Emissions slashed today won’t slow warming until mid-century
Jul 11th 2020MUCH OF the international effort thus far to combat climate change has focused on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, chief among them carbon dioxide. That is, of course, a rational approach. Global average temperatures are roughly 1.1°C warmer today than in pre-industrial times and CO2 is the main culprit. It and other greenhouse…
Measuring luminescence helps to date a remarkable new discovery at Stonehenge
Jul 11th 2020FOR MORE than 4,000 years Stonehenge has stood on Salisbury Plain in southern Britain. The landscape surrounding the Neolithic monument contains many secrets, with features dating back to much earlier times. Having surveyed more than 18 square kilometres in the vicinity, archaeologists continue to make surprising discoveries. The latest, a series of deep…
The race to lead the WTO begins
Jul 11th 2020AND THEY’RE off! On July 8th the window for members to nominate the next director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) closed. Over the next few months members will try to pick between eight candidates, each hoping to rescue the institution from its present sorry state. The process will highlight some of the…
Americans need more guidance from the Fed
Jul 11th 2020YOU MAY think that central banking is a sort of macroeconomic engineering—tweaking an interest rate here or a financial regulation there. But psychology enters into it, too. In order to achieve strong growth, people need to spend today as if the health of tomorrow’s economy were assured. That makes communication critical. Early on…
The Philippines’ ferocious lockdown lingers on, despite uncertain benefits
Jul 11th 2020“I’M CONSTANTLY AFRAID that we will get infected,” frets Diverson Bloso, “We don’t have money to bring us to the hospital, in case that happened.” A messenger at a printing press in Quezon City, part of Manila’s sprawl, he prays he keeps his job. His boss told workers that the business might have…
Australia’s second city faces a new wave of contagion
IT WOULD BE “the very worst thing” to have to impose a second lockdown, warned Daniel Andrews, the premier of Victoria, when he started easing the state’s restrictions in May. On July 8th he was forced to do just that to 5m residents of Melbourne, the state’s capital, plus a district to its north, where…
What to make of a series of odd explosions in Iran
Jul 11th 2020BEIRUT AND JERUSALEMIN THE EARLY hours of July 2nd a building caught fire in the grounds of the nuclear plant at Natanz in central Iran. Officials downplayed it as an accident in an unfinished shed. But photos showed a building with machinery on the roof. Satellite images added more doubt: scattered debris looked…
Zimbabwe’s worst economic crisis in more than a decade
Jul 11th 2020HARARE AND JOHANNESBURG“TEACHERS ARE starving,” says Tsitsi, who works at a school in a township in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Like nurses, soldiers and bureaucrats, teachers have seen their real incomes evaporate as annualised inflation approaches 1,000%. Their monthly pay, which they receive in Zimbabwe dollars, is worth about $30.Covid-19 has hurt Zimbabwe. Trade…
This year’s AIDS conference has brought snippets of good news
Jul 8th 2020NOT SAN FRANCISCO AFTER ALLEVEN IN THE days of the internet, conferences remain the lifeblood of science. Young thrusters can meet old fogeys and lobby them for jobs. Ideas can be swapped in the knowledge that no electronic trail will come back to haunt you. And journalists can swoop, scoop up a bundle…
Man convicted of shooting into victim’s grave sentenced to 15 years
A man was sentenced to 15 years in prison after he was convicted of shooting a firearm into the open grave of a male killed merely two days beforehand. According to a news release in Chicago from the U.S. attorney’s office, John J. Tharp Jr., U.S. District Judge, handed down the arduous sentence Wednesday after…