KYIV - Ukraine is investigating hundreds of firms, many created since Russia’s full-scale invasion scrambled the grain market, for allegedly failing to properly document their trading in Ukrainian grain or to pay taxes on it.
KINSHASA - Following on from the first part of the dossier on why and how Congo's forests became the world's first lung, John Vandaele explores whether the country can effectively be the 'solution country' it claims to want to be.
BRUSSELS - In an essay, French critic Roland Barthes called the car a magical object, consumed more as an image than an object of use. Can we still see the car as a magical object today?
CZESTOCHOWA - Mine water from the coal mines of Upper Silesia in Poland due to a Greenpeace report released in March 2023 is considered to be the main source of the salt of the Oder River. The salt in a freshwater river which contributed decisively to the bloom of a toxic algae causing massive fish ...
On the sense and nonsense of free public transportation
LUXEMBOURG - Worldwide, public transport is already free, either fully or partially, in more than 275 cities and regions. However, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is an outlier, having become the first country in the world to make all trains, trams and buses completely free for both residents and ...
ROLLE - Who's next? That's the question on everyone's lips. For over three years, not a week has passed without the media reporting a hacking incident. Cyber hackers have never been so powerful. They are everywhere, looking for human error and technical flaws in our hyper-connected world.
European investments funding environmental crime in Brazil
IMPERATRIZ - in Brazil, companies with long legacies of environmental destruction and human rights abuses are attracting large amounts of finance from European investors, some of it in the form of green finance - the fastest growing financial sector in the world.
BRUSSELS - Twenty years ago, the first SARS outbreak sounded the alarm. But Europe failed to prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of funding for drug research, and may still be unprepared for the next one, argue several prominent scientists interviewed by Stefano Valentino and Gian Paolo ...
PUGLIA - From the role of organised crime to the failings of national and European institutional oversight, this investigation on the ground raises awareness regarding the main players of the agricultural market.
BRUSSELS - How do you get declared insanity in Belgium? Journalist Thomas Detombe looked into it and came across serious shortcomings. The decision is made by the judge, who bases it on a psychiatric expert's report. A psychiatrist draws up the report; the judge almost always follows it.
BRUSSELS - Hundreds of thousands of evictions and people enchained to debt, while financial actors in tax havens as well as EU countries profit from a system that originally was created to stabilize banks. This is the result of an official EU policy on so called non-performing loans, that was ...
NIAMEY - This cross-border investigation focuses on the impact of the Anti-smuggling-Law 036-2015, introduced in Niger in response to the so-called 'European refugee crisis'.
Filipino, Turkish and Bangladeshi workers exploited in Antwerp port
ANTWERP - In the summer of 2022, 174 Filipino, Turkish and Bangladeshi workers were discovered to be working illegally at Antwerp port in Belgium. It was the biggest number of modern slaves discovered in the country. Newspapers called it an ‘unprecedented case.’ This story looks at the ordeal of ...
ANTWERPEN/ROTTERDAM - The social damage of air pollution caused by the (petro)chemical sector in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam runs into billions of euros. This is according to an investigation by Apache and Follow The Money based on official figures on emissions and transfer of pollutants from ...
ROTTERDAM/ANTWERP - What is the environmental and health impact of air pollution caused by the (petro)chemical industry in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam?
UKRAINE - Is there room for healing and recovery in the midst of wartime? With that question, photographer Emiel Petrovitch and writer Johannes Decat traveled to Ukraine. Their answers are contained in a series of articles.
BORTIANOR - This investigation brings into the spotlight the export of endangered small pelagic fish from Ghana to the EU. The EC still maintains a yellow card warning for Ghana, while allowing access to the EU market to certain industrial vessels and companies involved in IUU activities within ...
Forced sterilisation of women with disabilities in Europe
BRUSSELS - Forced sterilisation of women with disabilities is criminalised in only nine EU countries. This investigation in Spain, France, Hungary and Sweden proves that the eugenics-based practice is still going on in Europe at a time when the European Parliament is debating its outlawing.