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Over half a million Russian properties in Bulgaria on the counter, is there anyone to buy them

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Newsdesk
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Brokers at the Bulgarian Black sea are flooded with requests to look for new owners

While in London, Milan and Paris the richest Russians have properties worth billions of euros, Bulgaria has become an attractive destination mainly for the middle class of Vladimir Putin’s compatriots. The purchased apartments and houses are used both for vacation and for investment.

Accurate statistics of Russian property in our country are still missing. However, one thing is known – entire resorts and huge complexes along our Black Sea coast have been bought by Russians in the last ten years. In our country they were attracted by the low prices and the huge supply of holiday homes for every pocket and taste.

According to Atanas Krastin, the Bulgarian ambassador to the Russian Federation, a total of more than 300,000 Russians own nearly 450,000 properties in eastern Bulgaria alone, more than 95% of which are concentrated on the coast. Citizens of Russia and other former Soviet republics are among the most active foreign investors in Bulgarian real estate. Their interest is focused mainly on holiday properties in prestigious resorts.

Low property prices in Bulgaria and the lack of a language barrier are the main drivers of Russian investors. A huge plus for the boom in the market of properties purchased by foreigners was the stable economic growth that Russia recorded for years (by an average of about 5% between 2011 and 2019), which made credit products in the country much more profitable and affordable for the mass Russian. Apart from the purely pragmatic economic moment, according to the brokers, many Russian citizens have preserved their childhood memories of our native beaches and resorts.

As for the picture throughout the country – interest in native property by Russian citizens is not only by the sea, but also in winter resorts. According to realtors, Russian property is nearly 15 percent of all holiday apartments in the three major winter resorts.

Which means that in Bansko, Pamporovo and Borovets there are about 60 thousand apartments and villas with owners in Russia.

However, Russian investors have no serious interest in the interior of the country, an inspection by Maritza showed. Just over 250 properties in Plovdiv are owned by Russians, according to a reference from the Property Register. In the capital this number is significantly higher (nearly 2300 in number), but even there the lag behind the resort towns is serious.

At the moment, there is no evidence that any of the EU-sanctioned individuals close to President Putin or their relatives have real estate in the country, which means that there will probably be no seizures or confiscations of Russian property in Bulgaria. The brokers are adamant that the profile of clients who have bought in Bulgaria in the last 10 years is very different.

Kalina Dimitrova is a broker in one of the largest companies on the Black Sea coast, specializing in working with Russian clients. Dimitrova says that for many years our country has been a top destination for the middle class Russians. “We can safely say that in the last 10 years the middle class in Russia has increased significantly as a percentage of their society,” said the broker. According to her, in 2010-2015 was the real boom of foreign investment in property in our country. Dimitrova says that out of 10 clients in this period, 7 were foreigners, and at least 3-4 of them were Russians. “Literally almost every second deal was either with a Russian company or with their citizen,” she said.

The bill shows that at least BGN 30 billion in real estate has been invested by Russians in our country over the past 10 years. However, Kalina Dimitrova is adamant that this trend has seriously reversed in the last two years. “On the one hand – the coronavirus has hit the Russian economy and in 2020 we had a huge supply of real estate both through domestic agencies and through contractors in major Russian cities,” said the broker.

However, the big sale started last summer. However, the withdrawal of the Russians from the market is not because of the coronavirus, but because of the depreciation of the Russian ruble, the brokers are adamant. “Many Russians have taken out loans in euros in their homeland to buy property here. And judging the loan through the ruble’s exchange rate against the euro, it is already unprofitable for them to have property in Bulgaria,” Dimitrova said.

According to both the owners of complexes and real estate traders, nearly 80% of Russians’ apartments by the sea remained locked last summer. Brokers expect this number to grow only in the coming months. The Russians will travel less and less, and this is not due to the fact that Bulgaria is already an “enemy state” for them, but to the sanctions that have already hit even the middle class Russians. property owners, because coming to Bulgaria will have to be done by transferring through Azerbaijan or Serbia which will make the trip even more expensive, “said Radostin Krumov, an investor in holiday villages and resorts.

Both builders and brokers are adamant – the Russians can no longer afford to own property in our country. Kalina Dimitrova explains that a large number of her former clients from major Russian cities have sought contact with her agency in recent months with a request for assistance. “Most of them directly tell us to look for sellers for their apartments, while others send us keys to courier companies and offer to advertise their properties on sites for short-term or long-term rent, thus receiving at least a minimum return,” said the Varna broker.

According to builders and brokers, the demand for holiday properties on the market can not withstand the supply, which increases with each passing day. The industry also reports the lack of new buyers from England, Germany and Scandinavia, who have traditionally also had a serious interest in their native resorts. Although in the last two years brokers have reported increased demand from Turkish citizens, whose desire to buy property in Europe is mostly related to the possibility of doing business, the crisis in our southern neighbor has “frozen” and this interest .

Thus, in practice, it turns out that nearly half a million properties owned by Russian citizens in our country will remain almost completely empty during the summer months, and the vast majority of them will be looking for a new owner. However, neither brokers nor builders are optimistic. According to Kalina Dimitrova, there is a market for domestic consumers for these 500,000 properties for only 4 to 5 percent of them.

It is still №1 cheaper

Bulgaria is still the cheapest country for real estate deals from Russians, according to a poll by the Tranio website among 414 experts from 35 countries.

The average budget that Russian-speaking buyers in Bulgaria have set aside for deals in 2020 has reached 180,000 euros, making Bulgaria the cheapest country to buy investment property. In second place is Thailand with an average budget of 200 thousand euros. At the other pole is Austria, where the Russians have set aside an average of 3m euros to buy investment property.

In general, the average budget for transactions of Russian real estate investors in all surveyed countries has doubled compared to 2019 and reached 620 thousand euros. Russian investors expect an average return of 5% per year on their investment property. The activity of Russians who invest in real estate in our country has halved twice in a row – once in 2020 and again last year. It is expected that this year the interest will be even lower.

The key driver for Russians when buying property abroad is to become a resident of another country. 71% of real estate investors in Russia say they bought a property to acquire citizenship or residence, according to the survey. The next two most popular reasons are to maintain or increase capital. Globally, Russian investors prefer to buy residential properties for this purpose, followed by hotels, retail space and plots.

The City of Moscow has a huge holiday complex near Kamchia

Kamchia Sanitary and Health Complex near the mouth of the river of the same name is the largest Russian holiday complex in Bulgaria. In 2003-2004, the Moscow government began buying land in the area. However, the most serious deal became a reality only in 2008, when the Bulgarian state sold to “Kamchia” EAD, a company that is the sole property of the Property Department of the Government of Moscow, nearly 80 decares in the village of Bliznatsi. municipality of Avren. The price is only BGN 9.70 per square meter.

The contract for the construction of the SOC Kamchia complex was signed in September 2008 by then-Minister of Social Policy Emilia Maslarova. In order to facilitate the realization of the Russian investment, the government of Sergei Stanishev adopted a “thematic” decision and allocated BGN 7.7 million for the construction of a 10.5 km highway to the complex. Thus, the children’s camp “Rainbow”, built by “SOC Kamchia”, was opened in 2010.

At the end of 2019, Russian senators publicly commented on the idea of ​​turning Kamchia SOC into a “cultural and humanitarian platform” after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Russia’s National Security Council would discuss the transfer of ownership of the holiday complex. as the situation around him was not good.

The Russian base near Kamchia includes a huge amount of assets, including the hotel complex “Longoz” with a capacity of 450 beds, swimming pools, conference halls; the children’s health camps “Rainbow” and “Black Sea” with accommodation for a total of 1,200 children; the holiday village “Pirin”, consisting of a hotel and eleven two-storey villas with accommodation for 250 people; medical-diagnostic and balneological center “Zdravets”; Yuri Gagarin Training and Education Center; Kamchia sports complex, which meets all Olympic standards, and even an amphitheater with a capacity for 2,000 spectators.

 Photo: “Kamchia” Sanitary and Health Complex, owned by the Property Department of the Government of the City of Moscow

Sahara sand increases the risk of COVID-19

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Sahara sand, which the winds brought to Europe in April, provides a very good shelter for viruses. Thus, it increases the risk of infection with COVID-19. The Turkish professor warned about this.

The sand from the desert also covered Turkey. It will continue its impact, increasing the risk of accelerating COVID-19 cases in the area, said Hussein Toros, a meteorologist at Istanbul Technical University.

The Turkish State Meteorological Service warned residents to take action against heavy dust clouds over the weekend.

 “We recommend everyone, whether old or young, to stay indoors. Keep the windows tight, “said Hassan Bayram, head of the Turkish Lung Association.

Especially patients with chronic diseases and cardiovascular are at risk, Bayram said that inhaling dust can cause headaches, flu or sore throats.

All experts advise people to wear face masks if they have to go out. Well-known meteorologist Orhan Shen is one of them who suggests that there is no need to panic. “We expect rain on Sunday,” he said, marking the end of the desert storm.

Dokuz Aylul University professor in the western province of Izmir and climatologist Dogan Yashar have warned of an increase in coronavirus cases due to the desert storm.

Yashar stressed the importance of desert dust: “It contains multi-layered silicate. Every year, approximately 2 billion tons of dust leave the deserts and fertilize the world. This is good for agriculture, which leads to increased yields. The more desert dust comes, the higher the yield. From the end of March and the beginning of April, when the desert dust is observed, nature wakes up. This creates a great agricultural and biological wealth, but desert dust also provides a very good shelter for viruses. Layered silicate is usually present in very small proportions in the air, but this ratio increases when desert dust is transported.

When an infected person sneezes, the virus reaches the ground in three seconds. But the cloud of dust in the air helps him stay for hours, the doctor said, reminding people to wear masks. This has been proven by the World Health Organization, he said.

Prof. Dr. Yashar recalled: “The dust brought from the Sahara Desert in 2020, also began to come to our country in late March and early April. Then we warned our citizens. We have stated that this is a dangerous situation. In April 2020, the Covid-19 record of 5,000 people was broken. We made the same warning in 2021. The number of cases then reached a record 63,000 with coronavirus on April 14. Here and today again desert dust came to our country. The spring heat has begun. The same event will be repeated. “The environment is very conducive to the spread of the virus,” he said.

Spider monkeys prefer fruits with worms

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Gaston de Persigny
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Spider monkeys prefer fruits affected by insects, Brazilian and American scientists have found out. Eating fruits along with larvae, monkeys compensate for the lack of protein in the diet. Previous studies have shown that koats get protein from ficus fruits, inside which pollinating wasp larvae develop. However, where these trees are rare or do not grow at all, the monkeys have to make do with wormy fruits. The results of the study were published in an article for the International Journal of Primatology.

Monkeys from the genus Ateles, common in Central and South America, feed almost exclusively on ripe sweet fruits. Such a diet is rich in carbohydrates and fats, but it lacks protein. It is assumed that koats compensate for their deficiency by eating young leaves, shoots and buds or fruits with a high protein content. And Peruvian coats (Ateles chamek) from some populations get proteins from ripe fruits of ficuses (Ficus), in which larvae and wingless males of wasps from the Agaonidae family – pollinators of these plants (as well as parasitoid larvae developing in them) hide.

However, pollinating wasps are not the only insects found inside fruits. The pulp of the fruit feeds on the larvae of many Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, flies and beetles. Most ripe fruits in tropical forests are affected by one or another larvae, and it is not uncommon to find representatives of several insect species in one fruit at once. By choosing the most wormy fruits and eating them along with the larvae, the koats could thus obtain a deficient protein. This strategy would be beneficial, at least in those regions of the Amazon where ficuses are rare. A similar strategy has already been recorded in related primates from the subfamily Pitheciinae – uakari and saki. They feed on immature seeds and, in order to compensate for the lack of protein, they try to choose those that are most affected by larvae.

A team of zoologists led by Adrian A. Barnett of the National Amazonian Institute decided to test whether koats actually prefer wormy fruits. To do this, the researchers went to the region of the middle reaches of the Tapajos River in the Brazilian state of Para. They chose two sites where ficuses are rare: one on the edge of a seasonally flooded forest, and the second in a forest that never floods. Here, the authors observed two species of coats: Peruvian and barnacles (A. marginatus). The former live to the west of the Tapajos River, and the latter to the east.

Barnett and his colleagues found feeding Peruvian spider monkeys in the forest and collected fresh fruit samples that they had not eaten and dropped down from the trees. The researchers also included in the sample fruits that they themselves cut from trees along with branches. Then the authors identified the species of all fruits and the larvae found inside them.

In total, the researchers analyzed 2,836 fruits from 74 trees belonging to 27 species. The larvae of beetles, flies and lepidoptera affected fruits of 23 species, which corresponds to 85 percent. 11 percent of larval species were found in 35–78 percent of fruits. Comparing the proportion of diseased specimens between fruit fed by koats and fruit hanging on a branch, the authors found that the monkeys selected the most wormy fruit from 12 of the 20 tree species for which they were able to collect multiple specimens.

However, in the case of four more species of monkeys, on the contrary, they tried to eat fruits untouched by insects. It is possible that in these plants the presence of larvae in the fruits provokes a defensive reaction and the release of unpleasant or toxic substances. In the case of four more species, the fruits of which showed the highest and lowest infestation with larvae, they did not show clear preferences. The authors suggest that it does not make sense for monkeys to look for the most wormy fruits of these species, since they are too common or too rare, respectively.

Apparently, spider monkeys usually compensate for the lack of protein by eating ficus fruits. However, where these trees are scarce or non-existent, monkeys have to eat the most wormy fruits. These may not be the only sources of protein for coats. Barnett et al. suggest that monkeys also eat insects that hide in young shoots and leaves and swallow aquatic insect larvae when they drink from bromeliad rosettes and leaf axils.

Earlier we talked about how Geoffroy’s coat (A. geoffroyi), spider monkeys from Central America, are looking for fruits. Zoologists have found that these primates form subgroups whose size adjusts to the number of fruiting trees. At the same time, they are guided not only by their own considerations, but also by the behavior of their relatives. This strategy allows you to efficiently find food in changing conditions.

Photo: Peruvian Ateles chamek

The United Arab Emirates is the most stressful country to drive

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News desk
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oznor

Poor road infrastructure is one of the main factors in a huge number of accidents, but road quality is not the only factor that insurers at confused.com have taken into account when compiling the ranking of the world’s most stressful driving countries. Their survey covers 48 countries, with the main parameters on which the rating was made being road quality, congestion levels, number of speed cameras and road accidents.

The United Arab Emirates ranks first in this anti-ranking, which means that drivers in the UAE experience the most stress while driving. The main culprit for this highest result is the large number of fatal accidents – as many as 2,724 per 100,000 population. The emirate is third in the Top 20 in terms of road quality, and the ratio of kilometers to speed cameras is staggering: there are an average of 1.45 cameras per kilometer, which means that it is impossible to drive at high speeds. But on the other hand, there are as many as 552.5 cars per kilometer! The next closest parameter is 392 in Hong Kong and 192 cars per kilometer in Singapore.

And immediately after the UAE is Bulgaria, to which analysts give 80 points (out of 100) for stress while driving, ahead of even Turkey and Italy.

Its highways have turned into cemeteries, and intercity roads have been so broken that driving has long since turned from fun to stressful so that another tire and rim doesn’t go. But the quality of road infrastructure is not the only factor that insurers at confused.com have taken into account when compiling the ranking of the world’s most stressful driving countries. Their survey covers 48 countries, with the main parameters on which the rating was made being road quality, congestion levels, number of speed cameras and road accidents.

From many cameras on the road we can not complain in Bulgaria – 1 per 100 km. The problem is that there are 171 cars per kilometer, with only Turkey (173), the UAE, Hong Kong and Singapore ahead of us. This, combined with the worst road infrastructure (40 points out of 100 possible) ranks the unenviable second place in the ranking. Only Brazil (33.5), Colombia (39.7) and Romania, which has the worst roads (32.6), have worse roads than it, but the country is in 15th place, and in this case, the further back, the better. Interestingly, in Romania there is a speed camera on 765 kilometers of roads.

Photo: Traffic in Sofia, Bulgaria

Sonny survived the Holocaust and football gave him freedom

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Inspirational love between a 90-year-old man and Eintracht (Frankfurt) revealed by BBC Sport.

Helmut Sonneberg is probably the most energetic 90-year-old you can see. In Frankfurt, he is known simply as Sonny, and in addition to being one of the most loyal supporters of the local Eintracht, his life story is more than remarkable.

Sonny is one of the Holocaust survivors. For years he refused to talk about the experiences of his early years and all the tortures he experienced at the hands of the Nazis. He is silent even in front of his closest ones.

But a few years ago that changed. Thanks to his two greatest passions – football, which gives him freedom, and Eintracht (Frankfurt), the club of his heart.

But to understand the whole story of Sonny, we have to start on the night of November 9-10, 1938. Crystal Night is still known in Germany and Austria for the anti-Jewish pogrom, which burned 191 synagogues and 815 Jewish-owned shops. About 30,000 people were arrested and sent to concentration camps, and 40 were killed directly.

At the time, Sonny was usually a seven-year-old boy with a Jewish mother. His father is also Jewish, but he left the family shortly after the birth of his child. Hellmuth bears the surname of his second father (Wesinger), who is not a Jew. He doesn’t know anything about his father until that night, but he needs to find out.

The whole family is watching the burning of the Synagogue in Frankfurt, and Sonny’s mother can’t tell him the truth, so she has to find out from a neighbor. Which tells him that he is different, that this is not his real father and that he is actually a Jew. “What is this?” The little boy asks to get the answer that these are the people who go to the Synagogue.

He was sent to a Jewish orphanage to wear the yellow star of David, which distinguished him as “an enemy of the people.” People spit on the streets. He is often beaten. The only consolation is the books his half-sister Lilo brought him. He defines them as his only refuge.

When the Gestapo came to pick him up for the first time, his stepfather resisted. In June 1943, he resisted them again, targeting them with his World War I medals and shouting, “Give me back my boy!”

Something happened, and on March 22, 1944, when the entire old city of Frankfurt was destroyed by bombs and more than 1,000 people died, Sonny and his family hid in the basement.

A year later, he was deported with his mother to Theresienstadt, a town now in the Czech Republic, and his stepfather has nothing to do because he has been mobilized.

“War is the worst thing that can happen to the human race. You see things you can’t talk about later, “he recalled, referring to Theresienstadt, a transit camp for Jews who were later sent to certain death in the East. Then there are about 55,000 people, and the place is like 4,000. Before his eyes, people are dying of hunger. It’s just skin and bones, as he recalls.

He himself is 14 years old and weighs only 27 kilograms when he returns home to Frankfurt.

With tears in his eyes, he remembers how his sister was afraid to hug him “so as not to break him.” He admits that he can forgive and wants to forget some things, but he can’t because the scars remain.

The director of the Eintracht Club Museum, Matthias Thomas, is actually the man who encourages Helmut Sonneberg to talk about his childhood. The two met in 2007, but it was a decade before Sonny got scared and started sharing more.

After the Holocaust, he looked for all sorts of ways to move forward and live normally. He changes 17 different jobs – firefighter, taxi driver, porter at the airport. But the one he enjoyed most was driving a mobile library around Frankfurt to deliver books to disadvantaged children.

And at some point in his early life comes the big change. Football. The game that gives him freedom. He played for the youth teams of Eintracht, failed to reach the first team, but then continued to attend all matches of his team.

In 1959, in the final for the title in Berlin, Frankfurt had to play with its great rival Kickers Offenbach in Berlin. Sonny and his friends cross the border into East Germany in a Volkswagen Turtle, and border guards tell them not to stop until they reach the capital. However, passengers are drinking beer and there must be a break during which they are shot at a soldier. Despite the extreme experience, Frankfurt won 5: 3.

The only title in the history of the team, which, in Helmut’s words, is “in his blood and feels like a second family.”

A year later, he watched the only final for KESH of his team, lost by Real (Madrid) to Alfredo di Stefano.

At that time, the president of the team was Rudolf Gramlich. Captain of Germany at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. That same year, he joined the SS, and Sony only found out about the club’s boss’s past when he was in his late 40s. He immediately renounced his membership. Gramlich remained in office until 1970, and died in 1988.

“I could not accept that such a person – a criminal and a murderer who pretends to be an innocent lamb – is somehow involved in my favorite team. In my Eintracht “, the fan says in a trembling voice.

Grammich was arrested by Americans after World War II but released. Today, Eintracht is well known for his campaigns against discrimination, fascism and anti-Semitism. In 2020, Grammich was finally erased from the history of the club, which posthumously took away his honorary position of president.

The current president of the club is Peter Fischer. A person who points to Sonny as an inspiration.

“Sonny is a man who always gives me strength. He is one of the survivors of the horrific Nazi killing machine that killed millions. Unfortunately, there are few survivors, but fortunately Sonny is one of them. He inspires me to say that we are 100% pure in our principles and we will not move an inch, “said Fischer.

“I know a lot of people my age are gone. I don’t know why I’m still here. But I want to live to be 104 to get all my pension contributions back. I calculated it. Maybe God thinks that after all the pain, I still deserve a little more years of life, ”says Sonny.

And he sums up – that he is grateful. Because he sees the sky, the moon and feels the rain on his skin.

Last but not least, he puts another name on this list. Eintracht (Frankfurt).

Photo by PA Images via Getty Images: Soccer – European Cup – Final – Real Madrid v Eintracht Frankfurt – Hampden Park, Glasgow

Real Madrid’s Marquitos (c, l) and Dominguez (c, r) parade the European Cup around Hampden Park with their teammates after winning the trophy for the fifth successive year

A museum of Islamic civilizations has opened in Turkey’s largest mosque

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has opened the Museum of Islamic Civilizations at the Grand Mosque of Chamlaca. It is the largest mosque in the country, which was recently built in the Uskudar district in the Asian part of Istanbul.

The Museum of Islamic Civilizations displays many relics of Islamic civilizations and unique artifacts that trace 1,200 years of Islamic history, many of which have never been exhibited before.

At the opening ceremony, Erdogan said: “Each of our ancient cities is an open-air museum. Istanbul, which is the pupil of the eye of this geography, is our largest museum. While all classical museums preserve only the past, Istanbul is a museum where the past and the present coexist. “

 “We present to you the newest pearl of Istanbul, the Grand Mosque of Chamladja, with its art gallery, library, conference hall, studios and museum. “This is our civilizational heritage – a sign of the richness of our geography,” he said.

Turkey has a very special geography that has played a leading role in history, as the cradle of many civilizations, he added.

 “Our mosque and complex, which we opened for worship about three years ago, is a work that adds value to the skyline of Istanbul. The Museum of Islamic Civilizations is one of the most important parts of our complex. “The works on display at the museum represent the millennial accumulation of Islamic civilization, which has brought a whole new face to these lands,” Erdogan said, adding that the museum exhibits valuable works, including the Prophet Muhammad and the first copies of the Qur’an.

The new 10,000-square-meter museum houses works selected from the Topkapi Palace and Palace Museums, the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, the Istanbul Archaeological Museum and more.

With nearly 800 exhibits reflecting the development of Islamic art from the seventh to the 19th century, the museum includes 15 thematic sections, including woven Turkish art, works of art by the Prophet Muhammad and architectural and decorative elements in Islamic art.

Visitors to the museum will have the opportunity to see many more works such as representative prints of the Prophet Muhammad, the curtain of the Holy Kaaba in Mecca, the Sultan’s caftans, the notebook from the childhood of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror and Ottoman coins.

The Grand Mosque of Chamladza is the most modern complex of its kind in Turkey. The mosque has six minarets, which represent the six pillars of the Islamic faith. Four of these minarets, which have three balconies, are 107.1 m high, and the other two minarets have two balconies and reach 90 meters in height.

The main dome of the mosque is 72 meters high, symbolizing the 72 nations. The mosque has one of the largest gates in a place of worship in the world, with its main gate 5 meters wide, 6.5 meters high and weighing 6 tons.

The mosque also has an art gallery of 3,500 square meters, a library of 3,000 square meters, a conference hall with a capacity of 1,071 people, eight art studios and an indoor parking lot for 3,500 cars.

WHO welcomes initiative to combat noncommunicable diseases, responsible for 7 in 10 deaths worldwide

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officialinstitutions
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WHO welcomes initiative to combat noncommunicable diseases, responsible for 7 in 10 deaths worldwide
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, welcomed the setting up of a new Heads of State and Government Group to get the world back on track to reduce premature deaths from noncommunicable diseases like diabetes, cancer, heart and lung disease, by a third – in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – and promote mental health and well-being.
The decision was taken at the inaugural International Strategic Dialogue on Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and the SDGs, held in Accra, Ghana, where a new Global Compact on NCDs was launched. The dialogue was co-hosted by WHO, together with Ghana and Norway. 

National leaders highlighted the urgency of what WHO refers to as the NCD pandemic, which kills 7 out of 10 people globally from risk factors like tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and air pollution. 

7 million lives saved, at low cost

NCDs are largely preventable and treatable, nearly seven million lives could be saved for just US$ 0.84 per person per year from now until 2030, says the UN health agency.

This investment would realize more than $230 billion in economic and societal benefits and head off nearly 10 million heart attacks and strokes globally, by 2030. 

The group will now convene annually at the UN General Assembly, with the first meeting expected to take place in September 2022. 

The Compact will focus on five key areas: 

1) Saving the lives of 50 million people by 2030, who could die prematurely of NCDs by implementing the most cost-effective prevention measures.

2) Protecting 1.7 billion people living with NCDs by ensuring that they have access to the medicines and care they need during emergencies.

3) Integrating NCDs within primary health care and universal health coverage.

4) Comprehensive NCD surveillance and monitoring.

5)And finally, meaningfully engaging 1.7 billion people living with NCDs and mental health conditions in policy-making and programming.

Nana Addo Dankwa Afuko-Addo, President of Ghana, outlined his country’s success in implementing tobacco demand-reduction measures and introducing guidelines for NCD management, but also highlighted the challenges for lower-income countries in accelerating action.

“Tackling the phenomenon of NCDs requires leadership to provide visibility to NCD issues”, he said. “I ask my Heads of State colleagues to join hands…as we find solutions to NCDs with a roadmap of universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals. In our time, this will be our legacy”.

Lives cut short

WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that apart from the death toll, “NCDs take a heavy toll on economies, cutting down people in their most productive years. Overcoming this challenge requires technical, financial, and above all, political commitment. I thank the Governments of Norway and Ghana for establishing the first Global Heads of State and Government Group on NCDs, and launching the Global NCD Compact”.

Norway’s Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of Norway, said investing in stronger health systems, service delivery and the prevention of NCDs would make vulnerable populations more resilient to COVID-19 and future pandemics.

“This is also vital for promoting universal health coverage. NCD prevention, and access to treatment and medicine must be a core component in the efforts to enhance pandemic preparedness and response, and in building back better in the post-pandemic recovery.” 

And Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, told the meeting that NCDs account for nearly a third of all deaths in Africa, “where they not only pose a grave threat to health and well-being, but also blunt socioeconomic development. The commitment reached today marks a crucial step in speeding up the progress against these diseases and their risk factors as well as the suffering and deaths they cause.”

A Universe Full of Magical Things: A Cosmic View Beyond the Myths of Religion and Scientific Materialism

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News desk
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A Universe Full of Magical Things: A Cosmic View Beyond the Myths of Religion and Scientific Materialism

Would You Believe that the Reality We are Living Now is Just an Illusion? A Psychotherapist’s Eye-Opening Book of Thoughts and Facts

“The Universe is Full of Magical Things Patiently Waiting for Our Senses to Grow Sharper” —”
— William Butler Yeats.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES , April 12, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ — Los Angeles, CA. — “… since we are experiencing something that feels physical, that feels real — but isn’t, we must be living in an illusion., like a virtual game or a holodeck drama.” this intriguing prose is one of the various thought-provoking facts backed with science and mind-grabbing pieces of evidence that highlights a notable psychotherapist, David Yeats’ book of facts titled A Universe Full of Magical Things: A Cosmic View Beyond the Myths of Religion and
Scientific Materialism. This must-read book offers an alternative in understanding the cultural views currently fostered by science and religion. It also slightly examines our current cosmology, along with exploring and describing the actions of the complicated quantum dynamics, and some of the various ways physicists have interpreted the story.

PRESS RELEASE | LA BOOK FAIR 2022
As far as our knowledge goes, we may come to understand quantum mechanics and find out, at its most minute, that what we thought was a physical and material basis of the world was rather more like a word full of a field with point-like excitations — like nano tornados. (packets of actions). The fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world is not solid, substantial, material things — it is much more like fields of vibrating energy or vortices in dynamic warps of space-time.

On the other hand, aside from the complex quantum mechanics and dynamics, this book also surveys our cosmos, Earth, ecosystem, illustrates intelligence in nature’s flora and fauna, and illustrates that the evolutionary process of the universe is “an intelligent dance between organism and environment,” a conscious process throughout. This book is perfect for science geeks and curious-minded individuals looking for answers to questions they have been asking all their life.

If you want to dig deeper into the hidden implications and secrets of the universe not taught by teachers nor read in the books, this thought-inducing book is a must-read.

David Yeats, author of A Universe Full of Magical Things is a psychotherapist and a self- proclaimed lay armchair philosopher of metaphysics. David’s love for his work and clients led him to write the book Co-Creating a Brilliant Relationship: A Journey of Deepening Connection,
Meaning, and Joy back in 2014. The last chapter of said book stimulated deeper questions related to “Well, what is all that is?” which resulted in A Universe Full of Magical Things. David was raised as a Catholic, evolving to agnostic, then atheist, then agnostic again, to finally an appreciator of the centrality of consciousness and other magical things. David has been married to Sheri for 39 years now, blessed with 5 adult kids and 9 grandkids.

A Universe Full of Magical Things: A Cosmic View Beyond the Myths of Religion and
Scientific Materialism
Written by: David Yeats
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Book copies are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book resellers.

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Cyprus: Rights experts call for urgent solutions for missing persons tragedy

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United Nations News
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Cyprus: Rights experts call for urgent solutions for missing persons tragedy
A top UN-appointed human rights panel issued an appeal on Tuesday for faster progress towards finding the remains of those who disappeared during deadly violence that split the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, decades ago.
The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances said it was urgent now to accelerate “excavations and the identification and return of the remains of the missing”.

The call from the delegation of independent experts came at the end of an official visit at the invitation of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.

Fate of loved ones

“While recognizing the considerable achievements, notably due to the longstanding work of the bi-communal Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus, the search progress has slowed down in recent years, and significant challenges still remain,” they observed, in a press release from UN rights office, OHCHR.

The panel also noted that after the events of 1963-64 and 1974, which led to the island’s division into communities of Greek Cypriots in the south and Turkish Cypriots in the north, “too many relatives are passing away without knowing the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones”.

Depoliticise the issue

The Working Group emphasised that “it is essential to depoliticise the issue of missing persons in Cyprus and genuinely treat it as a human rights and humanitarian issue”.

They added that more effective results can only be achieved through “an unconditional commitment among all concerned stakeholders to fully cooperate towards its solution and to give the rights of victims and their relatives top priority. Time is running out.”

Underlining the need to leave mistrust and resentment behind, to “finally put an end to the anguish and pain of all families”, the panel said that bicommunal initiatives aimed at reconciliation and social cohesion, need to be given full and unconditional support.

Truth for the victims

The experts also noted some recent dialogue in Cyprus, especially within the civil society community, on the establishment of a truth-telling mechanism, which could clarify the facts and circumstances of the disappearances.

“Virtually all stakeholders we have met have underlined the importance to establish the truth for the victims, the relatives and the society as a whole”, they said, adding a recommendation to all stakeholders to give due consideration to this idea, which could also be conducive to reconciliation.

Truth and reparations paramount

The experts highlighted that “no progress has been made in relation to criminal investigations and prosecutions for human rights violations resulting in individuals going missing, including possible enforced disappearances”.

The panel pointed out that together with ascertaining the truth, reparations and honouring the memory of those who have disappeared, Cyprus needed to add accountability.

In relation to prevention of enforced disappearances, the Working Group expressed concern over information they had received “on pushbacks both at sea and at the Green Line”, the demilitarized zone dividing the two communities, since 1964.

While noting the challenges posed by an increased number of arrivals on the island, they recalled that “international law clearly prohibits the return of any person where there are substantial grounds to believe that they would be in danger of enforced disappearance.”

The experts further called for the creation of an adequate legal framework as a measure of prevention of enforced disappearances.

The experts who issued the statement were all appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The UN Working Group on the issue is composed of Luciano Hazan (Chair-Rapporteur), Aua Baldé (Vice Chair), Gabriella Citroni, Henrikas Mickevičius Mr. Tae-Ung Bai. The independent experts are neither UN staff, nor do they receive a salary from the Organization. 

From the EU’s Aim of Peace to European Citizenship

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EuropeanTimes
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Peace and citiznship - passport dove

Since 1950, Europe has developed its own brand of peace. The European communities were not born as the United Nations, as a fully formed machinery of peace. Instead, as Robert Schuman had recommended, they grew out organically and without a single plan, “through concrete achievements which create a de facto solidarity”. What emerged decades later, in 1992, was a European Union of states, which established a system of peaceful coexistence among its member-states.

Yet, has the EU truly achieved a union of its citizens? Part 2 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU establishes a European citizenship, with passports and civic rights; citizenship remains, however, largely an administrative notion. According to Eurobarometer, no actual “European public opinion” has emerged yet, as evidenced by the wide differences of perception by country.

Of course, creating a moral citizenry of the EU with a sense of loyalty and belonging to a ‘European common home’, does present a formidable set of challenges. One temptation would be to turn to the traditional nation-state model, built on a common language, a common culture, and the awareness of a common past, often exalted by a fight for independence against a foreign empire. Those methods of nation-building were applied in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in all countries from France, Italy and Germany to Bulgaria and Romania. They relied on centralized education systems to homogenize the population by teaching one language in schools and by discarding others; they called for teaching a national history that glorified heroes (who were often military commanders).

Some attempts have been made, here and there, to reinvent a “European identity”, as a resistance fight against foreign invaders, allegedly Muslim enemies of Christianity. Such an identity would be contrived and controversial in the EU bloc, which is a supra-national entity with 24 official languages. This is not only because the historical existence of such a fracture line is highly dubious. Its primary liability is that it would introduce a normative definition of European citizenship based on religious affiliation or tradition. Taking that route would be plainly in contradiction with the EU’s values of diversity and non-discrimination and would violate the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It would also create a foreign policy problem in the EU’s neighbourhood: it would encourage ideological hostility against Turkey and neighbouring countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East, which would be incompatible with the pursuit of peace.

Indeed, the legal and administrative makeup of the EU aims to prevent the repetition of the evils of World War II, which were, in the words of Winston Churchill: “frightful nationalistic quarrels (…) which we have seen (…) wreck the peace and mar the prospects of all mankind.”

Furthermore, introducing a European identity would clash with the bloc’s motto United in Diversity. That term ‘identity’, taken literally, would imply that all Europeans should have common cultural or ethnic characteristics that set them apart from all other people of Earth and defines them against the rest of the world. In that case, which language, cultural norms, and physical traits should be selected as quintessentially ‘European’? Enforcing such standards could become an arbitrary act that would smack of ‘Brussel imperialism’ since it would violate the national identities of the member-states. Indeed, Robert Schuman stated in 1949: “But Europe cannot wait for definition, for the end of that controversy; she does, in fact, define its boundaries by the will of its peoples.”

This has occasionally led to the belief that the EU suffers from an identity deficit. The problem could be, however, with the concept of identity itself. Could there be a better way to create a sense of shared belonging that does not rely on a common, pre-existing ‘identity’?

I believe that, yes, that should be possible. The alternative would be to forge a European conscience as a grass-roots movement, which would be based on the EU’s aim of peace and its set of common values, which are not in the past but in the present and future. A commonly accepted definition for European conscience is “the awareness of the necessity to make Europe (in a political sense)”, and therefore to avoid future wars on the continent. This is something that might require extending the mantle of Pax Europeana further east, to countries such as Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.

Needless to say, the real challenge would be to make that European conscience accessible to every European citizen of every country and social group. That would require a concerted effort at public outreach, as well as education of the new generations on the aim of peace.

The EU’s aim of peace is so powerful that it seems paradoxical that it has been neglected for so long in the communication from the EU to its citizens. Experience demonstrates that a history lesson with images of the ruins of Warsaw or Berlin in May 1945 could be sufficient to convince a young audience of why the European construction process had to be started in 1950. Similarly, the bombings of Mariupol or Karkhiv in 2022 are the best evidence of why the continued existence of a European Union remains the best guarantee of peace for half a billion people on this planet.

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