Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Madeleine Pownall, Associate Professor in Psychology , University of Leeds

In the US state park of Robbers Cave, Oklahoma, Carolyn Wood Sherif is standing squinting up at the sun. The two wooden cabins before her rattle with shrieks and cries from excited 11-year-old boys. They have been split into two groups of 11 and encouraged to bond.

Over three long, laborious weeks in the summer of 1954, Wood Sherif watches as these boys become enthusiastically dedicated to their allocated groups. When instructed to compete for resources, they grow hostile towards their opponents. The experiment descends into inter-group violence and aggression.

This research was among the first naturalistic psychological studies to show how group formation can lead to prejudice and intense conflict. It is considered a classic study upon which the subdiscipline of social psychology – how mind and behaviour are influenced by the presence of other people – was born. Wood Sherif should have made her academic career from it.

But in many ways, scientific research is a culture, a club. There are people with the power to warmly invite others to participate, and others who are intentionally kept out. Many female scientists have suffered because of this power imbalance.

‘A wife helping her husband’

Wood Sherif ran the Robbers Cave study with her longstanding collaborator, colleague and husband, Muzafer Sherif. Yet while he enjoyed an illustrious career, her intellectual contributions to social psychology were literally written out of the historical record.

Wood started working as Sherif’s research assistant in 1944. At the time, his department at Princeton University did not allow women to be faculty members or graduate students, but he had the power to make an exception. They married a year later.

The pair collaborated extensively for over a decade. Wood Sherif was often the driving force behind their research, yet her scientific writing was often attributed solely to her husband. Wood Sherif’s name was removed from academic papers when they were circulated. “I was seen as a wife helping her husband,” she later recalled.

After her husband was awarded the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1968, Wood Sherif began to realise that social psychology might never welcome her in the same way. She joined the American women’s movement, a national campaign for legal, social and political gender equality. This connected her with more women in her discipline who were having similar frustrated experiences. Finally, Wood Sherif found a welcoming academic home.

She turned her focus sharply to identifying and exposing the presence of bias in psychology. Her core thesis was that it was flawed because most research was based on men’s experiences and treated male behaviour as the “normal” standard, leading to distorted and damaging views of women.

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This series is dedicated to lesser-known, highly influential scientists who have had a powerful influence on the careers and research paths of many others, including the authors of these articles.

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In 1979, Wood Sherif wrote my favourite psychological paper of all time. The paper, titled Bias in Psychology, offered a demolition job of psychological science over 16 glorious pages.

She warned that psychologists had gone awry by attempting to mimic the methodologies of the “hard sciences”, such as physics and chemistry, without first considering how these standards did not naturally apply to the scientific study of human beings in context.

Wood Sherif argued that people should be studied within their social context. She criticised psychologists for reducing complex human experiences into compartmentalised units that might have been easier to study, but were disconnected from real life.

She explicitly rejected the discipline’s reliance on experimental methods. Rather, she implored her peers to embrace the messy human aspects of their work in order for it to be useful, writing:

What goes on in our laboratories, clinics and classrooms must be seen for what it is: cultural phenomena and events where we can learn about individuals, provided we understand the times and the larger societies of which they are parts.

Wood Sherif set the agenda for a new, critical subdiscipline: feminist psychology. This includes analyses of how gender shapes both our experiences as people and the work we do as psychologists. Longstanding male bias in psychology has served as its manifesto.

As she pivoted away from social psychology, Wood Sherif’s work became funny, personal and prophetic. In their 1998 reappraisal of her seminal 1979 paper, psychologists Rhoda Unger and Arnold Kahn noted how her writing “provokes and excites as well as amuses”.

Sadly, this writing was also largely ignored. Cited predominately by feminist scholars, it never gained the discipline-wide impact it deserved.

The story of Wood Sherif, and psychology’s longstanding rejection of her work, has had a powerful impact on me. She helped me understand that we cannot evaluate the state of our science without first evaluating who is welcome within it. This is the crux of my own research, which I categorise as “feminist metascience”.

The garden of forking paths

Wood Sherif died in 1982 aged 60, but her ideas are arguably more relevant now than ever. Following widespread concerns about the replicability of psychological research in the 2010s, many psychologists are realising their research may be less objective than was previously believed.

Issues such as confirmation bias and the “garden of forking paths” (the many flexible decisions researchers make during analysis that can produce misleading results) are receiving widespread attention.

But while psychology is now in an era of science reform, there are two parallel conversations going on – by those who continue to insist upon reproducibility to strengthen psychological research, and those trying to reform the science as communal, compassionate and open to issues of bias.

The latter approach has been championed by a new generation of women in the discipline. They are forced to repeat the same critiques Wood Sherif made decades ago, because her warnings about bias and objectivity were not heeded.

There are, of course, many other examples of women’s contributions being written out of the scientific record. As I document in my new book Absent Minds: The Untold Story of the Women who Changed Psychology Forever, women have time and again been relegated to supporting roles as wives, secretaries or assistants of scientists, rather than scholars in their own right.

There is one, simple, enduring lesson that stories like Wood Sherif’s tell us: listen to women.

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This article features a reference to a book included for editorial reasons, and a link to bookshop.org. If you click on this link and go on to buy something from bookshop.org, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Madeleine Pownall 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. She is the author of Absent Minds: The Untold Story of the Women who Changed Psychology Forever (Headline).

– ref. My unsung hero of science: Carolyn Wood Sherif, pioneer of feminist psychology who foresaw the risks of scientific bias – https://theconversation.com/my-unsung-hero-of-science-carolyn-wood-sherif-pioneer-of-feminist-psychology-who-foresaw-the-risks-of-scientific-bias-282752

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Harnesk, Associate Professor, Sustainability Science, Lund University

Political debates about the future of forests in Sweden and the EU are reaching an impasse. Producing more wood comes at the expense of nature and the storage of carbon within trees and soils. Conserving and restoring more forests may limit commercial wood production.

But it is important for both economists and conservationists to recognise how these forests support reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus). This species evolved in conjunction with the natural dynamics of boreal forest ecosystems in northern Fennoscandia – an area covering the Scandinavian peninsula, mainland Finland, Karelia and the Kola peninsula.

Boreal forests are coniferous woodlands that encompass most of the northern regions of the planet. These cold regions tend to be scarcely populated.

In northern Sweden, boreal forests play a critical role in the livelihoods and cultural practices of the Indigenous Sámi people, especially reindeer pastoralism. Sámi reindeer-herding communities hold grazing, customary and Indigenous rights to these forests and other areas.

Reindeer herders and their herds are usually divided into winter groups to graze with their herds as efficiently as possible. While each Sámi reindeer herding community has its own ecological conditions and decision-making processes, intact boreal forest ecosystems enable reindeer to survive snow periods when food sources are in short supply.

The wellbeing of reindeer that evolved in northern Fennoscandia is linked to the health of boreal forests. Ground lichens and hanging-tree lichens are a major part of reindeer’s winter diet. These lichens thrive in forests associated with a high influx of light and limited availability of nutrients that the northern climate and recurring forest fires have historically created.

Forest degradation

But in northern Fennoscandia, about 90% of forests have been managed – mostly by a few state and private organisations – using rotation forestry to increase wood production. This involves cutting down almost all trees in an area, intensely disturbing the soil, then replanting trees close together. This has radically transformed these forest landscapes since the 1950s.

While increasing wood production, intact boreal forests and the valuable ecosystems associated with them have been lost. There are also now fewer forest fires. This results in dense, young forests that don’t support healthy growth of lichen and movement of reindeer herds.

When food is scarce and fragmented, the wellbeing of reindeer is threatened. The 71% decline in the area of lichen-abundant forests over the last 60 years is compounded by climate change. The increased rainfall on snow, for example, contributes to the creation of ice formations that block reindeer from accessing the remaining ground lichens.

This has consequences for Sámi reindeer herding communities. Their workloads get more intense and they have to resort to emergency feeding of (grain-based) reindeer feed in corrals.

As economists and conservationists argue about production versus restoration and conservation, the wellbeing of reindeer and its importance for Sámi livelihoods and cultural practices is being neglected. Meanwhile, the situation for reindeer will get even worse unless forests are managed in ways that support reindeer.

Production, restoration and conservation

EU-initiatives like the nature restoration law (including legally binding targets for restoring degraded ecosystems) and regulation on land use, land use change and forestry (including carbon-removal targets) could help reverse this trend.

My colleagues and I recently showed how those EU-initiatives align with the wellbeing of reindeer, and that working in tandem with reindeer herders could deliver multiple benefits.

Forest restoration that supports the wellbeing of reindeer includes well-planned, high-intensity thinning of trees to “open up” dense forests. Removing logging residues, such as twigs and branches, can further support ground lichen growth.

Prescribed burning to deplete nutrients followed up with manual scattering of lichen fragments (so called lichen transplantation) can restore lichen-rich, open forests. The large-scale removal of dense areas of non-native lodgepole pine trees that limit grazing and movement of reindeer herds is also critical.

Restoration efforts like these can be rolled out across managed forests to accommodate reindeer pastoralism while maintaining wood production.

Forest conservation efforts include protection schemes that connect fragmented lichen-rich areas. Such old, natural forests support biodiversity and store much more carbon than managed forests.

But conservation schemes must be flexible enough to allow for continued use by Sámi reindeer herders and allow for the thinning of areas that have become too dense for grazing.

Reindeer depend on intact boreal forests. Sámi reindeer herders hold rights to these lands and have specialist knowledge about reindeer. They know where and how to restore degraded forests and conserve ecosystem values to support their wellbeing. Collaborating with Sámi reindeer herders in forest management is therefore critical. But success hinges on effectively involving Sámi reindeer herding communities and other reindeer herders.

David Harnesk has received government-funded research council grants from the Swedish Research Council, Formas, and NordForsk.

– ref. How reindeer herds, nature and Sámi culture can thrive when forests are restored across northern Europe – https://theconversation.com/how-reindeer-herds-nature-and-sami-culture-can-thrive-when-forests-are-restored-across-northern-europe-280187

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alan Ruddock, Associate Professor of Sport Physiology and Performance, Sheffield Hallam University

Sebastian Sawe ripped open a carbohydrate gel sachet and slurped it five minutes before the start of the 2026 London Marathon. Sixty minutes later, he inhaled another one before smashing through the two-hour marathon barrier.

Sawe might have been the first sub-two-hour marathon runner, but he’s certainly not the first to be powered by an energy gel. It’s estimated that over 70% of marathon runners use gels.

Long before energy gels were a thing, endurance athletes used all sorts of foods to fuel their athletic feats – from sugar lumps and coffee, to chocolate, beer, wine and even egg whites and brandy.

But from the 1970s scientists caught up with athletic practice. Research demonstrated that carbohydrates were effective in fuelling prolonged endurance exercise, with foods containing glucose and fructose (forms of sugar) proving to be the most effective fuels.

Thanks to decades of research, athletes today can use energy gels to provide fuel. These are precise, scientifically-calibrated carbohydrates in the form of maltodextrin and fructose blends encapsulated in a hydrogel.

But while these modern gels promise fast energy and improved performance, not all scientists are convinced they live up to the hype – and for many athletes, they come with uncomfortable side-effects.

So are gels really worth it, or should athletes stick to simpler, if less glamorous, sources of fuel?

Fuelling with energy gels

When we eat a meal, our bodies steadily breakdown the carbohydrates from food in the stomach. These carbohydrates are then gradually turned into glucose (simple sugar) in the blood.

Glucose is typically then transported to the muscles and liver where it’s stored as glycogen. This makes it easy for the body to access the stored energy when needed.

But our glycogen stores only last around 90 minutes before being depleted. Once it runs out, it can affect your performance. So many endurance athletes need to reach for carbs during long races and training runs to ensure they don’t run critically low on fuel.

In practical terms, energy gels offer a fast, convenient and concentrated source of carbohydrates that can be consumed mid-race without slowing down. Compared with whole foods, they’re easier to digest and more precisely dosed, helping runners maintain a steady energy supply.

However, this convenience comes at a cost. Gels can be expensive, some athletes find them unpalatable and they’re often associated with gastrointestinal discomfort – especially when taken in large amounts or without sufficient water.

Simpler options such as sports drinks or sugary foods may deliver similar energy, but typically lack the portability and precision that gels provide.

Research also shows there’s a lot of variation between available products. A survey of 31 gel product ranges (51 flavours total) across 23 brands found extreme variation in serving size, carbohydrate content, free sugars and especially osmolality (how concentrated a solution is). This has implications for how and when you should use gels and the effects they might have on your body.

Gels also may not really offer any additional benefits over other products, such as sports drinks.

A 2010 study found that gels and drinks deliver carbohydrates to the muscle at the same rate. This was later supported by a 2022 study which found drinks, gels and chews ingested were also no different in the benefits they conferred.

The only real advantage of using gels is their convenience, as they can be easily stored and consumed mid-run.

Gels may also have downsides. The most commonly reported issue is gastrointestinal distress, affecting around 10-20% of people according to one study.

Hydrogel drinks and products form gels in the stomach. The idea is that by encapsulating carbohydrates it helps to reduce the amount of water that crosses the intestinal barrier. This is supposed to prevent bloating and cramps. It’s also claimed that this enables more effective transport of carbs into the bloodstream.

But studies have not consistently shown better performance or less gastrointestinal distress compared with standard carbohydrates, even when calories are matched.

Concentrated gels make their way to small intestine but their sugar concentration is higher than surrounding blood and tissue so water is pulled into the gut. This may be why gels cause bloating and cramps if you don’t drink water alongside them.

How to use gels effectively

If your run is under 60 minutes, you probably don’t need gels.

If your run is 60-90 minutes or more, fuel before you feel empty. Aim for around 30-60g of carbs per hour.

Even if you don’t feel hungry, taking on small, regular amounts of carbohydrate – for example a few sips or a partial gel every 15–20 minutes – can help maintain energy levels before fatigue sets in

For very long races, you should aim for around 60-90g of carbs per hour. A mix of glucose and fructose appears to be most useful when intensity is high.

The most important thing is to test gels while training. Don’t use them for the first time on race day. This is to ensure your body can tolerate them and you know whether they effectively benefit your performance or not.

A small proportion of runners are much more prone to gastrointestinal issues, so if you experience this switching brands can make a big difference.

But if you find gels bother you no matter what, you could always reach for some of the foods endurance athletes used before gels were ever a thing – such as bread, fruit, sugar lumps, bananas, dates and rice cakes. Just make sure you practice with these in training as well to know how they work for your body.

While these foods work well when training at lower intensities, gels remain popular because they provide standardised dosing and are easy to consume at speed.

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

– ref. Energy gels: here’s what runners need to know – https://theconversation.com/energy-gels-heres-what-runners-need-to-know-281702

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

At 8.16am on August 10 2019, a post appeared on the online forum 4Chan: “[D]ont ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest. Screencap this.”

ABC News broke the story that financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had died in prison, 38 minutes later.

 4Chan is an anonymous forum with no fact-checking mechanisms, so it’s impossible to know who the anonymous poster was and how they knew. But the ambiguity over what happened to Epstein, and who knew what and when continues to fuel conspiracy theories – including, the QAnon conspiracy narrative that the world is run by an elite cabal of child sex traffickers.

Now, as the US Department of Justice has slowly released the information it has on Epstein in the Epstein files, these conspiracy theorists are saying: “We told you so.”

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Art Jipson, a sociologist at the University of Dayton in Ohio who researches social movements and extremism, explains what happened when a real-life criminal case collided with an online community built on conspiracy theories.

“Fringe spaces were already primed and focused on Epstein,” says Jipson. “I think his death did not create a narrative, it accelerated it.”

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from NBC News, CNN and ABC News.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

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

– ref. The conspiracy theorists who feel vindicated by the Epstein files – https://theconversation.com/the-conspiracy-theorists-who-feel-vindicated-by-the-epstein-files-282816

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alexandra Lourenço Dias, Camões Lecturer in Lusophone Studies, King’s College London

At first glance, these look like sketches – the kind artists make on the way to something more finished. But that expectation doesn’t quite hold. The drawings assert themselves: restless, unresolved, and often more direct than the paintings they eventually lead to. This is Story Line, the latest exhibition of Paula Rego at the Victoria Miro gallery in London.

Dame Paula Rego was born in Lisbon in 1935, grew up under the Estado Novo dictatorship and later moved to London to study at the Slade School of Fine Art. She spent most of her life in the UK, becoming a central figure in British art while continuing to draw deeply on Portuguese culture and politics.

In 2010, she was made a dame – an indication of just how influential her work had become in Britain. It’s through the work she produced over a lifetime that the exhibition’s title begins to take on its full meaning. Story Line might sound descriptive, but it is something more: a method. It tells visitors how Rego worked and how we are meant to look.

Rego is often seen as an artist of stories, with drawing as her medium. But the exhibition – and the book of the same title
that accompanies it, written by her son Nick Willing – pushes us to read those words more carefully. The “story” is something that happens in the line. In an interview with The White Review in 2011, Rego. said, “when you write your story … invention comes when you do a drawing”. The story, in her case, emerges through the drawing, rather than preceding it.

This is the central insight of the exhibition at Victoria Miro. Bringing together what is described as the most comprehensive display of Rego’s drawings to date, it reveals her first and foremost identity as a “drawrer” (her own word), someone who thinks with the hand.

Inside the exhibition

From early childhood sketches to late works made as a grandmother, the show traces a life in which drawing was foundational.

Walking through the gallery, this becomes immediately clear. The walls are filled with works on paper in graphite and ink, many of them small in scale. Some have never been shown before; others relate to larger paintings (though not always in any straightforward way).

What visitors see, above all, are spaces where meaning is being negotiated. A figure appears, shifts, repeats. A gesture is tried out, then pushed further. The line is exploratory. It expresses a tension at the heart of Rego’s practice: between narrative and form; between what is told and how it is drawn. And because it is a line – fragile, searching, sometimes tentative – the story remains open and unsettled.

That openness is particularly evident in the recurring scenes of women and girls that populate the exhibition. In one drawing, a figure kneels beside another in what might be care or coercion. In another, bodies gather in ambiguous domestic spaces, their relationships unclear. These are not images that resolve easily. Instead, they hover between tenderness and violence, intimacy and control.

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Read more:
Paula Rego: why the Portuguse artist’s work remains relevant in the fight for abortion rights

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Such ambiguity has long been recognised as central to Rego’s work. But here, stripped of the scale and theatricality of her large pastels, it feels more immediate. You see the hesitation in the line, the moment where an image might have gone another way. The “story” is in motion.

The exhibition also situates these drawings within a broader historical and social framework. Rego’s work repeatedly returns to questions of patriarchal, domestic and institutional power, but often through scenes that appear deceptively ordinary.

Drawing on sources as varied as fairy tales, theatre and personal memory, she constructs images in which roles are unstable and authority is constantly negotiated. In works such as her studies for The Maids (1987), the dynamics of obedience and rebellion unfold within familiar domestic settings, where control is never secure and identity feels performative.

Yet what Story Line reveals is that even these politically charged works are rooted in the same process of drawing as thinking. The line works through the problem, be it ethical, emotional or bodily, before it becomes an image we recognise. The vitrines containing sketchbooks make this process especially visible. Pages filled with repeated figures, shifting poses and tentative marks show how Rego’s images evolve.

In a cultural moment that often demands clarity of message and meaning, Rego’s work offers something else. It asks us to sit with uncertainty, to accept that understanding may come slowly, or not at all.

As the exhibition makes clear, the power of her work lies not in what it explains, but in what it sets in motion. By the end, what stays with you is not a single image, but a way of looking. Rego’s “story line” is something you follow tentatively and attentively as it unfolds.

As Willing writes in the book that accompanies the exhibition: “Paula’s work can stand on its own without words or context because every picture is a very good image in itself. One can allow its mysteries to wash over us.”

Story Line is at Victoria Miro, London until May 23 2026.

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

– ref. Paula Rego’s Story Line – an exhibition that invites exploration of the ambiguous narratives the Portuguese artist drew – https://theconversation.com/paula-regos-story-line-an-exhibition-that-invites-exploration-of-the-ambiguous-narratives-the-portuguese-artist-drew-282031

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lynsey Cowlishaw, PhD Candidate in History and Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London

In March 1603, Elizabeth I refused to go to bed. For days, she sat on cushions in her Richmond Palace chamber, silent and withdrawn, as her courtiers waited for the end. It’s a final moment that can be read not simply as the failing of her body, but as the last expression of a life defined by the quest for control.

Elizabeth’s vitality had been central to her image, so her retreat marked a striking change. The Venetian envoy Scaramelli and the courtiers John Clapham and Robert Carey describe her prolonged withdrawal from court, sleeplessness and rejection of food. Clapham noted that Elizabeth sat for six days without sleep and wanted to die.

I believe that Elizabeth I’s refusal to go to bed before her death was a deliberate final act, shaped by a lifetime of political strategy, emotional restraint and unresolved reckoning.

Elizabeth’s childhood shaped her formative need for survival. Shaped by a childhood of elite education and emotional neglect, her mother, Anne Boleyn, was killed by her father before Elizabeth turned three. It showed her the dangers of proximity, intimacy and marriage for women at court first-hand.

Ill-fated stepmothers followed. Overlooked and politically vulnerable, Elizabeth learned to observe and speak cautiously. Her position was precarious, and her survival depended less on any expectation of future rule than on careful navigation of court politics.

As historian Helen Castor has argued, these skills became central to her later authority. Indeed, her childhood friend and long-standing favourite Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, later recalled that Elizabeth told him at the age of eight that she would never marry. It’s a significant memory from the man most closely associated with her adult emotional life.

Having experienced the reputational risks of her scandalous association with Katherine Parr’s husband Thomas Seymour (who inappropriately pursued the teenage Elizabeth, sparking investigation and court testimony) she was imprisoned by her sister Mary I at the age of 15. She survived through sheer force of character as much as circumstance.

Elizabeth watched the rule of her elder sister, Mary I, the first English queen regnant. She used the underestimation they both faced in a political culture wary of female rule to study what worked, discard what did not, and quietly shape her own approach to power.

Female rulers in this period operated within a political system not designed for them. Evoking her motto semper eadem (always the same), Elizabeth ruled through strict control of her image. She cultivated the “Virgin Queen” persona, carefully managed her access and intimacy, and used courtship strategically. Writing after her death, the philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon characterised Elizabeth as “herself her own mistress”.

Further crises, from would-be assassins, to a bout of smallpox, to the threat of the Spanish Armada, reinforced the demands of rule. By the end of her life, the cost of longevity had begun to show. Ordering the execution of her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587 has long been understood as a moment of immense personal and political weight.

We may never know whether Elizabeth’s alleged final exclamations of innocence over her first cousin’s death were expressions of genuine emotion or acts of political performance. In a world where people believed in eternal judgment, it seems plausible that such dying protestations were intended to convince both herself and anyone within earshot.

The cost of rule

Elizabeth’s treatment of other rival claimants to the throne and kinswomen reflects the fragility of dynastic security and the ruthlessness required to maintain it.

Elizabeth sustained an unmatched attachment to Dudley, but the political realities of her position meant that such a relationship could not be fully realised.

At the deathbed of her closest lifetime advisor, William Cecil, Elizabeth uttered that she “did not wish to live any longer than she had him with her”. A fitting indication of a how much Elizabeth depended on him.

In her own remaining days, her lady-in-waiting, Elizabeth Southwell, recounted that when Cecil’s son and successor, Robert, urged her to bed, the queen responded: “Little man, little man, ‘must’ is not a word to be used to princes. Your father, if he had been alive, durst not have used such a word; but you know I must die.”

Elizabeth had outlived those closest to her, including Dudley, whose death in 1588 was a profound loss. She ordered the execution of his stepson, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in 1601 for his treasonous uprising; an act alleged to have affected her deeply. Essex was a dim echo of his stepfather and a sharp reminder of his absence. Catherine Carey, her loyal kinswoman and longstanding lady-in-waiting, died at the end of February 1603, marking Elizabeth’s final downturn. The queen withdrew.

Elizabeth’s reign is often framed as a triumph of stability and strength. Yet her final days suggest something more complex: a rule built on the pursuit of control, sustained through sacrifice and marked by isolation. Her story resonates not only because of what she achieved, but because of what it cost.

Carey’s husband, the Earl of Nottingham, was called for, and only he was able to persuade Elizabeth to bed. In three days, she was gone. In her last moments, stripped of performance, what remained was not the carefully managed image of Gloriana, but a woman confronted with the absence of those she relied on and the cumulative weight of the choices that had sustained her reign.

Elizabeth’s refusal to go to bed can be read not only as defiance of the inevitable but, at her most vulnerable, as a final attempt to maintain control.

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

– ref. Elizabeth I refused to go to bed before she died – a stubborn final act that reflected her reign – https://theconversation.com/elizabeth-i-refused-to-go-to-bed-before-she-died-a-stubborn-final-act-that-reflected-her-reign-281396

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

The initial top line emerging from the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing was that while the two leaders had talked trade, technology and the US war in Iran, the most potentially hazardous issue was Taiwan. The Chinese foreign ministry reported that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, told the US president, Donald Trump, that “the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations”.

Handled properly, China’s statement said, relationship between China and the US will remain stable. “If handled poorly”, Xi told the US president, “the two countries will collide or even clash, putting the entire US-China relationship in an extremely dangerous situation.”

A White House statement didn’t mention Xi’s warning over Taiwan, instead focusing on the two leaders’ agreement that the Strait of Hormuz must be kept open and the importance of China buying US agricultural produce and curtailing the flow of fentanyl precursors into the US.

In other words, the two sides’ reports neatly reflected their respective priorities.

So, despite the warm words and bonhomie at the subsequent banquet at which the two leaders raised glasses to each other over lobster, beef ribs and Beijing roast duck, there is clearly the potential for a serious misunderstanding over Taiwan. Last week a The Trump administration bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to the US president urging him to sign off on a US$14 billion (£111 billion) package of arms to Taipei. If he proceed with this, it would seriously hamper any efforts the two leaders might make to stabilise relations between the two countries.

The problem, write international affairs specialists Nicholas Wheeler and Marcus Holmes, is that the two sides come at the issue from completely different directions. For the US, continuing to provide Taiwan with state-of-the-art US defence weaponry is about deterring Chinese aggression. For China, US arms sales to Taiwan are themselves an aggressive move.

The situation is fraught with possibilities for misunderstanding. But surely this is what summits are for, argue Wheeler and Holmes. They recall the crisis in 1983 sparked by a US military drill that the Soviet Union convinced themselves was a preparation for a real nuclear strike by the US. It was Ronald Reagan’s realisation that “maybe they are scared of us and think we are a threat” which led him to develop warm relations with the next Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, precipitating a new era in arms control.

Maybe this week’s summit could help the pair to – as Xi put it – “make 2026 a historic, landmark year that opens up a new chapter in China-US relations”.

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Read more:
Trump-Xi summit: in a high-stakes meeting the two leaders can’t afford to misread each other

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Where would this new era leave Taipei? Distinctly nervous, you’d have to think. As Trump prepared to leave for Beijing, he commented that he was planning to discuss US arms sales with Xi – which, as Andrew Gawthorpe notes – breaches one of the Six Assurances that has been part of America’s policy towards Taiwan since the 1980s.

Gawthorpe, an expert in US foreign policy at the University of Leiden, cautions that the Trump administration breaking one of these promises could embolden Xi to press Trump on the other five, which include a US commitment on Taiwanese sovereignty.

The fact is, Gawthorpe concludes, if US arms sales to Taiwan are on the table now, they a likely to stay there, which could prove perilous for Taiwan if the US wants any major concessions, say on China’s support for Iran.

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Read more:
Trump-Xi summit: US president says he will discuss arms sales to Taiwan – breaking decades of US policy

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Xi talked about his hope that the summit could work towards “a new paradigm of major-country relations”. The importance of this bilateral relationship was a theme the Chinese president returned to several times in the meeting, at one point referencing what he called the “Thucydides trap”, which refers to the stresses that occur when a rising power challenges an established one. (You may recall Canadian prime minister Mark Carney made reference to the revered Greek historian in his widely praised Davos speech in February.)

But where was Russia in all this? Stefan Wolff, professor of international security at the University of Birmingham, observes that any stabilising of relations between Washington and Beijing is likely to come at Moscow’s expense and will certainly be a blow to Vladimir Putin’s aspiration to restore his country to great power status.

So as not to be left out, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced as Xi and Trump toured the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (an honour that has yet to be afforded to Putin) that preparations are underway for the Russian president to visit China “very soon”.

That’s not to say that Putin’s “no-limits friendship” with Xi is at threat, writes Wolff. But he observes that “the Xi-Trump summit is a party to which Putin was not invited”, which “indicates that his efforts to make his presence felt have largely failed”.

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Read more:
Why Putin will have been watching the Trump-Xi summit nervously

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Damp squib for Putin

It hasn’t been a great week for the Russian president, all things considered. On May 9, what has traditionally been a red letter day for Vladmir Putin – Russia’s Victory Day celebration – proved to be something of a damp squib.

Ukraine’s recent successes in long-range drone attacks, one of which successfully struck a luxury high-rise apartment block less than ten miles from Red Square, prompted Putin to scale back the parade. What is usually a showcase of Russia’s military might, parading tanks, ballistic missile launchers and an array of other state-of-the-art weaponry in front of invited world leaders, was reduced to a march past with a couple of Putin allies and assorted second world war veterans.

Russia-watcher Jennifer Mathers of Aberystwyth University has examined the Victory Day parades since the Ukraine war begin in 2022 and believes they reflect Russian national morale. This year’s, she says, saw Russia looks “fearful, diminished and isolated”.

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Read more:
Fearful, diminished and isolated: what this year’s Victory Day parade in Moscow tells us about Russia’s war against Ukraine

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Caspian Sea

With all the attention – understandably – on the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, little has been written about the Caspian Sea. But the world’s largest landlocked body of water has played an important role in both the Iran and Ukraine wars.

During the Ukraine war, Iran used it to supply Russia with Shahed drones, now Russia is returning the compliment. The two countries have also found it useful in avoiding western sanctions on trade in all manner of other goods.

Here’s a piece from maritime security expert Basil Germond, of Lancaster University on just how significant the Caspian Sea has become.

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Read more:
Why the Caspian Sea has become so important in both the Ukraine and Iran wars

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– ref. Xi-Trump summit: reset for US-Chinese relations but tension over Taiwan remains – https://theconversation.com/xi-trump-summit-reset-for-us-chinese-relations-but-tension-over-taiwan-remains-282992

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Clare Carolin, Senior Lecturer, Art and Public Engagement, King’s College London

I was texting a museum director friend in Asia recently. We were discussing whether a trip to this year’s “artworld Olympics”, the Venice Biennale, justified the carbon release.

I felt ambivalent. The main exhibition is curated by Koyo Kouoh, whose 2016 edition of Ireland’s Biennale, EVA International, on the 1916 Easter Rising centennial I had admired. Kouoh died of cancer earlier this year. Her posthumously realised Venice Biennale, titled In Minor Keys, seemed a final opportunity to appreciate the subtle, intelligent work of Africa’s leading curator.

Against the lure of Kouoh’s exhibition, though, was a queasy realisation that the Biennale seemed to be ideologically backsliding. Russia and Israel, both accused of war crimes, were controversially participating.

Alongside the huge guest-curated show of contemporary art, the Biennale invites countries to present exhibitions they curate themselves in national pavilions in the Giardini di Biennale and citywide venues. Following Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia was excluded, its pavilion remaining shuttered throughout the 59th and 60th editions. But last year Giorgia Meloni’s government appointed rightwing ideologue Pietro Buttafuoco as Biennale director.

Buttafuoco revoked Russia’s exclusion. He also facilitated the relocation of Israel’s exhibition from its usual Giardini pavilion to a high security cul-de-sac in the Biennale’s second official venue, the massive Arsenale.

“This biennale seems cursed,” texted my friend. Despite feeling hypocritical about the environmental burden, I booked a flight to Venice.

Angry protests and violent reprisals

In the weeks leading up to the exhibition, my friend’s suggestion looked increasingly on point. A complicated choreography of war, state violence and activism began to play out. They culminated during the Bienniale preview in angry protests and violent reprisals.

The Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) gathered 236 curators, artists and art workers to campaign for Israel’s exclusion and improved conditions for cultural workers.

When Kouoh’s international jury refused to consider Israel and Russia for the Biennale’s prestigious Golden Lion awards, artist Belu-Simion Fainaru, who was representing Israel, threatened them with legal action, according to the Italian news agency Adnkronos and arts publication Hyperallergic. The jury resigned. Their subsequent silence has not been explained.

Relieved of the professional all-female expert jury that Kuouh appointed, Buttafuoco instated a Eurovision-style audience prize. At the time of writing, over 70 artists have withdrawn from the awards in protest.

Like an artwork, a curse is a performative utterance at the nexus of ritual symbolism and magic. People like to believe that art, unlike curses, is a force for good. But as I argue in my book The Deployment of Art, there is a long history of state co-option of art and artists in the service of malign agendas of state violence. To me, The 61st Biennale seems one such example.

In a statement on the Biennale website, Buttafuoco amplifies the spiritual dimensions of Kouoh’s vision. “It is an exhibition permeated with spirit, with a sacredness that puts the person, the human being, back at the heart of things … looking to the sky once more.”

Much art in the main exhibition is hard to square with such whimsy. Pio Abad’s precise critical drawings of everyday objects of imperial plunder, like houseplants and chocolate, alongside stolen Benin bronzes. Walid Raad’s series of found photographs of beds slept in by Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat. Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s extraordinary sculptural excavation of the lost ancient city of Orthosia, hidden beneath a buried refugee camp in southern Lebanon.

But other works better serve Buttafuoco’s vague, obfuscating narratives of “sacredness” and “spirituality”.

In the Arsenale, an uprooted olive tree that recalls images of the desecration of Palestinian olive groves rotates on a plinth to the perverse accompaniment of tinkly ballerina music. This work by Theo Eshetu is titled Garden of the Broken Hearted, but the accompanying label doesn’t explain why the tree was uprooted, or from where, only that it “stands as a poetic reflection of impermanence”.

Alfredo Jaar’s “shrine” to base materials, a thrumming scarlet cathedral titled The End of the World meanwhile, so overwhelms the senses that I felt faint. I later saw a young woman collapsed outside it, attended by paramedics. Numerous other works draw on ritual traditions and spiritual practices from “the powerhouse of Africa” (Buttofuocco’s term).

Police presence was pervasive throughout the previews. Armed, helmeted officers held a line around Pussy Riot’s demonstration at the Russian pavilion, where protesters released blue, yellow and pink smoke canisters chanting “bloody Russian art” and “curated by Putin, corpses included”.

On the final preview day, as many pavilions closed early in strike protest, police stomped through the Giardini in heavily armed groups ten or 20 strong. At 4.30pm a peaceful crowd of ANGA protesters, many with young children in pushchairs or carried on shoulders, marched from the Giardini to the Arsenale where riot police used batons to beat them back. Surveillance helicopters hovered over the city until long after midnight.

Visions of hell

When future art historians study the 61st Biennale, they may notice a poster slogan from the ANGA protest: “Palestine is the Future of the World.” Meanwhile, visitors would do well to venture beyond the Giardini and Arsenale to an unofficial collateral exhibition organised by the Museo Moderno Buenos Aires.

Taking its title from John Milton’s description of hell, Darkness Visible: The Long Shadow of the Dictatorship brings together a trans-generational group of artists. Their work has been shaped by a regime of state terror (1976-83) that implemented a systemic policy of kidnappings, torture, murder and the forced disappearance of thousands.

Darkness Visible positions art as a vehicle for understanding history, protecting memory and human rights, and engaging in activism against state violence. One photograph by Marcelo Brodsky documents a demonstration by the Madres de Plaza de Mayo demanding information about their forcibly disappeared children. Brodsky’s mother (whose son was disappeared) appears in the image holding a banner that draws connections between second world war concentration camps in Warsaw and ESMA, a clandestine torture and extermination centre used by the Argentinian junta during the dictatorship.

As I contemplated this image, the exhibition’s curator Victoria Noorthoorn explained: “We wanted to present this show in Venice now because our Argentinian artists have much to say about fear, violence, pain and trauma that remain as scars from Argentina’s repressive regime. Their work reminds us of the need to protect core values: human and civic rights, democracy, freedom of expression and artistic creation.”

The protests I witnessed in Venice were marked by real anger, solidarity but also moments of tenderness and joy. A hopeful sign of how art and artists might imaginatively reinvent future biennales, undo the cursed present and lead us away from the darkness closing in.

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

– ref. This year’s Venice Biennale marks a major shift in European cultural politics – https://theconversation.com/this-years-venice-biennale-marks-a-major-shift-in-european-cultural-politics-282833

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Shiv Yucel, DPhil Candidate in Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford

Heatwaves are a growing global threat to human health, wellbeing and livelihoods.

Across 12 major European cities during the summer of 2025, a ten-day period of extreme heat led to 2,300 deaths – 1,500 of them were attributed to climate change amplifying temperatures by 1-4°C. Heatwaves were responsible for nearly half a million global deaths every year from from 2000 to 2019.

In addition to their health risks, European heatwaves in 2025 contributed to regional glaciers melting and wildfires hitting the largest area on record, according to a new report.

And it’s not just Europe, globally 2025 was ranked as one of three hottest years on record. Heatwaves are not going away: even after emissions targets are met, heatwaves will not return to pre-industrial levels for at least 1,000 years.

Governments across at least 47 countries have implemented heat action plans, such as the United Kingdom’s adverse weather and health plan and city-level plans across India.

These plans typically include early-warning systems, coordination between health and social authorities, and public messaging urging people to stay cool. People can try to implement a variety of measures, including staying in a cool environment, avoiding strenuous activity, drinking more water and wearing lighter clothes. These are theoretically simple steps, which is why heatwave deaths are so often called needless and preventable. But the realities of everyday life make adaptation far more complicated.

How people stay cool is closely tied to existing social inequalities, making heatwaves a nuisance for some and a catastrophe for others. Older people, for instance, have reduced abilities to regulate body temperatures, are more likely to have underlying health conditions that amplify risks and may lack networks of social support during disasters. Income divides create other risk factors such as who owns air conditioning and who can afford to run it. Other factors include who can work in a cool office or work from home, versus those doing outdoor or manual labour in the heat.

Unlike hurricanes or wildfires, which force widespread evacuations, life generally does not stop when heatwaves occur. People are forced to adapt while also meeting their ongoing daily obligations. Government advice might be to stay cool during the hottest part of the day which could be in conflict with a person’s rigid workplace schedule.

There are no maximum safe working temperatures in the UK, for instance. Staying at home can be the safest option if you have air conditioning. Yet during the catastrophic 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave in the US and Canada, the vast majority of deaths in British Columbia happened in people’s own overheated homes, where there was inadequate air conditioning or fans.

How are people coping?

Recent research examines how people adapt their daily activities when dangerous summer heatwaves occur. Using mobile phone location data across seven countries – Brazil, China, France, India, Nigeria, Turkey and the United States – the study shows that people around the world are changing their daily lives to stay cool, ranging from leisure activities to work obligations.

These adaptations vary widely and reflect existing inequalities. People tend to withdraw into their homes during heatwaves, regardless of whether their country has widespread air conditioning or existing heat plans. In some places, people visit workplaces less (notably in France), though not everyone can afford to do so.

In others, people cut back on food shopping or going to the pharmacy as temperatures rise, essential for maintaining households and health (as the research shows has happened during heatwaves in the United States). Places for shopping and recreation – which may have air conditioning – as well as parks may serve as important refuges for those who cannot cool down at home.

Staying cool requires more than awareness and good decision-making – structural barriers, such as having to stay at work during high heat, severely limit people’s access to cooling.

Our research highlights that governments also need to pay closer attention to the space and time constraints people face, and policy efforts should grant people the flexibility to follow their advice. Research on Mexico, for example, found that those aged 18 to 35 were disproportionately likely to die from extreme heat, despite being physiologically less vulnerable than older people. This may be attributed to greater rates of outdoor work with little flexibility to use cooler spaces.

Setting maximum safe working temperatures, relative to local extremes, or allowances for flexible working hours could limit occupational health risks. Both could give workers the choice of where to spend the hottest hours of the day. There is already a precedent for climate-related leave. Spain introduced paid leave following the 2024 Valencia floods. But flexibility alone is not enough if people have nowhere to go nearby that is cool.

Governments need to focus on making accessible cool spaces available, especially in areas with low air conditioning ownership and in dense urban neighbourhoods. This means opening libraries, community centres and other public buildings as cooling centres, with extended hours and access to water. These provisions are currently absent from the UK’s heat plan, for example. Even as home air conditioning ownership rises, these investments in cool public spaces will remain essential. Air conditioning uptake will be limited by income, leaving many people in a continued state of cooling poverty.

Heatwaves are no longer a distant or occasional threat. They are a recurring feature of modern life in many places that are not used to experiencing them. Alongside early warning systems, public messaging and longer-term measures such as urban greening to reduce temperatures, governments need to do far more to help people stay cool when extreme temperatures hit.

Shiv Yucel receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund.

– ref. Heatwaves are now everyday disasters – governments need to do more to protect people – https://theconversation.com/heatwaves-are-now-everyday-disasters-governments-need-to-do-more-to-protect-people-281944

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

The opening headlines from the summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing signal an openness on the Chinese side towards stabilising relations with the US. In his opening remarks, the Chinese president noted that China and the US “should be partners not rivals”. But he warned Trump that a crisis over Taiwan could lead to “clashes and even conflicts”.

With Xi also indicating that there will be more opportunities for US companies to do business in China, the stage is set for a relatively successful summit. Both sides can claim it as a success because it offers some concrete benefits in the form of a trade war avoided and at least the prospect of cooperation on global issues such as the Iran war. It also sets a generally more positive tone for relations between the two countries.

Such an outcome is particularly troubling for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who will see his relevance and leverage diminished by more stable and predictable US-China relations. Putin’s aspirations to position Russia as a great power depend on Moscow either being strategically useful to Washington and Beijing, or gaining leverage with them by demonstrating a capacity to be disruptive.

However, on both counts, Putin’s hand has been substantially weakened. His war against Ukraine is no longer a priority issue for the US, with the two main American interlocutors in peace talks, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, focused on negotiations with Iran.

Putin’s latest phone call with Trump on April 29 will have been disappointing for the Russian leader. His offer to take Iran’s highly enriched uranium to Russia was reportedly rebuffed by Trump, who told him to focus on “ending the war with Ukraine”. And days later the Kremlin was forced to scale back its annual military parade in Moscow, due to concerns that it could be targeted by Ukrainian forces.

On the Chinese side, things are possibly even more troubling. The last face-to-face meeting between Xi and Putin took place in September 2025. They have only held one video conference since then. A Kremlin statement during the Trump-Xi summit that Putin will visit China soon smacks more of desperation than confirmation.

Putin’s leverage

While Putin appears sidelined in the US-China relationship, he is not without cards of his own. Major global issues – including wars in Ukraine and Iran, energy security and the future of the international order – are still connected to Russia. This provides Putin with a degree of leverage in his relations with both Xi and Trump.

But exercising this leverage comes with significant risks, especially in areas where Chinese and US interests are more aligned with each other than with Russia. Take the case of the Iran war as an example.

Russia benefits most from this conflict continuing. The disruption it is causing to global energy flows has pushed up oil and gas prices, keeping Moscow’s war economy afloat. It has also reduced the flow of US arms to Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, therefore, Russia has expanded its support for Iran – from intelligence and cyber support to providing unjammable drones.

While Russian support is unlikely to enable Iran to win the war, it will give the regime in Tehran more time to avoid defeat and increase the costs for the US, its regional allies and the global economy. This is not going to play well with Trump, who is under mounting domestic pressure to wind down the war in Iran.

Beijing has offered Iran some support throughout the war, for example by helping it bypass western sanctions on the export of its oil. But there are clear limits to how far China will go. For China, its relationship with the US is far more important than the one with Iran. This tilts the balance of preferences in Beijing towards an end of the conflict rather than towards its continuation.

This does not mean that China and the US will now align against Russia. Relations between Russia and China are longstanding and deep across a range of issues. Their “no-limits partnership” may be increasingly asymmetric, but there is still a great deal of anti-American and anti-western alignment between them.

The US under Trump is also more ambivalent about its stance on Russia than under previous administrations. Trump’s transactional foreign policy – and his urge to make deals rather than pursue a consistent strategy – is something Russia will continue to try to leverage to its own advantage.

Ahead of the Trump-Xi summit, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov released a statement in which he said “the path to the implementation of a whole range of economic projects will be open” if the White House agrees to decouple trade from the war in Ukraine. This indicates that Moscow is fully aware of this opportunity – as well as the challenge to offer the US something China cannot.

The Xi-Trump summit is a party to which Putin was not invited. The fact that the US and China seem to be heading towards a period of better-managed relations indicates that his efforts to make his presence felt have largely failed. This does not bode well for his aspirations to restore Russia to its Soviet-era status as a great power – but it does not imply that he will give up.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. Why Putin will have been watching the Trump-Xi summit nervously – https://theconversation.com/why-putin-will-have-been-watching-the-trump-xi-summit-nervously-282610