Current affairs

As Middle East oil climbs to record highs, research into alternative energy sources is attracting a wave of new science, much of it still experimental and untested.

A book review: A Beautiful Math: John Nash, Game Theory, and the Modern Quest for a Code of Nature

When I was young and the world was different, I used to hide Stendhal's classic novel "The Red and the Black" in the dust jacket of a Bible and read it on Sunday mornings in church.

Reports that archenemies Syria and Israel are conducting indirect discussions about permanent peace under Turkish mediation are the latest and a most unexpected development in the Middle East.

The EU's preoccupation with its global competitiveness is more than cancelling out its measures to protect the environment, says Friends of the Earth's Tony Juniper. He calls for a radical reassessment of sustainability policies in Europe.

At the heart of the French advanced research program is a little-known project for a giant laser cannon -- not for shooting down satellites but for something potentially much more powerful.

The main French defense manufacturer called a group of experts and some economic journalists together a few years ago to unveil a new military helicopter. They wanted us to choose a name for it and I thought I had the perfect one: "The Frog".

"Would it not make eminent sense if the European Union had a proper constitution comparable to that of the United States?" In 1991, I put the question on camera to Otto von Habsburg, the father-figure of the European Movement and, at the time, the most revere

Ever since President George W. Bush's administration came to power in 2000, many Europeans have viewed its policy with a degree of scepticism not witnessed since the Vietnam war.

As Europe feels the effects of rising prices - mainly tied to energy costs - at least one sector is benefiting. The new big thing appears to be horsemeat, increasingly a viable alternative to expensive beef as desperate housewives look for economies.

What will the world economy look like 25 years from now? Daniel Daianu says that sovereign wealth funds have major implications for global politics, and for the future of capitalism.

Winegrower Philippe Raoux has made a valiant attempt to create new ideas around the marketing of wines, and his efforts are to be applauded.

One of the most interesting global questions today is whether the climate is changing and, if it really is, whether the reasons are man-made (anthropogenic) or natural - or maybe even both.

After a century that saw two world wars, the Nazi Holocaust, Stalin's Gulag, the killing fields of Cambodia, and more recent atrocities in Rwanda and now Darfur, the belief that we are progressing morally has become difficult to defend.