1 – José Manuel Barroso to forfeit Brussels red-carpet treatment (Arthur Beesley) The commission has previously said Mr Barroso’s appointment as non-executive chairman of Goldman’s international operations cannot be challenged under EU conflict-of-interest rules as 18 months has passed since he left his old position. https://www.ft.com/con…/76a3a722-7839-11e6-97ae-647294649b28 2 – Brexit camp abandons £350m-a-week NHS funding pledge (Toby Helm) The Remain camp argued all along that it was wrong to claim that the UK sent £350m a week to Brussels as this is the gross figure and does not take account of the large sums of money that come back in EU farm and other subsidies, including structural funds and education and research grants. The idea that so much extra money could be guaranteed for the NHS post-Brexit was also challenged as totally unrealistic. http://www.theguardian.com/…/brexit-camp-abandons-350-milli… 3 – We Don’t Know What We Are Talking About When We talk about Religion (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) People rarely mean the same thing when they say “religion”, nor do they realize that they don’t mean the same thing. For early Jews and Muslims, religion was law. Din means law in Hebrew and religion in Arabic. For early Jews, religion was also tribal; for early Muslims, it was universal[i]. For the Romans, religion was social events, rituals, and festivals –the word religio was a counter to superstitio, and while present in the Roman zeitgeist had no equivalent concept in the Greek-Byzantine East[ii]. Law was procedurally and mechanically its own thing, and early Christianity, thanks to Saint Augustine, stayed relatively away from the law, and, later, remembering its foundations, had an uneasy relation with it. https://medium.com/…/we-dont-know-what-we-are-talking-about… (Imagem: autor não encontrado)

A minha crónica de hoje, sobre os quinze anos do 11 de Setembro de 2001, o esquecido arquiteto das Torres Gémeas, e a era que ele não seria capaz de antever. Escrita a partir de Nova Iorque, onde estarei nos próximos meses como “visiting fellow” do Instituto Remarque de Estudos Europeus da New York University. *** “Que diria ele ao saber do que aqui aconteceu há quinze anos? Pergunto-me se o conseguiria conceber sequer: o cenário de apocalipse, as pessoas lançando-se para a sua morte. Pergunto-me o que diria ele dos anos que se seguiram, do “choque de civilizações” e da guerra, da islamofobia e do ricochete contra a globalização de que o seu prédio era um emblema tão arrojado quanto ingénuo: o restaurante do 106º andar chamava-se “Janelas para o Mundo” e os dias nacionais eram comemorados na praça como numa ONU do comércio. São dez e meia da manhã no Memorial do 11 de Setembro. Lá dentro, as famílias das vítimas, Obama e outros dignitários tentam dizer algo de adequado perante a tragédia. Cá fora, teóricos da conspiração distribuem folhetos e conversam com testemunhas de Jeová, turistas tiram fotografias, paroquianos penduram fitas brancas junto à Igreja de São Paulo, o edifício mais antigo de Manhattan. Todos tentamos fazer justiça às vítimas deste dia e dos seguintes, aqui e no resto do mundo. Ninguém consegue.” Leia mais aqui: Praças para o mundo