Of the 16 teams most likely to qualify, 14 have reached the knockout rounds It will go down as one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history. On June 27th Germany exited the tournament at the group stage, marking the first time that the country had failed to reach the quarter-finals since 1938. The debacle was all the more astounding for its farcical conclusion. The reigning world champions lo..
When you conserve something, you ensure that you make use of it wisely. You make sure it is not wasted. There is a suggestion that if you do not make careful use of it, then chances are it will be impossible to replace the commodity. During the summer, the government always tells us to conserve power and water. It's okay to waste them during the winter months, but not during the summer. When you..
Imply If a speaker or writer implies something, they are suggesting it in an indirect way rather than making an explicit statement. As a reader or listener, you are left to draw your own conclusions from what has been said or hinted. I did not mean to imply that there was any truth to these accusations. English Heritage stresses that inclusion in the 'at risk' does not imply any criticism of the..
Wealth, size and interest in football explain almost half of countries' international performance. The rest can be taught On a sunny Saturday afternoon, within kicking distance of Uruguay's national football stadium, 14 seven-year-olds walk onto a bumpy pitch. They are cheered by their parents, who are also the coaches, kit-washers and caterers. The match is one of hundreds played every weekend ..
Even if the president strikes a deal with North Korea, his approach will harm America and the world Picture this: next week in Singapore President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un crown their summit with a pledge to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. A few days later America and China step back from a trade war, promising to settle their differences. And in the summer, as sanctions bite, t..
An excerpt and interview with Andrew Ferguson, author of "The Rise of Big Data Policing" "Minority Report", a 2002 film directed by Steven Spielberg, features a squad of police officers who arrest people for murders they are predicted to commit. The film was science fiction; yet police departments around the world increasingly use predictive analytics to identify people who might become perpetra..
This will leave everyone poorer President Donald Trump is about to find out how easy trade wars are to win. In the name of America's national security, on May 31st he announced tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada, Mexico and the European Union. From midnight that same day, trade flows worth $23bn in 2017 faced duties of up to 25%. Tariffs are a tax. These ones are supposed to hand market p..
Addressing hardships requires both redistribution and regulation, writes Swati Dhingra of the London School of Economics As early as 1941, Paul Samuelson, a Nobel prize-winning trade economist, argued that globalization causes economic hardship for some. He continued to write that the losers from globalization need to be compensated by the gainers to address the drastic increase in inequality we..
Their second summit in a month may have put détente with America back on track There is an old saying about buses; you wait for one for ages, then two come along at once. The same may now be said of inter-Korean summits. On May 26th Moon Jae-in, South Korea's president, and Kim Jong Un, the North's leader, added another surprise to a week already rich in them by meeting for informal talks on the..
To describe Moon Jae-in's expressions as "ashen-faced" would be an understatement. In a photograph released by his office early on May 25th, South Korea's president looked a decade older than his 65 years. The downward turn of his lips suggested that he might be about to cry. The picture was taken at an emergency meeting Mr Moon had been forced to convene late the previous night after Donald Tru..
Republican-led states are using waivers to impose work requirements for the first time ever American lawmakers are acutely afraid of rewarding the loafing poor. For that reason, Congress has set strict work requirements on federal food assistance and cash welfare. The Trump administration is now steadily doing the same for Medicaid, as America's health-insurance programme for the poor is known. ..
The Dutch East India Company (abbreviated to VOV in Dutch), was a publicly tradable corporation that was founded in 1602 and became defunct in 1799. It was originally established as a chartered company to trade with India and Indianized Southeast Asian countries when the Dutch government granted it a 21-year monopoly on the Dutch spice trade. The VOC was an early multinational corporation in its..
The Haijin(海禁) or sea ban was a series of related isolationist Chinese policies restricting private maritime trading and coastal settlement during most of the Ming dynasty and some of the Qing. First imposed to deal with Japanese piracy amid the mopping up of Yuan partisans, the sea ban was completely counterproductive: by the 16th century, piracy and smuggling were endemic and mostly consisted ..
Chinoiserie is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and East Asian artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, literature, theatre, and music. The aesthetic of Chinoiserie has been expressed in different ways depending on the region. Its acknowledgement derives from the current of Orientalism, which studied Far East cultures from a histori..
Nearly a quarter of the world's population remains unbanked. But mobile phones are helping to change that, writes Simon Long As the Ebola virus was devastating parts of west Africa in 2014, Sierra Leone's difficulties were compounded by its emergency-response workers going on strike. They were risking their lives, but were often paid erratically and not in full. Sometimes they traveled long dist..