Before Astana was designed as a futuristic metropolis, it was named Akmola and was best known for housing a gulag prison camp for the wives of convicted Soviet traitors.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-incomparable-futuristic-architecture-worlds-youngest-capital

Naime, šezdesetih i sedamdesetih godina u Beogradu je gotovo svaka porodica imala "svog Albanca". U najmanju ruku, ja nisam poznavao nikoga ko ga nije imao. Čak su i ustanove, na primer Savez književnika Jugoslavije, imale "svog Albanca".

https://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php?id=1621568

Gabriel García Márquez's novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" brought Latin American literature to the forefront of the global imagination and earned García Márquez the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature. What makes the novel so remarkable? Francisco Díez-Buzo investigates. Lesson by Francisco Díez-Buzo, animation by Lucy Animation Studio.

 

While the description of martial arts might seem self-explanatory, Xu defines Chinese martial arts as “systematic research of the human body in traditional Chinese culture.” Essentially, it is about the relationship between mind and body. Xu elucidates: “Qi is the energy that moves the blood in your body, but qi follows what is in your mind. When you are happy, angry, or when you see someone you fancy, your body reacts differently. In Chinese martial arts, when you have the sword in your mind, you have it in your hand; when you don’t have it in your mind, even if you are holding a sword, that’s not a sword.”

https://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/body-and-mind-in-chinese-martial-arts-a-conversation-with-xu-xiangdong

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/poland-polarization/568324/

Quote

A Warning From Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come

Polarization. Conspiracy theories. Attacks on the free press. An obsession with loyalty. Recent events in the United States follow a pattern Europeans know all too well.

Polarization is normal. Skepticism about liberal democracy is normal. And the appeal of authoritarianism is eternal.

 

Dobar članak, @Duya, trebalo mi je sto godina da ga pročitam 

Hu Hanlin is a victim of what has been called the “Human Flesh Search Engine” (renrou sousuo yinqing 人肉搜索引擎), the Chinese term for the phenomenon of netizens distributing the personal information of individuals people feel ‘deserve’ public interest or scorn.

https://www.whatsonweibo.com/decade-human-flesh-search-engine-still-raging-across-chinese-social-media/

Unfortunately, “free will” isn’t a scientific reality. It is a myth inherited from Christian theology. Theologians developed the idea of “free will” to explain why God is right to punish sinners for their bad choices and reward saints for their good choices. If our choices aren’t made freely, why should God punish or reward us for them? According to the theologians, it is reasonable for God to do so, because our choices reflect the free will of our eternal souls, which are independent of all physical and biological constraints.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy

A panel of critics tells us what belongs on a list of the 100 most important books of the 2000s … so far.

http://www.vulture.com/article/best-books-21st-century-so-far.html

Although journalism was always a loose extension of establishment power, something has changed in recent years. Dissent tolerated when I joined a national newspaper in Britain in the 1960s has regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves towards a form of corporate dictatorship. This is a seismic shift, with journalists policing the new "groupthink", as Parry called it, dispensing its myths and distractions, pursuing its enemies.

- John Pilger

http://johnpilger.com/articles/hold-the-front-page-the-reporters-are-missing

China’s quest for more babies is a hot topic in the media recently. News reports generally explain the country’s declining birth rates through an economic lens. But by ignoring the social and historical background that has shaped the ways Chinese young parents think about family life today, they miss the essential point, Frankie Huang argues in this op-ed contribution for What’s on Weibo.

https://www.whatsonweibo.com/op-ed-not-all-about-the-money-why-the-one-child-generation-arent-keen-on-having-more-babies/

 

Hundreds of nuns trained in Kung Fu are biking the Himalayas to oppose human trafficking

https://www.businessinsider.com/r-kung-fu-nuns-bike-himalayas-to-oppose-human-trafficking-2016-9

According to index.hu, a 90-year-old driver ran down Gergő Balázs Gecse Sunday morning in the south-east part of France, near Villard-Bonn. As we reported before, Mr Gecse had been travelling Hungary and Europe since he was 18. 

He built his covered ox wagon himself and his initial companions were a Hungarian cattle breed, two goats and a shepherd dog. He did not read newspapers, did not give interviews, and did not watch TV.

https://dailynewshungary.com/famous-hungarian-nomad-travelling-in-an-ox-wagon-for-14-years-killed-in-france-photos-video/

How the obsession with identity politics, tribalism, and victimhood is atomising society

By Robert Pfaller

https://www.ips-journal.eu/regions/europe/article/show/the-end-of-solidarity-2991/

Four Days in Occupied Western Sahara—A Rare Look Inside Africa’s Last Colony

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/31/four_days_in_occupied_western_sahara

In Japan, the country that has the highest population density in the world but also vast expanses of green forests (about 3,000 miles of them), an ancient tradition tries to balance out the crush from urban living. It's known as shinrin-yoku, or "forest bathing." It's the practice of spending prolonged periods of time with trees in order to gain from their many health benefits.

https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2018/04/04/599135342/suffering-from-nature-deficit-disorder-try-forest-bathing

PS
hvala @noskich, veoma zanimljiva reportaža. Kad sam ja bio u Zapadnoj Sahari niko me nije ni pogledao, ali jedan drug mi je rekao da su njega policajci u civilu zaustavili na ulici i rekli mu da mora napustiti ZS.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, imprisoned for 15 years over a 21-year period in her struggle for human rights and democracy, has suffered a swift and dramatic fall from grace as a global icon. She is now widely seen as an enabler of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

https://qz.com/1413080/aung-san-suu-kyi-still-has-the-moral-authority-to-right-myanmars-wrongs-against-the-rohingya/

As a traveler researching the minutiae of the Pamir Highway, you will undoubtedly be well acquainted with the sensations of pure adventure associated with this part of the world. But what Bulunkul provides is a separate feeling entirely, a sense of place where no place should reasonably be found.

https://caravanistan.com/trip-reports/bulunkul/

Mir s tobom, raketo.

https://themoscowtimes.com/photogalleries/from-cats-to-missiles-what-orthodox-priests-bless-in-russia-pictures-63140?fbclid=IwAR0CWDleafZbYe5VcPL5gKQuqQKY2SDhSVAuogiTKaPa9ZnK9z2OeNGvQq4

Should it all be used, though? These aren’t just stories – they are real people’s lives. No matter how tastefully it is done, is it not unethical to transform personal tragedies into public entertainment?

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/16/making-a-murderer-is-our-obsession-with-true-crime-turning-nasty-serial?

It might come as some surprise that North Korea, which has been economically isolated by strict UN sanctions, is capable of building much of anything at all, much less showpiece megaprojects. After all, the country’s heavily centralized economic system is notoriously inefficient; severe shortages of food, electricity, fuel, and medicine are still said to afflict the population. How is a desperately poor state building so much?

https://www.citylab.com/design/2018/10/whats-behind-north-koreas-building-boom/573142/

In 1936, a school group from south London went on a hike in the Black Forest. Despite the heroic rescue attempts of German villagers, five boys died. Eighty years on, locals are still asking how it happened.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/06/fatal-hike-became-nazi-propaganda-coup

As the manufacturing industry splintered, the docks of what was once the world’s largest port fell victim to shipping modernization and closed. The death in 1965 of Winston Churchill, the great prime minister, marked “the last time that London would be the capital of the world,” the Observer noted. Population continued a downward slide, bottoming out at 6.7 million in 1988. By then London’s fortunes had changed with deregulation of the financial services industry, known as the Big Bang, along with the shift to electronic trading, which enabled London to rival Tokyo and New York. A new financial district rose on the ruins of the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs, a marshy nub that juts into the Thames. Canary Wharf, as the district is called, became London’s first modern large-scale regeneration project.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/urban-expeditions/london-population-city-planning/

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen.

https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Thailand is the cheapest place to buy residency. For just $15,902, customers can secure residency that gives them visa-free travel to 75 destinations. The UK is the most expensive residency option; people interested in getting a residency in the UK and access to visa-free travel to 177 destinations need to spend over $2.7 million. 

https://qz.com/1260489/the-easiest-places-in-the-world-to-get-citizenship-or-residency-if-youre-rich/

Underwater bedrooms, ‘Lohan Island’ and snow all year round – a decade after it was scuppered by the financial crash, the fantasy archipelago of 300 artificial ‘countries’ is back in business. Has anybody learned anything?

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/13/not-end-the-world-return-dubai-ultimate-folly