Category: World

“You’d see massive glacier calvings, and you’d just want to cry. But all the guests would be cheering. And you’d be like … ‘can you not put two and two together?’” Those are the words of a former Antarctic tour guide we interviewed. For anyone interested in nature, few jobs sound more enviable. You spend […]

There are few pleasures greater than letting a piece of chocolate melt slowly on your tongue. Indeed, the proximity of chocolate’s melting point to our own body temperature is one of the reasons it is so widely appreciated. But this quality also makes it go soft and lose shape when temperatures rise, making it hard […]

Ongoing problems in the criminal justice system in England and Wales, from overcrowding in prisons to court backlogs, have raised fundamental questions about how and why we punish people. Advocates for a more rehabilitative, less punitive system often point to Scandinavian prisons as a model for how things could be done better. My colleagues and […]

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Ten years at Troy. Ten more lost at sea. When Odysseus finally reaches Ithaca – in Homer’s poem and again, played by Matt Damon in Christopher Nolan’s new film – he doesn’t walk through the door and say who he is. He lies. He invents […]

In brief: Hormuz shipping remains almost completely halted.  6,000 seafarers remain stranded aboard 500 ships.  Tolls for safe passage illegal international law.  Higher energy prices lift global trade values. In an update, the UN International Maritime Organization – IMO – has told UN News that “very few ships, if any” are actually sailing across the […]

Russia’s war against Ukraine is not going according to Vladimir Putin’s original plan. The Russian president’s initial strategy called for the war to be won within ten days, but Ukraine’s spirited defence in the first months of the war robbed Russia of the initiative. Now, four and a half years later, the frontline inside Ukraine […]

With around 3 000 hours of sunshine a year, Malta is ideally placed to harness the sun’s energy. But its scorching summers, salty sea air and occasional Saharan dust storms also make it one of Europe’s toughest environments for solar panels. For Dr Brian Azzopardi, a renewable energy researcher from Malta, those challenging conditions present a unique […]

Thank you so much Foreign Minister Trung and can I thank you first of all for your warm welcome today and for Vietnam’s excellent support as our country coordinator over the past year, we are extremely grateful to you. And thank you to Secretary Lazaro and the Philippines for their leadership as ASEAN Chair and […]

The Justice Department, together with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), announced today the filing of a complaint against Cixi Miaojie Electrical Appliance Co. Ltd., and Changsha Jiayi Tianzhuo Trading Co. Ltd. of China, seeking mandatory recall relief for consumers under the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA) for Defendants’ manufacture and sale of allegedly imminently […]

Digging them out of the ground may be the most straightforward part of the process.  Around the world, the United Nations is helping countries make sure these valuable resources create decent jobs, protect the environment and benefit local communities – not just global supply chains. Argentina: Putting communities at the centre of the lithium boom […]