Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steven David Pickering, Honorary Professor, International Relations, Brunel University of London
Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, and Deborah Turness, its news CEO, have resigned over accusations of political bias in the corporation. Most notably, these relate to the editing of an episode of Panorama about the January 6 insurrection, which US president Donald Trump says misrepresented him.
Their departure is the latest – and most dramatic – chapter in story that dates back years. At first glance, the move may look like accountability at the top.
“There have been some mistakes made and as director general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” said Davie in his resignation message. But Davie’s departure also speaks to the problems that have beset the BBC for years as it has tried to deal with a decline in trust.
The data tells a clear and worrying story: the problem is not only what the BBC does, but how it is seen across divided audiences.
Trust in the BBC is heavily conditioned by political identity. A survey I conducted with colleagues of 11,170 people in the UK, carried out between December 2022 and June 2024, showed striking differences between how people with left and right-wing party affiliations felt about the broadcaster.
Liberal Democrat voters averaged 4.54 on a one-to-seven trust scale. Those who vote Labour averaged 3.88. Trust among Conservative voters was lower at an average of 3.17. And notably, the average was just 2.16 for Brexit party voters. The findings date back to a time before the Brexit party became Reform UK – and before that party came to dominate in the polls.
In other words, those segments of the electorate that already felt most alienated from the BBC are now among the most politically ascendant.
That creates a profound legitimacy challenge. The broadcaster is losing the trust of the very audiences who, through the ballot box, are increasingly shaping the political environment in which it operates.
This helps explain why the crisis has erupted now. The political currents that distrusted the BBC for years are no longer fringe, but central to national politics.
How trust averages out across party affiliation. S Pickering, CC BY-ND
When we asked respondents to place themselves on a political spectrum of left to right, we saw a similar patterns. Trust peaked around the centre-left, dropped at the centre, and stayed low on the right. The pattern clearly indicates that trust in the BBC is not uniform, nor does it develop in a vacuum.
We found in our research that these partisan fault lines were not in evidence for Japan’s public broadcaster – suggesting something specific is happening in the UK. In Japan, attitudes toward NHK (the equivalent of the BBC) cut across political lines, with conservatives and progressives reporting broadly similar levels of trust.
That contrast points to distinct political cultures. In Japan, public broadcasting still carries an aura of neutrality tied to institutional continuity, whereas in Britain, the BBC has become a symbolic battlefield in wider culture wars. The British media landscape is more openly adversarial, and perceptions of bias are now interpreted through partisan identity rather than journalistic performance.
Conservative-voting or Brexit-aligned respondents appear to see the BBC as metropolitan and institutionally liberal. On the left and centre-left, the BBC still retains a credibility cushion, but those holdouts will shrink. This is not simply about “bias” or “impartiality” in a narrow sense – it is about legitimacy in different political worldviews.
The fact that two senior figures have resigned should not lull us into thinking the problem has been fixed. On the contrary, what this moment reveals is that the BBC’s challenge is not only managerial – it is political and cultural.
The data from the TrustTracker project shows that trust in the BBC is already deeply polarised. Leadership change alone is unlikely to rebuild it. Instead, the BBC must engage with how it is perceived, by whom, and why. Otherwise, it risks losing the one thing that has set it apart: its role as a genuinely shared public broadcaster in a deeply divided society.
Steven David Pickering received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, reference ES/W011913/1) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, reference JPJSJRP 20211704).
Just when the BBC should have been basking in its success at the record 12 million viewers who watched the Celebrity Traitors finale, the corporation has been brought to its knees. Tim Davie, BBC director general, and Deborah Turness, the CEO of news, resigned following a leaked memo concerning alleged bias in BBC programming.
The memo, written last May by Michael Prescott, then independent advisor to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, raised a number of concerns about alleged bias in the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues, and alleged anti-Israel bias in the BBC Arabic service.
But the key issue appears to have been in the editing of a 2024 Panorama documentary titled Trump: A Second Chance? In the documentary, two different sections from President Donald Trump’s speech on the day of the January 6 2021 riots had been spliced together into one clip, which could have led viewers to conclude that Trump was calling on protesters to carry out the riot. Trump is now threatening to sue the corporation.
In the past week, the Telegraph has repeatedly accused the BBC of institutional bias. The broadcasters’s lack of public response, other than to declare that it did not comment on leaked information, was totally inadequate in the face of such an onslaught.
But while BBC supporters looked on aghast, internally, BBC news staff were attempting to respond. According to Today presenter Nick Robinson, BBC news executives had “agreed the wording of a press release” explaining that the programme should have made clear an edit had been made, but that at no point was there any “intention to mislead the audience”.
The BBC board refused to sign off on this statement, and the BBC was left looking like it was keeping schtum for possibly nefarious purposes.
The BBC’s chairman, Samir Shah, has now finally delivered a statement apologising for an “error of judgement”. He said that the BBC had discussed the corporation’s US election coverage and: “We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”
Meanwhile, BBC journalists in Washington had to front up at the White House where Trump has declared that BBC journalists “are very dishonest people”.
Trump has now threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion if they do not retract the documentary. As Shah has noted, Trump is “a litigious fellow”.
In July, Paramount settled a prospective lawsuit for US$16 million (£12.1 million) after Trump made a “false editing” accusation against 60 Minutes over an edit on a Kamala Harris interview headline during the last election campaign. Last year he also secured a US$15 million payment from ABC News as part-settlement in a defamation case against that network.
It is hard to imagine a scenario where the BBC would settle a dispute with the US government for cash. But with Trump, one never knows if his posturing might lead a media company to fold. For the BBC, this is a decisive own goal.
Internal politics
Arriving at the BBC this morning, Turness acknowledged the mistake in the Trump edit, but was clear that the BBC was not institutionally biased.
Some critics, however, have pointed the finger at the BBC’s own internal political challenges. Among them is David Yelland, a former editor of the Sun who now presents a BBC podcast. He called Turness and Davie’s resignations a “coup”, attributing it to alleged political bias on the BBC board.
Alongside this drama, BBC journalists such as Nick Robinson, David Sillito and Katie Razzall are carrying out a thorough job of examining the chaos. But a less-reported fact is that it is yet again an outsourced independent production programme that has led to the BBC’s current problems.
October Films Ltd made the film for BBC Panorama, just as it was HOYO Films that made the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. That film was narrated by the 13-year-old son of a Hamas deputy minister of agriculture, something that wasn’t explained to viewers, leading to an Ofcom sanction last October.
However, outsourcing production to an independent company doesn’t outsource the editorial checking, which should have been exhaustive in the case of this Panorama programme.
The BBC must now recruit two high-level executives, just as it should be readying for its 2027 royal charter renewal (major talks over the broadcaster’s future and funding). According to the Today programme, the top contenders are three women: Apple’s Jay Hunt, former Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon and former BBC chief content officer Charlotte Moore. But these are early days.
Some commentators will no doubt call for a “BBC cleanskin” so as to not be tainted by present controversies. But is this wise when the person will be called on to lead such a vastly complex and sprawling media organisation? Tim Davie had no background in journalism before becoming director general, and Deborah Turness had never worked for the BBC before.
The new broom may have to handle similar disputes to those over Gary Lineker’s social media posts or Bob Vylan’s anti-Israel Defense Forces chants at Glastonbury. Perhaps this should be the role of a deputy director, a post that used to exist at the BBC until recently.
It is worth remembering that the most important commodity in journalism is trust. To that end, the BBC continues to top the charts in the UK, according to the annual Reuters Digital News Report. The BBC houses some of the best journalists and news programming available today. The poor handling of this crisis puts all of their reputations at stake.
Colleen Murrell receives has received funding in the past from Irish regulator Coimisiún na Meán for the Reuters Digital News Report Ireland. She is chair of The Conversation’s UK editorial board.
Recent accusations that China pressured a UK university into pausing research on alleged human rights violations have raised questions about the state of academic freedom.
In early November 2025, it wasreported that Sheffield Hallam University had paused Professor Laura Murphy’s research on Uyghur forced labour in China, later apologised, and restarted the work. Media outlets linked the pause to pressure from Chinese authorities. South Yorkshire Police have referred the allegations on to counter-terrorism police as they are thought to fall under the National Security Act.
A spokesperson for Sheffield Hallam said the pause arose from insurance and other procedural issues and denied any China-related commercial motive.
“We have apologised to Professor Murphy and wish to make clear our commitment to supporting her research and to securing and promoting freedom of speech and academic freedom within the law,” the spokesperson said.
Academic freedom is “the human right to acquire, develop, transmit, apply, and engage with a diversity of knowledge and ideas through research, teaching, learning, and discourse.” When scholarship is restricted or politically steered, the public loses access to evidence and the means to hold power to account.
Academic freedom is a measure of democratic health, and tracks closely with the quality of democratic institutions. Declines often appear before other signs of democratic erosion. Global datasets such as the Academic Freedom Index and V-Dem show a decade of decline across much of the world.
Scholars at Risk, a non-governmental organisation supporting threatened academics, reports similar patterns. Their findings of 395 attacks on scholars, students, and institutions in 49 countries and territories between July 2024 and June 2025 are “indicative of deteriorating global conditions for academic freedom”.
How pressure on academic freedom happens
Pressure on academic freedom is rarely dramatic. In domestic cases, where a government puts pressure on academics in its own country, it often accumulates through policies and decisions that narrow intellectual space and encourage self-censorship.
A familiar playbook targets institutions, academics and students. It includes politicised appointments, selective funding or budget cuts, legal intimidation through strategic lawsuits and travel and conference bans.
Alongside domestic pressures, transnational repression is a rising threat. This is intimidation, surveillance or coercion directed from outside a country’s borders. This is what is alleged in the Sheffield Hallam case.
Transnational repression increasingly targets civil society organisations, journalists, and academia. It undermines democratic life, and reminds us that universities are part of the infrastructure of scrutiny and accountability.
Human rights organisations Freedom House and Amnesty International have documented the experiences of scholars and students from China, Hong Kong, Iran, Russia and elsewhere working abroad. These scholars have reported monitoring, online harassment and even contact by domestic authorities with family members back home after campus events.
Pressure on academic freedom is a democratic problem first. Wherever it originates, the effect is the same: less evidence in the public sphere.
Its connection to international human rights standards also means that states and institutions have duties to respect, protect and fulfil the right. They must refrain from unlawful interference and prevent third-party pressure. They should take positive measures so teaching and research can proceed without fear.
For example, it requires the disclosure of political influence directed by foreign powers. It is important that these frameworks are used to enable, not chill, teaching, research, campus debate and external engagement.
What universities can do
The following three steps reflect emerging international standards. Universities need clear policy, structured protection, and transparent escalation, creating workable defences they can implement.
1. Adopt a clear policy on academic freedom and transnational repression
Universities should commit to non-interference in research and teaching. They should have a single confidential reporting channel for intimidation, and protection for diaspora and exiled communities. Make these rules visible in staff and student guidance.
Universities should assess risks for sensitive research or fieldwork, including digital and family exposure. They should assign a case lead, provide legal and security advice, and, where needed, relocate or host threatened scholars. They should embed funding rules that are neutral towards different viewpoints and insert academic freedom clauses in all partnerships.
3. Document and escalate threats
Universities should keep an anonymised log of interference attempts. They should publish funding and partnership registers, and report credible threats to the appropriate authorities.
They should train staff to spot red flags such as pressure through consulates, funders or foreign institutions. University staff responding to threats should act in line with their country’s human rights obligations to protect human rights defenders, including exiled academics.
Academic freedom keeps evidence and ideas in public view. When institutions or authorities yield to pressure, whether foreign or domestic, the loss extends beyond academia. Protecting scholars’ freedom to inquire protects the public’s freedom to know.
Kirsten Roberts Lyer 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 term “neurodiversity” is still relatively new. Even now, there’s no firm agreement among experts about what it should include. Does it refer only to neurodevelopmental differences such as autism, ADHD and dyslexia? Or should it stretch further, to include mental health conditions too?
Until recently, no one had asked neurodivergent people themselves what they thought about the language used to describe them. So, we decided to do just that. Our new research found a mixture of positive and negative views about words like “neurodiversity” and “neurodivergent”.
Neurodiversity refers to the different ways in which people think and behave. Just as everyone has an ethnicity, everyone has a neurotype. Around 15% of people are thought to be neurodivergent, meaning their brains function differently from what society considers “typical”. The remaining 85% are neurotypical.
In our survey of more than 900 neurodivergent adults across the UK, almost everyone had heard of the word “neurodiversity”. Also, 74% said they used related language, such as “neurodivergent”, to describe themselves.
One finding stood out in particular: how often the language of neurodiversity is used incorrectly. The word “neurodiverse” refers to a group that includes both neurotypical and neurodivergent people. In other words, it’s a mix of different brain types. But it’s often used to describe individuals or groups of neurodivergent people, when the correct term would be “neurodivergent”.
For many participants, this mistake was more than a harmless slip of the tongue. Some described it as deeply irritating, while others saw it as a warning sign. When an expert or organisation got it wrong, especially one claiming to be inclusive, it could be seen as a “red flag”. Some participants thought this was a sign that they used fashionable inclusive language while failing to change exclusionary practices.
Participants also felt differently about how useful the term “neurodivergent” actually is. Some described it as a “safe umbrella” – a simple, inclusive way to talk about their identity without listing multiple diagnoses. One person explained that it saved them from reeling off a “laundry list” of conditions.
Others said it felt safer than naming specific conditions such as autism or ADHD, which can still carry stigma. Saying “I’m neurodivergent” offered a way to share something about themselves while reducing the risk of a negative reaction. It also helped people who were waiting for a diagnosis or who self-identified as neurodivergent but didn’t yet have formal recognition.
But not everyone found the word helpful. Some said it was too broad to mean anything and didn’t communicate their day-to-day challenges or support needs. Others pointed out that many people still don’t understand what “neurodivergent” means, making it ineffective as a way to explain who they are.
There were also concerns that broadening the language could unintentionally increase stigma towards specific conditions, such as ADHD, by lumping everyone together under one label.
Language shapes how we see the world but also how the world sees us. Our research shows that while umbrella terms like neurodivergent can create community and belonging, they shouldn’t replace more specific identities such as autism or ADHD. Both have an important place.
Instead of replacing those words, we should focus on reducing prejudice and discrimination against neurodivergent people, and also on using language that reflects respect and understanding.
Getting it right
As language choices are deeply personal, when you are talking to a neurodivergent person, it may be appropriate to mirror their language choice.
That said, a general rule is if you’re going to use language around neurodiversity, it’s important to use it correctly. Many neurodivergent people find misuse frustrating, especially when it comes from people or organisations who claim to champion inclusion. To keep it simple:
“Neurodiverse” describes groups that include both neurodivergent and neurotypical people – you may find it helpful to think that “neurodiverse” includes everybody in the universe. “Neurodivergent” refers to individuals or groups of people whose brains work differently, for example, autistic people or those with ADHD or dyslexia.
As one participant put it, getting it wrong might just make a neurodivergent person want to hit you with a dictionary.
Aimee Grant receives funding from The Wellcome Trust and UKRI.
Jennifer Leigh is a co-director of LLB Inclusive Employment Ltd. She has received funding from UKRI and The Royal Society of Chemistry Diversity & Inclusion Fund.
Amy Pearson 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.
Israel’s top military prosecutor, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, was arrested recently in a case which further reveals the extent of mistreatment of Palestinian detainees and the impunity enjoyed by Israeli security forces. The arrest of Tomer-Yerushalmi, who was, until her resignation last week, Israel’s military advocate general, is the latest development in a dramatic scandal that has been unfolding since February 2024.
It started with a complaint filed by a doctor who had served in the medical facility next to the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Professor Yoel Donchin reported that a detainee appeared to have been an victim of a severe assault. The detainee arrived at the hospital showing signs of beating and possible brutal sexual assault.
Following Donchin’s report and a subsequent investigation, a group of reservists from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were arrested on suspicion of abusing the Palestinian. When Israeli military police arrived at Sde Teiman to detain the soldiers, protesters forced entry into the Sde Teiman camp in an attempt to stop the arrest. When that failed, rioters – including armed soldiers on active duty – attempted to break into the military police headquarters and free the arrested soldiers.
In some respects, this lack of accountability is consistent with what has long been Israel’s approach regarding violence towards Palestinians. Despite being a country apparently bound by the rule of law, cases in which Palestinians have been mistreated, abused, tortured and killed have rarely been addressed by the Israeli legal authorities. Soldiers and Shabak interrogators enjoy a de-facto impunity for committing crimes against Palestinians, including torture.
This effective impunity exists despite Israel having robust systems to ensure prosecutions. For example, the Ministry of Justice has a dedicated unit to address complaints against Shabak interrogators pertaining to allegations of torture. Yet, out of more than 1,450 complaints filed against Shabak interrogators between 1992 and early 2023, criminal investigations have been opened in just three cases. None have led to indictments.
We argue that these mechanisms of accountability were never primarily motivated by concerns with the rule of law. Nor were they about holding members of Israel’s security forces accountable for crimes committed against Palestinians. They were always mainly a facade, motivated, to a great extent, by an attempt to protect Israel and its security personnel from prosecutions in international courts.
The jurisdiction of international courts is limited by the principle of complementarity. This means that the International Criminal Court (ICC) can only intervene when complainants cannot get justice in domestic courts. By showing that it has an independent legal system to which Palestinians can turn, and which can potentially hold perpetrators accountable, Israel can protect its security personnel from charges by the ICC.
Nevertheless, our research into the use of torture by Israel has found evidence to suggest that this system – weak as it was in terms of accountability – actually did restrain Israeli interrogators.
The restraining effects of these accountability mechanisms became even clearer when they all but ceased to function after October 7 2023. For example, a study published in September, which examined complaints lodged by Palestinians with Israeli non-governmental organisations, found “diverse forms of reported violence that could potentially constitute torture”. Ample testimonies suggest what Israeli human rights group B’Tselem called a “rushed transformation of more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities, military and civilian, into a network of camps dedicated to the abuse of inmates as a matter of policy”.
The loosening of the reins since October 2023 can be explained, to a large extent, by the Hamas attack itself. The viciousness of the attack was perceived by many in Israel as changing the rules. In the eyes of many Israelis, it legitimised a response which is unconstrained by domestic or international law.
A Palestinian doctor talks about the abuse he was subjected to while in Israeli custody.
But this process began prior to Hamas’ attack. Israel’s legal mechanisms of accountability had already been weakened on the eve of October of 2023. This is due, in large part, to the judicial overhaul which was launched by the current Israeli government in January of that year.
From the moment the Netanyahu government assumed power at the end of 2022, it has done all it could to dismantle the independence of the Israeli judicial system. Its targeting of the judiciary was driven, in no small part, by the wish to remove anything that could stand in the way of expanding settlements, exercising harsher violence against Palestinians and, ultimately, annexing the West Bank.
The targeting of this system has eroded its ability to withstand pressures. It has effectively left it unable to investigate war crimes and press charges against security personnel. The demise of this system played a central part in unleashing the unprecedented levels of Israeli violence against Palestinians witnessed over the past two years.
Finding a scapegoat
It’s against this backdrop that the resignation and arrest of Tomer-Yerushalmi can be understood as part of the bigger story of the seminal change in Israel’s approach towards accountability.
When word got out in July of last year that she was planning to press charges against those responsible for the assault on the detainee in Sde Teiman, the military lawyer was attacked by the government and its supporters. She was painted as a traitor by ministers and in the right-wing media. Regular demonstrations were held outside her home and, worse, she was assaulted by proponents of the accused soldiers on the streets. Security around her had to be tightened after she started receiving death threats.
Trying to protect herself and her team from these attacks, Tomer-Yerushalmi leaked CCTV footage of the assault in Sde Teiman to the press. In her resignation letter, she wrote that she authorised the leak in an attempt to counter the false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities.
She told a meeting of the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee that investigating allegations of abuse of this nature was a show of strength rather than of weakness. The independence of the military justice system was, she said, “essential to the state’s arguments in international tribunals”. She added: “There are countries for which the question of whether they sell and supply us with munitions is [determined by] whether we investigate when we receive a complaint.”
She seems to believe that Israel’s legal system must be seen to act when it encounters cases as severe as this. But in Israel after October 7 this appears no longer to be the case. As the response by Netanyahu and other ministers suggest, Israel is no longer interested in maintaining even this facade of accountability.
The leaked video prompted public outrage. But the government has managed to shift the focus away from the alleged atrocities the soldiers committed and onto the leaking of the footage. Netanyahu called this “perhaps the most severe propaganda attack against the State of Israel” in its history”.
The official allegations against Tomer-Yerushalmi include tempering with the committee set to investigate the link, and providing a false statement to Israel’s High Court of Justice concerning the affair. But even before the video was leaked – and well before Tomer-Yerushalmi was revealed as the leaker – Netanyahu’s far-right government colleagues were attacking the investigation itself.
Minister of national security Itamar Ben Gvir called it “shameful” and demanded “a full backing for our hero soldiers”. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called the abuse allegations “blood libels against the State of Israel” – a reference to antisemitic lies told about Jewish practices in medieval Europe.
It seems, then, that Tomer-Yerushalmi is being targeted not for the offences she is now investigated for. She is rather attacked for one of the very few cases in which she decided to act in accordance with her role.
The tribulations of the first woman to ever serve as the military’s most senior lawyer must therefore be understood as part of a broader story. This is about the Netanyahu goverment’s efforts to rid Israel of its mechanisms of accountability while also bringing the judiciary under executive control.
In the meantime, the victim of this gruesome assault is still suffering from its aftermath. His injuries have left him with several medical complications and permanently disabled. He was released back to Gaza in the last hostage deal. He was not asked to provide his testimony prior to his release.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Susannah Fisher, Principal Research Fellow, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, UCL
People travel by boat to shop along flooded streets in the district of Satkhira, in southern Bangladesh, after months of heavy rain. DFID / Rafiqur Rahman Raqu, CC BY-NC-ND
Countries around the world are facing worsening heatwaves, hurricanes, droughts and floods. If current trends continue, governments need to prepare for a much hotter world with a predicted increase in global temperatures of at least 2°C, possibly up to 3°C.
I am a researcher working on tracking progress on adaptation and author of Sink or Swim, a new book that explores the hard choices ahead to adapt to climate change. Adaptation measures aim to reduce the risks from climate change by, for example, building defences to protect from flooding or upgrading road surfaces to manage higher temperatures. These measures differ around the world.
Bangladesh: building early warning systems
With its low-lying coastal land, Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. It is also a global leader in adaptation. For example, the government set up early warning systems that help it spot cyclones much earlier and communicate this information to local groups.
Tuvalu, an island nation in the Pacific, faces sea-level rise, increased flooding and the salination of water supplies. The government is investing in land reclamation to keep some of the low-lying land above the water.
They have also signed a migration agreement with neighbouring Australia, although the Tuvaluan government has recently repeated that they do not plan to leave the island. But the slow progress on emission reductions puts them at risk of severe flooding making life increasingly difficult.
The UK has an independent body (the Climate Change Committee) that reports to the government on progress. Its latest report found that implementation of adaptation was inadequate.
Some countries, such as Kenya, have developed channels to devolve decisions to local committees that can allocate money to adaptation projects that meet their priorities. Allowing local people to prioritise what is most important to them is hard to do, but is a key way of making adaptation relevant to people’s lives.
But not all impacts of climate change can be managed through local action alone. To manage impacts past 2 degrees people may need support with new approaches. For example, shifting to new crop varieties or transitioning away from agriculture.
Australia: high costs and military support
Australia is at risk from flooding, extreme heat and bushfires. The Climate Council estimate that one in every 25 properties will be at high risk of disasters and uninsurable by 2030, most of these for flooding of rivers.
As well as the high costs of disasters, Australia has also deployed its defence force to respond. Some argue this spreads them too thin, meaning they can’t focus on their core job of defence. Australia just released a national adaptation plan and this makes clear that the future might involve climate-related relocation and agricultural producers needing to move.
Australian bushfires are fuelled by wind and extreme heat. Toa55/Shutterstock
Sink or swim?
Countries are making important progress on adaptation by installing early warning systems and setting up the institutions needed to channel money to local people and to monitor national progress. Bangladesh, Tuvalu and Kenya are leading the way. But even in these places, most adaptation action does not go far enough to manage the escalating impacts coming our way.
The world needs to stop burning fossil fuels. This is the only way to stop further damage and make it possible to adapt. While we are doing what we can to limit any further warming, nations also need to plan for the future we are currently heading towards.
Countries need a new approach to adaptation that goes beyond tweaking current institutions and practices to one that helps people imagine and create new futures where they can thrive, even in 2-3°C warming. This will mean big shifts in how people earn a living, the role of the military, where people live, and where and how we grow food. It is only by facing up to this new reality, that we will find a way to “swim” in the climate-changed world.
This article features a reference to a book that has been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on the link and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
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Susannah Fisher currently receives funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). She has received grant funding from DFID/FCDO, GIZ and the Mary Robinson Foundation. She has undertaken short-term consultancy for IIED, GGGI, QCF, CIFF, FILE, the Adaptation Fund, the World Bank, the OECD and the CIF Transformative Change Learning Partnership . She is on the Advisory Group of the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance.
Colostrum is often called “liquid gold” by lactation specialists, midwives and infant-health researchers. It’s the early milk produced in the first days after childbirth: thick, yellow and rich in antibodies, proteins and nutrients.
Newborn babies benefit greatly from it because their immune systems are not yet fully developed and their stomachs can only hold very small amounts. For babies, there’s no debate: colostrum is incredibly beneficial.
But some wellness brands are marketing colostrum to adults. Kourtney Kardashian Barker’s Lemme range sells it as sweet gummies and as a sugar-free liquid supplement and creamer.
The appeal is easy to understand. Colostrum has a powerful reputation in infant health. If it protects newborns, many assume it must offer something extraordinary for adults too – but does it?
Babies and adults have very different nutritional needs. A newborn’s stomach holds only a few millilitres, and their immune system is immature. Colostrum provides highly concentrated immune and nutritional factors that the baby needs in its first days of life.
Adults, by contrast, have fully developed digestive and immune systems and can obtain nutrients from a varied diet. An adult stomach holds around one to one-and-a-half litres and expands further after eating. What is essential for a baby is not automatically useful or necessary for an adult body.
While colostrum has undeniable benefits in early life, the versions sold to adults are processed, flavoured and taken in much smaller amounts. That’s why it’s important to look closely at what these products contain and what their marketing suggests they can do.
Colostrum-based supplements are often promoted using persuasive wellness language and health-related suggestions, but scientific evidence for their effectiveness in adults remains limited, early and often based on small studies involving specific groups rather than healthy people. Here’s a closer look at the ideas behind some of these marketing messages and what research actually tells us.
Gut health, digestion and reduced bloating
Some small studies suggest that bovine colostrum might reduce temporary increases in intestinal permeability, sometimes called “leaky gut”, where the lining of the intestine becomes less effective at keeping out bacteria and toxins. These changes can occur after intense exercise or when taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medicines, drugs that can irritate the stomach and gut lining.
However, these studies involved only a small number of participants in specific contexts, not healthy adults in everyday life. The findings are considered preliminary and would require larger, well-designed clinical trials before any conclusions could be drawn about general digestive benefits.
The prebiotic fibres inulin and xylooligosaccharides, sometimes added to supplements, are much better studied. Inulin has been shown to increase levels of beneficial gut bacteria such as bifidobacteria, while xylooligosaccharides have been linked to greater bacterial diversity and small improvements in markers related to bowel health, obesity and type 2 diabetes in early research.
But these fibres are not unique to colostrum-based products. They also occur naturally in foods such as onions, garlic, leeks, bananas and chicory root and are widely available as standalone fibre supplements.
Immune system support
Colostrum helps newborns develop immunity by providing antibodies at a time when their immune systems are still forming. This does not mean that taking colostrum will strengthen a healthy adult’s immune system.
The idea of “boosting” immunity – a phrase used in promotional material for Kardashian Barker’s Lemme colostrum supplements – is common in wellness marketing, but it can be misleading. A healthy immune system doesn’t usually need boosting, and an overactive one can cause harm by attacking the body’s own tissues, as happens in autoimmune conditions such as type 1 diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis.
Some research has explored the potential of bovine colostrum in specific conditions, such as ulcerative colitis and travellers’ diarrhoea. But these studies are small, focus on people who are already unwell and cannot be generalised to the wider population. Anyone with health concerns should seek medical advice before taking any supplement.
In Lemme’s products, references to immune support appear to rely primarily on vitamin D. Vitamin D does help regulate the immune system and supports bone health, and low levels are common in winter or in people with limited sunlight exposure. However, vitamin D is inexpensive and widely available as a standalone supplement.
This is a broad phrase without a specific scientific definition. On the Lemme website, the company states that vitamin D supports healthy bones and teeth, which is accurate, but that benefit is not unique to its colostrum products.
“Glowing skin”
This phrase has appeared in some advertising coverage but not on the official product page. “Glowing skin” has no clinical definition and no standard method of measurement. There’s currently no evidence that colostrum, or any of the ingredients in these supplements, produces this effect.
How language influences trust
Lemme’s website includes the standard disclaimer found on most dietary supplements, stating that the products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.
The brand also describes its ingredients as “clinically studied.” This is not the same as “clinically proven.” The phrase typically means that an ingredient has been tested in some form of study, but it does not indicate whether the results were positive, significant or relevant to human health.
Colostrum is extraordinary for newborns. Nature designed it to protect babies during their most vulnerable days. For adults, however, there is no strong evidence from large, well-designed trials that colostrum supplements improve skin, digestion or immunity in healthy individuals. Some ingredients in these products may show potential in specific medical conditions, but that is not the same as demonstrating general wellness effects.
Colostrum supplements primarily market the idea of something pure, powerful and natural. At present, the science does not fully support these suggestions.
Rachel Woods 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael Collins, Reader in American Studies and Chair of The British Association for American Studies, King’s College London
For legal reasons, David Adjmi and Will Butler’s play is absolutely not about the recording of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours. But like that famous album, it is a dizzying amalgamation of influences, mercurial talents and creativity that sits among the defining achievements of its generation. And like Fleetwood Mac, too, it is hard to pinpoint precisely what witchy alchemy makes Stereophonic work so well.
Suffice it to say that it does. The play is a masterpiece. A must-see by all accounts. The legendary 13 Tony Award nominations and smash-hit period on Broadway, followed by doubly-extended runs in London’s West End (where I saw it) are fully deserved.
The play follows a group of musicians in their recording studio in late-1970s California putting together an album that, once again, is expressly not Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. For a play that is about a band on the verge of titanic artistic, critical and popular success, the principal theme of the work is failure. Or rather, how to learn and grow from it: how to cut a great track; when to cut and run from a toxic relationship; what to keep or cut from our chequered lives so that we can carry on living.
Some of their rock-star lives seem like a lot of fun, but this really is play about work. The work of music and the work of life itself. Sure, the office might not be cubicles and water coolers. It is more like chez longues and gigantic communal bags of the cocaine (probably the hardest working prop currently on the London stage). Yet this is office politics all the same.
Writer Adjmi’s brilliance is that, for all their rockstar antics, the band in Stereophonic are genuinely labouring for the execution of their vision. At the expense of the health and wellbeing. The beleaguered recording engineer, Grover (Eli Gelb), is in almost every scene working tirelessly at the recording desk. He is the Sisyphus of the soundcheck.
A trailer for Stereophonic.
The physical mass of the recording desk placed centre stage takes up much of the space typically reserved for the cast. They teeter tipsily around it. It recalls the omnipresence of the tape recorder driving Samuel Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), a work with which Stereophonic has a surprising amount in common. Like Beckett, Adjmi is using recording technology to ruminate on the problem of time, which is where the play transcends its immediate setting and becomes most salient and meaningful.
The stage is split in half with upstage placed behind a glass screen. We can sometimes hear behind it and sometimes cannot. It is a wall. But it is also a stage of its own on which the characters perform. As a metaphor, the staging stands for how in their relentless rock theatricality the characters can’t always communicate. It asks, when does image or spectacle overtake the truth art seeks to reveal to the world?
All this (70s rock bands, heaps of cocaine, beige upholstery, unimpeded sexual license) could be put down to our cultural moment’s obsession with nostalgia – a sign of our being stuck politically and socially. But that would be to miss the point of Stereophonic wholly.
The London theatre scene is awash with jukebox musicals with ropey plots built around forcing famous songs into some weak narrative. These are mostly not musicals so much as tribute acts forced to do skits. Stereophonic channels the nostalgia in a different direction. The songs are not actual Fleetwood Mac songs – but so good is Will Butler’s (of Arcade Fire) score that they could be.
Some of the performances (really performed live by the actors) just soar. This is a nostalgia that does not dwell in the past alone but is pointing forward. It is more like what the late, great critical theorist (following Jacques Derrida) Mark Fisher called “hauntology”.
As the characters disappear from downstage to appear behind the glass wall of the recording booth, this ghostliness is referenced directly. The recording booth makes the actors unreachable. But so does fame and the process of becoming legend. When one of them speaks into the mic it is like someone communicating through the void from the other side.
What makes classic rock so appealing, and such a great subject for a play, is partly the bildungsroman (fiction focused on the growth and development of young people) and crisis central to its story. It’s almost religious. There was no autotuning available to them. There’s no possibility of endlessly recording and recording over. They try to do this, but there are material limits to their endeavours. They have to get it right.
Adjmi’s script suggests that magnetic tape and goodwill can, like a record label’s patience, like our youth itself, run out suddenly and painfully. One day all this hedonism and earthly pleasure will end for them. As it will for us all.
When the label gives the band more time half way through, it is like they have been granted immortality or a stay of execution. Adjmi manages to make the whole enterprise feel as high stakes as a family tragedy.
Indeed, family (found or otherwise) looms large in the minds of the musicians. Singer Holly and bassist Reg’s marriage is breaking down, drummer Simon misses the kids he has neglected for a year recording and boozing in Los Angeles, singer and guitarist Peter reveals the origin of his perfectionism in a conflict with his Olympic-swimmer brother.
The script works by transforming the musicians’ meaningless, very stoned, profusions of words into moments of sudden beauty and clarity. Their druggy murmurings come suddenly to resemble a stunning lyrical murmuration of form and idea.
This technique replays in microcosm the play’s engagement with the surprising human process of discovery and, let’s call it, genius, that happens within the fold of limited mortal time. This is not just a play about rock. It is so much more.
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Michael Collins 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Valdemar Brimnes Ingemann Johansen, PhD Fellow in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen
For decades, we’ve been told that weight loss is a matter of willpower: eat less, move more. But modern science has proven this isn’t actually the case.
More on that in a moment. But first, let’s go back a few hundred thousand years to examine our early human ancestors. Because we can blame a lot of the difficulty we have with weight loss today on our predecessors of the past – maybe the ultimate case of blame the parents.
For our early ancestors, body fat was a lifeline: too little could mean starvation, too much could slow you down. Over time, the human body became remarkably good at guarding its energy reserves through complex biological defences wired into the brain. But in a world where food is everywhere and movement is optional, those same systems that once helped us survive uncertainty now make it difficult to lose weight.
When someone loses weight, the body reacts as if it were a threat to survival. Hunger hormones surge, food cravings intensify and energy expenditure drops. These adaptations evolved to optimise energy storage and usage in environments with fluctuating food availability. But today, with our easy access to cheap, calorie-dense junk food and sedentary routines, those same adaptations that once helped us to survive can cause us a few issues.
As we found in our recent research, our brains also have powerful mechanisms for defending body weight – and can sort of “remember” what that weight used to be. For our ancient ancestors, this meant that if weight was lost in hard times, their bodies would be able to “get back” to their usual weight during better times.
But for us modern humans, it means that our brains and bodies remember any excess weight gain as though our survival and lives depend upon it. So in effect, once the body has been heavier, the brain comes to treat that higher weight as the new normal – a level it feels compelled to defend.
The fact that our bodies have this capacity to “remember” our previous heavier weight helps to explain why so many people regain weight after dieting. But as the science shows, this weight regain is not due to a lack of discipline; rather, our biology is doing exactly what it evolved to do: defend against weight loss.
But not everyone responds well to such drugs. For some, the side effects can make them difficult to stick with, and for others, the drugs don’t seem to lead to weight loss at all. It’s also often the case that once treatment stops, biology reasserts itself – and the lost weight returns.
Advances in obesity and metabolism research may mean that it’s possible for future therapies to be able to turn down these signals that drive the body back to its original weight, even beyond the treatment period.
Research is also showing that good health isn’t the same thing as “a good weight”. As in, exercise, good sleep, balanced nutrition, and mental wellbeing can all improve heart and metabolic health, even if the number on the scales barely moves.
A whole society approach
Of course, obesity isn’t just an individual problem – it takes a society-wide approach to truly tackle the root causes. And research suggests that a number of preventative measures might make a difference – things such as investing in healthier school meals, reducing the marketing of junk food to children, designing neighbourhoods where walking and cycling are prioritised over cars, and restaurants having standardised food portions.
Scientists are also paying close attention to key early-life stages – from pregnancy to around the age of seven – when a child’s weight regulation system is particularly malleable.
If you’re looking to lose weight, there are still things you can do – mainly by focusing less on crash diets and more on sustainable habits that support overall wellbeing. Prioritising sleep helps regulate appetite, for example, while regular activity – even walking – can improve your blood sugar levels and heart health.
The bottom line though is that obesity is not a personal failure, but rather a biological condition shaped by our brains, our genes, and the environments we live in. The good news is that advances in neuroscience and pharmacology are offering new opportunities in terms of treatments, while prevention strategies can shift the landscape for future generations.
So if you’ve struggled to lose weight and keep it off, know that you’re not alone, and it’s not your fault. The brain is a formidable opponent. But with science, medicine and smarter policies, we’re beginning to change the rules of the game.
This article was commissioned by Videnskab.dk as part of a partnership collaboration with The Conversation. You can read the Danish version of this article, here.
Valdemar Brimnes Ingemann Johansen’s PhD studies are funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research.
Christoffer Clemmensen is a co-founder of Ousia Pharma, a biotech company developing therapeutics for obesity. He receives funding for his University research from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, Independent Research Fund Denmark, Innovation Fund Denmark. the European Research Council, the BioInnovation Institute.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anne Irfan, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Race, Gender and Postcolonial Studies, UCL
The great Palestinian revolt, which began in 1936 and lasted three years, was a pivotal event in the modern history of both the Middle East and the British empire.
Often considered the biggest popular uprising in Palestinian history, it had far-reaching ramifications for Palestinian nationalism, Zionism and British colonialism. Despite this significance, it is typically absent from official accounts of British history. Few Britons today are aware of it.
In her latest film, Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir powerfully shows why this episode in history is so significant. The depiction of the revolt in Palestine 36 helps illuminate events in modern-day Palestine, including Israel’s recent assault on Gaza, which a UN human rights council commission of inquiry said amounts to genocide.
By 1936, the British had occupied Palestine for 18 years. The British army had first entered the country in 1917, the same year the British government declared its support for the Zionist movement’s campaign for a Jewish state in Palestine in the Balfour Declaration.
Five years later, Britain was granted a mandate to govern Palestine by the League of Nations, precursor to the UN. The text of the mandate incorporated the Balfour declaration, making the creation of a Jewish state part of its objectives. For this purpose, the British regime empowered a Zionist organisation subsequently known as the Jewish Agency and supported large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine.
Unsurprisingly, these policies caused rising tensions with the Palestinians, whose own nationalist movement had been growing during the later years of the Ottoman empire that had previously ruled the country. By the 1930s, Palestinians were increasingly concerned about Zionist state-building and settlements in the country.
In 1936, the newly formed Arab Higher Committee called for a general strike. It was widely observed across the country and brought much of the economy to a standstill. Palestine 36 depicts the impact of the strike and the subsequent armed uprising in rural villages, alongside political debates among Palestinian elites in Jerusalem. We also see the brutal British repression of the uprising, as the mandate regime imports ruthless counterinsurgency tactics from elsewhere in the empire, including India and Ireland.
The film, which was selected as Palestine’s entry for the Academy Awards, intersperses archival footage with dramatised scenes by an ensemble cast. Real historical figures like Charles Tegart (Liam Cunningham) and Orde Wingate (Robert Aramayo) are depicted alongside fictionalised characters.
Yusuf (Karim Daoud Anaya) is a villager who begins working in Jerusalem and becomes politicised as he witnesses colonial machinations close up. Kholoud (Yasmine Al Massri) is a journalist and nationalist who writes under the pen name Ahmed Canaani. Kholoud’s husband Amir (Dhafer L’Abidine) colludes with the Jewish Agency (called the Zionist Commission) in the film while professing outward support for the Palestinian national cause.
One of the film’s most instructive elements is its clear depiction of the British mandate’s operations. The regime laid many of the foundations for the Israeli state, but has often avoided culpability in contemporary conversations.
In Palestine 36, we see the regime’s brutality alongside its contradictions and double standards. British officers violate Palestinian property while serving an empire that otherwise venerates ideals of private ownership. The mandate regime condemns Palestinian militancy while drawing its own power from deploying violence with impunity.
Early on, a British official implores Palestinian villagers to acquiesce to a new land registration system or risk losing everything. Nearly a century on – as Palestinians face similar pressures to comply with foreign demands – the viewer knows that acquiescence will provide no real protection.
It is one of many long-term continuities shown in the film, and Jacir largely avoids heavy handedness in how she depicts them. Wingate’s typically colonial tactics, including the designation of Palestinian villages as “good” or “bad”, the endorsement of collective punishment and disproportionate retaliation, and the control of movement via transit permits, checkpoints and curfews, are all practices that the Israeli state continues to deploy today.
Scenes showing Palestinians being incarcerated behind barbed wire and denied water will inevitably remind viewers of contemporary testimonies from Gaza and the Sde Teiman detention camp.
At the same time, many of the Palestinian slogans and symbols from 1936 remain resonant. The film depicts protesters chanting “Palestine is not for sale” outside the office of High Commissioner Wauchope (Jeremy Irons). And later on, Kholoud discusses the British ban on the keffiyeh (the traditional headdress made from a chequered scarf, which has become a symbol of Palestinian resistence). This was a move replicated by institutions in the US, Germany and Australia in the 2020s.
At the same time, the portrayal of Palestine before the establishment of Israel is an important rejoinder to ongoing denials of Palestinian national history. Jacir’s film shows a Palestine characterised by widespread agricultural village life before what is known as the Nakba forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into overcrowded and urbanised refugee camps.
Palestine 36 doesn’t shy away from the internal divisions of Palestinian society. The Jerusalem elites condescend to the fellahin (farmers), represented by Yusuf. Amir happily collaborates with the Zionist leadership in the hope of becoming mayor.
The film closes with continuing Palestinian insurrection, juxtaposed with intensifying British brutality. The informed viewer will know that by the end of the revolt, mandate repression had executed, wounded, imprisoned or expelled one in ten Palestinian men.
The fallout would have fatal repercussions for the Palestinians a decade later. As such, it is incomplete to survey Palestinian history since 1948 without taking account of the pivotal events of 1936. It’s a far too common oversight that Jacir’s film goes a long way to correcting.
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Anne Irfan 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.
