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Metro
14 hours ago
- General
- Metro
Why radio is still the ultimate survival tool in war and emergencies
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Disaster films almost always start the same way. A crowded supermarket, ping after ping as shoppers' phones go off, screams. An asteroid, a tsunami, an earthquake, World War III. Something – or someone – is about to upend the world. But whatever the impending disaster is, experts tell Metro it won't be mobile phones that people will rely on to survive. It'll be something a little more old-school. 'Crises can take many forms,' Dr Colin Alexander, a senior lecturer in political communications at Nottingham Trent University, says. 'However, radio remains the go-to medium of communication in these moments.' As the Israel–Iran ceasefire shows signs of breaking, and the Russia-Ukraine war raging without signs of a deal, people are beginning to contemplate how they would survive if World War III breaks out. Radio isn't just for listening to easy-listening jazz and Top 20 pop tracks. Human-made catastrophes see radio play a central role. In April, Spain and Portugal were hit by a major power outage, which led to planes being grounded, deaths, metros and trains being stopped and people's phone signal and internet not working. TikTok accounts are flogging radios for users to buy in case of the outbreak of another world war. According to influencers, a radio is the most important thing to have in your survival bag. They say if the 'grid went down' people could miss crucial shelter-in-place' messages and other orders from the government if they don't have a radio. Over in Ukraine, when Kyiv's TV tower was flattened and signals were jammed by Moscow forces during the Russia-Ukraine war, Ukrainians in occupied territories were left in an information blackout. As one Ukrainian journalist recalled to the BBC, Ukrainians huddled around crank radios to learn of escape routes through coded messages. 'Listening to the radio, they feel that this country and these people have a tomorrow,' said Liudmyla Tiahnyriadno, a host on Ukrainian Radio. People living in the Gaza Strip amid the Israel-Hamas war know the radio all too well. The coastal enclave, where health officials say Israel has killed at least 50,5000, has endured repeated 'near-total' information blackouts as Israeli offensives target telecommunication services. Without the internet or phone signal, Palestinians had little choice but to use the radio to know when the next bombs would fall. 'As we don't have electricity, we are unable to watch the news and see what's going on around us, but at least we listen to Al-Jazeera through the radio,' Osama Humaed told The New Arab in 2023. 'We know what's going on, but we don't see anything.' People listen for the truth, too. Radio Fresh, broadcasting from Syria's northern Idlib province, was handed a top media award in 2019 for its part in exposing the corruption of the Assad regime, which tightly controlled the press. Government officials strongly urge that all households keep a wind-up or battery radio to hand in case of blackouts. People should write a list of frequencies for any radio station they listen to in case TV and internet services drop. Just weeks before the blackout in Spain, the European Union told its almost 450million citizens to prepare for war or natural disaster by assembling '72 hour survival kits'. Food, water, torches, ID papers, medicine, and shortwave radios were among the items citizens were told they needed to stock. Whizzing around you as you read these are radio waves, among the longest waves in the electromagnetic spectrum. You can't surf on these waves, Chris Scott, a professor of space and atmospheric physics at the University of Reading's Department of Meteorology, tells Metro. 'Radio waves are a form of light. They are generated when electric charge-carrying particles called electrons are accelerated,' he says. 'By causing electrons in an electric circuit to oscillate, radio waves can be generated and, by coding information into either the amplitude ( amplitude modulation, or AM) or frequency (frequency modulation, or FM) of these waves, they can be used to transmit this information.' You can turn sound into ones and zeroes, blast them as waves for a radio receiver to convert into sound played from a speaker, Scott adds. Shortwave radio – waves less than 100m in length – is used by aircraft staff and rescue teams as it is 'simple, low-cost' tech for reaching people over large distances. It is what it is today thanks to English physicist Edward Appleton. His experiments proved the existence of the ionosphere – a region in the upper atmosphere – by, in part, bouncing shortwave radio signals off it. 'One hundred years on from Appleton's pioneering experiments,' Scott adds, 'radio communication remains as important as ever.' In 2005, Pakistan was shaken by one of the most devastating earthquakes in the country's history, a 7.8-magnitude tremor that killed 87,000 people. The quake ripped through cities and far-flung villages in the North-West Frontier Province, injuring 38,000 people and flattening thousands of homes, shops, schools and hospitals. More than 3,500,000 people were also left without any access to information, researchers said. People twisting their FM dials proved invaluable as stations were set up to tell victims about rehabilitation and reconstruction plans. During the coronavirus pandemic, not only was radio used by officials to broadcast crucial policy updates and facts into homes, but the sounds of people's voices broke the solitude that countless faced. 'We've had so many messages from listeners who say that just hearing a familiar voice and a welcome distraction from the horror ride of 24-hour rolling news helped get them through the pandemic,' says Andy Bush, a presenter at Absolute Radio. Some 44,000 radio stations are broadcasting to billions of people in the world as you read this, a spokesperson for the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) tells Metro. Given that the agency dates back to 1865, it knows what it's talking about when it says that radio is 'unparalleled', even in the age of yapping artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. 'Unlike internet-based media, radio does not require any expensive digital devices, subscription requirements or high-speed Internet connection to function,' the spokesperson explains. After all, the World Wide Web is made of tiny code that travels through razor-thin wires that line the ocean floor; people can easily be left without internet or mobile service during crises when the infrastructure is dented. Emergency radios, also known as disaster radios or crank radios, are designed with this in mind. Many don't need to be plugged in, instead relying on being hand-cranked or soaking up solar power, so downed power lines won't be a problem. 'In times of crises, radios are not just economical but essential to ensure disaster preparedness and response,' the ITU says, especially in rural communities. The spokesperson says that DAB+, an improved form of digital radio, is 'indispensable' as radio broadcasters work with the government and NGOs. 'Additionally, international collaborative efforts, exemplified by the International Radio for Disaster Relief (IRDR) initiative, allocate specific shortwave frequencies for emergency use, ensuring the capacity for long-range communication when local infrastructure is unavailable,' they add. 'In parallel, amateur radio services can also be essential for sustaining communications and responding to emergencies.' Doug Goodison is behind the amateur radio club, G4HMS. The shack has been vibrating with radio waves from the HMS Belfast moored along the River Thames since 1973. 'News is only as good as the information supplied through the announcer,' Goodison, a former operations manager with TfL, says. 'In most cases, the important, embarrassing items are left out by the news and the truth on many occasions is used sparingly or not at all.' 'Media news is only as good as the source.' Indeed, Dr Alexander says that during war, radio can become 'weaponised to meet the ambitions of the powerful'. As much as radios were used to boost morale during World War Two, the Nazi Party used the new-ish technology as a propaganda tool. Or take Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American whose voice was known to millions of American troops during World War Two after she became stranded in Japan following Pearl Harbour. Forced to renounce her US citizenship, she was asked to host a Japanese radio propaganda programme, Zero Hour. As much as powerful nations enjoy wheeling out supersonic jets and nuclear weapons, the humble radio is integral to the military today, explains Neil Fraser, who served 26 years in the British Army, leading the Ministry of Defence's global satellite and radio communication programmes. A soldier's most important weapon may wind up being a walkie-talkie-style radio or backpack satellite terminals, Fraser says. Mobile and Wi-Fi networks can become 'overwhelmed' in wartime, meaning military officials mix-and-match radio. 'The military is used to working where there is limited communications infrastructure, and the best solution is to have different systems to deliver options, meaning they can switch between 'combat radio', mobile phone networks (where they have a signal) and satellite connections,' the director of defence and space programmes at the satellite communication provider NSSLGlobal tells Metro. 'When one connection fails, another kicks in.' 'The war in Ukraine, with its heavy use of drones, sensors and dispersed, relatively small teams of soldiers, has reinforced the lesson that having easily accessible diverse connectivity and the ability to use satellites is vital,' he adds. For years, over 340 broadcasts, D'Aquino's sinister, seductive and demoralising voice told soldiers that the war was lost. D'Aquino, known to her listeners as 'Tokyo Rose', was convicted of treason in 1949. Radio is so often used to spit out disinformation because, as the ITU and Dr Alexander stress, it is considered more trustworthy than other media. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an alliance of broadcasters, found this was the case in 24 of the 37 countries surveyed. 'Television and other visual media are more associated with entertainment,' continues Dr Alexander. 'In short, you have to listen attentively to the radio, but with television, you mainly watch the images and let the narrative wash over you without as much attention.' 'Whether radio saves lives or encourages more death is open to debate. There is nothing about radio that is inherently peaceful,' he says. More Trending But for people like Bush, whose voice has been on the radio waves for some 20 years, radio is something more simple than that. 'Doing a radio show is a privilege as people welcome you into their lives in a way that Netflix or TikTok cannot touch,' he says. 'It's a personal conversation and pep talk that gets more and more crucial as daily life gets increasingly stressful.' A version of this article was previously published on April 29, 2025 Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Map shows safest countries to be in if global conflict breaks out MORE: The secret choice Starmer has already made to save the UK from nuclear war MORE: Six places which could be safe if World War Three erupts – including two in UK
The Guardian
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Five years from now, these readers will be soldiers': The Russian literature encouraging teens to enlist
'Z literature', a subgenre of Russian fantasy fiction characterised by nationalistic, pro-war storylines, has been on the rise since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began three years ago and may be pushing young readers towards enlisting in combat. Z literature – named after the 'Z' symbol of support for the invasion – often features popadantsy, or 'accidental travel' narratives, involving a protagonist being transported to pivotal moments in Russia's past and using modern knowledge to intervene and alter history in Russia's favour. 'Providing a powerful strain of jingoistic nostalgia, these narratives satisfy readers' yearning for the lost superpower status by rewriting the past,' according to Mediazona, the independent Russian news outlet which reported on the boom in Z literature in May. Z literature is targeted at young men who will soon be the focus of enlistment drives, said Colin Alexander, a senior lecturer in political communications at Nottingham Trent University. 'In times of war, all countries will try to inspire those demographics targeted [for] soldiering through a range of propaganda strategies.' While news broadcasts are often focused on by propaganda researchers, 'the reality is that publics are most inspired to serve the war effort through storytelling entertainment media and that excites and inspires. Russia is certainly using these well-trodden wartime emotional propaganda techniques, but it is important to state that wherever there is war we tend to find them.' These 'Russian hyper-nationalistic genre novels with their outsize heroics are significant because they are made outside the formal propaganda apparatus of the state,' said Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, emeritus professor of communications at Queen Mary, University of London. 'They are pieces of individual entrepreneurship but highly predictable, as if from a common template.' While the books 'connect of course with Hollywood hyper heroics' such as Captain America, and the 'literature imbibed by Victorian British schoolboys' such as the novels of GA Henry, 'the difference lies in their crudeness and the extent of their hypernationalism which takes them into the realms of fantasy. They retain not one shred of credibility.' 'They offer a binary world of hateful foreigners and wonderful Russians – or at least, Russians who become great after learning the lessons of experience,' he said. Books falling in the Z literature subgenre, according to Mediazona, include Crimean Cauldron by Nikolai Marchuk, in which Ukrainians are portrayed as Nazis and the whole world has turned against Russia, and White Z on the Front Armour by Mikhail Mikheev, about a Russian agent who enters Ukraine after the full-scale invasion begins and apprehends a western spy. 'The market is clearly young and male, but what is stunning is the coarseness. It would be funny if it were not really real. [The books] are tapping into a terrible appetite for destruction, deep yearnings for revenge and a strange view of the Russians as a kind of herrenvolk, a unique people. One source of this mythology is the belief that second world war victory was almost entirely of Russian authorship,' said O'Shaughnessy. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion 'So these are master-race fantasies which to work require the diminution of other peoples, their subjugation – and arousing hatred is the lubricant for this.' Another example of Z literature, reported Mediazona, is PMC Chersonesus by Andrei Belyanin, a popadantsy story which sees a former marine on a mission to return artefacts to Crimea with a team resembling Aphrodite, Heracles and Dionysus. Along the way, they encounter other figures from Greek mythology and zombie Nazis. Their final mission involves stealing Scythian gold from the Netherlands – a plotline nodding to the real-life loaning of gold to an Amsterdam museum pre-annexation, which the Dutch supreme court ultimately decided should go to Ukraine, not Crimea. 'Five years from now, these readers will be soldiers,' Jaroslava Barbieri, a researcher at the University of Birmingham, told The Telegraph. 'The Kremlin isn't trying to appease aggression – it's cultivating it.' All healthy men aged between 18 and 30 must complete one year of service in the Russian military. Though conscripts in theory cannot serve on the frontlines, there have been reports of them signing combat contracts under duress.
The Sun
12-05-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
How showdown between Zelensky & Putin will be an ice cold poker game… but one man will have a clear upper hand
SHOWDOWN talks between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky will be like an ice cold poker game, an expert says. And one of the two rivals will have a clear upper hand if potential peace negotiations that could shape the future of Europe get underway in Istanbul. 5 5 5 Zelensky and Putin have met in public once before, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, in 2019, when they spoke about the conflict in the Donbas. But the pair could now meet in the iconic Turkish city as they engage in a game of high stakes diplomatic brinkmanship. Dr Colin Alexander at the University of Nottingham Trent University has told The Sun that Zelensky needs to try and be smart about the man he would be sitting across from. Putin would be level headed as he goes about trying to achieve his goals - something the Ukrainian needed to respect in order to get peace. Dr Alexander said: "You're playing the scenario, but you're also playing the person as well. "I know that's maybe a poker analogy. But that's kind of where we're at with this if you're negotiating with a professional." In such a high-pressure and emotionally charged set piece, an historic clash could erupt between Zelensky and Putin that rivals the infamous Oval Office row. But Dr Alexander said: "Vladimir Putin is very different type of politician, a very shrewd, very intelligent politician, but he's not going to engage with Zelensky in that [angry] way. "I think that there's there's much greater seriousness to this, and he's more likely to be more courteous, I think, to him." For Ukraine's benefit, Dr Alexander said Zelensky had to have the same poker-like mindset. Zelensky's country has been invaded and tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed - but wartime diplomacy means talking to people you might detest in order to get peace. He said: " In these dreadful circumstances comes an understanding that you have to engage with people who you firmly disagree with, and may well find to be quite repugnant. "Zelensky hopefully treats it with the maturity and the responsibility that it deserves. "But that doesn't mean that Zelensky won't go in with the sort of painful memory of that moment at the White House in the back of his mind." 5 5 Exactly how the meeting plays out depends on whether the two leaders see a genuine chance at finding an end to the war. If not, then we would see "dead cats" - distraction tactics, like a fabricated row, could be used by either side to shift the focus from their being no substantive progress, Dr Alexander said. That could even mean Zelensky ditching his pseudo-combat fatigues for a suit to try and signal to Donald Trump he's serious about peace and change the media coverage in a clever bait and switch. Dr Alexander said: "He's [Zelensky] pretty good at the choreography aspect of politics, which in this highly mediated 21st century is kind of half the battle, or maybe even more than half the battle." If there is little progress, then some might see no chance of Putin meeting with Zelensky. But Dr Alexander said that Putin risked being viewed as "petulant" even in his own country if he wouldn't meet Zelensky or treated him badly if they did. If everyone wants peace why is the war in Ukraine still raging? The answer is very simple Comment by Jerome Starkey, Defence Editor for The Sun EVERYONE says they want peace, so why is the war still raging in Ukraine? The short answer is simple: Peace means very different things to very different people. They have different goals and different motives. Vladimir Putin wants total conquest. And he wants to be remembered as a modern Tsar who restored Russia's imperial greatness. Ukraine wants to survive, as a sovereign independent nation. Europe wants a chastened Russia and peace that lasts beyond six months. Trump just wants a deal — any deal at any price — with minerals thrown in for good measure. He wants to claim the glory and perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize for sorting out the carnage which he sees as Barack Obama and Joe Biden's mess. The American position is clear from the terrible deal they want Kyiv to accept. Their so-called seven-point peace plan would freeze the war on the current front lines and force Ukraine to surrender almost all of its occupied territories — some 44,000 square miles — with almost nothing in return. The expert believes there likely would be a handshake between the two leaders if they meet with Zelensky more likely to let his emotions show in the hand grasp. Dr Alexander said: "How these two men will behave in the handshake carries a lot of of weight in it." If there is any actual progress on peace, diplomacy would likely occur behind closed doors. "Whenever there is a sort of bilateral meeting of this nature, particularly given the high stakes... this is very much for public audience." But, for Zelensky to have Donald Trump's backing he has to prove he is serious about peace. One factor that sits in Zelensky's favour is that Putin is a dictator and sets Russian policy himself. Zelensky can reason directly with Putin and could try his best to change the Russian's mind about an issue during the meeting - and therefore change Russian policy. Whereas democrat Zelensky still has a democracy he is accountable to. Dr Alexander said: "What's interesting is that in in any meeting Zelensky cannot firmly make a decision. He has to go back and speak to other people." The brave Ukrainian could go into the meeting with his hands tied trying to impress Trump and his own people. Shrewd Putin, however, has much more freedom to change as he sees fit. What is Zelensky's offer? On Sunday, Volodymyr Zelensky called Putin's bluff and said he would travel to Istanbul for a face-to-face peace talks. Vladimir Putin has always been open to talks - but has not changed his strategic goals away from dismembering Ukraine and replacing its government with a puppet. Putin is yet to reveal whether he will travel or meet directly with his arch rival. That's because Ukraine, the US, and European nations are demanding Russia agree to a 30-day ceasefire as a first step toward peace. Donald Trump has long demanded a quick peace to end the war. But Ukraine and Russia both want to keep fighting and are deftly trying to position themselves to win the favour of Trump. Putin wants to peel America away from supporting Ukraine, while Zelensky needs American weapons and finance to keep fighting Russia. Zelensky wants an immediate pause in fighting saying 'we expect a ceasefire from [Monday] – complete and lasting, to provide the necessary basis for diplomacy. "There is no point in prolonging the killings." Trump has put pressure on Zelensky to meet with Putin - even though the Russian leader refused to agree to a ceasefire. He said: 'President Putin of Russia doesn't want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. 'Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY. 'At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the U.S., will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly! 'I'm starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin, who's too busy celebrating the Victory of World War ll, which could not have been won (not even close!) without the United States of America. "HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!'
