The impulse behind Japan’s decision to go on with the Olympic games
Jun 5th 2021F EWER THAN 50 days remain before the apparently unstoppable opening of the 2020 summer Olympic games in Tokyo. The pandemic led to their postponement last year. Today the clock is ticking down against a backdrop of resurgent infections of covid-19 in Japan, a state of emergency in Tokyo and nine other prefectures,…
Thousands of Congolese have fled Goma, fearing lava and deadly gas
THEY GRABBED blankets, clothes and mattresses and rushed out of their houses at dawn on May 27th. In their tens of thousands, they streamed out of the city of Goma, in eastern Congo, terrified of what its volcano might do next. Some fled east towards the border with Rwanda (see map). Others hurried west to…
Jordanians wake to an irritating tune blared from gas trucks
EVERY DAY many groggy Jordanians are woken by the sound of Beethoven blasted down the street. Trucks selling gas cylinders drive around playing a tinny electronic version of “Für Elise” in the early hours of the morning, alerting customers in the style of an ice-cream van. Residents in need of gas flag down the van…
Composing by computer
Concerts may soon feature music written by artificial intelligenceJun 2nd 2021THESE DAYS, anyone with a computer can be a composer. Sort of. Give a piece of commercial software such as Magenta, developed by Google, the first few notes of a song, and it will make something merrily tuneful out of them. Tuneful, but not sophisticated.…
As oil demand picks up, OPEC’s discipline will be tested
Recovering demand pushed prices above $70 a barrel for the first time since 2019“THE DEMAND picture has shown clear signs of improvement.” So declared Abdulaziz bin Salman, the energy minister of Saudi Arabia, at a virtual gathering of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on June 1st. The cartel and its allies, chief…
Binyamin Netanyahu’s opponents reach a deal to replace him
But the prime minister won’t give up without a fightISRAEL is used to governments made up of disparate parties. But the coalition deal agreed on June 2nd, which would end Binyamin Netanyahu’s 12-year reign as prime minister, would be the most diverse in history.On the far right are Yamina—led by Naftali Bennett (pictured), once one…
Cicadas, insecticides and children
The return of periodical cicadas bodes ill for children’s well-beingJun 2nd 2021AS SUMMER APPROACHES, adults of cicada Brood X, last seen in 2004, have begun emerging in the eastern United States. Their return is welcome news for entomologists who study them, and for adventurous chefs in search of novel ingredients. It could, though, have bad…
Testing alibis is not as straightforward as it seems
Justice is sometimes badly served as a consequenceJun 2nd 2021IN 1985 RONALD COTTON, a resident of North Carolina, was falsely convicted of rape and burglary, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Nearly a decade later, he was exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence. Not only did the victim make an error in identifying him as…
Twilight of the tax haven
Jun 1st 2021AS IS OFTEN the case in multilateral matters, America held the key. When Janet Yellen, its treasury secretary, announced earlier this year that it was time to end the “global race to the bottom” on corporate tax, her remarks supercharged sputtering talks over a global deal to overhaul how much tax multinational companies…
The origin of watermelons
A popular fruit started off in DarfurJun 1st 2021THE ORIGINS of some crops are well known. Maize derives from a wild grass growing in the Balsas river valley, in what is now Mexico. Potatoes hail from the border between Peru and Bolivia. Apples trace back to the woodlands of southern Kazakhstan. Some crops’ beginnings, though,…