Sensorium Galaxy: Metaverse

The EDM music pioneer will transcend the confines of reality to deliver a ground-breaking virtual performance in the Sensorium Galaxy.

The legendary British electronic music icon, Carl Cox, will treat fans worldwide on Friday to a mesmerising 30-minute DJ set as part of a free show called "Intermundium."

But here's the twist – he won't actually physically be there.  READ MORE...

Instead, an astonishingly lifelike digital avatar of Cox, crafted by Sensorium Galaxy, will take centre stage for a pioneering metaverse experience.

Iceland's Wild Horses

Last year, Irish photographer Gareth McConnell was tasked with capturing the wild horses of Iceland. His results are truly spellbinding.

If you were asked to conjure up a picture of wild horses in the barren Icelandic landscape, it's unlikely that your mind would jump naturally to wild psychedelic imagery, bathed in the surreal glow of neon pink, yellow and blue hues.

But for Gareth McConnell, a London-based Irish photographer and publisher, this was precisely the vision he pursued when the New York Times commissioned him to photograph the horses of I
celand.

From the outset his goal was to create something as "non-National Geographic as possible" - and it's fair to say he achieved this with flying colours.  READ MORE...

Trans Rights in Europe

While a number of European nations have been praised by leading trans organisations for their commitment to improving rights for the marginalised group, others - including Slovakia and the UK - have been told they still have a long way to go.

Rights for transgender people are always a hot topic of discussion - dividing friends, colleagues and ruining the legacies of the rich and famous.

This week in Japan, the Asian nation’s Supreme Court ruled that a law requiring transgender people to have their reproductive organs removed in order to officially change their gender was unconstitutional.  READ MORE...

Russia Recruits Women for Mercenary Group in Ukraine

Women have rarely taken frontline fighting roles within the Ukraine war until now.

A Russian mercenary group is attempting to recruit women for combat roles in Ukraine, according to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD).

In its daily intelligence briefing for Monday, the MoD said that Redut - a state-backed private military company - is appealing for women to work as snipers and drone operators in its Borz Battalion.

Redut - formerly known as Shield - has links to the GRU, Russia's foreign intelligence agency.  READ MORE...

EU Power in the Middle East

Considering the increasing tensions and international competition in a very volatile region, if the EU seeks to become a strong actor in the MENA, it must uphold its values with tangible actions and not with contradictory statements, Assem Dandashly and Christos Kourtelis write.

In the last three decades, there has been a steady increase in the European Union’s efforts to shape the setting of its southern neighbourhood.

From the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in 1995, and the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2004, to the 2008 Union for the Mediterranean, the dominant belief among policymakers in Brussels was that providing both financial and technical support would enable the EU to use its normative power to persuade its neighbours to accept its values.     READ MORE...

97% ARE STRAIGHT

LONDON – Around 3% of people in England and Wales aged 16 or over identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, according to 2021 census data released on Friday.

The census in 2021 was the first in Britain to ask about people’s sexual orientation, and the results are broadly in line with previous, smaller-scale surveys.

The census, conducted by Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), also asked about people’s gender identity for the first time. About 262,000 people – 0.5% of those aged 16 or over – replied that the gender they identified with was different from their sex registered at birth, the ONS said.

The questions about sexual orientation and gender identity were voluntary, and 7.5% of people declined to answer about their sexual orientation, while 6.0% did not answer the question on gender identity.

Overall, 43.4 million people in England and Wales said they were “straight or heterosexual”, while 1.5 million – 3.2% of the population aged 16 or over – identified as gay or lesbian, bisexual, or other.

Some 1.5% of people said they were gay or lesbian and 1.3% were bisexual. Another 0.3% ticked a box for “other sexual orientation”, two thirds of whom called themselves pansexual.

On gender identity, 262,000 people aged 16 or over answered that they were a different gender to the sex they were registered as at birth, the ONS said.

Of those, 48,000 said they now identified as a trans man, 48,000 identified as a trans woman, 30,000 said they were non-binary and 18,000 said they had another gender identity, the ONS added.

The ONS defines a trans man as someone who identifies as a man but was registered female at birth, while trans women were registered as male at birth, but now identify as women.

Census figures for Britain as a whole are not yet available, as Scotland delayed carrying out its census for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A previous, annual UK-wide survey conducted by the ONS showed that in 2020 3.8% of people identified as gay or lesbian, bisexual or other, up from 1.9% in 2014 when same-sex marriage was first allowed in England and Wales.

That survey also gave breakdowns of sexual orientation by age, gender and ethnicity – showing, among other things, that younger people are much more likely to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

Sex between men aged 21 or over was legalised in England and Wales in 1967. The age of consent was lowered to 18 in 1994 and reduced to 16 – the same as for heterosexual relationships – in 2000.

Census data on sexual orientation by age will be published on Jan. 25, and further details will come later in the year.