The origin of new year’s resolutions
Those pledges to do more exercise and drink less alcohol recall promises that were made four millennia ago THIS new year, as every year, millions of people will have made resolutions promising improvements in...
Category: International
The fastest-growing and shrinking economies in 2018
Ever since the global economy completed its rebound from the financial crisis of 2008, it has grown at a moderate but steady pace. That trend is likely to continue in 2018: according to the...
The choice that could save South Africa, or wreck it
To avoid a dire, two-decade dynasty of dysfunction, South Africa’s ruling ANC should ditch the Zumas SOUTH AFRICA’S Constitutional Court may be the world’s most emotionally powerful building. The courtroom is built with the...
The war the world ignores
YEMEN lost the title of Arabia Felix, or “Fortunate Arabia”, long ago. It has suffered civil wars, tribalism, jihadist violence and appalling poverty. But none of this compares with the misery being inflicted on the...
Ex-Bosnian Croat leader commits suicide in court
Ex-Bosnian Croat leader Slobodan Praljak has died after drinking poison at a UN war crimes court in The Hague: Croatia’s state TV He took the court by surprise as he brought out a liquid...
North Korea rocket can hit any US city: Kim Jong Un
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Wednesday his country had achieved full nuclear statehood after successfully testing a new missile capable of hitting anywhere in the United States. The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)...
Demand for wives is fuelling the abduction of women from abroad
HUONG was only 15 when she went out to meet a friend in Lao Cai, a city in northern Vietnam on the Chinese border (see map). She thought she would be gone a few...
Police arrest 86-year-old woman for robber
Police in Philadelphia, U.S., have arrested an 86-year-old woman for an attempted robbery after she pointed a gun at a bank teller and demanded $400, police say. Reports say that Emily Coakley, who uses...
Do social media threaten democracy?
Facebook, Google and Twitter were supposed to save politics as good information drove out prejudice and falsehood. Something has gone very wrong IN 1962 a British political scientist, Bernard Crick, published “In Defence of...
The long and dangerous road to slavery – by James Politi and Maggie Fick
The unmarked flat in a grey cement building on the edge of an Italian hillside town is deliberately anonymous and decorated with donated Ikea furniture. Dora is perched on an armchair inside, her voice...
