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The Nato alliance remains intact this week (just about) after Donald Trump pulled back from threats of military action to capture Greenland. But once again we’ve seen growing divisions between the US and Europe, with the UK doing its best to navigate between them.
It’s been apparent for some time that the president sees the world not in terms of alliances but rather spheres of influence. Under his “Donroe doctrine”, Greenland (and Venezuela) are naturally within the American sphere. So he needs to act to keep out the country’s great rivals, Russia and China, who have their own parts of the globe to worry about (Ukraine, of course, falling into Russia’s sphere).
If this tripartite division of the planet sounds familiar, it’s because it’s eerily similar to the world envisaged by George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. How did the great writer come to foresee such a state of affairs? Literature scholar Emrah Atasoy and historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom, have examined Orwell’s influences and experiences to explain why the book appears so prescient today. The question remaining is whose sphere Europe will end up in.
We got another glimpse into Trump’s view of international relations this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he formally established his “Board of Peace”, welcoming 19 other countries into the new diplomatic forum. Francesco Grillo was on the ground in Davos and sent us this report on how the board is shaping up and what it could mean for the rest of the world.
One country that won’t be joining is the UK, after Keir Starmer declined to support a body supposedly promoting peace that was looking to admit Vladimir Putin. The prime minister also took perhaps his strongest line so far against Trump by pushing back against the president’s designs on Greenland and claims that Nato soldiers kept away from the frontlines in Afghanistan. Starmer suggested Trump’s U-turn was a victory for British pragmatism and principles, placing himself in a long line of UK leaders who’ve walked the fine line between the two.
At home, Starmer is focusing pressure to ban social media for under-16s into a public consultation on the subject. Given the growing evidence for the dangers teenagers face online, many will support the idea. But, perhaps surprisingly, not this academic who researches internet harm. Emily Setty sees it as an overly simple solution that obscures the reality of a much more complex problem.
We’ve also learnt this week about why you should try copper peptides in your skincare regime but be wary of gluten-free weight loss plans. It’s these kinds of health trends that academics are particularly good at assessing the evidence for. So on Tuesday we launched Strange Health, our first video podcast. Presented by my brilliant (and hilarious) colleague Katie Edwards and practising GP and Conversation author Dan Baumgardt, the
show is dedicated to uncovering what science really says about the wellness tricks you might hear about on social media. First up for the Strange Health treatment: January detoxes. Watch online or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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