Report: Sexual exploitation and abuse are endemic in UN humanitarian division
In September last year, during investigations by The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Beni – 60 kilometres northeast of Butembo – the 51 women said dozens of men, mostly foreigners, had coerced them into having sex in exchange for jobs. The majority of those claims were also...
Cement: The polluter environmentalists hate, builders and building owners love
Cement is everywhere, but few people notice the impact it has on the environment. A standard building material used everywhere it is often confused with concrete. Cement is a key component in making concrete. By burning limestone at extremely high temperatures, this process turns the stone into a fine powder...
Cement-based batteries to turn concrete buildings into giant energy reserves
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have published unique research into the idea of rechargeable batteries made from cement. The team, led by Dr Emma Zhang and Prof Luping Tang at the institution’s Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, believes the development of this technology may yield a...
Bill Gates: Microsoft’s philanthropic serial philanderer hemmed in by a soft dress
When the news first broke that Bill and Melinda French Gates were getting divorced, it punctured the public image many of us had of the glossy magazine-cover power couple, seemingly as committed to each other as they were to saving the world. That revelation, however, probably barely registers in your...
Six orphaned Zimbabwean elephant calves on verge of being released into the wild
Six orphaned elephant calves moved 900 kilometres closer to freedom this week after they translocated from Harare to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, conservation non-governmental organisation, Wild is Life (WIL), has announced. Chief executive and founder of Wild is Life (WIL) Roxy Danckwerts said when he announced the imminent release of...
Last safe haven: UN workers turned Ebola response in DRC into a sex abuse epidemic
More than 20 Congolese women have accused aid workers of sexual abuse in new claims that include rape and unwanted pregnancies, with UN investigators uncovering similar allegations of workers exploiting vulnerable women. The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to 22 women in Butembo who said male aid...
AstraZeneca and Pfizer Covid vaccines combination produces potent immune response
Vaccinating people with both the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines produces a potent immune response against the virus SARS-CoV-2, researchers conducting a study in Spain have found. Preliminary results from the trial of more than 600 people – announced in an online presentation on May 16 – are the first...
New pneumonia-causing coronavirus traced to dogs discovered in patients in Malaysia
In the past 20 years, new coronaviruses have emerged from animals with remarkable regularity. In 2002, SARS-CoV jumped from civets into people. Ten years later, MERS emerged from camels. Then in 2019, SARS-CoV-2 began to spread around the world. For many scientists, this pattern points to a disturbing trend: Coronavirus...
Nearly century-old error WHO and CDCs cite as key Covid prevention tool
In the past, graduate student Katie Randall would have acquired the book, In Before Times, through interlibrary loan. With the pandemic shutting down universities, that was no longer an option. On the wilds of the open internet, Randall tracked down a first edition from a rare book seller for $500...
Book review: America’s jolly physics Nobel laureate who nearly bombed Nevada
In the early 1950s, the physicist Frederick Reines and his colleague Clyde Cowan designed an experiment to detect neutrinos, the tiniest and most elusive of subatomic particles. Theorists were convinced that neutrinos must exist – and that they would be untraceable. And Reines liked nothing better than a challenge. The...
