Новости за 12.01.2017

“THESE are fields of hope,” says Gu Zhen’an, gesturing at a barren scene. A burly chain-smoker, he spent 25 years overseeing road-building crews in central China. But three years ago, when he finished paving a highway to a new high-speed railway station in this quiet corner of Anhui province, he decided it was time to switch industries. The land still looks empty, served by first-rate infrastructure but home to few people and fewer businesses. Mr Gu, however, sees things differently: he expects a city to sprout up around the train station. Читать дальше...

CHINA is proud of its infrastructure: its cavernous airports, snaking bridges, wide roads, speedy railways and great wall. This national backbone (minus the wall) bears the weight of the world’s second-largest economy and its biggest human migration, as hundreds of millions of people move around the country during the lunar new-year holidays—the rush officially begins on January 13th.

Print section Print Rubric:  A financial hub confronts the job-shredding potential of fintech Print Headline:  Out of the box Print Fly Title:  Fintech in Singapore UK Only Article:  standard article... Читать дальше...

IT IS always twilight in the circular passage where the guards keep watch around the clock through wide windows, eyeing the “forever detainees” in Camp Six at America’s naval base at Guantánamo. These are the men who are deemed too dangerous ever to be set free but whose jihadist activities were apparently too shadowy to provide enough evidence to secure convictions in court. The passage is murkily lit so that the guards—and the rare visiting journalist—can peer through one-way glass unobserved by the detainees. Читать дальше...

THE accused, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a diminutive, clean-shaven Saudi aged 52, looks innocuous as he shuffles into court between two burly guards, a blue-gloved hand on each of his shoulders. A young paralegal in his defence team embraces him. If found guilty by a jury of handpicked uniformed officers, he faces the death penalty.

Print section Print Rubric:  Trying to stay above politics, economists risk being not just wrong, but irrelevant Print Headline:  Get off of my cloud Print Fly Title:  Free exchange UK Only Article:  ... Читать дальше...

Print section Print Rubric:  After two years of unduly low inflation in the rich world, things are picking up Print Headline:  A welcome revival Print Fly Title:  Inflation UK Only Article:  standard... Читать дальше...

IN DEATH as in life, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani defied categorisation. He was a stalwart of a regime dubbed an exporter of terror and heresy. Yet regional arch-foes such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia mourned his passing, as did the Great Satan itself, via a State Department press briefing. At home, embattled reformists felt they had lost their prime protector.

IMAGINE YOU ARE a 45-year-old long-distance lorry driver. You never enjoyed school and left as soon as you could, with a smattering of qualifications and no great love of learning. The job is tiring and solitary, but it does at least seem to offer decent job security: driver shortages are a perennial complaint in the industry, and the average age of the workforce is high (48 in Britain), so the shortfalls are likely to get worse. America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) says there were 1.8m... Читать дальше...

IF YOU ARE over 20, look away now. Your cognitive performance is probably already on the wane. The speed with which people can process information declines at a steady rate from as early as their 20s.

THE HYPE OVER MOOCs peaked in 2012. Salman Khan, an investment analyst who had begun teaching bite-sized lessons to his cousin in New Orleans over the internet and turned that activity into a wildly popular educational resource called the Khan Academy, was splashed on the cover of Forbes. Sebastian Thrun, the founder of another MOOC called Udacity, predicted in an interview in Wired magazine that within 50 years the number of universities would collapse to just ten worldwide. The New York Times declared it the year of the MOOC. Читать дальше...

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IS designed to act as a slipway, launching students into the wider world in the expectation that the currents will guide them into a job. In practice, many people get stuck in the doldrums because employers demand evidence of specific experience even from entry-level candidates. Whether this counts as a skills gap is a matter of debate. “If I cannot find a powerful, fuel-efficient, easy-to-park car for $15,000, that doesn’t mean there is a car shortage,” says Peter Cappelli... Читать дальше...

THE RECEPTION AREA contains a segment of a decommissioned Underground train carriage, where visitors wait to be collected. The surfaces are wood and glass. In each room the talk is of code, web development and data science. At first sight the London office of General Assembly looks like that of any other tech startup. But there is one big difference: whereas most firms use technology to sell their products online, General Assembly uses the physical world to teach technology. Its office is also a campus. Читать дальше...

The liberal disorder

You stressed one aspect of liberalism’s attitude to power and neglected the other two (“The year of living dangerously”, December 24th). Liberals believe in protection from undue power, whether the coercive power of the state, the economic power of concentrated wealth or the unfiltered power of popular majorities. By focusing too long on undue state power, free-market liberalism contributed to the political difficulties liberal democracy now faces with the second and third aspects of undue power... Читать дальше...

IN DEATH as in life, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani defied categorisation. He was a stalwart of a regime dubbed an exporter of terror and heresy. Yet regional arch-foes such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia mourned his passing, as did the Great Satan itself, via a State Department press briefing. At home, embattled reformists felt they had lost their prime protector.

BUCHAREST, Romania — Romanian officials say two tigers were among a number of animals that died when a fire broke out at an animal shelter which houses animals retired from the circus. The Emergency Situations Inspectorate said firefighters managed to save seven tigers, six camels, ponies, goats, a kangaroo and greyhounds in the Thursday morning

US auto giant Ford Motor Company said Thursday it was expanding its safety recall of some defective airbag inflators from Japanese parts maker Takata. The action extends the recall to about 816,000 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brand vehicles built in North America and sold in the United States and Canada for various model years between 2005 and 2012. Takata, which has 20 percent of the global market for seatbelts and airbags, has been ensnared since 2013 in a scandal over airbags blamed for exploding with deadly force... Читать дальше...

Ben Carson, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, refused to promise in his confirmation hearing Thursday that the president-elect or his family would not … Click to Continue »

As festival lineups continue to roll out it can be easy for some to get lost in chaos. But as Boston Calling goes into its fifth year, the revelation...

Christians are the "most harassed and intimidated" religious group in the world, being routinely persecuted for their beliefs, a European Parliament report has found – a judgement seemingly at odds with high and rising levels of Islamophobia documented in Europe over 2016.

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Een flinke kabinetsdelegatie reist volgende week af naar het exclusieve World Economic Forum in Davos. In de Zwitserse plaats komen elk jaar ongeveer 2000 mensen uit de internationale politiek, bedrijfsleven en wetenschap bijeen om te praten over de grote sociale en economische problemen van de wereld.

SEATTLE (ANP) - Amazon wil in de komende anderhalf jaar meer dan 100.000 banen creëren in de Verenigde Staten. De webwinkelgigant denkt de extra mankracht nodig te hebben om verdere groei mogelijk te maken. Dat werd donderdag bekendgemaakt.

Daniel Uria
NIAGARA FALLS , N.Y., Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Loud noise caused by strong winds in Niagara Falls, N.Y., led one resident to seek help from local police in order to get to sleep.

The Turkish jazz trio will perform in Jerusalem.