Commodity traders wreak havoc on global markets and profit from ecological and social devastation. Can they be stopped?

Beijing has used the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to boost its global image. And to strengthen its foothold in the MENA region, its interests, long limited to securing the flow of oil, have been broadened to include a range of areas, stretching from culture to [...]

With an economy based on banking and tourism, Lebanon produces very little and therefore has to import 80 per cent of its consumer goods, including fertilisers, seeds and animal feed. To get by, farmers are developing ecological alternatives, but their options are [...]

Cuba has adopted drastic economic, political and social control measures in an 11th hour attempt to stem the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on a country already severely weakened by the tightening of the US blockade.

Faced with mounting poverty, local officials in France are subsidising food aid associations on the condition that they get their supplies from local producers, foreshadowing the idea of “social security for food”.

“The knowledge generated with Covid is now likely to help boost HIV research and speed up the development of other vaccine candidates, but it will require more investment, the same as that dedicated to Covid.”