Should one be so unlucky as to find oneself, as I did, lying awake in bed in the early hours of the morning in a hostel in La Paz, Bolivia, listening anxiously to the sound of someone trying to force their way into one’s room, one could do worse than to throw a chair under …

Continue reading “How TripAdvisor afflicted travel”

Like most cheap paperbacks of David Copperfield, my battered old copy features a cover illustration of its eponymous hero as a boy: rosy-cheeked and blue-eyed under a nest of golden ringlets. (The artist gets it a bit wrong with the cruel smile, more horror movie kid than darling innocent, but hey ho.) On dustjackets and …

Continue reading “Why Dev Patel in Dickens could change blur for ever”

Elon Musk has said the past year of his professional life has been “excruciating” and that stress over his business had caused his health to deteriorate. In an emotional interview with the New York Times the founder of electric car maker Tesla, also revealed that the pressures of work had caused him to spend his …

Continue reading “Elon Musk says accomplished year has been acute and ‘worst is yet to come’”

EU authorities are facing calls to defend the rule of law in Romania, a week after more than 400 people were injured in mass protests against corruption and changes to the judicial system. Last Friday 100,000 mostly peaceful demonstrators took to the streets in different cities, but 450 people were left needing medical help after …

Continue reading “EU apprenticed to footfall in afterwards Romania protests led to violence”

Police in Jakarta have killed dozens of people as part of an escalating crackdown against petty criminals ahead of the Asian Games, in a campaign Amnesty International has described as “unnecessary and excessive”. Based on monitoring from January to August this year, Amnesty International said 31 police killings were directly linked to the Games, which …

Continue reading “Indonesian badge annihilate dozens in Asian Games ‘clean-up’”

A year ago this Friday, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub drove a rented van into pedestrians on Las Ramblas in the heart of Barcelona, killing 16 people and injuring 131 – representing 34 nationalities. The attacks left the city stunned and horrified but also defiant. “I think the definitive proof of the city’s ability to deal with …

Continue reading “‘We adulation Las Ramblas again’: Barcelona ambassador on advance anniversary”

Catholic priests in Ireland need to be missionaries in their own country to meet the challenges of a changing society, Eamon Martin, the most senior church figure in Ireland, has said ahead of the pope’s visit to Dublin next weekend. “We are in mission territory in many ways as Catholics in Ireland,” Martin, who is …

Continue reading “Eamon Martin: Ireland’s Catholic priests charge to advance the chat at home”

The collapse of a bridge in Genoa on Tuesday, which killed 39 people, is the latest symptom of Italy’s infrastructure woes. More than 2m homes across the country are unstable, according to figures from the national statistics agency, Istat, and more than 156 school ceilings have fallen in over the last five years. The Morandi …

Continue reading “Italy’s crumbling basement beneath analysis afterwards arch collapse”

South Korea appears likely to scale back its barbed wire fencing along the border with North Korea, one of the most militarised frontiers in the world. The military will inspect some 300km (186 miles) of barbed wire along the demilitarised zone, according to an unnamed military official quoted by Yonhap news. The barrier has been …

Continue reading “Fewer barbs beyond Korean bound as South scales aback fence”