ROME, Jan 8 2018 – This year, we will have 3 million tourists each day wandering the world. This massive phenomenon is without precedent in human history and is happening (as usual), with only one consideration in mind: money.
Roberto Savio
We should pause and take a look at its social, cultural and environmental impact and take remedial measures, because they are becoming seriously negative if things are left as they are.
Sameer Kapoor listed for Triphobo Trip Planner a list of 20 places that have been ruined, due to excess of tourism. Antarctica is getting an alarming level of pollution.
The famous Taj Mahal, a monument of love from the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to the memory of his wife, Mumtaz, has changed its shining milky white marble into a yellow shade.
Oxfam* — Did you know that at least one in three women (35 per cent) will experience some form of violence during their lifetime – more than one billion women worldwide?
Despite her young age, Komal from India, has already faced a lifetime of discrimination. But she’s determined to use sport to show her strength, and is literally fighting for gender equality. | Photo from Oxfam.
Violence against women and girls is a hidden global crisis which knows no boundaries of geography or culture. But, marginalized women, such as poor women and girls, are most likely to experience it, most often at the hands of their husbands or partners.
7 January 2018(Wall Street International)— It was the third time in a year that Detective Robin had been summoned by Mr Hughes, head of the G-CIA. In view of the fact that people in the department rarely saw him, Mr. Hughes was considered by many to be a mythical figure, Detective Robin should have been proud.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a UN agency serving Palestinian refugees to “disappear” because he believes their descendants are a threat to Israel’s existence.
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**Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is left-handed,[38] inspects an M16 rifle at IDF Training Base 1. | Government Press Office (Israel) | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
GENEVA (ILO)*– Despite significant progress in the extension of social protection in many parts of the world, the human right to social security is not yet a reality for a majority of the world’s population, says a new flagship report from the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Investors should get ready for potential risks this year, warns Deutsche Bank. They include stock market corrections, the collapse of cryptocurrencies and housing bubbles.
**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.
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.
5 January 2018 (openDemocracy)* — A besieged and starved population has been pushed to the brink of famine. The UK, US and France need to re-evaluate their relationship with Saudi Arabia.
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.
5 January, 2018 (Greenpeace)* — “The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.” – Zeno ~ 450 BC (from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers).
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Jasper National Park in Canada, 2017
Awareness of our delicate relationship with our habitat likely arose among early hunter-gatherers when they saw how fire and hunting tools impacted their environment.
06/01/2018 – I AM angry with the Mizrahi elite. Very angry indeed.
Uri Avnery
Mizrah is the Hebrew word for East. Eastern Jews are those who lived for many centuries in the Islamic world. Western Jews are those who lived in Christian Europe.
The words are, of course, misnomers. Russian Jews are “Westerners”, Moroccan Jews are “Easterners”.
A look at the map shows that Russia is far to the East of Morocco. It would be more accurate to call them “Northerners” and “Southerners”. Too late, now.
Westerners are generally called “Ashkenazim”, from the old Hebrew term for Germany.
Easterners were usually called “Sephardim”, from the old Hebrew term for Spain. But only a small part of the Easterners are actually descended from the flourishing Jewish community in medieval Spain.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 