News Feature

When a host, whether bat or human, is infected with a disease-causing pathogen, the ensuing interaction is often described as a battle: The host’s immune system pulls out the big guns to fight and eradicate the invader. In immunology parlance, this is known as resistance; its end-game is destroying the...

Ranked-choice voting (here called instant-runoff voting) can also be used for contests that decide several seats at once, such as races for city councils or school boards. The counting is more involved, but the goal is to produce a slate of winners that roughly matches the partisan makeup of the...

After DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi’s visit to Goma, the government pledged to provide 1,000 temporary shelters, to be constructed by the military at a camp called Kanyarucinya. The International Federation of the Red Cross agreed to contribute 500 additional structures at another site, Kibati. Some aid workers who were...

Editor’s note: This is the first of two stories on the aftermath of the May volcanic eruption in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The New Humanitarian spent three weeks interviewing displaced people, aid workers, and employees at a local observatory tasked with monitoring the volatile Mount Nyiragongo. After one of...

Some of the countries that have been most successful at keeping Covid-19 at bay are now seeking ways to gingerly lower the barriers that protect them while minimising the risk that the disease will become endemic. China, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan all closed their borders last year and...

A herd of cows has been “potty-trained” in an experiment that scientists say could pave the way for more environmentally friendly farms. Waste from cattle farms often contaminates soil and waterways and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and the acidification of soil. For this reason, toilet-training cattle has long been...

The New Humanitarian Interview with Afghanistan’s acting health minister, Dr Wahid Majrooh, on situation after the Taliban takeover in Kabul. International aid donors must find a way to fund Afghanistan’s crumbling health system, or risk an even greater humanitarian catastrophe. This is the warning from the country’s acting health minister,...

International aid suspensions could shutter most of Afghanistan’s public health facilities, essentially leaving the country without a working healthcare system, officials and aid groups say. Some 2,000 donor-funded clinics and other health facilities could shut their doors within days, stripping access to primary or secondary healthcare from millions of people....

Founded in 1956 as a branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) initially focused on agricultural pests, a serious concern during the famine that began in 1959. During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, its research was disrupted, as 229 CAS scientists...