The farmers of Afghanistan have had a bumper harvest. But of opium, rather than grain or other more commendable crops. Some 4,600 tonnes of opium have been produced this year, more than twice the

More than a few of the cruise ships-which often carry 1,000 passengers or more-leave sordid calling cards behind them in Alaska. Two of the lines, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and the Carnival

Infectious diseases hinder developing countries from developing. Making existing drugs cheaper there would help. Making entirely new drugs would help even more : a

Poor countries need better access to drugs. They must also take better care of their own health. Of people who are HIV-positive, some 95% are in poor countries. Of the millions who die prematurely of

The AIDS epidemic is leaving a horrifying number of African children without their parents. Estimates of Zambian children under 15 who have lost one or both parents (usually but not always from AIDS)

Until recently, a multinational operating in a less-than-savoury country had nothing to worry about except its image. Damage to that could still be disastrous, as it was for Royal Dutch/Shell when

In humans, studying cocaine sensitisation is tricky since most governments have strong views on giving drugs to the uninitiated, and tend to enforce them with lengthy prison sentences. So instead

Pollution is no respector of national boundaries. But meteorologists can still be surprised by the distances that large quantities of airborne crud are sometimes able to travel. The American

More than 250 related deaths have been reported in 21 states in the mid-west and the east of the U.S. since July 19th. The Chicago area is hardest-hit: 100 people are known to have died to

A study published in the Lancet, a British medical journal gives a glimpse of conditions in North Korea. Anything from 100,000 to 3m North Koreans have died of starvation since 1995, when famine