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A recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 8 million people die annually from smoking related complications. Despite efforts by governments and various organisations to create awareness about the dangers, around 1.3 billion people still use some form of tobacco and 80% of them live in low to middle income countries.

There is no safe level of smoking. Even second-hand smoke can lead to serious complications such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The mouth (oral cavity) is the first port of entry to the rest of the body and is home to a complex and diverse community of microorganisms, known as the oral microbiome. These organisms live in harmony with one another. They protect the normal oral environment, aid digestion, regulate the immune system and promote health.

If this balance is disturbed however, it can lead to the development of periodontitis (gum infections), inflammation and serious diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, liver and renal disease.

Changes to the bacterial composition of the mouth can be caused by several factors, such as bad oral hygiene, diet, alcohol and smoking.

We’ve looked into exactly what types of bacteria are affected. Our research did this by examining the oral health of 128 individuals who had participated in a 2014/2016 study of vascular and metabolic health.

We found clear differences in the bacteria present in the mouths of smokers compared to non-smokers.

Smokers had higher levels of harmful bacteria – like Fusobacterium, Campylobacter and Tannerella forsythia – in their mouths.

These bacteria can cause gum disease and may increase the risk of heart disease because they can trigger inflammation and other harmful effects in the body.

How smoking affects the oral biome

Tobacco and cigarettes contain several toxic substances which include nicotine, tar, radioactive chemicals, lead and ammonia. Many of these are formed from burning the tobacco. As a cigarette is smoked, these chemicals enter the oral cavity and change the surrounding environment by reducing oxygen levels, changing the pH (level of acidity) and preventing adequate production of saliva.

Saliva not only keeps the mouth moist and helps digestion, but also has important antibacterial properties which assist in destroying dangerous germs and keeping the oral cavity healthy.

A dry mouth together with low oxygen levels in the mouth allows harmful bacteria to multiply.

The overgrowth of these organisms destroys the balance of the healthy bacteria normally found on the surfaces of the teeth, tongue and palate.

Nicotine

One common chemical found in cigarettes is nicotine. This toxin can increase the number of proteins on the surface of certain harmful bacteria such as P. gingivalis.

These proteins or receptors give the bacteria an advantage over the normal microorganisms and allows them to attach firmly to surfaces where they multiply into colonies and form biofilms. Dental biofilms are a complex community of microorganisms which can form on the teeth and other hard surfaces. If not controlled, they can lead to plaque formation, periodontitis, gum disease and tooth decay.

Smoking and serious diseases

These abnormal colonies can influence the immune system, leading to slow healing, inflammation and even antibiotic resistance. The chronic inflammation caused by gum disease can lead to tooth loss and the destruction of gum tissue, which has been linked to systemic diseases such as cardiovascular disease.

Another bacterium, Streptococcus mutans, can also become abundant in people who smoke heavily. This organism is often present in healthy conditions but when the environment is disrupted, it can multiply and form part of dental biofilms,
leading to tooth decay and oral cancer.

Vaping and e-cigarettes

Electronic cigarettes or vapes operate with a battery and heating element which heats up a liquid. This produces an aerosol which is inhaled by the user. The liquid contains different flavourings as well as harmful chemicals such as nicotine and lead.

Early research seems to suggest that e-cigarettes are not a good alternative to smoking tobacco. Although their effects on the oral microbiota have not been well studied, the increased growth of bacteria such as Fusobacterium and Bacteroidales has been observed in people who vape.

Both of these bacteria can cause periodontitis (gum disease).

Can these changes be reversed?

It is clear that the harmful chemicals in cigarettes and other forms of tobacco can lead to serious diseases which often begin in the oral cavity. The good news is that these can be prevented and the risk reduced.

Although it may take time, the healthy diversity of the oral biome can be restored by quitting smoking. This reduces the risk of gum disease, promotes the production of saliva and improves health.

Prevention is better than cure and governments and organisations such as the WHO need to continue to create awareness around the dangers of smoking, particularly among the youth. Läs mer…

A year of conflict has ushered in a new era of mass displacement in the Middle East.

Since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent sustained Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Israel has expanded its operations on multiple fronts to include the West Bank, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.

With fighting continuing unabated and the prospects for a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel rising, the region is now in a new period of internal and cross-border displacement that has already uprooted millions.

As scholars of migration, we fear that the results of such displacement will affect the region for years to come – and is likely to further hamper the ability of the region’s people to live safe and secure lives.

Displaced and trapped in Gaza

Israel’s ongoing attacks have forced nearly 2 million Palestinians to flee their homes in Gaza over the past year, amounting to 9 in 10 inhabitants of the densely populated strip.

What is unique about the scale of the displacement in Gaza is that nearly all internally displaced persons remain trapped, unable to leave the territory amid Israel’s ongoing border closure and bombardment.

This has intensified cascading humanitarian crises, including famine and the spread of disease, along with countless other hardships that make normal life nearly impossible.

For many Palestinians in Gaza, the yearlong bombardment has meant repeated displacement as Israeli attacks shift from area to area, amid shrinking humanitarian spaces.

And although there are complex historical and geopolitical reasons regarding the border closures, international law experts argue that Egypt and Israel have violated international refugee law by refusing to allow Palestinians in Gaza to cross the Rafah border to seek asylum.

The situation in Gaza is structurally different from previous displacement crises in the region – even in civil war-torn Syria, where cross-border aid operations have constantly been on the brink of collapse. That’s because Israel continues to limit and block aid into the territory, and humanitarian workers struggle to provide the bare minimum of food, shelter and medical care during bombing campaigns that have rarely stopped.

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in the Gaza Strip.
AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana

To make matters worse, the experience of the past year has shown that refugee camps, civilian apartment buildings, U.N. schools, and hospitals serving civilians and refugees are not safe spaces. Israel frequently justifies its attacks on such locations by saying they are used by Hamas or Hezbollah, despite formal U.N. disputes of many of these accusations. At least 220 U.N. workers have also been killed in these targeted Israeli attacks in the past year – more than any other crisis ever recorded.

This contributes to humanitarian workers struggling to access populations in need, especially displaced individuals. For its part, the United States continues to be the top donor to the the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) and the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), as well as the top supplier of weapons to Israel.

Beyond Gaza, into Lebanon

In Lebanon, massive displacement has also resulted from Israel’s developing war with Hezbollah.

Even before the September escalation of conflict across the Lebanon-Israel border, nearly 100,000 Lebanese had been displaced from their homes in the country’s south due to Israeli shelling. Meanwhile, approximately 63,000 Israelis were internally displaced from the country’s north due to Hezbollah’s rocket attacks.

But starting in late September 2024, Israeli strikes on Hezbollah and Palestinian targets in Beirut and across Lebanon killed hundreds of civilians and exponentially increased internal and cross-border displacement. More than 1 million Lebanese have now fled their homes in a matter of days amid Israel’s invasion and bombardment.

In addition, Syrian refugees and the large migrant worker population in Lebanon were also displaced, with many sleeping on the streets or in makeshift tents, unable to access buildings that were converted into shelters for Lebanese.

In a separate stark example of reverse migration, about 230,000 people – both Lebanese and Syrians – have fled across the border into Syria.

Hezbollah rocket strikes in northern Israel have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate.
Amir Levy/Getty Images

Bringing the recent regional conflicts full circle with post-2011 Arab uprising displacement and crisis, returning home is an unsafe option for many Syrians who still fear repression under the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Israel’s ongoing invasion of Lebanon is likely to only amplify these trends, as the country ordered numerous villages and towns in the country’s south – miles above the U.N.-recognized buffer zone – to evacuate.

Layers of regional displacement

Over several decades, the Middle East has experienced many large-scale, cross-border displacements for myriad reasons. The original forced displacement of Palestinians surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948 and subsequent conflicts created the world’s longest-standing refugee situation, with approximately 6 million Palestinians living across the Levant. The first Gulf War, sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq produced millions of refugees, with long-standing political repercussions for the region.

More recently, the 2011 Arab uprisings and the wars that followed in Syria, Yemen and Libya created millions of refugees, as well as internally displaced peoples, with nearly 6 million Syrians still living in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan and another 6 million displaced inside Syria. Because Syrians have largely not returned home, international organizations have become a semipermanent safety net to provide basic services to refugees and host communities.

New layers of displacement in Lebanon – nationals, refugees and migrant workers – as well as cross-border movement into Syria will put further strain on the underfunded system of humanitarian assistance.

Further, the current Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon is not the first time conflict between the state and its neighbor to the north has preceded large-scale displacement. In an attempt to eliminate the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 and again in 1982. Israel’s 1982 invasion led to the Sabra and Shatila massacres of between 1,500-3000 Palestinian civilians – carried out by Israel’s Lebanese Christian allies – showing that military operations that do not distinguish between militants and civilians can lead to devastating impacts for displaced populations.

Civilians bearing the brunt

Between 600,000 and 900,000 Lebanese fled abroad during the entire course of the country’s civil war from 1975 to 1990.

Two decades later, Israel again invaded Lebanon in 2006 in an attempt to stamp out Hezbollah, leading approximately 900,000 Lebanese to flee the south – both internally and across the border into Syria.

While the speed and volume of Lebanese displacement in 2006 was unprecedented at the time, the number of people forced to flee in late September and early October 2024 has quickly surpassed that record.

So, the region is well versed with the consequences of mass displacement. But what is clear a year into the current conflict is that the Middle East is now in a new era of displacement – in terms of scale and kind.

And the number of families’ lives disrupted by this new era of displacement looks set only to increase. Tensions in the region have escalated further with fresh missile attacks against Israel from Iran and threats of retaliation by Israel.

The experience of decades of conflict in the region is that civilians are most likely to bear the brunt of fighting – whether through forced displacement, an inability to access food or medical care, or death.

Only by way of a cessation of current hostilities and a lasting cease-fire across the region can the conditions be set for at-risk populations to begin to return and rebuild. This is particularly true for those displaced in Gaza who have been repeatedly forced from their homes, but have no borders over which they can cross to safety, and for whom a political solution remains elusive. Läs mer…

A dockworkers strike that froze operations at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports for 2½ days was paused on Oct. 3. The Conversation U.S. asked Anna Nagurney, a scholar of supply chains, to assess the extent of disruptions that likely occurred and how the swift return of 45,000 workers who had been on strike may stave off further problems down the road.

Why was the strike suspended?

Aided by intense pressure from senior Biden administration officials, the shipping companies, represented by the U.S. Maritime Alliance, significantly increased the raise they were offering the dockworkers to 62% from their previous offer of a 50% boost in pay. The International Longshoremen’s Association, the dockworkers’ union, were seeking a 77% raise, but it accepted the new offer, which will be phased in over six years.

The agreement labor leaders and management reached will suspend the strike until at least Jan. 15, 2025, allowing more time for additional collective bargaining and negotiations.

Talks over other contested conditions, including the adoption of more automation, will continue until then.

President Joe Biden applauded both sides. He thanked the union and management “for acting patriotically to reopen our ports and ensure the availability of critical supplies for Hurricane Helene recovery and rebuilding.”

How has this strike affected the economy?

About half of the products that the U.S. imports are handled by the ports that were paralyzed during this brief strike. About 1 million shipping containers arrive at these ports every month.

Imports include vast quantities of bananas and other fresh produce, coffee, pharmaceuticals, liquor, toys, apparel, furniture, machinery and vehicles. Exports include meats, commodities, machinery, chemicals, vehicles and vehicle parts.

The strike’s impact was immediate. More than 50 ships laden with hundreds of thousands of containers created a logjam at East Coast ports. Major retailers, such as Walmart, Costco, Lowes and Home Depot, were among the companies stuck waiting for the release of their stranded cargo.

It may take two to three weeks to relieve this logjam. Prices for some products, including coffee, were already rising before the negotiators reached their breakthrough.

Workers are critical to the functioning of each link in supply chains. When the dockworkers were on strike, other workers, such as truckers, rail employees and warehouse workers, were concerned about being affected, as well as all the businesses that rely on them, such as restaurants.

Dockworkers protest outside the Port of Newark on Oct. 1, 2024, in a strike with highly coordinated messaging.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Why is the new time frame significant?

Shipping tied to the holiday season typically runs from July through early November. Members of the National Retail Federation, the largest U.S. retail trade group, have already been dealing with significant supply disruptions due to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and Suez Canal. The attacks have forced shipping companies to take longer routes, delaying cargo delivery and increasing costs due to the need for more fuel and labor.

A prolonged dockworkers strike would put stress on the economy. According to J.P. Morgan, a lengthy dockworkers strike could have cost the U.S. economy US$5 billion per day.

The temporary agreement pushes the strike past the U.S. elections in November and the conclusion of the upcoming holiday season. That gives both sides a chance to return to the bargaining table to continue to negotiate and to reach an agreement on the issues that haven’t been resolved yet – notably the use of automation.

Having a shorter strike will reduce the risk of shortages of everything from mangos to Maseratis and the price increases that typically occur when products are scarce and in high demand.

Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su played a pivotal role in the negotiation of a temporary agreement that staved off a lengthy work stoppage by striking dockworkers in October 2024.
Shannon Finney/Getty Images for Care Can’t Wait Action

What did the Biden administration do?

The Biden administration was eager for a settlement, especially with the ports serving as channels for recovery supplies after the massive damage seen in Florida, western North Carolina and other areas near the East Coast from Hurricane Helene.

Senior government officials made notable progress when they met with representatives of shipping companies before daybreak on Oct. 3 over Zoom.

Julie Su, the acting labor secretary, had been working hard to help the two sides settle their differences. She emphasized over Zoom that she could get the International Longshoremen’s Association to the bargaining table to extend the contract. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also stayed in touch with labor and management, and used that Zoom meeting to tell the shipping companies that they would need to offer the dockworkers a higher wage.

White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients told the shipping companies on Zoom that they should make an offer to the union quickly so that the strike wouldn’t further exacerbate the effects of Hurricane Helene.

It seems clear to me that the pressure worked – helped, perhaps, by a bit of patriotism. Läs mer…

Britain is close to resolving its territorial dispute with Mauritius over the Chagos Archipelago, located in the central Indian Ocean.

For years, Mauritius has claimed the island group as part of its sovereign territory. It says that Britain unlawfully detached the islands from Mauritius in 1965, three years before Mauritius gained independence. The Mauritian position is backed by international courts and the United Nations, creating enormous pressure for Britain to decolonise.

London, however, has been reluctant to abandon the Chagos Archipelago. This is because the largest island, Diego Garcia, is the site of a strategically important US military base. Britain pledged to make Diego Garcia available to its American ally and has been anxious to avoid a situation where it is prevented from making good on these promises.

The US, for its part, has declined to become publicly involved in the dispute. Its private position is merely that the base on Diego Garcia should not be placed in jeopardy.

Read more:
Britain’s ownership of the Chagos islands has no basis, Mauritius is right to claim them

In a deal announced in a joint statement, London and Port Louis have agreed that all but one of the Chagos Islands will be returned to Mauritian control as soon as a treaty can be finalised. This comes after nearly two years of intense negotiations. It seems as though settling the dispute was a top priority for Britian’s new Labour government.

Though the deal isn’t done yet, it is expected to go through. Both Britain and Mauritius, along with the White House, have endorsed the agreement, indicating that the toughest negotiations are complete.

Diego Garcia will remain under British administration for at least 99 years – this time with the blessing of Mauritius – enabling Britain to continue furnishing the US with unfettered access to its military base on the island.

Location of the Chagos archipelago (circled)
Wikipedia

In exchange for permission to continue on Diego Garcia, Britain will provide “a package of financial support” to Mauritius. The exact sums of money have not been disclosed but will include an annual payment from London to Port Louis. Both sides will cooperate on environmental conservation, issues relating to maritime security, and the welfare of the indigenous Chagossian people – including the limited resettlement of Chagossians onto the outer Chagos Islands under Mauritian supervision.

I’ve studied the Chagos Islands for 15 years, first as a master’s student and now as a professor. It often looked as though this day would never come.

The deal that’s been announced is a good one – a rare “win-win-win-win” moment in international relations, with all the relevant actors able to claim a meaningful victory: Britain, Mauritius, the US, and the Chagossians.

Win for Britain

Britain went into these negotiations with one goal in mind: to bring itself into alignment with international law.

London suffered humiliating setbacks at the permanent court of arbitration in 2015, concerning the legality of its Chagos marine protected area; at the International Court of Justice in 2019, when the World Court found that Mauritius was sovereign over the archipelago; and at the UN general assembly that same year, when a whopping 117 governments called on Britain to exit the Chagos Islands.

Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos group had even begun to be inscribed into international case law.

London could probably have defied international opinion if it had wanted to. Nobody would have forced Britain to halt its illegal occupation of the Chagos Archipelago. But such a course would have badly undermined Britain’s global reputation and its ability to criticise others for breaches of international law.

This agreement will give Britain exactly what it wanted: a continued presence on Diego Garcia that conforms with international law.

Win for Mauritius

Mauritius, of course, went into these negotiations intent on securing full decolonisation at long last. This will, hopefully soon, be achieved. With Britain and the US now recognising that the Chagos Archipelago belongs to Mauritius.

Mauritius will not have day-to-day control of Diego Garcia, but it will be acknowledged as being sovereign there. The public description of the agreement also doesn’t seem to prohibit Mauritius from exercising its sovereignty over Diego Garcia as it relates to non-military domains.

Win for the US

The US is another clear winner from the deal. In fact, hardly anything will change for America. Washington will continue working closely with London, and will not need to negotiate an agreement with Mauritius on its rights to the base or the status of forces.

Indeed, Pentagon officials should be thrilled that their base on Diego Garcia has been put on firm legal footing. This is something that Britain alone was unable to offer. The bilateral agreement with Mauritius will ensure the security of the base for 99 years – no small feat.

Good for Chagos Islanders

Finally, the deal is good for the Chagos Islanders.

British agents forcibly depopulated the entire Chagos group between 1965 and 1973. The point was to rid the archipelago of its permanent population so that the US base on Diego Garcia would operate far from prying eyes. Britain deported the Chagossians to Mauritius and the Seychelles, which is where most Chagossians and their descendants still live. Some have migrated onwards, including to Britain.

Britain had long opposed the resettlement of the Chagos group by the exiled Chagossians. Mauritius, on the other hand, has indicated its openness to resettlement of the Outer Chagos Islands – so, not Diego Garcia – something that Port Louis is now free to pursue.

Not all islanders have welcomed news of an agreement. The Chagossians are a large and diverse group, with differing views about how their homeland should be governed. Some would have preferred Britain to administer the entire archipelago long into the future, feeling that Mauritius was an unwelcoming host to the exiled Chagossians. But Britain could not hold onto the Chagos Islands forever – at least, not lawfully.

For their part, the largest Chagossian organisations are content with the deal as it has been announced, and will now work with Mauritius on a resettlement plan.

The critics

This is the first instance of decolonisation that London has attempted since returning Hong Kong to China in 1997. Predictably, some in Britain are opposed to the settlement.

Some accuse the Keith Starmer government of “giving up” the Chagos Archipelago. But the islands were never Britain’s to give up – they were always Mauritian sovereign territory, and Britain was an unlawful occupier.

They are also wrong to blame this deal for jeopardising the base on Diego Garcia. The opposite is true: for better or worse, the agreement will resolve any uncertainty about the US base’s future. It will have total legal security.

Finally, critics are grasping at straws when they raise the prospect of Mauritius permitting a Chinese base in the Chagos Archipelago. This is a baseless smear. There is no indication whatsoever that Port Louis has any interest in hosting the Chinese military.

What happens now?

Britain and Mauritius still need to reveal the text of their bilateral treaty. But the deal is highly unlikely to fall through. Both governments, plus the White House, have welcomed the agreement – a sure sign that the hard work of negotiations is over.

All that remains is for the treaty to be ratified – a process that does not require a parliamentary vote in the House of Commons. There is no reason why this cannot be done quickly.

This could be the end of a shameful saga that went on for too long. Läs mer…

The UK government has announced it will invest almost £22 billion in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects over the next 25 years. The technology works by capturing CO₂ as it is being emitted by a power plant or another polluter, then storing it underground.

This sounds great in theory. However, it seems Labour has been swayed by the fossil fuel lobby, which has pushed CCS for years. This announcement represents a massive bet on a still unproven technology, and will lock the UK into fossil fuel dependence for decades to come. The Climate Change Act mandates the UK should achieve net zero emissions by 2050, yet this will be impossible if carbon capture leads to the UK building new gas power stations instead of wind and solar farms.

I was one of several leading climate scientists who recently signed a letter to the energy security and net zero secretary, Ed Miliband, in which we pointed out the many issues with the current plans.

Even if the technology worked perfectly, it still locks the UK into a reliance on natural gas (which is basically methane, a potent greenhouse gas) for generations to come. This will result in the UK being reliant on imported natural gas past 2050, which has significant upstream emissions from methane leaks, transport and processing.

That then exposes the UK to the continued volatility of the global energy markets, which in part caused the country’s cost of living crisis. (Renewables don’t have this problem, since the wind and sun don’t need to be imported from overseas.)

Overpromising, underdelivering

In the letter, we pointed out that carbon capture projects have a very poor track record of overpromising and underdelivering. Most current CCS capacity is within natural gas processing facilities, where CO₂ must be separated out to produce marketable products. Almost 80% of the CO₂ captured is reinjected into oil fields to facilitate oil extraction.

The track record of adding carbon capture to power plants is much worse, with the vast majority of projects abandoned. Just two commercial-scale coal-fired power plants are operating with CCS: Boundary Dam in Canada and Petra Nova in the US. Both have experienced consistent underperformance, recurring technical issues and ballooning costs.

In any case, Britain just closed down its last coal power plant. And it’s actually harder to capture CO₂ from gas power plants than from coal, since CO₂ is found in lower concentrations in the emitted gases.

Britain’s last coal power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, has been shut down.
Chris Dukes / shutterstock

One argument for CCS is that it can be used in the production of so-called “blue hydrogen”, which is derived from natural gas and can in theory be used to heat homes or power cars. Yet many projects doing this around the world have been abandoned.

A wide range of uses have been promoted for hydrogen, but not all are practical or competitive. The claim that hydrogen should have a significant role in heating buildings has been comprehensively disproved, while direct electrification is increasingly emerging as a better solution for industrial process heating.

Better ways to spend £22 billion

That £22 billion earmarked for CCS projects should instead be invested in proven technologies such as renewable energy, and on upgrading the UK national grid.

We do not deny that both carbon capture and “green” hydrogen (derived from water not methane) may be needed for specific uses in a zero-carbon economy. Carbon capture and storage should be used on existing fossil fuel infrastructure to reduce its emissions as it is phased out, while green hydrogen will be an important way of storing and transporting green energy around the world. It will also be essential to reduce the emissions from steel production.

But the science is very clear: it makes no sense to use hydrogen as a way of heating buildings or driving our transport systems.

As the world leaders agreed and declared at the most recent UN climate summit, COP28 in Dubai, we must transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner in order to achieve net zero by 2050. This will not happen if the UK and other countries lock themselves into a fossil fuel-based pathway with inevitable upstream emissions, displacing genuinely zero or low-carbon electricity generation. Läs mer…

Pan Gongsheng, the governor of China’s central bank, announced a raft of measures on September 24 aimed at boosting the country’s flagging economy. The move, which came a week before the 75th anniversary of communist party rule, was made in response to concerns that China could miss its own 5% annual growth target.

The stimulus package included a 0.5 percentage point cut in the amount of cash reserves that commercial banks are required to have as deposits with the central bank. This should free up approximately 1 trillion yuan (£108 billion) for new lending. Pan said that the ratio could be cut by another 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points later in 2024.

The central bank has also made a 0.2 percentage point cut in the rate at which it lends money to commercial banks. Pan signalled that this could be followed by a 20–25 basis point cut in the rate that is charged to borrowers with the best credit rating.

In an attempt to stem the downward spiral that in August saw house prices fall by their fastest rate in nine years, the central bank has reduced the deposit requirement for people looking to buy a second home from 25% to 15%, too.

Credit expansion, at least in the short term, should have a positive effect on financial markets and the price of commodities as investors expect a boost in demand for goods and services. And, following the slew of new measures, this is exactly what we have seen.

China’s main stock index surged by more than 4% within hours of the central bank’s announcement, enjoying its best single-day rally in 16 years. And this was followed by a more than 1% increase in the benchmark price of oil. Sentiment has remained positive since then, with Chinese shares rising by approximately 20% over the five days following the announcement.

Expansionary policies do, however, also come with risks. China’s property market has been in crisis since 2021 when the government introduced restrictions on the amount developers could borrow, leading many to default on their debts. Making large cuts to borrowing costs could reignite a boom in sales and values, creating a new property bubble.

But it could be a while before China’s property market starts to overheat. House prices in China are falling fast and there’s lots of spare inventory. Goldman Sachs estimated in April that the government may need to spend more than 15 trillion yuan to fix the problems plaguing the sector – far more than the recent stimulus blitz can provide on its own.

Millions of homes sit unsold across China.
Andres Martinez Casares / EPA

Predicting the outcome of the central bank’s new economic package in the long-term is challenging. It will probably be a year or two before we start noticing any real effects. But, at least in theory, the expansion of domestic credit that will be triggered by central bank’s lending rate cut, as well as the associated banking stimulus, should spread to the wider economy.

This should reactivate building and construction activities, improve consumer spending, and raise demand for capital goods. This could eventually help China move towards growth that is driven more by domestic demand than a reliance on exports.

China’s economic miracle has traditionally relied on the expansion of exports, which reached their peak at 36% of GDP in 2006. This ratio has come down considerably since then, falling to 19.7% in 2023, but it still remains high relative to comparable economies. In 2022, the export-to-GDP ratio in the US, for example, was 11.6%.

This has made China particularly exposed to volatility in demand in overseas markets and geopolitical shocks, such as the decision of the US in May to introduce new tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, solar equipment and batteries.

The tariffs have dented demand for Chinese exports in the US market, but they have not altered China’s dominance in global supply chains. The demand particularly for Chinese electric vehicles in the US was, admittedly, already fairly low.

The outlook is not so bleak

China’s economy is undergoing turbulence. But China has consistently outperformed the rest of the world on GDP growth since 1990, and its economic outlook remains relatively positive.

In fact, the 5% annual growth target China has set for itself is still significantly greater than in most other countries. In all G7 countries other than the US, growth is forecast to stay below an annual rate of 2%.

These countries account for a significant proportion of China’s exports, so the weak economic outlook will for now remain a drag on the Chinese economy. However, China will benefit increasingly from infrastructure projects led by the Eurasian Development Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative in the coming years.

These infrastructure projects are connecting China with resource-rich central Asian countries through roads, railways, gas pipelines and electricity networks. China signed a lucrative gas supply contract with Kazakhstan in 2023. And China now accounts for the majority of Mongolia’s mineral exports, which increased by approximately 3% between 2023 and 2024.

China is developing closer ties with Brics economies, including Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Sergey Guneev / Sputnik / Kremlin Pool / EPA

China will also benefit from trade with Russia, India, Saudi Arabia and other members of the Brics group of big emerging economies. Over recent years, China has developed closer trade ties with these countries, and has led efforts to admit six new members – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, the UAE and Ethiopia – at the start of 2025.

We await to see what impact the central bank’s new measures will have. But a strong economic outlook for China would be a positive force for boosting consumer confidence and economic outlook for the rest of the world. Läs mer…

Six healthcare workers in the US who were in close contact with a patient known to have bird flu developed mild respiratory symptoms, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The patient was not known to have had contact with livestock or other animals, raising the possibility of human-to-human spread.

Only one healthcare worker was tested for the H5N1 bird flu virus, but the results were negative. All of the healthcare workers provided blood samples to test for bird flu antibodies, but the results of those tests are not known.

The CDC characterises the risk to the public at present to be low.

Influenza (or flu) is a common respiratory infection caused by a group of viruses called the paramyxoviruses. These types of viruses have a genome that is made of RNA, which is vulnerable to mutation. This matters because changes in genetic material can change the characteristics of a virus, making it, say, more or less transmissible or more or less pathogenic (able to cause harm).

There are four types of influenza virus: A, B, C and D. Influenza A is known to infect humans and other animals, including birds. Bird flu is type A. The different strains are denoted by receptor combinations on the viral surface called hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) and these are defined by different numbers, such as H1N1 or H2N1.

One strain of bird flu, H5N1, has been circulating since 1997, when it was first noted. However, it was particularly active in the UK between October 2021 and September 2022, causing disease in both wild and domestic birds.

In 2023, the H5N1 virus was detected in 37 countries with over 50 million birds culled, according to the European Food Standards agency. The virus is continuing to affect birds and has been observed in various mammals, including foxes and otters in the UK.

The detection of the H5N1 virus in these mammals is not believed to be directly due to infection, but more likely due to the consumption of dead birds that had succumbed to the infection. There are no reported cases of transmission between mammals in the wild.

Although, recently, there have been a handful of H5N1 cases in humans, they have been very mild cases. It should be noted that from 2003 to April 2024 there have been 463 deaths, globally. However, when compared with deaths recorded in humans annually from seasonal flu, the number of deaths caused by H5N1 in human beings is extremely small.

Mammals in the UK that died of avian influenza probably caught the disease by eating an infected bird.
bardzo photo/Shutterstock

Luckily, not adapted to mammals

The World Health Organization reports the number of human cases of H5N1 globally (24 countries reporting) from 2003 to July 2024 came to 896 cases. What this data shows is that the virus can cause disease in humans, but is not effective at transmission between humans.

For effective human-to-human transmission, genetic reassortment is needed for the virus to adapt to the human host. However, the virus is currently adapted to an avian host, not a mammalian one.

However, if a human-adapted influenza virus infected a human host alongside avian H5N1 virus, the viruses potentially could swap RNA in a “reassortment event” that might allow the bird flu virus (H5N1) to become more adapted to the human host. This is similar to what happened with H1N1 (swine flu), in which the virus developed genetic properties that allowed it to infect humans.

So what can be done to protect humans? For one, annual flu vaccines should be updated to provide protection against H5N1, too. There also needs to be continued monitoring of how the virus is evolving to inform potential control measures and monitor any genetic changes within the virus that might permit spread into other non-avian hosts.

There is no evidence that there are genetic changes in the virus that will allow it to establish an effective presence in humans, but scientists will continue to monitor the virus. The risk of infection developing and being sustained in the human population remains low. However, vigilance is required to ensure this situation remains the same. Läs mer…

Two of San Francisco’s leading players in artificial intelligence have challenged the public to come up with questions capable of testing the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) like Google Gemini and OpenAI’s o1. Scale AI, which specialises in preparing the vast tracts of data on which the LLMs are trained, teamed up with the Center for AI Safety (CAIS) to launch the initiative, Humanity’s Last Exam.

Featuring prizes of US$5,000 (£3,800) for those who come up with the top 50 questions selected for the test, Scale and CAIS say the goal is to test how close we are to achieving “expert-level AI systems” using the “largest, broadest coalition of experts in history”.

Why do this? The leading LLMs are already acing many established tests in intelligence, mathematics and law, but it’s hard to be sure how meaningful this is. In many cases, they may have pre-learned the answers due to the gargantuan quantities of data on which they are trained, including a significant percentage of everything on the internet.

Data is fundamental to this whole area. It is behind the paradigm shift from conventional computing to AI, from “telling” to “showing” these machines what to do. This requires good training datasets, but also good tests. Developers typically do this using data that hasn’t already been used for training, known in the jargon as “test datasets”.

If LLMs are not already able to pre-learn the answer to established tests like bar exams, they probably will soon. The AI analytics site Epoch estimates that 2028 will mark the point at which the AIs will effectively have read everything ever written by humans. An equally important challenge is how to keep assessing AIs once that rubicon has been crossed.

Of course, the internet is expanding all the time, with millions of new items being added daily. Could that take care of these problems?

Perhaps, but this bleeds into another insidious difficulty, referred to as “model collapse”. As the internet becomes increasingly flooded by AI-generated material which recirculates into future AI training sets, this may cause AIs to perform increasingly poorly. To overcome this problem, many developers are already collecting data from their AIs’ human interactions, adding fresh data for training and testing.

Some specialists argue that AIs also need to become “embodied”: moving around in the real world and acquiring their own experiences, as humans do. This might sound far-fetched until you realise that Tesla has been doing it for years with its cars. Another opportunity is human wearables, such as Meta’s popular smart glasses by Ray-Ban. These are equipped with cameras and microphones, and can be used to collect vast quantities of human-centric video and audio data.

Narrow tests

Yet even if such products guarantee enough training data in future, there is still the conundrum of how to define and measure intelligence – particularly artificial general intelligence (AGI), meaning an AI that equals or surpasses human intelligence.

Traditional human IQ tests have long been controversial for failing to capture the multifaceted nature of intelligence, encompassing everything from language to mathematics to empathy to sense of direction.

There’s an analagous problem with the tests used on AIs. There are many well established tests covering such tasks as summarising text, understanding it, drawing correct inferences from information, recognising human poses and gestures, and machine vision.

Some tests are being retired, usually because the AIs are doing so well at them, but they’re so task-specific as to be very narrow measures of intelligence. For instance, the chess-playing AI Stockfish is way ahead of Magnus Carlsen, the highest scoring human player of all time, on the Elo rating system. Yet Stockfish is incapable of doing other tasks such as understanding language. Clearly it would be wrong to conflate its chess capabilities with broader intelligence.

Magnus Carlsen is no match for Stockfish.
Lilyana Vynogradova/Alamy

But with AIs now demonstrating broader intelligent behaviour, the challenge is to devise new benchmarks for comparing and measuring their progress. One notable approach has come from French Google engineer François Chollet. He argues that true intelligence lies in the ability to adapt and generalise learning to new, unseen situations. In 2019, he came up with the “abstraction and reasoning corpus” (ARC), a collection of puzzles in the form of simple visual grids designed to test an AI’s ability to infer and apply abstract rules.

Unlike previous benchmarks that test visual object recognition by training an AI on millions of images, each with information about the objects contained, ARC gives it minimal examples in advance. The AI has to figure out the puzzle logic and can’t just learn all the possible answers.

Though the ARC tests aren’t particularly difficult for humans to solve, there’s a prize of US$600,000 to the first AI system to reach a score of 85%. At the time of writing, we’re a long way from that point. Two recent leading LLMs, OpenAI’s o1 preview and Anthropic’s Sonnet 3.5, both score 21% on the ARC public leaderboard (known as the ARC-AGI-Pub).

Another recent attempt using OpenAI’s GPT-4o scored 50%, but somewhat controversially because the approach generated thousands of possible solutions before choosing the one that gave the best answer for the test. Even then, this was still reassuringly far from triggering the prize – or matching human performances of over 90%.

While ARC remains one of the most credible attempts to test for genuine intelligence in AI today, the Scale/CAIS initiative shows that the search continues for compelling alternatives. (Fascinatingly, we may never see some of the prize-winning questions. They won’t be published on the internet, to ensure the AIs don’t get a peek at the exam papers.)

We need to know when machines are getting close to human-level reasoning, with all the safety, ethical and moral questions this raises. At that point, we’ll presumably be left with an even harder exam question: how to test for a superintelligence. That’s an even more mind-bending task that we need to figure out. Läs mer…