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November 28, 2025

What five years of evidence on hybrid working tells us about the future of employment

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jane Parry, Associate Professor of Work and Employment, University of Southampton

The COVID pandemic accelerated remote and hybrid working practices across the world. It also provided evidence that these approaches could work for a wide variety of jobs.

The UK has been at the forefront of the shift to hybrid working and its sustainability as a work practice in future. This year, the Global Survey of Working Arrangements calculated that the typical UK worker averaged 1.8 days of remote working per week, only just behind the more rural Canada (1.9 days).

Along with colleagues, I observed this adaptation in a research project called Work after Lockdown, which followed organisations through lockdowns and examined what they learned around hybrid working. And our subsequent research for the conciliation service Acas looked at post-pandemic working across various industries in the UK.

The employment rights bill, with its proposals to simplify decision-making around flexible working, may also prompt workers to formalise their hybrid working patterns.

At a time when working practices have been transformed for millions of employees, there is real value in drawing together what has been learned over the past five years. This should enable organisations to thrive as hybrid employers.

The House of Lords has now done this – pulling this information together in its special inquiry on homeworking in the UK. The inquiry has recently reported on its ten-month investigation Is Working from Home Working?.

Since September 2024, I have been seconded to parliament to work for three days a week as thematic research lead for business, economics and trade. This is part of an Economic and Social Research Council project to enhance the use of academic evidence in parliament.

During this time, I have supported the home-based working inquiry and observed how a range of select committees and special inquiries work. The committee on home-based working was one of four special inquiries that the Lords stage each year.

A huge volume of academic evidence was submitted, with the report providing a synthesis of the emerging evidence base. Now the inquiry’s findings can help employers make informed decisions about their own hybrid management.

What the inquiry found

First, hybrid working’s impact on productivity appears to be limited. The inquiry concluded that it’s best to assess hybrid work on a case-by-case basis, looking at what is suitable in particular industries, jobs and personal circumstances.

On the other hand, remote and hybrid working shows real benefits in terms of raising employment rates, particularly for those who find it difficult to commit to full-time site-based working. This could include disabled people and parents of young children, for example.

Giving evidence to the inquiry, one employment expert estimated that hybrid working offered a potential labour supply gain of 1-2%, with real potential to enhance UK productivity. This is relevant to the government’s commitment to address economic inactivity, set out in its Get Britain Working white paper.

Another area where hybrid working could benefit employers is in terms of retention and recruitment. In the report, it was estimated that this could save employers between £7 billion and £10 billion every year. But there was an important exception to this. New starters can benefit from more in-person time at their workplace during inductions.

The inquiry also observed that employers’ main concern was losing opportunities for staff collaboration. But this misses an important point. Well-managed hybrid work – which coordinates so-called “anchor days” when teams get together in person – offers exactly these opportunities for workplace relationships to thrive.

And perhaps it can even do so better than full-time office work, when these interactions could be ad hoc and irregular. The inquiry pointed to the “best of both worlds” offer that hybrid working made to organisations. It noted that the potential for technology to support collaboration is under-used. As digital platforms continue to evolve, it seems likely that hybrid working can become increasingly effective.

But given that organisations appear to be concerned about collaboration, they could use this to acknowledge and incentivise employees. For example, appraisals could recognise the collaborative work (such as mentoring) that often goes unnoticed within organisations.

The inquiry also took an interest in headline-grabbing return-to-office mandates. It found that the codification of office days in mandates (along the lines of “staff must be in the office four days a week”) represented a trade-off by employers between collaborative benefits and staff satisfaction. Blanket mandates fail to address the gap between employees’ and employers’ office preferences – and the reasons underpinning these. Unaddressed, this could cause employment relations problems.

modern office space with breakout room with sofas — Smart office design can still allow for collaboration space in smaller workplaces.
shulers/Shutterstock

On a practical note, after the COVID disruption some organisations have rethought their workplace needs, with the result that they now have insufficient space for genuine collaboration. Colleagues and I are finding in our ongoing research that seat-booking systems can leave workers unable to sit with their teams when they attend the office. This clearly negates the benefits of in-person days.

A more forward-looking approach is to redesign offices in a way that better reflects the needs of collaborative work. This could include creating bespoke meeting places, more differentiated individual working spaces, and the development of hybrid policy alongside inclusive office design.

The inquiry has taken into account the views of a wide range of people, providing an important and accessible review of the evidence at a key time when many organisations are reviewing their hybrid work policy. It offers a wealth of insight as to how employers can adapt and refine their hybrid working practice to achieve both productivity and happy workers.

Jane Parry receives funding from the ESRC.

– ref. What five years of evidence on hybrid working tells us about the future of employment – https://theconversation.com/what-five-years-of-evidence-on-hybrid-working-tells-us-about-the-future-of-employment-270319

November 28, 2025

Frida Kahlo’s record-breaking painting El Sueño positions death as a roommate

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Benedict Carpenter van Barthold, Lecturer, School of Art & Design, Nottingham Trent University

Frida Kahlo’s 1940 self-portrait, El Sueño (La Cama), or The Dream (The Bed), has sold for US$54.7 million (£41.4m) at Sotheby’s New York. It is now the most expensive Latin American artwork in history, and has set the auction record for a female artist.

Kahlo’s canvas was the standout lot in a collection titled Surrealist Treasures. The painting appears to be a quintessential surrealist nightmare: a skeleton stalking a sleeping woman. But there is more to Kahlo’s work than the surrealist label might imply.

The painting (which is 74×98 cm) shows a four-poster bed floating in a cloudy sky. The perspective is disquieting. The bed tilts away from the viewer, as though seen from below. The upper part of the painting, where the skeleton lies, is light and airy. Its elbow almost touches the upper edge of the canvas, suggesting the structure is floating upward. The bottom tier, occupied by Kahlo, appears heavier. The cloudy backdrop is more threatening and the palette is earthier.

a young Frida Kahlo with hair smoothed back in a centre parting — Frida Kahlo as photographed by her father in 1926.
Wiki Commons

Kahlo sleeps under a blanket covered with a plant motif, something like a thorned and blossomless rose. The vines escape the confines of the blanket to surround her head. Curling roots can be seen at her feet. Implicitly, her body is anchored, like the plant, in cycles of growth and decay, a theme familiar from other paintings.

The two figures, death and life, mirror each other. Their heads face the same way, with two pillows under each. The skeleton is covered with wired explosives, mimicking the twining stems and roots. He holds a bouquet of flowers in his left hand, like a suitor.

The skeleton is not a surreal invention. It is a Judas figure, a painted papier-mâché “guy”, a real object from Kahlo’s collection.

In Mexico, these figures are personifications of evil that are burned or exploded on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday, in a symbolic triumph over evil. Their destruction, a brief spin of sparks, ends in an almighty bang. This Judas figure also resembles a calaca, a skeleton from the Mexican Day of the Dead. Its apparently bizarre placement on the canopy of Kahlo’s colonial-era four-poster bed is how it was displayed in her home. This is death as a roommate.

The composition reminds me of a “double-decker” late medieval cadaver tomb. These European tombs show the deceased, recumbent on the top layer as in life, and below, their skeleton or rotting corpse. Here, in an inversion of that layering, death appears to be an escape: from earth, to foliage, to flower, to sky. Furthermore, the way the bed imposes a grid on the painting is structurally similar to a Mexican retablo or “miracle painting”.

These typically depict a moment of miraculous recovery, or rescue from danger, accompanied by a dedication to an intervening saint. Kahlo adapts this format by substituting the saint with the Judas figure, moving from the reality of her body to a world of tradition, signs, symbols.

Art and death

Art and the body are often linked in Kahlo’s life, which was short and traumatic (she died in 1954 aged 47).

She contracted polio aged six, which left her with a stunted leg. At 18, she was terribly injured when the bus she was riding collided with a tram. An iron bar pierced her lower back and exited through her abdomen, damaging her spine and several organs. She required more than 30 operations throughout her life. Yet this incident was also her birth as an artist. Confined to bed for months, her body in a plaster corset, as stiff and white as the skeleton in this painting, she began to paint.

A young girl with a large bow in her hair — Frida Kahlo aged 11, five years after contracting polio.
Museo Frida Kahlo

In addition to physical anguish, her marriage to the celebrated muralist Diego Rivera was fraught. She suffered multiple failed pregnancies. The pair separated for a year when she discovered his infidelity with her younger sister, Cristina.

The bed, a site of convalescence and recovery, is a frequent motif in Kahlo’s work. Her constant physical and psychological pain is a central subject in her art. But this doesn’t come from dreams, conjured from automatic drawing, or psychological play as it was for many of the surrealists. Her art reflects a life defined by events that exceed the human norm of what is tolerable. In El Sueño, the Judas figure is a symbol of incipient pain – a double, a lover and a complex form of promised escape. She is asleep, but he’s awake.

This context firmly distances her work from the European surrealists. Kahlo herself had a difficult relationship with the movement. André Breton, the “pope of surrealism”, lauded her, saying that “the art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb”. But Kahlo found the surrealists fake, complacent and badly organised. In a ferocious 1939 letter to the photographer Nickolas Muray, she stated:

I would rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas, than have anything to do with those ‘artistic’ bitches of Paris … they live as parasites of the bunch of rich bitches who admire their ‘genius’ of ‘Artists’. Shit and only shit is what they are.

Years later, she was more measured: “They thought I was a surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality”. Kahlo’s work, combining realism with myth and cultural specificity, is better described as the marvellous real: experience grounded in her own culture of Mexico – and experience of pain.

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Benedict Carpenter van Barthold 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. Frida Kahlo’s record-breaking painting El Sueño positions death as a roommate – https://theconversation.com/frida-kahlos-record-breaking-painting-el-sueno-positions-death-as-a-roommate-270728

November 28, 2025

A suburban sexual awakening – what to watch and see this week

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

Bromley has never struck me as an exciting place – perhaps because I spent part of my teenage years loitering in its aggressively grey 1980s shopping centre, The Glades. I always found it bizarre that it was technically London; it felt too stiflingly suburban to belong to any city. So it’s not a setting I ever expected for a queer BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism) story. And yet, it turns out to be the perfect backdrop for Pillion’s main character.

Colin (Harry Melling) is a timid gay man living with his parents and working a dead-end job as a traffic warden. His drab world is changed when he meets Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a magnetic, leather-clad member of a local biker gang. It’s a seemingly implausible pairing. But Ray clearly sees something in mild-mannered Colin.

They agree to meet outside Bromley Primark on Christmas Day. What begins as a rough, transactional alleyway hook-up escalates quickly into a strict BDSM relationship. A willing “slave”, Colin finds himself living in Ray’s house and carrying out to his every command – whether sexual or domestic.

As our reviewer, Chantal Gautier – an expert in sex therapy – observes, the film explores power, eroticism, masculinity and identity:

“For Colin, the dominant-submissive slave journey becomes a path of self-discovery, allowing him to recognise what he wants, what he excels at – his ‘aptitude for devotion’ – and ultimately who he is.”

The result is a surprisingly funny, tender film about a man who finds his way out of drudgery and towards self-actualisation. It just happens he does so through BDSM.

Pillion is in cinemas now

Pillion holds plenty of surprises – including an unexpectedly Christmassy vibe. It’s not a straight Christmas movie (pun intended), but it’s Christmassy in the way Bridget Jones is. As the holiday season approaches, we’d love to know which “accidentally Christmassy” film you think makes the best festive viewing. Cast your vote in our poll, and feel free to reply to this email with any favourites we’ve missed.

Ongoing good yarns

For a more family-friendly option, Zootropolis 2 arrives in cinemas today – and our reviewer, Laura O’Flanagan, found it a delight. Sequels to beloved films often stumble, as we explored in last week’s email about Wicked: For Good. Only a few match the magic of the original, and an even smaller handful surpass it. Judging by your poll responses, Paddington 2 still reigns as readers’ favourite second outing.

Zootropolis 2 doesn’t stumble, according to O’Flanagan, joyously returing with the laugh-out-loud animal charm that made the first film such a hit. Bunny detective Judy Hopps is back, now partnered with reformed fox-turned-cop Nick Wilde. Their latest case involves a slippery reptile suspect, a stolen journal and a mystery that leads them straight into the heart of Zootropolis.

Zootropolis 2 is in cinemas now

If you want to stay at home this weekend, then you can hunker down with volume one of the final season of Stranger Things. The rag-tag team of gangly teens are set for a showdown where only one reality can survive: the real world of Hawkins or the monstrous mirror world of the villain Vecna, known as the Upside Down.

The story of Stranger Things has spun out in bursts over nine years, and fans had to wait three and a half for this final instalment. In this piece, psychologist Edward White explains the grip this ode to 80s nostalgia and sci-fi storytelling has had on people – the answer is hauntology, which is the use of elements from the past.

Stranger Things season five, volume one is available to stream on Netflix now

New takes on heritage art

BBC Civilisations has long been a landmark BBC series. First commissioned in 1969 by Sir David Attenborough to showcase the new medium of colour television, its original run followed art historian Kenneth Clarke as he traced western culture from the fall of Rome to the Romantics. It then got a second outing in 2018, fronted by historians Mary Beard, David Olusoga and Simon Schama.

Now the series returns with four expansive episodes on the collapse of major civilisations: the Roman Empire, the Ptolemaic dynasty, the Aztecs and Edo Samurai of Japan. The BBC again experiments with format, blending high-tech docudrama, expert commentary and artefacts from the British Museum. We asked four specialists – one for each civilisation – to assess the episodes and suggest further reading. Their verdicts were mixed, but the series offers plenty to think about.

Civilisations Rise and Fall is airing on BBC One every Monday

If you’re in Paris this winter, don’t miss the exquisite exhibition now on at the Petit Palais. Paname brings together Bilal Hamdad’s serene, contemporary visions of Paris, displayed alongside the museum’s grand masters – a pairing that captivated our reviewer Anna-Louise Milne. In this dialogue between old and new, the past feels refreshed and the present gains unexpected gravitas.

The show features three new commissions created with the permanent collection in mind. Across Hamdad’s large-scale canvases, you can see how deeply he has absorbed the city’s artistic heritage. His works are at once human, modern, and timelessly Parisian. Milne was especially struck by one painting that subtly echoes Édouard Manet’s Un bar aux Folies Bergère.

Bilal Hamdad’s Paname is on at the Petit Palais in Paris from October 17 2025 to February 8 2026

– ref. A suburban sexual awakening – what to watch and see this week – https://theconversation.com/a-suburban-sexual-awakening-what-to-watch-and-see-this-week-270844

November 28, 2025

Weight-loss drug doesn’t reduce risk of Alzheimer’s – new studies

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rahul Sidhu, PhD Candidate, Neuroscience, University of Sheffield

Semaglutide, the drug behind the blockbuster weight-loss jabs Ozempic and Wegovy, does not slow cognitive decline in people with early-stage Alzheimer’s, according to two large new studies. The results close the door, for now, on hopes that a treatment for diabetes and obesity might also help protect the brain.

The evoke and evoke+ trials tracked nearly 3,800 people aged 55 to 85 with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s for two years. Those taking daily semaglutide did no better on tests of memory, thinking skills or day-to-day functioning than those given a placebo.

The drug used was Rybelsus, an oral version of semaglutide normally prescribed for type 2 diabetes. Like Ozempic and Wegovy, it contains the same active ingredient.

Scientists had reason to be hopeful: earlier lab work and studies in people with diabetes suggested semaglutide might offer multiple routes to protecting the brain, from calming inflammation to helping neurons function more efficiently.

Those early hints didn’t hold up in patients. Despite encouraging shifts in some biological markers of the disease, the drug failed to slow overall cognitive decline.

The trials were global, randomised and placebo-controlled – the gold standard for testing drugs in people. The main test they used was the Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes, a score that reflects both thinking ability and how well someone manages everyday tasks.

Researchers also checked memory, behaviour and levels of Alzheimer’s-related proteins in cerebrospinal fluid. Although some biological markers improved slightly in people taking the drug, their overall decline was no different from that of those on the placebo.

A bottle containing Rybelsus pills, with an Ozempic injector pen on the side. — Rybelsus contains the same active ingredient as Ozempic and Wegovy.
KK Stock/Shutterstock.com

Scientists have been excited about GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide because they appeared to tackle several processes involved in Alzheimer’s.

Animal studies showed they might reduce inflammation, improve how the brain responds to insulin, support the cell’s “power stations” (mitochondria) and limit the build-up of amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Observational studies in people with diabetes even hinted that those on GLP-1 drugs declined more slowly.

GLP-1 is a hormone released after eating that helps regulate blood sugar. Semaglutide mimics it, triggering insulin release, calming hunger signals and slowing digestion. In the brain, semaglutide activates GLP-1 receptors on neurons and support cells, dampening inflammation, protecting cells from damage and helping them manage energy and metabolism.

Lab experiments have also shown it can reduce the build-up of amyloid and tau. These overlapping effects made semaglutide look like a strong candidate for Alzheimer’s – but brain biology often behaves very differently in real patients than in a petri dish or in mice.

Why it might have failed

The negative results may have several explanations. Treatment could have come too late, as drugs that protect brain cells may work best before symptoms appear.

Alzheimer’s is a complicated disease, and targeting inflammation or metabolism on their own may not be enough once amyloid and tau have already built up. Also, shifts in blood markers of disease don’t always lead to real-world improvements that patients or families can notice, especially over only two years.

The drug’s safety looked similar to what’s already been seen when it’s used for diabetes or weight loss. But with no sign of benefit, Novo Nordisk is dropping plans to extend the study for another year. The full results will be shared at Alzheimer’s conferences in 2026, giving researchers a chance to dig into subgroups and additional findings that haven’t been released yet.

The headline results give the main answer but leave a lot of details unclear. Researchers will want to see whether any smaller groups of patients reacted differently, how steady the biological changes were, and whether any of the additional cognitive tests showed small effects.

For now, the message is clear: promising biology does not guarantee a working treatment. Semaglutide does influence processes linked to Alzheimer’s, but these trials suggest it does not slow symptoms once they begin. For families hoping for progress, it’s another reminder of how hard it is to turn experimental promise into real-world gains.

The news had immediate financial fallout. Novo Nordisk’s share price dropped sharply, reflecting just how much expectation had built around a potential breakthrough. The results may also shape how pharmaceutical companies approach future trials of weight-loss and diabetes drugs for brain diseases.

For now, though, semaglutide looks unlikely to become an Alzheimer’s treatment. Researchers will need to explore other strategies to see if the mechanisms observed in cells and mice can ever translate into meaningful cognitive benefits.

Rahul Sidhu 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. Weight-loss drug doesn’t reduce risk of Alzheimer’s – new studies – https://theconversation.com/weight-loss-drug-doesnt-reduce-risk-of-alzheimers-new-studies-270578

November 28, 2025

How visible displays of wealth make people support higher taxes – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Milena Tsvetkova, Associate Professor of Computational Social Science, London School of Economics and Political Science

In the middle of the ongoing cost of living crisis, exorbitant displays of wealth are back. Since the beginning of his term in January, US president Donald Trump has been literally bringing the gilded age back to the White House.

In April, Katy Perry spent 11 minutes in space for an undisclosed price, reportedly as much as US$28 million (£21.4 million). In June, billionaire Jeff Bezos closed part of Venice, Italy, for his lavish private wedding party.

In news, entertainment media and fashion, luxury is becoming louder. But what are the consequences? Could daily reminders of inequality lead to collective action and social change? A new study my colleagues and I conducted provides a clue.

Social scientists like to measure inequality with the Gini coefficient – a metric that describes how wealth is distributed among a group of individuals (a high coefficient means large inequality). It is well known that people have a poor understanding of the actual distribution of wealth in the society they live in, as well as their own position in that distribution.

The reason is that people tend to associate with others who are in a similar financial position. And that can make the Gini coefficient seem lower – giving the impression of more equally distributed wealth than is actually the case. In particular, the rich are more likely to underestimate inequality than others.

It’s understandable that people don’t think in Gini coefficients. In daily life, we perceive and act on inequality through social comparison.

When we decide how much to invest in sending our children to university, what to buy, where to go on holiday, or whether to ask for that pay raise, we typically compare ourselves to those we know well. And that may include neighbours, colleagues and cousins as well as influencers or celebrities.

Social comparison, more than any national statistics, helps us understand our place in society and moulds our life ambitions, ideological preferences and even political decisions.

Attitudes to wealth distribution

In our new study, we tested whether the composition of our social comparison group dictates our preferences for wealth redistribution.

We used online game experiments to simulate mini-societies where 1,440 people were randomly chosen to be born rich or poor. They each observed the wealth of a small social circle, and voted for a tax rate in a referendum, where the median vote won and the respective tax was collected and redistributed equally among all.

These were idealised, direct democracies with unrealistic 100% tax compliance and government efficiency. Still, they allowed us to create a multiverse of different worlds where voters’ social circles differed by wealth.

In some worlds, the poor were completely segregated from the rich. In other worlds, the poor were more visible to all – think, for instance, of rough sleepers or persistent news reports about families in need. In yet other worlds, the rich were more visible, for instance via celebrity gossip about the lifestyle of the wealthy, glitzy party and ballroom gala revellers spilling out on the streets.

What we found was that wealth segregation is inequality’s best friend. It keeps the status quo by keeping the poor apathetic. In contrast, observing the rich increases support for redistribution and reduces inequality.

View from inside of a homeless tent. Man in dark dirty cloths sitting by the entrance looking at rich high value district houses. — Inequality benefits from segregation.
mark gusev/Shutterstock

It should be mentioned that the rich in our experiment were not at all susceptible to social information; they always wanted the same low tax rate. It was the poor who voted for higher redistribution when they saw more rich people around them. Nearly 20% of them voted for 100% taxation. This means that redistribution preferences start to polarise in the society with stark disagreements between the rich and poor.

More disturbingly, in universes with a higher selected tax rate, the poor were better off by comparison but the least happy: they reported that they were not satisfied with their own final score and that the scores were not fairly distributed overall. In other words, observing the rich may increase support for redistribution and reduce inequality, but it also increases polarisation and discontent, presenting an inherent trade-off.

Recently, there has been a surge in popular films and TV shows portraying the life and tribulations of the ultra-rich: from celebrations (Crazy Rich Asians) to dark satires (Parasite, Triangle of Sadness, Succession, The White Lotus) and even slasher horrors.

We can speculate that this is indicative of a brewing discontent with inequality, an imminent breaking point for a maturing generation that has been burdened with educational debt, robbed of home ownership and deprived of parenthood. Dissatisfaction and polarisation might be necessary for social change in a highly unequal society.

Milena Tsvetkova receives funding from the European Research Council.

– ref. How visible displays of wealth make people support higher taxes – new study – https://theconversation.com/how-visible-displays-of-wealth-make-people-support-higher-taxes-new-study-270629

November 28, 2025

Why Rachel Reeves chose to disappoint voters with her budget

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Patrick Diamond, Professor of Public Policy, Queen Mary University of London

In walking the political tightrope of her own budget this week, Rachel Reeves had to broadly satisfy three critical audiences. There were her own MPs in the parliamentary Labour party, business and financial markets and, of course, voters who ultimately determine whether the Labour government is re-elected three or four years from now.

Pleasing all three simultaneously is hardly straightforward given the UK’s precarious fiscal predicament. Reeves could have attempted to appease the markets and voters with fiscal discipline that avoided significant tax rises. But if she antagonised her own MPs, her position as chancellor would quickly become untenable.

The chancellor might have produced a package welcomed by voters and Labour parliamentarians, featuring higher spending and tax giveaways. But that risked unleashing a ferocious reaction from financial markets, as former PM Liz Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, found to their cost.

In the end, Reeves delivered a budget viewed favourably by Labour MPs and the markets. The danger for the government is that she did not focus sufficiently on the preferences of the electorate.

Forging any coherent strategy around this budget was challenging, to say the least. The political hype was unprecedented, amplified by leaking and briefing of proposed measures for what seemed like an age. In the background, the impression given was of chaos and instability, with the Treasury no longer in control of events.

Conservative politicians claimed that businesses and consumers were postponing investment and purchasing decisions as a result, further crippling already anaemic economic growth. That the Office for Budget Responsibility published the details of the budget before the chancellor had even got to her feet in the House of Commons hardly increased confidence.

Winning over MPs

There is little doubt that the budget was effective in winning the support of Reeves’s parliamentary colleagues, as well as many trade unions and left-leaning thinktanks.

This was a traditional Labour budget, raising taxes to levels not seen in Britain since the 1970s. By the end of the decade, taxes will have risen to their highest level as a share of national income. The influential Tribune Group of “soft left” MPs not surprisingly gave the budget their warm endorsement.

The array of tax-raising measures delighted the party, notably the levies on dividends and gambling, and of course, the so-called mansion tax on the most expensive homes. The more significant measure was freezing income tax thresholds, a burden borne predominantly by “working people”.

All in all, the size of the British state has increased by 5% of national income over the last decade, a dramatic rise in historical terms.

What made this a distinctive Labour budget is that taxes have increased to raise welfare benefits by £10 billion, notably abolishing the two-child limit. Redistribution is firmly back on the agenda. Another popular measure was a further hike in the national minimum wage, warmly applauded by Labour MPs.

Reeves and Keir Starmer have decided to unashamedly embrace the politics of “tax and spend”, enabling them to draw clear dividing lines with their political opponents.

How will voters respond?

On voters, the picture is much less certain. The chancellor’s calculation is that “median voters” – those on middle to higher incomes who often live in marginal seats that determine the outcome of UK elections – care more about avoiding a further round of public sector austerity than rising personal taxation. This budget will test that political assumption.

At the last election, Labour promised to pay for public services by growing the economy rather than resorting to higher taxes.

But in a fractious environment where the public finances have deteriorated significantly and there is an appetite to impose new levies on wealth, Reeves was compelled to raise taxes to retain the support of her colleagues. Without this, she ran the risk of imperilling her own cabinet position if dissatisfied Labour MPs demanded change at the Treasury.

The obvious danger is that too many voters disagree with her choices. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted, the prospects for average living standards in this decade appear “truly dismal”, a less than ideal backdrop for raising taxes, even by stealth.

According to the latest British Social Attitudes Survey, a shift is underway in views of taxation and government spending: “The proportion of people who support reducing tax and public spending has reached its highest level on record (15%), while support for increasing tax and spending is at its lowest point in a decade (40%).”

Although there is strong backing for extra spending on the NHS, increasing welfare benefits are not a priority for many voters. For Labour MPs, however, it is a necessity – eradicating poverty is held to be a core belief that goes back to the party’s origins.

Reeves should be wary of what political scientists call a “thermostatic effect”: attitudes to taxation and public expenditure among voters respond to government action and follow a broadly cyclical pattern. As the state gets larger, support for increasing taxation and spending often declines.

Ministers can try to steer public opinion by making a political argument, convincing voters that removing the two-child limit is necessary to reduce child poverty, extending opportunity for the next generation. Yet, the chancellor will be keenly aware that the government has, in all probability, reached the limit of how far it can increase the size of the state.

Overlooking the concerns of voters is an error few governments can afford to make. Ultimately, Reeves decided it was worth taking the risk of not putting the electorate’s concerns front and centre, no doubt hoping that only 18 months into this parliament, there is time to recover. Yet many of the proposed tax rises do not take effect until 2028-29 – perilously close to when the next election must take place.

Patrick Diamond is a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society.

– ref. Why Rachel Reeves chose to disappoint voters with her budget – https://theconversation.com/why-rachel-reeves-chose-to-disappoint-voters-with-her-budget-270898

November 28, 2025

Three reasons why China wants global green leadership after Cop30 – and two reasons it doesn’t

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Lo, Professor, Environmental Social Scientist, York St John University

Ahead of the UN’s Cop30 summit, China appeared keen to take on the mantle of new global leader on climate change, stepping into the gap left by the US’s withdrawal from the top spot under Donald Trump.

In trying to understand what China wants from this role, it’s worth examining three areas motivating Beijing to take over leadership, and two others which it is trying to avoid.

First, China is attempting to reshape climate change talks along “tech and trade” lines. At Cop30, it presented itself as a “clean-tech” superpower and as ambitious, technologically capable and cooperative.

Certainly, the country’s capacity for renewable energy generation has more than tripled in ten years, reaching 1,876,646mw in 2024. Solar energy has shown astonishing growth – 20 times higher than in 2015. In 2024, China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, invested US$290 billion (£219 billion) in renewable energy, that’s US$80 billion more than the combined total of the EU, UK and the US.

China needs to address its domestic energy planning for the world to achieve significant reductions in global emissions. Renewable energy is critical, particularly as the rapid scaling of AI and data centres drives a surge in electricity consumption. China is shaping the global agenda in favour of low-carbon technologies and their global expansion.

Growing green exports

A second priority for China in taking on global green leadership is using it to grow its export economy. China gains a trade advantage by making clean energy cheaper. Lower costs allow these clean technologies to access international markets easily. Since 2018, China has shipped out close to US$1 trillion worth of batteries, solar components, electric vehicles (EVs) and wind-power systems globally. But some of these industries are facing overcapacity, and so China must find new markets for its products.

China’s traditional markets, Europe and the US have recently added trade barriers, including tariffs on Chinese EVs and solar panels. At Cop30, China used global climate negotiations to set out its opposition to these barriers, positioning free trade in clean technologies as essential for reaching global climate goals. But they are also ideal for Chinese economic growth.

Shipping to other emerging markets is an alternative to these more established markets. China’s EVs exports to south-east Asia saw an explosive growth in 2025. Its new customers are large, energy-intensive economies, such as Indonesia and India. China wants to keep them and everybody else committed to net-zero emissions in order to maximise its clean-tech trade benefits.

What’s good for China?

China also wants to strengthen cooperation across developing countries. Shared trade interests are only one driver of climate action alignment between competing economies, such as between China and India at the recent summit. Regional security is another.

China hopes to increase its political power in countries and regions of strategic interest, such as via its economic and trade partnership, the belt and road initiative, and also in the Pacific.

It has already increased its investments in new security allies, such the Solomon Islands and Cook Islands, competing in the region with the US, Australia and New Zealand. To repackage this strategy under the name of climate change, China launched the China-Pacific Island Countries Climate Change Cooperation Center in 2022. Addressing global climate change enables China to legitimise its involvement in these countries and regions.

China is being seen as stepping up to a leadership position on climate change.

What China doesn’t want

But assuming full leadership and historical responsibilities for climate change are beyond China’s comfort zone. China’s delegates entered Cop30 meeting rooms being praised for new leadership.

But Beijing is struggling to meet its current pledges. Latest analysis suggests that its carbon emissions are falling slowly. The country’s emission reduction pledges, announced ahead of Cop30, are regarded as insufficient. The biggest threat is its own economy: weak factory output, low consumer spending, high youth unemployment and lower state taxation to encourage growth.

Local governments in China have difficulties in financing the low-carbon economy. Local government debts are accumulating. It’s not clear whether China can fulfil its pledges by cutting emissions sharply, continue to subsidise its green energy industries, and make significant economic investments in regional cooperation, all under its current weak economy.

So China does not want to lead as an advocate of deep emission cuts. Nor does it want to take on the mantle with other industrialised economies of accepting the historical responsibility for global climate change. Analysis has shown that, despite being far behind the US, China’s historical emissions since 1850 have overtaken those from the 27 EU member states. The closer China comes to the US’s traditional role, the more it will be expected to take historical responsibility for climate change. China is not ready for that. It cannot reduce emissions significantly in a short timeframe under a weak economy.

China sees itself as a developing country. At Cop30, one of the contentious issues was getting US$1.3 trillion per year in climate finance from public and private sources in the EU and other OECD economies.

China did not formally commit to supporting the US$1.3 trillion goal, disappointing the rest of the developing world. The lack of commitment was not just a matter of money, but the idea that China should be held responsible in the same terms as developed countries. China has provided a substantial amount of climate and clean energy finance to other developing countries, but this is primarily driven by its strategic and geopolitical considerations.

China also opposed the fossil fuel roadmap aimed at phasing out fossil fuels and declined to contribute to Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a mechanism for compensating countries for preserving tropical forests.

Clearly, China is leading the world in low-carbon technologies. It also believes that climate cooperation with developing nations will deliver trade and security benefits. China will continue to shape climate change talks along these lines.

The next few years are too early for China to want to play as big a role as the US and EU did for the Kyoto protocol and Paris agreement. It will hold on to its red lines and only sign up to plans that meet its own economic and political ends.

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Alex Lo 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. Three reasons why China wants global green leadership after Cop30 – and two reasons it doesn’t – https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-why-china-wants-global-green-leadership-after-cop30-and-two-reasons-it-doesnt-270329

November 28, 2025

To truly tackle child poverty, the UK needs to look again at migration policy

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy Leon, Researcher – Centre on Migration, Policy & Society, University of Oxford

The UK government is expected to soon publish its ten-year child poverty strategy, designed to tackle the root causes of poverty for children.

Poverty is an issue for families from all backgrounds. But it is often particularly acute for the children of people born outside the UK. These families may not be permitted to access benefits because of their immigration status.

Instead, they may receive help from local authorities who, research my colleagues and I conducted shows, are operating a parallel welfare system – one that’s patchy and poorly resourced.

Or these families may get no help at all. They may avoid asking for support, fearful that contacting governmental services will jeopardise their families or their ability to stay in the UK.

Current Home Office proposals to extend the time migrants must spend in the UK before becoming eligible for settled status, and to introduce further welfare restrictions, may deepen poverty. This would not only prolong the time children and families have no access to public funds but also increase the number of children and families affected.

The government’s child poverty strategy must address the effect of immigration policy if it is to improve the lives of all children.

No recourse to public funds

The UK’s current “no recourse to public funds” immigration policy was formalised through the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. It restricts access to most income-based welfare benefits for large numbers of people residing in the UK. It applies to most people holding temporary or time-limited visas to enter or remain in the UK.

These could be people on a time-limited work visa, health and care workers and students. It can include people who have come to the UK because they are married to or the family of a British person, and people building lives in the UK who have leave to remain on routes to settlement.

It is also applied by default to people with an irregular immigration status. This covers European nationals without EU settled status, families who have overstayed their visas and those awaiting an immigration decision.

The no recourse to public funds policy is aimed at “temporary migrants”. But many children in households subject to the policy are British-born or have spent most of their childhood in the UK. The policy is one of the biggest contributors to poverty, destitution, and social exclusion among children in resident migrant families.

In 2024, over half a million children – 578,954 – under the age of 18 were recorded as having a visa or leave to remain in the UK, which generally comes with a no recourse to public funds condition.

Sad girl hugging teddy — It’s likely that hundreds of thousands of children live in families with no recourse to public funds.
MAYA LAB/Shutterstock

While not all of them will experience poverty, children in migrant families living in the UK are at a disproportionately high risk of poverty and destitution. No recourse to public funds restrictions mean that families cannot access any benefits regardless of need. These include child benefit, universal credit, housing and disability-related benefits.

The Home Office maintains that there are existing safeguards, comprising of local authority social care teams with a statutory duty to provide a basic safety net to families facing destitution. While these safeguards can offer a lifeline to some, the system was designed for families at risk of destitution, the most severe hardship. It wasn’t intended to alleviate poverty or to be a substitute for the social security system.

The parallel safety net

Local authorities are, essentially, forced to provide a parallel welfare system, at a significant and unfunded cost. Our findings indicate that local authorities spent an estimated £65 million supporting families with no recourse to public funds in 2021-22.

However, at best, local authorities provide below-poverty-level weekly subsistence payments and substandard temporary accommodation for families with no recourse to public funds. However, there is a significant discrepancy in the level of support provided. With no clear statutory minimum rates, vulnerable families face a postcode lottery.

In some areas, a lack of financial policy means families receive only vouchers and foodbank referrals, while others rely on already-stretched social workers to define acceptable amounts. Many families end up turning to charities and food banks for emergency support.

There is no official data on the number of families with no recourse to public funds receiving local authority support across the UK. Through conducting our own survey, the local authorities that did respond reported supporting 3,108 of these destitute families, including 5,831 children between 2021-22.

However, many authorities do not record this data and were therefore unable to provide figures. Our research estimates the true number across all UK local authorities to be closer to 5,400 families, including around 10,500 children.

Even this estimate is unlikely to truly represent the wider need. Many parents do not ask for help. They are afraid that seeking help from statutory services will jeopardise their visa or future applications to remain in the UK. “I didn’t face them as I heard horrible, horrible stories,” one parent told us.

“I was told that if I didn’t have a safe and good home for my kids, they would take my kids,” another said. “People feel scared, so they won’t ask for help.”

The lack of support from the central government goes beyond just the finances. While there are some pockets of good practice within some local authorities, without statutory guidance for social care teams in England, many councils fail to provide the information, accommodation and support that families with children facing destitution are legally entitled to. We spoke to families who described the process of accessing support as humiliating, distressing and intrusive.

To tackle child poverty over the next decade, addressing both the impact of these welfare restrictions and the severe limitations of the parallel safety net system is vital. In the meantime, if local authorities are expected to provide a safety net, they need – at a minimum – dedicated central government funding and clear statutory guidance to fulfil their duties effectively.

Without this support, growing pressure on an inadequate system will continue to mount. The true cost will extend far beyond the overstretched budgets of social care teams.

As part of her research on migrant destitution, Lucy Leon has previously received research funding from the Aberdeen Group Charitable Trust (formerly known as abrdn financial fairness trust) and is currently receiving research funding from Trust for London.

– ref. To truly tackle child poverty, the UK needs to look again at migration policy – https://theconversation.com/to-truly-tackle-child-poverty-the-uk-needs-to-look-again-at-migration-policy-270335

November 27, 2025

Ukraine: deal or no deal?

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

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

At times this year, it has been difficult to pin down where the Trump administration stands on the war in Ukraine. Under Joe Biden, America’s position was clear: the Russian invasion was illegal and the US and its allies would do everything in their power – short of actually taking up arms – to bring the conflict to an end and secure a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.

This involved hundreds of billions of dollars in military and other aid and unrelenting diplomatic pressure. This was clearly not enough, and with Russia regularly issuing bloodcurdling nuclear threats, Biden and his advisers baulked at supplying Kyiv with the weapons that might have helped swing the conflict in Ukraine’s favour.

Since Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term, however, his administration’s mercurial approach to diplomacy has kept everyone guessing. The president’s position has oscillated between contempt for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and warmth towards the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to anger at Putin and affection towards Zelensky.

It would be wrong to say that the US president hasn’t poured energy into securing some kind of deal with Russia. An article in the New York Times this week counted eight phone calls with Putin, five meetings between his envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian leader and an in-person summit in Alaska.

But when news of a new peace plan emerged last week, it appeared as if the US had become, for all intents and purposes, the Kremlin’s interlocutor. Developed in Miami by Witkoff and Russian businessman Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, the plan called for international recognition of Crimea and all land occupied by the Russians – by force – since 2014 as being henceforth sovereign Russian territory. Ukraine would also have to cede the remainder of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, where fighting continues. Kyiv would have to accept restrictions on the size of its army and the door to Nato membership would be closed.

It reads like Putin’s original wishlist and is neither just nor fair, writes Selbi Durdiyeva, an expert in transitional justice at Nottingham Trent University. Nor does the deal pass muster legally. Durdiyeva walks us through the main objections. She also points out that research has shown that peace agreements imposed over the top of one party’s objections and interests and with no mechanism for accountability, more often than not fail to last.

Once details of the deal were revealed, European leaders scurried to come up with a response. A revised and slimmed down plan was developed, which deferred some of the key points – including decisions on territory or Ukraine’s Nato membership – to a later date to be discussed between Zelensky and Trump. It also beefed up the language around security guarantees. This is the mechanism by which a peace deal would ensure that Russia cannot simply regroup and attack Ukraine again.

ISW map showing the state of the conflict in Ukraine, November 26 2025. — The state of the conflict in Ukraine, November 26 2025.
Institute for the Study of War

But while security guarantees are vital, Zelensky and his aides will be only too well aware of how flimsy they can be without real teeth. Ukrainians remember the Budapest Memorandum signed by Russia, the US and the UK in 1994, when Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal – the third largest on the planet – in return for an agreement by all parties to henceforth respect Ukrainian sovereignty and the country’s internationally recognised borders.

At the risk of stating the obvious, that didn’t work out well for Ukraine. But as Jennifer Mathers points out, the agreement struck in Budapest was hardly robust when it came to guaranteeing Ukrainian security. It pledged, if Ukraine were to be attacked or threatened “with a nuclear weapon”, that the signatories would refer the situation to the UN security council.

Mathers, whose research in international relations at the University of Aberystwyth has a strong focus on modern Russian history, reports that the then president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, remarked after the deal was done (prophetically as it turns out): “If tomorrow Russia goes into Crimea, no one will raise an eyebrow.”

Meanwhile, the killing continues. The Washington-based military thinktank, the Institute for the Study of War, says that while the progress on the battlefield remains extremely slow (it estimates that at the current rate, Russia could take until August 2027 to occupy the whole of the contested Donetsk region), the long-range strikes campaign against Ukraine’s cities is taking an increasingly heavy civilian toll.

Much of the killing, on both battlefield and in Ukraine’s cities, is being done by drones, which are estimated to be responsible for 60 to 70% of military deaths and thousands of civilians, in contravention of international law, according to the UN.

But, as Matthew Powell notes, just as drones have transformed the way this conflict has been waged, so technology is already being developed, which, it is hoped, will counter the devastating effect of unmanned aerial vehicles. This is a story as old as warfare itself. As soon as a new class of weapon has proved successful in battle, scientists and engineers find a way to thwart it.

Powell describes two weapons being developed by the British army and navy, which could be deployed relatively soon and which, it is hoped, will go a long way towards countering the threat posed by drones. Both are what’s known as “direct- energy weapons”. One, DragonFire, fires a laser capable of finding and shooting down targets from a distance of one metre. It can lock in on an object as small as a one-pound coin.

The other uses a pulse of directed radio waves to disable a drone’s internal electronics. It has the advantage of not having to lock on to one target (handy when there is cloud cover or fog) and can potentially be used to knock out several targets at once (handy when facing a swarm of drones).

Cry the beloved country

For two years, Sudan has been riven by a horrific civil war. Sudan’s army and the powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), have struggled for control of the central African country. Reports of massacres have become distressingly common, including of thousands killed when El Fasher, the capital of the western Darfur region, was captured after a lengthy siege.

An international group of researchers travelled to Sudan’s southern border, where they interviewed nearly 700 people who were trying to cross into South Sudan. Many of them had already crossed the same border, fleeing the civil war in South Sudan – now they were trying to get to a precarious safety there.

Many of the most harrowing stories were of the sexual violence experienced by women. And the horrifying finding by the research team was that it was adolescent girls who were most at risk. The Conversation’s Insights team worked with the researchers to compile this report, which will shock and upset in equal measure.

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

– ref. Ukraine: deal or no deal? – https://theconversation.com/ukraine-deal-or-no-deal-270850

November 27, 2025

Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles: what are the implications of its US ‘terrorist’ designation?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Brian J. Phillips, Reader (Associate Professor) in International Relations, University of Essex

The US escalated its dispute with Venezuela on November 24 when the state department added the Cartel de los Soles to its list of foreign terrorist organisations. It claims the network is a drug trafficking organisation led by the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro. The reality is more complicated, but either way, the designation has serious implications.

The Cartel de los Soles is an interesting choice for the foreign terrorist organisation list. While it is indeed foreign to the US, it is probably not a terrorist organisation as most people understand them. Whether it is even an organisation in a formal sense is also up for debate.

The term “terrorist organisation” has traditionally been used for groups with political motivations. This includes groups that want to impose their religion on a country, or groups that are fighting for the political rights of an ethnic minority. Criminal groups like drug trafficking organisations, on the other hand, are mostly devoted to making money illicitly.

This distinction is important because some research, including my own, shows that counterterrorism tactics can lead to adverse consequences when used against criminal groups. The targeting of cartel leadership in Mexico, for example, has often led to more bloodshed as newly fragmented groups fight viciously for control of drug markets.

Experts also do not consider the Cartel de los Soles a formal organisation, but rather an informal network of individuals involved in the drug trade. There does not seem to be one single leader or other indicators of an organisation such as a clearly defined membership or meetings. No “member” of the group seems to use the term Cartel de los Soles.

Journalists in Venezuela started using the term Cartel de los Soles in the 1990s as a figure of speech for corrupt military officials apparently involved in the drug trade. Soles means suns in Spanish, and high-level military officers in Venezuela wear sun-shaped badges on their uniforms.

Venezuela located on a world map. — Venezuela’s geography helps it play a key role in the global drug trade.
BOLDG / Shutterstock

Venezuela’s geography helps it play a key role in the cocaine trade. While some cocaine is produced in Venezuela, even more passes through the country from neighbouring Colombia towards Europe and the US.

This creates an opportunity for corrupt officials – of which there are many in Venezuela – to profit substantially. Many sources say high-level Venezuelan generals are involved in the drug trade, but it is difficult to know exactly how widespread the problem is.

Implications of designation

A foreign terrorist organisation designation has several legal ramifications. First, “material support” for the group becomes a crime, so a person can be prosecuted for donating to or doing business with a designated organisation. Second, people deemed to be associates of the group could possibly be barred from entering the US. And third, US financial institutions with any funds connected to the group will need to report these to the US government.

It is unclear if the designation will actually affect the cartel’s supposed leaders given they have long been subject to US economic sanctions anyway. Venezuelan interior minister Diosdado Cabello, who is alleged to be a leader in the network, has been subject to sanctions since 2018. The US government already sanctions suspected drug traffickers through laws such as the Kingpin Act.

Venezuela’s government has denied the existence of the Cartel de los Soles, describing the new terrorist label as a “vile lie to justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela”. But it’s worth emphasising that a terrorist designation does not necessarily justify or authorise war, which Venezuelan officials seem to fear. The legislation behind terrorist listing does not mention military actions.

A terrorist designation is also meant to communicate US government priorities. It creates focal points for US agencies, while also signalling to other countries the threats they should join the fight against and the groups they should not support.

A US terrorist designation can be powerful. Other countries, especially US allies like the UK and Australia, have followed American terrorist designation patterns for decades. In 2008, the US designated the Somalia-based Islamist militant group al-Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organisation. Australia followed suit the following year, with Canada and the UK doing so soon after.

However, the pattern has not held so far in 2025 as the Trump administration has started to add criminal groups to its list of foreign terrorist organisations for the first time. This began in February, when the US government listed eight criminal groups, mostly Mexican drug cartels.

Few countries have joined the US in declaring these groups as terrorist organisations. European countries, for example, generally do not seem to see these groups as threats worthy of their terrorist lists.

As for the Cartel de los Soles, several countries have made pronouncements similar to the US terrorist designation. However, these are all Latin American countries like Argentina and Ecuador that currently have Trump-allied conservative governments. There has not been a wider international response, even from traditional US partners like Canada.

This is not ideal for the US government, as international cooperation is highly important for confronting transnational challenges like drug trafficking. The Trump administration’s approach of labelling criminal groups as terrorists does not look set to be adopted by most of its longtime allies.

Brian J. Phillips 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. Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles: what are the implications of its US ‘terrorist’ designation? – https://theconversation.com/venezuelas-cartel-de-los-soles-what-are-the-implications-of-its-us-terrorist-designation-270627