蜜芽传媒

The German reporter who spent time with Islamic State. Last December, after months of negotiation, J眉rgen Todenh枚fer, spent 10 days inside the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Despite the risks, he was determined to spend time with them and interview some in their ranks.

It took just 40 years for the Aral Sea in Central Asia to disappear. Latest satellite pictures reveal that 90% of the water has dried up, forming a new desert between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Fishing ports were suddenly in the middle of a desert, and the local economy came to a standstill. Marjan Baybol-Kizi in Kazakhstan remembers watching the sea vanish.

Paul Kirika is one of Africa's most eminent botanists. The Kenyan is working to collect specimens for the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership - the largest plant conservation project in the world. They focus on plants threatened with extinction, and on plants that might improve existing food crops in the future. His interest in plant collecting came from his father who was also a famous botanist.

Inti Castro is Chile's most famous street artist. His massive colourful murals can be seen on buildings across Santiago and the port town of Valparaiso where he was born in 1982. He started out when he was a teenager with a gang of graffiti artists painting by night, but today he travels all over the world, invited by governments and privates institutions to paint vast murals. Inti currently lives in Paris but Outlook's Jane Chambers managed to catch up with him on one of his rare visits home to Valparaiso.

(Photo: J眉rgen Todenh枚fer (centre) talks to members of an IS special police unit. Credit: Frederic Todenh枚fer)