Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Humans are now the greatest threat to planet Earth – so why aren’t we hearing about it?
Front page news has been focused on ‘Russian meddling’ in the US election and Brexit negotiations — while subjects that define our planet go unmentioned, says SHANE QUINN
A Tyrannosaurus rex skull is cleaned in Newcastle. Human activity has raised the extinction rate of species to its highest level since an asteroid put paid to the dinosaurs
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
THE rate of global species extinction is today roughly what it was 66 million years ago, after an asteroid six to nine miles across careered into south-eastern Mexico, quickly wiping out the dinosaurs and much else.
The force of the asteroid, which struck the planet at the end of the Cretaceous period, was over a billion times stronger than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Now, the human species is approaching the destructive equivalent of this asteroid. Due to expanding human activity, scientists estimate that each day extinction is being inflicted upon 150 to 200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal.
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ROGER McKENZIE argues that Western powers can see the beginning of the end in the rise of the global South — and racist reactions are kicking in
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200 years since the first dinosaur was described and 25 after its record-breaking predecessor, the BBC has brought back Walking with Dinosaurs. BEN CHACKO assesses what works and what doesn’t