News

By Dr Robin Andrews The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is a chain of fifteen islands adrift in the Pacific Ocean owned and administered by the United States. Due to rising tensions between China and America in the Pacific, one of these small landmasses is suddenly facing two very different futures. On one hand, it could become the site of unique ecological haven; on the other, it could be bombed to oblivion by the U.S. military. This is quite...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor It’s almost the same amount of time between the start of Sepp Blatter’s presidency of FIFA and the last majority Tory Government. Then the football dictator stepped down the day before the first pure-blooded Conservative PMQs, some coincidence surely? “Wow, they made Michael Gove  Justice Secretary? I can’t compete with that level of malevolence,” he was heard to say, as he handed himself into the Feds. When they were last in power people sent text...

By Jack Peat, TLE Editor On Friday, Sepp Blatter was re-elected president of Fifa to a standing ovation. His Jordanian challenger Prince Ali bin Al Hussein conceded after receiving only 73 votes, granting a fifth term to the man at the helm of an organisation besieged by corruption allegations and suffering the worst crisis in its 111-year history. But cash isn't the only factor behind the current turmoil. To an outsider looking in, Fifa has become nothing more than a...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Media power was a focal topic in the run up to the General Election. Sat in Russell Brand’s London apartment, Ed Miliband outlined an aggressive stance on media ownership in an effort to win over the non-voting nonconformist comedian who had passionately campaigned against oligarchs such as Rupert Murdoch. But he needn’t have bothered. According to new research, power in the media industry no longer rests with the publications. The marriage of social media and...

By Dr Robin Andrews, TLE Science Editor Everyone’s heard of climate change, but have you ever actually heard climate change? Well thanks to an intrepid musician, now you can. What do you get when you cross a cellist with some scientific know-how? A symphony of the latitudes, of time and space, and of rising global temperatures, as it turns out. I have often thought that there are two distinct stages to humanity’s evolution. There’s the biological kind espoused so wonderfully...

Japan’s new volcanic islands provide scientists with an opportunity to study new life colonising untouched land By Dr. Robin George Andrews, TLE Science Editor  Have you ever heard of an island called Atarashii Shima, off the coast of Japan? I’m betting you haven’t, but to be fair, before November 2013, neither had anyone on the planet. This little island, not given an official name but which the Japanese media christened “new island”, formed close to Nishinoshima (meaning “western island”), a small...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  Last week news filtered through that Handelsbanken, the Swedish-owned bank, had decided to open an office in the small town of Ashford in Kent. Eschewing the capital, the bank is one of many firms looking to secure international footing in the Garden of England. Perched on the banks of River Great Stour at the edge of North Downs, Ashford is a prodigy of international economic growth. Directly connected to London, Brussels and now the three largest...

Watch Norman Smith accidentally call Nigel Farage a c**t during a live broadcast on 14/05/2015.

By Max Bluer Thursday evening and the British general election’s exit poll has just been released; it accurately predicts massive gains for the Europhobic Conservative Party and the Scottish Nationalist Party – the driving force behind last year’s referendum on Scottish independence. That noise you heard when the news broke was supporters of the left, of the integrity of the United Kingdom and of the European project banging their collective head against the nearest wall.   David Cameron and his government...