A lawyer acting for Alexander Litvinenko’s widow said that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was attempting to block the disclosure of evidence that showed Russian involvement in his death and exposed the former KGB agent’s relationship with MI6.

“You are being steamrollered by two states acting in collaboration with one another,” Ben Emmerson, QC, told Sir Robert Owen, a High Court judge wh

The shale gas revolution was meant to bring lasting prosperity. But the result of the gas glut may be just a bubble, producing no more than a temporary recovery that masks deep structural instability.

While the horsemeat scandal continues to unfold – prepared meals were removed from shelves in Finland, Sweden and Switzerland over the weekend – the European Commission has decided to authorise the use of animal meal in feed for farmed fish, beginning June 1. It was banned in 1996, during the "mad cow" crisis.

.. some analysts speculate that the revelations from the leaks at the very least accelerated Benedict’s decision to resign. In early 2012, he appointed three trusted cardinals to investigate beyond the criminal case involving his butler. They interviewed widely inside the Curia and out, and delivered their final report in December. Its contents are sealed, though speculation is rife that the card

It’s an essay less about actual royals than the way they’ve been presented to us. And it travels from the coverage of Kate to the death of Diana to the discovery of the skeleton of Richard III to the possible blood type of Henry VIII, with a detour through a couple of Stevie Smith quotations and Mantel’s own encounter with the Queen. Which is to say, it’s a saturated, highly dexterous piece of w

Earth's increasingly hot, wet climate has cut the amount of work people can do in the worst heat by about 10 per cent in the past six decades, and that loss in labor capacity could double by mid-century, US government scientists reported on Sunday.

Because warmer air can hold more moisture than cooler air, there's more absolute humidity in the atmosphere now than there used to be.

To figur

The al-Qaida extremists bypassed the brightly colored, high-end synthetic floor coverings and stopped their pickup truck in front of a man selling more modest mats woven from desert grass, priced at $1.40 apiece. There they bought two bales of 25 mats each, and asked him to bundle them on top of the car, along with a stack of sticks.

"It's the first time someone has bought such a large amount,

We are now ranked 23rd worst out of 30 OECD countries for income inequality. Around 270,000 New Zealand children are living in poverty, creating a permanent future under-class.

Before we start blaming the victims, the Living Wage organisers reveal that four out of 10 poor children are in families where at least one parent is in full-time work or self-employed.

Wages moved a measly 2 per cen

This indicates a high level of coordination among the various entities that might be blamed for his death. They desperately wanted to be sure to have all their ducks in a row. If this isn’t an incipient cover-up, I don’t know what is.

Another extraordinary aspect of the case is that it took eight days before Israel released the body for repatriation to his family in Australia. One of the mo

For many young people, illegal jobs are their first and only work experience. In these times of crisis, many companies only hand out part-time contracts. Others opt for redundancy fund schemes or close down. The abusive use of redundancy fund schemes creates a vicious circle that feeds the black labour market. Employees are left in limbo between work and unemployment. Many of them turn to illegal

If a homeowner's real-world equity is effectively zero, then what do they actually own? They own a mortgage, i.e. a promise to pay a debt. As long as they are current on payments, this acts more as a claim on future ownership, i.e. full ownership when the mortgage is paid off, or a long-term lease.

If their equity is 10% of the mortgage, there is no way to extract this equity short of selling

New figures show a sharp rise in gambling problems linked to Lotto, and health officials blame big jackpots.

The figures show more than 12 per cent of problem gamblers cite the Lotteries Commission as their main gambling outlet, up from 8.8 per cent in a survey three years earlier.

While pokies in pubs and clubs still lead problem gambling statistics, the figures show more problem gamblers

The organization known as Parent Revolution is attempting to convert the struggling 24th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles into a charter school. The pro-charter organization is pursuing its agenda by utilizing provisions of the state’s “Parent Trigger” law, under which drastic changes can be made to the operation of a public school if more than 50 percent of the student body’s parents agre

A century ago, Benedict XV was an energetic and courageous man who mobilized the Vatican diplomatic corps to end World War I and to arrange a negotiated peace. Benedict XV was hated especially by the British, who considered him a sympathizer of the Central empires.

Something of the spirit of Benedict XV lived on in Wojtyla, the Polish pope. When the Panamanian leader Noriega took re

From my interaction with Google recruiters, I can tell that by not knowing anyone at Google I am unfit to work at Google. This reminds me of the classic Economist article on the topic of teacher credentialing that shows a picture of Einstein with the caption “unfit to teach.” A hiring heuristic that gives massive preference to internal referrals means you’ll throw away some of the best candidates