Arno Froese

The annual ranking assesses 173 cities worldwide across stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure to identify those offering the highest quality of life. Vienna, Melbourne, Sydney and Zurich rounded out this year’s top five, reflecting both Europe’s enduring dominance and Australia’s continued strong showing. Taking the top spot for the second year in a row, the Danish capital [Copenhagen] earned perfect scores in stability, education and infrastructure,...

Maryam Aminu was hardly surprised when the last of her six children was diagnosed with malnutrition in April for a second time. She was barely feeding the 18-month-old regularly, let alone with nutritious foods. Northern Nigeria, one of the world’s poorest regions, is already under pressure from an insurgency crisis. Now, the conflict in the Middle East has worsened food security for millions of people living in poverty, especially children. If the war in the Middle East continues, up to 23.4...

Picture this: A gas station customer pulls out a wad of bills to pay for a fill-up. The cashier refuses the money, explaining that the station’s bank has stopped accepting notes and coins as deposits because it already is drowning in cash. In most places, cash is king. But in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, having too much is gumming up the machinery of daily life. The Palestinian banking system has more Israeli shekels than it can manage. As a result, paper money has gotten harder for...