Новости за 30.08.2018

FOR more than 500 years guns have been responsible for meting out violence. A new paper published in JAMA, a medical journal, by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington provides perhaps the best global estimates to date of how severe that violence is.

LIKE many Americans, your correspondent was introduced to Neil Simon through a high-school production of one of his plays (“Brighton Beach Memoirs”, in this case). Mr Simon’s best works are so well-crafted—so tight, funny and rhythmic—that the jokes land even when they are tossed around by a bunch of clumsy teenagers.

A good roof for an earthquake

LAST September two category-five hurricanes battered the Caribbean. First came Irma, which hit a cluster of islands in the region’s north-east and then Florida. Maria arrived two weeks later, hammering Dominica, an island state with a population of 74,000, on September 18th, and Puerto Rico two days later. Between them, the hurricanes caused colossal damage. In Puerto Rico alone, more than 3,000 people may have died in the six months since Maria struck. Читать дальше...

Practising safe winemaking

CHILDREN in Havana use them as slingshots. At birthday parties and concerts they are makeshift balloons. Women use them to secure their ponytails. Drivers use lubricated ones to shine the dashboards of their vintage Chevys. Revellers sneak them into nightclubs, filled with rum. Fishermen use inflated ones as floats. Winemakers stretch them over the necks of large glass bottles, which they use instead of oak casks. An erect one means fermentation is still producing... Читать дальше...

SEPTEMBER will sizzle with political intrigue in Thailand. The prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, has announced that his military government will shortly begin discussions with political parties about restoring democracy. Every year since his junta came to power in a coup in 2014, it has promised—and failed—to hold an election. This time it may actually keep its word. The tentative date is February 24th. Mr Prayuth has also said that he will declare in the coming month whether he intends to remain in politics... Читать дальше...

“THE age of bitterness has come to a close,” Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, declared on August 27th, three days after a feud within the right-of-centre Liberal Party toppled his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull. Mr Morrison, the former treasurer, became prime minister almost by default, after a hard-right faction within the party launched a failed bid for the leadership. He has assembled a “new generation team” (consisting mainly of ageing white males) and promises to “begin the process of healing”. Читать дальше...

THE library at Woodgrove Primary School has been turned into a “MakerSpace”. After regular lessons end at around 2pm, pupils sign up for sessions like 3D design, stop-motion film-making and coding for robots. Instructors leave the children to it once they have explained how things work. The overall message is that it’s OK to fail, says a teacher. On a Thursday afternoon just after the summer break, one young boy stops to explain that these sessions make a nice change: if he wasn’t here, he would only be studying at home. Читать дальше...

One of the lucky ones

A YEAR ago insurgents armed mostly with makeshift weapons attacked a series of police posts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, killing a dozen security personnel. In response, the Burmese army led a pogrom against the Rohingyas, a downtrodden Muslim minority in whose name the insurgents had launched the attacks. More than 700,000 fled to nearby Bangladesh to escape the violence. But the scale of the atrocities has been hard to confirm, since the Burmese authorities have restricted access to the affected area. Читать дальше...

It could have been a speedboat

THIS week was supposed to be a time for celebration in the Indian state of Kerala, with feasts, dancing and boat races to mark the harvest festival of Onam. But as the waters recede from what may be the state’s worst floods in a century, few are feeling festive. More than a million people were displaced by the downpours. The state government would like to accept foreign aid to help speed reconstruction, but the central authorities are turning it away.

For more than a decade... Читать дальше...

THIS week’s column comes from the top of Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands hotel and casino. Its author would not like his readers—not to mention The Economist’s bosses—to think this his usual perch. It is true that the “Skypark”, a 340-metre-long curved platform set on three, 55-storey towers, is perhaps the most spectacular man-made vantage point in Asia. It is a bold monument to 21st-century Asian consumerism, all the more fitting for its tacky faux-Angkor columns and an infinity pool more crowded than a London lido in a heatwave. Читать дальше...

Much to grumble about, all the way home

WHEN loudspeakers in Kouzi, a village in the eastern province of Shandong, blared out urgent warnings of floodwaters heading downriver towards them, residents were anxious, but they did not panic. They had been told it would be another day before the crest would reach them, and that the water would not cause extensive damage. They took precautions to protect their property as best they could and left as ordered. When they returned a day later... Читать дальше...

TUCKED away in a corner on Gerrard Street, in the heart of London’s Chinatown, three middle-aged Chinese women sit on the ground, their legs tightly crossed, in silent meditation. A deafening loudspeaker behind them blasts out a stream of invective against the Chinese Communist Party. Before long, one of them gets up and starts handing out flyers to passers-by. But pedestrians from China who are approached by the woman grimace and dart away. Most do not even bother to glance at the meditators... Читать дальше...

ACCORDING to the National Honey Board, per person consumption of the regurgitated nectar has doubled in America since the 1990s. As demand has increased, prices have followed. Domestic production has not. In 2016 American bees produced 73,000 tonnes of honey, or 35% less than they did 20 years ago. This has given honey-sellers an incentive to dilute it with cheaper things like corn, rice and beet syrup. According to the US Pharmacopeia’s Food Fraud Database, honey is now the third-favourite food target for adulteration... Читать дальше...

DESPITE making heavy use of their platforms, the 45th president is no fan of America’s big tech firms. Nor is he a fan of the press. On August 28th, President Donald Trump took a swipe at both by accusing Google of rigging its search results in favour of “Fake News”. As evidence, the president claimed that 96% of search results for “Trump News” were articles from the “National Left-Wing Media”. Larry Kudlow, the president’s economic adviser, said that the Trump administration is considering regulating how Google presents its results. Читать дальше...

JANETTE MILLER wasn’t exactly surprised when her daughter came out as transgender five years ago. A feminist who rarely wears make-up or dresses, she brought Rachel up to disregard gender stereotypes (these are not their real names). As a child Rachel enjoyed rough-and-tumble play; as a teenager, she dated a girl. What shocked Ms Miller was her daughter’s declaration that she wished to make her body more masculine by taking testosterone and having a mastectomy. “She had never once said, ‘I feel like a boy’,” says Ms Miller. Читать дальше...

AS REPUBLICAN voters turned out in Phoenix on August 28th to nominate a successor to Senator Jeff Flake, Arizona’s capital was festooned with memorials to his colleague John McCain. On the rocky knolls that scatter the sprawling, low-rise city, American flags drooped at half-staff. Billboards gave thanks for Mr McCain’s service. The state capitol building was being readied to receive his body, ahead of its journey to Washington, DC. The leading contenders to replace Mr Flake, Martha McSally and Kelli Ward... Читать дальше...

BARELY a week seems to pass without news of fresh Western sanctions against Russia. Sergei Elkin, one of Russia’s most popular cartoonists, recently captured the mood with a caricature of a hapless-looking Vladimir Putin holding a cell phone to his ear. “To hear more information about new sanctions, press one,” read the caption.

Where have all the young men (and women) gone?

“NAKED, we are equal,” proclaims Ida Karkiainen. The Swedish MP is addressing a packed hall at the 17th International Sauna Congress in Tornio, Finland. She draws a round of applause from the crowd, a mix of sauna entrepreneurs and enthusiasts from Europe and Japan, along with a few North Americans. It is important, Ms Karkiainen continues, that both sexes sit nude in the sauna together. After all, political and business deals are often made in the swirling steam... Читать дальше...

THE end of the Yugoslav wars 20 years ago left hundreds of thousands of people in states they did not regard as their own. Tough, said the peacemakers: redrawing borders would only lead to more conflict. As a result, some 120,000 Serbs remain in ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo; some 60,000 ethnic Albanians live in the Presevo valley in Serbia.

Paisley’s for the high jump

“GET him out! Get him out!” calls a middle-aged woman hurrying along a damp Ballymena street in North Antrim. “He’s a muppet!” Ian Paisley, the local Democratic Unionist MP, may be used to this sort of criticism from nationalist opponents. But he now finds himself under fire from both sides of Northern Ireland’s political divide. “I always vote DUP,” says the woman, “but I think he has done wrong—absolutely.”

Her judgment is in line with the House of Commons... Читать дальше...

See that girl, watch that scene

JUST as actors should never work with animals, so politicians should probably never dance, at least in public. Nelson Mandela could carry it off. But Theresa May’s attempt at a boogie with some pupils at a school in Cape Town at the start of a three-day tour of the continent merely looked awkward—much like Britain’s wider relationship with Africa these days.

The prime minister’s visit this week to South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, with 29 business people in tow... Читать дальше...

EVEN as Brexit negotiations are being speeded up, talk of missed deadlines and a possible no-deal outcome seems to grow. That strengthens the groups such as People’s Vote and Best for Britain that are campaigning for a referendum on any Brexit deal, with an option to remain in the European Union instead. Polls on whether people want another vote are inconclusive and often heavily dependent on the question’s wording. But if Parliament cannot agree to a deal and the alternative becomes to leave without one... Читать дальше...