This portrait of education activist Malala Yousafzai now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. ‘I was impressed by how wise beyond her years she was,” said artist Jonathan Yeo, who painted the portrait just months after the attack.Jonathan Yeo/The Associated Press The story of Malala Yousafzai is already the stuff of legend. She's the Pakistani teenager who dared to defy the Taliban, s

What role does the smart phone play in shaping skills for the 21st century? That question says a lot about the world we now live in, and while nobody has a definitive answer to it, a new international study released this week goes some way toward finding one. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) was a survey of adults in 24 countries conducted by the OECD. I

Read a counterpoint by H.A. Hellyer on why the danger now begins in Egypt with Mohamed Morsi gone. It may seem illogical or even reckless. Why is this huge crowd in Egypt celebrating as they watch their democratically elected president being deposed by the army? There is no simple answer. Egypt's scene is multidimensional and therefore hard for onlookers to understand immediately. To start, let's

Long before they can understand what is being said to them, babies can make strategic use of the sound cues that they hear to distinguish between two languages, a new study has revealed. The finding suggests that children growing up in a multilingual environment are neither confused nor disadvantaged by having to cope with two mother tongues, even when the grammatical structures of the two languag

This article was published more than 11 years ago. Some information may no longer be current. In this June 14, 2011 file photo, the drug Lipitor is displayed at Medco Health Solutions Inc., in Willingboro, N.J.Matt Rourke/The Associated Press Health Canada has updated the labelling for commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins to warn users they may be at a small increased risk

One of the truths of reporting on China is that few journalists, maybe none, can honestly claim to know what's going on inside the upper echelons of power. In other countries, you might see reporters offhandedly refer to their unnamed contacts inside the Prime Minister's Office, or the White House, or whatever institution they're covering. Even when I worked in famously enigmatic Russia, I had a f

Japan's debt, mostly owed to creditors within the country, is more than 200 per cent of annual gross domestic product, compared with 113 per cent in Greece, 50 per cent in Spain, and 69 per cent in the United States, according to the New York-based ISI Group. Cat:e528746c-3414-401a-b14b-50247e3bdf01Forum:2d13dc33-9921-4d4a-815f-e809277631e4 "I'm actually envious of the Greek situation," said Masaa

It swept into power with a Barack Obama-like call for change less than two months ago, but Japan's new government has already run headlong into a wall of economic reality. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party campaigned on a pledge to stimulate economic growth and consumer spending by investing in health care, education and social programs. Now, Japan's ballooning debt is threatening t