Tourism & Travel

Articles

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Sleeping and dreaming — essential and mysterious. An old Tanzanian friend speaks about torrential rains and village celebrations. And, in the Dutch city of Delft, a big university digs deep for the heat beneath: geothermal energy.



Risky Moves

Risky moves: A Canadian political scientist attends a sanctioned forum in Russia — and asks Vladimir Putin a question. An Italian climate researcher refuses to return to work fast, from the other side of the planet. Slow travel releases less carbon, he tells his bosses. The GPM interviews Radhika Desai and Gianluca Grimalda.


Gut Microbes & Hospital Wine

Feed your head, Grace Slick cried in the song ‘White Rabbit’. How about feeding the bacteria in your gut? Beer won’t make you smart, or healthy. How about wine, casked, matured and sold at your local hospital? And, recalling the Birmingham Campaign for civil rights, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, sixty years ago.


Green Planet Monitor Podcast

After years of study, a scientific panel proposes a formal definition of the Anthropocene, naming the spot where humanity’s fingerprints are best observed in the rock record. A Canadian geologist relishes the moment. And, a First Nations elder reflects on the lake of her dreams and memories.




Robert Fisk in Winnipeg

In a hyper-polarized world where everyone disagrees about everything and even the most straightforward affairs seem uncertain, an eminently erudite, well-traveled and literate critic is liable to draw a large crowd. Robert Fisk, dean of Middle East journalism, is one such man.


Kufr Qaddum

Kufr Qaddum is a village of 5000, halfway between the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Qalqilya. Its agricultural lands encompass about 19,000 dunams (acres), 11,000 of which fall within Oslo ‘Area C’ and are therefore under complete Israeli military control. I travelled to to Kufr Qaddum to observe one of their weekly protests, against the closure of their ancient road.






A Tree Grows in Palestine

Tourists come to Al-Walaja from around the world to enjoy the lovely surrounding landscape. A huge olive tree, reputedly over 5000 years-old, is a big draw. For political tourists, Israel’s imposing “security barrier,” soon to enclose little Al-Walaja in a cage, is a must-see.





Silwan

As Donald Trump ponders whether or not to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem – endorsing Israel’s claim to the city as its “eternal, undivided capital” – Israel moves heaven and earth to cleanse East Jerusalem of its Palestinian residents.



A Village Called Battir

Standing on the edge of little Battir, I feasted my eyes on an astonishing sight: an amphitheater of ancient stone terraces covered in a cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, herbs and trees — including olive trees over a thousand years old.