By Baher Kamal & The Like
**Photo: Largest flawless quartz sphere. Displayed at National Museum of Natural History, DC, USA. | Author: Sanjay Acharya | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Charito Elcano turned 60 this year, a milestone in a life fraught with ups and downs, challenges and opportunities and – in her case – tragedy. A tragedy that took the life of her brother and son and made her a fierce advocate for non-mercury small-scale gold mining.
Photo: UN Environment (UNEP).
Charito yearns for the old days when they used a traditional method using local grass to extract gold and is keen to have a mercury-free gold processing facility in or near her community of Luklukan Sur, in the lush seaside province of Camarines Norte in the Philippines. While some miners remain sceptical of the dangers of mercury use, Charito says awareness is building.
The city of Sa’ada in Yemen has been heavily hit by airstrikes. Photo: OCHA/Philippe Kropf
On 26 December, a crowded market in the Al Hayma district in Yemen was hit by airstrikes from a Saudi-led coalition that left 54 civilians dead, including eight children with 32 others injured.
