In real estate as elsewhere in its economy, China's short-term fixes mask deep structural problems Just over a year ago, policymakers were having conniptions about China's tumbling stock markets. Now it is China's frothy property market that is causing worries at home and abroad. Because the property sector accounts for about a quarter of demand in the world's second-largest economy, a market co..
What history tells us about the future of artificial intelligence - and how society should respond Experts warn that "the substitution of machinery for human labor" may "render the population redundant". They worry that "the discovery of this mighty power" has come "before we knew how to employ it rightly". Such fears are expressed today by those who worry that advances in artificial intelligenc..
A vote to leave the European Union would diminish both Britain and Europe The peevishness of the campaigning has obscured the importance of what is at stake. A vote to quit the European Union on June 23rd, which polls say is a growing possibility, would do grave and lasting harm to the politics and economy of Britain. The loss of one of the EU's biggest members would gouge a deep wound in the re..
University protesters believe they are fighting for justice; their critics think free speech is imperiled Visiting some American universities these days feels like touring the scene of an earthquake, or a small war. Though administrators insist the protests that dominoed across campuses in the past year were therapeutic, grievances seethe. Fears for jobs, and of harm - both reputational and phys..
What matters in schools is teachers. Fortunately, teaching can be taught Forget smart uniforms and small classes. The secret to stellar grades and thriving students is teachers. One American study found that in a single year's teaching the top 10% of teachers impart three times as much learning to their pupils as the worst 10% do. Another suggests that, if black pupils were taught by the best qu..
Fraud, bureaucracy and an obsession with quantity over quality still hold Chinese science back China seems to swing from insecurity about its science to hubris. In 2015, when Tu Youyou, a pharmacologist, became the first scientist to win a Nobel prize for work carried out in China, the state media's reaction was not to celebrate her ground-breaking medicinal chemistry. Rather, they claimed that ..
The economy is in freefall. The president is likely to be impeached. Brazil's democracy faces its toughest moment since the end of dictatorship. On the night of April 17th Brazil stood still. In the streets, hundreds of thousands held their breath, many sporting the yellow-and green jerseys of the national football team, brandishing Brazilian flags, vuvuzelas at the ready. Millions more were glu..
APPLE and Tesla are two of the world's most talked-about companies. They are also two of the most vertically integrated. Apple not only writes much of its own software, but designs its own chips and runs its own shops. Tesla makes 80% of its electric cars and sells them directly to its customers. It is also constructing a network of service stations and building the world's biggest battery facto..
Mark Zuckerberg prepares to fight for dominance of the next era of computing Not since the era of imperial Rome has the "thumbs-up" sign been such a potent and public symbol of power. A mere 12 years after it was founded, Facebook is a great empire with a vast population, immense wealth, a charismatic leader, and mind-boggling reach and influence. The world's largest social network has 1.6 billi..
The Brussles attacks have provoked outpourings of grief on social media. Public figures may feel obliged to share, but there are better ways to react. It's the flowers that arrive first and last the longest. Days after the crowds have thinned out and the internet traffic has slowed on the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie or Paris or, now, Bruxelles, the wilted, decomposing once-living tributes to the newl..
I can insist this is an image of heroic, defiant, brave refugees, trying to make us live up to our liberal values. But to terrified European eyes they are the other, the enemy It is only when you notice the railway lines that all the historical echoes converge. On a train line between Greece and Macedonia, where a gate protected by barbed wire has been set up to keep migrants on the Greek side o..
With the Republican and Democratic nominations all but sewn up after Super Tuesday, Donald and Hillary can stop pretending and go after each other Barring some historic unprecedented collapse, the US presidential election will be a heavyweight slugfest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: a contest between one candidate who says she wants to see more love and kindness, and another who says ..
Jenny Beavan made me proud, not just to be British, but to fulfill every aspect of how we're stereotyped Four people wrote London Has Fallen, a new disaster movie in which a disgruntled Middle Eastern arms dealer unleashes an attack that, reports a newsreader, "has decimated most of the known landmarks in the British capital". So, some good news: it's only the known ones. Anyone seeking sanctuar..
Progress wasn't supposed to mean chasing an ever-receding prospect of retirement. It's time to challenge this bleak vision. Work already consumes too much of our lives:L for the next generation, it could consume even more. The state pension age will be bumped up to 66 by 2020; and according to experts reacting to the government's review of the state retirements age, those lucky young things now ..
After meeting with Greek PM in Athens, president of European council issues warning to would-be migrants One of the EU's most senior leaders has warned would-be economic migrants not to undertake a like-threatening journey to Europe. In a dramatic appeal aimed at "potential illegal economic migrants", the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, said: "Do not come to Europe. Do not believ..