Новости за 11.06.2015

Cashing in on misery? Insensitive to the victims? Too soon after the traumatic revelations? In advance of its premiere Jonathan Maitland's play has been accused of all these things. But it emerges as a responsibly shocking, well-researched, and patently honourable piece. 

The thoughtful report by David Anderson has started a new political and public conversation about monitoring communications at home and abroad.

Three years into the supposed legacy of the London Olympics, participation figures have plummeted for the second time in a year, prompting the Sports Minister to promise a new strategy.

If there was one observation in David Anderson QC’s masterly report on anti-terrorism legislation with which we can all agree it was that the present conglomeration of security laws is “incomprehensible to all but a tiny band of initiates … and – in the long run – intolerable”.

Perhaps if we simply called “forced marriage” rape many of the cultural and moral issues involved in it would fall into perspective. For that, after all, is what it is, though the rate of prosecution and conviction for forced marriage offences is even lower than that for rape. It is an unacceptable practice that has been allowed to persist for far too long, and certainly we need to acknowledge the strong ethnic and cultural bias in the statistics – the high proportion involving people of Pakistani heritage ... Читать дальше...

It is in a sense Baku’s coming out parade, the European Games, a first attempt in an expensive and wide-ranging effort to put Azerbaijan’s capital into the sporting lexicon.

I really hope that Sir Tim Hunt is a fan of “Spinal Tap”. There is a scene in Christopher Guest’s magnificent spoof rockumentary when one of the characters is accused of being sexist. “What’s wrong with being sexy?” he answers back. Please tell me that this was Sir Tim’s response when he was branded an “insensitive sexist” following some rather salty comments about the gender divide at a conference in South Korea.

Full marks again to The Independent for bringing to the public an issue which for too long has remained behind closed doors (“She was raped as a virgin ...”, 11 June). For the protection of the largely young women who are victims of forced marriage, this is one taboo which must not remain intact.

Few things are worse than the death of a baby. An innocent life is snuffed out almost before it has begun, its parents’ hopes and expectations dashed in a moment. More than 1,300 babies were killed or maimed at birth last year, each one a tragedy for their families. Britain has the second worst record in Western Europe on infant mortality. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, was among those amazed and appalled.

Why a European Games and why now?

Europe is the last continent to have its own continental Games alongside the Asian, Pan-American, All-Africa and Pacific Games. The idea was conjured up by the European Olympic Committee at its general assembly in Rome in 2012.

At last the Labour leadership candidates appear to understand they lost to the Tories because they were opposed to the Tories, which is a stance they must never take again if they ever hope to beat the Tories.

Eleanor Hawkins, the young woman from Derby currently facing obscenity charges in Malaysia, was barely a toddler at the time I behaved stupidly on Mount Kinabalu.

Over half of divorcees considered abandoning their husband or wife-to-be at the altar on their wedding day, a new study has revealed.

Laura Southern, a reporter with TheRebel, attended a SlutWalk demonstration in Vancouver yesterday and held up a placard reading “There is no rape culture in the West”.

TTIP is a Trojan horse, with an immeasurable number of corporations hidden inside of it, and it's slowly but gradually rolling our way. That’s why the European Parliament is running scared.

There has recently been more than the usual number of stories about infant feeding in the press – an uproar about a model breastfeeding on the cover of ELLE; women being asked to stop breastfeeding in shops, cafés and schools; sensationalist articles about women breastfeeding their five- and six year olds. There have also been stories about bottle-feeding mothers being made to feel inferior to breastfeeders, and a backlash to the latest breastfeeding-selfie craze on social media.

Another hit from ENO: David Alden’s production of Tchaikovsky’s enigmatic masterpiece has a sure touch and extreme boldness of conception.

Richard Strauss’s Intermezzo may be at one level about a marital tiff, while at another – with words and music written by one of the partners – being a queasy exercise in narcissism. But it’s also a probingly intimate portrait of a marriage, and this is the spirit in which director Bruno Ravella and his cast have approached it.

THUNK! The Edinburgh Fringe brochure has arrived – all 438 pages of it. This year there are 3,314 shows, of which around 1,120 are comedy. It’s enough to make even the hardiest fan quail. And while the magic of the Fringe lies in the discoveries and surprises it throws up, here are some shows that are worth booking ahead for now.

Tony Blair spoke at the third meeting of the Strand Group at King’s College, London, this morning on “How to Run a Government”, the title of the new book by Michael Barber, his former adviser.

Anstey secured his first ever Superbike victory at the Isle of Man last Sunday but nearly crashed out of the Supersport race on Monday

Beacuse nothing says summer like the swish and swirl of a maxi dress

I lower the balloon from my lips and close my eyes. Sounds begin to slow down and seem further away. I feel like I'm moving at high speed, but through what, I'm not sure. My sense of time begins to slip away. I reach the deepest point of my journey. As quickly as I arrived, I return, blinking in the sunlight.

One of notorious paedophile Jimmy Savile’s victims has described a play about the late DJ as “uncanny” and said the she felt “quite unwell” while watching.

Problems at financial firms have left people who had hoped to get access to their retirement cash under new rules that came into force in April stymied by companies’ lack of readiness for the changes.