How to cure holiday hangovers

The UN World Food Programme chief is calling for supply trucks to be allowed to deliver food to thousands of refugees in Tigray, saying current rations will run out on Friday.

In Latvia's capital, a pasta order comes in and a robotic arm springs into action at the Roboeatz eatery. Within 5 minutes, a piping hot plate is ready. Roboeatz aims to revolutionise the fast food industry with its innovative use of technology.

When Bangladesh shut down for more than two months last year during its first Covid outbreak, hundreds of charities, civic groups and political parties gave out food, cash, masks and sanitiser to those who had lost their jobs. But coronavirus fatigue has set in and people have become less willing to finance the goodwill as the pandemic drags on.

Assembled from old household items, the Delta robot has been delivering food and cheer to residents in Surabaya, Indonesia.

The Cuban government distributes food donated by other countries as the island deals with severe food and medicine shortages amid its worst economic crisis in 30 years.

When Luis Diaz retired, he was unable to feed his family by relying solely on the food parcels provided by the government at subsidized prices, so he and his friends decided to grow their own. Eight years of recession and four years of hyperinflation have decimated Venezuela’s economy that has lost 80 percent of its value since 2014 leading to regular shortages of basic necessities.

He was once a minister in Afghanistan but quit, fed up with the corruption. Now in Germany, Sayed Sadaat is making a living delivering meals on his bicycle. Working six hours on weekdays and ten hours a day on the weekend, Sadaat shuttles pizzas and other orders to customers, clad in his distinctive orange uniform and large square backpack.

US startup Bond Pet Foods is hoping to remake the pet food industry by growing nutritional chow in a lab. Most pet food includes animal protein, which requires the slaughter of animals and is ultimately a source of planet-warming gases. Rich Kelleman's Colorado-based enterprise, however, is aiming to sidestep both pitfalls by making those same proteins in a biotech process.

The price of electricity in Spain has skyrocketed in recent months, leaving some consumers with difficult choices to make about their spending. The Spanish government has announced measures including a VAT cut and a windfall tax on energy company profits to try to combat the price increases, which have been triggered by the rising price of gas. Also today, the troubled Chinese property developer Evergrande faces a major debt deadline.

Exactly 34 years ago today, the charismatic Pan-Africanist and Burkina Faso's then President, Thomas Sankara, was shot dead aged 37 by soldiers during a coup on 15 October 1987. Four years before his assassination with 12 others, Sankara and his close friend, Blaise Compaoré, staged a coup that brought them to power. This is the story of how he shaped Burkina Faso decades after his assassination.

The World Food Programme says it urgently needs funds or it may have to cut food rations to more than 500,000 people in Nigeria's conflict-ravaged north-east.

Russian President Vladimir Putin orders a nationwide week-long paid holiday starting on October 30 to curb Covid infections amid record coronavirus deaths.