Wednesday was an unusual day for the prime minister of Nepal. Right when he was about to leave for the capital from Nepalgunj in his helicopter, he received a call […]
Columnists
Richard Smith: Remember “the disappeared”
The most interesting, and certainly the most chilling, experience I had in four days in Buenos Aires was to visit the memorial to “the disappeared.” […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: How zinc can save 400,000 lives annually
In the August 17th issue of Time magazine, there was an article that discussed the introduction of zinc as a treatment for childhood diarrhoea in Mali. The article has raised […]
Liz Wager: It’ll only take 5 minutes …
I’ve reached an age where various bits of my body don’t seeem to work as well as they used to (you’ll be able to find out which ones if you […]
Richard Smith: A crime against knowledge
Firsthand personal experience of a great crime can make it real in a way that full intellectual understanding will not. Spend two hours in close contact with an African AIDS […]
Richard Smith: Sixty years of discoveries in nutrition
Imagine being at the 60th anniversary of an organization and hearing from the first head of the organisation. It seems impossible, but I’ve just had that experience – listening to […]
Richard Smith feels the shame of the monoglot
Today I feel deeply the shame of a monoglot. I’m at a meeting in Guatemala, and the organisers of a meeting of perhaps 200 people have had to hire two […]
Richard Smith asks: Is it unpatriotic to criticise the NHS?
I’m worried that in the highly charged atmosphere created by the extraordinary US debate on health care my published anxieties about the NHS might brand me as unpatriotic. Perhaps Fox […]
Time to ignore all surveys, says Richard Smith
Recently in Bangladesh I had breakfast with a Harvard professor of economics who told me: “Economists pay no attention to what people say, only to what they do.” Now I […]
Richard Smith asks “Am I going to hell?”
The other night, as is my wont, I imagined myself dying, and I wondered as I came near the end whether I would suddenly fear that I might be going […]