Новости за 11.07.2017

The tragic case of Charlie Gard will be reconsidered by the High Court in London on July 13. Since its first ruling in April, baby Charlie’s plight has attracted international attention, including comments from the Pope and Donald Trump.

Just gigging? shutterstock.com

The government’s independent review on modern working practices in the UK contains some important messages. Put together by Matthew Taylor, head of the RSA think tank and former policy chief to Tony Blair, the review highlights the fact that job creation alone is not sufficient to create a “thriving economy and fair society”. Rather, progress is also needed to create “better jobs”. The focus on the quality of work underscores a broader goal to promote “good quality work for all”. Читать дальше...

Jeff Bezos – the billionaire founder of Amazon with a net worth of over US$80 billion – has asked Twitter for advice on how to donate to charity.

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The desire to design and deliver an industrial strategy for the UK was shaped in its earliest days by a then lowly young politician called Winston Churchill. And the current government has put the idea back at the centre of British politics. The trick, however, will be to acknowledge just how big the job is, and how many disparate elements must come together to make it work.

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Imagine a world where everyone can perfectly understand each other. Language is translated as we speak, and awkward moments of trying to be understood are a thing of the past.

Forget Old McDonald, today's farmers are a more diverse crowd. Shutterstock

Farming these days is more about brains than brawn. Whereas it used to focus on physical labour, a farmer these days is just as likely to be found on a comfortable tractor using satellite technology to collect data about crops and soil.

UK Parliament, CC BY-NC

Theresa May, the UK prime minister, has suspended the Conservative party whip from backbench MP Anne Marie Morris for using a racist phrase – effectively expelling her from the party, at least temporarily.

The spacecraft will cruise for years before it reaches Mercury. ESA, CC BY-SA

The €1.65 billion BepiColombo spacecraft is now being unstacked for final tests after being displayed in its launch configuration to the world’s press at the European Space Agency’s Space Technology and Research Centre. The six-metre high assembly will soon be shipped to Kourou in French Guyana where it is anticipated to launch in October 2018.

Siren song: Darryl Hannah as a mermaid in Splash (1984). Disney

Mermaids are everywhere. In the past month alone they have surfaced in New Brighton, caused controversy in Asda, reinvigorated toast, partied with the Kardashians, transformed maternity and wedding photography, been a focal point for vandalism and protest in Copenhagen, and helped a child overcome trauma when she learned to liken her badly burned skin to a mermaid’s scales.

Compared to China's highly developed cities, the western regions are still dark at night. NASA

China’s ethnic “problems” get a lot of attention from the outside world. Whatever their political leanings, Westerners can find something interesting to read about China’s treatment of its ethnic minorities, whether on the plight of the Tibetans or rising tensions between the Chinese state and the Uighurs of Xinjiang. China is increasingly being talked about as part of the global “war” against Islamist extremism... Читать дальше...

How often have you thought that somebody talks just like an accountant, or a lawyer, or a teacher? In the case of artists, this goes a long way back. Artists have long been seen as unusual – people with a different way of perceiving reality. Famously, the French architect Le Corbusier argued in 1946 that painters, sculptors and architects are equipped with a “feeling of space” in a very fundamental sense.

There are over 300,000 British nationals living in Spain. Kekyalyaynen / Shutterstock.com

Self-styled champion of all EU citizens, the European Parliament has warned that it may veto the UK’s withdrawal agreement from the EU. A public letter penned on July 9 by its lead Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt and a group of cross-party MEPs stated:

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More than 100 women were convicted of sexual offences in 2015. The figures, obtained via a freedom of information request, show the number of convictions almost trebled in a decade. Among those convicted were a number of school staff, including teachers, a head teacher and a teaching assistant.

Walden Pond. Ekabhishek/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” urges American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau in Walden (1854), his account of living frugally in a log cabin near Concord, Massachusetts. “Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”

Tòrr an Aba, site of the hut. Historic Environment Scotland

“Beware, my son,” St Columba warned his disciple Berchán. “Do not come to my lodging tonight.”