You can also watch the video by clicking on the Play Button
9/29/2019
What happens to illegal items at JFK airport? (video)
You can also watch the video by clicking on the Play Button
9/22/2019
Turkey will flood 12,000-year-old city
 |
| The ancient cave-city of Hasankeyf on the Tigris River. Photograph: Alamy |
Hasankeyf
is thought to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on Earth,
dating as far back as 12,000 years and containing thousands of caves, churches
and tombs.
But this
jewel of human history will soon be lost since most of the settlement is about to be flooded
as part of the highly controversial Ilisu dam project.
Construction
work on the dam and its hydroelectric power plant started in 2006 and Hasankeyf
is now just weeks away from destruction, despite a fight by residents and
environmental campaigners to save it.
The Turkish government has given
residents until 8 October to evacuate.
An attempt
to challenge the project at the European court of human rights on the grounds
that it would damage the country’s cultural heritage was unsuccessful.
On its
completion it will be the fourth biggest dam in Turkey and will generate 4,200
gigawatts hours of electricity annually, but at a huge cost.
The scheme
will flood 199 settlements in the region, thousands of human-made caves and
hundreds of historical and religious sites. Campaigners warn that close to
80,000 people will be displaced.
They also
warn that biodiversity will suffer, and that numerous vulnerable and endangered
species are threatened by the construction of the dam.
Hasankeyf
has been part of many different cultures in its long history, including ancient
Mesopotamia, Byzantium, Arab empires and the Ottoman empire, but Hakan Ozoglu,
a history professor at the University of Central Florida, said there are references
to the town in several ancient texts in different languages such as Assyrian,
Armenian, Kurdish, Arab.
The
professor says Hasankeyf is a laboratory that could provide many answers about
the past. “Such rare physical evidence of the human past must be protected at
all cost,” Ozoglu said.
Only eight
historical monuments – including a tower from what was said to be the oldest
university in the world, half of an old Roman gate to the city and a
women’s hamam dating to around 1400 – have been saved from
Hasankeyf. The pieces were moved 3km away and now stand on a vast plain.
With the
deadline handed down by the government, people from the surrounding areas have
come to say farewell to the historical site, knowing it will be their last
chance to see it.
Few
tourists visit the area, however, due to its inaccessibility.
Ozoglu said
the benefit from the dam cannot come close to that of the potential of tourism
that would be better marketed if it had Unesco’s name attached to it.
“I cannot
see very many other places on Earth that deserve more to be on the list of
Unesco’s protected sites,” Ozoglu said.
The
government has built a “new Hasankeyf” for 700 households, 3km away from
historical Hasankeyf, to relocate residents before 8 October. But Eyup Agalday,
27, said he and his wife were not offered their own home in the new settlement,
as the government has a cutoff for those married after 2014. “I will have to
live with my parents again– the whole family of 10 members will be in the one
house,” he said.
Agalday,
like his ancestors, is a shepherd, and currently lives in in one of Hasankeyf’s
many caves. He will not be allowed to take his animals to the new village and
has started selling his goats. “I am forced to do something and be in a city
where I don’t want to live,” he said.
Sitting
under the shade of grapevines on the opposite side of the river, Hediye Tapkan,
38, said she had no idea where her family, including five young children, will
go. “We like our place, we make our bread here, we have lots of grapes and figs
which sometimes we sell, our lands are productive,” she said.
As the
residents wait for the floodgates to open and for Hasankeyf to be slowly
submerged by the rising river, they say they will continue to raise their
voices and spread the message of the settlement’s history, even after entry to
it is banned in October.
 |
| A photo of the old university of Hasankeyf – said to have been the oldest in the world – before it was destroyed in January 2019 ahead of the flooding. Photograph: Courtesy of Eyup Agalda |
From The Guardian (edited)
A 96-year-old legal secretary hid a $9M fortune
A – Each paragraph has ONE mistake. Please detect and correct it.
1 - Even by the
dizzying standards of New York City philanthropy, a recent $6.24 million donation
was a whopper — the largest single gift from an individual to social service
group Henry Street Settlement in his 125-year history.
2 - It was not
donated by some billionaire benefactor, but by a legal secretary from Brooklyn
who worked for the same law firm since 67 years until she retired at age 96 and
died not long afterward in 2016.
3 - Her name was
Sylvia Bloom and even her closest friends and relatives had any idea she had
amassed a fortune over the decades.
4- She was a
secretary in an era when they ran their boss’s lives. So when the boss bought a stock, she made the
purchase for him, and then bought the same stock for herself, but in a smallest
amount because she was on a secretary’s salary.
5 - Due to Ms.
Bloom never talked about this, the fact that she had carefully cultivated more
than $9 million among three brokerage houses and 11 banks, emerged only at the
end of her life.
6 - Ms. Bloom, which
never had children of her own, was born to eastern European immigrants and grew
up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression.
7 - On 1947 she
joined a Wall Street law firm as one of its first employees. Over her 67 years
with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, the firm grew to its current size,
with more than 1,200 lawyers, as well as hundreds of staff members, of which
Ms. Bloom was the longest tenured.
8 - Established in 1946, Cleary Gottlieb Steen
& Hamilton has grown to become an international powerhouse and a go-to-firm for
nations that are having trouble pay their debts.
9 - Ms. Bloom’s
husband, Raymond Margolies, who died in 2002, was a city firefighter who
retired and become a city schoolteacher.
10 -Nearly all the
money was in Ms. Bloom’s name alone and it is very possible that Mr. Margolies
did not know the size of her wife’s fortune.
B – Please fill
in the blanks with suitable words
The couple
lived modestly a rent-controlled apartment, though she could have lived on Park Avenue if she had wanted
to.
Ms. Bloom was
known always taking the subway to work, even the morning of the Sept. 11, 2001
terror attacks on the World Trade Center, not far from the firm’s offices.
That day, Ms.
Bloom, 84, fled north and took refuge in
a building before walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and taking a city bus — not
a cab — home.
Paul Hyams,
the human resources executive for Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, who
became good friends Ms. Bloom over his 35 years working the same law firm said that just before she
retired, he saw the 96-year-old Ms. Bloom walking out of the subway and heading
work the
middle of a fierce snowstorm. “I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and she said,
‘Why, where should I be?’” he recalled.
Still, he
said, he was “completely astounded” to learn
her wealth after her death.
“She never
talked money and she didn’t live the high life,” he said. “She wasn’t showy and
didn’t want call attention to herself.”
A lover of
chocolate but not lavish presents, she only accepted his gifts of special
chocolate small quantities.
“She was a
child of the Depression and she knew what it was like not to have money. She
had great empathy other people who were needy and wanted everybody have a fair shake.”
C – How about
asking questions to get the underlined answers?
1 - Sylvia Bloom worked for the same law firm for 67 years.
2 - No, her
closest friends and relatives had no idea she had amassed a fortune over the
decades.
3 - She did this by observing the investments made by the lawyers she served.
4 - Ms. Bloom, who never had children of her own,
was born to eastern European immigrants and grew up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression.
5 - She attended public schools, including Hunter
College, where she completed her degree at night while working days to make ends meet.
6 -The Henry Street Settlement was founded in 1893 by the public health pioneer Lillian Wald.
7 - Henry Street Settlement serves more than 60,000 people and
provides an array of services in addition to its education support, including
health care programs and transitional housing.
8 - In 1947 she joined a fledgling Wall Street
law firm as one of its first employees.
9 - Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has grown
to become an international powerhouse with more than 1,200 lawyers, as well as hundreds of staff members.
10 - On September 11, 2001, the day of the terror
attacks on the World Trade Center, Ms. Bloom, at 84, fled north and took refuge in a building before walking over the
Brooklyn Bridge and taking a city bus — not a cab — home.
D – Write Sylvia’s
letter thanking the firm for the reception
From The New York Times (edited)
9/08/2019
Diego Maradona named Gimnasia head coach
 |
| Maradona previously managed Mexican second division side Dorados |
Argentine legend Diego Maradona has been named manager ________ Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata - the first coaching job _________ his homeland ________ 2010-
The 58-year-old, Argentina's
1986 World Cup-winning captain, takes charge ____________ the end of the
season.
Gimnasia club is nicknamed
El Lobo, __________ means 'the Wolf' .
Maradona, who shared Fifa's
Player of the 20th Century award ______ Brazilian great Pele, takes on a team __________
has gained one point from their past five matches.
He left his previous
managerial role of Mexico second division outfit Dorados de Sinaloa ___________
June, citing issues with his health,
after failing to secure promotion to the top flight.
"Finally it's now
official," Maradona wrote _______ Instagram. "I am very happy _________ be
the new coach of Gimnasia.”
"I want _________ thank
the president Gabriel Pellegrino _________ this opportunity and say _________all
the fans that we are going __________ work with our hearts and souls ______ El
Lobo."
Maradona's new role is his
sixth club management job; he was also _____ charge ___________ the national
team __________ two years ____________
2008, taking them to the 2010 World Cup quarter-finals _________ South
Africa.
Diego Maradona's career as a manager
- Textil Mandiyu (Oct 1994 - Dec 1994)
- Racing Club (Jan 1995 - Mar 1995)
- Argentina (Oct 2008 - Jul 2010)
- Al-Wasl (May 2011 - Jul 2012)
- Al-Fujairah SC (May 2017 - Apr 2018)
- Dorados (Sep 2018 - Jun 2019)
9/01/2019
A 'luxury' villa in Croatia
A group of French friends were left shocked when they arrived at what should have been the luxury $7,000 villa they'd booked for their two-week holiday in Croatia, only to find nothing but wasteland.
Parisian Chloé Melin, 22, and her 11 friends travelled to Hvar on Sunday, excited for what they thought would be an idyllic seaside vacation.
They thought they'd successfully booked a villa through Booking.com for €6,240 ($6,907), but it turned out not to exist.
Initially, the friends presumed they had the wrong address so they went to ask neighbors and nearby shop workers.
In doing so, they learned that the same thing had happened to some other tourists in July. According to Melin, Booking.com knew about this but didn't do anything about it, Le Parisien reports.
Melin said they felt "completely humiliated."
In a screengrab shared by Melin on Twitter of the villa's listing, it was advertised as being five-star with a pool, hot tub, pergola, terrace, and outdoor kitchen.
The group immediately tried to call the supposed owner using the contact number provided, but no one picked up.
According to Melin, the "owner" had previously been responding to their messages, but shortly after their payment had gone through, about a week before the group's arrival, they had fallen silent.
The group tried contacting Booking.com next, speaking to various people but not getting anywhere for over five hours.
@bookingcom Arrivés en Croatie ce jour 18/08/19. La villa que nous avons réservé et payé 6420€ pour un groupe de 10 personnes, située sur l’île de Hvar s’avère être une arnaque. Après avoir contacté le service client et s’être fait raccrocher au nez une première fois,
À la porte d’un terrain vague quand on est arrivé à l’adresse donné par @bookingcom suite à 5h d’appel avec le service client de @bookingcom aucune aide ni geste commercial.
4,285 people are talking about this
Melin says someone from the company even told them it wasn't the company's fault if they slept outside.
They were ultimately offered a reimbursement for the money within 10 working days, according to their tweets.
@bookingcom Arrived in Croatia this day 18/08/19. The villa that we booked and paid 6420€ for a group of 10 people, located on the island of Hvar turns out to be a scam.
After contacting customer service and getting hung up a first time, the only offer is a refund within 10 business days, or booking another villa at our expense. So we find ourselves in Split without housing and without solution!
91 people are talking about this
However, Melin believes they may never have received this response had she and her friend Julie not documented the whole experience on Twitter, which duly went viral.
"Villa Felipa" has now been removed from the property rental platform, and Booking.com has apologized.
"Because we live for our customers and are super invested in helping to connect them with incredible travel experiences, in the very rare instance that something goes unexpectedly wrong at an accommodation, our dedicated customer service team is on hand 24/7 to support in every way we can," a spokesperson for Booking.com told Insider.
"We are very sorry for the difficulties that this group encountered. As this is not the experience we want for any of our customers, we have provided a full refund for their original reservation, are covering all relocation expenses and have offered an additional amount as a gesture of goodwill."
The company added: "This property has also been removed from our site. We successfully facilitate hundreds of thousands of bookings every day that result in great stay experiences for our customers all over the world and we are committed to that mission."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)