Is Sub-Saharan Africa like Medieval Europe?
A new report suggests that African economies resemble those of Medieval Europe, and so hopes of sustained growth across the continent are unrealistic. Economists have long puzzled over why economies...
View ArticleWhat next for al-Shabab?
The decision to launch a terrorist attack abroad might reflect its inability to mount a successful offensive against African Union troops on the ground but it is also a mark of al-Shabab’s enduring...
View ArticleWhy is the US so reluctant to sign human rights treaties?
The US is one of only three countries not to have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child.Last week, the United Nations shone a spotlight on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)....
View ArticleHow big a difference will the world's first malaria vaccine make?
By 2015, GlaxoSmithKline hopes to market the world's first malaria vaccine. But a lot more needs to be done to tackle a disease that kills 660,000 people a year. The UK company GlaxoSmithKline is...
View ArticleSki lifts, cognac and human rights in North Korea
Does North Korea's anger at Switzerland's refusal to supply ski lifts for the country's first luxury ski resort suggest that stricter sanctions could work?North Korea is due to open the country’s first...
View ArticleThe lessons for Europe two decades on from the war in Bosnia
For European countries, and for the United States, too, the shift from cold war to post-cold war had been too rapid for their thinking. Militarily their forces were still organised for a life-or-death...
View ArticleIndefinite delay: The last days of Nelson Mandela
Mandela lives “on the cusp of time, embodying a people’s hope, yet monumentalised on a scale ordinarily reserved for the dead”. In 1977 a group of journalists was permitted to visit Robben Island as...
View ArticleOPCW wins Nobel Peace Prize
Awarded the prize "for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons".The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), based at the Hague in the Netherlands, has won the Nobel...
View ArticleWhat next for Libya?
The kidnap of Libya's prime minister, Ali Zeidan, is a warning that Western powers need to do more to support the revolution they helped bring about.The kidnap of Libya’s prime minister Ali Zeidan by...
View ArticleAnd the 2013 Ibrahim Prize for achievement in African leadership goes to...
No one won the world's biggest cash prize this year. Again. For the second year in a row, the prize committee for the Ibrahim prize for achievement in African leadership have decided that no one...
View ArticleThe thalidomide victims still seeking compensation
The ongoing legal battles against Grunenthal matter, both for those affected by thalidomide and because of the precedent they set.Today 185 people in Spain who suffered birth deformities due to...
View ArticleHow can there still be 30m people living as slaves in 2013?
A new report reveals the extent of modern slavery worldwide, and finds that India has the highest number of enslaved people at 1.2m. Globally 29.8 million people live in modern slavery, according to a...
View ArticleThe long goodbye to Afghanistan
Nad-e Ali's most senior politician, Mohammad Ibrahim, knows that the consequence of pushing too hard for change could be a Taliban resurgence. Striking this balance would be a challenge for a political...
View ArticleHow Iran is coming in from the cold
Israel calls Hassan Rowhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” – but is the new president of the Islamic Republic the west’s best hope of détente?On a hot summer evening in July 2005, I sat in the living...
View ArticleThe choices in the Middle East are not between good and bad, but between bad...
A nuclear Iran will destabilise the Middle East and maybe push Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries into a nuclear arms race. Oil supplies might be threatened. Yet Israel, though always capable of...
View ArticleHas the sun set on Golden Dawn?
Whatever the crackdown against Golden Dawn means for Greece, the hope is now rekindled that the EU might be starting to see the rise of the far right as the threat that it is.More than 20 members of...
View ArticleThe Kremlin uses bully-boy tactics to keep other countries in the fold
Putin and his ministers were uncharacteristically polite about Barack Obama, welcoming co-operation with him over Syria’s chemical weapons. Yet only a few weeks previously their relations with...
View ArticleThe Maryville rape case: social media hurt Daisy Coleman - now it is helping her
Daisy Coleman is the latest in a series of girls to report that they were sexually assaulted and cyberbullied on social media. But we can't blame Twitter and Facebook for the existence of rape culture...
View ArticleWho is Ted Cruz and how did he nearly crash the US government?
Ted Cruz, a first-term senator from Texas, took the US government to the brink of disaster. He has paid a high price in credibility, but he wasn't always a punchline.On Wednesday evening, America held...
View ArticleHow do Tesco's food waste figures compare internationally?
Tesco wastes 30,000 tonnes of food in six months, but how does the UK compare with other countries on food waste? The number of people using food banks in the UK has tripled in the past year, and...
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