The reality of a world after rupture













© Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
Unable to get near Ukraine’s main port, Moscow is pounding the city from afar with missiles and drones
Outside the Kadorr apartment complex in Ukraine’s Black Sea city of Odesa, about 500 metres from the seafront, residents and rescue workers mill around in freezing temperatures.
Above an office on the 25th floor, a block of wall has been blown out by a Russian drone. Below, rubble and glass have been moved quickly into piles as owners survey cars crushed by the falling masonry.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Nina Liashonok/Reuters

© Photograph: Nina Liashonok/Reuters

© Photograph: Nina Liashonok/Reuters


















Toy becomes a popular symbol of workplace fatigue after manufacturing error gave it a frown instead of a smile
On 17 February China will celebrate the start of the year of the horse, the zodiac sign symbolising high energy and hard work. But the runaway success of a defective stuffed toy suggests that many Chinese are not feeling the vibe.
A red horse toy produced by Happy Sister in the city of Yiwu in the west of China was meant to wear a broad grin, but a factory error meant it hit the shops sporting a despairing grimace. Because the smile was placed upside down, the horse’s nostrils could be interpreted as tears.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Nicoco Chan/Reuters

© Photograph: Nicoco Chan/Reuters

© Photograph: Nicoco Chan/Reuters






Maduro’s Sorbonne-educated successor is talking up an era of ‘reform and opening up’ modelled on China’s post-Mao boom
After years of political and social upheaval, hunger and despair, the Great Helmsman departs and is replaced by a francophile economic reformer who catapults a traumatised country into a new era of prosperity and growth.
That is what happened in China half a century ago when the croissant-loving communist Deng Xiaoping became paramount leader after Chairman Mao Zedong’s 1976 death and set in motion one of history’s biggest economic booms.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Jorge Silva/Reuters

© Photograph: Jorge Silva/Reuters

© Photograph: Jorge Silva/Reuters







