ROME - NGOs carrying out rescue operations in the Mediterranean have been at odds with the Italian government for years. SOS MEDITERRANNEE claims to perform its duty as mandated by international maritime law. Italy fights back with administrative sanctions.

BRUSSELS - In the European Parliament, Vlaams Belang has a very different narrative than the social image the party wants to project in Flanders. Even in Flanders, by the way, this social narrative should be taken with a grain of salt.

DODOMA - Many people are eager to help restore damaged or disappearing forests. But which projects actually contribute to carbon storage, biodiversity protection and quality of life for local people, and which ones make the problems worse?

EUROPE - Twenty years ago the first SARS outbreak gave the warning. But Europe has failed to prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of funding for drug research and may still fail to prepare for the next pandemuc, argue several prominent scientists interviewed by Stefano Valentino and Gian Paolo Accardo.

AMSTERDAM - Shell knows the ways to the highest circles as well as the shortcuts through the political swamps. The oil and gas giant operates in 70 countries. Most are not democratic constitutional states. Shell - until recently Royal Dutch Shell - has to deal daily with weak or autocratic governments, corruption, unrest, war and terrorism. How does it navigate through these?

BRUSSEL - These women weren’t leading  the same battles, walking in the same streets or speaking in the same forums. Yet they were all victims of the same crime:  political feminicide.

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM - In Belgium and the Netherlands, Mexican laborers have raised a new branch of the drug industry: crystal meth. Arthur Debruyne portrays all those involved. 'Buying gloves? Just tell those mexi to work'.
 

CAÏRO - This year, Egypt is hosting the international climate summit COP27. An African first of symbolic importance, but international organisations like Amnesty International point to the serious abuses in Egyptian prisons. They see the Egyptian presidency as an attempt to polish the regime's image before the international community.

BWINDI - The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda has been chosen by the US National Health Institute (NHI) as a ‘hotspot’ for a potential new outbreak of a zoonotic disease like Monkeypox, Covid or Ebola.

DAKAR - Kris Berwouts went to Senegal with the question: 'What are Senegal's strengths and vulnerabilities when it comes to the risk of jihadism spilling over from the Sahel? This received a boost in 2012 in Mali and has since rapidly spread to Burkina Faso and Niger.

BRUSSELS - For years, the Belgian political world rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs. That truth is now becoming all the more painfully clear.

BRUSSELS - The pollution around the 3M plant has been known for years. Yet the PFOS scandal did not erupt in Flanders until the spring of 2021.

MARIUPOL - The Sea of ​​Azov is the shallowest sea in the world. The entire region around the sea has been a battleground for centuries.

BRUSSELS - Climate change is causing extremes in weather, such as more frequent heat waves, periods of drought and intense rainfall. Our farmers notice the consequences of the climate crisis on their fields, in fluctuating yields and failing crops.

BRUSSELS - Journalists at KNACK, LeVif and RTBF have joined forces to investigate the peculiar financial management of the non-profit organisation Poverello. They greedily buy real estate that often remains empty. The organisation appears to be very rich, but hardly ever uses its money for working with the poor.

SWEDEN - Through the project Indigenous People Today, we investigate the effects of climate change on indigenous peoples, their ways of life and unique cultures. These are indigenous peoples in the northern hemisphere, living in arctic or high-altitude areas.

MOSUL - Many residents of Mosul, Iraq's second city, see the power that Shiite militias have seized in the city as a new occupation. If the terror group ISIS could still be chased away militarily, how they will ever get rid of militias that have put their corrupt tentacles into everything, they do not know.

ALBANIA - Over the past 30 years, Albania has evolved at breakneck speed from an extreme communist dictatorship to an unbridled neoliberal democracy. This makes the country an interesting laboratory for contemporary social developments, such as migration, identity construction or gender and the social role of women. There is a lot to be said about this, because Albanian society has always been very patriarchal. Equality between men and women is hardly an issue.

BUJUMBURA - After sixty years, Ludo De Witte opens up about a murder that set Burundi on the road to internal division, ethnic tension and mass killings.

TURKEY - Two shy young men start to work in an all-inclusive hotel. A new, absurd world opens up to them. Colourful swimsuits, an abundance of food and the management’s demands ensure they will never be the same again.

MEXICO - La Civil tells the story of Cielo, a mother in search of her daughter, abducted by a criminal cartel in Northern Mexico. As the authorities fail to offer support in the search, Cielo takes matters into her own hands and turns from housewife into avenging activist. The story was inspired by true events.

BEIRUT - The report 'Draining the well of young dreams' gives a portrait of these young adults alongside city landscapes who image the current situation in Beirut.

BRUSSELS - “When discussing drug production, we rarely look at the environmental damage and costs. Belgium, together with The Netherlands, is the main producer of synthetic drugs in Europe, and the chemical waste deriving as a by-product from the production here remains.

BRUSSELS - 'Back to Bled' is a contemporary story about the connection between the city and the countryside, starting in multicultural Brussels. The core of the documentary is friction; friction between city and countryside, ecology and economy, healthy versus cheap, connected versus uprooted.

# Financial support
0

# Supported Projects
0

# Journalists
0

News

Apply for a grant at FPD Lage Landen

2023-11-16

Do you have a good idea for a cross-border research project between the Netherlands and Belgium? Do you like working in a team with someone who knows more about the other side? Then apply for a scholarship at FPD Lage Landen.

The story behind "This is where is mommy living now"

2023-10-09

In Europe, children sometimes end up in prison. Not because they have done something wrong, but because they are the (unborn) child of a convicted, accused or interned woman. Bruges prison even has a special ward where young children can live with their imprisoned mothers. Read the story behind the podcast Here Mum Lives Now here.

Sign up for IRJ

2023-06-23

Always looking for the truth? 

Enrol in the postgraduate International Research Journalism course and learn how to: 

  • Build a solid research project
  • Set up cross-border collaborations
  • Turn research into a good story
  • Gain international visibility
  • Be taught by the best lecturers in the field at home and abroad and have a chance to win your first publication even before the programme is completed.