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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

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Read our Charts that work: FT visual vocabulary guide and explore our teaching resources with the Royal Geographical Society.

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Geographic themes

Freshwater

Dubai battles flood waters as historic storm causes chaos

‘New climate reality’ stretches global freshwater supply

AI boom sparks concern over Big Tech’s water consumption

Extreme environments

Denmark raises investment in Arctic surveillance to counter Russian build-up

Oceans and coastal margins

To save the oceans, start eating ‘naked clams’

geophysical hazards

Japan earthquake death toll rises to 55 as military joins relief effort

Urban environments

Low traffic neighbourhood schemes drive wedge between communities across UK

Saudi Arabia’s mega-project: a 170km line city through the desert

How cities around the world are tackling climate change

Leisure, tourism and sport

AC Milan in talks to promote war-torn DRC as tourist destination

Less meat on menus and fewer new venues: how the Olympics is trying to go green

Food and health

Malnutrition crisis threatens child health gains, warns Bill Gates

UK becomes first European country to approve lab-grown meat

Global change

Unit 1 — Population distribution — changing population

Asia’s ageing population could deliver a ‘silver dividend’

South Korea bets on foreign housekeepers to ease women’s workloads and boost birth rate

Marriage holds key to Japan’s falling births

Pandemic blamed for falling birth rates across much of Europe

Unit 2 — Global climate — vulnerability and resilience

Europe must push for low CO₂ bread, says fertiliser group chief

Alarm raised on sea level rise and ocean warming as Pacific Islands leaders meet

Warmer, wetter, hotter, drier — February caps unending stretch of record temperatures

Ski industry navigates new terrain to fend off threat of climate change

Unit 3 — Global resource consumption and security

UAE’s Taqa seeks to shine with solar energy push

India’s energy demands to grow more than those of other countries, says IEA chief

Global interactions

Unit 4 — Power, places and networks

Christmas shipments rush risks deepening supply chain crisis, warns Maersk boss

Unit 5 — Human development and diversity

The far-right’s disturbing success in eastern Germany

Joe Biden to raise solar import tariffs in bid to protect US industry

Unit 6 — Global risks and resilience

North Korean hackers use AI for more sophisticated scams

Richard Allaway, International School of Geneva/geographyalltheway.com

THIS is the terrifying moment smoke billows from a burning chemical lab as a massive fire has sparked evacuations.

Footage shows a huge plume of multi-coloured smoke gushing into the air as the fire in Conyers, Georgia, ripped through the building.

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Thousands of people have been evacuated and others given a shelter in place order as hazardous smoke drifts through the air.

The site, run by BioLab, is about 30 miles east of Atlanta and manufactures swimming pool and spa treatment products – including using chlorine, according to CNN.

Those chemicals have now been burning for hours with the fire still going 12 hours after it began.

The blaze started at around 5am EST when a sprinkler at the facility malfunctioned and sprayed water on a chemical that sparked an explosion, Atlanta News First reported.

Hazmat crews and other emergency services have respond to a the fire with the nearby highway also blocked off.

Rockdale County Sheriff, Eric Levett, said: “I want to strongly ask all of you to please spread the word to stay away from this area at this point.

“It’s burning pretty good. We’re trying to get that under control, but at the same time we’re also trying to get the traffic under control.”

The southwest wind is blowing the smoke across to Walton County.

Walton County Emergency Management director, Carl Morrow, has shared an alert for the county residents.

The alert stated: “Walton County EMA is aware of what is happening in our neighboring county of Rockdale.

“We are monitoring the situation and advise that if you smell a chlorine odour you should turn off your air conditioners, turn on your ceiling fans and if possible bring your outside animals indoors.”

A BioLab statement said: “Our employees are accounted for with no injuries reported. Our team is on the scene, working with first responders and local authorities to assess and contain the situation.”

“As always, the safety of our community remains our top priority.”

Conyers Mayor Vince Evans urged residents who choose not to evacuate to stay in place and not wander or drive around the city.

He said: “This is not the time to do any type of sightseeing. We are strongly encouraging everyone, no matter where you’re coming from, but especially Rockdale residents, to stay out of this area.”

Residents between Sigman Road and Interstate 20 have been asked to evacuate.

In September 2020, BioLab experienced a “thermal decomposition event” that also led to a fire that temporarily closed Interstate 20.

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Sudan’s last civilian prime minister warned that the country’s brutal civil war risks turning it into “fertile ground” for the spread of regional terrorism at a time when several African countries are struggling with an onslaught of jihadist violence.

Some 150,000 people have been killed and 10mn pushed out of their homes since military president General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy and paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti, went to war last year. About half of Sudan’s population of 49mn is now on the verge of famine.

Abdalla Hamdok, prime minister between 2019 and 2022 who now leads the Taqaddum — Progress — coalition of democratic forces, said Sudan’s descent into violence risks bolstering jihadis across the region.

“I really feel quite frightened about this,” he told the Financial Times. “With Sudan bordering seven countries, it will become fertile ground for terrorism in a region that is very fragile.”

The Sahel, the semi-arid strip of land below the Sahara that is home to some 400mn people, has become a haven for jihadis. They range from Boko Haram in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad to Isis, which is most active in the border area between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Hamdok fears the descent into violence in Sudan, which hosted Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, could also connect groups allied to al-Qaeda in the Sahel to jihadis such as Somalia’s al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa, which is linked to Yemeni Houthis.

Analysts and officials in neighbouring countries have echoed Hamdok’s concerns. The country was long on the US’s list of state sponsors of terrorism before it was removed under Hamdok in 2020.

Sudan’s war has already attracted a complex web of external actors. The United Arab Emirates is accused of backing Hemeti, claims Abu Dhabi denies, while Iran and Russia support Burhan. Mercenaries from Chad and pilots from Ukraine have also entered the fray.

Burhan’s army this week launched a major assault to retake the capital city, Khartoum, from Hemeti’s Rapid Support Forces, which captured most of it last year.

Negotiations for a ceasefire to stop the fighting began in Geneva last month, led by the US and brokered by a range of countries — including Egypt, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — but without direct contact between warring parties.

Hamdok and members of Taqaddum criticised the process, saying that while it could help “put more pressure” on the warring parties there could not be a “sustainable” solution without including civilian politicians.

“There is a tendency to try to get a quick fix, to just bring in the belligerents. The fact is that all attempts have failed,” said Khaled Omar Youssef, a senior member of the Sudanese Congress party, which is part of Taqaddum, referring to previous unsuccessful talks in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

A western official involved said the focus of the Geneva negotiation was “to open up humanitarian access and ensure protection of civilians as well as trying to get ceasefires”. The official said “efforts to transition to the civilian government is outside of the realm” of the current talks.

A critical challenge for civilians is to unite Sudan’s array of political forces amid differences among groups who have competing views on how its political future should unfold. Many Sudanese see Taqaddum as aligned with Hemeti, something Hamdok labels as “propaganda” spread by the army.

Among other things, there is a sharp divide between those pressing for a purely civilian government and those who advocate power-sharing with the military. Sudan has suffered some 17 coups and a string of civil wars — including one that led to the creation of South Sudan — since independence from Britain and Egypt in 1956.

Hamdok took charge in 2019 following the ousting of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in a putative transition government backed by Burhan and Hemeti. He was ousted in a coup in 2021 before being briefly reinstated.

“The only formula that would keep this country together is a government led by civilians,” said Hamdok. “The military has messed up the country for over 50 years. They cannot be entrusted with the future of the country.”

Confirmed Strike of Military Targets

Top War, another Russian military outlet, claimed that the attack triggered widespread air raid alerts across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv.

There were also reports of explosions at the Starokostiantiniv airbase and in Khmelnytskyi, as well as in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Air Force later confirmed that Russian missiles, including hypersonic weapons, had struck various military targets in Ukraine, though they did not confirm any damage to the F-16s.

Some reports, including from Military Watch, suggested that four of the F-16 jets at the airbase may have been destroyed in the strike, but these claims remain unverified.

Despite the ongoing attacks, Ukrainian forces have continued to fortify their air defenses in response to Russia’s advanced missile capabilities.

In an unforgiving stretch of the North Sea roughly 250km east of Aberdeen, Shell’s engineers have been drilling since last September to develop the vast Jackdaw gasfield, aiming to produce its first gas in 2026.   

Yet in less than two months, lawyers for the FTSE 100 company will head to a courtroom in Edinburgh to try to defend the project from climate campaigners who want it shut down, after a judge ruled last week the case could proceed.  

The legal challenge brought by Greenpeace will be the first involving an offshore oil and gas project to be heard in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June that has emboldened activists and tightened the squeeze on fossil fuel projects.

The so-called Finch ruling, named after the activist and writer Sarah Finch who helped bring the case, means that planning officials considering allowing big developers to drill for fossil fuels need to factor in the emissions spewed out when the product is used by consumers. 

It raises further questions for the UK’s oil and gas industry in the North Sea as the Labour government tries to ultimately wind down fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy, and position Britain as a global leader in tackling climate change. 

There is also a push for planning officials to take into greater account climate goals when deciding whether to approve other projects beyond fossil fuels.

“One by one, spurious lines of defence are being knocked back,” said Niall Toru, senior lawyer at Friends of the Earth. “Developers have to own the climate impacts of their projects.”

The Finch ruling, a three-to-two majority judgment led by Lord Justice George Leggatt, quashed planning permission for onshore oil drilling in Horse Hill, Surrey. Two further projects have already been stymied in its wake. 

Permission for onshore oil drilling in Biscathorpe, Lincolnshire, was knocked back by High Court judges in July, while in September they also quashed permission for a mine in Whitehaven, north-west England, to supply coal to steel mills. 

The challenge to be heard in November against Shell’s Jackdaw gasfield will be the next test of the Finch ruling’s implications, as will a separate challenge brought by campaigners Greenpeace and Uplift to Equinor’s giant Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea. If the companies lose, they would need to decide whether to reapply for development consent or walk away. The government is not defending the cases.

Meanwhile, there are 14 UK oil and gas projects with drilling licences from the government that are at various stages of seeking development consent from the oil and gas regulator, and are now affected by the Finch ruling.

The judgment specifically covers fossil fuel projects, given the clear line between production and consumer emissions. But it is “not impossible” to imagine the ruling being cited in other carbon-intensive projects, noted Steven Wilson, senior associate at Vinson and Elkins. Airport expansions are an obvious target for climate campaigners. 

“I think it will be fascinating to see how this will be applied in other types of projects,” said Matthew McFeeley, partner at Richard Buxton Solicitors, which represented South Lakes Action on Climate Change in its challenge to the Whitehaven coal mine. “It’s the million-dollar question.”

Approvals for oil and gas projects are not out of the question, however. The Finch ruling does not prevent authorities from approving projects, as long as they have considered their impact. The law does not specify what level of emissions is acceptable.

“That’s a hard question that will need to be taken case by case,” said Robert Meade, partner at Bracewell. “These [legal rulings] are about the procedure.” 

At Edinburgh’s Court of Session in November, Shell’s lawyers will argue the energy security benefits of its Jackdaw project. It was approved at the height of the energy crisis in 2022, when gas prices soared in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

To help clarify what officials should do, the UK government said last month it would develop new environmental guidance for oil and gas projects. It is expected to set tough standards, given its approach towards the sector so far.

Planning policy beyond oil and gas projects is also evolving. The government is continuing to explore potential changes proposed by its Conservative predecessor to the national planning policy framework, which covers planning in England. Ideas include a “carbon impact assessment”, although a consultation raised doubts over the proposal.

In the meantime, the legal cases are likely to further undermine oil and gas drillers’ confidence in the UK following Labour’s decision to increase taxes on the sector and reduce investment allowances. It also plans to stop issuing licences for new exploration.  

“You’ll get to the stage where investors would be doing a disservice to their shareholders if they were to allocate capital here,” warned one industry figure. Oil and gas still supplies 75 per cent of the UK’s total energy demand, but domestic production has been dwindling as the basin ages.

Climate campaigners, on the other hand, sense the growing opportunity for legal victories. “We are always looking [at potential legal cases],” adds Toru, at Friends of the Earth. “I wouldn’t rule anything out.”