Category: newsletter

  • Borat Invited To Kazakhstan

    British comedian Sacha Baron who plays a fictional TV reporter called Borat has been invited by Rakhat Aliyev, Kazakh first deputy foreign minister and a powerful son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev to go to Kazakhstan to see the truth for himself. No doubt the Kazakh authorities have invited the comedian TV reporter to show him…

  • Mines Cleared in Mozambique

    The US State Department Mozambique’s recently announced that Mozambique’s 670km long railway line, Sena Railway, which has not been used for 20 years, has been cleared of mines and unexploded ordnance laid in 1984 by insurgents during Mozambique’s civil war. The railway connects Mozambique’s main port city, Beira, with its resource-rich interior. The US State…

  • Travel Tip: Carrying Money

    When wearing a money belt, first make sure it is cotton and machine washable, they can get awfully hot snug under your clothing. Secondly, use one of those small oblong plastic wallets you often get from Forex bureau’s to keep your money in, inside your money belt as sweaty money is both unattractive to handle…

  • Leaping Stingray Strikes

    Reuters recently reported that in Miami, Florida, a leaping spotted eagle ray stabbed an 81-year-old Florida boater in the chest, leaving its poisonous barbed sting lodged close to his heart in an incident very similar to the one that killed Australian TV naturalist Steve Irwin last month. The grandfather of two survived.

  • Hyde Park Solar Boat

    A shuttle boat powered entirely by the sun has been launched on the Serpentine lake in London’s Hyde Park. The 14.5m (48ft) Solarshuttle, thought to be the biggest of its kind in the UK, will carry 42 passengers every half-hour between the north side of the Serpentine and the jetty in the south, near the…

  • Darts in Iran

    Darts, the game of throwing small pointed missiles at a board divided into scoring segments is normally associated with British pubs and the consumption of large amounts of alcohol, has found a new following in ultra-conservative Iran. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including Muslim clerics and soldiers, are enthusiastically picking up their ‘arras’. Darts brings…

  • Daintree Saved

    Daintree forest, a World Heritage site in northern Queensland, one of the oldest rainforests on the planet and home to Australia’s most diverse range of species, has been saved from becoming a housing estate. The land was sold off by the state’s maverick Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen in the early 1980s, and for the last 20…

  • MEETING NEWS

    MEETING NEWS

  • Meeting News from London by Padmassana

    Our first speaker was Rory Maclean, “The magic bus”, Istanbul to India. Rory set out to visit the places along the classic overland route to India. Starting in Istanbul at the Pudding shop, visiting the spectacular Hagia Sofia, then using mainly public buses to travel through Iran and into Afghanistan, where at one point he…

  • Meeting News from Ontario

    For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermane@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259. Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November, usually at the Old York Tower, 85 Esplanade (It is at the south-east corner of Church & Esplanade – 2 blocks…