F1.com's Lawrence Barretto tries to answer the five key questions that came out of the second pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit.
As Botswana’s president here is my plan to renew this country’s beleaguered health system – and my vision for a stronger Africa
Shortages of medicine in Botswana forced me to declare a public health emergency last year. Patients went without treatment – not because health workers failed them, but because the system did. For a nation committed to universal healthcare, free at the point of use, it was a moment of hard truth.
Even outwardly strong public health systems can be fragile. As donor assistance bites across the continent, governments cannot afford to delay building resilience.
Continue reading...Omar Yaghi’s invention uses ambient thermal energy and can generate up to 1,000 litres of clean water every day
A Nobel laureate’s environmentally friendly invention that provides clean water if central supplies are knocked out by a hurricane or drought, could be a life saver for vulnerable islands, its founder says.
The invention, by the chemist Prof Omar Yaghi, uses a type of science called reticular chemistry to create molecularly engineered materials, which can extract moisture from the air and harvest water even in arid and desert conditions.
Continue reading...Influential documentary-maker whose films eavesdropped on the relationships between people and institutions
In 1960, when a small group of American documentary film-makers named their work direct cinema, they might have been accurately describing the films of Frederick Wiseman, who has died aged 96. Although he came along a few years later, Wiseman, more than the others in the movement, exemplified the credo of direct cinema, which believed in an immediate and authentic approach to the subject matter.
Avoiding planned narrative and narration, Wiseman recorded events exactly as they happened. People were allowed to speak without guidance or interruption, while the camera watched them objectively, not interfering with the natural flow of speech or action. This was made possible by the advent of light, portable cameras and high-speed film, which allowed more intimacy in the film-making – what Wiseman called “wobblyscope”.
Continue reading...Recent incidents involving Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert suggest things are not well at the network after the acquisition financed by Trump supporter Larry Ellison
Anderson Cooper decides to walk away from broadcast TV’s most prestigious news show, 60 Minutes. Stephen Colbert takes his interview with a rising Democratic politician to YouTube instead of his own late-night show. The CBS Evening News anchor presents a misleading version of the network’s own exclusive reporting on Ice arrests. And a news producer writes a farewell note to her CBS News colleagues blaming the loss of editorial independence.
If you connect the dots, the picture of what’s happening at CBS becomes all too clear. That picture comes into even sharper focus once you recall an underlying factor: the network’s parent company is trying to get a big commercial deal done and needs the help of the Trump administration to bring it over the finish line.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
Continue reading...I mourn the vibrant life we lived before. But though our faces anxiously turn to the sky, our hands are joined in a solidarity that rises above hunger
Every year, Ramadan comes as a sanctuary for the soul. For Muslims like me, it is a sacred pause in the chaos of life. But this year, as a woman displaced from the familiar streets of Gaza City to a rented room in Al-Zawayda, I am searching for a peace that feels like a ghost. The world calls this a “ceasefire”, yet from my window the silence feels heavy. We are holding our breath because the fear of death has not disappeared, it has just become unpredictable.
I did not welcome Ramadan this year with the golden lanterns that once adorned our balconies. I welcomed it to the roar of bulldozers clearing the bones of neighbouring houses and with the constant buzz of the zanana, the Israeli surveillance drones, overhead. Even as we stand in prayer, that metallic humming drowns out the adhan, the call to prayer, reminding us that we are still watched and that our “calm” rests at the mercy of a sudden strike.
Majdoleen Abu Assi is a project coordinator and humanitarian practitioner based in Gaza, Palestine
Continue reading...Few UK nominations this year as industry tries to balance attracting global attention and celebrating homegrown projects
It may be billed as Britain’s premier film awards, but when nominations for the Baftas were announced last month, the lack of British representation in the top categories was hard to ignore. Just one British actor, Robert Aramayo, appeared in the leading actor category, while there were no British nominees at all for leading actress (the UK-based Irish actor Jessie Buckley notwithstanding).
The supporting categories fared little better, with Peter Mullan and Emily Watson the sole British nominees. Of the films themselves, only one British co-production, Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet – about Shakespeare and his wife Agnes’s grief over the loss of their son – made it into the best film race.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Rami Ranger, who was suspended temporarily in 2023, makes successful bid at party fundraising event
A Conservative donor who was suspended from the party after being accused of bullying and inappropriate language spent £50,000 last week to have dinner with Kemi Badenoch, the Guardian has learned.
Rami Ranger was the successful bidder for the dinner at a Tory fundraising event and will attend the meal with a small group of friends, infuriating those in the party who believe he should not have been readmitted.
Continue reading...Culture ministry hails ‘exceptional historical importance’ of prints that show resistance fighters’ final moments
In his book-filled office, Vangelis Sakkatos took in the images of the men lined up before a firing squad. The executions on May Day 1944 have haunted him since he was a boy.
“Their heroism was the stuff of myth,” said the veteran leftist, casting his eyes over the photographs that have dominated Greece’s press in recent days with a mixture of fury and awe. “The years may have passed, but I haven’t forgotten.”
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