Opinion in 1986

Member governments of the UN's chief cultural agency should seize the opportunity for reform.

The managers of British basic science have gathered ammunition with which to persuade their government towards greater generosity. It may be too late.

The 1986 Tax Reform Act will make the United States even more a magnet to technical people.

The collapse of the Reykjavik pre-summit at the weekend is mystifying, explicable only if both sides stood unreasonably on principles that could not have mattered.

The loss of a Soviet nuclear submarine is a reminder of the seriousness of the world we live in.

European airlines are sheltering behind cosy cartels by saying that deregulation in the United States has merely restored the status quo. They should look again.

Mr Nakasone can have meant only that Japanese are better educated than Americans.

The United States should abandon attempts to blame financial instability on computers.

The British government seems to be repenting its six years of meanness towards higher education, but the decay it engendered may by now be irreparable.

The Soviet Union gives the United States too little credit for a shift on arms control.

Against the odds, last week's meeting of the trading nations reached a hopeful agreement.

The United States has embarked on what seems to be a competition to find the toughest recipe for keeping hard drugs out of reach. But the remedies likely to be most effective may well be overlooked.

Yale University, in the best traditions, seems to have found itself a firebrand for a president.

The programme launched in Berne this week to understand the changing environment for human beings on the surface of the Earth is laudable, but needs strong management.

The need for general discussion on control agreements.

Last week's slump does not presage another Great Crash, but the need to get rid of US deficits.

Harvard prompts the question whether universities are being diverted from academic ways.

Two years of introspection about the climatic consequences of a nuclear war come to a climax in Berne next week. The outlook seems less chilly than was thought

Another hijacked aircraft at Karachi last week suggests the need for more deliberate safeguards.

The personal computer manufacturers are in calm waters, and may become sleepier.