December 14, 2022 - Africa's ports race is hyped as 'development' but also creates pathways for plunder

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Africa's ports race is hyped as 'development' but also creates pathways for plunder Fellow, Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science Ports have long been integral to Africa’s connectivity with the rest of the world. Yet over the last 15 years, a new stage in maritime infrastructure planning and development has begun. Between 2004 and 2019, over US$50 billion was spent on this infrastructure – roughly 13 times more than was spent between 1990 and 2004. Continued here

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How the Founder of Tend Is Making Dental Visits Cool Doug Hudson's consumer-obsessed strategy is turning the industry on its head. Continued here

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Hypertension, diabetes, stroke: they kill more people than infectious diseases and should get a Global Fund Kaushik Ramaiya is Honorary General Secretary of Tanzania Diabetes Association and we work with Ministry of Health (Tanzania) in implementing National NCD program which has been funded by World Diabetes Foundation (WDF) and Novo Nordisk Foundation. Noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular conditions account for 41 million deaths each year. That’s more than 70% of all deaths globally. Most of these deaths (77%) are in low-income and middle-income countries – including those in Africa. Continued here

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2022 was a rollercoaster for Nigeria – 4 essential reads on what went down and how to fix it Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University For Nigeria and Nigerians, the year 2022 was a rollercoaster ride of sorts. As a year preceding the country’s general elections in 2023, it was expected to hold a lot of political drama. Continued here

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'How Do You Live': Hayao Miyazaki's final movie releases in Japan in 2023 Hayao Miyazaki loves to go into retirement — but somehow always winds up back at the drawing board (literally). The masterful Japanese storyteller and prolific anime-style filmmaker swore he was done pumping out critically acclaimed animated features like Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Princess Mononoke in 2013. That was the second retirement announcement Miyazaki has made throughout his illustrious career — the first one, announced in the 1990s, was broken with the release of Miyazaki’s most recognizable work worldwide, Spirited Away, which earned him an Oscar win for Best Animated Feature. But, as is tradition, Miyazaki un-retired again in 2016 to begin producing his next (and supposedly his last) film under the Studio Ghibli banner, How Do You Live? Continued here

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Are snow days about to get buried by remote learning? Not quite -- but it depends on where you live Snow days, a nostalgic rite of passage for generations of students across the northern United States, might seem destined to be a memory of school days past. For nearly a century, schools have canceled or delayed classes because of heavy or dangerous snowfall that creates hazardous travel conditions. School calendars would include a number of “makeup” days, when any missed time could be rescheduled. During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools transitioned to remote learning to keep teaching when it wasn’t safe for people to gather. With students already learning at home, nearly 40% of schools chose to forgo traditional snow days and proceed with remote learning during the pandemic. Those choices, and improvements in online education, led several commentators to predict the end of the snow day. Continued here

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1 Workplace Trend That Will Instantly Point to Someone With Exceptional Leadership Skills How great leaders build trust and inspire their people to succeed. Continued here

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Six reasons Britain’s impending voter ID law is a bad idea Under new government rules, voters across Great Britain will be required to show photographic identification before being given their ballot paper at many elections. (Northern Ireland already requires voters to provide photographic ID.) But not everyone thinks this is a good idea. Two cross-party parliamentary committees – one on human rights and another on constitutional affairs – have raised serious concerns. The Scottish and Welsh governments don’t think that voter identification is necessary (and so it will not be required for local elections in Scotland and Wales or Scottish and Welsh government elections). Campaigners have called it voter suppression. Continued here

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After Hitting $200 Million in Sales, This Kombucha Entrepreneur Found Her Buyer Hiding in Plain Sight Health-Ade Kombucha co-founder Daina Trout took 30 meetings with potential buyers, until her first investor came up with a new exit strategy. Continued here

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A Danish Psychologist Says These 2 Danish Words Are the Secret to Eliminating Holiday Stress  Say these to yourself when you feel your holiday stress levels rising. Continued here

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The silent struggles of workers with ADHD When Christian got laid off in late 2022, he wasn’t surprised. The 31-year-old, based in New York City, knew he’d fallen behind on his projects as a management consultant, and underperformed with essential job duties. “I had a tough time grappling with the sorts of executive functioning that our world operates by, like being able to set up meetings, follow through with things, focus and be detail oriented,” he says. His manager had pointed out these failings for months, which is why his termination was hardly shocking. Continued here

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Turn Your Teams Inside Out It’s been over 20 years since we first identified a new kind of work group emerging at innovative organizations. Entrepreneurial, externally focused “x-teams” have proved to boost organizations’ agility and speed of execution in the face of rapid change and uncertainty, and have been used successfully in product development, sales, manufacturing, and senior leadership. However, while x-teams are particularly relevant to today’s challenging business environment, they are still found at only a relatively small number of companies and not-for-profit organizations. The prevailing approaches to training and managing teams haven’t changed much at all. At most organizations, managers concerned with teamwork still focus largely on internal group dynamics. X-teams, in contrast, combine this internal focus with a strong orientation toward external outreach and learning. They reach out to stakeholders both inside and outside their companies. Their emphasis on networked action helps to distribute leadership to all levels of the company. And, as organizations shed bureaucracy and become more nimble and networked, x-teams become the building blocks of these new architectural designs. Continued here

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Child nutrition programmes can feed inequality: model from South Africa shows how context shapes lives University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA. Interventions to improve nutrition, especially for children and pregnant women, can be critical for health, physical growth and cognitive development, enabling better lives and futures. Reams of policy papers will attest to the fact that if a government or a donor spends substantially on nutrition, the return on their investments – in lives improved or saved – will be high. Continued here

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Google's CEO Just Responded to a Question About Potential Layoffs. While His 1-Sentence Answer Was Smart Leadership, It Lacked a Bit of Empathy When you're a leader, there are things you just can't share. That's why how you decline to share makes all the difference. Continued here

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Canada's train that takes hitchhikers A line of SUVs ground to a halt, horns sounding out before the reason for the hold-up became clear: a mule deer and her fawn trotted between the traffic, then hopped onto the pavement and carried on in the direction of the train station. I was in downtown Jasper in Alberta, Canada, a mountain town that's reminiscent of a ski village, with wandering elk and gift shops selling bear spray at the counter. Located in the middle of Jasper National Park, the alpine town of just 4,200 residents is a major junction on some of Canada's greatest railway routes. Both The Canadian (a transcontinental passenger train from Vancouver to Toronto) and the luxury Rocky Mountaineer (whose routes include scenic trains in Western Canada and the Canadian Rockies) are a regular feature of the landscape, their carriages dwarfed by peaks gathered like a group of elders. Continued here

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Why This Misunderstood Neighbourhood 9000 Miles From Brazil Has Its Biggest Superfans KARACHI, Pakistan—There was no place to move in the sea of green and yellow. By the time the game started, the football stadium sandwiched in this densely-populated neighbourhood was packed.  Lyari is 9,000 miles away from Brazil, but this neighbourhood of 2-3 million people in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi is home to some of its biggest superfans. Continued here

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Proud Boys Abruptly Shifted Focus to Anti-LGBTQ Action in 2022 Proud Boys remain an active menace across the U.S., even amid significant hurdles this year such as infighting, their top brass facing serious federal seditious conspiracy charges, prominent members flipping on the gang, and a terrorist designation in New Zealand.  Despite unprecedented scrutiny, the far-right street-fighting gang has continued to act as brazenly as ever and sought legitimacy through the illusion of civic engagement.   Continued here

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The Cost of Living Crisis Is Ruining Sex Supermarket prices are soaring, energy rates are out of control and landlords are hiking up rents. The future feels uncertain, but the cost of living crisis isn’t just depleting young peoples’ bank accounts: It’s ruining their sex lives. Romantic wining and dining comes at a cost, and with 93 percent of UK adults reporting an increase in their living costs between August and September 2022, singles and couples alike are struggling to maintain passion-levels. The Student Beans Cost Of Living Report – published in October 2022 – found that 24 percent of British students reported that the crisis is negatively influencing their dating life, with 10 percent stating a detriment to their sex life specifically. It’s impacting our approach to financial boundaries, too, with dating app Bumble finding that 28 percent of people are now implementing stricter cost-caps on their dating lives. Elsewhere, a study conducted by Stowe Family Law finds that 55 percent of UK couples feel friction in their relationships because of the cost of living crisis: 70 percent worry that their relationship won’t survive it. Continued here

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25 Years of Garage review – music documentary falls prey to the same mistakes that killed the scene A host of veterans from the heyday of the UK’s garage scene (including Heartless Crew, Dane Bowers and members of So Solid Crew) star in 25 Years of Garage, a new documentary co-directed by former promoter Terry Stone. As an academic who specialises in Black music and advocates for its serious intellectual study, I find it encouraging to see active members of the garage scene documenting the culture. Continued here

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Why Entrepreneurs Waste Time on Low ROI Activities Learning the difference between quality time and wasted time. Continued here

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Managing the New Tensions of Hybrid Work Developing corporate culture and inspiring innovation were tough three years ago, when everyone sat in adjoining cubicles all week, drinking coffee from the same pot. Now that hybrid work appears to be here to stay, with many employees dividing their working hours between home and a company location, these challenges are magnified. New research shows that managers are deeply concerned about the downsides of hybrid arrangements for two domains that are, beyond most others, inherently social: Although evidence of damage to innovation and culture remains largely anecdotal, the potential threat is real. We define hybrid work as a flexible balance, with working hours divided between a company location and elsewhere, typically a home office. Its endurance became manifest during the two years we studied market-leading global corporations that had adopted the model during the COVID-19 pandemic. All of the managers in our sample said that their companies intended to create long-term hybrid strategies or had already done so. The imperative to support hybrid working is largely workforce demand. Employees — pointing to their strong performance when they worked from home during the worst of the pandemic — are reasonably demanding greater flexibility to work where and when they want. Leaders know they have to offer flexible working arrangements to attract, retain, and motivate top talent. Continued here

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Why the nuclear fusion breakthrough matters - The Hustle Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California made a pretty cool breakthrough in nuclear fusion this month. Fusion is when atoms fuse together to form larger atoms, producing energy. If we could harness it, it’d be a clean energy source that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. Continued here

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Arctic Report Card 2022: The Arctic is getting rainier and seasons are shifting, with broad disturbances for people, ecosystems and wildlife In the Arctic, the freedom to travel, hunt and make day-to-day decisions is profoundly tied to cold and frozen conditions for much of the year. These conditions are rapidly changing as the Arctic warms. The Arctic is now seeing more rainfall when historically it would be snowing. Sea ice that once protected coastlines from erosion during fall storms is forming later. And thinner river and lake ice is making travel by snowmobile increasingly life-threatening. Continued here

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How the 20-Year Trend Cycle Collapsed If you looked around today on any high street in Britain – or on social media – you might find it difficult to place which decade we’re in. The only clue would be that… it’s literally all happening. Every trend, every era, every reference is happening everywhere all at once. Colours, fabrics, cuts, themes, energy. We’ve been edging this way since 2020, but never has this been truer than in 2022, the first full and proper year out post-coronavirus lockdowns, the couple of years that altered our collective psyche. Since the pandemic, microtrends have organically popped up on TikTok, with users describing grouped looks or aesthetics – bimbocore, Catholic chic – that might most accurately be described as “vibes” or “a mood”. Most of them exist for people to showcase specific fashion, interiors, films and behaviours that are matched together: the modern Pinterest board. There were enough of these mini-trends that we got fatigued enough by the media writing news blogs about them that we went “post-trendcore”, the media then declaring that the trends had gone too far and so had the blogs about them. Continued here

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Five reasons why interest rates can't go much higher It’s decision time for central banks on interest rates again. The US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank (ECB) are set to announce their latest decisions on Wednesday 14, while the Bank of England (BoE) will go a day later. After years of ultra-loose monetary policies, the Fed in particular has been aggressively raising interest rates during 2022 to counteract the inflation surge. All three central banks increased their benchmark rates by 0.75 points at their meetings in late October/early November. Continued here

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Our third COVID Christmas – here's how things might play out The UK is now approaching its third Christmas of the COVID pandemic. And this year feels different. There’s little question we’re in a better position compared with 2020 and 2021. In 2020, Christmas plans were significantly curtailed, with a range of restrictions in place across the UK. But winter social mixing that took place before a full national lockdown was implemented in early January 2021 caused the number of deaths to rise quickly, reaching levels similar to those in the first wave. Continued here

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Céline Dion reveals she has stiff person syndrome – an expert explains the condition In an emotional message, Céline Dion recently revealed to her Instagram followers that she has a rare condition called stiff person syndrome. The condition has begun to affect the 54-year-old Canadian singer’s vocal cords and her walking. As a result, she has had to cancel her upcoming Courage tour, which was set to begin in Europe in February 2023. Continued here

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Iranian protesters turn to TikTok to get their message past government censors Ph.D. candidate in American Studies, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts Images of the protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Zhina Amini on Sept. 16, 2022, in Iran and reports of the government’s brutal crackdown have circulated widely on social media. This flow of information comes despite efforts by the Iranian regime to throttle internet access and censor information leaving the country. Continued here

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Timing matters for medications – your circadian rhythm influences how well treatments work and how much they might harm you All living organisms on Earth are exposed to a 24-hour day-night cycle. This cycle is the reason why people rest during the darkness of night and are active during the light of day. Consequently, all human body functions also follow this daily rhythm, and the timing of behaviors like exercise or food intake can significantly influence your health. For example, eating at night can lead to weight gain over time because while daytime food intake is used for activities, food intake at night leads to increased fat storage because the body expects to be at rest. When you take your medications is also influenced by your circadian rhythm. Many drug targets in the body follow a 24-hour cycle. This means that the specific proteins a drug is designed to modify can react differently to the medication over the course of a 24-hour time period. Because how the body responds to a medication can differ depending on whether it is taken during the day or at night, it logically follows that taking medications at specific times could help increase their effectiveness and reduce unwanted side effects. Continued here

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COVID: what we know about new omicron variant BF.7 Since the COVID variant omicron emerged in late 2021, it has rapidly evolved into multiple subvariants. One subvariant, BF.7, has recently been identified as the main variant spreading in Beijing, and is contributing to a wider surge of COVID infections in China. But what is this new variant, and should we be worried? Although reports from China about this variant’s characteristics are concerning, it doesn’t appear to be growing too much elsewhere in the world. Here’s what we know. Continued here

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Five unusual energy-saving tips to help you slash your bills As temperatures drop over the winter period and the cost of energy rises across the UK and Europe, how to spend less money on gas and electricity is on everyone’s minds. The UK energy regulator Ofgem reports that an average two- to three-person household in the UK consumes eight kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity and 33kWh of gas daily. This equates to around 2,900kWh of electricity and 12,000kWh of gas a year. For comparison, an electric oven in your house uses 2kWh for 30 minutes of use. Continued here

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That annoying ringing, buzzing and hissing in the ear – a hearing specialist offers tips to turn down the tinnitus Not a week goes by when I don’t see someone in my clinic complaining of a strange and constant phantom sound in one of their ears, or in both ears. The noise is loud, distracting and scary – and it doesn’t go away. The kind of sound varies from patient to patient: buzzing, blowing, hissing, ringing, roaring, rumbling, whooshing or a combination thereof. But whatever the sound, the condition is called tinnitus. And one thing tinnitus patients have in common is that the sound is not an external one. Instead, the noise is literally inside their head. Continued here

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Are you and your partner thinking of separating? Here's how to protect the kids' mental health There’s an annual underground phenomena happening right now around Australia: couples who have decided to separate, but are putting on a happy face to perform their final Christmas as an intact family. January is known by family court lawyers as “divorce month” for this very reason. Compared to 2020, last year saw an increase of nearly 14% in divorces granted in Australia. Nearly half of those couples had children aged under 18 years. Continued here

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Can the U.N. Save the World from Ecological Collapse? The Red List of Threatened Species might best be described as a lack-of-progress report. Every six months or so, the list, which is maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is updated, and, with each update, more creatures are classified as heading toward oblivion. The latest update, issued last week, added seven hundred species to the roster of those threatened with extinction. Many of the new additions are classified as “critically endangered,” including the Hot Creek toad, found only in Nye County, Nevada, and the Dixie Valley toad, found in neighboring Churchill County. The trend “is that things are getting worse,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, the head of the I.U.C.N.’s Red List unit said, when the additions were released. Not coincidentally, the latest Red List update was released just as the latest talks on the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity were getting under way. Some twenty thousand delegates from around the world have gathered in Montreal, where, it is hoped, they will agree on a “road map” for saving the world from ecological collapse. (The talks are scheduled to conclude on Monday.) António Guterres, the U.N. Secretary-General, outlined the enormousness of the task in his opening remarks. “Our land, water, and air are poisoned by chemicals and pesticides, and choked with plastics,” Guterres observed. “The addiction to fossil fuels has thrown our climate into chaos. Unsustainable production and monstrous consumption habits are degrading our world. Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction.” Continued here

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What Employees Want Most in Uncertain Times Between March and October 2020, the authors asked employees across a variety of industries and organization sizes, “What is one thing your supervisor could do (or do more of) to help alleviate the uncertainty that arose as a result of the pandemic?” They collected and coded the data in two phases, using an iterative process and inductive content analysis. Following the initial wave of data collection and coding (N = 201), they collected information from an additional 86 respondents to ensure a sufficient sample size for theoretical saturation. In total, 287 participants responded with 398 unique comments. Managers have always needed guidance to lead their employees through times of extreme uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic is the defining global crisis of our generation, but it is not the first of its kind, nor will it be the last. Uncertainty and volatility continue to rock work environments as the pandemic recedes and global economic and political instability loom, compounding employees’ feelings of uncertainty. In this changing environment, traditional management and leadership approaches are insufficient. Continued here

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Everyone's having a field day with ChatGPT – but nobody knows how it actually works ChatGPT is the latest and most impressive artificially intelligent chatbot yet. It was released two weeks ago, and in just five days hit a million users. It’s being used so much that its servers have reached capacity several times. OpenAI, the company that developed it, is already being discussed as a potential Google slayer. Why look up something on a search engine when ChatGPT can write a whole paragraph explaining the answer? (There’s even a Chrome extension that lets you do both, side by side.) Continued here

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Fit Check: Head in the Clouds Manila Despite the heavy rainfall and occasional lighting, you could see 88rising’s iconic cloud of balloons from a mile away on the weekend of the company’s first Head in the Clouds festival in Manila.  To fans, the stage decor signified the return of live events in the Philippines and their chance to finally watch artists they’ve streamed for years or serendipitously stumbled upon on TikTok. This included local acts like Zack Tabudlo and SB19; fan favorites Atarashii Gakko!, Jackson Wang, BIBI, eaJ, and Zedd; and, of course, 88rising mainstays Rich Brian, Joji, and NIKI. Continued here

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'There's No Other Rapper Doing Geopolitical, Communist Rap': An Interview with Ghais Guevara Ghais Guevara's music is chaotic, confronting, and cathartic. Swirling, jazz-inspired beats whip around his frenetic-yet-precise wordplay, evoking images of Black pain, violence and joy. Channelling those feelings into music is a tried and tested formula as old as the hip-hop genre –– But Guevara’s point of difference, in his own words, is his ideological bent.  “I’m not even gonna say there’s not a lot… there’s no other rapper doing geopolitical communist rap,” the 23-year-old rapper tells VICE, laughing.  Continued here

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Morocco are the first-ever African semifinalists of the World Cup. Here’s what geographical data tell us about this result The 2022 FIFA World Cup has certainly attracted plenty of negative press, with scandal from bidding process through to the tournament itself. Yet out of this negativity, one positive storyline has arisen. With victories over two recent European champions – Spain and Portugal – Morocco have become the first African nation to reach the last four of the World Cup. Continued here

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China and Russia’s uneven relationship can be explained with one word Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China’s reaction in response to the Russian aggression has been fiercely debated in the western media. The majority of the discussions have focused on one particular term: “no-limits friendship” – a phrase believed to have been taken from a Sino-Russian joint statement issued a few months before the war. But there is one problem with this phrase. While the Russian version of the statement indeed used the word “friendship”, the Chinese version used “friendliness”. Is this just an issue of translation, or did China deliberately avoid using the word “friendship”? Continued here

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A Professor Who Challenges the Washington Consensus on China Two years ago, Jessica Chen Weiss made a phone call to her mother that changed her career. Her mother, a cancer researcher who lives in Seattle, told her that rising violence against Asian Americans was making her fearful of going outside. “She just didn’t want to walk around the streets,” Weiss said. “I was just shocked. It’s still something on her mind when she weighs whether to walk around downtown.” Continued here

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When and How to Respond to Microaggressions Microagressions are defined as verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group. For Black people, they are ubiquitous across daily work and life. You can respond in one of three ways: let it go, call it out immediately, bring it up at a later date. Here’s a framework for deciding which path is right for the situation and how to handle the conversation if you choose to have one. First, discern what matters to you. Second, disarm the person who committed the microaggression; explain that you want to have an uncomfortable conversation. Third, challenge them to clarify their statement or action, then focus them on the negative impact it had. Finally, decide how you want to let the incident affect you. Continued here S60 ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ Puts Most Modern Blockbusters to Shame These days in Hollywood, scale seems to be one of the easiest things to achieve on-screen. Breakthroughs in visual-effects technology mean that audiences get to watch one epic battle after another, and are accustomed to seeing dozens of superheroes zipping around pointlessly. James Cameron has always been a director who harnesses the latest CGI advances to whip up thrills, but with Avatar: The Way of Water, his first film in 13 years, he faces an undeniable challenge. Can audiences still be wowed, given the constant torrent of wide-screen spectacle? And are there new delights to be discovered in the alien world of Pandora, all these years after the original Avatar? The answer to both is a resounding yes, which isn’t a surprise considering Cameron’s track record. He has a habit of making blockbusters that are exemplars of the form while also feeling buzzy and distinct, and he created two of the best sequels of all time (Aliens and Terminator 2). Still, I admit I felt some trepidation during the first 45 minutes of The Way of Water, which are busy with plot details as the film updates the audience on the past decade-plus of Pandoran life. The first Avatar worked because it leveraged familiar storytelling tropes in service of awe-inspiring 3-D visuals, helping to plunge viewers into a new world via a winsomely familiar narrative. But after a slow start, The Way of Water manages to repeat that formula without being a tired retread. Continued here S12 Inside Yves Saint Laurent's 'decadent' homes "Down a shuttered Paris street, through a quiet courtyard, and doors open on to the place where Yves Saint Laurent lives." So began an article in the May 1972 issue of British Vogue, which featured the duplex of Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé, at 55 Rue de Babylone, which they bought in 1970. The story conjured up a secret destination, an inner sanctum, accessible only to its owners and their glamorous entourage. Paradoxically, although their home was a retreat, Saint Laurent and Bergé were media-savvy image-makers. Its location on Paris's relatively bohemian Left Bank had symbolic importance, signalling Saint Laurent's progressive values. In 1966, he had launched his Rive Gauche ready-to-wear men and womenswear label and boutique on nearby Rue de Tournon, and had publicly declared that the hegemony of haute couture was "démodé", although he continued to create couture collections. Continued here S37 To clean up Australia's power grid, we're going to need many thousands more skilled workers – and fast To get Australia’s grid 82% powered by renewables by 2030 is a huge increase. At present, the electricity powering eastern and southern states is around 33% renewable. To get there means a lot of work. Over the next seven years, it would be equivalent to installing dozens of large wind turbines every month, and tens of thousands of solar panels every day. Continued here S59 TB is once again the deadliest disease in Africa - what went wrong Extraordinary Senior Lecture in the Department of Global Health , Stellenbosch University Tom Nyirenda is also the Strategic Partnerships and Capacity Development Manager at the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership. Continued here S45 Is it OK to prank your kids? Do they get it? And where’s the line? We all lie to our kids. Some lies – telling them their artwork is wonderful, or that Wiggles band-aids are infused with anaesthetic – benefit the child. Others are just a bit of fun. Take the Tiktok trend of telling your kids this weird little gnome is a picture of them as a baby: Continued here S52 What is meningococcal disease? What symptoms should I look out for? And how can I prevent it? Parents and doctors alike fear meningococcal infection, which has been in the news again. Doctors never want to miss a diagnosis, as early treatment with antibiotics may be life-saving. Parents fear the disease because up to 10% of children who become infected die from the disease and its complications. Another 40% of children will have ongoing disability from one or more complications. These include deafness, blindness, skin scarring, or surgical amputation of limbs that may be required to save the child’s life in some situations. Continued here S36 Naur, yeah: Australia, you're performing linguistic magic when you pronounce the two-letter word 'no'. Here's why Have you ever thought about your pronunciation of the word “no”? If you say it out loud now, can you sense the movement of your tongue and lips as you form the “o” sound? You may notice there’s a lot to the pronunciation of the word in an Australian accent. Clips of Australians saying this short, two-letter word have been trending on TikTok over the last year, with listeners fascinated by its pronunciation. Continued here S58 Forced mass abortions are a new and disturbing phenomenon in Nigeria Nigeria classifies abortion as illegal except under certain medical circumstances. A recent investigation by Reuters news agency has alleged that, since 2013, the Nigerian military has run a secret mass abortion programme in the north-east of the country, where it is at war with the militant Islamic organisation Boko Haram. Ten thousand women were allegedly affected – the report claims the women had been raped and impregnated by Boko Haram insurgents. The military has denied the allegations. Reproductive health specialist Akanni Akinyemi sheds further light on abortions in Nigeria. There is some evidence that the decision to terminate a pregnancy may be imposed on a woman by either her male partner or some significant others, such as parents and care givers. However, the systemic large scale forced abortions in the north-eastern part of Nigeria as reported in the media are a new development. I don’t think we have recorded anything like this before. Continued here S63 Some Good News on Inflation On Tuesday morning, the Labor Department released the latest Consumer Price Index, which showed inflation pressures easing slightly. On Wall Street, investors interpreted the new report to mean that the Federal Reserve is likely to adopt a less aggressive anti-inflation stance in the coming months: they pushed up stock prices and pushed down market interest rates. At the White House, President Biden said the report showed that his economic strategy was working, but he chose his words carefully. “Prices are still too high,” he said. “We have a lot more work to do, but things are getting better.” That phrasing was smart. When Wall Street economists and ordinary Americans think about inflation, they tend to see things differently. To an economist, the inflation rate is the rate at which over-all prices are going up relative to a year ago. In June, this rate was 9.1 per cent; in November, according to the new C.P.I. report, it was 7.1 per cent. That’s a clear improvement. Moreover, this wasn’t a one-off: the inflation rate has been edging down for some time. During the first six months of this year, the average monthly increase in the C.P.I. was about 0.9 per cent. Since July, the monthly increase has been about 0.2 per cent. That’s long enough to constitute a trend. Continued here S40 Federal Reserve is about to hike interest rates once again – so why are mortgage rates coming down? The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by half a percentage point on Dec. 14, 2022, to a range of 4.25 to 4.5%, which would be the seventh increase this year. So far in 2022, the Fed has lifted its benchmark short-term rate, which influences most other borrowing costs in the economy, by 3.75 percentage points from a low of about zero as recently as March. But even as the U.S. central bank continues to lift rates – and plans to keep doing so in 2023 – homebuyers are beginning to notice a pleasant surprise: Mortgage rates have been falling. Continued here S44 What is a goblin? The 2022 word of the year from the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary is “goblin mode”. Voted by the public and coming in at 93%, “goblin mode” – a phrase, rather than a word, to be precise – expresses a state of being or mindset. a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations. Continued here S42 What Taylor Swift’s 'Anti-Hero' controversy can tell us about fatphobia in feminist politics Taylor Swift recently removed a scene from her music video, Anti-Hero, after several fat positivity activists across social media accused the scene of being fatphobic. In the scene, Swift’s two selves, the real her and her “anti-hero” character, are in a bathroom. As Swift’s real self stands on a weighting scale, her anti-hero persona peers downward and the word “FAT” appears on the scale. Swift’s face appears disgusted. The scene earned considerable backlash online. Continued here S17 After 50 years, 'liberation theology' is still reshaping Catholicism and politics – but what is it? It isn’t often that theology makes headlines. But for the past 50 years, a way of thinking about God and poverty has been doing just that: liberation theology. Liberation theology’s approach to living out Christian faith has been both globally influential and bitterly controversial. It has been investigated by the CIA on suspicion of promoting social unrest and inquisitioned by a former pope who accused it of getting too close to Marxist thought. It’s even inspired conspiracy theories. Critics have dismissed it as naive – but also called it a threat to free market capitalism. Continued here S46 Why fusion ignition is being hailed as a major breakthrough in fusion – a nuclear physicist explains American scientists have announced what they have called a major breakthrough in a long-elusive goal of creating energy from nuclear fusion. The U.S. Department of Energy said on Dec. 13, 2022, that for the first time – and after several decades of trying – scientists have managed to get more energy out of the process than they had to put in. Continued here S47 No, the Lensa AI app technically isn’t stealing artists' work – but it will majorly shake up the art world The Lensa photo and video editing app has shot into social media prominence in recent weeks, after adding a feature that lets you generate stunning digital portraits of yourself in contemporary art styles. It does that for just a small fee and the effort of uploading 10 to 20 different photographs of yourself. 2022 has been the year text-to-media AI technology left the labs and started colonising our visual culture, and Lensa may be the slickest commercial application of that technology to date. Continued here S43 Why does the Alzheimer's brain become insulin-resistant? Manon Leclerc has received scholarships from the Fondation du CHU de Québec and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé (FRQS). As the population ages, the number of people with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, increases. Approximately 75,000 Canadians are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease each year and experience a decline in their cognitive abilities. The ordeal usually lasts for several years while their family members watch helplessly. Continued here S57 Could Lithuania hold the key to Europe's energy security? Présidente d'Eastern Circles et Maître de conférences en géopolitique, Sciences Po Anastasiya Shapochkina is president of Eastern Circles, a French think tank working on energy issues in Eastern Europe. She is a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris Continued here S48 Final Victorian election results: how would upper house look using the Senate system? Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne At the November 26 Victorian election, Labor won 15 of the 40 upper house seats (down three since 2018), the Coalition 14 (up three), the Greens four (up three), Legalise Cannabis two (up two), the Liberal Democrats one (down one), Animal Justice one (steady), the Shooters one (steady), Labour DLP one (up one) and One Nation one (up one). Continued here S55 'It's like being in a warzone' – A&E nurses open up about the emotional cost of working on the NHS frontline As nurses prepare to strike for the first time, an A&E nurse and lecturer in Organisational Behaviour in Healthcare writes about the stress, fear, grief and guilt they feel every day working on the frontline of an NHS in crises. I noticed how I used the phrase ‘warzone’ quite a few times, when you’ve got trolleys everywhere … full of patients and you don’t know where to turn next. What to do for whom next, and I have said it’s like being in a warzone because you can imagine it. That’s what it would be like in a field hospital … what do I do next? You know it’s dangerous but you’ve just got to do the best you can do. And I’ve heard other people use that term as well. Just how it makes you feel but something kicks in and you just get on with it. Continued here S53 An Indigenous Voice to Parliament will not give 'special rights' or create a veto The Constitutional Expert Group, appointed to advise on the proposed Voice to Parliament referendum, has concluded that the “draft amendment is constitutionally sound” and does not amount to a “veto” power or provide anyone with “special rights”. In the lead-up to its proposed referendum on an Indigenous Voice, the Commonwealth government appointed three bodies to advise it. The first is the Referendum Working Group. It is comprised of Indigenous leaders from across the country, including Marcia Langton, Tom Calma, Pat Anderson, Jackie Huggins, Ken Wyatt and Galarrwuy Yunupingu. It is co-chaired by Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney and Special Envoy Patrick Dodson. Continued here S54 We asked 900 Australian teachers if evidence informs how they teach – and found most use it, but there are key gaps While most teachers want to use evidence-based practices, they face many challenges that can limit their ability to use them in their classrooms. These include time pressures, access to resources, and unsupportive school cultures. We found that most teachers surveyed said they were using evidence-based practices most of the time, but they are not using all the strategies that make those practices effective. This can have serious impacts on student learning. Continued here S51 Snakes have clitorises Snakes have clitorises – and we have given a full anatomical description of them for the first time. We also closely studied the cellular makeup of the clitoris in Australian death adders, finding it to be composed of erectile tissue and bundles of nerves. Continued here S56 Qatar lobbying: European Parliament scandal shows urgent need for tighter regulations Directeur des Études politiques au Collège d'Europe, Directeur de recherche au CNRS, CEVIPOF, Sciences Po On 11 December, Eva Kaili, vice-president of the European Parliament, and three others were charged and imprisoned in connection with an investigation into suspected corruption linked to Qatar. Continued here S33 Drawn to bustling markets, shops or malls this holiday season? Good vibes could explain it The holiday season is here, and some may plan to go shopping along local Main Streets, popular city districts, malls or to enjoy time with friends and family in restaurants. If you plan a trip to New York or Toronto for the coming holiday, you might have places like Fifth Avenue or Yorkville on your list as destinations. Continued here S49 Bad fire science can kill our threatened species. It's time to cooperate with nature For four years, naturalist Allison Dixon regularly walked from dusk until dawn at the Warrungup Spring bush reserve south of Perth, carefully documenting every western ringtail possum she saw. The possum – or ngwayir in the language of Traditional Owners – is critically endangered. The species is found only in a small area of southwest Australia, including the population of 22 individuals Dixon was monitoring. Continued here S38 Without Indigenous leadership, attempts to stop the tide of destruction against nature will fail At the crucial COP15 nature summit in Canada, almost 200 countries are reckoning with the world’s extraordinary loss of the variety of life. Climate change, mining, urban development and more are threatening Earth’s biodiversity to an extent never before witnessed in human history. The conference will see countries negotiate a global 2030 plan, called the Global Biodiversity Framework, to set worldwide targets for a range of issues, from establishing national parks to habitat destruction. The framework will hopefully be delivered by next Monday (19 December). Continued here S35 From dysfunction and provincialism to an elegant literary life: Gail Jones reviews the 'brilliant' first biography of Shirley Hazzard The author has participated in an ARC funded symposium on the work of Shirley Hazzard convened by Brigitta Olubas. When Shirley Hazzard received the National Book Award in 2003 for The Great Fire in the Marriot Ballroom in Times Square, the other guest of honour was Stephen King, who was there to receive a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The contrast of acclamations and models of value could not have been more profound. King took the opportunity to speak of popularity and populism as the marks of literary success; Hazzard feistily defended reading across time, the nuanced experiences literature affords, and the private and complex pleasures that are irreducible to sales, fame or notoriety. Continued here S41 Smart sanctions for a stupid war: The West finally gets clever about Russia The European Union and the United States are now targeting maritime protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance clubs to limit Russian shipping capacity and cap the price of its oil, meaning we’re finally beginning to see some smart sanctions for a stupid war. P&I clubs are maritime insurance groups that specialize in open-ended, large-risk claims. P&I insurance is a requirement for all heavy cargo and container vessels. Under the new sanctions, European P&I clubs can no longer offer insurance to a vessel carrying Russian oil at a price higher than $60 a barrel. Continued here Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Followers Blog Archive ►  2024 (51) ►  December (1) ►  October (2) ►  August (2) ►  July (4) ►  June (3) ►  May (5) ►  April (4) ►  March (2) ►  February (10) ►  January (18) ►  2023 (834) ►  December (20) ►  November (54) ►  October (44) ►  September (108) ►  August (91) ►  July (29) ►  June (68) ►  May (104) ►  April (33) ►  March (30) ►  February (99) ►  January (154) ▼  2022 (208) ▼  December (117) January 1, 2023 - This Scientist Fled a Deadly Wil... January 1, 2023 - This Scientist Fled a Deadly Wil... January 1, 2023 - Man charged in Idaho student mur... January 1, 2023 - When the Times Square Ball Drop ... December 31, 2022 - Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin... December 31, 2022 - How Unpredictable Schedules Wi... December 31, 2022 - How Unpredictable Schedules Wi... 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