France Culture: The Gulf Of Morbihan In Brittany

FRANCE 24 English (October 12, 2023) – In the Breton language, its name means “little sea”. The Gulf of Morbihan, in the French region of Brittany, is made up of around 40 islands, all of them small paradises.

The largest of them, l’Île aux Moines, is the most popular with tourists. Others belong to private owners, who live out their desert island dream. Oysters are farmed all year round on this storm-protected inland sea.

We take a closer look. Read more about this story in our article: https://f24.my/9r7U.y

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Oct 14, 2023

Israel’s agony and its retribution

The Economist Magazine (October 14, 2023): The latest issue features Israel’s Agony and its Retribution; America’s health-care rip-off; Technocrats vs Populists; The backlash against greenery; Rwanda wants to be Africa’s new cop on the beat; A corner of Italy that is forever China

Will Israel’s agony and retribution end in chaos or stability?

Much depends on its offensive in Gaza—and its politicians and neighbours

Briefing

Hamas’s atrocities and Israel’s retaliation will change both sides for ever

The miscalculations of Israel’s and Gaza’s leaders are being laid bare


The New York Review Of Books – November 2, 2023

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The New York Review of Books (November 2, 2023) – The latest features the 60th Anniversary Issue— with Pankaj Mishra on writing in the face of fascism, Lucy Sante on the kaleidoscopic Blaise Cendrars, Fintan O’Toole on the battles over wokeness, Deborah Eisenberg on the enchantments of Elsa Morante, Timothy Garton Ash on the dream of a free Europe, Simon Callow on vertiginous Mozart, Jed Perl on the Warholization of Picasso, Marilynne Robinson on Iowa’s tattered ideals, Catherine Nicholson on Shakespeare’s First Folio, Susan Faludi on abortion in the nineteenth century, Martha Nussbaum on the rights of whales, poems by Anne Carson and Ishion Hutchinson, and much more.

When the Barbarians Take Over

A book burning after SA troops stormed the offices of the Dresdner Volkszeitung

Uwe Wittstock’s new account of writers considering whether to flee or to remain in Germany during Hitler’s rise to power sheds light on the choices faced by many writers in India and Russia today.

By Pankaj Mishra

February 1933: The Winter of Literature

by Uwe Wittstock, translated from the German by Daniel Bowles

“It will have become clear to you now,” Joseph Roth wrote to Stefan Zweig in mid-February 1933, “that we are heading for a great catastrophe.” Two weeks previously, on January 30, Germany’s eighty-five-year-old president, Paul von Hindenburg, had appointed as chancellor a man who for more than a decade had spoken and written frankly about his resolve to extirpate democracy and Jews from the country. Roth, who left Berlin the same morning Adolf Hitler came to power and never returned to Germany, was desperate to make his complacent friend recognize the perils before them.

Mozart the Modernist

In his new biography, Peter Mackie conjures a vertiginous version of Mozart as the quintessential artist of the modern world.

By Simon Callow

Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces

by Patrick Mackie

Biographies of composers are a relatively recent genre; those of Mozart were among the first examples.Though his life was not as sensational as that of Gesualdo, for example, who murdered his wife, Mozart was, from his early years, an international celebrity whose very personality posed questions beyond the eternal riddle of creativity. How could a mere child—he started performing publicly on the clavichord at the age of six—be so astoundingly versatile? As he toured Europe, going from court to court and salon to salon with his father, Leopold, and his older sister, Maria Anna—a talented musician as well—the delightful little boy in his nattily embroidered outfits enchanted his listeners, readily obliging them with requests, however crass: now playing with the keys covered, now with only one finger, to delighted applause.

News: Israel Readies For Ground Assault Of Gaza, Zelensky Meets With NATO

The Globalist Podcast (October 12, 2023) – Israel forms a unity government as fighting with Hamas continues. A former CIA officer tells us how Israeli and US intelligence could have missed what Hamas had planned.

Plus: Volodymyr Zelensky makes a surprise visit to Brussels for a Nato meeting and Thailand’s new prime minister courts foreign investment.

The New York Times — Thursday, October 12, 2023

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Israel Forms Unity Government and Bombs Gaza in the Wake of Hamas Attack

Palestinians inspecting damage on Wednesday after overnight Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younes, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Following the deadliest assault on Israel in half a century, the country is vowing to crush Hamas, and both sides are bracing for an escalating war.

How Israel’s Feared Security Services Failed to Stop Hamas’s Attack

Hamas fighters used earth-moving equipment to breach the border fence between Gaza and Israel on Saturday, allowing more than 1,500 fighters to surge through nearly 30 points along the border.

Israel’s military and espionage services are considered among the world’s best, but on Saturday, operational and intelligence failures led to the worst breach of Israeli defenses in half a century.

A Texas Community Attracts Migrant Home Buyers, and Republican Ire

The development near Houston offers cheap land and unconventional financing to buyers, many of them undocumented immigrants. Gov. Greg Abbott has called for hearings.

Who Runs the Best U.S. Schools? It May Be the Defense Department.

Schools for children of military members achieve results rarely seen in public education.

Preview: London Review Of Books – Oct 19, 2023

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London Review of Books (LRB) – October 19, 2023: The new issue features Camus in the New World; Charles Lamb’s Lives; The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes who Created the Oxford English Dictionary and At the Met: On Cecily Brown….

Travels in the Americas: Notes and Impressions of a New World by Albert Camus, edited by Alice Kaplan, translated by Ryan Bloom

Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder and the Hijacking of History by Benjamin Balint

On Nagorno-Karabakh

Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the US Census by Dan Bouk

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Oct 12, 2023

Volume 622 Issue 7982

nature Magazine – October 12, 2023: The latest issue features  the results of a comprehensive re-evaluation of the conservation status of amphibians since 2004.

AI’s potential to accelerate drug discovery needs a reality check

Companies say the technology will contribute to faster drug development. Independent verification and clinical trials will determine whether this claim holds up.

Summer storms launch water high into the stratosphere

Thunderstorms can increase the levels of water vapour in the atmosphere, at altitudes as high as 19 km.

How ChatGPT and other AI tools could disrupt scientific publishing

A world of AI-assisted writing and reviewing might transform the nature of the scientific paper.

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – October 13, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (October 13, 2023) The new issue features Hamas militants’ devastating incursion into Israel  from Gaza resulting in thousands of deaths, provoking a declaration of war and upending the fragile diplomacy of the Middle East.

The swirling composite of images on the magazine’s cover this week tries to encapsulate the human chaos and grief of civilians, both in Israel and Gaza, caught in the chaos of war. The central image shows a vast explosion filling the sky above Gaza City, an ominous portent of many violent acts still to come.

As the region faces its worst conflict for 50 years, Bethan McKernan reports from a kibbutz ransacked by militants and finds shocked residents still struggling to process events. Guardian correspondents Harriet SherwoodPatrick Wintour and Peter Beaumont provide context and analysis, while international affairs commentator Simon Tisdall argues that the ultimate blame lies with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s controversial prime minister.

Ahead of this weekend’s elections in Poland that could give the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party an unprecedented third term in office, Shaun Walker goes on the campaign trail with Donald Tusk whose centre-right Civic Coalition is hoping to reverse the country’s slide away from democratic norms. And Brussels correspondent Lisa O’Carroll reports on the EU’s Granada summit where Hungary’s Viktor Orbán accused fellow leaders of attempting to impose a “diktat” with a proposal on a bloc-wide agreement on migration.

With global temperatures for September described as “gobsmackingly bananas” by leading climatologist Zeke Hausfather, our interview with the president of Cop28 could not be more timely. Sultan Al Jaber explains to environment editor Fiona Harvey how he believes he can square his job as the chief of the United Arab Emirates’ national oil company with leading a global conference focused on net zero carbon emissions.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Oct 13, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement (October13, 2023): The new issue features Deeper Truths – The spiritual quest of the Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse; ‘Woke Wars’ and identity politics; fashion and the Bloomsbury group; Jewish boxers in London; Elsa Morante’s princes and demons and ‘Free Will?’

News: Hamas’ “Sheer Evil” War, Netanyahu’s Failure, Finland Gas Pipeline Leak

The Globalist Podcast (October 11, 2023) – The latest from Israel and the implications for Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future as the conflict between Israel and Hamas enters its fifth day.

Plus: a leak in a Finnish gas pipeline is ‘not an accident’ and how businesses are changing Tokyo’s skyline.