Bridging BRICS And The Asia Pacific: Vietnam’s Partner Role And The Future Of Multipolarity – Analysis

September 8, 2026

By Dr. Reena Marwah


Key Takeaways:

Vietnam joined BRICS as a partner country after Brazil backed its June 2025 bid. It crossed World Bank upper-middle-income status in July 2026 (GNI per capita $4,970 in 2025) and is now a China+1 factory hub with CSPs to 14 states plus the EU.

May 2026: ties with India rose to an Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (13 deals, $25bn trade target by 2030). India chairs the 18th BRICS Summit on supply chains, digital payments, AI, and climate finance. Vietnam hosts APEC 2027.

Hanoi should bank early India wins (defence, ports, green tech), use BRICS for finance without dropping ASEAN, and stay multi-aligned. India’s job as chair: a useful New Delhi Declaration, not a quarrel club.

When Brazil welcomed the decision of the Vietnamese government on June 13, 2025 to join BRICS, it acknowledged its relevance to the interests of the grouping. “Vietnam stands out as a relevant actor in Asia. Its efforts in favor of South-South cooperation and sustainable development reinforce its convergence with the interests of the group,” stated the government of Brazil. Founded in 2009 and soon expanded to add South Africa, the group included Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, making it a growing diplomatic counterweight to traditional Western powers.

Vietnam’s strategic geography and sustained economic dynamism make it a substantive addition to BRICS. Having transformed from a nation scarred by colonialism and prolonged conflict into a reformoriented economy focused on growth and poverty alleviation, Vietnam, crossed the World Bank’s uppermiddleincome threshold in July 2026, with GNI per capita rising to US$4,970 in 2025.

Forty years after the Đổi Mới reforms redirected Vietnam from central planning toward marketoriented policies, the country has integrated key elements of the East Asian development model, particularly its focus on exportled industrialisation. This transformation—driven by rising inward foreign direct investment and a structural shift from agriculture to manufacturing—has positioned Vietnam as an effective alternative manufacturing hub to China. Moreover, it is now a key node in global supply chains. Vietnam’s low labor costs, political stability, and manufacturing incentives have driven a massive wave of foreign investment in export factories. This momentum is accelerated by strategic proximity to Asian suppliers, key global trade pacts, and a growing push by multinationals to diversify their supply chains outside of China.


By 2026, Vietnam had pursued an extensive diversification of its external relations, trading with more than 50 countries and establishing Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships with 14 states and the European Union. This network bridges the Global North and Global South, encompassing major powers such as the United States, China, Russia, India, Japan, and South Korea; advanced middle powers including Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand; and key ASEAN partners—Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.
BRICS Summit 2026: India’s focus on Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability

Although 2026 marks India’s third tenure as BRICS Chair since the grouping’s inception, this chairship of the 18th Summit unfolds amid structural realignments in geopolitics, trade, technology, energy, and supply chains that are diluting the dominance of Western-led institutions and amplifying the strategic weight of emerging economies.


Under its chairship, India is advancing an agenda focused on resilient supply chains, digital public infrastructure, local-currency settlement, AI and innovation cooperation, climate finance, and reforms to global governance—priorities that collectively seek to reposition BRICS as a platform for Global South agency rather than merely an alternative forum. The bloc’s institutional expansion—now encompassing 11 full members and a new “partner country” format that includes Vietnam—further underscores BRICS’ evolving role as a multi-speed coalition shaping norms and resources in a fragmenting global order.

For Vietnam, 2026 is a strategic inflection point that combines a qualitative upgrade in ties with India and a new institutional foothold in BRICS, offering concrete levers to diversify partnerships, de-risk supply chains, and amplify Hanoi’s voice in emerging economic and technological governance.

The context is important. Following General Secretary and President Tô Lâm’s state visit to India in May 2026, Vietnam and India elevated their relationship to an Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (ECSP), framed around “shared vision, strategic convergence, substantive cooperation.” The upgrade—supported by 13 cooperation agreements and a $25 billion bilateral trade target by 2030—signals a shift from broad-based engagement to prioritized, outcome-oriented collaboration in defence and maritime security, connectivity and logistics, green transition, and technology. In parallel, Vietnam’s inclusion as a BRICS Partner Country creates an additional institutional channel to access development finance, deepen South–South cooperation, and engage on supply-chain resilience, local-currency settlement, digital public infrastructure, and climate adaptation—complementing its ASEAN-centric diplomacy and upcoming 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in 2027, which Vietnam will host. Moreover, it places Vietnam within a structured track in emerging-economy coalitions.

Together, the Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (ECSP) with India, Vietnam’s regional influence within ASEAN, its upcoming role as host of APEC 2027, and its status as a BRICS Partner Country collectively expand Hanoi’s strategic optionality. These overlapping frameworks reduce over-reliance on any single great-power corridor by diversifying security, technology, and infrastructure partners across multiple minilateral and plurilateral platforms. They also create bargaining leverage in negotiating technology transfer, standards, and financing terms, allowing Vietnam to extract better conditions from both traditional and emerging partners. Most importantly, they enable Hanoi to help shape, rather than merely adapt to, evolving rules on trade, cross-border payments, and technology governance in the Indo-Pacific, positioning Vietnam as a rule-shaper in critical domains of economic and digital statecraft.

The way forward for Vietnam

To operationalise the ECSP with India, Vietnam should prioritise early-win projects in defence co-production, port and logistics connectivity, renewable energy, and digital/AI cooperation. Concrete deliverables in these areas will convert the upgraded political framework into measurable outcomes, build domestic and international confidence in the partnership, and generate momentum for deeper integration in high-value sectors.

To leverage its BRICS partner status, Vietnam should actively engage BRICS working groups on trade, finance, and technology. This includes seeking access to development finance instruments, local-currency payment mechanisms, and supply-chain resilience initiatives that align with Vietnam’s industrial strategy and reduce exposure to external shocks and currency volatility.

Finally, Vietnam must carefully calibrate its multi-alignment strategy by using the India–BRICS track to balance ASEAN priorities and major-power dynamics. The objective should be to ensure that diversification across India, BRICS, ASEAN, and other partners enhances, rather than fragments, Vietnam’s core strategic posture in the region, preserving strategic autonomy while maximising economic and security benefits.

Hence, while members, partners, and non-members alike will scrutinise the final outcomes of the 2026 BRICS Summit—codified in the New Delhi Declaration—prospective partners will be watching closely for tangible deliverables and economic benefits that could accrue to them. The imperative for India’s chairmanship is clear: BRICS must avoid being drawn into bilateral disputes or narrow national agendas, and instead demonstrate that it can function as a resilient, issue-based coalition that offers a complementary—not confrontational—alternative to the existing global order.

About Dr. Reena Marwah
Dr. Reena Marwah has published over 20 books; she is the author of Reimagining India-Thailand Relations, published in 2020; World Scientific Publishers, Singapore. She is a Professor at Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi and Former Senior Fellow, and Senior Academic Consultant, Indian Council for Social Science Research Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India Founding Editor, Millennial Asia- A Sage Publication (A biannual Journal of Asian studies).
View all posts by Dr. Reena Marwah →

Great Power Competition In The Caribbean And South Pacific Islands – Analysis

Flags of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China. CC BY-SA 4.0

September 4, 2026\

By Dr. Rajaram Panda

Key Takeaways:

Taiwan is recognized by 12 states; four are in the Caribbean (Haiti, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, SVG). China peels allies with aid; Taipei uses aid to hold the rest. Beijing also objected when Palau hosted Taiwan’s foreign minister at the August 2026 Pacific Islands Forum.
After Hurricane Ivan (damage >200% of GDP) Grenada left Taiwan for China in 2005.

 

Taipei sued in New York over defaulted loans, chased cruise and other revenues, and settled years later by cutting ~$22 million roughly in half. SVG’s Taiwanese debt is cited as $37 million (2022) to $345 million (2026), with New York-law acceleration if it switches; a Taipei trip yielded a $2 million grant. The author treats Grenada as a warning shot to remaining allies.

In the South Pacific, Australia is signing security deals (Vanuatu June 2026; Fiji’s first mutual defence treaty July 2026) while China remains a top trader and infrastructure partner. Island states hedge: Western security, Chinese commerce. The U.S. presence is older (Samoa, WWII bases) but Australia/NZ now carry much of the day-to-day contest Penny Wong called “permanent.”

Taiwan as an island nation and economically vibrant has been facing existential crisis since the days Nationalists fled from the mainland China after losing the civil war and after the Peoples Republic of China’s economic rise and increasing assertiveness over claims of Taiwan as an integral part of the PRC. After the US changed its recognition from Taiwan to China as the official entity, not only Taiwan lost its UN membership but lost its status as a country altogether. Since then China has used economic aid as a bargaining tool to Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and enticed those diplomatic allies to switch allegiance. As a result Taiwan is left with few diplomatic allies, mostly small island nations in the Caribbean region and the islands nations in the South Pacific.

The Caribbean has played a significant role in Taiwan’s foreign relations, as several Caribbean states are among the small number of countries that maintain formal diplomatic recognition of Taiwan rather than the PRC. These relationships have been shaped by international competition for diplomatic recognition, development cooperation, and shifting regional and global geopolitics.

As of 2026, nine states in the Caribbean recognized the PRC and four recognized the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name. The region has remained one of the most important diplomatic strongholds for Taiwan in the Western Hemisphere. Today, Taiwan is recognised by only 12 states, with four of them – Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and SVG – in the Caribbean.


China has objected in a routine manner whenever high level political leaders from other countries have visited Taiwan or Taiwan has participated in any other regional forums. The latest in this narrative is when Taiwan joined the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting in Koror, Palau in the last week of August 2026. China voiced its opposition, with Beijing’s envoy to the Pacific Qian Bo threatening unspecified consequences over its presence at the conference, which is not a dialogue partner for the forum. Palau, a stunning West Pacific archipelago of less than 20,000 people, is one of a dozen remaining nations that maintain diplomatic nations with Taiwan. As host of 2026 Pacific Islands Forum, it invited Taiwan’s foreign minister to attend, one of Taipei’s few remaining avenues for international exposure.

Taiwan too has used economic diplomacy with the island nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean region to keep and save diplomatic ties with those diplomatic allies. In fact, both China and Taiwan virtually compete in giving economic aid as inducement to switch allegiance and maintain diplomatic ties respectively. In this competition, China has almost succeeded in most cases, thereby marching ahead for total diplomatic isolation of Taiwan. This has been the strategy of Beijing for ultimate reunification of Taiwan with the mainland.

Being pushed to the wall for survival, Taiwan too has explored all possible means to keep diplomatic ties with the remaining dozen of allies. Grenada is a test case for Taiwan on how to deal with this Caribbean nation. In 1989, Grenada severed ties with China and recognised Taiwan, causing Beijing to cut formal relations due to the One-China policy. Then in 2005 Grenada switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China.


This provoked Taiwan to play the debt hardball diplomacy that carries a clear warning for its remaining allies. Taiwan dragged its former diplomatic partner Grenada through US courts to collect on defaulted loans. In fact the debt trap strategy was originally used by Beijing, leading to many small countries to switch allegiance from Taiwan to China. Analysts often warned these small countries to be careful not to fall into China’s debt trap and thus avoid bilateral loans from China. Grenada’s debt dispute is not recent; it is decade old and Taiwan decided to weaponise to indirectly send a message to Beijing that it too can play the hardball.

What was Grenada’s economic situation and what compelled it to borrow loans from Taiwan, which it failed to repay? In 2004, Grenada was decimated by Hurricane Ivan and this led the Grenadian government to make a strategic decision to shift diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2005. When Grenada was hit by another hurricane in 2005, its population of 10,000 suffered with huge economic damage, needing external help.

When Grenada switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, it was a big blow to Taiwan. Following the devastation caused by the hurricanes in two successive years, Grenada’s economy was in shambles. Grenada required immediate liquidity for rebuilding its battered infrastructure, which Beijing was too happy to provide. Therefore the switch was born of necessity than any other reason. The damage from Ivan was more than 200 per cent of gross domestic product. Over 90 per cent of homes were damaged or destroyed, and half of the population was left homeless.

At that time, Taiwan was Grenada’s largest creditor and had reason to feel betrayed over Grenada’s decision to switch allegiance. Taipei sued Grenada in a New York court to recover the full outstanding amount. Writing in South China Morning Post, Alex Lo observes: “Thus began a spiteful, decade-long legal battle. Taiwan wielded the loan contract’s sovereign immunity waiver like a bludgeon, attempting to seize Grenada’s revenue streams from cruise lines, shipping companies and international arbitration awards.” The lawsuit affected Grenada greatly and was not able to recover sooner than expected. The courts eventually sided with Grenada, and a settlement was reached a decade later by halving the total debt of about $22 million. Yet, the damage was already done.


By going to court to recover its money, Taiwan indirectly sent a message to the remaining allies to be watchful in dealing with international finance. Taiwan activated its debt-trap diplomacy as a desperate step to remain relevant in international politics and maintain its status as a sovereign entity.

The situation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), another ally of Taiwan, is equally precarious. Its debt-fuelled alliance with Taipei looks increasingly unsustainable. Its Taiwanese debt is skyrocketing. The figures have ballooned from $37 million in 2022 to $345 million in 2026. With little money available, the government is unable to fund investment for growth. The loan agreements are governed by New York law. This includes a clause that would make SVG immediately repay should it switch diplomatic recognition. The government of SVG has very little fiscal space for social programmes. The SVG Prime Minister travelled to Taipei to celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties. Though his real purpose was to ease pressure on the national debt, he failed in his mission, except getting a paltry grant of $2 million.

Seeing Grenada’s case, SVG did not hesitate to publicly declare its commitment to maintain diplomatic relations. SVG is aware how Taipei would respond should there be any attempt at a diplomatic switch. The government now faces an almost impossible challenge: stabilising a struggling economy, protecting essential social programmes, and stimulating growth through investment. Reliance on Western and Taiwanese economic aid and borrowing are the primary reasons, and politically under the influence of the US, the small number of Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, mainly small island states in the Caribbean and Oceania, including Palau, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, effectively remain captive from recognising China.

The situation is no different in the Pacific island nations where competition for influence between China and Australia is in full play. Like the small states in the Caribbean, the Pacific nations are also walking a tightrope between Western security and Chinese trade. Compared to the vulnerabilities of the Caribbean island states, the small states in the South Pacific have a bigger neighbour in Australia to rely on and keep China at bay. While Australia’s approach, besides economic aid, has been by signing defence pacts in the region, Beijing uses aid diplomacy to spread its influence. For the South Pacific islands, though long neglected as a geopolitical backwater, the strategic significance of the region has assumed added importance in the wake of maritime trade and convergence of interests. Signing defence pacts has emerged a significant tool to protest their strategic and national interests.

While Australia provides security guarantees to the Pacific island states by signing security pacts, China is busy building infrastructure and deepening its economic footprint. In June 2026, Vanuatu, just 1090 mile east of Australia, signed a security pact with Australia. A week later in early July, Fiji signed its first mutual defence treaty with Australia. The treaty is open for other Pacific nations to join. As admitted by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, such manoeuvre by Australia was a “permanent contest” for influence in the region against an increasingly assertive China. Seen from a larger perspective, this is a demonstration of Australia’s ambition of becoming the Pacific’s preferred security partner and by eliminating China’s influence from the region.

Graeme Smith, deputy director of the Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University is quoted to have observed in a post in the South China Morning Post that these pacts are a calculated hedge by the Pacific Island nations. For almost all Pacific countries, China is a major trading partner. At the same time, the US has extensive military facilities across the Pacific Ocean. Neither the Pacific nations nor China has the capacity to see America’s eclipse from the region. The best for the Pacific island states therefore is to make the best of the current situation.


The US military presence in the South Pacific is not recent; it dates back to the late 19th century, when the US annexed American Samoa and soon built its first naval base south of the equator. During World War II, the Allies operated airbases and naval airfields across the South Pacific – including in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands. After the War, the US shifted its security focus northwards to Guam and Hawaii, largely leaving it to Australia and New Zealand to further Western interests in the South Pacific. Since then, the geopolitics in the region has undergone a change with China’s rise as an economic behemoth with unlimited appetite to spread its influence wherever its economic and security interests coalesce. This makes the South Pacific region as a theatre for great power competition between China and Australia/New Zealand. For the Pacific island nations, Australia might be the preferred security partner but China is still relevant for their economic lifeline in terms of trade, aid and economic development. The Pacific island nations are left with no choice but to play such balancing act for their national interests. In this power game, while Australia and New Zealand are unlikely to withdraw their engagement with the Pacific nations, Beijing is likely to continue capitalising on the Pacific Island nations’ desire to balance competing major powers.

About Dr. Rajaram Panda
Dr. Rajaram Panda is former Senior Fellow at Pradhanmantri Memorial Museum and Library (PMML). Earlier Dr Panda was Senior Fellow at MP-IDSA and ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, JAPAN. His latest book "India and Japan: Past, Present and Future" was published in 2024 by Knowledge World. E-mail: rajaram.panda@gmail.com
View all posts by Dr. Rajaram Panda →

 

New Zealand approves party-drug MDMA for treating patients with PTSD

Copyright AP Photo

By Simon Ormiston

Published on 04/09/2026 - EURONEWS

Two psychiatrists in New Zealand can now prescribe MDMA in controlled clinical settings, built on trial results that have been challenged in the US.

Two New Zealand psychiatrists have won approval to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade MDMA to patients with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, making the country only the second in the world - after Australia in 2023 - to authorise the party drug for clinical use

New Zealand's medicines regulator, Medsafe, granted the approvals to Wellington's Dr Gary Wynn and Auckland's Dr Tom Paterson, who spent more than a year passing the regulatory process.

"PTSD ruins lives and is difficult to treat," said Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, who last year backed a similar approval for psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, to treat severe depression.

"MDMA can be very effective at treating it through psychedelic-assisted therapy," he said, adding that New Zealand remains committed to opening access to "innovative treatments."

PTSD develops after a person experiences or is threatened by traumatic events such as combat, sexual assault or sudden death.

Existing pharmaceutical options in most countries are limited to two antidepressants that can take three months to take effect and produce uneven results.

The evidence behind the approval — and why the US said no

The approval draws on evidence from two pivotal international Phase 3 trials, run by the US-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and sponsored by its public benefit corporation arm Lykos Therapeutics.

In the first, published in 2021, 88% of participants with severe PTSD who received MDMA-assisted therapy showed clinically significant improvement, and 67% no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD.

A second trial in 2023, involving participants with moderate-to-severe PTSD, found 71.2% of those treated with MDMA no longer met PTSD diagnostic criteria by the end of the study.

Despite those results, the US Food and Drug Administration rejected the therapy's approval in 2024, citing insufficient evidence of its safety and effectiveness.

Regulators raised concerns that participants who had taken MDMA before produced an expectancy bias, complicating the trial data.

New Zealand's Ministry of Health said the new treatment would be tightly controlled, combining MDMA with psychotherapy in a clinical setting rather than take-home doses.

"Treatment takes place in a controlled clinical setting under the care of an authorised psychiatrist and forms part of a comprehensive treatment plan," the ministry said, adding that patients must be aged 18 or older.

El Niño to be 'very strong' and last until February, UN climate agency warns

By Gavin Blackburn

Published on 03/09/2026 - EURONEWS

El Niño tends to peak late in the year but heat in the oceans releases more slowly into the atmosphere, pushing up global temperatures the following year.

El Niño is set to become "very strong" in the months ahead, with the weather phenomenon near certain to persist through to February, the United Nations' climate agency warned on Thursday.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said El Niño would peak towards the end of this year, though its knock-on impacts for the climate will continue well into 2027.

"El Niño is firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coming months, with big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat," the WMO said.

El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon and is not caused by climate change.

But scientists expect it will exacerbate the heat of a planet already warming from burning fossil fuels, while amping up weather extremes.

"El Niño is being supersized before our eyes," said UN chief António Guterres.

"The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters and those waters are heating up. Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather," he said.

"The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race."

'Massive blow' to economies

El Niño tends to peak late in the year but heat in the oceans releases more slowly into the atmosphere, pushing up global temperatures the following year.

The hottest year on record is 2024, following the last El Niño.

"This exceptional El Niño...has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world", said WMO chief Celeste Saulo.

"We are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods and we expect these impacts to increase as El Niño intensifies."

She put disaster management authorities and climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, health, energy and water on notice, saying there was "no time to lose" in getting ready.

El Niño warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in winds, pressure and rainfall patterns.

Drought-stressed wheat plants stand adjacent to parched ground in a field near Macksville, 16 May, 2026 AP Photo

It typically takes place every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months.

Conditions oscillate between El Niño and its opposite La Niña, with neutral conditions in between.

"Fuelled by exceptionally warm ocean conditions across the tropical Pacific, El Niño is expected to strengthen further during the coming months to a very strong intensity," the WMO said.

The UN agency classifies El Niño events as weak, moderate, strong or very strong, meaning it is set to reach the highest level out of four.

The WMO said there was an "exceptionally high likelihood of nearly 100 percent" that El Niño will continue through to February.

Pacific Ocean heating up

El Niño can reshape weather and climate patterns thousands of kilometres away from the tropical Pacific.

Every El Niño is different, but major events often follow familiar patterns. This includes drought across parts of the Amazon, Indonesia and Australia, disrupted monsoons in India, and shifting rainfall throughout the tropic

For September-November, WMO forecasts indicate an increased likelihood of above-normal temperatures "across almost all land areas", alongside rainfall patterns showing a "pronounced and classic atmospheric response to the strong Pacific El Niño", the UN's weather and climate agency said.

This satellite image provided by CIRA/NOAA shows three storms in the Pacific Ocean, 2 September, 2026 AP Photo

The index which measures sea surface temperature anomalies in the central eastern equatorial Pacific has strengthened from an average 1.5C above normal between May and July.

Weekly values between late July and mid-August ranged from around 2.2C to 2.6C above average, indicating continued El Niño intensification.

In some areas, subsurface ocean temperatures were more than 8C above average during July and early August.

Sweet-stealing capitalists and the definition of kissing: The 2026 Ig Nobel award winners

Copyright Eric Workman/Improbable Research - Canva

By David Mouriquand

Published on 04/09/2026 - EURONEWS

The annual awards highlight strange, funny and thought-provoking research. This year's ceremony took place in Europe, with “fungi” as the theme of the 36th edition.

Nobel prize winners get prestige, a gold medal, and a little over a million dollars. Ig Nobel prize winners don’t get such sublime considerations.

They do get acclaim, but instead of all the Nobel perks, they are instead showered with paper planes and 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars.

The snag is that the currency cratered years ago, so 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars is worth next to nothing. Still, last year’s winners went home with a single packaged moist towelette, so swings and roundabouts... Plus, this year's winners were given a statuette representing a slab of blue cheese trampled on by a foot erupting with toadstools in honour of this year's “fungi” theme. What's not to love?

Established in 1991 as a satirical version of the Nobel prize, the Ig Nobels aim to promote public engagement with scientific (and culturally resonant) research, honouring “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think".

This year’s Igs were awarded yesterday at a ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland – a first, as the award ceremony is usually held in the US. The reason, the organisers say, comes down to the hostile climate in the US toward science, as well as international travellers being increasingly reluctant to travel Stateside.

A perfectly ordinary and not at all alarming English sentence.

“During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country,” Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of The Annals of Improbable Research magazine, told AP. “We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners, or the international journalists who cover the event, to travel to the US this year.”

Back to this year's research and winners, who have discovered that the upper classes are more prone to behaving badly, that kissing can be redefined and cockroaches will inherit the Earth in more ways that one.

Here's a look at some of this year’s winners:

Biomechanics: Evolutionary smooching

Evolutionary smooching Canva

Winners: Matilda Brindle, Catherine Talbot, Stuart West (UK, USA).

Rationale: "Devising a more precise definition of kissing – non-agonistic interactions involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer" – in ants, polar bears, and humans.

Research: A comparative approach to the evolution of kissing. Dr Matilda Brindle and her colleagues developed a rigorous definition of kissing through the study of different species. They found that kissing occurs in most living large apes and likely in Neanderthals - arguing that early humans and Neanderthals may have even kissed one another. "Next time you kiss someone, you can think, 'This is a 21.5 million-year-old tradition that I'm honoring here,” said Dr Brindle. “It's not just a modern human behaviour. It's really ancestral. And to us, that suggests that it probably has quite a useful evolutionary function."

Economics: Rich people are the worst

Why would you? Canva

Winners: Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner (USA, Mexico, Canada)

Rationale: "Amassing evidence that upper-class people are more likely to snatch from a children's candy, and engage in other kinds of unethical behaviour."

Reasearch: Higher social class predicts increased unethical behaviour. The researchers amassed evidence through seven studies that prove rich people are just the worst. They’re more likely to take sweets from children, excel at lying when it comes to their scores during dice rolls, are more likely to cut other cars off at junctions, and view greed as a positive attribute. “The general pattern seems to be that with wealth and rising power, you become less engaged with the needs of others and less burdened by the needs of social relationships,” Piff said. “Taking candy from children might be the least of our worries but it’s emblematic of the tendency to prioritise one’s own needs over those of others.”

Turns out Dorothy Parker was right: “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

Chemistry: Cockroach milk, anyone?

Got milk? Canva

Winners: Sanchari Banerjeee, Nathan Coussens, Francois-Xavier Gallat, Nitish Sathyanarayanan, Jandhyam Srikanth, Koichiro Yagi, James Gray, Steven Tobe, Barbara Stay, Leonard Chavas, Sumabramanian Ramaswamy (India, France, Japan, USA).

Rationale: "Discovering that milk proteins from vivaporous cockroaches contains three times as much energy as milk proteins than from cows."

Research: Structure of heterogeneous, glycosylated, lipid-bound, in vivo-grown protein crystal at atomic resolution from the viviparous cockroach Diploptera punctata. If that sentence just gave you a headache, it boils down to the authors extracting milk crystals from the guts of Diploptera punctata roach embryos harvested from a brood sac to determine the protein structure of the crystals. Essentially, cockroach milk is powerful.

Physics: The optimization of urination

No more splash back Canva

Winners: Randy Hurd, Zhao Pan, Tadd Truscott, Kaveeshan Thurairajah (Canada, USA, China, Saudi Arabia).

Rationale: "Theoretical and experimental attempts to design a splash-free urinal."

Research: Splash-free urinals for global sustainability and accessibility. A team of students at the University of Waterloo in Canada worked out that urinal splash is almost entirely eradicated if the stream strikes the urinal at less than 30 degrees. They even designed a urinal whose shape ensures minimal splash regardless of the user’s aim. “I am very proud,” said Dr Zhao Pan. So he should be.

Medecine: Thrusting mucus

The culture and science of blowing Canva

Winner: Takuji Unno (Japan).

Rationale: "How to Blow the Nose – An Aerodynamic Study of the Nose Blowing."

Research: Unno explored the cultural differences between Europeans and Japanese people when it comes to proper nose-blowing, quantifying the key aspects of the practice “to give good instructions to those who do not understand how to blow the nose.” He concluded that the faster the “expiratory thrust” of the blow, the more efficiently one can expel mucus. “A big and long nose blow is therefore recommended to prevent upper and lower respiratory tract diseases.”

Peace: The benefits of vicious friends

The benefits of vicious friends Canva

Winners: Jaimie Arona Krems, Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters, Laureon Merrie, Keelah Williams, and Daniel Sznycer (USA, Argentina, Australia).

Rationale: "We value friends who are vicious to people we dislike."

Research: People have nuanced preferences for how they want their friends to behave toward them versus others. No one likes a friend who treats them poorly; but in a broader social context, the authors explored how dynamics shift when it comes to how people want their friends to behave toward their enemies. In those cases, some prefer their friends to be more vicious toward those people. “Sometimes we want our friends to be more vicious and indifferent when they interact with our enemies,” said Dr Jaimie Krems. “I’ve felt, in many instances, incredibly loved when people have carried my hate for me and been willing to have my back.”

Olfaction: Smelly children

Damn hormones Canva

Winners: Ilona Croy, Tomasz Frackowiak, Thomas Hummel, and Agnieszka Sorokowska (Poland, Germany, Sweden).

Rationale: "Collecting evidence that babies smell wonderful to their parents but teenagers do not."

Research: "Babies Smell Wonderful to Their Parents, Teenagers Do Not: an Exploratory Questionnaire Study on Children’s Age and Personal Odor Ratings in a Polish Sample." Conclusion: Parents usually find their babies’ body odour very pleasant, as it activates reward centers in the brain. However, once puberty hits, it’s a different matter. Bloody hormones.

Elsewhere, other researchers landed prizes for turning mosquito proboscises into 3D printing nozzles, burying cotton underwear to monitor soil quality, and gently stepping on various parts of snakes to try to learn what induces a venomous snake to bite a human. They're more likely to bite during the day, in warmer climates, and if you trample their head. And before you ask, yes, they wore safety boots.

Next year’s Ig Nobel ceremony will be held in Antwerp, Flanders.

Additional sources 

 

Updated checklist reveals rich, threatened terrestrial mammal diversity on Hainan Island

South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences

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Building upon the foundational work Birds and Mammals of Hainan Island (1983), and synthesizing verified species records accumulated over the past four decades under a modern taxonomic framework, this study presents an updated checklist documenting 95 species of terrestrial mammals on Hainan Island.

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Credit: Zhihui Yang, Gang Lu, Yixin Chen, and Yuan Chen

Date: September 4, 2026

Danzhou, China: Hainan Island, China’s largest tropical island, hosts unique mammalian fauna shaped by long‑term geographic isolation. Drawing on the foundational 1983 work Birds and Mammals of Hainan Island, researchers have integrated four decades‑worth of literature, museum specimen records and modern taxonomic frameworks to compile a comprehensive updated checklist of terrestrial mammals.

Published in Biological Diversity, the study documents 95 terrestrial mammal species belonging to 9 orders, 26 families and 63 genera, accounting for 12.91 % of China’s terrestrial mammalian species richness. Compared with the 1983 baseline of 76 species, the team revised taxonomic status and nomenclature for 40 species and added 19 distribution records for the island, mostly bats and rodents. Two previously reported species were excluded because their distributions fall outside Hainan Island proper or lack solid field evidence.

The research assessed conservation status across multiple authoritative datasets, including the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, CITES appendices and China’s national and provincial wildlife inventories. Ten species qualify as threatened under IUCN criteria, while 22 species are threatened according to the China Red List of Biodiversity. Seven species are endemic to China, six of them occurring exclusively on Hainan Island.

Consistent with island‑biogeography theory, Hainan holds fewer mammal species than neighbouring Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. Nevertheless, the island features a higher proportion of critically endangered taxa, making local wildlife exceptionally vulnerable to human disturbance and habitat fragmentation. Roughly 10 % of recorded species remain data‑deficient or unevaluated, particularly among insectivorous bats and forest‑dwelling rodents.

The authors recommend integrative taxonomic work combining molecular and morphological evidence, targeted field surveys, long‑term biodiversity monitoring, strengthened in‑situ and ex‑situ conservation, and regular dynamic updates of taxonomic and threat assessments. This new checklist delivers an essential baseline to guide evidence‑based conservation planning for Hainan’s distinctive mammal assemblages.

 

Original Source

Z. Yang, G. Lu, Y. Chen, and Y. Chen, “An Updated Checklist of Terrestrial Mammals of Hainan Island, China,” Biological Diversity (2026): 1–10, https://doi.org/10.1002/bod2.70035.

 

Keywords

Hainan Island, species cataloging, taxonomy, terrestrial mammals

 

About the Author

Yuan Chen (Corresponding author), PhD, Full‑time Faculty Member at Department of Ecology, Hainan University. His main research interests include: 1) Primate behavioural ecology: behavioural adaptations of Hainan gibbons and macaques to their habitats; 2) Mammal diversity and conservation: spatial distribution and interspecific relationships of small‑ and medium‑sized mammals in tropical forests; 3) Plant‑animal interactions: seed‑dispersal functions of frugivorous mammals such as the Hainan gibbon and masked palm civet. He currently leads six research projects, including grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China, and sub‑projects of the Hainan Provincial Key Research and Development Programme. He has published more than 20 academic papers, among which over 10 are first‑author or corresponding‑author articles in key ecological and zoological journals such as Biological Conservation, Integrative Zoology, Oecologia, Biodiversity Science, and Acta Theriologica Sinica.  

 

About the Journal

Biological Diversity (ISSN: 2994-4139) is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal, sponsored by the South China Botanical Garden (SCBG), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and published in partnership with John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. It is dedicated to advancing biodiversity conservation, safeguarding ecosystem functions and services, and promoting the sustainable utilization of biological resources under global environmental change. The journal welcomes original research, reviews, commentaries, and short communications across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including botany, zoology, microbiology, taxonomy, phylogenetics, genomics, cytology, ecology, climatology, economics, sociology, and real-time policy theory. The journal is indexed in Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

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Journal

Biological Diversity

DOI

10.1002/bod2.70035 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

An Updated Checklist of Terrestrial Mammals of Hainan Island, China

Article Publication Date

2-Sep-2026