Brazil's Amazon: Deforestation 'surges to 12-year high'

The rainforest lost 11,088km2 of its vegetation between August 2019 and July 2020, marking an increase of 9.5% from previous 12 months, Inpe's data shows.

Belarus: a terrorist State

The experts also received reports of violence against women and children, including sexual abuse and rape with rubber batons, and said: “The State must do everything in its power to prevent, investigate and punish any form of abuse, including violence against women, whether those acts are perpetrated by the State or by other actors.” Among some 6,700 people detained in recent weeks while exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly are journalists and passers-by who were arbitrarily arrested and hastily sentenced.

The Belarusian protests: feminized, but feminist?

The overt violence seen today was being committed before, but behind closed doors. Now that the violence is out in the open it will be harder to ignore; the hope is that this will inspire a national conversation about domestic violence. Dzesiatava draws parallels between an abusive domestic relationship and that of the regime and the Belarusian people. Bias noted the same thing, adding that “the most dangerous moment for someone in an abusive relationship is when they decide to leave”

Belarus’s protests are fueled by an unprecedented civil society movement

People have united in the face of blatant injustice. But why was it this particular election that proved to be the tipping point? “Now it’s different. Belarusians made a sharp leap thanks to the generational change,” says Minsk-based sociologist Alena Artsiomenka. “People who grew up in the post-Perestroika era are more inclined to contribute to the society’s well-being. Those who were brought up in more stable and safe conditions are more interested in post-materialistic values.”

More than 200 arrested in renewed Belarus protests

Thousands of people took to the streets on Friday for the funeral of 31-year-old anti-government protester Roman Bondarenko, who died in hospital earlier this month following what demonstrators said was a severe beating by security forces.

Marriage Disproportionally Benefits Men

Marriage benefits men more than it does women. Married men are happier and healthier than their unmarried counterparts, their careers also benefit, and married men are more likely than unmarried men to be in the top 1% of earners. On the other hand, women’s health doesn’t improve significally with marriage. In fact, women’s health is much more tied to the quality of the marriage. While even bad marriages seem to benefit men, women’s health suffers a bigger impact than men’s if the marriage is bad.

The total number of living languages in the world cannot be known precisely

That number changes as knowledge of the world’s languages improves. This edition lists a total of 7,117 living languages worldwide—a net increase of 6 living languages since the 22nd edition of Ethnologue was published 

Music has the capacity to elicit strong positive feelings in humans by activating the brain’s reward system

we identified two specific patterns of chills: a decreased theta activity in the right central region, which could reflect supplementary motor area activation during chills and may be related to rhythmic anticipation processing, and a decreased theta activity in the right temporal region, which may be related to musical appreciation and could reflect the right superior temporal gyrus activity. The alpha frontal/prefrontal asymmetry did not reflect the felt emotional pleasure, but the increased frontal beta to alpha ratio (measure of arousal) corresponded to increased emotional ratings. 

One end-of-life study suggests the brain still registers the last sounds a person will ever hear

Traveling into the ear, the vibrations we hear get converted into electrical signals. Then it’s off to the brain, where scientists are still unraveling what happens next.

One of the biggest thefts of public funds in Russia: a $230 million tax fraud revealed by Magnitsky, a Moscow accountant

In 2012, OCCRP, Novaya Gazeta, and Barron’s identified Prevezon Holdings as a beneficiary of money originating from one of the biggest thefts of public funds in Russia: a $230 million tax fraud revealed by Magnitsky, a Moscow accountant. Russian authorities turned the tables, accusing Magnitsky of the fraud he had exposed. He died in prison from suspected abuse and lack of medical treatment.

Berman was fired by Trump in June. He is the second high-profile prosecutor dealing with the Prevezon case to be removed by the Trump administration, following the 2017 firing of Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney who filed the money laundering case against Prevezon.

Lita Cabellut Creates Evocative Portraits Using Renaissance Fresco Techniques

The Spanish-born, Hague-based painter Lita Cabellut’s impassioned portraits sometimes depict cultural figures who have nestled their way into her imagination, like Frida Kahlo and Coco Chanel. Other times, the figures are strangers that Cabellut has encountered on the street. Over the decades, she’s captivated an international audience with her paintings and unique process, a contemporary variation of the fresco technique—meaning she must work quickly.

#LhamoAct

Just one day after Lhamo’s death, Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, told a U.N. conference on women that the “protection of women’s rights and interests must become a national commitment.” The Chinese internet seized on the speech. And soon, people were calling for stronger enforcement of the domestic violence law using the hashtag #LhamoAct. Within a day, the hashtag had been censored on Weibo, one of China’s most popular social media platforms. 

Ethiopia is spiralling out of control

Reports from the war front indicate a massacre of Amhara civilians. Reports from Addis Ababa and other towns tell of the mass round-up and internment of Tigrayans.

From Space to Sound

Elements of the image, like brightness and position, are assigned pitches and volumes. Each translation below begins on the left side of the image and moves to the right. No sound can travel in space, but sonifications provide a new way of experiencing and conceptualizing data. Sonifications allow the audience, including blind and visually impaired communities, to “listen” to astronomical images and explore their data.

The FinCEN Files

The FinCEN Files investigation is based on thousands of “suspicious activity reports” and other US government documents that BuzzFeed News has shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 news organizations around the world. It offers an unprecedented view of global financial corruption, the banks enabling it, and the government agencies that fail to stop it.

Secretive high-end art world can be vehicle for dirty money

The United States Treasury Department is putting art galleries and museums on notice over the high risks of financial crime in their trade, warning that various aspects of the art industry makes “it attractive to those engaged in illicit financial activity, including sanctions evasion.”

Heller also advises Dasha Zhukova, the ex-wife of Putin-aligned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and a longtime friend of the Kushner-Trumps.

J.M.W. Turner, Radical Critic of the Anthropocene

When Turner draws the Houses of Parliament as they burned down in 1834, an event that was, to many contemporaries, a fitting fate for oligarchy and corruption, a seething crowd watches the Biblical light show. You imagine the cheers. Even a deadly pandemic may take a mythic shape. A ghastly skeleton collapses on its steed amid a hellish fog in a canvas of 1833 captioned The Fall of Anarchy.

Biden's Transition Team Is Stuffed With Amazon, Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb Personnel

The Biden-Harris team’s picks include executives at notoriously badly-behaving companies, such as Uber and Amazon. Crucially, some team members have worked to support gig companies’ assault on labor in recent years,

Biden and Harris speak in Delaware following election win

Harris, the first Black woman and first South Asian American woman to become vice president-elect, began her victory speech by quoting the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who said, “Democracy is not a state, it’s not an act.” “Protecting our democracy takes struggle, takes sacrifice,” she said. “But there’s joy in it.” She continued: “We the people have the power to build a better future. And when our very democracy was on the ballot in this election and the very soul of America was at stake and the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America.”

Partisan campaigners, rude poll workers, and armed police made voting uncomfortable for Indigenous voters. And yet, they helped the Democrats take the state.

Vienna islamist attack

the victims were an older man, an older woman, a young passerby and a waitress “Seven people are seriously injured and we’re dealing with bullet as well as stab wounds,” A spokeswoman for the health association said that in total 17 people were injured in the attack and they are being treated at several hospitals in the Austrian capital. the attacker who was shot dead by police was 20 years old and had north Macedonian roots, 

Kabul University islamist attack

an Islamic State-affiliated group of militants in Afghanistan killed at least 22 people during an assault on a Kabul University book fair, taking hostages and fighting gun battles with security forces for more than five hours.

Belarus: Detained protesters 'repeatedly beaten' and abused in post-election crackdown

Conditions for those stuck in Belarus' detention centres are reportedly appalling. One video verified by Euronews' social media newsdesk The Cube shows protesters held in a Minsk detention centre. Security guards can be seen roughly treating and occasionally beating prisoners.

Shooting of priest in Lyon shocks France as two more held over Nice killings

French police were hunting a gunman who shot and seriously injured a Greek Orthodox priest in the city of Lyon