Hundreds of people, mostly women, condemned during witch-hunts that persisted well into 18th century
The Catalan parliament is on Wednesday expected to pass a resolution to pardon up to 1,000 people – the majority of them women – condemned for the crime of witchcraft in the region 400 years ago.
The move follows similar gestures in Scotland, Switzerland and Norway after more than 100 European historians signed a manifesto titled: They weren’t witches, they were women.
Continue reading...Frank Hurley’s 1919 silent footage turns Sir Ernest Shackleton’s gruelling expedition into a travelogue with cute penguins
Pioneering Australian photographer and film-maker Frank Hurley was the official witness to Sir Ernest Shackleton’s gruelling expedition attempting to cross the Antarctic landmass, which lasted three years from 1914 to 1917. For most of the time the crew were utterly cut off from news of the outside world and the expedition became an epic ordeal when, on the way there, their ship (aptly named Endurance) was crushed and sunk by pack ice. Shackleton and his men were forced to journey onwards in a lifeboat in the desolate cold, finally to South Georgia, then rescued and brought by a Chilean vessel to the harbour in Valparaíso where they were accorded a hero’s welcome.
This 1919 silent movie is Hurley’s filmed record of Shackleton’s voyage and what is startling about it is its weird tonal obtuseness: so often it feels like a home-movie travelogue in which the mood is bafflingly jaunty. Towards the end of the film, just at the point when their lives have been saved and disaster averted, the film spends about 10 minutes on the adorable behaviour of the penguins. This is at the moment when Shackleton’s victory was said to consist simply in his heroic survival, the expedition itself having, of course, been a failure, but the film simply sets aside the obvious poignant or tragic dimension.
Continue reading...Many EU countries opt to reopen despite record infections as WHO suggests Omicron may signal more manageable phase of pandemic
The Netherlands has lifted its toughest Covid controls, Denmark is to remove all restrictions within days and France will begin easing curbs next week, as many – but not all – EU countries opt to reopen despite record infection numbers.
The moves come as data shows hospital and intensive care admissions are not surging in line with cases, and after the World Health Organization suggested the Omicron variant – which studies show is more contagious but usually less severe for vaccinated people – may signal a new, more manageable phase in the pandemic.
Continue reading...Officials and experts say several elements missing for full-scale invasion despite recent troop movements
Russia does not currently have enough troops on the border with Ukraine to carry out a full-scale military invasion and occupation of the country, according to western experts and senior officials in Kyiv.
They believe a Russian attack to capture most or all of Ukraine in the near future is unlikely, despite an unprecedented buildup of about 125,000 Russian soldiers, and military exercises due to take place next month in Belarus, within striking distance of the capital.
Continue reading...The Guardian's Luke Harding travels to the eastern Ukraine coastal city of Mariupol to see how preparations are being made for a potential Russian attack. With tensions in the region high and Russian troops gathering on the border, Ukrainian soldiers remain defiant, despite their depleted firepower. And while the world's attention has returned to the region for the first time since Russia took Crimea in 2014, for Ukrainians the war has been ongoing
Continue reading...As his term ends, Juan Orlando Hernández could be extradited on drug charges to the country that once saw him as a key ally
Along a paved road that climbs the hillside to Celaque Mountain national park in south-western Honduras, one-room shacks are overshadowed by high-walled mansions – including the homes of President Juan Orlando Hernández and his political allies.
Local people say the results of Hernández’s eight years as president are on full display.
Continue reading...Director wants visit to former Nazi concentration camp to spark reflection on ‘silence of bystanders’
Piotr Cywiński has spent a lot of time pondering a question that has exercised historians, philosophers and politicians ever since the end of the second world war. What lessons should we draw from one of the darkest pages in human history, the organised mass killing at Auschwitz?
A 49-year-old Polish historian, Cywiński has been director of the Auschwitz Museum since 2006. His office is housed in a former hospital and pharmacy built for the camp’s SS guards, and his windows look out over a crematorium and gas chamber.
Continue reading...Environmentalists fear a proposal to allow boundary changes to protected areas will open the door to deforestation
Environmentalists are deeply concerned by the Kenyan government’s move to allow boundary changes to protected forests, watering down the powers of conservation authorities.
The forest conservation and management (amendment) bill 2021 seeks to delete clause 34(2) from the 2016 act, which makes it mandatory for authorities to veto anyone trying to alter forest boundaries. The same clause protects forests from actions that put rare, threatened or endangered species at risk.
Continue reading...Many swear words in India, as elsewhere, have one thing in common – they target and shame women. Sunil Jaglan wants to empower women and end the culture of profanities
On a cold January afternoon, women gather on the veranda of a government-run nursery in Sarmathla village in the north Indian state of Haryana. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, they are eager to hear the visiting speaker.
The men and boys of the village mill about, reluctant to join the women, until Satyaprakash, a social worker, encourages them to sit on the chairs provided. “Please, join us tauji [uncle], today’s programme is about gaali [swear words],” he says.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch reports cases of mob attacks, gang-rape and death threats, with LGBTQ+ people living in fear and unable to flee
The lives of LGBTQ+ people in Afghanistan have “dramatically worsened” under Taliban rule, according to a new survey, which highlights cases of violence, gang-rape and death threats since the group seized power last year.
The report, by Human Rights Watch (HRW), recorded nearly 60 cases of targeted violence against LGBTQ+ people since August 2021, many of whom described how Taliban rule has destroyed their lives.
Continue reading...Analysis: Differing views over Russia within Nato alliance resurface in Ukraine crisis
Can the western alliance against Russia over its buildup of troops on the Ukrainian border hold together? It is a question that politicians and diplomats are increasingly grappling with amid fears that Germany and, to a lesser extent, France are in danger of dividing from the US and the UK, not only over how to respond to any future Russian act of aggression in Ukraine, but also in their assessment of the imminence of the threat.
Every effort is being made to minimise the differences within the Nato alliance, including through regular calls such as the one led by Joe Biden on Monday, but they may be impossible to avoid since they reflect not just different short-term assessments on intelligence, but a deep fissure going back decades about what Germany and France, as opposed to the Anglosphere, regard as the best way to handle Russia.
Continue reading...Staff turnover in the Biden administration is nowhere near what it was under Donald Trump, when senior aides came and went as through a revolving door in a hurricane.
Nonetheless, the press always likes a bit of speculation about who might be in and who might be out, and here comes the Washington Post with an exhaustive examination of how Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s chief of staff, has not had the smoothest first year in the job.
Continue reading...Lockdown call for NT remote communities as nation records at least 74 deaths from Covid-19; Scott Morrison speaks at Australia Day ceremony in Canberra; Russian ambassador to Australia says country ‘doesn’t intend to invade’ Ukraine; Invasion Day protests begin. Follow all the day’s news
A leading health expert has warned of the potential spread of the virulent Omicron Covid-19 strain during events today as large crowds gather for protest or celebration, AAP reports.
Jane Halton, chair of the coalition for epidemic preparedness and former health department head, says the closer people pack together the more likely it is the virus will spread.
We know it’s highly infectious and the closer everyone gets together, the more the likelihood you’ll be close to someone whose got Covid and therefore the greater the likelihood you’ll contract it.
People should be careful. What we don’t want to see is a big increase in cases.
I don’t think we should be cancelling things. I just think people should be courteous, thoughtful, and a little bit careful.
Continue reading...Officials working with global suppliers to avoid European gas crisis if flow from Russia is cut as Biden says he would consider personal sanctions against Putin
The US has helped prepare for the diversion of natural gas supplies from around the world to Europe in the event that the flow from Russia is cut, in an effort to blunt Vladimir Putin’s most powerful economic weapon.
As fears of an invasion of Ukraine have grown, US officials said on Tuesday that they had been negotiating with global suppliers, and they were now confident that Europe would not suffer from a sudden loss of energy for heating in the middle of winter.
Continue reading...After Jeremy Grantham’s warning, analysts fear more volatility ahead – and will be watching tech’s latest results with interest
The tech sector led US stock markets on a pandemic boom last year. Now markets are whipsawing on fears that the Federal Reserve will end the era of easy money, all while a potential war in Ukraine looms. Some warn of a bigger correction to come on a scale not seen since the dotcom collapse of the late 1990s.
On Monday, US stock markets crashed then rallied. The Dow Jones at one point lost more than 1,000 points before ending up just over 100. Tuesday was more of the same with the Dow losing 800 points only to gain most of it back. Analysts expect more volatile days ahead. The Fed on Wednesday issued its latest update on its plans to raise rates in order to curb inflation, and the world’s largest tech firms are preparing to issue their latest results to investors, who appear to have grown more skeptical about their prospects.
Continue reading...Shooting of pair on Caribbean coast allegedly linked to ‘transnational illegal activities that the victims participated in’
The killing of two Canadians at a resort on Mexico’s Caribbean coast last week was motivated by debts between international gangs apparently dedicated to drug and weapons trafficking, according to a senior Mexican prosecutor.
“The investigations indicate that this attack was motivated by debts that arose from transnational illegal activities that the victims participated in,” said Oscar Montes, the chief prosecutor of the Quintana Roo state, on Tuesday. “The information [is] that they were involved in weapons and drug trafficking, among other crimes.”
Continue reading...Greta Ferušić Weinfeld survived both the Nazi death camp and the nearly four-year siege during the Bosnian war
A woman who survived both the Auschwitz death camp and the Sarajevo siege in the 1990s has died, according to representatives of Bosnia’s Jewish community.
Greta Ferušić Weinfeld died on Monday aged 97.
Continue reading...Omicron has played out in a series of strange stages in Australia. Here’s what to expect when the wave hits
Dear New Zealand,
Kia ora!
Continue reading...The anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy Jr apologized on Tuesday for suggesting things are worse for people living under Covid restrictions and mandates than they were for Anne Frank, the teenager who died in a Nazi concentration camp after hiding with her family in a secret annex in an Amsterdam house for two years.
His wife, the actor Cheryl Hines, who appears in the HBO hit Curb Your Enthusiasm, distanced herself from her husband in her own tweet on the subject. She called the reference to Frank “reprehensible and insensitive”.
Continue reading...Rightwing radical was a towering figure in Brazil who was adored and abhorred in equal measure by millions of followers and foes
Olavo de Carvalho, the coronavirus-denying mentor of Jair Bolsonaro and Brazil’s radical right, has died in the United States, with one of his children citing Covid-19 as the cause.
“The family … asks for prayers for the professor’s soul,” relatives said on Twitter after announcing the death of the 74-year-old polemicist – a towering figure in contemporary Brazilian politics who was adored and abhorred in equal measure by millions of followers and foes.
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