Fewer deaths, new substances and evolving treatments in Philly’s opioid epidemic − 4 essential reads

| Insights & Views

In Philadelphia, fatal overdoses are the No. 3 cause of death after heart disease and cancer. Thats been the case each year since 2016, except in 2020 and 2021 when COVID-19 deaths outpaced overdose deaths. The vast...

Remembering China’s Empress Dowager Ling, a Buddhist who paved the way for future female rulers

| Insights & Views

In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei. Historians do not know her birth name or in what year she was born, but they do know that she served as...

What is the rules-based order? How this global system has shifted from ‘liberal’ origins − and where it could be heading next

| Insights & Views

The phrase international rules-based order has long been a fixture in global politics. Western leaders often use it to describe a framework of rules, norms and institutions designed to guide state behavior. Advocates argue...

The Living Mountain: why a second world war meditation on nature’s fragility and wonder is still relevant today

| Insights & Views

Nan Shepherds The Living Mountain is not a book about conquering peaks or mapping uncharted terrain. It is instead a deeply felt, poetic encounter with the Cairngorms. This vast mountain range in north-east Scotland has...

Rwanda has moved people into model ‘green’ villages: is life better there?

| Insights & Views

After the devastating 1994 genocide, Rwandans returning from the violence established homes and began farming where they could find land. Since then, the Rwandan government has aimed to bring people scattered across rural...

The threat of indifference to poverty, environmental damage and disease – and what it will take to reinvent international solidarity

| Insights & Views

The collapse of western funding for international aidfor both emergency humanitarian operations and official development assistance (ODA)is a major blow. The dramatic consequences for the neglected populations are the...

Christian nationalism in the U.S. is eerily reminiscent of ‘dominionist’ reformers in history

| Insights & Views

In this etching from Dutch theologian Lambertus Hortensius 1614 book Van den oproer der weder-dooperen, Anabaptists warn the residents of Amsterdam of the coming vengeance of Christ in 1535. (Lambertus Hortensius)...