1 US, EU slap sweeping sanctions in Russia (Julian
Borger, Paul Lewis & Rowena Mason in The Guardian) EU governments have
agreed to impose sweeping sanctions on Russia, targeting state-owned banks,
imposing an arms embargo and restricting sales of sensitive technology and the
export of equipment for the country's oil industry, in response to Moscow's continued
backing for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
US president Barack Obama joined the EU in sharply
escalating economic pressure on Moscow. He announced new measures, targeting
major sectors of the Russian economy, including weapons, energy and finance.
Three large banks – VTB Bank OAO, Bank of Moscow and the Russian Agricultural
Bank – were cut off from the US economy.
The EU sanctions will hit Russia the hardest. The
bloc does 10 times more trade with it than the US. The president of the
European Council, Herman van Rompuy, and the head of the European Commission,
José Manuel Barroso, issued a joint statement describing the EU measures as a
strong warning that "Illegal annexation of territory and deliberate
destabilisation of a neighbouring sovereign country could not be accepted in
21st-century Europe.
2 Israel bombards Gaza, targets Hamas centres (San
Francisco Chronicle) Israel unleashed its heaviest air and artillery assault of
the Gaza war on Tuesday, destroying key symbols of Hamas control, shutting down
the territory's only power plant and leaving at least 128 Palestinians dead on
the bloodiest day of the 22-day conflict.
Despite devastating blows that left the packed
territory's 1.7 million people cut off from power and water and sent the
overall death toll soaring past 1,200, Hamas' shadowy military leader remained
defiant as he insisted that the Islamic militants would not cease fire until
its demands are met.
The comments by Mohammed Deif in an audiotape
broadcast on a Hamas satellite TV channel cast new doubt on international
cease-fire efforts. Aides to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Egypt was
trying to bring Israeli and Palestinian delegations together in Cairo for new
talks in which Hamas would be presented this time as part of the Palestinian
team.
Israel's final objective in Gaza remained unclear a
day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israelis to be prepared for
a "prolonged" war. Netanyahu is under pressure from hawkish members
of his coalition to topple Hamas in an all-out offensive, but has not let on
whether he plans to go beyond destroying Hamas rocket launchers, weapons depots
and military tunnels used to infiltrate Israel and smuggle weapons.
3 Why bad news dominates headlines (Tom Stafford on
BBC) Perhaps journalists are drawn to reporting bad news because sudden
disaster is more compelling than slow improvements. Or it could be that
newsgatherers believe that cynical reports of corrupt politicians or
unfortunate events make for simpler stories. But another strong possibility is
that we, the readers or viewers, have trained journalists to focus on these
things. Many people often say that they would prefer good news: but is that
actually true?
To explore this possibility, researchers Marc
Trussler and Stuart Soroka, set up an experiment, run at McGill University in
Canada. The team decided to try a new strategy: deception. Trussler and Soroka
invited participants to come to the lab for "a study of eye
tracking". The volunteers were first asked to select some stories about
politics to read from a news website so that a camera could make some baseline
eye-tracking measures. It was important, they were told, that they actually
read the articles, so the right measurements could be prepared, but it didn't
matter what they read.
After this ‘preparation’ phase, they watched a short
video, and then they answered questions on the kind of political news they
would like to read. The results of the experiment, as well as the stories that
were read most, were somewhat depressing. Participants often chose stories with
a negative tone. People who were more interested in current affairs and
politics were particularly likely to choose the bad news.
And yet when asked, these people said they preferred
good news. On average, they said that the media was too focussed on negative
stories. The researchers present their experiment as solid evidence of a so
called "negativity bias", psychologists' term for our collective
hunger to hear, and remember bad news. It isn't just schadenfreude, the theory
goes, but that we've evolved to react quickly to potential threats. Bad news
could be a signal that we need to change what we're doing to avoid danger.
4 South Africa unemployment at 26% (Johannesburg
Times) The unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percent between the first and
second quarters of 2014 to reach 25.5 percent, Statistics SA said. "The
increase in the number of unemployed has resulted in an increase in the
unemployment rate above pre-recessionary levels," Stats SA said.
The Quarterly Labour Force Survey revealed that
almost 5.2 million people were unemployed. The survey also found that the
expanded unemployment rate, which also included people not actively seeking
work, reached 35.6 percent in the second quarter.
The survey revealed that 27.5 percent of women were
unemployed in the second quarter, compared to 23.8 percent of men. The
unemployment rate for women was two percent higher than the national average. The
unemployment rate was significantly higher for youth (people aged between 15
and 34) at 36.1 percent, compared to adults at 16.3 percent.
5 More divorces, fewer marriages in Singapore
(Priscilla Goy in Straits Times) There were more divorces and annulments last
year, even as fewer couples tied the knot, according to Singapore’s Statistics
on Marriages and Divorces 2013 report.
There were 7,525 divorces and annulments in 2013, a
4 per cent increase from 2012. About 26,250 couples wed last year, a 6 per cent
drop from the year before, when marriages here hit a 50-year high. While the
number of Muslim marriages went up, overall registered marriages declined, due
to fewer civil marriages. This was the first year that the number of marriages
fell after rising in the previous two years.
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