Barca politics is like real politics: Catalans top brass are always useless and everything that goes wrong is their fault
The club’s financial report in October 2021 was terrifying. It included £236 million in impairments and provisions – write-offs, in other words – related to bad contracts, legal fees and tax disputes. Barca’s net financial debt – its bank borrowings and bonds, minus cash in the bank – had sailed past £400 million and most of that was expensive, short-term debt. The club paid £36 million in interest that year.
Bust to back: Financial hamstringing of Spanish giants Barcelona, puffing and purring back to life
For the man himself, however, perhaps the biggest disappointment came the previous December, when he finished fifth in the voting for the Ballon d’Or, a prize given to the player a panel of international journalists believes is the best on the planet. Having been third in 2014, Neymar was going backwards, and he was beaten in 2016 by team-mates Messi and Suarez.
Kennedy assassination: 60th anniversary finds family apathetic as Kennedys choose other paths to public service
During JFK’s 1960-63 presidency, governing was decidedly a family affair. Robert Kennedy was attorney general and the president’s closest adviser, brother-in-law Sargent Shriver was heading the newly formed Peace Corps and brother-in-law Stephen Smith was White House chief of staff. Youngest brother Ted Kennedy was elected to John F. Kennedy’s former Senate seat in Massachusetts.
British government has ‘the most invasive network surveillance programme anywhere in the world – Edward Snowden
The principles of “know your customer” will be imposed on everybody for everything, and anything that doesn’t have that will be made illegal under National Security justifications. Essentially, what we’re looking at is a cyber Patriot Act, which will allow for the unfettered surveillance of everyone’s online activities, and the ability to restrict or block access to the internet.
Technology: In US the balance of power between the citizenry and government has become that of the ruling and the ruled
The US government implemented Stellar Wind, a programme to actively – and illegally – spy on all Americans within days of the 2001 9/11 attack. Ten years later, in 2011, construction began on an NSA data centre in the Utah desert. It’s now the largest surveillance storehouse in the US.
Business unusual: How big food propaganda was designed to produce wealth, ignore healthy living
Davis believed “a great deal” of the health problems of her day, including mental health problems, were related to refined foods – the early versions of today’s processed and ultra-processed foods – as nutrients like vitamins, minerals and healthy fats are removed during the processing and then sugars and hydrogenated trans fats are added in.
Why hairdressers in US are being trained under CDC-funded programme to push Covid, flu shots
Hairstylists who sign up for a six-month commitment participate in two day-long trainings where they receive tools so they can “feel more confident” talking to their clients about taking vaccines. They will be trained in motivational interviewing, Covid-19 basics, flu basics and long Covid basics
Poisoned beauty: How Johnson & Johnson failed to dodge $9 billion fines using bankruptcy law
J&J said in May 2020 that it would discontinue sales of talc-based baby powders in the US and Canada and replace them with cornstarch-based baby powders. The company said talc powders would “continue to be sold in other markets around the world where there is significantly higher demand for the product.”
50,000 lawsuits expose J&J’s 40 years of deception about asbestos in baby powder
In 2006, IARC classified cosmetic talc as “possibly carcinogenic” when used in the genital area. J&J then “looked for ways to sell more Baby Powder to two key groups of longtime users: African-American and overweight women,” Reuters reported in 2019.
South Africa ranked seventh in the world, third in Africa among countries with most organised crime
The index reveals that South Africa grapples with more than one form of organised crime. These include human, arms, organ and drug trafficking, child labour, labour exploitation, domestic servitude and child brides. These forms of organised crime have created thriving criminal markets that are supported by the influence of criminal actors – responsible for years of state capture – and criminal networks that are highly interconnected.
