Figures suggest if £500,000 limit set for Great Britain 30 years ago was adjusted for inflation the maximum would be more than £1m A 30-year freeze on compensation for victims of crime should be lifted, campaigners have said, adding that the maximum of £500,000 is insufficient to plan for a lifetime. The current highest rate, set in April 1996 by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA)...
Figures suggest if £500,000 limit set for Great Britain 30 years ago was adjusted for inflation the maximum would be more than £1m A 30-year freeze on compensation for victims of crime should be lifted, campaigners have said, adding that the maximum of £500,000 is insufficient to plan for a lifetime. The current highest rate, set in April 1996 by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA), is paid to victims of crime in England, Scotland and Wales who have suffered severe life-changing injuries, including brain damage and paralysis. Continue reading...
Ignorance and arrogance were his drivers. The idea that the regime plays by different rules, with its own goals, never occurred to him Five weeks. We are now five weeks in and entering the sixth week of the war on Iran. What was supposed to be a “precise, overwhelming military campaign” to eliminate “an imminent nuclear threat” and urge the Iranian people to “ take over ” their government is now a...
Ignorance and arrogance were his drivers. The idea that the regime plays by different rules, with its own goals, never occurred to him Five weeks. We are now five weeks in and entering the sixth week of the war on Iran. What was supposed to be a “precise, overwhelming military campaign” to eliminate “an imminent nuclear threat” and urge the Iranian people to “ take over ” their government is now anything but precise or overwhelming. Gulf countries are seized up with retaliatory Iranian attacks, the strait of Hormuz is shut, and there is no sign of regime collapse either through military degradation or popular takeover. The recovery of two downed US aircrew is celebrated beyond the facts of the matter because nothing else is going to plan. The mistake, as ever, is a combination of hubris and ignorance, flaws made even more serious by the particularities of the Iranian regime. There is a mental lag at the start of wars. A cognitive delay that means you can’t quite adjust to the fact that dangerous conflict cannot be swiftly contained. That mental lag is even longer when the United States is involved. Because it remains inconceivable to some that a superior military power would not swiftly achieve its objectives. That an inferior power would not immediately succumb. That allies would not fall into line and rally behind the US. Inconceivable that the fallout of a military campaign would not be limited to the territories and peoples targeted. Continue reading...
Italy’s first female director made 60 features depicting the gritty squalor of early 20th-century Naples. Most were lost to Mussolini’s censorship and she died in obscurity – but now a new documentary gives her a voice again The seething Neapolitan melodrama È piccerella (1922), written and directed by Elvira Notari, follows the fraught relationship between the manipulative Margaretella and her mo...
Italy’s first female director made 60 features depicting the gritty squalor of early 20th-century Naples. Most were lost to Mussolini’s censorship and she died in obscurity – but now a new documentary gives her a voice again The seething Neapolitan melodrama È piccerella (1922), written and directed by Elvira Notari, follows the fraught relationship between the manipulative Margaretella and her morbidly besotted suitor, Tore, who steals from his elderly mother to buy expensive gifts for his reluctant inamorata, despite her roving eye. The movie opens with documentary shots of middle-class pilgrims, including Margaretella and her shabbily genteel mother, arriving in carriages and cars at Naples’s Candelora festival – an “orgiastic pandemonium of Bacchantes,” notes an intertitle. Challenging the camera’s gaze as much as the smouldering femme fatale, an obese drinker quaffs exultantly from a pint glass of wine; in another scene, an unshaven little pauper gleefully drops his jaw to display his two remaining teeth. Continue reading...
Hong Kong’s Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) is poised to report a loss of over HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion) for March this week, its worst monthly loss in dollar terms since its inception 25 years ago. The sharp fall in global stock markets last month hit the MPF hard, while the uncertainties ahead stemming from the Middle East conflict have led the pension regulator and analysts to urge the 4....
Hong Kong’s Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) is poised to report a loss of over HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion) for March this week, its worst monthly loss in dollar terms since its inception 25 years ago. The sharp fall in global stock markets last month hit the MPF hard, while the uncertainties ahead stemming from the Middle East conflict have led the pension regulator and analysts to urge the 4.8 million members to adopt a diversified approach. The 378 MPF investment funds suffered a HK$103.3...
In this article CRWV AJG NVDA MMC Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT AI data centers are becoming a "stress test" for insurers as rapid technological advancements and the use of increasingly complex financial structures present a unique set of challenges and opportunities for the sector. Global spending on data centers could reach $7 trillion by 2030, according to McKinsey, and much o...
In this article CRWV AJG NVDA MMC Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT AI data centers are becoming a "stress test" for insurers as rapid technological advancements and the use of increasingly complex financial structures present a unique set of challenges and opportunities for the sector. Global spending on data centers could reach $7 trillion by 2030, according to McKinsey, and much of that spending can no longer come solely from hyperscalers. Instead, Big Tech is increasingly tapping private equity, private credit and using debt to finance the capital-intensive build-out of the facilities. Private infrastructure data center deals were consistently above the $10 billion mark last year, according to data from Preqin. The largest deal amounted to $40 billion , with Nvidia , Microsoft , BlackRock and Elon Musk's xAI forming part of a consortium of investors to buy Aligned Data Centers. The fact that so much money is tied up in building, constructing, and running data centers has been a "real stress test" over the last four to five years for the major insurance companies, Tom Harper, data center leader at insurance broker Gallagher , told CNBC. "When you put $10 to $20 billion plus in a single location, it creates capacity issues in the marketplace. The marketplace has always had an appetite for these risks because they are such high-quality builds. They've got cutting-edge technology, they're AA plus plus construction locations, but the capacity — the ability to provide the insurance capacity at these locations — has been tough." It was nearly impossible to reasonably insure a $20 billion campus in 2023, according to Harper. In 2026, however, it's become a weekly conversation. We're talking about trillions of dollars, and almost going back to the same cycle where there's almost no transparency about the financing structures — the scale is astronomical Rajat Rana Partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Estimated spending on AI data centers has been re...
Astronauts on Nasa’s Orion capsule made transition about 39,000 miles from the moon, meaning they feel its gravitational pull more strongly than that of the Earth The four astronauts on Nasa’s Artemis II mission have entered the moon’s “sphere of influence”, where its gravity has a stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s. The crew made the transition, four days, six hours and two minutes into...
Astronauts on Nasa’s Orion capsule made transition about 39,000 miles from the moon, meaning they feel its gravitational pull more strongly than that of the Earth The four astronauts on Nasa’s Artemis II mission have entered the moon’s “sphere of influence”, where its gravity has a stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s. The crew made the transition, four days, six hours and two minutes into the mission, when about 39,000 miles (62,800km) from the moon, and 232,000 miles (373,400km) away from the Earth. The next key milestone will be the trip later on Monday to the far side of the moon, venturing deeper into space than any humans before. Continue reading...
Two tankers carrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar appear to be heading toward the Strait of Hormuz, and an exit from the Persian Gulf would mark the first export to buyers outside of the region since the war started. The Al Daayen and Rasheeda , which each loaded LNG from Qatar’s export plant in late-February, are moving eastward toward the opening of the strait near Oman, according to ship-tr...
Two tankers carrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar appear to be heading toward the Strait of Hormuz, and an exit from the Persian Gulf would mark the first export to buyers outside of the region since the war started. The Al Daayen and Rasheeda , which each loaded LNG from Qatar’s export plant in late-February, are moving eastward toward the opening of the strait near Oman, according to ship-tracking data. The vessels had been idling in the Gulf as the war escalated and Hormuz remained largely closed to shipping. The Al Daayen is signaling China, the data shows, Qatar’s largest LNG buyer. Still, destinations are not final and vessels may change their indicated port of call at any time. So far, no loaded LNG tanker have passed through Hormuz since the US and Israel began strikes on Iran in late February. The effective closure of the key waterway near Iran and the Arabian Peninsula has choked off energy supplies to global markets, disrupting about a fifth of the world’s supply of LNG. A tanker, which appeared to not be carrying a shipment, passed through the strait over the weekend. Qatar has delivered two LNG shipments to Kuwait over the past few weeks, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Kpler. These supplies were likely loading from Qatar’s storage tanks, and don’t require traversing Hormuz. Read More: First LNG Tanker Exits Strait of Hormuz Along Omani Coast Tracking vessel movements around the Persian Gulf can be an inexact science because of the potential for electronic interference with ship signals and the intentional disablement of transponders by pilots sailing through risky zones. Seapeak manages Al Daayen, and Nakilat owns Rasheeda, according to ship-database Equasis. Neither company immediately responded to a request for comment. The potential pass through Hormuz may be a shot in the arm for Qatar, which supplied nearly a fifth of all LNG last year, even as the country’s Ras Laffan export plant has been shut for over a month due to Iranian atta...
Singapore police have confirmed that a body recovered from the sea off the Indonesian island of Karimunin is that of a 37-year-old man who has been missing since March 27 after a collision between two boats. The police said on Sunday that Indonesian authorities had found the body of Chua Muhammad Syafidi floating in the sea off the island to the southwest of Singapore at about 3pm on March 30, acc...
Singapore police have confirmed that a body recovered from the sea off the Indonesian island of Karimunin is that of a 37-year-old man who has been missing since March 27 after a collision between two boats. The police said on Sunday that Indonesian authorities had found the body of Chua Muhammad Syafidi floating in the sea off the island to the southwest of Singapore at about 3pm on March 30, according to The Straits Times. “The body, believed to be the missing person from the collision between...