As reported in todays Manchester Evening News, Israeli scientist plan to summon rain out of a cloudless sky by painting the ground black. Scientists hope that the technique, to be tested later this year in the Negev desert, will banish drought. Computer simulations have shown that heated air rising from the black panels (made of thermal material) will cause vapour to condense into clouds and fall as rain. Researchers believe that manipulating air currents in this way can beat droughts.

Reading this, not a week after the world was condeming Israel as the cause of most problems makes a nice change.