CATEGORIES

Fortress Europe: EU policies have turned migrants into a resource to be exploited

A company of men in dark uniforms and balaclavas, all carrying clubs.

Cold comfort: The lucrative route from the Middle East to Minsk

Travel agents and migrants who have reached Poland describe how thousands are making the journey

BELARUS/POLAND: Human collateral

Belarus's despotic leader has created a migrant crisis to goad the EU. But what happens next may be at the whim of Vladimir Putin

A fragile agreement Inside the final hours of Cop26

A sweary delegates trudged into the Scottish Event Campus on the banks of the Clyde last Saturday, few realised what a mountain they still had to climb.

#FreeBritney Why a band of superfans are carrying on the fight

The liberation last week of Britney Spears from her nearly 14-year conservatorship was a landmark moment for the pop star.

Dozens dead after renewed gang violence in prison

At least 68 prisoners were killed and 25 injured in a jail in the city of Guayaquil after bloodletting between rival gangs broke out last Friday, the attorney general’s office said.

Biden and Xi warn each other over future of Taiwan

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has warned Joe Biden in a virtual summit that Beijing was prepared to take “decisive measures” if Taiwan makes any moves towards independence that cross his country’s red lines.

To avert climate disaster, we need resilient societies built on love, not just technology

When things look especially bleak for humankind, it’s worth reminding ourselves who we are – what makes us such a special species.

The royal we Queen's rest reveals a roadmap to succession

With the 95-year-old monarch taking a break on doctor’s orders, a potentially fraught transition of duties has begun

Urdu phrase in fashion ad sparks ire of nationalists

Released just as festival season was kicking off across India, it looked like your average advert for celebratory attire. Models posed, resplendent in red and gold, showing off the newest collection by Fabindia that was said to “pay homage to Indian culture”.

World leaders agree deal to halt deforestation

Historic declaration at Glasgow climate conference commits countries to ending major cause of CO2 emissions

High and dry

The Middle East is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, but oil spoils keep its regimes in power. Can the Gulf states find a way to transition away from fossil-fuel exports and thus avoid their own self-destruction?

With infections rising, , the Tories are running a deadly experiment

A pandemic is a political event. It exposes who is vulnerable and who can afford to escape, who is prioritised for treatment and who is neglected. The politics of a pandemic are both large-scale and intensely personal. How we behave towards each other, what balance is struck between safety and freedom, how blame is distributed, what a country considers an acceptable level of illness and death: questions that may once have been philosophical have become frighteningly real.

“Thanks, I rented it! Why fashion rental is hotter than Balenciaga

Backstage after one of the London fashion week shows, I complimented the editor of a glossy magazine on the trouser suit she was wearing. She thanked me, and added - raising her voice a notch, glancing around - "It's rented, actually.” Then she said that my dress was very pretty, too. To which I was, thankfully, able to respond while possibly raising my voice just a smidgen - “This is rented, too.”

Don't send the'wrong signals', China warns Biden

China has urged the US to "avoid sending any wrong signals” after President Joe Biden for a second time in three months said the US would come to Taiwan's defence if it was attacked.

Lock him up! Report says Bolsonaro faces jail for Covid deaths

Jair Bolsonaro should be charged with crimes against humanity and jailed for his "macabre” reaction to Covid outbreak that has killed more than 600,000 Brazilians, including a disproportionate number of indigenous citizens, a congressional inquiry found last week.

Cultivating peace

George Orwell's love ofgardening inspires a volume that should appealto both the green-fingered and politically keen reader

Why is Jeff Bezos losing the billionaire space race?

The Amazon founder’s firm has galaxies of cash but is plagued by safety concerns and a toxic workplace culture

Washington tells London to placate Paris after sub snub

The US has urged Britain to follow its example and try to repair its relations with Paris in the wake of the row over France’s loss of its submarine contract with Australia.

The rise of autarky: How self-reliance is redefining trade

Suspicion and strained supply chains were already testing the global system before Covid-19 heightened isolationist impulses

Squid Game mirrors South Korea's real-life debt crisis

‘Why would I want to watch a bunch of people with huge debts? I can look in the mirror’ Choi Young-soo Debtor

Beijing makes plans for a green future

Is ‘ecological civilisation’ an empty slogan or a call to arms? Xi Jinping’s vision for a sustainable future was showcased at the opening of the UN biodiversity summit in Kunming last week, but the country remains dependent on coal

‘Ray of light' Shell liable for Nigerian oil spills in legal fi rst

A landmark ruling in London may allow communities to sue corporations for damage caused by their subsidiaries

Steaming in The fight for Darjeeling's cliff top train

‘Darjeeling ko san o rail, hirna lai abo tyari cha / Guard le shuna bhai siti bajayo” (Darjeeling’s dainty train is all set to chug off / Oh, listen to the guard blowing the whistle): these lines are familiar to generations of children in Darjeeling.

From pundit to president? The far-right rise of Éric Zemmour

He has been convicted for inciting racial hatred, attacked for claiming the Nazi collaborator Marshal Pétain saved French Jews rather than aiding their deportation to death camps, and was last week described by the French justice minister as a dangerous racist and Holocaust denier.

The woman who stood up to Facebook

Frances Haugen has been hailed as a hero after exposing the social network’s harmful practices. Can her testimony force it to change?

War rages on in the town at the heart of Iran's ambition

From a ridge known locally as Baghouz Mountain, the most contested corner of the Middle East resembles an oasis: it’s a splash of green on a desert horizon stretching from the banks of the Euphrates to a sprawling area of new homes and unruly neighbours.

Off message How Twitter expulsion left Trump in wilderness

It was just like old times. Last Wednesday alone, Donald Trump issued pronouncements on a potential war with China, what Congress should do about the debt ceiling, false claims of a stolen election and his Fox News ally “the great Sean Hannity”.

Fresh hurdle for Ardern as Covid strategy alters

New Zealand’s locked-down cities last week woke to a brave new world of lifted restrictions: state-sanctioned picnics in parks, the prospect of re-opening schools, a chance to reunite with friends and family.

Could the global death toll be far higher than we thought?

For the past 18 months, hunkered down in his apartment in Tel Aviv, Ariel Karlinsky has scoured the internet for data that could help him calculate the true death toll of Covid-19.