Pope tells leaders in first TED talk: act humbly or power will ruin you

Something to think about ...

Pontiff makes surprise appearance at Vancouver conference via video-link from the Vatican

 He sits behind a desk rather than pacing around a stage, but the power of his message is not diluted. Pope Francis has made a surprise TED talk, beamed from the Vatican to Vancouver, calling for leaders to act with humility and tenderness.
The first pontifical TED talk, which lasted 18 minutes, featured Francis dispensing advice to politicians and leaders of big business, as well as talking about his own background as the son of migrants.
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a media organisation that posts talks from its annual conference online for free. Since 2006 the lectures have been viewed cumulatively more than 4.6bn times.
Speaking in Italian and seated in front of a pleasingly cluttered glass bookshelf, Francis starts by wishing his audience “good evening – or good morning, I’m not sure what time it is there”.
Saying he is “thrilled” to be taking part in the annual TED conference on the theme of The Future You, he adds: “We can only build a future by standing together, including everyone.”
In his encounters with the old, sick, migrants and prisoners, he says: “I often find myself wondering, ‘Why them and not me?’” Coming from a family of Italian migrants who made a new home in Argentina, “I could have very well ended up among today’s ‘discarded’ people,” he says.
Francis called for solidarity to overcome a “culture of waste” that has affected not only food, but people cast aside by economic systems that rely increasingly on automation.
“How wonderful would it be if the growth of scientific and technological innovation would come along with more equality and social inclusion,” he said.
He concluded with a direct message to people in positions of power: “The more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly. If you don’t, your power will ruin you and ruin the other.”
The pope also quoted an Argentinian proverb: “Power is like drinking gin on an empty stomach. You feel dizzy, you get drunk, you lose your balance, and you will end up hurting yourself and those around you if you don’t connect your power with humility and tenderness.”
But the future of humankind “isn’t exclusively in the hands of politicians, of great leaders, of big companies … The future most of all is in the hands of those people who recognise the other as ‘you’ and themselves as part of an ‘us’. We all need each other.”
TED talks have grown in popularity since they went online in 2006. According to Fortune magazine, “what began as an annual conference of ideas about technology, entertainment, and design … is now the intellectual equivalent of kale: nutritious, oddly addictive and part of the shared consciousness among a certain set”.
                                                                                                             The Guardian, 26th April 2017

Theatre in Italian

Are you free on Thursday evening?
Would you  like to have a good time?

Take your family or friends to watch a funny play here, in Las Rozas, organized by the Italian Department. Even if you don't speak Italian, you'll enjoy it. Guaranteed!

What play? VIA VIA, SI PARTE!
Where: Centro Cultural Pérez de la Riva (Calle Principado de Asturias, 28, Las Rozas)
When? Thursday 27th April
What time? 19:00

And it is free!!

Does this really matter so much?

Latest news: Instagram users have been left distraught after the photo-sharing app crashed.

Many were faced with an error message when they tried to access the platform from their mobile phones on Monday evening.
Selfie-lovers took to Twitter to vent their frustration, with many turning to humour to dull their pain.
Ella King posted: "Instagram is down??? Now how will I seek validation from strangers on the Internet??"
Ako Akinrele wrote: "Instagram isn't down, my last selfie was just that good."
Sonya Ali tweeted: "Instagram is down. Everyone freak out."
Instagram responded: "We know some Instagrammers are experiencing issues with the app. We're working on a fix."
The desktop site did not appear to be affected by the glitch.

                                                                                                                                    News.com.au

How to face fear, with Will Smith

In this interesting and funny interview, Will Smith talks about the way he faces live and leaves us some interesting quotes such as ...
"The way to improve life is improve yourself"
"The point of maximum danger is the point of minimum fear"
"God placed the best things in life on the other side of terror"
"Forget securit, live for experience"
"Keep remembering to laugh and spend time with people who make you laugh"

The second part of the interview is dedicated to Nicolás. You'll know why when you watch it!
Make sure you find some time to watch it all. It's really woth it.

Receding glacier causes immense Canadian river to vanish in four days

First ever observed case of ‘river piracy’ saw the Slims river disappear as intense glacier melt suddenly diverted its flow into another watercourse

 An immense river that flowed from one of Canada’s largest glaciers vanished over the course of four days last year, scientists have reported, in an unsettling illustration of how global warming dramatically changes the world’s geography.
The abrupt and unexpected disappearance of the Slims river, which spanned up to 150 metres at its widest points, is the first observed case of “river piracy”, in which the flow of one river is suddenly diverted into another.
For hundreds of years, the Slims carried meltwater northwards from the vast Kaskawulsh glacier in Canada’s Yukon territory into the Kluane river, then into the Yukon river towards the Bering Sea. But in spring 2016, a period of intense melting of the glacier meant the drainage gradient was tipped in favour of a second river, redirecting the meltwater to the Gulf of Alaska, thousands of miles from its original destination.
The continental-scale rearrangement was documented by a team of scientists who had been monitoring the incremental retreat of the glacier for years. But on a 2016 fieldwork expedition they were confronted with a landscape that had been radically transformed.
“We went to the area intending to continue our measurements in the Slims river, but found the riverbed more or less dry,” said James Best, a geologist at the University of Illinois. “The delta top that we’d been sailing over in a small boat was now a dust storm. In terms of landscape change it was incredibly dramatic.”
Dan Shugar, a geoscientist at the University of Washington Tacoma and the paper’s lead author, added: “The water was somewhat treacherous to approach, because you’re walking on these old river sediments that were really goopy and would suck you in. And day by day we could see the water level dropping.”
The team flew a helicopter over the glacier and used drones to investigate what was happening in the other valley, which is less accessible.
“We found that all of the water that was coming out from the front of the glacier, rather than it being split between two rivers, it was going into just one,” said Best.

Read the whole article here: Receding glacier_The Guardian

The Afghan restaurant run by domestic abuse survivors

Afghanistan has been labelled one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. One study suggested 87% of women in the country experience some form of domestic violence. Sodaba Haidare visited one place in the capital Kabul that offers hope to women escaping abuse.

Aryan's shift in the kitchen has come to an end. She removes her apron and hat. Glimpses of her personality are revealed - she's wearing a colourful tunic over her black jeans, and she he has a mole exactly between her eyebrows - as if someone planted it in the perfect position.
She places a glass of fresh lemon juice on the table sits down across from me. Aryan is strikingly beautiful and moves with confidence. Yet it's hard to believe we are the same age. She is 24 but has the look of a much older woman. It's because of the years of abuse she endured at the hands of her violent husband.
She was only 16 when her parents arranged her marriage to a man she'd never met. Soon after the wedding, her husband and mother-in-law started beating her. She stuck it out, hoping things would get better with time. But they got worse.
By the time she realised she was in an abusive relationship, she already had three children.
One day, when Aryan's husband left for work, she examined the fresh bruises he'd left on her face, then packed her bags and took her children to the police station.
Women who suffer domestic abuse are usually turned away by Afghan police or persuaded to go back to their husbands for their family's honour. But Aryan thought her injuries would make the police take her seriously. And they did.
She was sent to a women's shelter, where she and her children lived ever since, with other women who have also escaped domestic violence. She often dreams of a future where she has her own place, where she can live without the fear of her ex-husband coming near her or her children.
The path to this dream becoming reality lies in the heart of Kabul. And it begins in a traditionally decorated Afghan restaurant called Bost.
Hope is at the heart of its mission. The place is run by survivors of domestic violence and here, women are celebrated as strong, independent human beings, not just victims. Bost is a base for eight women, of all ages. Working empowers them to write a new chapter in their lives.
It's a long and often difficult process. Still, it helps that every corner of this restaurant pays homage to powerful women. The place screams female empowerment.
Every wall is hung with pictures of women with unique stories.
There is Queen Soraya, the wife of King Amanullah, who dressed in European fashion and believed women should shed the veil, and that a man should only have one wife. She was also the minister of education, who opened the country's first school for girls in the 1920s.
Then there is the current first lady, Rula Ghani, a Christian-born Lebanese woman, who surprised Afghans by speaking out about women's rights.

Do apostrophes matter?

Meet the 'Grammar Vigilante' of Bristol

For years, it has been rumoured that somebody has been going out late at night, correcting bad punctuation on Bristol shop fronts.
The self-proclaimed "grammar vigilante" goes out undercover in the dead of night correcting street signs and shop fronts where the apostrophes are in the wrong place.
Jon Kay meets grammar's answer to Banksy and reveals the extent of his one man mission to improve standards.

 Look at what this 'vigilante' does: 

What do you think about it?

 

Something about Gibraltar

What do we really know about Gibraltar and the neverending conflict between Spain and Great Britain?

Some facts about Gibraltar:

• Gibraltarians are British citizens but they run their own affairs under a chief minister
• The territory is self-governing in all matters - including taxation - except foreign policy and defence, which are dealt with by the UK government
• Despite its small size, Gibraltar is strategically important, standing only 12 miles from the north coast of Africa. It has a UK military base, including a port and airstrip

If you'd like to read about the Brexit and Gibraltar conflict, just click here:
Brexit Gibraltar
 

More-than-2-child families will not be welcome any more in Britain

Welfare shakeup 'will push a quarter of a million children into poverty' 

A government shakeup of welfare payments being introduced on Thursday will push a quarter of a million children into poverty while wiping thousands of pounds off payments for bereaved families, according to research.
Analysis for the Guardian reveals that a family whose third child is born before midnight on Wednesday could be up to £50,000 better off over 18 years than one whose child is born on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a terminally ill man has told the Guardian that his wife and children will see tens of thousands of pounds wiped off their bereavement benefits if he survives beyond this week’s welfare deadline.
The man, from Barnet in north London, who spoke under the pseudonym Alan in order to protect his family, hit out at the “callous and brutal” reforms that will limit payments to widowed parents from many years to a maximum of 18 months.
The crunch for families celebrating a new birth or grieving the loss of a parent is a result of changes coming into effect on 6 April. They were announced when George Osborne was chancellor and are being enacted by Theresa May’s government. One of the changes means all households that have a third or subsequent baby will – aside from a limited set of exemptions – no longer be able to claim child tax credits.
Policy in Practice found that more than 600,000 families – championed as the “just about managing” households, which the prime minister vowed to protect on her first day in government – would be hit by the child welfare cuts, while many more could be affected by other cuts.
An expected 8,000 third or additional children are expected to miss out on support of up to £2,780 a year in April, a figure that could climb to 104,000 over the next 12 months, said the authors of the study.
The two-child restriction would inflate current child poverty figures by 10% by the end of the parliament, the study predicts, with a knock-on cost to public services of around £270m a year as a result of increased support spending in other areas such as housing and schools.
“The impact of growing up in a family that struggles to provide basic necessities will mean this policy is likely to have financial and social consequences well into the future,” said Deven Ghelani, director of Policy in Practice.
Osborne announced the two-child policy in 2015 as part of a £12bn programme of social security cuts. It is expected to save £1bn a year for the Treasury by 2021. Also coming this week is a freeze to working age benefit levels at a time when, according to the Resolution Foundation, the wealthiest will benefit from over £2bn a year in income tax cuts.
Families with children in which one parent dies are currently eligible for a £2,000 lump sum followed by a taxable benefit of approximately £112 a week until the youngest child leaves full-time education, which can stretch over 20 years.
Policy in Practice found that more than 600,000 families – championed as the “just about managing” households, which the prime minister vowed to protect on her first day in government – would be hit by the child welfare cuts, while many more could be affected by other cuts.
An expected 8,000 third or additional children are expected to miss out on support of up to £2,780 a year in April, a figure that could climb to 104,000 over the next 12 months, said the authors of the study.
The two-child restriction would inflate current child poverty figures by 10% by the end of the parliament, the study predicts, with a knock-on cost to public services of around £270m a year as a result of increased support spending in other areas such as housing and schools.
“The impact of growing up in a family that struggles to provide basic necessities will mean this policy is likely to have financial and social consequences well into the future,” said Deven Ghelani, director of Policy in Practice.
Osborne announced the two-child policy in 2015 as part of a £12bn programme of social security cuts. It is expected to save £1bn a year for the Treasury by 2021. Also coming this week is a freeze to working age benefit levels at a time when, according to the Resolution Foundation, the wealthiest will benefit from over £2bn a year in income tax cuts.
Families with children in which one parent dies are currently eligible for a £2,000 lump sum followed by a taxable benefit of approximately £112 a week until the youngest child leaves full-time education, which can stretch over 20 years.

You can read more here:

The Guardian