A strategic partnership deal between China and the Cook Islands spans areas from deep-sea mining to education scholarships but excludes security ties, a document released by the Pacific island nation’s government showed. Western nations that traditionally held sway in the region have become increasingly concerned about China’s push for influence in the Pacific, after Beijing…
Sam Dick’s article deeply resonated with me as a parent (A moment that changed me: I was 16, gay and bullied for it. Then my father wrote to the Guardian …, 5 March). I’ve had a similar experience in the last two years, in that one of my adult children has come out as a…
On a blue-sky Saturday morning, I joined a foraging hike in Sintra-Cascais nature park, a former municipal wasteland and now thriving ecosystem on the outskirts of Cascais in Portugal. Progress was deliciously slow, thanks to our passionate guide – ecologist Fernanda Botelho, Portugal’s foremost herbalist and wild forager. We’d barely made it out of the…
I’m watching artificial intelligence order my groceries. Armed with my shopping list, it types each item into the search bar of a supermarket website, then uses its cursor to click. Watching what appears to be a digital ghost do this usually mundane task is strangely transfixing. “Are you sure it’s not just a person in…
Israel has sent tanks to the West Bank city of Jenin, in the first deployment of its kind in the area in more than two decades, as troops intensify operations in the territory that officials said will last at least a year. The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday that the latest operation…
For six months in 2023, I worked as an ambulance call-taker at Triple Zero Victoria, then known as the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (Esta). I had always been deeply curious about the job and my own experiences taught me that one kind, reassuring voice – or its opposite – can change the way you process…