The World

El Hierro, a tiny island in the Canaries, is halfway to the UN goal of ditching fossil fuels. But finding just the right renewable energy mix is proving tough.

After the shocking attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, which killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, many people have decided to arm themselves. Gun sales are on the rise. But lots more guns in more people’s hands can be dangerous. 

It’s been about six months since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive. Its aim was to recapture large swaths of territory occupied by Russian forces. However, as we enter the cold winter months, most military experts believe that the war in Ukraine is now entering a new phase.

China began restricting exports of graphite supplies needed to make electric vehicle (EV) batteries on Dec. 1. EV carmakers are nervous about shortages because the US lacks its own domestic supplies. One of the world's largest sources of graphite has been discovered in Alaska, but the company with mining rights to the site is Canadian.

As Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza continues, a boycott campaign is growing in the Middle East and beyond. In Jordan, many have stopped buying American and European products that they say support Israel financially or have a pro-Israel stance. Starbucks and McDonald’s in Amman sit mostly empty. In supermarkets, everyday items carry warnings.

After Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994, there’s been a fragile but sustained calm in this region. But following the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, and an increase in settler violence against the Palestinians in the West Bank, relations between Jordan and Israel have soured. 

On Wednesday, a US federal indictment was unsealed, charging Indian national Nikhil Gupta in a murder-for-hire plot ordered up by an official inside the Indian government for targeting Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual American and Canadian citizen, in New York.

Åsa Koski, a social strategist with the Luleå municipality in northern Sweden, started the Säg hej! (“Say hi!”) campaign to try and get people to interact more with each other to combat widespread loneliness.

Few American statesmen have been as celebrated and as hated as Henry Kissinger, described as a “key architect of US foreign policy.” He died on Wednesday at the age of 100. 

For more than 30 years, Palestinian and Bedouin shepherds say they lived peacefully in part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. A few days after the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, they say they faced extreme harassment and threats from armed Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers, and were forced to relocate. Palestinian advocates say extremist Jewish settlers are attempting to "cleanse" parts of the West Bank of Palestinians. Israeli settlers tend to see things differently.

Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip remain in desperate need of humanitarian aid. To find out more about the situation, The World's host Marco Werman spoke with Avril Benoit, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders in the United States.