Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Guilherme Casarões, Associate Professor of Brazilian Studies, Florida International University

On May 31st, Colombian voters will go to the polls with Abelardo de la Espriella – criminal lawyer, self-styled outsider, and self-described “Tiger” – securing his place in the runoff against left-wing Iván Cepeda. In Brazil, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro – the son of incarcerated former President Jair Bolsonaro – is also busy, touring Washington, Dallas, and El Salvador, burnishing a “Bolsonaro 2.0” brand ahead of October elections.

The two men have never appeared on the same stage, but they are running similar campaigns, reading from similar scripts, and looking toward the same set of foreign role models. In a familiar recipe, their platforms combine free-market economics, conservative values, and a tough approach to crime.

De la Espriella proposes reducing the size of the state by up to 40%, eliminating hundreds of thousands of public contracts and positions, and slashing taxes. He considers himself a major political admirer of Argentina’s President Javier Milei, someone who, in his eyes, has charted the solution to the hemisphere’s economic problems.

Flávio Bolsonaro has presented his pre-candidacy as a direct continuation of the legacy of his father, who was arrested last year for attempting a coup d’état following his defeat in the 2022 elections. Bolsonaro’s oldest son describes his project as the return to a market-oriented, Pro-Washington, and nationalistic platform.

Economy, security, and foreign policy

Although the language varies at times, the ideology that drives both campaigns does not. Both Bolsonaro’s son and De la Espriella embrace a combination of right-wing conservative security stances and the same neoliberal economic doctrine that was tried across Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, showcasing a repacking of old views to try and solve old problems.

On security, both candidates have vowed to follow the steps of El Savador’s strongman president Nayib Bukele. Flávio Bolsonaro, after visiting El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison in person, called Bukele’s approach a “radical transformation” and demanded the construction of “many, many prisons” in Brazil to address a deficit he estimates at 500,000 beds.

De la Espriella is even more explicit: “Against the narcoterrorism that Petro has coddled, an iron fist like Bukele’s,” he has declared, promising to bomb guerrilla encampments and build high-security mega-prisons modeled on El Salvador’s CECOT. He also proposes a new prison corps staffed by military reservists and veterans, administered privately, removing the current penal institute which he describes as “a cancer for Colombia.”

On foreign policy, De la Espriella has declared that any relationship Colombia has with Venezuela must be conducted “through the United States”, essentially ignoring the Venezuelan Government. This is a remarkable formulation that would break tradition with previous Colombian foreign policy towards Caracas, which was marked by acting mostly in an independent fashion of its allies in the region. He wants to strengthen the military alliance with Washington and Tel Aviv, and has called on the Trump Administration to prosecute and extradite incumbent President Gustavo Petro over supposed drug charges.

Flávio Bolsonaro, meanwhile, appeared at CPAC in Dallas, supporting the alliance with President Trump. He openly positioned Brazil as a bulwark in Washington’s geopolitical strategy to reduce Chinese influence in the hemisphere and offered up his country’s strategic resources to this end. Trump’s own political adviser, Jason Miller, declared Flávio the “next president” of Brazil from the conference stage.

What is striking about all of this is not just the content of these proposals but their explicitly transnational character. As they aim for the Presidency, De la Espriella and Flávio Bolsonaro are aiming for membership in a global conservative movement, constructing their political identities by association with leaders like Trump, Bukele, and Milei.

How far can their promises go?

This transnational strategy, however, has already shown some limits. When Eduardo Bolsonaro lobbied Washington to impose tariffs and sanctions on Brazil’s government and economy, 57% of Brazilians disapproved of what he was doing to their country. Instead of strengthening the Bolsonaro brand, this episode handed left-wing president Lula Da Silva a nationalist narrative that the right had monopolized for years. All while presidents Lula and Trump would go on to partially reconcile not that long after.

“Bukelizing” security can also be problematic. Importing the Salvadoran model to much bigger countries, whose public security issues are complex and widespread, would be an invitation to the kind of arbitrary State power that Colombian and Brazilian democracies spent decades trying to contain. By tapping into Bukele’s youthful appeal and increasing popularity, Bolsonaro and De la Espriella vow to promote potentially authoritarian solutions under a veil of efficiency.

There is a real frustration at the root of these candidacies, and it would be a mistake to dismiss it. Colombia and Brazil are countries where insecurity is existential for millions of people, where inequality persists despite decades of formal progress, where institutional corruption has eroded confidence in the political class.

Even though De la Espriella and Flávio Bolsonaro are tapping into genuine concerns, the solutions they offer are not new responses to old problems. Economic shock therapy in largely unequal societies, militarized crackdowns in countries with a long history of institutional violence, and a lack of inherent agency in terms of foreign policy are just old responses to old problems. This time, retooled with new aesthetics and a new international support network.

Os autores não prestam consultoria, trabalham, possuem ações ou recebem financiamento de qualquer empresa ou organização que se beneficiaria deste artigo e não revelaram qualquer vínculo relevante além de seus cargos acadêmicos.

– ref. In Colombia and Brazil, presidential candidates offer old solutions to old problems – https://theconversation.com/in-colombia-and-brazil-presidential-candidates-offer-old-solutions-to-old-problems-281854

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Claudio Bozzi, Lecturer in Law, Deakin University

As the closure of the Strait of Hormuz drags on, the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization has sounded the alarm over a related humanitarian crisis: the plight of the crew stuck on ships at or near the strait.

Up to 20,000 seafarers on 2,000 vessels remain stranded in and around the strait, enduring a combination of physical danger and psychological stress typical of combat zones.

They face daily horrors at work. Exhausted by the risk of being hit by missiles or falling debris, they cannot rest in safe harbours, as nearby ports are not secure.

As their supplies dwindle to dangerously low levels, they must ration food and water and rely on charities such as Mission to Seafarers for supplies (at great risk to the charity workers).

The longer the crisis persists, the more likely seafarers will be working after their contracts expire. They risk not being paid and being unable to get home. Desperate seafarers have also reportedly been targeted by scammers offering safe passage through the strait in exchange for cryptocurrency.

The current crisis is deeply troubling. But the grim reality is that even at the best of times, seafarers generally experience appalling working conditions, while contending with geopolitical crises and unpredictable trade cycles.

These workers face financial insecurity, job uncertainty, physical and mental hazards, isolation, overwork and limited career prospects. Fatigue and sleep deprivation expose them to serious injuries or illnesses on vessels that often operate without adequate medical facilities or qualified doctors.

Lessons of COVID

The current crisis echoes problems revealed during the COVID pandemic. Then, some 400,000 seafarers were stranded at sea. Many were unpaid, and couldn’t be repatriated.

Some ship operators introduced “no crew change” clauses (which ban crew changes while the operator’s cargo is onboard). Such clauses in contracts undermine seafarers’ rights under the Maritime Labour Convention 2006. This exists to promote safety, security and good working conditions on ships, and protect seafarers’ rights.

As a result of an amendment to this convention, seafarers have since been designated as “key workers”. This facilitates access to shore leave, repatriation, crew changes and medical care ashore.

However, the amendments do not take effect until December 2027.

More broadly, the Maritime Labour Convention requires shipowners to provide accommodation, food, transportation, cover for medical expenses and repatriation (the cost of the seafarers’ journeys home, including accommodation).

But it relies on the countries where ships are registered (known as flag states) to regulate shipping – and ships are constantly moving and beyond the reach of regulators. Many are registered under flags of convenience (that is, not where they are owned) in countries with low labour standards that are seldom enforced.

Risk of attack or abandonment

Many commercial ships currently stuck in the Strait of Hormuz have been targeted in military operations, by both Iranian and US forces.

Seafarers also face the unique threat of abandonment. This is where shipowners – in breach of maritime law – leave them without wages, support or maintenance. This occurs when shipowners fail to secure new business.

And it is very difficult for seafarers to leave the ship on which they work. Maritime law also compels crews to keep ships safe and operational and prevents them abandoning ships except under the most extreme circumstances, such as if the vessel is sinking.

In 2025, 6,223 seafarers were abandoned on 410 ships – the sixth yearly increase in a row.

According to the International Seafarers’ Welfare and Assistance Network, there are probably many more unreported cases as seafarers fear dismissal and being blacklisted from other work.

Early indications for 2026 are that the number of seafarers abandoned by shipowners already exceeds 6,000 cases.

Abandoned seafarers were also owed US$25.8 million in unpaid wages in 2025, of which just $16.5 million was recovered.

Shadow fleets

Most abandonments are linked to the shadow fleet, meaning ships that carry oil, gas and other goods in breach of sanctions. The shadow fleet has expanded to 20% of the world’s tankers and 7.5% of LPG carriers.

Shadow fleet vessels have opaque ownership, inadequate insurance and poorly trained crew obtained through illegal recruitment methods bordering on human trafficking.

They are registered in countries with lenient labour laws and poor labour protections, few safety regulations and little oversight. More than half of these ships are more than 15 years old (the traditional cut off age for tankers used by major oil companies) and are in substandard condition. They also use ports where they are unlikely to be inspected.

In addition, they are often run by small ship management companies with little technical knowledge or industry experience, about which very little information is available.

Stranded in the strait

Under the circumstances in the strait, seafarers have been denied the right of repatriation. First, the US blockade prevents ships accessing ports from which they could transit. Second, the fuel crisis has driven the price of flights to a level that many shipowners cannot afford.

India, which maintains diplomatic relations with Iran and imports 90% of its gas from the Persian Gulf, has negotiated the safe passage of its seafarers.

But thousands of others remain stranded, with no states coming to their aid.

Claudio Bozzi 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. 20,000 stranded seafarers in the Strait of Hormuz face missile fears, exhaustion and isolation – https://theconversation.com/20-000-stranded-seafarers-in-the-strait-of-hormuz-face-missile-fears-exhaustion-and-isolation-281330

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Charmaine N. Willis, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Old Dominion University

Two months after the United States, along with Israel, launched a war against Iran, that conflict appears far from a lasting resolution.

Much commentary on the protracted nature of the conflict has centered on the limits of both the military and diplomatic approaches to the war. But the conflict has also exposed another key reality: the limits of U.S. sanctions.

The U.S. has been the world’s preeminent economic and military power for decades, certainly since the end of the Cold War. It is at the center of much global financial activity and has a military budget well beyond China, the closest competitor.

Leveraging that power, the U.S. has long used economic coercion to achieve its foreign policy goals, whether against North Korea under the Kim regime, Russia over its invasion of Ukraine or Iran since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-allied shah.

But as U.S. power in the world has slowly declined amid the rise of China and an increasingly multipolar world, the country has likewise lost some of its ability to effectively use economics as a weapon. Indeed, as scholars of economic sanctions and statecraft, we believe that the conflict against Iran has made clear the diminishing returns of U.S. economic sanctions.

The limits of sanctions on Iran

Since 1979, relations between Washington and Iran have been antagonistic. U.S. policy has been largely to punish, contain or isolate Iran, and successive administrations have done so in part through a mix of primary, secondary and targeted financial economic sanctions.

U.S. economic coercion has been applied on Iran for a variety of reasons, including its alleged state sponsorship of terrorism throughout the region and its nuclear program.

The emergence of that nuclear program in 2003, which later resulted in United Nations sanctions against Iran, saw U.S. and European Union interests around Iran converge.

This convergence led to the U.S. and EU cooperating on economic sanctions against Iran, which limited Iranian access to the European banking system. The combined coordinated efforts proved onerous for the Iranian economy, which, as political scientist Adam Tarock notes, meant Iran was “winning a little, losing a lot.”

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated between the U.S., Iran, members of the EU, Russia and China in 2015, placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. At the time, the Iranian economy was suffering crushing inflation and rampant food prices. The agreement would provide relief from decades of economic punishment and the removal of EU, UN and U.S. economic sanctions.

However, the U.S. withdrew from the agreement in 2018 under the first Trump administration and later reimposed sanctions on Iran. The return of economic sanctions as part of the first Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign – even if not supported by other nations – saw most global firms refrain from doing business with Iran out of risk aversion.

Additionally, despite the EU’s efforts to preserve the JCPOA, Iran restarted its nuclear enrichment program in 2019, one year after the U.S. withdrawal. The Biden administration’s subsequent expressed intention to reenter the deal never came to fruition.

Believing sanctions relief was not a realistic outcome after the agreement’s failure, Iran – though battered by losing access to the global financial system – has found increasingly creative workarounds. Those have included utilizing so-called shadow fleets shipping illicit Iranian goods, creating successful homemade military products like cheaply made drones and ramping up trade with partners outside the Western orbit.

Indeed, since the nuclear agreement’s collapse, Iran has pursued much closer ties with China and Russia at the expense of prior robust economic relations with Europe. As Iran reorients its trade and economic relations, the U.S. and the West have lost economic coercive leverage.

Separated from a diplomatic endgame, U.S. sanctions – and the current blockade of Iranian-linked ships – appear to be only hardening Iranian resolve. Even if a deal were reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has said it plans to push for commercial ships to pay a toll going forward – something that didn’t exist before the war.

In effect, Iran’s ongoing de facto closure of the strait has redirected U.S. economic coercion back at the Trump administration.

Blowback in the energy markets

The biggest costs of that ongoing closure for the U.S. has been in energy.

The U.S. today is one of the largest exporters of crude and refined petroleum globally, making it particularly exposed to oil price volatility. At the same time, some Americans see the development of fossil fuel resources as a key policy priority. As the U.S. becomes more embedded in the export energy sector, it is increasingly experiencing collateral damage – namely, higher oil and gasoline prices – when its foreign policy decisions disrupt oil-related trade.

One way that collateral damage manifests is the affordability problem for many Americans as gas prices rise, which is likely to also create political costs for the Trump administration.

While the U.S. has taken steps to ease the economic disruptions to American consumers by relaxing oil sanctions on Russia and Iran – thus undermining its own sanctions policy – these policy shifts have done little to nothing to offset rising fuel prices. They will likewise fail to ameliorate the potential for economic damage caused by the ongoing disruptions to commerce due to the Strait of Hormuz dangers and uncertainties.

Famed economist Albert O. Hirschman once noted that countries use their strategic position to shift others’ cost–benefit calculations, especially through trade disruptions. And for decades, the U.S. used its privileged position in the global financial system to pressure both rising countries and those not explicitly part of the U.S. alliance.

But as the U.S. becomes more exposed to the consequences of its own decisions, its ability to lead and coerce has stalled under costs it cannot easily absorb.

No longer leading by example

Historically, U.S. economic power was made possible not only by the country’s unilateral strengths but its willingness to pool resources and work multilaterally with other nations.

The Trump White House’s inability to put together a multinational coalition to address the political and economic challenges caused by U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran is not surprising. But they further reflect the evaporation of goodwill the U.S. previously enjoyed with allies in and outside the region.

As the U.S. abandons a playbook that has buttressed its power for decades, Russia has grown bolder, China is edging ahead of the West and middle powers like Iran are able to hold out against American economic and military strength.

None of this means the U.S. no longer holds significant global power. But its turn toward a sanction-first, ask-questions-later approach has, we believe, eroded its ability to shape the behavior of other nations. And it has done so while imposing increasingly tangible costs on both American strategy and the well-being of its own citizens.

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

– ref. The US has long used economic coercion to achieve foreign policy goals — the war in Iran shows how that power has declined – https://theconversation.com/the-us-has-long-used-economic-coercion-to-achieve-foreign-policy-goals-the-war-in-iran-shows-how-that-power-has-declined-280066

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jonathan Roberts, Professor in Robotics, Queensland University of Technology

A humanoid robot recently made headlines around the world for running a half-marathon and beating the human world record. Around the same time, an AI-powered robot defeated an elite human player in table tennis. What the robot lacked in experience, it made up for by reacting faster and more consistently than any person could.

These moments feel like milestones. Finally, it seems machines are stepping into one of the most human arenas – sports.

But while it is tempting to frame this as robots versus humans, sport robotics isn’t really about competition. It’s about how machines can learn to move, react and interact in dynamic, unpredictable environments – and what that means for human performance.

How do you train a robot to play sport?

Training a robot to play sport is fundamentally different from training a human athlete.

People learn through practice, coaching and experience, constantly adjusting to changing conditions. In sport science, this is often described as a tight coupling between perception and action. That is, seeing, deciding, and moving in one continuous loop.

Robots, by contrast, are trained using a combination of simulation, data and control algorithms. Engineers build detailed virtual environments where robots can “practice” millions of times. They learn how to track objects, predict motion and coordinate their bodies. Sometimes, motion analysis techniques are used to track athletes doing the specific movements the robot needs to emulate.

For fast-paced sports such as table tennis, the challenge is extreme. A robot must detect the ball, predict its trajectory and execute a precise movement within fractions of a second. This requires close integration between computer vision, machine learning and real-time control.

One of the biggest advances in recent years has been the ability to train robots in simulation and then transfer those skills into the real world – a process known as “sim-to-real”. Combined with rapid improvements in sensors and computing, this has dramatically accelerated progress.

We’ve seen similar developments in robot basketball and robot soccer, where systems have evolved from simply locating the ball to coordinating as teams, making tactical decisions and adapting to opponents.

Beyond entertainment

While robot athletes make for compelling demonstrations, their greatest impact will likely be behind the scenes where they can be used to train human athletes.

One of the central challenges in sport is designing effective practice. Athletes need repetition to build skill. But they also need variability to reflect real competition. Too much repetition becomes predictable; too much variability becomes chaotic.

Robotics offers a potential way to balance both.

A robotic training partner can deliver highly repeatable actions at elite intensity, while also introducing carefully controlled variation. For example, a robotic tennis server could replicate the motion of a world-class player while systematically varying ball speed, flight and placement.

From a sport science perspective, this creates what is known as a “representative learning environment”. The key benefit is it replicates the key perceptual and decision-making demands of elite competition, which is difficult for coaches to recreate in the training environment.

In our work, we’ve been exploring how robotics could support sports such as tennis, cricket and the football codes. The goal is to combine realism, repeatability, variability, and data to enhance skill development and link technique to outcomes.

Robots may also help manage training load. They can reduce the physical demands on coaches and training partners while still exposing athletes to high-quality game-like scenarios.

Beyond performance, there are opportunities for fan engagement. Interactive robots at live events or demonstrations of elite skills could offer new ways for audiences to experience sport.

Will robots ever be ‘great’?

Over the next decade, robots will likely become more agile, more robust and better able to operate in complex environments. Tasks that robots currently find difficult, such as running on uneven terrain and catching or throwing balls, will become increasingly achievable.

But even as robots improve, there are important limits.

Sporting greatness is not just about executing movements perfectly. It involves creativity, decision-making under pressure, and the ability to adapt in ways shaped by experience, emotion and context.

From a sport science perspective, elite performance emerges from the interaction between the athlete, the task and the environment. Robots can be engineered to perform specific tasks extremely well, but they do not experience this interaction in the same embodied, meaningful way.

This means robots may surpass humans in tightly defined challenges – such as bowling a cricket ball with perfect consistency – but they are unlikely to achieve greatness in the holistic human sense.

A new role for robots in sport

Rather than replacing athletes, robots are more likely to become part of the sporting ecosystem.

In the same way that video analysis and wearable sensors have transformed training, robotics offers a new tool for coaches and sport scientists. It enables practice environments that can be precisely controlled, repeated, and adapted to individual needs.

The real opportunity is not to build robot champions, but to better understand human performance, and help athletes reach higher levels.

Jonathan Roberts receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Marc Portus 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. Robots can run a marathon and play ping pong. But will they ever achieve true sporting greatness? – https://theconversation.com/robots-can-run-a-marathon-and-play-ping-pong-but-will-they-ever-achieve-true-sporting-greatness-281335

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Philip Murphy, Director of History & Policy at the Institute of Historical Research and Professor of British and Commonwealth History, School of Advanced Study, University of London

King Charles’s speech to the US Congress – only the second such address by a British monarch – demonstrates how much both the US and the UK have changed in the last three decades.

The first speech was in May 1991 during his mother, Queen Elizabeth II’s, third state visit to the US. The underlying purpose of both speeches was the same: to stress the enduring links between Britain and the US. But the circumstances in which they were delivered were very different.

The late queen’s speech came in the wake of joint action by US and British forces, along with other allies, to eject Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops from Kuwait. She referenced this in her speech as a concrete example of the strength of the Anglo-American alliance.

In 2026, the UK has pointedly refused to join the US-Israeli attack on Iran, angering President Donald Trump. Charles’s speech adroitly inverted the moral of this apparent diplomatic rift, suggesting that tensions in the past had always been overcome. Referring to the revolution of 1776 he noted: “Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it”, because ultimately “our nations are in fact instinctively like-minded”.

A speech like this, voiced by the monarch, can serve at least two useful purposes. The first is to portray things that are, at heart, profoundly political, as being somehow above politics. The second is to place the transitory difficulties of day-to-day diplomacy within the much longer-term perspective of a dynasty that traces its lineage back to the Norman Conquest.

These two elements featured in how both Elizabeth II and Charles’s speeches depicted the Anglo-American alliance. The latter was the basis of a joke by the king, who referred to the actions of the Founding Fathers “250 years ago, or, as we say in the United Kingdom, just the other day”.

Charles’s speech was beautifully crafted and delivered with a degree of warmth and conviction that was always beyond the range of his mother’s public oratory. That, in itself, was almost an implicit reproach to the president’s own rambling, undisciplined public pronouncements.

And in more than one way the address was pitched over the head of Trump. The lack of any immediate pushback from the president suggests that the subtlety of some of the messaging eluded him. But in a more significant sense, it was an appeal to causes that still resonate with much of the American political class if not with the Trump administration itself.

Charles stressed the value of Nato and the importance of “the defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people”. He made a sly reference to his proud association with the Royal Navy – an institution that has been the subject of some disparagement by Trump in recent weeks.

He emphasised the importance of protecting the environment, although couched in a Trumpian language of profit and loss: “We ignore at our peril the fact that these natural systems – in other words, Nature’s own economy – provide the foundation for our prosperity and our national security.”

Perhaps his most pointed remarks – and those that generated the loudest applause from some (although not all) in the hall – were directed at the US itself. He described Congress as “this citadel of democracy created to represent the voice of all American people”. He mentioned the role of Magna Carta in laying the foundation for the constitutional principle that “executive power is subject to checks and balances”. Trump’s opponents clearly enjoyed that.

Saving the special relationship

State visits by British monarchs to the US have been relatively rare, and state visits to London by US presidents are even rarer. Trump is unique in having made two. This in itself is a mark of the desperate attempts by British governments, both Tory and Labour, to find ways of managing relations with his administration. This desperation was also apparent in Keir Starmer’s reckless decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as British ambassador to Washington.

The king’s speech pushed in interesting ways at the boundaries of what a British monarch might be expected to have said in Trump’s America. Yet some of the sentiments in his mother’s 1991 address to Congress – considered uncontroversial at the time – could no longer be expressed without the risk of offending the current administration.

Queen Elizabeth noted: “Some people believe that power grows from the barrel of a gun. So it can, but history shows us that it never grows well nor for very long. Force, in the end, is sterile.”

That may be a lesson Trump will have to learn the hard way. But for the moment, he and his immediate circle seem to have an unwavering belief in the primacy of kinetic force, and have little interest in the objective Charles described of stemming “the beating of ploughshares into swords”.

The queen also commended “the rich ethnic diversity of both our societies”. Charles spoke instead about interfaith understanding. This is not quite the same thing – but is certainly more compatible with the Trump administration’s disturbingly relaxed approach to the rise of white-supremacist politics.

Perhaps the saddest feature of a comparison of the two speeches is the queen’s proud boast in 1991 that “Britain is at the heart of a growing movement towards greater cohesion within Europe, and within the European Community in particular”. If the US has changed since 1991, so has Britain. It would be nice to think that one day the monarch might give an equally generous speech about shared history and values in front of the UK’s European neighbours.

Philip Murphy has received funding from the AHRC. He is a member of the European Movement UK.

– ref. How King Charles charmed the US while taking digs at Trump – https://theconversation.com/how-king-charles-charmed-the-us-while-taking-digs-at-trump-281766

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Mark Connick, Postdoctoral Researcher in Paralympic Classification and Biomechanics, The University of Queensland; Queensland University of Technology

On May 6 1954, Sir Roger Bannister did what was deemed impossible in athletics: he ran a mile in less than four minutes.

The milestone was celebrated worldwide, not just by athletics fans. It was considered at the time to be a similar achievement to scaling Mount Everest for the first time, which Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay had done the year before.

On Sunday, Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe and Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha achieved a breakthrough comparable to Bannister’s some 72 years ago: running the 42 kilometres of a marathon in less than two hours.

Let’s break down this new benchmark and work out how these athletes were able to do it.

What happened in London?

Sawe smashed the men’s world record by an astonishing 65 seconds in winning the event in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds.

Kejelcha – remarkably running in his first marathon – also crossed the line in under two hours (1:59:41).

The race was blisteringly fast. Even third-place getter Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda broke the previous world record – set in 2023 by Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum in the United States – by seven seconds (finishing in 2:00:28).

Sawe ran quicker as the marathon went on, covering the second half of the race in 59:01. He pulled clear of Kejelcha after about 30 kilometres and made his solo break in the final two kilometres.

After the race, Sawe said:

I’ve made history today in London, and for the next generation I’ve shown them that nothing is impossible. Everything is possible, with a matter of time.

The training and nutrition

Sawe’s team said he trained by running up to 240 kilometres a week and fuelled himself before the race with bread and honey.

This reported training volume is likely an important factor in running a sub two-hour marathon.

Running up to 240 kilometres a week is beyond what most runners can tolerate. But high training volume, especially when much of it is done at relatively low intensity, is associated with faster marathon performances.

Nutrition during the race was also well planned.

A two-hour marathon is run at such high intensity that carbohydrate intake becomes important to maintain performance. The body stores carbohydrate in the muscles and liver but those stores are limited.

According to his nutrition team, Sawe took a carbohydrate drink and a gel leading up to the start, then used carbohydrate drinks and gels throughout the race.

His reported intake averaged about 115 grams of carbohydrate per hour.

While this is not a recommendation for the recreational runner, at the intensity required to run a two-hour marathon, it helps to maintain energy supply and pace late in the race.

The physiology

Although Sawe and Kejelcha’s laboratory data are not public, the physiology required to run a fast marathon is due to three main attributes:

• an exceptional capacity to take in and use oxygen during running

• the ability to maintain a high fraction of that capacity for prolonged periods

• an exceptional running economy, which means using less oxygen at a given speed.

Exceptional marathon performances also depend on durability, which is the ability to prevent deterioration of these qualities throughout the race.

What about the shoe?

Sawe and Kejelcha wore the lightest “supershoe” in history: Adidas’ Adios Pro Evo 3.

Adidas says it is “the fastest and lightest supershoe ever made”. It weighs less than 100 grams.

Supershoes can improve running economy by about 4% compared with conventional racing shoes.

The Adios Pro Evo 3 combines several features common in supershoes: very low weight, thick resilient foam and a stiff carbon-based structure in the midsole. The heel thickness is reported to be 39 millimetres, just under the 40mm limit permitted by World Athletics.

While most runners benefit from supershoes, the effect is variable and not the same for all runners.

Researchers have suggested this is due to two ways in which the footwear interacts with the runner.

Firstly, the foam and stiffening element can affect the “spring-like” bounce of the body as the foot hits and leaves the ground.

Secondly, they can change how the runner moves, including how the foot and ankle work, how long the foot stays on the ground, and the timing of energy return. As such, a shoe may be capable of storing and returning more energy, but the athlete still has to interact with it effectively.

---

Read more:
Running ‘super shoes’ may make you faster – but at what cost?

---

The exact benefit of the Adios Pro Evo 3 over other supershoes has not been independently measured, but even small improvements are likely to be important over a marathon.

The conditions in London also likely contributed to these performances. While London is considered to be a relatively fast course (although not as fast as Berlin), the weather conditions were close to ideal: between 13-17°C during the race, which is at the upper end of the theoretical optimum for marathon running but within the range associated with fast endurance performance.

A perfect storm

As recently as 2017, a sub-two hour marathon was considered unlikely to occur for generations.

The best explanation for the performances in London is the convergence of many factors including exceptional physiology, years of high-volume training, efficient biomechanics helped by the use of advanced footwear, optimised fuelling and favourable weather conditions.

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

– ref. How 2 men smashed through a marathon barrier long thought unbreakable – https://theconversation.com/how-2-men-smashed-through-a-marathon-barrier-long-thought-unbreakable-281522

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kai Riemer, Professor of Information Technology and Organisation, University of Sydney

Meta and Microsoft are the latest software companies to announce big cuts to their global workforce. Both companies are also making big investments in artificial intelligence (AI).

The link seems obvious. Meta’s chief people officer, Janelle Gale, said the job cuts – about 10% of staff or almost 8,000 workers – serve to “offset the other investments we’re making”. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has previously spoken about a “major AI acceleration” with spending in excess of US$115bn planned this year.

Microsoft is also betting big on AI. The company also just announced early retirement packages for about 7% of its US workforce.

The two tech giants join Atlassian, Block, WiseTech Global and Oracle, who have all made similar announcements this year, each evoking AI without outright blaming it.

What is happening here? How we understand these layoffs depends on what we think AI is, and what implications it will have. Broadly speaking, there are three ways of looking at it: that AI is superintelligence, that it’s mostly hype, and that it’s a useful tool.

The end of white-collar work?

In the first view, AI is emerging superintelligence. It is a new kind of mind, that learns, reasons, and will soon outperform humans at most cognitive tasks (hint: it’s not!).

The job losses are not just a corporate restructuring. They are an early tremor of something seismic.

In February 2026, AI entrepreneur Matt Shumer put this view vividly – comparing the current moment to the strange, quiet weeks before COVID-19 broke into global consciousness. Most people, he argued, haven’t yet realised we are facing an “intelligence explosion”.

The essay drew significant criticism. Commentators noted it contained little hard data and read at times like a pitch for Shumer’s company’s own AI products.

But it captured a genuine anxiety. Something real is happening in software engineering, at least, where tasks are well-defined and success is easy to verify.

But the leap to “all white-collar work will be automated” is a big one. The view that AI is a kind of universal mind that learns and improves itself is far-fetched.

And most professional work is far messier than coding: ambiguous briefs, competing stakeholder interests, outputs that are hard to verify, and shifting success criteria. Coding may be a canary in the coal mine, but coal mines and boardrooms are very different places.

Are tech companies winding back hiring sprees?

The second view sees the conversation around AI as mostly hype. AI is being invoked as cover. Companies that hired aggressively during the pandemic boom, and now face financial pressure, are blaming AI as the more palatable explanation.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called this dynamic “AI washing”: companies blaming AI for layoffs they would have made regardless.

For example, Meta announced in March it would shut down its Metaverse platform Horizon World by June. Reality Labs, the division developing the technology, employed 15,000 people as of January 2026.

We don’t know in detail the make-up of the present job cuts, so Meta may just be repackaging earlier failures as AI-driven productivity gains.

Another cynical reading suggests that laying off workers in the name of AI is a way to drive up stock prices. When Block invoked AI and cut nearly 4,000 roles, its stock jumped the following day.

Announce AI-driven layoffs and you may find investors reward you for being future-focused. It is a historically familiar trick: technology has repeatedly served as convenient cover for financial restructuring.

Are layoffs a way to make staff use AI?

The third view is more nuanced. It sees AI as a powerful tool, but one that companies will need to transform themselves to take advantage of.

This has implications for what jobs are needed and in what quantities. We think this view has the most merit.

On this reading, the tech leaders believe AI will change how software gets built. But they don’t know exactly how.

So they do what tech companies often do when faced with uncertainty: they create pressure. They cut headcount staff, expect those remaining to produce just as much as before, and force teams to find ways to meet those expectations using AI.

It’s not a bet that AI will do everything, but that the pressure will force humans to work out how to use AI to increase productivity.

This also lines up with industry experience. For example, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai claims a 10% increase in engineering speed from AI adoption across the company. This could tally with cuts of around 7–10% of total workforce for most of the mentioned companies.

What this means for knowledge workers

These three views are often presented as mutually exclusive. In practice, all three expectations exist simultaneously. The honest answer to “what is really happening here” is probably “a bit of everything”.

What is true is that software development tends to be an early indicator of broader shifts in knowledge work. Productivity benefits from AI are real for those who adopt it. Yet adoption is unevenly distributed, and lags in less technical industries.

In this context, the ability to understand AI and make good decisions about how and where to use it is becoming a baseline professional skill.

The workers most at risk are not necessarily those whose tasks can be replicated by AI. They are those who wait for pressure to arrive from outside rather than getting ahead of it now.

We will have answers to the question of whether AI is mostly hype or a useful tool in the next few years.

If Meta, Microsoft, and their peers rehire staff with different skills, redesign workflows, and emerge genuinely more capable, the case for useful AI looks good. If they simply pocket the payroll savings, the cynics were right.

If you want to know where tech companies are going, don’t look at what they cut – watch what they hire.

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. Meta and Microsoft have joined the tech layoff tsunami. Is AI really to blame? – https://theconversation.com/meta-and-microsoft-have-joined-the-tech-layoff-tsunami-is-ai-really-to-blame-281436

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kai Riemer, Professor of Information Technology and Organisation, University of Sydney

Meta and Microsoft are the latest software companies to announce big cuts to their global workforce. Both companies are also making big investments in artificial intelligence (AI).

The link seems obvious. Meta’s chief people officer, Janelle Gale, said the job cuts – about 10% of staff or almost 8,000 workers – serve to “offset the other investments we’re making”. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has previously spoken about a “major AI acceleration” with spending in excess of US$115bn planned this year.

Microsoft is also betting big on AI. The company also just announced early retirement packages for about 7% of its US workforce.

The two tech giants join Atlassian, Block, WiseTech Global and Oracle, who have all made similar announcements this year, each evoking AI without outright blaming it.

What is happening here? How we understand these layoffs depends on what we think AI is, and what implications it will have. Broadly speaking, there are three ways of looking at it: that AI is superintelligence, that it’s mostly hype, and that it’s a useful tool.

The end of white-collar work?

In the first view, AI is emerging superintelligence. It is a new kind of mind, that learns, reasons, and will soon outperform humans at most cognitive tasks (hint: it’s not!).

The job losses are not just a corporate restructuring. They are an early tremor of something seismic.

In February 2026, AI entrepreneur Matt Shumer put this view vividly – comparing the current moment to the strange, quiet weeks before COVID-19 broke into global consciousness. Most people, he argued, haven’t yet realised we are facing an “intelligence explosion”.

The essay drew significant criticism. Commentators noted it contained little hard data and read at times like a pitch for Shumer’s company’s own AI products.

But it captured a genuine anxiety. Something real is happening in software engineering, at least, where tasks are well-defined and success is easy to verify.

But the leap to “all white-collar work will be automated” is a big one. The view that AI is a kind of universal mind that learns and improves itself is far-fetched.

And most professional work is far messier than coding: ambiguous briefs, competing stakeholder interests, outputs that are hard to verify, and shifting success criteria. Coding may be a canary in the coal mine, but coal mines and boardrooms are very different places.

Are tech companies winding back hiring sprees?

The second view sees the conversation around AI as mostly hype. AI is being invoked as cover. Companies that hired aggressively during the pandemic boom, and now face financial pressure, are blaming AI as the more palatable explanation.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called this dynamic “AI washing”: companies blaming AI for layoffs they would have made regardless.

For example, Meta announced in March it would shut down its Metaverse platform Horizon World by June. Reality Labs, the division developing the technology, employed 15,000 people as of January 2026.

We don’t know in detail the make-up of the present job cuts, so Meta may just be repackaging earlier failiures as AI-driven productivity gains.

Another cynical reading suggests that laying off workers in the name of AI is a way to drive up stock prices. When Block invoked AI and cut nearly 4,000 roles, its stock jumped the following day.

Announce AI-driven layoffs and you may find investors reward you for being future-focused. It is a historically familiar trick: technology has repeatedly served as convenient cover for financial restructuring.

Are layoffs a way to make staff use AI?

The third view is more nuanced. It sees AI as a powerful tool, but one that companies will need to transform themselves to take advantage of.

This has implications for what jobs are needed and in what quantities. We think this view has the most merit.

On this reading, the tech leaders believe AI will change how software gets built. But they don’t know exactly how.

So they do what tech companies often do when faced with uncertainty: they create pressure. They cut headcount staff, expect those remaining to produce just as much as before, and force teams to find ways to meet those expectations using AI.

It’s not a bet that AI will do everything, but that the pressure will force humans to work out how to use AI to increase productivity.

This also lines up with industry experience. For example, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai claims a 10% increase in engineering speed from AI adoption across the company. This could tally with cuts of around 7-10% of total workforce for most of the mentioned companies.

What this means for knowledge workers

These three views are often presented as mutually exclusive. In practice, all three expectations exist simultaneously. The honest answer to “what is really happening here” is probably “a bit of everything”.

What is true is that software development tends to be an early indicator of broader shifts in knowledge work. Productivity benefits from AI are real for those who adopt it. Yet adoption is unevenly distributed, and lags in less technical industries.

In this context, the ability to understand AI and make good decisions about how and where to use it is becoming a baseline professional skill.

The workers most at risk are not necessarily those whose tasks can be replicated by AI. They are those who wait for pressure to arrive from outside rather than getting ahead of it now.

We will have answers to the question of whether AI is mostly hype or a useful tool in the next few years.

If Meta, Microsoft, and their peers rehire staff with different skills, redesign workflows, and emerge genuinely more capable, the case for useful AI looks good. If they simply pocket the payroll savings, the cynics were right.

If you want to know where tech companies are going, don’t look at what they cut – watch what they hire.

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. Meta and Microsoft have joined the tech layoff tsunami – but is AI really to blame? – https://theconversation.com/meta-and-microsoft-have-joined-the-tech-layoff-tsunami-but-is-ai-really-to-blame-281436

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Dilnoza Ubaydullaeva, Lecturer – National Security College, Australian National University

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was one of the first world leaders to speak out about the “ruptured” world order caused by the Trump administration in the United States. He called for middle powers to band together to safeguard what’s left of the liberal world order.

But what role will the global south play in all of this?

Some believe it will be decisive. Earlier this year, Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, said at a conference in India, “the global south will decide what the next world order will look like”.

The global balance of power has shifted. The global south has both demography and economy on its side. The era of a Western-dominated world order is over. This is obvious, but it will take some time to sink in across the West.

So, how can the global south influence which direction the world takes?

---

Read more:
Finland’s president Alexander Stubb has some ideas to save the international order – and ourselves

---

What is the global south?

It may be too early to declare the end of the Western-dominated world order. While the war in Iran may be leading some countries to question the current system – in which might appears to make right – the global south is far from a unified bloc.

First, there is no agreed definition or scope of the “global south”. The name infers countries located in the southern hemisphere, but many global south countries are north of the equator, while Australia and New Zealand are considered part of the “global north”.

Some lump Africa, Latin America and Asia together in the global south grouping, but this is too simplistic. And what to make of a major economy like China? Some include it in the global south, while others do not.

An important feature of the global south is there is no single state widely accepted as its leader, nor is there strong support for such leadership.

While China is influential in parts of the developing world through its “non-interference” foreign policy approach, India, with its strong ties to the West, is unlikely to accept Chinese global leadership.

The global south and the Iran war

Whatever definition one uses, the behaviour of some states in the global south shows they are trying to conduct foreign policy with multiple players, joining different clubs to pursue their national interests above all else.

These groups, however, haven’t proven to be very effective or united in responding to recent conflicts, raising questions about their level of influence.

Take the BRICS, for example. The coalition has expanded in recent years to ten countries, including Iran and the United Arab Emirates (which has been attacked by Iran in the current war).

Yet the group has failed to take a unified position on the war. China and Russia have condemned the US–Israeli attacks on Iran, while other members such as India have taken a cautious approach, calling for de-escalation.

Some commentators have noted a central problem: the BRICS members remain divided on many core strategic issues, without a central platform to resolve disputes.

When it comes to the Iran conflict and the future of the Middle East, individual nations in the global south have their own agendas, as well.

China, for instance, would lose a key partner if the Iranian regime were to collapse. Iran is a member of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and an important partner in China’s efforts to create alternatives to Western-dominated governance. Moreover, China relies on a stable, secure access to oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan has emerged as a key mediator between the US and Iran. This is a chance for it to take a much bigger role on the global stage. But it is also keen to ensure its defence partner, Saudi Arabia, is not drawn into a wider war. Under their defence arrangement, Pakistan would have to assist Saudi Arabia if the kingdom were attacked.

And India maintains an independent foreign policy based on “strategic autonomy”, allowing it to manage relations across competing blocs. As Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has noted, India is not a Western country, nor is it “anti-Western”. This allows it to remain a key strategic partner to the United States, while also renewing purchases of Iranian oil and gas.

Other ways to exert influence

In his recent book, The Triangle of Power, Stubb argues the world is dividing into three parts – the global west (still led by the US), the global east (led by China and Russia) and the global south (comprised of middle and small powers in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia).

According to Stubb, the global order is at a crossroads between west and east, with the south being the pendulum that will decide which way the world swings. To maintain the old liberal world order, the west needs to get the south on its side.

But again, this is too simplistic a view. I believe nations in the global south have a preference for multipolarity, this is, a world order not dominated by one power, such as the United States or China.

They are also interested in having their voices heard in the global arena. Because many global south countries are former colonies of Western powers, they want to address the harm or injustices of colonialism they perceive as continuing in the current international system. South Africa’s move to hold Israel accountable at the International Court of Justice for its war in Gaza is an example of this.

At the same time, the current rupture in the international system has reinforced the importance of alternative diplomatic spaces and flexible alignments, allowing states to shift partnerships where it best serves their interests.

That means cooperating with the West when it suits them, while simultaneously cooperating with China, Russia or other blocs and powers.

Indonesia is a case in point. In the past month, it has signed a major defence agreement with Washington, while its president, Prabowo Subianto, also visited Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin.

The global south is clearly becoming more relevant in today’s power politics. Just how these nations choose to exert their influence remains to be seen.

Dilnoza Ubaydullaeva 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. In a fractured world order, where does the global south fit in? – https://theconversation.com/in-a-fractured-world-order-where-does-the-global-south-fit-in-278410

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Toby Walsh, Professor of AI, Research Group Leader, UNSW Sydney

The legendary American bank robber Willie Sutton spent 40 years robbing banks because, as he claimed in his autobiography, he loved doing it. And when asked why he chose banks of all places to rob, he allegedly replied “Because that’s where the money is.”

Back in 2017, I wrote a book predicting it wasn’t just lovable rogues like Sutton who would soon be robbing banks, but artificial intelligence (AI).

That day, it appears, could now be about to arrive. Banks around the world are seriously worried cyber criminals will soon take advantage of the latest advances in AI to try to rob them.

The digital back door into the vault

The finance world’s concern rests on the impressive cyber capabilities of a product called “Mythos”. This is the latest and most capable AI model from Anthropic, the company behind the popular Claude chatbot.

As a member of the public, you can’t access or use this model – for now. That’s because Anthropic (and many others) believe Mythos is too capable to launch upon an unsuspecting world.

Internal testing of Mythos has uncovered thousands of severe security vulnerabilities across every major operating system and web browser.

Some of these vulnerabilities have gone undetected for decades. Many are what tech insiders call “zero day” vulnerabilities – attacks that are so dangerous that developers need to fix them in zero days’ time.

Not for public use

To counter this emerging threat, Anthropic has made the model available to a dozen partners of a defensive coalition that includes Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Apple, Cisco and the Linux Foundation.

The company has also committed US$100 million (about A$140 million) in usage credits and US$4 million (about A$5.6 million) in open-source grants to start finding and fixing these bugs.

In addition, more than 40 additional organisations – including a number of US banks – have also received access. But worryingly, as far as we know, Anthropic has not yet granted access to any banks in Australia, the United Kingdom or Europe.

To add to concerns, on Wednesday, Anthropic confirmed it was investigating claims in a Bloomberg report that a small group of unauthorised users had gained access to Mythos. However, at this stage, there is no suggestion this alleged access was for malicious purposes.

---

Read more:
Claude Mythos and Project Glasswing: why an AI superhacker has the tech world on alert

---

Should you be worried?

Last week, regulators and policymakers from around the world gathered at the International Monetary Fund spring meeting in Washington. The Iran war was a major focus. But attendees also issued a series of warnings about this emerging cybersecurity threat to the banking industry.

Not only are banks an attractive target, being where the money is, but the industry runs on many legacy systems, decades old technology that may be especially vulnerable to these sorts of attacks.

You personally don’t need to be too worried. Many countries have strong protections for bank customers. In Australia, for example, the first A$250,000 of a customer’s deposits are insured through the government-backed Financial Claims Scheme.

And the Australian Securities and Investments Commission ensures banks investigate and reimburse fraudulent transactions where the customer is not at fault.

So, it’s probably not a wise idea to withdraw your cash and put it under the mattress. But banks should be (and are) rushing to plug these vulnerabilities.

I would recommend you regularly update your computer and smartphone to have the latest operating system and banking apps. There are likely to be many more updates in the near future as new vulnerabilities are uncovered and patched.

And, as I’m sure you have been, you need to be ever vigilant for phishing attacks by email and SMS trying to obtain your banking credentials.

The evolving threat landscape

In the longer term, Mythos exposes the challenge that defence is much harder than attack. Software is one of the most complex products humanity builds. It is therefore almost impossible to ensure it is bug-free.

That puts us in an unending race against the “bad guys” to uncover and fix faults before they get exploited.

For example, with significant fanfare, the European Union just released its age verification app, designed to be a cornerstone to the emerging laws on access to social media, pornography and other age-restricted content. However, within hours, security experts found cyber vulnerabilities that underage users could easily exploit.

In the most critical settings, we can try to prove mathematically that our software is bug-free. For instance, the Beneficial AI Foundation just announced an ambitious “moonshot” project to prove that the popular messaging app Signal is bug-free and protects privacy as claimed.

But such efforts are the exception today rather than the norm. Perhaps further advances in AI could soon help reverse this.

Toby Walsh receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Laureate Fellowship on trustworthy AI.

– ref. Why the world’s banks are so worried about Anthropic’s latest AI model – https://theconversation.com/why-the-worlds-banks-are-so-worried-about-anthropics-latest-ai-model-281218