BIG Exclusives

Since 2020, Haiti has not had a functioning parliament or elected officials, and leader after failed leader, no lasting solution has been found. The most populous country in the Caribbean (11.4 million), Haiti has been disintegrating to anarchy, a failed state where criminal gangs reign. The last holder of the prime minister office was ousted while in Kenya on a mission to secure assistance to fight raging gangs in Port-Au-Prince. With over 7,000 deaths reported...

Measles outbreaks in late 2024 and early 2025 have reignited media-driven panic. Infectious disease experts are back in the spotlight, warning of a public health crisis. Are we losing control of measles? Is vaccine coverage across the world irreversibly trending away from public health goals? How terrified should we be? The requests for interviews have likely spurred a lot of discussions on how to handle the measles “situation”. Public health spokespeople are thrilled to be...

Last year on BIG Media’s site, I talked about CCUS – carbon capture, utilization and storage. It is the process of extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from smokestacks, refineries, cement plants, biofuel facilities, and other human-made sources, then using it to make new products, or storing it permanently underground in geological formations. CCUS is an important strategy for reducing net CO2 emissions from human activity, as I said then: “CCUS encompasses established, reliable technologies and innovative new...

Picture a vast wheat field under a clear sky, where a farmer in a tractor cabin releases from a large herbicide sprayer implement a fine mist of Roundup. It is harvesting time, and glyphosate – the active ingredient in Bayer's (formerly Monsanto’s) blockbuster herbicide –doesn't just kill weeds; it forces the crop to ripen uniformly and according to a schedule that works best for the farmer, reducing losses and increasing yield. This scene, repeated across...

Key takeaways Angola spends more on fuel subsidies than on health or education, with $3.8 billion in 2022 alone. The government has compressed IMF’s six-year plan into just two years, heightening social and political risks. Despite being Africa’s second-largest oil producer, Angola imports 70% of its fuel consumption due to weak refining capacity. Fuel subsidy removal is tied to Angola’s refining expansion plans – new refineries must operate profitably without state support. Angola’s shrinking...

The world is starting to recognize the tremendous impact that drones and robots are having on the modern battlefield. Whether they fly, walk, wheel, or float, they are quickly becoming a necessity in warfare of today and tomorrow. Science-fiction films have shown us what is possible to imagine, and once imagined, humans have the extraordinary ability to create and make it real. It is no different in the field of war. Numbers matter when it comes...

When you doomscroll on your phone, use the washing machine, fly in an airplane, activate the anti-lock brakes in your car, switch on the air-conditioner or watch television – you are using semiconductors. So, what the heck is a semiconductor? It is the material used as building blocks to create the chips that act as the “brains” inside almost all of our modern devices and electronics across consumer, military, and industrial sectors. These elements can...

In 2019, a major healthcare system implemented an AI tool to help doctors identify patients at risk of sepsis – a condition that kills more than 250,000 Americans annually. The system analyzed patient data and flagged high-risk cases with impressive accuracy during testing. But when doctors tried to understand why the AI made specific recommendations, they hit a wall. The system could not explain its reasoning. It could not tell doctors which factors led...

History shows that urbanization throughout the western world has been largely fuelled by increases in agricultural productivity, and that the enabling commodities are hydrocarbons. The discovery of how to unlock geological energy beneath our feet has given rise to the mechanization of farm labour and the scalable production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Unfortunately, urbanization has also created historic levels of agricultural naivety. With increasing productivity, fewer people are required to produce food for society. As a...

The hallucination problem: when AI makes things up Right now, as you process this sentence, your brain is performing thousands of micro-decisions that you're not even conscious of. You're contextualizing the phrase "hallucination problem" within your existing knowledge of AI, inferring that this isn't about psychiatric symptoms, and automatically adjusting your reading speed based on your assessment of the content's complexity. Meanwhile, you're simultaneously monitoring your environment—the sound of traffic outside, the temperature of your...