Sílvio Teixeira (19/11/1928 - 26/7/2016) by KarlOwn

 

Taliban ‘set woman on fire for bad cooking’

An Afghan woman was reportedly set on fire by Taliban fighters because they were dissatisfied with her cooking amid a wave of capricious attacks as the Islamists revel in their victory. The alleged incident described by an Afghan judge comes after the group attacked people waving the Afghan flag and a Germany charity was forced to close after Islamists went door to door hunting journalists and interpreters.

The not so new terrorism

Online incel forums are steeped in extremist misogyny, with members regularly suggesting women should be raped and murdered. They encourage each other to rise up in a “day of retribution” or “incel rebellion”, when they will punish society, and women in particular, for their suffering, by murdering as many “normies” (non-incels) as possible.

The age of the female combat officer is coming

Air Force General Lori Robinson became the country’s first female combatant commander, and Admiral Michelle Howard became the first female four-star admiral. 

THE PEGASUS PROJECT

Through Pegasus, corrupt and troubled regimes across the world can gain access to vast troves of personal information on just about anyone they want. The spyware, sold as a crime-fighting tool, is already known to have been used against journalists, activists, and political dissidents.

Even Minor Volcanic Eruptions Could Trigger Global Catastrophe

"We need to move away from thinking in terms of colossal eruptions destroying the world, as portrayed in Hollywood films. The more probable scenarios involve lower-magnitude eruptions interacting with our societal vulnerabilities and cascading us towards catastrophe."

Major climate changes inevitable and irreversible

Within the next two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather.

Easy to realise who are the most corrupt and poorest countries

Phillip King, Influential British Sculptor, Has Died at 87

Initially, King was turned off by abstraction, but a visit to Athens, where he saw the Parthenon situated in the hilly landscape, changed all that. “My later reluctance to see abstraction as something worthwhile was to do with it being cerebral and not from nature,” he told the Guardian in 2014. “Greece allowed me to rediscover how things can be of the mind but also of nature, and the idea of using gravity as a way to make things stand up.”

Yayoi Kusama’s Colorful, Plant-Filled Creations Capture the Spirit of Summer

Over her nearly 70-year career, Kusama has refined her unique visual language, taking inspiration from the world around her (her signature polka dots motif was supposedly inspired by a hallucination she experienced while staring at a tablecloth as a child). 

On the decline since Panama Papers, Malta punished for dirty money reputation

The Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body that investigates, and makes recommendations for anti-money laundering initiatives, added Malta, along with Haiti, the Philippines and South Sudan to its list of countries deemed to have insufficient protections against dirty money. These four countries joined 19 other jurisdictions on the watchdog’s grey list, which includes Syria, Myanmar and Panama.

....

The inclusion of Malta on the list as a jurisdiction “under increased monitoring” will likely make it harder for the small country to attract international banking and investment. 

“Paula Rego is the kind of artist who paints a soldier in a leopard-print gimp mask, a little girl shaving her pet dog and the devil’s wife in nipple tassels”

"Months later I received a package in the mail, a lithograph of me, hawkish, offering Jane Eyre to be inspected by Mr. Rochester. Six months later, another package arrived, this time much smaller, and in it was a beautifully wrapped set of Jane Eyre postage stamps made by the British government, with my evil profile. In true Paula fashion, she insisted that the women be made into first class stamps, the men, second. In her revolutionary drawings, painting and graphic work, she has always put women first."

Louise Bourgeois

 

Shoplifter / Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir

is one of Iceland’s leading contemporary artists, based in New York. Working with both synthetic and natural hair, her sculptures, wall murals and site-specific installations explore themes of vanity, self-image, fashion, beauty and popular myth. For Shoplifter hair is the ultimate thread that grows from our body. Hair is an original, creative fiber, a way for people to distinguish themselves as individuals, and often an art form.

Four Tibetans detained for possessing 'politically sensitive' content on their phones

On 4 July 2021, Public Security Bureau (PSB) in Dartsang Township in Serthar County carried out an investigative campaign in the area and searched individual mobile phones of local Tibetans through phone numbers that had been registered with identity cards. The records of identity cards and linked phone numbers are kept at the local security department. During the search operation, the PSB arrested four Tibetans, including a local village leader, under suspicion of possessing ‘politically sensitive’ content. But currently, the names of the detainees and their whereabouts remain unknown

The Other Clean Nuclear Energy

You could hold a lump of Th232 in your hands without any ill effects as the element is barely radioactive with a half-life of 14 billion years. It also can’t fission by itself. So how can it power a nuclear reactor?

‘Wobbling’ moon will cause devastating worldwide flooding in 2030s, Nasa warns

Numbers of floods could quadruple as the gravitational effects of the lunar cycle combine with climate change to produce "a decade of dramatic increases" in water disasters. The space agency said coastal cities would experience "rapidly increasing high-tide floods" and they would occur in "clusters" lasting a month or longer.

A Dutch journalist exposed the mob and defied death threats. Now he’s been shot

It was evening in Amsterdam when Peter R. de Vries stepped out of the television studio and into the busy downtown streets. Decades of investigating cold-case killings and mob hits had earned the silver-haired 64-year-old accolades and a reputation as one of the most famous journalists in the Netherlands

She made history in the fall of 2005 as the first woman to be elected chancellor

Ironically, we may one day look back and judge that one of Merkel’s greatest legacies for the EU was to open the door to women’s political leadership in Germany—so that a new leader could emerge who would reverse many of her policies. Though Merkel may not be the savior of Europe some have made her out to be, she may have paved the path for a new leader who could be

Physicists observationally confirm Hawking’s black hole theorem for the first time

“It is possible that there’s a zoo of different compact objects, and while some of them are the black holes that follow Einstein and Hawking’s laws, others may be slightly different beasts,”

How Mildred Thompson’s Vibrating Canvases Envisioned Our World As It Could Be

The paintings she made in Atlanta were informed by color theory—she juxtaposed contrasting and complementary hues with each other to ensure that the canvases popped. In her famed “Magnetic Fields” series (1990), Thompson considered the theory that magnetic waves were yellow when seen on an ultraviolet scale.

Source of a Weird Quantum Sense Found in an Actual Migratory Bird For The First Time

When you're as tiny as a European robin, crossing the continent for the winter is no small feat. We now know its secret to keeping on track over vast distances – an innate ability to harness the weirdness that sits at the heart of quantum physics.

4,400-Year-Old Shaman’s Snake Staff Found in Endangered Finnish Wetland

The shaman’s staff would have been used in a religious or spiritual ceremony. Perhaps it was even used to communicate with the dead

Collective – shocking exposé of needless deaths in Romania

The cynicism and indifference to suffering is truly horrible, and a kind of insidious evil rises from the screen like carbon monoxide, and also a terrible sadness. There is a moment ... when Tolontan and his colleagues are shown a secretly filmed video of maggots wriggling in a patient’s incompetently dressed wound. If that was in a fictional film, the metaphor would be dismissed as too obvious. Finally, Tolontan and his team are shown discussing sinister communications they have had from the intelligence services, telling them to be careful, for their families’ sake.

The real-life plan to use novels to predict the next war

One German official says the AI prediction system had already given Angela Merkel’s government a few months’ warning of the rebel insurgency in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, where security forces are battling with militants trying to set up an Islamic state. But the early warning system is still in development: the aim is to eventually be able to predict conflicts 12-18 months in advance.

Millions of tons of plastic are trashed every year. But what if we used it to pave our roads?

“Road material is relatively inert, a solid block of asphalt,” noted Troutman. “In fact, the largest source of microplastics on the planet is abrasion of tires.”

There aren’t enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be

viewing natural ecosystems as “climate solutions” gives the misleading impression that forests can function like an infinitely absorbent mop to clean up the ever increasing flood of human caused CO₂ emissions.

EU, US launch initiative against ransomware

Cybercriminals shut down the largest gasoline pipeline system in the U.S, run by a company called Colonial, and the U.S. operations of meat processing company JBS in May. In Ireland, a ransomware attack crippled the country's health care system the same month. Security experts have pointed to cybercriminal groups based in Russia for the attacks.

Bitcoin is a Giant Ponzi Scheme

This isn’t an article about whether or not Bitcoin will continue to grow or crash and burn. That will depend on the public’s irrational exuberance versus the iron will of hundreds of governments who want to continue to oppress and control their citizens with a monopolistic currency stranglehold. It will be one of the most violent battles of our time.

Rumours swirl that China’s top spycatcher has defected to the US

Any defection would be embarrassing for the Chinese Communist Party ahead of its centenary on July 1. Propaganda has been ramping up and large boards with a red-emblazoned "100" have been hung above shops and along busy streets.The Chinese Communist Party has more than 91 million members.

The acceleration of the Delta variant around the world is raising questions about its origin, transmissibility, hotspots, and potential for vaccine resistance

However, the emergence of variants of concern, where mutations have resulted in altered virus characteristics (increased transmission and disease severity, reduced vaccine effectiveness, detection failure) have had deleterious health consequences.

Why artist Eileen Agar’s 'womb magic' speaks to our times

As subsequent events were soon to confirm, it was rather optimistic of the artist Eileen Agar to declare in 1931 that the “feminine type of imagination” she identified as “womb magic” was a force capable of countering the “rampant and hysterical militarism” rising across Europe.

Toward Deep Decarbonization

Batteries and hydrogen have emerged as two promising technologies for enabling this next level of economy-wide deep decarbonization, as they both allow low-cost renewable electricity to be stored and used to reduce or eliminate emissions in applications ranging from cars and trucks to steel and cement production

10 June 2021 Annular Solar Eclipse

The New Moon will cover the Sun's center, leaving its outer edges to form the characteristic annulus or “ring of fire” during this annular solar eclipse. Weather permitting, people in parts of Canada, Greenland, and Russia will be treated to the annular phase of the only annular solar eclipse of 2021.

Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data

Fossil fuel use is the primary source of CO2. CO2 can also be emitted from direct human-induced impacts on forestry and other land use, such as through deforestation, land clearing for agriculture, and degradation of soils. Likewise, land can also remove CO2 from the atmosphere through reforestation, improvement of soils, and other activities.

Maerten van Heemskerck’s right altar wing with female donor (around 1540)

 

Definition of Violence against women

The violence against women indicator presents you with data on:

• Attitudes toward violence: The percentage of women who agree that a husband/partner is justified in beating his wife/partner under certain circumstances

• Prevalence of violence in the lifetime: The percentage of women who have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner at some time in their life

• Laws on domestic violence: Whether the legal framework offers women legal protection from domestic violence

Microsoft removed 'Tank Man' images on Tiananmen Square's anniversary

Microsoft blocked images and videos around the world of "Tank Man," the unidentified protester during China's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

June 4 marked the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre

June 4 marked the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The Chinese government's attacks on freedom of expression have continued in the years since, with Tibet recently ranked the least free country in the world. But the fight for freedom will never cease.

Can Elites Start the Climate Revolution?

We need to get smarter in the way we use power, not find new “green” ways to do the same dumb things. Nevertheless, with its brutish appeal, the new F-150 might just transform the electric-vehicle market in the United States.

Magazines Are Swapping Out Celebrity Covers for Artworks by Famous Artists in a Bid to Stay Relevant

Last summer, after weeks of protests precipitated by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two of the country’s most recognizable magazines used their covers to make a statement. And they each turned to artists—not photographers—to do it. 

How the world’s richest defend their wealth, with help from a dedicated industry

The book, subtitled “How billionaires pay millions to hide trillions,” offers insiders’ accounts of what’s described as the “wealth defense industry” — made up of a coalition of professionals from advisors to lawyers and accountants — and how it deploys anonymous shell companies, family offices, offshore accounts and trusts to help the world’s richest people shield their wealth from tax collectors.

Pope says Brazil has no salvation

the religious of the diocese of Campina Grande (PB) met Pope Francis and asked the Brazilians for a blessing. In a relaxed manner, the pontiff smiled and fired: “You have no salvation. You drink a lot of cachaça and pray little”.

EU imposes new economic sanctions on Belarus over ‘hijacked’ flight

EU leaders triggered new economic sanctions against Belarus and punitive measures against its national airline as a dissident taken from a “hijacked” Ryanair flight was paraded on the country’s television news apparently confessing to crimes against the state.

Exactly How Helpless Is Europe?

As for the United States, its efforts to limit China’s power and influence will be enhanced if Europe is on board and increasingly united. Creating a new and sustainable trans-Atlantic partnership begins by recognizing that Europe is far from helpless and can do much more to defend itself in the decades ahead.

Melting ice in Antarctica could trigger chain reactions

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that as Earth continues to heat up, the land underneath the Antarctic ice sheet will become more exposed. As a result of that process, wind patterns will shift, and rainfall will increase over Antarctica, which could trigger processes that speed up ice loss

‘Catastrophic’: Sierra Leone sells rainforest for Chinese fish plant

Two legal campaign groups, the Institute for Legal Research and Advocacy for Justice (ILRAJ) and Namati Sierra Leone, have written to the government, under the 2013 Right to Access Information Act, demanding to see the environmental and social-impact assessment studies, and the report showing that the beach was, as claimed, the most suitable place for construction “in terms of bathymetry, social safeguards (minimum resettlement costs) and environmental issues”. They are also seeking a copy of the grant agreement between China and Sierra Leone.

Archaeological Discoveries Suggest Ancient Women Were Waaay More Powerful Than You May Believe

Taking her name from the dig site of Wilamaya Patjxa, the ancient teen was buried with an array of tools used for hunting large animals: a projectile, a knife, and other miscellaneous items geared towards processing game.

Promising Young Woman

Pushing thirty, and defined by a hideous crime involving her bosom friend, Nina, emotionally scarred medical school dropout, Cassie, knows firsthand that some wounds never heal. Leading an uneventful existence, still living with her parents, waiting tables at a cheap coffee shop to earn a living, Cassie has found the perfect way to deal with the painful past

The warrior women who fought their enslavers

Hall discovered that four women were involved in the 1712 revolt in New York, an uprising by enslaved Africans who killed nine of their captors before being, in some cases, burned at the stake. One pregnant woman was kept alive until she gave birth and then put to death (the execution was delayed, says the report, because the baby was “someone’s property”). Until now, it was assumed only men took part in this revolt.

Ballet Dancer-Turned-Artist Madeline Hollander Sees Choreography Where Others See Only Chaos

“The absurdity of that search tells us something about [what it means to be] human—thrashing around in the dark to find meaning and a solution to something very existential.”

World Donkey Day

Today is World Donkey Day, and what better way to celebrate them than to share a few of the things that make these intelligent, curious animals who they are?

Portugal said to be 5th most corrupt

more than 80 percent of those surveyed said bribes were a generalised practice in Portugal

Julião Sarmento (1948 - 2021)

Sarmento studied painting and architecture at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts. He began exhibiting film, video, sound, painting, sculpture, installation and multimedia in the early seventies, but also developed several site-specific projects. He has exhibited his work extensively around the world in solo and group shows. Sarmento represented Portugal at the Venice Biennial in 1997. His work is represented in several museums and private collections, including an artist room showing at London's Tate Modern in 2010.

Protecting UK fishing waters is one of the Royal Navy's oldest tasks

Protecting UK fishing waters is one of the Royal Navy's oldest tasks, but Downing Street's decision to send two warships to the Channel Islands is a deliberate posture after France's initial threat to cut off electricity to the islands

The Book of Charlatans provides an unusual glimpse into the street life of medieval Islamic societies

In the medieval city of Tinnis, on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, a prophet was legendary for his ability to cure lepers and resurrect the dead. His sanctity was so great that even creatures of the sea would pay him homage. When he strolled along the shore, the fish leapt from the waters to kiss his feet. But the creatures were drawn to something besides his spiritual purity: he had coated his toes with a potion—one part human feces, one part basil, and one part Persian gum resin, all mixed with jasmine oil—that worked like catnip on fish. The Artuqid emir Rukn al-Din Mawdud, whose kingdom spanned the region of the Tigris River in what is now southeastern Turkey, was fascinated by such schemes. Perhaps he sensed that his own power, too, was only a fleeting illusion

Today, World Press Freedom Day, is a reminder that the struggle for freedom in Tibet is also a struggle for information

Tibetans who blog, share information or contact Tibetans in exile about their experiences of CCP rule are inevitably imprisoned. Meanwhile, independent journalists are blocked from accessing Tibet. Information that makes its way out of Tibet does so rarely and at great risk.

Carbon loss from forest degradation exceeds that from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Spatial–temporal dynamics of aboveground biomass (AGB) and forest area affect the carbon cycle, climate and biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon. Here we investigate interannual changes in AGB and forest area by analysing satellite-based annual AGB and forest area datasets. We found that the gross forest area loss was larger in 2019 than in 2015, possibly due to recent loosening of forest protection policies. However, the net AGB loss was three times smaller in 2019 than in 2015. During 2010–2019, the Brazilian Amazon had a cumulative gross loss of 4.45 Pg C against a gross gain of 3.78 Pg C, resulting in a net AGB loss of 0.67 Pg C. Forest degradation (73%) contributed three times more to the gross AGB loss than deforestation (27%), given that the areal extent of degradation exceeds that of deforestation. This indicates that forest degradation has become the largest process driving carbon loss and should become a higher policy priority.

International Dance Day

ITI Centres and Cooperating Members, prominent figures of the global dance communities and dance companies contributed more than three-hour’s beautiful dance performances videos to this online celebration. These performances, from different continents of the world, can be dances of classic and contemporary, in solo, pas de deux and group, on a stage or on any space, happening in a real venue or online. All of them combined together, are an excellent expression of the cultural diversity and the resilience of human being when facing difficulties. Just as the slogans in the International Dance Day introduction videos, let us dance together in all corners of the world to create light in the dark.

Charles Michel: out!

 

How the Spiraling Installations in Yayoi Kusama’s New Berlin Retrospective Hold Up a Mirror to Our Anxious and Repetitive Modern Lives

The indexical approach sheds light on the enduring complexities that hide in plain sight in Kusama’s obsessively painted and warping world. Though pleasurable for all the senses, a plunge into Kusama’s work offers little reprieve from the anxieties and shifting realities outside. Each decade of her oeuvre is packed with frantic energy and emotion. Boundaries are crossed, one’s psychological stamina is tested. There is a sort of endlessness to each installation that creates a frenzy of seeing as chaotic and constant as a TikTok feed.

Marie-Denise Villers: Young Woman Drawing (1801) [The painting was the cover image on ARTnews for the 1971 publication of Linda Nochlin’s article “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”]

 

Secrets of a tree whisperer: ‘They get along, they listen – they’re attuned’

Suzanne Simard revolutionized the way we think about plants and fungi with the discovery of the woodwide web. The ecologist's new book shares the wisdom of a life of listening to the forest

World Book and Copyright Day

reading and the celebration of World Book and Copyright Day, 23 April, we can open ourselves to others despite distance, and we can travel thanks to imagination

Biden vows to slash US emissions by half to meet ‘existential crisis of our time’

Joe Biden has called upon the world to confront the climate crisis and “overcome the existential crisis of our time”, as he unveiled an ambitious new pledge to slash US planet-heating emissions in half by the end of the decade.

Nomadland

A woman in her sixties, after losing everything, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad

World on the verge of climate ‘abyss’, as temperature rise continues

The six years since 2015, have been the warmest on record, and the decade beginning up to this year, was the warmest ever.

Scientists suggest that trippy hallucinations and dreams influenced prehistoric cave art

Reduced oxygen resulting from the use of torches in narrow enclosed spaces likely triggered hypoxia, resulting in out-of-body experiences, researchers report

The infiltration and undermining of Europe's economy and society by organised crime

The SOCTA 2021 provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on criminal networks and their operations based on data provided to Europol by Member States and partners and data collected specifically for the SOCTA 2021. In trying to overcome the established, and limiting, conceptualisation of organised crime groups, this assessment focuses on the roles of criminals within criminal processes and outlines how a better understanding of those roles allows for a more targeted operational approach in the fight against serious and organised crime.

Jorge Peixinho: "Sax-blue"

Daniel Kientzy, saxophones

Male brain blood vessels became denser, thinner and twisted

Male and female mouse brains, as they aged, became marked by distinct differences in the blood vessel and neural stem cell systems. Female brain blood vessels became thicker but they weren’t crowded.

Louise Bourgeois

 

Nalini Malani: Utopia!?

Witness describes seeing George Floyd 'slowly fade away'

Williams, a former wrestler who said he was trained in mixed martial arts including chokeholds, testified Monday that he thought Derek Chauvin used a shimmying motion several times to increase the pressure on Floyd. He said he yelled to the officer that he was cutting off Floyd's blood supply.

Understanding Heidegger on Technology

The  Nazis  were  opposed  to  the  two  dominant  forms  of government  of  the  day  that  Heidegger  associated  with  “global technology,”  communism  and  democracy.  In  another  of  Heidegger’s infamous  political  remarks,  made  in  that  same  1935  lecture,  he  claimed that  “Russia  and  America,  seen  metaphysically,  are  both  the  same:  the same  hopeless  frenzy  of  enchained  technology  and  of  the  rootless organization  of  the  average  man.”  The  Nazi’s  rhetoric  about  “blood  and soil”  and  the  mythology  of  an  ancient,  wise,  and  virtuous  German  Volk might  also  have  appealed  to  someone  concerned  with  the  homogenizing consequences  of  globalization  and  technology.  More  broadly,  Heidegger’s thought  always  was  and  remained  illiberal,  tending  to  encompass  all matters,  philosophy  and  politics  among  them,  in  a  single  perspective, ignoring  the  freedom  of  most  people  to  act  independently.  The  ways  in which  liberal  democracies  promote  excellence  and  useful  competition were  not  among the  political  ideas  to  which  Heidegger’s  thought  was open.  His  totalizing,  illiberal  thought  made  his  joining  the  Nazis  much more  likely  than  his  condemning  them.