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UK’s Rare Breeds Survival Trust says calf numbers of white park cattle last year were less than two-thirds of 2022 level
An ancient breed of cattle whose ancestors are thought to have accompanied the Celts as they were pushed to Britain’s fringes by the Romans has been designated as urgently at risk by a UK conservation charity.
Publishing its 2026 watchlist on Tuesday, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust moved white park cattle to its “priority” category as new calf numbers sank last year to less than two-thirds of their 2022 level.
Continue reading...She left after being held up at gunpoint. Now Silvana Trevale wants to show a different side to the ‘wounded’ country – with a photography project about the resilience of its youth completed last year
Continue reading...What’s it like to lose your partner of more than 40 years? The novelist and essayist reflects on going from ‘we’ to ‘I’
It wasn’t quite Beatlemania, but, at the height of Paul Auster’s fame in the 1980s and 90s, screaming fans clambered on to the hood of a car after a reading in Buenos Aires. Admirers mobbed him at bookshop events in Paris, the city where he had once eked out a living translating French literature. He was offered big money to make ads promoting American beef to Japan. He was hailed as a rock god, a literary superstar, a postmodernist with leading-man looks.
Little of this is of much consequence or consolation to novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt who, before he died of cancer in 2024, had been married to Auster for more than 40 years. As she tells it in Ghost Stories, her memoir of their life together, she was a tall blond PhD student in a jumpsuit when she met him – “a beautiful man in a black leather jacket” – at a poetry reading. He was separated from the mother of his child, living alone in a gloomy Brooklyn apartment, yet to publish anything of substance. Literature bound them: he was just 15 when he decided his future was in writing; she had come to the same insight at an even younger age.
Continue reading...When a veteran of the American war of independence returns to his native country with popular rule on his mind dangerous passions ignite
This Polish historical drama is an odd duck of a feature but there’s definitely a cinematic flair to proceedings. For a start, a lot of it unfolds over one evening in a candlelit setting, so you may have to screw up your eyes in order to make out what’s going on. My advice is to then surrender to its strange tonality and weird flat stretches, because the ending pulls most of the strands together satisfyingly and goes out with bangs, whizzes and a fair few sword thrusts.
The year is 1794, and it’s not long since the American war of independence has finished, in which Polish hero Tadeusz “Kos” Kościuszko (a real historical figure, played here by Chris Pine lookalike Jacek Braciak) fought valiantly on the side of the American rebels. Now he’s back in what’s left of Poland, a nation with particularly elastic borders at that time as various neighbours invade and pull back, especially the Russians. Kos is accompanied by his friend Domingo (Jason Mitchell), a freed slave and top marksman, and together the two of them are hoping to start something in Poland and get the peasants revolting against the oppressive nobility. That sort of social order shake-up would definitely be a boon for folks such as Ignac Sikora (Bartosz Bielenia), the bastard son of a local landowner who has promised with his dying breath to leave Ignac some kind of inheritance in his will.
Continue reading...Tucked away in a remote valley, these cosy off-grid cabins come with a wild-swimming pond, loads of wildlife and a farm where kids can run free
Holidaying as a single parent is a tricky balance. You want to ringfence the kind of extended one-on-one time that can be difficult to find during term time; but too much of that and you know you’ll drive each other a little crazy. Kids need other kids, and you could do with some adult company too. You also need a break. It’s a nice idea to pack the car with camping gear and head out into the wilderness, but it can be a lot of work – and you end up in a field, attempting to put up a tent, alone.
Friends of mine have suggested holiday parks, some of them with bars and restaurants and a daily schedule of kids’ activities. That all sounds a bit overstimulating. I’d been dreaming about sinking into a quiet landscape. But would there be enough to do?
Continue reading...Yanar Mohammed’s assassination comes amid a number of killings as fellow campaigners warn women’s rights are going backwards
In early March, two unidentified gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on Iraq’s most notable women’s rights activist, Yanar Mohammed, as she stood outside her home in the north of the capital, Baghdad. She had long been the target of death threats from Islamic State and other armed groups.
Her death was the latest of several killings of well-known female figures in Iraq in recent years, who were either prominent advocates for women’s rights or notable individuals. In early April, soon after Yanar’s death, a female lawyer known for supporting girls was also murdered.
Speaking to the Guardian and Jummar Media, women in Iraq say the murders have had a chilling effect on their ability to speak out at a time when women’s rights and freedoms in the country are going backwards.
Continue reading...De VVD zegt het inmiddels hardop: we willen geen land publiekelijk veroordelen dat we als bondgenoot zien. Daarmee verschuift internationaal recht van norm naar bijzaak. Want als veroordeling afhangt van vriendschap, dan is het recht per definitie ondergeschikt. De uitkomst staat eigfenlijk al vast, de weg ernaartoe wordt vooral een kwestie van timing. En die genocide? Die staat juridisch helemaal nog niet vast aldus de VVD.
En ja, juristen zijn voorzichtig met het woord genocide. Begrijpelijk. Het Genocideverdrag stelt hoge eisen: intentie, bewijs, drempels. Zolang internationale tribunalen geen definitieve uitspraak hebben gedaan, blijft het formeel onderwerp van debat. Formeel, want intussen stapelen de feiten zich op. Wat zichtbaar is, wordt bureaucratische terminologie. Wat voor iedereen zonder oogkleppen op evident is, blijft voor de VVD ‘onderwerp van onderzoek’.
Voor de VVD is dat precies de ruimte die nodig is. Geen veroordeling, want juridisch nog niet vastgesteld. Geen positie, want het ligt complex. Geen consequenties, want de procedure loopt nog. Er ontstaat een feedbackloop van onwil. De VVD wijst naar juristen die nog geen eindoordeel hebben. Juristen opereren in een context waarin politieke druk ontbreekt, of erger nog ze worden tegengewerkt, door diezelfde VVD. Het resultaat is stilstand die eruitziet als zorgvuldigheid.
De geschiedenis kent dat mechanisme. Eerst heet het: we weten het nog niet zeker. Daarna: we konden het nog niet vaststellen. En uiteindelijk blijft er iets over dat verdacht veel lijkt op ‘ich habe es nicht gewusst’. Niet omdat het onbekend was. Omdat het politiek ongewenst was om het te weten. De vraag is dan wat hier leidend is: het recht, of de bondgenoot. Voor de VVD lijkt dat antwoord duidelijk.
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Het begon als 1-aprilgrap, maar wordt nu ook werkelijkheid: Diergaarde Blijdorp gaat eenmalig sportlessen geven tussen de dieren. De dierentuin besloot de jaarlijkse grap uit te voeren na veel enthousiasme op sociale media. “Dit is een supergoed idee!”
Het begon als 1-aprilgrap, maar wordt nu ook werkelijkheid: Diergaarde Blijdorp gaat eenmalig sportlessen geven tussen de dieren. De dierentuin besloot de jaarlijkse grap uit te voeren na veel enthousiasme op sociale media. “Dit is een supergoed idee!”