Новости за 31.07.2017

Bonnie Scotland. Malago

Even among the greatest enthusiasts for visiting Scotland in the summertime, few would miss the ravenous midge. Culicoides impunctatus is a persistent biter of outdoor types, occurring in vast numbers in some of the most beautiful parts of the countryside.

Laura Poitras’s new documentary, Risk, has all the conspiracy and paranoia you could wish for – much of it behind the camera as well as on screen. The latest film from this Oscar-winning filmmaker, billed as a “personal and intimate” character study of Julian Assange, is arguably more notable for the inside story of its making than it is for any unmasking of the founder of WikiLeaks.

Lord Macartney's first meeting with Qianlong "A study of History", Arnold Toynbee (Original in the British Library's collection of Western Drawings [WD 961, f.57])

With Britain’s position in Brexit negotiations weakened by the failure of the ruling Conservative party to win a majority in the country’s recent general election in June, we should ask ourselves how the country found itself in this situation.

shutterstock.com

Ten years ago the financial system collapsed and governments around the world intervened to save it. Much of the subsequent legislation, regulation and angst has attempted to make the system less risky so it does not collapse again. But few have asked a more fundamental question: what is the purpose of the financial system and does it do what it’s supposed to do?

Between the devil and the deep blue sea. Rober Lindsdell/flickr.com, CC BY

Any doubt that the media are in silly season was laid to rest on July 28 when The Times ran a front page headline claiming “The Irish want sea border with UK after Brexit”. The article implied that Brexit could mean Irish unification and unsurprisingly sparked a firm response from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politicians who are shoring up the Conservatives’ small majority in Westminster. They stated their readiness to “block Dublin” in this nefarious plot. Читать дальше...

Showtime

LGBT social media networks were recently buzzing with news that a reboot of The L Word, the lesbian drama that ran for six series between 2004-09, is in the works at Showtime.

Headache and nausea aside, the morning after an evening of drinking can be filled with regret, anxiety and misery. But it can also be a time of humour, story-telling and emotional bonding.

Pexels

The fate of US artist Sam Durant’s piece, Scaffold, is currently in the balance. The art piece, a two-story wooden structure, which draws its form from gallows used in 1862 to kill 38 Dakota Indians, has been removed from Minnesota’s Walker Art Centre after protests from the Native American Dakota Sioux community.

Theresa May has just recorded the worst opinion poll rating for public satisfaction with a British prime minister the month following a national election.

Tramadol. chatuphot/Shutterstock

The older we get, the more likely we are to suffer with long-term health problems. Life expectancy may be increasing, but so are the number of years we spend in ill health. In people aged 50 and over, the leading causes of chronic ill health are lower-back and neck pain. It’s hardly surprising, then, that so many middle-aged people are hooked on painkillers.

With the defeat of the so-called Islamic State (IS) on the battlefield looking imminent, Iraq is confronting a monumental challenge: to repair a deeply fractured society fraught with ethno-religious, geographic and socio-economic divisions. It must end infighting within its political power blocs, and navigate the dangers of assorted regional conflicts. The state must also earn legitimacy among traumatised people, liberated from the areas formerly held by IS, many of whom felt disenfranchised even before the group took hold in 2014. Читать дальше...

Distant Earth.

The rapid development of so-called NBIC technologies – nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science – are giving rise to possibilities that have long been the domain of science fiction. Disease, ageing and even death are all human realities that these technologies seek to end.