Getty Images By Kim Chakanetsa BBC World Service On the day Beirut stood still, the city was covered in glass. Joelle Azar remembers being surrounded by it. “The glass was flying everywhere,” she says. Shards of it ripped from car, shop and apartment building windows and scattered across the city as the port blast tore…

Heatwaves across southern Europe have brought devastating wildfires to the region. How is the Mediterranean’s vegetation likely to recover and adapt as climate change increases the risk of these blazes? The contrast is stark – where vast swathes of land were once rich with life, they are blackened and smouldering ruins, decimated by fire. In…

As hip-hop turns 50, Arwa Haider traces the verbal pioneers who forged a path long before 1973, from jazz “hep cat” Slim Gaillard to “dirty blues” singer Lucille Bogan. Hip-hop is a culture, and rap flourishes from a far-ranging lineage. There will always be hot debate about the first rap record – 1979 gave rise…

EPA Niger’s ousted leader has urged the US and “entire international community” to help “restore… constitutional order” after last week’s coup. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, President Mohamed Bazoum said he was writing “as a hostage”. Unrest has erupted in the west African state since he was overthrown. On Thursday, the coup…

In one unusual outback town, everything is subterranean – from churches to campsites. As the world heads for 2.7C (4.9F) of global warming, should we be heading underground? On the long road towards central Australia, as you travel 848km (527 miles) north from Adelaide’s coastal plains, is a scattering of enigmatic sand-pyramids. Around them, the…

Getty Images By Steve Rosenberg Russia Editor, Moscow To describe Alexei Navalny’s trial as “behind closed doors” is an understatement. It is being held in a high-security prison. Penal Colony No 6 is 240km (150 miles) east of Moscow. Navalny, the Kremlin’s most vocal critic, is already serving a nine-year term there for parole violations,…

Reuters By Sam Cabral from the courthouse in Washington DC Donald Trump is not a man used to waiting. But at a court hearing in the nation’s capital, the former US president found himself fidgeting in his seat while he waited 20 minutes for the judge to arrive. In the meantime, he also stole furtive…

BC WILDFIRE SERVICE By David Silverberg Business reporter, Toronto On a Friday night in early July, Nikki Skuce heard from a neighbour the news she had been dreading: her small community of Smithers, British Columbia was on an evacuation alert due to an encroaching fire that was only 4km (2.4 miles) away. “My daughter quickly…