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Mexico’s new president ran on climate goals. Will she follow through?
Mon, 10 Jun 2024 10:30:12 GMT
Claudia Sheinbaum, a former climate scientist and Mexico City mayor, has often led with politics over the environment
The month before Mexico’s 2 June presidential vote the country was bedeviled by water cuts and blackouts as a record heatwave took the country beyond red and into an ominous purple on the weather map.
As dehydrated monkeys dropped dead from trees, the landslide victory of Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist, might look like salvation. But her record paints a more complicated picture – one where climate convictions have often, and may still, come second to political pragmatism.
Continue reading...In Gainesville, Florida, children are on the front lines of the hazards long ignored by local and state government officials.
The post For Decades, Officials Knew a School Sat on a Former Dump — and Did Little to Clean Up the Toxins appeared first on The Intercept.
This blog is now closed.
Murray Watt says the opposition has “started the new climate wars” after Barnaby Joyce and Keith Pitt, two senior Nationals, called for Australia to pull out of the Paris agreement. You can read more on this from Karen Middleton below:
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, Watt said:
We’re back to the same old climate wars in the Coalition. I saw overnight that [Joyce and Pitt] openly called for the Coalition to pull out of the Paris agreement. They’ve spent the last couple of days trying to paper over the cracks in the Coalition, saying that they can withdraw the target without withdrawing from the agreement. Now it’s out there in the open for everyone to see. And you can set your clock by Barnaby Joyce causing new climate wars within the Coalition. It’s seem like we’re back to the bad old days.
We’re on track to get to 42%, which is only 1% short of the 43% target.
Continue reading...Reality of the crisis is making its mark on our game but a rise in awareness can spark environmentally conscious change
The topic of the climate crisis is not one we often associate with football, especially not with women’s football. However, as a professional player who has had the privilege of engaging with my fellow colleagues on this pressing issue, I’ve come to realise the deep concern and untapped potential within our community.
I joined Planet League, the football climate action platform for fans, as an ambassador last year and wanted to focus my efforts on leadership in the women’s game. At the end of May we launched Women’s Football and Climate Change: The Players’ Perspective – a report that sheds light on how our sport intersects with the climate crisis and what we, as players, think needs to be done.
Continue reading...The bedroom antics of two couples 50 years apart drive the cultural critic’s debut novel, a cerebral comedy full of insights into art, womanhood and ethical quandaries
Set in pre-Covid Paris, Lauren Elkin’s first novel is a brainy sex comedy narrated by Anna, a Franco-American psychoanalyst on medical leave in the wake of a miscarriage. Her lawyer husband is away from home on a job in London, leaving her to oversee the long-planned knocking through of a wall in their Belleville apartment. It’s August – all her friends are out of town – and she’s drifting until she gets a new neighbour: Clémentine, an art history postgraduate who has just moved into a nearby building with her boyfriend, Jonathan – the name, coincidentally, of Anna’s most serious ex, the son of a famous psychoanalyst whose books turned her on to the discipline.
The first third of the novel ambles amiably in exploratory chat between the two women, despite a crackle of ambient dread in ominous signs of climate change (record temperatures in the city; wildfires in Corsica) as well as, more immediately, the mounting toll of French women murdered by men – an outrage highlighted by a guerrilla poster campaign Anna notices on her daily run. But Scaffolding’s real action comes in the bedroom: first when, a third of the way through the book, Elkin winds back the action nearly 50 years to toggle between Florence and Henry, an unfaithfully married couple who used to live in Anna’s flat, and then, in the novel’s final part, when we follow the narrator’s own bed-hopping in the present, as Clémentine widens Anna’s sexual horizons.
Elkin gives us two versions of an adultery plot, the second a self-consciously queered retread of the first. Clémentine, who says she spends her days “writing poetry and masturbating”, functions in the novel as a kind of constant question for Anna, loosening her view of monogamy, prodding her guilt as a slightly self-loathing gentrifier as well as needling her about the assumptions of psychoanalysis and its “Mommy-Daddy-Me structure, like there’s no one else in the world who affects who we become, or the binary take on gender... It’s, like, patriarchy, bottled and distilled”.
Elkin’s date-stamped sign-off tells us the novel was begun in 2007 and completed last year – there’s a list of five Paris addresses where she wrote it – and it’s interesting to think of how the landscape of modern fiction changed in that period. In putting property at the centre of a novel about womanhood and sexuality, Scaffolding joins books by Rachel Cusk (Transit) and Deborah Levy (Real Estate), and as an erudite lust quadrilateral interested in ethical quandaries, it may put you in mind of Sally Rooney (even if Clémentine didn’t at one point mention watching a television series “based on an Irish novel”, which is “kind of annoying... Like, sleep together, don’t sleep together, do your thing”). Indeed, the rapid tying up of loose ends, embracing social norms given side-eye by the rest of the novel, bears resemblance to the left-turn conclusion of Beautiful World, Where Are You. Instead of a blocked writer in the wake of a breakdown, we’ve got a blocked analyst in the wake of grief re-envisioning life from the ground up (“Something Clém said has stuck with me for weeks now and I don’t know what to do with it; something like whether psychoanalysis ought to be socially transformative to justify its existence”).
Elkin, as well as being a prolific translator, has previously published cultural criticism and experimental memoir (No 91/92: Notes on a Parisian Commute), and in many ways Scaffolding is a critic’s novel, full of insights that could seamlessly appear in Elkin’s nonfiction. Anna and Clémentine exchange views of Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors or Chris Kraus’s novel I Love Dick; in a conversation near the end of the novel, when its emotional freight is heaviest, Anna looks up a word’s etymology on her phone. “In The Symposium, early on, Plato talks about...” or “At the beginning of Encore, Lacan’s twentieth seminar, which he gave in 1972-73, he says that...” aren’t untypical ways for Elkin to open a sentence.
The social media star on performing to silent audiences, turning spite into success and still having to prove herself as a ‘proper’ comedian
Can you recall a gig so bad, it’s now funny?
I was once booked for an outdoor, family friendly village fete where none of the comedians had been warned that the jokes would have to be child-appropriate. In the early days of your comedy career, you only have five minutes of jokes so we didn’t have tamer ones we could swap in. The section of field directly in front of the stage had been roped off for the dog show later in the day (the main event), meaning anyone wanting to watch the comedy would have to watch from about 10 metres away with a whole load of nothing between us. Only five people stood behind the rope to watch, including an adult in a full Peppa Pig costume who heckled throughout. I performed five minutes to silence, before the next act got their microphone disconnected and the comedy cancelled after saying the C word.
What is your upcoming show, (Role) Model, about?
It’s about 55 minutes long … 57 with a good audience. I want it to feel like an incredibly fun conversation with your toxic best friend. But I guess it’s also a show about what it’s like to go viral overnight, or even worse, going viral for dancing with your parents. I’m trying to work out who I want to be versus what other people want me to be, and asking why are both impossible.
Abi Clarke: (Role) Model is at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 29 July-25 August
Continue reading...Ian Sample hears from Linda Geddes about her recent trip to the Netherlands to try cultivated meat sausages, courtesy of the company Meatable. Advocates say that cultivated meat could be the future of sustainable and ethical meat production. Linda explains how they’re made, how their carbon footprint compares with traditional meat and most importantly … what they taste like!
Read more from Linda Geddes on her trip to the Netherlands
Continue reading...Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
SEMrush and Ahrefs are among
the most popular tools in the SEO industry. Both companies have been in
business for years and have thousands of customers per month.
If you're a professional SEO or trying to do digital
marketing on your own, at some point you'll likely consider using a tool to
help with your efforts. Ahrefs and SEMrush are two names that will likely
appear on your shortlist.
In this guide, I'm going to help you learn more about these SEO tools and how to choose the one that's best for your purposes.
What is SEMrush?
SEMrush is a popular SEO tool with a wide range of
features—it's the leading competitor research service for online marketers.
SEMrush's SEO Keyword Magic tool offers over 20 billion Google-approved
keywords, which are constantly updated and it's the largest keyword database.
The program was developed in 2007 as SeoQuake is a
small Firefox extension
Features
Ahrefs is a leading SEO platform that offers a set of
tools to grow your search traffic, research your competitors, and monitor your
niche. The company was founded in 2010, and it has become a popular choice
among SEO tools. Ahrefs has a keyword index of over 10.3 billion keywords and
offers accurate and extensive backlink data updated every 15-30 minutes and it
is the world's most extensive backlink index database.
Features
Direct Comparisons: Ahrefs vs SEMrush
Now that you know a little more about each tool, let's
take a look at how they compare. I'll analyze each tool to see how they differ
in interfaces, keyword research resources, rank tracking, and competitor
analysis.
User Interface
Ahrefs and SEMrush both offer comprehensive information
and quick metrics regarding your website's SEO performance. However, Ahrefs
takes a bit more of a hands-on approach to getting your account fully set up,
whereas SEMrush's simpler dashboard can give you access to the data you need
quickly.
In this section, we provide a brief overview of the elements
found on each dashboard and highlight the ease with which you can complete
tasks.
AHREFS
The Ahrefs dashboard is less cluttered than that of
SEMrush, and its primary menu is at the very top of the page, with a search bar
designed only for entering URLs.
Additional features of the Ahrefs platform include:
SEMRUSH
When you log into the SEMrush Tool, you will find four
main modules. These include information about your domains, organic keyword
analysis, ad keyword, and site traffic.
You'll also find some other options like
Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have user-friendly dashboards,
but Ahrefs is less cluttered and easier to navigate. On the other hand, SEMrush
offers dozens of extra tools, including access to customer support resources.
When deciding on which dashboard to use, consider what
you value in the user interface, and test out both.
If you're looking to track your website's search engine
ranking, rank tracking features can help. You can also use them to monitor your
competitors.
Let's take a look at Ahrefs vs. SEMrush to see which
tool does a better job.
The Ahrefs Rank Tracker is simpler to use. Just type in
the domain name and keywords you want to analyze, and it spits out a report
showing you the search engine results page (SERP) ranking for each keyword you
enter.
Rank Tracker looks at the ranking performance of
keywords and compares them with the top rankings for those keywords. Ahrefs
also offers:
You'll see metrics that help you understand your
visibility, traffic, average position, and keyword difficulty.
It gives you an idea of whether a keyword would be
profitable to target or not.
SEMRush offers a tool called Position Tracking. This
tool is a project tool—you must set it up as a new project. Below are a few of
the most popular features of the SEMrush Position Tracking tool:
All subscribers are given regular data updates and
mobile search rankings upon subscribing
The platform provides opportunities to track several
SERP features, including Local tracking.
Intuitive reports allow you to track statistics for the
pages on your website, as well as the keywords used in those pages.
Identify pages that may be competing with each other
using the Cannibalization report.
Ahrefs is a more user-friendly option. It takes seconds
to enter a domain name and keywords. From there, you can quickly decide whether
to proceed with that keyword or figure out how to rank better for other
keywords.
SEMrush allows you to check your mobile rankings and
ranking updates daily, which is something Ahrefs does not offer. SEMrush also
offers social media rankings, a tool you won't find within the Ahrefs platform.
Both are good which one do you like let me know in the comment.
Keyword research is closely related to rank tracking,
but it's used for deciding which keywords you plan on using for future content
rather than those you use now.
When it comes to SEO, keyword research is the most
important thing to consider when comparing the two platforms.
The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer provides you with thousands
of keyword ideas and filters search results based on the chosen search engine.
Ahrefs supports several features, including:
SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool has over 20 billion
keywords for Google. You can type in any keyword you want, and a list of
suggested keywords will appear.
The Keyword Magic Tool also lets you to:
Both of these tools offer keyword research features and
allow users to break down complicated tasks into something that can be
understood by beginners and advanced users alike.
If you're interested in keyword suggestions, SEMrush
appears to have more keyword suggestions than Ahrefs does. It also continues to
add new features, like the Keyword Gap tool and SERP Questions recommendations.
Both platforms offer competitor analysis tools,
eliminating the need to come up with keywords off the top of your head. Each
tool is useful for finding keywords that will be useful for your competition so
you know they will be valuable to you.
Ahrefs' domain comparison tool lets you compare up to five websites (your website and four competitors) side-by-side.it also shows you how your site is ranked against others with metrics such as backlinks, domain ratings, and more.
Use the Competing Domains section to see a list of your
most direct competitors, and explore how many keywords matches your competitors
have.
To find more information about your competitor, you can
look at the Site Explorer and Content Explorer tools and type in their URL
instead of yours.
SEMrush provides a variety of insights into your
competitors' marketing tactics. The platform enables you to research your
competitors effectively. It also offers several resources for competitor
analysis including:
Traffic Analytics helps you identify where your
audience comes from, how they engage with your site, what devices visitors use
to view your site, and how your audiences overlap with other websites.
SEMrush's Organic Research examines your website's
major competitors and shows their organic search rankings, keywords they are
ranking for, and even if they are ranking for any (SERP) features and more.
The Market Explorer search field allows you to type in
a domain and lists websites or articles similar to what you entered. Market
Explorer also allows users to perform in-depth data analytics on These
companies and markets.
SEMrush wins here because it has more tools dedicated to
competitor analysis than Ahrefs. However, Ahrefs offers a lot of functionality
in this area, too. It takes a combination of both tools to gain an advantage
over your competition.
When it comes to keyword data research, you will become
confused about which one to choose.
Consider choosing Ahrefs if you
Consider SEMrush if you:
Both tools are great. Choose the one which meets your
requirements and if you have any experience using either Ahrefs or SEMrush let
me know in the comment section which works well for you.
The American has seen the best players brought down during his career among chess’s elite. And he does not necessarily see losing as a bad thing
As college and high school commencement speakers counsel the next generation, how about this advice? Embrace defeat.
This doesn’t mean playing to lose, but rather, if and when you lose, seek to learn from the experience in hopes of improving in the future. This approach has been adopted by NBA greats past and present, from Kobe Bryant to Giannis Antetokounmpo – as well as by American chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley, who writes about it in his new book, Move by Move: Life Lessons On and Off the Chessboard.
Continue reading...The board had proposed appending a statement that would have undermined a Palestinian scholar’s article. The students rejected it.
The post Columbia Law Review Is Back Online After Students Threatened Work Stoppage Over Palestine Censorship appeared first on The Intercept.
Researchers tested for bias in Facebook’s algorithm by purchasing ads promoting for-profit colleges and studying who saw them.
The post One Facebook Ad Promotes a For-Profit College; Another a State School. Which Ad Do Black Users See? appeared first on The Intercept.
The narrative that took hold ignored inland campuses, like in the Rust Belt and into Appalachia, where students formed their own encampments.
The post Not Just Coastal Elites: Here’s How Three Rust Belt Colleges Protested Israel’s War in Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
“It’s hard to see this wildly disproportionate response as anything other than an attempt to chill speech on this issue.”
The post Columbia Coincidentally Rewrites Disciplinary Rules Just in Time to Screw Over Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
Aileen Cannon ruled ex-president would not be charged for waving classified papers as that conduct was not on trial
The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution on charges of retaining classified documents agreed on Monday to expunge from the indictment a paragraph about an episode where the former president waved around a classified document at his Bedminster club in New Jersey.
The US district judge Aileen Cannon ruled she would strike the paragraph because Trump was not charged with a crime for the conduct it described and would be unfairly prejudicial if a jury later saw it at trial.
Continue reading...The federal judge hearing a human rights case disputed allegations he might be impartial but recused himself out of an “abundance of caution.”
The post Judge Who Went on Israel Junket Recuses Himself From Gaza Case appeared first on The Intercept.
Activists suing the Biden administration over Gaza policy are demanding the judge recuse himself over the sponsored trip.
The post A Federal Judge Visited Israel on a Junket Designed to Sway Public Opinion. Now He’s Hearing a Gaza Case. appeared first on The Intercept.
“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito told a person he thought was a right-wing activist.
The post Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Caught on Secret Audio appeared first on The Intercept.
Roma photojournalist Eszter Halasi follows a Romany family on their journey to the Appleby Horse Fair, an annual gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in Westmorland
In May earlier this year, Romany Gypsy Wendy Smith went to the high court and successfully challenged a new law that effectively criminalised the travelling way of life. Even among the many Romany Gypsies and Travellers who are settled and no longer travel, the victory was seen as symbolic because travelling is part of their heritage.
Several families stopped in Melmerby before travelling to Appleby
Continue reading...Beverley McLachlin’s decision comes after British judge Lord Sumption quit court of final appeal, condemning ‘impossible political environment’
A former chief justice of Canada’s supreme court has announced she is stepping down from Hong Kong’s court of final appeal – the latest in a string of departures amid concerns about judicial independence from China.
Beverley McLachlin, 80, said she would be leaving the territory’s top court when her term ends next month to spend more time with her family, but that she still held “confidence in the members of the court, their independence and their determination to uphold the rule of law”.
Continue reading...Lord Sumption, who last week quit territory’s top court, speaks out on ‘paranoid atmosphere’ under Chinese rule
A British judge has described the “paranoid atmosphere” in Hong Kong as he explained his decision to step down from the territory’s top court.
Jonathan Sumption, along with another British judge, Lawrence Collins, last week resigned from Hong Kong’s court of final appeal (CFA).
Continue reading...FBI chief condemns Peltier, 79, who denies killing agents on Pine Ridge reservation in 1975, as ‘remorseless killer’
Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who has served nearly 50 years in prison for the killing of two FBI agents, was due to have his first parole hearing since 2009 on Monday, his lawyer said.
Peltier, 79, has maintained that he did not kill the FBI special agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Advocates, including figures such as the late Nelson Mandela and a former prosecutor and judge involved in his case, have long said he should be freed because of what they call legal irregularities in his trial.
Continue reading...Andrew Bailey’s office has a losing record of fighting against exonerations recommended by local prosecutors — but it’s not giving up.
The post Missouri’s Attorney General Is Waging War to Keep the Wrongly Convicted Locked Up appeared first on The Intercept.
Three US nationals on trial in Democratic Republic of Congo over events in May described as an attempted coup
More than 50 people, including three US citizens and a Belgian, have gone on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo over what the army has described as an attempted coup.
The actions of the three Americans were “punishable by death”, Judge Freddy Ehume told the military court in the DRC capital, Kinshasa.
Continue reading...Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
Republican extremist tells crowd ‘The man that I worship is also a convicted felon’
Donald Trump has been compared to Jesus Christ by the far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene at a campaign rally for the former president in Las Vegas, a city more renowned for evoking images of gambling than biblical scenes.
Greene, who makes frequent references to her Christian faith, cited Trump’s supposed Christ-like qualities to challenge the Democrats’ efforts to capitalise on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s status as a convicted felon following his recent conviction in a case involving hush money paid to an adult film actor and falsified business records in a New York court.
Continue reading...ANC leader and president accepts he will need help of opposition parties to tackle serious problems facing country
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said that his African National Congress (ANC) would seek to form a government of national unity with a broad group of opposition parties.
“The purpose of the government of national unity must be, first and foremost, to tackle the pressing issues that South Africans want to be addressed,” Ramaphosa said late on Thursday after a marathon ANC meeting.
Continue reading...Government employees are using their official badges to demonstrate against U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The post “Not the Career in Public Service I Signed Up For”: Federal Workers Protest War appeared first on The Intercept.
Researchers tested for bias in Facebook’s algorithm by purchasing ads promoting for-profit colleges and studying who saw them.
The post One Facebook Ad Promotes a For-Profit College; Another a State School. Which Ad Do Black Users See? appeared first on The Intercept.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, revealed the tactics and traits that help him face the daily frustrations of leading a country at war for more than two years.
Within a ceremonial room inside Kyiv’s presidential compound, Zelenskiy spoke for nearly an hour with a Guardian team, including the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. The interview took place during perhaps the toughest time for Ukraine since the early days of the war. Russia is on the offensive in Kharkiv, an advance that follows months of delay in the US Congress over the passing of a major support package, limiting Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities
Continue reading...In Gainesville, Florida, children are on the front lines of the hazards long ignored by local and state government officials.
The post For Decades, Officials Knew a School Sat on a Former Dump — and Did Little to Clean Up the Toxins appeared first on The Intercept.
Government prosecutors claimed they didn’t know a former detainee recanted his testimony in interviews with the government.
The post Guantánamo Prosecutors Accused of “Outrageous” Misconduct for Trying to Use Torture Testimony appeared first on The Intercept.
Trent Alexander-Arnold is in line to accompany Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham in midfield when England face Serbia in their opening game at Euro 2024 on Sunday.
Gareth Southgate, who has a number of fitness concerns before his side travel to Gelsenkirchen for their Group C opener, faces a big call over who should take the third spot in central midfield. England are light on experience after leaving Kalvin Phillips and Jordan Henderson out of their squad and whoever is chosen to start with Bellingham and Rice will have plenty to prove.
Continue reading...About one in four people stopped at border had some data copied from their devices by Australian Border Force
Australian border force officers obtained passcodes to the devices of almost 10,000 people in the past two years, new data obtained by Guardian Australia reveals, with most people who were ordered to hand over their phones willingly providing the passcode.
Data provided to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws show that since Australia’s borders reopened following easing of Covid-19 restrictions phone searches rebounded as the number of travellers increased. There were 2,087 searches in the 2021-2022 financial year, 5,065 in 2022-23, and 4,422 in the period between 1 July 2023 and 31 March 2024.
Continue reading...Trains from Britain to Spain put me a taxi ride away from Ribeira Sacra – an unspoiled region of river gorges, chestnut groves and rich history
Modes of transport always dictate the shape of the human landscape. When travel took to the rails in the 19th century, vast palaces of railway stations were built all over Europe. And now, on a train journey to Spain, I am passing through some of the best examples: in Paris, Barcelona and Madrid. In the latter, I have time to leave my bags at Chamartín station, actually a modern terminal, and dash off to see the Goya frescoes at the church of St Anthony, then nip back for the Renfe service to Ourense in Galicia.
My week-long hike is in a little-known part of Galicia close to the northern border of Portugal called the Ribeira Sacra, a region cut by deep river gorges. I arrive with my sister Jo after dark in the city of Ourense and take a taxi from the station up into the mountains. Our plan is to walk back to Ourense over the next five days. The taxi winds up the mountain, the headlights strafing deep forest and few houses. “It is very wild up here,” says the driver, “I’ve seen wolves on this road at night.”
Continue reading...“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito told a person he thought was a right-wing activist.
The post Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Caught on Secret Audio appeared first on The Intercept.
Roma photojournalist Eszter Halasi follows a Romany family on their journey to the Appleby Horse Fair, an annual gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in Westmorland
In May earlier this year, Romany Gypsy Wendy Smith went to the high court and successfully challenged a new law that effectively criminalised the travelling way of life. Even among the many Romany Gypsies and Travellers who are settled and no longer travel, the victory was seen as symbolic because travelling is part of their heritage.
Several families stopped in Melmerby before travelling to Appleby
Continue reading...British Museum will host treasures from Samarkand in a bid to dispel cliches of camels, spices and bazaars
A monumental six-metre-long wall painting created in the 7th century, and 8th-century ivory figures carved for one of the world’s oldest surviving chess sets, are among treasures set to be seen in Britain for the first time.
The items will travel from the ancient city of Samarkand to the UK for an exhibition opening in September, as part of the first-ever loan from museums in Uzbekistan to the British Museum.
Silk Roads will be at the British Museum from September 26 2024 to February 23 2025. Tickets go on sale on Monday.
Continue reading...From phantom villas to too-good-to-be-true offers, here’s how to make sure your booking is the real thing
Can you imagine arriving in a small Greek village after a long flight and bus transfer, only to find out that the luxury villa you and your family were expecting to spend the next two weeks in – and spent £5,000 on – simply does not exist?
Some holidaymakers are poised to find themselves in exactly that position this summer, and many more holidays will be ruined as people realise they have been defrauded before they have left for the airport.
Continue reading...Interesting story of breaking the security of the RoboForm password manager in order to recover a cryptocurrency wallet password.
Grand and Bruno spent months reverse engineering the version of the RoboForm program that they thought Michael had used in 2013 and found that the pseudo-random number generator used to generate passwords in that version—and subsequent versions until 2015—did indeed have a significant flaw that made the random number generator not so random. The RoboForm program unwisely tied the random passwords it generated to the date and time on the user’s computer—it determined the computer’s date and time, and then generated passwords that were predictable. If you knew the date and time and other parameters, you could compute any password that would have been generated on a certain date and time in the past...
Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
Ahead of the election in India, the Guardian’s video team travelled through the country to explore how fake news and censorship might shape the outcome.
Almost one billion people are registered to vote. The country's prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been in power for more than 10 years, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is seeking a third term.
But critics of Modi and the BJP say his government has become increasingly authoritarian, fracturing the country along religious lines and threatening India’s secular democracy. At the same time, the space for freedom of speech has been shrinking while disinformation and hate speech has exploded on social media.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
Groups issue call to next government amid criticism of online fashion retailer’s labour practices and accusations of copying
Workers rights campaigners have called for the UK’s next government to oppose the online fashion business Shein joining the FTSE, arguing that a London listing would be “yet another betrayal to working people everywhere and the planet”.
Alena Ivanova, campaigns lead at Labour Behind the Label, said it had heard the news of senior British politicians courting Shein’s £50bn listing “with dismay” given what she claimed was a lack of transparency about its supply chain and ethical concerns.
Continue reading...Workers for US defence contractor KBR concerned after colleagues die on island with no hospital-grade health facility
Migrant workers employed by the US defence contractor KBR on the British-owned island of Diego Garcia have expressed concerns for their safety after the recent deaths of two of their colleagues, the Observer has learned.
The most recent death on Diego Garcia, which is host to a strategic American military base in the British Indian Ocean Territory, came on 5 January. Relemay Fabula Gan, 41, from the Philippines, died after suffering a collapsed lung following several weeks of illness after a Covid diagnosis, her family said.
Continue reading...Beverley McLachlin’s decision comes after British judge Lord Sumption quit court of final appeal, condemning ‘impossible political environment’
A former chief justice of Canada’s supreme court has announced she is stepping down from Hong Kong’s court of final appeal – the latest in a string of departures amid concerns about judicial independence from China.
Beverley McLachlin, 80, said she would be leaving the territory’s top court when her term ends next month to spend more time with her family, but that she still held “confidence in the members of the court, their independence and their determination to uphold the rule of law”.
Continue reading...Lord Sumption, who last week quit territory’s top court, speaks out on ‘paranoid atmosphere’ under Chinese rule
A British judge has described the “paranoid atmosphere” in Hong Kong as he explained his decision to step down from the territory’s top court.
Jonathan Sumption, along with another British judge, Lawrence Collins, last week resigned from Hong Kong’s court of final appeal (CFA).
Continue reading...Group from Cornell College were visiting a temple in Jilin city when they were attacked by a man with a knife, Iowa state representative Adam Zabner says
Four US college instructors teaching in China have been stabbed while visiting a public park, US officials have said.
The tutors from Cornell College in Iowa were at the park in Jilin province, north-eastern China with a faculty member from Beihua University on Monday when the attack occurred, college president Jonathan Brand said in a statement. The private college in Iowa partners with the university near Jilin City.
Continue reading...Experts believe Beijing will retaliate with measures that could hit European exports from cheese to cognac
The EU is expected to notify China that it will impose tariffs on electric vehicle imports this week, firing the starting gun on a potential summer trade war with Beijing.
A formal pre-disclosure of tariffs could happen as early as Wednesday, after a lengthy investigation into China’s state subsidies for its car manufacturing, which is predicted to conclude that massive support continues to be concentrated on the EV sector.
Continue reading...Katherine Ryan joins Grace this week to share her favourite comfort foods. The Canadian comedian, writer, presenter and actor is best known for her deliciously wicked comedy, delivered with a side dish of couture. Katherine shares memories from her past, including her father’s attempts to bring Indian food to Canada via Ireland, her difficult early days in London as a single parent trying to makes ends meet, and the deep fried delights on offer at her first place of work: Hooters. Now, Katherine has had two Netflix Comedy specials, and is a regular on the UK panel show circuit. But the question is – what is fuelling her funny?
New episodes of Comfort Eating with Grace Dent will be released every Tuesday
Continue reading...FBI chief condemns Peltier, 79, who denies killing agents on Pine Ridge reservation in 1975, as ‘remorseless killer’
Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who has served nearly 50 years in prison for the killing of two FBI agents, was due to have his first parole hearing since 2009 on Monday, his lawyer said.
Peltier, 79, has maintained that he did not kill the FBI special agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Advocates, including figures such as the late Nelson Mandela and a former prosecutor and judge involved in his case, have long said he should be freed because of what they call legal irregularities in his trial.
Continue reading...Reverend, pastor and professor, who was a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr, dies in Los Angeles after short illness
The Rev James Lawson Jr, an apostle of nonviolent protest who schooled activists to withstand brutal reactions from white authorities as the civil rights movement gained traction, has died, his family said on Monday. He was 95.
His family said Lawson died on Sunday after a short illness in Los Angeles, where he spent decades working as a pastor, labor movement organizer and university professor.
Continue reading...Australia meet Scotland in St Lucia on Saturday with the potential for a 1999 World Cup-style controversy in the air
They were showing India v Pakistan in the bar at Bridgetown airport on Sunday, this World Cup having been pleasingly visible in the Caribbean. But as England supporters watched that nail- biter unfold over a cold bottle of Banks before the flight to Antigua, Scotland were already in the land of sea and sun, gleefully lining up a week at the last-chance saloon for the Auld Enemy.
Coming 24 hours after England were out-thought and outplayed by Australia at Kensington Oval, and staged in parallel to Pakistan’s big flop in the Big Apple, that seven‑wicket victory against Oman at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium has put Richie Berrington’s side on the verge of swiping their boarding passes to the Super Eight phase. Knocking off a target of 151 with 41 balls to spare, supercharging their net run-rate in the process, they could scarcely have done more.
Continue reading...Modi becomes second leader in Indian history to win three consecutive terms, but opposition leaders snub ceremony
Narendra Modi has been sworn in as prime minister of India for a historic third term, ushering in a new era of coalition politics for India’s strongman leader.
The ceremony, which took place at the presidential palace on Sunday evening, marked Modi’s return to power, only the second leader in India’s history to win three consecutive terms.
Continue reading...Campaigners say election shows rejection of ‘hate politics’ after marginalised groups vote to deny BJP a majority
It was widely described as the week that India’s beleaguered democracy was pulled back from the brink. As the election results rolled in on Tuesday, all predictions and polls were defied as Narendra Modi lost his outright majority for the first time in a decade while the opposition re-emerged as a legitimate political force. On Sunday evening, Modi will be sworn in as prime minister yet many believe his power and mandate stands diminished.
For one opposition politician in particular, the humbling of the strongman prime minister was a moment to savour. Late last year, Mahua Moitra, one of the most outspoken critics of Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), found herself unceremoniously expelled from parliament and kicked out of her bungalow, after what she described as a “political witch-hunt” for daring to stand up to Modi.
Continue reading...Indian high commission made claim bronze depicting Tirumankai Alvar which it believes may have been looted
Oxford University has announced it is to hand back a 500-year-old sculpture of a Hindu saint to India.
The almost 60cm-tall bronze statue, which depicts Tirumankai Alvar, had been on display at the university’s Ashmolean Museum.
Continue reading...The US Justice Department has dismantled an enormous botnet:
According to an indictment unsealed on May 24, from 2014 through July 2022, Wang and others are alleged to have created and disseminated malware to compromise and amass a network of millions of residential Windows computers worldwide. These devices were associated with more than 19 million unique IP addresses, including 613,841 IP addresses located in the United States. Wang then generated millions of dollars by offering cybercriminals access to these infected IP addresses for a fee...
Incident comes at time of heightened tensions between neighbours, as tit-for-tat actions increase after North Korea sent rubbish-filled balloons into the South
South Korea’s military has said it fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border this week, amid rising tensions after Pyongyang sent rubbish-carrying balloons into the South and Seoul retaliated with a loudspeaker propaganda campaign.
“Some North Korean soldiers working within the DMZ on the central front briefly crossed the Military Demarcation Line,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff [JCS] said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to the line of control in the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas.
Continue reading...Microsoft recently caught state-backed hackers using its generative AI tools to help with their attacks. In the security community, the immediate questions weren’t about how hackers were using the tools (that was utterly predictable), but about how Microsoft figured it out. The natural conclusion was that Microsoft was spying on its AI users, looking for harmful hackers at work.
Some pushed back at characterizing Microsoft’s actions as “spying.” Of course cloud service providers monitor what users are doing. And because we expect Microsoft to be doing something like this, it’s not fair to call it spying...
Ian Sample hears from Linda Geddes about her recent trip to the Netherlands to try cultivated meat sausages, courtesy of the company Meatable. Advocates say that cultivated meat could be the future of sustainable and ethical meat production. Linda explains how they’re made, how their carbon footprint compares with traditional meat and most importantly … what they taste like!
Read more from Linda Geddes on her trip to the Netherlands
Continue reading...The airline has said that anyone who sustained serious injuries on SQ321 last month could be entitled to a larger payment
Singapore Airlines has offered US$10,000 compensation payments to passengers who suffered minor injuries during a flight last month that hit sudden, extreme turbulence.
On Tuesday, the airline announced that it had sent compensation offers to passengers who were on board flight SQ321 from London to Singapore on 20 May, which dropped 54 metres in altitude in less than five seconds while flying over Myanmar.
Continue reading...“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito told a person he thought was a right-wing activist.
The post Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Caught on Secret Audio appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
Muhammad Yunus tells the Guardian charges against him are politically motivated, and expresses concern about personal attacks from politicians
The Nobel peace laureate and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus has said that years of fighting what he calls “dirty” politically motivated attacks on his work to alleviate poverty in Bangladesh have made life “totally miserable”.
Yunus told the Guardian he had come under 20 years of pressure from the Bangladeshi government for his work, which is credited with improving the lives of millions of poor people, particularly women.
Continue reading...Kuo Chiu, known as KC to his friends, teaches urban design at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He’s also one of many of the country's citizens who practises rifle skills in his spare time, in case of a Chinese invasion.
The population of Taiwan has long grown familiar with Beijing’s pledge to one day ‘unify’ what it claims is a breakaway province. But recently, there has been a significant increase in aggressive and intimidatory acts.
Taiwan’s 160,000 active military personnel are vastly outnumbered by China’s 2 million-member armed forces, leading many civilians to turn to voluntary medical and combat training to protect themselves.
The Guardian's video team spent time with KC to see how he is preparing
Continue reading...“It’s hard to see this wildly disproportionate response as anything other than an attempt to chill speech on this issue.”
The post Columbia Coincidentally Rewrites Disciplinary Rules Just in Time to Screw Over Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
Ahead of the election in India, the Guardian’s video team travelled through the country to explore how fake news and censorship might shape the outcome.
Almost one billion people are registered to vote. The country's prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been in power for more than 10 years, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is seeking a third term.
But critics of Modi and the BJP say his government has become increasingly authoritarian, fracturing the country along religious lines and threatening India’s secular democracy. At the same time, the space for freedom of speech has been shrinking while disinformation and hate speech has exploded on social media.
We know turbulence is a common part of flying – but are some routes more prone? And where is it the worst? Turbulence is the leading cause of in-flight injuries to crew and passengers and after the fatal Singapore Airlines incident and injuries to passengers above Turkey on a Qatar Airways flight, you might be wondering if flights are about to get bumpier. Incidents of severe turbulence are on the rise – increasing by 55% between 1979 and 2020 – and the climate crisis is thought to be a responsible factor
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Continue reading...Ban Khun Samut Chin, a coastal village in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, has been slowly swallowed by the sea over the past few decades. This has led to the relocation of the school and many homes, resulting in a dwindling population. Currently, there are only four students attending the school, often leaving just one in each classroom. The village has experienced severe coastal erosion, causing 1.1-2km (0.5-1.2 miles) of shoreline to disappear since the mid-1950s
Continue reading...“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito told a person he thought was a right-wing activist.
The post Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Caught on Secret Audio appeared first on The Intercept.
Prof Nick Megoran on the horror of Hiroshima, Andrew Aikman on Russia’s need for buffer states, Norman Rimmell on fears of a nuclear accident, and Alex Hamilton on the deterrent power of the atomic bomb. Plus a letter from Ted Schrecker
It is ironic that news of Keir Starmer’s plan to restate Labour’s commitment to “a ‘triple lock’ for the UK’s nuclear deterrent” (Keir Starmer to declare Labour as ‘party of national security’, 2 June) emerged on the same day that Toshiko Tanaka, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, addressed a spellbound meeting in London – organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Quakers – about her childhood experiences in 1945.
She spoke of seeing the initial explosion that killed every one of her classmates. She recounted regaining consciousness with a mouth full of dirt, running home to a mother who could not recognise her own badly burnt daughter, and smelling the lingering stench of burning flesh as bodies were cremated. To this day, she struggles to sleep as new sores break out on her skin, and cannot see a grilled tomato without remembering the ghastly sight of skin peeling off the dying who staggered through her neighbourhood like zombies.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed.
Murray Watt says the opposition has “started the new climate wars” after Barnaby Joyce and Keith Pitt, two senior Nationals, called for Australia to pull out of the Paris agreement. You can read more on this from Karen Middleton below:
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, Watt said:
We’re back to the same old climate wars in the Coalition. I saw overnight that [Joyce and Pitt] openly called for the Coalition to pull out of the Paris agreement. They’ve spent the last couple of days trying to paper over the cracks in the Coalition, saying that they can withdraw the target without withdrawing from the agreement. Now it’s out there in the open for everyone to see. And you can set your clock by Barnaby Joyce causing new climate wars within the Coalition. It’s seem like we’re back to the bad old days.
We’re on track to get to 42%, which is only 1% short of the 43% target.
Continue reading...Prime minister says there will be ‘regrettable’ consequences for global relationships after Liberal leader won’t commit to 2030 target
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has accused Peter Dutton of being “afraid of the future” and risking “chasing away” investment in clean energy in Australia, after the opposition leader confirmed the Coalition will not set a 2030 emissions reduction target unless it wins the next election.
Albanese called Dutton’s stance “absurd”, highlighting confused messages from the Coalition about its climate policy, and saying any backtrack on Australia’s emissions reductions commitments would be “walking away from the Paris agreement”.
Continue reading...Aileen Cannon ruled ex-president would not be charged for waving classified papers as that conduct was not on trial
The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution on charges of retaining classified documents agreed on Monday to expunge from the indictment a paragraph about an episode where the former president waved around a classified document at his Bedminster club in New Jersey.
The US district judge Aileen Cannon ruled she would strike the paragraph because Trump was not charged with a crime for the conduct it described and would be unfairly prejudicial if a jury later saw it at trial.
Continue reading...New Jersey attorney general looks into whether Trump is ineligible to hold licenses at three of his golf courses in state
The ripple effects of Donald Trump’s felony conviction widened on Monday to encompass one of his most famous business assets: golf courses.
The New Jersey’s attorney general’s office is looking into whether the former president’s recent convictions make him ineligible to hold liquor licenses at his three New Jersey golf courses, according to a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office.
Continue reading...Supporters hospitalized following rallies in Las Vegas and Phoenix, where temperatures have broken records
Dozens of Donald Trump’s supporters have been requiring medical help at his rallies in the scorching US south-west but it seems lost on him that his plans to reverse climate policies and “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels will only worsen extreme weather, campaigners say.
A total of 24 people at a Trump rally in Las Vegas on Sunday required medical attention due to the heat, according to the Clark county fire department, with six taken to hospital for treatment. The hospitalizations come after a further 11 people needed to be admitted to hospital for heat exhaustion as they waited for Trump to speak at a rally in Phoenix on Thursday.
Continue reading...Republican extremist tells crowd ‘The man that I worship is also a convicted felon’
Donald Trump has been compared to Jesus Christ by the far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene at a campaign rally for the former president in Las Vegas, a city more renowned for evoking images of gambling than biblical scenes.
Greene, who makes frequent references to her Christian faith, cited Trump’s supposed Christ-like qualities to challenge the Democrats’ efforts to capitalise on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s status as a convicted felon following his recent conviction in a case involving hush money paid to an adult film actor and falsified business records in a New York court.
Continue reading...The White House has a goal to conserve 30% of US land and water by 2030 – Trump has different plans
A week after his presidential inauguration, Joe Biden cited the climate and biodiversity crises as reasons to set a sweeping new goal – to conserve at least 30% of America’s vast lands and waters by the end of the decade.
Three years on, new protections have spurred meaningful progress towards meeting the target by 2030.
Continue reading...The federal trial of the president’s son undermines Trump’s claim of a weaponized DoJ, but the right aims to make hay regardless
The picture of criminal behavior and a dissolute lifestyle was painted in sometimes painfully frank testimony in a Delaware court room last week and would have been difficult to hear for the family of any defendant.
But Hunter Biden, the man in the dock in Wilmington, is no ordinary plaintiff; he is the son of the president of the United States.
Continue reading...The draconian restrictions on asylum-seekers owe a lot to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, but the path was paved by Democrats.
The post Joe Biden’s Cruel Border Shutdown Follows in Clinton and Obama’s Footsteps Too appeared first on The Intercept.
Recovery Conference set to address Ukraine’s reconstruction needs; Finnish defence minister taking suspected violation ‘seriously’
Kyiv controls the situation in Ivanivske near Chasiv Yar, and Ukrainian forces continue to repel Russian troops in Staromaiorske in Donetsk oblast, Lt Col Nazar Voloshyn, the spokesperson of the Khortytsia group of forces, has told the Kyiv Independent.
The Kyiv Independent has this report:
The statement comes after the Russian defence ministry claimed on 10 June that its forces had captured Staromaiorske, a frontline village in southwestern Donetsk oblast.
The crowd-sourced monitoring channel DeepState then claimed the same day that Russian forces also captured Ivanivske, a village on the eastern outskirts of the embattled Chasiv Yar, and advanced near Staromaiorske and Novopokrovske. Voloshyn dismissed the claims about the capture of the two villages.
Continue reading...Families in Taranto, Italy, watch their kids play in polluted soil in the shadow of a steelworks, knowing that many people there have lost their lives to cancer. Lisa Sorgini captures their struggle
Continue reading...Incident comes at time of heightened tensions between neighbours, as tit-for-tat actions increase after North Korea sent rubbish-filled balloons into the South
South Korea’s military has said it fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border this week, amid rising tensions after Pyongyang sent rubbish-carrying balloons into the South and Seoul retaliated with a loudspeaker propaganda campaign.
“Some North Korean soldiers working within the DMZ on the central front briefly crossed the Military Demarcation Line,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff [JCS] said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to the line of control in the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas.
Continue reading...Company performing Shakespeare classic formed of 12 members who moved to small Uzhhorod town during war
Vyacheslav Yehorov was working at a film school creating art therapy for children when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, forcing millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes.
Many took refuge in the small western town of Uzhhorod, which borders four EU countries. It was here that Yehorov – a student of directing within the performing arts – decided to realise his long-held dream of staging King Lear.
King Lear, directed by Viacheslav Yehorov, will be staged at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 14 and 15 June.
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The far right has made significant gains in the European parliament elections. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has responded with a high-stakes gamble
As the results of the EU elections came in, the shocks kept coming. In France, Germany and Italy the far right made serious gains. Just under a quarter of MEPs in the European parliament will be drawn from these parties. But outside the biggest countries the picture was more complicated – in some places, the centre parties held their ground, in others, the left did well.
The biggest fallout has been in France. Macron saw the surge in the far-right votes as a direct challenge to his rule and his response was to call snap elections for the French parliament. Why has he taken such a huge gamble and what could all this mean for France – and the direction of Europe?
Continue reading...Only Russia abstains in vote on plan calling for hostage and prisoner swap in six-week ceasefire leading to wider deal
The UN security council has adopted a resolution calling for Hamas to agree to a three-phase hostage-for-ceasefire proposal outlined by Joe Biden, the first time the body has endorsed a comprehensive peace deal to end the Gaza war.
A Hamas statement said the group welcomed the resolution, though it was not immediately clear if that meant the leadership in Gaza accepted the ceasefire plan.
Continue reading...European Conservatives and Reformists party includes members such as Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Poland’s Law and Justice
Reaction to Emmanuel Macron’s shock election announcement continues to roll in.
Celine Bracq, director general of the Odoxa polling agency, told the AFP news agency it was a “poker move” at a time when there is a “strong desire on the part of the French to punish the president”.
It’s something extremely risky. In all likelihood, the National Rally, in the wake of the European elections, could have a majority in the National Assembly and why not an absolute majority?”
The most likely outcome is more fragmentation, more deadlock and chaos. A complete paralysis.”
Continue reading...The French president’s decision to call a snap parliamentary election, after Marine Le Pen’s triumph in European polls, is a fateful moment
Ahead of Sunday’s European election results, attention was understandably focused on the impact of a potential far-right surge on the balance of power in Brussels institutions. In the event, the pan-European centre held, just about, with more moderate conservative parties generally enjoying a good night. But that was not even close to being the main headline of the evening.
Emmanuel Macron’s shock decision to call snap legislative elections, after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party (RN), is a gamble of the highest order, taken from a position of weakness. Even by the standards of a president who created his own movement to demolish the traditional centre-left and centre-right, it is a surprisingly risky move. In a Sunday evening address, Mr Macron told the nation that it was a necessary one in order to “clarify” a result that saw the extreme right win a combined 40% of the vote. That clarification, when it comes on 7 July, may or may not be welcome.
Continue reading...Blue crabs with no natural predators have been disrupting prized shellfish populations on Italy’s coast. So revenge is on the menu
In a down-to-earth suburb of Catania on Sicily’s east coast, smoke billows from street stands selling traditional grilled horse meat, and local youngsters gather around kiosks selling the region’s unique handmade drink, seltz limone e sale (seltzer with lemon and sea salt). It is here that a family of charismatic ex-fishers have opened a seafood restaurant that bravely challenges long-held regional conventions.
The Salamone family sell all the usual local specialities in their slick new business “La Fish”, such as Sicily’s famous swordfish, sardines and tuna. However, the feature of tonight’s tasting menu – attracting customers who range from local families to food connoisseurs – is a relative newcomer to these shores and to Sicilian tables: the Atlantic blue crab.
Continue reading...Amelia Sanjurjo, a member of Uruguay’s Communist party who disappeared in 1977, was identified and laid to rest
A Uruguayan woman who was abducted by security forces during the country’s military dictatorship has received a proper burial, nearly 50 years after she was forcibly disappeared.
Bone fragments of Amelia Sanjurjo were exhumed exactly a year ago from a military base in a small southern town in Uruguay. She was finally identified last week after investigators took DNA samples from her maternal aunt and nephews in Uruguay, Spain and Italy in hopes of finding a match.
Continue reading...The bedroom antics of two couples 50 years apart drive the cultural critic’s debut novel, a cerebral comedy full of insights into art, womanhood and ethical quandaries
Set in pre-Covid Paris, Lauren Elkin’s first novel is a brainy sex comedy narrated by Anna, a Franco-American psychoanalyst on medical leave in the wake of a miscarriage. Her lawyer husband is away from home on a job in London, leaving her to oversee the long-planned knocking through of a wall in their Belleville apartment. It’s August – all her friends are out of town – and she’s drifting until she gets a new neighbour: Clémentine, an art history postgraduate who has just moved into a nearby building with her boyfriend, Jonathan – the name, coincidentally, of Anna’s most serious ex, the son of a famous psychoanalyst whose books turned her on to the discipline.
The first third of the novel ambles amiably in exploratory chat between the two women, despite a crackle of ambient dread in ominous signs of climate change (record temperatures in the city; wildfires in Corsica) as well as, more immediately, the mounting toll of French women murdered by men – an outrage highlighted by a guerrilla poster campaign Anna notices on her daily run. But Scaffolding’s real action comes in the bedroom: first when, a third of the way through the book, Elkin winds back the action nearly 50 years to toggle between Florence and Henry, an unfaithfully married couple who used to live in Anna’s flat, and then, in the novel’s final part, when we follow the narrator’s own bed-hopping in the present, as Clémentine widens Anna’s sexual horizons.
Elkin gives us two versions of an adultery plot, the second a self-consciously queered retread of the first. Clémentine, who says she spends her days “writing poetry and masturbating”, functions in the novel as a kind of constant question for Anna, loosening her view of monogamy, prodding her guilt as a slightly self-loathing gentrifier as well as needling her about the assumptions of psychoanalysis and its “Mommy-Daddy-Me structure, like there’s no one else in the world who affects who we become, or the binary take on gender... It’s, like, patriarchy, bottled and distilled”.
Elkin’s date-stamped sign-off tells us the novel was begun in 2007 and completed last year – there’s a list of five Paris addresses where she wrote it – and it’s interesting to think of how the landscape of modern fiction changed in that period. In putting property at the centre of a novel about womanhood and sexuality, Scaffolding joins books by Rachel Cusk (Transit) and Deborah Levy (Real Estate), and as an erudite lust quadrilateral interested in ethical quandaries, it may put you in mind of Sally Rooney (even if Clémentine didn’t at one point mention watching a television series “based on an Irish novel”, which is “kind of annoying... Like, sleep together, don’t sleep together, do your thing”). Indeed, the rapid tying up of loose ends, embracing social norms given side-eye by the rest of the novel, bears resemblance to the left-turn conclusion of Beautiful World, Where Are You. Instead of a blocked writer in the wake of a breakdown, we’ve got a blocked analyst in the wake of grief re-envisioning life from the ground up (“Something Clém said has stuck with me for weeks now and I don’t know what to do with it; something like whether psychoanalysis ought to be socially transformative to justify its existence”).
Elkin, as well as being a prolific translator, has previously published cultural criticism and experimental memoir (No 91/92: Notes on a Parisian Commute), and in many ways Scaffolding is a critic’s novel, full of insights that could seamlessly appear in Elkin’s nonfiction. Anna and Clémentine exchange views of Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors or Chris Kraus’s novel I Love Dick; in a conversation near the end of the novel, when its emotional freight is heaviest, Anna looks up a word’s etymology on her phone. “In The Symposium, early on, Plato talks about...” or “At the beginning of Encore, Lacan’s twentieth seminar, which he gave in 1972-73, he says that...” aren’t untypical ways for Elkin to open a sentence.
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