Transformation of St Kilda Seventy-five years ago, the residents of a group of islands off the northwest coast of Scotland packed up and left for good. Their home—St Kilda—-now has World Heritage status but with the departure of the St Kildans in August 1930, a way of life that had existed for thousands of years, vanished. St Kilda was years for years known as the most remote settlement in the entire British Empire, but actually it is not so far away—-around 200 km west of the nearest point of the Scottish mainland. Seventy-five years ago, at the end of August 1930, the last 36 islanders banked up their turf fires, opened their Bibles at Exodus, put some oats on the table, then left forever, bringing to an end a habitation and a way of life that stretched back at least two thousand years. St Kilda is an archipelago of sea stacks, skerries and four islands, of which only one, Hirta, was permanently inhabited. It was remote in ways other than geography. The people, who never numbered more than a couple of hundred, spoke not English but a distinctive form of Gaelic. Their economy, their whole culture, revolved round seabirds—fulmars, gannets and puffins. They ate them and exchanged their feathers and precious oil for goods such as tea and sugar from the mainland. In the Victorian era, at the height of Britain’s imperial adventure, this self-sufficient life held a strange fascination. St Kilda became a fashionable tourist destination and steamers regularly dropped anchor in Village Bay. But the visitors could not comprehend the St Kildans they gawped at. There is an astonishing recording in the BBC’s archives of an islander saying that her mother, in payment for a bale of tweed which had taken all winter to weave, was given an orange. She didn’t know what it was. There had been worse traumas: St Kilda’s graveyard is one of the most heartrending places. It is full of tiny hummocks, where infants are buried. Newborn babies were all anointed where the cord had been cut with a concoction of fulmar oil, dung and earth and 8 out of 10 of them died of neonatal tetanus. The minister finally put a stop to this in 1891 and after that the babies lived, but it was too late. Add to this grief, emigration and harsh religion and it’s no wonder that the St Kildans lost heart. By the 1920s there were no longer enough people to do all the work. In 1930 they planted no crops and petitioned the government to take them off the island. St Kilda is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. There are tow National Trust wardens and in the summer volunteer work parties come to maintain the buildings. There’s a resident archaeologist. A century on St Kilda has become a chic destination once again. There were 15,000 visitors last year. Recently one of the wardens found the first piece of litter; a plastic water bottle wedged between the stones of a wall.
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Tourism, Globalization and Sustainable Development Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy and developing countries are attempting to cash in on this expanding industry in an attempt to boost foreign investment and financial reserves. While conceding that the uncontrolled growth of this industry can result in serious environmental and social problems, the United Nations contends that such negative effects can be controlled and reduced. Before getting into the cold facts of global economics, let me begin with another story to warm up. I was perplexed when I recently read in the newspaper that Thailand’s forestry chief had said: “Humans can’t live in the forest because human beings aren’t animals. Unlike us, animals can adapt themselves to the wild or any environment naturally.” This was to legitimatize the government’s plan to remove hundreds of thousands of rural and hill tribe people from protected areas. This man, who is in charge of conserving the forests, is at the same time very strongly pushing to open up the country’s 81 national parks to outside investors and visitors in the name of “eco-tourism”. Can we conclude, then, that the forestry chief considers developers and tourists as animals that know how to adapt to the forest and behave in the wild naturally? While authorities want to stop the access to forest lands and natural resources of village people, another group of people—namely tourism developers and tourists with lots of money to spend—are set to gain access to the area. While authorities believe that local people, who have often lived in the area for generations, are not capable of managing and conserving their land and natural resources—under a community forestry scheme for example—they believe they themselves in cooperation with the tourist industry can properly manage and conserve “nature” under a national eco-tourism plan. Taking the above quote seriously, cynics may be tempted to say there is obviously a gap between “human rights” and “animal rights”. How is this story linked to globalization? First of all, that humans cannot live in the forest is—of course—not a Thai concept. It is a notion of Western conservation ideology—an outcome of the globalization of ideas and perceptions. Likewise, that eco-tourism under a “good management” system is beneficial to local people and nature is also a Western concept that is being globalized. In fact, Thailand’s forestry chief thinks globally and acts locally. A lesson that can be learned from this is that the slogan “Think Globally, Act Locally” that the environmental movements have promoted all the years, has not necessarily served to preserve the environment and safeguard local communities’ rights, but has been co-opted and distorted by official agencies and private industries for profit-making purposes. The tourism industry is demonstrating this all too well Many developing countries, facing debt burdens and worsening trade terms, have turned to tourism promotion in the hope that it brings foreign exchange and investment. Simultaneously, leading international agencies such as the World Bank, United Nations agencies and business organizations like the Word Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) have been substantially involved to make tourism a truly global industry. However, tourism in developing countries is often viewed by critics as an extension of former colonial conditions because from the very beginning, it has benefited from international economic relationships that structurally favor the advanced capitalist countries in the North. Unequal trading relationships, dependence on foreign interests, and the division of labor have relegated poor countries in the South to becoming tourism recipients and affluent countries in the North to the position of tourism generators, with the latter enjoying the freedom from having to pay the price for the meanwhile well-known negative impacts in destinations.
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Expressionism Expressionism is an art movement that produced a wealth of wonderful works of art, and the lives of the artists who created them were no less colorful and exciting. The word "expressionism" can be used to describe art from different times and places, most of them were part of a movement that took place in Germany from 1905 to 1920. They shared some of the beliefs. Those beliefs were that art should try to change society, to make it less conservative. It should express the energy of nature—following in the footsteps of Vincent van Gogh—-and personal feeling rather than simply representing nature. It should feel "uncomfortable", which means it should challenge the traditional ways of looking at the world. This differed from the opinion of Henri Matisse who believed that art should be "comfortable". Expressionist art should be inspired by folk art, and the art of what were then called "primitive" people, for example from Africa. The aim of the Expressionists was to express personal feeling about what they were painting rather than representing it exactly as it was. It should have strong colors and shapes, be relatively direct, untutored and unplanned and should still contain recognizable things, but not be realistic. The lines could be distorted, and the colors could be strengthened or changed as in the art movement that began in 1905 called Fauvism. Expressionism was more than a style in painting. It could be found in theatre and cinema, literature and architecture. It was a sharing of ideas and experiences across all these media. The life stories of the Expressionist artists show just how much they had in common. Many began by studying applied art, such as furniture design, often to please their parents. Although they later made more personal art, they continued to make use of those technical skills. Both art critics and the public received this new movement with derision and outrage. Expressionist artists were trying to shock by challenging the traditional, conservative views held by many people. Gradually, however, it became accepted and even admired. All the Expressionists were affected by World War I (1914-18). Some fled from Germany and spent the war years in exile. Some never returned to their homeland. Most served in the war and some were killed. At first some of them hoped a war would change society for the better but they were soon disillusioned when they saw the destruction and suffering that it caused. In the years after the war, many Expressionist artist revealed the horrors they experienced in their work. After World War I, Expressionism became very fashionable in Germany, where art was allowed to flourish. This freedom ended in 1933 when Hitler declared all Expressionists were "degenerate". This led to them being sacked from their jobs or forced to leave Germany. In 1937 the Nazis took thousands of art works from German museums and put them in an enormous exhibition called the Degenerate Art Exhibition, to show how bad and decadent this art was. It presented a view of the world that went against their political and cultural ambitions to rid Germany of all inferior races.
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One Number Gets It All—Phone, Fax or Voice Mail Tired of having to remember different numbers for your office phone, fax, pager or mobile phone? No room on your business card for the raft of numbers that are now part of everyday business contacts? The answer is at hand—or rather in a number. One number can now be used for all your different devices and communications, thanks to a new system devised by a technology company which uses the science available in the high-growth, hi-tech modem world. Instead of numbers belonging to different devices, the company assigns you one number belonging to you, the person. You have one number for phone, fax, pagers and mobile phones. All your calls and contacts come to this one number so that you can divert unwanted callers politely to your voice mail if you want. Voice messages that come into the same personal number can be turned into emails for delivery to the desktop of your computer or to another person’s computer. You can have trouble-free call-forwarding anywhere in the world. Those are some of the features of Bloodhound, a new service offered by Auckland-based computer telephony integrator—Powercall Technologies Ltd. General manager Nick Little said the company, a subsidiary of the Brocker Technology Group, came to the new one-number system when they wanted to set up in a new office. It would have cost $US 250 (RMB ￥2,000) a month to lease a small phone switchboard. To avoid the capital outlay or the hardware in the office, they set out instead to develop a switchboard based on a PC computer. Then, realizing the market was awash in such products, the company looked at ways to use its experience in voice mail, interactive voice response and unified messaging to develop new subscriber-based services. Mr. Little said Bloodhound, which costs $US 20 (RMB ￥160) a month for full phone, fax and messaging, side-stepped the number portability issue (whether phone owners can use the same number in different phone company systems or not) because subscribers were given not a telephone number, but their own personal number. “The number we issue is a virtual number belonging to the person. It does not terminate on a physical device," Mr. Little said. "The subscriber sets up devices behind the scenes." Bloodhound runs on NT servers and subscribers pay their telephone carriers for line connection and any toll charges. They also pay for calls received on mobile phones via Bloodhound at US$ 25c (RMB ￥2) a minute. But they can change phone carrier company or exchange without having to change all their stationery. Callers are greeted by an automated "virtual assistant", which locates the Bloodhound subscriber or takes messages. Calls can be screened, with known callers announced to the subscriber who can choose to accept a call or divert it to another person or voice mail. Fax can be forwarded to any location for printing, without the cellular charges associated with cellphone-based fax services. And if users have a sudden inspiration, they can call Bloodhound and dictate a message for recall later. Simon Morgan from advertising and direct marketing agency Carpe Diem has been a pilot user of the service throughout the year 2000. He said Bloodhound helped his five-person company present a consistent and professional face to the world. "One of our staff works from home part-time, but with a Bloodhound number available to the world as her office number. As far as the world is connected, she works in the office. It’s also useful if I’m working at a client site. I can use the ‘I am Here’ feature and get calls forwarded through."
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Research published in May 1998 by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) showed that reducing coastal and river pollution and ensuring a reliable water supply were among the top environmental priorities for the public. All discharges to water in the UK require the consent of the appropriate regulatory authority. In England and Wales the Environment Agency’s principal method of controlling water pollution is through the regulation of all effluent discharges, including sewage, into groundwater, and inland and coastal waters. The Agency maintains public registers containing information about water quality, discharge consents, authorizations and monitoring. Applicants for consents to discharge have the right of appeal if they are dissatisfied with the Agency’s decision; most of these appeals are dealt with by the Planning Inspectorate, an executive agency of the DETR. In Scotland control is the responsibility of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), and most appeals are dealt with by the Scottish Office. In Northern Ireland the Environment and Heritage Service is responsible for controlling water pollution. In 1997, there were 4,717 cases in England and Wales of discharges exceeding their consented limits, including a number of offences by water companies discharging insufficiently treated sewage. The majority of these breaches did not cause any significant environmental damage. However, the Environment Agency did bring 65 cases to court, of which 61 were successful, resulting in fines ranging from ￡ 440 to ￡ 12,000 and one prison sentence of two months. In Scotland, there were 2,734 pollution incidents in 1997; SEPA seeks prosecution in all significant cases. In 1997 and 1998, the Government introduced statutory Environmental Quality Standards (EQSs) for 33 substances in water. The new regulations give legal force for the first time to standards for some of the most dangerous pollutants found in the aquatic environment. In the UK, 96 percent of the population live in properties connected to a sewer, and sewage treatment works serve over 80 percent of the population. In England and Wales, the water industry is committed to an investment programme of some ￡ 11,000 million over ten years for improvements to water quality. Progressively higher treatment standards for industrial waste effluents and new measures to combat pollution from agriculture are expected to bring further improvements in water quality. In Scotland, responsibility for the provision of all water and sewerage services lies with three Water and Sewerage Authorities, covering the north, east and west of the country.
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Elysee Palace The Elysee Palace in France enjoys equal popularity in the world with the Buckingham Palace in the United Kingdom, the Kremlin in Russia as well as the White House in the U. S.
A. It is the residence of the president of the French Republic and the symbol of the supreme authority in France. The Elysee Palace, with an area of 11, 000 square meters, is at3 the eastern end of the Champs Elysee in3 the bustling city of Paris proper and backed by a large and tranquil garden of more than twenty thousand square meters. Its main building, quite handsome and graceful, is a two-story classical stone architecture of European style, flanked by two side buildings facing each other and with an extensive rectangular courtyard in the middle. There are altogether 369 halls and rooms of different sizes. The Elysee Palace, built in 1718, has a long history of close to 300 years to date. This house was at first a orivate residence of a count named d’Evreau, hence it was called Hotel d’Evreau. It had later gone through many vicissitudes and its owners had been changed for many times, but all the dwellers in it were distinguished personages and high officials. The house was renamed Bonaparte Mansion when6 it was owned by Louis XV and Louis XVI successively when they acted as emperors. Napoleon I signed his act of abdication here when he suffered crushing defeat in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Napoleon III moved in the Mansion in 1848 when he was elected president, and the house became a Royal Palace when he proclaimed himself as emperor. The Third French Republic issued a decree in 1873, designating officially the Elysee Palace as the residence of president of the French Republic. Over the hundred odd years since then, almost all the presidents of the French Republic worked and lived there. Starting from 1989, the Elysee Palace is open to the public every year in September on the French Castles Day.