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Fashion Trends
Researchers looked at the displays in female fashion shops in two UK cities.They concluded that if people were the same size as the mannequins they would be “considered medically unhealthy”. Some fashion retailers have announced in recent years that they are starting to use bigger mannequins but when this research was carried out in 2015, none were spotted.
BBC
According to the article:
China’s Air
China’s war against air pollution is part of a broader reckoning with the health and environmental catastrophe wrought by rapid industrialization over the past few decades. The public outcry over pollution offers the central government political cover for painful decisions it needs to make, for reasons having nothing to do with the environment. Overcapacity in the steel, cement, glass, and power sectors, fueled by dangerously high levels of debt, is widely considered an economic time bomb that leaders know they must defuse.
National Geographic
China’s new approach to pollution…
New Product on the Market
Blumond is a combination of prosecco, peach, and blue curacao (so it’s essentially a sparkling cocktail in a bottle), meaning you get a sweet, fruity flavour in addition to the exciting blue hue. Blumond will likely come to the UK to be tried out on us instead. The company that owns the blue concoction, Fratelli Sarecini, are already in talks to start selling the booze for weddings and special occasions, as well as selling it in Harrods.
Metro
What is Blumond?
British Tabloids
In Britain after the so-called Brexit vote, the power of the tabloids is evident. Their circulations may be falling and their reputations tarnished by a series of phone-hacking scandals. But as the country prepares to cut ties with the European Union after a noisy and sometimes nasty campaign, top politicians court the tabloids and fear their wrath. Broadcasters follow where they lead, if not in tone then in topic. Their readers, many of them over 50, working class and outside London, look strikingly like the voters who were crucial to the outcome of last year’s referendum on membership in the European Union. It is these citizens of Brexitland the tabloids purport to represent from the heart of enemy territory: Housed in palatial dwellings in some of London’s most expensive neighborhoods, they see themselves as Middle England’s embassies in London.
New York Times
What is true about British tabloids?
Changing Clothes Market
100 billion garments are manufactured every year. Fast fashion companies like H&M, Zara, Primark and Uniqlo have helped double worldwide clothing production in the last 15 years. New collections hit stores every week. We’re wearing clothes for half the time we used to and throw them away much faster, adding to the billions of waste clothes that already rot in landfills.
The consequence: we don’t value our clothes anymore. As prices plummet, more of us can afford to buy new clothes without a second thought. Even though many people admit that they already own too much, we also confess that we keep buying new clothes, according to surveys conducted in Europe and Asia. Clothes shopping is no longer something that we really need to do. Instead, it’s a way we deal with stress, gain confidence and find self worth, connection and happiness — however short-lived. This is the dangerous addiction of fast-fashion.
Greenpeace
According to the text, why is the clothes industry changing?
3-D Printing
Three-dimensional printing is becoming more prevalent in the defense industry, as engineers explore the process to make parts for the most sophisticated U.S. weapons, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles. But lesser-known projects have been in the works at a Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, shop that has been producing parts for Air Force aircraft for at least two years. The in-house 3-D process is much faster than going back and forth with outside suppliers for parts. “Once you get the geometry, you can print it overnight and have it the next day,” said REACT engineer Nathan Pitters. To identify the geometry of the part and print it takes at most two days, officials explained.“With diminishing sources of supply, the benefit for us is the flexibility and the ability to respond to a war fighter need,” added Rick Barlow, director of engineering for the CMXG. The benefit is speed.
Defense Tech
What is the purpose of this text?
Food Market
Mallaig is on a picturesque promontory looking over the sea to Skye. The wild catch at Mallaig quayside is now langoustine, scallops and lobster. Many of the shellfish are bound for markets in Spain and France, trucked live and swiftly for premium prices. The biggest fish business in the west Highlands is the farming of Atlantic salmon. From the fishing boat they are vacuumed through a pipe into the ice house, slaughtered, packed and driven along the winding road through the Lochaber region to a processing plant at Fort William. They are gutted and despatched to markets around the world. It is 25 years since Scottish salmon became the first non-French food to win the Label Rouge designation. Based on taste and appearance, that has been a valuable asset in France, the biggest European market for salmon, and an important calling card in other countries.
BBC
Scottish salmon…
Vegan Wine
While most beers are vegan-friendly, a lot of wines aren’t. Young wines tend to be quite cloudy due to tiny molecules floating around. We like our wines bright and clear, so they go through a process called ‘fining’. Normally if they’re left long enough, wines self-fine but when you’re producing gallons and gallons of the stuff, time is of the essence and producers use ‘fining agents’ to move things along. Those act like magnets – attracting the molecules around them so that they’re more easily removed. And they’re traditionally made out of animal products like casein (a milk protein), albumin (egg whites), gelatin (animal protein) or isinglass (fish bladder protein).However, more and more winemakers are adopting vegan-friendly practices by using clay-based fining agents like bentonite and activated charcoal. But there is an easier way to spot a vegan wine. All you have to do is look out for the words ‘unfined’ or ‘unfiltered’ on the wine label and you’ll know that it doesn’t contain any animal products.
Metro
Which is mentioned in the text?
Fast Food
Tired of using a regular fork – or, let’s be honest, your hands – to swipe up all that juicy condiment carnage with your fries? McDonald’s Frork is the latest fast food product designed to garner fast laughs. As with Burger King France’s Whopper-flavoured toothpaste, it’s unclear whether or not the Frork is real. McDonald’s is apparently unleashing the Frork on the U.S. for a limited time, and announced the product with a tongue-in-cheek infomercial starring English pitchman Anthony Sullivan “While the Frork is supremely superfluous, it shows that McDonald’s is willing to do whatever it takes to help (our customers) enjoy every last bite,” McDonald’s chef Michael Haracz said in a statement. The silicone fry-fork hybrid is tied to the release of three new sandwiches that will be available at McDonald’s U.S. restaurants: Maple Bacon Dijon, Pico Guacamole and Sweet BBQ Bacon. On May 5, a limited supply of Frorks will be given away with the purchase of one of the new sandwich offerings.
National Post
According to this article:
Japanese Heritage
A UNESCO advisory body has notified the Japanese government of its intention to grant a World Heritage status to its sacred island for men-only despite monks’ opposition. The island of Okinoshima hosts the Munakata Taisha Okitsumiya shrine known for honouring the goddess of the sea. In ancient times the goddess was believed to be a guardian of fishermen and sailors. Historically the island was place for numerous rituals and more than 80,000 artifacts have been discovered in its ground, according to Japan Times.
However, the island is bound by strict ancestral rules that include a ban on women, a requirement to strip for a cleansing ritual, no disclosure of the trip’s details, and no right to take anything on the island off shore. If granted the UNESCO status, the island is likely to become a tourist attraction what will complicate its regulation. “Those are issues that will have to be dealt with if the listing goes ahead,” the Asahi Shimbun news agency told BBC.
National Post
Why do Japanese monks oppose the decision of UNESCO?
Problems at NATO
The numbers speak for themselves. Some 25 per cent of NATO members do not have an air force, 30 per cent have no naval force or maintain a navy with less than 600 sailors, and 50 per cent are fielding an active army of less than 20,000 soldiers. NATO is an Alliance of unequals, but it does not have to be.
The first step to solve NATO’s underlying problem is to recognise that the continuous failure to create and deploy NATO’s Response Forces (NRF) and the EU Battlegroups is political in nature. Both rapid-response forces, as well as the current Framework Nations Concept advocated by Berlin, struggle with the uneven distribution of political risks, due to their internal rotational setup, unequal financial burden-sharing, and the issue of reacting to a military crisis rather than preventing one in the first place. To achieve permanent political change within multilateral institutions, in which national interests reign supreme, it is prudent to use existing structures rather than creating new ones. Creating European soldiers, and in the long-run hopefully full-fledged European citizens, is the tactical way forward to build sustainable structures of cooperation, strengthen the foundations of the Alliance, and interweave European security interests across the entire continent. Only when the European Allies are heavily invested in each other’s territorial defence, while maintaining national sovereignty and budget authority, will their parliaments and citizens be inclined to live up to NATO security commitments and the continuous pursuit of Alliance cohesion.
NATO Review
What is the purpose of this article?
What lies at the foundation of inequalities present in NATO?
Venezuelan Crisis
On May 1 opponents of the Venezuelan government once again filled the streets of Caracas, following a month of demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro in which 29 people were killed and hundreds detained. In a new gambit to delay elections and defuse the protests, Maduro on Monday proposed a 500-person assembly chosen by groups of workers, students and others to rewrite the country’s constitution. The opposition denounced this move as unconstitutional, and called Venezuelans to the streets to protest. But protests alone won’t lead to peace for this divided and suffering country. Other countries need to pressure moderates from the government and the opposition to negotiate a solution to the crisis that has left millions of Venezuelans with too little food and medicine, and a power struggle between the legislature and the Supreme Court.
Venezuela is facing the legacy of 18 years of revolutionary change introduced by Hugo Chávez. In the 2000s, the Chávez government distributed the profits from record-high oil prices to the poor, but failed to invest in the national petroleum company and, after confiscating many private businesses, resorted to importing most of the country’s food. It responded to its falling popularity by postponing governors’ elections, jailing opposition leaders, and arming pro-government gangs to intimidate protesters. The largest protests erupted in April, after the Supreme Court dissolved the authority of the opposition-controlled legislature and the government disqualified a leading opposition candidate from running in next year’s presidential election.
Reuters
Why did Venezuelans take to the streets on May 1?
Why is Hugo Chávez mentioned in this article?
Hate Crime
In this topsy-turvy world of prosecution for impure thoughts, reporting an increase in hate crime increases hate crime. More people are made aware that such a crime exists. Hate is measured and tracked against the occurrence of major national and international events, such as the Charlie Hebdo massacres and the Paris bombings. We are now told to expect an upsurge in hate crime after any such event – and sure enough, that is what happens. The EU referendum hadn’t even happened before it was linked to an increase in hate crime. Police were ordered to switch from compiling monthly hate crime statistics to sending in weekly reports. Heightened awareness kept everyone fully primed to expect more hatred and this greater sensitivity, in turn, triggered more reporting. So, the increase in hate crime might not mean Britain is more hateful after all. In fact, it could easily mean the exact opposite: we’re all more sensitive now, more aware of racism and homophobia and less ready to tolerate prejudice. There’s not more hate – simply more awareness and more readiness to report suspicions. For the past few months we’ve been panicking over racism that has supposedly been legitimised by the referendum campaign. But what is truly vile are the keyboard warriors who have taken the moral high ground to declare Leave voters ignorant, racist, antediluvian scum. The 41 per cent jump in post-referendum hate reflects nothing more than their darkest fantasies.
The Spectator
The author of the article asserts that:
What has changed in Britain after the Brexit vote?
Electronic Warfare
Russia no longer owns the airwaves in Eastern Europe. Two decades after the US Army unilaterally disarmed its electronic warfare branch, two years after Russian jamming crippled Ukrainian units; the Germany-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment is field-testing new EW gear. “We have kit in Europe today,” said Doug Wiltsie, director of the Army’s recently created Rapid Capabilities Office. Successive upgrades based on 2nd Cav soldiers’ feedback will enter testing in July and October, and fielding will follow later this year — despite budget turmoil that has slowed RCO’s other projects. Speaking to the C4ISRNET annual conference here, just two subway stops from the Pentagon, Wiltsie was understandably cagey about details like range and power. The new system will be available in both vehicle-mounted and man-portable forms for use by all types of combat brigades: light infantry, heavy armour, and medium-weight Stryker brigades like the 2nd Cav. It consists of sensors and software to pick up electromagnetic signals, analyze them, and locate their sources for attack. The “offensive capability” is ill-defined, but it sounds like something much more potent than the short-range defensive jammers already common on US aircraft (against missiles) and ground vehicles (against roadside bombs). Having any sensors and offensive jammers, however, will belatedly put US Army units on par with Russian ones. Well-intended efficiencies in the 1990s consolidated all offensive jamming in Navy and (a handful of) Air Force squadrons. Those aircraft rose, or rather descended, to the challenge in Iraq and Afghanistan when the Army and Marines needed jamming at ground level, but in a major war; they’d be busy suppressing anti-aircraft radars
Breaking Defence
Why does Russia appear in this text?
What can be said about the new EW system?
Run by the Internet
It’s possible that this entire day is delineated by a handful of technology companies. Google Home wakes you up in the morning and later, Google recommends a lunch spot – it even gives you live information on how busy it is. It is partly responsible for your cab home, as Google is an investor in Uber. You checked in with friends on Facebook on that morning commute (you might have also used the Facebook “check-in” feature at your lunch spot).
It is time now for two things: for people to wake up and realise how much our lives are dominated by such a small number of Silicon Valley bros, one hand in their jean pocket announcing their next move, and for tech companies to acknowledge their power and influence and become truly accountable. To pay their goddamn taxes. To actually do something about online abuse. To not take the piss out of consumers by releasing a $700 product and then tweaking it months later for greater profit. I don’t want to worry that the curating of Apple News is quasi-Pravda. Or that companies are making money from extremist content. And I understand that in so many “free” services we pay a different way, by becoming a product ourselves, and giving up some of of our privacy. That’s a trade that many of us are willing to make and will keep making, but up to a point.
The Guardian
What is the author’s main gripe with technology companies
Why is free in the fragment ‘so many free services’ in inverted commas?
Deportation from the US
Several arguments may be offered to challenge the thesis that US deportation of undocumented immigrants is a crime against humanity. First, it might be argued that forced expulsion of only citizens/legal residents could be a crime against humanity and, therefore, the prohibition does not cover undocumented immigrants. Second, the United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute or a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Protocols [PDF]. Third, no US court has ruled that deportation of undocumented immigrants is contrary to the US Constitution, much less a crime against humanity. In fact, federal immigration laws allow deportation of undocumented immigrants, and removal of some illegal aliens under expedited procedures. To cap these arguments, one might point out that if deportation of undocumented immigrants were to be a crime against humanity, nations will surrender their sovereignty to alien invaders. These arguments have some merit under the US notion of sovereignty, as the distinction between legal and undocumented immigrants lays at the heart of US immigration law. Yet, in the case of settled communities, the legal/illegal distinction is elusive, if not abusive of fundamental rights and liberties. With respect to undocumented communities, the US enforces its deportation laws in an arbitrary, cruel and unusual manner, in fits and starts, using the threat and actual removal as an instrument of mental torture, which itself is a crime against humanity.
Jurist
What is the main assertion of the author?
What is the main argument of the first part of the text?
Oil Market
Oil prices rebounded from near 2017 lows on Wednesday after preliminary data showed a much higher-than-expected fall in U.S. crude stocks, reviving bullish sentiment about easing oversupply. Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 was up 37 cents at $50.83 a barrel at 0815 GMT. On Tuesday the futures had settled at their lowest since Nov. 30, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to cut oil supply. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 traded at $47.96 a barrel, up 30 cents. WTI had slid 2.4 percent on Tuesday on concerns about falling OPEC compliance with its production-curbing deal. Data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) assessing closely watched U.S. oil inventories showed late on Tuesday that crude stocks had fallen last week by 4.2 million barrels, nearly double the drop expected by analysts polled by Reuters. Oil investors continue to eye producing countries’ compliance with their pledge made in late 2016 to cut production by around 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) by the middle of the year. Russia, contributing the largest production cut outside OPEC, said on Wednesday that as of May 1, it had curbed output by more than 300,000 bpd since October. This means Russia has achieved its reduction target a month ahead of schedule, just as the latest Reuters survey of OPEC production showed compliance had fallen slightly. More oil from Angola and higher UAE output than originally thought meant OPEC compliance with its production-cutting deal slipped to 90 percent from a revised 92 percent in March, the Reuters survey showed.
Reuters
Oil prices at the time the text was written:
According to the text OPEC:
Modern Slavery
The exploitation of people – whether their efforts are provided by debt bondage, under threat of violence, psychologically, by imprisonment or deceiving the poor and desperate – is well-documented in most industries where unskilled labor is used. As the Nestle catfood case recently highlighted, these activities are not relegated to rural villages far away from modernity. Exploitation underpins many aspects of the average modern consumables, such as seafood, electronics, textiles, extraction, entertainment, construction and agriculture. These are global industries raising their capital through listed companies on stock markets, through asset managers and investment banks, running their daily operations through hundreds of subsidiaries and via business relationships with other parties across borders and oceans until it ends with forced labor. The proceeds from this exploitation are realized and distributed, supply chains move the products, and money is banked, remitted and reinvested. Money is at the center of human trafficking. In 2014, the International Labour Organisation estimated that modern slavery in the private economy generates US$150 billion in illegal profits per year. Profit is the desired result of exploitation, directly in cash taken or indirectly in revenues from saleable goods and services. Products made by those trapped in modern slavery, e.g. clothing, fishing, minerals, electronic goods, are sold into legitimate markets to be purchased by consumers like us, and so ultimately payments and sales are transacted using the services of the legitimate financial industry. This puts financial institutions at the center of the fight.
The Huffington Post
Why is modern slavery so common nowadays?
Which statement is true about the report?
Russia
When Russia illegally annexed Crimea and started interfering in Eastern Ukraine, the West responded with economic sanctions. In July 2014, sanctions were enacted in a coordinated manner by the European Union, the United States, Canada, and other Allies and partners. There are three types of economic sanctions. The first restricts access to Western financial markets and services for designated Russian state-owned enterprises in the banking, energy, and defence sectors. The second places an embargo on exports to Russia of designated high-technology oil exploration and production equipment. The third is an embargo on exports to Russia of designated military and dual-use goods. The justification for these Western sanctions is internationally well-understood. But to muddy the waters, Russia imposed a ban on food imports from Western nations in August 2014. That ban remains in place. For the Russian economy, the sanctions are generally assessed to have helped exacerbate the macroeconomic challenges it was already facing, notably the rapid and pronounced fall in oil prices that started in the last months of 2014.
Furthermore, the combined effect of these sanctions and of the fall in oil prices caused significant downward pressure on the value of the Rouble and increased capital flight. At the same time, the sanctions on access to financing forced the Russian state to use part of its foreign exchange reserves to shore up the sanctioned entities. These developments forced the hand of the Central Bank of Russia, which abruptly ceased to defend the value of the Rouble and hike interest rates in December 2014.
NATO Review
The Economic sanctions introduced by the western countries on Russia had:
Which is NOT true about economic sanctions on Russia?
The American Healthcare System
The mere threat that Obamacare will be dismantled or radically changed has persuaded several big insurance companies to stop selling policies or significantly raise premiums. The practical effect is that some lower-income and middle-class families may have no good options for insurance and will have to spend more on health care.
So, why are insurers fearful and threatening to quit Obamacare or jack up premiums? There are a few big reasons. First, the House passed a bill this month that would take insurance away from at least 24 million people by slashing spending on Medicaid and cutting the subsidies the government uses to help people buy insurance. Second, the President has threatened to stop making about $7 billion in payments to insurance companies to help lower the cost of co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for lower-income and middle-class families. If the administration carries out that threat, insurers would raise premiums by about 19 percent. Third, insurers are worried that the US President administration will stop enforcing the A.C.A. provision that requires people to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.
It can be hard to feel sympathy for bureaucratic and faceless insurance companies. After all, they often deny people access to medical procedures and drugs. But the President and his Republicans in Congress have left them with little choice. They can stay with the exchanges and risk large losses if elected leaders blow them up, or they can pull out now, or raise rates, in parts of the country where it is harder to make money.
The New York Times
What is the current situation with Obamacare?
Why are so many insurance companies thinking of pulling out?