Europe's holiday month of August is no time for serious politics. The world and its worries are meant to close down while Europeans repose. I usually spend the month with my family at our old converted farmhouse in southwestern France. It is the deepest countryside. As I write this under a vine in my vegetable garden, I look west across wooded hills and cannot see another building.
In our hamlet, there is one small working farm, a couple of holiday houses and the ruins of seven or eight other houses. A century ago, this would have been a community of more than 50 people. Today, there are two full-time residents, the farmer and her elderly mother. Otherwise, the inhabitants are vacation visitors. Progress in France brought a fairly recent migration from country to town. "How is it," a local pig farmer asked me a few a years ago, "that we locals all want to get out of here, and you northern European city dwellers want to buy up our old farmhouses and move in?"
Even in the 15 years that we have owned this former tobacco farm, further progress has left its mark. In our village, there used to be two of every shop - butcher's shop, bakery, hardware store. Now, there is only one. Supermarkets in the surrounding towns have driven the smaller shops out of business. Another mark of progress is the arrival of a broadband internet connection. So now I can use my laptop just as though I was at home in London, and the satellite dish gives us the world's television and radio stations as well.
Thanks to our television, we have of course been able to witness signs of progress elsewhere. Maybe the terrible floods in Pakistan and China are not the direct result of climate change. But the evidence seems to suggest that variations in climactic conditions are increasing in scale and frequency. We know that the rapid increase in the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the last century is part of the price of the surge in our prosperity, and that the world's poorest citizens will bear the heaviest burden in paying it.
We have also been able to watch on our televisions this month what appears to be the final stages in the battle to cap the huge oil spill off the coast of Florida and Louisiana. Will this environmental disaster persuade Americans to look harder at their incontinent use of energy? Will it affect their love affair with the internal combustion engine and air conditioning? I rather doubt it. Defining progress in ways that make it sustainable and allow us to maintain the best of the past is difficult. Opposition to globalisation and market forces has often been the preferred way of trying to hang on to an idealised view of what life used to be like. This produces paradoxical results here in France, where - despite all the anti-globalisation rhetoric - McDonald's is more popular than anywhere else in Europe.
French companies do spectacularly well in the global market place. At home, meanwhile, small, distinctively French businesses - cheese makers, patisseries, or restaurateurs - get hammered by heavy taxes and social-welfare costs while supermarkets flourish selling products from Asia. So, how do we keep the best of what is familiar and foster the identity of our local neighbourhoods and regions while embracing the sort of changes that make most of us better off? How can we make markets and technology serve us rather than - as so often seems to be true - vice versa?
One partial solution is to try harder to put a price on what we call progress. What are the real costs of out-of-town shopping malls in terms of increased traffic and loss of green spaces, for example? What may make sense in the vast open reaches of Texas will not necessarily work in rural France or Britain. How can we ensure that technology meets the needs of the poor and does not simply increase the divide between laptop-owning, BlackBerry-using westerners like me and the poor in India or China?
Above all, when will we agree to assign real costs to the energy we use, especially carbon-based resources? The casualties of our failure to do so will be future generations of flood victims in Asia and China, farmers in drought-hit Russia and Africa, and everyone's grandchildren, like my five, with whom I have spent this summer. What sort of legacy will today's "progress" bequeath to them? We like to think that older generations always leave a better world for those that follow. Is that still true?
Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is the chancellor of the University of Oxford © Project Syndicate 2010
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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The specs: 2018 Renault Koleos
Price, base: From Dh77,900
Engine: 2.5L, in-line four-cylinder
Transmission: Continuously variable transmission
Power: 170hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 233Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 8.3L / 100km
STAY%2C%20DAUGHTER
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More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
The biog
Name: James Mullan
Nationality: Irish
Family: Wife, Pom; and daughters Kate, 18, and Ciara, 13, who attend Jumeirah English Speaking School (JESS)
Favourite book or author: “That’s a really difficult question. I’m a big fan of Donna Tartt, The Secret History. I’d recommend that, go and have a read of that.”
Dream: “It would be to continue to have fun and to work with really interesting people, which I have been very fortunate to do for a lot of my life. I just enjoy working with very smart, fun people.”
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
SPECS
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What is a black hole?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
The%20specs
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War 2
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
SPECS
Toyota land Cruiser 2020 5.7L VXR
Engine: 5.7-litre V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 362hp
Torque: 530Nm
Price: Dh329,000 (base model 4.0L EXR Dh215,900)
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
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RIDE%20ON
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
Racecard:
6.30pm: Mazrat Al Ruwayah (PA) | Group 2 | US$55,000 (Dirt) | 1,600 metres
7.05pm: Meydan Sprint (TB) | Group 2 | $250,000 (Turf) | 1,000m
7.40pm: Firebreak Stakes | Group 3 | $200,000 (D) | 1,600m
8.15pm: Meydan Trophy | Conditions (TB) | $100,000 (T) | 1,900m
8.50pm: Balanchine | Group 2 (TB) | $250,000 (T) | 1,800m
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) | $135,000 (D) | 1,200m
10pm: Handicap (TB) | $175,000 (T) | 2,410m.
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ABU%20DHABI%20CARD
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
TERMINAL HIGH ALTITUDE AREA DEFENCE (THAAD)
What is THAAD?
It is considered to be the US's most superior missile defence system.
Production:
It was created in 2008.
Speed:
THAAD missiles can travel at over Mach 8, so fast that it is hypersonic.
Abilities:
THAAD is designed to take out ballistic missiles as they are on their downward trajectory towards their target, otherwise known as the "terminal phase".
Purpose:
To protect high-value strategic sites, such as airfields or population centres.
Range:
THAAD can target projectiles inside and outside the Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 150 kilometres above the Earth's surface.
Creators:
Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.
UAE and THAAD:
In 2011, the UAE became the first country outside of the US to buy two THAAD missile defence systems. It then stationed them in 2016, becoming the first Gulf country to do so.
Changing visa rules
For decades the UAE has granted two and three year visas to foreign workers, tied to their current employer. Now that's changing.
Last year, the UAE cabinet also approved providing 10-year visas to foreigners with investments in the UAE of at least Dh10 million, if non-real estate assets account for at least 60 per cent of the total. Investors can bring their spouses and children into the country.
It also approved five-year residency to owners of UAE real estate worth at least 5 million dirhams.
The government also said that leading academics, medical doctors, scientists, engineers and star students would be eligible for similar long-term visas, without the need for financial investments in the country.
The first batch - 20 finalists for the Mohammed bin Rashid Medal for Scientific Distinction.- were awarded in January and more are expected to follow.
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
Signs%20of%20%20%20%20%20%20%20heat%20stroke
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COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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Company%C2%A0profile
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UFC Fight Night 2
1am – Early prelims
2am – Prelims
4am-7am – Main card
7:30am-9am – press cons
