Amur Tigers

In the forests of northeast Asia home to fish owls, brown bears, musk deer, moose, wolves, raccoon dogs, leopards and tigers, and by the end of Cold War, only a few hundred tigers stepped quietly through the snow of the Amur Rive basin. Soon, the Soviet Union fell, bringing catastrophe, without the careful oversight of a central authority, poaching and logging took a fast, astonishing toll on an already vulnerable species Amur Tiger. Slaght in his book Tigers Between Empires, dealing with the isolated population inhabiting the Amur  basin in Siberia, parts of the river separate inland China from Russia’s eastern … Continue reading Amur Tigers

Spy Thriller

New York Times Bestselling author, Daniel Silva,  in An Inside Job, his legendary veteran Mossad spy Gabriel Allon must solve the perfect crime with speed and finesse, to track down a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. In today’s Israel, a former spymaster and produ patriot like Allon should have better things to do than chase works of art. Allon has been awarded a commission to restore one of the most important paintings in Venice,  but he discovers the body of a mysterious woman floating in the waters of the Venetian Lagoon, and finds himself in a desperate race to recover the … Continue reading Spy Thriller

Critical technology safeguarding

A Dutch court suspended Nexperia’s former chief executive Zhang Xuezhen – who founded its Chinese owner Wingtech – citing mismanagement. Wingtech’s shares trade on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and it is partially owned by the Chinese government. According to court papers released by the Dutch authorities last month in relation to the government’s takeover of Nexperia, US authorities had raised concerns about the boss of the chip company before it was taken over. The documents contained evidence that Dutch authorities had told Nexperia, it may be able to secure an exemption from the US list if there was a change … Continue reading Critical technology safeguarding

White Label World Expo 2025

Droyts  who makes fine soaps located in a Victorian cotton mill in Chorley, Lancashire, using traditional century-old methods to produce moisturising glycerine soaps, which is vegan friendly, suitable for all skin types, honed and carved by hand at the White Label Expo, London 2025. http://www.droyt.com Iconic Bricks made in Hampshire can compete with any branded products like Lego. White Label World Expo, an international trade show specialising in bespoke private labels, offers latest innovation and gives an insight to trending online retail and e-commerce, held today at ExCel, London organised by Fortem International Ltd, attracting several hundreds and thousands  of professional, entrepreneurs … Continue reading White Label World Expo 2025

Restoration or Erasure: Old ways are erased by the new

The Palace of the Republic, that once housed the East German Parliament, is demolished. A grandmother’s laughter passes from life into memory and the furniture that once made a home is taken to the tip. A friendship drops into silence. Old ways are erased by the new  In this fascinating collection of essays, most of them written for her column in the Frankfurter  Allgemeine Zeitung, Winner of the International Booker Prize Jenny Erpenbeck meditates, with a sense of both deep melancholy and wry humour, on the disappearance and impermanence of things. Recalling the shop that used to darn tights in the … Continue reading Restoration or Erasure: Old ways are erased by the new

Free Will and Prediction are vital to intelligence, brain and life itself

For some AI researchers a large neural net that predicts next words seems to produce a system with general intelligence, although neuroscientists believe that the brain evolved precisely to predict the future- the “predictive brain” hypothesis. Blaise Agüera Y Arcas, vice president of Google, programmer and founder of its research team Paradigms of Intelligence,  in What Is Intelligence, prediction is fundamental not only to intelligence and the brain, but to life itself – by exploring the wide-ranging implications. The radical perspectives on the computational properties of living systems, the evolutionary and social origins of intelligence, the relationship between models and reality, … Continue reading Free Will and Prediction are vital to intelligence, brain and life itself

David Szalay’s Flesh wins the Booker Prize

David Szalay’s 349-page novel Flesh which explores contemporary masculinity through the eventful life of a Hungarian man won the Booker Prize for 2025 beating 153 rivals. Irish writer Roddy Doyle the chair of the 2025 judging panel and his fellow selectors Ayobami Adebayo, Sarah Jessica Parker, Chris Power,and Kelly Reid unanimously voted for Szalay from a shortlist of six contenders. Continue reading David Szalay’s Flesh wins the Booker Prize

US Tech Stocks stumble after AI sell-off

US Tech groups aligned with artificial intelligence boom have lost $1.2 trillion in market value since last Friday, setting Wall Street for their worst week since Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April 2025. The higher they are deeper they fall. Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, down 4 per cent with a market capitalisation loss of nearly $500bn, a week after its $5tn valuation, Meta who owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads, Palantir, and Oracle has fallen $1.2tn since the end of last week. Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Broadcom all lost considerable ground. The tech stock stumbled less … Continue reading US Tech Stocks stumble after AI sell-off

Misrepresented women’s role in global economics

Female entrepreneurs, economic revolutionaries who defied the women’s roles as producers and reproducers and the sense that things might have different if homo economicus, had been joined by femina ecobomics. In ancient Athens, did you know about Phryne, the richest woman who offered to pay to rebuild the walls of Thebes after the city was razed by Alexander the Great, or in Georgian England, Priscilla Wakefield, the writer and entrepreneur, set up the first English “penny bank” to help women on low incomes to save money and children to save from an early age ? What about the everyday woman … Continue reading Misrepresented women’s role in global economics

Recipe for success of culinary hotspots

In 1990, Great Britain was mocked for its bland food and over-boiled vegetable but by 2000 all that has changed, as the country was on its way to being one of the world’s most exciting culinary hotspots. From White Heat to Wagamama, Blood, Sweat and Asparagus Spears,  is the inside story of the explosive decade that eating out in Britain forever. Former Good Food Guide editor Andrew Turvil’s in-depth delving into our world of food, hospitality, tasting Marco Pierre White’s three Michelin starred food, clocking Jamie Oliver’s first TV take, Sally Clarke, chef and restaurateur, and fielding volcanic phone calls from … Continue reading Recipe for success of culinary hotspots