Podcasts about Royal institute

--{ "Alan Watt with Vyzygoth on "From the Grassy Knoll" - "The System" Part 2"}-- The recent Real History episode with Sandi Adams and Neil Foster, talking about UK Column and a pro-China editorial stance. A recent Iain Davis article, The UK Column Conundrum. Who is Marcel Janhke? What is the Rising Tide Foundation? Who was Lyndon Larouche? What did Alan Watt say about Lyndon Larouche? China-maxxing. China presented as villain or saviour. Multipolar world. SPIEF - St. Petersburg International Economic Forum; BRICS nations, Global South - Alan Watt's view of ancient history. China was long planned to be brought up to be the policeman of the world. Talked about in the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA, Chatham House) meeting in Australia in 1937. Don't be caught in the traps and landmines of carnival barkers who keep you running in circles. Alan Watt and Vyzygoth talk about how old this system is, and Karl Marx, Communism, Free Trade, setting up China to prosper and take over from the West.

Đầu năm 2026, nhiều thúc đẩy từ phía Nga cũng như nội bộ chính giới châu Âu để Liên Âu trực tiếp đối thoại với điện Kremlin nhằm tìm ra giải pháp chấm dứt cuộc chiến tranh Nga – Ukraina, kéo dài từ hơn 4 năm nay. Đầu tháng 6, trước thềm thượng đỉnh của khối 27 nước ngày 18-19/06/2026, theo một số thông tin báo chí, giới lãnh đạo châu Âu có thể đề nghị với Nga « một thỏa thuận ngừng bắn », như một điều kiện tiên quyết trước khi bước vào đàm phán chính thức.  *** Việc khối 27 nước tìm lập trường thống nhất để đối thoại trực tiếp với Nga là một diễn biến mới, và đáng được khích lệ, trong bối cảnh cho đến nay, « Liên Hiệp Châu Âu gánh vác một phần chủ yếu và ngày càng lớn cái giá về kinh tế, tài chính cũng như về chính trị của cuộc xung đột này, nhưng lại bị gạt ra bên lề trong các cuộc đàm phán quan trọng » (Le Diplomat). Thống nhất lập trường, duy trì áp lực để buộc Nga có giải pháp chấm dứt chiến tranh là điều cần thiết, tuy nhiên, nhiều chuyên gia hàng đầu cảnh báo, một thỏa thuận ngừng bắn vội vàng với Nga là lợi bất cập hại. Đọc thêm : Nan giải của châu Âu là tìm được “tiếng nói chung” để đối thoại Putin « Trên thực tế, một thỏa thuận ngừng bắn vội vàng hoặc được thiết kế kém có thể khiến việc đạt được một giải pháp lâu dài trở nên khó khăn hơn », theo nhận định của chuyên gia Trung tâm tư vấn độc lập Chatham House, thuộc Royal Institute of International Affairs, có trụ sở tại Luân Đôn (bài « Một thỏa thuận ngừng bắn giữa Nga và Ukraina có thể gây nguy hiểm cho an ninh của Ukraine và châu Âu như thế nào? » của ông Simon Smith, đồng tác giả, đồng phụ trách chương trình nghiên cứu về khu vực Á – Âu và Nga). Nhận định của chuyên gia Chatham House ngụ ý nhắc đến vết xe đổ của hai thỏa thuận ngừng bắn Minsk I và Minsk II, được xác lập hồi 2014-2015, rút cục đã bị nhiều người coi như một « thất bại của ngoại giao châu Âu », tạo điều kiện cho Nga tiếp tục lấn tới bảy năm sau đó, với cuộc xâm lăng trên quy mô lớn, kéo dài cho đến nay. Thỏa thuận Minsk I và Minsk II cụ thể ra sao ? Các thỏa thuận, được ký kết tại Minsk, thủ đô Belarus, trong hai đợt, tháng 9/2014 (tên chính thức là Nghị định thư Minsk, thường được gọi là Thỏa thuận Minsk I), và tháng 2/2015 (« Gói biện pháp nhằm thực thi các Thỏa thuận Minsk », thường gọi là Thỏa thuận Minsk II), có mục tiêu hướng đến chấm dứt xung đột ở miền đông Ukraina. Ký kết hai thỏa thuận này là các thành viên của nhóm tiếp xúc ba bên, bao gồm các đại diện của Nga và Ukraina, cùng đại diện của Tổ chức An ninh và Hợp tác châu Âu - OSCE. Thỏa thuận sau đó được các lực lượng ly khai được Nga hậu thuẫn ký kết. Các thỏa thuận này bao gồm 13 điểm: ngoài lệnh ngừng bắn, là việc rút vũ khí hạng nặng ra xa đường chiến tuyến, trao đổi tù nhân và con tin. Các thỏa thuận cũng quy định cải cách hiến pháp ở Ukraina để ban hành quy chế đặc biệt của hai vùng lãnh thổ, chiếm một phần của hai tỉnh Luhansk và Donetsk, do phe ly khai kiểm soát. Hai thỏa thuận này là kết quả các vận động ngoại giao của tổng thống Pháp François Hollande và thủ tướng Đức Angela Merkel, phối hợp với tổng thống Nga Vladimir Putin và đương kim tổng thống Ukraina Petro Poroshenko. Sự kết hợp của Bộ Tứ này thường được gọi là « Công thức Normadie », do bắt nguồn từ cuộc gặp không chính thức giữa lãnh đạo bốn nước tại lâu đài Château de Bénouville (Calvados), vùng Normandie - Pháp, bên lề lễ kỷ niệm 70 năm ngày đồng minh đổ bộ trong Thế chiến Hai, vài tháng sau khi chiến tranh bùng nổ ở Donbass.   Ít ngày sau khi Thỏa thuận Minsk II được đúc kết, Hội Đồng Bảo An Liên Hiệp Quốc đã ra một nghị quyết, yêu cầu các bên tôn trọng Thỏa thuận này, nhưng không mang tính cưỡng chế. Vì sao các thỏa thuận Minsk bị coi là nguy hại cho Ukraina ? Đằng sau các biện pháp có vẻ rất bài bản như trên là một thực tế hoàn toàn khác. Viện Nghiên cứu Chiến tranh ISW, có trụ sở Washington, trong một bài phân tích về « Những bài học rút ra từ Thỏa thuận Minsk » (Lessons of the Minsk Deal), nhận định hệ quả nói chung của các Thỏa thuận Minsk này là đã không mang lại nền hòa bình lâu dài mà chủ yếu giúp Nga có thời gian tái tổ chức lực lượng, tăng cường hậu thuẫn phe ly khai, chấp nhận « đóng băng chiến sự », củng cố nền kinh tế chiến tranh để chuẩn bị cho cuộc tấn công trong tương lai. Chuyên gia Viện Nghiên cứu Chiến tranh Mỹ nhấn mạnh, một thỏa thuận ngừng bắn mới được đưa ra nhanh chóng, vội vã và thiếu bảo đảm có thể lặp lại mô hình của các thỏa thuận Minsk, cho phép Nga phục hồi sức mạnh, thay vì buộc Matxcơva phải thay đổi các tính toán chiến lược. Đọc thêm : Bất đồng Nga-Ukraina về Donbass có thể khiến Thỏa thuận Minsk tan vỡ ? Chuyên gia chính trị quốc tế Kristian Åtland, người Na Uy, tác giả nhiều khảo cứu về các thỏa thuận Minsk, nhấn mạnh là các thỏa thuận này là hoàn toàn « không hiệu quả », « không công bằng », « không bền vững », Ukraina đã bị buộc phải chấp nhận trong bối cảnh lực lượng ly khai được Nga hậu thuẫn đẩy quân đội Ukraina vào chân tường tại vùng Donbass (« War, diplomacy, and more war: why did the Minsk agreements fail? », Springer, 2024). Vị chuyên gia này cũng là tác giả bài « Đàm phán ngừng bắn Nga-Ukraina: Những bài học từ Tiến trình thất bại của các thỏa thuận Minsk » (2025). Đàm phán bên họng súng : Hàng nghìn binh sĩ Ukraina bị bao vây, Putin báo động nguy cơ thảm sát Hai thỏa thuận được ký kết đúng vào thời điểm hàng nghìn binh sĩ Ukraina bị vây hãm tại Ilovaisk (từ ngày 7/8 đến ngày 2/9/2014) và Debaltseve (từ 14/01 đến 20/02/2015). Nhà ngoại giao Pháp Jacques Audibert, cố vấn của tổng thống Hollande, người có mặt trực tiếp trong các đàm phán dẫn đến hai thỏa thuận nói trên, cho biết cụ thể: « Tình hình càng trở nên căng thẳng hơn, bởi rõ ràng là ông Putin đã cố tình kích động. Tuyên bố đầu tiên của ông ấy trong cuộc đàm phán này là: ‘‘Tôi xin lỗi, có 8.000 binh sĩ bị mắc kẹt trong vòng vây ở Debaltseve. Bao vây họ là các lực lượng pháo binh của quân  ly khai mà tôi không thể kiểm soát được. Tôi không thể làm gì được ! Vì tôi là người Nga mà ! Tất cả những binh sĩ này đều có nguy cơ bị thảm sát, nếu chúng ta không đạt được thỏa thuận tối hôm nay." Đó là bầu không khí mở đầu cuộc đàm phán kéo dài 16 giờ. Rõ ràng khi bạn bị đặt vào trong tình huống căng thẳng và hoàn toàn khác biệt như thế này, khi ai đó nói thẳng với bạn rằng, có thể có hàng ngàn người chết, nếu đàm phán thất bại, bạn sẽ phải ở trong tâm trạng căng thẳng tột độ. Điều này đúng với tất cả mọi người, nhưng đặc biệt là với người Ukraina. » Nga đã sử dụng việc leo thang quân sự có chủ đích để buộc Kiev chấp nhận các nhượng bộ lớn, trong bối cảnh Kiev cũng chịu áp lực nhiều từ các nước phương Tây ủng hộ tiến trình Minsk, để buộc phải ký kết các thỏa thuận này.   Hàng loạt điều bất khả: Ngôn từ mơ hồ, Kiev không được quyền kiểm soát biên giới… Ngoài chuyện ý đồ và mục tiêu của các bên, chuyên gia Na Uy Kristian Åtland nêu bật diễn đạt mơ hồ trong các thỏa thuận cũng là một nguyên nhân trực tiếp dẫn đến việc Thỏa thuận trở nên bất khả thi ngay từ đầu (« The vagueness and ambiguity of the language used in the Minsk agreements became an obstacle to the agreements' implementation »). Các thỏa thuận nói trên không có giá trị pháp lý khi chỉ được ký kết bởi các đại diện cấp thấp, gồm cựu tổng thống Ukraina, Leonid Koutchma, đại sứ Nga tại Ukraina và đại diện của OSCE. Không chỉ đến sau này, mà ngay vào lúc Thỏa thuận Minsk II được ký kết, truyền thông Pháp đã ghi nhận triển vọng thỏa thuận bất khả thi, đặc biệt với việc Ukraina sẽ chỉ được quyền kiểm soát hơn 400 km đường biên giới Ukraina – Nga, nằm giữa các khu vực ly khai ở Donbass và lãnh thổ Nga, một khi bầu cử địa phương ở các vùng ly khai được tổ chức, mà thời gian lại chưa được ấn định. Tổ chức An ninh và Hợp tác châu Âu - OSCE cũng không có thẩm quyền gì với việc giám sát tình hình ở đường biên giới. Trong thời gian đó, không có gì ngăn cản Nga tiếp tục đưa binh sĩ và phương tiện quân sự vào các vùng đất của Ukraina, do phe ly khai kiểm soát. Niềm tin vào Thỏa thuận Minsk và Putin: Ngay trước thềm cuộc xâm lăng 2022 Ngay tại thời điểm đó, và giờ đây nhìn lại, các thỏa thuận Minsk đã được coi như là bình phong, một phương tiện câu giờ đối với cả hai bên. Không chỉ cho Nga có thêm thời gian để chuẩn bị cho cuộc xâm lăng lớn mà phía Ukraina cũng tạm thời tránh được các tổn thất lớn trong bối cảnh lực lượng vũ trang còn rất yếu. Điều đáng nhấn mạnh là 7 năm sau, trước thềm cuộc xâm lăng quy mô lớn của Nga, ngày 24/02/2022, trong một bộ phận giới ngoại giao, học giả châu Âu, về mặt chính thức, các thỏa thuận Minsk vẫn được xem như là một cánh cửa dẫn đến hòa bình. Ngay cả một nhà nghiên cứu hàng đầu trong lĩnh vực này, như Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, giám đốc Trung tâm Nga thuộc Viện Pháp về Quan hệ Quốc tế - Ifri, hai tuần trước cuộc tấn công của Nga (24/02/2022), vẫn đặt hy vọng vào việc thúc đẩy thực thi thỏa thuận Minsk, trong lúc tổng thống Pháp đang tiếp tục các vận động ngoại giao dồn dập, với hy vọng còn nước còn tát: « Nước Pháp đang gánh vác một trách nhiệm đặc biệt vào thời điểm này. Thật vậy, Emmanuel Macron đang đưa tiếng nói của châu Âu trở lại vị trí hàng đầu, đặc biệt là về một khía cạnh: các thỏa thuận Minsk. Đây là những thỏa thuận được ký kết vào tháng 2/2015 với mục tiêu giải quyết tình hình ở miền đông Ukraina. Đó là một mảnh ghép trong bức tranh toàn cảnh đối đầu căng thẳng hiện tại, với việc Nga tăng cường quân đội áp sát biên giới, trước khi đưa ra các yêu sách rộng hơn liên quan đến an ninh châu Âu và trật tự của châu Âu nói chung, thời kỳ sau khi Liên Xô sụp đổ ». Đọc thêm - Nửa thế kỷ ''Hiệp định Helsinki'': Chiến tranh Ukraina xóa sổ "Kiến trúc an ninh châu Âu" Nhà nghiên cứu viện Ifri tin tưởng vào khả năng Nga có thể sẵn sàng cho một giải pháp ngoại giao : « Chúng ta còn rất xa mới giải quyết được cuộc khủng hoảng. Nhưng với những diễn biến mới nhất này, tôi nghĩ chúng ta có thể mang lại thêm một chút hy vọng cho giải pháp ngoại giao. Tổng thống Putin đã để ngỏ cánh cửa thỏa hiệp. Ông ấy đã dành nhiều lời khen ngợi cho tổng thống Pháp Macron, cảm ơn ông ấy đã trở lại, đã đích thân đến, v.v. Trên thực tế, nếu chúng ta đang ở bên bờ vực chiến tranh, thì đây ắt không phải là kiểu hành vi mà chúng ta thấy ». (« Ukraina/Nga, một thỏa hiệp bất khả? », Tọa đàm với đài Pháp France Info, ngày 09/02/2022).   Kẻ xâm lăng được coi là người hòa giải: Nghệ thuật đàm phán của Putin  Minsk I và Minsk II đã được điện Kremlin sử dụng hiệu quả để khẳng định tính chính đáng của Nga trong hồ sơ chiến tranh vùng Donbass của Ukraina. Tại châu Âu, có người còn mong muốn có thêm một Thỏa thuận Minsk III. Điều mà nhiều chuyên gia nhấn mạnh là ảo tưởng hòa bình nhờ có được thiện chí của Nga, đã từng khiến châu Âu mất phương hướng trong một thời gian dài, và có thể sẽ tiếp tục mắc bẫy. Đọc thêm : Sử gia Françoise Thom: ‘‘Cho đến nay, người Nga vẫn coi nước Nga là một đế chế'' Bà Céline Marangé, chuyên gia về Nga, Ukraina và Belarus, Viện nghiên cứu chiến lược IRSEM thuộc Trường Quân sự - Ecole militaire Paris, lưu ý đến việc tổng thống Nga đã thành công một cách ngoạn mục, khi thể hiện mình là một bên trung gian hòa giải trong các thỏa thuận Minsk : « Tổng thống Nga coi các thỏa thuận Minsk II là một chiến thắng cá nhân của mình, một dấu hiệu cho thấy kỹ năng đàm phán và giành được những nhượng bộ từ các đối thủ. Trên thực tế, ông ta đã thành công đáng kể trong việc bảo đảm rằng các thỏa thuận không xác định bất kỳ nghĩa vụ rõ ràng nào đối với Matxcơva. Vì vậy, theo một cách nào đó, Điện Kremlin có thể tự thể hiện mình không phải là một bên tham gia xung đột, như trên thực tế từ đầu đã luôn là như vậy. Nga thể hiện là một bên trung gian hòa giải trong một cuộc xung đột nội bộ ở nước láng giềng, do quản lý kém, giống như một người trung gian hòa giải đối với một cuộc nội chiến. Trong khi đó, trên thực tế, tình hình bất ổn đã được Matxcơva đạo diễn ngay từ đầu, và vũ khí hạng nặng mà phe ly khai có được rõ ràng là đến từ Nga. » *** Nhiều chuyên gia khẩn thiết nhấn mạnh là, trong các đối thoại có thể diễn ra với điện Kremlin sắp tới, các lãnh đạo châu Âu cần kiên quyết duy trì lập trường, chỉ có thể chấp nhận một thỏa thuận đình chiến khi có được các đảm bảo vững chắc, các cơ chế thực thi rõ ràng, chặt chẽ, cùng với việc hậu thuẫn để Ukraina gia nhập các cấu trúc an ninh của châu Âu, để khiến cho mọi hành động gây hấn của Nga trong tương lai phải trả giá đắt. Chỉ có như vậy, châu Âu mới không bị rơi vào vết xe đổ của các thỏa thuận Minsk.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore breaks it all down with James Sherr, an Honorary Fellow at the International Center for Defense and Security and an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs; and former U.S. State Department official Max Bergmann, director of the Europe and Russia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who served as a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff and as a speechwriter for former Secretary of State John Kerry. 

Fionnuala May, President of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, discusses the 2026 Public Choice Awards as the vote opens today. [Pictured: Last year's public choice winner - the Benedictine Monastery at Kylemore Abbey]

In 1930s India, Kamala Baghvat dreamed of working alongside the world's greatest scientific minds. But she was repeatedly told “no” when she tried to work in the then male dominated field. Inspired by Gandhi, she used nonviolent protest to pry her way into some of India's top laboratories. She became the first Indian woman to earn a PhD in biochemistry, and eventually, the first woman to lead India's Royal Institute of Science. Baghvat's career centered around a topic she was passionate about: solving India's malnutrition crisis. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Episode 179: Julian Lighton & his book, Navigating Your Next: Discover the Career You Want and the Path to Get ThereABOUT JULIANJulian Lighton is one of Silicon Valley's leading strategy practitioners and business coaches, helping individuals and organisations navigate what's next. He has more than 30 years' experience advising, hiring and developing talent as a senior operating executive, general manager, consultant and coach. Julian was a Chief Strategy Officer at four, billion-dollar revenue, public companies, a board director, and associate partner for McKinsey and a senior global sales and marketing executive at Fortune 100 companies Hitachi and Cisco. He holds a BA and MA in Law from Oxford University, a Masters-level in Negotiation from Harvard University, and is a Chartered Director by the Royal Institute of Directors. Julian is one of only four hundred coaches worldwide to be recognized as a senior professional coach at the individual and team level by both the ICF and EMCC.CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS• Julian's diverse career journey from law to tech to private equity• The role of curiosity in innovation and leadership• How resilience and failure have shaped Julian's career• The importance of focus, discipline, and storytelling in achieving goals• Leadership principles: responsibility, relationship, and service• The shift in corporate culture and leadership in the modern era• Practical advice for career navigation and self-actualization• Self-care, self-awareness, and balancing work with healthKey characteristics of effective leaders and collaboratorsThe MAIN QUESTION for you that comes out of my conversation with Julian is, What do you really take into account and consider when it's time to decide what comes next for you? FIND JULIAN• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianlighton1/• Website: https://www.julianlighton.com• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julian.lighton/• LinkedIn - Full Podcast Article:CHAPTERS00:00 - The Book Leads Podcast - Julian Lighton00:58 - Introduction & Bio05:15 - Who are you today? Can you provide more information about your work?08:24 - How did your path into your career look like, and what did it look like up until now?56:03 - How does the work you're doing today reconcile to who you were as a child?58:18 - What do you consider your superpower?01:01:06 - What does leadership mean to you?01:19:09 - Can you introduce us to the book we're discussing?01:39:35 - What's changed in you in the process of writing this book?01:42:25 - What book has inspired you?01:45:48 - What are you up to these days? (A way for guests to share and market their projects and work.)This series has become my Masterclass In Humanity. I'd love for you to join me and see what you take away from these conversations.Learn more about The Book Leads and listen to past episodes:Watch on YouTubeListen on SpotifyListen on Apple PodcastsRead About The Book Leads – Blog PostFor more great content, check out the catalog for my newsletter Last Week's Leadership Lessons, if you haven't already!

As a child growing up on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, Washington Yotto Ochieng once watched a plane cross the night sky and told his mother he wished he could travel on it. But he remembers her encouraging him to dream bigger... Today, Washington is a Professor of Engineering at Imperial College London, and President of the Royal Institute of Navigation. Over a career bridging industry and academia, he has helped shape the movement of urban transport; how satellites guide us and locate us; and how governments manage the technologies underpinning so much of modern life. Professor Jim Al-Khalili speaks to Washington about his inspirational upbringing, how reliant we've become on technologies such as GPS, and his work encouraging the next generation of engineers in both the UK and Africa.

New figures from the Department of Housing show that the building of apartments is on the rise with almost 25,000 flats under construction in the Dublin region. In contrast, the number of houses with planning permission where work has commenced has fallen.Is it time to increase density and build up like this, and are more embracing apartment living?Carole Pollard, Architect & Editor of ‘Irish Cities in Crisis', Fionnula May, President of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland and County Architect for Fingal County Council join Shane to discuss…

Guests:Breakfast Briefing Presenter Shane BeattyTony Reddy of Reddy Architecture and UrbanismSeamus Guidera, Chair of the Royal Institute of ArchitectsJennifer Sheahan

Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has shattered long-held hopes for Palestinian-Israeli coexistence and exposed the global systems sustaining the decades-long destruction of Palestine and the dispossession of Palestinians. In this special edition of the The Marc Steiner Show, commemorating the solemn anniversary of the Nakba, Marc speaks with world-renowned author and physician Ghada Karmi about the destruction of Gaza, the collapse of faith in a political solution, and the deepening despair felt by many Palestinians and Israelis alike today. Guests:Ghada Karmi was born in Jerusalem. Forced from her home during the Nakba, she later trained as a Doctor of Medicine at Bristol University. She established the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972 and was an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. She is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling memoir In Search of Fatima and One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel.Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: Cameron GranadinoAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has shattered long-held hopes for Palestinian-Israeli coexistence and exposed the global systems sustaining the decades-long destruction of Palestine and the dispossession of Palestinians. In this special edition of the The Marc Steiner Show, commemorating the solemn anniversary of the Nakba, Marc speaks with world-renowned author and physician Ghada Karmi about the destruction of Gaza, the collapse of faith in a political solution, and the deepening despair felt by many Palestinians and Israelis alike today. Guests:Ghada Karmi was born in Jerusalem. Forced from her home during the Nakba, she later trained as a Doctor of Medicine at Bristol University. She established the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972 and was an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. She is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling memoir In Search of Fatima and One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel.Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: Cameron GranadinoAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-marc-steiner-show--4661751/support.Follow The Marc Steiner Show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Help us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Sign up for our newsletterFollow us on BlueskyLike us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterDonate to support this podcast

The Palace of Westminster is one of the world's most recognisable historic buildings and the home of the UK parliament. Yet much of the estate is in urgent need of repair. While debates over how to approach the Restoration and Renewal programme have continued for over a decade, other countries have already moved ahead: Austria has completed the renovation of its parliament, and Canada's is well underway. In February, the Restoration and Renewal Client Board set out updated costings and recommended two possible paths forward – full decant or enhanced maintenance and improvement. Parliament is expected to debate the Client Board's report in the coming weeks. With the stage now set for parliament to embark on a project that will not only safeguard this historic landmark but also reimagine it for future generations, this IfG event explored lessons from other international projects, and discuss what the Restoration and Renewal programme could mean for parliament, industry and the wider public. To discuss all this and more, the IfG brought together an expert panel, including: Jennifer Garrett, Assistant Deputy Minister of the Parliamentary Precinct Branch of the Government of Canada (joining remotely) Dr Alexandra Meakin, Lecturer in British Politics at the University of Leeds Jack Pringle, Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Nick Smith MP, Chair of the House of Commons Administration Committee The event was chaired by Dr Rebecca McKee, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Government. We would like to thank RIBA for kindly supporting this event.

The Palace of Westminster is one of the world's most recognisable historic buildings and the home of the UK parliament. Yet much of the estate is in urgent need of repair. While debates over how to approach the Restoration and Renewal programme have continued for over a decade, other countries have already moved ahead: Austria has completed the renovation of its parliament, and Canada's is well underway. In February, the Restoration and Renewal Client Board set out updated costings and recommended two possible paths forward – full decant or enhanced maintenance and improvement. Parliament is expected to debate the Client Board's report in the coming weeks. With the stage now set for parliament to embark on a project that will not only safeguard this historic landmark but also reimagine it for future generations, this IfG event explored lessons from other international projects, and discuss what the Restoration and Renewal programme could mean for parliament, industry and the wider public. To discuss all this and more, the IfG brought together an expert panel, including: Jennifer Garrett, Assistant Deputy Minister of the Parliamentary Precinct Branch of the Government of Canada (joining remotely) Dr Alexandra Meakin, Lecturer in British Politics at the University of Leeds Jack Pringle, Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Nick Smith MP, Chair of the House of Commons Administration Committee The event was chaired by Dr Rebecca McKee, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Government. We would like to thank RIBA for kindly supporting this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

X: @simonedegale @americasrt1776 @ileaderssummit @NatashaSrdoc @JoelAnandUSA @supertalk @JTitMVirginia Join America's Roundtable radio co-hosts Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy with a guest from London, Great Britain - Simone de Gale, a Chartered Architect who qualified at the Architectural Association in Bedford Square, London. She has served on the Royal Institute of British Architects board as Honorary Treasurer and board trustee. Simone also engages with the Britain's Royal Family as her affiliation with organizations in the field of urban planning and architecture are connected to Kensington Palace, a royal residence situated within Kensington Gardens in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. She is the driving force behind SGA's Westminster based organization, an Award Winning Architecture Practice which operates in UK and internationally. Simone is shaping innovative architecture throughout London and Internationally. She has won many awards and accolades including the Winner 'Architect of the Year' Women in Construction. The conversation is focused on America and Britain's challenges and opportunities in the housing sector as a new generation and first home buyers face skyrocketing prices and fewer choices. We are also looking for solutions and best practices in the areas of urban planning, infrastructure and long-term growth. In April 2026 via AP: WASHINGTON (AP) — White House economists estimate the United States has a shortage of 10 million houses, according to a new report — and say regulatory cuts could lead to more construction to stabilize prices, increase home ownership and fuel faster economic growth. From a UK think tank: New analysis by the Centre for Policy Studies reveals that the UK has a shortage of 6.5 million homes when compared to similar European countries. Britain has just 446 homes per 1,000 people, the second worst rate in Europe. This compares to 560 in France, 516 in Germany, and a European average of 542. americasrt.com https://ileaderssummit.org/ | https://jerusalemleaderssummit.com/ America's Roundtable on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/americas-roundtable/id1518878472 X: @simonedegale @ileaderssummit @americasrt1776 @NatashaSrdoc @JoelAnandUSA @supertalk @JTitMVirginia America's Roundtable is co-hosted by Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy, co-founders of International Leaders Summit and the Jerusalem Leaders Summit. America's Roundtable radio program focuses on America's economy, healthcare reform, rule of law, security and trade, and its strategic partnership with rule of law nations around the world. The radio program features high-ranking US administration officials, cabinet members, members of Congress, state government officials, distinguished diplomats, business and media leaders and influential thinkers from around the world. Tune into America's Roundtable Radio program from Washington, DC via live streaming on Saturday mornings via 68 radio stations at 7:30 A.M. (ET) on Lanser Broadcasting Corporation covering the Michigan and the Midwest market, and at 7:30 A.M. (CT) on SuperTalk Mississippi — SuperTalk.FM reaching listeners in every county within the State of Mississippi, and neighboring states in the South including Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee. Tune into WTON in Central Virginia on Sunday mornings at 9:30 A.M. (ET). Listen to America's Roundtable on digital platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Google and other key online platforms. Listen live, Saturdays at 7:30 A.M. (CT) on SuperTalk | https://www.supertalk.fm

This show has been flagged as Clean by the host. -------------------- 01 Introduction This is a follow up to my 8 part series on nuclear power. In this episode I will answer questions posed by listeners in the comments to the series. I would like to start by thanking these people for taking the time to submit interesting questions. -------------------- Costs of Small Versus Large Reactors 02 brian-in-ohio asked two questions The first was for a cost comparison between large and small reactors. The second was for nuclear plant safety compared to conventional power plants. 03 Answer I think that any answer to the second question is going to be perceived by some people as politically controversial, so it's probably not a good topic for HPR to address. 04 The first question though about cost of small versus large reactors is an interesting one, although not one that is easy to give an answer to. I will restrict the answer to just grid scale electric power production and ignore use cases such as industrial process heat or power for remote mines and communities. 05 This question comes down to economies of scale versus economies of replication. Economies of scale centre around increased efficiencies of use of materials and labour when making something bigger. For example, the amount of steel used by a pipe increases linearly with its diameter, but the amount of fluid that it transports increases with the square. 06 Economies of replication come from increasing efficiencies which result from serial production. As you repeat the same design over and over again, you learn how to do things better and make fewer mistakes. 07 The exact same principles apply to shipbuilding. Indeed, a lot of the inspiration for Small Modular Reactors comes from the shipbuilding industry. If you build a series of identical ships, then each subsequent ship will cost less and be built faster. There are of course diminishing returns to this process, so the improvements are less with each additional unit and after a sufficient number of units the cost and time reductions level off. 08 However, this doesn't discount the benefits of economies of scale. What it does mean is that there are two ways of approaching the problem, and which way works in any given scenario depends on such conditions as how big the local electricity market is how fast the demand for electricity is growing, the ownership and financing structure of the electricity market, and the geography of the area, which may pose limits on the number of sites. 09 According to the finance people who have crunched the numbers, there are two sizes of reactor which make the most sense in the above context. These are 300 MW and 1000 MW. However, take those as very rough numbers rather than immutable laws of nature and other sizes may work as well. 10 The key point is that there are cases to be made for both small and large reactors, with the large reactor being several times the size of the small one. 11 An additional factor is that building only one reactor does not reap the benefits of efficiency of replication. You need to build a series of them on the same site. So if you are building a power plant, you don't build a power plant that has just one reactor unless you are in a small market which can only use that much power. Instead, you should build between 4 and 6 reactors in sequence next to one another. 12 If you are supply a large population with a growing demand for electricity, then 4 or 6 large 1000 MW reactors gains both economies of scale and economies of replication. If you are supplying a smaller population with slow growth in demand for electricity, then 4 or 6 300 MW reactors at least gets you economies of replication. 13 There is what could be viewed as an interesting example in terms of the above taking place just east of Toronto. There they are building four 300 MW SMRs on a site next to an existing nuclear power plant. 14 Here are the cost estimates from the Government of Ontario. All costs are in Canadian dollars. Unit 1 is $6.1 billion, plus $1.6 billion in costs which are shared by all four unit.s Unit 2 is $4.9 billion. Unit 3 is $4.2 billion. Unit 4 is $4.1 billion. 15 As you can see, building a series of reactors sequentially on the same site results in declining overall costs. They are very confident in these costs as they used data from a series of major nuclear power plant refurbishment projects in Ontario which have been coming in on time and on budget. 16 Construction began last year and the plant is expected to have a 65 year operating life. 17 However, the province of Ontario also has plans for expansion of electrical generation by about 15,000 MW by 2050 in order to meet net zero targets. 18 Given the heavy concentration of population in the Toronto region, and the very high cost and difficulty of building long distance transmission lines, and the limited number of sites which could host new power generation facilities of any sort, I suspect it is quite likely that subsequent reactors will be large 1,000 MW ones rather than SMRs. 19 The Wesleyville site (which is further east of Toronto) is tentatively scheduled for a 10,000 MW nuclear power plant. That would seem to make ten 1,000 MW reactors more likely than 34 300 MW reactors. 20 I don't have a comparable set of numbers for building large reactors to give an exact apples to apples comparison of costs. Different countries use different accounting and financing systems, and finance makes a huge difference to overall costs for nuclear power as operating costs are a relatively small share of the total. 21 Now to look at another side of this equation, the provinces of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick wish to replace their coal fired power plants with nuclear power plants. The populations of these provinces are too small to absorb a large new power plant into their grids, and studies assuming large reactors have foundered on this issue. 22 New Brunswick already have a nuclear power plant, but it was build in the days when reactors were much smaller. Both provinces however are very interested in small reactors, even individual ones, in order to replace the coal fired plants that are of similar size. 23 I think this covers the cost versus size issue. The more I look into it, the more it becomes apparent that there is no simple one size fits all answer but rather there are a series of trade-offs which must be taken in light of local circumstances. -------------------- MOX Fuel in the USA 24 The next question comes from mnw who asked about the use of MOX fuel in the USA. 25 mnw asked I am enjoying and look forward to the rest of the series. Do you think the US will ever wake up and start recycling its spent fuel? It seems like such a huge waste just to try and keep a small amount of fuel away from"the bad guys" or whatever they are imagining. Answer 26 My answer to this is as follows. I think I've addressed this in the original series, although not directly with respect to the US so I can provide some more detail on that aspect of it. 27 First though I will review what plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel is. As mentioned in previous episodes, military grade plutonium is not the same as the plutonium which comes out of commercial power reactors. Just as military grade uranium requires nearly pure U-235 isotope, military grade plutonium requires nearly pure Pu-239 isotope. 28 What comes out of a commercial power reactor as spent fuel is not usable for weapons purposes as the proportion of Pu-239 is much too low. However, plutonium recovered from spent fuel can be used as fuel for nuclear reactors in place of uranium 235 when mixed with uranium 238 either left over from enrichment or extracted from spent fuel. This is what is known as MOX fuel. 29 To look at the US history of this however, here's the sequence of events. The US banned fuel reprocessing in 1976. However, this ban was repealed in 1981. 30 In 2005, the US began building a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel plant at Savannah River in the state of South Carolina. However, this plant was not intended as a normal commercial operation and it was not intended to recycle commercial nuclear power plant fuel. It was instead intended to convert surplus military grade plutonium into commercial fuel in order to get rid of it as part of an arms control program. 31 The program was suspended in 2018. There were apparently many complex political issues involved in these on-again off-again decisions and I won't pretend to have the time or interest to explore all the details nor do I think most listeners would be interested in hearing abou them. 32 As of March 2026, the US are looking at reviving part of the Savannah River plant to produce limited amounts of fuel for testing of advanced reactors. The issue driving this is the shortage of uranium enriched to just below 20%. This fuel is used in certain types of small SMR. 33 The main commercial supplier of this material was a plant in Russia, but "certain events in Europe in recent years" shall we say, have resulted in that supply no longer being available to commercial operations in the US. MOX fuel based on surplus weapons grade plutonium is intended as a short term quick fix for that problem. 34 Another driving force is legal requirements following from domestic commitments for the US government to dispose of certain stockpiles of weapons grade plutonium from certain sites in the US where it is "temporarily" stored, and the solution to that is seen as burning it up in power reactors. 35 So the history is the US banned fuel reprocessing. Then a few years later they un-banned it. Then the US government started building a MOX plant which was intended to get rid of surplus weapons grade material by burning it up in power reactors. Then they decided they didn't want to do that. Then they decided they may want to make MOX fuel after all to replace supplies of special grades of fuel for experimental or prototype reactors. 36 What is missing from the above history is any actual interest from the US commercial nuclear industry in MOX fuel. The reason for this is, as mentioned in the previous episodes, uranium is so cheap and abundant that fuel made from fresh uranium is cheaper than MOX fuel. 37 Some countries such as France wish to recycle spent fuel to reduce their dependence upon imports. Recall that France's drive to build nuclear power plants was in response to the 1970s era energy crisis when oil imports from the Middle East were suddenly cut off. However, the US are not concerned about this issue and so do not make it national security policy as France did. 38 As a result, US commercial demand is for cheaper fuel made from fresh uranium rather than for MOX fuel. Until such time as fresh uranium greatly increases in price there is little economic incentive for the use of MOX fuel in the US. 39 However, there is another aspect to this. If you recall in previous episodes I described molten salt reactors which used dissolved uranium fuel. These reactors inherently reprocess fuel as part of their normal operation. They just do it as part of maintaining the molten salt chemistry at the correct values rather than doing it as a separate process. 40 If these types of reactors become widely used then they would be achieving the same thing as creating MOX fuel, but without an explicit separate step. 41 As a final footnote to the above, the US has almost exclusively use enriched uranium light water reactors. As mentioned in previous episodes, there are ways of recycling spent fuel from light water reactors which do not involve chemically reprocessing it to make MOX fuel. 42 Experiments have been done involving South Korea, China, and Canada which take spent fuel from light water reactors and repackage it to fit it into natural uranium heavy water reactors. What is used up or "spent" fuel for a light water reactor is high grade fuel to a natural uranium reactor. However, the US has, for whatever reason, never built commercial natural uranium reactors such as are used in a number of other countries around the world. 43 If they were to do so, then nuclear fuel could be used twice, once in a light water reactor, and again in a natural uranium reactor, all without having to turn it into MOX fuel in a separate reprocessing step. However, this particular alternative would likely face the same issue in the sense that fresh fuel would still be cheaper than reusing spent fuel. -------------------- A Variety of Questions from Clinton 44 Next we have a variety of questions from Clinton. Clinton asked I would like some commentary in the current situation, why has hinkley gone off the rails, the new american approach, the odd things done after fukushima, the new radiation rules in the states. 45 Question 1 why has hinkley gone off the rails, 46 Answer The question refers to cost overruns at the Hinkley Point nuclear power project in the UK. The UK government looked into this issue in a more general sense in 2025. They published a report on it titled Nuclear Regulatory Review 2025 Enabling nuclear delivery through regulatory reform John Fingleton There is a link to the report in the show notes. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/692080f75c394e481336ab89/nuclear-regulatory-review-2025.pdf 47 As the report is 162 pages long, I won't try to cover it all in this answer. I will however give a few simple examples. The report focuses on civilian nuclear power and the defence nuclear industry as well. However it also draws examples from outside the nuclear industry to show that the problem is not limited to nuclear. It shows that the same problems exist in the offshore wind industry, and in the HS2 High Speed Rail project. 48 In the view of the authors of the report, the essence of the problem seems to be a lack of any degree of proportionality in terms of mitigating negative effects from any project. Big nuclear projects make the headlines because they are inherently big projects, but as I have just mentioned, they affect things like wind power development and rail transport as well. 49 I will pick one example from Hinkley Point specifically. This is "Case Study: Hinkley Point C Fish Protection" A summary of this is that they spent £700 million of additional money on the cooling water intakes to protect an estimated 0.083 salmon per year, along with 0.028 sea trout, 6 river lamprey, 18 Allis shad, and somewhere between 100 and 528 twaite shad. The report points out that there are ways to protect far more fish for far less money by spending it in other areas, and gives some examples. Again, this problem is not limited to nuclear power, and they give similar examples connected with offshore wind development and HS2 High Speed Rail. 50 I would like to emphasize that I am not expressing an opinion on whether or not any of these decisions were good or bad ones or whether the money was well spent. I am just summarizing the report's explanation of why large projects of all sorts initiated and approved by the UK parliament were not turning out as initially expected. I will leave it up to people in the UK to decide whether or not they are satisfied with the current situation. 51 Question 2 the new american approach, 52 Answer The US have apparently announced changes to their regulatory system. I don't know enough about the subject to really judge the practical effects of regulation within the US. However, I have read and listened to many interviews of people from both the industry and the regulatory side of things who are from outside the US but are familiar with it. They generally contrast two different approaches to regulation. On the one hand there is the US approach, which they see as being more of a box ticking exercise than an in depth safety review. This makes it very hard to get a design other than a traditional PWR or BWR approved in the US. 53 It has the advantage from the regulator side of things though in that it reduces the amount of work required as it primarily requires just following a set of defined procedures. These people then contrast that approach with the one used in the UK and in Canada, both of which they see as being very similar to one another. In those two countries, regulators work with industry to review designs from basic principles rather than just seeing if it meets a pre-defined list of criteria. This is a results oriented system rather than a process oriented system as used in the US. 54 As a result of this, designers of new nuclear reactors are going to the UK and Canada first to go through preliminary review there, and only going to the US later. What designers are looking for is feedback on their design as they go along in order to align the design with what safety regulators see as being required from their standpoint. They want to go into a review process before the design is finalized so they can get guidance on how they should approach things rather than trying to add safety as additional features on top of a finished design. 55 It would take someone with deep familiarity with nuclear regulation systems to understand the practical effects of recent changes in US regulatory systems, but it is quite possible that people within the regulatory structure in the US have been taking the above on board and trying to adapt to current circumstances. However, I can only speculate on that. This is about the best answer that I can give. 56 Question 3 the odd things done after fukushima, 57 Answer This covers a lot of topics, some of which are probably political and so are not suited to HPR. I will try to list a few events however. As a brief summary if the Fukushima events go however, a historic scale earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011 caused huge loss of life and widespread damage. About 20,000 people were killed by the earthquake and tsunami. Three nuclear reactors based on 1960s era GE BWR designs were seriously damaged by hydrogen explosions caused by loss of power to backup generators when they were flooded by the tsunami. However, there were no radiation related deaths or cases of radiation sickness. 58 Following events in Japan was a general review of designs around the world, with various improvements made in some areas, particularly backup generators and hydrogen management. It seems to be conventional wisdom that the Fukushima event caused a number of countries to decide to phase out nuclear power. 59 However, when I tried to make a list of such countries for this episode I found things were not as is often heard. The countries which decided to get rid of nuclear power had largely started down that road at least a decade before then and generally for reasons unrelated to any specific events outside of their own country. In other cases they reversed that decision or are in the process of doing so. Japan itself has restarted many of their nuclear power plants and plant to replace decommissioned nuclear power plants with new ones, although many of the older and smaller ones were considered not economically worth upgrading at this point in their life to restart them. 60 The one possible exception to this may be Taiwan which decided to phase out nuclear power in 2016. However, I don't know enough about Taiwanese politics to state with any confidence that their decision in 2016 was based on anything related to events in Japan, or whether in fact they were a byproduct of other political changes within Taiwan and the shut down of nuclear plants happened to be carried along with those. Currently Taiwan get their electricity primarily from natural gas and coal. 61 Meanwhile across mainland Asia from Turkey to China, large numbers of nuclear power plants were built or are under construction. Taken together on a global scale, did anything really change after Fukushima, or did the countries which had already decided to close down their nuclear power plants simply continue to do so, and those countries who decided they wanted more of them continue to build them? That's a good question for which I don't think anyone has the perspective to answer at this point. 62 Another side of this which is hard to disentangle from it though is the increased use of natural gas for electric power generation which was happening at around the same time. Increased use of fracking in a number of countries, plus increased supplies from Russia and LNG from the Middle East and other places resulted in falls in natural gas prices in many places. Since combined cycle natural gas turbines form the main competitor to nuclear power, anything which improves the economics of natural gas will act to reduce demand for nuclear power. This makes it hard to decide to what degree the reduction in the number of reactors being built was due to the political effects of the earthquake and tsunami and to what degree it was due to cheaper natural gas through fracking and other means. I'll leave that question at that. 63 Question 4 the new radiation rules in the states. 64 Answer I'm not deeply familiar with US radiation rules, but I will attempt to answer the question. Apparently there are wide variety of different things being addressed, only some of which have any relevance to the nuclear power industry. One of these is an epidemiological study on the current exposure limits for workers in the nuclear industry. This study will take place over about 5 years. In the end it may not result in any changes. This is for a number of reasons. 65 One is that US exposure thresholds for workers are currently aligned with international standards. It would be difficult for the US industry to operate on a different basis than the rest of the world when supply chains are global and kit is designed to meet currently recognized standards. Another is that apparently the nuclear industry are not, so far as I can discern, asking for any changes to limits. They instead are looking for changes to how some of the details are being applied, such as for example the criteria for deciding when respirators are required in low risk environments. 66 Some point to recent changes in UK regulations as an example of what they are looking for. I will post a link to the new (November of 2025) UK regulations in the show notes. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-industry-principles-to-guide-the-application-of-as-low-as-reasonably-practicable-alarp-and-best-available-techniques-bat/ways-of-working-principles-to-guide-the-application-of-alarp-and-bat-in-the-nuclear-industry-accessible-webpage This is about as much detail as I think I can comment on when it comes to this question, as I think it is a subject that requires a fair bit more practical knowledge of than I have in order to give a thorough and balanced answer. -------------------- 67 Question from Antoine Were/are the designs patented? Hi, Whiskeyjack. Nice ep. You said AGR, based on Magnox, was a nuclear reactor type that did not sell well outside the UK. I then started thinking if it were (is) possible to another countries to develop by themselves based on that project, or if it had (has) a commercial restriction for exploration of the technology. I have yet to listen to the following episodes (doing little by little) and may learn better on the choices, but I felt free to present the question by now... Thanks! 68 Answer This is a very good question because it offers the opportunity to talk about a number of interesting things that haven't been touched on yet. Let's cover a bit of background first. 69 A patent is a time limited right to exploit a defined bit of valuable technical knowledge. Patents were involved from the very earliest days of commercial nuclear power, and I will give an example of this later. A key point to keep in mind though is that the nuclear power field moves very slowly and it takes a long time for new knowledge to make it from the lab to commercial application. Patents will often expire before they reach the point where they can be used. 70 Contracts on the other hand are legally enforceable agreements between two parties. A contract may have a time limited life, but that is an arrangement between the parties. A commercial nuclear power plant is a very large and complex bit of kit and not easily copied in detail. It can be far more effective to cover designs under contracts and licenses than to rely on patents. If a country wished to build their own nuclear power plants rather than buying them from someone else, there are a large number of companies who have commercial designs they are willing to license to third parties for them to build themselves. Indeed a number of these companies base their business around licensing of designs or have other reasons for wishing to do so. 71 From a licensee perspective, it could take decades of work and hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars to take a design from first principle to the ready to build state, wheras licensing a design give you a proven design right away. As mentioned in previous episodes, there many types of reactor in the world. The selection of what sort of reactor a country decides to buy often depends more on commercial considerations revolving around licensing terms and conditions than it does with respect to any technical considerations. Here's an example which shows how South Korea decided to license a design, build it for themselves, and then export it to other countries. 72 KunMo Chung - Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, stated in an interview in 2019 that South Korea wanted to standardize on a single reactor technology in the early 1980s. They had reactors from multiple different vendors, but wanted to license an existing successful design to produce for themselves and for the export market. One of the major factors in deciding to standardize was to allow them to improve operator training by focusing on one design. Professor Chung stated that one of the key factors in selecting a design from ABB-Combustion Engineering was that he personally knew and had a good relationship with the Chief Technical Officer of ABB-Combustion Engineering going back to a time when Professor Chung had been studying and working in the USA. 73 On their side, ABB-Combustion Engineering were having financial problems and they needed a partner to help further develop their new PWR design. Also they stood to gain revenue from this partnership as well. Based on this relationship, the two sides came to a business agreement and South Korea began producing reactors based on this design, while also continuing to develop and improve it further. 74 Here's an example of a case where the developers of a promising technology decided that they had more to gain by not patenting their technology. Instead they decided to freely share their information in order to get other researchers elsewhere to help to advance the technology so that all could benefit from it. 75 In an interview Wacław Gudowski - Prof. Emeritus, Royal Institute of Technology KTH Stockholm stated that the Soviets and later the Russian were the leaders in lead-bismuth cooled reactors. These reactors use lead-bismuth liquid metal alloy as a coolant. In the 1990s the Russian institute working on commercializing this technology were working with Western partners on nuclear technology in general. They considered patenting this technology, but in the end decided to simply publish it openly. 76 Professor Gudowski had even smuggled $60,000 in cash into Russia to finance the patent application in order to get the Russian institute to publish their technology, but the money was not needed. They based this decision on the judgment that it would take 20 years of R&D before the technology was ready for the commercial market, so they wouldn't see a penny on any patents anyway. They were right on this, as it was another 20 years of R&D in Europe, Russia, China, and Korea before lead-bismuth technology was ready for commercial use. 77 It had already seen use in submarine reactors, but the commercial market demanded a more thoroughly developed technology to satisfy commercial needs. By deciding to not patent the technology, the original developers gained from shared R&D rather than chasing the illusary gains from patent licenses on technology that was not ready for the commercial market anyway. 78 I said that patents were involved in nuclear technology from the very earliest days, and I will now turn to that story. When I say the earliest days, I mean probably earlier than you are imaging. I am talking about before WWII. 79 First though I need to give some background information. France and Britain were working on nuclear weapons from the very earliest days of WWII. In Britain's case this was called Tube Alloys. Canada also was conducting nuclear experiments, including building an "atomic pile", but it's not clear if this had any clear practical goals or was done to understand the physics better. 80 If you read the Wikipedia version of history, it states that Tube Alloys was merged into the Manhattan Project. However, participants have stated in interviews that this was not the case, and the Quebec Agreement which supposedly merged them makes no such mention of any merger of the projects, just the setting up of a board to coordinate efforts between the three countries, that is the US, UK, and Canada. In fact the two projects didn't get along that well, and as we shall see below, a big part of that was disputes over patents. ### 81 The following is based on a paper written by Bertrand Goldschmidt, a French nuclear scientist. Two of his colleagues, Hans Halban and Lew Kowarski played a critical role in early nuclear research. Halban in particular was one of the greatest scientific names in nuclear fission. In March of 1939 Halban conducted an experiment showing that neutrons were emitted by the fissioning of uranium. 82 In April Joliot, Halban, Kowarski and Perrin had a pretty good idea of how to use nuclear fission to produce energy and to make an explosive device and decided to file patents on their invention. Each of the four would receive a 5% share of any benefits and the other 80% would go to the research instittute they worked at in Paris. I will now quote from Goldschmidt's paper. 83 The first two patents concerned energy production and were entitled "Device for energy production" and "Method for stabilizing a device for energy production." They roughly defined the principles of the main components of our present power reactors: moderator in heterogeneous or homogeneous arrangements, cooling fluid, control rods, protection shield. The third patent called "Method for perfecting explosive charges" was less brilliant from a foresight point of view though it proposed valid solutions for the trigger, the tamper, and the rapid obtainment of the critical assembly of a possible explosive device. Finally, nearly a year later, after Alfred Nier's experimental confirmation in March 1940 of Niels Bohr's theoretical prediction that uranium 235, the rare isotope of the mixture in natural uranium, was responsible for fission by slow neutrons, the French took out an additional patent on the advantage of using enriched uranium for the chain reaction. End of quote. 84 In May of 1940, the CNRS, the French research institute in Paris, negotiated an agreement with Belgian mining company Union Miniere, who were the world's biggest producer of uranium, at the time a byproduct of radium mining, about a partnership for the world wide exploitation of these patents. However the agreement was not finalized due to the ongoing events in the war. At the beginning of the war, the French government had approved the development of an energy generator - or a nuclear reactor as we would say today, with the intention of creating an engine for submarines. 85 With the fall of France, Halban and Kowarski travelled to the UK with their supply of heavy water where they were received by their UK counterparts, James Chadwick and John Cockroft. The British were already working on an atomic bomb. In the UK the two conducted an experiment showing that it was possible to create nuclear energy using natural uranium and heavy water. In 1941 the British nuclear project was reorganized and given the name Tube Alloys. In 1942 it was decided to move the work on a plutonium bomb to Canada, and Canada would pay for the project. A lab was set up in Montreal and Halban was put in charge of the project. 86 Halban had negotiated this arrangement by offering to arrange to have the French patents for world wide rights outside of France and the French empire transferred to the UK. In return the French team were to be given a key role in the British nuclear project. The author of the paper I am referencing, Bertrand Goldschmidt, was a section leader in Montreal and a colleague of Halban from France. The Montreal group cooperated with the American Manhattan Project and the two shared information and exchanged visits. 87 However, relations between the two began to break down, with a major cause of this being the Americans being unhappy about the French patents and Halban's arrangement to give the British world wide rights to them. The postwar commercial potential for nuclear power was seen to be huge, and this was a major bone of contention. The extensive participation of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) engineers in the Tube Alloys project was also objectionable to the Americans. Presumably this had something to do with potential for ICI being involved in future commercialization of the technology. The American Dupont company, a commercial rival of ICI, was also heavily involved in the American atomic bomb project. The eventual result of this was that the US cut off cooperation with the UK-Canada nuclear project. 88 Finally Halban was forced out of the project at the insistence of the Americans, and he was replaced by John Cockroft who moved to Montreal to take charge of the project. The Americans now restore limited cooperation. Kowarski was put in charge of building a heavy water moderated natural uranium reactor at a new site north of Ottawa at Chalk River. This reactor was turned on on the 5th of September, 1945, three days after Japan's surrender. So in what was supposedly a titanic war for survival, key allies were falling out with respect to their ultimate weapon over issues of patents covering post war commercialization. 89 With the end of the war, the nuclear weapons project in Montreal and Chalk River was wound up. Halban, Kowarski, and Goldschmidt returned to France and Cockroft to the UK where they all played senior roles in the nuclear programs of their respective countries. John Cockroft played an important role in the development of the Magnox reactors which Antoine asked about. The Chalk River Site remains as Canada's main nuclear research centre to this day, and Canada was to continue development of heavy water moderated natural uranium reactors. 90 The first commercial nuclear power plant was commissioned in the UK in 1956, roughly 17 years after the original French nuclear patents. At that time, UK patents had a term of 16 years. While I am not a patent lawyer, it would appear that these patents would likely have expired before nuclear power was ever commercialized. So to answer the question about patents, the first patents on nuclear energy date to before WWII started, and the very first two were about nuclear power plants and it was only the third one which covered nuclear weapons. -------------------- 91 Thanks to other listeners. A number of other listeners made comments saying they were really enjoying the series. I would like to thank the following for their kind words of encouragement. They helped make the work required to do this worthwhile. They are brian-in-ohio mnw Clinton Antoine bjb Kevin O'Brien Trey L'andrew Archer72 Jim DeVore If you have commented but I have forgotten your name, or if the show was recorded before I got a chance to read your comment, I would still like to thank you. 92 Conclusion I would like to thank all the listeners for their kind comments and insightful questions. I hope that I have answered these questions to the satisfaction of everyone. I look forward to hearing from all of you in future podcast episodes including those on other topics. -------------------- Proceedings of the 29th annual conference of the Canadian Nuclear Association and 10th annual conference of the Canadian Nuclear Society. V. 1-3 https://inis.iaea.org/records/m2s41-40917 This has a paper by Bertrand Goldschmidt about the work of the French scientists in Canada. -------------------- Provide feedback on this episode.

As a child growing up on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, Washington Yotto Ochieng once watched a plane cross the night sky and told his mother he wished he could travel on it. But he remembers her encouraging him to dream bigger...Today, Washington is a Professor of Engineering at Imperial College London, and President of the Royal Institute of Navigation. Over a career bridging industry and academia, he has helped shape the movement of urban transport; how satellites guide us and locate us; and how governments manage the technologies underpinning so much of modern life. Professor Jim Al-Khalili speaks to Washington about his inspirational upbringing, how reliant we've become on technologies such as GPS, and his work encouraging the next generation of engineers in both the UK and Africa. Presented by Jim Al-Khalili Produced by Lucy TaylorA BBC Studios production

On this morning's show... Deputy Peadar Toibin will join us in just a few moments... Can Ireland meet the growing needs of its population? The President of The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland will tease this out... Professor John Fitzgerald will take a look at Ireland's economy.... Our GP Pat Harold will be live in studio... And our Agony Aunt Phil Prendergast will be here... All this and much much more on the way...

[This episode originally aired in May 2021.] Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Zaha Hadid had a groundbreaking career as an architect. She became known as the “Queen of the curve” for her innovative designs and buildings. Zaha was the first woman ever to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and designed the London Aquatics Center for the 2012 Olympics, the Guangzhou Opera House, and many other beautiful and creative buildings. She used her skills in art, architecture, and mathematics to leave her mark on cities around the world.  You can listen to more podcast episodes you know and love, PLUS exciting new content on our Rebel Girls app! Just go to go.rebelgirls.com/dream-on to download and listen for free! About the Narrator A multi-disciplinary designer, architect, and professor, Neri Oxman founded The Mediated Matter Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010 where she established and pioneered the field of Material Ecology. Oxman received her PhD in Design Computation at MIT in 2010. Prior to that, she earned a diploma from the Architectural Association in London. In addition to over 150 scientific publications and inventions, Oxman's work is included in the permanent collections of leading international museums. In 2018, Oxman was honored with the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and the London Design Innovation Medal. In 2019, Oxman received an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Contemporary Vision Award by SFMOMA.   Credits This podcast is a production of Rebel Girls and is based on the book series Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. This episode was produced by Isaac Kaplan-Woolner. Sound design and mixing by Camille Stennis and Steve Pogatch. This episode was written by Annu Subramanian and proofread by Ariana Rosas. Executive Producer was Katie Sprenger. Original theme music was composed and performed by Elettra Bargiacchi. A big thanks to the whole Rebel Girls team who make this show possible! For more, visit www.rebelgirls.com. Until next time, stay REBEL!

Edmund Marriage returns to the program for the second part of our talk about ancient times. We focus on the true history of The Garden of Eden, what it was, and where. We talk about who the Annunaki were, and what was the cataclysm that ended the Ice Age... Edmund is the Principal of the Patrick Foundation, an Independent Researcher with a background in Business and Land Management. He qualified as a Chartered Land Agent and as an Associate of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (ARICS) at the Royal Agricultural College Cirencester and Wye College, London University. He founded British Wildlife Management in 1995 to lobby Parliament and other organisations for best practice in Countryside and Wildlife Management, specializing on Animal Welfare Science. He lobbies on a range of key issues such as Driver Training through the Quality Driving Initiative, and includes Healing Addiction Without Drugs through neurotherapy in residential rehabilitation, leading to practical training and skills through Work Groups for Wildlife, and the provision of quality jobs. His extensive historical research has revealed a single advanced, secular benevolent source for all religions. His Golden Age Project inspired by the work of Christian and Barbara Joy O'Brien promotes the recovery of past knowledge in order to resolve many of today's problems. He believes that re-establishing high standards of training and knowledge for all important roles, forms a priority in establishing good Government and successful Social Organisation and Cohesion. Above all, he emphasizes the priority need for a clear understanding of the written parts of our brilliant British Constitution and the upholding of the Rule of Law for the People. Issues currently threatened by totalitarian politics. More information can be found at www.goldenageproject.org.uk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edmund Marriage joins us for what is likely to be many parts of a discussion. We talk about what may have been the historical Jesus, climate change, the Annunaki, the lost civilization before the end of the last ice age, and much more... Edmund is the Principal of the Patrick Foundation, an Independent Researcher with a background in Business and Land Management. He qualified as a Chartered Land Agent and as an Associate of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (ARICS) at the Royal Agricultural College Cirencester and Wye College, London University. He founded British Wildlife Management in 1995 to lobby Parliament and other organisations for best practice in Countryside and Wildlife Management, specialising on Animal Welfare Science. He lobbies on a range of key issues such as Driver Training through the Quality Driving Initiative, and includes Healing Addiction Without Drugs through neurotherapy in residential rehabilitation, leading to practical training and skills through Work Groups for Wildlife, and the provision of quality jobs. His extensive historical research has revealed a single advanced, secular benevolent source for all religions. His Golden Age Project inspired by the work of Christian and Barbara Joy O'Brien promotes the recovery of past knowledge in order to resolve many of today's problems. He believes that re-establishing high standards of training and knowledge for all important roles, forms a priority in establishing good Government and successful Social Organisation and Cohesion. Above all, he emphasises the priority need for a clear understanding of the written parts of our brilliant British Constitution and the upholding of the Rule of Law for the People. Issues currently threatened by totalitarian politics. More information can be found at www.goldenageproject.org.uk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Miles is joined by Jil Evans and Charles Taliaferro (St. Olaf College, Minnesota, USA) to discuss their new book, 'Iris Murdoch and the Transcendent'. We cover love, ethics, mora illumination, gender, vision and the will and much more! https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Iris-Murdoch-and-the-Transcendent-by-Charles-Taliaferro-Jil-Evans/9781009631594 Jil Evans is an abstract artist and author whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is held in private and museum collections throughout the United States, including Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Flaten Art Museum, and Halle Ford Museum of Art. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, which include a Jerome Foundation Grant, Arts Midwest/National Endowment for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board grant, and a Pew Grant to study and paint Italy, and residencies at the American Academy in Rome and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She has co-authored three books with Charles Taliaferro. Charles Taliaferro is Emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, most recently The Image in Mind; Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination, co-authored with the American artist Jil Evans. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago.[1][2][3] Since 2013 Taliaferro is editor-in-chief of the journal Open Theology. He is the author of over twenty books in theology and philosophy of religion.

Episode Guest:Alan Vallance is Chief Executive of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), a role he took up in April 2024. He is an ICAEW Chartered Accountant and an experienced leader of major professional bodies, having previously led the Chartered Insurance Institute, the Royal Institute of British Architects and held senior roles at the Law Society.Episode Chapters:0:00 Introduction0:23 Meet Alan Vallance, CEO of ICAEW1:03 The Power of Networking in Your Career1:18 Why Networking Is Non-Negotiable1:22 What Gets Alan Out of Bed (His Duvet Flip)1:56 First Jobs and Early Career Lessons3:08 The Importance of Teamwork Early On3:46 Passion, Cars and Career Direction5:07 Rejection vs Redirection6:28 Why Getting a Job Is a Full-Time Job7:02 Why Personalised Applications Matter8:00 How to Be Authentic in Interviews9:25 Biggest Job Application Mistakes10:36 The Reality of Today's Job Market11:41 60,000 Applicants for 2,000 Jobs12:25 Why You Shouldn't Apply for Too Many Jobs13:12 Lessons from EY and Becoming an Accountant14:46 Accountancy vs AI: Is It Future Proof?16:24 How AI Is Changing the Profession18:21 Why Accountancy Is Still a Great Career20:10 Moving to Australia and Global Opportunities22:49 Leadership, Crisis and the Weather Bureau24:23 The Power of Your Network26:29 How to Grow Your Career the Right Way27:54 What ICAEW Does and Why It Matters30:22 Building Careers and Changing Lives32:18 Alan's Duvet FlipEpisode Partners:

With the housing crisis, there is the school of thought that we should embrace apartment living, but it seems like we're hard wired into wanting a house with a garden.Fionnuala May, Architect with Fingal County Council and President of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI) has been living in an apartment in Mountjoy Square for over 40 years and has raised a family there. She joins Seán to discuss.

Ireland is nowhere near meeting its retrofit targets, that's according to a new ESRI report out today.So why are people not retrofitting?For more on this, Shane is joined by Claire McManus, Director of JFOC Architects and Housing Spokesperson for the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland.

Painting Insights Podcast is an online show where Richard K Blades and Simon Renshaw talk to professional painters, gallery owners, frame makers and curators. This week our guest is Stewart Beckett. Stewart is an generous and skilled painter of landscape and portraits, and is a full member of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PaintingInsightsPodcast Stewart's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stewart.beckett/ https://www.instagram.com/sblpaintings/ https://www.instagram.com/sbppaintings/ Stewart's Website: https://landscape.stewartbeckett.co.uk https://www.stewartbeckett.co.uk Palais Des Vaches: https://palaisdesvaches.co.uk Gallery Holt: https://thegalleryholt.com Mall Galleries: https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk Richard's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richard.k.blades_art/ Richard's Linktree: https://linktr.ee/richardkblades_art Simon's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonleerenshaw/ Simon's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SimonSezArtwork

Greg interviews old friend of the podcast Rikker Dockum, Thai language expert extraordinaire about the Thai Royal Society, an organization dedicated to overseeing, promoting and regulating the Thai language. Rikker begins by explaining that he actually wrote his undergraduate thesis on the Society more than 20 years ago, so he's a longstanding follower of their work. He notes that it originally modeled itself after the French Academy, which, among other things, develops French words for English equivalents.  For instance, Greg brings up the issue of the word 'computer,' which is typically spoken in Thai as 'com-pu-TER,' even though the Institute has specified a true Thai word for the computer. Rikker goes through the etymology of the word, but Greg asks whether the work of the Institute is even necessary if people don't adopt the words they come up with. Rikker defends the use of public funds for work codifying 'official' Thai, noting that were it left to the private marketplace, the work would never get done.  The old friends continue their conversation about the Institute, emphasizing the need for such an organization for a language like Thai, which is vital to the history and culture of Thailand, but plays little role outside the country. Very few languages in the world are so popularly dominant that their continued preservation is assured, and unfortunately, Thai language is not one of them.  Don't forget that Patrons get the ad-free version of the show as well as swag and other perks. And we'll keep our Facebook, Twitter, and LINE accounts active so you can send us comments, questions, or whatever you want to share.

Dublin City Council has opened a public consultation for its 80-million-euro design for a pedestrianised College Green plaza – eight years since the last plaza plans were rejected by An Bord Pleanála. Olivia Kelly, Dublin Editor for the Irish Times explained what's on offer. To discuss this more we heard from Dr Carole Pollard, former president of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland & Co-Editor of the book Irish Cities in Crisis.

A cutting-edge investigation of how Russia makes war. Russian strategy in the twenty-first century has been described in terms of 'hybrid' warfare, an approach characterised by measures short of war, such as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. But as the invasion of Ukraine has brutally demonstrated, conventional armed violence remains a key element of Russian power. In Blitzkrieg and the Russian Art of War (Manchester UP, 2025), Andrew Monaghan offers a high-level view of Russian thinking about warfare. Drawing on extensive Russian sources, he addresses important questions that have been overlooked by most Western commentators: what is the military leadership's distinctive idea of twenty-first-century blitzkrieg? How does it understand holistic territorial defence? How does it manage the shifting balance between offence and defence? Introducing key concepts from Russian military thinking, Blitzkrieg and the Russian art of war is a crucial resource for understanding Russia's resurgent role on the global stage and the devastating threat the country poses to the international order. Andrew Monaghan is Academic Visitor at St Antony's College, Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He served as the editor of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC) newsletter from 2016 to 2018 and is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

A cutting-edge investigation of how Russia makes war. Russian strategy in the twenty-first century has been described in terms of 'hybrid' warfare, an approach characterised by measures short of war, such as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. But as the invasion of Ukraine has brutally demonstrated, conventional armed violence remains a key element of Russian power. In Blitzkrieg and the Russian Art of War (Manchester UP, 2025), Andrew Monaghan offers a high-level view of Russian thinking about warfare. Drawing on extensive Russian sources, he addresses important questions that have been overlooked by most Western commentators: what is the military leadership's distinctive idea of twenty-first-century blitzkrieg? How does it understand holistic territorial defence? How does it manage the shifting balance between offence and defence? Introducing key concepts from Russian military thinking, Blitzkrieg and the Russian art of war is a crucial resource for understanding Russia's resurgent role on the global stage and the devastating threat the country poses to the international order. Andrew Monaghan is Academic Visitor at St Antony's College, Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He served as the editor of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC) newsletter from 2016 to 2018 and is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

A cutting-edge investigation of how Russia makes war. Russian strategy in the twenty-first century has been described in terms of 'hybrid' warfare, an approach characterised by measures short of war, such as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. But as the invasion of Ukraine has brutally demonstrated, conventional armed violence remains a key element of Russian power. In Blitzkrieg and the Russian Art of War (Manchester UP, 2025), Andrew Monaghan offers a high-level view of Russian thinking about warfare. Drawing on extensive Russian sources, he addresses important questions that have been overlooked by most Western commentators: what is the military leadership's distinctive idea of twenty-first-century blitzkrieg? How does it understand holistic territorial defence? How does it manage the shifting balance between offence and defence? Introducing key concepts from Russian military thinking, Blitzkrieg and the Russian art of war is a crucial resource for understanding Russia's resurgent role on the global stage and the devastating threat the country poses to the international order. Andrew Monaghan is Academic Visitor at St Antony's College, Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He served as the editor of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC) newsletter from 2016 to 2018 and is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

A cutting-edge investigation of how Russia makes war. Russian strategy in the twenty-first century has been described in terms of 'hybrid' warfare, an approach characterised by measures short of war, such as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. But as the invasion of Ukraine has brutally demonstrated, conventional armed violence remains a key element of Russian power. In Blitzkrieg and the Russian Art of War (Manchester UP, 2025), Andrew Monaghan offers a high-level view of Russian thinking about warfare. Drawing on extensive Russian sources, he addresses important questions that have been overlooked by most Western commentators: what is the military leadership's distinctive idea of twenty-first-century blitzkrieg? How does it understand holistic territorial defence? How does it manage the shifting balance between offence and defence? Introducing key concepts from Russian military thinking, Blitzkrieg and the Russian art of war is a crucial resource for understanding Russia's resurgent role on the global stage and the devastating threat the country poses to the international order. Andrew Monaghan is Academic Visitor at St Antony's College, Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He served as the editor of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC) newsletter from 2016 to 2018 and is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

--{ "Robo-Roaches and New Age Coaches"}-- Kevin Warsh, nominee for Chairman of the Federal Reserve - Robert Lauder, Kevin's father-in-law and head of the World Jewish Congress - Scott Bessent, US Secretary of the Treasury - Waking Up - The Trap - Aliens, Paranormal - Fake Reality. Adolf Hitler, Ancient Tyrants, Powerful Families - Institutions, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations. Cecil Rhodes, Boer War, Raids - British East India Company - Anglo-American Establishment. Queen Elizabeth I - Standards of Living - Ancient Rome, Minoans, Harappans - Brytish Empire, Commonwealth, Parliament - Outer Space, Channelers, New Age Movement - Madame Blavatsky, Anne Besant, Alice Bailey, Theosophy, Mysticism - Discrediting Intelligence - Westminster Abbey: Tesserated (Checkerboard) Floor, Tombs, Obelisks in "Christian" Church. North American Integration, Unification - Montreal, Napoleonic Code - Egypt, Eye of Ra - Skinner, Behaviourism, Alteration of Environment - Genetic Enhancement - "Inferior Types", "Junk Genes" - Self-help Groups, Books - Scientific Crutches, Assurance, Insurance. MI5, MI6, Creation of Modern Mythology for Public - Aleister Crowley, OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis) - H.G. Wells. "New World Order", Hinduism - American Eugenics Society, "Perfect Specimens", Rockefeller, I.G. Farben. National and International Socialism - Trotsky, Perpetual Revolution.

This week 14 European countries warned that “maritime safety and security” was being put in jeopardy by Russian interference. The Royal Institute of Navigation says GPS is so vulnerable to so called ‘spoofing' and ‘jamming' that we need to rethink the navigation systems on which shipping relies. Tom Whipple speaks to Ramsey Faragher, CEO of the Institute.Something else with the potential to affect navigation systems are solar storms. Tom visits Professor Tim Horbury and Helen O'Brien at Imperial College London whose instrument strapped to the Solar Orbiter probe, and speeding through space, is giving us more warning about solar activity which could affect us here on earth.And science journalist Caroline Steel brings you the latest scientific research.To discover more fascinating science content, head to bbc.co.uk, search for BBC Inside Science and follow the links to The Open University.

"Today's 'pro-Europeans' would be horrified at the suggestion that their idea of Europe had anything to do with whiteness. In fact, many would find the attempt to link the two baffling and outrageous," writes Hans Kundnani in Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (Oxford UP, 2023). Yet, he does so - taking the reader on a historical journey through the development of European identity from Christendom to the coincidence of the Enlightenment and the development of colonialism to the pan-European movement that grew out of the first world war and peace project (or was it?) that emerged from the second. Not only is pro-Europeanism “analogous to nationalism - something like nationalism but on a larger, continental scale," Kundani argues, but the EU itself has “become a vehicle for imperial amnesia" thereby promoting and privileging “whiteness”. Hans Kundnani is a fellow at the Open Society Foundations Workshop, an associate scholar at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and a visiting scholar at the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at The New School for Social Research. From 2018-22, he was a full-time researcher at Chatham House, including as director of the Europe Programme. Before that, he was a researcher at the German Marshall Fund, the Transatlantic Academy, and the European Council on Foreign Relations. In 2014, he published The Paradox of German Power. *The author's own book recommendations are Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism by Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Penguin Modern Classics, 2006 - first published in 1956) Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes the twenty4two newsletter on Substack and hosts the In The Room podcast series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

"Today's 'pro-Europeans' would be horrified at the suggestion that their idea of Europe had anything to do with whiteness. In fact, many would find the attempt to link the two baffling and outrageous," writes Hans Kundnani in Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (Oxford UP, 2023). Yet, he does so - taking the reader on a historical journey through the development of European identity from Christendom to the coincidence of the Enlightenment and the development of colonialism to the pan-European movement that grew out of the first world war and peace project (or was it?) that emerged from the second. Not only is pro-Europeanism “analogous to nationalism - something like nationalism but on a larger, continental scale," Kundani argues, but the EU itself has “become a vehicle for imperial amnesia" thereby promoting and privileging “whiteness”. Hans Kundnani is a fellow at the Open Society Foundations Workshop, an associate scholar at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and a visiting scholar at the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at The New School for Social Research. From 2018-22, he was a full-time researcher at Chatham House, including as director of the Europe Programme. Before that, he was a researcher at the German Marshall Fund, the Transatlantic Academy, and the European Council on Foreign Relations. In 2014, he published The Paradox of German Power. *The author's own book recommendations are Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism by Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Penguin Modern Classics, 2006 - first published in 1956) Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes the twenty4two newsletter on Substack and hosts the In The Room podcast series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

"Today's 'pro-Europeans' would be horrified at the suggestion that their idea of Europe had anything to do with whiteness. In fact, many would find the attempt to link the two baffling and outrageous," writes Hans Kundnani in Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (Oxford UP, 2023). Yet, he does so - taking the reader on a historical journey through the development of European identity from Christendom to the coincidence of the Enlightenment and the development of colonialism to the pan-European movement that grew out of the first world war and peace project (or was it?) that emerged from the second. Not only is pro-Europeanism “analogous to nationalism - something like nationalism but on a larger, continental scale," Kundani argues, but the EU itself has “become a vehicle for imperial amnesia" thereby promoting and privileging “whiteness”. Hans Kundnani is a fellow at the Open Society Foundations Workshop, an associate scholar at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and a visiting scholar at the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at The New School for Social Research. From 2018-22, he was a full-time researcher at Chatham House, including as director of the Europe Programme. Before that, he was a researcher at the German Marshall Fund, the Transatlantic Academy, and the European Council on Foreign Relations. In 2014, he published The Paradox of German Power. *The author's own book recommendations are Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism by Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Penguin Modern Classics, 2006 - first published in 1956) Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes the twenty4two newsletter on Substack and hosts the In The Room podcast series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

"Today's 'pro-Europeans' would be horrified at the suggestion that their idea of Europe had anything to do with whiteness. In fact, many would find the attempt to link the two baffling and outrageous," writes Hans Kundnani in Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (Oxford UP, 2023). Yet, he does so - taking the reader on a historical journey through the development of European identity from Christendom to the coincidence of the Enlightenment and the development of colonialism to the pan-European movement that grew out of the first world war and peace project (or was it?) that emerged from the second. Not only is pro-Europeanism “analogous to nationalism - something like nationalism but on a larger, continental scale," Kundani argues, but the EU itself has “become a vehicle for imperial amnesia" thereby promoting and privileging “whiteness”. Hans Kundnani is a fellow at the Open Society Foundations Workshop, an associate scholar at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and a visiting scholar at the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at The New School for Social Research. From 2018-22, he was a full-time researcher at Chatham House, including as director of the Europe Programme. Before that, he was a researcher at the German Marshall Fund, the Transatlantic Academy, and the European Council on Foreign Relations. In 2014, he published The Paradox of German Power. *The author's own book recommendations are Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism by Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Penguin Modern Classics, 2006 - first published in 1956) Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes the twenty4two newsletter on Substack and hosts the In The Room podcast series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

This episode with Romane Dideberg explores responsible mineral sourcing in the context of rising geopolitical risk, with a focus on the Sahel. We examine how insecurity, military coups, and shifting alliances are reshaping control over critical minerals, driving resource nationalism, and complicating governance in fragile and conflict-affected states. Moreover, we also look at corruption, the role of civil society, and the realities of artisanal and small-scale mining. We unpack what traceability can, and cannot, achieve in mineral supply chains, and why responsible sourcing must go beyond tick-box compliance to genuinely improve governance, livelihoods, and long-term stability.Romane Dideberg is a researcher at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. She works within the institute's Africa Programme, engaging with policymakers, researchers, private sector, and international organisations on key policy challenges across the African continent. Her research focuses on peace and security dynamics and political developments in West Africa and the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, and the Great Lakes region. Her areas of expertise include the political economy of conflict, resource governance, extractive industries, African statehood, and state–society relations. Before joining Chatham House, she worked at LSE IDEAS, the London School of Economics' foreign policy think tank.The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime, to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you're a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.The International Risk Podcast is sponsored by Conducttr, a realistic crisis exercise platform. Visit Conducttr to learn more.Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe's leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe's leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe's business leaders. Dominic is the go-to business advisor for leaders navigating risk, crisis, and strategy; trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure, and ability to turn volatility into competitive advantage. Dominic equips today's business leaders with the insight and confidence to lead through disruption and deliver sustained strategic advantage.The International Risk Podcast – Reducing risk by increasing knowledge.Follow us on LinkedIn and Subscribe for all our updates!Tell us what you liked!

The owners of St Stephen's Green Shopping Centre in Dublin are making a renewed bid to redevelop the landmark shopping centre. The revised plan once again includes removing the existing facade of the shopping centre and adding office space. Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast was Dr Carole Pollard, Former president of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland & Co- Editor of the book Irish Cities in Crisis.

Sigrid Sandström  earned a BFA at Academie Minerva, Groningen, The Netherlands (1997); attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME (2000); and received an MFA in Painting from Yale University, New Haven, CT (2001). Sandström has exhibited her work internationally in solo exhibitions at museums including Vandalorum Museum, Värnamo, Sweden; Västerås konstmuseum, Västerås, Sweden; Frye Museum, Seattle, WA; and at galleries including Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York; Perrotin Shanghai and Tokyo; Inman Gallery, Houston, TX; and Cecilia Hillström Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden. Sandström's work is in the public collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Borås Konstmuseum, Borås, Sweden; Malmö konstmuseum, Malmö, Sweden; The Public art Agency, Sweden; Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS; Västerås konstmuseum, Västerås, Sweden, and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. Sandström is currently a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts, Helsinki, and has previously held positions as a professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm (2010-2020) and an Assistant Professor at Bard College, New York (2005-2010). Sandström lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Sigrid Sandström, Ravel V, 2025 Acrylic on canvas Frame 40″ x 59 ⁵⁄₈” x 1 ⁵⁄₈”  Sigrid Sandström, Ravel X, 2025 Acrylic on canvas Frame 40″ x 59 ⁵⁄₈” x 1 ⁵⁄₈”  Sigrid Sandström, Approaching Times Three, 2025 Acrylic on canvas Frame 40″ x 40″ x 1 ⁵⁄₈” 

Housing Minister James Browne will update Cabinet today about the Vacant Above the Shop Grant, which would provide up to 140,000 euros to help people turn spaces above shops into homes. Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast was Claire McManus, Director of JFOC Architects and Housing Spokesperson for the Royal Institute of Architects.

Keir Giles has spent his career watching, studying, and explaining Russia. Keir's work has appeared in a wide range of academic and military publications across Europe and in North America, and he is a regular contributor and commentator on Russian affairs for international print and broadcast media. He is a Senior Consulting Fellow at the UK's Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and also works with the Conflict Studies Research Centre (CSRC), a group of deep subject matter experts on Eurasian security formerly attached to the British Ministry of Defence. He is a regular contributor to research projects on Russian security issues in the U.S., UK, and Europe.----------Silicon Curtain is a part of the Christmas Tree Trucks 2025 campaign - an ambitious fundraiser led by a group of our wonderful team of information warriors raising 110,000 EUR for the Ukrainian army. https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/christmas-tree-trucks-2025-silicon-curtainThe Goal of the Campaign for the Silicon Curtain community:- 1 armoured battle-ready pickupWe are sourcing all vehicles around 2010-2017 or newer, mainly Toyota Hilux or Mitsubishi L200, with low mileage and fully serviced. These are some of the greatest and the most reliable pickups possible to be on the frontline in Ukraine. Who will receive the vehicles?https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/christmas-tree-trucks-2025-silicon-curtain- The 38th Marine Brigade, who alone held Krynki for 124 days, receiving the Military Cross of Honour.- The 1027th Anti-aircraft and artillery regiment. Honoured by NATO as Defender of the Year 2024 and recipient of the Military Cross of Honour.- 104th Separate Brigade, Infantry, who alone held Kherson for 100 days, establishing conditions for the liberation of the city.- 93rd Brigade "Kholodnyi Yar", Black Raven Unmanned Systems Battalion ----------BOOKS:Who Will Defend Europe? An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent (2024)Order Keir's new book: https://amzn.to/4cFI1b6Russia's War on Everybody: And What it Means for You (2022)Moscow Rules: What Drives Russia to Confront the West (2019)The Turning Point for Russian Foreign Policy (2017)The State of the NATO-Russia Reset (2011)Potential Challenges to Public Order and Social Stability in the Russian Federation (2011)----------LINKS:Order Keir's new book: https://amzn.to/4cFI1b6https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/keir-gileshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Gileshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/keir-giles-499a489/https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/keir-gileshttps://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=7Bs89WMAAAAJhttps://bsky.app/profile/keirgiles.bsky.social----------DESCRIPTION:Understanding the Russia-West Geopolitical Conflict with Keir GilesIn this insightful episode, Keir delves into his extensive experience studying Russia, sharing knowledge from his academic and military publications. He discusses the persistent misunderstandings regarding Russia's intentions by Western diplomats, driven by a cycle of short-term postings and differing diplomatic experiences. Johnson also highlights the ideological alignments between Russian and current U.S. policies, underscoring the troubling implications for Europe. The conversation touches on the complexities of international relations, the failures of economic appeasement with authoritarian regimes, and the stark realities of Russia's long-standing messianic geopolitical behavior. The episode concludes with a call to support Ukrainian armed forces in their epic battle for survival, reflecting on the tangible impact of international solidarity.----------

Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers yesterday outlined the measures contained in his Accelerating Infrastructure Action Plan to cabinet. Ciara discusses this further with Robin Mandal, Vice Chair of the Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance and former president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland.

Robin Mandal, former President of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI)

The government has come under increasing intense criticism of its record on housing, and the sluggishness with which its addressed the need to build more affordable homes.Today on Inside Politics, Hugh Linehan discusses the issues with the planning and regulatory system that some argue is slowing down the process of boosting housing supply in Ireland.In an essay published in The Irish Times last month, the tech billionaire and founder of Stripe John Collison argued construction, and infrastructure projects more generally, are being held back by regulation and judicial barriers stemming from the planning corruption scandals of the 1980's and 90's.On the podcast today is Orla Hegarty, assistant professor at University College Dublin and a fellow at the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, dismissed Mr Collisons case, saying: “It jumps to a solution that doesn't relate to the problem”.“There is a thinking that if the market isn't functioning, the issue must be regulation. That's a really naive take.”The evidence doesn't support that" she added.Hugh is also joined by Sean Keys, the executive director of the think tank Progress Ireland, for which John Collison is a significant financial donor, says the argument is not solely about de-regulation.“We need to build new agency. We need to build state capacity”.He added: “What the national planning framework does is basically put a thump on the scale of building in Dublin”.Produced by JJ Vernon and Andrew McNair Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Dennis Prager’s Timeless Wisdom. Each Monday through Saturday, you’ll hear some of Dennis’s best lectures, talks, and series—with brief commercial breaks. To get the ad-free version of this podcast, and to access the full library of lectures, talks, and shows, visit dennisprager.com. On Today’s Show: Dennis talks to Charles Emmerson, senior research fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London. His new book is 1913: In Search of the World before the Great War.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The government has announced an independent inquiry into repeated failings in maternity services at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Earlier this year, a BBC investigation revealed that the deaths of at least 56 babies and two mothers over the past five years at the Trust could perhaps have been avoided. BBC correspondent Divya Talwar joins Nuala McGovern, alongside Lauren Caulfield and Amarjit Kaur Matharoo, who both tragically lost their babies while receiving care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust. This month, the Ironman World Championships were held in Kona, Hawaii, where Britain's Kat Matthews won silver. The men's and women's championships, previously held simultaneously, were split into separate events in 2023. However, they are set to reunite next year. Questions have been raised about the impact this change may have on female competitors. To discuss the championships and celebrate Kat's achievement, Nuala is joined by Kat Matthews and Jordan Blanco, a contributor to Triathlete magazine who attended the event. A new report reveals that progress towards gender equity in the architecture profession still remains too slow. Inequalities remain deeply rooted — with pay disparities, toxic and exclusionary workplace cultures, and half of female respondents surveyed said they had been bullied, and a third had experienced sexual harassment at work. Nuala hears from Valerie Vaughan-Dick, Chief Executive of Royal Institute of British Architects, and Helen Lee who was the project architect on a social housing development in London for the elderly which has just won this year's Stirling Prize for Architecture. The Essex witch trials represent one of the darkest chapters in British history. A new Sky History series, Witches of Essex, revisits the real lives of women accused of witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries, drawing on newly examined court records and the latest historical research. Historian Dr Eleanor Janega joins Nuala to discuss.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Dianne McGregor

In late September, Senior Editor Will Kaback spoke with two experts on Russia, Ukraine, and the war. First was Richard Sakwa, a professor emeritus of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent at Canterbury and an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Sakwa has studied and written extensively on Russia and Vladimir Putin, including in his book Frontline Ukraine about the origins of the current war. This is part 1 of a 2 part interview series. Tangle LIVE tickets are available!* We're excited to announce that our third installment of Tangle Live will be held on October 24, 2025, at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in Irvine, California. If you're in the area (or want to make the trip), we'd love to have you join Isaac and the team for a night of spirited discussion, live Q&A, and opportunities to meet the team in person. You can read more about the event and purchase tickets here.Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was hosted by Will Kaback and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75 and Jon Ball.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead.PREVIEW - The Friday Edition: Russian expert Richard Sakwa and the future of the Ukraine war Part 1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ABSTRACT What enables me to know that others exist? Natalie Duddington (PAS 1918-1919) offers two distinctive, and underexplored, insights into the question. She focusses on our capacity to perceive minds in perceiving animate beings, and on the ways in which we stand to be affected by others in knowing them. I will suggest a way of understanding what it is to see minds in action. I will also argue that ways we stand to be affected by others offers a resource for knowing others that takes us beyond perception, and is one that constitutes an antidote to the solipsist. ABOUT Lucy O'Brien is Richard Wollheim Professor of Philosophy at UCL. She has been at UCL since 1992. Her studies in Philosophy began with a BA Joint Hons in Pure Mathematics and Philosophy, and an MPhil in Philosophy, at the University of Sheffield. She went on to a DPhil in Oxford, followed by a post-doctoral position at King's London. Her research interests lie in the philosophy of mind and action, with a particular focus on various forms of self-consciousness, and self-knowledge. She is writing a book on interpersonal self-consciousness following receipt of a British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship. She has published papers in a range of journals and collections, she is the author of Self-Knowing Agents  (OUP, 2007) and co-editor, with Matthew Soteriou, of Mental Actions  (OUP, 2009). She served as Director and Treasurer of the Aristotelian Society 2007-2014, and Vice-Chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy 2015-2020. She was awarded a Humboldt Forschungspreis in 2021, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2024. She was co-editor, with A. W. Moore, of the journal MIND from 2015-2025. She has been Chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy since 2020.

Environmental sustainability policy has failed due to focusing on symptoms rather than the root cause problems. Through significant research and a detailed roadmap for how to achieve sustainability by 2050, Buffington provides a realistic, game changing path forward that is both good for the environment and the economy. Dr. Jack Buffington received a Ph.D. in Supply Chain Management from the Lulea University of Technology in Sweden, and a Post-Doctorate at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and now he is currently the Program Director/Professor for the Supply Chain Management program and the Denver Transportation Institute at the University of Denver. Jack has published over twenty peer-reviewed journal articles and seven books before this one. Jack's current research efforts are focused on Africa, which he believes is the epicenter of where environmental innovation must be fostered. And he is also Sustainability Director at First Key Consulting, a global brewing consulting firm. Jack is collaborating with innovators in supply chain, sustainability, and healthcare across the planet. Before these roles, Jack was responsible for supply chain logistics for MillerCoors Brewing Company, the second-largest beer company in the U.S. and the fourth-largest worldwide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network