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Nine years ago, not long before Stephen Harper’s Conservative government was replaced by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, retired diplomat Paul Heinbecker penned a brutal takedown of Canadian foreign policy.

To Heinbecker, Harper’s appointment of five foreign ministers (and two more acting foreign ministers) over nine years indicated his government didn’t take the file seriously. That lack of seriousness helped explain why American presidents only visited three times between 2006 and 2015, leaving Canada “on the margins of global relevance.”

Heinbecker concluded disparagingly:

“The Harper government has turned foreign policy outside in. It has treated foreign affairs often as a means to cultivate diaspora communities and constituencies at home…. Foreign posture has replaced foreign policy.”

Harper, Trudeau similarities

Nine years later and another former diplomat, David Mulroney, has admonished the Justin Trudeau government’s approach to foreign policy with equal harshness.

“Canadians show up to lecture, not listen,” he wrote in a National Post op-ed.

One of Trudeau’s own ministers of global affairs, Marc Garneau, apparently concurs:

“Unfortunately, Canada’s standing in the world has slipped, in part because our pronouncements are not always matched by a capacity to act or by actions that clearly demonstrate that we mean what we say …. We are losing credibility.”

Garneau was the fourth of Trudeau’s five foreign ministers. Since 2015, American presidents have visited Canada just twice. And just like the Harper Conservatives failed in their bid to secure a seat for Canada on the United Nations Security Council in 2010, so too did the Trudeau Liberals in 2020.

Read more:
UN Security Council: Actually, the world doesn’t need more Canada

The similarities don’t end there.

Neither Harper nor Trudeau commissioned a foreign policy review. Neither fully funded the military. Both positioned women and children at the centre of relatively meagre international assistance programs. And, like Harper’s, much of Trudeau’s focus in foreign affairs seems aimed at courting domestic groups.

Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper stand together before placing a wreath during a ceremony marking the one-year anniversary of the 2014 shootings on Parliament Hill that left one Canadian soldier dead, shortly after Trudeau defeated Harper in the federal election in October 2015.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

‘Unavoidably reactive’

Our new history of Canadian foreign policy, Canada First, Not Canada Alone, explains why these similarities are unsurprising.

Canadian governments have limited flexibility in their conduct of external affairs. As one group of foreign policy experts once said:

“Especially for the smaller powers, the conduct of foreign policy is to some extent unavoidably reactive. For those that are securely placed and richly endowed, like Canada, the messes they confront are usually not of their own making, and the pressures they face are largely beyond their control.”

What’s more, the country’s miraculous avoidance of a significant international attack over the last 150 years leaves most Canadians feeling safer than they probably should. In this context, it’s difficult for decision-makers to make foreign policy a strategic priority.

Laments about the decline of Canada’s contribution to world affairs began in the 1970s, and have continued ever since. These concerns have typically been reasonable, even when Ottawa’s intentions were sincere.

Read more:
Canada needs a focused and flexible foreign policy after years of inconsistency

Harper genuinely wanted to elevate the place of the Armed Forces in Canadian society, only to discover that success in Afghanistan was impossible and supporting our military was incredibly expensive.

Trudeau’s pledge to restore Canada’s peacekeeping tradition when he became prime minister was real; he only abandoned it upon realizing that peacekeeping in the contemporary operating environment risked a significant loss of Canadian lives.

To date, such reversals have had limited consequences. Long protected by three oceans and a friendly giant to the south, successive governments in Ottawa have been able to ignore problems that bedevil less geographically fortunate countries.

U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Trudeau before his address to Parliament in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in June 2016. Canada has long been shielded by the friendly giant to the south, but is that still the case?
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Pivoting in a changing world

But more recent global challenges — brutal wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, climate change, supply chain disruptions, election interference, American political polarization — serve as stark reminders that the world is changing in ways that necessitate a more active Canadian global posture.

That new approach requires co-operation with allies and international organizations, not to mention a significant economic investment.

The recipe for Canada First policies — those that keep the state and its people secure within a stable international system, economically prosperous, politically autonomous and united at home — is easier to articulate than it is to implement.

It requires not just a functioning, productive relationship with our critical ally to the south, but also a commitment to a rules-based international order and multilateral approaches to conflict resolution.

Read more:
How minority governments can influence foreign policy

Engaging in diplomacy

Foreign policy practitioners negotiate and compromise, doing what is necessary to maintain credibility at home and overseas. They act without the benefit of hindsight, frequently under political pressure and short time frames.

When they fail, the consequences of their actions are obvious. Their successes can be harder to measure, leading some to view the practice of diplomacy as elitist, exclusive and ineffective.

At times that may be true, but that doesn’t detract from diplomacy’s key role in Canada’s viability as an independent, prosperous country. A willingness to engage in diplomacy in defence of Canadian interests must also be matched by investments in the capacity to act globally.

The future of Canada depends on decision-makers with the humility to recognize that standing alone on the world stage is no way to protect and promote the national interest. Läs mer…

On July 24, 2024, one-third of the structures in Jasper, Alta. were destroyed when the Jasper Complex Wildfire burnt an estimated 32,722 hectares.

As a researcher of disaster and emergency management, I visited Jasper in October to observe disaster recovery efforts there.

The Municipality of Jasper and its federal partners are actively managing the recovery. The municipality has submitted an application for $73.14 million in expenditures for reimbursement from Alberta’s provincial Disaster Recovery Program.

For those outside of the disaster zone, the message is that Jasper still exists and it is open for business. In the meantime, visitors need to be aware that residents are facing daunting tasks in a recovery effort that will take not months but years.

Visiting Jasper

As I approached Jasper from the south, through the fire-scarred Jasper National Park, I was first struck by what visually appears as a wasteland of burnt sticks in a black, brown and grey landscape.

Burned trees in Jasper National Park landscape.
(J. Rozdilsky), CC BY

Proceeding into Jasper, the landscape transforms into the disfigured skeletal remains of noncombustible portions of structures — the buildings have been reduced to piles of charred, rusting and decomposing objects in vast debris fields.

However, portions of Jasper’s built environment did survive the fire, and it is entirely possible to spend time in some parts of the town that remained intact rather than looking like a burnt-out war zone.

Clean-up challenges

A very visible and immediate challenge to Jasper’s practical recovery is the removal of debris.

A streetlamp lies on the ground in Jasper, outside what remains of the Wicked Cup Café.
(J. Rozdilsky), CC BY

Work is underway to expedite bulk debris removal action. The action would work by removing debris across multiple properties at the same time by using one contractor.

One of the challenges of removing the debris is the rapid approach of winter. November sees the most snowfall in Jasper, with an average snowfall of 135 millimetres.

Despite best efforts being made, if large tracts of disaster debris become frozen in place over winter, such a situation will impede recovery progress in 2025.

In addition to health hazards and special worker safety related to fire debris, improper management of disaster debris can impede the timely recovery of the affected area.

Land classification

Less visible, but nonetheless important, challenges facing disaster recovery in Jasper are unfolding policy dilemmas related to a very nuanced land tenure situation. Rules of land tenure define how access is granted to rights to use, control and transfer land, as well as associated responsibilities and restraints.

From the public administrative perspective, Jasper is not your typical Canadian town. It is formally a provincially classified specialized municipality that exists within the boundaries of federally administered national park lands governed under the National Parks Act.

The situation means disaster recovery will take place under a unique set of rules governing everything from land use decisions to one’s right to reside in Jasper. In Jasper, residents own their homes, but not the property they sit on; the Crown is the only landowner in the park.

Until an amendment to the Canada Parks Act known as Bill C-76 received royal assent on Oct. 3, 2024, Jasper’s local government did not have the ability to exercise control over its own land use and planning. Under Bill C-76, the Municipality of Jasper will formally take authority over specific elements of land-use planning and development that were previously held by Parks Canada.

However, this nuanced land tenure situation in Jasper will complicate recovery. Unanticipated consequences of overlapping interests will occur as several parties in Jasper are allocated different rights to the same parcel of land.

Collective recovery

A sign that Jasper was moving in the right direction was evidenced by a municipally based public information campaign consisting of posters in the town centre. The headline on the poster was “We’re in this together.”

A poster for a public information campaign addressing residents and visitors to Jasper.
(J. Rozdilsky), CC BY

The left column of the poster addresses Jasper residents, while the righthand side speaks directly to visitors. Visitors were advised to “ask us about our town, the park and our community. Try not to ask us what we lost in the fire.”

The “We’re in this together” theme related to recovery applies beyond local affairs. For those far outside of Jasper, now is the time to support the town’s unique role as a national asset, facilitating access of 2.5 million visitors yearly to Canadian natural areas.

For Jasper’s disaster recovery, we are indeed all in this together. Läs mer…

When it comes to lying in politics, Donald Trump is in a class of his own. According to the Washington Post, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims in his four years as president, increasing year-on-year from six per day in his first year to 39 per day in his fourth.

Although other presidents have lied to the public, none have lied like this. Some of Trump’s lies are trivial, and many are self-aggrandising (“Nobody builds better walls than me”). Then there are his more egregious lies, like the one about the 2020 presidential election being “stolen” – demonstrably and dangerously contrary to the facts, with serious consequences for the nation and public trust.

And these lies can cut through. Research by political scientists Kevin Arceneaux and Roy Truex found that this “big lie” about the stolen election was very “sticky”. Around 50% of Republican voters believed it, regardless of any emerging contrary evidence. The researchers also found that belief in this lie boosted Republican supporters’ self-esteem – as they weren’t “losers” after all.

Politicians who lie can gain a strategic advantage. If you can successfully embellish the truth or construct a new reality, this often tends to be more interesting and engaging than the complicated truth. The truth may be a bit dull and uninspiring; the lie can be whatever you want it to be. You know what your audience wants to hear.

Politicians know that lying is part of our everyday lives. Research in psychology using lie diaries tells us that people lie on average twice a day. Many are harmless “white” lies told for the benefit of others, but some are not so harmless and told for the benefit of the liar themselves.

Some people get significant pleasure from telling such self-centred lies. Psychologists call this “duping delight”. It confuses the recipient of the lie, who expects to detect signs of guilt or anxiety. Instead, all they see is a faint smile of satisfaction. The liar gets away with it – that smile could mean anything.

Who likes lying?

Certain types of personality are drawn to telling these sorts of lies, including those with little empathy, such as narcissists and psychopaths. They don’t care about the consequences for the recipient; it’s all about them.

People typically start lying early in life – between two and three years of age. Charles Darwin observed this in his own son.

And the ability to lie improves as our cognitive abilities develop. Like any skill, we get better at it with practice. While many adults still feel guilt when they don’t tell the truth, some politicians don’t appear to feel any guilt, shame or sadness at telling a lie.

Donald Trump claimed falsely that immigrants in Ohio were eating cats and dogs.

Telling a big lie

Politics was once thought of as an art. It was political philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli who, in 1532, wrote: “Those princes who have done great things … have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft.” Part of that craft was lying. Machiavelli argued that rulers should do whatever it takes to retain power, and this could include “being a great dissembler”.

Politicians can lie by omission and by exaggeration – but sometimes, like Trump, they tell outright “big lies”. This term was introduced by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, and the concept of the big lie was used by the Nazis to justify persecution of the Jews.

A big lie is often defined as “a deliberate gross distortion of the truth used especially as a propaganda tactic”. These have, it is argued, the power to disrupt society.

Political historian Timothy Snyder accused Trump of using the big lie technique in his denial of the 2020 election result.

To work, according to Hitler, big lies must also be able “to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings”. They are not aimed at our rational selves, but our unconscious and emotional selves.

Trump saying that immigrants are eating the dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, is not appealing to our rational system. It’s providing us with a vivid image, and trying to affect our emotional and unconscious system.

As the sociobiologist Robert Trivers has pointed out, lying can give you a clear evolutionary advantage. Status, wealth and achievements are important in that great evolutionary battle, the survival of the genes – that’s why people (including Trump) lie about them. But Trivers says self-deceit can also be evolutionarily advantageous, because if you can convince yourself then it makes you more convincing to others, and therefore more effective.

Perhaps Trump managed to convince himself that they really were eating the dogs and cats in Springfield. Or perhaps he thought to himself: “Plant the emotional image, that’s all you need for the faithful.”

Attractive fictions might well engage us and sweep us along but, as Shakespeare suggested in the Merchant of Venice, many people hope the “truth will out” eventually. The last few months of the US election campaign suggest this may not always be true. Läs mer…

When prison officers are in the news, it’s rarely for a positive reason. Recent headlines have included officers smuggling contraband into prisons, or having inappropriate relationships with prisoners. It’s little wonder that the many prison officers who only want to do a good job feel undervalued. We don’t often hear about the ones saving lives on the wings.

Prison officers get a bad reputation. Research suggests that the public think they are power-hungry disciplinarians with questionable morals. It doesn’t help that a record high 165 staff in England and Wales were dismissed for misconduct in the past year.

But what is it like to be a prison officer in the UK today? I talk to prison officers in Scotland and Finland for my own PhD research and I regularly interview prison officers around the world for my podcast, Evolving Prisons.

Prison officers wear many hats. They’re mentors, firefighters and first-aiders. Officers themselves have likened their job to that of a parent. Sometimes they’re teaching a prisoner how to read, helping with job applications and sometimes they’re just having a conversation which might help someone change their thinking. Prison officers are the cornerstone of the prison system.

This is why it is so concerning that prisons in England and Wales are chronically understaffed. More than 13% of prison officers left His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service in the 12 months prior to June 30 2024. And 32% of the remaining officers have less than two years’ service, which puts them at risk due to their inexperience.

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This understaffing means that prisoners spend longer in their cells, as there are fewer opportunities for them during the day. This, coupled with unprecedented overcrowding, creates a “pressure cooker” environment which results in higher rates of violence and an increase in staff assaults.

One officer, who has worked in UK prisons for three decades, said it’s like going through a meat grinder and living each day in fear.

A 2023 study by the House of Commons justice committee surveyed 5,113 prison officers (about 25% of the total officer workforce). The results found a staggering 50% of them do not feel safe in the prison they work in.

The Ministry of Justice revealed that, in the 12 months to March 2024, the rate of assaults on staff in prisons in England and Wales increased by 24% from the year before, totalling 9,847 assaults. Working in a job where you are exposed to violence regularly has a negative impact on your physical and mental health.

Physical and mental health toll

Prison officers are in constant contact with people deemed too dangerous to be in society. As a result of this and the lack of resources available to them to do their job, they’re found to experience elevated rates of stress and burnout. They are also at heightened risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.

In addition to the stress-related risks, working in a prison carries other environmental hazards that have both physical and mental effects.

For example, the use of the synthetic drug “spice”, a psychoactive substance, is prevalent in prisons around the UK and prison officers are at risk from inhaling the fumes. The symptoms are wide-ranging from one officer telling me it made her believe she had six fingers, to another being hospitalised and left with long-term health problems. Earlier this year, five prison officers were taken to hospital after a curry made for them by prisoners was suspected to have been spiked with spice.

Hypervigilance is common in prison officers and manifests as a way to keep themselves safe. However, research found it can negatively affect their sleep and their relationships, and it can psychologically fatigue officers. Some research suggests that some officers may help prisoners commit crime as a result of burnout, due to feeling a lack of motivation and dedication to the job.

Prison officers can also experience “moral injury”, a form of psychological trauma that can occur when someone acts against deeply held beliefs, as they find themselves going against their internal beliefs in their work. One officer told me, when working with female prisoners who had previously been victims of domestic abuse, that she felt she had replaced their perpetrator and was further traumatising them by telling them when they could shower, eat and leave their cell.

A prison officer in the visitor’s room at former prison HMP Weare in Dorset.
Jack Sullivan/Alamy

Prison officers witness a lot of trauma such as self-harm, suicide attempts and violence. Little research exists into rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among serving prison officers in the UK. However, a 2018 study in the US found prison officers have PTSD rates six times higher than the general population.

It’s clear that UK prison officers have been struggling with their mental health. One in eight took sick days for mental health reasons in 2022.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said recently that the department will “get a grip on the situation … and make our prisons safer for hard-working staff.”

But until that happens, the country’s prisons remain in a state of disarray. And prison officers are the people being asked to hold them together, while putting their own health and wellbeing on the line. Läs mer…

Photography is an immensely powerful medium. Unlike paintings or drawings, photographs have long been connected to ideas of truth and used as evidence, shaping our understanding of the world. When it comes to journalism, photographs have been shown to have a greater impact than the written word alone – in fact, the lead image of a news article can alter how a reader interprets the text.

But right now the industry is having a crisis of conscience, and the past few years have seen a surge in online debate about ethics, as concerns have been raised about photographic practices across a wide range of industries, from fashion advertising to charity fundraising.

These concerns have extended to the news media, which has drawn criticism for the one-dimensional representation of certain communities, for example that of black men and Afghan women, which is exacerbated by inconsistent standards applied to publishing images of suffering.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

While questions of image ethics are not new, this crisis is only deepening with the exponential growth in the production and use of AI-generated images.

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It is often difficult to differentiate between photographs and photo-realistic AI-generated images, and the lines between the two are being increasingly blurred as AI images are sold on picture library platforms and used by advocacy campaigns for charities. AI images are now being used in the campaign for the upcoming US election, perhaps most famously with an AI image of Taylor Swift endorsing Donald Trump.

Despite the ongoing discussion about photography ethics, practice is sometimes slower to change. This can create a tension between those who espouse more traditional approaches to photography, and those who are critiquing those approaches. This is contributing to polarisation within the industry and a growing uncertainty about how we can use photography ethically today.

As an anthropologist who teaches visual media ethics, I am interested in how professional photographers think about and practise ethics in their work. This year, as part of my research into this topic, I analysed 48 interviews I conducted between 2020 and 2023 with people working in photography.

These interviews focused particularly on the perspectives of professionals, including those whose voices have often been marginalised within the industry. This includes black photographers, photographers of colour, photographers in the global south, disabled photographers and female photographers. All of these interviews are publicly available online.

Lessons in self-reflection

In each interview, I asked: “What does photography ethics mean to you?” Through analysing their responses, I have distilled eight key lessons about photography ethics. From foundational ideas about the power of photography to practical advice about personal biases, collaboration, asking for consent and building trust, these lessons can help to foster a deeper understanding of the ethical considerations in photography.

One of the threads that runs through many of these lessons is the importance of self-reflection. Photographers speak about engaging in self-reflection to understand their own motivations for telling a certain story through photography, as well as their own personal perspective in relation to the stories they tell. Photographer Kirsty Mackay says:

I think looking at the objective and your own reasons for documenting a subject is really, really important. What we see, quite often, is middle-class photographers making a story about working-class people, not really to raise awareness of an issue, but really for themselves, and for their own ego, and to elevate their status within photography.

Self-reflection can help photographers to better understand how their perspective shapes the way they tell visual stories by identifying their underlying assumptions and unconscious biases. As photographer and academic Dr Tara Pixley explains: “In your career as a photographer … you’re going to tell hundreds of stories, but the first story you have to tell to yourself is the one about you.”

While self-reflection is important for mining our motivations and mitigating our biases, it cannot achieve objectivity. Despite long-held beliefs in the objectivity of photography, there is a growing recognition within the industry that we all see the world through our own lens, subjectively. This is why we need a diversity of photographers.

Additionally, no amount of self-reflection can substitute knowledge and understanding of the people, places and topics we are photographing. Photographers like Taha Ahmad stress the importance of research in their practice. He explains that doing research can help photographers to “have a better understanding of the kind of work they are going to produce and what impact the work could make when it is out in front of the world”.

Despite its limitations, self-reflection is critical for the future of the photography industry. Photography ethics are changing as the world changes. This may mean that past practice does not match up with the current ethical standards. This may also mean that we respond to ethical issues differently today than we might have in the past. The key is to learn from our past experiences to inform our practice in the future.

The lessons identified by this report should not be understood as guidelines or rules, nor are they comprehensive. Instead, they are intended to help inform how we think about photographs, the photographic process and photography ethics – and, perhaps, they can help us to navigate the current crisis of conscience felt across the photography industry.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. Läs mer…

The tension was palpable as we waited to see if Glasgow would rescue the Commonwealth Games for 2026. After the Australian state of Victoria pulled out, the eyes of the Commonwealth turned to Scotland.

Glasgow delivered a hugely successful event in 2014, raising questions about whether a future games there could match that success. I was part of the bid team as the cultural advisor for Glasgow 2014 and went on to conduct research on the impact of the games on sustainable community participation for people with a disability. So I understand the positive impact the games had for Scotland.

My work over the past couple of decades has examined the social impact of mega sports events and their role as agents for change, specifically disability rights, social inclusion, and peace and diplomacy. In other words, considering whether major sport events truly serve as a force for good as it’s often argued they do. If this is indeed the case, why shouldn’t smaller Commonwealth nations benefit from hosting the games?

Experts often criticise the economic and social impact of major sporting events, but others argue for the social value these events can bring to communities long after they have left town.

My research team conducted a survey on perceptions of the impact of the Glasgow 2014 games that revealed overwhelming support for their lasting impact on the city and Scotland.

The results showed that 75% of respondents believed the games increased civic and national pride, boosted Glasgow and Scotland’s chances of securing future events, enhanced their international reputation, and, as often attested, strengthened the nation’s soft power. Scotland ranks second (behind Quebec) out of ten similar territories for overall soft power, and third for sport.

Amid a rise in the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) using sport in soft power terms, other nations have sought to be part of this too. The Commonwealth Games is increasingly being used as a vehicle for positive change and regional soft power.

Read more:
Glasgow’s 2026 Commonwealth Games needs to showcase an affordable and socially beneficial way of hosting sporting events

There has been a rise in emerging states running mega sports events, often wealthy illiberal nations such as China and Qatar. However, what about the smaller nations in the Commonwealth? Only two – Malaysia and Jamaica – have ever hosted the Commonwealth Games, and the only other nation outside of Australia, Canada, UK and New Zealand to do so is India.

Glasgow is offering a new model that will create a legacy not only for Scotland, but for many other smaller nations in the Commonwealth. The games are known as the “Friendly Games” – it’s a community that is known for three core values: humanity, equality and destiny.

The family of nations

The African nations form a significant part of the Commonwealth sports movement, so shouldn’t we expect the model that Glasgow is developing to be transferable, ensuring that sport can serve a common good? An environmentally sustainable approach would use facilities and networks already in place to help developing nations, which already suffer disproportionately in terms of climate and environmental risks.

Under this model, venues and infrastructure are already in place. The event is athlete-focused, with competitors staying in hotels as opposed to a purpose-built athlete village, and transport needs minimised through walking or the use of team buses. The 2026 Glasgow event could serve as a blueprint for a sustainable approach to games delivery, inspiring nations such as Ghana, which already has the necessary venues and infrastructure to take on future Commonwealth Games.

With just ten sports across four venues, Glasgow 2026 has thought differently about delivery and digital broadcast. This is the only fully integrated games, hosting para competition at the same time as able-bodied events. This too will help smaller nations’ para-athletes, who often do not get a chance to compete internationally.

The Commonwealth is made up of 56 independent countries and the Commonwealth Games Federation consists of 72 member nations and territories. Gabon and Togo joined the Commonwealth in 2022, neither of which had previous ties to the British empire or other Commonwealth states, demonstrating that some countries still want to be part of a wider family.

Given 19 African countries have Commonwealth Games Associations, we could well see one of these take the baton in future. The Ghanaian sports minister made it clear that after hosting a successful African Games in 2024, he believed the next step would be the Commonwealth Games.

The recent African Games in Ghana’s capital Accra held athletics in a stadium that seats 11,000 spectators, while the World Athletics Championships in 2022 used the University of Oregon’s temporary stadium that seated 13,000. Commonwealth Games Scotland realised that, for 2026, Glasgow could host athletics at an existing stadium in the city with an upgrade to facilities that would provide seating for 11,000.

The 2024 African Games, held in Ghana, used an 11,000-seater stadium for athletics events.
Xinhua/Alamy Stock Photo

Ghana and Scotland are learning from each other to lay a path for smaller nations to host future games. The Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022 contributed £1.2 billion to the UK economy and £79.5 million in social value. This is possible for small nations too.

Glasgow 2026 can create a different legacy for the Commonwealth Games; one that is built on inclusion, diversity and sustainability and which incorporates the culture, values and pride of the Commonwealth. The time is right to offer a new approach to event delivery that offers other smaller nations the chance to benefit from sport as a force for good. Läs mer…

With near-constant headlines discussing the devastating crises humanity is currently facing – from climate change to political polarisation and war – many of us are experiencing feelings of existential uncertainty.

This can manifest in different ways, such as feeling anxious or distressed when consuming the news. You might also feel a more subtle but persistent sense of unease and worry about the future.

These feelings are actually linked to changes in the brain. By knowing how this works, we can understand what techniques will best help us to manage this feeling when we next experience it.

Worrying thoughts and feelings about existential threats increase activity in the amygdala – a brain region that responds to threat. This releases stress hormones – first in the brain (hypothalamus and pituitary gland) and then in the adrenal cortex (which sits on top of the kidneys).

The release of these hormones from the adrenal cortex can impact our attention, problem-solving and decision-making abilities due to their effects on two distinct brain regions which support cognitive functions and memory – the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. These regions can actually decrease stress hormone levels, but can become less effective at doing so in response to extremely stressful events or very frequent experiences of stress and anxiety. Chronic stress exposure damages these two brain regions, and can create a vicious cycle of prolonged anxiety.

To cope with this uncertainty and anxiety, one common response people use is information seeking – where we seek out information about an event or situation in order to feel more certain and less anxious.

But this coping mechanism can lead to doomscrolling on social media, where negative content tends to be shared more frequently and feelings of existential uncertainty are exploited for financial or political gain. Our brains also remember negative information better than positive information, which is why negative content is often used for manipulation.

Read more:
Existential crisis: how long COVID patients helped us understand what it’s like to lose your sense of identity and purpose in life

Our attempts to make sense of existential uncertainty can also make some people more susceptible to conspiracy theories. This is because when we feel threatened and uncertain, any explanation for what’s happening seems better than none – and this brings some short-term relief from our worries.

We may also be more inclined to cling to ideas and values that make us feel part of something bigger than ourselves when experiencing existential uncertainty. That’s why some people find themselves feeling more strongly about their political or religious views during periods of unrest – even if such beliefs can sow distrust towards others.

These coping mechanisms may only provide short-term relief from feelings of anxiety – and even worsen our mental health in the long run. To better cope and protect your mental health during times of existential uncertainty, here are some more effective things you can do instead:

1. Stress-reduction exercises

Next time the news makes you feel anxious, try naming the emotion you’re experiencing. Naming emotions can reduce their intensity and unpleasantness. Then count to four while breathing in and count to five while breathing out. Breathing out for longer activates the parasympathetic system – the pathway of neural cells that helps the body rest and relax.

Using a “sensory anchor” such as a nearby sound or object to ground your attention in the moment can also be effective. This can quell the stream of worrying thoughts.

Other stress-reducing activities you can add into your daily routine include practising relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation or taking brief mindfulness breaks. Physical activity, such as dancing or walks, can also temporarily decrease stress as brief acute stress during exercise is another way of activating the parasympathetic system afterwards.

2. Look to connect

It can be helpful when experiencing existential uncertainty to remind yourself that others are probably feeling the same way. Acknowledging the common humanity of our worries may help reduce the feelings of threat we have.

Awe-inducing activities, such as spending time outdoors, making art or meditating or praying, can all expand feelings of connectedness and reduce worry.

Volunteering can help you connect with others.
PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/ Shutterstock

Writing about what you’re grateful for is another useful way to decrease distress during times of uncertainty. This increases brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex – a brain area involved in regulating emotions, stress and boosting social-connectedness. The increased brain activity can last as long as three months.

Practising compassion can also reduce distress during times of existential uncertainty. Whereas witnessing others’ suffering can trigger empathic distress – a negative emotion that’s also linked to withdrawal – finding ways to be compassionate and help others can shift this into a positive emotion and make us feel closer to people.

3. Shift your thinking

Instead of spending hours doomscrolling, try using your need for information to search for creative solutions or view the crises as opportunities for innovation where you can put your skills to positive use.

Or, try finding initiatives that help to create this kind of constructive mindset. This can be anything from volunteering at a food bank or charity, writing a blog to making art. These kinds of activities can have a buffering effect on the stress response by protecting mental health and reduce negative emotions.

Similarly, new creative ways of responding during times of crisis can shift our thinking to being solution-focused – instead of dwelling on the problems we face. This can support our emotional wellbeing.

If everyone follows these tips, this may create a more cooperative environment which may bring us a bit closer to addressing current global crises at the collective, societal level. Läs mer…

Reports have emerged in recent months of particularly savage casualties among Russian troops fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, as the Russian military bids to capture as much territory as it can, possibly with one eye on a potential ceasefire deal. Much will depend on the outcome of the US election. Donald Trump has said he will end military aid to Ukraine if elected, bringing the war to an end in “one day”.

This could mean that Kyiv will be forced to cede Ukrainian territory along current lines of occupation. Analysts have commented that this was one of the motivations for Ukraine’s Kursk offensive inside Russia in August, since territory captured by Ukraine would be a valuable bargaining chip in negotiations.

But meanwhile Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine has been particularly bloody, with US intelligence reports of casualty numbers of up to 1,000 per day, dead and wounded. This calls to mind the “meat grinder” tactics of previous Russian and Soviet military campaigns.

The “meat grinder” is a collective battlefield approach that values high troop density and intensity to overwhelm the enemy. It is a uniquely Russian approach nine decades in the making, consisting of a combination two much older strategies, namely attrition and mass mobilisation.

At the heart of attrition is the notion of abundance. The opponent is physically and psychologically exhausted by the sheer force of numbers, as wave after wave of cannon fodder are relentlessly deployed. Mass mobilisation is the large-scale movement of troops to a particular location with the intention of overpowering the adversary. Neither approach recognises the intrinsic value of individual lives.

Despite being outmatched in organisation and tactics, the Russian military successfully undertook a war of attrition against Napoleon’s invasion in 1812. A century later, the Russian empire generated enormous casualties but successfully launch large-scale counterattacks during the first world war.

The “meat grinder” became embedded in Soviet military tactics. The phrase “quantity has a quality of its own” has apocryphal roots in Stalin’s leadership during the second world war. Key battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk involved the deployment of millions of soldiers, and the Soviet army eventually crushed the Nazi blitzkrieg through sheer weight of numbers on the eastern front.

Past victories do not guarantee future success. But – for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his military planners – it seems the dead and disabled bodies of their own soldiers are necessary collateral damage. It is estimated that more than 70,000 Russian troops have died since 2022. But it has been reported that Russian casualty rates are now rising more rapidly due to its military’s increased reliance on inexperienced fighters.

The state of the war in Ukraine, October 20 2024.
Institute for the Study of War

Civilian recruits now make up the greatest proportion of deaths since the invasion began. This increase is partially their lack of military knowledge in a challenging fighting environment against a highly motivated enemy. But inadequate medical care and poor quality protective kit are also important factors. The Russian state media shares carefully curated images and stories of the deceased but morale is still crashing, and military wives and mothers are rebelling.

Ultimate sacrifice

Putin’s meat grinder continues to expand, however. The Russian government announced plans to spend £133.8 billion on national security and defence in 2025, equivalent to 41% of annual government expenditure. All healthy men aged 18 to 30 can now be conscripted, and Russia has recently ordered a third increase in Russian troops. The recruitment of a further 180,000 soldiers will make Russia’s army the second largest in the world, with nearly 2.4 million members. Yet this army is unqualified and offers little protection for the individual soldier.

Ukraine does not view its soldiers’ lives as disposable in the same way – and they are comparatively well trained and resourced. But the dynamic in Ukraine may be changing. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, signed new conscription laws in April 2024 that lowered the age of conscription to 25, and it has reached the point where eligible men are now being dragged away from restaurants and nightclubs by army recruiters.

Many of Russia’s fontline soldiers are now young conscripts unexpecedly thrown into the war whenUkraine invaded the Kursk region.
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

Russia’s meat-grinder tactics are not infallible and will eventually collapse. Large formations can quickly become large targets in an age of remote reconnaissance. While Russia can coerce military participation through the carrot of high wages and the stick of forced conscription, a large and unmotivated army is not well-equipped for modern warfare and will eventually produce diminishing returns.

Even declaration of martial law in the whole of Russia – Putin introduced martial law in occupied part of Ukraine in September 2022 – would not overcome the deeply embedded structural issues Russia faces. Poor care of soldiers and veterans will generate long-term challenges in the form of disability and treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The social and cultural harms of a poor culture of care are already manifesting in Russia. Approximately 190 serious crimes have been committed by veterans upon returning home. With Putin showing no interest in peace, we can only hope that the Russian war machine burns itself out – and that the long-term consequences are not terminal. Läs mer…

Black music record stores have always been more than just places to buy records. These spaces became lifelines for communities, cultural hubs where people gathered, shared stories and connected over a shared passion for music.

From the early days of the Windrush generation to the present, these stores have been a vital part of the Black cultural experience. For many, they were crucial in shaping not just their musical tastes, but their sense of identity and belonging.

I am part of a new research project, The Record Store and Black Music: A UK History, which is aiming to shine a spotlight on this legacy by documenting the untold stories of Black record stores across the UK to preserve them for future generations. Through oral histories, films and photos, we are capturing the vibrant world that flourished within these stores.

Trailer for an upcoming documentary created as part of the project.

“I don’t know how, especially as Black Caribbean people, we’d have survived in England if we hadn’t had music,” Claude Hendrickson, founder of the Chapeltown Youth Association Leeds, told us. His words emphasised how deeply intertwined these spaces are with the community’s survival and cultural resistance.

For many Black people, these stores transcended their commercial nature to offer a sense of belonging, a space where you could learn about new artists, hear the latest sounds and connect with kindred spirits. As British DJ and presenter Trevor Nelson told us: “the first community I had in music was in a record shop”. He remembered how important those early interactions with his first music community were, building connections that would shape his career.

2Funky Records Store in Leicester.
2Funky Arts

What made these stores even more unique was their ability to foster a network of collaboration. Record shops weren’t just about selling music; they were about creating it, too. Artists, DJs, promoters, radio stations and music journalists used these spaces as meeting points to exchange ideas, feedback and be inspired.

As David Rodigan, a legendary figure in UK radio and reggae aficionado, explained to us: “The whole business of going to a record shop was very much an advent of gathering like-minded souls.”

The original taste-makers

Before the age of streaming, record stores were an essential part of how music moved and evolved. Long before algorithms suggested new tracks, the person behind the counter was the original taste-maker – someone who knew their music and their community and could help shape what you listened to next.

Peckings Studio Record Shop in London. please credit David Corio.
David Corio/2Funky Arts

In this way record stores didn’t just reflect musical trends – they helped create them. For example, shops that catered to soul, R&B, reggae, jungle, drum ‘n’ bass, UK garage, dub, hip-hop, and other Black music genres played an instrumental role in shaping the UK’s music charts. They guided the preferences of their customers and, by extension, the nation.

In an era when mainstream radio and major record labels often ignored Black music, these stores provided a crucial alternative. They were the places where artists got their start and where word of mouth helped build careers.

In doing so, these stores became the heart of a cottage industry that supported independent artists and labels, allowing Black people to thrive in an industry that wasn’t always welcoming or accessible.

Our project doesn’t just celebrate the past – it also asks what these spaces mean in today’s world. Although record shops aren’t as ubiquitous as they once were, their impact on the cultural landscape remains undeniable. By documenting these stories, we ensure that the contribution of Black music stores isn’t forgotten but rather remains an integral part of the UK’s cultural heritage.

As we continue to explore and document their history, we are reminded of their immense contribution – not only to the music industry but to the very fabric of British cultural life.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. Läs mer…

China is gradually establishing itself as a major player in what has recently been called the Global South, previously known as the Non-Aligned Movement. Over the last few decades, China has become the world’s biggest creditor of developing countries. That has prompted many to fear that it will subjugate partners through the “debt trap” and use this to establish a “hegemonic sphere of influence.”

China’s economic position is so strong that it is now considered the main threat to the U.S. dollar. It is an influential member of the BRICS+ group (which also includes Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa). This group is working to establish a multipolar world that challenges the hegemony of the West, specifically the leadership of the United States. I analyzed this issue in a previous article.

Without using the term “threat,” the U.S. administration now sees China as the “most serious long-term challenge” to the international order. It’s easy to understand why, since China’s strategic objective is to put an end to the supremacy of the U.S. dollar, the keystone of U.S. hegemony.

As a researcher in international political economy at the Université Laval, I am looking at the role China is playing in the dedollarization of the world.

The stronghold of the U.S. dollar

The supremacy of the U.S. dollar underpins American hegemony in the current international order, as French economist Denis Durand explains in his article Guerre monétaire internationale: l’hégémonie du dollar contestée? (International currency war: the dollar’s hegemony challenged?).

In addition to the fact that several currencies are linked to the dollar by a fixed link or band of fluctuation, American currency is also used in many Third World and Eastern European countries, where it enjoys a much higher level of public confidence than do local currencies. […] The United States is the only power that can incur foreign debt in its own currency.

The hegemony of the U.S. dollar over the world economy is reflected in its over-representation in the foreign exchange reserves held by the world’s central banks. The greenback still outstrips other currencies even though there has been some erosion in this.

Despite a fall of 12 percentage points between 1999 and 2021, the share of the U.S. dollar in the official assets of the world’s central banks remains fairly stable at around 58-59 per cent.

U.S. currency still enjoys widespread confidence around the world, reinforcing its status as the preeminent reserve currency. The U.S. dollar reserves of the world’s central banks are invested in U.S. Treasury bills on the U.S. capital market, helping to reduce the cost of financing both government debt and private investment in the United States.

However, the income generated for the U.S. economy by the hegemony of its dollar could also collapse like a house of cards. Durand makes this point when he writes that “the monetary hegemony of the United States […] is held together only by the confidence of economic agents around the world in the American dollar.”

There are two reasons that the world’s confidence in the U.S. dollar could decrease.

Firstly, as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted in an interview in April 2023, the United States is unequivocally using its dollar as a tool to bend enemies — but also some recalcitrant allies — to its will. This could ultimately undermine the dollar’s hegemony.

On the other hand, the U.S. debt situation, particularly its unsustainability, is a source of concern that could affect the dollar’s attractiveness as a global reserve currency.

Unsustainable debt

The U.S. dollar has been at the heart of the international monetary system since 1944, and even more so since the Bretton Woods Agreement came into force in 1959.

The Bretton Woods system was based on both gold and the greenback, which was the only currency convertible into gold; this convertibility was fixed at the rate of $35 per ounce.

That changed on Aug. 15, 1971, when, because of inflation and the growing imbalances in the United States’ international economic relations, Richard Nixon announced the end of the dollar’s convertibility into gold.

With the dollar pegged to gold, the United States’ ability to take on debt to meet public spending was limited. Under the gold-based system, where gold was the guarantor of the U.S. currency, the United States could only borrow according to the quantity of dollars in circulation and its gold reserves.

Abandoning the gold-based system gave the U.S. free rein over its debt. In 2023, the U.S. public debt reached more than $33.4 trillion, nine times the country’s debt in 1990.

This astronomical figure continues to raise concerns about its long-term sustainability. As U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has pointed out, U.S. debt is growing faster than the economy, making it unsustainable in the long term.

An opportunity for China

This is a reality to which China is clearly attuned, since it recently undertook a massive sell-off of the U.S. debt it owned. Between 2016 and 2023, China sold $600 billion worth of U.S. bonds.

However, in August 2017 China was the United States’ largest creditor, ahead of Japan. It held more than $1.146 billion in U.S. Treasuries, almost 20 per cent of the amount held by all foreign governments. Beijing is now the second-largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, with a claim of around $816 billion.

It is certainly no coincidence that before divesting itself of U.S. bonds, Beijing first launched its own gold pricing system in yuan. In fact, on April 19, 2016, the Shanghai Gold Exchange, China’s operator for precious metals, unveiled on its website its first “fixed” daily benchmark for gold at 256.92 yuan per gram.

This policy is part of China’s strategy to make gold a tangible guarantee of its currency.

China’s “Gold for Dollars” strategy

China is also selling its U.S. bonds. According to the U.S. Treasury, between March 2023 and March 2024, China sold off $100 billion in U.S. Treasuries, on top of the $300 billion it had already sold off over the past decade.

At the same time, the Middle Kingdom has replaced around a quarter of the U.S. Treasuries sold in 10 years with gold, of which it is now the leading producer and consumer. Like China’s central bank, other central banks in emerging countries continue to buy gold.

China’s appetite for gold was confirmed in 2010, when its gold reserves rose to 1,054 tonnes, from around 600 tonnes in 2005. Ten years later, in 2020, its stock of gold had almost doubled again, to nearly 2,000 tonnes. By the end of 2023, with a gold reserve of 2,235 tonnes, China will be the country with the sixth-largest gold reserve.

As a substitute for the dollar, gold enables China to store the gains from its large trade surpluses. With the Shanghai Gold Exchange, which offers gold trading contracts in Yuan, Beijing is seeking to strengthen the use of its currency abroad with the aim of establishing the yuan as the benchmark currency for the global economy. Läs mer…