In one bloody week in June, 181 Rio residents were shot, including a baby in utero. It’s now impossible not to notice that city’s once-lauded favela “pacification” strategy has all but collapsed.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, painted portrait.
thierry ehrmann/flickr
After a major defeat in Mosul, Islamic State seems to have suffered a blow that could end its goal of establishing a cross-border caliphate in the Middle East.
The same beach on Henderson Island, in 1992 and 2015.
After making worldwide headlines with the story of the Pacific “garbage island”, researchers were sent a photo of the same beach, white sand free of litter, as recently as 1992.
People with chronic bowel conditions may need to use the toilet 20 to 30 times a day.
daveynin/Flickr
China is sinking billions into energy development in rural Pakistan, much of it earmarked for renewables. That may be good for the climate and the national economy, but what about the locals?
What’s the meme war all about?
Star Wars Memes/Facebook
The term “meme” was coined in 1976. Today, these cultural artefacts have gone viral, and are redrawing the boundaries of acceptable political discourse.
The raw images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot taken this week by the Juno probe.
NASA/SwRI/MSSS
The images are in from the Juno probe’s closest flyby so far of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Citizen scientists are now getting involved in processing those images.
Fabrice Rousselot, The Conversation; Stephan Schmidt, The Conversation; Clea Chakraverty, The Conversation y Catesby Holmes, The Conversation
Cities have always been more than a dense collection of people. They are labs of innovation, hotbeds of crime and inequality, architectural stunners, decaying ruins and everything in between.
In the current commercial space race, the idea of reusing rockets is gaining momentum.
Disney’s retrograde princesses have seen some improvements in recent years, but they still send mixed messages about what female leadership looks like.
JLinsky/flickr
A co-operative project that maps services in Dhaka shows how communities of citizens can be more than passive users of the digital platforms that increasingly shape our daily lives.
British army conducts anti-poaching training in Nanyuki, Kenya.
Dai Kurokawa / EPA
Tough socio-economic conditions, among others, make kidnapping a thriving business in Nigeria. A strong justice system along with stiff punishment for the crime are needed.
Carol Mann, Université Paris 8 – Vincennes Saint-Denis
The versatile, controversial piece of clothing has come to symbolise both the oppression of women and their empowerment.
This wood tower on Bikeman islet, in the central Pacific island nation of Kiribati, used to be on the sand. Now it’s in the water. Further out, locals fish.
David Gray/Reuters
A new study finds that even in best-case scenarios, the fishing communities most hurt by climate change are on small island nations such as Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and the Maldives.
South Korea’s subtly calibrated risk aversion in the face of outrageous North Korean aggression has kept the two countries from war.
EPA/KCNA
Case analysis of Hermès and its four strengths: a real identity, the creativity and skills of its artisans, innovation, and the fact that it remains an independent family company.
There have been successive large scale droughts in East Africa.
Shutterstock
Professor in Practice on Environmental Innovation, School of Social and Environmental Sustainability, University of Glasgow, UK, National University of Singapore