Showing 1 - 8 of 8
Terminal volunteers can save lives
News, Peter Singer & Benjamin L Sievers, Published on 13/09/2025
» At the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), a programme called Last Gift offers terminally ill patients the opportunity to help create more effective treatments. Their special circumstances transform the usual risk-benefit calculus of joining a clinical study of an untested drug. Researchers can ask them to consider consenting to being research participants in ways that they would not ask healthier people with long life expectancies, and terminally ill patients may choose to give that consent when others would be less likely to do so.
Time to rethink the casino debate
Oped, Andrew W Scott, Published on 13/06/2025
» I've been visiting and studying the world's casinos since 1986, particularly those in Asia. And boy, have they changed a lot in the past 40 years.
How is the world doing on SDGs?
Homi Kharas & John W McArthur, Published on 16/10/2024
» Any reader of the daily news could be forgiven for thinking the world is in decline. Amid so many conflicts and societal strains, the United Nations regularly warns that only 17% of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) -- the economic, social, and environmental targets all countries set in 2015 -- are on track to be met by 2030, as agreed, leading many to wonder whether such goals still serve any purpose. But rather than succumb to pessimism, we would do better to examine where the world is making sound progress, where it seems stuck on autopilot, and where things are indeed moving backwards or approaching a tipping point for the worse.
Lower-income nations' jab lessons
Oped, Benjamin Schreiber, Richard Mihigo & Ann Lindstrand, Published on 24/01/2024
» There was a global sigh of relief when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared in May 2023 that Covid-19 was no longer a public-health emergency of international concern. But there is no room for complacency. The pandemic has represented an urgent warning about weak health systems and has served as an impetus to strengthen them ahead of a possible new variant or the emergence of a new pathogen.
Migrating giant honey bees need their rest stops
News, W. S. Robinson, Published on 07/02/2022
» I'll bet you this, from this remote ranch 13,000km from Thailand: there's no buzz filling my favourite Thai mango orchard now.
Look beyond Great Depression to solve Covid-19 blues
News, Stephen W Campbell, Published on 12/09/2020
» United States unemployment levels not seen since the 1930s have prompted pundits to examine previous eras -- particularly the Great Depression -- for lessons on how to escape the current economic crisis. Unfortunately, the past offers few straightforward answers. Previous economic eras, when understood with all of their complexity and ambiguity, do not point to an obvious path ahead.
Property stays hot in chilly times
News, Ronald W Chan, Published on 28/01/2019
» Thailand's booming property market is at risk of cooling this year as rampant construction threatens an oversupply of apartments amid increasing global economic headwinds.
Profiting from migrant smuggling whatever the cost
News, Jeremy Douglas & Benjamin Smith & Abe Simons, Published on 17/07/2018
» In May 2015, the world was rocked by the Bay of Bengal migrant smuggling crisis. Mass graves containing the bodies of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh were discovered in southern Thailand, and thousands more were left stranded at sea. A tragic reminder of the human costs of migrant smuggling, the events led to a new focus on combatting the crime in Asia. Leaders from across the region came together to get to grips with the problem, agreeing to improve cooperation between source, transit and destination countries. Authorities reacted; boats stopped.