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In the rapidly evolving landscape of the digital economy, businesses find themselves traversing uncharted waters, encountering new challenges in the realm of cross-border taxation. This blog sets sail to explore the complexities of cross-border tax challenges in the digital age and how the expertise of an international law firm and international lawyers becomes instrumental in…
Greece’s move against mass tourism and the increasing flow of cruise ships that dock at its shores will be finalized with the imposition of a €20 tax, which will initially apply only to the two islands, Mykonos and Santorini. The plan to impose the tax […]
TikTok made a last-ditch effort in the Supreme Court aimed at stopping the app’s ban that was set to take effect in a few days – but the platform’s arguments may have ‘failed’. Most justices appeared inclined to uphold a federal law that would ban […]
Greece’s move against mass tourism and the increasing flow of cruise ships that dock at its shores will be finalized with the imposition of a €20 tax, which will initially apply only to the two islands, Mykonos and Santorini. The plan to impose the tax […]
Culture Travel Greece’s move against mass tourism and the increasing flow of cruise ships that dock at its shores will be finalized with the imposition of a €20 tax, which will initially apply only to the two islands, Mykonos and Santorini. The plan to impose the tax […]
Culture Travel
TikTok, Reddit and Imgur are to be investigated by the UK’s data protection watchdog over how they use the personal information of teenage users. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it wants to look into how video-sharing app TikTok uses information from users aged 13 […]
Technology
Skype – once the dominant video calling service – has announced that it will shut down for good. The service boasted more than 300 million users at its peak, but the most recent figures Microsoft shared were in 2023, when it said it had more […]
Technology
The UK competition watchdog has launched an investigation into tech giant Google. The company is being investigated for whether it has too much power in online search. Google accounts for 90% of online searches in the UK, and the Competition and Markets Authority is looking […]
Technology
TikTok made a last-ditch effort in the Supreme Court aimed at stopping the app’s ban that was set to take effect in a few days – but the platform’s arguments may have ‘failed’. Most justices appeared inclined to uphold a federal law that would ban […]
Technology USA
Humour makes a welcome return to the fantasy genre in the new Dungeons & Dragons film, which stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez and Regé-Jean Page. It’s sure to be a hit, writes Nicholas Barber. Role-playing gamers have been addicted to Dungeons & Dragons for almost […]
EntertainmentHumour makes a welcome return to the fantasy genre in the new Dungeons & Dragons film, which stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez and Regé-Jean Page. It’s sure to be a hit, writes Nicholas Barber.
Role-playing gamers have been addicted to Dungeons & Dragons for almost 50 years, but, up until now, it has only been made into one proper film, a turkey from 2000 that most people have sensibly forgotten. There are probably lots of complicated legal reasons why it’s taken 23 years for another Dungeons & Dungeons film to come along, but one issue could be that the game borrows a huge amount from JRR Tolkien’s novels, ie, it usually involves bands of elves, dwarves and humans going on quests and getting into fights. What that means is that any attempt to put Dungeons & Dragons on screen risks looking like a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. What can the producers do that Peter Jackson hasn’t done already?
The answer turns out to be a simple one: they can be funny. Fantasy adventures might be getting ever more gloomy and portentous on television, but the producers of Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves have followed the Marvel Studios tactic of hiring comedy directors to make a blockbuster – in this case, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the directors of Game Night (2018). The film they’ve made is a feelgood, family-friendly caper, which is not a description you can apply to HBO’s House of the Dragon or Amazon’s The Rings of Power.
Chris Pine stars as Edgin, a Han Solo / Rick Blaine type who used to be a doughty soldier, but became a cynical rogue after his beloved wife was killed. His sidekick is Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), a scowling barbarian who has fallen out with her tribe and separated from her husband (an amusing surprise cameo): this is one of the few Hollywood films in which the male and female leads come across as genuine, loyal, platonic friends.
In an opening scene that establishes the light-hearted mood, Edgin and Holga are in prison for “grand larceny and skulduggery”, but they hope to talk their way into a pardon from “The Council of Absolution” – or, failing that, they hope to jump out of a window. Once free, they travel to a city ruled by their old crony, Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), only to find that he has teamed up with a wicked witch (Daisy Head), and turned Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) against him. Determined to win back Kira, and to rob all the treasure that various visiting noblemen have stored in Forge’s magical vault, Edgin and Holga assemble a team of burglars who are almost as sweetly hapless as they are. There is Simon (Justice Smith), a sorcerer with self-esteem issues whose most impressive trick is to make himself “slightly blurry”. And there is Doric (Sophia Lillis), a woodland woman who can change into various animals, including an “owlbear”.
Rather than aiming for an epic odyssey, then, Goldstein and Daley opt for a bright, snappy heist movie modelled in part on Ocean’s Eleven, with a tongue-in-cheek approach to the supernatural that’s reminiscent of The Princess Bride and Ghostbusters. And the look of the film? Rather than labouring to make the clothing and architecture correspond to one particular historical period, the designers simply stick in whichever castles and costumes seem cool.
What’s welcome about the humour is that the directors, who also co-wrote the screenplay, haven’t been smug or snarky. It would have been easy for them to pepper their script with inside jokes about 12-sided dice and weighty rule books, or else to put in lots of winking references to present-day pop culture. Instead, the humour is silly and irreverent while being more-or-less sincere, and more-or-less invested in the reality of the world they’ve created.
It’s an attitude that’s embodied by Pine. It’s probably no coincidence that Goldstein and Daley’s previous film, the aforementioned Game Night, starred Jason Bateman, because Pine seems to have studied Bateman’s way of being unflappable, ironic, and just on the right side of smarmy, but still vulnerable enough for us to care about. But even if Edgin’s persona was pinched from Bateman, it fits Pine as snugly as his leather jacket: this, rather than Captain Kirk in Star Trek (2009) or Steve in Wonder Woman (2017), is the role that suits him best. Grant is even better as the slimy villain, a puffed-up clown who seems to have been inspired by certain senior British politicians.
Directors: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley
Cast: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Regé-Jean Page
Run-time: 2hr 14m
Release date: 31 March in the US and UK
If the comic tone is skilfully judged, it’s clear that Goldstein and Daley didn’t concentrate quite so hard on other aspects of their film. The plot is so haphazard that viewers might struggle to say what the villains are hoping to achieve. They might also lose interest when the heroes go off on a wild goose chase in the middle, at which point Grant’s character is all but forgotten, and Regé-Jean Page pops in as a noble warrior, for no obvious reason except to get Bridgerton fans into the cinema. The cartoonish visual effects aren’t first-rate, either. In most contemporary fantasy, the CGI is so advanced that every last bristle on a monster’s hide looks tangibly real, whereas this film doesn’t convince you for a second that the characters are in an actual dungeon or facing an actual dragon. Presumably, the theory was that if viewers were smiling, they wouldn’t mind that they weren’t gasping or screaming.
It’s a theory that is just about vindicated. Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is no masterpiece, but it’s warm, upbeat, unpretentious entertainment, and it’s bound to be popular. We certainly won’t have to wait another 23 years before the next Dungeons & Dragons film comes out.
Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson became the first coaches in history to be inducted into the “Hall of Fame” in the Premier League. Wenger sat on the Arsenal bench 828 times, tallying 476 victories and winning the Premier League title 3 times. He is […]
SportsArsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson became the first coaches in history to be inducted into the “Hall of Fame” in the Premier League.
Wenger sat on the Arsenal bench 828 times, tallying 476 victories and winning the Premier League title 3 times. He is the only one who led his team to an extraordinary title, hence the name “invicibles” for the team of the 2003-2004 season.
Ferguson took over a United that was great in name only and despite a rocky start, he steered them to 13 English league titles. The two combined for 16 league titles and formed one of the most popular and longest-running rivalries in league history. It is the highest honor that can be given to them by the Premier League.
The gala evening of CONMEBOL in honor of the Argentine representative who won the World Cup, surprised everyone when, thanks to technology, two legends who have passed away were shown to the public: Pele and Maradona. Moving and with their real voices, they had a […]
Sports TechnologyThe gala evening of CONMEBOL in honor of the Argentine representative who won the World Cup, surprised everyone when, thanks to technology, two legends who have passed away were shown to the public: Pele and Maradona.
Moving and with their real voices, they had a message for Leo Messi.
“It’s a pleasure to watch him play,” said Pele.
“He is a great player. Let others talk, think about enjoying football”, said Maradona.
Governments and institutions around the world have been banning TikTok from officials’ phones and devices, over the past few months. The Netherlands and Norway have joined the list of countries banning the video-sharing app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, from government-issued devices. And despite TikTok’s […]
TechnologyGovernments and institutions around the world have been banning TikTok from officials’ phones and devices, over the past few months.
The Netherlands and Norway have joined the list of countries banning the video-sharing app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, from government-issued devices.
And despite TikTok’s insistence it is independently run and shares no users’ data with the Chinese government, France has become the latest country to restrict officials’ access to it.
But at the same time, it has also become the first country to do the same for all “recreational” apps – including:
The ban, monitored by France’s cyber-security agency, will affect about 2.5 million civil servants.
“Recreational applications do not deliver sufficient levels of cyber-security and data protection to be deployed on administration’s digital tools,” Civil Service Minister Stanislas Guerini said.
“These applications may therefore constitute a risk to the data protection of these administrations and their public officials.” Although, exceptions could be granted for “institutional communications” purposes.
So it looks like France, unlike the rest of the West, is viewing Chinese and American technology companies in a similar way. Although, it is not the first instance of technology tension between the US and France.
In 2019, France approved a digital-services tax despite threats of retaliation by the US, who argued it unfairly targeted American technology giants such as Google and Facebook.
And since 2018, France has been vocally opposed to the US Cloud Act, which gives American law-enforcement authorities the power to request data stored by most major cloud providers, even if it is outside the US.
Day after day, governments and public bodies are banning TikTok from staff devices – but France’s decision to clamp down on all “recreational apps” stands out and is being praised by privacy campaigners.
Fears about TikTok have reached fever pitch – but alongside the furore, people are beginning to question the privacy practices of other apps too – regardless of where the companies are based. And this feels like a moment privacy campaigners have been waiting for.
Questions are being asked about how data is collected and used by the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and even Candy Crush.
The political focus is currently on TikTok because its parent company is in China – but the French government is clearly saying all these social-media companies have questions to answer.
Poland comes as the strongest opponent in the group, coming from the first pot. The Poles are a rival that the Reds and Blacks also faced in the last qualifiers for the World Cup. History is not in favor of Albania, which has not won […]
SportsPoland comes as the strongest opponent in the group, coming from the first pot.
The Poles are a rival that the Reds and Blacks also faced in the last qualifiers for the World Cup. History is not in favor of Albania, which has not won any of the last 7 matches against Poland.
To add to these numbers the defeat of Poland in the adventure with the Czech Republic, the Poles seem to have no plans to hold back against the Reds and Blacks during Monday’s match for the European qualifiers. For the media, technician Fernando Santos has emphasized that their goal in Warsaw is to recover.
“Many Albanian players play for big clubs, but our players also play for big teams. If we stay focused, then we will have the quality to avoid problems.
We want to show the character and what characterizes Poland. The ability to sacrifice and the ability to do great things. We can say that we respect the Albanian team, but we are the ones who decide here,” said Santos.
It is worth noting that Albania has met the Poles on 13 occasions, suffering 9 losses and getting only 1 victory, in the distant year 1953 in “Qemal Stafa” with the goals of Loro Boriçi and Refik Resmja. The last positive result against Poland was recorded on October 31, 1984 in a 2-2 away draw thanks to goals from Minga and Kola.
Negotiations continue to ban diesel cars from 2035. The Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, announced that Germany and the EU have reached an agreement on the future use of synthetic fuels. “We will now work to get the CO2 rules adopted to […]
BusinessNegotiations continue to ban diesel cars from 2035.
The Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, announced that Germany and the EU have reached an agreement on the future use of synthetic fuels.
“We will now work to get the CO2 rules adopted to regulate passenger cars as soon as possible,” he explained, adding that “the Commission will pursue the necessary legal measures to implement Recital 11.”
German Transport Minister Volker Wissing tweeted that the way has been opened for the registration of vehicles with internal combustion engines that use only climate-neutral fuels even after 2035.
“We provide opportunities for Europe by preserving important options for climate-neutral and affordable mobility,” said Wissing.
An initial proposal by European Union member states for new carbon dioxide emission standards for cars was shelved precisely because of Germany’s opposition.
The EU wanted to ban the sale of all new cars with combustion engines from 2035.
Germany had instead sought an exemption for cars that burn e-fuels, arguing that such fuels can be produced using renewable energy and carbon captured from the air so they don’t release further emissions into the atmosphere.
Wissing said concrete procedural steps had been agreed and a specific deadline had become binding.
“We want the process to be completed by the fall of 2024,” he added.
The agreement was partially broadcast the day before by Olaf Scholz.
“I know that journalism is also part of the fun and that you don’t like to see us reach a deal, but we will find a deal” with the EU on e-fuels, the German chancellor said at the end of the Eurosummit, answered a question on talks with Brussels to include e-fuels in the text on banning internal combustion engines in 2035.
England has completed its “revenge” against Italy, as in the “Diego Armando Maradona” stadium, it has managed to triumph in the first match of group C, with a narrow score of 2 to 1. Two goals in the first half, first by Declan Rice in […]
SportsEngland has completed its “revenge” against Italy, as in the “Diego Armando Maradona” stadium, it has managed to triumph in the first match of group C, with a narrow score of 2 to 1.
Two goals in the first half, first by Declan Rice in the 13th minute, and then an 11-meter executed miraculously in the goal by captain Harry Kane made the “debut” goal of Italian-Argentinian Mateo Retegui totally invalid.
The victory was somewhat endangered in the 80th minute, where Luke Shaë was punished by the referee Jovanovic, with the red card, but the “3 lions” were able to keep the result against the “blues” of Roberto Mancini.
However, the victory was not the only joy for the “bomber” Harry Kane, who with the goal scored this evening managed to be “crowned” as the best scorer in the history of the “islanders” national team, thus passing the legend Wayne Rooney reaching the quota of 54 goals with the shirt of “3 lions”.
An asteroid three times the size of the one that shattered windows in Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 will fly very close to Earth this Saturday. Fortunately, the space rock named 2023 DZ2 will pass by our planet without causing any damage at a speed of […]
Breaking News LifeStyleAn asteroid three times the size of the one that shattered windows in Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 will fly very close to Earth this Saturday.
Fortunately, the space rock named 2023 DZ2 will pass by our planet without causing any damage at a speed of 28,044 km/h.
According to experts, those with 15cm or larger telescopes can see the asteroid pass by on Friday night from the Northern Hemisphere. You can also watch the passage of the spacecraft on the Virtual Telescope Project broadcast, starting at 12:30 p.m.
Viewed through a telescope from the Northern Hemisphere, the asteroid will appear as a slow-moving star above the southeastern horizon, east of the constellations Orion, Canis Major and Canis Minor, according to EarthSky.Asteroid 2023 DZ2 was discovered in February by astronomers at the La Palma Observatory in Spain’s Canary Islands.
Ferrari has suffered an attack from hackers who have targeted its customer data and are demanding a ransom in exchange for its return. Sky Sports Italia revealed details of the incident, which has led to Ferrari informing its customers of the security breach and contacting the authorities […]
TechnologyFerrari has suffered an attack from hackers who have targeted its customer data and are demanding a ransom in exchange for its return.
Sky Sports Italia revealed details of the incident, which has led to Ferrari informing its customers of the security breach and contacting the authorities in order to investigate its origin.
In a statement, the Maranello-based brand affirmed that it was refusing to pay the ransom demanded by hackers, and insisted that the company’s day-to-day operations had not been impacted by the breach.
“In line with its corporate policy, Ferrari will not accept any ransom requests as agreeing to such requests would finance criminal activities and allow hackers to perpetuate their attacks,” the statement reads.
Ferrari added that it had “immediately launched an investigation in collaboration with a world-leading cybersecurity company. Furthermore, we have informed the competent authorities and we are sure that they will do everything in their power in carrying out the investigations.”
The Fiat-owned marque also announced that it is working with unspecified “experts” in order to strengthen its security systems and avoid similar attacks in future.
“We have notified our customers of the potential exposure of their data and the nature of the event, the statement continues. “Ferrari treats the issue of confidentiality of its customers very seriously, and understands the importance of what happened.
“We have worked with experts to further strengthen our systems, the robustness of which we are confident of. We can also confirm that the breach had no impact on our company’s operations.”
Ferrari is enduring a tough start to the 2023 Formula 1 season, and sits fourth in the constructors’ standings after the opening two rounds.
In the Rift Valley and at the foot of the Gelai volcano in Africa, there is a large basin whose high salinity allows only a few species to survive. The idea of a lake that instantly turns animals to stone sounds like something out of […]
LifeStyle What's HotIn the Rift Valley and at the foot of the Gelai volcano in Africa, there is a large basin whose high salinity allows only a few species to survive.
The idea of a lake that instantly turns animals to stone sounds like something out of Greek mythology, but in fact this very special phenomenon occurs in Lake Natron in Tanzania, which is one of the deadliest lakes in the world.It is a very important space for the mating of flamingos, which are less endangered.
During the rainy season, the pond fills with water, but later high temperatures cause intense evaporation. Only a few bacteria live there, rich in red pigment, which intensely colors the water, giving a fantastic appearance.
Lake Natron is very shallow, the depth varies from 1.5 to 3 meters. The water temperature reaches up to 50 and even 60 ° C.
The content of sodium salts in the lake waters is very high. In the hottest months (February and March) the water also becomes thick because of this.
These conditions favor the activity of halophilic cyanobacteria living in Lake Natron, due to whose pigment the water has a blood-red color.
However, the shade of the water changes depending on the season and depth – the lake can be orange or red, and sometimes it looks like an ordinary pond.
Soda waters in Tanzania are a real danger. Due to the high level of alkali water, frozen salt leads to severe burns if a person, an animal or a bird is immersed in the lake.
This is exactly how many birds have died. Their bodies are then hardened and mummified, being covered with mineral substances.These peculiarities of this lake are also related to Ol Doinyo Lengai, known as the “Mountain of God”, which is the only active volcano that emits sodium carbonate.
