Новости за 23.01.2020

FEW SUBJECTS are more chewed over in Britain than migration and race. The country will finally leave the European Union (EU) next week, a policy supported by many voters to reduce, or gain control over, immigration flows. Its former prime minister, Theresa May, will be remembered in part for her shoddy treatment of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants who were asked to prove their citizenship decades after making Britain their home. And Meghan Markle’s decision to leave has prompted introspection... Читать дальше...

A RULE OF thumb about the rule of law is that countries that have it are freer, fairer and richer than those that do not. Independent courts ensure even the mighty are subject to the law. But Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) takes a different view (see article). It complains that judges are self-serving, unelected elites who substitute their own preferences for those of voters. Since taking office in 2015 PiS has passed laws that give the government ever more control over the judiciary... Читать дальше...

A World Without Work. By Daniel Susskind. Metropolitan Books; 307 pages; $28. Allen Lane; £20.

WHEN BREAKDANCING, splayed fingers jabbing to the beat, legs akimbo above improbable head-spins, he seems supremely macho. When performing arias and oratorios, brows arched above plaintive eyes, he seems as innocent as a chorister. In person, Jakub Jozef Orlinski is a vivacious yet plain-talking Polish opera star, who also maintains a deep commitment to street dance.

The Truants. By Kate Weinberg. G.P. Putnam’s Sons; 320 pages; $26. Bloomsbury Publishing; £14.99.

IF PEOPLE ARE to travel extensively in space and set up bases on astronomical objects such as the Moon and Mars then they will need to make or find out there the things required to support life—including food, water and breathable air. Researchers are already working on ways to grow food in space, and icy deposits that could provide water are known to exist on the Moon and other celestial bodies. Besides being available for drinking, such water could be split into its constituent elements of hydrogen... Читать дальше...

AT THE BEGINNING of the 20th century Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish neuroscientist, became known for his exquisite drawings of the branching, treelike cells of the brain and spinal cord. In 1906 he was awarded a Nobel prize for this work, which gave the world its first glimpse into the structure of these neurons, and an inkling of how they are arranged in an animal’s central nervous system.

THE JEWEL beetle is so called for a reason. When illuminated, the insect’s carapace dazzles with a sparkling green prismatic spray. That this bright colouration sends some sort of signal to the world has long seemed obvious. Most researchers assume that the signal in question is either a warning to predators or a display of fitness to mates. Work published this week in Current Biology by Karin Kjernsmo at the University of Bristol suggests, however, that the jewel beetle’s iridescence is neither of these. Читать дальше...

BEFORE PULLING the trigger, a sniper planning to assassinate an enemy operative must be sure the right person is in the cross-hairs. Western forces commonly use software that compares a suspect’s facial features or gait with those recorded in libraries of biometric data compiled by police and intelligence agencies. Such technology can, however, be foiled by a disguise, head-covering or even an affected limp. For this reason America’s Special Operations Command (SOC), which oversees the units responsible... Читать дальше...

IN THE GOOD old days, America’s budget deficit yawned when the economy was weak and shrank when it was strong. It fell from 13% to 4% of GDP during Barack Obama’s presidency, as the economy recovered from the financial crisis of 2007-09. Today unemployment is at a 50-year low. Yet borrowing is rising fast. Tax cuts in 2017 and higher government spending have widened the deficit to 5.5% of GDP, according to IMF data—the largest, by far, of any rich country.

STANDING BEFORE the global glitterati at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, President Donald Trump bragged of a “transformative change” to America’s trade policy. The newly inked “phase one” deal with China, he said on January 21st, would lower trade barriers and protect intellectual property. He crowed about China’s promise to buy an extra $200bn of American services, energy, agricultural produce and manufactured goods over the next two years. He was not exaggerating. Читать дальше...

MENG WANZHOU sat quietly as her lawyer unpicked the finer points of Canadian law in a subterranean Vancouver courtroom. Ms Meng (pictured) was not on trial. But the decision in front of the judge will be momentous nonetheless. She is the chief financial officer of Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant, and the daughter of its founder, Ren Zhengfei. The court must decide whether to grant an American request to extradite Ms Meng to face charges of fraud and sanctions-busting.

HOW BIG should a business team be? It is an enormously important issue for companies. Teams that are too small may lack the skills required to get the job done; teams that are too big may be impossible to co-ordinate.

PICTURE A STATE-RUN distillery in the mountains of Guizhou, China’s poorest province. The smell of fermented sorghum fills the air. Barefoot men shovel the grain into pits. Hundreds of women work the bottling line. Visitors are given a snifter. At first it intrigues: the dominant notes are of fermented beans and soy sauce. But then it becomes a Hobbesian battle for survival. One throat-singeing toast leads to 15. In come the “Demolition Girls”, forcing guests to drink bowls of the stuff, until they collapse under the table. Читать дальше...

AROUND 2013 Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield spotted a gap in the market. Many men, they noted, were fed up with overpriced shavers overendowed with blades. Technology and globalised commerce allowed them to find a cheap supplier of decent-quality razors, outsource back-office work, advertise their wares on social media for a song, and sell them directly to consumers on the internet thanks to merchant platforms like Shopify and payment processors such as Stripe. In six years their firm, Harry’s... Читать дальше...

TALKS BETWEEN the Colombian government and the FARC rebels were stuck. The two sides could not agree on how to bring those responsible for crimes during the country’s 52-year civil war to account. But with the help of Inter Mediate, a British charity, a way forward was found, involving the appointment of three independent lawyers on each side. In 2015 a pioneering transitional-justice deal was reached.

AUSTRALIA’S CONSERVATIVE coalition government has a favourite new catchphrase. It is on track to “meet and beat” its emissions-reduction targets, its ministers chime. The Liberal-National coalition has faced pressure to strengthen its laggardly climate policies since wildfires started tearing across the country last month, but the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has so far declined to do so. Australians are already “carrying our weight” on climate change, he insists.

SOLAR POWER played almost no part in Vietnam’s energy mix in 2017. To speed the technology’s adoption, the government offered that year to pay suppliers a generous $0.09 for every kilowatt-hour produced by big solar farms, but only if they started operations within the following two years. It expected some 850MW of capacity to be installed. Instead, by the end of 2019 the country found itself with 5 gigawatts—more than Australia, with an economy almost six times the size.

SHOULD YOU get up at 4am to get to work on time, or risk waiting until five? That is the question confronting many commuters in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, which has some of the world’s worst traffic jams. Geography is one reason: the 2m people trying to get in and out of the metropolis each day must squeeze into a narrow strip between the sea on one side and a lake and hills on the other. But poor urban planning and a dearth of infrastructure investment in recent decades have compounded the problem. Читать дальше...

ON A RECENT afternoon, workmen were repairing the wall around the Senkata gas plant in El Alto, a working-class city in the mountains above La Paz, Bolivia’s administrative capital. Backers of Evo Morales, the left-wing president who quit on November 10th, had blocked lorries from leaving the plant and knocked down the wall. On November 19th soldiers opened fire, killing ten people. Fresh paint now covers much of the rebuilt wall, but one mural remains from the chaotic presidential campaign that preceded Mr Morales’s resignation... Читать дальше...

THE OFFER would confound anyone who has ever used a web browser. A corner of the internet associated with charities attracted an investor willing to take it over by paying a sum typically reserved for stakes in hot startups. But a private-equity firm’s bid for control of the .org domain used by millions of non-profit groups—some as large as the UN, some as small as local schools—has jolted internet-policy wonks. The proposed sale has also spurred into action internet advocates who want to protect... Читать дальше...

AFTER RATTLING through one of the most radical campaign platforms in American history, inside a craft brewery in snowy New Hampshire last weekend, Bernie Sanders turned to the practicalities. His to-do list, the senator from Vermont acknowledged to his crowd of well-wrapped New Englanders, was ambitious. His promised health-care, education and infrastructure programmes would in fact represent the biggest expansion of government spending in peacetime; by one estimate Mr Sanders would double the federal budget. Читать дальше...

TO WALK AROUND Dan Wegmueller’s farm in southern Wisconsin is to conjure up the past. He says each of his 50 Brown Swiss cows—with white-tipped ears and bells clanging from their necks—has a name and distinct personality. His red-painted barn is crowned by an elegantly arched roof. He trundles over the snow on a green John Deere tractor. Such small-scale farming looks wonderfully quaint. But it might as well exist in a museum.

IT WOULD BE difficult to find a more polite crowd than the one which gathered in Richmond, Virginia on the morning of January 20th. As a helicopter buzzed overhead and police officers manned a cordon, thousands of people marched on the centre of the city waving handmade signs with jokes, chanting amiably. That many in the crowd were carrying guns and several signs called for violent insurrection against a “tyrannical” government only slightly distracted from a mostly good-natured protest. Men... Читать дальше...

MATT RIDLEY has many roles in life. As the author of popular science books (and former science editor of The Economist) he is a bestselling writer on genetics and evolution. As political pugilist he is one of the most articulate supporters of Brexit. As the Fifth Viscount Ridley he is a pillar of the House of Lords. He now has yet another role—as a guide for newbies to the Palace of Westminster with its winding corridors and arcane practices. The general election in December saw large numbers... Читать дальше...