Sri Lanka: Status Symbol

“Your degree of access to an air conditioned environment indicates how close (or far away) you are to the vast underclass of permanent poverty,” comments Cerno on third world’s biggest status symbol -Air Conditioning.

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Updates about Environment

11 February 2012

Cambodia

The World Agroforestry Centre has released a study on the climate change adaptation options for small farmers in Southeast Asia.

• Mong Palatino

10 February 2012

Macedonia

GV Author Filip Stojanovski posts pictures of Skopje's snowy and icy streets and reports on his blog: “[…] the pavements and the side streets in the municipality of Centar remain icy. Some are covered by layers of ice or re-frozen slush, by old frozen snow, or an unevenly hardened mash of snow and 'salt.' Fokus daily claimed that the authorities avoid declaring nationwide state of emergency in order to ‘prove' that they were prepared for the snow.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

9 February 2012

Cuba

“For Rogelio, 49, the need for housing is stronger than his fear of losing his life due to a collapse”: Iván's File Cabinet discusses the conundrum many inhabitants of Havana face.

• Janine Mendes-Franco

Trinidad & Tobago

The cocoyea (pronounced Ko-ki-ye) is “the mid rib of the coconut leaf that is stripped with a knife” and has many uses, from bird-catching to kite-flying; in this post, Simply Trini Cooking explains how to make a broom out of it, which he calls “an integral part of our culture.”

• Janine Mendes-Franco

7 February 2012

Bulgaria

GV Author Ruslan Trad is tweeting - here, here, here, and here - about the severe flooding in southern Bulgaria, which was caused by heavy rainfall of the past few days and has killed at least eight people in the village of Bisser. The latest tweet came about an hour ago: “Breaking: Maritsa River’s dike broke close to the village of Generalovo, municipality of Svilenhrad, huge wave.” More photos from the disaster in the village of Bisser - at the Facebook page [bg] of the Bulgarian National TV's fundraising effort to help the victims.