As the countdown to war with Iraq in the US is ticking to its end, people in the southern states of Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia depend on TV news and the print media to make up their own mind about those things happen far away from home.
Emotion and business play a big part in this process.
Nicaragua, once treated with patronizing affection by the political left from east and west (as a model for developing socialist nations), is a forgotten country today. Financing a third of the national budget through donations from developing aide. However, since 4th November 2001 the liberal party under the presidency of Enrique Bolanos has ruled the country and socialism has given way to a free market economy.
With the new free market economy everyone is promised an opportunity to make it with a little hard work. About 5.3 million people are living in the country, half of them under 15 years. The unemployment is currently at 70%. Even the neoliberal government (with their slogan during the election campaign: \"Mas empleo con Bolanos\" (more employment through Bolanos), admits that 48% of the population live in poverty and 18% live in extreme poverty.
This story is about the people who live on the dump site of Managua which is called Acahualinca.
The circumstances under which the people are living are appalling. The water seeping through the ground of the dump goes through the settlement, which is surrounded by a lagoon of sewage. Malaria, Dengue Fever, and infections of the skin and the eyes are bothering the people.
A lack of education, no health care (providing family planning), in combination with the blessings of the catholic church and her disapproval of birth control are producing a huge number of kids who are both children and parents.
Many of the teenagers inhale \"Pega\" (glue), which makes them apathetic and hopeless.
In recent days US officials have blasted the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, branding Syrian a \"rogue\" and \"terrorist\" state.
On April 23, 2003 Charles V. Peña, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C. has published an article about „The Real Axis of Evil“ on the Institutes website. An excerpt:
„Some of the accusations by the Bush administration include the following: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said that Syria is \"behaving badly\" and that \"there's got to be change in Syria.\" Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, \"the Syrians need to know ... they'll be held accountable.\" Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Syria \"should review their actions and their behavior\" and that the administration will \"examine possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature.\" .... President Bush said he believes that \"there are chemical weapons in Syria\" and that he is \"serious about stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction.\" It's clear where all this is leading. It seems that the drums of war are beating, again. Maybe not for an immediate invasion of Syria. But it lays the groundwork for a future invasion. ..... So it should come as no surprise that the task at hand is still incomplete and that Syria is a likely next target. The reasoning follows a parallel path to Iraq. .... If Syria is harboring Iraqi leaders, building weapons of mass destruction (the Israelis have accused Iraq of transferring missiles and weapons of mass destruction into Syria), and supporting and harboring terrorists (even if those terrorist groups -- Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad -- do not currently attack the United States), then U.S. national security would demand that the U.S. military continue down the road to Damascus.
Architect Daniel Libeskind, based in Berlin, has won the reconstruction project of the Worl Trade Center site.
The Jewish Museum in Berlin is the master work of the Polish-born musician-turned-architect Daniel Libeskind. It is one of several buildings and sites dedicated to the city\'s Jewish past being created in the new German capital in an attempt to atone for its central role in the Holocaust.
The last of the museum\'s 13 sections celebrates the rebirth of the Jewish community in Germany. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, it has expanded rapidly due to the arrival of tens of thousands of immigrants fleeing discrimination in the former Soviet Union. Indeed, Germany today has the world\'s fastest-growing Jewish population.
"; texts[4]="The CIA says Kashmir is the scene of the world\'s most dangerous \'low-intensity\' conflict. India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, have fought two wars over the state and, twice in the past four years, have come close to a third. Fifty-six years ago, when the British left the subcontinent, the newly independent nations of Pakistan and India fought for Kashmir - Pakistanis felt Kashmir\'s Muslim majority meant it should be part of their Islamic state. But the war left two-thirds of Kashmir, including the heartland known as \'the Valley\', ruled by India which maintains Kashmir is an integral part of its secular country. The result was a tug-of-war that has lasted five decades. In the late 1980s, following an election rigged by India, the Kashmiris revolted. Their demands were disparate, with factions battling for independence, for Islamicisation, for union with Pakistan. Indian repression and covert aid from Islamabad led to violence. Official figures say that since 1989 an estimated 45,000 people have died, unofficial figures put it at around 90,000. This year around 700 civilians, 500 Indian security men and at least 1,000 militants have died and thousands more have been wounded and maimed.
"; texts[5]="Most of the inpatients suffer from schizophrenia. About 18% of the cases are confirmed cases that result direct from witnessing horrifying and conflict related events. For ex. the execution of a relative at close range. For most of the other cases it is not confirmed what the trigger for the development of the disease exactly was.
"; texts[6]="On Dec 26th 2004 an 9.3 earthquake that caused the tsunami occurred off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
More than 300.000 people died in the region after the giant waves crashed onto the shores of south east Asian and east African countrys.
Thailand and its tourist resorts in Kao Lak lost more than 6500 lives, thousands are still missing. Many more lost everything and live as refugees in set up camps along the coast line. Residents of the destroyed areas continue to return to the sites of their former homes to view the damage and to reclaim personal property.
The Holocaust Memorial, designed by architect Peter Eisenman commemorates the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis. The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe is located in the heart of Berlin, near the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. The final design, approved on 25 June 1999 (ğEisenman IIĞ), envisages around 2,700 concrete slabs (stelae), arranged in a grid pattern. They are approx. 0.95 cm deep and 2.38 m wide and vary only in height. The stelae stand on gently and unevenly sloping ground covering 19,000 square metres. The public is able to enter and walk through the field from all four sides. They will experience the wave-like form differently from each different position. To complement the Memorial, the architect has designed an underground Information Centre in the southeastern corner of the field of stelae. The centre consists of several rooms, some lit by natural light, and has a total exhibition area of around 800 square metres. It will provide the necessary background material on the victims commemorated here and on historic memorial sites. The memorial has been a controversial project in the city for 17 years.
"; texts[8]="Thanks to a Government campaign and positive articles in Newspapers and Magazines tourism in Kashmir is getting back and Srinagar has not seen such a mass of tourists since the start of the militancy 16 years ago. 200.000 came to the valley in the last two month and 400.000 more are expected till the end of the season. About 95 per cent are inner Indian tourists, foreign tourists are still a rare specie. The media campaign on the \"peace process\" between Pakistan and India has not yet reached the western tourists, but western tourist managers and agents already touring the valley, exploring business opportunities. Saleem Beg, director-general Kashmir Tourism is quoted on June 6th in the India Today magazine:\"We need to work towards removing perceptions that the state is very unsafe. In fact, we have a 100 per cent safety record as far as tourists in Srinagar are concerned.\" Besides that the Tourist Reception Center in Srinagar was blown up to pieces one month ago there is the arrival at the heavily protected Srinagar airport with various well armed checkpoints to cross for getting into town which makes going through this welcome cordon a bit special, tourist wise. Although the Indian authorities removed a lot of bunkers on the roads to the main tourist attractions the militancy and the counter insurgency goes on unchanged. Torture, endless suffering of civilians , custody killings and clandestine murder as well as rough 'justice and arbitrary use of power by police and the different Indian Army units continues. The Himalayan Mail offers his readers on a daily basis a \"death count\" chart on page one, like western papers show soccer charts, it sums up the number of killed by the day, in order by civilians, militants and security personal and the total killings since the beginning of the year 2005. At the beginning of June 2005 it listed far above 400 cases.
"; texts[9]="Hong Kong is the most popular single city destination in Asia. A total of 15.5 million people visited Hong Kong in 2003, coming by land, sea and air. The Mainland and Taiwan are the major sources of visitors. Hong Kong is a unique meeting place for East and West, blending Chinese heritage, British colonial influences, high-tech modernity and Cantonese gusto. It offers a diversity of travel experiences, from shopping to gourmet dining, countryside pursuits and unique cultural heritage, including a great variety of religious institutions and preserved buildings like temples, monasteries, walled villages, clan halls and colonial structures.
"; texts[10]="According to official numbers about 31.000 illegal immigrants arrived this year by small and unsafe boats at the shores of the Islands, overwhelming the authorities and sparking Spanish criticism that EU states and the European Union in general are not doing enough to help Madrid stem the \"flow\". The European Parliament called on Sept. 28th on the EU to create a special fund to help deal with the wave of illegal immigrants heading for the bloc's shores. According to NGOs about 3000 would be immigrants died during the passage.
"; texts[11]="About two million people use the cities public transportation system each day. On an average day the metro system is used by more than one million people. Every year, its tram carries about 400 million passengers. There are 187.7 kilometers (116.6 miles) of tram tracks in Berlin. Added together, the 28 day time lines and five night time lines cover a total length of 430 kilometers. The combined distance traveled every day by the Berlin trams corresponds to circling the globe 1.3 times. The city operates Germany's largest tram network, carrying a total of 171 million passengers on 1.3 million trips every year. 560,000 passengers take a total of 5,300 tram trips every day. The S-Bahn system carries about 1.4 million passengers each day on a rail network of 331 k.
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