Kim Jong-un orders lockdowns as North Korea confirms first Covid cases

State news agency says number of people in Pyongyang have contracted Omicron variant

South Korea misses Trump’s focus as efforts to engage Pyongyang stall

Nostalgia in Seoul for former US president amid Biden’s ‘benign neglect’ on North Korea issue

Kim Jong-un warns of food shortages in North Korea

Dictator says ‘food situation is getting tense’ in latest sign of state’s struggling economy

Xi Jinping on course to resurrect Mao’s ‘chairman’ role

Long-serving president already general secretary of the party and head of the military

Festival of Flann – Frank McNally on a big homecoming for Dublin’s funniest writer

‘The silent scream’: why do we yawn?

Theories have included brain oxygenation or cooling, and even to act as latent sexual signals

No washing our hands of the Austro-Hungarian legacy

The Hapsburg empire was a powerhouse of industry, science and technology, third in the world at the time only to the US and Germany

Hopes for nothing lost in Flannslation as ‘Flannoraks’ gather in Salzburg

Biennial academic conference on Flann O’Brien in Austria shows his global appeal

When science becomes a laughing matter

Scientific endeavour is full of bizarre, wacky and hilarious experiments on such topics as banana skins, road-crossing chickens and laughing rodents

Teen sharing of explicit images may lead to stress disorder

Bullies, Bullied and Bystanders Conference 2016 told of potential consequences of photos

Ravens will move food if spying is possibility, study shows

Birds share human capacity to predict others’ behaviour even if competitor is hidden

Cut the cost of children’s birthday parties and get your life back

Parents are coming up with ingenious methods of escaping the tyranny and expense of the behemoth birthday party

Video

Monkeys and bird brains prove power of animal learning curve

Brazilian marmosets follow virtual teacher to unlock artificial fruit

Austrian coalition set to hold on to power

Three Eurosceptic populist parties command support of a third of electorate