Opinion in 1995

By making a sick and malformed child a ward of court, three British judges have drawn attention to the need for a judicial procedure in cases where sick people seek euthanasia voluntarily.

Britain, with a recent rich record of denationalization, has error as well as success to boast of.

The fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of two Japanese cities should remind the rest of us that, while international control of nuclear energy is no longer feasible, good second-bests are well within our grasp.

The future for large physics facilities in the United States looks bleak.

The British government's penchant for sudden reorganization is plainly matched by its capacity instantly to formulate goals for research and to choose snappy titles for them, but when will it learn to think what it is doing?

The government of France has given thin excuses for its weapons tests; the greatest danger lies in the precedents these tests will provide for the other black sheep who may want to join the planned Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.

The British House of Commons has produced a telling document on the future of genetics.

Demands for censorship of the Internet are both impracticable and unwise.

Not for the first time, a British government has revealed its lack of understanding of its scientific enterprise by means of an insensitive reorganization forced by reasons having nothing to do with research.

The 50th anniversary next week of the first nuclear test impells anticipation of the outcome of innovation.

Journalists who break agreed embargoes damage not only themselves but also their profession.

Last week's contest for the leadership of Britain's Conservative party was a missed chance by both sides to say what is right and wrong about plans for a common currency

On the heels of an aborted trade war with Japan, the United States is still hankering after bilateralism.

Shell Oil's decision not to sink a used oil-rig at sea is a needless dereliction of rationality.

The low-key celebrations of the half-century of the United Nations has served chiefly as a reminder that the organization is ripe for reform - but not abolition.

The US president has lost his nomination for surgeon-general and made a mess of an immunization programme.

The widely forecast disappointment at last week's meeting of the G7 countries in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is simply explained: governments choose to talk about the wrong things, and they are the wrong governments anyway.

One of the most imaginative of overseas initiatives by the United States is needlessly in trouble.

Only academic institutions can effectively impose sanctions on those found guilty of scientific misconduct.