Tag Archives: WorldNews

UK rabbi warns of genocide risk in Trump policies

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Dehumanisation has ended in atrocities says Jewish leader, while pressure grows on May to attack child separation policy

A leading British rabbi draws a chilling parallel between Donald Trump’s policies on immigration – which have seen thousands of children separated from their parents on the US border with Mexico – and historical trends that have led to genocide, as pressure grows on Theresa May to denounce the US president’s approach on his UK visit next month.

The intervention by Laura Janner-Klausner, the senior rabbi of Reform Judaism – a progressive section of the Jewish community – comes as church leaders, politicians and the children’s commissioner for England voice their outrage at what they see as inhumane treatment of families in the US, and a wider, dangerous dehumanisation of public debate on immigration.

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New gene technology backed by US-military could ‘edit entire wild species’

Balance in nature is what might be a number one rule – if you upset the balance – even for a good reason – the natural system will generate a new balancing agent that might well be more disruptive than than the one you want to get rid of. The real solution is to alter the actions of people that cause the original imbalance.

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Gene drives have the potential to eradicate feral mice and malaria. But scientists are treading carefully, warning the radical new science could have unintended consequences.

UK should cancel Donald Trump visit, says Jeremy Corbyn

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Labour leader says PM has ‘ample reasons’ to withdraw invitation to US president

Theresa May has “ample reasons” to cancel Donald Trump’s visit to the UK next month, Jeremy Corbyn has said.

The Labour leader said the escalating trade dispute between US and the EU, as well as the US treatment of child migrant detainees separated from their parents, were reasons enough to rescind the invitation to the US president.

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How did some of cinema’s greatest films end up in an Iowa shed?

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A heartwarming new documentary tells the story of the history teacher who stumbled upon the Brinton Collection, a unique archive of films from the earliest days of moving pictures

Michael Zahs thinks of himself as a saver. “I like to save things,” he says, “especially if it looks like they’re too far gone.” This retired history teacher from Iowa, now in his 70s, has amassed quite a collection over the years: stray animals, farm implements, even a church steeple. He can trace the lineage of the peach trees in his yard back to 1800. Nothing he has saved, however, has been quite as remarkable as the Brinton Collection – a mammoth set of films, lantern slides, posters and projection equipment from the first years of cinema, and even earlier. There are two exciting things about these artefacts. One is that during the more than three decades after Zahs took delivery of the collection and stored it on his property, he has been showing its treasures to local people and keeping the tradition of the travelling showman alive. The second is the discovery that the collection contains very rare material – films by the French cinema pioneer, George Méliès that were once thought to be lost.

Saving Brinton, an absorbing new documentary by Andrew Sherburne and Tommy Haines, tells the story of Zahs and the collection he saved. Between 1895 and 1909,one Frank Brinton crossed the Midwest with his wife Indiana and his travelling show, welcoming locals for a ticket price of just a few cents. At first he showed magic lantern slides, some of which “dissolved” between two static images to create an illusion of movement. When moving pictures arrived, Brinton jumped aboard, ordering many films from distributors in France, one of the most prolific and creative producers in the early period. He also became the manager of the Graham Opera House in Washington, Iowa, which is now known as the State Theater and has been certified by Guinness World Records as the oldest continuously operated cinema in the world. Brinton’s programme included trick films such as those by Méliès, which used in-camera special effects to create fantastical spectacles, and many hand-coloured movies where the dye is applied directly to each frame. Projected in the dark, these vivid, bizarre images have lost none of their original impact.

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