Social safety nets: Some ideas too costly?

The Government is promising to raise social spending in the coming and subsequent Budgets. Yet some policy options recommended by local academics remain firmly off the table. Insight takes a look at some of these alternative social policies - and why they might never come to pass.

All citizens share cost of falling ill

IF YOU fall ill, your fellow citizens will help you.

US varsities cross out science and maths lectures

WASHINGTON: Science, mathematics and engineering departments at many United States universities are abandoning or retooling the traditional lecture as a style of teaching, worried that it is driving students away.

No sense in shark's fin ban: Experts

IT MAY be politically incorrect, but three marine life experts said at a forum yesterday that it makes no sense to ban the sale of shark's fin.

Israelis likely to go for short, sharp strike

TIME IS RUNNING OUT

IRAN already has 20 per cent enriched uranium; its estimated 10,000 centrifuges can convert this to weapon-grade fuel by the year-end. From then, it may be just another few months before the fissile material is prepared for the payload of the Shahab-3, a missile capable of reaching Israel. The point of no return, the threshold beyond which it would be impossible to stop Iran from acquiring the bomb, is approaching.

Why Israel may attack Iran

TEL AVIV: As the Sabbath evening approached, Mr Ehud Barak paced the living room floor of his home high above a street in north Tel Aviv, its walls lined with thousands of books on subjects ranging from philosophy and poetry to military strategy.