Ukraine reporter’s diary: After all the horror they’d experienced, the desperation I saw was hard to process
I’ve been covering conflict in Ukraine for more than eight years. I was in the country when Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24 last year and have visited several times since. Still, I was shocked by what I saw during my latest reporting trip in January. Before the...
Geneva report paints gory picture of cost of living in Haiti cities, security risks of economic collapse
Less than two years after Haiti’s president was assassinated in his home, a stranglehold of gang violence has made life for millions of residents all but impossible as national security forces struggle to contain it. Hunger levels and humanitarian needs are rising. But some 60per cent of the capital, Port-au-Prince,...
Islamist rebel attacks linked to soaring mental disorder cases in troubled eastern DR Congo – reports
The M23 insurgency has absorbed the attention of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government and led to a flurry of regional peace efforts over the past year. Yet the conflict is just one of many driving humanitarian needs in the country. Of the more than 300 armed groups active...
Details emerge of how retired US institute infectious diseases boss clandestinely talked Chinese scientist accused of developing Covid
As the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, Anthony Fauci met with a US collaborator of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) about his gain-of-function research, emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests suggest. On February 11, 2020, Fauci met with US virologist Ralph Baric, according to a copy of his...
Why China fined GlaxoSmithKline $500 million, deported top executive for bribing doctors to prescribe cancerous drug Zantac
Nevertheless, the warning signs continued to build up. A 1980 report titled “Glaxo, Ranitidine – Cause for Concern,” found that ranitidine could potentially form a potentially dangerous, and cancerous, compound in the stomach. Glaxo, which was seeking FDA approval for Zantac, prepared for “defensive action” to protect itself from the...
How basic human resource issues, recruitment competition hamper essential aid operations in Ukraine
A lack of flexibility among leading humanitarian agencies has led to waste and needs being left unmet in Ukrain. According to Iana Dashkovska, of children’s cancer charity Zaporuka, some international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) did not budget enough money for blankets last year and were unable to adjust their budgets when...
Wary minorities say ‘Ethiopia is a federation of ethnicities and everyone deserves to feel safe’
When war broke out in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region in November 2020, residents of the town of Adebay, close to the Eritrean border, woke to the sounds of gunfire and revving engines. Eritrean soldiers were beating up civilians and forcing them onto military trucks, two witnesses say. They estimated that...
Despite progress, fieldwork and research remain a stumbling block for Indian women in science
It was a scorching summer morning in 2018 in rural Purulia in West Bengal, when geologist and palaeobiologist Sanjukta Chakravorti, who was working on her PhD thesis then, had taken a break from her excavations and was approached by two school girls. “Didi, what are you doing?” one of them...
One year after Russian invasion, Ukraine exposes the limits of well-funded international aid
As the power returns following one of the now frequent electricity cuts that ripple across Ukraine, Kylyna Kurochka logs on to her laptop and finds herself faced with dozens of messages, each one begging for help. “I’m 73 years old, my husband 78. We are IDPs (internally displaced people) …...
Long thought to be deaf to auditory stimulus, new research reveals snakes can actually hear
Dare to get close enough to a snake of some kind, you’ll quickly notice there’s no sign of an ear for you to whisper into. Not a flap, flop, or furrow to be seen. So, you might be mistaken to thinking they’re a little hard of hearing. “Snakes are very...
