Scientists produce indirect evidence of gaseous filaments and sheets known as Whims linking clusters of galaxies in the cosmic web It is one of cosmology’s more perplexing problems: that up to 90% of the ordinary matter in the universe appears to have gone missing. Now astronomers have detected about ... Read More »
U.S. Will Withdraw From Unesco, Citing Its ‘Anti-Israel Bias’
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it would withdraw from Unesco, the United Nations cultural organization, after years of the United States distancing itself because of what it called the group’s “anti-Israel bias.” The administration also cited mounting arrears at the organization as ... Read More »
Climate change is a threat to rich and poor alike
From Miami and Puerto Rico to Barbuda and Havana, the devastation of this year’s hurricane season across Latin America and the Caribbean serves as a reminder that the impacts of climate change know no borders. In recent weeks, Category 5 hurricanes have brought normal life to a standstill for millions ... Read More »
Why the world must wake up to China’s threat to freedom in Hong Kong
Twenty years ago, as a fresh graduate, I flew to Hong Kong just a few months after the handover to begin my first job. I spent five very happy years working as a journalist there and never expected that 20 years later I would be refused the right to ... Read More »
Isis is facing near total defeat in Iraq and Syria – but it has been beaten and come back before
Isis has fought desperately and skilfully to hold the Syrian city of Raqqa, under siege by Kurdish-led forces for more than four months, but will soon lose it in the latest defeat for the Islamic fundamentalist movement. Little is left today of the Caliphate declared in 2014, which once ... Read More »
US flies bombers over Korean Peninsula in show of force as Donald Trump discusses strategy with defence chiefs
President meets with Secretary of Defence General James Mattis to plan best approach to rogue state’s growing nuclear threat The US military flew two strategic bombers over the Korean Peninsula in a show of force late on Tuesday, as President Donald Trump met top defence officials to discuss how to respond ... Read More »
The Nobel in economics rewards a pioneer of “nudges”
Richard Thaler becomes one of very few behavioural economists to receive the discipline’s highest honour NOT long ago, the starting assumption of any economic theory was that humans are rational actors who maximise their utility. Economists summarily dismissed anyone insisting otherwise. But over the past few decades, behavioural ... Read More »
A Declaration of Independence, Sort of, for Catalonia
BARCELONA, Spain — The Catalan secession crisis took a confusing new turn on Tuesday night, after the leader of Catalonia made a perplexing speech in which he appeared to declare independence from Spain, before immediately suspending that decision to allow for more “dialogue” with leaders in Madrid. For days, ... Read More »
Younger farmers and more tractors: Africa needs to scale up, says report
With Africa’s population set to double by 2050, economists say the continent must ditch traditional farming methods in favour of modern technology African farming must modernise and replace its ageing workforce if the continent is going to be able to feed its rising population, a report by ... Read More »
Trump’s targeting of Revolutionary Guards is a step too far for Iran
Tehran has promised crushing response if US president makes ‘strategic mistake’ of listing elite force as terrorist entity In the 11 months since Donald Trump’s election, Tehran has been at pains to avoid kneejerk reactions. The measured responses to the US president’s pronouncements on Iranian activities have revealed ... Read More »