Perspective

Narendra Modi set lofty climate goals at the COP26 climate conference. But his government has also watered down India's environmental rules, used protected lands for industrial purposes and stifled environmentalists, including 23-year-old Disha Ravi. In 2019 she launched the Indian wing of Fridays For Future, the movement inspired by Greta Thunberg. She was also arrested in 2021 for sedition and conspiracy over a document connected to India's farmer protests. She joins us on Perspective.

Since the start of the war, more than 5 million Ukrainians have fled the country, resulting in Europe's fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. With women and children making up as many as 90% of refugees, international organizations and rights groups are warning of the growing risk of sexual violence and human trafficking. Ilias Chatzis, the head of the human trafficking and migrant smuggling section at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime joined us on Perspective for a closer look.

French photojournalist and war photographer Patrick Chauvel has covered over thirty conflicts, from Vietnam to Bosnia and Iraq – and now Ukraine. He explains how his early appetite for adventure soon evolved into an impulse that would go on to shape his life profoundly: a desire to tell the stories of people who find themselves caught up in extraordinary – and often horrifying – circumstances.

Maysoon Pachachi’s latest feature film explores the agonising decisions faced by an interwoven cast of friends and family living in Baghdad in 2006. The film’s narrative unfolds over the course of the last week of 2006, a timeframe that culminates in the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. But this is not a film about justice, but about how normal people who find themselves living amidst the rubble of war come to answer the eternal question: to stay or to go?

According to the UN World Food Programme, the war in Ukraine is creating a local agricultural and global food supply catastrophe beyond anything seen since World War II. Some 30 percent of the world's wheat supply comes from the region, with some African and Middle Eastern countries depending on Russia or Ukraine for up to 80 percent of their wheat imports. Rabah Arezki, former chief economist for the MENA region at the World Bank, joined us on Perspective to tell us more.

According to some estimates, the fashion industry emits as much as 3 billion metric tonnes of CO2 annually, contributing more to climate change than the aviation and shipping industries combined. Making matters worse, less than 1 percent of all clothing globally is recycled, creating a vicious cycle of mass consumption and waste. So how can companies and consumers diminish their impact on the planet? Livia Firth, co-founder of a consulting agency specialised in sustainability, joined us for Perspective.

A Roman Catholic priest has begun documenting the stories of those whose lives have been devastated by the war in Ukraine. Father Patrick Desbois is a former head of the Church's Commission for Relations with Judaism and spent years documenting the murder of 1.5 million Jews by the Nazis in Ukraine. He has now turned his attention to the present day, gathering eyewitness accounts from victims of what he says are war crimes and crimes against humanity by Russian troops. He joined us for Perspective.

Sheep are often seen as an animal that's stupid, noisy and cowardly, albeit cute. We even use the expression "lambs to the slaughter". But is this assessment really fair? British author and farmer John Lewis-Stempel, an expert on farming and the environment, has written a book entitled "The Sheep’s Tale: The story of our most misunderstood farmyard animal". He joined us for Perspective.

Emmanuel Macron has become the first French president to be re-elected for two decades. But his victory is overshadowed by the fact that many voters cast their ballots tactically to keep the far right's Marine Le Pen out of power. What lessons does Macron need to draw? And what can we expect from June's legislative elections? We ask Andrew Smith, a senior lecturer in contemporary French history and politics at Chichester University. We also hear from our International Affairs Editor Philip Turle.

It's a controversial question, especially in France: do feminist, anti-racist and LGBTQ+ movements fall under the general scope of universalism? Or should they be broken down into smaller sub-movements to better address the intersectional nature of oppression? In her latest book "African Feminisms", University of Edinburgh professor Rama Salla Dieng considers what it means to be a feminist specifically in Africa, through a series of interviews with activists across the continent. She joined us for Perspective.