In London's New Covent Garden Market in Nine Elms, substantial amounts of wholesale fruits and vegetables go to waste even before hitting the shelves—from Kenyan mange touts to California cranberries. Jenny Dawson, founder of Rubies in the Rubble, was shocked by this when she visited the market on a frosty November morning.

Thousands of Romanians took to the streets in across 50 cities in Romania and abroad, including Washington D.C., Berlin and Amsterdam to vehemently oppose the passing of the draft legislation on the open-pit cyanide-based mining project at Rosia Montana.

Thousands of Romanians took to the streets in across 50 cities in Romania and abroad, including Washington D.C., Berlin and Amsterdam to vehemently oppose the passing of the draft legislation on the open-pit cyanide-based mining project at Rosia Montana. According to Gabriel Resources Ltd., the Canadian company behind the scheme, the plan for the project is to dig up the estimated 314 tons of gold squirreled away in Rosia Montana using an astonishing amount of 40 tons of cyanide per day.

The Romanian parliament's lower house recently considered a draft law containing multiple amendments to the Penal Code, which would grant "super-immunity" to parliamentarians and the president, as they would be taken out of the "public servant" category stipulated in the Code.

Although a member of the European Union, Romania is allowing its children living in rural areas to study in meagre conditions, as schools lack adequate standards and facilities as well as qualified teachers. These conditions have generated significant discrepancies between rural and urban education in the east European country.

Geamana was once a picturesque village in the Carpathian Mountains. Today, the village has almost entirely been engulfed in toxic copper waste laced with cyanide and other chemicals from the nearby Rosia Poieni copper mining pit.

A recent poll suggested that nearly half of Romanians have a positive view of Ceausescu and believe that life was better under him. What is behind this surprising nostalgia for the communist era? According to a recent poll, many Romanians remain nostalgic for communism, over two decades after dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown.

Since the fall of communism, Romania's ancestral, cultural link to its forests is being undermined by corrupt political and economic interests. According to an old Romanian aphorism, 'the forest is the Romanian’s brother.' This familial bond to the forest can partly be explained as stemming from the fact that the Romanian people often sought refuge in the woods during the numerous battles that took place throughout the country’s tumultuous history.

For the past few days, the small village of Pungesti has become a battle scene between protesters opposing US energy giant Chevron's intention to explore for shale gas in a nearby field and Romanian police forces, sent by the government to protect Chevron in installing its equipment. Among other instances of police aggression, multiple protesters were beaten and taken to the police station for investigation after dismantling the fence that Chevron has built to surround its ceded land.

During a weeklong trip to Africa, with stops in Tanzania, Senegal and South Africa, President Barack Obama announced a new model of engagement between the United States and Africa, based less on aid and more on trade and partnership, with his country helping Africa “build Africa, for Africans.”

An Israeli campaign is underway in sub-Saharan Africa on winning over African nations, which, partly due to significant Muslim minority populations, have often constituted a bloc of opposition at the UN. In June 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first non-African leader to participate in a Summit of the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS. The following November, he attended Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s swearing-in ceremony in Nairobi, joining leaders from other African countries and holding several bilateral meetings. In 2016, Netanyahu had already become the first Israeli prime minister in three decades to travel to Africa, visiting Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.

LOMÉ, Togo — Tens of thousands of people in the small West African nation of Togo have protested in the streets over the last three months, demanding term limits and the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbé, whose family has been in power for five decades. Toting banners of “Faure must go” and “50 years of dictatorship are enough,” protesters have demonstrated repeatedly across the nation, even as heavily armed security forces have been deployed.

Small-scale hydropower projects are soaring in number across the Balkans — but they’re also destroying the region’s wild rivers and threatening one of Europe’s most biodiverse areas, according to environmental groups. By diverting water, the hydropower plants often leave the rivers dry and interrupt fish migration patterns. Despite the environmental damages that these plants produce, governments and companies are continuing to fund their construction.

Over the past few decades, the Danube basin has been swept by increasingly devastating floods, causing widespread damage and even casualties in the countries crossed by the river.

In 2013, Togolese inventor Afate Gnikou built a 3D printer entirely out of recycled electronic waste. The 34-year-old had become consumed by the idea of creating his own version after seeing a 3D printer assembled at the inaugural edition of Fab Lab – a digital fabrication workshop-in Lome, the capital of Togo, in August 2012. A small country in West Africa, with a population of about 7 million, Togo’s main industry remains subsistence agriculture, on which more than half of the Togolese continue to depend. Young Togolese under the age of 35, representing 75 percent of the population, confront a severe unemployment challenge. Unemployment rates for the entire country hover around 6.5 percent, but are near 10 percent for young adults. Under-employment is estimated at more than 20 percent. The Togolese economy is robust, reports the World Bank, but struggling due to a recent slowdown in neighboring Nigeria and a widening deficit. More than half the population lives below the poverty line.

While Transylvania has remained part of Romania since 1918, Bessarabia became the Moldavian Socialist Republic in 1940, after a Soviet Union ultimatum.

Wandering around the northeast part of Berlin’s Wedding neighbourhood, it would be easy not to realize you have entered the city’s so-called African Quarter. The mix of early 20th century apartment buildings and communist tower blocks resembles many other parts of the German capital. Only a glance at the street signs offers a hint to an unexpected history.

Man-made coastal erosion has reached alarming proportions in Togo. It is threatening the future of two major cities, Lome and Aneho, the current and former capitals, as well as dozens of fishing villages. Coastal erosion, in which land or beaches are worn away by the wind and the waves, is destroying around five to ten meters (16-32 feet) of shoreline every year. In some locations, up to 25 meters has disappeared over the same period.

Was a Hungarian businessman with access to Prime Minister Orban’s Swiss Bank Account and Hungarian military secrets passing that information on to the Pentagon? Or was his arrest on espionage charges a politically-motivated response to U.S. pressure on Hungary to combat corruption and reverse its slide into authoritarianism?

China is using the Balkans as a testing ground to expand its nuclear industry. Its pursuits in Romania highlight its rush to become a global player. With the current U.S. administration proving unwilling to assume leadership on climate change, the burden of responsibility on climate progress in the next four years will mostly fall upon the European Union and China.