Showing 1 - 10 of 214
A plaintive song for the taxman
Roger Crutchley, Published on 29/03/2026
» I've just got back from filing my income tax and must thank the staff at the branch of the Revenue Department for their helpfulness and efficiency. It must be a thankless job knowing that nearly everyone they deal with would probably rather be somewhere else.
Global travel erases places we love
News, Richard Florida and Carlo Ratti, Published on 17/03/2026
» Venice is drowning -- not just in rising waters but also in tourists. The city is charging a day-tripper fee and has banned large tour groups and loudspeakers in an effort to curb the crush. Barcelona residents march with squirt guns and "Tourists go home" signs to protest rising rents and crowds. Amsterdam is moving to cap and eventually ban ocean-going cruise ships to reduce pollution and visitor pressure.
Blind to the truth
Oped, Postbag, Published on 19/02/2026
» Re: "DLT to allow online licence renewals", (BP, Feb 17).
Jimmy Lai, the HK tycoon who stood up to China
News, James Pomfret & Jessie Pang, Published on 17/12/2025
» Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media mogul and China critic, was found guilty on Monday on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of sedition under a China-imposed national security law that could see him jailed for life.
Thailand's fragmented energy plans
News, Areeporn Asawinpongphan, Annop Jaewisorn and Korn Amnauypanit, Published on 17/12/2025
» The world is racing towards clean energy. Thailand, blessed with sun and wind, should be surging ahead. Instead, the country is stuck with one of the lowest shares of clean power in the region -- an awkward contrast to its ambitions on paper.
Musk's Starship: If it sounds too good to be true...
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/12/2025
» Elon Musk promised to build a spaceship that would put people and cargo into Earth orbit at one-hundredth of the current cost per kilo and even enable human beings to create a colony on Mars. A great many people were seduced by the idea, including me.
Time to focus on climate funding
Oped, Rakesh Mohan & Janak Raj, Published on 04/11/2025
» Discussions about climate finance often focus on the most vulnerable countries, such as small island developing states -- and for good reason. But the nine major emerging-market economies (EMEs) -- Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey -- also have significant climate-finance needs, which must be met if the world is to have any chance of achieving its climate goals. Nowhere are those needs larger than in China.
Moving toward a world of greener steel making
News, Gernot Wagner & Roland Kupers, Published on 27/09/2025
» Burning coal to generate power is so uneconomical that the Trump administration has resorted to issuing stay-open orders to prop up the dying industry. However, there is one area where coal is still king: in the production of primary iron to make steel.
China's contradictions on climate
News, Adair Turner, Published on 20/09/2025
» One typically hears two stories about China and climate change. The first is that China leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions as it continues to build more coal-fired power stations.
Lawless state capitalism no answer to China's rise
Oped, Curtis J Milhaupt & Angela Huyue Zhang, Published on 19/09/2025
» It is tempting to frame the Sino-American economic rivalry as a clash between engineering doers and lawyerly naysayers, as the Chinese-Canadian analyst Dan Wang does in his new book Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future. But this is a false dichotomy, because law is a crucial feature of US capitalism.