Australia Bans Climbing on Uluru, a Popular Site Sacred to Indigenous People
Photo
SYDNEY, Australia — Visitors to Uluru, a giant sandstone slab jutting from the central Australian desert, have for decades ignored a sign at the rock’s base that politely reads: “Please don’t climb.”
On Wednesday, the board members of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, which manages the popular site also known as Ayers Rock, said they would soon stop requesting that hikers respect the landmark. Instead, they will demand it.
Beginning in 2019, climbing Uluru, which is considered sacred to the region’s indigenous Anangu people, will be banned, the board said.
Climbing the 1,141-foot-tall rock in Australia’s Northern Territory will be banned as of Oct. 26, 2019, a historically significant date for the site. On that day in 1985, the government returned ownership of Uluru to the Anangu people. As part of that agreement, the Anangu lease the site back to the government, and the two parties jointly manage it.
Uluru has, for many in Australia, come to symbolize the struggle for Indigenous rights. Mr. Wilson said some people in the government wanted to keep the rock open to hikers, but “it’s not their law that lies in this land.”
Traditional owners do not climb Uluru out of respect, and they worry that hiking will damage the stone. Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Photo
Tourists climbing Uluru in 2004. Fewer than 20 percent of visitors now climb the rock, according to the government.CreditTim Wimborne/Reuters
There has been opposition to the climbing ban. Last year, Adam Giles, a politician with an Indigenous heritage who was then the Northern Territory chief minister, called the idea “ludicrous.”
But Sally Barnes, Australia’s director of national parks, said it was a “significant moment for all Australians” that “marks a new chapter in our history.”
“It clearly says we put country and culture first when managing this place for all Australians and our visitors from around the world,” she said on Wednesday.
About 250,000 people visit Uluru every year, according to the park’s website. In recent years, the number of visitors wishing to climb the rock has dropped significantly, to less than 20 percent, according to Ms. Barnes. Tour operators now offer alternatives to climbing Uluru, including camel tours around its base.
“The best view of Uluru is from the bottom,” one social media user said on Wednesday.
The Sackler Family making billions off of drug addicts should not be above the law and if the law protects the Super Rich from prosecution, we need to change the law and regain control of our society back to the People where it belongs after so many years of abuse of human society by the Super Rich buying their way to wealth on people in pain.
CAIRO — Pope Francis led a mass of about 250,000 Egyptians on Saturday, telling followers that the only acceptable kind of fanaticism is that of "charity."
"Any other type of fanaticism does not come from God, and is not pleasing to him,” Francis told tens of thousands of Catholics and Copts at a suburban Cairo stadium. "True faith is one that makes us more charitable, more merciful, more honest and more humane — it moves our hearts to love everyone without counting the cost, without distinction and without preference … it makes us see the other not as an enemy to be overcome but a brother or sister to be loved, served and helped.”
Sunday, February 05, 2017
Israel takes step toward allowing export of medical marijuana
FILE PHOTO: A worker harvests cannabis plants at a medical marijuana plantation near the northern town of NazarethThomson Reuters
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli government committee gave an initial nod on Sunday for the export of medical marijuana in what could be a windfall for companies in Israel, widely regarded as a leader in research in the field.
A government statement announcing the vote said it could take months for the legislation to make its way through parliament.
In the United States, 28 states have legalized marijuana for medical use and since 2012, Colorado, Alaska, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, D.C. have also approved marijuana for recreational use. The market there, by some estimates, will reach $50 billion over the next decade.
Israel is widely regarded as one of the world leaders in medical marijuana research, even though the local market is small. Only 23,000 people have Health Ministry permits to purchase medical cannabis from nine licensed suppliers, creating a market of $15 million to $20 million at most.
Saul Kaye, CEO of iCAN, a private cannabis research hub in Israel, said there are about 50 Israeli medical marijuana companies active in many aspects of the industry, from agriculture to delivery devices, such as inhalers.
Kaye estimated that international investments in Israeli companies reached about $100 million in 2016.
Last month, Israel moved toward decriminalizing small-scale personal use of marijuana and authorities are supportive of research. Israeli Health Minister Yakov Litzman supports medical cannabis usage and has introduced steps to ease its prescription and sale.
Israeli growers work together with scientific institutions in clinical trials and development of strains that treat a variety of illnesses and disorders.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Raissa Kasolowsky)
Israel stands for thievery. First, it's guns for killing people. Then it was Silicon Valley theft of their years of work. Now thievery of U.S. cannabis growers who did all the preliminary work, took all the risks, and still pay the price of being under the thumb of right-wing nuts, the same mentality seen in Israel.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionSuperyachts are the calling card of some ultra-wealthy individuals
The world's eight richest individuals have as much wealth as the 3.6bn people who make up the poorest half of the world, according to Oxfam.
The charity said its figures, which critics have queried, came from improved data, and the gap between rich and poor was "far greater than feared".
Oxfam's report coincides with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said Oxfam should focus instead on ways to boost growth.
"As an 'anti-poverty' charity, Oxfam seems to be strangely preoccupied with the rich," said the director-general of the free market think tank.
For those concerned with "eradicating absolute poverty completely", the focus should be on measures that encourage economic growth, he added.
Ben Southwood, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, said it was not the wealth of the world's rich that mattered, but the welfare of the world's poor, which was improving every year.
"Each year we are misled by Oxfam's wealth statistics. The data is fine - it comes from Credit Suisse - but the interpretation is not."
'Elite gathering'
The annual event in Davos, a Swiss ski resort, attracts many of the world's top political and business leaders.
Katy Wright, Oxfam's head of global external affairs, said the report helped the charity to "challenge the political and economic elites".
"We're under no illusions that Davos is anything other than a talking shop for the world's elite, but we try and use that focus," she added.
The world's eight richest billionaires
1. Bill Gates (US): co-founder of Microsoft (net worth $75bn)
2. Amancio Ortega (Spain): founder of Zara owner Inditex (net worth $67bn)
3. Warren Buffett (US): largest shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway (net worth $60.8bn)
4. Carlos Slim Helu (Mexico): owner of Grupo Carso (net worth $50bn)
5. Jeff Bezos (US): founder and chief executive of Amazon (net worth $45.2bn)
6. Mark Zuckerberg (US): co-founder and chief executive of Facebook (net worth $44.6bn)
7. Larry Ellison (US): co-founder and chief executive of Oracle (net worth $43.6bn)
8. Michael Bloomberg (US): owner of Bloomberg LP (net worth $40bn)
Source: Forbes billionaires' list, March 2016
UK economist Gerard Lyons said focusing on extreme wealth "does not always give the full picture" and attention should be paid to "making sure the economic cake is getting bigger".
However, he said Oxfam was right to single out companies that it believed fuelled inequality with business models that were "increasingly focused on delivering ever-higher returns to wealthy owners and top executives".
Oxfam's Ms Wright said economic inequality was fuelling a polarisation in politics, citing Donald Trump's election as US president and the Brexit vote as examples.
'Fair share'
"People are angry and calling out for alternatives. They're feeling left behind because however hard they work they can't share in their country's growth," she said.
The charity is calling for "a more human economy" and is urging governments to crack down on executive pay and tax evasion and impose higher taxes on the wealthy.
It also wants business leaders to pay a "fair share of tax" and has urged companies to pay staff the "living wage", which is higher than the government's National Living Wage.
Oxfam has produced similar reports for the past four years. In 2016 it calculated that the richest 62 people in the world had as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population.
The number had fallen to just eight this year because more accurate data was now available, Oxfam said.
It was still the case that the world's richest 1% had as much wealth as the rest of the world combined, Oxfam said.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionFacebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan
Some of the eight richest billionaires have given away tens of billions of dollars. In 2000 Bill Gates and his wife Melinda set up a private foundation that has an endowment of more than $44bn.
In 2015 Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan pledged to give away 99% of their net worth in their lifetimes, which equated to about $45bn based on the value of Facebook shares at the time.
It takes cash and assets worth $71,600 to get into the top 10%, and $744,396 to be in the top 1%.
Oxfam's report is based on data from Forbes and the annual Credit Suisse Global Wealth datebook, which gives the distribution of global wealth going back to 2000.
The survey uses the value of an individual's assets, mainly property and land, minus debts, to determine what he or she "owns". The data excludes wages or income.
The methodology has been criticised as it means that a student with high debts, but with high future earning potential, for example, would be considered poor under the criteria used.
These people are really all criminals stealing wealth they never could have earned by themselves. The capitialist economic system rewards thieves like these who sit as toll gate keepers exacting their private tolls for each commodity that their corporation produces as a collective process in manufacturing, distributing and consuming. Do the rest of the people in this process receive their fair share for their work without which the Super Rich would never exist as such? No, which is why this capitalist system is in reality a con game for a tiny set of world manipulating greedos. It doesn't matter that some of the greedos give away enormous amounts of money when they do Nothing to alter the unfair criminal corporate capitalist system that continues to screw the human race, the whole human species.
Prophesy bearer for four religious traditions, revealer of Christ's Sword, revealer of Josephine bearing the Spirit of Christ, revealer of the identity of God, revealer of the Celestial Torah astro-theological code within the Bible. Celestial Torah Christian Theologian, Climax Civilization theorist and activist, Eco-Village Organizer, Master Psychedelic Artist, Inventor of the Next Big Thing in wearable tech, and always your Prophet-At-Large.
