Kim Willsher – Top French offices stop work in support of gender pay gap protest

Staff at some of Paris’s most high-profile political and cultural offices stopped work at 4.34pm on Monday in solidarity with a protest against women being paid less than men. Women’s rights campaigners at the feminist newsletter Les Glorieuses had urged female workers to down tools from that time. They suggested that doing so until the end of the year – …

Tim Radford – Scientists link conflict and climate change

LONDON, 17 August, 2015 − Ethnic conflict linked to tragic episodes of civil war, waves of refugees and even the collapse of nation states could be made more likely by climate-related disasters. A team of European scientists say they can demonstrate, “in a scientifically sound way”, a link between civil violence based on ethnic divisions, and episodes of drought, intense heat or other …

Vijay Prashad – Turkey’s war on the Kurds

“Much of the explanation for the assault on the Kurds is to be found in Turkey’s failed policy in Syria.” Picture shows Kurds clashing with the Turkish police as they protest against the curfew imposed in Kurdish towns, in Diyarbakir. A war of words has broken out between the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the leader of the left-wing …