Ever wonder what's happening around the world? This weekly column for Storeboard.com will give you a global perspective of interesting, entertaining, and newsworthy happenings around the planet Earth!
The columns focus on what's happening on planet Earth continent by continent during the coming week and also include important events from the previous week. This is the seventh weekly column.
Here's what's happening from Monday, Dec. 2 through Sunday, Dec. 8, 2013:
Africa: Actors, directors, producers and writers are taking the road to Marrakech, Morocco, this week for the International Film Festival of Marrakech. The festival is from Nov. 29 to Saturday. Director Martin Scorsese, the president of the festival’s film jury, presided over the opening ceremony, which included a tribute to actress Sharon Stone. The festival deserves its name because the films that won its Golden Star and The Jury Prize awards were produced in many nations. The directors of the last eight Golden Star winners are from Lebanon, Denmark, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Estonia, Germany, and Kyrgyzstan.
Antarctica: It’s tourism season in Antarctica. Most people who travel to Antarctica do so during North America’s winter (remember the seasons are reversed south of the equator). In the 1980s, there were fewer than 2,000 tourists per year, but tourism grew so rapidly that there were 46,000 tourists during the 2007-2008 season. The International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, which is based in the United States, projects there will be about 35,000 tourists in the 2013-2014 tourism season. The Australian Associated Press story doesn’t mention the tour operators’ projection for the years 2013 or 2014.
Asia:Bhumibol Adulyadej has been Thailand’s king since June 9, 1946 -- when he was 19 years old. His 67-year reign makes him “the world's longest-serving current head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history,” according to Wikipedia. Adulyadej, who is worth $30 billion, celebrates his 86th birthday on Thursday. The nation will celebrate with him because December 5 is a public holiday that is called King’s Birthday as well as National Day and Father’s Day. In Bangkok, the scheduled events include a speech by the king at Royal Plaza, fireworks, candle-lighting ceremonies, music and dancing.
Australia:Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, visited Australia for the first time from Nov. 27 through Dec. 2. Kyi, who won the Nobel prize for her efforts to end military rule in Myanmar (also known as Burma) and was under house arrest for 15 years from 1989 through 2010, started her visit with a speech at the Sydney Opera House and ended it with a speech at a World AIDS Day event in Melbourne, which will host the 2014 International AIDS Conference next July. The military still rules Myanmar, which is in Asia, but it has scheduled a 2015 presidential election. Kyi is a candidate.
Europe: The Berliner Festspiele arts center hosts festivals as well as arts and cultural events throughout the year, but I didn’t expect it to feature an exhibit entitled “On the Trails of the Iroquois” from Oct. 18 through Jan. 6. The Iroquois tribe was only in modern-day Canada and the United States. The Berliner Festspiele arts center also regularly has seminars about politics on Mondays. This Monday’s seminar is about whether Great Britain’s “drastic economic measures” are working. The arts center will also be the site of an exhibit of Barbara Klemm’s photography this week and up until March 9.
North America:Armed Forces Day is celebrated in 53 nations, but only one has a Military Abolition Day as far as I know. It’s on Dec. 1 in Costa Rica, which abolished its military in 1948 after a civil war. Today, “Costa Rica maintains small forces capable of law enforcement and foreign peacekeeping, but has no permanent standing army,” Wikipedia reports. Cuba celebrates Dec. 2 as Armed Forces Day because the yacht Granma landed in Cuba on that day in 1956 after transporting 82 people, including Fidel Castro, who sought to overthrow Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista from Mexico. Castro took over in 1959.
South America:Quito, the capital of Ecuador and its second-largest city after Guayaquil with more than 2.2 million people, was founded on Dec. 6, 1534, by Spain. The 1534 founding has been celebrated as a holiday on Dec. 6 since 1934. In fact, Quito celebrates its founding for the entire week before Dec. 6. The celebrations include music and dancing in neighborhoods and parks throughout the city, fireworks shows, bullfighting at the Plaza de Toros, parades and theater shows. “People can also take a ride around the city on a Chiva, which is an open "party" bus with live bands,” according to Wikipedia.
Here are the previous six columns in chronological order. The first one covered Oct. 21 through Oct. 27.
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world/222550
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--oct-28-nov-3/233783
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--nov-4-nov-10/236105
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--nov-11-through-nov-17/237804
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--nov-18-through-nov-24/239456
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--nov-25-through-dec-1/242035
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