Assignment: The village versus the mine

Since the outbreak of war involving Iran, Israel and the U.S. in late February 2026, Iranians have been living through months of fear, instability and profound uncertainty. A fragile truce came into effect on April 8, but by May 2026 ceasefire efforts were still under strain, wit ...  Show more

The personal correspondence, photographs and papers of the late convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein have been released to the public in stages, beginning in December 2025, after an almost unanimous vote in the US Senate. The released files run to three and a half ...  Show more

Are lithium-powered electric vehicles as ‘green’ as we think they are? With the advent of electric cars, manufacturers tell us we’re racing towards a clean-energy future. It’s lithium that powers these vehicles. Most of the world’s stocks of this lightest of metals are found in b ...  Show more

Europe has been swept by a wave of protests by farmers, many of whom blame environmental policies for increasing their hardship. In Germany, farmers are angry about the phasing out of tax breaks on agricultural diesel. A policy aimed at reducing pesticide use was one of many grie ...  Show more

The Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2019 was awarded to John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino "for the development of lithium-ion batteries." These rechargeable batteries are in our phones, and in our laptops. And they will be the batteries powering electric vehicle ...  Show more

Lucy Ash asks what the explosion in popular protest over a Chinese-backed copper mine says about changes in Burma and asks if this is a test case for the government's commitment to democratic reforms. Farmers' daughters Aye Net and Thwe Thwe Win have led thousands of villagers in ...  Show more