Latest news with #King'sCollege
Daily Maverick
a day ago
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Crossed wires — Musk, his children and the population decline crisis
As has been periodically (and slightly breathlessly) reported for some time, Elon Musk has had 13 children with (at least) four mothers. No, wait, it may be 14 because a paternity suit is under way. For any average person, this would seem a little eccentric, even with some leeway for his richly displayed narcissism. But Musk has gone on record many times, urgently warning about population collapse. Perhaps this is simply his contribution to mitigating what he sees as a global crisis. Is it a global crisis? According to sociologist Dr Alice Evans of King's College, it is indeed. She has been studying the subject for a long time and has been very vocal about it. I listened to her on a recent podcast titled Interesting Times, and she went out of her way to disabuse her host (as well as me) of a common misconception. Most people believe that, as secularism and education (both male and female) spread across the world during the previous century, they were accompanied by reproductive education (and rights), which have been the main contributor to the falling rates of childbirth. Reproduction rate All true. However, in the past 15 years, something curious and alarming has emerged. The reproduction rate has fallen off a cliff, not only in liberal Western societies, but in conservative or authoritarian societies such as Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Nepal and China. Worse still, those societies most supportive of child-rearing, like Sweden, which offers a ton of perks (like long maternity and paternity leave), have seen no uptick in childbearing at all. Even attempts to nudge populations into child-rearing with generous financial incentives have seen little success. Singapore, France and Hungary (which really pushed the boat out with a tax holiday for life after two children) have seen little positive effect and even continuing declines. The obvious question here is – so what? It turns out there are serious consequences resulting from population decline, which can only be arrested by women having an average of 2.1 children (this odd number stems from children who die before reproducing, as well as the slightly larger male population). Some countries, like South Korea, have seen their rates drop below 1.0. Do a little math and you end up with schools closing, empty commercial buildings, struggling universities and hospitals and the disappearance of child-focused stores (Toys 'R' Us is now a fond memory – it closed 735 stores in 2017, citing declining reproductive rates). The economic impact is frightening. Smartphones What is going on here? Evans has a theory, backed by data. Here is the big surprise – the sudden plummet in childbearing began at the same time as the ascendance of smartphones and personal digital entertainment. Her claim is simple. People (particularly young people) disappeared into their screens and stopped going out, meeting each other, having sex, and bearing children. Playing Call of Duty and scrolling TikTok are far less stressful than trying to meet and bond with strangers. She calls it the 'coupling crisis.' Forming a sustaining relationship takes energy, some sacrifices and sometimes a bit of luck. Being digitally entertained on your device, including being titillated by online porn, is much easier. None of the messy pitfalls of human interaction need to be negotiated. She even points to a sort of real-world control group, which is Africa. Smartphone adoption is late on the continent – it has only just begun. And guess what? Birth rates in Africa have not yet fallen. And then there is marriage. Evans says: '…in the US, over half the people between 18 and 34 are neither cohabiting nor married, so they're single. And that's the same case in much of Latin America, East Asia, Korea, in China, in South Korea… If we look at the data, the decline in people being married or coupled is almost one-to-one with the decline in children.' I am not sure whether the evidence is robust, or correlatory rather than causal – it looks like a difficult hypothesis to prove – but the decline in birth rates and the associated fall-off in marriages is real and vertiginous. Musk's motivation Let's return to Musk for a moment. There has been an attempt to tie Musk's position to the 'great replacement theory,' which is a racist view that whites are being replaced by non-whites, with correspondingly extreme proposals to respond to this presumed threat, including breeding programmes. I don't buy this. I do not believe that Musk aligns with this position at all. I believe his motivations are more, er, personal, if a little weird. I think he just wants lots of little Elons around, who he hopes will be as smart as he is. There is a related question. While birth rates around the world are plummeting, alarming economists and data-aware politicians, it is also the case that they are falling more slowly in religious and conservative jurisdictions. Again, a little high school maths suggests that political power will shift quickly and irrevocably toward the conservative and the religious. There have been some Silicon Valley types reaching for technological solutions – artificial wombs, medical and pharmaceutical science to delay the onset of menopause, and so on – but this all seems a stretch to me. The shrinking of our population seems to be baked into our recent global cultural evolution. What a strange irony, given the panic about overpopulation mere decades ago. People who think about these matters have two substantial shifts in society to consider – the hollowing out of consumer spending as population growth goes negative, and the fast political muscling up of family-minded traditionalists. As though we didn't have enough to worry about. DM Steven Boykey Sidley is a professor of practice at JBS, University of Johannesburg and a partner at Bridge Capital and a columnist-at-large at Daily Maverick. His new book, It's Mine: How the Crypto Industry is Redefining Ownership, is published by Maverick451 in SA and Legend Times Group in the UK/EU, available now.
Zawya
5 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
King's College Riyadh welcomes Jacqueline Doran-McGuinness as new Principal
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: King's College Riyadh is delighted to announce the appointment of Mrs Jacqueline Doran-McGuinness as its new Principal, effective August 2025. Her appointment follows a meticulous international recruitment process led by the King's College Board, Interim Headmaster Mr Martin Clark, and the leadership team at King's College UK. With over twenty years of teaching experience and seventeen years in senior leadership roles across the UK and the Middle East, Mrs Doran-McGuinness brings a wealth of expertise to the role. A University of Glasgow graduate in Biosciences, she began her career in England before moving into leadership positions at premium British curriculum schools in the UAE, including a recent seven-year tenure with a leading education group. Her appointment marks a significant milestone in the continued growth of King's College Riyadh, the first British independent school to open in the Kingdom through a direct partnership with a UK institution. The school blends over 145 years of academic excellence and heritage from King's College UK with a dynamic, forward-looking vision at the heart of Diriyah. Commenting on her new role, Mrs Doran-McGuinness said: " It's a real privilege to be stepping into the role of Principal at King's College Riyadh. I'm honoured to be part of such a vibrant community and am committed to working closely with pupils, families and staff to ensure every child benefits from an exceptional education grounded in the values and vision of King's College.' Mr Martin Clark, who has served as Interim Headmaster for the 2024–25 academic year, will remain in post until the end of the academic year. His close collaboration with incoming Mrs Doran-McGuinness throughout the year, including her recent campus visit, has ensured a structured and seamless leadership transition. The school's ethos is anchored in six core values, the 'golden thread' that binds together all pupils who walk through the gates of a King's College school: Academic Focus, Curiosity, Care for Others, Respect and Tolerance, Endeavour, and Leadership and Enterprise. These values are woven into all aspects of school life, from a thriving co-curricular programme with over 110 clubs, to innovative initiatives such as the Drone and Architecture Clubs, the Junior Dukes Award, and global learning experiences through international trips. As part of its continued growth, the school will open its senior phase with the addition of Year 7 in the 2025/26 academic year, alongside the extension of specialist teaching from Year 5, enhanced Arabic and Islamic Studies and an expanded programme of residential trips and competitive sport. These developments are complemented by ongoing campus enhancements to the school's art and science labs, sports facilities, and recreational areas. The appointment of Mrs Doran-McGuinness represents a continued commitment to academic excellence, character development, and cultural awareness, ensuring that every pupil is equipped with the confidence, curiosity, and compassion to succeed. For more information and media enquiries: Plus 1 Communications / Nachwa@ About King's College Riyadh King's College Riyadh is a premium British international school for boys and girls aged 3 to 11, offering a world-class education in the heart of Diriyah. Opened in August 2021 as part of the Royal Commission for Riyadh City's International Schools Attraction Programme, it is the first British private school to establish a presence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in partnership with a prestigious UK school. Affiliated with King's College UK, the school draws on over 145 years of academic excellence and tradition, delivering a British curriculum enriched with Arabic language, Islamic Studies, and Saudi Social Studies. King's College Riyadh prepares pupils to achieve their full potential while maintaining a strong connection to their cultural heritage.
Telegraph
7 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
I faced a hostile mob and lost multiple friends when I changed my mind on trans rights
I am a human rights lawyer and professor at King's College London. Until 2018, I supported all the demands of the transgender-rights movement. But since then, I have changed my mind. Why? Because I finally understood that some demands conflict with the rights of women and are therefore unreasonable. I first encountered transgender rights as a University of Oxford PhD student, researching the human rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals and same-sex couples. The claims of transsexual persons, as they were then known, seemed different to me. I did not understand them, so I was reluctant to comment on them. And when, in the 2002 Christine Goodwin case (Goodwin said that she had faced sexual harassment at work following gender-affirming surgery), the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK must amend the sex on the birth certificates of 'post-operative transsexuals' to reflect their 'new sexual identity', I thought that this must be progress. At last, the UK would have to catch up with other European countries. Two years later, when the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 went well beyond that ruling, by not requiring any surgery or other medical treatment (a person with a beard and male genitals could become legally female), it struck me as very generous but I did not question it. I assumed that whatever the transgender community demanded must be reasonable. They knew what they needed. It did not occur to me, as a man, to put myself in the shoes of a woman, encountering a 'legal woman' with male genitals in a women-only space. As such, when I joined a group of experts in Indonesia to draft the 2007 Yogyakarta Principles, widely cited as 'best practice' on sexual orientation and gender identity, I did not question the proposals of the transgender experts. Everything changed in 2018. My lightbulb moment came at a university summer school. I was asked to explain the 'spousal veto' under UK law: a wife must consent, if her husband wishes to change his legal sex to female and in turn make their opposite-sex marriage into a same-sex marriage. I said that the husband's human right to change his legal sex could be limited to respect 'the rights of others' (the wife's right not to be in a same-sex marriage against her will). A transgender student could not understand how I could compare the husband's 'fundamental human right' with the wife's right under 'a contract' (their marriage). Feeling frustrated, I said: 'Trans rights don't trump everything else!' The transgender student became angry and stormed out of the classroom. Finally, it dawned on me that some members of the transgender-rights movement did not seem to understand that women have human rights too. Over the next two years, I began to speak with women about their concerns about some transgender demands. One woman asked if I had read Principle 31 of the 2017 Yogyakarta Principles (in which I did not participate). I had not done so and was shocked when I read it. It boldly claimed that every country in the world must remove sex from birth certificates and, until then, allow change of legal sex based on self-identification (without a diagnosis of gender dysphoria). In 2021, I publicly changed my position. On April 1 of that year, in an interview published in The Critic, I criticised Principle 31 and suggested for the first time that allowing change of legal sex might not be necessary to protect the rights of transgender people. Fifteen days later, citing the interview, an LGBT organisation terminated its relationship with me, after more than twenty years. To an LGBT-rights activist I had known for just as long, I wrote: 'I hope that we can still be friends!' He replied that he wanted 'to take a break for a bit' (now four years and counting). A month later, I became a trustee of the charity LGB Alliance (founded in 2019 after Stonewall began to prioritise transgender issues) and went on to speak at its first annual conference. In that speech, I focused on the legal changes I had witnessed since 2002 and linked the political tensions surrounding transgender rights to an 'abuse of sympathy', which had in turn led to an 'escalation of demands'. I charted how we had shifted from change of legal sex after surgery, to change of legal sex without medical treatment but with safeguards (a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and a two-year waiting period), to change of legal sex based on self-identification (with no safeguards) and finally to removing sex from birth certificates (meaning that there is no legal sex to change). These were ideas I carried forwards to a staff research seminar at King's in November of 2021 – albeit not without controversy. The Dean of the School of Law rejected calls to cancel the event and showed his support for freedom of expression by attending. Three security guards were posted outside the room (a first in my thirty years at the university), but no protesters appeared. Two years later, in January 2023, I was scheduled to give the same talk at Montréal's McGill University Faculty of Law (where I had studied). But this time I faced a hostile mob of between 100-200 students. They chanted 'shame on you' and 'F**k your system. F**k your hate. Trans rights aren't up for debate'. At one point, I thought that they were going to smash the glass door to the seminar room. Instead, they forced it open, stopped me from speaking, and threw flour on me. All of which has informed my book, Transgender Rights vs Women's Rights, in which I reach conclusions that will shock many supporters of the transgender-rights movement. In writing it, I realised that I had been wrong to assume, for many years, that anything the movement proposed must be reasonable. The escalation of demands I belatedly noticed made me go back to the start and ask myself: was change of legal sex ever justifiable? I concluded that it was not, and that Sweden made a mistake in 1972 when it became the first country in Europe to allow the practice. That mistake has of course been replicated by many other European nations since. Countries that have yet to follow suit (nearly 60 per cent of the 193 United Nations member states) are right to hold out. There is no human right to documents that are biologically false. An individual's birth sex never changes, regardless of any medical treatment they receive. But transgender people had in 1972, and have today, a human right to legal protection against all forms of violence, harassment or discrimination. That was the judgment Sweden should have reached in 1972, and everyone else since. Taking a stand has not been without cost. Since I 'came out' as 'gender-critical' four years ago, a number of friends have stopped speaking to me, and this year I was dropped from a university's summer programme. But I am proud to have made this journey, and of finally speaking out for the rights of women.
Daily Mail
7 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Strange link discovered between painful skin disease and stubborn belly fat
Researchers have discovered a surprising link between abdominal fat and painful psoriasis, a chronic inflammatory skin condition. Studies have shown obesity is a risk factor for psoriasis, but never before have scientists established the waist and belly to be the most influential spots. Psoriasis and obesity, which affects about 100million American adults, share the same biological pathway: chronic inflammation. Adipose (fat) tissue releases inflammatory chemicals that clash with the immune system, which can cause inflammation in the skin, and psoriasis' trademark red, scaly rash. The team of dermatologists from King's College London analyzed data from over 330,000 white people living in the UK, including more than 9,000 with psoriasis, which affects roughly 7.5million Americans. They examined 25 different body fat measures using traditional methods, such as calipers that pinch skin folds, and advanced imaging techniques, such as highly specialized X-ray scans, assessing how each was associated with psoriasis. Researchers found the waist-to-hip ratio on a person was the strongest risk factor for psoriasis, but didn't reveal why specifically that type of fat had the strongest association. Dr Ravi Ramessur, lead investigator on the study, said: 'Our research shows that where fat is stored in the body matters when it comes to psoriasis risk. Central fat — especially around the waist — seems to play a key role. 'This has important implications for how we identify individuals who may be more likely to develop psoriasis or experience more severe disease, and how we approach prevention and treatment strategies.' The researchers measured overall 'central' fat around the torso, encompassing subcutaneous fat right below the skin's surface, and dangerous visceral fat that wraps around the organs. The link between central fat and psoriasis remained consistent regardless of genetic predisposition, indicating that abdominal fat is an independent risk factor. Dr Catherine Smith, senior author, said: 'As rates of obesity continue to rise globally, understanding how different patterns of body fat influence chronic inflammatory conditions such as psoriasis is important. 'Our findings suggest that central body fat contributes to psoriasis risk irrespective of genetic predisposition and reinforces the importance of measuring waist circumference and pro-active healthy weight strategies in psoriasis care.' In addition to releasing inflammatory compounds, fat tissue hijacks the body's balance of hormones. The hormone leptin normally signals to the brain the body is full and it's time to stop eating. But fat cells overproduce this hormone, breaking that 'stop eating' signal. The overabundance of leptin also stimulates the production of inflammatory cytokines, leading to a psoriasis breakout of painful rashes and subsequent flare-ups in the skin. In a related editorial, Dr Joel Gelfand, a dermatology expert at the University of Pennsylvania, highlights the promise of specific gut hormone therapies – mainly GLP-1 and GIP, which help control blood sugar, digestion, and hunger – as potential therapies for psoriatic disease. These hormones, sold under brands like Ozmepic, Wegovy and Zepbound, are already used to treat diabetes, obesity, and obesity-related sleep apnea. A separate 2024 NIH-funded report in the journal Psoriasis analyzed four studies involving 23 patients with both psoriasis and type 2 diabetes who took a GLP-1 receptor agonist drug. Every study showed significant reductions in PASI scores, a measure of psoriasis severity. Two studies showed fewer markers of inflammation in layers of the skin and reduced harmful immune responses. Patients also reported improved quality of life. Now, researchers are exploring whether the drugs could also help manage psoriatic disease, possibly by tackling the inflammation and metabolic issues linked to psoriasis. According to Dr Gelfand, the powerful link between obesity and psoriasis, as well as the evidence that GLP-1 drugs could alleviate symptoms, signals it's time to launch clinical trials testing the drugs specifically for psoriasis. He said: 'The strong relationship between psoriasis and obesity and the emerging promise of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP1RA) for reducing psoriasis morbidity is a call to action for large scale clinical trials of GLP1RA monotherapy for treatment of psoriasis. 'Our current paradigm of just focusing on the skin and joint manifestations when treating psoriasis is outdated in the context of our evolving understanding of the tight relationship of psoriasis, obesity, and cardiometabolic disease.'
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Is it true that … detox diets flush toxins out of your body?
After a boozy weekend or a takeaway-heavy week, it's tempting to believe that a 'detox diet', like a juice cleanse, might undo the damage. But is that how our bodies actually work? According to Dr Emily Leeming, a dietitian at King's College London, the answer is: no. 'Your body has a natural built-in detox system that helps eliminate potentially harmful molecules and waste products,' she says. 'You don't need a special diet.' She adds that 'toxins' has become a 'scary term' but it's normal for your body to process these kinds of molecules. Your liver filters out unwanted substances from your blood, such as alcohol and its by-products, and excess fats; your kidneys flush out waste through urine. Meanwhile, your gut microbes play a supporting role, helping to break down certain compounds in food and drink, and binding potentially harmful molecules together so they can be excreted. If our internal detox system works just fine on its own, why has there long been an obsession with juice cleanses? 'It feels a bit puritanical,' says Leeming, 'and it's counter-intuitive. Your detox organs actually need energy and nutrients to function well. By dieting, you're not aiding those organs, you're depriving them of their energy source.' Take the impact of a juice cleanse, for example: 'You're not getting enough protein. You're not eating balanced meals. You'll probably feel incredibly hungry, and not sleep well.' Doing it for a few days probably won't do long-term harm, she adds, 'but it's a lot of suffering for little or no gain'. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Instead of a punishing cleanse, she says, if you feel as though your body's in need of a 'detox', you're better off feeding it well. A key player here is fibre: the nutrients found in legumes and wholegrains help the gut trap and eliminate unwanted compounds. 'Hydration is important too,' she adds.
