Graphic News Schedule (news)

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November 6, 2018 -- Midterm elections for control of the U.S. Congress, with 35 Senate posts and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives up for election.

Pre-election
During the election

U.S.: Midterm elections interactive (Interactive DUE Oct 17, 15:00GMT)
GN38397 Interactive graphic shows
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October 20, 2018 --

SOCCER: Henry returns to Monaco (Graphic DUE Oct 16, 17:00GMT)
GN38433
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October 16, 2018 -- A caravan of some 3,000 migrants crossed from Honduras into Guatemala Monday on a trek dubbed the “March of the Migrant” -- a trek through Guatemala to Mexico to seek refugee status or pass through to the U.S.

LATIN AMERICA: Honduran migrant caravan (Graphic DUE Oct 16, 16:00GMT)
GN38432
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December 1, 2018 -- Holographic virtual avatars representing Swedish pop legends ABBA – dubbed “Abbatars” – are to be revealed in a global TV special in December, to be followed by a world tour in 2019-20.

Virtual avatars representing all four ABBA members will be revealed for the first time in a two-hour TV special being put together by NBC in the U.S. and the BBC in the UK.

The bandmates have been 3D scanned and digitally reproduced by graphic artists to look exactly as they did in their 1970s heyday. During the TV event, famous acts will perform ABBA tributes before the Abbatars take to the stage to sing a new song, “I Still Have Faith in You”. An Abbatar world tour is planned for 2019-20, which could rake in millions of dollars for the ageing pop quartet.

To recreate a live stage presence, state-of-the-art computer graphics will project the digital bandmates into the auditorium using an effective update of a Victorian stage trick called Pepper’s Ghost. The technique was popular in the 1800s for creating ghostly apparitions, but has been used more recently at Disney’s Haunted Mansion theme park attraction.

Perhaps the best known digital avatar stage performance to date was Michael Jackson’s appearance at the 2014 Billboard Music awards, five years after his death. ABBA’s return is said to use a more advanced update of that technology.

ENTERTAINMENT: ABBA’s mysterious “Abbatars” revealed (Graphic DUE Oct 16, 16:00GMT)
GN38425 Graphic shows how the technology works.
(107mm by 160mm deep)

October 20, 2018 -- Afghans vote for a new parliament amid electioneering activities that have been hampered by chaotic preparations, allegations of fraud and ever-present fears of violence.

POLITICS: Afghanistan parliamentary election (Graphic DUE Oct 16, 16:00GMT)
GN38434 Graphic shows Taliban and Islamic State (IS) control of Afghan districts.
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October 16, 2018 -- Event

BUSINESS: Jamal Khashoggi fallout (Graphic DUE Oct 16, 13:00GMT)
GN38431
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October 10, 2018 -- Saudi journalist and dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, remains missing a week after he disappeared inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The Saudi government claims that he left the consulate and is not in their custody.

The Washington Post reports that U.S. intelligence intercepts outlined a Saudi plan to detain a prominent journalist and critic who disappeared a week ago.

The Post, citing anonymous U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence, says Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered an operation to lure Jamal Khashoggi from his home in Virginia to Saudi Arabia and then detain him.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker says he has reviewed U.S. intelligence reports suggesting that Khashoggi was killed Oct. 2, the day he went to the consulate.

Turkish authorities have said he was killed by an elite Saudi "assassination squad." The Saudi government has dismissed that allegation.

TURKEY: Saudi journalist disappearance (1) (Graphic UPDATED Oct 11)
GN38416 Graphic shows timeline of Khashoggi’s disappearance.
(107mm wide by 183mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

January 1 - October 20, 2018 -- Graphic shows anniversaries and events on this day in history. Updated now to include the data for weeks 41 and 42 i.e. to October 20. The events and images are the same as on the GN On This Day print graphics GN38324 and GN38325. If you are hosting GN36036 on your own servers (rather than using the embed code supplied by Graphic News), the data in the hypersources folder can be topped up with the data for the separate weeks. These can be downloaded separately in the ZIP.clip file.

The graphic is “audo-updating” so if you look at the graphic tomorrow, it will show a different picture and selection of events to those shown today. This is because the graphic is constructed like an “interactive” graphic, but is not “interactive” in the sense that the viewer can change the events displayed; instead it “interacts” with the clock on your computer or mobile and this determines the selection shown.

The graphic is also responsive so if you view on a mobile phone it will look as good, but different, from the version seen if you view on your larger tablet or computer screen.

If you host the graphic yourself you may wish to substitute some of the events or images to give a more national or local interest. This is easy to do as there are separate files for the images and words for each day in the hyper sources folder. (Instructions available - See below).

HISTORY: ON THIS DAY “interactive” (Weeks 41-24) (Interactive UPDATED Oct 2)
GN36036 Responsive graphic showing anniversaries and events from today’s date in history, changes automatically each day. Come back tomorrow to see anniversaries and events for that date.
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September 24, 2018 -- A luggage-sized satellite deployed from the International Space Station, called RemoveDEBRIS, is endeavouring to capture and make safe space junk using several different experimental techniques.

A satellite launched from the International Space Station has successfully deployed a net to capture space debris more than 300km above the Earth. In coming months, it will undertake two further experiments geared towards catching space junk, before deploying a dragsail to pull it into the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up safely.

The RemoveDEBRIS mission is testing a range of technologies designed to declutter space from more than 500,000 items of debris put there during the last 60 years of human space exploration.

The ever-increasing amount of space junk is causing real issues for today’s launches as debris can travel up to 28,000 km/h – fast enough for a relatively small item to damage a satellite or spacecraft.

The mission comprises a main satellite that deploys two CubeSats (artificial debris targets) to demonstrate some of its onboard technologies:

• Net Experiment and CubeSat
• Vision-Based Navigation and CubeSat
• Harpoon and Deployable Target
• Dragsail

The mission will run until the end of 2019.

SPACE: “RemoveDEBRIS” – space junk hunter interactive (1) (Interactive UPDATED Sep 28)
GN38350 Interactive graphic shows a cutaway of the satellite and how the various experiments work.
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November 11, 2018 -- The Great War claimed the lives of 10 million fighting men and up to 12 million civilians. The “war to end all wars” cost an estimated $185 billion at the time, or $4.7 trillion in 2017 dollars.

In comparison the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001 had claimed 370,000 lives by August 2016, according to the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, while the cost of the post 9/11 wars to the U.S. alone is estimated at around $5.6 trillion to date.

The stone structure seen in the graphic, called the Cenotaph, is located at Whitehall in London, England and was built at the end of the First World War. It is now the United Kingdom’s national war memorial for the dead of the British Empire (later the Commonwealth) of both World Wars and the British military in later wars. An annual service of remembrance is held at the site on Remembrance Sunday in November each year, the closest Sunday to Armistice Day, November 11.

The word cenotaph, according to Webster’s dictionary, is derived from the Greek kenos taphos, meaning “empty tomb”. A cenotaph is a monument, sometimes in the form of a tomb, to a person or group of persons buried elsewhere. The Cenotaph in London is 35 feet high (11m) and was designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens. Built in Portland stone, it is a series of rectangular blocks progressively set-back, rising to an empty tomb at the top.


WWI CENTENARY: Cost of war (1) (Graphic UPDATED Aug 30)
GN31806 Graphic shows military casualties by nation, civilian deaths, and the financial cost of the war.
(107mm wide by 122mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 11, 2018 -- A century after the armistice that ended World War I at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the poppy lives on as a potent symbol of remembrance in many parts of the world to honour all servicemen and women killed in conflict since the “Great War”.

The immortality of the Flanders poppy as the flower of remembrance for the dead of two world wars is primarily due to Colonel John McCrae, a distinguished Canadian doctor who served with his country’s armed forces during the First World War, and noticed how bright red poppies were quick to flower over the graves of soldiers killed on the battlefields. He was so moved by what he saw at the Battle of Ypres in 1915 that he expressed his emotion in verse, his lines beginning:

“In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row”

The poem was eventually published anonymously in Punch magazine. Colonel McCrae survived the horrors of Ypres but died from pneumonia in January 1918. He was buried with full military honours in Wimereux Cemetery near Boulogne, not far from the fields of Flanders.

The poem made a deep impression on Moina Michael, an American teacher working as a volunteer for the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries organization in New York, who decided that wearing a red poppy was an appropriate way to honour those who had lost their lives in the war. On November 9, 1918, two days before the Armistice was signed, delegates attending a conference at the YMCA presented Miss Michael with a cheque for $10 in appreciation of her efforts to brighten up the rather gloomy building with flowers at her own expense. That same day she used the money to buy 25 artificial silk poppies, wearing one herself and giving the others to each of the conference delegates.

After the war ended, Moina Michael began a tireless campaign to have the poppy adopted as a symbol not only to honour the dead but to assist returning servicemen in need.

In 1920, Frenchwoman Anna Guerin developed the idea further, proposing that silk poppies should be made and sold to help ex-servicemen and their dependents, especially children orphaned by the war.

The first Poppy Day in Britain was held in 1921, using poppies bought from Madame Guerin. The following year the newly-formed British Legion opened its own factory in London with a staff of five disabled ex-servicemen. This was greatly encouraged by Field Marshall Earl Haig, Commander of the British forces in World War I who believed that providing work for disabled ex-servicemen was just as important as raising money. The workforce quickly grew to over 40 men who made over a million poppies in two months.

By 1925, the Poppy Factory needed bigger premises in Bermondsey as the demand for poppies increased, and it moved to its present site in Richmond. A second factory opened in Scotland in 1926 at the suggestion of Haig’s wife, Dorothy. Five million Scottish poppies -- with four petals instead of two and minus the leaf -- are produced for the Scottish appeal each year.

The Poppy Factory’s team of disabled veterans, their dependants and home-workers (and even teams of volunteers) now produce around 7.6 million hand-made poppies, 135,000 wreaths and one million Remembrance symbols each year. The Remembrance symbols were originally crosses but are now produced in a variety of shapes encompassing different religions, including “no faith”. The public buys nearly 45 million poppies each year, so all the extra poppies are produced on machines at the Poppy Appeal’s HQ in Kent.

In 1921, Britain’s first Poppy Appeal raised £106,000. By 2017, that figure had grown to more than £47 million.

Today, Remembrance poppies are used mostly in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to commemorate their servicemen and women killed in all conflicts. They are usually worn on clothing leading up to Remembrance Day/Armistice Day, while poppy wreaths are laid at war memorials. In Australia and New Zealand, poppies are also worn on Anzac Day.

WWI CENTENARY: Poppy and Remembrance Day (1) (Graphic UPDATED Aug 30)
GN32381 Graphic shows a history of the poppy as a remembrance symbol.
(107mm wide by 157mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

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November 11, 2018 -- The First World War ended after four years that changed the course of world history. Triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo in 1914, the conflict that began in Europe spread to encompass much of the globe until the guns eventually fell silent on November 11, 1918.

In 1914, European nations were linked by a series of diplomatic alliances:Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire form the Central Powers. Britain, France and Russia make up the Triple Entente or Allies.

Italy, seeking to gain Austrian territory, enters the war on the side of the Allies in May 1915.

Bulgaria, with territorial ambitions in Serbia, aligns with the Central Powers in October 1915.

WWI CENTENARY: First World War timeline interactive (Interactive)
GN38430 Interactive graphic shows illustrated timeline of events during World War I and map of the conflict.
(800px wide by 568px deep)

October 15, 2018 -- The United Nations is calling on the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition in Yemen to halt airstrikes which are killing civilians and contributing to what could become “the worst famine in the world in 100 years”.

If fighting continues, famine could engulf the country in the next three months, with 12 to 13 million civilians at risk of starvation, according to Lise Grande, the chief of the UN diplomatic mission in Yemen.

Yemen’s civil war began more than three years ago, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

A coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia is using airstrikes and a blockade in support of the internationally-recognised government.

At least 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict and millions are displaced.

YEMEN: Threat of “worst famine in 100 years” (Graphic)
GN38427 Graphic shows food security outlook and details of people in need.
(107mm by 159mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 17-18, 2018 -- The EU and Britain face a “moment of truth” for Brexit negotiations at a crunch summit Wednesday, where leaders will decide whether enough progress has been made in talks to warrant a special summit in November.

Disagreement over the EU’s so-called Irish backstop -- a guarantee by both sides that there will be no hard border in Ireland -- is the biggest obstacle to the UK’s orderly departure from the bloc in March.

Theresa May’s Chequers Brexit plan has drawn criticism from both sides of the North Sea with former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and ex-Brexit secretary David Davis repeating calls for the UK to “chuck Chequers” and seek a looser free trade deal with Brussels like Canada.

Also, opposition to the Chequers deal has come from the European Research Group of Hard Brexit supporting MPs led by Jacob Rees-Mogg.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier says that Northern Ireland should stay in the EU’s Customs Union to avoid a land border with the EU -- Johnson has said the EU’s fallback position for the Irish border would mean Northern Ireland was “annexed” by Brussels.

EU: Theresa May’s Brexit options (Graphic)
GN38429 Graphic shows options to leave European Union facing British government.
(107mm by 180mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 12, 2018 -- Economic losses from climate-related disasters surged to $2.25 trillion over the past two decades, an increase of more than 150 percent compared to the previous 20-year period, according to the UN.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Soaring cost of disasters (Graphic)
GN38423 Graphic shows selected data from UNISDR report.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 12, 2018 -- Global stock markets headed toward the worst week in more than six months as investors spooked by rising interest rates sold equities.

MSCI’s All Country World Index -- a global barometer of stocks -- tumbled on Thursday to its lowest level since early February, in a sign of the amplitude of the sell-off gripping global equity markets.

The index dropped to a fresh low of $489.40 after the start of European trading. It had shed 6.8 per cent since September 26, when U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raised a benchmark interest rate to a range of 2-2.25% – bank’s third increase in 2018.

U.S. President Donald Trump took the unusual step of blaming the sell-off on Powell for raising interest rates, saying the Fed was “out of control.”

The MSCI ACWI represents stocks from 23 developed and 24 emerging markets. The United States holds around 53 per cent of the total market capitalisation of some $46.8 trillion.

MARKETS: Investors dump equities (Graphic)
GN38424 Graphic shows fall of MSCI’s All Country World Index since Federal Reserve hikes a benchmark interest rate.
(107mm by 100mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 11, 2018 -- Hurricane Michael struck the Florida Panhandle as a Category 4 storm, the third most powerful hurricane ever to hit the United States.

One of the strongest storms in American history has battered north-west Florida, flooding homes, washing away beaches and snapping trees.

Hurricane Michael made landfall on October 10 as a category four storm with 155mph (250km/h) winds, killing at least two people, including a child. It has now weakened to a tropical storm and is on its way to the Carolinas.

Residents across the southern U.S. have been warned of the continuing danger from downed powerlines, flash floods, and landslides. There are fears too for people who ignored evacuation warnings in some of the areas now flooded. More than 400,000 homes and businesses were left without electricity in Florida, Alabama and Georgia.

WEATHER: Most intense hurricanes to hit U.S. (Graphic)
GN38421 Graphic highlights the six worst hurricanes to ever hit the United States.
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October 9, 2018 -- Seattle-based startup Zunum Aero, backed by aviation giants Boeing and JetBlue, is aiming to reshape regional air travel with its ZA10 – the first in a series of planned hybrid-electric commuter aircraft.

AVIATION: Zunum Aero ZA10 (Graphic)
GN38412 Graphic shows details of Zunum Aero ZA10 aircraft.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 11, 2018 -- Russia’s efforts to expand its influence uses all the tools of state power, including its army’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), in an espionage battle that has spanned the globe -- and cyberspace.

MILITARY: Russia’s GRU attacks (Graphic)
GN38419 Graphic shows suspected or alleged GRU attacks since 2014.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 11, 2018 -- Stock markets across Asia tumbled Thursday in the toughest sell-off in equities and bonds since February — a delayed reaction to last week’s increase in benchmark interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

MARKETS: Stock rout rolls through Asia (Graphic)
GN38420 Graphic shows significant market falls.
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October 10, 2018 -- Smart displays that function as home assistants are gaining traction, with Amazon, Google and Facebook all launching new devices.

Google has followed Facebook and Amazon by launching a new smart display, allowing users to talk with a virtual assistant as well control smart home devices and watch YouTube videos.

However, unlike its more expensive rivals, Google’s new Home Hub comes without a camera, in an effort to avoid the kinds of privacy concerns that are dogging Facebook’s new Portal device.

Tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Apple, have been testing the water with relatively inexpensive smart speakers for the last year or two, with customers installing always-on microphones in their kitchens, lounges and bedrooms. But despite fears of eavesdropping and privacy leaks, such devices have sold millions of units worldwide.

TECH: Smart displays — the new household gadget of choice
(Graphic)
GN38417 Graphic compares the three latest and most prominent smart screen gadgets.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 10, 2018 -- Nikki Haley announced on Tuesday that she would step down as U.S. ambassador to the UN at the end of the year.

Hayley is leaving President Trump’s reputation-crushing administration with her stature enhanced and political prospects bolstered, unlike most top political players who have quit.

The 46-year-old former South Carolina governor is one of the few women in the Trump cabinet. She gave no reason for her resignation but dismissed speculation she was planning to run against Trump in 2020.

POLITICS: High-level White House departures (Graphic)
GN38415 Graphic shows high-level members of the Trump administration that have resigned or been fired.
(107mm wide by 214mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 6, 2018 -- The U.S. midterm elections take place in November every four years – midway through a president’s four year term in office. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will next be contested on November 6, 2018.

In addition, 34 of the 50 U.S. states elect their governors to four-year terms during midterm elections, while Vermont and New Hampshire elect governors to two-year terms in both midterm and presidential elections. Thus, 36 governors are elected during midterm elections. Municipal elections also occur and many states also elect officers to their state legislatures. On the ballot are many mayors, other local public offices, and a wide variety of citizen initiatives.

The “midterms” usually generate lower voter turnout than presidential elections – the latter have turnouts of about 50–60%, with only around 40% turning up at midterm polling stations. Although this may be higher in 2018 as voters could view their choices as a referendum on President Trump, whose divisive policies are antagonising a high proportion of the electorate.

U.S.: A century of fighting for control of Congress (Graphic)
GN38402 Graphic charts last 100 years of historical control of the Senate and House of Representatives.
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October 9, 2018 -- On October 25, Sweden and Finland will join NATO nations’ Trident Juncture 18 with 40,000 participants - NATO’s most significant military exercise since the end of the Cold War.

On March 29, 2013, two Tupolev Tu-22M3 strategic bombers escorted by four Sukhoi Su-27 jet fighters crossed the Gulf of Finland and came within 40 kilometres of Sweden’s island of Gotland, just 160km from the capital Stockholm. It was a Russian rehearsal of an air strike -- later revealed to be a nuclear strike -- on Sweden.

This was part of new military thinking within the Kremlin, what General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov called “new-type warfare” (NTW) -- to gain information superiority over an opponent by using targeted cyber attacks, electronic warfare, as well as conventional high-precision weapons. An opponent’s political and economic system is made ungovernable, its population demoralised, and its critical military-industrial complexes destroyed or damaged beyond repair.

A year after the mock attack on Stockholm, Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and triggered an NTW-style separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Now jump forward to 2017, Stockholm has reintroduced military conscription and taken part in Aurora 17, an army exercise including the U.S. and other NATO troops to coincide with Russia’s Zapad war games, seen by many as a dress rehearsal for a possible move against NATO’s Baltic members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

In January this year, Stockholm re-established a military unit on Gotland, its first new regiment since the Second World War, and in May Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency distributed a brochure, darkly called “If Crisis or War Comes”, throughout Sweden.

MILITARY: Russia threat to north Europe (Graphic)
GN38408 Graphic shows timeline of Russian threats against northern Europe.
(107mm by 168mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 9, 2018 -- Hurricane Michael continues to strengthen as it moves through the Gulf of Mexico and is forecast to strike the Florida coast on Wednesday as a possible Category 3 storm.

WEATHER: Hurricane Michael (Graphic)
GN38409 Graphic shows forecast path of storm.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 6, 2018 -- Americans head to the polls to decide which party controls the two chambers of Congress and has the power to oversee President Donald Trump and his administration.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election. If the Democrats want to take control of the House, they will have to win at least 23 seats from the Republicans.

For the Senate, just 35 out of the 100 seats are being contested. The Democrats need two seats to take control.

However, while Democrats may be able to take the House, clinching the Senate will be much harder. With only nine seats to defend, the Republicans have big advantage over the Democrats because the Democratic party is defending 26 seats (including two independents, who usually vote with them) while the Republicans only have to defend nine.

The stakes for President Donald Trump are extremely high since a Democratic victory in either chamber would give the party the power to open investigations into various aspects of his administration.

U.S.: Midterm elections guide (Graphic)
GN38404 Graphic shows a guide to the U.S. midterm elections.
(107mm wide by 150mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 8, 2018 -- The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that temperatures are set to rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052 if global warming continues at its current pace

CLIMATE CHANGE: UN report on global warming of 1.5C (Graphic)
GN38403 Graphic shows global warming projections for 2100, and climate impacts of rising temperatures.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 8, 2018 -- William Nordhaus (USA) and Paul Romer (USA), have won the Economics Prize for including climate change and technological innovation in longterm economic theory

The pair's research shows how human activity has caused global temperature to rise over the last 100 years.

The duo will receive 9 million Swedish krona (around £841,000).

NOBEL PRIZE: Economics winner 2018 (Graphic)
GN38401 Graphic shows recent winners of the Nobel Prize for economics.
(107mm wide by 95mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 8, 2018 -- Record high fuel prices and the surging costs of fertilisers are hitting India’s 263 million farmers and other agriculture workers, who together make up about half of India’s 1.3 billion people.

BUSINESS: India farm crisis (Graphic)
GN38396 Graphic shows main agriculture states, domestic fertilizer production, imports and rising costs.
(107mm by 165mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 8, 2018 -- Brazil's presidential front-runners, the right-wing Jair Bolsonaro and the left-leaning rival Fernando Haddad, will face a run-off on October 28.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court said the final results showed Bolsonaro won 46.1 per cent of the votes while Haddad had 29.2 per cent.

POLITICS: Brazil election result (Graphic)
GN38400 Graphic shows result of first round.
(107mm by 43mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 4, 2018 -- The UK has begun talks with Boeing to replace its fleet of ageing E-3 Sentry surveillance planes with the U.S. aerospace group’s more modern E-7 Wedgetail early warning and control aircraft.

MILITARY: Boeing E-7 Wedgetail radar plane (Graphic)
GN38392 Graphic shows features of Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail aircraft.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 5, 2018 -- Denis Mukwege, a doctor treating victims of sexual violence in D.R. Congo, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi human rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery by Islamic State in Iraq, have won the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”.

Mukwege has treated thousands of women in Congo, many of whom were victims of gang rape. Armed men tried to kill him in 2012, forcing him to temporarily leave the country.

Murad is one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women who were victims of rape and other abuses by the IS army. She managed to escape after three months and chose to speak about her experiences. At the age of 23, she was named the U.N.'s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

The 2018 prize is worth 9 million Swedish kronor ($1.01 million).

NOBEL PRIZE: Peace winners 2018 (Graphic)
GN38389 Graphic shows recent winners of the Nobel Prize for peace.
(107mm wide by 112mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 4, 2018 -- Just weeks before midterm elections for control of the U.S. Congress, a third of voters do not know the name of their party’s candidate for office.

A new poll finds 34 percent of Republican voters and 32.5 percent of Democratic voters do not know the names of the party's congressional candidates in their districts. However, this level of candidate name recognition is about in line with recent elections, according to the University of North Carolina.

Latest polling data also shows 54 percent of U.S. adults disapprove of the way President Trump is handling the presidency, with voters possibly viewing the midterms as a referendum on him.

Gender could play a role in the upcoming vote too, according to George Washington University, with the #MeToo movement and protests around Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh possibly affecting the outcome.

U.S.: Midterm election poll (Graphic)
GN38393 Graphic shows poll results highlighting a third of U.S. midterm election voters do not know the name of their party’s candidate for office – includes Trump popularity chart.
(107mm by 135mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 4, 2018 -- Flows of €200 billion of dodgy non-resident funds through Danske Estonia’s online transaction services between 2007 and 2015 represents more than a fifth of cross-border receipts through the Baltic state.

A decade ago, Estonia’s banks, eager to become a private banking hub for eastern Europe, moved from traditional private banking to transactional banking where money flows in and out immediately.

Estonia cross-border transactions, including non-resident flows, amounted to €887.6 billion between 2008 and 2015, according to figures from the country’s central bank.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that four big banks helped Danske Bank Estonia’s shady deals. JPMorgan, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank AG all made dollar transfers on behalf of the banks non-resident customers.

JPMorgan quit Estonian cross-border handling payments in July 2013, citing concerns about non-resident customers, and was replaced as the correspondent bank by Bank of America, while Deutsche pulled out in August 2015, having identified 10 Danske customers who had been involved in “suspicious behaviour”.

While the bulk of responsibility lies with Denmark’s regulator, the laundering scandal has now drawn in watchdogs in Europe and the United States.

BUSINESS: Europe’s dirty money scandal (Graphic)
GN38395 Graphic shows where funds came from, went to, and total cross border transactions between 2007 and 2015.
(107mm by 161mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 5, 2018 -- Russia and India are expected to sign a deal worth more than $5 billion on the delivery of Russian S-400 missile systems to New Delhi, despite Washington’s threat of sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to oversee the agreement during his trip to India.

But Washington has warned that the acquisition would attract sanctions under legislation signed into law by President Donald Trump last August.

The law, called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), is designed to punish Russia for the 2014 annexation of Crimea and meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Delhi has signalled it will ask the U.S. for a special waiver from sanctions.

India’s military wants the S-400 system as a deterrent against China and to gain an edge over its traditional rival, Pakistan.

Considered one of the best defence systems in existence, the S-400 is capable of intercepting and destroying airborne targets at a distance of up to 400km.

Other countries such as China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have all bought or are planning to buy the anti-aircraft missile weapon.

U.S. military officials and politicians have also expressed concerns over Turkey's intention to buy the Russian missile system.

The U.S. one of Indoa’s top arms suppliers, closing $15 billion worth of deals in just the last decade.

MILITARY: India-Russia S-400 missile deal (Graphic)
GN38391 Graphic shows features of the S-400 system.
(107mm wide by 177mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 30, 2018 -- On October 30, 1938, with the world lurching towards World War II, Orson Welles caused mass panic in the United States when the now infamous live radio adaptation of “The War of the Worlds” was broadcast to an unsuspecting public.

1897: H.G. Wells 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds, originally serialised in Pearson’s Magazine and Cosmopolitan, imagines alien invaders from Mars attacking London with towering tripod fighting machines, before succumbing to Earthly germs from which they have no immunity

1938: U.S. actor Orson Welles’ Sunday evening series on CBS Radio, Mercury Theatre on the Air (a low budget show with no sponsor) reworks literary classics into one-hour radio plays. For the Halloween episode, Welles and producers John Houseman and Paul Stewart, agree to adapt a work of science fiction

Mon, Oct 24, 1938: Houseman instructs writer Howard Koch to adapt The War of the Worlds for broadcast, moving it to a contemporary New Jersey setting

Thu, Oct 27: Welles asks the crew to insert news flashes and eyewitness accounts to create a sense of urgency. Houseman, Koch and Stewart rework the script all night

Fri, Oct 28: Executive producer Davidson Taylor warns that the writing is too realistic and tells the authors to tone it down

Sat, Oct 29: Stewart rehearses the show with the sound effects team, paying special attention to crowd scenes, cannon fire and chilling Martian war machines

Sun, Oct 30 – Afternoon: Music rehearsal. The orchestra, under the direction of composer Bernard Herrmann, play dance band music while being interrupted by news broadcasts. The studio’s emergency fill-in music – solo piano playing Debussy and Chopin – is used several times, adding to the sinister overtone

6pm: The dress rehearsal works in last-minute changes by Welles, including allowing actor Kenneth Delmar to impersonate President Franklin D. Roosevelt (forbidden by major networks)

8pm: The show airs live from New York, terrifying many listeners and causing widespread panic. Police storm CBS studios but fail to stop the broadcast. With fears of war growing, many Americans mistakenly believe a Nazi invasion is underway

Listeners are accustomed to radio shows pausing on the half-hour for station messages. Breaking news does not obey this rule. Many listeners who missed the opening disclaimer that the show was fictitious, are convinced the news reports are real, especially when the station break fails to arrive until 8:40pm

Mon, Oct 31: Welles denies to the press that he intended to deceive his audience, but later claimed he was hiding his delight. Instead of ending his career, the broadcast catapults him onto the world stage

Dec 1938-Mar 1940: The Campbell’s Soup company steps in to sponsor the now infamous radio show, renaming it The Campbell Playhouse. Welles stays on until his contract expires and he is drawn to Hollywood, where he makes several classic movies, including Citizen Kane (1941) and Touch of Evil (1958)

ENTERTAINMENT: 80th anniversary of War of the Worlds radio broadcast (Graphic)
GN38383 Graphic explains how the dramatised radio play fooled so many people into believing it was true.
(163mm by 183mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 11, 2018 -- The Apollo programme began 50 years ago with the first manned Apollo space flight which laid the groundwork for the missions that saw a dozen men land on the moon between 1969 and 1972.

SPACE: 50th Anniversary of NASA’s Apollo programme interactive (Interactive)
GN38388 Interactive graphic tells the story of the extraordinary Apollo Moon missions.
(800px wide by 568px deep)

October 3, 2018 -- A picture of large scale destruction has emerged in Palu city following the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday.

EARTHQUAKE: Palu damage assessment (Graphic)
GN38385 Graphic shows destruction in and around Palu city.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 3, 2018 -- An international study looking at more than 17,000 adolescents aged between nine and 19, from 2010 to 2017, found playing violent video games led to increased physical aggression over time.

MEDICAL: Gaming aggression link (Graphic)
GN38387 Graphic shows how video games affect a child’s brain.
(107mm by 150mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 3, 2018 -- Frances H Arnold (USA), George P Smith (USA), and Sir Gregory Winter (BRI) have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for using the principles of evolution to produce new enzymes and antibodies.

Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology was awarded half the prize for conducting the first directed evolution of enzymes, leading to more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemicals, including drugs, and in the production of renewable fuels.

George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, share the other half of the prize. Smith developed a new way to evolve proteins and Winter used the method for evolving antibodies with the aim of producing new drugs.

The first drug based on this work is used against rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease, the academy said.

NOBEL PRIZE: Chemistry winners 2018 (Graphic)
GN38382 Graphic shows winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and facts about the Prize.
(107mm wide by mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 2, 2018 -- Suspected cholera cases have almost tripled in Yemen’s coastal Hodeidah region since fighting escalated in June, according to international aid group Save the Children.

Health facilities across the governorate recorded a 170 percent increase in the number of suspected cholera cases, from 497 in June to 1,342 in August.

The group said the spike was in line with national data that also showed a steady increase of suspected cholera cases across Yemen. Thirty percent of all suspected cases are children under five years old, according to the World Health Organisation.

A series of air strikes in late July damaged a sanitation facility and water station that supplies Hodeidah with most of its water. Suspected cholera cases almost doubled as a result, Save the Children said.

Fighting around Hodeidah – the main entry point for humanitarian supplies and commercial goods into Yemen – has escalated since June 13, when the pro-government Saudi-led alliance launched an offensive to retake the rebel-held port.

YEMEN: Hodeidah cholera cases surge (Graphic)
GN38379 Graphic shows levels of suspected cholera in Yemen and Hodeidah.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 2, 2018 -- A poll of 26,000 people in 25 countries found seven in 10 people have less confidence in U.S. President Donald Trump than they do in Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.

Across all countries, an average of 27 percent of respondents said they had confidence in Trump. That compared unfavourably to Putin, on 30 percent, and Xi, on 34 percent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the only leader in which a majority of those surveyed, 52 percent, expressed confidence. French President Emmanuel Macron was just behind at 46 percent.

Despite Trump’s low ratings, 63 percent of respondents said the world was better off with the United States as the leading power, compared to 19 percent who preferred China in that role.

The countries with the most positive views of the United States were Israel, the Philippines and South Korea, all at 80 percent or above. Across all countries, the U.S. got positive marks, with 50 percent saying they had a positive view, compared to 43 percent who were negative.

POLITICS: Global confidence poll (Graphic)
GN38378 Graphic shows confidence in selected world leaders to do the right thing in world affairs.
(107mm wide by 114mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 2, 2018 -- Within 10 years electric vehicles will cost no more than their gasoline counterparts, driving a liftoff in sales, according to a new analysis of the EV market by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

BMW says it has improved the theoretical range of its electric i3 City Car to 360km (almost 225 miles) thanks to a bigger battery.

BMW said this means the lithium-ion battery storage has doubled since the launch of the BMW i3 in 2013. The original i3 was sold as a battery-only vehicle, but it was soon offered with a small petrol engine to extend the range. That has been dropped in the new version.

“Doubling in size, the new battery on the all-electric BMW i3 and i3s now has a capacity of 120Ah and a gross energy content of 42.2kWh,” BMW said in a statement.

The combined power consumption of the i3 is 13.1kWh per 100km (62 miles), BMW said.

Prices start at £35,180 when sales begin in December.

The announcement was made at the Paris Auto Show.

BMW said the official range of the BMW i3 is now 360km (223 miles), up from the previous 290-300km (180-186 miles). According to the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) data, the i3 has 310km (192 miles) of driving range. BMW didn’t explain how it calculated its “official” figure.

But both of these figures are based on more perfect conditions than you will find in ordinary every day driving. Before embarking on a long journey, best knock off at least 80km (50 miles) from those totals, as higher speeds drain batteries quickly.

Let’s hope BMW doesn’t regret dropping that range extender engine.

MOTORING: Decade of the electric car (Graphic)
GN38381 Graphic shows projected sales of electric cars from 2015 to 2040.
(107mm by 146mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 2, 2018 -- Arthur Ashkin (USA), Gérard Mourou (FRA) and Donna Strickland (CAN) have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for their groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics.

Sweden's Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Ashkin, 96, developed "optical tweezers" that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them.

Strickland and Mourou helped develop short and intense laser pulses that have broad industrial and medical applications.

Strickland is the first female Nobel laureate to be named in three years and is only the third woman to have won the physics prize; the first was Marie Curie in 1903.

NOBEL PRIZE: Physics winners 2018 (Graphic)
GN38377 Graphic shows winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics and facts about the Prize.
(107mm wide by 94mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 14-20, 2018 -- Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries for each day of the week. Freewill Skydiver Felix Baumgartner, Germany’s Graf Zeppelin airship, Pope John Paul, commercial hunting of whales II, woolly mammoth, Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Sydney Opera House

October 14, 2012: Skydiver Felix Baumgartner made the highest ever freefall from a balloon 39km over New Mexico, becoming the first man to travel faster than the speed of sound

October 15, 1928: Germany’s Graf Zeppelin airship made the first commercial flight across the Atlantic, arriving in Lakehurst, New Jersey, four days after leaving Friedrichshafen

October 16, 1978: Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland was elected Pope, as John Paul II. He was the first non-Italian pope for 456 years, and served until his death in 2005

October 17, 2006: Iceland announced it would resume commercial hunting of whales, in contravention of a 20-year moratorium passed by the International Whaling Commission

October 18, 1999: The first complete specimen of the extinct woolly mammoth, which died around 23,000 years ago, was dug out of the icy wastes of northern Siberia

October 19, 1901: Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully piloted an airship around the Eiffel Tower. The 30-minute trip made him an international celebrity

October 20, 1973: Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish artist Joern Utzon, was officially opened. It is regarded as one of the great architectural works of the 20th century

HISTORY: On this day October 14-20, 2018 (week 42) (Graphic)
GN38325 Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries on each day for the week.
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October 7-13, 2018 -- Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries for each day of the week. This week features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Queen Min of Korea, the plight of the Rohingya Muslims, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, Edith Piaf, polio and Bob Dylon.

October 7, 2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-born actor turned politician, was elected governor of California. The Terminator star won 49 percent of the vote

October 8, 1895: Queen Min of Korea, who tried to stem the tide of Japanese domination in her country, was assassinated on the orders of Japanese General Goro Miura

October 9, 2017: Over half a million Rohingya Muslims were estimated to have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape the violent crackdown by Myanmar’s security forces

October 10, 1913: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson detonated explosives enabling the final stretch of the Panama Canal, linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to be cleared

October 11, 1963: French singer and cabaret star Edith Piaf died at the age of 47. A huge star from the 1940s onwards, she is most famous for her song, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien

October 12, 1928: The first use of an “iron lung” took place to treat a young patient suffering from polio. The medical ventilator enabled polio sufferers to breathe more normally

October 13, 2016: Bob Dylan became the first songwriter to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, for the poetry of his lyrics “within the great American song tradition”

HISTORY: On this day October 7-13, 2018 (week 41) (Graphic)
GN38324 Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries on each day for the week.
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October 1, 2018 -- Recent cyclones and back-to-back heatwaves have severely damaged Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, leading ecologists to attempt to regrow broken and sun-bleached coral using electrified steel frames.

A study is taking place to see if a relatively simple method can restore damaged coral on the Great Barrier Reef using electricity.

The reef has severely deteriorated in recent years following cyclones and back-to-back heatwaves, but now conservation group Reef Ecologic is attempting to regrow surviving coral fragments on steel frames.

The frames are placed on damaged parts of the reef and stimulated with low-voltage electricity to accelerate the coral’s growth. Early indicators show coral regrows 3-4 times faster than under normal conditions – essential if it is to survive the now frequent bleaching events.

ENVIRONMENT: Electricity could save Great Barrier Reef (Graphic)
GN38372 Graphic shows how the Biorock regrowth system works.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 1, 2018 -- The death toll from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has surpassed 840 and is likely to rise further.

The number of dead, largely from the city of Palu, is expected to keep rising as areas cut off by the damage are reached. The remote fishing village of Donggala is feared to be badly hit.

Many people are reportedly trapped in the rubble of buildings that collapsed in Friday’s 7.5-magnitude earthquake, which generated a tsunami said to have been as high as six metres in places.

EARTHQUAKE: Indonesia death toll rises (Graphic)
GN38374 Graphic shows area struck by earthquake and tsunami.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 1, 2018 -- One in six women in the United States and one in 33 men will be the victim of attempted or actual rape at some point in their lives, while one in three women will experience some form of sexual violence.

Sexual violence is difficult to measure, and there is no single source of data that provides a complete picture of the crime. U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) data shows that just 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to the police, meaning two out of every three incidents go unreported.

A Stop Street Harassment survey found that 81 per cent of American women had experienced some form of sexual harassment during their lifetime.

UN Women estimates that 35 per cent of women globally are victims of physical or sexual violence. This rises to 71 per cent in India and 87 per cent in Vietnam.

In the Arab world 37 per cent of women have experienced sexual harassment, while in South Africa, almost three-in-four women suffered abuse.

In the European Union, a 2012 survey found rates of physical and sexual violence ranged from 20 per cent in Spain and Poland to 35 per cent in Germany, 44 per cent in the UK, peaking at 52 per cent in Denmark.

It seems the safest place for women is Australia where its national statistics bureau estimates just 17 per cent of women suffering physical or sexual violence.

CRIME: Sexual violence in the U.S. (Graphic)
GN38376 Graphic shows sexual assault estimates by the U.S. Department of Justice.
(107mm by 148mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 1, 2018 -- James P. Allison (USA) and Tasuku Honjo (JPN) have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery that the body’s immune system can be harnessed to attack cancer cells.

American James Allison studied a protein that functions as a brake on the immune system.

He realised the potential of releasing the brake and unleashing immune cells to attack tumours. He developed this concept into a new approach for treating patients.

Tasuku Honjo of Japan "discovered a protein on immune cells and revealed that it also operates as a brake, but with a different mechanism of action. Therapies based on his discovery proved to be strikingly effective in the fight against cancer."

NOBEL PRIZE: Medicine winners 2018 (Graphic)
GN38373 Graphic shows some facts and figures about of the Nobel Prize for medicine.
(107mm wide by 94mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

September 28, 2018 -- Hundreds of people are feared dead with the number expected to rise after a magnitude 7.5 earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi triggered a tsunami that struck the cities of Palu and Donggala.

At least 844 people are confirmed to have died but authorities have said the final death toll could reach thousands as rescue teams reach the Donggala region which was directly hit and is home to 300,000 people.

Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the tsunami hit Palu, the capital of central Sulawesi province, as well as the smaller city of Donggala and several other coastal settlements.

Indonesian TV showed a smartphone video of a powerful wave hitting Palu, with people screaming and running in fear. The water smashed into buildings and a large mosque that collapsed under the force.

Houses were swept away and families were reported missing, Nugroho said, adding that communications and power to the area were disrupted.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics agency said the tsunami waves were up to 6 meters (20 feet) high, and that the tsunami warning triggered by the biggest quake, in place for about half an hour, was lifted after the third wave struck Palu,not before as was reported earlier.

In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

EARTHQUAKE: Tsunami hits Indonesia’s Palu (Graphic)
GN38371 Graphic shows location of earthquake off Indonesia.
(107mm wide by 110mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

September 28, 2018 -- Chile has launched a huge scenic route through its Patagonian wilderness to boost tourism and highlight the need for conservation.

The Route of Parks spans 2,800km, connecting 17 national parks and covering 11.5 million hectares, equivalent to three times the size of Switzerland.

Although it covers the southern third of Chile's territory, it is inhabited by only 60 communities and is far better known for its lakes, canals and rich habitat of indigenous flora and fauna.

The initiative is the brainchild of Tompkins Conservation, a foundation set up by the late Douglas Tompkins and wife Kristine, which donated more than 400,000 hectares to Chile last year to create five parks.

Many of the national parks and other protected zones in Chile were created by socialist former president Michelle Bachelet, who left 14 new marine protected areas spanning 1.31 million square kilometres and the Parks Network in Patagonia when she stepped down in March.

ENVIRONMENT: Patagonia’s “Route of Parks” unveiled (Graphic)
GN38368 Graphic shows map of the route.
(107mm wide by 171mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 16-31, 2018 -- Kensington Palace says Prince Harry and his wife, the former actress Meghan Markle, will be touring Australia, Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga and New Zealand this autumn.

The royal couple, now known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, will be making the tour around the time of the fourth Invictus Games in Sydney, which is set for October 20-27.

Harry, a British military veteran who served in Afghanistan, created the Paralympic-style games as a way to inspire wounded soldiers toward recovery. This year’s event will bring together more than 500 competitors from 18 nations to compete in ten sports.

The couple follow in the footsteps of Prince Harry’s parents – Charles and Diana – whose first royal tour was to Australia and New Zealand.

UK ROYALS: Harry and Meghan’s first overseas tour (Graphic)
GN38369 Graphic shows tour schedule.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

September 28, 2018 -- More than a dozen countries sell “golden visas” to people willing to invest in a country’s economy under Citizenship by Investment Programmes (CIPs), raising some $3 billion a year.

BUSINESS: Selling citizenship (Graphic)
GN38370 Graphic shows countries selling passports and citizenship.
(107mm by 161mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

September 27, 2018 -- Marine pollution is pushing the world’s killer whale population ever closer to extinction, with chronic exposure to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) threatening the reproductive and immune systems of the largest member of the dolphin family.

Due to their voracious appetites and their place at the apex of the ocean food chain, killer whales (Orcinus orca) are considered as an “indicator species” regarding the health of marine ecosystems worldwide.

A study of PCB concentrations in the blubber of 351 orcas around the world concludes that the chemical is easily transferred to offspring and endangers the long-term viability of more than 50% of the world’s killer whale population.

Researchers led by Pierre Desforges at Aarhus University in Denmark developed a risk assessment model capable of forecasting the effects of PCB exposure on these creatures in the world’s oceans, and over the next 100 years.

The results of the researchers’ model simulations show that concentrations in orcas are closely tied to proximity to PCB production and use and that high levels of the chemical have a significant impact on both population size and sustainability.

While the production of PCBs was banned in the United States in 1978, their widespread industrial use led to ubiquitous global distribution.

According to the model, orca populations in the Arctic and Antarctic, where PCB concentrations are low, will continue to grow, or only be modestly reduced.

According to Desforges and colleagues, in regions where concentrations are highest -- Japan, Brazil, the northeast Pacific, the Strait of Gibraltar and the UK -- orca populations could be headed for a complete collapse within the next century.

The study is published in the September 5 issue of the journal Science.


ENVIRONMENT: Orcinus orca killer whale picture 1
(Picture)
GN38365 Picture shows killer whale (Orcinus orca). MUST CREDIT Pierre Desforges, Science.
(360mm wide by 245mm deep @ 300 pixels/inch)

September 27, 2018 -- Marine pollution is pushing the world’s killer whale population ever closer to extinction, with chronic exposure to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) threatening the reproductive and immune systems of the largest member of the dolphin family.

Due to their voracious appetites and their place at the apex of the ocean food chain, killer whales (Orcinus orca) are considered as an “indicator species” regarding the health of marine ecosystems worldwide.

A study of PCB concentrations in the blubber of 351 orcas around the world concludes that the chemical is easily transferred to offspring and endangers the long-term viability of more than 50% of the world’s killer whale population.

Researchers led by Pierre Desforges at Aarhus University in Denmark developed a risk assessment model capable of forecasting the effects of PCB exposure on these creatures in the world’s oceans, and over the next 100 years.

The results of the researchers’ model simulations show that concentrations in orcas are closely tied to proximity to PCB production and use and that high levels of the chemical have a significant impact on both population size and sustainability.

While the production of PCBs was banned in the United States in 1978, their widespread industrial use led to ubiquitous global distribution.

According to the model, orca populations in the Arctic and Antarctic, where PCB concentrations are low, will continue to grow, or only be modestly reduced.

According to Desforges and colleagues, in regions where concentrations are highest -- Japan, Brazil, the northeast Pacific, the Strait of Gibraltar and the UK -- orca populations could be headed for a complete collapse within the next century.

The study is published in the September 5 issue of the journal Science.

ENVIRONMENT: Orcinus orca killer whale picture 2
(Graphic)
GN38366 Picture shows killer whale (Orcinus orca). MUST CREDIT Pierre Desforges, Science.
()

September 27, 2018 -- Marine pollution is pushing the world’s killer whale population ever closer to extinction, with chronic exposure to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) threatening the reproductive and immune systems of the largest member of the dolphin family.

Due to their voracious appetites and their place at the apex of the ocean food chain, killer whales (Orcinus orca) are considered as an “indicator species” regarding the health of marine ecosystems worldwide.

A study of PCB concentrations in the blubber of 351 orcas around the world concludes that the chemical is easily transferred to offspring and endangers the long-term viability of more than 50% of the world’s killer whale population.

Researchers led by Pierre Desforges at Aarhus University in Denmark developed a risk assessment model capable of forecasting the effects of PCB exposure on these creatures in the world’s oceans, and over the next 100 years.

The results of the researchers’ model simulations show that concentrations in orcas are closely tied to proximity to PCB production and use and that high levels of the chemical have a significant impact on both population size and sustainability.

While the production of PCBs was banned in the United States in 1978, their widespread industrial use led to ubiquitous global distribution.

According to the model, orca populations in the Arctic and Antarctic, where PCB concentrations are low, will continue to grow, or only be modestly reduced.

According to Desforges and colleagues, in regions where concentrations are highest -- Japan, Brazil, the northeast Pacific, the Strait of Gibraltar and the UK -- orca populations could be headed for a complete collapse within the next century.

The study is published in the September 5 issue of the journal Science.


ENVIRONMENT: Killer whale pollution (Graphic)
GN38361 Graphic shows how PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are threatening killer whale populations around the world.
Also available: GN38365 ENVIRONMENT: Orcinus orca killer whale picture 1; GN38366 ENVIRONMENT: Orcinus orca killer whale picture 2

(107mm wide by mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 11, 2018 - December 19, 2022 -- The Apollo programme began 50 years ago with the first manned Apollo space flight which laid the groundwork for the missions that saw a dozen men land on the moon between 1969 and 1972.

The Apollo programme was conceived during Dwight Eisenhower’s administration but was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal, proposed in an address to Congress in 1961, of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” by the end of the decade.

Six years after Kennedy’s assassination, the Apollo 11 Eagle lunar module, crewed by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, successfully landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. A third astronaut, Michael Collins, remained in lunar orbit in the Command Module, necessary for retrieving Eagle and returning them all safely to Earth. Five subsequent Apollo missions landed more astronauts on the moon, the last in December 1972. In all, 12 Americans set foot on the moon.

Apollo’s first manned flight took place on October 11, 1968, the date NASA has chosen to begin Apollo’s 50th anniversary commemorations. The space agency (founded in 1958) achieved its goal of a manned lunar landing, despite a major setback in 1967 when Apollo 1 caught fire on the launch pad, killing the entire crew.

After Apollo 11, sufficient rocket hardware remained for nine follow-up missions but budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. Five of the remaining six missions were successful but Apollo 13 was thwarted when a gas tank explosion en route to the moon crippled the Command Module’s propulsion and life support systems. The crew limped back to Earth, using the Lunar Module as a “lifeboat”.

SPACE: 50th Anniversary of NASA’s Apollo programme (Graphic)
GN38356 Graphic tells the story of the extraordinary Apollo Moon missions.
(163mm by mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

September 27, 2018 -- One of the two suspects in the Salisbury poisoning of Sergei Skripal has been identified as a decorated colonel in Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, according to a Britain-based investigative group.

RUSSIA: UK spy poisoning suspect identified (Graphic)
GN38362 Graphic shows profile of Anatoliy Chepiga / Ruslan Boshirov.
(107mm by 156mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 1, 2018 -- Graphic News, clip art collection. Image shows logotype for NASA’s 60th anniversary.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formally established in law on July 29, 1958, and became operational on October 1 of that year.

Established in 1958 as a commitment to winning the space race against the Soviets, NASA’s notable achievements include the Apollo programme that sent men to the moon, and the Space Shuttle.

As NASA celebrates 60 years of achievement its new chief, Jim Bridenstine, has outlined ambitious plans for NASA to pioneer the Solar System, and to “send humans back to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond”.

LOGO: NASA 60th anniversary (Artwork)
GN38367
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September 26, 2018 -- The remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal plan to create a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), or clearinghouse, to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran and on any country that buys Iranian crude oil. Italy is reportedly also interested in participating.

Chris Cook, the former director of London’s International Petroleum Exchange and Fintech energy adviser to several governments, has described how an SPV could generate a new monetary system that could link monetary units to energy.

By using Euro 5 gasoline as a credit, Cook says a litre of this standard quality of fuel would be acceptable as a credit anywhere in Europe and across much of Eurasia.

The first step is to create an Energy Credit Obligation (ECO) — a credit issued by refineries and acceptable in payment for a litre of Euro 5 gasoline.

The second part of the ECO proposal is to expand an innovative oil and gas swap pioneered by Iran in the Caspian. To mitigate the high cost to Caspian crude producers of using the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline to deliver oil to Europe, Iran received Caspian crude at its northern port of Neka for its northern refineries, then shipped Iranian crude oil from its southern terminals to the Caspian producers’ European clients.

Iran could merely enter into oil swaps in exchange for ECO gasoline credits issued by foreign refineries. An International Energy Clearing Union would process the ECOs using secure blockchain technology.

Iran could then exchange its ECOs for goods and services and no longer need to participate in a U.S. dollar-denominated oil market.

BUSINESS: Iran-EU oil swap plan (Graphic)
GN38359 Graphic shows how an oil swap SPV could work.
(107mm by 149mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

September 25, 2018 -- As the standoff between Ukraine and Russia intensifies, a military build-up by both countries is threatening to spread the conflict from ground battles in eastern Ukraine into the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine has deployed two armoured artillery boats to the Sea of Azov as part of plans to set up new naval base before the end of the year.

For its part, Russia has reportedly redeployed at least 10 warships and up to 40 patrol boats to the Sea of Azov in recent months.

The military buildups have been triggered by Moscow's construction of a bridge between Crimea and mainland Russia.

Moscow’s building of the Kerch Strait Bridge in 2015 has cut cargo shipments to the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk by 27% and 47% respectively, costing Kiev between $20 million and $40 million every year.

Around 80% of Ukraine’s exports pass through the Kerch Strait.

On September 15, U.S. special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker said that Washington would consider providing more armaments to Kiev.

Volker said the U.S. is concerned about the expansion of Russian naval operations in the Sea of Azov, which borders Ukraine, Russia and the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

The separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine have long threatened the Azov port of Mariupol; taking the city would be a key step toward their establishing a land corridor between Crimea and Russia.

MILITARY: Ukraine-Russia conflict spreads to sea (Graphic)
GN38358 Graphic shows military situation in the Sea of Azov.
(107mm wide by mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

September 25, 2018 -- Cunard’s former flagship, the 50-year-old Queen Elizabeth 2, returns after 10 years of retirement to serve as a luxury floating hotel and museum at Port Rashid in Dubai.

The new owners, CFC Hotels, part of Dubai’s Ports, Customs and Free Zones Corporation, opened sections of the ship to guests in April. All 13 decks of rooms and the dining and entertainment areas await the official opening in October.

Guests can expect to see QE2 period furniture, famous memorabilia and other classic interior design features. The rooms and suites will have the original portholes and windows.

Travel Weekly notes that QE2, launched on Sep 20, 1967, by Queen Elizabeth II, had travelled more miles than any passenger vessel afloat when her engines were turned off in 2008. She made her maiden voyage on May 2, 1969, to New York. She set records for transatlantic speed during her cruise life, and once carried British troops during a wartime deployment. She crossed the Atlantic more than 800 times and carried more than 2.5 million passengers before her retirement.

DUBAI: QE2 floating hotel (Graphic)
GN38351 Graphic shows timeline and details of Queen Elizabeth 2 liner.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 1-31, 2018 -- The World Agenda gives a preview of world events scheduled for October, such as crucial elections in Brazil and Bavaria, the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Indonesia, and NATO’s largest military exercise since 2002, which is taking place in Norway, on Russia’s doorstep.

Oct 7, Brazil: Voters elect a president in the aftermath of the stabbing of the front-runner, far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, and of a corruption scandal that scythed through Brazil’s political class, forcing the withdrawals of former and current presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Michel Temer

Oct 14, Germany: Angela Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) – which has dominated the wealthy southern state since World War II – looks likely to lose its absolute majority in regional elections. Support for Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s CSU is waning as voters flee the centre-right for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD)

Oct 18, Brussels: European Council President Donald Tusk says this summit is “the moment of truth” for the EU and UK to agree a Brexit withdrawal agreement. How to keep the Irish border fully open remains a key roadblock

Oct 8-14, Indonesia: Bali hosts the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank, whose governors must contend with softening economic expansion on a global scale. The escalating trade war between the U.S. and China is a major concern

Oct 25-Nov 7, Norway: Trident Juncture 18, NATO’s largest military exercise since 2002, involves 40,000 personnel from 30 NATO and partner nations. Held on Russia’s doorstep, it follows Russia’s Vostok-18 military drills, the biggest since the Cold War

Oct 19, French Guiana: BepiColombo, a European- Japanese mission to Mercury, is set to launch. On board will be two satellites that will take a close look at the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet in the Solar System

Oct 11, Singapore: Singapore Airlines will claim the title of the world’s longest commercial flight when it resumes its non-stop service to New York. Flights will cover a distance of around 16,700km using the new, fuel-efficient Airbus A350-900ULR (Ultra Long Range) plane

Oct 12, UK: Princess Eugenie marries Jack Brooksbank at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, where her cousin, Prince Harry, married former actress Meghan Markle in May. Eugenie is the daughter of Queen Elizabeth’s second son, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson

WORLD AGENDA: October 2018 interactive (Interactive)
GN38348 Responsive interactive graphic shows news events in October 2018.
(640px wide by 568px deep)

September 26, 2018 -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Trump will hold a trade summit on Wednesday as fears grow that Washington could slap tariffs on Japan’s car exports to the United States.

BUSINESS: Japan car tariffs threat (Graphic)
GN38353 Graphic shows car imports into the United States and market share.
(107mm by mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 1-31, 2018 -- The World Agenda gives a preview of world events scheduled for October, such as crucial elections in Brazil and Bavaria, the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Indonesia, and NATO’s largest military exercise since 2002, which is taking place in Norway, on Russia’s doorstep.

Oct 7, Brazil: Voters elect a president in the aftermath of the stabbing of the front-runner, far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, and of a corruption scandal that scythed through Brazil’s political class, forcing the withdrawals of former and current presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Michel Temer

Oct 14, Germany: Angela Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) – which has dominated the wealthy southern state since World War II – looks likely to lose its absolute majority in regional elections. Support for Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s CSU is waning as voters flee the centre-right for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD)

Oct 18, Brussels: European Council President Donald Tusk says this summit is “the moment of truth” for the EU and UK to agree a Brexit withdrawal agreement. How to keep the Irish border fully open remains a key roadblock

Oct 8-14, Indonesia: Bali hosts the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank, whose governors must contend with softening economic expansion on a global scale. The escalating trade war between the U.S. and China is a major concern

Oct 25-Nov 7, Norway: Trident Juncture 18, NATO’s largest military exercise since 2002, involves 40,000 personnel from 30 NATO and partner nations. Held on Russia’s doorstep, it follows Russia’s Vostok-18 military drills, the biggest since the Cold War

Oct 19, French Guiana: BepiColombo, a European- Japanese mission to Mercury, is set to launch. On board will be two satellites that will take a close look at the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet in the Solar System

Oct 11, Singapore: Singapore Airlines will claim the title of the world’s longest commercial flight when it resumes its non-stop service to New York. Flights will cover a distance of around 16,700km using the new, fuel-efficient Airbus A350-900ULR (Ultra Long Range) plane

Oct 12, UK: Princess Eugenie marries Jack Brooksbank at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, where her cousin, Prince Harry, married former actress Meghan Markle in May. Eugenie is the daughter of Queen Elizabeth’s second son, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson

WORLD AGENDA: October 2018 (Graphic)
GN38347 Graphic shows news events in October 2018. An interactive version of this graphic is also produced each month.
(163mm wide by 210mm deep)

October 7, 2018 -- Brazil’s presidential campaign is growing increasingly polarized ahead of the first round on October 7, with voters rejecting centrist candidates and gravitating to opposite ends of the political spectrum.

BRAZIL: Presidential election candidates (Graphic)
GN38342 Graphic shows Brazil presidential election voting intention.
(107mm by 149mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

September 21, 2018 -- A team of marine archaeologists from Australia and the U.S. are expected to announce the resting place of HMS Endeavour, the ship in which British explorer Captain James Cook sailed to Australia in 1768 on his first voyage of discovery.

The achievement would solve one of the greatest maritime mysteries of all time.

The Endeavour, then known as Lord Sandwich II, was sunk in 1778 with 12 other ships off Rhode Island, U.S., but no-one was sure where.

Now, following a 25-year archaeological study, the search has been narrowed to just “one or two” sites just off Goat Island, a small island in the Narragansett Bay, where the Endeavour was scuttled during the American War of Independence.

The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (Rimap), which has been working with the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM), is to release a “3-D photogrammetric image of a promising site”

The breakthrough has raised hopes the remains of the vessel will be excavated next year, in time for the 250th anniversary of Cook's arrival in Australia.

The Rhode Island state government claimed official ownership of the fleet of shipwrecks including Endeavour in 1999, suggesting Australian officials would have to negotiate for any remnants to be brought to Australia.

ARCHAEOLOGY: Captain Cook’s Endeavour “located” (Graphic)
GN38340 Graphic shows locator map where U.S. researchers believe they have found the Endeavour, and the route of the ship from Britain to Australia in 1768.
(107mm wide by 173mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 11, 2018 -- Singapore Airlines will claim the title of the world’s longest commercial flight when it resumes its non-stop service between Singapore and New York using Airbus A350 jets. The airline last flew the route in 2013.

AVIATION: World’s longest commercial flight (Graphic)
GN38308 Graphic shows details of route and Airbus A350-900ULR airliner.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

October 25, 2018 -- Over 40,000 troops will converge on Norway for NATO’s largest military exercise in recent years. Dubbed Trident Juncture 18, the two-week drill will involve all alliance members, plus partners Finland and Sweden.

Germany will be one of the largest contributors, with 8,000 troops and more than 2,000 vehicles, including 100 tanks, German media have reported.

According to Norway’s armed forces, the exercise will test the whole military chain – from troop training at the tactical level, to command over large forces. It will train the troops of the NATO Response Force and forces from other allies and partners, ensuring they can work seamlessly together.

Trident Juncture takes place every three years and was last hosted by Italy, Spain and Portugal.

MILITARY: NATO exercise Trident Juncture 2018 (Graphic)
GN38268 Graphic shown details of Trident Juncture 18 military exercise.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

July 28, 2014 -- 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. The Western Front, the line of trenches from the North Sea to the Swiss border which was deadlocked from the first months of the war in 1914 until shortly before its end in 1918, was the main theatre of the “Great War” -- the first mass global war of the industrialised age.

WWI CENTENARY: Western Front interactive (Interactive)
GN32043 Interactive graphic shows key events on the Western Front.
(800px wide by 500px deep )

November 11, 2018 -- Centenary of the end of World War I.

Constructed from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, today’s map of the Middle East resulted from the Great Game -- the 19th century strategic rivalry between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia.

After Ottoman Turkey chose to side with Germany in 1914, Britain and France struck a secret deal to share Ottoman wealth, industrial resources and territories when Turkey was defeated.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which led to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, led to the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948. This was followed by Arab-Israeli conflicts in 1956, 1967, 1973–74, and 1982.

More than 60 other conflicts in the Middle East have occurred since 1948, claiming more than 1.75 million lives, culminating in the current civil wars in Syria and Iraq.

WWI CENTENARY: New borders of Middle East (Graphic)
GN31946 Graphic shows how the map of the Middle East was redrawn.
(283mm wide by 180mm deep)

July 28, 2014 -- Constructed from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, today’s map of the Middle East resulted from the Great Game -- the 19th century strategic rivalry between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia.

After Ottoman Turkey chose to side with Germany in 1914, Britain and France struck a secret deal to share Ottoman wealth, industrial resources and territories when Turkey was defeated.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which led to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, led to the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948. This was followed by Arab-Israeli conflicts in 1956, 1967, 1973–74, and 1982.

More than 60 other conflicts in the Middle East have occurred since 1948, claiming more than 1.75 million lives, culminating in the current civil wars in Syria and Iraq.

WWI CENTENARY: New borders of Middle East interactive (Interactive)
GN31993 Interactive graphic shows how the map of the Middle East was redrawn.
(800px wide by 600px deep )

July 28, 2014 -- Turkey’s entry into the war on October 29, 1914 immediately prompted Britain to open a new military front in the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia. The Royal Navy was one of the world’s first navies to switch from coal to oil, and the British-Indian expeditionary force sent to Mesopotamia was intended to protect vital oil supplies from Persia and secure Britain’s naval supremacy.

November 11, 2018 -- 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice ending World War I.

WWI CENTENARY: Mesopotamia campaign (Graphic)
GN31826 Graphic shows how the initially successful campaign turned into one of the most humiliating surrenders in British military history, just three months after the humiliating retreat at Gallipoli.
(163mm wide by 241mm deep)

July 28, 2014 -- 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. November 11, 2018 -- 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice ending World War I.

The Western Front, the line of trenches from the North Sea to the Swiss border which was deadlocked from the first months of the war in 1914 until shortly before its end in 1918, was the main theatre of the “Great War” -- the first mass global war of the industrialised age.

WWI CENTENARY: Western Front (Graphic)
GN31775 Graphic shows key events on the Western Front.
(266mm wide by 365mm deep)

July 28, 2014 -- The First World War broke out, triggered by the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary the previous month. The conflict was centred in Europe but spread to encompass much of the globe over the four years until the guns eventually fell silent on November 11, 1918.

WWI CENTENARY: War timeline interactive (Interactive)
GN31935 Interactive graphic shows illustrated timeline of events during World War I and map of the conflict.
(800px wide by 500px deep )

July 28, 2014 -- Centenary of the end of the First World War – a conflict triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The conflict was centred in Europe but spread to encompass much of the globe over the four years until the guns eventually fell silent on November 11, 1918.

In 1914, European nations were linked by a series of diplomatic alliances:Germany/Austria-Hungary/Ottoman Empire form the Central Powers. Britain/France/Russia make up the Triple Entente or Allies. Italy, seeking to gain Austrian territory, enters the war on the side of the Allies in May 1915. Bulgaria, with territorial ambitions in Serbia, aligns with the Central Powers in October 1915.

WWI CENTENARY: War timeline (1) (Graphic)
GN31626 Graphic shows illustrated timeline of events during World War I.
(284mm wide by 415mm deep)

July 5, 2018 -- The map of Europe underwent drastic revision after World War I. The defeated Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey – suffered huge territorial losses, and new independent countries were born, from Finland in the north to Yugoslavia in the south.

The military hostilities of World War I ceased with an armistice at 11am on November 11, 1918, but a formal end to the war was not reached until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919.

The Big Four leaders of the victorious Allies – Lloyd George of Britain, Orlando of Italy, Clemenceau of France and Woodrow Wilson from the U.S. – dominated decision-making at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The Central Powers had little say and were forced to submit to a series of punitive treaties which stripped them of land and imposed military restrictions and huge reparation payments.

The treaties sowed deep resentment among the populations of the defeated powers, especially in Germany, and their governments soon set about finding ways to circumvent the accords. The resulting international instability was the very opposite of the lasting peace the Allies had hoped to achieve.

HISTORY: How World War I reshaped Europe (Graphic)
GN38108 Graphic shows territorial changes in Europe and peace treaties.
(163mm by 178mm deep)

April 1, 2018 -- The Royal Air Force celebrates its 100th birthday, marked by special events, activities and other initiatives at local, regional and national levels running from April to the end of November 2018.

Formed towards the end of World War I in April 1918, the RAF is the world’s oldest air force to become independent of army or navy control.

1924: Fleet Air Arm formed from RAF units operating at sea

1940: During World War II, RAF defends UK from German air attacks in Battle of Britain

1940-45: Campaign by RAF Bomber Command includes night attacks on German cities such as Hamburg and Dresden, and “Dambusters” raid

1948-49: In first major crisis of Cold War, RAF provides 17 percent of all supplies delivered during Berlin Airlift

1956-69: RAF’s V Bomber force carries responsibility for UK’s strategic nuclear deterrent

1982: RAF takes part in Falklands War alongside Fleet Air Arm, flying from Ascension Island in mid-Atlantic and Royal Navy aircraft carriers

Post-Cold War: Large-scale RAF operations include two Gulf Wars, Kosovo War in 1999, Afghanistan War and 2011 intervention in Libya

Current: RAF flying combat missions against so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

HISTORY: Royal Air Force centenary (Graphic)
GN36285 Graphic shows timeline of Britain’s Royal Air Force with illustrations of Sopwith Camel, Supermarine Spitfire, Douglas Dakota, Avro Lancaster, Avro Vulcan, Harrier Jump Jet, Panavia Tornado, Eurofighter Typhoon, Lockheed Martin F-35
(107mm wide by 160mm deep)

April 25, 2015 -- Centenary of the start of the Gallipoli Campaign, the Allied plan to mount a British-led naval expedition to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula on the western shore of the Dardanelles. A combined military-naval campaign would then seize Constantinople and force Turkey out of the war, easing pressure on ally Russia. The overall campaign led to more than 48,000 Allied deaths and close to 90,000 Turkish deaths.

WWI CENTENARY: Gallipoli campaign (Graphic)
GN31803 Graphic shows how the campaign turned into the costly failure that became a defining moment for Australia, New Zealand and Turkey.
(163mm wide by 246mm deep)