2022/11/14
2022/09/18
Vera Molnár, the 98-Year-Old Generative Art Pioneer
Starting with the simple geometric forms that she favored—in this case concentric squares—Molnár introduced random patterns of disruption through an algorithm, giving the work a lively rhythm as the lines vibrate with variation.
2022/09/13
Jean-Luc Godard, giant of the French New Wave, dies at 91
Jean-Luc Godard, the French-Swiss director who was a key figure in the Nouvelle Vague, the film-making movement that revolutionised cinema in the late 1950s and 60s, has died aged 91. French news agency AFP reported that he died “peacefully at home” in Switzerland with his wife Anne-Marie Mieville at his side. Liberation, quoting an unnamed family member, reported that Godard’s death was assisted, which is legal in Switzerland. “He was not sick, he was simply exhausted.
2022/08/02
Life in Afghanistan & Iran and attack on Rushdie
‘They beat girls just for smiling’: life in Afghanistan one year after the Taliban’s return.
Mursal Nabizada, a former lawmaker in the Afghan parliament before the Taliban's takeover, was shot dead in her home,
eight months on, Sonia has shared an image of a head wound she says she suffered at the hands of Iranian security forces when they detained her again. She says she was dragged from her car and blindfolded, before being abducted and beaten. Hengaw, a group that monitors human rights violations in Iran, says the 17-year-old suffered multiple injuries and was "left alone in one of the streets of Abdanan after being threatened, interrogated, and tortured for more than two hours".
There has been an international outcry following the order by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to introduce an indefinite ban on university education for the country’s women.
A number of girls and women who once played a variety of sports told The Associated Press they have been intimidated by the Taliban with visits and phone calls warning them not to engage in their sports. The women and girls spoke on condition of anonymity for fear they will face further threats.
Forces said to have opened fire on crowds demonstrating over attack targeting Hazara community
Amini was on a visit with her family in the Iranian capital when she was detained by the police unit responsible for enforcing Iran's strict dress code for women. State television broadcast images on Friday purportedly showed her falling to the ground while arguing with another woman about her dress.
Allegations that 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh was beaten to death at a protest follow news of the similar death of 17-year-old Nika Shakarami
Iranian schoolchildren were being arrested inside school premises by security forces arriving in vans without licence plates, according to social media reports emerging from the country as protests against the regime entered their fourth week.
Protests follow appearance of ‘tortured’ writer on state television, while human rights group warn forced confessions on the rise as hijab laws hardened
Demonstrations under the slogan “Women, life, liberty” are taking place in many major cities, including Rome, Zurich, Paris, London, Seoul, Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney, Stockholm and New York.
after (the) murder of the young Iranian Masha Amini for not wearing the veil correctly, protests continue to spread throughout the country despite brutal police repression. According to the NGO Iran Human Rights, the death toll now stands at 215, including 27 minors. Among the latest fatalities would be Ashra Panahi, a 16-year-old student that, according to the teachers’ union of Aradabil -northwest of Iran-, would have been murdered on October 13 in a female institute in the city
Initially, it was mostly grown women who took to the streets, young and old. But then the demographic began to trend younger, with schoolgirls showing their middle finger to an image of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or chasing an official from their schoolyard. Others were recorded chanting "death to the dictator!" – to the applause of the men looking on.
Authors, publishers and government officials around the world have expressed their shock over the attack on author Salman Rushdie. Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, said: “My thoughts are with Salman and all his family. A horrible and utterly unjustified attack on someone exercising their right to speak, to write and to be true to their convictions in their life and in their art.” Rushdie has lost sight in one eye and use of one hand, says agent
2022/07/20
Five lessons from the 19th-century Crimean war
The American purchase of Alaska was another legacy. After Crimea, the young tsar knew he could not defend this distant frontier and decided to sell it to a nation with a more realistic hope of populating it someday.
2022/06/12
Uber broke laws, duped police and secretly lobbied governments
The leak also contains texts between Kalanick and Emmanuel Macron, who secretly helped the company in France when he was economy minister, allowing Uber frequent and direct access to him and his staff.
2022/06/09
Mysterious Group of Companies Tied to Bank Rossiya Unites Billions of Dollars in Assets Connected to Vladimir Putin
Lawyers for Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich argue he should not be sanctioned because his ties to the Kremlin are weak, but new documents reveal he secretly had a years-long partnership with the Russian government in a forestry venture.
The Russian president, who cultivates a public image of abstemious patriotism, has been linked to a number of luxurious properties, including a vast palace on the Black Sea, acres of surrounding vineyards, a ski resort, and a villa north of St. Petersburg.
“It looks very compelling that Whyte has been acting as a proxy for Kostin,” said Tamara Makarenko, a veteran of the business intelligence sector extensive experience investigating oligarchs.
The family of Tatyana Golikova, the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation for Social Policy, owns assets worth around $830 million, as Alexei Navalny’s team of investigators discovered. The list of real estate objects owned by the deputy prime minister’s family (Golikova herself, her husband Viktor Khristenko, and her stepson Vladimir Khristenko) features a house near Moscow with a floor area of 1,800 square meters, five villas in Europe, and several golf clubs. The investigators insist that she “earned” all this wealth by making vaccines for the national immunization campaign.
in Kyiv, a company called Milton Group threw a glitzy New Year’s party for its staff. To the strains of a pop-rock cover band, contortionists and fire-dancers whirled under neon lights as young salespeople revelled in the spoils of a record-breaking year selling investments in cryptocurrencies and stocks. The firm’s management distributed cash, cars, and other prizes. One star salesman got a free apartment for a year. But the real business of Milton Group was fraud. And even as its young employees partied in Kyiv, their victims across the world were losing their homes and assets.
Music in the brain
“the existence of music-selective responses in the brain does not imply that the responses reflect an innate brain system. An important question for the future will be how this system arises in development: How early it is found in infancy or childhood, and how dependent it is on experience?”
2022/05/09
Russian envoy to Poland hit with red paint at war cemetery
earlier in the war the Soviet forces had invaded Poland following a secret agreement with the German Nazi government, and carried out atrocities against Poles, including mass executions and deportations to Siberia.
2022/04/29
Pop Art Visionary Marisol Was All But Forgotten. Now, a New Exhibition Places Her on Equal Footing With Her Pal Andy Warhol
Certain artistic subject matter overlaps between the two as well—both make references to the Kennedys and Coca Cola. As a Venezuelan artist, however, Marisol’s handling of these themes hints at the very real political implications of American expansionism in South America. The totemic qualities of her sculptures, too, hint at Pre-Columbian traditions. Materially, the artists were diametrically distinct; Marisol’s works are made from the hands-on process of carpentry, while Warhol’s devoted himself to silkscreening, which detached the artist’s hand.
2022/03/24
Navalny: Putin critic given nine-year jail sentence in trial branded 'sham'
Despite being behind bars, he has called for protests against what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine. His supporters now fear that as a result, he might be placed in a maximum security prison as well as receiving an increased sentence. Russia's crackdown on any platform that contradicts the Kremlin's line continues. Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, has been declared an extremist organisation; more media outlets are regularly blocked and a new law that can lead to up to 15 years in jail for anything the authorities consider to be fake news about the military has led many independent journalists to leave the country.
2022/03/22
A project to track down and catalogue the vast wealth held outside Russia by oligarchs and key figures close to Russian President
Early in his presidency, Putin earned praise for bringing to heel the tycoons who had plundered Russia’s economy in the 1990s. Some signaled their loyalty to him, securing their wealth and their place in the new order.
2022/03/14
Tibet: mass detention; systematic surveillance; widespread torture
Millions in forced labour camps. And the attempt to erase a people’s history and culture. These abuses are the product of one man, Chen Quanguo. And worst of all, the world allowed him to carry them out twice.
2022/03/11
How a network of enablers have helped Russia’s oligarchs hide their wealth abroad
close to 20% of the country’s wealth is stashed in offshore jurisdictions like Cyprus, the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands — even the United States.
Holodomor, an engineered famine that killed anywhere from 4 to 10 million people in Ukraine during a single winter
It’s a hard lesson that Stalin murdered upwards of 20 million people while trying to modernize and industrialize Russia. It’s hard to see that his crimes were ecological and environmental, and those ecological crimes killed millions. It’s hard to read about gulags and secret police rounding up innocents by the thousands, for all kinds of reasons, even not clapping for his birthday. It’s even harder to accept Stalin is just the worst, most obvious example of a common theme in humanity. He’s not the only monster. He’s a pattern.
2022/02/26
Russia’s Syria Intervention Paved the Way for its Attack on Ukraine
Media accounts report that long-range, nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 bombers and MiG-31K strike fighter jets carrying the latest Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missiles landed at the Russian air base in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia as part of the drills. Russian amphibious assault vessels docked at Tartous for refueling and maintenance before departing to the Black Sea for Ukraine-related military drills and deployment.
2022/02/22
Why do some nations fail while others succeed?
"whether or not a nation succeeds or fails depends on how the people in that society themselves organize that society"
Around 30% of those born in Portugal aged between 15 and 39 decided to emigrate. According to figures from the Emigration Observatory and reported by Expresso, this percentage corresponds to more than 850,000 people.
2022/02/13
“Looking at what Portugal's score has been over the last 10 years, [this] shows a worrying stagnation"
Portugal, through 6 national and 10 regional programmes, benefitted from EU funding of EUR 29.4 billion under the 2014-2020 ESIF programmes. This represented an average of 2 820 euro per person in the 2014 population.
“Looking at what Portugal's score has been over the last 10 years, [this] shows a worrying stagnation,
The key question now, though, is what will Portugal to address the still serious short-comings in the rule of law that still exist on its own doorstep. The Council of Europe has also been critical of Portugal over several years.
Domestic violence' Second most reported crime amounting to 8% of all crime. 84% of victims were female. 23% of cases there were previous incidence of violence. Tragically in 35% of cases these were witnessed by children. 78% victims and perpetrators current or formerly partners. 2019 – 29,400 cases up 11.5%
Yet another less than transparent situation has been flagged by Público in the wake of the hugely embarrassing Abramovich probe. It now seems that, along with various Russian oligarchs and sundry business leaders...
The blaze – that was almost certainly the work of arson – has now devoured large areas of the Serra da Estrela natural park.
The firefighters ... accused by the Public Prosecution Service (MP) of causing forest fires in Lisbon district, between 2017 and 2018, have appeared the Court
Approximately one fifth of Portuguese citizens live abroad, according to World Bank data. A total of 860,000 people have left the country since the beginning of austerity in 2011, with government efforts to convince young people to return through fiscal incentives largely unsuccessful.
The huge scandal of sexual abuse of children in the century-old state educational institution of Lisbon, which caused a lot of ink to flow in the Portuguese and international media, broke on 23 November 2002 with a report by journalist Felícia Cabrita published in the weekly Expresso newspaper and a report on SIC TV, of the same business group
One of the difficult chapters to deal with will be the cover-up of cases by the Catholic hierarchy, a detail in several of the testimonies presented in Portugal.
2022/02/10
Portuguese monstrosities
On May 7, 1996, a detainee was killed, beheaded, and his body and head were hidden in different places at the GNR station in Sacavém.
A 37-year-old man, Public Security Police (PSP) officer, was accused of three crimes of sexual abuse against a minor, his 12-year-old niece, diagnosed with autism
GNR soldiers filmed themselves torturing immigrants in Odemira
... the boys describe that they tried to flee, but were attacked with batons, punches and kicks. Three of the friends were then taken to the police vehicle and, they say, blindfolded with their own shirts and attacked again until they reached the Trofa GNR
The gang were also threatening to make their victims’ daily business activities impossible if they failed to comply. Suspicion was first directed to police officers owing to their ostentatious lifestyles that seemed incompatible with the GNR officers’ earnings.
José Braz and another colleague from the PSP, who was also stationed in the Torres Vedras area, were dedicated to illegal security, participated in aggressions and were allegedly bribed to control, with the Police, any complaints that ran against their accomplices. As for the guard João Pina, from the GNR, who worked in the Torres Vedras Traffic detachment, he was detained for corruption.
two police (PSP) officers, who appear on a list of 15 defendants, were arrested by the Judiciary Police (PJ) when accompanying a shipment of 375 kilos of cocaine between the port of Setúbal and a warehouse in Azambuja. They were in uniform, with service weapons, and, according to the MP's accusation, they helped remove the drug from the banana container.
Cascais police in court accused of setting up a trafficking and corruption network: the main suspects accessed the police database to use information in exchange for which they issued threats or demanded money; created a parallel activity to that of the police and developed private security services for people or companies, services or favors in exchange for money or influence
The Court of Appeal of Porto confirmed the sentence of 13 years and six months in jail imposed by the Court of Penafiel to José Coelho, head of the prison guard accused of introducing drugs in the Paços de Ferreira prison. The sentences of Mário Barros (10 years) and Diamantino Oliveira (6 years and three months) were also confirmed. In question, crimes of drug trafficking, active and passive corruption and money laundering
Despite being accused, for now for omission of assistance and illegal exercise of private security, neither the security guards nor the company Prestibel will be subject to PSP sanctions, at least until the conclusion of the judicial process. The lawyer for the family of Ihor, José Schwalbach, confesses to being "scared" that these security guards remain at work
images that show the victim talking to two police (PSP) officers near Setúbal train station, Nuno Jorge Pires being found about 200 meters ahead with a head injury that, according to the autopsy, may be compatible with a blow
A key witness who alerted authorities to Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian Brueckner has claimed that he let slip that she “didn’t scream” when she was kidnapped. In his first public interview, Helge Busching explained that his former acquaintance appeared to incriminate himself in the disappearance of the three-year-old girl (the Portuguese authorities tried to incriminate the girl's parents!)
witnesses say a group of about 15 men (in Bragança) approached Luis Giovani dos Santos Rodrigues and two of his friends armed with belts, sticks and other weapons. The report goes on to say that Rodrigues was beaten and left unconscious with bruises to his head. He spent 10 days in the hospital before succumbing to his injuries
The commander of the Volunteer Firefighters ... about three dozen firefighters from this corporation, two military personnel, security guards and pre-hospital emergency technicians, are among the “clients” who requested these false certificates.
Jessica’s mother would have gone to the false nursemaid, Ana Cristina, to do a “witchcraft job” and maintain her relationship with the girl’s stepfather. The debt, of 400 euros, would be behind the kidnapping of the girl, held by her captors for five days and beaten into a state of agony.
A child murder case that horrified the nation for its callous brutality has seen perpetrators Sandro and Márcia Bernardo sent to jail for 25 years and 18 years and nine months respectively. The duo rose to national infamy after ‘pretending’ Sandro’s nine-year-old daughter Valentina Fonseca had mysteriously gone missing
The Judiciary Police are looking for Luís Lopes' accomplice who helped him to dismember and hide the corpse of Valdene Mendes
Maria Malveiro and Mariana Fonseca were a couple and were accused of being responsible for the death of Diogo Gonçalves, aged 21, in 2020. The death was caused by suffocation and the young man's body was later dismembered, with the body parts of Diogo Gonçalves being found in different areas of the Algarve, such as Sagres and Tavira
"... sexually abused, repeatedly, in various circumstances and places, by her father", "with the consent and participation of her mother".
One refers to an alleged pedophile in Faro accused of no less than 100,000 crimes; another to a former firefighter accused of causing 18 fires in Alfândega da Fé.
Several footballers who played in Rio Ave in 2020/21 denounced sexual harassment by the then coach of the Vila do Conde club, Miguel Afonso, who was currently the coach of Famalicão.
114 young people were rescued from the Bsports Academy, in Riba d'Ave, being in reception centers to be given to their respective families in Latin America, Africa and Asia. At stake are suspicions of trafficking in human beings that led Mário Costa, president of the General Assembly of Liga Portugal and Bsports Portugal, to be accused by the Public Ministry in the case
"What Tiago Guedes calls 'agreeing', I call censorship, emotional blackmail, coercion, threat and abuse of power", reads a publication by Tiago Correia, on the social network Facebook, about not publishing a text by the playwright Regina Guimarães, in the theater sheet of the show "Turismo", which was on stage at the Campo Alegre auditorium at Teatro Municipal do Porto (TMPorto).
From the 18-question survey, which was addressed to 1,052 students aged between 17 and 30, it was found that many students had been victims of sexual violence at least once.
"increase in the number of rapes committed by unknown persons or individuals unrelated to the victim and in the number of individuals from younger age groups constituted as defendants seem to be the indicators that will, in the future, deserve particular attention".
The Judiciary Police arrested a 26-year-old man for sexually abusing four children between the ages of seven and nine in the municipality of Loures, in Lisbon
A 39-year-old man was detained by the Judiciary Police (PJ) for being heavily indicted for committing aggravated crimes of kidnapping, rape and pornography that targeted a 13-year-old minor, in Vila do Conde. the same defendant allegedly committed identical acts in Póvoa de Varzim,
A 33-year-old man is suspected of sexually abusing his 14-year-old daughter in Vila Nova de Gaia. He was detained by the Judiciary Police and will await trial in preventive detention.
A 40-year-old defendant, suspected of having abused a 12-year-old partner's daughter, had already served effective prison sentences for the same type of crimes
Grandfather in custody for sexual abuse of his granddaughter in Ponte de Sor
A man was arrested for sexually abusing a 10-year-old child in Santa Maria da Feira
A 27-year-old man was detained by the Judiciary Police of Braga for being "suspected of the possible practice of several crimes of aggravated child sexual abuse"
A 58-year-old farmer was arrested in the Bragança area on suspicion of sexually abusing a child, currently aged 13
Two men, aged 47 and 59, were detained in the Azores due to "strong indications of committing crimes of rape and sexual coercion", According to the Judiciary Police, the victims were "two children and a teenager, aged 11, 12 and 16".
The Madeira PJ arrested a 28-year-old man on Tuesday for allegedly committing the crime of sexual abuse of children, of which two minors, currently aged 14 and 13, were victims.
A 31-year-old man was arrested by the Judiciary Police (PJ) for strong indications of having sexually abused a minor in his family circle, in Algarve
Catholic clergy in Portugal have abused at least 4,815 children since 1950, an independent commission said
Reports that paedophiles were using Casa Pia orphanages to source victims surfaced in the early 1980s but they were swept under the carpet. Teresa Costa Macedo, a senior government official, said she informed the country's then president, General Ramalho Eanes, and provided photographic evidence. But the photographs were "lost" by police and Mrs Macedo said she was also intimidated by phone calls from anonymous callers. "They said they would kill me, flay me and a lot of other things," she recalled.
2022/01/27
Holocaust Remembrance Day
On the morning of 27 January 1945 the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps still held some 7,000 prisoners. Over a million people deported to Auschwitz perished there. It is estimated that six million Jews were exterminated in the death camps.
2022/01/09
Six journalists killed in Europe in 2021, 95 more in prison
In Europe, the number of murders of journalists has tripled this year compared to the previous two years. In 2021, the International and European Federations of Journalists have recorded six murders of journalists on the European continent: Hazım Özsu, shot dead in his home in Turkey; TV reporter Giorgos Karaivaz, gunned down outside his home in Greece; journalists Maharram Ibrahimov and Siraj Abishov, killed by a landmine explosion in Azerbaijan; crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, shot in the head in The Netherlands; and journalist Aleksandre Lashkarava who died after being severely beaten in Georgia
The prominent Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries, who was shot and seriously wounded in central Amsterdam, has died.
Artist Sarah Morris on Why She Started Painting Spiderwebs During Lockdown
Since the mid-1990s, Morris has honed a visual language of geometric, color-blocked paintings and installations that derive from the man-made structures and systems of cities around the world. She devotes entire series to individual locations (Los Angeles, Midtown Manhattan, Washington D.C., Beijing… the list goes on) and ponders the public transportation, architecture, and industries.
Charting the Storm
German artist Benedikt Partenheimer (b. 1977) uses concept-led photography and subtle optical tricks to reveal the invisible effects of climate change. A new book from Hatje Cantz, The Weather Is Fine, gathers together a career’s worth of such images
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)