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October 19, 2025

Marineland’s decline raises questions about the future of zoo tourism

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ann-Kathrin McLean, Assistant Professor, School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Royal Roads University

Thirty beluga whales are at the risk of being euthanized at the now-shuttered Marineland zoo and amusement park in Niagara Falls. Marineland said in a letter to Canada’s Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson it will have to euthanize the whales if it doesn’t receive the necessary financial support to relocate them.

The park has come under intense scrutiny recently due to the ongoing struggle to relocate its remaining whales amid financial struggles, a lack of resources and crumbling infrastructure.

Canada passed the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act in 2019 that prohibits whales, dolphins and porpoises from being taken into captivity. However, the law does not apply retroactively, meaning whales already held in facilities such as Marineland were allowed to remain there.

Marineland, which opened in 1961 in Canada, was once a massive tourism attraction that drew up to 1.2 million visitors annually to see its choreographed aquatic shows. But the park has been closed to the public since the end of summer 2024 after years of controversy and lawsuits.

The park’s reputation has unravelled over the years following a string of beluga whale deaths and other allegations of animal mistreatment.

Marineland’s decline is emblematic of the broader debate over zoo tourism and the ethics of keeping animals in captivity for entertainment.

Understanding zoo tourism

There are 23 accredited zoos in Canada. Accreditation is assigned through Canada’s Accredited Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA), a not-for-profit organization that ensures the health and welfare of captive wildlife with a mission of “inspiring a future where wildlife and people thrive together.”

Zoo tourism is an industry that is both economic and culturally significant in Canada. Roughly 1,520 people are employed in zoos across Canada, which attracted nearly four million visitors in 2020.

But even accredited facilities are not immune to ethical and welfare concerns. In 2022, the B.C. SPCA opened an investigation into the Vancouver Aquarium and Greater Vancouver Zoo following allegations of animal cruelty. Marineland, another accredited zoo, has also appeared to struggle with providing adequate care for its animals in recent years.

The ethics of zoo tourism have come under increasing scrutiny as a result of incidents like these. Critics argue animals and marine life in zoos and parks should not be viewed solely as sources of human entertainment, but as beings that deserve ethical stewardship.

Conservation, education-focused facilities

Zoo tourism must shift to providing educational and research opportunities to shape the way people think about zoo tourism. Across Canada, several facilities are redefining what ethical captivity can look like.

Ecological reserves and conservation parks such as the BC Wildlife Park and the Raptors Centre are examples of educational conservatories for animals.

The BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops was recently biosphere-certified, a designation that recognizes its commitment to sustainability, wildlife conservation and alignment with the 17 United Nations sustainable development goals.

Further north, the ethos of the Yukon Wildlife Preserve is firmly rooted in the principles of animal welfare and ecological conservation. Established in 2003 on the site of a former game farm, the preserve focuses on the rehabilitation and preservation of animals that are native to the region. Its mission includes cultivating “reciprocal, respectful relationships between people and the natural world.”

Reciprocity between species is a concept that most people are not thinking about when visiting a zoo or aquarium. The relationship between visitors and animals is starting to get re-examined in the public consciousness.

As this concept gains traction, institutions like the Yukon Wildlife Preserve are working to ensure encounters between visitors and wildlife contribute to animal welfare, education and ecological understanding.

Toward a more ethical future for zoo tourism

We cannot undo the past but we can influence the future of animal welfare and conservation. Efforts are already underway to redefine how wildlife is experienced and protected.

In British Columbia, the Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program recently acquired a 274-acre property dedicated to creating a humane habitat for rescued grizzly bears. In Victoria, the Parkside Hotel & Spa is part of an initiative to raise funds to support dolphin rescue and rehabilitation work worldwide.

Innovations like hologram zoos being piloted in Ontario, Australia and China demonstrate how technology could replace live animal performances.

Public attitudes are shifting as people become more aware of ecological protection and animal welfare. What has clearly fallen out of public favour are animals trained to perform in captivity for their food and our entertainment.

The transformation of aquariums and zoos will not happen overnight. But continued investment in ecological education and public involvement can help create a more balanced relationship between humans and wildlife. A balanced approach to zoo tourism will require conservation efforts by experts in the field of research, education and animal well-being.

Ann-Kathrin McLean is affiliated with Tourism and Travel Research Association Canada (TTRA).

Moira A. McDonald is affiliated with Tourism and Travel Research Association Canada (TTRA).

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

– ref. Marineland’s decline raises questions about the future of zoo tourism – https://theconversation.com/marinelands-decline-raises-questions-about-the-future-of-zoo-tourism-266672

October 19, 2025

11 years after the Parliament Hill shooting, is Canada doing enough to tackle political violence?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kevin Budning, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Security, Carleton University

Wednesday marks the 11th anniversary of the Parliament Hill shooting, when an Islamist-inspired extremist, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, stormed Canada’s War Memorial and Parliament Hill, killing one soldier and injuring three other people.

The shooting — the worst attack on Parliament Hill since a failed bomb attempt in 1996 — sent shock waves throughout Canada, as well as internationally. It not only exposed the glaring security vulnerabilities on Parliament Hill but also marked a new reality for Canadians: political violence, long considered a distant threat, had arrived at home.

Eleven years later, many of the lessons Canada should have learned have not yet been put into action. With a marked rise in political polarization and violent attacks, it’s past due for Canada to strengthen its efforts to protect elected officials.

Extremism in Canada

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) classifies three distinct types of extremism: religious, ideological and political. While faith and grievance-based violence continue to make up the lion’s share of incidents in Canada, the threat of politically motivated violent extremism has steadily increased in recent years.

CSIS defines such extremism as “the use of violence to establish new political systems or new structures or norms within existing systems.” This definition, however, is murky in practice, since many attacks target political institutions but are motivated by either an ideological or religious grievance rather than explicit political goals.

In the case of the Parliament Hill shooting, the perpetrator committed the attack in part due to his discontent with Canada’s foreign policy in the Middle East. Though religiously motivated, his actions had political intent.

Likewise, the 2014 shooting in Moncton, N.B. that left three officers killed and two others injured, along with the 2020 vehicle ramming at the gates of the prime minister’s residence in Ottawa, were both committed by far-right extremists. While CSIS correctly classified the attacks as ideologically motivated, they too were, at their core, political.

Regardless of an attacker’s motive — ideological, religious or political — elected officials are increasingly in the line of fire.

According to the Privy Council Office, former prime minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet faced 337 threats in 2024 alone, up from just three five years earlier.

The same report showed the number of death threats rose from zero in 2019 to 56 in 2022, and 26 in the first half of 2024. When including incidents directed at MPs across party lines, the true scale of the problem is likely much greater.

The global threat

Rising political violence is a global trend. In 2024, more than 2,600 acts of violence targeted local officials across 96 countries, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

Similarly, Freedom House, a non-profit organization aimed at strengthening democracy and protecting human rights, reported that nearly 40 per cent of countries experienced election-related violence in 2024. Politicians were attacked in at least 20 nations.

The motives behind these attacks were not monolithic; they ranged from a long list of grievances rooted in xenophobia, gender-based hostility, conspiracy theories, anti-authoritarianism, religious extremism and other perceived social or political injustices.

In the past several years, two British MPs, Jo Cox and David Amess, were killed; former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated; South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-Myung was stabbed; Slovakian President Robert Fico was seriously wounded in a shooting; and former Ukrainian parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy was shot dead.

The United States has been particularly affected by political violence, with at least 300 cases recorded since the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol. According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, plots against government targets in the past five years are nearly triple what they’ve been in the past 25 years combined.

The most notable include two failed assassination attempts on U.S. President Donald Trump in 2024, and the killing of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and fatal shooting of right-wing commentator and political activist Charlie Kirk this year.

A call to action

The Parliament Hill shooting anniversary reminds us that the threat of political violence has not diminished over the past decade — it’s grown.

Despite the implementation of some security measures — such as combining three disparate security services into the Parliamentary Protective Service, expanding the armed security presence on Parliament Hill and offering the installation of security systems and mobile panic buttons for elected officials — MPs still lack sufficient protection.

Instead of being reactive in the aftermath of any future tragedies, Canada must make proactive investments to safeguard people and institutions likely to be targeted.

That means enhancing screenings before meetings, increasing access to safe rooms, bolstering security at public events, improving emergency response planning and using protective details and physical security judiciously — that is, erring on the side of caution rather than waiting for threats to escalate.

Canada should also strengthen its intelligence and law enforcement communities to counter the evolving threat. This includes:

Expanding open-source intelligence capabilities to better execute the goals laid out in Canada’s national strategy on countering radicalization to violence;
Enhancing co-ordination with municipal police forces and hate-crime units;
Ensuring the legal consequences for political violence and intimidation serve as genuine deterrents;
And learning best practices from countries like Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, which ranked highest on the 2024 Peace Index.

Protecting Canada’s elected officials from political violence is essential, but it must never compromise a fundamental tenet of democracy: the public’s access to their leaders. Striking this balance will likely remain the greatest challenge for decision-makers, and one they simply cannot afford to get wrong.

Kevin Budning 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. 11 years after the Parliament Hill shooting, is Canada doing enough to tackle political violence? – https://theconversation.com/11-years-after-the-parliament-hill-shooting-is-canada-doing-enough-to-tackle-political-violence-265932

October 19, 2025

Should Boko Haram fighters be given a second chance in society? We asked 2,000 young Nigerians

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Amélie Godefroidt, Assistant Professor in Conflict Management, IÉSEG School of Management; KU Leuven

Across the world, the question of how to deal with former fighters remains urgent. From Nigeria and Iraq to Syria and the Sahel, governments are wrestling with how to bring people who once fought for violent groups back into society. Reintegrating ex-fighters – after appropriate punishment – is unavoidable. This is because alternatives such as indefinite detention, capital punishment or abandonment are unsustainable and risk fuelling future cycles of violence.

Yet local communities often seem to resist welcoming ex-combatants back.

How, then, can societies balance the need for reintegration with local resistance?

As scholars of public opinion during and after episodes of political violence, we set out to better understand these tensions. We have years of fieldwork experience in Nigeria and other conflict-affected settings and, together with our local team, we conducted a study to assess citizens’ views on reintegration. How risky would it be to take a certain person back? And does this person deserve a second chance?

Our research was conduced in Nigeria, where Boko Haram’s insurgency has devastated communities for more than two decades. As the group has weakened and thousands of fighters have surrendered, the government has launched programmes to reintegrate them into civilian life. These initiatives have achieved limited success so far, as many citizens remain wary and resistant to their return.

We surveyed around 2,000 young Nigerians and asked them to evaluate different hypothetical profiles of former Boko Haram fighters. This allowed us to see how different characteristics shaped public preferences.

We found that respondents were more forgiving towards former fighters who were forced to join the insurgency and expressed remorse afterwards. They were less willing to reintegrate more militant and less repentant offenders.

Our findings speak to several high-level policy debates today. Nigeria continues to run reintegration programmes. While some returnees have successfully rejoined their communities, others have faced suspicion, threats, and even renewed displacement.

What we found

Three patterns stood out:

Why they joined matters.
People were far more open to reintegrating fighters who were forcibly recruited or joined as children than those who joined voluntarily – especially for ideological reasons. As one respondent put it:

Young fighters had little guidance or knowledge of what trouble they were going into.

What they do after leaving matters even more.
Former fighters who left voluntarily and took part in reconciliation efforts, especially cooperating with the police or army in their fight against Boko Haram, enjoyed much stronger public support. One respondent even went a step further, suggesting that

instead of a prison sentence, former militias should serve a period of compulsory community service rebuilding the states they have destroyed.

Some atrocities were harder to forgive.
As one participant put it:

The only precondition is that they have never taken a life. No killer deserves to be free, let alone get amnesty.

Still, our experimental results show this mattered less than one might expect: while people were reluctant to accept those who committed severe violence, the circumstances of joining and leaving weighed more heavily.

These same patterns also influenced whether people believed reintegration would succeed, and what punishments they thought appropriate. Fighters who were forced to join and left voluntarily were expected to reintegrate successfully and were more likely to be granted amnesty. Fighters seen as willing culprits who refused reconciliation were more often judged to deserve the death penalty.

Importantly, these patterns held broadly across different groups – whether respondents were Christian or Muslim, from the north or south, victims or non-victims of Boko Haram violence.

In short: willingness to forgive depended less on the violence of the past than on whether ex-fighters signalled remorse and a genuine commitment to peace today.

Why this matters

Our research suggests that reintegration and reconciliation is more likely to succeed when:

(1) Clear conditions are set. Linking reintegration to reconciliatory behaviour can reassure communities.

(2) Citizens are informed. Communication campaigns that explain how some fighters were coerced, or highlight the risks taken by those who defected, can reduce public resistance.

(3) Reconciliation is made visible. Publicising ex-fighters’ efforts to cooperate with authorities or support victims helps rebuild trust.

The lesson is simple but often overlooked: preparing societies for the return of ex-fighters is as important as preparing the fighters themselves. Without community buy-in, reintegration risks deepening divides instead of healing them.

Amélie Godefroidt received funding from the Research Foundation Flanders–FWO for this study.

– ref. Should Boko Haram fighters be given a second chance in society? We asked 2,000 young Nigerians – https://theconversation.com/should-boko-haram-fighters-be-given-a-second-chance-in-society-we-asked-2-000-young-nigerians-266289

October 18, 2025

Pennsylvania’s budget crisis drags on as fed shutdown adds to residents’ hardships — a political scientist explains

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel J. Mallinson, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Penn State

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s first budget, in 2023, was not fully passed until mid-December. AP Photo/Daniel Shanken

While Americans across the country deal with the consequences of the federal government shutdown, residents of Pennsylvania are being hit with a double blow.

Pennsylvania has been without a state budget for over 100 days – and remains the only state currently operating without a budget.

As a political scientist at Penn State who studies state politics and policy, I see how Pennsylvania’s budget impasse has ripple effects that are compounded by the current budget problems in Washington.

Let’s look at the present budget problems in Pennsylvania and what we can learn from past battles over the state budget.

A double crisis

Double government budget crises, like the one Pennsylvania faces now, are rare. One reason is that 46 states, including Pennsylvania, begin their new fiscal year on July 1. The federal government’s fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. Even a state like Pennsylvania, that has had late budgets for eight of the last 10 years, would have to be very late in passing a budget for it to potentially coincide with a federal budget impasse. And, of course, federal government shutdowns do not happen all the time.

Men in suits shown in shadow underneath elaborate ceiling with arches — A group of Republican senators talk at the U.S. Capitol Building on Oct. 15, 2025, during a government shutdown that began Oct. 1.
Andrew Harnik via Getty Images

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro faces a delicate political environment in Harrisburg – as he has since his first budget in 2023. The Democrats control the state House by a single seat, whereas the Republicans have a comfortable majority in the Senate.

The parties have been debating over the last several budget cycles how to handle funding surpluses – much of which came from Biden-era legislation like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – and when and how to deal with the inevitable end to those surpluses.

This year, the two sides are far apart on their views of the proper spending level.

The Democrats in the House passed a US$50.3 billion spending plan, but Senate Republicans want to keep state spending flat at $47.6 billion. The two sides have clashed over proposals surrounding school vouchers, marijuana legalization and more.

As for the federal government, Republicans have a trifecta – control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives – but do not have the 60 votes in the Senate required to overcome a filibuster. Democrats have dug in over reversing cuts to health care from the earlier passed “one big beautiful bill” and expiring Obamacare subsidies.

There is little sign of an immediate end to either impasse.

In Pennsylvania, there is growing frustration on both sides about an inability to compromise. Nationally, House Speaker Mike Johnson has speculated that this may end up being the longest federal government shutdown in history. In neither case, though, does there seem to be a great deal of urgency in coming to a compromise.

Effects on Pennsylvania

These dual crises are affecting Pennsylvanians in many ways. The state government continues to function even without a budget, but counties, school districts and nonprofit organizations that rely on state funding are being forced to make difficult operating choices.

Some counties like Westmoreland and Northampton are beginning the process of furloughing employees. School districts are taking out loans, freezing hiring and deferring spending. The state already owes school districts more than $3 billion in missed payments for the past three months.

Woman reaches for loaf of bread on shelf that contains food products — Cozy Wilkins, 66, stocks the shelves at New Bethany, a nonprofit that provides food access, housing and social services, in Bethlehem, Pa., on July, 22, 2024.
Ryan Collerd/AFP via Getty Images

The social safety net is also fraying as social service organizations, like rape crisis centers and mental health providers, are also expending reserves, taking out loans and furloughing employees.

Then comes the federal shutdown.

Military families nationwide have been hit particularly hard, with many turning to food pantries to help meet their needs. The recent money maneuvers at the Department of Defense to pay active-duty and activated National Guard and Reserves personnel is temporary. The commonwealth also has the eighth-highest population of federal civilian employees, at over 66,000 who are not being paid.

Services like food banks are especially vulnerable in this situation, as they are seeing greater demand – which may increase due to federal workers going unpaid – but rely on both the state and federal governments for subsidies. Just this week, it was announced that Pennsylvanians buying health care through the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace for 2026 should expect a 22% increase in premiums, on average. Part of that increase is due to expectations around the expiring Obamacare subsidies at the center of the Democrats’ demands in this shutdown.

All of these forces are coming together to pinch Pennsylvania residents.

Echoes of the past

While the compounding pain of the federal shutdown is unique, long budget delays in Pennsylvania are not.

In 2023, Gov. Shapiro’s first budget was not fully passed until Dec. 14. That budget was fundamentally delayed by the acrimonious implosion of a deal on school voucher spending between the governor and Senate Republicans. The budget negotiations ended after some horse-trading on specific programs, like removing the popular Whole-Home Repairs Program started during the COVID-19 pandemic but adding funding for lead and asbestos abatement in schools.

The difference between then and now, however, is that back then the governor and General Assembly agreed on the overall budget, but typical bargaining was needed to get the votes needed to pass the spending bills after the voucher blow-up. This time, the parties are almost $3 billion apart in what should even be spent.

In the end, however, both Pennsylvania and the federal government will pass budgets, and I expect that each will be the result of protracted negotiations over multiple spending items, as Americans have seen in the past. The question is: How much pain will citizens, nonprofits and local governments face in the interim?

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

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

– ref. Pennsylvania’s budget crisis drags on as fed shutdown adds to residents’ hardships — a political scientist explains – https://theconversation.com/pennsylvanias-budget-crisis-drags-on-as-fed-shutdown-adds-to-residents-hardships-a-political-scientist-explains-267382

October 17, 2025

Scary stories for kids: Watership Down made me aware of my mortality at age four

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aislinn Clarke, Lecturer in Film Studies, Queen’s University Belfast

When I think of my first encounter with horror, I don’t think of a vampire, a witch, or even a possessed girl’s head spinning round (I saw The Exorcist at the age of seven). I think of a Sun God, I think of teeth and claws slicked with blood, I think of the Black Rabbit of Death. And he wasn’t even the bad guy.

I’m not talking about some campy folk horror from the 1960s. I’m talking about the 1978 animated version of Richard Adams’ Watership Down.

I was perhaps four when I saw it. The opening sequence remains a core memory: the myth of the Prince with a Thousand Enemies, the Original Rabbit, rendered in gorgeous animation that evoked Aboriginal art via the films of New Zealand artist Len Lye. Then the great crimson wave of blood flowing across the fields. Death, cold and indiscriminate, was coming to the gentle slopes of Watership Down.

That was the moment I first felt awe and terror at the fragility of life. And the utter indifference of death. The kind of awe and terror we assume children’s minds can neither comprehend nor bear.

And that was just the beginning.

This article is part of a series of expert recommendations of spooky stories – on screen and in print – for brave young souls. From the surprisingly dark depths of Watership Down to Tim Burton’s delightfully eerie kid-friendly films, there’s a whole haunted world out there just waiting for kids to explore. Dare to dive in here.

It’s easy to assume that because Watership Down is a cartoon about woodland animals, it must be gentle. It isn’t. And that’s why it’s so powerful. My parents had already let my older siblings and I watch the campy spectacle of Hammer Horror at Halloween, but they couldn’t have guessed the deeper impact of Adams’s rabbits – they let me watch alone from the safe distance of the shag rug one sunny afternoon in 1984.

Nothing terrible had yet happened to me. I hadn’t known grief or loss. Watership Down cracked that open. For the first time, I understood, viscerally, that all the earth’s creatures – including myself – are mortal, and that death was coming for us all.

But don’t let that put you off sharing it with your four-year-old.

The value of horror is that it gives us a safe space to process fear. It takes the anxieties we can’t name and turns them into something we can face. I watched horror films with my family every weekend – Poltergeist, Day of the Dead, The Evil Dead.

Afterwards I slept like the actual dead. Soundly. Peacefully. I didn’t have nightmares, even if I did dream of rabbits. I didn’t need nightmares. For, what is a horror film, after all, if not a nightmare you share with people you love – a nightmare that can be switched off and tucked back into its case?

And, yes, I am saying that Watership Down is a horror film. Like Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, like The Thing or Alien, the terror of Watership Down arises from mortal insignificance. We too are small, powerless, unmoored, no different to the rabbits fleeing the down.

The film’s horror depends on empathy, the recognition that every creature wants what we want: to live, to love, to survive. Children understand that we are not special.

However, it is perhaps the most primal and defining characteristic of humanity that, not only do we fear death, but we know it is coming. Such darkness is part of being human and we can’t insulate children from the fullness of being human.

If we try, the chances are that the darkness will come out anyway in their nightmares, understood as a terrible thing that their own mind created in the dead of night. To share a film like Watership Down with them is to say: “I trust you with this. You are ready for awe, wonder, and yes, for fear too. And it is because we fear that we hope.”

Richard Adams opened his novel with a gruesome quote from the ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus and added: “If that makes the child put it back on the shelf, then to Hell with the child.”

His provocation was not contempt but a refusal to patronise. Children, he argued, deserve stories that take them seriously. Indeed, to live without curiosity, without discomfort, without provocation, is the stuff of nightmares. That is hell.

Both the book and the film trust their audience to confront mortality honestly. That trust makes for stronger children – and stronger adults. Adams rejected allegorical readings of his story, insisting that this gut wrenching heroes’ journey, with its keen sense of justice, really was about rabbits.

Children understand that not everything has to be about us. Only adults insist on being the default main character. Children know that in this beautiful, terrible world, everything – even us – just wants to live.

Perhaps all of this is more than one would expect from a cartoon film about woodland animals. Maybe we could all use a sunny afternoon on the rug, watching Watership Down, and remembering what it is like to be small and afraid and full of hope.

Watership Down has a PG rating, which means some material may not be suitable for young children, so parental guidance is advised.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Aislinn Clarke 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. Scary stories for kids: Watership Down made me aware of my mortality at age four – https://theconversation.com/scary-stories-for-kids-watership-down-made-me-aware-of-my-mortality-at-age-four-267052

October 17, 2025

Rise in youth mortality fuelled by mental illness, drugs, violence and other preventable causes

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Manuel Corpas, Lecturer in Genomics, University of Westminster

In some regions, youth mortality has actually risen in the past decade. KieferPix/ Shutterstock

Global mortality continues to fall. Life expectancy has improved to unprecedented levels and deaths in young children have plummeted. Yet for adolescents and young adults, especially those aged 15 to 24, little progress has been made according to data from the latest Global Burden of Disease study. In parts of North America and eastern Europe, mortality in those aged 15-24 has actually risen in the past decade.

This latest study also showed the main causes of death among young people aren’t disease or poor health. The main causes were shown to be injury, violence, suicide, road traffic accidents and substance abuse.

This shows us that health systems worldwide are still ill-equipped to prevent or intervene effectively in social and structural causes of youth mortality.

The Global Burden of Disease study is one of the largest studies on the picture of health, disease and mortality worldwide. The study analysed more than 310,000 data sources collected between 1950 and 2023 from 204 countries. Using death registries, censuses and household surveys, the research team estimated age-specific mortality trends across the lifespan.

The overall picture is one of uneven progress.

For children, especially in low and middle-income countries, vaccines, improved sanitation and better nutrition have saved millions of lives. In east Asia, for instance, mortality in under-fives fell by 68% between 2011 and 2023.

For older adults, the global mortality rate declined by 67% between 1950 and 2023, thanks to better screening, medication and chronic disease management.

Deaths from cardiovascular disease (the leading cause of death globally) have also improved substantially. But cardiovascular disease and other non-communicable diseases (such as cancer and diabetes) still account for nearly two-thirds of all deaths ariund the world.

For young people aged 15-24, the risk profile was different. For them, the main causes of death were primarily preventable ones.

In North America, deaths among people aged 20 to 39 rose by as much as 50% in the past decade – largely due to suicide, drug overdose and alcohol-related harms. The picture was also similar in some parts of Latin America.

But in other parts of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, infectious diseases (such as as tuberculosis) and unintentional injuries were the main drivers of youth mortality.

The study also highlighted stark inequalities in mortality risk for youth from marginalised, low-income or Indigenous groups. For instance, the study found that mortality in young women aged 15-29 living in sub-Saharan Africa was 61% higher than previously estimated, mostly due to maternal mortality, road injuries and meningitis.

However, these groups remain systematically underrepresented in global health datasets. The study found that more than 80% of countries lacked nationally representative data across key health domains, including mental health and child health. This meant most of the data was drawn from high-income regions.

Latin Americans, for example, make up over 8% of the global population but represent less than 1% of some global reference datasets. Such a systemic lack of representation from these groups renders their health needs invisible – including the health needs of those affecting the young.

Emerging trends

Today’s young people face unprecedented economic insecurity, social volatility, violence and pressures from social media – all of which can have an extraordinary toll on both mental health and wellbeing.

A young woman sits alone on a bench outside, gazing thoughtfully. — The mental health needs of young people must urgently be addressed.
New Africa/ Shutterstock

Mental health challenges underlie many of the leading causes of adolescent death reported in the study. It’s clear from this and other studies that youth mental health urgently needs to be addressed.

For instance, research from Spain which looked at over 2 million adolescent hospitalisations between 2000 and 2021, found admissions for mental health conditions more than doubled – surging especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.

For teenage boys, substance use, ADHD and psychosis were the most common causes of hospitalisation. For girls, eating disorders, anxiety and depression were more prevalent.

A related study found admissions for adolescent anorexia nervosa rose by almost 90% after 2020 – with cases overwhelmingly concentrated in girls aged 13-17.

Health survey data from 2023 also showed that half of US young adults aged 18-24 reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression. Additionally, a separate US survey also found that more than one-third of 18-24-year-olds reported they’d recently thought about self-harm or suicide.

Other factors which may also have contributed to high youth mortality rates may include a historical lack of preparedness by health systems in focusing on adolescent health issues, as well as a lack of interventions aimed at reducing the actual leading causes of youth death (such as road safety, violence prevention and meaningful mental health care).

The response to youth mortality cannot be medical alone as the leading causes of death in this age group require interventions that sit outside healthcare and require coordination across sectors.

Data systems must also change. Youth from low-income countries, Indigenous people and marginalised groups are underrepresented in research. This means we don’t fully understand the needs of these groups and the problems they face – making it difficult to plan and implement effective interventions.

Youth health must be re-framed as an equity issue, as well. The current model treats young people as responsible for their own poor outcomes, when research shows that, overwhelmingly, these issues can be caused by conditions that young people do not control: poverty, exposure to violence, unsafe road environments, inadequate mental health services and lack of economic opportunity.

These deaths are preventable. We cannot celebrate global health gains when youth mortality is stagnant – and even worsening in many parts of the world. Preventing adolescent and young adult deaths is the next frontier for a fairer, healthier future.

Manuel Corpas 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. Rise in youth mortality fuelled by mental illness, drugs, violence and other preventable causes – https://theconversation.com/rise-in-youth-mortality-fuelled-by-mental-illness-drugs-violence-and-other-preventable-causes-267459

October 17, 2025

How ‘conflict-free’ minerals are used in the waging of modern wars

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mark Griffiths, Reader in Political Geography, Newcastle University

Minerals such as cobalt, copper, lithium, tantalum, tin and tungsten, which are all abundant in central Africa, are essential to the comforts of everyday life. Our phones, laptops and electric vehicles would not function without them.

These minerals are also tied intimately with conflict. For decades, military and paramilitary violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and on its borders – particularly with Rwanda – has been shaped and financed by control over some of these sought-after commodities.

Many of these minerals, including those that have supposedly been sourced responsibly, are linked to violence at the other end of the supply chain too. As we found in our recently published research, minerals sourced in central Africa play a crucial role in the waging of modern wars.

A map of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with its location in Africa displayed. — The eastern provinces of the DRC hold large mineral reserves, but mining there remains fraught with the involvement of armed groups.
gt29 / Shutterstock

Extensive campaigning and lobbying over the past two decades has focused on the idea of “conflict-free minerals” as a way to address links between extraction and armed conflict in mining regions.

This has resulted in a suite of legislation in the EU and US obliging tech manufacturers that use minerals from the DRC and surrounding countries to submit so-called “conflict minerals reports” to national authorities.

In the US, for example, tech firms file what is known as a “specialized disclosure form” to the Securities and Exchange Commission detailing all sources of four key minerals commonly associated with conflict in Africa: tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold.

The form requires a declaration that trade is compliant with the due diligence guidelines set by the OECD on responsible supply chains in the DRC and neighbouring states. This guidance has, in turn, given rise to an industry of regulators that seeks to ensure minerals connected to conflict do not enter supply chains.

Tech companies worldwide – big and small – now comply with conflict minerals policies. The fact that these firms can be held under a critical spotlight, and that attention is falling on how bloody wars are connected to consumer products, is a positive development. But there are many flaws to this system of accountability.

One issue is the difficulty in proving that mineral supply is truly conflict free. Many of the “conflict-free” minerals sold through Rwanda, for instance, are very likely to have at least some connection to war.

In the early 2000s, when Rwandan forces were involved in armed conflict in the DRC, the UN estimated that the Rwandan army controlled between 60% and 70% of all the coltan (tantalum ore) produced there. It is widely accepted that Rwandan influence has persisted in the DRC since.

Another issue is that, under conflict-free mineral legislation, “conflict” is associated with minerals only at source. There is no oversight on how minerals are connected to conflict at the other end of supply chains in modern weapons of war.

Conflict minerals

Weapons are no longer fashioned only with lead, iron and brass. They now depend on a range of advanced technologies: lithium batteries, cobalt cathodes, tantalum resistors, nickel capacitors, tin semiconductors, tungsten electrodes and so forth.

In fact, everything advanced militaries do nowadays – whether it involves a fighter jet, drone, guided bomb, smart bullet, night vision or remote sensing – utilises these components.

As we outline in our study, conflict-free minerals are essential to the waging of modern wars. We traced the movement of ores from the DRC into Rwanda, from where they are then sold to some of the world’s largest weapons makers as “conflict-free” minerals.

A coterie of defence contractors source minerals via this route. These minerals, as our previous research shows, are used as “volumetrically minor yet functionally essential” ingredients of the products these firms sell to militaries worldwide.

To draw focus on two “conflict-free” minerals traded through Rwanda, tin and tantalum are vital to the function of a wide range of military wares. According to the US defence department, tin is present in “nearly all military hardware”.

It is crucial in compound forms to defrost screens at high altitudes and to deflect radio waves to enhance stealth. Tin is also used to power the Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits that improve the accuracy of bombs.

Tantalum-based semiconductors comprise the basic circuitry of drones. And among other things, tantalum is the active adsorbent material in the infrared camera tubes that make night vision possible. High-tech wars cannot be fought without these minerals, which are traded under conflict-free mineral legislation.

A Ukrainian soldier programmes a drone in a field. — A Ukrainian soldier programmes a drone in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Jose HERNANDEZ Camera 51 / Shutterstock

Researchers have long suspected that minerals can never be conflict free at source. But our findings now turn attention to the other end of the supply chain. If it is to have any purchase at all, the idea of “conflict-free” minerals must be entirely refigured.

Virtually all commentary by journalists, lawyers and scholars focuses narrowly on consumer technologies, with the injustices faced by mining communities in central Africa contrasted with phones and electric vehicles. The source of minerals is the sole focus of ethical scrutiny.

This is an important aspect of minerals supply chains. But there is a growing prominence of other tech companies, in the form of modern weapons manufacturers, whose customers are not the global masses but the militaries of the world’s most belligerent states.

Companies like Elbit Systems – which did not respond to The Conversation’s request for comment – present themselves as complying with ethical standards.

In its 2020 conflict minerals report, Elbit declared a corporate stance against “human rights abuses and atrocities”. It also expressed a commitment “to sourcing materials from companies that share our values with respect to human rights, ethics and environmental responsibility”.

Yet, as our research shows, some companies are sourcing minerals from one war zone and then making profit from another. It should be recalled that Elbit, for example, supplies “hundreds of products” to Israel’s defence ministry.

There needs to be more scrutiny on the use of minerals “downstream” to stem the flow of the raw materials that propel wars in Gaza and beyond.

The research mentioned in this article was published as part of ‘War and Geos: the Environmental Legacies of Militarism’ (UKRI Horizon Europe grant number EP/X042642/1 (awarded as a European Research Council Starting Grant)).

Mohamed El-Shewy 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 ‘conflict-free’ minerals are used in the waging of modern wars – https://theconversation.com/how-conflict-free-minerals-are-used-in-the-waging-of-modern-wars-266503

October 17, 2025

Monsters, menopause and bold women – what to see, read and visit this week

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Naomi Joseph, Arts + Culture Editor, The Conversation

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has long served as a parable – a warning against the hubris of playing God, the dangers of motherless creation, reckless parenthood and unchecked scientific ambition. It’s a story that continues to resonate, revealing how little human ego and error have changed over time.

In the latest adaptation from horror maestro Guillermo del Toro, the tale of a mad scientist and his unnatural creation is reimagined with his signature touch. Like Shelley’s original, the film challenges us to ask: Who is the real monster?

Del Toro layers this timeless question with visual and thematic echoes from his own canon. Fans will spot traces of Crimson Peak in the gothic set design, Cronos in the intricate costuming, and The Shape of Water in its emotional core.

This version of Frankenstein is a visual feast – lavishly constructed and meticulously researched. As our reviewer Sharon Ruston points out, it incorporates real elements from early surgical education, including the gruesome 17th-century anatomy guides known as the Evelyn Tables. It also weaves in the history of Arctic exploration; those familiar with the doomed voyages of the Terror and Erebus will recognise their spectral influence.

I strongly recommend seeing this in cinemas. The immersive sound design and Alexandre Desplat’s haunting score pull you deep into this eerie, beautiful world. And if you’re in London, don’t miss the exhibition at Selfridges, where you can get up close to the props and costumes and appreciate the craftsmanship behind the film. It pairs perfectly with a visit to the Hunterian Museum, where the real Evelyn Tables are on display.

Frankenstein is in cinemas now, and will be available to watch on Netflix from November 7.

Bold women

Virginia Woolf has a new book out. No, she hasn’t sent it from beyond the grave. And no, it’s not the product of an AI trained on her oeuvre. The Life of Violet is a newly unearthed early work by Woolf, available to read for the very first time.

This early foray into the genre of mock biography – which she would later explore more fully in Flush and Orlando – is composed of three short, fairytale-like stories chronicling the life of her close friend, Violet Dickinson.

Within these vivid, fantastical sketches, we see the early sparks of themes that would later define Woolf’s work: sharp satire of societal ills, the suffocating constraints of social norms, the joys and limits of womanhood, the quiet power of female friendship, and the deep yearning for freedom and choice.

Short, surreal and bitingly witty, these stories are a treat for new readers and a treasure for long-time Woolf fans who thought they had read it all.

Life of Violet: Three Early Stories is available at most bookshops

If you’re looking for something binge-worthy this weekend, don’t miss Riot Women, Sally Wainwright’s bold and brilliant new drama.

The series follows five menopausal women who rediscover themselves – and find their voices – through punk at a time when life is pulling them in every direction: children, ageing parents, difficult men and demanding jobs with lousy bosses.

Tonally rich and emotionally layered, Riot Women balances laugh-out-loud moments with poignant, deeply felt drama. It’s a nuanced portrait of midlife – of caregiving, exhaustion, resilience and the fierce beauty of friendship. “These are not neat storylines,” reviewer Beth Johnson writes, “they are ongoing negotiations with life.”

The show’s strength lies in Wainwright’s deft storytelling, and an exceptional cast including Joanna Scanlan, Tamsin Greig and Rosalie Craig.

Riot Women is available to watch on BBC iPlayer now

More than just art

I first encountered the work of Lee Miller last year at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne. I was instantly captivated. Here was a woman far ahead of her time: model, fashion photographer, surrealist artist and one of the few female war correspondents accredited by the US Army during the second world war.

Her photographs are fearless, witty and wide-ranging – from surreal shots of Egypt’s landscapes to scenes of wartime London. As fine art expert Lynn Hilditch notes, the documentation of people in the liberated Holocaust camps and refugees in the aftermath stand out as both harrowing and deeply human.

Now, Miller’s work takes centre stage in the first major UK retrospective at Tate Britain. Featuring more than 250 vintage and modern prints, film and original publications (many never before shown), the exhibition is a long-overdue celebration of her legacy.

Lee Miller is at Tate Britain in London till 15 February 2026.

If you’re after an autumn city break, Amsterdam makes for a perfect long weekend – and right now, the Van Gogh Museum is offering something truly special.

On show is a remarkable exhibition bringing together 14 portraits of the family of Joseph Roulin – the postman who became one of Van Gogh’s closest friends during his time in Arles, in the south of France. Van Gogh painted Roulin’s wife Augustine and their three children with affection and intensity, transforming ordinary subjects into something universal.

As Frances Fowle writes, Van Gogh wasn’t just painting individuals – he was capturing archetypes. In these enigmatic portraits, we see not just a family but timeless figures: a comforting mother, a boy desperate to be a man, an innocent baby.

Van Gogh and the Roulins – Together Again At Last is at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam until January 11 2026.

In other exciting news, The Conversation UK’s arts team is launching a podcast to mark 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth. This series will take you on a journey through the author’s life and times with the help of the UK’s top Austen experts.

Over six episodes, one per book, we visit a scandal-filled bun shop in Bath, go for a windswept walk along the sea shore at Lyme Regis, and attend a glittering Regency ball in York to find out more about the woman behind the novels. This is Austen as you’ve never known her before. The first episode is out in November, but you can listen to the trailer here now.

– ref. Monsters, menopause and bold women – what to see, read and visit this week – https://theconversation.com/monsters-menopause-and-bold-women-what-to-see-read-and-visit-this-week-267693

October 17, 2025

Our research shows COVID-19 made people appreciate street cleaners more – but it also made their lives harder

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natasha Slutskaya, Chair Professor, Work and Organization Studies, University of Sussex

In the early days of the pandemic, “solidarity” became a buzzword. As COVID-19 appeared to directly threaten us all, the UK celebrated its key workers who were keeping the country running.

This idea ran through discussions on TV and on social media. The Clap for Our Carers movement had people gathering outside on their doorsteps, applauding, ringing bells, chanting and banging on pots and pans to signal their support.

As a result, the collective reliance on various workforces, such as carers, street cleaners, refuse collectors and supermarket workers, to name a few, became increasingly transparent. Public demonstrations of solidarity with these workers gave the initial impression that the status we attach to such work might be revalued: instead of the low status to which these jobs were assigned before, COVID-19 underlined how essential they are.

However, our research on refuse workers shows that this has not translated into a permanent reevaluation of the benefit key workers bring. On the contrary, instead of a collective shift towards real social solidarity, the pandemic has exacerbated socioeconomic divisions.

A man in red and hi-vis yellow with street cleaning apparatus on an urban pavement. — Cleaners worked hard to keep infection at bay.
G Torres/Shutterstock

Unexpected visibility

Between the UK’s first and the second lockdowns in 2020 and again, in the period after the end of the second lockdown in 2021, we interviewed 41 council workers involved in waste management across four sites in London and south-east England. Two were sites where we had previously conducted ethnographic research among street cleaners and refuse collectors.

We wanted to investigate if, and how, the pandemic affected the way that key workers involved in waste management are recognised. We asked our interviewees to reflect on and compare their experiences of working before, during and after the lockdown. We wondered whether they had noticed any changes in their interactions with the public and how they thought these developments might affect them in the future.

We found that the pandemic gave these workers moments of unexpected visibility and recognition. Not only did this show, to their minds, increased public respect, it also gave them hope that social bonds between workers and the public might be strengthened in the long term. They saw the possibility of a novel, yet seemingly mutual acknowledgement and respect. As Keith, one of our interviewees, put it:

During the pandemic we’re part of it, yes … it’s kind of like the police, the fire brigade, the ambulance, the hospitals, it’s part of the services of a community, working to keep the community functioning, and what we do is part of that.

And yet, this experience of coming together was eroded by the unequal consequences of the pandemic for different social groups. Our participants spoke of the differences they saw in people’s ability to distance themselves from the unpleasant or potentially dangerous aspects of the pandemic.

Whereas these workers still had to go to work everyday, other people did not. Our interviewees also noted the stark gap separating those key workers who performed the riskiest jobs (nurses, carers) and those whose jobs involved little risk and could be undertaken from home.

Another interviewee, Kevin, who works as a dustcart driver said:

COVID’s still going on now, because we’re not out of it yet. But, still, they’ve just carried on as their normal day, stayed at home working, while the likes of me go out there all day. And if I don’t work, I don’t get paid.

This chimed with what Nigel, a litter picker, reported:

They’re at home, comfortable. We get nothing. No nothing. Not even ‘Oh, we’ll give you a couple of days, like a couple of days extra as your holiday so you can recover and that’, nothing.

The pandemic also made broader social divisions more tangible. Our interviewees spoke about those with privilege seeming to lack interest in knowing about the deteriorating living conditions of workers like themselves. This was despite the fact that the activities these workers were doing, like waste collection and street cleaning, were vital for societal functioning. Another litter picker, Bernie, put it plainly:

You see people, you see some people going and spending like £12, £16 a day just on food going and buying lunch, and I sit there and I think: ‘How the hell do you do it?’ Nine times out of ten I have to make lunch just buying basics, you know, like a cheap loaf of bread, cheap bit of meat – luxury is a bit of sauce. They don’t want to think about people like me.

This illustrates the oxymoron of being “visibly invisible”. During the pandemic, keyworkers’ effort became more apparent. At the same time, they sensed little desire from the wider public to consider and challenge the cultural and socioeconomic factors that were negatively affecting their lives.

Our findings chime with research on how nurses, too, experienced the pandemic, with comparable levels of scepticism with regards to positive, long-term transformations. The question is whether, as German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz has argued, we are witnessing an increasing polarisation between different groups and social classes. Our research suggests that the sense that the world can be improved and society become more progressive feels ever more remote.

This has worrying implications for societal solidarity. As inequality grows, the mutual obligations citizens might have towards one another are increasingly being eroded.

All names have been changed to preserve interviewee anonymity.

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

– ref. Our research shows COVID-19 made people appreciate street cleaners more – but it also made their lives harder – https://theconversation.com/our-research-shows-covid-19-made-people-appreciate-street-cleaners-more-but-it-also-made-their-lives-harder-210298

October 17, 2025

Surge in global youth mortality fuelled by mental illness, drugs, violence and other preventable causes

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Manuel Corpas, Lecturer in Genomics, University of Westminster

This shows us that health systems worldwide are still ill-equipped to prevent or intervene effectively in social and structural causes of youth mortality.

The overall picture is one of uneven progress.

For older adults, the global mortality rate declined by 67% between 1950 and 2023, thanks to better screening, medication and chronic disease management.

For young people aged 15-24, the risk profile was different. For them, the main causes of death were primarily preventable ones.

But in other parts of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, infectious diseases (such as as tuberculosis) and unintentional injuries were the main drivers of youth mortality.

Emerging trends

For teenage boys, substance use, ADHD and psychosis were the most common causes of hospitalisation. For girls, eating disorders, anxiety and depression were more prevalent.

A related study found admissions for adolescent anorexia nervosa rose by almost 90% after 2020 – with cases overwhelmingly concentrated in girls aged 13-17.

The response to youth mortality cannot be medical alone as the leading causes of death in this age group require interventions that sit outside healthcare and require coordination across sectors.

– ref. Surge in global youth mortality fuelled by mental illness, drugs, violence and other preventable causes – https://theconversation.com/surge-in-global-youth-mortality-fuelled-by-mental-illness-drugs-violence-and-other-preventable-causes-267459