Dame Maggie Smith, star of the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey, has died at the age of 89

A statement from Dame Maggie's sons says she died peacefully in hospital on Friday morning

Fellow Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville says she was a "true legend of her generation" with a "sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent"

A legend of British stage and screen, Dame Maggie won two Oscars during her career - for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1970 and California Suite in 1979

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Openly defending one’s decision not to have children will be prosecuted in Russia. The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, is preparing a bill under which authorities will impose fines of up to €50,000 ($55,580) for supporting “the refusal to have children.” The measure affects all areas of life — from casual conversation to films and books — and is a serious threat to the Russian feminist movement.

The crackdown on what the Kremlin calls the “childfree” movement will result in fines of up to 400,000 rubles for individuals (around $4,300), 800,000 rubles for civil servants ($8,600), and up to five million rubles ($55,580) for companies or other legal entities. Foreigners will also be deported.

There are thousands of reasons why a person may decide not to have children, but the Cabinet of ministers has asked the State Duma to make only three exceptions to the law: religious reasons, medical reasons or in the case of rape. It also alleges that there is a mass-organized childfree movement, even though the websites on this subject are little more than a curiosity; Russian newspapers cite the existence of groups on VKontakte, the Russian Facebook, which barely have 5,000 members.

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/43413713

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/43413835

https://archive.is/g9pfT

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A Chinese teacher-researcher has been prevented from taking up a post at the prestigious French engineering school, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers (ENSAM) in Paris, where he had been due to give lectures and pursue his research work in a restricted access laboratory. The researcher, who already had a contract in Israel, applied for a long-stay "talent" visa of the kind normally granted to researchers at the French consulate general in Jerusalem.

His application was initially refused on 5 June. He appealed against the decision to the specialised visa appeals body in Nantes in western France, which has yet to give its decision, but also took his case to the Nantes administrative court, asking it to suspend the consulate's decision and order the French authorities to grant him the visa he had applied for.

The supermarket can’t pretend it’s offering a discount if it raises prices just to cut them back, the judges ruled in a case brought by consumer activists from Baden-Württemberg.

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The nomination of Olivér Várhelyi, an ally of Hungary’s nationalist ruling party, to the health portfolio in the bloc’s new executive commission last week cast a harsh spotlight on the country’s own much-criticised public health system.

“If the goal is to help the member states of the European Union with ideas to destroy the health sector, to ransack it… then it was a great idea” to nominate Várhelyi, Zoltan Tarr, an EU lawmaker from Hungary’s opposition, told local media.

Hungary’s public health system has been under scrutiny since opposition leader Péter Magyar — a former ally turned critic of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — started touring hospitals this summer to denounce their “deplorable” conditions.

Magyar accuses Orbán of “systematically underfunding and dismantling public healthcare” by getting rid of the health ministry to save money shortly after he returned to power in 2010.

Hungary spent only 4.4% of its GDP on health in 2022, a smaller share than any other EU country, Eurostat figures show.

“Unfortunately… successive governments have not treated health as a priority,” the head of the country’s Hospital Association, Gyorgy Velkey, told AFP.

No water, no air con

Surveys show the quality of healthcare is one of the Hungarian public’s biggest concerns. Complaints from patients proliferate on social media.

From the lack of basic sanitary items to crumbling facilities, the list of complaints is almost as long as the notorious waiting lists for specialist care.

In one Facebook post from last month, a father deplored the state of the hospital in which his son, in his 30s, died of thrombosis.

“There was no air conditioning in the ICU. We had no light in the bathroom outside the ICU, and we were using our phone to get some light. There was no toilet seat and no water,” Laszlo, who asked not to be identified by his full name, told AFP.

Many patients say they turn to private providers to get better and faster medical care.

Szilvia, 32, who did not want to be identified by her full name, paid the equivalent of 3,000 euros ($3,350) to give birth to her second child in a private hospital after a “traumatic birth experience” with her first-born.

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Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister's political director (who is not related to PM Viktor Orbán) gave an interview to the pro-government Mandiner, in which he discussed current public issues, [political opponent] Péter Magyar, the Draghi report, the US presidential election and US Ambassador David Pressman, which was caught by 444. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 comes up at the 14th minute of the conversation, when the journalist argues that at the time, the Americans did not seem to have viewed Hungary as a country worth helping.

"I think that the fact that there was no substantial American help for Hungary in '56 takes '56 out of the mouth of the United States. And from that point on, I don't think they can use it as an argument for anything," Mátyás Kohán said, to which Balázs Orbán replied:

“Based precisely on '56, we probably would not have done what President Zelensky did 2.5 years ago, because it is irresponsible, because one can see that he took his country into a war of defense. So many people have died, so much territory was lost, and I'll say again, it is their right, it is their sovereign decision, they could choose to do it, but if they had asked us, we would not have recommended it, because of what happened in '56. Because we have learned that one has to be cautious here, and one has to treat the very precious Hungarian lives with great care. They cannot simply be thrown before others.”

The Prime Minister's Political Director then said that he believes provocation is counter-productive, and added that 80-90 percent of the Hungarian people agree with the Hungarian government's policy on the Russian-Ukrainian war. When the journalist asked what would have happened if the United States had helped Hungary in 1956, Balázs Orbán replied that he believes it would have led to World War III.

"Maybe we would have won, maybe we wouldn't have won, maybe the neighbouring countries would have sided with us, maybe they would have been against us," he said.

Publication croisé avec : https://peculiar.florist/notes/9ymyi5j3ibbdeh59

[EU] [abortion] My Voice, My Choice: For Safe And Accessible Abortion

@europe
eci.ec.europa.eu/044/public/#/screen/home

Objectives

The “My Voice, My Choice” campaign offers the people of Europe the chance to make women's lives freer, safer, and better; wherever they live in our union, whatever conditions they may find themselves in.

The lack of access to abortion in many parts of Europe not only puts women at risk of physical harm but also puts undue economic and mental stress on women and families, often on the margins of society that can afford it the least.

It has been well documented that treating reproductive care as a luxury does not reduce abortions, it simply drives women to seek unsafe abortions.

To change this we are asking the European Commission to - in the spirit of solidarity - submit a proposal for financial support to Member States that would be able to perform safe termination of pregnancies for anyone in Europe who still lacks access to safe and legal abortion.

Countless lives and livelihoods are ended, disrupted, and lost because of lack of access to safe abortion. This must stop. With this European Citizens' Initiative, we will move to a more just policy that expresses our European values more compassionately and concretely.

#EU #MyVoiceMyChoice #Abortion

Doctors Without Borders is fighting to save refugees in the Mediterranean, but Italian authorities are blocking their efforts. How can we stand by as lives hang in the balance?

https://archive.is/rUjJw

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On Saturday [September 21], Tibetan activists convened outside the Musée Guimet in Paris to protest the museum’s decision to replace exhibition materials that identify certain artifacts as Tibetan by replacing it with the Chinese name for the region. Activists claim the change to the language is problematic for deferring to a Chinese political narrative that’s historically aimed to erase Tibetan cultural identity from public spaces.

The mass protest, which some sources estimate attracted 800 demonstrators, followed a report in the French newspaper Le Monde alleging that Musée Guimet and the Musée du quai Branly, two prominent Parisian museums that house collections of Asian art, altered their exhibition materials cataloging Tibetan artifacts as deriving instead from then Chinese term “Xizang Autonomous Region.” According to the same report, the Musée Guimet renamed its Tibetan art galleries as deriving from the “Himalayan world.”

A handful of Tibetan cultural advocacy groups based in France penned letters to both museums, requesting formal meetings to discuss the reasons behind and implications of the terminology changes, a request that activists say was accepted by Musée du quai Branly, but not it’s peer Musée Guimet.

A majority of EU Member States agreed to adopt the European Commission's proposal to downgrade the protection status of the wolf under the Bern Convention. This shift opens the door to wolf culling as a false solution to livestock depredation, which runs counter to Europe’s commitment to safeguard and restore biodiversity. The decision which cannot be scientifically justified went through after Germany changed its position from abstention to support.

With this decision, Member States have chosen to ignore the call of over 300 civil society organisations, among others EuroNatur, and more than 300,000 people urging them to follow scientific recommendations and step up efforts to foster coexistence with large carnivores through preventive measures.

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Wolves are strictly protected under both the Bern Convention and the EU Habitats Directive, serving as a keystone species vital for healthy ecosystems and biodiversity across Europe. Weakening their protection will hinder the ongoing recovery of wolf populations.

‘The EU's decision will not only destabilise the still fragile wolf populations in large parts of Europe, but also undermine the significant progress made towards a coexistence of humans and wolves,’ says Antje Henkelmann, project manager and wolf expert at EuroNatur. ‘Only efficient herd protection can prevent livestock kills. Instead, the EU is focussing on symbolic but inefficient culls. With her turnaround, the Federal Environment Minister is not only weakening wolf protection, but also giving in to populist demands that are of little use to livestock farmers,’’ says the biologist.

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https://archive.is/4Cczq

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The government that takes power in Austria after next Sunday’s (29 September) general election will face growing pressure to diversify its energy supply away from dependence on Russian gas, just as the economy is stuck in reverse gear.

No party is expected to win enough seats to win an outright majority. Opinion polls give a slim lead to the opposition far-right, Russia-friendly Freedom Party (FPÖ), and the result could influence the speed of the energy transition.

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“Other countries aren’t happy Austria is still consuming such large volumes of Russian gas”, said Stefan Schiman-Vukan, senior economist at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research.

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Pointing to supplies from Norway and elsewhere, the energy ministry said it had taken steps to make Austria independent of Russian gas in the long-term, noting the country had sufficient import capacity for non-Russian gas via Germany and Italy, and that its large gas storage facilities were more than 90% full.

“The high dependence on Russian gas supplies is a major economic and security risk for Austria,” the ministry said in a statement. “It is therefore essential for our country’s security to further reduce gas consumption and stop buying Russian gas.”

The FPÖ says Russian gas must remain part of Austria’s energy mix, although its lead is narrowing.

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Austria can manage, officials say, pointing to a recent government-commissioned study that states imports through Italy and Germany, as well as its reserves, could cover its needs.

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