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maxwellokolo

Wife of Pulse shooter Omar Mateen arrested - 0 views

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    Authorities have arrested the wife of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen in connection with their investigation into the June mass shooting, FBI spokesman Prentice Danner said. Noor Salman was arrested in the San Francisco area Monday morning, Danner said.
Javier E

Donald Trump has one core philosophy: misogyny - 0 views

  • Trump wants us to know all about his sex life. He doesn’t regard sex as a private activity. It’s something he broadcasts to demonstrate his dominance, of both women and men. In his view, treating women like meat is a necessary precondition for winning, and winning is all that matters in his world. By winning, Trump means asserting superiority. And since life is a zero-sum game, superiority can only be achieved at someone else’s expense.
  • It’s an entirely Darwinian view, where the alpha male has his pick of females, both as a perk and a means of flexing his power over lesser men. It’s the mindset that made his assertion of his penis size in a national debate almost an imperative—if he let the attack on his manhood slide, his entire edifice might crumble.
  • When he owned the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, he would screen all the contestants. His nominal reason for taking on this role was to make sure that his lackeys weren’t neglecting any beauties. His real motive was to humiliate the women. He would ask a contestant to name which of her competitors she found “hot.” If he didn’t consider a woman up to his standards, he would direct her to stand with her fellow “discards.” One of the contestants, Carrie Prejean, wrote about this in her book, Still Standing: “Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after [Trump] left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began ... even those of us who were among the chosen couldn’t feel very good about it—it was as though we had been stripped bare.”
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  • The joy he takes in humiliating women is not something he even bothers to disguise. He told the journalist Timothy L. O’Brien, “My favorite part [of the movie Pulp Fiction] is when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: ‘Bitch be cool.’ I love those lines.” Or as he elegantly summed up his view to New York magazine in the early ’90s, “Women, you have to treat them like shit.”
  • Women labor under a cloud of Trump’s distrust. “I have seen women manipulate men with just a twitch of their eye—or perhaps another body part,” he wrote in Trump: The Art of the Comeback. Working moms are particularly lacking in loyalty, he believes, and thus do not make for good employees. “She’s not giving me 100 percent. She’s giving me 84 percent, and 16 percent is going towards taking care of children,
  • This is one reason that evangelicals, both men and women, gravitate to Trump, despite his obvious lack of interest in religion and blatantly loose morals. He represents the possibility of a return to patriarchy, to a time when men were men, and didn’t have to apologize for it
  • In 1989, Trump had returned home from a painful scalp-reduction surgery, intended to remove a bald spot. His ex-wife Ivana had suggested the doctor—and he blamed her for his suffering. He held her arms and began pulling hair from her scalp, then tore off her clothes. Hurt writes: “Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than sixteen months. Ivana is terrified … It is a violent assault. According to versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, ‘he raped me.’ ” When the story resurfaced last summer, Trump’s campaign disavowed it. When Hurt was writing his book, Trump’s lawyers forced the author to include a statement from Ivana in the book, “A Note to Readers,” which softens the account but doesn’t disavow it: “As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
  • The scene offers a graphic summation of Trump’s retrograde beliefs and real brutality. What’s worse, the same spirit informs his politics—the rampant cruelty, the violent impulses, the thirst for revenge, the absence of compassion. Misogyny isn’t an incidental part of Donald Trump. It’s who he is.
katyshannon

Shaker Aamer: In his own words - BBC News - 0 views

  • Aamer, 48, was held over extremely serious claims - that he had led a Taliban unit and was an associate of Osama Bin Laden. The US military classified him as a threat, but he was never charged.
  • His lawyers say the case against him came from unreliable allegations extracted during torture and that his treatment at the US military base in Cuba raises serious questions about the legality and morality of the so-called war on terror.
  • The Saudi national lived in London for five years, settling with a British wife - but says he found it hard to be a practising Muslim in the UK.
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  • "The way my wife appeared, wearing a full niqab, the way I am wearing a turban on my head, wearing an Islamic dress. "Because people talk and say rubbish things about you, about your wife. Eyes chasing you everywhere you go.
  • Aamer denies he was an associate of terrorism suspects 20 years ago - but freely admits having attending talks in London given by Abu Qatada, a radical preacher who, as years went by, became increasingly extreme.
  • "I used to sit and listen to his speeches. And I know he's not a bad guy, that's exactly what I know [from the time]. According to my own knowledge he got nothing to do with bin Laden and he never, he never preached about him in his circles. And he never encouraged anybody to go to Afghanistan."
  • Soon after the 9/11 attacks on America, Aamer was detained in Afghanistan by bounty hunters tracking down and handing over possible al-Qaeda suspects.
  • He was first held by US forces at Bagram air force base near Kabul. He says a British intelligence officer was in the room when his head was slammed into a wall.
  • He was then taken to Kandahar air field where the treatment got "a lot worse", with US soldiers "given the right to do anything they want"."They have something called 'welcoming party'. Where they really beat you up so that while you are still on the concrete, on the airport, before even they move you to check you and process your case. They did it for two, three hours and truly, truly, that's one of the times where I felt like I'm not going to live that night."
  • He says he was forced to stay awake for nine days, denied food, doused in freezing water and made to stand on concrete in the winter for 16 hours a day. One interrogator threatened to sexually assault his then-five-year-old daughter, he says.
  • "That was the hardest thing, the hardest thing that I ever hear. If you don't start talking, we will rape your daughter and you will hear her crying 'daddy, daddy'. That was completely inhumane. It was worse than the beating as well, worse than everything, just thinking of my daughter and I just sat there silent completely."
  • "A government spokesman says the UK stands 'firmly against' abuse, adding: 'We do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment for any purpose.' The problem is, nobody knows if, in the wake of 9/11, some UK officials did collude in such behaviour.
runlai_jiang

North Korea's Kim, Long a Pariah, Takes Tentative Step Onto World Stage - WSJ - 0 views

  • SEOUL—With a clandestine trip to Beijing this week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has taken his first, tentative steps onto the world diplomatic stage.
  • Mr. Kim and his regime have sought legitimacy and recognition as a nuclear-weapons state as the country’s dilapidated economy has faced ever-tougher sanctions.
  • conducted in secrecy after a ride on an armored train to the Chinese capital, lays the groundwork for his biggest diplomatic date yet: a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
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  • there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!
  • by his lack of direct contact with foreign leaders, and his apparent unwillingness to stray too far from Pyongyang. Compared with his father, Kim Jong Il, the current dictator had little lead time before taking the reins.
  • “Previous Chinese negotiating behavior suggests that a meeting with Xi carries real weight
  • Mr. Kim and his wife met Mr. Xi and his wife during a lunch that “was overflowing with a harmonious and intimate atmosphere from its beginning to the end,”
  • which North Korean state media said was accepted “with pleasure”—though Chinese state media didn’t mention the invitation, one of several differences that hinted at enduring tensions between the neighbors.
  • Mr. Kim’s willingness to bring his wife to dinners with the South Korean envoys and with the Chinese president helps to make him “look like a fuller leader—a three-dimensional person, not this caricature,” she said.
  • The visit also allowed Beijing, with whom relations had soured, to play a central role in efforts to find a solution to the nuclear standoff.
  • In talks with the U.S., security analysts expect Mr. Kim to seek recognition as a nuclear-weapons state, or to demand sanctions relief and U.S. security guarantees in return for giving up its nuclear arms.
  • North Korean leaders’ preferred means of travel—armored train—would appear to reduce the likelihood of a summit in Scandinavia or Switzerland, given the distance and security concerns. Mr. Kim’s trip, like that of his father, w
  • But in venturing beyond his borders for the first time since taking power, Mr. Kim has signaled he can rub shoulders with world leaders like Mr. Xi.
  • Kim is sending a signal that he has options outside of full capitulation to Trump.”
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    the meeting is possible to denuclearize, but Kim wonders compensation instead of full capitulation. Kim also shows his ability to negotiate with world leaders. The security and location for the US-North Korea summit will be important.
Javier E

Nazis Killed Her Father. Then She Fell in Love With One. - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Peter Harf, who joined the company in 1981 and became chairman this year, and whose own father was a Nazi, said he never really bought the idea that the organization had nothing to hide.“I knew the stories they told,” he said. “It didn’t smell right.”
  • 12, as JAB was acquiring high-profile coffee brands and drawing global attention, Mr. Harf pressed the family to open its archives to an independent scholar. By 2016, Paul Erker, an economic historian at the University of Munich, took on the task.
  • Only now, 74 years after World War II, are the family and the company grappling with their dark and complicated history.
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  • starting in late 1940, the Reimanns routinely took advantage of forced labor: men and women taken from their homes in Nazi-occupied territories, as well as prisoners of war, who were allocated by the Nazis to farms and industrial companies across Germany.
  • Mr. Harf noted that he lived in three places — New York, London and Milan — where nationalism and ethnic division were on the rise. For most of his long career, he said, he considered shareholder capitalism to be value neutral. No longer. In the age of Trump, Brexit and Matteo Salvini, he said, businesses can no longer pretend that they are operating in a “value-free space.”
  • “This is once again a time when everybody needs to take a stance,” Mr. Harf said. “I’m very scared of what’s happening.”
  • the men gave the company a makeover in keeping with Nazi principles. By the time Hitler took over, Benckiser already housed a Nationalist Socialist Company Organization — a worker council that sought to uphold Nazi ideology. It later became a “model NS plant.”
  • “Reimann Sr. and Reimann Jr. were not just opportunistic followers of the regime,” Mr. Harf said. “They were fully signed up to the Nazi project.”
  • In 1933, it employed 181 people. As an important supplier to the food industry, Benckiser benefited from the Nazi system, more than tripling sales over the next decade. Mr. Reimann Sr. served as president of the regional Chamber of Industry and Commerce, which helped orchestrate the Aryanization, expropriation and expulsion of Jewish businesses
  • Its employees — there are 180,000 around the world — have reported that customers accuse them of “working for Nazis
  • It was around this time that Emilie Landecker started working in the accounting department as a clerk
  • According to Mr. Harf, Benckiser’s use of forced laborers grew so fast that she would surely have been aware of the abuses.
  • By 1943, 175 people, or a third of the total work force, were forced laborers, most of them from France and Eastern Europe. Benckiser operated two labor camps, one of them overseen by a brutal foreman, Paul Werneburg, who had been with the company since 1910. On his watch, female workers were forced to stand at attention naked outside their barracks, and those who refused risked sexual abuse. Workers were kicked and beaten, among them a Ukrainian woman who also cleaned in the Reimanns’ private villa.
  • During a bomb raid on Jan. 7, 1945, Werneburg threw dozens of workers out of a camp bomb shelter. Thirty were injured, and one died. As word of Werneburg’s brutality spread, even the local Nazi office in charge of allocating forced laborers reprimanded the Reimanns for mistreating their workers.
  • Ms. Landecker would have witnessed it all, said her son, Wolfgang Reimann, in an email. “She lived through the horror show happening in our own company,” he said. “She probably sat in the very bunker when Werneburg threw out the workers.”
  • Mr. Reimann Jr. wrote a letter to the commanding officer on Sept. 22, dismissing allegations that he had been an “early and enthusiastic Nazi” as mere “denunciations” — and insisting that he was in fact a victim of the Nazis.
  • It worked. While the French initially barred Mr. Reimann Jr. from continuing his business activities, American officials overturned the judgment, classifying him as a “follower” of Nazism, rather than an active Nazi himself.
  • In 1947, the wealth of the Reimann family totaled 686,000 Reichsmark, or approximately $2.4 million in today’s money. Over the decades, the fortune grew in step with Benckiser and its successor companies, and today the family’s worth is estimated at €33 billion. On one recent list of the wealthiest families in Germany, the Reimanns ranked second.
  • Ms. Landecker was at work at Benckiser when the Gestapo came for her father.It was April 24, 1942
  • A few weeks later, one last letter arrived from Mr. Landecker, but only the envelope has survived. It shows that he was interned in block III 416/2 in Izbica, a ghetto serving as a transfer point for the deportation of Jews to the Belzec and Sobibor death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland.
  • Mr. Harf said it made him think that not enough voices in business were speaking up against the re-emergence of nationalism and populism in Europe and the United States.
  • “We fought for five years only to have an age like this,” he wrote, referring to World War I. “I hope you, my dear children, remain well-behaved and good, and keep loving me, even if you suffer because of me.”
  • he had a brother and sister-in-law. “Aunt Pauline has written from America,” he wrote that December. “She is trying for us, maybe things will work out.” But there wasn’t enough money. Mr. Landecker was not allowed to work, which meant that Emilie, still a teenager, became the family’s only earner.
  • he wrote his last letter to Bavaria.“My dear Gerdele,” he wrote. “As you can see, I’m still here, but not for long. Today I learned that my departure is on the 24th of the month — in two days. So this is the last letter that you receive from me from here or perhaps ever. We don’t know what is waiting for us.”
  • “You won’t be able to marry here in Germany,” he continued. “Learn languages!! You have your future ahead of you — don’t waste it.”
  • No one knows when exactly their love affair started. But in 1951, their first child was born
  • Two more followed. Twice a week, every Sunday and Wednesday, Mr. Reimann Jr. would leave his wife and visit Ms. Landecker.
  • years later, she admitted in a letter to Mr. Reimann Jr. that she always missed not being his wife — and not having a regular family
  • Ms. Landecker was a quiet woman. She did not speak much. But her children say that despite everything, she loved their father. “I never understood why,” said Wolfgang Reimann. “He was not very lovable from my perspective.”
  • “My mother never said anything,” Wolfgang Reimann said. “For the longest time, I believed it was her personality.” But he has changed his mind. “If I had to live with the love of my life, as my mother did, and this person was also responsible for the terrible things that happened during the war, I would not have spoken much, either, I guess,
  • the Reimanns channeled much of their wealth into JAB. In recent years the holding company has spent billions to become a rival to the likes of Starbucks and Nestlé by buying chains including Panera Bread, Krispy Kreme and Pret A Manger. Last year, it also helped Keurig Green Mountain buy Dr Pepper Snapple for nearly $19 billion. JAB also controls the cosmetics giant Coty, the owner of Calvin Klein fragrances
  • “When I heard and read of the atrocities committed at Benckiser, sanctioned by my grandfather, I felt like throwing up,” said Martin Reimann, 30, who is a grandchild to Ms. Landecker and Mr. Reimann Jr. “I cannot claim that I was very interested in politics before. I was just living my life. But after what happened, I changed my mind. I have to do something. In our family council, the younger generation created a little bit of a rebellion.”
  • By renaming its foundation after Alfred Landecker, the Reimann family is bringing back one name from the millions killed by the Nazis. But it is also explicitly linking the memory of crimes past to today’s fight to preserve the values of liberal democracy.
  • “What we can learn from history and how we can learn from history is at the core of this foundation,”
  • “This is not just about researching and remembering the past,” he added. “It’s about stabilizing and maintaining democracy today.”
  • Mr. Harf, JAB’s chairman, agrees. He said he had recently read “The Order of the Day,” a historic novella by Éric Vuillard set in the years before World War II. One scene takes place in February 1933, when Hitler and the president of the Reichstag encourage 24 German industrialists to donate to the Nazi party. The businessmen — representing companies that are still prominent German corporate names, like Siemens, Bayer and Allianz — duly open their wallets.
  • Mr. Landecker did two things that would prove prescient. He made sure his children were baptized Catholic, like his late wife. And he officially transferred to them his main possessions, including the family apartment, so that they could not be expropriated.
  • Every time business leaders make decisions, he said, they should ask, “What does this mean for our children? What does it mean for the future?”
  • “In history, businesses have enabled populists,” he added. “We mustn’t make the same mistake today.” Then he quoted the Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal: “For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.”
  • He added, “As the successors and descendants of people who committed horrendous acts, it is vital that our generation accepts what has happened, that we do whatever we can to bring tolerance and equality to the communities in which we live
Javier E

Adbusters' War Against Too Much of Everything - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • One of Mr. Lasn’s favorite words is “meme,” as in: “Adbusters floated the meme of occupying the iconic heart of global capitalism.” The biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term: a meme is a unit of cultural information spread among people like a gene. Spreading radically subversive memes is Mr. Lasn’s avowed mission.
  • He has written a new Adbusters book, “Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics” (Seven Stories Press). It is a lavishly illustrated collection, with photographs, drawings and essays that exhort university students to become “meme warriors” and revolutionize the field of economics.
  • Like the magazine, the book elaborates on an old theme: his belief that core economic values must shift from profit-making and expansion of the gross domestic product toward improvement of human health and protection of the planet.
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  • Accomplishing that requires overturning economic orthodoxy and capitalism as we know it, he says. “We have to do this,” he says. “With climate change, and the exhaustion of the planet’s resources. I believe the alternative is apocalypse.”
  • Mr. Lasn is an analog man in a digital world. He favors spoken conversations, not e-mail or text messages, and owns only a simple cellphone — no iPhone or iPad for him.
  • Mr. Lasn says his lifestyle isn’t really sustainable. He commutes 30 minutes each way from the magazine to his home on five acres of countryside. He and his wife are occupying too much land, and his little Toyota Echo burns too much fuel for the planet’s health, he says: “What can I do? Living there helps to keep me sane.”
  • Advocating a life of material simplicity and spiritual richness, Mr. Enns urges people to “make things for others themselves, not to just go out and buy.” He says he and his wife make gifts like wooden figurines and animal dolls for children, and salsa and relish for adults.
  • Mr. Lasn does the initial design and editing of Adbusters on paper. Digitally savvy colleagues transfer his work online. The magazine’s paid circulation, which Mr. Lasn says is 60,000 to 70,000 worldwide, is overwhelmingly print, not digital. Digital subscriptions and downloads are cumbersome and must be improved, he says, although he doesn’t understand the processes.
  • Such apparent inconsistencies, and the magazine’s incendiary tone, can be maddening and even offensive, yet this rambunctious approach is also deeply appealing, some critics say. As Mr. Haiven, of New York University, puts it: “I’ve certainly been very critical of them but I’m also very glad they exist. I think they do very important work sometimes, in their own way.”
drewmangan1

Breitbart's Man in Rome: A Gentle Voice in a Strident Chorus - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Rushing to meet his wife at St. Peter’s Square, Thomas Williams walked past priests in black cassocks and said that the only thing he missed from his own decades of wearing a priest’s collar was “a real sense of helping people very directly.”
  • “You know my history,” Mr. Williams, 54, said, referring to a past worthy of its own Breitbart headline. “I was looking to re-establish myself again.”
  • He said his time in the public eye had made him extra sensitive to inflicting harm and he lamented the “horrible” Breitbart commenters.
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  • “Breitbart seemed like the exact opposite of everything I had been trained for and naturally tended towards,” the former priest said. “Which was help people understand each other, smooth over differences, show maybe you are not as far apart as you think.”
  • Mr. Williams speaks adoringly of his son and accompanies him to therapy. He said he was “thrilled” to have his mother-in-law visiting for the holidays. He paints Roman street scenes for his wife and expresses appreciation for a “full life.”
  • Generally, Mr. Williams said, Breitbart considered Pope Francis a challenge. “Challenging in the sense that they don’t love the guy,” he said, adding that Mr. Bannon, who declined to comment, was “suspicious” of Francis.
redavistinnell

Tragedy Forges Alliance for Change - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Tragedy ForgesAlliance for Change After a young rugby player died in Northern Ireland, his family anda brain expert set about to establish concussion guidelines in Britain.
  • As a heartbroken Mr. Robinson and his family left the Old Townhall Courthouse in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that day in September 2013, they were told they could slip out the back to avoid the news media. But Mr. Robinson was determined that his son should not die in vain, so he, along with his ex-wife, Karen Walton, and their families, exited through the front, spoke to a scrum of reporters and instantly landed among the most vocal advocates for concussion safety standards in Britain.
  • Within months, Mr. Robinson was meeting with politicians, sports executives, professional athletes and, most important, Dr. Willie Stewart, the foremost scientist on the subject in Britain who formed a bond with Mr. Robinson that has helped produce some of the most comprehensive concussion guidelines in the world.
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  • “It took something high profile to get people to understand, and it needed something in the media to make people aware,” Dr. Stewart said, referring to Benjamin’s death. “Even if it just means we’re preventing another Ben Robinson and not addressing dementia, that’s still very important. We’ve got to get things to change.”
  • Much of what Mr. Robinson and Dr. Stewart have accomplished is second nature in the United States, where concussions have been a growing part of the public dialogue for several years. Coaches and players in many sports are now taught that concussions, brain injuries resulting from a blow to the head or whiplash, can lead to headaches, memory loss, dizziness, sensitivity to light and other problems.
  • After an outcry from scientists, retired players and family members of injured and deceased athletes, the N.F.L. and other leagues have adopted protocols during games to detect concussions, pull players from the field, administer on-the-spot tests and detail when they can return to play.
  • hris Nowinski, a co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, an American nonprofit group that pushes for safe sports, said that concussion management in Britain lags five to six years behind the United States. Photo
  • “Scotland is a great example of a team of passionate advocates creating change in their community,” he said. “It’s a template that I hope others follow.”
  • Concussions were far from Mr. Robinson’s mind when his son joined his teammates from Carrickfergus Grammar School to play their rivals from Dalriada that day.
  • Soccer was Benjamin’s first love, but when he was 11, he took up rugby, which was mandatory at his new school. Initially, he did not enjoy the sport. But he warmed to it after winning the award for most improved player. He did strength and conditioning drills to add muscle, and arm wrestled with his father.
  • The night before the game, his son watched “Invictus,” the film about South Africa’s victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup. He slept that night in his uniform. When his mother dropped him off at the field the next day, Benjamin flashed a thumbs-up sign.
  • As time ran down, Benjamin made a tackle and then collapsed. The game was stopped. Ms. Walton ran onto the field, where Benjamin’s teammate told her that he was out cold. He was rushed to Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.
  • But just minutes into the second half, Benjamin collided with another player, whose shoulder hit him in the chest, according to Mr. Robinson, who obtained a DVD of the match from the police. His son’s head whipped back, and he fell. The coach came to look at Benjamin, who was on the ground for about 90 seconds, and helped him to his feet. A doctor who was watching his son play for Dalriada briefly walked onto the field but then turned back.
  • When Mr. Robinson and his wife, Carol, arrived at the hospital, he knew the situation was dire from the faces of the staff. His son was on life support. The doctors said that his brain injury looked like it was sustained in a car accident and that he had a slim chance of surviving.
  • Initially, though, a police investigator deferred to the schools when it came to gathering comments from Benjamin’s teammates and opponents. Officials at Carrickfergus declined to discuss the case.
  • Ms. Walton and Mr. Robinson, though, had to piece together much of what happened on their own. One break came while Ms. Walton was visiting her son’s grave — which she said she did every day — and met one of his teammates, who was out jogging. He told her that Benjamin had been knocked out during the match, not just hit at the end, as had been contended.
  • The big break came when a police officer gave Mr. Robinson a copy of a video taken of the match by a student. Mr. Robinson watched the shaky footage repeatedly and confirmed that his son suffered not one big blow, but at least three, and that the coach attended to him several times.
  • Yet she effectively absolved the coach and referee, who were not “made aware of Benjamin’s neurological complaints,” even though the coach can be seen on the video checking on him after a hit during the match. She implied that Benjamin could have let them know about his condition, even though experts say concussion victims often cannot adequately communicate what they are experiencing.
  • Soon after, Mr. and Ms. Robinson, Dr. Stewart and James Robson, the chief medical officer of Scottish Rugby, met with Scotland’s sport and education officials to lobby for change. A concussion-awareness leaflet was produced at the beginning of 2014.
  • It has been an unlikely road for Mr. Robinson and Dr. Stewart, an avid bike rider with no experience as a sideline doctor. But about five years ago, even before Benjamin’s death, Dr. Stewart began to get calls from former professional players and had conversations with Scottish Rugby as it tried to address brain trauma and degenerative brain disease.
  • Still, some sports executives have anonymously challenged Dr. Stewart. In one match in April in London, Oscar, the Brazilian star player on Chelsea who is known by one name, collided violently with the goalkeeper yet was not immediately taken out of the game. There are no concussion spotters at Premier League matches, but team and league officials could watch a replay of the game later. That is why Dr. Stewart — an adviser to the Football Association — was dismayed that Oscar was in uniform three days later, violating the league’s return-to-play guidelines that require at least six days of rest.
  • “I don’t need to stand up in front of a conference of sports medicine and be personally criticized,” he said. “But then I’ll get a call from Peter, who is enthused about something we’ve done with the leaflets, or some research collaborators who are keen to move forward, and I say, ‘Ah, for all the small minds that are critical and obviously trying to deny the inevitable signs, there are a whole bunch of people who are having a positive effect on it.’
  • On a chilly evening in late October, with teenagers practicing on a nearby field, Lianne Brunton, the club’s physical therapist, showed off the test on a tablet computer. At the start of the season, hundreds of youth and adult players are timed as they read aloud a series of numbers on several screens. If a player is suspected of having a concussion during a match, he or she is taken off and asked to read the numbers again. Players who take longer are evaluated further.
  • The test, which is widely used in the United States, is another example of how the grass-roots campaign to improve safety standards after Benjamin’s death has changed attitudes.
lenaurick

Migration is not worth the risk, says Syrian man whose family drowned | World news | Th... - 0 views

  • A Syrian man whose wife and seven children drowned as they attempted to cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey to mainland Europe has warned other refugees that the risks of migration are not worth taking.
  • hat smugglers had told his family they would not need life jackets because the boat was safe
  • “I would say don’t take this risk. Don’t go by sea. You will lose your children. The smugglers are traitors. They said we would reach Greece within 15 minutes. I advise everyone: don’t come, stay in Syria, however difficult it is.”
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  • I had the most affectionate wife. I took my family out of Syria to escape the killing. My children could have had a future in Europe. Now I have lost my family, my world,” he said.
  • this week, another group of migrants, including six Afghan children, drowned after a rubber dinghy carrying them to Greece sank in the Aegean.
  • They are among more than 3,500 people who have died or been reported missing this year while trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe.
  • Ankara has stepped up a crackdown on people smuggling, arresting thousands of refugees, after it promised to curb the flow of refugees to Greece in exchange for financial aid from the EU.
  • The EU’s pledge of €3bn (£2.1bn) in aid for the 2.2 million Syrians now in Turkey is intended to raise living standards and persuade migrants to stay in the country rather than attempt the journey to the EU via the Greek islands.
  • , Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, recently told the Guardian that refugees arriving in Europe should be detained for up to 18 months in holding centres across the EU while they are screened for security and terrorism risks
horowitzza

Islamic extremists ignored contact attempts by wife in California shooting: sources - Y... - 0 views

  • Islamic militant groups ignored contact attempts from Pakistan-born Tashfeen Malik in the months before she and her husband killed 14 people at a California holiday party
  • groups almost certainly included al Qaeda’s Syria-based official affiliate
  • extremely wary of responding to outsiders they do not know or who have not been introduced to them
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  • Fourteen people were killed and 21 others were wounded in the assault,
  • heightened security concerns in the United States and become an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.
qkirkpatrick

British first world war soldier laid to rest almost 100 years after death | World news ... - 0 views

  • A decorated British soldier killed in the first world war has finally been laid to rest with full military honours almost 100 years after he died.
  • Sgt David Harkness Blakey, of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, was killed aged 26 on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916. His remains were found in November 2013 – 97 years after he died – during roadworks near the Connaught cemetery in Thiepval, northern France.
  • Identifying fallen first world war soldiers is difficult as tags were commonly made from paper or compressed fibres, which rapidly decomposed. But a home-made metal identity tag believed to have been created by his wife with “18634 Sgt David Harkness Blakey MM of the R Innis Fus” etched on it helped to confirm his identity, along with the discovery of an “R Innis Fus” cap badge.
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  • On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the battalion formed part of the 109 Brigade of the 36th Ulster Division and assembled at the edge of Thiepval Wood. Blakey was among scores who died that day. And in subsequent letters to his wife, it emerged he had last been seen seriously wounded in No Man’s Land
sgardner35

American Missionary Among the Dead in Burkina Faso Siege - The New York Times - 0 views

  • A State Department spokesman, John Kirby, identified the victim as Michael James Riddering. Mr. Kirby said that Mr. Riddering was killed during the course of the attack on two hotels, the Splendid and the Yibi, and a restaurant, Cappuccino Cafe, that sparked a 15-hour standoff in the heart of Ouagadougou, the capital.
  • Mr. Riddering, 45, was a missionary who worked at the Les Ailes de Re
  • fuge Orphanage in the town of Yako, 70 miles from the capital, according to a statement from the organization that runs the orphanage, Sheltering Wings. It said that he moved to Burkina Faso from Florida, where he sold boats, in 2011 with his wife, Amy, and daughter Delaney to do missionary work.
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  • “My heart is so heavy and I am having trouble believing he is gone,” she added. “Mike was an example in the way he lived and loved. God be glorified!”On Saturday, the missionary organization provided a detailed account of Mr. Riddering’s trip to Ouagadougou. It said he went to the capital on Friday with a co-worker, identified only as Pastor Valentin, to meet a group of missionaries who had just arrived from the United States.
  • “It appears that Pastor Valentin was somehow separated from Mike during the attack and hid somewhere in the Cappuccino Cafe,” the missionary group said.The pastor was later rescued by security forces but did not know what had happened to Mr. Riddering, and for many hours it was unclear. Another missionary, Philip Matheny, found his body on Saturday in a morgue.Sheltering Wings said that in addition to his wife and daughter Delaney, Mr. Riddering is survived by three other children Haley, Biba and Moise.
Javier E

America Soured on My Multiracial Family - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • There are three fundamental, complicating truths about adoption. First, every single adoption begins with profound loss. Through death, abandonment, or even loving surrender, a child suffers the loss of his or her mother and father. Second, the demographics of those in need of loving homes do not precisely match the demographics of those seeking a new child. Adoptive parents are disproportionately white. Adopted children are not. Thus, multiracial families are a natural and inevitable consequence of the adoption process. Third, American culture has long been obsessed with questions of race and identity
  • I’m an evangelical Christian, and ever since I was a young man, two Bible verses have tugged at my soul.
  • In 2010, the year we adopted, The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson wrote an article that reflected the heartfelt views of countless adoptive families. It was the “noblest thing about America,” he said, that “we care for children of other lands who have been cast aside.” And what of multiracial families? His answer was our answer: “Instead of undermining any culture, international adoption instructs our own. Unlike the thin, quarrelsome multiculturalism of the campus, multiethnic families demonstrate the power of affection over difference.” There was a spirit of optimism, of hope that we could actually live the promise from Galatians, and in living that promise help change the nation we loved.
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  • The second, from the Book of Galatians, declares an eternal truth: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
  • As a result, my wife and I not only felt called to adopt, but we believed that race was no barrier to unity for a family of genuine faith.
  • From the instant we saw her, we loved her with our whole hearts, but any adoptive family can tell you (indeed, any family at all can tell you) that love does not heal all hurts. There is pain that can last a lifetime.
  • overing just outside the frame—and sometimes intruding directly into our lives—is a disturbing reality. There are people who hate that our family exists. Actual racists loathe the idea of white parents raising a black child, and ideological arguments about identity raise questions about whether a white family’s love can harm a child of a different race. And, sometimes, people even question whether adoptive parents truly love their children, claiming that parents adopt to “virtue signal” or simply to ostentatiously demonstrate their open-mindedness.
  • The first comes from the Book of James, and defines “pure” religious practice in part as looking after “widows and orphans in their distress.
  • then came a backlash. Claims of cultural imperialism, wounded national pride, and rare, sad horror stories of exploitation or abuse soured foreign nations against American families. And at home, identity politics and even outright hostility against the Christian adoption movement triggered attacks from some on the left—attacks that were soon to be matched and exceeded by attacks from a racist right.
  • We quickly discovered that if you’re the white parents of an adopted black child, and you’re in the public eye at all, men and women will viciously criticize you for having the audacity to believe that you can raise your kid. At times, the criticism was direct and personal—most of it directed at my wife
  • Then, sometime around the summer of 2015, we began to notice a shift. The attacks on our family came less and less from the left, and increasingly from the so-called alt-right—a vicious movement of Trump-supporting white nationalists who loathe multiracial families. They despise international adoption. They call it “race-cucking your family” or “raising the enemy.”
  • They lifted pictures of my then-7-year-old daughter from social media and Photoshopped her into a gas chamber, with Donald Trump pressing the button to kill her. They put her image in slave fields. They found my wife’s blog and filled the comments section with gruesome pictures of dead or dying African Americans. They made me wish for the days when the left came after us; at least progressive critics didn’t want my daughter to die.
  • White parents see racism directed at their black kids. Cruel people use social media to accuse parents of raising kids as fashion statements. Others lecture them on their inherent inability to meet the needs of children of color. The hate our family received may have been more prolific because of who we are, but that hate is real, it is part of American life, and it will find its way to all too many families that looks like ours.
  • In the years since we brought our daughter home, overseas adoption has plummeted—down 72 percent since 2005—and it’s not hard to see one of the reasons. A broken American culture inflicts itself on nations abroad and families at home, and attitudes shift
  • the idealism of 2010 is gone. Then, we thought our family reflected the future. Now we know that was naive. Now we know that while the promise of Galatians—the promise that we are “all one”—is true in the Kingdom of Heaven, in America it does not yet apply.
runlai_jiang

Spring Home Sales Could Be the Weakest in Years - WSJ - 0 views

  • The culprits: rising mortgage rates, a tax bill that reduces the incentives for homeownership and a growing weariness among first-buyers being priced out of the market—all of which are expected to damp demand for homes this year.
  • “It’s still going to be a tight market, but we’re moving from an extremely tight market to one that has some wiggle room around the edges for buyers,” said Daren Blomquist, a senior vice president at the housing-research firm Attom Data Solutions.
  • Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, said he expects sales to be flat this spring from a year earlier. Roughly 2.06 million homes were sold between March and June 2017, up from about 2 million in the same period a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors.
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  • Mr. Yun predicts sales will remain flat for all of 2018, due to inventory shortages and eroding affordability, as both prices and mortgage rates rise.
  • A homeowner with a median-priced home in the San Francisco area will receive $4,500 less in housing-related tax benefits in the first year of a 30-year mortgage this year, according to real-estate data company Apartment List. A homeowner in the same position in the New York metro area would receive $1,500 less annually.
  • Weakness at the high end is being driven by stock market volatility and the $10,000 cap the tax bill placed on deducting state and local property taxes
  • “People are being a little more cautious than they were before,” Mr. Glazer said. “Buyers have a number in mind, and they’re willing to stick their ground more than in the past.”
  • Kalena Masching, a Redfin agent in Silicon Valley, said she has seen a pickup in activity in recent weeks as buyers and sellers have digested the implications of the tax bill. Buyers are putting down larger down payments to bring the size of their mortgages below the new $750,000 cap. But that could be a challenge if the stock market continues to fluctuate, because buyers might want to hold on to more of their cash
  • s. Masching said she is also hearing more from older buyers who are thinking about selling their homes and using the proceeds to retire out of state, prompted in part by the changes to the tax law
  • “I’m hoping it’s going to be better. We never got any inventory last year,” said Ms. Masching. “The big concern for our sellers is: Where are they going to go?”
  • Rhian Daniel, a 50 year old who works for a medical startup, and his wife have been looking for a home for about four years, both in the Bay Area and further afield. The couple have largely given up for the moment, and are considering eventually moving to a place like Dallas, with lower home prices and property taxes.
  • Mr. Daniel’s wife is a therapist, and they both have student debt that limits the size of the mortgage they can get.
g-dragon

The Mughal Empire's 300-year Rule of India - 0 views

  • The young prince Babur, descended from Timur on his father's side and Genghis Khan on his mother's, finished his conquest of northern India in 1526
  • Babur was a refugee from the fierce dynastic struggles in Central Asia; his uncles and other warlords had repeatedly denied him rule over the Silk Road cities of Samarkand and Fergana, his birth-right. Babur was able to establish a base in Kabul, though, from which he turned south and conquered much of the Indian subcontinent.
  • Babur called his dynasty "Timurid," but it is better known as the Mughal Dynasty - a Persian rendering of the word "Mongol."
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  • Although he was a Muslim, Babur followed a rather loose interpretation of the Quran in some ways. He drank heavily at his famously lavish feasts, and also enjoyed smoking hashish.
  • His eldest son Humayan fought off an attempt to seat his aunt's husband as emperor and assumed the throne.
  • Humayan was not a very strong leader. In 1540, the Pashtun ruler Sher Shah Suri defeated the Timurids, deposing Humayan. The second Timurid emperor only regained his throne with aid from Persia in 1555, a year before his death, but at that time he managed even to expand on Babur's empire.
  • Akbar defeated the remnants of the Pashtuns, and brought some previously unquelled Hindu regions under Timurid control. He also gained control over Rajput through diplomacy and marriage alliances.
  • he was a committed Muslim, Akbar encouraged religious tolerance and sought wisdom from holy men of all faiths.
  • Akbar's son, Jahangir, ruled the Mughal Empire in peace and prosperity from 1605 until 1627. He was succeeded by his own son, Shah Jahan.
  • The 36-year-old Shah Jahan inherited an incredible empire in 1627
  • his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died during the birth of their fourteenth child.
  • As an expression of his love, Shah Jahan commissioned the building of a magnificent tomb for his dear wife. Designed by the Persian architect Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, and constructed of white marble, the Taj Mahal is considered the crowning achievement of Mughal architecture.
  • Shah Jahan's third son, Aurangzeb, seized the throne and had all of his brothers executed after a protracted succession struggle in 1658.
  • Shah Jahan spent his declining years gazing out at the Taj, and died in 1666.
  • The ruthless Aurangzeb proved to be the last of the "Great Mughals." Throughout his reign, he expanded the empire in all directions. He also enforced a much more orthodox brand of Islam, even banning music in the empire (which made many Hindu rites impossible to perform).
  • A three-year-long revolt by the Mughals' long-time ally, the Pashtun, began in 1672. In the aftermath, the Mughals lost much of their authority in what is now Afghanistan, seriously weakening the empire.
  • Increasing peasant revolts and sectarian violence threatened the stability of the throne, and various nobles and warlords sought to control the line of weak emperors. All around the borders, powerful new kingdoms sprang up and began to chip away at Mughal land holdings.
  • The British East India Company (BEI) was founded in 1600, while Akbar was still on the throne. Initially, it was only interested in trade and had to content itself with working around the fringes of the Mughal Empire. As the Mughals weakened, however, the BEI grew increasingly powerful.
  • After this victory, the BEI took political control of much of the subcontinent, marking the start of the British Raj in India. The later Mughal rulers held on to their throne, but they were simply puppets of the British.
  • In 1857, half of the Indian Army rose up against the BEI in what is known as the Sepoy Rebellion or the Indian Mutiny. The British home government intervened to protect its own financial stake in the company and put down the so-called rebellion.Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was arrested, tried for treason, and exiled to Burma. It was the end of the Mughal Dynasty.
manhefnawi

The Tirol's Last Knight | History Today - 0 views

  • Habsburg rulers, the 'last knight', Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 to 1519
  • The central starting point for the Trails is the city of Innsbruck which Maximilian made the centre of his rule and from where he set about fulfilling his ambitions to establish a complex scheme of dynastic and marital alliances The result of these enabled his grandson, Charles V, (nephew of Katherine of Aragon – the connection caused Henry VIII much grief when he was trying to persuade the pope to give him a divorce while Rome was under Habsburg occupation) to become by far the greatest ruler of sixteenth-century Europe with a travelling schedule that would be familiar to any chief executive of a multinational company today
  • His indecisive father, Frederick lll. King Arthur, Godfrey the first Crusader king of Jerusalem and his wife’s father Charles from the Bold of Burgundy (from who the Hapsburgs took over the order of the Golden fleece and a patchwork of rich low countries territories
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  • Maximilian also put new technology to good effect with his Zeughaus, or armoury, back in Innsbruck where the same expertise that was lavished on coins and memorial sculpture was used to produce state-of- the-art artillery to protect the scattered Habsburg possessions
  • His life was streaked by tragedy: his first wife, Mary of Burgundy, was killed by a fall from her horse while out hunting, pregnant with his third child; his son 'Philip the Fair' died in his twenties; Philip's wife, Joanna, mother of Charles V, earned her epithet of 'the Mad' by carrying her husband's embalmed body around with her on her travels, with frequent inspections. But Maximilian was, nevertheless, a man who enjoyed life – as the rollicking reliefs on the Golden Roof illustrate
  • Like England's 'Merry Monarch', Charles lI, one feels he would have been a convivial dinner companion
  • For all its splendour, Maximilian's tomb is empty
  • his heart is not in Austria at all
manhefnawi

James IV: Renaissance Monarch | History Today - 0 views

  • In June 1488, just three years after Henry VII’s unlikely victory in the English Midlands, James IV became king on the battlefield of Sauchieburn south of Stirling, close to the spot where Robert Bruce had won his great victory over the English at Bannockburn in 1314.
  • James IV was brought up at Stirling Castle by his mother, Margaret of Denmark, alongside his two younger brothers. The queen had produced three healthy sons but she and James III led separate lives after an earlier rebellion in 1482. The king, who had managed to alienate all of his siblings, believed that his wife had sided with his brother, the Duke of Albany, when the duke returned from exile in France and invaded Scotland with the future Richard III of England. James III seems also to have felt that his eldest son was tainted by contact with Albany and perhaps considered barring the boy from the succession
  • James IV was ruler of a land famously described in a letter written by its own nobility in 1320 to Pope John XXII as ‘the tiny country of Scotia lying on the very edge of the inhabited world’. Scotland was poor, cold and wet. Edinburgh, its capital, held only 12,000 citizens, in contrast to London’s 50,000. Yet, like its new monarch, the country was not inward-looking.  Difficulty of travel by road over rugged terrain meant that it had long relied on sea routes for transport and communication with the wider world. The kings of Scotland were determined not to be overlooked in Europe. They forged trade and political alliances with Scandinavia and were long-standing allies of the French, who viewed Scotland as a brake on the ambitions of England. The two countries that occupied the island of Britain were natural enemies, nowhere more so than in the Borders, where centuries-old feuds and the violence that fuelled them were adjudicated by special courts composed of English and Scots. But James III had attempted a policy of conciliation with England that was unpopular with his aristocracy and Henry VII, a cautious man, did not relish constant war with his northern neighbour. It remained to be seen how James IV would approach Anglo-Scottish relations and how he would develop his ambition to make Scotland a European power.
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  • His first years on the throne of Scotland were as troubled and insecure as those of Henry VII in England. In the early 1490s the threat of rebellion was never far away. James’ experience of life outside Stirling Castle was limited but he was a young man of keen intelligence and a shrewd observer of court politics
  • Foreign policy was traditionally the king’s preserve and it was here he would first show his mettle. He chose to do so in a way that had potentially grave repercussions for Henry VII.
  • In November 1495 the imposter Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger son of Edward IV, was warmly welcomed to Stirling by James IV
  • Henry VII was also looking for a wife for his son, Arthur, in Spain and James knew that the stability of Anglo-Scottish relations was important for the marriage negotiations to succeed.
  • He was sending a clear message to Henry VII that he had the means to threaten the Tudor throne. In the summer of 1496 he backed this up with military might when he and the Scottish host crossed the river Tweed into England with ‘Richard IV’ in their midst.
  • A proxy marriage took place at Richmond a few months after the wedding of Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon. The new Queen of Scots did not, however, go north to live with her husband until the summer of 1503. She was still several months short of her 14th birthday when, after a magnificent and demanding progress north, intended to showcase the splendour of the Tudor regime, she finally met James IV in early August at Dalkeith Castle
  • Over time, considerable affection grew between them and a mutual commitment to establishing their line and enhancing Scotland’s prestige. Once she reached the age of 16 Margaret did her duty valiantly, producing children most years, though none survived for long before she gave birth to the future James V in 1512. The king and queen kept a cultured Renaissance court, encouraging the flowering of Scottish literature, enjoying their mutual love of music and attracting artisans, intellectuals and men of science from all over Europe
  • Establishing Scotland as a European power cost money and James’ exchequer was constantly challenged once Margaret Tudor’s substantial dowry had been paid
  • James was also interested in medicine and dentistry, practising his skills on courtiers who gamely allowed themselves to have teeth extracted. Thomas Wolsey, then a rising prospect in Henry VII’s administration, was once kept waiting for an audience with the king because James was busy making gunpowder
  • In the summer of 1506 James wrote to his ally, Louis XII of France, setting forth his determination to develop a fleet that would be the key to defending Scotland from her enemies. He wanted it to be able to stand comparison with that of much bigger European powers. A northern ally with a substantial naval presence was music to the ears of the French king.
  • As his stock rose in Europe it became apparent that this would lead to tensions with his wife’s brother. Henry VIII was irritated by what he saw as the pretentions of James IV and Queen Margaret. The rivalry that soon became apparent was fuelled not just by a boy’s contempt for an older man but by the long-standing resentment that Henry felt for Margaret, who had briefly taken precedence over him before she left for Scotland.
  • Henry and Katherine remained childless and the uncomfortable truth, which Henry studiously ignored, was that his sister was his heir. If he were to die, James IV would effectively rule both kingdoms of the British Isles. His dynastic ambitions at home unfulfilled, Henry aspired to play a greater role in Europe. The main prize for Henry was not Scotland, but France. Yet it was in pursuit of this dream, a yearning to go back to the glory days of Henry V, that he would come into conflict with his brother-in-law and the Treaty of Perpetual Peace would be destroyed
  • Our husband knows it is witholden for his sake and will recompense us
  • By 1512 this family feud formed part of the wider backdrop of European war, as Henry VIII, in alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian, declared war against Louis XII of France
  • James visited Margaret and their son at Linlithgow in early August 1513 before he left for Edinburgh to oversee military preparations, praying for success in the beautiful church of St Michael just outside the palace gates. On August 13th the Scottish host, sporting the latest artillery technology, 20 pieces of cannon made of brass and supported by European experts in field warfare, left Edinburgh in a mighty procession of men and arms.
  • The old Earl of Surrey, a veteran of the Wars of the Roses, who accompanied Margaret Tudor on her journey to Scotland ten years previously, had moved rapidly north and now stood in James’ way
  • The Scots were stunned by their loss, though they did not fall apart. Henry VIII, fighting a desultory and vainglorious little war in France, had neither the interest nor the ability to follow up Surrey’s unlikely victory and James V grew up to carry on his father’s rivalry with the English monarch as the prolonged struggle between the Tudors and the Stewarts continued
  • The belief that Scotland as an independent kingdom died with James IV developed well after the event and has damaged his reputation. But it also fails to recognise his achievements. A true Renaissance monarch, he had made Scotland into a European power and his people mourned him greatly.
manhefnawi

Papa and his Brood: Henry IV of France | History Today - 0 views

  • Henry IV of France was an engagingly flamboyant monarch, famous for his vitality and wit, his forcefulness and determination
  • Accepting the heavy responsibilities of his crown, he used or planned to use his offspring to strengthen the Bourbon monarchy
  • As Henry’s marriage with Marguerite de Valois (the occasion of the massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day) proved childless and was annulled, his legitimate line derived from his second wife, Marie de Médicis.
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  • The King’s delight in his children was boundless, and his affection recognized no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate
  • he recognized the political significance of the eldest legitimate son in an hereditary monarchy, and as a matter of course the Dauphin was accorded special status. The King knew well the importance of forging personal ties between the sovereign and his people, and at the age of one month the future Louis XIII was introduced to public life:
  • Henry’s premature death ended César’s role in government; lacking his royal father’s support, he was reduced instantly to that anomalous status attendant upon a former monarch’s illegitimate offspring. During the reign of his half-brother he was naturally a rebel against the Crown
  • Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon and Marie-Henriette de Bourbon suffered the usual fate of unmarriageable daughters; they were relegated to convents
  • Throughout the last decade of Henry’s reign, speculation centred around the ‘Spanish marriages,’ a system of alliances
  • These schemes were encouraged by the Pope, who wished to unite the two great Catholic powers of Europe; and the Queen herself (who was half-Habsburg) voiced approval of alliance with Spain.
  • Her marriage to the Dauphin would have incorporated Lorraine in the French crown by peaceful annexation, strengthening France’s north-eastern frontier
  • The contract, signed a few weeks before the King’s murder, provided for an offensive and defensive league against Spain in which Henry agreed to support Savoy’s claims to Milan
  • Henry’s assassination in May of 1610 left Marie de Médicis Regent of a kingdom poised for attack against the forces of Austria and Spain, and she scrambled frantically to extricate France from the anti-Habsburg coalition without leaving herself diplomatically isolated. Charles Emmanuel of Savoy finally agreed to accept the younger princess, Christine, as his son’s bride
  • Thus Elisabeth was available for another alliance, and the long-discussed ‘Spanish match’ was realized in a double marriage in 1615: Louis XIII received the Infanta as his wife and Elisabeth went to Spain as the bride of the future Philip IV
  • In order to win Habsburg good will, the Regent had sacrificed the advantages of a match with Lorraine
g-dragon

The Taj Mahal - 0 views

  • The Taj Mahal is a beautiful, white-marble mausoleum built by Mughul emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
  • It was in 1607, that Shah Jahan, grandson of Akbar the Great, first met his beloved. At the time, he was not yet the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire.
  • Sixteen-year-old, Prince Khurram, as he was then called, flitted around the royal bazaar, flirting with the girls from high-ranking families that staffed the booths.
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  • Although it was love at first sight, the two were not allowed to marry right away. First, Prince Khurram had to marry Kandahari Begum. (He would later marry a third wife as well.)
  • The public was enamored with her, in part because Mumtaz Mahal cared for the people, diligently making lists of widows and orphans to make sure they received food and money.
  • The plan was that the Taj Mahal (“the crown of the region”) would represent heaven (Jannah) on Earth. No expense was spared to make this happen.
  • when the feud with Khan Jahan Lodi was won, Shah Jahan had the remains of Mumtaz Mahal dug up and brought 435 miles (700 km) to Agra. The return of Mumtaz Mahal was a grand procession, with thousands of soldiers accompanying the body and mourners lining the route.
  • Although no one, main architect for the Taj Mahal is known, it is believed that Shah Jahan, who was already passionate about architecture, worked on the plans himself with the input and aid of a number of the best architects of his time
  • The couple had 14 children together, but only seven lived past infancy. It was the birth of the 14th child that was to kill Mumtaz Mahal.
  • At the time, the Mughal Empire was one of the richest in the world and thus Shah Jahan had the means to pay for this huge venture.
  • Most pictures of the Taj Mahal show only a large, white, lovely building. What these photos miss is the intricacies that can only be seen up close.
  • Shah Jahan stayed in deep mourning for two years but even after that, the death of Mumtaz Mahal still deeply affected him. That is perhaps why the third of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan’s four sons, Aurangzeb, was able to successfully kill off his three brothers and imprison his father.
  • Shah Jahan spent his last eight years staring out a window, looking at his beloved’s Taj Mahal.
  • When Shah Jahan died on January 22, 1666, Aurangzeb had his father buried with Mumtaz Mahal in the crypt beneath the Taj Mahal. On the main floor of the Taj Mahal, above the crypt, now sits two cenotaphs (empty, public tombs). The one in the center of the room belongs to Mumtaz Mahal and the one just to the west is for Shah Jahan.
  • By the 1800s, the British ousted the Mughals and took over India. To many, the Taj Mahal was beautiful and so they cut gemstones from the walls, stole the silver candlesticks and doors, and even tried to sell the white marble overseas.
  • It was Lord Curzon, the British viceroy of India, who put a stop to all that. Rather than looting the Taj Mahal, Curzon worked to restore it.
krystalxu

Theresa May condemned for 'business as usual' after Conservatives accept £100... - 0 views

  • The Labour Party has accused Theresa May of breaking her promises and continuing “business as usual” with Russia after the Conservative Party accepted another £100,000 donation from the wife of a former minister in Vladimir Putin’s government
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