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The heightened alert followed an emergency meeting with flu experts in Geneva that convened after a sharp rise in cases in Australia, and rising numbers in Britain, Japan, Chile and elsewhere

What does that represent? an emergency meeting？flu experts？or Geneva

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    an emergency meeting [...] that convened
    – Lambie
    Commented Jul 5 at 14:13
  • that (or equivalent which was is optional in the cited context. But you can tell what it refers back to by putting a full stop after with flu experts in Geneva. In order for the (new) next sentence to make sense, you'd have to insert the relevant subject An emergency meeting before convened. Note the intransitive use of to convene in the original (effectively, the meeting convened itself, rather than was convened "transitively" by the flu experts).
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 5 at 15:40

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That has antecedent emergency meeting, which means the emergency meeting convened after a sharp rise in cases.

Convened is intransitive here.

A similar construction using this verb this way can be found in the section Examples of convene in a Sentence.

This class convenes twice a week.

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    Does it? I don't see that to be true. While I think "meeting" is the more likely referent, I don't think that "experts" is ineligible, just that context and common usage makes "meeting" more likely. (Plus, there's no impact to the meaning.)
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 5 at 14:46
  • Thanks, @Andy Bonner. You’re right. The experts convened is valid.
    – Seowjooheng Singapore
    Commented Jul 5 at 14:55
  • Wouldn't that have to be who convened?
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jul 5 at 14:56
  • @KateBunting Welllll that's a debate covered here a lot. Looks like the best link might be english.stackexchange.com/a/11339/425655
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 5 at 15:00
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    Good point about the intransitive use. I didn't see that in the first answer, and failed to scroll down to this until I'd already pointed it out in a comment. Of copurse, it's only a contextual assumption that the meeting was convened by "flu experts". It's quite possible to suppose that government leaders convened the meeting, and told their flu experts to attend.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 5 at 15:41
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The heightened alert followed //an emergency meeting with flu experts in Geneva// that convened after a sharp rise in cases in Australia, and rising numbers in Britain, Japan, Chile and elsewhere. that=the antecedent is an emergency meeting.Meetings are convened, not experts.

However, it's not well structured. This would be better:

Flu experts in Geneva issued a heightened alert after convening an emergency meeting due to a sharp rise in cases in Australia, and rising numbers in Britain, Japan, Chile and elsewhere.

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