Ordinarily, advertisements are designed to capture the attention of as many people as humanly possible. In a particularly Yakov Smirnov-ian turn, however, one high-tech Russian billboard is bucking convention by actively removing itself from sight in the presence of anyone from that country’s police or military.
Earlier this month, Maltese boats approaching rickety rafts of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Europe started reporting a strange phenomenon: the distressed migrants were waving them away, refusing assistance. Given the publicity of recent tragedies befalling migrants in the region, like the death of 800 in the capsizing of an oversized smugglers’ craft, this resistance to aid seems perplexing from the outside. As human traffickers cram more and more migrants onto their boats, migrants themselves report that they’re aware of how dangerous the trip to Europe has become—at 1,710 have died en route to date this year—and are trying to dissuade others from following in their footsteps. The migrants refusing Malta’s assistance in this climate just reflect the desperation of the quest and the shortcomings of Europe’s efforts to address the crisis, which focus upon rescue, but also on policing maritime borders and disabling smuggler networks to cut off transit routes and prevent migration.
Sometimes a trip to the museum can be a wonderful experience, full of great art or fascinating science. Other times, though, it can be pretty shitty.
The federal government of our favorite country-sized pasta factory, Italy, is trying to block a set of regulations dubbed by the media as “anti-mosque” laws, which would make it extremely difficult to construct any new mosques in the region of Lombardy. Although the laws do not explicitly reference mosques, the measure limits the construction of insitutions of worship for religions that are not recognized by the state. Although the government has signed agreements recognizing 11 different religious groups, Islam is not one of them—which is shocking, considering how popular Muslims in Europe are right now.
