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May 14, 2026

Love, quest, adventure: the storytelling behind Xi Jinping’s speeches and China’s grand strategy

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Mei Li, Lecturer in Strategic Public Relations, University of Sydney

For many in the West, China still feels hard to fully understand. Public debate and media coverage too often focus on the “China threat”. Critics highlight the flaws of China’s political system and limits on freedom, yet China has still managed to rise as a major power that can now compete with the United States.

One reason for this gap in understanding is that the media often interprets China through a Western-centric perspective.

US President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, for instance, will be analysed in the West very differently from the way it will be seen in China. Xi’s language will be parsed and scrutinised for couched messages, veiled threats and hidden meanings.

But analysts may be missing some of the tools China uses to explain and justify its actions.

My co-authored new research offers a new way to look at China’s grand strategy: by analysing the way the government uses storytelling. My research partners and I are part of a growing group of scholars looking at how geopolitics is becoming a contest of narratives – how states tell stories about themselves and each other.

To do this, we studied four major speeches by Xi from 2021–23. We read them as stories and dissected the narratives – as well as the characters and language – to better understand the meaning behind the words.

Why narrative in politics matters

The use of political narratives by leaders is not new.

In ancient Athens and Rome, politicians relied on strong public rhetoric to persuade people. Aristotle described three key elements of persuasion in rhetoric: logic (logos), emotional appeal (pathos), and the speaker’s credibility (ethos).

Modern theorists like Kenneth Burke argue rhetoric creates a sense of shared purpose between leaders and the public, but it can also create division between groups.

And communications scholar Michael Kent identifies 20 master “plots” that have been used by storytellers for thousands of years to craft effective narratives. These include: quest, adventure, pursuit, transformation, revenge, sacrifice, discovery and of course love.

My research partners and I used these plot devices to analyse Xi’s speeches to see how he communicates – and tells stories – about China’s strategies.

The plot devices in Xi’s speeches

We found several master plots that consistently shape China’s official stories:

Adventure

In the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th anniversary speech in 2021, Xi said:

To save the nation from peril, the Chinese people put up a courageous fight. As noble-minded patriots sought to pull the nation together.

This storyline frames China as a nation on a long journey towards strength and prosperity, marked by setbacks and breakthroughs. This is seen as a type of political adventure. This narrative also appeals to shared memories in China of hardship and endurance.

Xi Jinping’s speech to mark the 100th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party’s founding.

Quest

Xi’s speeches also described a quest – the nation’s striving towards a difficult goal, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In Xi’s 20th Party Congress report in 2022, he said:

There has never been an instruction manual or ready-made solution for the Chinese people and the Chinese nation to turn to […] as they moved on toward the bright future of rejuvenation.

The message is intended to inspire unity, patriotism and pride among Chinese listeners.

Transformation

In his 14th National People’s Congress speech in 2023, Xi said:

The Chinese nation has achieved the great transformation from standing up and growing prosperous to becoming strong, and China’s national rejuvenation has become a historical inevitability.

Transformation stories describe not just change, but growth and renewal. This narrative presents China’s rise as a natural evolution built on decades of reform and sacrifice.

Xi Jinping’s speech at the 14th National People’s Congress.

Rivalry

Rivalry stories tend to feature internal and external threats.

In two of the speeches we studied, Xi refers to efforts by foreign powers to “blackmail, contain, blockade, and exert maximum pressure on China,” and recalls a past when foreign bullying caused “great suffering”.

In the CCP’s 100th anniversary speech, Xi also said:

Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.

These storylines reinforce the idea that China must remain vigilant and united against outside pressure.

Love

Xi doesn’t refer to a romantic-type of love story in his speeches; rather, he speaks of the dedication and loyalty of the Communist Party’s supporters.

In the 100th anniversary speech, for instance, Xi said:

And I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to people and friends from around the world who have shown friendship to the Chinese people and understanding and support for China’s endeavours in revolution, development and reform.

How audiences see these messages

The impact of this messaging is strong at home. It’s often reinforced through state media, cultural products and patriotic education to reach as wide an audience as possible.

The frequent contrast between past suffering and present strength encourages the public to see China as a peaceful but firm global actor.

For a foreign audience, this storytelling can help other countries interpret China’s actions and anticipate its responses.

For example, China’s narratives about past humiliation and the need to defend its sovereignty help explain its strong stance on Taiwan – and the Communist Party’s legitimacy on this issue in the eyes of the people.

But this does not mean a military conflict is inevitable. Any future military action over Taiwan would depend on a multitude of factors, including careful calculations of risk, China’s economic interdependence with the world, and the potentially catastrophic consequences for the region and its people.

This cannot be easily conveyed in storytelling, which is why we can’t rely on this device alone to explain China’s actions. But it does give us a window into leadership’s thinking – and in a political system like China’s, this is vital.

The author would like to acknowledge her co-researchers on the project: Mitchell Hobbs of the University of Sydney (project lead), and Zhao Alexandre Huang and Lucile Desmoulins of Gustave Eiffel University, France.

This piece is based on the author’s contribution to a research project funded by the Australia-France Social Science Collaborative Research Program from the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

– ref. Love, quest, adventure: the storytelling behind Xi Jinping’s speeches and China’s grand strategy – https://theconversation.com/love-quest-adventure-the-storytelling-behind-xi-jinpings-speeches-and-chinas-grand-strategy-269510

May 14, 2026

Trump-Xi summit: 3 ways the US and China can compete without going to war

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kai He, Professor of International Relations, Griffith University

US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing this week may ease tensions at the margins of the US–China rivalry. But it will not change a central fact: neither side can escape the rivalry, and neither side can decisively win it.

The biggest challenge for Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping is whether they can compete without turning the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship into its most dangerous one. A war is not inevitable.

If Washington and Beijing want to keep their competition peaceful, they must try to accomplish a few basic things:

preserve military deterrence without turning it into provocation
channel their rivalry into institutions and public goods, such as infrastructure development, rather than a military confrontation
keep ideology from hardening every disagreement into a zero-sum struggle.

So, how can this be done?

1. Establish mutual restraint

Both countries will continue to build military capabilities and balance against each other. The danger comes when each side convinces itself that its actions are intended to deter hostilities, while the other interprets them as a provocation.

Nowhere is that danger greater than the impasse over Taiwan. For Beijing, Taiwan is a core sovereignty issue and a test of national resolve. For Washington, it is tied to US credibility as a security guarantor in the Indo-Pacific, regional stability, and its ability to deter coercive unification.

Both sides claim to be defending the status quo. Both believe the other is eroding it. And both are acting in ways that may be making the situation less stable.

The answer is not a unilateral concession by one side or the other. Rather, both sides need to establish mutual restraint, backed by clearer political reassurance.

For instance, China could reduce the scale and frequency of coercive military actions around Taiwan, such as military aircraft sorties, naval patrols and drone operations near the island. And the US could avoid steps that blur the line between support for Taiwan and support for formal independence.

Trust may be absent. But trust is not a precondition for stability. Clarity and restraint are.

This requires a serious framework for deterrence management, including:

sustained efforts to clarify red lines
reducing misperceptions about each other’s intentions and resolve
preventing competitive signalling from spiralling into a confrontation.

During the Cold War, Washington and Moscow eventually learned that an arms race without guardrails was too dangerous to sustain. Washington and Beijing have not yet reached that level of strategic maturity. They need to.

2. Compete in safer arenas

Rivalries can be channelled into forms that are less dangerous than military conflict, and can sometimes even be productive.

That is already happening. The United States and China are competing through global institutions and alignments, from the Quad and AUKUS (on the US side) to the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (on China’s side).

Both are trying to shape the rules, memberships and agendas of the regional and global orders in ways that advance their own influence and constrain the other’s.

On the surface, this can look like just another front in a new cold war. But institutional competition can be one of the safer forms of rivalry.

Competition can force institutions to adapt rather than stagnate. It can encourage new forms of regional cooperation. It can also push rival powers to provide public goods – such as infrastructure, development financing, technological investments and climate initiatives – in order to win support from others.

In infrastructure financing, for instance, China has used the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to expand its reach globally. The US and its partners have responded with initiatives of their own.

The competition between the two has been beneficial – and it has expanded the options available to developing countries.

This is also why a rush toward broad economic decoupling would be such a mistake. Some restrictions in sensitive sectors may be unavoidable. But a sweeping effort to sever economic ties would remove one of the few remaining guardrails in the relationship.

As long as the United States and China remain economically intertwined, both sides are incentivised to maintain stability and avoid conflict.

3. Lower the temperature

The US and China are not simply clashing over interests. They also have very different political and historical narratives.

US policymakers often cast the rivalry as a defence of the liberal order against authoritarian revisionism. Chinese leaders often see it as a struggle against containment, humiliation and foreign interference.

These are not just different rhetorical narratives. They shape what each side sees as threatening, acceptable or beyond compromise. They also help explain why the relationship has become so emotionally and politically charged.

Ideological competition is safest when it remains indirect. Neither Washington nor Beijing is likely to convert the other to its way of thinking. And neither is likely to persuade the wider world through their lectures on ideology.

The sounder strategy is to compete by example.

For the United States, it means showing that democratic governance can still deliver competence, cohesion and long-term economic vitality. For China, it means showing that its model can bring growth, social stability and international cooperation.

Both sides also need to recognise that ideological overreach is dangerous. The more Washington frames competition as a global struggle between democracy and autocracy, the more it encourages Beijing to see compromise as capitulation.

And the more Beijing wraps its foreign policy in narratives of anti-hegemony, the more likely Washington is to see its own restraint as weakness.

Engagement still matters for the same reason. If the United States and China stop talking, this ideological competition will harden and become more dangerous.

The greatest danger in the US–China competition is that both sides will come to see restraint as weakness, compromise as surrender and coexistence as impossible. Once that happens, catastrophe becomes far more likely.

The most realistic goal is not friendship, or even reconciliation. It is something harder and more modest: competition without war.

Kai He receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Toda Peace Institute, an independent institute in Japan promoting policy-oriented peace research. He serves as a non-resident senior research fellow at the Toda Peace Institute.

Huiyun Feng receives funding from Australia Research Council.

– ref. Trump-Xi summit: 3 ways the US and China can compete without going to war – https://theconversation.com/trump-xi-summit-3-ways-the-us-and-china-can-compete-without-going-to-war-281328

May 13, 2026

Así es el norovirus responsable del brote en el crucero de Burdeos

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Raúl Rivas González, Catedrático de Microbiología. Miembro de la Sociedad Española de Microbiología, Universidad de Salamanca

Acaban de ser confinadas 1 700 personas a bordo del crucero Ambition en el puerto de Burdeos, tras un episodio de gastroenteritis de origen vírico confirmado por la Agencia Regional de Salud y el prefecto de la Gironda.

El crucero llegó a Burdeos procedente de las Islas Shetland, tras hacer escala en Belfast (Irlanda del Norte), Liverpool (Reino Unido) y Brest (noroeste de Francia). En los próximos días tenía previsto parar en Gijón y Bilbao.

De momento han sido notificados alrededor de 50 casos con síntomas de vómitos, diarrea y dolor abdominal. Solo ha fallecido una persona, de 92 años. Aunque sus síntomas coinciden con el brote, las autoridades aún están realizando la autopsia para confirmar si el virus fue la causa directa.

Todo apunta a que el brote ha sido causado por norovirus.

La principal causa de gastroenteritis aguda en el mundo

El norovirus es un virus de ARN monocatenario perteneciente a la familia Caliciviridae, y es la principal causa de gastroenteritis aguda (GEA) en el mundo. Cada año provoca cerca de 685 millones de casos y entre 136 000 y 278 000 muertes.

Este agente infeccioso fue identificado por primera vez en 1968 durante un brote de gastroenteritis aguda en Norwalk (Ohio, EE. UU.), donde se aisló de las heces de pacientes afectados. Por esta circunstancia, en primera instancia recibió el nombre de “virus de Norwalk”.

En la actualidad, se conocen 10 genogrupos y 49 genotipos. La clasificación en genogrupos y genotipos está basada en la diversidad de aminoácidos en dos proteínas, VP1 y ORF1. Las infecciones humanas se deben predominantemente a los genogrupos GI, GII y GIV, siendo el genogrupo GII la causa más común de gastroenteritis.

Los niños y los ancianos son los más afectados

Las infecciones por norovirus son comunes en todo el mundo y, aunque pueden ocurrir durante todo el año, en climas templados la actividad alcanza su punto máximo durante el invierno. La mayoría de los niños habrán tenido al menos una infección antes de cumplir los 5 años.

Los niños, los ancianos y las personas inmunocomprometidas son especialmente susceptibles a desarrollar cuadros graves. En países de bajos ingresos, la mortalidad es común en niños debido a la deshidratación. Por el contrario, en países desarrollados, las muertes ocurren principalmente en ancianos.

El norovirus es muy contagioso y se propaga con mucha facilidad y rapidez a través de personas enfermas y alimentos, agua y superficies contaminadas. Es ampliamente reconocido por su capacidad de provocar brotes rápidos y masivos en lugares cerrados o semicerrados, donde la alta concentración de personas y la convivencia estrecha facilitan la transmisión. Es el caso de hospitales, campamentos, residencias de ancianos o estudiantes, guarderías, escuelas y, en especial, en cruceros.

La infección causa náuseas, dolor abdominal, repentinos vómitos y diarrea grave sin sangre. Otros síntomas incluyen calambres abdominales, náuseas y, en ocasiones, fiebre leve.

El periodo de incubación oscila entre 12 y 48 horas. La enfermedad suele ser autolimitada y la mayoría de los pacientes se recuperan completamente en 1 a 3 días.

El virus de los cruceros

El norovirus representa una amenaza para la industria turística porque tiene un impacto desproporcionado debido a la alta visibilidad mediática. Por esa razón, la prevención y el manejo de brotes de gastroenteritis aguda en cruceros siguen estándares y planes de higiene acordados internacionalmente.

Entre otras medidas, se realiza un cribado previo al embarque, existe un protocolo de vigilancia una vez a bordo y se aísla a las personas infectadas. La aplicación de medidas de higiene ambiental y la educación de la tripulación y los pasajeros sobre el lavado de manos y la notificación de síntomas también son esenciales. En caso de brote, se cierran los restaurantes de autoservicio.

Dado que los humanos son el único reservorio, el riesgo de infección está presente en cualquier lugar donde se preparen alimentos de manera insalubre y puedan contaminarse. Los alimentos fríos listos para el consumo contaminados, por ejemplo, ensaladas, representan un riesgo particular. Los mariscos crudos, especialmente las ostras, son una fuente frecuente de infección porque las partículas virales presentes en el agua contaminada se concentran en el intestino de estos organismos filtradores. El hielo contaminado también se ha relacionado con brotes.

En el año 2025 fueron confirmados al menos 17 brotes en cruceros y en lo que llevamos de 2026 han sido confirmados varios brotes en cruceros internacionales.

Los criterios de Kaplan

Los criterios de Kaplan son un conjunto de cuatro reglas epidemiológicas utilizadas para determinar si un brote de gastroenteritis aguda tiene una alta probabilidad de haber sido causado por un norovirus, especialmente cuando aún no se dispone de confirmación por laboratorio. Fueron establecidos en 1982 por el Dr. Jeffrey Kaplan y siguen siendo una regla de oro clínica por su alta especificidad.

Para sospechar de un brote por norovirus, se deben cumplir los siguientes puntos:
1. Vómitos en más del 50 % de los casos.
2. Periodo de incubación medio de 24 a 48 horas.
3. Duración media de la enfermedad de 12 a 60 horas.
4. Coprocultivos negativos para patógenos bacterianos comunes.

Cuando se cumplen los cuatro criterios, es muy probable que el brote haya sido causado por norovirus. Sin embargo, alrededor del 30 % de los brotes de norovirus no cumplen estos criterios. Si no se cumplen, no significa que el brote no haya sido causado por norovirus. Dicho de otro modo, que existan lo confirma pero su ausencia no lo descarta.

La hidratacion es el mejor tratamiento

No hay medicamentos específicos para tratar las infecciones por norovirus y tampoco existen vacunas disponibles. En la mayoría de los casos, los síntomas desaparecen por sí solos después de unos días. Sin embargo, es importante mantenerse hidratado para prevenir la deshidratación severa y guardar reposo.

Los casos más graves pueden requerir tratamiento médico para prevenir la deshidratación, especialmente en niños pequeños, ancianos y personas con sistemas inmunológicos debilitados.

El tratamiento de soporte es fundamental para la gastroenteritis por norovirus, especialmente la rehidratación oral o intravenosa. No se recomiendan antidiarreicos ni antieméticos para el manejo rutinario de la gastroenteritis aguda en niños. Los antibióticos no son útiles. En adultos, los antieméticos, medicamentos antimotilidad y antisecretores pueden resultar útiles como complemento de la rehidratación.

Raúl Rivas González no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Así es el norovirus responsable del brote en el crucero de Burdeos – https://theconversation.com/asi-es-el-norovirus-responsable-del-brote-en-el-crucero-de-burdeos-282942

May 13, 2026

When words look like their meaning, we process them faster, new research reveals

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By David Sidhu, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Carleton University

The shape of the word bubble resembles the shape of an actual bubble, according to research participants. (Unsplash)

Think about a word that looks like its meaning. For instance, the word bed kind of looks like a bed, with the vertical lines resembling the posts at either end. Loop looks very loopy.

Some words are more subtly evocative — like blizzard, whose zigzagging letters might evoke something chaotic.

The term for this is “iconicity” and it has typically been studied in the sounds of words. For example, the word meow resembles the sound of a cat. The word teeny sounds like something small.

My recent study explored iconicity in the visual appearance of words in English for the first time. I found that people processed words faster and more accurately when the words physically resembled their meanings.

English letters began as visual symbols

The letters we use in English (which is a Latin script inherited from the Roman alphabet) actually started out as visual symbols. They likely evolved from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

One possibility is that these Egyptian symbols were adopted by speakers of a North Semitic language, around 1800-1600 BC, into what is called the “Proto-Sinaitic” script.

Egyptian hieroglyphs depicting birds, eyes and other images in green, red and gold colour. — Hieroglyphs from the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I, in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.
(Wikimedia Commons)

This script used symbols to code for the first sound of the pictured thing. This is called the acrophony principle. For example, our letter M comes from a symbol for water, taking the first sound of the word mayim.

The letters have changed so much that these ancient origins aren’t relevant to reading English today. But there is some evidence that the shapes of letters have some relationship to the sounds they convey. For example, one study assembled letters for the sound /i/ (as in bee) and /u/ (as in boo) from 56 different languages and asked people to guess which was which. It turned out that people could do this, more often than expected by chance.

But this isn’t quite what I was interested in here. Rather than asking if the shapes of letters are related to the sounds of words, I was interested in whether those shapes are related to the meanings of words.

Bubble, hoop, wiggle

In this research, I asked participants to rate more than 3,000 words according to how much the shape of their letters resembled their meaning, using a scale of one to seven.

This is a common approach in the study of psycholinguistics. We often ask people to rate words on one dimension — for example, how concrete a word is, or how positive a word is — and then use those ratings to understand how people process word meaning.

The first thing to note is that there was agreement across participants, at least on par with ratings of other word properties in the past.

The highest-rated words included bubble, look, wiggle, hoop, puppy and bed.

It’s easy to come up with explanations for these ratings. Puppy looks like it has legs and a tail. There is something wiggly about the two G’s in the middle of wiggle.

But can we actually tell how participants made their ratings? We can get some clues by looking at the kinds of words that get higher ratings.

Round letters, spiky letters

Words with high ratings tended to refer to things you can see. This makes sense if participants were actually considering a resemblance between the word and its meaning.

Getting more specific, when a word for a round thing contained round letters (for example, O, G and C), it was rated higher. When a word for a spiky thing contained spiky letters (like W, Z and X), it was rated higher. Words for small things tended to be rated higher when they contained fewer letters.

All in all, it seems like the ratings actually did capture a resemblance between the look of a word and its meaning.

This is all well and good, but does it matter? To answer this, I used three existing databases with information on how quickly people can process individual words. These are from studies that, for example, present participants with strings of letters (for example, spoon or flarg) and have them identify them as real or invented words as quickly as possible.

In all three databases, I found that people were faster and more accurate at processing words that looked like their meanings. This was after accounting for all kinds of things like how common a word is, how many letters it contains and how easy a word’s meaning is to picture. Not only that, these words tended to be learned at an earlier age.

There is a growing appreciation that language is more than words and their meanings. It involves all kinds of things like tone of voice, gesture and gaze. We can now add one additional subtle cue: the shapes of letters.

David Sidhu receives funding from NSERC and SSHRC.

– ref. When words look like their meaning, we process them faster, new research reveals – https://theconversation.com/when-words-look-like-their-meaning-we-process-them-faster-new-research-reveals-282228

May 13, 2026

Canada to host new NATO-linked defence bank as Mark Carney pushes security overhaul

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Srdjan Vucetic, Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Canada has been chosen to house the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB). Originally dubbed “the NATO bank,” the new institution will help NATO and non-NATO countries more easily direct funding toward defence and security needs.

This translates to hundreds of new jobs in finance, research and analysis in Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver — all potential host cities.

This comes as a boost for Prime Minister Mark Carney, a former banker who has sought to craft a bold new foreign policy for Canada.

As Carney argued in his acclaimed Davos speech, the ongoing geopolitical “rupture” requires countries to “hedge against uncertainty.”

Rethinking global co-operation

In Canada’s case, the primary concern is the aggressive behaviour of the Donald Trump administration south of the border.

To unwind longstanding dependence on the now-unpredictable superpower neighbour, the federal government has set out on an ambitious nation-building plan that includes both retaliatory tariffs on American goods and a rapid expansion and diversification of trade and investment.

Carney’s emerging foreign policy doctrine extols the influence of middle powers alongside a commitment to “variable geometry” multilateralism — his term for the once controversial idea that institutions and coalitions should be shaped by the issue or mission at hand, rather than the other way around.

Could this approach also work in defence and security? Geography and history have bound Canada and the United States through countless formal and informal agreements, including a mutual commitment to come to each other’s defence in the event of an attack.

However strained relations between Canada and the U.S. have become, the partnership is not simply an either/or choice. Canada must instead carefully balance its relationships and interests.

The Carney government’s opening moves have included a sweeping expansion of military spending and security-related infrastructure, pushing investment toward levels not seen since the Cold War, alongside a landmark strategic defence and security partnership with the European Union and Canada’s first-ever Defence Industrial Strategy.

Combined, these initiatives reveal the core logic of the approach: to bolster Canada’s capacity for strategic autonomy over the long term.

In theory, changing where defence supplies come from is less complicated than helping Canadian companies find new markets.

Yet the hardest challenges still lie ahead.

Biggest obstacles

First, boosting current spending to meet NATO’s new spending target of five per cent of GDP will be impossible without a combination of cutting back non-defence expenditures, increasing taxes and borrowing more. No democracy can achieve this quickly without a declaration of a war economy.

Second, as a three-ocean country — nearly 40 per cent of Canadian territory is in the Arctic — Canada faces competing defence priorities.

The challenge for the government, therefore, is not just to spend more on defence, but to ensure new investments are aligned with the objectives set out in its policy and strategy documents.

Yet the Carney government is still working on these initiatives. The delay once again has to do with Trump.

From the new defence policy (last updated in April 2024) to the new intelligence priorities (first issued in September 2024) and — most significantly — a long-overdue national security strategy (last released in April 2004), these initiatives must set clear goals for the relevant government ministries and agencies while piloting the political interplay between the Trump White House and largely anti-Trump Canadian public opinion.

The Trump influence

This is a delicate dance in which every word matters. Before Trump, every new Canadian defence policy statement was predictable, emphasizing the same three roles — domestic; NORAD and other North American operations; and NATO and other multilateral operations.

Now the government often struggles to communicate even the prime minister’s own basic talking point — that intensifying rivalries among major powers makes Canada more vulnerable because of its deep dependency on its unreliable, unpredictable but powerful neighbour to the south.

The same goes for the new intelligence priorities statement. The 2024 version outlined 14 areas of focus, spanning Arctic security and cyber- threats to technological change and violent extremism.

With the risk of another global economic crisis rising, the updated statement should rethink this list.

The Carney government won’t entertain the idea of a “royal commission for securing Canada’s future” — which could be a comprehensive, non-partisan review of the nation’s long-term stability and adaptability in the new geopolitical context

What comes next

This makes the long-awaited national security strategy even more important. Meant to guide resource allocation and capability development throughout at least Carney’s tenure as prime minister, this policy should not only fully acknowledge the scale of the security challenges confronting Canada but also assess the country’s comparative advantages and structural vulnerabilities as a middle power.

This, in turn, would require incorporating key dimensions of climate and economic security, as well as science and technology policy, into the strategic framework.

With some luck, this would mark a step forward in answering some of the most pressing questions about Canada’s future, including:

What security issues should Ottawa prioritize in its “variable-geometry” multilateralism?
How should the government approach the creation of a new agency to collect foreign intelligence — if it chooses to pursue one at all?
What about a national industrial strategy to better catalyze all investments in defence and security?

If the Carney government is serious about both preparing for different scenarios and following through on its plans, clear communication will be essential.

Politicians and the public alike recognize the need to rethink the assumptions and decisions that have shaped Canadian life over the past 50 years, if not longer. The more Canadians understand why some risks are being prioritized over others, and why resources are being directed accordingly, the better equipped the country will be to handle what comes next.

Srdjan Vucetic has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) program of the Department of National Defence. He is also the co-author, with Hager Ben Jaffel, of the forthcoming book Beyond Five Eyes Intelligence: An International Political Sociology.

– ref. Canada to host new NATO-linked defence bank as Mark Carney pushes security overhaul – https://theconversation.com/canada-to-host-new-nato-linked-defence-bank-as-mark-carney-pushes-security-overhaul-282773

May 13, 2026

El impacto psicológico de la cuarentena a bordo de un crucero

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Jilly Gibson-Miller, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Sheffield

El MV Hondius zarpó de Ushuaia (Argentina) el 1 de abril. A los pocos días, un pasajero cayó enfermo. En cuestión de semanas, el viaje se convirtió en el centro de una respuesta sanitaria internacional tras detectarse casos del hantavirus Andes. A principios de mayo, varias personas habían fallecido. A estas alturas, los pasajeros y la tripulación han abandonado el barco, pero muchos se enfrentan ahora a la cuarentena y al seguimiento médico, además de a un intenso escrutinio público.

En definitiva, para los afectados la amenaza no es solo médica: también es psicológica. Los hantavirus son una familia de virus que suelen transmitirse a los seres humanos a través del contacto con roedores infectados o con su orina, excrementos o saliva. El hantavirus Andes es inusual porque también se han registrado casos de transmisión limitada de persona a persona.

Para los pasajeros y la tripulación, esto implica convivir con una amenaza grave, desconocida y difícil de evaluar. Además, lo hacen bajo la atenta mirada de los medios de comunicación de todo el mundo, en el centro de una respuesta médica de emergencia internacional, mientras se enfrentan a un aislamiento imprevisto lejos de casa. Se trata de un tipo particular de tensión psicológica.

La cuarentena les obliga a convivir con una difícil mezcla de miedo, incertidumbre y pérdida de control. Y las investigaciones nos indican que nuestra capacidad para tolerar la incertidumbre está estrechamente relacionada con nuestros niveles de angustia.

Un incidente similar ocurrió durante la pandemia de covid-19, cuando el crucero Diamond Princess estuvo en cuarentena durante varias semanas. Durante ese tiempo, los pasajeros experimentaron miedo a contagiarse, hipervigilancia –estar constantemente en alerta, escudriñando el cuerpo o el entorno en busca de señales de peligro–, preocupación por sus síntomas físicos y dificultad para dormir. Todas estas son características comunes de la ansiedad.

El coste psicológico del aislamiento

Ante un brote, las autoridades sanitarias suelen pedir a las personas que mantengan la distancia, se aíslen, ventilen los espacios compartidos, usen mascarillas y se laven las manos para reducir el riesgo de transmisión. Ese aislamiento social conlleva un coste psicológico. Las personas que se encuentran aisladas en cuarentena en hoteles, hospitales u otros entornos controlados pueden ser más propensas a sufrir ansiedad, trastornos del ánimo y problemas de sueño, especialmente si no pueden salir al exterior o mantener el contacto habitual con otras personas.

El modelo de autorregulación basado en el sentido común puede ayudar a entender lo que los pasajeros del MV Hondius están experimentando. Este modelo sugiere que, cuando las personas se enfrentan a una enfermedad, intentan dar sentido a dos cosas a la vez: lo que la enfermedad significa para ellas y las emociones que experimentan. Estas percepciones determinan qué estrategias de afrontamiento emplean.

Por ejemplo, cuando las personas pierden el control y creen que las consecuencias de la infección podrían ser graves, es más probable que experimenten angustia y pánico. “He estado expuesto, podría enfermar, podría morir”, puede pensar un pasajero. Pensamientos como estos pueden intensificar las reacciones emocionales, aumentar la percepción de peligro y desembocar en el uso de estrategias de afrontamiento poco útiles, como la comprobación repetida de síntomas, la rumiación, la ira o el aislamiento.

Por eso, durante un brote, es tan importante disponer de información precisa y coherente. Incluso reconocer con honestidad lo que aún se desconoce puede generar confianza de forma más eficaz que dar falsas garantías. Con una comunicación clara, a largo plazo la mayoría de las personas terminan adoptando estrategias de afrontamiento positivas, como seguir las directrices para hacerse pruebas, aislarse cuando sea necesario o buscar ayuda médica si aparecen síntomas. Y suelen recuperarse bien tras la cuarentena.

Las redes de apoyo informales, como los grupos de WhatsApp, las videollamadas o las rutinas diarias compartidas, también pueden proteger psicológicamente a las personas.

No es otra pandemia

La Organización Mundial de la Salud ha dejado claro que esto no es el inicio de una pandemia similar a la covid-19. Aunque el riesgo para la salud pública, en general, se considera bajo, para los pasajeros y la tripulación se han recomendado medidas de seguimiento y cuarentena.

A medida que la cuarentena avance, la tensión psicológica también puede prolongarse. Dado que el virus Andes puede tener un periodo de incubación –tiempo que transcurre entre la exposición al virus y la aparición de los síntomas– prolongado, es posible que los síntomas no aparezcan de inmediato. Esto significa que los pasajeros pueden permanecer en un estado de alerta física elevado durante varias semanas, lo que prolonga el estrés y el agotamiento.

Tras una experiencia altamente controlada y estresante, algunos pasajeros pueden necesitar seguimiento al volver a la vida normal, especialmente si han sido testigos de una enfermedad grave o están pasando por un duelo. También es posible que, si se confirman nuevos casos, los afectados sean estigmatizados o tratados por los demás como contagiosos. Esto conlleva dos riesgos: exclusión social que afecte a sus relaciones o a su trabajo; y culpa o dolor, si temen haber expuesto involuntariamente a otras personas al virus.

Gestionar la incertidumbre

Es absolutamente normal experimentar estrés como respuesta a la incertidumbre, el aislamiento y el miedo. Para minimizarlo, las personas en cuarentena necesitan un contacto social significativo, aunque sea virtual.

Hay estrategias sencillas que pueden ayudar a gestionar momentos de incertidumbre: mantener una rutina diaria predecible, cuidar el sueño, comer de forma saludable, hacer ejercicio siempre que sea posible y utilizar técnicas de relajación para calmar el sistema nervioso. Incluso los ejercicios de respiración, la meditación, darse una ducha o prepararse una taza de té o café puede ayudar.

Ante una experiencia como la de los afectados por el brote de hantavirus, recibir información clara, mantenerse en conexión con los demás y normalizar la angustia es esencial. La incertidumbre no puede eliminarse por completo: es la forma en que la gestionamos lo que nos protege de que el miedo a lo desconocido se apodere de nosotros.

Jilly Gibson-Miller no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. El impacto psicológico de la cuarentena a bordo de un crucero – https://theconversation.com/el-impacto-psicologico-de-la-cuarentena-a-bordo-de-un-crucero-282884

May 13, 2026

Lo que nos cuentan los fósiles de aves sobre un humedal prehistórico en el sur de España

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Paul Palmqvist Barrena, Catedrático de Paleontología, Universidad de Málaga

Humedal del Baíco en la cuenca de Baza durante la primavera de 2010. Aparecen una pareja de cigüeñuelas comunes a la izquierda, una garceta común en el centro y tres garcillas bueyeras a la derecha. Fotografía proporcionada por José Ángel Rodríguez.

Contemplar la belleza árida y agreste de los parajes semidesérticos de la depresión de Guadix-Baza, en el altiplano de Granada (España), no deja a nadie indiferente. Estos terrenos, escasamente poblados por la vegetación, se conocen como “tierras baldías” o “badlands”. Pero si pudiésemos viajar atrás en el tiempo un millón y medio de años, cuando las precipitaciones eran más abundantes que las actuales, el paisaje que veríamos sería completamente distinto.

Paisaje de la cuenca de Guadix, en el altiplano granadino, fotografiado desde el mirador de las Cárcavas de Marchal. Estas cárcavas se forman en materiales poco consolidados, conocidos como *badlands*, al ser erosionados por el agua de escorrentía. El proceso se conoce como *piping* (erosión en túnel).
Paul Palmqvist, Francisco J. Serrano Alarcón, Guillermo Rodríguez Gómez, M. Patrocinio Espigares., CC BY-SA

De un vergel a un desierto

En el Pleistoceno inferior, hace entre 2,6 y 0,78 millones de años, existía un extenso humedal en la cuenca de Baza, que cubría una superficie de más de 1 000 km². Se alimentaba, principalmente, de las aguas de un sistema fluvial formado por un río principal y sus aportes laterales, que recorría longitudinalmente la cuenca de Guadix y traía agua desde Sierra Nevada, así como de las emanaciones de manantiales hidrotermales, que aportaban aguas cálidas y sales minerales.

En el entorno de este inmenso lago, que debió ser un auténtico vergel, se desenvolvía una fauna muy diversa de grandes mamíferos que recuerda a la de las sabanas arboladas actuales del África subtropical.

Por el altiplano granadino deambulaban animales exóticos, como grandes elefantes, hipopótamos que doblaban en masa corporal a los actuales y muchos otros herbívoros. Junto a ellos, formidables depredadores, en particular félidos con dientes en forma de sable y grandes hienas carroñeras, del tamaño de una leona.

A esta fauna, bien conocida a partir de las excavaciones en los yacimientos paleontológicos de Orce –Venta Micena, Fuente Nueva-3 y Barranco León–, se le sumarían los primeros humanos que habitaron en Europa occidental. Su presencia quedó documentada en los dos últimos yacimientos citados por industrias líticas (piedras talladas) del tipo olduvayense, marcas de su actividad con ellas sobre los huesos y, en el caso de Barranco León, un diente de leche humano.

Diente de leche humano (A) y remontaje de un núcleo de sílex tallado (B) en el yacimiento arqueopaleontológico de Barranco León en Orce (cuenca de Baza, Geoparque de Granada). Reconstrucción de los homininos del Pleistoceno inferior de Europa (C) tallando industrias líticas olduvayenses (dibujo de Mauricio Antón).
Paul Palmqvist, Francisco J. Serrano Alarcón, Guillermo Rodríguez Gómez, M. Patrocinio Espigares., CC BY-NC-SA

¿Por qué son escasos los fósiles de aves?

Es mucho lo que sabemos sobre esta fauna pretérita de grandes mamíferos gracias a los yacimientos orcenses, que son uno de los grandes recursos patrimoniales que atesora el Geoparque de Granada. Ahora bien, hasta ahora no conocíamos prácticamente nada de las aves que debieron habitar también en estos extensos humedales.

La razón es sencilla: a diferencia de los huesos de los mamíferos, los de la mayoría de las aves son pequeños, con una cortical (superficie externa) muy fina y, además, están neumatizados (son huecos). Esto los aligera para el vuelo, pero disminuye su potencial de fosilizar. Además, las aves carecen de dientes, que son los elementos más mineralizados y más perdurables como fósiles.

Por ello, en estos yacimientos, donde los restos esqueléticos fueron acumulados por hienas capaces de fracturar hasta los huesos de un gran elefante, la conservación como fósiles de los huesos de aves resulta anecdótica y hasta ahora solo se había citado algún fragmento aislado sin identificar.

Algunos de los fósiles de aves estudiados del yacimiento paleontológico del Pleistoceno inferior de Venta Micena. A: húmero distal de cuervo (vista craneal). B: húmero distal de tarro blanco (vista craneal). C: fragmento de pelvis con el acetábulo de un ave indeterminada (vista lateral) en el que se aprecian evidencias de abrasión por digestión. D: falange del pie de un ave indeterminada (vista dorsal) con marcas de digestión. E: ulna de grulla (vista dorsal).
Paul Palmqvist, Francisco J. Serrano Alarcón, Guillermo Rodríguez Gómez, M. Patrocinio Espigares., CC BY-NC-SA

Nuestro nuevo estudio, publicado el 13 de mayo en Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, se ha realizado sobre los únicos fósiles de Venta Micena que se pueden atribuir a aves. Son solo 18 especímenes entre las decenas de miles exhumados tras décadas de excavaciones en el yacimiento. De estos fósiles, siete se conservaron con integridad anatómica suficiente como para ser asignados a especies concretas.

A partir de estos huesecillos fragmentarios, se ha puesto de manifiesto la existencia de tres especies de aves diferentes, cada una de las cuales aporta información valiosa sobre los ambientes del humedal orcense e, incluso, sobre la ecología de la comunidad de animales que habitaba en ellos.

Las aves de Venta Micena

La primera especie identificada es un pato, el tarro blanco o Tadorna tadorna. Estas aves se alimentan de pequeños invertebrados, en especial caracoles del género Hydrobia, bien documentados en los yacimientos orcenses. Al ser moluscos que viven en aguas de salinidad variable, la presencia del tarro informa de que en las inmediaciones del gran lago de Orce habría charcas sujetas a una evaporación intensa, lo que ocasionaría un aumento de su salinidad.

La segunda especie es una grulla, de tamaño algo mayor que la grulla común actual, Grus grus. La especie, asignada preliminarmente a Grus cf. primigenia, representa el registro más antiguo conocido hasta el momento en Europa de las grullas gigantes del Pleistoceno. Las grullas son aves omnívoras típicamente asociadas a los humedales, por lo que su presencia aquí no resulta insólita.

Finalmente, la tercera especie identificada en Venta Micena es un cuervo, concretamente la subespecie Corvus corax antecorax. Nuevamente, se trata del registro más antiguo de estos animales en la península ibérica. Ahora bien, su verdadero interés radica en el papel que desempeñó en los ecosistemas de hace más de un millón de años, ya que debió de consumir una porción apreciable de la carne disponible para los depredadores y carroñeros.

Tarros blancos, grullas y humedales

La presencia en Venta Micena del tarro blanco y la grulla es coherente con los ambientes húmedos en los que ambos habitan actualmente. De hecho, el tarro (de forma ocasional) y la grulla (con mayor frecuencia) se encuentran en El Baíco, un pequeño humedal situado entre las ciudades de Baza y Benamaurel. Se trata de una laguna semiendorreica, oligosalina (con baja concentración de sal, ~2,5 g/l) y situada a 700 metros de altitud sobre el nivel del mar. Mantiene una lámina de agua relativamente estable a lo largo del año, colonizada por vegetación halófila (adaptada a la presencia de sal). Su extensión actual es muy reducida, solo unos 0,7 km², aunque a comienzos del siglo XIX cubría entre 2 y 5 km². En los años lluviosos, la frecuentan más de 50 especies de aves y muchas de ellas se reproducen allí.

Vista del humedal de El Baíco (Granada), con un grupo de flamencos y al fondo el paisaje de la Sierra de Baza cubierta de nieve.
Fotografía proporcionada por José Ángel Rodríguez, CC BY-NC-SA

A partir de la década de 1960 se intentó desecar esta laguna con canales de desagüe, conocidos como sangradores, que descargan al río de Baza un flujo de agua de unos 1 000 l/s. Incluso se ha intentado nivelarla con sedimentos de las colinas circundantes, a efectos de aprovechar los terrenos para usos agrícolas. Por ello, El Baíco solo se recupera de forma natural los años más lluviosos y es un criptohumedal el resto del tiempo.

La elevada diversidad de aves que se encuentran hoy día en esta pequeña laguna sugiere que las escasas especies identificadas en Venta Micena debieron ser solo la punta del iceberg de la ornitofauna que habitó en la cuenca de Baza durante el Pleistoceno inferior, cuando los humedales cubrían más de 1 000 km².

Las poblaciones actuales de tarros blancos y grullas en la península ibérica reúnen individuos invernantes, que llegan tras reproducirse en el norte de Europa, excepto un pequeño contingente de tarros residentes. Esto contrasta con el comportamiento sugerido por el hallazgo de ambas especies en Venta Micena: al haber acumulado las hienas los restos esqueléticos durante la estación estival, los tarros y grullas identificados en el yacimiento sugieren que hace un millón y medio de años estas especies residían todo el año en la cuenca de Baza, reproduciéndose también allí.

El papel de los cuervos como carroñeros

El uso de un modelo que permite cuantificar la disponibilidad de carne en el ecosistema y su aprovechamiento por los consumidores secundarios permitió estimar cuántos recursos consumiría cada carnívoro terrestre de Venta Micena.

Sin embargo, en dicho modelo no se tuvo en cuenta a los cuervos, quienes son capaces de robarles buena parte de la carne de sus presas a los lobos, tal y como se ha comprobado en estudios modernos.

Al incluir en el modelo al cuervo como una especie carroñera más, se apreció que la cantidad de carne que podría consumir cada carnívoro terrestre disminuía apreciablemente. Así, estas aves carroñeras habrían jugado un papel muy relevante en el ecosistema, algo que había pasado desapercibido hasta ahora.

Distribución de los recursos cárnicos entre los consumidores secundarios de la paleocomunidad de Venta Micena. El diagrama de tarta de la izquierda muestra las estimaciones porcentuales de la carne consumida por los depredadores y carroñeros terrestres; a la derecha se muestran dichos consumos tras introducir al cuervo como un carroñero más, lo que hace disminuir la proporción de recursos aprovechados por las otras especies.
Paul Palmqvist, Francisco J. Serrano Alarcón, Guillermo Rodríguez Gómez, M. Patrocinio Espigares., CC BY-NC-SA

Los fósiles permiten poner en valor el patrimonio

El conocimiento de las aves que habitaron en Venta Micena hace un millón y medio de años aporta una información muy interesante sobre los humedales del sur de Andalucía. Contribuyen a la puesta en valor del legado paleontológico de esta región, en su doble vertiente de patrimonio natural e histórico.

Son precisamente estos estudios los que permiten pasar de la idea más o menos inmediata de que los fósiles son objetos patrimoniales que se deben conservar a la de que su valor singular emana de los conocimientos sobre el pasado que genera su estudio.

A fin de cuentas, las explicaciones que alimentan pueden ser tanto o más interesantes que la belleza o el interés que lleguen a despertar por sí mismos los restos fosilizados de estos yacimientos.

Reconstrucción del humedal de Venta Micena en la cuenca de Baza (Granada) hace un millón y medio de años. Se aprecian las aves identificadas en este estudio, el tarro blanco (*Tadorna tadorna*), en primer plano a la izquierda; la grulla (*Grus* cf. *primigenia*), en primer plano a la derecha, y el cuervo (*Corvus corax antecorax*), volando junto a la hiena gigante (*Pachycrocuta brevirostris*). Al fondo se distinguen dos elefantes (*Mammuthus meridionalis*) y un grupo de caballos (*Equus altidens*).
Escena dibujada por Óscar Sanisidro

Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.

– ref. Lo que nos cuentan los fósiles de aves sobre un humedal prehistórico en el sur de España – https://theconversation.com/lo-que-nos-cuentan-los-fosiles-de-aves-sobre-un-humedal-prehistorico-en-el-sur-de-espana-281911

May 13, 2026

The Hanau far-right extremist shooting exposed how racism costs lives — and how institutions let it

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jayanthan Sriram, PhD Candidate, Centre for Sensory Studies, Public Scholar, Concordia University

In Hanau, Germany, on Feb. 19, 2020, after Vili-Viorel Pǎun witnessed the beginning of a mass shooting and tried to stop the gunman by chasing him down with his car, he called emergency services three times. No one answered, and Pǎun was shot dead.

Later, Pǎun’s father overheard police officers using a common racial slur while commenting on the supposed impossibility of a Roma person showing civic courage. This was not an aberration; it was a part of the same systemic racism that’s left the victims’ families without true justice six years later.

As sensory studies scholars who focus on racism and migration, we argue that racism is not only interpersonal or even simply structural, it’s also multi-sensory. It shapes how minorities see, hear and move through the world, with consequences that extend from everyday interactions to life-or-death institutional failures.

Systemic failures shaped the tragedy

The gunman , a firm believer in the “Great Replacement” theory, scouted out places where minorities were thought to gather — shisha bars, youth centres and kebab shops — to carry out his attack.

And on that day, Vili-Viorel Pǎun, Ferhat Unvar, Hamza Kurtović, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Kaloyan Velkov, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Sedat Gürbüz and Gökhan Gültekin lost their lives. All were ethnically either Turkish, Afghan, Romanian, Bulgarian or Bosnian.

The aftermath and investigation into the event revealed how in Germany the devaluation of minority lives that drove the gunman’s worldview is also present in the way justice, media and politics operate.

What happened at the Arena Bar & Café, the final site of the attack, serves as another example for the families of the victims who argue that the racism in this tragedy is also evidence of systemic issues within policing. The exit had been illegally locked to facilitate police raids, largely driven, investigators found, by racial profiling linking hookah bars with criminality.

The London-based research agency Forensic Architecture, which uses architectural techniques and digital technologies to investigate human rights violations, revealed that five of the nine victims could have escaped through the emergency exit and survived.

There were questions about why it took hours to apprehend the perpetrator, even though his location was known. The special forces stood by his house and waited, which gave the perpetrator time to kill his mother and commit suicide. They never offered a reason for their delayed intervention.

Other investigations later revealed that some of the special forces were members of a chat group sharing right-wing extremist ideologies.

These failures create a reminder of how the racism faced by minorities feeds back into societal structures that can cost lives and obstruct justice.

Multi-sensory impact

Our research shows that racism is a multi-sensory experience that transforms the ways in which minorities feel and interact with the world. Qualitative research and statistics confirm that people face a loss of trust and the development of health issues when faced with institutional discrimination.

Multi-sensory racism can present through a visual categorization based on skin colour — the discomfort of entering predominantly white spaces, for example. It can manifest through olfactory perception such as comments on “smelly” foods.

It affects everyday social interactions like how and where people choose to safely socialize — and why they may prefer to spend their time within their own communities rather than “integrating.”

These experiences culminate in how institutional behaviour sets up or fails to sanction individual racism.

Beyond moments of tragedy

In the case of Hanau, the failure by politicians and police to acknowledge the ubiquity of the racist worldview that motivated the perpetrator and made his violence possible has prompted survivors and their families to begin a multi-pronged anti-racist effort.

Most prominently, the survivors founded Initiative February 19 Hanau to create a platform that pushes for social action and solidarity for the victims of racist violence. Guided by the principles of remembrance, investigation, justice and accountability, the initiative calls for state responsibility while embracing the notion of #SayTheirNames.

The hashtag underscores the importance of naming those who have been murdered as an act of resistance against racism and systemic violence.

Both Said Etris Hashemi — who still carries shrapnel from the perpetrator’s ammunition in his body — and Çetin Gültekin, brother of the murdered Gökhan Gültekin, released memoirs that deal with the inherent racism of German society and situate it within a broader political struggle of growing far-right movements and their popularity in Germany.

The 2025 documentary Das Deutsche Volk follows the lives of the survivors and their families over the years and captures the ongoing fight for a memorial in Hanau’s city centre.

At one point, Çetin Gültekin suggests a landmark that showcases the deceased as pillars encircling the Brothers Grimm National Monument. The indifference that follows this suggestion has been interpreted by advocates as a lack of recognition for dignified remembrance.

The Hanau attacks, and the ongoing struggle for recognition of migrants’ experiences in a system where German institutions often treat them as third-class citizens, expose a troubling fallacy. It was captured by the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates in his 2015 non-fiction book Between the World and Me: “Race is the child of racism, not its father.”

In societies where race is still treated as a biological fact — rather than a colonial construct used to place people into arbitrary hierarchies — and where structural inequalities are only beginning to be acknowledged, there is still limited understanding of racism as a multi-sensory reality that shapes the everyday lives of minorities.

The work of addressing racist injustice requires sustained, long-term institutional and social change.

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. The Hanau far-right extremist shooting exposed how racism costs lives — and how institutions let it – https://theconversation.com/the-hanau-far-right-extremist-shooting-exposed-how-racism-costs-lives-and-how-institutions-let-it-278960

May 13, 2026

Canada’s 2026 World Cup team reflects the country’s multicultural identity — in a way hockey never has

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Noah Eliot Vanderhoeven, PhD Candidate, Political Science, Western University

The Men’s World Cup will be a unique sporting event for Canadians — and not merely because it’s being co-hosted on Canadian soil or because soccer is now the most-played youth sport in Canada.

The Canadian men’s national soccer team has the unique opportunity to forge a different vision of Canadian national identity — one that looks quite different from what hockey has historically offered.

This tournament will be especially unique when compared to recent sporting events including the Four Nations Faceoff, the Milan Cortina winter Olympic Games and the Toronto Blue Jays’ World Series run last year.

The difference lies not in the sport itself, but in who is wearing the Canadian jersey and the stories they carry onto the pitch.

National sports and nation building

In Canada, hockey has historically been the sport used to symbolize Canadian national excellence and foster collective identity. However, it’s also an expensive sport that has long reflected a white, European conception of Canadian identity.

The National Hockey League employs a workforce that is 84 per cent white across players and team staff, a reality reinforced by the composition of Canada’s men’s hockey team at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

The Toronto Blue Jays’ extraordinary run to the 2025 World Series was a moment that genuinely galvanized the country around baseball in ways not seen since the back-to-back championships of 1992 and 1993. The 2025 World Series prompted the entire country to root for “Canada’s team.”

Canadians rallied enthusiastically behind a team that played in Canada and wore the maple leaf, something their owners were happy to emphasize throughout the Jays’ run.

Yet the Blue Jays presented their own identity puzzle. The team that Canada adopted as “Canada’s team” had only one Canadian player on its World Series roster: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — who was born in Montréal and whose father played for the Montreal Expos — in a majority-American lineup.

A lot of the national enthusiasm was likely stoked by Canada’s tense trade relationship with the United States and not Blue Jays players being directly representative of the lived experiences of most Canadians.

A squad built on multiculturalism

Canada’s men’s soccer team presents a different image: a racially diverse squad whose players embody stories of immigration, offering a more inclusive vision of what Canadian identity can look like.

No player embodies this more than Canada’s team captain, Alphonso Davies. Born in the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana to Liberian parents who had fled the civil war, he arrived in Edmonton at age five through Canada’s resettlement program. He is now a Champions League winner and a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.

But it goes beyond Davies. Head coach Jesse Marsch, who took over from John Herdman in 2024, has made the recruitment of dual nationals an explicit priority.

He recruited players like Tani Oluwaseyi, who could have declared for Nigeria; Niko Sigur, who played for Croatia at the under-21 level; Marcelo Flores, who competed for Mexico at various youth levels; and Alfie Jones, an English-born centre-back who learned the Canadian national anthem from a teammate before taking his citizenship oath at training camp.

The result is a squad built largely from immigrants and dual nationals who were actively courted to represent Canada, reflecting a vision of the country shaped by multiculturalism rather than ethnic homogeneity. This carries historical resonance: Canada’s past policies once explicitly favoured white, European immigrants, provoking a countervailing push toward official multiculturalism.

It is precisely this multicultural framework that’s made the squad possible and given Canada unprecedented strength and depth.

The power of recognition

National sporting events are powerful vehicles for building shared identity. When people connect to sporting events in ways that make their sense of belonging to a country feel personal, sport becomes something more than entertainment.

This World Cup arrives at a politically charged moment, with the United States — a co-host alongside with Mexico — planning to involve immigration enforcement in tournament security. Canada’s multicultural squad offers a counter-narrative in a tournament already shadowed by debates about immigration and belonging.

For the millions of Canadians who immigrated to Canada or who carry their family’s immigration story as a major part of their sense of identity, the men’s national soccer team offers something that the men’s Olympic hockey squad and the Toronto Blue Jays never quite delivered: the possibility of seeing themselves in a more complete representation of Canada’s team.

That is not a small thing. It is, in fact, the realization of the full potential of sport in building Canadian national identity.

Noah Eliot Vanderhoeven 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. Canada’s 2026 World Cup team reflects the country’s multicultural identity — in a way hockey never has – https://theconversation.com/canadas-2026-world-cup-team-reflects-the-countrys-multicultural-identity-in-a-way-hockey-never-has-280329

May 13, 2026

Illegal gold mining causes surges in malaria in the Amazon, and the association is far worse than we suspected

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Daniela de Angeli Dutra, Lecturer in Zoology, Bangor University

Gold prices are at an all-time high, and we are very worried. As disease ecologists, it’s not the economic instability that concerns us, but the fact that a surge in gold mining could have a devastating impact on human health.

Our team of researchers from Stanford University, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, and Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, established and quantified the effects of illegal gold mining on a recent surge in malaria in the Yanomami territory in the Brazilian Amazon that plunged this isolated Indigenous population into a devastating health crisis in the early 2020s.

An executive push towards extraction

When Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president in 2019, he made environmental deregulation a central tenet of his platform, claiming that environmental and Indigenous land protections hindered the country’s economic development. He also transferred the authority of Indigenous land demarcation from the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) to the Agriculture Ministry.

Furthermore, he issued decrees aimed at deregulating small-scale mining activities in the Amazon region. The decrees made no distinction between regulated (therefore, legal) mining outside of Indigenous territory and mining within Indigenous land, which is universally illegal. Illegal miners flooded the Yanomami territory.

By January 2023, when Lula da Silva secured the Presidency as Bolsonaro successor, the number of illegal gold miners in Yanomami territory — the largest Indigenous territory in the Amazon — had surged to 20,000, roughly two-thirds the number of the local Yanomami population.

Malaria and the Yanomami health crisis

Weeks after Lula da Silva took office, independent news outlet Sumaúma released a dispatch citing shocking disease and malnutrition figures among the Yanomami. Threaded with images of suffering Yanomami people, the report motivated the president to declare a humanitarian crisis.

Dr. Andre Siqueira, a researcher from the Oswaldo Cruz research institute (Fiocruz) and a member of the team of doctors sent into the territory upon declaration of the crisis recounted: “The conditions of the population were devastating.” Nearly every person they tested was positive for malaria.

Even small increases in mining can cause a surge in malaria cases

The Sumaúma dispatch, and the Instituto Sociaombiental report upon which it was based, linked the influx of illegal gold miners during the Bolsonaro administration to the Yanomami health crisis and the proliferation of malaria.

As researchers who focus on how trends in land use contribute to the spread of parasites, we suspected that gold mining and malaria were not separate contributors to the same crisis, but part of one system of cause and effect devastating the territory and its people.

Illegal gold mining can drive malaria in multiple ways. First, when miners tear down forests and open gashes along the edges of rivers to access gold deposits, they create the ideal breeding grounds for the mosquito species that transmits malaria in the Amazon.

Second, when miners travel to the territory, potentially from malaria hotspots across South America, they can carry the parasite into the territory and increase its transmission.

Finally, small-scale gold miners often use mercury to cheaply and easily extract gold particles. This mercury is dumped into waterways across the region, poisoning the people who rely on the rivers for water and for fish, weakening their immune systems and making them more susceptible to malaria infection.

Thorough data on health and environmental conditions in the Amazon collected by the Brazilian Ministry of Health enabled us not only to confidently establish the link Indigenous people had long suspected, but to assign numbers to the relationship, making it concrete and actionable.

We were shocked by the results. The relationship was far stronger than we suspected. We found that every 0.03% increase in mining led to a 20-46% increase in malaria one to two years later, resulting in a 300% increase in malaria in the Yanomami territory between 2016-2023.

Understanding the association between gold mining and malaria underpinning the Yanomami health crisis is only one part of the puzzle. We hope that this research can serve as a tool to empower Indigenous communities with information about their health and inform policies that protect both human health and the environment. Our data indicates that by preventing illegal mining within Indigenous lands can protect their health and other important natural and cultural heritage.

Improving healthcare access

The Lula government is engaging in important efforts to expel illegal gold miners and establish health centers in the Yanomami territory. Though hospitalizations for malaria have decreased slightly since 2023, malaria rates among Yanomami remain high due to the lagged effect we identified in our research and the difficulty of access to timely diagnoses and treatment in remote regions.

Researchers are making strides to close this accessibility gap. An international team has developed “malakits”, which empower community members without formal medical training to diagnose and treat malaria on site. Such efforts are of critical importance given that the lagged effects of illegal gold mining will continue to cause elevated malaria incidence unless communities have broad access to treatment.

It is also important to ensure full land rights of Indigenous populations and empower them to defend their land. This is proven to be one of the most effective ways to fight deforestation and protect ecosystems.

Addressing the malaria crisis requires diversifying the rural Amazonian economy with an eye toward sustainability, such that people have options beyond mining and logging. Brazil is making strides toward this goal with the recent launch of a national bioeconomy development plan.

Informed consumers can prioritize purchasing recycled gold or refrain from purchasing gold at all to send a signal that further illegal gold extraction is not worth the human toll. As with the Blood Diamonds campaign in the early 2000s, real change can come from spreading the word about the human and environmental cost of illegal mining and demanding ethical supply chains.

Appeals to protect the Amazon region are often made on environmental terms. We want to make the case that saving the people in Amazon is also a global health imperative. Protecting the forest, investing in Indigenous land rights, fostering healthy economic opportunities for rural communities, and interrogating the role of gold in our global economy are all part of preventing the continued spread of one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases.

Daniela de Angeli Dutra was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (USA) awarded to Professor Erin Mordecai.

Riley Casagrande não presta consultoria, trabalha, possui ações ou recebe financiamento de qualquer empresa ou organização que poderia se beneficiar com a publicação deste artigo e não revelou nenhum vínculo relevante além de seu cargo acadêmico.

– ref. Illegal gold mining causes surges in malaria in the Amazon, and the association is far worse than we suspected – https://theconversation.com/illegal-gold-mining-causes-surges-in-malaria-in-the-amazon-and-the-association-is-far-worse-than-we-suspected-280568