French press review
Greece, Cannes and the Socialist Party are the front-page items this morning.
A sandwich of financial and political disaster, with a filling of entertainment. But even the filling turns out to be a bit hard to chew, with leftist Libération suggesting that this year's event could be the end of the Cannes Film Festival.
They're exaggerating, of course, but there is a problem, according to Libé. The challenge is both cultural and technological.
Cannes has to lose its closed, elitist image, letting the fans closer to their idols; and the festival has to wake up to the fact that cinema, if not yet dead, is in the throes of fundamental changes which threaten its continued existence.
Like Mark Twain, cinema is likely to survive its own obituary notice.
The survival of Greece is another question. The Greeks have been going down the financial tubes for some time now, having famously needed a European bailout to keep the state from going bankrupt.
But it didn't work. They're still going bankrupt, only faster than before the loan, since they now have to find the interest to pay on that loan, at a very uncool rate of 22.6% interest.
Athens needs 66 billion euros next year to pay civil servants, pensioners and service the European debt.
But the national austerity plan will yield only 24 billion. Which leaves a very deep hole worth precisely 42 billion euros.
The unemployment rate is currently 22 per cent. Those who have jobs are staying at home today, protesting at Europe's unreasonable refusal to give them more money, so that they can pay back the last loan.
Bernard Madoff, the pyramid trader, is currently serving 150 years in a US jail for trying something similar.
Catholic La Croix also looks to Cannes, saying that the film festival shows an extraordinary level of reaction to current events in the Arab world.
Egypt is this year's invited country, there's a Tunisian documentary, shot during the recent overthrow of the Ben Ali regime, and two Iranian films, whose producers the mollahs would like to meet for tea, have been added to the official selection.
A story inside Le Monde looks at green energy, in other words, sources of power which don't pollute the atmosphere or poison the neighbours. Apparently, the globe could be getting nearly 80 per cent of its energy from ecologically acceptable sources by the year 2050, but only if a massive investment campaign is started now.
The elctricity sector alone would need to see 5,100 billion dollars invested over the next decade if that most optimistic vision of 80 per cent of clean energy is to have any chance of becoming a reality. If it did, greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by one third over the next 40 years. And pigs might fly.
The front page of Le Figaro reports that human happiness may depend on the length of your genes. That's "genes", not "jeans". I'll explain.
A researcher at the London School of Economics has been studying a group of 2,500 American teenagers, asking them to rate their lives as "very happy", "happy", "OK", or "miserable".
At the same time, an army of genetic scientists has been analysing the teenagers' DNA, paying particular attention to the gene called 5-HTT, which is involved in the transport of serotonin.
Serotonin plays a big part in keeping us in good humour, and is defficient in most cases of clinical depression. So, you inherit one version of 5-HTT from each of your parents, and the gene comes in long and short forms.
It was found that 70 per cent of students in the London study with two long ones said they were "very happy"; whereas four in five with two short serotonin transporting genes said they were miserable.
So now you know why you're unhappy, and also that you can do absolutely nothing about it. That's enough to make you clinically depressed.
Date : 11 May 2011
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Cannes has to lose its closed, elitist image, letting the fans closer to their idols; and the festival has to wake up to the fact that cinema, if not yet dead, is in the throes of fundamental changes which threaten its continued existence.
Like Mark Twain, cinema is likely to survive its own obituary notice.
|
But it didn't work. They're still going bankrupt, only faster than before the loan, since they now have to find the interest to pay on that loan, at a very uncool rate of 22.6% interest.
Athens needs 66 billion euros next year to pay civil servants, pensioners and service the European debt.
But the national austerity plan will yield only 24 billion. Which leaves a very deep hole worth precisely 42 billion euros.
The unemployment rate is currently 22 per cent. Those who have jobs are staying at home today, protesting at Europe's unreasonable refusal to give them more money, so that they can pay back the last loan.
Bernard Madoff, the pyramid trader, is currently serving 150 years in a US jail for trying something similar.
Catholic La Croix also looks to Cannes, saying that the film festival shows an extraordinary level of reaction to current events in the Arab world.
|
A story inside Le Monde looks at green energy, in other words, sources of power which don't pollute the atmosphere or poison the neighbours. Apparently, the globe could be getting nearly 80 per cent of its energy from ecologically acceptable sources by the year 2050, but only if a massive investment campaign is started now.
The elctricity sector alone would need to see 5,100 billion dollars invested over the next decade if that most optimistic vision of 80 per cent of clean energy is to have any chance of becoming a reality. If it did, greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by one third over the next 40 years. And pigs might fly.
The front page of Le Figaro reports that human happiness may depend on the length of your genes. That's "genes", not "jeans". I'll explain.
A researcher at the London School of Economics has been studying a group of 2,500 American teenagers, asking them to rate their lives as "very happy", "happy", "OK", or "miserable".
At the same time, an army of genetic scientists has been analysing the teenagers' DNA, paying particular attention to the gene called 5-HTT, which is involved in the transport of serotonin.
Serotonin plays a big part in keeping us in good humour, and is defficient in most cases of clinical depression. So, you inherit one version of 5-HTT from each of your parents, and the gene comes in long and short forms.
It was found that 70 per cent of students in the London study with two long ones said they were "very happy"; whereas four in five with two short serotonin transporting genes said they were miserable.
So now you know why you're unhappy, and also that you can do absolutely nothing about it. That's enough to make you clinically depressed.
Date : 11 May 2011
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