Australian Premier Abbott has been a global heating denialist for many years.

Genetically modified bananas are designed to provide poor people in Africa with enough vitamin A.

This might be a good thing, if there isn't a catch. Any possible health problems will probably be less than the health problems these will prevent. Is there a legal catch, a patented gene?

This can postpone the need to curb human population growth, but not eliminate it.

The kidnaping of three Israeli settler teenagers has provided an excuse to arrest lots of Palestinians, even members of parliament.

It appears that China has secretly tried and sentenced an Uighur academic for criticizing the government.

This is the sort of system that the UK wants to set up for people accused of "terrorism", which in the UK can mean nothing more than owning a book that is considered suspect.

Nearly all the countries with nuclear weapons are developing new launch vehicles. There is little interest in disarmament.

So we will all run hard just to stay more or less in the same place. However, it may not be exactly the same place. New weapons systems may be more destabilizing. In principle, they could also be less destabilizing, but that isn't likely to happen.