By Tom Frost, Senior lecturer in law, Loughborough University
The UK government has shelved legislation to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, after the US government withdrew its support for the deal.
Until and unless the US gives their consent, the UK will not be able to pass legislation, and the treaty between the UK and Mauritius to transfer sovereignty, signed in 2025, cannot be put into effect. This is because the agreement would require a 1966 British-American treaty on the Chagos Islands to be amended. Formal letters needed to be exchanged for this…
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By Susan Dianne Brophy, Associate Professor in Legal Studies, St. Jerome's University, University of Waterloo
As U.S. president from 1981 to 1989, Ronald Reagan’s appetite to curb public spending grew, leading him to expand the role of loans and limit the availability of grants.
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By Anthony Michael Butler, Professor of Political Studies, University of Cape Town
Nelson Mandela remains one of the most revered political leaders of modern times. He is widely credited with guiding South Africa through a peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy. He embodied racial reconciliation, and lent moral authority to a fragile new state. Yet admiration for Mandela the symbol has often obscured a more difficult question. How effective was Mandela in the day-to-day exercise of presidential power?
Most assessments of political leaders focus on their impact in terms of economic success…
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By MJ (Thinus) Booysen, Professor in Engineering, Stellenbosch University
Joshua Sello, Post-graduate student in Electronic Engineering, Stellenbosch University
Electric taxis are a long-term climate solution whose immediate value lies in cleaner air, lower operating costs, lower noise and better urban health.
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By Elizabeth Selig, Deputy Director, Center for Ocean Solutions, Stanford University
Adelina Maria Mensah, Snr Research Fellow, University of Ghana
Mafaniso Hara, Professor, University of the Western Cape
Moenieba Isaacs, Professor, University of the Western Cape
As ocean uses expand, it will be necessary to reduce disputes because they disrupt the environmental sustainability and equity central to a blue economy.
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By Alex Fitch, Lecturer and PhD Candidate in Comics and Architecture, University of Brighton
Louise Curran, Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature, University of Birmingham
Two graphic novel biographies of Jane Austen offer alternate, but equally rewarding, ways of recounting her life’s work in fascinating visual styles.
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By Heidi McIlvenny, PhD Candidate, School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast
Marine protected areas can’t stop pollution flowing in from the land and Northern Ireland’s seagrass meadows are paying the price.
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By Kevin Burke, Associate Professor in Statistics, University of Limerick
David O'Sullivan, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Limerick
Recently, a cheerful 100-year-old message in a bottle was found on the south-west coast of Australia. In it, a world war one soldier proclaimed to be “as happy as Larry”.
If you’re a betting person, you probably wouldn’t expect great odds of this happening. A bottle cast into the ocean could end up absolutely anywhere.
If it floats to a remote location, there is little chance of somebody stumbling upon it. And if it lands somewhere more favourable where people could potentially find it, there…
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By Jamie Torrance, Lecturer and Researcher in Psychology, Swansea University
“Welcome bonus: get 150% up to £150 on your first deposit”. It’s the kind of offer that greets anyone who visits a British online betting site. What it doesn’t say is that if you decide to spend £50 on this offer, you’d need to stake an additional £750 of your own money before any winnings could be withdrawn.
Recent research by colleagues and I asked nearly 600 UK bettors to work out the true cost of exactly that kind of offer. Nearly everyone got…
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By Marina Sanz-Martín, Postdoctoral researcher, Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO - CSIC)
The Mediterranean is one of the world’s most vulnerable ecosystems. A scientific study on shifting distribution dynamics examines how its fish species contend with sea warming.
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