A new study using data from NASA satellite missions finds that, although the long-term water picture for the Aral Sea watershed in Central Asia remains bleak, short-term prospects are better than previously thought.
Once the fourth largest inland sea in the world, the Aral Sea has lost 90 percent of its water volume over the last 50 years. Its watershed — the enormous closed basin around the sea — encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. (more…)
The International Roma, (Gypsy) Day was founded at the first World Gypsy Congress, which took place in London on April 8, 1971. The congress gathered representatives from 30 countries. The national symbols of the gypsies – the flag and the anthem – were approved at the congress. The gypsies of the whole world became one single nation.
There are six basic branches of gypsies in the world today: three western and three eastern branches. Roma, Sinti and Iberian gypsies are referred to the Western branch. The eastern group includes the Lom, the Dom and the Lyuli people. In addition, there are smaller groups of gypsies. There are several ethnographic groups of nomadic peoples in Europe. Their lifestyle is close to that of the gypsies, but their origin is different – the Irish Travellers, or the Yeniche people from Central Europe, for instance. Many specialists, who study nomadic nations, agree that the gypsy ethnos had been finally formed only by the 15th century, when the gypsies were traveling from Byzantium to Europe. (more…)
The Aral Sea is actually not a sea at all. It is an immense lake, a body of fresh water, although that particular description of its contents might now be more a figure of speech than practical fact.
Once it was world’s ‘fourth’ largest lake. But now the lake has shrunk by 70 percent.
