A scientist who advised a United Nations agency to classify the world’s most widely used weedkiller as carcinogenic received $160,000 (£121,500) from law firms bringing claims by cancer victims against the manufacturer. Christopher Portier advised the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organisation, which concluded in March 2015 that glyphosate was a “probable human carcinogen”.

A former guard at the Majdanek death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland has been charged in Germany with being an accessory to murder for allegedly serving there during a period when at least 17,000 Jews were killed, Frankfurt prosecutors said Friday. The 96-year-old Frankfurt resident, whose name wasn't released under German privacy regulations, is alleged to have served at the death camp near the Polish city of Lublin between August 1943 and January 1944.

Pollution kills at least nine million people and costs trillions of dollars every year, according to the most comprehensive global analysis to date, which warns the crisis “threatens the continuing survival of human societies”. Toxic air, water, soils and workplaces are responsible for the diseases that kill one in every six people around the world, the landmark report found, and the true total could be millions higher because the impact of many pollutants are poorly understood. The deaths attributed to pollution are triple those from Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

The World Health Organisation head praises Zimbabwe's public health policy, in a controversial move.

Up to 95 per cent of the plastic polluting the world's oceans comes from just 10 rivers, including the Ganges, new research has found. While eight of these 10 river systems are in Asia, two are in Africa. The findings published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology showed that large rivers play a particularly large role - not only because they also carry a comparatively large volume of waste on account of their larger discharge.

Diplomatic spats in the Middle East are hardly rare. But the conflict that started this summer between Qatar and some of its Arab neighbors may be unique. It’s the first major geopolitical crisis to have been sparked by a computer hack, and was nearly the first “fake news” war to transform into a physical conflict. And far as anyone can tell, the fake news had a target audience of approximately one: US president Donald Trump. In interviews and documentation provided to Quartz, the Qatari government has outlined its version of the events that led to the crisis in detail for the first time.

In her last blogpost, published the day she died, Daphne Caruana Galizia signed off with a sentence that seems particularly chilling now. “There are crooks everywhere you look. The situation is desperate.” Caruana Galizia, 53, felt she had good reason to feel pessimistic about Malta, and her enemies had good reason to fear her. Someone, it seems, was worried enough to want her silenced.

US had early, detailed and ongoing knowledge of anti-communist purge in which army and Muslim groups massacred hundreds of thousands

Pope Francis on Monday, October 13, elicited a standing ovation at the United Nations after his speech at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) after he channelled Elvis Presley when calling for global action on hunger, climate change and migration. He was speaking on the occasion of World Food Day 2017, and touched on the three topics the FAO had focused on when aiming for "Zero Hunger."

Sammy Rolon is living in a makeshift clinic set up at a school. He has cerebral palsy and epilepsy and is bedridden. He's waiting for surgery that was scheduled before Hurricane Maria smashed into Puerto Rico. Now, he can't even get the oxygen he needs. There is help available for the 18-year-old -- right offshore. A floating state-of-the-art hospital, the USNS Comfort, could provide critical care, his doctor says.

Six months after reports emerged that gay men were being detained illegally and tortured in the Russian republic of Chechnya, a young man has spoken publicly for the first time about his ordeal. Maxim Lapunov has described being held for 12 days in a blood-soaked cell, beaten with sticks, threatened and humiliated by police.

September 2017 was the planet's fourth warmest September since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA and NASA.

The Australian government has rejected a Clean Energy Target (CET) recommended by the nation's chief scientist, opting for a plan focusing on energy security. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the alternative would still lower emissions and ensure Australia met its obligations under the Paris agreement. The National Energy Guarantee (NEG) will reduce power prices and prevent a repeat of crippling blackouts, he said.

Reporter Tom de Castella has a petrol-fuelled old banger, while his dad has a 2009 diesel. Each bet that the other’s car did more harm to the environment. When Tom found someone to do the test, he also discovered just how dirty some brand new cars are.

The story of the original St. Nicholas is a tale of mistaken identity and grave robbery.

Planned obsolescence has long been a consumer expense and irritation. Now brand-name profiteers are pushing a new abuse: Repair prevention. This treacherous corporate scheme does more than gouge buyers on the original purchase. Using both legal ruses and digital lockdowns, major manufacturers are quietly attempting to outlaw the natural instinct of us humanoids to fiddle with and improve the material things we own in order to charge us to fix it. Indeed, the absurdity and arrogance of their overreach is even more basic: They're out to corporatize the very idea of "owning."

Fears grow of ‘potatogeddon’ after up to 30% of the crop are hit by heavy rains blamed on climate change

The remnants of Hurricane Ophelia hit Ireland's west coast as a post-tropical storm on Monday, bringing with it strong winds, heavy rain, and the threat of storm surge and flooding. Met Éireann, Ireland's National Meteorological Service, extended a red alert for the entire country on Sunday evening, warning that there was a "danger to life and property."

Forest fires burned across Portugal and northern Spain, fanned by strong winds caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia.

The congressman helped pass a bill that reportedly weakened efforts to slow the flow of opioid drugs.

An investigative journalist who exposed Malta's links to offshore tax havens through the leaked Panama Papers is killed in a barbaric car bomb.

A Canadian man who was recently freed after being held in Afghanistan by Taliban-tied kidnappers for five years said he thought his captors were joking when they told him Donald Trump was president.

Senior Royal Dutch Shell executives have been charged in Italy for their role in a vast bribery scheme that deprived the Nigerian people of over a billion dollars, the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed on Friday. Those facing trial include Malcolm Brinded CBE, the second most powerful person in the company when the deal was struck (1). Shell itself is also facing bribery charges alongside the four named individuals.

North Korea’s deputy U.N. ambassador warned Monday that the situation on the Korean peninsula “has reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment.” Kim In Ryong told the U.N. General Assembly’s disarmament committee that North Korea is the only country in the world that has been subjected to “such an extreme and direct nuclear threat” from the United States since the 1970s — and said the country has the right to possess nuclear weapons in self-defense.

Some Puerto Rico residents are turning to a hazardous waste site for drinking water as the island continues to reel from Hurricane Maria.

As many as 100 unwitting activists were recruited to help organize events in the United States both before and after the election by the same St. Petersburg-based Russian troll farm behind scores of fake social media accounts that purchased ads to sow discord during the 2016 campaign. The revelation comes from a report in the Russian business magazine RBC published on Tuesday morning.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved to legalise the military's use of foreign volunteers in overseas operations, a new step in the country's increasing engagement in wars abroad.

A teenager who moved to Britain after his parents were killed in Iraq will go on trial in March over a bomb attack on a packed commuter train that injured 30 people in London in September.

A small quake was detected early on Friday near North Korea's nuclear test site, the latest shock since the Sept 3 test.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, a blogger whose investigations focused on corruption, was described as a ‘one-woman WikiLeaks’

The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu will accept payments in Bitcoin for its $200,000 citizenship program, becoming the first country to do so.

Controversy has erupted over a scientific paper that is being retracted after it was attacked for being 'antivax pseudoscience' and found to contain manipulated, false data… which has now gone mysteriously AWOL. The research, published last month, suggested aluminium contained in vaccine adjuvants could trigger biological responses in mice "consistent with those in autism", but it didn't take long for scientific commentators to tear the paper apart.

Only two chicks survived in a colony of 36,000 in a "catastrophic" breeding season in east Antarctica.

Choirul Huda, the keeper for Indonesian soccer team Persela FC, collided brutally with teammate Ramon Rodrigues while rushing forward on a ball in the 18-yard box. The collision left both players hurt, but Huda took the collision to his upper body—Rodrigues’s knee seems to drive Huda’s arm violently into the side of his head, and Huda is driven hard into the pitch. Huda’s condition deteriorated rapidly, and he was carried from the field and taken to the hospital, where he died early this morning.

As China's leaders gather in Beijing this week for the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), an ideological war is under way on the country's internet.