Sunny side of life

Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. One of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas, it's known for its rugged, remote terrain of glaciers and frozen tundra sheltering polar bears, Svalbard reindeer and Arctic foxes. The Northern Lights are visible during winter, and summer brings the “midnight sun”—sunlight 24 hours a day   Longyearbyen, the administrative home seat in Svalbard, is located on the biggest island called Spitsbergen. The city is today a vibrant Arctic metropol with a population of 2100 people from over 40 nations. The society is characterized by active people, living in tough conditions in the wilderness of the High Arctic. Over 100 years of mining has given the city a rough, industrial appearance. Tourism, research / teaching and mining are the main activities today, together with community support. Among other things, there are university center, school, 3 kindergartens, sportarenas, church and cultural center...

A whole sea has just disappeared in the Ex-Soviet Union country, which is presently called Uzbekistan.  Almost 50% of the Sea has disappeared in the last 30 years, thanks to the production of cotton. The sea water is converted into a non-saline water and around 84% of it was used for agricultural purpose and especially for the cultivation of cotton. And now after being overused for so many years, now the soil has lost all its nutrients and the land has become barren land and the sea has been completely drained out. The below picture would show the contrast of how much sea water was lost in the years to follow.

Amelia Dyer is believed to have murdered hundreds of babies during the 19th Century. Her crimes led to one of the most sensational trials of the period and shone a spotlight on the Victorian practice of "baby farming". How did a seemingly respectable woman stoop to such cruelty? On 30 March 1896, a parcel weighted down with a brick was fished out of the River Thames in Reading. Inside, swaddled in layers of linen, newspaper and brown paper, was the partially decomposed body of baby Helena Fry. White tape had been wound around her neck, with a knot under the left ear. It was a gruesome discovery, but one which would lead detectives to unravel the crimes of one of the 19th Century's most notorious child killers. Born in 1837 to a shoemaker in a small village in Bristol, Dyer had endured a tough childhood in which she was the main carer for her mentally ill mother. As an adult, she became a nurse. But, rather than use her skills to care for people, she embarked o...