From floods in Pakistan to droughts in the Horn of Africa, extreme weather events are already forcing millions of people to move. Most are displaced within their own countries but rising temperatures and sea levels could soon push many across national borders. Yet international law offers little protection for those uprooted by the changing climate, and few countries appear ready for the scale of movement predicted in coming decades. Charmaine Cozier explores how communities, governments and int...
Nov 11, 2025•24 min
Matcha, a long-time popular drink in Japan, has gone global. Major chains now serve it, and coffee start-ups are competing to offer their own photogenic takes on the vivid green drink. But the growing craze exposes bigger problems for the wider tea industry. Tea is a delicate crop, highly sensitive to changing weather conditions. Around the world, farmers are reporting falling yields, altered growing seasons and a higher risk of disease due to climate change. Labour shortages and economic issues...
Nov 04, 2025•24 min
In the aftermath of World War Two, the charter that founded the United Nations was signed, with the aim of preventing a third global conflict. The UN Security Council, one of six organs of the UN, has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It’s made up of 15 member countries, there are 10 rotating non-permanent members who are elected for two-year terms by members of the UN General Assembly, the body that represents all UN members. And there are five ...
Oct 28, 2025•23 min
Benin has long tried to highlight its role in the transatlantic slave trade through monuments and memorials in the country, in the hope it would attract tourism. Now it has a new plan. It is offering citizenship to descendants of enslaved Africans around the world. US singers Lauryn Hill and Ciara received their citizenship in July. Filmmaker Spike Lee and his wife Tonya Lewis Lee have also been made Benin’s ambassadors to the African-American population in America. The move is an attempt to att...
Oct 21, 2025•23 min
At the beginning of September 2025, within 48 hours, Nepal’s government had been toppled, and more than 70 people had been killed, with many more injured. The trigger for all of this had been a government ban on 26 social media platforms, but the primary reasons ran much deeper. Nepal became a republic in 2008, following a decade long civil war, but since then, the promised stability and prosperity have failed to materialise. The country has been subjected to short term coalition governments, re...
Oct 14, 2025•23 min
Donald Trump once dismissed cryptocurrencies as a scam. But since returning to office, his view of them has shifted dramatically. In July, President Trump signed new legislation aimed at integrating crypto into the financial mainstream. Members of the Trump family have launched their own ventures, generating significant profits and boosting the visibility of digital currencies in American politics. Supporters say this could reassert the dominance of the US dollar in a changing global economy, wh...
Oct 07, 2025•23 min
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection passed on to humans by infected ticks. Symptoms can range from fatigue, joint pain and a circular shaped rash to facial paralysis and heart arrythmia. According to a British Medical Journal (BMJ) global health review, Lyme disease has likely infected about one in 10 people across the globe. Recently, pop star Justin Timberlake went public about contracting the condition. If treated quickly, most people will recover but there are still issues around diagnosin...
Sep 30, 2025•23 min
The major rivers of the Rio Grande and the Colorado run through both the United States and Mexico and they are the source of a water sharing agreement between the two countries that dates back to 1944. Under the terms of this treaty, Mexico must send 430 million cubic metres of water per year from the Rio Grande to the US, to supply Texas and dozens of cities near the border. Whilst the US sends a much larger allocation of nearly 1.85 billion cubic metres of water a year, from the Colorado River...
Sep 23, 2025•23 min
Deepfakes are videos, picture or audio clips made with artificial intelligence to look real. Although sometimes used for fun, they can also be used to defame or discredit people. Anyone from politicians to celebrities to normal members of the public can become the subject of deepfake imagery. So how can we protect our image from being used maliciously? In Denmark, the government is proposing a new law which would give people copyright-like protection over their face, voice, and appearance. In th...
Sep 16, 2025•23 min
In January, the popular Chinese social media app TikTok went offline for its 170 million Americans. The outage marked a turning point in a long-running dispute over data privacy and national security, with US lawmakers concerned about the app’s Chinese ownership. A law passed by Congress required ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to sell its US operations or face a ban. Although ByteDance did not meet the deadline, the newly inaugurated President Trump postponed enforcement, introducing a time...
Sep 09, 2025•23 min
“There is no longer any debate that space is a war fighting domain,” These were the words of Commander General Stephen Whiting from the US government’s Space Command at a conference earlier this year. China, the US, India and Russia have tested anti-satellite weapons in space, and technology is blurring the lines between civilian and military satellites. But will there be war in space? Joining us to discuss the threat of satellite warfare are: Dr Raji Rajagopalan, a resident senior fellow with t...
Sep 03, 2025•23 min
A far-right party which came to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic recently showed itself to be a contender to Japan’s centrist political establishment, when it grew from one seat, three years ago to 15 seats in the recent elections. Known as Sanseito, the party is led by Kamiya Sohei, whose YouTube videos spread conspiracy theories about vaccinations. Its political platform is a nationalist ‘Japanese first’ agenda and warns against a ‘silent invasion of foreigners’. Whilst for Japan’s ruli...
Aug 26, 2025•23 min
Children in Indonesia are now receiving free school meals — part of a bold new plan by President Prabowo Subianto to tackle malnutrition. Around one in five children in the country are stunted, meaning they are too short for their age. The lunch programme is central to Prabowo’s vision of a “Golden Indonesia” – a prosperous, high-income nation by 2045. But not everyone is happy. To fund this and other populist pledges, the president has reallocated billions in public funds, cutting budgets from ...
Aug 19, 2025•23 min
When the war in Ukraine began back in February 2022, the remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicle or drone as its commonly known, was peripheral to the conflict. But three years on, the drone in all its shapes and sizes has taken on a central role in this battle, in the air, on land and at sea, for surveillance, reconnaissance, combat and other purposes. Now drone technology is evolving even further into the area of autonomous weapons. But whilst the drone can offer greater strategic and operat...
Aug 12, 2025•23 min
In July, a brutal highway hijacking in southern Syria sparked tit-for-tat clashes between Druze and Bedouin fighters. During the week-long violence, over a thousand people were killed and more than 125,000 displaced. Syrian government forces and Israel also entered the conflict. The latest hostilities come less than a year after Syrians celebrated the end of dictatorship and the promise of renewal. The resurgence of sectarian violence raises urgent questions about interim President Ahmed al-Shar...
Aug 05, 2025•23 min
What lies behind the clashes on the Thai Cambodian border is a fractured friendship between the two nations. In July both countries strike each other with civilians killed and injured in the crossfire. More than a hundred thousand are evacuated. Thailand warns the clashes could escalate to war. In May a brief gunfire exchange killed a Cambodian soldier. Just over two weeks later surprising details from a recorded private phone conversation went public. On that 17-minute call to Cambodia was Thai...
Jul 25, 2025•23 min
In Chile, a powerful new telescope has just given a taster of what we can expect from it later this year, when it will be used to survey the cosmos over a ten-year period. In one image it revealed vast colourful gas and dust clouds swirling in a star-forming region 9,000 light years from the Earth. Housed in the Vera C Rubin Observatory, which sits on a mountain in the Chilean Andes, the telescope is designed to get giant images of the sky about one hundred times larger and quicker than any othe...
Jul 22, 2025•23 min
More and more of the tasks we perform in our daily lives are been guided by artificial intelligence, from searching the internet for answers to relying on satellite navigation in our cars. But studies recently released suggest that our use of AI is having a negative impact on our ability to make informed judgements and decisions. In one recent study from MiT’s Media Lab, a group of people were asked to write several essays. Some of them used AI, others didn’t. Those who used generative AI report...
Jul 15, 2025•23 min
Brazil’s Zebu cattle, or “supercows” are bred for size, strength, and meat quality. Every year the animals are showcased at ExpoZebu, Brazil’s premier cattle fair. These animals are preened, pampered, and prized, before being sold for millions for their genetic material. Zebu cattle were not always part of Brazil’s landscape. After being imported from India in the late 19th century, farmers found their resilience to heat, pests, and poor pasture made them ideal for Brazil’s expanding cattle fron...
Jul 08, 2025•23 min
Ahead of last year’s US Presidential elections, Donald Trump was asked if he would defend China against Taiwan, he responded that Taiwan should pay the US for protection from China. Taiwan is a self-governing island, claimed by Beijing and whilst Taiwan is not formally recognised by the US, they do remain the island’s most important security partner. Taiwan manufactures over ninety percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips, which makes some American industries heavily dependent on...
Jul 01, 2025•23 min
The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the most important energy corridors in the world. It is the only sea route from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, it serves as the primary maritime route for oil exports from the Gulf. Any disruption to traffic through the strait would have implications for oil markets and regional stability. While some Gulf states have developed pipelines to bypass the strait, the volume of oil transported by sea is far greater, and for many countries, including key Gulf ex...
Jun 25, 2025•23 min
During a speech to the Spanish parliament earlier this year, the country’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez claimed there’s one thing that would guarantee lasting peace in Europe. His idea is the creation of a new army drawn from the 27 countries whose governments already work together as members of the European Union. The concept isn't a new one - and NATO already exists, the military alliance which includes EU member states and other European countries. But talk of a new military force is reappear...
Jun 17, 2025•23 min
The creation of a landmark gene editing drug used to treat a baby with a rare genetic mutation which could help transform personalized medicine. Blood tests showed baby KJ had sky-high levels of ammonia, a toxic substance the body usually expels. The root cause was his genes - or more particularly a specific gene mutation. The race was on to try and treat him before his condition took a firm hold. His doctors came up with a radical solution - for the first time ever, they designed and applied a ...
Jun 10, 2025•23 min
The economic fortunes of the Southern Africa country of Botswana were transformed back in the mid 1960s when shortly after gaining independence from Britain, its first diamond mine was discovered. A partnership with the world’s biggest diamond firm DeBeers ensured Botswana’s diamonds gained global attention and with some of the world’s biggest diamonds been mined in the country, it now ranks just below Russia in terms of its importance in the industry. But post pandemic, the global market has se...
Jun 03, 2025•23 min
Fungal diseases are becoming more common, more dangerous, and more difficult to treat. There’s concern that they may cause the next global pandemic. Rising global temperatures, better survival rates for vulnerable patients, and increased medical interventions contribute to the rise in fungal infections. Access to effective diagnostics and treatment remains limited, with significant disparities between high and low-income countries. Treating fungal infections is becoming more challenging as they ...
May 27, 2025•23 min
A domestic rice shortage in Japan has caused supermarket shelves to empty and prices to double. Rice is more than a staple food in Japan—it carries deep cultural, historical and even spiritual significance. The rice crisis highlights broader weaknesses in Japan’s economy. Japan imports over half of its food and has experienced persistent inflation. The country’s economic resilience is being tested by supply chain pressures, demographic shifts, and increased trade tensions. Efforts to address the...
May 20, 2025•23 min
“Measles is back, and it’s a wake-up call,” proclaimed one regional director from the World Health Organisation who went on to add, “without high vaccination rates, there is no health security.” Measles is a childhood disease which can be deadly. We’ve been successfully vaccinating against it for decades. So much so that many younger physicians have never seen a child with the disease. But recently, the recorded number of cases has been rising - and this is a global trend. Measles is one of the ...
May 13, 2025•23 min
Serbia’s citizens have been protesting for over six months, taking part in demonstrations around the country in reaction to their government’s alleged corruption. Though the country’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, has attempted to appease them, the movement shows no sign of slowing down. Situated in the Western Balkans, Serbia has had a long history of conflict; from the Ottoman Empire to the dissolution of Yugoslavia, but the ongoing civil unrest comes at a crossroads moment for President Vučić....
May 06, 2025•23 min
Scientists at a bio-technology firm made headlines when they announced the “de-extinction” of the dire wolf, a species of wolf that went extinct on Earth over 10,000 years ago. Colossal Biosciences examined DNA from ancient dire wolf fossils and used it to create wolf puppies with traits of the extinct species. The gene editing technology sparked curiosity around the world, and although the new wolves were not exact replicas of the originals they had similar traits. The development raises seriou...
Apr 30, 2025•23 min
Earlier this month President Trump announced radical new taxes on foreign imports amounting to what he described as ‘Liberation Day' for the United States. It was a promise he made to American voters during last year’s election campaign but the scale of the tariffs caught many countries by surprise. Global financial markets plunged as investors braced themselves for a shock to the flow of international trade. Faced with prolonged market turmoil, within days the US president paused most of his pl...
Apr 22, 2025•23 min
