By Seamus Higgins, Associate Professor Food Process Engineering, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham
A few thousand years ago, sugar was unknown in the western world. Sugarcane, a tall grass first domesticated in New Guinea around 6000BC, was initially chewed for its sweet juice rather than crystallised. By around 500BC, methods to boil sugarcane juice into crystals was first developed in India.
One of the earliest references to sugar we have dates to 510BC, when Emperor Darius I of what was then Persia invaded India. There he…
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By Lightning Jay, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Ana L. Ros, Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Latin America, Binghamton University, State University of New York
High school students in the US often learn about Latin America through the lens of the US, as a main character that exerts power.
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By Rich Mallett, Research Associate and Independent Researcher, ODI Global
Digital labour platforms – like fast food delivery and cab hailing services – are having a dramatic impact on people’s labour rights and working conditions around the world.
In western countries like the UK and the US, their rise has intensified a process of labour casualisation already several decades in the making. Under the guise of “flexibility”, platforms have heralded a return to insecure, temporary forms of employment that offer few rights or benefits to workers.
But in “less developed” countries…
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By Lucy Atieno, Postdoctoral Researcher, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT)
Climate change is hitting Kenya’s coastal women and their small tourism businesses, but the loss of their way of life cuts as deeply as the economic damage.
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By Adewumi I. Badiora, Senior Lecturer, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Olabisi Onabanjo University
In response to the general state of insecurity in Nigeria, local community groups in Lagos are mobilising and providing solutions.
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By Aasiya Satia, Doctoral candidate, Higher Education Leadership, Western University
Kimberley Dej, Vice Provost, Teaching and Learning ; Associate Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Science, McMaster University
Possible changes around university admissions and student fees catalyzed by Ontario’s Bill 33 will depend on how universities interpret the rules and whether they make equity a clear policy priority.
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Monday, January 26, 2026
The staggering amount of harmful AI-generated online content has prompted an urgent call from across the UN system for a raft of measures to protect children from abuse, exploitation and mental trauma.
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Monday, January 26, 2026
The head of embattled UN relief agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, has condemned reports that its headquarters in East Jerusalem have been set alight deliberately.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Cattle graze on land recently burned and deforested by cattle farmers near Novo Progresso, Para state, Brazil, on August 23, 2020. © 2020 Andre Penner/AP Photo January 2026 was meant to be when the government of the Brazilian state of Pará would roll out a new system, initially announced in 2023, to ensure the traceability of all cattle across its vast herd. A system to track cattle from birth is a critical reform to ensure cattle are no longer raised on illegally deforested land in Brazil’s Amazon. On December 1, 2025, Para’s animal health control agency proudly…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) speaks at a press conference on the need to provide the full suite of reproductive healthcare services to veterans in all states, Washington, DC, US, September 27, 2022. © 2022 Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP Photo Another Trump administration rollback on abortion access goes into effect on February 1, this time for US veterans, including 2.1 million women. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has reversed a Biden administration reform that allowed veterans to access abortion care as part of their health benefits package.The rule,…
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