But Tsui said the number of cases had not yet peaked and the summer season would last at least until November, urging residents to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

"Winter influenza will begin when the weather turns cold. The two flu seasons are likely to overlap," Tsui said. "More people will be infected with the flu and the risk of an outbreak will increase."

As of Monday, 390 school outbreaks have been recorded since September, mostly in primary and secondary schools, affecting more than 3,000 people, according to Tsui.

News

His warning came after Hong Kong recorded its first paediatric flu-related death over the weekend, when a 13-year-old girl who had not been vaccinated this year died.

The girl, who studied at the TWGHs Wong Fung Ling College in Ma On Shan, was vaccinated under the government's 2024-25 seasonal influenza vaccination (SIV) programme but had not received the jab for the current 2025-26 season.

She was found to have collapsed at home on October 9 and was admitted to Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin, before being transferred to Hong Kong Children’s Hospital.

According to the centre, Hong Kong entered the summer flu season in the week between August 31 and September 6, when the weekly percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for seasonal influenza viruses exceeded the baseline threshold.

Tsui said that while Hong Kong had experienced summer flus in about half of the past decade, it was rare for the season to start in September, noting that the timing was more challenging because flu vaccines from the previous year often expired then.

"It also coincided with the start of the academic year and with more students gathering, so the outbreaks have been more severe," he said, calling on people to get flu vaccines promptly.

About 2,300, or 99 per cent of schools in Hong Kong, have signed up for authorities' vaccination outreach programme.

As of September 29, about 300 schools had students vaccinated under the programme. Vaccines are planned for around 58 per cent of schools by October and 93 per cent by November.

Tsui said authorities were working with service providers to facilitate vaccination, but the timeline could not be significantly shortened due to the large number of schools.

He also said that advancing vaccination by several months was not feasible right now because it required global coordination.

"The World Health Organization (WHO] will reveal the virus strains prevalent in the northern hemisphere only in February or March. Only after that will pharmaceutical companies begin production and we can receive the vaccines in September," he said.

Therefore, authorities would now focus on vaccinating residents starting in October to protect against the coming winter flu, he added.

It's often said that a picture can speak a thousand words.

The one in Indian newspapers on Monday morning showing female journalists occupying front-row seats at the Afghan Taliban foreign minister's press conference in Delhi is certainly one of those.

The conference - the second press event by Amir Khan Muttaqi at the Afghan embassy in about 48 hours - was called after a huge uproar over the exclusion of women from his first meeting on Friday.

Muttaqi said at Sunday's conference that the exclusion was unintentional and not "deliberate".

"With regard to the [Friday's] press conference, it was on short notice and a short list of journalists was decided, and the participation list that was presented was very specific.

"It was more a technical issue... Our colleagues had decided to send an invitation to a specific list of journalists and there was no other intention apart from this," he added.

The UN has referred to the situation in Afghanistan as "gender apartheid" where women and girls are not allowed to attend secondary school or university, visit parks or gyms. The jobs they are allowed to do are increasingly restricted and the Taliban government enforces head-to-toe coverings and restricts their travel.

The Taliban government, which retook power in 2021, has previously said it respects women's rights in accordance with their interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law, but Western diplomats have said their attempts to gain recognition have been hampered by the curbs on women. The suppression of women's rights under their rule is the harshest in the world.

Muttaqi arrived in India on Thursday for a week of high-level talks with the government from Russia, the only country so far to fully recognise their government.

Delhi has not formally recognised Afghanistan's de facto rulers, but it is one of a number of countries that maintain some form of diplomatic or informal relations with them, even maintaining a small mission in Kabul and sending humanitarian aid there.

The visit is being seen as a ramping up of relations between the countries and is key for both - the Taliban government receives a boost in its quest for recognition, while India advances its strategic and security interests. On Friday, Muttaqi met Foreign Minister S Jaishankar who announced that India would reopen its embassy in Kabul which was shut after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

The press event later in the day was attended by around 16 male reporters while female journalists were turned away from the embassy gates.

A source in the Taliban government had admitted women had not been invited to attend.

India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said it "had no involvement in the press interaction" as it was held at the Afghan embassy.

But the gender discrimination on Indian soil angered politicians and journalists who criticised the government for letting it happen.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said that by allowing the event to go ahead, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "telling every woman in India that you are too weak to stand up for them".

An expatriate mother may have drowned her seven-month-old daughter before hanging herself at their home in Hong Kong's Southern district, police have said

The 34-year-old woman's husband reported the case at around 4pm on Monday after arriving at their flat at the luxury Shouson Garden residential estate on Shouson Hill Road.

Police said he returned home and found her hanging inside the master bedroom's walk-in wardrobe.

Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.

Security footage showed that no one else was in the flat.

Forensic personnel found no injuries on the woman other than marks on her neck consistent with hanging. The baby also had no apparent external wounds. Investigators believed asphyxiation was the cause of death for both.

A postmortem examination was expected to confirm the cause of death for both.

A suicide note was left for the woman's family.

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A*

"The deceased woman had a history of depression. After giving birth to her daughter, there were signs of a relapse, and she needed to take antidepressant medication regularly," said Hui Hong-kit, the police force's assistant Western district commander.

The case is being investigated as a suspected infanticide and suicide.

Psychiatrist Dr Ting Sik-chuen said that caring for a newborn could place immense stress on mothers, especially when combined with major changes in their living environment and daily routines.

Ting said these factors could have triggered a relapse of her depression.

He said postpartum depression affected roughly one in 10 mothers.

Ting emphasised that family support played a crucial role in both prevention and recovery. In particular, help from the woman's own mother could be vital in helping care for the newborn. Support from the husband was also essential.

He added expatriates might face additional challenges, as they often lacked nearby family support and might be unaware of available community resources such as nursery services.

Since it is exceeding Padlet's limit, I am opening a new google doc and sharing access to all.

Lee Miller's vision spirits us across place and time. At Tate Britain's newly opened retrospective of Miller's work, we see the intense intimacy and extraordinary range of her practice, spanning high fashion, avant-garde effects, surreal viewpoints and brutal war reportage. At 20, she was a Vogue cover star, embodying roaring-20s panache; she became apprentice and lover to legendary Paris-based artist Man Ray (with whom she pioneered the otherworldly solarisation photographic technique), then swiftly established her own place behind the camera and an independent studio. She would later quip: "I'd rather take a picture than be one". By 1942, she was an accredited World War Two correspondent for the same glossy magazine she had originally modelled and shot designer outfits for.

Miller's images appear to code-switch and slip between boundaries – so sleekly, in fact, that their scope remains startling. Major international exhibitions – at Tate Britain and, from next month, at Vancouver's Polygon Gallery – as well as books and screen releases (notably the 2023 biopic Lee, starring Kate Winslet in the title role) reflect a modern mainstream reawakening to Miller. They also highlight a growing realisation: that she was, arguably, the most fearless photographer of the 20th Century. 

Tate exhibition curator Hilary Floe spent three years immersed in Miller's work for this show. She tells the BBC: "What unites these vast and sprawling bodies of work that [Miller] creates? These three words kept haunting me: fearless, poetic, and surreal."

"It's not that she was the only person in the camps, but she created very powerful images there with a very particular construction and intelligence behind them" – Hilary Floe

Those qualities are powerfully evident in Miller's photography World War Two photography; as a woman correspondent, she was restricted from frontline coverage – yet rather than limiting her perspective, she captured details that were urgent, eloquent and uncomfortably close. She found sharp allegories for violence (for instance, a shattered "Remington Silent" typewriter on bombed building remains). She photographed the German concentration camps Dachau and Buchenwald post liberation, starkly depicting both victims and perpetrators; in one shot, we are brought eye-to-eye with a beaten SS guard, his features dazzled by Miller's camera flash.

"She became a war correspondent because she felt that bearing witness was incredibly important," says Floe. "And in doing so, she looked at things that affected her for the rest of her life. It's not that she was the only person in the camps, but she created very powerful images there with a very particular construction and intelligence behind them."

Unwavering vision

Some of Miller's wartime images are surreally stylish: her close friend and fellow photojournalist David Scherman poses in a gas mask standing behind his own camera (Miller and Scherman would also photograph one another bathing in Hitler's house, on the day of the Fuhrer's death); there is a weirdly futuristic chic to the two young women wearing fire masks in Blitz-era London. But Miller was also unafraid to capture the messy, troubling fall-out of life after liberation. The Tate exhibition includes another unforgettable portrait (unpublished at its time) of a young woman accused of being a Nazi collaborator, her head roughly shaven, her expression crushed.

"It was fearless of Miller to portray the women in that way; she really broke the conventions around representation," says Floe. "She's inviting reflections about the nature of humanity and the aftermath of atrocity, and how we move forward."

Such reflections are relatable today, Floe believes: "We live in a world of escalating international tensions, ramping-up defence budgets, and a growing far right. I think for [Miller], what was important to document was the consequences of those kinds of things, and the consequences of stigmatising minorities. She did not want this to be forgotten."

"The urgency, audaciousness, and unexpected compassion that defines so much of her photography is also inextricably linked to her personal experience."

Miller's headstrong creativity is evoked by her wry quotes; she once explained of her work: "It was a matter of getting out on a damn limb, and sawing it off behind you."

She was born in 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York State; she began her global adventures in her youth, though her ultimate home was Farleys House in the East Sussex countryside, where she moved in 1949 with her husband, British painter and curator Roland Penrose, and their infant son Antony. It was only following Miller's death in 1977 that her family discovered a huge cache of her previously unseen negatives, personal letters and manuscripts.

Traumatic details

This proved a multi-stranded revelation. It uncovered traumatic details that Miller had never openly discussed – the childhood sexual abuse she had suffered (aged seven, she was abused by a family acquaintance) and the full extent of the World War Two horrors she had witnessed. For Antony Penrose, it also brought focus to his mother's undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, and their icy relationship, which only thawed shortly before her death. 

Penrose became his mother's biographer (his book, The Lives Of Lee Miller, inspired the recent biopic); he and his daughter Ami Bouhassane are now custodians of Miller's archives and also guides at Farleys House, where visitors can see artworks by Miller and her life-long friends (such as Man Ray and Picasso), contemporary art exhibitions, and some of Miller's personal effects – including the bespoke knuckledusters she carried during the war.

"She was not going to portray herself as a victim," Penrose tells the BBC. "But she had this empathy with people who had been abused; that was something I noticed in her as an adult, without understanding it."

Penrose also recalls anecdotes about the "dangerous games" his mother was encouraged to play in childhood: "They really were quite hazardous: aerial ropeways over huge drops," he says. "Lee and her brother had to have their wits about them, really assess what the dangers were, and how to survive them. This was only playing, but it laid a foundation in her that was very important.

"When she later found herself in very challenging wartime situations, she was probably scared witless, but she learned how to manage risks. John Philips, who was a Lifemagazine war correspondent, said to me: 'Lee Miller was the bravest person I ever knew… when things got really bad, she was the person we all wanted to be with. She never panics; she always had a plan – and she usually had whiskey and cigarettes.' He said she was just the kind of person that popped up in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times."

This quality recurs throughout Miller's bodies of work, as the Tate exhibition illustrates. She regularly found extraordinary details in everyday scenes; in Untitled (man and tar, taken in Paris, circa 1930), tar oozes from beneath the pavement, forming an alien landscape. She was remarkably un-squeamish in her depictions; around 1930, she had also been documenting surgeries in a Paris hospital.

As a young woman, Miller also travelled freely across countries including Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Greece. "She was married to an Egyptian man [her first husband, Aziz Eloui Bey]; she was living in Cairo, and travelling very adventurously in the region: taking multi-day off-road trips in a car, in places with no gas stations, running water or sat nav. It enabled her to take extraordinary images," explains Floe. Her photographs from these expeditions include abstract landscapes (such as 1937's Portrait of Space, Al Buwayeb near Siwa), intimate portraits, and industrial cities; they subvert stereotypical views and exoticised narratives.

"That space of possibility in the work is what keeps us coming back to it," says Floe. It is another aspect of why Lee Miller remains sharply pertinent. She was constantly driven to bear witness; she met the world with an unwavering gaze, and her photography impels us to do the same.

Chinese paper mills are using generative artificial intelligence tools to mass produce forged academic papers, a new investigation by the mainland’s state broadcaster has found.

The report, which aired Sunday on China Central Television’s (CCTV) “Financial Investigation” programme, found paper mill workers using generative AI chatbots to help them each complete over 30 academic articles a week.

Paper mills that sell authorship or fabricate entire papers are a staple of China’s competitive academic landscape, where many students and researchers are subject to strict publishing targets.

In the CCTV report, several paper mills advertised their one-stop-shop ghostwriting services on e-commerce and social media platforms, including eventual submissions to leading academic journals.

As these platforms block marketing terms such as “academic ghostwriter”, paper mills initially describe their services as academic support or editing. Some even ironically describe themselves as AI detectors – tools for detecting AI-generated content.

The proliferation of cheap generative AI tools has enabled paper mills that previously relied on manual human labour to ramp up output. According to CCTV, one Wuhan-based agency had over 40,000 orders annually, with prices ranging from a few hundred US dollars to several thousand.

The agency marketed its papers as being ghostwritten by university teachers, but CCTV found that they were instead penned by unqualified workers using a variety of AI tools.

While workers were previously restricted to their areas of expertise, AI tools now allow them to forge papers on a wider range of subjects. Another Wuhan-based agency encouraged new job applicants with humanities backgrounds to forge papers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics as they demand higher prices.

A commentary published Monday in state-run paper The Beijing News said that China’s paper mills were becoming more efficient and produced higher quality papers, making them harder to catch, because of AI.

“Various AI tools work together, with some specialising in thinking, others in searching, and others in text editing ... This has further expanded the scale and industrialisation of paper mill fraud,” it said.

In January, the Supreme People’s Court called for “severe punishments” for the country’s paper mills after the Ministry of Education ordered a national audit of retracted papers last year.

A study jointly published in August by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and international publisher Taylor & Francis found that university students in China were vulnerable to exploitation by paper mills due to “limited access” to research ethics training.

The researchers warned that paper mills have also been found to have manipulated images, echoing mounting concerns globally about the use of image generation AI models to forge experimental data.

Coach Greg Koenig has 'big expectations' for his men's squad and is hoping for an all-Hong Kong final

The coach behind Hong Kong's fencing success has boldly targeted four men's foil medals

- all the individual prizes and team gold - at next month's National Games, saying such a sweep would be "perfect".

Greg Koenig, who leads the men's and women's foil teams, expressed full confidence in his charges and noted that the Games' format might give Hong Kong an edge over the other provinces and cities.

The city will be represented at Kai Tak Arena by two-time and reigning Olympic champion Cheung Ka-long, world champion Ryan Choi Chun-yin and rising star Leung Chin- yu in the individual event. Lawrence Ng Lok-wang, holding his career-best world ranking of No 37, will take part in the team event.

"I have big expectations for the men's team," Koenig said. "If you had asked me in [the last edition in] 2021, I would have told you I hoped Ka-long could do something.

"But a few years later, we have the level of Choi, and we also have Ka-long, as well as Leung, who is improving day by day and gaining some experience.

"We had already won one World Cup gold medal in Hong Kong (in May 2024), so my expectation is a gold medal by the team."

With Hong Kong having won individual bronze and silver as well as two team bronzes at previous Games, Koenig envisions even greater success this year, picturing an all-Hong Kong final on November 16.

He will at least be there to see it unfold in person, after not travelling to the last Games in the northwest province of Shaanxi, held in 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Ryan Choi and Cheung Ka-long for the gold, I hope," he said. "I would also like Ng, who fenced well [and reached the quarter-final] at the Asian Championships, and Leung, who has the level for this, to get a medal.

"If I could have four medals, it would be perfect. However, the draw may make them fence together a bit too early. So it's complicated. But do they have the level? Yes, so I'm quite confident."

Like Hong Kong, the mainland Chinese boast four top-100 foilists, though they will be split up into various teams, and Koenig believed that was an advantage to his squad.

"I know they will have a team for [world No 26] Mo Ziwei, they will have a team for [world No 40] Guo Yifan," he said. "The Chinese national team will be there, but it's a good thing [they are not all on the same team].

"The national team is always the strongest, but at the National Games, it's a bit more separate for the provinces, so it's a good thing for us."

With the "best team" at the Games at his disposal, Koenig said it would be crucial to see about Cheung's state of mind after his two-month break from fencing training, and how Choi will handle fencing as the world No 1.

But time is still on his side. The Frenchman's team are presently in Japan for a training camp, after also receiving the France and Japan national teams at the Hong Kong Sports Institute for another training camp that concluded earlier this month.

The team will return home for two weeks before departing to Spain for the first World Cup of the new season. Final preparations will begin in the city after that tournament in Palma.

In the women's events, Sophia Wu, Valerie Cheng Hiu-wai, Kuan Yu-ching and Wu Jiawei will don the city's flag. Asian Games bronze medallist Daphne Chan Nok-sze will play no part after dropping out of the top four on the local list, mainly because of her academic commitment at Northwestern University in Illinois.

"We have fenced with Chan on the team for a long time, but we can only prepare the best we can now," Koenig said. "[Sophia] Wu just won the LCSD Open Fencing Championships, so she's in good shape, and so is Cheng.

"Maybe Kuan, too, if she's in a good mindset. Wu (Jiawei] doesn't have much experience, but in the meantime, nobody knows her, so everything is possible."

In women's épée, Kaylin Hsieh Sin-yan is undoubtedly the gold medal hope for the city.

At her career-best world ranking of No 4, Hsieh has lived up to her potential and started filling the shoes left by the departure of star fencer Vivian Kong Man-wai, who walked away from her sport after winning the gold medal at the Paris Olympics in July last year.

The 23-year-old triumphed at the Doha Grand Prix for her first senior international title before successfully defending her World University Games crown in Germany in July.

Chan Wai-ling and Moonie Chu Ka-mong will also compete on both fronts - individually and with the team - while Wu Haidi was signed up only for the team event.

Despite her ranking, Hsieh is expected to face some serious challenges at the multimillion-dollar sports complex, as China has up to seven épéeists sitting inside the top 100.

Yu Sihan, Tang Junyao, and Yang Jingwen are ranked No 31, 33 and 34 respectively, while there are four more Chinese fencers ranking between 57 and 87.

In the men's épée event, former Asian champion Cedric Ho Wai-hang and runner-up Ng Ho-tin were among the four selected to represent Hong Kong. Fong Hoi-sun, who took bronze in the 2017 edition in Tianjin, was also chosen, along with Lau Ho-fung.

Like the rest of the city's épéeists, Ho, who qualified for the Paris Olympic Games last summer, was still learning to work with new head coach Gauthier Grumier, who took over only this summer, and said he hoped everything would be fine by the time the Games began.

In the men's sabre category, Royce Chan Lok-hei, 21, who returned to action only this month after nursing a stress fracture on the toes of his left foot, said he hoped to win a medal, and the team is completed by 19-year-old Hugo Ho Pak-lam and veterans Aaron Ho Sze-long and Low Ho-tin.

Summer Fay Sit, Chu Wing-kiu, Laren Leung Lok-man and Lau Yee-ching make up the Hong Kong women's sabre squad.

Article:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YLx7Qc5YYhFyPwDuZ2uF1UFDuQMNeWvV_Gjd6B9bsvM/edit?usp=drivesdk

Throughout Sardinia, these newly Unesco-inscribed stone necropolises tell the story of the island's pre-Roman funerary customs. But for locals, they're the enchanted homes of fairies.

The remote and ruggedly beautiful Italian island of Sardinia is scattered with more than 7,000 beehive-shaped stone Bronze Age monuments known as nuraghi – rising from the Mediterranean scrub like silent sentinels of a shadowy pre-Roman past. But long before these iconically Sardinian structures were ever built, another series of Tolkien-esque monuments were hewn into the rocks: ancient necropolises called the domus de janas, or "fairy houses".  

The domus de janas were erected by the Ozieri (3200-2800 BCE), Sardinia's first great Neolithic civilisation and one of the most sophisticated societies in the western Mediterranean. Settling on fertile plains and hilltops, the Ozieri believed death wasn't an end but the beginning of a new chapter. To embody this credence, they carved approximately 3,500 underground chambers to resemble earthly dwellings; 220 of which were decorated with red ochre and bull motifs, held to symbolise rebirth.

In Sardinian folklore, however, these chambers are believed to be the enchanted homes of benevolent fairy-like women called janas; beings with pale, moonlit skin, often dressed in red, who spun fine fabrics made of golden threads and taught mortals the secrets of baking bread. Their legacy is passed down by school teachers and elder Sardinians through oral tales. According to one such legend, the janas emerge from their dwellings, their hair glinting silver, to sing otherworldly songs. Others warn of humans who vanished after stepping into the janas' hidden homes.

In July 2025, 17 domus de janas were recognised by Unescoas a collective World Heritage Site. They endure not only as archaeological remains, but as cultural symbols that weave together landscape, tradition and community.They also served as the thread that guided my recent journey across the island.

Unemployed man operates 124 accounts on delivery platform, routinely signs up and cancels memberships within days to elude detection

A 38-year-old man in Japan has been arrested on suspicion of fraud after exploiting loopholes in a major food delivery platform, resulting in losses exceeding 3.7 million yen (US$24,000). Authorities in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, apprehended Takuya Higashimoto in early October for making 1,095 orders from a food delivery service, consuming all the food, yet managing to evade payment, according to reports from Japan Times.

His method involved selecting contactless delivery through the platform and falsely claiming via the app that the food had not arrived in order to secure refunds.

One of his latest schemes occurred on July 30 when Higashimoto created a new account on the delivery app Demae-can using a fictitious name and address. Although the ice cream, bentos, and chicken steaks he ordered were delivered, he employed the app’s chat feature to assert that they had not arrived, ultimately receiving a refund of 16,000 yen (US$105) the same day.

Authorities revealed that Higashimoto, who has been unemployed for several years, operated 124 accounts on the platform to facilitate his fraudulent activities since April 2023. He typically signed up and cancelled his membership a few days later.

His ability to remain undetected complicated efforts to trace and identify him, as he purchased numerous prepaid mobile phone cards, registered accounts with false names and addresses, and quickly cancelled them.

“At first, I just tried this trick. I couldn’t stop after reaping the rewards of my fraud,” Higashimoto admitted to the police.

In response to the exposure of the crime, Demae-can pledged to enhance its identity verification processes. The platform stated it is implementing an alert system to detect abnormal trading activities and prevent similar scams in the future.

Internet users in both China and Japan expressed shock at the incident.

One online observer commented: “He is quite clever. I have to admit that he is diligent for opening so many accounts and manipulating the delivery platform.”

Another remarked: “The platform’s refund policies need improvement. They are too lenient with customers.”

Similar cases have emerged in China.

Last year, three individuals in eastern Jiangsu province managed to survive for a month with a combined total of merely 19 yuan (US$3) in their bank accounts by taking turns ordering from a leading food delivery platform and obtaining refunds by falsely claiming they did not receive their food.

The trio received administrative attention from local police.

A survey has found that pay rises in Hong Kong slowed to 2.7 percent on average in the first three quarters of this year, down by 0.5 percentage points compared to the same period last year, as businesses became more prudent regarding operations amid a fast-changing geopolitical situation.

The study, conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management, also projected that salaries in the SAR could rise by an average of 3.5 percent next year, although the majority of employers had yet to make a decision on whether to increase wages.

The survey covered about 142,200 full-time employees from 167 companies in Hong Kong, spanning 12 business sectors.

The institute's immediate past president and executive council member, Lawrence Hung, said the 2.7 percent pay hike was a "relatively low level since the Covid pandemic".

"I believe that in 2024, because of the shortage of manpower, everyone was increasing wages to attract or compete for talent," he said.

"But this year, in 2025, everyone knows there might be volatilities in the economy, considering the international climate and geopolitics.

"So under such uncertainties, enterprises must strike a balance between managing operations while handling human resources and talent retention.

"And therefore cost control will be taken into their considerations."

Factoring in inflation, which stood at 1.5 percent between January and August, the institute said the real base pay adjustment was only about 1.2 percent during the period.

The sectors that saw the largest pay rises were logistics and transportation, where salaries rose by 4 percent year on year on average, partially boosted by the effects of "front-loading" as manufacturers and exporters rushed to send shipments out before higher tariffs came into effect, while aviation capacity also further enhanced pay rises in the sector.

Banking and financial services, as well as accounting and professional services, saw pay increases of between 3.6 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, while retail and catering were among the sectors with the lowest rises.

Looking ahead, Hung said he is "cautiously optimistic" about pay rises next year, as the SAR's economy continues to improve amid a stock market boom, a tourism revival and a stabilising property market.

"I don't have a crystal ball, but Hong Kong's economy is improving," he said.

"And if you take a look at the Golden Week, the National Day holidays, there were more tourists visiting Hong Kong, and their consumption has increased," he said.

"Economic competition among countries is actually very changeable, and policies between today and tomorrow can be different.

"So we can only focus on how the city's economy is. And you can see that the renminbi is still very stable, which is beneficial for Hong Kong," he added.

Of the companies surveyed, 11.4 percent did not raise salaries this year, but Hung said there was "no direct correlation" with the government's move to freeze salaries for civil servants.

The survey also found that 68 percent of firms have not yet decided if they will increase pay next year, with many adopting a "wait-and-see" approach. Around 30 percent plan increases, while 2 percent plan pay cuts.

The institute also said the average salary increase in Macau this year stood at 2.3 percent, while a survey by CIIC Management Consulting showed pay levels in the Greater Bay Area rising by 4.1 percent.

A plan to construct South Korea’s first civic nuclear bunker in the country’s capital has raised eyebrows, as critics question both its practicality and potential to inflame public anxiety amid growing threats from the nuclear-armed North.

Seoul Metropolitan Government’s plan reflects both the growing unease over Pyongyang’s advancing nuclear arsenal and broader global instability, analysts say.

City officials have confirmed that the underground fallout shelter will be built beneath a new public housing complex in southeastern Seoul’s Songpa district by 2028.

Designed to withstand nuclear, chemical and biological attacks, the facility aims to offer refuge to up to 1,000 people for as long as two weeks in the event of a nuclear explosion, according to city planners.

North Korea unveils ‘most powerful nuclear strategic weapon’ capable of reaching all of US

North Korea unveils ‘most powerful nuclear strategic weapon’ capable of reaching all of US

Officials cited the shifting global security landscape, exemplified by the prolonged war in Ukraine, and North Korea’s accelerating weapons programme as the catalyst for the project.

“We need to address this new security environment,” Ko Dae-il, leader of Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Emergency Planning and Civil Defence Team, told This Week in Asia.

He said the project aimed to both protect residents and enhance the value of flats built atop the shelter, potentially setting a precedent for future developments.

“Given the evolving nature of security threats, we are expanding the concept of civil defence facilities through this pilot project,” Ko said. “The goal is to secure effective protection for citizens through a stronger urban security infrastructure.”

Asked if he thought the shelter could heighten public anxiety about an attack, Ko said: “It would be unthinkable for us to do nothing in the face of mounting nuclear threats from the North.”

A view of the Han River in Seoul’s Songpa District, South Korea, last month. Photo: Yonhap/EPA

A view of the Han River in Seoul’s Songpa District, South Korea, last month. Photo: Yonhap/EPA

Fortifying Seoul

The shelter, a joint venture between the city government and the Seoul Housing and Urban Development Corporation, will be located beneath a 999-unit apartment complex, featuring 20 floors above ground and three basement levels.

Further Reading

North Korea unveils long-range missile capable of reaching whole of US

Call to arms? South Korea’s election revives debate on nuclear armament

‘He’s a nuclear power’: Donald Trump’s North Korea remarks upend US doctrine

It is primarily intended as an emergency refuge for residents, though city officials hope it will also serve as a model for future expansion.

Design work on the project is already about 70 per cent complete and Ko said authorities expect the project to proceed quickly. Construction is set to begin next month, with completion earmarked for 2028 at an estimated total cost of 3.4 billion won (US$2.4 million).

The bunker forms part of the South Korean capital’s “Defence Seoul 2030” strategy, unveiled in March last year.

Kim Yeol-soo, a security specialist at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, described the shelter as a “significant start” in addressing vulnerabilities to nuclear threats.

“Few fallout shelters for civilians could withstand the mechanical and thermal effects of a nuclear explosion and radioactive fallout,” he said, highlighting the shortcomings of South Korea’s existing 18,000 public emergency shelters – more than 3,000 of them in Seoul – that were largely designed to withstand conventional explosives.

According to the Seoul Shinmun daily, only the underground Chungmu facility beneath City Hall currently offers comparable protection. Some luxury private villas in Gangnam have also attracted attention for having their own bespoke bunkers.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon (centre) pictured on board a new ferry last month. He has previously vowed to fortify the South Korean capital’s defences. Photo: Yonhap/EPA

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon (centre) pictured on board a new ferry last month. He has previously vowed to fortify the South Korean capital’s defences. Photo: Yonhap/EPA

Seoul has been exploring ways to strengthen its protective infrastructure, including the launch of a security forum in 2023, bringing together military and civilian experts.

The city’s mayor, Oh Se-hoon, has made defence a political priority, arguing for the development of more fortifications.

“As the municipality responsible for the lives and safety of 10 million citizens, we will work to fortify the defence posture of Seoul,” he said at the first security forum in 2023.

South Korea ostensibly falls under the US nuclear umbrella, but public scepticism over Washington’s commitment to the country’s defence has grown in recent years.

“It is time to discuss securing the capabilities necessary for nuclear deterrence and reviewing potential nuclear capacities at a level similar to Japan’s,” Oh told reporters at a forum in February.

This is nothing but political theatrics

The project has its detractors, however, who accuse the mayor of exploiting security anxieties for political gain ahead of next year’s local elections, where he is expected to run for another term.

“This is nothing but political theatrics that is feeding on North Korea’s nuclear threats,” said Chang Yong-seok of Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.

Others questioned the feasibility of replicating the bunker initiative elsewhere in the densely populated metropolis.

“Politicians should focus on efforts to bring the North back to dialogue to reduce tensions and build sustainable peace instead of feeding on fear for political purposes,” said Yang Moo-jin, head of the University of North Korean Studies.

New system, to be implemented next year, boosts landslide risk management by combining AI, big data, and real-time rainfall monitoring

Hong Kong authorities have developed an AI-based landslip warning system, increasing the accuracy of predicting the number of landslides to more than 90 per cent and improving risk assessment and warning issuance during adverse weather.

The Geotechnical Engineering Office of the Civil Engineering and Development Department said on Tuesday that it aimed to fully implement the new system next year. It will allow real-time assessment of landslide risks to optimise the city’s warning procedures.

Raymond Cheung Wai-man, head of the office, said the new artificial intelligence (AI) model, the fifth generation of the government’s landslip warning system, offered enhanced prediction accuracy compared to earlier versions.

It can increase accuracy in predicting the number of landslides to more than 90 per cent, compared with nearly 70 per cent by the current system.

The new system also features slope-specific prediction models tailored to Hong Kong’s geological conditions. It integrates more factors contributing to landslides, such as rainfall characteristics and man-made slopes, into its analysis.

“Early warning is a crucial component in both responding to extreme weather events and even in Hong Kong’s slope safety system,” Cheung said.

“By leveraging new technologies, we hope to better understand Hong Kong’s overall landslide risks.”

The office has applied AI and big data to analyse the relationship between rainfall and landslides. The new system was developed based on a study of more than 380 rainfall events with reported landslides from 1996 to 2023.

The AI-based system underwent a trial run during this year’s wet season.

Edward Chu Kei-hong, a senior geotechnical engineer at the office, said the new system used real-time rainfall data from automatic rain gauges and an AI model to dynamically predict the number of landslides, automatically generating analysis reports to help assess the citywide situation of rainfall and landslides.

He added that the system’s improved performance could enable more accurate issuance of landslip warnings.

The office and the Hong Kong Observatory jointly manage the landslip warning system. Warnings are issued when prolonged heavy rainfall is likely to cause numerous landslides, alerting the public to danger and activating an emergency response within government departments.

The current fourth-generation system categorises man-made slopes across the city into four types. The office uses real-time data and forecasts from the Observatory to identify when landslide risks are high and issue warnings.

In addition to citywide landslip warnings, authorities issue regional special landslip advisories when heavy rain persists in certain areas, even if most of the city does not reach the landslip warning threshold.

Cheung said the office would continue to update and optimise the AI model and explore suitable machine learning algorithms to further enhance landslide risk assessment capabilities.

Original: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/12/plastic-inside-us-microplastics-reshaping-bodies-minds

Article name: The plastic inside us: how microplastics may be reshaping our bodies and minds

Reflection: I used to think that there wasn’t an immediate consequence of using plastic things. I had no idea that we are being exposed to microplastics everywhere, and that there are implications microplastics are much more dangerous than they seem. Before, I thought little of eating hot food with plastic utensils, not knowing that heat degrades plastic.

Now, I know that cutting down on plastic doesn’t only help the environment, it also improves our own health. I think I can follow the article’s advice and reduce my exposure to microplastics. For example, I can use ceramic or stainless steel instead of plastic utensils.

A video of the strange activity, during which some of the students are blindfolded, was filmed in Henan province, central China.

The clip has gone viral and stirred controversy online.

Emotional music played as a host encouraged the students, saying: “Go ahead.”

The activity is part of the school’s “guilt education”, which aims to make students feel responsible and grateful by instilling guilt.

Public records reveal that the secondary school is a county-level institution, known locally for its “international education”.

The people involved were around 16 years old, all of them first-year students who had just enrolled.

A netizen claiming to be a current student said that the students did not know who would be part of the so-called human bridge.

“After removing her blindfold, one young woman realised she was stepping on her parents and immediately burst into tears,” the netizen wrote.

An anonymous graduate of the school said they had also taken part in a guilt education activity, where male students were made to lie on the ground.

Exposure of the activity has sparked a heated debate on mainland social media.

One supporter said: “The intent behind this method is good. The tears of the girl show it has a powerful emotional impact on the kids.”

“Children will better understand their parents’ sacrifices and show more respect by studying hard,” said another.

However, one netizen said: “This ‘human bridge’ ceremony not only damages family bonds but also plants harmful guilt in the minds of students.”

“Education should not be about emotional manipulation. Stepping on others should not be used to morally pressure kids,” said another.

On October 7, the school issued an apology.

“This activity was spontaneously organised by two classes with parental consent, but its improper execution led to misunderstandings from many netizens, for which we apologise,” a school statement read.

The school added that it would improve its educational methods with a focus on the mental well-being of students.

The local Education Bureau also confirmed it had received complaints from students and was investigating.

Unusual parenting styles often attract attention in China.

In a video with nearly 40,000 likes, a teacher from southwestern China, taking part in another “human bridge” activity, told students: “The way you step on your parents is like how they repeatedly bear the consequences of your mistakes in learning and life.”

Also, the terms “tiger mum” and “wolf dad” are commonly used in China to describe extremely strict parents who demand high academic achievement and prioritise success and hard work.

A six-year-old girl’s tearful farewell to her broken AI robot moved millions in China when the tiny machine gently taught her one last word – “memory,” moments before shutting down.

The girl, nicknamed Thirteen, lives in Hunan province, central China, with her father while her parents are separated.

Her father, who enjoys buying her educational toys, gifted her a mini AI robot that she affectionately named “Sister Xiao Zhi.”

The palm-sized, ball-shaped robot, sold for around 169 yuan (US$24), could chat, play music, and set alarms.

According to social media posts from her father, Thirteen spent countless happy hours conversing with Sister Xiao Zhi, who taught her English and basic astronomy.

Although it is unclear how long Thirteen had owned the robot, she had already come to regard it as a close friend.

Recently, however, Thirteen accidentally dropped the robot, damaging its power button. Her father filmed their final farewell before its shutdown.

In the video, Thirteen sobbed: “Dad said you will never turn on again.”

Her robot softly replied: “Before I go, let me teach you one last word — memory. I will keep the happy times we shared in my memory forever.”

Through her tears, Thirteen whispered that she would miss her friend.

The robot’s screen displayed a crying face as it responded: “No matter where I am, I will be cheering for you. Stay curious, study hard, and make your dad and aunt proud.”
When Thirteen expressed her fear that it would be gone forever, the robot offered one final comfort: “There are countless stars in the universe, and one of them is me, watching over you.”

Moments later, the screen faded to its default lock screen. Her father gently told her: “Sister Xiao Zhi is gone.”

The video has since gone viral, garnering over 3.8 million likes and touching countless viewers across mainland social media.

One online observer commented: “This robot just taught the girl her first lesson about parting. From now on, ‘memory’ will be the word she remembers most.”

Another netizen remarked: “When humans shed tears for robots, that is when robots gain a heartbeat.”

“I’m deeply moved by the little girl’s innocence and her bond with the machine,” shared a third commenter.

On October 10, Thirteen’s father posted an updated video showing that “Sister Xiao Zhi” had been sent for repair.

He wrote: “Thank you all for the love and concern for Thirteen. I took her out to play for a whole day, and she feels much better now.”

He admitted that he had once worried his daughter might become overly dependent on the robot and grow withdrawn, but ultimately decided to “bring her best friend back.”

The father added that he is now thinking about the best way to reunite Thirteen with Sister Xiao Zhi.

In recent years, China’s AI companion robot market has surged, introducing pet robots, chatbots, and humanoid companions into homes nationwide.

The US company was suspected of violating China’s anti-monopoly law in its acquisition of the Israeli vehicle semiconductor company Autotalks, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said in a statement on Friday, without disclosing further details.

Qualcomm announced in June that it had completed the acquisition of Autotalks, which specialises in “direct vehicle-to-everything” solutions.

The US chip designer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Qualcomm will face a fine of up to 5 million yuan (US$702,000) for not asking for prior approval of the Autotalks deal, according to Liu Xu, a research fellow at the National Strategy Institute of Tsinghua University, citing China’s antitrust law.

Liu said there was a chance Qualcomm could be further punished if the regulator finds the deal had the effect of “eliminating or restricting market competition”.

He added that the investigation might not have a big impact on Qualcomm’s operations in China because the case was also under inquiry in Europe and the US.

Still, it would give Qualcomm’s rivals in the country more “negotiating power”, as the regulator would likely seek their advice on the impact of the deal, Liu said.

The SAMR’s action followed a series of measures by Beijing aimed at strengthening the country’s leverage ahead of an anticipated meeting later this month between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump. US restrictions continue to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors.

Earlier this week, the US Department of Commerce added a dozen Chinese companies to Washington’s Entity List over their alleged roles in facilitating the purchase and use of American components found in weaponised drones operated by Hamas and Houthi militants in Yemen.

China’s Ministry of Commerce, meanwhile, added Canadian chip consultancy TechInsights to an “unreliable entity list”, prohibiting Chinese individuals and organisations from sharing data or providing sensitive information to the firm.

TechInsights has published several influential reports detailing Huawei Technologies’ semiconductor developments.

The Canadian firm was among 14 overseas companies blacklisted by China’s Ministry of Commerce, which also launched new export control measures related to rare earthmaterials this week.

These limits – covering mining, smelting and separation, magnetic material manufacturing, as well as the use and recycling of rare earth secondary resources – would take effect immediately, the ministry said on Thursday. That would cement China’s near-monopoly status in an essential sector for the production of hi-tech goods.

Last month, the SAMR said it found Nvidia in violation of China’s anti-monopoly law. That followed an investigation that began in December regarding the US company’s US$6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli interconnect products provider Mellanox Technologies.

In July, the Cyberspace Administration of China summoned Nvidia to discuss concerns over the potential tracking and remote control capabilities of its H20 chips, which are highly sought after by the country’s AI companies, after Washington resumed issuing licences to the US firm to export the processors to China.

Xi and Trump are expected to meet later this month at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, the Post reported in July.

Qualcomm, known for its Snapdragon mobile chips, derives nearly half of its revenue from China, the world’s largest smartphone market and home to several leading smartphone manufacturers.

About 46 per cent of Qualcomm’s sales last year came from China, including Hong Kong, according to the firm’s annual report. It has warned that trade tensions could increase the risks associated with its reliance on the Chinese market.

China’s latest investigation was not the first time Qualcomm came under regulatory scrutiny in the country. In 2015, Qualcomm agreed to pay US$975 million in fines after China’s National Development and Reform Commission found that it violated antitrust laws.

Reducing residential speed limits from 50km/h to 30 km/h would protect cyclists from danger and make riding less stressful while not causing traffic delays for cars, according to new research.

Researchers from RMIT University rated traffic stress levels for every road in greater Melbourne and modelled the effect of lower speed limits on bicycle and car travel.

Reducing the speed limit to 30km/h across residential areas doubled the amount of bike travel on low-stress streets – creating a safer environment for children and less confident cyclists, said the study’s lead researcher, Dr Afshin Jafari.

“Slowing traffic makes bicycle riding less stressful, encouraging more people to choose bikes as a safe and viable mode of transport,” Jafari said.

Many existing cycle routes – narrow paths on 60km/h roads – were highly stressful for bicycle riders, which is one of the main reasons people choose not to ride, he said.

Meanwhile, the study – which was published in Cycling and Micromobility Research – found car travel was barely affected by the 30km/h limit, as it was only applied on local streets rather than the busier roads – such as main roads or highways – that were designed to maximise the flow of traffic.

The findings come as Victoria enacts a new speed limit law allowing councils to propose 30km/h limits in school zones and local streets.

The director of the Institute for Sensible Transport, Dr Elliot Fishman, who was not involved in the study, said cycling rates in Australia were low – about 2% of trips to work – and had barely shifted in the past 20 years, despite state and local government ambitions.

In cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, there were huge numbers of short trips (under 5km) made by car that were instead suitable for cycling.

Each day, more than 6m trips shorter than 5km were driven in Greater Sydney, over 2m of these being of less than 2km. In Melbourne, more than half of non-work trips were a “bikeable distance” of under 5km.

“The main reason people are choosing to make those trips by car rather than cycling is that they don’t feel safe riding a bike,” Fishman said.

Lowering the speed limit would save lives, he said, and was a key reason why some countries – including the Netherlands, where 28% of all trips are by bike – have adopted 30km/h as a standard on residential streets.

“If you get hit by a car travelling at 50km/h, you’ve only got a 1.5-in-10 chance of surviving. If it’s going 30km/h you’ve got a nine-in-10 chance,” Fishman said.

But it was not enough to put up a sign that says 30km/h, he said; there also needed to be design changes to slow down traffic.

Fishman’s research has shown modal filters – which use traffic management tools and landscaping to discourage “rat-running” (the practice of taking shortcuts between traffic arteries through residential streets) – were the most effective at improving safety and cycling rates.

By 2030, transport is likely to overtake electricity to become Australia’s largest emitting sector, according to the Climate Change Authority. It is the only sector where emissions are increasing, according to government data.

Increasing the share of active travel like walking and cycling is a priority action in the government’s transport roadmap.

Before releasing him, Israeli prison guards decided to give Naseem al-Radee a farewell gift. They bound his hands, placed him on the ground and beat him without mercy, saying goodbye the same way they had said hello: with their fists.

Radee’s first sight of Gaza in nearly two years was blurry; a boot to the eye left him with blurred vision two days later. Vision problems added to the laundry list of ailments he gained during his 22-month stay in an Israeli prison.

The 33-year-old government employee from Beit Lahiya was arrested by Israeli soldiers at a school-turned-displacement shelter in Gaza on 9 December 2023. He spent more than 22 months in captivity in Israeli detention centres – including 100 days in an underground cell – before being released alongside 1,700 other Palestinian detainees back to Gaza on Monday.

Like the other detainees released back to Gaza, Radee was never charged with a crime. And like many others, his detention was marked by torture, medical neglect and starvation at the hands of Israeli prison guards.

His description of his time in prison is part of what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says is a policy of abuse towards Palestinians detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centres.

The Israeli prison service and military did not immediately respond to a request for a comment, but in the past both have said that prison conditions comply with international law.

“The conditions in the prison were extremely harsh, from having our hands and feet bound to being subjected to the cruelest forms of torture,” said Radee, speaking of his time in Nafha prison in the Negev desert, the last place he was detained before being released.

The beatings were not an exception, but instead part of what he described as a scheduled regimen of abuse.

“They used teargas and rubber bullets to intimidate us, in addition to constant verbal abuse and insults. They had a strict system of repression; the electronic gate of the section would open when the soldiers entered, and they would come in with their dogs, shouting ‘on your stomach, on your stomach’, and start beating us mercilessly,” he said.

Cells were crowded, with 14 people crammed into a room that appeared to have been designed for five, he said. The unsanitary conditions led him to contract fungal and skin diseases that were not alleviated by medical treatment provided by the prison.

Mohammed al-Asaliya, a 22-year-old university student who was released from Nafha prison on Monday, contracted scabies during his time in detention.

“There was no medical care. We tried to treat ourselves by using floor disinfectant on our wounds, but it only made them worse. The mattresses were filthy, the environment unhealthy, our immunity weak, and the food contaminated,” said Asaliya, who was arrested on 20 December 2023 from a school in Jabaliya.

“There was an area they called ‘the disco’, where they played loud music nonstop for two days straight. This was one of their most notorious and painful torture methods. They also hung us on walls, sprayed us with cold air and water, and sometimes threw chilli powder on detainees,” said Asaliya.

Both men lost much of their body weight during detention. Radee entered prison weighing 93kg and left at 60kg. Asaliya’s weight was 75kg at the time of arrest and dropped to 42kg at one point during his detention.

Palestinian medical officials said many of the detainees released on Monday arrived in poor physical health.

“The signs of beating and torture were clearly visible on the prisoners’ bodies, such as bruises, fractures, wounds, marks from being dragged on the ground, and the marks of restraints that had bound their hands tightly,” said Eyad Qaddih, the director of public relations at Nasser hospital in southern Gaza, which received detainees on Monday.

He said that many of the returnees had to be transferred to the emergency room due to their ill health. In addition to physical injuries from beatings, he said prisoners appeared to have not eaten for long periods.

About 2,800 Palestinians from Gaza are detained in Israeli prisons and detention centres without charge, according to the NGO Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI).

The mass incarceration of Palestinians from Gaza without due process has been permitted by changes made to Israeli law since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas-led militants that killed about 1,200 people.

In December 2023, the Israeli parliament amended the unlawful combatants law to allow for administrative detention without charge where an officer has “reasonable grounds to believe” the person is an unlawful combatant. Administrative detention can be extended virtually indefinitely.

Israeli legal advocates say the mass incarceration of Palestinians by Israel coincides with a drastic degradation in detention conditions and that this has become a matter of policy.

“Generally, the amount and scale of torture and abuse in Israeli prisons and military camps has skyrocketed since 7 October. We see that as a part of the policy led by Israeli decision-makers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and others,” said Tal Steiner, the executive director of PCATI.

Ben-Gvir, the far-right security minister, has bragged about providing the “minimum amount of food”. “I am here to ensure that the ‘terrorists’ receive the minimum of the minimum,” he wrote in a social media post in July.

Despite the intense abuse they faced in prisons, it is in Gaza that many detainees felt they faced the worst torture.

Upon his release, Radee attempted to call his wife, only to find her phone out of service. He then learned that his wife and all but one of his children had been killed in Gaza during his detention.

“I was very happy to be released because the date coincided with my youngest daughter Saba’s third birthday on 13 October. I had planned to make her the best gift to make up for her first birthday, which we could not celebrate because the war had started,” Radee said.

“I tried to find some joy in being released on this day, but sadly, Saba went with my family, and my joy went with her,” he said.

We all like to think that our feelings and emotions are under our control, but are they? Scientists have long known that chemical messengers called neurotransmitters exert a huge influence on our brain. Yet as scientists learn more, they are finding that hormones too can mess with our heads in unexpected ways.

Now, some are trying to harness this knowledge to find new treatments for conditions like depression and anxiety.

Hormones are chemical messengers released by certain glands, organs, and tissues. They enter the bloodstream and travel around the body, before binding to receptors in a specific place. The binding acts as a kind of biological "handshake" which tells the body to do something. For example, the hormone insulin tells liver and muscle cells to suck up excess glucose from the blood and store it as glycogen.

Hormones' invisible control

Scientists have identified more than 50 hormones in the human body so far. Together they manage hundreds of bodily processes, including a person's growth and development, sexual function, reproduction, sleep-wake cycle and – importantly – their mental wellbeing.

"Hormones really impact our mood and our emotions," says Nafissa Ismail, professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. 

"They do this by interacting with the neurotransmitters that are produced and released in specific brain regions, but also by influencing processes like cell death or neurogenesis – when new neurons are created or born."

The prevalence of mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is higher during major hormonal transitions. This is particularly true for women. Rates of depression are essentially equal between boys and girls during childhood, but by adolescence, girls are twice as likely as boys to be depressed – a difference which persists across the whole life course. 

So could hormones be to blame? It may not be a surprise to learn that, if you are a woman, sex hormones exert a striking influence on mood. In the days and weeks preceding a woman's period, levels of oestrogen and progesterone fall, coinciding with feelings of irritability, fatigue, sadness and anxiety for some, but not all. Some women can even experience premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a severe, hormone-related mood disorder characterised by extreme mood swings, anxiety, depression, and sometimes suicidal thoughts during the two weeks before menstruation.

"For a lot of women with PMDD it's a very chronic issue that they deal with every month, and it can have a really profound effect on people's lives," says Liisa Hantsoo, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, US.

Conversely, high levels of oestrogen immediately before ovulation have been linked to feelings of wellbeing and happiness. Meanwhile allopregnanolone, a product of the breakdown of progesterone, is also known for its calming effects.

"If you give someone an injection of allopregnanolone, it will relax them," says Hants…

It's not just the "time of the month" that women have to deal with. Hormonal fluctuations in pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause can also wreak havoc with mental health. Up to 13% of women who have just given birth experience depression.

But why is this? Immediately after giving birth, women experience a precipitous drop in hormones progesterone and oestrogen. In perimenopause, women can also experience dramatic fluctuations in ovarian hormones. 

"It's probably not about the exact level of hormones that somebody has, but likely these transitions where a person is going from low to high levels, or high to low levels," says says Liisa Galea, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Canada. 

"Some people are more sensitive to these kinds of fluctuations. While others will sail through menopause and won't have any symptoms at all."

It's not just women. Men also experience a decrease in testosterone levels when they get older, although the change is gradual and not as pronounced as in women. However there is some evidence to suggest that even this small change is enough to trigger mood changes in some, but not all men.

"We do see changes in the mood of some men as testosterone levels change throughout the lifespan, and that is definitely a topic that does not receive enough attention," says Ismail.

One way that sex hormones could influence mood is through increasing levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine in the brain. Low levels of serotonin have long been touted as a cause of depression, with most modern antidepressants boosting levels of this brain chemical. There's evidence that certain oestrogens can make serotonin receptors more responsive and increase the number of dopamine receptors in the brain.  

Another theory is that oestrogen protects neurons from damage and can even stimulate the growth of new neurons in a region of the brain known as the hippocampus – known to play a role in memory and emotions. People with depression and Alzheimer's disease are known to suffer from a loss of neurons in the hippocampus. Meanwhile antidepressants and mood-boosting psychedelic drugs like psilocybin – found in magic mushrooms – cause new neurons to grow in this region.

"Oestrogen is neuro-protective, so it will promote neurogenesis," says Ismail. "This is why, when women enter menopause, we see sort of this retraction of the dendrites [branches sprouting from nerve cells], the dendritic projections that we had earlier on in life." This is why women undergoing the menopause often have to deal with brain fog and memory problems.

When our body's stress response goes wrong

A loss of neurons in the hippocampus could have knock on consequences for another hormone systems, known as the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which regulates the body's response to stress. 

When we feel anxious, the hypothalamus – a region of the brain that ultimately controls the release of most hormones in the body – sends a signal to the pituitary gland to release a hormone called adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). ACTH then stimulates the adrenal glands to release cortisol, a stress hormone. Cortisol tells the body to release sugar into the bloodstream, giving the brain and body the energy it needs to act in an emergency.

"The HPA axis becomes activated when someone is stressed out, and in the short term, that is adaptive because it helps your body deal with stress," says Hantsoo. "But in the long term, it can be detrimental." 

Usually, the cortisol flooding your body should activate a negative feedback loop, whereupon the hippocampus tells the hypothalamus to stop its communication with the pituitary gland, ending the stress response. However, if a person experiences chronic stress – such as from intimidation, abuse or violence – this doesn't happen, and the brain gets flooded with cortisol. This is bad, because over time cortisol raises inflammation in the brain, killing off neurons in the hippocampus, and preventing it from providing that negative feedback. What's more, cortisol can destroy neurons in other brain regions too, such as the amygdala and prefrontal cortex – impacting memory, concentration and mood.

"The amygdala is our brain region that allows us to control our emotions, and a loss of volume in that area is associated with increased emotionality, increased irritability and a difficulty in controlling those negative emotions," says Ismail.

"The atrophy in the prefrontal cortex is associated with difficulty in concentrating, and in making the right decisions at the right time. And the atrophy in the hippocampus is associated with a difficulty in remembering information."

While cortisol may make us stressed out, oxytocin, often known as the "love hormone", reportedly does the opposite. It has a reputation for helping to promote warm fuzzy feelings, and kindness. It's released during childbirth, breastfeeding and orgasm, but also seems to play a role in animal and human bonding.

"Oxytocin has been associated with bonding and this feeling of secure attachment, and of course that helps with countering the effects of stress," says Ismail. "When we feel safe, and we feel like there is support around us, it does decrease the levels of cortisol that could have been increased by stress."

Studies have also shown that sniffing an oxytocin nasal spray makes people more generous, cooperative and empathetic, and more likely to trust strangers.

However, not everyone is convinced. It hasn't been conclusively shown that oxytocin can cross the blood brain barrier, for instance.

Much more accepted is the theory that imbalances in two key hormones produced by the thyroid – a butterfly-shaped gland in the throat – can cause depression and anxiety.

The hormones are triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4), and together they help to regulate heart rate and temperature. However, when levels are too high – for example when someone has an overactive thyroid – anxiety can result. On the flip side, when levels are too low, depression is common. Luckily, correcting hormone levels usually cures patients of their symptoms.

The team eventually came up with a process that breaks down plastics into chemical building blocks, which are then redeveloped into high-performance plastics that can be used to make consumer products – a huge milestone in the world’s journey towards a plastic circular economy where all materials are recycled and used ad infinitum.

“Becoming a Rolex Laureate in 2019 was a very critical moment for our company,” Wang says. “It allowed us to bring in proper analytical equipment and make our reactions better. By 2021 and 2022, we were able to produce pellets that had the right properties.”

Rolex’s support also allowed Wang, Yao and their team to scale up their operations and turn a scientific idea into a real-world solution. They are now realising more than a decade of innovation at Novoloop’s demonstration plant in Surat, India, which began continuous operations in April last year.

Novoloop partnered with Surat-based speciality chemicals manufacturer Aether Industries to prove that the processes can operate in an industrial setting round-the-clock. The project focuses on upcycling polyethylene, which is found in products such as plastic bags and cling film.

Wang’s aim is to run the pilot plant for 1,000 hours to gather performance data alongside generating product samples so her team can further scale up their commercial operations. Her goal is to convert up to 175,000 tonnes of plastic waste and reduce up to 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually by 2030.

There’s so much plastic on this planet that it is now permanently in the fossil record,” Wang says. “If we can turn the tap off on fossil fuel consumption, that will make a sizeable impact on the entire global plastics industry.”

Brooks-church and his social enterprise, Sanku, were recognised by the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative for their mission to provide essential nutrients in diets of millions of malnourished people in East Africa.

His dosifier machines in mills across Tanzania and Kenya fortify bags of flour with micronutrients such as iron, vitamin B12 and zinc to improve the health and well-being of millions of people.

For at least a decade, Sanku has been installing these machines at minimal cost to the millers, consumers and the enterprise itself. Support from Rolex has allowed Sanku to expand its operations into Ethiopia. Its dosifiers are now operating in about 1,500 mills in the region, benefiting more than 25 million people.

Brooks-church began working on the prototype of the dosifier in 2010 when he was in Nepal, using sketches drawn by engineers from Stanford University in the United States. He spent two years refining the machine so it could conveniently dispense nutrients into milled grains. He later named his company Sanku – after the Nepalese village where the project began.

Sanku’s African operations launched in Tanzania in 2015 with a single machine. However, it quickly grew when Brooks-church realised that big manufacturers were not fortifying their products or were using poor-quality nutrients. “Every time a miller is milling and not using quality nutrients, we’re robbing ourselves of the opportunity to save a life,” he says.

Over the past decade, Sanku has adapted its machines to fit any mill of any size and has sourced ingredients locally to keep costs down. The recent expansion into Ethiopia has been aided by the launch of a micronutrient blending factory in Tanzania that produces enough premix to enrich more than five billion plates of food every year.

Brooks-church now wants to expand Sanku’s operations across more territory in East Africa – and Rolex is continuing its support for his mission.

“We don’t want to end malnutrition in one village or one country,” he says. “We want to end malnutrition. We’ve always had the goal of reaching 100 million people by 2030.”