#could this be the result of accommodating to the neighboring muslim communities?..

[artsyaprilmr]

one thing about me... i will never stop drawing women with beautiful big brown eyes

[xtruss]

Pakistan Warns India’s Actions Could Lead to Repeat of Deadly Exodus

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan says the Indian government’s actions in the disputed Kashmir and with regard to a new citizenship law could drive millions of Muslims from India in what could become another refugee crisis.

Tursday December 17, 2019

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan delivers a speech during the opening of the Global Refugee Forum, in Geneva, Switzerland, on December 17, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan says the Indian government’s actions in the disputed Kashmir and with regard to a new citizenship law could drive millions of Muslims from India in what could become another refugee crisis.

Addressing the Global Forum on Refugees in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday, Khan said that those actions could lead to millions of Muslims fleeing India and creating “a refugee crisis that would dwarf other crises.”

He said such a crisis could even lead to a conflict between his country and India, both of which are nuclear-armed.

“We are worried there not only could be a refugee crisis, we are worried it could lead to a conflict between two nuclear-armed countries,” the Pakistani prime minister said, alarmingly.

The citizenship law makes it easy for non-Muslims from neighboring countries to gain citizenship in India.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government says the new law will save religious minorities such as Hindus and Christians from alleged persecution in neighboring Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan by offering them an easy path to Indian citizenship.

This is while the Rohingya Muslim minority from Myanmar has faced genocide in that country and is now almost entirely camped in a non-state-recognized status in Bangladesh.

The latest Indian law has brought several regions in the country to the brink, with Muslims fearing they might be under threat in India.

Khan’s modern-day warning has a historical precedent — involving exactly Pakistan and India.

In August 1947, the British Raj partitioned into two independent states, the Hindu-majority India and the Muslim-majority Pakistan. As a result of that partition, millions were uprooted, marking one of the largest mass migrations in history. Experts estimate that at least one million died in the communal violence unleashed by partition that continues to haunt the Indian Subcontinent to this day.

In a week of opposition to the citizenship law, a series of violent clashes have taken place between thousands of protesters and police in India, including brutal encounters at university campuses.

A fresh round of protests breaks out against an anti-Muslim citizenship law in India, amid evidence of excessive force by police.

Modi told a rally for a state election on Tuesday that his political rivals were trying to mislead students and others to stir up protests. “This is guerrilla politics, they should stop doing this.”

The passage of the citizenship law follows the revocation of the autonomy of the Indian-controlled Kashmir in early August, and a recent court ruling clearing the way for the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a mosque razed by Hindu zealots.

Khan said in his Tuesday remarks that Pakistan would not accommodate more refugees coming from India in the wake of a crackdown by New Delhi in the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.

There have been increasing questions about the stance of the Modi administration with regard to India’s 172 million Muslims.

Modi hails from the hard-line Hindu Supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Many Muslims in India say they have been made to feel like second-class citizens since Modi came to power in 2014. While he has been officially absolved, he is blamed by many for a violent crackdown on the Muslim community in the state of Gujarat in 2002, when he was the chief minister of the state.

— Press TV

[biofunmy]

Brexit, Iran, the Space Race: Your Friday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

We’re covering a new hurdle for a no-deal Brexit, the downing of an Iranian drone by the U.S. military and France’s creation of a space command.

The move, which received stronger support than expected, set up a clash between Parliament and Boris Johnson, who is expected to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May next week. Mr. Johnson has entertained the idea of shutting down the legislature in the fall to ensure that, with or without a deal, Britain leaves the E.U. on Oct. 31.

What’s next: Results in the competition to lead Britain will be announced on Tuesday, days before Parliament goes into summer recess. Anti-Brexit lawmakers said the vote against suspending Parliament raised the chances of a second Brexit referendum.

U.S.-Iran tensions escalate

The American military shot down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, President Trump said. The drone is said to have come “within threatening range” of the Boxer, an American assault ship. It’s unclear if the drone was armed.

The news closely followed an announcement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran that it had detained a tanker, which it claimed had been smuggling fuel.

While the two episodes escalate the conflict that has pitted Iran against some of its neighbors and the U.S., Iran’s foreign minister moved in the opposite direction, proposing modest concessions and new talks.

Reminder: Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have risen in recent months after Washington imposed new sanctions.

Since then, there have been attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran has exceeded the amount and the purity of the uranium it is permitted under the 2015 nuclear agreement.

France nudges Europe into space race

President Emmanuel Macron of France announced the creation of a space command within his nation’s air force. Emphasizing that French and European independence was at stake, Mr. Macron said the command would “ensure our defense of space within space.”

The move was the latest sign that the era of fighting in space — disabling or even shooting down satellites on which warfare on Earth is increasingly dependent — was getting closer.

Big picture: Pooling resources has helped Europe keep its leadership in the civilian use of space, experts say. But when it comes to militarizing space, Europe remains divided, with France facing resistance from Germany and other nations.

Challenges: The lack of a unified vision could constrain France’s ambitions for its space command. Mr. Macron hinted as much in his announcement: While he spoke of reinforcing France’s “strategic autonomy,” he added that it must take place in a “European framework.”

Trump’s party frets over ‘send her back’ chant

Nervous Republicans urged President Trump to repudiate the “send her back” chant that was directed at a Somali-born congresswoman during a campaign rally on Wednesday. They feared that it could hurt their party in the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump responded by disavowing the behavior of his own supporters. He claimed he had tried to contain the chant, which was directed at Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a freshman Democrat who is Muslim.

Video of the event clearly contradicted that assertion.

The politics: The cleanup attempt reflected the misgivings of political allies, including House Republican leaders, who have warned Mr. Trump privately that he was playing with political fire.

If you have some time, this is worth it

One small step

Five decades ago tomorrow, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the powdery surface of the moon in humankind’s first ever journey from one world to another. Those bootprints “could outlast the race that made them,” our veteran space reporter Dennis Overbye writes.

To mark the anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, The Times has produced ample special coverage, including a look at what life on the lunar surface would be like, a poem about the landing and a feature on Michael Collins, the astronaut who remained in orbit while Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. We also combined transcripts and select images to recreate the entire journey from liftoff to splashdown.

Here’s what else is happening

Japan: In what is believed to be one of the deadliest attacks in the country in decades, a man ignited a flammable liquid at an animation studio in Kyoto on Thursday, killing 33 people and injuring dozens more, the police said.

Morocco: Three men accused of murdering two Scandinavian hikers in the Atlas Mountains last year have been sentenced to death in an antiterrorism court in Morocco.

‘Unruly passenger’: Jet2, a British budget airline, said it had fined an English passenger about $106,000 for “aggressive, abusive and dangerous behavior” on a flight bound for Turkey last month. Military jets escorted the plane back to Stansted Airport, north of London.

Snapshot: Above, a prisoner flipping a sign to signify prayer time in the Detention Center Zone for the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. A Times reporter and photographer went inside the secretive prison, with tight restrictions on what they could see and photograph.

KLM: The Dutch airline found itself at the center of a heated online debate after a passenger posted on social media that a flight attendant had told her to cover up as she was breastfeeding her child on a flight last month.

Tour de France: Our columnist explores the vagaries — “the unexpected roundabout, the too-merry man waving a wine glass midroad” — that make this 2,162-mile race “so maddening and dangerous and, yes, enjoyable.”

What we’re reading: This essay in Vox. Jenna Wortham, a writer for the The New York Times Magazine, says it’s “a beautiful and meditative piece on the economy of ‘living your best life’ on Instagram, as told through the destruction of an indigenous landmark.”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: This weekend, try a galette — an open-faced tart — with nectarines and blueberries.

Watch: In “The Lion King” remake, our critic found “a lot of professionalism but not much heart.”

Listen: The Israeli duo Lola Marsh makes sweeping, cinematic music dripping in retro charm and reverb. “Echoes” is a lush beach-blanket bop, wiggling with energy, our critic writes.

Read: “The Nickel Boys,” Colson Whitehead’s first novel since “The Underground Railroad,” was inspired by the real-life story of a reform school in Florida where more than 100 children died from 1913 to 1960. It’s one of 11 new books we recommend this week.

Smarter Living: Trees suck up carbon and, while planting one won’t solve climate change, every tree helps. To have a meaningful effect, a tree must live at least 10 to 20 years, according to one expert. The right type of tree for your area and proper placement are among the things you should consider.

And a growing number of theme parks, hotels and special attractions are introducing training and sensory guides to accommodate travelers with autism.

And now for the Back Story on …

‘Sir Ed’

Edmund Percival Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper who with Tenzing Norgay of Nepal made the first summit of Mount Everest, was born 100 years ago tomorrow.

Events in New Zealand will honor him, including the premiere of an orchestral work and the release of a special Land Rover. Nepal celebrates Everest Day on the anniversary of the climb, May 29, 1953.

Hillary and Norgay were the sole climbers from a Royal Geographic Expedition to reach the top of the world’s tallest peak, succeeding where 30 years of attempts had failed. A report in The New York Times centered on the fact that Queen Elizabeth II heard the news on the eve of her coronation.

The feat made the two men global celebrities. In the 1960s, Hillary founded the Himalayan Trust, which continues to work with communities in Nepal.

Known back home as “Sir Ed,” Hillary became synonymous with qualities his countryfolk prized: humility and steely determination. In 2008, he received a rare state funeral, and in 1992, his face replaced Queen Elizabeth’s on the country’s five-dollar note.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— William

Thank you Alisha Haridasani Gupta helped compile today’s briefing. Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford wrote the break from the news. Charlotte Graham-McLay wrote today’s Back Story You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” busing as a tool of school desegregation in the U.S. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: subway map dot (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The New York Times has dozens of free newsletters to bring our coverage to your inbox, including news, arts, music sports, opinion, arts and lifestyle.

Sahred From Source link World News

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[onthehill]

putting the text here because I don’t trust Medium won’t die and I want to keep this text.

Member Feature Story How London Became a Playground for the Rich London is often hailed as globalism’s great success story. So why does it feel like it’s falling apart?

Henry Wismayer

Nov 28

When I think about that morning last summer, when London awoke to television images of a West Kensington tower-block engulfed in flames, there’s one interview I can’t get out of my mind. A young man told the BBC that the fire felt like a predictable moment: the culmination of years of being made to feel like the city wanted them gone.

“[They] put them shoddy plastic things on there that set alight because they want more reasons to knock these blocks down… I’m not even so sure that was totally an accident,” he raged, as if some cabal of corrupt councillors and property developers had thrown a lit rag through the letter box. It was a crazy notion, issued in the heat of fury and grief. However, in the days that followed, as we began to learn about the truth of the fire last June — about the inferno that fed on cheap flammable cladding and about the confluence of municipal neglect, outsourcing, and value-engineering that permitted 72 people to die in their homes — it was easy to feel sympathy for the man’s sense of victimhood. For the outside world, the Grenfell Tower fire was a horrifying tragedy and a blight on the conscience of those who let it happen. But for many Londoners, it exposed something rotten in the marrow of London itself. For us, the fire was an instant and terrible symbol of a city in a tight spiral of dysfunction, where the ideas that once sustained it are breaking down beyond repair. It is no longer possible for a lifelong London resident like me to pretend that the city is a united, happy, and enviable place. In the 18 months since disaster befell the Lancaster West Estate, the condition of the British capital has seldom been out of the national conversation.

As with most topics of commentary in deeply divided post-Brexit Britain, London tends to be presented in binary terms — either paradise or hellhole, depending on your point of view. To idealistic liberals, it remains a cradle of tolerant coexistence, the place where multiculturalism works. The rainbow city that would have given Donald Trump hell had he dared to show his face here. To hysterical conservatives, by contrast, the city is “Londonistan” with a Muslim mayor, benighted by terror-attacks, no-go zones, and spiralling crime. In April, when the press marked 50 years since the Tory firebrand Enoch Powell made his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech on the apocalyptic dangers of multiculturalism, there were many who pointed to this year’s escalating murder-rate as evidence of Powell’s prophecy come to pass. The truth, of course, is somewhere in between. London is not a Powellian Gomorrah. But it is no longer possible for a lifelong London resident like me to pretend that the city is a united, happy, and enviable place, either. The questions that surfaced in the aftermath of Grenfell haven’t gone away: Why did this tragedy hold such terrible resonance? Why, for millions of us, did anger about the circumstances surrounding the fire transcend its immediate context, feeding a growing sense that London no longer functions for the good of the people who live here due to forces far beyond its citizens’ ken and control? The young man’s rage was for the victims still burning behind him, but it was a rage of which many of us shared a fragment.

For decades, London’s rare achievement was its mixed-income communities. These came into being thanks to a post-war history of town planning, which set out to ensure that no area of affluence could become an island, aloof from the hoi polloi. Some of the resulting mix was deliberately engineered, and some of it was accidental. In recent years, however, it has been plain to see that this covenant — which envisioned people of different means and walks of life living in the same communities as neighbors — has started to crumble. In my other life, I do occasional work as a landscape gardener, tending the lawns and flower beds of south London’s more affluent inner suburbs. Last month, a neighbor wandered up to me to bitch about the homogenization of her neighborhood. Next door to where I was working, a newcomer to the street had commissioned an overhaul of their recently acquired semi, and the excavation conveyors were churning all day long, puking up London clay to make space for a new basement. “When we moved here 40 years ago, I was a junior legal researcher, my husband was an assistant lecturer,” the neighbour said, over the din of the machinery. “This road was all teachers and police officers. Public servants. Now it’s just bankers, bankers, bankers. What the hell’s happened?”

Ask any cynical long-term Londoner, and they’ll likely offer up any number of answers to this question. The erosion of London’s social-housing stock, which once inoculated the city against the creation of rich and poor ghettoes, is certainly one. The increasingly globe-trotting tendencies of the super-rich is another. Disproportionate city incomes have furnished a portion of residents with the financial leverage to re-fashion an area overnight if a neighbourhood happens to become popular with a certain well-monied milieu. Meanwhile, the suburban dream, which only 20 years ago still lured people out of the inner city, has long since expired. Together, these processes have combined with London’s chronic housing shortage to transform vast swathes of the inner city over the past decade.

To walk through certain parts of London today is to enter an eerie dystopia of late capitalism run amok. All over town, from Battersea to Stratford, vast welters of towers are in the throes of construction, invariably encircled by billboards depicting attractive white people at rest and play. But longtime Londoners know from experience that these towers are not really homes to be lived in but bricks-and-mortar commodities, investment opportunities that until recently were seen as safer than any government bond. If you ever find yourself walking through developments that have been recently finished and sold, you’ll discover street-level plazas devoid of people or even much evidence that many people are ever here. Meanwhile, in the golden postcodes of Westminster, Chelsea, and Kensington, the streets of old money have become a magnet for global capital of dubious origins. A government report published in May said the city was awash with “dirty money.”

In her 2017 book Big Capital, Anna Minton described this scramble for prime London real estate as the catalyst of a “domino effect,” whose effects ripple outwards across the capital and beyond. “The super-prime market displaces established communities to new areas, driving up property and rental prices elsewhere,” she writes. “And as current policies are geared to attracting foreign investment and building luxurious apartments rather than affordable homes, there is nothing to act as a counterweight.”

When a city changes this fast and on such an inhuman scale, it is impossible to live here without feeling unmoored. The sense of apartness precipitated by these developments is in large part architectural. London used to be a low-slung city, but many of these luxury towers are vertiginous and imposing, dwarfing the besieged remnants of what came before. But arguably more significant than this aesthetic discordance is the social upheaval it augurs. As more and more towers have gone up, so too have socio-demographic lines that once felt blurred become abrupt and partite, as the runaway cost of housing manoeuvres people into economic enclaves, and poverty is pushed outwards into peripheries and ghettoes of disadvantage. Traditional places of commonality, where shoulders rubbed, have been replaced by pockets of consumption. High-streets that once displayed a multifarious range of shopfronts and establishments have evolved to reflect more stratified times: the poorer areas with their betting shops and pawnsters, the wealthier ones lined with estate agents, restaurants, and prim cafes. Our civic spaces and landmarks have been commodified as cash-strapped councils look to make up budget shortfalls by monetizing their assets or repurposing public libraries into private gyms.

Boundaries, both physical and social, have started to rise across the city. Now, the streets feel more fractious as established communities dissipate. People in their 30s, unable to afford the cost of raising a family here, are starting to leave in droves. And we who remain are left with a curious sense that we are an inconvenient vestige of a city that no longer exists, like obdurate stone buildings amidst gleaming pavilions of glass and steel. Today’s London remains successful in many ways: as a summer playground for the super-rich; as a giant laundromat for the global kleptocracy; as an iconographic background for tourist photos and the glossy pages of a Hong Kong realtor’s brochure. But as a constellation of neighborhoods? No longer. Certainly not so much as before. Quickly — almost too quickly to track — London’s covenant is coming undone.

The trauma this has imposed in the places where the last dominoes tumble is all too easy to ignore. The most obvious victims of rising housing costs and hollowed-out communities — the minimum-wage workers trundling in from distant outskirts to service the offices, the growing number of homeless in doorways, the social-housing tenants relocated into cramped temporary accommodation when the bulldozers move in — remain largely voiceless. Their abasement, like so much of that which afflicts the London underclass, is hidden away in the backwaters, in food banks concealed behind council estates or displaced out of town. But to focus exclusively on these ostensive miseries is to miss a wider, more inchoate, malaise — a sense of a city adrift, changing in ways its residents don’t condone and feel powerless to prevent. We have become a paradox: the progressive city nostalgic for the past. This more universal condition can be best described not as displacement but dislocation. It’s the feeling of being abruptly estranged, be it emotionally or physically, from your existing state or place. Cities are always transitory, prone to endless flux, but when a city changes this fast and on such an inhuman scale, it is impossible to live here without feeling unmoored.

Yet for all that the anger that this transformation of London has surely engendered, protest remains in short supply. For the majority, it seems, vast, anonymous cities can seem governed by an irresistible determinism, as though their evolution were ordained by Newtonian law. This sense of fatalism does not tend to energize vigorous resistance. In addition, so much of our yearning for the London we’ve lost seems ostensibly counterintuitive. The city I grew up in was hardly an urban paradise. Many of my most vivid memories are recalled with a maternal hand at my back, ushering me past scenes of a recessional metropolis, rendered in grey. London then was a place where cardboard shanties still proliferated beneath the Southbank undercrofts, and grifters peddled ersatz perfume from splayed suitcases in the West End. The air was tubercular, the Thames flowed an effluent brown, and every road seemed strewn with litter, chewing-gum, and dog shit in varying stages of putrefaction. But still I yearn for that time before the city was cleaned-up and prettified, before the pigeon-feed sellers had been turfed from Trafalgar Square. The other day I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read “Make Peckham Shit Again,” and I couldn’t help but smile. We have become a paradox: the progressive city nostalgic for the past.

Meanwhile, apologists for the turbo-charged gentrification of inner London exonerate its degradations with mealy mouthed bromides about “market forces” — just another ineluctable reality of late capitalism, like sweatshop labour and high-street homogenisation. Things we grumble about on social media but, for the most part, can’t bring ourselves to protest over because to protest would be like screaming at the tide. Our sense of disquiet at the changing cityscape fades imperceptibly into London’s background ennui, lumped in with tube strikes and traffic jams and all the other unavoidable exigencies of urban life. However, when you consider that millions of Londoners have profited from those “market forces,” what is happening in London start to feel less like a cosmic inevitability and more like a deliberate and concerted human effort. As the tsunami of foreign property investment has increased demand for a stagnating supply, those of us who own homes have seen their value rocket. In recent decades, owning a London home has become the U.K.’s easiest path to fast cash. This is London’s guilty secret: that so many of us have suckled on this indemnity that we cannot admit its inherent madness, that it is a time-bomb that must explode, taking with it a million shattered dreams.

The 2016 Brexit vote has exposed the intractability of these hypocrisies, as the predominantly left-leaning city finds itself in a Faustian pact, at once lamenting the financial sector’s malign influence but terrified at the implications of its potential evacuation. As Britain’s appeal to investors continues to be undermined by a lack of post-Brexit certainty, recent reports indicate that luxury properties are struggling to sell. Suddenly, an economy predicated on casino banking and rentier capitalism feels frail and dysfunctional, one fiscal paroxysm from catastrophe. “It is strange, the bustle,” wrote Sarah Lyall in a New York Times article on post-Brexit London last April. “Construction crews are still putting up buildings, monuments to London’s future, as if nothing has changed. But you can hear faint footsteps, too. Banks, investment firms and other companies are making contingency plans to move elsewhere, if necessary. What then?”

Against the backdrop of atomisation and uncertainty, it’s perhaps little wonder that these anxieties have begun to manifest in the city’s darkening mood. Londoners used to laugh about the inaccuracy of our irascible reputation — of London as a snarky town where dour commuters wouldn’t stop to help a lost tourist. This wasn’t true, not really. But now the streets feel angrier, more riven. A city of blithe coexistence has become a city of sneers. Are we really surprised? Looking on, as your home gets taken away from you by forces you don’t really understand and that you feel powerless to resist, there is a point at which dislocation transmutes into nihilism and rage. Suddenly, each new skyscraper feels like an act of violence; each house renovation in the stomping-grounds of our youth becomes a desecration. Wealthy newcomers appear not as new neighbors, but as colonizers; hipster beards and vintage shops become hallmarks of an enemy within. Each appropriative bar or café, simulacrums of the melting pots they supplanted, becomes a reminder that London’s hallowed diversity, to many of the city’s residents, is merely ornamental — a desirable backdrop so long as it doesn’t press too close.

Often, when I feel this resentment brewing, I remind myself that I am getting older, and that chagrin over rapid change is perhaps as much a product of sentimentalism as it is legitimate dismay at social dysfunction. Until an inferno in a north London tower-block shakes you from the stupor, reminding you that the cost, for some, is all too real.

On the road in south London where I grew up, from the top of its steepening hill, you can see one of the broadest views of the British capital for miles around. On clear days, it presents a crenelated horizon of the whole city: from Wembley’s arch in the far northwest, past the stretched pyramid of The Shard and the jumbled towers of the Square Mile, to the more angular ones of Canary Wharf, looming over the estuarial Thames. London looks extraordinary from up here, immortal in its way, a proving-ground for the western dream of unending growth. Every time I look at the view from the upstairs window of my mum’s hillside house, I spot some unforeseen concrete core, the spinal column of a future tower, inching into the sky horizon. Yet this scene that once evoked wonder now elicits bitterness and foreboding about the future. If I pick up some binoculars, I can see Grenfell Tower far to the north: that burnt-out sepulchre where so many died in their homes, gasping for air. And when people ask me why their pyre became such an emblem of modern London, I just say, “Look around.”

We live in a place that knows only the price of bricks and has forgotten the people who give them value. This fucking city has betrayed us all.

written by Henry Wismayer Essays, features and assorted ramblings for over 70 publications, inc. NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Nat Geo, Vice, Vox and TIME: www.henry-wismayer.com.

[trendingnewsb]

Saudi Prince Plans a ‘City of the Future.’ Don’t Bet on It

From time immemorial, rulers have built new cities to satisfy everything from security to vanity. Some of those cities crumbled into obsolescence; others blossomed into capitals of legend. The recipe for success remains elusive, but that hasn’t stopped successive generations from trying. And if recent moves are any gauge, the 21st century will see a surge of new and often grandiose plans.

The most recent and among the highest profile comes from the deserts of the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman recently unveiled plans to spend upwards of $500 billion to construct his city of the future, Neom. Like rulers before him, bin Salman’s motives are a mix of vanity and pragmatism. Since the middle of the last century, Saudi Arabia has floated on a sea of oil, and the royal family has accumulated massive wealth. That formula worked for decades, but with a burgeoning population and the price of oil plateauing, the country is facing an uncertain future. Neighboring Dubai and other emirates have surged ahead with their own imagined metropolises, spending hundreds of billions for new towers, museums, reclaimed land, and planned communities. Many of those have drawn people, attention and business, although Masdar, a planned satellite of Abu Dhabi that was supposed to be an exemplar of a carbon-neutral future, has burned through billions with little to show.

The plan for Neom is to be bigger, newer, and more technologically advanced than anything that has come before. Early promises include a pledge to use renewable energy and integrate robotics into the DNA of the city. Promising a “civilizational leap for humanity,” bin Salman has suggested that the final city could have more robots than humans and be a model for how humanity lives in the next century when population begins to decline globally.

Rock outcrops stand in the desert near the bay at Ras Hameed, Saudi Arabia. It is here that Saudi Arabias crown prince plans Neom, a city from scratch that will be bigger than Dubai and have more robots than humans.

Glen Carey/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Given that Neom is now little more than barren acreage and the fertile imagination of the crown price backed by oil billions, it’s hard to say how much of this vision will be realized. New cities are always unveiled with an excess of hyperbole and a dearth of practicality. In that sense, they are much like startups, brimming with hope and an optimism, intent on changing the world and solving problems ranging from overpopulation to transportation to air quality and affordability.

The legacy of planned cities in recent years is mixed at best. Some were built as new capitals for governments that wanted to reduce corruption and improve bureaucratic efficiency or wanted to break the hold of traditional elites by detaching them from carefully cultivated power bases. That is hardly a new concept. Louis XIV moved his court to the palace of Versailles for many of those reasons.

In light of the mixed legacy of planned cities, taking the rhetoric down a notch might be wise; in fact, a dose of humility might make these ventures more realistic and more likely to succeed. But pragmatism and modesty rarely galvanize, excite, or motivate. Invented cities are like urban startups, full of utopian optimism, ego, and often arrogance. That is often what makes it possible to build something grand from nothing, and it is often why these cities are so unrealistic and prone to less-than-optimal results.

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Take the moves by the military junta in Myanmar to move the capital from Rangoon (Yangon) 180 miles north to Naypyidaw in 2005. As urban planning, its success is questionable. To avoid public demonstrations that might imperil the regime, the city was designed with no public squares of any size. The new capital is vast—six times the size of New York City. It is in the middle of nowhere, and visitors describe a nearly empty feeling, with few signs of life on its many-laned highways and streets, not to mention its plethora of golf courses. If the goal was to get an easy tee time, the city is a success; if it was to preserve the power of the military regime, that clearly failed. The military retains substantial power, but it was forced to cede some control to the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2015

Or take Astana, the invented-out-of-whole-cloth capital of Kazakhstan, which was constructed starting in 1997. Funded entirely by the former Soviet republic’s oil money and the vision—or ego—of its ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev, Astana rises in the middle of the Asian steppe, with massive glass-clad towers, arenas and parks. After a decade of near emptiness, Astana is filling out and now has a population approaching a million. It has been a boon for architectural creativity, but its effects of the Kazakh economy are less clear, aside from the expected boost to GDP from the constant construction.

Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was constructed in the late 1950s. It was meant to showcase Brazil’s emergence as a modern country, leading the way for the southern hemisphere. Meticulously planned by the architect Oscar Niemeyer, it won accolades from designers and urban planners with its sweeping boulevards and layout designed to accommodate a car culture and the needs of a modern bureaucratic state. Much like Washington, DC (another invented city), Brasilia was a geographic compromise that for many years pleased no one. But the population has grown, perhaps too much, and the city has settled into itself, not loved but no longer loathed. Brazil, however, has struggled with decades of corruption and erratic economic progress. Brasilia was meant to end those struggles; it did not.

Some invented metropolises are more clearly products of vanity and megalomania. The late-not-so-great Felix Houphouet-Boigny may have been the first leader of the newly independent Ivory Coast in 1959, but he clung to power and in his waning years, moved the capital from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro, the village where he was born. He then spent $200 million in the late 1980s to begin construction of a basilica that copied the design of Bernini’s Vatican, only bigger, in a country with a Muslim majority and an annual per-capita income of less than $1,000. Needless to say, Ivory Coast over the past two decades since his death has seen neither grandeur, peace, nor much in the way of prosperity.

Others start with grand dreams and end with more proletarian realities. South Korea’s Songdo, begun in 2000, has cost $35 billion and counting and was conceived as a model for future cities, with wide lanes, a mix of commercial and residential development, and a robust transportation network. Filled with parks, bike lanes, and business hubs, Songdo has been attractive mostly to middle-class Koreans who either can’t afford or dislike Seoul. That isn’t a bad thing, but it is has yet to embody its status of “city of the future,” which was its initial purpose.

More modest in scale but equally grand in vision is the partnership between Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs and the city of Toronto to redevelop 12 acres as an incubus of a new modernism. If anyone might succeed in reinventing an urban space, it’s Alphabet and the Canadians, who have quietly morphed into the apostles of good government and innovation as the US recedes into its Washington soap opera. It bears watching, but the rocky history of previous ventures bears remembering.

For every St. Petersburg (also an invented city, in the early 18th century when Peter the Great built his own city far removed from Moscow), and Washington, DC (which was underpopulated and widely disliked well into the late 19th century), there is a Yamoussoukro or a Naypyidaw.

Traipsing through these thumbnails of cities past, what can we say about whether the half-a-trillion Neom will fulfill its grandiose promise and dreams? If the past is prologue, probably not. But perhaps that shouldn’t matter so much. It may live up to only a portion of its promise, but if it galvanizes creativity and innovation, if it provides a more hopeful model for the future of the Middle East, away from oil and religious conflict and towards urban solutions infused with the best of technology, then it won’t matter if it fulfills all of its dreams. It will matter if it nudges society in the direction of real progress rather than toward the nihilism of revolution and the sclerosis of a royal family draining resources rather than creating them. Some humbleness is certainly in order, as well as a sober eye to how past projects have gone, but it will be better for all of us if Neom only partly succeeds than if it never happens at all.

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We traveled around the world with Grant Imahara to discover global solutions to the challenges that most of our major cities are facing. Now it's time to discuss what we uncovered.

Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/saudi-prince-plans-a-city-of-the-future-dont-bet-on-it/

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Myanmar Genocide Has the Travel Industry Searching for Strategies

In this November 2, 2017 file photo, a Rohingya Muslim man, Muhammed Yunus, 28, who has not eaten for the past three days, grimaces in pain as he along with others wait along the border for permission to proceed to refugee camps near Palong Khali, Bangladesh. More than 600,000 Rohingya from northern Rakhine state have fled to Bangladesh since August 25, when Myanmar security forces began a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages. Bernat Armangue / Associated Press

Skift Take: Travel is the world's largest industry and should be taking a leadership position about Myanmar to publicly condemn ethnic cleansing, and show the country's military government that tourism dollars aren't unconditional if it supports crimes against humanity.

— Dan Peltier

Repressive governments are a dime a dozen. But a military campaign of ethnic cleansing against a minority population is a notch above the usual filth, and as this horrific scenario plays out in Myanmar, travel brands are weighing how to respond.

Tour operators and other travel companies always assess the security situation in any country they operate in. Many have blanket policies for when any type of violence breaks out while others evaluate the situation on the ground on a case-by-case basis.

In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, the country’s one million Rohingya Muslims have become victims of what many non-government organizations and human rights groups consider genocide by Myanmar’s military. More than half a million people have fled the country en masse in recent months to neighboring Bangladesh.

This isn’t the first time Myanmar’s Muslim population has suffered and died under a military campaign, and the travel industry has a history of speaking out against the country’s military government. Ethnic tensions have plagued the country for decades.

After opening up of the decades-long sanctions against Myanmar a few years ago, tour operators and other travel brands started reentering Myanmar. But the calls for a boycott have begun anew even as Myanmar’s military campaign against Muslims — which started in earnest in 2012 — feeding off ethnic and religious divisions, has attracted popular support across the country.

Years ago, the government erased the citizenship of the Rohingya population and militants began fighting the authorities. Buddhist population, which is more loyal to the government, took offense. Many Buddhists in the country view the Rohingya as outsiders, even though they have lived in Burma for generations.

The U.S. Department of State hasn’t issued any travel alerts or warnings for Myanmar since the violence resurfaced over the summer. But the State Department’s Burma page reads, “Recent violence in Rakhine State has displaced thousands and has resulted in civilian casualties. The U.S. Embassy in Rangoon currently advises against travel to Maungdaw and Buthitaung townships.”

The U.S. government is also debating whether to levy sanctions against Myanmar’s government after the Trump administration said it’s considering taking action against the country if the violence continues.

The UK government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which issues travel alerts and warnings, has taken a harsher stance.  The foreign office’s most recent update in September reads, “in late August and early September 2017, security operations in northern Rakhine have involved the clearance of villages and mass displacement of populations. There has also been burning and looting of property; there’s a significant risk of intercommunal violence in Rakhine state and international NGOs can also be the target of hostility.”

The foreign office is also advising against all but essential travel to parts of Myanmar’s Rakhine, Shan and Kachin states where much of the violence is concentrated.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s state counselor and de facto head of government, called for a travel boycott when she was under house arrest at various times from 1989 to 2010, but has been criticized for failing to address the current crisis.

Last week Suu Kyi made her first visit to Rakhine since the violence began but whether she plans to take action to end the crisis remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s national tourism board, Myanmar Tourism Marketing, doesn’t appear to be addressing the violence and is busying itself with promoting the country’s Balloon Festival, which takes place this month.

Tour Operators Split in Response

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Go Ahead Tours, part of EF Education International, had been running a Myanmar tour, but recently canceled all planned departures for 2018 and 2019, said Heidi Durflinger, president of the tour operator.

“We can easily move quickly to visit another destination,” said Durflinger. “Our approach has been to cancel itineraries in similar situations in the past, but it’s a case by case thing with Go Ahead.”

Cornell University, albeit not a tour operator, was planning to bring a group of alumni on a nine-day trip to Myanmar in January but decided to cancel due to low registration numbers, said Ben Rand, a spokesperson for the university.

On the other hand, Melbourne, Australia-based Intrepid Travel, part of the Intrepid Group, is still going full-steam ahead with its Myanmar tours and has eight departures scheduled for November, for instance.

Intrepid believes in letting travelers decide for themselves whether it’s appropriate to travel somewhere, said Leigh Barnes, Intrepid’s regional director for North America.

The company is monitoring Myanmar to see if its tours would be impacted by the conflict, but so far hasn’t seen disruptions, said Barnes. “It’s obviously horrible what’s going on in Myanmar but we’re not calling for a boycott because we don’t see how that could help the local population,” said Barnes. “We think that would hurt people in the communities we visit. But I remember that we did see hotel rates triple in the three months after the country reopened to travelers six years ago and so far we see steady demand.”

Classic Journeys, a California-based luxury tour operator, is also continuing to run its Myanmar tour and in September it announced it’s also launching a Thailand/Myanmar tour in January.

Classic Journeys’ tours don’t visit the impacted areas in Myanmar, said Edward Piegza, founder and president. “With Myanmar locals being closed off to media, we’re unable to get any additional info from our guides on the ground there,” he said. “We’re still running tours to Myanmar since the area we venture to is safe for travel.”

Myanmar’s Murky History With The Travel industry

But many tour operators are still concerned with the violence as two particularly popular tourist attractions, the beaches of Ngapali and the ancient ruins of the Kingdom of Mrauk-U, are located in Rakhine State, said Phil Robertson, Bangkok-based deputy director, Asia division, for Human Rights Watch.

“The impact will also likely be wider than it might be otherwise because many overseas tourists and tour operators don’t know much about Myanmar and when they hear about the atrocities by the military in Rakhine State, that negatively influences their decision about whether to go to Myanmar in the first place,” said Robertson.

Robertson argued that sanctions in the 1990s and 2000s against Myanmar’s military were effective at spurring the creation of democratic institutions — although progress has been tepid.

“At the time, there was a great deal of controversy about whether tourists should boycott Myanmar, and the boycott argument won out – in part because at that time, so much of the basic tourist infrastructure was government or military owned, and tourist dollars flowed directly into military pockets,” said Robertson.

“The crude Visit Myanmar Year campaign of 1996 was the epitome of the Myanmar military trying to cash in on tourists,” he added.

Human Rights Watch is currently focused on implementing targeted sanctions against key military commanders implicated in the ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity regarding the Rohingya, Robertson said.

“The plan this time around is to focus on the likes of Global Magnitsky Act sanctions that will penalize specific wrong-doers,” he said. “But if this doesn’t work, then we’ll have to go back to the drawing board, examining other sanctions that might be more effective. We’re in this for the long haul, just as we were when Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest, seeking our help so many years ago.”

Responsible Travel, a UK-based booking site that offers tours around the world that educate travelers about how their behavior impacts local cultures and environments, has boycotted Myanmar in the past – the only country the company has ever boycotted, said Justin Francis, CEO.

But this time around, the company so far isn’t pulling the plug, said Francis. “The reason we previously boycotted Burma was that much of the tourism infrastructure, including much of the accommodation, was owned and controlled by the military junta,” he said.

Suu Kyi advised international visitors to stay away in the past, said Francis, but much of the government control of tourism has changed and private enterprise has developed. “We can be far more confident than before that responsible tourism can improve the lives of local communities, and now sell Burma,” said Francis.

Francis said this time around, Responsible Travel is considering whether reinstating a boycott would hurt local communities dependent on tourism more than it would hurt the government.

“Our view, for now, is that if we can continue to benefit local communities and help keep Burma visible to the international community through tourism, then we’ll continue to sell it,” said Francis. “However, we feel strongly that tourists must be made aware of the persecution of the Rohingya community.”

Boycotting By Example

Tour operators continue to bring travelers to Myanmar because many aren’t aware of the genocide taking place, said Pauline Frommer, editorial director of Frommer’s, a publisher with 60 years’ experience in offering travelers’ trip advice, including the safety of destinations.

Frommer said the crisis hasn’t been widely reported on. “That’s probably because we’re living in a very fraught period and it’s hard to get the attention of people even with a genocide,” she said. “Things are happening every day.”

Frommer’s was considering researching and publishing a Myanmar guidebook last year but nixed plans earlier this year after more violence broke out. “A lot of countries have human rights issues but close to half a million people are displaced right now,” said Frommer.

“When it’s something like this it’s so different than other places with human rights abuses, the only response is that we won’t support this government. I think this approach worked in South Africa, for instance,” she said.

The publisher isn’t afraid to take a stance and get political when it feels it needs to, said Frommer. “We have a huge box in our Walt Disney World book about SeaWorld that address the concerns many people have about how the company’s treatment of orcas and other animals is unethical,” she said.

Frommer’s also focuses on giving travelers statistics to help them make travel decisions.  “Take Paris, for example, and the attacks that have happened in recent years – our guidebook’s introduction says that ‘it may not seem like Paris isn’t the center of the news cycle anymore, but it’s still a leader in global discussion,'” she said.

But unlike Intrepid, Frommer’s feels traveling to Myanmar won’t help end the violence. “We wouldn’t call for a boycott on our blog but if someone asked me to comment on this, I’d say that the UN Human Rights chief has called what’s going on in Myanmar a textbook case in ethnic cleansing,” said Frommer. “Tourism dollars still have fingers in many pots. I wouldn’t want my tourism dollars to support this incredibly tragic situation.”

Frommer’s and other travel media are certainly different from tour operators and companies that depend on getting travelers on their tours and have more to lose if they shutter operations in a particular destination.

The travel industry clearly condemns the Myanmar violence and understands the severity of what’s happening. But when it comes to canceling tours or curtailing business in the country or publicly taking a stand, companies have diverging views and many are waiting to see how their clientele react to headlines before making decisions.

[rollinbrigittenv8]

Myanmar Genocide Has the Travel Industry Grappling for Strategies

In this November 2, 2017 file photo, a Rohingya Muslim man, Muhammed Yunus, 28, who has not eaten for the past three days, grimaces in pain as he along with others wait along the border for permission to proceed to refugee camps near Palong Khali, Bangladesh. More than 600,000 Rohingya from northern Rakhine state have fled to Bangladesh since August 25, when Myanmar security forces began a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages. Bernat Armangue / Associated Press

Skift Take: Travel is the world's largest industry and should be taking a leadership position about Myanmar to publicly condemn ethnic cleansing, and show the country's military government that tourism dollars aren't unconditional if it supports crimes against humanity.

— Dan Peltier

Repressive governments are a dime a dozen. But a military campaign of ethnic cleansing against a minority population is a notch above the usual filth, and as this horrific scenario plays out in Myanmar, travel brands are weighing how to respond.

Tour operators and other travel companies always assess the security situation in any country they operate in. Many have blanket policies for when any type of violence breaks out while others evaluate the situation on the ground on a case-by-case basis.

In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, the country’s one million Rohingya Muslims have become victims of what many non-government organizations and human rights groups consider genocide by Myanmar’s military. More than half a million people have fled the country en masse in recent months to neighboring Bangladesh.

This isn’t the first time Myanmar’s Muslim population has suffered and died under a military campaign, and the travel industry has a history of speaking out against the country’s military government. Ethnic tensions have plagued the country for decades.

After opening up of the decades-long sanctions against Myanmar a few years ago, tour operators and other travel brands started reentering Myanmar. But the calls for a boycott have begun anew even as Myanmar’s military campaign against Muslims — which started in earnest in 2012 — feeding off ethnic and religious divisions, has attracted popular support across the country.

Years ago, the government erased the citizenship of the Rohingya population and militants began fighting the authorities. Buddhist population, which is more loyal to the government, took offense. Many Buddhists in the country view the Rohingya as outsiders, even though they have lived in Burma for generations.

The U.S. Department of State hasn’t issued any travel alerts or warnings for Myanmar since the violence resurfaced over the summer. But the State Department’s Burma page reads, “Recent violence in Rakhine State has displaced thousands and has resulted in civilian casualties. The U.S. Embassy in Rangoon currently advises against travel to Maungdaw and Buthitaung townships.”

The U.S. government is also debating whether to levy sanctions against Myanmar’s government after the Trump administration said it’s considering taking action against the country if the violence continues.

The UK government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which issues travel alerts and warnings, has taken a harsher stance.  The foreign office’s most recent update in September reads, “in late August and early September 2017, security operations in northern Rakhine have involved the clearance of villages and mass displacement of populations. There has also been burning and looting of property; there’s a significant risk of intercommunal violence in Rakhine state and international NGOs can also be the target of hostility.”

The foreign office is also advising against all but essential travel to parts of Myanmar’s Rakhine, Shan and Kachin states where much of the violence is concentrated.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s state counselor and de facto head of government, called for a travel boycott when she was under house arrest at various times from 1989 to 2010, but has been criticized for failing to address the current crisis.

Last week Suu Kyi made her first visit to Rakhine since the violence began but whether she plans to take action to end the crisis remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s national tourism board, Myanmar Tourism Marketing, doesn’t appear to be addressing the violence and is busying itself with promoting the country’s Balloon Festival, which takes place this month.

Tour Operators Split in Response

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Go Ahead Tours, part of EF Education International, had been running a Myanmar tour, but recently canceled all planned departures for 2018 and 2019, said Heidi Durflinger, president of the tour operator.

“We can easily move quickly to visit another destination,” said Durflinger. “Our approach has been to cancel itineraries in similar situations in the past, but it’s a case by case thing with Go Ahead.”

Cornell University, albeit not a tour operator, was planning to bring a group of alumni on a nine-day trip to Myanmar in January but decided to cancel due to low registration numbers, said Ben Rand, a spokesperson for the university.

On the other hand, Melbourne, Australia-based Intrepid Travel, part of the Intrepid Group, is still going full-steam ahead with its Myanmar tours and has eight departures scheduled for November, for instance.

Intrepid believes in letting travelers decide for themselves whether it’s appropriate to travel somewhere, said Leigh Barnes, Intrepid’s regional director for North America.

The company is monitoring Myanmar to see if its tours would be impacted by the conflict, but so far hasn’t seen disruptions, said Barnes. “It’s obviously horrible what’s going on in Myanmar but we’re not calling for a boycott because we don’t see how that could help the local population,” said Barnes. “We think that would hurt people in the communities we visit. But I remember that we did see hotel rates triple in the three months after the country reopened to travelers six years ago and so far we see steady demand.”

Classic Journeys, a California-based luxury tour operator, is also continuing to run its Myanmar tour and in September it announced it’s also launching a Thailand/Myanmar tour in January.

Classic Journeys’ tours don’t visit the impacted areas in Myanmar, said Edward Piegza, founder and president. “With Myanmar locals being closed off to media, we’re unable to get any additional info from our guides on the ground there,” he said. “We’re still running tours to Myanmar since the area we venture to is safe for travel.”

Myanmar’s Murky History With The Travel industry

But many tour operators are still concerned with the violence as two particularly popular tourist attractions, the beaches of Ngapali and the ancient ruins of the Kingdom of Mrauk-U, are located in Rakhine State, said Phil Robertson, Bangkok-based deputy director, Asia division, for Human Rights Watch.

“The impact will also likely be wider than it might be otherwise because many overseas tourists and tour operators don’t know much about Myanmar and when they hear about the atrocities by the military in Rakhine State, that negatively influences their decision about whether to go to Myanmar in the first place,” said Robertson.

Robertson argued that sanctions in the 1990s and 2000s against Myanmar’s military were effective at spurring the creation of democratic institutions — although progress has been tepid.

“At the time, there was a great deal of controversy about whether tourists should boycott Myanmar, and the boycott argument won out – in part because at that time, so much of the basic tourist infrastructure was government or military owned, and tourist dollars flowed directly into military pockets,” said Robertson.

“The crude Visit Myanmar Year campaign of 1996 was the epitome of the Myanmar military trying to cash in on tourists,” he added.

Human Rights Watch is currently focused on implementing targeted sanctions against key military commanders implicated in the ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity regarding the Rohingya, Robertson said.

“The plan this time around is to focus on the likes of Global Magnitsky Act sanctions that will penalize specific wrong-doers,” he said. “But if this doesn’t work, then we’ll have to go back to the drawing board, examining other sanctions that might be more effective. We’re in this for the long haul, just as we were when Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest, seeking our help so many years ago.”

Responsible Travel, a UK-based booking site that offers tours around the world that educate travelers about how their behavior impacts local cultures and environments, has boycotted Myanmar in the past – the only country the company has ever boycotted, said Justin Francis, CEO.

But this time around, the company so far isn’t pulling the plug, said Francis. “The reason we previously boycotted Burma was that much of the tourism infrastructure, including much of the accommodation, was owned and controlled by the military junta,” he said.

Suu Kyi advised international visitors to stay away in the past, said Francis, but much of the government control of tourism has changed and private enterprise has developed. “We can be far more confident than before that responsible tourism can improve the lives of local communities, and now sell Burma,” said Francis.

Francis said this time around, Responsible Travel is considering whether reinstating a boycott would hurt local communities dependent on tourism more than it would hurt the government.

“Our view, for now, is that if we can continue to benefit local communities and help keep Burma visible to the international community through tourism, then we’ll continue to sell it,” said Francis. “However, we feel strongly that tourists must be made aware of the persecution of the Rohingya community.”

Boycotting By Example

Tour operators continue to bring travelers to Myanmar because many aren’t aware of the genocide taking place, said Pauline Frommer, editorial director of Frommer’s, a publisher with 60 years’ experience in offering travelers’ trip advice, including the safety of destinations.

Frommer said the crisis hasn’t been widely reported on. “That’s probably because we’re living in a very fraught period and it’s hard to get the attention of people even with a genocide,” she said. “Things are happening every day.”

Frommer’s was considering researching and publishing a Myanmar guidebook last year but nixed plans earlier this year after more violence broke out. “A lot of countries have human rights issues but close to half a million people are displaced right now,” said Frommer.

“When it’s something like this it’s so different than other places with human rights abuses, the only response is that we won’t support this government. I think this approach worked in South Africa, for instance,” she said.

The publisher isn’t afraid to take a stance and get political when it feels it needs to, said Frommer. “We have a huge box in our Walt Disney World book about SeaWorld that address the concerns many people have about how the company’s treatment of orcas and other animals is unethical,” she said.

Frommer’s also focuses on giving travelers statistics to help them make travel decisions.  “Take Paris, for example, and the attacks that have happened in recent years – our guidebook’s introduction says that ‘it may not seem like Paris isn’t the center of the news cycle anymore, but it’s still a leader in global discussion,'” she said.

But unlike Intrepid, Frommer’s feels traveling to Myanmar won’t help end the violence. “We wouldn’t call for a boycott on our blog but if someone asked me to comment on this, I’d say that the UN Human Rights chief has called what’s going on in Myanmar a textbook case in ethnic cleansing,” said Frommer. “Tourism dollars still have fingers in many pots. I wouldn’t want my tourism dollars to support this incredibly tragic situation.”

Frommer’s and other travel media are certainly different from tour operators and companies that depend on getting travelers on their tours and have more to lose if they shutter operations in a particular destination.

The travel industry clearly condemns the Myanmar violence and understands the severity of what’s happening. But when it comes to canceling tours or curtailing business in the country or publicly taking a stand, companies have diverging views and many are waiting to see how their clientele react to headlines before making decisions.

[wayneooverton]

12 things you probably didn’t know about Kyrgyzstan

As we evolve into a more digital age, where information is shared in the blink of an eye, the mysteriousness of destinations around the world begins to shrink.

We plan our trips on blogs and get inspired on Instagram, and we often know quite a bit about a place before we ever step foot off the plane there. The more I travel the world, the harder it is I have found to be completely surprised anymore; that initial joy of “wow, I wasn’t expecting that” is much less frequent, the more stamps I collect in my passport.

When I hopped off the plane in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, I knew I was in for a lot of surprises.

While I did some planning and research before I flew halfway around the world to Central Asia, I avoided looking at visual sites and limited my serious planner side, hoping to be surprised.

And guys, surprised I was!

If I had to hanker a guess, I would say most of you guys don’t know anything about Kyrgyzstan, from where it’s located to how to spell it to what’s famous for, Kyrgyzstan has definitely been flying under the radar for international travelers for years.

But not anymore. With a strategic goal of boosting tourism, and knowing they’ve got a lot to offer, Kyrgyzstan is working hard to get the attention it deserves.

25 photos that will inspire you to visit Kyrgyzstan

While I didn’t know much about this stunning country, I certainly left two weeks later almost overwhelmed with things I learned and with a newfound love for this amazing land and people.

Bottled down, here are 12 things you probably didn’t know about Kyrgyzstan. Enjoy!

1. There are some huge mountains

More than 90% of Kyrgyzstan is covered in mountains. There are even three 7,000 meter peaks here. So if you are a mountain fiend like I am, well this is the place for you.

They are fairly accessible if you’re willing to walk or ride. It’s really cheap to hire guides and porters and horses to head into the hills, and trust me, it’ll be the highlight of your trip.

2. And also a ton of lakes 

There are about 2000 lakes in Kyrgyzstan, most of them small mountain lakes. In Kyrgyz, the word for lake is “kul” something you’ll see a lot.

Lake Issyk-Kul is where we spent most of our time on the trip. It’s the region with some of the best infrastructure and tourism development, and the huge lake there is magical. It’s the second largest mountain lake in the world, 182 kilometers long and up to 60 kilometers wide. It’s a whopper.

But what makes Issyk-Kul really awesome is that it’s warm and never freezes. In fact, it’s a bit salty. Even more random, the Black Plague is thought to have originated here.

3. It is the definition of a cultural melting pot

One of the biggest surprises for me in Kyrgyzstan is the wide variety of culture and ethnic groups that make up the country. The main language is Russian but also everyone speaks Kyrgys too. Believed to be descended from 40 original tribes, the main current religion is Islam. But, if I’m being honest here, it didn’t really feel like any other Islam country I’ve ever been to before.

About half the people are ethnic Kyrgyz, the rest are Russian, Uzbek, Tatar, Ukrainian, and even ethnic Chinese Muslims called the Dungan people.

We spent a fair bit of time in Karakol with some of the local Dungan folk, and it was so fascinating to learn about how they ended up there. And don’t even get me started on the food.

4. Yurts, yurts everywhere

If you visit Kyrgyzstan, you will spend a lot of time in yurts. They are everywhere.

Though the area we were in was more modern, and while traditional nomadic culture is being preserved, most people live in houses and modern apartments in the cities. We only saw the more “authentic” kind of yurts once we were high in the hills among the nomad shepherds, and even then the yurt is often been replaced by a more modern tent.

One of the best ways to stay is at the yurt camps; they’re everywhere and super cheap. It’s a kind of accommodation that kinda reminds me of Southeast Asia but even better, holing up by the lake in a yurt of your own drinking .60 cent beers and getting a tan and gorging yourself on homemade meals in the communal yurt.

They are an awesome way to stay in Kyrgyzstan.

5. Bridenapping is definitely a thing

Now here is something I’ve never seen before and rarely, if ever, heard about on my travels. Bride kidnapping, ala kachuu in Kyrgyz, which means “grab and run.”

Despite being illegal in Kyrgyzstan, kidnapping brides is pretty common. It ranges from an elaborately staged consensual kidnapping between a couple have have been dating and are already engaged (usually in cities) to definitely not consensual grabbing a woman and forcing her into marriage (more often in rural places).

Even nowadays it’s estimated that half of all marriages in Kyrgyzstan resulted from bridenappings and two thirds are non-consensual. 1 out of ever 10 girls is married before they turn 18. So, um, yeah.

Watch two really good videos about it here and here.

6. It’s one of the easiest Central Asian countries to visit

Kyrgyzstan is currently visa-free for 45 countries (most of the EU, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Austalia etc.) for up to 60 days, making it the easiest of the Central Asian countries to visit as a tourist.

The United States has had strong ties to Kyrgyzstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union, giving over $2 billion in economic and tourism development through USAID (The U.S. Agency for International Developmen, with Kyrgyzstan being is the only freely elected parliamentary democracy in post-Soviet Central Asia. I traveled to Kyrgyzstan with USAID and was fascinated by the close ties with America.

Even more interesting, after decades, USAID is ending in Kyrgyzstan next year after the US State Department awarded a human rights award to Azimzhan Askarov, a journalist and activist currently serving a life sentence in Kyrgyzstan.

7. The food is delightful

My only comparison for Kyrgyz food before I headed over was Mongolia, and after a month there in 2014, I set the bar extremely low when it came to foodie expectations. My bag was stuffed full of granola bars in preparation for meals of sheep’s heads and horse meat.

However, let me tell you, the food in Kyrgyzstan is fabulous!

Barbecued meats, all the noodles, tons of flavor and spices, and of course, lots of dumplings, I definitely put on weight on the trip.

8. But the mare’s milk…

Forget Coca Cola, like Mongolia and many of its Central Asian neighbors, fermented mare’s milk is often the drink of choice. And to the untrained palate (mine), it’s revolting. And will probably give you the runs too.

Best avoided. From personal experience.

9. The World Nomad Games are a must!

Every two years the World Nomad Games are held in Cholpon Ata in an arena that rivals something from Gladiator, and it’s basically the Olympics for Central Asian nomad culture where they compete in 16 traditional games and sports.

While I missed it visiting in 2017, it looks like it’s on for 2018 and you can be rest assured I’ll be back for it.

Ak Zholtoi, the six year old eagle queen of Kyrgyzstan

10. Let’s play, naming your ancestor

One of our young guides told me that in Kyrgyzstan every kid learns and memorizes seven generations back of their fathers and grandfathers.

Growing up American (well I guess I’m still American) I feel like the respect for your ancestors has been culturally lost in recent decades. I certainly cannot name anyone past my grandparents, what about you? Be honest.

It’s refreshing and borderline jarring to be faced with a culture who’s primary importance, i.e. family and the past, is so different than your own which really just focuses on the present. It puts things in rather harsh perspective and it makes me wish I focused more on family. Sorry mom!

11. If you want to fit in, put jam in your tea

Tea drinking is a huge part of the culture in Central Asia and is no exception in Kyrgyzstan. You meet someone, you share a cup of tea. There are often elaborate rituals around how the tea is served, who serves is, what it all means, that’s almost incomprehensible to us outsiders.

But if you want to fit in with the locals, next time you’re offered a cup of tea, add a spoonful of jam into it. Go for the raspberry.

While I’m pretty sure this is a tradition that dates back to Soviet times (don’t quote me but I think they do the jam + tea thing in Russia too) it’s one I definitely can get behind.

12. It’s the most beautiful place you’ve never heard of and now’s the time to go

We all know the phrase hidden gem is totally overused when it comes to travel, but in this case, it’s a perfect fit.

Tourism has only recently begun to be more established in Kyrgyzstan, and only in certain parts of the country. If you are an intrepid, curious traveler who wants to get off the beaten path (yes yes YES) then start looking at flights to Bishkek.

Now is the time to visit Kyrgyzstan. Just wait to be surprised.

Have you been to Central Asia? Is Kyrgyzstan on your bucketlist? What place has surprised you the most traveling? Spill!

Many thanks to USAID for hosting me in Kyrgyzstan, like always I’m keeping it real, all opinions are my own, like you could expect less from me.

The post 12 things you probably didn’t know about Kyrgyzstan appeared first on Young Adventuress.

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Muslim blogger murdered in Maldives after speaking

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The daddy of a blogger who becomes killed this week in the Maldives said Friday that his son obtained dying threats for months from nearby gangs who seemed to hold radical religious perspectives.

Hussain Rasheed, The father of Yameen Rasheed who became stabbed to death on Sunday, instructed reporters in neighboring Sri Lanka that his son became a Muslim who spoke out in his blog against growing radical Islamic perspectives inside the Indian Ocean archipelago country.

Yameen changed into discovered Sunday on the staircase of his apartment constructing in the capital, Male, with multiple stab wounds. He died later in a clinic.

Rasheed said he counted 14 wounds on his son’s chest by myself and there had been additionally cutting on his throat and head.

No arrests were made. Rasheed called on the government to invite worldwide professionals to join the investigation into his son’s murder.

Yameen criticized politicians and additionally spoke out on issues along with fitness, migrant employees’ rights and policing. He becomes actively involved in searching for justice for his pal and journalist Ahmed Rilwan, who remains unaccounted for on account that being kidnapped about 3 years ago.Maldives is a predominantly Sunni Muslim nation wherein training different faiths and atheism are banned.

The Enigmatic Open-Ended Islamic Muslim Choice: Hatred, Deception, and Violence Towards Infidels

It’s miles noticeably disheartening, if now not disgusting, that the sensationally famous self-proclaimed Television pundits, who have declared with gusto on talk indicates that the Islamic Koran does no longer contain any verses commanding violence, deception, and dishonesty from religious Muslims Towards who they regard as infidels (Christians, Jews, and all of us no longer Muslim), have glaringly by no means study the Koran themselves. Unlike the brand new Testament of the Holy Bible, which offers Jesus’ commandments as absolute standards of morality and spirituality in the direction of all of God’s youngsters, the Koran instructions Muslims to handiest be ethical and sincere with other Muslims, no longer with infidels. The Quran, Hadith, and Sira command, in over one hundred separate verses, violence, and hatred toward any non-Muslim who has now not proven submission to the Islamic god, Allah.history Islamic religion.

Muslim religion facts about women

Those really satanic instructions are based totally on the precept of abrogation imposed by Mohammad, (Naskh tafsir) Quran 9:5 (Ayat surf the “sword verse”). In step with Ibn Al Arabi, a great 12th Century Islamic student, the “sword verse” abrogated (or modified) each point out inside the Koran of showing amnesty to the disbelievers (infidels), ignoring and turning far away from them. Further, the equally essential 11th Century Islamic scholar Makki bin Abi Talib stated that verse nine:5 abrogated all-pardoning, amnesty, and forgiveness that Muslims had formerly been requested to show to non-Muslims in previous Islamic verses. This abrogation becomes supposedly in impact after the Islamic gangster, Mohammad, had left Mecca for Medina inside the sixth Century A.D.

So, is it any marvel that maximum devout Muslims at some point of the world presently consider, and are dedicated to the precept, that private Islamic jihad consists commonly of seeking to, both, violently pressure infidels into submission to the Islamic deity so as to reveal their own submission, or to kill the infidels. If something, the historical variations of interpretation of the “sword verse” in the Koran (Quran) commanding violence offer an open-ended option to local and convert Muslims to, both, actually take delivery of the verses commanding violence and devote themselves to violent Islamic jihad, or to use the verses with the intention to surreptitiously and conspiratorially dominate an infidel nation so that it will establish Islamic sharia regulation. either manner, the pragmatic stop-end result is supposed to be infidel submission.muslim marriage rules.

The subsequent partial listing of violent and hateful verses from the composite Koran became compiled on the Internet internet site “What makes Islam So Distinct?”

The Quran

Quran (2:191-193) – “And kill them wherever you find them, and flip them out from where they have got grew to become you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing… however if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there may be no extra Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. however in the event that they give up, allow there be no transgression except In opposition to Az-Zalimun(the polytheists, and incorrect-doers, and so on.)” (Translation is from the Noble Quran) The verse previous to this (a hundred ninety) refers to “fighting for the cause of Allah those who combat you” main some to accept as true with that the whole passage refers to a defensive conflict in which Muslims are protecting their houses and families.

Luxurious Vacations in Maldives

Maldives is one of the favorite tourist locations and you can attain there whenever during the 12 months. you can spend your next vacation via sporting on with scuba diving and stay inside the fine lodges in Maldives. Here you could do snorkeling, boating, and you could additionally explore the brand new bluest heaven on this planet. It’s far constantly cautioned that e-book your Vacations in Maldives formerly because It is very tough to set up for spot reserving in this area because of the huge rush.

All inclusive vacation to Maldives’s

Popularly acknowledged for marine life, coral reefs, beaches, tender sand, crystal clean water and many extra thrilling capabilities, Maldives is one of the maximum pleasant locations to go to. Called an island paradise, Maldives is a blessing in conceal because of the rejuvenating feel it affords, calming your inner self, and supplying you with internal peace. You’ll witness infusion of different cultures that are rich and getting rid of. Maldives has an incredibly rich tradition comprising song and dances to liven up your spirit

Why do you go to Maldives?

Hedonistic lifestyle is favored and promoted for visitors for their costly and enjoyable journey. The luxury resorts situated in this region have less population, and they incorporate present-day architecture and delightful points of interest of blue sea and sand seashores. These accommodations are solely designed to serve you with the best fine amenities and merchandise. Your stay can be exceedingly first-rate and worthy of each penny that you pay. They are designed in a selected manner to provide to you a particularly comfy area.

Some of Those inns have received marine lifestyles and coral reef which can be loved with utter pleasure by way of the visitors staying there. The fine subject matter primarily based inns help you to kick away all your worries and stress. Plus, there are centers like private swimming pools, Jacuzzis, and heart-throbbing spas which serve as additional offerings.

There are outstanding activities that could bring masses of a laugh and turn your excursion into an adventurous one. Scuba diving, windsurfing, indoor sports and plenty of extra such sports will growth your enthusiasm. With such a lot of sports and limitless opportunities, this trip will intensify your life in the way which you would possibly have in no way idea earlier than. Enjoy it and you will have a memory of the lifetime.bali vacations all inclusive water bungalows.

But all the hotels do not have Those scuba diving facilities and you should make certain Those functions at some point of your reserving. Aside from that, a boat is the important mode of transportation in Maldives, and you may never assume the climate modifications and temperature of Maldives. So that you should deliver the iciness jackets all the time and your adventure may additionally take few hours extra for the duration of a harsh climate.Maldives vacation packages all inclusive.

An English Speaking Environment Highly Improves English Abilities

There are a variety of methods you’ll be able to use to improve their English Talents. Such techniques can encompass studying from textbooks, studying newspapers and magazines, taking note of English tune, looking English Speak television, and attending English mastering lessons. These are all excellent approaches to enhance your English Skills; but, one effective method of enhancing your English Capabilities is immersing yourself in an English Speaking Environment.

Public speaking

Being in an English Speaking Surroundings will enhancing your English Talking Competencies by supporting you speak extra easily and efficiently. Whilst you are constantly listening to and Talking English on an each day basis, you may dramatically improve the way you talk and apprehend the language. You may research English idioms and slang, pronunciation, and meanings of phrases and phrases. You may advantage extra self-assurance as you concentrate and learn. Interacting with others will even improve your confidence as you turn out to be more relaxed with Talking the language. Locations wherein newcomers can immerse themselves in an English Speaking Surroundings consist of.how to improve talking skills.study skills techniques.

Conversation Companies: There are many community backed Agencies that preserve Communication Businesses where English beginners can meet and engage with other English beginners. These Businesses can meet at a church, school, community center, government department, or at an immigrant carrier organization. There are also social engagements held by using immigrant Businesses. newbies can spend time in a comfortable Environment and speak with each different in English. You’ll learn to talk English at the same time as being part of an aid group. You will also most likely make some excellent friends. Some of These Corporations may also plan unique social activities like going to dinner, a film, or spending time at a coffee shop. You will gain self-belief Speak English in public.

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Saudi Prince Plans a ‘City of the Future.’ Don’t Bet on It

From time immemorial, rulers have built new cities to satisfy everything from security to vanity. Some of those cities crumbled into obsolescence; others blossomed into capitals of legend. The recipe for success remains elusive, but that hasn’t stopped successive generations from trying. And if recent moves are any gauge, the 21st century will see a surge of new and often grandiose plans.

The most recent and among the highest profile comes from the deserts of the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman recently unveiled plans to spend upwards of $500 billion to construct his city of the future, Neom. Like rulers before him, bin Salman’s motives are a mix of vanity and pragmatism. Since the middle of the last century, Saudi Arabia has floated on a sea of oil, and the royal family has accumulated massive wealth. That formula worked for decades, but with a burgeoning population and the price of oil plateauing, the country is facing an uncertain future. Neighboring Dubai and other emirates have surged ahead with their own imagined metropolises, spending hundreds of billions for new towers, museums, reclaimed land, and planned communities. Many of those have drawn people, attention and business, although Masdar, a planned satellite of Abu Dhabi that was supposed to be an exemplar of a carbon-neutral future, has burned through billions with little to show.

The plan for Neom is to be bigger, newer, and more technologically advanced than anything that has come before. Early promises include a pledge to use renewable energy and integrate robotics into the DNA of the city. Promising a “civilizational leap for humanity,” bin Salman has suggested that the final city could have more robots than humans and be a model for how humanity lives in the next century when population begins to decline globally.

Rock outcrops stand in the desert near the bay at Ras Hameed, Saudi Arabia. It is here that Saudi Arabias crown prince plans Neom, a city from scratch that will be bigger than Dubai and have more robots than humans.

Glen Carey/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Given that Neom is now little more than barren acreage and the fertile imagination of the crown price backed by oil billions, it’s hard to say how much of this vision will be realized. New cities are always unveiled with an excess of hyperbole and a dearth of practicality. In that sense, they are much like startups, brimming with hope and an optimism, intent on changing the world and solving problems ranging from overpopulation to transportation to air quality and affordability.

The legacy of planned cities in recent years is mixed at best. Some were built as new capitals for governments that wanted to reduce corruption and improve bureaucratic efficiency or wanted to break the hold of traditional elites by detaching them from carefully cultivated power bases. That is hardly a new concept. Louis XIV moved his court to the palace of Versailles for many of those reasons.

In light of the mixed legacy of planned cities, taking the rhetoric down a notch might be wise; in fact, a dose of humility might make these ventures more realistic and more likely to succeed. But pragmatism and modesty rarely galvanize, excite, or motivate. Invented cities are like urban startups, full of utopian optimism, ego, and often arrogance. That is often what makes it possible to build something grand from nothing, and it is often why these cities are so unrealistic and prone to less-than-optimal results.

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Take the moves by the military junta in Myanmar to move the capital from Rangoon (Yangon) 180 miles north to Naypyidaw in 2005. As urban planning, its success is questionable. To avoid public demonstrations that might imperil the regime, the city was designed with no public squares of any size. The new capital is vast—six times the size of New York City. It is in the middle of nowhere, and visitors describe a nearly empty feeling, with few signs of life on its many-laned highways and streets, not to mention its plethora of golf courses. If the goal was to get an easy tee time, the city is a success; if it was to preserve the power of the military regime, that clearly failed. The military retains substantial power, but it was forced to cede some control to the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2015

Or take Astana, the invented-out-of-whole-cloth capital of Kazakhstan, which was constructed starting in 1997. Funded entirely by the former Soviet republic’s oil money and the vision—or ego—of its ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev, Astana rises in the middle of the Asian steppe, with massive glass-clad towers, arenas and parks. After a decade of near emptiness, Astana is filling out and now has a population approaching a million. It has been a boon for architectural creativity, but its effects of the Kazakh economy are less clear, aside from the expected boost to GDP from the constant construction.

Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was constructed in the late 1950s. It was meant to showcase Brazil’s emergence as a modern country, leading the way for the southern hemisphere. Meticulously planned by the architect Oscar Niemeyer, it won accolades from designers and urban planners with its sweeping boulevards and layout designed to accommodate a car culture and the needs of a modern bureaucratic state. Much like Washington, DC (another invented city), Brasilia was a geographic compromise that for many years pleased no one. But the population has grown, perhaps too much, and the city has settled into itself, not loved but no longer loathed. Brazil, however, has struggled with decades of corruption and erratic economic progress. Brasilia was meant to end those struggles; it did not.

Some invented metropolises are more clearly products of vanity and megalomania. The late-not-so-great Felix Houphouet-Boigny may have been the first leader of the newly independent Ivory Coast in 1959, but he clung to power and in his waning years, moved the capital from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro, the village where he was born. He then spent $200 million in the late 1980s to begin construction of a basilica that copied the design of Bernini’s Vatican, only bigger, in a country with a Muslim majority and an annual per-capita income of less than $1,000. Needless to say, Ivory Coast over the past two decades since his death has seen neither grandeur, peace, nor much in the way of prosperity.

Others start with grand dreams and end with more proletarian realities. South Korea’s Songdo, begun in 2000, has cost $35 billion and counting and was conceived as a model for future cities, with wide lanes, a mix of commercial and residential development, and a robust transportation network. Filled with parks, bike lanes, and business hubs, Songdo has been attractive mostly to middle-class Koreans who either can’t afford or dislike Seoul. That isn’t a bad thing, but it is has yet to embody its status of “city of the future,” which was its initial purpose.

More modest in scale but equally grand in vision is the partnership between Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs and the city of Toronto to redevelop 12 acres as an incubus of a new modernism. If anyone might succeed in reinventing an urban space, it’s Alphabet and the Canadians, who have quietly morphed into the apostles of good government and innovation as the US recedes into its Washington soap opera. It bears watching, but the rocky history of previous ventures bears remembering.

For every St. Petersburg (also an invented city, in the early 18th century when Peter the Great built his own city far removed from Moscow), and Washington, DC (which was underpopulated and widely disliked well into the late 19th century), there is a Yamoussoukro or a Naypyidaw.

Traipsing through these thumbnails of cities past, what can we say about whether the half-a-trillion Neom will fulfill its grandiose promise and dreams? If the past is prologue, probably not. But perhaps that shouldn’t matter so much. It may live up to only a portion of its promise, but if it galvanizes creativity and innovation, if it provides a more hopeful model for the future of the Middle East, away from oil and religious conflict and towards urban solutions infused with the best of technology, then it won’t matter if it fulfills all of its dreams. It will matter if it nudges society in the direction of real progress rather than toward the nihilism of revolution and the sclerosis of a royal family draining resources rather than creating them. Some humbleness is certainly in order, as well as a sober eye to how past projects have gone, but it will be better for all of us if Neom only partly succeeds than if it never happens at all.

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