Drug mules have barely been out of the UK news this August. First the “Peru two”, Melissa Reid from Scotland and Michaela Connolly from Ireland, were arrested attempting to leave Lima with just under 12kgs…
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One of the most tedious but enduring stories of a summer packed with sporting incident has finally reached its climax: Gareth Bale has been bought by Real Madrid. This morning he had a medical at the club…
The sudden death on Friday of the Irish Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney has focused international minds and media on the power of poetry to affect our lives. This is especially true from an environmental…
As a young civil engineer in the 1950s, my grandfather was posted to Khartoum in the Sudan, tasked with helping to build a new water supply, drains and sewers for the city. Over the years, this system…
Bitcoin enthusiasts and libertarians the world over are in a state of confusion about the slowness with which the outside world is catching on to their new way of exchanging money. But regulators and lawmakers…
George Clooney revealed details last week about “his” spy satellite over Sudan, which he funds to keep an eye on the Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who has been accused of war crimes. The Satellite…
Edible insects are great alternatives to conventional sources of meat as they’re cheap, plentiful and excellent sources of protein and fat, as well as vitamins and minerals. In many countries, eating insects…
Another week, another banking scandal. In the past few years we have seen what appears to be an endless line-up of banks behaving badly. They have engaged in rate manipulation, rogue trading, product mis-selling…
The Times of Israel reacted strongly on Friday to the UK’s vote against joining America in punitive air strikes against Syria’s Assad regime: “Perfidious Albion hands murderous Assad a spectacular victory…
How intelligent are animals? Despite centuries of effort by philosophers, psychologists and biologists, the question remains unanswered. We are inclined to tackle this question using a top-down approach…
With the economies of developed countries picking up, India risks being left behind as concerns grow over its economy and the viability of investing in its markets and companies. Investors are now turning…
NASA has a rover called Curiosity, currently scurrying around the surface of Mars, exploring the geology with the aim of better understanding whether or not life could, at one time, have existed on the…
It would take a hard-hearted person not to have been moved to tears by the images on our television screens of Syria over the last week - of infants struggling to breathe while their parents looked on…
As a policy analyst, I am naturally interested in the dynamics of domestic politics, the role of specific actors, institutions and communities. So I understand why so much talk in Britain yesterday and…
The so called “leaky pipeline” of women in academic science, technology, engineering and maths is a big issue, representing a major loss in talent and creativity. Only 15% of professors in these fields…
Chef Jamie Oliver was right to point the finger at ready meals with their high salt, sugar and fat content, misleading labels and hidden calories as a cause of obesity. He was also right to argue that…
The discount label is a familiar sight in UK shops. Everything from expensive televisions to supermarket essentials now seem to be offered for less than their original prices. But how often is the discount…
The frequency of large wildfires in the western US have been increasing over the past several decades. The Rim Fire, currently threatening the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite National Park, is an example…
One of the few bits of political memorabilia I own is a copy of the parliamentary proceedings – the Hansard – of Tuesday, March 18, 2003, signed for me by the then chief whip, Hilary Armstrong. That day…
According to the very great, very funny and utterly bloody-minded Austrian novelist Thomas Bernhard, in his book My Prizes: An Accounting (2011) - in which he heaps scorn upon the many literary prizes…
We often talk about work-life balance but for most of us it might be more appropriately called work-life imbalance. The recent sad death of a Merrill Lynch intern sparked the company to review working…
Stand by - on a screen near you - for the all-too familiar televisual firework display which means that the US and its allies are forging ahead with the threatened air strikes on Syria. As politicians…
For life to persist, it must tolerate its environment. The depth of an arctic winter is formidable, and is most notably overcome by hibernation. But some reptiles and amphibians survive by allowing their…
Prospective US and UK military action in Syria has created jitters in the financial and commodities markets around the world. Stock markets have experienced significant losses, whereas commodities and…
As the drums beat louder for the possibility of Western military intervention in Syria, we have seen discussion of an intervention on moral, strategic and practical grounds. But so far none of the major…