I have spent the past two years examining the living conditions in informal refugee camps along the northern coast of France as part of an ongoing research project on borders. These sites are where people gather before attempting to cross the Channel to the UK.
The UK government recently announced a returns agreement to discourage people from making the crossing and economic sanctions
against people smugglers, following an increase in funding for border control and a decision to use counter-terrorism tactics in an effort to “smash the gangs”.
But from what I have observed, such policies appear to do little to stop people from making the journey. Quite the opposite – the more police crack down, the more the smuggling networks take risks to get around difficulties.
My fieldwork has been primarily conducted through volunteer work with Salam, a grassroots organisation that provides hot meals and clothing to the main informal camps in Calais and Dunkirk. I have also collaborated with other groups such as Alors on Aide and Opal Exil.
In the past few years, smuggling networks have adjusted their tactics to evade police. While smugglers used to inflate boats on the beaches between Calais and Dunkirk, they are now mostly using “taxi boats”. These leave further north or south on the coast, as far as Le Touquet. They then pick up groups of refugees waiting in the water along the coast, avoiding police intervention.
A microcamp in Ecault Forest. Sophie Watt
In response, and in order to intensify the crossings, “microcamps” have emerged – smaller temporary settlements closer to the beach, along the coast between Hardelot and Calais. These microcamps act as connecting points between the larger camps and the coastal departure locations where taxi boats pick them up. They allow for people to make several attempts at crossing without having to return to the large camps, where living conditions are more difficult.
The larger camps (such as Loon Plage and Calais) are the epicentre of the smuggling operations. The camps are evicted at least once a week (every 24 hours in Calais) due to France’s official “zero fixation point” policy. This policy, which bars people from forming long-term settlements, was implemented after the dismantling of the Calais “Jungle” refugee camp in October 2016.
Camp conditions
Police efforts to uphold the zero fixation point policy entail frequent evacuations, restrictions of humanitarian aid and physical site disruption. At Loon Plage, I saw that the sole access to water is a livestock trough.
Official guidance from the UN’s refugee agency states that, irrespective of the informality of these camps, their residents should have access to water, sanitation and shelter.
Access to water is limited to troughs. Sophie Watt
The non-profit watchdog group Human Rights Observers has documented instances of police violence and seizures of people’s belongings and tents at the camps.
In addition to regular evictions of the larger camps, the microcamps have recently seen more brutal police action. There have been reports of police using teargas, puncturing life jackets and tents, contributing to untenable living conditions. Violence and shootings between smuggling groups have also been reported in Loon Plage camp.
While working with Alors On Aide and photographer Laurent Prum we met around 50 people, including seven children (ages one-17), in a microcamp on the edge of the Ecault forest near Boulogne-sur-Mer. We immediately noted a tension between the group and the gendarmes who were standing watch.
Most of this group had spent a few years in Germany before being refused asylum. They told me they felt they had been forced to come back to France, because of the deportation measures currently being implemented by the German government.
A few confided that this was their fifth and final try at crossing the Channel. This is a new tactic the smuggling organisations use to make more money more rapidly: while refugees used to be able to try as many times as they needed, they now have to pay again after five failed attempts.
The previous day, this group told us they had been chased out of another part of the forest. There, we had found several empty canisters of tear gas – consistent with reports that French police have deployed tear gas in operations against informal camps.
This group had wanted to stay there because they could use a dilapidated shed to shelter themselves and their children from the rain. Eventually, the gendarmes evicted them, forcing them to spend the night in the rain – the field in question was privately owned. Following the eviction, we witnessed that the landowner had covered the area with manure to stop them returning.
A young Sudanese man showed us videos of the altercation. The exchange, during which five people were arrested, was violent. The children were terrified and the video showed the gendarmes using teargas against the group. A Palestinian mother was arrested and taken into custody, forced to leave her two young daughters. Her husband asked me: “Why did they arrest her when they could see she had two children with her?”
Alors on Aide mobilised several of its members to bring clothes, blankets and food for the group, and got the Palestinian woman released from custody, as she had not been charged with any offence.
While living conditions in camps and the capacity of the French asylum system make staying in France difficult, police are also taking firmer action against boats attempting the crossing.
As part of a coastal patrol (helping refugees after a failed crossing attempt), we arrived on the beach in Équihen at around 7am on July 4 to find that French police had just punctured a boat in the water.
The UK government praised French police for this action, performed in front of international media. The UK and France have also discussed allowing coastguards to intercept taxi boats up to 300 metres off the coast.
This would be a marked change from current regulations, which prohibit French police from intervening offshore except when responding to passengers in distress. Even the border police have doubts about the legal basis for this measure and its practical implications at sea, particularly given the heightened risk of accident.
Trapped between hounding by police on the beaches and constant evacuations from the informal settlements, the refugees have no choice but to try to cross the Channel at any cost. A record number of 89 refugees died at the Franco-British border in 2024. Thirteen deaths at sea have already been recorded in 2025.
In my view, the recently announced French-British measures to intensify policing and border enforcement are unlikely to deter people from attempting dangerous crossings. Instead, they will create an incentive for more dangerous tactics by smugglers, putting more lives at risk and violating human rights. Any agreement to return asylum seekers, restrict their access to asylum or force people back across borders will exacerbate the dangers already experienced by those seeking refuge.
Sophie Watt receives funding from the University of Sheffield and the British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grants.
“We’re actually facing, in many parts of our country, nothing short of societal collapse.” This was the dire warning from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, in setting out his party’s goal of halving crime.
In an op-ed in the Daily Mail and a press conference, Farage framed Britain as a nation in crisis from rising crime and lawlessness. But, he said, Reform had the solution: mass deportation of foreign offenders, the construction of prefabricated “Nightingale” prisons, and a wholesale crackdown on offending.
He insisted that British streets were out of control (although recent rises in crime come mainly from online fraud and shoplifting, according to the latest data), pledged to simultaneously increase prison sentences and reduce overcrowding, and vowed to restore order with a “higher and physically tougher standard of police officer”.
Speaking after a weekend of violent anti-immigration protests in Epping, Farage also tied Britain’s supposed lawlessness to migration: “Many break the law just by entering the UK, then commit further crimes once here – disrespecting our laws, culture and civility. The only acceptable response is deportation.”
Invoking crime as a threat, and the politician as its solution, is a tried-and-tested political manoeuvre. We’ve seen it deployed from both left and right, in many parts of the world, for decades. Stuart Hall and colleagues famously examined this phenomenon in the 1970s in their seminal book Policing the Crisis.
Our own analysis suggests that the accuracy of crime statistics often matters less than how politicians frame public anxieties – through media, public rhetoric and policy initiatives. In short: the public often responds to emotion as much as evidence.
One tension in England and Wales is that there are two major sources of crime data. The first – on which Farage leans heavily – is police-recorded crime. But, as is widely understood, that data provides only a partial picture of the true extent of crime. Many people, especially those from marginalised or vulnerable groups, choose not to report their experiences of crime.
Moreover, the consistency and accuracy with which police forces record these offences has been questioned over time. Indeed, police-recorded crime statistics are not designated as official national statistics.
The other (and more robust) source is the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), which asks a representative sample of the public about their experiences of crime over the past 12 months. Notably, it includes those incidents that were not reported to the police.
Running since the early 1980s, the CSEW has demonstrated long-term declines in incidents of theft, criminal damage and violence (with or without injury) since the mid-to-late 1990s. Curiously, Farage told reporters that the CSEW was “based on completely false data”, without providing any evidence.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), and most criminologists, regard the CSEW as the more accurate metric of long-term crime trends. (The Conversation asked the CSEW to comment but hadn’t received a response when this article was published.)
The political weight of crime
Crime has electoral value. It allows parties and political campaigners to project strength, decisiveness and control. Farage’s rhetoric is designed to provoke urgency and anxiety. It’s a well-worn script. Margaret Thatcher’s government leveraged fears of law and order. New Labour made “anti-social behaviour” a central point of focus at a time when crime was, in fact, falling.
In research conducted with colleagues, we examined how people’s fears about specific crimes are shaped not just by actual crime rates, or by the person’s age, gender or ethnicity, but also by the political context in which they grew up.
Using data from the CSEW and a method called age-period-cohort analysis, we explored how different “political generations” developed and retained distinct concerns about crime.
We found clear patterns. Those who grew up during the James Callaghan era in the mid-to-late 1970s – when politicians repeatedly warned of “muggings” – were more likely to report anxieties about street robbery over time.
Thatcher’s generation, who came of age during a sharp rise in property crime, were more likely than other groups to express long-term fears about burglary. And those who grew up under New Labour – during the height of the “anti-social behaviour” agenda – reported persistent concerns about neighbourhood disorder, even as recorded incidents declined.
In other words, the political rhetoric people are exposed to during their formative years leaves a lasting impression on their relationship to crime. Debates about crime become embedded in personal and generational memory.
Crime is real and victims suffer. But distorting its nature and prevalence can erode public trust in the institutions tasked with protecting us. It can foster punitive and ineffective policy responses. And it can leave whole communities feeling targeted, criminalised or unsafe, based on selective and often sensational narratives.
We absolutely need to talk about crime. But we also need to talk about how we talk about crime. Who frames the debate, which statistics are used, who and how many are left out of the official records, whose fears are being amplified, and who is looking to exploit crime?
Emily Gray has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
Stephen Farrall has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
When we look at how people vote in elections and why they choose certain parties, analysis often focuses on age, education, location or socioeconomic status. Less discussed in Britain is religion. But close to two-thirds of its adults are still religious – expressing either a religious identity, holding religious beliefs, or taking part in religious activities.
For the one-in-three adults in Britain who are Christian, this identity remains an important influence on their political behaviour. New polling, published here for the first time, shows how Reform UK is disrupting our previous understanding of how Christians vote in British elections.
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The relationship between Britain’s Christian communities and the major political parties goes back centuries. The Conservative party has been very close to English Anglicanism since its emergence in the mid-19th century. Catholics and free-church Protestants (such as Baptists and Methodists) have tended towards the Labour and Liberal/Liberal Democrat parties. Even as Britain has become more secular, these relationships have persisted.
Anglicans, for example, have tended to vote Conservative even when the party was in dire straits. In the 2024 election, 39% of Anglicans voted Tory even as the party’s national vote share fell to 24%.
Since the 1980s and particularly in elections since 2015, however, we have started to see changes to the Christian vote. The traditional Catholic attachment to Labour has deteriorated, as has Labour’s appeal to other Christian communities such as Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians.
Instead, driven by the rising salience of social values (attitudes towards immigration, social change and national identity) as a determinant of political support, the socially conservative leanings of some Christians of all stripes has led to increased support for the Conservatives. And those who traditionally did so – the Anglicans – have become even more supportive. The result has been a steady coalescing of the Christian vote behind the Conservatives.
But now, new polling by YouGov (on June 23-24 2025) for the University of Exeter reveals that this realignment is being disrupted by the growing popularity of Reform UK.
Instead of asking who people would vote for tomorrow, a nationally representative sample of 2,284 adults was asked how likely they were to ever vote for each major party, on a scale from zero (very unlikely) to ten (very likely).
While not the same as a direct question about how someone would vote in an election, the likelihood question provides a much richer measure of the strength of their support for all of the major parties.
Stuart Fox, data by YouGov for the University of Exeter
Among Anglicans, Labour remains deeply unpopular: over half gave the party a 0. In contrast, the Conservatives still enjoy strong support among Anglicans, with 35% giving them a vote likelihood of seven or higher – the kind of support associated with voting for the party in an election.
Reform, however, has caught up. Despite only 15% of Anglicans voting Reform in 2024, 38% now rate their likelihood of voting for the party as high. That’s the same as the proportion who are strongly opposed to Reform – showing that while the party polarises Anglicans more than the Conservatives, Reform could win as much Anglican support as the Tories in an election.
Catholics show a similar trend. Labour’s traditional support is eroding: 40% of Catholics said they had zero likelihood of voting Labour, while 29% are strong supporters. As with Conservatives for the Anglican vote, Reform is almost level-pegging with Labour for the Catholic vote at 28%. It has even supplanted the Conservatives, of whom 22% of Catholics are strong supporters.
It is not yet clear why this is happening. The distinction of Christian (and non-Christian) voting patterns is not an artefact of age – there are manystudies that prove this is the case.
It may be that Reform’s stances on issues such as immigration resonate with Christians’ concerns to the extent that they are willing to set aside their historic party loyalties. Or it may be that Christians are as prone as other British voters to turn to Reform out of frustration with the performances of Labour and the Conservatives in office.
Swing voters and party competition
This data also shows the extent to which voters’ support for parties overlaps or is exclusive. In other words, which voters have a high vote likelihood for only one party (and so are likely committed to backing that party in an election), which do not have such high likelihoods for any party (and so will probably not vote at all), and which have similarly high likelihoods for more than one party (effectively swing voters, persuadable one way or the other).
Among the religiously unaffiliated, 29% aren’t strong supporters of any party. For Catholics, it’s 26%. Anglicans are more politically anchored, however, with only 20% in this category.
While traditionally, we would have expected this to reflect Anglicans’ greater tendency to support the Tories, only 17% of Anglicans are strong supporters of only that party, compared with 21% who are firmly behind Reform. These aren’t swing voters; they’ve switched sides.
A further 12% of Anglicans have high vote likelihoods for both the Tories and Reform. These are swing voters that the two parties could realistically expect to win over.
Stuart Fox, data by YouGov for the University of Exeter
Catholics are even more fragmented. Only 13% are strong supporters of Labour alone, along with 12% and 17% who are strong supporters of the Conservatives and Reform alone, respectively.
Few Catholics are torn between Labour and the other parties, but 5% are swing voters between the Conservatives and Reform: the Tories’ gradual winning over of Catholics over the last 50 years is also being challenged by the appeal of Reform.
The party has provided a socially conservative alternative to the Conservatives, with the result that the Christian vote has become more fragmented. The Tories are no longer the main beneficiaries of Labour’s loss of its traditional Catholic vote.
In addition, Reform is as popular as the Conservatives among Anglicans, and as popular as Labour among Catholics. This suggests it is appealing across the traditional denominational divide more successfully than either of the major parties.
If there is to be a single party that attracts the bulk of Britain’s Christian support, at this point it is far more likely to be Reform than anyone else.
This article was based on analysis by Dr Stuart Fox (University of Exeter), Dr Ekaterina Kolpinskaya (University of Exeter), Dr Steven Pickering (University of Amsterdam) and Prof Dan Stevens (University of Exeter), connected to the research project Investigating the individual and contextual role of religion in British electoral politics, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Stuart Fox also receives funding from the British Academy.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Indranil Banik, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Astrophysics, University of Portsmouth
Baryon acoustic oscillations represent the sound of the Big Bang. Gabriela Secara, Perimeter Institute, CC BY-SA
Looking up at the night sky, it may seem our cosmic neighbourhood is packed full of planets, stars and galaxies. But scientists have long suggested there may be far fewer galaxies in our cosmic surroundings than expected.
In fact, it appears we live in a giant cosmic void with roughly 20% lower than the average density of matter.
Not every physicist is convinced that this is the case. But our recent paper analysing distorted sounds from the early universe, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, strongly backs up the idea.
Cosmology is currently in a crisis known as the Hubble tension: the local universe appears to be expanding about 10% faster than expected. The predicted rate comes from extrapolating observations of the infant universe forward to the present day using the standard model of cosmology, known as Lambda-Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM).
We can observe the early universe in great detail through the cosmic microwave background (CMB), relic radiation from the early universe, when it was 1,100 times smaller than it is today. Sound waves in the early universe ultimately created areas of low and high densities, or temperatures.
By studying CMB temperature fluctuations on different scales, we can essentially “listen” to the sound of the early universe, which is especially “noisy” at particular scales.
These fluctuations are now imprinted in the CMB, and dubbed “baryon acoustic oscillations” (BAOs). Since these became the seeds for galaxies and other structures, the patterns are also visible in the distribution of galaxies.
By measuring these patterns, we can learn how galaxies are clustered at different redshifts (distances). A particularly striking pattern, with lots of clustering, occurs at an angle called the “angular BAO scale”.
Illustration showing that slightly more galaxies formed along the ripples of the primordial sound waves (marked blue) than elsewhere. Then the rings of galaxies stretched with the expansion of the universe. Other galaxies are dimmed in this image to make the effect easier to see. Nasa
This measurement ultimately helps astronomers and cosmologists learn about the universe’s expansion history by providing something physicists call a “standard ruler”. This is essentially an astronomical object or a feature on the sky with a well-known size.
By measuring its angular size on the sky, cosmologists can therefore calculate its distance from Earth using trigonometry. One can also use the redshift to determine how fast the cosmos is expanding. The larger it appears on the sky at a certain redshift, the faster the universe is expanding.
My colleagues and I previously argued that the Hubble tension might be due to our location within a large void. That’s because the sparse amount of matter in the void would be gravitationally attracted to the more dense matter outside it, continuously flowing out of the void.
In previous research, we showed that this flow would make it look like the local universe is expanding about 10% faster than expected. That would solve the Hubble tension.
But we wanted more evidence. And we know a local void would slightly distort the relation between the BAO angular scale and the redshift due to the faster moving matter in the void and its gravitational effect on light from outside.
So in our new paper, Vasileios Kalaitzidis and I set out to test the predictions of the void model using BAO measurements collected over the last 20 years. We compared our results to models without a void under the same background expansion history.
In the void model, the BAO ruler should look larger on the sky at any given redshift. And this excess should become even larger at low redshift (close distance), in line with the Hubble tension.
The observations confirm this prediction. Our results suggest that a universe with a local void is about one hundred million times more likely than a cosmos without one, when using BAO measurements and assuming the universe expanded according to the standard model of cosmology informed by the CMB.
Our research shows that the ΛCDM model without any local void is in “3.8 sigma tension” with the BAO observations. This means the likelihood of a universe without a void fitting these data is equivalent to a fair coin landing heads 13 times in a row. By contrast, the chance of the BAO data looking the way they do in void models is equivalent to a fair coin landing heads just twice in a row. In short, these models fit the data quite well.
In the future, it will be crucial to obtain more accurate BAO measurements at low redshift, where the BAO standard ruler looks larger on the sky – even more so if we are in a void.
The average expansion rate so far follows directly from the age of the universe, which we can estimate from the ages of old stars in the Milky Way. A local void would not affect the age of the universe, but some proposals do affect it. These and other probes will shed more light on the Hubble crisis in cosmology.
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Indranil Banik receives funding from the Royal Society as part of a University Research Fellowship managed by his boss Harry Desmond. The second author on the paper was Vasileios Kalaitzidis, who received an undergraduate summer project grant from the Royal Astronomical Society to undertake the analysis described here.
The first Welsh settlers landed on the shores of what is today the Province of Chubut, in Argentinean Patagonia, on 28 July 1865. Carried on the ship Mimosa, this was the first of a series of immigrant contingents to create the Welsh settlement known as Y Wladfa.
The many chronicles and accounts about it have imbued the settlement with a mythical sheen. Today, Y Wladfa is home to the most famous Welsh-speaking community outside Wales. It is often touted in Britain as a little Wales across the sea. In fact, “Welsh Patagonia”, as it’s also known, was established precisely with the aim of preserving the language and culture.
A major aspect of the settlement that is celebrated is the unique friendship with the Indigenous Tehuelche that the Welsh immigrants would have struck up. However, with the commemoration of 160 years of that first group of settlers, the story about this connection is being challenged in a recently launched digital exhibition: Problematising History: Indigenous perspectives on Welsh settlement in Patagonia.
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Rather than attempting to undo the past, the project aims to address a glaring omission in historical accounts which results in an incomplete understanding of the impacts of the settlement – the lack of indigenous perspectives.
The new trilingual (Spanish, Welsh and English) exhibition challenges romanticised views about the myth of friendship between the Welsh settlers and the Indigenous Tehuelche in Patagonia. Bringing together four Mapuche Tehuelche creative projects, it reflects critically on how the story of Welsh colonisation in Chubut is told by providing a platform for voices previously unheard in Britain.
Little Wales across the sea
In Welsh Patagonia you can see quaint casas de té gales (Welsh tea houses), the ever-present dragons and strangely familiar Welsh street names. You will also see the Welsh language in towns like Gaiman, Trevelin or Trelew. To find a language that is only spoken by less than 20% in Wales itself be so present in this corner of Latin America can make for an odd experience.
The stories of how this place came to be are typical of settler colonial settings. These rose-tinted tales describe the encounter between the Welsh and the Indigenous Tehuelche as a harmonious meeting of cultures that led to a lasting friendship. The assumption is that the largely peaceful coexistence was due to the inherent Welsh benevolence rather than the result of negotiation and relationship building on both sides.
The overlooking of Indigenous agency and resistance is partly due to virtually all of the historical records available in Welsh or English being created by Welsh or European people. Even those appearing to foreground indigenous voices were recorded by non-Indigenous rapporteurs and often include at least one layer of translation.
As voices in the project Puel Willi Mapu Mew: Taiñ Zungun have said about the “Welsh rifleros” (the first Welsh explorers to “go West”):
“Their arrival is commemorated as an epic legend and they are inscribed as heroes who ‘discovered’ our land, silencing our pre-existence as Tehuelche Mapuche people, and leading to the violence of the successive evictions and removals of our lof (community).”
The incorporation of indigenous perspectives on Welsh settlement to the collections of the National Library of Wales represents a groundbreaking development. It is about time that space has been made for Mapuche Tehuelche memories about forced displacement, territorial dispossession and heritage appropriations.
Changing perceptions
The early pioneers were invited by the Argentinean government to settle in the area around the Chubut river. They were then pretty much left to their own devices to endure in the unforgiving and harsh terrain. The Indigenous Tehuelche would have not only provided them with meat but taught them to hunt and survive in their new environment.
An aspect of that good will can be traced to the Chegüelcho agreement, which the Argentine government drew up with the leaders of local Indigenous communities. The agreement stipulated that, provided the Welsh settlement was left to develop on the lands in question, the central government would send regular rations to the communities and provide animals and clothing.
However, the nuances of the coexistence have been removed, leaving a flattened historical narrative. In reality, the relationship was the result of continuous renegotiation of practical necessities and pursuit of reciprocal benefit – but was also fraught.
The Welsh outpost was beneficial to Patagonian indigenous populations in providing a convenient outlet for trading their animal skins and ostrich feathers. However, Y Wladfa was the first step of a broader Argentine project that actively sought to dispossess indigenous peoples and assert state sovereignty over Patagonia.
“The official history of Chubut silences the stories of the Mapuche and allows words like ‘progress’ and ‘Welsh settlers’ to resonate,” contributor Agustín Pichiñan explains.
“With the support of the State, fences were extended all over our territory bringing us subjugation, harassment and discrimination. Yet, we keep on resisting and fighting to recover our history, using the knowledge of our ancestors and the memories of our lof (community).”
Sustaining a simplified historical narrative and ignoring indigenous perspectives allows convenient stories which simply celebrate Y Wladfa. It prevents us from sitting with uncomfortable truths and learning.
Chief among these truths is that as a colonised people themselves the Welsh were agents of colonialism elsewhere. This is part of the wider history of Patagonian settlement and is key to striving for a better present and future for all involved.
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Geraldine Lublin has received funding for the “Problematising History: Indigenous perspectives on Welsh settlement in Patagonia”.project from the Arts & Humanities Research Council Impact Acceleration Account at Swansea University.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex
As climate change drives rising temperatures and changes in rainfall, Mexico and the US are in the middle of a conflict over water, putting an additional strain on their relationship.
Partly due to constant droughts, Mexico has struggled to maintain its water deliveries for much of the last 25 years, in keeping with a water-sharing agreement between the two countries that has been in place since 1944 (agreements between the two regulating water sharing have existed since the 19th century).
As part of this 1944 treaty, set up when water was not as scarce as it is now, the two nations divide and share the flows from three rivers (the Rio Grande, the Colorado and the Tijuana) that range along their 2,000-mile border. The process is overseen by the International Boundary and Water Commission.
Mexico must send 430 million cubic metres of water per year from the Rio Grande to the US, while the US must send nearly 1.85 billion cubic metres of water from the Colorado River to support the Mexican border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali.
Water deliveries are measured over a five-year cycle, and the current one ends in October. Mexico struggled to deliver its water “debt” in the last cycle which ended in 2020, using waters from reservoirs at the last minute to fulfil its obligations. This left northern Mexico with severely depleted water levels.
Due to growing tensions over water, the Biden administration tried to negotiate and work with the Mexican government to improve the speed with which Mexico’s water deliveries were taking place in 2024.
But with Donald Trump’s return to office, the US has taken a more aggressive stance with Mexico to address its water debts to the US. For the first time in over 50 years, in March of 2025, the US refused to send water from the Colorado River to Tijuana – a city of nearly 2 million people – in order to force Mexico to send more water to Texas.
Mexico has since responded by transferring 75 million cubic metres of water, but this is just a drop in the bucket, as Mexico remains 1.5 billion cubic metres in debt. And this did little to satisfy the Trump administration, which threatened to withhold more water from Mexico. It also demanded the resignation of Maria-Elena Giner, who led the International Boundary and Water Commission, in April.
Rather than looking at diplomatic solutions, Trump has accused Mexico of stealing Texans’ water and has promised to keep escalating consequences if it doesn’t deliver on the treaty terms.
For farmers in Texas, the water shortage has left them unable to plant their crops as they don’t have enough irrigated water to do so. A year ago, the last sugar mill in southern Texas shut down due to the lack of water being delivered by Mexico.
But Mexican farmers believe that the agreement is binding only when Mexico has enough water to satisfy its own needs – and with drought conditions, this means that no excess available water can be sent. Continuing drought conditions in Mexico have plagued farmers in the north, who also rely on water for their crops. Reductions in rainfall in recent years have also left Mexico struggling with water supplies for its own citizens in urban areas.
In recent years, drought has particularly affected the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico. In 2022, taps ran dry with many of its five million residents without running water for months. Flushing toilets, laundering clothing, washing dishes, bathing all required hauling water by hand from wells.
Locals protested the fact that the best water infrastructure went to factories, not residents. One factor is that water demand has skyrocketed due to more manufacturing in border cities in Mexico.
While increased manufacturing poses one problem, an even bigger problem lies with agriculture, and the types of plants being planted, as well as the way they have traditionally been watered. For example, avocados require 91 litres a day – four times more water than the production of oranges, and ten times more than the production of tomatoes.
Alfalfa is another thirsty crop being mass produced in drought-prone states, such as Texas, California and even Arizona.
Citizens in Mexico City sometimes faced weeks of water shortages in recent years.
As much as 80% of the Colorado River basin’s water is used for agriculture and about half of that goes towards the production of alfalfa. Even more concerning is that most of the water is going to feed these thirsty crops. And in the dry south-west states of the US half of its water goes to towards the production of beef and dairy cattle.
This has an impact on cities who are completely dependent on the Colorado River. In the case of Tijuana in Mexico, the Colorado River supplies 90% of its water, while US cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas receive 50% and 90% of their water supplies from the Colorado River and basin, respectively.
This is a major concern as both the Colorado River and the Rio Grande are experiencing record low levels of water. And getting more water from Mexico is not a long-term solution.
Though the Biden administration was criticised by farmers for not threatening Mexico, by withholding water, its approach largely focused more on the long-term challenges.
For the previous US administration the solution was to invest more in the Colorado River basin, incentivising California, Arizona and Colorado to conserve three million acre-feet of water through 2026 in return for US$1 billion (£741,000,000) in federal funding.
What drives this conflict?
But under Trump, federal funding for tackling climate change is being slashed. Increased polarisation in US domestic politics and growing tensions between the US and Mexico will make resolving this crisis all the more difficult.
This is a missed opportunity. Even though conflicts over water are becoming more frequent, water scarcity can also be a potential driver of cooperation.
Meanwhile, the US’s relationship with Mexico continues to be rocky. Trump has threatened to put new 30% tariffs on Mexico from August 1, after he claimed it hadn’t done enough to tackle drug cartels.
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has said her government was destroying drug laboratories every day, and that the US must control weapons travelling over its border into Mexico which were being used for criminal purposes. Meanwhile, high tariffs on Mexican goods are likely to affect US consumers as Mexico is currently the US’s biggest trading partner.
Cooperation, and acknowledging the role played by climate change, and unsustainable forms of development in both agriculture and manufacturing are key to resolving this cross-border water crisis – but these are things that the Trump administration is unlikely to acknowledge, or address.
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Natasha Lindstaedt 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.
The feelings that surged through the pub that I watched the women’s Euro 2022 cup final in were electric. England had won. My friends were in tears. Strangers were shaking hands, patting each other on the back, smiling goofily at anyone who would catch their eye. It was wonderful. I’m hoping for repeat scenes this Sunday when the Lionesses face Spain in the 2025 Uefa European Women’s Championship.
Whether they win or not, the journey has been a joy. I watched the quarter-final between England and Sweden at a pub hosting an Irish trad folk night. With every England goal, the fiddlers celebrated with a rowdy song. The street I was watching the semi-final on erupted as different pockets of fans celebrated as Chloe Kelly scored the goal that would send the Lionesses into the final.
Women’s football has gone from strength to strength since that monumental win in 2022. Many of the Lionesses are now household names (Kelly, Lucy Bronze, Ella Toone and Beth Mead to name a few). As someone who attends women’s games, I’ve never seen the stands so full. You’ve also never been able to see so many games broadcast.
The situation for players has also massively improved with female footballers earning more than ever. In this piece, sports financing expert Christina Philippou, celebrates these many wins but also highlights where there is room for improvement.
A lot of the gains made in women’s football in England can be attributed to that win in 2022. Here’s hoping that on Sunday we see another win, which leads to many more strides for women’s football.
The 2025 Uefa European Women’s Championship final will be available to watch on the BBC at 5pm, July 27.
On Sunday, the Lionesses will march onto the pitch wearing their all-white home kit. The purpose of such clothing is to unite the players, to show they are a team and representatives of a country. In this, we can see how, as the philosopher Kate Moran writes in her new book, clothes are much more than just what we put on.
In A Philosopher Looks at Clothes, Moran shows that what we choose to wear is a worthy topic of deep philosophical inquiry.
Our reviewer, Sarah Richmond, a philosophy expert, found the book an engaging and unpretentious exploration of an ubiquitous aspect of daily life. Clothing provides Moran with fertile ground for ethical, political, aesthetic and identity-related reflections.
Also challenging how we have historically seen things is the new book by writer and curator Alayo Akinkugbe. In Reframing Blackness, Akinkugbe invites the reader to challenge art history and its approach to blackness.
How has the teaching of art history excluded blackness? How does such teaching then affect the creation and curation of art in relation to blackness.
Wanja Kimani, a curator herself, found the book engaged with many of the issues that black artists and those teaching and working in the arts have been grappling with since at least the 1960s in a clear-eyed and refreshingly optimistic manner.
For at least the last ten years there has been a growing trend for exhibitions that tackle climate change and the collapse of nature. Pandora Syperek, an expert in design, and Sarah Wade, an expert in museums, have been great supporters of the ability of such curation to communicate the urgency of such issues.
Putting their research into practice, the pair have put on their first exhibition entitled Sea Inside. Asking the question “can the sea survive us?” the show features art works that show how connected humanity is to the ocean.
These works are, as they write, emotive, imaginative and often very funny. From an aquarium full of tears to videos of jelly fish having sex in a lab, these works hope to move us closer to a care and understanding for fragile sea ecosystems.
Sea Inside is on at Sainsbury Centre in Norwich until 26 October, 2025
At The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace you can explore the glamour of the Edwardian age through some of Britain’s most fashionable royal couples – King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, their son George V and his wife Mary of Teck.
As our reviewer, professor of modern British history Jane Hamlett notes, one of the most interesting things about The Edwardians: Age of Elegance is what it reveals about the personal taste of the royals. Featuring more than 300 objects from the Royal Collection – almost half for the first time – it is fascinating to see what they chose to collect. You’ll get the chance to see work by recognisable artists of the period, including Carl Fabergé, John Singer Sargent and William Morris.
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
I’m not sure if it was the effect of the atomic bomb, but I have always had a weak body, and when I was born, the doctor said I wouldn’t last more than three days.
These are the words of Kazumi Kuwahara, a third-generation hibakusha – a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan 80 years ago.
Kuwahara, who still lives in Hiroshima, was in London on May 6 this year to give a speech at a Victory Over Japan Day conference organised and hosted by the University of Westminster. Now 29, she told the conference that she felt she had been “fighting illness” throughout her 20s. When she was 25, she needed abdominal surgery to remove a tumour which post-surgery tests showed was benign.
When she found out about the operation, her grandmother, Emiko Yamanaka – now aged 91 and a direct survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima – told her: “I’m sorry, it’s my fault.” Kuwahara explained:
Ever since I was young, whenever I became seriously ill, my grandmother would repeatedly say: ‘I’m sorry.’ The atomic bombing didn’t end on that day and the survivors – we hibakusha – continue to live within its shadow.
Kazumi Kuwahara with her grandmother, Emiko Yamanaka, outside Hiroshima Peace Dome in 2025. Kazumi Kuwahara, CC BY-NC-ND
Kuwahara came to stay with me ten years ago during a study abroad break after I had interviewed her grandmother for my doctoral research. When I’d made a film about Yamanaka in 2012, I immediately noticed her reluctance to share her harrowing experience. But she then invited me to interview her in Hiroshima – the first of ten trips I made there for research which would become an interview archive.
I wanted to research hibakusha like Kuwahara and her grandmother as they continue to confront the physical, social and psychological effects of the atomic bombs dropped on August 6 and August 9 1945, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.
The 16-kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima at 8.15am by a US B-29 bomber was codenamed “Little Boy” by the Americans. It exploded about 600 metres above the Shima Hospital in the downtown area of Nakajima – a mix of residential, commercial, sacred and military sites. The bomb emitted a radioactive flash as well as a sonic boom. A gigantic fireball formed (about 3,000–4,000°C), as well as an atomic mushroom cloud which climbed up to 16km in the air.
In Japan in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, people couldn’t even utter the phrase “atomic bomb” due to censorship rules initially enforced by the Japanese military authorities, up until the day of surrender on August 15. The censorship was reinstated and expanded by the US during its occupation of the Japanese islands from September 2 1945.
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For decades, the hibakusha have faced discrimination and difficulty in obtaining work and finding marriage partners due to a complex combination of suppression, stigma, ignorance and fear around the dropping of the atomic bombs and their aftereffects.
Wartime propaganda in Imperial Japan precluded free speech while also imposing bans on luxury goods, western language and customs (including clothes) and public displays of emotion.
However, the US occupation – which lasted until the San Francisco treaty was signed on April 28 1952 – went further, establishing an extensive Civil Censorship Department (the CCD) which monitored not only all newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, books, films and plays but also radio broadcasts, personal mail, as well as telephone and telegraph communications. Little wonder the scars of the bomb remained untreated, for generations.
Emiko Yamanaka’s story
Yamanaka was 11 years old when she was exposed to the atomic bombing, just 1.4km from ground zero.
Emiko Yamanaka (far left) with her four brothers and parents during wartime before the atomic bombing in 1945. Emiko Yamanaka
She told me about her experiences of surviving on the bank of the River Ota, which divides into seven rivers in the estuary of Hiroshima. Yamanaka was the oldest of five siblings in 1945. Although the family had been evacuated to an island near Kure 25km away, she returned to their home on the outskirts of the city with her mother and nine-year-old brother early on the morning of August 6, so she could attend an appointment with an eye-doctor for a case of conjunctivitis.
Making her way into the city by herself, the tram she was travelling on needed to stop due to an air-raid warning. It was a “light” warning as just two B-29s had been spotted approaching the mainland (a third photography plane was not yet visible on the horizon), so Yamanaka needed to continue her journey on foot. She recalled:
When I got to Sumiyoshi shrine, the strap of one of my wooden geta [Japanese clogs] had snapped off. I tried to fix it with a torn piece of my handkerchief in the shade of a nearby factory building. Then a man came out of the factory and gave me a string of hemp. He advised me to enter the doorway because the sun was very hot already.
When I was repairing my strap, there was a flash. I was blinded for a moment because the light was so strong, as if the sun or a fireball had fallen down over my head. I couldn’t tell where it came from – side, front or behind. I didn’t know what had happened to me. It felt like I was mowed down, pinned or veiled in by something very strong. I couldn’t exhale.
I cried out: “I can’t breathe! I’m choking! Help me!” I fainted. It all happened in a matter of seconds. I heard something rustling nearby and suddenly recovered my senses. “Help me. Help me,” I cried.
A man wearing what seemed like an apron, tattered gaiters and ammo boots came towards her and called out: “Where are you? Where are you?” He pushed aside the debris and extended his arm to Yamanaka:
When I caught his hand, the skin of his hand stripped off and our hands slipped. He adjusted his hand and dragged me out of the debris, grabbing my fingers … I felt a sense of relief, but I forgot to say thank you to him. Everything happened in a moment.
Yamanaka started to run back the way she had come along the river, as “the city was not yet burning”. She saw the shrine just beyond Sumiyoshi bridge, not far from the river. But the bridge had been damaged by the bomb, so she couldn’t cross it.
Yamanaka’s family home was at Eba across the river. In those days, the River Ota was used for river transport and business, and there were huge stone steps going down to the river for loading. She said:
I wanted to get across to the other side. Then the city started to burn: the fires were chasing me and I had to run along the riverbank. I had to keep running as fast as possible until I finally reached Yoshijima jail. I was so scared but the area was not burning yet. I felt so relieved, I lost my consciousness.
She awoke hearing shouts of “is there anyone who is going back to Eba from Funairi?” and recognised a neighbour. She asked him to take her across, but he couldn’t recognise her. “I shed big tears when I heard his voice,” she told me. There were about ten people in a small wooden boat, all with “big swollen grotesque faces and frizzy hair. I thought they were old people. Maybe I also looked like an old woman,” she added.
After crossing the river in the small boat, Yamanaka ran to her Eba home which, even though it was 3km from ground zero, had collapsed. She couldn’t find her mother. Someone told her to go to the air-raid shelter nearby, but there were too many people to fit inside.
When she finally found her mother, she was barely recognisable, wrapped in bandages from her injuries. Yamanaka herself had to go to hospital as tiny pieces of glass from the factory windows where she had been exposed were lodged in her body.
She told me how some shards of glass still emerge from her body occasionally, secreting a chocolate-coloured pus. The family – Yamanaka, her mother and her younger brother (her father, grandparents and the other siblings had remained evacuated) – stayed up all night in a shelter on Eba hill, listening to the sounds of the burning city, the cries for mothers, the sounds of carts filled with refugees.
“All those sounds horrified me,” Yamanaka recalled – decades on from the day that changed everything.
The aftermath of the atomic bomb showing the former Hiroshima Industrial Promotion hall. The Peace Memorial Park, dedicated to the victims, would later be built here. Shutterstock/CG Photographer
The day the world changed
The immediate effects of the bomb, including heat, blast and radiation, extended to a 4km radius – although recent studies show the radioactive fallout from “black rain” extended much further, due to the winds blowing the mushroom cloud. And some survivors told me they witnessed the blast effects of the bomb, including windows blown out or structures disturbed, in outlying towns and villages up to 30km away.
But the closer you were to ground zero, the more likely you were to suffer severe effects. At 0.36km from ground zero, there was almost nothing left; about 4km away, 50% of the inhabitants died. Even 11km away, people suffered from third-degree burns due to the effects of radiation. The neutron rays also penetrated the surface of the earth, causing it to become radioactive.
The mushroom cloud was visible from the hills of neighbouring prefectures. Those who were beyond the immediate blast radius may not have shown any external injuries immediately – but they commonly became sick and died in the days, weeks, months and years that followed.
And those outside the city were exposed to radiation when they tried to enter to help the injured.
Radiation also affected children who were in the womb at the time. Common radiation-related diseases were hair loss, bleeding gums, loss of energy (“no more will” in Japanese) and pain, as well as life-threatening high fever.
About 650,000 people were recognised by the Japanese government as having been affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While most have now passed away, figures held by the Ministry of Labour, Health and Welfare from March 31 2025 show there are an estimated 99,130 still alive, whose average age is now 86.
In a radio broadcast following the atomic bombings, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender and called on the Japanese people to “bear the unbearable”, referring to the “most cruel weapons” that had been used by the Allied forces without directly identifying the nuclear attack. Due to ill-feeling about the defeat, shame over Japan’s imperial past and role in the war, plus censorship and ignorance about the reality of nuclear weapons, the idea grew that the dead and injured hibakusha were simply “sacrifices” (‘生贄 になる’) for world peace.
Generations affected
It took Yamanaka around seven years to recover her strength enough to lead a relatively normal life, so she barely graduated from high school. She has subsequently been diagnosed with various blood, heart, eye and thyroid diseases as well as low immunity – symptoms that can be related to radiation exposure.
Her daughters also suffered. In 1977, when her eldest daughter was 19, she had three operations for skin cancer. In 1978, when her second daughter was 14, she developed leukaemia. In 1987, her third daughter suffered from a unilateral oophorectomy (a surgical procedure to remove one ovary).
I interviewed Yamanaka’s daughters, granddaughter and several other survivors repeatedly, beginning with experiences prior to the atomic bombing and then continuing up to the present day.
While these interviews generally started in the official location of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, I also conducted walking interviews and went to sites of special importance to their personal memories. I shared car journeys, coffees and meals with them and their helpers, because I wanted to see their lives in context, as part of a community.
Their trauma and suffering are dealt with socially. For the relatively few survivors who tell their stories in public, it is through the help of strong local networks. While I was at first told I would not find survivors who wanted to share their stories, gradually more came forward through a snowball effect.
Returning to interview Yamanaka in August 2013, we travelled by car to her former home of Eba, pausing at the site where she had alighted after her journey across the river. There, Yamanaka struck up conversation with a fellow survivor who was passing on his bicycle. His name was Maruto-San. They had attended the same temple-based elementary school.
Emiko Yamanaka meets a fellow hibakusha, Maruto San, on a visit to her hometown in Eba with the author in August 2013. Elizabeth Chappell
The two hibakusha, who had both been exposed when young (part of a category known as jakunen hibakusha) exchanged stories about their experiences after “that day” (ano hi) – as August 6 and 9 are still known in the atomic-bombed cities.
They talked about how just one or two friends were still alive – one survivor ran a well-known patisserie in the local department store. Yamanaka informed Maruto-San that she had met a few friends from childhood on a reunion coach trip, during which they had tried to retrieve some happier pre-bomb memories. The meeting offered a rare glimmer of recognition and reconnection.
Keisaburo Toyanaga’s story
In 2014, I travelled to the childhood home of hibakusha Keisaburo Toyanaga, a retired teacher of classical Japanese who was nine on August 6 1945. After visiting his original home in east Hiroshima, we took the route he, his mother, grandfather and three-year-old younger brother had travelled, fleeing Hiroshima towards his grandfather’s house in the suburb of Funakoshi, about 8km away. He told me:
I remember coming this way on that day … My family was just one of many others, we were all travelling with our belongings on push-carts.
The family set up home in this poor suburb, which was shared with many Korean families who could not find a way out of poverty due to historic discrimination. Korea was annexed by Imperial Japan, and Koreans had been recruited en masse into Japan’s war effort. An estimated 40,000-80,000 were in Hiroshima in 1945.
Some high-ranking Koreans were accepted by the Japanese – for example, royals like Prince Yi U who was said to have been astride his horse at the time of the bombing. But ordinary Koreans had to refrain from using their language or wearing Korean clothes in public. Even after the war was over, they needed to use Japanese names outside the home. After the war, Koreans in Hiroshima took menial agricultural work – in Funakoshi, they kept pigs.
Confronted with discrimination in the classroom where he taught at the Electricity Workers’ school, Toyanaga became a campaigner for the right of repatriated South and North Koreans to be officially recognised as hibakusha from the 1970s onwards. He showed me the wooden talisman he wore around his neck, awarded by the Korean community for his support.
The author (far right) with Keisaburo Toyanaga (far left) and Keiko Ogura, both hibakusha, at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum library in 2014. Elizabeth Chappell
The ghosts of Hiroshima
When I was living and working in Japan from 2004, before I started my academic research, I was advised to stay away from the atomic-bombed cities because speaking of the atomic bombings was considered “kanashii” (悲しい) “kowai” (怖い) and “kurushimii” (苦しみい) – sad, scary and painful. Some Japanese friends even expressed horror when I first went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to do research. They seemed to feel it was like an act of self-harm. A young student I met warned me that the ghosts of the victims of Hiroshima rise at night to take over the city.
On my first visit in 2009, I stayed for one night in a youth hostel beside the railway tracks and the Hiroshima Carp baseball stadium. That night, a friend and I went for a drink with a couple, both second-generation hibakusha or “hibaku nisei”.
This couple, Nishida San and his wife Takeko, were involved in organising the annual Hiroshima Peace Memorial ceremony. Takeko sang in a choir that had been involved in several exchange visits to Europe, including visiting Notre Dame in Paris and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford.
She said her parents had never told her about their experiences of the bomb, even though her father had been exposed close to ground zero. I was surprised to discover that hibakusha were reluctant to share their stories even within their own families, often for fear of physical and psychological harm being passed through the family line.
After our meeting in the bar, we went to eat okonomiyaki (“delicious food”), a pancake with cabbage, egg, pork and noodles, in a building known as “okonomiyaki mura” or okonomiyaki village. To me, it recalled a New York tenement block with an outdoor staircase serving as the entrance to all floors – the outlines of unbuilt rooms decorating its temporary facade. Such temporariness had lasted from the 1950s when concrete blocks like these went up around the city centre to service a whole new population after Hiroshima’s near-erasure. Since 1945, most inhabitants come from outside the city.
‘Flash … boom’
I was sitting with Nishida San on makeshift bar seats in front of a counter with a huge, heated iron plate. The chef, Shin San, took our order and as we chatted, one of our Hiroshima friends asked him if he remembered the atomic bomb. Shin replied: “Of course I do.”
Then he spread his arms wide and a strange expression appeared on his face, as he said: “Pikaaaaa… doon.” This translates as “flash… boom” – two onomatopoeic words that encapsulate so much for Hiroshima people. Many survivors, especially those downtown, only experienced the flash. Others, usually at some distance, experienced the sonic boom. So these two words were used in place of “gembakudan” (原爆弾) – meaning atomic bomb – due to censorship.
Nobel prize-winning author Kenzaburo Ōe, in his 1981 work Hiroshima Notes, wrote, ‘For 10 years after the atomic bomb was dropped there was so little public discussion of the bomb or of radioactivity that even the Chugoku Shimbun, the major newspaper of the city where the atomic bomb was dropped, did not have the movable [kanji] type for the words “atomic bomb” or “radioactivity.”’ To support this, I noticed how some monuments for those who died in downtown Hiroshima bear the simple inscription E=MC², Einstein’s formula for relativity – the source of the science that created the bomb, but not the actual words for “atomic bomb”.
Keiko Ogura: ‘40 years of nightmares’
The older generation often told me how they dreaded visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and its surrounding park, as they are built over ground zero. However, some found that after encountering visiting foreigners there who had also experienced mass suffering, such as the Holocaust or a nuclear test, they were more able to open up.
Keiko Ogura, now aged 87, was eight on August 6 1945 and was exposed to black rain at her home in Ushitamachi, 5km from the centre of Hiroshima. She said:
For 40 years, I had nightmares and did not want to tell the story. Growing up, our mothers did not speak of the atomic bombing as they were afraid of discrimination and prejudice. Getting older, we started to worry about our children and grandchildren’s health. After the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission was established in 1947, some people expected to be cured of ABI [atomic bomb injury] … but in fact, the doctors there were just gathering blood and data.
Ogura had thought, as a child, that she would never find a partner due to the discrimination against hibakusha, but she was also acutely aware that other survivors had suffered more than her.
The author outside Mitaki Temple with Keiko Ogura (left) and Shoko Ishida in November 2013. Elizabeth Chappell
However, when Robert Jungk, a Holocaust survivor, came to research his book Children of the Ashes with the help of Kaoru Ogura – a bilingual American who had been interned during the second world war and would become Keiko’s husband – things started to shift for her. Finding out about the Holocaust lent a new dimension to her own experiences of discrimination.
Jungk – along with Robert J. Lifton, a genocide historian – wrote their interview-based studies of Hiroshima in the 1950s and ‘60s, when ordinary citizens around the world were largely ignorant of the enormity of what had happened in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the nuclear test sites. Lifton, originally a military psychiatrist, explained that after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, he had been motivated to study in Hiroshima as he was afraid the world was in danger of “making the same mistake again”.
However, the link between Hiroshima and the Holocaust was first made by Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, who organised for an Anne Frank rose garden to be planted in the Peace Memorial Park in honour of an 11-year-old girl, Sadako Sasaki, who died from leukaemia nine years after the bomb.
One autumnal afternoon in 2013, after my third round of interviews with my cohort of hibakusha, I visited Mitaki Temple Cemetery, about 6km outside Hiroshima. The graveyard is dedicated to hibakusha, many of whose ashes are kept there. The hibakusha headstones are engraved with haiku written by family members. However, many of the headstones which existed prior to 1945 have been left at jagged angles – positioned as they were after being upset by the seismic effects of the atomic bombing.
In among the recent graves, I was shown some Jewish hanging mobile memorials – gifts from Oświęcim in Poland, location of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The temple’s former head priest had been involved in the Hiroshima-Auschwitz Peace Committee, an interfaith group which had started with a walk around the world to link atomic bomb survivors with Holocaust and other war victims.
Making the connection was important to hibakusha who were accused, then as now, of highlighting the atrocities of the bomb but downplaying the importance of Japan’s role in the war. When visiting Japan’s former colonies and elsewhere, hibakusha still offer apologies for Japanese behaviour in the second world war.
For institutions in Hiroshima, it’s important to change the narrative around nuclear weapons – not only through more and better medical research, but by disseminating hibakusha stories. The local newspaper, Chugoku Shimbun, aims to strengthen informal networks of hibakusha who meet up to share memories of that day. Some local journalists I met, Rie Nii and Yumi Kanazaki, help young people to interview their grandparents’ generation, building up a valuable archive of experiences.
There are two ways the younger generation can carry these stories forward: either by training as denshōsha (ambassadors) or by interviewing family members.
Kazumi Kuwahara decided to do both. When she was just 13, she wanted to pass on her grandmother’s story, becoming the winner of a prefecture-wide speaking competition about the bomb. In her 20s, after graduating from university, she also decided to train as a denshōsha and peace park guide, a role that requires intensive training over a six-month period. As the youngest guide to the Hiroshima Peace Park, she says:
Each visitor has a unique nationality and upbringing and, as I interact with them, I constantly ask myself how best to share Hiroshima’s significant history.
Toward the end of my field work, having gained interviews with three generations of survivors as well as their helpers, I realised this was just the beginning of a much larger conversation.
John Hersey, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning 1946 work Hiroshima, said: “What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has been the memory of what happened at Hiroshima.”
However, as our memories get more spotty with the passing of time, and as more survivors’ names are added to the roll of the dead at the cenotaphs of Japan’s atomic-bombed cities, perhaps our greatest hope is to grow the cohort of today’s listeners – so that tomorrow’s storytellers may emerge.
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Elizabeth Chappell 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.
More and more research suggests that the copper in your diet could play a bigger role in brain health than we once believed. A recent study found that older Americans who ate more copper-rich foods did better on memory and concentration tests.
The findings, published in Nature Scientific Reports, looked at people’s diets using detailed food diaries and tested their cognitive function. Those who ate more foods that were high in copper – which include shellfish, dark chocolate and nuts – did better on tests that are used to spot early signs of age-related memory loss and dementia.
But the results aren’t straightforward. People who ate more copper-rich foods were mostly male, white, married and had higher incomes. They were also less likely to smoke or have high blood pressure or diabetes – all factors linked to a lower risk of dementia. People who consumed more copper also had more zinc, iron and selenium in their diets, and consumed more calories overall.
People with higher incomes often have better access to healthy food, medical care, cleaner environments and more education – all of which help protect against memory loss and dementia.
It’s hard to separate the effects of diet from these other advantages, although some research we reviewed suggests that improving nutrition might be especially helpful for people from less privileged backgrounds.
What other research tells us
The current study’s limitations are notable. It captured brain function at only one point in time and relied on participants’ food diaries rather than blood measurements of copper levels.
However, long-term studies support the idea that copper might matter for brain health. One study that tracked people over time found that those who had less copper in their diet showed more pronounced declines in memory and thinking.
More intriguingly, when researchers measured copper levels directly in brain tissue, they discovered that higher concentrations were associated with slower mental deterioration and fewer of the toxic amyloid plaques characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
Curiously, brain copper levels bore little relationship to dietary intake, suggesting the body’s processing of this mineral is more complex than simple consumption patterns might indicate.
There’s a good biological explanation for why copper might help protect the brain. This essential metal plays several important roles: it helps prevent brain cell damage via antioxidant effects, with production of the chemicals (neurotransmitters) that let brain cells talk to each other, and helps the brain produce energy, by working via particular enzymes.
Copper deficiency is thought to be relatively uncommon, but it can cause noticeable problems. If someone feels tired and weak and has anaemia that doesn’t improve with iron or vitamin B12 supplements, low copper might be to blame. Other signs can include getting sick more often, losing bone strength, and nerve damage that gets worse over time.
Copper is naturally found in high amounts in foods like beef, offal, shellfish, nuts, seeds and mushrooms. It’s also added to some cereals and found in whole grains and dark chocolate.
People who have had gastric bypass surgery for obesity or have bowel disorders may have trouble absorbing copper – and these conditions themselves could be linked to a higher risk of dementia.
It’s best to be cautious about taking copper supplements without careful thought. They body needs a delicate balance of essential minerals – too much iron or zinc can lower copper levels, while too much copper or iron can cause oxidative stress, which may speed up damage to brain cells.
Studies examining mineral supplements in people already diagnosed with Alzheimer’s have shown little benefit.
Paradoxically, people with Alzheimer’s often have higher copper levels in their blood, but key brain areas like the hippocampus – which is vital for memory – often show lower copper levels. This suggests that Alzheimer’s disrupts how the body handles copper, causing it to get trapped in the amyloid plaques that are a hallmark of the disease.
Some researchers suggested that after Alzheimer’s develops, eating less copper and iron and more omega-3 fats from fish and nuts might help, while saturated fats seem to make things worse. However, a lack of copper could actually increase plaque build-up before dementia shows up, highlighting the need for balanced nutrition throughout life.
There seems to be an optimal range of copper for brain function – recent studies suggest 1.22 to 1.65 milligrams a day provides copper’s cognitive benefits without causing harm. This mirrors a broader principle in medicine: for many biological systems, including thyroid hormones, both deficiency and excess can impair brain function.
The human body typically manages these intricate chemical balances with remarkable precision. But disease and ageing can disrupt this equilibrium, potentially setting the stage for cognitive decline years before symptoms emerge. As researchers continue to unravel the relationship between nutrition and brain health, copper’s role serves as a reminder that the path to healthy ageing may be paved with the careful choices we make at every meal.
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Eef Hogervorst has received funding from Alzheimer’s Research UK, MRC and Wellcome to investigate diet and dementia risk. She acted as dementia expert on medical panels including ESHRE and NICE. Eef received a consultancy fee from Proctor and Gamble for a review on folate and omega 3 and cognitive funcion
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marc Fullman, Docotoral Researcher in Organisational Behaviour, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex
If your first task of the day is triaging a bulging inbox at 6am, you are not alone. A recent Microsoft report headlined “Breaking down the infinite workday” found that 40% of Microsoft 365 users online at this hour are already scanning their emails – and that an average worker will receive 117 emails before the clock rolls around to midnight.
But that’s not all. By 8am, Microsoft Teams notifications outstrip email for most workers, and the typical employee is hit with 153 chat messages during the day.
The report states that, while meetings swallow the prime 9am–11am focus window, interruptions arrive every two minutes throughout the day. This perpetual work overload means a third of professionals reopen their inbox to answer more emails at 10pm.
In short, Microsoft’s telemetry of this “triple-peak” day (first thing, mid-morning and late at night) paints a vivid picture of a work rhythm that never stops.
From an occupational psychology perspective, these statistics are more than curious trivia. They signal a cluster of psychosocial hazards.
Boundary Theory holds that recovery depends on clear and solid boundaries – both psychologically and in terms of time – between work and the rest of life. Microsoft’s findings show those limits dissolving. This includes 29% of users checking email after 10pm.
Similarly, a four-day diary study of Dutch professionals found that heavier after-hours smartphone use predicted poorer psychological detachment and exhaustion the next day.
This can have wider consequences. When people are busy, rushed or harried, one of the first things to suffer is their regulation of online behaviour. Large-scale survey research shows that ambiguous or curt digital messages occur when we are depleted. These can obviously sap wellbeing in recipients.
In a 2024 study of workers in the UK and Italy, incivility in emails between colleagues predicted work-life conflict and exhaustion via “techno-invasion”, as workers reported being exposed to an ongoing torrent of unpleasant messaging.
So-called ‘techno-invasion’ could lead to work-life conflict and emotional exhaustion. fizkes/Shutterstock
My ongoing doctoral research examines how workers respond to messages they receive, and exposes the nuance on different communication platforms. Among the 300 UK workers involved, identical messages were rated as more uncivil on email than on Teams, particularly when they were informal. Frustration on the part of a recipient (in terms of how they interpret a message) accounted for nearly 50% of perceived incivility on email, but only 30% on Teams.
These findings suggest that choice of platform significantly influences how messages are received and interpreted. Using these insights, organisations can make informed decisions about communication channels, and potentially reduce workplace stress and improve employee wellbeing in the process.
Microsoft suggests that AI “agent bosses” will rescue workers. These tools could summarise inboxes, draft replies and free up humans for higher-order work.
The data, however, exposes a cultural contradiction. Managers tell staff to switch off, yet their appraisal spreadsheets tell a different story. In one set of experiments, the same bosses who praised weekend digital detoxing also ranked the detoxers as less promotable than colleagues who were glued to their inboxes.
Little wonder Microsoft’s own data shows the same late-night peak, despite widespread wellbeing guidance to switch off after hours. Without changing how commitment is signalled and rewarded, faster tools risk accelerating the treadmill rather than dismantling it.
What organisations can do
1. Individual level – let people feel they have control
Encourage “quiet hours” and teach employees to disable non-urgent notifications. Boundary-control research shows that when workers feel they have control over connectivity, it creates a buffer against fatigue caused by after-hours email.
2. Team level – communication charters
Teams should agree explicit norms for communication. This could include capping the numbers invited to meetings and insisting on agendas. Simple charters along these lines restore predictability for workers and cut “decision fatigue”.
3. Organisational level – redesign metrics
Organisations could shift from visibility (green dots and instant replies) to outcome-based metrics for productivity. This removes the incentive for workers to stay online and aligns with evidence that autonomy is a key resource.
4. Technological level – AI for elimination, not acceleration
Workplaces should deploy AI assistants to remove low-value tasks (for example, sorting email or drafting minutes), not just speed them up. Then they should conduct workload audits to ensure the time saved is reinvested in deep work, not simply swallowed up by extra meetings.
The Microsoft dataset is enormous, but there are two important points to note. First, European jurisdictions with “right to disconnect” laws may be missing from the figures. Second, some metrics (for example, interruptions) are calculated on the most active fifth of users, potentially overstating a typical experience.
But if the numbers in Microsoft’s report feel familiar, that is precisely the point. The technology designed to liberate workers is now scripting their day minute-by-minute. Occupational psychology researchers warn that without deliberate boundary setting, rising digital job demands will continue to tax wellbeing and dull performance.
AI can be a circuit breaker, but only if it is accompanied by cultural and structural change that gives employees permission to disconnect.
The infinite workday is not a law of nature, it is a design flaw. Fixing it will take more than faster software – it will demand a collective decision to prize focus, recovery and civility as fiercely as workers currently prize availability.
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Marc Fullman 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.
