Peter Kernwein posted a photo:
belinjapan has added a photo to the pool:
KYIV (ANP/RTR) - De Oekraïense krijgsmacht claimt een nachtelijke aanval te hebben uitgevoerd op een dronefabriek in het Russische Taganrog, een stad aan de Zee van Azov. Daarbij zou het Russische vermogen om drones te produceren zijn aangetast.
"De vernietiging van deze faciliteit zal de capaciteit van de vijand om drones te produceren verminderen en de mogelijkheid van de Russische agressor om aanvallen uit te voeren op burgerdoelen in Oekraïne verzwakken", aldus de krijgsmacht op berichtendienst Telegram.
De Oekraïense president Volodymyr Zelensky meldt zondagochtend dat Rusland deze week meer dan 2360 aanvalsdrones en bijna zestig raketten tegen zijn land heeft ingezet. Donderdag vielen in Oekraïne minstens achttien doden en tientallen gewonden. Het land meldde zaterdag dat Rusland een van de zwaarste aanvallen van dit jaar uitvoerde met ruim veertig raketten en meer dan 650 drones.
BERLIJN (ANP/DPA) - In Duitsland worden dit jaar meer dan duizend treinstations gemoderniseerd en tot 2030 krijgen nog eens honderden stations een opknapbeurt. Dat heeft topvrouw Evelyn Palla van Deutsche Bahn (DB) dit weekend gezegd in Duitse media.
De Duitse spoorvervoerder wil tot 2030 jaarlijks 4 miljard euro investeren in de renovatie van treinstations. "Over de komende vijf jaar komt dit neer op meer dan 20 miljard aan investeringen", becijferde Palla.
Volgens haar heeft DB "duidelijk wat in te halen" als het gaat om onderhoud aan treinstations. De nadruk bij de modernisering zal vooral liggen op het verbeteren van het uiterlijk van stationsgebouwen. Daarnaast wordt 50 miljoen euro geïnvesteerd in het verbeteren van veiligheid en netheid. In overleg met de Duitse politie worden meer stations uitgerust met camera's en videobewaking.
Duitsland kampt sowieso met veel achterstallig onderhoud op het spoor. Daarom vinden er de laatste jaren ook veel werkzaamheden plaats. Door alle hinder kampen ook veel treinen met vertragingen en annuleringen.
The vice-president has endured his most humiliating – and damaging – week as his boss’s fall guy. How much more can Maga’s great hope take?
For a would-be president, JD Vance has an unfortunate habit of getting into fights he cannot win. Three losing battles in the past week – with Iranian negotiators, Hungarian voters and Pope Leo – brought censure, humiliation and mockery raining down on his head. None were of Vance’s choosing. All were fought vicariously on Donald Trump’s behalf.
The vice-president is paying a high price for sycophantic loyalty to his boss. His poll ratings are plunging. His Maga succession hopes falter. He suffers by association – although his own inflammatory statements and misjudgments often make matters worse. Yet amid growing doubts about Trump’s mental health and fitness to govern, Vance remains the White House’s next-in-line.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
Continue reading...The opera – about the hijacking of a cruise by the PLF who murder a Jewish American wheelchair user – has been subject to protests and accused of romanticising terrorism. Why was the film-maker so desperate to stage it?
In a rehearsal room perched above the labyrinthine backstage of Florence’s starkly contemporary Maggio Musicale Fiorentino theatre, Luca Guadagnino is showing the women of the chorus how to make a second-act entrance. Dressed in a slouchy cardigan and slacks, the Italian director runs forward and stops short at a line of tape indicating the rim of the stage. A little out of breath, he turns past stretching dancers to conductor Lawrence Renes and asks if he minds the sound of stamping feet. “I never mind when we hear them talk, walk, breathe,” Renes says. “It’s live theatre.”
Better known for films like After the Hunt, Challengers and Call Me By Your Name, Guadagnino still sometimes punctuates stage rehearsals with instinctive cries of “Cut!” and “Action!”. But today he is directing an opera. It’s his second ever and his first in more than 15 years – and a highly controversial one to boot. The Death of Klinghoffer, a 1991 opera with music by John Adams and libretto by Alice Goodman, has sparked accusations of antisemitism whenever and wherever it has been performed. It depicts the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro by the Palestinian Liberation Front, their murder of disabled Jewish American tourist Leon Klinghoffer, and the grief and rage of his wife, Marilyn. The story is placed in a historical, even mythic, context.
Continue reading...As excitement mounts for the 2026 event on 26 April fraudsters are cashing in by trying to persuade disappointed hopefuls they can run after all
You didn’t get a place for the London marathon on the ballot and had given up on the hope of taking part this year. But then someone in a discussion group on your running app posts that they are injured and are selling their place.
After contacting them on WhatsApp, they say they can transfer the place once you pay £79 via bank transfer, and give your full name and email address.
Continue reading...From a beachside bothy to a Highland bunkhouse and lochside inn, here are some of Scotland’s bonniest boltholes
With its cheery, cherry-red tin roof, you can’t miss the sturdy stone bothy on the Ben Damph estate. The family-owned 5,868-hectare (14,500-acre) estate nudges up to Loch Torridon, and the bothy, constructed from the ruins of an old black house (a traditional thatched home), has views over the loch to the mountains beyond. Restored by a team of stonemasons, it has two rooms (each sleeping two) warmed by log burners. The furniture has been made from the estate’s timber by a local cabinet maker. Between the two rooms is a “sitooterie” with picture windows framing views over to Ben Alligin. There’s no electricity, but there is running water and a gas-powered hot shower next to the bothy; a compost loo is in the garden.
Sleeps 4, from £342.50 for two nights, bendamph.com
Staff at outlets critical of Tehran have faced chilling intimidation and violence, amid calls for greater protection and support
Iranian journalists working in London say they fear for their lives after a recent spate of threats and physical attacks, which they blame on a Tehran regime intent on silencing Persian-language news media such as BBC Persian and Iran International.
On Wednesday, the London offices of Iran International, a news channel that opposes the regime in Tehran, were the target of an attempted arson attack, with an “ignited container” thrown into the car park of a neighbouring building, according to the Metropolitan police.
Continue reading...Breakthrough prize in Life Sciences awarded to team who developed Luxturna therapy, which helped a patient see their child’s face for the first time
A married couple who met over a dissected brain and went on to create the first approved gene therapy for blindness have been awarded one of the most lucrative prizes in science.
Molecular biologist Jean Bennett and ophthalmologist Albert Maguire share the $3m (£2.2m) Breakthrough prize for life sciences with physician Katherine High for the 25-year-long project, during which the couple adopted a pair of dogs they had treated for blindness.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Former Scottish Labour leader says she feels more scared as a lesbian today and calls for a kinder debate on transgender issues
Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour, says she is now “quite scared” as a lesbian in Britain and has started to feel nervous holding her wife’s hand in public.
Speaking to the Guardian in Edinburgh on the announcement of her appointment as the chair of Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, she said it was “completely possible” gay rights in the UK could be eroded with the rise of rightwing populism.
Continue reading...We konden ongeveer een dag genieten van het Hormuz Ontzet maar de Straat zit ondertussen weer ouderwets potdicht. Iran gooide de boel vrijdag open, maar dat deed Trump niet en zodoende vindt Iran nu dat de VS zich niet aan de afspraken houdt. Wat de gesprekken tussen beide partijen aangaat beweerde Trump de afgelopen dagen dat Iran achter de schermen met eigenlijk alle eisen van de VS akkoord is, waaronder het opgeven van het kernprogramma, het afstaan van het verrijkte uranium en zelfs het stoppen met financiering van proxy's als Hamas en Hezbollah, maar volgens Iran is dat allemaal behoorlijk voorbarig. In de Straat van Hormuz heeft Iran ondertussen - naar verluidt - een olietanker en een vrachtschip onder vuur genomen, maar er zijn aan de andere kant ook 4 cruiseschepen met succes door de Iraanse 'mijnenzone' gesjeesd. Onzekerheid alom dus. We gaan het weer volgen!
Update 09:01 - In WSJ een analyse van Trumps overwegingen achter de schermen. De president zou inname van Kargh hebben geblokkeerd uit angst voor vele Amerikaanse doden.
Update 09:05 - Nog altijd geen Khamenei in levende lijve te zien, maar onderhandelaar (en waarschijnlijk de werkelijke leider op dit moment) Mohammed Ghalibaf gaf gisteren zijn eerste tv-speech. Gaf dus een update over hoe Iran heus nog niet verslagen, sterker nog: De VS is verslagen.
niggyl :) has added a photo to the pool:
Lake Elysia in the Du Cane Range, Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park.
Wild country on a wild day. Walled Mountain (1431m) and Mt Eros (1373m) left and right of the lake. Pouring with big fat drops of rain.
A very fast point and shoot session with the Ricoh before scarpering out of there.
Ricoh GRiii, 18.3mm f/2.8 GR lens, 1/1000th sec at f/3.5, ISO 400. Couldn't see the screen - no wipers on the specs...
Not really a small screen image - make it big.