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CHIANG MAI, THAILAND

Care for Elephants

Asian elephants face many threats – especially loss of habitat due to encroaching development, which can lead to conflict with humans. Today the elephant population in Thailand is estimated at only 3,000 to 4,000. Lend a hand with the least fortune of these animals at the Elephant Nature Park outside Chiang Mai. As a sanctuary for orphaned and disabled elephants, some of which have been abused as work animals, the center invites visitors to help feed and bathe the gentle giants, as well as assist with general maintenance around the park.[…]

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SOUTH DAKOTA

Explore the Badlands

Over the past half million years, erosion has sculpted sediment deposited by the ancient sea that once stretched across the Great Plains into buttes, spires, and pinnacle formations, leaving us the Badlands. Named by the Lakota for its unwelcoming terrain that they believed was riddled with the remains of a mythological horned serpent, the striking landscape inspires awe among visitors today, especially during the magic hours of sunrise and sunset, and under a full moon.[…] 

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COSTA RICA

Rescue Sea Turtles

Commercial fishing, coastal development, humans harvesting eggs, marine debris, oil spills: The threats to sea turtles are staggering. Only an estimated one in 1,000 to 10,000 survives to adulthood, which is why conservationists around the world depend on volunteers to give these primordial creatures the best shot possible. Help conduct nightly patrols along the black-sand beaches of Tortuguero National Park on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, one of the most important nesting sites in the Western Hemisphere.[…] 

(In: Places That Will Change Your Life. Produced by National Geographic Partners, Washington, DC: 2016. Adaptado.)

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Nobel winner Malala opens school for Syrian refugees

Sylvia Westall

July 13, 2015

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

  Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, celebrated her 18th birthday in Lebanon on Sunday by opening a school for Syrian refugee girls and called on world leaders to invest in “books not bullets”. Malala became a symbol of defiance after she was shot on a school bus in Pakistan in 2012 by the Taliban for advocating girls’ rights to education. She continued campaigning and won the Nobel in 2014.

   “I decided to be in Lebanon because I believe that the voices of the Syrian refugees need to be heard and they have been ignored for so long,” Malala told Reuters in a schoolroom decorated with drawings of butterflies. The Malala Fund, a non-profit organization that supports local education projects, provided most of the funding for the school, set up by Lebanon’s Kayany Foundation in the Bekaa Valley, close to the Syrian border. The Kayany Foundation, established by Syrian Nora Joumblatt in response to Syria’s refugee crisis, has already completed three other new schools to give free education to Syrian children in Lebanon. The Malala school can welcome up to 200 girls aged 14 to 18.

   “Today on my first day as an adult, on behalf of the world’s children, I demand of leaders we must invest in books instead of bullets,” Malala said in a speech. Lebanon is home to at least 1.2 million of the 4 million refugees that have fled Syria’s war to neighboring countries. There are about 500,000 Syrian school-age children in Lebanon, but only a fifth are in formal education. “We are in danger of losing generations of young Syrian girls due to the lack of education,” Joumblatt said in a speech at the opening of the school. “Desperate and displaced Syrians are increasingly seeing early marriage as a way to secure the social and financial future of their daughters. We need to provide an alternative: Keep young girls in school instead of being pressured into wedlock.”

    Lebanon, which allows informal settlements on land rented by refugees, says it can no longer cope with the influx from Syria’s four-year conflict. More than one in four people living in Lebanon is a refugee. The United Nations says the number of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries is expected to reach 4.27 million by the end of the year. “In Lebanon as well as in Jordan, an increasing number of refugees are being turned back at the border,” Malala said. “This is inhuman and this is shameful.”

    Her father Ziauddin said he was proud she was carrying on her activism into adulthood. “This is the mission we have taken for the last 8-9 years. A small moment for the education of girls in Swat Valley: it is spreading now all over the world,” he said.

(www.reuters.com. Adaptado.)

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Al Capone

    Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, to poor immigrant parents, Al Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. In 1920 during the height of Prohibition, Capone’s multi-million dollar Chicago operation in bootlegging, prostitution and gambling dominated the organized crime scene. Capone was responsible for many brutal acts of violence, mainly against other gangsters. The most famous of these was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, in which he ordered the assassination of seven rivals. Capone was never indicted for his racketeering but was finally brought to justice for income-tax evasion in 1931. After serving six-and-a-half years, Capone was released. He died in 1947 in Miami. Capone’s life captured the public imagination, and his gangster persona has been immortalized in the many movies and books inspired by his exploits.

(Excerpt from the site: http://www.history.com/topics/alcapone. Researched on: October 2015)

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Green sea turtle

    Green sea turtles spend most of their lives underwater, where they can rest for up to five hours at a time before coming up for air. When active, they typically alternate between being underwater for a few minutes and coming up to the surface to breathe air for a few seconds. Green sea turtles are also known to sunbathe on land.Unlike most other sea turtles, adult green sea turtles eat a primarily plant-based diet consisting of seaweed and sea grass. Scientists believe these green foods give the sea turtle’s fat its green color. The shell of the green sea turtle is usually shades of a brown or olive color.

(Excerpt from the site: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/green-seaturtle/#green-sea-turtle-closeup-underwater.jpg. Researched on: October 2015)