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📺Documentary Video: Holy Money - Vatican City Corruption
Holy Money investigates the financial scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church and the efforts of the new Pope Francis to clean up its multi-billion-dollar business dealings amid allegations of money laundering, corruption and embezzlement of funds.
Today, the Pope leads not only a church with more than one billion Catholics, but also a business empire of global dimensions. The Catholic Church is the world’s richest religious institution with vast real estate holdings and its own Vatican Bank.
Pope Francis has made it his mission to get the Vatican’s financial house in order, but there are stumbling blocks on the road to his new reforms and the stakes are high for everyone involved.
Watch the full documentary from below.
📺Documentary Video: Holy Money – Vatican City Corruption
“The Great War is here.” Get a first look at the action to come with the official Season 7 trailer of the Game of Thrones TV series on HBO.
Game of Thrones Season 7 starring Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, and Emilia Clarke! Be the first to watch, comment, and share trailers and movie teasers.
Mladin, keeper of the lighthouse, was outside his cottage, cleaning his speargun. It was a beautiful scene: rocky headlands and blue sea, deep and mysterious. Mladin pointed to the bay below. “In spring, I’ve seen dolphins herd thousands of fish in there and then go crazy eating them.”
The lighthouse, Struga, sits on cliffs at the end of a narrow peninsula that curves around the bay, almost separated from the rest of the island by a deep, dark sea-filled gorge.
“I came here some years ago from Split,” Mladin told me. “It’s a good life. I look after the light, sort out the apartments and go spearfishing – almost every day.”
He was middle-aged, with a pot belly. I couldn’t imagine his spear-fishing trips were very strenuous, so asked: “Would you mind if I come with you?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow. After lunch. Down at the jetty.”
I’m always drawn to the remoter parts of any country. Scanning the map of Croatia I spotted Lastovo, aloof from the other 1,106 islands, way out in the Adriatic, on the way to Italy’s Gargano peninsula. When I learned that visitors can stay at a remote lighthouse there, I was hooked.
The writer exploring Lastovo island
The ferry from Split, however, was big, full of cars, speedboats, jet skis. Not what I’d hoped for. And then we pulled into a large port, whose quayside heaved with cafes and people. My heart sank again. It was not until I drove off the ship that someone explained: this was the island of Korčula and we were taking another ferry – please join the Lastovo queue.
Now there was only a van, a clapped-out Volvo filled with timber, and a couple of tourists. The jet skis and speedboats had disappeared. An older, less salubrious ship appeared and we boarded. Local passengers settled into the lounge, a 1970s Formica paradise, unpacked homemade sandwiches, opened flasks and started card games. I relaxed. I liked Lastovo already.
After four hours, a wooded island appeared and we arrived at Ubli, Lastovo’s main port: a tiny inlet with a handful of houses, a shop and a man asleep over a fishing rod.
Dawn at the Struga lighthouse overlooking the Adriatic.Photograph: Aaron Huey/Getty Images/National Geographic Magazines
By the time I’d shopped for supplies, I was tackling the drive over the craggy 10km-long island in the twilight. Wide-eyed hares stared at the car; an owl swooped through the headlight beams. The lighthouse apartment was bare, almost spartan, but spotlessly clean. The lighthouse is operational, so all night long it was sending out six beams of rotating light into the night. Lastovo’s south coast is remote, rocky and full of hazards, not least the cliffs on which the lighthouse is built.
Later, I lay under the stars on the wall outside my room. A warm wind was blowing and, watching those light beams, I felt like I was being transported by giant magical helicopter to the outer reaches of the cosmos.
There was a small concrete jetty below the lighthouse, a handy spot for launching my inflatable canoe or simply diving in without fear of the many spiky sea urchins. That is where I met Mladin for our first expedition.
Lastovo town, a place of ornate chimneys and evocative ruins.Photograph: Alamy
I soon realised I had underestimated him. Not only was he quick in the water, he was silent and stealthy. No splash and no apparent effort.
“Did you see that?”
I shook my head, tried to be more observant and was at last rewarded: a golden creature, about a foot long, bat-like cape swirling, was ambling across the sea grass with all the grace and menace of Nosferatu. Mladin didn’t know the name in English. (I found out later that this gorgeous apparition was a kind of slug.) We moved on. He spotted a fish and took aim. His spear tip broke. Our first expedition was over and he was not happy.
In the days that followed I explored a dozen lonely coves and rocky shores in my canoe and drove to Lastovo town, a place of ornate chimneys and evocative ruins. In the evenings I sat on the wall and watched the rotors of my giant cosmic helicopter. I was beginning to feel lost to Lastovo. I wanted to become a lotus-eater and stay forever.
‘I explored a dozen lonely coves and rocky shores in my canoe.’Photograph: Kevin Rushby for the Guardian
On my last day, Mladin had mended his spear and we met again at a remote and lovely inlet. We swam out. Mladin was hungry. I followed him. With mesmerising speed he speared three octopuses and bagged them, still alive. Back on the beach he got them out. They were squealing in fear and alarm, struggling to get back to the sea.
That evening he was sitting outside his cottage, replete with octopus, and invited me for a tot of orahovac, walnut liqueur. “I left Split on doctors’ orders,” he told me. “They said if I didn’t change my life, I’d die.”
“So you came to the remotest island in Croatia?”
He smiled. “I’ll never leave. I’m happy. Life is good.”
I was envious. Mladin is the lotus-eater. I am the rover, always pushing off for newer worlds. The ferry was already in port and leaving the next day. But Lastovo is truly special: that island came very close to stopping me.
It was almost midnight on a summer Wednesday in 2015 when Hu Xiumin was jolted awake by a loud noise. Her apartment building in the affluent Harbour City development was shaking violently. She ran from the bedroom to find her husband standing in the study, looking out of the window.
From here they could see out over the port of Tianjin; one of the warehouses was on fire. They backed away from the window just moments before the warehouse exploded in one of the worst manmade disasters in China’s history.
Although Hu and her husband were unscathed, 173 people died at Ruihai International Logistics, a warehouse that was storing thousands of tonnes of hazardous chemicals. Hundreds more people were injured and thousands displaced on 12 August. Videos of the explosion went viral on social media. To the world, the tragedy became known as the Tianjin explosion. To locals, it’s 8/12.
But the explosion also underscored a dilemma at the heart of China’s unprecedented economic boom: the chemical industry is critical for the country’s growth, but that growth is also fuelling rapid urbanisation. This is pushing residential areas closer to active chemical sites – like in Tianjin.
This port city of 15 million people, a short train ride from Beijing, attracts hundreds of thousands of new residents each year. Most move to the city’s outer edges, where industrial plants were built decades ago.
Some of the chemical sites, now surrounded by new suburbs, have dangerously lax regulations. One Chinese law mandates that chemical storage facilities, such as Ruihai, be located at least 1,000 metres from public spaces. But the rule is routinely violated, and the country’s complex regulatory regime – sprawling across national laws, local regulations and a myriad of often contradictory industry-specific guidelines – is at best patchily enforced.
The 1,000m rule, for example, was first introduced in 2001, but was amended only three years later by the administration of work safety, which made it optional under certain circumstances. Then, in 2008, a report co-produced by the government’s hazchem and firefighting departments declared that “the 1,000m requirement is unrealistic, which made it hard to implement”.
The breach of this rule is one of the reasons the Tianjin explosion was able to cause such damage. Thousands of people were living within the mandated buffer zone without knowing the risk. In the wake of the explosion, citizens, activists and officials began to raise questions about other chemical sites near residential areas. “I think the Tianjin explosion is a reckoning call for the public,” says Ada Kong, the director of Greenpeace East Asia’s toxins campaign.
Fetid ponds
Tianjin’s dilemma is encapsulated by a neighbourhood along the Hai river in the Tanggu district. The main street is lined with a canal of toxic green runoff from the Tianjin Dagu Chemical works, the foul stench of which hangs in the air. But in the small streets alongside it, vendors are selling fruit as mopeds zip by. At a nearby school, two girls with pink hair bands are crouched collecting dirt with their bare hands.
Satellite imagery from 1984 to 2016 shows the dramatic growth of the city.
The plant was once more or less in the countryside. Over time, however, the city has grown around it. Now residential neighbourhoods are a stone’s throw from the factory’s fetid tailing ponds and smokestacks.
Dagu Chemical uses vinyl chloride in the production of PVC, a common plastic. A leak in the vinyl chloride storage area lasting only 10 minutes could poison residents up to two miles away, according to one risk simulation provided by a former engineer who worked at the plant. The effects of being exposed to vinyl chloride range from mild (such as headaches and dizziness) to liver damage and cancer, depending on the duration and intensity of the exposure.
According to Neal Langerman, an industrial chemical safety consultant who verified the assessment, it is possible to have chemical sites in relative proximity to residential areas without danger.
However, he says, “their process management really has to focus on prevention. You literally have to assume something is going to go wrong.” Langerman has not personally been to Tianjin Dagu Chemical, so he could not comment on the safety of the site.
But this is not a theoretical concern. Recent PVC plants exploding in Louisiana, US, Ulsan, South Korea and Coatzacoalcos, Mexico have caused dozens of deaths and millions of dollars worth of damage.
A sign at Tianjin Dagu Chemical: ‘Chem is your friend you can trust.’Photograph: Peter Klein
Safety prescriptions vary wildly among regions and countries. Unlike China’s 1,000m rule, the Netherlands, for example, uses risk assessments to figure out the probability of different scenarios and help decide how far chemical sites should be from public areas.
Genserik Reniers, a professor of safety of hazardous materials at TU Delft, says that he “would prefer calculated risk-driven distances and stringent/correct inspection [with] no violations, than just a distance … The risk is always higher with violations.”
Chinese workplace safety laws encourage a culture of damage control over prevention, says Mimi Zou, an expert in Chinese employment law. “The regulatory approach has been to just respond when there’s been an accident, but obviously that doesn’t address all the risks involved … prioritising damage control over preventive [measures] just means that you’re not really addressing the root of the problem.
“It’s only when these big accidents like Tianjin happen that regulators step in,” she says. “But where were they when the employer was actually cutting corners?”
In the case of Tianjin Dagu Chemical, regulators have stepped in to announce that the threat posed by the plant to the nearby residential areas is too high, and a multi-billion dollar effort has been launched to relocate it (with another factory called the Tianjin Chemical Plant) to an industrial zone in the south of the city by 2020.
Drone footage reveals how close residential areas are to Sinochem Binahi Logistics and Tianjin Binhai Power. Video by IRP
Even after the move, the health and safety problems will be far from over.
The contaminated land will require thorough soil remediation, which, until recently, has largely been shirked in China. Last year Beijing formally introduced a clean soil policy that Greenpeace’s Kong describes as the country’s “first ever … at a very high level”.
It came into effect after a tragedy at a school in Jiangsu province last April. In an incident that has been compared to the infamous Love Canal disaster in Niagara Falls, New York State, nearly 500 students from the Changzhou Foreign Languages School fell ill. Children reported experiencing nose bleeds, flaking skin, rashes, coughs, and in the worst cases leukaemia and lymphoma. Their school campus was found to have been built on the site of three chemical factories: Jiangsu Huada Chemical Group, Jiangsu Changyu Chemical and Jiangsu Changlong Chemicals.
These companies had been on the outskirts of Changzhou until the city expanded. In 2010 the city began a massive relocation effort, but the land left behind was deeply contaminated, reportedly containing chloroform, tetrachloride and worst of all chlorobenzene, a chemical linked to kidney, liver and brain damage. Chlorobenzene was present at 10,000 times the national standard, despite reportedly passing environmental assessments.
After this incident, two Beijing NGOs, the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, along with Friends for Nature, sued the three chemical companies. However, in January 2017 a court ruled that the companies would not have to pay compensation or apologise. The defendants argued that although the land was contaminated, the pollution had not “harmed the public interest”, and that “the goal of the lawsuit – to prevent pollution and further damage – is gradually being achieved”. The NGOs are planning to appeal.
Greenpeace’s Ada Kong on the problem of contaminated land. Video by IRP
Despite a growing environmental movement in China, chemical pollutants are “not something that people can see like air pollution”, says Kong. It is likely that the issue gained exposure and was able to be linked to brownfield pollution because the poisoned students were attending a relatively affluent school with parents who could complain to the government and the media.
“The newly rising middle class can be a new dynamic to improve the hazardous chemical safety issue problem in China,” says Kong. “They’re more aware of their rights. They’re more empowered basically because of their economic situation.”
A new hope
After witnessing the Tianjin explosion from her window, Hu decided that continuing to live in Harbour City was no longer appealing. “Personally speaking, I don’t want to live there. I want another environment,” she says.
Although the Ruihai warehouse was destroyed and the Dagu plant may be moving, a number of chemical and industrial plants remain dangerously close to residential areas in Tianjin. What’s more, she and her husband are concerned about contamination. “Pollution is a tricky problem, because you will not be diagnosed with a disease resulting from it until 10 or 20 years later.”
Xiumin Hu in Tianjin Eco-City. Video by IRP
Her concerns made a nearby experiment appealing: the Tianjin Eco-city.
This urban planning project, jointly funded by the Chinese and Singaporean governments, has been built on formerly polluted marshlands and features solar panels and windmills peeking through the skyline. The community is designed to be walkable, the public transportation is free and, best of all, there is no chemical facility in sight.
So far about 50,000 people call it home, although it will eventually have the capacity for another 300,000 residents.
“The facilities here haven’t been perfected yet, but we can see that every community will have their own community centre,” Hu says. “For the time being we don’t have any big malls here.”
Nevertheless, she and her husband are expecting their first child, and the Eco-city community is safe and has good schools nearby. “If our kids can grow up in an environment like this, it will be like one of our wishes coming true,” she says. “I felt that moving into a new house marked a new beginning. My husband felt like a lovely home was ruined, but I was comforting him [saying] that where there are people, there is a home.”
Experiments like Eco-city can only ease Tianjin’s growing pains so much. Not all residents who live dangerously close to chemical sites can afford to move, let alone to affluent communities, which means that other virtual powder kegs remain scattered across the country.
Hu often drives past her old neighbourhood, which is mostly abandoned – but not entirely. “There are probably only one or two lights in a single building. If I had to live there now I would probably be very afraid.”
This article was reported by the degree students of the University of British Columbia’s International Reporting Program in collaboration with Chinese journalists.
“My son was in the Manchester Arena today he’s not picking up my call”
“Help my sister is missing in #Munich, she was working in Mcdonalds when the shooting started”
“My sister was in #Nice near the accident, please help, my mama is crying”
The posts all have something in common – they were all sent after an attack in a European country and were all fake. Attached to each was a picture of someone who wasn’t at the scene; some weren’t even in the same country.
In the wake of the Manchester attack, family members of people genuinely caught up in Monday night’s terror searched desperately for news of their loved ones. Many turned to social media. Collages of the missing were created by people who wanted to help.
But as their posts went viral, so did the hoaxes. And this time, some ended up being published by major news outlets in the media scramble which traditionally follows a terrorist attack.
‘I felt violated’
Rachel Devine had just come out of surgery when she received a message from a friend asking if her daughter Gemma was OK. Someone had seen a post claiming she was at the concert.
This was strange, because Devine knew Gemma was not in Manchester; she was at her school in Melbourne, Australia.
“I was actually recovering from surgery so unable to respond quickly,” Devine said. “I can only assume that in the rush to get ‘the story’, news producers found the image and plea for help and ran with it. Her face was all over the Daily Mail in their ‘breaking coverage’.”
Gemma’s picture was included in the collages of victims which Devine said she had seen everywhere, even on the Facebook pages of Australian breakfast TV shows.
“Gemma was initially confused, as one can imagine,” said Devine. “She is only concerned about the people who were actually lost in the tragedy and their families, and that people understand that she had absolutely nothing to do with the false spread of her image.”
A tweet using Gemma Devine’s image claims she was in Manchester, even though she lives in Australia.Photograph: Rachel Devine
As a blogger, Devine said she was used to people stealing her images and those of her children. “I often hear from ‘trolls’ about how terrible I am to expose my children to such risks by sharing their images online or allowing my kids to share their own images online, but my family will not live our life in fear.
“That is our choice on how we will experience life and connect with others.”
Meanwhile, in Ohio, Karen Bowersox was watching in horror as the retweets racked up of a photo of a young boy who had modelled for her clothing range for children with Down’s syndrome.
A fake social media post of a model for Karen Bowersox’s company Down’s Designs.Photograph: Twitter
“I have this loving business and then someone takes this beautiful little child’s picture and exploits this child,” she said. “I tried to call the mother but I couldn’t get a hold of her. I’m worried about how she must be feeling about all that.”
Bowersox said she received calls and emails from people who believed she was responsible for the post. “There was one from this lady who said she was going to report our website, she thought probably it was our company or something that had done this.
“I sent her a nice explanation and explained the picture was out there and we certainly had nothing to do with exploiting this little boy. I felt terrible, just terrible.”
Her other concern was that people would use this image to try to set up fraudulent fundraising accounts. “This guy could have maybe got money for all this, saying ‘my poor brother’. “He could have elaborated a very intense story over this had people not found out.”
Bowersox and Devine’s immediate thoughts were of the real victims and their family members. “I am heartbroken for those parents who were doing something fun for their kids by taking them to Ariana Grande’s show and were left with such tragedy,” said Devine.
‘This thing will stop happening when the media starts doing basic research’
It’s tricky trying to get some of the posters to talk. The account @kyliemanser1, which tweeted the picture of the young boy, didn’t answer a request for comment. It has since been suspended for violating Twitter’s rules. Another account, which seemed to have used a picture of someone as a toddler in the 1990s, maintained their innocence.
When the Guardian pressed them to admit it was a fake post, they replied: “You have been reported for harassing the family of a victim. Theyll [sic] be a knock at your door.”
A hoax tweet attempting to claim a YouTuber was a victim of the Manchester attacks.Photograph: Twitter
One person did agree to explain the thinking behind this form of trolling.
@Gamergateantifa told the Guardian it was mainly about fooling the media. “It has become sort of a competition of who can fool the news. The only way to give it enough ‘credibility’ is to fool a lot of people.”
The trend started, @Gamergateantifa claims, with a well-known hoax involving Sam Hyde, a comedian with a history of pranks. Social media users would use photos of him after any breaking news involving a shooting or a terrorist attack, usually attempting to fool the media into thinking he was the perpetrator.
“People see something on social media and instantly think it’s true. Let’s say you saw a tweet, would you take a look at my profile first before making any decisions about spreading it?
If you did, you would find out I was lying instantly.”
@Gamergateantifa’s hoax tweet involved TheReportOfTheWeek, a YouTuber with more than 22,000 subscribers, who ended up making a video to say he was alive and not in Manchester.
It was a low effort tweet, because most of @Gamergateantifa’s followers knew who TheReportOfTheWeek was. Yet it still went viral.
Would @Gamergateantifa do it again? “I’m not gonna lie, I probably will. I can’t say whether I will get a result like this again. Someone else probably will, probably not.
“But the thing is, when this kind of thing stops happening is when the people or the media start doing basic research. Can’t say that’s a bad deal.”
‘They go on doing this as long as we the media believe them’
After every suspected terror attack for at least the last year, posts attempting to claim prominent internet celebrities or journalists are either a perpetrator or victim have appeared on Twitter.
It hasn’t been limited to terrorist attacks, either. After the EgyptAir crash in May 2016, the BBC reported on hoax victim posts, most of which originated in Mexico. Hoaxers later told journalists they used one man’s photo because he had cheated them out of money. “Our goal is to ruin his reputation. We want the whole world to recognise his face,” they told France 24’s The Observers.
Alastair Reid, a social media journalist at the Press Association, noticed the same photo circulating after the Brussels attack in 2016.
…find my bro/sis” but with a pic of minor celeb or athlete or random person. Preying on goodwill & tragedy for laughs. Such is webz 2/2
Then, during the Nice attack, he noticed more. “There were probably about 15 to 20 different individuals identified by dozens of accounts as victims but they were all lies,” he said.
“There were celebrities, football players and just random people from social media. It’s been a feature of big, international breaking news situations ever since.”
A screengrab of a hoax tweet which claimed Spanish journalist Susana Ye was a victim of the Munich attack in July 2016.Photograph: Twitter
She was aware of the Mexican tweets but had no idea why her photo was dragged into it. “I am so not into the trolling world,” she said. “I think they go on doing this as long as we, the media, believe them. They feel like winners.”
A hoax tweet which targeted journalist Tamara de Anda.Photograph: Twitter
The Mexican journalist Tamara de Anda, who was the subject of hoax posts after the Westminster attack and again earlier this week, knows exactly why she is being targeted. In March, she was at the centre of her own social media storm after a taxi driver was fined for catcalling her.
“Trolls did what they do. All kinds of harassment: death threats, rape threats, everything.
“But after terrorist attacks from then on, they would post my picture. Whenever anything happens in Europe, they do it.
“The first time it happened, it was disturbing but now I feel bulletproof. It was something new, something I didn’t know they did. Luckily nobody who knows me thought it was real.”
She says she believes the whole thing has snowballed as more and more people are inspired by other viral hoaxes.
As “anti-feminazi” trolls report me missing in #Manchester, a misogynist radio host in #Mexico is harassing me live on air.
Another journalist based in Mexico, Andrea Noel, was also mistakenly included in victim roundups after she was targeted by similar trolls.
While individual posts often get debunked in roundups of fake information during breaking news events, this was the first time this kind of trolling received widespread national coverage.
Reid said: “Misinformation has become a regularly discussed topic over the last six months.
“The groundwork has already been laid for hoaxers and liars on social media. And here we have people exploiting the deaths of children at a pop concert, seemingly for fun.
“Those circumstances make the ‘fake victim’ tweets particularly sickening.”
@KylieManser1 This photo has been stolen from our website. In the strongest terms we condemn the exploitation of children for any purpose.
— Downs Designs Dreams (@DwnsDesigns) May 23, 2017
‘Doesn’t Twitter have some kind of accountability?’
During the research for this article, many of the hoax tweets were taken down, or the accounts behind them suspended. But not all of them. There are some suspected fake accounts which even form part of news reports from earlier this week.
The Guardian contacted Twitter for clarification on their policy around this particular trend. They refused to comment.
De Anda thinks Twitter could do more, but doesn’t believe they will. “They’re worried about losing users. I think they know what to do, but they don’t want to do it.
“I report accounts and it just says: ‘Oh no, they’re not violating any rules. We cannot do anything’.
“This is something real that is happening to a lot of people and really affecting their lives. This doesn’t harm me, but it doesn’t mean it’s not bad for someone else.”
Bowersox doesn’t tweet, but she wonders the same thing.
“Wouldn’t Twitter have some kind of accountability to remove these things? This isn’t just a small thing,” she said. “Innocent people are being affected by this. Not maybe physically or monetarily – but certainly emotionally.”
Shopping in one of Amazon’s brand-new, three-dimensional bookstores affords visitors the opportunity to buy many things that aren’t books. A hands-free sous vide, for example. Or a tablet computer. Or a smart speaker equipped with Amazon’s “Alexa” virtual butler app.
At a grand opening Thursday for Amazon’s first bookstore in New York City, the mystery in the air was why a company that had changed the world by taking retail sales online would reverse direction and move into brick-and-mortar. The New York location is the seventh Amazon bookstore to open nationally since 2015, with six additional stores planned to open by the end of the year.
It’s clearly a bookstore chain. The question is: what are they selling? And what greater strategy may be afoot?
Setting aside for a moment those questions (spoiler alert: Amazon declined to directly comment), the Guardian encountered the new retail space, inside the Time Warner Center mall at Columbus Circle, on its own terms, through customers’ eyes.
It looks like a modern bookstore, with a table of featured titles up front (The Oxford Companion to Wine, Trevor Noah: Born a Crime, etc) and ranks of shelves organized by the usual categories (fiction top sellers, travel, ages 3-7, etc).
‘I think it’s so ironic that so many wonderful bookstores were put out of business because of them, and now they’re opening up a bookstore,’ said one customer.Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
There are some distinctly Amazon – and passing strange – features, such as technology stands where customers can scan books to see what kind of a discount they might get as members of Amazon Prime, the subscriptions program.
Also unique here: the section called “Page turners: books Kindle readers finish in three days or less”. Amazon can track how quickly people who purchase books on Kindle read them, a company spokesperson explained, without explaining how.
Matt Lantin, 21, an economics major shopping for self-help books, admired how every book at the store was displayed so that its full cover, and not just its spine, was visible. At Amazon Books, every title is a featured title.
“They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but in this case, not only can you see the cover, but you can also see the review below it,” Lantin said, after requesting a moment to compose his comment.
Displaying books face-out, however, eats up shelf space fast. At 4,000 square feet, the Columbus Circle store features 3,000 titles at any time, according to the company. Further gobbling shelf space: about one-quarter of the retail floor is given over to sales of non-books. That includes things like Bose speakers, French presses and instant cameras, but also a lot of Amazon hardware: Kindles, hard drives, the aforementioned smart speakers and the Amazon Fire, the company’s bestselling answer to the iPad.
Yvonne Reid, 54, who works elsewhere in the Time Warner complex and had stopped in to see whether she could pick up a copy of Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life … And Maybe the World, judged the bookstore to be “beautiful”, but lacking in hangout space.
“I’m sorry that they don’t have more space where kids can come and sit and read,” said Reid, who reminisced about spending hours at Barnes & Noble when her kids were younger. “This does seem like more of a take-your-book-and-run kind of a thing.”
The arrival of Amazon bookstores, Reid noted, was part of a bigger picture.
“I think it’s so ironic that so many wonderful bookstores were put out of business because of them, and now they’re opening up a bookstore,” Reid said. “But I think it’s nice.”
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on that observation.
Dan Simon, the founder and publisher of the New York City-based Seven Stories Press, said Reid’s comment was accurate.
“They really did drive bookstores out of business,” said Simon, noting that Amazon added on to damage previously inflicted by big chains such as Borders and Barnes & Noble.
“But the upside of that was after 30 years, what we have now is a culture of bookselling that has survived all those things, and is incredibly vibrant and tough. There’s a small-business acumen among booksellers in the US today that is unmatched.”
Simon (a former colleague of this reporter, it should be disclosed) welcomed the advent of Amazon Books.
“It’s such a dynamic time now in the marketplace of books that on one side, another sort of bookstore is a good thing, plain and simply,” he said. “We want more physical bookstores.
“On the other side, it’s important to note that these stores are pretty small. Four thousand square feet – it’s not tiny, but the superstores were like 25,000, 30,000 square feet. So this is a small store. It’s not going to have a wide selection.”
About one-quarter of the retail floor is given over to sales of non-books.Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Official Amazon verbiage says the bookstore “is all about discovery” and offers readers a connection “to a community of millions of booklovers” whose reviews of the books on sale are displayed in the store. But like everything else in the store, you don’t have to leave home to get that: those reviews are available – and more readily – online.
Meanwhile, Amazon is in a battle of giants, vying with Google and Apple for markets such as consumer technology that dwarf the market for books. The brick-and-mortar retail experience is central to Apple’s strategy. Google has opened pop-up stores and is increasingly focused on physical stores.
It’s hard to miss how much the stores are also an advertisement for Amazon Prime, with their technology stands as unnecessarily staged revelations for consumers of how much they might be “saving” if they signed up.
“Our goal of Amazon Books is to help customers and readers discover great books,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
Among all the hundreds of millions of products Amazon sells, Simon said, there are good reasons the company would choose to sell books in physical stores. The stores strengthen the company’s hold on the growing self-publishing market, ensuring a physical retail outlet for those titles, he said. Books were Amazon’s original product. And books are unique.
“The store points up one of the great truths of this historical moment in books, which is, even though Amazon is probably selling about half the books that are being sold, the online experience is not really a good one for books,” he said. “Plenty of people buy everything online, but not books. Because you want to touch them, you want to open them up. You want to hold them in your hand. You want to discover things that you aren’t looking for.”
Reid, the drop-in customer, said there was no second-guessing Amazon’s decision.
“I love the bookstore,” she said. “You can actually touch the book.”
Continuing the theme from last week, I need advice on replacing my Huawei smartphone, following an unfortunate incident involving a car door. My phone is also my camera, so my main criterion is that it will take good shots in most lights. The Huawei, while fine in other ways, fell short in the photography department. I’d be interested in recommendations at different price points. Alison
Smartphone cameras are now amazingly good, and if you buy a top-end smartphone, it’s increasingly hard to take a bad photograph with it. We’ve therefore started to see some Darwinian-style speciation as manufacturers look for profitable niches. Over the past five years, we’ve seen more dual-lens cameras appear with extra wide angle or telephoto features. Some manufacturers have improved the front-facing camera to target people who mainly take selfies. Some phones are waterproof, like the Apple iPhone 7 and the Samsung Galaxy S7.
Some manufacturers have added 4K video facilities. Many offer HDR for high dynamic range images, and some use “stacking”, such as the Google Pixel (it captures a short sequence and combines the results into a single image). Some have dual lenses and dual sensors and combine the results, like the LG G6. Some phones shoot 4K video or raw images, possibly by using accessory software to extract the image data before it has been processed.
As a result, the best smartphone camera for one user may not be the best for another. You will have to think about what you want to shoot, and pick the smartphone that best meets your needs.
Of course, if you buy a mid-range or low-end smartphone, you won’t get many special features, and the general quality will be lower. In my (limited) experience, however, most cheap smartphones take perfectly good pictures in good lighting conditions. It’s only in low light that images tend to look grainy, because of image noise.
Image v reality
The main technical difference between smartphone cameras and standalone digital cameras is that smartphones use tiny lenses and tiny sensors. The smartphone’s results ought to be much worse. They are not. Smartphones produce high-quality results by using their powerful processors and built-in graphics engines to process the image data and compensate for their technical limitations.
To my eye, smartphone images are sometimes so over-saturated and over-sharpened they look unnatural. In some cases, where portraits are “beautified”, they really are unnatural. However, very few people are interested in how the final image compares to the reality. They’d much rather have something that looks good. Exaggeration wins almost every time.
However, this does mean there’s an element of taste when choosing a smartphone camera. When you have a shortlist, look for sample images in reviews at websites such as DxO Mark, The Verge and DP Review, and on Flickr’s Camera Finder.
Also, see if you can get friends to take photos of a colourful object that’s small enough for you to carry around, such as a trinket box, to provide comparisons. You may not be planning to buy that particular model, but different smartphones from the same manufacturer may use the same sensors (often from Sony) and the same processing software, giving the results a family resemblance.
Possible options
The Nokia 808 PureView smartphone, launched in 2012, really boosted progress in smartphone photography. Its 38-megapixel sensor captured an amazing amount of detail, and changed the perception of how good a smartphone camera could be. The 808 and its Windows smartphone cousin, the Lumia 1020, are still competitive today, though they have been surpassed by more recent models.
Today’s better smartphone cameras typically have f/1.8 lenses and 12MP 1/3in sensors providing a resolution of 4032 x 3024 pixels. That’s the specification of Apple’s iPhone 7, so try to match or beat that. The Google Pixel – which may have the best smartphone camera – has a slightly bigger 12.3MP 1/2.3in sensor and an f/2.0 lens.
Nokia 808 PureView boosted progress in smartphone photography when it was released in 2012.Photograph: Yosomono/Flickr
The smaller the number, the better. A 1/2.5in sensor is bigger and less noisy than a 1/3in sensor, while an f/1.7 lens is faster (gathers more light) than an f/2 lens. When it comes to megapixels, the more the better. However, anything over 10MP is fine, unless you want to make large prints.
The Verge has an excellent group review of four of the main options: the four main options are the Samsung Galaxy S8, Apple’s iPhone 7, Google Pixel and LG’s G6. Take your pick. Also worth a mention are the iPhone 7 Plus and the new HTC U11, which is out in June.
If you want something cheaper, the OnePlus 3T has a 16MP 1/2.8in sensor and an f/2.0 lens. DP Review reckons it is “not quite up with the very best in class” but it’s still very good, and the OnePlus 5 should be even better. (OnePlus is owned by Oppo, the giant Chinese smartphone manufacturer.)
In the budget department, Lenovo’s £159 Moto G5 has a 13MP 1/2.5in sensor and an f/2.0 lens, while the £249 G5 Plus is a 12MP camera with a faster f/1.7 lens. Both offer auto HDR and have “professional” and “beautification” modes. The pro mode gives you manual control.
I can’t think of anything that’s likely to beat the G5 at the price, though readers may have some suggestions in the comments below.
DxO Marks
If you follow smartphone cameras, you will run into DxO Marks. DxO Labs sells a small camera and various photo-enhancement programs such as DxO OpticsPro. It has been testing still cameras and lenses for years, and in 2012 it introduced the DxO Mark Mobile rating system. Basically, it tests smartphone camera systems and gives them a score. The result is a table with the best at the top.
This makes life easy for journalists, who can write articles about the latest smartphone to top the list. How much it actually means is debatable: is the HTC U11 (90 points) really better than the Google Pixel (89) or the Galaxy S8 (88)? Nonetheless, whatever made the top 20 or 25 is generally better than whatever didn’t.
If DxO Labs has tested a smartphone you want to buy, the reviews are useful. Unfortunately, it hasn’t reviewed the OnePlus T3 or the Moto G5. However, the Moto Z Force Droid (87) and the Moto G Plus (84) scored well. They did better than the iPhone 6 Plus (82), Huawei P9 (80), my Google Nexus 6 (78) and the Lumia 1020 (74).
Camera first
A few companies have tried putting the camera before the phone. The best known example is the Lumix DMC-CM1, which has a 20MP one inch sensor (roughly 7x larger than a 1/3in sensor) and an f/2.8 Leica lens. Panasonic calls it a “communication camera”.
Samsung has also had a couple of goes at the genre with its Samsung Galaxy K Zoom and older S4 Zoom smartphones. Both have 10x optical zoom lenses, much like compact cameras. The most recent example is the 21MP Kodak Ektra, which was launched in Europe last year and in the US this week. I’ve not seen or tried one, but it looks a bit pricey at £449.
However, if you’re serious about the photographic aspect, consider buying a good compact camera and a cheap phone. Not only do you get better results over a wider range of subjects and situations, the camera handling is dramatically better. This includes faster zooming, framing and shooting.
There are a few good compact cameras with one inch sensors, including the tiny but pricey Sony RX100V, several Canon PowerShots (from the G3 X to the G9 X), the Lumix DMC-LX10 and even the DxO One. I usually carry a compact that fits in a jeans pocket when I’m not lugging around a Nikon D90 with a couple of lenses. A good camera could well outlast several smartphones.
Have you got a question? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com
Police and the security service are focusing upon the Libyan connections of the Manchester suicide bomber as they attempt to locate others involved in the attack that killed 22 concert-goers and injured more than 60 others.
Salman Abedi travelled to see his mother, father, younger brother and sister in Libya last week but Whitehall sources said they suspected there were also what they termed “nefarious purposes” behind his visit to Tripoli.
Yesterday his father, Ramadan, and younger brother, Hashem, 20 , were reported to have been arrested by a militia in Tripoli on suspicion of having links with Islamic State.
British police were also investigating Abedi’s connections in Manchester including among the city’s Libyan community, with three more people arrested yesterday.
Greater Manchester police’s chief constable, Ian Hopkins, said the public should be aware that “this is a network that we are investigating” while the home secretary, Amber Rudd, said that the relatively sophisticated nature of the attack suggested he may have had support. Pictures of the remnants of the bomb that emerged on Wednesday suggested that whoever constructed it was an expert.
“It seems likely, possible, that he wasn’t doing this on his own,” Rudd said.
Among the greatest concerns of the police and the security service are that Abedi may not have constructed the bomb that he detonated at the Manchester Arena on Monday night, meaning a bomb-maker remains at large.
The security service was aware of Abedi, although he had appeared to be a peripheral figure who was not considered to pose a high risk. Abedi, 22, was born in Manchester to Ramadan Abedi, who is known among the city’s Libyan community as Abu Ismail, and his wife, Samia Tabbal. The couple had fled Libya in the early 1990s to escape arrest by the Gaddafi regime.
The couple returned to live in Tripoli after the 2011 revolution, in which Abu Ismail fought, and now live there with Abedi’s younger sister, Jomana.
For some time, Abedi had been living alone in a semi-detached house in the Fallowfield area of south Manchester. Neighbours there described him as withdrawn, but say he occasionally became involved in arguments about the parking of cars. Police searched the property on Tuesday after blowing off the front door in a controlled explosion.
Abedi’s older brother Ismail, 23, is still being questioned after being arrested in Manchester on Tuesday. Other members of the family are thought to be among those arrested.
A few hours before his reported arrest, Abedi’s father Ramadan Abedi spoke briefly with reporters. He said he had last seen his son when he visited Tripoli last week, and had told his mother he intended to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca during Ramadan, which starts this weekend.
“I was really shocked when I saw the news, I still don’t believe it,” he said. “My son was as religious as any child who opens his eyes in a religious family. As we were discussing news of similar attacks earlier, he was always against those attacks, saying there’s no religious justification for them. I don’t understand how he’d have become involved in an attack that led to the killing of children.”
Shortly afterwards eyewitnesses told Bloomberg News that they had seen Ramadan Abedi being taken from his home by members of a Rada, a self-appointed Tripoli militia. A militia spokesman said that Hashem Abedi had been detained on suspicion of having links with Islamic State.
The French interior minister said Abedi may have travelled to Syria as well as Libya. Quoting information provided by the UK, Gérard Collomb said: “We only know what British investigators have told us – that someone of British nationality, of Libyan origin, suddenly, after a trip to Libya and then probably to Syria, becomes radicalised and decides to carry out this attack.” Collomb also told French TV that Abedi had proven links with Islamic State.
In the UK, however, police played down the suggestion that Abedi was thought to have travelled to Syria.
Abedi had been a pupil at Burnage Media Arts college, now Burnage academy, an all boys school in a deprived part of south Manchester. In a statement, the school confirmed Abedi was a former pupil. Headteacher Ian Fenn said: “We are a Manchester school. We feel the pain that Manchester feels. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Mancunians against terrorism in all its forms. Our deepest condolences go to all who have been affected by this outrage.”
Abedi studied business and management at Salford University two or three years ago, but dropped out of the course and did not complete his degree. The Guardian understands he was receiving student loan payments as recently as last month.
It is understood Abedi was not known to have participated in any clubs or societies during his time in higher education – and never met the resident imam. Dr Sam Grogan, the university’s pro-vice chancellor for student experience, said: “All at the University of Salford are shocked and saddened by the events of last night. Our thoughts are with all those involved, their families and their friends.”
He prayed regularly at Didsbury mosque in south Manchester, where his father used to call the adhan.
Although MI5 did not consider Abedi to pose a high risk, a number of people have said that they warned the authorities about him.
An unnamed Muslim community worker told the BBC that two people who knew the attacker at college tipped off police after he made statements “supporting terrorism” and expressing the view that “being a suicide bomber was OK”. The calls are thought to have been made five years ago after Abedi left school, the community worker added.
In the United States, NBC News quoted US officials as saying members of the bomber’s own family had warned security services that they believed him to be dangerous.
Mohammed Saeed, a senior figure at Didsbury mosque and Islamic centre, told the Guardian that he had warned police that he believed a close associate of Abedi posed a danger to the public, but officers did not take the matter seriously. Saeed said he had faced threats on social media but officers said they viewed the comments as a matter of free speech.
Greater Manchester police said they had no comment to make about the allegation.
Ariana Grande’s European tour has been suspended following the terror attack at her show at the Manchester Arena on Monday.
The American pop singer had been due to perform two concerts at the O2 Arena in London on Thursday and Friday. “Due to the tragic events in Manchester, the Dangerous Woman tour with Ariana Grande has been suspended until we can further assess the situation and pay our proper respects to those lost,” the tour’s promoters said in a statement on Wednesday.
Cancelled concerts include those in London this week, as well as all others until the one planned for 5 June in Switzerland.
The promoters added: “We ask at this time that we all continue to support the city of Manchester and all those families affected by this cowardice and senseless violence. Our way of life has once again been threatened but we will overcome this together. Thank you.”
Grande returned to her home town of Boca Raton in Florida on Tuesday.
While the O2 said an announcement would be made as soon as it had clear information, many concluded from Grande’s return home town that the tour was off.
Hours after the attack, she tweeted: “Broken. From the bottom of my heart, I am so so sorry. I don’t have words.”
broken.
from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don’t have words.
Musicians have continued to pay tribute to Grande and her fans. During a performance on the US season finale of The Voice on Tuesday night, Miley Cyrus dedicated her song to Grande and “everyone who experienced that horrific attack”. “Our hearts are with you,” she said.
Miley Cyrus pays tribute to Manchester attack victims
In a statement on Monday, Grande’s manager, Scooter Braun, said: “Tonight our hearts are broken. Words cannot express our sorrow for the victims and families harmed in this senseless attack.
“We mourn the lives of children and loved ones taken by this cowardly act. We are thankful for the selfless service tonight of Manchester’s first responders who rushed towards danger to help save lives.
“We ask all of you to hold the victims, their families, and all those affected in your hearts and prayers.”
Take That, who were playing a show at the Liverpool Echo Arena when the attack happened, cancelled the following night’s show in the city and postponed the dates they were due to play in Manchester on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Blondie cancelled a concert in London on Tuesday “as a mark of respect for the victims of the terrible attack”.
But other gigs went ahead as planned. Simple Minds played at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, telling fans: “We would have felt cowardly just leaving town, especially Manchester, a place that has been great to us since the early days.”
Grande’s brother, Frankie Grande, is due to perform in Bush Hall in west London on Saturday night, and the venue believes the event will go ahead.
Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Harry Styles, Lorde, Justin Timberlake and Rihanna were among the other celebrities and pop stars who reacted to the attack.
#Manchester has always been so close to my heart! These are innocent vulnerable kids, this could’ve been any of us! I’m devastated!
“Many of you won’t have ever been to Manchester but you will definitely have heard of it. It’s famous all over the world for so many wonderful things,” he said.
“Great football teams: Man City; Man United. Incredible music: Oasis and Joy Division. It was the birthplace of the leader of the suffragettes; it’s the home of the inventor of the first computer. It’s a place full of comedy and curries and character.
“But when I think of Manchester, the place that I know, I think of the spirit of the people there, and I’m telling you a more tight knit group of people you will be hard-pressed to find.
“Strong, proud, caring people with community at its core, and if it was even possible, the spirit of the people of Manchester will grow even stronger this evening.”
The pope appeared to catch Melania Trump unawares on Wednesday morning when he asked her whether she fed her husband a popular Slovenian cake.
Melania was accompanying the US president on his visit to the Vatican when Francis asked “What are you feeding him, potica?”.
The first lady appeared to quizzically reply “pizza?” before smiling and answering “yes”.
The exchange, quickly dubbed “pizzagate” by reporters in the busy Holy See press office who also misheard the pope, was eventually explained by a Vatican spokeswoman with the help of a Slovenian journalist. “I cannot tell you whether she said pizza, but he definitely said potica,” the journalist said after watching and rewatching a video of the incident.
Melania Trump’s staff also confirmed to AFP that Francis had produced a custom-made joke for her benefit.
According to the Vatican spokeswoman, Francis loves potica and always mentions it when he meets a Slovenian.
Potica, the Slovenian dessert favoured by Pope Francis. Photograph: Samo Trebizan/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Potica – pronounced po-teet-sah – is traditionally served at Easter and Christmas. A type of nut bread made from yeast dough, it is typically spread with a mixture of ground walnuts, butter, eggs, cream and honey or sugar, although Slovenians often use tarragon to flavour the sweet version of the pastry, making it an unusual regional speciality. Once the dough has risen, it is rolled flat and then lengthways to create its distinctive spiralled effect. It is baked, traditionally, in a round clay pot.
The cake was first mentioned by Primož Trubar, a Lutheran priest who published the first books in the Slovenian language in the 16th century. It is considered an important part of Slovenian heritage and has twice featured on the country’s postage stamps.
Janez Bogataj, a Slovenian ethnologist and potica expert, has called for the recipe to be given protected status using EU legislation, so that only products originating from Slovenia can be identified as potica. He also wants a selection of 40 fillings, both savoury and sweet, protected along with the basic recipe.
Melania Trump’s mistake is perhaps understandable given her husband’s well-known love of fast food, and this memorable Pizza Hut commercial.
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