The Chinese Year of the Fire Horse has a new, unexpected mascot: Draco Malfoy.
Associating the Harry Potter antagonist with China’s Year of the Fire Horse might seem odd or whimsical. But it has much to teach us about the complexities of Chinese Mandarin wordplay, online participation and meme-making culture.
A search for Malfoy memes manifest his youthful head floating jubilantly, amid a background of red, gold and black calligraphy.
Meaning in images
In China, Lunar New Year decorations are designed to summon luck, prosperity and protection into the home – and visual puns and homophones are a common feature.
Classic New Year prints often include images of names that sound like phrases for good fortune or prosperity. You will commonly see images of the Zodiac, red lanterns, golden carp, fleshy pink peaches and gold ingots – all symbolising abundance.
Prior to the annual festival, the Chinese character fu 福 (good fortune) is often displayed upside-down on doors and walls in Chinese homes.
This is because the word for “upside-down” (倒, dao) is word play on the word “arrive” (到, dao) in Mandarin. Hanging the fu 福 upside down means “Good fortune has arrived”.
There is other word play, too. Yu 魚 (fish) sounds like the word for surplus, so fish imagery suggests abundance.
During last year’s Year of the Snakewordplay used snake (蛇, shé) and earthly beings/humans (巳, sì) to pair snake imagery with phrases about time, events or letting go.
This Year of the Fire Horse is historically linked with energy, momentum and breakthrough.
In Mandarin, Malfoy 马尔福 (Ma er fu) contains phonetic elements that resonate with words associated with horses (马, ma) and good fortune (福, fu). Hanging Malfoy upside-down on a door or wall extends the same pun, suggesting “good horse fortune has arrived” in your home.
In this way, Malfoy sheds his snake skin from villain to a serendipitous linguistic fit for a year defined by fiery horses and potential prosperity: a modern good luck poster.
Visual remixing
Humour, wordplay and visual remixing are a key feature of Chinese internet culture.
Memes thrive on shared visual references, which can be easily remixed. Malfoy’s titanium white hair and sharp features make him iconic, even in small or edited images.
Another example of homophonic wordplay was during the #MeToo movement.
Facing political sensitivity in China, activists embraced phonetic wordplay to visualise the phrase #MeToo, juxtaposing images of a bowl of rice (米饭, mi fan) with a rabbit (兔子, tuzi). The Chinese meme, Mi Tu (literally rice bunny) is visually coded “cute” on the surface, yet functions with the potency and strategic agility of a Trojan Horse.
The memes became a political statement, to visually disrupt and address sexual abuse or harassment.
The Grass Mud Horse (草泥马, cǎonímǎ) is a mythological alpaca co-created in 2009 as a linguistic and visual protest symbol.
Its name is a homophone for a well known insult, enabling users to express defiance while circumventing censorship. It became a playful yet powerful emblem of resistance to information control, widely circulated through music videos, memes and satirical narratives.
The homophonic wordplay of Draco Malfoy performs a similar cultural function – with celebration that evolves tradition, rather than political protest. Users paste Malfoy’s face onto fire horse emojis, Chinese calligraphy or zodiac themed layouts. Others animate him riding red horses or link his image with auspicious greetings.
Chinese culture has a long history of playful symbolism. The Malfoy memes fit into that tradition using humour and visual puns to express good wishes. It does not replace sacred rituals or religious practices.
Lunar New Year is not only about preserving tradition. Malfoy as a literary villain may be ironic through a Western lens. However, his image becomes a shared entry point into cross-cultural exchange.
It is about renewing hope for the future, and memes are a clever example of how language shapes visual culture and how traditions evolve.
Visual literacy enables us to unlock the cultural keys embedded within symbols and myths, revealing layers of meaning that might otherwise remain obscured.
Online spaces are where a fictional wizard can temporarily join a centuries-old symbolic system built on flexible wordplay and visual humour for the Year of the Fire Horse.
Justine Poplin 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.
As protest and military action raised the prospect of regime change in Iranand Venezuela, the voices of both countries’ diasporas were heard loud and clear through the media of their host nations.
Venezuelan exiles in the U.S. were, according to the popular narrative, broadly behind President Donald Trump and his plan to “run Venezuela,” as the nickname “MAGAzuelans” suggests. Meanwhile, the Iranian diaspora rallied behind the Prince Reza Pahlavi as he positioned himself as a leader-in-waiting, projecting an image of unified exile support.
Diasporas are often treated by media and policymakers as monolithic blocs — politically unified, ideologically coherent and ready to be mobilized for regime change. But as a scholar of migration and security in Latin America, I know this assumption fundamentally misunderstands how diaspora communities form, evolve and engage politically.
Iranian and Venezuelan émigrés might broadly oppose their current governments — having left them, this is unsurprising. But they are far from unified on what should replace those governments, who should lead or how change should come about.
Migration waves shape politics
Diasporas are not uniform because their constituent populations did not arrive all at once, from the same places or for the same reasons. Each migration wave carries distinct political orientations shaped by the circumstances of departure.
Consider the Turkish diaspora in Europe. It has a reputation for religious conservatism and nationalism favoring the ruling party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — seemingly paradoxical given that most live in liberal democracies and support center-left parties in their host countries.
The explanation lies in history, as diaspora scholar Eva Østergaard-Nielsen has detailed. Turkish migration to Europe came in successive waves, each marginalized by Turkey’s longtime secular establishment that dominated the country’s politics until the rise of Erdoğan in the early 2000s. Religious conservatives fled discrimination, Kurds fled persecution, and later came economic migrants. Erdoğan’s ruling AKP has capitalized on this with active outreach to these established diaspora communities.
Only recently have those fleeing the AKP government itself begun to establish a foothold in the diaspora. In a working paper, Gülcan Sağlam and I found that sentiment toward the Turkish ruling party is not predictable by demographic profile, nor is it counteracted by integration or support for liberal European Union parties. Rather, members of the diaspora’s politics are informed by individual personal beliefs and perceptions of discrimination.
The Turkish experience also speaks to the tendency of diasporas to become politically frozen at the moment of departure from their home countries. The same pattern appears across contexts. For example, El Salvador’s diaspora in the United States, which first left during the 1980s civil war, developed a reputation for being “stuck in the ‘80s” — mentally still fighting battles that had long since ended at home.
This temporal displacement has consequences. Iranian-American sociologist Asef Bayat, writing about the Iranian diaspora, argues that exile opposition to the ruling government back home “suffers from a political disease, positioning itself against the movement it claims to support.”
In other words, diaspora activists may advocate positions that resonate with Western audiences, but find little support among those actually living under authoritarian rule. This lack of accountability to political consequences back home can rankle the constituencies on whose behalf they seek to advocate.
Research on the Venezuelan diaspora reflects similar dynamics. A 2022 study found that Venezuelan exiles hold more extreme anti-Venezuelan government views than those who remained.
The myth of diaspora influence
Yet despite the presumed disconnection of diaspora groups, homeland politicians often devote disproportionate attention to those who have left. The logic is simple: Emigrants send money home — accounting for as much as 25% of gross domestic product in some Central American and Caribbean countries. Politicians assume that this financial power translates into political influence over remittance-receiving relatives.
One party official in El Salvador told me: “If we get one Salvadoran in Washington to support us, that gives us five votes in El Salvador — and it doesn’t even matter if the one in Washington votes.”
My own research tested this assumption using polling and voting data across Latin America and found it to be exaggerated. Remittances and family communication mostly reinforce existing, mutual partisan sympathies rather than swing votes.
But the belief in diaspora influence matters politically. And the diaspora voters can be weaponized by authoritarian leaders.
He then directed all diaspora votes to count in San Salvador, despite more emigrants coming from the eastern departments of San Miguel and La Unión. This helped swamp the remaining opposition parties in the capital.
Diasporas in opposition
What happens when diasporas oppose rather than support authoritarian governments? The scholarship offers sobering lessons.
Diasporas can influence home country politics through several channels: direct voting, financial support for opposition movements, lobbying host governments and transmitting democratic values through what sociologist Peggy Levitt calls “social remittances” — the ideas, practices and norms that flow alongside money transfers.
Other research has found that remittances can undermine dictatorships by helping fund opposition activities.
Yet authoritarian governments have developed sophisticated countermeasures. Research on Arab diaspora activism documents shows how governments deter dissent through transnational repression. Freedom House, the democracy and good governance nongovernmental organization, recorded over 1,200 incidents of “physical transnational repression” against dissidents – including assassinations, abductions, assaults and unlawful deportation – between 2014 and 2024 involving 48 governments.
The Cuban example
The Cuban exile community offers, perhaps, the most studied example of diaspora political mobilization. For decades, the Cuban American lobby shaped — some would say dictated — U.S. Cuba policy.
Yet even this influence is easily overstated. The exiles who fled immediately after the 1959 revolution for political reasons constitute a smaller share of the overall Cuban diaspora than commonly assumed.
Subsequent migration waves included far more working-class economic migrants with different political orientations. By 2014, polls showed 52% of Cuban Americans opposed the U.S. embargo that their lobby had championed. The lobby’s influence waned after founder Jorge Mas Canosa’s death in 1997, and the Elián González affair – a messy international custody battle involving a 6-year-old Cuban boy – further fractured the community.
The limits of exile politics
For Venezuela and Iran, these lessons counsel caution. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their homeland — the largest displacement crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Meanwhile, Iranian emigration accelerated after the 2022 protests.
Both diasporas contain passionate activists, wealthy donors and would-be leaders positioning themselves for future rule. But passion does not equal unity, and visibility does not equal representation.
The loudest voices on social media — or those amplified by U.S. government officials and media — may represent narrow slices of diverse communities. Certain figures project unified support they do not actually command. There may be a rough consensus on opposing the hated government back home, but far less consensus on what should be done — or how to achieve change.
Nor does diaspora opposition necessarily translate into government vulnerability. Authoritarian states have learned to insulate themselves from diaspora pressure while simultaneously using emigration as a safety valve, turning potential dissidents into remittance-senders – as Cuba did by abolishing exit visas in 2013.
Diasporas can contribute to democratic change through funding, advocacy and the slow work of transmitting democratic values. But ultimately, the path to democratic change in Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere will be determined by those who remain, not those who left. Diasporas can support that struggle; they cannot substitute for it.
Michael Paarlberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Václav Havel waves to a crowd in Prague celebrating the communist regime’s capitulation in December 1989.Lubomir Kotek/Getty
When Czech political dissident, playwright and poet Václav Havel wrote The Power of the Powerless in October 1978, he was not offering a manifesto in any conventional political sense. Nor was he outlining a program for opposition or regime change.
Instead, he set out to analyse a distinctive form of domination that did not rely primarily on terror, spectacle or charismatic authority, but on routine compliance and the internalisation of untruth.
His central claim was disarmingly simple.
Systems of coercive power endure not only because of police power or elite control, but because ordinary people participate in them by acting as if they believe what they know to be false. They live, as Havel put it, “within a lie”.
His most famous example was of the greengrocer who displays the slogan “Workers of the world, unite!” – not to express revolutionary zeal but to signal conformity. The sign communicates obedience and a willingness to perform the expected ritual – thus helping to sustain a system whose strength lies in habituation. What matters is not belief, but participation. The slogan functions less as political content than as a social password, marking the bearer as safe and nonthreatening.
Havel’s originality lay in shifting attention away from rulers and institutions towards everyday behaviour. Tyranny, in his account, is not only upheld by party elites or security services, but by countless small acts of acquiescence that create what he described as a “post-totalitarian” order.
Such systems normalise untruth.
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Havel’s essay, written nearly 50 years ago, speaks with striking force to the present moment. Across a range of democracies, leaders now display increasingly authoritarian reflexes, while public life is sustained by ritualised language masking the erosion of norms and constrains.
Addressing the World Economic Forum last month, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney invoked Havel’s essay, recalling his example of the greengrocer and his sign.
Carney suggested a contemporary “life within a lie” now operates at the level of the international system, where states perform commitment to rules, reciprocity and shared values as those principles are selectively applied or quietly abandoned. The danger lies less in open rule-breaking than in the collective pretence that the system still functions as advertised.
An ethical challenge
The enduring force of Havel’s essay lies in its re-framing of resistance as responsibility rather than victory. Tyranny is challenged not by seizing power, but by depriving falsehood of its audience. Havels’ target is not a particular regime, but a recurring human temptation: the willingness to trade truth for tranquillity.
In an era marked by strategic intimidation, economic pressure and rhetorical cynicism, Havel’s insistence on moral clarity retains its relevance.
To live in truth remains risky, inconvenient and uncertain in its outcomes. Yet Havel’s claim was never that truth guarantees success. It was that systems built on lies are strong only so long as those lies go unchallenged. Once named, their authority begins to weaken.
In this sense, The Power of the Powerless is less a historical document than an ethical challenge. It asks not who governs, but how individuals participate. It insists that even under conditions of asymmetry, the refusal to perform falsehood constitutes a form of power.
‘Living in truth’
According to Havel’s essay, in “post-totalitarian states”, ideology becomes less a doctrine to be argued over than a language to be performed. In this context, the most destabilising act is not armed rebellion or organised protest, but refusal. When an individual ceases to perform the ritual, he exposes it – revealing the emperor is naked.
From this diagnosis follows Havel’s most enduring concept, “living in truth”. This is not a policy platform or a political strategy in the usual sense. It is an existential stance with political consequences. To live in truth is to align one’s public actions with one’s private conscience, even when doing so carries material cost or social risk.
In a system built on universal pretence, even a modest act of honesty acquires disproportionate force. It disrupts the shared fiction on which authority depends, reminding others that alternatives are conceivable.
Havel’s argument was also deliberately unsettling for audiences outside east-central Europe. “Post-totalitarianism” was not a regional anomaly, but an intensified version of tendencies present in modern mass societies.
Comfort could be purchased at the price of indifference and freedom reduced to private consumption detached from public responsibility. In this sense, The Power of the Powerless was a diagnosis of modernity’s susceptibility to moral outsourcing and quiet complicity.
In modern, mass societies, comfort can be purchased at the price of indififference. Dan Burton/unsplash, CC BY
Sceptical of heroics
Havel saw the fall of communism, ultimately becoming the president of both Czechoslovakia (in 1989–92) and of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He died in 2011.
His essay is often misread as a celebration of heroic dissent or moral exceptionalism. In fact, it is sceptical of heroics. The power of the powerless, he suggests, does not lie in spectacle, numbers or immediate success. It lies in example.
Truth operates politically not because it commands obedience, but because it awakens recognition. It speaks to what Havel described as the “hidden sphere” of social consciousness, the half-suppressed awareness that life organised around falsehood is corrosive and degrading.
This helps explain why Havel dismissed conventional measures of political effectiveness in societies dominated by totalitarian power. Elections, parties and platforms mean little when the public sphere itself has been hollowed out and emptied of genuine contestation.
What matters instead is the slow reconstruction of moral agency.
Independent cultural activity, unofficial networks and samizdat publishing, for instance, were not substitutes for politics, but its necessary groundwork. They preserved spaces in which truth could be spoken without immediate translation into slogans or coercive power.
A contemporary invocation
Carney’s argument at Davos turned on a familiar contradiction. Political leaders, diplomats and institutions speak the language of rules, reciprocity, and shared norms, while tolerating practices that hollow out those norms.
Trade regimes are described as rules-based even as economic coercion becomes routine. Security arrangements are framed as collective while asymmetries of power grow more explicit.
The problem, in Havel’s terms, is not simply that rules are broken, but that everyone continues to behave as if they still function as advertised. This collective performance sustains an order that no longer delivers what it promises.
In this reading, the international order begins to resemble Havel’s post-totalitarian system. The slogans differ, but the logic is familiar. Language masks fear, dependency and imbalance. The global greengrocer hangs the sign not because he believes it, but because not hanging it appears too risky.
Carney’s proposed response was not withdrawal or isolation, but a call for what he described as “middle powers” to stop pretending. To live in truth at the level of international politics means acknowledging openly where the system fails, refusing convenient fictions and building coalitions grounded in actual shared interests rather than abstract formulae.
The danger of abstraction
Yet there is a risk that “living in truth” becomes an elevated moral injunction detached from the conditions of everyday life.
Havel’s greengrocer is not a philosopher or an essayist. He is a worker responsible for opening a shop, supplying scarce goods and navigating a collectivised economy. For him, refusal carries immediate and concrete consequences: such as loss of employment, harassment or exclusion.
By contrast, intellectuals such as Havel, writing three decades after the communist takeover, occupied a different position. Their capacity to articulate critique in essays, however restricted the audience, rested on forms of cultural capital and social insulation unavailable to most citizens. Havel understood this tension, but it remains a persistent problem in the reception of his ideas.
The same risk attends contemporary invocations such as Carney’s. Those preoccupied with meeting basic needs, managing precarious employment or coping with rising costs are unlikely to be moved by abstract calls for moral clarity in global governance. For them, the performance of ritual may appear not as cowardice, but as survival.
This does not invalidate Havel’s argument, but complicates its application. Revolutions and transformations do not arise from ideas alone. They occur when ideas intersect with lived experience in ways that make existing arrangements untenable. Havel’s insight acquires political force only when “living in truth’” ceases to sound like moral exhortation and begins to articulate shared grievances and recognisable realities.
The question is not whether truth matters, but how it is made audible to those whose compliance sustains the system in the first place.
In that unresolved tension lies the continuing relevance of The Power of the Powerless. It offers no guarantees, refusing consolation. It insists that participation is never neutral and even the smallest refusal carries ethical weight. Whether that refusal can once again ignite broader change depends on whether truth speaks to the conditions of ordinary life.
Darius von Guttner Sporzynski 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.
Islands off the coast of Peru are home to millions of seabirds. Their droppings were an important fertiliser for Indigenous people in the Andes.Jo Osborn
In 1532, in the city of Cajamarca, Peru, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and a group of Europeans took the Inca ruler Atahualpa hostage, setting the stage for the fall of the Inca Empire.
Before this fateful attack, Pizarro’s brother, Pedro Pizarro, made a curious observation: other than the Inca himself, the Lord of Chincha was the only person at Cajamarca carried on a litter, a carrying platform.
Why did the Lord of Chincha occupy such a high position in Inca society? In our new study published in PLOS One, we find evidence for a surprising potential source of power and influence: bird poo.
A potent and precious resource
Chincha, in southern Peru, is one of several river valleys along the desert coast fed by Andean highland waters, which have long been key to irrigation agriculture. About 25 kilometres out to sea are the Chincha Islands, with the largest guano deposits in the Pacific.
Seabird guano, or excrement, is a highly potent organic fertiliser. Compared to terrestrial manures such as cow dung, guano contains vastly more nitrogen and phosphorus, which are essential for plant growth.
On the Peruvian coast, the Humboldt/Peru ocean current creates rich fisheries. These fisheries support massive seabird colonies that roost on the rocky offshore islands.
Seabirds use coastal islands to build their nests, and find food nearby in the rich fisheries of the Peruvian current. Jo Osborn
Thanks to the dry, nearly rainless climate, the seabird guano doesn’t wash away, but continues to pile up until many meters tall. This unique environmental combination makes Peruvian guano particularly prized.
Our research combines iconography, historic written accounts, and the stable isotope analysis of archaeological maize (Zea mays) to show Indigenous communities in the Chincha Valley used seabird guano at least 800 years ago to fertilise crops and boost agricultural production.
We suggest guano likely shaped the rise of the Chincha Kingdom and its eventual relationship with the Inca Empire.
Lords of the desert coast
The Chincha Kingdom (1000–1400 CE) was a large-scale society comprising an estimated 100,000 people. It was organised into specialist communities such as fisherfolk, farmers and merchants. This society controlled the Chincha Valley until it was brought into the Inca Empire in the 15th century.
Given the proximity of historically important guano deposits on the Chincha Islands, Peruvian historian Marco Curatola proposed in 1997 that seabird guano was an important source of Chincha’s wealth. We tested this hypothesis and found strong support.
A biochemical test
Biochemical analysis is a reliable way to identify the use of fertilisers in the past. One experimental 2012 study showed plants fertilised with dung from camelids (alpacas and llamas) and seabirds show higher nitrogen isotope values than unfertilised crops.
Archaeological maize cobs were collected from sites in the Chincha Valley for isotopic analysis. C. O’Shea
We analysed 35 maize samples recovered from graves in the Chincha Valley, documented as part of an earlier study on burial practices.
Most of the samples produced higher nitrogen isotope values than expected for unfertilised maize, suggesting some form of fertilisation occurred. About half of the samples had extremely high values. These results are so far only consistent with the use of seabird guano.
This chemical analysis confirms the use of guano on pre-Hispanic crops.
Imagery and written sources
Guano – and the birds that produce it – also held broader significance to the Chincha people.
Our analysis of archaeological artefacts suggests the Chincha people had a profound understanding of the connection between the land, sea and sky. Their use of guano and their relationship with the islands was not just a practical choice; it was deeply embedded in their worldview.
This decorated wooden object from Chincha, which has been interpreted as either a ceremonial paddle or digging stick, depicts seabirds and fish alongside human figures and geometric designs. The Met Museum, 1979.206.1025.
This reverence is reflected in Chincha material culture. Across their textiles, ceramics, architectural friezes and metal objects, we see repeated images of seabirds, fish, waves, and sprouting maize.
These images demonstrate the Chincha understood the entire ecological cycle: seabirds ate fish from the ocean and produced guano, guano fed the maize, and the maize fed the people.
This relationship may even be reflected today through local Peruvian place names. Pisco is derived from a Quechua word for bird, and Lunahuaná might translate to “people of the guano”.
Poo power
As an effective and highly valuable fertiliser, guano also enabled Chincha communities to increase crop yields and expand trade networks, contributing to the economic expansion of the Chincha Kingdom.
We suggest fisherfolk sailed to the Chincha Islands to acquire guano and then provided it to farmers, as well as to seafaring merchants to trade along the coast and into the highlands.
Chincha’s agricultural productivity and growing mercantile influence would have enhanced its strategic importance for the Inca Empire. Around 1400 CE, the Inca incorporated the Chincha after a “peaceful” capitulation, creating one of the few calculated alliances of its kind.
Although the “deal” made between Chincha and Inca remains debated, we suggest seabird guano played a role in these negotiations, as the Inca state was interested in maize but lacked access to marine fertilisers. This may be why the Lord of Chincha was held in such high esteem that he was carried aloft on a litter, as Pedro Pizarro noted.
The Inca came to value this fertiliser so much they imposed access restrictions on the guano islands during the breeding season and forbade the killing of guano birds, on or off the islands, under penalty of death.
Our study expands the known geographic extent of guano fertilisation in the pre-Inca world and strongly supports scholarship that predicted its role in the rise of the Chincha Kingdom. However, there is still much to learn about how widespread it was, and when this practice began.
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.
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Richard Baka, Honorary Professor, School of Kinesiology, Western University, London, Canada; Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Research Centre, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University
Italian skier Bruno Burrini at the 1956 Winter Olympic Games in Milano Cortina.Getty Images
The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics are Italy’s fourth as Olympic host and come 70 years after the region first welcomed the world’s best winter athletes.
The 1956 winter games were originally scheduled for 1944 but were postponed due to the second world war, eventually taking place in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
It was groundbreaking in several ways.
The games ran for 11 days, far shorter than this year’s 17-day program.
Italian skier Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo became the first woman to recite the Olympic Oath at an opening ceremony.
For the first time, the Winter Olympics were broadcast live on television, albeit in black and white, to nine European nations.
In 1956, winter and summer games were held in the same year, (Melbourne hosted the Summer Olympics that year).
This changed in 1994, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) moved them to alternating even-numbered years, significantly boosting the profile, commercial appeal and growth of the Winter Olympics.
From centralised to decentralised hosting
Cortina 1956 featured a highly centralised model, with eight venues clustered within the Dolomites mountain range.
In contrast, Milan Cortina in 2026 reflects the IOC’s modern strategy of decentralisation and sustainability.
The spread-out nature of the 2026 event features:
four main geographical clusters (Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme) plus Verona (opening and closing ceremonies)
15 competition venues
two host cities – the first time in Olympic history, separated by 413 kilometres
six Olympic villages
four opening ceremony locations.
With Milan as a major metropolitan hub, the 2026 games are far more urban than their alpine predecessor.
New, youth-friendly and broadcast-driven sports such as short-track speed skating, snowboarding and freestyle skiing have transformed the program.
The only new sport in 2026 will be ski mountaineering.
Near-gender parity will be achieved through expanded women’s events and mixed-gender competitions.
Leading nations on the medal table
In 1956, the dominant nations were mainly European – the Soviet Union, Austria, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland as well as the US.
This year, the podium will likely be owned by Norway, the US, Germany, Italy, China and Canada – the latter two making huge improvements in recent times.
Even Australia, a summer games powerhouse, which never made the podium until 1994, has improved dramatically and is expected to have its best result of around six medals, placing it in the top 15.
The Russians will be noticeably absent, forced out by the IOC due to the Ukrainian invasion. They will be allowed to have neutral athletes who can win medals but as a nation they are on the outer.
Paralympics, professionalism and equity
The 2026 Winter Paralympics will follow immediately after the Olympics – something that did not exist in 1956.
The Winter Paralympics first appeared in 1976 and only began sharing host cities with the Olympics in 1992.
Other major shifts since 1956 include:
expanded women’s participation, including ice hockey (introduced in 1998)
the end of strict amateur-only participation (phased out after 1986)
Media coverage has exploded since 1956 with the ability to follow every sport, every event on television and radio, digital platforms, newspaper and print media, blogs, podcasts and social media.
Technological changes over the past seven decades have been dramatic. This includes:
Most Olympic hosts end up losing money. The list is long, with Montreal (1976), Nagano (1998), Athens (2004), Sochi (2014), Rio (2016), Tokyo (2020/21) and others all going well over budget.
Sustainability and legacy – barely considered in 1956 – are now central.
Climate change remains a long-term concern. While snow was imported for some events in 1956, global warming now threatens the future pool of viable hosts.
Geopolitics, governance and security
The election of Kirsty Coventry as the first woman president of the IOC underscores the organisation’s broader push toward gender equity in leadership.
No major boycotts by nations are expected despite tension caused by the expulsion of Russia and Belarus.
Several international sport federations – supported by some European nations – have even restricted these two banned national Olympic teams from participating as individual neutral athletes.
For the 2026 games, doping controls are stricter than ever, led by the IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Security planning is at an all-time high. It now includes cyber-threats as well as physical risks.
Watch this space
Seventy years after Cortina d’Ampezzo hosted a modest, alpine-focused winter games, Milan Cortina 2026 represents a vastly expanded, technologically sophisticated and globally connected Olympic festival.
Despite challenges – climate, cost and geopolitics – all indicators suggest the games will deliver a compelling, inclusive and memorable celebration of winter sport.
Richard Baka 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 facts of history are important, but try telling that to a classroom full of bored youngsters. One way to liven up the subject is to show that real people lived through historical events. Drama academic Stephanie Jenkins argues that learning becomes fun when learners care about what they are asked to remember. And one way to encourage caring is to perform the stories of the past, using museums as theatre spaces. Here she explains the idea, using an example from her work in South Africa – where the past is painful but shapes current social issues and future citizens.
What is museum theatre and how does it bring history to life?
Museum theatre is a form of performance that uses acting and other theatrical techniques within a museum, gallery or historical space (such as a historical building) to bring the exhibitions “to life”.
Performers act out historical people and narratives that have been researched. It’s a way for people to encounter the past through experience rather than just facts.
Bringing the past into the museum space through performance offers an opportunity to gain attention and foster potential for further engagement with the historical topic.
How have you used museum theatre to teach South African history?
One example was a play I developed called Beer Halls, Pass Laws and Just Cause, which was performed at the KwaMuhle Museum in Durban, South Africa, during March 2020. It was connected to the Grade 11 history syllabus with the aim of connecting what was learnt in class to the historical site of the museum.
The building this museum is housed in used to be the Native Administration Department. Under the apartheid system of racial segregation, black people had to carry a passbook (also referred to as a dompas) which gave them permission to be present in certain areas of a city for work. They had to apply for it and get it approved at this building, which would often mean waiting in long lines in the Durban heat.
The performance dramatised some of those people’s experiences, in the place where they’d had them. The actor guides spoke the recorded words of actual historical people, many of whom had stood in the spaces where the audience was standing. Their words had been recorded in various texts, newspaper articles and interviews conducted by officials at the museum in the early 1990s. (The pass system was abolished in 1986.)
Part of the experience for learners was to interact with objects, using all their senses, to spark creative thought processes and dialogue.
For example, they had to hold a replica passbook during the performance. Some reported that it felt “demeaning”, “stressful”, “oppressive”, or “scary”. The passbook “prop” helped them to experience how surveillance and fear can be used to control people.
In museum theatre like this, learners interact with the characters and learn about the past by observing, and often participating in, the performed action. By encouraging the learners to be part of the action, and surrounded by the exhibitions to which the performance is speaking, the learners are encouraged to be more active in their learning.
The use of actors provides the opportunity for the learners to personally connect to the history and to care about the characters. Historical people are given a “face”, a three-dimensional body and a voice, making history look human and less removed from the present. Empathy, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, is an important skill to learn. And it connects what is taught with the learner’s own life, making it relevant and easier to remember.
What did you learn from this performance?
The performance was used to challenge both notions around what learning about history is like (in terms of classroom and book learning) and what a run-of-the-mill museum visit is “supposed” to evoke. The performance attempted to encourage learners to be part of the historical experience rather than just “absorb facts”.
From the feedback collected from the learners, it is clear that using performance to re-enact narratives from the past works well in gaining their attention and personal connection to the histories, and to the actual site as well. Many did not know much about this place (in their city) before the performance.
One learner noted that reading about history should feel personal but noted that “this (the performance) felt more personal … I didn’t expect it to”.
Why does it matter?
Performance in museums can be one way that an interest in history, and in turn wider societal issues, is cultivated from a young age.
While the present is vital to our wellbeing, ignoring the past creates citizens who do not have a proper grasp of various historical contexts, which is necessary to better understand where and who we are now. We cannot attempt to change current social issues if we do not understand how the past has influenced these problems.
Stephanie Jenkins 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.
If you’re planning on a winter break to Cuba, get ready for an adventure rather than a vacation. If you’re wondering if United States President Donald Trump’s oil embargo will shatter Cuba’s Communist government, dig in for a drawn-out slog. And if you’re Cuban, brace for a nightmare.
Cuba is on the brink of one of the worst social and economic catastrophes since the 1959 revolution. Energy sources are sparse. The electrical grid is in tatters.
And now, revenue streams from tourism, international medical co-operation and pharmaceutical production are all but dried up. Some 5,000 Cubans volunteered as mercenaries to fight alongside Russia against Ukraine since 2022. Cuba is hurting.
The U.S. versus Cuba
Cuba’s current pain may not be enough to topple its Communist government, despite the desires of many Cuban exiles. Nor is the current crisis all Trump’s work. Cuba is a victim of the breakdown of the old international rules-based order.
The U.S. has long targeted Cuba through various economic weapons dating from the early 1960s. One of the most vicious was the Helms-Burton Act that not only prohibited U.S. companies from doing business with Cuba, but also punished companies in other countries for dealing with both Cuba and the U.S.
Cuban doctors served in 103 countries, and as of 2021, they were active in 69 nations. Agreements were also made for other personnel to work abroad, including athletic coaches, teachers and engineers.
The U.S. targeted Cuba’s international solidarity work in 2006 by creating the Cuban Medical Professional Parole program, which essentially regarded Cuban workers as “trafficked.”
Against one of the longest economic blockades in history, Cuba has nonetheless positioned itself as an active global player. It’s a diplomatic heavyweight with 139 active embassies and consulates worldwide and well over 100 foreign embassies in Havana.
The United Nations General Assembly routinely denounces the American embargo on Cuba. In 2025, amid shifting political alliances, the assembly voted 165-7 in favour of demanding an end to the embargo.
Canadian mining company Sherritt invested heavily in Cuba to extract nickel. When COVID-19 overwhelmed health systems worldwide in 2020, Cuba was the first to volunteer medical services to 19 countries, including affluent states like Italyand Qatar. They even took in a quarantined British cruise ship to offer care.
Unlike the 1960s and the 1990s, no brave partners are coming forward to do business with Cuba, which only shows how weak international solidarity is today.
Here are three possible outcomes for Cuba in the coming months in descending order of likelihood:
If any deal is in the works, the sticking point will be elections. Unlike Venezuela, with a legitimate opposition in the wings, Cuba has none. Political opponents to the revolution have long been jailed or exiled, and Cuba’s electoral system itself isn’t structured for a multi-party race. Toppling the current government would leave an enormous power vacuum.
2. Martial law
If the fuel embargo remains, Cuba could declare martial law and civil defence to prepare for foreign hostility and to better ration resources.
Díaz-Canal recently hinted at this in what he calls a “war of the people,” which may help explain why Canadian and Russian airlines are now hastily sending in rescue flights for tourists.
Martial law would mean ultra-tight rationing, political volatility and the government acquiring goods through murky channels, which, combined, pose a heightened security risk to the U.S. just 140 kilometres off its shores. Since Dwight D. Eisenhower, most American presidents quickly figured out it was better to have a stable and secure, even though ideologically opposed, neighbour than a politically unstable and vulnerable basketcase.
The situation will grow dire since the well-educated professional class has already left, along with many doctors and nurses. In past crises, the educated, youthful professional class was on hand; this time, they’re already gone.
3. The international community steps in
Third, the world could stand by its sentiment at the United Nations General Assembly and sends much-needed resources and trade to Cuba despite the U.S. bellicosity.
It could be a rallying point for the new era of international order, where bullied countries in the Americas and in Europe defy American pressure and bring lifelines to Cuba.
International solidarity could reverse some of the harm and take the pressure off Cubans, including those so desperate they’d choose to fight as mercenaries with Russia.
As the world has seen before, when nations stand up to Trump, he usually backs down. Assistance need not come through foreign aid, but simply by keeping the channels open for business.
But if the international community ignores Cuba today, a humanitarian nightmare will unfold soon.
Robert Huish receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
At the Winter Olympics, skiers, bobsledders, speedskaters and many other athletes all have to master one critical moment: when to start. That split second is paramount during competition because when everyone is strong and skilled, a moment of hesitation can separate gold from silver. A competitor who hesitates too much will be left behind – but moving too early will get them disqualified.
Though the circumstances are less intense, this paradox of hesitation applies to daily life. Waiting for the right moment to cross the street, or pausing before deciding whether to answer a call from a number you don’t recognize, are daily examples of hesitation. Importantly, some psychiatric conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder are characterized by impulsivity, or a lack of hesitation, while excessive hesitation is a crippling consequence of several anxiety disorders.
As a neuroscientist, I have been working to uncover how the brain decides when to act and when to wait. Recent research from my team and me helps explain why this split-second pause happens, offering insight not only into elite athletic performance, but also how people make everyday decisions when the potential outcome isn’t clear.
We found that the key to hesitation is a response to uncertainty. This could be where a dropped hockey puck will land, when a race starts, or placing your order at a new restaurant.
To understand how the brain controls hesitation, my colleagues and I designed a simple decision-making task in mice.
The task required the mouse’s brain to interpret signals that were predictably good, predictably bad or – most importantly – uncertain, meaning somewhere in between. Different auditory tones indicated whether a drop of sugar water would soon be delivered, not delivered, or had a 50/50 chance of delivery.
How the mice behaved would not affect the outcome. Nevertheless, mice would still wait longer before licking to see whether a reward had been given in the uncertain scenario. Just like in people, unpredictable situations led to delays in response. This hesitation was not the result of vacillating between options in indecision, but an active and regulated brain process to pause before acting due to environmental uncertainty.
When we examined neural activity associated with the onset of licking, we identified a specific group of neurons that became active only when outcomes were unclear. Those neurons effectively controlled whether the brain should commit to an action or pause to gather more information. The degree to which these neurons were active could predict whether mice would hesitate before making a decision.
To confirm that these neurons played a role in controlling hesitation, we used a technique called optogenetics to briefly turn these brain cells on or off. When we activated the neurons, mice hesitated more. When we silenced them, that hesitation faded and their responses were quicker by several hundred milliseconds, in line with their reactions to predictable situations.
Researchers can use optogenetics to turn brain cells on or off.
Daily life, disease and downhill racing
Our findings suggest that, rather than a weakness to overcome, hesitation appears to be a fundamental brain feature that helps people and animals navigate an uncertain world and avoid costly mistakes.
Our study also provides insights into the balance of action and inaction in health and disease. The hesitation neurons are located in the basal ganglia, the same part of the brain affected in Parkinson’s disease, OCD and addiction. While researchers must still determine how much overlap or interaction there is between the cells involved in hesitation and those affected in psychiatric disorders, their overlap in circuitry points to possible targets for treatment.
Our next step is to understand how cells controlling hesitation interact with drugs treating ADHD and OCD, conditions where patients can respond impulsively during volatile or uncertain situations.
We also aim to identify which brain areas provide these cells with information about uncertainty – the environmental signal so critical to hesitation. While researchers have found that several parts of an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex encode uncertainty, it’s unclear how the brain actually makes use of this information, where the rubber meets the road.
Hesitation is not a flaw – it’s a critical feature for navigating an unpredictable world. Whether you’re a figure skater waiting for the perfect moment to launch your jump or just going about your day, the circuitry behind hesitation plays an important role in figuring out the timing to get the action right.
Eric Yttri receives funding from the National Institute of Health and the Binational Science Foundation.
Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Eric Hengyu Hu, Research Scientist of Educational Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York
Between 5% and 15% of children have symptoms of dyslexia, but schools are often slow at identifying and responding to it with targeted education. mrs/Stock Photos/Getty Images
Families with children who have dyslexia have long pushed lawmakers to respond to a pressing concern: Too many young students struggle for years to learn to read, before schools recognize the problem.
In response, nearly every state in the U.S. passed some sort of dyslexia laws over the past decade. Most of these laws encourage or require schools to screen young children for reading difficulties, train teachers in evidence-based reading instruction and provide targeted support to students who show early signs of dyslexia.
Before the 2000s, dyslexia was rarely mentioned explicitly in education policy. Students with dyslexia were typically grouped under a broad learning disability category, often without focused instruction or support.
Parent advocacy groups and dyslexia advocacy organizationsbegan pushing lawmakers in the early 2010s to recognize dyslexia in state education policy. They also lobbied for states to require early screening for reading difficulties and to teach reading with rigorous methods backed by scientific research.
Their advocacy coincided with a growing scientific consensus: Early, explicit instruction in phonics and language structure helps struggling readers, including students with dyslexia.
Research andadvocacy also highlighted that many children with reading difficulties were not identified until later in elementary school, after years of academic struggle, when gaps in reading skills are harder to correct.
States respond with dyslexia laws
A few states, like Texasand Arkansas, first passed dyslexia laws in the early 2010s. One central goal was to help schools identify dyslexia in students earlier, rather than waiting until these students experience repeated academic failure.
By the late 2010s, most states had adopted some form of dyslexia legislation.
As of 2025, all states except Hawaii have enacted dyslexia legislation.
While the laws shared similar goals of promoting early screening for reading difficulties, improving reading instruction and expanding support for struggling readers, they varied widely in strength, funding and expectations for schools.
My colleagues and I wanted to examine whether the wave of state dyslexia laws that began in the early 2010s was associated with changes in students’ reading outcomes.
We focused on how often students were identified with reading-related learning disabilities and how well those students performed in reading. We compared trends before and after dyslexia laws were enacted across 47 states.
Two findings stood out:
• First, more than half of the states with these new laws showed no significant shift in identifying learning disabilities related to reading. Some states identified more students, some fewer, but there was no consistent national pattern.
• Second, reading achievement among students identified with learning disabilities often declined, rather than improved, after these laws passed in many states, including Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and West Virginia.
Only four states – Arizona, Mississippi, Nevada and Oklahoma – showed significant gains in reading scores on state assessments, with average increases ranging from 3 points in Oklahoma’s case to 10 points in Arizona’s example. Many other states experienced flat trends or declines over the same period.
Passing a law doesn’t equal classroom change
Our findings suggest that dyslexia laws often raised awareness about dyslexia and early reading difficulties without fully changing classroom practices.
Many states, such as Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and North Carolina, required early screening for dyslexia – but did not ensure schools had trained staff, for example, on how to conduct this screening.
Funding has been another major challenge. Most dyslexia laws were passed without dedicated funding for teacher training or instructional materials, leaving districts to absorb the costs. As a result, implementation has been uneven, with well-funded districts moving faster than others.
Teacher preparation also matters. Teaching reading effectively, especially for students with dyslexia, requires specialized knowledge that many teachers were never taught in their training programs. Without strong professional development and ongoing coaching, new mandates can be difficult to carry out.
Taken together, these factors help explain why dyslexia laws alone have not produced widespread gains.
What distinguishes states that improved
Despite the mixed national picture, students in some states, including Arizona and Mississippi, did better on reading outcomes after their schools adopted dyslexia-related policies. These states shared several features.
First, when young children in these states were flagged as at risk for reading difficulties, schools were expected to provide additional reading instruction – rather than treating screening as an end in itself.
Second, schools in these states invested in practical teacher training, focused on how to teach foundational reading skills – such as phonics and word decoding – that are especially important for students with dyslexia.
Third, these states aligned their dyslexia laws with broader literacy reforms – like using evidence-based reading curricula and providing coaching to teachers – rather than treating dyslexia policy as a stand-alone mandate.
Mississippi is often cited as an example of a state that successfully paired dyslexia policy with a broader overhaul of reading instruction, resulting in a boost in reading achievement scores from 2013 to 2019. This overhaul included more structured reading instruction, teacher training and literacy coaches in schools.
Other states, including Louisianaand Alabama, adopted similar approaches and also saw reading gains for kids with learning disabilities – including dyslexia – after they enacted their dyslexia laws.
The takeaway
Dyslexia laws recognize that struggling young readers deserve early, evidence-based support rather than years of delay. That alone is meaningful progress.
But two decades of national data suggests that legislation by itself is not enough.
If states want dyslexia laws to fulfill their promise, the next step is clear: Move beyond mandates and focus on how schools are supported to carry them out. For children struggling to learn to read, the difference between policy and practice can shape their entire educational future.
Eric Hengyu Hu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Portland cement, widely used for concrete, is responsible for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.Photovs/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Concrete is all around you – in the foundation of your home, the bridges you drive over, the sidewalks and buildings of cities. It is often described as the second-most used material by volume on Earth after water.
But the way concrete is made today also makes it a major contributor to climate change.
Portland cement, the key component of concrete, is responsible for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s because it’s made by heating limestone to high temperatures, a process that burns a large amount of fossil fuels for energy and releases carbon dioxide from the limestone in the process.
The good news is that there are alternatives, and they are gaining attention.
Portland cement: A greenhouse gas problem
Cementlike substances have been used in construction for thousands of years. Architects have found evidence of their use in the pyramids of Egypt and the buildings and aqueducts of the Roman Empire.
Modern cement preparation starts with crushing the excavated raw materials limestone and clay and then heating them in a kiln at around 2,650 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,450 degrees Celsius) to form clinker, a hard, rocklike residue. The clinker is then cooled and ground with gypsum into a fine powder, which is called cement.
In all, between half a ton and 1 ton of greenhouse gas is released per ton of Portland cement. Cement is a binding agent that, mixed with water, holds aggregate together to create concrete. It makes up about 10% to 15% of the concrete mix by weight.
Alternative technologies can lower emissions
As populations, cities and the need for new infrastructure expand, the use of cement is growing, making it important to find alternatives with lower environmental costs.
Some techniques for reducing carbon dioxide emissions include substituting some of the clinker – the hard residue typically made from limestone – with supplementary materials such as clay, or fly ash and slag from industries. Other methods reduce the amount of cement by mixing in waste sawdust or recycled materials like plastics.
The long-term solution for reducing cement’s emissions, however, is to replace traditional cement completely with alternatives. One option is geopolymers made from earthen clay and industrial wastes.
Geopolymers: A more climate-friendly solution
Geopolymers can be made by mixing claylike materials that are rich in aluminum and silicon minerals with a chemical activator through a process called geopolymerization. The activator transforms the silicon and aluminum into a structure that will look like cement. All of this can happen at room temperature.
The major difference between cement and geopolymer is that cement is mainly made of calcium, whereas geopolymers are made of silicon and aluminum with some possible calcium in their structure.
How the production of Portland cement and geopolymers compare. Alcina Johnson Sudagar, CC BY-NC
A brief history of cement and geopolymers. Geopolymer International.
An added advantage of geopolymers is that changes to the mixture can produce a range of features.
For example, I and my co-researchers at the University of Aveiro in Portugal added a small amount of cork industry waste – the leftovers from creating bottle corks – to clay-based geopolymer and found it could improve the strength of the material by up to twofold. The cork particles filled the spaces in the geopolymer structure, making it denser, which increased the strength.
Geopolymers have been used in many types of construction, including roads, coatings, 3D printing, coastal environmental protection, the steel and chemical industries, sewer rehabilitation and building radiation shielding and rocket launchpad and bunker infrastructure.
One of the earliest examples of a modern geopolymer concrete project was the Brisbane West Wellcamp airport in Australia.
The advantage of using industrial wastes in geopolymers is a double-edged sword, however. The composition of industrial wastes varies, so it can be difficult to standardize the processing methods. The geopolymer components need to be mixed in particular ratios to achieve desired properties.
Producing the activator for the geopolymer, typically done in chemical facilities, can raise the cost and contribute to the carbon footprint. And the long-term data about these materials’ stability is only now being developed given their newness. Also, these geopolymers can take longer to set than cement, though the setting time can be sped up by using raw materials that react quickly.
Developing cheaper, naturally available activators like agricultural waste rice husk with sustainable supply chains could help lower the costs and environmental impact. Also, printing the recipe on the raw material packaging could help simplify the job of determining the mixing ratio so geopolymers can be more widely used with confidence.
Even though geopolymer technology has some drawbacks, these low-carbon alternatives have great potential for reducing emissions from the construction sector.
Alcina Johnson Sudagar has received funding from GeoBioTec.
