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Beauty and Peace, as fragile as glass, shattered. Istanbul and now Brussels: innocent buried, candles lit, praying for Harmony
Resplendently attired cherry juice vendors demonstrate pouring techniques.
Istanbul's Blue Mosque overlook the Sea of Marmara.
Ferries cross the Bosporus, the water body between European and Asian sides of Istanbul.
A police officer secures the area after an explosion near the Ottoman-era Sultanahmet Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque.
People light candles in Brussels on Tuesday.
floral carpet on the Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium
Congress Column at Christmas and Statue Of Leopold
Brussels
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Gallant into grandness: ice climbing, snowboarding. Photos: bravest man, utmost challenge to self, at a stroke of Nature's luck
Snowboarding in the Himalaya, Nepal
Ice Climbing at Dusk in Ouray Ice Park, Colorado
Ice Climbing in Zirknitzgrotte, Austria
Snowboarding the Pemberton Ice Cap, British Columbia
Backcountry Skiing Mount Superior, Wasatch, Utah
Ice Climbing in Kootenay National Park, Canada
Snowboarding Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand
Skiing Under the Northern Lights in Norway
Skiing the Pemberton Ice Cap, British Columbia
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Sea change in Europe: Sweden 'cannot cope', sets up fence with Denmark; "Monstrous" mass attack on women & girls in Germany
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Sweden '[we] cannot cope' - closes borders to those without passports or ID cards: Sweden, with a population of 9.8 million, took 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015, a higher number of refugees per capita than any other country in the European Union. In September, prime minister Stefan Lofven said: 'My Europe takes in people fleeing from war', but by last month he admitted ' [we] cannot cope' - closing the borders to those without passports or ID cards.
Thousands of commuters traveling across the five-mile road and rail bridge and accompanying tunnel between the Danish capital Copenhagen and Malmo in Sweden were yesterday told to expect their journeys to take half an hour longer than the usual 40 minutes.
The decision to close the borders to those without passports or ID cards marks a massive turnaround for the Swedish government, which had been the most welcoming to migrants but changed course after more than 160,000 applied for asylum last year – the highest number per capita in Europe. read more »
Thick air, toxic smog shroud 5 major cities: Delhi, Beijing, Paris, London and LA; Delhi diesel car registration ban until...
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*update* 16Dec2015
BBC - India Supreme Court cracks down on Delhi vehicle pollutionIt has ordered a temporary ban on the sale of large diesel vehicles and stopped trucks more than 10 years old from entering the city. India has 13 of the world's 20 most polluted cities, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported last year.
The Guardian - Delhi is now the world’s dirtiest city, surpassing Beijing for air pollution limits read more »
Nature's Will. 400yo church lost to water(1966) re-emerges now as in 2002; unconquered Mont St-Michel cut off by Tide of Century
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2015 - The watershed of the Grijalva river has been hit by a drought this year, causing the water level in the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir to decrease by 82 feet. The remains of a 400-year-old church have emerged from the receding waters of a river in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas.
Mid-16th century - The church was built by a group of monks led by Friar Bartolome de la Casas, who arrived in the region that was inhabited by the Zoque people in the mid-16th century in the Quechula locality.
1966 - It was originally lost to the waters of the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir in 1966 when it flooded. With the walls rising to about 30 feet, the stunning structure is 183 feet long and 42 feet wide. The bell tower reaches 48 feet above the ground of the church. Architect Carlos Navarete, who worked with Mexican authorities on a report about the structure, said: 'The church was abandoned due to the big plagues of 1773-1776.' read more »
Migrants. German Village of 102 to host 750. Mayor's wife: it's a joke. No? Official language would be (local becomes minority)?
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The German village of Sumte, population 102, to accommodate for an influx of 750 migrants, nearly 10 times as many migrants as it had residents
SUMTE, Germany — This bucolic, one-street settlement of handsome redbrick farmhouses may for the moment have many more cows than people. In early October, the district government informed Sumte’s mayor, Christian Fabel, by email that his village of 102 people just over the border in what was once Communist East Germany would take in 1,000 asylum seekers.
His wife, the mayor said, assured him it must be a hoax. “It certainly can’t be true” that such a small, isolated place would be asked to accommodate nearly 10 times as many migrants as it had residents, she told him. “She thought it was a joke,” he said.
But it was not. Sumte has become a showcase of the extreme pressures bearing down on Germany as it scrambles to find shelter for what, by the end of the year, could be well over a million people seeking refuge from poverty or wars in Africa, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
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Photo courtesy Gordon Welters / NY Times
24 Oct 1945, after World War II: UN established. New Year's Day 1942: US, UK, USSR and China signed United Nations Declaration
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The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation, established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193.
The headquarters of the United Nations is in Manhattan, New York City, and experiences extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna.
- UN Charter signed 26 June 1945
- Charter entered into force 24 October 1945
There are six official languages of the UN.
These are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
1942 "Declaration of United Nations" by the Allies of World War II read more »
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