Millions of Chinese children have been left behind in the countryside by parents drawn to the cities in search of employment. Alec Ash travelled to a remote village in the mountains of Guizhou to meet some of the victims of rapid development
How does an autocratic regime divert attention abroad from its human-rights record and discourage the opposition at home? In the case of Azerbaijan, through lavish extravaganzas and high-end lobbying
The world’s most famous school aspires to become an agent of social change; but, as old boy Christopher de Bellaigue learns when he goes back, it is also an increasingly effective way for the global elite to give its offspring an expensive leg up in life
Slash fiction – a branch of fan fiction that imagines straight heroes getting together – is strangely popular among straight women. Helen Joyce examines the light it sheds on female sexuality
When he took the Nairobi-Mombasa train, Daniel Knowles saw a side of Kenya that is disappearing – which, in some ways, is just as well
Alexandra Suich meets Lyft’s co-founder, John Zimmer, and asks why Silicon Valley is so obsessed with winning
Wolves are breeding rapidly across Europe. In central Greece, Adam Nicolson finds shepherds and conservationists at odds over how to deal with their incursions
Is burnout simply the result of working too hard? Josh Cohen argues that the root of the problem lies deeper than that
Almost every year since 1972 has contained a 61-second minute. In this podcast Tom Whipple joins Matthew Sweet to discuss where these “leap seconds” come from and why we should be worried about them
It may seem minuscule, but a row over a missing second could cause chaos in financial markets and deprive Britain of its position at the centre of the world’s time. Tom Whipple investigates
