On Friday June 15th, after a memorial service which saw Stephen Hawking’s ashes interred at Westminster Abbey, his “message of peace and hope” was sent to the stars. Ashes to Ashes… The ashes of British physicist Stephen Hawking were buried Friday June 15th in a corner of Westminster Abbey between the graves of Charles Darwin … Continue reading “Back in Black… Hole”
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave birth to her first child, a girl, on 21 June, then shared the news with a photo on social media. The PM will now take six weeks maternity leave while her deputy steps in. At 37, Ardern is New Zealand’s youngest Prime Minister in 150 years, and she … Continue reading “How to Be a Modern Prime Minister”
South Africa’s second largest city came very close to running out of water in April. Only a massive effort by its citizens has delayed “Day Zero” for now. More and more urban areas face water shortages as a result of climate change. Three years of unusually low rainfall, combined with population increases, left Cape Town … Continue reading “Cape Town: The Day the Water Stops”
It is one of the greatest mysteries of our time — why is New Zealand always being left off world maps? A new video tackles the issue. In a 2.5 minute video posted to Facebook around 10am on Wednesday 2 May 2018, New Zealand has launched a tourism campaign exploring this question that has bothered … Continue reading “New Zealand, Where Are You?”
Philip Roth, one of the most admired American novelists, has died at the age of 85. In more than 30 novels, Roth fascinated and scandalised his home country. Roth won accolades for his work from the outset, winning the National Book Award for his first book, the collection of short stories Goodbye Columbus (1959). The … Continue reading “Novelist Philip Roth Dies”
Ireland has long been one of the most socially conservative countries in the European Union. But things have been changing and the country’s current Prime Minister is a sign of the times. Since the creation of Irish Free State in 1922, the post of Taoiseach*, Ireland’s equivalent of Prime Minister, has been held by … Continue reading “Changing Ireland”
There were various celebrations and exhibitions planned to mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning of West Indian mass immigration to the U.K., with the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in London on 22 June 1948. Instead, a scandal has grown up about the treatment of the “Windrush Generation” that led to the … Continue reading “What About Windrush?”
A hundred years after some British women got the right to vote, there is finally a woman among the statues of political and democratic heroes on Parliament Square outside the Palace of Westminster. London Mayor Sadiq Khan unveiled the statue of Dame Millicent Fawcett on 24 April. There had been an organised and popular movement … Continue reading “Suffragist Honoured”
Britain’s Prince Charles has long been recognised for his involvement in ecology. Now the Queen is turning to conservation, protecting forests all over the Commonwealth, from a tiny 2.5 hectare site in Antigua and Barbuda to the 6.4 million hectares of the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada. The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy originated in an idea … Continue reading “The Queen Goes Green”
Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 is remembered in the U.S. as a landmark moment in the fight for civil rights. But behind the title were real children. The one whose name was forever associated with the case, Linda Brown, has died, aged 76. Linda Brown was just seven years old in 1951, when … Continue reading “School Integration Pioneer Dies”