Although Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) never considered herself an epic poet

it’s hard to think of a more apposite definition of her vast and varied oeuvre than the phrase with which Ezra Pound summed up his concept of the modernist epic (speaking, in his case, of The Cantos): “a poem containing history.” 

"Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future"

Born in Sweden in 1862 and descended from a distinguished clan of naval heroes and maritime cartographers, she trained formally as a painter at Stockholm’s official academy. 

af Klint kept her groundbreaking paintings largely private. She rarely exhibited them and, convinced the world was not yet ready to understand her work, stipulated that it not be shown for twenty years following her death.

Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov wins 2018 Sakharov Prize

The European Parliament's President Antonio Tajani announced the winner. The €50,000 prize was created in memory of the late exiled Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov.

‘The Ladies of the Baroque’

Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625), Fede Galizia (1578-1630), Giovanna Garzoni (1600-1670), as well as Orsola Maddalena Caccia (1596-1676), Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614), Virginia da Vezzo (1601-1638) and Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665): according to the mores of the times, all these women had to make do with portraiture and allegorical paintings featuring fruit and flowers. However, they were quick to flout these restrictions, using the themes that were forced on them as powerful instruments: they displayed remarkable freedom in the face of the strict gender rules.

“Gender-based violence” is a perverted and biased concept

US diplomats have been pushing for the rewriting of general assembly policy statements to remove what the administration argues is vague and politically correct language, 

[Convicted paedophile Karen White, who was born Stephen Wood, was undergoing gender reassignment, but had not undergone full surgery, when she was accused of repeatedly raping a woman in 2016.]

How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55 billion

The vast so-called cum ex tax scandal which has rocked Germany in the past decade has already cost the country an estimated €30 billion. It was assumed that a change in the law in 2016 definitively outlawed such trades. But as a cross-border and undercover investigation now reveals, the trade is still flourishing and has targeted far more countries and has cost far more than was previously thought, affecting nearly all of the biggest economies in Europe.

Knock knock! Who’s there?

“Knock knock! Who’s there? More than half the Church!” several dozen Catholic women chanted outside the Vatican on Oct. 3, the first day of this year’s synod of bishops from around the world.

The squadron of ex-military men behind Bolsonaro's rise in Brazil

appalling levels of street crime and entrenched government graft have emboldened former military leaders to get involved in the electoral process. While some Brazilians are wary about what they see as encroachment by the military on sacred civilian space, others welcome the change.

Nearly 64,000 murders were registered last year, but less than 10 percent of homicide cases result in charges, according to government data.

African elephants could be extinct 'within a decade'

The Africa Elephant Summit, attended by delegates from around 20 countries including China – which is accused of fuelling the poaching trade – heard new figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature that showed the African elephant population fell from 550,000 to 470,000 between 2006 and 2013.

The American conductor tells us (*) about an early career that’s seen her gravitate from playing under Bernard Haitink to taking over his dressing room

Late on a Friday night, just weeks after starting her new role as Assistant Conductor at Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Karina Canellakis

(*) www.limelightmagazine.com.au

EU: lack of freedom of speech

In the US, freedom of speech doesn't require it to be factual. That is the major difference between freedom of speech in the US and in several countries in Europe: if you say something that is offensive, it does not necessarily have to be true.

[Pick any conspiracy theory under the sun, and threads often lead back to Soros.]

U.S. to exit nuclear treaty

Washington believes Moscow is developing and has deployed a ground-launched system in breach of the INF treaty that could allow Moscow to launch a nuclear strike on Europe at short notice.

New type of noise found lurking in nanoscale devices

A new type of electronic noise has been discovered by a team of physicists and chemists in Israel and Canada. Dubbed “delta-T noise”, the effect occurs when two sides of a tiny electrical junction are at held at different temperatures.

EPA on U.N. Climate-Change Report: ‘What Report? Haven’t Heard of It’

A spokesperson from the New York headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told The Daily Beast that she was unaware of the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “What report?” she asked. “I haven’t heard of it.”

Danske Bank Scandal Whistleblower Allegedly Killed

In 2006, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, Andrei Kozlov, attempted to tell authorities in Estonia about a money-laundering scheme that had been created in the Baltic financial system. Three months later he was dead, age 44, and the scheme would later be revealed as the US$200 billion Danske Bank scandal, according to the Daily Beast.

European politicians call for clampdown on tax trade trick

European politicians have called for action to tackle dividend stripping after Reuters and other media revealed how large banks were involved in trading schemes that cost taxpayers billions of euros.

Mediterranean UNESCO World Heritage at risk from coastal flooding and erosion due to sea-level rise

of 49 cultural WHS located in low-lying coastal areas of the Mediterranean, 37 are at risk from a 100-year flood and 42 from coastal erosion, already today

Children’s brains develop faster with music training

Five-year USC study finds significant differences between kids who learned to play instruments and those who didn’t

Golden visa abuse warning

The report, titled European Getaway – Inside the Murky World of Golden Visas, says while huge volumes of money are involved, checks for money laundering and corrupt and illegal origins of the investment are not especially rigorous.

Portugal is specifically identified as an area that poses “high risks”. 

{figures also show that getting on for half of all people in employment in Portugal, at 43.3 percent, did not attend school after ninth grade (the EU average is 16.7 percent). Poland is at the opposite end, with only 1 percent of employees having failed to graduate from secondary education, and Lithuania with 3.5 percent.}

'Golden passports' threaten European security

The investigation is being published under the banner of The Daphne Project, a collaboration of 18 news organisations from 15 countries, formed to continue investigations begun by Caruana Galizia.

The journalist had raised concerns in her reporting, among other matters, about Henley and its relationship with the government led by Malta’s Labour prime minister, Joseph Muscat.

In the Caribbean, they call Kalin, 46, the passport king – he has transformed a small firm of wealth advisers into the leading player in a US$3 bn global industry. His company, Henley & Partners, tells small countries how to transform passports into cash – a legitimate and legal business.

Mary Beatrice Midgley (née Scrutton; 13 September 1919 – 10 October 2018)

She wrote her first book, Beast And Man (1978), when she was in her fifties. She has since written over 15 other books, including Animals and Why They Matter (1983), Wickedness (1984), The Ethical Primate (1994), Evolution as a Religion (1985), and Science as Salvation (1992).

It is the story of the worst episode in the life of the fiercely talented Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the masters of the Italian Baroque

She was able to be strong when the world called her weak and virtuous when the world decried her a sinner. She shared the truth she knew when she was surrounded by liars.

Viktoria Marinova, a 30-year-old, who leaves a small child, died from blows to the head and suffocation and had also been raped

Marinova -- who presented a current affairs talk programme on the local TVN television channel -- is the third journalist to be murdered in Europe in the past 12 months after Jan Kuciak in Slovakia in February and Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in October 2017.

Note: who believes that that assassination was unrelated to her investigations on the huge State corruption in Bulgaria and Romania (as in Malta and Slovakia where journalists have been murdered), even if now there's a disgusting junkie telling that killed her by chance? 

Majority of people living in democracies don’t believe governments work in their interests

Four of the five nations in which the largest majority of respondents said their governments were not acting in the interest of the public feature free societies (Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark), while just one is labelled “partly free” (Kenya). 

Rather than welcoming refugees for re-settlement in Europe, governments should be investing in the long-term future of countries like Syria and Iraq

The more refugees become settled down far from their homelands, the less likely they will go back to join that vital reconstruction effort. Before the war, Syria had 31,000 doctors. Now more than half are believed to have fled, many treating patients in Europe. Iraq complains of a serious brain drain as its skilled young professionals form the vanguard of those seeking a new life in the West. Rather than welcoming refugees for re-settlement in Europe, governments should be investing in the long-term future of countries like Syria and Iraq by working for peace and security there, and increasing support for refugees camped in neighbouring countries. 

The Autocracy App

What would the world look like if Facebook succeeded in becoming the Operating System of Our Lives? That status has arguably been achieved only by Tencent in China. Tencent runs WeChat, which combines aspects of Facebook, Messenger, Google, Twitter, and Instagram. People use its payment system to make purchases from vending machines, shop online, bank, and schedule appointments. Tencent also connects to the Chinese government’s Social Credit System, which gives users a score, based on data mining and surveillance of their online and offline activity. You gain points for obeying the law and lose them for such behavior as traffic violations or “spreading rumors online.”

Five Eyes intelligence alliance builds coalition to counter China

The five nations in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network have been exchanging classified information on China’s foreign activities with other like-minded countries since the start of the year, 

How Ronaldo's Legal Team Dealt with Disaster

While Mayorga hired a lawyer in July 2009 who specialized in securing damages after auto accidents, Ronaldo's people operated like an international crisis management team.

This most recent story is actually the second time that Ronaldo has been accused of assaulting a woman in a hotel room. The first time was in London in 2005. He was arrested and questioned but there were no criminal charges.

Viktoria Marinova: Bulgarian TV journalist raped and murdered

Marinova launched a TV show called “Detektor” in September and in the first and only aired episode she interviewed Attila Biro and Dimitar Stoyanov—two journalists of OCCRP partners and investigative outlets Rise Project and Bivol—who were detained in September while probing alleged fraud involving EU funds linked to Bulgarian businessmen and politicians.

Vietnam's children and the fear of climate change

One little girl draws a nightmarish picture of people calling for rescue as they drown in rising water.

The IPCC says that even the most optimistic scenario for climate change is dire.

Nadia Murad has been jointly awarded the 2018 Nobel peace prize for her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war

she recounts the harrowing experience of being abducted with other Yazidi women by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq in August 2014. The gynaecologist Denis Mukwege is the other winner of the prize, for his work helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Environmental Crime is Largest Source of Income for Militias

Environmental crimes are now the biggest source of funding for non-state militias and terrorist organizations, bringing in 38 percent of their revenue, according to a new study released by Interpol and researchers on global organized crime.

Vivaldi - C minor recorder concerto (RV441) - Bolette Roed & Arte dei Suonatori

Canada’s Donna Strickland, of the University of Waterloo, becomes the third woman to win a Nobel for physics

Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in the United States won half of the 2018 prize for inventing “optical tweezers” while Strickland shares the remainder with Frenchman Gerard Mourou, who also has U.S. citizenship, for work on high-intensity lasers.

Das Bad, Häutung Bellevue (1988) - Heidi Bucher (Adelheid Hildegard Müller)

Heidi Bucher’s artistic legacy, is concurrently a visionary and aesthetic testimonial, as well as a conceptional liberation from an old, patriarchal affected world.

The FCC in December handed ISPs sweeping new powers to recast how Americans use the internet

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said on Sunday the Trump Administration was ignoring “millions of Americans who voiced strong support for net neutrality rules” while California, which is “home to countless start-ups, tech giants and nearly 40 million consumers - will not allow a handful of power brokers to dictate sources for information or the speed at which websites load.”