The cold winter weather combined with the fuel crisis and inflation has created chaos within our beloved health service. Nurses and other medical workers made the difficult decision to strike after years of being underpaid and undervalued. Ambulance waiting times soared during the year’s busiest period and it’s left many asking what can be done to fix the crisis.

Dutch Historian Frank Dikötter’s latest book on China's so-called 'economic miracle' reveals a tale of distortion and contradictory realities as he examines how the superpower has transformed since the 1970s.

Lake Victoria is the world’s second-largest freshwater lake. Twenty-five million people depend on it for their survival. Once a site of almost miraculous biodiversity, in recent decades it has played host to one of history’s greatest mass extinctions. Overfishing, pollution, deforestation and global warming have decimated fish stocks and rendered large swathes of the lake unfit for life. In his new book The Saviour Fish: Life and Death on Africa’s Greatest Lake, Mark Weston explores how biodiversity loss and climate change are affecting some of the most marginalised communities on the planet. Living for two years on remote Ukerewe Island in the Tanzanian half of the lake, he gets to know the fishermen and families who are hardest hit by the crisis and finds out how they are responding. In this excerpt, he tells the story of a decision made long ago by East Africa’s British colonisers, which is still having major repercussions for those living around the lake today.