Ahmad Jamal, influential jazz pianist, dies aged 92

The trumpeter Miles Davis once said: “All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal,” writing in his memoir that his friend had “knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, and the way he phrases notes and chords and passages”.

Top Kremlin critic gets 25 years

Kara-Murza reacted calmly as the judge read the verdict and sentence in a quick monotone. His lawyer, Maria Eismont, later quoted him as telling her: “My self-esteem has risen: I realized that I have done everything right. Twenty-five years is the highest appraisal that I could get for doing what I did and what I believed in, as a citizen, a patriot and a politician.”

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has been sentenced to 19 more years in jail on extremism charges that he has dismissed as an attempt to silence him. Navalny condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine: “[Russia is] floundering in a pool of either mud or blood, with broken bones, with a poor and robbed population, and around it lie tens of thousands of people killed in the most stupid and senseless war of the 21st century,” he said.

Supporters of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday that they had lost contact with him and that they have been unable to ascertain his whereabouts for almost a week.

Western sanctions are meant to prevent Russia from supplying its military from abroad, but sensitive electronics are still getting through. Reporters traced several of these supply chains through Kazakhstan — and found that they run through companies newly established by Russians.

April 2, 1976: Max and Maria de Lurdes

On April 2, 1976, Max, 33 years old, and student Maria de Lurdes, 19, were traveling in a car when a bomb was triggered that killed them. The attack took place at Cumieira - VilaReal - Portugal. Decades later, the perpetrators of the death of Max and student Maria de Lurdes have yet to be identified. Over the years, suspicion of the crime fell on the MDLP, one of the extreme right bomb groups of the post-April 25th,

‘Five Minutes of Jazz’ man dies

José Duarte, an unavoidable figure in the dissemination of jazz, also appeared on television, on RTP2, with programs such as “Outras Músicas”, in the 1990s, and “Jazz a Preto e Branco”, in 2001.

Warm-toned abstract paintings using dots and lines

Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s warm-toned abstract paintings use dots and lines specific to her Aboriginal heritage to create immersive works of art. The painter’s somewhat expressionistic style is a testament to the genre’s global footprint that extended beyond, and came before, the work of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. 

In remembrance of Phyllida Barlow (1944–2023)

Phyllida Barlow was one of the most important British sculptors of her generation, whose work often transformed quotidian materials—plywood, cardboard, cement, fabric, plastic—into what she called “very impractical and very illogical” pieces of unexpected beauty

Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in the small town of Galesburg

Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in the small town of Galesburg, Illinois in the United States. She died in 2012 in New York, aged 101. Amazingly, she continued to create art and poetry until the end of her life

The Encyclopedia of the Dance

In the centuries since there have been gifted sisters whose lives were less anguished—Maria Anna (“Nannerl”) Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn, Gwen John—but who were long overshadowed by their more eminent brothers. In our time, however, these sister-artists are being given fresh attention and revaluation. None is more remarkable than Bronislava Nijinska, the radical dancer-choreographer sister of the legendary radical dancer-choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Yet Lynn Garafola’s La Nijinska: Choreographer of the Modern is the first full-length biography of this singular creator.

Signed bocklets sent to Sorbonne University, Paris, at care of its Presidency, to be perserved as rare objects

 

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. 

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. 

Bartók: Konzert für Orchester

hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Karina Canellakis

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

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.

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.

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?”

Sibelius: Sinfonie 2

hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Susanna Mälkki

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.

Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 | Leif Segerstam

Turku Philharmonic Orchestra

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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

Firm action to prevent portuguese police ill-treatment and ensure that cases are effectively investigated

The Council of Europe's Anti-Torture Committee (CPT) has recommended that the Portuguese authorities take firm action to prevent police ill-treatment and ensure that alleged cases are effectively investigated.

images that show the victim talking to two police 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

"Humans - along with many other species - would expire due to their inability to shed this heat through sweat, cooling their bodies"

Himalayan glaciers are undergoing rapid mass loss but rates of contemporary change lack long-term (centennial-scale) context.

"Widespread temperatures of between 40C to 50C, and even greater daily extremes, compounded by high levels of humidity would ultimately seal our fate. "Humans - along with many other species - would expire due to their inability to shed this heat through sweat, cooling their bodies."

Sakharov Prize 2021: Parliament honours Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny’s daughter Daria Navalnaya received the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize on behalf of her imprisoned father at a ceremony on 15 December.

Pandora Papers journalists face government backlash for investigating financial secrecy

Even as governments worldwide responded to the Pandora Papers with major financial reforms, other governments and their supporters responded with legal and regulatory crackdowns, legal threats and verbal attacks against the journalists who produced the blockbuster exposé of the offshore financial system.

Changes in permafrost in the 21st century

There is high confidence that permafrost temperatures will continue to increase, and that there will be increases in active layer thickness and reductions in the area of permafrost in the Arctic and subarctic 

New Research Directly Links Western Fashion Brands to Deforestation

the global garment industry’s role as a major polluter is often overlooked by consumers. But recent years have seen it described as “the world’s second most polluting industry”, after only oil, while according to the World Bank, it’s responsible for more carbon emissions than international flights and maritime shipping combined.

Celebrated Brazilian classical pianist Nelson Freire has died

Freire, who is remembered as one of the greatest pianists of the second half of the 20th century, passed away during the night on Sunday 31 October, in Rio de Janeiro

Total has known that burning fossil fuels was causing climate change since the 1970s

The oil giant knew their core business was causing global warming almost 50 years ago. They covered up the truth, funded misinformation, lied to their shareholders and the public. They made profit from pollution.

Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov win Nobel peace prize

Maria Ressa, the chief executive and cofounder of Rappler, and Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, were named as this year’s laureates by Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee

The Pandora Papers

Millions of leaked documents and the biggest journalism partnership in history have uncovered financial secrets of 35 current and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, and a global lineup of fugitives, con artists and murderers.

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.