New study raises red flags on tax haven role in environmental destruction

An analysis of Brazilian central bank data from 2000 to 2011 revealed that at least nine of the world’s largest producers of soy and beef, two industries considered to be main drivers of deforestation, use offshore subsidiaries to finance their operations in the Amazon forest, which Galaz called “a sleeping giant” in the climate change system. Scientists agree that deforestation is one of the main causes of global warming as the carbon dioxide that is typically absorbed by trees gets released in the atmosphere when they are cut or burnt.

Haydn - L'Isola d'isabitata (Overture) - Apollo's Fire/Jeannette Sorrell

Chinese delegates try to play down and suppress evidence of Beijing’s repression in Tibet

On 25 July, Free Tibet was contacted by a staff member at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights informing them that the Chair of CERD had requested that their submission be removed from the session’s website. The decision to remove the submission was based on the fact that the submission contained a footnote referring to Tibet being invaded and occupied in 1950, and that Free Tibet’s mission statement again referred to China’s occupation of Tibet.

The decision for a UN human rights body to remove a NGO submission is rare. Given China’s long track record of trying to subvert efforts to scrutinise its human rights record in international forums, Free Tibet and Tibet Watch have strong grounds to believe that the decision to remove the submission was taken after the Chinese government put pressure on the Chair of CERD.

Tibet: A Glossary of Repression

The agency in charge of propaganda, the Propaganda Bureau, is one of the highest-level offices in the Chinese Communist Party (the “Party”) and reports directly to the Central Committee, the Party’s senior leadership. Its task is to persuade populations both at home and abroad of the correctness of the Party’s rule and of its policies, as well as to use censorship and other means to deter or prevent criticisms of the Party.

Heat: the next big inequality issue

The deadly global heatwave has made it impossible to ignore: in cities worldwide, we are now divided into the cool haves and the hot have-nots

“Justice, not corruption”

Massive crowds gathered in downtown Bucharest on Saturday night, watched by security forces as they chanted: “Down with the government” and “Justice, not corruption”.

Naipaul died (but the immortals do not die)

Immortals do not die. So the greatest of the XX century "neo-realist" novelists did *. When I read "The Bend in the River" I start to wonder that that would happen with me. Waiting in some crazy country's border until the official gave me, after many hours, an affordable price to allowd me to cross the border with my very old veichle. Automatically I felt a deep connection with VS Naipaul and I did read everything I got from him. If the moving "A House for Mr Biswas" is, perhaps, the most "famous" of his creations, everything comming from his pen is a great "image", sucesion of images, or whatever, of the "human been", grasping the "essence" of it, in a interesting, acute and funny way. I have two great-great masters among the great masters of the literature: one is VS Naipaul, the other one is Marguerite Yourcenar (and, again, less because of her most famous work, "Memoires of Hadrian", than of the total of his creations). Styles completely differents coming from genius completely differents **. Immortals never die. Rest in Pace Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul because you will keep alive forever.

* after all he was an human been with (human) socio-cultural contextualized mistakes... like his misogyny, which, pretty obviously, is comming from his "native" culture, that he despised to much...

** Naipaul had an approach based in what he saw. Yourcenar's approach was completely detached from her own experiences, founded in hers great erudition, namely in ancient and medieval history. Most of the Nobel prizes just can dream on writing as Naipaul did. The great Marguerite Yourcenar never got the Nobel. And... what that matters?

Boulez - Notations 1-4 & 7 - BBCSO/Susanna Malkki

2018 Is Shaping Up to Be the Fourth-Hottest Year

Temperatures are still rising, and, so far, efforts to tame the heat have failed. Heat waves are bound to get more intense and more frequent as emissions rise, scientists have concluded. On the horizon is a future of cascading system failures threatening basic necessities like food supply and electricity.

Beethoven - Arietta. Adagio molto semplice e cantabile from Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111 - Maria João Pires

What is PM2.5?

when scientists talk about air pollution, they’re generally thinking about those sources and variants that arise from human activity: things like sulfur dioxide from power plant and other emissions, nitrogen dioxide from vehicle exhaust, and ground level ozone — as well as particulate matter. That last category is crucial, because it’s the microscopic stuff that can actually slip past the respiratory system’s defenses and cause both acute, short-term impacts, and over time, chronic diseases that kill.

Saudi-led air strike on bus kills 29 children

The health ministry run by the rebel Houthi movement said put the death toll at 43, and said 61 people were wounded.

The coalition, which is backing Yemen's government in a war with the Houthis, said its actions were "legitimate".

U.S. imposes sanctions on Russia for nerve agent attack in UK

Washington said on Wednesday it would impose fresh sanctions on Russia by the end of August after it determined that Moscow had used a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain.

Quantification of drought during the collapse of the classic Maya civilization

We modeled the data and conclude that annual precipitation decreased between 41 and 54% (with intervals of up to 70% rainfall reduction during peak drought conditions) and that relative humidity declined by 2 to 7% compared to present-day conditions.

Facebook wants to know your bank balance

The tech mogul’s Facebook has been quietly lobbying some of the biggest US banks to sign partnerships that would have the financial institutions share customer data — including account balances and recent purchases.

Researchers suggest that global warming will have severe consequences for the planet

They paint a picture of boiling hot climates and towering seas in years to come if temperatures rise by just 2C.

Women speak out on France's harassment problem

“It’s not about harassment, it’s about women being treated as objects in society and the new law won’t change anything. The police don’t have the money to train officers effectively about what constitutes harassment and often they are part of the problem. “If you call them and say a guy behaved weirdly towards you, often the first reaction is they laugh. The answer is having more women in charge of the institutions, the police, the fire services, other bodies. Then we might have real changes.”

Metamorphoses (Bass Clarinet Concert) - Jorge Peixinho

Social media manipulation rising globally

The manipulation of public opinion over social media platforms has emerged as a critical threat to public life. Around the world, government agencies and political parties are exploiting social media platforms to spread junk news and disinformation, exercise censorship and control, and undermine trust in media, public institutions and science.

China: Crackdown on Tibetan Social Groups

In February 2018, the Tibet Autonomous Region Public Security Bureau published a list of newly defined forms of “organized crime” in a circular – the first set of such prohibitions to be announced at the provincial level. The now-banned activities include any initiatives for the promotion of local language and culture, and protection of the local environment.

Cardinal steps down amid widening sex abuse scandal

“The Vatican must investigate and publish its conclusions regarding McCarrick’s advancement and very successful career,” said Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, a U.S.-based group that tracks abuse cases. “The officials responsible must be identified and disciplined, and the investigative file must be made public,”

A meeting with Oksana Shachko

Shachko was an artist from a young age. Educated in the Orthodox tradition, she made religious paintings and at the age of 8 her artistic talent earned her a place at a specialized school in Ukraine focused on painting religious icons. By age 10, Shachko was being commissioned to create church frescoes, and moved into the church full time at aged 12. As an adult, her later works subverted traditional religious iconography to create feminist art.  

"We have the immense sadness to learn the death of Oksana Shachko, promising artist that we presented in Crash and to whom we dedicated the cover of our December 2017 art issue. We also presented her work in our gallery, the 22Visconti. Oksana was an outstanding activist, co-founder of the Femen and political refugee in France because her life was in danger in her country. She had enrolled at the Paris Beaux-Arts school and her work as a painter has profoundly touched us with its light and strength. Here is the interview Armelle Leturcq did with her in November 2017."

Rameau - Les Cyclopes (rondeau in d minor) - Elaine Comparone

The Event

they (Silicon Valley’s elite) were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

Pierre Boulez, Christine Schäfer, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (opening concert of the Musik Triennale Köln 2000)

Modern Slavery

North Korea has the highest prevalence of modern slavery globally, with one in 10 of the population, or 2.6 million people, victims of modern slavery. A third, or 15 million, of victims of modern slavery enter through forced marriage, an issue that disproportionately affects women and girls.

Google hit with record $5 billion EU antitrust fine *

EU regulators hit Google with a record 4.34 billion euros ($5 billion) antitrust fine on Wednesday for using its Android mobile operating system to squeeze out rivals.

* and the Facebook, which "apps" are inside the system of the devices (because the labels did allow it) and cannot to be removed? How much they will be fined? (I wrote to the European Commissars Vera Jurová and Cecilia Malmström on that issue)

Iannis Xenakis - REBONDS a.b. - Kuniko Kato

RSF describes Turkey as “the world’s biggest prison for professional journalists”

Turkey’s former prime minister Binali Yildirim, and President Erdogan’s son-in-law and powerful treasury and finance minister Berat Albayrak, and members of their families have filed defamation actions against award-winning journalist and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists member Pelin Ünker and her newspaper, Cumhuriyet. The influential Turkish figures do not claim factual errors or inaccuracies but seek financial penalties for alleged damage to their reputations.

Media freedom was one of the key demands of the revolution that toppled the Shah and swept Ayatollah Khomeini to power in 1979, but it is a promise that has never been kept. The media are mostly under the Islamic regime’s close control and there has been no let-up in the persecution of independent journalists, citizen journalists, and media outlets. Media personnel are still constantly exposed to intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and long jail sentences imposed by revolutionary courts at the end of unfair trials. Despite an improvement in its international relations, Iran continues to be one of the world’s five biggest prisons for media personnel.

The New Octopus

Today, as technology creates new forms of power, we must also create new forms of countervailing civic power. We must build a new civic infrastructure that imposes new kinds of checks and balances. But where new firms, however innovative, outstrip our ability to assure their accountability, then we have to ask hard questions about whether we want to pursue such innovation in the first place.

Iannis Xenakis - REBONDS a.b. - Kuniko Kato

U.S. accuses Russian spies of 2016 election hacking

Officers of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, covertly monitored computers of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Democratic campaign committees, and stole large amounts of data, the indictment said.

Forty-two years ago, a Russian leader privately offered unlimited assistance to a presidential candidate. Given the continuity over the years of Russia’s covert-action methods, it is of little surprise to see Russia doing in 2016 what Brezhnev offered to do in 1975. The difference is that this time the offer was accepted, while in 1975 the United States was led by a man of great experience and absolute integrity, who ignored the offer.

Trump also refrained from publicly criticizing Russia’s 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea region, another geopolitical win for Putin against Western efforts to isolate him.

Trump has repeatedly denied his campaign colluded with Russia and has characterized the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a witch hunt. Trump is infuriated by any suggestion he might owe his election victory to Russia.

Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways

Oliver Knussen: "Cantata" for oboe and string trio

Amnesty International estimates that at least 97 prisoners of conscience are currently held in Vietnam’s prisons

serving a 10-year prison term following her June 2017 conviction on charges of spreading “propaganda against the state” under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, Quynh (Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh) had blogged about human rights abuses and official corruption for more than a decade.

She had also criticized the government’s response to a 2016 toxic waste spill by the Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group that destroyed the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Vietnamese living in four coastal provinces.

Tibetan Villagers Tear-Gassed, Beaten For Mine Protest

Chinese police have launched a violent tear-gas assault on Tibetan villagers in Qinghai’s Yulshul prefecture, ending a two-month protest against suspected mining operations on local mountains, according to a local source.

Kaija Saariaho - Circle Map - FRSO/Susanna Mälkki

Bad Romanian Horse Meat Stampedes Across Europe

Last year, the Agromexim-Cetina partnership generated a new European alert for cadmium- contaminated meat — its fifth one. The meat was sold to the Italian company Boventi SPA, which sent it on to Germany and Hungary. The source of the cadmium contamination has never been identified, according to the Romanian authorities. Meanwhile, Chevideco, the Belgian buyer, continues to buy horse meat from Agromexim.

Vivaldi's "La Folia" (Madness), arranged by Jeannette Sorrell after Sonata XII, Apollo's Fire

Former Pakistan PM Sharif Sentenced To 10 Years Over Panama Papers

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $10.6 million on corruption charges linked to 2016 Panama Papers revelations about his family’s properties overseas.

Elderly and disabled civilians were burned alive

Reiterating his call on the government and African Union to establish a hybrid court for South Sudan, he said the soldiers had slit elderly villagers’ throats, hanged women for resisting looting and shot fleeing civilians.

Nobel widow Liu Xia leaves China after 8 years’ house arrest

The release of Liu Xia, who has never been charged with any crime, is the result of years of campaigning by Western governments and activists and comes just days before the one-year anniversary of the death of dissident Liu Xiaobo while he was serving a prison sentence for inciting subversion.

Oliver Knussen - Horn Concerto

The composer and conductor Oliver Knussen has died

Oliver Knussen has died; he was 66. A pupil of John Lambert and Gunther Schuller, Knussen made a vivid impression at a very early age; his First Symphony was written when he was just 15.

A former Facebook moderator says she had to review 8,000 posts a day

Katz said she was not asked to report the accounts sharing the material — a fact that "disturbed" her. "If the user's account was less than 30 days old we would deactivate the account as a fake account. If the account was older than 30 days we would simply remove the content and leave the account active," she said.

Beethoven - Egmont Overture - Apollo's Fire/Jeannette Sorrell

Distorted neutron stars give up secrets of dense nuclear matter

GW170817 offers astrophysicists new and exciting information about the equation of state (EOS) of neutron stars. The EOS describes the complex behaviour of the dense nuclear matter that makes up neutron stars. Little is currently known about the EOS because it is difficult to glean information from conventional astronomical observations and because theoretical calculations of dense nuclear matter are extremely difficult to do. Before GW170817, the most important piece of information about the EOS came from observations published in 2010 and 2013, which showed that neutron stars can have masses at least as large as two solar masses.

Stravinsky - Petruschka - Yuja Wang

British woman dies after Novichok poisoning

A 44-year-old British woman died on Sunday after being exposed to the Novichok nerve agent in western England just a few miles from where Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were struck down by the same agent four months ago.

Mining the Sky

Space is relatively untouched. It has not yet been exploited and pillaged—and when it is, I would hope that everybody could benefit from it. If space becomes entirely privatized, however, I worry that the profits will simply flow to the private sector—and thanks to countries like Luxembourg, those profits won’t be taxed.

Gender and Climate Change

The Climate Change Gender Action Plansare nationally recognized strategies with a unique methodology for training and building the capacity of women and women’s organizations on the linkages between gender and climate change. 

The EU's dodgy Article 13 copyright directive has been rejected

The Copyright Directive, which contained the particularly concerning Article 13, was rejected by 318 votes to 278, with 31 abstentions

Pierre Boulez plays Douze Notations

Gustav Leonhardt: Louis Couperin's Suite in D

How US sex traffickers recruit jailed women for prostitution

“The pimps would use bail as a way to control us and keep us in debt bondage,” said one trafficking survivor from Tampa, Florida. She claimed she was forced to work as a prostitute to pay off her bail debt and locked inside a house and beaten if she didn’t bring home enough money.

China's campaign of destruction at Larung Gar

China's attempts to block evicted residents from returning to Larung Gar violates Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.”  These restrictions, along with the enforced cancellation of prayer ceremonies at the site also violate Tibetans' rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association under Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The subsequent restrictions imposed on former residents from being able to practice at Larung Gar or joining new monasteries are also in violation of these rights, along with Article 27 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which specifies that “everyone has the right to take part in cultural life and to the freedom indispensable for creative activity”

"Nobody can do it for me"

"Everyone has to make their decisions, but I think we can safely say millions of others are here to offer support and hope. Nobody can do it for me, but I don’t have to do it alone."

Deluge of electronic waste turning Thailand into 'world's rubbish dump'

“Places like America and Europe need to realise they are going to have to start recycling their own electronic waste and stop sweeping the negative effects from north to south,”

As Mexico’s oil sector sputters, crime and violence rattle industry towns

They beat his bare buttocks with a paddle and repeatedly threatened to rape him. One of the assailants put a gun to his head, while another grabbed his cell phone and began posting live video to Herver’s own Facebook feed.

Boulez - Livre pour quatuor à cordes - Quatuor Diotima

Confirmed Artists to Represent Their Countries at the 2019 Venice Biennale

We're keeping a running list of the curators and artists who have signed on for next year's art extravaganza.

Tourists: go home!

In Lisbon, too, they are feeling the negative impact of mass tourism. Fátima Bernardo, assistant professor of social sciences at the University of Évora in Portugal, fears that the Alfama district in Lisbon may face a similar fate to Ciutat Vella

What we know so far about the Jokhang fire

Earlier this year, Lhasa's Jokhang temple, one of the most sacred sites in Tibetan Buddhism, was engulfed in flames. Since then, Free Tibet has been working tirelessly to uncover the truth of what happened at the Jokhang and the extent of the damage. This report details our findings so far and, for the first time, reveals satellite photography of the site taken shortly after the blaze was put out.

Szymanowski - String Quartet No 2 Op 56 - Belcea Quartet

Observations of the missing baryons in the warm–hot intergalactic medium

A theoretical solution to this paradox locates the missing baryons in the hot and tenuous filamentary gas between galaxies, known as the warm–hot intergalactic medium.

Venezuela: impunity amid dismal human rights situation

Under the previous Attorney-General, who was replaced in August 2017, 357 security officers were reportedly under investigation in relation to the killings. But since then, there has been no information publicly available about the cases, with a key obstacle being that the Bureau for Scientific, Criminal, and Forensic Investigations (CICPC) that is in charge of the investigations, is also allegedly responsible for most of the killings. 

The OLPs were in January 2017 replaced with another operation, called the Operations for the Humanitarian Liberation of the People, which is much less transparent and difficult to track than the OLPs, but civil society accounts suggest that the killings have continued. The report also documents the killing of 39 detainees in the state of Amazonas in 2017 and of seven members of an alleged armed group in Caracas in 2018, where security forces allegedly used excessive force. 

Impunity also appears to be pervasive in favour of security officers allegedly responsible for the killing of at least 46 people during protestors last year. The former Attorney-General had issued at least 54 arrest warrants but so far, the UN Human Rights Office is aware of only one case in which a formal trial has started. Evidence has reportedly disappeared from case files, and members of the Attorney-General’s office in charge of investigating the cases were replaced when the new Attorney-General took office in August last year. The Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) has also reportedly blocked investigations.

World trending to hit 50% renewables by 2050

The clean energy analysis firm estimates that in a mere 33 years, the world will generate almost 50 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and coal will make up just 11 percent of the total electricity mix.

Add in hydroelectric power and nuclear energy, and greenhouse-gas-free electricity sources climb to 71 percent of the world's total electricity generation. 

A company called NET Power has begun testing a unique demonstration power plant in La Porte, Texas, that burns natural gas but releases no emissions into the atmosphere. How can it do this? The natural gas is burned in pure oxygen rather than ambient air, and the resulting heated carbon dioxide (CO2) is used to power a turbine instead of heating steam or gas.

EU votes for copyright law that would make internet a 'tool for control'

Earlier this year, a group of 169 European academics specialising in intellectual property urged MEPs to reject the “misguided” plans, which they said would “likely impede the free flow of information that is of vital importance to democracy”. Scores of academics have since added their names to the letter, which also says the proposals would be likely to harm journalists, photographers and many “non-institutional creators and producers of news”, including freelancers. The UN’s special rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, has also raised concerns about “prepublication censorship”, with automatic filters being unable to detect fair comment, satire, criticism and parody. In a rare feat, the law has united consumer and tech lobbies in opposition

The Washington state law prohibits home and mobile Internet providers from blocking or throttling lawful Internet traffic and from charging online services for prioritization. The rules will be enforced by the state attorney general under Washington's Consumer Protection Act.

Swiss authorities propose major money-laundering law reforms

Switzerland’s federal government appears poised to crack down on money laundering in the wake of banking scandals and investigations linked to FIFA chiefs 

The basis for killing network neutrality rules is bogus

“A whole lot of other issues aren’t getting much attention,” he noted. Like, “how to close the digital divide, how to improve digital equity."

As Trump courts Kim, a reminder of the regime's brutality

- a female prisoner losing consciousness after enduring a beating designed to trigger premature labour, with prison officials killing her baby before she could regain consciousness;

- a prisoner raped by a security officer, after which the officer pushed a wooden stick inside her vagina and beat her lower body, resulting in her death within a week;

- the deliberate starvation, malnutrition, overwork and death of countless prisoners, including between 1,500–2,000 prisoners, mostly children, who are believed to have died each year from malnutrition in one camp alone, with many other prisoners beaten to death for failing to meet production quotas;

- a soldier supervising a forced labor site rolling a log down a steep mountainside, killing ten prisoners as they were carrying logs up the mountain;

- routine public executions of prisoners, carried out in front of both children and adults, designed to subdue the prison population.

...

These examples make up only some of what is in the report. The IBA report estimates between 80,000 and 130,000 individuals are being held in these prisons today, accused of political wrongdoing. The reason for incarcerating children, according to this study, is that the regime enforces a policy of eliminating the "seed" of three generations of its political enemies.

“He’s the head of a country, and I mean, he’s the strong head, don’t let anyone think anyone different,” Trump said. “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

"I fear that today’s unjustified firing of a dissenting voice on the editorial pages will only serve to diminish an opinion section that was once one of America’s best"

China has backed United Nations sanctions against North Korea, but it has also recently indicated it is willing to offer economic assistance — a move some see as intended to anger Washington.

Immediately after the meeting Trump claimed that North Korea had begun the destruction of a missile engine testing site or would begin as soon as Kim returned from the summit. In return Trump ordered the suspension of military exercises with South Korea, a longstanding demand of the Pyongyang regime. This week the Pentagon confirmed that planning for the next scheduled exercises in August had halted

Sources inside the notoriously secretive state say that a top army general has been executed by firing squad – because he gave his troops and their families extra food.

[North Korea’s fear of Chinese control is one area where North Korean and American interests of containing China actually align.]

“Taiwan is grateful to the efforts of like-minded countries that have chosen to take a stand against Chinese bullying of private enterprises,”

[America’s economic prospects are clouded in doubt to make other countries gradually move away from its currency and T-bonds.]

[China has been accumulating indebtedness faster than it has been growing. When so-called hidden debt is taken into account, the country is now incurring maybe one-and-a-half times as much debt as it is producing nominal gross domestic product, even if the official GDP figures were not substantially inflated, which they most certainly are.]

[Trump’s policies are causing a consolidation of a shared anti-American security outlook that unites the various groups found across the Shia world.]

World Cup: Repression and War Crimes

Free speech campaigners rolled out a soccer pitch in central Paris on Wednesday with posters of jailed journalists as the players, in a demonstration about press freedom in Russia on the eve of the World Cup.

On the international stage, Russia is providing weapons, military support, and diplomatic cover to the Syrian government, despite evidence that Syrian forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ponsatí’s lawyer considers summoning former Spanish ministers to Scotland court

In an interview with the Catalan News Agency last month, Aamer Anwar, Ponsatí’s lawyer, claimed that the Spanish authorities are making "an abuse of the European arrest warrants” in trying to extradite Catalan officials abroad, and he accused the Spanish judiciary of “changing the rules of the game” to ensure the officials are returned to Spain. "The Spanish authorities keep shifting the goalposts. They can’t keep trying once, and then twice and then three and four times,” he said, calling such behavior “unacceptable.”

Don't let the EU break our Internet

Tell your MEP to save it before 20 June. On 20-21 June, the European Parliament will vote on the Copyright Directive. Members of the parliament are the only ones that can stand in the way of bad copyright legislation. Tell them you need them to protect your Internet against surveillance and censorship machines

Alice in Wonderland (Unsuk Chin)