How did India's Covid crisis become so bad?
India hit what it thought was its peak of Covid-19 infections in September 2020 when the pandemic then started to ease. But the country now has the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases, sur...
29 Apr 202128min
Can desalination quench the world’s water worries?
Desalination used to be the preserve of money-rich but water-poor Middle Eastern countries. It was expensive and caused pollution but in the arid desert where rain is scarce, there was little choice. ...
22 Apr 202119min
How Abu Dhabi’s Hope Consortium is helping to vaccinate the world
On December 31, 2020, one year after coronavirus was first detected, the World Health Organisation gave the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine emergency validation, making it the first to be given such clearance...
15 Apr 202121min
Is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine safe?
The AstraZeneca vaccine was heralded as ‘the vaccine for the world’ when it was first approved for use in the UK on December 30. It is inexpensive and can be stored in normal fridges, unlike other vac...
8 Apr 202123min
Stuck in the Suez Canal
For nearly a week, the ultra-large Ever Given container ship was wedged across the Suez Canal, stopping dead all trade through one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes. With no way through, hundre...
31 Mar 202119min
Is corruption in Iraq impossible to beat?
Iraq is listed as the 20th most corrupt country in the world in the latest ranking by anti-corruption organisation Transparency International. Venality is rampant in a country still emerging from the ...
25 Mar 202117min
Raqqa after ten years of war and revolution in Syria
March 2013, Raqqa. The Syrian revolution is in full swing. A crowd gathers around a statue of Hafez Al Assad in the centre of the city. The statue is of President Bashar Al Assad’s father, and much li...
18 Mar 202115min
The legacy of the Pope's Iraq visit
It's hard to overstate just how significant Pope Francis's visit to Iraq really was. Nor how remarkable it is that it actually went ahead. Iraq, despite the best efforts of the security forces, is not...
8 Mar 202128min
