the unbearable notice is; that you've to make up your mind to be the difference and not the other way round else people will misjudge you even though you're not that person.
The horrific and heartbreaking scenes at Malaysian hospitals are akin to a disaster movie. An overwhelmed healthcare system and overworked medical staff have struggled to cope with the exponential growth in COVID-19 admissions.
Canvas beds have been put up in hospital car parks, several patients have had to share the same oxygen canister, and some life-saving procedures had to be performed on hospital floors. Doctors have reported that whole families have been admitted together to hospitals and some have died together.
“Now, I just have no emotions, it is what it is … death has become so frequent that you become numb,”
ALJAZEERA
To keep up with the rising death counts, bodies have had to be stacked up on trolleys and pushed to the morgues. Volunteer undertakers have been handling nearly 30 times more bodies than they did last year.
Malaysia’s biggest COVID-19 fear was becoming a mini-India and unfortunately, it has come true. Its daily infection and death counts per capita surpassed India’s peak. At the end of July, Malaysia’s daily cases per million people stood at 515.9 and its daily deaths per million were at 4.95; by contrast, at its peak, India reached 283.50 cases and 3.04 deaths. The country also has the highest per-million cases in Asia, and one of the highest per-million deaths in Southeast Asia.
“This is a dramatic reversal of fortunes for a country once deemed the role model in handling the pandemic”
ALJAZEERA
Malaysia celebrated as local transmissions reached zero for a few days, garnering praise from foreign experts, academics, and organisations such as the World Health Organization. The Malaysian government’s swift actions to implement a full-scale lockdown, invest in testing and medical facilities, and deploy proactive communication with the public resulted in fewer cases than in the rest of Southeast Asia.
Malaysia’s director-general of health, Dr Noor Hisham, was given the highest civilian honour and was named alongside the US’s Dr Anthony Fauci and New Zealand’s Ashley Bloomfield as the top health officials in the battle against COVID19.
Every night, Moussa Kamara works at his bakery preparing hundreds of loaves. But at sunrise, instead of going home to sleep, he now starts a second back-breaking job – hoeing the earth and tending newly sown seeds in a specially designed circular garden.
Kamara, 47, believes the garden will prove even more important than the bakery in the future for feeding his extended family, including 25 children, and other residents of Boki Dawe, a Senegalese town near the border with Mauritania.
A newly built Tolou Keur garden in Boki Diawe, within the Great Green Wall area, in Matam region, Senegal.
[Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
He is part of a project that aims to create hundreds of such gardens – known as “Tolou Keur” in Senegal’s Wolof language – that organisers hope will boost food security, reduce regional desertification and engage thousands of community workers.
“This project is incredibly important,” said Kamara, finally at home after a night spent at the bakery followed by 10 hours of cultivating edible and medicinal plants in the garden.
The project marks a new, more local approach to what is known as the Green Wall initiative, launched in 2007, that aims to slow desertification across Africa’s Sahel region, the arid belt south of the Sahara Desert, by planting an 8,000km (4,970 miles) line of trees from Senegal to Djibouti.
The wider initiative has only managed to plant 4 percent of the pledged 100 million hectares (247 million acres) of trees, and completing it by 2030, as planned, could cost up to $43bn, according to United Nations estimates.
ALJAZEERA
Self Sufficiency
By contrast, the Tolou Keur gardens have flourished in the seven months since the project began and now number about two dozen, said Senegal’s reforestation agency.
Three months after a garden is completed, its agents begin a series of monthly visits over two years to assess progress.
Project manager Karine Fakhoury said it was important that local people felt fully engaged: “This is not an external project, where somebody comes from outside and tells people what to do. It is something entirely indigenous.”
The gardens are partly a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
ALJAZEERA
Senegal shut its borders early last year to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus, cutting imports and exposing rural communities’ dependence on foreign food and medicines.
“The day people realise the full potential of the Great Green Wall, they will stop these dangerous migration routes where you can lose your life at sea,” he said. “It’s better to stay, work the soil, cultivate and see what you can earn.”
Technology fuels productivity growth but tight labour markets provide the spark for this growth because firms typically need to make better use of technology when hiring new employees is not possible.
The tight labour market conditions that can spur productivity growth tend to be localised and so economies benefit in different ways and at different rates.
Policymakers should view tight labour markets as both a risk and an opportunity to see productivity grow.
The idea that technology drives productivity growth is both a commonplace and a common frustration. Economies operating at or near the technological frontier have long seen sagging trend growth rates despite marvellous technology – from artificial intelligence to bioengineering to robotics – proliferating at breakneck speed.
This matters because productivity, or output per input, pays for higher wages and is the foundation of long-run prosperity. In that sense, it matters most in rich economies where higher productivity growth would allow political debates to shift from (re-)distributing a relatively stagnant economic pie to sharing a growing one.
Technology is critical to productivity growth, but tight labour markets provide the spark to fuel this growth.
Philipp Carlsson Szlezak
So how can cyclical tightness spur productivity growth? Which types of economies are set to benefit from this relationship? And why should policymakers see tight labour markets as both an opportunity and risk?
Understanding the spark of productivity growth
Availability is often not enough to prompt broad adoption and utilisation of technology – integration can be costly and there may be implementation risks. It is often easier for firms to continue to grow with the next incremental hire.
The charts below back up this observation. The chart on the left correlates more than 60 years of US business investment (relative to its 5-year average) with 5-year productivity growth. If simple availability and investment in technology drove productivity, we would see a relationship, but that is not the case.
The fuel of productivity growth is global, but the spark is local
While the frontier of technology can diffuse around the globe through trade and global value chains, the labour market conditions that provide the spark for adoption are far more localised. This means that productivity growth may diverge in countries with similar technological capabilities.
Rapid tightening – or loosening – of labour markets can occur as the byproduct of strong cyclical dynamics (such as the recovery currently underway). Or it can happen as the result of the structural organisation of local labour markets. In other words, economies have different capabilities when it comes to harnessing the nexus between labour market tightness and productivity growth.
Consider the difference between Europe and the US, two advanced economies that operate at the technological frontier. The US is set to benefit from a tight labour market as the lack of easy labour is already forcing firms to invest and reinvent their businesses and processes. This will underpin not only faster growth, but also allow workers to claim a growing share of output.
Balancing the risks and benefits of tight labour markets
Ignoring the benefits of tight labour markets could come at a cost for policymakers and executives. Take once more the US economy. It is on a path to achieving higher output in 2024 than was once expected pre-pandemic, i.e. “overshooting” its old trend path. Owing to strong and sustained fiscal stimulus, the rapid return to labour market tightness has been framed as an inflationary threat. Often a picture is painted of an impending wage-price spiral and a Federal Reserve falling behind the curve and smothering the cycle once forced to raise rates to reign in price growth.
The benefits of a hot economy, as outlined above, represent as much a macroeconomic opportunity as a threat – two dynamics that need to be balanced. Part of this balancing act is acknowledging that tight labour markets push productivity growth and thereby can expand an economy’s capacity. This would actually narrow the dreaded overshoot, even as economic activity remains strong.
There are several ways to memorialise a milestone birthday. Chef Annuradha Toshniwal, a home chef from Mumbai, turned 70 last month and released a cookbook to celebrate her birthday. Titled 70 Unlocked, the scrapbook-style collection of recipes features dishes that she perfected through the multiple lockdowns. Along with options for mains and snacks, there is a selection of refreshing drinks, cold and warm soups, fresh breads and quick desserts.
There are 111 recipes and Toshniwal has paid attention to the one ingredient most crucial to urban kitchens: time. Most of the dishes—be it the roasted pumpkin with mango soup, Bihari-style eggplants or tamarind rice—will take no longer than 30 minutes to prepare.
“It is the magic ingredient that makes desserts in a jiffy and adds a wonderful creamy finish”
ELLA OLSSON
She devised a clever time-saving hack for making desserts by using tinned sweetened condensed milk. It thickens sweet treats within minutes, doesn’t call for addition of sugar and gives a nice creamy finish. With Lounge, she shares two easy dessert recipes from her book that contain the magic ingredient—condensed milk.
Baked yogurt
LIFESTYLE
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 cup yogurt
1 cup condensed milk
1 cup cream
For baking, pick a six-inch mould or four small ones, like ramekin bowls.
Method
1. Take all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Pour the mixture into greased moulds.
3. Bake at 180 degree C for 15-18 minutes. Please keep checking. It should not be overbooked.
2. Cool and serve topped with any fruit.
Kalakand
LIVEMINT
Serves 4
Ingredients
8 tbsp milk powder
2 tbsp yogurt
400 ml condensed milk (1 tin)
1 tbsp lemon juice
100 gm crumbled paneer or ricotta cheese
Method
In a bowl, put the milk powder, yogurt and condensed milk. Mix well.
Microwave for 1 minute. Give it a gentle stir.
Add 1 tbsp lemon juice. Give it a gentle stir.
Microwave for 1 minute.
Mix in the crumbled paneer or ricotta cheese
Refrigerate for a few hours.
Serve chilled
Toshniwal has self published the book and it can be bought on the Instagram account @70Unlocked.
I know he was already confirmed as a genetic “strandcast”, but that didn’t necessarily confirm he had Palpatine’s DNA in him or was part of Palpatine’s cloning experiments with his own body.
One of the biggest problems overarching in the divisive films is the sheer existence of Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). From the start, it appears that Snoke’s only real purpose is to function as a placeholder until Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (Adam Driver) can kill him and take up the mantle of “Supreme Leader” himself.
Although many Star Wars fans already presumed that Snoke was a failed Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) clone, Star Wars has just officially confirmed this information for the first time, in a new post on StarWars.com.
Another user going by KingAdamXVII noted that this gives more concrete information about how Snoke came to be than we previously had:
Nigeria’s Olamide continues his run from the impressive new album UY Scuti with this latest single, “Julie.” The romantic jam sees the Nigerian heavyweight expanding and exploring his flow over a Caribbean-tinged beat. “This song is me telling my woman that I know I’m crazy and not 100% perfect, but the kind of love I get from her is so amazing I’m willing to surrender everything,” Olamide says. “I wanted a mixture of that Caribbean feel just to take it away from the regular afrobeats vibe.”
Adekunle Gold feat Lucky Daye ‘Sinner’
2nd
Nigerian Afropop star Adekunle Gold comes through with his brand new single “Sinner,” the latest taste from his upcoming album due this fall. In “Sinner,” Adekunle goes in over a historical story of love and lust. “Weirdly, I was thinking about King David and Bathsheba’s sexcapade and thought it’d make a beautiful song,” he mentions The Marcel Akunwata-produced notably features Lucky Daye.
Omah Lay ‘Understand’
3rd
Omah Lay, one of 2020’s breakout artists, comes through with his new single and music video for “Understand,” an ear and eye-grabbing affair produced by beatmaker Tempoe.
Falz ‘Mercy’
4th
Here’s a new addictive tune from Falz , produced by Sess The Prblem Kid. “Mercy” is some impressive stuff here as Falz goes in over a stuttering beat.
Lady Donli ‘WILD’
5th
Lady Donli returns with the new 6-song EP, WILD. The collection of tunes features highlights like “Searching,” a smooth concoction produced by GMK.
Fireboy DML ‘Peru’
6th
The buzzing Fireboy DML rolls through with the new single “Peru” which follows up his excellent album, Apollo. The Shizzi-produced track, Fireboy’s first official single of the year, is yet another earworm from the constantly rising Nigerian artist.
Ayo Jay ‘Paranoia’
7th
Ayo Jay, who you probably know from “Your Number,” drops another addictive jam in the shape of “Paranoia.” He goes in over Caribbean-influenced beat in this highlight off his latest 5-song EP, Wonder Shall Never End.
(CNN) Grown+ups tend to recall their adolescence as a highlight reel (or maybe, in some cases, it’s a lowlight reel): the first leg or face shave, the first kiss, the first bra, the first ejaculation or menstruation, and the first time you walked into a room and were treated like an adult.
It can flip quickly through our brains, a series of events — part humiliating, part liberating — accounting for one of our greatest stages of metamorphosis. Perhaps it’s the trauma that has compressed the experience. Or maybe it is that, once the final product — our adult selves — is realized, it is hard to trace it back to the starting point.
This long journey of adolescence becomes more manageable for all parties when we see it as slow and unique to each person.
CNN HEALTH
Parents need to start talking about puberty earlyBut for those going through it, adolescence is a long journey, beginning far before we might anticipate it and ending long after. And the variability from kid to kid is enormous. It’s possible for a group of friends to collectively spend close to 15 years in adolescence, with an early bloomer beginning at age 8 and a late one not wrapping things up until their early 20s, said Dr. Richard J. Chung, an adolescent medicine specialist at Duke Health.
A very rough timeline
Some kids begin puberty in late elementary school. Girls can start as early as 8 and boys as early as 9, timing that’s considered “precocious puberty” in both cases, Chung said. Other kids begin puberty as late as high school. For girls, the latest age tends to be around 13, and for boys it’s 14. The whole process can take between two and five years, though psychological maturity can take longer.
For boys, the first sign is testicular enlargement, which is gradual, said Chung. With girls, the first sign is what doctors call “breast budding” or small bumps under the nipple.
Both of these are triggered by hormones, and are followed by a series of physical, emotional and cognitive changes, including body hair growth, as well as changes in muscle and fat mass. Two of the most notable milestones are the beginning of menstruation, or menarche, in girls and the beginning of sperm production, or spermarche, with boys.
Chung said parents may be inclined to attribute their children’s psychological changes to the hormones causing these physical changes, but the relationship isn’t always clear cut.
Almost everyone in life starts out their careers with bigger incomes than their bills, however over time, they amass so many bills that their bills overtake their incomes. From this point forward, only 15% of working professionals will reverse the equation, and from this 15%, only 4% reach the point where their incomes become not only bigger than their bills but also bigger than their financial goals. Moving your income above your bills, and being able to maintain financial stability without salary is the first level of financial success you must achieve. This success is called financial independence.
However, lifting your income above not just your bills, but over your current and future financial needs is the highest level of financial success, and this success is called financial freedom. This means that financial independence is all about achieving today’s success and comfort, while financial freedom ensures that you maintain that level of success throughout life.
“So how do you achieve financial freedom or make your income bigger than your goals?”
NAIRAMETRICS
The answer is simple.
But first, I’ll show you the price that you must pay. Every prize has a price, and so does your next level success.
There are three prices to choose from. The first is the price of growth and discipline. For you to move from your current level to the next, you need growth in skills and the discipline to take action. This price has a worthy purpose, and it is one that you should pay. This is also the cheapest price you would ever pay for success. The second is the price of procrastination.
This is where you delay taking action until you have only a little time left. To achieve the same goal, you must then take extreme action that results in deeper pain. Also, chances are high that you may not achieve all that you set out to achieve. The third price is the price of regret. This is where you delay taking action until you run out of time and can no longer avert the consequence.
The only thing left when you are at this stage is to endure the consequences of your inaction, and the regret price is the most painful price to pay.
NAIRAMETRICS
To lift your income above your goals, you need three other components. The first is time, the second is relationships and the third is income earning platforms. Skills without the time to apply will generate no income. Skills with time but without relationships will produce no income. And the skill with time and relationships but without a platform to earn income, will still lead to no income. Thus, the only way to truly earn an income is to have skills, time, relationships, and platforms working for you.
Your job has these four components. First, you have the skills to help your employer make money, that’s why you were employed. Next, you also invest your time to offer this skill, then you offer it within an income-generating relationship, and finally, you earn income through a job platform.
The long-awaited return of the popular Netflix show Money Heist is here, as the trailer for Season 5 – Part 5 – has been announced.
This will be the fifth season of the Spanish-language series La Casa de Papel (Money Heist), and the sixth and final part will be made available for public viewing a few months later.
Money Heist release date
As noted, this season of Money Heist will be released in two parts, with the first – Part 5 – coming on September 3 before the second – Part 6 – arrives on December 3. Therefore, you will have three months to familiarise yourself with the latest updates before the show’s last few episodes are released. There will be 10 episodes in total – five in Part 5 and five in Part 6.
Money Heist Season 5 trailer
The trailer shows Tokyo describing her current state of mind by saying “100 hours have felt like 100 years,” while the Professor also reveals that the stormwater tank has been discovered, as Colonel Tamayo prepares his army to make their way into the Bank of Spain.
Money Heist cast
The cast of Money Heist has no major surprises, as Ursula Corbero plays Tokyo and Alvaro Morte returns as the Professor.
MARCA
The rest of the characters are back too: Itziar Ituno (Raquel Murillo), Pedro Alonso (Berlin), Miguel Herran (Rio), Jaime Lorente (Denver), Esther Acebo (Monica Gaztambide), Enrique Arce (Arturo Roman), Rodrigo de la Serna (Palermo), Darko Peric (Helsinki), Najwa Nimri (Alicia Sierra), Hovik Keuchkerian (Bogota), Luka Peros (Marseille), Belen Cuesta (Manila), Fernando Cayo (Luis Tamayo), Fernando Soto (Angel Rubio), Jose Manuel Poga (Cesar Gandia) and Mario de la Rosa (Suarez).
PayPal has begun recruiting employees for its offices in Ireland for several cryptocurrency-related positions, signaling the company’s plans to further expand its presence in the fast-growing digital asset market.
This was reported by the Irish Independent newspaper. According to its data, vacancies for offices in Dublin and Dundalk are focused on work in the field of compliance with regulatory requirements for the circulation of cryptocurrency and combating money laundering, as well as on the further development of business in this segment.
Earlier this year, PayPal launched a dedicated cryptocurrency and blockchain business unit to operate in a new market for itself; which it began developing in October 2020, allowing customers in the United States to buy Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash ( BCH) and Litecoin (LTC).
PayPal company’s cryptocurrency business exceeded expectations in its first six months of operation.
Last week, during the PayPal quarterly report, Schulman announced plans to launch a cryptocurrency service in the United Kingdom in the very near future. He added that the company is also in the process of developing updates that will speed up payment processing.
At the time of publication, Bitcoin’s value is at 39.8 thousand dollars, and yesterday the rate was 42.4 thousand dollars .
Recently, Bitcoin got support from the head of Twitter Jack Dorsey; who said that Bitcoin is the best candidate for the role of the natural currency of the Internet. And Elon Musk said that Tesla will once again start accepting bitcoins; as a method of payment for its electric vehicles, while maintaining the current trend.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said that convicted fraudster currently in a US jail, Abass Ramon, aka Hushpuppi, paid $20,600 or equivalent of N8m to the head of the IGP Intelligence Response Team (IRT) Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, to arrest and detain his fellow fraudster, Chibuzo Kelly Vincent.
According to a document issued by the US District Court for the Central District Court, California and dated February 12, 2021, it stated that Hushpuppi contracted the services of Abba Kyari after Chibuzo allegedly threatened to expose an alleged $1.1m fraud committed against a Qatari businessman.
“Kyari provided the account information for a bank account at a Nigerian bank, Zenith Bank, in the name of a person other than Kyari himself”.
FBI Special Agent, Andrew John Innocenti, made the allegation in the ‘Criminal Complaint By Telephone Or Other Reliable Electronic Means’ filed before the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
The hip-hop mogul’s Cactus Jack Films has signed a production deal with content studio A24 to partner on film projects ahead of his upcoming album Utopia. According to Variety, the first “special project” is already in the works and will align with the album’s release.
Travis made the announcement while sharing a photo of the first draft script for his Utopia film, which he wrote. “Life is a movie. So is this album,” he captioned the post. “@cactusjack and @a24 set out to bring amazing content for the future . Thru film and media. Starting with this.”
A24 is behind films and TV shows such as Uncut Gems, Euphoria, Midsommar, and the Oscar-winning Moonlight.
This is the latest deal for Travis, who has inked partnerships with Nike, McDonald’s, and Fortnite. Earlier this year, he became the first artist to co-design a full collection with Dior
Director Jon M. Chu brings the vibrant world of “Crazy Rich Asians” to life with all the style and glamour of a big-budget Hollywood movie — but early on in the project he had a big choice to make, joining author Kevin Kwan in turning down a massive Netflix payday to ensure the groundbreaking project would make its impact on the big screen.
The Palo Alto-born USC graduate had spent the last decade becoming one of Hollywood’s fastest-rising studio directors with credits including “Step Up 2 the Streets,” “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and the “Now You See Me” films.
But Chu, who will direct an adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” in 2019 and is developing a film based on the Thai cave rescue, realized the time had come to focus his message — and put his money where his mouth was.ADVERTISEMENTnullnull
In your own words: What’s your Hollywood story?
My mom’s from Taiwan. My dad’s from mainland China. They came over when they were 19, 20 years old. I’m the youngest of five kids from the Silicon Valley — Los Altos Hills, California, to be specific.
They started a restaurant called Chef Chu’s. Fifty years, next year. My dad works every day, and they always taught us that America’s the greatest place in the world: If you work hard and focus on what you do, you can be the best and you can do anything you want.
I went to USC film school, made a bunch of shorts there. Luckily, I got discovered off of my musical short “When the Kids Are Away,” and I started making movies. It’s kind of an insane Cinderella story.
I got a call from Steven Spielberg on a Friday night and got my catapult into the business. I’ve done a bunch of movies, but it wasn’t until a couple years ago where I really questioned what kind of movies I wanted to make. I found “Crazy Rich Asians” and I feel like this is the beginning of my Chapter Two.
What made you feel that you had to be a part of bringing “Crazy Rich Asians” to the big screen?
I wanted to find something that was more personal, and the most personal thing was tackling my own cultural identity — something I was too scared to deal with before… Hopefully through this movie you realize everyone’s trying to find their place. Everyone’s trying to find their role in this life, and you’re not alone in your struggle.
Jon M. Chu, director of “Crazy Rich Asians,” says that what’s both personal and universal about the story is: “Everyone’s trying to find their place.”
I want to bring back that old Hollywood charm.
“CRAZY RICH ASIANS” STAR HENRY GOLDING
“Crazy Rich Asians” is the first movie of its kind in 25 years. What does it mean to you to be part of this moment?
I remember growing up as a kid and not seeing a lot of people on the big screen, or even behind the screen, that looked like me. So the fact that we get to show romantic leads in a contemporary movie, showing this experience of an Asian American going out into the world and discovering Asia, that we’re not just one blob of Asian people, means so much.
I think about my young self. I think about my daughter who was just born a year ago, and the world I want her to live in. I want her to live in a world where she’s seeing Constance Wu, Michelle Yeoh and Lisa Lu be these strong independent people that don’t need a man in their life to be fulfilled, and that love themselves and know that they’re worth every inch of their existence, and can be anything and do whatever they want.
When you were young, who inspired you?
I remember making my first project. I was making videos with my family and I got this Sharper Image mixer. I used all the VHS tapes to cut it together and I showed my parents in the living room and they cried when they watched it, and I felt heard for the first time. Being one of five kids, to be heard is a big deal! I knew I was going to do this for the rest of my life whether I was going to be paid for it or not.
Growing up I remember seeing people like Rufio [played by Dante Basco] in “Hook” and being like, “That guy’s so cool.” I got to play him every time I was playing with my friends. Even though it was just a little small thing, I know how much that can mean to a kid. So as we make this, I hope it gives inspiration to others — not just that they can be these characters, but that other writers and directors with other stories … don’t have to depend on one story with one set of characters.
These other stories we can hear that we don’t even know exist right now — that’s why I’m really excited for the future. Where there are cracks is where the light can come in. ADVERTISEMENT
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