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Asia’s scamming gangs target Timor-Leste as their next frontier – but they may have misjudged the small island nation

Oecusse, a rugged, remote district of Timor-Leste in south-east Asia, is usually a pretty sleepy place. It’s located on the western side of Timor island, part of Indonesia, and is isolated geographically from the rest of Timor-Leste, which has governed the eastern side of the island since 2002.

The Conversation · Dec 11, 2025

Lahore’s toxic winters: how smog is reshaping daily life in urban Pakistan

In November 2025, Lahore, the second-largest city in Pakistan, registered a “hazardous” air quality index of 509, according to IQAir, a global air quality monitoring organisation. The number speaks for itself. Eyes sting, throats burn and headlights blur into halos. In winter, the city feels as though it has slipped…

The Conversation · Dec 11, 2025

How one Florida program reduced preterm births – and how it could serve as a model for other communities

One in 10 babies in the U.S. – nearly 374,000 infants – were born preterm in 2023, meaning before 37 weeks of pregnancy. More than 15% were very preterm, meaning they were born before 32 weeks. A full-term pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.

The Conversation · Dec 11, 2025

What these Danish activists can teach the rest of the world about fighting climate crisis

Burning forests, flooded streets, a planet spinning toward collapse. Climate activists around the world face disaster and despair on a daily basis. Research suggests that although campaigners are deeply committed to tackling the crisis, they face a high risk of burnout.

The Conversation · Dec 10, 2025

Why Grand Designs-style eco-homes aren’t a good blueprint for sustainable living

A family builds an off-grid home in rural Wales. TV celebrates it as a blueprint for net-zero living. But what if this vision of sustainability simply doesn’t scale up?

The Conversation · Dec 9, 2025

How ‘everyday AI’ encourages overconsumption

From automatically generated overviews to chatbots in spreadsheets, so-called artificial intelligence is increasingly being integrated into our watches, phones, home assistants and other smart devices.

The Conversation · Dec 9, 2025

Jane Austen’s happiness was complicated – her last heroine in Persuasion knew why

Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is a podcast from The Conversation celebrating 250 years since the author’s birth. In each episode, we’ll be investigating a different aspect of Austen’s personality by interrogating one of her novels with leading researchers. Along the way, we visit locations important to Austen to uncover a…

The Conversation · Dec 9, 2025

From concrete walls to living edges, here’s how riverside habitats are being restored along the Thames

The Thames estuary in southeast England — the tidal stretch of the river — once supported extensive saltmarshes, seagrass meadows and oyster beds. These shallow areas, which flood and drain with the tides, provided vital feeding and nursery grounds for fish. But centuries of urban development have replaced them with…

The Conversation · Dec 8, 2025

Florida’s new reporting system is shining a light on human trafficking in the Sunshine State

Most Americans imagine human trafficking as a violent kidnapping or a “stranger danger” crime – someone abducted from a parking lot or trapped in a shipping container brought in from another country.

The Conversation · Dec 8, 2025

In Kyiv, I saw how art can help hold a city together in the shadow of war

It’s 2:44 am. An air siren cuts through the clear night sky over Kyiv and into my sleep. Heart pounding, I rise out of bed in my seventh-floor room of the Hotel Rus. Feeling like I’m on autopilot, I walk down the stairs to the bomb shelter. Chairs are lined…

The Conversation · Dec 8, 2025