The World Beekeeping Awards will not award a prize for honey next year after warnings of widespread fraud in the global supply chain.

Apimondia, the International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations, says it will showcase honey from around the world at its congress in Denmark, but for the first time make no awards for the product.

The decision came as beekeepers and importers face a mounting crisis over the scale of fraud, with warnings that genuine products are bulked out with cheaper sugar syrup. Some common tests to detect fraud can easily be defeated, and beekeepers say there has been a failure by food watchdogs and the industry to combat the fraudsters.

Apimondia said in a statement: “We will celebrate honey in many ways at the congress, but honey will no longer be a category, and thus no honey judging, in the World Beekeeping Awards. This change to remove honey as a category was necessitated by the inability to have honey fully tested for adulteration.”

The awards are typically held every two years at the congress, attended by thousands of beekeepers, scientists and industry representatives. Dozens of entries in recent honey competitions have been rejected because adulteration was suspected.

About 45% of honeys were rejected at the awards in Montreal in 2019 for a variety of reasons, including suspected adulteration. At the Istanbul congress in 2022, 39 out of 145 honeys were withdrawn for suspected adulteration. The awards also has other categories, which will still be judged at next year’s competition, including beeswax, mead, innovation and publications.

Jeff Pettis, the federation’s president, says the first laboratory tests for honey were introduced for the 2019 awards. Honeys which were excluded were replaced with a card stating: “This exhibit has failed laboratory analysis and cannot be judged further.”

There were logistical challenges for the competition in authenticating entries and in border controls, he said. The Copenhagen congress in September 2025 would highlight the damage being done to beekeepers around the world by fraud.

He said: “We are continuing to fight for improvements to the testing. We want the public to know that local honey is much less likely to be adulterated. The beekeepers get their name on it and can stand behind it.”

He said there was widespread adulteration in cheaper commercial honeys. The fraud can occur at any point of the supply chain, with many importers and retailers unwittingly trading in fake honey.

An EU investigation published last year found 46% of imported sampled products were suspected to be fraudulent, including all 10 from the UK. Samples used in October by the UK branch of the Honey Authenticity Network for a novel form of DNA testing found that 24 out of 25 jars from big UK retailers were suspicious.

China is the world’s biggest producer of honey, but experts say it can be fraudulently blended with cheaper sugar syrup. The UK is the world’s biggest importer of Chinese honey, with more than 39,000 tons imported last year.

Bernhard Heuvel, president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association, said there was overwhelming evidence of fraud in the supply chain. “It’s just unbelievable if the world organisation for all beekeepers cannot guarantee the authenticity of honey. The scale of this fraud is huge.”

Dale Gibson, co-founder of Bermondsey Street Bees, which has hives in and around London, said the UK should require importers to label the country of origin on all honey, including blends. He said: “We have to give consumers information at the point of sale that they can act on.”

Importers in the UK have rejected as unreliable the hundreds of tests commissioned by campaigners and investigators on British-sold honey that suggested adulteration. Regulators in the UK have not published detailed results of official tests, but rejected claims of significant fraud.

An assessment of food crime published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in September said it was “unlikely that adulterated honey is broadly present on the UK market”, but recognised the “complexities” in making the judgment.

Enid Brown, director of the World Beekeeping Awards, said: “The UK government needs to wake up to this problem of adulteration of imported honey. Until the government starts official tests on honey and publishing the results, we are never going to win.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: “We take any type of food fraud very seriously. There is no place for adulterated honey which undermines consumer confidence and disadvantages responsible businesses acting within the law.

“We work closely with enforcement authorities to ensure that honey sold in the UK is not subject to adulteration, meets our high standards, and maintains a level playing field between honey producers.”

Andrew Quinn, head of the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit, said: “We are working closely with Defra and other government colleagues to develop conclusive testing that will be able to establish the authenticity of honey on sale.”

New research aimed at identifying which US neighborhoods face increased exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” found those living near “superfund” sites and other major industrial polluters, or in areas with limited access to fresh food, generally have higher levels of the dangerous compounds in their blood.

The study looked at hundreds of people living in southern California and found those who do not live within a half mile of a grocery store have 14% higher levels of PFOA and PFOS – two common PFAS compounds – in their blood than those who do.

Meanwhile, those who live within three miles of a superfund site – a location contaminated with hazardous substances – have up to 107% higher levels of some compounds, and people who live near a facility known to use PFAS showed significantly higher blood levels.

The findings highlight how the built environment in low-income neighborhoods presents multiple PFAS exposure routes, said Sherlock Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California. The solutions are not easy, he added.

“It’s a difficult question because you can’t tell people to just move or to buy air filters and water filters and eat healthy food,” Li said. “We’re hoping the government will see the analysis and take action … because it’s more cost effective to reduce pollution at the source.”

PFAS are a class of about 15,000 compounds typically used to make products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and accumulate, and are linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders, birth defects and other serious health problems.

The study also found people who live in neighborhoods with water contaminated with PFAS have 70% higher blood levels of PFOS and PFOA, though there was no correlation among some other compounds.

Researchers say diet is likely a contributing factor to the higher levels in neighborhoods with limited fresh food access. Previous research has found processed and fast foods that are more accessible in these neighborhoods generally contain higher levels of PFAS – the chemicals are commonly added to resist moisture and grease in fast food wrappers and carryout containers. Conversely, eating a diet with more fresh foods may help lower PFAS blood levels.

Though the Food and Drug Administration announced last year that PFAS compounds were no longer approved for use in paper food packaging produced in the US, the chemicals could be on imported wrappers, or in plastic containers.

Packaging is among the “key sources” of elevated levels in the neighborhoods, Li said, but the solution is in part structural – improving access to fresh foods with more grocery stores or community gardens will also have a benefit of lowering PFAS levels.

Some study participants lived near several former Air Force bases and a metal plating facility that are now superfund sites contaminated with PFAS.

The link between groundwater at the site and drinking water was weak, and the authors hypothesize that the higher PFAS blood levels around superfund sites and industrial facilities that use the chemicals largely stems from air pollution. PFAS can be volatile, meaning it lifts into the air from a polluted area, or can get on dust, then is breathed in or ingested.

“We need to be more holistic to reduce water, food, soil air exposure – all of them,” Li said.

Sniffer dogs are usually found looking for contraband at airports and train stations, but the UK government is now dispatching trained hounds to find forest-harming pests.

A dog has been used for the first time in the UK to successfully identify tree disease. Researchers from Forest Research used a trained spanador – a cocker spaniel labrador cross – to find the tree pathogen Phytophthora ramorum.

Six-year-old Ivor the dog achieved a 89% successful first-time detection rate of the pest. This is an important finding as the disease is a menace to UK forests; spread by rain, the fungal-like organism causes the death of a wide range of trees and shrubs and has led to thousands of hectares of felling around the UK.

Dr Heather Dun, a pathologist at Forest Research, said: “The results from the trials have been incredibly encouraging, with a first-time 89% detection rate highlighting the huge potential of dogs in our fight against pests and diseases.”

“Biosecurity is incredibly important and detection dogs like Ivor are an exciting new method for helping to protect our trees.”

Researchers trained Ivor in scent recognition so he could pick up the smell of the pathogen. In the first round he successfully identified Phytophthora ramorum in soil, plant material and sterile distilled water. He was then trained to distinguish Phytophthora ramorum from the scent of other Phytophthora species often found in the same environments.

Sniffer dogs have been used previously to hunt for insects. In 2012, a team of detection dogs from the Austrian plant health inspectorate were used to track down the Asian longhorn beetle pest during an outbreak in Paddock Wood, Kent.

Forest Research will now explore using detection dogs to combat other pests and diseases as there have been a number of successful trials. They plan to trial dogs to seek out the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle.

The UK’s chief plant health officer, Prof Nicola Spence, said: “This groundbreaking research using detection dogs to identify Phytophthora ramorum, alongside other innovative approaches to tackle pests and diseases, will play a key role in maintaining biosecurity to meet the vision set out in our world-leading plant biosecurity strategy.”

It’s one damned thing after another. As Keir Starmer is discovering, government, like life, can feel like a fusillade of events, each coming faster than the one before. If it’s not a cabinet minister resigning over a past fraud conviction, it’s MPs voting for assisted dying – and that’s just in one day. Through that blizzard of news, it can be hard to make out the lasting changes in the landscape – even those that have profound implications for our place in the world.

The November 2024 event that will have the most enduring global impact is the election of Donald Trump. There are some in the higher reaches of the UK government who are surprisingly relaxed about that fact, reassuring themselves that, in effect, we got through it once, we’ll get through it again. Yes, they admit, Trump has nominated some crazy people to lead in areas crucial to the UK-US relationship, such as defence and intelligence, but don’t worry, officials in London will do what they did last time: work with like-minded counterparts in the Washington bureaucracy to bypass the Trump loyalists at the top.

Whether that’s complacency or naivety, it’s a mistake. This is not like last time. As Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, put it to me: “Trump is different and the world is different.” During his first term, Trump was hemmed in by the establishment types he had appointed to key jobs. Now he will be unbound. Back then, there was no war in Europe, China was relatively cooperative and Britain was still in the EU. That’s all changed now.

Consider what Trumpism, if implemented, means for the world. It would dismantle the post-1945 order, underpinned for eight decades by the US. In that period, the US acted as both guarantor for a system of global trade and defensive umbrella for the western alliance, with Britain and Europe the obvious beneficiaries. Playing that role came at a cost for the US, but successive presidents believed it was worth it, because a stable world was one in which the US could prosper.

Trump marks a radical break from that thinking. He believes those previous US presidents were suckers, ripped off by allies taking a free ride at US expense. He denies the US has any greater responsibilities than any other country: it should sacrifice nothing, looking out instead solely for itself. He’s happy for the US to be No 1 in the world, but not the world’s leader. The two are different. Like the slogan says: it’s “America first”.

For China, Russia, the Gulf states, Brazil and others there is some relief at that: they relish a future without a scolding Washington sticking its nose into their business. But for Europe, including Britain, it’s a disaster. In terms of both defence and the economy, our societies are predicated on a US-led world that will soon no longer exist.

The impact will be felt most sharply in Ukraine, which is weeks away from seeing US support fall away. Leonard fears a “Yalta-type settlement sealed by Trump and Vladimir Putin over the heads of European countries”, one that will reward Putin’s aggression and leave him emboldened. That leaves more than the likes of Moldova and the Baltic states feeling vulnerable. As the Guardian reported today, “Germany is developing an app to help people locate the nearest bunker in the event of attack. Sweden is distributing a 32-page pamphlet titled If Crisis or War Comes. Half a million Finns have already downloaded an emergency preparedness guide.” Berlin is taking steps to get the German public kriegstüchtig: war-capable.

On the continent, it’s become an urgent question: can Europe defend itself either without America or, at best, with less America? European defence spending is up and there is talk of shifting the industrial base, repurposing factories, to allow for a fast and massive, Europe-wide programme of rearmament. Our nearest neighbours understand that if the US president no longer believes in the core Nato principle of mutual defence – one for all and all for one – then, at the very least, Nato’s US pillar is gone. If Nato is to survive, the EU pillar will have to bear much of the weight alone.

It’s not clear that this penny has quite dropped in London. And remember there is a double threat here. Trump also plans to protect US domestic industry by slapping tariffs on imports from the rest of the world. China is likely to be hardest hit, with a 60% charge, but Trump wants a “universal” tariff of up to 20% on all goods coming into the US – including from Britain. For a trading nation such as the UK, that spells calamity.

What, then, can be done? On defence, Britain can vow to spend more and increase military cooperation with European allies. Fine, as far as it goes. But in the face of a trade war, Britain alone would be all but impotent against the might of the US. There is only one nearby market that is of comparable heft to the US, whose threats to retaliate against US tariffs would have a deterrent effect, a body, incidentally, that happens to be a virtuoso in the realm of trade and trade disputes. I am speaking of course of the European Union.

What’s more, these two spheres, military and economic, are no longer as distinct as they once were. When states confront each other, they no longer do it solely through bombs and bullets. Everything else gets weaponised too, whether it’s the financial system through sanctions, the supply of energy or food or technology. Witness Russia’s war against Ukraine. As it happens, these are all areas where the EU’s particular brand of cooperation can help. So when Russia moved to choke off the gas supply to individual European countries, the EU was able to step in and connect what were previously separate energy grids, thereby thwarting that threat.

The point is, the landscape of 2016 – that fateful year – no longer exists. Plenty of Brexiters believed, in good faith, that a buccaneering, free-trading Britain could thrive in a world of open borders. But that world has gone now, replaced by one of war, barriers and Darwinian competition. Whatever case you could make for Britain being out of the EU in the Obama era of 2016 makes no sense now.

I don’t expect Starmer to announce a plan to rejoin the EU tomorrow. But it’s time for outriders to start riding out. Labour MPs, perhaps the odd minister, can begin to make the case that is becoming increasingly obvious to many millions of Britons. The polls are saying it, the governor of the Bank of England is saying it. And when immigration levels are four times higher now than when we were in the EU, the issue that served as the Brexiters’ trump card lies in shreds. One by one, the premises of Britain’s 2016 decision are crumbling.

I understand the political calculus that made Labour believe Brexit was an issue best avoided. But the reality around us is changing and politicians, governments especially, have to adapt to it. In the age of Trump, when the US is no longer the predictable guarantor it once was, Britain cannot thrive alone and in the cold. It’s not ideology or idealism, but hard-headed, practical common sense to say our place is in Europe – and to say so now.

An exit poll in Ireland suggests a dead heat between Sinn Féin and the taoiseach’s party Fine Gael in the general election, with Fianna Fáil only slightly behind.

The survey of first preference votes is the first real indication of how Ireland voted after three weeks of canvassing in the snap election called by Simon Harris.

The poll put Sinn Féin, which went into the election as the third most popular party, in first place with 21.1% share of the vote followed by Harris’s party at 21%, slightly edging Fianna Fáil, the leader in the race in the latest polls this week, at 19.5%.

Fianna Fáil’s outgoing finance minister said it was clear “a lot of seats were going down to the wire” and the data was in the “margin of error”.

Data on second preferences showed Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, led by Micheál Martin, doing better with 20% share of the vote each. Sinn Féin scored 17% on second preferences, according to the exit poll. The margin of error from the poll is 1.4%.

Damien English, for Fine Gael, told the Irish broadcaster RTÉ it suggested “a very positive result” for the party and could translate to “37 or 38 seats, which will mean 20 news TDs [Teachtaí Dála, members of the Irish parliament].”

The leftist party, led by Mary Lou McDonald will be heartened by the suggestion it has slightly shaded the country’s two main political bodies given it went into the campaign battered by scandals and decline in popularity in its core base over its migration policy.

Sinn Féin’s director of elections, Matt Carthy, hailed his party’s performance.
He said it marked a significant turnaround from the party’s disappointing showing in June’s local and European elections.

“When you consider where we would have been coming out of the local and European elections, I have to say it’s a phenomenal result,” Carthy told RTÉ.

He added: “We do recall that in 2020 the exit poll actually undershot Sinn Féin to the tune of 2%-plus. So if that was to transpire tomorrow morning, there is every chance that Sinn Féin will emerge from these elections as the largest political party.”

Carthy would not be drawn on what the exit poll might mean for coalition formation. “This is a hugely positive exit poll but the real votes will be counted tomorrow, so let’s see where they land,” he said.

Harris appears to have fared slightly better than polls this week, which projected a six-point drop in vote share from 25% at the outset of the three week campaign to 19%.

The survey of about 5,000 voters who had cast their ballot during the day was carried out by Ipsos MRBI for RTÉ, The Irish Times, TG4 and Trinity College Dublin. It comes with two strong health warnings – it reflects first preference votes only and with a margin of error.

Gary Murphy, professor of politics at Dublin City University, told RTÉ that Fine Gael would be relieved with the exit poll given the “quite dramatic and precipitous” decline in popularity according to polls this week.

The fourth largest group is predicted to be independents at 12.7% of the share, far below the projections of close to 20% in some earlier polls.

Irish results are based on a proportional representation system, which makes the outcome more difficult to predict and the result longer to emerge. Voters rank candidates, with second preferences going to those choices as long as they are still in the race and have not already been elected or eliminated.

Counting in Friday’s ballot will not begin until 9am on Saturday, with close-to-final results expected by the end of Sunday. Tallies by the parties, which operate a parallel informal counting operation in all 43 constituencies, are expected to reveal their projections of the election results at around lunchtime on Saturday.

Unless there is an outright majority for one party, which is highly improbable, it could be weeks before a government is formed as parties negotiate and horse-trade over the makeup of a new coalition government.

The Dáil consists of 174 seats with around 88 needed for a clear majority. However, a coalition is more probable than a majority government.

Meanwhile the leader of the Social Democrat party announced the birth of a baby daughter on the day of the election. Holly Cairns, who is standing for re-election in the Cork South-West constituency, posted on Instagram: “She’s here. We are completely in love with her.”

The UK has increased its contribution to the World Bank, in a move that will boost prospects for climate finance.

Next week, at a meeting in Seoul of the International Development Association (IDA) – the body that funds the World Bank’s support for low-income countries – the UK will put forward £1.98bn in funding over three years, an increase of about 40% on the previous pledge.

Anneliese Dodds, the development minister, said: “Britain is back with a voice on the world stage. When we said we would take a new approach to development, built on genuine partnerships and based on respect, we meant it. Leaders of low-income countries around the world called for stronger IDA contributions and we listened.”

The World Bank and its fellow multilateral development banks (MDBs) will play a key role in providing the climate finance, mostly in the form of grants and loans, which will be needed to meet commitments made last week at the Cop29 UN climate summit.

Experts and campaigners welcomed the cash injection. Avinash Persaud, climate advisor to the president of the Inter American Development Bank, said: “I recognise the challenging circumstances in which this commitment has been made to some of the most vulnerable countries. I personally wish it was more, but I very much welcome the strong endorsement this makes to the multilateral system.”

Mafalda Duarte, the executive director of the Green Climate Fund, said: “The UK government is fiscally constrained, so this is quite positive.”

Adrian Lovett, the UK executive director of the campaign group ONE, said: “Every pound invested by the UK in IDA helps to catalyse far more from others, ensuring the maximum value to British taxpayers. We look to other countries, including France, Canada and Sweden, to now make their pledges and complete this investment package.”

Recriminations continue to fly after the Cop29 summit, which ended on Sunday amid rancour and accusations that the rich world had betrayed the poor, and that the hosts had stage-managed the conference.

Under the deal that was finally agreed, the governments of developed countries agreed only to supply $300bn (£236bn) of the $1.3tn a year that developing countries have been promised by 2035, in part through the MDBs. The rest is likely to come from the private sector and new forms of finance.

While rich nations have been criticised the most for failing to put forward enough cash for the developing world to tackle climate breakdown, there has also been criticism of the Cop presidency, held by Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s environment minister and a former oil company executive. Writing in the Guardian after the talks finished, Babayev blamed “western nations” for being “simply immovable” on the cash on offer, which he said was “too low”.

Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) who oversaw the 2015 Paris agreement and is the co-founder of the Global Optimism thinktank, was critical of Babayev’s comments.

“It is such a betrayal of the role of a Cop president, [who] needs to hold the information of what is going on very tightly and use it for common benefit, to come out and say: this country did that and that country did whatever, and try to lay blame at the feet of different countries, for something that should have been managed very differently,” she said, in her Outrage and Optimism podcast. “I’m really aghast. I’ve never seen this.”

Babayev remains in charge of the UN climate negotiations until next November, when Brazil will take over for the Cop30 talks.

Figueres said the presidency had failed to prepare the ground at Cop29 for a successful deal. “A very, very complicated agreement can never be reached at the last moment. It has to be put on the table and matured throughout the year, not throughout the Cop, which is only two weeks,” she said. “The responsibility of the presidency should have been to begin to mature the landing ground throughout the entire year … not to expect a miraculous solution to evolve during the two weeks.”

Yvo de Boer, another former executive secretary of UNFCCC, who oversaw the Copenhagen Cop in 2009, which was also characterised by vituperation and chaotic scenes, said: “The Cop presidency serves the interest of all parties. It should therefore avoid any impression of serving national interests. The solution is to have a presidency team that is distinct from the national delegation.”

Duarte said: “I have no doubt the presidency did the best they could.”