Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Elias Michaut, PhD Researcher in Archaeology & Heritage, UCL

The 1969 Stonewall riot, a pivotal episode of LGBTQ+ resistance to a police raid, was a turning point in the western gay rights movement. Today, Pride events are held each year at the end of June in memory of this uprising. Yet, Stonewall was not the first queer rebellion.

My recent research, published in the Journal of Homosexuality, uncovered a queer uprising which took place in 1905, more than 60 years before Stonewall, at a youth detention site in France.

In 19th-century France, an underground queer scene was developing around bars and brothels in Paris. Same-sex relationships were also common in single-gender institutions, like in the military or in prisons, although frowned upon. The late 19th century saw rising anxieties surrounding queer sexualities, which were increasingly being labelled as medical disorders.

Same-sex relationships had become commonplace in some French youth penal colonies. These were institutions where working-class youths aged between eight and 21 years old were incarcerated, for several months to several years, often after an arrest for vagrancy or theft. There they were forced to perform agricultural and industrial labour under very harsh conditions.

Les Douaires was a youth penal colony for detained boys in Normandy (northern France). In the 1900s, a growing number of boys aged over 16 were sent to Les Douaires. Rumours spread of frequent sexual interactions between detained boys, supposedly happening in the courtyards of the penal colony.

The penal administration reacted by instituting a compulsory afternoon nap. This was an explicit attempt to cut down time spent in the courtyards and therefore reduce the frequency of same-sex relationships.

This measure was clearly not to the liking of the detained population. On July 31 1905, 200 detained boys refused to take the nap and instead gathered in the courtyard.

Several hours of open riot ensued, during which the boys smashed over 200 windows, attacked staff members, forcing them to retreat, and ripped some of the fences surrounding the courtyards. They also tried to escape together, but a staff member managed to close the main gates of the penal colony just as the riot was breaking out.

The staff who had retreated telegraphed the police and the army for backup, and the riot calmed down within a few hours. A small military outpost of ten soldiers was established nearby, and additional warders were sent from Paris. In the following days, 26 detained boys identified as leaders of the insurrection were transferred to another penal colony.

The 1905 riot was not the first episode of collective resistance to erupt at Les Douaires. In June 1880, the boys had rebelled after a warder had hit a child. Staff brutality was omnipresent, and in the 1870s the penal colony’s director had been reprimanded for routinely whipping the inmates. The harsh living conditions led to recurrent outbreaks of diseases, and the boys at Les Douaires were several times more likely to die than free young people outside.

In the months preceding the July 1905 riot, socialist ideas had started spreading among the older boys at Les Douaires. A letter from the penal colony’s director written a few days after the uprising points to the growing political climate and the refusal of the nap, instituted to limit homosexual relationships, as causes of the riot.

It must be noted that while the detained youth engaged in same-sex behaviour that we might now describe as queer, there is no reason to believe this translated into any sense of queer identity. Not least because contemporary western notions of sexual identity are a relatively recent development. Nonetheless, the July 1905 mutiny at Les Douaires remains a significant event in LGBTQ+ history, as one of the earliest documented episodes of overt collective resistance to anti-queer repression.

Although the late 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by increasing police raids on LGBTQ+ venues and the emergence of early campaigning groups, there is little evidence for similar moments of mass collective resistance to homophobic policies and repression.

From the 1905 Les Douaires riot to the 1969 Stonewall riot, queer uprisings most often took place in reaction to police repression or, as in this case, within the walls of a prison. In a now-famous speech on the fourth anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 1973, transgender activist Sylvia Rivera reminded the crowd of their “gay brothers and gay sisters in jail”.

In countries like the UK, the US, or France, LGBTQ+ people in prison, especially those who are not white, are still at higher risk of sexual assault and violence and have high rates of suicides.

The 1905 Les Douaires riot stands as an early chapter in this unfinished history of resistance to anti-queer and state violence.

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Elias Michaut received doctoral funding for this research from the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP).

– ref. A queer uprising 60 years before Stonewall: the 1905 Les Douaires riot – https://theconversation.com/a-queer-uprising-60-years-before-stonewall-the-1905-les-douaires-riot-266856

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kevin Olsen, UKSA Mars Science Fellow, Department of Physics, University of Oxford

Elon Musk’s company SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin have submitted simplified plans to Nasa designed to return US astronauts to the Moon’s surface.

These plans focus on Nasa’s Artemis III mission, which will see the first US astronauts walk on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

SpaceX was awarded the contract to build the lunar landing vehicle for Artemis III in April 2021, using a version of their Starship spacecraft. On October 20, 2025, Nasa’s acting administrator, Sean Duffy, said he was reopening the contract to competitors, such as Blue Origin, citing delays with Starship. So what has gone wrong?

At the heart of the issues are Starship’s size and ambition. The massive spacecraft will tower over the moonscape at 50m (165ft) tall and aim to bring 100,000kg of payload to the lunar surface.

Space vehicles designed to carry humans undergo a process of certification to become “human-rated” – safe to put crew and passengers on board. Most undergo numerous tests of their component parts, followed by a few tests of the full vehicle.

However, Starship’s test flight programme is now the longest in space launch history. The Starship upper stage is the part that will carry astronauts. It underwent seven small launches up to 12.5km in altitude between 2020 and 2021. Only the last of these flights, SN15, survived touchdown.

There have now been 11 test flights to orbit of the full Starship system, where the upper stage is paired with a Super Heavy rocket booster. Most have ended poorly for the upper stage, with the last two surviving re-entry before tipping over after landing on the ocean and exploding.

It is hard to forget the first time the pair of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket’s boosters returned to the launch pad and landed successfully, or the first time the Starship Super Heavy booster was caught by the arms (or “chopsticks”) on its launch tower. But it is also hard to forget the live video of Starships losing material during re-entry, the fiery remains of their break up streaking across the sky during Starship’s test flights 7 and 8, or the upper stage that exploded in a fireball on the pad in June 2025.

The development of Starship vehicles is unique and SpaceX aims for frequent launches with as much progress as possible in between them. It is accepted that these losses will lead to improved technology and safety down the line. However, the line is short.

Nasa’s acting chief Sean Duffy has expressed concerns about Starship’s progress towards the Artemis III mission, which is scheduled for 2027. A few days after Duffy’s comments, SpaceX posted an entry about the Moon programme on its blog. In it, the company said: “Starship continues to simultaneously be the fastest path to returning humans to the surface of the Moon and a core enabler of the Artemis programme’s goal to establish a permanent, sustainable presence on the lunar surface. SpaceX shares the goal of returning to the Moon as expeditiously as possible.”

SpaceX also said that it had completed 49 milestones aimed at landing astronauts on the Moon and that “the vast majority” of contractual milestones had been achieved “on time or ahead of schedule”.

Starship’s advertised payload to orbit of 100,000kg sounds impressive. But on its most recent test flight, Starship carried a dummy payload of just 16,000kg – less than the 22,000kg maximum payload for SpaceX’s workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9, and Starship promises ten times that. Engineers have a long way to go before the system can carry the equipment needed for a Moon mission, let alone astronauts. The bottom line is that the payload-to-orbit promise has not yet been demonstrated.

Design philosophy is a major reason we have arrived here. SpaceX isn’t designing and building a lunar landing vehicle. They are building a do-anything super-heavy-lift launcher capable of sending payloads to Earth orbit, to the Moon, or even to Mars, and landing on any one of those bodies.

The success of past and current space missions comes from focus. Spacecraft are designed to solve a number of very specific problems, overcoming their missions constraints. A recent experience at the European Space Agency’s (Esa) Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) showed how this works in practice. This is where scientists and engineers collaborate to find trade offs for mass, power, propulsion and budget until a spacecraft design is finalised. Spaceflight succeeds through clever fixes to specific problems, not grand gestures.

Because Starship needs to refuel in Earth orbit before travelling to the Moon, a single lunar mission will require a dozen launches or more. The additional flights will launch versions of Starship intended solely to refuel another vehicle. If Starship works, it will be fantastic, but aiming for size instead of application is why it is not ready for Artemis III.

Nasa’s trajectory

Another aspect to this is the leadership and direction of the US government, which guides Nasa. The current American Moon programme was started under the George W. Bush administration over 20 years ago and has been undergoing drastic reconfigurations every few years.

With a major US election every two years (presidential and congressional), Nasa’s direction hasn’t been stable enough to manage long-term, large-scale planning. Esa, conversely, sets objectives on a ten-year scale, and moves towards them steadily. It is hard to see problems easing with the US Artemis lunar programme, especially under a president who has requested the agency’s budget be dramatically slashed.

The budget proposal would terminate US participation in many international space missions, such as EnVision, Lisa and NewAthena. Additional funding would be needed from other nations to make up the shortfall; otherwise the programmes could end. The loss of US participation in these projects will, in turn, affect how other countries are involved in Artemis.

Artemis relies strongly on international support for a number of elements, such as the Orion service module that carries astronauts to the Moon and segments of the Lunar Gateway space station, where astronauts would board their SpaceX or Blue Origin lunar landing vehicles.

Whichever company ends up carrying astronauts to the Moon on Artemis III, and whatever their “simplified plans” look like, there will be exciting things to see in the next year or two. These include the Artemis II mission (which will send four astronauts on a lunar flyby), the first launches of Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy lift rocket, and commercial payloads launched to the Moon by both SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Kevin Olsen 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. What’s gone wrong between Nasa and Elon Musk’s SpaceX? – https://theconversation.com/whats-gone-wrong-between-nasa-and-elon-musks-spacex-268577

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rita Goyal, Assistant Professor, Centre for Resilient Business and Society, Coventry University

Women are increasingly occupying top leadership roles across organisations, political parties and even nations. This may seem unequivocally like a good thing. Yet, many of these roles are undertaken in precarious circumstances, with inherent risks that might make them unattractive to men.

High-profile examples illustrate this pattern. Sarah Mullally, the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury and first female leader of the Church of England, steps into a landscape marred by scandal. Sanae Takaichi has become Japan’s first female prime minister – albeit the fourth PM in five years. She inherits a stagnant economy, record inflation and a declining population.

Carly Fiorina became CEO of Hewlett-Packard during the bursting of the tech bubble. And Mary Barra took over as CEO of General Motors shortly before a major car recall. In the UK, politicians like Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch have also assumed high-profile roles during periods of heightened risk.

Two decades ago, this phenomenon was labelled the “glass cliff”. It highlighted a pattern where women are more likely than men to be placed in leadership positions during times of crisis.

But the perspectives of women leaders and those navigating organisations in precarious situations are rarely examined. Our study conducted in-depth interviews with 33 women in senior leadership positions in 2023 and 2024. Our goal was to explore the motivations behind appointing women to high-risk leadership roles and the strategies the women use to navigate challenges once they’re in post.

The study revealed that women are often selected because of their distinctive leadership style and ability to manage crises. In their early careers, women may be invited to lead organisations in distress (so-called “basket cases”). Yet, by focusing on collaboration and consensus, and by ditching egotism, they can often turn around precarious situations.

One woman who chaired boards told us: “Women are often given basket cases because they will often be more supportive, better listeners and more nurturing. They’re better able to cope in that environment.”

Key to this is a combination of intuition, humility and an ability to manage colleagues and associates. We found that in organisations facing scandals, inefficiency or financial mismanagement, women leaders often focus on human aspects rather than just operational factors.

Study participants consistently emphasised that people skills (such as empathy, communication and the ability to unify people) are critical for managing risk-laden environments. They felt that women often excel in these areas. For instance, Mullally has cited her background as a cancer nurse as providing a strong foundation for managing the challenges that the Church of England is facing.

Why go there?

Our study also explored why women accept these precarious roles. Early in their careers, the opportunity to lead a major organisation can be compelling, offering a sense of purpose and fulfilment – even if the organisation is in crisis.

But with experience, women become more discerning about accepting leadership positions. The research highlights that precarious appointments carry heightened reputational risks, as women are held to stricter standards (in the media, for example) than men.

One participant told us: “When a man fails or makes an error … it’s the individual man who failed; ‘he’ had no ethics. When a woman does it, it’s like, ‘Ah well, women’.”

The study also underscores the importance of networks, mentoring and alliances. Women leaders recommend having trusted advisers and mentors who can provide guidance, support and insight as they face challenges. Some emphasised that operational challenges is a normal aspect of leadership.

But women should think carefully about accepting a leadership role where problems of integrity or governance, for example, are more entrenched. As one participant in our study noted: “Don’t let challenges deter you if you believe you can lead effectively. But when structural or ethical challenges exist … leaders must assess them carefully.”

A mixed blessing

The conventional belief is that women are offered precarious roles because they are seen as expendable. But beyond this, our study identifies alternative reasons.

Speaking generally, women’s capacity to manage chaos, practise ego-less leadership, and encourage collective decision-making often makes them attractive candidates. Viewing it through this lens shifts the conversation from victimhood to capability. It suggests that women are not merely filling high-risk roles but are chosen for their leadership strengths.

The findings also have implications for strategy and talent management within organisations, who should recognise the specific competencies women can bring to complex, high-risk leadership scenarios.

Organisations can benefit from ensuring that women in challenging leadership roles receive appropriate support and resources, and that expectations are realistic.

At the same time, women leaders must balance ambition with caution. While challenging roles offer opportunities for development and recognition, taking a role that is not aligned with a woman’s values or if her due diligence comes up short can carry high professional risks.

The study’s participants recommend strong negotiation and careful assessment of the potential outcomes before accepting senior positions. When leaders align their expertise and values with the needs of the organisation, they can transform crises into opportunities for growth. This is based on our finding that women, before they accept precarious leadership roles, carry out due diligence, consider the pros and cons and negotiate.

Women in leadership are increasingly seen at the helm during organisational turbulence. While these roles come with greater risk, they also offer opportunities to demonstrate capability, strengthen reputations and improve the culture of an organisation.

Rather than a poisoned chalice, these opportunities can be reframed as a mixed blessing. Challenges, if navigated well, highlight and make use of women’s distinctive leadership styles. Women can lead organisations through uncertainty and at the same time redefine perceptions of leadership and expand opportunities for women in the future.

Rita Goyal received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust.

Nada Kakabadse received funding from the Institute of Company Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA).

– ref. Why women land top jobs in struggling organisations – they may just be better in a crisis – https://theconversation.com/why-women-land-top-jobs-in-struggling-organisations-they-may-just-be-better-in-a-crisis-268592

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amy Cano Prentice, Senior Research Officer, ODI Global

Global emissions need to peak this year to stay within 1.5°C of global temperature rise since pre-industrial levels. This means that starting now, countries need to emit less greenhouse gas. Emissions also need to be cut in half by 2030 to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

For many nations, 1.5°C is a benchmark for survival. At that temperature, small island states in particular risk becoming uninhabitable due to rising sea levels, ecosystem loss, water insecurity, infrastructure damage and livelihood collapse.

To safeguard their futures, Vanuatu and 17 other countries spent six years campaigning to get the highest court of the UN system, the International Court of Justice, to give its opinion on whether countries have specific legal obligations when it comes to climate change. This year, the court agreed that they do, and the obligations are stringent, meaning that states are required to use all available means to prevent significant harm to the climate system.

Because the court’s advisory opinion is an articulation of existing law and legal obligations (rather than a binding legal decision in itself), it has to be given legal effect through national legislation, climate-related litigation, international treaties and conventions. In other words, it has to be kept alive.

My research identifies how to keep the advisory opinion alive via a few avenues to hold countries to account for failing to protect the climate system.

Cop30, the UN climate summit taking place in Brazil this November, is the first opportunity to hold countries accountable for collectively failing to reach stay within the 1.5°C limit with their 2025 national pledges.

In my recent paper, I outline which countries are upholding their climate change obligations and which are not, and what can be done about it.

Time is running out but climate diplomacy can be slow. Under the Paris agreement, the legally binding international treaty on climate change agreed in 2015, countries agreed to limit global warming to well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.

Since then, many countries have pushed at every annual UN climate summit for the 1.5°C goal to be the maximum temperature increase. After years of negotiation, the International Court of Justice clarified that 1.5°C is unequivocally the legal target of the Paris Agreement. This hinges on the fact that the Paris agreement uses a science-based approach, so decisions are made according to the best available science of the day. Currently, that science indicates that a warming of 2°C would be catastrophic.

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are plans created by each country outlining how they will reduce their emissions (in order to collectively meet the Paris agreement’s temperature goal) and adapt to climate change. The court ruling made it clear that countries not only are obliged to submit NDCs, but these NDCs also need to represent a country’s highest possible ambition.

The court also clarified that all NDCs need to, by law, add up to enough emissions reductions globally to meet the 1.5°C. This can be used to lobby for more ambitious pledges among countries that claim to support the interests of the most vulnerable states.

Every country must update its NDC every five years. Each one needs to be more ambitious than the last. The past round of NDCs was insufficient. Even if fully implemented, they would only limit global warming to a 2.6°C increase. This year, after extending the deadline for NDC submission, only about 30% of countries submitted a new NDC. That covers less than one-third of global emissions.

I found that out of ten countries that are friends of small island states, only one – the UK – submitted a new NDC that is in line with 1.5°C. Four of these countries – Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand – submitted new NDCs which are not on track to meet the temperature goal. Three did not submit a new NDC at all – China, India and the EU – despite having made high-level political statements.

Read more:
Only 15 countries have met the latest Paris agreement deadline. Is any nation serious about tackling climate change?

Seven of these friends of small island states (and the EU) are required to provide climate finance to developing countries under the Paris agreement. All of these spend more public money on the fossil fuel industry than on climate mitigation and adaptation finance internationally.

According to the international court, fossil fuel subsidies may constitute an internationally wrongful act, in breach of the obligation to protection the climate system from significant harm. In 2022, the UK spent almost 14 times more on fossil fuel subsidies than on international climate finance.

Australia spent over six times as much. France and New Zealand spent over twice as much. Japan spent almost twice as much. Removing fossil fuel subsidies would free up much needed fiscal resources to target those most in need, especially given the urgency of the situation.

Other legal avenues

Beyond Cop30, other legal avenues exist. The first strategic decision is whether to bring a case before domestic or international courts. For example, in Canada, two houses of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation took the government to court for failing to meet its international commitments to reduce emissions, citing the International Court of Justice.

Internationally, a highly polluting country can be brought before international legal courts by another country. In 2019, the Gambia sued Myanmar for genocide due to the universal legal nature of the obligation to prevent genocide. Similarly, one country can sue another on climate-related legal grounds.

As the window to stay within 1.5°C closes, Cop30 and the courts must become twin areas of action, where creativity, strategy and the law converge to make climate justice enforceable, not aspirational.

Concrete diplomatic gains in Belém could include a suite of ambitious NDCs, operational guidance to launch the fund for responding to loss and damage, plus bold climate finance commitments, but the work cannot end in the negotiation halls. It must continue beyond Cop30 to turn pledges into action.

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Amy Cano Prentice 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 countries can be held responsible for staying within new legal climate target of 1.5°C – https://theconversation.com/how-countries-can-be-held-responsible-for-staying-within-new-legal-climate-target-of-1-5-c-268160

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Eva Nieto McAvoy, Lecturer in Digital Media, King’s College London

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used to preserve the voices and stories of the dead. From text-based chatbots that mimic loved ones to voice avatars that let you “speak” with the deceased, a growing digital afterlife industry promises to make memory interactive, and, in some cases, eternal.

In our research, recently published in Memory, Mind & Media, we explored what happens when remembering the dead is left to an algorithm. We even tried talking to digital versions of ourselves to find out.

“Deathbots” are AI systems designed to simulate the voices, speech patterns and personalities of the deceased. They draw on a person’s digital traces – voice recordings, text messages, emails and social media posts – to create interactive avatars that appear to “speak” from beyond the grave.

As the media theorist Simone Natale has said, these “technologies of illusion” have deep roots in spiritualist traditions. But AI makes them far more convincing, and commercially viable.

Our work is part of a project called Synthetic Pasts, which explores the impact technology has on the preservation of personal and collective memory. For our study, we looked at services that claim to preserve or recreate a person’s voice, memories or digital presence using AI. To understand how they work, we became our own test subjects. We uploaded our own videos, messages and voice notes, creating “digital doubles” of ourselves.

In some cases, we played the role of users preparing our own synthetic afterlives. In others, we acted as the bereaved trying to talk to a digital version of someone who has passed away.

What we found was both fascinating and unsettling. Some systems focus on preserving memory. They help users record and store personal stories, organised by theme, such as childhood, family or advice for loved ones. AI then indexes the content and guides people through it, like a searchable archive.

Others use generative AI to create ongoing conversations. You upload data about a deceased person – messages, posts, even voice samples – and the system builds a chatbot that can respond in their tone and style. It uses a subset of AI called machine learning (which improves through practice) to make its avatars evolve over time.

Some present themselves as playful (“host a séance with AI”), but the experience can feel eerily intimate. All the platforms claim to offer an “authentic” emotional connection. Yet the more personalisation we attempted, the more artificial it felt.

When prompted by these systems we provided more information about ourselves, only to have the bot repeat the exact phrasing we had used in stiff, scripted replies. At times, the tone was incongruous, such as when cheerful emojis or upbeat phrasing appeared even when discussing death – a clear reminder that algorithms are poor at handling the emotional weight of loss:

Oh hun… 😔 it (the death) is not something I’d wish for anyone to dwell on. It’s all a bit foggy now, to be honest. 🌫️ Let’s chat about something a bit cheerier, yeah?

The more archival-based tools we tested offered a calmer experience but also imposed rigid categories and limited nuance. As digital media scholar Andrew Hoskins has observed, memory in the age of AI becomes “conversational” – shaped by interactions between human and machine. But in our experiments, those conversations often felt flat, exposing the limits of synthetic intimacy:

Human: You were always so encouraging and supportive. I miss you.

Deathbot: I’m right here for you, always ready to offer encouragement and support whenever you need it. And I miss you too… Let’s take on today together, with positivity and strength.

Behind these experiences lies a business model. These are not memorial charities, they are tech start ups. Subscription fees, “freemium” tiers and partnerships with insurers or care providers reveal how remembrance is being turned into a product.

As the philosophers Carl Öhman and Luciano Floridi have argued, the digital afterlife industry operates within a “political economy of death”, where data continues to generate value long after a person’s life ends.

Platforms encourage users to “capture their story forever”, but they also harvest emotional and biometric data to keep engagement high. Memory becomes a service – an interaction to be designed, measured and monetised. This, as the professor of technology and society Andrew McStay has shown, is part of a wider “emotional AI” economy.

Digital resurrection?

The promise of these systems is a kind of resurrection – the reanimation of the dead through data. They offer to return voices, gestures and personalities, not as memories recalled but as presences simulated in real time. This kind of “algorithmic empathy” can be persuasive, even moving, yet it exists within the limits of code, and quietly alters the experience of remembering, smoothing away
the ambiguity and contradiction.

These platforms demonstrate a tension between archival and generative forms of memory. All platforms, though, normalise certain ways of remembering, placing privilege on continuity, coherence and emotional responsiveness, while also producing new, data-driven forms of personhood.

As the media theorist Wendy Chun has observed, digital technologies often conflate “storage” with “memory”, promising perfect recall while erasing the role of forgetting – the absence that makes both mourning and remembering possible.

In this sense, digital resurrection risks misunderstanding death itself: replacing the finality of loss with the endless availability of simulation, where the dead are always present, interactive and updated.

AI can help preserve stories and voices, but it cannot replicate the living complexity of a person or a relationship. The “synthetic afterlives” we encountered are compelling precisely because they fail. They remind us that memory is relational, contextual and not programmable.

Our study suggests that while you can talk to the dead with AI, what you hear back reveals more about the technologies and platforms that profit from memory – and about ourselves – than about the ghosts they claim we can talk to.

Jenny Kidd has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Eva Nieto McAvoy 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. Can you really talk to the dead using AI? We tried out ‘deathbots’ so you don’t have to – https://theconversation.com/can-you-really-talk-to-the-dead-using-ai-we-tried-out-deathbots-so-you-dont-have-to-268902

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gustav Cederlöf, Associate Professor of Environmental Social Science, University of Gothenburg

Hours before Hurricane Melissa roared towards Cuba’s second-largest city, Santiago de Cuba, the island’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, announced that 735,000 people had been evacuated – one in every 15 Cubans. The storm had already smashed into Jamaica, the most powerful to ever strike the island, causing landslides, power failures and deaths.

By the time Melissa hit Cuba, it was downgraded from a category 5 to a still incredibly dangerous category 3 hurricane. The sea was surging up to 3.5m, torrents of rain were half a metre deep, and winds were screaming at 200km per hour.

Hurricane Melissa shows what academics studying disasters have long emphasised: disasters are shaped as much by social vulnerability and governance as they are by violent winds.

Of the 75 deaths attributed to Hurricane Melissa, 43 occurred in Haiti and 32 in Jamaica, where the storm was strongest. Cuba has reported no fatalities – a result that reflects a long history of preparation.

Cuba has long stood out in regional comparisons for its ability to prevent deaths from hurricanes, often through mass evacuations. This has endured even through decades of US sanctions, and now an economic crisis featuring a prolonged recession, massive inflation and food shortages. Daily blackouts are making it more difficult for households and hospitals to prepare and recover from disaster.

Cuba’s focus on hurricane preparedness dates back to Hurricane Flora. Flora devastated the east of the island in 1963 – the same region now struck by Melissa. On the eve of its landfall, the government had introduced a sweeping land reform to nationalise all but the smallest farms. Party militants and soldiers had been dispatched across the island.

When Flora hit, people found these representatives of the revolution enduring the hurricane alongside them. Fidel Castro flew east to lead the rescue operations. Historian Mikael Wolfe argues that Flora transformed the rebel army from “a controversial force of expropriation” into “a nearly universally admired source of rescue”.

Disaster risk reduction has continued to be a priority for Cuban leaders. Each year, the local branches of civil society groups Committees for the Defence of the Revolution and the Federation of Cuban Women conduct vulnerability mapping, culminating in the nationwide drill Meteoro. These practices anticipate disaster in everyday life and guide mass evacuations when hurricanes strike.

And yet, mandatory evacuations remain controversial. Some argue they are a sign of collective welfare; critics say they are an infringement of individual rights. Either way, they demonstrate that disaster preparedness is as much about governance as it is about weather.

A revolutionary virtue

Preparedness is also rooted in culture. In the decades after Flora, literature, film and political speeches cast Cubans as protagonists in a national drama of struggle against nature. Just as they had repelled the US-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, citizens were called on to play their part and mobilise against hurricanes.

Cuban cultural life is full of images of former leader Fidel Castro wading through floodwaters. In these, he personifies an ethos framing disaster response as a revolutionary virtue: to be a revolutionary is to stand up to the storm. Or as Venezuelan statesman Simón Bolívar declared after the Caracas earthquake of 1812: “Well, if nature is against us, we will also fight against nature.”

This legacy still resonates. Appearing in olive green fatigues, favoured by Fidel Castro for decades, the current president addressed Cubans via Facebook as Melissa approached:

Dear compatriots of eastern Cuba, where #Fidel defied the dangerous hurricane #Flora and taught us forever what conduct to follow to protect life, which is the most important thing. I ask you to stay alert, be supportive, and never forget discipline in the face of threat. Venceremos (We will prevail).

Trust and mobilisation

Cuba’s historical success in saving lives is rooted in the ability to evacuate its population, and that citizens agree to participate in the system. Jamaica also has a well-established disaster governance system, where responsibility is spread across parish councils and community groups. However, participation in formal government-led processes has historically been much lower. Our research suggests this often stems from low trust in authorities and a lack of resources to support decentralisation.

We can see some of this in the response to Melissa. While the Jamaican government had ordered evacuations, many households stayed put, with a peak of around 25,000 people seeking refuge in emergency shelters. Conspiracy theories circulated saying Melissa was “manufactured” by humans, while Jamaican scientists called on the public to trust official information and ignore social media rumours. The Cuban and Jamaican cases jointly show the role of political culture in shaping how countries prepare for disasters and respond to them.

The challenge ahead

Melissa is a warning shot. Its sheer force was alarming, but so was how rapidly it became so strong. More intense storms with more precipitation are coming, and rising seas amplify the risks.

Caribbean nations need resources to rebuild and to protect themselves from future hurricanes. But disaster preparedness must also be about questions of politics and culture that mobilise action. In the decades ahead, culture and trust in authorities may prove as vital as levees and shelters in preparing for extreme weather.

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For research in Cuba, Gustav Cederlöf has previously received funding from the ESRC, The Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), King’s College London Graduate School, and the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography.

Sophie Blackburn 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 hurricanes rarely kill in Cuba – https://theconversation.com/why-hurricanes-rarely-kill-in-cuba-268840

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ezenwa E. Olumba, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Aston University

The US president, Donald Trump, is threatening military action in Nigeria over what he sees as the persecution of Christians there. He has accused the Nigerian government of not doing enough to prevent radical Islamists from committing “mass slaughter” against Christians in the west African nation.

In a video posted on social media on November 5, Trump said: “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands and thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible.” He warned that, if US forces were to attack, it would be “fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”

Riley Moore, a Republican US congressman who has been asked by Trump to lead an investigation into violence against Christians in Nigeria, has previously called the country “the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian”. He claims that more than 7,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria in 2025 alone – an average of 35 per day. Hundreds more have been kidnapped, tortured or displaced, he says.

But, regardless of whether or not these figures are correct (assessing their accuracy is difficult), the US government’s framing of the violence in Nigeria as Islamists killing Christians oversimplifies a complex reality. Violence in Nigeria is driven by more than religion alone, with land disputes, politics, ethnicity, historical grievances and inequality all playing a part.

Violence in Nigeria has varying motives. In the north-western and north-eastern regions of the country, attacks are largely carried out by jihadist groups such as Boko Haram, Lakurawa and Islamic State West Africa Province. These groups seek to establish an Islamic caliphate in the region, and attack whoever opposes their ideology – Christian or otherwise.

Boko Haram has historically been the dominant Islamist militant group in Nigeria. The Brookings Institution estimates that Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands of people in Nigeria since 2009, and has displaced more than 2 million others. The regions of Nigeria in which jihadist groups operate are predominantly Muslim.

The motives for violence in other areas of Nigeria, including the fertile agricultural Middle Belt region, are different. The Middle Belt, which is mostly Christian, is badly affected by violent conflict between sedentary farmers and nomadic herders. The herders, who tend to be Fulani Muslims, move their livestock from one region to another.

I have studied this particular type of conflict in Nigeria since 2018. Violent conflicts between these groups of people are driven by poor governance, inequality, historical grievances and environmental injustice – and it would be inaccurate to suggest they are entirely motivated by religion.

They are best understood as eco-violence. The two groups clash over access to and control of water points and land, which leads to mass killings and the destruction of settlements. The Trump administration’s grouping of Nigeria’s violence together under the label of Islamist extremism is thus misleading.

Nigeria’s Middle Belt region:

The Middle Belt has become one of Nigeria’s most violent regions. Armed herder groups have been accused of staging attacks on farming communities that have resulted in mass murders, the burning of homes and barns and the displacement of millions of people.

In some areas, attackers have taken over and resettled in captured communities. Farmers have destroyed herds of livestock worth thousands of US dollars in retaliation, and have killed herders.

According to Amnesty International, over 10,000 people have been killed in attacks across the Middle Belt since 2023, with Benue and Plateau states accounting for the vast majority of these deaths.

In June 2025, armed attackers stormed the farming village of Yelwata in Benue state, killing around 200 people in the space of a few hours. Then, in early November, 17 people were killed by armed men believed to be Fulani herders in the farming settlement of Kwi and the town of Damakasuwa. Both of these places are located near the border between Plateau and Kaduna states.

A few days later, after Trump had threatened military action in Nigeria, suspected armed herders killed at least seven people in an attack on Anwuel village in Benue state. Herders have also been accused of carrying out attacks in other regions of Nigeria, including the south-west and south-east.

Amnesty International has blamed the escalating violence in Nigeria on the “shocking failure” of the country’s authorities to protect lives and property from attacks by armed groups and bandits. Rural communities say that Nigerian security agencies often fail to protect them, even when they are warned of impending or ongoing attacks.

However, Nigerians do not need a foreign saviour. What the country needs is a new constitution. The current constitution was created by a military administration, not through a democratic process. Many people have argued that it lacks legitimacy and centralises excessive power at the federal level.

This concentration of power has fuelled corruption, nepotism and generally poor governance, resulting in the rampant insecurity seen in Nigeria today. Nigeria needs an inclusive, democratically drafted constitution that reflects the will of its people.

It is troubling that it has taken a threat by the US president to again remind Nigerian leaders of their duties to protect civilians. But hopefully this results in better security and support for victims of violence in rural communities across Nigeria.

Ezenwa E. Olumba 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. Nigeria’s violent conflicts are about more than just religion – despite what Trump says – https://theconversation.com/nigerias-violent-conflicts-are-about-more-than-just-religion-despite-what-trump-says-268922

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Vaughan, Lecturer in International Security, University of Leeds

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said that Russia may could carry out nuclear weapons tests for the first time since the cold war.

In what appears to be a response to a statement by Donald Trump on October 30, that he had ordered the US to restart nuclear tests “on an equal basis” with Russia and China, Putin said he’d been advised by his defence staff that it was “advisable to prepare for full-scale nuclear tests”.

At present there is no evidence that either Russia or China is conducting nuclear tests, which were discontinued by most nuclear states after the test ban treaties of the early 1990s.

Read more:
Nukes in space: a bad idea in the 1960s – an even worse one now

Trump may have been reacting to the news of two Russian weapons tests in late October. On October 21, Putin announced that Russia had tested the Burevestnik – the first of a new generation of nuclear-powered cruise missiles. Days later he revealed that Russia had also tested Poseidon, a nuclear-powered and capable underwater drone which operates like a torpedo.

The US Department of Energy has rowed back on the president’s statement, assuring the world that Washington has no plans for test nuclear detonations. It appears that Trump’s order may have come from his confusion between Russia’s recent tests of nuclear-capable delivery vehicles such as Burevestnik and Poseidon, and the testing of actual nuclear warheads.

Nonetheless, the two leaders’ nuclear bluster is a sobering reminder of the dangers posed by nuclear brinkmanship between the US and Russia.

It is worth remembering that at the height of the cold war, the superpowers prepared to settle their confrontation in the territories of central Europe with little regard for the millions they would kill. US strategists hoped that a “tactical” nuclear conflict might contain the war to Europe, sparing the continental United States.

Independent deterrent?

This is the context for the UK public accounts committee releasing a report last week which detailed further “delays, cost inflation, and deep-rooted management failures” in the RAF’s procurement of F-35 stealth fighter aircraft.

The F-35 is increasingly coming to be viewed in some US defence circles as an expensive failure. This year, however, the UK’s Labour government committed to buying 15 additional F-35B aircraft (having already ordered 48), but also adding 12 of the F-35A variant.

The F-35A is configured to carry the B61 nuclear gravity bomb. Although the British government trumpeted the return of “a nuclear role for the Royal Air Force” in the 2025 strategic defence review, the B61 is a US weapon which will be under US command and carried by a US-made platform. The B61 is a “tactical” but still immensely destructive nuclear weapon – which, as during the cold war, is intended for use on European battlefields in the hope of containing any conflict far from the US.

Additionally, the UK’s “independent nuclear deterrent” consists of British “Holbrook” warheads mounted on US Trident II missiles. While sole launch authority rests formally with the UK prime minister, the system is entirely reliant on US support and maintenance of the missiles for its continued operation. In the event of Scottish independence, Britain’s nuclear submarines might have to relocate to the continental US, because there are few suitable UK alternatives to the Faslane base, an hour north of Glasgow.

Elsewhere, in summer 2025, observers reported that US B61 bombs had returned to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, to be carried by US Air Force jets. They had been removed in 2008 amid easing tensions between Nato and Russia, but have returned amid more aggressive nuclear posturing by both Washington and Moscow.

The Nukewatch group said: “The new nuclear bombs … are entirely under the control of Donald Trump and could be used without the UK having any say at all in the matter. In fact, we wonder whether the UK government has even been notified by the USAF that the weapons are now stationed at Lakenheath.” The UK government remained silent on the matter.

This integration of UK and US nuclear forces has not been publicly deliberated. Jeremy Corbyn, the last political leader who tried to offer the electorate a meaningful choice on the matter, was forced to backtrack.

Incompatible with democracy

This is a clear demonstration that nuclear weapons and deterrence policies have always been incompatible with democracy. They require huge secrecy, and the speed involved means that launch decisions are out of the public’s hands. Instead, any decisions to use these incredibly destructive weapons – with all that this implies for the planet – are concentrated in the hands of individual leaders.

The logic of nuclear deterrence breaks down, however, once we remember that the UK’s control over its own nuclear weapons – not to mention the US weapons hosted on its soil – is very limited. The US could at any moment withdraw its assistance for the Trident programme, making questions of British willingness to fight a nuclear war irrelevant.

The F-35A purchase redoubles the UK’s commitment to serving as Donald Trump’s nuclear aircraft carrier. It makes the country a target in any nuclear war that might be started by two unpredictable and violent superpowers. Other US allies get the same treatment: Australian analysts lament that the Aukus submarine deal with the UK and US yokes the country’s future “to whoever is in the White House”.

Fortunately, the flipside of this reliance on the US is that it might be relatively easy for the UK to shut down its own nuclear programme. Aside from its role in the Nato nuclear mission, Trident has little strategic value when it comes to deterring the threats actually faced by the UK.

With so much of its nuclear weapons activity farmed out to the US, there may not be many domestic vested interests to oppose a change in UK policy if Washington does turn off the nuclear taps.

If the UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, is serious about continuing Labour’s commitment to “progressive realism”, she should chart an independent path. Alternative, non-nuclear defence policies for the pursuit of internationally responsible “common security” could be implemented by a British government with the confidence to govern from London, not DC.

Tom Vaughan 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. Talk of new atomic tests by Trump and Putin should make UK rethink its role as a nuclear silo for the US – https://theconversation.com/talk-of-new-atomic-tests-by-trump-and-putin-should-make-uk-rethink-its-role-as-a-nuclear-silo-for-the-us-269040