By Angela Glindemann, PhD Candidate, Creative Writing, RMIT University
Authors Hannah Kent and Toni Jordan got their start through writers centre initiatives. If Victoria loses its centre, it will be the only mainland state without one.
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By Will de Freitas, Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation
This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine.
“Observing Greenland from a helicopter,” one scientist wrote last year, “the main problem is one of comprehending scale. I thought we were skimming low over the waves of a fjord, before … realising what I suspected were floating shards of ice were in fact icebergs the size of office blocks. I thought we were hovering high in the sky over a featureless icy plane below, before bumping down gently onto ice only a few metres below us.”
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By Toby Newstead, Senior Lecturer in Management, University of Tasmania
Suze Wilson, Associate Professor, School of Management and Marketing Te Kahui Kahurangi, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
Five years ago, as Australia burned through the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison was photographed relaxing on a Hawaiian beach.
When he returned, his now-infamous words – “I don’t hold a hose, mate” – epitomised a crisis leadership approach that came across as being built on…
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By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation
This newsletter was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.
Fears that Donald Trump’s newly minted “Board of Peace” might supplant the United Nations appear to have been premature. The US president has touted his brainchild as “an international organization” that aims to “secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”.…
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By Anna Marie Brennan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Waikato
Greenland is central to US Space Force strategies for orbital dominance. Laws and treaties designed to maintain the peace in space are looking increasingly outdated.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A vote in progress in the House of Representatives at Parliament House on January 20, 2026, in Canberra, Australia. © 2026 Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images This week, Australia passed new laws that expand government authority to ban hate groups and impose tougher penalties for hate crimes. The legislation is part of the government’s response to Sydney’s Bondi Beach mass shooting in December when two gunmen killed 15 people at celebrations for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.States are obligated under international human rights law to protect people from racial…
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By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Listen to Paul Bierman, an expert on Greenland’s ice, talk to The Conversation Weekly podcast about the history of the island’s ice sheet.
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By Darryn DiFrancesco, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Human and Health Sciences, University of Northern British Columbia
Following the recent shooting of Renee Good by an agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States, the Donald Trump administration’s latest narrative suggests that “deluded wine moms” are to blame for the violence in ICE-related demonstrations in Minneapolis and across the country.
This mother-blaming is nothing more than an old trick with a new spin.
Organized gangs of ‘wine moms’
Earlier this…
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By Francesco Grillo, Academic Fellow, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University
Donald Trump’s newly launched “Board of Peace” presents itself as a bold attempt to break with what its founders describe as decades of failed international diplomacy. Its charter opens with a declaration that few would openly dispute: “Durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common-sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed.”
It is true that the world urgently needs to overcome decades of inertia to reform its international…
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By Michael Richardson, Professor of Animal Development, Leiden University
Le Yang, PhD Candidate, Biological Effects of Nanomaterials, Leiden University
Over the past few years, studies have suggested that plastic particles from bottles, food packaging and waste have been detected in human blood, lungs, placentas, arteries and even the brain. But a recent investigation by the Guardian suggests that some of these claims may be less robust than they first appeared.
The idea that tiny fragments of plastic might be accumulating in human bodies is unsettling. This concern stems largely from evidence that nanoplastics – the very smallest plastic fragments –…
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