Новости за 05.08.2021

THE MODERN Olympic Games were founded to celebrate amateur sporting ideals. But times change. These days, success takes money and a hard-nosed attitude to doling it out. Few countries prove this as well as Britain, which has spent 25 years shaping up from an Olympic also-ran to a medal-winning power.

STILL, SUNNY weather in southern England brings the smell of sausages from barbecues, the off-key tinkling of ice-cream vans—and inflatable boats filled with asylum-seekers. According to the BBC, more have already crossed the English Channel this year than in all of 2019 or 2020. A new one-day record was set on July 19th, when 430 turned up.

AT THE TOP of farmers’ concerns about crime are fly-tipping, sheep-rustling and livestock-worrying. Cybersecurity ranks low. “We’re all fully clued up,” says one. Among those charged with disabusing farmers of such complacency is Mark Moore of Devon and Cornwall Police, who leads the South West Cyber Resilience Centre, one of eight non-profit companies set up by the Home Office in the past couple of years to advise small businesses. When dishing out advice, he keeps it simple (change passwords frequently)... Читать дальше...

IN ONE SHED a worker tests welding guns, alone but for the radio. In the next a crew admires a machine fresh in from the Netherlands, which cuts steel pipes to elegant curves. By mid-August the air will be thick with fumes and sparks. Some 400 workers will assemble steel into latticed tripods, 20 storeys high. In the spring these will be towed out in the Firth of Forth and dropped to the seabed. A wind turbine will be fixed atop, sweeping 200m above the waves. They will form part of the Neart Na Gaoithe array... Читать дальше...

IN MARCH LAST year, as covid-19 spread and countries locked down, governments all over the world faced the prospect of an unprecedented rise in unemployment. Some, like America’s, rolled out income-protection schemes; in Britain, as in continental Europe, the focus was on keeping workers attached to their employers. The Coronavirus Jobs Retention Scheme saw the state covering 80% of the wage bill for furloughed employees, up to a maximum of £2,500 ($3,485) a month.

IN 1774 THOMAS PAINE left Britain for America to become a radical pamphleteer and revolutionary agitator. In “Common Sense”, published two years later, he explained why he had chosen to emigrate. Britain was built on heredity, a loathsome practice rooted in theft (William the Conqueror was the original bandit who stole the people’s land) and perpetuated by idiocy (what could be more absurd than giving a job to someone because of who their parents were?). “The artificial noble sinks into a dwarf before the noble of nature,” he said... Читать дальше...

ONE FIRM’S crisis is another’s opportunity. A shortage of semiconductors has helped pump up the valuations of firms such as Nvidia, whose chips power everything from video-gaming to machine learning and data centres. But boom time for sellers means misery for buyers. Carmakers, whose products have become computers on wheels, are among the victims. Profits at Ford, America’s second-biggest carmaker by volume, fell by half in the most recent quarter amid a global shortage of chips. Analysts say... Читать дальше...

AS THE DELTA variant of covid-19 continues to spread across large parts of the world, the shame is that vaccines are still in such short supply. Worse, they are being hogged by rich countries even though the need elsewhere is so great. For that, blame politics. The triumph, however, is that vaccines exist at all. And for that, praise science.

IN THE LATE 1980s Zambians, inspired by the changes sweeping through eastern Europe, demanded the end of their own one-party state. In 1991 Kenneth Kaunda, the country’s founding president, reluctantly agreed to multiparty elections. He lost. But in leaving office willingly, even personally removing the presidential pennant from his car, Kaunda ensured that his country was a trailblazer for democracy. By the end of the decade nearly every country in Africa had gone to the polls. During the commodities... Читать дальше...

India, who were 97 for one at lunch, lost three quick wickets including the important one of Virat Kohli, who was caught behind off James Anderson on the first ball he faced.

CRYSTAL CORONAS says she knew this year’s Delaware State Fair was different the instant she let slip her Hollywood Racing Pigs for the first time. As Kevin Bacon, Snoop Hoggy Hog and Kim Kardashi-ham careered around the wood-chip track, competing for an Oreo biscuit, Ms Coronas looked up and saw a crowd revelling in post-lockdown delight. “People were screaming,” she recalled after another porcine performance. “They were so excited to see the show. I guess covid’s been hard for everyone.”

FROM MONTE CARLO to Marbella to Milan, no glamorous destination is complete without a Nobu. The chain of gourmand-luring Japanese-Peruvian restaurants has become a staple in practically every tourist hotspot. In each location, a well-off clientele stuff themselves with chunks of black cod soaked in miso and yellowfin-tuna tartare while a DJ in expensive-looking spectacles plays unobtrusive house music.

Letters are welcome via e-mail to letters@economist.com  

Crime and punishment

Regarding your leader calling for life sentences to be reduced (“Pointlessly punitive”, July 10th), for the past 29 years I have spent countless hours meeting men serving life sentences without parole. One of them is my biological father. Your arguments about excessive sentencing struck a chord. On Father’s Day, I was reminded of the diminishing returns of many life sentences during my visit to several prisoners aged over 60. Читать дальше...

MANY, MANY times in the early 1980s, in the Parvati Valley in the foothills of the Himalayas, a young man wandered slowly through a thicket of wild cannabis plants. As he went he removed the fan leaves from each plant and caressed the small green flowers, the resin glands. On his palm they left a thin layer, clear at first, then thickening and darkening until he could press the sticky brown mass with his thumb, and snap it off. He did not hurry. This was a communion between man and plant, a divine thing. Читать дальше...

The Barcelona Complex. By Simon Kuper. Penguin; 416 pages; $27. Published in Britain as “Barça”; Short Books; £20

The Island of Missing Trees. By Elif Shafak. Viking; 368 pages; £14.99. To be published in America in September by Bloomsbury; $27

“DRINKING THE Kool-Aid”, meaning to unquestioningly adhere to a belief or system, is often used jokingly by people unaware of its awful origin in Peoples Temple, a 20th-century religious community. (Jim Jones’s followers in Guyana in fact committed suicide by putting cyanide into Flavor Aid, a different drink.) The cult had its own internal lexicon, too. The Temple’s acolytes celebrated the birthday of one man, Jones himself, on “Father’s Day”. “Churchianity” was a term for the Christianity observed by America’s middle class. Читать дальше...

Tunnel 29. By Helena Merriman. PublicAffairs; 352 pages; $28. Hodder & Stoughton; £20

CHINESE OFFICIALS used to insist that social harmony in Xinjiang could be achieved only by developing the far-western region’s economy. But in 2014 the government began to argue that for economic development to occur, stability was needed first. This small shift in wording heralded the fiercest storm.

The Gorgie club were controversially demoted from the top flight on a points-per-game basis in 2020 when the season was curtailed.

Qatar Airways said on Thursday that it had been ordered by regulators in the Gulf state to ground 13 of its Airbus A350 aircraft over the rapid degradation of fuselage surfaces. The airline, one of the Gulf "big three" carriers, previously stopped accepting delivery of the aircraft over the issue, according to media reports in June. Qatar Airways said in a statement that it had been forced to press out-of-service Airbus A330 aircraft back into operation to fill the gap left by the grounding of the 13 aircraft. Читать дальше...

Many drivers struggle to provide the correct evidence to support their application to a local authority.

Kroger Co. has partnered with Lyft Inc. to offer discounted rides to and from COVID-19 vaccination appointments. Customers in certain markets can go to the Kroger website where they will receive a code that will provide $12 per ride and make an appointment for a Kroger pharmacy or The Little Clinic location. The offer is available in locations across 30 states and Washington D.C. Kroger stock has gained 32.5% for the year to date, outpacing the S&P 500 index , which is up 17.6% for the period.

Dine Brands Global Inc. reported second-quarter net income totaled $28.7 million, or $1.69 per share, after a loss of $134.8 million, or $8.33 per share last year. The company said the difference was owing to $106.5 million non-cash impairment charges related to Applebee's goodwill and other intangible assets from COVID-19 last year. Adjusted EPS of $1.94 beat the FactSet consensus of $1.71. Revenue of $233.6 million more than doubled from $109.7 million last year and beat the FactSet consensus... Читать дальше...