By Magnus Marsden, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Sussex
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan is about an institution tasked with the job of housing strangers – Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel. Through this hotel, which sits high on a hill, and the people within it, seasoned BBC journalist and current foreign affairs editor, Lyse Doucet, attempts tell an immersive history of the sweeping changes that have faced Afghanistan since it opened in 1969.
The book has won the third ever Women’s…
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By Gunter Kuhnle, Professor of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Reading
Fruits and vegetables are an important part of our diet. They provide nutrients and fibre, and many contain additional compounds (known as bioactives) that can improve health. But not all foods are created equal – with big differences in the amount of bioactives we get from cabbages, carrots, pulses and peppers.
The well-known “five-a-day”…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Homes in Mujahid Colony, Karachi after being demolished, 2022. © 2022 Karachi Bachao Tehrik In recent weeks, Islamabad’s Capital Development Authority (CDA) completed the first wave of demolitions of informal settlements across the city. Muslim Colony in Bari Imam, in existence since the 1960s, is now entirely leveled. Allama Iqbal Colony in Sector G-7, home to more than a thousand families, many of them who work as sanitation workers for the CDA, is next; it has been marked for a similar razing. The residents, many of whom have lived in these neighborhoods…
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By Martin Warren, Chief Scientific Officer and Group Leader, Synthetic Biology and Biosynthetic Pathways, Quadram Institute
A century after liver was found to treat pernicious anaemia, scientists are still uncovering how vitamin B12 helps blood, nerves and cells.
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By Laure Leglise, Lecturer, Sustainability and Strategy, Manchester Metropolitan University
James Scott Vandeventer, Senior Lecturer in Sustainability, Manchester Metropolitan University
The landscape on the remote Isle of Lewis is striking: a mix of rugged terrain, peatlands, moorlands, lochs, sandy beaches and cliffs.
This island at the northern end of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, has one of the UK’s highest levels of fuel poverty and a declining population of fewer than 20,000 people. Encircled by the Atlantic and exposed…
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By Rebecca Ellis, Assistant Researcher in Public Health, Swansea University
You have a 3pm appointment. It’s now 10am and somehow your entire day already feels out of reach. Maybe you find yourself unable to start anything properly. You feel on edge, waiting for something to begin, or end. You check the time again and again. Even a positive, planned event, like a friend visiting later, can leave you feeling stuck.
For many neurodivergent people, this experience has a name: “waiting mode”.
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By Arun Dawson, PhD Candidate, Department of War Studies, King's College London
The effective collapse of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) fighter jet programme is a major setback for European defence cooperation.
France, Germany and Spain have spent nearly a decade trying to develop what was intended to become Europe’s premier next-generation combat aircraft, only for the programme to succumb to disputes over leadership, the distribution of work and intellectual property.
Yet Europeans shouldn’t be surprised. The history of European combat aviation is littered with…
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By Thomas Caygill, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Nottingham Trent University
John Healey resigned as defence secretary following continued disagreement between Downing Street, the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence over the defence investment plan. Healey said the plan falls “well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time”.
His departure on June 11 was followed by Al Carns’ resignation as armed forces minister. Carns said in a letter to Keir Starmer that the funding plan is “not built for the threat…
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By David W. Versailles, Professor, strategic management and innovation management, co-director of the new PICchair at the Paris School of Business - research director LSB - VP EURAM Dialogue with Practitioners, European Academy of Management (EURAM); PSB Paris School of Business
The collapse of the Future Combat Air System programme led by France and Germany highlights how diverging national interests and coordination difficulties are challenging European armament cooperation.
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By Andreas Krieg, Associate Professor, Defence Studies Department, King's College London
The US and Iran stepped back from the brink of returning to all-out war on June 11. Hours after saying the US military would carry out strikes against Iran for a third consecutive night, Donald Trump postponed the attack. The Iranian military had said the US would “receive a more severe response than before” if it followed through on its threats.
Trump claimed to have cancelled the strikes because of progress in negotiations between the two countries. In a statement posted on social media,…
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