Recession-bound Britain will emerge from its winter of discontent with economic growth, lower inflation and shorter hospital waiting lists, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed on Wednesday.. But the prime minister, battling to rescue the Conservatives from a dismal poll standing ahead of the next general election, said better times were ahead as he vowed to halve double-digit inflation this year.
It was supposed to be a match made in heaven that would produce a cub but after years of trying, Edinburgh Zoo said on Wednesday it is now sending its breeding pair of giant pandas back to China.. "We are also very proud of the contribution we have made to giant panda breeding research alongside our partners at the University of Edinburgh and our findings have been of real benefit to international efforts to protect the species." srg/phz/gw
Five years after it was closed due to mysterious "sonic attacks" on diplomatic staff, the US consulate in Havana on Wednesday resumed full immigrant visa services for Cubans.. The consulate was closed under the administration of then-president Donald Trump after diplomatic staff and their families fell ill with symptoms later nicknamed Havana Syndrome.
US lawmakers-elect were locked in crisis talks Wednesday to select a speaker for the House of Representatives after Republican Kevin McCarthy's bid for the gavel was upended by conservative hardliners. . Lawmakers-elect are set to return at noon for a fourth ballot -- or to adjourn again to allow more time for dealmaking -- with the 20 anti-McCarthy Republicans dug in for a drawn-out fight.
Better management of nitrogen-rich fertilisers through alternating crops, optimising use and other measures can yield huge environmental and health benefits, but must boost food production at the same time, researchers warned Wednesday.. Researchers led by Gu analysed over 1,500 field observations from croplands around the world and identified 11 key measures to decrease nitrogen losses while still enhancing crop yields.
The rate of ground-breaking scientific discoveries and technological innovation is slowing down despite an ever-growing amount of knowledge, according to an analysis released Wednesday of millions of research papers and patents.. The researchers gave a "disruptiveness score" to 45 million scientific papers dating from 1945 to 2010, and to 3.9 million US-based patents from 1976 to 2010.
Russia has blamed the deaths of scores of its soldiers in a New Year missile strike on its troops using unsecured, traceable mobile phones on the battlefield.. While lax mobile phone habits have been blamed for the Makiivka deaths -- soldiers may have been texting their loved ones for New Year's -- inadequate Russian technology is just as much of a problem, and even more difficult to fix, say analysts.
The Colombian government said Wednesday it was suspending a ceasefire it had announced with the ELN armed group, which denied agreeing to any such truce.. Colombian President Gustavo Petro had declared on New Year's Eve that a temporary truce had been agreed with the country's five largest armed groups, including the National Liberation Army (ELN), from January 1 to June 30.
The EU on Wednesday defended a trip by its top diplomat to Morocco, which has been linked, along with Qatar, to a graft scandal unrolling at the European Parliament.. The affair has cast a cloud over other EU institutions, and increased media scrutiny of dealings by EU commissioners and top officials who recently dealt with Qatar and Morocco.
A 10-year-old Vietnamese boy trapped in a buried hollow concrete pillar at a construction site for four days was declared dead on Wednesday.. "He has been trapped in a hollow pillar very deep down... with multiple injuries and not enough oxygen for a very long time," he told journalists at the construction site.
