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Diplomatic relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia are in complete disarray after the kingdom’s asymmetrical response to what it characterises as meddling in internal affairs after the Canadian foreign minister and other diplomats expressed concern over the arrest of human rights activist, Samar Badawi who had recently spurred reform that confers more independence for women in allowing them to drive and to conduct some business without a chaperone—prompting a youth organisation to respond rather threatening for its trading and educational partner to mind its own business.
The medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan says.  Official government measures from the kingdom included the suspension of all trade and investment (part of this feud may be sourced back to a weapons deal arranged by the previous Canadian administration which the Trudeau government rescinded out of concerns of backing oppressive, authoritarian regimes), recalling its ambassadors, expelling the Canadian mission, ordering Saudi citizens being treated in Canadian hospitals to request discharges and transfers to facilities in another nation and for sixteen thousand students sponsored by scholarships studying at Canadian schools relocate at the risk of losing financial assistance. Other countries in the region joined Saudi Arabia in denouncing Canada for politicising human rights, which seems to me one of the chief if not the primary purposes of government. The US refused to weigh in on this affair, urging Canada and Saudi Arabia to work it together.

chimera

Inspired by the mythological character that’s half horse and half human, engineers at the Italian Institute of Technology (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, IIT) in Genoa have created Centauro, a strong and durable search and rescue robot capable of clearing debris and breaking through barriers.
With the aim of providing support to human first responders in disaster situations, Centauro is being taught to think for itself and the training will hopefully translate into faster reactions and independent problem-solving. Visit the link above for more information and a video demonstration of Centauro in action.

depth of field

Evoking the photographic aesthetic called bokeh (ボケ, Japanese for blur or haze) Cape Town artist Philip Barlow’s out-of-focus landscape oil paintings of cityscapes are a reflection of perception that outstrips more realistic depictions that ultimate grounds the real in the surreal. Discover more of Barlow’s work at the link above.

bockscar

On this day in 1945, a US Air Force B-29 Bomber dropped the Fat Man nuclear weapon over the city of Nagasaki as the second and last of such an assault in history. Originally the primary target was the city of Kokura but the mission was diverted due to the previous day’s firebombing of the Yahata, which obscured the view for the bombardiers. Although more powerful than Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August, local terrain confined the damage from the plutonium bomb to the northern part of the city but thirty-five thousand perished instantly with over sixty-thousand sustaining injuries.