Category: News

A vibrantly coloured 19th-century Burmese illustrated manuscript has gone on public display for the first time as part of a major exhibition exploring Buddhism. The British Library is putting more than 120 items on display for a show, opening to the public on Friday, which spans 20 countries over 2,000 years. They include silk scrolls…

The five biggest oil and gas companies, and their industry groups, have spent at least €251m (£217m) lobbying the European Union over climate policies since 2010, research has revealed. The data on the scale of lobbying by oil companies and their representatives comes as 200 organisations demand the setting up of a firewall around democratic…

Saleem says he can still see the faces of the young men he shot. More than a decade after sniper duty in the Lebanon-Israel war of 2006, he still has nightmares. “In this region we have a saying that a young man is like a rose …” He breaks off for a moment and then…

In an autumn in which scholars have unearthed Milton’s copy of Shakespeare in Philadelphia and parchment fragments from the 13th-century epic Le Roman de la Rose in Worcester, Stuart Kells, author of the forthcoming Shakespeare’s Library, would like to be clear: he has not uncovered the Bard’s book collection, despite what the title might suggest….

A group of snorkelling grandmothers who swim up to 3km five days a week have uncovered a large population of venomous sea snakes in a bay in Noumea where scientists once believed they were rare. Claire Goiran from the University of New Caledonia and Professor Rick Shine from Australia’s Macquarie University were studying a small…

Imagine if the word bitch was banned. Hunters would be unable to gender their dogs, Lizzo would be 100% That Incarcerated™ and actor Aaron Paul would be given a life sentence for the mind-numbing number of times Jesse Pinkman says it in Breaking Bad. Could this become reality? Perhaps in Massachusetts, where a number of…

A Chinese orienteering team has been disqualified for cheating at the Military World Games in China. Chinese runners in the middle-distance competition on Sunday initially came first, second, and fourth among the women and second among the men. However, it was soon discovered that the runners had received illegal assistance from spectators and used markings…

Amnesty International has called on Jordan to end what it has described as an abusive system that jails women if they disobey their male “guardians” or have relationships deemed inappropriate. Despite recent efforts to give women better protections, Amnesty said in a new report published on Wednesday that Jordan still allows the arbitrary detention of…

Donald Trump has announced that the US will lift sanctions on Turkey, taking credit for a ceasefire deal that should end Ankara’s attack on Kurdish-led forces – at the price of ending the Kurds’ dream of local autonomy. The US president, who has come under withering criticism for abruptly withdrawing US troops – and paving…

I met Lou Reed for the first time at the restaurant at L’Ermitage Hotel in LA. I was a great admirer of his solo work, Street Hassle in particular (I came later to the Velvet Underground), so I went over and introduced myself. I was in Los Angeles working on the post-production of Raging Bull…