Новости за 05.09.2017

Shoes left after a flash flood during the mudslide in Freetown, Sierra Leone August 18, 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

Sierra Leone is still reeling from the effects of a mudslide that killed nearly 1 000 people, left hundreds missing and rendered thousands homeless.

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Romania’s prime minister, Mihai Tudose, recently raised the prospect of reopening the country’s huge Roșia Montană goldfield. The area had been mined from Roman times until the last state-run operation closed in 2006. An application by a previous government to make the area a UNESCO world heritage site has now been withdrawn, paving the way for new development.

A delicate building balance. Shutterstock

It has been described by Chinese president Xi Jinping as the “project of the century”. And the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is certainly ambitious. A massive infrastructural development program that will potentially span 60 countries, and cost an estimated US$5 trillion, it will mean building new rail networks, roadways, and pipelines across Asia, Europe, and Africa.

An exposé of an immigration removal centre has uncovered shocking levels of violence and abuse directed at detainees awaiting potential deportation from the UK. While some staff at the Brook House centre for men near Gatwick Airport, run by the company G4S, tried to control the “chaos”, others were clearly seen mocking and assaulting detainees.

Bad behaviour can spread quickly. Riots and uprisings – and violence and aggression more generally – can grow and proliferate in such a way that they’re often described as being “contagious”, like a disease. In fact, contagion is one the most persuasive metaphors for explaining collective behaviour.

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Chanel has released its first new feminine fragrance for 14 years. The perfume, “Gabrielle”, is named after the eponymous founder before she was known as Coco. It is a reference to the company’s youth, when an inexperienced entrepreneur willing to take risks set a course that should inspire modern-day women in business to do the same.

Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Classic Film/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Actor Ed Skrein’s much applauded withdrawl from the role of Asian character, Major Ben Daimio, in the Hellboy reboot has again highlighted the pervasive practice of “whitewashing” in contemporary Hollywood. Whitewashing is not new. It was a common practice in classical Hollywood where some of its most egregious examples include John Wayne as Ghengis Khan in The Conqueror and Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Читать дальше...

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People with extremely high levels of so-called “good cholesterol” have a 65% higher mortality rate than people with normal levels, according to a new Danish study. Does this mean that good cholesterol has gone from hero to villain? Can we still consider good cholesterol to be good?

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We still tend to think of authors as geniuses. Conversations about prize-winning novels often revolve around authorial intent, and writing a bestseller will tend to confer a certain amount of fame. But this timeworn state of affairs is shifting. The reader, more than ever, is moving centre stage – a shift that is being catalysed by the development of natural language generation (NLG) systems by computer scientists around the world. Written language is no longer a uniquely human construct. Читать дальше...

As the detritus from another summer season is swept from the streets of holiday hot spots around the world, locals are wondering if it was all worth it. Disquiet has grown about tourists behaving badly and making local communities suffer for their pleasure. In Palma de Mallorca, graffiti recently appeared telling tourists to “go home”. In New Orleans, a “neighbours, not tourists” campaign argues that AirBnB rentals erode local communities. In Venice, posters have been put up telling tourists they are ruining the city. Читать дальше...

The end of an era. Author provided

The independent Cambodia Daily newspaper has closed down, marking the end of an era. It’s final headline spelled out the problem facing the country: “Descent Into Outright Dictatorship.”

Thomas Marois, Author provided

A decade on from the 2007-08 global financial crisis, the majority of private banks have changed very little. Most remain solely concerned with maximising their returns, while sustainable or social goals remain subservient to this. For conventional economists, anything else remains an impossible or distant dream.

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It might be seen by some as one of the ultimate parenting taboos – to admit that you smack your child. Yet research from the Children’s Society reveals just 14% of adults think slapping children is unacceptable. It’s clear then that a lot of parents still see the odd smack as an acceptable form of punishment – for when all other methods of discipline have failed.

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The scene: a field in southwest England. The sun is shining for a quintessentially British event, the Great Dorset Steam Fair. A six-and-a-half tonne steamroller takes centre stage. This, the Lord Jericho, goes head-to-head with a computer hard drive, and in a battle of old and new technologies, rolls over it several times. Then, just to be on the safe side, the hard drive is placed in a steam-powered stone crusher.

It is only nothingness ... for ever and ever. Dark Moon Pictures

Nobody likes to think about lying on their death bed. From health anxiety to midlife crises, it seems like thoughts about ageing and death can often unleash some level of neurosis. But is that the whole story? We have examined mortality awareness – the realisation that we are all one day going to die – and found that, although the prospect of death is often scary, it can also have positive effects.

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One of the central planks of the British government’s legislative agenda ahead of Brexit, the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, will begin its second reading on September 7 as MPs return from their summer recess.

After North Korea conducted its sixth underground nuclear test, which was 10 times stronger than its last one, the US responded by warning Pyongyang that any threat to the US or its allies would be met with a “massive military response”. Donald Trump tweeted that he is considering ceasing trade with any country that does business with the north – and of course, it’s clear which countries he meant.

After North Korea conducted its sixth underground nuclear test, which was 10 times stronger than its last one, the US responded by warning Pyongyang that any threat to the US or its allies would be met with a “massive military response”. Donald Trump himself tweeted that he is considering ceasing trade with any country that does business with the north – and of course, it’s clear which countries he meant.