Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Catherine Norton, Associate Professor Sport & Exercise Nutrition, University of Limerick

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has stirred debate by calling the familiar five-a-day message “a lie”. Speaking to the Times, he argued that the real health benefits of fruit and vegetables only start to add up at seven, eight or even 11 portions a day.

He’s not wrong that more is better. Research shows us that the more servings of fruit and veg we eat per day, the more benefits we see to our health. But the story of how five servings became the standard recommendation is one of science meeting pragmatism.

When the five-a-day campaign was launched in the UK and Ireland more than 20 years ago, it was never meant to be the “perfect” target. Instead, it was a compromise – a number that struck a balance between the nutritional evidence and what public health experts thought people might realistically manage. Five portions was judged by researchers and marketeers to be a simple, memorable and achievable slogan – one that wouldn’t scare people off.

Today, five-a-day is one of the most recognisable public health messages – even if most UK adults still fall short of it.

But it may be time for this messaging to change, as a growing body of research shows that higher fruit and vegetable intakes are associated with lower risk of chronic diseases.

A meta-analysis of over 2 million people found that while five portions lowered risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, the greatest benefits were seen at around ten portions of fruit and veg daily. Another UK study found that people eating seven or more portions of fruit and veg each day had a 42% lower risk of death compared to those eating less than one portion.

Excellence rarely comes from doing the bare minimum – and the evidence suggests we should be aiming higher.

Japan has long recommended ten (and more) portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Mediterranean countries, too, traditionally eat diets rich in fresh produce, beans, and legumes. Research suggests that populations that follow these dietary patterns tend to have lower rates of heart disease and longer life expectancy. Similar associations between higher intakes of fruit and vegetables and lower risk of death from any cause are reported in Japan, too.

The research is clear: higher intake of fruits and vegetables everyday brings tangible health benefits. So while five portions is a good starting point, aiming to include more fruits and vegetables into your daily diet will bring even greater health benefits.

What counts as a portion?

But some confusion lies in what a “portion” really means. The World Health Organization defines one portion as about 80g – roughly a handful. That could be an apple, two broccoli spears, three heaped tablespoons of peas or half a tin of beans. When you break it down like this, eight to 11 portions across three meals and snacks becomes less intimidating.

There are also many easy ways to add more fruit and veg every day. For breakfast, try adding berries to your cereal, a banana to your porridge or spinach in your omelette. For lunch, add salad to sandwiches, beans to your soup or extra veg into wraps.

Double up portions at dinner by eating two or three sides of veg, or bulk up sauces and curries with lentils, peppers or mushrooms. Snack smart by reaching for fruit, veggie sticks with hummus or roasted chickpeas instead of crisps.

You should also aim to eat a rainbow of different fruits and vegetables across the week, as variety is associated with even greater health benefits.

There’s a common myth that only fresh fruit and vegetables count. In reality, frozen, tinned (in water or natural juice) and dried all have a place. They can be cheaper, last longer and often retain just as many nutrients as fresh produce.

Juices and smoothies count too – but only as one portion a day because of their sugar content.

The five-a-day message is a starting point, but not the finish line. Anything is better than nothing – and if you’re eating just one or two portions now, getting to three or four is progress.

But the science is clear: more really is better. Jamie Oliver may be ambitious in suggesting 11 portions, but he’s right that aiming higher could bring big health gains.

Catherine Norton 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. Jamie Oliver is right – this is how much fruit and veg we really should be eating every day – https://theconversation.com/jamie-oliver-is-right-this-is-how-much-fruit-and-veg-we-really-should-be-eating-every-day-264533

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Klaus Dodds, Professor of Geopolitics, Royal Holloway University of London

Irfaan Ali, the leader of the People’s Progressive party (PPP), says he has secured a second term as Guyana’s president. The official results from the election on September 1 are yet to be published, but Ali claims his party has won by a “remarkable margin”.

Vote tallies published by Guyana’s elections commission suggest the PPP has secured more than 240,000 votes, which equates to roughly 55% of the popular vote. The party has also won seven of the country’s ten electoral districts. It appears to have trounced its longtime opponent, A Partnership for National Unity.

Guyanese voters seem to have endorsed Ali’s approach. His campaign was dominated by promises to use oil-related revenue to alleviate chronic poverty and support further social and economic development.

The run-up to the election was tense. Guyana’s elections commission warned voters and parties to behave responsibly when it came to producing and circulating disinformation and fake news.

Guyanese officials pointed to neighbouring Venezuela as the main mischief-maker. This was to be expected. Over the past decade, relations between Caracas and Georgetown have been strained.

The Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, who has long been criticised by his US counterpart Donald Trump, is an outspoken proponent of trying to regain lost territory. Under his dictatorial rule, Venezuela has been pursuing its claim to Guyana’s Essequibo region.

Venezuela’s unhappiness stems from an 1899 international arbitration ruling in Paris that settled the border between Venezuela and what was then British Guiana. Successive Venezuelan governments and dictatorial regimes have disputed the positioning of that international boundary.

If Venezuela is successful, Guyana would be reduced by two-thirds such is the scale of this territorial claim. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is involved in this matter. It warned Venezuela in 2023 to refrain from taking any actions that “modify that situation that currently prevails” in Essequibo.

Venezuela, which does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICJ, held a national referendum on the dispute. Voters overwhelmingly supported the establishment of a new Venezuelan province called Guyana Esequiba.

The following year, Venezuela passed a law prohibiting maps of the country without Essequibo. And the ICJ has since reaffirmed its ban on Venezuela holding any “elections” in Guyanese territory.

The discovery of oil on the Guyanese side of the border a decade ago made all the above worse. Maduro has issued decrees and statements disputing Guyana’s right to do exploration deals with oil corporations such as Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and the China National Offshore Company.

Yet Guyana has continued to develop its oil industry. In August 2025, it declared that 900,000 barrels of oil were now being harvested from its oil fields each day. One million barrels will surely be hit sometime soon.

Maduro is determined to be as disruptive as possible, hoping that by generating border-related tension with Guyana international companies will be deterred from continuing their operations onshore and offshore.

He has deliberately sought to mobilise domestic opinion around this issue and has mobilised the Venezuelan military to carry out training exercises, incursions and confront Guyanese border forces.

In March 2025, a Venezuelan coastguard vessel entered Guyana’s waters and sailed close to a floating production storage and offloading platform owned and operated by Exxon-Mobil. The Venezuelan vessel transmitted a radio message claiming it was operating in “disputed international waters”.

Ali’s electoral victory does not alter the fact that his country remains under threat from Venezuela.

US interests

While Venezuela is harassing a smaller neighbour to the east of the country, there are significant developments taking place to the north of Caracas. The Trump administration has deployed a naval task force in the southern Caribbean composed of eight vessels and around 4,000 sailors and marines.

The focus is very much on Maduro’s actions and interests, with the US convinced that the Venezuelan leader is aiding and abetting drug cartels and enabling the operation of narco-terrorism. Trump issued an executive order in January designating cartels such as Tren de Aragua, an organisation from Venezuela, as foreign terrorist groups.

While Maduro complains that the US is preparing to invade Venezuela, the naval task force has been intercepting suspect vessels and maintaining a high-profile presence in southern Caribbean waters.

It recently carried out a strike on a boat that allegedly departed from Venezuela carrying drugs bound for the US. The White House says the strike killed 11 drug traffickers. Venezuela alleged the images of the assault were AI-generated.

There are plenty of reasons why a US task force might be operating in the southern Caribbean. Among these are the fact that the US has commercial interests in Guyana, so is keen to deter hostile action from Venezuela. The US is the top destination for Guyanese oil, and there are also plans to encourage US firms to get involved in digital and fintech projects in Guyana.

Washington is the most important element in Guyana’s future security. Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, visited the country in March 2025 as part of a short regional tour. The worry for Ali is that Guyana acts merely as a strategic platform from which the US can exert further geopolitical pressure on Venezuela.

However, Trump’s focus on energy security and the enhancement of commercial advantages for US companies means that the appeal of Guyana is not hard to discern. President Ali’s second term is not going to be straightforward.

Klaus Dodds 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. Guyana’s president wins another term in election watched keenly by Venezuela and US – https://theconversation.com/guyanas-president-wins-another-term-in-election-watched-keenly-by-venezuela-and-us-264553

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alison Smith, Lecturer in European Film Studies, University of Liverpool

The Courageous opens with dense greenery, as sunlit and idyllic as it is discouragingly impenetrable. Then, with barely the rising sound of an engine to warn us, we cut back to urban humanity: a hand slams a glove compartment shut, with the tense “merde” of a woman on edge. And so we meet the protagonists of the film: Julia, or Jule, at the wheel of the car, and her three children giggling on the back seat because mum just said a naughty word.

Another cut, this time behind Jule’s head, reveals the breathtaking mountain scenery of the Swiss Valais. In just over a minute we meet the people and places, the tensions and contrasts, that drive the film, even if full understanding will only come to us gradually. Jule, a rebellious young woman bringing up her children alone, is fundamentally at odds with the ordered society of rural Switzerland, and in consequence her life is a constant struggle.

The Courageous is director Jasmin Gordon’s first feature film. It lies within the strong tradition of engaged social realism that, in Britain, we associate with Ken Loach, but the genre has its own life across the channel too, with eminent exponents like Laurent Cantet in France or the brothers Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne in Belgium.

These are films that depend on their close attention to the particular circumstances of particular individuals in a particular place, and so they are always unique – as well as being extremely varied in their directors’ chosen styles and narrative choices. Still they follow a recognisable pattern, drawing us into the struggles of marginalised protagonists trapped by a hostile world.

Gordon involves us in Jule’s world largely through her canny management of the children’s viewpoint. From the start they are always observing their mother, and so are we: Gordon quickly encourages us to feel that we are reading her along with the children. But this is an illusion. We know less than they do, we judge according to our own stereotypes and we misunderstand.

The film knows that we will misunderstand, and takes pleasure in baiting our anxieties, gradually revealing our mistakes, and so involving us ever more closely in the family’s difficult life. Jule is not perfect, but she has an iron determination, and we feel her love for her children and her humiliation as every attempt to better her life through the “proper” channels is systematically beaten down.

Outside the close family group, people exist entirely as cogs in the system that doesn’t care for a woman like Jule. This is to some extent a characteristic of the genre, but Gordon takes it to an extreme: these cogs are always individuals, and sometimes you can see that Jule is putting them in an impossible situation too, but they act according to their place in the social machine, excluding and humiliating Jule because they must, some reluctantly, some with bitter pleasure.

While Loach’s characters usually maintain some alliances and tentative solidarity with groups outside the family, Gordon denies Jule any complicities at all, which in turn denies her any space to articulate her situation. She will not even confide in her daughter, despite the latter’s assurances that she’s old enough to understand. So it’s up to us to make sense of Jule’s experiences, and, in our programmed role of audience, we can only watch helplessly.

Gordon’s only tentative route to hope, and one of the film’s great structuring contrasts, is in fact the setting – and so we return to that puzzling opening shot. The place is of paramount importance.

On the one hand there’s the urban network, and the cheap modern buildings, all cubes and corridors, in which the family’s life is mostly spent. It is, paradoxically, easy to move around, and the obstacles it presents are quite negotiable: even the motorway can be crossed with no more than a brief intake of breath. Jule is good at circulating in it, finding its cracks and corners, knowing where it hides its treasures – but it forms a continuous closed system in which the guardians will catch up with you eventually.

But, opening out from within this urban space, there is nature: not so much the picture-postcard mountains, which are more enclosing than liberating (no question here of that immortal trope of British social realism, the “view of our town from that hill”), but a more intimate nature that offers the family its happiest moments – a swim in a lake, a fortuitous fruit tree. The green woods do offer an exit, but they are worryingly fragile and utopian.

This is a powerful film but it offers little hope of an outlet for Jule’s undoubted courage. I was gripped by the family’s story, even if, thinking it over at more leisure later on, some doubts crept in as to how far this social despair may get us. At least, perhaps, it will take us to understanding, which is precious.

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Alison Smith 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. The Courageous: a powerful work of social realism about a rebellious mother searching for her place in the world – https://theconversation.com/the-courageous-a-powerful-work-of-social-realism-about-a-rebellious-mother-searching-for-her-place-in-the-world-264535

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steve Westlake, Lecturer, Environmental Psychology, University of Bath

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has described her plan to “maximise extraction” of the UK’s oil and gas from the North Sea as a “common sense” energy policy.

Politicians are using language like this increasingly often – calling themselves “pragmatic” on climate change and invoking “common sense”. It sounds reasonable, reassuring, and grownup – the opposite of “hysterical” campaigners or “unrealistic” targets.

But new research my colleagues and I conducted, calling on a decade of interviews with UK MPs, shows that political “pragmatism” is fast becoming a dangerous form of climate delay. By framing urgent action as “extreme” and steady-as-she-goes policies as “pragmatic”, leaders across the political spectrum are protecting the fossil-fuel status quo at the very moment scientists warn we need rapid, transformative change.

Badenoch’s latest intervention is a perfect example. She said “common sense” dictates that every drop of oil must be extracted from the North Sea, and that net zero by 2050 was a policy pushed by “bullies”. This came just a day after the UK Met Office declared summer 2025 as the hottest on record.

We found that members of parliament deploy the same language of pragmatism to defend fossil fuel companies and to insist to their constituents that nothing needs to change too fast. The paradox, of course, is that more urgent social and economic change is precisely what the world’s climate scientists say is necessary to avert climate breakdown.

In our recent interviews with politicians, MPs from across the political spectrum tended towards gradual change in order to maintain political and public support. One said:

First and foremost be pragmatic. Accept incremental change, because incremental change often accelerates, but you take people with you. If you didn’t take people with you, you’ll start getting resistance.

Another MP contrasted a pragmatic approach with the calls from some campaign groups for more rapid action:

There are campaigns that say we’ve got to be net zero by 2025, or 2030. [laughing incredulously] … do you realise what the consequences of that will be … you’d have a revolution in Britain if you tried to do that, in terms of destroying people’s quality of life.

Interestingly, despite rejecting more ambitious targets, later in the interview the same MP acknowledged that faster change was needed:

We need to do more, we could do more, we are, you know, I’m sure the government will do more. I’m certainly pushing it to do more. But fundamentally we’ve halved our emissions since 1990.

Here we see the nuance, and the danger, of the language of pragmatism. It allows politicians to hold two positions at once. They can acknowledge the need for rapid change, while promoting a “pragmatic” position against it.

The calls for pragmatism appeared to stem from MPs’ desire to present a reasoned and rational case for climate action that does not impinge on constituents’ lives. They also used pragmatism to distance themselves from arguments they portrayed as “extreme” or “shrill”.

The flawed assumption underlying these calls to pragmatism is that the public will not support ambitious, transformative climate policies. We concluded that whereas a few years ago MPs promoted climate policies “by stealth”, meaning they did it on the quiet, now they turn to ideas of pragmatism in an attempt to maintain a fragile political consensus in favour of net zero – a consensus that is already fracturing.

Top-down pragmatism

This turn to pragmatism can now be seen at the very top of British politics, threatening the UK’s steady ratcheting up of climate ambition to date.

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair recently wrote in the Blair Institute’s report on climate change: “People know that the current state of debate over climate change is riven with irrationality.”

Blair then asserted: “Any strategy based on either ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail.” This is despite the widespread consensus among scientists that both phasing out fossil fuels and reducing consumption of at least some products are essential.

The report goes on to say: “A realistic voice in the climate debate is required, neither ideological nor alarmist but pragmatic.” This language is intended to sound rational, reasonable and even scientific. The problem is that it can be used to justify actions that appear to ignore what the science is telling us.

Former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak warned against treating climate change as an “ideology” . Notably, Sunak referred to “pragmatic, proportionate, and realistic” climate action shortly after his government announced hundreds of new licences for oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

His message coincided with ongoing road-building programmes, plans for airport expansion, and insufficient action to insulate the UK’s housing stock, all of which could jeopardise the UK’s climate targets. Again we see the language of pragmatism working against the rapid societal changes that are necessary.

The pragmatic road ahead

In general, the MPs we spoke to were not using pragmatism in bad faith. Rather it was a way of navigating the complexities of climate politics where the huge changes demanded by climate mitigation are deemed too challenging to sell to constituents. But this political strategy is a very risky one and underestimates the public’s appetite for “strong and clear” climate leadership from government.

The current government is already struggling to reconcile net zero commitments with its economic growth agenda, which includes a new runway at Heathrow airport. Not only is prime minister Keir Starmer facing divisions within the ruling Labour party over net zero ambitions, he is also dealing with increasingly prominent net zero scepticism from the leaders of the Conservative and Reform parties.

The political language of “pragmatism” therefore risks spreading from Badenoch to Starmer, becoming a discourse of delay that promotes non-transformative solutions.

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Steve Westlake and co-researcher Rebecca Willis received funding from the Centre of Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) to conduct this research. CAST is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Westlake also received a post-doctoral fellowship from ESRC from 2023-2025.

– ref. Politicians now talk of climate ‘pragmatism’ to delay action – new study – https://theconversation.com/politicians-now-talk-of-climate-pragmatism-to-delay-action-new-study-264317

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Millie Horton-Insch, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, History of Art Department, Trinity College Dublin

Britain appears to be a nation on the verge of Norman-conquest mania. In July, the prime minister and the French president announced that the Bayeux tapestry – the epic 11th-century embroidery that depicts the 1066 conquest of England – would be loaned to the British Museum in 2026-27.

This makes new BBC drama series, King & Conqueror, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest, extremely well timed. The credits of each episode feature the drama’s title overlaid on imagery from the Bayeux tapestry. But how does the drama compare to that most evocative textile account of the conquest?

I could write at length about how the BBC drama variously depicts and diverges from the tapestry’s version of events. And the extent to which King & Conqueror is consistent with 11th-century written and embroidered sources has been explored by historians elsewhere.

As an art historian who has researched the Bayeux tapestry, it is difficult not to regret the relative darkness and lack of colour in King & Conqueror’s depiction of the 11th century, an age which would in reality have been richly furnished, as the tapestry itself attests.

But it is satisfying to see that the narrative devices that are most effective in this new drama are those also included in tapestry. To varying degrees, both the tapestry and the drama are dramatised retellings of history, a reality most obviously signalled by fact that neither tell a perfectly linear account of the events.

In the tapestry sequencing for instance, Edward the Confessor’s funeral is stitched before his death, shocking the viewer with the pomp of a stately funeral before then depicting his deathbed. Similarly, in episode five of King & Conqueror, we see Harold and his wife Edith kidnapped, bound and held in a wagon under attack from archers. Then the chronology leaps backwards to explain that Harold and Edith have travelled on a diplomatic mission to Normandy, landed in Brittany by mistake, and then been taken hostage by bandits.

An unflinching portrayal of the brutality of battle is similarly used in both the BBC drama and the tapestry to maintain suspense, even when the outcome of the Battle of Hastings is well known.

Violence and fear

Blood and gore are dramatically present in King & Conqueror. But arguably, replacing benign patterns of birds and beasts on the margins of the tapestry with mutilated bodies is an even more arresting way to signal the violent disruption to life caused by medieval battle.

The scale of William’s violence off the battlefield is also more fully captured in the tapestry. In the final episode of the drama, William is shown ordering the plundering and burning of every village they pass through: “We move forward like the wrath of God.”

But the fear such an order would have struck in people of all classes is not so explicitly captured as it is in the tapestry, where the battle is preceded by the depiction of an anonymous woman and child fleeing their home as the Normans set it on fire.

In this sense, the tapestry also gives a greater sense of the effect of a conquering army had on ordinary women, than a drama more concerned with the main characters. So much so, that it makes the BBC’s sexed-up trailer shared on social media bewildering.

Suggestive clips of Harold and William are shown with the text: “Want to be served by a king? Or let him conquer you?” Anyone who had viewed the Bayeux tapestry and seen the fate of women portrayed there, would certainly not wish to conquered by William’s forces.

The porousness of the English Channel as a well-trodden diplomatic avenue is a similarly effective leitmotif in both the tapestry and the drama. Boats crossing the Channel are a frequent tableau in King & Conqueror, reaching a crescendo in the final episode, in which the scale of the Norman fleet with its sails raised resembles the white cliffs of Dover.

In the tapestry, boat crossings are shown with equal frequency, though the scale of the Norman fleet is even more evocatively captured by the depiction of its construction: men felling trees to make boats for the invading flotilla. A unprecedented number of boats in the tapestry are then seen crossing the Channel, their overlapping prows powerfully conveying the scale of the invading naval force.

History meets contemporary politics

It is here that the Bayeux tapestry, the BBC’s dramatisation, and contemporary politics intersect. On the day that followed the announcement of the Bayeux tapestry’s loan, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron held a joint press conference in which they announced a bilateral policy engineered to respond to the increase in the number of migrants crossing the English Channel from France in small boats.

In King & Conqueror, the series ends with William’s coronation. However, the tapestry itself appears incomplete and terminates abruptly after the Battle of Hastings.

The current leaders of France and Britain have explicitly sought to frame their new policy as a continuation of the tapestry’s narrative, with Macron commenting:

The story is unfinished and nobody knows the end … But this is our work, our duty and our chance … to finish the tapestry and … take the same road as these warriors but with another state of mind … that together we will build a new … common history and create a new era based on culture, knowledge, respect, science and centuries of enlightenment, creations, and … friendship.

There is, of course, an irony to promoting Anglo-French bilateralism through an object that depicts the invasion and conquering of England by the Normans in 1066.

But there is also a poignant, unacknowledged paradox in referencing an object that so evocatively depicts boats crossing the Channel as a means of bolstering policies specifically designed to deter them, and the people they carry. Certainly, it is clear that some visual motifs remain as politically affecting today as they did in the 11th century.

Millie Horton-Insch receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.

– ref. Why the Norman conquest still has a powerful hold over British culture and politics – https://theconversation.com/why-the-norman-conquest-still-has-a-powerful-hold-over-british-culture-and-politics-264464

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

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

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Robotic wolves rode on armoured vehicles. Alongside them stealth drones, unmanned submarines, and giant lasers for blinding pilots, accompanied by the lethal triad of air, sea and land-launched nuclear missiles made for a daunting array of Chinese military hardware on show this week in Beijing as it commemorated the 80th anniversary of end of the war with Japan. The parade was hosted by China’s president Xi Jinping and watched by guests including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un of North Korea and heads of state and dignitaries of 26 other countries.

It also drew a droll response from Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te, who didn’t attend the parade, who observed that his country doesn’t “commemorate peace with the barrel of a gun”.

This display of military might was part two of a week of mega-diplomacy on Xi’s part designed to demonstrate to the world that, under his leadership, China would not be “intimidated by bullies” and would “stand by the right side of history”. The Chinese president had come hot foot from hosting the 25th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on Sunday and Monday in the city of Tianjin, about 75 miles southeast of Beijing (or 16 minutes on one of China’s bullet trains).

The SCO summit brought together more than 20 leaders from Eurasia, including Xi, Putin and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. The gathering’s mission statement, as Xi put it, was to “take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics, and practise true multilateralism”. Which it’s not unreasonable to read as the ushering in of a new order built around the leadership of China.

What was of most consequence at the SCO summit, writes Stefan Wolff, was the show of unity by Xi, Putin and Modi. An alliance between their three countries would be a formidable partnership. But what unites most of the delegates at the SCO writes Wolff, an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham, is not so much their desire to participate in a new vision of a China-led world order, but an antipathy to the current US hegemony under the stewardship of Donald Trump.

This is particularly the case for Modi, who is chafing under America’s recent imposition of 50% tariffs on its exports to the US as punishment for buying Russian oil in defiance of US-imposed sanctions.

So it’s interesting that Modi did not take the 16-minute bullet train ride to watch the parade alongside the North Korean leader. Wolff believes this is also emblematic of the challenges faced by Xi in assembling his new world order. Some of China’s friends present an unpalatable choice for the others and might not sit harmoniously in alliance together.

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Read more:
What Xi Jinping hosting Modi and Putin reveals about China’s plans for a new world order

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It’s likely that the US tariffs were high on Modi’s mind as he posed for photographs with the Chinese and Russian leaders. Wolff believes that this has destroyed, almost in a stroke, decades of careful US diplomacy designed at bringing the world’s most populous democracy into partnership against China.

It feels almost incredible that, as has been much mooted, Trump’s decision to punish India so harshly hinged largely on a fit of pique. But the US president was reportedly incensed at Modi’s refusal to back his claim to have prevented a major conflict with Pakistan or to join that country in nominating him for a Nobel peace prize.

But India is now doubling down on its decision to defy the US and purchase cheap Russian oil. And the chances are the tariffs will hurt the US as much as they hurts India. And it certainly won’t harm Russia, writes Sambit Bhattacharyya. Bhattacharyya, an economist at the University of Sussex Business School, believes that India and Russia have a lot to offer each other in trade terms. Cheap oil for India, cheap textiles and other trade goods for Russian consumers.

More importantly, writes Bhattacharyya, the more Trump’s trade policy drives America’s partners away, the greater the risk to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. There are already signs that many developing economies are trying out ways of doing business that don’t involve the dollar. The more the US pushes its trade partners away, the more this will happen and the greater the impact on US prosperity and security.

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Read more:
Why Trump’s fight with India could have global repercussions

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Reviling Russia

Meanwhile diplomatic efforts to bring Russia to peace talks with Ukraine continue. Kyiv’s European allies are currently discussing what a security guarantee might look like if a ceasefire can be agreed. There are three schools of thought. Some, like Britain, are willing to commit to putting “boots on the ground”. Others, like Italy, will absolutely not countenance the idea. But most, notably Germany, are undecided.

One of the main hurdles facing the west when it comes to committing to an agreement with Russia is an inherent and deep mistrust of the Russian leader. And it’s easy to see why that might be. Russia has already broken agreements made to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. By invading Ukraine, Russia also violated the Budapest memorandum signed in 1994 by which Ukraine agreed to get rid of its nuclear stockpile in return for an absolute guarantee by Russia, the US and the UK to respect its territorial sovereignty.

But this lack of trust is getting in the way of a ceasefire deal, writes Francesco Rigoli. Rigoli, a psychologist at City St Georges, University of London, believes that the more Putin is reviled by western leaders and media commentators, the most it feels morally wrong to treat with Russia. He points out that Russian politicians and media are putting out very much the same message about the west. This is not helping the chance for a peace deal any time soon.

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Read more:
The west’s image of Vladimir Putin as an untrustworthy ‘monster’ is getting in the way of peace in Ukraine

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Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, many Ukrainians who would have spoken Russian in public are unwilling to do so. Instead a lot of people are opting to use Surshyk, a hybrid tongue which uses bits of both languages and is quite common in central and southeastern Ukraine. Initially used widely in Soviet times by Ukrainians who wanted to move from the country to the cities to work in factories it was very much dominated by Russian, but in recent decades it has moved far closer to Ukrainian.

It’s a matter of debate as to whether Surzhyk – which was stigmatised in the past as a marker of rural backwardness (the name refers to a mix of poor quality grains) – is a language, or a dialect or even a form of slang. Linguistics expert Oleksandra Osypenko of Lancaster University tells the fascinating story of how Surzhyk has become a more socially acceptable way for native Russian speakers to communicate in a country at war with Russia.

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Read more:
Surzhyk: why Ukrainians are increasingly speaking a hybrid language that used to be a marker of rural backwardness

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Climate conflict

This week we launched a new series of articles which sets out to explore the connection between international conflicts and climate change. Competition for resources has sparked conflicts since prehistoric times. But we’re now seeing more regular and more drastic effects of global warming playing out in famine, drought and mass migration. It’s a terrible cycle as climate change causes conflict, which can render whole regions uninhabitable.

Curated by my colleague Sam Phelps, War on climate will explore the relationship between climate issues and global conflicts. To kick off the series, Duncan Depledge, a senior lecturer in geopolitics and security at Loughborough University writes about the three reasons the climate crisis must reshape how we think about war.

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Read more:
How unexploded bombs cause environmental damage – and why climate change exacerbates the problem

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Meanwhile Sarah Njeri, an expert in humanitarian and development studies at SOAS, University of London, and Christina Greene, a research scientist in the Arizona Institute for Resilience, University of Arizona, look at the ever larger swaths of land around the world contaminated by landmines and other explosive ordnance as well as lethal chemicals which can render land useless for agriculture for decades.

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Read more:
How unexploded bombs cause environmental damage – and why climate change exacerbates the problem

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You might also be interested in this week’s episode of our podcast, The Conversation Weekly, which look at how China uses second world war history in its bid to reshape the global order.

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Read more:
How China uses second world war history in its bid to reshape the global order – podcast

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

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– ref. Xi Jinping showcases his dream of a China-led ‘new world order’ – https://theconversation.com/xi-jinping-showcases-his-dream-of-a-china-led-new-world-order-264620

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lauren Alex O’Hagan, Research Fellow, School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, The Open University

Why would a suicidal teenager choose to live? It’s not the kind of question most of us ever want to ask. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds worldwide. Much of the research and media coverage still focuses on why teens might want to die. Far less often do we ask the opposite, equally urgent question: what makes life worth holding on to?

In our new study, we asked adolescents who had been hospitalised for suicidal thoughts or behaviour to name their three strongest reasons for staying alive. Their answers, gathered during safety planning (a standard part of care where patients and clinicians work together to identify coping strategies and reasons to keep living) offer a rare and unfiltered glimpse into the motivations that keep young people going, even at their lowest point.

The single most common word in the dataset was “my”. That may sound insignificant, but it tells us something powerful. Adolescents weren’t speaking abstractly about life or philosophy – they were talking about their people, their goals, their pets and their plans. This reflects a sense of belonging, which research shows is one of the strongest protective factors against suicide.

To capture these patterns, we used corpus-driven language analysis, a method that examines the frequency and use of words across large sets of text. In this case, we analysed the exact words of 211 adolescents aged 13–17 who had recently been admitted to a US psychiatric hospital for suicidal thoughts or behaviour.

Our goal was to identify common themes and better understand what keeps suicidal young people tethered to life – in their own words.

When we looked more closely at the nouns, three themes stood out.

First, their relationships. Family (especially mums and younger siblings), friends and pets featured most often.

Second, future hopes. Teens mentioned careers, dreams of travel, or simply a curiosity “to see what the future holds.”

Thirds, possessions and independence. They talked about getting a car, moving out, owning a house or even just “doing my own makeup.”

Among the most common verbs were action words like “want”, “be” and “see” – forward-looking and full of intention. Adolescents spoke of wanting to grow up, travel, become someone (“a welder” or “professional wrestler”, for example) and finding happiness. Even in distress, their language carried movement, desire and a drive toward the future.

Adjectives added emotional colour. Words such as “happy”, “good”, “okay” and “better” reflected modest, grounded hopes for relief, while “own” suggested control and self-expression: “my own space,” “my own style,” “my own life.”

And within the dataset, the responses were highly individual. Some were deeply emotional: “I saw how my dad cried and I don’t want him to cry like that again,” or “To not make my mom sad.” Others were more specific: “I want to read 100 books this year,” or “I want to get some bad-ass tattoos.” One patient put it simply: “YOLO” (you only live once).

From despair to desire

At first glance, asking suicidal teens what keeps them alive may seem paradoxical, since media reports and suicide research tend to concentrate on why young people want to die. But research shows that the majority of young people who experience suicidal thoughts do not go on to attempt suicide.

Among those who do, some later report a stronger sense of connection and purpose after surviving.

In our study, 97% of adolescents were able to identify three reasons to live, despite the emotional turmoil that had brought them to hospital. This suggests that even in crisis, many young people retain a desire to live if they can anchor themselves to something – or someone – that matters.

Some feared the consequences of suicide, not for themselves but for others. A few cited religious concerns. Others worried about the physical pain involved. But overwhelmingly, the reasons for living were hopeful, relational and future-oriented.

A tool for therapy, not just research

These findings carry clear clinical implications. Someone’s reasons for living shouldn’t be treated as just another box on a checklist. They can be a springboard for conversation and healing. When a teen says, “I want to be a vet,” or “I want to take care of my little sister,” it opens the door to meaningful, personalised treatment.

Helping adolescents articulate their reasons for living can build rapport, clarify therapy goals and enhance motivation. It can also be used to challenge unhelpful thoughts – like “I’m a burden” or “No one cares” – with concrete, self-generated evidence to the contrary.

Most importantly, reasons for living remind teens, and those who care for them, that even in amid despair they still have something to live for.

While risk factors such as trauma, mental illness, bullying and identity struggles remain well known, we too often overlook the anchors that help teens hold on. A 2024 US survey found that nearly one in ten high school students – around 9.5% – attempted suicide in 2023. That number reminds us adolescent suicide isn’t abstract, it’s real and it’s happening now.

By tuning into their own words, whether it’s their sister, their dog, a concert, or just the dream of getting some “bad-ass tattoos”, we can start to understand what makes life feel worth living for a young person considering or attempting suicide. Sometimes the smallest hope is enough to keep someone going.

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If you would like more information or to talk to someone about any issues raised in this article, here are some recommended contacts:

Harmless: a user-led organisation for people who self-injure, as well as their friends and families;

The Samaritans: the 24/7 support service has also published reports on self-injury for all four UK countries;

Self-injury Support: information and support for people who self-injure, including a self-harm diary and support groups for men and women;

LifeSigns: a user-led self-injury guidance and support network;

NHS – where to get help for self-harm: a long list of resources.

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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. What suicidal teens say matters most to them – https://theconversation.com/what-suicidal-teens-say-matters-most-to-them-262900

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

With Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un among 26 world leaders watching, China’s president Xi Jinping made a muscular address to 50,000 people in Tiananmen Square marking 80 years since the end of the second world war. China is “never intimidated by bullies” and would “stand by the right side of history”, Xi said, adding that “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation was unstoppable”.

Absent from the ceremony was Taiwan’s leader, Lai Ching-te, who instead took to Facebook, writing that Taiwan does not “commemorate peace with the barrel of a gun”. Taiwan had barred public officials from attending the event.

 China and Taiwan both claim their forces bore the true burden of Chinese resistance against Japan during the second world war, and use this contested history to lay claim to power and territory. Now China is weaponising this history, pushing for a “correct” perspective of the war as it seeks to reshape the world order and assert its ambitions over Taiwan.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Meredith Oyen, a historian and expert in China-Taiwan relations, explains how disagreements between China and Taiwan over who fought the Japanese more than 80 years ago are still raging and why China’s military parade raised tensions with Taiwan up another notch.

“The second world war has this very long shadow in all of east Asia because there’s a lot of unfinished business,” says Oyen, an associate professor of history and Asian studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

When Japan officially surrendered on September 9 at a ceremony in Nanjing, it was to the Republic of China, then ruled by Chiang Kai-shek. With the war against Japan over, Chiang’s nationalist Kuomintang resumed their civil war against the Chinese Communist Party. In 1949, Chiang and the Kuomintang were pushed to Taiwan as Mao Zedong declared the People’s Republic of China.

As a result, persistent questions about whether China and Taiwan are two separate entities or a divided nation with Taiwan a part of China are a “really significant geopolitical flashpoint” says Oyen, “something that stems directly out of the second world war”.

Listen to the conversation with Meredith Oyen about how disagreements between China and Taiwan over the second world war on The Conversation Weekly podcast. You can also read an text version of this interview.

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This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with assistance from Katie Flood. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newclips in this episode from Straits Times , BBC News and NBC News and KinoLibrary .

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

Meredith Oyen 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. How China uses second world war history in its bid to reshape the global order – podcast – https://theconversation.com/how-china-uses-second-world-war-history-in-its-bid-to-reshape-the-global-order-podcast-264442

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sambit Bhattacharyya, Professor of Economics, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex

Donald Trump’s tariff policy seems to have morphed into as much of a tool of foreign policy as an economic strategy. But the administration’s decision to impose a 50% tariff on India, a key US ally as part of the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) along with the US, Australia and Japan, could have significant repercussions – not just for international trade, but for global geopolitics.

The US rationale for the tariff hike is primarily political. The White House argues that India has been profiteering from buying and reselling Russian oil, in defiance of sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This has helped Russia weather the effects of the sanctions and continue to fund its war in Ukraine.

Needless to say, the tariff policy and subsequent statements from both Washington and New Delhi have ruined a burgeoning bilateral relationship to the extent that the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been refusing to take Trump’s phone calls. For his part, Trump is no longer planning to visit India for the Quad summit later in the year.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China, from August 31 to September 1, along with the Russian president Vladimir Putin. The three leaders were photographed together in cordial discussion and Modi met separately with both Xi and Putin on the sidelines of the summit, which was billed as presenting an alternative to the US-led hegemonic order.

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Read more:
What Xi Jinping hosting Modi and Putin reveals about China’s plans for a new world order

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It now seems clear that raised US tariffs won’t deter India from buying Russian oil. On the contrary, Modi has reaffirmed India’s commitment to not only continue buying Russian oil but to increase volumes.

This is unsurprising. India’s stance on Russia as a net crude oil importer is not driven by any grandiose geopolitical objective but the mundane economic reality of controlling inflation.

When it comes to energy, India is heavily dependent on imports and its consumers, the overwhelming majority of whom are poor and vulnerable, depend on stable and affordable energy prices. No amount of pressure from the US or its G7 allies would change that simple economic reality.

America’s loss is Russia’s gain

One consequence of the US tariffs is that Indian exports of clothing and footwear to the US could decline as big western brands seek to substitute their Indian suppliers with cheaper suppliers from other countries. This will push up prices for consumers in the US.

But it’s unlikely to be that damaging for Indian suppliers as there’s considerable global demand for clothing and footwear. It wouldn’t be difficult for Indian suppliers to find alternative markets.

Another of India’s big exports is gemstones, in which it has a dominant position in the global market. US tariff pressure is unlikely to change that as India exports gemstones to a range of different countries (although the US is a big buyer).

Closer trade ties between India and Russia will open up new opportunities for mutual investment. Russia’s economic position, meanwhile, is likely to improve overall as a result of the tariffs. Not only has India signalled it is likely to increase its oil imports, but Russia is also likely to get the benefit of importing clothing and footwear from Indian suppliers at a favourable price, as Indian suppliers look to redirect their US exports elsewhere.

Closer economic ties with India with the aim to increase bilateral trade to US$100 billion (£74.5 billion) by 2030 will give Russia another large market outside of China to sell its products. Russia will also get access to another major supplier of the sort of consumer goods that it typically imports to keep local prices low for Russian consumers.

An end to US dollar primacy?

There’s a danger for the west that if the tariff situation escalates into harsher financial sanctions, it could divert Indian investment away from the US and G7 countries towards Russia and China. Indian investors have significant presence in the automotive, pharmaceutical, and IT and telecom sectors in the west, which could be directed elsewhere.

But there are growing signs of increasing cohesion, not only from the SCO, but from an expanding Brics group of trading nations. This is now made up of original members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, plus recent joiners Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates.

These growing economies are already working towards setting up technical mechanisms for mutual investments and trade settlements in their local currencies rather than the US dollar.

The global trade shocks prompted by US imposition of tariffs have led to a short-term decline in the value of the US dollar. While not drastic from a historical trend perspective, these short-term trends mask a broader long-term risk.

Not from trade transactions – trade accounts for only a fraction of dollar transactions. The long-term risks are from a potentially reduced role of the dollar in transactions associated with asset management, investment, finance and international reserves.

In particular, the dollar’s near exclusive status as a reserve currency for Brics and global south nations is at risk.

Any policy that puts that status at risk would compromise US prosperity and security. The concern is that any financial and trade policies that drive the US’s big trading partners closer to Russia and China will do just that.

Sambit Bhattacharyya receives funding from UK Research and Innovation, Economic and Social Research Council, Australian Research Council, and European Research Council.

– ref. Why Trump’s fight with India could have global repercussions – https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-fight-with-india-could-have-global-repercussions-258141