THE GUARDIAN: James Ramsbotham, CEO of North East England Chamber of Commerce, says letter sent to Boris Johnson remains unanswered
A letter to Boris Johnson sent a fortnight ago by James Ramsbotham called on the prime minister to save the north-east from the “damage being done to our economy” by Brexit and urged him to give it his “most urgent and personal attention”. Two weeks later, it remains unanswered.
Ramsbotham is the chief executive of the North East England Chamber of Commerce and speaks for thousands of businesses caught by the red tape and extra costs of complying with EU rules. In a recent survey, 38% of members said sales to Europe had fallen since January.
“This is not teething problems,” he says. “Our ports face the EU and our region has the highest proportion of any exporting to the EU. It is vital that more barriers come down.”
Surveys by the chamber show that three-quarters of its members wanted to stay in the single market when asked about their personal views. » | Phillip Inman | Monday, August 9, 2021
Oh, that ridiculous, stupid and damaging DAMN Brexit! An idea thought up by incompetent idiots to fool the gullible! – © Mark
Monday, August 09, 2021
Eight-year-old Becomes Youngest Person Charged with Blasphemy in Pakistan
THE GUARDIAN: Hindu boy faces possible death penalty after being accused of intentionally urinating in a madrassa library
An eight-year-old Hindu boy is being held in protective police custody in east Pakistan after becoming the youngest person ever to be charged with blasphemy in the country.
The boy’s family is in hiding and many of the Hindu community in the conservative district of Rahim Yar Khan, in Punjab, have fled their homes after a Muslim crowd attacked a Hindu temple after the boy’s release on bail last week. Troops were deployed to the area to quell any further unrest.
On Saturday, 20 people were arrested in connection with the temple attack.
The boy is accused of intentionally urinating on a carpet in the library of a madrassa, where religious books were kept, last month. Blasphemy charges can carry the death penalty. » | Haroon Janjua in Islamabad | Monday, August 9, 2021
An eight-year-old Hindu boy is being held in protective police custody in east Pakistan after becoming the youngest person ever to be charged with blasphemy in the country.
The boy’s family is in hiding and many of the Hindu community in the conservative district of Rahim Yar Khan, in Punjab, have fled their homes after a Muslim crowd attacked a Hindu temple after the boy’s release on bail last week. Troops were deployed to the area to quell any further unrest.
On Saturday, 20 people were arrested in connection with the temple attack.
The boy is accused of intentionally urinating on a carpet in the library of a madrassa, where religious books were kept, last month. Blasphemy charges can carry the death penalty. » | Haroon Janjua in Islamabad | Monday, August 9, 2021
Thousands Flee Greek Island as Wildfires Raze Forest and Homes
THE GUARDIAN: Firefighters tackle blazes on two fronts on Evia as heatwave-driven devastation across southern Europe continues
Thousands of people have fled wildfires that are destroying vast swathes of pine forest and razing homes on Greece’s second-largest island, Evia, as devastating summer blazes rage from southern Europe to Siberia.
“We have ahead of us another difficult evening, another difficult night,” Greece’s deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, said on Sunday, adding that nearly a week after the blazes started, strong winds were driving two major fire fronts in the north and south of the island.
Seventeen firefighting planes and helicopters were in action on the island, just north-east of the capital, Athens, where fires in a northern suburb and the nearby Peloponnese region were stable, although the risk of rekindling remained high.
Wildfires have devastated large areas in southern Europe for a fortnight as the region endures its most extreme heatwave in three decades. Ten have died in Greece and Turkey, with many admitted to hospital. Italy has also suffered million[s] of euros of damage.
Huge fires also have been burning across Siberia in northern Russia for several weeks, forcing the evacuation on Saturday of a dozen villages. Wildfires have burned nearly 6m hectares (15m acres) of land this year in Russia, while hot, dry and windy conditions have also fuelled devastating blazes in California. » | Jon Henley, Bethan McKernan, and Helena Smith in Athens | Sunday, August 8, 2021
A Puzzle Indeed!
Hello to you all!
The last couple of days have presented me with a very disappointing puzzle: despite an ever-increasing number of visitors from all over the world coming to this, my blog, my page views have been downgraded – twice! On Saturday and yesterday.
On Saturday at around 1pm UK time, my page views stood at precisely 68,000. That days they went up rapidly.
I went to bed late on Saturday, because I was blogging until late into the evening. Before retiring, I took one last look at my blog to make sure that everything was in order. When I glanced at the page views, to my horror, I found that the system had taken approximately 2,400 page views off the total! A downgrade indeed! I was horrified! I went to bed in great disappointment.
Yesterday, throughout the day, the numbers started to recover those page views that I had lost the night before. Not all, of course, but the tally was growing satisfactorily. So, I thought I’d overlook it and put it down to a glitch in the system. I didn’t email Google, because in my experience, you’re wasting your time: they never answer you! Sending an email to Google requesting help and support is like sending an email into a big black hole!
But the story doesn’t end there. Last night, I went to bed later still. Again, I had been at my computer blogging and looking for interesting material for the blog. Before going to bed, I checked my page views and again I was horrified: Google had shaved many thousands off my page view counter!
This is beyond my comprehension! How could my page views at lunchtime on Saturday stand at 68,000, climb quickly throughout the day on Saturday and climb quickly yesterday too, and I end up at the moment with 65,593 page views (as I write this)?
I must say this: Google has a cruel way of dealing with its users. Until now, I have made no money from this blog at all. But it brings me great joy. You folks bring me a lot of pleasure; indeed a very great deal of pleasure. On the back side, I see all the hits I get from all over the world. That is very satisfying. But when I see that Google is taking those numbers away from me, I find it soul-destroying.
I simply cannot explain this. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It is way beyond my ken. So, may I ask one of you who understands this better than I to do me a huge favour and email me to explain why and how this is happening? Naturally, I want to try and stop it happening in future if I can. Maybe I am doing something wrong. Or is something fishy going on at Google? I am rather suspicious of foul play.
My email address is markalexander.librabunda@gmail.com
With many thanks to you all in advance; and again, I want to thank you all for your continued support. The joy you bring me is immense.
Warm wishes,
Mark
The last couple of days have presented me with a very disappointing puzzle: despite an ever-increasing number of visitors from all over the world coming to this, my blog, my page views have been downgraded – twice! On Saturday and yesterday.
On Saturday at around 1pm UK time, my page views stood at precisely 68,000. That days they went up rapidly.
I went to bed late on Saturday, because I was blogging until late into the evening. Before retiring, I took one last look at my blog to make sure that everything was in order. When I glanced at the page views, to my horror, I found that the system had taken approximately 2,400 page views off the total! A downgrade indeed! I was horrified! I went to bed in great disappointment.
Yesterday, throughout the day, the numbers started to recover those page views that I had lost the night before. Not all, of course, but the tally was growing satisfactorily. So, I thought I’d overlook it and put it down to a glitch in the system. I didn’t email Google, because in my experience, you’re wasting your time: they never answer you! Sending an email to Google requesting help and support is like sending an email into a big black hole!
But the story doesn’t end there. Last night, I went to bed later still. Again, I had been at my computer blogging and looking for interesting material for the blog. Before going to bed, I checked my page views and again I was horrified: Google had shaved many thousands off my page view counter!
This is beyond my comprehension! How could my page views at lunchtime on Saturday stand at 68,000, climb quickly throughout the day on Saturday and climb quickly yesterday too, and I end up at the moment with 65,593 page views (as I write this)?
I must say this: Google has a cruel way of dealing with its users. Until now, I have made no money from this blog at all. But it brings me great joy. You folks bring me a lot of pleasure; indeed a very great deal of pleasure. On the back side, I see all the hits I get from all over the world. That is very satisfying. But when I see that Google is taking those numbers away from me, I find it soul-destroying.
I simply cannot explain this. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It is way beyond my ken. So, may I ask one of you who understands this better than I to do me a huge favour and email me to explain why and how this is happening? Naturally, I want to try and stop it happening in future if I can. Maybe I am doing something wrong. Or is something fishy going on at Google? I am rather suspicious of foul play.
My email address is markalexander.librabunda@gmail.com
With many thanks to you all in advance; and again, I want to thank you all for your continued support. The joy you bring me is immense.
Warm wishes,
Mark
The Beauty and the Joy!
Sunday, August 08, 2021
Verbotene Liebe - Homosexualität im NS-Regime
Russia's Lost Princesses – Documentary 2/2
1. The Gilded Cage: Interviews with leading historians, archive footage and dramatic reconstruction reveal the childhoods of Tsar Nicholas II's four daughters - Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia - and the truth behind the fairytale images. The sisters were the most photographed princesses of their day, attracting the same frenzied press attention as Princess Diana later would, but their public profile masked the reality of their strange and very isolated upbringing. | Views on YouTube: 5,131,685
Honey and Yoghurt Set Cheesecake - Ottolenghi - The Baking German
Taliban erobern Kundus
SPIEGEL: Rund ein Jahrzehnt lang war die Bundeswehr in Kundus stationiert. Nun wurde die Stadt von den radikalislamischen Taliban erobert – wie zuvor schon zahlreiche weitere Provinzhauptstädte.
Die nordafghanische Provinzhauptstadt Kundus ist von den radikalislamischen Taliban erobert worden. »Kundus ist gefallen. Die Taliban haben alle wichtigen Gebäude der Stadt unter ihre Kontrolle gebracht«, berichtete ein Korrespondent der Nachrichtenagentur AFP und bestätigte damit eine Erklärung der Islamisten. Die Stadt wurde seit Wochen von den Taliban belagert.
Zuvor waren schwere Auseinandersetzungen aus dem Zentrum von Kundus gemeldet worden. »In verschiedenen Teilen der Stadt finden heftige Kämpfe in den Straßen statt«, sagte Amruddin Wali, ein Mitglied des Provinzrats. Einige Sicherheitskräfte hätten sich in Richtung des Flughafens zurückgezogen. » | dab/AFP/dpa | Sontag, 8. August 2021
Vorwürfe der sexuellen Belästigung: Erste Frau erstattet Strafanzeige gegen Andrew Cuomo
STERN: New Yorks Gouverneur Andrew Cuomo steht mit dem Rücken zur Wand: Eine Untersuchung hat ihn der sexuellen Belästigung für schuldig befunden. Eine Mitarbeiterin hat jetzt gegen ihn Strafanzeige erstattet.
Der Gouverneur des US-Bundesstaates New York, Andrew Cuomo, gerät durch die Vorwürfe sexueller Belästigung immer stärker unter Druck. Eine der Frauen, die dem prominenten Vertreter der Demokratischen Partei sexuelle Zudringlichkeiten vorwerfen, stellte nun Strafanzeige gegen ihn, wie ein Polizeivertreter am Freitag der Nachrichtenagentur AFP mitteilte. Bei der Frau handelt es sich um eine Mitarbeiterin des Gouverneurs.
Sie gehört zu den elf Frauen, die in einem offiziellen Untersuchungsbericht mit Belästigungsvorwürfen gegen Cuomo zitiert worden waren. Die am Dienstag veröffentlichte Untersuchung war im Auftrag der Generalstaatsanwältin des Bundesstaats New York, Letitia James, von zwei unabhängigen Juristen geführt worden. Andrew Cuomo weist alle Vorwürfe zurück » | jek AFP | Samstag, 7. August 2021
Napoléon Bonaparte, vu par Edouard Bignon
PARIS MATCH : La commémoration du bicentenaire de la mort de l’empereur Napoléon Ier ne s’est pas arrêtée au jour J. du 5 mai. Aussi le Royal Blog continue-t-il à vous distiller chaque lundi une actu en lien avec cet événement. Seizième et dernier épisode: une anthologie de «L’Histoire de France» d’Edouard Bignon.
L’Empereur lui avait demandé. Il l’a fait. Dans son testament rédigé à la mi-avril 1821 sur l’île de Sainte-Hélène, alors qu’il sentait qu’il allait bientôt mourir, Napoléon Ier lègue 100.000 francs au baron Edouard Bignon. A une condition. Que cet homme, qui fut l’un de ses plus fidèles diplomates, écrive l’histoire de son règne sous le Consulat et le Premier empire. Ou plus exactement «celle de la diplomatie française de 1792 à 1815».
Dès 1829-1830, parurent les six premiers tomes de cette œuvre que Brignon intitula simplement «Histoire de France». Huit autres suivirent, jusqu’en 1850. Le bicentenaire du décès de Napoléon Bonaparte, en ce printemps 2021, a été l’occasion d’une réédition de ce travail qui n’avait jamais été republié en France. Mais en version «anthologie commentée ». C’est l’absence d’une paix solide qui a couté son trône à l’empereur » | Paris Match | lundi 21 juin 2021
Abonnez-vous à Paris Match ici et profitez de 30% de réductions supplémentaire grâce àu crédit d’impôt !
Covid-19 : l’Arabie saoudite va rouvrir ses frontières aux pèlerins vaccinés
LE MONDE : Par ailleurs, en Espagne, la quarantaine est prolongée pour les voyageurs de six pays.
La pandémie de Covid-19 a fait au moins 4,26 millions de morts et plus de 200 millions de cas ont été recensés dans le monde depuis la fin 2019, selon un comptage réalisé par l’Agence France-Presse à partir de bilans officiels. L’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) estime, en prenant en compte la surmortalité directement et indirectement liée au Covid-19, que le bilan de la pandémie pourrait être deux à trois fois plus élevé que celui officiellement établi.
L’Arabie saoudite va rouvrir ses frontières aux pèlerins vaccinés
L’Arabie saoudite va rouvrir les portes du pèlerinage de l’oumra (petit pèlerinage) à la Mecque aux pèlerins de l’étranger vaccinés contre le Covid-19, a rapporté, dimanche, l’agence de presse saoudienne officielle. Les autorités saoudiennes commenceront à accepter les demandes d’entrée dans le pays à partir de lundi, précise l’agence. Les frontières avaient été fermées il y a quelque dix-huit mois en raison de la pandémie. » | Le Monde avec AFP | dimanche 8 août 2021
La pandémie de Covid-19 a fait au moins 4,26 millions de morts et plus de 200 millions de cas ont été recensés dans le monde depuis la fin 2019, selon un comptage réalisé par l’Agence France-Presse à partir de bilans officiels. L’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) estime, en prenant en compte la surmortalité directement et indirectement liée au Covid-19, que le bilan de la pandémie pourrait être deux à trois fois plus élevé que celui officiellement établi.
L’Arabie saoudite va rouvrir ses frontières aux pèlerins vaccinés
L’Arabie saoudite va rouvrir les portes du pèlerinage de l’oumra (petit pèlerinage) à la Mecque aux pèlerins de l’étranger vaccinés contre le Covid-19, a rapporté, dimanche, l’agence de presse saoudienne officielle. Les autorités saoudiennes commenceront à accepter les demandes d’entrée dans le pays à partir de lundi, précise l’agence. Les frontières avaient été fermées il y a quelque dix-huit mois en raison de la pandémie. » | Le Monde avec AFP | dimanche 8 août 2021
The Observer View on What Iran’s New President Means for the Middle East
THE OBSERVER: Ebrahim Raisi is another hardliner, but western leaders must engage with him to cool the tensions threatening the region
A hardline president has taken charge in Iran. An inexperienced government in Israel is threatening military action against Tehran. A lethal shadow war is being waged in the Gulf. Iran’s ally, Hezbollah, is firing missiles into Israel from chaotic Lebanon. Bitter words fly in London over hostage-taking. US fears grow, meanwhile, that the Vienna nuclear talks have failed. Deal or no deal, it’s suggested, Iran may soon be able to build an atomic weapon.
This is a perilous, darkly portentous moment in the Middle East and specifically for the multifaceted conflict between Iran and the west. Ebrahim Raisi, who was sworn in as president on Thursday after a rigged, boycotted election, offered scant ground for optimism. “Tyrannical” sanctions imposed by Donald Trump, which have ravaged the country since 2018, must be lifted, he said. But he offered no plan to achieve it and nothing in the way of concessions.
Raisi’s ascent marks a definitive triumph for the fiercely conservative, anti-western factions associated with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Raisi’s predecessor, Hassan Rouhani, like Mohammad Khatami before him, fought a long, ultimately losing internal battle for rapprochement with the US and Europe. Now, hardliners control all the Islamic republic’s main institutions, including the military, judiciary and parliament. » | Observer editorial | Sunday, August 8, 2021
Why Public Schoolboys Like Me and Boris Johnson Aren’t Fit to Run Our Country
THE OBSERVER: Our elite schools foster emotional austerity and fierce clique loyalty. Here a privately educated writer of the prime minister’s generation reveals the lasting damage public schools do
Ihad a feeling I couldn’t immediately place. I wanted to go out but wasn’t allowed. Shelves were emptying at the nearest supermarket and instead of fresh fruit and vegetables I was eating British comfort food – sausages and mash, pie and beans. My freedom to make decisions like an adult was limited. I wondered when I’d see my mum again.
March 2020, first week of the first lockdown: I was 53 years old and felt like I was back at boarding school. Which wouldn’t have mattered, but for the fact that at a time of national crisis my generation of boarding-school boys found themselves in charge.
My first night at Pinewood school was two days after my eighth birthday in January 1975. A term earlier David Cameron had left his family home for Heatherdown preparatory school in Berkshire, while also in 1975, at the age of 11, Alexander Johnson was sent to board at Ashdown House in East Sussex. This means I know how two of the past three British prime ministers were treated as children and the kind of men their schools wanted to make of them. I know neither of these men personally but I do know that they spent the formative years of their childhood in boarding schools being looked after by adults who didn’t love them, because I did too. And if the character of our leaders matters then I’m in possession of important information. » | Richard Beard | Sunday, August 8, 2021
Boris Johnson’s approval rating slips to lowest level since he became prime minister »
Dissident Pakistani Exiles in UK ‘On Hit List’
THE OBSERVER: Critics of country’s military told by Met police of plots against them as security forces fear there may be an attack in Britain
Pakistani exiles living in London who have criticised the country’s powerful military have been warned that their lives are in danger, raising fresh concern over authoritarian regimes targeting foreign dissidents in the UK.
British security sources are understood to be concerned that Pakistan, a strong UK ally – particularly on intelligence issues – might be prepared to target individuals on British soil.
The Observer has been told of further warnings given by other intelligence services across Europe to Pakistani dissidents, including rights activists from the Pakistani province of Balochistan, journalists, and members of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, a group representing ethnic Pashtuns. » | Kiyya Baloch and Mark Townsend | Saturday, August 7, 2021
Saturday, August 07, 2021
Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor - IV. Adagietto. Sehr langsam
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)