...or Why You Should Not Always “Be the Face of It”
“The morbid curiosity prompted by absence. Your Eminence, as an orphan, I’m very familiar with this.” With these words, a visionary Jude Law in the role of fictional Pope Pius XIII in Paolo Sorrentino’s successful TV series ‘The Young Pope’ explained his decision to deliver his first speech as Pope while keeping his face concealed.
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An obituary of roaming fees
The twenty-first century is such an incredible time to be alive: only thirty years ago, the only way to reach somebody as soon as possible to communicate important news was either with your landline phone or, if you were not at home, by barging into a shop or bar to use their own or finding
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A tale of eggs and baskets in Venezuela
The benefits of diversification are well known among finance and investment pundits, and they can be best summarized in the old adage “never put all of your eggs in one basket”: you should always spread your investment risk out as much as possible. However, sometimes some opportunities just seem too inviting in the short run,
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Black markets, shadow economies, and other things you can’t see in the dark.
An old Italian adage goes like this: “money makes war, war makes poverty, poverty makes the black market, the black market makes money, money makes war once again”. The saying has its roots in the aftermath of WWII, when Italy faced the dramatic economic crisis that followed the death and destruction brought by the war.
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The fake news industry and how to fight it
“You won’t believe how this Amazonian tribe cures cancer using only piranha scales and parrot feathers! DOCTORS HATE THEM.” “Discover 10 natural (and gluten-free) ways to resurrect the dead: number 6 will surprise you!” “The government lets refugees stay in five-star hotels while poor citizens are homeless. SHARE IF YOU ARE OUTRAGED.” “Were the Rothschilds
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Change is in the air.
One thing about mankind that has always surprised me with is its ability to create complex social structures, capable of equally distributing duties and responsibilities for the sake of efficiency. This is something we observe in other animal species, such as ants and bees, whose colonies are so efficient and enduring exactly because each member
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Rome's failed candidacy to host the 2024 Olympics and the lesson we can all learn from it.
Life in the Classical Era was tough: high child mortality, low life expectancy, early-stage medicine. Not to mention the chances of dying in battle in one of the many petty wars between city-states that plagued the Hellenic Peninsula way before the rise of Rome. However, even back in the day, there was an occasion even
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A Colombian history of violence
Colombia is a country in which truth and legend intertwine on a daily basis, where everything is possible and impossible at the same time, and there is sometimes more truth in the old folk’s tales than in official news reports, just like one of Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez’s novels. Garcìa Màrquez also used to say that
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Or Vehicles for Piracy Nationwide? The hidden potential of VPNs.
The legend has it, there was a time when, if you wanted to spend and evening with your family, friends or significant other watching a film, you actually had to physically visit a DVD store – like good ol’ Blockbuster, for example – and rent or buy a copy of the product by yourself. The
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What the result of the latest mayoral elections means for the British capital.
The 5th of May has always been a significant date for Britain. Aside from marking the 195th anniversary of the passing of the United Kingdom’s most formidable foe (read: Napoleon), the 5th of May 2016 carried a new historical achievement for the British capital: the election of Sadiq Khan, candidate for the Labour party, as
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Founded in 2005, UvAsociaal is a student party with ramifications in all of the faculties of our university. Its values are based on pillars such as freedom, quality, equality and engagement: student should feel encouraged in the pursuit of their studies by meeting a challenging and pro-active learning environment, regardless of their background and with
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The EU plays it safe with Turkey. Somewhat less so with the refugees.
The fair isle of Lesbos, in the Northern Aegean Sea, used to be the seat of a very peculiar institution of Ancient Greece: the thìasos, some sort of prestigious sorority for wealthy teenage girls who wished to practice the cult of Aphrodite. The island gave birth to the possibly most well-known Greek poetess, Sappho, who
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The European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS) is an agreement between the countries of the European Community that allows students to attend a certain time period of their education (usually a semester) in a foreign university, in a country member of this agreement. It takes its name from the medieval
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Uber, AirBnB and the fourth industrial revolution.
During its history, mankind spent the vast majority of its time more or less in the same way: from the appearance of the first homo sapiens, around 200 000 years ago, to the Middle Ages, you would still see groups of people living in fortified villages, hunting, fishing and farming with their own bare hands,
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Making sense of the Persian Gulf crisis.
Once the cradle of civilization, the Persian Gulf region might today be described as a powder keg ready to deflagrate: with Iraq slowly consumed by its war against the Islamic State, the stage only sees two major contenders, namely Iran and Saudi Arabia. Most Western knowledge about the delicate political balances in the area can
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