TOKIO - In Japan, when people disappear overnight because of social pressure, financial, domestic or mental problems, they call it jōhatsu. Literally, it means evaporation. This phenomenon is not recognised in Japan, so it remains under the radar. Robbe Van der Vloet and Arend Bucher travelled to ...
Carmakers strike back: How they lobbied down new EU emissions rules
BRUSSELS – A team of investigative journalists led by Voxeurop carried out a cross-border investigation into how the European automotive industry lobby managed to weaken the Euro 7 regulation on new motor vehicle emissions standards.
TACLOBAN - Almost a decade after typhoon Yolanda devastated parts of the Philippines in 2023, no less than Tacloban City’s own mayor has said that 70% of the houses given to Yolanda survivors by the government are “substandard.”
Pelvic pain is an umbrella term for pain in the tailbone, hips, buttock region, joints around the sacrum and pubic bone, but also embraces pain and discomfort in the vagina, vulva, perineum, uterus, ovaries, bladder, bowels and pelvic floor muscles.
ST JOHN'S - Barbuda is paradise on earth: a small Caribbean island with beautiful beaches and clear waters full of fish and lobster. Worth noting: on Barbuda, land is not for sale. There is a system of communal land ownership. But cracks are appearing in that, now that property developers have their ...
Intensive Dairy Farming: Increasing Water Pollution
MODENA — Some EU members states are still allowed to apply high levels of nitrogen to grassland, despite the long-adopted EU’s Water Framework Directive. The investigation contrasts the status of surface water in Ireland, where it is the case, and Italy, and reveals the impact of intensive dairy ...
Hunting in Malta: The ‘Way of Life’ That Robs the Rest of Europe
GOZO – A year-long collaborative investigation by The Shift and environmental journalist Thomas Krumenacker has established a pattern of vote-buying politics favouring the Maltese hunting lobby and directly leading to the degradation of endangered and at-risk bird species hunted in Malta both ...
Deforestation and Hydropower Plants: Damage for Europe's Blue Heart
SKOPJE / TIRANA - Forests and rivers of Albania and North Macedonia have been exploited for years. These two countries, located in the Western Balkans, have amazing ecosystems and biodiversity, with plenty of endemic tree species and rivers with abundance of water. But natural resources in the ...
COPSA MICA - It is December 1990, the days are short, dark and foggy. Beside the road in Copsa Mica, 2 men are slaughtering a pig. A Romanian Christmas tradition I later learn.
ALIAĞA – Asbestos, that is especially hard to track in ships, often causes lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis. The team investigated several shipbreaking yards, including Kılıçlar in Turkey, where workers are exposed to the deadly substance without adequate protection.
REYKJAVÍK – This investigation explored the controversy around PMSG, a hormone used for meat production: How it is produced, why and where it is used, ethical debates, and the complex legal battles around it.
Mine Games: Europe’s Hunt for Critical Raw Materials
KIRUNA - This investigation sheds light on what lies beneath the EU’s ‘green mining’ ambitions, and offers a unique perspective on the continent’s quest for critical raw materials, such as lithium, nickel, copper and rare earth elements needed for the future.
European Rubber Trade Fuels Abuses in Ghana and Nigeria
EDO/OKOMU – The journalists revealed that rubber and palm oil craze is a reason behind land grabbing, deforestation, and human rights violations in both Ghana and Nigeria. The French company Socfin's presence in southern Nigeria has caused host communities pain and rights violations, even if they ...
ACCRA — Africa produces less than 4% of the greenhouse gases that are thought to lead to climate change, and yet continental Africa is expected to be the most affected by climate change.
Soviet Industrial Legacy Bringing Environmental Troubles For Moldova and Ukraine
DNESTROVSK – This project looks at the environmental issues caused by two industrial objects which both stem from the Soviet era, Moldovan Thermal Power Plant in the self-proclaimed Transnistrian Republic in Moldova, and a granite quarry in the floodplain of the beautiful Yuzhny Bug River, in the ...
A neocolonial oil pipeline through Uganda and Tanzania
KAMPALA/DAR ES SALAAM - In 2006, British company Tullow Oil discovered oil reserves in the Albertine region in northwestern Uganda. In early 2022, Total signed an agreement with Tanzania and Uganda and Chinese state-owned CNOOC to begin construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) ...
SOBIBOR - After Auschwitz, Sobibor is the largest Dutch mass grave with more than 34,000 Dutch victims. Starting in 1942, more than 170,000 Jews were gassed here in a year and a half immediately upon arrival. Yet few people know about this death camp. After a successful prisoner uprising in October ...