Nature-friendly farming budget swells in UK – but cuts elsewhere make recovery fraught

| Insights & Views

Nature in the UK appeared to receive a rare funding boost in the June spending review, with the government setting a spending target of up to 2 billion a year for Englands environmental land management (ELM) scheme by...

US backs Nato’s latest pledge of support for Ukraine, but in reality seems to have abandoned its European partners

| Insights & Views

Recent news from Ukraine has generally been bad. Since the end of May, ever larger Russian air strikes have been documented against Ukrainian cities with devastating consequences for civilians, including in the countrys...

Are people at the South Pole upside down?

| Insights & Views

When I was standing at the South Pole, I felt the same way I feel anywhere on Earth because my feet were still on the ground and the sky was still overhead. Im an astrophysicist from Wisconsin who lived at the South Pole...

Nations are increasingly ‘playing the field’ when it comes to US and China – a new book explains explains why ‘active nonalignment’ is on the march

| Insights & Views

In 2020, as Latin American countries were contending with the triple challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, a global economic shock and U.S. policy under the first Trump administration, Jorge Heine, research professor at...

Thailand’s judiciary is flexing its muscles, but away from PM’s plight, dozens of activists are at the mercy of capricious courts

| Insights & Views

Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is currently feeling the sharp end of the countrys powerful judiciary. On July 2, 2025, Thailands Constitutional Court suspended Paetongtarn from office as a result of a leaked...

From Seattle to Atlanta, new social housing programs seek to make homes permanently affordable for a range of incomes

| Insights & Views

Seattle astounded housing advocates around the country in February 2025, when roughly two-thirds of voters approved a ballot initiative proposing a new 5% payroll tax on salaries in excess of US$1 million. The expected...

Misinformation lends itself to social contagion – here’s how to recognize and combat it

| Insights & Views

In 2019, a rare and shocking event in the Malaysian peninsula town of Ketereh grabbed international headlines. Nearly 40 girls age 12 to 18 from a religious school had been screaming inconsolably, claiming to have seen a...