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 14th weekly column.
Here's what's happening from Monday, Jan. 20, 2014 through Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014:
Africa: An important meeting of the leaders of Africa’s nations will take place from Jan. 24 through Jan. 31. The meeting -- the African Union Summit -- will be in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which is also the site of the union’s headquarters. The African Union was founded in 2001 to replace the Organisation of African Unity. Fifty-four of Africa’s 55 nations are African Union members -- every nation except Morocco. The African Union Summit is held twice per year and is where most of the union’s important decisions are made. This press release summarizes the important decisions made at the last summit.
Antarctica: “An enormous valley – deeper than the Grand Canyon and hosting a floor that dips more than two kilometers (1.2 miles) below sea level in places – lurks beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet,” according to a Christian Science Monitor article. The discovery was announced last week by British scientists. The newly discovered valley is called the Ellsworth Trough, it’s about 325 kilometers long (roughly 193 miles), and is about 25 kilometers wide (roughly 15 miles) at its widest point. I’m fascinated by this discovery, but mystified how it took so long to discover a valley deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Asia/Europe: When I began writing this column in October, I thought that where one continent ended and another began was clear -- but I was wrong. A few weeks ago, I reported that there are some islands that some experts consider Asian and other experts consider Australian. And then there’s New Zealand, which is part of a continent, Zealandia, that is never listed as one of the world’s seven continents and is only part of this news report when I find a good New Zealand item to list under Australia/Zealandia.
This week, I found an interesting item about Azerbaijan and didn’t know whether it was in Europe or Asia. The answer is “it depends on who you ask.” Numerous sources such as the United Nations say Azerbaijan is in Asia, but Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Directory and world atlas.com say it’s in Europe. Wikipedia’s list of “transcontinental countries” that are in Asia and Europe includes Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan as well as Russia and Turkey. “Europe is generally divided from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting the Black and Aegean Seas,” according to Wikipedia.
OK, I almost forgot about the item. Monday is Martyrs Day in Azerbaijan. The national public holiday commemorates what has become known as Black January or Black Saturday -- Jan. 20, 1990. On that day, troops from the Soviet Union entered Azerbaijan‘s largest city, Baku, to try to end the Soviet republic’s independence movement. The troops killed about 135 people from Jan. 20 to Jan. 22. The Soviet crackdown failed, and Azerbaijan became an independent nation in 1991. “Black January is seen as the rebirth of the Azerbaijan Republic,” says Wikipedia. Today, Azerbaijan and Baku have about 9.4 million and about 2.1 million people, respectively.
Australia: One of the continent’s most important events continues this week. The Australian Open tennis tournament’s women’s and men’s singles finals are this Saturday and Sunday, respectively. No American men made the fourth round (final 16). Spain’s Rafael Nadal and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic are favored. American women Serena Williams and Sloane Stephens advanced to the fourth round. The two winners earn $2,650,000 in Australian dollars; the runner-ups earn $1,325,000. The Australian dollar was worth more than the American dollar for large parts of 2011, 2012, and 2013, but today it’s worth 88 cents. Newsflash: Serena Williams lost in the fourth round on Jan. 19.
North America:Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is this Monday in the United States. The civil rights leader (1929-1968) was born on Jan. 15, but the holiday is observed annually on the third Monday in January. George Washington and Christopher Columbus are the only other people honored with a national holiday in the U.S. To show those outside the U.S. how extensive the King Day observations are I am linking this brief to a website that lists King, Jr. Day events in just one city -- Boston. The events include several musical and dancing performances, memorial services, speeches by politicians, readings of his speeches, storytelling, cultural exhibits, and an MLK Service Day that gives people a chance to help the needy.
South America: La Paz, Bolivia, celebrates the Feria de Alasitas (Festival of Abundance) on Friday. “Large areas of the city are taken over by market stalls selling all manner of miniature items,“ reports the Rough Guide to South America. “At the centre of the festivities is a diminutive figure of a mustachioed man with rosy cheeks and a broad smile, dressed in a tiny suit and hat and laden with foodstuffs and material possessions. This is the Ekeko, the household god of abundance….At the fair each year, people buy objects they desire in miniature to give to the Ekeko, thereby ensuring that the real thing will be theirs before the year is out.” Bolivia is landlocked. It’s north of Argentina, west of Brazil, and east of Peru.
Here are the previous 13 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
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-2-through-dec-8/244013
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-9-through-dec-15/245514
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-16-through-dec-22/247922
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-23-through-dec-29/250019
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-30-through-jan-5/251970
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--jan-6-through-jan-12/253826
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--jan-13-through-jan-19/256157
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