means about 20% more people will be infected than we would normally expect.

Early research into this strain shows that the vaccine is still very effective in children at preventing severe forms of the disease. But in adults, effectiveness has dropped to between 30% and 40%.

However, we can’t say just yet whether reduced vaccine efficacy in adults and the new mutations to the H3N2 strain are the causes behind the current spike in flu cases.

It’s also too soon to know whether this year’s flu season will be more severe than in previous years. But based on its early start, the strain’s high R number and low vaccine effectiveness in adults, we might expect higher numbers than usual.

And, if we look at data from from southern hemisphere’s flu season – which usually gives us a good idea of what we should expect – Australia saw its worst flu season ever. They reported 10% more cases than in the previous year.

How to protect yourself

It’s important to note that, especially in children, the vaccine is still the best form of protection. Flu can be very severe in both the young and old, resulting in hospitalisation and sometimes death. Vaccination (including by those who regularly come in close contact with older and younger people) is key.

It’s also important to know how flu symptoms differ from those of the common cold so that you can recover and protect others from catching it. The presence of fever, headache and a strong cough typically indicate the flu.

If you have these symptoms, you should rest and follow standard flu guidance. Also remember you’re infectious for a week or so after symptoms start, so isolating at this time will stop the virus from spreading. Alongside getting the jab, wearing a mask and following good hand hygiene can help you avoid getting sick and prevent you from spreading the flu if you are sick.

If you’ve got a question about the flu vaccine that you’d like an expert to answer, please send them to: clint.witchalls@theconversation.com

Conor Meehan 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. Flu season has started early in the UK – here’s what might be going on – https://theconversation.com/flu-season-has-started-early-in-the-uk-heres-what-might-be-going-on-269619

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew White, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries, King’s College London

Spotify is haemorrhaging artists. In the last few months alone a handful of indie bands have exited the streaming platform. If that includes some of your favourite musicians, you may be wondering how best to support them.

Among the artists leaving the platform is indie band Deerhoof. They reacted to the news that Spotify’s founder Daniel Ek had used his venture capital firm to lead a €600 million (£528 million) investment in Helsing, a German defence company specialising in AI. Their statement said: “We don’t want our music killing people.”

This sentiment chimes with the attitudes of the many listeners who cancelled their Spotify subscriptions after the platform ran recruitment ads for ICE, the US’s controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The exodus reflects a general concern that major tech companies are too cosy with the Trump administration. Spotify’s US$150,000 (£114,000) donation to Trump’s inauguration ceremony was cited by Canadian musician Chad VanGaalen as one of the reasons for his departure from the platform.

But these protests are as much driven by a recognition of ongoing structural problems with music streaming business models as they are with recent events. Music streaming platforms like Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music allocate revenue to artists on a pro-rata basis. This means that artists on each platform are entitled to a proportion of the overall revenue from streaming. This percentage is calculated by identifying the proportion of their streams that represent the total number of streams on the platform.

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There is therefore no direct financial relationship between listeners and the artists that they listen to. This is an opaque structure that fuels musicians’ sense that they are not receiving fair remuneration.

The number of songs on Spotify and similar platforms has grown exponentially in recent years. By Spotify’s own admission, the growth in revenue from music streaming has resulted in a deluge of AI-generated content, with 75 million spam tracks being removed over 12 months in 2024-25.

Despite this success, it can be assumed that many such tracks remain undetected and that there are therefore significant amounts of money being given to fake musicians at the expense of real artists. Spotify’s openness to some AI content, exemplified by the continuing presence of the AI band Velvet Sundown in its catalogue, does not assuage artists’ concerns.

The bundling of different types of content can make the allocation of payments to musicians much more complicated. While Spotify’s music and podcast revenue streams are separate, its audiobooks have been bundled into its premium subscription. The effect of this change in 2024 has been to lower the royalty rate of the songwriters whose music appears on its platform. Around the same time the company decided to remove payments for songs that were streamed less than 1,000 times. This is likely to disproportionately affect artists struggling to get a foothold in the music industry.

Despite all this, overall revenue continues to grow. Spotify claims that the US$10 billion it paid to the music industry in 2024 was the largest ever annual payment by any retailer. Annual rises in the price point of its subscription in the last two years means that its growth will likely sustain. That its latest quarterly figures revealed an operating profit of US$680 million seem to bear this out. This improvement in Spotify’s finances exacerbates musicians’ feeling that they are not getting their fair share.

Where to go next

So where can you go if you decide to leave Spotify? Given that its main competitors also use the pro-rata payment model and offer the same menu of unlimited music, then probably not to them.

Some streamers have experimented with user-centric models of payment whereby listeners pay directly the artists of the songs they stream. This, though, has had limited success, with Deezer capping its scheme to 1,000 streams per person per month, while Tidal ended its own experiment after two years.

There are, though, smaller platforms which deploy user-centric models of payment. Sonstream was popular for a while with independent artists, but at the time of writing its website has only basic functionality.

Resonate is a cooperative with a pay-for-play user-centric model which gives artists and rights-holders 70% of revenue, with the remaining 30% being ploughed back into the business. But the one that appears to come closest to combining an “artists-first approach” with a critical mass of musicians and listeners is Bandcamp. Each time a user purchases something on the platform, 82% of that transaction goes to the artist and/or their label. These payments have amounted to US$1.6 billion to date for not only streamed music, but cassettes, CDs, vinyl records and t-shirts too.

This last observation reflects a wider trend within the music industry and among listeners. That is that the encroachment of algorithms and AI on the curation and listening of music has led many to ditch streaming platforms altogether. This has encouraged artists to be more innovative, with many experimenting with other means of distributing their music, including selling CDs and downloads directly, and setting up their own DIY digital platforms.

For Spotify and other streaming platforms there is then a wider existential question about the extent to which it is possible to construct an economically viable business model that satisfies listeners while ensuring that musicians receive fair remuneration for their creativity.

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Andrew White 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. Why musicians are leaving Spotify – and what it means for the music you love – https://theconversation.com/why-musicians-are-leaving-spotify-and-what-it-means-for-the-music-you-love-269231

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Felle, Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Galway

The sudden departure of the BBC’s director general and head of news marks a moment of real consequence for British public service broadcasting.

Tim Davie and Deborah Turness’s resignations followed controversy over an inaccurately edited clip in a BBC Panorama documentary about Donald Trump. Opponents of the BBC seized on this as further evidence of widespread bias at the broadcaster. It has now become a flashpoint in the wider political and cultural battles surrounding the corporation.

The resignations come as the BBC enters a decisive period. The renewal of its royal charter in 2027 will define the corporation’s funding model and public purpose for the next decade. At the same time, the BBC faces a hostile political climate, sustained financial pressure and a rapidly fragmenting audience.

Recent controversies – from the Panorama edit to earlier disputes over social media conduct and political coverage – have reignited debate about the broadcaster’s duty of “impartiality”. Yet in today’s febrile information climate, it is fair to ask whether that duty remains fit for purpose.

Media regulator Ofcom defines impartiality as “not favouring one side over another”, but also as ensuring “due weight” is given to the evidence. That distinction matters: impartiality is not the same as neutrality. It demands that news be fair, accurate and proportionate – not that every claim be treated as equal.

Impartiality under pressure

The BBC’s crisis, as academic and commentator Adrian Monck observes, is not simply a matter of poor governance, but “the sinking of a ship of the twentieth century British state, dependent on conditions that no longer really exist”.

Impartiality as a professional norm took shape in the mid-20th century, when it became central to the BBC’s mission under its 1947 royal charter. It emerged in a period when there was still broad agreement on shared facts, and a civic space where citizens could reason together even when they disagreed.

Read more:
BBC has survived allegations of political bias before – but the latest crisis comes at a pivotal moment

This era has broken down over the past 20 to 25 years, with the rise of digital platforms and populist politics that eroded traditional journalistic gatekeeping. Today’s information environment is shaped by technology companies, populist leaders, political strategists and partisan media outlets. All have strong incentives to create confusion and distrust. When political figures deny evidence, distort facts or lie as strategy, reporting their claims as equal to verified facts is not neutrality or impartiality, it is distortion.

Davie understood this tension. Under his leadership, the BBC tried to clarify the meaning of impartiality, strengthen editorial standards and reinforce trust in its reporting.

Yet the organisation, like many news outlets worldwide, is caught in a bind: accused of bias from both the left and the right – and while in the past this might suggest a fair balance, in today’s climate it is often weaponised.

As the sociologist Niklas Luhmann has noted, the function of news is to create a shared reality, a minimal consensus about what exists and what matters. When that consensus collapses, the public sphere itself begins to fragment and journalism loses the ground on which democratic discourse depends.

Younger audiences, who are more likely to access news mediated through influencers they perceive as authentic and relatable, are less engaged with traditional news brands. A Reuters Institute study found that young people increasingly turn to personalities rather than established outlets, or avoid news altogether because they see it as untrustworthy or biased.

The broader global trend is unmistakable. Public service broadcasters in the US, Australia, Canada and across Europe are facing declining audiences, reduced funding, politicised attacks and competition from platforms that prioritise outrage and identity performance. The BBC is not unique in this struggle, but because of its scale and cultural importance, the stakes are higher.

Public service media under siege

The BBC is imperfect. It suffers from institutional caution, uneven performance and a reluctance at times to confront its own errors. Yet it remains one of the few media organisations in the world still committed to verification rather than performance.

Its public service mandate, however strained, is one of the last structural defences against the current media culture: one dominated by outrage merchants and ideological broadcasters whose business model is provocation rather than truth.

Once a public sphere is shaped primarily by rumour and outrage, it becomes almost impossible to restore a shared sense of reality. The alternative is visible already in GB News, Fox and Breitbart, where conflict and grievance have displaced evidence.

Read more:
Perfect storm of tech bros, foreign interference and disinformation is an urgent threat to press freedom

The question now is not whether the BBC should continue to defend impartiality, but which version of impartiality it intends to defend. If impartiality means placing all claims side by side regardless of evidential grounding, it becomes a mechanism for laundering falsehood into public discourse. But if it means rigorous truth-telling, proportionate scrutiny and transparency about what we know and how we know it, then it remains both viable and essential.

BBC chair Samir Shah has apologised for the Panorama edit, describing it as an “error of judgement”. But it has exposed how fragile impartiality has become as both a principle and a perception. In an environment where trust is brittle, even minor lapses are magnified into institutional political positions. Impartiality is now judged as much by perception as by practice.

The resignations at the top of the BBC make this moment all the more precarious. The next leadership will determine whether the BBC becomes a smaller, defensive organisation that avoids offence, or a confident public service broadcaster that accepts that truth-telling will sometimes be mistaken for taking sides. Only the latter approach offers any chance of sustaining public relevance.

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Tom Felle 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. After resignations at the top, the BBC faces a defining test: what does impartiality mean now? – https://theconversation.com/after-resignations-at-the-top-the-bbc-faces-a-defining-test-what-does-impartiality-mean-now-269575

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Veronika Hinman, Deputy Director, Portsmouth Military Education Team, University of Portsmouth

The EU is considering a range of options as it tries to work out how to continue to fund Ukraine’s defence against Russia. There are three mechanisms presently under consideration. One is using Russia’s frozen assets to back a loan of €140 billion (£124 billion). Another is borrowing the money at interest, although this is not popular.

The third idea, which was proposed by Norwegian economists, is that Norway could use its €1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund – the biggest in the world – to guarantee the loan. Their reasoning was that Norway, Europe’s biggest producer of oil and gas, has made an extra €109 billion from the rise in gas prices after Russia’s invasion.

The situation on the front has been largely static for months, although Russian forces have been making small gains in some key areas. The battles for the strategically important cities of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine and Huliaipole in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia are a good indication of the progress of the war in general.

It’s hard, amid the flood of disinformation, to accurately monitor from a distance the exact status of these two important battles. Each day brings fresh reports of multiple attacks and advances by Russian troops. There have also been reports that Russian units have captured Pokrovsk. This would be a serious blow for Ukraine, as it’s an important supply hub, with several roads and rail lines converging there.

But the US-based military think-tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which uses geolocated footage on which to base its assessments, has determined that Russia is not yet in full control of Pokrovsk, having to date seized 46% of the city. ISW analysts say Russian military bloggers are “mounting a concerted informational campaign prematurely calling the fall of Pokrovsk, likely to influence the information space”.

The battle for Pokrovsk has raged for nearly 18 months now, without resolution – but with huge casualties on both sides.

Similarly, while the situation in Huliaipole is deteriorating for the Ukrainian defenders, “Russian forces will probably spend considerable time setting conditions for efforts to seize the settlement”, the ISW says.

It’s important to realise that Russian troops initially entered Huliaipole on March 5 2022 within weeks of its initial invasion the previous month, but were quickly pushed back by Ukrainian troops. Fighting has continued in the region ever since.

In other words while both sides have made some tactical gains, neither holds the strategic upper hand.

One thing is clear: despite the claims and counter-claims, both sides have suffered significant casualties. In June 2025, the UK Ministry of Defence estimated more than one million Russian troops have been killed or injured since the invasion in February 2022. But Russia still retains considerable reserves of troops to call on, and has not yet had to resort to full mobilisation.

Meanwhile Russia’s economy is holding up, despite western sanctions. The effect of the recent imposition of oil sanctions by the US has yet to be seen. At the same time, Russia’s continuing and thriving diplomatic, economic and military relationships with its “enabler ally” China, as well as others on the anti-west axis such as Iran and North Korea – which have been supplying Moscow with weaponry and troops, respectively – is helping it sustain its offensive efforts.

Financing Ukraine’s defence

Ukraine, meanwhile, is now almost entirely reliant on continued western support. Since Donald Trump took power in the US in January, the US stance towards Ukraine has shifted considerably and while Kyiv’s friends in Nato can continue to purchase US weaponry for Ukraine’s war effort, the US will not fund any of the purchases. Consequently, military aid to Ukraine has slowed considerably in the second half of 2025 – by up to 43% according to German research non-profit the Kiel Institute.

EU leaders voted in October to meet Ukraine’s “pressing financial needs” for another two years, but have yet to agree on a way of doing that. Using frozen Russian assets comes with a number of difficulties. These assets are held in Belgium by the securities depository Euroclear. But Brussels is wary of the move, arguing that a Russian lawsuit against the move, if successful, could leave Belgium liable.

The other obstacle is that it would need to be unanimously approved by EU member states, something that is thought highly unlikely. The idea of using frozen Russian assets has already been rejected by Hungary and Slovakia. And the recent victory of the populist ANO party in the Czech Republic could signal further isolation for Ukraine. One of the first gestures made by the new Czech government has been to remove the Ukrainian flag from the parliament building.

If Norway were willing to use its US$2 trillion sovereign wealth fund to guarantee a €160 billion loan to Ukraine, it would effectively bypass the need for EU unanimity. But the country’s finance minister, former Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, appeared to rule that out on November 12 when he said guaranteeing the whole amount was “not an option”.

What impact is this loan likely to make in the grand scheme of things? The funds supplied thus far have kept Ukraine from defeat, but have not enabled it to strike a decisive blow against Russia that would win the war or enable it to negotiate a just peace.

At the same time it is realistic to acknowledge that while a massive injection of funds would help Ukraine stabilise its economy and buy enough arms to give their troops a better chance on the battlefield, it cannot deliver the manpower, weapons or morale. In the end, this latest wave of aid may buy Ukraine time – but it’s unlikely to deliver victory.

Veronika Hinman 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. Kyiv’s European allies debate ways of keeping the cash flowing to Ukraine but the picture on the battlefield is grim – https://theconversation.com/kyivs-european-allies-debate-ways-of-keeping-the-cash-flowing-to-ukraine-but-the-picture-on-the-battlefield-is-grim-269541

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

Since the 1960s, scientists have been developing and honing models to understand how the earth’s climate is changing. These models help predict the phenomena that accompany that change, such as stronger storms, rising sea levels and warming temperatures.

One such pioneer of early climate modelling is Syukuro Manabe, who won the Nobel prize in physics in 2021 for his work laying the foundation for our current understanding of how carbon dioxide affects global temperatures. That same year, a seminal paper he co-published in 1967 was voted the most influential climate science paper of all time.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast,  we speak to Nadir Jeevanjee, a researcher at the same lab in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration where Manabe once worked. He looks back at the history of these early climate models, and how many of their major predictions have stood the test of time.

“ On one hand, we’ve gone way beyond Manabe in the decades since,” says Jeevanjee. “And on the other hand, some of those insights were so deep that we keep coming back to them to deepening our understanding.”

And yet, as climate negotiators gather in the Brazilian city of Belem on the edge of the Amazon for the Cop30 climate summit to hammer out new pledges on reducing carbon emissions and how to pay for climate adaptation, the data sources that climate scientists around the world rely on to monitor and model the climate are under threat from funding cuts by the Trump administration.

“We all do this work because we believe in its importance,” says Jevanjee. “And so the idea that the work isn’t necessarily valued by the present government, or that we wouldn’t be able to do it, or that somehow our lab and the models that it produces and all the science that comes out of it will be curtailed or shut, is alarming.”

Listen to the interview with Nadir Jeevanjee on The Conversation Weekly podcast, and read an article he wrote about five forecasts that early climate models by Suki Manabe and his colleagues got right.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood, Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from CNN.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Nadir Jeevanjee works for NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, which is discussed in this podcast episode. The views expressed herein are in no sense official positions of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or the Department of Commerce.

– ref. Early climate models got global warming right – but now US funding cuts threaten the future of climate science data – https://theconversation.com/early-climate-models-got-global-warming-right-but-now-us-funding-cuts-threaten-the-future-of-climate-science-data-269639

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Robert Dover, Professor of Intelligence and National Security & Dean of Faculty, University of Hull

In recent weeks, Donald Trump’s supporters have begun to align around the idea that a Democrat-led “grand conspiracy” – potentially involving former president Barack Obama – has been plotting against the US president since 2016. The narrative is that the 2016 Russia investigation, which resulted in the Mueller inquiry was part of this deep-state opposition to Trump, as was the investigation into the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

The focus of the fightback by Trump’s supporters is in Miami, where a Trump-appointed US attorney, Jason A. Reding Quiñones, has begun to issue subpoenas to a wide range of former officials.

This has included former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, all of whom were involved in the federal investigation into alleged links between Russian intelligence and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The way the so-called conspiracy is unfolding will feel familiar to anyone who has watched US politics closely in the past decade. There’s been a constant stream of allegations and counter-allegations. But the narrative from the Trump camp is that the powerful “deep state” forces have been arrayed against the president. The “two-tier” justice system that has persecuted Trump can only be rebalanced by pursuing those who investigated him in 2017 and 2021.

The Grand Conspiracy contains similarities with other prominent conspiracy theories and how they spread. The QAnon movement, whose most famous claim is of a global paedophile ring run out of a Washington pizza parlour involving senior Democrats, is one where disparate claims are sporadically and partially evidenced. The political potency of these claims does not sit in the individual pieces of evidence but in the overarching story.

The story is that hidden government and proxy networks manipulate the truth and judicial outcomes and that only through pressure from “truthers” (what many people in the US who believe conspiracy theories call themselves) will wrongdoers be brought to account. Once these ideas are popularised, they take on a momentum and a direction that is difficult to control.

Campaign of ‘lawfare’

Soon after his inauguration, Trump set up a “weaponization working group” within the Department of Justice. Its director, Ed Martin, said in May that he would expose and discredit people he believes to be guilty, even if the evidence wasn’t sufficient to charge them: “If they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed.”

In the US the norm has been to “charge crimes, not people”, so this modification fundamentally changes the focus of prosecutors.

The recent subpoenas in Florida show this principle at work, effectively making legal process into the punishment. Even without full court hearings on specific charges, being forced to provide testimony or documents creates suspicion around those who are targeted. Criticism from legal officials that this is a “indict first, investigate second” method suggests that this is a break from historical norms.

Lawfare, defined as “legal action undertaken as part of a hostile campaign”, doesn’t require a successful prosecution. It merely requires enough investigative activity to solidify a narrative of suspected guilt and enough costs and pressure to seriously inconvenience those affected by it. In the new era of digital media, it’s enough to degrade the standing of a political opponent.

In that way, political retaliation has become a prosecuting objective. This is clear from what the US president has indicated in his frequent posts on his social media platforms for his enemies, such as former FBI director James Comey, who investigated his alleged links to Russia, or Adam Schiff, the senator who led his impeachment in 2019.

Hardball politics or authoritarianism?

Political scientists argue that authoritarianism is something that happens little by little. Some of these steps involve using state power to target political opponents, degrading checks and balances and making loyalty a legal requirement.

There are reasons to believe that the US seems to be tracking this trajectory currently, certainly when it comes to using the Justice Department to harass the president’s political enemies and pushing back against court judgments while attacking the judges that have issued them.

Further slides towards authoritarianism are possible because of the political potency of contemporary conspiracy movements. The right-wing QAnon movement, for example, has been exceptionally agile. It has offered its followers identity, community spaces and a logic that encourages active participation, exhorting believers to “do your own research”, for example.

In the wake of the near daily addition of material from the investigations into the allegations that the late financier, Jeffrey Epstein, ran a sex trafficking ring, involving some influential US citizens, many American citizens have concluded as a general truth that their elites do hide things. This makes it far simpler for broader conspiracies to gain traction and more difficult for politicians and journalists to work out what is conspiracy and what is evidence. This is creating a problematic feedback loop – hints of wrongdoing fuel public suspicion, and public suspicion fuels the idea of a further need for investigation.

But to suggest that anyone has control over this would be wrong. These movements can just as easily consume those seen as supporters as they do those seen as enemies. Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s determination to release the full and unredacted Epstein files could well produce negative outcomes for some Maga supporters, including prominent ones.

So, the transformation of legal process into public spectacle in America is suggestive of a drift towards authoritarianism. America’s famous “constitutional guardrails” of separation of powers, independent courts, juries and counsels will be pivotal in preventing this. They will need to stand firm.

The grand conspiracy theory might be more about seeking to isolate, and financially and emotionally exhaust opponents, while at the same time destroying America’s system of checks and balances. It might work.

Robert Dover 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. First indictments issued as Donald Trump’s ‘grand conspiracy’ theory begins to take shape – https://theconversation.com/first-indictments-issued-as-donald-trumps-grand-conspiracy-theory-begins-to-take-shape-269542

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

The latest corruption scandal that has engulfed Ukraine could not have come at a worse time or in a more delicate sector of the economy for the increasingly embattled government of Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukraine’s military is now clearly on the back foot in several key sectors of the frontline. Meanwhile, Russia’s campaign to devastate Ukraine’s energy sector is putting enormous pressure on the country’s infrastructure and bringing increasing hardship for ordinary Ukrainians as winter approaches.

The fact that the latest corruption scandal involves the energy sector is, therefore, particularly damaging to the government and public morale.

Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption agencies have just released the findings of Operation Midas, a 15-month investigation into Energoatom, which is the state-owned operator of all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. With a total capacity of almost 14,000 megawatts, Energoatom is the largest electricity producer in Ukraine.

Anti-corruption investigators allege a large kickback scheme of between 10% and 15% of the value of supplier contracts, amounting to about US$100 million (£76 million). Raids were carried out in 70 locations around the country on November 10. Seven people have been charged and five are in custody.

The mastermind of the corrupt scheme is alleged to be Timur Mindich a businessman and film producer, who hastily fled Ukraine a day before the raids. What makes this very dangerous for Zelensky is that Mindich is the co-owner, with the Ukrainian president, of Kvartal 95 Studio. Kvartal is the media platform on which Zelensky established his pre-presidential fame as a comedian.

The scandal, therefore, once again involves very close allies of the president. It risks tainting by association. But it also leaves him open to questions of whether he could havacting sooner about the allegations.

But the way in which this latest scandal unfolded also indicates that it is the manifestation of a much deeper conflict going on behind the scenes between elite groups vying for control of the last valuable state asset – the energy sector.

Smear campaigns

It’s the latest in a chain of events that goes back to the summer months, when Zelensky’s Servant of the People parliamentary faction tried to terminate the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies. Mass protests by young Ukrainians forced the government to backtrack on the decision.

At this point, rumours about the existence of secretly taped conversations involving Mindich began to circulate in the Ukrainian media. However, no details of the content of the conversations were released at time, leaving any allegations of corruption to the realm of speculation.

As the government came under increasing pressure after massive Russian air strikes against the energy sector on October 10 which left Ukraine’s population without electricity for almost an entire day, mud-slinging began in earnest. Attention focused on Volodymyr Kudrytsky, the former head of Ukrenergo, the main operator of Ukraine’s electricity grid.

Kudrytsky, an outspoken figure in Ukraine’s pro-western and anti-corruption civil society, was detained on October 28 on suspicion of fraud relating to his alleged involvement in a 2018 plot to embezzle the equivalent of $1.6 million from state funds. The investigation against him was conducted by State Audit Service of Ukraine and State Bureau of Investigation, which are directly subordinate to Zelensky.

He has robustly defended his record against what he alleged were politically motivated attacks designed to shift the blame for the devastation of Ukraine’s energy grid by Russia’s air campaign away from the government.

While Kudrytsky has been released on bail, the case against him remains live.

Power struggle

Whatever their outcome in legal terms, the rumours circulating against Mindich and the attacks against Kudrytsky appear, for now at least, to be classic information campaigns aimed at assassinating reputations and damaging the people and agendas associated with them.

As they pit pro- and anti-Zelensky camps in Ukraine’s elites against each other, the latest corruption revelations reveal a power struggle over who controls the state’s most valuable assets and the levers of power in Ukraine. If Zelensky’s enemies cannot remove him from power, then his ability to rule can be severely constrained by targeting close allies like Mindich.

Another of Zelensky’s top advisers, justice minister (formerly energy minister) German Galushchenko has also been suspended as a result of Operation Midas.

This elite infighting, which is engulfing a sector that is critical to Ukraine’s ability to continue resisting Russia’s aggression, is astounding in its disregard of the existential crisis engulfing Ukraine. While its outcome, for now, is unclear, several important conclusions can already be drawn from it.

The return to a competitive political process with freedom of speech, media, and association, which was suspended as a result of the war, is vital. Fears of playing into the hands of Russian propaganda by revealing corruption in Ukraine simply enable the corrupt officials to further abuse their power and damage the country’s prospects of prevailing against Russia.

More direct involvement of the EU and the US is needed in fighting corruption in Ukraine. Corruption reduces funds allocated for the war. But it also fuels public pessimism in donor countries about the effectiveness of their continuing support.

Read more:
Ukraine war: why Zelensky’s corruption purge could be key to the outcome of the conflict

This corruption has been hugely damaging for recruitment to the armed forces. A recent survey found that 71% of Ukrainians believe the level of corruption has increased since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Monthly desertion rates from the army now stand roughly at the level of two-thirds of new recruits. That’s 21,000 deserters compared to 30,000 sign-ups. It’s not sustainable for Ukraine’s defence efforts – and is part of the reason for some of the recent setbacks at the frontline.

This is no longer about the country’s reputation and its prospects of European integration. Cleaning up Ukrainian politics – and being seen to do so – is now as essential for Ukraine’s survival as shoring up its air and ground defences against Russia.

Tolerating corruption is a luxury that Ukraine can no longer afford if it wants to survive as an independent country.

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.

– ref. Ukraine: energy corruption scandal threatens to derail Zelensky’s government and undermine its war effort – https://theconversation.com/ukraine-energy-corruption-scandal-threatens-to-derail-zelenskys-government-and-undermine-its-war-effort-269437