Новости за 02.07.2020

THERE IS A blueprint for presidents keen to rig elections. First, use state resources to bribe, fool and bully people before the poll. Once voting starts, stuff the ballot boxes or fiddle the tallies. Afterwards, make sure the army and judges are on your side in case opponents take their case to the streets or to the courts.

FOR BIRUK NEGAFH, as for millions of Ethiopians, the summer rains may bring the climax of a decade’s work. As a high-school student in 2011 he bought 100-birr bonds (then worth $6 each) to help finance the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a giant edifice that would span the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile river (see map). At university he donated to fundraisers for the project. Now, like almost all Ethiopians, he eagerly awaits the day—perhaps weeks away—when Ethiopia begins to fill the reservoir. Читать дальше...

“I AM A BLACK MAN in America,” said Jamaal Bowman, a former headmaster, during his victory speech on June 23rd. “At a very young age as a black man in America, you get to learn about death and homicide.” He had just claimed a primary victory over Eliot Engel, who has represented New York’s 16th congressional district for three decades and, as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is one of the most senior figures in the Democratic Party. Mr Bowman called his upstart success a defeat for a system that “is literally killing us”. Читать дальше...

DONALD TRUMP’S blind spot for Russian aggression might seem like a stale fact of American political life by now—were it not that the aggression keeps getting worse. The latest example, according to an intelligence leak to the New York Times, which has since been widely corroborated, was a Russian scheme to pay bounties to Islamic militants in Afghanistan in return for killing American soldiers. A possible attempt to derail the peace deal signed between America and the Taliban in January, the scheme... Читать дальше...

PENTOBARBITAL IS due to be injected into Daniel Lee, a white supremacist convicted of a triple murder, on the morning of July 13th. The drug, administered at a federal prison in Indiana, is supposed first to make him unconscious, then stop his heart or prevent breathing. This week the Supreme Court declined to take up a case that might have stopped his death. Instead, barring late legal challenges, his will be the first execution carried out under federal authority in 17 years. It comes a year after William Barr... Читать дальше...

THE MAGNOLIA STATE this week became the last southern state to change its state flag, removing the Confederate battle flag which had formed part of the design. It will adopt a new flag, incorporating the words “In God We Trust” but excluding the so-called “stainless banner”. The 87-year-old widow of Medgar Evers, a murdered civil-rights icon, called the vote “all but unbelievable to me”.

FOR A THIRD time in as many weeks John Roberts, America’s conservative chief justice, has sided with his liberal colleagues in a big case. After his votes on LGBT rights and immigrant protections, on June 29th he was the linchpin in a 5-4 decision striking down a law that would have limited abortion access in Louisiana. This brought cheers from liberals and howls from conservatives. Josh Hawley, a senator from Missouri and Chief Justice Roberts’s former clerk, called June Medical Services v Russo... Читать дальше...

PAYING €7.50 to vote is annoying, but it beats a 10-hour round trip on a bus. Aleksandra Sojka, a Polish academic who works in Spain, had to post her ballot in the first round of the Polish presidential election on June 28th. This is an improvement on 2007, before postal voting was introduced, when Ms Sojka made the 500-mile round trip from Granada to the Polish embassy in Madrid to cast a vote. Voting on matters closer to home is not an option. In Spanish national elections, as in much of the EU... Читать дальше...

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IF YOU LOOK at the headline figures, foreign companies still appear to be piling into India even as its economy reels from the pandemic. Since the country went into lockdown in March some $20bn of cross-border deals have been announced, with the likes of Facebook and KKR, a private-equity giant, sticking cash into digital firms, solar parks and more. Optimists argue that India could soon become a place to build factories, as firms seek to diversify their supply chains away from China.

ONCE COMPLETED, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be nearly twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty and as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge is long. The reservoir behind it is roughly the size of London. Sitting on the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile river, the dam is the largest hydro-electric project in Africa. Soon it will produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity, more than double Ethiopia’s output today. With a little co-operation between Ethiopia and its downstream neighbours, Egypt and Sudan... Читать дальше...

Of limited intelligence

Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron (Technology quarterly, June 13th). Intelligence is an attribute of living things, and can best be defined as the use of information to further survival and reproduction. When a computer resists being switched off, or a robot worries about the future for its children, then, and only then, may intelligence flow.

I acknowledge Richard Sutton’s “bitter lesson”, that attempts to build human understanding into computers rarely work, although there is nothing new here. Читать дальше...

Former Pakistan batting coach Grant Flower has revealed that Younis Khan pulled a knife on him during a Test against Australia.

PAIGE VANZANT left fans online stunned with pictures of her pre-fight physique. The UFC star is fighting Amanda Ribas at UFC Fight Island on July 11 and she is in top physical shape ahead of the clash. The pair were initially set to meet in a strawweight bout in Brazil on March 14, but VanZant pulled […]

Woman howls in public after finding out she is coronavirus-positive

Core Scientific announced yesterday that the hedge fund and investment manager Horizon Kinetics increased its partnership with the U.S. based blockchain hosting provider. Horizon upgraded its cryptocurrency service, hosted by Core Scientific, to Bitmain Antminer S19 and S19 Pro models.

When the trade was announced back in March, a lot of people were confident that Nick Foles had the upper hand in the forthcoming quarterback competition against Mitch Trubisky. It’s not hard to imagine why. The guy won a Super Bowl in the style of offense the Chicago Bears run. He has ties to several […]

DVC Fan contributor Lauren Hee shares a few items that she'll be adding to her packing list for her trip during Disney World's phased reopening.

A motorbike stolen in Birmingham over three years ago has turned up in Telford today.

For five women trying to break into highly competitive world of sports media, the pandemic has created an unlevel playing field.

Watch & share this bombshell break down now!

Paul Joseph Watson | Lawyer surprised Epstein co-conspirator left relative safety of Paris.

Here’s who bought and sold what in some of the key bulk deals of the day.