Bangladeshi migrant worker MD Sharif Uddin used to spend his days off with friends outside his cramped Singapore dormitory, but coronavirus curbs have for 18 months left him stuck inside during his spare time.More than 300,000 migrant workers, many of them from South Asia, live in dorms in the prosperous city-state, where they are typically packed into shared rooms and sleep on bunk beds. The vast complexes were hit by COVID-19 and locked down at the start of the pandemic, while rest

On Friday, youth campaigners, indigenous leaders and Extinction Rebellion members raised a cacophony of chants and drum beats outside COP26, and civil society groups inside the conference complex staged a walkout to join them.Within the United Nations-controlled blue zone, delegates darted through the endless meeting halls or hunched around laptops as the clock counted down tense minutes to the end of the 12-day conference that is widely understood to be crucial to the future of humanity.The

As the COP26 climate change conference continues into its second and final week in Glasgow, a pledge signed by more than 100 countries to reverse deforestation by the end of 2030 has won widespread acclaim.Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Russia and Indonesia, which together account for 85 percent of the world’s forests, are among the signatories to the agreement, which also comes with a promise of US$19 billion in financial assistance.But while British Prime Minister Boris Johns

Michael Thompson, a 47-year-old executive recruiter from Illinois, United States expects his former wife to take him to court over vaccinating their two children against COVID-19.He doesn't trust the vaccine for children, but she wants to follow US health guidelines and have their eight-year-old and 10-year-old inoculated.It is a clash repeated among separated families across the US, where widespread vaccine hesitancy has thwarted efforts to end the pandemic despite injections being free

Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg on Friday branded the United Nations (UN) climate summit in Glasgow a "failure" during a mass protest in the Scottish city demanding swifter action from leaders to address the emergency.Thunberg said pledges from some nations made during COP26 to accelerate their emissions cuts amounted to little more than "a two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah"."It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure," she tol

Myanmar jade traders are running from junta troops and dodging rebel attacks to sell dwindling volumes of the green gemstone, as the billion-dollar industry loses its shine months on from the coup.The Southeast Asian country has been mired in chaos since the February putsch, with the military trying to crush widespread democracy protests and the economy in crisis.Fighting around the Hpakant jade mine in northern Kachin state – the largest in the world – has squeezed digging already hampered b

Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused mainly by burning fossil fuels are set to rebound in 2021 to pre-COVID levels, with China's share increasing to nearly a third of the total, according to an assessment published Thursday.Overall, CO2 pollution this year will be just shy of the record set in 2019, according to the annual report from the Global Carbon Project consortium, released as nearly 200 nations at the COP26 climate summit confront the threat of catastrophic warming.Emissi

Leaders may be going into the United Nations (UN) climate summit in Glasgow with the do-or-die goal of limiting global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, but breaching that cap is not what keeps scientists awake at night.The real disaster scenario begins with the triggering of invisible climate tripwires known as tipping points. "Climate tipping points are a game-changing risk – an existential threat – and we need to do everything within our power to avoid them," said Tim Lent

Smokestacks belch noxious fumes into the air from a massive coal-fired power plant on the Indonesian coast, a stark illustration of Asia's addiction to the fossil fuel which is threatening climate targets. Asia-Pacific accounts for about three-quarters of global coal consumption – even as the region struggles with the environmental and public health impacts of global warming, from deadly levels of air pollution in India to extreme heatwaves and wildfires in Australia. H

Almost 200 nations pledged Wednesday to tackle ecological destruction at a key United Nations (UN) conservation summit in China, but environmentalists criticised the proposal as vague and lacking accountability.Delegates from some 195 countries said they would support the 'Kunming Declaration' – working to tackle issues around biodiversity and species protection – in the first segment of the two-part COP15 summit in the southern Chinese city Kunming.The pledge is expected to pave th